ship disaster

 When thinking about ship disasters, the Titanic might come to mind as the most famous, partly due to its incredibly high death toll. However, even that death toll was surpassed. We are talking about the German Ship MV Wilhelm Gustloff.

A Cruise ship converted to a hospital ship, then a floating barracks, by 1945 it was tasked with evacuating German personnel and civilians from the Baltics, away from the onrushing Soviet Red Army. By the time it left the port of Gotenhafen in Northern Poland, this ship had over 10,000 people onboard. Way above the ships capacity of around 6,000. The ship took a route along deeper waters to avoid potential mines situated in more shallow waters. This decision however exposed them to potential submarine attacks. Their stealth was not helped by the fact that they were about to cross paths with a German convoy, which meant they turned on their lights to prevent a collision. This unfortunately made them easy prey for a lurking Soviet Submarine. They were easily spotted by the submarine S-13. The Germans’ escorting torpedo boat had their submarine detection equipment malfunction, meaning the Germans were in the blind. The Soviets made their way to the port side of the ship, positioning itself between the ship and the shore. They fired 4 torpedos and scored 3 hits, the 4th torpedo malfunctioning. With the ship quickly sinking, panicked passengers stampeded their way to the lifeboats. That is, if you survived the initial blast and you were lucky enough to not be stuck in a sealed compartment. But since the ship was quickly sinking, lifeboats could not be lowered anymore because the ship was now at an angle. Jumping into the water was also not ideal, as this was in the Baltic sea, where temperatures was regularly below freezing. In the end, only 1,152 survived the wreck, out of the over 10,000 passengers onboard. Bringing the death toll to more or less 9,000 people.

lesson- the poisonous nazi ideology of Hitler caused the death of millions of people.

source-the front