Atlantis (ship, 1937)
 The Atlantis , July 1941
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The Atlantis was a German merchant ship converted into an auxiliary cruiser during World War II . Under the camouflage of a harmless freighter , she waged a trade war against the Allied shipping. In the Naval War Command , the Atlantis was carried under the code names Handelsstörkreuzer 2 and Schiff 16 . She was known as Raider C in the Royal Navy .
On November 22, 1941, while supplying a German submarine , the Atlantis was placed under fire by the British heavy cruiser Devonshire 500 miles southeast of the Saints Peter and Saint Pauls Rocks . The crew sank their badly damaged ship themselves, but almost all of them could be brought home in submarines.
The pirate voyage of Atlantis lasted a total of 622 days and was the longest voyage of a cruiser in both world wars.
history
The 7,862 GRT cargo ship was built in 1937 under the name Goldenfels for the shipping company DDG "Hansa" at Bremer Vulkan in Vegesack under construction number 736. She was the fifth ship of the Ehrenfels class , of which the shipping company received eight ships until the outbreak of World War II and of which another was completed in the first year of the war. The ships transported general cargo between Europe and India , Persia , Ceylon and Burma . When the war broke out, there were three ships at home, two in the Mediterranean and three in the Indian Ocean , seeking protection in Chisimao , Murmogoa and Bandar Shapur .
After the start of the war, the Goldenfels , which was located at home, was confiscated by the Navy . The conversion to an armed auxiliary cruiser took place at the Deschimag shipyard in Bremen. The ship was ready for use after only 99 days. Bernhard Rogge became the captain of the sea .
The sister ship Kandelfels , built by AG Weser , was also converted into an auxiliary cruiser and was used as a penguin from June 1940 to May 1941.
Pirate trip
On March 11, 1940, the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis ran from Kiel through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal to Wilhelmshaven . There they waited for the final order to sail and began to camouflage the ship. On March 31, 1940, the Atlantis , the first German auxiliary cruiser of the Second World War and disguised as the Norwegian motor ship Knute Nelson, set sail for her pirate voyage. It was initially secured by the torpedo boats Leopard and Wolf . In the Denmark Strait took over U 37 escort, while the torpedo boats returned to their ports. The weather observation ships Fritz Homann ( WBS 3 ), Hinrich Freese ( WBS 4 ) and Adolf Vinnen ( WBS 5 ) were posted along the outbreak route to support the Atlantis with weather information.
After the successful breakthrough into the Atlantic as allegedly Soviet Kim , the auxiliary cruiser was able to achieve the first success of its pirate voyage on May 3, 1940 with the sinking of the British freighter Scientist off South West Africa . The 92 mines carried were laid out in May 1940 off Cape Agulhas in South Africa . However, the mine lock was recognized early and did not lead to any loss of ship.
Due to the occupation of Norway and Denmark by the German Empire , the plans were changed to the effect that the ship should bind 16 British forces in the Indian Ocean . In the period from June to November 1940, nine more ships were sunk there. The largest sunk ship on September 17th was the French passenger steamer Commissaire Ramel in British service with 10,061 GRT. In addition, three ships were manned by prize squads and released to France ( Tirranna with valuable cargo and prisoners), Japan ( Ole Jacob with a cargo of jet fuel and some prisoners) and to Italian Somaliland ( Durmitor with 312 prisoners).
Among the sunk ships was the freighter Automedon , whose cargo included important British documents. This booty was the greatest achievement of the Atlantis . The commander Rogge was given a samurai sword by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito as an award . In the meantime, the first complete overhaul of the machines took place with on-board resources. However, the Atlantis lacked fuel because the tankers had only limited suitable fuel on board and the equipment for the prizes had also reduced the stock. When the sister ship Pinguin reported the capture of the tanker Storstad with a substantial diesel load, Captain Rogge decided to meet the Pinguin on December 8th. The Atlantis filled their tanks from the prize and gave them their prisoners, as the Storstad was supposed to break through to France. Then she ran to the Kerguelen , where she stayed from December 14th to January 11th, 1941. The auxiliary cruiser repaired a hull damage it had sustained while calling at the islands, replenished its fresh water supplies and completed its camouflage as the Norwegian motor ship Tamesis , a sister ship of the Tirranna Prize . After being camouflaged as Knute Nelson and Kim , the Atlantis had pretended to be Japanese Kasii Maru in the Atlantic and had initially deceived the Tirranna as a Dutch Abbekerk and then pretended to be Norwegian Tarifa . She even approached the Norwegian tankers Teddy and Ole Jacob , which were angry at dusk, as an alleged British auxiliary cruiser.
Back in service, the Atlantis succeeded in sinking a freighter and hijacking the motor ship Speybank and the Norwegian tanker Ketty Brøvig with a large diesel load. On February 10th she met the sister ship Tannenfels . When the war broke out, the latter sought refuge in the then still neutral Italian colony of Somaliland. She was supposed to return home before the threatened British occupation, but she also brought her prize crew back to the Atlantis, the Durmitor , some of which were immediately reinstated on the Speybank . On fuel abundance of the group also in the sea area around should South Africa operating heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer share, with the four ships met on 14 February. The Scheer took over 1,200 tonnes of diesel from the Ketty Brøvig and all exchanged supplies. The Scheer gave away its abundance of fresh eggs by hijacking a refrigerated ship. The Speybank remained as a scout with the Atlantis , while the Ketty Brøvig marched towards Australia to meet the supplier Coburg and was supposed to refuel other auxiliary cruisers. This plan was known to the British through radio decryption and Australian cruisers provided the tanker, which sank itself on it. The Tannenfels was happier. After taking prisoners from the Admiral Scheer and other ships operating in the South Atlantic, she reached Bordeaux .
Another meeting with the Admiral Scheer did not take place because the cruiser had escaped the searching British units back into the Atlantic. He had left his pinch of British advocate at the agreed meeting point . The tanker received 500 tons of oil from the Atlantis in order to be able to reach occupied France. The auxiliary cruiser then moved to the north of the Indian Ocean as ordered. There, on March 29, they supplied the Italian submarine Perla , which had broken out of Massaua, with fuel and food. But only rarely were individual sailing ships sighted, which often belonged to neutral states and were not stopped. The Speybank was then released to Europe and the Atlantis also went back to the South Atlantic in early April 1941 without further success.
On April 17, 1941, the Egyptian passenger steamer Zam Zam , which was on its way from New York to Cape Town, was sunk and 317 crew and passengers were recorded. Among them were 138 US citizens, including the American reporter David E. Scherman , who worked for Time and Life magazines . During the short time that the passengers were on the Atlantis , he was able to take some photos of the ship. After the prisoners were handed over to the German supply ship Dresden on April 19 in the grid square in Andalusia , he even managed to photograph a side view of the Atlantis . This picture appeared months later in his magazine and showed the world what the German "Raider" looked like.
The supplier Alsterufer and the auxiliary cruiser Kormoran arrived at the meeting point . The Alsterufer should supply the two auxiliary cruisers primarily with military supplies. The Atlantis replenished its ammunition stocks and took over three dismantled and packaged Arado Ar 196 float planes , which were supposed to replace the used Heinkel He 114 . The cormorant was supposed to replace the Atlantis in the Indian Ocean. Above all , the Atlantis had expected that Dresden , which had come from nearby Brazil, would replenish its food supplies. The ship did not have enough of this and also needed it for the new task as a prisoner ship itself, as it was to bring it to France on the instructions of the naval war command.
The Atlantis and the Alsterufer remained at the supply point until the supply ship Nordmark arrived, from which it replenished its fuel supplies. The navigation officer of the auxiliary cruiser, Kapitänleutnant Paul Kamenz, returned with the Nordmark . As prize commander, he had brought the Ole Jacob to Japan and handed over the Automedon papers there. Disguised as a German official, he had returned to Germany on the Trans-Siberian Railway and had reached the Nordmark on the U 106 submarine . Further reinforcement of the officer corps were two lieutenants of the Admiral Graf Spee , who had reached the ship as simple sailors of the Dresden .
The commander camouflaged his ship again, as the American prisoners to be released would make his previous camouflage known. The Atlantis became the Dutch Brastagi . One of the new aircraft was also assembled immediately; this discovered a possible victim who was not caught up. The second supplier from the Brazil stage was discovered by the plane, the motor ship Babitonga of Hamburg-Süd, which left Santos on April 24 and had a large stock of diesel, food and water on board. The commander decided to meet them more often and to keep them in the nearby sea area. A British freighter was sunk near the African coast on May 14, followed by three more sinks in the South Atlantic by the end of June. But even in the South Atlantic there were hardly any single-moving ships. A few individual neutrals were stopped and examined. On June 16, the previous endurance record of the Wolf for an auxiliary cruiser at sea was broken with 445 days. On the 21st, the Atlantis lost her auxiliary ship Babitonga , which had been tracked down by the heavy cruiser London shortly before a meeting point. On July 1, she met the auxiliary cruiser Orion on the instructions of the SKL to supply him with fuel for the breakthrough home.
Then the Atlantis made a relatively unsuccessful detour to the Pacific . In some very bad weather, she moved there through the southern Indian Ocean at the height of the Roaring Forties and was able to land a last ship between New Zealand and the Society Islands on September 10, 1941 . It was the Norwegian freighter Silvaplana with a valuable cargo that was successfully brought to France by a German prize crew by November 17, 1941. Before the prize was set in motion, the Atlantis met with the Münsterland utility as planned . The auxiliary cruiser Komet had also arrived at the meeting point with its pinch of Kota Pinang , both of which were supposed to run home. The Atlantis then supplied her pinch of Silvaplana , which began the march to France on November 27th.
On October 10, the auxiliary cruiser stopped in the lagoon of the Vanavana atoll of the Tuamotu archipelago , where the crew was able to go ashore for a short time after 10 months. Several flights by the aircraft on board could not detect any ship traffic. The Atlantis continued the march through the South Seas and stopped again at the Isle of Henderson of the Pitcairn group . Since no ships could be found, the commander decided to break off the company and march back home. On October 29, 1941, the auxiliary cruiser Cape Horn passed and returned for the third time to the South Atlantic.
End of the raid
The end of the Atlantis came after Captain Rogge was ordered in October 1941 to end the trade war and act as submarine supplier. Since the British in the application of U 110 to Enigma key of the submarines had captured, they could read the radio messages to the submarines and so bring the meeting point in experience. They had never been able to decipher the radio keys of the auxiliary cruisers because they radioed too rarely. U 68 was supplied as the first boat southwest of St. Helena. After that, the Atlantis changed its camouflage for the last time and wanted to pretend to be the Dutch motor ship Polyphemus in the future .
On November 22, 1941, the ship was in the supply of U 126 , northwest of the island of Ascension , from the British heavy cruiser Devonshire and so badly damaged that Rogge ordered the scuttling at the position. ( Location ) A counter-defense was not possible because the British cruiser remained outside the scope of its own weapons (14-15 km). Eight crew members died and 305 survived the shelling. The crew was picked up by U 126 , partly on board itself and partly in towed lifeboats. The men were given to the provider Python after two days .
Soon after, the supplier suffered the same fate as the Atlantis . It was discovered by the British cruiser Dorsetshire on December 1, 1941 and was also self-scuttled to avoid detention. Both crews were in a large-scale rescue operation by the straight-served German submarines U A and U 68 , the later arriving U 124 and U 129 and sent to support Italian submarines Enrico Tazzoli , Giuseppe Finzi , Pietro Calvi and Luigi Torelli after France to be brought. Except for eleven men, all of them reached home at the end of December of that year.
The pirate voyage of Atlantis lasted a total of 622 days. A distance of 102,000 nautical miles was covered. It was the longest uninterrupted journey by a cruiser in history. 22 enemy ships (16 sunk, six brought in as a prize ), with a total of 145,698 GRT, ultimately fell victim to it.
Sinks and prizes of the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis
22 ships: map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap
| Surname | Type | country | date | Tonnage in GRT | Whereabouts | |
| 1 | Scientist | freighter |
 United Kingdom
|
May 3, 1940 South Atlantic |
6,200 | sunk ( location ), 5 dead |
| 2 | Tirranna | freighter |
 Norway
|
June 10, 1940 Indian Ocean |
7,230 | captured on ( location ), released on August 5, 1940 with 273 prisoners and an 18-strong crew to France, sunk off the Gironde by the British submarine Tuna on September 22, 1940 , 87 dead (only one German)
|
| 3 | City of Baghdad | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
July 11, 1940 | 7,505 | sunk ( location ), 2 dead |
| 4th | Kemmendine | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
July 13, 1940 | 7,770 | sunk ( location ) |
| 5 | Talleyrand | freighter |
Norway
|
2nd August 1940 | 6,730 | sunk ( location ) |
| 6th | King City | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
August 24, 1940 | 4,745 | sunk ( location ), 6 dead, coal cargo |
| 7th | Athelking | Tanker |
United Kingdom
|
September 9, 1940 | 9,555 | sunk ( location ), 4 dead |
| 8th | Benarty | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
September 10, 1940 | 5,800 | sunk ( location ), charge of various metals |
| 9 | Commissaire Ramel | Passenger ship |
 France
|
September 20, 1940 | 10,061 | sunk ( location ), 3 dead |
| 10 | Durmitor | freighter |
.svg){kind=small} Yugoslavia
|
October 22, 1940 | 5,620 | released with 312 prisoners under a prize crew to Mogadishu , which was only reached after five (instead of three) weeks due to lack of fuel |
| 11 | Teddy | Tanker |
Norway
|
November 9, 1940 | 6,750 | 10,000 t heavy oil and 500 t diesel, briefly used as a supplier, then sunk ( location ) |
| 12 | Ole Jakob | Tanker |
Norway
|
November 10, 1940 | 8,305 | had 10,000 t of aviation fuel on board, released to Japan on November 17, 1940 with parts of his own and Teddy crew as well as a prize team under Lieutenant Kamenz and the documents found on the Automedon , arrived there at the beginning of December |
| 13 | Automedon | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
November 11, 1940 | 7,530 | sunk ( location ), 8 dead |
| 14th | Mandasor | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
January 24, 1941 | 5,145 | sunk ( location ), 6 dead u. 20 wounded |
| 15th | Speybank | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
January 31, 1941 | 5,154 | Discharged to France after being used as a reconnaissance officer on March 31, arrived in Bordeaux on May 10 |
| 16 | Ketty Brøvig | Tanker |
Norway
|
February 2, 1941 | 7,300 | A load of 6,370 tons of heavy oil and 4,125 tons of diesel, used to supply the German ships in the Indian Ocean, was also supposed to supply the auxiliary cruiser Komet , discovered on March 4, 1941 by the Canberra aircraft and sunk by the prize crew themselves ( location ) |
| 17th | Zam Zam | Passenger ship |
.svg){kind=small} Egypt
|
April 17, 1941 South Atlantic |
8,300 | sunk ( location ), 24 dead |
| 18th | Rabaul | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
May 14, 1941 | 6,810 | sunk, 7 dead, coal cargo |
| 19th | Trafalgar | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
May 24, 1941 | 4,530 | sunk ( location ), 14 dead, coal cargo |
| 20th | Tottenham | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
June 17, 1941 | 4,760 | sunk ( location ), cargo of military equipment, a lifeboat escapes and is found eleven days later by a British freighter that takes the 22 castaways on board |
| 21st | Balzac | freighter |
United Kingdom
|
June 22, 1941 | 5,375 | sunk ( location ), 4 dead, u. a. 4,200 t rice, |
| 22nd | Silvaplana | freighter |
Norway
|
September 10, 1941 Pacific |
4,790 | Released to France on September 27th, arrived in Bordeaux on November 19th |
sunk tonnage: 145,960 GRT
Days at Sea: 655
Film adaptations
- Under ten flags ( Sotto dieci bandieri ), Italy 1960, directed by Duilio Coletti , with Van Heflin in the role of Captain Bernhard Rogge
literature
- Jochen Brennecke: The German auxiliary cruisers in World War II. 4th edition. Koehler, 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0828-5 .
- Wolfgang Frank , Bernhard Rogge: Ship 16. Factual report. The pirate trips of the heavy auxiliary cruiser Atlantis on the seven seas. Approved paperback edition. 10th edition. Heyne, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-453-00039-0 , 251 pp.
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 8 : Ship biographies from Undine to Zieten . Mundus, Ratingen (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- Gerhard Hümmelchen : trade disruptor. Trade war of German surface forces in World War II. 2. verb. Ed. JF Lehmanns, Munich 1967
- Otto Mielke: Auxiliary cruiser "Atlantis". The most successful auxiliary cruiser of World War II. Stade, Kiel 2004. Series: Ships - People - Fates, Fates of German Ships, 125. ZDB -ID 1325248-3
- Ulrich Moor, Arthur Sellwood: Atlantis. Pirate trip and 10 flags. Heyne, Munich 1975 ISBN 3-453-00502-3
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak, Herrsching 1968 ISBN 3-88199-009-7
- Paul Schmalenbach: The German auxiliary cruisers 1895-1945 . Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1977, ISBN 3-7979-1877-1 .
- Fiction (Biographical factual novel)
- Carolyn Gossage: On an odyssey. Seven Canadian women on the road in the "Third Reich". Translated by Britta Grell. Ch. Links, Berlin 2009; therein chap. 1 The Last Voyage of the Zamzam, pp. 13–54 (about the sinking of the ship)
Web links
- Technical Data (English)
- Goldenfels and Atlantis - photos from the mission
- Page about the DDG-Hansa, for which the ship was originally put into service.
- The dictator's pirates - The adventurous journey of the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis ( Memento from February 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ); Film by Jürgen Stumpfhaus (co-production by WDR and Radio Bremen 1999)
- Auxiliary cruiser Atlantis - footage (YouTube)
- Review of the feature film Under Ten Flags : Film. Naval warfare. All good spirits . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1960, pp. 58-60 ( online ).
- This freighter was the most successful German cruiser
Footnotes
- ^ History of the Moltkefels .
- ^ History of the Neidenfels, which was used as a transporter .
- ^ History of the Reichenfels and the Kybfels used in the Mediterranean .
- ↑ History of the Tannenfels .
- ↑ History of the Ehrenfels .
- ^ History of the Hohenfels .
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 34, the Orion will follow as the second auxiliary cruiser on April 6th .
- ^ Rohwer, p. 43.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 73.
- ↑ Pictures of the first camouflages of the Atlantis . ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Coburg ex Havel (NDL), 1928, reconstruction and renaming in 1938, 7,400 GRT, 17 kn, sunk on March 4 when the Canberra approached .
- ^ Rohwer, p. 107.
- ^ New York Times, May 20, 1941.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 118.
- ^ The Dresden (1937, 5,567 GRT, 15 kn) was a combined ship of the NDL in the South America west coast service; At the beginning of the war in 1939 she was in Chile and was then supposed to supply the armored ship Admiral Graf Spee . She missed the meeting point and arrived in Santos on November 15, 1939 . She left the Brazilian port on March 28, 1941 to supply the auxiliary cruiser with 2,500 tons of diesel.
- ↑ Babitonga , 1922, 4,422 GRT, 12 kn.
- ↑ Münsterland , 1921, 6,408 GRT, 12 kn.
- ↑ a b Rohwer, p. 190.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 196.
- ↑ Information on the Scientist , 1938 Lithgows Ltd., Glasgow.
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 70.
- ↑ Information on the City of Baghdad , 1920 Tecklenborg, Geestemünde.
- ↑ Report on the history of the City of Baghdad, which began as Geierfels , with a number of pictures.
- ↑ Information on Kemmendine , 1924 W. Denny & Bros. Ltd., Dumbarton.
- ↑ Information on Talleyrand , 1927 Deutsche Werke, Kiel.
- ↑ Information on King City , 1928 W. Gray, West Hartlepool.
- ↑ Information on Athelking , 1926 Swan Hunter, Wallsend.
- ↑ Information on Benarty , 1926 Ch. Connell, Scotstoun.
- ↑ Information on Durmitor , 1913 Russel & C0, Port Glasgow.
- ↑ Information on Teddy , 1930 Laing, Sunderland.
- ↑ Information on Ole Jakob , 1939 Göteborg.
- ↑ Information on Automedon , 1922 Palmer's, Newcastle oT
- ↑ Information on the Mandasor , 1920 W. Hamilton, Glasgow.
- ↑ Information on Ketty Brøvig , 1918 Laing, Sunderland.
- ↑ Information on the Zam Zam , 1909 Harland & Wolff, Belfast.
- ↑ Information on Rabaul , 1916 Burmeister & Wain, Copenhagen.
- ↑ Information on Trafalgar , 1924 Lithgows, Glasgow.
- ↑ Information on Tottenham , 1940 Caledon Shipbuilding, Dundee.
- ↑ Information on Balzac , 1920 D6W. Henderson, Meadowside.
- ↑ Information on the Silvaplana , 1938 Malmö.
