U 999

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U 999
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U 995, photographed from the Laboe Naval Memorial
The sister submarine U 995 in Laboe, Kiel. U 999 was identical to this boat
Type : VII C / 41
Field Post Number : M 52784
Shipyard: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Construction contract: October 14, 1941
Build number: 199
Keel laying: December 19, 1942
Launch: September 17, 1943
Commissioning: October 21, 1943
Commanders:
Flotilla:
Calls: an enterprise
Sinkings:

no depressions

Whereabouts: Sunk on May 5, 1945 ( rainbow order ).

U 999 was a Germantype VII C / 41 submarine that was usedby the Navy during World War II . Became known U 999 under his commander Wolfgang Heibges particular in that it was one-boats U to about 40 German, brought the refugees from East Prussia before the approaching Red Army to Germany to safety. U 999 was one of ten submarines that had a black "Alberich" rubber skin. The other nine boats were: U 67 , U 247 , U 470 , U 480 , U 485 , U 486 , U 1105 , U 1107 and UD 4 .

history

The history of the boat began with the construction contract at Blohm & Voss on 14 October 1941 but the shipyard laid the boat until 19 December 1942 in Kiel and left it on 17 September 1943 from the stack . After the last equipment, Kapitänleutnant Hermann Hansen put U 999 into service on October 21, 1943. Under Hansen, U 999 had a boat emblem: a dolphin who was behind a heart on which the saying “Rüm Hart” (“Rüm hart - klaar kiming” is a North Frisian motto meaning “wide heart - clear horizon”) was . The crew chose this saying in honor of their commander and wore an aluminum version of the badge on their caps. The crew also used the emblem as a cap badge on their new boat U 2517 . The boat had a second emblem on the tower: a cat drinking from a bottle on a white background. The most famous use of the boat was under ObLtzS Wolfgang Heibges, when he and his men rescued 50 refugees from East Prussia from the approaching Red Army and brought them safely to the west.

Commanders

  • Hermann Hansen was born on May 6, 1918 in Flensburg and joined the Navy in November 1939 and was thus a member of Crew XII / 39 . From May 21, 1941 to September 1941, he was the 2nd officer on watch on board U 129 and from March 5, 1943 on he was the 2nd officer on watch of the Type XIV - “Milchkuh” submarine U 462 under Bruno Vowe. He held this post until January 1943, when he left the boat and was transferred to the 4th U-Flotilla in Stettin as an officer on watch. There he completed the commanders course and finished it on October 20, 1943. Then he went to Hamburg for building instruction on his future U-boat U 999 and put it into service on October 21, 1943. He carried out a 20-day undertaking by boat and left U 999 on October 30, 1944 with his entire crew to take part in a building instruction in Hamburg again . He then took over the Type XXI submarine U 2517 .
  • Wilhelm Peters was born on June 20, 1916 in Hanover . He joined the Navy on October 9, 1937 and was a member of Crew 37b. After completing his training and courses, he became an officer on watch for U 584 , a Type VII-C submarine, in May 1942 . He held this post until February 1943 and left the boat that month. After training on the radio measuring device at the 2nd U training department in Zeven near Hanover, he began training as commanders in the 24th U-Flotilla in Memel and took over on March 16, 1943, after successfully completing the training, what was already active front insert taken Laughing swordfish boat U 96 of ObLtzS. Hans-Jürgen Hellriegel. He commanded U 96 until June 30, 1944 and handed it over to Oberleutnant zur See Robert Rix on July 1, 1944. He took over the unmanned U 999 and commanded it until January 1, 1945. He was then seconded to the commissioning of U 3045 in Bremen. U 3045 was no longer completed, and so he took over the school boat U 3001 from Oberleutnant zur See Hans Vogler.
  • Wolfgang Heibges was born on July 1, 1922 in Lippstadt (Westphalia) and joined the Navy in April 1940 as an officer candidate. He was a member of Crew 40. From April 1940 to February 1942 he did his basic and on-board training and courses. From February 1942 to June 1942 he was an officer on watch and commander of the 38th minesweeping flotilla and began his submarine training in June 1942. In December 1942, Heigbes was sent to the Bremer Vulkan shipyard to instruct U 278 on construction and to become officer on watch for the boat. On board this boat, Heibges completed four patrols in the North Sea. One month after he left U 278 , in June 1944, he began his commanders course with the 3rd U-Lehrdivision in Schleswig and with the 24th U-Flotilla in Memel. In November 1944 he took over U 999 from Wilhelm Peters and mainly carried out training trips in the Baltic Sea by boat. On Heibge's first voyage with U 999 in mid-March 1945, the boat took with it 50 passengers, Hitler boys , women and children who were fleeing the ever-approaching Red Army during the refugee transports across the Baltic Sea in the course of the evacuation of East Prussia . The commander of U 999 risked the court martial by acting against the existing command situation with this decision, because "... the training for frontline deployment is still given priority even in the spring of 1945 and must not be endangered by evacuations." After Heibges U 999 himself sunk two months later, towards the end of the war, he and his men were taken prisoner by the Allies.

Whereabouts

U 999 was self -scuttled by its crew in the Geltinger Bay on May 5, 1945 according to the long-standing rainbow order , which was canceled by Grand Admiral Dönitz on the evening of May 4, 1945 . According to Heibe's own statement, he received the order to sink the boat from Günter Kuhnke , the boss of the 33rd U-Flotilla stationed in Flensburg . The commander reported that the hours passed by without the keyword "rainbow" coming up, until finally on May 4th a counter-order from the naval command reached the boat, in which it was announced that scuttling was prohibited. From the tower of his boat, Heibges saw that, despite the counter-order, most of the submarines in the Geltinger Bay sank themselves. Thereupon he also gave the order to make all preparations for self-immersion. Some of the men on the boat prepared to detonate the explosive devices and others flooded the open aft torpedo tube. A few minutes later the exploding explosive devices could be heard inside U 999 . The wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1948.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The exact number of submarines that were involved in the refugee transports is unclear. In addition to the case of U 999 , the use of U 3505 is best documented.
  2. ↑ U 11 carried out the tests with the Alberich predecessor “Fafnir”, but it did not have an Alberich coating itself.
  3. ↑ Laura Gispert: "Rüm hart - klåår kiming" . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 21, 2012. Accessed February 4, 2016.
  4. ^ Georg Högel: Emblems, coats of arms, Malings German submarines 1939-1945. 5th edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7822-1002-7 , p. 161.
  5. ↑ Website: Deutsche Unterseeboote 1933-1945 - List of submarine commanders , accessed on September 4, 2016
  6. ^ A b Dieter Hartwig: Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. Legend and truth. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-506-77027-1 , p. 130.
  7. ↑ In 1958 Wolfgang Heibges joined the German Navy , from which he left the frigate captain in 1971 . Heibges died in 2005.

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 .
  • Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945. Volume 2: U-boat construction in German shipyards. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0512-6 .