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(Redirected from SS Cap Arcona)
The '''Cap Arcona''' was a large German luxury ocean liner formerly of the Hamburg-South America line that became a German "Hell ship". It was sunk in 1945 with the loss of many lives while laden with prisoners from concentration camps.
The 27,500 gross ton'' Cap Arcona'', named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, was launched in 1927. It was considered one of the most beautiful of the time. It carried upper-class travelers and steerage-class emigrants, mostly to South America.[1]
In 1940, it was taken over by the Kriegsmarine, the German navy, and used in the Baltic Sea. In 1942, it was used as a stand-in for the doomed ''Titanic'' in the German film version of the disaster, which would later prove to be a cruel twist of irony. At the end of 1944, the Kriegsmarine transferred it back to transport use and it was used to transport German refugees (troopship) from East Prussia to western Germany.
In the last few weeks of the war in Europe, the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Red Cross, was organising the removal of Danish and Norwegian prisoners from German concentration camps to neutral Sweden — a scheme known as the White Buses. In practice the scheme also included other nationalities.
On April 26, 1945, the ''Cap Arcona'' was loaded with prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg and was brought into the Bay of Lübeck along with two smaller ships, ''Athen'' and ''Thielbek''. During these days, around 140 West European prisoners, for the most part French-speaking, were transferred from the ''Thielbek'' to the ''Magdalena'' for transportation to hospitals in Sweden. This rescue operation was actioned by utilising information from British Intelligence, indicating their knowledge of the deportees on board.
On May 3 1945, four days after Hitler's suicide but four days before the unconditional surrender of Germany, the ''Cap Arcona'', the ''Thielbek'', and the passenger liner SS ''Deutschland'', converted to a hospital ship but not marked as such, were sunk in four separate, but synchronized, attacks by RAF Typhoons of 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force as part of general attacks on shipping in the Baltic.
The attacks were by No. 184 Squadron,[2] by No. 263 Squadron,[3] by No. 197 Squadron RAF[4] and by No. 198 Squadron.[5] These Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B fighter-bombers used incendiary "60lb" rocket projectiles, bombs, and 20 mm cannon.
Unknown to the RAF the ships were carrying between 7,000 and 8,000 prisoners from the German concentration camps in Neuengamme, Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora, half of whom were Russian and Polish prisoners-of-war, with the others from 24 nationalities, including French, Danish, and Dutch.[6]
The survivors from the sinking who reached the shore were shot by SS troops, although 350 prisoners managed to escape from the massacre. Allan Wyse, formerly of 193 Fighter Squadron, said "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water … we shot them up with 20 mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war." China Daily, 2000-03-07 . Among the survivors was Erwin Geschonneck, who would later become a notable German actor, and whose story was made into a film in 1982.
About 490 of the various guards, SS and crew were rescued by German boats.
Photos of the burning ships, listed as ''Deutschland'', ''Thielbek'', and ''Cap Arcona'', and survivors swimming in the frozen Baltic Sea (seven degrees Celsius) were taken on a reconnaissance mission over Bay of Lübeck by F-6 aircraft of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 5:00 PM, shortly after the attack.[7]
For weeks after the sinking, bodies of the victims washed ashore, where they were collected and buried in a single mass grave at Neustadt in Holstein. For nearly thirty years, parts of skeletons washed ashore, until the last find, by a twelve-year-old boy, in 1971.[8]
According to documents at the Dutch Institute of War Documentation (NIOD), the government of Sweden had warned the British government that prisoners were brought aboard the ships. The British government will keep its archives about the bombardment of the three ships closed until 2045 .[9]
The deportees were of 28 different nationalities: American, Belgian, Canadian, Czechoslovakian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and others.
Losses of life in the ''Cap Arcona'' and in the Soviet sinkings of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' and the ''Goya'' in the Baltic Sea in May 1945 were among the highest in maritime history (between 7,500 and over 8,000 victims each).
★ ''Junyō Maru'' - Japanese "Hellship" torpedoed while transporting about 6,000 prisoners of war and forced labourers.
★ ''Ukishima Maru'' - Imperial Japanese Navy vessel sunk while transporting 4,000 to 5,000 Korean forced labourers.
1. http://www.arteprintas.ch/postkarten/caparcona.jpg
2. based at RAF Hustedt
3. based in Ahlhorn, Großenkneten led by Squadron Leader Martin Trevor Scott Rumbold
4. led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding also at Ahlhorn,
5. based at Plantlünne led by Group Captain Johnny Baldwin
6. http://www.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.2315
7. US Photos Archives [1])
8. Günther Schwarberg: ''Angriffsziel "Cap Arcona"'', Steidl Verlag, 1998 Göttingen.
9. These laws (2045) are the laws of the page 171 ("The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre". The Lyons Press, October 2004).
★ Roy Nesbit, "''Cap Arcona'': atrocity or accident?". ''Aeroplane Monthly'', June 1984
★ Benjamin Jacobs and Eugene Pool, ''The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre''. The Lyons Press, October 2004. ISBN 1-59228-532-5.
★ Benjamin Jacobs, " The Dentist of Auschwitz", University Press of Kentucky, Reprinted April 2001, ISBN 0813190126, chapters 17, 18.
★ Günther Schwarberg: ''Angriffsziel "Cap Arcona"'', Steidl Verlag, 1998 Göttingen, ISBN 3-88243-590-9
★ Lawrence Bond, "Typhoons' Last Storm" documentary film 2000
★ Drawing
★ History of the tragedy
★ Disaster on the Baltic Sea
★ Inferno
★ Appendix A
★ Photo-montage with sound
★ Photos of the Cap Arcona
★ [2]
★ Scuba diving around the wreck
★ Lucien Revert (French language)
The '''Cap Arcona''' was a large German luxury ocean liner formerly of the Hamburg-South America line that became a German "Hell ship". It was sunk in 1945 with the loss of many lives while laden with prisoners from concentration camps.
| Contents |
| History |
| Sinking |
| See also |
| References |
| Sources |
| External links |
History
The 27,500 gross ton'' Cap Arcona'', named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, was launched in 1927. It was considered one of the most beautiful of the time. It carried upper-class travelers and steerage-class emigrants, mostly to South America.[1]
In 1940, it was taken over by the Kriegsmarine, the German navy, and used in the Baltic Sea. In 1942, it was used as a stand-in for the doomed ''Titanic'' in the German film version of the disaster, which would later prove to be a cruel twist of irony. At the end of 1944, the Kriegsmarine transferred it back to transport use and it was used to transport German refugees (troopship) from East Prussia to western Germany.
Sinking
In the last few weeks of the war in Europe, the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Red Cross, was organising the removal of Danish and Norwegian prisoners from German concentration camps to neutral Sweden — a scheme known as the White Buses. In practice the scheme also included other nationalities.
On April 26, 1945, the ''Cap Arcona'' was loaded with prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg and was brought into the Bay of Lübeck along with two smaller ships, ''Athen'' and ''Thielbek''. During these days, around 140 West European prisoners, for the most part French-speaking, were transferred from the ''Thielbek'' to the ''Magdalena'' for transportation to hospitals in Sweden. This rescue operation was actioned by utilising information from British Intelligence, indicating their knowledge of the deportees on board.
On May 3 1945, four days after Hitler's suicide but four days before the unconditional surrender of Germany, the ''Cap Arcona'', the ''Thielbek'', and the passenger liner SS ''Deutschland'', converted to a hospital ship but not marked as such, were sunk in four separate, but synchronized, attacks by RAF Typhoons of 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force as part of general attacks on shipping in the Baltic.
The attacks were by No. 184 Squadron,[2] by No. 263 Squadron,[3] by No. 197 Squadron RAF[4] and by No. 198 Squadron.[5] These Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B fighter-bombers used incendiary "60lb" rocket projectiles, bombs, and 20 mm cannon.
Unknown to the RAF the ships were carrying between 7,000 and 8,000 prisoners from the German concentration camps in Neuengamme, Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora, half of whom were Russian and Polish prisoners-of-war, with the others from 24 nationalities, including French, Danish, and Dutch.[6]
The survivors from the sinking who reached the shore were shot by SS troops, although 350 prisoners managed to escape from the massacre. Allan Wyse, formerly of 193 Fighter Squadron, said "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water … we shot them up with 20 mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war." China Daily, 2000-03-07 . Among the survivors was Erwin Geschonneck, who would later become a notable German actor, and whose story was made into a film in 1982.
About 490 of the various guards, SS and crew were rescued by German boats.
Photos of the burning ships, listed as ''Deutschland'', ''Thielbek'', and ''Cap Arcona'', and survivors swimming in the frozen Baltic Sea (seven degrees Celsius) were taken on a reconnaissance mission over Bay of Lübeck by F-6 aircraft of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 5:00 PM, shortly after the attack.[7]
For weeks after the sinking, bodies of the victims washed ashore, where they were collected and buried in a single mass grave at Neustadt in Holstein. For nearly thirty years, parts of skeletons washed ashore, until the last find, by a twelve-year-old boy, in 1971.[8]
According to documents at the Dutch Institute of War Documentation (NIOD), the government of Sweden had warned the British government that prisoners were brought aboard the ships. The British government will keep its archives about the bombardment of the three ships closed until 2045 .[9]
Memorial to ''Cap Arcona'' victims at Neustadt in Holstein.
The deportees were of 28 different nationalities: American, Belgian, Canadian, Czechoslovakian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and others.
Losses of life in the ''Cap Arcona'' and in the Soviet sinkings of the ''Wilhelm Gustloff'' and the ''Goya'' in the Baltic Sea in May 1945 were among the highest in maritime history (between 7,500 and over 8,000 victims each).
See also
★ ''Junyō Maru'' - Japanese "Hellship" torpedoed while transporting about 6,000 prisoners of war and forced labourers.
★ ''Ukishima Maru'' - Imperial Japanese Navy vessel sunk while transporting 4,000 to 5,000 Korean forced labourers.
References
1. http://www.arteprintas.ch/postkarten/caparcona.jpg
2. based at RAF Hustedt
3. based in Ahlhorn, Großenkneten led by Squadron Leader Martin Trevor Scott Rumbold
4. led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding also at Ahlhorn,
5. based at Plantlünne led by Group Captain Johnny Baldwin
6. http://www.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.2315
7. US Photos Archives [1])
8. Günther Schwarberg: ''Angriffsziel "Cap Arcona"'', Steidl Verlag, 1998 Göttingen.
9. These laws (2045) are the laws of the page 171 ("The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre". The Lyons Press, October 2004).
Sources
★ Roy Nesbit, "''Cap Arcona'': atrocity or accident?". ''Aeroplane Monthly'', June 1984
★ Benjamin Jacobs and Eugene Pool, ''The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre''. The Lyons Press, October 2004. ISBN 1-59228-532-5.
★ Benjamin Jacobs, " The Dentist of Auschwitz", University Press of Kentucky, Reprinted April 2001, ISBN 0813190126, chapters 17, 18.
★ Günther Schwarberg: ''Angriffsziel "Cap Arcona"'', Steidl Verlag, 1998 Göttingen, ISBN 3-88243-590-9
★ Lawrence Bond, "Typhoons' Last Storm" documentary film 2000
★ Drawing
External links
★ History of the tragedy
★ Disaster on the Baltic Sea
★ Inferno
★ Appendix A
★ Photo-montage with sound
★ Photos of the Cap Arcona
★ [2]
★ Scuba diving around the wreck
★ Lucien Revert (French language)
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