A Life Between Fact and Fiction
The famous novel ‘ Das Boot’, and its film adaptations, introduced the world to ‘Kapitänleutnant Trumann’. Robin Schäfer tells the fascinating story of the real-life U-boat commander on whom the fictional character was based.
Korvettenkapitän Karl Thurmann (4 September 1909 – 28 January 1943) is one of the lesser known U-boat commanders of the Kriegsmarine and his name is not often mentioned in publications on U-boat warfare during the Second World War. On the other hand, he is probably the most famous and commonly known U-boat commander of all. This is due to the fact that author Lothar-günther Buchheim, who got to know Thurmann during his own wartime service as a war correspondent, portrayed him in his famous novel ‘Das Boot’ as the stubborn and rather unconventional fictitious commander: ‘Kapitänleutnant Trumann’.
Karl Thurman was born on 4 September 1909 in Mülheim an der Ruhr, the son of Emil Thurmann, a postal inspector, and Elsa Thurmann, née Schellenberg. After finishing grammar school education with an Abitur in 1928, Karl Thurmann decided he wanted to be an officer in the Reichsmarine which he joined as a recruit on 1 April 1928, becoming a member of ‘Training Crew 28’. In 1929, the year in which Thurmann’s father passed away, Karl was part of the crew of the light cruiser and training ship Emden which, between 5 December
1928 and 13 December 1929, was out on a long cruise through the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal into the Pacific, to Indonesia, Australia and to the west coast of the United States and central America before heading back into the Atlantic via the Panama Canal. Commander of the Emden at that time was the legendary Fregattenkapitän Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière. During the First World War, von Arnauld de la Perière became the most successful U-boat commander in history. By 1937, and now a Kapitänleutnant, Thurmann could already look back on a successful professional career, having served on several great vessels of the Reichsmarine, including the survey ship Meteor, light cruiser Emden and Germany’s most modern warship, the famous heavy-cruiser, Deutschland.
U-BOAT COMMANDER
After the Nazi’s seizure of power in Germany, we find the first ‘hint’ of Thurmann’s character in his personal records, which show that he took part in ‘Ns-schulung’ (National Socialist training) in Bad Tolz, Bavaria. It is quite possible that this was the new ruler’s first attempt to administer ideological training to the unruly sea dog.
Then, as ‘Kommandanten-schüler’ (trainee commander), a so-called ‘Konfirmand’ (confirmee), Thurmann took part in the final operation of U-29 under Otto Schuhart in the North Atlantic. On 17 September 1939, Schuhart sank the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous in the Atlantic, around 190 miles off the south-western tip of Ireland. On 23 December 1940, Thurmann finally took command of his own boat at the Blohm & Voss Shipyard, Hamburg. It would be this very same Type VIIC boat, U-553, on which he would eventually perish a few years later.
During its wartime service, U-553 operated as a so-called ‘Gruppen U-boot’ in the U-boat Lines ‘Bosemüller’, ‘Draufgänger’, ‘Kurfürst’, ‘Landsknecht’, ‘Panzer’, ‘Pirat’ ‘Wolf’ and ‘York’. It is known that the boat engaged with several major convoys in an area of operations spanning from the Caribbean to the North American coast, across the entirety of the North Atlantic to the Faroe Islands and across to Newfoundland. During his combined ‘Feindfahrten’, or operations against the enemy, the longest lasting 67 days, Thurmann claimed 105,609 tons of enemy merchant shipping as destroyed. In total, this represented 18 merchant vessels sunk.
‘UNRULY LIFESTYLE’
In conversation with German naval historian Bodo Herzog, a relative of Thurmann once said of him:
“In the family he [Thurmann] was known as a very cheerful person. When he had fallen, some said that he had fallen victim to his personal lifestyle. As rumour has it, the term [suggestion that he had perished in a concentration camp] ‘KZ’ was hinted at.“
Today, we know that Thurmann had indeed been killed in action. However, rumours circulating in his family, claiming that maybe be had ended up in a concentration camp due to his unruly ‘lifestyle’, all speak volumes about the man. Certainly, it is remarkable that his name is hardly ever found mentioned in either official or unofficial histories, or in personal memoirs of the U-boat war.
Another very popular anecdote was handed down in several versions, and by several authors, including by the ‘Red Devil’, U-boat ace Erich Topp, in his autobiography: ‘ Fackeln uber dem Atlantik’. It involves Thurmann, his friend Werner Hartenstein (commander of U-156) and none other than the BDU, the commander of U-boats, Admiral Karl Dönitz himself. It is a popular anecdote and is often retold.
In it, Thurmann and Hartenstein had just returned from successful operations and made their report to Dönitz who was rather enamoured by it all and, as a tangible expression of thanks, he asked:
‘Is there anything I can do for you Hartenstein?’ To which Hartenstein replied: ‘Herr Admiral, we would like to have a look at Paris and would like to ask you for a car.’
Considering the precarious fuel
I am not in any condition to f***! Sehr gut! Sieg Heil!” Philipp Thomsen in Wolfgang Petersen’s cinematic adaption of ‘Das Boot’
supply situation of those days, this was an exceptional thing to ask. The Admiral agreed, however, offering them his personal car and driver. All that had taken place during the early morning. Later that same evening, Dönitz requested his car to pay a visit to the commander of the Wehrmacht in Paris, but his Mercedes Limousine could not be found, so he asked his Flaggleutnant (flag lieutenant) as to the whereabouts of his vehicle.
‘Herr Admiral has allocated the car to the two U-boat commanders this morning.’
That wasn’t unknown to Dönitz, of course, but he had been under the impression that four hours should have been quite enough to get to know Paris. His two commanders, however, had had other plans and the Admiral was forced use an old Opel to pay his visit, requesting both commanders report to him as soon as they returned.
The night passed, and the morning broke. These were hours during which Thurmann and Hartenstein had explored Paris by night. On the Rue de Liège, No.3 (location of the famous Kriegsmarine haunt, the ‘Sheherazade’ Night Club), they met other U-boat commanders as well as some fighter pilots from the
As usual, Trumann is dead drunk. His spiky mop of black hair is covered with a drift of cigarette ash. Three or four butts have become entangled in it. One still smoldering. He may burst into flames at any moment. He wears his Ritterkreuz astern, back to front: He calls it a ‘Kiel collar’, his ‘Iron Collar from Kiel.’ L.G. Buchheim, the novel ‘Das Boot’
Channel coast, the pair losing track of time in a night which had all ended in drunken revelry.
Arriving back the HQ of the BDU, the two very drunk U-boat commanders ran into the Admiral’s Flaggleutnant, who gave them a complete broadside, during which Thurmann passed out. Hartenstein - listing heavily to one side - pushed past the Flaggleutnant with the call:
‘If my commander calls me, I will be there!’
Swaying towards the Admiral’s office, he knocked the door and called out:
‘Kptlt. Hartenstein obediently at your service!’
Dönitz gave him a sharp reprimand, talking about offering someone an inch and taking a mile. When he was done, Hartenstein attempted to snap to attention and rather slurrily replied:
‘Vowing I have laid my hand on many flag during this terrible war and under many an Admiral I have served.’ [quoting losely from the ballads of the German writer Borries von Münchhausen].
He then turned around, and left the Admiral standing. Dönitz didn’t bear grudges, and humorously spoke about
the episode at breakfast the following morning.
‘DAS BOOT’
Writer and former war correspondent, Lothar Günther Buchheim, who had known Thurmann personally, would ultimately go on to immortalise him in his novel ‘Das Boot’ as the character of the ‘crazy Trumann’. Wolfgang Petersen, director of the cinematic permutation of Buchheim’s besteller, combined two characters of the novel - Trumann and Thomsen - into the character of U-boat commander Philip Thomsen, masterfully portrayed by the late Otto Sander.
Another hint of Thurmann’s character can be gathered when looking at U-553s 7th patrol which started on 19 April 1942. It stands out because Thurmann, without orders and on his own initiative, and without having maps or charts for that sea area, entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, traversing the outlet of the North American Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean – often not submerged. On 3 May 1943, he stood to the south of the Newfoundland Banks and this daring feat has been rightly compared to Prien’s entering of Scapa Flow in October 1939.
On this patrol, U-553 sank three merchant vessels with a combined tonnage of 16,995 tons, but more importantly, it brought the war to the very doorstep of the United States. It was a feat of immense propaganda value.
While on patrol on 24 August 1942, Thurmann learned that he had been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, which he received in person from the commander of 7. U-flottille Sohler on 17 September 1942. The photographs taken during the award ceremony are telling in their own right. In these images, we see a rather shabbily dressed Thurmann inspecting the troops of the naval company assembled in his honour, but he is wearing what one might consider a rather unmilitaristic style of clothing. Everything in the photographs illustrating Thurmann’s dress code shows he is improperly dressed, his clothing against all regulations. He is still wearing his U-boat leather trousers, the legs rolled up over his heavy naval boots, and instead of a white commander‘s hat he wears a battered forage cap. Instead of his regular uniform tunic he is wearing a heavy woolen sweater, a garment which formed part of the standard on-board equipment. Among the immaculately dressed group of Kriegsmarine officers and men, he looks completely out of place. But Thurmann really did not care.
On 16 January 1943, U-553 left La Pallice for its tenth patrol. It would be its last. On the same day, Thurmann’s friend, the always immaculately dressed and wellgroomed Werner Hartenstein, left Lorient for what was to be his final patrol. Both men would meet their end on board their boats.
On 20 January, in a scheduled meeting between U-553 and U-465 (Kptlt. Heinz Wolf), nautical sailing directions were exchanged. It was the last time U-553 was seen. The last message from Thurmann’s boat was received the day before. In it, Thurmann reported his periscope was damaged and that he was heading to naval quadrant BE10 for repairs. On 28 January 1943, U-553 and its 47 crew members were registered as missing. The boat has never been found and the reason for its loss never established.
Thurmann’s story is on the cusp of being between fact and fiction. But he lives on, in print and celluloid, in the characters Trumann and Thomsen.