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DER U-BOOT-KRIEG im 2. Weltkrieg - Seine Vorgeschichte und sein Verlauf

Mar 24, 2024
For Germany, the military aspects of maritime navigation played no role for centuries: while other European nations such as Spain, France and England used their navies to conquer colonies and secure their power, Germany only focused its attention on civil navigation until the modern times with the enthronement of the Emperor. William II came to power for a month in 1888. He wanted the future of the empire to be in the water and wanted to underline his demands for equal rights against the other European powers with a strong fleet, with which he also wanted to underline those of Africa At the beginning of the 20th century, the German navy experienced a huge boom after Admiral Alfred Terpitz, State Secretary of the Reich Navy Office, introduced a corresponding law in 1898.
der u boot krieg im 2 weltkrieg   seine vorgeschichte und sein verlauf
Within a few years, several heavy surface ships In parallel with these works, the Germania shipyard in Kiel received the order to build a submarine on December 14, 1906, the Imperial Navy put this ship into service under the command of Captain Lieutenant Böhm Bett Sings as U1, although the tests with the Con 42 meters long, powered by electric and oil engines and equipped with four torpedoes, it promised a lot. New construction orders did not wait until the start of the war in 1914, when a total of 21 ships had been built. Without a doubt, a strong German fleet was formed. an argument for Wilhelm to underline his great power dreams and force the other European powers to come to the negotiating table, but it was also based on considerations that, from an objective global perspective, were based on: First, Germany wanted protect its fishing fleet from attacks by English competitors who did not shy away from entering German territorial waters and harassing German cutters and destroying their nets.
der u boot krieg im 2 weltkrieg   seine vorgeschichte und sein verlauf

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Secondly, he wanted to trade independently of other European states, including across the sea. Third, Germany wanted security against a possible British naval invasion. blockade and, fourthly, the leaders hoped for a dialogue with England. If the fleet was strong enough that an attack on it would pose a risk to the British, England would also be willing to talk about whether, given these facts, there was a real threat to the British Empire, historians have to talk about it. decide, but the fact is beyond doubt that Wilhelm's push for military rearmament strongly shook the confidence of his European neighbors.
der u boot krieg im 2 weltkrieg   seine vorgeschichte und sein verlauf
With the unification of 1871, the German Empire became an economic area. of any dynamics and multiplied its production of coal and steel in a few years and thus joined England at the beginning of the war in August 1914. In addition to 14 large ships of the line, the Imperial Navy had four battleships. and seven armored cruisers, to which 44 submarines were added. Faced with British superiority, all German hopes were based on submarine weapons. Its effectiveness was also demonstrated in the first months of the war. On 22 September 1914, Captain Lieutenant Otto Weddigen sank on 22 February 115. 18 days after the German Reich declared the sea area around Great Britain a war zone, unlimited use of submarines by armed merchant ships of neutral states, including England.
der u boot krieg im 2 weltkrieg   seine vorgeschichte und sein verlauf
The English passenger steamer Musi Tanja was sunk. on May 7 and 20, 1915, because it was known that the ship was illegally transporting military material from the United States to England. The German embassy had warned in American newspapers against passage on the Lusitania, despite this warning, numerous American civilians boarded the Lusitania. The American passengers died in America. As a result, anti-German votes gained even more weight. To not give the US a reason for war, the German Empire restricted submarine warfare. Neutral ships and passenger steamers and drinking powers were no longer Fought On August 19, 1915, the British warship Ballon, which was a harmless merchant ship sailing under a foreign flag, sank the German submarine 27 when some crew members managed to save themselves.
The commander of the Balloon Tennant Commander, well incarnated, When the German Admiralty again pressed for unrestricted submarine warfare in the spring of 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm categorically rejected it. Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, who had strongly supported such an approach, resigned from his position in It was not until February 1, 1917 that unrestricted submarine warfare began. The decision was completely inadequate to change the course of the war and only caused countless more victims. When the US declared war on Germany in April 1917, the decision was made The end of the monarchy began with the weapon that was once the pride of William II, the German High Seas Fleet, the revolt of the War-weary sailors finally forced the Kaiser to abdicate.
At the Remondis armistice, the Allies insisted on the surrender of all German submarines and high seas units so as not to let the ships fall into British hands. The German fleet was sunk immediately before the surrender by order of Admiral Reuters at Scapa Flow, the Treaty of Versailles was a catastrophe for the German side, loss of territory, forced handover of important production facilities, industrial goods and natural resources, loss of sovereignty over inland waterways, withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of railroad cars, locomotives and trucks, deprivation of the colonies. Years of fixation The handover of ore and coal production, unilateral total military disarmament and the so-called reparation payment of 226 billion gold marks brought Germany to the brink of ruin.
After the implementation of Allied regulations, the navy was also just a shadow of its former self. A total tonnage of 100,000 tons divided into six Silesia class battleships, which were already considered obsolete in 1914, six cruisers, 12 destroyers and twelve torpedo boats divided into ships and aircraft, was completely banned. 15,000 men, including 1,500 officers, but the German side was looking for ways out. To change the situation and compensate the victors for the misfortune they had suffered, radical right propagandists proclaimed that submarines finally seemed to those responsible to be a suitable instrument. For more repression A little later, the first drafts began a new chapter in military history in 1930.
That year the Weimar government decided to violate various arms restrictions and carry out a vast expansion of the German armed forces that was to be completed in 1938. In addition to the Reichswehr, the plans provided for a second shadow here by increasing personnel to about 300,000 men, tank and aviation departments were also planned. Modernization also affected the navy. Among other things, the plans included the construction of three aircraft carriers, seven heavy cruisers and 12 light cruisers, 82 destroyers and 80 submarines. Plans that were never implemented with Hitler's appointment as Chancellor made the army even more central to politics. Just four days after his appointment, Hitler announced a comprehensive realignment for the commander of the army and navy.
Rearmament must be carried out with all the energy but with the greatest discretion. Shamefully serious, he did not want to accept defeat and change Germany's position through a new war. He quickly identified the culprits: the Social Democrats. , communists and Jews. Millions of them would later pay with their lives for their abstruse fantasies and dreams of omnipotence. As far as the Navy was concerned, Hitler initially behaved with restraint. In 1934 he approved the construction of a first ship and his colleagues on the two heavy cruisers Scharnhorst and Gleise thought about moving into the categories of modern lamp warfare.
The sea was for him a terrifying and transparent element that he internally rejected and never wanted to admit that it was. One day the war was over So I was right exactly with what I said in 42. The war was lost at sea and could only have been won at sea. On June 18, 1935, Germany and England formed a fleet agreement that removed the Versailles restrictions such as the agreement. allows the Germans to expand their navy up to 35 percent of the turn of the British fleet, except for the submarine weapon, they were even allowed to reach 45 percent of the turn of British submarines, a notable fact that shows that the British were those who least feared submarines at that time. time because they were not classified as offensive weapons.
On June 25, 1935, the first Kriegsmarine submarine was commissioned. It was initially designated 1 and was under the command of Lieutenant Commander Klaus Ebert on 28 June. In September, the frigate Captain Karl Dönitz took charge of the first submarine fleet, named after the successful World War I submarine commander Otto Wertigen. Only a year later, Karl Dönitz was appointed leader of the entire German submarine fleet due to his service in World War I as a member of the surface forces. As a submarine commander, he was predestined to turn the submarine weapon into a powerful instrument of maritime war: it was not until 1934 that he approved the construction of the first ship and the laying of the keel of both.
The heavy cruisers Scharnhorst and Gleiseisen. Some ideas moved into the modern lamp category. During the war, the sea was for him a terrifying and transparent element, which he updated internally and he never wanted to admit that a secret had been decided. It was lost at sea and could only have been gained at sea. On June 18, 1935, Germany concluded a naval agreement with England that lifted the Versailles restrictions because the agreement allowed the Germans to expand their navy to 35 percent of the British fleet. In addition to the submarine weapon, they were allowed to reach even 45 percent of the total British submarines, a notable fact that shows that the British were the least afraid of submarines at that time because they did not classify them as offensive weapons.
On June 25, 1935, the first submarine of the Kriegsmarine was put into service, with the designation um 1, and on September 28, under the command of Captain Lieutenant Klaus Ebert, Commander Karl Dönitz took charge of the first submarine to many named after the world successful Otto Weddigen, submarine commander in the First World War. Just a year later, Karl Dönitz was appointed leader of the entire German submarine fleet, since in the first As a member of the surface forces and as commander of submarines, he was predestined to develop the submarine weapon. into a powerful instrument of maritime warfare. He didn't care at all.
I believe that until then he had never been to the Führer's headquarters. It didn't even take place in any conversation, so it was the old imperial one who grew up in the old tradition and continued to do it. I know younger animals who experienced it as a cruiser commander on the Emden, who took fire for him and so it was with we. , of course, he inevitably had more contact with Hitler and then, of course, he also succumbed a little more strongly to the core of Hitler's charisma. They also called us Freikorps Hoeneß. I wanted that to say how much we were committed to this person.
In 1937, a new German-English treaty gave the Kriegsmarine the right to maintain as many submarines as the British Navy. England's concessions were based on fear of a possible Soviet expansion policy in the Baltic Sea, which Germany wanted to act as a kind of As a result of this treaty, three operational German submarine fleets emerged. Disagreements occurred between those responsible over the size and armament of the ships. But then the construction program that provided for placing the keels of 177 more on the ground was delayed. Despite these plans, the Navy's strategic orientation at the time focused on destroying the water surface with a wide range of colors.
In order to cope with the demands of an oceanic war, naval leadership developed the Neuburg Type ten and eleven, which date back to the submarine cruisers of the First World War. The Type 12, a long-endurance fast ship, was intended for operational cooperation with commercial surface destroyers. The backbone of the submarine weapon was the 67 meters long, six meter wide and a gross register weight of 1,070 tons, the Type 7C with a crew of about 50 men, 14 torpedoes and 39 mines, had a surface of water of 8,500 kilometers. Why was the term submarine only partially applied to early ship types? Phase of the war, explains Captain Lieutenant Horst von Schröder, last commander of our normal submarines on 25 06.
Start of the war. We were basically overwater vessels that could also dive in case of danger, so we were mainly deployed in overwater groups and for certain tactical reasons we preferred night attacks if possible because during the night the The ship could stay on top of the water and had greater speed. The bridge was fully manned for a day's attack, which of course had to be carried out underwater. First of all, theThe ship was almost stationary, so it was only moving underwater at very low speeds and the commander on Lake Rohr was the only one who mattered. , everyone else was on the ship and we could not see anything that was happening around us, so we were much more mobile at night than London gave guarantee of support to Poland, Romania and Greece in April 1939.
Hitler announced the naval agreement with a view to the only possible war with England. At the same time, he accepted the so-called Admiralty calendar, which for five or six years was responsible for organizing numerous heavy battles on the surface. Chief Mussa Karl Dönitz was wary of the combat power of the overseas pink ships, but had no influence in implementing his plans for the construction of a powerful German submarine armament, which he presented shortly before the outbreak of war the ideas of Hitler on a submarine fleet of 300 units. It was essential because it meant that in an Atlantic war against British supply routes only a third of the ships would be ready for use and the rest would be on the return voyage or for repairs Located in the dockyards, the outbreak of war in September January 1, 1939 came too early for the leadership of the German Wehrmacht.
The final stage of land and air armament was scheduled for 1942.43 that of maritime armament was scheduled for 1945. They tried to dissuade Hitler from his plan without success. Hitler wanted that war Now without delay, the Navy found itself in the most difficult situation not only because the new formation of a fleet generally requires more time than that of an army or an air force, but also because rearmament had begun later. than that of other Navy units. 750 Despite all restrictions, the German Navy had technically excellent submarines. The ships completed at the beginning of the war were superior to all enemy types.
Their welded pressure bodies allowed them to dive to depths of up to 220 meters. The technology was on board. The torpedoes were very modern and could be directed towards the target using electronic calculations. Only the magnetic ignition of the torpedo heads was above average. The crew's training level was also above average. The man left on Sunday evening, in the central Baltic Sea, in the belly squares around Rügen. So training was carried out against target ships during the day and night, from which you then returned on Saturday night, so you pretty much only had 24 hours a week to see anything else.
In addition to the sea, there was no more time for shopping in the team because the stores were closed, so they had to go through a fairly strict training period. On the other hand, there was a shortage in the officer corps, a circumstance that worsened over time. During the course of the war, there were no young leaders in the submarine force because with each ban there was no return. There were no more young people available, which meant that the ships were assigned officers who had never been on a submarine before, and also, due to the lack, were always much younger.
Even non-commissioned officers were no longer even sent to photo training because we knew exactly that most of them would not return and then you would be an officer and become Even bigger: Hitler had never been interested in human destiny, everything was thrown into the He fought mercilessly, despite the fact that Dönitz managed to get Hitler to accept his ideas in the following years, delays in deliveries of raw materials, insufficient construction capacities and the lack of His plans were not available until the end of 1942. 43, the 300 ships needed for a battle in the Atlantic, based on his experiences with night torpedo attacks against French battleships, Peter Thönes developed a new battle tactic.
The submarines were grouped into groups, the so-called packages, which, controlled by radio, were to attack the Allied convoys at night and over the water. At the beginning of the end in Poland and in the subsequent Westfeld train, the German Navy did not play a decisive role. It was only used in battle for these connections, which Hitler expanded into full war in the second half of November 1939, while large units were deployed. Relatively unsuccessful, the German submarine weapon demonstrated its danger on 17 September 1947. On 14 October 47, the English aircraft carrier Chor Ages was sunk under the command of Günther Prien, sneaking into Scapa Flow Bay and sinking the cruiser. armored upon his return.
The German news covered it frantically and staged that entire generations were manipulated in this way. and then allow health and life to be lost to one man's fantasies of omnipotence. Images like these distort quickly. Therefore, it is the task of historians to place images like this in the proper context on January 10, 1940. The total losses of the Allied fleets already amounted to about 700,55,000 tons, of which 420,000 tons were attributable to the German submarines, whose own losses were only 14 ship engines and were exposed to the ever-present smell of oil and diesel, but life goes on. Boarding the ship was anything but a pleasure.
Weeks of long voyages in the harshest temperatures, ice and snow or in tropical heat made things difficult for the men when Britain launched the blockade on November 28, 1939. The German merchant navy announced that Grand Admiral Erich Raeder explained to Hitler the unfavorable strategic situation in which Germany would find itself if the British occupied Norway. In the winter months, transport routes for Swedish iron ore, important for the war, ran through neutral Norwegian waters. The British would dominate Norway, while these routes were blocked, although Hitler blocked them. When he ordered the development of a so-called study site, he at first avoided violating the neutrality of a Scandinavian country with his own military measures, only when the Soviet Union seized Finland in the winter of 1939, the country again became the center of their considerations, while the German side was still working on the study site.
Subsequently codenamed Exercise Weser, the British and French put together scores of the expeditions in early January 1940. It was supposed to occupy the Narvik Mineral Port and the Narvik Mineral Port, which was important to Germany. , to help them in the race against the allies in Norway. The attack began on April 8 with families in Norwegian territorial waters. Denmark proceeded without any combat operations, the Norwegian army, reinforced by English, French and Polish units, defended heavily, especially Namik, the terminus of the Lofoten railway and the country's most important mineral port, and fought for weeks, as Hitler did it. In the west and the Allies withdrew their troops from Norway to stop the advance of the German armies in France, the Norwegian commander-in-chief Huge had to surrender on June 9.
The losses of the German navy were significant. Units such as the Deluxe and Scharnhorst were severely damaged. Cruisers, 10 destroyers and 7 submarines were lost. The German torpedoes again proved especially problematic. Numerous attacks against Allied battleships failed because the detonators did not work. The frequency of failures provoked open criticism and at times called into question submarine warfare as a whole. At the same time, the Western campaign and the subsequent air battle for Great Britain began in the Atlantic, the so-called Turnage War, whose objective was to cut off Britain's supplies, initially transported by submarines. , surface ships and the air force together.
The battle in the Atlantic from the spring of 1941 took place only on the shoulders of the submarine. The reasons for this were the heavy losses of German surface ships and the transfer of air force units to Russia. Above all, the withdrawal of the air force caused considerable problems for the submarines. Without reconnaissance aircraft, Allied convoys were difficult to find in the vastness of the sea. Already in the spring of 1941, despite new attack tactics and technical innovations, numerous ships were lost. In March 1941, two of the most successful commanders, Günter Prien and Joachim Schepke, lost their lives.
The expected success in the tonnage war did not materialize because there were too few operational ships available to overcome their numbers. Subsequently, the Allies were able to increase their escort protection to such an extent that even the number of sinkings decreased. This evolution was also determined by the behavior of the US Navy, although from September 1941 US warships escorted Glide trains in the North Atlantic. Hitler's orders at first showed extreme restraint. Based on a cold calculation, he wanted to avoid, until the Russian campaign was concluded, the war with the USA, any attack by German submarines on American warships or merchant ships, but also the use of weapons. was expressly prohibited, although the American units behaved in a clear and neutral manner, the mining of the Icelandic ports occupied by the USA is also prohibited.
Hitler's plans in the East were pressed for time, as the Failures of his Italian ally forced him to secure the Mediterranean region. Militarily to stop the advance of the allies, he ordered the deployment of German troops in the Balkans and North Africa, which was his real objective. Hitler's plans contradicted the Mediterranean region, which was only a secondary theater of war. He did not doubt for a moment that he would fall alone in the East. On June 22, 1941, the war entered its decisive phase. More than three million soldiers supported by 3,500 tanks and 2,700 planes began the campaign against Hitler's Portals, Bolshevism was not an opponent with whom swords had to be crossed in a chivalrous manner.
From the beginning of the campaign, it was seen as a conflict between two opposing worldviews in which no quarter could be given. In Hitler's eyes, the war in the East was also a war of extermination on racial ideological grounds. Aiming to associate the Jewish population with the defeat of the Soviet Union, Hitler also hoped to be able to solve the problems of the loan defeat, so his reasoning would deprive London of its ultimate potential. ally on the continent and force England to return to the negotiating table while German troops followed. On 13 November 1941, U 81 torpedoed the British aircraft carrier Ark because it was off Gibraltar a day later, and two weeks later it was sunk 331 in To keep the tank navigable It was here that Italian special forces planned a daring commando operation with special torpedoes about 55 meters long and powered by electric motors, in which two men in special suits could ride in a comfortable seat, in case of a submarine attack.
Launched at night On December 18, an Italian submarine launched three of these torpedoes near Alexandria, in the shadow of a British destroyer association, reaching only the closely guarded weapons of war, where they could attach their explosive charges to the hull. of British battleships. When they tried to enter the port, the guards left them to take care of them, but it was too late, around 6 in the morning, the explosives detonated the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet, the Queen Elizabeth, the battleship Valiant and the fleet. The tanker Seebronner sank because six men had kept the British fleet out of the Mediterranean for months.
Despite the provision of Italian ports in the Mediterranean for German submarines, cooperation with the Italian ally left much to be desired, as Hans Rudolf Gysin, liaison officer to the submarine commander, recalls about the Italian submarine weapon since September. 1940. But above all, we also 1 had not had the slightest contact with the Swiss Italian Rahn, so what is now a common procedure in NATO has been lost and the communication procedures that remain did not exist at all , the knowledge did not evaporate and we knew nothing about it. After attacking the already Allied owners of the American battleships, Hitler also declared war on the US.
Germany was therefore at war with the two strongest naval powers and with an ever-growing Red Army in the East. Why did the Germans continue to follow the dictator even after the catastrophe? It became evident that historians are still busy with photographs like this one taken by a member of the propaganda company during a The enemy's trip on Otto Kretschmer's ship was pure propaganda and was aimed at reinforcing the will of the people to go to war. : his commander and his friend. In January 1942, five German submarines, including U 123 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Reinhard H., opened a new stage.
With it, American and Canadian assistants were to be informed about the submarine trade war. Absolute peace reigned there. The ships sailed with their lanterns on. The defenseIt was practically non-existent. We were there under the coast for a week until we blocked all the torpedoes and then we came. Then a Norwegian whaling mother ship tried to round us up and radioed us to run until he noticed we were a little faster and then after half an hour. hour a plane arrived and we submerged calmly, which partly surprised this nation. So the headlights were still on, we are in the New York area, but we started, but then we controlled it very quickly because we went a little further during the day and we were all on deck 40 or 50 meters away sleeping except for some guards, we came back in the night and then we headed to the coast there the traffic was very close to the coast we saw the cars driving towards the shore we smelled the forests We were actually there up to ten meters deep in the water.
Due to their carelessness. The Americans constantly detained several German submarines in the busy operating area to avoid long arrivals and departures. ships, the so-called dairy cows, on the high seas in search of provisions and the image on the German news broadcast was surprising. Moviegoers even admired shots that a submarine had taken at night of New York's illuminated skyscrapers. The National Socialists celebrated these images as visible. proof of his own military superiority and his certain victory; What people didn't know was that these shots were clever fakes. But this newscast was already in theaters long before I came back and there were some night shots of German investigators from Bremen Europe, which I should have taken and copied a look there and did that and told me what all the nonsense was about and There they told me yes, that's simply because we didn't want the enemy to realize how long it took to arrive and return.
People had to have the impression that you were thinking about the past and you got the movie: that's what this propaganda stunt would have been like in In just six months, German submarines shipped more than two million tons of tanker space, approximately half of American trade. His own losses were only six points, and only when Churchill brought in British naval forces to combat the submarines, the threatened maritime area was he forced to limit the activities of his ships. On 12 September 1942, U 156 under Lieutenant Commander Werner Hartenstein sank the armed British troop transport Laconia, when Hartstein was rescued from the branches of the water points while he was alive, he learned that there were also Italian civilians and prisoners of war on board.
He radioed the situation and immediately ordered all nearby German ships to head to the area. The accident site to help the shipwrecked. In addition, Hartenstein asked for more help in an open radio message on the international airwaves. The German submarines 506 and 507, which had already arrived in the meantime, had already arrived. When an American advisory bomber approached with a portable searchlight, one of the rescued British officers had to approach him. The surviving German submarine's RAF officer on board. The American pilot's response was a bomb that fell between the messenger marked with Red Cross flags. and several castaways died.
The machine turned around. He returned and dropped two more bombs that severely damaged one of the German submarines. As a result of this attack, Dönitz limited measures to rescue the shipwrecked. 1 The year 1942 became the black year for Allied shipping, with more than six million tons of sea space, the German Navy sank more enemy ships than in all the previous years of the war combined. While convoy battles continued to be successful, operations in the Mediterranean Sea, now again largely controlled by the Allies, became dangerous undertakings. Captain Lieutenant Gerd Helbling, commander of the 593rd at the time, remembers When I had the next opportunity, they ordered seven of us to go to the Mediterranean Sea and then we left very close together. , but of course not together, we should go on separate routes and on a moonlit night we should all pass through the Strait of Gibraltar at the same time and at the same time because for a long time there was no one.
The ships had entered the Mediterranean, so one expected that the English were no longer very attentive to the knights and probably thought that we would not send any, so now everyone had their own task to see only the advance concentrated on that particular night and then I put I at night I had lay on the ground and watched the traffic and then when it got dark we walked down the street on the water. We were completely free to choose our water over the water or how we would do it. We had no orders. Yes, he gave a lot of freedom to his components and that turned out quite well, but the road was closely guarded by small boats much smaller than us and they were quite dangerous, they had depth charges and machine guns and if they saw us then we would They could attack them by shooting them with machine guns and when we dived then they closed on us with the bomb on our heads so it shouldn't be like that and on top of that when there were several planes that were always flying with Press the position data, so it was a quite delicate situation, but I still didn't want to dive in.
I always prefer to be able to see what I have to do and not drive blindly, the others are all underwater, I was the only one. driving through the water and then such a small motorboat came almost directly towards us, but we had better glasses and probably more attention because the Janissaries had been there for weeks or months at night and probably weren't paying as much attention as we were. They passed by and I saw people covered up and looking at us with their glasses so they wouldn't see us and that was fine, of course it was a lot of luck, then we passed by the street and there was a lighthouse. placed on the rock directly across the street, but it was a little too deep, so in the middle of the street there was a reflection in the water and behind it was a small dark cone for the appearance to be reflected towards.
Upstairs there was a small dark one going up happily and that's where I want to go and you didn't see me either, so we went even more specifically and from there I made 12 more trips around the Mediterranean. He started from La Spezia, then from Cola and then from Salamis, to increase the combat effectiveness of the submarine weapon, Hitler increased production figures, increased the allocation of workers and steel, increased the production of new ships to about 30. The Jews of Müller had to work in the underground tunnels until they collapsed from exhaustion. To defeat the enemy, captured British submarines under the German war flag were also put into service at the beginning of the year.
In 1942 there were 43 ships in service, more than needed at the beginning of the war. The Atlantic demanded courage and a high level of physical effort from the crews. Increasingly, the submarines died in their steel sayings 24 hours a day and in any weather the men remained in the tower to search the horizon for enemy ships with their With binoculars, Hitler began the war year of 1943 with three objectives. : firstly, the defense of the Tunisian bridgehead, secondly, limited attacks against the Red Army, and thirdly, the resumption of the expanded Hubert War. The three objectives proved illusory, even in terms of personnel.
The Greater German Broadcasting Company announced drastic changes on January 30, 1943. The commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht had relieved the previous commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, from the supreme position. At his request, Admiral Dönitz was appointed new commander-in-chief and at the same time was promoted to grand admiral. The reason for this decision was the failure of the heavy surface vehicles preferred by von Wheels. Hitler became enraged and accused the command of naval warfare. "Of deliberately deceiving. He discarded all excuses and ordered the large ships to be dismantled and dismantled. Their weapons were to be used for coastal security.
The hulls themselves were to be scrapped and used for the production of new weapons. Because of his loyalty, Dönitz I did not shy away from contradicting Hitler on matters that were in his area of ​​military responsibility, without a doubt I was more of a loyal supporter of Hitler because in the situation we found ourselves in he came to the conclusion that every little bit helps, we have to do it somehow persevere through thick and thin he also uncritically believed in Hitler but when it came time for questions from his department he definitely contradicted Hitler and also prevailed against him by increasing the losses of his own ships and the information from the commanders that he reported Being in the opponents' zone of operations, so to speak, the Allies were expected to be informed about German submarine operations in the Atlantic and in the Bay of Biscay.
Since Dönitz considered the deciphering of the As communications impossible, he believed that there was a traitor in his own ranks, which in reality was a serious miscalculation. The British had been working hard for a long time to decipher the German naval course and already in May 1941 they took possession of a modern naval apparatus Enigma and numerous secret documents that were captured from the German submarine 110 and that its captain, Fritz Julius Lamb, later appeared. of being forced to sink as it could not sink fast enough. With the help of these documents, in fact, they deciphered some of the German radio messages.
It was always suspected that there were always submarine commanders who said that it couldn't be true that they were aware of all this and that the management was. The thin ones always rejected that, they always denied that the clients and they were The problems also grew in other fields: the selective attacks of the Allied Air Forces had destroyed most of the submarine bases on the French Atlantic coast and had left them unusable: Churchill's stated goal. The attempt to raze the port of Loriot for The Terrain also failed. The underwater bunkers built by the Todt organization, in which numerous concentration camp prisoners were also used for forced labor, remained intact.
The death toll during the first months of 1943 seemed to prove Dönitz right, even though his own losses were low. German submarines sank 200,000 in January, 300,000 in February and even 500,000 tons in March. The plan to cut off the Allies' supply lines seemed to work. The reason for these successes was, in addition to the attack tactics developed. Thanks to an introductory telephone, movements of enemy ships could be detected at a distance of 150 kilometers, a convoy was located, the ship reported by radio the approach route to the command center in Dönitz, which then assembled a group that attacked the convoy because the Germans were in a position to defeat most of the Allies in July 1943.
These attacks could be intercepted in peace and tranquility on February 19, 1943. On February 19, 1943, U 180 under Lieutenant Commander Mosenberg left Kiel on a voyage with a special mission because there were two foreign guests on board, which is appropriate: Chandra Bose and his secretary Hassan Hose, a fighter for Indian freedom who opposed Gandhi, who proclaimed armed struggle against the British colonial rulers. He had remained long in Germany to discuss possibilities of military cooperation, but now he was to transfer to a Japanese command near Madagascar that would take him to India, where he wanted to start an armed uprising against the British.
The organizer Hans Schulz was Bach's Second Mate on this trip. When we left Kiel and were still in the fjord, a boat stole the motor from a boat and two civilians got out and came on board with us without having to go back and forth. "We knew about small things and they didn't really tell us anything. In these weeks we saw very little of the two of them because most of them were lying in their carriages. We hardly saw them in the following weeks, when they were older. In the Middle Ages, in the Atlantic, they showed themselves and went up to the bridge and looked around and got some fresh air and then we talked a little more closely with them, including the engineer Hermann Wien remembers that the purpose of our trip was to go to a grid east ofOn arriving in Madagascar, where I met the Japanese team 29, Andy was to deliver the two passengers.
At first it was not possible because we saw a large gang to carry out the delivery and the seizure. We drove two days behind the Japanese until They reported to a certain extent so that they could do it by cable and the takeover could take place when he hit the boat once, then we gave three thunderous cheers and he promised us that if everything went well and when the war was over, all of our inventory will be sold to the merchant in April 1943. The convoy battles began to show signs of a change of direction: with 14 of our losses, only 250,000 tons could be sunk.
In May, 34 ships were lost. The number of sinkings went far beyond just 250,000tons. 150,000 tons. The allies had learned from the defeats of the previous months, Dönitz still said. In July 1943 there were eleven powerful German submarines at sea. Their objective was far away in these monsoon zones. The trade war had to continue and expand. of Japanese naval bases in the Indian Ocean, although in May 1943 the German side had a greater number of ships with 436 present, when it was originally considered necessary to cut Britain off from overseas access, the hunters had become the hunted . The radar positioning and automatic vision radio curator of the Allied light vehicles indicated in a matter of seconds the direction towards one of the leaders and secured the enemy there.
With an unassailable technical advantage in the face of mounting losses to his ships, Dönitz finally had to admit that the battle in the Atlantic had failed. After describing the catastrophic situation to Hitler, he called off the battle in the North Atlantic on the 25th. In a later conference, Dönitz discussed the situation with his most senior officers. He also discussed the question of whether to stop submarine warfare altogether. He called everyone together and described the situation as it had developed and said that he wanted to hear our opinion and opinion without being influenced and that the service would like to start expressing his opinion.
Now, of course, this situation and the seriousness of the situation was quite clear, but if he hadn't gotten to the point where he would have said the war was lost there, if we would have said we had to stop. the resentment of war, then we would have done it that way. Expressed, the war was lost and that is why our unanimous vote was that we say that we have to somehow we have to move on, we said that then we shelter ourselves, yes, that was His opinion also justifies what sometimes and in order After this meeting, in the second half of the year the change in the war situation became even more clearly evident: while 107 submarines were lost, only 300,000 tons could be sunk in the same period.
The material superiority of the allies had changed the situation. Surveillance of the seas by enemy planes and destroyers made survival increasingly difficult. Some ships were even sunk by ramming destroyers. While Allied losses were more than offset by a huge construction program at American facilities. In the shipyards, on the German side, the growing shortage of raw materials and the lack of sufficiently trained personnel became increasingly evident. On the German side, all hopes were pinned on technical innovations. From September 1943, the ships were fitted with a two centimeters 4 on the left plane and the turrets were covered with a synthetic skin intended to prevent detection due to being so close.
Its own radar was improved and the armament was complemented with an acoustic torpedo, which was developed especially for attacks on destroyers and still offered the safest protection. Before the underwater trip, only electric machines could be used to move the ship, since their batteries were They unloaded quickly and the boats were forced to come to the surface to collect them when they circulated on the water with the diesel engine. They were easy prey for the boat. To avoid collisions, the boats are equipped with so-called snorkels, with which an air mast with a floating head valve was first installed, which was later replaced by a folding air system.
Air was able to be introduced into the dive boat. This air allowed the use of diesel engines also underwater and I am the first athlete in the world to cross the Bay of Biscay for the first time using only saliva and, therefore, I was able to return. to St Nazaire in one piece. Previously, the Bay of Biscay was a 1 1 given by the Americans who came from the company. Now they only thought about returning home and certainly the attention towards the individual residents diminished and many of the ships were lost. In the Bay of Biscay. The installation of snoring systems also caused problems.
The loud noise of the diesel engines made the ship easier for enemy listening devices. In addition, they drowned out the noises of enemy destroyers, which therefore approached the submerged ship unnoticed, as the Plans for a new ship with diesel engines for the surface of the water and silent engines operated with hydrogen peroxide for underwater travel were they delayed. The decision was made to build two new types of ships with which they wanted to break Allied superiority: types 21 and 23. 21, a true submarine ship designed specifically for use in the Atlantic, with rounded shapes that favored flow, It could dive for two hours at 16 to 17 knots or 340 nautical miles at five knots sailing at a depth of Because of its color and its use for snoring, the pan had an operating radius of 17,000 nautical miles at a speed of 6 knots, for which could remain underwater continuously during operations without having to surface even once, although the depth gauge indicated immersion depths of up to 400 meters.
The general lack of raw materials led to poorer quality of steel. Underwater travel only goes up to about 250 meters. The Type 23, a small coastal submarine that could submerge quickly and travel at high speed underwater, was designed for use on the coastal shelf and in the English Channel during Type 23 a few more ships were deployed in the channel, 21 no more citizens were sent to the real enemy, despite all efforts, the year 1943 did not bring about the expected change in the east, the initiative was transferred to the Red Army in Tunisia, the remains of Army Group Africa and Africa surrendered The Americans landed in the concentration and extermination camps.
At that time, thousands of Jews died every day. Every day that the war lasted, innocent lives were lost. At the beginning of 1944, the situation was dramatic. Hitler's gaze turned to the West. He hoped that the long-prepared Allied invasion, which must be repulsed under all circumstances, the loss of the French Atlantic would also help The end of submarine operations was based on the example of Italian two-seat torpedoes and Japanese COs, which They had already been built before the start of the war. Only the smallest ships were developed, the new special types were the simplest version of those. called Eger, it consisted of two G7 torpedoes placed side by side, one of which was adapted as a steering position.
I approached the target like a torpedo on the surface of the water, near which I then picked up the torpedo tied below. One such development was the marten, a one-man submarine that could dive to a depth of 30 metres; More modern than these designs were the Beaver, a smaller one-man gasoline-powered boat with periscope and 2G 7e torpedoes, and the Seal. The ship, also equipped with two torpedoes, could not be located with solar energy or detected by the underwater listening devices known at the time, a last sigh in the face of the imminent collapse. The end had come, although Dönitz had ordered that no ships be destroyed because the Western Allies would allow him to continue the evacuation.
Having promised the civilian population of the east, many submarine commanders sank their ships. The Allies numbered 234. The most contradictory accounts of their mysterious cargo and mission still exist today: at the end of the war, the number of German casualties was 2,230,000. From 1935 to 1945, a total of 1,171 submarines were put into service. After the war, the German submarine arm sank 14.5 million tons of enemy ships with the loss of more than 750 of its own ships, out of the approximately 41,000 men serving in the German submarine arm. More than 29,000 people died, a continent that Hitler Racial madness and pretensions to world power have become a field of rubble, the extermination of European Jews, the inhumane war ordered by Hitler in the East and the involvement of many Germans in the crimes of the Nazi regime are a constant for all future generations. reminder never again fascism never again war

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