Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

Front Cover
St. Martin's Publishing Group, Apr 9, 2013 - History - 256 pages

The worst maritime disaster ever occurred during World War II, when more than 9,000 German civilians drowned. It went unreported.

January 1945: The outcome of World War II has been determined. The Third Reich is in free fall as the Russians close in from the east. Berlin plans an eleventh-hour exodus for the German civilians trapped in the Red Army's way. More than 10,000 women, children, sick, and elderly pack aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise ship. Soon after the ship leaves port and the passengers sigh in relief, three Soviet torpedoes strike it, inflicting catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the Baltic.

More than 9,400 perished in the night—six times the number lost on the Titanic. Yet as the Cold War started no one wanted to acknowledge the sinking. Drawing on interviews with survivors, as well as the letters and diaries of those who perished, award-wining author Cathryn J. Prince reconstructs this forgotten moment in history with Death in the Baltic. She weaves these personal narratives into a broader story, finally giving this WWII tragedy its rightful remembrance.

 

Selected pages

Contents

One You Have to Go on This Ship
5
Life in the Eastern Territories
21
Three Operation Hannibal and the Crown
47
Four We Knew We Had to Get Out
63
Five Saving a Scuttled Reputation
87
Six Battle for the Baltic
101
Seven Chaos on Deck
113
Eight Plummeting to the Sea Floor
129
Nine The Little Red Sweater
151
Ten The Forgotten Story
169
Eleven We Had To Get Over It
183
Appendix
203
Bibliography
221
Index
229
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
Cathryn J. Prince
Limited preview - 2013
Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
Cathryn J. Prince
No preview available - 2014

Common terms and phrases

Admiral Karl Dönitz Adolf Hitler Alexander Marinesko arrived attack aunt Author interview Baltic Sea Bayreuth boat bomb Bundesarchiv camp Captain civilians clothes command crew Danzig deck East Prussia eastern Elbing Ellen Tschinkur Englehardt Erich Koch Eva Dorn evacuation father force German navy Germany’s girls Gotenhafen harbor Heinz Schön Helga Reuter Knickerbocker helped Hitler Youth Horst Woit Ibid Inge Irene and Ellen Irene Tschinkur East January Karl Dönitz knew Königsberg last accessed lifeboat liner lived Löwe Meta Milda Bendrich military mother NARA Naval Auxiliary Nazi Party officers Operation Hannibal Ost-Dok parents passengers Paul Vollrath Pillau Poland port prisoners Red Army refugees remembers rescue Roedecker Russian sailed sailors Salk Serafima ship ship’s sinking sister soldiers Soviet navy Soviet submarines Soviet Union story Stutthof submarine subsequent recollections survived survivors Third Reich told took torpedo train U-boat Wilhelm Gustloff Wilhelm Zahn women wrote York

About the author (2013)

Cathryn J. Prince is the author of A Professor, a President, and a Meteor: The Birth of American Science, for which she won the Connecticut Press Club's 2011 Book Award for non-fiction. She is also the author of Burn the Town and Sack the Banks: Confederates Attack Vermont! and Shot from the Sky: American POWs in Switzerland. She worked as a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor in Switzerland and in New York, where she covered the United Nations.

Bibliographic information

TitleDeath in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
AuthorCathryn J. Prince
PublisherSt. Martin's Publishing Group, 2013
ISBN1137333561, 9781137333568
Length256 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

History / Europe / Baltic States
History / Military / Vehicles / Sea
History / Russia / Soviet Era
History / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / Eastern Front
  
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