8/25/2023 0 Comments German navy black sea world war 2The ship was named in honor of a Nazi leader in Switzerland who had been assassinated by a Jewish medical student the year before Adolf Hitler had told mourners at Gustloff’s funeral that he would be in “the ranks of our nation’s immortal martyrs.”Īdolf Hitler passes Wilhelm Gustloff crew lined up on the lower promenade deck while touring the ship on March 29, 1938. The stories of the survivors and the memory of the many dead were largely lost in the fog of the closing war, amid pervasive devastation and in a climate where the victors would be little inclined to feel sympathy with a populace considered Nazis-or at the very least, Nazis by association.īefore the war, the 25,000-ton Wilhelm Gustloff had been used “to give vacationing Nazis ocean-going luxury,” the Associated Press noted shortly after its 1937 christening, part of the “Strength Through Joy” movement meant to reward loyal workers. Most of the Gustloff’s estimated 10,000 passengers-which included U-boat trainees and members of the Women’s Naval Auxiliary-would die just hours after they boarded on January 30, 1945. The death toll from its sinking numbered in the thousands, some put it as high as 9,000, far eclipsing those of the Titanic and Lusitania combined. The problem, however, was that the Soviet navy lay in wait for any transports that crossed their path and sank the Gustloff 75 years ago this week in what is likely the greatest maritime disaster in history. “They said to have a ticket to the Gustloff is half of your salvation,” ship passenger Heinz Schön recalled in an episode of the early 2000s Discovery Channel series “ Unsolved History.” “It was Noah’s Ark.” If they could get to the dock and if they could get on board, the Gustloff offered them a voyage away from besieged East Prussia. ![]() The new arrivals overwhelmed the city, but there was no turning them back. German civilians seeking an escape from the advancing Soviets converged on the port city of Gotenhafen (now Gdynia, Poland), where the former luxury ocean liner Wilhelm Gustloff was docked. The province of East Prussia, soon to be partitioned between the Soviet Union and Poland, bore witness to what the Germans called Operation Hannibal, a massive evacuation effort to ferry civilians, soldiers and equipment back to safety via the Baltic Sea. Among the German populace, stories of rape and murder by vengeful Soviet forces inspired dread the specter of relentless punishment pushed many living in the Red Army’s path to abandon their homes and make a bid for safety. ![]() The fall of the Third Reich was by this point inevitable Berlin would succumb within months. By the time the Soviet Union advanced on Germany’s eastern front in January of 1945, it was clear the advantage in World War II was with the Allies.
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