During the dark days of World War II, when German U-boats prowled the Atlantic and the East Coast of the United States was on high alert, an extraordinary event—nearly lost to history—allegedly took place in Charleston, South Carolina.
In 1943, so the story goes, a German U-boat slipped past American coastal defenses under cover of darkness and surfaced just outside Charleston Harbor. This was no raid. Instead, it was a covert diplomatic mission—a bizarre and informal truce of sorts. The crew had made contact with members of Charleston’s German Friendly Society, a fraternal organization founded in the 1700s by German immigrants, which had long since become a civic and cultural institution in the Holy City.
Charleston, with its antebellum charm and layered loyalties, was a place where old-world European ties still held sway. According to the tale, the U-boat captain—well-educated, well-mannered, and fluent in English—was allowed to come ashore with several crew members under strict secrecy. The meeting took place not in some secret military facility, but at the German Friendly Society’s modest hall downtown.
There, the visiting Germans were reportedly served a Southern dinner—pot roast, greens, rice and gravy, and sweet tea—and engaged in polite conversation. The Society’s members, many of whom had been in America for generations, expressed sympathy not for the Nazi cause, but for the humanity of the sailors themselves—young men caught in the storm of war.
One Society member allegedly offered the captain a Charleston-made cigar and said, “You’re a long way from the Fatherland, son.”
The sailors were allowed to rest briefly before returning to their vessel under the cover of night. They left no trace except for a signed page in the Society’s guestbook—though if that page ever existed, it has long since disappeared. The U-boat slipped away into the Atlantic, never to be seen again.
Whether the story is entirely true, embellished, or an urban legend passed down among old Charlestonians is anyone’s guess. No official records confirm the landing, and the U.S. Navy has never acknowledged such an event.
Still, in Charleston’s historic backrooms and among certain families with long memories, the story endures: a quiet evening of civility and strange camaraderie in the middle of a brutal global war.