14th December 1941
'Hein Godenwind'

Hien Godenwind

The Hein Godenwind was a full-length ship built in 1902 at the French shipyard Chantiers et Ateliers de Penhoët in Saint-Nazaire as Maréchal Souchet . The ship was used as the first floating youth hostel in the port of Hamburg from 1933 to 1939.

In July 1924 the ship was sold to Germany to the F. Laeisz shipping company in Hamburg and continued to be used as a cargo sailing vessel as Pellworm.

The Pellworm was decommissioned in May 1925 and sold to the Syndikat shipping company. After being converted into a residential ship with space for 1200 people, it was used in the port of Hamburg. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Hamburg Port Operations Association took over the ship, which donated it to the Nordmark Gau of the Reich Association of German Youth Hostels in 1933.

After another renovation by Blohm & Voss, it was put into service as a floating youth hostel on 8th April 1934 under the name Hein Godenwind. It provided accommodation for 514 people.

At the beginning of 1939 the ship was placed under the control of the Hamburg Naval Office and used as an office ship.

From November 1939 it served as a living ship for the crew of the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, which required some modifications by Blohm & Voss. It then served again as an office ship and for supervising the construction of the battleship Bismarck.

In 1942 it was subordinated to the 8th Warship Construction Training Department. During the air raids on Hamburg in the summer of 1943, the ship was hit on 25th July and caught fire. As a result, it sank to the bottom of the harbour basin. It was raised at the beginning of 1944 and the Hulk was taken to the Curonian Lagoon in February as a target ship for the German Luftwaffe. It was later sunk there during Luftwaffe exercises.

Source: Wikipedia

Kriegshilfsdienst (K.H.D.)

At the beginning of the Second World War, the war relief service was introduced as a temporary measure for high school students. For example, students were used to distribute ration cards.

On 29th July 1941, Hitler issued a decree on the 'Reich Labor Service of Female Youth' that women had to do an additional six months of military service in addition to the six months of Reich Labor Service. The work was paid 45 Reichsmarks per month.

Officially, military service should be carried out at social institutions, in hospitals and with needy families, at authorities and at Wehrmacht offices. In fact, of the 50,000 women recruited in the winter of 1942/43, 30,000 worked in transport companies and the armaments industry.

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