Otto Eduard Weddigen (15 September 1882 – 18 March 1915) was an Imperial German Navy U-boat commander during World War I.

[1][2] In contrast to the army which was still dominated by the Prussian nobility, the Imperial navy offered young men from the middle class opportunities for advancement.

[1][5] According to the report of the commander of the Cressy, Bertram W. L. Nicholson, an observation post on the HMS Aboukir had apparently mistaken the periscope of U-9 for a piece of driftwood .

A chance hit in the Aboukir 's weapons magazine caused a huge explosion and chaos on board the British ship.

To make matters worse, when HMS Cressy rushed to help, its crew consisted almost exclusively of less well-trained reservists.

In a later report, Weddigen openly admitted that, in addition to military skill, a large portion of luck was also involved in the operation, which was successful for the Germans, and he clearly highlighted what he considered to be the brave conduct of the opposing soldiers.

Barely three weeks later on 15 October 1914, after Weddigen sank the British cruiser HMS Hawke off Aberdeen,[1] and three merchant ships, as one of the first German naval officers, he was awarded Prussia's highest military order of bravery, the Pour le Mérite by the Kaiser on 24 October 1914.

[8] Weddigen was celebrated as a war hero in Germany as a result of his military successes, which were perceived as sensational; his home town made him an honorary citizen at the age of 32.

Adoration and the creation of legends quickly spread, propagandistically led by the tabloid press loyal to the Kaiser.

The cult surrounding the submarine commander during the First World War was later surpassed only by the fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, who was shot down on April 21, 1918.

In 1927, Heinz Paul made the feature film U 9 Weddigen with Carl de Vogt in the leading role.

During this time, Leitz built both an underwater camera and a pair of prism binoculars called Weddigen under the brand name Leica.

Books about Weddigen as well as devotional items from the hero worship in the German Reich can now only be found in second-hand bookshops and at flea market dealers specializing in militaria.

An outdoor swimming pool built there in 1935 was used as a military facility for a long time (after the war also by the British Army) bore his name.

Streets in Augsburg, Aurich, Bielefeld, Freiburg im Breisgau, Gerlingen, Hanover, Landsberg am Lech, Lünen, Munich, Münster, Nordhorn, Nuremberg, Oldenburg, Wuppertal as well as Danzig-Stolzenberg (until 1945), Hamburg (until 1947) and Kiel (also until 1947) are or were named after him.

In the small town of Neukirchen-Vluyn on the Lower Rhine, three streets in a mining settlement built in 1919 bear his name (Weddigenplatz, Weddigenallee, Weddigenstraße).

In the private, publicly accessible U-Boat Archive Museum in Cuxhaven, the Otto Weddigen Room is named after him.