History's Deadliest Maritime Disaster: The Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlof

preview_player
Показать описание

Simon's Social Media:

This video is #sponsored by CookUnity.

Love content? Check out Simon's other YouTube Channels:

Рекомендации по теме
Комментарии
Автор

"But only the wind answered"
Such haunting words.

Thank you for honouring these victims.

StelCreator
Автор

There is a widely known nursery rhyme/children’s song about ducks swimming on a lake in German and one part goes something like “Head in the water, Tails in the air”. I heard a testimony of one survivor once who said, she couldn’t bear to hear those lines anymore because she always saw the babies in life jackets in the water before her eyes. Because babies’ heads are so big in comparison to their bodies, all the babies had toppled over and were floating with their heads under water and bodies sticking up out of the water.

IridescentPigsie
Автор

16:32 stuff like this just absolutely breaks me especially as a paramedic student because it’s a cold reminder that no amount of medical training or knowledge will ever prepare you to come up with an answer for a question like that in that type of situation. there are some things you just can’t fix and it f’ing sucks so much.

sadib
Автор

The city I grew up in wasn't even 10, 000 people. I can't imagine my entire hometown and surrounding county drowning in under and hour.

Milo_
Автор

My mother almost boarded the ship, she and another sister haven been send ahead of the rest of the family fleeing from Königsberg over the ice of the Haff to Gotenhafen/Gdingen in order to secure boarding passes. But they forfeited their passes, handing them to other refugees from their area in order to wait for her father, which was serious ill and had to be moved on a cart over the ice because he couldn't move. Only after the Wilhelm Gustoff had been sunk did they find out that they had waited for nothing, the part of the trail of refugees having left the city a few hours behind them had been attack by Russian fighter bombers which smashed the ice and had hundreds of refugees drown in the icy waters of the Haff...

TheRealRedRooster
Автор

There are many cruel ways to die, but sitting in a confined space in a sinking ship has to amongst one of the worst ways to go. What a story.

DuckAllMighty
Автор

Thank you, Simon. It is a story that needs to be told, and with the unwavering respect and attention to detail that you and your team have shown.

raquellofstedt
Автор

One of the actors in the Titanic movie (Eric Braeden, played John Jacob Astor) is a survivor of the Gustloff. He was about three years old when it happened.

Onora
Автор

Dying in a boat disaster is my worst nightmare. Any other incidents are 10 mins or less and instant death. The water coming trapping you and drowning over a several minute nightmare. I struggle with the thought.

Tmaget
Автор

Thank you for sharing the history of this disaster. My grandmother and her family escaped East Prussia during the evacuation. They fled on foot during the middle of winter. My great-grandfather was captured by Russians and miraculously survived leaving my grandmother and great-grandmother to fend for themselves. They nearly starved. At one time eating a frozen cat. I have no idea if I had family on this ship or not. All I know is my grandmother was lucky to survive.

meganredfield
Автор

Never heard of this story before. Thank you, Simon and team.

georgezachos
Автор

At about nine o'clock, S-13 came in from the shore, where it could least be expected, and, from a surface position, from a distance of less than 1000 m at 21:04, fired the first torpedo with the inscription "For the Motherland", and then two more — "For the Soviet people" and "For Leningrad".
The fourth, already cocked torpedo "For Stalin", got stuck in the torpedo tube and almost exploded, but it was defused, the hatches of the devices were closed and submerged.

vz
Автор

If anyone is curious, Salt to the Sea is a wonderful book that covers this story in detail.

OwlBookLook
Автор

The rate that Simon produces content for so many channels is unbelievable

WillsKing
Автор

Hey Simon!🎉
thanks again to all involved for the quality content

ohThaTairra
Автор

Thank you Simon. My grandma missed to get on the ship with her family. Her cousins sadly made it on to the ship.

Trollvolk
Автор

The thought of drowning has always terrified me. Never happened as far as I know but I'd rather be blown up again than drown.

JamesFromTexas
Автор

Btw, the German destroyer's name was Löwe ("Lion"), and there is no silent "e" in the German language...

TheRealRedRooster
Автор

Thank you for covering this in a Humane and understanding manner. What an unthinkable tragedy

NIN
Автор

Technically it’s the single ship of losses. The RAF bombed 3 Red Cross ship holding concentration camp prisoners the day after the sinking. It was said burnt bodies washed up on shore for nearly a year.

gamedude