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Kristen Emma Mahler

Prof. Presnell
UWRT 1104
30 November 2015
Life on a U- Boat
The Nazi in my Family
My grandparents on my fathers side were a volunteer army man in the disabled unit and
a service woman for the American Army during World War II.

My paternal grandfather,

however, was a full blooded, one hundred percent German. His parents immigrated to the
United States straight from the Fatherland, which meant there was plenty of family they left
behind. One of these family members was my fathers distant cousin. Somewhere in an
unknown family members possession is there is a photo of cousin Georg in full Nazi military
uniform on top of a U-Boat. My parents have searched for the photo, but nobody in my fathers
immediate, living family seems to know who has it. I personally have never seen the photo. In
fact, before I mentioned that I had to write an inquiry paper to my parents, I never knew that the
picture or cousin Georg existed.
It really piqued my interest that a distant relative fought for the Nazis, since I only ever
heard about the war from the perspective of an Allied soldier or citizen. I wanted to know more
about Georgs time at war. I wanted to somehow see the war through the perspective of someone
we as a society dont normally hear about. I wanted to see how it was for a Nazi during World
War II, but not the ground level perspective we get in first person shooter and war scene games.
I wanted to know what a soldier did or could have gone through if they fought on a U-Boat. This
lead to my main question; what was life like for a Nazi serving on U-Boat during World War II?

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The Purposes of a U-Boat
As the PBS documentary, Nazi Mega Weapons by Chris Hale, Julian Ware, Simon Young,
and Hereward Pelling, states, Britain needed to import several goods for their industrial efforts
and to feed its citizens. When Germany had all of continental Europe under its heel, they went
straight for Englands throat. Nazis started to blockade Britain so that if they were successful, no
goods could be transported to the United Kingdom. With no goods being delivered to England,
they would have to eventually surrender. That being said, though this plot was not the sole
purpose of the U-Boats, it was certainly a main use. The second use was just basic water
warfare. When the Germans werent trying to put a choke hold on England with their U-Boats,
they were fighting sea battles. This happened in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, since there were
still enemy ships they could attack.
The Construction of a U-Boat
U-Boats had a few issues when it came to the anatomy and powering of the ships. In the
same documentary I have talked about earlier, Bob Mealings, a curator at the Royal Navy
Submarine Museum, states two problems. The first issue that he mentioned was that power on
the boats came from the same sources vehicles we drive on the road today use, like diesel,
electricity, and batteries. The second issue he stated was that due to its anatomy and size, there
wasnt a lot of room for food and water. Due to this, these sources were in constant short supply.
These two issues of scarcity combine into one undeniable fact, U-Boats had to constantly return
to base. Where modern submarines could go out to sea for months, U-Boats could only be out
on the water for two to three weeks.
After coming back to base, the boats were not just resupplied. According to Mealings,
each ship had to be inspected for any damage. Soldiers on board when out at sea would do

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regular maintenance, but the ships would always have some wear and tear because of the
conditions in the ocean. Obviously, any form of attack on the boats would also create some
damage as well. Any proverbial chink in the armor and the entire boat could be lost during a
patrol or a battle, so meticulous above water inspections were necessary.
Still watching Nazi Mega Weapons, I learned a few things about the actual anatomy of
the U-Boats. A single one of these German submarines weighed over one thousand tons, which
is the equivalent of four hundred small elephants. These titans of a steel ships were comprised of
two layers, the inner and outer hull. The inner hull kept water from coming in. The outer hull
possessed the Ballast tanks, which
let the submarines dive.

In the

screenshot I took from the program,

you can see the inner hull is much,
much smaller than the outer hull,
A screenshot taken from Nazi Mega Weapons that shows the two layers of a UBoat.

and more closely resembles the

common shape of a submarine a

person would think of if you told them to imagine one.

U-Boat Pens
The bases used to store U Boats were as giant as they were impenetrable. I found a good
example of a base that proves this point when I was watching the show Nazi Mega Weapons.
The program showcased the Lorient submarine base, a tiny fishing port that was transformed into
what was basically the heart of all U-boat bases by Admiral Karl Doenitz. According to the PBS
television documentary, its considered to be the second largest construction project anywhere on
Earth, second to the Hoover Dam. I learned from this documentary that the base at Lorient spans

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over fifty acres total, which is two million one hundred seventy eight thousand square feet. To
put that into perspective, the Biltmore Estate is only fifty seven thousand three hundred forty
point eight feet; this makes the Biltmore Estate nearly one thirty eighth the size of Lorients
submarine base.
Daily Life
U-Boat soldiers were under tremendous amounts of stress day in and day out; this could
be said for any type of military personnel in a time of war. According to Nazi Mega Weapons,
this kind of stress was caused by the fact that they had to work extremely hard in order for their
work load to depreciate later. Why, you may ask? Admiral Doenitz, the same man who created
the Lorient base, wanted at least three hundred U-Boats in order to strangle England. Hitler
didnt want to waste his time on those ships, instead opting for flashy above sea battleships.
Doenitz pushed for all his shipmen to show major results so that they could get the needed
amount of new U-Boats. In the end, this worked out extremely well, since at one point thirty
four Ally ships were sunk by only seven U-Boats over the course of forty eight hours.
Writings from the War
Soldiers kept information from events on several logbooks. That being said, when
looking for written accounts of certain times, I found an article called Translator Brings U-Boat
War Diaries To Life that talked about one Jerry Mason who was translating some firsthand
records for an internet database. The same article had a few examples of what Mason had
already translated. Though these were only five tiny logs, they spanned everywhere from reports
from home given to the U-Boat soldiers by Admiral Doenitz to exultations after a successful
attack. The messages are all quite short, to the point, and written like the author expects any
readers to completely understand the background of whatever they are writing about. They

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reminded me of the average logs you hear over war movies or even Star Trek, as in they were
clipped and somewhat dry, yet heavily technical. I suppose this gives some insight into the
soldiers minds, too; speak what you must quickly and in a non-superfluous manner.
On the opposite side of the superfluity spectrum was
a letter from Gunter Leopold to his captor and friends
widow that I found from an article titled A U-Boat
Commander Shares Memories Of His CaptorAnd Friend
by Andrew Carroll. Leopold was a German Soldier held
captive by an American named George Hoffman. In his
letter, Leopold recounts his time with Hoffman, including
how he helped save Leopolds leg and let him sleep in
A photo of George Hoffman next to a photo of
Gunter Leopold. Found on the article where I
found the letter.

Hoffmans bunk even though he was a prisoner of war. The

introduction was about the most flowery and heartfelt as
Ive ever heard a letter from a soldier to be. As the letter
progressed, I felt as if he wasnt trying to make his writing
overly sappy. His words and story made me truly believe

that the two became good friends. Perhaps, like many civilians, German soldiers actually did
have soft spots and were just extremely good at putting them away in times that they needed to
be calculating. Either way, both of these texts show a unique insight into the mind of a U-Boat
soldier.
German Soldiers Personalities
I already knew that various personalities cope with situations differently, so I wanted to
dig into what could have been the soldiers personality traits from that time. With that in mind, I

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stumbled upon a summary of a scientific study written by Stephanie Klee and Karl-Heinz
Renner. According to this study, German veterans are less neurotic, open, and agreeable than the
average person. That being said, according to Klee and Renner, in comparison to the average
person, they happen to be more extraverted, conscientious, and competitive. Basically what the
research finding means is that German soldiers are ruled by their conscience, but they do not
become truly obsessed with micromanaging the actions they feel compelled to execute. They are
not open about true feelings or intentions, but they work well with others. This is because they
would most likely prefer working in a group rather than by themselves. They are driven by
competition, like most soldiers, and since they are less agreeable, would most likely prefer to
fight than try to come to a common ground. Again, according to Klee and Renners study, these
are the traits of a modern German soldier, but I believe that the personality ingrained into the
people during training in the World Wars were about the same.
German soldiers who were tested in the same study were found to score higher on a
resilience test than civilians who were tested in the study I just previously mentioned.
Resilience, in this case, is the flexibility of the mind to endure certain traumas. If the study
results are to be believed, which I think they are, this means German soldiers are less likely to
suffer from PTSD when put into a war event than a regular civilian. They are more likely to get
through highly stressful situations less scathed. These results are also is signs that soldiers are
easier to train mentally. The idea that the German soldiers minds are more resilient also means
they were also less likely to suffer from bouts of anxiety.
According to an article written by Charles H. Van Wijk, people who are more prone to
anxiety are more apt to do acts of panic when working underwater. The fact that German
soldiers minds are more resilient, which we know to be true because of Klee and Renners study,

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means that soldiers in WWII were probably less anxious. This would mean they were probably
less likely to panic and do rash actions. The lack of risk for panic would mean that there would
also be less risk for PTSD. There is also less of a chance for many situations to go from bad to
worse due to lack of composure. This all seems extremely plausible, if the German Armys basic
trained personalities have not changed since World War II.
Life on a U-Boat
In conclusion, life on a U-Boat seems like it would have been extremely stressful and entirely
exhausting for anyone that didnt fit the personality traits of a German soldier at the time. Do I
know firsthand what life would be like in one of those ships? No. Will I ever find out what life
was like for cousin Georg? Probably not, since hes definitely dead by now. Do I have any clue
as to what it was probably like as a soldier on a U-Boat during World War II? Yes, and with
those semblances of clues, I can say that it was most likely like what any other life on a
submarine, just perhaps a bit more stressful due to the needs of the boat and the high
expectations from Doenitz. Do I feel at all closer to my very distant cousin who I never met?
Just a little.

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Works Cited
Carroll, Andrew. "A U-Boat Commander Shares Memories Of His Captor--And Friend." World
War II 27.1 (2012): 19-20. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.
"Translator Brings U-Boat War Diaries To Life." World War II 29.3 (2014): 11. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.
Van Wijk, Charles. "The Use Of Spielberger's State-Trait Personality Inventory (Trait Anxiety
Subscale) With Naval Subaquatic Specialists." International Journal Of Occupational
Medicine & Environmental Health 27.6 (2014): 959-966. Academic Search Complete.
Web. 29 Oct. 2015.
Klee, Stephanie, and Karl-Heinz Renner. "Beyond Pride And Prejudices: An Empirical
Investigation Of German Armed Forces Soldiers' Personality Traits." Personality &
Individual Differences 88.(2016): 261-266. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Oct.
2015.
Ware, Julian, Simon young, and Hereward Pelling, prods. U-Boat Base. Nazi Mega Weapons.
Dir. Chris Hale. PBS. N.d. Netflix. Web. 15 Nov 2015