
Encyclopedia Titanica
Philip Hind
Staff member
Member

Alfred Nourney : Titanic Survivor
Biography of Alfred Nourney : Titanic Survivor
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org
No record of WW1 service can often mean that a man was deemed physically unfit to serve or else he had a civilian job that was too important to the war effort for him to be released.Nourney was born in Holland from a Dutch father and German mother. By the time he was an adult, he was living in Koln, Germany, with his mother and was certainly a German national when he boarded the Titanic. I have not seen any record of his WW1 service but as a German, he would be expected to serve the Kaiser, I suppose.
I have read unverified reports that he joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s and went on to become an officer of the SS. But that information is from Tabloid-like sources and so could well be exaggerated.
Sorry if my statement was confusing. I meant that I have not seen a WW1 record but not that one does not exist. I did not research too deeply into Nourney, but the tabloid source that I mentioned is thisNo record of WW1 service can often mean that a man was deemed physically unfit to serve or else he had a civilian job that was too important to the war effort for him to be released.
Thanks for that Arun. You are right that is very, very shoddy "shock" journalism indeed.Sorry if my statement was confusing. I meant that I have not seen a WW1 record but not that one does not exist. I did not research too deeply into Nourney, but the tabloid source that I mentioned is this
Titanic survivor became member of Nazi SS after lying his way onto lifeboat
As you are British, I don't have to tell you about the "quality" of the Daily Mirror