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Originally Posted by Spudwiser
As much as I hate what the Nazi's did during World War II, you cannot dismiss the history left to us.
My grandfather was a Merchant Marine. He was in a convoy of about 30 ships. At daybreak, a wolfpack opened fire on his convoy. If i remember the story correctly, 17 ships were sunk and 4 were abandoned because of damage. He was actually plucked out of the water by a passing u-boat and left along the shore of Ireland. Although they caused a huge amount of distruction, not all of the U-boat commanders were evil SOB's. By the time he got pack on a ship, they used escorts, so he managed to survive the rest of the war.
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Wow, Spudwiser, cool story matey!
Glad your Grandfather was lucky enough to be rescued and survived the war, else you probably wouldn't be here now to tell us about it. Pretty decent of that U-boat Captain to pick him up and drop him off to safety. I've heard other similar stories, like the Laconia incident. It may surprise a lot of people, but the U-boat force, from what I have learned, was mainly anti-Nazi, or if not anti then definitely not pro. U-boat men didn't have to take the Party pledge, or give the Party salute. They used the traditional Naval salute instead, until the assasination attempt on Hitler anyway. The Nazi Party mainly left the U-boat force alone, didn't try to permeate it with Nazi ideology as it did the other branches of the armed forces.
There were, of course, some Captains who bought into all of that crap, but as far as I'm aware they were the exception, especially to the 'Old Guard'. They saw their duty primarily to sink ships and not to kill men, but this opened up a heated debate. If a ship was torpedoed, and her crew was rescued to serve on other ships, then doesn't this defeat the purpose? This was the dilemma that occupied the minds of many in the U-boat force, from the lowliest Matrosengefreiter right up to Onkel Karl himself.