MV Wilhelm Gustloff

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27992, Lazarettschiff "Wilhelm Gustloff" in Danzig.jpg
Wilhelm Gustloff as a hospital ship. Danzig, 23 September 1939
Career
Name: MV Wilhelm Gustloff
Namesake: Wilhelm Gustloff
Owner: Deutsche Arbeitsfront
Operator: Hamburg-South America Line
Port of registry: Germany
Builder: Blohm & Voss
Cost: 25 million Reichmarks
Yard number: 511
Laid down: 1 August 1936
Launched: 5 May 1937
Acquired: 15 March 1938
Identification: Radio ID (DJVZ)
Fate: Requisitioned into the Kriegsmarine on 1 September 1939
Career (Germany) Flag of the Red Cross.svg
Name: Lazarettschiff D (Hospital Ship D)
Operator: Kriegsmarine (German Navy)
Acquired: 1 September 1939
Fate: Converted from hospital ship to floating barracks beginning 20 November 1940, including repainting from hospital ship colors to standard navy grey.
Career (Germany) War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg
Name: Wilhelm Gustloff
Operator: Kriegsmarine
Acquired: 20 November 1940
Out of service: November 1940–January 1945
Fate: Torpedoed and sunk 30 January 1945
Notes: Used as floating barracks for the Second Submarine Training Division until the vessel returned to active service ferrying civilians and military personnel as part of Operation Hannibal
General characteristics
Class and type: Cruise ship
Tonnage: 25,484 GRT
Length: 208.50 metres (684.1 ft)
Beam: 23.59 metres (77.4 ft)
Height: 56 metres (184 ft) keel to masthead
Decks: 8
Installed power: Four 8-cylinder MAN diesel engines 9,500 hp
Propulsion: 2 twin-screw propellers (4 blades per prop)
Speed: 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h or 17.8 mph)
Range: 12,000 nm at 15 knots
Capacity:

1,465 passengers (as designed) in 489 cabins:

  • 248 two-bed
  • 241 four-bed
Crew:
  • 417 cruise ship
  • 173 naval

The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German KdF flagship, during 1937-1945, constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. It sank after being hit by three torpedoes fired by the Soviet submarine S-13 on 30 January 1945 with the loss of life thought to be about 9,400 casualties – the greatest loss of life in a maritime disaster in history.

The ship was named after Wilhelm Gustloff, the assassinated German leader of the Swiss Nazi party. It was requisitioned into the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) on 1 September 1939 and served as a hospital ship during 1939 and 1940. Beginning on 20 November 1940, it was stripped of medical equipment and repainted from its 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 Gdynia (German: Gotenhafen), near Gdansk (German: Danzig), from 1940 onwards.

The Wilhelm Gustloff's final voyage was during Operation Hannibal in January 1945, when it was sunk while participating in the evacuation of civilians and personnel who were surrounded by the Red Army in East Prussia. The Gustloff was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea on the night of 30 January 1945 and sank in less than 45 minutes. An estimated 9,400 people were killed in the sinking.[1][2] If accurate, this would be the largest known loss of life occurring during a single ship sinking in recorded maritime history.

Contents

Construction

The Wilhelm Gustloff was constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. The Gustloff was launched on 5 May 1937 measuring 208.50 metres (684.1 ft) long by 23.59 metres (77.4 ft) wide with a capacity of 25,484 gross register tons.

Ship history

The Wilhelm Gustloff was the first purpose-built cruise liner for the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) and used by subsidiary organisation Kraft durch Freude (KdF) (Strength Through Joy). Its purposes were to provide recreational and cultural activities for German functionaries and workers, including concerts, cruises, and other holiday trips, and as a public relations tool, to present "a more acceptable image of the Third Reich."[3] 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.

Military career

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.

German soldiers wounded at Narvik being transported back to Germany on the Wilhelm Gustloff in July 1940.

From September 1939 to November 1940, she served as a hospital ship, with her official designation being Lazarettschiff D.

Beginning 20 November 1940, the medical equipment was removed from the ship and it was repainted from the hospital ship colors of white with a green stripe to standard naval grey.[4] 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).[4] The Wilhelm Gustloff sat dockside for over four years, until she was put back in service to transport civilians and military personnel as part of Operation Hannibal.

Operation Hannibal

The ship's final voyage was to evacuate civilians, Kriegsmarine sailors, and German soldiers from Gotenhafen to Kiel.[2] The ship's complement and passenger lists cited 6,050 people on board, but this did not include many civilians 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 wounded soldiers, and 8,956 civilians, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew.[2] 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.

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. The Hansa and one torpedo boat developed mechanical problems and could not continue, leaving the Wilhelm Gustloff with one torpedo boat escort, the Löwe.[5] The ship had four captains (three civilian and one military) on board, 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, no notification of it operating in a hospital capacity had been given, and as it was transporting combat troops, it did not have any protection as a hospital ship under the international accords governing this.[6]

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Hungarian war map showing where the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the Baltic

The ship was soon sighted by the S-13, under the command of Captain Third Class Alexander Marinesko, which launched three torpedoes at the Wilhelm Gustloff's port side about 30 km (19 mi) offshore between Großendorf and Leba soon after 21:00 (CET), hitting it with all three.[2] The first torpedo struck near the port bow. The second torpedo hit just ahead of midships. The third torpedo struck the engine room in the area below the ship's funnel, cutting off electrical power to the ship. The ship took a list to starboard and was settling by the head. Later, the Wilhelm Gustloff listed to port.

In the panic that followed, many of the passengers 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 (39 °F); however, this was a particularly cold night, with an air temperature of -18 to -10 °C (-0 to 14 °F) and ice floes covering the surface. Many deaths were caused either directly by the torpedoes or by drowning in the onrushing water. Others were crushed in the initial panic on the stairs and decks, and many jumped into the icy Baltic. There are reports of 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, due to the ill-fitting survival gear.

Less than 45 minutes after being struck, the Wilhelm Gustloff went down bow first in 44 metres (144 ft) 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 Göttingen saved 28; torpedo-recovery boat (Torpedofangboot) TF19, seven; the freighter Gotland, two; and Patrol boat (Vorpostenboot) V1703 was able to save one baby.

Estimations, computations

The figures from the research of Heinz Schön make the total lost in the sinking to be about 9,343 men, women, and children. This would make it the largest loss of life in a single sinking in maritime history.[2] All four captains on the Gustloff survived its sinking, but an official naval inquiry was started only against Wilhelm Zahn. His degree of responsibility was never resolved, however, because of Nazi Germany's problems in 1945.[7]

A porthole window from the Wilhelm Gustloff, salvaged in 1988

In an article in the popular magazine Sea Classics, Irwin Kappes mentions that "there were over 6,000 passengers on board." He also states that the escort ship Löwe was alongside within 15 minutes, taking off as many survivors as she could carry, and that when Captain Henigst of the cruiser Admiral Hipper, 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.[1]

Heinz Schön's more recent research is backed up by estimates made by a different method. The Discovery Channel program Unsolved History undertook 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.[8][9][10]

Aftermath

Many ships carrying civilians were sunk during the war by both the Allies and Axis.[11] 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 8 April 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."[12]

About a thousand German naval officers and men, were aboard and died in the sinking of the Gustloff. The women onboard the ship at the time of the sinking were inaccurately described by Soviet propaganda as "SS personnel from the German concentration camps".[13] There were however a number of female naval auxiliaries among the passengers.

Wreckage

A model of the Wilhelm Gustloff at the Laboe Naval Memorial

Noted as "Obstacle No. 73" on Polish navigation charts,[14] Gustloff rests at , about 30 km (19 mi) offshore, east of Łeba (17.33E) and west of Władysławowo (18.24E). It is one of the largest shipwrecks on the Baltic Sea floor. It has been designated as a war memorial site (off-limits to salvage crews).

In 2006, a bell recovered from the wreck and subsequently used as decoration in a Polish fish restaurant was loaned to a privately funded "Forced Paths" exhibition in Berlin.[15] In 2007, the ship's bell was placed on display at a 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:

Books in English

Recent years have seen increased interest in the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster in countries outside of Germany, with various books either written in or translated into English, including:

A film set for the German 2008 TV movie "Die Gustloff"

Dramatized films

Documentaries

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 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.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Jason Pipes, References citing Heinz Schön References (no page number) claims the loss of life was 9,343.
  3. ↑ Williams, David, Wartime Disasters at Sea, Patrick Stephens Limited, Nr Yeovil, UK, 1997, p.227.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 CONVERSION TO FLOATING U-BOAT BARRACKS
  5. ↑ Löwe Torpedoboot 1940 - 1959 Sleipner Class
  6. ↑ The Avalon Project - Laws of War: Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention (Hague X); October 18, 1907
  7. ↑ M.S. Wilhelm Gustloff - FACTS - Glossary | Individuals
  8. ↑ "Discovery Channel, Unsolved History – Wilhelm Gustloff 2003"
  9. ↑ maritime EXODUS
  10. ↑ Michael Leja, References (a source in German)
  11. ↑ George Martin Maritime Disasters of World War II
  12. ↑ Crabwalk by Günter Grass review on RedDot Books Ltd website.
  13. ↑ Потопленный миф
  14. ↑ Irwin J. Kappes References
  15. ↑ Mark Landler Poles riled by Berlin exhibition originally published in The New York Times, August 30, 2006; republished in the International Herald Tribune

References

Further reading

External links