Original Postwar Signature on a Postwar Photo of Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. Korvettenkapitän Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (11.12.1911 † 18.04.1986) earned the Ritterkreuz on February 26, 1941 as Kapitänleutnant und Kommandant of U-96 and the Eichenlaub on December 31, 1944 as Kapitänleutnant und Kommandant of U-96.
Lehmann-Willenbrock ranks sixth of the most successful U-boat commanders in the Battle of the Atlantic against the Allies. He commanded four U-boats, including U-96, a Type VIIC U-boat, which gained widespread recognition when one of its patrols was documented and publicized by an accompanying member of a propaganda company Lothar-Günther Buchheim. The story of the U-96 was eventually made into a mini-series and film called Das Boot, in which the captain was portrayed by Jürgen Prochnow. (Source: Wikipedia).
Provenance: This signature comes from one of the largest postwar signature collection I’ve ever commissioned. This collection was started by a Waffen-SS Veteran, Werner H., in the 1950’s until he passed away.
Postwar signature and grave photograph of Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Buchheim was a Sonderführer in a propaganda unit of the Kriegsmarine in the Second World War, writing as a war correspondent about his experiences on minesweepers, destroyers and submarines. He also made drawings and took photographs. As a Leutnant zur See in the autumn of 1941, Buchheim joined Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock and the crew of U-96 on her seventh patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic. His orders were to photograph and describe the U-boat in action. In 1973 he published a novel based on his wartime experiences, Das Boot (The Boat).
