Walther Ehrhardt

Oberleutnant zur See (Crew 38)



No ships sunk or damaged.


Born  23 Dec 1919 Ravensburg, Württemberg
Died  3 Mar 2011(91)


Ranks

1 Oct 1938 Offiziersanwärter
1 Jul 1939 Seekadett
1 Dec 1939 Fähnrich zur See
1 Aug 1940 Oberfähnrich zur See
1 Apr 1941 Leutnant zur See
1 Jan 1943 Oberleutnant zur See

Decorations

1940 Iron Cross 2nd Class
15 Jul 1941 Fleet War Badge
1942 Iron Cross 1st Class

U-boat Commands

U-boatFromTo
U-1016 4 Apr 1944 5 May 1945   No war patrols 
U-637 Jan, 1945 Jan, 1945   No war patrols 

Walther Ehrhardt joined the Kriegsmarine in 1938. He served on board the battleships Scharnhorst as Command Relay Officer from May 1940 to April 1943. He went through U-boat training and U-boat familiarization (Baubelehrung) from May 1943 to April 1944 (Busch & Röll, 1999).

On 4 April 1944 Oblt. Walther Ehrhardt commissioned the brand new type VIIC/41 boat U-1016 at Hamburg (Busch & Röll, 1999). He took the boat into the Baltic for training for the next months.

In late Jan 1945 Oblt. Ehrhardt took the U-637 from Danzig to Kiel as acting commander. He retained command of the U-1016 until the end of the war (Busch & Röll, 1999). Ehrhardt and his crew scuttled the boat on 5 May 1945 at Lübeck Bay (Niestlé, 1998).

In the 50's Ehrhardt joined the West German Navy, Bundesmarine, and in 1957 Kptlt. Ehrhardt commanded the small U-Hai, the former U-2365 of type XXIII (Busch & Röll, 1999). The boat was scuttled on 8 May 1945 and raised in June 1956.

Sources

Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1999). German U-boat commanders of World War II.
Busch, R. and Röll, H-J. (1997). Der U-Bootkrieg 1939-1945 (Band 2).
Niestlé, A. (1998). German U-boat losses during World War II.
Rohwer, J. (1998). Axis Submarine Successes of World War Two.

Patrol info for Walther Ehrhardt

This commander did not go out on patrols with his boats.


About ranks and decorations
Ranks shown in italics are our database inserts based on the rank dates of his crew comrades. The officers of each crew would normally have progressed through the lower ranks at the same rate.

Media links


German U-boat Commanders of World War II

Busch, Rainer and Röll, Hans-Joachim

Listing of all U-boat commanders


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