“4. Be harsh. Bear in mind that the enemy takes no regard of women and children in his bombing attacks on German cities.”
Please describe to the Tribunal the antecedents of this order, which are decisive for its intentions. Describe first of all the general military situation out of which the order arose.
DÖNITZ: In September of 1942 the great bulk of the German U-boats fought convoys. The center of gravity in the deployment of U-boats was in the North Atlantic, where the protected convoys operated between England and America. The U-boats in the north fought in the same way, attacking only the convoys to Murmansk. There was no other traffic in that area. The same situation existed in the Mediterranean; there also the objects of our attack were the convoys. Beyond that, a part of the boats was committed directly to American ports, Trinidad, New York, Boston, and other centers of congested maritime traffic. A small number of U-boats fought also in open areas in the middle or the south of the Atlantic. The criterion at this time was that the powerful Anglo-American air force was patrolling everywhere and in increasingly large numbers. That was a point which caused me great concern, for obviously the airplane, because of its speed, constitutes the most dangerous threat to the U-boat. And that was not a matter of fancy on my part, for from the summer of 1942—that is, a few months before September, when this order was issued—the losses of our U-boats through air attacks rose suddenly by more than 300 percent, I believe.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Admiral, for clarification of this point, I am giving you a diagram which I would like to submit in evidence to the Tribunal as Dönitz-99. Will you, with the use of the diagram, explain the curve of losses?
DÖNITZ: It is very clear that this diagram showing the losses of U-boats corroborates the statements which I have just made. One can see that up to June 1942 U-boat losses were kept within reasonable limits and then—in July 1942—what I have just described happened suddenly. Whereas the monthly losses up till then varied as the diagram shows between 4, 2, 5, 3, 4, or 2 U-boats, from July the losses per month jumped to 10, 11, 8, 13, 14. Then follow the two winter months December and January, which were used for a thorough overhauling of the ships; and that explains the decrease which, however, has no bearing on the trend of losses.
These developments caused me the greatest concern and resulted in a great number of orders to the submarine commanders on how they were to act while on the surface; for the losses were caused while the boats were above water, since the airplanes could sight or locate them; and so the boats had to limit their surface activities as much as possible. These losses also prompted me to issue memoranda to the Naval Operations Staff.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: When?
DÖNITZ: The memoranda were written in the summer, in June.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: In June of 1942?
DÖNITZ: In June 1942 or July. At the pinnacle of my success, it occurred to me that air power might some day stifle us and force us under water. Thus, despite the huge successes which I still had at that time, my fears for the future were great, and that they were not imaginary is shown by the actual trend of losses after the submarines left the dockyard in February 1943; in that month 18 boats were lost; in March, 15; in April, 14. And then the losses jumped to 38.