Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 181
IRENE
1945-1945
As the Polish
training ship GRYF
Bottom left:
ss IRENE OLDENDORFF
semi-submerged in
September 1944
Bottom right:
As BK5 at the Aliaga
scrapping yard
From 1941 onwards fewer prizes
were made and owners could no
longer hope for compensation
from that source. German tonnage
losses mounted as war continued
and territory was lost. The acute
shortage of tonnage led to the
initiation of what became known
as the ‘Hansa’ series newbuilding
programme. Eight shipping
companies founded, and took
shares in, Schiffahrt Treuhand
GmbH, the company responsible
for the programme. Shipowners
who had suffered tonnage losses
would be allocated newbuildings
according to a certain ratio but until
the time the ship was completed
and physically delivered they never
knew which ship was being built for
them and at which yard, meaning
that the future owners could not
influence the design of the vessels.
Three types of dry cargo ships of
3,000, 5,000 and 9,000 tdw each
had been designed for this series
newbuilding programme, as were
three types of tugs of 350, 600
and 1,000 HP. Not one tug was
completed by D-Day, but out of a
total of 128 Hansa ships, 58 had
been commissioned before the war
ended, including 52 of the small
‘Hansa A’ version. Egon Oldendorff
was allocated a vessel constructed
by Burmeister & Wain yard number
644. Foreign shipyards in countries
under German occupancy took a
considerable share of the scheme.
The vessel of 61.3m length had
been launched at Copenhagen on
6 January 1944 but was scuttled
at the fitting-out berth on
14 September of that year as a
result of an act of sabotage. The
ship was raised on 24 September
1944 and towed to Lübecker
FlenderWerft for completion.
Having been delivered, in Lübeck,
on 10 January 1945, IRENE
OLDENDORFF performed a limited
number of voyages in the Baltic Sea
and took part in the major rescue
operation in which altogether 1,081
ships carried a total of 2,401,387
people from the former eastern
Reich territories to safety in the
West. In early May 1945 the steamer,
painted in a light grey and without a
funnel mark, was confiscated by the
British in Lübeck and subsequently
177
traded as the EMPIRE CONTEES,
flying the British flag. She was to be
the last freighter of this type to be
scrapped in 1990, as the Polish GRYF,
at Aliaga, Turkey.
Egon Oldendorff lost the fairly
new IRENE OLDENDORFF and three
other vessels: back in August 1944
the NORDFELS had been declared
a prize when the Allies conquered
La Rochelle; DORA OLDENDORFF, in
Flensburg when the war ended, was
handed over to Great Britain, in Hull,
on 13 October 1945, whilst HUGO
OLDENDORFF was confiscated in
Lübeck, also by the British, in May
1945. Both ships were eventually
scuttled, in 1946, with cargoes of
war gas ammunition.
