SS Cap Arcona

Cap Arcona in 1927
History
Germany (Weimar Republic)
NameS.S. Cap Arcona
NamesakeCape Arkona
OperatorHamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft
RoutePort of Hamburg (Germany) – Port of Buenos Aires (Argentina)
BuilderBlohm+Voss, Hamburg[1]
Yard number476
Laid down21 July 1926
Launched14 May 1927[1]
Maiden voyage29 October 1927
HomeportPort of Hamburg, (Hamburg, Germany)
Identification
Nickname(s)
  • Queen of the South Atlantic
  • The Floating Palace
FateRequisitioned for the Kriegsmarine (Nazi German War Navy), in November 1940
Nazi Germany
NameS.S. Cap Arcona
OperatorKriegsmarine (Nazi German War Navy)
Acquired29 November 1940[1]
Out of service1940 – 14 April 1945
FateSunk by British Royal Air Force aerial attack and bombing on 3 May 1945. Wreck dismantled / scrapped in 1949.
General characteristics [1]
TypeOcean liner
Tonnage
  • 27,561 GRT[1]
  • tonnage under deck 17,665
  • 15,011 NRT
Length206.90 m (678 ft 10 in) overall[1]
Beam25.78 m (84 ft 7 in)[1]
Draught8.67 m (28 ft 5 in)[1]
Depth14.30 m (46 ft 11 in)[1]
Decks5[1]
Installed power23,672 shp (17,652 kW)[1]
Propulsioneight steam turbines, two propellers[1]
SpeedService: 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)[1][note 1]
Range11,110 nmi (20,580 km; 12,790 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)[1]
Boats & landing
craft carried		26 lifeboats
Capacity
  • From 1927: 575 1st class, 275 2nd class, 465 in dormitories; total 1,315
  • From 1937: total 850
Crew475 [1]
Sensors and
processing systems

SS Cap Arcona, named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen, was a large German ocean liner, later a requisitioned auxiliary ship of the Kriegsmarine (Nazi German War Navy), and finally a prison ship in the later months of World War II (1939–1945). A flagship of the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft ("Hamburg-South America Line"), she made her maiden voyage on 29 October 1927, carrying passengers and cargo between Germany and the east coast of South America, and for a brief period of time she was the largest and fastest ship on the route,[2] until one month later she was surpassed on the same Europe-South America route by the Italian liner MS Augustus.

In 1940, the Kriegsmarine (Nazi German War Navy) requisitioned the S.S. Cap Arcona as an accommodation ship. In 1942 she served as the set for the German propaganda feature film Titanic. In 1945 she evacuated almost 26,000 German civilian refugees from East Prussia before the advance of the Red Army.

Cap Arcona's final use was as a prison ship. In May 1945 she was heavily laden with prisoners from Nazi concentration camps when the Royal Air Force bombed her in the western Baltic Sea, killing about 5,000 people; with more than 2,000 further casualties in the sinkings of the accompanying vessels of the prison fleet, Deutschland and Thielbek.[3] This was one of the largest single-incident maritime losses of life in the Second World War.

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Gröner 1988, pp. 78–79.
  2. ^ Talbot-Booth 1936, p. 410
  3. ^ Watson, Robert, The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II, Da Capo Press, 2016 ISBN 978-0-3068-2489-0 p. 247


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