Originally constructed as a cruise ship for the Nazi Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) organization in 1937, Wilhelm Gustloff had been requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine (German navy) in 1939.

She was then assigned as a floating barracks for naval personnel in Gotenhafen before being fitted with anti-aircraft guns and put into service to transport evacuees in 1945.

The ship was originally intended to be named Adolf Hitler but instead was christened after Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the Nazi Party's Swiss branch, who had been assassinated by a Jewish medical student in 1936.

[6] Wilhelm Gustloff was the first purpose-built cruise ship for the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) and used by subsidiary organisation Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude, KdF).

Her purposes were to provide recreational and cultural activities for German functionaries and workers, including concerts, cruises, and other holiday trips, and to serve as a public relations tool that would present "a more acceptable image of the Third Reich".

The ship made her unofficial maiden voyage between 24 and 27 March 1938 carrying Austrians in an attempt to convince them to vote for the annexation of Austria by Germany.

[8] For her third voyage Wilhelm Gustloff left Hamburg on 1 April 1938 under the command of Carl Lübbe to join the KdF ships Der Deutsche, Oceania and Sierra Cordoba on a group cruise of the North Sea.

At 4 am, Captain G. W. Ward of Pegaway issued an SOS when the ship was 20 nautical miles (37 km) northwest of the island of Terschelling, off the coast of the Netherlands.

On 8 April 1938 Wilhelm Gustloff, under the command of Captain Lübbe, departed Hamburg for England, where she anchored over 5.6 kilometres (3 nmi) offshore from Tilbury so as to remain in international waters.

This allowed her to act as a floating polling station for German and Austrian citizens living in England who wished to vote on the approaching plebiscite on Germany's unification with Austria.

With seven other ships in the KdF fleet, she transported the Condor Legion back to Germany from Spain following the victory of the Nationalist forces under General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

Eventually, Wilhelm Gustloff was put back into service transporting civilians and military personnel as part of Operation Hannibal.

[16] Besides ethnic Germans, the people on board included Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, Estonians, and Croatians, some of whom had been victims of Nazi aggression.

[17] The ship left Gotenhafen at 12:30 pm on 30 January 1945, accompanied by two torpedo boats and the passenger liner Hansa, which was carrying civilians and military personnel.

The submarine sensor on board the escorting torpedo boat had frozen, rendering it inoperable, as had her anti-aircraft guns, leaving the vessels defenseless.

At around 9 pm (CET), Marinesko ordered his crew to launch four torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloff's port side, about 30 km (16 nmi; 19 mi) offshore, between Großendorf and Leba.

Using Maritime Exodus software,[24] it estimated that 9,600 people died of the more than 10,600 on board, by taking into account passenger density based on witness reports, and a simulation of escape routes and survivability with the timeline of the sinking.

Women aboard the ship at the time of the sinking were inaccurately described by Soviet propaganda as "SS personnel from the German concentration camps".

On the night of 9–10 February, just eleven days after the sinking, S-13 sank another German ship, General von Steuben, killing about 4,500 people.

Before sinking Wilhelm Gustloff, Captain Marinesko had been facing a court martial due to his alcohol problems and for being caught in a brothel while he and his crew were off duty.

[28] Author Günter Grass said in an interview published by The New York Times in April 2003: "One of the many reasons I wrote Crabwalk was to take the subject away from the extreme Right...

73" on Polish navigation charts,[30] and classified as a war grave, Wilhelm Gustloff rests at 55°04′22″N 17°25′17″E / 55.0729°N 17.4213°E / 55.0729; 17.4213, about 19 nmi (35 km; 22 mi) offshore, east of Łeba and west of Władysławowo (the former Leba and Großendorf, respectively).

[31] In 2006, a bell recovered from the wreck and subsequently used as a decoration in a Polish seafood restaurant was lent to the privately funded "Forced Paths" exhibition in Berlin.