page_title: Prison ship
section_title: Nazi Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Prison ship / History / Nazi Germany
caption_attribution_description: English: Pic "Cap Arcona"
context_page_description: A prison ship, often more accurately described as a prison hulk, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. While many nations have deployed prison ships over time, the practice was most widespread in seventeenth and eighteenth century Britain, as the government sought to address the issues of overcrowded civilian jails on land and an influx of enemy detainees from the War of Jenkins' Ear, the Seven Years' War and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
context_section_description: Nazi Germany assembled a small fleet of ships in the Bay of Lübeck to hold concentration camp prisoners. They included the passenger liners Cap Arcona and Deutschland, and the vessels Thielbek, and Athen. All were destroyed on May 3, 1945 by RAF aircraft; most of the inmates were either killed by bombing or strafing, burned alive, drowned while trying to reach the shore, or killed by the SS guards.
caption: Cap Arcona, a passenger liner, was converted by Nazi Germany to hold concentration camp prisoners
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