Ernst Kals (2 August 1905 – 2 November 1979) was a Kapitan zur See of the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany and the commander of U-130 during World War II.
Biography[]
Ernst Kals was born on 2 August 1905 in Glauchau, Saxony, German Empire. He joined the Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic in 1924 and joined the U-boat force of the Kriegsmarine in 1940 while Nazi Germany was at war with the Allied Powers. In June 1941, he took command of U-130, and he sunk 20 ships on five patrols, some 145,656 tons of Allied shipping. In January 1943, he took command of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla in Lorient, France, and he remained in this position until the end of the war. From May 1945 to January 1948, he was held in France as a prisoner of war, and he died in Emden, West Germany in 1979 at the age of 74.