A visit to the German Marine Memorial and the U995, Laboe

[Adam Carr]

I was struck by this display on Oberleutnant Oskar Kusch, captain of the U-154, who was executed for “defeatism” in 1944 after being denounced by his first officer. This despicable case shows how dishonest the German movie Das Boot was. In the film the U-boat commander is shown as openly cynical about the Nazi regime, presumably in order to create a “good German” character for German cinema audiences. In fact the U-boat service was highly ideological and such behaviour was not tolerated, as the Kusch case shows. There is now a street named after Kusch in Kiel.

[Adam Carr]

The viewing platform at the top of the memorial offers sweeping views of the Baltic coast. On a clear day apparently you can see Denmark, but today was overcast and misty. Here I am looking down at a certain mysterious object on the beach. What can it be?

[Adam Carr]

Yes, it’s a U-boat. To be precise, it’s the U-995, one of only four surviving German World War II U-boats (out of 1,133 built) in existence, and the only surviving Type VIIc. It survived because at the end of the war it was sitting in Trondheim harbour, and the Norwegians commandeered it. They operated it until 1965, when they gave it back to Germany. It has been operated as a museum at Laboe since 1972.

[Adam Carr]

The U-995 is maintained in beautiful condition by the Deutscher Marinebund (German Naval Association). The conning tower is closed, but two entrances have been cut into the side so visitors can walk the length of the interior from stern to bow. This is the aft torpedo room, showing the empty torpedo tube.

[Adam Carr]

The diesel room.

[Adam Carr]

In the control room.

[Adam Carr]

The crew’s sleeping quarters.

[Adam Carr]

The map table.

[Adam Carr]

The periscope.

[Adam Carr]

The radio room.

[Adam Carr]

The forward torpedo room, with torpedo.

[Adam Carr]

This view of the hull from the outside shows how big the U-boat is.

[Adam Carr]

A view of the stern, showing the twin rudders and propellers.

[Adam Carr]

I'm off to Bremerhaven tomorrow to see the U-2540. I'll post pictures of that visit, too.

[*NL*]

This was an interesting thread to read and view. Good show Adam.

The U-Boot looks very well maintained indeed, from the outside it looks brand new and freshly painted.

The inside of the memorial was very interesting as well, as was the view from the top.

Regarding the plaque about the sinking of the HMAS Sydney and the German cruiser Kormoran, it is always difficult which
ship or nation is to be named first. I noticed they solved the matter quiet well here. On the English plaque the Australian ship is named first, and on the German plaque they named the German one first. Protocol is a handy feature..

Thanks for the thread, photo's and narrative.