Hans Werner Kraus was a famous U-Boat commander of the
Second World War. He was highly popularized and used in German
propaganda due to him being a recipient of the
Knight's Cross to the Iron Cross. There were even postcards with his picture on them at the time.
In
Beulwitz-Saalfeld,
Hans Werner Kraus was born on the 1st of July, 1915. In April of 1934, right at the age of 18, Hans joined the
German Navy, or the
Kriegsmarine. Early on in his career, he was serving as a
Fähnrich zur See on the light
cruiser Königsberg
In October 1939, Kraus transferred to the
Unterseebootwaffe (or the
U-Boat Service) as a fairly new Oberleutnant zur See. Being a junior officer grade, he was placed as the
First Watch Officer aboard
U-47 under Kapitänleutnant
Günther Prien (who became a very famous U-Boat
commander). Kraus was IWO for a year over the course of 5 patrols, while he learned about
submarine life and
operations.
He left U-47 for
training in November 1940, and three months later, in February, was given the honor of his own boat. Kraus commissioned
U-83, a type VIIB boat laid down by
Flender Werke AG in Lübeck-Siems - the first VIIB class U-boat this
shipyard was contracted to construct.
U-47 finished it's "training"
patrol, and left for an actual war patrol on Jun 1, 1941 in the
Mediterranean. It was on October 12th, during this patrol, Kraus and his crew met their first success, coming across
convoy HG 12 west of
Portugal. They
torpedoed three boats; the
Ariguani as well as two other unidentified vessels. On the third war patrol with the crew of U-83, in December of 1941, Kraus broke through the
Straits of Gibraltar without much incident..
U-83 progressed to the Mediterranean where they torpedoed and hit a
steamer and
destroyer on February 14, 1942. The crew continued their patrols, and made further hits on steamers and
warships, but nothing notable. Kraus torpedoed the 2,590 ton
motor ship Crista, some
sailing ships were also destroyed but rather by
gunfire. Kraus received the
Knights Cross to the Iron Cross for his various sucesses, on June 19th, 1942.
Later that August, Kraus and his crew sunk all 5,875 tons of the
Candian Pacfic RR
passenger steamer
Princess Marguerite. After his sixth patrol, all in the Mediterranean, Kraus left U-83.
On November 28th, 1942, Kraus commissioned the IXD class boat,
U-199, built by the AG
Weser shipyards in
Bremen. On the following June, in Kraus' first patrol with U-199, near Rio de Janeiro, fired upon the American steamer
Charles Wilson Peale, but both of his two torpedoes missed. The third of July, U-199 attacked American Mariner aircraft successfully. The next day, on the Fourth of July, the U-199 crew sank a freighting ship by gunfire. On the 24th of the same month, Kraus attacked and sunk the 4,161 ton
Henzada.
One week later U-199 was sighted by
American and
Brazilian aircraft and attacked with depth charges, in the South
Atlantic, east of
Rio de Janeiro. 49 of her crew died and sank with the
ship, 12 survived including her loyal commander, Kapitänleutnant Hans Werner
Kraus, who were all taken prisoner into
Brazil, and later to the
United States. Kraus was in American captivity as a
Prisoner of War for about three years, before he was allowed to return to
Germany in May of 1946.
Hans died in his German home at the age of 75 on August 25, 1990.