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:

NOTE – This is not the regular page from PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987). This is a special dispatch which needs to be published now. His regular page follows further on.

“Thanks for the text prepared on behalf of Mr König (VOLKMAR KÖNIG 5428-1997) with respect to PoW activities and events in Canada. I do not really know exactly what transpires in the Canadian PoW Camps, as I was not there. Seemingly, Mr. König is not aware of the first attempt that involved U-262 (Heinz Franke), which I had been informed about and was somewhat involved with certain informational aspects. There can’t be any question that the Ireland Code, already used in WW I and never really changed to any extent, was broken and read by the British as well as the Canadians too. They permitted the letters to go out, to stay on top!

What Mr. Volkmar König evidently refers to is the second attempt, which involved U-536 under Rolf Schauenburg, Crew 1934, which was not successful either. U-536 got sunk thereafter on 20 November 1943 and Schauenburg became a PoW too. The single separate escape König evidently, refers to Wolfgang Heyda, who had been the Commander of U-434, sunk on 18 Dec. 1941, the escape with a painters type lift chair. Heyda got sunk on the same convoy where Bertl Endrass was lost too, with U-567.

Perhaps Schauenburg ended up in the name PoW camp later on as König or part of the crew of U-536, like the I.W.O. who might have been a classmate of 39-A or 39-B, if I remember correctly. That is all I care to say about this matter.”

1. U-193

You covered her Commander rather briefly. Maybe you don’t have more information available. Nonetheless, this ought to be amplified and added for a number of reasons! First – Hans Paukstadt surely requires a lot more personal coverage, even if you have probably never met him, as he is gone Upstairs already, considering he was born in 1906! Paukstadt, Crew 1926, was one of the original twelve Oberleutnants assigned in the fall of 1935 to the newly created U-Boat Command. These 1w officers were trained as the initial commanders of the first 12 Type II U-Boats, the coastal type known as Einbäume or Canoes! The other 11 Leutnants were:

Harald Gross, crew 1925 lost with U-53 on 23 February 1940;
H-G Looff, Crew 1925, lost with U-122 on 22 June 1940;
Hans Eckermann, Crew 1925 who survived the war;
Kurt Freiwald, Crew 1925 who survived the war;

Freiwald was later Commander of U-181 succeeding Lüth and was the only officer who underwent Prospective Commander’s Training courses – twice, voluntarily, before he took over U-181 because he had been away from the sea several years then as adjutant of Großadmiral Erich Raeder as well as briefly for Karl Dönitz when Dönitz succeeded Raeder on 30 January 1942 as Chief Naval Commander. While there were a number of officers who repeated these qualifying courses, they did not do so voluntarily but because they were unable to pass them the first time! Freiwald became a Rear Admiral in the German Bundsmarine years later.

Others include:
Werner Fresdorf, Crew 1927, probably the brightest & youngest;
Werner von Schmidt, Crew 1926;
Hans-Gerrit von Stockhausen, Crew of 1926;
Heinz Beduhn, Crew 1926;
Viktor Schütze, Crew 1925;
Victor Oehrn, Crew 1927;
Hans-Rudolf Rösing, Crew 1924

Fresdorf had operational disagreements with (then) Kapitän Dönitz who was at that time, FdU (Commander of Submarines) and so was transferred from Commander of U-17 to Torpedo Specialist of the U-Boat Command and later, to the Naval High Command where he was U-Boat Staff Director – where he immediately again got into arguments with Dönitz regarding operational & training questions. Fresdorf died in a plane crash when he had visited the Munsterlager Training Camp on 9 October 1939.

Von Schmidt commanded several U-Boats and had a number of staff positions, he commanded U-116 (Type X-B) and was Chief of UAK in Kiel at the end of the war.

Von Stockhausen had several U-Boat commands and earned the Knights Cross, and became Commander of U-Boat Training Flotillas. He was killed in a car crash in Berlin 15 January 1943.

Beduhn also commanded several U-Boats including U-23 and U-25 and he was also Commander of the 21st U-Boat Flotilla. He was killed when U-25 was sunk 3 August 1940.

Schütze commanded several boats, including U-25 and U-103, was Commander of the 2nd U-Boat Flotilla in Lorient and then became head of the U-Boat training Command in charge of all training flotillas in the Baltic. He was decorated with the Knights Cross with Oak Leaf, and he survived the war.

Oehrn commanded U-14 before the war and became Senior Staff Officer of the U-Boat Command, then he commanded U-37 where he was awarded the Knights Cross, then moved to the Mediterranean U-Boat Command. From there he was transferred to Rommel’s Afrika Korps Command as liaison Sea Transport Officer. He was seriously wounded and became a PoW in Egypt. After he recovered, he was exchanged as a wounded PoW in October 1943. When he returned to Germany, he held various staff positions for special projects at U-Boat Command.

Finally there was Hans-Rudolf Rösing, Crew 1924, who reportedly is still alive in Germany though born in 1905! In Vietnam, he would have been ‘razed’ no doubt somewhere along the line. But, the ‘Echo of Berlin’, as Rösing was called, survived the war as he was careful and protective of himself, making others take the jump seat instead! I do not care to say anything else about Rösing!

EDITOR NOTE – Yes, Hans-Rudolf Rösing, retired RADM of the Bundsmarine at age 98, is still living in Germany. He was also called “His Master’s Voice” after the dog on the emblem of the RCA Victor recording machines. It would be very difficult to find any U-Bootfahrer who had anything good to say about Rösing. They though of his arrogant, inflexible and worst of all – they believe that he sent countless U-Boats to their doom with his stupid and inflexible (and incorrect) orders. Several U-Boat officers including OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985), a man for whom I had the greatest respect, told us some facts about Rösing that will shed a new light on some of the huge losses – but not at this time.

Pauckstadt was one of this group known as the ‘Twelve Apostles’ before the war. Their training was begun at the “Anti-Submarine Training School” which was actually a cover-up for U-Boat Training, before the ‘rebirth’ of the German U-Boats was official. He commanded U-18 and U-12, then the Type VII-A boats U-34 and U-30 before the war. He served aboard the training sailing ship GORCH FOCK as the Officer Candidates Director. From August 1938 through September 1942, he served in several different U-Boat Command Staff positions then became the commander of the 5th U-Boat Flotilla in Kiel for three months before commissioning U-193 as her Skipper.

It was pointed out in KTB #165, he was transferred to Lorient as Commander of the 2nd U-Boat Flotilla there. It was also mentioned about the sinking of the tank TOUCHET of 10,172 tons and I would like to add that this single sinking placed Hans Pauckstadt in position #309 of the commanders confirmed sinking list!!

He was relieved as Commander of U-193 early in March 1944 although on paper he remained until the 30th of March but was actually on home leave the last three weeks of that time Therefore, Pauckstatd became Commander of the 8th U-Boat Transit Flotilla in Danzig, in the Baltic, until January 1945 when Pauckstadt became the head of the 1st U.A.A. which was a U-Boat holding personnel pool command in Plön, Holstein, as the 8th U-Boat Training Flotilla was dissolved. Pauckstadt survived the war and was a very concerned officer and commander, whatever group of men he was in charge of. He was a very down to earth and humane person!

Once Pauckstadt had returned U-193 to Lorient for repair of considerable bomb and combat damage, U-193 was transferred to the 10th U-Boat Flotilla also operating out of Lorient, and then was commanded by Günther Kuhnke, the former Commander of U-28 and U-125. This is important to know with respect to his successor.

This was the political denouncer Oberleutnant der Reserve Dr. Ulrich Abel. He was an old Nazi Party member before getting recalled for naval service in 1939. He was a lawyer by trade and a Low Court Judge as well as a Nazi Party full time official for some time. Abel had been a merchant marine office who lost his job in the depression. Abel became Executive Officer (I.W.O.) of U-154 without prior U-Boat service experience, except the various training courses in the Baltic.

The Commander of U-154 (also new to U-Boat service) was Oskar Kusch, shortly after Abel was assigned to U-154 and Abel was the filer of the political denouncement of Kusch in January 1944, which resulted in his execution by firing squad on the flimsiest hearsay evidence. Nonetheless, Dr. Abel finished the Prospective U-Boat Commander’s training and got assigned as the second Commander of U-193 on 1 April 1944, the same day when U-193 was transferred to the 10th U-Boat Flotilla – because U-Boat High Command wanted to spare Kapitän Ernst Kals the embarrassment to have to deal once more with Abel.

Actually, U-193 was really lost due to undetermined causes; neither British air mines nor bombing in the Bay of Biscay as indicated in the KTB and wrongly assumed for many years. Dr. Niestle feels that U-193 was lost due to a diving technical problem. The comments of one of the old engineering hands at the Keroman U-Boat pens in Lorient said it fittingly: “Good riddance of that bastard Abel. A pity that 58 other good men had to drown with this denouncing pig!”

In KTB #165 on page 41…..the article by ERICH TOPP (118-LIFE-1985) is a bit off the mark and far too politically embellished about U-505 and her crew because the hard facts have been left out almost entirely.

Harald Lange, the last C. O. of U-505 was also an Oberleutnant der Reserve at the time when U-505 left on her last war patrol from Brest on 16 March 1944, due to the rescue of sailors of surface ships lost in a fight with British forces in the Bay of Biscay. Lange was the oldest serving U-Boat Commander of a frontboot. He was also a former merchant marine officer who had made one single war patrol with the Type IX-D1 submarine, U-180, a technical problem U-Boat commanded by Werner Musenberg early in 1943, though this was a rather long war patrol.

EDITOR NOTE – On that patrol, U-180 had transported Indian National leader Subhas Chandras Bose and his assistant Dr. Ibid Hassan, to a rendezvous with a Japanese submarine in the Indian Ocean. Cargo was taken aboard U-180 for the return trip to Germany, and other goods as well as Bose and Hassan were transferred to the I.J.N. boat for the trip to Japan.

U-505 was NOT on the way to West Africa and the South Atlantic, but she had been operating in that area for quite some time and was really on the return section of that war patrol, due to fuel problems.

U-505 had been informed that no refueling would be possible at that period of time because almost all U-tankers and U-supply boats had been sunk. The reason that U-505 had not even seen any ships during more than two months of operations was simple – that due to Ultra reading of the German radio signals, all ships were warned and re-routed and ordered to take course to avoid U-505.

However, I believe that Lange was not sure of that actually, but there were quite a few other more experienced and informed officers who were sure that the Ultra organization read and decoded all U-Boat signals though Karl Dönitz refused to believe this and rejected all evidence submitted to prove it; as it did not suit U-Boat Command’s ideas and expectations based upon the view: “What must not be – cannot be!”

While Lange got a bullet in one of his legs, it would have been a fairly simple and easy matter to have it removed shortly after Lange was made a PoW and transferred into the hospital of the auxiliary aircraft carrier USS GUADALCANAL. However, the doctor handling Lange there, reportedly of Jewish-Polish descent, refused to operate on Lange and the wound became infected that finally another surgeon stepped into the case, but he could only amputate the leg – not save it anymore. PoWs were not always treated as the Geneva Convention, signed by the USA, demanded it!!

One final but important comment regarding Lt. D.R. Ulrich Abel, this made by Harald Jeppener-Haltenhoff, the P-1 Staff officer of Admiral von Friedeburg. He had attended the court martial of Kusch in Kiel in January 1944 as an observer. He said: ‘A totally, pure, incredible political legalistic circus! Even in the worst of Nazi times, there was believed this observation – that the worst bastard in the land, that is and remains, the political denouncer! I would have never expected any naval officer to be such a purely political denouncer of any U-Boat Commander or his superior, not even a reserve officer!’

Thanks PETER. This court martial of Kusch seems a terrible stain on the history. Yes, too bad that 58 other men had to die with Abel.