Nazi monster that never fired a shot

Jan 28 2009 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

The pride of Hitler’s fleet was launched in grandeur and sunk in ignominy. Now a local historian can reveal her extraordinary secrets. David Charters reports

A BITTER wind ruffled the swastika flags held over the people bunched on the quayside opposite the stooped cranes. Even the formidable, granite-faced offices were dwarfed by the towering ship sliding into the basin behind.

And those close could actually see the breath of the Fuhrer, as he stood on the VIP podium with his right arm raised in salute, his pale blue eyes admiring the unyielding curves of a ship built for war. The band played patriotic favourites. Oompah-oompah. Everyone cheered.

Then came the opening strains of Franz Joseph Haydn’s familiar tune. “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, uber alles in der Welt (Germany, Germany over all, over everything in the World).”

These were proud days for the young Third Reich, which had already absorbed Czechoslovakia.

This aircraft carrier before them would be the biggest ship ever built in Nazi Germany. It would also be the Fatherland’s only aircraft carrier – a serious weakness in the preparations of a nation about to enter a war on land, air and sea.

Nine years later, she was sunk while being used as target practice for the torpedoes of another dictator, the USSR’s Joseph Stalin. She had seen no action at all.

But that ignominious end was inconceivable on December 8, 1938, when the Graf Zeppelin’s 250-metre (820ft) hull touched the water at the shipyard in Kiel, home of the German Baltic fleet – watched by Hitler and many of his top brass, including the porky Reichmarshall Herman Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. She looked fine, but there was still much finishing work to do.

Well, the war produced so much horror, bravery, cowardice, treachery, nobility and madness, it is not entirely surprising that the Graf Zeppelin has been almost lost to history, but not quite.

Stephen Burke, a 34-year-old engineer from Warrington, is fascinated by her – as had been the British Government all those years ago. Early in the war, when it seemed probable that she would go into active service, experts in the Admiralty and War Cabinet believed that she posed an even greater threat to us than the Bismarck.

And extensive research has resulted in Stephen’s authoritative book, Without Wings: The Story of Hitler’s Aircraft Carrier. This research took him to Poland, where he met Commander Adam Olejnik, from the Department of Diving Technology and Underwater Work at the Military Naval Academy, in Gdynia, Poland.

They are now co-operating on further research into the once grand ship, now lying in the Baltic Sea, some 30 miles off the coast of Gdansk, Poland.