The Bravest Man.

[Blood_splat]

I read about the subs having problems with skippers not being aggressive enough or even having nervous breakdowns. I was wondering if U-boats had the same problems within their ranks? Or would Dönitz just have them shot? I guess not every officer was cut out to be a submariner with that overwhelming responsibility.

[Dowly]

There's atleast one documented case of an uboat kaleun shooting himself during an patrol. Cant remember which boat it was or why he did it, but I'm sure someone will post info about it.

EDIT: Peter Zschech of the U-505, shot himself in the control room on October 24, 1943 during an depthcharge attack. Another suspected suicide is the death of Wolgang Lüth who was shot by a sentry after either not responding to the sentry's query on purpose or having failed to answer loud enough for the sentry to hear who he was.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I honestly can't recall an incident where Donitz had a skipper shot for not being aggressive enough, but I seem to remember one being executed for something in the depths of Hitler's U-boat War (volume 1 I believe).
Unfortunately, I lent it to a co-worker, so I can't look it up just now, but I'll post if I find anything out.

[Siara]

It is believed that Fritz-Julius Lemp- commander of U-101 killed himself after his boat was depthcharged, and blown to the surface. The crew of HMS Bulldog, and HMS Broadway boared the boat, and intercepted the enigma maschine, along with the codes.
Crew was resqued, but Lemp was never found.
It was the second time Lemp had the bad day in the office- first, when as commander of U-30 he sunk the passenger liner Athenia- where 112 passengers died.
Maybe the pressure got to him to much....:hmm:

[gandalf71]

Lemp seems to be one of the tragic persons of the u-boat war, there are many rumours around his death. Most likely he drowned in the attempt to get aboard his boat again, when he realised that it wouldn´t sink fast enough. Another theory says that he was shot in the water by the boarding crew, to prevent him from going back onboard.

In an interview with a former crew member it became clear that Lemp´s first priority was to get his crew out of the sub safely when it was doomed. Basically I think he was a good sub commander and in one row with Prien, Scheppke, Kretschmer or Lehmann-Willenbrock in terms of success in the early war. In that interview it became also obvious that he was personally suffering from the "Athenia incident", which was kept absolutely secret by the high command. Dönitz even ordered to write a revised version of the boats wardiary (KTB). He made himself responsible not only for killing civilians, but also for causing a major international crisis which made Great Britain even more consequent in their deny to negotiate a possible armistice with Germany.

We will never know exactly.

Cheers,
Michael

[Blood_splat]

Thanks guys for the info.

[gandalf71]

Originally Posted by gandalf71

Lemp seems to be one of the tragic persons of the u-boat war, there are many rumours around his death. Most likely he drowned in the attempt to get aboard his boat again, when he realised that it wouldn´t sink fast enough. Another theory says that he was shot in the water by the boarding crew, to prevent him from going back onboard.

In an interview with a former crew member it became clear that Lemp´s first priority was to get his crew out of the sub safely when it was doomed. Basically I think he was a good sub commander and in one row with Prien, Scheppke, Kretschmer or Lehmann-Willenbrock in terms of success in the early war. In that interview it became also obvious that he was personally suffering from the "Athenia incident", which was kept absolutely secret by the high command. Dönitz even ordered to write a revised version of the boats wardiary (KTB). He made himself responsible not only for killing civilians, but also for causing a major international crisis which made Great Britain even more consequent in their deny to negotiate a possible armistice with Germany.

We will never know exactly.

Cheers,
Michael

You can find an excerpt of this interview in a german TV documentation about the u-boat war, it is in german language, the story of the end of U-110 starts around 3:10:



br
Michael

Edit: Infact this documentation was made for Discovery Channel, so an english version should exist somewhere.