Unterseeboot 6 (1935)

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U-6
Type		IIA
Launch Date		August 21, 1935
Commission Date		September 7, 1935
Construction yard		Deutschewerk, Kiel
Patrols
Start Date	End Date	Assigned Unit
August 30, 1939	September 13, 1939	U-Schule Flotilla
April 4, 1944	April 19, 1940	U-Schule Flotilla
No Patrols	Training Boat	21st Flotilla
Commanders
September, 1935	September, 1937	Kptlt. Ludwig Mathes
October, 1937	December, 1938	Kptlt. Werner Heidel
December, 1938	November, 1939	Kptlt. Joachim Matz
November, 1939	December, 1939	Kptlt. Hans-Bernard Michalowski
November, 1939	January, 1940	Kptlt. Otto Harms
January, 1940	June, 1940	Kptlt. Adalbert Schnee
June, 1940	July, 1940	Kptlt. Georg Peters
July, 1940	March, 1941	Kptlt. Johannes Liebe
March, 1941	September, 1941	Kptlt. Eberhardt Bopst
October, 1941	August, 1942	Kptlt. Herbert Brüninghaus
August, 1942	September, 1942	Kptlt. Paul Just
October, 1942	June, 1943	Kptlt. Otto Niethmann
June, 1943	April, 1944	Kptlt. Alois König
April, 1944	July, 1944	Kptlt. Erwin Jestel
Successes
Type of Ship Sunk	Number of Ships Sunk	Gross Registered Tonnage
Commercial Vessels	None	0
Military Vessels	None	0

Unterseeboot 6 (usually abbreviated to U-6) was a long-lived but very inactive German U-boat built before World War II for service in the Kriegsmarine. As she was one of the first batch of boats built following the reunuciation of the Treaty of Versailles, she was a II type, and thus capable of only coastal and short cruising work. This led to her being resigned to training duties after the Norwegian Campaign of 1940.

Built at Kiel in 1935, U-6 was a prestigious position for a captain in the German Navy during the years running up to the war, and her commanders were all First World War veterans. However, once war began, it was painfully clear that U-6 and her sisters were not capable of competing with other nations' larger and faster boats, and so after an initial patrol in the Baltic Sea, U-6 was not deployed again until March 1940, when every ship available to the Kriegsmarine was sent to support the invasion of Norway. During the month-long campaign, U-6's sister boats suffered numerous losses, and gained a reputation as something of a liability, which led them to be withdrawn to a training squadron in the Baltic for the remainder of the war.

In the Baltic, U-6 trained officer cadets in the skills needed to fight in the Second Battle of the Atlantic, and some of her patrols even verged on Soviet territory following Operation Barbarossa, although unlike some of her sister boats, U-6 never found a target on these missions. In the summer of 1944, with fuel and resources in short supply and the reputation of the type II boats plummeting following a number of fatal accidents, U-6 was removed from service and laid up at Gotenhafen with a skeleton crew to perform maintenance. There she remained until May 1945, when a demolition team blew her up at her berth to prevent her falling into enemy hands.