Talk:SS Cap Arcona

There is a monument, picture is included on this very page, that is stating there were 7000 victims! I would suggest to change 5000 into 7000 and also add the remark that files on this drama will be closed by UK government till 2045. You can't deny 2000 persons unless you have proof that what was written on the monument was entirely wrong. Miss Lizzy (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

As I understand it, the memorial commemorates the victims of two ships: the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek, which is where the total of 7,000. Salmanazar (talk) 21:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)Reply

This bit doesn't make sense. If this is meant to refer to an RAF squadron, then it should be No. 193 Squadron RAF. And is an article from China Daily, through the Chinese state propaganda agency, really a credible source? 195.173.13.125 (talk) 12:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Source : "The Typhoon's Last Storm," by Paris-based US film maker Lawrence Bond, includes shocking testimony by rare survivors recounting how Royal Air Force planes returned time and again to strafe swimmers who survived the initial attacks.

3 instead of 8 ? No, there were the No. 198 Squadron and the No. 193 Squadron, based in Ahlhorn (Großenkneten), led by Squadron Leader Donald Murray Taylor.

" Donald Murray Taylor joined the RAF July 1937. Posted to 11 FTS, Wittering Sept.18 and was on staff at 5 Armament Training Station at Penrhos from May 7, 1938. In early 1940 he went to 64 Sq. at Church Fenton. Over Dunkirk on May 31, 1940 he destroyed a Bf 109 and on July 1st he shared in the destruction of a Do 17 and on the 10th damaged a Bf110. He was shot down in a surprise attack on July 17 by Lieutenant Wick of 1/JG2 whilst on Convoy Patrol. He was wounded when he crashed at Hempstead Lane, Hallsham, in Spitfire P9507. He was taken to Eastbourne Hospital. He commanded 195 Sq. from Nov.16, 1942 until Jan.1944 and then 197 Sq. from Jan-.July 1944 and was awarded the DFC (5.9.44) and later commanded 193 Sq. from April 1945 until disbanded on August 31, 1945. "

(86.64.182.240 (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC))Reply

Dear anonymous contributor who repeats to change the external links:

Please don't change the URLs to [[http://www.something.com]], as those will display as [[1]] - which is very ugly. Either leave them without any brackets like they are now, or change them like this with a description on what to find at the link: [http://www.something.com Website showing something]. See also our Manual of style.

Every time you change it to the ugly looking style it will be reverted to the previous one anyway, so there is no point to continue to do that. Thank you. andy 13:31, 4 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Someone has also removed the text stating why the prisoners were actually onboard the ships in the first place. They weren't going on a pleasure cruise - the ships were to be taken out into the middle of the Bay of Lübeck and then scuttled with the prisoners locked below decks so as to drown them. This was stated at the war crimes trial of the men responsible and the officer in charge (Max Pauly, ex-Commandant of Neuengamme) along with several others, was hanged. 82.111.65.142 13:35, 3 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

"the ships were to be taken out into the middle of the Bay of Lübeck and then scuttled with the prisoners locked below decks so as to drown them."

This claim is unsubstanciated and illogical. Why should they walk the prisoners from Neuengamme to Luebeck, put them on ships and wait for them to be sunk by the British? They killed 55,000+ in Neuengamme, so why wouldn't they go on and kill 7,000 more? The claim that the ships were to be scuttled is nothing but a lame excuse of the RAF (sinking ships with prisoners was more than a little embarrassment ...) 141.13.8.14 11:17, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

the claim is also impossible as the middle of the bay is not deep enough to sink a ship as big as the Cap Arcona. It would partially be left standing on the bottom sticking out of the water. See here: http://data.ecology.su.se/baltic96/depth.htm

surre

Given that the RAF strafed survivors of the sinking to ensure that they did not reach shore alive, and the words of Allan Wyse make clear that this was ordered and that those being strafed were known to be noncombatants, this claim rings more than a bit hollow. --7Kim 14:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

You don't need to write 'with the imprisoned prisoners below', that is the one job of a prisoner, and by god they will be captive.

However illogical the arugment of them drowning prisoners of wars, if it was stated in the Nuremburg Trials, it should be regarded as fact as many other articles use what went on during the trial as fact, unless someone wishes to contend that part of the Nuremburg was false. Either way, it's going to need a citation.

Günther Schwarberg states in his book "Angriffsziel Cap Arcona" (which is, incidentally, listed as one of the sources for this article) that 'Cap Arcona' had effectively been handed back to the Hamburg-Süd line, after the ship's engine systems had been ruined during her last trip as a refugee-ship. She was then confiscated again, this time by the SS, and the prisoners were brought aboard. The involvement of Graf Bernadotte must, under these circumstances, be seen as pure whitewash: She would not have been able to make any crossing under her own steam. On the other hand, it seems highly probable that she was indeed intended to be sunk with the prisoners aboard; the camps had in fact been dissolved primarily for the purpose of disposing of witnesses- many of whom perished by being marched across Germany, with little food or water. Towing her further out to sea and opening the seacocks would have been quite possible, and would be very much in tune with the usual efficiency of the SS in murdering people. Towing her all the way to Sweden would have been a different thing altogether. However- if she was intended to be scuttled, she would not have been towed to the middle of the Bay of Lübeck, but further out altogether. As for the British military authorities- I wouldn't be able to say what exactly they did or did not know; but there are some good reasons to assume that they did know quite a few things. They were able to deciphre radio-messages coded with one particular model of the 'Enigma'-coding-machine to the point were they could translate 75 % of the intercepted messages within 15 minutes after intercdeption, and the remaining 25 % within a few hours. That particular 'Enigma'-model had originally been in use with the Luftwaffe, but had been replaced by a newer model; the model in question (Enigma-D, I believe) was then primarily used by the SS, the German postal service, and the Reichsbahn.

(Source: "Entschied Ultra den Krieg?", 1981, ISBN 3-8033-0314-1; Original version of this book: "Ultra goes to war- the secret story" by Ronald Lewin, Hutchinson / London , 1978)

The Wehrmacht was extremely distrusting as far as Radio-communications were concerned; they preferred cable-links such as Telephone and Telegraph for their communications. The result was that the Telephone-system within Germany was constantly overloaded; subsequently the Reichsbahn- charged with organising rail-transportation of troops and materials not only within Germany, but also throughout the occupied territories- had to rely increasingly on using Radio-transmitters for their own communications. These communications were coded with the very Enigma-codes the British were able to de-code as described above. That means they were able to see exactly when a train with prisoners was to leave, what route it would take and where it was destined: It was the Reichsbahn who were responsible for most of the prisoner-transports, including those destined for the death-camps. Many of the 'Cap Arcona'- prisoners were not transported by train, but some of them were- and, as I said, the SS was using the same Enigma-machines at any rate. That means the British *must* have known- or so logic would dictate. 83.71.24.140 (talk) 22:51, 25 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have trouble with the first paragraph of the Sinking section. <<On April 26, 1945, she was loaded with prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg and, together with two smaller ships, Thielbek and Athen, was brought into the Bay of Lübeck.>> So far, so good. But the next sentence is rather unclear, and needs clarification: <<During these days, informed by British Intelligence, Count Folke Bernadotte, vice-president of the Red Cross, gained much goodwill leading a rescue operation transporting west European deportees to hospitals in Sweden, of whom some were French-speakers transported aboard the Cap Arcona.>> What precisely is being meant? Yes, Bernadotte has goodwill via the White Buses operation, ok. Is the point & crux of the matter that "British intelligence" (hopefully not an oxymoron at the time) had concrete knowledge about who was on board the three ships (and nevertheless went on to the sinking & killing of 7,000 people)?

From the French Web site : http://www.michel-hollard.com/ "Michel Hollard : En février 1944, il est arrêté par la Gestapo à Paris en compagnie de deux de ses subordonnés. Torturé, emprisonné à Fresnes et condamné à mort, il est déporté au camp de concentration de Neuengamme. Il est sauvé miraculeusement du naufrage du Cap Arcona, en baie de Lubeck, que l'ennemi sabordait intentionnellement. Ce sauvetage est dû au Prince Bernadotte qui, informé par l'Intelligence Britannique, envoya une vedette sur place et obtint le salut de quelques prisonniers de langue française." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Hollard

Quoting from the Sinking-paragraph: "After the first wave had attacked the ships, the Cap Arcona hoisted the white ensign without any effect." This is not confirmed and rather unlikely, especially concerning the Cap Arcona. Whether the Athen hoisted a white flag is at least questionable but also not confirmed. Where does this information come from? holsteiner 10:22, 29 January 2007

I might guess there were 500 SS Officers on board. Not exactly a civilian transport. --88.89.69.123 (talk) 23:37, 6 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I may be asking a question that is obvious to people with specialised knowledge, but why is the word 'Career' the title of the infobox? If it's intentional and appropriate, could it be wikilinked to the nautical definition so the uninitiated can understand why it's used? Anchoress 01:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This article is incredibly hard to read. Having read it twice, I'm still hazy. It is not made clear that this was a boat as part of an operation by Count Bernadotte rescuing concentration camp victims (is that correct? I'm not sure I even understand the article correctly). What does Hitler's suicide have to do with anything -- the sentence that mentions it doesn't make any sense? Was any justification at all given for the British action? The quote about "That's war" notwithstanding, surely some purpose was given?

This article needs some serious love, guys. I would try to help, but I don't know anything about the subject. 67.175.166.240 03:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. This page is awful and should not have been featured on the Wiki main page. ScubaSteve2k1 06:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)ScubaSteve2k1Reply

This article does need serious cleanup. Look at this sentence from the article: "Photos of the burning ships; listed as Deutschland, and Thielbek, Cap Arcona, swimming survivors were taken on a reconnaissance mission over Bay of Lübeck by F-6 aircraft of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 5:00 PM, shortly after the attack." Can someone put the cleanup infobox on this article? Rstandefer 13:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've just read this page through 3 times and I'm only JUST starting to understand what it's all about! I'm going to have a go at re-writing it, but I don't know how good it will be, I just feel some of it needs to be re-worded a bit! Let me know how I get on! LookingYourBest 21:28, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've had a go at re-writing the first couple of paragraphs of 'sinking', I think it makes SLIGHTLY more sense now! Let me know what you think! LookingYourBest 08:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Great job. i made a couple of small changes for clarity, but the article is 100% better in my opinion. Rstandefer 14:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This section:

The RAF has sealed the records about these attacks until 2045.[8] No convincing explanation of why the attacks were carried out in the first place has ever been given - the war in Europe was for all intents and purposes already over, and the sinking of these unarmed ships would have served no tangible purpose even if they had been empty.

Is perfectly fine in general (Something should be found to mention there was no obvious reason, but it should be backed up) but is poorly worded, reading like OR and the only ref is a commercial link. Anyone wanna fight for its continued existance or can we all agree to delete it until someone wants to acctually 'adopt' it and properly write it up? (or someone can do that tag that labels it as being possibly OR and poorly referenced, can't remember the blasted shortcuts) Narson 16:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

"I asked for more information but the RAF declined to give it to me on the grounds the investigation is still open - 55 years later," Bond said.

According to at least one of the references (http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/history/00-03-07/f02-uk.html) the RAF understood that "the ships carried Nazi leaders and troops trying to flee crumbling Germany to make a last stand in Norway, then still in German hands." This conflicts with the article which speculates that the reason why the records have been sealed is "the war was effectively over and the destruction of these non-military targets was of no discernible strategic value."

Also, I think the records have been sealed under a British Government rule, not an RAF one. However, to be sure of this I would need to do some digging. Greenshed 20:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

"The RAF has sealed the records about these attacks until 2045.^[8] This may be due to the fact that, by this time, the war was effectively over and the destruction of these non-military targets was of no discernible strategic value." I think this needs to be changed. At first I thought this was a typo and that the records were actually sealed until 1945, when the war was effectively over. Then I realized that the records are - in fact - sealed until 2045. "by this time..." is referring to the time of the attacks, not the time of the unsealing.
How about: "The RAF has sealed the records about these attacks for 100 years, until 2045.^[8] This may be due to the fact that, by the time of the attacks, the war was effectively over..." Trigam41 18:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Or... I suppose you could delete the line altogether... sure.
I do think we should expand MoD to Ministry of Defense. We don't have ministries in America, and it might be nice to expand the abbreviation. Trigam41 21:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Then the declaration of surrender could have been in place by then. There were another 5 days of this limbo, and someone took moch time before stating and declaring the obvious. I wont question what took the Germans so long, it may have something to do with German efficiancy. --88.89.69.123 (talk) 23:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Hindsight is always 20/20. If the war would have been effectively over, there would have been no necessity for germany to run ships across the Baltic Sea. Instead British intelligence and troops still had to be on the alert for counter-attacks and suicide missions. The sealing of the documents is probably due to the RAF’s obligation to protect their former personnel from prosecution for actions performed in the line of duty. As various pilots have come forward, the actual course of events isn't really a secret anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.117.38 (talk) 09:57, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

The holding-back of certain documents is not necessarily due to nefarious or suspicious motives. Often it is simply due to the relevant documents containing information that would either cause distress to living relatives of those concerned - some reports may describe deaths of aircrew and other personnel in graphic and distressing manner, or that the documents may contain operational information that could prove useful to a future enemy. For every document that is to be released it is necessary to ensure that it contains no private personal information - due to the Data Protection Act, and that it also does not provide information on tactics, etc., that are still useful today - as an example, some of these were still in use by the V bomber force throughout the Cold War. For documents that contain this sort of data, it is necessary to manually redact such information, and this is a very time consuming, and labour intensive, and therefore costly, process. So often it is simpler and cheaper to retain the classified nature of the whole document.

BTW, the Geneva Conventions require ships carrying non-combatants, i.e., the wounded, sick, evacuees, etc., to be clearly marked by being painted white overall and with prominent red crosses. None of the three ships attacked that day were. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.215.139 (talk) 10:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have contacted the MoD regarding the supposed "sealed files" and neither the MoD nor the National Archive can find any sealed records. Those files which do exist have been placed in the National Archive and are free to view.

Of particular interest is the War Office investigation by No 2 War Crimes Investigation Team, led by a Major Till, into events at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. Prisoners from this camp were placed on the Cap Arcona by their German guards, and as a consequence Major Till and his team also examined the circumstances surrounding the sinking of this vessel. This report is held by The National Archive under the reference WO 309/1952.

Also on deposit in the National Archive are the Operational Record Books of 2 TAF, 83 Group and the squadrons involved. Details of the operation and the reasons for conducting it are in the files held in the National Archive.

Unless anyone can find conclusive evidence of "sealed files" then I will delete the references to them, since they are unsubstanciated rumours as far as I can tell.

--J.StuartClarke 20:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

"I asked for more information but the RAF declined to give it to me on the grounds the investigation is still open - 55 years later," Bond said. China Daily, 2000-03-07 .(86.64.182.240 14:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC))Reply

That article was written in March 2000. I requested the files under the FIOA, which only came into force in Janurary 2005, and there are none that aren't in the public domain. --J.StuartClarke 18:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

The present RAF, not this old report : See The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre. The Lyons Press, October 2004. Page 170, 171.(86.64.182.240 08:57, 23 May 2007 (UTC)).Reply

That book was published on 1st September 2004. If the FOIA only came into force on the 1st Janurary 2005 then I'm not quite sure how the writer came to those conclusions. The fact that he has written a book does not make him right. --J.StuartClarke 02:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This report (Major Till) has been accessible by the authors in 2003; the book speak about it several pages. The most interesting remains the RAF's Archives, legally accessible at most in 2045.(86.64.182.240 09:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC))Reply

Which report? The report by the War Crimes unit is in the National Archive, as are the operational logs of the Air Group involved. --J.StuartClarke 14:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

The most interesting remains the RAF's Archives, legally accessible at most in 2045 : the other documents that are not in the Till's report.

British Army Major Till, who was the post war investigator into the sinking of the ships in Lubbeck Bay on 3 May 1945 including the Cap Arcona, asked the RAF in writing several times for their documents and complained that he was not given them. The British judge at the trial of Max Pauly in Hamburg also stopped survivor Philippe Jackson from giving any testimony on the event restricting him to his accounts of Pauly's actions at Neuengamme. I requested these RAF files on the sinking of the Cap Arcona from the RAF in 2000 and received a response in writing saying the event was still under investigation and would not be released at that time. I did have full access to Major Till's investigation since he was a lawyer working for the war crimes investigation unit and not the RAF.

The RAF has also never released any gun camera footage of the attacks even though all the pilots I interviewed who flew the attacking planes claim their planes were equiped with these cameras and they functioned correctly.

Lawrence Bond

This is what the MoD sent me, when I requested it under the FOIA:

"Dear Mr XXXXXXXXXXX

While we are aware of that rumours persist of the existence of closed file or files relating to events on the 3 May 1944, neither the Ministry of Defence nor the National Archive can find any files on the subject of the sinking of the Cap Arcona, the Thielbeack and the Deutschland by aircraft from 83 Group on 3 May 1945 other than those which are already in the public domain. The files on the matter have been deposited in the National Archive at Kew in London and are listed in the catalogue of the National Archive which is available on the internet. If you are unable to visit the National Archive yourself I suggest that you contact the Search Department who, for a fee, will undertake research for you and send you photocopies of the relevant documentation.

The information contained in The National Archive is on open access to members of the public. Of particular interest is the War Office investigation by No 2 War Crimes Investigation Team, led by a Major Till, into events at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. Prisoners from this camp were placed on the Cap Arcona by their German guards, and as a consequence Major Till and his team also examined the circumstances surrounding the sinking of this vessel. This report is held by The National Archive under the reference WO 309/1952. Also on deposit in the National Archive are the Operational Record Books of 2 TAF, 83 Group and the squadrons involved. Details of the operation and the reasons for conducting it are in the files held in the National Archive and, under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, I would ask you to consult these documents.

Yours sincerely

XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX Air Historical Branch(RAF)

If the information enclosed does not address your requirements or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of this request, then you should contact the member of the Air Historical Branch who has sent the reply in the first instance. Should you remain dissatisfied, then you may apply for an MOD internal review by contacting the Director of Information Exploitation, 6th Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London SW1A 2HB. If you are still unhappy following an internal review you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the Provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed."

Either the MoD is lying or they really don't have anything. --J.StuartClarke 13:52, 29 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Appointment and answer in 2045.(Page 170, 171).(86.64.182.240 13:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC))Reply

It doesn't exist. I fail to see what more proof you need. --J.StuartClarke 14:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

These British laws do exist.

Yes, they do. However, under the FOIA there has to be both an acknolegment that the file exists and a reason for it being withheld. Neither were given for the above request, so the file cannot exist. --J.StuartClarke 13:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

These laws (2045) are the laws of the page 171 ("The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre". The Lyons Press, October 2004).

62 years of investigation : "I requested these RAF files on the sinking of the Cap Arcona from the RAF in 2000 and received a response in writing saying THE EVENT WAS STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION and would not be released at that time." : grotesque !

The FOIA only came into force in January 2005. --J.StuartClarke 15:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've removed a couple of lines of conjecture from the article and added a citation tag for one of the sentences that claim to have documents proving the British Government knew it was at fault. Can't go throwing accusations like that around without backup! Lol! LookingYourBest 11:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm going to remove that reference, since the research was done prior to 2001 when the FOIA came into effect. I have shown above that the RAF have no files on the subject and all known files are in the public domain. Just because a man has written a book does not make him right. We must be selective of our sources, and carefully analyise all of them. --J.StuartClarke (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

The RAF operation against the three ships would have been initiated by photo-reconnaissance of the area which would have shown the three ships without any indication of what they were being used for. IIRC, one of the ships - Deutschland - had been re-painted to signify that it was a hospital ship but they had run out of white paint before the task was completed, and only the funnel and a limited area of the ship had been painted white. The other ships remained in their normal wartime paint schemes. There was therefore no way for the RAF planners of the strike to have been aware that the ships were transporting prisoners, unless the ships had all been marked with prominent red crosses. In order to prevent attacks from the air and from submarines, ships being used for humanitarian purpose - such as hospital ships, transporting POWs, etc., - are required to be painted white overall with prominent red crosses.

The existence of places such as Belsen had only recently been made public in Britain and the possibility that the ships might be carrying concentration camp prisoners would almost certainly never have crossed any of the pilot's minds. And if they had known this then they almost certainly wouldn't have attacked, never mind strafed people in the water - when bombing 'friendly' i.e., occupied, countries they used to fly low over the targets first to give the French, Belgian, and Dutch factory and other workers time to get out and under cover before they dropped their bombs. So it's highly unlikely that the RAF would have knowingly attacked ships full of prisoners, even German ones. That was just the sort of thing they were fighting against. They'd have had no trouble attacking and sinking the ships if they thought the SS was using them though, and strafed them into the bargain. The SS were loathed on the Allied side, and justifiably so.

Whether there was any Ultra intelligence available about the ships and their contents - one can hardly call them passengers - in the limited time between a strike being planned and actually carried out, I doubt, as being movable ships, any delay in attacking them could lead to them not being where they were reported to be. So the attack was probably planned and carried out the same morning the reconnaissance photos were taken. If the RAF 2nd TAF did receive any information on the ships occupants then I suspect it may well not have been until several day after the event. The Ultra distribution system would not have known the attack was being planned, and if they had known the ships were carrying prisoners the information would probably not have been deemed important enough to pass on - why would one want to supply general information on prisoner's movements - unless it was also known that they were liable to be attacked by 2nd TAF. I suspect that the planners and aircrew just thought the ships were being used by 'fleeing Nazis' - as these were the only sort of people who could get hold of ships or any other form of mechanised transport in Germany at the time. Just about everyone else had to walk. So despite the conspiracy theories, the whole event was probably just what it was always stated to be, a tragic accident. These happen frequently in war.

BTW, putting the moral and humanitarian aspects aside, there'd have been no point in the RAF knowingly attacking three ships carrying refugees, as that would have involved risking valuable pilot's lives for no military purpose, and it wouldn't have shortened the war by one little bit.

This BS is stirred up nowadays by the same group of people who did it back in 1945 (you get the picture?). The attack was erroneous and not responsible for the majority of casualties. Most of the victims died because they were not assisted or even forcefully kept back from attempting to rescue themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.115.117.38 (talk) 10:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

This is a untrue and loaded term, it needs to be replaced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.248.159.240 (talk) 06:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Also what comes to mind from the strafing the shipwreck survivors in the water, on purpose, isnt that a war crime? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.248.159.240 (talk) 07:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'd be inclined to agree with your first point here, it seems that the term Hell Ship was reserved for Japanese POW ships. Googling "Arcona Hell Ship" only throws up this article and copies of this article. I'd suggest changing it to Prison ship and removing the Cap Arcona reference from the Hell Ship article as well.
I don't really understand your second point though, sorry! LookingYourBest 09:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

From the Web site : http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//arcona.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 13:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

"Provisional toilets were installed on the deck of the Thielbek and embarkation started on the 20th April. The Swedish Red Cross were present and all concentration camp prisoners except the Russian prisoners received a food parcel which, with the combination of malnutrician and thirst, caused terrible suffering. The water supplied from the ship's tank was totally insufficient. Twenty to thirty prisoners died daily and were removed by lorry. All prisoners, except the political prisoners, remained one or two days on board before being transferred to the Cap Arcona by the Athen. The SS personnel were gradually reduced and replaced by 55 to 60 year old territorial army members and marines. There was straw on deck for the holds there being no beds. There were large stocks of provisions under tarpaulin on deck but distribution was disorganized. The sick and the Russian prisoners received little. The latrines were inadequate. Buckets were lowered into the holds and raised when full. The stench was terrible. Gastroenteritis raged.

... Gehrig was to escort the prisoners to their deaths aboard the Cap Arcona. He ordered captain Nobmann of the Athen to take 2,300 prisoners and 280 SS guards on board and to ferry them to the Cap Arcona. Captain Nobmann initially refused but obeyed when threatened with being shot following a drumhead court martial. The SS and Kapos drove the prisoners on board with yells and blows. They had to climb down rope ladders into the deep holds of the ship. In the haste many prisoners fell and were seriously injured. There was hardly room to move in the dark, cold and damp holds. There were no toilets or water. After some hours the fully laden ship left the harbour for the Cap Arcona anchored off Neustadt. Captain Bertram refused to take the prisoners on board even after the SS came aboard. The Athen remained off Neustadt overnight and returned to Lübeck next morning, the 21st April, the prisoners having been given nothing to eat or drink.

... On the 27th April the Athen arrived in Neustadt with 2,500 prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp who were transferred to the Cap Arcona. For three days the Athen journeyed to and fro between Lübeck harbour and the Cap Arcona. There were finally 6,500 prisoners on board and 600 SS guards. There was hardly anything to eat or drink and prisoners continued to die. A launch brought drinking water and took the dead back to Neustadt daily. The Russians received the worst treatment being locked in the lowest hold without fresh air, light or food. The number of dead grew ever larger. The Athen made its last journey to the Cap Arcona on the 30th April but this time to take prisoners off as the Cap Arcona was so over crowded that even the SS could no longer endure the starvation, stench and dead." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 13:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

(copied from User talk:Sluzzelin) In response to the original poster's concerns, I cared neither about truth nor loadedness when I removed the wikilinked attribute "hell ship" from the article on Thielbek.

My own concerns with this metaphor are ambiguity and verifiability in reliable sources. Following common usage, "hell ships" linked to the article on a different category of ships. This was misleading. I find no reliable references to the Thielbek as a "hell ship" or "Höllenschiff". The passage cited above describes conditions that could be called infernal in an essayistic text, or compared to Imperial Japanese Jigoku Sen, but it doesn't make this comparison or mention the word "hell ship". I asked user:Clio_the_Muse to dig in and see what could be found.

"A search of the Cambridge catalogue under 'hell ships' only calls up Raymond Lamont-Brown's Ships from Hell: Japanese War Crimes on the High Seas. Beyond that there is one other source that I know of: Death on Hell Ships: Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War by Gregory F. Michno. I have absolutely no doubt at all that conditions on these Nazi ships were indeed hellish by any reasonable measure, as indeed they were on the Trans-Atlantic slave ships; but the point remains that the term 'Hell ships' has come to refer to a particular historical phenomenon. To use it more widely thus risks confusion over issues of interpretation. I hope this is useful."

Unless someone finds a notable reference to the Cap Arcona or Thielbek as a "hell ship" or "Höllenschiff", I suggest removing the attribute "hell ship" from both articles. The link under "See also" can stay, in my opinion. If a notable author's comparison to Japanese hell ships is found, the link might be worked into the article. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:23, 28 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Done. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Not correct: "The loss of life on the Cap Arcona make it the third-worst maritime disaster in history," as there seems to be other ships that have gone down with as many or more.

• This source for the Cap Arcona (May 3, 1945) says around 4,200 were lost.

Maritime disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries CNN 6 February 2006:

• November 1948, Six thousand people die when a Chinese army evacuation ship explodes and sinks off south Manchuria.
• December 20, 1987 The Dona Paz ferry and an oil tanker, Victor, collide in Tablas Strait, the Philippines, killing 4,341 people

Also

• RMS Lancastria (June 17 1940) was bombed and sunk with the death of 3,000-7,000 men.[1][2]
• Armenia(November 7, 1941) The latest Russian sources put the death toll at 7,000[3]
• Toyama Maru (June 29, 1944) The vessel was carrying over 6,000 men of the Japanese 44th Independent Mixed Brigade from Kyushu to Okinawa. As the torpedoes hit, thousands of drums of gasoline exploded turning the holds into a fiery hell. There were about 600 survivors, a death toll of around 5,400. [4]

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Also these two already in the see also section but unsourced on this page

• Junyō Maru - Japanese "hell ship" torpedoed while transporting about 6,000 prisoners of war and forced laborers.
• Ukishima Maru - Imperial Japanese Navy vessel sunk while transporting 4,000 to 5,000 Korean forced laborers.

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Source Junyō Maru : [5] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 10:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

There's a huge amount of stuff in this article that is either not sourced or is sourced to sources of dubious reliability - personal websites and the like - or to unpublished sources (RAF reports etc). In addition, it concerns me that some of it may fall under Original Research - drawing non-trivial conclusions from the sources without any supporting source for those conclusions.

I suspect part of the reason is simply because much of this text was written before our requirements for citations became as rigorous, and the information can in fact be found within the linked published sources, but there are some things on here that seem a little unproven.

I'm also wondering whether this article should be split into one about the ship itself and one about the sinking and its circumstances - as it is the latter wholly dwarfs the former and the article is not really about the Cap Arcona itself very much at all.

Thoughts? Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

You can see the American photos (Photos of the burning ships, listed as Deutschland, Thielbek, and Cap Arcona, and survivors swimming in the cold 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.), if you pay. See www.militarygnome.com or www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//arcona.html, "The Sinking of the Thielbek". ([[Special:Contributions/86.64.182.240|86.64.182.240] (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)).Reply

I'm afraid that in my opinion a statement that a commercial photo archive contains a picture of something is NOT a published source for Wikipedia's purposes. (Neither are FOIA requests, for that matter). I feel that this article suffers from two problems.

The first is that there are things people want to put here that are not available in any published sources, even if they might be true (or at least supported by some documentation, whether accurate or not). Wikipedia's sourcing requirements require that information here be supported by published sources of reasonable quality - which generally does not include personal websites unless the website is by a recognised expert in the field.

The second is that there isn't that much in the way of published work or criticism of it available. The books cited in the article appear to be pretty much the sum and total of what there is out there. A search of academic databases I did turned up essentially nothing related to the Cap Arcona, which is surprising given the Holocaust association. This leaves us with a small number of books produced by people with strong interests in the subject matter, and few to no published sources analyzing the quality of the research of those books. Furthermore, all the published books appear to precede the wider accessibility to UK archives recently made available under the freedom of information act there.

Also, much of the work on this article appears to have been the work of a very small number of people with websites about the sinking and the events around it - the textual similarities with at least one site out there are striking. I fear that these people aren't necessarily best versed in what a Wikipedia article should be, and are instead trying to get their website content out to a wider audience by republishing it here. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 05:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia needs published sources. Has the Till Report ever been published? My impression from what I'm reading here that it hasn't been, and it's been only available through the National Archives. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 19:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

This excerpt (from National Archives, since January 1 2005, see upper "Records Sealed") can be read in the Benjamin Jacobs and Eugene Pool's book, The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden World War II Massacre. The Lyons Press, October 2004. ISBN 1-59228-532-5.(86.64.182.240 (talk) 14:25, 3 May 2008 (UTC)).Reply

Documents available in the National Archives are freely available. People can either go to Kew themselves or if they can't be arsed or don't live near enough they can request that photocopies or electronic copies of the documents are sent to them. --J.StuartClarke (talk) 01:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

The Times - May 30, 1947 - Page 5

"AIRMEN IN GERMANY

BRITISH OCCUPATION FORCES IN TRAINING

CLOSE COOPERATION WITH THE ARMY

By Our Aeronautical Correspondent.

...

MOCK WAR ... There is a bombing range a mile or so from the shore, near where the German

" Strength through Joy " ships (??????)

, the Deutschland and the Cap Arcona,

WHICH WERE BEING USED AS ARMED TRANSPORTS,

were sunk a few days before the end of the war by rocket-firing Typhoons of the R.A.F. 2nd T.A.F. These vessels, rusting and half submerged, can still be seen lying upside down, and on closer inspection one can observe the gaping holes which testify to the deadly effect of rocket-projectiles..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 15:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

The section on the sinking suggests that the ship was sunk when the British government was aware that it was loaded with concentration camp survivors, and that the British government is to this day engaged in a continuing attempt to cover up the evidence. Very strong proof (lacking here) should be required before any such claim can be said to be objective.Mtsmallwood (talk) 23:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I removed the phrasing there is some evidence british intelligence were aware of the prisoners and this may be why the records have been sealed. I have also re-phrased he two surrounding paragraphs where they contained similar inferences. Reasons:

1) none of the sources cited in the article suggest this. Putting in statements with apparent citations that do not support the argument is not good practice.

2)The explaination used earlier of failure to pass on messages and warnings in time of war is a more sensible and supported reason for the attack.

3) Unrelated to anything cited in the article if anyone can suggest even a vaguely coherant reason why the RAF would deliberately as opposed to by tragic error bomb and kill 5,000 of their own allies civilians and POW's. As well as of course providing verifiable sources that back this up I'll be glad to discuss it. Kurtk60 (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

1) From the Till report of June 1945: "From the facts and from the statement volunteered by the RAF Intelligence Officer, it appears that the primary responsibility for this great loss of life must fall on the British RAF personnel who failed to pass to the pilots concerned the message they received concerning the presence of KZ prisoners on board these ships".(86.64.182.240 (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)).Reply

Sorry I phrased my point 1 here poorly, apologies. Yes your spot on that a failure to pass on information was probably responsible. The reason for my edit is that the phrasing at several points in the article implied a deliberate attack on the prisoners. Rather than a tragic lack of communication in time of war. These two sentences I removed/re-phrased illustrate the point I hope.

"The attacking force stated that they were unaware that the ships were laden with prisoners. However, the facts appear otherwise. " & "The RAF reportedly thought that the ships carried escaping SS officers, but there is some evidence that British intelligence knew the truth, which may be the reason why the official records have been sealed until 2045"

I have no issue with mentioning that some elements of the RAF may not have told others about the prescence of prisoners onboard (which the Till report supports) by mistake infact it should definately be included. But the phrasing should not wander into suggesting anything more sinister? Kurtk60 (talk) 18:15, 25 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

If the three ships were just transporting concentration camp inmates for 'humanitarian' purposes, i.e., to evacuate them from a likely battle area, then why didn't the Nazi Government just tell everyone that's what they were doing. They could have placed statements in the press, announced it on the radio, informed the International Red Cross, etc,.

They didn't. Instead they kept it all quiet.

Strange way to behave if they had the well-being of the inmate's in mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 15:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

I've just read a german article of NDR-online about the topic (www.kriegsende.ard.de) where they state that 4,500 prisoners of concentration-camps had been on the Cap Arcona. Of those only about 350 survived. While 80% (I don't know of how many) of the crew, SS, guards and the Captain Bertram saved themselves. 1 hour after the attack on the Cap Arcona the frighter Thielbeck was shot at, it took 20 min. to sink. Anyway, the Thielbeck carried 2,800 prisoners, of those only 50 survived. Most of the seamen including the Captain Jacobsen died, too. They now estimate a total toll of about 7,500 prisoners, I know that the numbers don't add up right. Maybe they mean 7,500 as a total of all people who died. The third ship was the Athens. She held 2000 prisoners at the time of the sinking but was still in the Harbour of Neustadt. That's how all of them could survive.

Anyway, the Wilhelm Gustloff which was sunk on Jan.30th the same year, by the russian U-Boat S-13, carried more than 10,000 people. They were mostly children and women. Many of the women were pregnant or had little kids, most personnel was female. The Gustloff had a hospital and facilities to give birth. The people were escaping from East-Prussia, so the ship was hopelessly overfilled. Towards the end they stopped registering the passengers but say that more than 9,500 died. 5,000 of those were children. They call it the greatest ship-catastrophy of all times. The sinking of the Cap Arcona and the Thielbeck could well be the second biggest. ----Silke, 17th of Jan, 2009, early morning —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.176.89 (talk) 13:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

1) If you understand the German language, from the German Talk page "Cap Arcona" :
"Folgende Zahlen kursieren - welche sollte ich als gültig hier referenzieren? Da lasse ich es lieber unbestimmt...

vorgefunden und im Artikel so belassen: "...wobei die meisten der an Bord befindlichen ca. 4600 KZ-Häftlinge ums Leben kamen."
Bei Diercks/Grill Seite 178: "nur 350 von etwa 4.500 Häftlingen der "Cap Arcona" und 50 von 2.500 Häftlingen der "Thielbek" überlebten..."
Lange, Cap Arcona, Dokumentation 1988, Seite 78 "etwa 6.000 Personen" zum Zeitpunkt des Angriffs auf dem Schiff / wenige Seiten vorher jedoch: am "Morgen des 3. Mai 1945 4.209 Häftlinge sowie etwa 500 Mann Besatzung und Bewachung an Bord"
Weblink ARD: C.A. von 4.500 KZ-Häftlingen an Bord überleben 350, / "Thielbek" 2.800 Häftlingen nur 50 Überlebende
Weblink Abendblatt: „...nach Langes Recherchen ....Cap Arcona" 4300 Häftlinge, 400 Soldaten und 70 Mann Besatzung. Nur etwa 400 Menschen überlebten. Auf der "Thielbek" überlebten etwa 50 von mehr als 3000 Menschen."
--Holgerjan 20:01, 12. Apr. 2008 (CEST)"

Russian Wikipedia : "Cap Arcona" 5,594 victims.

2) Read the Talk page :MV Wilhelm Gustloff/Archive/1, section "Citing sources".

" http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/bio.php?ID=92&reviewID=11483 "Unsolved History: Wilhelm Gustloff - Deadliest Sea Disaster". June 15, 2004. "Just about the time you give up all hope, though, an expert from London who specializes in catastrophe factors turns up and almost saves the show. He has a software program he's developed over several years which reconstructs maritime accidents and predicts – with some fairly pinpoint accuracy – the reactions of human beings under such stress. His mingling PC people fill the basic outlines of the Gustloff's structure and the step-by-step pandemonium is played out for us. We watch stairwells overcrowd and become impassible. We see the massive build-up of "hot spots" – red areas on the monitor screen – showing where passengers line up to wait for lifeboats and meet their destiny. Using data compiled from those who were there as well as ship's registries and rosters, our authority calculates that number of survivors – and miraculously, arrives at a figure only a few dozen away from the actual total. But the most compelling news is kept for last. It wasn't three, or six, or even eight thousand people who perished in the ship. He feels that more than TEN thousand died in the Baltic that night." Bill Gibron "

(86.64.182.240 (talk) 15:31, 17 January 2009 (UTC)).Reply

The more I read about everything the more I think the estimation of the death-tolls are o.k. that way. I think they are bringing the numbers of prisoners down because at the time of the attack some 100-200 might have died of exhaustion, malnutrition, etc. I actually think that this would be nice to add to the article (just to show the people's situation on the ships before the bombing). The site deutsche-passagierschiffe.de for example says: at the evening of April 28th there were 4,600 prisoners and 500 guards on board...every day 15-30 prisoners died...less than 350 people(!?) survive the unimaginable end. This site is also listed as source of the Russian article, so I don't know yet where they get their 5594 victims from. Maybe the numbers also go down because of the French and other Westerners being taken off, but I don't know that. I think it still is totally o.k. to say that there were about 4,500 (maybe even 4,600) on board. Especially because the Captain himself says that he only had about 4,500 prisoners on board at the time of the attack. I got the number from the "Dentist of Auschwitz". Jacobs himself was still brought aboard on May 1st, as one of 60 or so. So if some had been dying or leaving, than more were already coming. That's probably why some say 4,600. I don't know where they get the numbers of survivers from, so I wouldn't change anything there right now and just leave it at 4,500 prisoners to 350 survivers. I also think that the numbers of the Thielbek differ because some include the crew and some just list the prisoners. But since almost everybody died, prisoners as crew alike, and the captain too, I would put the numbers together. And say that of 3000 people just 50 made it to shore alive. At some point the numbers have to be added so people understand why it is the second worst seafaring incident, next to the Goya, in history. As a total of about 7,500 died in the ships, the water or ashore as a result of the bombings and shootings, while 7,000 of those were concentration-camp prisoners. That's also what the memorial says.

Silke28, 11:38, Wed. 21. Jan. 2009

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.176.89 (talk) 08:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply 

There are some other sentences that trouble me.

German trawlers sent to rescue the crew... they rescued 400 SS? 20 SS women? 16 sailors? I do not know the source of this information but no other article I read says so. Everybody talks about 500 guards (deutsche-passagierschiffe.de), 500 seamen, "Flakmatrosen" and guards (deutsche Wikipedia- Seite), 400 soldiers and 70 crew-members (Lange, abendblatt.de),... Lange also says that there was no higher SS present anymore at the time of the bombing. He sees the absence of higher SS as indication that they were going to sink the ship anyway.

The German Wikipedia article states that most of them had run off in the morning. That was when the shooting of the Stutthof-Haeftlinge occured, which was another incident that day. I don't want to say its wrong, it just seems like a high number and I was wondering where it comes from. Or does 400 ss-men mean the 400 soldiers?

Another sentence is: Most of the prisoners who tried to board the trawlers were beaten off, while those who reached the shore were shot down in the surf.

Now Benjamin Jacobs in the "Dentist of Auschwitz" says: My naked comrades and the sunburned fisherman were my archangels... he was rescued by a fisherman together with other inmates, but the boat was lying so low in the water that they couldn't take anybody else. Earlier in the same chapter "Inferno" he says: "Hundreds of prisoners filled the top deck. At the stern about fifty German civilians, including a few women, and at least that many German sailors also confronted with the same dilemna." At that time he can also see the tipped Deutschland, "on one of its smokestacks appeared a large red cross".

I thought the Deutschland was attacked an hour later than the Cap Arcona, but there were still SS and about 50 sailors around. Maybe they were waiting to get picked up or something. Many of the prisoners were struggeling in the water. Later, after the ship started tilting, he says: "We were rapidly sinking. Few people were left on deck. The sailors and some SS men were still there." I guess nobody came to get them. They were still sitting on the sinking ship.

I do believe that most crew-members made it to shore, maybe right after the impact, eiter in boats or with life-wests. But it doesn't come together if the trawlers rescued all this ss and just 16 sailors.

In the next chapter of his book Benjamin Jacobs reunites with his brother, who was still on the sinking ship when he himself got rescued. The brother says that the British came and got them off the ship. Maybe they took the sailors as well. ----Silke28, 1:49, Thursd. 22.Jan.2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.176.89 (talk) 12:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Aeroplane Monthly - June 1984 - Page 290

"Cap Arcona: atrocity or accident?"

"The second attack--the one that was to have such tragic consequences--was delivered by 198 Squadron, according to Coastal Command's survey team. Nine Typhoons swept over the bay at 1500hr. They were led by Group Captain "Johnnny" Johnson, who also commanded 123 Wing. Johnson was well known as a skilful and determined fighter pilot; he ... As might be expected, Johnson's leadership on this day was effective, although his pilots were completely unaware that their targets contained a cargo of innocent victims."

- "Johnny" Johnson = "Johnny" Baldwin [John Robert Baldwin (ace) ]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 14:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think the tag has been there a while. It looks to me that the sinking section is pretty neutral now. Any objections to removing it? DHooke1973 (talk) 12:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Vaughan is an unreliable American writer. This article requires proper recourse to SS or other German archive sources to support Vaughan's ridiculous contentions. The turbines on the Ancona, a splendid liner, were repairable and replacable and it is madness to suggest that these prisoners were transferred there for some kind of destructive execution. This is just anti-nazi propaganda and tripe. 86.165.100.194 (talk) 12:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Because the Nazis were such decent, kindly folk? If you wish to cast the author as non-RS, you'll have to find sources that state so.50.111.24.147 (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

In French language :
"Le fait d’avoir enregistré le témoignage de M. Pierre Clostermann quelques semaines avant sa disparition et qui reconnaît, pour la première fois, sa présence à bord des avions qui ont bombardé le Cap Arcona est bien plus important.
Pierre Clostermann reconnaît sa présence dans les avions mais nie le fait d’avoir tiré sur les survivants dans les canots de sauvetages malgré certains témoignages contraires. Les témoignages de qui ? dit-il. Qui a témoigné ? Où étaient-ils ces témoins quand cela se passait ? Ils ne pouvaient pas être dans les avions, c’était nous qui étions dans les avions. Nous étions les seuls à pouvoir voir ou alors quelques allemands rescapés… Il poursuit : j’ai trouvé que c’était malheureux, scandaleux, manque de pot, pas de chance. C’était absurde… c’est tout. Il n’y a pas de raison que l’on regrette particulièrement tout ça. On avait des sentiments pour les camarades, pour les gens qui ont été tués à nos côtés, qui étaient nos amis sans ça… En quoi ces déportés ont-ils été utiles pour gagner la guerre ? C’était plutôt à porter au débit des alliés qu’au crédit des alliés..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.64.182.240 (talk) 10:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Google translation of above:

"Having recorded the testimony of Mr. Pierre Clostermann few weeks before his death and which recognizes, for the first time, his presence on board aircraft which bombed the Cap Arcona is much more important.

Pierre Clostermann his presence in the aircraft but denied having fired on the survivors in the lifeboats despite some contrary testimony. The testimony of that? he said. Who testified? Where were these witnesses when this happened? They could not be in airplanes, it was we who were in airplanes. We were the only ones who can see and then some German survivors ... He continues: I thought it was unfortunate, outrageous, hard luck, no luck. It was absurd ... that's all. There is no reason why we particularly regret it all. We had feelings for friends, for people who were killed on our side, who were our friends without it ... What the deportees have been useful to win the war? It was rather to be debited and credited allies allies..."

~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

You can buy the US photos in Arlington (Virginia, USA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.172.88.8 (talk) 11:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

The article says he was ordered to hang himself, but the link takes you to his biography page, and it says he died in 1969. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.35.150.195 (talk) 00:28, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have reverted the attached paragraph; which is duplicated in the article on White Buses and belongs much better there; as the Swedish rescue operation had no organisational link in with the Cap Arcona sinkings; and had been completed some days earlier. TomHennell (talk) 14:56, 8 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

"On 30 April 1945, two Swedish ships, Magdalena and Lillie Matthiessen, sailed from Lübeck, the first with 223 western European prisoners, for the most part French-speaking. Among them was Michel Hollard, a member of the French Resistance, who had been transferred from Thielbek to Magdalena. Lillie Matthiesen carried 225 women from Ravensbrück for transportation to hospitals in Sweden.^{[citation needed]}"

It is part of the "prison ship" story, though. Most of the prisoners were from Neuengamme, but some of these were prematurely rescued by this Swedish action. Ditto for the prisoners from Ravensbrück. There is a debate about the prisoners from Dora-Mittelbau, since part of these people originally came from Auschwitz - Furstengrübe, and there was a selection of prisoners by the Swedish Red Cross in the barns near Ahrensbök (cf. books of Benjamin Jacobs and Samuel Pivnik), when prisoners from Western Europe were rescued and from Eastern Europe were marched off later to Neustadt Bay and loaded on the Cap Arcona. Furthermore, Dr. Arnoldsson of the Swedish Red Cross warned the British Army about KZ prisoners on the ships on May 3, in addition to the warning of Paul de Blonay on May 2. As an aside, the people from Stutthof were loaded on their barges on April 25, 1945, and towed to arrive in Neustadt Bay in the evening of May 2. They docked alongside the Cap Arcona, but were refused, and later the prisoners went off on their own and stranded on the beach in the morning of May 3. (Bomwatty (talk) 11:09, 9 June 2015 (UTC))Reply

Neither the Magdalena nor the Lillie Matthiessen were German prison ships though; they were the Swedish support vessels for the White Buses operation; mainly transporting fuel for the buses (and were clearly Red Cross marked). Once the designated 'White Buses' prisoners had been evacuated, the two boats became available for one additional rescue mission on 30 April. The sinking of the Cap Arcona was three days later. By definition, the prisoners trasferred to the prison flotilla from Neuengamme were going to be those not released from Neuengamme through the White Bus programme - e.g Russian POWs. Whatever may have been the motivation for moving the residual inmates to the flotilla (and that is still highly confused); prisoner release was not among them. Otherwise why not just leave them in the camp when the British and Canadians approached? There had been some initial planning in late April for setting up a final-retreat concentration camp in Norway (using guards evacuated from Sachsenhausen) but by the beginning of May the priority of the KL leadership was personal escape. Realising that in SS uniform they could no more surrender to the Western Allies as to the Russians, the bulk of them had gathered in Flensburg by 2nd May; and as much as anything, hiding the prisoners below decks in the three ships appears to have been a means to delay their discovery for a few days during which the SS leadership would hide their identities and "dive down into the Wehrmacht", as Himmler (and Donitz)advised them to do on 3rd May. TomHennell (talk) 13:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

The Magdalena and Lillie Matthiessen transport on April 30 has been described on page 7 of the Swedish report listed indicated as note 1 in the English Wikipedia page on the White Buses. It is not clear whether the breakdown given there is entirely correct. In any case, this transport was organized by de Blonay and Arnoldsson, after they had found out in Lübeck harbour that there were ~ 7 000 KZ prisoners on the ships, and obtained permission to transport some of these prisoners to Sweden. It is not clear to me at all that whatever happened to Dönitz c.s. in Flensburg had any influence on the behaviour of people in the Lübeck area. Bomwatty (talk) 14:57, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

on 30 April, Dönitz HQ as supreme military commander in the North was still at Plön, only a few miles from Lübeck; and he was very much in control of the Wehrmacht forces in the city; though not of course of the SS prison ships out it the bay. He only moved his HQ to Flensburg on 2 May, joining the SS leadership who were already there (albeit that Himmler himself didn't arive til 3 May). From then on, Dönitz as Reichs President and the SS in Flensburg were dancing around one another; whereas Dönitz promptly assumed command of the OKW (and obtained pledges of allegiance from all the Army Group commanders not previously under his control), he pointedly refused to do so publicly for the SS. While covertly, making arrangements enable the SS leadership to escape from the British and Americacns was as much a polity of the Flensburgh government, as was continuing arrangements for regular troops to escape from the Russians. The point being that without Dönitz agreement, the SS leadership could neither escape to Norway (as they had originally planned), nor be hidden in the Wehrmacht (as eventually happened). But either way, the prisoners on the ships were an embarassment that neither Dönitz nor the SS Leadership at Flensburg wanted to admit to knowing about. TomHennell (talk) 16:57, 9 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

I have reinserted this reference at a more appropriate point in the text - with a link across to the White Buses article. I suggest that further details and corrections would be more appropriately mmde there. Nothing that I have found links that rescue mission specifically with the Cap Arcona - which is the particular subject of this article. TomHennell (talk) 08:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

This is pretty confusing: "Draught: 12.8 m (8.7 m)." 12.8 is obviously wrong, but I wonder if 8.7 is correct. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:20, 19 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

This article mentions that Cap Arcona was equipped for submarine signalling, as do many other ship articles. This is unlinked, and I cannot find an article describing it. Davidships (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

At the time, the term referred to a primitive form of underwater acoustic communication using a Fessenden oscillator. It could be used for communication between ships and also served as a form of sonar, particularly for locating icebergs. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

Dönitz sought, as did everyone in the East, including many Russians, Jews and POW's, to escape from the advancing Soviets. That was the purpose of these fleets. I am not aware of any basis for the suggestion that Donitz sought "while surrendering" [whatever that means], to "maintain the fiction that his administration had been free from involvement in the camps, or in Hitler's policies of genocide". Helping soldiers and other refugees to flee is not the same as maintaining a "fiction" about anything. As for "Hitler's policies of genocide", that is simply irrelevant - even if it was true that he had such an intention.Royalcourtier (talk) 07:50, 31 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

The prison fleet had no possible function in assisting evacuation of German troops from the Russians; all the vessels were unseaworthy by this stage. Nevertheless, they were within the territory over which Dönitz claimed nominal control following the death of Hitler; being almost literally outside his window - at any rate he cannot have been unaware of them as he moved between Plon and Flensburg. Moreover, Konrad Engelhardt (who was directing Operation Hannibal for Dönitz) knew of the fleet's proposed use for Concentration Camp prisoners from the protests of their maritime crews, but his attempt to forestall this use in the last weeks of April had fallen on deaf ears. It is reasonable to question the motives of Dönitz's concentration on rescuing German soldiers from Russian captivity, when he entirely failed to act to release the prisoners from the Lubeck Bay fleet (or at very least to alert the Allies to their existence). As to Dönitz maintaining the fiction of non-involvement in the camps and killing facilities; his Flensburg Government did little else in the period from the military surrender on 8 May 1945 to their arrest on 23 May, other than compose fictional exculpations for the German state and army of any involvement in Nazi crimes. TomHennell (talk) 14:18, 31 May 2017 (UTC)Reply

As Dönitz moved between Plön and Flensburg, he went to the Northwest, by car, presumably. The distance between these places is about 120 km. Neustadt in Holstein is almost due East of Plön, about 30 km away. This is NOT "literally outside his window". He moved his headquarters from Plön to Flensburg on May 2, and concentrated on reaching an armistice with the western Allies. In "the Instrument of Surrender", the reference to ships was added in by hand: see ^[1]. Bomwatty (talk) 10:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

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I have reverted material added to this discussion page that openly maintained assertions of Holocaust denial. Just to clarify; Holocaust denial is a blatant hoax - such assertions are of course also false, malicious, dangerous and (in many jurisdictions) illegal; but in terms of strict Wikipedia policies it is sufficient to note that blatant hoax material is to be removed from any articles and discussion pages whenever and wherever it may be posted. TomHennell (talk) 13:23, 8 April 2019 (UTC)Reply