Cap Arcona, launching 1927 HQ.

The beauty and tragedy of ships. The German 1943 Titanic film was made on board of the Cap Arcona.
As a prison ship
Towards the end of April 1945, the Nazis assembled a small fleet of ships in the Bay of Lübeck, comprising the liners Cap Arcona and SS Deutschland, and the smaller vessels Thielbek and Athen. The Athen was used to transfer prisoners from Lübeck to the larger ships and between ships. By the end of the month, these ships held more than 10,000 prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp and its subcamps, and two barges came from Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora camps. The order to transfer the prisoners from the camps to the prison ships came from Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann in Hamburg, who was himself acting on orders from Berlin. Later, during a war crimes tribunal, Kaufmann claimed that the prisoners were destined for Sweden. However, at the same trial, Bassewitz-Behr, head of the Hamburg Gestapo, said that the prisoners were in fact slated to be killed in compliance with Himmler's orders,[4] and it has been suggested[by whom?] that the plan called for scuttling the ships with the prisoners alive and aboard.

On April 30, 1945, two Swedish ships, Magdalena and Lillie Matthiessen, sailed from Lübeck, the first with 223 western European prisoners, for the most part French-speaking[note 2], who were transferred from the Thielbek to the Magdalena, and the second with 225 women from Ravensbrück on board for transportation to hospitals in Sweden.

On May 2, 1945, the British Second Army reached the towns of Lübeck and Wismar. No. 6 Commando, 1st Special Service Brigade commanded by Brigadier Derek Mills-Roberts, and 11th Armoured Division, commanded by Major-General George P. B. Roberts, entered Lübeck without resistance. The International Red Cross informed Major-General Roberts that 7,000-8,000 prisoners were aboard ships in the Bay of Lübeck.[

Category:

Science & Technology