Cargo Submarine U-Deutschland Artifacts and Model

**Euronaut** · 04-30-2016, 09:34 PM

Hers is one of 50 Pages of reports betwen Admiralstab, Lohmann, Deutsche-Reichpost.
It's gives the exact figures at which date and time the U-Bremen leave the port.
In the port of Heligoland the day before they had have a date with the
"Deutschland" Crew but also with Director Lohmann (DOR) and Director Stapelfeldt (NL).

To answer one of the question in the forum about the radio range of the Cargo subs:
2000 seamiles (1,852 km) recive range and 1000 sm transmitting range.
There is an additional crew member statement that the recive radio massages 12 days before arrive to port.
At 10 knots 24 hour and 12 Days this is appox.to: 2880 sm.
In general the two captains has the order only to recieve and not to send.
(Transmitting messages only if nessesary).

**rogge16** · 05-01-2016, 09:51 AM

Hello Carsten,
Welcome to the forum. Thank you for the info on the U- Bremen. Hopefully this will get a few of those interested in it back on here and posting.
Thanks!

Luke

**drmessimer** · 05-01-2016, 03:13 PM

Carsten: Welcome aboard. I am looking forward to seeing and reading your future posts regarding the U-Bremen. I agree with your opinion that the U-Bremen suffered a diving accident near the Orkney Islands. The Best to you, Dwight

**Euronaut** · 05-01-2016, 08:56 PM

Dear Dwight, I was hopeing to get here in contact with Claas and you. Maybe we can figure out together some lose end. First: Do you have the weather reports stored in the former DHI and now BSH in the time from Samstag 26.08.1916 to Samstag 02.09.1916? I miss that but I like to ask before I will order them. And here one more document - maybe known to you. The page make clear that U-Bremen starts at Kiel - goes over night for secret reason via the Nord-Ostsee Channel to then River Elbe and then to Heligoland. Start from Bremen or Bremerhaven as mention sometimes was a war fake. But I find somewere the information that U-Bremen anchor at the "Hohe Weg" Lighthouse in the outer water of river Elbe and Weser before the arrive to Heligoland. Do you known why ?

Technical: I long thinking about Claas "Bars". They are clear over the hatches of the pressure hull attach lifting hooks. My theorie is that they are maybe indicators and hatch openers for salvage divers. Without this specific marks it will be very hard for the divers to detect the hatches for the hooks. The submarine of the cargo type has a lot of hatches. I think it was a expierence of the salvage groups (around Vulkan) that they can easier find the hatch if the have some specific on top of it to detect them and maybe to open them - even in the murky waters of the South North Sea. Maybe they were mounted only in the Baltic and North Sea area. Because only there were submarine salvages ships. The bars are nearly mans length so te must be a light construction to remove them by mans hand.

**drmessimer** · 05-05-2016, 01:50 PM

Carsten: Your suggestion that the arched, perforated devices on U-Bremen's deck, forward and aft of the conning tower, are indicators to help salvage divers find the lifting deadeyes is interesting. We had a discussion about what those things might be quite some time back, and did not come up with a solid answer. I spent last evening looking at all the photos I have of the U-Deutschland and the U-Bremen, and those arches are only on the U-Bremen. I also noted that they were not there during her sea trials, so they must have been added after the sea trials were completed. I also spent some time going through Hans Techel's technical treatise, Der Bau von Unterseebooten auf der Germaniawerft (1923), but I did not find anything that offers an answer. But it seems to me that there would have been at least six to eight lifting points on the pressure hull since just two would have bee too few. It follows that there should have been several more location indicators visible on the casing deck--one for each lift point. And that raises another question; has any submarine ever been raised by dead-lift using lift-points that were attached to the pressure hull? The USS Squalus was raised in 1939 from 243 feet using huge pontoons, and I believe that the Glomar Explorer used slings in its attempt to recover the Soviet submarine K-129 in the Pacific in 1974. Dwight

**drmessimer** · 05-05-2016, 04:26 PM

Carsten: Ooops; I overlooked your question about the weather reports, and I must say that I have not seen them. You also ask,"But I find somewere the information that U-Bremen anchor at the "Hohe Weg" Lighthouse in the outer water of river Elbe and Weser before the arrive to Heligoland. Do you known why ?" I do not know why she anchored there, but I can offer two possible reasons for the stop. She might have disembarked the Canal pilot at that point, but that is a shot-in-the-dark guess. It is also possible that she stopped there to take Dr. Ernst Bischof onboard. The Nachrichtabteilung, a part of the Auswärtiges Amt, arranged to have Bischof meet the U-Deutschland in Helgoland and stay onboard interviewing Paul König and his crew during the boat's brief stay in Helgoland and on the trip to Bremen. Bischhof's assignment was to ghost-write Die Fahrt der Deutschland over König's name for publication by the Hearst International Library. The documentation for Bischof's presence in Helgoland and aboard the U-Deutschland is found in Records of the German Navy, 1850-1945, RG242, MF Publication T1022, Rolls 631, PG57344 and 658, PG 75195, NARA at College Park, MD USA. Those holding contain the telegrams between the Admiralstab and Helgoland, and the Nachrichtenabteilung and Toussaint. Those same records are held in the British National Archives and in Germany by the Bundesarchiv. I hope this is useful to you. Dwight

**Euronaut** · 05-05-2016, 10:40 PM

Here is another funny picture: WERE is the helm wheel ??

**Euronaut** · 05-05-2016, 10:44 PM

Aug1916.pdf Aug1916.pdf

I found the weather Report on the Internet.

**rogge16** · 05-06-2016, 01:28 AM

Sorry for the intrusion Dwight and Carsten but just wanted to post my newest U-Deutschland artifact. Just got this hard to find napkin ring in the other day. This now makes two for me.
Pictured is the new one, old one, and both.
Thanks!

Luke

**drmessimer** · 05-06-2016, 06:54 PM

Carsten: Good question; where did the outside helm go? Good eye you have. That photo first appeared in Fahrten der U-Deutschland im Weltkrieg (Verlag Ulstein) on page 129. This book is a revised version of Die Fahrt der Deutschland published by Hearst's International Library Co, in 1916 and also ostensibly written by Paul König. The only explanation that I have to offer is that this might be an example of what was then called "trick photography" that preceded the use of today's photo shop. Possibly the publisher had the outside helm eliminated from the original photo for some aesthetic reason; such as the wheel, pedestal, and the attendant compass were in the way of what the publisher wanted shown--1st Officer Franz Kraphol looking heroic. And that raises another question; where are the two lookouts? Dwight