Servais Cabolet

Servais Cabolet (born April 24, 1908 in Warstade an der Niederelbe , † May 9, 1976 in Stade ) was a German submarine commander during the Nazi era .

life and career

Cabolet was born as the son of Captain of the Reserve Dr. Joseph Cabolet was born into a nationalist-militarist family. He first completed a training ship training at HAPAG and attended a navigation school; since 1932 he was a ship's officer . From 1925 to 1930 he was a member of the Jungstahlhelme . On October 1, 1930, he was accepted as a member of the NSDAP . On March 16, 1932, he joined the SA .

In September 1934, as a member of the SA, he took part in the Nuremberg Reich Party Congress of the NSDAP and, after a very determined career, moved to Braunschweig in 1936 as Sturmbannführer and adjutant of SA Brigade 58 . Between April 19 and June 27, 1937, he was a participant in the 34th course of the SA Reichsfuhrer School and successful completion entitled the participants to wear the so-called Tyr rune , a very rarely awarded badge of the SA, which is placed on the left upper arm of the Party uniform was worn over the swastika armband. The authorization in the form of a certificate to wear this badge was granted to Cabolet on June 26, 1936. In 1937 he switched to the Navy SA and therefore moved to Rostock . There he was soon elected to the city council. Cabolet was now part of the leadership of the Marinesturmbann I / 35. In 1938 he joined the Nazi Navy Federation and took part in the Baltic Sea Regatta. In 1939 he bought a sailing yacht called "Lulu", volunteered for the Navy and took part in the basic training of the Wilhelmshaven supplementary department. In 1940 he completed his officer training as an officer of the reserve, from April to June he served as a lieutenant at sea with the 3rd minesweeping flotilla . From July 1940 until June 1941 he was in command of the Drontheim port protection flotilla and then the Molde port protection flotilla . During this time he was awarded the minesweeping badge on July 22, 1940 . From November 1941 to December 1942 he worked on the Cherusker boat as the commander of the 59th outpost boat flotilla. On June 24, 1942 he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class and on November 30th the EK 1st Class. In 1942 his ship, the Cherusker , ran into a sea ​​mine and sank. Cabolet was injured and remained in the hospital until March 1943. On December 10th, he was awarded the "black" badge for the wounded . Subsequent to the hospital stay, he began training to become a submarine commander. He completed the 60th commanders' shooting course. In 1943 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea. After the building instructions for the submarine type VII C , he was given command of the boat U 907 on May 18, 1944 , on which a special incident took place.

The U 907 incident

Frustrated by a lack of success reports about enemy sinkings, the over-ambitious Cabolet decided to sink small Norwegian fishing boats and broadcast this to Berlin as an enemy success. However, this project was prevented by his chief helmsman Karl Jäckel. Cabolet felt this was sabotage and planned as revenge to sink the entire boat and the crew. Only he and his officers, all comrades from the Navy SA, were supposed to escape. By using armed force, Jäckel succeeded in thwarting this project as well. The boat returned to the base and stayed there until the end of the war. In late 1945 it was destroyed as spoils of war by the Royal Navy during Operation Deadlight .

Further career

Cabolet was never brought before a court martial for the events on board , as they did not want to scratch the myth of the “heroic submarine drivers”. The chaotic conditions at the end of the Second World War saved him from a dishonorable discharge from the Navy. After the capitulation, Cabolet was initially a prisoner of war of the British, after his release he worked as a ship owner and restaurateur. There was no political change in his mindset: he became a member of the National Socialist Socialist Reich Party (SRP), which he co-founded on October 2, 1949 with like-minded people. He was a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament in the 2nd electoral period from May 6, 1951 to October 23, 1952. On October 23, 1952, the Federal Constitutional Court banned the SRP as an anti-constitutional party that was in the tradition of the NSDAP and maintained paramilitary structures, with consequent loss of the state parliament mandate. Servais Cabolet died on May 9, 1976, just under two weeks after his 68th birthday.

Private

Cabolet was married and had two children.

literature

• Rainer Busch / Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 1 - The U-Boat Commanders. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, 1996, ISBN 3813204901
• Rainer Busch / Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 4 - German U-Boat Losses. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, 1999, ISBN 3813205142
• Stephan A. Glienke: The Nazi past of a later member of the Lower Saxony state parliament. Hanover 2012, p. 149 (PDF; 890 kB)
• Georg Högel: emblems, coats of arms, Maling's German U-Boats 1939-1945. 3rd edition, Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3782206509
• John R. Angolia: Cloth Isignia of the NSDAP and SA. 1st Edition, R. James Bender Publishin, San Jose 1985
• Jill Halcomb: The SA - A historical Perspective. Crown / Agincourt Publishers, Overland Park 1985
• Barbara Simon : Member of Parliament in Lower Saxony 1946–1994. Biographical manual. Edited by the President of the Lower Saxony State Parliament. Lower Saxony State Parliament, Hanover 1996, p. 62.