Goslar (ship)
 On the right the wreck of the Goslar
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The Goslar was a German turbine steamship that drove for the North German Lloyd (NDL) from Bremen as a cargo ship and was brought to sink by the crew on the night of May 9th to 10th, 1940 off Paramaribo in Suriname . She belonged to the Frankfurt class of the NDL and was the sister ship of Erlangen , which was also sunk by the crew on July 25, 1941 southeast of the mouth of the Río de la Plata .
History of the ship
The cargo ship Goslar was built by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg on behalf of Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) . She was given hull number 485, was launched on October 3, 1929, and was delivered to the NDL on November 30 of the same year, four weeks after the sister ship Erlangen . She was the fourth and last ship of the Frankfurt class intended for the Australia and New Zealand service. In contrast to the Frankfurt and Chemnitz built by Bremer Vulkan , which were equipped with triple expansion machines, the buildings by Blohm & Voss were turbine ships .
The ships were not only used on their regular route. In 1935 the Goslar was in use with passengers on the line to the South American west coast and Philadelphia.
Second World War
In response to the German Wehrmacht attack on Poland, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. At the end of August 1939, the Goslar had left Philadelphia and the east coast of the United States when Captain Berghoff received instructions from Bremen to head for a neutral or friendly port as quickly as possible. Without further ado, it was decided on board to change course and take refuge from enemy submarines in the port of Paramaribo . From the point of view of the ship's command, there was little risk of encountering an enemy warship here in front of and in the Dutch colony . The crew converted the ship a little, the chimney was given a different coat of paint and the ship's name was changed. As a result of these measures, it was not immediately apparent that it was a German merchant navy ship. In addition, the first steps were taken to be able to bring the ship to sink in a short time.
Suriname
On the night of September 5, 1939, the steamship under the American flag suddenly dropped anchor in the port of Paramaribo and the crew asked the authorities for asylum. As a result, colonial Suriname unexpectedly came into contact with the war that had just begun in Europe. Upon arrival in Paramaribo, the crew consisted of 64 crew members, 49 Chinese and 15 Germans. After just a few days, the Chinese workers on board began mutiny. At the captain's request, the local police came to the rescue and the insurgents were imprisoned in Fort Zeelandia . Ultimately, negotiations between the captain of the Goslar , Berghoff, and the control centers of the shipping company in Europe and the USA led to the result that the Chinese crew members could leave Suriname. On September 25, 1939, an Italian ship with all Chinese on board left the colony.
The German part of the crew stayed in Paramaribo and waited for further instructions from Lloyd. A return to Europe, however, was classified by the captain as too dangerous for the ship and crew. Time passed and since the remaining crew members were allowed to move freely, one went ashore every day. In the then still remote country they were soon welcome guests in many German, Surinamese and Dutch families and they visited each other while waiting for the events.
internment
On May 10, 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands. A few minutes after the declaration of war and the German invasion, Governor Johannes Coenraad Kielstra in Paramaribo was informed of this. The Dutch colonial administration was not unprepared for the event, because due to the time difference between the Netherlands and Suriname, the order was given to the police on May 10, shortly after 1:00 a.m. local time, all Reich Germans living in Suriname over the age of Interned for 15 years. Following orders, the internment of the German men began during the night and into the early morning.
As already mentioned, the crew of the Goslar had been making preparations for a “case of the worst” for a long time. Weeks before the German attack on the Netherlands, the crew had brought the coal supply to the port side of the ship and loosened all but two screws from the sea hatch . On the night of May 9-10, 1940, the news of the impending invasion of the Wehrmacht into the Netherlands had been heard via a short-wave transmitter on board. When the launch with the police commissioner van Beek and some officers on board approached the ship to arrest the crew, the final steps were taken to sink the Goslar . The valves on a hatch were opened so that the ship began to sink as soon as the police came on board. The commissioner delivered the official message and arrested the 15 German seamen. The officers' question about the strong rush of water was explained by a leaky toilet. One had not yet reached the bank when the ship was already on its side, and all subsequent efforts to keep the ship from sinking with pumps also failed. The agony of the sinking Goslar could be observed for days afterwards. Because of the shallow water it never sank completely. This iron island can be seen to this day (December 2017) and is a silent witness of the Second World War and the events of that night.
By 3:00 a.m., all German men living in the immediate vicinity of Paramaribo were interned and taken to the Fort Zeelandia prison in Suriname , including the German consul Wilhelm Assmann. The other German missionaries of the Moravian Brethren (EBG) working on the plantations and seven on the outstations followed the next day. A total of almost 80 men were arrested. Since the fort and the cells were far too small for this large number of prisoners, the internees were transferred to a cleared old people's home on May 12th. After this stopover of around a week, the prisoners were transported to the final internment camp . The camp, a converted former Catholic boarding school, was about 20 km south of Paramaribo on Copieweg, near Lelydorp . It was accessible from the capital both by road and by a railway line that was still in existence at the time.
From May 28, 1940, the German women and children were interned at the Mariënburg plantation and then in Groningen . Since it was not foreseeable how long the state of war between the German Reich and the Netherlands would last, the colonial administration decided to build a family camp behind the existing camp on Copieweg. In May 1941, the twelve built barracks were ready for occupancy. A total of 87 people, 23 men, 27 women and 37 children were housed in the camp. Most of them, 35 adults and 28 children, were members of the EBG, which has been active in Suriname since 1735.
Escape
In August 1941 and March 1942, some of the internees made ultimately failed attempts to escape to French Guiana because the governorate in Cayenne was cooperating with the Vichy regime . The first attempt by three people only failed at the border river Marowijne . During the second preparation for escape, the internees dug a tunnel that led from the main building under the double prickle wire fence to the church square. In March 1942 five prisoners, four of them former Goslar crew members , managed to escape through this tunnel. Already 6 km from the camp they caught the attention of a local by hitting them with a machete in the rainforest . As he approached he saw the five, one of which was giving directions with a compass. His suspicion that they must be German refugees from the internment camp was mainly reinforced by the fact that some of them were wearing sailor's hats. He notified his brother, who ran to the camp, notified the guards and returned with a patrol who succeeded in thwarting this attempt.
return
At the end of the war, a total of 138 Germans (men, women and children) were interned. The last group of these internees did not leave the camp until February 1947, after around seven years, and returned to the devastated Europe on February 19, 1947 with the ship Bloemfontein .
Today's meaning of the Goslar
The wreck of the Goslar is marked on the city maps and it belongs to the extended cityscape of Paramaribo. For decades there has been a controversial discussion in Suriname as to whether it should be retained as a contemporary witness and tourist attraction or whether it should be removed.
literature
- Nizaar Makdoembaks: De Goslar affaire . De Woordenwinkel, Zierikzee 2017, ISBN 978-90-76286-28-0 .
Web links
- De roemloze ondergang van het stoomschip Goslar , Dutch, four-part documentary about the Goslar and its occupation in Suriname.
- A German World War II wreck becomes a symbol in Suriname
- How the Goslar stranded off Suriname , this article from December 12, 2017 appeared almost at the same time as the article 'A German World War Wreck becomes a symbol in Suriname'. However, two different authors are given for the similar articles. The crew numbers are wrong for both of them.
Footnotes
- ^ Travels of Goslar from January 12th and June 6th 1935
- ↑ dbsuriname article from February 12, 2015 advertisement on the wreck of the Goslar for the Nationale Democratische Partij (NDP). Parliamentary elections were held in Suriname in May 2015, in Dutch, accessed on May 10, 2016
Coordinates: 5 ° 49 ′ 5.5 ″ N , 55 ° 9 ′ 32.8 ″ W.