The newspaper Het Vaderland evening edition dated 5 February 1920 reported that except for the Pechelbronn the former German petroleum tankers Hera and Wothan were assigned to France. The crews were send by the Transit Maritime to retrieve the ships in Scotland which in the past belonged to the Deutsch Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft of Hamburg, Germany.
The newspaper Het Vaderland evening edition dated 10 March reported the existence of a major conflict between the French government and the Standard Oil Company, the latter supported by the American representatives at the Peace Conference. France wanted the former German tankers which in 1919 were assigned to her while the Standard Oil Company tried everything to save these tankers for the shipping between the ISA and Germany. She even pretended that the tankers were American property while the former owner the Allgemeine Deutsche Petroleum Gesellschaft had joined the Standard Oil Company. The ships were since August lying unemployed in the Firth of Forth and the French minister of Finance demanded in a letter to the Reparation Commission to finish this conflict while France really needed those ships. If the American government didn’t react on the French proposals within 14 days should the Reparation Commission exclude the USA was the opinion of the minister.
The newspaper Het nieuws van den dag voor Nederlandsch-Indie dated 17 June published an item dated Paris, France 14 June reporting that the Committee on compensation approved the provisional arrangement to share the former handed over German tankers. France got 17,000, Belgium 12,000 and Italy 9,000 tons. The USA refused to approve the arrangement as long as her interests were not guaranteed.
The newspaper Het Vaderland morning edition dated 13 June mentioned the same figures. The 8 German tankers were handed over to the Allies and now lying in British harbours. The USA was against this distribution while the German company which owned the tankers had the size of a large American company. The new agreement made it possible to use these tankers immediately for petroleum transport from the USA towards Europe. A court had to decide what would happen with the definitive ownership.
There can be find an interesting report of an international arbitral award dealing with this topic on the http://untreaty.un.org/cod/riaa/cases/vol_II/777-795.pdf. It mentioned 9 tankers namely the Helios, Mannheim, Sirius, Niobe, Pawnee, Hera, Loki, Wotan and the Wilhelm Riedemann belonging to the Deutsche Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft of Hamburg. The latter tanker was apparently not completed in 1920. The website www.aukevisser.nl supplies more details dealing with the individual ships.
