The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel Harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive. Inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had … See more

Construction
The Treaty of Versailles ending World War I signed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 limited the surface navy of Germany's new Weimar Republic to only six battleships, six cruisers, twelve destroyers See more

Operations
During World War II, U-boat warfare was the major component of the Battle of the Atlantic, which began … See more

Further U-boat information
• List of U-boats never deployed
• List of successful U-boats
• List of U-boats of Germany
• I-boat, Japanese equivalent See more

Operations
During 1914, the U-boats operated against the British fleet: on 5 September 1914, the light cruiser HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On See more

From 1955, the West German Bundesmarine was allowed to have a small navy. Initially, two sunken Type XXIIIs and a Type XXI were raised and repaired. In the … See more

1. ^ Blair, pp. 10–19.
2. ^ Blair, pp. 38–39.
3. ^ Showell, p. 23.
4. ^ … See more