Captain Bernhard Rogge's account takes you on board the the World War 2 German Raider, "Atlantis". Hope you don't mind potatoes and rice, because the sailors rarely had better over 600+ days of harrassing enemy shipping over the seven seas.
As expected, Rogge describes in detail his many successful conquests, including 22 ships sunk and captured. I was intrigued by the attitude of the German seamen towards their many prisoners, often characterized as less than civilized. The captain supports the stereotype of captured "colored prisoners who "disliked loud noises" and "panic at the sound of gunfire," while he segregated asians and indians in separate quarters. His latent racism is ironic in light of his 1/4 jewish ancestry. Otherwise, he treated prisoners with respect and earned the admiration of his enemies.
Should be made into an epic movie. The story of the German Raider Atlantis is incredible. You have a professional naval officer, Berhard Rogge, who not only ran a tight ship, he fought a good war. He conduct was such that the prisoners of the ship he sunk or captured typically had nothing but kind words to say about him and his crew. Rogge would bristle at the thought of unnecessary violence of action, and treated all in his care humanely. As a testament to his conduct he was never arrested at the end of the war, few officers of his rank were treated by the victors as such, he was respected by friend and enemy alike. The book reads like a novel, is entertaining, engrossing, and informative. The type of book you will never forget.
I have had a personal interest in this story as in December 1949 I was a cadet on the maiden voyage of the M.V. Wanstead and saw Captain Rogge came aboard to visit my Captain A E Woodcock. He had been a prisoner on the Atlantis. Another good read is a book with the title Atlantis by Mohr, the executive officer of the Atlantis. Noteworthy is the fact that Rogge held Divine Services attended by the British prisoners and German crew. There was no Nazi political officer on the ship. Woodcock’s ship Tottenham sunk by Rogge was an identical sister ship of Twickenham which I did a 12 month voyage on.