The 1. Unterseebootsflottille, also known as the Weddigen Flotilla or 1. U-Boot-Flottille, was the first operational U-boat unit of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine, founded on 27 September 1935 in Kiel under Fregattenkapitän Karl Dönitz and named in honor of World War I hero Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, who famously sank three British cruisers in a single day with U-9 before perishing in 1915 when SM U-29 was rammed by HMS Dreadnought; it began with a handful of Type IIB boats including U-9 and U-1 through U-12 (several of the latter serving initially as training vessels attached to the school in Neustadt in Holstein) and under a succession of commanders—Kpt. z. S. Karl Dönitz until October 1936, Kpt. z. S. Otto Loycke until September 1937, Kptlt. Hans-Güther Looff until September 1939, Korvettenkapitän Hans Eckermann through October 1940, Korvettenkapitän Hans Cohausz until February 1942, Kptlt. Heinz Buchholz briefly in 1942, and Korvettenkapitän Werner Winter (holder of the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) until the end—played a central role in the Kriegsmarine's early naval strategy by supporting the invasions of Norway and Denmark as well as the fall of France while its boats and skippers contributed significantly to the First Happy Time of U-boat successes in the Battle of the Atlantic before the capture or loss of prominent aces such as Otto Kretschmer with U-99 and Joachim Schepke with U-100 in March 1941; in June 1941 the flotilla relocated from its original base in Kiel to Brest in occupied France to facilitate longer-range Atlantic operations, eventually assigning a total of 140 U-boats of types ranging from early IIB/IIC/IID to later VIIB, VIIC, VIIC/41, VIID and XB over its lifespan, until it was disbanded in September 1944 with its surviving vessels redistributed to other flotillas as Allied air and escort superiority made continued independent operations untenable.
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ADALBERT SCHNEE (U-201)
Korvettenkapitän Adalbert Schnee (1913-1982), known as “Addi”, was born on 31 December 1913 in Berlin and died on 4 November 1982 in Hamburg; he joined the Reichsmarine in April 1934, served aboard the light cruiser Leipzig, transferred to the U-boat arm in May 1937, and as 1.WO completed five combat patrols aboard U-23 under Oberleutnant zur See Otto Kretschmer before taking his own commands of U-6 (one short patrol supporting Unternehmen Weserübung), U-60 (three patrols sinking two ships of 3,188 GRT and damaging one of 15,434 GRT), the training boat U-121, and from January 1941 the Type VIIC U-201, in which he conducted seven combat patrols between April 1941 and August 1942 sinking nineteen merchant ships totalling 87,001 GRT as well as the auxiliary warships HMS Springbank and HMS Laertes while damaging two further vessels, for overall wartime successes of twenty-one merchant ships of approximately 90,847 GRT plus two auxiliaries; as Oberleutnant zur See and Kommandant of U-201 he received the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 30 August 1941 after three successful patrols, and as Kapitänleutnant and Kommandant of the same boat he was awarded the Eichenlaub (105th recipient) on 15 July 1942 for the outstanding results of his seventh patrol, during which he sank nine ships totalling 56,349 GRT (including the British anti-submarine trawler HMS Laertes) and damaged another of 7,417 GRT; promoted ultimately to Korvettenkapitän, he later served on the staff of the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote as Geleitzugs-Admiralstabsoffizier organising convoy operations before taking command of the Type XXI Elektroboot U-2511 in September 1944, with which he conducted a final short patrol in May 1945 that ended with the German surrender after he had closed undetected to within 500 metres of the British cruiser HMS Norfolk without firing, after which he worked in the German Mine Sweeping Administration, testified at the Peleus trial, and later directed a sailing school on Elba while serving for many years as chairman of the Verband Deutscher Ubootfahrer.
ROLF MÜTZELBURG (U-203)
Kapitänleutnant Rolf Mützelburg (1913-1942) was born on 23 June 1913 in Kiel and joined the Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic on 1 April 1932 as a member of Crew 32, later transferring to the Kriegsmarine; after two years of service on minesweepers he entered the U-boat arm in October 1939, commanded the school boat U-10 from June to November 1940 within the 21. Unterseebootsflottille, gained combat experience aboard U-100 under Joachim Schepke, and in February 1941 commissioned U-203 into the 1. Unterseebootsflottille as Kapitänleutnant, going on to complete eight war patrols in the Atlantic, off the US east coast and in the Caribbean during which he sank nineteen ships totaling approximately 81,961 GRT and damaged three others of 17,052 GRT. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 17 November 1941 as Kapitänleutnant and Kommandant of U-203 for sinking twelve ships of 39,744 GRT and damaging one of 8,293 GRT over four patrols, and received the Eichenlaub on 15 July 1942, the 104th award of its kind, again as Kapitänleutnant and Kommandant of U-203 for sinking a further ten ships of 47,558 GRT and damaging three more of 17,052 GRT. On 11 September 1942, while U-203 was southwest of the Azores, Mützelburg went swimming and dived from the conning tower but struck the deck head-first when the boat lurched in a swell; despite the arrival of a doctor from the supply boat U-462 the following day he died of his injuries and was buried at sea on 12 September 1942.
REINHARD SUHREN (U-564)
Fregattenkapitän Reinhard "Teddy" Suhren (1916-1984) first gained distinction as 1. Wachoffizier on U-48 and later as Kommandant of the Type VIIC submarine U-564 in the 1. U-Boot-Flottille. After joining the navy in 1935 as part of Crew 35, completing training on the school ship Gorch Fock, the light cruiser Emden and various specialist courses, and serving briefly on destroyers and earlier U-boats, Suhren spent nine war patrols from 1939 to 1940 aboard U-48 (initially in the Wegener Flotille) under commanders Herbert Schultze, Hans-Rudolf Rösing and Heinrich Bleichrodt, where as torpedo weapons officer he fired the majority of the boat’s successful torpedoes and contributed decisively to the sinking of roughly 200,000 gross register tons of Allied shipping, for which he received the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 3 November 1940 as Oberleutnant zur See; the award was personally advocated by Bleichrodt, who credited Suhren’s skill more than his own command and threatened to refuse his own decoration if Suhren were overlooked. In April 1941 Suhren commissioned and took command of U-564, and during his six patrols as Kommandant he sank eighteen merchant vessels totalling 95,544 GRT plus the British corvette HMS Zinnia (900 long tons) while damaging four further merchants of 28,907 GRT; his first three patrols, which together accounted for ten ships of approximately 28,324 GRT including the sinking of HMS Zinnia on 23 August 1941, earned him the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub on 31 December 1941 as Oberleutnant zur See, while his next three highly successful cruises—culminating in the sixth patrol into the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean near Trinidad, where despite an aircraft attack that forced him to dive to 200 metres he sank five ships of 32,181 GRT—brought the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub und Schwertern on 1 September 1942 as Kapitänleutnant. After handing over U-564 in October 1942 Suhren served as an instructor with the 27. U-Boot-Flottille, rose to Fregattenkapitän and held senior operational posts as Führer der Unterseeboote Norwegen and ultimately Commander-in-Chief of U-boats in the North Sea; following the war he worked in the petroleum industry and died of stomach cancer on 25 August 1984.
Source :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_U-boat_Flotilla
https://uboat.net/flotillas/1flo.htm
