Anton Staller was a U-boat lookout, rising no higher than Leading Seaman
and his account of the war from the lower ranks is unique. He served on
the Type IXc/40 boat, U-188 under Kapitänleutnant Lüdden on three
patrols witnessing the stark reality of convoy warfare from his lookout
position on the conning tower of his submarine. His U-boat sank the
British destroyer HMS Beverley and eight merchant ships exceeding
100,000 gross tons but the submarine also spent many hours submerged
under depth-charge attacks.
More so than many of his contemporaries, Staller was prepared to reveal
his thoughts and feelings of his experiences of the war at sea, and of
his time on the conning tower, at the hydrophons, and cleaning weapons
as a messboy.
His journal demonstrates how political thinking rarely entered the minds
of the
U-boat men, even though many of them, such as Lüdden, did not choose to
serve in submarines. Staller was not a Nazi and came from a Socialist
Party background, yet he never questioned the cause he was fighting for.
To Staller it was simply 'Us or Them to the death'.