Totila (ship)

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Totila p1
Ship data
flag Hungary 1940Hungary Hungary German Empire
German EmpireGerman Empire (trade flag) 
other ship names
  • Sevastopol
  • Magyar Vitéz
Ship type General cargo ship
Shipyard All of Danubius , Újpest
Build number 1463
Commissioning 1942
Whereabouts Sunk in 1944
Ship dimensions and crew
length
94.0 m ( Lüa )
86.0 m ( Lpp )
width 13.7 m
Side height 6.9 m
Draft Max. 5.95 m
measurement 2,773 GRT
Machine system
machine Diesel-electric (4 × Ganz-Jendrassik VIII. JhR. 216 four-stroke diesel engine)
Machine
performance 		1,600 hp (1,177 kW)
Top
speed 		11.0 kn (20 km / h)
Transport capacities
Load capacity 3,900 dw

The Totila was a German cargo ship that was sunk in World War II . According to various sources, 4,000 to 5,000 people were killed in its demise.

history

The cargo ship with diesel-electric propulsion was initially commissioned by the Soviet Union in 1941 from the Ganz Danubius shipyard in Újpest, Hungary . The name of this largest type of ship built by the shipyard up to then was originally supposed to be Sevastopol . Due to the course of the war, Hungary took over the unfinished ship on the Helgen, which was renamed Magyar Vitéz when it was launched in 1942 . In 1942 the ship was put into service for the Magyar Kereskedelmi Tengerhajózási shipping company from Budapest .

In the following year, the German Reich took over the ship and continued to operate it as Totila , with it being subordinate to the Reich Commissioner for Maritime Shipping and the Black Sea Shipping GmbH and later the Mediterranean shipping company . The naming referred to the Ostrogoth king Totila .

On May 8, 1944, the Totila was sent together with her sister ship Teja and other units from the port of Constanța on the Romanian Black Sea coast to the enclosed Sevastopol fortress to assist in their evacuation. In the morning hours of May 10th she took several thousand people - mostly soldiers - on board and started the journey back to Constanța. In the early afternoon the ship was bombed by Soviet planes and sunk. Only a few of the people on board could be rescued by other vehicles; between 4,000 and 5,000 people were killed.

The wreck of the Totila was discovered by the research vessel Nikolaev in May 2013 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ List of the convoys at the Württemberg State Library , Stuttgart
  2. ↑ Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945 at the Württemberg State Library

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