The Wolf of The Atlantic - Otto Kretschmer

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Hello everybody, welcome back to a few minutes of history. I'm Jake and today I shall be talking about Otto Kretschmer and how in just over 18 months he became the most successful U-boat ace of the Second World War. And I shall be talking about his exploits and how according to German records he racked up some 312,000 gross tons of shipping sank or damaged.

[00:00:22]Born on the 1st of May 1912 in Silesia in now modern Poland, Kretschmer's father was a school teacher. After finishing his own schooling, Kretschmer went to England to study at Exeter University aged 17, but he only spent around 6 months at the university having to return to Germany due to his mother's death.

[00:00:40]At age 18 he joined the Reichsmarine, which was the name of the German Navy under the Weimar Republic. He joined as an officer cadet and completed his officer training. He sailed for 3 months aboard a training ship followed by a year aboard a light cruiser called the Emden and then he completed a variety of courses and placements throughout 1932 and 33 until he was transferred to the pocket battleship the Deutschland and then the cruiser the Köln.

[00:01:05]By this time Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party or the Nazi Party had come into power and the Reichsmarine was redesigned as the Kriegsmarine and immediately the Germans began reversing the restrictions placed on them by the Treaty of Versailles, which had placed strict limits on Germany's armed forces.

[00:01:23]Under the command of Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, shipyards in Germany began to build a new modern fleet of battleships, cruisers and destroyers.

[00:01:31]In 1935 news broke that Britain had signed the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935 giving Germany the right to build a surface fleet up to 35% the size of Britain's. Also included was a clause that would become key in Kretschmer's future career and that was Germany was allowed to build a submarine service 45% the size of the Royal Navy's.

[00:01:52]Admiral Raeder acted quickly and he turned Germany's diplomatic victory into action. He pulled World War I U-boat ace Karl Dönitz from his duty on the cruiser Emden and put him in charge of rebuilding the U-boat arm.

[00:02:04]He made the anti-submarine training school in Kiel the center for teaching both defensive and offensive tactics for future U-boat commanders and crews.

[00:02:12]Kretschmer's career in the U-boat fleet began in 1936 as a trainee in Kiel.

[00:02:16]After completing his training, he was drafted to U-35 as a watch officer.

[00:02:20]In 1937, he was given interim command of U-35 for a number of weeks and the U-boat undertook a patrol off the coast of Spain during its civil war.

[00:02:29]On the 1st of September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began.

[00:02:35]At the outbreak of the war, Germany had around 56 U-boats, but not all of these were fully operational.

[00:02:41]Karl Dönitz, the leader of the U-boat arm, ordered all these U-boats that were operational to set sail and on the 3rd of September, orders were issued to attack all enemy troop and military ships carrying military equipment.

[00:02:52]Kretschmer by this time was in command of U-23 and his boat was ordered to lay mines on the east coast of England, up the Scottish coast and into the Baltic.

[00:03:00]On his third patrol with U-23, Kretschmer scored his first kill when he and his crew successfully torpedoed the Glen Farg around 60 miles from the Shetland Islands near Scotland. He initially fired the the ship with a deck gun and after the Glen Farg's crew manned and escaped in their lifeboats, U-23 sent her down with torpedoes.

[00:03:18]After they returned to port, Kretschmer was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class for this. By the end of February 1940, Kretschmer had sunk a number of ships including one Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Daring, which funnily enough was the namesake of the first ship I served on in the Royal Navy, the Type 45 destroyer, HMS Daring.

[00:03:36]That patrol was Kretschmer's last as the commander of U-23. He had taken it on nine patrols, spent 96 days at sea, and racked up over 30,000 tons sunk or damaged. He was informed by Admiral Dönitz that he would be taking command of U-99, a newer type of U-boat. It was a 500-ton ocean-going boat with a complement of around 44 men and 12 torpedoes. Compared to the older U-23, U-99 was extremely luxurious.

[00:04:02]After loading stores, Kretschmer took a skeleton crew for trial runs in the Baltic. Here they practiced diving, firing torpedoes, and gunnery crews practiced their trainings without any issues.

[00:04:13]The crew in the boat were put through their paces until around June when he was ordered out to the Atlantic for combat patrols. U-99's first patrol, however, didn't go very well. The German battlecruiser the Scharnhorst was also operating in the area, and one of her planes mistook U-99 for a British submarine and dropped a bomb on it.

[00:04:29]While not fatal, the damage caused was enough to force the boat back in for repairs.

[00:04:34]On the 5th of July, 1940, Kretschmer and U-99 began a new patrol, and they saw success against Allied shipping almost immediately. While on U-99, Kretschmer coined the now-famous tactic of one ship, one torpedo. He used this strategy to maximize his effectiveness and conserve ammunition for his submarine.

[00:04:51]And as he often attacked Allied convoys at night while remaining close or on the surface, he viewed the tactic of spread-firing torpedoes at targets a waste of ammunition. On one occasion, Kretschmer took aim at the Canadian steamer the Magog and sank it. The crew of the Magog manned their lifeboats ready to jump overboard because of the deck gun on U-99 threatening them.

[00:05:11]Kretschmer, however, reassured them that he was not going to shoot them, and after conferring with the Canadian officer aboard the lifeboat, he tossed them a bottle of brandy with instructions on how to reach land safely. U-99 and Kretschmer continued to wreak havoc on merchant shipping for most of the rest of 1940.

[00:05:26]After sinking three merchant ships during one attack on an Allied convoy, a lifeboat occupied by a lone man in his underwear was spotted by the crew of U-99. Kretschmer took him on board and sent him below deck where he was given dry clothes, food, and alcohol.

[00:05:40]He decided not to take the prisoner back to port as the boat was still on patrol, so he brought U-99 close to where the lifeboats still around from the attack and simply handed the prisoner over to them.

[00:05:49]Following his third war patrol with the U-99, Kretschmer was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in August 1940.

[00:05:56]But, Kretschmer was not the only one. He recommended his helmsman, Heinrich Petersen, for the Knight's Cross due to his ability to avoid detection on patrols.

[00:06:04]Petersen was the helmsman for all of Kretschmer's patrols, and he was approved for the Knight's Cross as well.

[00:06:08]With the sinking of three British armed merchant cruisers in November 1940, with a total of more than 46,000 tons, Silent Otto, as he was known to his men, became the undisputed tonnage king of the U-boat commanders. He would never be dethroned, only adding to his own tonnage.

[00:06:24]With this success, Kretschmer was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross, and this would see him receive an audience with the German leader, Adolf Hitler.

[00:06:31]When he met Hitler, he asked him how the war was going, and Kretschmer's reply was simple: more U-boats were needed as soon as possible, as well as better support from the Luftwaffe to destroy more Allied shipping. The German leader simply nodded and thanked him for his comments, and informed him that changes would be made. But, as usual with the German leader, this was more of a case of playing to his audience. By this point of the war, he'd set his sights on the Eastern Soviet Union. U-99 set off on patrol once again on November the 27th, 1940. In just 15 days on this patrol, Kretschmer sank three British ships and one from the Netherlands. On the conclusion of their patrol, they returned to France on the 12th of December, 1940.

[00:07:08]He and his crew took leave and returned in February, 1941.

[00:07:12]U-99 stored up once again, and embarked on their eighth and final patrol on February the 22nd, 1941.

[00:07:20]For 13 days, the U-boat stayed around without any success, but this changed on March the 7th, when two British and one Canadian ships were added to its impressive record.

[00:07:29]Nine days later, Kretschmer and a number of other U-boats operating as part of a wolf pack attacked an Allied convoy, sinking five and damaging another.

[00:07:38]However, the escorting destroyers refused to give up chase, and pursued the U-boats. HMS Walker and HMS Vimy began dropping depth charges into the ocean and succeeded in damaging U100, which was accompanying Kretschmer's wolf pack, forcing her to surface where she was subsequently rammed by HMS Vimy, which eventually sank U100, killing her skipper and a number of her crew. HMS Walker began to rescue the survivors of U100 when they spotted Kretschmer's U99 and immediately broke off into an attack with depth charges. They damaged the U-boat and forced her to surface. U99 suffered three fatal casualties, but the rest of the crew, including Kretschmer, was rescued before the U-boat was eventually scuttled.

[00:08:21]HMS Walker took her prize prisoners to Liverpool, a city which had suffered heavily at this point of the war, having been bombed during the Blitz. It was an also an important city during the Battle of the Atlantic which raged throughout the entire war. The POWs were marched through the streets and they were greeted by thousands of angry locals, many of whom had suffered the loss of loved ones, no doubt at the hands of the U-boat crews and the Germans as a whole.

[00:08:43]From Liverpool, they were sent to London for interrogation. They remained in England until October 1942 when they were eventually transported to a Canadian prisoner of war camp in Southern Ontario.

[00:08:53]Kretschmer was awarded Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords in December 1941 for the sinking of ships on his last patrol. In the prisoner of war camp in Canada, the conditions were quite good in comparison to some of the others. It was, however, still a prison camp and one that held high-ranking officers of the Africa Corps, Luftwaffe, and the Kriegsmarine. Kretschmer and a number of POWs attempted to escape the POW camp and tried to get back to Germany, but they were thwarted when their escape plan was discovered by the Canadians as well as their tunnel.

[00:09:21]Kretschmer remained a prisoner of war with the Allies for nearly 7 years and he finally returned to Germany in 1947.

[00:09:27]In 1955, he became an officer in the Bundesmarine, the navy of West Germany.

[00:09:32]It was also in 1955 that he re-met the captain of HMS Walker, the ship that had ended his wartime career. The captain of the Walker gave Kretschmer back his binoculars, which he had taken as a prize in 1941.

[00:09:45]He continued to serve in the West German Navy until he eventually retired in 1970 with the rank of flotilla admiral after also serving several positions within NATO.

[00:09:54]Kretschmer died following an accident while on holiday in Bavaria in 1998. He was 86 years old. His body was cremated and his ashes were fittingly scattered at sea.

[00:10:04]Thank you for watching today's video. If you did enjoy, please subscribe, like, and drop me a comment as well as it really does help me and the channel as a whole. I'll see you all on the next one.

[00:10:13]Until then, goodbye.