THE U-BOAT, A GERMAN FATE?

100 YEARS OF GERMAN SUBMARINES

It was 100 years ago, exactly on the 14th December 1906, when the first German submarine of the then Imperial German Navy was commissioned in Kiel, an industrial city with roughly 164,000 inhabitants located at the west-Baltic coast. It was a dreary day, when this unpredictable technical adventure began for twelve freezing sailors and their 42m long shell. . . and for history and naval warfare it was the beginning of a century of political adventures of "all or nothing", the advance of incredible naval technological innovations, immortal myths, war-crimes, disgraceful propaganda battles and uncountable deaths. 100 years and two worldwars later the world's most modern conventional submarines of the first German Submarine Squadron are operating close to the Lebanese coast assisting to maintain a fragile ceasefire with clandestine reccemissions. It was a long way to finally construct and operate a modern underwater weapon system, a weapon of which a U.S. judge during the Nuremberg war-crime court case in 1946 once stated: "The submarine, accused Doenitz, seems to be a kind of German fate!"

THE FIRST

Back in 1905 there were good reasons to invest in a new naval weapon like all other forward looking Navies did. The investment for the construction of the first German submarine was around 1,5 million mark, a ridiculous sum compared to the budget required for a single battleship that cost around 60 times the sum. Under the control of the naval engineer Gustav Berling the Germania Shipyard required 1 1/2 years to have "U 1" completed.

The revolutionary UBoat was 42m long, around 4m broad, with a complement of 10, could remain submerged for twelve hours and dive to 40m. An 800hp petrol propulsion system allowed a surfaced/subsurfaced speed of 10,8 kts/8,7kts. The armament of "U 1" was basic, one tube with just three torpedoes. She was exclusively built for test and training purposes but actually caused a sensation particularly to constructors and to young anti-battleship officers, and even Emperor Wilhelm II personally was impressed witnessing an undiscovered "U 1" attack with two torpedoes on the small cruiser "München". "U 1" can be visited in "Deutsches Museum" in Munich today.

POLITICO-MILITARY DIMENSION WW I

On August the 6th, 1914 Imperial Germany went to war...