The Nazi Titanic: the luxurious German ship that played the leading role in a story of propaganda, excess and tragedy

Eighty years ago, and decades before James Cameron’s multi-Oscar-winning production, Adolf Hitler’s regime funded an ambitious and expensive Titanic film.

The famous shipwreck inspired a Nazi propaganda film, but that version was far from a box office success.

The SS Cap Arcona, nicknamed the “Queen of the South Atlantic”, was the great protagonist of the film, but also of one of the worst tragedies of the Second World War.

In early 1942, the once beautiful and luxurious ocean liner lay rusting away on a German naval base in the Baltic Sea.

Two years earlier, the ship had been requisitioned by Hitler’s navy and turned into a barracks for sailors after being stripped of its glitzy accessories.

But that same year, the Cap Arcona would be plucked from obscurity and literally thrust into the spotlight: its design agreements with the RMS Titanic landed it the central role in a Nazi production of the infamous naval drama.

The sinking of the Titanic was not a new topic back then: the first films about misfortune had already appeared on the screen in 1912the year in which the ship sank in the icy waters of the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage.

But Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s notorious Propaganda Minister, came up with a script with a very different view of events: described the accident as a result of British-American greed.

“Goebbels and the Nazis had produced hundreds of propaganda films by then, but this time they wanted something different,” said Professor Robert Watson, an American historian and author of The Nazi Titanic.

“In 1942, Germany was facing significant setbacks in the war and Goebbels felt it essential to achieve great success on the propaganda front.”

no expense spared

The prominent Nazi officer was particularly surprised by the success of “White House”.

Released that same year, the Hollywood romantic drama gained popularity a powerful anti-fascist storyprompting the German propagandist to take action.

With his ‘nazified’ version of the Titanic tragedy, Goebbels dreamed of giving the Allies a taste of their own medicine.

“He didn’t want to cut costs in making this ‘answer’ to ‘Casablanca’ and that included using his own replica of the Titanic, Cap Arcona,” added Professor Watson.

“The ships were essentially the same, except that Cap Arcona had three funnels, one less than the Titanic. But they gave him a fake one to film.

At a difficult time in the midst of the war effort, Goebbels allocated huge sums for production.

In his book, Professor Watson claims that “Titanic” had a budget of four million Reichsmarks, the equivalent of about $180 million today, making it one of the most expensive movies ever.

Hundreds of soldiers were pulled from the front lines to act as extras, and the film featured some of Germany’s most famous movie stars, including Sybille Schmitz.

However, production was chaotic.

Soldiers harassed the actresses and there was general panic that the lighting on the sets would make them a target for Allied bombing.

There were more serious matters too: Herbert Selpin, the director assigned to the project, fell out of favor with Nazi officials after criticizing their interference in the shooting schedule, and was arrested and interrogated by Goebbels himself.

He was later found hanged in his cell.

another story

But the film was made nonetheless, with hard-hitting propaganda at the center of the plot: the accident was portrayed as a tale of corporate greed on the part of the Titanic’s British owners.

The shipwreck occurred despite the best efforts of the sole German crew member to prevent it. who tried to prevent the ship from navigating the dangerous waters of the North Atlantic.

At the end, an epilogue message states that the deaths of over 1,500 passengers are “an eternal damnation of Britain’s endless greed”.

“There are Nazi propaganda films with a much more subtle message,” explains German historian Alex Von Lunen.

“This Titanic movie shows some Nazis’ delusion about what propaganda could do,” says von Lunen.

“They really thought: ‘We can still win this war if we inspire people.’

“And what happened to the film later on really makes it more interesting.”

Von Lunen refers to how Goebbels, who had given the go-ahead for production, eventually banned the showing. in German cinemas after seeing the final product.

The Nazi officer believed that the scenes of the tragedy were so realistic that they would create panic at a time when German citizens feared air raids.

“What also became a problem was the fictional German officer aboard the Titanic in the movie disobey their superiors because they believe what they did was morally wrong.

“That was not a message the Nazis wanted to send to real German officers,” says von Lunen.

In his book, Professor Watson notes that the film was initially released only in German-occupied territories and was not shown in Germany until 1949, when it was rediscovered in the Nazi archives.

“Despite its political message, the film is impressive from a technological perspective,” argues Professor Watson.

And the best proof is that A memorable night (‘The Last Night of the Titanic in Spain and ‘A Night to Remember’ in Latin America), the 1958 British film about the Titanic, used scenes from the Nazi production for their quality and realism”.

tragedy in real life

The fact that the Nazi movie flopped should have meant a return to obscurity for the Cap Arcona.

But the ship would eventually earn an even more infamous place in history.

After being used in the evacuation of over 25,000 German soldiers and civilians from advancing Russian forces on the Eastern Front, in 1945 it was converted into a prison ship moored in the Baltic Sea for prisoners transferred from various concentration camps in an attempt to hide evidence of Nazi crimes.

According to Professor Watson, records from both sides of the conflict estimate that on May 3, at least 5,000 people were aboard the Cap Arcona when the ship was accidentally attacked by Allied aircraft, with massive loss of life.

British Royal Air Force bombers carried out the attack based on intelligence reports that it housed SS officers They tried to avoid arrest.

“Perhaps fewer than 300 survived. It was one of the worst friendly fire incidents ever recorded in a war,” said Watson.

Two other ships with the same target were also hit, bringing the estimated total casualties up 7,000.

Even more tragically, the Cap Arcona and the other ships were attacked just four days before Germany’s unconditional surrender and the end of the war in Europe.

In the end, the death toll from the sinking of the Nazi Titanic was more than double that of its “sister” ship..