"Cricket" for the villain
Flottentender "C"
How many reflections and opinions on the role of personality in stories... How much is said and written ...
What was needed in order for such a passionate nation as the Germans, which gave mankind many scientists, composers, teachers, doctors and philosophers, to expel from the unknown abyss of chaos and timelessness a nondescript person - a corporal infantryman, wounded, gassed on the battlefields world war?
What is needed so that scoundrels and scoundrels can seize absolutely unlimited power in the country?
Nothing at all: a nation put in a humiliating position, a leader's charisma and money ...
In Germany, in the interval between the two worlds, conditions developed that allowed the Nazis to come to power. The Germans could not come to terms with defeat. The masses were seized by the idea that democracy is a system imposed on the German people, contrary to their traditions and character, and the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles prohibiting having a normal army and the payment of exorbitant reparations were regarded as flagrant injustice. The nation was humiliated - nowhere else.
The Fuhrer could only play on the mood of society.
Calls to return Germany to its former greatness fell like a balm on the souls of the Germans. The population was ready to endure any restrictions for the sake of the revival of Greater Germany.
The basis of the policy of the Nazi regime was the preparation for revenge for the lost World War I. The propaganda treatment of the population was carried out in the same spirit.
The leader's charisma would be enough for three.
And the money will be given by bankers and large industrialists after the victory of his party in the elections to the Reichstag in 1933. And for the reconstruction of industry, and the deployment of large-scale construction, and the creation of strategic reserves. They are the first to sense what the smell of profits is and what is going on here ...
In 1934, German industrialists decided to make a gift to the newly-made Reich Chancellor and Fuhrer of Germany in one person.
For this purpose, in Hamburg, at the shipyard of the shipbuilding company Blohm & Voss, in June 1934, an advice type vessel was laid down under the temporary name Flottentender "C".
"Cricket"
The Germans knew how to build quickly, and on December 15 of the same year it was launched with the name Grille.
The name was intended to emphasize the continuity of generations, since as early as 1857 the Prussian fleet had a royal yacht called Grille.
Her name was chosen by King Frederick William IV from the play Grille by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer.
It was the first steamer of the Prussian naval fleetequipped with a propeller rather than paddle wheels like earlier ships. He was excluded from the naval register only on January 7, 1920. By then, she had served nearly sixty-three years, the longest serving of any vessel in the Imperial Navy.
The new Grille was officially a lightly armed navigation training ship designed for experiments in testing high-pressure turbine engines. The boat could also be used as a minelayer, as it had storage space for 280 mines and related equipment.
The overall design of the ship was simple.
The yacht was 115 meters (377 feet) long at the waterline and 135 meters (443 feet) long. She had a width of 13,5 m (44 ft) and a draft of 4,2 m (14 ft). Its standard displacement was 2 long tons (560 tons), and at full load, the displacement increased to 2 long tons (600 tons).
1 British ton = 20 long handweights = 2240 trading pounds = exactly 1016,0469088 kilograms.
The crew consisted of 248 sailors and officers.
The ship's propulsion system consisted of two high pressure steam turbines manufactured by Blohm & Voss, where steam was supplied by two Benson water tube boilers. Grille was equipped with these turbines to be tested before being installed on new destroyers. The engines were rated at 22 shaft horsepower (000 kW) for a top speed of 16 knots (000 km / h; 26 mph). She had a cruising radius of 48 nautical miles (30 km; 9 miles).
By the way, those experimental high-pressure turbines with Benson boilers were for some reason unsuitable for use on warships, and Grille returned to Blohm & Voss for five months to replace this equipment. After that, in July 1936, the ship made a long-distance test voyage to Iceland, which ended without problems.
The yacht was armed with three 12,7 cm (5 inches) SK C / 34 naval guns, manufactured by Rheinmetall-Borsig AG, one in the bow and two in the stern.
The real caliber of the C / 34 gun was 128 mm, the barrel length was 45 calibers. It had a lined barrel with a vertical sliding breech, a hydraulic recoil mechanism and two spring rollers. The firing range of a 28-kg projectile reached 94 cables (17,4 km).
They looked something like this.
Bow guns 12,7 cm SKC / 34 of the destroyer Z-21 Wilhelm Heidkamp
Drawing from the description of the structure.
She also carried four 3,7 cm (1,5 in) SK C / 30 anti-aircraft guns in two twin mounts.
SK C / 30
Dopp LC / 30 installation with 37 mm / 83 SK C / 30 semi-automatic machines. Fragment of the original drawing.
Twin Dopp LC / 30 installation with 37 mm / 83 SK C / 30 semi-automatic machines. Royal Danish Arsenal Museum, Copenhagen.
On board was also a set of 2 cm (0,79 in) C / 30 anti-aircraft guns in a quad mount. They were subsequently replaced by the naval Vierling C / 38.
The yacht's interiors were designed by leading architect Fritz Breihaus and artist Karl Olszewski.
Some of the ship's rooms were specially equipped for the Fuehrer: a suite with an entrance hall, bedroom and bathroom. The bath was installed flush with the floor. The floor was carpeted, a desk, sofa and chairs upholstered in soft blue leather and creamy white walls. On the contrary, there was an exact duplicate of his apartment with a predominance of red and burgundy tones in the interior for Eva Braun, although she had never visited the yacht.
The honorary visitors included 35 luxurious guest cabins, a fully electric galley, a laundry room, an infirmary equipped with the latest medical technology of the time, and a plant capable of desalinating 24 tons of water per day.
However, the Fuhrer was never able to fully appreciate all the advantages of the yacht.
He used it only when, as they say, "nobless licking" (the position obliges), since by his land essence he was an absolute "boot", he did not understand anything in naval affairs, and most importantly, he suffered terribly from seasickness. He could not even eat right on the yacht and sleep well because of this. According to the recollections of contemporaries, he wandered around it completely green, hungry and angry, clinging to the crew for trifles and annoying the guests.
As a state yacht, Grille was used several times on official occasions, such as the naval parade in honor of the 20th anniversary of the naval battle in Skagerrak on May 30, 1936, sailing competitions at the XI Olympic Games in the summer of 1936, the state visit of the Hungarian regent vice admiral Miklos Horthy in the summer of 1938, the state visit of the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III in August 1939, and the state visit of Benito Mussolini in the summer of 1942.
From August 1935 to December 1938, several travels and overnight stays of the Reich Chancellor on board the ship were documented.
In May 1936, he took Admiral Erich Raeder, commander of the Kriegsmarine, with him to Labeux to unveil a naval memorial. In October, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, Minister of War, visits Norway, cruising north to North Cape. Blomberg also made official visits to a number of ports, including Funchal, Madeira and Ponta Delgada.
Grille carried the Wehrmacht delegation that represented Germany at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in mid-May 1937. During the voyage, the ship visited Southampton and Spithead. In early June, she served as the flagship of the German naval commander, Admiral Rolf Karls, during a naval exercise in the North Sea.
Rolf Hans Wilhelm Karl Karls
It was used by government officials to celebrate the launch of the Wilhelm Gustloff cruise ship, the Prinz Eugen heavy cruiser and the Horst Wessel training and sailing ship.
With the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, Grille was mobilized for military service. From September 1 to 9, the commander of the armored forces of the fleet, Wilhelm Marshall, used her as a temporary flagship.
Wilhelm Marshall
In mid-September, the yacht was returned to the Baltic, where she was sent to patrol the enemy's merchant ships.
On the night of January 14, 1940, Grille unintentionally rammed the small Danish freighter Axel off the coast of Kiel, which soon sank. The bow of the yacht was damaged and required repairs, which were completed on 5 February.
Grille was then transferred to the North Sea to help lay minefields to defend against British attacks. She carried out two minefield operations with the light cruiser Köln and several destroyers, the first on May 17-18, and the second on May 19-20. Grille was then attached to the artillery school for training purposes.
In preparation for Operation Sea Lion, a planned invasion of Britain on a 275-mile front from Ramsgate to Portland, Grille was assigned in September 1940 as flagship by Walter Krastel, deputy mine action commander for Marine Group North.
In early September, she was transferred to the Eastern Group in Ostend, Belgium. The Eastern Group was instructed to cover the landing sites of the German forces by laying minefields on both sides to prevent the intervention of the British Royal Navy.
The first stage of the operation plan was to crush the British fleet in the North Sea and the English Channel, followed by the occupation of the southern counties of England.
The second stage was for the triumphant arrival of the German Fuehrer at the port of London aboard the yacht Grille to personally accept Britain's surrender in Parliament at Whitehall.
In the third stage, after his victorious arrival in London, he had to immediately go by motorboat to Windsor Castle, which had already been designated as his "London home".
Grille carried three diesel-powered small boats on their decks. They were all built by the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen and were called Motorbooten 1, 2 and 3.
The invasion was postponed "until further notice" on September 17, and three days later Grille and other ships were transferred to Rotterdam, Netherlands. The next day, the German command completely canceled the operation, and Grille was transferred back to the artillery school.
During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Grille was again assigned as the flagship of the minelayers. She participated in the installation of minefields in the Baltic.
Then she returned back to the artillery school, where she served for the next seven months. During this period, the yacht was also used as a target ship for submarine crews.
From March 1942 she served as the command ship of the naval commander in occupied Norway and remained in Norwegian waters until the end of the war.
On May 1, 1945, Grand Admiral Dönitz boarded the Grille and there, on the bow deck, announced the death of the Führer of Germany. It is written in the logbook that
"He, acting on the orders of the Fuehrer, took over the leadership of the German nation and the supreme command of the armed forces."
The last German journal entry was:
"May 2-4: the flag was lowered in memory of the heroic death of our Fuhrer" ...
A few days later, Grille was captured by the British as a trophy of war and, stained with rust on its gray hull, with one boiler working, sailed from Trondheim. With her last German crew under the command of British officers, she anchored in Scotland at Rosyth, a town on the Firth of Forth, three miles south of Dunfermline in the former Royal Naval Dockyard. The ship was disarmed and all military equipment removed.
A couple of months later, the yacht will be towed to an old coal dock in Hartlepool, County Durham, and a year later will be put up for sale to anyone with the highest bidder in a public auction ...
"Igris"
In August 1946, the Admiralty announced that the winning bidder, a Canadian ship owner and financier living in Byfleet, Surrey, had paid about £ 125 for it and was planning to travel around the world to promote British exports.
Two years later, the ship was again put up for sale at a price of £ 400 and was eventually bought by Mr. George Arida, a Lebanese textile manufacturer, for £ 000.
The same George Arida, who during the war sold material for the tropical uniform of the British troops, and also personally participated in the financing and development of the construction of the British fighter "Spitfire" and received the title and post of honorary consul for his services to Britain.
Arida secretly represented King Farouk I of Egypt, who did not want to publicly participate in the purchase of a "Nazi yacht."
Farouk I (February 11, 1920 - March 18, 1965) - King of Egypt and Sudan in 1936-1952.
Farouk was already criticized from all sides for his curtsey to Germany.
Soon after the war, he recruited a great many former German officers, including war criminals who fled from denazification, and engineers who participated in the military projects of Nazi Germany. They faithfully served Egypt until the mid-60s in the army, counterintelligence, propaganda structures, military factories and even participated in the creation of a missile weapons... But that's a completely different story ...
Arida put the yacht in order, invited specialists from Blohm & Voss and repaired a lot at his own expense, gave it a new name - "Igris".
Igris. Beirut. The year is 1948.
So the beautiful yacht would have gone to the Egyptian king, if someone had not blown into the ears of the Israelis that they are preparing to arm the yacht and use it in the Egyptian Navy against the newborn Jewish state.
In the midst of the war of independence, Israel could not allow this, and it was decided to sink the yacht. This is what the main version of the events of those distant days of 1948 says.
I will not go into particular, since this story over the past 70 years has been overgrown with a bunch of completely incredible details, gossip, speculation and tales, like an old barge - shells. Moreover, it was overgrown to such an extent that these very shells drowned the unfortunate barge.
In short, this was the case.
Israel's intelligence services were just being formed. There were no specialists in the field of underwater mining who could undermine the vessel. A volunteer was involved in the case - a nineteen-year-old boy who, a week ago, did not even know how to swim. Some old divers at an accelerated pace taught him the basics of scuba diving and subversion. On the basis of some repair shops, craftsmen made two five-kilogram magnetic mines with a clockwork. In a word, amateurism was raging with might and main.
On November 29, 1948, the boy was dropped off the PALMAKh patrol boat in the Beirut area. There he was met and taken to the port closer to the place where the Igris was at the pier.
Our hero, with all sorts of difficulties and adventures, covered 500 meters to the ship and attached two magnetic mines to the board. Moreover, he accidentally drowned the detonator of one of them ...
At the appointed time, the second also did not explode.
I had to return to sail again and lay new mines, but for fear that the old one might work, the operation was canceled at the last moment.
The mine went off by itself on December 17th. Why - no one knows.
The yacht got a hole, a fire started, but the crew and sailors from neighboring ships who arrived in time quickly coped with the fire and kept the ship afloat.
Be that as it may, but the transfer of the yacht to Egypt did not take place, the king suddenly lost interest in his purchase, leaving Mr. Arida, who already hates the sea, a ship and unpaid bills.
The irrepressible Arida cleaned up the yacht again and ferried it to New York, where he hoped to find someone who would be interested in turning it into a luxury cruise ship or floating casino.
Here is a yacht in New York. Recent documentary filming.
However, the yacht turned out to be a very expensive toy.
In April 1951, four years after purchase, he sold it for scrap for £ 35, less than one tenth of what he paid, and the ship was towed to a shipyard on the Delaware River, where the yacht was scrapped.
Souvenir hunters removed the yacht's toilet from the ship, and now the toilet, on which the Reich Chancellor of Germany himself sat, has become a relic for fans of the possessed Fuhrer.
In October 2020, a Maryland-based auctioneer announced that he would be offering a large ball-shaped aluminum bar with five bar stools from the yacht for sale.
PS
According to the official version, the Israelis decided to blow up the yacht out of fears that it would significantly strengthen the enemy fleet. However, in our time, journalist and writer Matti Friedman, author of a book about Israeli intelligence "Rootless Spies", voiced a different version. One of the scouts who gave Friedman an interview put it this way: “The Fuhrer's yacht unexpectedly“ surfaced ”in the port of Beirut - and not just surfaced, but was preparing to again take part in the extermination of the Jews. It seemed to everyone that Hitler, may his name and memory be erased, as if he was sending us a curse from the other world. He turns over in his grave, never resigned to the existence of the State of Israel - and sends his personal warship to battle with us. The yacht had to be blown up as a symbol of evil. "
Sources:
Revel Barker. Aviso Grille (1935-1951)
J.F. Lehmann, Erich Gröner. German warships 1815-1945 Volume 2,
Williamson, Gordon. Kriegsmarine Coastal Forces.
M. Blokov. Hitler's yacht hunt.
All images in this article are taken from the Wikipedia media warehouse, the Flikr free images resource and the like, unless otherwise stated.
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