So, it’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of the Titanic.
In fact, it is my favourite moment in history (though not in a positive way, as thousands
died, you know what I mean) and it even featured in my old intro for ages and no-one even noticed.
But today, we won’t be talking about THE Titanic, or the movie from 1997, or A Night
to Remember from 1958.
Ok, we might mention them.
But instead, we’ll be talking about the Nazi Titanic.
This is going to be fun.
[intro] So, our story starts in Nazi Germany (surprise
surprise) with a man called Joseph Goebbels.
He was the Nazi Propaganda Minister, and responsible for trying to sway German citizens through
posters, occasional speeches, music, radio broadcasts and films into supporting Nazi
views instead of opposing views that might take power away from the Nazis or start a
rebellion.
Historians argue that his propaganda was a major factor as to why the Nazis rose to power
so quickly, amongst other things.
So, during World War II, Goebbels commissioned many propaganda films to be made, so they
could be shown to the German people and get his/the Nazi message across.
One such film, as you may have guessed, was loosely based around the sinking of the Titanic
29 years earlier.
I say loosely for a reason.
Instead of the film being as realistic a portrayal as possible, major events and characters were
warped and fabricated to make a point.
After all, this was a propaganda film, not a documentary.
In particular, the film portrays WWII Britain and also the USA as a corrupt greedy capitalist
society.
The film takes time to blame that money grabbing greed for the loss of life, and also depicts
heroism by traditional Aryan Germans.
But, this film wasn’t exactly a small venture.
It was a huge undertaking for the time, and was very ambitious.
It was made with a huge budget, which, taking into account inflation and conversion rates
for the Reichmark, the film had a budget of £100 million pounds, or roughly $140 million
dollars.
That sounds like a lot, and it was, but that is dwarfed by the later budget of Titanic
(1997), with an approximate budget today of nearly $300 million dollars, adjusting for
inflation.
For that money, they constructed nine massive interior sets, a 10-meter-long model, used
an actual ship for the exterior shots (which was called the Cap Arcona, and which we’ll
get back to later), and was directed by Herbert Selpin.
The 87-day long shoot was, ironically for a Titanic film, a disaster.
Fog delayed shooting in the Baltic Sea, soldiers were recalled from fighting to serve as extras
in the films and some of which got drunk and disrupted shooting for hours on end.
It was at the end of one of these days that Herbert Selpin said something not-so-favourable
about the Nazi military.
He was promptly arrested and sent to a jail.
Less than 48 hours later, he was found dead in his cell, having been hung from the roof
by his belt.
The death was reported to be a suicide, but shortly after rumours circulated that the
Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, had him killed on the orders of Goebbels.
The monstrous epic, which by now was falling apart at the seams, was soon completed.
The movie was due to be premiered in Berlin, but the cinema was bombed and destroyed the
day before by the Royal Air Force.
The film premiered in Paris, but the reception wasn’t great.
Turns out, instead of showcasing German heroism, people didn’t get motivated about a story
where 1,500 people drown.
Also, the film contained scenes of families being torn apart and people stuck behind locked
gates clamouring for help, which resonated strongly with citizens of occupied Europe
as this was happening on a daily basis to people because of the Nazis, and modern viewers
today will recognise extraordinary similarities to imagery from the Holocaust.
As a result, the blockbuster was banned in Nazi Germany and failed to make much money
at all.
The film was later recovered in 1949, and here we are talking about it today.
But there’s still something we need to mention -the SS Cap Arcona.
(Told you I was getting back to it).
The ship, extensively used in the filming, was owned by the German Army.
After the film, she was used for transportation of troops around the Baltic, though this didn’t
last as she sat in a dock for a year or two afterward.
Until early 1945.
The Allies were marching in from the south and west, the Soviets from the North and Germany
was running hugely low on supplies, as you would if you fought the biggest war in history
for six years, and you were losing.
The Germans therefore made use of whatever they could, including the Cap Arcona.
To be more specific, the ship was used as a makeshift prison for thousands of concentration
camp inmates that were moved from camps at risk of capture by the Allies or Soviets.
The ship was packed with 5000 men, women and children, with another 3500 on other ships
in the nearby bay.
72 hours after the suicide of Hitler and less than a day before VE day, a squadron of RAF
bombers located the Nazi fleet and were told to sink them.
Which they did, very effectively.
Out of the 5000 people aboard the Nazi Titanic, only 350 survived.
That’s 4,650 deaths, or approximately three times more than the original Titanic sinking
33 years earlier.
Bones continued to wash up on the nearby beaches until the 1970’s.
So now you know the story of the Nazi Titanic.
I would suggest having a watch if you can find a copy, though the IMDb score is only
64%, so don’t expect anything too fantastic.
And until next time, Danke fürs Zuhören.