Saturday 30 January 2010

The biggest maritime disaster in history - the Wilhelm Gustloff

On this day, January 30, 1945 - nine hours after leaving port, and seventy minutes after being hit, the huge liner, the Wilhelm Gustloff, slipped under the waves and sunk.

A small fleet of ships and boats arrived on the scene, and managed to pluck a few from the icy waters and rescued many of those on the lifeboats. Over a thousand were rescued but… an estimated 9,343 people died, half of them children - six times the 1,517 that died on the Titanic.

It remains the biggest maritime disaster in history.

We have all heard of the Titanic. Almost a century after that fateful night, the disaster remains within our global consciousness. Even before James Cameron's epic 1998 film, we knew of the iceberg, the "women and children first", the band that played on.

But how many of us have even heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff?

The luxury liner
The ship was named after the assassinated leader of the Swiss Nazi Party (yes, Switzerland in the 1930s had its own Nazi Party), murdered in his own home in February 1936.

The ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, weighing 25,000 tons and almost 700 feet in length, was an impressive sight, and could carry almost 2,000 passengers and crew. Launched in 1937, it began its life as a luxury cruise liner for the German workers of Hitler's Third Reich, and, to the outbreak of World War Two, had sailed over fifty cruises.

Wartime
For the first year of the war the Wilhelm Gustloff served as a hospital ship before being held in dock in the port of Gotenhafen (modern-day Gdynia) on the Baltic coast where, until early 1945, it served as barracks for U-boat trainees.

Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941 and the German juggernaut had fought all the way to within sight of Moscow. But then the tide of war turned against the Nazis, and Stalin launched his own counterattack.

By October 1944, the Soviet Union's Red Army had fought the Germans out of Russia and broken through into East Prussia.

The Red Army approaches
With the apocalyptic Red Army bearing down on them, the German civilians of East Prussia, desperate to get away, fled to the Baltic ports hoping to be evacuated out. Those caught in the maelstrom of the Soviet advance faced rape and murder.

The Wilhelm Gustloff , along with any other serviceable ship in the area, was pressed into service to aid the evacuation of German civilians. With forty-eight hours notice before departure, the scenes in frozen Gotenhafen were of panic as people, frantic for a place, fought on the dock and surged to board the ship.

Evacuation
By the time it left, on January 30, 10,582 people (40% of whom were children) had crammed onto a ship designed for less than 2,000. Of the three designated military escorts, two broke down, leaving one torpedo boat to accompany the huge liner. The ship had four captains who argued over the best course to take - shallow or deep waters, a straight line for speed or zig-zags to help avoid detection. Poor visibility, heavy snow and freezing temperatures further hampered progress.

When the captains were informed of a German minesweeper convoy coming towards them, they decided, after much argument, to switch on the navigation lights to avoid colliding into the convoy, but by doing so the ship also became visible to a Soviet submarine lurking nearby.

Hit
The submarine fired three torpedoes, each hitting its target. The ensuing scenes of panic cannot be imagined. Most of the lifeboats had frozen onto their davits, leaving only a few useable. As the ship listed to one side, there were people trapped below decks, others crushed in the stairways, more falling into the freezing waters, children drowned in lifejackets too big. People fought and clubbed each other to get onto the few lifeboats, whilst many jumped to their deaths.

It was, coincidentally, the birthdate of Wilhelm Gustloff, born January 30, 1895. The day the ship sunk would have been his 50th birthday.

For an excellent website devoted to this subject, see http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/.

Rupert Colley.
Read all about World War Two and Nazi Germany in one hour at historyinanhour.com

Hitler is appointed Chancellor

1932 Germany saw the rise of the Nazi party into a prominent political force.

Failure of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar government had failed its people and, following the worldwide Depression, Germany was in economic ruin, people's livelihoods shattered, and the nation, still burdened with the humiliation of the post-First World War Treaty of Versailles, were fearful of Communists and Jews.

They looked for an alternative and that alternative lay in Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

"He can lick stamps with my head on them."
In the July Reichstag elections the Nazi gained almost 40% of the vote making it the most powerful party. There was a slight dip in the elections four months later but the Party still had enough electoral clout that Hitler, as dictated by the Weimar constitution, should have been appointed Chancellor.

But the Weimar president, the 85-year-old Paul von Hindenburg (pictured above with Hitler), was reluctant to appoint the former corporal: "That man a Chancellor?" he exclaimed, "I'll make him a postmaster and he can lick stamps with my head on them."

Papen's plan
Franz von Papen, Hindenburg's former Chancellor, who believed the Nazis were already a spent force after the dip in the Nazi vote in November 1932, decided to work with Hitler. Hitler would become Chancellor and Papen would serve as his Vice-Chancellor.

But the real power, Papen persuaded the aging president, would be himself. Hitler, Papen argued, needed to be contained and this would be far easier with Hitler working inside the government than agitating from outside. "In two months," said Papen, "we'll have pushed Hitler into a corner where he can squeal to his heart's content."

Reluctantly, Hindenburg agreed.

A moment of triumph
And so on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor within a coalition government. He had done it - Hitler had achieved what he had striven for since 1923 - power through legitimate means.

That evening Hitler looked out from his balcony at the Chancellery. Below him filed passed thousands of torchbearing Nazis. This was their moment of triumph, the day of national exultation; the Nazi era had begun and their mood was jubilant.

Papen was to soon realise the folly of his intrigue - it was he, not Hitler, who was pushed into a corner and became an inconsequential figure.

Rupert Colley
Read about the rise of Nazism in Germany at historyinanhour.com

Monday 25 January 2010

Only Tany left... Tanya Savicheva and the Siege of Leningrad

Today, 25 January 2010, Tanya Savicheva would have been eighty years old – had she lived. But she died, near her hometown of Leningrad in 1944, aged only 14.

The Russian Anne Frank
But who was Tanya Savicheva? The name in Russia is what Anne Frank is to the West – a young innocent victim of World War Two, who left behind a small but lasting legacy.

But whereas Anne’s diary is a carefully kept journal over a period of two years, Tanya’s was little more than a few scribbled lines over six sheets of notepaper.

The Leningrad Siege
Leningrad was in the midst of a devastating 900-day siege that lasted from September 1941 until January 1944. The German army had laid siege to it, bombarded it and cut off all supplies in its attempt to ‘wipe it off the map’, as Hitler had ordered.

On September 12 1941, the largest food warehouse was destroyed and the situation, already severe, became critical.

As the Lake Ladoga, to the east of the city, froze, supplies came through by convoys of trucks, a hazardous journey over thin ice and through enemy bombardment. What was brought in, although vital, was only ever a fraction of what was needed.

Within the city, as that first winter progressed, whatever could be eaten had consumed – pets, livestock, birds, vermin. And whatever could be burnt had been. Tanya had kept a diary but this, as with every other book in the household, had been used for fuel.

Tanya, her mother and her five siblings, in common with every citizen of Leningrad, suffered terribly from hunger and cold. One by one, members of Tanya’s family died, and it was recording of each death that constituted the notebook.

Evacuation
Tanya herself was eventually evacuated out of the city in August 1942, along with about 150 other children, to a village called Shatki. But whilst most of the others recovered and lived, Tanya, already too ill, died of tuberculosis on July 1, 1944.

Her notebook was presented as evidence of Nazi terror at the post-war Nuremberg Trials, and today is on display at the History Museum in St. Petersburg.

The text of Tanya’s notebook reads as follows:

Zhenya died on Dec. 28th at 12:30 P.M. 1941

Grandma died on Jan. 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942

Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 A.M. 1942

Uncle Vasya died on Apr. 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942

Uncle Lesha on May 10th at 4:00 P.M. 1942

Mother on May 13th at 7:30 A.M. 1942

Savichevs died.

Everyone died.

Only Tanya is left.


Rupert Colley
Read all about World War Two in just one hour at historyinanhour.com

Wednesday 20 January 2010

The Wannsee Conference

On this day, January 20, in 1942, during World War Two, took place perhaps the most notorious meeting in history. In a grand villa on the picturesque banks of Berlin’s Lake Wannsee, met fifteen high-ranking Nazis.

The Final Solution
Chaired by the chief of the security police, 37-year-old Reinhard Heydrich, the fifteen men represented various agencies of the Nazi apparatus. Heydrich's objective, as tasked by Hermann Göring (and therefore, presumably, Hitler), was to secure the support of these various agencies for the implementation of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question', the systematic annihilation of the European Jew.

The mass murder of Jews was already taking place. The initial method of shooting Jews on the edges of pits was considered too time-consuming and detrimental on the mental health of the murder squads. The squads, often recruited from the local populations in conquered areas, willingly collaborated in the killings but eventually found the task gruelling.

Seeking alternative methods, the Germans began experimenting with gas, using carbon monoxide in mobile units but although better this was still considered too slow and inefficient. Eventually, after experiments on Soviet prisoners of war in Auschwitz during September 1941, Zyklon B gas was discovered as a rapid and efficient means of murder.

An industrial level of murder
The Wannsee Conference, as it became known, discussed escalating the killing to a new, industrial level. Heydrich estimated that 11 million Jews still resided in Europe and needed to be "combed from West to East." He produced a list of nations and their respective number of Jews, not only in countries already under Nazi control but also neutral nations and those not yet occupied. For example, Britain, according to Heydrich's figures, contained 330,000 Jews; Sweden 8,000; Spain 6,000; Switzerland 18,000; and Ireland 4,000, plus 200 Jews in Albania.

"Natural reduction"
The more able-bodied Jews, said Heydrich, would be used for labour "whereby a large number will doubtlessly be eliminated through natural reduction." Those that survived the labour, the toughest, would, if liberated, be the "core of a new Jewish revival," therefore they had to be "dealt with appropriately." The minutes of the meeting, written up by Adolf Eichmann, were littered with such euphemisms but, according to Eichmann at his trial in 1962, once the official meeting had finished, they spoke openly of executions and liquidation.

No one at the meeting objected or questioned the proposals, and Heydrich hadn't expected any but nonetheless was pleased with the level of enthusiasm. The rest of the meeting discussed definitions of ‘Jewishness’ – to what extent persons of mixed blood could be defined as Jewish; and whether children born of mixed marriages (German and Jew) were Jewish or not. And veterans of the First World War, it was decided, would be sent to ghettos specifically for the aged.

Satisfied, Heydrich drew the meeting to a close. The men retired to comfortable chairs to smoke, drink brandy and gossip whilst admiring the view over the lake. The meeting, barely an hour and a half long, was over.

The villa at Wannsee is now a holocaust museum.

Rupert Colley.
Read all about World War Two and Nazi Germany in just one hour at historyinanhour.com

Monday 11 January 2010

Hitler's Mein Kampf - My Nephew's Evil Christmas Present

For Christmas I was given a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by my 25-year-old nephew who, as I opened it, said, "It's the sort of thing you're into, isn't it, Uncle Rupert?" For a moment I thought he was implying I was some sort of fascist.

The paperback edition that was so neatly wrapped up in Father Christmas wrapping paper was a reprint of Ralph Manhein's 1943 translation with a fascinating 50-page introduction by D.C. Watt, which is, by far, the best bit of the whole thing.

To my relief, my nephew added, "World War Two and all that, you're into that, aren't you?" "Yes," I said, "very much so."

He looked pleased; this "evil book" as it's described on the blurb, had been a good choice.

Currently I'm working on the third ebook for the History In An Hour series - the Nazi Germany, so my nephew's present was a timely one. I'm skim-reading it at the moment because it isn't the easiest nor most pleasant of reads and at over 600 pages I have a hundred other things I'd rather be reading (sorry, dear nephew). But still - dedication to the cause, etc.

Today I was reading up about the French occupation of the Ruhr during the Weimar era and noticed the French troops went in today, 87 years ago - the 11th January, 1923. Not the most exciting anniversary and not exactly one imprinted on Europe's consciousness but being a sucker for anniversaries I couldn't resist mentioning it. What exactly were the French doing in the Ruhr? Here, as a first draft, is my resume of that chapter of German history:

"By 1922 the Weimar government, struggling to pay the reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty, had stopped paying them altogether. Angered by this breaking of the rules, the French and Belgium governments sent troops into the Ruhr, an essential hub of German industry and source of raw materials. When the outraged German workers refused to work for the new occupiers, the French sent in their own workforce.

"The occupation of the Ruhr caused chaos for Germany's economy, triggering a period of high unemployment and hyperinflation. And still the Weimar was unable to meet its Versailles obligations."

I go on to mention the hyperinflation and the lifetime savings wiped out overnight, and the American 'Dawes Plan', the subsequent recovery of the Weimar economy and finally France's withdrawl from the Ruhr in 1925.

Now - back to Mein Kampf.

Rupert Colley.
To read about Nazi Germany, go to historyinanhour.com