Albert Ballin (ship)
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Albert Ballin , Hansa from 1935
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The Albert Ballin was a German passenger ship on the Hamburg-America Line (Hapag), which was launched on December 16, 1922 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and began service on the North Atlantic in the summer of 1923 . The Albert Ballin was the type ship for three other newbuildings by Hapag, which were also placed in this service in 1924 as Germany , 1926 as Hamburg and 1927 as New York . The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda urged Hapag to rename Albert Ballin Hansa in autumn 1935 ; since Albert Ballin was a Jew.
history
The first construction program of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft after the First World War included two passenger ships of around 20,000 GRT for the North Atlantic route. For the largest shipping company in the world until 1914, which last ordered the ships of the Imperator class for this route, they were very modest ships. The ships ordered from Blohm & Voss on March 27, 1919 were to accommodate 1,650 passengers (250 1st class, 340 2nd class and 1060 3rd class) and were the first step back into North Atlantic traffic for the shipping company. The third class of the ships was intended primarily to serve emigrant traffic. The ship was launched on December 16, 1922 as the first post-war German construction of over 20,000 GRT and was named after the former general director of Hapag (1899-1918), Albert Ballin (1857-1918).
The Albert Ballin began her maiden voyage from Hamburg to New York on July 5, 1923 . It was the first Hapag ship to be built for passenger traffic after the First World War. At a length of 191.2 m and a width of 24.0 m, the ship was measured with 20,815 GRT. Two geared turbines of 13,500 HPw enabled a speed of 16 knots . To increase the ship's stability and passenger comfort , the ship (and then also the sister ships) had Frahm's rolling tanks .
For 1st class passengers, 215 beds and 36 sofa beds were available in 127 cabins. There were also 23 reserve hanging beds. The 2nd class had 216 beds and 124 sofa beds in 108 cabins. The 3rd class accommodated in the foredeck had 645 beds in 186 small chambers and a further 315 beds in living decks. The sanitary facilities differed considerably from today's standards. In the very different 1st class cabins there were only 16 luxury cabins with their own bathroom and toilet. For the other passengers (according to class) only public toilets and baths were available. The other places to stay below deck showed strong class differences. There were 467 seats in 1st class (238 in the dining room), 427 in 2nd class (214 in the dining room) and 485 in 3rd class (345 in the dining room).
The Albert Ballin's sister ship , the Deutschland , was completed at the end of 1923, but did not enter service until March 1924, when the peak of inflation was over. The good transport results of the two ships led to the order for two more ships of this type on December 20, 1924. They came into service as Hamburg in 1926 and New York in 1927 . Due to changes in American immigration regulations , these ships had reduced seats in 3rd class. The New York was the first Hapag ship to receive a fourth class with the “3. Class for tourists ”. After a renovation in winter 1928, a tourist class was also offered on the Albert Ballin , the possible total number of passengers changed to 229 in 1st class, 257 in 2nd class, 144 in the new tourist class and 597 in 3rd class .
The following winter, a complete overhaul of the main engines was carried out on all four ships of the class. The old turbines were removed and used for other ships (such as the freighters Neumark , Kurmark , Uckermark ). The passenger steamers received new high-pressure boiler systems and new turbines, the maximum output of which was 29,000 PSw. This enabled the service speed to be increased to 19 kn and the crossing was shortened by 36 hours. During the renovation, the external appearance was changed by short, squat chimneys and the passenger facilities were improved again. On the two older ships, 2nd class was completely eliminated and the Albert Ballin now offered space for up to 341 passengers in 1st class, 339 in tourist class and 493 in 3rd class. On March 11, 1930, she went on a test drive as the second converted ship and was now measured with 20,931 GRT.
On May 12, 1934 there was an accident with the tug Merkur of the North German Lloyd , when it ran across the bow of the outgoing Albert Ballin and was overrun by her. There were seven fatalities when Mercury went down .
In the spring of 1934, the Albert Ballin, like all ships in the class, was lengthened by around 15 meters. According to a fixed plan, the four ships were moved to Dock V at Blohm & Voss, where about part of the forecastle was cut off, which was then replaced by a new forecastle built in Dock VI . To do this, the two docks were coupled and the new part was pulled onto the bowless ship on a sledge. With the new hull shape of the fore, developed in model tests, a top speed of 21.5 kn was now possible. The planned speed, however, remained at 19.2 knots, as the tests had shown that significantly lower engine power would be required for this speed and that the fuel savings achieved would make up for the cost of the conversion in a short time. The chimneys were lengthened again and the passenger facilities improved again and could now accommodate up to 228 passengers in 1st class, 462 passengers in tourist class and 395 in 3rd class. A new measurement resulted in 21,131 GRT after the conversion. The renovation was supported by the imperial government in order to keep the shipyard busy during the prevailing global economic crisis.
The last North Atlantic voyage to New York joined the Hansa on July 27, 1939th
Use during the war
During the war, the Hansa served as a barge for the navy (2nd submarine training division and 8th submarine flotilla) and was also used in 1945 to evacuate the eastern areas . On 30 January 1945, she ran with far more than 3,000 refugees on board together with the Wilhelm Gustloff from Gdynia , but had already shortly thereafter because of machine damage and problems with the rudder system before Hela go at anchor. While Wilhelm Gustloff , who was continuing the voyage alone , was sunk during the night, the Hansa was able to carry out her voyage unmolested to Kiel the following day . More trips followed.
On March 6, 1945, the Hansa was hit by a mine on its last voyage west near Gedser . The ship was evacuated. When trying to bring the ship to Warnemünde , it capsized near the port entrance in shallow water. The starboard side of her hull protruded five meters from the water.
In Soviet service
With the help of lowered floating dock sections, the ship on the port side was erected in 1949, made floatable and towed into the port of Warnemünde on December 15, 1949. Between August 11, 1950 and June 8, 1951, the hull was repaired in Antwerp at the Cockerill shipyard . The further renovation work at the Warnow shipyard (including merging the chimneys into a single chimney and removing two masts) lasted until 1955, the measurement increased to 23,001 GRT.
In 1953, the former Albert Ballin was renamed Sovetskiy Soyuz and delivered to the Soviet Union at the end of 1955 . The renewed ship was at the time the largest passenger ship that operated under the Soviet flag. In January 1956, the Sovetskiy Soyuz left the port of Sassnitz and headed for Sevastopol , where she lay on the north quay for over a year, right next to the burial site of around 600 victims of Novorossiysk , which capsized in 1955 , until the geared turbines in Kharkiv were balanced. At the end of December 1957, the ship came to Odessa , where it was loaded with canned vegetables for the Soviet Far East , including Kamchatka . In order to enter Africa without entering the foreign ports, the ship reached the port of Nakhodka on March 8, 1957 and only the port of destination and home port Vladivostok on May 29, 1957 and served on the route from Vladivostok to Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka since May 29 . Before it was decommissioned, it transported over 660,000 people on this route and over 3,000 seafaring students were trained on it. She was renamed Tobolsk for the last time in 1980, only to be decommissioned on December 5, 1980, because for propaganda reasons, the ship under the name Sovetskiy Soyuz ( Soviet Union ) could not be scrapped under any circumstances. On March 5, 1982 the Tobolsk went to Hong Kong, where it was handed over for scrapping on March 17, 1982.
Escape to Freedom
In December 1974 the Sovetskiy Soyuz made a 20-day round trip "From winter to summer, without a visa" on the route Vladivostok - Equator - Vladivostok without entering foreign ports. On the late evening of December 13, 1974, when the ship was at 10 ° latitude , a passenger, the Soviet marine explorer Stanislaw Kurilow (1936-1998) , jumped overboard and swam towards the Philippines without a compass or map . He had neither food nor drink, just a mask with snorkel and fins . After swimming in the open ocean for two days and three nights, he stepped ashore on the Philippine islands of Siargao , where he was picked up by local fishermen.
Kurilov acquired asylum and citizenship in Canada. When news of his escape in the Soviet Union was found, he was charged in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “ high treason ”. Stanislaw Kurilow lived in Canada and Israel, worked there as a marine researcher, published the autobiographical novel "Alone in the Ocean" and gave several interviews. His story was filmed in Russia in 2012 and shown on the First Channel of State Television.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping 1850 to 1990 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1986.
- Hans Georg Prager: Blohm & Voss. Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching 1968. (1980, ISBN 3-88199-0097 )
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1919 to 1985 . Steiger Verlag, 1987, ISBN 3-921564-97-2 .
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: The German Merchant Shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X .
Web links
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- Ship Details (Engl.)
- Passenger steamer Albert Ballin on schiffe-maxim.de with a picture of Albert Ballin after the second conversion
- Color photo of the ship
- Image of the Hansa in Gotenhafen on museen-sh.de
- Model of the tugboat Merkur
- Another model of the tractor
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Регистровая книга морских судов СССР 1964–1965 - Register Book of Sea-going Ships of the USSR ( Memento of November 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) PDF, p. 823 (Russian)
- ↑ melt head, p. 184 and 229
- ^ Kludas, Volume 4, p. 52.
- ↑ melt head, p. 51 and 57
- ^ Kludas, Volume 4, p. 58.
- ^ Kludas, Volume 4, p. 59.
- ↑ melt head, p. 138.
- ^ Kludas, Volume 4, p. 64.
- ↑ The tug Merkur was built in 1912/13 at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg as Loewer together with a sister ship Wendemuth for HAPAG to assist the ships of the Imperator class. After working for the Bugsier-, Reederei- und Bergungsgesellschaft and Lütgens & Reimers in Hamburg, North German Lloyd bought it in November 1929 to assist its express steamer Bremen and Europa and renamed it Merkur and Vulcan . The 395 GRT tugs were 42.3 m long, 8.5 m wide and had 1200 hp
- ↑ Prager, p. 156.
- ^ Kludas, Volume 5, p. 18.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 519.
- ↑ a b Приморский капитан Пётр Полещук: «Никакого« Адольфа Гитлера »не было» (Russian)
- ↑ Rothe, p. 82.
- ↑ BookButtler: Odin v okeane (Roman, 2004)
- ↑ Slava Kurilov: Alone at Sea. An Unbelievable Way to Escape the Iron Curtain ( Memento of 3 March 2015, Internet Archive ) ( Engl. )
- ^ "Escape by sea" - Haaretz, Feb. 12, 2009 ( engl. )
- ↑ Documentary TV film ( Russian )