Why did germany use "prize regulations"?
 

hey guys, I've had this question on my mind for a while and I really want an answer. I've read in books and online that German U-boats and ships at the beginning of the war had to abide by the rules of prize. What are the prize regulations and why did Germany use them? When did they stop abiding by them and why did they stop?

Clay Blair: Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted: 1942-1945, Prologue and Chapter One, tells the complete story of what the Prize Regulations were, where they came from, how the KM struggled to live within them, and eventually abandoned them. It would be difficult to do the story justice in a SubSim post.

Make a long story short, prize regulations stated passenger ships might not be sunk at all, merchant crews had to be placed in safety before attacking their ship and only warships could have been attacked without warning.
Germany used them because Hitler wanted to avoid USA entering the war on the side of Britain. In WW1, the sinking of Lusitania was a key element in turning the until then somewhat isolationist and antiwar American public opinion towards intervention in Europe. However, U-boats left these rules just after 2 or 3 months because prize regulations seriously limited their capabilities against merchant shipping so Germany turned again to unrestricted submarine warfare as in WW1.

^Sums it up well :cool:

This will give some background to your questions.

Hitler's aim was to invade Poland and NOT drag Britain in. He wanted initially a "short war in the east followed by a swift peace in the west". So it was to keep Britain and the USA hopefully out of it by playing nicely.

To this end Donitz's orderd all COs that they must abide by the Prize Regulations.

He however, quickly changed his views and agitated for a "unrestricted war" by his U-Boats.

There were a number of reasons for this change of view.

The first concern for Donitz was that his boats were been attacked by British planes after a distress call had been made. Early in the war, Donitz made the false assumption that a good many of his boats that failed to return were destroyed while abiding by Prize Regulations. This was not the case at all but he was not to know.

He was of the opinion that "U-boat warfare must at all times be concentrated against merchant shipping" and if the Prize Regulations were enforced Britain would simply place its merchant fleet under a neutral flag.

After the sinking of the Athenia merchant ships began arming themselves and he saw that as "allowing the sinking without warning of all merchantmen.."

This was followed in a new message from Donitz to all COs in December where any and all pretence at Germany abiding by the Prize Regulations was summarily done away with.

"Rescue no one and take no one with you. Have no care for the ship's boats. Weather conditions and the proximity of land are of no account. Care only for your own boat and strive to achieve the next success as soon as possible! We must be hard in this war. The enemy started the war in order to destroy us, therefore nothing else matters"

The above message from Donitz in my opinion eloquently sums up his entire philosophy and approach to U-boat warfare.

My quotes have been taken from "War Beneath The Sea"

did'nt Germany start using unrestricted warfare in a few areas in November 1939?

Yes, quite correct. In October unrestricted warfare was carried out in the North Sea "and approaches to the Baltic ... (and) ... through October and November Hitler progressively lifted the prohibition on attacking passenger ships" as long as they were enemy passenger ships.

Basically the waters around the British Isles very soon became the first area where "anything goes"

And also to my point earlier on regarding ships radioing for help. Hitler's thinking was along the lines of, ok, by getting your radio operator to call for help you are becoming a cog in the wheel at calling in the cavalry.

The Irish merchant fleet, as an example, though neutral was virtually wiped out.

In his Saint Patrick's Day address in 1940, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Éamon de Valera lamented:

"No country had ever been more effectively blockaded because of the activities of belligerents and our lack of ships..."

Clay Blair is hardly a Nazi apologist, but his version is different and far more nuanced than the brief summary you present.

The evolution of the standing orders was gradual and based on many factors.

And some of the statements you do not quote are suppositional, such as:

Your last quote bears not so much on the Prize Regulations, which dictated that crews of seized ships were to be adequately provided for before the ship was sunk, but on the treatment of survivors of sunk ships. As such, it post-dates the abandonment of the Prize Regulations, at least by the on-scene U-boat commander. An attack carried out in strict accordance with the Prize Regulations would leave no one in need of rescue.

This quote was in response to numerous incidents, including at least one attack on a U-boat crew which was trying to assist survivors - by the survivors themselves.

Peter Padfield's War Beneath the Sea, written by an unabashed Anglophile and ardent admirer of the Royal Navy, makes an interesting read, but IMO his portrayals need to be viewed in the context of other, more objective works. Padfield claims an uncanny ability to know what was in Doenitz's mind, even in the absence of documented evidence, and occasionally "quotes" from conversations for which no record exists. YMMV

You fail to mention the ambiguous situation created by "neutral" merchants which began transmitting "SSS" on sighting a surfaced U-boat, thus making themselves part of the Allied ASW apotting force in accordance with "international law".

As I said in my first post, the whole story of the German observance and later abandonment of the Prize Regulations is complex, and even relatively lengthy posts in an online forum can not do it justice.

Of course, the United States, after the Pearl Harbor attack, considered that Japan had abrogated all international conventions on the conduct of warfare and felt free to wage unrestricted submarine warfare from the start.

The Athenia Incident
 

September 3, 1939, found the U-boats at sea, ready for action. They had barely been informed of the English declaration of war when Oberleutnant Lemp, in command of U-30, sighted a passenger liner on a favorable torpedo attack bearing. Since the liner was off the normal shipping lanes and was 'zig-zagging', he assumed it was a troopship and after establishing its British nationality had accordingly attacked. The Athenia, bound from England to the USA had been sunk with the loss of 128 lives.
This mistake had a few collateral consequences along with it, for it gave the British government the chance to assert that Germany had intended to wage unrestricted U-boat warfare right from day 1. The fact that the strictly legal conduct of the other U-boats soon disproved this allegation, Britain stuck by this charge and repeated it in the face of her own breaches of international law.
The German government quickly denounced this charge, and further, denied that the Athenia was sunk by a U-boat. At the time, this disclaimer was made in good faith, because none of the patrolling U-boats had reported a sunken passenger liner, while all had received strict instructions to treat all merchant shipping in accordance with Prize Regulations.
Meanwhile, fully realizing the consequences of his actions, Oblt. Lemp made no specific mention of the sinking in his W/T reports, and it was only after U-30 had returned to base at the end of September, did Oblt. Lemp inform Adm. Doenitz personally that it was he who had fired the fatal shot.
However, instead of admitting the mistake, and expressing the appropriate regret, the German gov't. continued to deny all culpability and instructed the Naval High Command to supress the incident. Doenitz, therefore, had no choice but to order Lemp to remove the offending page from the war diary of U-30 and slip in another where the record of the sinking was omitted, so that the truth should not leak when the customary 8 copies of the WD were prepared.
Though War Diaries are technically classified, they are open to scrutiny for training purposes (why you need 8 copies), so that the supression of the Athenia sinking -as ordered by the highest German Authorities- could not be insured by any other means. This was one of the matters closely investigated at the Nurnburg tribunal. It stands to record as the only incident where a war diary had been altered for any reason.
But Goebbels carried things further, and without telling anyone of his intent, made the abstruse assertion that the sinking of the Athenia was carried out by the British themselves, by placing a bomb-type device aboard, so that they could lay claim that the Germans wanted unrestricted U-boat war, right from the start.
As a direct result, and a far-reaching effect on the whole 1st phase of the U-boat war, was the order that in future, passenger liners were verboten as targets regardless of nationality or even if they were in enemy service, sailing alone or in convoy. To this restriction was soon added another. At the time, it was considered 'desirable' that Germany should not fire the first shot (maybe return fire was allowed, but no opening salvos) in hostilities against France, U-boats were then forbidden to attack ships of French origin.
The strain these orders put upon U-boat captains and crews can be readily understood when it is remembered that they were in force at a time when the British Expeditionary Force was in France (and massing to evacuate at Dunkirque), U-boats could still operate in the English channel, and secondly, it is almost to completely impossible to determine ship nationality at night. The second order was rescinded Nov, 24, 1939 and the first, regarding passenger ships, not until the summer of 1940.

UKönig, could you please give us the source of this account? Thank you. It differs in some small ways from both Blair and Padfield.

Anyone who has tried to play the JFO! mod has experienced the confusion that the stream of conflicting orders from BdU creates. And we gamers suffer no constraint or penalty for getting it wrong! It is difficult to imagine the additional strain placed on a commander in combat.

Back to the start...
 

Although there is a wealth of information in the thread regarding the answering of the second question in the OP...there is one simple and (almost) concise answer to the first question...Prize Regulations are/were a matter of International Law. All nations, even if they were not parties to the various Treaties and Conventions that produced and/or promulgated successive versions of said "Law", were obliged to conform to the Law, and thus Prize Regulations were created to govern the conduct of war at sea by nations and their Navies. In the event of war, all nations were expected to abide by International Law, or risk being branded "outlaw" nations.

From there, the story gets almost impossibly complicated, as you can see in this thread. In a "Total War", the niceties of gentlemanly conflict get thrown by the wayside very quickly. In the end, breaches of International Law can lead to War Crimes trials. Who does the prosecuting and who gets prosecuted is dependent on who won and who lost. Aside from the inevitable process of revisionism, the winner(s) get to write the history. As BigWalleye pointed out, the USN threw away the Prize Regulations on December 7, 1941...well, maybe on Dec. 8th when Congress declared war.

It partly dates to their experience in the First World War. U-boats would stop merchants and inspect their papers, allow the crew to take to the lifeboats, then shell or scuttle the ship. It was all very pleasant and above board until a u-boat was surprised and sunk by the first Q-ship. After that the Germans started conducting unrestricted submarine warfare, and of course the British complained loudly about it. By the beginning of WW2 it was inevitable that the pleasant way couldn't last.

Even with respect to the first question, the answer is not that simple. Why didn't the US face any opprobrium for committing to unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan? And why did Germany fear such opprobrium enough to seriously handicap her submarine force, at least at first? The answers in both cases involve the profit-and-loss calculus of international diplomacy, where there are never any concise answers.

Anyone relying on this thread for an understanding of the issues involved may come away with an opinion, but probably with little real understanding. As Einstein said: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, and not simpler!"

My source is an old pulp paperback published in Germany in 1957 by an alleged U-boat officer named "Harald Bush". I say alleged because I haven't found any reliable information about such a person. His book detailing his 'experiences' (read very much like das boot) is called "So war der u-boot krieg", and I saved it from the trash pile one day because I have an unhealthy devotion to the subject. My copy is disintegrating so I am typing it out into e-format, to preserve the narrative. I changed the sentence structure a bit, to avoid blatant plagarism and present it here for your reading pleasure.
I am not surprised that the accounts differ, even slightly. This book does contain the attitude of its German author, even as he tries to remain objective. And several times throughout, he tries to put the Germans off in a slightly better light. For example, he cites that the war started on Sept, 3, 1939 with Britain declaring war first. When the rest of the world knows it started on Sept, 1, 1939 with the illegal invasion of Poland. Thus, the author does not think the attack against Poland was unwarranted, but the continued aggression of the British and Americans was. It makes for an interesting read because of its slightly slanted viewpoint.

Very interesting. (And, no, I'm not trying to cover Arte Johnson!) Thanks for passing that on. I'll see if I can track that one down.

UPDATE: English translation, U-boats at War, by Harald Busch, is available used at amazon.com for 2.95 (+S&H)