In under 50 minutes, the Gustloff was gone, taken beneath the icy black waters of the Baltic, and with her, 9,343 men, women and children while 1,239 people were saved by a number of German ships in the area. The disaster remains relatively unknown. The Wilhelm Gustloff was considered one of the biggest naval disasters ever recorded in history. The dead numbered between 6,000-9,000. Official bulletins in the Soviet Union make no mention of it. The recorded numbers contradict one another, and we probably never will know how many people were on board the ship. The ship left Gotenhafen early on 30 January 1945, accompanied by the passenger liner Hansa, also filled with civilians and military personnel, and two torpedo boats. They said the tragedy of Wilhelm Gustloff was a war crime. She would be comfortable, open and safe to travel on and would be a symbol of German superiority and ingenuity. Wilhelm Gustloff, in full Motor Vessel Wilhelm Gustloff, German ocean liner that was sunk by a Soviet submarine on January 30, 1945. How many died on Titanic? It is one of the largest shipwrecks on the Baltic Sea floor and has attracted much interest from treasure hunters searching for the lost Amber Room. Torpedoboot T-36 rescued 564 people, Torpedoboot Lwe 472 people, Minensuchboot M387 98 people, Minensuchboot M375 43 people, Minensuchboot M341 37 people, steamer Gottingen saved 28 people, Torpedofangboot TF19 saved 7, freighter Gotland 2 people, and Vorpostenboot 1703 saved one person, a 1 year-old child. Author Ruta Sepetys likes to look for what she calls "hidden chapters of. For the last several days of its existence, before soldiers of the United States Seventh Army arrived, Dachau was a small, self-enclosed universe of decay and death. She was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel in Gotenhafen before being fitted with anti-aircraft guns and put into service to transport evacuees in 1945. The second hit the accommodations for the women's naval auxiliary, located in the ship's drained swimming pool, dislodging the pool tiles at high velocity, which caused heavy casualties; only three of the 373 women quartered there survived. On April 10, 1938, it functioned as a polling place for Germans and Austrians living in England to vote on the annexation of Austria. Heinz Schns more recent research is backed up by estimates made by a different method. It was sunk in the Baltic Sea on the night of January 30, 1945, by a Soviet submarine. The last months of the Third Reich featured scenes of unimaginable confusion, and this was no exception. Many ships carrying civilians were sunk during the war by both the Allies and Axis. This allowed her to act as a floating polling station for German and Austrian citizens living in England who wished to vote on the approaching plebiscite on Germany's unification with Austria. Obviously Hitler can not bear to bring more bad news to his collapsing regime. He was replaced by Friedrich Petersen, who commanded Wilhelm Gustloff for the remainder of the cruise. Because he was worried about the Gustloffs engines failing after years of sitting idle, Capt. He was downgraded in rank to lieutenant and dishonorably discharged from the Soviet Navy in October 1945. Who was known as the Iron Chancellor? Filmed in Gotenhafen, the 2nd Submarine Training Division acted as extras in the movie. Within years of his successful action against the Gustloff, Marinesko had been Discharged from the Soviet Navy. Arrested and sent to Siberia for three years hard labour. Diagnosed with cancer. Reinstated with his title of captain. Given a military pension. Given a ceremony honouring his actions during the Second World War.Just three weeks after these last three incidents, Marinesko died, in October of 1963. In World War II, Seydlitz was a skilled field commander, rising through division and corps command, distinguishing himself at Demyansk and Stalingrad. Those who survived the initial onslaught and did not manage to flee, had to eke out a living on a battleground ravaged by incessant bombardment and street fighting. Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision) in the port of Gdynia, which had been occupied by Germany and renamed Gotenhafen, located near Danzig (Gdask). The ship was carrying lifeboats and rafts for 5,000 people, but many of the lifesaving appliances were frozen to the deck, and their effective use was further impeded by the fact that one of the torpedoes had hit the crew quarters, killing those best trained to deal with the situation. Hansa and one torpedo boat developed mechanical problems and could not continue, leaving Wilhelm Gustloff with one torpedo boat escort, Lwe (ex-Gyller). At about 6:00 pm a message was brought to the captain warning that a minesweeper convoy was headed their way, prompting him to activate the ships navigation lights to prevent a collision. He remained its leader from 1932 until he was assassinated in 1936. [9] On 29 March she departed on her second voyage carrying workers and their families from the Blohm & Voss shipyard on a three-day cruise.[9]. Reportedly, only nine lifeboats could be lowered; the rest had frozen in their davits and had to be broken free. Updates? About 9,400 lives were lost, the greatest death toll from the sinking of a single vessel in human history. Wilhelm Gustloff was a rabid anti-Semite - who was assassinated by the Serbian citizen named 'David Frankfurter' (1909-1982) - a member of the Jewish diaspora. Adolf Hitler decided on the name change after sitting next to Gustloff's widow during his memorial service. Before sinking Wilhelm Gustloff, Captain Marinesko was facing a court martial due to his alcohol problems and for being caught in a brothel while he and his crew were off duty. In 1960, Marinesko was reinstated as captain third class and granted a full pension, and in 1963 was given the traditional ceremony due a captain upon the successful return from a mission. The Wilhelm Gustloff sank after being hit by Russian torpedoes on Jan. 30, 1945. The MV Gustloff was the first ship built specifically for the German Labour Fronts Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) program, which subsidized leisure activities for German workers. At 9:16 pm the Gustloff was hit by three torpedoes and proceeded to sink over the course of one hour. However, based on the latest estimates of passenger numbers and those known to be saved, Wilhelm Gustloff remains the largest loss of life resulting from the sinking of one vessel in maritime history. Aside from history books and documentaries, the story of the Gustloff has been the subject of several feature films and fictional works, including the novella Im Krebsgang (2002; Crabwalk) by Gnter Grass. During 10 April, 1,172 Germans and 806 Austrian eligible voters were ferried between the docks at Tilbury to the ship where 1,968 votes were cast in favour of the union and ten voted against. As many as half a million civilians remained in Stalingrad when the Germans approached in the late summer of 1942. As Wilhelm Gustloff had been fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and the Germans did not mark her as a hospital ship, no notification of her operating in a hospital capacity had been given and, as she was transporting military personnel, she did not have any protection as a hospital ship under international accords. [17] Thirteen survivors died later. The Wilhelm Gustloff was 684ft long (nearly a full 200ft shorter than the Titanic), she weighed 26,000GRT (Gross Registered Tons), a little more than half of the Titanic and she carried 417 crew and 1,460 passengers, making for a total complement of 1,877. The dead numbered between 6,000-9,000. She had eight decks, a top speed of fifteen knots (18mph) thanks to two propellers and engines capable of producing 9,500hp. Not that it would have mattered much. The Soviet commander, Capt. 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Despite the high number of civilian deaths, allegations that sinking the Gustloff constituted a war crime are largely unfounded, because of the presence of weapons and nearly 1,000 military personnel on board. To continue the feeling of equality, there would only be one class onboard ship the cruise-class. Marinesko followed the ships for two hours before launching three torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloffs port side about 30km (16nmi; 19mi) offshore between Groendorf and Leba soon after 21:00 (CET), hitting it with all three (Marinesko intended to fire four torpedoes but the fourth misfired and the crew had to disarm it) The first torpedo (with text written on it: For the Motherland) struck near the port bow. When Adolf Hitler launched the Wilhelm Gustloff from the seaside city of Hamburg on May 5, 1937, hundreds of German workers and Nazi party officials gathered to witness the spectacle.Flags and swastika banners festooned the quay and arms raised in the notorious Heil Hitler salute as the ship sailed forth showing an uneasy world the full industrial might of Nazi Germany. Scroll to Continue Read More From Owlcation An overwhelming majority of them were women and children. The submarine sensor on board the escorting torpedo boat had frozen, rendering it inoperable as had Wilhelm Gustloffs anti-aircraft guns, leaving the vessels defenceless. German refugees were on the road in the winter of 1944-45, great columns of men, women, and children, desperate to flee as the onrushing Soviets overran their homes. Founder of the Nationalsocialist Party of Switzerland, German Orientalisms|By Todd Curtis Kontje | P.222, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of Nazis who died in the Beer Hall Putsch, "A Survey of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Switzerland: 1930-1945", "I Kill a Nazi Gauleiter:Memoir of a Jewish Assassin", "Why the Shooting in Ankara Won't Start World War III", "David Frankfurter, Who Killed Swiss Nazi Leader, Pardoned; Served Nine Years", Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes. Less than 40 minutes after being struck, Wilhelm Gustloff was lying on her side. Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, Black Thursday October 14, 1943: The Second Schweinfurt Bombing Raid, An Exercise in Depravity: The Establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, Unsung Witnesses of the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad: Experimentation, Adaptation, Implementation, The Last Days of the Dachau Concentration Camp, A Shocking Level of Brutality and Degradation: Dachau in Wartime, Dachau, the Model Concentration Camp, 1933-39. [17], Many deaths were caused either directly by the torpedoes or drowning in the onrushing water. The Wilhelm Gustloff, like the Titanic, was a big passenger liner and was reasonably new and luxurious. The water temperature in the Baltic Sea at that time of year is usually around 4C (39F); however, this was a particularly cold night, with an air temperature of 18 to 10C (0 to 14F) and ice floes covering the surface. As a consequence of the British blockade of the German coastline, she was used as an accommodations ship (barracks) for approximately 1,000 U-boat trainees of the 2nd Submarine Training Division in the port of Gdynia, which had been occupied by Germany and renamed Gotenhafen, located near Danzig. In order to protect the property on board the war grave, as well as the wreck itself and the surrounding environment, the Polish Maritime Office in Gdynia has forbidden diving within a 500m (1,600ft) radius of the wreck. Hansaand one torpedo boat developed mechanical problems and could not continue, leaving Wilhelm Gustloff with one torpedo boat escort, Lwe. The majority of those who perished succumbed to exposure in the freezing water. The largest of the ghettos where Eastern European Jews were first confined and, later, deported to extermination camps by the Nazis was set up in Warsaw, Poland. Some fatalities were due to the initial stampede caused by panicked passengers on the stairs and decks. Whatever lifeboats there are, become next to useless because they are frozen to their davits by the freezing temperatures. As near as was possible, her cabins were all to be the same size. After undertaking a further voyage on 14 to 19 April 1938, the ship went on an Osterfahrt (Easter Voyage) before her actual official maiden voyage, which was undertaken from 21 April to 6 May 1938, when she joined Der Deutsche, Oceania and Sierra Cordoba on a group cruise to the Madeira Islands. 504-528-1944. Description. Many deaths were caused either directly by the torpedoes or by drowning in the onrushing water. From November 1940 onward, it lay at anchor at Gdynia, Poland, to serve as barracks for the 2nd Submarine Training Division. World War II is filled with events that can only be described in superlatives: the biggest, the bravest, the fastest, and so on. Marinesko was posthumously named a Hero of the Soviet Union by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. [18] The ship had four captains (Wilhelm Gustloff's captain, two merchant marine captains, and the captain of the U-boat complement housed on the vessel) on board, and they disagreed on the best course of action to guard against submarine attacks. By one estimate 9,400 people died, which would make it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. One by one the 19 men on Pegaway jumped into the sea and were hauled onto Lifeboat No. . War crime or not, what happened to Wilhelm Gustloff was bad. The "Reichskristallnacht" Pogrom of the 9/10 November 1938. [24], Many ships were sunk during the war by the Allies and by the Axis Powers. Cargo and machinery were washed from Pegaway's decks and the ship lost maneuverability as the storm increased in intensity. Lying in wait in the dark waters of the Baltic Sea was the Soviet submarine S-13 under Captain Alexander Marinesko. or died in the freezing water. Hitler did not want to risk any domestic bouts of antisemitism to cause Germany to lose the recently awarded right to host the 1936 Summer Olympics, since his antisemitic policies had already led to calls to relocate the games.[6]. Before sinking Wilhelm Gustloff, Alexander Marinesko was facing a court martial due to his problems with alcohol and was thus deemed not suitable to be a hero for his actions and was instead awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The people who were allowed to travel on the Kraft durch Freude flagship were chosen by the party. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [22] His more recent research is backed up by estimates arrived at by a different method. Friedrich Petersen decided that the ship would travel no faster than 12 knots (14 miles [22 km] per hour). The Gustloff had been envisioned as one of the most luxurious cruise-ships of the day. About 9,400 lives were lost, the greatest death toll from the sinking of a single vessel in human history. The three torpedoes which were fired successfully all struck Wilhelm Gustloff on her port side. From September 1939 to November 1940, Wilhelm Gustloff served as a hospital ship, officially designated Lazarettschiff D. Beginning on 20 November 1940, medical equipment was removed from the ship and she was repainted from the hospital ship colors of white with a green stripe to standard naval grey. Those who had not been killed by the initial blast or by the chaos on board after the attack froze to death in the icy Baltic. The third torpedo (For Leningrad) struck the engine room in the area below the ships funnel, cutting off electrical power to the ship. An Unsolved History episode that aired in March 2003,[4] on the Discovery Channel, undertook a computer analysis of the sinking. The Gustloff held about 1,400 people, but in order to make room for more passengers, the Germans took all of the furniture off the ship [and . Heinz Schn, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that she was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries); 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2 Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision; 373 female naval auxiliary helpers; 162 wounded soldiers and 8,956 civilians, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew. With all these characteristics, Hitler hoped that the Wilhelm Gustloff would be a floating pleasure-ship, taking Germans all around Europe. Ironically, the only known high-profile mention of this tragedy is a front-page newspaper story in Nachrichten fr die Truppe (News for the Troops) an allied propaganda newspaper dropped out of bombers over remaining pockets of German soldiers as the war nears its end. The third torpedo was a direct hit on the engine room, cutting all power and communications. Robert Citino, PhD, is the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian in the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. The ship was sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13 in January 1945 in the Baltic Sea while carrying civilian refugees and military personnel from the advancing Red Army. About 1,000 German naval officers and men were aboard during, and died in, the sinking of the Gustloff. It lies in 44 meters of water, off the northwest coast of Poland. Operation Hannibal was the naval evacuation of German troops and civilians from Poland and the Baltic states as the Red Army advanced. Three of them hit home, striking Wilhelm Gustloff on the bow, stern, and amidships. Moreover, he manages to sink one more significant target on February 9, 1945 before returning to base (the Steuben over 15,000 tons and 3,000 lives sinking in only seven minutes). The German cruise ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff was named for Gustloff by the Nazi regime. The three huge holes in the ships hull causes a dangerous list to Port and the ice on the ships boat-deck sends many people sliding into the freezing January waters. Shipping and payments. German forces were able to rescue 1,252 people: the torpedo boat T36 rescued 564; the torpedo boat Lwe, 472; the minesweeper M387, 98; the minesweeper M375, 43; the minesweeper M341, 37; the steamer Gttingen, 28; the torpedo recovery boat (Torpedofangboot) TF19, 7; the freighter Gotenland, two; and the patrol boat (Vorpostenboot) V1703, one baby. During a U.S. air attack on the harbour on October 9, 1943, the ship took minor damage. Any crew who might be able to free them and lower them safely are probably dead already, trapped inside the ships hull. On January 25 the ship started taking other refugees on board, and by the afternoon of January 29 the count had reached 7,956 when registration was stopped. [12] As the Red Army advanced on East Prussia, Adm. Karl Dnitz began preparations for Operation Hannibal, the mass evacuation of German troops and civilians from the area. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In May 1939 the Gustloff, along with other ships from the Kraft durch Freude fleet, was ordered to bring soldiers of the Condor Legion back to Germany after the Spanish Civil War ended. Less than 40minutes after being struck, Wilhelm Gustloff was lying on her side and sank bow-first, in 44m (144ft) of water. By one estimate,[4][5] 9,400 people died, making it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. * HistoricalDomainCharacter: Many. The ship, built to carry a few thousand people, was now bulging with some 7,000-10,000 people, including 4,000-5,000 children. Thousands of Hitler Youth members lined the route. Wilhelm Gustloff sank within an hour. 6, with both them and the crew of the lifeboat back at Wilhelm Gustloff by 7:45 am. US $5.15. It was part of Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of German military personnel and civilian refugees from the ports of East Prussia, now cut off from Germany by the advance of Soviet armies deep into the province of East Prussia. Ultimately, the Gustloff headed for a deepwater route that was known to be clear of mines. Using Maritime Exodus software,[23] it estimated that 9,600 people died out of more than 10,600 on board, by taking into account passenger density based on witness reports, and a simulation of escape routes and survivability with the timeline of the sinking. Using software called maritime EXODUS it was estimated 9,400 people died out of more than 10,600 on board. How many died on Titanic? Beginning on 20 November 1940, the medical equipment was removed from the ship and she was repainted from the hospital ship colors of white with a green stripe to standard naval grey. Aside from its operation as a cruise ship, the Gustloff was used for public-oriented missions. On how many people died when the Wilhelm Gustloff sank. Reportedly, only one lifeboat was able to be lowered, the rest had frozen in their davits and had to be broken free with some lost when they fell or capsized as a result of the panic. Eventually, Wilhelm Gustloff was put back into service transporting civilians and military personnel as part of Operation Hannibal. His wife Hedwig, who had been Hitler's secretary, received from Hitler personally a monthly "honorary pay" of 400, the equivalent of some US$13,000 today. She was designed to be a cruise-ship for the masses, for ordinary German working men and women, a sign that the Fuhreur and the Reich cared about the ordinary, hardworking German citizen. His degree of responsibility was never resolved, however, because of Nazi Germany's collapse in 1945. Unlike the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan in Paris in 1938, Gustloff's death was not immediately politicized to incite Kristallnacht. The first struck the ship's bow, causing watertight doors to seal off the area where off-duty crew members were sleeping. Wilhelm Gustloff: 9000 died (5000 were children) when the Soviets torpedoed the German troop ship Jan 23, 2016 Nick Knight News of the Gustloff's sinking is not reported within the remains of the Third Reich. Submarines of the Russian and Soviet navies, 17181990 Von Norman Polmar, Jurrien Noot, page 190 Naval Institute Press 1991. Eighty years ago, the Red Army managed to stop, contain, and ultimately defeat the largest German army on the Eastern Front. The third torpedo scored a direct hit on the engine room located amidships, disabling all power and communications. Against the advice of the military commander, Lieutenant Commander Wilhelm Zahn (a submariner who argued for a course in shallow waters close to shore and without lights), the Gustloffs captainFriedrich Petersendecided to head for deep water which was known to have been cleared of mines. There is no telling how the back half of the season will . One thing is certain. All four captains on Wilhelm Gustloff survived her sinking, but an official naval inquiry was started only against Wilhelm Zahn. The Gustloff started on its maiden voyage on March 24, 1938, and over the course of 17 months it went on some 50 cruises, transporting some 65,000 vacationers. In doing so, he ignored the advice of Wilhelm Zahn, commander of the 2nd Submarine Training Division, who argued that increasing speed to 15 knots (17 miles [28 km] per hour) would reduce the likelihood of an attack, as Soviet submarines would not be able to keep up. No help was at hand. Charges that Marinesko had violated the laws of war have arisen from time to time, but theyve been difficult to sustain. An estimated 9,000 passengers were killed in the sinking, making it the greatest maritime disaster in history. Wilhelm Gustloff (1895-1936) was the 'Head' of the Germany Nazi Party in Switzerland. The ship had enough space to accommodate roughly 1,900 people, including some 400 crew members. Of the original '1,252' rescued from the water . In June 2004, while spending a weekend in Munich away from dissertation research at the Austrian National Library, I boarded a train in the citys Hauptbahnhof(Central Station) for a short trip. On the night of 910 February, just eleven days after the sinking, S-13 sank another German ship, General von Steuben, killing about 4,500 people. Alternate titles: Motor Vessel Wilhelm Gustloff, Witness the sinking of the German cruise liner MV. Formerly a cruise liner for Hitler's "Strength Through Joy" program in the 1930's, and then a hospital ship during wartime, Wilhelm Gustloff was pulling different duty that long-ago night in the Baltic Sea.
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