Cap Arcona

The Cap Arcona was a large German luxury ocean liner formerly of the Hamburg-South America line that became a German Hell Ship. It was sunk in 1945 with the loss of many lives while laden with prisoners from concentration camps.

History
The 27,500 gross ton Cap Arcona, named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, was launched in 1927. It was considered one of the most beautiful of the time. It carried upper-class travelers and steerage-class emigrants, mostly to South America.

In 1940, it was taken over by the Kriegsmarine, the German navy, and used in the Baltic Sea. In 1942, it was used as a stand-in for the doomed Titanic in the German film version of the disaster. At the end of 1944, the Kriegsmarine transferred it back to transport use and it was used to transport German refugees from East Prussia to western Germany.

Sinking


In the last few weeks of the war in Europe, the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Red Cross, was organising the removal of Danish and Norwegian prisoners from German concentration camps to neutral Sweden — a scheme known as the White Buses. In practice the scheme also included other nationalities.

On April 26, 1945, the Cap Arcona was loaded with prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg and was brought into the Bay of Lübeck along with two smaller ships, Athen and Thielbek. During these days, around 140 western European prisoners, for the most part French-speaking, were transferred from the Thielbek to the Magdalena for transportation to hospitals in Sweden. This rescue operation was actioned using information from British Intelligence, indicating their knowledge of the deportees on board.

On May 3 1945, four days after Hitler's suicide but four days before the unconditional surrender of Germany, the Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, and the passenger liner SS Deutschland, converted to a hospital ship but not marked as such, were sunk in four separate, but synchronized, attacks by RAF Typhoons of 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force as part of general attacks on shipping in the Baltic.

The attacks were by No. 184 Squadron, based at RAF Hustedt, by No. 263 Squadron, based in Ahlhorn, Großenkneten and led by Squadron Leader Martin Trevor Scott Rumbold by No. 197 Squadron RAF, led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding also at Ahlhorn, and by No. 198 Squadron based at Plantlünne led by Group Captain Johnny Baldwin. These Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B fighter-bombers used incendiary 60lb rocket projectiles, bombs, and 20 mm cannon.

Unknown to the RAF the ships were carrying between 7,000 and 8,000 prisoners from the German concentration camps in Neuengamme, Stutthof and Mittelbau-Dora, half of whom were Russian and Polish prisoners-of-war, with the others from 24 nationalities, including French, Danish, and Dutch.

The survivors from the sinking who reached the shore were shot by SS troops, although 350 prisoners managed to escape from the massacre. Allan Wyse, formerly of 193 Fighter Squadron, said "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water … we shot them up with 20 mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war." Among the survivors was Erwin Geschonneck, who later became a notable German actor, and whose story was made into a film in 1982.

About 490 of the various guards, SS and crew were rescued by German boats.

Photos of the burning ships, listed as Deutschland, Thielbek, and Cap Arcona, and survivors swimming in the Baltic Sea (seven degrees Celsius), were taken on a reconnaissance mission over the Bay of Lübeck by F-6 aircraft of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 5:00 PM, shortly after the attack.

For weeks after the sinking, bodies of the victims washed ashore, where they were collected and buried in a single mass grave at Neustadt in Holstein. For nearly thirty years, parts of skeletons washed ashore, until the last find, by a twelve-year-old boy, in 1971.

According to documents at the Dutch Institute of War Documentation (NIOD), the government of Sweden had warned the British government that prisoners were brought aboard the ships. The British government will keep its archives about the bombardment of the three ships closed until 2045.

The deportees were of 28 different nationalities: American, Belgian, Canadian, Czechoslovakian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and others.

Losses of life in the Cap Arcona and in the Soviet sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Goya in the Baltic Sea in May 1945 were among the highest in maritime history (between 7,500 and over 8,000 victims each).