Karl Thurmann

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Karl Thurmann (* 4. September 1909 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † 28. January 1943 , missing in the Atlantic ) was a German U-boat - commander in World War II .

Service in the Navy

On April 1, 1928, Thurmann joined the Reichsmarine as a midshipman . After a few years on the light cruisers Emden and the Cologne , Thurmann spent 18 months in the coastal artillery before he was assigned to submarine weapons in April 1940. After training as a commanding student on the U 29 , he was given command of the new U 553 boat on December 23, 1940 . On July 1, 1937, Thurmann was promoted to lieutenant captain, and on August 1, 1942, he was given the rank of corvette captain .

With U 553, Thurmann completed ten ventures in the North Atlantic to the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean . On his enemy voyages he succeeded in sinking twelve freighters and one warship. Thurmann is described as a "sovereign and unadapted" submarine commander. Thurmann received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on August 24, 1942 . He had previously received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class and in 1941 the U-Boat War Badge .

On January 16, 1943, Corvette Captain Thurmann left La Pallice for the last time with U 553. Three days later he reported technical difficulties. On January 20, his boat and U 465 met in the North Atlantic. After that there was no more contact with Thurmann. On January 28, 1943, U 553 and its 47-man crew were declared missing.

Aftermath

In 2017, Norwegian schoolchildren discovered two erratic boulders at Bogen i Ofoten , near Narvik . On one was a picture of a submarine with the number U 553 carved in it, on the other it said “Karl-Thurmann-Platz”. There was a German submarine base in Narvik during World War II.

Thurmann served Lothar-Günther Buchheim in his novel Das Boot as a model for the character of Lieutenant Tuhrmann. In the later film adaptation by Wolfgang Petersen , Thurmann is the godfather of Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen, who was portrayed by Otto Sander .

literature

  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Nadia Al-Massalmeh: Memorial stone for a captain from Mülheim in Norway , WAZ, September 11, 2017 , accessed on September 14, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c Uboat.net: Karl Thurmann , accessed on September 14, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b German U-Boats 1933–1945: U 553 , accessed on September 14, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Thurmann, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German submarine commander
DATE OF BIRTH 4th September 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim an der Ruhr
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1943
Place of death Atlantic