Flotilla du Lac de Constance

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The service ship Buchhorn was in the Flotilla du Lac de Constance in 1945.

The Flotilla du Lac de Constance ("Bodensee Flotilla ") was a small association of the French Navy on Lake Constance in the French occupation zone from 1945-1948.

history

At the end of April 1945, the French 1st Army occupied the region north and east of Lake Constance within a few days and banned all German shipping and also cross-traffic of neutral Swiss ships. Part of the former “ White Fleet ” was confiscated by the army and some were brought to France as spoils of war (“prize de guerre”) . The first use of German Lake Constance ships by the French troops was the transport of infantry soldiers from Überlingen and Immenstaad to Lindau on May 2, 1945 in order to be able to follow the rapidly advancing motorized units.

The "Secteur Maritime du Lac de Constance"

In August 1945, the French Navy was commissioned to monitor Lake Constance by the "Flottille du Lac de Constance" in the "Secteur Maritime du Lac de Constance", as this section of the front is called, with the following naval bases :

  • Nonnenhorn ( headquarters )
  • Kressbronn (command post and main base in the shipyard port of the Bodan shipyard )
  • Lindau (secondary base and marine infantry )
  • Constance (secondary base)
  • Bregenz (station)
  • Stadigrasse (station)
  • Langenargen (marine infantry)
  • Allmannsdorf (Marine Infantry)
  • Konstanz-Staad (marine infantry)
  • Immenstaad ("Base de l'Aéronautique Navale" Z "d'Immenstaad") The seaplane base was stationed at the Seewerk Immenstaad torpedo test facility by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin . In addition to five motor boats, four single-engine float planes of the Latécoère 298 type of the 3S squadron from Saint-Mandrier were stationed in the bay and reached Immenstaad on May 15, 1945. They were soon unable to fulfill their task of monitoring Lake Constance from the air because two machines were destroyed while starting and refueling and the third crashed with the squadron captain. On September 1, 1946, the BAN "Z" was dissolved and relocated to Cuers.
  • Section "T". This department of the navy, based in Kressbronn, had the task of searching all German companies, institutes and military facilities that carried out naval research. The National Marine was particularly interested in the research of the following facilities on Lake Constance: Askania-Werke in Konstanz (torpedoes, bombs), the navy laboratories in Kressbronn (underwater acoustics) and Frankenthal (turbine tests) and the equipment factory ("Seewerk") Immenstaad (acoustic torpedoes). Usable research, equipment, products and materials were confiscated and brought to France for analysis. This also referred to special scientists and engineers (“La chasse aux savants allemands”). Localized test facilities were continued to be operated by the occupying forces with the existing material and knowledge of the German staff, sometimes until 1948. Hundreds of torpedoes were stored in the “Seewerk”, not only from German production, and in Friedrichshafen alone there were around 100 German specialists in French service.

The “flotilla” consisted of up to 40 mostly smaller units (“Vedettes”). The navy provided ten watercraft itself. The rest were confiscated German service boats, boats of the water police , passenger motor boats, private boats and five large ships: the Konstanz car ferry was occasionally used as a troop transport, Swabia (St-Corenthin) and Austria as test ships , the Baden as a floating one Casino and the flagship Germany (Rhin et Danube) as a pleasure ship for officers of all branches of service . In terms of personnel, the "Secteur Maritime du Lac de Constance" comprised nine officers, 45 NCOs, 159 private and sailors and 19 gendarmes.

The "Flotilla du Lac de Constance"

In December 1946 the “Secteur Maritime du Lac de Constance” was officially renamed “Flottille du Lac de Constance” and incorporated into the “Forces Maritimes du Rhin” (FMR). It quickly lost its importance and in January 1948 had finally disappeared with all its subdivisions. The remaining German boats and ships were returned, the French and the staff were transferred to the FMR. Because of the new political situation of the Cold War , the FMR was renamed in 1949 to "Formations Maritimes du Rhin", which was completely dissolved on October 28, 1966.

History of salmon

Only a few boats in the flotilla can still reconstruct the history of the salmon . The fishing supervision boat was built in 1938 by the Kröger shipyard in Warnemünde , construction number 597, and assigned to the home port of Ziegenort . In 1940 it was taken over by the Kriegsmarine and used as a motor boat C 109 in preparation for Operation Sea Lion in the Calais naval port department and in 1942 in the 5th flotilla tribal department. In the same year it was moved to the Bregenz fisheries office on Lake Constance. After the French troops marched in in 1945, the motorboat was confiscated by the French navy, renamed and put into service as Vedette Héron (B 4) in the Flotilla du Lac de Constance. When this was dissolved, the Lindau water police took over the boat around 1950 and called it the Zander police boat . In 1963 it was sold to a private owner in Lindau.

See also

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise noted, the further information is based on the summarizing article from net.marine given under “Weblinks”.
  2. ↑ Troop Transport
  3. ↑ The area of ​​the BAN Z was located where a year earlier a British de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito had destroyed two anchored Latécoère 631 large flying boats that had been captured by the Germans in occupied France. They were considerably larger than the Do X built within sight .
  4. ↑ Gilles Debray: Le Cygne de la 3S in AEROMED No. 62, pp. 4–10 (with illustrations)
  5. ↑ Lecture by Elmar Wilczek / report by Manfred Bauer (with illustrations)
  6. ^ François Pernot: "Allemagne 1945: les Français et la chasse aux savants allemands". Section "Et les français?"
  7. ↑ On the netmarine.net site , 27 German boats are listed with their French names, which were seized by the French Navy in 1945 and used by it.
  8. ↑ After the end of the war, the water police were also subordinate to the National Navy until they were taken over by the Baden State Service in 1947. Baden-Württemberg State Archive
  9. ^ Günther Meyer: Ships and boats of the German water police and their predecessors (1890-2000) , NoRa Novitäten & Raritäten, 2003, ISBN 3936735298 .