Exactly. I remember posting something a while back..."when you're 200m underwater with depth charges raining down on you, political ideology means squat!" :yep:

I think the very nature of the warfare they were waging was also a factor. Despite the fact that merchant sailors were civillians, sinking cargo ships to cut off your enemy's supply chain was a pretty sterile and businesslike thing without much room for political ideologies. It just comes down to pure numbers. Sink more ships than they can build. Deny as many tons of supplies to them as you can. Little room for political expression there.

Much different than razing towns and villages because of the ethnicity/religion of the inhabitants.

Agreed on all points. What is the saying? "You will find no aethiests in a foxhole."

Whilst I was off the coast of Scotland last year on a Royal Navy Nuclear Submarine we surfaced for a few hours and I went up the conning tower to get some fresh air and the weather was quite bad, a force 8 I think, and the boat was rolling around quite badly even later on when we dived to 60 meters, and thats on a 5000 ton nuclear submarine, imagine what it was like on a U-Boot 60 years ago.

BTW: Ive been to Scapa Flow on a boat too a couple of years ago and was quite impressed that the German U-Boats got anywhere near the place looking at the terrain and the weather, these men have my respect from one submariner to another, they had it hard, very hard and what they achieved paved a huge cornerstone in todays modern submarine warfare.

Respect your enemys past and present :know:

Never a truer word mate :yep: Never had the experience personally (visiting Scapa) but I once watched a documentary and it def looked 'VERY FORBIDDING' :yep:

talking about the smell:
they brushed their teeth evereyday :D showers were onboard, but usable only every 10 days, because they had not enough water which they gained from evaporation.

the disussion about the role of soldiers in world war 2 shows that its impossible to sort them by country and ideology. of course there were a lot of soldiers in the german army who were also Nazis. I don´t want to apologize anyones behavior, i can only tell you about my grandpa, who wanted to become forest ranger when he was young. it would have lasted 4 or 5 years or he could serve in the army for one year. he served and before his year was over, the second world war began. i guess, there were many whoose possibilities were raised only by serving in the army or even joining the Nazi party. These, for me, were poor pigs. Those who identified themselves with the Nazi party, their programm and their ideology, were barbarous men. Its a sad part of the german history. But it developed something good in the german population: we try to avoid wars as good as possible and we are very aware of the government. in so far, i think no one would be able to install a new dictatorship in germany, even not an official "elected" like an other big country has.
a government sending their people into a war, is ruthless and worthless.
i had a lot of discussions with a friend from britain about 9.11 and afghanistan. my education is to solve a problem political, find its sources to achieve a solution. for him, it was only possible to sent troops. long nights of discussions and we were unable to figure out whats right or wrong. finally i´m glad germany didn´t join, as everyhing is only a big "make-me-and-my-pals-rich-war" lead by some greedy governments.
in so far, van Clausewitz is not right any more....
as its said: "war is the terror of the rich, terror is the war of the poor" - wo don´t need either

Ole,
"i had a lot of discussions with a friend from britain about 9.11 and afghanistan. my education is to solve a problem political, find its sources to achieve a solution. for him, it was only possible to sent troops. long nights of discussions and we were unable to figure out whats right or wrong. finally i´m glad germany didn´t join, as everyhing is only a big "make-me-and-my-pals-rich-war" lead by some greedy governments."

Here's the problem: How do you reach a political solution with a person/group who's only goal in life is to literally kill you, destroy your culture, society, and country, and impose their religion and views on you and the rest of the world? The source of the problem is that from their point of view, there's no compromise possible. I'm in Iraq, I've been here for over 2 years. I've seen enough first-hand to know something of which I speak.
It's ironic that you consider the Nazis "barbarous men", yet you apparently believe the right thing to have done after 9.11 was to reach some sort of political compromise. The 9.11 attacks weren't barbaric? People being forced to jump out the window, to certain death, to avoid being roasted alive, isn't barbaric? Think for a moment what it must have been like for them, being forced to make that choice. If that's not barbaric, I don't know what is.
We're supposed to sit down, negotiate, and reach a political compromise? Polical compromise didn't work with Hitler, either, did it?.
As far as "a government sending their people into a war, is ruthless and worthless.", Britian and France were the ones who declared war on Germany, not the other way around. So, by your definition, the British and French governments were ruthless and worthless.
Please, think about what you're saying, and what would be the logical outcome of your views. Throughout history, there have always been people/groups who wanted to impose their views on others.
I'll grant you, democracy is a sometimes messy and inefficient form of government, but it's the best one so far, for protecting the rights of it's members. Trying to reach a political compromise with dictators and tyrants is just not possible. Just remember, the only reason you can have these discussions with your British friend, and post your views here, is because of democratic goverments. Do you really want to give up those rights?

I can't believe you guys, feeling so sorry for the German U-boat crews...

But none of you even mention the heroic civilian men and women who sailed in the merchant fleet during the war, those who gave their lives to save your country from the nazi's, those who sailed for up to five years under a constant threat of getting killed by a torpedo, and could never get a good night's sleep while at sea.

They are the real heroes of the Atlantic war.

Of course it was tough for the Germans too, but remember...they started the war, they wanted it to happen.

Agreed on that point. The merchant sailors were men of valor and bravery, and no one is taking away from their deeds. But to say that the average U-boat sailor isn't worthy of some measure of respect is wrong, I think.

Perhaps this might express it better than I can. They're the words of USN Captain Edward Beach, from the introduction of Iron Coffins:

"'Madness!' cries Werner, and it was madness. But there were heroes, too, who deserve admiration even though their cause was wrong and, therefore, their sacrifice was worthless. No one can fault the warrior who believes in his country so strongly that he dies for it. This ought to permit these brave spirits to lie in peace, secure in the world's regard for them and their memory. Madness though it was, these were the flower of young German manhood, unfortunately - but not to their own discredit - early imbued with a warped ideal of how to achieve German destiny. They ought not to bear too harsh criticism, considering the Treaty of Versailles is now hardly considered an ideal document. Furthermore, they were a group unsullied by the cancer which afflicted the leading body politic. Beacuase their leaders told them so, they believed that if they fought desperately, they might save their country from the disaster plainly grinding in from every side. They expected death, and most of them found it; but they fought hard all the same, and they carpeted the ocean floor with their bodies."

of course. I might be new to sub sims but this is something i know of muay thai, my army's IFOR missions etc...

its called warriors respect.

same as I witnessed at the Wehrmacht/SS WWII graveyard where during D-Day celebrations I have found flowers by GI's vets at Michael Wittmann's grave (!) stating among others i.e. "From one soldier to another".

That pretty much says it all. (for NAVY guys= M.W. was the best German and World's Panzer Ace ever)


it has no relation what we think of Germany koz we (in Europe beside Germany) could now think about young US guys in Iraq (no flaming please, I have my deepest and greatest respect for all of them and have many friends among them!!)...

my point is just to make very clear distinction between front line soldiers and politicians.... I guess you know what I mean...

Well I play SH3 because it's a good strategy game, but I don't go too far and believe that the U-boat crews were the heroes.

I read a book by a commander of a British destroyer escort, and I totally agree with his words when he could confirm a U-boat kill, but I think those words are too strong for this forum.

SH3 is just a game, but as far as the German U-boat crews are concerned: :down:

I'm personally in it for that whole 'feel'.

And I think it's too simplistic to say something along the lines of ':up:' or ':down:' about U-boat crews. You have to realize that they were people called up to fight in a total war. There was a lot of good and bad guys on all sides of the war, but in a battle 'good' and 'bad' is simply a matter which side you happen to be on. A U-boat sinking your ship is as bad as a ship sinking your U-boat.

I'd never be particularly interested in war were there not a sharply controversial humanistic aspect to it. I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, but I'm fascinated by people pushed to the limit - and not in the sport-like sense of it, either - but totally in a life-and-death sort of way. And the Battle of the Atlantic certainly did that. It's one thing to judge war sitting at a desk at home, and another thing to judge it with your finger on the trigger of a weapon aimed at an enemy.

I'd never confuse a game with reality, of course, but things like that are always in the back of my mind when I play wargames. Likewise, some imagery in SHIII is amazing food-for-thought for thinking about the conditions as they really were.

They were brainwashed by their sick leader, they were ready to conquer the whole world :roll:

I lost five family members in the Atlantic during the war, their ships sunk by them. That's the reason for my opinion about this.

Bing it on!

Surprise us??

"Bunch of Bosches got what they deserved" ? or "Another scum of the world is gone."???


Have you ever realized that those guys dying in both german subs/british merchants/us DDs/everywhere else were mostly 18+ guys that never really got a chance to understand any of this $hit????

I guess not koz most of the guys like you never seen guy dying/ or even dead body which is perhaps good thing but still leaves you behind kind of psychologic curtain.... I was unfortunate enough to go behind it.

All-volunteer army is a gift of today's world.....

I really have not found anyone calling the u-boat crews as heros. The discussion is about what they saw and experienced. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. As the victor countries sit in their high horse, I was only pointing out that these men in the boats and in the trenches were not unlike the victors. They had wives, family, homes and sense of being a countrymen to their land. The thread was about the great spans of ocean and the undertaking of being ordered to sink Allied vessels basically on a shoe string of technology. The same as what Allied forces had to content with. One cannot sit back and wonder how any of the opposing forces did what they did with by todays standards would be cavemen tools. How it turned into who is a hero and who is not is beyond me. But I guess that what open forums are about and all opinions are taken, mulled over and thought about. Like I said from the start, imagine yourself in the middle of the Atlantic in a boat that is already half sunk, a radio that might work, might not, a compass that is so-so and depending on a clear night to see the stars so you could figure out with in a few hundred miles where you are on the planet. That is all this thread was to be.

First, Im sorry about your family members, my family has its "war-losses" too and so did several hundereds thousands of my countrymen, but still they were conscripts if you know what is that.

Im not defending WWII Germans for Christ sake, my nation was bleeding under them, but its the same bull$hit like saying that RAF (and my uncle was a RAF bomber crew member) & USAF bombing of German cities (with more civilian victims inflicted than by Little Boy&Fat Man in Japan that actually stopped the war) has shortned the war....