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German soldiers were most likely to talk about killing when the enemies were defined as partisans or “terrorists” (this trope will be treated in detail in the next section). But both army and navy men were generally reluctant to discuss the topic.

What navy men did enjoy talking about in great detail was the tonnage of the ships they sank. It was irrelevant in terms of medals whether those ships were passenger, merchant, or fishing boats. All sorts of vessels were “knocked over,” “shot down,” “cracked,” or simply “sunk.” Navy POWs rarely mention any victims. One exception was this narrative told by an E-boat sailor about an experience in the Baltic Sea:

If the rescue attempt had gone off without incident, the navy man probably wouldn’t have mentioned it. What made the story worth telling was the unusual detail that the Russian women didn’t want to be saved, and that they, too, had been killed.

The battles surrounding convoys HX 229 and SC 143 seem to have made a particular impression. Forty-three German submarines attacked the ships, which were on their way from Canada to Great Britain, in March 1943. Over the course of a few days twenty-one Allied merchantmen were drowned.

Evidence that sailors felt pity for the crews of ships they sank were very rare, as were reports about successful rescues. Apparently, the POWs talked very little about whether submarines occasionally rescued and cared for enemies fleeing destroyed vessels. One exception was First Mate Hermann Fox from the submarine U-110:

By contrast, most narratives are simply concerned with how many gross registered tons had been sent to the bottom of the ocean. Victims mainly appear in the anonymous form of masses of killed or dying enemies.

Lieutenant Captain Heinz Scheringer, for instance, told two of his comrades of the final mission of the U-26: