Victor Oehrn

Victor Oehrn (born October 21, 1907 in Kedabek , Azerbaijan , † December 26, 1997 in Bonn ) was a German naval officer and submarine commander during the Second World War .

career

Oehrn joined the Reichsmarine on October 1, 1927 as a midshipman . After his infantry training in Stralsund , he was promoted to sea cadet on October 1, 1927. Following this, he received his on-board training on the cruiser Berlin , completed the ensign's course at the Mürwik Naval School in Flensburg - Mürwik and made two navigation instruction trips on the Frauenlob tender and the survey ship Meteor .

Oehrn then completed further on-board training on the light cruiser Königsberg . In June 1931 he was promoted to senior ensign in the sea and in October of the same year to lieutenant in the sea . On the Königsberg he drove as a division lieutenant until autumn 1932. Then he was a company and training officer in the ship master division in Stralsund. In June 1933 he was promoted to lieutenant at sea and then used as a training officer on the light cruiser Karlsruhe until the summer of 1935 .

In July 1935 he switched to the newly created submarine weapon. He was assigned to the Weddigen U-Flotilla , whose boss at that time was Karl Dönitz . In January 1936 he was given command of U 14 , which he held until October 4, 1937. In October 1936 Oehrn was promoted to lieutenant captain. In the following years he was company commander at the Naval School Mürwik, served on the staff of the commanding admiral of the Baltic Sea and was finally company commander again in the Stralsund ship master department. From November 1938 to August 1939 Oehrn received training at the Marine Academy. During this time he drove at times on the light cruiser Leipzig and the Aviso Grille .

Second World War

Since Oehrn was one of the few U-boat commanders who had graduated from the German Navy Academy, he was appointed to the staff of the FdU as an admiralty staff officer . Dönitz had a high opinion of Oehrn, described him as a "judgmental Admiral Staff Officer" and ascribed a large part of the decision to plan the Günther Priens venture to Scapa Flow , the base of the British Home Fleet , which this mid-October with U 47 performed. In January of the following year, Oehrn received the Iron Cross Second Class . In May 1940 Oehrn became commander on U 37 , which he commanded until October of the same year. With this boat he undertook four enemy voyages - first from Wilhelmshaven , later from Lorient - and sank a total of 24 ships with a total of 104,746 GRT .

In the summer of 1940 he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class and in October the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . Following his on-board command, he was appointed First Admiral Staff Officer (Asto) under Karl Dönitz. In August 1941 he was promoted to corvette captain and in November of the same year appointed leader of the submarines Italy ; at the same time he held the position of 1st Admiral Staff Officer U-Boats Italy. In the same month Oehrn was awarded the Italian War Cross with Swords.

During a business trip to North Africa in July 1942, Oehrn was seriously wounded near El Alamein and was taken prisoner by the British in Alexandria . With the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross , he returned to Germany in November 1943 through a prisoner exchange. In August 1944 Oehrn was promoted to frigate captain. He experienced the end of the war as head of the operations department of the Navy High Command .

post war period

After the end of the war, Oehrn initially served in the German mine clearance service , from which he was released in August 1945.

From March 1960 to May 1963 he was chairman of the Navy Officers Association .

Remarks

1. ↑ from October 1939 renamed BdU

1. ↑ K. Dönitz: "Ten years and twenty days" , Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz (1985), p. 67

See also

• List of German submarines (1935–1945) / U 1 – U 250
• Africa campaign

literature

• Theodore P. Savas: Silent Hunters. Ullstein Verlag, ISBN 3-548-24621-4
• Rainer Busch and Hans-Joachim Röll: The knight's cross bearers of the submarine weapon from 1939 to May 1945 . Volume 5 from The Submarine War 1939–1945. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn 2003; ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 ;