Hvidbjørnen

Hvidbjørnen
	; Side view of Hvidbjørnen
Overview
Type	Outpost boat
units	1
Shipyard	Copenhagen naval shipyard
Order	Royal Danish Navy
Keel laying	February 29, 1928
Launch	December 27, 1928
Commissioning	May 1929
Decommissioning	August 1943
Whereabouts	sunk in the Great Belt
Commissioning	October 1952
Decommissioning	September 1961
home port	Saßnitz
Whereabouts	sunk during target practice in 1965 in the Baltic Sea
Technical specifications
	• First indication outpost boat Hvidbjørnen • Second information on the training ship Ernst Thälmann
displacement	914 t normal ; 1050 t maximum; 1100 t normal;
length	63.22 m; 65.30 m;
width	9.73 m; 9.92 m;
Draft	5.15 m; 4.70 m;
crew	58-61; 56 permanent crew ; 56 student officers ;
drive	2 steam boilers , ; 1 four-cylinder piston steam engine , ; 1800 HP
speed	maximum 14.5 kn ; maximum 12.0 kn;
Range	2500 nm
Armament	2 × 87 mm PKL / 40 guns , ; 2 × MG, ; 2 × 90 mm searchlights; 1 × 85 mm universal ; gun 90 K, 2 × 37 mm guns 70 K, ; 1 × 25 mm twin gun 2M3;

The Hvidbjørnen (Danish for polar bear ) was built in Copenhagen in 1928 as an inspection ship for the Royal Danish Navy . It was used in the waters around Greenland and the Faroe Islands , where it showed its presence and demonstrated the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark . To prevent the ship from falling into the hands of the German Navy , it was scuttled in the Great Belt in 1943 . The Navy was able to salvage the ship, but it was only used again in the GDR for repair and use . In 1952 the ship was taken over as a training ship Ernst Thälmann in the service of the People's Police See , from which the People's Navy emerged . Just months before decommissioning in 1961, the ship was renamed Albin Köbis again.

Mission history

Danish Navy

The keel of the ship was laid on February 29, 1928 in the naval shipyard (Orlogsværftet) in Copenhagen under construction number 147 as a fisheries protection ship . The launch took place on December 27, 1928, and in May 1929 the ship was put into service. The ship was armed with two 87-mm cannons and two machine guns.

Due to the difficult ice conditions in the operational area, the ship was never used until late spring. At the time of the German attack on Denmark in April 1940 , the ship was still in Danish waters. Here it was allowed to be used for training Danish cadets with the approval of the German Navy . After the Danish government had rejected the German demand to impose a state of emergency in 1943 , the German armed forces eliminated the remnants of Denmark's state sovereignty as part of Operation Safari in August 1943. The Danish fleet could, however, still be instructed to carry out the prepared orders for the self-sinking of the Danish fleet . The Hvidbjørnen tried according to the instructions to reach a port in neutral Sweden . She and Ingolf , who was also fleeing , were intercepted by a German minesweeper . Both ships were manned by German prize squads and the commanders asked to call at Korsør . After the Hvidbjørnen had reached the roadstead at Korsør, the Danish crew managed to activate the time fuse of the prepared explosive charge. The Danish crew and the German prize command were able to leave the ship in time. The Hvidbjørnen sank in the Great Belt on August 29, 1943 .

After the self-sinking, the German naval war command gave the order to salvage the wreck to the naval rescue and sea service command in Kiel. On November 23, 1943 it was possible to lift the wreck and tow it to Korsør. Only after a year of work was the ship repaired to the point that it could be towed to a German shipyard. In November 1944 the ship was transferred to the Rostock city port . Complete restoration before the end of the war was no longer possible. At the time of the surrender in May 1945, the ship was still wrecked in Rostock with other former Danish ships such as the Quintus and Sixtus . The USSR offered the Royal Danish Navy the repatriation of the ships in the same year. Because of the high restoration costs, this waived and the wrecks remained in Rostock.

Naval forces of the GDR

When the Hvidbjørnen was moved in 1947, she capsized and then lay across the basin of Rostock's city harbor. On behalf of the Soviet Union, the wreck was lifted again by the Stralsund ship salvage and diving company, as it hampered port operations. In 1949 the ship was transported by three tugs to the Hansewerft Wismar , where the repair work began. The ship, which was not yet completed, was handed over from the USSR to the GDR in early 1950 . The responsible organs of the Mecklenburg state government were considering how the wreck could be turned into a training ship for the future GDR fishing, commercial and technical fleet.

After the formation of the maritime police in June 1950, it was determined that they should receive the ship and that it should be expanded as a training ship with the project name Dorsch . In the Hansewerft Wismar only the most necessary repairs to maintain the buoyancy had been carried out so far. Since better conditions prevailed in the Stralsund shipyard with a new slipway, the ship was towed there in October 1950 to carry out further work on the hull. In March 1951 the ship was moved to the Peene shipyard in Wolgast . There the repairs and the conversion to the training ship Dorsch were continued together with the Stralsund-Schwedenschanze design office under project number 3.

The ship received a new sloping stem, a new bridge and deck structures extended to the rear. The main propulsion system - a four-cylinder piston steam engine and two double-flame tube boilers with oil firing - was repaired. As light artillery armament, the ship received four Soviet 37-mm guns 70 K and two German 20-mm quadruple guns C 38. As these broke during the first test shots, they were replaced by two 25-mm guns. As a regular crew up to 56 men could be accommodated in the chambers and decks. Two living decks for an additional 56 men were available for the officer students.

In October 1952 the ship was put into service by the See People's Police under the name of the former chairman of the KPD Ernst Thälmann . The project name Dorsch was not adopted. The ship was subordinated to the maritime police school and from January 1953 the school boat department in Parow . The home port was Saßnitz because the port in Parow was too small. The training trips for the future officers of the People's Police Sea began in early 1953.

After the founding of the NVA in March 1956, the training ship Ernst Thälmann became the flagship of the newly formed naval forces of the GDR. From this point on, it carried the dual designation of flagship and training ship.

In the Peene shipyard Wolgast, the armament was converted in mid-1956. The 37-mm gun on the forecastle was replaced by the newly introduced 85-mm universal gun 90 K and that on the aft deck by a 25-mm twin gun 2M3. In 1957 the largely unusable cylinder boilers had to be replaced. Despite repeated repairs, they kept showing leaks. After a renovation project developed at the Institute for Shipbuilding Technology in Wolgast, the ship received two new water-tube boilers at the Neptun shipyard in Rostock. For this, the generator room was rebuilt and the chimney was moved back about one meter.

In 1959 the Ernst Thälmann was the first armed German combat ship to visit Leningrad after the end of World War II .

On the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg , the four coastal defense ships of the Riga class were named Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Karl Liebknecht and Ernst Thälmann in January 1961 . On the same day, the flagship and training ship was renamed Albin Köbis , one of the leaders of the sailors' revolt in 1917.

The decommissioning of the Albin Köbis took place in September 1961. She remained in Saßnitz as a barge for two years . In 1963 the partial dismantling of the ship began in Warnemünde. The hull was sunk in target practice on September 25 and 26, 1965 in the Baltic Sea.

The flagship and training ship Ernst Thälmann was the only combat ship of the Volksmarine , which had the ship's name on both sides on the forecastle. All other combat ships and boats only had board numbers.

Armament

Danish Navy

The armament of the ship consisted of two 87 mm guns - which were set up in single mounts at the bow and stern - and two machine guns .

People's Navy

When it was put into service by the See People's Police in October 1952, the ship was equipped with four Soviet 37-mm guns 70 K and two 25-mm guns. A conversion took place in mid-1956: the bow and stern guns (37 mm) were replaced by an 85 mm universal gun 90 K L / 52 (bow) and a 25 mm twin gun 2M3 (aft).

literature

Marinehistorisk Tidskrift. 26. argang, no.3, August 1996, Danish.
Hans Mehl, Knut Schäfer: The other German Navy. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-613-01675-3 .
Robert Gardiner (Ed.), Roger Chesneau (Ed.): Conway's All the World Fighting Ships 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London 1980, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 .
Manfred Röseberg: Ships and boats of the People's Navy of the GDR. 2nd revised edition. Ingo Koch Verlag, Rostock 2002, ISBN 3-935319-82-7 , pp. 290-293.
Knut Schäfer: GDR - People's Navy. Combat ships 1949–1990. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-613-03157-9 .