Inside the Deadly German U-Boats That Brought Britain to Its Knees (But Were Deadlier for Their Own Crews)

History Unplugged Podcast · Jan 8, 2026 · 41m

Over the course of World War II, Germany’s submariners sank over three thousand Allied ships, nearly three-quarters of Allied shipping losses in all theaters of the war. Winston Churchill famously declared the only thing that truly frightened him during World War II was the U-boat threat. But the treat was more imagined than real. The actual capability of the German Navy was somewhat limited. Some historians think that the Germans would have been better off in WWII if they had built no navy at all and devoted those resources to the army and the Luftwaffe. In the process the submariners…