Hi Spindlegger,

The U-boot Archiv is run by its founder Horst Bredow, a former U-boat officer. It is not open year round and when it is open, Horst has to depend on unpaid volunteers to help with inquiries. The archive gets no government support and depends on donations to pay the bills so there are no paid employees. Jak Showell (well-known Brit U-boat historian and author) generally spends some time there each year & helps with the English language inquiries (Horst speaks good English too) but the rest of the time Horst who isn’t a young man anymore has to do most of the research to handle inquiries himself and he gets a large number of inquiries every year. Horst works really hard when he is there and he works long hours but he generally doesn’t answer the phone at night or weekends as that is when he gets most of his work on inquiries done. The rest of the time he has to deal with Archive business and also play host to those who visit in person during the day.

Be patient and if that doesn’t work, try giving them a call to find out the status of your inquiry. Frau Bredow frequently answers the phone & she isn’t fluent in English so you might want to get someone who speaks German to make the call for you if you don’t speak German. The last time I called & got a recording the recording was in German...

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Ken Dunn