"'They said the tragedy of the Gustloff was a war crime. It wasn’t. It was terrible, but it was a result of war, a terrible result of war.'" - - Günter Grass - - noted German post-war author.
Here are two instances from the era of World War Two [WW2] of German "hospital ships" being torpedoed and sunk while ferrying wounded soldiers to safety!
Controversial in that these ships do not totally come within the definition of the "hospital ship".
True - - carrying wounded and medical personnel on board, but MUCH MORE TOO!!
NOT strictly non-combatants as the hospital ship is defined by protocols and international agreements.
In BOTH instances, German "hospital ships" sunk by the same Soviet submarine, during Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of German troops and civilians from East Prussia, 1945.
1. The steam ship (SS) General von Steuben.
"set sail from Pillau in the bay of Danzig on 9 February 1945, her destination being Swinemünde. On board were 2,800 wounded German soldiers; 800 refugees; 100 returning soldiers; 270 navy medical personnel including doctors, nurses and auxiliaries; 12 nurses from Pillau; 64 crew for the ship's anti-aircraft guns, 61 naval personnel, radio operators, signal men, machine operators, and administrators, and 160 merchant navy crewmen, a total of 4,267 people."
Torpedoed and sunk, the ship settling to the bottom quickly, with catastrophic losses.
"Three thousand to four thousand people died in the sinking of the Steuben. About 300 survivors were saved"
Among those lost, German military men perishing at their own hand,
"wounded German officers committing suicide with their pistols"
German military men preferring a quick death by gunshot to the head rather than drown or freeze to death in the icy cold waters of the Baltic.
2. Wilhelm Gustloff.
This particular photo shows the Gustloff painted in the colors of the hospital ship, white with the green stripe. Should have been illuminated brightly at night too.
"It was requisitioned into the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) on 1 September 1939 and served as a hospital ship during 1939 and 1940. Beginning on 20 November 1940, it was stripped of medical equipment and repainted from its hospital ship colors (white with a green stripe) to standard naval grey. The Wilhelm Gustloff was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel at the Baltic port of Gdynia (German: Gotenhafen), near Gdansk (German: Danzig), from 1940 onwards."
"The Gustloff was hit by three torpedoes from the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic . . . and sank in less than 45 minutes. An estimated 9,400 people were killed in the sinking. If accurate, this would be the largest known loss of life occurring during a single ship sinking in recorded maritime history."
"the Wilhelm Gustloff was carrying a crew of 173 (naval armed forces auxiliaries), 918 officers, NCOs, and men of the 2nd Submarine Training Division (2. Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision), 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 162 wounded soldiers, and 8,956 civilians, for a total of 10,582 passengers and crew"
"the ship's equipment included antiaircraft weapons, it had been travelling blacked-out, it was not marked as a hospital ship, no notification of it operating in a hospital capacity had been given, and as it was transporting combat troops, it did not have any protection as a hospital ship under the international accords governing this."
Comments:
* Both of these ships did not enjoy the status of a non-combatant hospital ship at the time of their sinking. Were equipped with arms [anti-aircraft], carrying non-wounded military personnel, were not not painted or illuminated in the right manner, etc. NOT a hospital ship in the strictest sense of the word.
* Both ships had prior to Hannibal functioned as either a troop transport or a floating barracks. Would have been recognized by the Soviet as such.
* Hannibal has been judged to be a tremendous success, the sinking of the von Steuben and Gustloff not withstanding. 1.2 million persons evacuated is an achievement, losses to be expected!
Again - - in the very strictest sense, these two sinking - - albeit with wounded on board, WERE NOT war crimes.
coolbert.
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