Shouts fill the frigid Baltic air as people scramble over one another to try and reach the
lifeboats. Explosions from within the ship erupt through the deck. The passengers of the Wilhelm
Gustloff jump overboard into the icy water. The number of lives lost from the sinking of this
German cruise liner will dwarf the losses of both the Titanic and Lusitania combined. The worst part
of it all: this was not a military vessel, and most of the lives lost were civilians.
As Nazi defeat at the end of World War II became more and more inevitable,
supporters of the party began to panic. The Soviet forces that were sweeping through the
eastern front loomed in everyone’s mind. Anyone who allied themselves with the Axis powers were
at the mercy of the incoming Soviets. This was a frightening thought as propaganda spread by
both sides painted the Soviets as vicious soldiers. Tales of them raping and murdering
Nazi supporters for revenge was the stuff of nightmares… and oftentimes true.
This led to anyone in the path of the Soviet forces to flee in fear. In order to reach
safety Germans and other Axis supporters needed to get back to the Motherland. With land routes
cut off by Allied forces there was only one way to get back to Germany, and that was by boat. In
the province of East Prussia—squeezed between the Soviet Union and Poland—Axis supporters
flooded the docks to try and get onto any ship leaving for Germany before enemy forces arrived.
The Wilhelm Gustloffn was docked in the port city of Gotenhafen. Originally the 25,000
ton luxury liner was used as part of the “Strength Through Joy” movement of the Nazi
Party. It was constructed as a way to reward workers, soldiers, and officers by taking them
on a relaxing cruise in the midst of World War II. As the situation became more dire for the Nazis,
the ship was repurposed into a floating barracks, and eventually became an evacuation
vessel. It would carry people away from the incoming Soviet forces via the Baltic Sea.
The mass evacuation of Axis supporters back to Germany was named Operation
Hannibal. New arrivals from around the surrounding areas overwhelmed the city
of Gotenhafen. Refugees flooded the docks and onto the Wilhelm Gustloff.
At first the crew tried to maintain order and only took passengers with tickets, however,
as the situation quickly got out of control, they stuck people in every available space on the ship.
Everyone in Gotenhafen was cold, exhausted, and hungry. The Wilhelm Gustloff was crammed full
of people and was well over its capacity. There was no way to keep a reliable passenger manifest,
so the exact number of people on the ship when it launched is unknown. But it is
estimated that around 10,000 passengers were on board when the ship set sail. The Gustloff
was originally built for less than 2,000 passengers, so it was well over capacity.
The ship left port on January 30, 1945 bound for Kiel, Germany. The senior officers of the ship had
to make a difficult choice. The Allied forces had deployed mines in the shallower waters to
stop military vessels from traveling along the coast. However, the Wilhelm Gustloff was not a
military vessel and did not have any weapons on board. If the ship struck a mine it would cause
irreparable damage, and everyone would have to abandon ship. The chances of making it all
the way along the coast from their current location to Germany was next to impossible.
The other option for the Gustloff was to venture out into the open waters of the Baltic Sea.
If they were careful, they might have been able to slip by the Soviet submarines that
patrolled the deeper waters. The weather in January was not ideal for sailing
because of constant snow and wind. It made navigation by sight extremely difficult,
but it would also hide the ship from enemy periscopes. The officers decided
their best course of action was to make a run for it in open waters.
Initially the Gustloff had two torpedo boats that would accompany it for protection. Unfortunately,
one broke down and the other left the cruise liner to take a different route,
leaving the Gustloff to fend for itself with no guns and thousands of civilians on board.
At this point in the war almost all Nazi ships were being used to try and hold back
Allied forces that were closing in on all fronts. So, the officers of the Gustloff
decided they were on their own. They launched at night to try and keep the ship hidden. However,
after traveling through rough weather, the navigation lights were turned on to increase
visibility, and make sure the Gustloff didn’t strike anything that would damage the hull.
Unfortunately, the lights did not just increase the Gustloff’s visibility,
but also made it stand out on the surface of the black waters. The ship began to sail
westward in a mad dash to make it to Germany before being spotted. As the Gustloff launched,
Hitler delivered his final radio address before taking his own life. The Führer’s
voice echoed mechanically over the speakers on the Wilhelm Gustloff. He urged the nation to resist,
and to never surrender even though he was planning on taking the easy way out. Hitler
knew if captured he would be tried for his heinous war crimes, so he committed suicide.
As Hitler spewed his fascist doctrine across the airwaves,
all the passengers aboard the Gustloff were thinking about was reaching safety.
Unfortunately for almost everyone on board, they wouldn’t make it back to the homeland.
As the Wilhelm Gustloff sloshed through the choppy waters of the Baltic, a nearby Soviet
submarine spotted the ship. The submarine was designated S-13 and was under the command of
Alexander Marinesko. Marinesko did not have the most prestigious record, and was known for not
always following the chain of command. He was currently on a mission, but had been delayed
because he got drunk while docked. Marinesko was known to indulge in drinking a little too
frequently, and a little too much, and the night he spotted the Wilhelm Gustloff was no different.
The lights the ship was using to navigate alerted Marinesko of the Gustloff’s location. Since the
Soviets were on a mission of revenge, Marinesko thought he would be a hero for destroying a German
ship. He had no idea that it was a cruise liner filled with civilians. Around 9:00 p.m. the Soviet
submarine released three torpedoes. Each one had been inscribed with messages that embodied the
Soviet’s desire for revenge against the Nazis for what they did to their country and people.
All three torpedoes struck the Wilhelm Gustloff and exploded. One torpedo went off in the crew’s
living quarters, another in the swimming pool area, and the final exploded in the part of
the ship where the Women’s Naval Auxiliary unit was located. Hundreds of people died on
impact. Others were trapped under rubble and bulkheads; they would go down with the ship.
Moments after the impact it was clear what would happen. The passengers and crew made a mad dash
for the lifeboats. The ship itself barely had enough lifeboats to hold the normal number of
people the ship was capable of carrying; and on this voyage, the maximum capacity was exceeded
by around 8,000 people. There was no way that everyone would fit in the lifeboats.
One survivor recounted seeing people trampled to death as everyone ran for their lives.
Unfortunately, many of these victims were children who were caught under the feet of
the mob as everyone fought for survival. As people pushed their way up the stairs to the lifeboats,
other passengers were forced over the railing. Some fell to the deck below,
while others descended into the depths of the frigid sea. The ship tilted hard to the port side,
this meant that now only the lifeboats on the starboard side of the ship were accessible,
cutting the amount of people that could be saved even further.
Survivors of the sinking of the Gustloff remember in vivid detail the horrors that unfolded in
the minutes that followed the attack. As full lifeboats dropped into the water, the passengers
looked up at the stranded people on the deck of the ship. Realizing that all of the lifeboats
had either been launched or destroyed, people started throwing themselves overboard into the
icy water. Many died on impact; those who survived would not last long in the nearly freezing water.
Survivors of the plunge into the Baltic sea would swim frantically, trying to reach the lifeboats
that were moving away from the sinking ship. The lifeboats that were already at capacity needed
to defend themselves from being tipped over. They could not fit any more people on board,
so the passengers would shove those trying to climb into their boats away
and back into the sea. In dire situations the lifeboats would use their ores to hit
peoples’ hands and heads trying to stop them from capsizing their lifeboat and killing all on board.
The survivors in the lifeboats remember the gruesomeness of pushing people away
to freeze in the Baltic waters. But it was life or death circumstances. Either
they defended themselves from being tipped over, or they would have been lost as well.
The survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff would be haunted by that night for the rest of their lives.
For the passengers who remained on the ship it soon became clear that death was imminent. The
freezing water would be a slow, cold, way to go, so some passengers decided on a quicker way out
of the situation. One survivor remembers seeing a Nazi soldiers with his family hanging on for dear
life as the Gustloff began to list and descend into the depths of the sea. The soldier pulled
out his pistol and shot his wife and children to save them from dying in a slow, painful, way.
Unfortunately for the soldier, he had used all of the bullets by the time he turned
the gun on himself. The man closed his eyes and let go of the railing
he was holding onto. The survivor said he remembers seeing the man slide down the
icy deck after the bodies of his family, and then he disappeared into darkness.
Eventually German rescue boats came to the aid of the survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff. The ships
scooped up lifeboats containing passengers that were nearly frozen from the frigid environment of
the Baltic Sea in January. The rescuers did not only have the survivors on their mind,
but the submarine that had sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff as well. The ships had to make
constant evasive maneuvers to ensure they didn’t meet the same fate as the Wilhelm Gustloff.
In order to keep from being in one spot for too long, the rescue ships oftentimes had to pass by
lifeboats that did not show immediate signs of survivors. When their boats were filled
to capacity the rescue ships turned around and returned to Germany. Many lifeboats and survivors
of the initial wreck were left behind to die with the rest of the victims of the Gustloff.
It was just an hour after the S-13’s torpedoes struck the Gustloff that the ship sank to the
bottom of the sea. The following morning, the surrounding area was filled with floating,
frozen, bodies. The rescue ships recorded that many of the bodies belonged to children whose
life jackets had rolled them face down in the water and caused them to drown.
The morning after the attack only one survivor was found; the survivor was a baby swaddled in
blankets aboard a lifeboat surrounded by the bodies of frozen passengers. One of
the officers of the rescue ship that found the infant adopted him and raised him as his own.
Of the 10,000 souls on the Wilhelm Gustloff only around 1,000 survived.
It was due to the countless tragedies, and the war finally coming to an end,
that the tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff did not get much attention. It was the largest loss
of life on any ocean liner in history. Also, neither the Germans or the Soviets wanted to
broadcast that so many civilian lives had been senselessly lost in such a brutal way. Weeks
after the disaster the news finally started to reach people around Europe and the United States.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was the worst maritime tragedy in history. The lives
lost did not only include German civilians, but Prussians, Lithuanians, Poles, Estonians,
and Crotatians as well. The death toll was likely close to 9,000 people. In war
people die, but the sheer numbers of civilian lives lost during the attack
is unforgivable. Regardless of which side of the war the passengers were on,
they did not deserve to freeze to death in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.
Now watch “Why Did Nine Ships Disappear In Perfect
Weather?” Or check out “Why This Sinking Was Worse Than Titanic.”