# German Auxiliary Cruisers



## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

Guys should we start up a thread here on these many varied, almost fake looking merchant ships, ready to deal out death and destruction ?  

E


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## plan_D (Feb 8, 2005)

Did they all serve in the Indian Ocean, and South Atlantic or were some on the main shipping routes across the Atlantic? 
I actually know about the Orion and Atlantis, for the names of the ships.


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

at least three made to the area of Japan, and one actaully sailed across the world. Will have to check on specs and how many in useage........some of the braviest and maybe craziest seamen in the war.

Torpedos los !


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## plan_D (Feb 8, 2005)

It was an excellent idea though. I think it was the Orion that went to attack a vessel, and the code it transmitted was from a ship that wasn't even in the Indian Ocean. They made a vital mistake, and some the Merchant vessel requested assistance and a RN Cruiser came over to give the German A Cruiser a slapping. I think it was the Orion.


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

more info coming soon......


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

Plan, the Orion sunk some 15 ships and captured another. Sailed around the world so to speak, escaped from the Cruiser Cornwall and returned to Germany after 511 days at sea. Turned into a freighter and transport helping in the evacuation of the German populace in the Baltic in 44-45. sunk by RAF bombs at Swinemünde port.


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## Crazy (Feb 8, 2005)

I'm impressed by the guts these guys had. They couldn't just open fire, according to the Geneva Convention they had to hoist their true flag before engaging in combat, thus giving the enemy some warning.

How heavily armed were they?


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

Crazy that depended on the ship as they were of different sizes. as we are talking about the Orion a bit, she had an impressive stealth array of arms.

6 150mm guns
1 75mm gun
1 37 mm gun
4 20mm's
6 Torpedo tubes

2 Ar 196 recon a/c

228 mines

all in the theory of deception, ah what lied below deck ?

E `


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## plan_D (Feb 8, 2005)

Maybe it was the Atlantis that made the mistake of passing itself off as a frieghter that wasn't in the area. 
I saw a programme on it the Auxiliary Cruisers the other day, some good footage of them hoisting the flag then dropping the sides to reveal its true colours.


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

Plan yes the Komoran was detected from a great distance by the CL Sydney, Detmers the Kommandeur of the Komoran knew he would have to play cool to get he and his crew out alive as they were out-gunned easily and did not have the speed to evade.

Detmers played the cat and mouse game till the end and allowed the unknowing Sydney to get well below the Aux. Cruisers max. gun range. Literally as the Sydney crew became suspicious with unanswered posts, Detmers raised the colours and the 6 150mm guns and let the Sydney have full effect of the fire. Now continued one of the strangest sea battles on record for the Sydney sailed off on fire but had also dealt a death blow on the Komoran, so heavily damaged her crew abandoned her and blew her sky high. The Sydney was last seen on the sky-line according to Komoran survivors, completely on fire and then blowing up. None of the crew or the whereabouts of the Sydney have ever been found as far as I am aware. After Detmers and crew were picked up by the Aussies, Detmers explains the action in his after action report while a pow. One of the untold stories of sea warfare in WW 2. In fact Detmers account and other Offiziers of the Komoran are online in the Austrailian archives.....

the Komoran was the largest of the German KM Hilfkreuzers and had the usual 6 150mm arms plus 1 75 and 37mm. 5 20mm's, 2 Arado 196 a/c and 1 small attack boat. Over 320+ mines on hand

Erich ~


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## plan_D (Feb 8, 2005)

One of them got destroyed and were picked up by U-Boats, but there wasn't enough room so they dragged them behind in life rafts. It had some footage, but I can't repair which ship it was.


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## Erich (Feb 8, 2005)

Plan yes you are correct it is the Atlantis with Rogge and crew. When the Devonshire sunk the Atlantis the German crew was able to send out a distress signal and the KM ship the Python came to their rescue and then it was sunk by the Dorsetshire, but again signals were sent before the demise of the German ship and Rogge and his Atlantis crew were pulled to safety by a U-boot. I have some of the Atlantis footage taking on 3 different Allied merchants blowing them to pieces. The footage is from the Deutsche Wochenshau.


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## plan_D (Feb 8, 2005)

The Dorsetshire had a good record, it sunk the Bismarck too.


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## Erich (Feb 15, 2005)

here is a rarity if ever found one............. a former ship-mate aboard the Pinquin which was blown sky high when it's mines caught on fire/exploded which tore the ship to shreds. One of the deceased crewmen.


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## toffigd (Feb 17, 2005)

Yes, but the mines didn't go off because of getting on fire, but because of direct hit. Pinguin got in fight with HMS Cornwall opening fire on 8000 meters. And at 17:14 the first shots was in target! The "A" turret on HMS Cornwall was damaged. But then Cornwall increased speed, got out of the range of Pinguin 150mm and fired as well. At 17:24 Cornwall got first hit on Penguin which didn't cause many damage. But 2 minutes later, in one moment, 4 203mm shells found their way into Penguins' "body". One of them exploded in the stern mine storage, ending existence of Penguin in a fragment of second. It happened so fast, that the last Penguins' salvo encircled HMS Cornwall 20 seconds after the explosion that destroyed the raider. Kmdr Kruder, 17 officers, over 340 crewmen and about 200 prisoners died. Only 3 officers, 57 crewmen, 15 Indians and 9 British survived.


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## Erich (Feb 17, 2005)

combination of factors I think but you are probably right. there were fires aboard but a hit to the mines on their stacking racks would certainly cause the ship to vaporize easily enough. First hand accts are in short supply I am afraid.....

god points though I appreciate them

E ~


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## toffigd (Feb 17, 2005)

Maybe You have any info if there were any other raiders? I know something about Atlantis, Orion, Widder, Thor, Pinguin, Komet, Kormoran, Michel Stier.


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## Erich (Feb 17, 2005)

do you have the selected books dealing with them individually in German ?

There were some 11 Raiders (Hilfskreuzers). Several of them had very short lives and returned to just simply hauling cargo and people. Even the night fighter ship Togo which made it to war's end at first was a radier for a very very short term.

E


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## toffigd (Feb 18, 2005)

I've got one book, in Polish. It's a book about the most popular ones, which I listed before.


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## trackend (Feb 18, 2005)

Interesting info guys ive not heard of these vessels before could you tell me please if they got the idea from the 1914-18 Q ships


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## toffigd (Feb 19, 2005)

I think they took a bit of idea of Q-ships. But not only, as Germans had camouflaged auxiliary cruisers in service during I World War. For example "Wolf". During I WW 17 single-operating cruisers were searching for merchant ships on the seas oceans. 10 of them were auxiliary cruisers, mostly camouflaged. These 17 cruiser sank something about 1 mln BRT, which is not big amount.


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## trackend (Feb 19, 2005)

very interesting Toffigd thanks for the info my freind


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## Erich (Feb 20, 2005)

a quick note to say that the Pinquin before her demise sunk more ships that any other Hilfkreuzer with 32 claimed, 4 of these were Allied ships sunk by her mines. This was also the only Aux. Kreuzer to be sunk with the Kapitän going down with the ship


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## Andrew (Feb 21, 2005)

toffigd said:


> I think they took a bit of idea of Q-ships. But not only, as Germans had camouflaged auxiliary cruisers in service during I World War. For example "Wolf". During I WW 17 single-operating cruisers were searching for merchant ships on the seas oceans. 10 of them were auxiliary cruisers, mostly camouflaged. These 17 cruiser sank something about 1 mln BRT, which is not big amount.



The idea for Armed Merchant Cruisers came about before WW1, the building of the Liners Lusitania, Mauretania Carmania were part funded by the government on the proviso that in time of War, the government would be able to turn them into Armed Merchant Cruisers, although only Carmania was turned into an Armed Merchant Cruiser out of the 3 I have mentioned. There were others but I have no info on them.


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## The Basket (Jun 22, 2011)

Erich said:


> a quick note to say that the Pinquin before her demise sunk more ships that any other Hilfkreuzer with 32 claimed, 4 of these were Allied ships sunk by her mines. This was also the only Aux. Kreuzer to be sunk with the Kapitän going down with the ship



Reading about the Aux Cruisers. The Michel also was sunk with the Kapitän zur See Günther Gumprich KIA when torpedoed by the USS Tarpon. Another time was the Kapitän zur See Ulrich Brocksien KIA on the breakout of the 2nd cruise of the Komet. The Komet didnt even get out of the Channel before being blown to pieces.


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## psteel (Jun 24, 2011)

Read all about Hilfskreuzer on the following site.

Hilfskreuzer (Auxiliary Cruiser / Raider) - Introduction

In the book "On Seas contested " , O Hara etal, they report that the German HSK sank 133 vessels, while the above site notes 142 vessels sunk by about 9 HSK. 6 were lost for an exchange rate of 23:1, which makes them the most efficent commerce wafare vessels in the German fleet. Maybe they should have had dozens more of these HSK in service?


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## The Basket (Jun 25, 2011)

If you look at the stories of Orion and Widder you will see that they sailed with absolute useless engines.

The main role of the raider was as a pain in the backside. it meant naval resources had to be spared to find them and shipping had to be re routed to avoid them.

If the KM had more raiders then they would need more supply ships and crews removed from the U-Boot war which was where the action was. It just becomes a downward spiral of resources the KM did not have.

An earlier post was stating how dangerous a HSK was. I would rather serve on one of these than a U-boat!


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## psteel (Jun 25, 2011)

The German navy total personnel counted nearly 1/2 million by 1941 and included 150,000 sailors on ships by then. Of these the Uboat fleet only counted about 10%. The bulk of all ships were coastal defense shipping fleet. Each of these HSK required 300-350 personnel but the ships could remain at sea for 1/2 year continuous steaming and Germany had plenty of supply ships. They were the most effective commerce raiders the Germans had and easily the most cost effective too.

I recall that 3/4 of the shipping in WW-II sailed without convoys so there was a real need for these pirate ships.


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## Erich (Jun 25, 2011)

the HSk all of them needed super efforts to keep them running. Even the Cornonel - Togo night fighter control ship which was never found and did her job admirably.

a link of interest hopefully

how the Orion was never sunk was supreme luck ..............

http://forum-marinearchiv.de/coppermine/albums/userpics/13016/Hilfskreuzer.pdf


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## The Basket (Jun 26, 2011)

psteel said:


> The German navy total personnel counted nearly 1/2 million by 1941 and included 150,000 sailors on ships by then. Of these the Uboat fleet only counted about 10%. The bulk of all ships were coastal defense shipping fleet. Each of these HSK required 300-350 personnel but the ships could remain at sea for 1/2 year continuous steaming and Germany had plenty of supply ships. They were the most effective commerce raiders the Germans had and easily the most cost effective too.
> 
> I recall that 3/4 of the shipping in WW-II sailed without convoys so there was a real need for these pirate ships.



So why not then? why not fill the seas with HSKs?

The Atlanis was at sea for 602 days. And the later HSKs were told that they could never return back to Germany. The KM tried to sail KSKs in 1942 and eventually had to give up as too risky.


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## psteel (Jun 26, 2011)

The Basket said:


> So why not then? why not fill the seas with HSKs?
> 
> The Atlanis was at sea for 602 days. And the later HSKs were told that they could never return back to Germany. The KM tried to sail KSKs in 1942 and eventually had to give up as too risky.




To answer the last question first....Up until 1942/43; most German vessels sent through the English channel to the Atlantic ,got through unchallenged, while after that time most attempts were intercepted and destroyed or sent back.

Up until 1942 most Uboat sortie was positive, netting significant results [up to 16:1 kill ratio in first half of war]. By late 1943 the situation had reversed and more Uboats were being sunk than Merchant ships.

German Kreuzers lead flotillas were still attacking convoys until about end of 1942, after this time they were just coastal defense forces.

Up until 1943 Germans did well in most naval clashes sinking/damaging more enemy vessels than they lost themselves.

So what changed in 1943? The allied usage of Ultra allowed them to anticipate KM movements by 1943 and even operational surprise disappeared by then. This was especially true of the Uboat wars as the allies were able to steer Convoys away from Uboats and steer ASW groups into their path instead. Combined with long-range airpower and CVE the U-Boat war took a turn for the worse. For the surface fleet things were worse. With Hitler’s increasing micro management and attempt to sell off the surface fleet, the morale of the German fleet evaporated. Its hard to fight and win when crews are merely going through the motions.

As to why more were not employed, that’s basic to understanding WW-II. Germans were being prepared for a war that would occur in the mid to late 1940s, while Hitler dragged Germany into war before this time. At best he gave them 2 years warning but even this was ambiguous until war broke out in Sept 1939. Had they more time to prepare, more would have been possible.


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## hawkeye2an (Jun 27, 2011)

are there any good books on this subject?


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 29, 2011)

My favorite is "Atlantis, The story of a German Surface Raider"

Supposedly "Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet: The Deadliest Ships of World War II" is pretty good, but I've not read it.


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## The Basket (Jun 29, 2011)

My first book I read about the raiders was written before the Enigma secret was revealed.

So the loss of the Atlantis is not revealed in its entirety.

The fact it was replenishing a U - boat meant its location was revealed by reading the u boats code.

In my book its luck and the spotter plane.


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## Erich (Jun 29, 2011)

do a google search nearly every one of the HSK's has been covered in text usually in German and from the 1950's print.


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 29, 2011)

If you want to watch a movie I would highly recommend "Under Ten Flags" which talks about the Atlantis. Her Capt (Bernhard Rogge) was one of the few officers of Flag rank not arrested after the war, and in fact eventually became a NATO Commander. The book I mentioned above has a forward written by a Capt of a ship which he had sunk.


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## Erich (Jun 29, 2011)

the most comprehensive book written on the Atlantis is by friend Joe Slavick. the man has had the privilege of interviewing first hand many of the HSK crews.


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 30, 2011)

Thanks Erich! I just ordered a copy from Amazon and cannot wait to read. The reviews were excellent.


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