Measuring long by wide, with a capacity of , she was launched on 5 May 1937. 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.
By one estimate, 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Originally constructed as a cruise ship for the Nazi Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) organization in 1937, Wilhelm Gustloff had been requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in 1939.
Measuring long by wide, with a capacity of , she was launched on 5 May 1937. 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.
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 Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF).
She was the flagship of the KdF cruise fleet, her last civilian role, until the spring of 1939. The ship 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 she departed on her second voyage carrying workers and their families from the Blohm & Voss shipyard on a three-day cruise. ===Rescue of Pegaway=== For her third voyage Wilhelm Gustloff 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.
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. ===Anschluss=== On 8 April 1938 Wilhelm Gustloff, under the command of Captain Lübbe, departed Hamburg for England, where she anchored over three miles offshore of Tilbury so as to remain in international waters.
Once the voting was complete, Wilhelm Gustloff departed, reaching Hamburg on 12 April. After undertaking a further voyage on 14 to 19 April 1938, the ship 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.
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, the ship took over 80,000 passengers on a total of 60 voyages, all around Europe. ==Military career== From September 1939 to November 1940, Wilhelm Gustloff served as a [ship], officially designated Lazarettschiff D.
By one estimate, 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Originally constructed as a cruise ship for the Nazi Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) organization in 1937, Wilhelm Gustloff had been requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in 1939.
She served as a [ship] in 1939 and 1940.
She was the flagship of the KdF cruise fleet, her last civilian role, until the spring of 1939. The ship 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.
Petersen left the ship until he returned as captain on her fatal voyage. ===Condor legion=== Between 20 May and 2 June 1939, Wilhelm Gustloff 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, the ship took over 80,000 passengers on a total of 60 voyages, all around Europe. ==Military career== From September 1939 to November 1940, Wilhelm Gustloff served as a [ship], officially designated Lazarettschiff D.
She served as a [ship] in 1939 and 1940.
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, the ship took over 80,000 passengers on a total of 60 voyages, all around Europe. ==Military career== From September 1939 to November 1940, Wilhelm Gustloff served as a [ship], officially designated Lazarettschiff D.
Beginning on 20 November 1940, 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 a barracks ship for approximately 1,000 U-boat trainees of the 2nd Submarine Training Division (2.
In 1942, was used as a stand-in for in the German film version of the disaster.
{| |} The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German armed military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by 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.
She was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel in 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.
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 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.
His degree of responsibility was never resolved, however, because of Nazi Germany's collapse in 1945. ===Losses=== The figures from Schön's research make the loss in the sinking to be "9,343 men, women and children".
He was downgraded in rank to lieutenant and dishonorably discharged from the Soviet Navy in October 1945.
In 1960, Marinesko was reinstated as captain third class and granted a full pension, and in 1963 was given the traditional ceremony due to a captain upon his successful return from a mission.
In 1960, Marinesko was reinstated as captain third class and granted a full pension, and in 1963 was given the traditional ceremony due to a captain upon his successful return from a mission.
Heinz Schön, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that she 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.
Heinz Schön, a German archivist and Gustloff survivor who extensively researched the sinking during the 1980s and 1990s, concluded that she 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.
Marinesko was posthumously named a Hero of the Soviet Union by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. ==Wreckage== Noted as "Obstacle No.
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff), 2001. *"The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff", The Sea Hunters (television program), 2002. *"Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster", Unsolved History (television program), 2003. *Ghosts of the Baltic Sea, 2006. *Sinking Hitler's Supership, 2008.
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff), 2001. *"The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff", The Sea Hunters (television program), 2002. *"Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster", Unsolved History (television program), 2003. *Ghosts of the Baltic Sea, 2006. *Sinking Hitler's Supership, 2008.
An Unsolved History episode that aired in March 2003, on the Discovery Channel, undertook a computer analysis of her sinking.
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...
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff), 2001. *"The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff", The Sea Hunters (television program), 2002. *"Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster", Unsolved History (television program), 2003. *Ghosts of the Baltic Sea, 2006. *Sinking Hitler's Supership, 2008.
In order to protect the property on board the war grave, as well as the wreck itself and the surrounding environment, the Polish Maritime Office in Gdynia has forbidden diving within a 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. ==Popular culture== Books: *Günter Grass: Im Krebsgang, translated into English as Crabwalk.
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff), 2001. *"The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff", The Sea Hunters (television program), 2002. *"Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster", Unsolved History (television program), 2003. *Ghosts of the Baltic Sea, 2006. *Sinking Hitler's Supership, 2008.
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff), 2001. *"The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff", The Sea Hunters (television program), 2002. *"Wilhelm Gustloff: World's Deadliest Sea Disaster", Unsolved History (television program), 2003. *Ghosts of the Baltic Sea, 2006. *Sinking Hitler's Supership, 2008.
4 (89), SPECIAL ISSUE: Dynamics of Memory in 21st Century Germany (Winter 2008), pp.
An article in German. Moorehouse, Roger; Ship of Fate: The Story of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff (Independently published, 2018). Niven, Bill; "The Good Captain and the Bad Captain: Joseph Vilsmaier's "Die Gustloff" and the Erosion of Complexity" in German Politics & Society Vol.
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