Encyclopedia Titanica
Philip Hind
Staff member
Member
Alfred Nourney : Titanic Survivor
Biography of Alfred Nourney : Titanic Survivor
www.encyclopedia-titanica.org
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Arne Mjåland
Member
I inform you that a video casette with an Alfred Nourney interview (08.08.1962) (49 minutes) is available from SWR Media, Stuttgart. The price is DM 150 postage included.Buyers have to sign a declaration not to distribute,copy or lend the video to others. The punishment for that is DM 5000.
The Nourney family had a wine shop in Koln right back to 1885 according to Koln adressbook. That explains that his mother was able to give him a lot of money before travelling on the Ttianic.
The Nourney family had a wine shop in Koln right back to 1885 according to Koln adressbook. That explains that his mother was able to give him a lot of money before travelling on the Ttianic.
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Arne Mjåland
Member
I noticed that on November 15 this year it was 30 years since he died.
You have probably read his biography here in ET where you get an impression of a not right grown up man in 1912. I want to draw your attention to the fact that he turned up to be a very respectable man in later life.
From Herr Rollenmiller, Stadt Bad Honnef, Dienstelle Schul-, Sport- und Kulturabteilung I got sent a copy of a telefax sent by Herr Bott in December 2001 in the firm "Rheinische Kraftwagen Gmbh", in Bonn.
It was a copy of a letter to Bonner Rundschau, 59 Bonn-Bad Godesberg dated February 23 1972:
80 birthday Herr Alfred Nourney, born 26.2.1892
Our employe for many years Alfred Nourney Alexander-v.-Humboldtstr. 30, Bad Honnef celebrates his 80 birthday.
Herr Nourney had worked in our car-sales house since 1950, and has is in that period served the customers in Rheinthal and Westerwald excellent.
He had got a technical education as expert on cars.
During the years 1920 - 1930 Nourney took part in many successful car- race competitions. As globetrotter he was often travelling around the world.
"The Honnefer Zeitung", Bad Honnef brought his obituary only a few days after he died November 15 1972.
As far as I understand Alfred had got the huge amount of money he had on the Titanic from his mother, who just then had become a widow. The Nourney family owned a sccessful wineshop in Kí¸ln for at least three decades.
The "Honnefer Zeitung" has something about Alfred Nourney on its internet pages (the papers archive)
I wonder why anybody has not written a book about him, a very remarkable Titanic passenger. He has two doughters living in Germany, and at least one grandson.
You have probably read his biography here in ET where you get an impression of a not right grown up man in 1912. I want to draw your attention to the fact that he turned up to be a very respectable man in later life.
From Herr Rollenmiller, Stadt Bad Honnef, Dienstelle Schul-, Sport- und Kulturabteilung I got sent a copy of a telefax sent by Herr Bott in December 2001 in the firm "Rheinische Kraftwagen Gmbh", in Bonn.
It was a copy of a letter to Bonner Rundschau, 59 Bonn-Bad Godesberg dated February 23 1972:
80 birthday Herr Alfred Nourney, born 26.2.1892
Our employe for many years Alfred Nourney Alexander-v.-Humboldtstr. 30, Bad Honnef celebrates his 80 birthday.
Herr Nourney had worked in our car-sales house since 1950, and has is in that period served the customers in Rheinthal and Westerwald excellent.
He had got a technical education as expert on cars.
During the years 1920 - 1930 Nourney took part in many successful car- race competitions. As globetrotter he was often travelling around the world.
"The Honnefer Zeitung", Bad Honnef brought his obituary only a few days after he died November 15 1972.
As far as I understand Alfred had got the huge amount of money he had on the Titanic from his mother, who just then had become a widow. The Nourney family owned a sccessful wineshop in Kí¸ln for at least three decades.
The "Honnefer Zeitung" has something about Alfred Nourney on its internet pages (the papers archive)
I wonder why anybody has not written a book about him, a very remarkable Titanic passenger. He has two doughters living in Germany, and at least one grandson.
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Andrew Maheux
Member
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Arne Mjåland
Member
Honnefer Volkszeitung situated in Bad Honnef, Germany has issued an online article about the journalist and editor Franz Josef Kayser dated April 17 1999. Kayser was celebrated and honoured for having worked for the newspaper for 45 years.
According to the article he got a good start with news from the local area when he interviewed Titanic passenger Alfred Nourney:
Translated into English by Arne Mjåland:
"How Honnefer Alfred Nourney survived the Titanic. Thar was possible to read in an April 1954 edition of HVZ. The author Franz Josef Kayser. This was the very first large newspaper article the at that time "Jungredakteur" wrote".
Those on this board who speaks German language may want to get into contact with Kayser to get him to tell more about his interview with Nourney in 1954? His name might be found in a German telephone dictionary?
According to the article he got a good start with news from the local area when he interviewed Titanic passenger Alfred Nourney:
Translated into English by Arne Mjåland:
"How Honnefer Alfred Nourney survived the Titanic. Thar was possible to read in an April 1954 edition of HVZ. The author Franz Josef Kayser. This was the very first large newspaper article the at that time "Jungredakteur" wrote".
Those on this board who speaks German language may want to get into contact with Kayser to get him to tell more about his interview with Nourney in 1954? His name might be found in a German telephone dictionary?
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Ben Lemmon
Member
I was wondering if it could have been Alfred's shots that some of the passengers heard. I know Lowe fired three shots to scare passengers, but did they hear Alfred shooting his revolver out in the distance? His biography said he shot them at regular intervals. So what do you think?
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Alfred Nourney
Member
I've researched on his life during World War II, and he MUST have been a Nazi but to no avail. I didn't find anything.
By Nazi, I'm not inherently claiming or accusing him of war crimes, but simply as belonging to the Nazi Party.
By Nazi, I'm not inherently claiming or accusing him of war crimes, but simply as belonging to the Nazi Party.
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Adam Went
Member
Hi Alfred,
I can't answer definitely but only to say that many Germans were members of the NSDAP during the 1920's - 1940's even if they didn't support their ideas, simply because to oppose them was to become essentially an outcast of society and later on, punishable by internment in a labour camp or similar.
I'm surprised though that there is no mention of his activities during World War II, especially in 1945 when virtually everybody who could hold a gun under the age of 60 was called to the defence of the Reich - and Alfred would have fitted into this category, being born in 1892.
Cheers,
Adam.
I can't answer definitely but only to say that many Germans were members of the NSDAP during the 1920's - 1940's even if they didn't support their ideas, simply because to oppose them was to become essentially an outcast of society and later on, punishable by internment in a labour camp or similar.
I'm surprised though that there is no mention of his activities during World War II, especially in 1945 when virtually everybody who could hold a gun under the age of 60 was called to the defence of the Reich - and Alfred would have fitted into this category, being born in 1892.
Cheers,
Adam.
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Christine Pahlmann
Member
The translation of the postcard is awful... Or rather the re-translation...as the "original" in German is the one which is clearly wrong. Same goes for the other "originals"... Apart from that this man was a sorry excuse for a human being...and I am ashamed that he was even connected to Germany in any way. Even if he was born in the Netherlands...
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Alfred Nourney
Member
Hello! I have been doing research on one of my favourite passengers on board (for which I named my nickname). In real life, I'm a 29-year-old guy from Argentina.
I have looked intensely into the internet and I couldn't find what happened to Nourney (who was 20 when the Titanic sank), so 22 when World War I broke out and, after surviving it, lived in Nazi Germany.
Is there anyone on here who knows of his either, service during World War I (which he surely did for the Kaiser) or possible membership to the NSDAP (Nazi Party)?.
His life is rather interesting and enigmatic.
Kindest regards.
I have looked intensely into the internet and I couldn't find what happened to Nourney (who was 20 when the Titanic sank), so 22 when World War I broke out and, after surviving it, lived in Nazi Germany.
Is there anyone on here who knows of his either, service during World War I (which he surely did for the Kaiser) or possible membership to the NSDAP (Nazi Party)?.
His life is rather interesting and enigmatic.
Kindest regards.
Arun Vajpey
Member
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.
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.
Jason Peete
Member
He sounds like the original douchebag.
Seumas
Member
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.
If the tabloid source relates to Nourney serving in 1944/45 with the Volksturm (the "Dad's Army" of the Third Reich) then that does not count as being part of the SS. Older men and boys had no choice but to join or face execution.
Incredibly, with the defeat imminent the Nazi Party did not destroy its membership rolls. Nor did the SS or the SA for that matter. A dedicated researcher should be able to confirm whether or not Nourney was involved with them. Let's hope it's a negative.
Arun Vajpey
Member
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
Seumas
Member
Thanks for that Arun. You are right that is very, very shoddy "shock" journalism indeed.
It could be a worthwhile project for a German or Austrian based researcher to look into whether Nourney served during WW1 and if he did have any official involvement with the Third Reich.
If it turns out he did not, then it would be only fair to him to try and publicly rebute this charge.
I've read something (albeit lacking proper sources) to the extent that he worked as a car salesman during the fifties in West Germany and gave a lengthy interview to ARD television which is still extant. I don't know if a translated transcript exists.
I gather that Dorothy Gibson was unfortunately a fascist sympathiser?
