Hi Vidar,

This is a confusing subject to say the least. It was all so simple when there was just one intake of officer candidates a year. Entry, intake and Crew were all the same then. I think for the most part Busch & Röll are using them interchangeably too though there might be a subtle difference I haven’t noticed. They are all about year of entry into the navy and Crew affiliation. Also note that I have the English version and the translator may have taken some liberties with the original German. That said I am guessing that when they used “Entry 19YY” they were giving the year the man entered the navy & they weren’t sure of his Crew affiliation. Though it was possible to enter from an ancillary branch I haven’t tried to research this. The translator apparently simply translated “Crew” as “class” in my version. The book also does contain some errors.

The Niobe sinking resulted in men being taken in at a time other than the regular intake for that year and the seniority and the previous experience of each of them was taken into consideration with their Crew affiliations. As the Kriegsmarine expanded multiple intakes of officer candidates each year became the norm. This led to even more confusing Crew designations like Crew 37b and Crew 5/41.

The Niobe replacements weren’t the only HSOs to be taken into the navy and they weren’t all taken in at the same time. As you can see from Fernando’s list there were a good many of them. They were treated individually hence the various Crew affiliations.

There were actually 28 HSOs that were considered Crew 33 by the members of the real Crew 33. Most of these 28 men joined the navy April 8, 1934 (roughly the same date as the normal intake for 1934), long after Crew 33 had completed boot camp. They were sent to boot camp with Crew 34 then separated and sent to artillery school (they skipped sail training and the world cruise) then they arrived at the Naval Academy at the same time Crew 33 did and went through the whole program at the Academy with Crew 33. Werner Henke was one of them. All 28 are in the Crew 33 Crew Photo and in the Crew 33 Crew Book and their Crew affiliation is generally simply referred to as Crew 33, not 34/33 as you might expect it to be based on Prien’s group. However as you can see from Fernando’s list their crew affiliations sometimes were listed as 34/33. They were promoted on the Crew 33 schedule but that’s consistent with a 34/33 designation. I believe there were some HSOs assigned to Crew 33 after the Crew finished the Naval Academy but again the men of the original Crew 33 (including the 28 HSOs mentioned above) didn’t consider them members and they weren’t included in the Crew 33 Crew Book or photo.

The bottom line is that I think Busch & Röll were just as confused by the various designations as the rest of us. For example they list Gerhard Bigalk the way he was considered by the men of the original Crew 33, simply as “Class 1933” and they list Werner Henke as simply “Class 1934” However both of them were in the 28 HSOs that joined in 1934 and went through the Academy with Crew 33 and were in the Crew Book & photo etc. as full-fledged members of the Crew. Both of them are listed in Fernando’s list as 34/33.

The few U-boat men’s service records I have seen do not include his Crew, only his year of entry into the Navy leaving the assignment of Crew affiliation to the researcher if that is your only source of information. Of course in the early years it was easy as there was just the one intake per year.

The HSOs came to the navy at various times and with various levels of experience and were treated accordingly. There certainly might have been a standard designation used by the navy (probably Entry year/Crew affiliation) but not by the various authors that have written about it. The navy really didn’t care about the Crew affiliation except as it pertained to promotions and seniority. The men cared very much about the Crew Comrades they went through their early years with though and when they talk about their Crew they are talking about these men.

My research has been pretty much confined to Crew 33 though I have read Rust’s excellent book on Crew 34 “Naval Officers under Hitler” and have read Rodney Martin’s “Silent Runner” containing a good account of the sinking of the Niobe and Crew 32 details but that’s about the extent of my research into other Crews. I don’t read German so I am limited to books written in English.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Ken Dunn