Hi All,

First let’s remember that this is an apolitical forum and political discussions are forbidden. If this thread continues too far it will probably be deleted.

That said, the political beliefs of individual U-boat men are unimportant and are not relevant to this forum. What is relevant is how the U-boatwaffe conducted their part of the war and it is clear that they conducted themselves in an honorable manner across the board with the single exception being the Eck case. There was no mistreatment of survivors based on their political beliefs or their race. Nobody in a lifeboat was singled out for mistreatment or indeed even questioned as to their race or political beliefs.

As Funkmeister points out even defining what it meant to be a “Nazi” is a slippery slope. Party membership isn’t definitive as many joined just to keep their jobs or because they believed in a strong government etc. and didn’t realize that the despicable aspects of the party would actually be carried out. The crimes of the “Nazis” escalated over time and the worst crimes were kept secret from most Germans. Indeed general knowledge the worst crimes didn’t occur until after the war. Others embraced even the worst aspects of the party but never joined the party. In the middle are the children that were brought up in a police state with the press and the church totally controlled by the Nazi government. All youth organizations were eventually incorporated into the Hitler Youth and later membership became mandatory. Being exposed to Nazi ideology wasn’t optional for them. Teaching German children the “principals” of the Nazi party was one of Hitler’s worst crimes in my opinion.

Many German POWs were misclassified by the Allies as Nazis simply because they believed in their country or were proud to be German or because they resisted being “reeducated” by their enemy etc.

Also as Philipp0408 pointed out, political activity was forbidden to U-boat men. Additionally, the U-boatwaffe was the least political of all of the German armed forces.

It seems that there is something about the human condition that makes all of us want to have someone or some group to look down on or to blame for our problems. None of us are exempt from this. In the end, a man’s beliefs are his own business. It is his actions that he must be judged by and the men of U-boatwaffe acted honorably toward their enemy and that’s how they should be remembered, not by what they may or may not have believed in at the time.

Regards,

Ken Dunn