Berlin (ship, 1906)
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The Berlin was a passenger ship sailing under the flag of the German Empire until 1946 and then under the new name under the flag of the Soviet Union .
Construction and technical data
The ship was commissioned in 1905 as the third new building for Swinemünder Dampfschiffahrts-AG (SwiDAG) from the Nüscke & Co. shipyard in Stettin . There it was launched the following year with hull number 138 . It was 56.18 m long and 8.05 m wide, had a draft of 3.74 m and was measured with 503 GRT and 144 NRT . The load capacity was 50 tons . A triple expansion steam engine with 850 PS (634 kW ) enabled a speed of 12.5 knots (23 km / h). The crew consisted of 22 men. Up to 120 deck passengers could be carried.
fate
The Berlin was put into service in March 1906. She went mainly as a seaside resort ship in the liner service between Stettin and Swinoujscie .
On July 24, 1914, due to a rudder failure in the Papenwasser (Roztoka Odrzańska), shortly before the mouth of the Oder in the Stettiner Haff , the ship collided with the oncoming tug Baltic Sea , which was towing the Swedish ore freighter Porjus (2,989 GRT). She rammed the tug amidships at full speed and cut it almost halfway. The tug sank very quickly and its six-man crew could only save themselves by jumping overboard. A few moments later, Porjus, hanging from the tow rope, came up and rammed the Berlin starboard at the bow . The Berlin then also began to sink over her bow, but only the fore part of the ship was submerged in the shallow water. Still, some of the 200 or so passengers jumped overboard out of fear. The Berlin and Porjus immediately launched boats to bring the ship's passengers and crew to safety and to collect those who jumped overboard. The two steamers Werner and Sedan that arrived took over the castaways and brought them to Stettin and Swinoujscie, respectively. There were no dead.
The Berlin was lifted, but initially hung up because of the First World War that had just broken out and was only repaired later. During the World War it did not get under way again as the seaside resort service was discontinued. Since the small steamer did not have to be delivered to the victorious powers, it was soon after the end of the war, now referred to as a saloon express steamer, and from 1919 on it was able to return to its old line between Stettin and Swinoujscie. In 1935 the ship came into the possession of the Stettiner Dampfschiffs-Gesellschaft JF Braeunlich , which had already taken over the majority of the Swinemünder Dampfschiffahrts AG in 1928.
During the Second World War , the ship was confiscated by the Navy and for some time was used as a harbor protection boat with the Wilhelmshaven harbor protection flotilla, designated as the H 206 . As early as 1940, however, the Navy gave the ship back to the shipping company , which maintained a modest liner service with one daily trip with Berlin and Swinoujscie, which had not been drafted between Szczecin and Swinoujscie .
When Soviet troops penetrated to the Oder in Pomerania in March 1945 and threatened Szczecin, the still operational Szczecin ships, led by a naval barrier breaker , managed to break out across the lagoon to Swinoujscie on the night of March 9th. The Berlin had around 1,000 people on board, including 200 Stettin shipyard workers who were needed in Swinoujscie to repair ships that were used in the transport of refugees from East Prussia . The icebreakers Stettin , Prussia and Pomerania followed behind Berlin . When driving through the narrow fairway at Schwabach and Schwankenheim and again at Stepenitz , the convoy came under artillery or tanks attack by Soviet troops, but without being hit. The four ships also survived the devastating air raid on Swinoujscie on March 12, 1945, because they left in time.
In the last weeks of the war, Berlin was involved in the evacuation of refugees from East Prussia ( Hannibal company ). In the last days of April 1945 the ship ran to Denmark with refugees on board and reached Vordingborg on May 3, 1945 . It stayed there until July 1945. In July the ship was in Copenhagen , from August 15, 1945 in Hamburg .
On February 27, 1946, it had to be delivered to the Soviet Union as a reparation payment . After repair and renovation work in the ship repair yard in Wismar , the ship was given the name Pestel by the Soviet Union , named after the Decembrist Pawel Ivanovich Pestel ( Russian Павел Иванович Пестель , 1793-1826) and as a replacement for the Trabzon from June 19, 1944 the German submarine U 20 sunk the passenger ship of the same name . used in the coastal waters of the Black Sea until at least 1959 .
In 1960 the ship was removed from Lloyds' register of ships.
literature
- Helmut Lassnig: JF Braeunlich - a Stettiner shipping company. Elbe-Spree-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931129-21-7
Web links
- http://www.berliner-dampfer.de/html/1906_salondampfer.html
- http://www.dieter-engel.com/texte/firmen/reedereien/web-swinemunder.htm#Start
Footnotes
- ↑ Later after conversion only 468 GRT.
- ^ Helmut Lassnig: JF Braeunlich - A Stettiner shipping company. Elbe-Spree-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-931129-21-7 , pp. 60-61.
- ^ Helmut Lassnig: JF Braeunlich - A Stettiner shipping company. Elbe-Spree-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-931129-21-7 , p. 85.
- ^ Polish: Raduń and Kiełpinica; both places no longer exist today.
- ^ Helmut Lassnig: JF Braeunlich - A Stettiner shipping company. Elbe-Spree-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-931129-21-7 , pp. 85-87.
- ↑ http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/3267.html
- ^ Helmut Lassnig: JF Braeunlich - A Stettiner shipping company. Elbe-Spree-Verlag, Hamburg / Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-931129-21-7 , p. 88.