Wilhelm Schulz (naval officer)

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Georg-Wilhelm Schulz (born March 10, 1906 in Cologne , † July 5, 1986 in Hamburg ) was a German naval officer in the Reichsmarine and the Kriegsmarine , most recently in the rank of corvette captain . He survived two sinkings of his submarine .

Youth and Merchant Navy

Schulz was the son of a Prussian army officer. In 1916, at the age of 10, he joined the Prussian Cadet Corps , to which he was a member until it was dissolved in March 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles . After completing his school education with the secondary school leaving certificate , he joined the merchant navy as a midshipman in 1923 , where he a. a. was trained on the training ship Grand Duchess Elisabeth . Until 1931 Schulz served on various ships in the merchant navy and continued his training to become a helmsman and ship officer . After the prescribed driving time, Schulz attended the seafaring school in Hamburg from January 1931, where he obtained his captain's license on March 7, 1932 .

Reich and Kriegsmarine

Pre-war period

Schulz joined the Reichsmarine on October 4, 1933 and was assigned to the crew in 1932 due to his nautical training and experience . He received his basic military training in the 6th Company of the 2nd Ship Mastery Division of the Baltic Sea in Stralsund , his on-board training a. a. on the light cruiser Königsberg . On January 1, 1934, he was promoted to ensign at sea , on September 26, 1935 to senior ensign at sea , and then sent to the U-boat school in Kiel for further training . On December 21, 1935, he was transferred to the U- 18 submarine in the Weddigen submarine as an officer on watch and was promoted to lieutenant on January 1, 1936 in this position . When U 18 sank on November 20, 1936 during combat and shooting exercises in the Bay of Lübeck after a collision with the German torpedo boat T 156 , albeit at a shallow depth, he and the greater part of the crew were able to save themselves with diving rescuers; eight men were killed, however. From February to the end of September 1937 Schulz then served as a watch officer on U 12 . On October 1, 1937, he was promoted to first lieutenant at sea and transferred as first officer on watch to U 33 with the U-Flotilla "Saltzwedel" in Wilhelmshaven . With this boat he took part in two operations off Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Civil War from December 1937 to February 1938 and from July to August 1938 .

Submarine commander

Patrols

U 10

  1. September 7, 1939 to September 17, 1939
  2. September 26, 1939 to October 15, 1939

U 64

  1. April 6, 1940 to April 12, 1940

U 124

  1. August 19, 1940 to September 16, 1940 (3 ships with 14,463 GRT sunk)
  2. October 5, 1940 to November 13, 1940 (5 ships with 20,061 GRT sunk)
  3. December 16, 1940 to January 22, 1941 (1 ship with 5,965 GRT sunk)
  4. February 23, 1941 to May 1, 1941 (11 ships with 53,297 GRT sunk)
  5. July 10, 1941 to August 25, 1941

On 5 January 1939 Schulz was awarded with U 10 his first command, and on April 1 In 1939 his promotion to Lieutenant Commander and pre-dating the crew 1930. U 10 belonged to the 14th of April 1939 U-Flotilla "Loh" in Kiel, then as a school boat for the submarine school flotilla . In the first weeks of the war (September 7th - 17th and September 26th - October 15th) the boat was used for two patrol trips in the Kattegat , where it was supposed to prevent the passage of enemy ships, but was not sunk.

On November 20, 1939, Schulz was assigned to the building instruction for the boat U 64 , which he put into service on December 16, 1939 as commander. U 64 was sunk with an aerial bomb by the aircraft of the British battleship HMS Warspite during its first mission during the occupation of Norway on April 13, 1940 near Bjerkvik in Herjangsfjord near Narvik . The boat sank to a depth of 35 m. Twelve men of the crew were able to save themselves from sinking, and 28 others, including Schulz, were able to reach the surface of the water 40 minutes later by diving rescuers, whereupon they were rescued by landed German mountain troops. Eight men remained missing; they were probably already killed in the bombing.

Schulz came back to Germany via Sweden and was then "available" with the 2nd U-Flotilla until June 1, 1940. On June 1, 1940, he and the crew of the sunken boat U 64 took over the new boat U 124 (Type IX-B). In memory of the mountain hunters' help in rescuing his boat crew, Schulz chose an edelweiss as the boat emblem on both sides of the tower , the badge of the mountain troops. U 124 belonged to the 2nd U-Flotilla in Wilhelmshaven , carried out training trips from its commissioning until mid-August 1940. On August 19, 1940 it ran from Wilhelmshaven on its first patrol, which it ended on September 16, 1940 at its new base in Lorient . On this enterprise two ships with 10,563 GRT were sunk and another with 3,900 GRT was damaged. On two subsequent trips in the North Atlantic (October 5 - November 13, 1940 and December 16, 1940 - January 22, 1941) Schulz sank a total of six ships with a total of 26,026 GRT. His fourth trip with the U 124 was one of the most successful submarines during the entire war. It began on February 23, 1941 in Lorient and ended there on May 1, 1941. On this 68 days and more than 12,000 nautical miles long undertaking in the Central Atlantic , the Canary Islands and off Freetown , eleven ships with 53,297 GRT were sunk. It was U 124 on March 4, 1941 in Las Palmas with fuel and provisions, and again from 15 March 1941 to 19 March 1941 by auxiliary cruiser Kormoran supplied with torpedoes and fuel. During this undertaking, Schulz was awarded the Knight's Cross on April 4, 1941 .

Flotilla Chief

Another voyage from July 10 to August 25, 1941 in the mid-Atlantic, west of Gibraltar and off the north-west African coast was unsuccessful. Schulz gave up command of U 124 on September 7, 1941, and on September 22, he became chief of the recently newly established 6th U-Flotilla in Danzig , which initially operated as a school flotilla in the Baltic Sea and then in February 1942 as a front flotilla to Saint -Nazaire was relocated. From October 1941 to January 1942 he was also head of the 8th U-Flotilla , also a school flotilla, in Königsberg / Pillau . Schulz was promoted to Korvettenkapitän on April 1, 1943 and remained in command of the 6th U-Flotilla in Saint-Nazaire until October 3, 1943. Then he became chief of staff (“Ia”) at the leader of the U-training flotilla in Gotenhafen and at the same time head of the “U-Boats test group”, which tested the so-called electric submarines of types XXI and XXIII . Shortly before the end of the war, Schulz was appointed head of the 25th U-Flotilla , a training flotilla , in Libau on April 22, 1945 ; the flotilla was dissolved by him at the end of the war in May 1945 on Rügen .

post war period

Schulz came into British captivity, from which he was released on July 15, 1945. In 1950 he founded his own company for industrial representatives. He died on July 5, 1986 in Hamburg.

Autobiography

In 1994 his autobiography Above the Wet Abyss was published by ES Mittler & Sohn . A later paperback edition was published by Ullstein . In 1998 an unauthorized Czech translation was published under the title Wilhelm Schulz in the series Ponorkove Eso (German: U-Boot Asse ).

Awards

literature

  • Rainer Busch and Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939–1945: The knight's cross bearers of the U-boat weapon from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler and Son, 2003, ISBN 3-8132-0515-0 .
  • Franz Kurowski: Georg Wilhelm Schulz. In: Franz Kurowski: Hunter of the Seven Seas. The most famous submarine commanders of World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1998 (2nd edition), pages 154-174. ISBN 3-613-01633-8 . (Biographical, representation of the patrols)
  • Georg-Wilhelm Schulz: Above the wet abyss: As a commander and flotilla chief in the submarine war. Mittler, 1994
  • Bodo Schwarz: U-Boats in action 1939-1945. A picture documentation. Podzun-Verlag, 1970.
  • EB Gasaway: Gray Wolf, Gray Sea: Aboard the German Submarine U-124 in World War II.

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The boat was lifted, repaired, made seaworthy again on November 28, 1936 and put back into service on September 30, 1937.
personal data
SURNAME Schulz, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schulz, Georg-Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently corvette captain
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 5th July 1986
Place of death Hamburg