General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: uboat Contact With German Merchant Ships
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: October 12, 2007 11:22PM
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the additional info. Rainer, thanks much for the Ritschel info too. That puts it all in perspective for me.
As to Ritschel’s work, he is simply publishing (in German only) an abbreviated version of all of the U-boat KTBs. He has left out many of the routine entries in the KTBs and converted some of them to a “shorthand†form. For example he sometimes replaces an entry announcing that the U-boat has dived with a single arrow pointing down. He has added information that has come to light since the war like the names of ships attacked that weren’t known at the time of the attack etc. as well as some maps, tables and other additional information.
So far he has published 5 volumes covering U-1 through U-222. I think the next volume is close to being ready to publish and perhaps the one that follows that too.
Considering the expense involved with purchasing KTBs on microfilm and the difficulty of dealing with sentences chopped off at the margin when the microfilm was made and the difficulty of getting clear copies that can easily be scanned into machine readable format etc. Ritschel’s work makes a great deal of sense. I don't read German but I can at least scan an entry into text & paste it into one of the on-line translation programs & get an idea of whether or not something warrants a real translation & it is much easier to do that by grabbing a book off the shelf than grabbing a roll of microfilm and trying to figure out how to go from there - especially if you don't already have the roll of microfilm you need.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
Thanks for the additional info. Rainer, thanks much for the Ritschel info too. That puts it all in perspective for me.
As to Ritschel’s work, he is simply publishing (in German only) an abbreviated version of all of the U-boat KTBs. He has left out many of the routine entries in the KTBs and converted some of them to a “shorthand†form. For example he sometimes replaces an entry announcing that the U-boat has dived with a single arrow pointing down. He has added information that has come to light since the war like the names of ships attacked that weren’t known at the time of the attack etc. as well as some maps, tables and other additional information.
So far he has published 5 volumes covering U-1 through U-222. I think the next volume is close to being ready to publish and perhaps the one that follows that too.
Considering the expense involved with purchasing KTBs on microfilm and the difficulty of dealing with sentences chopped off at the margin when the microfilm was made and the difficulty of getting clear copies that can easily be scanned into machine readable format etc. Ritschel’s work makes a great deal of sense. I don't read German but I can at least scan an entry into text & paste it into one of the on-line translation programs & get an idea of whether or not something warrants a real translation & it is much easier to do that by grabbing a book off the shelf than grabbing a roll of microfilm and trying to figure out how to go from there - especially if you don't already have the roll of microfilm you need.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
