The Cruelest Night

This book is the remarkable account of the loss of three ships with a combined total loss of life in the region of 15,000 people! The Wilhelm Gustloff was a 25,000 ton luxury liner built in Germany in 1938. She was a beautiful ship in every respect but her cruise liner days were almost immediately cut short by the advent of WW2. On 30 January 1945, she departed Gdansk with a cargo of 6,100 people - most of whom were either wounded soldiers or refugees. All were fleeing the advancing Russian army which they feared more than anything else on earth. At 2106 hrs that night the ship was struck by 3 torpedoes fired from a Russian submarine. In under 3 hours the ship had sunk and the death toll was eventually put at 5,200 people. As part of the same evacuation plan, the 14,660 ton "Steuben" sailed from the same port on 9 February carrying 4,267 people. Later that night she too was struck by two torpedoes and sank within 20 minutes. During the time it took for this ship to sink, many wounded German officers committed suicide. Only some 300 people were saved. On 16 April 1945, the 5,230 ton "Goya" was sailing across the Baltic also overloaded with 6,100 German troops and civilians fleeing the advancing Russians when she too was torpedoed and sunk. On this occasion, the much smaller Goya sank within 7 minutes. The death toll for this ship is ranked second only to the Wilhelm Gustloff. In this incredible book the full story of these three ships is told. For those who wish to see evidence of research, the bibliography in my copy runs to almost 6 pages and includes some of the highest authorities anyone could possibly quote. NM

Informative and well written book about the sinking of the Gustloff at the end of the Second World War. The authors set the sinking into the historical and political context of the time and remain objective about their subject. There are several black and white photographs inside the book. I thought this was a fascinating book and a very enjoyable (if that is the right word) and informative read which I would readily recommend to anyone interested in the subject. The Cruelest Night is like an academic version of The Damned Don't Drown by AV Sellwood which is also about the sinking. I did not read the two books one after another so I cannot honestly comment on any factual differences between the two although they do have similar survivor stories. I bought the book second hand and at a very reasonable price if I had paid more for it I would possibly have been disappointed. In some respects it is an old fashioned book and if the subject was tackled today a very different style of book would have been produced with a lot more illustrations and maps and possibly a different layout. However it is one of only two books I could find in the English language about the Gustloff and it is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the Second World War or maritime history.

When lists of famous ship-sinkings are printed, complete with their number of lives lost, how many of those lists begin with what is probably the worst one of them all - the Wilhelm Gustloff? On the night of January 30, 1945, as the war in Europe was drawing towards its inevitable conclusion, the Wilhelm Gustloff set sail from Gdynia with some 8,000 people on board (some put the number at over 10,000!). Crewed by an ad hoc crew, captained by two competing captains, and protected by one ill-armed torpedo boat, without adequate lifeboats or life preservers, the ship was a disaster waiting to happen. And on that dark night, when three Soviet torpedoes slammed into it, disaster came. This is the story of the worst maritime disaster in history...the forgotten worst maritime disaster in history. Overall, I found this to be a wonderfully informative read. The author covered the events in great depth, covering everything from the launching of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the careers of the people involved in the tragedy, the events of January 30, 1945, and on to the end of the war. As an added bonus, there is a postscript on a lost priceless art treasure, the Amber Room, which may have gone down with the ship. I really enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it.

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, with a loss of as many as 7,000 lives, is marked by ironies. Although the ship carried civilians and wounded soldiers, it was recognizably a legitimate military target owing to its contingent of German naval personnel as well as its armament (anti-aircraft guns). The Soviet submarine which sunk the Gustloff had been built before the war as part of the clandestine Soviet-Nazi military cooperation. The Gustloff sailed from Gothenhafen, the renamed Polish port of Gdynia which the Germans had seized as part of their conquest of Poland in 1939. The refugees crammed into the doomed ship, having escaped the attentions of the avenging Soviet land forces, fell instead to the Soviet Navy. The Soviet commander, ostensibly a hero for killing fascists, ended up in Siberia, and it took nearly twenty years for him to be totally vindicated. The whole range of human behaviors was exhibited by the humans once the three torpedoes hit. Some civilians cried helplessly and were paralyzed by fear into inaction. Others were methodical in their attempts to save themselves. Some men gave up their lifejackets. Other men fought off women and children in order to get the lifeboats and rafts for themselves. The ship's crew was also preferentially saved. The last survivor was an infant who was discovered at first dawn, hours after the sinking, surrounded by the huddled-together frozen bodies of his relatives on a floating lifeboat or raft.

I'm a survivor of the Gustloff and finally got to read this book in '94 or '95. The authors did an excellent job in researching something nobody was interested in. I was only 11 at the time of the sinking, but much is still vivid to me. I would like to purchase this book to leave for my kids.