In early January 1945, although the decline of the German army was already very obvious, the war continued. The Red Army advanced rapidly on the Eastern Front, and the towns occupied by the Germans were lost one by one. The connection between East Prussia and the German mainland was also completely severed. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Marshal Carl Dönitz, ordered Admiral Oscar Kumentez to plan and carry out Operation Hannibal, with the goal of evacuating German soldiers and peoples in areas that were about to be captured by the Soviet Union, especially East Prussia.
These "peoples", mainly women and children, plus the elderly, the sick and the disabled. Because all healthy men over the age of 16 have long been conscripted into the army. Dönitz, in his mission to the Navy, said, "Saving the people of the East and bringing them home remains the most important task our combat forces need to perform." If we can't keep their homes, then we should at least save their lives. ”
Hannibal was a Native of Carthage in the ancient north African nation, along with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon, and was known as the four greatest military men of all time. In his name, as the code name for this operation, it shows Dönitz's self-confidence and determination to preserve its strength for Germany.
Operation Hannibal officially began on January 23 and lasted for 15 weeks. Dönitz mobilized 1,080 civilian and commercial vessels of all kinds, plus the remaining strength of the German navy, all for the operation. Amid the continuous bombardment of the British Air Force and the Soviet Air Force, under the eyes of Soviet submarines, across the Baltic Sea, Operation Hannibal withdrew nearly 400,000 German soldiers and 900,000 ordinary people.
Dunkirk evacuation
This figure is 3 times that of the Dunkirk evacuation personnel. On May 8, when unconditional surrender was announced, the German Navy escorted 92 ships carrying 180,000 people from Latvia for Kiel. In this operation, the German side lost a total of 160 ships of various types, and the death toll was about 120,000. As a result, Operation Hannibal was hailed as one of the most successful large-scale operations of the German Navy in World War II. But later historians argue that the significance of this action is generally underestimated.
But the shipwreck, which far outnumbered the Titanic's death toll, also occurred during this evacuation. On 30 January 1945, the Wilhelm Gustav departed from the port of Gdansk in Poland and sailed for Kiel, Germany. Hours after leaving the harbor, the cruise ship was sunk by four torpedoes fired by Soviet submarines that had long been cruising the area. 10,600 German officers and soldiers and refugees were killed on board, and 9,579 people were killed. Of these, 5,000 were children and 730 were wounded.
On February 6, 1936, Hitler's good friend Wilhelm Gustav was assassinated by a young Jewish man. Hitler not only held a solemn funeral for him, but also ordered that a luxury cruise ship that would be launched the following year be named after him, the "Wilhelm Gustav". After the war began, cruise ships were used as military medical vessels.
The four torpedoes fired at the Wilhelm Gustav were respectively written "For Stalin", "For Leningrad", "For the Mother of the Motherland" and "For the People of the Soviet Union". The cruise ship sank rapidly after being hit, but fortunately two nearby German cruisers arrived to participate in the rescue. However, due to the rapid sinking speed and the fear of a new round of attacks by Soviet submarines, the two ships left after a short rescue time, saving a total of 1021 people.
The Goya, built in 1940, was a Norwegian merchant ship that was requisitioned by the German Navy after the German invasion of Norway and was later transferred to Operation Hannibal. On 16 April 1945, goya, loaded with 6,700 Germans, set sail from the Polish port of Gdynia to Germany in formation with several other ships.
After four days at sea, the Goya was first hit by Soviet fighters, but the damage was not great. Immediately afterward, the Goya was hit by several torpedoes fired by Soviet submarines at the same time, and quickly sank to the bottom of the sea in a very short time. The ships that came to the rescue only had time to rescue 183 people and more than 6,500 others, and they were killed in the Baltic Sea on the way home.
Marshal Dönitz, who initiated and commanded Operation Hannibal, was also the inventor of the "Wolf Pack Tactic" and hitler's will-determined successor. After Hitler committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin, he became president of the Third Reich. However, he only did it for 20 days as president. Another thing he did in those 20 days that went down in history was to order an unconditional surrender to the Allies.
At the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In the face of the accusations, Dönitz's defence was that in a wartime situation, what else could a general, with the supreme leader of his country, not plan to fight? After his sentencing, more than 100 senior Allied generals wrote to Dönitz expressing their sympathy for him.
Five-star Admiral Nimitz, who served as U.S. Chief of Naval Operations after World War II, also wrote testimony for Dönitz, proving that the U.S. Navy also used unrestricted submarine warfare in its operations against Japan. As a result, Dönitz was not convicted of this charge in the indictment.
After his release from Spandau Prison in 1956, Dönitz settled in the small town of Aumler, just 21 km from Hamburg. Omler was also the place where bismarck, the iron-blooded prime minister, died after he was forced to resign. His Friedrichsruh manor, just near the town. His family's cemetery was closed to the public, but bismarck Tower was open for people to visit.
Marshal Dönitz spent the last 24 years of his life in Omler. On December 24, 1980, Dönitz died of a heart attack at the age of 89, becoming the last Nazi field marshal to die. He and his wife were buried together in the town's cemetery. The tombstones only contained the names of their husband and wife and the dates of their birth and death, and nothing else.
On January 6, 1981, many former Nazi soldiers and foreign naval officials made a special trip to Omler to attend his funeral. The West German government did not allow him to be buried as a soldier, nor did it allow former soldiers attending the funeral to wear military uniforms. But there were still more than 100 former Nazi Navy officers, disobeying orders, dressed in full military uniforms and wearing the Order of the Iron Cross of the Nazis, to give him his last journey.
Dönitz never regretted his actions during the war, believing that it was only out of his duty to the country. He was extremely unashamed that Himmler, Goering, and others had intended to make peace with the West alone, saying that it was the highest form of betrayal. Dönitz had 3 children, both of whom joined the German Navy's submarine force, and both died in naval battles in World War II.
The West German government had planned to pay only a pension to Colonel Dönitz, so he took the government to court. In the end, he won the lawsuit and received a pension from the admiral until his death.