WRITTEN STATEMENT BY
KORVETTENKAPITAN MOEHLE
DATED 19th JULY, 1945
A. Order of September, 1942
In September 1942 (I can no longer recollect the exact date), the following W/T message was given to all U-boats and operational flotillas by the Commander in Chief U-boats in officers' cypher, i.e. Top Secret:—
1. "All rescue measures such as righting of capsized life-boats, going alongside, provisioning, towing to land, etc., are absolutely forbidden and must cease.
2. Previous orders concerning the rescue and taking prisoner of masters and chief engineers remain in force since their interrogation is of the highest importance to the High Command. Boats should rescue as many as they can carry.
3. All rescue measures contradict the most primitive demands of warfare that ships and crews should be destroyed.
4. You must be hard and remember that the enemy in his bombing attacks on German towns has no consideration for women and children."
This W/T message was without any doubt sent out at the instigation of the Commander in Chief U-boats himself, i.e. Grand Admiral Doenitz. In view of my knowledge of the way in which the Staff of the Chief Command U-boats worked, I consider it quite impossible that an order of such importance could have been given without his knowledge.
I do not know whether the order was given with the concurrence or at the instigation of the Supreme Command, i.e. the Fuehrer's headquarters, or at the instigation of the Fuehrer himself after one of his many conferences with Grand Admiral Doenitz.
As Senior Officer of the 5th U-boat Flotilla, it was my duty to pass on these instructions of Commander in Chief U-boats to Commanding Officers of U-boats which were leaving on their war patrols.