To answer the above points.

According to the declassified Argentine Navy interrogation report available at the Argentine naval archive (Box 64), Schäffer surrendered at Mar del Plata on 17 August 1945 with all equipment intact except for the flak ammunition which he said he had expended on the way down.

The statement by Paul - "to the best of his recollection" is based on-? Is this scientific accuracy or what? "Paul"'s statement though honestly made is incorrect and as I have said before, this kind of uninformed guessing game serves no useful purpose because people take it as gospel and it is hearsay.

I will post for everybody tomorrow the details from the official Brazilian Navy report. The Brazilian admirals dissented from the report and believed that there had been undue influence by the United States for a particular reason
which Mr Odenweller may or may not understand depending upon whether he understands the civil and criminal law of his country.

In 1950, which is fifty-seven years ago and not forty, Heinz Schäffer, who immigrated into Argentina in 1948, wrote his book "Das Geheimnis vom U-977" for circulation amongst the German community in Argentina.

The edited version of this book was published in America and Europe in 1952. In 1955 Schäffer served the Argentine Navy as a secret agent and was involved in the overthrow of the Peron regime that year. As a reward for his services, the Argentine Navy made him a ship's master and also agreed to translate his unabridged book into Spanish. This version was placed in all reference libraries of the Argentine Navy, and gathered dust there until Salinas and De Napoli came across it twice, in the SIM naval intelligence library and the naval engineering school while researching for "Ultramar Sur". The publication of this book last year was by a State office of Buenos Aires province in which the Argentine Navy is located. The provenance of the book is therefore undoubted.

The interrogation reports of Schäffer and Wermuth were declassified by the Chief of the Argentine Naval General Staff personally to Salinas and De Napoli in 2002. This came about as follows. In 1993, President Menem stated that he wanted to make "a clean breast of things" as regards Nazi collusion in Argentina during and after the war. President Menem mentioned that he was about to enjoy "a carnal relationship with the United States" which probably meant lucrative contracts and so forth, although I am not of course insinuating anything.

In due course the United States sent down a piece of work by the name of Professor Ronald Newton whose task was to examine all the Argentine naval files and report upon any naval collusion he found between Argentina and the Nazis. He reported that everything was precisely as Washington had said it was, no U-boats other than U-977 and U-530 had come down. Of the incident on 18 July 1945 off San Antonio del Oeste when the Argentine torpedo boat "Mendoza" sighted a periscope and attacked a submerged object after verifying it was a submarine by hydrophone, the Professor stated that the Argentine Navy did not know the difference between "a periscope and a drifting branch in the water." In his report he also stated: "The possibility that any U-boat could have discharged along the coast of the Argentine postwar is as likely as a UFO landing on your front lawn and the occupants inviting themselves into your house for tea." Clearly the Professor had a screw loose somewhere.

Such insults to the Argentine Navy require satisfaction. The Professor has been roundly abused in print by nearly all Argentine authors as a a cad and a liar (and a puta-madre, which is worse), and as I understand it he so aggravated the Argentine Navy that they released the interrogation papers of Wermuth and Schäffer to actually prove that Professor Newton was a liar. Schäffer was in or near Argentine waters for at least a month in July/August 1945, while Wermuth could not account for 24 hours and a missing rubber dinghy between 9 and 10 July 1945 off Miramar. Therefore it was MORE LIKELY that a U-boat could discharge along the coast postwar than the UFO on your lawn than the other way round and the Professor does seem to have lied. If it had not been for Professor Newton, however, these papers would never have been released.

I trust this answers the questions.