Grille (ship, 1934)

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Aviso grill (II)
Aviso grille
Ship data
Keel laying: 1934
Launch: December 15, 1934
Builder: Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Technical specifications
Displacement : Standard : 2560 t,
maximum: 3430 t
Length: KWL : 115 m
over all: 135 m
with bowsprit : 143 m
Width: 13.5 m
Draft : 3.4-4.2 m
Machinery:
Power on the waves: Continuous load: 22,000 shp
Test drive: 26,400 HP
Top speed: 26 kn
Boats: 2 cutters, 1 Schnell ( Grillet ) and 1 transport boat from the Lürssen shipyard (on the upper deck)
Armament:
  • 3 × 12.7 cm L / 45 C / 34 (3 × 1)
  • 4 × 3.7 cm L / 83 C / 33 (2 × 2)
  • 4 × 2 cm L / 65 C / 30 (4 × 1)

The Aviso Grille was a ship of the Kriegsmarine and at the same time a state yacht , which Adolf Hitler and his leadership used for private and representative purposes. The name of the ship was intended to emphasize the continuity of the Prussian Navy with the Navy of the Third Reich, because there was a ship of the Prussian Navy as early as 1857 that was named Grille and functioned as a royal yacht.

State yacht - gift for Adolf Hitler

The ship was originally built by the Navy leadership as Fleet Tender C ordered. It was a lightly armed ship intended to be used for experimental purposes for high-pressure turbine propulsion. But then the German industry decided to donate the ship to Adolf Hitler as a state yacht for its purposes. It was launched on December 15, 1934 at the Blohm shipyard in Hamburg, and it was commissioned in 1935. The overall design of the ship was simple. The interior was designed by the then star architect Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot . Some of the ship's rooms were specially designed for Adolf Hitler . The painter Karl Ewald Olszewski was commissioned to furnish several rooms.

The National Socialist elite often met on the ship. It was used several times on official occasions, such as the naval parade on the occasion of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the naval battle in Skagerrak on May 30, 1936, the sailing competitions at the 1936 Summer Olympics , the state visit of the Hungarian Reich Administrator Admiral Miklós Horthy in the summer of 1938, the State visit of the Italian King Viktor Emanuel III. in August 1939 and the state visit of Benito Mussolini in the summer of 1942. The German delegation under Reichswehr Minister and Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg was able to take the ship on the occasion of the coronation celebrations of King George VI. and the fleet parade taking place in front of Spithead from May 12 to 13, 1937 in Great Britain . As a representation ship, it was also used for the launching of the Wilhelm Gustloff , Prinz Eugen and Horst Wessel .

From August 1935 to December 1938, several trips and overnight stays by Hitler on board the ship are documented.

Second World War

The Grille was equipped with three 12.7 cm cannons, four 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns in two double mounts and four 2 cm C / 30 anti-aircraft guns in stand-alone installation and, with its mine-laying equipment, could transport and lay 280 sea ​​mines . At the start of the war in 1939, she laid mines off Wilhelmshaven and, thanks to a mine-laying operation in the Thames estuary, became one of the first German warships to be used in British waters. On the night of January 14, 1940, the Grille rammed the small Danish freighter Axel off Kiel , which sank shortly afterwards. The crew of the freighter could be rescued by the Grille and the Grille had no staff shortages either, but the ship had to go to the shipyard for repairs for several months. It was not painted navy gray until late in 1942, when the Grille was used as the staff ship and headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder , in the North Sea and stationed in Narvik . From the spring of 1944 led Commander Reinhard Suhren from the Grille from the command of the in Narvik, Harstad , Hammerfest and Trondheim stationed and operating in the North Sea German submarines .

Commanders

The cricket had the following commanders :

Post-war years

After the end of the war the ship was interned in the Lofjord near Trondheim . It was spoiled by Britain and bought by a Canadian shipowner in 1946 . This passed it on in 1948 to the Lebanese textile manufacturer George Arida, acting on behalf of the Egyptian King Faruk I. The king lost interest even before the ship was taken over, and Arida then tried to find interested parties in New York for the ship, which could temporarily be viewed as a tourist attraction for a fee. In April 1951, the ship was sold, towed to a shipyard in Bordentown ( Burlington County , New Jersey ) on the Delaware River and scrapped there.

Trivia

In November 1935 the following press release was written:

It is requested not to designate the fleet tender "Aviso Grille" as a pilot ship. In fact, the "Aviso Grille" primarily serves the Admiral's staff, but it is also available to the guide on sightseeing trips, but is not a luxury ship, but a war-style fleet tender.

literature

  • Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 2, JF Lehmann, 1968.
  • Siegfried Breyer: Special and special ships of the Kriegsmarine. (= Naval arsenal with international naval news and naval overview. Volume 30). Volume 1, Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 1995, ISBN 3-7909-0523-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml , Hermann Weiß (eds.): Encyclopedia of National Socialism. 5th edition. Munich 2007, p. 429.
  2. ^ Rüdiger Jordan: Fritz August Breuhaus de Groot: Works 1932–1941. Retrieved December 18, 2017 .
  3. ^ Mortimer G. Davidson: Art in Germany 1933–1945. Volume II / 1, Tübingen 1991, ISBN 3-87847-095-9 , p. 12.
  4. ↑ Walter Kempowski: Did you see Hitler? Did you know about it? With a foreword by Joachim Gauck, Volume 6 of Die deutsche Chronik. Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-641-07342-8 , p. 102, Kaufmann 1917.
  5. ↑ Ralph Giordano: If Hitler had won the war. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-462-30940-9 . Accessed by google books books.google.de on September 22, 2015.
  6. ↑ Harald Sandner: Hitler - Das Itinerar (Volume III): Places of residence and journeys from 1889 to 1945 - Volume III: 1934-1939 . Berlin Story Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-95723-708-8 ( google.de [accessed December 19, 2017]).
  7. ↑ Köhlers Flottenkalender 1988. Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, pp. 148–149.
  8. ↑ In 2013, a workshop owner offered for sale a toilet seat from the ship that came from being scrapped and has since been used in his workshop. ( Hitler's toilet from his private yacht finds a new home ... in a New Jersey car repair shop. Daily Mail on February 1, 2013 )
  9. ^ Nazi press instructions from the pre-war period; Edition and documentation; Volume 3 / II: 1935. KG Saur, Munich / London / New York / Oxford / Paris 1987, ISBN 3-598-10678-5 , p. 754 (accessed December 19, 2017)