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:

“In German, a Gimpel is a bird, also called a Dompfaff but in the more popular notion of the somewhat lower classes, if you will, a Gimpel is a sucker who gets taken advantage of by others, usually smarter though he might believe that he is really the smart fellow rather than a smartass!

Considering that you did not know anything about the third ‘agent’ that was originally in that scenario, I would provide you with the details as you have ‘aired’ Gimpel’s ‘adventures’ so detailed and at length. What concerns the chase – the females or vice versa part, there is nothing to add but one of my superiors once admonished me quite seriously,

“Hansen, stay away from the girls while doing a job. They confuse men, limit your ability of judgment and weaken an operator far too much!”

I will say that I did not always heed his suggestions.

…..Keep out of military brothels……..

The second captain had strong opinions that military brothels were a health hazard for soldiers in many cases, especially the army mass production establishments. With his views I pretty much agreed myself.

The third man, if you will, was originally destined to be Gimpel’s radio operator, but he disliked Gimpel so much that he managed to get off that assignment because he considered Gimpel (see above) what a Gimpel is considered by many Germans. His name was Oskar Mantel. If one of this trio had any ability and passable training, it was Mantel! Taking on more instruction after Gimpel’s U-Boat (U-1230) had departed and becoming quite a proficient radio technician in the process, Mantel was made a Sonderführer Leutnant (S), the same as Buchheim some years earlier who in the summer of 1944 was promoted to Oberleutnant der Reserve. Mantel traveled in uniform rather than in civilian clothing and that is the way Mantel was introduced to the crew of U-1229, as a war reporter, a PK Mann, the same as Buchheim in 1940/41. Mantel embarked on U-1229 just one hour prior to her departure from Kiel on 13 July 1944. As mentioned, this was what was left of the Abwehr which had been taken over and merged into Walter Schellenberger’s AMT IV of the SS/SD Reichsamt in actuality. This whole operation was their “brainchild”.

Korvettenkapitän Armin Zinke was called to Berlin for instructions a few days earlier when U-1229 proceeded to Christiansand South for refueling and topping off other supplies. Here exercises were made to bring the inflatable rubber boat into operation and action. Rösing demanded that U-1229 should proceed to Bergen, Norway for another short stop, rather than depart into the Atlantic in the last minute and thus U-1229 was resupplied in Bergen for the second time, leaving Bergen on 17 July 1944.

After leaving Bergen, the crew of U-1229 was informed by Zinke that Mantel was an agent who was to be dropped at the American coastline but because U-1229 had to return to Trondheim due to mechanical problems, this violated secrecy instructions – yet the word did not get out during that unscheduled stopover.

After the snorkel was repaired, U-1229 left Trondheim again on 26 July 1944. By the ‘for officers only’ radio signal, U-1229 was told that some fishing boat should meet them and take on Mantel at a specific location. There were repeated arguments between the C.O. Zinke, the L. I. (Directing Engineer) Büttner and the Executive Officer (I. W. O.) Quirin regarding Zinke’s way of proceeding and operating. Several contacts with U-1229 were only avoided in the very last minute, due to Zinke’s way of handling U-1229.

On 20 August, Ensign Brokas (USN) started from the auxiliary aircraft carrier USS BOGUE and was ordered to find U-1229 that was previously seen, but not yet attacked due to emergency dives. After 90 minutes U-1229 was spotted on the radar screen as a blink! At the same time, the pilot saw the surfaced U-1229 about four miles away. The aircraft attacked immediately, despite anti aircraft fire from U-1229, and fired four sets of rockets at U-1229 in pairs, but only the last rocket of the fourth set hit U-1229 and holed her pressurized body.

U-1229 turned, offering Brokas the chance of a supplemental depth charge attack – two of them hitting U-1229 fully. Nonetheless, after making a ‘Figure 8’, U-1229 managed to dive.

Five additional aircraft arrived from USS BOGUE plus her destroyer hunter/killer group too. At 2:30 pm U-1229 surfaced again and Zinke ordered the surviving crew to abandon ship. Quite a few crewmembers were killed in the water by machine-gunning from these aircraft. Zinke and Quirin were killed before leaving the boat, then apparently the batteries of U-1229 exploded and she sank swiftly. The surviving crew members drifted for about seven hours in the sea before getting rescued by the American destroyer USS JANSSEN.

On 21 August 1944, the survivors were transferred to the auxiliary carrier USS BOGUE including agent Sonderführer Mantel. U-1229 was unable to signal regarding her end, thus U-Boat Command at Camp Koralle in Bernau near Berlin remained ignorant of her destruction for a long time.

EDITOR NOTE – Our group will visit this Headquarters of Großadmiral Karl Dönitz (Koralle) this September and we will be the FIRST GROUP EVER to have such a visit since the end of World War II! Are you signed on yet?

Oskar Mantel was 42 years old at the time of his capture. He had a junior college degree and got supplementary technical training working in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1923, and in 1927 Mantel moved to the United States as a ‘farmer’ since it was easier to get papers to enter that way. However, Mantel took a restaurant job in New York instead, at the Bustos Restaurant until 1932, when he also smuggled whiskey in from Canada to the USA for this place and others. In the winter of 1932, he decided to vacation in Germany to spend some of his savings, staying five months. In those days, transatlantic travel was by ship only for practical purposes. Staying most of the time with his mother in Westheim.

In June of 1933, Mantel returned to the USA and opened his own business in New York as liquor sales representative, Prohibition ended by then. But the business went broke quickly. His sister had two beauty salons in New York and persuaded Mantel to take training as coiffeur/beauty operator and manage one of them for her. In 1935, they opened a third beauty shop in Fort Washington.

In February of 1941, Mantel decided to leave New York, as business turned poorly, but Mantel told his sister that he intended to move to South America rather than Germany. when Mantel was forced to register with the German draft board, his brother, the Mayor of Westheim, managed to have Mantel judged as not suitable for army service any more. Mantel visited Berlin thereafter and encountered an old Nazi Party acquaintance of his, working for the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, who persuaded Mantel to return to the USA as V-Man, that is an agent or confidence man, but directed by the overseas Nazi Party department rather than the Abwehr, the same as Gimpel, who was sponsored and handled by that outfit and ‘loaned’ out as agent.

Mantel was thus ‘borrowed’ by the Abwehr for training as radio operator and secret ink writer etc. in Munich. In August of 1941, Mantel was nevertheless made a soldier in the army and underwent basic training in the mornings, continuing his secret work training in the afternoons and evenings. Mantel was also issued a German passport in the name of Otto Tellmann and given US$5,000 to proceed to Spain or Portugal to become a blind passenger on some ship there somehow. This turned out impossible. The family he was lodged with got into difficulties and Mantel was ordered to return to Germany in December of 1941, after the Pearl Harbor attack and the German declaration of war against the USA on 12 December.

Mantel was asked if he wished to become either a war reported PK Man or an interpreter working mainly with POW’s in Germany. Mantel refused to try again for another way to return to the USA. Actually, he was mostly assigned to emergency groups of workers working at rubble clearance and removal. At this time, Mantel was promoted to Petty Officer (S), thereafter undergoing supplementary training to become a reserve officer Sonderführer (S) and made a Leutnant when passing the courses.

After refusing to work with Gimpel and Colepaugh, whom Mantel considered petty criminals, Mantel was consequently transferred to further technical training, including for instructions how to build radio signal equipment. Mantel was now given US$2,000 and a stamp collection that was supposed to be worth about 12,900 Reichmarks on the black market, that he was told to sell in the USA for additional cash.

Once reassigned to U-1229, Mantel was supposed to be landed near Winter Harbor in Maine, about 16 miles away from the next rail station. Mantel attempted while aboard to persuade Zinke to put him ashore in another location instead, but U-1229 had only maps of that particular coastline section, so Zinke refused his request and they had several arguments in that respect. Mantel’s English was colloquial and fluent, unlike Gimpel’s which was limited, and Gimpel’s Spanish was German accented. Mantel was thus the only agent with better than average intelligence, good training, considerable knowledge of New York and environs, and reportedly quite a few old friends too in the USA.

Because Mantel was in uniform and had military I.D. papers, he was after interrogation classified as POW rather than as an agent, considering that he had been captured at sea and never entered the USA clandestinely as intended and planned. His money was confiscated aboard the BOGUE and some relatives of Mantel sued US Navy Captain Vosseler, the commander of the BOGUE after the war for the return or replacement of these funds, claiming they actually belonged to Mantel’s old mother in Germany, who needed them back!

When questioned by the FBI and Naval Intelligence, Mantel stated that Zinke’s way of operating U-1229 was terrible, during the preceding ocean voyage, was dived with snorkel yet while approaching the American East Coast, they were surfaced mostly and Zinke taking sunbath breaks on the wintergarten when traveling on the surface. Mantel considered this ‘tactic’ suicidal and Zinke an incompetent U-Boat commander. This was also the cause for the arguments with his officers. Mantel played dumb and acted as the Bavarian country bumpkin to minimize whatever he got forced to tell his interrogators, acting actually quite cleverly compared to the other batch of so-called agents.

After the war, Mantel lived again in Munich after his release as POW-Internee. He was never tried or sentenced at all.