Wilhelm Zahn

Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Zahn and merchant marine Captain Friedrich Petersen were the two senior officers aboard Wilhelm Gustloff when on 30 January 1945 it was assigned the task of transporting an assortment of passengers from the East to the West of Germany. The passengers included 8,000–9,000 German war refugees, 1,000 members of the Second Submarine Training Division (2. Unterseeboots-Lehrdivision), about 400 women members of the Auxiliary Navy Corps, Nazi Party officials and injured servicemen.

In the early morning of 18 January 1942 U-69 with Zahn in command left St. Nazaire setting for a course toward the mid-Atlantic. U-69 came within 500 miles of Long Island, New York and since it was running low on fuel and could not positively identify a potential target as an enemy vessel, Zahn decided not to attack. U-69 was then ordered closer to the American coast but after increased anti-submarine activity Zahn decided on sailing for Grand Banks near Newfoundland. On 17 March 1942, after some more unsuccessful encounters at sea, Zahn brought U-69 to St. Nazaire after a mission in the Atlantic lasting thirty eight days without sinking any ship. Dönitz, in his post-mission appraisal report of Zahn's actions, wrote "Although opportunities presented themselves the commander once again has had no success. This cannot be attributed solely to lack of luck. The commander lacks skill both in general operations and in attacking." Dönitz did not approve of Zahn's tactics of just following a convoy of ships instead of launching an attack against it during the day and also blamed him for not following the convoy closely enough and for losing contact with it eventually, saying "Proper tactics would have been to head for the convoy at full speed and to decide on a daylight attack-or at the very least to have kept so close to the enemy as not to lose him, as was the case here". He then relieved Zahn of his command of U-69 and appointed him to a different post.

On 30 October 1941 Zahn took command of U-69 for the first time. It was the U-boat's sixth patrol, the previous five patrols being under Lieutenant commander Jost Metzler when from February to July 1941 sank approximately eleven British ships of about 50,000 gross register tons (GRT). Once at sea Zahn opened the sealed mission orders from Dönitz instructing him to go to the Störtebeker patrol zone named after a German pirate, lying to the east of the Azores. He was to search for supply ships originating from Cape Town and going to England through Gibraltar under code name OS11. On 3 November 1941 Zahn reached the area and wrote in his log "Now begins the tedious business of searching".

On 23 November U-69 was ordered by Naval Command to sail to sector AK in the Atlantic southeast of Greenland and southwest of Iceland. Through adverse weather U-69 set to the new course. At 8 p.m. on 26 November 1941 Zahn under inclement weather decided to track a lone freighter moving slowly in heavy seas under snow and hail. After two hours of sailing on the surface Zahn decided on a surface attack against the freighter and released four torpedoes all of which failed to hit the target. Zahn ordered the submarine to submerge to load the four tubes with new torpedoes and upon resurfacing the target could not be located again. Although Dönitz sent messages concerning more targets after that U-69 was not able to locate them and on 3 December it was ordered back to St. Nazaire. Upon arrival, after 39 days of patrol in the Atlantic, captain Eberhard Godt, the U-boat chief of operations, reprimanded Zahn for his failure to sink any targets and although he acknowledged the impact of the severe weather he told Zahn in future not to submerge for such a long time to reload all torpedo tubes but to only perform a partial reloading to save time.

At 10 a.m. on 30 October 1939, Zahn was commander of U-56 when he managed to avoid detection by the 10 destroyers and battle cruiser Hood, protecting the Home Fleet west of the Orkney Islands and came within striking distance of HMS Nelson and Rodney.

Wilhelm Zahn (29 July 1910 – 14 November 1976) was a German Kriegsmarine officer during the Second World War. He was U-boat First Watch Officer, then became U-boat commander and was finally promoted to Korvettenkapitän on 1 April 1943. As commander of U-56 he was able to avoid detection by the destroyers surrounding HMS Nelson and came in close proximity to the British flagship, launching three torpedoes against her whilst she was carrying Winston Churchill and the high military command of the British Navy. Following that incident he became widely known as the "Man who almost killed Churchill" amongst the U-boat submariner corps. He was one of the commanding officers during the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff which has been described as "Adolf Hitler's Titanic".