PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) spent time working for the ABWEHR (the German Secret Service) during WW II and he has information that is known to a mere handful of people. He gives this secret information especially to SHARKHUNTERS. Here he tells us:

Even though I was for various time periods and several special assignments attached to the Abwehr, I actually was and remained a regular naval officer/person even during those assignments. U-Boat Command was very much against any permanent transfer, except in cases of literally disability due to either wounds, injuries from accidents or medical disability to continue to serve and tolerate further submarine service as a consequence.

Actually, I originally did slide into a temporary Abwehr connected position, because I was recovering from a strafing wound, spoke Spanish and was frankly bored to tears to get bombed constantly in the officer’s mess with the resulting inane conversations that were so often like broken records and entirely predictable.

A substantial per centage of the Organization Todt workers that had been collected to construct the U-Boat pens in western France, apart from French laborers of course, were ‘Republican’ Spaniards that had crossed into France when the Spanish Civil War ended in the spring of 1939 and been semi-interned by French originally and held in camps without permission to do work of any sort except in the underground economy and on the sly to grab some coin somehow. Most of these Spaniards were skilled construction workmen whom the Organization Todt immediately employed joyfully. However, there were considerable fears that these left wing type of laborers would somehow sabotage the construction of the U-Boat pens.

There were insufficient Spanish speakers available, as most of these Spaniards hardly spoke any French at all, much less German of course, and Admiral Wilhelm F. Canaris was aware that I spoke fluent Spanish and had lived as a child with my parents in Madrid.

The U-Boat pen areas thus were required to be security covered and here I was recovering and having a good time, so they grabbed me. The Security A-5 Abwehr positions were generally unpopular with active duty officers and most were filled with older officers who had been recalled to the Navy and usually had served in the First World War and since then had earned their living in civilian occupations.

I never once had any problems with these Spaniards or for that matter, with the French workers either as they followed instructions faithfully, regardless of their personal political sentiments, as they simply needed the money and could not find other ways to earn much of anything, including on the Black Market.

Only starting in late 1943 did these ‘Republicans’ manage to get entry into black market and smuggling organizations along the French-Spanish border when things developed there steadily growing and building up gradually. I was also roped in as embassy courier to Madrid and Lisbon in between, once no incidents and problems occurred with these Spaniards and thus one thing led to another after I got shot up a bit more lateron.

Then came the new and baffling developments of the radar and electronic war including Direction Finding with centimeter waves and I was somehow pushed into those areas that were often almost incomprehensible to the older captain and admirals, many of them still dreaming of battleships, just like the ‘Gun Club’ in the American Navy Command in Washington DC. These higher ranked folks preferred larger ships where they would be able to put musical bands on the decks and often looked down, if not disdained, small ships regardless if minesweepers or submarines being usually too senior anyway for such ‘insignificant’ commands.

As you know, one thing turns into the other, like a couple of turning wheels that do support one another and where eventually the small ones rotate the big ones somehow. Like I said, most fellows between patrols or sea duty of one kind or another, preferred to have a good time on cheap drinks and in the various navy establishments but after tasting and testing them, I got fed up, bored with the mindless repetition of talk and things and looked for other ways to spend the time and utilize different kind of opportunities, even if that called for effort and giving up ‘leisure’ time to do so. I also enjoyed the constantly required travel and the possibilities that were available thereby.

I never had a strong stomach and perhaps this accounted for my personal dislike of getting smashed and being exposed to the very same jack-jack day after day where it seemed one was literally caught in a revolving door going around in circles without ever getting anywhere. I found investigative Abwehr work that offered frequently a choice of assignments to be a lot more interesting and being by nature a somewhat curious person, preferred the exercise of independent judgment and dealing with often rather peculiar people to the increasing demand for spit and polish or eventually even parades, sing-songs and being asked to make speeches to the enlisted men who in turn detested such tiresome waste of their limited free time very strongly. With other words, I was not ordered or drafted into Abwehr assignments – it just literally happened gradually and eventually.

I almost became the bone of contention between U-Boat Command and Abwehr due to the prevailing circumstances, not by my own choice, until the break through of the American Armies at Arromanches in the summer of 1944 literally took care of that situation and front experienced submarine officers were grabbed without any delay, for sea duty again. I also liked the fact that often the wearing of civilian clothes was not only permitted, but even essential and required for such jobs.

Volunteerism

I would like to comment on what was said by REINHARD HARDEGEN (102-LIFE-1985) that the claim that all U-Boat men and officers were volunteers is indeed incorrect. While especially from 1935 to 1940 most volunteered for submarine training and assignments for many reasons, lateron officers were generally assigned if they were fit to serve on U-Boats regardless of their personal choice, while enlisted men and petty officers were often more or less pressured to do so.

A lot of ‘volunteers’ were fed up to the teeth about the prevalent conditions aboard the bigger ships that for practical purposes were actually nothing else but ‘floating barracks’ where the individual was basically at best, some number amongst many with constant schedules of ship cleaning, picking rust and repainting the ship endlessly. Individuality was considered almost dangerous and certainly highly undesirable, if not even suspect. Generally the cumbersome daily routine, especially while in port, rather than at sea as was the case most of the time, was in many ways deadening for spirited chaps that resented the drill and conformity required and often strongly enforced.

Thus, men who wanted to get away from that sort of ‘organized activity’ signed up for the submarine service or requested transfers to small ships, often ending up unintentionally on U-Boats that way. Also U-Boats were enveloped in tight secrecy and heavily propagandized as very glamorous and thus desirable assignments for the somewhat more adventurous types as well as those more ambitious fellows who were baited with faster promotion possibilities and similar enticements including the much better rations furnished U-Boat tripulations compared to large ships, not to speak of port or land assignments.

Now officers naturally were required and expected to accept any assignment that the Navy Personnel Bureau handed to them, provided they were physically able to handle it and hopefully had the experience and capability for it, or at least hopefully grew into the requirements and demands of the position sooner or later. From 1942, when a shortage of subaltern officers and technical specialists developed, these were often literally combed out from other navy units and commands and automatically transferred to submarine training and assignments. Reinhard Hardegen no doubt means that former originally navy officers that had been given air service, mostly as observers/navigators rather than pilots in the overwater reconnaissance squadrons that had initially been navy connected, but were lateron confiscated by Fatman Göring under his slogan: “Everything that flies belongs to me!”

Consequently they were replaced by Luftwaffe staff as such newly trained staff officers became available and returned to the Kriegsmarine in batches. In turn, those suitable for submarine service and command were almost automatically so assigned and turned over to U-Boat Command promptly. Some were enticed with officers rank and became captains of U-Boats quickly, with only minimum training and in many cases, depending on seniority, no previous experience as watch officers on front U-Boats. Some were instead placed on U-Boats as Commander’s understudies called ‘Kommandanten Schüler’ (loosely translated as ‘Commander in Training’) in order to at least somewhat familiarize themselves with U-Boat procedures and patrol requirements without definite duties, standing watches etc.

EDITOR NOTE – HARDEGEN was Kommandanten Schüler for two war patrols aboard U-124 (the Edelweißboot) under WILHELM SCHULZ (162-+-1986).

Like always when a group of men are engaged, some tend to become involved more than others and are more eager to learn the facts of life likewise. As a general rule, these officers were not exactly popular captains, particularly with front experienced and well trained crews. In fact, they were usually called jokingly ‘Luftkutscher’ or ‘Aircoach drivers’ because many of these wary men questioned their comparative lack of security experience and felt these officers somehow still imagined themselves operating an aircraft instead of a comparatively slow U-Boat. Consequently the general scuttlebutt was that they were chance takers and medal grabbers rather than captains with common sense, slick determination and consideration of the long term survival interests of their men. But naturally individual differences existed amongst them, like in any bunch of people and so some performed much more ‘satisfactorily’ than others apart, of course, from matters like luck, geographical area of operation and physical stamina and so.