Interview with Otto Kretschmer

[viriatus]

Hello, please excuse my grammar mistakes.

This is my first post. :sunny:

I'm a long time lurker on these forums and I love everything related to WWII and German submarines.

Could some German speaking Kaleun translate this interview with Otto Kretschmer, so we can learn more from this true Hero?

1st part - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG2wJJG4-d0&feature=related
2nd part - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pypjvEcsMn0&feature=related

Thanks!

[TomcatMVD]

Surely not what you're looking for, but then, just for you to know, there are some shorts interviews in English on www.silenthunteriii.com (http://www.silenthunteriii.com)
You may want to take a look at them if you haven't seen them yet.
Oh and BTW: Welcome aboard Herr Kaleun!

[viriatus]

Thank you for the welcome, I'm watching the short interviews right now, very nice stuff.

Thanks!

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

[lambda*sqrt(u*x)]

Interview with Otto Kretschmer, Lieutenant Captain, Commander of "U 99"
Translated into English without guarantees by lambda*sqrt(u*x)

Interviewer: How has your military career evolved after your foreign study?

Kretschmer: Back from Spain in 1937, I soon, by the first of October 1937 became commander of the submarine U 23 and have conducted almost two months of military exercise in the Baltic Sea until the beginning of the war, which was quite intense. One left Kiel, where U 23 of U-Flottilla "Weddingen" had its home base, on Sunday evening into the middle Baltic Sea, where in the map grids around Rügen targeting exercises took place day and night, and from where one came home the following Saturday's evening. So one practically had only 24 hours time to see something else than the sea in Kiel, but no time to go shopping because the stores had already closed. It was therefore a quite strict military training one had to go through, which surely proved its worth in the war.
I went to war with U 23 and had to find out that we had torpedoes that didn't work properly. We could have, during wartime, during my wartime which lasted until the 17th of March, 1941, almost twice the success we actually had, if the torpedoes had been functioning as they should.
The torpedoes had been developed by the Marine, and also tested by the Marine [literally "zeroed in" from German "eingeschossen", rmk. by translator] in Eckernförde, and we shot using a magnetic fuse, so the targets were being passed beneath [by the torpedo] to detonate the warhead under the keel of the ship, to achieve a high explosive force by shockwaves.
A good idea indeed, just that it did not work properly! One could not completely control the magnetic influence within the torpedo, so that in combat it sometimes detonated before the target, sometimes after passing it, additionally the magnetic fusing had to be adjusted to the [geographic] latitude the U-Boat was sailing in. The torpedo detonated at a point where the Earth's magnetic field was disturbed by the targeted ship's magnetism; not depending on declination but inclination of the Earth's magnetic field.
Unfortunately this did not always work, so that orders were issued to shoot using the torpedoes' impact fuse.
It has been found out that the torpedoes ran deeper than their depth setting; this fact was known to the Erprobungskommando [the Marine's testing and experimental command] which had generously overlooked this issue, reasoning the torpedo should anyway pass beneath [lit. "undershoot"] the target and therefore it should have been no major problem. But this fault became a problem when we were ordered to shoot using impact fuses - they did not hit because of them passing beneath. One therefore had to set the most shallow running depth, which was 3 meters, at least I chose this setting, because at a depth of less than this the torpedo became a "surface runner".
Additionally, the torpedoes had the tendency not to follow their course, that they became "circular runners", so that the attacker, the U-boat, put itself in danger. So, after shooting at night (or when using an electric torpedo, which left no visible trail of bubbles on the surface), one had to switch on the hydrophone to see if the torpedo stayed on its course or if one eventually was about to sink himself with a circlular runner.

I: Did that happen?

K: Yes, I believe Prien died this way. At least that is my personal view!

I: Already in World War I Great Britain intercepted German submarine radio transmissions. How was it like in the Second World War?

K: This brainless transmitting of messages [literally "radioing", German "Funkerei"] has been repeated in WW2, not only I myself - I cooperated unwillingly, so that Admiral Doenitz once asked me when I was reporting back from a patrol: "Kretschmer,", he was not using formal language when addressing us, "don't you want to follow my orders anymore?", and I answered to him "Not every order, because I am responsible for the safety of my boat and my personnel and I don't want to become detected through all the transmitting messages and attract aircraft equipped with depth charges! And I want, by all means, do everything to help win the war." He accepted that, I don't know if others would have been able to talk like that [to Doenitz].
Today, my opinion is that by detection of radio transmissions much of the possibility to succeed in the war had been lost. I myself always tried to avoid using the radio, because I knew many Engländers from my foreign studies, and recognized their more practical mentality in opposition to the more theoretical [literally "scientific"] of the Germans. Because of that I thought during the whole war, that our encryption [he is talking about the Enigma, rmk. by transl.] could not be safe. Soothsaying always came from highest positions in the Wehrmacht, the encryption key would be impenetrable and one could be calm about the issue, but I myself was not.

[lambda*sqrt(u*x)]

PART 2 of the interview

I: How did the loss of your boat occur?

K: By the end of 1940, I committed two of my officers to commander's school, because I believed that these fabulous officers would be better commanders in the war than watch officers on my boat. Hoping, I would get equal replacement, but ["leider Gottes"] this was not the case, leading to a catastrophe on my last patrol in the beginning of 1941 that cost me the boat and three members of my crew their life.
I was returning from a convoy battle, had no torpedoes left, and my bridge watch ran into an enemy hunter/killer group [German "U-Jagd Gruppe"] which at that time was successfully hunting and sinking my comrade Scheppke (U 100). Because my watch officer ordered to dive, I could not escape anymore - my standing orders actually were not to dive when in contact with the enemy at night, but to stay on the surface, show the foe our aft, get me onto the watch, and I would have took control of all that had followed. That unfortunately was not possible anymore, I already was stationary [and submerged, rmk. by translator], was dropped depth charges on, and had flooding, so that I just managed to surface with the remainder of pressurized air left, no chance to defend myself by means of shooting torpedoes, and being shot at. Luckily they didn't hit us with their machine guns and artillery in the night, so I had the chance to get my crew onto the deck on the side of the boat that was not facing fire, and to wait for the boat sinking. When it came to the latter - the aft was already going down, everyone on the deck got washed over board, life vests on, and after operating the U-boat was not possible anymore, all that was left to do was my duty as commander to care for the safety of my crew; so I signalled via the morse signal lamp "From captain to captain, please rescue my men drifting in your direction, I am sinking!". Confirmation was signalled back by the captain of the near HMS Walker, a destroyer, with whom I later became friend, and so the part of the crew who got washed off the deck got rescued, while I myself had to help the boat sinking because the destroyer's crew intended to enter it, and I had to avert that to avoid secrets being captured by the enemy. So I managed to accelerate the sinking of the boat already going down by opening one of the flooding bunkers. I alone stayed on the bridge while the boat went deeper, and found myself swimming - the myth of the vortex of a sinking ship taking you down with it therefore can't be true! So there I was, in my vest, floating on the surface.

I: Did an issued order from Dönitz exist that called for the shooting of enemy castaway crews?

K: I never heard of such an order, far from it! We always had been advised to wage war according to international law. We acted conform to this, and we all in the U-boat navy had the impression not to wage war against human beings, but to have the need for sinking ships. And that castaways had to expect help as sure as possible, and we did help. There was one, I can't remember his name right now, on board [of my boat], whom we rescued up from a life raft, and he spoke to us, believing he was on a British submarine, about finally being fished out of the sea by his own kind after the "bloody Germans" had sunk his ship!
I brought him to a rescue boat I had spotted and which had set sail, and was manned by two white men in blue... merchant ship uniforms, and, on the oars, two yellow men [literally translated, rmk. by transl.] from Vietnam, [a people] whom we were calling "[... sorry, did not understand the term, rmk. by transl.]" in those times.
When I ordered the rescue vessel to come alongside our boat via megaphone, they seemed as if feeling trapped and seeing their end near, and where utterly astonished seeing one of their own entering the boat in a German overall, his wet clothes and some food in his hands, being allowed to join them [by the German enemy, rmk. by transl.]! The Engländer on the rudder was so stunned that he lobbed a pack of cigarettes to the U-boat to express his gratitude!
We wished them good luck, (we were west of Ireland) they should well be able to reach Ireland, asked if they knew the heading, they had set their sail, the wheather was adequate, and we found they should be safe.
There were no orders, [...], that we shall wage war against humans, we were given command to sink ships only, and castaways generally were given help. It was often the case that some [survivors] were swimming around not having been spotted by the crews in the rescue boats, and one had to tell them "Here is one floating, there is one, try to get those!"

Remark by translator:
I did my best to translate this interview. I do not stand behind ideas of war in general, and I have vague doubts that handling surviving crews of attacked merchants and war ships did always happen in the way Kretschmer remembers here. Whatever the real situation was, I lack knowledge of historical facts here. I just want to state here that I do not feel responsible for the content of this interview - I just translated it word by word, adapting it to (my mediocre) English grammar.

[Subtype Zero]

Excellent translation, and very informative! No need to apologize, lambda!

Danke. :up:

[Brag]

Many thanks, Lambda. My German got so rusty I had trouble understanding. Your translation made it all clear. Great job! :D

[lambda*sqrt(u*x)]

Thanks for the appreciation!!

But... LOL... a forum search would have saved me from a lot of work...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=740565&postcount=6

Somebody already _did_ this job, and in much better English, closer to the original!