Pre-war ferries from Esbjerg to Harwich

[richardessberger]

I know that the LNER ran a ferry service between Harwich and Esbjerg, which was operating pre WW2 - sorry this is not about trains!

My father was an Austrian citizen who escaped shortly after the Anschluss via Prague, Danzig and Esbjerg to Harwich, from Vienna, his native city, leaving Prague by train on 14 November 1938. He was working for Czech intelligence and was brought out under the auspices of the Labour Party or church organisations. I am trying to establish what ship he might have sailed on and wondered if anyone has more detail on the ferries between those two ports at that time - they could well have been run by any other ferry company; I know the name of the ship he travelled in from Danzig to Copenhagen, from where he went by train to Esbjerg, but not the name of the ferry from there to Harwich.

Any ideas? ANY leads would be helpful

[52D]

Richard start by looking here http://www.lner.info/ships/GER/index.shtml

[65447]

Your best course of action is to contact the GER Society by e-mail: enquiries@gersociety.org.uk explaining your question as you have above, and ask that it please be passed on to Rijk Alewijnse. Rijk is the acknowledged expert on such matters.

Good luck!

[Bryan]

How about contacting Ferryman who has done so much work on the shipping pages.

[richard]

Contact was made with ferryman, off forum. He doesn't have any further information himself.

[ferryman]

Sorry have just noticed this thread.
The GER/LNER were not involved in the Esbjerg service, it would be the Danish company DFDS, I will look a little further for vessels around 1938.
The Essberger name is well known in shipowning itself, currently mainly in the operation of tankers in the European trade.

Edit

The pre-war fleet of DFDS on the Esbjerg-Harwich (Parkeston Quay) service comprised the four sister ships PARKESTON, JYLLAND, ESBJERG and ENGLAND built at Elsinore between 1925 and 1932. Handsome motorships of 2760grt, 321 feet and with accommodation for 124 x 1st and 60 x 3rd class. All fell into German hand and only PARKESTON survived to run with post-war vessels until 1964.
Unless Richard has a specific sailing date which might be in the DFDS records, I doubt he will get any closer to identifying a particular vessel.