Second World War
How a toilet operator error caused a state-of-the-art Nazi submarine to sink
German Type VIIC submarine
© Picture Alliance
The German submarine U 1206 distinguished itself in the Second World War primarily through its ultra-modern toilet. However, the operation was so complex that a mistake led to catastrophe.
Many hopes rested on “U 1206” in the German Reich. The state-of-the-art submarine was launched just before the end of 1943 and put into service in March 1944. Adolf Hitler and his generals saw this as an opportunity to turn the tide of World War II in favor of the Nazis.
But the submarine, which had unprecedented capabilities and was considered a “miracle weapon” in the Third Reich, rarely got around to intervening in the war. The very first patrol ended in disaster: the submarine had to surface, was fired upon by the British army off the Scottish coast and sank. Curiously enough, the reason for the accident was an operating error in the toilet on board – which was also considered a marvel of technology.
Submarine with high-pressure toilet
Until then, human need on board a submarine was a nuisance. On the one hand, of course, purely practically due to the extremely cramped conditions, on the other hand, because of the question of how to get rid of the faeces. Feces and urine were collected in containers, which were then emptied into the sea during trips on the water surface. Emptying the containers under water was difficult due to the high pressure. Naturally, however, surfacing should be avoided as far as possible in order not to be visible to the enemy – especially from the air.
The high-pressure toilet that U 1206 was equipped with was supposed to solve the problem. German engineers developed a system in which the faeces entered a pressure sluice via various pipes and were expelled from there into the sea with the help of compressed air. This made it possible to get rid of the stool deep under the water surface. However, the functioning of the toilet was very complex: on each Type VIIC submarine, which also included U 1206, there had to be a specially trained seaman.
The commander fails at flushing
On April 2, 1945, the submarine launched from the Norwegian port of Horten and advanced into enemy waters for the first time. Captain Lieutenant Karl-Adolf Schlitt ordered the boat to be kept at a depth of 60 meters. On April 14th, however, the mishap with the toilet happened off the Scottish coast – triggered by the Kaleun itself. Schlitt flushed the toilet himself after he had finished his business. However, this was actually only reserved for the specially trained technician.
In fact, the commander’s unauthorized flushing led to disaster. Since the mechanism was not operated professionally, feces and urine shot into the submarine instead of out, and even worse: A lot of seawater got inside at high pressure through the open valves. The salt water reached the batteries, whereupon highly toxic chlorine gas formed in a chemical reaction. Schlitt saw no other way than to give the order to emerge immediately.
This made the submarine visible to British airmen and they immediately came under fire. A crew member died. Commander Schlitt decided to give up in the hopeless situation: he ordered the boat to be sunk himself so that the enemy could not gain access to their own military technology. The crew got into rubber boats and drifted towards the Scottish coast.
A total of four dead
“When we tried to navigate along the cliffs in heavy seas, three crew members were tragically killed,” Schlitt later explained. Like the rest of the crew, the commander was taken prisoner of war by the British, from which he was released in 1948.
The wreck of U 1206 still lies at the bottom of the North Sea twelve miles off Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire. In 2012, a group of divers discovered the remains. The fate of the supposed German miracle weapon played no role in the course of the war.