Sinking of Andora St

English Translated to: English Show original Powered by Translate 2:08:10 German against German 70 years ago a submarine sank the luxury liner "Arandora Star. At least 800 people died, many of them were German in British exile. By the accident was one of the biggest blunders of the British government to light - its rigid policy toward Nazi refugees by Lars-Broder Keil The second day at sea is just a few days ago, when life awakens on board the Arandora Star "slowly. The former luxury liner has left the English coast behind and crossed the Irish Sea. Rainer Radok is at this second July 1940 shortly before six clock up to get breakfast for his brothers and himself. The 20-year-old is not voluntary on the ship. Just as the other 1200 passengers: German prisoners of war, Nazi supporters, but also German and Austrian immigrants, and about 800 Italians. They had all been provisionally detained in the turmoil of war by British authorities and should now be brought to Canada. The fear of an invasion of the Wehrmacht adopted the British public hysterical traits. Is almost paranoid distrust of all Germans in the country - even to Jews as Rainer Radok, who was lucky to escape with the Nazi terror in 1938 in Konigsberg. An explosion rocked the ship, the light goes out, smoke spreads. "U-boat attack," shouted one soldier and urges Radok towards the upper deck. But the young man wants to go back to his cabin to warn his brothers. He whistled a signal from childhood times, and is glad when he gets answers. Half way it come out his brothers, with life jackets in their hands. Chaos broke out on deck, the ship has already list. The British crew and interned German sailors leave lifeboats to water - a merciless rush - while others simply throw everything Floating overboard. Some kneel in prayer on the deck, others jump into panic and come upon impact on the sea or in ruins lives. Rainer Radok puts on the jacket and dives into the water. In a lifeboat, he discovered his brothers. On the railing is an elderly Italian, dead In another boat sits the lawyer Franz Eichenberg from Hamburg. The German Jew who had emigrated to Britain in 1936 and had worked there until the internment as a manager of a butane gas company. As Rainer Radok the 40-year-old looks horrified the sinking of the Arandora Star to ". Anxious hours later they are from the Canadian destroyer St. Laurent added. " The torpedo was - irony of fate - by a German U-boat fired by a man who knew the German public as the first war hero of the seas. Lieutenant Gunther Prien had crept with "U 47" shortly after the war began to Scapa Flow, one of the safest bases of the British Navy. His sinking of the Royal Oak had "left their mark on the psyche of the British - where was your fleet still feel safe? The German propaganda made from Prien a highly decorated "Ace of the Deep," which was to Scapa Flow received by Hitler personally. Now Prien had his boat into a favorable attack position taken and met with his very last torpedo. Prien had in the past four weeks had sunk eight ships, mostly small trading steamer, and this would add another hit. The Arandora Star "was painted white and could be mistaken for a hospital ship. For a long time, Britain had refused to take refugees from Hitler's Germany in large numbers. It was not until the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, and the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938 changed the restrictive policy of the British government. Nearly a year later, some 75 000 refugees were living in German-speaking in Britain: political refugees, artists, you would not have more in Germany, scientists and economists, many with Jewish roots. With the outbreak of war in September 1939 but they were like every German and Austrian automatically as "enemy aliens". They had to be heard and were adopted after the security divided into risk categories. Even in 1939, were first internment camp for German. Many saw it with concern about the writer Stefan Zweig: "Once I was dropped down a level, for an hour, not only the stranger anymore in this country, but an 'Enemy Alien', an enemy alien, forcibly exiled to a place where of my beating heart was not. " His colleague Max Herrmann-Neisse composed bitterly: "For now here, in the freedom of the mother, in which I meant in my country friends, to my shame and of all humanity, identified to be suspicious to the enemy." The situation escalated when the Wehrmacht occupied in May 1940 in a short time, the Netherlands. Obviously, that was Hitler could prepare an invasion of Britain. The British Ambassador Sir Neville Bland returned from The Hague to London, and spread, German paratroopers had been supported by a "fifth column" in Holland. The diplomat advised to trust no Germans or Austrians. The BBC widespread Bland's assertion, and the new government responded by Prime Minister Winston Churchill once. About 30 counties along the coast have been designated as a "protection zone", all male Germans and Austrians 16-60 years who lived in that area, interned. They were housed in hastily set up camps. Churchill defended this decision in a speech in Parliament on 4 June 1940: "I know that our orders are affected by a large number of people who belong to the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. You have my sympathy, but we can not do under the current difficult conditions, the subtle differences that we are used otherwise. " In the Cabinet he is said to have been even growled, but they should "lock away the whole bunch." When Mussolini came a week later at Hitler's side in the war, Italians were also interned and a variety of officially as "refugees from persecution by the Nazis" recognized Germans. SPD and KPD officials, but also German and Austrian Jews arrived in camp, many had already been sitting in her home in a concentration camp. In the UK, although they have not been harassed, tortured or even killed, but only the arrest aroused without cause, often at night, and registration as a prisoner under a number traumatic memories. Among the refugees were piling up the suicides. Britain, increasingly overwhelmed, asked Canada and Australia, take a few thousand internees ""; London bears the cost of passage and stay. Both Commonwealth countries declared themselves ready. So the Germans Radok and Oak Mountain were among those interned, to be debated at the "Arandora Star" to Canada. Of the people on board by Prien torpedo almost two thirds were killed, including about 700 internees. For who had escaped, it is the rescue does not end. On her arrival in England celebrates the British people the crew and the guards excited against the internees experienced only a deafening silence. Eichenberg, chosen as the speaker succeeds, it is only with difficulty, the situation of refugees accommodations separately by Nazi sympathizers and prisoners of war. From the newspaper to learn that the internees were to blame for the disaster. Their behavior had become undisciplined and given the bravery of the crew and the security guards into a panic. It is no wonder, for on board the former luxury liner had only Nazis and Italian fascists were. Not a word about the fact that the ship sailed without the usual escort, that the crew had no organized rescue exercises. After all, triggered the downfall of the whole of July on a debate in the British public out. Many Britons were aware until now that thousands of refugees from Hitler's Germany were interned, and should be shipped overseas. Commentators of the newspapers that previously fueled resentment against the refugees had now criticized the simplistic approach that England bring no advantage. Churchill was forced to correct his rigid internment. On 23 July 1940 Home Secretary Sir John Anderson admitted a mistake and announced for the "next time", new guidelines, which internees could be released. However, continued the release of the refugees and their return from the overseas camps in England until well into the year 1941. In retrospect it is clear that Churchill's internment was one of the biggest blunders of the British government during the war. When Sir John Anderson publicly admitted the error, and Franz Rainer Radok Oak Mountain were already back on the high seas. Just days after they were torpedoed on 10 July 1940 brought again a ship was - this time on the "HMT Dunera" which completely overloaded, some 2,500 internees brought to Australia. Another trip into the unknown - but this time with a good end. Radok stayed after his release in Australia, served in the army there, studied and became a world-renowned professor of mathematics and in 2004 he died at the age of 84. Eichenberg emigrated after the war to the U.S., there has been a professor of German literature in 1959 and received the Federal Cross of Merit. He died in 1981 at 82 years. Günther Prien on the other hand came with his whole crew died when the "U 47" beginning in March 1941 during the attack on an Allied convoy spotted by a destroyer and attacked with water bombs. Rumours that he had been sighted the war as an internee in a concentration camp because he had created with the Naval Command, proved to be false. Lieutenant Günther Prien (ol) sank "U 47" the "Arandora Star", who was also at the German Jew Rainer Radok (ur) on board.

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