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SHARKHUNTERS International
History of the German submarine U-1

Much of this information, the data, the photos etc. comes directly from the veterans, the veterans' organizations and is the most accurate available anywhere..............much of this information is not even known elsewhere.

                    All hands lost - 27 men
                       (see below for the names)

U-1 was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Klaus Ewarth (Class 1925) from 29 June 1935.  Ewarth also commanded U-35, U-36, U-26 and U-850 where he was killed in action.  The last Skipper of U-1 was Kapitänleutnant Jürgen Deecke.

Other Skippers of U-1 include:
   Korvettenkapitän Hans-Günther Loof who also commanded U-122 where he was KIA;
   Kapitänleutnant Alexandar Gelharr who also commanded U-45 where he was KIA.

We have no record of which U-Bootflottille U-1 was assigned to.

How U-1 was lost remains a mystery today.  According to one source, U-1 was sunk by the Royal Navy submarine HMS PORPOISE.  The official British History of Submarine Operations states that the attack by HMS PORPOISE was considered a failure.  After the war, further research determined that HMS PORPOISE did sink U-1, but then more recent research (in the 1980's) shows that HMS PORPOISE actually attacked U-3 and not U-1.  According to another source, U-1 was the victim of an un-named French submarine and yet another source attributes her loss to striking a mine.

U-1 successfully completed one Feindfahrt (War Patrol) in the North Sea.  She was on her second Feindfahrt, this during the Norway invasion, when she was lost with all hands.

During her short time in the war, U-1 made no attacks and sank no ships.

                        Men lost on U-1

Deepest thanks to our friends at the U-Bootskameradschaft Kiel for allowing us to bring their sacred book containing the names of all 28,863 U-Bootfahrer who were lost in action during World War II here to the USA where we carefully copied all the names of the fallen and list them here on our site.  Ours is the only website in the world that lists all these names.
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SPECIAL NOTE; MORE INFORMATION - There is much more information on this boat and others in our book "The Rare Types".  CLICK HERE for more information on this boat.


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Many thanks to our friend and Sharkhunters Member since 1987 GEORG HÖGEL for all the conning tower emblems used in our monthly KTB Magazine and also here on the pages of our website.  GEORG was radioman aboard U-30, the first boat into combat, the first to sink a ship (the liner ATHENIA) and the first into an occupied French port.  When that Skipper (Lemp) took command of U-110, GEORG was one of the former crew to transfer to the new boat under Lemp.  After the war, he was Professor of Art at a major German university.