page_title: German submarine Wilhelm Bauer
section_title: Salvage, refit and new service
hierarchical_section_title: German submarine Wilhelm Bauer / Salvage, refit and new service
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die vier Bugtorpedorohre vom U-Boot Wilhelm Bauer als Klasse 241
context_page_description: Wilhelm Bauer is a Type XXI U-boat of Nazi Germany's navy, completed shortly before the end of World War II. It was scuttled at the end of the war, having never gone on patrol. In 1957, it was raised from the seabed off Flensburg Firth, refurbished and recommissioned for use by the West-German Bundesmarine in 1960. Finally retired fully in 1983, it is the only floating example of a Type XXI U-boat. It has been modified to appear in wartime configuration and exhibited at the Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, Germany.
context_section_description: In June 1957, after more than 12 years on the floor of the Baltic Sea, U-2540 was raised and overhauled at Howaldtswerke, Kiel. The submarine was commissioned  as a research vessel in the Bundesmarine, serving from 1 September 1960 until 28 August 1968 as a test boat (class 241). On relaunch she was renamed Wilhelm Bauer, after the designer of the first German U-boat, Brandtaucher, built in Kiel by August Howaldt in 1850. From May 1970 she again entered service, this time with a civilian crew and served as a testbed for the technical innovations of the class 206 U-boat. After an underwater collision with the German destroyer Z-3 (D172) on 6 May 1980 Wilhelm Bauer was discharged from use at Eckernförde on 18 November 1980 and finally released from service in 1983.
caption: The four bow torpedo tubes on the submarine (Class 241)
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