Talk:SS Cap Arcona

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  5000 victims?

message: 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)
thread_title:  "193 Fighter Squadron" 

message: Dear anonymous contributor who repeats to change the external links:
Please don't change the URLs to [], 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: 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)
thread_title:  Changing external links 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Hoisting of the White Ensign 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Infobox header 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Is This English? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  WP:NOR and poor referencing 

message: 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. 
*Armenia(November 7, 1941) The latest Russian sources put the death toll at 7,000
*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. 
--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third-worst maritime disaster in history 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Has the "Till Report" ever been published? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Confusion with the "Wilhelm Gustloff", and/or disinformation ? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  death toll Cap Arcona and frighter Thielbeck 

message: 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)
thread_title:  who was the crew?  ss? soldiers? Flakmatrosen? sailors? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  "Johnny" Johnson ? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Removal of NPOV tag 

message: 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)
thread_title: Where can you buy the US photos ?

message: 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)
thread_title:  Karl Kaufmann ordered to hang himself by Hitler. 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  ''Magdalena'' and ''Lillie Matthiessen'' 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Draught 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Submarine signalling 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Maintaining fiction, or fleeing advancing Soviets 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Holocaust denial