History of Europe

The tragic sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

On January 30, 1945, three torpedoes hit the completely overcrowded "Wilhelm Gustloff". A Soviet commander mistook her for a warship. A mistake that killed thousands of refugees.

by Stefan Preuss

Shortly after 9 p.m. on January 30, 1945, around 60 kilometers off the Pomeranian coast:The Soviet commander Alexander Marinesko in his submarine "S-13" takes a huge troop carrier through his periscope in the crosshairs. He thinks the ship, dimmed and accompanied by the torpedo boat "T-36", is a warship rushing to rescue soldiers from East Prussia from the Red Army across the Baltic Sea. In fact, it is the hospital and refugee ship "Wilhelm Gustloff", named when it was launched in 1937 after the Swiss NSDAP official who was murdered on February 4, 1936. The "Gustloff" was originally a "Strength through Joy" pleasure boat operated by the German Labor Front. There are over 10,000 people on board the ship, mostly women and children. Only a few hundred passengers are soldiers.

Submarine "S-13" attacks the "Wilhelm Gustloff"

When it was launched in 1937, the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was the largest cruise ship in the world.

At 21:15 Marinesko launches a fan of torpedoes at the "Gustloff". The first torpedo already hits and tears open the bow on the port side. The ship immediately lists eight degrees. The second torpedo explodes in the ship's swimming pool. Mostly naval helpers are housed there. Among them Ursula Resas, 21, and her younger sister Rosemarie:"Ulla, now we have to die!" But Ursula Resas doesn't want to die and tries to smash the armored glass on the deck. An officer helps her, shoots several times at the window glass and finally causes it to burst. A wave washes the two sisters outside. Then they lose sight of each other. The third torpedo hits the engine room. The machines stop, the light goes out. On the bridge, Captain Petersen sees his foredeck disappearing under the breakwaters of the Baltic Sea, which is only two degrees cold.

Panic breaks out on board

The refugees on the lower decks of the hopelessly overcrowded steamer don't stand a chance. Over 10,000 people are trying to save themselves at the same time. Many are trampled to death in the aisles. The crowd pushes, presses and punches upwards. The deck there is already completely overcrowded and the fight for the far too few lifeboats has erupted. The boats are iced up and cannot be launched. The crew only succeeds with difficulty in clearing up a few. While women and children get into the boats first, sailors and soldiers try to keep the panicked crowd at bay with warning shots from their pistols.

Desperate struggle for survival in icy water

Meanwhile, the "Gustloff" leans more and more to the side. Many refugees slide over the icy deck planks into the water. Others jump from the side of the ship twelve meters into the water and cling to the packed lifeboats. The inmates hit their fingers with oars until they finally let go. There is no chance of survival in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea. Most people freeze to death after a few minutes.

"T-36" rescues survivors

The torpedo boat "T-36" immediately rushes to the rescue and saves as many people as possible. In the end there are more than 500. The crew searches the turbulent surface of the Baltic Sea with searchlights. But for many, any help comes too late. Ursula Resas and her sister Rosemarie are lucky. Miraculously, they find themselves aboard the torpedo boat. Suddenly "T-36" turns away, full throttle. The jolt causes some of the rescued to fall overboard again. Two torpedoes fired by the Soviet submarine narrowly miss their target. Robert Hering, commander of "T-36", immediately drops depth charges and severely damages the submarine.

Sinking of the "Gustloff" not a war crime

Around 1,200 people can be saved from the worst shipwreck of all time, but more than 9,000 die - six times as many as in the sinking of the "Titanic". According to experts, the sinking of the "Gustloff" is not a war crime. The ship had soldiers on board, was equipped with anti-aircraft guns and was blinded under escort. Alexander Marinesko was only doing his duty, according to the Hamburg historian Axel Schildt, who died in 2019, in an earlier interview with NDR:"The bombing and sinking of civilian ships during the war is a measure that was also taken by the German side from the beginning. That This means that the German submarine crews had the express order not to take on shipwrecked people from merchant ships they had sunk."

Schildt pointed out that the catastrophe was to be assessed directly in connection with the Second World War:"It was not a terrorist attack 'out of the blue', but the result of a war. The war started in Germany. Germany destroyed Europe with war, covered with murder and the war has returned. That when war returns there will be innocent people to mourn, that is perfectly clear. But whoever ignores the prehistory in which this happened is at least acting rather negligently, because he is suggesting a certain scenario that has nothing to do with the story."