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Günther Prien (16 January 1908 – presumed 7 March 1941) was a German U-boat ace of the first part of the Second World War, and the first U-boat commander to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross ((ドイツ語:Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes)) and the first member of the ''Kriegsmarine'' to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (ドイツ語:''Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub''). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. It was Germany's highest military decoration at the time of its presentation to Günther Prien. Under Prien's command, the submarine sank over 30 Allied ships totaling about . His most famous exploit was the sinking of the British battleship at anchor in the Home Fleet's anchorage in Scapa Flow. ==Early naval career== Prien was one of three children of a judge. Born in Osterfeld, Prussian Province of Saxony (Germany) and after his parents divorced raised in Leipzig, Prien joined the ''Handelsmarine'' (German Merchant Navy) in mid-1923, studying for three months at the Seaman's College in Finkenwerder in Hamburg, before going to sea as a cabin boy on the full rigged three-master ''Hamburg''. His first voyage touched at the Azores, Pensacola, Hobart (Tasmania) and Falmouth. While sailing to Cork in October 1925, the ship was caught in a storm and ran aground near Dublin. The vessel was abandoned and later declared a wreck. Prien and the crew were taken to Bremerhaven and then Hamburg, where Prien was given his papers as seaman and found the cost of items he had drawn on board exceeded his six months wages. Aiming for his master's certificate, Prien quickly signed on the ''Oldenburg'' (now the ''Suomen Joutsen''), which was another full rigger (as noted in Jost Metzler's book ''The Laughing Cow': The Story of U69''〔(Uboat.net - Naval Warfare Books - Laughing Cow, The by Metzler, Jost ) at uboat.net〕). While still an ordinary seaman aboard the ''Oldenburg'', Prien took Metzler, who later commanded , under his wing. Metzler relates at the beginning of ''The Laughing Cow'' how his relationship with Prien was "very strained" at first, and how Prien, as a young seaman, "could on occasion be very hard and unjust." Later they became good friends. After several years of work and study as a seaman, Prien took and passed the required examinations, obtaining his mate's license and a wireless operator's certificate. He signed on for his first berth as an officer, becoming the Fourth Officer on the passenger liner ''San Francisco'' out of Hamburg. He had no sooner assumed his responsibilities when the ship collided with another vessel, ''Karlsruhe'', in a dense fog in the ship channel near the Hoheweg lighthouse. Prien, who had gone forward at the time to supervise preparations to drop anchor as a precaution, was the first to see the oncoming ''Karlsruhe''s light as she loomed out of the fog. Some weeks later, he was summoned to an inquiry into the accident by the Marine Court in Bremerhaven, causing him to fear that he might somehow be blamed for the collision and lose his freshly-minted license, thereby ending his budding career as a Merchant Marine officer when it was barely begun, but the Court ruled that the weather was solely to blame for the accident.〔U-Boat Commander, by Gunther Prien, Award Books, 1969〕 Prien passed his captain's examination and received his Master's License in January 1932, but was unable to find work due to the severe contraction of the German shipping industry during the Depression years. He returned to Leipzig and, failing to find work there, was finally forced to turn to the Assistance Board for sustenance. Angry with what he considered to be an inept government, which seemed impotent in the face of the country's economic disaster, he joined the National Socialist Party in March 1932. (In ''Wolf Pack: The Story of the U-Boat in World War II'', Gordon Williamson states that the navy did not accept members of the Nazi Party NSDAP or the SS and one was obliged to revoke his membership in the party before joining.) Donald Macintyre described Prien as "the most Nazified U-boat captain", "an ardent ruthless Nazi" (article, p 32 onwards, in issue 4 of War Monthly, Marshall Cavendish 1974). Bored and restless, in August 1932 Prien joined the voluntary labor corps of Vogtsberg at Olsnitz, where he literally dug ditches for several months, quickly rising to the rank of Group Leader and then deputy to the camp commander. Having heard that the navy was giving commissions to Merchant Marine officers in order to fill out its ranks after the loss of the ''Niobe'', Prien applied to the ''Reichsmarine'',〔The German ''Reichsmarine'' was renamed to ''Kriegsmarine'' on 1 June 1935.〕 on 16 January 1933 and was accepted as an "Officer Aspirant," with the rank of ordinary sailor. He underwent standard training and served on the light cruiser before he was posted to the U-Boat training school at Kiel. At the end of U-Boat training he was posted to at the Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG (Deschimag) Yard in Bremen as First Officer of the watch. ''U-26'' at the time was under the command of ''Kapitänleutnant'' Werner Hartmann. ''U-26'' went on two patrols in 1937 (6 May – 15 June and 15 July – 30 August) during the Spanish Civil War. Prien rose steadily in rank, from ''Fähnrich zur See'' (midshipman) in 1933, to ''Oberfähnrich zur See'' (senior midshipman) in 1935, ''Leutnant zur See'' (acting sub-lieutenant/US ensign) also in 1935, then ''Oberleutnant zur See'' (sub-lieutenant/US lieutenant j.g.) in 1937. He was appointed to the command of the new Type VIIB on her commissioning (17 December 1938) and promoted to ''Kapitänleutnant'' (lieutenant) on 1 February 1939. Prien married his fiancée Ingeborg in 1939, with whom he had two daughters, Birgit and Dagmar. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Günther Prien」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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