That Time A Nazi Submarine Captain Sank His Ship By Flushing

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That Time A Nazi Submarine Captain Sank His Ship By Flushing

In a submarine, even flushing the toilet is a complicated task. You're hundreds of feet underwater, with literal tons of pressure coming from every direction. One wrong move, and you'd endanger your whole crew just by trying to hide some poo.

DAATE S ALM OCN L BUO ALVE BMIYSAN BL t r SA STOF sE AIME TASO e A A es SANITARY SYSTEM IN CONTROL ROOM
German Federal Archive
You may remember this from the Academy-Award-winning film Das Poop.

And in 1945, that's exactly what happened to Nazi submarine captain Karl Adolf Schlitt. As captain, Schlitt had some special privileges, including the unofficial right to ignore every lesson that he'd ever been taught. After using the bathroom, Schlitt really didn't want to live with his shame, so he called in an engineer to help him flush. Together, they sank the U-1206.

Rising water from the improperly flushed toilet hit the batteries that powered the sub and began producing dangerous chlorine gas.

That Time A Nazi Submarine Captain Sank His Ship By Flushing
German Federal Archive
They went from a figurative silent-but-deadly situation to a literal one.

In order to escape death by the darkest Mr. Bean episode imaginable, Schlitt ordered the doomed submarine to the surface. There, a British plane spotted them, and eventually every one of the crew members was captured.

That's some crazy Schlitt, huh?

The Americans would've sunk it anyway.

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