Talk:Werner Fürbringer

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War crime allegation

The account of UB 110’s sinking was edited (here) to remove the 'alleged' status of Furbringer’s claim of a war crime, with the edit summary "Lightoller actually admits to have killed unarmed survivors. There's no need to cast extra doubt here, since it's already clear that the source of the details is Fürbringer himself". I intended to revert this per BRD, and because .1) in fact Lightoller didn’t say that, and .2) we only have Furbringer’s word for any of this, but I found someone had already done it (my thanks!)
To take the second point first, Furbringer's accusation was not, so far as I know, reported at the time; it appeared in his 1933 memoir, which was written as a propaganda piece for the newly reformed U-boat arm. And it was not AFAIK corroborated by anyone. The British account of the sinking was that UB 110 was blown to the surface by depth-charge, and was subjected to a barrage of gunfire from several Allied ships until she sank. There were numerous stories in both world wars of survivors being machine-gunned in the water; the matter was raised at Doenitz’s trial, where he pointed out that men abandoning ship under fire often believed they personally were being targetted, a defence that was accepted by the tribunal. What’s sauce for the goose, I suggest, is sauce for the gander. So I suggest Furbringer's perception of the event and his interpretation (that they were shot at, and it only stopped because there were neutral ships present) was coloured by that. It’s also worth remembering he was suffering from concussion at the time. Also that when the firing stopped, he and the other survivors were picked up, and their wounds were treated.
As to the other point, during the action Garry rammed UB-110 twice, and was damaged in the process, causing Lightoller to pull out of the action and head for port, so Garry didn’t take part in dealing with the survivors, and Lightoller never mentioned shooting them in the water. OTOH he did say he had no interest in picking them up, regarding them as 'worse than savages', so had it been up to him it’s fair to assume he may well have left them to their fate; But that was something that was standard practice for U-boat commanders (Furbringer included) for much of the U-boat campaign. So again, sauce for the goose…
Finally, (to be legalistic about it) if Lightoller had been put on trial for this we could say unequivocally if there was a war crime or not; as there is only an unproved allegation, then per MOS:ALLEGED, that is the appropriate term. Xyl 54 (talk) 15:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]