Armageddon - Max Hastings [211]
Michael’s father feared that the Germans would kill the last Jews just before the Russians arrived. A man of sixty-four, he cherished at home a little hatchet, his pathetic weapon. “If the Russians are coming and the block warden sends for us,” he would say, “that is the moment to resist.” They clung to life amid the deluge of Soviet bombs and shells, almost despairing of deliverance.
“IT WAS OUR HOLOCAUST, BUT NOBODY CARES”
BETWEEN 23 JANUARY and 8 May 1945, German merchant and naval shipping evacuated more than two million refugees from the Baltic coast, under the orders of Admiral Oskar Kummetz, naval high commander in the east. Freighters and launches, naval escorts and colliers were all pressed into service. Several large passenger vessels had been lying idle for years thanks to the Allied blockade. The Wilhelm Gustloff was a 27,000-ton pre-war “Strength through Joy” Nazi cruise ship, which since 1940 had served as a U-boat depot vessel. In the last days of January, its ageing captain was warned to take on fuel and prepare to transport refugees westwards from the port of Gdynia, near Danzig. As soon as it was known that the Gustloff was to go, a desperate struggle began to gain boarding passes. Most berths were quickly filled by those with money or influence. Stabsführerin Wilhelmina Reitsch, sister-in-law of Hitler’s favourite test pilot, Hanna, clamoured for space for some of the 8,000 naval auxiliaries in the port, whom she commanded. They were all girls between seventeen and twenty-five, acutely conscious of their likely fate at the hands of the Russians. Only 373 were embarked. So were 918 naval personnel and 4,224 refugees.
For three days, they waited in anguish in the crowded passenger decks for permission to sail. A special maternity unit was established on the sun deck, for some refugees were heavily pregnant. One hundred and sixty-two military casualties, many of them amputees, were brought aboard on stretchers and placed in an emergency hospital. On the night of 27 January, the entire complement was ordered ashore during an air raid. They spent hours of icy misery in the port’s shelters, before straggling aboard again at dawn. At the last minute, the Führer Suite on B Deck was taken over by thirteen members of the family of Gdynia’s burgomaster, along with the city’s kreisleiter, his wife and five children, their maid and parlour maid. Some of the Nazi functionaries complained sourly about overcrowding.
On 30 January, the morning of the ship’s departure, there were renewed dramas. Military police boarded, to search every living space for deserters. As the Gustloff finally cast off at 1100 hours, a flotilla of small boats scrambled alongside, filled with refugees shrieking to be taken aboard, women holding high their babies. Pitying crewmen let down scrambling nets. The ship’s peacetime complement was 1,900 passengers and crew. The manifest on 30 January showed more than 6,000 souls. Some 2,000 more are believed to have struggled aboard during the final rush. There was a further delay offshore, where the Gustloff anchored to await a second ship, the Hansa. Finally, the port authorities determined that it was too dangerous for the ship to wait. Escorted only by an aged torpedo boat, the liner set course westwards. The Hansa’s captain signalled: “Bon voyage.”
A surge of relief swept through the decks of the Gustloff. At last, the passengers saw the prospect of safety after the terrors of the shore. A doctor persuaded a small orchestra to play for the military wounded. The ship’s barber began to do a brisk trade among refugees seeking to improve their dishevelled appearances. Those with money and clout were able to eat a better dinner afloat than they had seen for many weeks, with wine and meat. Unfortunately, however, the Gustloff was a poor sea boat. It began to wallow heavily in the Baltic chop. Ice formed on deck. Many, perhaps most, passengers were soon prostrate with sea-sickness. Some of those who had eaten dinner wished that they had