On September 1st 1939 at 04:47 the first shots of the Second World War were fired when the Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish positions on the Westerplatte.
The Seekriegslietung began preparations for commerce warfare in earnest. Although auxiliary cruisers were hardly a priority, 2 prewar studies were hastily carried out in the summer of 1939 and there was little support among the officers in the Seekriegslietung or the Naval High Command. In spite of this the Kriegsmarine’s auxiliary cruisers were to repeat the successes achieved by disguised commerce raiders of the Great War such as the Mowe, Seeadler, and Wolf IV. During WWII, the newest and fastest freighters were reserved for troop transports therefore the conversion office of the Kriegsmarine was left with a pool of ships ranging from modern motorships with reliable diesel engines to steamers with recycled steam turbine engines from bygone passenger liners. 11 freighters were converted, 9 sailed, of these 6 were sunk in action. The “Thor” was destroyed by explosion in Yokohama, Japan. Only “Widder” and “Orion” survived. The last merchant raider sunk on the high seas was Schiff 28 also known as the “Michel” she was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine USS Tarpon (SS-175) some 50 miles from port. This marked the end of the Hilfskreuzer operations...........or so official history says,
However, there was a 12th raider a mysterious vessel doomed to sail the seas for eternity. By orders of the Führer, she sailed on a cruise of destruction, sinking ship after ship, destroying port after port, sowing minefield after minefield it was even said that she sank an entire convoy when the escorting destroyers abandoned their posts on sighting her terrifying silhouette, captured and held the Cocos Islands, and even took a battleship prize at the British Naval Base at Trincomalee, Ceylon.
In spite of this the allies were never aware of the existence of this raider as her activities were always linked with uboats, other commerce raiders, and even spies. It was not until late 1944 when a British tanker was sunk in the Pacific Ocean roughly 80km off Papua New Guinea that shed light on the existence of this mystery raider, but Allied intelligence attributed this sinking to a Japanese raider.
She was never caught and subsequently undertook the return voyage to Germany, or what was left of it and surrendered in late 1945 at Kiel Harbor, Buoy Nr. 10.
This is story of the dreaded merchant raider Schiff Nr. 30
The “Wolf.”
.....................Die Piraten des Führer......................
