“The True Sound of Music Story”

Making a Stand on Christian Principles

Long, long ago when I was a young man I came across a prime example of this. In 1951 I went with a church youth group on a 2-week trip to Austria. Going by rail, at Coloyneve saw what must have been a Miracle. The Cathedral, standing intact in the middle of a bomb flattened city.

We stayed at a high mountain village Mulbach an Hochonig or (Mulbach on High King) in English, and about 20 miles from Salgburg. There I met the real equivalent of the Navel Captain in the movie “Sound of Music” who was the proprietor of the “Ski unt Berghiem Hostel” we stayed at; Captain Stefan Senoner .

After the war Austria was divided into 3 military zones; American, British and Russian. We were in the American Zone controlled by 7th US Coventry regiment. Stefan Senoner had been a V Boat Captain in World War 2. In 1942 the British White Star liner Laconia (almost as big as the Titanic) was torpedoed off Freetown by a German submarine. She had 1,800 Italian POWs on board and nearly 300 British servicemen and families. She went down in just 15 minutes, taking most of the prisoners (who were locked up below decks with Polish guards in charge) with her. In all, many more lives were lost than in the Titanic disaster, but one never hears of that fact! My brother, Ernest was one of the survivors, he was in the shark infested water for over an hour before being finally picked up by a life boat.

The V Boat Captain Hartensteins never knew the presence of his Italian Allies on board otherwise he would never have attacked, he was however, a humane man and took the woman and children on board, where they were looked after very well by the crew, he also took life boats in tow. A large Red Cross flag being draped over the deck.

A general signal was sent to the Allied forces, to the effect that if they did not attack him, he would continue to help survivors. In spite of all this, American aircraft found the scene and bombed, missing the submarine but sinking one of the life boats with further loss life. Sadly, Captain Hartensteins U152 was sunk later in the War off the Canadian coast because he stayed too long on the surface helping survivors of Allied ships.

When the Supreme Commander V Boats, Admiral Carl Donitz, hears of this he sent an immediate order, “In no circumstances are any more survivors to be picked up or assisted.” This deadly order was to cost the lives of thousands of Allied seamen in the remaining 3 years of war.

As a Christian, Captain Senoner openly refused to comply with this order and was Court Marshalled and sent back to Austria. When the Gestapo came to arrest him he was hidden by his friends in the Mountains until after the war. After I saw him, he immigrated to Canada as he told me he wanted to do. He set up a “Ski unt Borghiem Hostel Mulbach” in Netherlands, which is still there today. When we left Mulbach, his elderly mother cried because she knew, she said. That she would never see us all again, it was very touching.

Both of these Captains showed their compassion for their fellow men, that they were willing to stand up and be counted, on Christian principles.

Barnes Dennis Walter