“Not only could merchant ships return home from Japan, carrying vital war cargoes, auxiliary cruisers from Germany could also use it to gain direct access to the Pacific.”

By Stephen Robinson

THE OUTBREAK of World War Two presented Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine (German navy), with a nightmarish strategic scenario. The German fleet, outnumbered ten-to-one, could not directly challenge the might of Britain’s Royal Navy. Raeder could instead initiate a campaign of commerce raiding with warships, U-boats and auxiliary cruisers (armed merchant ships). In time, such vessels would achieve significant results.

Nevertheless, the reality of German geography severely constrained operations as the Kriegsmarine only had bases in the Baltic and North Sea. Taking the war to distant waters would be part of German strategy but as the Royal Navy’s effective blockade strangled Raeder’s ambitions, there was a ray of light in his bleak situation.

The signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939 offered solutions to the Kriegsmarine’s problems. The unexpected alliance suddenly gave Raeder the chance to access to Soviet naval bases from which to support warships and commerce raiders. In return, Germany could offer Stalin superior naval technology.

On Sept. 23, 1939, Raeder briefed Adolf Hitler on the possibility of German warships and auxiliary cruisers gaining access to Murmansk in the Barents Sea. Hitler instructed his foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to raise the matter in an upcoming trip to Moscow.

Despite their interest in maintaining some semblance of neutrality, the Soviets eventually granted Berlin permission to establish a naval base just west of Murmansk at Zapadnaya Bay, an isolated inlet that was closed to foreign shipping.

The Germans eagerly accepted the offer and established Basis Nord (Base North) there on Oct. 31 1939. Raeder planned to use the port as a supply point and repair facility. Merchant vessels Phoenicia and Cordillera quickly arrived to establish the German presence at Zapadnaya. Phoenicia became a supply ship while the Germans used the Cordillera as a barracks ship. As there were no road or rail links to the bay, the Kriegsmarine shipped in all the required equipment and supplies from Germany on the freighter Jan Wellem. However, auxiliary cruisers could not be fitted out in Basis Nord as the navy high command or Seekriegsleitung noted:

Apart from the very long period required for conversion and equipment, it could not be carried out to the required extent at “Base North.” It would, therefore, be better for auxiliary cruisers to be converted and equipped in Germany. They could then possibly be sent out on operations and supplied continually from “Base North.”

By February 1940, Basis Nord was semi-operational and Raeder intended to use it to support a planned sortie by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on a commerce raiding voyage in the icy northern waters. However, in the end the German occupation of Norway made Zapadnaya Bay redundant, as the Germans gained northern ports. The Kriegsmarine closed the base on Aug. 23, 1940 – it never supported raider operations, but the Soviets did assist the Germans in another way.

In January 1940, Captain Norbert von Baumbach, the German naval attaché in Moscow, informed Berlin about a new and promising opportunity. Previously, on Oct. 8, 1939, he had informed the navy high command that German merchant ships stranded in the Far East might be able to return home via the Northeast Passage – the Arctic waters north of Siberia which linked Europe and Asia. Most of the year the Northeast Passage was closed due to heavy ice but in the summer, vessels could attempt the route with the help of icebreakers. A secure sea-route to the Pacific would be of major strategic importance for Germany. Not only could merchant ships return home from Japan, carrying vital war cargoes, auxiliary cruisers from Germany could also use it to gain direct access to the Pacific.

In November 1939, the German embassy in Moscow received instructions to discuss the Northeast Passage with the Soviet naval commissariat and Baumbach inquired into the willingness of Soviet authorities to allow German access by first seeking Soviet naval views and then, if necessary, Soviet foreign office views. Friedrich-Werner Graf von der Schulenburg, the German ambassador, also raised the issue with Vyacheslav Molotov who gave tentative Soviet agreement. On Jan. 10, 1940, the Germans presented a list of ships they wanted to transit through the ice passage to the Soviets and Baumbach soon received official confirmation that the passage would be open to these vessels. The Seekriegsleitung also noted the possibility of the auxiliary cruiser Komet using the passage:

The Attaché’s report promises very good prospects as regards the possibility of a passage by the northeastern sea route. The necessary practical preparations will be made. The route will be used primarily by merchant shipping.  Possibly the auxiliary cruiser HSK”7” [Komet] (Captain Eyssen) may also make her outward passage by this route and her equipment must be adapted accordingly.

On March 18, Baumbach informed the Soviet navy that an auxiliary cruiser would be voyaging through the Northeast Passage, but he did not inform the foreign office:

We brought the matter up at a period beginning about the middle of March, which was politically unfavourable. For this reason, I was not able to risk bringing the information to the notice of Molotov, but was obliged on the advice of the Ambassador, to use my direct contacts with the Soviet Navy. In this way the announcement was not 100 per cent legitimate.

The Soviet navy formally gave permission for four German auxiliary cruisers to use the route and a rendezvous was set for July 15 at Vaygach Island. The Soviets also demanded 850,000 roubles for their assistance. In the end only two German ships were ready: the Komet and the tanker Esso.

On 3 July, the Komet departed Gotenhaven, but the Esso ran aground near Vonflua the next day and was forced to return to Bergen in Norway. The Komet proceeded alone and passed North Cape on July 12 and headed east across the Barents Sea. Baumbach had deliberately not confirmed arrangements with the Russians beforehand to deny them the opportunity to cancel the operation and the raider’s arrival in the Kara Sea took the Soviets completely by surprise.

While the Komet waited for the Northeast Passage to be open the raider either drifted or anchored around the Vaigatsch and Kolguyov Islands. On Aug. 13 the Soviets informed Baumbach that ice conditions were now favourable. The icebreakers Lenin, Stalin and Kaganovich escorted the Komet through the passage in stages and the raider entered the Bering Strait on Sept. 5 and finally reached the Pacific Ocean five days later.

The Komet had made an epic Arctic voyage of 3,300 miles through the Northeast Passage, including 720 miles through heavy ice, and in a record-setting 23 days. Baumbach was also deeply impressed with the nautical skills of the Soviet sailors:

The smooth success of the passage of Ship 45 [Komet] is due to the ice-breakers’ assistance and the Russian ice forecasts. One must specially admire the Russian crews who have been making the voyage by this route for eight years, generally, with little assistance and sometimes without help of any kind, with unquenchable optimism and great nautical dash. However, it is not astonishing that German nautical prowess was equal to the same task.

After transiting the Northeast Passage, the Komet headed south towards Australia and New Zealand. The raider later attacked Allied shipping in the South Pacific and near the Galapagos Islands claiming ten victims totalling 42,959 tons. After spending 515 days at sea, the Komet evaded the British blockade and arrived at Hamburg on Nov. 30, 1941, by which point Germany and the Soviet Union were at war. Eyssen later received the Knight’s Cross for his successful command of the raider.

Ultimately, German hopes for a strategic route to Asia was never realized. Nazi Germany’s relationship with the Soviet Union soon broke down and the Komet was the only German ship escorted through the ice passage during the war.

The assistance given to the Germans later became a source of embarrassment for the Soviet Union. In August 1941, weeks after the German invasion, Rear-Admiral Kharlamov, head of the Soviet military mission in London, informed the British chief liaison officer in writing that “there is no foundation for the assertion” that the Soviet government assisted a German raider through the ice passage. Moscow remained fearful throughout the war that their role would be discovered. In May 1941, the Royal Navy captured a German sailor who knew about the Komet’s voyage and the interrogation report stated:

The prisoner alleged that he was told on board “45” [the Komet] that she had reached the Pacific by going north round Russia. He was told that at one period the raider had run fast in the ice and had had to be freed by Russian ice-breakers. The Russians had warned the Captain to put back, as the British were waiting for him in the Pacific. This story, which seems highly improbable, was repeated by other prisoners. . . who can, however, only have heard of it from the same source. N.I.D. [Naval Intelligence Division] Note: This story is emphatically denied by Russian naval authorities.

Although the British did not initially believe these prisoners they did change their minds later. A Royal Navy weekly intelligence report dated Aug. 27, 1943 clearly stated that the Komet voyaged through the ice passage. The Admiralty ultimately turned a blind eye to the role the Soviet Union had played in supporting Germany’s raider war for the sake of the ‘Grand Alliance.’

Baumbach remained in Moscow as the naval attaché until the German invasion and afterwards served in staff positions in the naval high command and the Seekriegsleitung. He survived the war and, as an expert on the Soviet Union, was repatriated to the United States under Operation Paperclip. He was sent to Fort Hunt, Virginia, for extensive debriefings where he explained his role in establishing Basis Nord and facilitating the Komet’s Arctic voyage to American interrogators.

Stephen Robinson is the author of False Flags: Disguised German Raiders of World War II. He studied Asian history and politics at the University of Western Sydney, graduating with First Class Honours. He has worked at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs researching British atomic weapons tests and as a policy officer in the Department of Defence. Robinson is an officer in the Australian Army Reserve and has served as an instructor at the Royal Military College. He also graduated from Australian Command and Staff College.

(Originally Published on Jun 30, 2020)