The Admiral Scheer had already gained fame as a commerce raider in the North Atlantic when it met with Julius Lemp's U-30 in Spring 1939, north of the Faroes. The surface vessel's captain, Patzig, informed Lemp that from then on his submarine would escort the Admiral Scheer. Lemp immediately figured that this was yet another plan hatched by Karl Dönitz to punish him for the sinking of the SS Athenia earlier in the year. Every Protestant and Catholic church in Germany played its bells when the Admiral Scheer returned to Kiel safely.