Berlin (ship, 1909)
 The Berlin after 1920 as Arabic in the service of the White Star Line
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The Berlin was a passenger ship of the North German Lloyd (NDL), which operated the route New York - Naples - Genoa from 1909 to 1914 . In the course of the First World War , she laid a naval barrier in 1914 as an auxiliary cruiser , in which a modern British capital ship sank. Without success in the trade war , she was eventually interned in Trondheim , Norway . After the war, the ship was forcibly delivered to Great Britain and was used again in the North Atlantic under the name Arabic until 1930 for the White Star Line and the Belgian Red Star Line. It was then scrapped.
In the service of the NDL
The Berlin was built in 1909 at the Werft AG Weser in Bremen for the NDL. She had two chimneys, two masts and a service speed of 17.5 knots. It was equipped for 266 passengers in the I., 246 in the II. And 2700 passengers in the III. Class. The Berlin (II) was launched on November 7, 1908 and completed on April 25, 1909.
The maiden voyage from May 1, 1909 took the steamer from Bremerhaven to New York . On May 15, the Berlin left New York for the first time for Naples and Genoa. With the two original East Asian ships König Albert and Prinzess Irene as well as other ships of the Barbarossa class , she was used in liner service from the United States to the Mediterranean from 1909 to 1914 . On May 14, 1914 she drove for the last time from Genoa via Naples to New York and then on June 4 for the first time from New York back to Bremerhaven. On July 18, 1914, she made her last trip for the NDL.
War effort
After the outbreak of World War I, the Berlin was confiscated by the Imperial Navy on September 18, 1914 and converted into the auxiliary cruiser C. She was armed with six 10.5 cm guns and four 3.7 cm revolver cannons and was given a drainage path for mines . 24 bunker holes were cut in the decks to facilitate the takeover of coal at sea. On September 21, 1914, Berlin set out for its first venture from Bremerhaven to mine the routes to Glasgow and then to wage a trade war. But sea captain Hans Pfundheller (1867–1940, 1910–1912 commander of the small cruiser Danzig ) decided on September 22, 1914 to turn back prematurely due to the moonlit nights. On October 16, 1914, the Berlin left Wilhelmshaven, again under Pfundheller's command, with 200 mines on board. Disguised as the Calgarian of the Allan Line , this time she was supposed to mine the mouth of the River Clyde in Scotland and then wage a trade war in the sea area between Iceland and Arkhangelsk . It reached the mouth of the Clyde on October 22, 1914, but because of the extinguished coastal lights, Pfundheller did not lay out the mines. Instead, on October 23, he dropped her near the island of Turi, north of Ireland, over a length of ten nautical miles. Then he turned to an unsuccessful pirate voyage into the North Sea , as the heavy radio traffic made another advance into the North Atlantic seem too dangerous. On October 27, 1914, the British battleship Audacious ran into the minefield of Berlin and sank after being hit by a mine . The crew was completely rescued by the passenger ship Olympic , a sister ship of the Titanic , which sailed across the minefield for rescue purposes and remained undamaged. On October 26, 1914, the British mail ship Manchester Commerce had struck a mine in Berlin and also sank. The Berlin mines were only cleared in autumn 1917.
Because of a lack of fuel, the Berlin had to call at Trondheim in neutral Norway on November 17, 1914 . She was first interned in Hommelvika Bay near Hommelvik on the southern edge of Stjørdalsfjord , an eastern branch of Trondheimfjord , and later interned in Lofjord . After the war ended, the Berlin returned to Bremerhaven in June 1919. But on December 13, 1919, Great Britain received the ship as spoils of war.
Operation under a foreign flag
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The shipping company P. & O. initially used the Berlin as a troop transport to India. The White Star Line became the new owner in November 1920. A renovation in Portsmouth followed. Now the White Star Line owned the ship with the largest passenger capacity, as it could accommodate 3200 passengers. The steamer was christened Arabic to commemorate the Arabic of the White Star Line, which sank during the war . On September 7, 1921, the ship began its first post-war voyage from Southampton via Cherbourg to New York and was used from September 20, after leaving New York, to October 1923 in the New York - Boston - Mediterranean (Naples, Genoa) service . Then the Arabic was converted into a ship with a cabin class (500 seats) and 1200 third class seats. On August 16, 1924, the steamer took on a new roster from Hamburg via Southampton, Cherbourg and Halifax to New York. Your last journey on this route began on October 11, 1926 in Hamburg. Then the White Star Line finally stopped all passenger services from Hamburg to the USA. Like other British and American companies, in the period after the First World War the shipping company had skimmed off the business with departures from Germany, as the German merchant navy had only a dramatically reduced fleet after heavy losses, compulsory levies and bans. Foreign companies could no longer keep up with the regaining strength of the German shipping companies.
From October 29, 1926 to 1930, the Arabic was contracted to the Antwerp shipping company Red Star Line . This Belgian company used the steamer between October 30, 1926 and December 27, 1929 on the Antwerp - Cherbourg - Plymouth - New York line. In 1930 the ship returned to the White Star Line fleet and again received a three-class passenger facility: 177 cabin, 319 tourist and 823 third-class accommodations. The Arabic was now used from Liverpool via Cobh to New York and traveled this route five more times. Her last trip was from New York to Liverpool on July 16, 1930, before being sold to Genoa for demolition in December 1931.
literature
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Rapid growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd. Volume 1: 1857 to 1919. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
- John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor. German trade troublemakers 1914–1918. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01729-6 , p. 183.
