page_title: German Type IXA submarine
section_title: U-37
hierarchical_section_title: German Type IXA submarine / List of Type IXA U-boats / U-37
caption_attribution_description: Title: Lorient, U-37&#160; Extra information: Frankreich, Lorient.- U-Boot U 37 im Dock For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Factual corrections and alternative descriptions are encouraged separately from the original description. Additionally errors can be reported at this page to inform the Bundesarchiv. Alemannisch&#160;| Boarisch&#160;| Беларуская&#160;| Беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎&#160;| Català&#160;| Česky&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| Español&#160;| Suomi&#160;| Français&#160;| हिन्दी&#160;| Hrvatski&#160;| Magyar&#160;| Italiano&#160;| 한국어&#160;| Македонски&#160;| Plattdüütsch&#160;| Polski&#160;| Português&#160;| Română&#160;| Русский&#160;| Slovenčina&#160;| Slovenščina&#160;| Svenska&#160;| Українська&#160;| 中文（简体）&#160;| 中文（繁體）&#160;| +/− Original historic description:
context_page_description: The German Type IXA submarine was a sub-class of the German Type IX submarine built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine between 1937 and 1938. These U-boats were designed between 1935 and 1936 and were intended to be fairly large ocean-going submarines. The inspiration for the Type IXA submarine came from the German Type IA submarine, which had a similar diving depth and identical submerged horsepower.
  Two of the eight Type IXA submarines would become the 6th and 10th most successful U-boats that saw service in World War II, sinking 53 and 35 ships respectively. All of the Type IXA submarines were sunk fairly early in the war except for U-37 and U-38, which were scuttled in May 1945 to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Allies.
context_section_description: U-37 was laid down by AG Weser of Bremen on 15 March 1937. Following just over a year of construction, she was launched from the Bremen shipyards on 14 May 1938 and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine on 4 August 1938 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Schuch as a member of the 6th U-boat Flotilla. U-37 was by far the most successful Type IXA U-boat and the sixth most successful U-boat in World War II, sinking 53 merchant ships for a total of 200,124 gross register tons (GRT), along with two warships during eleven war patrols from August 1939 to March 1941. In spite of these victories, U-37 was later withdrawn from combat service and was used for training submarine crews until the end of the war. On 8 May 1945, the crew of U-37 scuttled the U-boat in Sonderburg Bay off Flensburg to keep her from falling into the hands of the Allies.
caption: U-37 at Lorient in 1940.
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