Deutschland incident

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The Deutschland incident refers to two separate incidents involving ships named Deutschland.

[edit] The Deutschland incident of 1902

The first "Deutschland incident" refers an incident in March 1902 with a German passenger steamer from the Hamburg America Line named SS Deutschland. During a famous passage over the Atlantic, where the ship was carrying Prince Henry, the brother of the Kaiser back to Europe from a highly publicized visit to the United States, the steamer was prevented from using her Slaby-d'Arco system of wireless telegraphy as the Marconi radio stations refused its radio traffic through their nets and blocked the rival system. Prince Henry, who tried to send wireless messages to both the US and Germany, was outraged.

Marconi shore stations refused, except in the case of emergency, to accept messages from ships operating equipment from other sources. This brought up a number of questions of fairness -- competitors claimed the Marconi companies were trying to set up a worldwide monopoly, while Marconi charged that his competitors were little more than parasites, wanting to take advantage of the investment his company had made in setting up the expensive shore stations.[1]

[edit] The Deutschland incident of 1937

The second Deutschland incident refers to an incident during the Spanish Civil War: On May 29, 1937, the Republican air force attacked Nationalist air bases and the port of Ibiza. The German pocket battleship Deutschland, which was part of the International Non-Intervention Committee Patrol entered the area of the port to threaten the Republican planes. Two Russian pilots, Captain Anton Progrorin and Lieutenant Vassily Schmidt, dropped their bombs on the Deutschland, causing severe damage on the ship and killing 31 sailors. The following day German forces bombed the Republican held city of Almería to repress Republican air attacks on the Deutschland. Because of the Deutschland incident, Germany and Italy left the meetings of the Non-intervention committee. The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer shelled the port and the city of Almería with 200 shells, causing 19 deaths, 55 wounded, and destroying 35 buildings. [2] German and Italian warships were concentrated in the Mediterranean Sea next to Spain, and were starting to take a more active role in the supporting of Nationalist forces.

[edit] Kriegsmarine dead

Buried on the 31 May 1937

Friedriche Gerhard

Reinhold Zimmermann

Walter Lolitz

Christain Gallus

Karl Schoellkopf

Felix Faltin

Heinrich Rolbers

Werner Fischer

Joseph Denno

Wilhelm Schmitz

Herman Bruckner

Rudolf Inglen

Josef Mils

George Woldwebber

Heinz Bismark

Oswald Sehn

Willi Buche

Otto Martens

Alfred Oelrich

Matias Bochem

Richard Martin

Kurk Manja

Johann Schubert

Heinz Maenning

Buried on 1st June 1937

Albert Steizer

Buried on 2nd June 1937

Albert Eckart

Died in the Military Hospital on 6th June but not buried at Gibraltar

Hermann Durr

The bodies of the dead were later returned to Germany and received an honor guard.