«Deutschland»: Гибель парохода с эмигрантами у Кентийского Нока.

Iron passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line

Deutschland was an iron passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, built by Caird & Company of Greenock, Scotland in 1866.

Deutschland was built as an emigrant passenger ship. She entered service on 7 October 1866 and arrived at New York on her maiden voyage on 28 October. On 8 August 1869, she collided with and sank the British schooner Mary Bottwood off Hastings, Sussex, United Kingdom, killing three of her four crew and rescuing the survivor.

The Deutschland sailed from Bremerhaven on 4 December 1875, commanded by Captain Eduard Brickenstein, with 123 emigrants bound for New York via Southampton. Weather conditions were very bad with heavy snowstorms, and the ship had no clear idea of her position until, at 05:00 on 6 December, she ran aground in a blizzard on the Kentish Knock, a shoal 23 mile (37 km) off Harwich and 22 mile (35 km) from Margate, 3 mile (5 km) from the Kentish Knock lightvessel, and out of sight from shore. At the time she was 30 mile (48 km) from where Captain Brickenstein estimated she was. Shortly before grounding, an attempt was made to go astern but this failed when the stress fractured the ship's propeller. Later, rockets from that light vessel were seen by another, whose own rockets were seen at Harwich in the evening, though neither the nature nor location of the casualty were known. The paddle tug Liverpool was dispatched at daylight on 7 December, reaching the Deutschland via the sequence of light vessels, and embarked all 173 still alive on the wreck.

Among the victims of the shipwreck were five Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts from Salzkotten, Westphalia, in the Kingdom of Prussia, who had been emigrating to the United States. This was both to escape the anti Catholic Falk Laws and to answer the need for nursing care in the German population of St. Louis, Missouri. Their deaths inspired Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to compose the poem The Wreck of the Deutschland. Four of the five Sisters were buried in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Leytonstone, London, (a fifth whose body was never found is recorded on the memorial) and their deaths are commemorated every year in a memorial service held on 6 December in Wheaton, Illinois, by the Franciscan Sisters of their religious congregation now headquartered there.