Menu and program from
the Hamburg-Amerika ocean liner SS Deutschland. Dated September 24, 1936. The Deutschland was launched on 28
April 1923. She began her maiden voyage on 27 March 1924, to Southampton and
then on to New York City. Later, the Deutschland was a troop ship in service to Germany during WWII. She was sunk in a British air attack on May
3, 1945. Before the sinking, between April 16 and 28, 1945, the concentration
camp of Neuengamme was systematically emptied of all its remaining prisoners,
other groups of concentration camp inmates and Soviet POWs; with the intention
that they would be relocated to a secret new camp. In the interim, they were to
be concealed from the advancing British and Canadian forces; and for this
purpose the SS assembled a prison flotilla of decommissioned ships in the Bay
of Lübeck, consisting of the liners Cap Arcona and Deutschland, the freighter
Thielbek, and the motor launch Athens. All people on board the Deutschland survived the attack,
though two accompanying vessels sank with great loss of life. All text in
German and English. Image of the Lincoln Memorial on the cover. 6” x 8 ½”.
Clean but folded crooked.