Thielbek
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The Thielbek was a 2,815 GRT German cargo ship that was sunk with thousands of concentration camp prisoners on board in the final phase of World War II on May 3, 1945 together with the Cap Arcona and the Deutschland in the Neustädter Bay during an attack by British fighter-bombers .
Construction and commissioning
The cargo ship, which is 105.00 m long and 14.70 m wide, was ordered by the Hamburg shipping company Knöhr & Burchard from Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft at the end of the 1930s . It was in 1939 with the name Goldbek launched . The ship, which was completed in January 1940, was delivered with the name Thielbek .
Sinking of the ship
background
As the front drew nearer, the SS dissolved numerous concentration camps and sent the prisoners on death marches . The basis was the following command sent by telephone:
"Message from the SS Reich leadership April 14, 1945
to the camp commanders of the concentration camps. The handover is out of the question. The camp is to be evacuated immediately. No prisoner may come alive into the hands of the enemy. Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer SS "
The clearing of Neuengamme concentration camp began in mid-April 1945 , as the British artillery could already be heard. Evacuation transports and marches in the direction of Neustadt in Holstein were put together from the Neuengamme satellite camps in order to load the prisoners onto ships there.
The Thielbek steamer, located at the Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft (LMG) shipyard , was designated by the Reich Commissioner for Shipping ("Reiko See"), Hamburg Gauleiter and SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Kaufmann , to house convicts.
Embarkation of the prisoners
The SS ordered that the freighter Thielbek , which was lying in the shipyard in Lübeck with a damaged rudder , should take over 2,000 concentration camp prisoners from Neuengamme. Captain John Jacobsen's refusal was answered by the SS with the threat of armed violence. On April 19, 1945 the Thielbek was moved from the shipyard to the Lübeck industrial port.
The following day, a total of 2,300 concentration camp prisoners were brought to Thielbek , as well as 280 security guards. Some of them were transported from Neuengamme to Lübeck in freight wagons (depending on the source) with 50 to 120 prisoners per wagon. However, the transport was interrupted several times due to low-level aircraft attacks. Since the Reichsbahn did not have enough train material available, groups had come to Lübeck on foot, in so-called death marches.
In addition to Captain Jacobsen, 18 civilian seamen were on board; the SS swore the crew to secrecy. On April 21, more prisoners arrived and were brought to the Thielbek , so that their total number (depending on the source) rose to around 2800 or up to 3500.
The holds of the Thielbek were catastrophically narrow, there was no food and too little drinking water. While the other ships in the prisoner fleet were already in the Lübeck Bay , the Thielbek was still stuck in the Lübeck harbor due to her rudder damage. On April 24th, Captain von Lewinski was sent to Lübeck by the Reich Commissioner for Shipping Merchant as an expert advisor for shipping matters to observe the loading of the prisoners. He saw the loading on the Thielbek and Elmenhorst as well as the catastrophic accommodation on the Cap Arcona . He reported in Hamburg and returned to Lübeck and the Cap Arcona .
"Statement by Captain Walter von Lewinski from May 13, 1945
. I immediately went to the ships lying by the silo, where I saw the misery of the concentration camp inmates for the first time. I visited the ships "Elmenhorst" and "Thielbek". According to the captains, there were about 2,000 people on each ship, about twice as many as the ships could have accommodated in the shortest amount of time. Both ships were pure cargo steamers that were completely unsuitable for accommodating people and, at best, could have been used as ferry boats. The prisoners lay tightly packed together in the holds and on deck. I saw some corpses lying on the aft deck of the "Thielbek" and on land. "
On May 1, the Lübeck police chief ordered the captain to sail immediately. On May 2, the Thielbek was towed by the tug Travemünde and another tug on the Baltic Sea to the Neustadt roadstead. The SS guards had the prisoners who died on the ship thrown overboard.
Attack on May 3, 1945
On May 2nd, shortly before Lübeck, she met the convoy with the prisoners from the Stutthof concentration camp. On May 3, 1945, the Thielbek was attacked together with the Cap Arcona , the Athens and the Germany at its berth in the Neustädter Bucht by three waves of 8-9 British Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers, as the British mistakenly bought the ships for Germans Troop carriers stopped. Almost simultaneously, four Typhoons fought Thielbek , who was anchored about 800 meters from Cap Arcona and fiercely defending himself with the flak , first with rockets, then with their on-board cannons. The Thielbek was set on fire, and many straw bales distributed as cushioning material were burning on deck. The lifeboats were shot up and unusable, life jackets were only available for the crew and the guards. The water was still very cold at 8 ° C and the distance to the safe shore was too great even for good swimmers. The Thielbek received a strong port list and sank in 15 minutes. At the time of the sinking, 2,800 prisoners were still on the ship, almost all of whom were killed.
In the attacks by British planes on May 3, a total of 23 ships were sunk and 115 ships were damaged.
To this day, the tragedy near Neustadt has not been dealt with in court.
Elevation of the wreck and later use
In August 1949, the lifting of the wreck began. On February 6, 1950, it was towed to Lübeck, where it arrived the following day. In the trunk of the Thielbek bodies and body parts of around 200 victims were found, who were buried in Neustadt. The ship was repaired by Lübecker Maschinenbau Gesellschaft and from 1950 sailed again for Knöhr & Burchard under the name Reinbek . In 1961 the shipping company Knöhr & Burchard sold the Reinbek . She then drove until 1966 as Magdalene and then until 1974 as the Old Warrior under the Panamanian flag. In the second quarter of 1974 the ship was scrapped in Split by the demolition company Brodospas.
literature
- Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Dietz, Bonn 1997.
- Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014.
Web links
- Article on the sinking of the Cap Arcona ( memento from March 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on kriegsende.ard.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Miramar Ship Index, Thielbek IMO 5216941 (English), accessed on May 31, 2020
- ↑ a b Hanno Kabel: The second life of the death ship . In: Lübecker Nachrichten . May 2, 2015, p. 3 .
- ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945 . Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 268.
- ^ Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014, p. 26.
- ↑ a b Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014, p. 65.
- ↑ a b c Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014, p. 66.
- ^ NDR, sinking of the "Cap Arcona": British mistake and Nazi calculus, May 3, 2020 , accessed on May 31, 2020
- ↑ Andrea Rudorff: The Auschwitz concentration camp 1942–1945 and the time of the death marches 1944/45 , Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston, 2018, page 824, ISBN 978-3-11-036503-0
- ↑ Volker Ullrich: Eight Days in May: The Last Week of the Third Reich , Verlag CH Beck, Munich, 2020, page 108, ISBN 978-3-406-74985-8 .
- ↑ A concentration camp is evacuated; Catalog for the traveling exhibition; ISBN 3-86108-764-2 , Volume 1 - page 258
- ↑ a b Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014, p. 76.
- ^ Wilhelm Lange: Cap Arcona. Neustadt in Holstein 2014, p. 90.
- ^ Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945 . Dietz, Bonn 1997, p. 280.
- ↑ Detlef Garbe: 'Cap Arcona' commemoration. In: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial (Ed.): Help or Trade? Rescue efforts for victims of Nazi persecution. Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-86108-874-5 , p. 169