This section follows Dönitz from cruiser service aboard the battlecruiser SMS Goeben, including her transfer to the Ottoman Navy, to submarine training and watchkeeping in U-39. He then commanded UC-25 before taking UB-68 into the Mediterranean in July 1918. Technical trouble and British capture ended that last command after only a few months, followed by two years as a prisoner. The compressed record matters because it complicates later assumptions that he arrived in the Second World War with a long, decisive personal command history.
Chapter · 3:24-5:02
A short First World War U-boat apprenticeship
Dönitz moved from cruisers to submarines in 1916, but his command experience before capture in 1918 was brief.