Narrabeen Nazi camps

If you visit Deep Creek Reserve at Narrabeen lagoon today you can still find the remnants of a swastika carved into a large rock. It dates back to the period immediately preceding World War II.

When Hitler began his political ascendancy in Germany in 1933, loyal Nazis in Sydney under the leadership of Rudolph Duerkop and his de facto wife Helene Kranz, formed a so-called Harbour Service. Its role was to meet the crews of all incoming German ships to provide practical advice about hotels, etc. However, it also worked to reinforce German solidarity and propagate Nazi philosophy.

Merchant seamen were beyond the direct influence of Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda for extended periods. They could be exposed to communist or democratic influences. To limit this, Duerkop introduced picnics and camps at Deep Creek in 1937 as entertainment for the seamen. Groups, sometimes 60-strong would catch a ferry to Manly and a tram to Narrabeen.

On some visits the German seamen carved the names of their ships into rock faces at the northern end of the camping area, and Harbour Service personnel carved some swastikas and the Nazi eagle.

But history was against Duerkop. At the outbreak of World War II, he and Kranz were arrested and interned as enemy aliens.

Over the years, a myth has developed that the camp at Deep Creek was part of an espionage ring or even a place to punish German merchant seamen who refused to toe the Nazi party line. 
However as local police reported after an investigation: “It is purely a picnic. They erect a tent on arrival and, as they are seafaring men, they fly the German flag (swastika) at one end of the tent and the Australian flag at the other.”