The huge three-masted silhouette and gleaming white hull of the Military School Ship “NRP Sagres” is a brand image engraved in the minds not only of the Portuguese soldiers who served on board, but also of an entire nation and perhaps the world. As remarkable and fabulous as its modern history is, we're not talking about that today, but rather its origins....
Originally built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1937, it was handed over to the German Navy a year later, where it played a vital role in training German sailors during various voyages and naval training during the Third Reich..... where the story of “Hans Heinrich”, sailor and crew member of the “Segelschulschiff Albert Leo Schlageter” in 1944 and in the service of commander “Kapitän zur See Joachim Asmus”, begins.
From February 1944, when he joined the crew, to July of the same year, “Hans” took part in various training trips between Kiel, Danzig, Pillau, Swinemünde, trained with comrades from other ships, including the “Gorch Fock”, visited destroyed cities by the ongoing war and even received the news of the Allied invasion of Normandy in June.
We spoke to Dankward Heinrich, the son of “Hans”, who gave us details and also authorized the production of this article based on his father's records and photographic data.
António Fragoeiro and Dankward Heinrich
