Trapped in Steel and Sea

Memoirs of a Biber Midget Submarine Pilot in the Kriegsmarine’s K-Verband

In the final year of the war, the shipyard engineers‘ drawing boards were filled with designs for a multitude of small combat vehicles, some of which appeared futuristic and daring. Helmut Kühne, now 102 years old, is the last Biber pilot who can report on the rapid training on the midget submarine. In the oppressive confines of the Biber, surrounded by battery gases, gasoline fumes, and a lack of oxygen, he was simultaneously commander, helmsman, and chief engineer. Born in Dresden in 1924, he enlisted in the Kriegsmarine from the Marine-HJ and, after training on the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, joined the K-Verband. On the island of Engeløya in the Norwegian Sea, his flotilla waited in vain for an Allied landing and was eventually taken prisoner by the British near Narvik. After an odyssey that took him through various prison camps and into mine clearance service, he finally found his family, who had been bombed out in Dresden, in the Soviet zone and mastered the new beginning.

164 pages, 133 images, hardcover

Language: English