I read sometime around 1938 of Jewish fines and some street actions against them. But I was too concerned with U-Boats and the naval problems to be concerned about Jews.

Certainly inside my heart I know degrees of difference. But I can't blame any of these men who share a common fate with me. The big folly of this trial is that it lacks the two men who are to blame for anything which is criminal, namely Hitler and Himmler.

I'm an old man at 54, without teeth, and with rheumatism.

I accept responsibility for U-boat warfare from 1933 onward, and of the entire navy from 1943 on, but to make me responsible for what happened to Jews in Germany, or Russian soldiers on the east front it is so ridiculous all I can do is laugh.

I was fascinated by the [operation] of a U-boat ... where every single man was an indispensable part of the whole. Every submariner, I am sure, has experienced in his heart [the joy of] the task entrusted to him [and] felt as rich as a king.

The north German does not go in for extremes. He has broader horizons than the men from the mountains of Bavaria and Austria.

The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the Americans practice chaos on a daily basis.