Jürgen Wattenberg

Who was Jürgen Wattenberg?

Jürgen Wattenberg was a German naval officer and U-boat commander during the Second World War. In a successful career spanning just under a year, he sank 14 ships, a total of 82,027 gross registered tons.

Wattenberg had an eventful war, serving initially aboard the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee during the Battle of the River Plate and up until her scuttling off Montevideo. He was interned in Uruguay but escaped and made his way back to Germany where he joined the U-boat service. He was the first and only commander of U-162, which he commanded for three war patrols, becoming one of the oldest U-boat commanders of the entire war. He achieved several successes before his U-boat was attacked and sunk by British warships.

Taken prisoner once more, Wattenberg was imprisoned in the United States, where he contrived to escape again, spending over a month at large. He was released after the end of the war and settled in Germany, where he died in 1995, aged 94.