Wilhelm Gustloff was a German ship that sank during World War II (1939-1945). It was named after Wilhelm Gustloff, a leader of Germany’s ruling Nazi Party. The ship launched in 1937, the year after Gustloff was assassinated. The ship served largely as a hospital ship and barracks (living area). It sank in the Baltic Sea in 1945 after it was struck by torpedoes from a Soviet Union submarine. The sinking was the deadliest maritime disaster in history. More than 9,000 people probably died.
Wilhelm Gustloff served originally as a cruise ship. It was built to hold about 2,000 passengers and crew. In May 1939, the ship retrieved about 1,400 German soldiers who had been fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Following the outbreak of World War II, Wilhelm Gustloff became a hospital ship to treat wounded soldiers and sailors. In November 1940, the ship became a barracks for sailors training to serve on Germany’s submarines.
In late 1944, Germans in East Prussia (part of what is now Poland) were threatened by the approaching Soviet Red Army. Wilhelm Gustloff and other ships were in Danzig (Gdansk) Bay, part of the Baltic Sea, for an evacuation effort. When Wilhelm Gustloff left port on Jan. 30, 1945, it was probably jammed with more than 10,000 people. There were more than 6,000 registered passengers and crew, but thousands more packed the ship shortly before departure. The ship intended to ferry the refugees to Kiel, a seaport in western Germany.
To avoid colliding with other ships, Wilhelm Gustloff turned on its navigation lights. However, the lights attracted the attention of a nearby Soviet submarine. The submarine fired three torpedoes into the side of Wilhelm Gustloff, and the ship quickly sank. Nearby German ships plucked about 1,200 passengers from the water, but all the rest died.
There was little global reaction to the loss of Wilhelm Gustloff at the time, as both the Germans and Soviets neglected to report it. The novel Crabwalk (2002), by the German author Günter Grass, centers on the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff.
