I was born on 22 April 1917 in Kaufiung on the Katzbach River in Silesia, the youngest of nine children. I finished school in 1931 and spent about a year looking for a company for an apprenticeship. In 1932 I started in a blacksmith forge and wagon- building company and completed my apprenticeship in October 1935. For four weeks I was a journeyman, and then unemployed. Originally I had wanted to become an electrician or auto mechanic, but I would have had to wait much longer. Since I had always wanted to see something of the world, I volunteered for the Kriegsmarine [German Navy] in June 1935 and reported on 1 April 1936 as a career man.
First Ship
After three months of basic training I went to the cruiser Karlsruhe in Kiel, which had just returned from a cruise around the world. I completed advanced machinist’s engine training and was stationed in the port turbine compartment for electricity. We were sent to Spain at the end of 1936 for blockading duties supporting Generalisimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. After two months we sailed back to Kiel and continued our training in the Baltic Sea. In June 1937 we returned to Spain, but only for two weeks. Back in Kiel we served as a target ship for U-boats, torpedo boats, and for gunnery practice in the Baltic. We also visited several German harbors, among them Stettin and Swinemiinde, and put into Danzig-Neufahrwasser for repairs.
In February 1938 the Karlsruhe was decommissioned for shipyard work in Wilhelmshaven to improve her seaworthiness because she was top-heavy. That summer we attended classes in Kiel and, in August, served as a guard of honor at the launching of Prinz Eugen. We had to stand in formation for three hours in the broiling sun across from the train station waiting for Dr. Robert Ley, the Reich labor leader, until he finally arrived.
There were a lot of warships in Kiel: the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and two old ships of the line, the World War I veterans Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien. Our sister ships, the Kunigsberg and Koln, were there as well as the Leipzig and Niimberg, and later the Bliicher.
We completed a six-month advanced military course and, in April 1939, started a technical course, which was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. A new crew for the Karlsruhe was assembled in Kiel and went to Wilhelmshaven two weeks later. After recommissioning her in November, we conducted training and shakedown cruises there and in the North Sea.
In mid-March 1940, we sailed to Bremerhaven. The night of 8-9 April, mountain troops, mostly Austrians, came on board. We did not know what was going on. Early that morning as we were putting out, it was announced that we were heading for Kristiansand, Norway.
As we approached the town, we got into a brief fight with the Norwegian coastal artillery firing from the cliffs. Some of our rounds hit the church tower in town. Our escorting torpedo boats landed the mountain troops, who took control of the city. At about 1930 we left the harbor and shortly thereafter, a British submarine torpedoed us. I happened to be on deck at the time, checking to make sure the portholes were covered and that the ship was blacked out, not a very important thing since it was still very light at that time of day.
As I was moving from port to starboard, I saw a trail of bubbles heading toward us. The bridge gave the alarm at the same time. The torpedo hit us, and I was thrown against our torpedo tube and cut the back of my left hand. I was lucky—otherwise I would have gone overboard. Eleven men were killed, but torpedo boats came alongside and the rest of us were able to leave the ship in good order and with dry feet.
New Assignment
About 600 of the crew were sent to the Bismarck in Hamburg on 22 April 1940, my 23rd birthday. We had heard about the Bismarck before, but seeing her live for the first time was absolutely amazing.
We familiarized ourselves with the layout of the ship, learning where the ducts and conduits ran, and how the turbine compartments were designed. It was very interesting because the dimensions were so different from those on the Karlsruhe. Some compartments on the Bismarck were three stories high. It was indeed impressive.
Just like in the Karlsruhe, I was assigned to the port turbine compartment. We had regular workdays, which consisted of duty in the compartments and theoretical and practical training classes on deck, but we did not pull watch. When we went on shore, we went into Hamburg. Everyone looked forward to that. We really liked the town.
The Bismarck commissioned on 24 August 1940, but was not yet battle ready. The ship had to be shaken down, and the crew had to learn the ropes. This work was closely coordinated with the people from the Blohm & Voss shipyard, who explained everything to us.
In mid-October, we sailed through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal to the Baltic Sea for the shakedown cruise. We operated mainly in the Gulf of Danzig, and our homeport was Gotenhafen. All the equipment and machinery were thoroughly tested by civilian specialists who were still on board.
Generally we did shakedowns during the day and anchored in the harbor at night since we drew too much water to put in at the wharf. The city was nice, but we preferred to go to Danzig when we had more time on shore. It had a number of nice sites and more going on. The enlisted men had shore leave until ten in the evening and the petty officers until midnight. Those who partook too much of the famous “Danziger Goldwasser” schnapps were confined to the ship.
I supervised four others on my watch, making sure they carried out their duties and things ran smoothly. The fellows were Otto Kniep, Werner Lust, Herbert Walter, and Johann Juricek.
In winter 1940 we returned to Hamburg for fine-tuning and completion of remaining work and got leave between Christmas and New Year's. In March 1941, we were back in the Baltic, drilling and running tactical simulations constantly. The guns were tested here for the first time.
Once I watched the big guns fire. We were told to stick our fingers in our ears to protect our eardrums. I saw the projectiles leaving the muzzles; they were glowing red and yellow, and you could follow them on their way to the target. Many people say you cannot see the projectiles, but I sure did. The concussion was tremendous, and we were just using practice charges in the Baltic.
Final Month
I was on watch when Adolf Hitler visited us on 5 May 1941, so I did not have to form up on deck. Our compartments were always in proper order and clean including the railings, which we polished with emery paste.
The next two weeks we drilled continuously. On Saturday, 17 May, we put into the harbor at Gotenhafen to repair some damage to a crane. Our oil bunkers had a lot of sludge in their bottoms, so we had to do a rush cleaning job supervised by a fellow from the Danzig Shipyards. We also took on ammunition. Because of our draft, we had to fuel while we lay in the roads. But we had to discontinue refueling after an oil hose broke.
When we moved from the harbor out to the roads, a band played the song “Muss I denn, muss i denn zum Städetele hinaus?” ["Must I then, must I then leave the village today?"] which was always played whenever passenger ships left harbor in Germany. We felt that was a mistake. That song was a sure sign that we were putting out to sea shortly. However, all of us knew we were going on an operation because we had taken on three-month’s stock of provisions. We just didn’t know where we were going.
Then, on the evening of 18-19 May, we shipped out. Along with Prinz Eugen and escorts including destroyers and minesweepers, we sailed through the Great Belt, Kattegatt, Skagerrak, and along the Norwegian coast and put in to Grimstadfjord near Bergen on 21 May in broad daylight. Unlike Prinz Eugen, we didn’t take on any oil there. We were told there was not enough time for it. During my free watch, I went up on deck and looked at the landscape around Bergen.
In the evening we put out and headed north then west toward the Denmark Strait, steaming along the edge of the pack ice to avoid English minefields. During my free watches I came on deck to admire the natural spectacle of the ice masses. The tremendous creaking and groaning of the ice floes was impressive.
Back into Combat
While exiting the Denmark Strait a British cruiser sighted us and we engaged her. She moved out of range and shadowed us and called for heavier ships.
At the crack of dawn on 24 May, we were told that English ships were heading toward us. The battle started shortly thereafter. I was on my four to eight watch in the engine room, where we only felt and heard the recoil of our guns. Whenever the big guns fired we felt a strong lurch as though the ship were recoiling.
The battle didn’t last long. Our officers announced that we were in contact with the Hood and Prince of Wales. Then we heard that we had sunk the Hood. We were naturally very happy about that; we had won. I had seen the Hood once in 1937 when I was on the Karlsruhe passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. She was the epitome of the Royal Navy, and we had just destroyed her.
But I started thinking that, if the Hood exploded, there couldn’t be much left of the ship and crew and only very few, maybe those who had been thrown overboard by the explosion, could have survived. And that was what happened.
Late that evening, torpedo planes from the carrier Victorious attacked us when I was on my eight to twelve watch. A torpedo hit us without doing much damage, but the concussion threw out the quick-release shut-off buttons on the turbines so that they stopped automatically. We had to reset them before we could open the propulsion valve to restart the turbines. One man was killed, the boatswain’s mate, who was thrown into the aircraft catapult.
The night of 25 May, after the Prinz Eugen had been detached and we evaded the English, we headed directly for France. We were in even higher spirits on board. Not only had we sunk England’s proudest ship and fended off a torpedo attack, we had also given them the slip. On Sunday 25 May we were a ghost ship, like the Flying Dutchman.
The following morning, a Catalina patrol aircraft spotted us through a break in the clouds, and our flak fired on it immediately. Nothing happened the rest of the day. Then, late that evening the airplanes attacked. I was at my secondary watch station at the aft casualty station at the bulkhead of Turret Dora, where I had been sleeping. [Sleeping was allowed at the secondary stations as long as the personnel were physically present.] There was a hit fore, about the level of Section X, then an explosion in the stern, in the rudder, right near where I was. The concussion hit me, and it felt like I had broken every bone in my body.
Then I had to go below decks into the drive shaft tunnel to look for damage. I found none and reported that to the technical control center. I then moved to the noncommissioned officers mess in Section III/IV on the port side where crewmen tried to reach the rudder motor and the manual rudder compartment. They were thinking about using explosive charges to blow the rudder free. A damage control officer, Oberleutnant Karl Richter, and another man arrived dressed in diving suits and entered the compartments. They soon returned, as it was impossible to move in there. There was a huge hole in the outer hull, and the water flooded in and out with each wave and with the movement of the ship. I looked down and saw water rising to the hatch, and then dropping. They had wanted to steer the ship manually from the rudder compartment but could not get into the compartment. I heard they finally secured the bulkhead to the rudder compartment with wood.
The Final Night
That night the seas were heavy and the enemy destroyers kept making torpedo runs at us, but without success. I was at my secondary watch station from twelve to four. I didn’t have anything to do. I was exhausted and fell asleep.
During the night, the captain opened the pantries but nobody was really hungry. We just ate lemons to get a different taste in our mouths. We were supposed to change watches at 0800 the next morning but changed at 0600 because the command expected the battle to be joined early and did not want to get caught changing watches.
We were on tinderhooks waiting for the battle to begin. The engines were running at about 11 knots. The command announced that bomber squadrons and ocean-going tugs were on their way, but I didn’t believe it. I knew how far we were from the French coast. I also heard our superiors wondering if we had enough oil. In Gotenhafen, and again in Norway, we had failed to fully load fuel and the shell damage in Denmark Strait had sealed off a thousand tons of oil.
The battle started at 0847.
In the engine room we were kept informed of the progress of the battle. We could hear the noise, but we did not notice any direct hits. We did hear sporadic shrapnel clattering in the airways. In time, we noticed the ship pitching more and more to port. A direct hit in Section X ripped the water storage cells beneath us, and our compartment started to slowly flood. The two auxiliary engines were already underwater when the command ordered the port engine-control center to place and activate the scuttling charges and abandon ship.
Herbert Walter and I got the charges from the containers on the port side, placed them on the cooling water intakes, and activated them. The crews in the center and starboard engine rooms did the same.
Escape and Capture
Now we had to find our way up on deck. After running past the engine-control center, I met with five others and we ran up two companion- ways to the third deck into a damp room. Just as the last one got there, we took a direct hit on the main deck. There was a huge explosion. The light went out, and a sulfurous gas spread through the compartment. I saw light coming from above and thought that was the only way out. We must have been in an elevator for flak shells, as there were metal slats, just like rungs, which conveyed the shells to the guns. Just as I was grabbing the slats, I lost my flashlight. “No problem,” I thought, “there is light up there.”
I told the others to follow me, and we reached the second deck where we passed the command pantry. It was on fire and smoking. I ran up the final companionway to the main deck and sprinted past Turret Caesar to Turret Dora, about 15 meters. There were spent casings from the 38-cm guns all over the deck, and I cut the back of my right hand on one while running. When I got to Turret Dora some people stopped me. The turret was no longer firing. A British shell flew over the stern and landed on the other side. Great luck there. More and more people were gathering there. It was up to every man to decide for himself when to jump into the water.
I inflated my life jacket and waited. Then I jumped onto the crest of a wave so that it carried me away from the ship. I grabbed a piece of wood. A fellow dressed in civilian clothes was hanging on it too. He must have been from one of the prize crews we had on ship. We looked back as our Bismarck pitched more and more to port. Slowly she slid stern first into the water and the bow rose into the air. She slid beneath the waves like an elevator.
It took almost an hour for the Dorsetshire and Maori to come for us. Luckily my leather machinist’s overalls insulated me. I swam to the destroyer Maori and saw that her crew had lowered lines over the stern. The waves raised us to the level of the deck, where I saw two sailors waiting to pull us on board. Three of us were holding onto the line. The first wave receded too quickly for them to grab us. The next wave was higher, and they managed to pull two of us onto the deck. The third fellow had let go of the line in the meantime. The English sailor who rescued me told me this in 1977 when we met in Plymouth, England.
I don’t remember what happened after that. I must have passed out from exhaustion. I woke up later in the officers’ mess, wrapped in a blanket. I drank several mugs of hot tea with milk and sugar then had to throw up, getting rid of the diesel oil I had swallowed. To this day, I have not had any serious problems with my stomach.
Now we were POWs.
