Kapitänleutnant Gunther Prien photo taken September 1939 German National Archive
Years ago a special panel of Bundesmarine officers headed by Flotillenadmiral Otto Kretschmer evaluated all data from German sources and data from declassified Royal Navy.
The consensus was good odds that U-47 sank herself with a circular running torpedo. According to logbooks, position reports and individual memories of veterans who participated in that convoy action, U-47 was on the opposite side of the battlefield from HMS Wolverine, making it impossible for HMS Wolverine to have sunk U-47.
This panel concluded that U-47 was sunk by a circular run of her own torpedo and not by HMS Wolverine doing at this time? Prien sank dozens of Allied ships and was great for the Allies that he was killed early in the war.
Nazis seized Seize Greece then Endeavor to Look Helpful
1 August 1943. A helpful German soldier showing a copy of Signal in Greek to an Orthodox resident of the ancient monastic state of Mount Athos. (photo courtesy of Andrew Zoller).
Many organizations in the Third Reich produced publications of every sort. Through late 1944 the Kriegsmarine produced its own highly sophisticated five color magazine. But the best known was the Life Magazine knockoff, Signal which was produced by the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. This ministry was run by the evil, criminal, and despicable toad, Joseph Goebbels.
Union General U.S. Grant on the cover of a Signal Magazine in Dutch, 1944
All propaganda publications in the Third Reich were written by professional journalists and illustrated by professional artists and photographers. Signal was quite a sophisticated publication and presented German soldiers as being tough against their military opponents but gentle and fun with civilians. Lots of photos show German soldiers playing with children who are usually blonde. This type of propaganda tried to counter the reality of the bloody, evil, and murderous nature of the Third Reich.
The famous US publication Life Magazine, whose format was copied by Signal, was printed on glossy paper. The Germans didn’t have the capacity to produce large amounts of glossy paper for magazines so Signal was printed on newsprint paper. I have about a dozen different copies I bought over the years mainly as curiosities. However, a number of people collect them and some have amassed every single issue published.
Signal was published from April 1940 through May of 1945. This was a major propaganda effort by the Nazis and the scope of it is revealed in these statistics from the website of Signal researcher and scholar, Andrew Zoller.
Signal was published monthly in 30 languages at its peak, including English.
During the barbarous reign of the Nazi empire, approximately 32,000 news vendors in 20,000 towns and cities and sold Signal.
Peak circulation of 2,426,000 copies came in May 1943.
160,000,000 copies were printed during the years of the magazine’s existence (estimated).
Signal Magazine in French 1940 showing German soldiers walking on the beaches of Dunkirk from which the British Expeditionary Force was rescued and taken off at significant loss by the Royal Navy. (Heroic small boats played a role as well but 80% of the troop lift was done by the RN)
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a cover which depicts the takeover of all Europe by the Soviet Union, a fear the Germans constantly reminded Europeans about.
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Signal Magazine in Russian. I presume this cover shows a Russian soldier in the service of the German Armed forces. Estimates vary of the number of Soviet citizens who fought for the Germans. The low estimate is approximately one million with other estimates going as high as three million. The Ukraine was an especially fertile recruiting ground for the German Army and the SS.
Signal Magazine in French
Those ever friendly U-Boat Men–except when attacking Allied shipping— on cover Signal Magazine from 1943. (collection of author Charles McCain)
I like this book a lot. I’ve read it four or five times. Part of the reason is the detail on everyday life in Berlin during the years 1939, 1940, and 1941. When I was researching my first novel, An Honorable German, I read this book on Berlin, among many others, because several chapters take place in the city of my book take place in Berlin and I needed details.
Another reason I like the book is that William Russell, a thoroughly decent and polite young guy from Mississippi, was in Germany studying German. He had very little money and often could afford only one meal a day. Finally, he got taken on as a part-time (later full time) clerk at the American Embassy, one of the reasons being his fluency in German.
If you were young and hip and had a little bit of money you lived around the Alexanderplatz. This is a photograph of the “Alex” taken in 1939. What calamity awaited them.
Russell was not important. Didn’t come from an important family. Had no high-level social contacts, had no money and didn’t know anyone important. Yet he happened to be at the epicenter of calamitous events and watched the Nazis hi-jack Germany and set it on the path to war. Just as important, he realized it which is why he kept notes for this book which appeared in 1941 to great acclaim.
Hitler’s new Reichs Channerllory being built in 1938
Russell has an eye for detail including everyday exchanges he had with people he saw each day such as the Portierfrau for his apartment house. “The postman told me today that you forgot to pay your radio tax last month.”
In Nazi Germany, if you owned a radio you had to pay two marks a month, or .80 cents, to listen since it was public radio, so to speak, and without commercials.
“Tell the postman that I don’t listen to German stations,” Russell said, “Tell him I consider London more accurate.” The Portierfrau laughed, somewhat uneasily.
Germans were forbidden to listen to foreign radio although a huge portion of them listened to the German Service of the BBC to get accurate news. The author speculates that based on his observations 60% to 70% of Germans listened to foreign radio, which is in line with the figures from post-war surveys. Russell also tells us: “Old fashioned headphones, which could be used for extra private listening, were sold out in every German radio shop during the first week of the war.”
Rechts das Brandenburger Tor Aufnahmedatum: 1939 Aufnahmeort: Berlin Inventar-Nr.: Hu U1598-1a Systematik: Geographie / Europa / Deutschland / Orte / Berlin / Regierungsgeb‰ude / Botschaften
The US Embassy in 1939 is on the left in this picture. USA is printed on the roof in an attempt to minimize damage from accidental aerial bombings so the photograph must have been taken after Great Britain and France went to war with Nazi Germany.
The Brandenburg Gate is to the right. Damage sustained by the Embassy during the Battle of Berlin and from aerial bombings proved to be extensive partially as a result of being located so close to Hitler’s bunker (which was a block farther south of the embassy which is to the left in this picture).
The embassy was subsequently demolished.
William Russell later returned to Mississippi. He taught German to many people and encourage young people to learn the language. He died in 2000.
[Berlin], Blücher-Palais, jetzige amerikanische Botschaft am Pariser Platz 1932Russell actually worked in the visa department located in the US consulate which was a different building. Above is a photograph of the US Embassy from the German National Archive taken in 1932.
According to the history section of the Royal Air Force it’s estimated that Hurricane pilots were credited with four-fifths of all enemy aircraft destroyed in the Battle of Britain.
The Hawker Hurricane was the first operational R.A.F. aircraft capable of a top speed in excess of 300 mph. Delivery of the aircraft to front-line squadrons of Fighter Command only began in the fall of 1938. By the outbreak of war in September of 1939, Hawker Aircraft Ltd had built 497 Hurricanes from the intial RAF order of 3,500.
From RAF History site:
“A total of 1,715 Hurricanes flew with Fighter Command during the period of the Battle, far in excess of all other British fighters combined. Having entered service a year before the Spitfire, the Hurricane was “half-a-generation” older, and was markedly inferior in terms of speed and climb. However, the Hurricane was a robust, maneuverable aircraft capable of sustaining fearsome combat damage before write-off; and unlike the Spitfire, it was a wholly operational, go-anywhere-do-anything fighter by July 1940. It is estimated that its pilots were credited with four-fifths of all enemy aircraft destroyed in the period July-October 1940.”
Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding (right) was the head of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, and the main architect of its success along with his deputy, Air vice-marshal Sir Keith Park.
Park, a New Zealander, commanded 11 Group RAF Fighter Command
air vice marshal eqivalet to 2 star major general USA, UK,
U47 returns to post after a successful patrol. (German National Archives)
