Reinhard Hardegen sorhajóhadnagy

Az U-147, majd az U-123 német tengeralattjáró parancsnoka

I believe Mr. Hardegen is alive today which makes him 99 this year!Reinhard Hardegen, WW2 u-boat commander and 'Operation Drumbeat' u-boat ace. He was not a nazi, but a proud naval man who did his duty like the rest.He also took command of U-147 for a time, but it was mainly with U-123 that his successes came. Hardegen trained to be a pilot in the 'Marineflieger' (Naval air force) but after a crash and six months in hospital he transfered to the u-boat force.The German u-boat commanders' main objective was to sink as much enemy shipping as he could, not just to recklessly kill everyone onboard as some people may think. The battle for the Atlantic was largely a numbers game. The more ships a nation had, the more of a threat it posed in terms of transporting troops or goods like weapons and food. If the German u-boat commanders had sank more of our merchant vessel's, us Brits would have been cut off from our food supply we so desperately depended on, leading to an inevitable submission (a german victory/invasion.)As I mention in the video, some u-boat commanders would pick up seamen who's ships they had sunk, and give them food and drink and often pointed them in the way of the nearest land. The most extreme case of this was the Laconia incident where German u-boat commander Werner Hartenstein broke the trend of just helping a meer few by rescuing nearly 200 people. Feeding them and clothing them I believe,.. and then proceeded to tow them in their lifeboats, whilst deliberately giving away his position to the enemy to facilitate for their rescue.Many of the german people were not ardent nazi's like members of the party, waffen ss, gestapo and so on, they were just normal people like us, fighting for their country... It was just unfortunate that they were under nazi rule, and in a sense had to go along with things for fear of deportation or execution.