On January 30, 1945, the German refugee ship Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea, killing an estimated 9,343 people — more than six times the death toll of the Titanic. The Wilhelm Gustloff had been a cruise liner before the war, designed to carry 1,400 passengers. On the night of its sinking, it was carrying approximately 10,000 people — German civilians, wounded soldiers, and refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army in East Prussia.
The ship was struck by three torpedoes from the S-13, commanded by Captain Alexander Marinesko. The first torpedo hit the swimming pool, where most of the crew's families were sleeping. The second hit the engine room, disabling the power. The third struck the ship near the bow. The temperature was below zero, and the Baltic Sea was approximately 4 degrees Celsius — cold enough to kill a drowning person within 15 minutes.
A few hundred passengers were rescued by other German ships, including the torpedo boat Lowe and the minesweeper M387. The exact death toll will never be known: the ship carried refugees who had not been registered, children who were not listed on manifests, and soldiers who had been assigned to the ship without documentation. The lowest estimates are 9,000. The highest are 9,500.
What makes the sinking particularly contentious is that the Wilhelm Gustloff was carrying civilians, including many thousands of women and children. Marinesko, the Soviet submarine commander, was court-martialed by the Soviet Navy for excessive drinking and was not promoted until 1945. He died in 1953. The Soviet Union never publicly celebrated the sinking, as it was seen as the killing of civilians rather than a military target.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was rarely discussed in post-war Germany either, as it was seen as a consequence of German aggression. The event was not widely known until Guenter Grass published his novel Crabwalk in 2002, which brought the tragedy into public discussion.