Fritz-Julius Lemp

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Fritz-Julius Lemp in conversation with Karl Dönitz (August 1940)

Fritz-Julius Lemp (born February 19, 1913 in Tsingtau ; † May 9, 1941 in the North Atlantic southeast of Greenland ) was a German naval officer and commanded the U-boats U 28 , U 30 and U 110 in World War II . On nine ventures he sank twenty ships with 96,547 GRT and damaged another four ships with a total of 45,417 GRT. It is significant in terms of war history due to the illegal sinking of the passenger steamer Athenia at the beginning of the Second World War and the fact that when its last submarine was sunk, the ENIGMA cipher machine and the associated code books came into the hands of the Allies intact.

Life

Lemp was born as the son of an officer who was stationed in what was then the "German Protected Area" Kiautschou . On April 1, 1931, he joined the Reichsmarine ( Crew 31 ). After infantry training in Stralsund and on-board training on the light cruiser Karlsruhe , submarine training began in April 1935. In 1936 he became a watch officer on U 28 , which he commanded as commander from 1938.

From November 1938 he was in command of U 30 , with whom he carried out seven patrols after the outbreak of war. On his first venture, on the evening of September 3, 1939, he sank the Athenia, the first ship of the Second World War. The sinking of the unarmed passenger steamer not only violated international law, but also an order from the leader of the submarines , Admiral Dönitz, on the same day that attacks on passenger steamer were expressly prohibited. Lemp later stated that he could not clearly see the ship and thought it was an armed auxiliary cruiser, as it was dimmed for his own protection and was zigzagging. Without being certain, Lemp fired three torpedoes, one of which hit the stern. The Athenia sank the following morning, 112 people were killed.

When U 30 appeared half an hour after the shot, Lemp recognized his mistake based on the Athenia emergency calls . He left the scene of the accident immediately, without giving any assistance, and did not make a radio message. The incident was removed from U 30's war diary and the crew was committed to the strictest confidentiality. Only after his return did Lemp report the sinking of the Athenia . The leadership of the Kriegsmarine subsequently denied the torpedoing, and the Nazi propaganda claimed that Churchill himself had ordered the sinking in order to turn the neutral states against Germany. It was only during the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 that Grand Admiral Dönitz admitted the torpedoing of the Athenia by Lemps U 30 and the subsequent cover-up of the incident. Lemp was awarded the EK II after returning from his patrol .

In October 1940 Lemp took part in the building instruction for U 110 , on November 21 the boat was put into service under his command. According to the later British report on the interrogation of the survivors, Lemp was respected and valued by the crew; he was considered a level-headed man of unshakable calm and great determination. Numerous mates from U 30 followed him on U 110. On its second patrol with U 110 , the boat was attacked on May 9, 1941 after an attack on a convoy by the British destroyers HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway and the corvette HMS Aubretia . After the boat by depth charges had suffered severe damage, Lemp was forced to surface and gave the order to leave the boat. Apparently no order was given to sink the boat and destroy the secret documents, as Lemp had to reckon with the imminent sinking of the boat, the stern of which was already under water. Lemp was the last to disembark. When he found that U 110 did not sink as expected, he swam back to the boat. He probably drowned in the process.

During the capture, the British fell into the hands of a lot of secret material, including an Enigma deciphering machine. The capture of a working Enigma and the secret encryption books was of decisive importance for the further course of the war, especially the battle in the Atlantic .

Ranks

Awards

literature

  • Busch / Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg Volume 1 U-Boot-Kommandanten ISBN 3-8132-0490-1
  • Busch / Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg Volume 2 U-Boot-Bau und Werften ISBN 3-8132-0512-6
  • Busch / Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg Volume 3 U-Boot-Successes ISBN 3-8132-0513-4
  • Busch / Röll: The U-Boat War Volume 4 U-Boat Losses ISBN 3-8132-0514-2
  • Busch / Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg Volume 5 Knight's Cross Bearer ISBN 3-8132-0515-0
  • Diary: U 28, U 39, U 110
  • Franz Kurowski: Fritz Julius Lemp. In: Franz Kurowski: Hunter of the Seven Seas. The most famous submarine commanders of World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1998 (2nd edition), pages 175-189. ISBN 3-613-01633-8 . (Biographical, representation of the patrols)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: Der U-Boot-Krieg 1939-1945, The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945 , Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515- 0 , p. 54
  2. ^ Angus Konstam / Jak Mallmann Showell: 7th U-Boat Flotilla. Dönitz's Atlantic Wolves. Allan Publishing, Hersham 2003, p. 14th
  3. ↑ CB 4051 (23), "U 110", Interrogation of Survivors, May, 1941. Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty, SW1., NID (Royal Navy) on uboatarchive.net
personal data
SURNAME Lemp, Fritz-Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer and submarine commander in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Tsingtau
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1941
Place of death North Atlantic southeast of Greenland