Werner Hartenstein (27 February 1908 – 8 March 1943) was a German naval officer during World War II who commanded the U-boat . He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. Hartenstein was credited with sinking 19 ships totaling , and with damaging three ships and a destroyer. Born in Plauen, Hartenstein joined the Reichsmarine (navy of the Weimar Republic) in 1928. After a period of training on surface vessels and service on various torpedo boats during the Spanish Civil War and the first year of World War II, he transferred to the U-boat service in 1941. In September 1942, Hartenstein torpedoed and sank the , then attempted to rescue the survivors. He was forced to abort the rescue when his U-boat came under attack by a B-24 Liberator bomber of the United States Army Air Forces. The event became known as the "Laconia incident" and resulted in the "Laconia Order", an order from the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote to the entire German U-boat force that forbade rescuing the survivors of sunken ships. Hartenstein and the entire crew of U-156 were killed in action by depth charges from a US PBY Catalina aircraft on 8 March 1943. Early life and pre-war service Hartenstein was born in Plauen in the Vogtland of the Kingdom of Saxony, then a federated state of the German Empire, on 27 February 1908. He was the second child of William Karl Adolf Hartenstein, an export merchant, and Selma Emma Hartenstein, née Schlingensiepen. Hartenstein had one older sister, Thea Irena, and a younger sister, Charlotte. He celebrated his confirmation in 1923 and graduated from a humanities-oriented secondary school in Plauen with his diploma (Abitur) in 1926. After graduation in 1926 he applied for a naval officer cadetship but was rejected at first, and instead studied two semesters of jurisprudence. He matriculated at the University of Freiburg (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) in Freiburg im Breisgau on 29 April 1927. Aged 20, Hartenstein re-applied for the cadetship, was accepted and began his naval career with the Reichsmarine on 1 April 1928 as a member of "Crew 28" (the incoming class of 1928). He underwent basic military training in the 2nd department of the standing ship division of the Baltic Sea in Stralsund (1 April 1928 – 30 June 1928). Hartenstein was then