Siegfried von Forstner
| Siegfried von Forstner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
19 September 1910 Hannover |
| Died | 13 October 1943 (aged 33) Atlantic Ocean † |
| Allegiance |
 Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Reichsmarine Kriegsmarine
|
| Years of service | 1930–43 |
| Rank |
Korvettenkapitän posthumously promoted to Fregattenkapitän |
| Unit |
SSS Niobe cruiser Emden survey vessel Meteor battleship Hessen cruiser Admiral Scheer cruiser Nürnberg Panzerschiff Deutschland U-99 |
| Commands held | U-402 |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross |
Korvettenkapitän Siegfried Freiherr von Forstner (19 September 1910 – 13 October 1943) was a German U-boat commander during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. He and his entire crew of U-402 were killed in action on 13 October 1943.
Von Forstner was the son of an aristocratic Prussian family whose men had served for generations as Army and Navy officers. His younger brother Wolfgang Friedrich (*1916) was also a U-boat commander, and two other brothers (Ernst Richard and Hans Dietrich) were Army officers. Wolfgang was the only brother to survive World War II. Their great-grandfather and grandfather had been army officers, and their father was a general, Ernst Freiherr von Forstner (1869–1950), who had won the Pour le Mérite with cluster as a regimental commander during World War I. Their uncle George Gunther von Forstner had commanded U-1 and U-28 during World War I, and another uncle of the Imperial Navy had died in that conflict.
Siegfried von Forster joined the Kriegsmarine in 1930 and served four years on the German cruiser Nürnberg following training as an artillery technical officer. Many of his year group were already at sea in submarines when he entered U-boat school in 1940. Von Forstner received training as a student commander aboard U-99 under his Naval School classmate Otto Kretschmer. After a 5-month tour in U-59, von Forstner assumed command of U-402. Von Forstner carried out eight combat patrols in U-402 sinking 14 merchantmen and one warship and damaging three other ships.
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