The most successful U-boat commanders are most often rated based on how much tonnage they sank. This is the case here, warships are not included.
| Commander | Patrols | Ships sunk/damaged | |
| 1. | Otto Kretschmer | 16 patrols | 46 ships sunk (273.043 tons) 5 ships damaged (37.965 tons) |
| 2. | Wolfgang Lüth | 15 patrols | 46 ships sunk (225.204 tons) 2 ships damaged (17.343 tons) |
| 3. | Erich Topp | 12 patrols | 35 ships sunk (197.460 tons) 4 ships damaged (32.317 tons) |
| 4. | Heinrich Liebe | 9 patrols | 34 ships sunk (187.267 tons) 1 ship damaged (3.670 tons) |
| 5. | Viktor Schütze | 7 patrols | 35 ships sunk (180.073 tons) 2 ships damaged (14.213 tons) |
| 6. | Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock | 10 patrols | 25 ships sunk (179.125 tons) 2 ships damaged (15.864 tons) |
| 7. | Karl-Friedrich Merten | 5 patrols | 27 ships sunk (170.151 tons) |
| 8. | Herbert Schultze | 8 patrols | 26 ships sunk (169.709 tons) 1 ship damaged (9.456 tons) |
| 9. | Günther Prien | 10 patrols | 30 ships sunk (162.769 tons) 8 ships damaged (62.751 tons) |
| 10. | Georg Lassen | 4 patrols | 26 ships sunk (156.082 tons) 5 ships damaged (34.419 tons) |
| 11. | Joachim Schepke | 14 patrols | 37 ships sunk (155.882 tons) 4 ships damaged (17.229 tons) |
| 12. | Werner Henke | 7 patrols | 24 ships sunk (155.714 tons) 2 ships damaged (7.954 tons) |
| 13. | Carl Emmermann | 5 patrols | 26 ships sunk (152.080 tons) |
| 14. | Heinrich Bleichrodt | 8 patrols | 24 ships sunk (151.260 tons) 2 ships damaged (11.684 tons) |
| 15. | Robert Gysae | 8 patrols | 25 ships sunk (146.815 tons) 1 ship damaged (2.588 tons) |
| 16. | Ernst Kals | 5 patrols | 20 ships sunk (145.656 tons) 1 ship damaged (6.986 tons) |
| 17. | Johann Mohr | 6 patrols | 27 ships sunk (129.292 tons) 3 ships damaged (26.167 tons) |
| 18. | Klaus Scholtz | 8 patrols | 25 ships sunk (128.190 tons) |
| 19. | Adolf Cornelius Piening | 9 patrols | 25 ships sunk (126.664 tons) 1 ship damaged (6.736 tons) |
| 20. | Helmut Witte | 4 patrols | 23 ships sunk (119.554 tons) 1 ship damaged (265 tons) |
| 21. | Günter Hessler | 3 patrols | 21 ships sunk (118.822 tons) |
| 22. | Ernst Bauer | 5 patrols | 25 ships sunk (118.560 tons) 4 ships damaged (31.304 tons) |
| 23. | Engelbert Endrass | 10 patrols | 22 ships sunk (118.528 tons) 4 ships damaged (25.491 tons) |
| 24. | Reinhard Hardegen | 5 patrols | 22 ships sunk (115.656 tons) 5 ships damaged (46.500 tons) |
| 25. | Werner Hartmann | 4 patrols | 26 ships sunk (115.337 tons) |
| 26. | Hans Jenisch | 6 patrols | 17 ships sunk (110.139 tons) 3 ships damaged (22.749 tons) |
| 27. | Richard Zapp | 5 patrols | 16 ships sunk (106.200 tons) 1 ship damaged (12.502 tons) |
| 28. | Victor Oehrn | 4 patrols | 23 ships sunk (103.821 tons) 1 ship damaged (9.494 tons) |
| 29. | Jürgen Oesten | 13 patrols | 19 ships sunk (101.744 tons) 4 ships damaged (51.668 tons) |
| 30. | Wilhelm Rollmann | 8 patrols | 22 ships sunk (101.519 tons) |
| 31. | Erwin Rostin | 2 patrols | 17 ships sunk (101.321 tons) 2 ships damaged (15.264 tons) |
| 32. | Hans-Ludwig Witt | 3 patrols | 19 ships sunk (100.773 tons) |
| 33. | Günther Krech | 10 patrols | 19 ships sunk (100.771 tons) 2 ships damaged (15.070 tons) |
| 34. | Harald Gelhaus | 11 patrols | 19 ships sunk (100.373 tons) 1 ship damaged (10.068 tons) |
On 259 war patrols these 34 men sank 873 ships for a total of 4.825.554 tons.
Please note: These tonnage figures (and sometimes the number of ships sunk) is still being debated among historians. This is one of several different possible figures but still very close whatever the "real truth is". This is often due to convoy battles at night when an attacking wolfpack fired torpedoes into the convoy and two commanders claimed the same ship, although post-war research has eliminated most of those doubtful victims there are still some in question.
This listing is read from our database and should be very accurate (or as accurate as the latest research allows).
Update If you'd like to see how these commanders compare to their World War One counterparts check this out.