Operation Hannibal

Also: Unternehmen Hannibal, Baltic evacuation 1945

The German navy's evacuation of soldiers and civilians across the Baltic in the first months of 1945, which moved more than a million people and cost several of the worst losses at sea in history.

Questions this entry answers

  • What was Operation Hannibal?
  • How many people were evacuated across the Baltic in 1945?
  • Which ships were sunk during Operation Hannibal?

Definition

Operation Hannibal was the German navy's evacuation by sea from the eastern Baltic coast, ordered by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz on 23 January 1945 as the Red Army's winter offensive cut the land routes west.

Historical context

The Soviet offensive opened on 12 January 1945. In East Prussia, the Nazi Party under Gauleiter Erich Koch had forbidden civilians to evacuate, so families fled late and in midwinter. By 25 January Soviet armour had reached the Frisches Haff. The roads west were closed. The ports were what remained: Gotenhafen (Gdynia), Danzig, Pillau, the Hela peninsula, and later Liepāja in Latvia.

How it worked

Warships, merchant ships, former liners, fishing boats and anything else that floated carried soldiers, wounded, naval personnel and refugees west to German and Danish ports. Ships sailed overloaded and with thin escorts through waters patrolled by Soviet submarines and aircraft. Nobody kept complete lists of who boarded. The last convoy left Liepāja on 8 May 1945.

What it meant for the patient, the soldier, the civilian

For a refugee family, the evacuation meant reaching a port across frozen country, waiting on the quay, and boarding whatever ship would take them with what they could carry. Most of the more than one million people moved by sea arrived. The ones who did not died in very large numbers at once, often uncounted, in water that killed in minutes.

Examples from history

  • Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk 30 January 1945 off the Pomeranian coast. Heinz Schön's count of the dead is 9,343; accounts of how many were aboard differ by about 3,000.
  • General von Steuben, sunk 9–10 February 1945 by the same submarine, S-13. Our sources give about 4,500 and 3,608 dead.
  • Goya, torpedoed 16 April 1945. Fewer than two hundred people were rescued.

Sources

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Scholarly secondary source

  1. Heinz Schön, Die Gustloff-Katastrophe (1984).

    Not yet checked against the source

  2. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–45 (2004).

    Not yet checked against the source

  3. Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002).

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Reference work

  1. Wikipedia, "Evacuation of East Prussia." View source

    Used as a lead; its figures trace to Schön and the 1954 Schieder commission.

    Not yet checked against the source

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