Wilhelm Gustloff: Merchant Marine vs. Navy conflict?

German Kriegsmarine 1935-1945.
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Doktor Krollspell
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Post by Doktor Krollspell »

Hello again!

i just found an interesting and detailed article on the sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" and also some interesting insights into the career of Korvettenkapitän Zahn, as well as an overall description of the situation on the Baltic sea in 1945.

http://diodon349.com/War/wilhelm_gustlo ... an1945.htm


Regards,

Krollspell
"Wie es eigentlich gewesen ist"
Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886)
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Jason Pipes
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Post by Jason Pipes »

As a postscript, the Cap Arcona was sunk in Neustadt Bay near Luebeck by British warplanes and there were few if any Germans onboard when it went down. It was acting as a floating concentration camp and held nearly 5000 prisoners, nearly all of whom died.

Regarding the Cap Arcona, here is a brief article I wrote on the sinking sometime ago. It contains part of the info I already posted above regarding Kriegsmarine shipping control so you'll see that again, but the Cap Arcona info I haven't yet posted here.

The Cap Arcona was a German Turbine Steamer (27560) that was launched by the Hamburg-South America Line on May 14th, 1927. It was completed on October 29th, 1927, and made its maiden voyage on November 19th, 1927 from Hamburg to La Plata. In 1940, the Cap Arcona was taken over by the German Kriegsmarine for use as a naval accomadation ship in the German controlled Baltic port of Gotenhafen (Gdyina). Specifically, the ship was under the control of Festungkdt. Gotenhafen (Fortress Commander, Gotenhafen) known as a Kasernenschiff. In 1941, it came under the control of Ku(e)bef. Mittlere Ostsee (Coastal Control Officer Middle Baltic). In these roles, the Cap Arcona played the rather benign and seemingly unimportant part of providing housing and living space for Kriegsmarine sailors. It lay at anchor in Gotenhafen for the majority of WWII in this role.

As WWII came to a close though, the Kriegsmarine increasingly turned its attention to the massive sea rescue operation taking place in the Baltic Sea. Between late 1944 and May of 1945, over 2,000,000 refugees were transported to the west from the wake of the advancing Soviet Armies. In all, 25,000 were lost during the entire operation, making it not only the largest sea rescue and transport operation in history, but also one of the most safe as well. As the sea rescue operation in the Baltic became increasingly more frantic, every available German ship was put into use in making the run to the eastern ports to take out refugees, sick, wounded, and fleeing soldiers.

Earlier in WWII there existed a Kriegsmarine shipping control authority known as a Kriegsmarinedienstellen or KMDs - Naval Service Field Offices. The KMDs were repsonsible for the coordination of merchant marine shipping and Kriegsmarine transport. Up until the last year of WWII, the German merchant marine (Handelsmarine) was not under 100% total Kriegsmarine control, and as a result, there was a greater strain on many rescue and transport operations. To add to these problems, there existed a political position created by the NSDAP High Command known as the Reichs Commissioner for Shipping, or Reikosee. Reikosee was headed by Gauleiter Kaufmann from Hamburg, and it was his duty to oversee the attempt to centralize control and econimc use of all merchant shipping. He was a member of the NSDAP, and was appointed as a political figure. His position plays the most important role in the later sinking of the Cap Arcona.

To correct the terrible shipping and transport situation, in 1944, Grossadmiral Karl Donitz created a new, more powerful shipping authority in Germany known as Seetra - the Wehrmacht Sea Transport Officer. Under this new posotion, the German Kriegsmarine was able to take complete and total control of all German merchant marine shipping, as well as all other forms of naval shipping. Transports sailed if, when, and how Seetra directed them to. It had authority over all shipping, and most importantly, over Reikosee. Although Reikosee was not in the chain of command of the Kriegsmarine, Seetra had the ultimate power to direct any and all merchant marine and transport shipping, and Reikosee would get whatever Seetra left behind.

In 1945, in the closing months of WWII, under Seetra direction, the Cap Arcona was used to rescue 26,000 refugees in three seperate runs between the besieged eastern ports and the west. After her third and final run, exhausted and worn-out from lack of maintainance and constant use, the Cap Arcona ended her stint as a Kriegsmarine controlled transport ship when Seetra and the German Naval High Command released her from their control.

No longer a ship of the German Navy, the Cap Arcona was ordered to Neustadt Bay near Kiel where she was to be paid off. At this point, in mid-April 1945, Reikosee stepped in and took control of the ship. Reikosee directed that the ship be turned into a floating prison and to prepare for the transport of concentration camp inmates from the Neuengamme Camp near Hamburg. Over 5,000 inmates were taken onboard between April 26th and April 28th, 1945. Then on May 3rd, 1945 the Cap Arcona, now a floating prision ship in Neustadt Bay under the command of the control of Reikosee, was attacked by British Typhoons which sunk the ship, killing nearly all the inmates onboard. Nearly 5,000 died. The British pilots had no way of knowing that the ships were filled with human cargo, or that worse still, one day later British troops would enter Neustadt itself and could have rescued the inmates.
Last edited by Jason Pipes on Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
sid guttridge
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Jason,

Interesting stuff.

The merchant marine was effectively the "Fourth Service" in many countries and its activity is too little known.

For anyone wanting the essential basic starter book on the German merchant service I highly recommend:

Deutschlands Handelsschiffe 1939-1945, by Karl Heinz Schwadtke.

This has the facts on the specifications and fates of ever significant German merchant ship during the war and profile drawings of a large number of them. It is the book every wartime Allied intelligence service and submarine captain might have wanted!

Cheers,

Sid.
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