By John Donovan
A tabloid-satirical rewrite of Chapter 17 of the John Donovan Shell archive: “News story in February 2015: Shell ship named after a Nazi SS Officer.”
Source chapter: CHAPTER 17: News story in February 2015: Shell ship named after a Nazi SS Officer, first published 21 September 2018 and later modified on 28 June 2026.
There are public-relations problems, and then there is sailing a vast industrial leviathan into Europe under the name of a former Waffen-SS officer. In 2015, Shell found itself lashed to precisely that public-relations anchor when it planned to use Allseas’ giant vessel, the Pieter Schelte, for decommissioning work in the Brent oilfield.
The vessel was named by Allseas founder Edward Heerema after his father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, a pioneer in offshore engineering and also a wartime officer in the German Waffen-SS. One half of that biography was apparently deemed suitable for champagne and launch-day speeches. The other half arrived later, carrying a press storm, public outrage and the sort of reputational smell no amount of corporate polish can quite remove.
The Financial Times covered the row on 5 February 2015. The original FT URL no longer returned a working public response during the link check, but the chapter preserves a screenshot. The stronger live trail remains in the Guardian Online article and the archived Observer newspaper PDF.
The Name That Should Never Have Left Port
The Observer’s Ed Vulliamy reported the outrage from Jewish community leaders and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands. The issue was brutally simple: the world’s largest crane vessel was arriving in Europe named after a man associated with the Waffen-SS.
John Donovan had launched a petition asking Edward Heerema to change the name. The Guardian/Observer coverage cited the petition and identified RoyalDutchShellPlc.com as the Shell-monitoring website behind the campaign. That is where Shell entered the story not as an innocent bystander admiring the harbour, but as one of the early customers for the vessel.
Shell’s First Defence: Ask Allseas, Nothing To Do With Us
At first, Shell treated the name as an Allseas matter. This was a neat little corporate shuffle: Shell wanted the ship, Shell had planned to use the ship, but Shell preferred the stink of the name to remain on someone else’s deck shoes.
That position became harder to maintain as coverage spread. The source chapter links reporting by Mail Online, the Dutch business press article Criticism swells of Heerema’s bad name heavy lift, Jewish Business News, The Jewish Chronicle, and commentary by Dutch investigative journalist Ton Biesemaat.
Donovan had already written about the problem in his own main article, Lloyd’s List: Shameful association with Nazi-named giant ship the Pieter Schelte. The chapter also notes that Shell had warning years earlier, including a 2012 RoyalDutchShellPlc.com article saying Shell was aware of allegations involving Allseas.
The Petition Picks Up Speed
The online petition on Change.org asked Allseas to stop honouring a former Waffen-SS officer with the name of a giant ship. It was not a complicated moral argument. It did not require consultants, a committee, or a conference room with a bowl of individually wrapped mints. It required the obvious.
Maritime unions also objected. The UK coalition government, after initially keeping its distance, eventually joined the chorus. As the criticism swelled day by day, Shell’s position shifted from “not our problem” to “please make this problem stop floating toward us.”
Allseas Reverses Course
On Friday 6 February 2015, Allseas announced that the Pieter Schelte would be renamed. The vessel became the Pioneering Spirit. In other words, the ship sailed away from the Nazi-linked name and into a blandly inspirational replacement. A corporate naming consultant could hardly have asked for a more dramatic before-and-after slide.
The chapter says this was exactly what Donovan had requested in his petition. The victory was not only symbolic. It showed that a persistent campaign, amplified by mainstream reporting and public revulsion, could force action even where large industrial players had previously tolerated the intolerable.
The local Colchester press also covered Donovan’s role. The source chapter reproduces a Gazette report describing his campaign, the petition, the press coverage, the involvement of Jewish groups and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, and the eventual renaming of the vessel.
Shell Had Warning
The row did not drop out of a clear blue sky. USA Today had reported the controversy years earlier in Dutch outcry over naming giant ship after Nazi, with a PDF copy also preserved in the source archive.
So the tabloid question practically shouts itself from the quay: how did Shell, with all its lawyers, advisers, risk committees, communications specialists and corporate antennae, fail to spot that hiring a Nazi-named mega-ship for a UK decommissioning job might be a touch awkward?
Perhaps the answer is that Shell did spot it and hoped the controversy would stay small. If so, that hope aged about as well as a slogan printed on wet cardboard.
The Bigger Shell Nazi History Context
The chapter closes by linking the ship-name row to Donovan’s broader work on Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History of Royal Dutch Shell. Its summary alleges that Shell’s founder and long-time leader Sir Henri Deterding became an ardent Nazi, financially supported the Third Reich, met with Hitler, and left a paper trail that undermined Shell’s tidier historical presentation.
The claims go far beyond the ship-name controversy: Shell’s pre-war business in Nazi Germany, Deterding’s relationship with Nazi leaders, alleged collaboration, anti-Semitic policies, forced-labour allegations at the German subsidiary Rhenania-Ossag, and the Nazi funeral held for Deterding at Castle Dobbin in 1939.
That wider history explains why the Pieter Schelte name mattered. This was not a mere naming mishap. It landed inside a much longer argument about Shell, memory, historical sanitising and the corporate instinct to keep unpleasant archives politely out of view.
Final Word: A Giant Ship Meets A Small Petition
The moral is wonderfully inconvenient for Shell. A vessel the size of a floating city, backed by giant industrial interests, was humbled by public disgust, press scrutiny and one stubborn petition. Shell may have entered the story hoping to decommission North Sea infrastructure. It ended up helping decommission a Nazi-linked ship name.
For once, the rebrand was not cosmetic. It was the point. The Pieter Schelte became Pioneering Spirit, and the campaign showed that even in Big Oil’s world of steel, money and public-relations fog, a bad name can still be dragged into daylight and sunk.
Working Source Links Retained From The Chapter
The following working links are retained from the source chapter, excluding social-share links, the protected email link, and links that did not return a working public response during checking.
- Source chapter: CHAPTER 17
- Guardian Online: Jewish outrage as world’s largest ship, named after SS war criminal, arrives in Europe
- Observer newspaper PDF
- RoyalDutchShellPlc.com: Allegations made against Allseas Group
- Mail Online PDF
- Dutch business press coverage: Criticism swells of Heerema’s bad name heavy lift
- Jewish Business News
- The Jewish Chronicle
- Ton Biesemaat: Nazi rat lines and Pieter Schelte Heerema
- John Donovan main article on Lloyd’s List and the Pieter Schelte
- Change.org petition
- USA Today: Dutch outcry over naming giant ship after Nazi
- USA Today article PDF
Screenshot Exhibits Retained From The Source Chapter
- Screenshot exhibit 1
- Screenshot exhibit 2
- Screenshot exhibit 3
- Screenshot exhibit 4
- Screenshot exhibit 5
- Screenshot exhibit 6
- Screenshot exhibit 7
- Screenshot exhibit 8
- Screenshot exhibit 9
- Screenshot exhibit 10
- Screenshot exhibit 11
RELATED ARTICLE
Nazi named ship a bloodstain on the name of Shell
According to a Dutch magazine article published today, Shell had a long connection with Pieter Schelte Heerema, who, on May 17, 1942, was promoted by Heinrich Himmler no less, to SS- Untersturmführeris. Shell is currently scheduled to be the largest user of the Nazi named ship. Consequently, Shell has the clout to put immense pressure on Edward Heerema to change the name, under the threat of cancelling the contract. Surely Shell has contingency insurance in place to cover any losses, knowing beforehand that it was playing with fire in contracting to use a ship with such a toxic name? Astonishing similarity with the Brent Spar decommissioning affair, which turned into a PR disaster for Shell and seems destined to happen again in this foreseeable “storm of criticism” unless Shell acts decisively. Regular visitors to this website know that I have been warning Shell for ages about associating itself with this Nazi named ship. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the sleazy sinister son, Edward Heerema, is unhinged in relation to this issue. Shell should bear this obvious fact in mind. By naming his pariah ship after his father, Mr Heerema has transformed a relatively obscure Nazi into an internationally infamous Nazi and in the process, drawn a lot of unwelcome attention to himself and his tax affairs.
ARTICLE PUBLISHED 8pm 5 FEB 2015
By John Donovan
The Financial Times has this evening published an article by Mark Odell under the headline:
“Shell attacked over Nazi history behind ship’s name”
It reports:
“Royal Dutch Shell is facing a storm of criticism after deciding to proceed with plans to bring a ship named after a Nazi war criminal into UK waters to decommission the Brent oilfield, having failed to get the owner to change the name.”
It says Shell has filed plans with the UK government to decommission the Brent Delta oil platform.
Some main points from their article:
- The Nazi name has ignited outrage in the Jewish community.
- Pieter Schelte Heerema worked alongside the infamous Josef Mengele in the elite 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking in the Waffen-SS, a unit linked to war crimes.
- Pieter Schelte later dispatched slave labour to the eastern front.
- He was found guilty of war crimes.
- His claim to have renounced the Nazis and join the resistance has been discredited.
- Claims made by Allseas as to the reason that Pieter Schelte joined the Waffen-SS have also been discredited.
- Shell says it supported a campaign to change the name of the ship but Edward Heerema refused to do so.
- The matter has been discussed by senior Shell management. I assume that includes Ben van Beurden?
- The British government says the Nazi name is an issue to be resolved by Allseas and Shell.
Esther Voet, speaking for the Dutch Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel says:
“This is a bloodstain on the name of Royal Dutch Shell…”
The Amsterdam-based Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies has evidence of a speech made by Pieter Schelte Heerema when he stated:
“Compared to the German race, the Jewish race is a parasite and for that reason the Jewish question must be resolved in every country.”
*This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment, the Shell DPA Files, "Shell and the Spies", the Shell Leaks files, the Independent Shell Archive, as well as books written and published by John Donovan - Kindle eBooks. Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud. Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years. *All conjured up by internet wizz, Nick Gill.
