The Cap Arcona tragedy

Britain sinks 7,000 prisoners of Nazis

1945 World War II: Britain's Royal Air Force sank the floating prisons Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland in Lübeck Bay.

The ships were carrying some 7,000 prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, virtually all of whom died. This makes it a nautical disaster far greater than the sinking of the Titanic, in which 1,523 people perished in the accidental sinking. Compare, too, with the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the greatest maritime disaster in history in which 9,372 people were killed by 'our side', approximately 5,000 to 7,000 of them refugees. Also by way of comparison, Germany's sinking of Britain's Lusitania resulted in the loss of 1,198 lives and the USA's entry into World War One ...

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