För ett bra tag sedan, den 28/2, var jag och min far i polishuset i Kristianstad för att lyssna på en U-båtsofficer vid namn Karl Heidtmann. Texten har jag skrivit själv, men på ett annat forum och därför på engelska. Hoppas det ska gå ändå!


Yesterday me and my father went to Kristianstads policedepartment to hear a WWII submarine officer tell his story. It lasted from about 17:30 to 19:45.

His name was Karl Heidtmann and his first encounter with naval life was in a youth organization where they used small boats to practice sailing with, they also did a few other activities. He told about his youth leader who was called Mellin and he said they called him Herr Mellin (Sounding like Hermelin), this was in Stettin. When the war broke out he was about 16 years old i think. They're youth organization was remade into a Hitlerjugend kriegsmarine organization and they were given uniforms and navy hats with "Stettin" on it instead of a ships callsign.

When he and his family moved to Prezlau there was of course no naval base so he could brag to his new-made friends with his navy uniform. I think he said it was here he took a degree as a radiotelegraph operator in the navy so that he could not be drafted into the army. He also did it to be able to use it in the future. When he was 17,5 years old he enlisted in the navy on a destroyer escorting a convoy between Germany and Finland through Nordkap and by the coast of Narvik with supplies, ammo and troops. One time the convoy was intercepted by UK subs and some destroyer was sunk. He said he had great respect for the norwegian fishers to come out of their holes, as he said, and out on the sea with their fishingboats and rescuing the navymen.

In 1942 he was in Rotterdam when he and his friend was accepted into officers training on a submarine in La Spezia, Italy. When they went on train to Italy they stopped in München for customs and they asked where they're bagage was and the customs officer asked them where they were coming from and they said Rotterdam and the customs officer then said it would take 4 days for the luggage to arrive in München, but in fact they're coffins where lying right behind him so he gave them 4 days relief, and they had much fun those days.

In La Spezia they were assigned to U-561 where he started as a unteroffizier(he was the 2nd mate), Fähnrich zur See, and ended up as Leutnant zur See. His first mission was to set sail with the whole submarine fleet to Vichy France to prevent the french to escape to Algier where they americans had invaded. When they saw smoke coming out of the chimneys of the battleships and destroyers they lined up, above surface in the middle of they day, in a row of three and three columns. The french decided to stay in the port. Later on he patrolled the libyan and algerian coast and once intercepted a US air-carrier that was called USS Angus or Argus (Can't recall) and they opened fire at him. 4 torpedos were launched and one hit the rudder and props so it was crippled. They where caught by american destroyers that threw 65(!) sinking bombs on them but were not injured because they dove to 180m of dept while the bombs detonated at a depth of 160m. Later in the day they returned to find the air-carrier being towed off by some destroyers and they started torpedo it, wich they shouldn't have because now they saw them. There was 2 destroyers coming in from 2 directions but they couldn't use their cannons because they'd hit eachother, so they "only" fired at them with smaller arms like MG's and AA guns. They hit a air-tank so the captain couldn't go straight so he tilted and had his above the water when the rest was under.

On the sea he said it very tight livings, they had "hot-racks" as they say in the american navy, wich means that 2 men shared the same bed so that when was working the other was sleeping. He said that the crew had 2 men sharing 1 bed. The captain and high ranking officers had their own beds. He said that the food was really good and that they had some food that the civilians in Germany had forgotten they had. The cook was really good until he unfortunatly went away from the boat and they had another one. The new cook was so bad at cooking food in a submarine that the crew would beat him up. Of course the officers didn't know but they realized that they had to replace him as soon as they came to Messina.

He said there were a lot of rats there and cockroaches. But they couldn't touch the rats because if they killed some they would rot and spread disease, he said there was a "rat-captain" that would run around through the ship to see if everything was in order. The cockroaches they used to catch and then draw 2 lines on the table with water and them putting them on it to race.

since some of you wanted to know about relations with NSDAP etc. i can tell you that he didn't wear any swaztikas on his uniform, actually they rarely wore the uniforms at sea, and they didn't salute with "Heil Hitler" or "Sieg Heil". When the captain entered the room they didn't salute either, they would just stand or sit in attention. A sleeping crewman was never awakened to stand in attention like an army officer would've done.

Once when they were out on patrol in the night they were spotted by a bomber wich locked on them with their search light and dropped 6 bombs on them. Fortunatly they didn't sink but took severe damage. They headed back to Messina for reparations wich was done in a few days. Then they went out on another patrol wich ended in sinking a british detroyer out of the coast of Cyprus on New-years-eve. Later when they would celebrate they each had a half cup of wine. One crewman said "What if they were celebrating and drinking for the new year when we sunk them". While in the meditteranean they got a radar built in France, and the french was clever Karl said because they had built it in a way so that it sended out signals so that the airplanes could spot them as well. They also shot down a B-24 liberator here.

When he went back to Germany, Köningsberg, he would finish his officers training and was Oberleutnant zur See on the newest and most modern Type-21. But this was in 1943-1944 and they were supposed to be a frontline boat but they never went into action with it. They had surrendered before the crew was fully trained. Through the end of the war he was in Kiel that was getting bombed by the americans and he escaped from there in the Submarine, but without the captain that was hit by a bomb when he was trying to get to the submarine in a rubber boat.

Later on he got captured by the americans and he said it was like heaven, knowing that he would not worry about dying anymore.



Karl Heidtmann was born the 4th of November 1923 and turns 85 this year. I hope you found it interesting! I certainly did!!




1. Where are you from?
- Stettin.

2. What became your last mission?
- A combat patrol in the eastern meditteranean.

3. Have you ever met any of your brothers in arms after the war?
- No, i moved to Sweden to study to be both a dentist and a doctor, but i met my lovely wife and dropped medical stuides and became a dentist in northwern Sweden.

4. How did you manage to escape sinking bombs?
- We dove to a depth of 180m because the sinking bombs detonated at 160m. The british figured it out, but too late. The war at sea was already over.

5. Was there any torpedomalfunctions? How did it affect the crew?
- We didn't suffer torpedomalfunctions but one time when we had fired off all torpedos the torpedotubes was filled with 1200 litres pf water. Making us go down to a depth of 280m(!!!) because we couldn't pump it out since the allied destroyers above surface would've have seen us.

6. What was the most critical situation that the submarine was put in?
- The most critical moment is hard to say. There were two times when i feared the ship was going to sink more than others. One time we were being bombed with around 65 sinking bombs and another time we were spotted by a bomber and locked on with a spotlight and we had 6 bombs falling on us, almost wrecking the submarine.

7. In what areas have you served?
- I served in Norwegian sea on a destroyer escorting transportships with troops, ammunition and supplies. I've also served in the mediterranean and the atlantic. There was one thing that seperated the meditarranean from the atlantic wich was that at 160m of depth there was like a wave of electricity because the enemys sonar couldn't pick up our noise at that depth. At one occasion when i was up in the tower i stretched because i was tired, and i noticed that when i had my arms in the air they started to glow blue, and when i climbed a bit higher my body from the waist up started glowing as well!


8. what number did your submarine have?
- U-561.

9. How was the food?
- The food was great! Our first cook would make beef for the whole crew while in port sometimes. We also had some canned delicassies that the civilians had "forgot" they even had.

Lite kort och gott om U-båten samt bekräftning på nerskjutningen av B-24'an:
http://uboat.net/boats/u561.htm