Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff: Worst Maritime Disaster in History

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In 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by the Soviet Union's U-Boat S-13. Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating more than 10,000 people from German-occupied territories as the Soviet Army was invading. The Baltic Sea was freezing, the conditions were rough, and heavy snow was falling. More than 9,000 people perished in the disaster. The death toll was greater than that of Titanic, Lusitania, Empress of Ireland, Sultana, Atlantic, Britannic, and the Halifax Explosion combined.
Wilhelm Gustloff was built as a one-class cruise ship which offered subsidized cruises to the German people as part of the Strength Through Joy effort created by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The ship was popular, but served in this role for only a short time. She later served as a hospital ship and as a floating barracks during World War II. for the rest of the war, she remained idle and unused until she was enlisted for Operation Hannibal and was sunk.
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29 янв 2020

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Комментарии : 3,9 тыс.

@TheGreatBigMove 3 года назад

Want to choose the next video topic? Looking for bonus content? Join The Great Big Move on Patreon! www.patreon.com/TheGreatBigMove

@844SteamFan 3 года назад

Hey, just so you know, you mispronounced “Löwe”. In German, “w” is more pronounced like “v”. Also, “ö” is more of “ur”

@oahuhawaii2141 2 года назад

There is a skip at 10:07.

@ingridlinbohm7682 Год назад

My mother and grandparents fled the Soviet forces at the end of the second world war.

@trycoldman2358 4 года назад

I have a resident in my nursing home, who almost got onto the Gustloff, but their ticket got revoked. What luck.

@trycoldman2358 4 года назад

@G K thanks buddy. We've managed to keep corona out of our facility for now

@imaginelosing7067 4 года назад

@@tripwire3992 yeh for real

@nmflanders 4 года назад

@Russ Gallagher you seem autistic

@Dellboy56 3 года назад

In the midst of a pandemic and you have a pop at a health care worker! That's sloppy thinking buddy.

@xxuncexx 3 года назад

What city do you live?

@drunkotaku 4 года назад

This is one of the underlooked shipwrecks in history

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

I agree that Wilhelm Gustloff is generally overlooked. I think this is because it was a ship that sank near the end of WW2 and because it was a Nazi ship sunk by one of the Allies, so it was not promoted by the powers that be.

@ktsp2538 4 года назад

Oh my gosh hello irl friend

@drunkotaku 4 года назад

The Great Big Move most ships who sank during ww2 are underlooked

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Thelitden That’s true. Frankly, people had a lot of other things to worry about.

@drunkotaku 4 года назад

The Great Big Move true

@andyrocker9271 3 года назад

Imagine surviving the sinking ship just to get blown up by a depth charge of someone trying to help you

@stealyy 3 года назад

pfp says it all

@amalia_89 3 года назад

I was thinking the same !!

@violetamanasterliu4509 3 года назад

Yea if so.. if you were on a german ship during ww2 then soviets destroy your ship

@najrenchelf2751 3 года назад

No, don’t - bad idea...

@myleswillis 3 года назад

Maybe they were trying to help them die quicker, I heard drowning sucks.

@slothmarathonpromotions2470 3 года назад

This makes the Titanic look like a jet ski accident.

@PinkJoy143 3 года назад

Right!

@endokrin7897 3 года назад

That's a sort of insensitive way to put it, but I get your point. While both were tragedies, this one seems 'worse' due to the overcrowding. If you've ever heard about The Station nightclub fire, there is a good (but eerie) study about it. When a space is overcrowded, people get trapped. They get crushed. They can't breath. The first few seconds of a stampede allow the 'lucky' ones in front to get past a choke point like a door. Then, the people get stuck and can't go forward or back. The rest, still in the main area, can move but are trapped and can't escape. And for this to happen on a dark ship, during wartime, knowing the (Soviet) enemy was coming? One of the more horrifying things I've heard about. This tragedy should be more well-known.

@Yawar1986 3 года назад

@@endokrin7897 aww stfu

@joakimberg7897 2 года назад

@@Yawar1986 No.

@kbanghart 2 года назад

@@endokrin7897 so awful, imagine being a crewman aboard the Soviet submarine, and then finding out later that you helped contribute to the deaths of so many kids. Something like 5,000 kids aboard that one ship.

@jeanhawken4482 4 года назад

The civilians always pay the higher price for war.

@dstrong5897 3 года назад

So true! I wish all those who clamor and cheer for war would remember that it's starvation, rape, homelessness, no medical care, no money for essentials, bombed out homes, schools, hospitals.... Suffering beyond measure. When I hear a military spokesman say, " collateral damage" I just want to yell... You mean PEOPLE! Babies, children, grandparents.... Everyone please take care in this terrible time of Covid19.

@devonlord99 3 года назад

@@dstrong5897 soldiers are people too. They sacrifice everything to fight for the safety of the people at home.

@Barnabas45 3 года назад

Civilians always seem to be the preferred target?

@jimclark6256 3 года назад

@@alanrobertson9790 Simple math, many more civilians died than service personal in any military.

@nicknamenick9448 3 года назад

@@alanrobertson9790 yes it is. But in absolute numbers much more civilians suffer and die

@taiyoctopus2958 4 года назад

4:17 "Hey I heard you guys were at 5 times your operational capacity, Here's 600 more people I need you to take on your boat."

@notmenotme614 3 года назад

600 very rich connected people. Who bought themselves a golden ticket.

@ottomeyer6928 3 года назад

dont be an idiot,they were just ordinary people

@Dulcimertunes 3 года назад

Right? Now they’re off MY hands😝

@gerbilkicker 3 года назад

Funny joke. Those people died. They were desperately trying to save as many people as they could

@patriciabrenner9216 3 года назад

@@gerbilkicker These people were accomplices to mass murder and mass theft. They got what they had coming.

@oceanhome2023 3 года назад

I have read several accounts by survivors. The most heart wrenching story was that of the wounded soldiers who were immobile in bunks and stretchers when it became obvious that they would not survive isolated pistol shots rang out then more and more as the wounded committed suicide, the shots increased as their compartments filled with water. The survivor who told this story was haunted by this event for the rest of his life

@twolak1972 2 года назад

I read the book about this and there is so much not covered here. It had a pool deck below where people could lounge in luxury and some who survived told of absolute nightmare scenarios where the ship was so packed the pool was drained to accommodate more passengers most of them wounded on stretchers and when the torpedoes hit one hit right at the pool level blowing hundreds into nothing but pieces, one witness said the blood from the wounded and dead was a four deep in the pool that could,nt drain due to the blown up body parts clogging the drain. GOD IN HEAVEN .

@rosariomolina1929 2 года назад

what was the name of the book?

@ltipst2962 Год назад

@@twolak1972 Jebus. That's heavy. That survivor got very lucky if they were at the pool deck when a torpedo hit to be able to describe that...

@jacksonr260 Год назад

Good God.

@josephwood499 6 месяцев назад

Never heard that. It's so terrible.😢

@sum1has2 3 года назад

I’m 63 and history is one of my favorite subjects, yet I’ve never heard of this. Thanks for telling their story.

@AppGuy 3 года назад

gee whiz ur account was made when i was BORN

@JohannesVanDerStuyvebode 3 года назад

@@nakajima4058 no, you're wrong.

@spookerz35 3 года назад

Look up the Cap Arcona if you haven't heard of that one either.

@dallymoo7816 2 года назад

Are you sure you just didn't forget? In Canada we learned about it in school, I remembered immediatly when I heard the name recently and looked it up again

@HoliestDoughnut 4 года назад

Why was this so completely wiped from history? Can not believe I haven't heard of this horrible story. Far scarier then the Titanic. Edit since this comment exploded. I was not stating there was a conspiracy of any sort to hide this. Its clear that it is likely forgotten about in schools just because it is hardly a major moment in WW2 (The war was already lost for the Germans at this point in time) and because it's very hard to empathize with the German people. You can say they were civilians, but the civilians of Germany are the ones who allowed these people to have the power. So It is easy to see why it was wiped from history, just unfortunate that it was more so. Nonetheless, speaking as an American, I believe the atrocities of both sides need to be discussed. It's impossible to argue that the Germany were the "victims" of WW2, as arguably none of these lives on the Wilhelm would have been lost if not for their own country being racist, hateful, and batshit insane and getting themselves into the whole mess. That being said, the atrocities of the allied powers also needs to taught in schools so we know that hate brings only more hate. If I was a Russian in that submarine, likely someone who just thought it was a German warship, I probably would have cheered for the ship going under given what those bastards did to so many innocent people. It would takes a lot of hateful actions for me to be ok with the killing of others in that regard.

@AmericanGirlGymnasts 4 года назад

Probably because it involved Nazis, but this is still such a sad story, so many civilians died, that I think that should outweigh the fact that this involved some Nazi’s

@peterbrown6224 4 года назад

There's plenty out there on it, though I probably paid attention as family members fled Danzig. On a flight to Stockholm last year, I was surprised to see the wreck show up on the moving map. This was on Qatar.

@martinmoselarsen3175 4 года назад

It has been said, that history is written by the winners: glory and heros. Not much glory in sinking a ship filled with civilians. The Geneva Convention should have a paragraph stating that submarine captains must identify possible targets and log their names and positions before firing on them. Especially whan these targets do not look like warships as it is often the case with hospitalships and refugeeships.

@blowingfree6928 4 года назад

Yes, that is right, this story is carefully hidden away in scores of books...…. It is not evenly remotely "wiped from history"; it is common knowledge to anyone who has an interest in the 2nd World War or maritime history. There is no conspiracy of silence; quite the opposite, there are even well known documentaries about the sinking, including several on RU-vid. Here is a link to one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l9SjT9yamSA.html

@jamesricker3997 4 года назад

It wasn't like from history. But at the time it happened 9,000 deaths was considered a small number with all the other stuff that was going on

@tommcglone2867 3 года назад

Just because the Wilhelm Gustloff was a German ship sunk in WW2 means the true horror of her sinking is forgotten next to other notable maritime disasters such as Titanic. When the Wilhelm Gustloff was a tragedy on a scale which was truly unimaginale. Nearly 10,000 souls lost to the sea in one fell swoop? Thats unspeakably horrrific.

@peteacher52 3 года назад

I'm 74, with an interest in ships and shipping. One would think that a disaster of this magnitude would have been screaming from subsequent history books. But no. Before viewing this super video, I had only once before heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff and that only vaguely. Such are politics. Thank you indeed.

@richardwhite7336 3 года назад

Absolutely right, so sad that these thousands of people are largely forgotten!

@byngostar6895 3 года назад

@Colin Cantiglew, much German WW2 history has been left out of schools and history books.

@richardwhite7336 3 года назад

@@byngostar6895 from history in schools to 'war' films there it is one sided,

@endokrin7897 3 года назад

I've NEVER heard of it. I'm also American, and like every country, we prioritize our own history. There are many other complete story lines to WWII that are never told. Compete theaters of war that most never know about. But then, in total world war, can anyone truly know the entirety of the death and destruction?😐 Peace.

@kbanghart 2 года назад

@@byngostar6895 the war is taught in my kids school district in America where I live, but of course not all details can be taught, that would be ridiculous.

@aztronomy7457 3 года назад

Note to self: do not board a cruise ship during war.

@canuckloyalist4681 3 года назад

Or a pandemic!

@74836 3 года назад

Really any ship not just a cruise

@HistoryandGeography 3 года назад

@@74836yea like u

@normalu3811 3 года назад

I mean your ship could sink in many different ways and it might not only be cruise ships during war

@linosundae 3 года назад

or just never go on a ship/boat in general

@saturnian1 4 года назад

Forget all the other ships, imagine surviving THIS!

@crand20033 4 года назад

The boy with the pocket knife saved his life boat from going down with the ship. But what about the other 4 life boats? I guess they went down.

@Chujoi0 4 года назад

David Crandall , it is said that they safely went away

@robertyoung3992 4 года назад

Eric Braeden did under his birth name Hans Jorg Gudegast (April 3,1941)

@robertyoung3992 4 года назад

Eric Braeden did under his birth name of Hans Jorg Gudegast

@Oof_Robotics 3 года назад

Ikr

@BritBattler 3 года назад

Bloody hell, i can't even imagine the terror the passengers of that ship had to endure. What is this reply section?

@popps2502 3 года назад

That was the first thing that came to my mind also.

@dekuthetechpriestoflondon6791 3 года назад

It is not a way I what to die. in the dark freezing cold night is the worst way to die

@skunkjobb 3 года назад

@Max Bowen He was talking about the passengers, not the ship.

@JnstBrimstone 3 года назад

Bastion, Do not use the Lord's name in vain.

@BritBattler 3 года назад

@@JnstBrimstone what? Just because it's a Nazi ship doesn't mean that it's not terrible. Most of the passenger's were innocent civilians.

@Basedmursenary 3 года назад

I cannot believe I never heard of this horrific event. Truly terrifying. War is hell..

@justintang2294 2 года назад

It was a necessary evil, though. As bad as this was, it still pales in comparison to everything the Nazis and Americans did.

@4exgold 2 года назад

indeed it is! especially when it comes back to bite you in the ass, as it did the German people.

@AnadoxX 4 года назад

My grandmother was fleeing to take the gustloff, but they barely missed it, instead fleeing on foot (and surviving). Makes you wonder how closely we are often connected to history.

@tysont3323 Год назад

Same with my great grandma, but she ended up boarding a different ship.

@Ulkavyn Год назад

A prime example of there being no winners in war, but everyone loses.

@theknave1915 4 года назад

Ah the Geneva convention: the greatest set of rules nobody follows. Because in total war, everything is a legitimate target.

@crand20033 4 года назад

Did it say you can't kill civilians? How ridiculous. Civilians were helping the war effort too.

@stevendeitrich6933 4 года назад

Yes the rules fly out the window so easily when people are filled with hate . Then after its over the looser is charged with violations of the agreement & the victors often sweep their violations under the rug . The real truth never comes out .

@marklambert4793 4 года назад

Steven Deitrich yes History is written by the victors.

@solgato5186 4 года назад

Don't put soldiers or guns on the civilian ship next time

@solgato5186 4 года назад

Steven Deitrich War *is* hate; it doesn't matter what people are feeling.

@rocioaguilera3613 4 года назад

Like always, civilians are killed by the armies of the countries in war. What a horrible tragedy

@dekuthetechpriestoflondon6791 3 года назад

The Soviet soldierds raped and murdered German civilians

@davidpowell6098 3 года назад

All war is a tragedy, and only waged for economic reasons, oh, and greed and control.

@IPendragonI 3 года назад

@@dekuthetechpriestoflondon6791 What did you think the Germans did when they invaded Russia? Payback is a b*tch isn't it.

@dekuthetechpriestoflondon6791 3 года назад

@@IPendragonI at least we owd up to it unlike them

@IPendragonI 3 года назад

@@dekuthetechpriestoflondon6791 Why would Russia own up to anything. They won.

@dutchthespitfire3204 3 года назад

The people in the comments saying those people deserved this are absolute monsters

@user-th3tj1zn5u 3 года назад

Many of those aboard were ethnic Germans who moved to occupied territories as part of Generalplan Ost. They had it comming. Arguably a better fate than what happened to those Germans the Czechs decided to take revenge on after the war.

@dovetonsturdee7033 3 года назад

No, the civilians didn't deserve it. But neither should the submarine commander be demonised for doing his duty.

@dutchthespitfire3204 3 года назад

@@dovetonsturdee7033 The commander of the sub was drunk did you know?

@dovetonsturdee7033 3 года назад

@@dutchthespitfire3204 Whether true or not, he was still justified in his actions.

@conveyor2 3 года назад

@@user-th3tj1zn5u

@grafkrapfen4906 4 года назад

My great grandmother was booked for this ship but missed it, because her husband forgot the tickets at home. God bless him for this, otherwise I probably wouldnt live today.

@rawnukles 4 года назад

Omg They must have been so upset when they couldn't get on. Maybe he did it deliberately because he thought it was too dangerous...

@georgiamule 4 года назад

Graf Krapfen Imagine how many people were never born because their future parent died this day.

@scottcharney1091 4 года назад

@@georgiamule Or because their future parents never met, or many other causes. The "you wouldn't be here" fallacy is really silly. Nobody minds not being born.

@apogaeum4313 4 года назад

My grandma missed this ship too but fortunately made her way to Kiel in a track.

@jessemoreno3471 3 года назад

@@georgiamule How about the millions of future parents that the Nazis murdered.

@Emilysheknows 3 года назад

That child who cut the lifeboat with his stolen knife is such a hero, I have no idea if I'd be that brave

@tableentertainment7644 3 года назад

If you were too scared to cut a rope you could give the knife too some one else

@nakajima4058 3 года назад

@@tableentertainment7644 fax

@thekingshussar1808 3 года назад

@@tableentertainment7644 Another scenario is slipping and losing the knife

@terminator-qf6vw 3 года назад

he did not he gave the knife to a sailor who gut it see my other comment about the audio on australin radio

@terminator-qf6vw 3 года назад

he did not cut the ropes he gave the knife to a salior who did see my other comment on the australin radio programme

@JustPippaNY 4 года назад

10:08 it sounds like there’s a bad edit between talking about the officers killing their families and something about the last torpedo.

@wormswithteeth 3 года назад

What happened with the 4th torpedo?

@ageamiu8923 3 года назад

It got disarmed

@shadowpersonoftheunknown6245 3 года назад

"There are reports of Officers bringing their families into cabins to kill them, and themselves rather than allowing them to freeze or drown in the Baltic Sea ass torpedo" Well, that's one way to put it😁

@brandonstevens5628 3 года назад

We all make mistakes

@misterflibble6601 3 года назад

That's what you took away from the video?

@BeautyByLinnoria 3 года назад

Imagine surviving the sinking ship....just to get ran over by the rescue ship....this is horrific

@deepharrow8520 3 года назад

Yes and you are fine😍

@ScootyPuffJrSux 3 года назад

@dee pharrow Bruh

@Akula114 4 года назад

I don't care who was onboard, it was an awful tragedy. Thank you for posting it as this story is little known by those of us who were or are survivors of the winning side in the Great Patriotic War/World War II. It is quite fitting that you posted this on the anniversary of the sinking. Thanks for a great piece of history being revealed to more people. If only we learned and there were no more wars...

@Akula114 4 года назад

@John King Good video, I've seen that. I had a friend at high school named Juergen. His dad fought in the Wehrmacht during WWII, everybody else's dad were in the US military. Nice family, loved their new home, the USA, etc. Still, we used to say no German ever fought on the Western Front, it was always against the Russians. I'm sure the Germans in the DDR had only fought at Normandy.

@Akula114 4 года назад

@John King you, Sir, are a man after my own heart... only you express yourself better. War is awful, true, but some awful is just more so. I live in a town in South Carolina where for some reason, we've always had a lot of German industrial concerns. I'll kill for good Wiener schnitzel, but that's beside the point. A good while back, the TV miniseries "Holocaust" aired, making a pretty big hit. There was a great little German food specialty store I frequented, and a day or so after the mini-series started, I went in for something or the other. Irmgard, one of the owners, was flapping around the shop as angry as a wet hen. You know, pretending to be dusting or arranging stuff for the 40th time and really clearly pissed. In German, I asked her what was wrong. Ach, she said. Dis Holocaust thing. Everybody is talkin' Konzentrationschlager this and Warsaw ghetto that... just stirring up all this trouble! Oh, I sort of mumbled, I see. She stopped and turned to me with her hands on her hips and fumed, und diss whole final solution thing! Six million Jews! ...now three or four maybe, but NEVER six! I don't know what made me feel more strange... the idea that a country had committed this atrocity, or the fact that she could deal with three or four million, just not an "excessive" six. Classic sociopath on a national level.

@thomaspick4123 3 года назад

@John King I have never heard one word about this Sebastopol incident. Please post a link, so that I can educate myself.

@patriciabrenner9216 3 года назад

@@Akula114 This is why I never buy a German product.

@fubukibuki--dai-35-gokuchi45 3 года назад

@@patriciabrenner9216 Why? German products have a very high quality standard

@ktsp2538 4 года назад

I know about the Wilhelm Gustloff being more deadly then the Titanic

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Death toll is unbelievable. I'm surprised they were even able to fit 10,000 people on board given that she was designed to carry fewer than 2,000.

@ktsp2538 4 года назад

The Great Big Move yes

@troodon1096 4 года назад

The Titanic didn't even have the worst death toll among disasters that happened up to 1912. It's just one of the more famous ships to sink.

@bensmall6548 4 года назад

Titanic is still one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters. Wilhelm Gustav is still the worst of all though.

@iminavegetativestatestudio1730 4 года назад

@@bensmall6548 not even close. There were peacetime disasters that were way worse than titanic. The sinking of the sultana in 1865 killed 1,800 people and was the worst at the time. Although it was during the end of the civil war and was carrying POWs, it was a peacetime ship and neither the ship or its cause of sinking was military related. The worst peacetime disaster was the dona paz in 1986, with 4,386 deaths. There were even maritime disasters in the 21st century that were worse than Titanic, like the le joola, with 1,800 deaths.

@Straswa 4 года назад

I cannot imagine the horrors of the poor civilians aboard that vessel. May they rest in peace. Thanks for the informative vid.

@dave8599 4 года назад

not as horrific as being stripped naked, heads shaved, gold teeth pulled, then pushed into a gas chamber.

@Straswa 4 года назад

@@dave8599 That sounds horrifying as well. Rest in peace all Holocaust victims.

@VotanLoad 4 года назад

I imagine how they hated Hitler for loosing the war and not delivering his promise of the world dominance as the majority of Germans voted for Hitler who promised them to fulfill their old nationalistic dream.

@VotanLoad 4 года назад

@@astrofission1041 Majority of them voted for Hitler.

@VotanLoad 4 года назад

@@astrofission1041 Yes, as they freely chose Hitler to move forward their agenda...and too bad for them as they had to pay for their choice. And it was a war against the German nation...not some imaginary Nazis. And from other point of view...after all Germans were lucky the war ended in May. If it would last another few months Berlin would meet A bomb.

@Chief2Moon 4 года назад

You've brought a piece of history to light that too many of us had never heard before, or at least hasn't received Lusitania style coverage in print&video. Well Done sir!

@Exodon2020 4 года назад

2:23 I used to work on a shipyard in Kiel that originally started out in Memel, today Klaipeda, Lithuania. When the Soviet closed in the Yard owner ordered his remaining workers to get the yard's dry dock seaworthy, took the workers, their families and provisions on board and towed the dock all the way to Kiel using the Yard's small maneuvering tug. They departed shortly before the Gustloff and luckily nobody really paid attention to them. He later bought an old Coastside workshop, anchored his Dock nearby and started over. Cap Arcona, another German Ocean Liner also suffered a grim fate: During the last weeks of the war she was anchored in the Lübeck Bay and used as a floating Concentration Camp. The Germans incarcerated some 6,000 survivors of the infamous Death marches on her as well as another 4,000 ones on much ships anchored around her. On May 3rd the Royal Air Foce - likely not entirely aware of the situation - attacked the ships and sunk most of them including their main target Cap Arkona, killing more than 6,000 people in the process. To this day the circumstances around these sinkings are still not fully clear.

@AndyHappyGuy 4 года назад

Cap Arcona was also used as a movie prop for one of Nazi Germany’s propaganda films, “Titanic (1945)”. she was used for the wide shots.

@ianrsigel 4 года назад

I only speak one language, English. And with only marginal fluency. I admire your language skills. Allowing for a few punctuation errors, as someone from the eastern bloc countries your grasp of english is quite impressive.

@emperorionic 4 года назад

Paul Lindenau - best man. Good shipyard.

@gortnewton4765 4 года назад

Thank you for telling us of these things. Very interesting what you said about the shipyard at Kiel. Of course, very sad about the huge loss of life.

@wilhelmtaylor9863 4 года назад

Werner, My mother was born in Memel, Ost Preussen. She fled the Russians in '44 to join the Luftwaffe at age 19 in Berlin.

@Strato13 4 года назад

I feel like regardless of whether or not there had been a Red Cross Marking on the Ship, the Soviets would still sink a ship.

@wurlitzerlibertyinc.1612 4 года назад

Another tactic they learned from the Germans who sank the Red Cross marked Russian ship Armenia . 6000 - 7000 dead

@Strato13 4 года назад

Wurlitzer Liberty Inc. That is equally horrific. My heart goes out to those poor souls as well..

@wurlitzerlibertyinc.1612 4 года назад

@@Strato13 Amen

@1993Crag 4 года назад

Indeed. Germany had a disregard for it during the entire war, other countries weren't going to show it back.

@SpaceLandChanel 4 года назад

Wurlitzer Liberty Inc. Maybe if Armenia wasn't armed with anti-air armament, wasn't used as a millitary convoy months before and wasn't being escorted by warships it would have had a better chance of being seen as a red cross vessel

@VictoryRider777 3 года назад

Thank you for this video documenting this horrific day in history. I was led here after reading Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys and I had to learn as much as I could about it. This cleared up a lot of questions I had.

@mochatelier8767 2 года назад

Same

@maxwhitman1878 4 года назад

This was extremely interesting! Thank you.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Thank you, Max! I very much appreciate that. Stay tuned for more videos.

@awesomeaiden5218 4 года назад

@emperorredabilitysfollowin2753 4 года назад

Джейсон Хичкок watch you profanity

@igot4bucks640 3 года назад

@@awesomeaiden5218 couldn't agree more

@jyotirmayamohanty5723 3 года назад

Hello Max www.uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=215&navy=USSR

@nickrobinson8339 4 года назад

I have two books on this episode and I believe one of the torpedos exploded killing hundreds of Luftwaffe women who were crammed into the drained indoor swimming pool. One quote mentions that about 400 might have been killed in that alone if memory serves me well. A horrific episode in a horrific war. I realise that some people believe that this attack on a civilian ship was perhaps a war crime and of course from our peaceful perspective it would have been. However the Russians had suffered millions of deaths under the Nazis including, in just Belorussia alone, some 600 villages razed to the ground, many with their populations slaughtered. The Russians had one aim which was to defeat this foreign empire and in so doing they wanted, on the whole, to make them suffer in massive payback which included civilian victims. The more terror they could dish out the faster the population would panic, spreading wider fear and clog up roads slowing down German military units and so on. The war on the Eastern front was as brutal at sea as it was on land.

@mihapejic4900 4 года назад

Absolutely fantastic video! Thanks. Looking forward for more like this!

@locowerke 3 года назад

Fascinating story and one I have never heard of before. Thanks for posting this very important part of that war's history.

@DeanBlackfyre 4 года назад

Thank you for making and uploading this, very informative and straight to the story. I, like many had never heard of this disaster till recently and me being curious I looked it up and couldn't find a decent RU-vid video talking about it. Good work.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Dean Anderson Thank you! It’s a very tragic story that more people should know about.

@blowingfree6928 4 года назад

Here you go: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l9SjT9yamSA.html

@russellelwood4311 4 года назад

Wow, how sad to think that so many lives were lost at sea. The mayhem of war and its stress to win pushes man to animal behavior, sad, so very sad.

@Arsenic71 4 года назад

No, animals do not do these kinds of things to other animals.

@sisyphusvasilias3943 4 года назад

You are assuming the Soviet Sub Captain knew the ship he sunk, he didn't he lived the rest of life in a deep depression.

@wegner7036 3 года назад

@@Arsenic71 Well yes they're too stupid to build submarines.

@RobCLynch 2 года назад

Excellent information. I read that the life vests were not much more advanced than the cork ones from Titanic and that small children would flip upside down in the water - because their heads weighed more than their bodies. Terrible disaster.

@markonefly 3 года назад

Thank you for loving reporting: god bless all who they died at that night. Love and peace to all human

@LeoPerkk 4 года назад

Incredible video! As a fan of boating and navigation, I can't believe I've never heard about it. Great video, very informative and simple to understand. You just won a subscriber.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

I appreciate that! If you have any requests for future videos, I am always open to suggestions.

@CesarHarada 4 года назад

@@TheGreatBigMove Well done! I agree with LeoPerkk - Amazing!

@MBrieger 4 года назад

Ok, we can not know everything. But have you analyzed why? The cousin of my Mom was on the Ship. She survived.

@xenaguy01 4 года назад

Me, too! Never heard of this. Probably because I was born/raised in USA, and my country had nothing to do with it.

@MBrieger 4 года назад

@@xenaguy01 Wrong WWII had a lot to do with the US. Not that incident. But it scares the shit out of me how ignorant people can be and how history can be distorted

@darrellturner560 4 года назад

Thank you for the work you put into bringing this tragic story forward.

@Michael-Philip 3 года назад

This is one of only a few videos about the Gustloff. Good Video !!

@jomama5186 2 года назад

You sid such good and thorough job narrating this. This is better than anything on cable tv!

@1notgilty 4 года назад

What a great tragedy. Thank you for creating and posting this important historical video.

@bmused55 4 года назад

Löwe is pronounced more like: "Lou-Vuh" not "Low" . Löwe is German for Lion

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

bmused55 Good to know, thank you.

@Strato13 4 года назад

Lou Vuh. I see. Thanks. Not related to the topic, but I play World of Tanks Blitz and one of my main used Tanks is a "Lowe" which I've apparently I've been referring to as such, like "Low". Now I also know what it means in German, a Lion. An animal a happen to admire greatly. Having said all that, this was and IS a tragic event. Why hasn't it been made more public? All my life I've heard of Titanic sinking, but never this. Poor souls. May they be at Rest. I feel like there Soviets are Cowardly at times as when they purposely shot down that Korean civilian Airliner..

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Stratocaster 13 Glad to see I’m not the only one who struggles to pronounce German words. There are many potential reasons why this wreck is not more we’ll know. One of them is that it occurred at the end of WWII and there was a lot going on as it was. Another is that the victims were mostly Germans and the world did not necessarily have an appetite for sympathy for Germans at the time. Thanks for watching!

@friday3810 4 года назад

I speak german as my first language and if you said lou vuh to me i would not have the slightes glue what you could posibly mean. The e in the end of german words is never silend and prononced like the e in elephant. There is nothing in english to compare to the ö Sound but but if you use your normal o and use the elephant e on the end you are perfectly understanable to and german speaker.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

@@friday3810 So, would that make it something like LOW-Veh?

@ericdee6802 3 года назад

Another great video, awesome work,thank you for sharing!✌️

@Swissswoosher 4 года назад

I never knew of this ship. That was really interesting. Thank you!

@jyotirmayamohanty5723 3 года назад

www.uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=215&navy=USSR

@atatexan 4 года назад

Bless you for this remembrance. Very well presented.

@Bayan1905 4 года назад

Thank you for covering this, I first heard about the Wilhelm Gustloff about 15 years ago and to see how little there is out there about this ship despite the massive loss of life.

@GamingwithHenry 3 года назад

I wish I’d found your channel sooner, these videos are awesome dude, keep it up!

@wacholder5690 3 года назад

Hi ! The by-then ships paymaster Heinz Schön survived the sinking and later wrote many books on the Gustloff. He lived a few kilometers away from my hometown and I accidentially met him in the mid-80s on one of the very rare public readings he did. And he confessed that the events in that fateful night had entirely changed his life and is something "you never forget, no way how hard you try. It tracks you night and day and if you don't want to loose your mind, you need to talk about it" And that's what he did and why he wrote his books and did futher research about the survivors. Asked about the submarine commander he shook the shoulders and said "It was war. No one had a real choice. Everybody did his best." He was expert assistance to the film crew that made a TV-movie on the sinking in 2007. He died in 2013 and the urn with his ash has been downed at the location of the wreck of the Gustloff. He has a page on wikipedia - so has the Wilhelm Gustloff and has its "name patron", a nazi leader operating in Switzerland and been shot in February '36. Ironically the ship sank on Janury 30th - which would have been the 50. birthday of its name patron Wilhelm Gustloff. Why the Gustloff desaster was (and largely is) still unknown to the public, is, because it happens in wartime. It is not listed as the largest civilian maritime desaster for that reason and because the ship served as stationary school and hospital for the german Kriegsmarine for years, before it had been forced back into service. Still being a civil ship per definition after all it is not counted as a merchant vessel, when it sunk. Not that it would make any difference to the victims - but the public attention wasn't very high.

@robertyoung3992 4 года назад

Another survivor that he did not mention was one Hans Georg Gudegast a three year-old he is now known as Eric Braeden

@garyquan5575 3 года назад

If Hans Gudegast (who played Hauptman Dietrich on the 1960's series Rat Patrol) hadn't survived the Wilhelm Gustloff disaster, who would be playing Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless nowadays?🤔🤔🤔

@lindaterrell5535 3 года назад

What your source for this info? I can’t find it.

@kennethprice8710 3 года назад

The actor from U.S. soap opera TV? Also,ironically was in James Cameron's Titanic.

@callsigndd9ls897 2 года назад

Hans Gudegast came up with the stage name Braeden because after the war he lived in a village called Bredenbek. Mit ae, damit es in Englisch so klingt, wie das Deutsche e. This village is 2 km away from where I live. He used to visit this village every year when the village festival was held there. I met him there several times and I knew his Gustloff story.

@aleksavuksanovic3899 4 года назад

Boy do i support your work!Amazing stories and informative!

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Thank you, I appreciate your kind words!

@almilhouse9059 3 года назад

Never heard of this, damn these dark stories and sinkings are really addictive

@omgwtflmaololrotfl2368 4 года назад

Thank you for your time and effort to provide us with this very informative and well presented video. Thumbs up and new sub.

@Gigidag77 4 года назад

My Grandma and Granduncle had tickets but missed the Gustlov by 30min.They could see it dissapear at the horizon. I probably couldn't write this comment today, had they been on time...

@puppywing8693 4 года назад

Proof?

@Gigidag77 4 года назад

@@puppywing8693 Unfortunately I will never be able to proof this, since they disgarded the tickets. It's just what they told me. Both have passed away since.

@puppywing8693 4 года назад

@@Gigidag77 For one someone gives a reasonable thing for not having proof! Normally they juat go "uh non of your business'

@Pommezul 4 года назад

I am not sure if that is a real story, but I want to belive it anyway.

@Gigidag77 4 года назад

@@Pommezul Hey fellow fur. I assure you thats what they rold.me years and years again. I can't proof them unfortunately. :c

@steinkopf2085 4 года назад

My grandmother was supposed to flee on this ship when it sank at the age of ~12-14 but she fell which resulted in some head injuries so they had to stay there for some time so they couldnt get on board. Its just weird thinking about that the only reason I am here is becuase she misstepped. For many this is forgotten history - not for me.

@berlinupnorth982 4 года назад

Thanks for keeping forgotten history alive.

@gex581990 3 года назад

Man I really love this channel! So glad I found it

@TheEndOfABloodline 4 года назад

I never heard about this I really enjoyed learning about it. Thanks!

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Glad you got something out of it!

@hellojjjetplane 4 года назад

great video! this channel needs more views, keep it up

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

I'm working on it! Thanks for your support.

@whitehorse1959 4 года назад

Excellent mini-documentary! Bravo!

@usmale4915 3 года назад

Very good video! Thank you for sharing!!

@cooldloop2381 4 года назад

Nice vid. Thanks for recommending it to me.

@Bobrogers99 4 года назад

I was totally unaware of this. Thank you for the factual account.

@sinceresong9907 3 года назад

Thank you for sharing this.

@brettcannon74 4 года назад

Very informative! Thank you. War is awful.

@vidguy007 4 года назад

Thanks for posting a previously unknown (to me) story.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

It's one of the most notable and interesting shipwrecks, but most people (including myself until a few years into studying maritime history) know about. Thanks for watching!

@TraustiGeir 4 года назад

@Jacob Swvage I don't think there are many who would consider the Soviets as "saviors of Europe"...especially when considering what happened after the war.

@gammrockfeddy4373 4 года назад

@@TraustiGeir your not wrong my comrade im russsian but i learned english

@TraustiGeir 4 года назад

@@gammrockfeddy4373 Thank you.

@gregt8638 3 года назад

Thank you for posting this video! I was always told about this by my German mother but you never seem to hear it from any other source. It's almost like they don't want it to be known that this horrible thing was committed against the Germans and that Germans suffered greatly too. -Greg T, California

@mrsj8331 3 года назад

It's almost like the systematic killing of millions of people somehow overshadows this incident.

@jayzandstra1830 2 года назад

@@mrsj8331 talking about the brits here or the soviets buddy?

@equalopportunityoffender1816 2 года назад

It's nothing compared to what the Germans inflicted on others. 20k is nowhere near the 40million+ the Germans murdered.

@bzhzjbzhzj8809 3 года назад

I never watched one of your vids b4 , great job !!

@ruremerjerpullche2150 3 года назад

In a German documentary a lady who had survived told how she never could sing a very popular children's song called Alle meine Entchen (all my little ducklings) to her own children later, as the last lines which translate to "heads down in the water, tails up in the sky" always brought back the memory of the many babies and toddlers who due to having been put into adult lifevests had their heads forced into the water and their bottoms up and thus drowned. I never forgot that.

@bekluwe 4 года назад

My great-grand-mother had a ticket to this ship. Luckily she gave it away because she was the only member of her family that had a ticket and she didn’t wanted to be alone.

@jonrobstad5290 4 года назад

The sinking of "MS Rigel" is also a more or less forgotten part of maritime history where 2571 people perished, most of them soviet prisoners. I am from Norway, and the sinking took place outside the norwegian coast during WW2, just south of the city Sandnessjøen, but no one i´ve asked have even heard about it.

@lee-wy9th 3 года назад

Vary nice video dude! Well made, and vary cool.

@bjt81366 3 года назад

You are doing a great job. Respect.

@Tosse901 4 года назад

My grandmother wanted to go on the Gustloff as well, to get away from the soviets, but luckily for her, it was already full.

@Jingoist12 3 года назад

yeah true I was the ticket

@user-md5ud7xy1j 4 года назад

Thank you for uploading this tribute

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Thanks for watching!

@lexas1 4 года назад

Good vid. Never knew this despite being a student of WWII all my life.

@Johnny53kgb-nsa 4 года назад

Very well done documentary. Rip to all those who died.

@michaelfitzgerald434 4 года назад

I had no idea. Thank you for this.

@williamconstantino1852 4 года назад

Thanks for history lesson i did not know this story about ww2

@theginganinjaa97 3 года назад

How the hell is this not taught in schools??? Never heard of this until i found your channel. Thanks for uploading! You have a lot of info I've never heard anywhere else :)

@theginganinjaa97 3 года назад

@EmperorJuliusCaesar TF are you even going on about?? This is one of the *worst sinkings in history* so yea it should be taught in schools. 9000 died crammed on a single ocean liner id say thats a pretty unique situation.. And yea no shit people die in war but that doesnt mean their lives shouldnt be honored and their storys shouldnt be told -_-

@Emily-px7yr 3 года назад

EmperorJuliusCaesar it was innocent civilians that were the main victims of this tragedy...

@tysont3323 Год назад

3:53, some of those refugees left behind were my great grandma, and her parents and siblings, and if they would have made it onto the ship, many people would not be alive today, including me. After the war she went back to Latvia for a visit, and many of her friends and family she had before the war thought she had died on the ship. Those refugees definitely didn't realize at the time, but this was probably the best thing that had happened to most of them. My great grandma died in 2019, from complications with dementia, but all three of her siblings are still alive.

@michaelboyle6774 3 года назад

Appreciate very much your detailed account of this tragic historical event. WW2 saw many civilians suffering and dead from the fighting. All sides being guilty of killing thousands of civilians. US and Britain killed 25000 in three nights of bombing Dresden, Germany just weeks after this ship sinking. Very tragic events.

@annihilatorx182 4 года назад

It pisses me off when I hear people say "They were Germans. They were the bad guys." As if they were trying to justify the sinking.

@sophieyoung7374 4 года назад

Some of them weren’t even Germans, some were Lithuanians

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Although there was a lot of military personnel onboard, the majority of the passengers were civilians. It's hard to fault civilians for trying to escape a war with their families.

@annihilatorx182 4 года назад

@@TheGreatBigMove 5000 of the casualties on board were children, mind you.

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Annihilator X I think that’s right, actually. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about this. Thanks for pointing that out.

@annihilatorx182 4 года назад

@@TheGreatBigMove No problem.

@thecrabpulsar 3 года назад

Never heard of this one before but I have heard of the sinking of the Titanic a 1000 times over. Absolutely horrific tragedy so many children.

@DM-pu5yu 3 года назад

Purposely memory holed. Thank you for telling people

@thebuttonfactory2306 4 года назад

But nobody cares or knows because they were just German civilians and got what they deserved. Right? Disgraceful tragedy.

@rawnukles 4 года назад

Nobody knows about this en.wikisource.org/wiki/Zionism_versus_Bolshevism or this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_Must_Perish%21

@SanarySeggnete 4 года назад

this is actually well known WWII incident thought ... people are just too lazy to read about it

@Gallagherfreak100 4 года назад

During the Vistula offensive in Jan and Feb, 1945, the red army was unleashed on East Prussia and Pomerania. Here, they committed atrocities on the civilian population which has almost no equal in modern war, with the exception of the Japanese treatment of Chinese civilians in the late 1930's and 1940's. These atrocities are the reason these civilians were so desperate to get away from the advancing red army.

@jamesbieschke2497 4 года назад

Let's see...how many innocent civilians did the Nazi's kill? Millions is the correct answer.

@aircastles1013 4 года назад

Not that simple. Germany isn’t like Hollywood.

@ikeestep8496 3 года назад

I first learned about this ship reading “Salt To the Sea” (I would highly recommend it!) and I’ve been interested by it ever since

@fl4naa 3 года назад

Do the 4 mc's die at the end??? Pls I need to know.

@lbr7897 3 года назад

@@fl4naa some do but not all of them.

@mochatelier8767 2 года назад

Same

@NYCamper62 4 года назад

I found it difficult to "like" this video. But I did out of thanks for the upload, work and recognition.

@gcprost 3 года назад

Thanks for doing this. This is story I was not familiar with.

@scottmoseley5122 4 года назад

I fancy myself as a casual WW2 history buff , but I had never heard of this before. Thank you. .... Also don't forget the MV Doña Paz the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster killing nearly 5000 Filipinos in 1987.

@dallymoo7816 2 года назад

I don't understand how no one heard of this. . We learned in school and also it's been mentioned in movies.. guess we just had a good history teacher in Canada

@Kshahdoo67 2 года назад

Not a lot of people have heard about Gustloff and pretty much nobody has heard about Soviet hospital ship Armenia, that was sunk by German aircraft in 1941. Estimated deaths 4.5-10k...

@lacai527 4 года назад

Never heard this one! Thx for video.

@benisaten 3 года назад

Great video man.

@deadalready7467 4 года назад

TY. Another sad sad moment in man’s history.

@demokkkrat14 4 года назад

Thanks for bringing light to this awful disaster. I was born on January 30 and I always remember those refugees lost. 😭

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

Even if people are only going to remember, say, 3 shipwrecks, this should be one of them. Thank you for watching!

@demokkkrat14 4 года назад

@@TheGreatBigMove No problem, love your content! I loved the Aquitania video! Please make a video on the MS Estonia if you could (don't have to)

@TheGreatBigMove 4 года назад

EzyTexSailor I may, but it probably won’t be for some time. I have a lot of great topics in the pipeline, though!

@demokkkrat14 4 года назад

@@TheGreatBigMove Well, that's okay! Love your content!

@demokkkrat14 4 года назад

@Hgyvtfygyhuh Ygihvutctvnininnin Well hello, Queen Elizabeth II, how is life?

@mick00000000002 3 года назад

Thank you for uploading. Didn't know

@jacobnielsen8053 4 года назад

I like how you put those ships in the beginning, but I think another combo you could have done would go like this: MS Estonia, Costa Concordia, USS Arizona, MV Le Jolla, Edmond Fitzgerald, and the Doña Paz.