Titanic is famous mainly because it was the largest ship in the world at that time. Its sinking has had a great historical impact and sounded the alarm for shipping safety. In fact, in the civilian ship accidents in peacetime, it only ranks seventh in the number of deaths (the highest is 1 434 1 on the Philippine ferry Donapas). If it is changed to wartime, the highest shipwreck death toll is as high as 9343, which occurred on the German passenger ship "William &; Middot is on the Gustav. The ethical tragedy behind its sinking goes far beyond the Titanic.
Hatred March
In Europe during World War II, land disputes were frequent and fierce. As a pillar of German militarism &; Mdash & mdash1939 After East Prussia, the birthplace of the Junk aristocracy, was occupied by the Germans together with western Poland, the number of Germans increased. However, by the end of August of 1944, Britain dropped 1000 tons of bombs on the capital of East Prussia for two consecutive nights, turning it into a sea of fire. 1June, 945, it had 65438 tons of Germans face to face.
In this battle, it doesn't matter whether the Germans intend to defend their homeland or not, because they are facing a division of tigers and wolves that was brutally invaded by the Germans in the Soviet Union for nearly four years. Large-scale destruction, robbery and rape have occurred from time to time, but no one has mentioned it for many years. By the Battle of Konigsberg in April, the Germans were unable to resist the Soviet sledgehammer. After six days of indiscriminate bombing, the Soviet army changed from fighting to robbery in only three days.
In this regard, most German officials are well aware that from June 23, 65438 until the end of the war, a big retreat called "Hannibal Action" will be withdrawn from Gdansk to Germany and Denmark still under German occupation. * * * 672 civilian ships and 409 warships, * * * evacuated 800,000-900,000 civilians and 350,000 troops (this scale is three times that of the Dunkirk retreat. On the other hand, * * * about 2.5 million people), until April 26, the bridgehead on which the retreat depended fell, and there were still other places to continue, and * * * evacuated 265,000 people that month. In the first eight days of May, 6.5438+0.5 million people were evacuated from Haila Beach. On May 8, the last day of the European War, 92 large and small ships left Latvia with 18000 people. Until the German surrender clause prohibited this kind of behavior.
Ark in troubled times
1945 65438+1at noon on October 30th, 12: 20, four tugboats towed "William &; The middot Gustav slowly sailed out of the port of Danya. This 208-meter-long, 23-meter-wide passenger ship with a displacement of 24,000 tons was one of the largest passenger ships in the world when 1937 was launched. The latest research results show that the ship has registered passengers 1865, including crew 173 (auxiliary personnel of maritime armed forces), 9 18 officers and men of the second submarine trainer of the navy, 373 female nurses of the navy, 62 wounded soldiers 162 and 4,424 refugees.
Given the 63-year-old Friedrich &; Captain Friedrich Peterson of middot has not sailed for many years. In order to ensure the safety in the dangerous Baltic Sea, the ship is also equipped with two naval officers and a retreat commander, equivalent to four captains. At the same time, the Lufthansa passenger ship and two torpedo boats were arranged to leave Hong Kong. Unfortunately, Lufthansa and a torpedo boat quickly returned due to mechanical failure, leaving only one torpedo boat ("Lv Wei", L? We) accompany thousands of fugitives.
An article said: Late at night before sailing, Captain Peterson received a telegram from the German Baltic Submarine Fleet Command, saying that Soviet submarines operating in the central and western Baltic Sea were closely monitored and no other enemy ships were found in the above waters. In fact, judging from the submarine activities of the German navy at that time, this was purely self-deception.
Sure enough, the four commanders on board soon disagreed on the route choice to avoid submarines, although William &; Major Wilhelm Zahn, middot, suggested turning off the lights in the shallow coastal waters, and Peterson, a higher-ranking civilian captain, still insisted on entering the deep waters.
Binhai slaughterhouse
At about 18, Captain Peterson received a telegram saying that a small German minesweeper was coming towards him. Please avoid it. As the sea area was still under German control, Peterson immediately ordered the red and green navigation lights on the side to be turned on. The authenticity of this telegram cannot be verified, but in fact there is no such fleet coming.
More unfortunately, the underwater of this sea area no longer belongs to the Germans, and the submarine S- 13 of the Soviet Baltic Fleet is being built by Alexander &; Middot, under the command of Major Alexander Marinsko, swims and hunts alone in the water.
In fact, in the case of poor visibility at night, it is meaningless to tell whether Marinesco is a German heavy cruiser or a passenger ship from the periscope, because even if he sees the passenger list, he has no intention of hatred and meritorious service. It can also be pointed out that although the ship is a civilian ship, it is equipped with enemy troops and anti-aircraft guns and is escorted by warships. It is not a full-time hospital ship at all.
19: 30, submarine S- 13 accelerated into Gustav's port and coast, avoiding the sight of torpedo boats. At about 2 1 hour, S- 13 turned around after accelerating, forming a 90-degree angle with Gustav who approached slowly, and obtained an ideal attack position.
At Marina Sko's command, four torpedoes rushed out of the launch tube every two seconds, and the crew wrote "for the motherland", "for the Soviet people", "for Leningrad" and "for Stalin" on the torpedo bodies. Gustav, 900 meters away, is also in born to die. The first torpedo hit the bow of the port side, and the second one hit the front of the middle part. It entered the swimming pool inside the ship and exploded. The third one entered the engine room under the chimney only because Stalin failed to shoot.
With the violent explosion, Gustav began to lean to the left, and the crowd was in a panic. However, the quality of the Germans is admirable. Armed officers and soldiers only allowed women and children to board lifeboats, and some men who tried to board by force were ruthlessly pushed into the sea.
Unable to save the overall situation
In less than 40 minutes, the ship Gustav sank, 30 kilometers and 44 meters deep from the coast.
The sea is full of floating heads, and the water temperature is about 4&; Degc, but the temperature is only-18 ~-10&; Degc, ice floes float on the water.
The torpedo boat Luwei, which was only 15 minutes away from the ship, was immediately put into rescue, but it was too small to catch only 472 people. Admiral hippel also carried 1500 refugees. Captain Heinst did not dare to stop the ship after receiving the report of torpedo attack by the lookout (another said that he left in a hurry after saving 564 people).
Nearby German ships came one after another, but they were all small boats. T-36 torpedo boat rescued 564 people, M387 minesweeper rescued 98 people, M375 rescued 43 people, M34 1 rescued 37 people, steam turbine "Gottingen" rescued 28 people, TF 19 torpedo boat rescued 7 people, cargo ship "Gauterin" rescued 2 people, and patrol boat V/Kloc.
Because the actual passenger capacity of the ship cannot be accurately counted, the number of deaths after the war has been unknown. Initially, researcher Owen &; MiddotKappes's conclusion that there were more than 6,000 people on board and 5,348 people died was obviously inaccurate until Heinz &; Middot Sean (Heinz Sch? N) After years of detailed research, it is concluded that about 9343 people died. The "Unsolved History" program of American Discovery Channel also uses EXODUS escape software for computer simulation. Considering the passenger density reported by eyewitnesses, the escape route and the possibility of surviving the shipwreck, it is estimated that 9,400 people out of 10600 will die.
Shamefully, all four commanders survived, and actually only made a formal naval investigation on Zayn, who put forward the correct opinion. Just because of the collapse of the Nazis, his responsibility has not yet been determined.
Now, the Gustav, marked "No.73" on the Polish chart, has been designated as a war cemetery with the coordinates of 55.0729 &; degn 17.42 13 & amp； Dege. In order to protect the property on board and the dignity of the deceased, the Gdansk Maritime Bureau of Poland prohibits diving within a radius of 500 meters of the wreckage.
More than that.
It is obviously inhuman to focus only on this accident with the highest death toll. In fact, in the same sea area, there are more than one tragedy.
In February 1945, 10, the Soviet submarine S- 13 sank the German luxury passenger ship14,660 tons again. Middot Stoben "(SS general von Stoben). The ship was also used as a German naval camping ship in 1939, and was requisitioned as an armed transport ship in 1944 to transport the Germans to the eastern Baltic ports and transport the wounded soldiers back to Kiel. When the "Hannibal" operation started, the ship set sail from Pilao on February 9, carrying 2800 wounded soldiers, 800 refugees, 100 soldiers, 270 naval medical personnel (doctors, nurses and auxiliary personnel), 12 local nurses, 64 anti-aircraft gunners and 6/kloc-0.
After midnight that day, it was hit by two torpedoes of S- 13, sank within 20 minutes, 3 ~ 4,000 people were killed, and about 300 people were rescued by T- 196 torpedo boat.
On April 16, the 5,230-ton German freighter MV Goya also carried 200 soldiers from the 25th Chariot Regiment and 6 100 passengers (only the registered number) back to the west of Germany. However, when the Zewan exit passed through the Hale Peninsula, it was discovered by the Soviet submarine L-3. Although "Goya" was faster than the submarine, when the fleet stopped for maintenance due to engine failure of other ships, Vladimir & middot konovalov, captain of L-3, ordered the fire at 23: 52. Without the safety measures of the passenger ship, Goya sank to the bottom of about 76 meters in 7 minutes, and it is estimated that only about 7000 people on board survived 183.
Of course, disasters are not one-sided. As early as194117, Armenia, one of the earliest Black Sea passenger ships built by the Soviet Union and later changed into a hospital ship, was evacuated from several hospitals in Crimea by a German named HE 165438. The ship is painted with a red cross on both sides.
ethical dilemma
Because it was related to Nazi Germany, the post-war comments on the Gustav disaster were mixed.
Some Germans believe that the Soviet Union committed the crime of killing innocent people because most of the victims were women and children. However, after careful study, it can be found that the tourist ship Gustav 1 939 September1originally organized by Nazi trade unions was indeed requisitioned by the German navy as Lazareschiff D. 1940165438+1On October 20th, the ship was bought by the German army, its medical equipment was dismantled, and it was anchored in Gdansk. As the floating barracks of nearly 1000 trainees of the second submarine trainer in Germany, its appearance has also been painted from white with green stripes to standard navy gray.
Therefore, when the ship was sunk, it was equipped with anti-aircraft guns, and there was no sign of a hospital ship. There was no report that it was performing the function of a hospital ship. Moreover, the ship does carry combat troops, so whether it should be protected by the laws of war can obviously only depend on the goodwill of the other side. What's more, Hitler declared the Baltic Sea a war zone on June1944+065438+1October1/and ordered German warships to fire at any enemy target at sea. Considering that when the Nazis were dying, a large number of German men were incorporated into the "People's Imperial Emergency Unit" to carry out unnecessary resistance, in the eyes of the Soviet Union, which had long been occupied by hatred, there was no concept of "refugee" at all. Moreover, at that time, in order to avoid panic among the domestic people, all survivors were asked not to disclose the news, and German newspapers and radio stations did not mention anything about it. Until 2002, with the German Nobel Prize in Literature winner G & amp(G & amp； Crabwalk, a novel based on this incident by uuml Winterglass, was widely circulated, and this time the sunken ship surfaced.
In an interview with The New York Times on April 8, 2003, Lenglass said: "One of the reasons why I wrote this novel is to refute the extreme right view that this tragedy is a war crime. No, it is terrible, but it is the result of war, a terrible result of war. "
Of course, in World War II, both sides sank ships that were overloaded with civilians, which was indeed the evil of the war itself. The United States did not use this topic after learning about the Gustav disaster, because they didn't want to give people the impression that "Germans are also victims".
However, with the passage of time, when Europeans have been able to calmly face the hatred of World War II, and with the crazy retaliation of Soviet troops in Germany at the end of World War II (including the deterioration of military discipline after entering Northeast China) being gradually exposed, there should be another side to this series of disasters. S- 13 won the Red Flag Medal, its captain and the captain of L-3 were both awarded the title of "Soviet hero", and the German naval nurse aboard Gustav was also distorted as "SS in the concentration camp".
In fact, just look at the fate of East Prussia, including the territory around Poland. In modern European history, even if only every place name has been changed, there is a history of national hatred behind it. Until today, this region has finally disappeared under the framework of European integration.
Alexander, a famous Soviet poet &; Middot Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was also the captain of the Red Army who entered East Prussia in June 1945. Later, he wrote in his Gulag Islands: "We all know that any German girl will be killed after XX, which has almost become a fighting honor." In his poem Night in Prussia, he described the scene he witnessed in a house in the eastern Prussian city of Leidenberg: his half-dead mother lay on the humiliated body of Chen Zhe's daughter, begging "soldier, kill me".
Of course, World War II had both justice and injustice. This is a big right and wrong, but the cruelty of the war itself is absolutely beyond human control. Although it has not been made into a movie, I hope Gustav is not only curious, because it is the deadliest shipwreck in history. Just like Titanic, in the face of disaster, all the glory and humbleness are floating clouds, and only human nature is eternal.