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Ship of Fate: The Story of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff
Hitler's Titanic - the deadliest and most secret catastrophe in the history of maritime warfare.
When the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Soviet submarine, with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, it wrote itself an unenviable record in the history books as the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Yet, aside from its grim fate in the icy waters of the Baltic, the story of the Gustloff is a fascinating one, which sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of the wider history of the Third Reich.
Launched in Hamburg in 1937, the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff was originally to be christened the “Adolf Hitler”, but instead was named after the Swiss Nazi leader, who had been assassinated by a Jewish gunman the previous year.
The ship was the pride of the Nazi Labour Movement, and would be run as a cruise liner by the subsidiary KdF, an organisation responsible for German workers’ leisure time, cruising the Baltic and Scandinavian coast, seducing its passengers with the apparent benefits of belonging to the Nazi ‘national community’.
The Gustloff also served a vital propaganda function for Hitler’s Reich.
It was moored in London in 1938 to allow Austrian citizens in the city to participate in the plebiscite over Hitler’s annexation of the country and the following year, it brought the elite German ‘Condor Legion’ home from service alongside Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.
When war came in 1939, the Gustloff was used as a hospital ship and ferried wounded soldiers and sailors home from the 1940 campaign in Narvik.
Later, moored in the harbour at Gdynia, it served as a floating barracks for U-Boat crews undergoing training.
In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff would meet its nemesis.
That spring, it would be requisitioned for “Operation Hannibal”, the attempt to evacuate civilians, soldiers and officials westwards from the German eastern provinces threatened by the Soviet advance.
While many ships made numerous crossings, the Gustloff would not survive her first voyage.
Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, she was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.
The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking in the freezing waters of the Baltic is dramatic and it has rarely been satisfactorily told in the English language.
This gripping Kindle Single will explore the history of the German ship that suffered the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Roger Moorhouse is a critically-acclaimed freelance historian specialising in modern German and Central European history. Published in 15 languages, he is the author of the international bestseller 'Berlin at War' and 'The Devils’ Alliance' which was published in the UK & US in the autumn of 2014. He is also author of 'His Hitler in Landsberg, 1924.'
When the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Soviet submarine, with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, it wrote itself an unenviable record in the history books as the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Yet, aside from its grim fate in the icy waters of the Baltic, the story of the Gustloff is a fascinating one, which sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of the wider history of the Third Reich.
Launched in Hamburg in 1937, the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff was originally to be christened the “Adolf Hitler”, but instead was named after the Swiss Nazi leader, who had been assassinated by a Jewish gunman the previous year.
The ship was the pride of the Nazi Labour Movement, and would be run as a cruise liner by the subsidiary KdF, an organisation responsible for German workers’ leisure time, cruising the Baltic and Scandinavian coast, seducing its passengers with the apparent benefits of belonging to the Nazi ‘national community’.
The Gustloff also served a vital propaganda function for Hitler’s Reich.
It was moored in London in 1938 to allow Austrian citizens in the city to participate in the plebiscite over Hitler’s annexation of the country and the following year, it brought the elite German ‘Condor Legion’ home from service alongside Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.
When war came in 1939, the Gustloff was used as a hospital ship and ferried wounded soldiers and sailors home from the 1940 campaign in Narvik.
Later, moored in the harbour at Gdynia, it served as a floating barracks for U-Boat crews undergoing training.
In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff would meet its nemesis.
That spring, it would be requisitioned for “Operation Hannibal”, the attempt to evacuate civilians, soldiers and officials westwards from the German eastern provinces threatened by the Soviet advance.
While many ships made numerous crossings, the Gustloff would not survive her first voyage.
Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, she was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.
The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking in the freezing waters of the Baltic is dramatic and it has rarely been satisfactorily told in the English language.
This gripping Kindle Single will explore the history of the German ship that suffered the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Roger Moorhouse is a critically-acclaimed freelance historian specialising in modern German and Central European history. Published in 15 languages, he is the author of the international bestseller 'Berlin at War' and 'The Devils’ Alliance' which was published in the UK & US in the autumn of 2014. He is also author of 'His Hitler in Landsberg, 1924.'
183 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2018
43 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Roger Moorhouse
42 books179 followersLiving the Dream. Historian and author of an international bestseller - "Berlin at War" was #1 in Lithuania :-) - as well as a few other books, such as "Killing Hitler", "The Devils' Alliance" and "First to Fight" - the last of which won the Polish Foreign Ministry History Prize in 2020.
I write mainly about Nazi Germany and wartime Poland, but I fear that might scare some people off, so I'll just call myself a writer of history books.
My current book (published in the UK in August 2023) is "The Forgers", which is the fascinating story of the Ładoś Group - a ring of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists operating out of wartime Switzerland - who were forging Latin American passports to help Jews escape the Holocaust. It is a VERY interesting subject - so I would urge you to get a copy!
I hope you enjoy my books. Any questions or queries or just wholesome praise, do let me know...
I write mainly about Nazi Germany and wartime Poland, but I fear that might scare some people off, so I'll just call myself a writer of history books.
My current book (published in the UK in August 2023) is "The Forgers", which is the fascinating story of the Ładoś Group - a ring of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists operating out of wartime Switzerland - who were forging Latin American passports to help Jews escape the Holocaust. It is a VERY interesting subject - so I would urge you to get a copy!
I hope you enjoy my books. Any questions or queries or just wholesome praise, do let me know...
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
May 21, 2016
The sinking of the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945 was the worst maritime disaster in history, with an estimated 9,250 fatalities. To put that in perspective, about 1,500 people died on the Titanic, and about 4,400 in the worst peacetime disaster (the Doña Paz in 1987).
The Gustloff sinking has never been a secret, and was the subject of Günter Grass’s short final novel, Crabwalk. Yet until recently, little has been known about it outside Germany. True, there have been at least three books in English; the best is Dobson, Miller and Payne’s The Cruellest Night. But it is out of print and hard to find. So Roger Moorhouse’s short (66-page) introduction, Ship of Fate: The Story of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, is a worthwhile addition, not least because he’s done a very good job.
Moorhouse begins with the ship’s construction in the 1930s as a cruise liner; it was intended to take ordinary Germans on holiday as part of the Strength through Joy movement, and was a useful propaganda tool, showing that there was something “socialist” about National Socialism. However, within two years of her launch, the war broke out and she was used as a hospital ship for the Polish and Norwegian campaigns, and then tied up in Gdynia in occupied Poland as a submarine depot ship.
In January 1945 the Russians broke through Poland towards what is now the eastern border of Germany, isolating Gdynia and trapping millions of German troops and civilians. On the 30th, the Gustloff left for western Germany with about 10,500 people on board, mostly naval personnel and civilians. During the night she was hit by three torpedoes from a Russian submarine off what was then Pomerania (now part of Poland). Many were trapped below decks. Others drowned or froze in the very poor weather. About 1,200 survived; the remaining 9,000-plus would wash up on the shores of the Baltic in the months that followed.
Moorhouse writes well, and this book is never less than interesting. He explains the liner’s purpose and early life better than some other accounts, explaining what the Strength through Joy movement was and what it meant in the context of Nazism. In so doing, he invests the ship’s eventual fate with a certain irony. Also, the book’s quality is high; it’s a budget Kindle Short and intended for casual readers, but it’s still a professional job, well-researched and properly referenced. Moorhouse has used a wide range of sources, aided no doubt by the fact that he’s written quite a lot on Nazi Germany before and knows his way around the literature.
There are a couple of areas I thought could have been better. Modern readers might be puzzled as to why so many German civilian refugees were fleeing west from Poland, but in fact much of the region was then part of Germany. Moorhouse has assumed his readers know that, but younger ones might not. I also felt Moorhouse devoted too little space to the sinking itself. The ship sank in less than an hour and there were epic tales of both heroism and cowardice as people fought their way up from the lower decks in the dark. Seventy years on, survivors must be rare, but Moorhouse could have taken some eyewitness accounts from secondary sources. (Moorhouse also does not mention that as many as half the dead were children.) There are more personal accounts in The Cruellest Night, in Alexander Sellwood’s 1973 account The Damned Don’t Drown, and Cathryn J. Prince’s recent Death in the Baltic.
However, those books are longer and besides, two of them are out of print. For most readers, Ship of Fate will be all the Gustloff they need, and it is well-researched and readable. Moorhouse writes well and knows his stuff, and I plan to read more of his books.
The Gustloff sinking has never been a secret, and was the subject of Günter Grass’s short final novel, Crabwalk. Yet until recently, little has been known about it outside Germany. True, there have been at least three books in English; the best is Dobson, Miller and Payne’s The Cruellest Night. But it is out of print and hard to find. So Roger Moorhouse’s short (66-page) introduction, Ship of Fate: The Story of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, is a worthwhile addition, not least because he’s done a very good job.
Moorhouse begins with the ship’s construction in the 1930s as a cruise liner; it was intended to take ordinary Germans on holiday as part of the Strength through Joy movement, and was a useful propaganda tool, showing that there was something “socialist” about National Socialism. However, within two years of her launch, the war broke out and she was used as a hospital ship for the Polish and Norwegian campaigns, and then tied up in Gdynia in occupied Poland as a submarine depot ship.
In January 1945 the Russians broke through Poland towards what is now the eastern border of Germany, isolating Gdynia and trapping millions of German troops and civilians. On the 30th, the Gustloff left for western Germany with about 10,500 people on board, mostly naval personnel and civilians. During the night she was hit by three torpedoes from a Russian submarine off what was then Pomerania (now part of Poland). Many were trapped below decks. Others drowned or froze in the very poor weather. About 1,200 survived; the remaining 9,000-plus would wash up on the shores of the Baltic in the months that followed.
Moorhouse writes well, and this book is never less than interesting. He explains the liner’s purpose and early life better than some other accounts, explaining what the Strength through Joy movement was and what it meant in the context of Nazism. In so doing, he invests the ship’s eventual fate with a certain irony. Also, the book’s quality is high; it’s a budget Kindle Short and intended for casual readers, but it’s still a professional job, well-researched and properly referenced. Moorhouse has used a wide range of sources, aided no doubt by the fact that he’s written quite a lot on Nazi Germany before and knows his way around the literature.
There are a couple of areas I thought could have been better. Modern readers might be puzzled as to why so many German civilian refugees were fleeing west from Poland, but in fact much of the region was then part of Germany. Moorhouse has assumed his readers know that, but younger ones might not. I also felt Moorhouse devoted too little space to the sinking itself. The ship sank in less than an hour and there were epic tales of both heroism and cowardice as people fought their way up from the lower decks in the dark. Seventy years on, survivors must be rare, but Moorhouse could have taken some eyewitness accounts from secondary sources. (Moorhouse also does not mention that as many as half the dead were children.) There are more personal accounts in The Cruellest Night, in Alexander Sellwood’s 1973 account The Damned Don’t Drown, and Cathryn J. Prince’s recent Death in the Baltic.
However, those books are longer and besides, two of them are out of print. For most readers, Ship of Fate will be all the Gustloff they need, and it is well-researched and readable. Moorhouse writes well and knows his stuff, and I plan to read more of his books.
June 11, 2016
When I got this book and saw how short it was, I was expecting it to be a pretty weak account of this historical event. I was wrong, the length is just right, not much more could be said, covered is the making of the ship, early trips it made, it's downfall to a floating barracks, its sinking and finally stories about the survivors.
I am one of the people who had never heard of the ship, the biggest maritime sinking it was news to me, I thought the Titanic was the biggest disaster (Movie and sinking).
The research by Moorhouse is impeccable, it must have so difficult to uncover anything after the big cover-up. It is scary how quickly the ship sunk 3 torpedo hits so many violent deaths, it makes for some tough reading.
The ending was interesting, I never knew the Red Cross kept trying to find missing parents of the kids for so many years. Some the survivor's tales are so sad as they continue to search for missing family members decades after.
An interesting read and lots to learn for me.
I am one of the people who had never heard of the ship, the biggest maritime sinking it was news to me, I thought the Titanic was the biggest disaster (Movie and sinking).
The research by Moorhouse is impeccable, it must have so difficult to uncover anything after the big cover-up. It is scary how quickly the ship sunk 3 torpedo hits so many violent deaths, it makes for some tough reading.
The ending was interesting, I never knew the Red Cross kept trying to find missing parents of the kids for so many years. Some the survivor's tales are so sad as they continue to search for missing family members decades after.
An interesting read and lots to learn for me.
June 3, 2020
Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, MV Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is the biggest disaster in maritime history. On January 30, 1945, four torpedoes waited in the belly of Soviet submarine S-13, each painted with a dedication:
For the Motherland.
For the Soviet people.
For Leningrad.
For Stalin.
The first part of the book is about how Gustloff began her life, as
It was intended to provide Ordinary German workers with the possibility of enjoying a sea- cruise, something which had previously only been available to the very wealthy
And her first voyage was 'propaganda excercise.'
This book also tells about "Operation Hannibal", the largest seaborne evacuation in the modern history, and the famed "Amber room", which still remains one of the most enduring mysteries of WW11.
Before reading this book, I had some knowledge of these events , I was mainly interested to know what happened to people? How and why Gustloff sank, whose fault was it? And why Soviets attacked the ship when mostly women and approximately 5000 children boarded the ship? And yes, this book provides brief answers.
" The Gustloff was carrying large number of women and children- but she was not marked as a hospital ship and was also carrying military personnel. In addition, she had been armed. She was a legitimate military target."
In the chaos of sinking ship, many pessengers and crew opted to take their own lives, including whole family suicides.
Alexander Marinesko (who wanted to improve his bad reputation and also become 'hero'), had mastermined the vessel's sinking ,and also sunk a second luxury liner the General von Steuban by submarine S-13, claiming lives of 4000.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is the biggest disaster in maritime history. On January 30, 1945, four torpedoes waited in the belly of Soviet submarine S-13, each painted with a dedication:
For the Motherland.
For the Soviet people.
For Leningrad.
For Stalin.
The first part of the book is about how Gustloff began her life, as
It was intended to provide Ordinary German workers with the possibility of enjoying a sea- cruise, something which had previously only been available to the very wealthy
And her first voyage was 'propaganda excercise.'
This book also tells about "Operation Hannibal", the largest seaborne evacuation in the modern history, and the famed "Amber room", which still remains one of the most enduring mysteries of WW11.
Before reading this book, I had some knowledge of these events , I was mainly interested to know what happened to people? How and why Gustloff sank, whose fault was it? And why Soviets attacked the ship when mostly women and approximately 5000 children boarded the ship? And yes, this book provides brief answers.
" The Gustloff was carrying large number of women and children- but she was not marked as a hospital ship and was also carrying military personnel. In addition, she had been armed. She was a legitimate military target."
In the chaos of sinking ship, many pessengers and crew opted to take their own lives, including whole family suicides.
Alexander Marinesko (who wanted to improve his bad reputation and also become 'hero'), had mastermined the vessel's sinking ,and also sunk a second luxury liner the General von Steuban by submarine S-13, claiming lives of 4000.
May 12, 2016
Compact and informative account of the deadliest maritime disaster.
Overshadowed by the Titanic, the Wilhelm Gustloff sank with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, almost 9000 more than the Titanic and still is the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Roger Moorhouse has pulled together an interesting and readable account of the short 8 year life of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Whilst the final sailing and sinking by a Soviet submarine in 1945 is the main section, he also covers its pre-war life as a cruise ship as well as some of the tragic stories of individual children saved from the sinking whose parents also survived, but were unable to locate each other until many years later.
At only 66 pages this is a condensed history, but worth a look if you’ve not read any other histories of this ship.
Overshadowed by the Titanic, the Wilhelm Gustloff sank with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, almost 9000 more than the Titanic and still is the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Roger Moorhouse has pulled together an interesting and readable account of the short 8 year life of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Whilst the final sailing and sinking by a Soviet submarine in 1945 is the main section, he also covers its pre-war life as a cruise ship as well as some of the tragic stories of individual children saved from the sinking whose parents also survived, but were unable to locate each other until many years later.
At only 66 pages this is a condensed history, but worth a look if you’ve not read any other histories of this ship.
April 20, 2021
A very good short history of the Wilhelm Gustloff, from her christening in 1937 as part of Nazi Germany’s KdF program (one of the socialist parts of National Socialism) through her sinking in 1945 and her afterlife—as pawn in furious debates over German victimhood, object of curiosity or, for unscrupulous divers, plunder, and belatedly as an officially recognized war grave.
The circumstances of the sinking are sickening; I first learned of the event in Antony Beevor’s excellent book The Fall of Berlin 1945, a book so brutal and depressing I had to take a break in the middle of it—something I’ve never done before or since. The Gustloff, originally an ocean liner, then a hospital ship, and finally a floating barracks for trainee U-boat crews, was conscripted in January 1945 to evacuate civilians from East Prussia and Pomerania, which lay in the path of the Red Army. The numbers are uncertain, but probably more than 10,000 were packed onto the ship when she left Gotenhafen (modern Gdynia) for points west, a trip made by between one and two million people in the final months of the war. Just out of port, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the Gustloff three times, instantly killing many, knocking out the ship’s power (and this was after 9:00 PM in the Baltic in January), and causing her to take on an ever-worsening list they prevented many of the old, sick, or weak from escaping. Panic broke out. Eyewitnesses describe children “squashed,” young women slashing their own wrists, and families committing group suicide. The ship went down in about an hour, leaving thousands adrift in the below-freezing waters.
Between the handful of lifeboats—about six, at least one with only a few sailors aboard—and rafts that were successfully launched and the immediate rescue efforts of two torpedo boats, just over 1200 of the ship’s passengers survived. Over 9,000 died—six times the death toll of the Titanic, making the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff the deadliest sinking in history. And the runners up aren’t even close.
Moorhouse tells this story well; this little book is briskly written and well researched, albeit with a reliance on German- and Polish-language secondary sources. It’s full of vivid details, many of them giving a human element to the tragedy that makes it both more real and much, much more awful. Moorhouse also gives a lot of broader historical perspective not just on the ship’s own history but on the ship as history, as I alluded to above. The Gustloff’s story didn’t end when she went under, and the final section of the book, covering the efforts to identify bodies, reunite separated survivors—some of them decades afterward—and to find a way to properly memorialize the tragedy, is one of the most fascinating parts.
My only complaint is that the book is badly formatted and copy edited. There are odd punctuation and awkward typesetting throughout. I’m not sure why this was independently published as a print-on-demand book, but I wish it were more presentable because Moorhouse’s research and writing are good.
Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile short introduction to a terrible, gut wrenching story that deserves to be looked at and remembered more than it has.
Recommended.
The circumstances of the sinking are sickening; I first learned of the event in Antony Beevor’s excellent book The Fall of Berlin 1945, a book so brutal and depressing I had to take a break in the middle of it—something I’ve never done before or since. The Gustloff, originally an ocean liner, then a hospital ship, and finally a floating barracks for trainee U-boat crews, was conscripted in January 1945 to evacuate civilians from East Prussia and Pomerania, which lay in the path of the Red Army. The numbers are uncertain, but probably more than 10,000 were packed onto the ship when she left Gotenhafen (modern Gdynia) for points west, a trip made by between one and two million people in the final months of the war. Just out of port, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the Gustloff three times, instantly killing many, knocking out the ship’s power (and this was after 9:00 PM in the Baltic in January), and causing her to take on an ever-worsening list they prevented many of the old, sick, or weak from escaping. Panic broke out. Eyewitnesses describe children “squashed,” young women slashing their own wrists, and families committing group suicide. The ship went down in about an hour, leaving thousands adrift in the below-freezing waters.
Between the handful of lifeboats—about six, at least one with only a few sailors aboard—and rafts that were successfully launched and the immediate rescue efforts of two torpedo boats, just over 1200 of the ship’s passengers survived. Over 9,000 died—six times the death toll of the Titanic, making the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff the deadliest sinking in history. And the runners up aren’t even close.
Moorhouse tells this story well; this little book is briskly written and well researched, albeit with a reliance on German- and Polish-language secondary sources. It’s full of vivid details, many of them giving a human element to the tragedy that makes it both more real and much, much more awful. Moorhouse also gives a lot of broader historical perspective not just on the ship’s own history but on the ship as history, as I alluded to above. The Gustloff’s story didn’t end when she went under, and the final section of the book, covering the efforts to identify bodies, reunite separated survivors—some of them decades afterward—and to find a way to properly memorialize the tragedy, is one of the most fascinating parts.
My only complaint is that the book is badly formatted and copy edited. There are odd punctuation and awkward typesetting throughout. I’m not sure why this was independently published as a print-on-demand book, but I wish it were more presentable because Moorhouse’s research and writing are good.
Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile short introduction to a terrible, gut wrenching story that deserves to be looked at and remembered more than it has.
Recommended.
December 18, 2021
What was the greatest maritime disaster in history? The Titanic? Not even close. It was the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 people on board — some 9,000 of whom died in the disaster.
In this short book, Roger Moorhouse expertly tells the story of the ship and its terrible fate. The Gustloff was built to offer holiday cruises for German workers through their Strength through Joy movement set up by the state-controlled labour front that replaced Germany’s trade unions after the Nazis came to power. For a few years, the ship carried workers and their families around Europe, to see the fjords of Norway or the Mediterranean Sea. But with the onset of war, the ship became a floating barracks for U-boat crew who were learning their trade in the Baltic sea.
It was sunk by torpedos fired by a Soviet submarine in early 1945. Though Moorhouse is unsparing in his depiction of the horror — babies swept away from their mothers in the waves, hundred of young women drowned in a part of the ship they could not escape, people shooting themselves rather than facing an icy death in the freezing Baltic waters – he is also clear about one thing: this was NOT a war crime. The ship was not displaying the Red Cross symbol, and in addition to carrying refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army, it also carried German military personnel.
It was interesting to learn how much the Germans themselves didn’t want to talk about this, not during the war but also not for many years after, for different reasons. The Soviets were not keen to talk this up either, and for decades denied giving the country’s highest honour to the submarine commander who sank the Gustloff. It has taken the passage of many years, and the changing attitudes towards history in both Germany and Russia, for the story to begin to come out.
An excellent, concise telling of a largely-forgotten episode from the Second World War.
In this short book, Roger Moorhouse expertly tells the story of the ship and its terrible fate. The Gustloff was built to offer holiday cruises for German workers through their Strength through Joy movement set up by the state-controlled labour front that replaced Germany’s trade unions after the Nazis came to power. For a few years, the ship carried workers and their families around Europe, to see the fjords of Norway or the Mediterranean Sea. But with the onset of war, the ship became a floating barracks for U-boat crew who were learning their trade in the Baltic sea.
It was sunk by torpedos fired by a Soviet submarine in early 1945. Though Moorhouse is unsparing in his depiction of the horror — babies swept away from their mothers in the waves, hundred of young women drowned in a part of the ship they could not escape, people shooting themselves rather than facing an icy death in the freezing Baltic waters – he is also clear about one thing: this was NOT a war crime. The ship was not displaying the Red Cross symbol, and in addition to carrying refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army, it also carried German military personnel.
It was interesting to learn how much the Germans themselves didn’t want to talk about this, not during the war but also not for many years after, for different reasons. The Soviets were not keen to talk this up either, and for decades denied giving the country’s highest honour to the submarine commander who sank the Gustloff. It has taken the passage of many years, and the changing attitudes towards history in both Germany and Russia, for the story to begin to come out.
An excellent, concise telling of a largely-forgotten episode from the Second World War.
December 25, 2017
First rate account of a poorly-known tragedy
I had barely known of this shop before reading this book, and was unaware of the staggering death toll its loss entailed. More than 9000 dead, most if them civilians, most of them women and children, victims of the collapse of the Third Reich's fantastical existence; a naval Gotterdammerung of unimaginable horror. A must read for anyone interested in WW 2 history. I sailed in the Baltic in 2017 and likely passed over her wreckage, unawares; as the world has passed over her story, unaware and unwilling to acknowledge it.
I had barely known of this shop before reading this book, and was unaware of the staggering death toll its loss entailed. More than 9000 dead, most if them civilians, most of them women and children, victims of the collapse of the Third Reich's fantastical existence; a naval Gotterdammerung of unimaginable horror. A must read for anyone interested in WW 2 history. I sailed in the Baltic in 2017 and likely passed over her wreckage, unawares; as the world has passed over her story, unaware and unwilling to acknowledge it.
January 22, 2022
A meticulously-researched book, telling the tale of a still-forgotten maritime disaster, the worst loss of life ever on the seas. Sometimes described as “Hitler’s Titanic”, it’s easy to lose so that of the tragedy of so many lives lost in a single incident, the very embodiment of the horrors of war.
The story of the ship and people connected with it, is told via personal quotes and its role in events of the time.
A short, but engrossing read.
The story of the ship and people connected with it, is told via personal quotes and its role in events of the time.
A short, but engrossing read.
August 28, 2025
A very well done short history
Precise and without a word wasted Roger Moorhead takes you through the short and tragic history of the Gustloff. He makes you feel every second of the story is vital. I rarely see a, historian these days be able to do this in such a short space with such an economy of words and with such great impact. 5 stars all the way.
Precise and without a word wasted Roger Moorhead takes you through the short and tragic history of the Gustloff. He makes you feel every second of the story is vital. I rarely see a, historian these days be able to do this in such a short space with such an economy of words and with such great impact. 5 stars all the way.
March 18, 2019
A decent read and interesting.
The book is fine, but the inability to get away from Goodreads without leaving a review is infuriating. Goodreads do themselves no favours trying to lock their customers in to their system.
The book is fine, but the inability to get away from Goodreads without leaving a review is infuriating. Goodreads do themselves no favours trying to lock their customers in to their system.
May 17, 2017
Mediocre
This story was quite boring and long-winded. It could have been written more succinctly and more engaging. It did, however; offer interesting facts that are mostly unknown.
This story was quite boring and long-winded. It could have been written more succinctly and more engaging. It did, however; offer interesting facts that are mostly unknown.
January 23, 2022
Upsetting reality
This was a disturbing story that overwhelmed me as it was so sad. It is a shame it is not as widely known about as the titanic
This was a disturbing story that overwhelmed me as it was so sad. It is a shame it is not as widely known about as the titanic
September 15, 2024
Short, to the point nothing wasted
June 24, 2022
I became interested in the Wilhelm Gustloff after reading fictional accounts of its 1945 sinking in Günter Grass’s Im Krebsgang and Ruta Septys’s Salt to the Sea.
In this factual text, Roger Moorehouse covers the whole career of the ship from its launch as a Nazi Kraft durch Freude cruise ship for German workers in 1937 to its current position as a virtually unrecognisable wreck on the Baltic Sea bed.
The descriptions of what happened on board after Russian torpedoes struck the vessel, based on eyewitness reports, are even more shocking than in the novels I read.
Supported by extensive research, this account is a quick, well-written and informative read that I would recommend to anyone interested in knowing more about the largest single-vessel maritime disaster, with an estimated loss of life six times that of the Titanic.
In this factual text, Roger Moorehouse covers the whole career of the ship from its launch as a Nazi Kraft durch Freude cruise ship for German workers in 1937 to its current position as a virtually unrecognisable wreck on the Baltic Sea bed.
The descriptions of what happened on board after Russian torpedoes struck the vessel, based on eyewitness reports, are even more shocking than in the novels I read.
Supported by extensive research, this account is a quick, well-written and informative read that I would recommend to anyone interested in knowing more about the largest single-vessel maritime disaster, with an estimated loss of life six times that of the Titanic.
February 7, 2017
Ship of Fate by Roger Moorhouse is the story of a ship named the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. It was a luxury ship but not designed as a playground for the rich, instead, it was to be used to provide cheap, heavily government subsidized vacations to the workers of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. In this way, it was a propaganda tool for the National Socialism (Nazi) philosophy. As is pointed out in at least two places in the book, the history of the ship and that of the Third Reich are mirrored in time. Launched in 1937 when Hitler's government was at its height of power when the conviction of the German populace was the dawning of a new world order, the ship sank in 1945, at the same time of Hitler's death.
This is a 66-page nonfiction Kindle Single which I obtained through a Kindle Unlimited subscription. It is well referenced with 175 citations filling the last 15% of the book. As Moorhouse traces the history of the ship he also puts the different roles of the ship, as a cruise ship, as a hospital, and as a barracks for submariners, in the context of what was happening to Germany militarily and socially at a defined period of WWII.
As a cruise ship, the Gustloff was a tool of the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) organization which was responsible for organizing tours, concerts and holidays for workers. There were no first class and economy cabins. Vacationing workers could be housed in any of the 616 cabins. There were only two designs, two-bed cabins, and 4-bed ones. All passengers had equal access to the seven bars, two restaurants, a library, and a swimming pool. Workers in Germany, the newly annexed Austria, and even German expatriates living in England had chances to book holidays on the Gustloff. Activities were scheduled according to the strict schedules that are stereotypical German.
As a hospital ship, the Gustloff was refitted so that she was able to treat 3,000 wounded, carry out 12,000 clinical examinations, do 1,700 x-rays, and provide facilities for doctors to carry out 347 operations.
Following this, the Gustloff became a floating barracks for 1,000 submarine cadets and teaching staff.
In her final role as a refugee transport vessel, she carried over 10,000 refugees from Gotenhafen, departing on 30 January 1945 on a trip that would end at the bottom of the sea along with 9,000 of its passengers.
The sinking of the Gustloff invites comparison with the Titanic as far as loss of life. The Titanic sank due to structural ruptures caused by an iceberg. The Gustloff was torpedoed as an act of war. Owners and responsible parties tried to minimize publicity about the Titanic sinking. Governments were responsible for the secrecy and lack of publicity about the Gustloff sinking. Government secrecy was successful in obscuring the fact that the wartime losses were six times larger than the Titanic; this made the Gustloff loss the worst maritime disaster in history.
There are many interviews of the survivors offered that humanizes this horrible event for the reader. While it was not a war crime for the Soviet submarine to sink the Gustloff, the loss of more than 8,000 non-combatant women, children, and senior citizens was a high price to pay for the destruction of such a small number of enemy combatants.
This well researched book will be highly interesting for readers of military history.
This is a 66-page nonfiction Kindle Single which I obtained through a Kindle Unlimited subscription. It is well referenced with 175 citations filling the last 15% of the book. As Moorhouse traces the history of the ship he also puts the different roles of the ship, as a cruise ship, as a hospital, and as a barracks for submariners, in the context of what was happening to Germany militarily and socially at a defined period of WWII.
As a cruise ship, the Gustloff was a tool of the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) organization which was responsible for organizing tours, concerts and holidays for workers. There were no first class and economy cabins. Vacationing workers could be housed in any of the 616 cabins. There were only two designs, two-bed cabins, and 4-bed ones. All passengers had equal access to the seven bars, two restaurants, a library, and a swimming pool. Workers in Germany, the newly annexed Austria, and even German expatriates living in England had chances to book holidays on the Gustloff. Activities were scheduled according to the strict schedules that are stereotypical German.
As a hospital ship, the Gustloff was refitted so that she was able to treat 3,000 wounded, carry out 12,000 clinical examinations, do 1,700 x-rays, and provide facilities for doctors to carry out 347 operations.
Following this, the Gustloff became a floating barracks for 1,000 submarine cadets and teaching staff.
In her final role as a refugee transport vessel, she carried over 10,000 refugees from Gotenhafen, departing on 30 January 1945 on a trip that would end at the bottom of the sea along with 9,000 of its passengers.
The sinking of the Gustloff invites comparison with the Titanic as far as loss of life. The Titanic sank due to structural ruptures caused by an iceberg. The Gustloff was torpedoed as an act of war. Owners and responsible parties tried to minimize publicity about the Titanic sinking. Governments were responsible for the secrecy and lack of publicity about the Gustloff sinking. Government secrecy was successful in obscuring the fact that the wartime losses were six times larger than the Titanic; this made the Gustloff loss the worst maritime disaster in history.
There are many interviews of the survivors offered that humanizes this horrible event for the reader. While it was not a war crime for the Soviet submarine to sink the Gustloff, the loss of more than 8,000 non-combatant women, children, and senior citizens was a high price to pay for the destruction of such a small number of enemy combatants.
This well researched book will be highly interesting for readers of military history.
March 2, 2017
Hitler's Titanic - the deadliest and most secret catastrophe in the history of maritime warfare.
When the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Soviet submarine, with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, it wrote itself an unenviable record in the history books as the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Yet, aside from its grim fate in the icy waters of the Baltic, the story of the Gustloff is a fascinating one, which sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of the wider history of the Third Reich.
Launched in Hamburg in 1937, the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff was originally to be christened the “Adolf Hitler”, but instead was named after the Swiss Nazi leader, who had been assassinated by a Jewish gunman the previous year.
The ship was the pride of the Nazi Labour Movement, and would be run as a cruise liner by the subsidiary KdF, an organisation responsible for German workers’ leisure time, cruising the Baltic and Scandinavian coast, seducing its passengers with the apparent benefits of belonging to the Nazi ‘national community’.
The Gustloff also served a vital propaganda function for Hitler’s Reich.
It was moored in London in 1938 to allow Austrian citizens in the city to participate in the plebiscite over Hitler’s annexation of the country and the following year, it brought the elite German ‘Condor Legion’ home from service alongside Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.
When war came in 1939, the Gustloff was used as a hospital ship and ferried wounded soldiers and sailors home from the 1940 campaign in Narvik.
Later, moored in the harbour at Gdynia, it served as a floating barracks for U-Boat crews undergoing training.
In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff would meet its nemesis.
That spring, it would be requisitioned for “Operation Hannibal”, the attempt to evacuate civilians, soldiers and officials westwards from the German eastern provinces threatened by the Soviet advance.
While many ships made numerous crossings, the Gustloff would not survive her first voyage.
Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, she was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.
The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking in the freezing waters of the Baltic is dramatic and it has rarely been satisfactorily told in the English language.
This gripping Kindle Single will explore the history of the German ship that suffered the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
my rating: 5 stars
what did I think of it:
First off I would like to say thinks to Netgalley , as well as to the Publishers and to Mr .Moorhouse for fiving me a chance at reading a really great book. Even though its only 66 pages it still gives you a lot of great information about what happened, this must be the year for me to pick up some great nonfiction because this is one of them. can't wait to pick it up when I can.
When the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Soviet submarine, with the loss of nearly 10,000 lives in January 1945, it wrote itself an unenviable record in the history books as the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
Yet, aside from its grim fate in the icy waters of the Baltic, the story of the Gustloff is a fascinating one, which sheds light on a number of little-known aspects of the wider history of the Third Reich.
Launched in Hamburg in 1937, the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff was originally to be christened the “Adolf Hitler”, but instead was named after the Swiss Nazi leader, who had been assassinated by a Jewish gunman the previous year.
The ship was the pride of the Nazi Labour Movement, and would be run as a cruise liner by the subsidiary KdF, an organisation responsible for German workers’ leisure time, cruising the Baltic and Scandinavian coast, seducing its passengers with the apparent benefits of belonging to the Nazi ‘national community’.
The Gustloff also served a vital propaganda function for Hitler’s Reich.
It was moored in London in 1938 to allow Austrian citizens in the city to participate in the plebiscite over Hitler’s annexation of the country and the following year, it brought the elite German ‘Condor Legion’ home from service alongside Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War.
When war came in 1939, the Gustloff was used as a hospital ship and ferried wounded soldiers and sailors home from the 1940 campaign in Narvik.
Later, moored in the harbour at Gdynia, it served as a floating barracks for U-Boat crews undergoing training.
In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff would meet its nemesis.
That spring, it would be requisitioned for “Operation Hannibal”, the attempt to evacuate civilians, soldiers and officials westwards from the German eastern provinces threatened by the Soviet advance.
While many ships made numerous crossings, the Gustloff would not survive her first voyage.
Packed to the gunnels with desperate evacuees, she was torpedoed off the Pomeranian coast on January 30 – ironically the twelfth anniversary of Hitler coming to power – with the loss of almost 10,000 lives.
The story of the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking in the freezing waters of the Baltic is dramatic and it has rarely been satisfactorily told in the English language.
This gripping Kindle Single will explore the history of the German ship that suffered the deadliest maritime disaster of all time.
my rating: 5 stars
what did I think of it:
First off I would like to say thinks to Netgalley , as well as to the Publishers and to Mr .Moorhouse for fiving me a chance at reading a really great book. Even though its only 66 pages it still gives you a lot of great information about what happened, this must be the year for me to pick up some great nonfiction because this is one of them. can't wait to pick it up when I can.
November 2, 2016
GA This is an excellent book, following the MV Wilhelm Gustloff through her life from launching in Hamburg in May 1937 to diving into the depths of the sea following a Soviet torpedo attack eight years later, taking with her over 9,000 German citizens and soldiers. She had a varied and sometimes underappreciated life, going from an elegant, exclusive cruise ship to a troop transport, a hospital ship to a floating barracks for troops in submarine pilot schools and finally packed to the hilt with Germans fleeing west with the fall of Berlin. That this, the worst marine disaster in history, was not more universally known is a mystery to me.
The most important thing I took from this book is the information on the Volksgemeinschaft and the KdF. We as a country have erred a time or two in our choice of leaders, but I have never been able to fully comprehend how Hitler was able rise to power and maintain that power over the population of Germany through so many years of atrocities. This book makes that more understandable, with the control of press and news, the efforts of the 'cultural tutor' that was KdF, and the silver tongued image that Hitler projected so well. This is a book I will want to think about for a time, and read again.
This book was not available at B&N at this time Nov 2, 2016
The most important thing I took from this book is the information on the Volksgemeinschaft and the KdF. We as a country have erred a time or two in our choice of leaders, but I have never been able to fully comprehend how Hitler was able rise to power and maintain that power over the population of Germany through so many years of atrocities. This book makes that more understandable, with the control of press and news, the efforts of the 'cultural tutor' that was KdF, and the silver tongued image that Hitler projected so well. This is a book I will want to think about for a time, and read again.
This book was not available at B&N at this time Nov 2, 2016
May 11, 2016
A strong four stars – 4.5 in truth – for a book that tells you just what you want to know about the most lethal naval incident in history, when upwards of 9,000 sailors and refugees (ie women and children) were drowned when Soviets torpedoed a ship taking people away from the war zone that was to become Poland under Stalin tyranny. Pictures would have been warmly received, but the simple style and concision go a great length to make this the most worthwhile purchase on the subject, without the extraneous detail the academic alone would want, but with more than enough authority to appease the more inquisitive layman.
October 30, 2016
Genealogists of German ancestry will find this book interesting
This should be interesting to people who are putting together a genealogy tree and hit a brick wall; this book might be the answer to their search for lost relatives. The book was scholarly with well
Documented research.
This should be interesting to people who are putting together a genealogy tree and hit a brick wall; this book might be the answer to their search for lost relatives. The book was scholarly with well
Documented research.
October 17, 2016
Good stuff man. The beginning was a little slow but it picked up. I especially enjoyed the ending because it'll really help for my research paper
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