SS Cap Arcona was a 27,500 gross ton German luxury ocean liner of the Hamburg South America line . She was named after "Cape Arkona" on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western_Pomerania.

Launched in 1927 the ship was considered one of the most beautiful of her time[1]. She carried luxury travelers and steerage-class emigrants, predominantly to South America.

On December 3 1928, in Rio de Janeiro, a seaplane was sunk near Cap Arcona with Alberto Santos-Dumont on board.

From 1940, Cap Arcona was taken over by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) and used in the Baltic Sea. From the end of 1944 the Kriegsmarine transferred her back to transport use and she was used to transport refugees from East Prussia to the west of Germany. On April 26 1945, Cap Arcona was loaded with prisoners from the concentration camp Neuengamme and together with two smaller ships, Thielbek and Athen , was brought into the Lübeck Bay with the intention of destroying evidence of what happened at Neuengamme, by scuttling the ships with the prisoners imprisoned below.

On May 3 1945, Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, Athen and the passenger liner Deutschland (converted to a Hospital ship but unmarked as such) floated unprotected in the Bay of Lubeck between Neustadt and Scharbeutz and were sunk in four separate attacks by RAF Typhoons using rockets and bombs. Approximately 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners from the concentration camps (Neuengamme, Stutthof, Mittelbau-Dora) were drowned; survivors reaching the shore were shot by the SS but about 350 managed to escape massacre.

With similar sinkings of Wilhelm Gustloff and Goya in the Baltic Sea these were three of the highest losses of life of any sinking in history.

Reference:

Roy Nesbit - Cap Arcona: atrocity or accident? - Aeroplane Monthly, June 1984

External links

• History of the tragedy
• Disaster on the Baltic Sea
• Inferno
• Appendix A
• Photo-montage with sound
• Photos of the Cap Arcona : [2] [3] [4] [5]
• The 100-year secret