“When people and stacks of life rafts, everything that could no longer resist, at the moment when, as if by order from some unknown source, in the midst of the darkness that reigned around after torpedo hits, full lighting suddenly flashed, including deck lights, as happened in peacetime and during cruises SCR ("Strength Through Joy" - Nazi organization), when the eyes of every sighted person saw all the solemn illumination, when the end of everything came, my completely normal birth took place on the narrow bunk of the officer-mechanic of the destroyer Loewe.

Mother, being on the ship's berth, did not see all this. No solemn illumination on a tilted and sinking liner, no clusters of human bodies falling from a raised stern. But my mother remembered that my first cry was drowned out by that thousand-voiced scream that came from afar, that final scream that came from everywhere: from the depths of the sinking liner, from the cracked glazed promenade deck, from the sun deck overwhelmed by the waves, from the bow quickly sinking into the water, the scream spread over a stormy sea, where thousands of living people floundered or drifted, limp in life jackets, the dead. (Fragment from the book "Trajectory of the Crab", Günther Grass, 2002).

Expedition 2006. The idea of ​​conducting an expedition to the sunken liner was born as a result of negotiations between the State Maritime Administration - the Marine Administration in Gdynia (Government Marine Administration - Marine Office) and the Baltic Wrecks Association (“Association for the Study and Protection of the Baltic Wrecks”), during which issues of protection were discussed. and preserving World War II wrecks and giving them the status of mass graves. It was a unique opportunity to dive, shoot video and photos on one of the wrecks closed for diving. After much discussion and preparation, the expedition was eventually scheduled for the second week of May 2006.

The main objectives of this expedition were the maximum possible hydroacoustic survey of the wreck; collection of samples of bottom sediments; the maximum possible documentation of the remains of the liner on video and photo, as well as the collection general information about the current state of the rack.

Unlike the lengthy search for the Titanic, finding the remains of the Wilhelm Gustloff was fairly easy. Its coordinates at the time of the sinking (55°07'00''N 17°41'00''E) were remarkably accurate; in addition, the wreck is located at a relatively shallow depth - up to 50 meters. On Polish navigation charts, the place is marked as “Obstacle No. 73".

After the war, Soviet specialists visited the remains of the ship - there is a version that they were looking for the legendary Amber Room among the wreckage. During these visits, the middle part of the sunken ship was destroyed, leaving only the stern and bow. During the post-war years, some items from the ship ended up in private collections as souvenirs. The Polish government legally proclaimed this place a mass grave and banned private individuals from visiting the wreck.

Our diving team consisted of 3 underwater photographers and 5 underwater videographers. All diving participants were divided into four teams of three divers. Each team was assigned a specific task that had to be completed during a particular dive. Tasks were determined on the surface during the morning and afternoon briefings. Each day, one team remained on the surface to belay the diving teams, which allowed all participants to avoid physical overexertion.

During the first day, a representative of the Marine Department explored the wreck using HBO and laid three launch lines that led to the bow, stern and midsection of the wreck. After the morning briefing, the first two teams go into the water along the bow and stern running gears. From the task - to lay the running gear along the sunken ship. An additional task is to collect sediment samples. Unfortunately, low water temperature and high waves limit the dive to 35 minutes at the bottom. The purpose of the third diving team - two underwater operators and one support diver - is to shoot the aft part. The afternoon weather on the first day did not allow us to dive a second time. And the weather forecast for the next twenty-four hours is also unpromising.

Second day, early morning. Calm sea and sunny. This time all three teams entered the water at almost the same time. Finally we managed to send zodiacs with groups of divers with an interval of 15 minutes. According to the plan, on this day it was necessary to carry out photo and video shooting between the launching ends (between the bow and stern sections). The most accurate plan allowed the safe transportation of divers - without deviating from the schedule by more than 3 minutes. On this day, all teams made two dives, working along the entire wreck and filming it meter by meter from bow to stern. The water temperature on the surface is +12°C, at the bottom - +6°C. Visibility, one might say, is very good - 15-20 meters. It is worth adding that all dives were carried out with trimix 21/35 bottom gas, nitrox 50 and oxygen were used for decompression.

The liner Wilhelm Gustloff rests on a sandy bottom at a depth of 48 meters with a roll to the port side, which is badly damaged. The uppermost part of the wreck is located at 32-36 meters. The bow lies on the port side, rotated 90°. Huge capstans with remnants of chains can still be seen on the bow. The middle part of the ship is badly damaged. In the early 1950s, Soviet military divers explored the wreck, but they did it in a very strange way. We found the remains of chains welded to the side, which were probably pulled with a tugboat. Despite this, we can still imagine how huge and beautiful the Gustloff was in its prime. We were able to find small parts of machines (4-6 meters high) and a warehouse for ship equipment. The stern part of the vessel is in the best condition. This part, 15-20 meters long, lies with a slight list to the port side. Since our first expedition a few years ago, the condition of the wreck has deteriorated significantly. The upper deck collapsed, some parts of the ship destroyed by storms. And still the feed is the best part of the wreck. The waters of the Baltic Sea have well-preserved wooden structures - decks and rails are in excellent condition. If you go inside, you can see the spare steering wheels. In the aft part, you can go four decks deep into the wreck along a small gangway for sailors. At the bottom of the left side of the sunken ship, human bones still lie, which remind of the tragedy.

The final day showed once again how unpredictable the Baltic can be! After two windy days and a bad weather forecast, on the third day we were rewarded with 2 knots of wind and calm seas. A day earlier, a representative of the Maritime Administration installed a fourth launcher on an unknown underwater object previously found with the help of SSS. Divers who have had the pleasure of diving the 12m wreck motor boat, seems to have been the first to see it in 60 years since that fatal day for the Gustloff ... The last dive of this expedition was also the best. Visibility over 20 meters, temperature +8°C - all this significantly increased the comfort of diving and gave the participants a lot of pleasure.

After the anchor was raised, we honored the memory of the victims of the disaster with a whistle ...

In general, for three days, the ship was surveyed both outside and inside. However, due to the fact that the rack is very badly damaged, penetrations were at very short distances. The materials collected (photos, videos and soil samples) will form the basis for further impact studies environment on the remains of the ship, as well as its condition as a whole. As a result of the expedition, more than 200 photographs and a 210-minute film were handed over to the Gdynia Maritime Administration.

For me it was a very important expedition - the first official dive expedition in the last 30 years! Our photographs and film showed people the Wilhelm Gustloff liner in its current state. But more important was the answer to the question whether the "Gustloff" is an underwater mass grave or not ... Many divers from all over the world want to conquer their own diving Everest and dive on the "Wilhelm Gusloff". For what? Logbook entry? Or an enthusiastic story for friends? This is the site of the greatest disaster that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people! Yes, this is a grave... Consider how serious your motives are for diving here...

P.S. The WG'2006 expedition was attended by: Sebastian Popek - expedition leader; videographers Wojciech Jechna, Mirek Lukas, Silvo Peknik, Pawel Riedl, photographers Piotr Pielak, Radek Husak, Peter Vaverka, as well as support divers Lukasz Piоrewicz, Tomasz Stachura, Karol Lebowski.

During this expedition, the interaction within the diving teams and among the divers in general was brilliant! Thanks to the Zodiac team (s/v Zodiak) for their help. Consent, experience and interaction allowed us to complete this project successfully!

Text: Sebastian Popek
Translation: Julia Golosiy
Photo: Petr Vaverka, Radek Husak

Archived article from #5(53) 2007

With Heinz Schoen (Heinz Scho..n) - a man who survived the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff liner, I have been corresponding for a long time. Got several of his books on the subject.

He devoted himself to researching the fate of the Gustloff, from the identity of the person who gave his name to the ship, until the sinking of the liner on January 30, 1945 as a result of a torpedo attack by the S-13 submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko. The results of Schön's research on the fate of "Wilhelm Gustloff" are reflected in four of his books:

- 1951 - "The death of" Wilhelm Gustloff ";
- 1960 - "The last flight of the Wilhelm Gustloff";
- 1984 - "The catastrophe" Gustloff "- evidence of a survivor";
- 1998 - "SOS "Wilhelm Gustloff" - the largest maritime disaster in history."

In addition, he took part in the creation of feature films and documentaries, as a co-writer and consultant:

- 1957/58 - feature film directed by Frank Wiesbar "Night has fallen over Gotenhafen".
- 1993 - television documentary: "January 30, 1945 - the day the Gustloff sank, which was re-shown on central German television on January 28, 2000. In preparing the film, Schön was accompanied by a TV crew from Cologne Television on a 16-day trip to Danzig-Gdynia and to the site of the sinking of the Gustloff with a descent into the water to inspect the ship's hull. Then there was a trip to St. Petersburg to the torpedo operator of the S-13 submarine Vladimir Kurochkin.

In September 2002 I was able to meet Heinz Schön for the first time at his home in the town of Bad Salzuflen near Düsseldorf. The day passed in questions and answers, discussions and even bitter arguments. Often different perceptions of individual details of the death of "Wilhelm Gustloff" collided. We parted amicably. My briefcase was filled with books and photocopies of documents that were supposed to help clarify some of the details of the disaster.

When I was already in St. Petersburg, a package arrived from Shen. It turns out that he decided to document the answers to some of the questions that I then asked him. Since these questions are still the subject of heated debate in Russia, with Schön's permission, I found it necessary to make his answers public:

Yu.L.: Was mourning declared in Germany on the occasion of the death of the Wilhelm Gustloff liner?
H.S.: No. On the contrary, all survivors were forbidden to speak to anyone about the sinking of the Gustloff, so as not to cause panic, since over 100,000 refugees, most of them women and children, were waiting for evacuation by sea in Gotenhafen and Danzig. Information about the death of the Gustloff was not distributed in newspapers and on the radio, as well as in Wehrmacht reports. The death of the liner was deliberately hushed up in Germany. As for rumors of mourning, it had been announced nine years earlier for the real Wilhelm Gustloff, Hitler's associate in the National Socialist movement and Viceroy of the Fuhrer in Switzerland. He was shot dead on February 6, 1936 in Davos by a Jewish student of Serbian origin, David Frankfurter. Gustloff's body was transported to his homeland in Schwerin, where 35,000 guests, led by Hitler, attended the funeral. It was the largest mourning since Bismarck's death.

Yu.L.: Did Hitler declare Alexander Marinesko his personal enemy?
H.S.: No. Not Marinesko, but the murderer of Wilhelm Gustloff, the Jewish student David Frankfurter, was declared by Adolf Hitler in a mourning speech his personal enemy. D. Frankfurter was sentenced by a Swiss court to 18.5 years in prison. In June 1945 he was pardoned and emigrated to Palestine. After the formation of Israel, he worked as an adviser to the Minister of Defense.

Yu.L.: Was the military commander of "Gustloff" Wilhelm Zahn punished?
H.S.: No. Captain 3rd rank Wilhelm Tzahn was a submarine commander at the beginning of World War II. Then he became commander of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd submarine training division, stationed in Oxheft (Gotenhafen area). The Wilhelm Gustloff liner served as a floating barracks for this battalion.

On the last voyage of the Gustloff on January 30, 1945, Tsang served as a military commander in charge of transporting 918 officers, non-commissioned officers and cadets of the 2nd Battalion, who were to be urgently evacuated to Kiel.

After the death of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the German naval command Vostok sent, on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, Doenitz, a letter to Tsang with specific questions regarding the crash of the liner. On these questions, Tsang gave a written explanation on February 4, 1945. A copy of these documents is in my archive and published in the book "The Gustloff Disaster - Testimony of a Survivor." Neither the military commandant Zang nor the captain of the Wilhelm Gustloff, Friedrich Petersen, were subsequently prosecuted.

Yu.L.: Were there SS men (300 people) on the Gustloff?
H.S.: No. On board the Wilhelm Gustloff during the torpedoing of the liner by the S-13 submarine under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Marinesko, according to the data I collected, published in the latest book SOS Wilhelm Gustloff - the largest ship disaster in history, were :

- 918 - officers, non-commissioned officers and cadets of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd submarine training division;
- 173 - members of the civilian crew (sailors of the merchant fleet);
- 162 - seriously wounded soldiers from the hospitals of Danzig and Gotenhafen;
- 373 - women of the auxiliary composition of the Navy;
- 8956 - refugees, mostly women with children and old people from Danzig, Gotenhafen, East and West Prussia.

Total: 10582 people.

The destroyer Loewe, accompanying the Gustloff, and eight civilian and military ships that came to the rescue rescued 1252 people, 13 of whom later died due to severe frostbite and exhaustion.

Thus, 1239 people survived the disaster, including:

- 528 - submariners of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd submarine training division;
- 123 - women of the auxiliary composition of the Navy;
- 86 - seriously wounded;
- 83 - crew members (sailors of the merchant fleet);
- 419 - refugees.

It follows that as a result of the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster, 390 submariners and 8537 refugees (civilians) died. Since it was ordered to take on board only mothers with at least three children (this instruction was no longer carried out before sailing), there is every reason to believe that among the dead refugees there were at least 4,000, and possibly 5,000 children.

The death of the Wilhelm Gustloff was not only the largest naval disaster of the Second World War, but throughout world history, since never before had so many people died at the same time.

Yu.L.: Is there a Wilhelm Gustloff society in Germany made up of survivors and their relatives? Or are these people at least in correspondence with each other?
H.S.: Immediately after the war, I began a search for all those living in West Germany who had been rescued from the Gustloff. It was very difficult to do this, especially in relation to refugees. In my search, I was helped by publications in newspapers, speeches on the radio, and later on television.

Over the course of a number of years and even decades, it was possible to establish which of the survivors survived the war, who died in the first post-war years, mainly due to age, and who is still alive. I was also able to track down survivors of the Gustloff who lived after the war in Austria, Holland, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the USA, Canada and Australia. My search actions also included the captains, commanders and officers of nine warships and civil courts who participated in the rescue of people from the Gustloff.

In 1990, after the reunification of Germany, I was also approached by citizens of the GDR who had escaped during the disaster. There, before that, the topic of "Gustloff" was taboo. The rescuers and the rescued did not have the opportunity to meet each other, as was the case in West Germany.

On January 30, 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Gustloff disaster, I organized, with the support of the board of trustees of Albatross - Sea Rescue, in the resort town of Damp on the Baltic Sea coast, the "First Gustloff Meeting" with rescued and rescuers, in which almost 500 people. It caused an unusually wide resonance among the public and the media and made the crash of the liner in Germany even more famous.

In 1995, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Gustloff, on January 30, 1995, I organized a “Second Gustloff Meeting” in Dampe near Kiel with almost 250 people, again including residents of England, Scotland, Canada and the USA. For the first time, survivors and rescuers from the nine new German federal states (former GDR) were also present. This meeting was once again widely reported in the media.

In 1987, I organized a 12-day bus-boat trip “Along the route of the Wilhelm Gustloff” for 66 rescued from the Gustloff. By bus we visited Kiel - Swinemünde - Kolberg - Danzig - Gdynia. We made a trip back on the ship to the crash site, where parking was announced and a wreath was launched. On the same ship we returned to Kiel/Travemünde.

From 1986 to 1997, together with the board of trustees, I organized "Albatross - Sea Rescue" on seaside resort Dump the annual "Baltic Meetings". These events were attended by immigrants from East and West Prussia, Danzig and Pomerania, who left their homeland in 1945 on ships across the Baltic Sea. Members of ship crews involved in the action "Rescue across the Baltic Sea 1945" also participated. The meetings were attended by 300 to 500 people. The main core was made up of those rescued from the Gustloff and their rescuers.

Since almost nothing was said about the Baltic Sea Rescue 1945 action until the end of the war (although it is considered the largest rescue operation in history of 2.5 million people on more than 1000 ships), I established the 1945 Rescue Medal at my own expense. ”, which former sailors were awarded during the meetings in Dampe. The first to be awarded were the commanders and crew members of the ships that took part in rescuing people from the Gustloff. A total of 75 medals were awarded.

Due to the fact that my Gustloff Archive became widely known over the past 50 years, I was contacted by phone, in writing and in person by relatives of victims from the Gustloff, as well as those people who believed that their loved ones were refugees on the Gustloff and died in a shipwreck.

Thanks to meetings in Dump and personal contacts with hundreds of survivors, the “Gustloff Community” gradually developed, of which those who rescued the drowning became members. However, this is not a legally registered organization, but a friendly circle of people whom I periodically inform by letters about meetings and other issues.

Yu.L.: To what extent is this story known to today's young generation in Germany and is there still interest in this topic?
H.S.: Thanks to the feature film "Night has fallen over Gotenhafen", "Gustloff meetings", TV reports and interviews with survivors, press reports, as well as publications in the Bild newspaper, Bild am Sontag and Stern magazine, more than 100 reports in various newspapers, my publications (books) and my documentary photo exhibition “The Fate of “Wilhelm Gustloff”, this tragedy became known to millions of Germans. It is safe to say that the death of the Wilhelm Gustloff liner is the most famous ship tragedy in Germany during World War II.

In February 1990 I visited Leningrad for a week. I was then given the opportunity to speak to the officers of the headquarters of the LenVMB in the Admiralty together with the mechanical engineer of the S-13 submarine, Ya.S. Kovalenko, with whom I visited the grave of Marinesko the day before. After that, I was interviewed by Leningrad television. Baron Falz-Fine (a former Russian from Liechtenstein) and the well-known Munich TV movie producer M. Remy also took part in this trip. IN last years I have been to Leningrad/St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad several times (at the invitation of the Marinesco Committee).

Yu.L.: Why did the fifth edition of your book “The Gustloff Disaster – Notes of a Survivor” double the number of passengers?
H.S.: After the publication of my books "Baltic Sea 45" and "The Gustloff Catastrophe", discussions in newspapers, interviews with me about these books on television, I received over 1000 letters. Survivors of the disaster doubted that the Gustloff had only 5,000 refugees, while the smaller ship Deutschland had 12,000 refugees, and the slightly larger Cap Arkona had over 13,000. Both of these ships were filled with refugees in Gotenhafen on the same days, at the end of January 1945. Already in 1985, at the first meeting of survivors of the Gustloff disaster, I was approached about the published figure of 5,000 refugees. I was asked to fix it for 8,000 people. But since I had no evidence of an increase in refugees, I could not make corrections.

It was only in 1997 that I found a person who was in charge of passenger registration. It was Dr. Voldemar Terres. As a sanitary chief fenrich (non-commissioned officer), he carried out the last recount of the refugees on board. January 29, 1945 at 17.00 the last entry recorded the figure of 7956 people.

After 17 hours, throughout the following night, more refugees arrived until the departure, and when the Gustloff had already departed from the pier from the Reval steamer, which arrived from Pillau, another 500-800 refugees boarded the liner. So we can proceed from the total number of 8956 people, perhaps there were several hundred more refugees. Dr. Terres confirmed under oath the number he recorded and repeated his data in front of the TV camera.

Much of what Schön listed in his seven answers described in detail in the 2002 novel Crab Trajectory by Nobel laureate Günther Grass, who found Schoen's data reliable, about which he notified him with a letter of thanks. It remains for us now to reflect, but is Grass's novel itself reliable? As Heinz Schön rightly noted: “Only objective and truthful studies of the Second World War and military events in Russian and German soil lead to reconciliation and lasting peace between our two peoples in Europe.”

Prepared by: Yuri Lebedev
Photo: from the archive www.wilhelmgustloff.com

Archived article from #5(53) 2007

January 30, 1895 born in Schwerin William Gustloff, the future functionary of the middle level of the National Socialist Party.
January 30, 1933 came to power Hitler; this day became one of the most significant holidays in the Third Reich.
January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Gustloff Landesgruppenleiter of Switzerland based in Davos. Gustloff conducted active anti-Semitic propaganda, in particular, contributed to the dissemination of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in Switzerland.
January 30, 1936 medical student Frankfurter came to Davos to kill Gustloff. From a newspaper bought at a station kiosk, he learned that the viceroy was "with his Fuhrer in Berlin" and would return in four days. On February 4, a student killed Gustloff. name next year "Wilhelm Gustloff" was assigned to a sea liner laid down as "Adolf Gitler".
January 30, 1945 year, exactly 50 years after birth Gustloff, Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of a captain of the 3rd rank A. Marinesko torpedoed and sent to the bottom of the liner "Wilhelm Gustloff".
January 30, 1946 Marinesco was demoted and retired.

He began his working life as a small bank employee in the city by the seven lakes of Schwerin, Gustloff compensated for his lack of education with diligence.
In 1917, the bank transferred its young diligent clerk, who was ill with pulmonary tuberculosis, to its branch in Davos. The Swiss mountain air completely cured the patient. Simultaneously with his work in the bank, he organized a local group of the National Socialist Party and became its leader. The doctor who treated Gustloff for several years spoke of his patient as follows: "Limited, good-natured, fanatical, recklessly devoted to the Führer:" If Hitler orders me to shoot my wife tonight at 6 o'clock, then at 5.55 I will load a revolver, and at 6.05 my wife will be a corpse." Member of the Nazi Party since 1929. His wife Hedwig worked as Hitler's secretary in the early 1930s.

On February 4, 1936, Jewish student David Frankfurter entered a house with a sign W. Gustloff, NSDAP. He left for Davos a few days earlier - January 30, 1936 Without luggage, with a one-way ticket and a revolver in his coat pocket.
Gustloff's wife showed him to an office and asked him to wait; the frail little visitor aroused no suspicion. Through the open side door, next to which hung a portrait of Hitler, the student saw a two-meter giant - the owner of the house, talking on the phone. When a minute later he entered the office, Frankfurter silently, without getting up from his chair, raised his hand with a revolver and fired five bullets. Having quickly passed to the exit - to the heart-rending cries of the wife of the murdered man - he went to the police and declared that he had just shot Gustloff. Called to identify the killer, Hedwig Gustloff looks at him for a few moments and says: "How could you kill a man! You have such kind eyes!"

For Hitler, Gustloff's death was a gift from heaven: the first Nazi killed by a Jew abroad, moreover, in Switzerland he hated! An all-German pogrom did not take place only because the Winter Olympic Games were being held in Germany in those days, and Hitler could not yet afford to completely ignore world public opinion.

The Nazi propaganda apparatus made the most of the event. Three weeks of mourning were declared in the country, state flags were half-mast ... The farewell ceremony in Davos was broadcast by all German radio stations, the melodies of Beethoven and Haydn were replaced by Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods" ... Hitler spoke: "Behind the murderer stands the hate-filled power of our Jewish enemy, trying to enslave the German people ... We accept their challenge to fight!" In articles, speeches, radio broadcasts, the words "the Jew shot" sounded like a refrain.

Historians view Hitler's propaganda use of Gustloff's assassination as a prologue to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question".

Gustlov is dead, long live Wilhelm Gustlov!

The insignificant personality of V. Gustloff, almost unknown before the assassination attempt, was officially elevated to the rank of Blutzeuge, a holy martyr who fell at the hands of a mercenary. It seemed that one of the main Nazi figures had been killed. His name was given to streets, squares, a bridge in Nuremberg, an air glider ... Classes were held in schools on the topic "Wilhelm Gustloff Murdered by a Jew".

Name "Wilhelm Gustloff" was named the German "Titanic" the flagship of the fleet organization called Kraft durch Freude, abbreviated KdF - "Strength through joy".
Led her Robert Lay, head of the state trade unions "German Workers' Front". He invented the Nazi salute Heil Hitler! with outstretched hand and ordered that it be carried out first by all civil servants, then by teachers and schoolchildren, and even later by all workers. It was he, the famous drunkard and "the greatest idealist in the labor movement" who organized the fleet of ships KdF.

The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, having come to power, in order to increase the social base of support for their policies among the population of Germany, one of their activities marked the creation of a broad system of social security and services.
Already in the mid-1930s, the average German worker, in terms of the level of services and benefits that he was entitled to, favorably differed from workers in other European countries.
A whole flotilla of passenger ships to provide cheap and affordable travel and cruises was conceived to be built as the embodiment of the ideas of National Socialism and their propaganda.
The flagship of this fleet was to be a new comfortable liner, which the authors of the project planned to name after the German Fuhrer - "Adolf Gitler".

The ships symbolized the National Socialist idea of ​​a classless society and were themselves, in contrast to the luxury cruise ships for the rich floating all over the seas, “classless ships” with the same cabins for all passengers, making it possible to “make, at the will of the Fuhrer, Bavarian locksmiths, postmen Cologne, Bremen housewives at least once a year affordable sea voyage to Madeira, along the Mediterranean coast, to the shores of Norway and Africa "(R. Lay).

On May 5, 1937, at the Hamburg shipyard, Blume and Voss solemnly launched the world's largest ten-deck cruise ship, built by order of the KdF. Gustloff's widow, in the presence of Hitler, broke a bottle of champagne on board, and the ship got its name - Wilhelm Gustloff. Its displacement is 25,000 tons, its length is 208 meters, and its cost is 25 million Reichsmarks. It is designed for 1,500 vacationers, at whose service there are glazed promenade decks, a winter garden, a swimming pool…

Joy is a source of strength!

Thus began a short happy time in the life of the liner, it will last a year and 161 days. The "floating holiday home" worked continuously, the people were delighted: the prices of sea voyages were, if not low, then affordable. A five-day cruise to the Norwegian fjords cost 60 Reichsmarks, a twelve-day cruise along the coast of Italy - 150 RM (the monthly salary of a worker and employee was 150-250 RM). During the voyage, you could call home at an ultra-cheap tariff and pour out your delight on your family. Vacationers abroad compared living conditions with their own in Germany, and comparisons were most often not in favor of foreigners. A contemporary reflects: "How did Hitler manage to get his hands on the people in a short time, accustom them not only to silent obedience, but also to mass jubilation at official events? A partial answer to this question is provided by the activities of the KdF organization."

Gustlov's finest hour fell on April 1938, when in stormy weather the crew rescued the sailors of the sinking English steamship Pegaway. The English press paid tribute to the skill and courage of the Germans.

The ingenious Ley used the unexpected propaganda success to use the liner as a floating polling station in the popular vote for Austria to join Germany. On April 10, at the mouth of the Thames, Gustlov took on board about 1,000 German and 800 Austrian citizens living in the UK, as well as a large group of observer journalists, left the three-mile zone and anchored in neutral waters, where they held a vote. As expected, 99% of voters voted in favor. British newspapers, including the Marxist Daily Herald, lavished praise on the union ship.

The last cruise of the liner took place on August 25, 1939. Unexpectedly, during a scheduled voyage in the middle of the North Sea, the captain received an encrypted order to urgently return to port. Cruise time was over—less than a week later, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.

A happy era in the life of the ship was cut short during the fiftieth anniversary voyage, September 1, 1939, on the first day of the Second World War. By the end of September, it was converted into a floating infirmary with 500 beds. Major personnel changes were made, the ship was transferred to the naval forces, and next year, after another restructuring, it became the barracks for cadets-sailors of the 2nd diving training division in the port of Gotenhafen (Polish city of Gdynia). The elegant white sides of the ship, a wide green strip along the sides and red crosses - everything is painted over with dirty gray enamel. Cabin of the chief physician of the former infirmary occupied by a submarine officer with the rank of corvette captain, now he will determine the functions of the vessel. The following portraits have been replaced in the wardroom: the smiling "great idealist" Lei gave way to the stern Grand Admiral Doenitz.

With the start of the war, almost all KdF ships were in military service. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was converted into a hospital ship and assigned to the German Navy - Kriegsmarine. The liner was repainted white and marked with red crosses, which was supposed to protect it from attack in accordance with the Hague Convention. The first patients began to arrive on board already during the war against Poland in October 1939. Even in such circumstances, the German authorities used the ship as a means of propaganda - as a testament to the humanity of the Nazi leadership, most of the first patients were wounded Poles. Over time, when German losses became tangible, the ship was sent to the port of Gotenhafen (Gdynia), where it took on board even more wounded, as well as Germans (Volksdeutsche) evacuated from East Prussia.

The educational process went at an accelerated pace, every three months - the next release, replenishment for submarines - new buildings. But gone are the days when German submariners almost brought Great Britain to its knees. In 1944, 90% of course graduates were expected to die in steel coffins.

Already the autumn of forty-three showed that a quiet life was ending - on October 8 (9) the Americans covered the harbor with a bomb carpet. The floating infirmary Stuttgart caught fire and sank; this was the first loss of a former KdF ship. The explosion of a heavy bomb near Gustlov caused a one and a half meter crack in the side plating, which was brewed. The welded seam will still remind of itself on the last day of Gustlov's life, when the S-13 submarine will slowly but surely catch up with the initially faster floating barracks.

In the second half of 1944, the front came very close to East Prussia. The Germans of East Prussia had certain reasons to fear revenge from the Red Army - the great destruction and killings among the civilian population in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were known to many. germanpropaganda portrayed the "horrors of the Soviet offensive."

In October 1944, the first detachments of the Red Army were already on the territory of East Prussia. Nazi propaganda launched a massive campaign to "denounce Soviet atrocities" by accusing Soviet soldiers of mass murder and rape. By spreading such propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goal - the number of volunteers in the Volkssturm militia (German: Volkssturm) increased, but the propaganda also led to increased panic among the civilian population as the front approached, and millions of people became refugees.

“They ask why the refugees were terribly afraid of the revenge of the soldiers of the Red Army. Anyone who, like me, saw the destruction left by the Nazi troops in Russia, will not puzzle over this issue for a long time,” wrote R. Augstein, a long-term publisher of the Der Spiegel magazine.

On January 21, Grand Admiral Doenitz gave the command to begin Operation Hannibal, the largest evacuation of the population by sea of ​​all time: more than two million people transported to the West all the ships at the disposal of the German command.

At the same time, the submarines of the Soviet Baltic Fleet were preparing for the final attacks of the war. A significant part of them was blocked for a long time in the Leningrad and Kronstadt ports by German minefields and steel anti-submarine nets, put up by 140 ships in the spring of 1943. After breaking the blockade of Leningrad, the Red Army continued its offensive along the shores of the Gulf of Finland, and the capitulation of Finland, an ally of Germany opened the way for Soviet submarines to the Baltic Sea. Stalin's order followed: submariners based in Finnish harbors to detect and destroy enemy ships. The operation pursued both military and psychological goals - to impede the supply of German troops by sea and prevent evacuation to the West. One of the consequences of Stalin's order was Gustlov's meeting with the S-13 submarine and its commander, Captain 3rd Rank A. Marinesko.

Nationality - Odessa.

Captain of the third rank A. I. Marinesko

Marinesko, the son of a Ukrainian mother and a Romanian father, was born in 1913 in Odessa. During the Balkan War, his father served in the Romanian Navy, was sentenced to death for participating in the rebellion, fled from Constanta and settled in Odessa, remaking the Romanian surname Marinescu into the Ukrainian way. Alexander's childhood passed among the moles, dry docks and cranes of the port, in the society of Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Turks; they all considered themselves primarily Odessans. He grew up in the hungry post-revolutionary years, tried to snatch, wherever he could, a piece of bread, caught bulls in the harbor.

When life in Odessa returned to normal, foreign ships began to come to the port. Smart and cheerful passengers threw coins into the water, and Odessa boys dived after them; few people managed to get ahead of the future submariner. He left school at the age of 15, knowing how to read, write somehow and "sell from the vest of the sleeve," as he later often said. His language was a colorful and bizarre mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, spiced with Odessa "jokes" and Romanian curses. The harsh childhood tempered and made him inventive, taught him not to get lost in the most unexpected and dangerous situations.

He began his marine life at the age of 15 as a cabin boy on a coastal steamer, graduated from a nautical school, and was called up for military service. Probably, Marinesko was a born submariner, even his last name was marine. Having begun his service, he quickly realized that a small ship was most suitable for him, an individualist by nature. After a nine-month course, he sailed as a navigator on the Shch-306 submarine, then graduated from the commander's courses and in 1937 became the commander of another boat, the M-96 - two torpedo tubes, 18 crew members. In the prewar years, the M-96 bore the title "the best line of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet", putting emergency dive time record - 19.5 seconds instead of 28 normative ones, for which the commander and his team were awarded personalized gold watches.

By the beginning of the war, Marinesko was already an experienced and respected submariner. He possessed a rare gift to manage people, allowing him to move without loss of authority from a "comrade commander" to an equal member of the feast in the wardroom.

In 1944, Marinesko received under his command a large submarine of the Stalinets S-13 series. The history of the creation of boats of this series deserves at least a few lines, as it is a vivid example of the secret military and industrial cooperation between the USSR and the Third Reich before the war. The project was developed by order of the Soviet government in an engineering bureau owned jointly by the German navy, Krupp and the shipyard in Bremen. The bureau was headed by the German Blum, a retired captain, and it was located in The Hague in order to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which prohibited Germany from developing and building submarines.

At the end of December 1944, the S-13 was in the Finnish port of Turku and was preparing to go to sea. He was scheduled for January 2, but Marinesko, who was on a spree, appeared on the boat only the next day, when the "special department" of the security service was already looking for him as a defector to the side of the enemy. Having evaporated the hops in the bath, he arrived at the headquarters and honestly told about everything. He could not or did not want to remember the names of the girls and the place of the "spree", he only said that they drank pontikka, Finnish potato moonshine, in comparison with which "vodka is like mother's milk."

The C-13 commander would have been arrested if it were not for the acute shortage of experienced submariners and Stalin's order, which had to be carried out at any cost. Divisional Commander Captain 1st Rank Orel ordered S-13 to urgently go to sea and wait for further orders. On January 11, a fully refueled C-13 headed along the coast of the island of Gotland to the open sea. Returning to the base without a victory was tantamount to giving Marinesco a court martial.

As part of Operation Hannibal, on January 22, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff in the port of Gdynia (then called Gotenhafen (German: Gotenhafen) by the Germans) began to take on board refugees. At first, people were placed on special passes - first of all, several dozen submarine officers, several hundreds of women from the naval auxiliary division and almost a thousand wounded soldiers.Later, when tens of thousands of people gathered in the port and the situation worsened, they began to let everyone in, giving preference to women and children.Since the planned number of places was only 1,500, refugees began to be placed on decks, In the last stages of the evacuation, the panic increased so much that some women in the port, in desperation, began to give their children to those who managed to board, in the hope of at least saving them. , January 30, 1945, the ship's crew officers had already stopped counting the refugees, the number of which exceeded 10,000.
According to modern estimates, there should have been 10,582 people on board: 918 cadets of junior groups of the 2nd training submarine division (2. U-Boot-Lehrdivision), 173 crew members, 373 women from the auxiliary naval corps, 162 seriously wounded military personnel, and 8,956 refugees, mostly the elderly, women and children.

Attack of the century.

Captain Gustlov Peterson is 63 years old, he has not driven a ship for many years and therefore asked to be given two young sailor captains to help him. The military command of the ship is entrusted to an experienced submariner corvette captain Tsang. A unique situation has been created: on the command bridge of the ship there are four captains with an unclear distribution of powers, which will become one of the reasons for the death of Gustloff.

On January 30, accompanied by a single ship, the torpedo bomber Lev, Gustloff left the port of Gotenhafen, and an argument immediately broke out among the captains. Tsang, who knew more than anyone else about the dangers of Soviet submarine attacks, suggested zigzagging at a maximum speed of 16 knots, in which case the slower boats would not be able to catch up. "12 knots, no more!" Peterson objected, pointing out the unreliable weld in the side skin, and insisted on his own.

Gustloff walked down a corridor through the minefields. At 19 o'clock a radiogram was received: a unit of minesweepers is on the opposite course. The captains gave the command to turn on, in order to avoid a collision, identification lights. Last and final mistake. The ill-fated radio message remained forever a mystery; no minesweepers appeared.

Meanwhile, C-13, having unsuccessfully pierced the waters of the prescribed patrol route, on January 30 headed for the Danzig Bay - there, as Marinesko's intuition suggested, there should be an enemy. The air temperature is minus 18, it is snowing.

At about 19 o'clock the boat surfaced, just at that time the lights were lit on Gustloff. In the first seconds, the watch officer could not believe his eyes: the silhouette of a giant ship was shining in the distance! Appeared on the bridge of Marinesko, in a haunting oily sheepskin coat known to all Baltic divers.

At 19:30, Gustloff's captains, without waiting for the mystical minesweepers, ordered the lights to be turned off. Too late - Marinesko has already grabbed the cherished goal with a stranglehold. He couldn't understand why the gigantic ship didn't zigzag and be accompanied by just one ship. Both of these circumstances will facilitate the attack.

Gustloff was in a happy mood: a few more hours and they would be out of the danger zone. The captains gathered in the wardroom for dinner, a steward in a white jacket brought pea soup and cold meat. We rested for some time after the disputes and unrest of the day, drank a glass of cognac for success.

On S-13 four bow torpedo tubes are prepared for attack, on each torpedo there is an inscription: on the first - "For the Motherland", On the second - "For Stalin", on third - "For the Soviet people" and on the fourth "For Leningrad".
To the target 700 meters. At 21:04, the first torpedo is launched, followed by the rest. Three of them hit the target, the fourth, with the inscription "For Stalin", gets stuck in the torpedo tube ready to explode at the slightest shock. But here, as often with Marinesko, skill is complemented by luck: for some unknown reason, the torpedo engine stalls, and the torpedo operator quickly closes the outer cover of the apparatus. The boat goes under water.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second one blew up an empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. The passengers' first thought was that they had hit a mine, but Captain Peterson realized it was a submarine, and his first words were:
Das war's - That's it.

Those passengers who did not die from three explosions and did not drown in the cabins of the lower decks rushed to the lifeboats in a panic. At that moment, it turned out that by ordering to close, according to the instructions, the watertight compartments in the lower decks, the captain inadvertently blocked part of the team, which was supposed to launch the boats and evacuate passengers. Therefore, in the panic and stampede, not only many children and women died, but also many of those who got out on the upper deck. They couldn't get down lifeboats, because they did not know how to do this, in addition, many davits were iced over, and the ship had already received a strong roll. With the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some boats were launched, and yet there were many people in the icy water. From the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats, already full of people.

About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

One torpedo destroyed the side of the ship in the swimming pool area, the pride of the former KdF ship; it housed 373 girls from the auxiliary services of the fleet. Water gushed, fragments of colorful tiled mosaic crashed into the bodies of the drowning. Survivors - few of them - said that at the time of the explosion, the German anthem was playing on the radio, which completed Hitler's speech in honor of the twelfth anniversary of his coming to power.

Around the sinking ship floated dozens of lifeboats and rafts, lowered from the decks. Overloaded rafts are plastered with people convulsively clinging to them; one by one they sink into the icy water. Hundreds of dead children's bodies: life jackets keep them afloat, but children's heads are heavier than legs, and only legs stick out of the water.

Captain Peterson was one of the first to leave the ship. A sailor who was with him in the same lifeboat later tells: “Not far from us, a woman was floundering in the water screaming for help. We dragged her into the boat, despite the captain’s cry “set aside, we are already overloaded!”

More than a thousand people were rescued by an escort ship and seven ships that arrived in time for the crash site. 70 minutes after the explosion of the first torpedo, Gustloff began to sink. At the same time, something incredible happens: during the dive, the lighting that failed during the explosion suddenly turns on, and the howl of sirens is heard. People look with horror at the diabolical spectacle.

C-13 was lucky again: the only escort ship was busy rescuing people, and when it began to throw depth charges, the Za Stalina torpedo was already neutralized, and the boat was able to escape.

One of the survivors, 18-year-old administrative service trainee Heinz Schön, collected materials related to the history of the liner for more than half a century, and became a chronicler of the greatest ship disaster of all time. According to his calculations, on January 30, there were 10582 people on board Gustlov, 9343 died. For comparison: the Titanic disaster, which ran into an underwater iceberg in 1912, cost the lives of 1517 passengers and crew members.

All four captains escaped. The youngest of them, by the name of Kohler, committed suicide shortly after the end of the war - he was broken by the fate of Gustloff.

The destroyer "Lion" (a former ship of the Dutch Navy) was the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the surviving passengers. Since in January the temperature was already -18°C, there were only a few minutes left before irreversible hypothermia of the body set in. Despite this, the ship managed to rescue 472 passengers from boats and from the water.
The escort ships of another convoy also came to the rescue - the cruiser Admiral Hipper, which, in addition to the crew, also had about 1,500 refugees on board.
For fear of a submarine attack, he did not stop and continued to retire to safe waters. Other ships (the “other ships” mean the only T-38 destroyer - the GAS did not work on the Loew, the Hipper left) managed to save another 179 people. A little more than an hour later, the new ships that came to the rescue were only able to fish the dead bodies out of the icy water. Later, a small messenger ship that arrived at the scene of the tragedy unexpectedly found, seven hours after the sinking of the liner, among hundreds of dead bodies, an unnoticed boat and in it a living baby wrapped in blankets - the last rescued passenger of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

As a result, it was possible to survive, according to various estimates, from 1200 to 2500 people out of a little less than 11 thousand on board. According to the maximum estimates, losses are estimated at 9985 lives.

Chronicler Gustlov Heinz Schön in 1991 tracked down the last survivor of the 47 people of the C-13 team, 77-year-old former torpedoist V. Kurochkin, and twice visited him in a village near Leningrad. Two old sailors told each other (with the help of an interpreter) what happened on the memorable day of January 30 in a submarine and on Gustloff.
During the second visit, Kurochkin admitted to the German guest that after their first meeting, almost every night he dreamed of women and children drowning in icy water with cries for help. At parting, he said: "This is a bad thing - war. Shooting at each other, killing women and children - what could be worse! If only people could learn to live without shedding blood ..."

In Germany, the reaction to the sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" at the time of the tragedy was rather restrained. The Germans did not disclose the extent of the losses, so as not to worsen the morale of the population even more. In addition, at that moment the Germans suffered heavy losses in other places. However, at the end of the war, in the minds of many Germans, the simultaneous death of so many civilians and especially thousands of children on board the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a wound that even time did not heal. Together with the bombing of Dresden this tragedy remains one of the most terrible events of the Second World War for the German people.

Some German publicists consider the sinking of Gustlov a crime against civilians, just like the bombing of Dresden. However, this is the conclusion made by the Institute of Maritime Law in Kiel: “Wilhelm Gustloff was a legitimate military target, there were hundreds of submarine specialists, anti-aircraft guns on it ... There were wounded, but there was no status of a floating hospital. The German government on 11.11.44 declared the Baltic Sea an area of ​​military operations and ordered to destroy everything that floats. The Soviet armed forces had the right to respond in kind ".

Disaster researcher Heinz Schön concludes that the liner was a military target and its sinking was not a war crime, because:
ships intended for the transport of refugees, hospital ships had to be marked with the appropriate signs - a red cross, could not wear camouflage, could not go in the same convoy along with military ships. On board could not be any military cargo, stationary and temporarily placed air defense guns, artillery pieces or other similar means.

"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a warship, being assigned to the naval forces and armed, on which six thousand refugees were allowed to board. All responsibility for their lives, from the moment they boarded the warship, lay with the appropriate officials of the German navy. Thus, "Gustloff" was a legitimate military target of Soviet submariners, in view of the following facts:

"Wilhelm Gustloff" it was not an unarmed civilian ship: it had weapons on board that could fight enemy ships and aircraft;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a training floating base for the German submarine fleet;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was accompanied by a warship of the German fleet (destroyer "Lev");
Soviet transports with refugees and the wounded during the war years repeatedly became targets for German submarines and aviation (in particular, ship "Armenia", sunk in 1941 in the Black Sea, carried on board more than 5 thousand refugees and the wounded. Only 8 people survived. However, "Armenia", as well as "Wilhelm Gustloff", violated the status of a medical ship and was a legitimate military target).

… Years have passed. More recently, a Der Spiegel correspondent met in St. Petersburg with Nikolai Titorenko, a former peacetime submarine commander and author of a book about Marinesko, Hitler's Personal Enemy. Here is what he told the correspondent: “I don’t feel a sense of vengeful satisfaction. I imagine the death of thousands of people on Gustloff more like a requiem for the children who died during the blockade of Leningrad and all those who died. The Germans’ path to disaster began not when Marinesko gave the command to the torpedoists, but when Germany abandoned the path of peaceful agreement with Russia indicated by Bismarck.

Unlike the long search for the Titanic, finding the Wilhelm Gustloff was easy.
Its coordinates at the time of the sinking turned out to be accurate, in addition, the ship was at a relatively shallow depth - only 45 meters.
Mike Boring visited the wreck in 2003 and filmed a documentary about his expedition.
On Polish navigation charts, the place is marked as "Obstacle No. 73"
In 2006, a bell salvaged from a shipwreck and then used as decoration in a Polish fish restaurant was exhibited at the "Forced Paths" exhibition in Berlin.

On March 2-3, 2008 a new television film by the German channel ZDF called "Die Gustloff" is shown

In 1990, 45 years after the end of the war, Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later recognition came thanks to the activities of the Marinesco Committee, which operated in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Kaliningrad. Monuments were erected to the S-13 commander in Leningrad and Kaliningrad. Marinesko is named after a small museum of Russian submarine forces in the northern capital.

background

After the National Socialist German Workers' Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in 1933, one of its activities was the creation of a broad system of social security and services, which would make it possible to increase the social base of support for Nazi policies among the German population. Already in the mid-1930s, the average German worker, in terms of the level of services and benefits that he was entitled to, favorably differed from workers in other European countries. To spread the influence of the ideas of National Socialism and organize the leisure of the working class, organizations such as Strength through Joy (German: Kraft durch Freude - KDF), which was part of the German Labor Front (DAF), were created. The main goal of this organization was a system of recreation and travel for German workers. To realize this goal, among other things, a whole flotilla of passenger ships was built to provide cheap and affordable travel and cruises. The flagship of this fleet was to be a new comfortable liner, which the authors of the project wanted to name the name of the German Fuhrer "Adolf Hitler".

Assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff

Perhaps this liner would have remained in history under the name “Adolf Hitler”, if not for the murder of the well-known Swiss activist of the Nazi party Wilhelm Gustloff until that time. Gustloff was assassinated in Davos on February 4, 1936 by a Jewish student, David Frankfurter. This story gained scandalous publicity, especially in Germany, given the nationality of the killer. The case of the murder of a German, and even the leader of the National Socialists of Switzerland, was an ideal confirmation of the Nazi theory of a conspiracy of world Jewry against the German people. From one of the leaders of foreign Nazis, Wilhelm Gustloff, thanks to this murder, turned into a "symbol of suffering" (the so-called Blutzeuge). He was buried with state honors, numerous rallies in his memory swept across Germany in his honor, which were skillfully exploited by Nazi propaganda, a wide variety of objects in Germany were named after him.

In this regard, when in 1937 a cruise ship, ordered from the Blom & Voss shipyard, was already ready for launching, the Nazis decided to take advantage of this opportunity to perpetuate in this way "the hero of the Nazi cause and suffering for the German people." At the instigation of Hitler new liner it was decided to name "Wilhelm Gustloff". On the solemn launching on May 5, 1937, in addition to the main leaders of the Nazi regime, Gustloff's widow also arrived, who at the ceremony, according to tradition, fortunately broke a bottle of champagne on board.

Characteristics

From a technological point of view, the Wilhelm Gustloff was not an exceptional ship, her engines were of average power, and she was not built for fast travel, but rather for slow, pleasant cruises. But in terms of amenities, equipment and leisure facilities, this ship was truly one of the best in the world. Unlike other ships of this class, the Gustloff, in confirmation of the "classless nature" of the Nazi regime, had cabins of the same size and the same excellent amenities for all passengers. The liner had ten decks. One of the newest technologies applied on it was the concept of an open deck with cabins that had direct access to it and a clear view of the landscape. The liner was designed for 1,500 people. They were provided with a chicly decorated swimming pool, a winter garden, large spacious halls, music salons, several bars ..

In addition to purely technical innovations and the best adaptations for an unforgettable journey, the Wilhelm Gustloff, worth 25 million marks, was a kind of symbol and propaganda tool for the authorities of the Third Reich. According to Robert Ley, who headed the German Labor Front, these liners could:

For German citizens, a trip on the Gustloff was not only unforgettable, but also affordable, regardless of social status. For example, a five-day cruise along the coast of Italy cost only 150 Reichsmarks, while the average monthly income of an ordinary German was 150-250 Reichsmarks. For comparison, the cost of a ticket on this liner was only a third of the cost of such cruises in Europe, where they could only be used by representatives of the wealthy segments of the population and the nobility. In this way, the Wilhelm Gustloff, with its amenities, level of comfort and accessibility, not only secured the German people's disposition towards the Nazi regime, but also demonstrated to the whole world the advantages of National Socialism.

Flagship of the cruise fleet

After the ceremonial launch of the vessel, 10 months passed before the Wilhelm Gustloff passed sea trials in May 1938. During this time, the decoration and arrangement of the interior of the liner was completed. As a thank you to the builders, the ship was taken on a two-day cruise in the North Sea, which qualified as a test. The official first cruise took place on May 24, 1938, and almost two-thirds of its passengers were citizens of Austria, which Hitler intended to soon annex to Germany. Thus, the unforgettable journey was intended to amaze the level of service and comfort of the Austrians - participants of the cruise - and convince others of the benefits of an alliance with Germany. The cruise was a real triumph, a testament to the achievements of the new German government, the world press enthusiastically described the impression of the cruise participants and the extreme luxury on board the liner. Even Hitler himself arrived on the liner, which symbolized all the best in the country during his leadership. When the excitement around this achievement of the Nazi regime subsided somewhat, the liner began to fulfill the task for which it was built - to provide affordable, comfortable cruises to the workers of Germany.

Propaganda medium

Although the Wilhelm Gustloff offered truly unforgettable and cheap travel and cruises, it also went down in history as a prominent propaganda tool for the Nazi regime. The first unplanned incident occurred during the rescue of the sailors of the English ship Pegway, which was sinking on April 2, 1938 in the North Sea. The courage and determination of the captain, who left the procession of three ships to save the British, was noted not only by the world press, but also by the British government - the captain was awarded, and a commemorative plaque was later installed on the ship. Consequently, when on April 10 the Gustloff was used as a floating polling station for the Germans and Austrians of Great Britain participating in the plebiscite on the accession of Austria, not only the British, but also the world press wrote favorably about it. During the plebiscite, nearly 2,000 citizens of both countries and a large number of Correspondents sailed to neutral waters off the British coast to take part in a plebiscite in which only four voters abstained. The Western, and even the British, communist press was delighted with the liner and Germany's achievements. The participation of such a perfect vessel in the plebiscite symbolized the new that the Nazi regime introduced in Germany.

Cruises and troop transport

As the flagship of the cruise fleet, the Wilhelm Gustloff spent only a year and a half at sea and made 50 cruises under the Strength Through Joy program. About 65,000 vacationers were on board. Usually in warm season the liner offered travel along the North Sea, the coast of Germany, the Norwegian fjords. In winter, the liner went on cruises on mediterranean sea, coast of Italy, Spain and Portugal. For many, despite such minor inconveniences as the prohibition to go ashore in countries that did not support the Nazi regime, these cruises were unforgettable and best time from the entire period of Nazi domination in Germany. Many ordinary Germans used the services of the Strength through Joy program and were sincerely grateful to the new regime for providing recreational opportunities incomparable with other European countries.

Despite these achievements, the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a state-owned ship, and as such took part in all the activities and activities of the German government. So on May 20, 1939, "Wilhelm Gustloff" for the first time transported troops - German volunteers of the Condor Legion, who took part in civil war in Spain on Franco's side. The arrival of the ship in Hamburg with "war heroes" on board caused a great resonance throughout Germany, and a special welcoming ceremony was held in the port with the participation of state leaders.

Military service

The liner's last cruise took place on August 25, 1939. Unexpectedly, during a scheduled voyage in the middle of the North Sea, the captain received a coded order to urgently return to port. Cruise time was over - less than a week later Germany attacked Poland and World War II began.

Military hospital

With the start of the war, almost all KDF vessels found themselves in military service. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was converted into a hospital ship (German: Lazarettschiff) and assigned to the German Navy. The liner was repainted white and marked with red crosses, which was supposed to protect it from attack in accordance with the Hague Convention. The first patients began to arrive on board already during the war against Poland in October 1939. Even in such conditions, the German authorities used the ship as a propaganda tool - to show the humanity of the Nazi leadership, most of the first patients were wounded Polish prisoners. Over time, when German losses also became tangible, the ship was sent to the port of Gottengaffen (Gdynia), where it takes on board even more wounded, as well as Germans (Volksdeutsche) evacuated from eastern Poland, which was annexed to the USSR.

With the spread of the war to most of Europe, the Wilhelm Gustloff first received the wounded during the capture of Norway in the summer of 1940, and then prepared to transport troops in the event of an invasion of Great Britain. However, due to the failure of German attempts to conquer her, these plans were not implemented, and, together with the reorientation of German attention to the east, the ship was sent to Danzig, where the last 414 wounded were treated, and the Wilhelm Gustloff was awaiting direction for subsequent service. However, the ship's service as a military hospital ended - by decision of the Navy leadership, it was assigned to a submariner's school in Gottengaffen (Gdynia). The liner was again repainted in gray camouflage, and she lost the protection of the Hague Convention, which she had before.

Floating naval barracks

Having turned from a liner into a floating barracks for a school of submariners, the Wilhelm Gustloff spent most of his short life in this capacity - almost four years. The school of submariners prepared personnel for the German submarine war at an accelerated pace, and the longer the war lasted, the more personnel passed through the school, the shorter the period of study became and the younger the age of the cadets. The chance of surviving in the submarine war, which Germany began to lose, for the cadets was 1 to 10. This, however, did not affect the fate of the Wilhelm Gustloff, since he was far from the front line for a long time. With the end of the war approaching, the situation began to change not in favor of Germany - many cities suffered from allied air raids. On October 9, 1943, Gottengaffen (Gdynia) was bombed, as a result of which another ship of the former KDF was sunk, and the Wilhelm Gustloff itself was damaged. In the second half of 1944, even this did not seem to be the worst - the front came very close to East Prussia.

Panic and evacuation of the population

The Germans of East Prussia had certain reasons to be afraid of revenge from outside Soviet army- great destruction and killings of civilians in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were known to many. In addition, just as Soviet propaganda skillfully used information about the atrocities of the Germans to strengthen the morale of the Soviet soldiers and calls for revenge, so did the German depiction (often falsely) of the "horrors of the Soviet offensive."

In October 1944, the first detachments of the Soviet Army were already on the territory of East Prussia. First German city, captured by Soviet troops, was the city of Nemmersdorf (modern Mayakovsk, Kaliningrad region of Russia). A few days later, the Germans managed to recapture the city for a while, and Nazi propaganda launched a broad campaign to "denounce Soviet atrocities", accusing Soviet soldiers of massacres and rapes. By spreading such propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goal - the number of volunteers in the Volkssturm militia (German: Volkssturm) increased, but propaganda also led to increased panic among the civilian population as the front approached, and millions of people turned into refugees.

At the beginning of 1945, a significant number of people were already fleeing in panic from the advancing Soviet Army. Many of them followed to the ports on the coast of the Baltic Sea. To evacuate a huge number of refugees, on the initiative of the German Admiral Karl Dönitz, a special operation "Hannibal" was carried out, which went down in history as the world's largest evacuation of the population by sea. During this operation, almost 2 million civilians were evacuated to Germany - on large ships like the Wilhelm Gustloff, bulk carriers and tugboats.

Development of events

Thus, as part of Operation Hannibal, on January 22, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff began to take on board refugees. At first, people were placed on special passes - first of all, several dozen submarine officers, several hundred women from the naval auxiliary division and almost a thousand wounded soldiers. Later, when tens of thousands of people gathered in the port and the situation became more complicated, they began to let everyone in, giving preference to women and children. Since the planned number of seats was only 1,500, refugees began to be placed on decks, in passageways; military women were placed even in an empty pool. In the last stages of the evacuation, panic increased so much that some women in the port, in desperation, began to give their children to those who managed to board, in the hope of at least saving them in this way. In the end, on January 30, 1945, the officers of the ship's crew already stopped counting the refugees, whose number exceeded 10,000.

According to some German estimates, there should have been 10,400 passengers on board, of which about 8,800 civilians, including children, and about 1,500 military personnel). When the Wilhelm Gustloff, escorted by two escort ships, finally withdrew at 12:30, disputes broke out on the bridge between the four senior officers. In addition to the commander of the ship, Captain Peterson, who was called up from retirement, the commander of the 2nd submarine training division and two captains of the merchant fleet were on board, and there was no agreement between them about which fairway to navigate the ship and what precautions to take regarding Allied submarines and aircraft . The outer fairway was chosen (German designation Zwangsweg 58). Against advice to zigzag to make it more difficult for submarines to attack, it was decided to steer a straight course at 12 knots, since the corridor in the minefields was not wide enough and the captains hoped to get to safe waters faster in this way. In addition, due to technical problems, one of the escort ships was forced to return to the port, and only one destroyer Löwe remained in escort. At 18:00, a message was received of a minesweeper convoy that was allegedly moving towards them, and when it was already dark, they were ordered to turn on their navigation lights to prevent a collision. In reality, there were no minesweepers, and the circumstances of the appearance of this radio message have remained unclear to this day. According to other sources, the section of minesweepers was trawling towards the convoy, and appeared later than the time given in the notification.

sinking

When the commander of the Soviet submarine S-13, Alexander Marinesko, saw the Wilhelm Gustloff brightly lit, contrary to all norms of military practice, he followed him on the surface for two hours, choosing a position for attack. Even here, fate failed the Gustloff, as submarines were usually unable to catch up with surface ships, but Captain Peterson was moving slower than design speed, given the significant overcrowding and uncertainty about the state of the ship after many years of inactivity and repairs after the bombing. At 19:30, without waiting for the minesweepers, Peterson gave the command to put out the fires, but it was too late - Marinesko worked out a plan of attack.

At about nine o'clock S-13 entered from the coast, where they could least expect it, and from a distance of less than 1,000 m at 21:04 fired the first torpedo with the inscription "For the Motherland", and then two more - "For the Soviet people" and " For Leningrad. The fourth, already cocked torpedo "For Stalin", got stuck in the torpedo tube and almost exploded, but they managed to neutralize it, close the hatches of the vehicles and dive.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up the empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. The passengers' first thought was that they had hit a mine, but Captain Peterson knew it was a submarine and his first words were: Das war's (That's it). Those passengers who did not die from three explosions and did not drown in the cabins of the lower decks rushed to the lifeboats in a panic. At that moment, it turned out that by ordering to close, according to the instructions, the watertight compartments in the lower decks, the captain inadvertently blocked part of the team, which was supposed to launch the boats and evacuate passengers. Therefore, in the panic and stampede, not only many children and women died, but also those who got out on the upper deck died. They couldn't lower the lifeboats because they didn't know how, and besides, many of the davits were covered in ice and the ship was already listing heavily. With the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some boats were launched, and yet many people were in the icy water. From the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats, already full of people. An hour and 10 minutes after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

It is noteworthy that just two weeks later, on February 9, 1945, the S-13 submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko sank another large German transport, General von Steuben, as a result of which about 3,700 people died.

Survivor Rescue

The only escort ship "Löwe" was the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the surviving passengers. Since in January the temperature was already -18 ° C, there were only a few minutes left before irreversible hypothermia of the body set in. Despite this, the ship managed to save 472 passengers from boats and from the water. The escort ships of another convoy also came to the rescue - the cruiser Admiral Hipper, which, in addition to the crew, also had about 1,500 refugees on board. For fear of a submarine attack, he did not stop and continued to retire to safe waters. Other ships managed to save another 179 people. A little more than an hour later, the new ships that came to the rescue were only able to fish the dead bodies out of the icy water. Later, a small messenger ship that arrived at the scene of the tragedy unexpectedly found, seven hours after the sinking of the liner, among hundreds of dead bodies, an unnoticed boat and a living baby wrapped in blankets in it - the last rescued passenger of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

As a result, it was possible to survive, according to various estimates, from 1,200 to 2,500 people out of more than 10,000 on board. Maximum estimates put losses at 9,343 lives.

Legal assessment of the sinking

From a legal point of view, the actions of Commander Marinesko are impeccable. Vessels intended for the transport of refugees, hospital ships must be marked with the appropriate signs - a red cross, cannot wear camouflage, cannot go in the same convoy along with military ships. They may not carry any military cargo, stationary and temporarily deployed air defense guns, artillery pieces, or other means on board. Legally speaking, the Wilhelm Gustloff was a warship that allowed 6,000 refugees to board. All responsibility for their lives, from the moment they boarded the warship, lies with the appropriate officials of the German navy.

During the Cold War, Marinesco was considered a war criminal in Germany, until the Institute of Maritime Law (Kiel, Germany) made a decision that fully justified Marinesco and recognized that the Wilhelm Gustloff was a legitimate military booty of Soviet submariners. It was based on the following:

1. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was not an unarmed civilian ship: it had weapons on board that could fight enemy ships and aircraft;
2. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was a training floating base for the German submarine fleet;
3. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was accompanied by a warship of the German fleet;
4. During the war years, Soviet transports with refugees and the wounded repeatedly became targets for German submarines and aviation (in particular, the ship "Armenia", sunk in 1941 in the Black Sea, carried more than 5,000 refugees and the wounded on board. Only 8 people survived. However , "Armenia", like "Wilhelm Gustloff", violated the status of a medical ship and was a legitimate military target). Therefore, the Soviet side was recognized the right to adequate response actions against the German courts.

Reaction to tragedy

The reaction to the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff at the time of the tragedy was rather restrained. The Germans did not disclose the extent of the losses, so as not to suppress and worsen the morale of the population even more, in addition, at that moment the Germans suffered heavy losses in other places. However, at the end of the war, in the minds of many Germans, the simultaneous death of so many civilians and especially thousands of children on board the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a wound that even time did not heal. Together with the bombing of Dresden, this tragedy remains one of the most terrible events of the Second World War for the German people. Of the four captains who escaped after the death of the ship, the youngest - Kohler, unable to bear the feeling of guilt for the tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff, committed suicide shortly after the war.

In Soviet historiography, this event was called the "Attacks of the Century" - Alexander Marinesko posthumously received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments were erected to him in Kaliningrad, in Kronstadt, and in St. Petersburg, he is considered the Soviet submariner number 1.

Exploration of the wreck

Unlike the long search for the Titanic, finding the Wilhelm Gustloff was quite easy. Its coordinates at the time of sinking ( 55°07′00″ s. sh. 17°41′00″ in. d.(G) ) were surprisingly accurate; besides, the ship was at a relatively shallow depth - only 45 meters. After the war, Soviet specialists visited the remains of the ship - there is a version that they were looking for the famous Amber Room among the wreckage. During these visits, the middle part of the sunken ship was blown up, leaving only the stern and prow. During the post-war years, some items from the ship ended up in private collections as souvenirs. The Polish government legally proclaimed the site a mass grave and banned private visits to the remains. An exception has been made for explorers, most notably Mike Boring, who visited the wreck in 2003 and filmed a documentary about his expedition. On Polish navigation charts, the place is marked as “Obstacle No. 73".

In 2006, a bell salvaged from a shipwreck and then used as decoration in a Polish fish restaurant was exhibited at the Forced Paths exhibition in Berlin.

"Wilhelm Gustloff" in literature and cinema

In 1959, a feature film "Night over Gotenhafen" (German: Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen) was filmed in Germany about the tragedy of the shipwreck. The German occupation authorities called Gotenhafen the Polish city of Gdynia, from where the Wilhelm Gustloff set off on his last voyage.

The novel The Trajectory of the Crab (Im Krebsgang, 2002) by the German writer Günter Grass, Nobel Prize winner, received a great response. The narration in the book is conducted on behalf of a journalist, a resident of modern Germany, who was born aboard the Gustloff on the day of the shipwreck. The Gustloff catastrophe does not let go of the hero Grass, and the events of more than half a century ago lead to a new tragedy.

On January 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine S-13 torpedoed a German passenger liner"Wilhelm Gustloff", on board of which there were more than 10,000 people. This disaster was the largest in history.

The liner was built in 1937 by the Blohm + Voss shipbuilding company. At the initiative of Hitler, he was named "Wilhelm Gustloff", in honor of the Nazi figure from Switzerland, who was killed on February 5, 1936 by a Jew.

Start of construction (Hamburg)

The construction was carried out by the organization "Strength through Joy". The liner was designed for 1500 people, had ten decks. Its engines were of average power, as it was built for slow, comfortable cruising. In terms of amenities, equipment and leisure facilities, this ship was one of the best in the world.

Wilhelm Gustloff's widow Hedwig smashes a bottle of champagne over the side. Behind her stands Hitler (May 5, 1937)

As the flagship of the cruise fleet, the Wilhelm Gustloff spent only a year and a half at sea and made 50 cruises. About 65,000 vacationers were on board.

In 1938, the liner was used off the coast of Great Britain as a "floating polling station". Thus, German and Austrian citizens were given the opportunity to participate in a referendum on the accession of Austria to the Reich.

At the elections (04/10/1938)

In addition to cruise activities, "Wilhelm Gustloff" was involved in various activities carried out by the German government. In May 1939, for the first time, he transported troops - German volunteers of the Condor Legion, who took part in the Spanish Civil War, from Spain to Hamburg.

With the outbreak of war, the Wilhelm Gustloff was converted into a hospital ship (500 beds) and assigned to the German Navy. The liner was repainted white and marked with red crosses, which was supposed to protect it from attack in accordance with the Hague Convention.

In 1940, the ship's service as a military hospital ended - by decision of the Navy leadership, it was assigned to the submariner's school in Gotenhafen. The liner was again repainted in gray. Now it has turned into a floating barracks for the school of submariners, and served in this capacity throughout the war.

At the beginning of 1945, on the initiative of the German admiral Karl Dönitz, a special operation "Hannibal" was launched, the purpose of which was the evacuation of civilians who had fled from the advancing Red Army to Germany. As part of this operation, on January 22, the Wilhelm Gustloff, which was at that time in the port of Gotenhafen (now Gdynia, Poland), began to take on board refugees. At first, people were placed on special passes - primarily submarine officers (918 people), women from the naval auxiliary division (373) and wounded soldiers (162). Then the civilians, giving preference to women and children. As of January 28, 6,600 people were registered. Further, due to the large concentration of people on the shore, they began to let everyone in. Nobody counted these people. According to more accurate estimates, by the 30th, 10,582 people had gathered on board.

On the evening of the 30th, when the liner was already calmly sailing across the Baltic Sea, for two hours it was pursued by the S-13 submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko. At 21:04, Soviet submariners fired the first torpedo, which hit the bow of the ship. The second blew up an empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. Approximately 10,000 people died in the attack.

Artist Klaus Reiner Forst

Artist Mike Intemann

Artist Seyar Bekirov

Artist Andrey Lubyanov