Munchen (3) - Polarfahrt

Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship built 1922 at Stettin by Vulcan Werke. This ship mainly sailed on the Bremen for New York route between 1923 and 1930. On Feb. 11, 1930 she was gutted by fire at New York and sank in the Hudson River. The ship was salved and later rebuilt at Bremen and renamed "General von Steuben. In 1938 the name was changed to Steuben. In 1939 she became a German Navy accommodation ship at Kiel and in August 1944 she was used as a transport ship for wounded soldiers. On February 9, 1945 she left Pillau for Kiel with 2,500 wounded, 2,000 refugees and 450 crew. Shortly before midnight on Feb. 10 she was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S.13 off Stolpmunde and sank with the loss of approx. 3,000 lives. On this image the ship is seen when on a cruise to the North of Norway and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic in 1925.