[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author for purposes of reviewing it. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own]
The Wilhelm Gustloff was a German built pleasure ship built by the Nazis to bolster their public image both at home and abroad in the late 1930′s. It is remembered today because when it was sunk by a Soviet submarine in early 1945 as it was evacuating civilians and wounded military personnel from East Prussia to Kiel its sinking became the ship sinking with the highest loss of life in recorded history. Nobody knows for sure but the smart money is that somewhere north of 8,500 people died when the Gustloff sank into the icy Baltic waters on January 30, 1945. This is a story that should have been told a long time ago as it is an event that is virtually forgotten outside of the families who lost relatives and historians. I would love to be able to say that Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff by Cathryn Prince is the book to tell that story but there are so many issues with the book itself that I have a hard time doing that.
The book is 200 pages of text separated into eleven chapters with an appendix, notes for each chapter, a bibliography, and index. The chapters describe the war in the east, the drive for Germans to evacuate, the evacuation operation itself, the situation in the Baltic, and the sinking and rescue of the ship. The writing is for the most part very clear, though there were parts where I was confused as to what point the author was trying to make or what information she was trying to impart.
First, let me say that it is obvious that quite a bit of effort and research went into writing this book. That alone makes the glaring errors that appear regularly throughout the text so disheartening. All is not bleak in my review however. The book does an outstanding job of narrating the events surrounding the sinking and subsequent rescue attempts. I also found the stories of what the survivors did post war to be extremely interesting and well written.
The errors, I generally tab books that I read for review at places where there are errors or misinformation as well as passages of particular note. This book has plenty of the former and only one of the latter. Many of the errors are simple errors of fact that even a cursory search of Wikipedia or Google would show to be wrong. Some examples of this include: 1. pg. 17 – The claim is made that a sailor received a payment in Deutsche Marks in January, 1945. This could not be since in January, 194 the German currency was the ReichsMark and the Deutsche Mark was not introduced for circulation until 1948 and in the intervening Years occupation scrip and ReichsMarks had been used Post-War. 2. pg. 31 – The claim is made that German girls joined the Hitler Youth at the age of ten. They did not, German girls joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel, which was the female Nazi youth organization. This is corrected later and then the terms are used interchangeably, which they are not. The Bund Deutscher Mädel and Hitler Youth were two separate organizations with separate training programs. 3. pg. 40 – I was surprised to find out that the 6th Army that surrendered at Stalingrad only had 90,000 men. It would be useful to make it clear that that is how many men surrendered but that the 6th Army had upwards of 500,000 men on it’s roster and only 90,000 men survived to go into captivity. These are just a few of the examples of factual errors.
Chapter five discussing the tactical and operational situation in the Baltic Sea is thoroughly confusing in its entirety. Mainly because one gets the impression that the author does not have a good grasp of geography. She seems to use the terms Black Sea and Baltic Sea interchangeably or at least as though one were an extension of the other. That is certainly not the case as the two seas are separated by over 1,500 km on land and to get from one to the other by sea you have to travel through the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean, and North Sea.
There are many other similar instances of confused facts or outright misinformation in the first six chapters of the book. I found myself jarred every time I ran across one. Some are obvious editing errors such as misspelling Führer to errors that showed a lack of basic knowledge of the time. Not every reader will catch many of these mistakes, but that does not excuse them. I found myself wondering as I read it if any historian had proofread the book prior to publication? Almost all mistakes are amenable to simple fixes that can be fixed in subsequent editions.
This could be an outstanding book about a little known, obscure, but important topic. The author is absolutely correct that the suffering of ethnic Germans in East Europe has largely been ignored post-war. She is also correct that it is time these stories were told and told in such a way that it is clear that not every German was a Nazi but that all Germans ended up being painted with the Nazi brush.
Because of the nature and importance of the story told and topic covered I will reluctantly recommend this book. There are almost literally no other English languages sources for stories of the dislocation of ethnic Germans at the end of WWII. Readers should just keep in mind that the best and most important part of the narrative is that part surrounding the actual events just before, during, and after the MV Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed. The author has showcased her research and storytelling ability in these compelling chapters. I only wish that the same attention to detail had gone into the rest of the book.
is the story of one of the many unsung and unremembered heroes of World War II. Gino Bartali was a prewar Italian racing champion and winner of the Tour de France. Just about everyone has heard of Oskar Schindler and his List due to the 1993 Spielberg movie or Anne Frank. What is less known are the thousands of others across occupied Europe that worked trying to help Jews and others that the Nazi’s persecuted. This book is the story of one of those people.