Sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff

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Blog Created: 2-19-2021

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Wilhelm Gustloff Museum

The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German armed military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea while evacuating German civilian refugees from East Prussia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Estonia and military personnel from Gotenhafen (Gdynia) as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate, 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.

A ticket for the Gustloff from someone who didn't board the ship at the last minute. (Courtesy of the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum).

Originally constructed as a cruise ship for the Nazi Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) organization in 1937, she had been requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in 1939. It served as a hospital ship in 1939 and 1940. She was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel in Gdynia (Gotenhafen) before being armed and put into service to transport evacuees in 1945.

Construction and naming ~

Wilhelm Gustloff was constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. Measuring 208.5 m (684 ft 1 in) long by 23.59 m (77 ft 5 in) wide, with a capacity of 25,484 gross register tons (GRT), she was launched on 5 May 1937.

Wilhelm Gustloff, 1895-1936 NSDAP Führer.

News of Gusthoff's assassination.

The ship was originally intended to be named Adolf Hitler but instead was christened after Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the National Socialist Party's Swiss branch, who had been assassinated by a Jewish medical student in 1936. Hitler decided on the name change after sitting next to Gustloff's widow during his memorial service. After completing sea trials in the North Sea from 15 to 16 March 1938 she was handed over to her owners.

Cruise ship ~

Wilhelm Gustloff was the first purpose-built cruise ship for the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) and used by subsidiary organisation Kraft durch Freude (KdF) (Strength Through Joy). Her purposes were to provide recreational and cultural activities for German functionaries and workers, including concerts, cruises, and other holiday trips, and to serve as a public relations tool, to present "a more acceptable image of the Third Reich". She was the flagship of the KdF cruise fleet, her last civilian role, until the spring of 1939.

She made her unofficial maiden voyage between 24 and 27 March 1938 carrying Austrians in an attempt to convince them to vote for the annexation of Austria by Germany. On 29 March 1938 she departed on her second voyage carrying workers and their families from the Blohm & Voss shipyard on a three-day cruise.

Construction of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

Adolf Hitler launches MV Wilhelm Gustloff Hamburg, Germany, May 5,1937.

Rescue of Pegaway ~

For her third voyage she left Hamburg on 1 April 1938 under the command of Carl Lübbe to join the KdF ships Der Deutsche, Oceania and Sierra Cordoba on a group cruise of the North Sea. A storm developed on 3 April with winds up to 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph) that forced the four ships apart. On 2 April the 1,836 gross ton coal freighter Pegaway had departed Tyne under the command of Captain G. W. Ward with a load of coal for Hamburg. The storm washed cargo and machinery from her decks and as the storm increased in intensity she lost maneuverability. By 4 April, it was taking on water and slowly sinking. At 4 am, the captain issued an SOS when the ship was 20 miles northwest of the island of Terschelling in the West Frisian Islands group off the coast of the Netherlands. The closest of the ships that answered the distress call was Wilhelm Gustloff which reached Pegaway at 6 am. She launched her Lifeboat No. 1 with a crew of 12 under the command of Second Officer Meyer. The oar-powered lifeboat was unable in the heavy seas to come aside Pegaway and looked in danger of needing rescuing. Lifeboat No. 6 with a crew of ten under the command of Second Officer Schürmann was then lowered. As it had a motor, it was better able to handle the waves. After first assisting their shipmates in lifeboat No. 1 to head back towards the Wilhelm Gustloff, Schürmann was able to reach Pegaway. One by one the 19 men on Pegaway jumped into the sea and were hauled onto Lifeboat No. 6, with both them and the crew of the lifeboat back at the Wilhelm Gustloff by 7:45 am. By now a Dutch tugboat had arrived but was unable to save Pegaway, which soon rolled to port and sank. Lifeboat No. 1 had been so badly damaged by the waves that after its crew had climbed up via ladders to the safety of their ship it was set adrift to later be washed up on the shores of Terschelling on 2 May.

Passengers board Wilhelm Gustloff giving Nazi salute shortly before leaving tilbury docks.

Anschluss ~

On 8 April 1938 Wilhelm Gustloff under the command of Captain Carl Lübbe departed Hamburg for England where she anchored over three miles offshore of Tilbury so as to remain in international waters. 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 Anschluss (Union of Austria with Germany). 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 10 voted against. Once the voting was complete, Wilhelm Gustloff departed, reaching Hamburg on 12 April.

After undertaking a further voyage on 14 to 19 April 1938, she went on an Osterfahrt (Easter Voyage) before her actual official maiden voyage, which was undertaken between 21 April to 6 May 1938 when she joined Der Deutsche, Oceania and Sierra Cordoba on a group cruise to the Madeira Islands. On the second day of her voyage, the 58-year-old Captain Carl Lübbe died on the bridge from a heart attack. He was replaced by Friedrich Petersen, who after commanding the ship for the remainder of this cruise left the ship until he returned to command it on the ship's final voyage.

The Wilhelm Gustloff before its first departure in 1938 and after its test in the Hamburg harbor ( Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo - Alamy Stock Photo).

Condor legion ~

Between 20 May and 2 June 1939, she was diverted from her pleasure cruises. With seven other ships in the KdF fleet, she transported the Condor Legion back from Spain following the victory of the Nationalist forces under General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

From 14 March 1938 until 26 August 1939, Wilhelm Gustloff took over 80,000 passengers on a total of 60 voyages, all around Europe.

Interior shots of the ship ~

Notice the portrait of Adolph Hitler on the far wall?

Passengers take advantage of the on-board swimming pool.

There's the Hitler portrait again back there.

Passengers dance on one of the ship's decks during a concert.

Military career ~

From September 1939 to November 1940, she served as a hospital ship, officially designated Lazarettschiff D. 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. As a consequence of the Allied 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 port of Gdynia, which had been occupied by Germany and renamed Gotenhafen, located near Danzig (Gdańsk). Wilhelm Gustloff sat in dock there for over four years. In 1942, SS Cap Arcona was used as a stand-in for RMS Titanic in the German film version of the disaster. Filmed in Gotenhafen, the 2nd Submarine Training Division acted as extras in the movie. Eventually she was put back into service to transport civilians and military personnel as part of Operation Hannibal.

Adolf Hitler passes Wilhelm Gustloff crew lined up on the lower promenade deck while touring the ship on March 29, 1938. (Courtesy of the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum).

KDF Enamelled Badge.

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

Operation Hannibal – evacuation ~

Operation Hannibal was the naval evacuation of German troops and civilians as the Red Army advanced. Wilhelm Gustloff's final voyage was to evacuate German refugees, military personnel, and technicians from Courland, East Prussia, and Danzig-West Prussia. Many had worked at advanced weapon bases in the Baltic from Gdynia/Gotenhafen to Kiel.

The ship's complement and passenger lists cited 6,050 people on board, but these did not include many civilians who boarded the ship without being recorded in the official embarkation records. Heinz Schön, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that Wilhelm Gustloff 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. The passengers, besides civilians, included Gestapo personnel, members of the Organisation Todt, and Nazi officials with their families. The ship was overcrowded, and due to the temperature and humidity inside, many passengers defied orders not to remove their life jackets.

The ship left Danzig (Gdańsk) at 12:30 pm on 30 January 1945, accompanied by the passenger liner Hansa, also filled with civilians and military personnel, and two torpedo boats. Hansa and one torpedo boat developed mechanical problems and could not continue, leaving Wilhelm Gustloff with one torpedo boat escort, Löwe. 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. 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), Wilhelm Gustloff's captain Friedrich Petersen decided to head for deep water which was known to have been cleared of mines. When he was informed by a mysterious radio message 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 Wilhelm Gustloff easy to spot in the night.

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.

Sinking ~

The ship was soon sighted by the Soviet submarine S-13, under the command of Captain Alexander Marinesko. The submarine sensor on board the escorting torpedo boat had frozen, rendering it inoperable, as had Wilhelm Gustloff's anti-aircraft guns, leaving the vessels defenseless. Marinesko followed the ships to their starboard (seaward) side for two hours before making a daring move to surface his submarine and steer it around Wilhelm Gustloff's stern, to attack it from the port side closer to shore, from whence the attack would be less expected. At around 9 pm (CET), Marinesko ordered his crew to launch four torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloff's port side, about 30 km (16 nmi; 19 mi) offshore, between Großendorf and Leba. The first was nicknamed "for the Motherland", the second "for Leningrad", the third "for the Soviet people", and the fourth, which got jammed in the torpedo tubes and had to be dismantled, "for Stalin". The three torpedoes which were fired successfully all struck Wilhelm Gustloff on her port side. The first torpedo struck Wilhelm Gustloff's bow, causing the watertight doors to seal off the area which contained quarters where off-duty crew members were sleeping. The second torpedo 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 quartered there survived. The third torpedo was a direct hit on the engine room located amidships, disabling all power and communications.

Reportedly, only nine lifeboats were able to be lowered; the rest had frozen in their davits and had to be broken free. About 20 minutes after the torpedoes' impact, Wilhelm Gustloff listed dramatically to port, so that the lifeboats lowered on the high starboard side crashed into the ship's tilting side, destroying many lifeboats and spilling their occupants across the ship's side.

The water temperature in the Baltic Sea at that 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 stampede caused by panicked passengers on the stairs and decks. Many others jumped into the icy Baltic. The majority of those who perished succumbed to exposure in the freezing water.

Less than 40 minutes after being struck, Wilhelm Gustloff was lying on her side. She sank bow-first 10 minutes later, in 44 m (144 ft) of water.

German forces were able to rescue 1252 of the survivors from the attack: the torpedo boat T36 rescued 564 people; the torpedo boat Löwe (ex-Gyller), 472; the minesweeper M387, 98; the minesweeper M375, 43; the minesweeper M341, 37; the steamer Göttingen, 28; the torpedo recovery boat (Torpedofangboot) TF19, 7; the freighter Gotenland, two; and the patrol boat (Vorpostenboot) V1703, one baby. 13 survivors died later.

All four captains on Wilhelm Gustloff survived her sinking, but an official naval inquiry was only started against Wilhelm Zahn. His degree of responsibility was never resolved, however, because of Nazi Germany's collapse in 1945.

January 30, 1945.

Losses ~

The figures from Heinz Schön's research make the loss in the sinking to be "9,343 men, women and children". Schön's more recent research is backed up by estimates made by a different method. An Unsolved History episode that aired in March 2003, on the Discovery Channel, undertook a computer analysis of her sinking. Using maritime EXODUS software, it was estimated 9,600 people died out of more than 10,600 on board. This analysis considered the passenger density based on witness reports and a simulation of escape routes and survivability with the timeline of the sinking.

Aftermath ~

Many ships carrying civilians were sunk during the war by both the Allies and Axis Powers. However, based on the latest estimates of passenger numbers and those known to be saved, Wilhelm Gustloff remains by far the largest loss of life resulting from the sinking of one vessel in maritime history. Günter Grass said in an interview published by The New York Times in April 2003, "One of the many reasons I wrote Crabwalk was to take the subject away from the extreme Right... They said the tragedy of Wilhelm Gustloff was a war crime. It wasn't. It was terrible, but it was a result of war, a terrible result of war."

About 1,000 German naval officers and men were aboard during, and died in, the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff. The women on board the ship at the time of the sinking were inaccurately described by Soviet propaganda as "SS personnel from the German concentration camps". There were, however, 373 female naval auxiliaries amongst the passengers.

On the night of 9–10 February, just 11 days after the sinking, S-13 sank another German ship, General von Steuben, killing about 4,500 people.

Before sinking Wilhelm Gustloff, Alexander Marinesko was facing a court martial due to his problems with alcohol and for being caught in a brothel while he and his crew were off duty. So Marinesko was thus deemed "not suitable to be a hero" and instead of gaining the title Hero of the Soviet Union, he was awarded the lesser Order of the Red Banner. He was downgraded in rank to lieutenant and dishonorably discharged from the Soviet navy in October 1945.

In 1960, he was reinstated as captain third class and granted a full pension. In 1963, Marinesko was given the traditional ceremony due to a captain upon his successful return from a mission. He died three weeks later from cancer at age 50. Marinesko was posthumously named a Hero of the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990.

The shipwreck today ~

Wreckage ~

Noted as "Obstacle No. 73" on Polish navigation charts, and classified as a war grave, Wilhelm Gustloff rests at 55°04′22″N 17°25′17″E, about 19 nmi (35 km; 22 mi) offshore, east of Łeba and west of Władysławowo (the former Leba and Großendorf respectively). It is one of the largest shipwrecks on the Baltic Sea floor and has been attracting much interest from treasure hunters searching for the lost Amber Room. In order to protect the property on board the war grave-wreck of Wilhelm Gustloff and to protect the environment, the Polish Maritime Office in Gdynia has forbidden diving within a 500 m (1,600 ft) radius of the wreck.

In 2006, a bell recovered from the wreck and subsequently used as a decoration in a Polish seafood restaurant was lent to the privately funded "Forced Paths" exhibition in Berlin.