Kleinkampfverbände
Midget U-Boats and Human Torpedoes
Biber setting sail from Rotterdam.
Midget submarines and special assault craft, such as the Linzen explosive motorboat, became the core of much of the Kriegsmarine's efforts to hold up the expected Allied invasion armadas in both mainland Europe and Scandinavia. Much of this impetus stemmed from Grossadmiral Dönitz, and his decision to appoint younger Admirals to construct and command "special units" as related in his memoirs:
"I expressed the wish that (in February 1943) Konetradmiral Heye should be released from his present duties and placed at my disposal. I wanted him to become, as I put it, "the Mountbatten of the German Navy". In the British Navy Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten had under him the commandos and the units and means for the execution of smaller, individual naval enterprises.
Hitherto no such forces or means had existed in the German Navy. Among them were frogmen, as they were called...the midget submarines, the one man torpedoes, explosive motor boats and similar weapons, which, given the chance, could often at small cost in men and material score very considerable successes."
Thus the Kleinkampfverbände were born. One of the leading lights within this new field was a young Kapitänleutnant Bartels - former commander of the minesweeper M1 and chief of the Vorpostenflotille for Norway immediately after the Scandinavian country's capitulation. Through a combination of resourcefulness, imagination and ingenuity he had constructed a powerful coastal defence system in a matter of months. During this period he had worked on the idea of stretching his meagre resources by using midget submarines, developing plans for prototype models. During 1942 he had submitted a memorandum on the subject, stating that Germany would probably require large numbers of such midget weapons to protect the thousands of miles of coastline that the Reich occupied. His "early warnings" remained unheeded until Dönitz appointed Konteradmiral Heye to head the construction of the Kleinkampverbände.
By early 1943 Bartels had been promoted to Korvettenkapitän and threw himself wholeheartedly into the task of creating a midget submarine service. His prototype "Biber" (Beaver) was first launched at the Flender shipyard in Lübeck - where it promptly sank. Not to be deterred work continued on this and other models of midgets and the Human Torpedoes "Marder" (Marten) and "Neger" (Negro).
The first of these units - manned by volunteers - finally went into action after the Anzio landings, during April 1944.
Seehund (Seal)  |
Marder (Sable)  |
| Biber |
Molche |
|
Hechte |
Neger |
Link: Midget Flotillas
