Self-Destructed German Black Sea Fleet, The Hunt of the Legend

The Legend:
Due to fast evacuation of german troops from romanian soil, some equipment, machines, transportation units, SHIPS were destroyed, thus avoiding the soviet army to capture them.
The bulgarians are saying:
"One of the many important events, that took place during World War II along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, was the self-destruction of the German Black Sea Fleet. At that time it included some Italian, Romanian, Croatian and Hungarian battleships as well. At the beginning of 1944 their total number was 350, of which: battle cruiser - 1; destroyers - 4; minelayers - 3; torpedo-boats -28; submarines - 14; minesweepers - 31; landing crafts - 102 and many other servicing ships and boats. Part of them - 101, were sunken or abandoned by their crews along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and along with four Russian World War II submarines, sank in battles"

Taking this in mind and the fact that old romanian navy divers told stories about german wrecks somewhere near Mangalia, the chance to be discovered is close. Untill now, poor information, missinformation and secrecy was spread among the people who tryed to penetrate this subject. The military divers who really touched those wrecks (70 and 80 years old) are now taking with them a well kept secret (very few of them are still alive).
I realy don't understand why is this so secret? or is just a big lie?
So... maybe somebody can help us in "Hunt of the Legend". We need name of ships, classes, home ports, photos and any starting point that can help our search.

I think U260diver must realy see this topic He is intrested in diveings in that area.

hi cipiamon,
greatings to you. i must say that we already met.
a part of the legend is true indeed. i've found some piece of information about 3 german submarines type IIB U-9, U-18 and U-24 that were sunk near constanta.
U-9 was struck by a soviet plane on 20 august 1944 at 10.30 and the other 2 U-boat were shuttled. toghether with other 3 subs they were forming the 30th flotilla whith the headquarters at constanta.

See Class IIB submarines in the Black Sea.

The list of ships given by the Bulgarian source is exagerrating, as there were no Axis battlecruisers in the Black Sea and the destroyers, mine layers and most of the torpedo boats were in fact Romanian, not German. The Hungarians had only some transport ships, no warships and the Croatians only had crews, the ships being in fact German.

According to http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-08.htm , the last days of The German Black Sea Fleet (Deutsche Seestreitkräfte im Schwarzen Meer) were :
20.8 during Sov.bombardament over Constantza harbour were sunk U9, S42, 52 and 131, R37, F568, and were damaged U18, U24, S28, 45, 47, 49 and 51.
22.8, S148 lost at Burgas on a mine.
24.8 the not driving-ready ships, U18 and U24, S28, 49, 72 and 149, KT 39, UJ 115(Rosita), UJ 301 and 302 were sunk by germans in Constantza. S45, 47 and 51 run out to Varna.
25.8, UJ 105(KT 24) lost at Varna on a mine.
26.8, were sunk themselves : UJ 101, 102, 103(KT 37), 107(KT 34), 116(Xanten) and 118(F-368) at Kaliakra.
After capitulation of Bulgaria, the last ships (about 200) remained in Varna area sink themselves, on the 29./30.8 outside bulgar territorial waters. Among them S45, 47 and 51, R163, 164, 165, 166, 196, 197, 203, 205, 206, 207, 209, 216, 248, UJ 2301 and 2305, the Artilleriefährprähme AF 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 and the Marinefährprähme F-570, 572 and 582.
The last 3 subs U19, 20 and 23 operate from 25.8 in Constantza area. On the 1.9 U23 fires torpedos to the harbour of Constantza and heavy damaged cargoboat Oituz. On the 2.9 U19 sinks Sov. minesweeper BT-410(Vzryv). After using up of her fuel and refusal of a sales offer from Turkey, the three U-boote on the 10.9 in Eregli area turk.coast were sunk by crews.

This post has been edited by Petre on August 15, 2009 01:45 pm

I wanted to ask about the German battle cruiser on Black Sea, then I saw the following messages.

Just as a fact, the meaning of "battleship" in English is reserved only for the really big vessels, also named "line ships", because up to World War I the biggest vessels of the opposing navies were fighting each other while arranged in a line.
Actually the last naval battle when battleships tried to form a line was during the biggest naval battle of all times - near Leyte Island, in October 1944.

This post has been edited by Florin on April 15, 2009 05:20 pm

i'm keen to see the battlecruiser as well. the only battlecruiser that ever sailed in the black sea in wartime was the "Goeben". wrong war though.

somebody improperly translated the term "warship".

Actually in the World War I Germany gave to the Ottoman Empire two battle cruisers, not one. They were under the flag of the Turks, but handled by German crews. If one of them never ventured beyond Istanbul into the Black Sea, it proves your point.

the other being?
no, the "SMS Breslau" was not a battlecruiser. it was a Magdeburg-class light cruiser. (from Conway's "All the World Fighting Ships 1906-1921")

If the bulgarians sayed : .... battle cruiser = 1, maybe they think about the romanian passenger ships "Regele Carol I"(3600 t) or "Dacia"(4500 t) who served in WW2 as minelayers. This ships in WW1 were turned into "auxiliary cruisers". On 10.10.1941 Carol hit a mine and sank.
All the german and italian ships came hardly, on roads, rails and by the Danube river, Turkish straits were closed WW2.

This post has been edited by Petre on August 17, 2009 01:34 pm

Stefan Semerdjiev, bulgarian author, wrote in his "The Mysterious Fate of Adolph Hitler's "BLACK SEA FLEET" :
"On 25 August, the last German ships left the Romanian harbor of Mangalia in direction of Bulgaria. Several German commanders were so frightened that, immediately after crossing the Romanian border, they ran their ships ashore between Durankulak and Shabla and panic-stricken, fled with their crews to the West. In the bay of Varna, the ships anchored on the commercial pier and in the chanel to Varna Lake. On 27 August a compromise solution was found: the ships were to be disarmed and the crews were to leave the country. The Bulgarian's would provide railway trains for the departure. The commander of the S-flotille refused to obey, departed the harbor with his last 4 S-boats and scuttled them off Baltchik. On 28 Aug.1944, a great part of the ships with only a few men on board left Varna's harbor and stopped 5-6 miles to the east. Immediately upon leaving the harbor, the crews began to throw weapons, ammunition and valuable equipment overboard, while leaving the engines run without coolants and lubrication so that they would burn themselves out and become useless. Then a R-boat made the round of all ships and collected the crews. Another boat followed with a demolition team, which placed explosive charges with time fuses on each ship. After a preset time, the charges exploded and all of the ships sank. The boat with the crews returned to the harbor and was abandoned with running engines without cooling and lubrication. By afternoon, a storm made it impossible for 20 remained ships to leave the harbor to be scuttled. On 29 August, after sank some more ships, the last group of Germans left Varna by train. The ships abandoned in Varna were seized by the Sov. troops. The number of German ships lost in WW2 in the Black Sea is not exactly known. It varies from 110 to 145 according to different sources. The fate of many of the ships in the Black Sea still remains unknown. For many of them it was later claimed that they were Soviet war prizes, but this also remains unclear. 101 German ships were in the area of Varna and Bourgas in the end of war. 73 were scuttled by their crews : 71 in the bay of Varna and 2 in the bay of Bourgas. It leaves the impression that a great part of the ships - 28 (about 1/3) - were abandoned without being sunk. This confirms that at that time the German troops in Black Sea area had become panic-stricken. But German commanders took the measures to ensure that as many as possible of the combat ships were scuttled - these were all S-boats, AMLs and AFs, a great part of the R-boats (32 of 38), MFPs (28 of 32) and KFKs (2 of 5)."

This post has been edited by Petre on September 29, 2009 10:21 am

I have found some info… It is from the K.Doenitz memoirs "Ten years and twenty days".
As for the fleet scuttled in the Danube I can say, that all the ships (apr. 200) were under command of the rear-admiral Zieb. He lost 12 ships and 350 men during the first fight against the Romanians on the 26 of August. During they trip, there were several fights but they made it to the home side on the 2 of September, rescueing 2600 men (most of them, wounded soldiers on the floating hospital "Bamberg")
Drobjatski Sergei, Tallinn, Estonia

This post has been edited by Petre on September 29, 2009 10:24 am

Did we have a more exact information regarding the german ships sunk in the romanian waters after 23.08.1944 and their location ?