U-boats Unloading on Argentine Coast, 27 July 1945

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ohrdruf
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U-boats Unloading on Argentine Coast, 27 July 1945

#1

Post by ohrdruf » 22 Sep 2004, 21:09

In response to a request from "mty" in another thread for further information on the captioned subject I would provide the following:


---Three former "Admiral Graf Spee" crew members, Alfred Schultz, Walter Dettelmann and Willi Brennecke gave sworn depositions to CEANA (Congressional Committee for the Investigation of Nazi Activities in Argentina) that "between 23 and 29 July 1945 they assisted at the unloading of passengers and cargo from two German U-boats on the Argentine coast."

---The stenographic record of their evidence seems to have been lost, but a synopsis of it appears in the CEANA Chronicle confirming its existence.


---Ronald Newton was a member of the CEANA Investigation and produced material in his book "El Cuarto Lado del Triangulo" (BsAs 1996) to the effect that "following a denunciation at Necochea at 1800 hr on 27 July 1945, a search was made of the beaches and a man of German origin who admitted signalling by lamp to a U-boat offshore, which was preparing to disembark, was arrested by a patrol.
Newton continued: "At first light on 28 July 1945 a search was made along the coast either side of Necochea and at midday, about 15 kms towards Mar del Plata, evidence was found of launches and rubber dinghies having been hauled up the sands, the impressions of heavy crates and boxes being off-loaded at an assembly point where there were tyre-tracks of several lorries. The tyre tracks were followed to the gates of a large Lahusen* farm set back from the beach and screened by much vegetation.


---(* The Lahusen organisation had been run by a family from Bremen since at least the turn of the century. It was operated from seven floors of offices in the centre of Buenos Aires, owned 100,000 hectares of land in Patagonia and adjacent regions, had a store in nearly every village and employed staff numbering tens of thousands. Although alleged to be the operational centre for all Nazi espionage activity in Argentina, the Commission of Enquiry into Enemy Property created by the Argentine Government following the declaration of war in early 1945 decided not to investigate the company.)


---Newton's report continues: "The police patrol entered the driveway of the estate and drove for two kilometres before being stopped and violently ejected by four Germans armed with sub machine-guns. Upon receiving the report, the Provincial Chief of Police at La Plata ordered the Necochea officers to abandon their enquiry.


---Alain Pujol was a member of the French Deuxieme Bureau who made an exhaustive study into Nazi assets overseas. His investigation included interrogations of the three "Admiral Graf Spee" crewmen mentioned above. He reported that numerous cases bearing the stencil "Geheime Reichssache" were shipped by Ernst Kaltenbrunner from Schleswig Holstein to a Lahusen ranch at San Clemente del Tuyu (on coast NE of Mar del Plata). They were brought there in five lorries owned by a potato farmer at Balcarce (50 kms inland from Mar del Plata). These five lorries had assisted at the unloading of two U-boats on the Argentine coast during the night of 28 July 1945. Pujol stated that in his opinion the cargo was "the treasure of the RSHA" valued at one thousand million dollars.


---The two U-boats sailed from Kiel in April 1945 together with U-977. Newly declassified Argentine and Brazilian archive material presents a different picture from the accredited official historical record. I will post this if so requested.

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Doc Rx
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#2

Post by Doc Rx » 22 Sep 2004, 23:18

That is a very cool story!! Has anyone written a book about these u-boats?

Best regards,
Terrence


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#3

Post by ohrdruf » 23 Sep 2004, 17:54

The material has appeared in Spanish language only to date. Newton's book is considered a classic of its kind. The problem is that in Argentina, there is no automatic declassification of official documents as there is in Britain and the US. One learns about new documents only when they are mentioned by an author as being in his possession. A non-national would find it difficult to obtain a sight of sensitive documents which the authorities might be prepared to release to a national who gave a good account of his purposes. Nazi activities in Argentina in particular are a hot potato. It seems that even the Argentine author would not be permitted to reproduce more than one page of a document in print, the page being his way of proving that he has the document to which he refers. I have spoken to several Argentinian authors on this subject and they were all very cagey indeed aboout what they have and what the rules are.

Documents have been released recently to a research group which indicate a different history surrounding the U-boat U-977 in connection with the subject matter.

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panzertruppe2001
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#4

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 24 Sep 2004, 20:08

ohrdruf wrote:The material has appeared in Spanish language only to date. Newton's book is considered a classic of its kind. The problem is that in Argentina, there is no automatic declassification of official documents as there is in Britain and the US. One learns about new documents only when they are mentioned by an author as being in his possession. A non-national would find it difficult to obtain a sight of sensitive documents which the authorities might be prepared to release to a national who gave a good account of his purposes. Nazi activities in Argentina in particular are a hot potato. It seems that even the Argentine author would not be permitted to reproduce more than one page of a document in print, the page being his way of proving that he has the document to which he refers. I have spoken to several Argentinian authors on this subject and they were all very cagey indeed aboout what they have and what the rules are.

Documents have been released recently to a research group which indicate a different history surrounding the U-boat U-977 in connection with the subject matter.
Orhrdruf, I suppose you are from Argentina. Do you read Tecnica de una Traicion by Silvano Santander. This book gives some information about Mar del Plata U Boote

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#5

Post by ohrdruf » 26 Sep 2004, 19:32

Panzertruppe 2001

The book you mention was published in 1955. The point is that following the release of certain documents to an Argentine/Spanish research group in 2002, we have now a different story about U-977 and U-530, the two submarines which surrendered at Mar del Plata.

U-530 had been engaged on a secret operation off the US coast and it was the desire of her commander, Wermuth, to surrender to the Argentinians rather than to any other of the Allies. Wermuth was not involved with the cargo operation.

It is now clear that Schaeffer, commander of U-977, conspired with the Argentine Navy to falsify his movements during July 1945. His claim to have made a 66-day voyage on the snorkel from Europe to the Cape Verdes was a fiction calculated to place him well north of the Equator on 4 July 1945. Schaeffer was scout boat to the two submarines which unloaded on 27 July 1945 near Necochea, and understandably Schaeffer is silent on the depth-charging he received from the torpedo-boat "Mendoza" near San Antonio del Oeste on 18 July 1945, after which somebody, somewhere, helped him repair and repaint. The two transport U-boats had been attacked by the Brazilian warship "Babitonga" on 18 July 1945 and behaved in a strange manner, as the documents show.

None of this is mentioned in the 1955 works.

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#6

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 27 Sep 2004, 00:25

ohrdruf wrote:Panzertruppe 2001

The book you mention was published in 1955. The point is that following the release of certain documents to an Argentine/Spanish research group in 2002, we have now a different story about U-977 and U-530, the two submarines which surrendered at Mar del Plata.

U-530 had been engaged on a secret operation off the US coast and it was the desire of her commander, Wermuth, to surrender to the Argentinians rather than to any other of the Allies. Wermuth was not involved with the cargo operation.

It is now clear that Schaeffer, commander of U-977, conspired with the Argentine Navy to falsify his movements during July 1945. His claim to have made a 66-day voyage on the snorkel from Europe to the Cape Verdes was a fiction calculated to place him well north of the Equator on 4 July 1945. Schaeffer was scout boat to the two submarines which unloaded on 27 July 1945 near Necochea, and understandably Schaeffer is silent on the depth-charging he received from the torpedo-boat "Mendoza" near San Antonio del Oeste on 18 July 1945, after which somebody, somewhere, helped him repair and repaint. The two transport U-boats had been attacked by the Brazilian warship "Babitonga" on 18 July 1945 and behaved in a strange manner, as the documents show.

None of this is mentioned in the 1955 works.
Well Ohrdruf. I am wrong when i write that you are from Argentina, because you write San Antonio del Oeste instead of San Antonio Oeste in the province of Rio Negro. But the next is a more important that this. I read in another forom http://www.elsnorkel.com that some people of the town saw in 1945 a man and a woman had disembarked from a submarine.
This testimony nourished the idea that Hitler and Eva Braun were the persons that disembarked.
Thanks for the information

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#7

Post by Helly Angel » 27 Sep 2004, 00:53

Image


U-530:

Type: IXC/40
Laid down: 8 Dec, 1941 Deutsche Werft AG, Hamburg
Commissioned: 14 Oct, 1942 Kptlt. Kurt Lange
Commanders: 14 Oct, 1942 - Jan, 1945 Kptlt. Kurt Lange
Jan, 1945 - 10 Jul, 1945 Oblt. Otto Wermuth

Career: 7 patrols 14 Oct, 1942 - 28 Feb, 1943 4. Flottille (training)
1 Mar, 1943 - 30 Sep, 1944 10. Flottille (front boat)
1 Oct, 1944 - 8 May, 1945 33. Flottille (front boat)

Successes:

2 ships sunk for a total of 12.063 tons
1 ship damaged for a total of 10.195 tons

Fate: Surrendered in the Mar del Plata, Argentina on 10 July, 1945. Transferred to USA and used for tests. Scuttled during tests on 28 Nov, 1947 north-east of Cape Cod, by a torpedo.

Image

U-977

Type: VIIC
Laid down: 24 Jul, 1942 Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Commissioned: 6 May, 1943 Oblt. Hans Leilich
Commanders: 6 May, 1943 - Mar, 1945 Kptlt. Hans Leilich
Mar, 1945 - 17 Aug, 1945 Oblt. Heinz Schäffer

Career: 1 patrol 6 May, 1943 - 30 Sep, 1943 5. Flottille (training)
1 Oct, 1943 - 28 Feb, 1945 21. Flottille (school boat)
1 Mar, 1945 - 8 May, 1945 31. Flottille (training)

Successes: No successes
Fate: Interned at Mar del Plata, Argentina on 17 August, 1945 after a 66-day submerged trip from Norway.
Surrendered to USA in Boston on 13 Nov, 1945. She was torpedoed off Massachusetts on 13 Nov, 1946 during torpedo trials by USS Atule.


Source: Uboat.net

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Helly Angel
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#8

Post by Helly Angel » 27 Sep 2004, 00:57

panzertruppe2001 wrote:... I read in another forom http://www.elsnorkel.com that some people of the town saw in 1945 a man and a woman had disembarked from a submarine.
This testimony nourished the idea that Hitler and Eva Braun were the persons that disembarked...
As you can learn in this forum with the exchange of historical info you should know that is totally impossible and absurd.

All the best,

Helly

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#9

Post by ohrdruf » 27 Sep 2004, 15:25

Helly Angel/Panzertruppe

The rumours about Hitler and Eva Braun disembarking near to San Antonio Oeste were fuelled by a declassified report written by an FBI informer in mid-1945. The writer made mention of a submarine discharging passengers at Caleta de los Lobos, and being met by a team of Germans with many pack-horses. After spending a noisy night at San Antonio Oeste, they rode off westwards into the sunrise and nothing further was heard of any of them. The dates were all screwed up and the whole thing was hearsay and complete nonsense.

Nevetheless it gave rise to all manner of assertions, and in 1997/1999 the ArgNavy even went so far as to fund a diving operation to look for a Type XXI believed to lie close inshore and which had been seen from the air by a private flier. Nothing was found, although Patrick Burnside produced the photograph of a mooring peg which was alleged to be similar to that fitted to a Type XXI. Unfortunately this particular Type XXI must have been constructed from very poor steel, for the wreck to which this peg was attached had virtually disintegrated and could not be photographed.


In 2003 the ArgNavy, a team from Trondheim University and the BBC was involved in the search for a Type IXc40 believed to lie north of the Valdez Peninsula but nothing was found.


Goebbels' biographer Wilfred van Oven is alleged to have said during an interview in Buenos Aires that only three U-boats came to Argentina postwar. The documentary evidence appears to say that these were U-977 and the two that unloaded at Necochea. The ArgNavy knows far more than it is prepared to admit about these latter two U-boats: from a declassified document one infers they were certainly aware of the identities of those who crewed them.

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#10

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 27 Sep 2004, 18:50

ohrdruf wrote:Helly Angel/Panzertruppe

The rumours about Hitler and Eva Braun disembarking near to San Antonio Oeste were fuelled by a declassified report written by an FBI informer in mid-1945. The writer made mention of a submarine discharging passengers at Caleta de los Lobos, and being met by a team of Germans with many pack-horses. After spending a noisy night at San Antonio Oeste, they rode off westwards into the sunrise and nothing further was heard of any of them. The dates were all screwed up and the whole thing was hearsay and complete nonsense.

Nevetheless it gave rise to all manner of assertions, and in 1997/1999 the ArgNavy even went so far as to fund a diving operation to look for a Type XXI believed to lie close inshore and which had been seen from the air by a private flier. Nothing was found, although Patrick Burnside produced the photograph of a mooring peg which was alleged to be similar to that fitted to a Type XXI. Unfortunately this particular Type XXI must have been constructed from very poor steel, for the wreck to which this peg was attached had virtually disintegrated and could not be photographed.


In 2003 the ArgNavy, a team from Trondheim University and the BBC was involved in the search for a Type IXc40 believed to lie north of the Valdez Peninsula but nothing was found.


Goebbels' biographer Wilfred van Oven is alleged to have said during an interview in Buenos Aires that only three U-boats came to Argentina postwar. The documentary evidence appears to say that these were U-977 and the two that unloaded at Necochea. The ArgNavy knows far more than it is prepared to admit about these latter two U-boats: from a declassified document one infers they were certainly aware of the identities of those who crewed them.
Recently a neighbour from Claromeco in the province of Buenos Aires sent me a mail where says that the wreckage of german submarine laid in the coast of this region. The information appeared in a local newspaper.

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#11

Post by ohrdruf » 28 Sep 2004, 01:33

Panzertruppe

But that is just the point. It is a newspaper article, it is hearsay, there is no physical proof and the ArgNavy obviously does not think it worth while wasting any more money on wild goose-chases after their recent experiences. They were 100% certain about the U-boat off the Valdez Peninsula, invested heavily in resources in it and found nothing. According to the State documents there were only four boats which came to Argentina postwar: U-530 which was not involved in the cargo operation and surrendered at Mar del Plata in July 1945: U-977 which WAS involved in the cargo operation and surrendered at Mar del Plata in August 1945, and the other two which unloaded near Necochea on 27 July 1945 and whose whereabouts are unknown to the public.

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#12

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 28 Sep 2004, 20:54

ohrdruf wrote:Panzertruppe

But that is just the point. It is a newspaper article, it is hearsay, there is no physical proof and the ArgNavy obviously does not think it worth while wasting any more money on wild goose-chases after their recent experiences. They were 100% certain about the U-boat off the Valdez Peninsula, invested heavily in resources in it and found nothing. According to the State documents there were only four boats which came to Argentina postwar: U-530 which was not involved in the cargo operation and surrendered at Mar del Plata in July 1945: U-977 which WAS involved in the cargo operation and surrendered at Mar del Plata in August 1945, and the other two which unloaded near Necochea on 27 July 1945 and whose whereabouts are unknown to the public.
And which was involved in the sinking of the Brazilian cruiser Bahia? A theory says that this cruiser was torpedoed, not sunking by an internal explosion

Panzertruppe2001

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#13

Post by FANGIO » 28 Sep 2004, 22:24

Interesting thread guys.
Just wanted to collaborate with some pics:
some locations named in this thread:
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mapadeavistajes.jpg
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Provincia de Buenos Aires_.jpg
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#14

Post by FANGIO » 28 Sep 2004, 22:26

The commanders of the U-530 (Wermuth) and U-977 (Schäffer):
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Schaffer, Heinz- Kdt U-977; cuando comandaba el U-128.jpg
Schaffer, Heinz- Kdt U-977; cuando comandaba el U-128.jpg (12.66 KiB) Viewed 24813 times
Wermuth, Otto- Oblt z See Kdt U-530.jpg
Wermuth, Otto- Oblt z See Kdt U-530.jpg (19.68 KiB) Viewed 24820 times

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#15

Post by FANGIO » 28 Sep 2004, 22:29

Caleta de los Loros, where some people say two nazi submarines lie there since 1945, who knows!?
Source: http://www.caminodelacosta.com.ar
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Caleta de los Loros_.jpg
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