Der Fronteinsatz des Ubootes U 2511 - wirkliche Dichtung?

Abstract

After World War II, a widely circulated rumour claimed that the type-XXI submarine U 2511 had made a blind attack on the British cruiser NORFOLK during the final phase of the war. An investigation carried out in 1998 came to the conclusion that, on the basis of the spatiotemporal data, this episode was impossible and therefore a myth. The article begins with a critical look at the basic information supplied by the various sources, as well as at the arguments that led to the verdict passed by the 1998 study. The focus then turns to the description of a scenario in which the known data are summarised in a logically conceivable set of proceedings. The scenario is not a historical reconstruction of the event but a concrete model of what would have been spatiotemporally plausible according to the data. The results clearly indicate that there is no sufficient or solid basis for concluding that the encounter between the U 2511 and the NORFOLK was a mere invention.