MV Robert Ley was a cruise ship of the Nazi Party leisure organization Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy).

The keel was laid on behalf of the Nazi organisation Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) at Howaldtswerke Hamburg.

Shortly before the beginning of the Second World War, Robert Ley was taken over on 25 August 1939 as a hospital ship by the Kriegsmarine and converted accordingly in Hamburg.

Due to a lack of demand, she was decommissioned on 22 November 1939 as a hospital ship and instead, after further conversion was used as living quarters of the 1st Submarine Training Division in Neustadt, assigned from July 1941 at Pillau.

After the breakthrough of the Red Army on the Eastern Front, Robert Ley was used in Operation Hannibal for the evacuation of civilians and wounded from East Prussia.