Hanseatic City of Danzig (ship, 1926)
.JPG) The Hanseatic city of Danzig in Swinoujscie approx. 1934–1938
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The Hanseatic city of Danzig ran from 1926 to 1939 as a passenger ship within the Seedienstes East Prussia for the North German Lloyd . From 1939 she was used by the German Navy as a mine ship. It sank in 1941 when it got itself into a mine lock and ran into a sea mine .
Sea service East Prussia
The ship was the first new building that was put into service for the East Prussian Sea Service. It was from the Szczecin Oderwerke built and ran on 17 March 1926 by the stack . The ship was set up for the transport of passengers as well as for the transport of a large number of bicycles and several passenger cars . Double cabins (3rd class) and hiking berths were available to passengers for the night journey . The propulsion of the ship consisted of two four-stroke crosshead diesel engines made by MAN , which developed 3,400 hp (2,500 kW) at 270 rpm without supercharging and 6,400 hp (4,700 kW) at 320 rpm with supercharging. It was the first ship to be charged using exhaust gas turbochargers . In 1933 the ship was lengthened by 10.5 meters in order to incorporate additional safety devices, which were required by the International Ship Safety Convention.
For the East Prussian Sea Service, the ship drove from 1926 to 1939 as a sea motorized express ship between Pomerania and East Prussia on the Stettin - Pillau - Königsberg route and on other sea service routes. Home port was Swinoujscie .
Navy
In August 1939, the ship, which had been planned for war, was captured by the Navy and converted into a mine ship. The first in command was the entrepreneur, submarine commander and Pour le Mérite carrier of the First World War , Olympic sailor and later sea captain Hans Howaldt , who was replaced by Wilhelm Schroeder after two weeks.
On April 7, 1940, the ship left Travemünde and, accompanied by the icebreaker Stettin and the 13th outpost flotilla , transported German troops, the 2nd Battalion of 308 Infantry Regiment of the 198th Infantry Division , for occupation to Copenhagen as part of the Weser Exercise company , where the troops landed on April 9th at 5:00 a.m. The following day the Hanseatic City of Danzig brought the 2nd Battalion of the 308 Infantry Regiment to Rønne on the Danish island of Bornholm in order to occupy it too. In January 1941 the Hanseatic City of Danzig was involved with other ships in laying the mine barrier “Pommern” in the North Sea and in June 1941 the barrier “Apolda” in the Baltic Sea .
8.8 cm gun on the Hanseatic city of Danzig (1939)
Laying the mine in the Hanseatic city of Danzig (1939)
Snow removal on the forecastle of the Hanseatic City of Danzig (1939)
Downfall
On July 9, 1941, the ship sailed together with the mine ships Preußen and Tannenberg east of the southern tip of Öland at 56 ° 15 ′ 5 ″ N , 16 ° 43 ′ 5 ″ E on a Swedish mine lock and sank near the village of Gräsgård . The lock was put in place by the Swedish navy at the request of the Germans to block Soviet ships from passing through Öland. The Swedish Navy had informed the Navy High Command (OKM) of the location of the mine lock, but they did not pass the information on. In addition, the Swedish Navy had its own minesweeper, Sandön , stationed in front of the mine barrier to warn incoming ships. Despite this warning, the German head of the association allowed his ships to continue, which ended up in the mine lock. The Prussians and the Tannenberg also ran into mines and sank. Nine crew members died when the Hanseatic city of Danzig fell .
Then there were court martial hearings against German naval officers, in which only the mine officer in the OKM, who had not passed on the information about the location of the mine lock, was sentenced to one year of imprisonment under suspension until the end of the war.
In 1941 a memorial stone for the dead of the three mine ships was erected on the south coast of Öland near Össby , which was erected in the presence of Crown Prince Gustav VI. Adolf and his wife Louise was inaugurated. In 1952 the wreck, lying 29 meters below the surface, was recovered by the Swedish recovery company Intermarin and then scrapped.
literature
- Jürgen Gojny: The mine ship Hanseatic City of Danzig. In: West Prussia yearbook. Vol. 60, 2010, ISSN 0511-8484 , pp. 151-157.
- Claus Rothe: German seaside ships. 1830 to 1939 (= library of ship types. ). transpress Verlag for Transport, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-344-00393-3 , pp. 132-133.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ The Passenger Ship "Hanseatic City of Danzig." In: The Motor Ship . Vol. VII, No. 77 . Temple Press, London August 1926, pp. 181 .
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-04.htm
- ^ Downfall of a miners' association on July 9, 1941