The U-boat Badge
As one of the iconic weapons of the Second World War, the U-boat commands endless fascination and interest, with the badge awarded to sub-mariners being naturally popular among collectors. Marc Garlasco examines this important badge in its various forms.
Having seen great initial success in 1917 after unrestricted submarine warfare was introduced, the U-boat became one of the most feared of all German weapons and Imperial Germany recognised its undersea sailors with the U-boat War Badge in 1918, marking their accomplishments and sacrifices. Representing combat experience, the badge was worn with honour, but with the end of the war and the treaty of Versailles, the U-boat threat evaporated along with any need to recognise submariners; that is, until the Nazi party came to power and began systemic circumventions of the treaty, rebuilding the U-bootwaffe to a force of 57 boats by 1939.
This formidable new force needed a symbol of their service, and on 13 October 1939, the U-boat War Badge of 1939 was instituted by Großadmiral Raeder, head of the Kriegsmarine, just the day before Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien sank the Battleship HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow. Prien would return a hero and the golden submarine would now mark those who were combat veterans beneath the waves.
MONTHS AT SEA
The new badge had a direct lineage from the First World War, however, and instead of the Imperial Crown the badge bore the national eagle, clutching a swastika in its talons. The badge was also updated with a type VII U-boat, the backbone of the German submarine force, and was awarded to all officers, NCOS, and crews of submarines who had taken part in at least two active combat sorties. While this may seem few sorties, one must remember these men spent months at sea. Yet this award wouldn’t be enough, and by 1944, when the war had turned from the times of great initial success in 1940 to a period with massive casualties and horrific losses, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz (who had been in overall command of the U-boat
force during the early part of the war) would eventually dream up new awards in an attempt to recognise and motivate the submarine crews headed to what was an almost certain death.
The U-boat War Badge of 1939 was designed by Paul Casberg, a German artist who designed it with the Imperial German submariner’s badge as a model. On 1 December 1939, it was formally announced in Uniformen Markt, a German medal and uniform trade publication. The gilded badge comprised an oval wreath of laurel leaves, with a band at the base, a type VII submarine traveling to the left with a flag blowing in the wind and a deck gun on the bow. The badge was topped with the national eagle, its wings spread and sitting atop a swastika. Approximately 48mm wide and 40mm high, the flat reverse held the hardware used to attach the badge to the uniform: a hinge, catch, and a retaining pin. Some of the badges had maker marks on the reverse, but this was not always the case.
Early war examples were bulky badges made of Tombak, a brass alloy, and were fire gilded and polished - the gold making a striking contrast to the deep blue of Kriegsmarine uniforms. Some manufacturers made hollow badges struck from Tombak sheet metal, and these thinly fashioned and extremely fine examples had exquisite details, using horizontal hardware to attach the badge to a uniform.
MATERIAL SHORTAGES
In mid-1942, German badge manufacturers were instructed to switch from Tombak to zinc due to material shortages, and although Zinc was a cheap replacement metal it was more brittle than Tombak and did not hold the gold finish well. However, Zinc was readily available and exhibited sharp details when the badge was struck, although the gold often flakes off or evaporates over time due to the lower quality metal.
The U-boat Badge was also available in cloth, and although this was a sensible precaution to prevent it catching on machinery in the submarine, most period photographs show that the cloth version was not widely worn.
Each U-boat Badge was issued in either a cardboard box or a paper
packet when presented, although these are nearly impossible to find as most submariners just tossed them aside. If a sailor received the badge posthumously, then it was sent to the family as a keepsake. These awards are a potential source for the relatively few containers which exist today.
Each badge was also presented with an award document: either a standard U-boat award document with decorative border and an image of the badge at the top, or a posthumous award document, noting the recipient has fallen for the Fatherland and presenting the badge in honour of his service. This became far more common after ‘Black May’ in 1943, a period when 25% of all active U-boats were sunk in just one month. With the growing Allied superiority of numbers, improved weaponry, long-range aircraft and the breaking of the Enigma code, so the men of Germany’s submarine service would face horrific losses for the rest of the war.
AN EXCLUSIVE GIFT
A special version of the U Boat Badge was presented to a number of those Submarine Captains who received the Oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross, one of Nazi Germany’s highest awards. This U-boat War Badge with Diamonds was not an award, per se, but rather an exclusive gift to recognize the best of the best.
While 29 members of the U-bootwaffe received the Oakleaves, it is not known how many received the badge with diamonds, although at least 27 have been documented. There were two variations of these badges. The first version had an oversized swastika with nine genuine diamonds set: two in each arm, and one in the centre.
The badge illustrated was made of gilded silver and was presented to Korvettenkapitän Carl Emmermann, commander of U-172, who sank 26 ships and would go on to be part of the new
Type 23 U-boat programme in 1944. He would eventually captain a Type 21 boat.
The second variation had a smaller swastika, again holding nine real diamonds. The badge illustrated was made of gilded Tombak, and was presented to Kapitän zur See Wolfgang Lüth, commander of numerous U-boats and the second most successful U-boat commander of the war, sinking an astonishing 46 merchant ships and a French submarine. One of only two submariners awarded the Swords with Diamonds to the Knight’s Cross, he was accidently shot and killed by a sentry after the war.
Whilst few documents for the diamond badge exist, an example to Herbert Schulze is shown here. Signed by Großadmiral Raeder, it demonstrates the personal nature of these special awards. In effect, these were gifts from
Raeder or Dönitz and the documentation carried no mention of the Führer, as was normal for all other awards.
FOR MERITORIOUS SERVICE
As the war ground on, so more and more submariners paid the ultimate price. Eventually, the U-boat War Badge became a common decoration as men went on mission after mission, thus necessitating new ways for the men to distinguish themselves and new ways to motivate them to risk all. Thus, on 15 May 1944, Großadmiral Dönitz instituted the U-boat Front Clasp in Bronze.
The regulations for issue, however, are oddly vague for a German award and require the recipient to hold the U-boat War Badge and to distinguish himself with meritorious service. Since many men already met this criterion, another level was introduced only a few months later when, on 24 November 1944, Donitz instituted the clasp in Silver. This became the highest award available solely to U-boat crews as the war ended before a gold grade was ever introduced. The clasps were designed by Berlin artist Wilhelm Ernst Peekhaus, and in a physical form were akin to the Luftwaffe clasps given for missions flown and the army clasp awarded for close combat missions.
Due to the late date of institution, the clasps all were all struck from zinc and while many have lost their lustre over the years, and have turned a dull grey, some received high quality plating and still look as they did the day they were manufactured. The badges were approximately 76mm wide and 24mm high, with standard attachment hardware on the reverse. They were presented in small cardboard boxes with the badge wrapped in tissue paper. These late war boxes, plain as they were, are even more difficult to find than boxes for the U-boat Badge.
Each came with an award document, showing the award at the top, and differing only with the grade noted as Bronze or Silver. These badges were for the truly ‘old salt’ U-boat veterans, and while the full award regulations still elude historians, anecdotal evidence shows that it required numerous missions in a submarine to receive the bronze award, and even more for the silver. To receive this clasp, though, one had to be a survivor.
Some 28,000 German submariners lost their lives in the iron coffins that were the U-boats of the Second World War. With a 75% casualty rate, the U-bootwaffe sustained the highest casualty rate of all German forces during the war. The badges these men earned were symbols of service, representing sacrifice and deprivation in waters from the icy depths of the Atlantic to the sweating cauldron of the Indian Ocean.
Although these men have all since passed, these small pieces of brass and zinc remain to remind us of the times when ‘wolfpacks’ terrorised Allied shipping and tangible and physical links to that dark period of history.