Helgoland (ship, 1963)

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Heligoland
As a Baltic Star on a butter journey
As a Baltic Star on a butter journey
Ship data
other ship names
  • Stena Finlandica
  • Baltic Star
  • Galapagos Legend
Ship type Bath ship, hospital ship
home port Hamburg
Shipyard Howaldtswerke AG, Hamburg
Build number 943
Launch 1963
Ship dimensions and crew
length
91.92 m ( Lüa )
width 14.53 m
measurement 2,746 GRT
Machine system
machine 2 × KHD RBV12M350 diesel engine
Machine
performance 		6,000 PS (4,413 kW)
Service
speed 		15 kn (28 km / h)
Top
speed 		19 kn (35 km / h)
Transport capacities
Permitted number of passengers 1,500 in bathing trip
Berths for passengers 92 in cruise
Others
Registration
numbers 		IMO no .: 5404964

The motor ship Helgoland ( MS "Helgoland" ) is a former German seaside resort ship that was converted into a hospital ship for the Vietnam War .

History of the ship

The 91.5 m long ship was built in 1963 for the shipping company HADAG at the Howaldtswerke Hamburg AG shipyard as a seaside resort and operated on the Cuxhaven - Helgoland line as an additional ship alongside the respective coat of arms of Hamburg until 1965 . In this role she replaced the Bunte Kuh (a sister ship of the first coat of arms of Hamburg ) built in 1957 and was replaced by Alte Liebe in 1966 .

In the period from 1963 to 1965 it was chartered out several times outside of the summer season to Stena Line AB Göteborg for liner service between Gothenburg (S) and Frederikshavn (DK) and between Stockholm (S) and Mariehamn (FIN).

From 1966, HADAG chartered Helgoland to the German Red Cross , which, after extensive renovations on behalf of the federal government, used the ship as a floating hospital - officially known as the Helgoland hospital ship  - in South Vietnam until 1972 . The ship became known through the documentation "Only light fights in the Da Nang area" (1970) about the German pediatrician Alfred Jahn .

HADAG then sold the ship to Stena Reederei GmbH in Kiel and in 1972 put a new seaside resort ship under the name Helgoland into service (today's Atlantis ). The old Helgoland was renamed Stena Finlandica and ran regular services between Stockholm (S) and Mariehamn (FIN), as well as between Kiel and Korsør (DK).

In 1975 the ship was chartered to the Förde Reederei Seetouristik GmbH Lübeck and renamed Baltic Star . Under this name she drove between Travemünde and Rødbyhavn in Denmark. In 1976 it was sold to KG Seetouristik in Flensburg . In 1977 Lübeck became her home port. From 1987 it was also used between Travemünde and Warnemünde .

Registered in 1993 to the Förde Reederei Seetouristik GmbH & Co. KG in Lübeck, she made butter trips on the Baltic Sea until 1999 . With a capacity of 1,500 passengers, it was for a long time the largest seaside service ship on the Baltic Sea.

After the end of the butter voyages, it was sold to the shipping company Latin Cruises in Georgetown, Cayman Islands in 2000 . An extensive conversion to a cruise ship followed. As a Galapagos Legend , the ship operates with up to 100 passengers around the Galápagos Islands. In 2002 the Galapagos Legend was put under the Georgian flag. In 2006 she was sold to the Galatours shipping company in Guayaquil , Ecuador.

Equipped as a hospital ship of the DRK

The Helgoland was designed as a hospital ship and had 150 beds for inpatient care. In addition, three operating theaters and four specialist departments (surgery, internal medicine, gynecology and radiology) were available for medical care.

The medical staff included 8 doctors, 4 medical-technical assistants, 4 administrative staff, 18 nurses and nurses.

The 30-strong nautical crew consisted of a captain, nautical officers , ship engineers , electricians, radio operators, carpenter, sailors and cooks.

Legal considerations for using the ship as a civil hospital

In order to ensure the special protection as a civil hospital in an armed conflict, special legal preparatory work was necessary. So was z. B. an agreement between the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Vietnam, in which the most important provisions relating to the hospital ship were included.

Accordingly, the German Red Cross " in agreement with the government of the Republic of Vietnam sent a hospital ship of the Red Cross with civilian personnel. " (Article 1). The ship received a certificate from the government of the Republic of Vietnam which classifies it as a civil hospital within the meaning of Articles 18 to 20 of the IV. Geneva Convention of 1949 (Article 4, Paragraph 2); the Red Cross armbands and ID cards to be worn by the ship's staff were stamped by the Republic of Vietnam (Art. 12, Para. 2). The ship was marked with the symbol of the Red Cross and the staff wore DRK uniforms while on duty (Article 4, Paragraph 1); the ship was exempt from any search or seizure (Article 4, Paragraph 3).

Due to the classification as a civil hospital and not as a hospital ship (according to Article 25 of the II. Geneva Convention of 1949), no notifications between the conflicting parties were required there. Nonetheless, the ICRC has formally informed the parties involved in the conflict about the tasks of the ship.

Operations as a hospital ship

On August 10, 1966, the Heligoland set sail , the destination was the port of Saigon . There she was used from October 3, 1966 to September 12, 1967. She was then transferred to Da Nang and stayed there from October 11, 1967 to December 31, 1971.

The Helgoland in Da Nang, January 1970.

54 doctors and 160 nurses worked on the Helgoland during the period of deployment . A total of 11,000 inpatient and 200,000 outpatient treatments were carried out; the treatments were free of charge for the patients. In January 1972 the Helgoland was replaced by the new Malteser hospital on land.

The mission was funded by the Federal Republic of Germany. The running costs were approximately $ 2.5 million per year. At the end of the mission, the medical equipment on Heligoland was handed over to three Vietnamese hospitals, a local leprosy station and the Maltese hospital.

In order to receive supplies from a German supply ship, the Heligoland had to cast off and go into international waters. The supply ship was not allowed to dock in the ports of the crisis area due to the lack of appropriate insurance.

The documentary filmmaker Hans-Dieter Grabe accompanied the mission and published the documentary “The Helgoland in Vietnam” in 1966 and, in 1970, together with the cameraman Carl-Franz Hutterer, the above-mentioned documentary Just Easy Fights in the Da Nang area, which was made in 1971 with Adolf-Grimme Prize was awarded in silver. In Germany the most famous patient of the Heligoland was the badly injured child Do Sanh , whose fate Hans-Dieter Grabe accompanied on film for over 28 years.

On August 24, 2009, a model of the “white ship of hope”, as it was called in Da Nang, was given to the Military History Museum in Dresden as a permanent loan by the DRK federal doctor Karl Demmer in the presence of Alfred Jahn .

See also

  • Flora , a former aid ship of the DRK

Documentaries

  • Only light fighting in the Da Nang area . Book: Hans-Dieter Grabe , camera: Carl-Franz Hutterer , Germany 1970. 44 min.
  • The ship of hope: the MS “Helgoland” in the Vietnam War. Script and direction: Reinhard Joksch. Radio Bremen , 2014. 43:45 min.

literature

  • German Red Cross: Hospital ship "Helgoland": A report from the German Red Cross.
  • HC Nonnemann: We didn't ask where you came from - doctor in Vietnam . Hamburg 1968; as a French-language edition: Médecin au Vietnam . Paris 1970
  • Klaus Wagner: Vietnam in those days: experienced and told by a German doctor. Frankfurt (Main) 1992 ISBN 3-89406-517-6
  • Johannes Max Riemann: The dispatch of the hospital ship 'Helgoland' to Saigon 1966: Alternative to a military engagement of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Vietnam War . Master's thesis, Munich 2009 ISBN 3-640-29320-7
  • Johannes Max Riemann: Hospital ship "Helgoland": How the Federal Government showed the USA in Vietnam its solidarity. Hamburg 2014 ISBN 978-3-8428-9529-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Fakta om Fartyg - Swedish page with data on "Helgoland"
  2. ↑ a b c d Report on the handover of a model of the Heligoland ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 47 kB) to the Military History Museum in Dresden @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.drk.de
  3. ↑ BGBl. 1966 II p. 322
  4. ^ Anton Schlögel : Aspects of international law regarding the use of the hospital ship "Helgoland". In: Hospital ship "Helgoland": A report from the German Red Cross. German Red Cross, page 101 ff.
  5. ↑ Report on the use of the Heligoland in Vietnam at one day
  6. ↑ a b c Economic and social aid to Vietnam, Republic of Vietnam, Ministry of foreign affairs, Report for the period from July 1, 1964 to December 31, 1968, page 39 (PDF)
  7. ^ Contribution to the discussion by Manfred Blum from March 3, 2008 at einestages
  8. ↑ White Ship of Hope ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - MareTV, NDR.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.ndr.de
  9. ↑ Only light fights in the Da Nang Moviepilot area, accessed on August 11, 2019
  10. ↑ Description of the film, "Do Sanh - the last film" - 3sat