Reinhard Hardegen

Hardegen survived the war, and returned to Jacksonville in 1990, where he was received as an honoured guest. He would say of the occasion that "The town was very friendly to me."

After the war, Hardegen was mistaken for a SS officer with the same last name, and it took him a year and a half to assemble the evidence to convince the Allied interrogators of his real identity. He returned home in November 1946, where he started as a businessman, first on a bike and then in a car. In 1952, he started an oil trading company, which he built up into a great success. Hardegen also served as a member of Parliament (Bürgerschaft of Bremen) for the Christian Democrats in his hometown of Bremen for 32 years. He went into the heating oil business—representing, among others, Texaco, whose ships he had sunk. He visited the United States many times, conversing with survivors and veterans regularly, amongst them, men who had tried to kill him during his U-boat service and made friends with them. In 2012, he was honoured by the modern military in Germany for his wartime service. He turned 100 in March 2013 in very good health, winning golf trophies and still driving a car.

On 2 March 1942, Hardegen left for his final patrol, his second to American waters. The first successes were achieved when Hardegen sank the American tanker Muskogee (7,034 GRT) on 22 March and the British tanker Empire Steel (8,150 GRT) on 24 March. The latter attack expended four torpedoes, however, as one malfunctioned and one was fired without having been aimed. The tanker, carrying gasoline, burned fiercely for five hours before sinking and no survivors could be spotted. The somber crew of U-123 nicknamed the night the "Tanker Torch night".

Setting course for home, Hardegen sighted the freighter SS Alcoa Guide (4,834 GRT) on 16 April and sank her with fire from the 105mm deck gun, as well as the 37mm and 20mm flak guns. On 23 April, Hardegen received a signal confirming his award of the Oak Leaves to his Knights Cross. On 2 May, U-123 docked at Lorient, ending Hardegen's career as an active U-boat commander, although he commanded the boat for a final journey, bringing her back to Kiel for some necessary repairs in May 1942.

Hardegen said that when he met Adolf Hitler and was awarded the Knight's Cross by him, he thought "then that he was a nice fellow. That was a big mistake". By 1942, Hardegen and his crew had realized that Hitler was a madman who was wreaking havoc and driving Germany towards catastrophe. One time, he and fellow Oak Leaves winner Erich Topp were invited to a dinner with Hitler. Hardegen claimed to have caused great embarrassment by arguing during the meal that the U-boat war was under-resourced and that Hitler was neglecting of naval priorities and was obsessed with the land war in the East. In his account, this infuriated Hitler and caused Hardegen to receive a reprimand from Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl, to which Hardegen replied, "The Führer has a right to hear the truth, and I have a duty to speak it."

On 31 July 1942, Hardegen relinquished command of U-123 and took up duties as an instructor in the 27th U-boat Training Flotilla in Gotenhafen. In March 1943, Kapitänleutnant Hardegen became chief of U-boat training of the torpedo school at Marineschule Mürwik, before taking up a position in the Torpedowaffenamt (torpedo weapon department), where he oversaw testing and development of new acoustic and wired torpedoes. In his last posting, he served as battalion commander in Marine Infanterie Regiment 6 from February 1945 until the end of the war. The unit took part in fierce fighting against the British in the area around Bremen, and most of the officers were killed. Hardegen stated that his survival was due to his being hospitalized with a severe case of diphtheria. For the last few days of the war, Hardegen served on Dönitz's staff in Flensburg, where he was arrested by British troops.

After completing the patrol, Hardegen was given command of U-123, a Type IXB U-boat operating out of Lorient. Hardegen's first patrol with U-123 started on 16 June 1941, with a course for West African waters to attack British shipping around Freetown.

His next patrol, in October 1941, took him to the North Atlantic. On 20 October he intercepted a convoy and attacked the British auxiliary cruiser HMS Aurania (13,984 tons). Although badly damaged, the cruiser was towed to harbour for repairs. Some of the crew abandoned the cruiser, however, and Hardegen picked up a survivor who was brought back to France as a prisoner of war. This led Hardegen to claim the sinking.

On 23 December 1941, U-123 left for the first phase of Operation Drumbeat. Five boats, which was all Dönitz could muster, were sent towards the American coast, to take advantage of the confusion in the Eastern Seaboard defense networks shortly after the declaration of war. Hardegen was ordered to penetrate the inshore areas around New York City, however due to the need for strict operational secrecy for this task, no mapping of the area was issued from stores in Lorient, and Hardegen had only large nautical charts as well as a Knaurs pocket atlas (of his own), for navigation.

Hardegen served as 1.WO (First Watch Officer) under Kapitänleutnant Georg-Wilhelm Schulz aboard U-124 and, after two war patrols, was given his own command, the Type IID U-boat U-147, operating out of Kiel, on 11 December 1940. The boat was ready for its first patrol shortly before the new year and, after visiting the U-boat base in Bergen, U-147 was ordered to patrol the convoy routes north of the Hebrides.

Korvettenkapitän Reinhard Hardegen (18 March 1913 – 9 June 2018) was a German U-boat commander during World War II. He was credited with the sinking of 25 ships (2 were later refloated), at a total of 136,661 tons. After the war, he spent a year and a half as a British prisoner-of-war before starting a successful oil trading business and serving as a member of Bremen's city council (the Bürgerschaft) for over 32 years.