"Why is the US still using a Nazi tall ship?"

From: BBC

The Eagle was built by the Nazis and fought for Hitler in World War Two - so how did a tall ship that once flew the swastika end up as a training vessel for new US Coast Guard cadets?

Driving home along the coast of Connecticut one winter's evening, Tido Holtkamp saw a ghost.

There she was - moored in the harbour, her three towering masts, draped with those familiar sails he had rigged back in the German Navy in World War Two.
Her body had been repainted in the red, white and blue of the US, but her curves were unmistakable.

"That's my ship!" shouted Holtkamp, stopping the car. "That's my ship. The Horst Wessel. What in the world is she doing here in America?"

He may be 89 years old now, but the old sailor still twinkles wide-eyed as he recalls that moment back in 1959.

We are sitting in the grand museum of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, not far from the place where the sight of the ship stopped Holtkamp in his tracks.

Above him hangs a carving of a gleaming golden eagle - the original German figurehead of his beloved vessel.

She is docked outside in the bay, with 150 young cadets preparing to jump aboard, climb the rigging and set sail for the Bahamas.

The Eagle is the flagship of the Coast Guard, and the only tall ship on active service in the US military.

Since 1946 every single new cadet undergoing officer training has begun his or her career by learning to sail on her - the old way.

"It may look old-fashioned but the lessons you can learn about the sea and the wind and the currents and yourself - and your fellow shipmates - you cannot learn better on any platform that floats on the lakes or oceans around the world," says Capt Ernst Cummings, one of the ship's former US commanders.

The Eagle has hosted Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Truman, and circumnavigated the globe as a kind of floating ambassador for US diplomatic relations.

But there is more to her history, a hidden story revealed by the German inscriptions concealed beneath a brass plate on the ship's wheel. And this is the story she shares with Holtkamp.

"Yes, the Eagle is an immigrant too - another immigrant that has done well," he says.

He points to the golden bird hovering above him: "You see that plate she holds in her talons? It's the US Coast Guard shield.

"But not when I sailed on her. The swastika was emblazoned there."

The ship now known as the Eagle was born in the world-famous shipyard of Blohm and Voss in Hamburg, the builders of the battleship Bismarck.

It was 1936, the Nazis were in power and their Kriegsmarine ("war navy") was growing fast.

To train sailors in the ways of the sea a magnificent barque was commissioned - the flagship of the training fleet.

Hitler was present at her launch and Rudolf Hess gave a speech. She was christened "Horst Wessel" after the storm trooper "hero" whose song Horst-Wessel-Lied became an anthem of the Third Reich.

The eagle on her prow was the Nazi Party's eagle, the Parteiadler.

"The Eagle is an emblem of force, strength and bravery - I'm not surprised it was chosen," says Holtkamp.

When World War Two broke out in 1939, the cutter was initially kept in harbour to house a branch of the Hitler Youth.

But in 1942 - with the addition of anti-aircraft guns - she was commissioned for active service in the Baltic Sea.

A year later, in a small town near the German-Dutch border, a tall teenager named Holtkamp was preparing to be called up to the military.

"I was due to be drafted - probably into the army - and that meant the Eastern front," he recalls.

"Well I didn't want to go there, so I volunteered for the navy.

"We were all eagerly hoping to be on a small boat in the Mediterranean, maybe in Greece, with palm trees and beautiful girls. But most of us didn't get that."

Instead, Holtkamp found himself in the Baltic Sea port of Kiel staring at his new home - a training ship.

"When I first saw the ship it was colder than hell. I looked up that great tall mast and thought, 'My God in this weather I'm gonna go all the way up there?' I was scared.

"I was also disappointed. Horst Wessel was the only ship in the German Navy named after a Nazi - and even then we didn't want to be associated with anything Nazi-like."

Life on the boat was cramped - as it still is for today's young US cadets.

"We had hammocks back then. You would bounce into the guy next to you. But the camaraderie was fantastic.

"I loved the ship, the ocean, my buddies. I hated the discipline. We had an officer who was a real SOB - I never hated anybody in my life like this man. He was an SOB first class."

Holtkamp and his fellow recruits were put to work - rigging the sails, scrubbing the teak deck with holystone (a soft sandstone), polishing the brass, and taking watches - some of the very same jobs that cadets today are taught.

Meanwhile, overhead, they kept their eyes glued to the sky in fear. Every plane could be a Russian bomber. "And what would we do? We had guns installed but what good would they be?" he asks.

"Then one day I saw a formation coming over the harbour - American bombers with their bomb bays open. And we'd be a good hit - with 200 of us on board.

"I knew I couldn't leave the ship. So I watched as they dropped the bombs right next to us."

During a more peaceful spell in Danzig (now the Polish port of Gdansk) he had time to get acquainted with "forbidden" American records, which were still being played despite the war.

"St Louis Blues. Stormy Weather. Bei Mir Bistu Shein [an English-language song taken from a Yiddish comedy in New York]. All these songs I had never heard - I learned every one them.

"There was this fascination with Americans and the English - even through their bombing raids, that never ceased."

He didn't know it then but very soon Holtkamp would experience American and British culture from much closer range.

In April 1945 the British arrived, seized the Horst Wessel and hoisted the union jack. Holtkamp, meanwhile, was handed over to the Americans.

"I became a prisoner of war - a prisoner of the US Army. I finally got where I wanted to be!" he laughs.

"I was shipped off to a camp with 100,000 people there. I will never forget my first day behind barbed-wire fences. The most desolate day ever. There was nothing.

"There were no tents, no roof over our head. We were living out in the open.

"On the first day I said to the fellow in front, 'Hey you've got something crawling out of your collar!' He replied, 'You've got something crawling out of yours too!' We had lice."

Conditions slowly improved - latrines, water, and bread and spam to eat. Holtkamp began teaching himself English to become a translator and earn privileges.

"I learned four-letter words - every one you could imagine. And then one day, the British came in.

"They said, 'My God this is a terrible camp! Not the kind we keep for our prisoners.' They brought in tents and took care of us better. And ultimately - the British sent me home."

While he had been in the PoW camp, the Horst Wessel had become a war prize.

The Allies were dividing up the spoils.

"My father told me the ship was in Bremerhaven. The whole town was totally bombed-out, but there was my ship.

"And the captain - the SOB - he was still there, and he remembered me.

"He said: 'Holtkamp this is your opportunity! We need people to take the ship to an Allied port.'

"I said, 'Which port?' He said, 'Probably the Russians.' I said, 'No thanks! A nice trip to Leningrad and they'll ship me right back. Oh yeah, sure! I don't think so.'

"And that was the last time I saw the Horst Wessel. I waved her goodbye. "I was so sad about leaving her. We all were - my buddies and I. But I hoped to go on to greater things."

What none of them realised was the ship was not destined for Russia at all.

For Holtkamp, meanwhile, an opportunity soon came to emigrate to America - the land he had been so fascinated by.

It was 1949 and the US had just opened the border. "When I arrived in New York they kept asking me the same questions over and over. What did I think of Hitler? Was I in the Hitler Youth? What do I think of democracy?

"I said, 'If democracy is the same thing I went through in your prison camp I don't think I'm gonna like it.'"

He was surprised when, the following year, 1950, he received a draft notice for the US Army, signed by President Truman. His military days were not over after all.

Holtkamp served two years for the US Army during the Korean War, before settling in Connecticut, where later that decade he enrolled in university.

"One Sunday afternoon in 1959 I took a young girl out for dancing. And on the drive back we came over the Gold Star Memorial Bridge. I looked down in the harbour and there I saw her. I knew immediately it was my ship.

"I said to my date: 'I'm sorry we can't go home yet!'"

When he arrived at the gates to the Coast Guard Academy some kind guards let him in - intrigued by his story and obvious enthusiasm.

"I went down to my old deck where I always slept and - guess what - there was a Coca-Cola machine."

So how had the Horst Wessel washed up in Connecticut?

Holtkamp has spent many years reconstructing the story, which he tells in his biography of the ship: A Perfect Lady.

It transpires that when the Allied commanders sat round the table in 1946 to divide up the spoils from the German fleet they did so by drawing names from a hat.

Three pieces of cardboard were folded up, popped in a cap, and the American, British and Russian commanders took their turns at lucky dip.

The Horst Wessel was indeed drawn by the Russian commodore. But secretly, under the table, he agreed a swap with the US officer - who was desperate to bring the tall ship back to the US.

And so in June 1946 an American crew, assisted by the original German captain and his remaining sailors, steered the newly rechristened Eagle from Bremerhaven, through an Atlantic hurricane, to New York.

Next year will be the 70th anniversary of this epic transit - and in celebration the Eagle is due to return to Germany.

She is undergoing a $28m (£18m) refit - from keel to crow's nest - in preparation for what is hoped will be another 70 years of active service.
Rather than a symbol of war she has become an emblem of peace and partnership between the two nations.

"When the Germans launched her back in 1936 they built her as a training vessel. And here we are 80 years later and it's doing the same great job they designed it for," notes Capt Cummings.

Over the years Holtkamp has become a frequent and welcome visitor to the academy in New London, having worked nearby at IBM for 28 years.

"I'm happy that the Coast Guard has the Eagle, because we used to be trained for war. But the Coast Guard is there to help people," he says.

"They take people off ships when they're sick. They rescue people. These things are good things - they're wonderful things.

"So I'm very happy that the Coast Guard has the Eagle. If I was a young man I think I'd join the Coast Guard too."

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33543706