Christian Nissen

Christian Nissen (also known as Hein Mück, * 1893 ; † after 1955) was a German seaman and sports sailor who worked for the defense and special units of the Brandenburg division during World War II . Nissen was considered a very experienced sailor who had circled Cape Horn several times and was a member of the "International guild of Cape Horniers ". Since he was also a very experienced sports sailor, he came into the focus of the defense. The so-called “ghost sailors ” were a company that came directly from Admiral Wilhelm Canaris : Experienced sports sailors were to be trained by his “ Brandenburgers ” and then sail the North and South Atlantic unseen.

Operation lobster

In June 1940, Nissen was called to the Brandenburg headquarters in Brandenburg an der Havel to prepare for Operation Hummer and to get a suitable boat to bring three Abwehr agents to Ireland . During the First World War , Nissen served on the full ship Melpomene of the German Navy . The Melpomene had been raised by the Royal Navy about 100 miles (160 km) west of the port of Queenstown, now Cobh , County Cork , and Nissen was first at Templemore in Tipperary , then Oldcastle, County Meath, and finally on the Isle of One interned. Nissen was very knowledgeable about the Irish Sea. He chose the Soizic , a luxurious 11-meter yacht that was moored in the port of Brest. The yacht looked like a tuna catcher and had originally belonged to the French military attaché in Bern. The mission was a complete success, but the agents were captured less than two hours after they landed.

Operation Seagull

Operation Seagull followed in the late summer of 1940. Nissen was supposed to bring a Brandenburg saboteur, Helmut Clissmann, and an Abwehr radio operator to the south coast of Ireland. The boat that went with it was the Anni Braz-Bihen . Clissmann waited in the Belgian west end , but the operation ultimately failed due to extremely bad weather conditions.

Operation hawthorn

Christian Nissen, now Lieutenant z.See , together with his brother Arndt Georg "Age" Nissen , Paul Temme and three other sports sailors brought the South African boxer Robey Leibbrandt with a confiscated French sailing boat, the Kyloe , from St. Malo to South Africa and landed an inflatable boat northwest of Cape Town . The Kyloe had a crew of six, including Heinrich Garbers, who later carried out such operations himself. These six men completed a non-stop voyage over 14,400 nautical miles, which corresponds to about 26,700 km, which ended in the possessions of the Sahara belonging to Spain. From there the six men flew first to Rome and then to Berlin .

literature

• Saint-Loup : yachts on a secret mission - sailors in the service of defense. Bielefeld: Delius Klasing Verlag 1988. ISBN 3-7688-0598-0

Web links

• "The ghost sailors of the defense department" (from: Franz Kurowski: Deutsche Kommandotrupps 1939-1945 , Vol. 2)