U-581

[August]

New U boat found.

http://gizmodo.com/nazi-sub-portraye...ere-1791970995

[daft]

It always makes me wonder how writers of such articles know that the particular U-boat they are writing about was a member of the Nazi party?

Anyways, very interesting find.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by daft

It always makes me wonder how writers of such articles know that the particular U-boat they are writing about was a member of the Nazi party?

Anyways, very interesting find.

Surely you have seen the photo from Nurnberg in the 30's with thousands of uboats with their periscopes in a nazi salute, the tanks too with their raised guns and them planes lifting their right wing. (Yeah I too find it 'interesting', this notion that machines had concepts of ideology built into them and it does tick me off ever so slightly).

As for the link: Nice find! Also, I had no idea Spielberg rented the mock-up from the Das Boot production. Nice little piece of movie history too that.

[Aktungbby]

Also in the OP link was this footnote to history-the loss of USS Conestoga (AT-54) :http://gizmodo.com/mysterious-disappearance-of-the-uss-conestoga-finally-s-1766876364 Happened March 25 1921, right outside San Francisco Bay off the Farralon Island Marine Preserve...great white infested feeding grounds. The First World War-era tugboat disappeared without a trace after setting off for Tutuila, American Samoa, by way of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Its discovery shows that the ship never made it very far, sinking in stormy weather just 30 miles (48 km) from its departure point. A mistaken report out of Pearl Harbor that the vessel had arrived there as planned meant that it took weeks before anyone had even realized the Conestoga was missing.
Until now, now one knew where the wreck was located, or what happened. Despite an extensive search, the only trace found of her at the time of her loss was a lifeboat bearing the initial letter of her name found near Manzanillo, Mexico. After the Navy realized that the Conestoga had not, in fact, arrived in Oahu, the military focused its search for the missing ship around the Hawaiian Islands, ultimately deploying about 60 vessels—“including the entire destroyer fleet at Pearl Harbor and submarines”— only 2000 miles off course!


. It still matters to families after after 95 years: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/discovery-uss-conestoga-researchers-have-solved-naval-mystery-was-nearly-100-years-old-180958538/

[Rhodes]

Pitty that the U-26 (WWII) was never a type VIIC or even that, a type VII...
Besides that, saw this in a news site here, since it was sunk in our waters and one crew member did swim 6 Km (I think) to the island. But why the discover, since it was know that the sub was sink in that location.

[August]

Well I know there's an understandable tendency around here to separate the U-boat service from the politics that sent them to sea but associating a machine with a cause or creed is done all the time. Not only was there such a thing as a nazi u-boat there were also such things as commie tanks, confederate cannon, samurai blades, falange machine guns and even a royal navy ship of the line or three.

Tools are just inanimate items until a hand wields them for a purpose. Combining the two is just a handy way of adding some context to their discussion.

[Catfish]

My opinion is that speaking of "NAZI" xyz stuff makes not much sense, and is unhistorical as well. It was ok as long as it was used for propaganda, but has no room in historically correct reports.

"Nazi" describes exactly what? A member of the Nazi party? All germans ? All soldiers? It is being used as a term for gremans at a certain time, so i guess there can be no Nazi after may, 1945? A lot of people did not believe Hitler, and another lot did. So are they all "Nazis"? What makes a "Nazi"?

[August]

In this case it describes who was responsible for that submarine being there. Who caused it to be built? Who ordered it taken to the sea to sink ships and kill people? Whose flag flew from it's mast? Whose symbol did it's crew wear on their chests?

Originally Posted by daft

It always makes me wonder how writers of such articles know that the particular U-boat they are writing about was a member of the Nazi party?

Anyways, very interesting find.

Roll my eyes every time as well.
I know this is common (naming) practice in the US, and maybe elsewhere, but it doesn't make much sense in the end I think.
I mean, we could also speak about Democrat m4 Shermans then... But we don't, because designating a military craft after the countries political course is just silly.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Roll my eyes every time as well.
I know this is common (naming) practice in the US, and maybe elsewhere, but it doesn't make much sense in the end I think.
I mean, we could also speak about Democrat m4 Shermans then... But we don't, because designating a military craft after the countries political course is just silly.

From what I understand from a friend in Germany who knows a lot of Luftwaffe history, that many pilots hated seeing the swastika on the tail of their aircraft. Including Galland. To them it was a political symbol, nothing more.

[August]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Roll my eyes every time as well.
I know this is common (naming) practice in the US, and maybe elsewhere, but it doesn't make much sense in the end I think.
I mean, we could also speak about Democrat m4 Shermans then... But we don't, because designating a military craft after the countries political course is just silly.

Originally Posted by eddie

From what I understand from a friend in Germany who knows a lot of Luftwaffe history, that many pilots hated seeing the swastika on the tail of their aircraft. Including Galland. To them it was a political symbol, nothing more.

I can understand their irritation I'd be bummed to have the Obama O or Hillary H painted on my tail section as I imagine you would be by being forced to fly a Trump symbol. But the difference is that those are not official symbols of our nation whereas the swastika was the official symbol of Germany during those years.

In the German marking custom tail markings indicate governmental ownership. The the nazi swastika replaced the WW1 Imperial cross (not sure if the Weimar Republic even had an Airforce) symbol of the Kaiser,


and it was replaced in turn by the modern German Goverments 3 color national flag marking.



Note that the wing and fuselage markings have remained more or less the same. A black cross in those places means that it's a German aircraft regardless of era. The markings on the tail however always indicate what German government owned it, same as the flag that flew from a U-boat conning tower so in a sense it's a kindness to the Germans that we refer to the machines used to try and dominate the world by those who sent them rather than the nationality of the soldiers and sailors that manned them.

Sorry for rambling, it's a subject that has always interested me.

[ValoWay]

Von Manstein wrote after the war that Hermann Göring shortly before the attack on Poland was holding a speech where he complained that compared to the 'Luftwaffe' or 'Kriegsmarine' the 'Wehrmacht' apparently wasn't 'nazi enough' and that Walther von Brauchitsch (Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht) should have stood up to Goring..

"...The result of this agitation became evident when Göring, ostensibly
as the 'senior officer of the Wehrmacht', addressed a group of high-ranking military leaders in
spring 1939. In the course of his speech he quite brazenly upbraided the army, as distinct from
the other two services, for maintaining an outlook that was steeped in tradition and did not fit
in with the National-Socialist system. It was a speech which Colonel-General v. Brauchitsch,
who was among those present, should on no account have tolerated..."

(p.43, http://server2.docfoc.com/uploads/Z2...ec43c4727d.pdf)


That underlines that except for the SS it wasn't really all that easy or black and white.

The average American tends to call it all 'nazi' but that is just as incorrect as calling 'Operation Sledgehammer' a 'Democratic Party' or GOP (if Roosevelt would've been republican) operation.