German tanker Altmark
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Altmark was a German tanker / unarmed supply vessel, best known for her support of Admiral Graf Spee and later involvement in the Altmark Incident. She was 141 metres long and had a gross tonnage of 7,021. She was built in Hamburg in 1938 by Blohm and Voss.
Altmark was assigned to support Admiral Graf Spee during her raid in the South Atlantic. Seamen rescued from the ships sunk were transferred to Altmark. When Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled in Montevideo Altmark returned to Germany, steaming north of Great Britain and along the Norwegian coast.
Pursued by the British destroyer HMS Cossack, she fled into Norwegian waters in February 1940 with 299 British merchant seamen prisoners on board. On 16 February 1940 she was boarded by sailors from Cossack and the merchant sailors were freed.
The boarding was a breach of Norwegian neutrality and would be pivotal for the subsequent German decision to occupy Norway and Denmark in April 1940.no:Altmark (skip)
