Heinz Schaeffer (1921–1979)

If you wish to know what it was like to crew a U-Boat in WW II, this is a good place to start. The author who eventually commanded his own U-Boat describes the discomfort of spending four hours on the bridge being constantly showered by ice cold water that seeped into ones boots and clothing. He also describes the terror of being depth charged as light bulbs break, valves burst and carbon dioxide levels reach dangerous levels. There is also the humidity, the mold, and the lack of privacy for the 45 men who lived in this metal tube for three months.

At sea when the war ends and he is told to surrender, Schaeffer decides to take his sub and crew to Argentina so they will not end up in a prison camp. To escape capture, they sailed from Norway to Argentina during which for the first 66 days they remained submerged using their Snort to bring in air for the diesel engines and the crew. However, when they reach Argentina they found that the Allies had an agreement with Argentina to turn over submarine crews so they eventually became POW's of the Allies.

One aspect of the book that bothered me was Schaeffer's lack of remorse or concern about Germany's quilt in starting the war. Once he is free, he emigrates to Argentina and carries with him the "greatest thing the Second World War left him- a faith in the German people".… (mehr)

This was first published in English in 1952 amid great controversy. Nicholas Monsarrat, author of “The Cruel Sea” and veteran of service in anti-submarine corvettes wrote a double-edged sword of an introduction – rubbishing the claims of the recently beaten Germans that “they didn’t know what was going on in Nazi Germany” but acknowledging that Schaeffer had written an excellent, and at that point unique account of the training, missions and lives of the U-boot crews.

The book is fascinating, far from politically correct in the modern sense, and a window into the lives of the young German sailors who took on the Atlantic and the allied navies and air forces. Their efforts to strangle the economy of Britain and later to stop the supply of materiel to American and Russian forces were doomed to failure. They were overwhelmed by the superior economy and production skills of America, and rapidly lost out in the technological battles of radar, underwater ordnance and communications security.

At the end of the war Schaeffer was in command of U-977 and rather than surrender to the Americans or British, he and what was left of his crew decided to make for Argentina. The trip included an astonishing period of sixty-six days under water, evading allied navies by means of using the newly fitted schnorkel – at the time a very uncomfortable and unpleasant experience for the crew as the submarine was frequently filled with diesel fumes and there was constantly changing air pressure in the boat as the snort valves opened and shut. They finally sailed into Mar del Plata on the 17th August 1945, more than three months after the end of the war in Europe.

It was this voyage that prompted many tabloid media to claim Hitler, Eva Brown and Bormann had escaped from Germany on U-977. Schaeffer and his crew were interrogated by the Argentineans, Americans and British until even the most paranoid investigator was convinced that there was no basis for the story… (mehr)