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The Maritime History of Humanity told through the worldwide largest maritime private collection of Prof. Peter Tamm at the heart of the Port of Hamburg.
https://www.imm-hamburg.de
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her 1:100 scale model, used for special effects in the German ZDF TV-Production "Die Gustloff" (2008), stands on deck 4 of the museum.
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Sailing in deep waters with the torpedo boat Löwe as her single escort, a non-operational main radio system and by temperatures of -20°C that had frozen the mechanisms to lower the lifeboats. The exact number of persons who died most certainly exceeds 9.000.
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On January the 30th 1945 the ship left her port as part of the last-minute evacuation of the area. In the chaos of the situation the ship, that was recognizable as a military vessel, took thousands of civilian refuge seekers aboard.
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After Germany started World War II, the Gustloff served as a hospital ship until November 1940. She was then painted in naval grey and became floating barracks at the port of Gdyna, that had been renamed Gotenhafen by the German occupation.
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As such, she was a propagandistic instrument for the dictatorship. She was a very interesting ship from a naval architecture perspective, as the solution met for her function made her structurally similar to modern cruise ships.
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Built to be transformed into an hospital ship in wartime, she was originally a cruise ship owned by the German Labour Front (DAF), the organisation that had suppressed all trade unions in Nazi Germany. The ship made cruises for the Strength Through Joy (KdF), a sub-organisation of the DAF.
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She was built between 1936 and 1937 at the Blohm+Voss B.V. & Co. KG shipyard in Hamburg. It was named after the founder of the Nazi Party branch in Switzerland, declared a martyr by the German propaganda after his murder in 1936.
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This is by any means the largest loss of lives by the sinking of a single ship in history.
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Beside military passengers, the ship was overcrowded with civilians seeking refuge from the advances of the Red Army. Only 1.239 passengers of an estimated number of over 10.000 survived the tragedy.
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80 years ago to this day, on January the 30th 1945, the armed military transport of Nazi Germany Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13, 23 sea miles off the Harbour of Ustka in the Baltic Sea.
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When David Ben Gurion declared the independence of Israel on Mai 1948, most of the refugees form the “Exodus” had already made it to their destination.
This model of the exodus from our collection was built in a scale of 1:125 by Robert Mourat and is displayed on deck 6 of the museum.
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But the international press had started reporting on the story and the drama turned into a media scandal. On October the 6th, the British authorities set the prisoners free.
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The prisoners were then taken to the British Occupation Zone in Northern Germany. They arrived in September to Hamburg. There, the prisoners were taken out of the ships by force and interned in camps.
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Upon arrival in Haifa, most of the migrants were moved to prison ships. Only pregnant women and the wounded were allowed to stay.
The prison ships were to take the migrants back to France but in Port-de-Bouc only a few accepted to leave the ships.
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The Exodus sailed to Haifa then. But, during the next night, the British rammed and boarded the ship. The migrants posed a strong resistance. There were numerous wounded and five dead: four Jews and one British sailor.
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On July the 11th 1947 the ship left the port of Sète in France. 4.515 Jewish DPs were on board, 650 of them were children. The Royal Navy followed them with HMS Ajax and five destroyers. On July the 17th, the ship was renamed “Exodus from Europe 1947” and a flag with the Star of David was risen.
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For this reason, the Jewish underground organisation Haganah had been organising illegal migration to Palestine since the early 1930s.
The US-American steam ship President Warfield was purchased and modified for this purpose in 1946.
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Palestine, under British control at the time, was one of the principal migration objectives for those DPs. But the UK had had a very restrictive immigration policy regarding Jews to Palestine for decades, and no intention to change it.
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Many survivors became DPs (“Displaced Persons”) after the war. In Western Germany and other West European countries, this people were taken care of in “DP Camps”. In 1947 there were over 250.000 Jewish DPs in Germany and 40.000 in France.
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For the survivors, the liberation of the camps meant an end to the systematic torture and mass murder, but not an end to suffering. Everything had been taken away from them. Only a few had a place they could return to and, even for those, the end of Nazism had not ended Antisemitism.
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Stats:
Length / width / draught: 29.90 m / 8.00 m / 1.6 m
Crew/ scientists: 2 (+1) / 12
Laboratory area/ working deck area: 47 m²/ 70 m²
Operating range: coastal cruising international 100 nautical miles
Speed: max. 12 knots
Engine power: 750 kW
Operating days/year: approx. 225
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The model is now in our collection and will eventually become part of our oceanographic exhibition in deck 7.
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One of these is a specially developed tank system in which hydrogen is stored in the form of metal hydrides. This makes it possible to test and establish hydrogen technologies for more environmentally friendly shipping. She can be used in rivers and the North and Baltic Seas.
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All environmentally relevant research data collected during her journeys can be called up in real time or shared directly with other ships and shore stations.
Her propulsion system consists of electric traction motors that can access various power storage units.
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She covers a unique interdisciplinary spectrum of coastal, materials, hydrogen and membrane research with a focus in digitalisation. The Coriolis analyses which nutrients and pollutants are transported from the rivers into the sea or how the expansion of offshore wind power affects the environment.
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Danke!
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Ein guten Rutsch, Käpt’n!
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The most famous among those objects are the POW Bone Ship Models, that they made from the leftover bones from the meat in their rations using the rudimentary tools they had access to. Here is our marvellous collection of Bone Ship Models. #scalemodelsworld #navy #museum #hamburg #maritime
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The conditions under which they were interned varied a lot; between those who suffered in awful #ship hulks and the officers that could, under parole, enjoy an almost free civilian life. Those that were talented enough with their hands, could earn money producing and selling objects of all kinds.
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Thank you for your visit! We are glad you enjoyed it.
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This picture is but a detail of the section of our general display of 1:1250 miniatures on deck 9 of the museum. The design of the display was directly supervised by our founder, and it is the heart of our collections.
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The general display of 1:1250 scale miniatures on deck 9 of the museum shows over 50.000 single ships and other vessels.
Be careful about the gifts you make. You never know what you can start.
We whish a merry Christmas to the ones among you who celebrate it, and all the best to everyone!
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That child grew to become Prof. Peter Tamm, founder of the International Maritime Museum Hamburg. After over 80 years of collecting passion, he passed away in December 2016. But, in a way, he has not stopped collecting. The team of the museum continues his work.
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The child could see ships like that one every day in the river Elbe, and now he could have one in the palm of his hand. He started collecting miniature ships and decided he wanted to become an admiral. He never became an admiral, but he made the worldwide largest private #maritime #collection.
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The impressive model of the Admiral Graf Spee was built by master Helmut Schmidt in a scale of 1:100 and is on display on deck 5 of the museum.
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Langsdorff allegedly said that he preferred „[…] thousand living young men to thousand dead heroes“. The larger part of the crew was interned in Argentina at first and many ended up making a life there, where numerous of their descendants still live today. A smaller group was interned in Uruguay.
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The wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee burned for three days. Langsdorff committed suicide in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two days later.
Captain Hans Langsdorff had considered the life of his crew more important than a mission that would have been a suicide and had no effect in the course of the war.
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In the evening of December the 17th, the ship left the port of Montevideo and lowered the anchor. Captain Langsdorff and the skeleton crew of 40 aboard set timed explosives and abandoned ship to meet with the rest of the crew, that had stayed in Montevideo.
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On top of that, the British MI6 had fed false informations about a larger naval force blockading the River Plate. The German ship had only one day's worth of usable fuel and, due to the swallow waters in the Mouth of the River Plate, no chance to reach another port.
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After the battle, the ship was moored in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The country was neutral in the conflict, but Britain had a notable political influence on it. The Graf Spee would have needed two weeks to be repaired, but it was only allowed to stay in Montevideo for 72 hours.