General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: U boat men born outside of germany?
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: November 05, 2006 08:53PM
Hi Haken,
Based on the way your question is phrased the real answer is no – we don’t have a clue. By asking about “U-boat men†you are asking about enlisted men as well as officers. I’m afraid the best any of us can do is to list some of the commanders and a few other noted individuals – a tiny subset of the total. I expect only WASt could answer your question the way it is phrased and I would be surprised if even they knew.
Also as Jean-Noël points out it isn’t all that easy for some of us to figure out what constitutes “Germany†for the purpose of your question. The maps were changed as a result of WWI and several commanders were born just before or after the end of WWI. And even worse in my case I don’t have a good enough grasp of European geography to be able to recognize which country many of the towns listed as the birthplace of the commanders (many of which only list the town not the country) was in without trying to look it up on a map and that would take me forever.
From the list of commanders, assuming it is representative of the U-bootwaffe in general, it is clear that there were quite a few U-boat men born outside of Germany though. More than I would have guessed anyway as far as commanders go.
I find the other side of the equation is interesting too.
When my dad’s (American) ship was sunk approximately 33% of her crew were naturalized American citizens born outside the U.S.A., including two Germans one of whom was the First Officer. They came from Chile, Denmark, England, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden. Not too different from the list of U-boat commanders' birth places.
I don’t know how representative that was as far as other American merchant ships go during the war though. On the other hand we are a country of immigrants so if we went back one more generation I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of American merchant crews that weren’t born here was much higher.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
Based on the way your question is phrased the real answer is no – we don’t have a clue. By asking about “U-boat men†you are asking about enlisted men as well as officers. I’m afraid the best any of us can do is to list some of the commanders and a few other noted individuals – a tiny subset of the total. I expect only WASt could answer your question the way it is phrased and I would be surprised if even they knew.
Also as Jean-Noël points out it isn’t all that easy for some of us to figure out what constitutes “Germany†for the purpose of your question. The maps were changed as a result of WWI and several commanders were born just before or after the end of WWI. And even worse in my case I don’t have a good enough grasp of European geography to be able to recognize which country many of the towns listed as the birthplace of the commanders (many of which only list the town not the country) was in without trying to look it up on a map and that would take me forever.
From the list of commanders, assuming it is representative of the U-bootwaffe in general, it is clear that there were quite a few U-boat men born outside of Germany though. More than I would have guessed anyway as far as commanders go.
I find the other side of the equation is interesting too.
When my dad’s (American) ship was sunk approximately 33% of her crew were naturalized American citizens born outside the U.S.A., including two Germans one of whom was the First Officer. They came from Chile, Denmark, England, Germany, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden. Not too different from the list of U-boat commanders' birth places.
I don’t know how representative that was as far as other American merchant ships go during the war though. On the other hand we are a country of immigrants so if we went back one more generation I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of American merchant crews that weren’t born here was much higher.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
