SS Cap Arcona 1945
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | SS Cap Arcona | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1945 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | ocean liner, prison ship | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Wikidata P828 has cause (on P793 event): airstrike |
| Nationality / flag | Germany | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Hamburg Süd, Kriegsmarine | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | Operation Hannibal | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Mecklenburger Bucht | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Germany | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 5 km from land |
| Position | 54.0418, 10.8642 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
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, until one month later she was surpassed on the same Europe-South America route by the Italian liner MS Augustus.
In 1940, the Kriegsmarine 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…
Location
- Recorded position: 54.0418, 10.8642 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Mecklenburger Bucht
- Nearest coast: Germany
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SS Cap Arcona (revision 1372232399), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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Browse more: Europe wrecks · wrecks off Germany · Mecklenburger Bucht · Second World War