SS Heidberg was a cargo steamship that was built in 1943 in Sweden for a German shipping company.

[1] She had a single screw, driven by a Helsingborgs Varfs three-cylinder triple expansion engine.

This reduced condensation in the intermediate- and low-pressure cylinders, increasing the engine's fuel efficiency and power.

[1] Empire Convention was one of a number of ships that the UK transferred to the Soviet Union in February 1946 under the Potsdam Agreement.

[3] The Soviet Union renamed her after Ernst Thälmann,[4] who had led the Communist Party of Germany until 1933, and had been executed in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944.