U-boot 434 museum Hamburg

Last summer, while passing through Germany on our way back from Poland, we stayed 2-3 nights in Hamburg. This stop halfway was specifically chosen as we did the same 2 years before (just overnight), and I had noticed there was a U-boat and you could visit it. At that time, I told my girlfriend that - next time - I would definitely want to visit it.

So, under the beautiful summer sun, we went inside and visited the U-bootmuseum. The website is in German, but Google translate does a decent job, if German is not your cup of tea.

You can make an unguided visit, but I recommend the guided tour. It's a couple euro more, but it's a pretty uninformed walk otherwise AND you get access to an otherwise restricted area.
We just came on a random day and joined a German tour, but my German is well enough to follow. You can book a tour (2 days in advance) in German, English or Russian.

U-434

The U-434 was a Russian submarine, Tango class, converted to a museum. For visitor ease, an entrance and exit were added to the back and front of the boat.

The first thing I learned was how cramped the thing is inside. Nothing compared to later era ships like depicted in the Hunt for Red October.

The second thing was that, for a crew of ~150, there were about one third the number of beds. The 60 or so beds were always occupied, because of the way the shifts were rotated.

Most of the beds were located in crew quarters, if you can call them that, but many where just stretchers, spread haphazardly across the ship, wherever there was some place to be found.

Restricted section

As part of the guided tour, you are allowed to climb up unto the command center of the ship. This contains the steering position, telephone (inter-ship), telegraph, control computers (barely worthy of the name), periscope access and what-not.

Triple-redundant systems all around.

And yes, that's me, playing helmsman.

I found it a very informative and worthwhile visit, if you're even remotely interested in U-boats.