Friedrich Grade

Joining the Kriegsmarine in 1935, Grade served aboard the cruiser Emden, a training ship, as an engineering cadet until 1936.^[1] During World War II, he was chief engineer (LI) of the U-boats U-96 and U-183.

Grade was the last surviving eyewitness to the submarine's patrols. In 2017, he published his hitherto unknown diaries, written during operations on U-96.^[2] He achieved Germany-wide awareness in 2018, when his story was picked up by the media as part of the remake of Das Boot.^[3]

After the end of his assignments on U-96, Grade completed two more patrols on U-183 and then trained U-boat crews as a technical instructor for the submarine training flotilla until the end of the war.^[4] In 1958, he was accepted into the newly formed German Navy to lead the development of new submarines there. In 1970, shortly before his retirement, he worked on the revision of Lothar-Günther Buchheim's novel Das Boot.^[5] When he retired in 1974, he held the rank of Kapitän zur See. ^[6]

Grade was married in Eckernförde and had two children who were born during World War II. In his last years, he lived in a retirement home in Bornheim.^[6][7] Grade died on 13 October 2023, at the age of 107.^[8]