Launch of Operation Hannibal

Date: January 23, 1945 • Location: Berlin, Germany

World War II: German admiral Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of areas along the eastern Baltic coast.

Karl Dönitz was a German naval officer and politician who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as the head of state of Germany in the Nazi era after Hitler's suicide during the Second World War in April 1945. He held this position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government, about two weeks after Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allies. As Supreme Commander of the Navy beginning in 1943, he played a major role in the naval history of the war.