Sinking
In April 1945, her conversion into a hospital ship was begun. An attempt was made to paint the vessel white, but there was only sufficient paint available to paint her funnels white, and to paint a Red Cross on one side of one of her funnels.
Between 16 and 28 April 1945, the concentration camp of Neuengamme was systematically emptied of all its remaining prisoners, other groups of concentration camp inmates and Soviet prisoners of war (POWs); with the intention that they would be relocated to a secret new camp. In the interim, they were to be concealed from the advancing British and Canadian forces; and for this purpose the Schutzstaffel assembled a prison flotilla of decommissioned ships in the Bay of Lübeck, consisting of the liners SS Cap Arcona and Deutschland, the freighter SS Thielbek (1940), and the motor launch Athens. Since the steering motors were out of use in Thielbek and the turbines were out of use in Cap Arcona, Athens was used to transfer prisoners from Lübeck to the larger ships and between ships; they were locked below decks and in the holds, and denied food and medical attention.
During the first days of May 1945, thousands of concentration camp inmates were locked below decks and in the holds, and denied food and medical attention. All people on board the Deutschland survived the attack, though two accompanying vessels sank with great loss of life. Subsequently, on 3 May 1945, she was attacked by British Royal Air Force squadrons three times, and sank in the Bay of Lübeck off Neustadt, but everyone aboard survived. A fourth British air attack that day sank the Cap Arcona and Thielbek, with great loss of life.[5][6]
In 1949, the wreck was raised and scrapped.
