Ex-Nazi Ship Eagle Visits Brooklyn's Pier 7. (Hitler Attended Her Launch)

The historic Coast Guard Barque Eagle was docked at Pier 7 next to Brooklyn Bridge Park this weekend, her final stop on a multi-city tour.

The tall ship is celebrating her 75th anniversary. Built in Hamburg, Germany in 1936, she was operated by the German Navy. 

According to the Brooklyn Eagle, during the war the ship was known as the Horst Wessel, named after an infamous Nazi leader (the one who wrote the Nazi national anthem and was shot while in the apartment of his 18-year-old prostitute lover). Adolf Hitler and Rudolph Hess were present at her launch and christening.

At the close of the war, the ship was taken as a war reparation by the U.S., re-commissioned as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle and sailed to New London, Connecticut, which has been her homeport ever since.

According to the Coast Guard, past shipmates are visiting the Eagle during this tour, including Mr. Eddie Didion, who as a child was “adopted” for a time by the crew in war-torn France. 

Photo by MK Metz

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