History Question

[maykon]

I have a question about history, if anyone can help me. Between 1935 and 1938 some German submarine visited or was invited to a port outside, for example, a visit Great Britain, France, Holland etc. Thanks in advance, sorry for English.

[RConch]

A few U-boats were sent to the Med during the Spanish Civil War to allegedly "monitor" what was going on.

It was used to give the crews that went a chance to practice and test the boats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...nish_Civil_War

[Aktungbby]

The German Kreigsmarine used the Spanish Civil War for practice. While the Italian navy subs actively participated throughout the conflict, Operation Ursula was a month long exercise in 1936 involving U 33 and U 34. It was a much more downsized, short, secretive, and ultimately unsuccessful operation. Its codename was Operation Ursula, and it was undertaken by the German U-boats U-33 and U-34. The mission was not to be unveiled until after the end of the Second World War when the French naval officer Claude Houan, inspecting Kriegsmarine archive papers, found the ones concerning Operation Ursula. There was enough proof in those documents to ascertain that the responsibility for the mysterious sinking of the Republican submarine C-3 belonged to U-34. Were it not for this sinking, the German mission, that lasted only a single month at the end of 1936, would probably have remained unnoticed and perhaps lost to posterity. http://uboat.net/articles/59.html

.... The Italians were essential for that course of events in two more ways. First, they ensured the covertness of the operation since the German attacks could easily be charged to the not-so-secretive Italians. And second, they were also the reason for the operation in another, not so obvious sense. Germany was eager to show the Italians that the Reich had regained military muscle, particularly in submarine warfare. This can be proven by the fact that Italy was informed from the start of the U-boat operation while Spain was not informed until the development of the operation made it unavoidable. It was decided to intervene in a way that was quite different from the Italian action. To begin with it had to be an operation of less magnitude. In 1936 Germany had few U-boats capable and ready to be dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea. So, with the idea of a sustained operation that required only a few of the boats the number of units was reduced to just two. And more importantly, it had to be a really furtive action, being that covertness was the main priority of the mission. This feature had great relevance in the planning and execution of the mission. With these criteria, orders were passed down the chain of command to the headquarters of the submarine force (FdU, later to become BdU) with Käpitan zur See Dönitz as its chief. There, someone had the idea of giving the operation the codename of "Operation Ursula", after Dönitz's daughter. The careful planning of the operation began under the supervision of Konteradmiral Hermann Boehme, Flottenchef (Fleet Commander).

Somewhere off Malaga, mysteriously, the Spanish submarine C-3 was sunk by U 34. Both commanders returned to Germany relinquishing their 'borrowed' subs back to the original inexperienced commanders:

'Kapitänleutnant Harald Grosse, d. sunk 1940, & Kapitänleutnant Kurt Freiwald, d.1975, had a somewhat non-typical careers. Both were decorated but as the only one credited with a victory over an enemy warship, Grosse was awarded the Goldene Spanienkreuz ("Spanish Golden Cross"), the only Kriegsmarine man to receive it, while Freiwald had to be content with the much more common Spanish Cross in bronze. Anyway, to keep the secret, the awards had to wait...'

As early as 1936 German subs did poorly in the Mediterranean

[Mittelwaechter]

Originally Posted by maykon

I have a question about history, if anyone can help me. Between 1935 and 1938 some German submarine visited or was invited to a port outside, for example, a visit Great Britain, France, Holland etc. Thanks in advance, sorry for English.

U 28 and U 35 were visiting Ponta Delgada (Azores) in January 1937.

U 21 and the whole Flottilla Weddingen were August 1937 in Helsinki.

U 26 and U 27 were in July 1939 in Reykjavik/Iceland.

[maykon]

Thanks rconch, aktungbby, mittelwaechter and all for the informations and links. It is interesting to know that were also made War games, as in the quote "In the Autumn of 1936 war game of the Naval Academy Exercised the successful engagement of U-Boats against French troop transports in the Mediterranean, Allowing after 6 weeks to re- deploy the U-Boats to the North Sea to unite with the remaining fleet to deny France blockading the North Sea. "
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Visits to foreign ports as (Iceland, Finland, Spanish etc) before the war, as in the quote " The U-Flottila "Weddigen" with several boats visited Helsinki, Finland from 06th to the 12th of August 1937, accompanied by its support tender ‘Saar’".
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"Port calls in foreign countries. The new U-Boats of the Kriegsmarine carried in October Several visits to foreign ports During Their training and exercise journeys. The mentioned above, U-Boats participating in the operations embargo During the Civil War did Spanish Also call at ports other than Spanish, such as Lisbon or Tangier. "
http://dubm.de/lang1/kriegsmarine_u-boats-1.html
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“Herzog mentions a number of 12 further U-Boats after "U-33" and "U-34" sent to the sea areas before Spain”
http://dubm.de/lang1/the_spanish_civil_war.html