Heinz Pfeiffer: Voyage to the Canary Islands (1932)

Figure 1.--The boy here is a passenger on the 'SS Orotava' during a 1932 voyage, we think to the Canary Islands. He is Heinz Pfeiffer, Aunt Frieda's son. He wears a traditional white sailor suit. Note the long streamers carefully displayed.

The boy here is a passenger on the SS Orotava' during a 1932 voyage, apparently to the Canary Islands. He is Heinz Pfeiffer, Aunt Frieda's son. He wears a traditional white sailor suit with long streamers. Note the long streamers carefully displayed. Heinz looks to be about 10-11 years old. We know nothing more about him, but he must have come from a well-to-do family. The Orotava was used on a pleasure cruise run back and forth to and from the Canary Islands. Only very well-to-do Germand could have afforded such luxuries in 1932.

Enscription

Writing on the back of the photograph tells us a boy about the voyage. The German text reads," Zum Andenken der Abreise von Bremen den 16. Juli 1932 Heinz Pfeiffer. Geo Precht." That means: "In memory of the departure from Bremen on July 16 1932. Heinz Pfeiffer. Geo Precht" 'Geo' is an abbreviation of Georg (George). Bremen is a port city in northern Germany. There are two persons in the photograph, presumably Heinz and Georg. We are not told, however, the relationship between the two. The writer of the German text made some grammatical and some spelling mistakes. He writes: "Zum Andenken der Abreiße von Bremen am 16.Juli", etc. In correct German that should be: "Zum Andenken an die Abreise von Bremen am 16.Juli", etc. In the lower left corner we see: "Heinz Pfeiffer. Tante Friedas Son". In German that would be: "Heinz Pfeiffer. Tante Friedas Sohn". : ("Aunt Frieda's Son").

Heinz

The boy here is Heinz Pfeiffer, identified only as Aunt Frieda's son. He wears a traditional sailor suit with a cap that had long streamers. Note the long streamers carefully displayed. Heinz looks to be about 10-11 years old. We know nothing more about him, but he must have come from a well-to-do family. The Orotava was used on a pleasure cruise run back and forth from the Canary Islands. Only very well-to-do Germand could have afforded such luxuries in 1932 which explains how smartly dressed Heinz is and the elegant dress of the man with him. We think Heinz may have had some American relatives because the photograph appears to have been sent to America which explains the English text.

Bremen

Bremen is an old Hanseatic port city with a North Sea connection on the river Weser. It is bortth an important port and industrial city. It is second most populous city in North Germany, exceed only by Hamburg, Germany's principal port city. Many German immigrants to the United States embarked from Bremen..

SS Orotava

The SS Orotava was a German passenger owned and operated by the Nord-deutscher Lloyd (NDL) line. The ship was built in the Flensburger Schiffsbau-Gesellschaft yard (1927). This was an important German shipyard located at Kiel. It was the largest and most important builders of U-boats for the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I and the Kriegsmarine in World War II. Thus when the photograph here was taken, Orotava was relatively new. The Orotava was of 3,337 tons and measured 97.4x14.2 metres. She was capable of 12.5 knots and had two funnels. Orotava was one of the smaller passenger liners operated by NDL. She was used in the Bremen to Canary Islands run. There were accomodations for 50 1st class passengers. The Orotava's capacity was increased to 500 passengers (1939). Shec was transferred to a new route between Swindemünde und Pillau. Swindemünde was a Baltoic Sea fishing and naval base near the German-Danish frontier. It is now Swinoujscie on the Pomeranian Gulf of Poland. Pillau was a part in East Prussia and during World War II had a U-boat training facility. After the War it was annexed by the Soviet Union and is now part of Kalinigrad. After the outbreak of the War, the Orotava was remamed the Robert Möhring and moored permanently at Swindemünde for Kriegsmarine troop accomodations. The Germans used it for troop transport (1944). That may have mean primarily getting German civilians out of East Prussia as thec Red Army advanced. The ship was sunk in an Allied air raid on Sassnitz harbour (March 6, 1945). There were 353 persons aboard the ship who perished. .

Swindemünde / Peenemünde

The port of Swindemünde in East Prussia became part of the Orotava Baltic run. Interestingly, Peenemünde is located only a few miles to the west of Swinemünde. Peenemünde was the location of the German research efforts to develop rocket weapons. Here the Germans developed and produced their rocket weapons, actually a pulse jet pilotless bomb (early cruise missle) (V-1) and a balistic missle (v-2). Peenemünde is the first village after you pass the Polish-German border coming from Swinemünde. Of course this has nothing to do with Heinz Pfeiffer, it just gives an idea about the area. The Germans had to shift production to more secure locations after the Allies bombed Peenemünde. Northern Germany wasparticularly vulnerable to Allied bombing.

Voyage

As best we can tell this is a scene from a voyage to the Canary Islands. That was thec run for which Orotava was used. At the time only very well off people could afford ocean voyages. This photograph was taken a few nonths before the NAZIs seized power. After the NAZI take over (1933), Robert Ley's Labor Front organized ocean excursions for working-class Germans. We are not sure how the Orotava was affected.