Talk:Günther Prien

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[edit] Scapa Flow

What about the intelligence efforts of Abwehr concerning the Scapa flow attack? I have read a book that claims a german Naval officer Alfred Wehring (I`m not sure about the spelling as the book was written in Serbian) lived for more than a decade in Kirkwall under false identity: as a Swiss jewler Albert Orthel (or so). He was picked up by a boat from the Prien`s submarine at a pre-arranged randezvous point and he handed Prien a very precise map of the harbor, and later returned to Germany on board the submarine. Of course he wasn`t made a public hero as he was a spy. It seems that Prien didn`t risk all that much that night (though it was still a brave act by all means).

Veljko Stevanovich added on 1st Nov 2005 from 213.137.118.100

News to me. Not that the layout of Scapa was exactly secret; a U-boat almost penetrated in WW1, too. And KM knew roughly what the dispositions of blockships were. Prien got a little lucky the final ship(s), which would've blocked the channel he used, were delayed... ( Trekphiler 18:41 24 December 2005 )

The risk Prien took here was with the passage itself, which was scary, both entering, which was done on the surface, lit up by the aurora; and exiting the same way, with the Flow in an uproar. He was spotted by a guard-boat while in the channel, but for some reason it didn't attack. He also showed nerve staying for a second attack when his first torpedo (which exploded, alerting the ship) failed to sink her.
As far as the layout of the Flow is concerned, Trekphiler is right, this wasn't the first time it had been tried. In 1914 U-18 got in through the Hoxa boom, but the Flow was empty; in October 1918 UC-116 was lost trying the same thing. In 1939 aerial reconnaisance had shown up the gap in the barrier, so there was no need for spy stories, whether it's true or not. Xyl 54 11:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The 'Swiss Watchmaker' story first appeared in the 16 May 1942 issue of the American magazine Saturday Evening Post and was written by the journalist Curt Riess. Numerous sources, which include Rupert Allason, have thoroughly investigated the story and satisfied themselves that it is a complete fabrication. According to James Haywood in Myths and Legends of the Second World War, the material-hungry Riess was supplied the story by another journalist, and spun it into a tale of his own without bothering to investigate its factual basis. Other journals, such as the German Der Kurier in December 1947 took up on the story, adding their own details as they went along. In 1958, the Admiralty described the story as a "fairy tale", and that there was "not a shred of evidence" for it. (ADM 1/27381) In 1983, Orkney's chief librarian confirmed that no-one named Albert Oertel, in fact no Swiss, or any other foreign watchmaker had ever worked in Orkney, going on to speculate that 'Albert Oertel' was probably a pun on the Albert Hotel in Kirkwall. — BillC ^talk 07:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aces

On a separate ish, let me suggest a "sub aces" page, sim to "flying aces", to include the top aces of WW1 (led by le Perrier) & WW2 (led by Kretchmer, Shepke, Prien, Endrass, & Kvkpn Victor Schütze; on the U.S. side, include O'Kane, Benson, Davenport). Trekphiler 18:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! There is an Aces of the Deep page, but it only has the WWII German aces on it, so its a bit un-balanced; information on the others would be good. Xyl 54 11:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate Ending

Joseph Goebbels by Curt Riess (Hollis & Carter, 1949) indicates that Prien was "liquidated at the beginning of 1945" (based upon articles in a Berlin newspaper in 1946) after considerable time in a concentration camp and a spell in the prison at Torgau. He indicates that Goebbels wanted to use him as a hero, but Prien fell out with his commanders, after some "jealousy" over the Scapa Flow incident which eventually ended with Prien refusing to obey orders and being arrested.

This ridiculous hoax should be placed into the trash bin, and there is absolutely no reason whatever to keep this "An alternative ending?" section in the article. A lot of trash was published by fools and attention-seekers in the immediate post-war years, and this baloney belongs in that category. Cosal 00:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Dan van der Vat refers to this notion in his book The Atlantic Campaign; he also says there isn't a shred of evidence for it. He attributes it to the huge regard the German people had for their hero, and their reluctance to believe he was dead; this was compounded by the Propaganda Ministry with-holding the news of his death, which led to rumours, and lasting mis-information. Xyl 54 11:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

An alternative ending?

What a rubbish. I deleted this. --82.83.127.151 18:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi all. i have found out from a very reliable source that prien was also known to his crew as "the old man" as he was in his thirties at the time of his command, which compared to the young sailors was quite old.```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiwi ledgend 21 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

German U-Boat captains were and still are, called "der Alte". It is not a special nickname. It comes with the position.--Tresckow (talk) 00:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)