“To conclude, I can only stress that the order of September 1942 appeared to me personally to go too far and I am in total disagreement with it at heart. As a serving officer I had however to carry out the command to pass on this order to commanding officers for their instruction.

“During the long time that I was senior officer of the Flotilla no single commanding officer mentioned to me that he could not reconcile obedience to this order with his conscience and that he was therefore unable to carry it out.” (382-PS)

Moehle graphically describes Doenitz’s incitement of his men to the murder of survivors:

“A type VII boat (500-tonner) reported in her war log that when outward bound from a base in France she met far out in the Bay of Biscay a raft with five enemy airmen, but was not able to take them on board owing to shortage of room (she had a complement of 54 and carried full provisions for 14 weeks). The boat therefore proceeded without taking any notice of the survivors.

“This action of the U-boat was vehemently denounced by the Commander in Chief U-boats’ staff. It was stated that she would have acted more correctly in destroying this raft since it was highly probably that the enemy air crew would be rescued by the enemy and in the meantime might once more have destroyed a German U-boat.

“This occurrence made the views of the Commander in Chief U-boats clear to me.” (382-PS)

As senior officer of the Fifth U-boat Flotilla, it was Moehle’s duty to transmit orders from the Commander in Chief, U-boats, to commanding officers of U-boats. In this connection, Doenitz’s ambiguous order against the rescue of survivors caused difficulties.

“I was wont to pass on this controversial and serious order with more or less the following words:—‘I have now to inform you of a High Command order concerning conduct towards survivors. It is a very ticklish matter. Commander in Chief U-boats in September 1942 gave the following order in an ‘officers only’ signal (* * * the exact words of the order were then read out).’

“Since I am myself in my innermost conscience in disagreement with this order, I was very glad that in most cases commanding officers raised no queries and I was therefore relieved of any further discussion on this point.

“Sometimes however queries were raised and I was wont to answer somewhat as follows:—