I happen to have studied Eck quite extensively for work (did a long essay on Morality and Legality of Submarine Warfare in WWII for a POs promotion course).
Eck was certainly guilty of a war crime by Allied standards. As was pointed out at the start, the article makes it clear that the trial was pretty poor - as were the vast majority of German war crimes trials. Although that article does seem fairly heavily biased in favour of Eck in my opinion.
Doenitz himself says:
Quote:
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I could not approve of the actions of this commander, for an officer must not in any circumstances depart from the accepted moral principals governing the conduct of war ... Lt Cdr [sic] Eck had an extremely difficult decision to make. He was responsible for the safety of his boat and it's crew, and in wartime that is a heavy responsibility. I believe it was the same locality and time that four boats were, in fact, bombed. If with that in mind he believed that he would have been discovered and destroyed had he refrained from the action he took - if it was on these grounds that he acted as he did, then I am sure that any German court martial would have taken the fact into consideration. When the fight is over one sees things a little differently, I think, and one is inclined to be less conscious of the tremendous responsibility resting on the shoulders of the unfortunate captain.
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Ten Years and Twenty Days, Doenitz, 1958. My italics.
As with all these issues it's never black and white - although this is pretty far over towards 'war crime' on the scale, and as Doenitz alluded to if he had survived he probably would have faced a German court martial.
But British and American forces took similar actions - machine-gunning surrendering Germans was very well-documented in the surrender of U-570 to name but one instance - and there are estimated to have been many more than the few that were known. Allied ships frequently refused to take on board U-boat survivors who refused to give their boat number or commander's name.
People who argue it's not a p***ing contest, proving your enemy did it (particularly when
he won the war and has put
you on trial) does not excuse your doing it - you're probably right morally. But legally, this was a valid defence and the main reason Doenitz himself was not executed at Nuremberg was he proved the US had practised unrestricted submarine warfare.
There is also the side issue, on a personal note, that leaving the moral aspect aside I would say spending all night blowing up floats with grenades would be a very poor use of one's time, given the very likely possibility that you'd loose six hours' chase time, and quite probably miss some wreckage in the dark. Without wanting to be an armchair general about this I would have thought best speed, clear off in an unexpected direction (NW or W in this case) would be wisest. But I wasn't there.
In summary - it's a shocking case, but people who are genuinely shocked by Eck's actions should probably read a little wider into the actions of Germans and Allies alike, in all theatres, and on land sea and in the air. It was a very brutal decision and certainly not a moral one - but there is sufficient doubt about legality that he may have stood a good chance of defending himself in any theoretical 'perfect' neutral court.