Commander Norden: Part 1 (# 118)

The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence operated a secret organization known as the ‘Special Warfare Branch’. Its sole mission was to broadcast propaganda at the German U-Boat fleet. From February 1943 to May 1945 the voice of ‘Fregattenkapitän Robert Lee Norden’ was heard over numerous radio frequencies by U-Boats at sea, in their bases in Germany and its occupied countries, by the German High Command and German people all over Europe.

The intelligence which fueled this propaganda war came partly from gossip and personal bits of information contained in mail for German naval POW’s, which was intercepted at the censor station before being passed on. Other information came from naval prisoners of war going through a ‘processing’ center at Fort Hunt, near Washington DC. In this way, Special Warfare compiled dossiers of information on scores of U-Boat officers. That the information was inaccurate or simply untrue did not bother the propagandists, whose goal was disinformation.

Special Warfare had been compiling information on Kplt Heinz-Eberhard Müller, a veteran officer then in command of U-662. In July 1943, U-Müller was enroute to an operating station off the coast of So. America. Like many of the U-Bootfahrern, Müller & his men often tuned to the broadcasts by ‘Fregattekapitän Norden’.

According to intelligence received by OP-16-W; “His officers who were on watch would be listening to the radio. As soon as it was announced that Commander Norden was about to speak, they would call up to Müller on the conning tower that ‘Bob’ was about to go on the air. They never missed the Norden talk if they could avoid it.”

Shortly after 0600 on Wednesday, 21 July, a U.S. Navy PBY CATALINA flying boat from Patrol Squadron 94 based at Recife, spotted U-662 off the coast of French Guiana. As the PBY approached from the submarine’s stern in a long glide, the U-Boat’s deck crew opened fire but the cannons jammed. The plane strafed the submarine, then dropped three bombs. Two exploded directly against the starboard saddle tanks, tearing a hole in the hull and setting off an explosion in the control room.

U-662’s radio operator was able to get off an emergency message before the boat filled and sank, stern first, about 300 miles east of the notorious Devil’s Island convict camp.

The PBY circled and dropped two life rafts containing emergency rations. Five survivors climbed aboard, dragging their commanding officer in after them. He had broken both arms and one leg. One seaman died within a few hours. Kplt Müller, Seamen 1st Class Grauff and Marx, and Seaman 2nd Class Leubke were rescued on 6 August 1943 by the patrol vessel SIREN.

Leubke died of exhaustion and seawater poisoning shortly after reaching a military hospital in Miami, Florida. Grauff & Marx were treated, then sent to the POW processing center at Fort Hunt, Virginia. Kplt Müller was flown immediately to the U.S. Army hospital at Fort George Meade, Maryland, about 20 miles north of Washington, DC.

One afternoon during his recuperation he asked an Army medic if he might meet his personal friend, Commander Robert Norden. A call to the Navy Department caused some consternation because there was no telephone listing for the fictitious ‘Commander Norden’. Müller repeated his request some days later to two naval officers visiting the hospital who, not coincidentally, were attached to the POW interrogations unit at Fort Hunt. They said they would try to arrange a visit.

Existing documents at the National Archives do not say whether Albrecht and Müller met in private or with witnesses. However Albrecht recalled that the two-hour meeting was informal, polite and correct as befitting one naval officer conversing with another, albeit an enemy.

Both understood of course, that the Geneva Convention prohibited interrogation of an injured officer. Later LCDR Albrecht wrote that he felt the casual nature of their ‘chat’ did not contravene regulations. Further, the German officer seemed to want to speak with someone who was an equal, about conditions at sea. What really impressed the U-Boat officer was how quickly and accurately Commander Norden reported U-Boat crew losses.

When he was able to travel, Kplt. Müller was transferred to the huge POW Camp Papago, near Phoenix, Arizona.

Special Warfare meanwhile, put together two programs which dealt with the sinking of U-662. Commander Norden used the incident to show the disadvantage U-Boats faced against aircraft. The first program, broadcast on Christmas Day 1943, asked:

‘In der unendtlichen Weite des Ozeans trafen die Idassischen Gegner des modernen Unterseebootkrieges aufeinander: Ein Flugzeug gegen ein deutschen Unterseeboot. Hierbei wurde die unglueckslige Doenitzsche Taktik auf die entscheidende Probe gestellt. wer wird den Sieg davontragen? Das Flugzeug oder das Unterseeboot?’

(In the vast expanses of the ocean the classic opponents of modern submarine warfare met in battle: an airplane against a German U-Boat. At this meeting the unfortunate Dönitz tactics were put to proof. Who will emerge victorious? The airplane or the U-Boat?)

A follow-up program described the survivors’ ordeal and treatment given the ‘lucky’ U-662 Captain. ‘It is always the same story!’ Norden broadcast in his perfect but American-accented German. ‘When a submarine is sunk by an airplane, then it is only a matter of luck if survivors are found and rescued.’

Heinz-Eberhard Müller was repatriated and was sent home in January 1944 on board the diplomatic exchange ship GRIPSHOLM. It is likely that he was shown a transcript of Commander Norden’s broadcasts about him, or he may have heard them on the magnetic tape recording machines newly developed by German engineers.

After his return to duty, Müller wrote Kplt Hans Steinert, a friend still interned at Camp Papago, Arizona. Like all correspondence to POWs, before being sent on, Müller’s letter of 14 March 1944 was intercepted by Special Warfare, which felt that German Naval propaganda specialists had helped him to ‘write’ it.

Müller went into detail about his trip home:

‘In New York and while awaiting the departure of the ship, I was locked up in a ward for the insane in the hospital there. Thank God it lasted for only two days, but it was sufficient to lend the final touch to the impression of this center of culture which I took home with me.’

Müller’s ‘personal’ letter had several paragraphs about the ’fantastic maintenance of spirit on the part of the POWs which taught the English and Canadians to respect their enemy’.

The Kapitänleutnant even had a few words for his ‘personal friend’ Commander Norden: ‘If you should ever have the privilege of a visit from my personal friend, Mr. Robert Norden, then please tell him that rarely have I heard such a fantastic exaggeration of a harmless episode, as his tale about the sinking of my boat. Grimm’s Fairy Tales are, by comparison, the work of an amateur. And with his story he accomplished quite the contrary to what he intended. His naive, conceited notion that he is able to compel OKM by means of his rantings to publish casualty lists was greeted with the same derisive laughter in all quarters, that was accorded his touching story about myself. He would do much better to tell his fighting colleagues at the front hereafter to throw survivors life rafts without provisions.’

Müller’s reference to publishing casualty lists is, in itself, an interesting admission. Special Warfare had been keeping a log on all known U-Boat losses. If they knew the name of the Commanding Officer and had compiled information on him, Norden would broadcast a lament to his loss, often citing personal details of his life, family and children; and naval career now cut short in an ‘iron coffin’ lying at the bottom of the ocean. Often, on these recorded broadcasts, Albrecht would give a heavy sigh, concluding: ‘U-Boats can be mass-produced. Good commanders cannot.’

There was a curious post-war footnote to the Müller-Norden encounter. Ladislas Farrago, one of the Special Warfare researchers, was traveling in Europe in 1976 doing research for a book. He arranged to meet with Herr Müller. ‘When we met,’ Farrago wrote, ‘I tried to be friendly. But he was haughty and actually abusive.’ Müller died in March, 1988.

Many thanks to J. WANDRES for this excellent piece of research.

Excerpted exclusively for KTB from THE NORDEN BROADCASTS: America’s Ace in the Hole, by J. Wandres. Copyright. All rights reserved.