Exactly eighty-three years ago this week, the German cruiser “Emden” chugged down the Willamette River with the Nazi naval flag, or ensign, at the stern. The ship moored in Portland at the foot of West Couch Street, just north of the Burnside Bridge. The photograph shows the flag at half-mast, likely honoring King George V of England, who died on January 20, 1936, the day the ship arrived in Portland.

Working with museum artifacts is all about telling stories. Objects leave fewer clues to their own stories than a letter or a photograph might, so a cataloger’s job is to collect and preserve not only the artifacts but also their background information. Sometimes this is easy, such as when donors share relevant information with us directly. Sometimes it can be frustrating, for instance, when the information gets lost or when an artifact is placed in the collection with no background information at all. Occasionally here at OHS, we find a story that is so wild that we need to share it with everyone in the building and then maybe lie down for a moment to catch our breath.

Enter an innocent-looking black hat ribbon, machine-embroidered with gold Gothic lettering spelling the words Kreuzer Emden, that documents the week that Nazis marched through Portland and the city threw them a party.





This ribbon for a naval service cap was issued to German sailors on the “Kreuzer” (cruiser) “Emden” in 1936. Found in a box with other naval hat ribbons, this item in the OHS museum collection led staff on a journey through a piece of Portland’s more alarming past.

I found this ribbon (or tally, to private collectors) at the bottom of a box of other naval hat ribbons. Kreuzer is the German word for cruiser, indicating a class of naval ship — leading us to believe the ribbon was intended for a German sailor. American soldiers and sailors collected these ribbons during several wars from ally and enemy ships alike. Because of this, we concluded that the Kreuzer Emden was a German ship that had met its demise at the hands of the U.S. Navy during one of the world wars. After researching news coverage in the Oregonian between December 1935 and February 1936, I found out that was not so. A ship called the Emden sank during World War I, but the Australian Navy, not the U.S. Navy, claimed responsibility. During World War II, the Nazis scuttled (intentionally destroyed) a second Kreuzer Emden to prevent its capture by the invading Allies. Neither ship engaged in any battles against the United States.

The truth behind this ribbon is more disturbing. The second Kreuzer Emden, the one that sank during World War II, visited Portland exactly eighty-three years ago, in January 1936, while on a training tour. Flying the Nazi banner proudly from its stern, the Emden chugged down the Willamette River, under a handful of bridges, and past several shipyards that would shortly produce Liberty ships for World War II. As the cruiser arrived, Portlanders lined the waterfront, not to protest the already-publicized human rights atrocities underway in Germany, but to wave hankies and exchange “heil Hitler” salutes with the Emden crew (Oregonian, January 21, 1936). The ship remained moored in Portland for over a week.