Wilhelm Gustloff (ship)

The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was a German passenger ship constructed by the Blohm and Voss shipyards. She was named after Wilhelm Gustloff, the assassinated German leader of the Swiss Nazi party (NSDAP). The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was launched on May 5, 1937 measuring 208.50 meters (684 feet) long by 23.59 meters (77.39 feet) wide with a capacity of 25,484 gross register tons. She was requisitioned into the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) on September 1, 1939 and served as a hospital ship during 1939 and 1940. Beginning on November 20, 1940 she was stripped of her medical equipment and repainted from her hospital ship colors (white with a green stripe) to standard naval grey. The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel at the Baltic port of Gotenhafen (Gdynia) – near Danzig from 1940 onwards.

The "Wilhelm Gustloff's" final voyage was during Operation Hannibal in January 1945, when she was sunk while participating in the evacuation of civilian refugees, German soldiers, and U-boat personnel trapped by the Red Army in East Prussia. She was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea on the night of January 30, 1945 and sank in under 45 minutes, taking an estimated 9,400 people with her.Irwin J. Kappes References states 5,348. He does not cite his sources but recommends: A. V. Sellwood, "The Damned Don't Drown: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff " (a fiction title about the tragedy); and Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, "A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans 1944-1950".] Jason Pipes, References citing Heinz Schon References (no page number) claims the loss of life was 9,343,] which if accurate makes the sinking of the "Wilhem Gustloff" the largest known loss of life in a single sinking in maritime history. [ The "Goya", also torpedoed in 1945, sank with the loss of about 6,000 passengers and crew.]

hip history

The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was the first purpose-built cruise liner for the Nazi "Kraft durch Freude" (KdF) ("Strength Through Joy") labor organization. The purpose was to provide recreational and cultural activities for German functionaries and workers, including concerts, cruises, and other holidays. The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was the flagship of the KdF cruise fleet until the spring of 1939. That was her last civilian role. From then on she served the needs of the German military.

During the summer of 1939, she was pressed into service to bring the Condor Legion back from Spain after the victory of the Nationalist forces under General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

From September 1939 to November 1940, she served as a hospital ship with her official designation being Lazarettschiff D. On her first mission to the Baltic Sea, she treated 650 wounded Polish soldiers.

Beginning November 20, 1940, the medical equipment was removed from the ship and it was repainted from the hospital ship colours of white and green to standard naval grey. [ [http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/history_navyship.htm CONVERSION TO FLOATING U-BOAT BARRACKS] ] 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 ("2. Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision") in the Baltic port of Gotenhafen (Gdynia) – near Danzig (Gdańsk). [ [http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/history_navyship.htm CONVERSION TO FLOATING U-BOAT BARRACKS] ] The Wilhelm Gustloff sat dockside for over four years until she was put back in service to transport military personnel and civilian refugees as part of Operation Hannibal.

Operation Hannibal

The ship's final voyage was to evacuate civilians, Kriegsmarine sailors, and wounded German soldiers from Gotenhafen to Kiel. The ship's complement and passenger lists totaled 6,050 people on board, but this did not include many refugees who boarded the ship without being recorded in the ship's official embarkation records. Heinz Schön, who carried out extensive research into the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries), 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2nd Submarine Training Division ("2. Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision"), 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 162 badly wounded soldiers, and 8,956 refugees, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew. Although the ship was built for 1,465 passengers, she had the capacity to board many more for a short trip by utilizing her public recreation spaces to accommodate people, but she was carrying less than 50% of the rescue equipment necessary for the extra passengers.Fact|date=February 2007

The ship left Gotenhafen early on 30 January 1945, accompanied by the passenger liner "Hansa", also filled with refugees and soldiers, and two torpedo boats. The "Hansa" and one torpedo boat developed problems and could not continue, leaving the "Wilhelm Gustloff" with one torpedo boat escort, the "Löwe". [ [http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/captured/torpedoboats/lowe/index.html Löwe Torpedoboot 1940 - 1959 Sleipner Class] ] The ship had four captains on board, three civilian and one military, and they could not agree on the best course of action to guard against submarine attacks. 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 senior civilian captain, Friedrich Petersen, decided to head for deep water. When he was informed by radio of an oncoming German minesweeper convoy, he decided to activate his ship's red and green navigation lights so as to avoid a collision in the dark, making the "Wilhelm Gustloff" easy to spot in the night. As the ship's equipment included antiaircraft weapons, it had been travelling blacked-out, it was not marked as a hospital ship, and it was transporting combat troops, it did not have any protection as a hospital ship under the international accords governing this. [ [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague10.htm The Avalon Project - Laws of War : Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention (Hague X); October 18, 1907 ] ]

The sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff"

The ship was soon sighted by the "S-13", under the command of Captain Third Class Alexander Marinesko, which fired three torpedoes at the "Wilhelm Gustloff"'s port side about 30 km (20 miles) offshore between Großendorf and Leba soon after 21:00 (CET) hitting her with all three. The first torpedo hit near the port bow, the second torpedo hit behind it just ahead of mid-ship. The third torpedo struck the engine room in the area below the ships funnel, cutting off engine and electrical power to the ship.The ship took a list to starbord and was settling by the head.Later the Wilhelm Gustloff listed to port.

In the panic that followed, many of the refugees were trampled in the rush to the lifeboats and life jackets. Some equipment was lost as a result of the panic. The water temperature in the Baltic Sea at this time of year is usually around 4°C; however, this was a particularly cold day, with an air temperature of −10° to −18°C and ice floes covering the surface. Many deaths were either caused directly by the torpedoes or by instant drowning in the onrushing water. Others were crushed in the ensuing panic on the stairs and decks, and many jumped into the icy, dark Baltic. Reports talk about children clinging onto adults and women trying to save their babies, though constant waves dragged them away from them, most never to be seen again. Small children fitted with life jackets for adults drowned because their heads were under water while their legs were in the air.

Less than 45 minutes after being struck, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" went down bow first in 44 metres (150 feet) of water. German forces were able to rescue some of the survivors from the attack: torpedo boat T-36 rescued 564 people; torpedo boat "Löwe", 472; Minesweeper M387, 98; Minesweeper M375, 43; Minesweeper M341, 37; the steamer "Gottingen" saved 28; torpedo-recovery boat ("Torpedofangboot") TF19, seven; the freighter "Gotland", two; and Patrol boat ("Vorpostenboot") V1703 was able to save one baby. These figures are from the research of Heinz Schön, and that would make the total lost in the torpedoing and subsequent sinking to be 9,343 men, women, and children. This would make it the largest loss of life in a single sinking in maritime history.

, herself carrying 1,500 evacuees, received reports from her lookouts that she was under torpedo attack, he chose not to stop to pick up survivors. Kappes gives a precise total of those lost in the sinking as 5,348. The source of this information was the German book "Die Gustloff Katastrophe" written by Heinz Schön, who later revised his original numbers.

Heinz Schön's more recent research is backed up by estimates made by a different method. The Discovery Channel program "Unsolved History" has undertaken a computer analysis (using software called "maritime EXODUS") of the sinking, which estimated 9,400 dead −85% (among over 10,600 on board); this analysis considered the load density based on witness reports and a simulation of escape routes and survivability with the timeline of the sinking. [" [http://shopping.discovery.com/product-36453.html Discovery Channel Unsolved History – Wilhelm Gustloff 2003] "] [ [http://fseg.gre.ac.uk/exodus/air.html maritime EXODUS] ] [Michael Leja, References (a source in German)]

Controversy

Many ships carrying civilians were sunk during the war by both the Allies and Axis. [George Martin [http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/maritime-1.html Maritime Disasters of World War II] ] However, based on the latest estimates of passenger numbers and those known to be saved, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" remains the largest loss of life resulting from the sinking of one vessel in maritime history. Günter Grass, in an interview published in "The New York Times" on Tuesday April 8, 2003 said, "One of the many reasons I wrote "Crabwalk" was to take the subject away from the extreme right... They said the tragedy of the "Gustloff" was a war crime. It wasn’t. It was terrible, but it was a result of war, a terrible result of war." [ [http://www.reddotbooks.co.uk/crabwalk-gunter-grass-p-390.html Crabwalk by Günter Grass] review on RedDot Books Ltd website.]

According to the Soviet propaganda version, more than a thousand German officers, including 70–80 submarine crews died with the "Gustloff". Women from the ship were described, perhaps falsely, as SS personnel from German concentration camps [http://www.grani.ru/opinion/sokolov/m.134310.html] .

Wreckage

coord|55.07|N|17.41|E|region:PL_type:landmark is the resting place of the "Gustloff". This is 30 km offshore, east of Łeba (17.33E) and west of Władysławowo (18.24E). It has been designated as a war memorial site (off-limits to salvage crews). On Polish navigation charts it is noted as "Obstacle No. 73". [Irwin J. Kappes References] It is one of the largest shipwrecks on the Baltic sea floor.

In 2006, a bell recovered from the wreck, and subsequently used as decoration in a Polish fish restaurant, was loaned to the "Forced Paths" exhibition in Berlin. [Mark Landler [http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/30/news/poland.php Poles riled by Berlin exhibition] originally published in The New York Times, August 30, 2006 republished in the International Herald Tribune] In 2007, the ship's bell was placed on display at the Gdańsk Museum in Krantor.

Books, Documentaries, and Movies

Books in German

The most prolific German author and historian on the subject of the Wilhelm Gustloff is Heinz Schön, one of the shipwreck's survivors, whose books (in German) include:
* "Der Untergang der "Wilhelm Gustloff". Tatsachenbericht eines Überlebenden." (The sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff". Factual account of a survivor.) Karina-Goltze-Verlag K.-G., Göttingen 1952;
* "SOS Wilhelm Gustloff. Die größte Schiffskatastrophe der Geschichte." (SOS Wilhelm Gustloff. The biggest shipping disaster in history.) Motorbuch Verlag Pietsch, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-61301-900-0;
* "Die Gustloff - Katastrophe. Bericht eines Überlebenden über die größte Schiffskatastrophe im Zweiten Weltkrieg." (The Gustloff catastrophe. Account of a survivor of the biggest shipping disaster in the Second World War.) Motorbuch Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-61301-027-5;
* "Die letzte Fahrt der Wilhelm Gustloff. Dokumentation eines Überlebenden." (The last trip of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Account of a survivor.) Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 3-61302-897-2.

Books in English

Recent years have seen increased recognition of the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster in countries outside of Germany, with various books either written in or translated into English, including:
* A.V. Sellwood: "The Damned Don't Drown. The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff." Naval Institute Press, London 1973, ISBN 1-55750-742-2, a work of fiction on the tragedy, as noted in the book itself;
*Christopher Dobson, John Miller, and Ronald Payne: "The Cruellest Night", Hodder & Stoughton, London,1979, ISBN 0-340-22720-6
* John Ries: "History's Greatest Naval Disasters. The Little-Known Stories of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the General Steuben and the Goya." In "The Journal of Historical Review", 1992, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 371–381.
* Günter Grass: "Im Krebsgang," which has been translated into English as "Crabwalk." Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-88243-800-2.

Dramatized Films

* "Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen" (Night fell over Gotenhafen), feature film, 1959;
* "Die Gustloff" (The Gustloff), two-part telemovie, 2008.

Documentaries

* "Killer Submarine," 1999;
* "Die große Flucht. Der Untergang der Gustloff" (The Great Escape. The sinking of the Gustloff), 2001;
* "Ghosts of the Baltic Sea," 2006;
* "Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster". Unsolved History (television program), 2003.

ee also

* "Cap Arcona"
* "Goya"
* "Steuben"
* "Iosif Stalin"
* "Deutschland"
* "Thielbek"
*"HMT Rohna ", sunk by Germans in November 1943, estimated over 1,138 deaths with 1,015 of them American troops and this still constitutes the largest loss of US troops at sea
*"Armenia", sunk by Germans in November 1941, estimated over 5,000 deaths
*"Junyō Maru", sunk by British in September 1944, estimated over 5,000 deaths
*"Lancastria", sunk by Germans in June 1940, estimated over 4,000 deaths {1,738 known dead}
*"Laconia", sunk by Germans in September 1942 during the Laconia Incident, giving rise to the Laconia Order
*"Ukishima Maru"
*"Arandora Star"
*"Alexander Marinesko"
*"List of shipwrecks"

Further reading

* Bishop, Leigh; " [http://www.deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/wilhelm-gustoff/gustloff_main.htm Shipwreck Expedition May 2003, led by Mike Boring] ", 2003
* [http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com www.wilhelmgustloff.com]
[http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/resources.htm A bibliography on the Wilhelm Gustloff]
* [http://www.strelna.ru/en/chronology_navy/361 The submarine that sank the Third Reich]
* [http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/wilhelm_gustloff_page_1.htm Maritimequest Wilhelm Gustloff Photo Gallery]
* [http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/history_cruiseship.htm Wilhelm Gustloff Cruise Ship History]

References

*"The Cruellest Night" by Christopher Dobson, John Miller & Ronald Payne (1979, Hodder & Stoughton, London) ISBN 0 340 22720 6 (a book on "Germany's Dunkirk", estimates c7,000 dead).
*Kappes, Irwin J.; [http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/wilhelmgustloff.aspx The Greatest Marine Disaster in History... and why you probably never heard of it.] 2003. – The website [http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com militaryhistoryonline.com] is included in the [http://www.lib.cmich.edu/subjectguides/socialsciences/military.htm Military History - Web sources] by theCentral Michigan University Libraries.
* Leja, Michael; " [http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/22/0,1872,2116150,00.html Die letzte Fahrt der "Wilhelm Gustloff"] "; ZDF, 1 August 2005 reports that earlier estimates of approximately 6000 drowned have been revised upwards in more recent sources to about 9300. An article in German on the website of a public service German television channel.
*Pipes, Jason; " [http://www.feldgrau.com/wilhelmgustloff.html A Memorial to the Wilhelm Gustloff] " – The website [http://www.feldgrau.com www.feldgrau.com] is listed as [http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/links/history.htm#1933-45 an external link] by the [http://www.swan.ac.uk/german Department of German] at the University of Wales
*Schön, Heinz; "Die Gustloff Katastrophe" (Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 2002)
*Williams, David; "Wartime Disasters at Sea" (Patrick Stephens Limited, Nr Yeovil, UK, 1997) ISBN 1 85260 565 0.

External links

* [http://www.feldgrau.com/wilhelmgustloff.html Location of the wreck]
* [http://www.deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/wilhelm-gustoff/gustloff_main.htm Wilhelm Gustloff Shipwreck Expedition May 2003] on Deep Image.co.uk en icon
* [http://www.click2disasters.com/gustloff/wilhelm_gustloff_ch1.htm Wilhelm Gustloff: The Deadliest Shipwreck] , interactive text en icon
* [http://www.compunews.com/gus/menu.htm Site dedicated to Wilhelm Gustloff] en icon
* [http://www.rzygacz.webd.pl/index.php?id=73,442,0,0,1,0 Pomnik ofiar tragedii Wilhelma Gustloffa, Goyi i Steubena] pl icon
* [http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/0514/koi/slutskin.htm ВИЛЬГЕЛЬМ ГУСТЛОВ, ЧЕЛОВЕК и ТЕПЛОХОД] ru icon
* [http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/history_hospitalship.htm First Gustloff rescue mission as hospital ship]
* [http://www.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=72250&lid=Vrakletarna&from=menu Swedish TV-program "Vrakletarna" filmed the wreck]