The sinking of "Wilhelm Gustloff" is considered the largest maritime disaster in history, even more than the Titanic (a shipwreck that crashed into an iceberg and took more than 1,500 people) and the Lusitania (who took 1,119 people after being sunk by German torpedoes). We often hear about and even see through movies (just movies, of course), the scale of "Titanic" and the greatest tragedy associated with it (often called so). However, if we dig deep into the "grave" of history, we realize the enormity of destruction represented by German ships.
"Wilhelm Gustloff" is named after the leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland. The huge ship weighs about 25,000 tons, is about 700 feet long and can accommodate 2,000 people. In the early days, the ship was used as a luxury cruise ship for German workers in Hitler's Third Reich, and before the outbreak of World War II, it had sailed more than 50 times.
" " Wilhelm Gustlov " **
In 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, German forces had penetrated deep into Soviet territory until Stalin turned the tide of the war, and by October 1944, the Red Army had driven German troops out of the Soviet Union and into East Prussia. Fearing the approach of the Red Army, German civilians in East Prussia fled to Baltic ports, and "Wilhelm Gustlov" and other ships were sent to the front to evacuate millions of German civilians and military personnel.
** Red Army approaching the German camp **
Despite the designated capacity of 2000 passengers, the ship was packed with 10582 people (including Germans, Prussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, Estonians and Croats), the swimming pool was emptied and all available furniture on board was thrown away. To make matters worse, since two of the three designated military escort ships broke down, the ships were accompanied by only one torpedo boat. It was not known that a Soviet submarine was tracking the movements of the vessel, which was hit by three Russian torpedoes after an hour of sailing. People jumped into the water and the scene was chaotic. Outside temperatures were minus 18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit), and the freezing weather caused some lifeboats to freeze on deck. Children drowned in oversized life jackets, some trapped below deck while others were pressed into stairwells.
** Wilhelm Gustlov - docked at the pier **
Only a few survived, to be exact, 1,252 out of 10,582 people broke away from the passenger ship. An estimated 9,343 people died, half of them children, six times as many as the 1912 Titanic. Coincidentally, this was the birthday of Wilhelm Gustlov, who was born on January 30, 1895, and the ship sank on January 30, 1945. Here are the reasons why this disaster has not attracted much attention from the world:
- The incident involved Germans, and after World War II, not many people expressed sympathy for Germany.
- The response to such a catastrophe was relatively low-key, as it became clear that the establishment of Nazi concentration camps and naming ships after Nazi leaders did not help solve the problem.
- Another view compared to the Titanic is that the tragedy failed to generate enough headlines because there weren't many rich people on board.
At the end of the 60s, under Soviet supervision, two divers were sent to the sea to find out if the Germans were trying to evacuate the treasure using this refugee ship. While some things were found, they were never disclosed to the public or the media. ()