Harro shaft

Harro Schacht (born December 15, 1907 in Cuxhaven ; † January 13, 1943 in the South Atlantic , northwest Natal , Brazil ) was a German naval officer , most recently a frigate captain ( posthumously ) in World War II .

Military career

Patrols U 507

• March 7-25, 1942
• April 6 to June 4, 1942
  (9 ships with 44,782 GRT sunk)
• July 4 to October 12, 1942
  (7 ships with 18,132 GRT sunk)
• November 24th to 26th, 1942
  (machine damage)
• November 28, 1942 to January 13, 1943
  (3 ships with 14,230 GRT sunk)

Promotions

• Midshipman on October 12, 1926
• Ensign at sea on April 1, 1928
• Oberfähnrich zur See on June 1, 1930
• Lieutenant at sea on October 1, 1930
• First lieutenant at sea on August 1, 1932
• Lieutenant on April 1, 1936
• Corvette Captain on October 1, 1940
• Frigate captain posthumously on March 31, 1944

Schacht joined the Reichsmarine on April 1, 1926 and was assigned to the 5th Company of the 2nd Ship Trunk Division of the Baltic Sea in Stralsund until July 11th for basic infantry training . He then completed the naval officer training, which he completed on September 22, 1930. Thereafter shaft of 23 September 1930 to 25 September 1932 was Division lieutenant and later II. Radio engineer officer on the light cruiser Emden , where he on October 1, 1930, Ensign , and on August 1, 1932 Lieutenant was promoted . He then served until April 3, 1934 as a company officer in the IV Marine Artillery Department in Cuxhaven . From April 1934 to the end of September 1935 he was adjutant and company officer in the II. Division of the ship master division of the North Sea. From October 1, 1935 to October 5, 1937 he was a radio engineer on the light cruiser Nuremberg , where he was promoted to lieutenant captain on April 1, 1936 . From October 6, 1937 to March 30, 1941, Schacht was a radio officer in the Reich Ministry of War , where on October 1, 1940, he was promoted to corvette captain .

On March 31, 1941, Schacht switched to submarine weapons. After completing various courses, he was delegated to the building instruction for U 507 on September 9, 1941 , and became its commander on October 8, 1941. Schacht ran out of five enemy voyages with U 507 , in the course of which 19 ships with a total of 77,144 GRT were sunk.

With U 507 he sank five unarmed merchant ships flying the national flag off the coast of Brazil within 40 hours with a total of 14,822 GRT, killing 607 people. This was the trigger for the Brazilian declaration of war on Germany on August 22, 1942.

From September 15 to 17, 1942, Schacht was involved in the rescue operation of passengers of the British troop carrier Laconia , together with Lieutenant Erich Würdemann and the Italian submarine Cappellini with commander Marco Revedin . The ship had been sunk by Corvette Captain Werner Hartenstein . Since then, despite a radio message to the Allies about the rescue operation of the passengers, attacks on the four participating German submarines marked with Red Cross flags took place, this resulted in the so-called Laconia order by Admiral Karl Dönitz , the all German submarines were forbidden to take part in rescue operations.

This event was filmed in a joint production by the BBC , SWR and ARD Degeto in the war drama Laconia .

On January 13, 1943, U 507 was sighted and sunk at position 1 ° 38 ′  S , 39 ° 52 ′  W off the Brazilian Atlantic coast by a US Catalina flying boat of the VP-83 squadron. There were no survivors. On March 31, 1944, Schacht was posthumously promoted to frigate captain.

Awards

• Service award of the Wehrmacht IV class on April 1, 1938
• Spanish cross in silver with swords on March 29, 1940
• Mentioned in the Wehrmacht report on May 18, 1942
• Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st class April 19, 1940 and June 6, 1942, respectively
• U-boat war badge (1939) on June 6, 1942
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on January 9, 1943

literature

• Rainer Busch and Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler and Son, 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 , p. 297-299.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ World War 2 Awards.com - SCHACHT, Harro .
2. ^ Werner Hartenstein and the Laconia Incident .
3. ↑ Search second.aktiv-forum.com .
4. ↑ http://www.swr.de/unternehmen/was-wir-vorhaben/hoehepunkte-2011/-/id=7503020/nid=7503020/did=7645256/1jw7ka5/
5. ↑ http://users.fbihome.de/~mhofmann/ubootwiki/index.php?title=Harro_Schacht  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.