Saxony (ship, 1929)
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The Sachsen was a seal-catching ship that was used by the German Navy as a weather observation ship during World War II . It was in 1942 Hermann renamed and sank in 1943 in the Arctic .
Seal catcher
The ship was launched in June 1929 in the shipbuilding company "Unterweser" in Wesermünde with the name J. F. Schröder from the stack . It was 42.71 m long ( between the perpendiculars ) and 7.44 m wide, had a side height of 3.81 m and was measured with 284 GRT . The load capacity was 780 t . A six-cylinder four-stroke diesel engine from MAN with 490 hp drove a fixed propeller .
The ship sailed under the Hamburg fishing license number HC 214 for the "North Sea" German deep-sea fishery from the home port of Cuxhaven . In 1933 it was renamed Saxony .
Weather observation ship
The ship was taken over by the Kriegsmarine on May 22, 1940 , modified accordingly and put into service as weather observation ship 1 (WBS 1).
The first voyage took the Saxons from September 18 to November 23, 1940 under the command of Captain Otto Kraul from northern Norway to the western exit of the Denmark Strait .
The second voyage took the Saxons to the Jan Mayen area for 86 days in the spring and summer of 1941 . The captain was Otto Kraul, and Rupert Holzapfel was in charge of the meteorological direction .
In September 1941, Sachsen and Fritz Homann participated in the Knospe company, the establishment of a weather station on north-west Spitsbergen . In coordination with the Hamburg Naval Weapons and Equipment Company , the North Marine Group Command dispatched the two weather observation vessels from Kiel to Spitsbergen on September 26, 1941 , loaded with radio systems, generators, sleds, timber, scientific equipment and personnel. The ships arrived after a stopover in Tromsø from October 10 to 12, on October 15, 1941 at the planned base in Signehamna Bay on the west side of the Lilliehöökfjord. The station was fully operational on October 29th. During a reconnaissance trip with the Sachsen along the coast, Commander Knoespel discovered two abandoned weather stations, which had apparently been evacuated in a hurry. On November 15, the two ships finally started their return voyage to avoid being trapped in the ice.
In 1942 the Sachsen was used under the new name Hermann as part of the Holzauge company from August 12, 1942. She landed with a Wehrmacht unit under the command of Lieutenant zur See Hermann Ritter (1891–1968) and a group of meteorologists under the direction of Gottfried Weiss, a total of 17 men, in East Greenland . The heavily damaged by ice Hermann was (other sources June 1943) on 17 March 1943 in Hansa Bay Sabine Island by its crew scuttled .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Data from JF Schröder according to the GL register viewed on June 2, 2014
- ↑ a b 1940: The beginning of arctic weather service companies , in: Schiff & Zeit , issues 26–31, Köhlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987, p. 12
- ↑ a b [1] , accessed on June 2, 2014
- ↑ David Kahn: Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943 , Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, ISBN 9780395427392 f, p 149th
- ^ Wilhelm Dege: War North of 80: The Last German Arctic Weather Station of World War II , University of Calgary Press, 2004, ISBN 9781552381106 , SX Compare also with Franz Selinger: From "Nanok" to "Eismitte". Meteorological ventures in the Arctic 1940-1945 , Convent Verlag Hamburg, 2001 / Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven, ISBN 3-934613-12-8 , p. 37-40, with a photo p. 38 below, on the "Dr. Holzapfel" wrong is indicated as "right" in the picture; he is the fourth person from the left with the "boat" and (unfamiliar) a mustache.
- ↑ http://www.warcovers.dk/greenland/wbs3_3.htm
- ^ Website of the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart , accessed on June 2, 2014