Editing SS Cap Arcona (section)

== Prison ship and sinking==
During March and April 1945, concentration camp prisoners from [[Scandinavia]]n countries had been transported from all over the German Reich to the [[Neuengamme concentration camp]] near Hamburg, in the [[White Buses|White Bus]] programme coordinated through the [[Swedish Red Cross]]{{snd}}with prisoners of other nationalities displaced to make room for them. Eventually [[Heinrich Himmler]] agreed that these Scandinavians, and selected others regarded as less harmful to Germany, could be transported through German-occupied [[Denmark]], north to freedom in neutral [[Sweden]]. Then between 16 and 28 April 1945, the Neuengamme camp was systematically emptied of all its remaining prisoners, together with other groups of concentration camp inmates and Soviet P.O.W.s; with the intention that they would be relocated to a secret new camp, either on the [[Baltic Sea]] island of [[Fehmarn]]; or at [[Mysen]] in German-occupied [[Norway]] where preparations were put in hand to house them under the control of concentration camp guards evacuated from [[Sachsenhausen concentration camp|Sachsenhausen]].<ref name="Wachsmann 2015 584">{{cite book|last=Wachsmann|first=Nikolaus|title=KL; A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps|year=2015|publisher=Little, Brown|pages=584}}</ref> In the interim, they were to be concealed from the advancing [[British Army|British]] and [[Canadian Army|Canadian]] military forces from liberated [[Netherlands]], along the [[North Sea]] coast, across northern Germany towards Denmark and the Baltic; and for this purpose the ''[[Schutzstaffel|SS]]'' assembled a prison flotilla of decommissioned ships in the [[Bay of Lübeck]], consisting of the requisitioned  former civilian passenger ocean liners ''S.S. Cap Arcona'' and {{SS|Deutschland|1923|2}}, the freighter {{SS|Thielbek|1940|2}}, and the motor launch <!--{{SS|Athen|1936|2}} –  redlink converted to interlanguage link --> {{Interlanguage link|1=SS Athen (1936)|lt=''Athen''|2=de|3=Athen (Schiff, 1936)}}. Since the steering motors were out of use in the ''S.S. Thielbek'' and the turbines were out of use on the ''S.S. Cap Arcona'', so then the smaller ''S.S. Athen'' was used to transfer prisoners from [[Lübeck]] to the larger vessels and in between ships;{{sfn|Jacobs|Pool|2004|p=162}} they were locked below decks and in the holds, and denied food and medical attention.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

On 30 April 1945 the two Swedish ships ''Magdalena'' and ''Lillie Matthiessen'', previously employed as support vessels for the White Bus evacuations, made a final rescue trip to the Bay of Lübeck and back.  Amongst the prisoners rescued were some transferred from the prison flotilla. On the evening of 2 May 1945 more prisoners, mainly women and children from the [[Stutthof concentration camp|Stutthof]] and [[Mittelbau-Dora]] camps were loaded onto barges and brought out to the anchored vessels; although, as the ''Cap Arcona'' refused to accept any more prisoners, over eight hundred were returned to the beach at Neustadt in the morning of 3 May, where around five hundred were killed in their barges by machine-gunning, or beaten to death on the beach, their German SS guards then seeking to make their escape unencumbered by "excess baggage".<ref name="Jones 2015 111">{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Michael|title=After Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe|year=2015|publisher=John Murray|pages=111}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Martin|title=The Second World War; a complete history|year=1989|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|pages=683–684}}</ref>

The order to transfer the prisoners to the prison ships had come from [[Gauleiter]] [[Karl Kaufmann]] in Hamburg. Marc Buggeln has challenged Kaufmann's subsequent claim that he had been acting on orders from SS Headquarters in [[Berlin]], arguing that the decision in fact resulted from political and business pressures from leading industrialists in Hamburg, who were already at this stage plotting with Kaufmann to hand the city over to approaching British forces undefended and unharmed, and who consequently wished to whitewash away (literally so in the case of the Neuengamme concentration camp)<ref name="Wachsmann 2015 584"/> all evidence for the prisoners' former presence within the city and its industries.<ref>{{cite book|last=Buggeln|first=Marc|title=Slave Labour in Nazi Concentration Camps|year=2014|publisher=OUP|pages=274}}</ref>

By early May however, any relocation plans had been scotched by the rapid British military advance to the Baltic; so the SS leadership, which had moved to [[Flensburg Government|Flensburg]] on 28 April,<ref name="Wachsmann 2015 584"/> discussed scuttling the ships with the prisoners still captive aboard.<ref name="Jones 2015 111"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Bond |first=DG |title=German history and German identity: Uwe Johnson's Jahrestage |url=https://archive.org/details/germanhistoryger0000bond |url-access=registration |publisher=Rodopi |year=1993 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/germanhistoryger0000bond/page/150 150–151] |isbn=90-5183-459-4}}</ref> Later, at a war crimes tribunal, Gauleiter Kaufmann claimed that the prisoners were intended to be sent to Sweden, although, as none of the ships carried any exterior [[Hospital ship|Red Cross hospital ship markings]], nor were they even seaworthy, this was scarcely credible.<ref name="Jones 2015 111"/> [[Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr]], Hamburg's last [[SS and Police Leader|Higher SS and Police Leader]] (HSSPF), testified at the same trial that the prisoners were in fact to be killed "in compliance with Himmler's orders".<ref name=vaughan>{{harvnb|Vaughan|2004|pp=154–156.}}</ref> Kurt Rickert, who had worked for Bassewitz-Behr, testified at the Hamburg War Crimes Trial that he believed the ships were to be sunk by [[Kriegsmarine]]  submarine U-boats or [[Luftwaffe]] aircraft.{{sfn|Vaughan|2004|p=148}} Eva Neurath, who was present in Neustadt, and whose husband survived the disaster, said she was told by a police officer that the ships held convicts and were going to be blown up.{{sfn|Vaughan|2004|pp=156–157}}

On 2 May 1945, the British [[Second Army (United Kingdom)|Second Army]] discovered the empty camp at Neuengamme, and reached the coastal towns of Lübeck and [[Wismar]]. [[No. 6 Commando]], [[British 1st Special Service Brigade|1st Special Service Brigade]] commanded by [[Brigadier general (United Kingdom)|Brigadier]] [[Derek Mills-Roberts]], and the [[British 11th Armoured Division|11th Armoured Division]], commanded by Major-General [[Philip Roberts (British Army officer)|Philip Roberts]], entered Lübeck without resistance. Lübeck contained a permanent [[International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement|International Red Cross]] and [[Red Crescent]] offices in its function as a [[Bombing of Lübeck in World War II|Red Cross port]], and Mr. De Blonay of the [[International Committee of the Red Cross]] informed Major-General Roberts that 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners were aboard ships off-shore in the Bay of Lübeck.{{sfn|Till|1945}}<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/raf-pilots-tricked-into-killing-10000-camp-survivors-at-end-of-war-634445.html |title=RAF pilots tricked into killing 10,000 camp survivors at end of war – Home News, UK |work=[[The Independent]] |date=16 October 2000 |access-date=25 February 2009 |place=London |first=Max |last=Arthur}}</ref>
In the afternoon of 3 May 1945, the British 5th reconnaissance regiment advanced northwards to Neustadt, witnessing the ships burning off-shore in the bay and rescuing some severely emaciated prisoners on the beach at Neustadt, but otherwise finding mostly the bodies of women and children who had died that morning.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jones|first=Michael|title=After Hitler: The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe|year=2015|publisher=John Murray|pages=111–112}}</ref>