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Cap Arcona was built for the
German based Hamburg South Amerika Line,
or better known as the Hamburg Sud Line.
This company was founded November 4th
1871 to create a service for the growing
emigration trade from Germany - South
America. Hamburg Sud were one of the
largest companies operating on the South
American run until the Treaty of
Versailles stripped them of all their
ships after World War One. Their fleet
was distributed between Germany’s
conquerors to replace ships they lost
during the war. This forced Hamburg Sud
to order small liners and charter ships
from other companies to rebuild their
fleet. By the mid 1920s, they had
recovered enough to order their new
flagship Cap Arcona. This
ship set out on her maiden voyage from
Hamburg - La Plata/Argentina November
19th 1927.
By the time World War Two broke out in
September 1939, the Hamburg Sud Line had
built up a fleet of 52 ships. Cap
Arcona was laid up at Gdynia at
that time to avoid being captured by the
Allies. Between late 1944 and May 1945,
German ships transported over two million
East German refugees to the west in an
attempt to save them from being
slaughtered by the advancing Russian
armies. Cap Arcona made
three such runs across the Baltic Sea in
1945 rescuing 26,000 refugees. The Nazis
operated Cap Arcona as a
floating prison in the dying days of the
war with 5,000 prisoners from the
Neuengamme concentration camp being
transferred to the ship. As Allied forces
closed in on the last remaining German
held positions, Cap Arcona
was attacked by British Typhoon bombers
May 3rd 1945 and sunk with the loss of
almost all on board. British forces
marched into the City of Neustadt the
following day. Had the troops arrived one
day earlier, they would have taken
control of the ship and freed the
prisoners.
Below, Cap Arcona on fire
and sinking
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