We sailed past sunken German WW2 ships that are now emerging from the Danube: The sights are unreal

Climate change and extreme temperatures have led to a drop in the water levels of mighty rivers. This summer, the Danube "faded away," the water in the Rhine dropped, even the fearless Yangtze started to dry up.

As the water recedes, nature reveales not only banks, but also long-forgotten treasures, sunken cities, including some details from the past, which many would like to forget.

It is on the Danube in Serbia, in the area of the town of Prahovo, that first the top parts, and then entire wrecks of what were once German warships  sunk there during the Second World War emerged from the river. As we approached the vessels, which have been rotting at the bottom of the river for more than 75 years, we couldn't help but wonder what else the Danube still hides.

The locals in Prahovo are not unfamiliar with this scene. Even before, these wrecks would emerge when the water level on the Danube drops. However, the "ghost ships" have never been visible to this extent. Namely, the water on the Danube has not been this low in the last one hundred years.

Now, the river revealed wrecks of warships still containing explosives, in their "full glory"

It is hard to imagine that these wrecks were once a part of Nazi Germany's Black Sea Flee and were in 1944 retreating from advancing Soviet forces. It is even more difficult to imagine that the Nazis sunk the vessels themselves in September 1944, in the Djerdap (Iron Gates) Gorge.

How were the ships sunk?

Most of these ships originally sailed down the Danube from Germany to the Black Sea, while a number were built in the Romanian shipyard in Constanta. When the German army got defeated on the Eastern Front, the Allied planes began pounding Nazi ships in the Black Sea.

Realizing that they had nowhere to go, in August 1944 the Nazis started to retreat. The plan was to return to Germany via the Danube - what will remain known in history as "Operation Danube Elf." However, the withdrawal started to hit the snag under fire from Romanian artillery. Namely, Romania had in meanwhile switched sides and joined the Allies.

The clashes between the Romanian artillery and the Nazi Black Sea Fleet, which included artillery salvos, and use of patrol boats, river gunboats and landing craft resukted in a great number of casualties. According to available information, some civilians and the wounded soldiers were put on evacuation trains in Bulgaria, and a convoy of 127 German ships and 31 "train-ship rafts" with 2,000 civilians and 1,600 wounded, continued sailing upstream. They reached Prahovo on September 1, 1944.

The plan was to continue towards Belgrade, but the Red Army was waiting for them near the Romanian town of Turnu Severin, and they cut off the Germans' retreat. It was at this point that the decision was made to sink the ships, one on top of the other. The hospital ship was not exempted from the plan, either. German records show that the ships were mined and sunk in the night between September 6 and 7, 1944.

The decision was made by the fleet's commander Paul Willy Zieb. Zieb allegedly sought approval from his superiors for this move when he realized his forces were trapped, but never received it.

When September 7 dawned, Zieb finally received the order not to touch the ships - but it was already too late.

Since then, these hulks, some of which still have command bridges, turrets, even masts, have been an obstacle to navigation on the Danube. This area is marked in white on the maps, which means that you are sailing in the zone of unexplored waters.

The ships could get removed

Assistant Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Veljko Kovacevic announced that the removal of more than 20 of these wrecks should begin in October.

Kovacevic added that the extraction project will last at least five years.

(Telegraf.rs)