The Ruhleben barracks ({{langx, de, Ruhleben-Kaserne) is part of the German naval establishment located in
Plön
Plön (; ) is the district seat of the Plön district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and has about 8,700 inhabitants. It lies right on the shores of Schleswig-Holstein's biggest lake, the Great Plön Lake, as well as on several smaller lakes, ...
,
Holstein
Holstein (; ; ; ; ) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider (river), Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost States of Germany, state of Germany.
Holstein once existed as the German County of Holstein (; 8 ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.
From 1940 to 1945 it was home to the III U-Boat Training Division (''III Untersee-Boot Ausbildungsabteilung''). On April 22, 1945 Grand Admiral
Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz (; 16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980) was a German grand admiral and convicted war criminal who, following Adolf Hitler's Death of Adolf Hitler, suicide, succeeded him as head of state of Nazi Germany during the Second World ...
moved the headquarters of the Naval High Command (''Oberkommando der Marine'') there. As of April 30, 1945 until May 2, 1945, following Dönitz being named head of the
German Reich
German ''Reich'' (, from ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German ''Volk'' ("na ...
, it was the ''de facto'' capital of Germany.
On May 7, 1945, the installation was captured by British forces who installed themselves there and renamed it the Connaught Barracks. Towards the end of formal British occupation, the British set up the King Alfred School on March 10, 1948, to teach the children of the British military service personnel stationed in Germany.
Following the re-establishment of the German Navy, the barracks reopened as the home of the Naval NCO School (''Marineunteroffizierschule Plön'') on September 9, 1960.
External links
Marineunteroffizierschule Plön(German)
German Navy
Barracks in Germany