Talk:German battleship Bismarck

Failed Luftwaffe and Navy intervention

Should it be added in the "Sinking" section that one of the main reasons the British attack on Bismarck was successful was because the ships had been damaged just beyond the Luftwaffe's maximum range? \
Also, the fact the British thought that the plume of smoke in the distance as they were rescuing Bismarck's crew was from a U-Boat was partly because the German Navy actually had deployed U-Boats to rescue the Bismarck. But due to lack of speed couldn't make it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dario DeCasseres (talk • contribs) 00.51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Hood sunk by Prince Eugen not the Bismark

I dont have a reference here, but I have read that Ballard's observsation of the wreck of the Hood suggest that it is more likely that it was sunk by the Prince Eugen, not the Bismark. I have further read that both the initial reports and ongoing fiction to the contrary are nothing but propaganda - it would not look good to have a battleship like the Hood sunk by a "mere" cruiser. 2001:8003:E40F:9601:9D79:A255:911C:8514 (talk) 01:24, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

That theory is long-debunked, and you are mistaken that Ballard supports the idea. Parsecboy (talk) 01:43, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Gender of Bismarck

Bismarck's captain, Lindemann, referred to the ship by masculine pronouns. As such, I believe we should refer to the vessel by masculine pronouns in the article. I'm aware that ships are traditionally called by feminine pronouns, but I feel like the captain has authority over tradition here.

Sources: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-do-ships-have-a-gender#:~:text=This%20is%20less%20common%20in,view%20of%20its%20awesome%20power.

https://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=55 SSBelfastFanatic (talk) 16:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

No, we won't be propagating Nazi propaganda, thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, thanks! SSBelfastFanatic (talk) 16:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 May 2024

At around 10:00, a shell from King George V penetrated the upper citadel belt and exploded in the ship's after canteen, killing Oels on the gun deck and about a hundred others.

To

At around 10:00, a shell from King George V penetrated the upper citadel belt and exploded in the ship's aft canteen, killing Oels on the gun deck and about a hundred others.

"after canteen" to "aft canteen" 143.159.69.199 (talk) 07:22, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done Charliehdb (talk) 09:59, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Ship pronoun proposal

I suggest we use neuter pronouns (it) instead of feminine (she) for ships in this article. This is allowable under WP:SHIPPRONOUNS. The reasoning is that it's a compromise measure given the German use of masculine "he" for ships and widespread use of "he" elsewhere to refer to Bismarck. So doing so might head off future edit conflict. Fangz (talk) 18:46, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Using "it" won't satisfy the Wheraboos, and I'm not inclined to "compromise" with them when their position is Nazi propaganda. Ships aren't masculine in German; "schiffe" is feminine, and they use the term "schwesterschiff", not "bruderschiff". It's also worth pointing out that the de.wiki article begins "Die Bismarck war ein Schlachtschiff... (emphasis mine). Lastly, the idea that Bismarck is referred to as "he" widely elsewhere seems a rather dubious proposition - I find exactly zero returns for battleship Bismarck "his wreck", while battleshi Bismarck "her wreck" returns quite a few. Parsecboy (talk) 19:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Does wikipedia have an article discussing this? I don't mean internal wikipedia policy, rather the historical aspect. Fangz (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean the grammatical gender of ships in general? Not that I’m aware of. Parsecboy (talk) 21:00, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Well that's one thing but I think it would be good to discuss the specifics of this issue wrt WWII propaganda. I see some forum posts about Lindemann proposing this for Bismarck but maybe there's a good reference to be found. Fangz (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Two points: we don't engage with Nazi propaganda anywhere else, I see no reason to here (especially since this is so trivial). And I've seen no reference to the idea in any legitimate source I've read, so we shouldn't cover it either, regardless of what nonsense is spread on forums. Parsecboy (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Scuttling

Taken from the Bismarck article, in the "Sinking" section.

"Some near misses alongside the port side, and the fact that the ship was no longer able to fight back, caused Oels to decide at around 09:30 to scuttle Bismarck to prevent the ship being boarded by the British, and to allow the crew to abandon ship so as to reduce casualties [155] [156]"

The first reference given (page 28 of the "Marine forensics Analysis") gives no source for its assertion of Oels's "issuing the scuttle order at 9:30am", and does not contain ANY evidence to support the idea of crew concerns about "the ship being boarded by the British".

This is from "Battleship Bismarck: A survivor's story" the first edition copy Written by Baron Burkhard von Mullenheim-Rechberg, Bismarck's senior ranking survivor.

Page 211 "Our list to port had increased a bit while firing was going on" followed by "Around 9:30am gas and smoke began to drift through our station" This means that prior to 9:30am Bismarck was already flooding, not something that happens to a healthy seaworthy ship, in other words she was already starting to sink.

This next piece of evidence is taken from an interview conducted for the highly regarded weekly history journal "Purnell's history of the second world war" in the late 1960's with Gerhard Junack (Bismarck's only surviving engineering officer and the survivor who supposedly enacted the "scuttle order", which he only mentioned for the first time during the same interview in 1967). He stated that...

"Somewhere about 1015 hours, I received an order over the telephone from the Chief Engineer (Korvettenkapitän (Ing.) Walter Lehmann) to 'Prepare the ship for sinking.' That was the last order I received on the Bismarck. Soon after that, all transmission of orders collapsed." This also confirms the falsehood of the paragraph in the article.

Heading back to the account of Mullenheim-Rechberg, on Page 212 he states that (before 10:00am) "I was using all the telephone circuits and calling all over the place in an effort to find out as much as possible about the condition of the ship. I got only one answer. I reached the messenger in the damage control centre and asked "who has and where is the command of the ship? Are there new orders in effect?".... The man said he was in a great hurry. He told me that everyone had abandoned the damage control centre, adding that he was the last one in the room and had to get out... then he hung up".

This vain search for contact & information over the Bismarck's internal comms happened BEFORE 10:00am which throws some mild doubt on Junack's testimony where he says he was contacted by the chief engineer who supposedly gave him the "scuttle order" over the phone at 10:15am... Hmmmmm.

The reference numbered [156] states "Garzke, Dulin & Jurens 2019b, pp. 683, 866, 873."

I possess a 2019 copy of the afore referenced book, and it does NOT have pages 683, 866 and 879, as the book contains only 610 pages !!! So the reference supporting that paragraph is false.

As well as a physical copy of the book I also have a PDF version which enables a reader to search for specified words and phrases, and I can confirm there is NO reference ANYWHERE in the book regarding any concerns on behalf of Bismarck's crew about the potential for Bismarck to be "boarded by the British", there is also NO reference anywhere in Baron Burkhard von Mullenheim-Rechberg's book regarding that same concern about "board(ing) by the British".

If taken at face value these survivor testimonies show that there was at least a 45 minute gap between Bismarck starting to sink and the first mention of a "scuttle order" being given.

Anything else is just hurt German pride, bolstered by modern day delusional wehraboos. Germany was well known for trying to hide its national humiliations, such as when they scuttled their "grand fleet" at the end of WW1, like illogically saying "We lost.. but you didn't win", or a pathetic "You didn't beat us because we killed ourselves first" sort of idiocy.

The whole paragraph I quoted at the top of this post is complete nonsense, not worthy of a supposedly authoratative account of the Bismarck action, and is fit only for idiotic "Youtube " comments section talk. 92.16.42.113 (talk) 19:59, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

A few points of order:

• Dulin et. al. - the authors of the paper you dismiss - are noted naval historians and/or marine archeologists. What you think of their paper is meaningless. This is also the cited source for the claim about concern over boarding, not the Garzke, Dulin, & Jurens book. I'm not quite sure how you think that, given they are clearly cited.
• The version of Garzke, Dulin, & Jurens is the eBook format, which apparently has different pagination. Perhaps, rather than claim the citation to be false, you actually crack open your hardcopy version and try to find the citations. If you're curious, the relevant pages are 416 and 437.
• On listing - I'm not sure what point you think you're making. You'll note that Bismarck already had a list from the Denmarck Strait action, and the article makes clear in the same paragraph with which you take issue that "Bismarck was also slowly sinking due to an increasing list that allowed water to enter the ship via damage to the main deck..."
• On the issue of the timing of the order to scuttle, you will note in your copy of Garzke, Dulin, & Jurens (on page 527), that Statz is the source for Oels giving orders to scuttle at 9:30.

Your final statement is a quite apt description of the rest of your complaint. Parsecboy (talk) 20:42, 16 November 2024 (UTC)