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LIVELY 1942 NAZI U-BOOT BOOK ‘ENEMY IN THE CROSSHAIRS’

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Feind im Fadenkreuz - U-Boot auf Jagd im Atlantik (Enemy in the Crosshairs - Submarines on the Hunt in the Atlantic Ocean) contains the experiences of Knight's Cross recipient Fregattenkapitän Werner Hartmann as he told them to Gerhardt Weise. Kriegsmarineoffizier Hartmann was active during the Spanish Civil War and World War II and sunk 26 ships.

This 82 year old example of the 280-page Feind im Fadenkreuz was published by Verlag die Heimbücherei in Berlin in 1942. It has an emboss of a U-Boot-Kriegsabzeichen on the front cover. It is in very nice, little used condition with a tight spine. The striking original dust jacket shows wear and has scotch tape along the top and bottom edges, but it is there! The book has no odor.

This 6 x 8-¾ inch hardcover book has 232 pages plus 48 glossy pages with many photos from private archives, as well as Presse-Illustrationen Heinrich Hoffmann, Erich Retzlaff, Foto-UfA, Atlantic-Photo-Verlag, Scherl-Bilderdienst, etc.

There are many wonderful pen & ink illustrations throughout the text as well as superb photos, many from private collections of U-Boot men. They include Vice Admiral Karl Dönitz and Großadmiral Raeder on a conning tower of a submarine with Hartmann in the background, Hartmann shaking hands with Hitler (above), Hitler greeting a U-Boot crew, submarines at sea and in unnamed German ports, crewmen at work, sausages on board a U-Boot to feed the crew (below), the end of an enemy freighter, torpedos, Luftwaffe planes flying over a U-Boot, bearded submarine crews upon their return from a Feindfahrt, crews receiving Iron Crosses from Admiral Dönitz, and more.

The 280-page book has a foreword by Vice Admiral Karl Dönitz dated August 1941. The submarine stories are lively, and portray crew life in a U-Boot during World War II in very interesting detail. There are technical and tactical details, dangerous journeys and victories under the Atlantic and in the English Channel, as well as compelling human stories.