I was hoping you would chime in Kpt. Lehmann. Many thanks for the GWX add-on! Regarding the U-869...
I wouldn't say there is any kind of conspiracy theory at all. However, having done very little research it seems some things just don't add up for this U-boat.
From the Coast Guard link:
http://www.uscg.mil/history/WEBCUTTE...ow_Koiner.html
The crew of the German submarine U-869 sailed two months earlier with a different reality. They felt they were condemned men. This was their first patrol and there was no optimism that they would return to the quay greeted as heroes with marching bands and pretty girls admiring the victory pennants hanging from the conning tower. The U-Boats had abandoned their warm, lively French bases and their new bleak Norwegian bases were in a shambles and constantly under attack. Victories were rare and celebratory pennants rarer. They had departed Kristanstand, Norway on December 8, 1944 for a point in the ocean several hundred miles south of Iceland, from there they would be directed via encoded radio message for a patrol destination. On December 29, 1944 U-Boat command radioed the submarine to patrol an area off the New Jersey Coast. The order was in turn rescinded when the U-869 radioed in her fuel supply. The young captain of the submarine, twenty eight year old Hellmut Neuerburg, had been extra cautious on his voyage to his detachment point. Neuerburg was on his first sub patrol ever and he no doubt was alarmed at the growing number of lost Commander’s portraits that were covering the walls of the officers’ clubs. Instead of taking his boat between Ireland and Iceland, Neuerburg had decided to travel the longer, but less patrolled route south of Greenland. This is what had diminished his fuel supply. U-Boat command rerouted him to the straights of Gibraltar were he would have more time to operate on patrol. They expected him to arrive on February 1, 1945.
If the young Captain was so cautious? Why was he so close to the US? The war was ending and they had to know it was going to be over soon. Considering its final location, there's no indication to me whatsoever that any degree of caution was actually taken.
How about the fuel supply? Considering the longer route U-869 took...could this boat have made it back to an axis port or supply destination? I don't think so...
Still, things don't quite add up.
Cheers 