The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Podcast Transcript

On the evening of January 30, 1945, the deadliest shipwreck in human history occurred.

Most of you might be aware of the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania, yet you’ll have never heard of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff.

With a death toll about six times worse than the Titanic, the Wilhelm Gustlof disaster has been all but forgotten today. Why has history forgotten about the world’s greatest maritime disaster?

Learn more about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, why it happened, and why it has been forgotten by history in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

To understand why the greatest shipwreck in history has been largely forgotten, it is essential to describe the events that led up to the disaster.

The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German civilian cruise ship prior to World War II, designed for and used by the Third Reich.

The ship was designed to be a cruise liner built under the Nazi “Strength For Joy” Leisure program. It was initially supposed to be named after Adolf Hitler, but the name was changed to honor a lesser-known Nazi, Wilhelm Gustloff.

Leader of the Nazi Party’s Swiss Branch, Wilhelm Gustloff was assassinated in 1936. Hitler, wanting to honor the dead Gustloff, changed the name of the ship after his funeral.

Measuring 208.5 meters or 684 feet in length and 23.5 meters or 77 feet in width, the ship was designed to accommodate 1,900 people.

Before World War II, the ship was used for trips across the North Atlantic and around the Mediterranean. The vessel was designed to provide recreational and cultural activities for German civilians, providing entertainment in the form of concerts and cruises for workers and officials.

The ship was also a valuable propaganda tool. As it sailed across the Northern Atlantic, it would be used to showcase the “advantages” of Nazism.

When World War II began, the ship was converted by the regime to serve as a medical ship and later became a “floating barracks.”

However, in early 1945, the ship took on a new role, which is where this story starts.

On January 23, 1945, the Gustloff was soon repurposed as an evacuation vessel in Operation Hannibal.

Operation Hannibal was a massive German naval evacuation conducted in early 1945 to rescue civilians and military personnel from East Prussia and other Baltic regions as the Soviet Red Army advanced. It became one of the largest maritime evacuations in history, involving over 1,000 ships and rescuing an estimated 800,000 to 1 million people.

It has often been called the German Dunkirk.

After the failure of the invasion of Russia, the Soviets were now advancing at full speed towards Germany. Many refugees were desperate to escape the war on the Eastern Front as the Red Army began to overrun their homes.

Rumors began to circulate among the refugees that the port of Gotenhafen, now known as Gdynia, Poland, was evacuating West, causing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to travel to the Prussian coast.

The trek for the refugees was brutal. The temperatures were below freezing, and they were subject to Soviet air attacks, and when they would arrive at the ports, they would find a chaotic scene.

None of the refugees knew who was in charge, and even the the Nazi officials would argue amongst themselves over who was in charge of Operation Hannibal. The officials were also fearful about appearing weak, which meant the evacuation was postponed later than needed.

While it is impossible to know whether or not a more timely departure would have prevented the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking, this could have been a factor in why the tragedy unfolded.

The voyage from Gotenhafen to Kiel was already dangerous, as the Allies had deployed mines in the Baltic Sea along the coastlines. Even though the Wilhelm Gustloff was not a military ship, sailing too close to the shoreline could result in the vessel being destroyed, which forced the ship out into deeper waters.

Midday on January 30, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff sailed out from the port of Gotenhafen. The ship was filled far beyond its capacity with refugees.

The ship set sail with an estimated 10,000 people. Of that number, about half were children. The actual number of people aboard the Gustloff is impossible to determine, but the ship’s capacity was holding roughly 8,000 more people than it was designed for.

Because it was January, the water was freezing cold, with lots of snow and wind. These conditions could have worked in the Germans’ favor as the potential for the Allies to see the ship was lower due to the lack of visibility.

So, the Germans decided to set sail across the Baltic Sea.

However, the ship’s Captain, Friedrich Petersen, was warned of a minesweeper convoy and turned on the ship’s navigation lights, completely negating the cover of winter they hoped to have. It is suspected that the message may have been a misunderstanding or a deliberate act of sabotage.

For further protection, the ship was escorted by a pair of torpedo boats as it set sail back to Germany. One ended up breaking down, and the other took a different route. This left the ship entirely undefended.

What the crew didn’t know was that a Soviet Submarine, S-13, was following the ship under the waters of the Baltic Sea after having spotted them sail out of port. Led by Captain Alexander Marinesko, they shadowed the Gustloff for hours until 9:00 pm.

Now, in fairness to Marinesko, the ship did look like a legitimate military target. The paint that had formerly marked it as a noncombatant ship had been removed. Additionally, there were troops and anti-aircraft guns on the deck, causing Captain Marinesko to perceive it as a military vessel.

Marinesko fired four torpedoes at the Gustloff, three striking the ship’s side, hitting the ship’s bow, stern, and midship.

The fired torpedoes had Soviet messages for vengeance written on them. The first, “For the Motherland”, the second, “For the Soviet People,” and the third, “For Leningrad.” The fourth failed to launch.

After the impact, the people aboard rushed for the lifeboats, but the ship barely had enough to fit its normal capacity of 1,900 people, let alone the 10,000 it was currently carrying.

As panic ensued, people were crushed to death as people ran to the lifeboats while others fell into the sea.

Compounding the disaster was how the ship sank. The Gustloff started listing towards its port side, which meant that half the lifeboats could not be used.

As the boat sank, people began to jump into the icy cold water. Those who did not die on impact would freeze to death.

The rescue and evacuation efforts were heavily impeded. Due to the ship’s location in the Baltic Sea, there were large amounts of ice, making the lifeboats essentially useless.

Those on the lifeboats also almost died due to the freezing temperatures. German rescue boats did arrive shortly after receiving the SOS call, but the rescuers were also in immediate danger.

The Soviet Submarines were still in the area, making it so the rescue boats would need to be extremely careful in how they came home if they did not want to meet the same fate.

This led to many of the lifeboats containing the Wilhelm Gustloff survivors being left behind.

The entire shipwreck took approximately an hour. There was only one survivor of those who were found in the water.

Of the approximately 10,600 people aboard the ship, only 1,200 survived. The total number of dead can never be known, but it is estimated to be around 9,400.

Despite the massive death toll, the tragedy received little attention.

There are several reasons why this particular disaster has been overlooked.

World War II was coming to an end, and the death toll in Europe was staggering, with new disasters seemingly happening daily.

Additionally, it served little purpose for the Soviets or the Germans to admit the loss of Civilian lives.

For the Nazis, it would make the regime look weaker and worsen the refugee’s morale, and for the Soviets, it would add to the sheer brutality of the war effort and be potential negative propaganda.

Because of this, initial information was heavily suppressed, especially by the Nazi Party, though reports of the shipwreck did reach Nazi officials.

You might be thinking that there were over a thousand survivors, surely news of the disaster would come out from them?…. and you would be partially right.

When survivors reached safety some did try to talk about the shipwreck, but they were often downplayed or silenced by Nazi authorities.

It wasn’t until weeks after the shipwreck that much of the world learned of what happened.

Much of the information that went out was limited, with many countries only receiving wire stories about the disaster. Most of what the world heard about was through Finnish Radio Broadcasting, and even then, it was barely mentioned.

It is likely that even if the Allies had learned of the maritime disaster earlier, there wouldn’t have been much sympathy, as the war was viewed in very black and white terms.

Any sympathy for the Germans would be viewed as sympathy towards the enemy. For many, it was perceived as a military victory despite the overwhelming majority of victims being civilians.

This state of affairs persisted long after the war ended.

There was a lot of hesitancy in discussing any tragedy the Germans faced, namely due to starting the war and the number of war crimes that the Nazis committed.

According to Edward Petruskevich, the curator of the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum, “The Gustloff was just another casualty of war along with the countless other large ships sunk on the German side.”

The Germans were viewed as the aggressor, and anything that fell into the idea of German Victimhood really couldn’t be mentioned until decades after the War. Even within Germany, it became distasteful to claim victimhood, so the general population largely forgot about the disaster.

This is very similar to the millions of Germans who died at the end of the war, which I covered in a previous episode.

The Wilhelm Gustloff was not the only German Evacuation ship to be sunk by the Russians. Two others, the Steuben and the Goya, were also torpedoed by the Soviets. Also forgotten, the death toll of the two ships was also massive, with an estimated combined 11,000 casualties.

There has been a shift that has made it more socially acceptable to discuss the tragedy.

A survivor named Heinz Schön can be credited for most of this shift.

Just 18 years old when the ship sank, he spent the vast majority of his life compiling witness accounts of the shipwreck and collecting as much information as possible about it. It wasn’t until about 20 years ago that modern historians began to openly discuss the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster.

With this shift, Germans were allowed to discuss their own victimhood, admittedly within specific circumstances, allowing for more information and discussion on the Wilhelm Gustloff to be explored.

The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is an important example of how framing influences history. We hear about tragedies like the Titanic and Lusitania quite often, yet history’s deadliest maritime disaster is essentially unknown.

It shows the impact that perspective and propaganda can have on collective memory.

After more than 80 years have passed, historians and the public can now take a more nuanced and objective look at this horrific maritime disaster.

Yes, the Germans were the aggressors in the war, but the thousands of children who died played no part in the horrors of the war.

Given the improved safety standards aboard ships, it is likely that the MV Wilhelm Gustloff might hold the distinction of being the world’s worst ship disaster for a very long time.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Research and writing for this episode were provided by Olivia Ashe.

Today’s review comes from listener dyactavc over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write.

Greatest podcast I’ve ever heard!

This is an absolute masterpiece. Gary has created his own type of

podcast: a daily, short overview of a completely random topic. You

never know what you’ll be learning about today; it could be

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But PLEASE stop pronouncing “Reeyo Gränd”. It’s pronounced “Reeyo GRÖNDAY”!

Thanks, dyactavc! That is the Spanish pronunciation. I am speaking English. I say Texas, not Tejas. I say Paris, not Pair-ee. Rio Grand is a very common English pronunciation of the River and what most English speakers are probably familiar with. Watch any western film and it will probably be referred to as Rio Grand.

The capital of Mexico in Spanish is Ciudad de México but in English we say Mexico City. Likewise, Spanish speakers would refer to New York City as Ciudad de Nueva York.

So, I don’t have a problem with Rio Grand.

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