Operation Hannibal

[2] Dönitz radioed a message to Gotenhafen in occupied Poland on 23 January 1945, to begin evacuations to ports outside the Soviet area of operations.

On 30 January Wilhelm Gustloff, Hansa, and the whaling factory ship Walter Rau left the harbor at Gotenhafen in occupied Poland, bound for Kiel.

She was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13 off the Pomeranian coast, with possibly as many as 9,500 deaths, the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.

Initially, on becoming Reich President on 1 May, Karl Dönitz was determined to continue the war, going so far as to instruct Generaloberst Carl Hilpert that combat troops would have priority in evacuation to Germany from the Courland Pocket.

At 21:00 on 8 May 1945, the last day of the war, a convoy consisting of 92 large and small vessels left the Latvian city of Liepāja (German: Libau) with 18,000 soldiers and civilians.

[10] While several hundred of those who had boarded small ships on the last day of the war or after were captured by Soviet MTBs, evacuations to the west continued for at least a week after all such movements were prohibited by the terms of the German surrender.

Shortages plagued the operation with food and medicine being seen as primary issues for the Nazi administration, causing a trend of elderly and very young children to die on board the rescue ships.

[7] In addition to the Goya, Wilhelm Gustloff, and General von Steuben, 158 other merchant vessels were lost during the 15-week course of Operation Hannibal (23 January – 8 May 1945).