German Titanic on tv or how Bebro wasted 3 hrs of his life

[BeBMan]

In the last two days German tv station ZDF had a 2x90 min movie about the Gustloff disaster, the sinking of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea in January 1945, which resulted in ca. 9000-10000 deaths and so is one of the largest, if not the largest naval disaster involving the loss of a single ship.

The background explained by Wikings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm...off_%28ship%29

As a history geek I decided to watch this one. Turns out it was a big mistake.

The movie did not even try to show the wider circumstances of the situation along the Baltic cost in early 45, the Soviet advance, the helpless Germans attempts to stop it, or the mass flights of civilians from the area. The 'historic' part was limited to those hours from leaving Gotenhafen (today Gdynia in Poland) to the sinking later. Most of the time they focussed on silly personal stuff and some absurd and amateurishly done thrilleresque side plots, which gave the impression that the whole NS time was only because of some bad eggs. On the technical side they had some nice CGI stuff with the ship and the sub attack, but overall quite short and not sooo good that it could save the movie. The depiction of the sinking itself tried to recapture the look from 'Titanic', just that it wasn't nearly half as spectacular.

So it failed on both the entertainment and the history aspect. Overall it was just a big "WTF?"

*rant end

[LordShiva]

[GePap]

Wouldn't it really be the German Lusitania rather than Titanic?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by LordShiva

QFT

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by GePap
Wouldn't it really be the German Lusitania rather than Titanic?

Yes, the desaster definitely shares the most similarities to the Lusitania, only with a much higher number of casualties (around 8000-9000 souls).

[VetLegion]

the sinking itself tried to recapture the look from 'Titanic', just that it wasn't nearly half as spectacular

You saw Titanic?
Isn't it a movie for thirteen year old girls?

[Dr Strangelove]

Wasn't it actually carrying German troops? I know the article says it was carrying civilian refugees, but I wonder how many were actually troops. It was after all leaving a Polish port on its way to Germany at a time when the Wehrmacht was in retreat. Would the Third Reich have had the resources to spare to remove civilians?

Also there appears to be some controversy as to how many passengers it was carrying.

[BeBMan]

It was carrying troops (U-boat crew, officers, plus wounded soldiers, mentioned in the article) and (much more) refugees. The exact number of deaths is unknown since they stopped counting the civilians coming on board when their number went over 5000.

The attack was *not* a warcrime since the ship carried those military personnel, was armed and treated by the German navy itself as a military ship. That is not disputed, but the very high number of civilian deaths is undisputed as well, a question is only how many exactly they were.

[Proteus_MST]

It was also painted in military grey instead of the white that civilian ships were oblieged to use, so the russian captain wouldn´t have been able to recognize it as civilian ship.

An important question of course is, if the ship (and all the souls on board) could have been saved if ithe Gustloff had traveled along the coast instead of using the deep channel farer away from the coast. Obviously there was a dispute between the 4 captains of the Gustlof (with the military captain wanting to go through the more shallow water near the coast to evade possible subs, but the highest ranking civlilian captain finally deciding to go through the deeper channel because the ship was so overloaded that there might have been a danger of the ship running aground in shallow water).

[Patroklos]

The attack was *not* a warcrime since the ship carried those military personnel, was armed and treated by the German navy itself as a military ship.

It was a marked hospital ship if I remeber correctly.

It was also painted in military grey instead of the white that civilian ships were oblieged to use, so the russian captain wouldn´t have been able to recognize it as civilian ship.

Civilain ships did not have to be painted white, think about how completely impossible that is. It doesn't really matter since military or civilian it was marked as a hospital ship (your basic red crose outlined in white).

It was sunk at night though, so for that reason the sub commander would have had no idea.

EDIT: Actually I guess is wasn't marked, as per Wiki.

[Fake Boris]

The legend is that the Soviet commander of the submarine departed with the submarine, trying to escape military police after a violent drunken night in a Finnish port.

[Heresson]

Uncle or aunt of our current prime minister died on this ship. I've read an interesting interview with his mother: one of his grandpas was in Wermacht, and the other was building Hitler's residence in Prussia, was injured btw of it, and Hitler visited him among others in hospital...

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Heresson
Uncle or aunt of our current prime minister died on this ship. I've read an interesting interview with his mother: one of his grandpas was in Wermacht, and the other was building Hitler's residence in Prussia, was injured btw of it, and Hitler visited him among others in hospital...

Jesus, how messed up must the Kaszinski rule have been if they couldn't even exploit such a family history during elections?

[Heresson]

They did, actually. Wermacht grandpa costed Tusk the presidency it seems.

[LordShiva]

Donald Duck