This was something I learned today and it was all the more surprising to me after seeing an enormous number of World War II retrospectives while I was in England. The coverage was exhaustive so the omission of the story of the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff is disturbing to me.
The Wilhelm Gustloff was a converted passenger liner and she was carrying in excess of ten thousand refugees back to Germany as they were trying to stay ahead of the Russian advance. Most were not military and about four thousand were children. She was sunk by three torpedo strikes from a Russian submarine and went down with a loss of about nine thousand lives. (WIKI: MV Wilhelm Gustloff)
There is no military drama to this as there was no war crime. The German Navy honoured the rules of war and the ship had anti-aircraft guns on it so it was painted grey just as would be any other warship. However, it could legitimately have been portrayed as a hospital ship and that's exactly what the Russians did with at least one of theirs, a ship with protective anti-aircraft guns but painted as a hospital ship to prevent attack.
That it wasn't a war crime does nothing to exacerbate the loss of nine thousand lives nor does it explain the almost total omission of this story in any coverage I have previously seen of World War II. This was the biggest loss of life in any sinking in history and yet it is ignored.
They're Germans. Fuck 'em. They deserved it.
Really?
Is that what you think. These were mostly not soldiers but rather civilians trying to escape the Russians as there was almost certain death if they didn't. What would you do.
The Wilhelm Gustloff was a converted passenger liner and she was carrying in excess of ten thousand refugees back to Germany as they were trying to stay ahead of the Russian advance. Most were not military and about four thousand were children. She was sunk by three torpedo strikes from a Russian submarine and went down with a loss of about nine thousand lives. (WIKI: MV Wilhelm Gustloff)
There is no military drama to this as there was no war crime. The German Navy honoured the rules of war and the ship had anti-aircraft guns on it so it was painted grey just as would be any other warship. However, it could legitimately have been portrayed as a hospital ship and that's exactly what the Russians did with at least one of theirs, a ship with protective anti-aircraft guns but painted as a hospital ship to prevent attack.
That it wasn't a war crime does nothing to exacerbate the loss of nine thousand lives nor does it explain the almost total omission of this story in any coverage I have previously seen of World War II. This was the biggest loss of life in any sinking in history and yet it is ignored.
They're Germans. Fuck 'em. They deserved it.
Really?
Is that what you think. These were mostly not soldiers but rather civilians trying to escape the Russians as there was almost certain death if they didn't. What would you do.
No comments:
Post a Comment