Hans Howaldt

Hans Howaldt won the bronze medal with the 8-metre class sailing team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics at Kiel, where the sailing events took place. Owner of the boat Germania III was Alfried von Bohlen und Halbach and Hans Howaldt was his skipper. The regattas were marred by plenty of protests by teams against each other, and by referees, who were more interested in formalities for submitting protests than trying to resolve the protests themselves. After the Olympics, Howaldt bought Germania II from von Bohlen und Halbach and renamed it Inga VIII. The yacht was destroyed in a fire at Potsdam at the end of World War II.

Howaldt was a professional marine soldier, who entered the Imperial German Navy in 1907 and in 1913 was promoted to Oberleutnant zur See. During World War I Howaldt was awarded the Pour le Mérite on 23 December 1917, the same day his commanding officer of the Marinekorps Flandern, Admiral von Schröder, received his Oak leaves addition to his Pour le Mérite, the “For outstanding leadership and distinguished naval planning and successful submarine operations”. He sank 65 ships with a total of 130.000 BRT. This was 8% of the total sunk by the U Flottille Flandern up to 1 February 1917. This amount of tonnage was accomplished in 11 patrols.

During World War II Howaldt was the commander of Hansestadt Danzig which sank in 1941, after crashing into a sea mine. Howaldt was promoted to the Oberkommando of the German Marine. Between the wars he was released from military service and built up the Heinrich Zeiss AG. Along with his sons, he also rebuilt the company after World War II.