Of all the branches of the German military, the navy
[Kriegsmarine] was the least prepared
for the start of the war in September 1939. Despite intensified
rearmament from 1935 on, the German navy was no match for Great
Britain’s far superior Royal Navy. In addition to securing the Baltic
Sea and the coasts of the North Sea, the German navy’s main task was
cutting off the supply routes of the Allies, mostly Great Britain. The
tactics of the German naval command relied heavily on the use of
submarines, which ambushed enemy freighters in “packs.” After some
initial successes, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) managed
to crack the German communications code “Enigma” in 1940 and was thus
able to learn the positions of German submarines. Together with the
Allies’ newly developed radar systems, this intelligence information
ultimately led to the defeat of the German navy in the Atlantic
battle.
Taken in the harbor of Wilhelmshaven, this propaganda photograph
shows eight members of the crew of submarine U 50. The men had been
decorated with the Iron Cross after returning from the submarine’s first
mission. One month later, U 50 hit a mine in the North Sea and sank with
all 44 crew members on board. Nazi war propaganda often depicted service
on a submarine as a heroic adventure, yet the reality was far removed
from any romantic notion of seafaring life. The chances of survival for
submarine crews were extremely low: more than 30,000 of the
approximately 40,000 sailors deployed on German submarines died during
the war.