Trotha was born 1 March 1868 at Koblenz, at the time part of the Rhine Province of the Kingdom of Prussia. Trotha was the third son of Karl von Trotha (1834–1870), who was killed in the Franco-Prussian War, when his son was only two years old.
Trotha entered the navy in 1886, served in the torpedo branch under Alfred Tirpitz and attended the Navy Academy in the winters of 1897/1898 and 1898/1899.
Next came duty with the Cruiser Squadron in the Far East under Prince Henry of Prussia, and from 1901 to 1906 a post in the Central Department of the Navy Office, again under Tirpitz. Thereafter Trotha returned to the fleet on board the Elsass and later the Königsberg; from 1910 to 1913 he was attached to the Navy Cabinet, but in 1913 Captain von Trotha was given command of the modern dreadnought Kaiser.
Trotha commanded the Kaiser at the outbreak of the war and had under him one of the kaiser's sons, Prince Adalbert. Trotha as well as Tirpitz lost no opportunity to impress upon this member of the imperial family his views on the need for a naval battle with Britain and for unrestricted submarine warfare. In January 1916, Trotha was appointed chief of staff to Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the new chief of the High Sea Fleet. In this capacity Trotha was with Scheer on the battleship Friedrich der Grosse at Jutland on May 31/June 1, 1916; he received the order Pour le mérite for his efforts and in December 1916 was promoted rear admiral.
Trotha was a prime mover in the reorganization of the navy in August 1918, which brought Scheer command of a new Seekriegsleitung. Trotha was scheduled to succeed Admiral Georg A. von Müller as head of the Navy Cabinet, but he agreed to remain as chief of staff with the fleet in order to accord the new commander, Admiral Franz von Hipper, a smooth transition period. It was the duumvirate of Trotha and Hipper that was responsible for Operations Plan Nr. 19, which on October 30 sought to hurl the entire High Sea Fleet against the British in an abortive attempt to save the honor of the naval officer corps.
Throughout the war, Trotha had stood solid with Tirpitz on the major issues: in more than seventy letters, the two men coordinated their views.
Both continued to place faith in battleships as the loci of naval power, though both also favored unrestricted submarine warfare. Both officers desired the annexation of Belgium and the coast of Flanders, German bases in at least Denmark and the Netherlands, and a host of foreign acquisitions in Africa, South America, Asia, and Asia Minor. Both admirals opposed parliamentary government and both pressed for closer relations with the so-called silent dictators Hindenburg and Ludendorff. And when Tirpitz in the fall of 1917 founded the right-wing Fatherland party, Trotha did his best to rally support in the navy for this pressure group.
In November 1918, Trotha became head of the Personnel Office within the Navy Office; in November 1919, he was promoted vice admiral and navy chief within the new Defense Ministry. In this capacity Trotha became deeply embroiled in the reactionary Kapp Putsch in March 1920, and in October he was forced to resign as a result. Trotha continued his political career by becoming active in the youth movement. In August 1933, Hermann Goring appointed the admiral to the Prussian Council of State; in July 1934, Trotha assumed the leadership of the German Navy League. He died in Berlin on October 11, 1940.
Adolf von Trotha is perhaps the crassest example of the German officer in politics. No issue was too trivial for his interest, no person too sacred for attack, and no sacrifice too great when it came to furthering the cause of the navy and of Adolf von Trotha. He served both kaiser and Fiihrer equally well, and partly owing to his influence, the generation of officers reared under Tirpitz was to march blindly to Cannae under Raeder and Donitz.
Trotha married Anna von Veltheim (15 January 1877 - 8 August 1964) on 4 June 1902, the daughter of Fritz von Veltheim and Elizabeth von Krosigk.
