To be sure, I have not permitted the men to hang pictures of nude girls on the bulkheads and over their bunks.

If you are hungry you wouldn’t paint bread on the wall. It is also advisable to leaf through the books aboard every once and a while, time and again you turn up one which can be thrown overboard because it appeals only to man’s lower instincts. When we arrive in port I like to see to it that the men buy as much as possible for their families, so that they spend their money in a sensible way. At the base the men should be left alone at times so that they can relax and do as they like. Many escape to the whorehouse simply because it is "pleasanter and more interesting" there and they feel themselves unobserved.

The spirit of the crew depends mainly on an exemplary officers’ corps. Up to now I have had seventeen officers on my ship, of whom only four had trouble getting adjusted; there were seven midshipmen, among them one failure.

All the others were exceptionally good, and helped to shape life aboard so that every day was Sunday.

Life in the officers’ mess must be above reproach, for the crew looks up to their officers, whose esprit de corps transmits itself to them.

I also address all my men as "seamen".

After all they are all seafaring men; it doesn’t matter whether a man works on the engines now or tuned the sails in past decades - they are all doing it for their ship. Even such minor detail can help to create the proper community spirit aboard.

You have to take pains with your young officers.

It is obvious that they are not all alike and are apt to get out of line at times. Nevertheless you can’t let them hang the picture of the Fuehrer on the left side of the bulkhead in the officers’ mess and on the right side one of a girl from a box of candy which they bought in Paris.

That shows bad taste. The same is true if they like to listen to American and British jazz.

Whether they like it or not has nothing to do with the matter. They simply must not like it, just as a German man must not like a Jewess.

In a tough war everyone must have learned to hate his enemy without reservation. It is also obvious that obscenities and dirty jokes

are not to be told on a crowded ship and on such a long journey. This is not only for moral reasons, but also because it is hard to stop such things once they have started, because it is hard to draw the line afterwards, and above all because the men are quick to pick up such habits.

There are things which cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. Once I had a watch officer who always slept undressed in his bunk; as if that were not enough, he never came on battle station at night without dressing first.

He never even forgot to put on his oil skin pants and hat. His personal well-being was that important to him before he came on battle station.

He never drank coffee because he was a hypochondriac and believed he had something the matter with his stomach; he a cup of milk instead. Since we had no cows aboard, and therefore not much milk, I forbade this. Then he poured some hot water into the milk and said that this was a substitute for coffee. Then he didn’t eat this or that, and literally demanded an extra sausage for himself.

Before something like that comes to the captain’s attention the crew has of course spotted it long ago, and the officers’ mess is brought into ridicule.

On the bridge I often talk to the watch officers.

I ask them what we would do under today’s weather conditions to dodge a suddenly approaching destroyer, when we would have to today if a plane approached, when we would remain surfaced?

Under what conditions do we attack and from what side, etc.? With the aid of the chart I discuss the situation with them and let them offer suggestions.

They must be positive suggestions dictated by an aggressive spirit however, for I am scared enough myself and in that I don’t need help from anybody else.

Naturally, the officers must be left alone in their mess often enough to give them time to grumble about the captain.

To be sure, the meals are taken together, however, in a decent looking uniform and on a white or at least tolerably white bed sheet for a tablecloth. Also the daily "Doppelkopf" (card game), or whatever makes for pleasant conviviality, must not be forgotten. It is also pleasant to see a book make the rounds which one can discuss afterwards.

My experiences with midshipmen are good.

In the beginning they are sometimes still very young and understand of course practically nothing about life on a submarine. At first I had to think about where to put them. There was no room in the officers’ quarters, and neither did I want to put them into the petty officers’ quarters, so I put them into the bow compartment. I did this first because it is the only way to learn from the bottom up how life is conducted on board, and second because it has been my experience that they will know more than the men within a fairly short time.

Naturally they are invited to the officers’ mess now and then to eat and play cards or for conversation. But otherwise I intentionally assign them more duties than other crew members. During their off-duty hours they have to calculate reckonings, make trim calculations, or receive instructions so that the men can only say: "To be a midshipman is not really as wonderful as it looks in the movies. They really have to work if they want to get somewhere."

The result of this treatment was that the midshipman knew something, were efficient, and I liked to have them on my missions.

It is common knowledge that when depth charges start to explode everybody looks to the officers. I had an officer who had such a dry sense of humor and was so calm that he fell sound asleep during a depth charge attack.

He only woke up when the instruments started to fall on his head. Since this was his off-duty period, he actually went right back to sleep and only mumbled something about "turbulent times". When we surfaced and found ourselves in a mine field, I asked him whether he thought we should keep more starboard or port. He gave me an honest answer: "It doesn’t matter; if we wake up tomorrow we have steered right."

That was not impertinence; it fit his soldier temperament.

I am not talking here about the technical maintenance of the ship but about the trifles which it pays to heed.

Next to the officer, the radio operator carries the main responsibility. He sits at the hydrophones and hears the destroyer long before the crew knows anything about it. I forbid him to report the destroyer and her movements to me out loud. Each message is brought to me by a runner, who is a calm man and reports it to me n a low voice. The word destroyer is never mentioned, instead the term "small vessel" is used so that some men do not become unnecessarily excited. The free watch must be induced to go to bed and sleep.

One must see to it that they actually breath through the potash cartridges; naturally this includes also the officers off duty, particularly because it is uncomfortable.

After everything has been prepared, it is a good time for the captain to go to bed. That makes the crew happy and the men begin to think that things are only half as bad as they seem. And I go through the ship and tell them all the things we are going to do to get the enemy; this is very important and must be done whenever possible.

The 1st watch officer should be the liaison man between the crew and the captain.

This is not always easy for a young officer, especially with petty officers of the same age.

I help him with advice. Only very few young officers can afford to address their men by their first name. That is by no means always necessary to gain their confidence. Since the chief engineer does not stand watch, he must make special efforts to hold frequent bull sessions with his men in order to establish a closer relationship.

The officers must be inventive in order to keep up the men’s enthusiasm, particularly on such long trips. I do not arrange everything that should be done during the off-duty hours myself, but call the officers and men together and tell them: "See to it that we get something organized again. Perhaps we could do this or that, this way or that way.", and I add some suggestions but remain in the background and let the men do the rest.

Chess and skat tournaments are easy to arrange.

The score of each round is announced over the loud-speaker or through the ship’s paper. The first couple of times everybody is enthusiastic, but later that becomes boring. Too, and you have to think up something new again.

There are the celebrations and holidays, which can be arranged in a nice manner. At Christmas time candles or fir wreaths made of twisted towels and green colored toilet paper were lit in every room.

Christmas baking lasted for two weeks, and everybody was permitted to nibble a little just like at home.

On Christmas Eve a home-made Santa Claus, who wears only a bed sheet in the tropics, stands in the festively decorated bow compartment and presents every man with some candy and a book with a dedication.

All this, of course, is accompanied with appropriate verses and phrases. We sang Christmas carols and the captain gave a Christmas speech.

After the celebration we ate supper on the gaily decorated tables. The officers’ mess was dissolved and the officers ate with the men.

There is nothing new to write about the ceremony when crossing the equator. It is prepared long in advance and can be arranged quite well despite the increased danger from air attack, though only in a limited way. The educational value of this ceremony, if it is rough enough, should not be underestimated. I am of the opinion that young men should experience once in their lives how much a healthy body can endure; the captain’s only duty is to see that the rough play does not degenerate into sadism.

On a man’s birthday the "Birthday Serenade" by "our" Paul Linke sounds over the loud-speaker. The captain and the officers appear in the control room with the can of fruit, a cake, and a bottle of cognac, and everybody gets a sip to celebrate the day. The "Birthday Serenade" is played until the ceremony is over. We say many other things on board with music, too. The off-duty watch officer will know that the ship is diving when they hear the diving march: "We’ll do it all right, we’ll do it all right, we’ll get the thing done yet." (Wir schaffen ea schon, wir schaffen es schon, wir werden das Ding schon dreb’n"), which we play for the chief engineer while he is regulating the trim.

When we are about to surface we signal the watch to get ready with the march "Today we shove off into the blue sea" ("Heut stechen vir ins blaue Meer").

If we sight whales, or even a dead whale floating around with an enormous oil trail, or life boats, or if there is a thunderstorm, or when a St. Elmo’s light or an aurora borealis can be seen, the crew is bailed topside one by one, if possible, to let them share the experience.

All these things are trifles, of course, one can forget about them or do them in an altogether different way.

However, there can be no doubt that on the whole they do affect the life and the spirit aboard.

The men must know what they are fighting for and must be eager to risk their lives for it. It is necessary to get rid of a certain passive philosophy in some of the men.

On Sunday I sometimes dive and hold muster under water to tell them something about the Reich, and the centuries old struggle for it, and about the greatest men of our history.

On the Fuehrer’s birthday I tell them something about his life and about my visit to Fuehrer Headquarters.

Another time I tell them about racial and population problems, all from the viewpoint of the struggle for the realization of the Reich. I talk to the petty officers separately about women and other subjects which can be more easily discussed with them than with the entire crew. I have the officers hold lectures about subjects they are interested in. The chief engineer, for instance, talks about coal as a raw material; an officer of the watch about the Atlantic, its climate and fauna, about the Gulf Stream, flying fishes, and the trade winds - all things which belong to the general education of a seaman.

According to orders, we only avoid talking about religion. We speak about Germany, the Fuehrer and his National Socialist movement.

Such lectures are very effective to fill out spare time. If one has introduced the men to something in their own language they will often talk about it for days, for the submarine man spends a large part of his spare time on his bunk shooting the breeze with his shipmates.

The men are also encouraged to read good books, and they have voluntarily read books by Beumelburg, Jelusich, and other historical writers. This or that problem "casually" brought up in the bow compartment, and the ensuing discussion, can also arouse the interest for good books. Of course, to influence them that way the officers have to sit down with their men for lengthy conversations. An officer’s entrance should not suddenly interrupt the men’s conversation; on the contrary, they should be glad to be able to talk to an older comrade about things that are not yet clear to them.

We had on board the volume of the 1933 issues of the illustrated news magazine "Die Wochenschau", a very good paper, which still showed in its first number of January 1933 many pictures of Jews.

The crew was at that time on the average only ten years old, and had never experienced anything like that.

Then came the day of the assumption of power, the Reichstag fire, the day of Potsdam, the super highways, the Reich Labor Service, etc. The men were surprised about many of these pictures, because they could not imagine that there had been a time in Germany when all these things to which we are now accustomed were still being fought for. We hung pictures from this paper in our "show window" duty roster, and there were always interested spectators crowding around.

To the right and left were added comments in red and blue pencil.

During long missions we also hold classes for the men.

I set loose curricula to which the officers and petty officers can adhere. Of course, it is impossible to make exact plans on an enemy mission.

Every watch officer holds classes for the men of his own watch on subjects which every seaman should but unfortunately doesn’t know. About wind and waves, flags and insignia, plotting and chart reading, etc. As is customary, we also have a ship’s paper.

In the first section it brings short excerpts from the political news. I feel that this part is so important that I have always written it myself.

The second part is for local news and contains humorous descriptions of the events of the last few days.

Especially appreciated were the "Special Submarine News" which in combination with the radio news service kept us so well informed about the political situation that after seven and one half months we knew perhaps more about it than the people at home, who are distracted from a larger perspective by the multitude of small things in everyday life.

Before the start of a mission it is important to see to it that enough books come on board. The library should consist of an intelligent mixture of good and lighter books, for a sailor likes to read when he lies on his bunk.

And since books can influence a man very strongly, the reading material becomes the captain’s responsibility. Another detail must be mentioned in this connotation.

It is practical to construct, with means available on board, little reading lamps for all cots in the crew quarters so that the men can readily read fairly comfortably.

After all, one cannot expect them to spend their spare time, too, in the more or less bumpy forecastle, where the lights are none too good for reading; this is sometimes not possible in any case, since torpedoes are often stowed there. Furthermore, the men have stood on their feet long enough during the watch, and they want to lie down comfortably.

No matter how many records there are on board, during a long mission they soon become boring. Therefore I permit only the one hour of music every day.

Each compartment, and every man on his birthday gets a chance to arrange a program, so that every taste is satisfied. For this purpose I divide the records into several groups. Good but difficult music which is hard to understand and cannot be played on board, good and serious, but understandable music, like the Egmont Overture, Rienzi, the Prelude by Liszt, and so forth. One of these must be played every day at the beginning of the concert.

A large part of the program consists of good music that is easy to understand, taken mostly from German operettas.

The rest of the program is filled with pleasant and easily understood music. I always see to it that not too many sentimental songs are played, since they often do not fit into a system which is to make the men tough.

Our men have a much greater appreciation of German culture than is generally realized. If, for instance, we wanted to play Mozart’s "Kleine Nachtmusik", the first officer of the watch told the men in a few words over the loud-speaker something about the piece, and the men really did listen to it with a little more appreciation. Naturally, it is impossible as well as unnecessary to persuade the men to like only serious music, but now and then it must be possible to lift them above their everyday life.

In areas where the danger of air attack was not so serious, the off-duty watch sang at night in the bow compartment.

They sang mostly seamen’s songs which before the war had also been sung on the sailing training ships of the Navy.
 

I stressed that, for if we seamen don’t sing typical seamen’s songs, who else in the Navy or at home would do so?

After all we do not need too many marching songs since the Navy does not march very much.

I have talked about skat and chess tournaments.

We also arranged other competitions, singing for instance. Everyone had to sing a song through the microphone, and the entire crew gave grades like in school. The first prize was a free watch which the captain had to take over.

The second prize for a seaman was to start the Diesel engine, or for a machinist to come to the bridge and direct the ship instead of the captain. We also arranged a real strength exhibition like in the Olympic Games, complete with radio reporting and close-packed spectators. A heavy weight was attached to the end of a rope hanging from a stick fifty centimeters long. This weight had to be lifted by turning the stick until the rope was completely wound around it.

Whoever could raise and lower the weight more often was the winner. I tell you these things in such detail only to show you that there is an infinite variety of possibilities on board to arrange an hour of fun now and then for the crew. We also held a lying contest, and everybody had to tell the story over the loud-speaker that he would tell at home at his father’s beer table, at least as exaggerated as Muenchausen.

We got some really wonderful tall stories, some of them fit to print.

To make the men remember the ship’s doctor’s instructions on hygiene we arranged a poetry competition. Everyone had to compose four to eight line verses which expressed in a humorous way what the doctor had said. We also held a drawing contest. The entries had to be drawings of funny incidents on board.

Those who could not draw very well could explain their funny figures with a few words. A good idea and a sharp wit counted more than the ability to draw.

All entries, of course, were put into the "show window". Furthermore, books of general educational value are also popular on board.

Pamphlets with vocational instruction and particularly maps and reference books are studied. As the time passes the most incredible questions arise.

Somebody asks whether cows give more milk if a radio is played often in their vicinity; whether it is true that the holes in cheese are made with compressed air; or someone maintains that cannot hear the thunder during a thunderstorm at sea. Some believe that horse meat tastes bad because horses have no kidneys and sweat everything through the ribs. Inn such cases reference books have to be consulted to settle the arguments.

It goes without saying that we have maps on the wall which show our fronts. They hang near the bulletin board where the ship’s paper is displayed, and next to the duty roster which we use as a show window to exhibit particularly interesting pictures, types of warships, special announcements, or newspapers.

Handicraft is also popular and the men are quite skillful, but it is not as simple on board a submarine as the book says it is.

I have almost never succeeded in getting the necessary materials on board. The proper wood for carving is especially scarce. The men in the engine room have the advantage in that respect, for some of the waste materials from the shipyard are quite useful.

I have mentioned here a number of general examples.

They are meant merely to serve as suggestions, and can either be followed or changed according to temperament.

One thing is clear, though: The captain must be concerned about his men and take care of them. It is not enough to issue orders and to punish a man now and then for noncompliance.

Discipline and spartan training in the little routines of everyday are most important to the captain if he wants to be successful. But this is already well known, and therefore I will not go into further details.

Beyond this, however, it must be demanded that the crew live for the ship, and gladly follow the captain.

And now I wish to show on the basis of a few failures which I have experienced that there are situations which cannot be mastered simply by orders and obedience. In such cases the captain is dependent on the fact that he and the crew have their hearts set on the same thing.

We had been at sea for a hundred days and everything had clicked. Suddenly we had to crash dive, but we could not submerge. I looked at the manometer, but it was hardly moving. I thought: "Well, it is always that way: when you are in a hurry it seems that the boat sinks particularly slowly".

I ordered a check to find the source of the defect and discovered that the air vent

in the Diesel engine compartment would not open.

What had happened after everything had gone smoothly a hundred times? While surfacing a second class petty officer had checked the vent with a valve pin, but had forgotten to pull it out again as he should have done.

During the crash dive the air vent stayed shut. The man who stood by on that post only looked at his indicator panel, and when he heard a click he was satisfied and reported: "Air vent open". I ordered the air vent opened by hand, but that takes too long, and I surfaced to clear the situation. But just as I opened the conning tower hatch the air vent opened and the ship submerged again. I, the captain, had nearly fouled things up. We kept going down and were unable to blow out the negative buoyancy quick diving tank.

That valve was always hard to turn, and we needed a wrench, which was always fastened to a rope so that it would be ready at the right time. But on that day of all days it was missing. We sank rapidly. Then we started to blow the tanks. After a few minutes we noticed that the pump was not sucking properly. The men in the trim corner had not paid close attention.

When, after cruising underwater for some time, we wanted to pump the Diesel bilges, that pump also failed to work properly. It had gradually accumulated all the pants buttons and rags which the crew of the bow compartment had dropped into the bilges. You just can’t relax in making sure that all duties at sea are performed properly.

After a particularly long period in the shipyard far more than a third of my crew were new men, especially among the ratings.

The first steamer which I spotted during that mission was a particularly fat morsel, proceeding at high speed.

After a long chase we maneuvered into attack position at night and I said to the 1st officer of the watch, who was on his first cruise: "Now aim the first shot at the foremast and the second shot calmly at the aftermast". This watch officer wanted to make a particularly good job of it and said: "Tube I fire!" so calmly and quietly that the fire control man could not hear it in the coning tower. It did not seem loud enough to me, either, and I told him to order the second shot louder.

He did so then, but the fire control man had forgotten to remove the safety pin before firing, and the second shot did not go off either. He was new on board and so was the torpedo mate, therefore the communication through the speaking tube did not function the way it had been practiced before. Immediately I ordered a switch over to the remaining two tubes and fired them at the steamer.

However the distance had become very short. The tin fish were out, but the steamer had seen us and was turning toward us. We were about to be rammed and the shots had missed!

I wanted to turn hard to port and ordered: "Hard left, starboard engine full speed ahead! Port engine full speed astern!", but our helmsman turned the rudder at first to starboard and I had to correct him, so that the boat took a while to start turning.

The machinist mate, an old experienced hand, started the port Diesel engine at full speed astern and thought that the new mate was confused because his starboard Diesel engine was now running at full speed ahead.

He jumped to the starboard Diesel engine and switched it into reverse also. Now I stood there with both engines running full speed astern and the rudder in the wrong position. However, we got clear and continued to chase the steamer, but she turned on steam and ran the decisive mile faster than we could. When you finally realize that you have lost her and that the whole thing has been fouled up you feel like crying. But you must never weaken.

One day there was a terrible noise in the middle of the night. We thought of aerial bombs or some similar catastrophe. Instead, the wall of the compensating tank had burst and the air had escaped with a great roar. At the same time the negative buoyancy quick diving tank was damaged and put out of order.

The pressure gauge had been checked but it had not indicated any critical pressure. But it is not only necessary to look at the pressure indicated by the manometer, but also to check whether it is working properly and does not jam at 10 atmospheres overpressure. Or another time we discovered three days after we had left port, when the sun finally broke through the low hanging clouds, that it was in the southeast at noon instead of the south.

The compass seemed absolutely correct, and the chief engineer reported after some time to the captain that the compass was correct and the sun must be in the wrong position.

After several exact reckonings we found that we had steered 30 off our course for three days and had come uncomfortably close to mine fields. But it is always the captain’s fault. I had not bothered to see to it that the gyrocompass was compared with land bearings during our departure.

During one mission I had a very likable chief quartermaster, who, however, had the constant habit of jumping the gun.

When we passed through one of our own mine fields I told him that tomorrow morning at 0300 he should begin zigzagging, because then it would begin to get light and we would have to count on enemy submarines; and I added that tomorrow at 0500 we would change our course from 300 to 290. At 0500 in the morning I came out on the bridge and saw that he had already changed the course without me. What had happened? At 0300 he had started to zigzag and had changed course from 300, and after he had proceeded on this course for some time he confused port with starboard and made the next track to 240; we had been zagging for two hours in the mine area, because for two hours we had deviated 30 from our course.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and it’s annoying to be blown sky high because of such stupidity.

I couldn’t help saying: "If we hit a mine now and blow up, even in heaven I’ll kick you in the butt."

We turned at once and went back on the same course. What good is it for the captain to think while he is being blown up that it is somebody else’s fault after all? No, he should check everything himself before it is too late. Enough bad experiences have been made already.

All such failures can be avoided for the most part. In the final analysis if something goes wrong it is always the captain’s and the officers’ fault. They must know that there are situations in which there can’t be someone standing behind every crewmember to give orders, in which orders may come too late, and in which it is decisive that the men are attached heart and soul to "their boat". I am convinced that many a boat was lost through such trifles, and that many were unsuccessful because of such incalculable and unexpected mishaps.

It is the duty of every captain to have faith in his men; he must want to have faith in them, even if they have disappointed him at one time or another. For beyond this we know for a fact that our young men are thirsting for action with unqualified devotion. This is an important advantage over the Anglo Americans. If our men are led into action united in the national socialist spirit with revolutionary ardor, then they will always follow gladly on new assignments and to new attacks. We must only show them respect and we must like them.