Laconia order
The Laconia command ( Triton Null ) forbade submarines of the German Navy from any attempt to rescue shipwrecked enemy ships that were sunk. It was issued on September 17, 1942 by the commander of the submarines Admiral Karl Dönitz . This was preceded by the torpedoing of the Laconia off the coast of West Africa by a German submarine and the subsequent rescue operation for the shipwrecked by German and Italian submarines, which were attacked by bombers of the United States Army Air Forces .
The wording of the Laconia order
- Any attempt to rescue relatives of sunken ships, including fishing for swimmers and putting them on board in lifeboats, erecting capsized lifeboats, and handing over food and water, must be avoided. Rescue contradicts the most primitive demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews.
- Orders for captains and chief engineers to be brought along remain in place.
- Rescue castaways only if statements are important for the boat.
- Be tough. Remember that the enemy does not consider women and children when they bomb German cities.
prehistory
The Laconia command was the reaction of the German submarine command to the experiences made in the course of the sinking of the British troop transport Laconia and in the course of the subsequent salvage of the Allied and shipwrecked and Italian prisoners of war by German submarines in September 1942.
Polar bear submarine group
In the summer of 1942 the convoy system was widely established on the American coast, so that the chances of success of the German submarines in this sea area were reduced. At the same time, the volume of sea traffic along the west coast of Africa increased, with ships gathering in front of Cape Town . Therefore, the BdU Karl Dönitz initiated an attack on shipping along the African coast in autumn 1942. The large submarines of the type IX-C used here required the support of a tank submarine , a so-called milk cow . Between August 16 and 20, five IX-C boats and one type IX D2 with U 68 , U 156 , U 159 , U 172 and U 504 left the naval bases on the northern French Atlantic coast for Africa. Four of these boats were given the code name U-Bootgruppe Eisbär . They were supposed to carry out attacks against the Allied shipping traffic in the sea area around Cape Town about 6000 nm away. On August 18, also the supply submarine was U 459 of Saint-Nazaire in order sm southeast 500 from St. Helena to position, where the boats of Submarine Group Polar supply. On the way to the meeting point, the submarines were allowed to attack worthwhile targets as far as the coast of Gabon . After that, attacks had to be avoided in order not to endanger the company as a whole.
Sinking of the Laconia
On the morning of September 12, 1942, U 156 was off the West African coast between Liberia and Ascension on its way towards Cape Town. The commander, Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein , discovered the large British passenger ship Laconia , which was used as a troop transport, but also had passengers and prisoners of war on board. According to the handbook of armed British ships available to the Germans, the ship was equipped with 14 guns. Later information from the Laconia's artillery officer revealed that the ship was actually armed with eight guns, including 15 cm cannons for use against enemy ships, as well as anti-aircraft guns. In addition, the Laconia had depth charges and ASDIC devices for fighting submarines. Hartenstein chased the Laconia for a few hours at a great distance until it was dark, only then did he have U 156 unlocked for the surface attack. At 10:07 p.m. Hartenstein successfully attacked the Laconia with torpedoes. One of the two torpedoes hit the steamer at the bow , the other detonated amidships.
The Laconia transmitted the following message:
- "SSS SSS 0434 South / 1125 West Laconia torpedoed"
- (Attention attacked by submarines, geographical location, Laconia torpedoed).
Four minutes later, the Laconia sent another message, but neither was received by the Allies. Hartenstein, however, subsequently assumed that his position was now known.
When the ship began to sink, he let his boat approach the Laconia , hoping to capture the senior officers of the ship. He saw more than 2000 people fighting for their lives in the water. The 19,680 ton Laconia had not only the regular crew of 136 men - with the captain Rudolph Sharp going down with the ship - but also 268 British soldiers as well as 1809 Italian prisoners of war and 103 Polish soldiers to guard them . In addition, there were over 300 passengers on board, including 80 women and children. The ship had enough lifeboats to secure everyone on board, but not all of them could be lowered into the water because of the inclination of the ship as a result of the sinking. As a result of the chaotic conditions on the decks, some lifeboats also fell unsecured into the water and filled up. More than an hour after the two hits, the Laconia sank at 11:23 p.m. With the sinking of the troop transport, Hartenstein had sunk a total of 100,000 GRT in enemy ship space during his patrols, which was a criterion for lending the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross to submarine officers .
Rescue of the shipwrecked
Hartenstein, who had heard cries for help in Italian, immediately began rescue measures. As much as the heavily armored, darkened and jagged Laconia was a legitimate target for Hartenstein, he was not obliged to take any rescue measures. After two hours, U 156 had taken ninety Italians on board. He learned from the survivors that there were allied prisoners of war on board, hundreds of whom had already been killed by the torpedoes that hit the ship near the holds. In the holds, the Italians were guarded by Polish guards and forcibly prevented from leaving the cells when the ship began to sink. As a result, several hundred Italians went down with the Laconia , while some were able to save themselves by force on deck and into the water, with many being wounded by bayonets by the Poles.
After the sinking of the ship, Hartenstein sent an encrypted radio message to the commander of the submarines, in which he informed about the situation, in particular about the Italian prisoners of war. The message read:
- “Sunk by Hartenstein Brite 'Laconia'. Marine square FF 7721 310 degrees. Unfortunately with 1500 Italian prisoners of war. 90 fished so far. 157 cbm. 19 eels, Passat 3, ask for orders. "
- (cbm. stood for the amount of remaining fuel, eels for the remaining torpedoes .)
The BdU Dönitz immediately ordered two other submarines to the sinking site. Soon there were almost 200 survivors on and below deck of U 156 , including five women, and another 200 people were towed aboard four lifeboats. At 6 a.m., Hartenstein sent a message in English to everyone in the area at sea, stating his position and asking for help and promising not to attack. The message read:
- “If any ship will assist the ship-wrecked 'Laconia' crew, I will not attack her providing I am not being attacked by ship or air forces. I picked up 193 men. 4, 52 South, 11, 26 West. - German submarine. "
- (If a ship wants to help the damaged Laconia crew, I will not attack as long as I am not attacked by ships or from the air. I have taken in 193 people. Geographical location - German submarine)
U 156 was pulled out of the Eisbär submarine group , which was continuing on its way to Cape Town, and stayed in the same spot on the surface of the water for the next two and a half days. At 11.30 a.m. on September 15, U 506 , Lieutenant Captain Erich Würdemann , and a few hours later U 507 , Corvette Captain Harro Schacht , and the Italian submarine Cappellini joined them. The four submarines with lifeboats in tow and hundreds of survivors on deck drove towards the African coast to meet with warships of the French Vichy fleet, which had started from Senegal and Dahomey . Both German boats that arrived took shipwrecked people on board as well as lifeboats in tow and then reported the implementation of the rescue measures to Dönitz. While Würdemann only reported the number of shipwrecked people on board and in his tow and refrained from naming their nationalities, Schacht reported to his commander that he had boats with 95 British and Poles in tow. Doenitz then ordered him to cut the respective ropes, while Würdemann received no such order.
Attack on the submarines
On the morning of September 16, the four submarines were Red Cross flags on deck at 11:25 pm from a US maritime patrol aircraft of the type Consolidated PB4Y discovered. Hartenstein signaled to the pilot that he needed help. Lt. James D. Harden ( United States Army Air Forces ) turned and reported the situation to his Wideawake Field Air Force Base on Ascension Island . According to the rules of the Hague Conventions in force at the time , hospital ships were only protected from enemy attacks if their names had been made known to the warring parties, their side walls were painted white with a Red Cross emblem and they were not used for other purposes. Fully operational warships with attached Red Cross flags did not, however, fall under this protection. The officer on duty, Captain Robert C. Richardson III , replied that, according to his presumption, the German submarines were primarily concerned with the recovery of Italian prisoners of war and that the submarines also operated in the strategically important waters near Ascension the command "Sink sub" (sink submarine).
Harden flew back to the rescue attempt scene and attacked with bombs at 12:32 p.m. One of the lifeboats in tow behind U 156 was hit, another bomb damaged the submarine. Hartenstein cut the lines to the lifeboats and instructed the survivors on deck to jump into the water. After the water ingress had stopped, U 156 drained to repair the damage. With FT (radio telegram) 0019/17 of September 17th at 1:40 am, the BdU released Hartenstein from the rescue operation. Schacht and Würdemann reported the situation and received orders to keep their boats clear for alarm diving. While Dönitz and his staff were still discussing the scope and possibilities of necessary rescue measures for the submarines, an FT from Würdemann reported that he too had been attacked by an aircraft and that it was only thanks to a good look-out that he was able to raise the alarm in time with 142 castaways on board The first bombs fell at a depth of 60 meters.
At 6 p.m. on the same day, the tour sent an FT to Schacht and Würdemann:
-
No red cross flag there
- not provided internationally,
- in no case and least of all offers a guarantee of sparing with the English.
- Report delivery of fuel, provisions, torpedo inventory and operational readiness after completion
On the evening of September 17th, the Laconia -FT went out to the submarines (see above) .
Another fate of victims and rescuers
The three boats and their crews did not survive the war:
- U 507 (shaft) sank on January 13, 1943 in the Caribbean by an air raid.
- U 156 (Hartenstein) was sunk by air raid on March 8, 1943 near Trinidad and
- U 506 (Würdemann) sank on July 12, 1943 west of Spain due to an air raid.
Hundreds of Laconia survivors drowned, but French ships were able to take over 310 British, 20 Poles and 163 Italians from U 507 on the same day . A total of about 1,500 passengers fell victim to the torpedoing and subsequent US bombing. A British seaman, Tony Large, stayed in an open lifeboat for forty days before being picked up. Even after the attack by the US bomber, the rescue operation continued on Dönitz's orders. A total of 811 Brits rescued around 800 and 1,800 Italians 450.
Legal assessment in the Nuremberg war crimes trial
In the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals , Dönitz was also charged with the Laconia order . On the basis of the ambiguous choice of words, the British prosecutors assumed that the instruction had implicitly demanded not only not to rescue the crew and passengers of sunk ships, but also to kill the survivors deliberately.
The British chief prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe based this interpretation of the Laconia order mainly on the third charge that Dönitz had been charged with: war crimes. To support his argument, Fyfe cited the former commander of the 5th U-Flotilla, Karl-Heinz Moehle, as a witness, who confirmed the order's implicit kill instructions. When Moehle was confronted with the Laconia order during his arrest , which he, as commander of the largest training and transit flotilla, had sent to all departing commanders who had completed their training voyages in the Baltic Sea, he denied this. In this context, Moehle stated that he deliberately refrained from passing on the order, as he understood it to be a hidden order for the murder of shipwrecked people and this had also been indicated several times by Dönitz himself in this sense. Moehle put this statement on an oath on July 21, 1945. In addition, Fyfe relied on another witness, Leutnant zur See Josef Heisig, who had become a Canadian prisoner of war in 1944 as an officer on watch for U 877 . Heisig was friends with August Hoffmann, officer on watch of U 852 , who was responsible for the deliberate killing of shipwrecked people during the Eck trial . Heisig testified that in October 1942 Doenitz had described the killing of shipwrecked people as desirable in front of a group of officer candidates, including himself and Hoffmann.
Dönitz's defense attorney Otto Kranzbühler succeeded in shaking the credibility or the intentions of Fyfe's witnesses towards the judges. Moehle wanted to acquit himself from passing on the order and Heisig wanted to save his friend Hoffmann from being shot. In addition, Kranzbühler submitted the affidavits of 67 submarine commanders who stated that they did not regard the Laconia order as an implicit order to kill.
Doenitz was found not guilty on this point.
literature
- Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Legend and reality. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 .
- Jörg Hillmann : The "Myth" Dönitz - Approaches to an Image of History. In Bea Lundt (Ed.): Northern Lights. Historical awareness and historical myths north of the Elbe (= contributions to historical culture. Vol. 27). Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-412-10303-9 , pp. 243-267.
- Frederick Grossmith: The Sinking of the Laconia. A Tragedy in the Battle of the Atlantic. Watkins, Stamford 1994, ISBN 1-871615-68-2 .
Web links
- Judgment against Dönitz at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, Avalon Project (English)
- Judgment against Dönitz at the Nuremberg war crimes trial, Zeno (German)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , pp. 93-97.
- ↑ a b Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 3: German submarine successes from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4 , p. 120.
- ^ Maurer Maurer, Lawrence J. Paszek: Origin of the Laconia Order. In: Air University Review. Vol. 16, March / April 1964, ISSN 0002-2594 , pp. 26-37.
- ^ A b Clay Blair: The Submarine War. Volume 2: The Hunted, 1942–1945. Heyne, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-453-16059-2 , pp. 815-817.