Operation Hannibal
Encyclopedia
Operation Hannibal was a German military operation
involving the evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from Courland
, East Prussia
, and the Polish Corridor
from mid-January to May, 1945 as the Red Army
advanced during the East Prussian
and East Pomeranian Offensive
s and subsidiary operations.
The Soviet East Prussian Offensive
by 3rd Belorussian Front under Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky
commenced on January 13, 1945 and, with Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky's
2nd Belorussian Front, subsequently cut off Prussia between January 23 and February 10, 1945. German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz
ordered General Admiral Oskar Kummetz
, as Naval High Commander, Baltic, and Rear Admiral Konrad Engelhardt, head of the Kriegmarine's
shipping department, to plan and execute the Rettungsaktion (evacuation operation). Donitz radioed a message to Gdynia
in occupied Poland
on January 23, 1945, to begin evacuations to ports outside of the Soviet area of operations. The operation was codenamed "Hannibal". Dönitz stated in his post-war memoirs that his aim had been to evacuate as many people as possible away from the Soviets.
Right up until his suicide, Adolf Hitler
insisted that the war go on. The flood of military personnel and refugees eventually turned the operation into one of the largest emergency evacuation
s by sea in history (over a period of 15 weeks, somewhere between 494 and 1,080 merchant vessels of all types, including fishing boats and other craft, and utilizing Germany's largest remaining naval units, would transport between 800,000 - 900,000 refugees and 350,000 soldiers across the Baltic Sea
to Germany and German-occupied Denmark
. This was more than three times the number of people evacuated at Dunkirk.
On January 30, the Wilhelm Gustloff
, Hansa, and the whaling boat Walter Rau left the harbor at Gdynia
in occupied Poland
, bound for Kiel
. The Hansa was forced to return to port with mechanical trouble, but the Gustloff, with more than 10,000 people aboard, continued. She was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13
off the Pomeranian coast, with possibly as many as 9,400 fatalities, making this the worst maritime disaster in history. The East and West-Prussian refugees on the Walter Rau eventually made it to Eckernfoerde.
On February 9, the Steuben sailed from Pillau with between 3,000 and 4,000 mostly military personnel on board, heading for Swinemünde. She was also sunk by S-13, just after midnight; only 300 survived.
In early March, a task force composed of the heavy cruiser
Admiral Scheer accompanied by three destroyer
s and the T-36 torpedo boat
were giving cover to a German bridgehead near Wollin. During that operation, naval small craft managed to evacuate over 75,000 soldiers and civilians who had been isolated in that area. They were taken to larger warships and other transports lying offshore. While a number of these transports were sunk, large liner
s such as the Deutschland
managed to break through and carry up to 11,000 people each.
During the night of April 4-5, a flotilla of small boats and landing craft evacuated over 30,000 soldiers and civilians from the Oxhöfter Kämpe and took them to Hela
. It is estimated that nearly 265,000 people were evacuated from Gdańsk
to Hela during the month of April alone.
On April 15, another large convoy consisting of four liners and other transports left Hela with over 20,000 soldiers and civilians. On April 16, the Goya
was torpedoed and sunk by L-3
, with the loss of over 6,000 lives; 183 survived.
Initially, on his becoming President of Germany on May 1, Donitz was determined to continue the war, going so far as to instruct Colonel General Carl Hilpert
that combat troops would have priority in evacuation to Germany from the Courland Pocket
. It wasn't until the afternoon of May 6, with British troops practically on his doorstep, that he saw the writing on the wall.
From May 1 to May 8, over 150,000 people were evacuated from the beaches of Hela. At 21:00 on May 8, 1945, the last day of the war, a convoy consisting of 92 large and small vessels left the Latvia
n city of Liepāja
with 18,000 soldiers and civilians. While several hundred of those who had boarded small ships on the last day of the war or after were captured by Soviet MTBs, evacuations to the West continued for at least a week after all such movements were prohibited by the terms of the German surrender.
, Gustloff, and Steuben, 158 other merchant vessels were lost during the 15-week course of Operation Hannibal (January 23-May 8, 1945).
Military operation
Military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state's favor. Operations may be of combat or non-combat types, and are referred to by a code name for the purpose...
involving the evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from Courland
Courland Pocket
The Courland Pocket referred to the Red Army's blockade or encirclement of Axis forces on the Courland peninsula during the closing months of World War II...
, East Prussia
Evacuation of East Prussia
The evacuation of East Prussia refers to the evacuation of the German civilian population and military personnel in East Prussia and the Klaipėda region between 20 January, and March 1945, as part of the evacuation of German civilians towards the end of World War II...
, and the Polish Corridor
Polish Corridor
The Polish Corridor , also known as Danzig Corridor, Corridor to the Sea or Gdańsk Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia , which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from the province of East...
from mid-January to May, 1945 as the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
advanced during the East Prussian
East Prussian Offensive
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May...
and East Pomeranian Offensive
East Pomeranian Offensive
The East Pomeranian Strategic Offensive operation was an offensive by the Red Army in its fight against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front...
s and subsidiary operations.
The Soviet East Prussian Offensive
East Prussian Offensive
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May...
by 3rd Belorussian Front under Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky
Ivan Chernyakhovsky
Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, also Cherniakhovsky, ; Oksanina, Uman, Russian Empire , - Mehlsack, today Pieniężno, Poland, 18 February 1945) was a Soviet General of the Army , twice Hero of the Soviet Union, commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, who died from wounds received outside...
commenced on January 13, 1945 and, with Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky's
Konstantin Rokossovsky
Konstantin Rokossovskiy was a Polish-origin Soviet career officer who was a Marshal of the Soviet Union, as well as Marshal of Poland and Polish Defence Minister, who was famously known for his service in the Eastern Front, where he received high esteem for his outstanding military skill...
2nd Belorussian Front, subsequently cut off Prussia between January 23 and February 10, 1945. German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...
ordered General Admiral Oskar Kummetz
Oskar Kummetz
Oskar Kummetz was a Generaladmiral with the Kriegsmarine during World War II. He also served in the Kaiserliche Marine during World War I. Kummetz was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his actions in the Battle of Drøbak Sound, during which his command, the was sunk by Norwegian...
, as Naval High Commander, Baltic, and Rear Admiral Konrad Engelhardt, head of the Kriegmarine's
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
shipping department, to plan and execute the Rettungsaktion (evacuation operation). Donitz radioed a message to Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
in occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
on January 23, 1945, to begin evacuations to ports outside of the Soviet area of operations. The operation was codenamed "Hannibal". Dönitz stated in his post-war memoirs that his aim had been to evacuate as many people as possible away from the Soviets.
Right up until his suicide, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
insisted that the war go on. The flood of military personnel and refugees eventually turned the operation into one of the largest emergency evacuation
Emergency evacuation
Emergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or...
s by sea in history (over a period of 15 weeks, somewhere between 494 and 1,080 merchant vessels of all types, including fishing boats and other craft, and utilizing Germany's largest remaining naval units, would transport between 800,000 - 900,000 refugees and 350,000 soldiers across the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
to Germany and German-occupied Denmark
Occupation of Denmark
Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark began with Operation Weserübung on 9 April 1940, and lasted until German forces withdrew at the end of World War II following their surrender to the Allies on 5 May 1945. Contrary to the situation in other countries under German occupation, most Danish...
. This was more than three times the number of people evacuated at Dunkirk.
Operations
Operations commenced on January 23, 1945, running the gauntlet of British aerial-laid mines and Soviet aircraft, small naval units, and submarines operating in the Baltic. In the process of the evacuation, German navy ships bombarded Russian armor and infantry columns, firing more shells during the operation than they had in the previous five years of war and inflicting thousands of casualties on the pursuing Russians.On January 30, the Wilhelm Gustloff
Wilhelm Gustloff (ship)
The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German KdF flagship during 1937-1945, constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. It sank after being torpedoed by the Soviet submarine on 30 January 1945....
, Hansa, and the whaling boat Walter Rau left the harbor at Gdynia
Gdynia
Gdynia is a city in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland and an important seaport of Gdańsk Bay on the south coast of the Baltic Sea.Located in Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk and suburban communities, which together...
in occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, bound for Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
. The Hansa was forced to return to port with mechanical trouble, but the Gustloff, with more than 10,000 people aboard, continued. She was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine S-13
Soviet submarine S-13
S-13 was a Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky on 19 October 1938. She was launched on 25 April 1939 and commissioned on 31 July 1941 in the Baltic Fleet, under the command of Captain Pavel Malantyenko.-Service history:In the first half...
off the Pomeranian coast, with possibly as many as 9,400 fatalities, making this the worst maritime disaster in history. The East and West-Prussian refugees on the Walter Rau eventually made it to Eckernfoerde.
On February 9, the Steuben sailed from Pillau with between 3,000 and 4,000 mostly military personnel on board, heading for Swinemünde. She was also sunk by S-13, just after midnight; only 300 survived.
In early March, a task force composed of the heavy cruiser
Heavy cruiser
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range, high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 203mm calibre . The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, although the term 'heavy cruiser' only came into formal use in 1930...
Admiral Scheer accompanied by three destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s and the T-36 torpedo boat
Torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...
were giving cover to a German bridgehead near Wollin. During that operation, naval small craft managed to evacuate over 75,000 soldiers and civilians who had been isolated in that area. They were taken to larger warships and other transports lying offshore. While a number of these transports were sunk, large liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
s such as the Deutschland
SS Deutschland (1923)
SS Deutschland Sometimes called Deutschland IV to distinguish from others of the name was a 21,046 gross registered ton German HAPAG ocean liner which was sunk in a British air attack in 1945, with great loss of life....
managed to break through and carry up to 11,000 people each.
During the night of April 4-5, a flotilla of small boats and landing craft evacuated over 30,000 soldiers and civilians from the Oxhöfter Kämpe and took them to Hela
Hel Peninsula
Hel Peninsula |Nehrung]]) is a 35-km-long sand bar peninsula in northern Poland separating the Bay of Puck from the open Baltic Sea. It is located in Puck County of the Pomeranian Voivodeship.- Geography :...
. It is estimated that nearly 265,000 people were evacuated from Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
to Hela during the month of April alone.
On April 15, another large convoy consisting of four liners and other transports left Hela with over 20,000 soldiers and civilians. On April 16, the Goya
Goya (ship)
The Goya was a German transport ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea, near the end of the Second World War, while carrying wounded Wehrmacht troops and civilians who were fleeing the advance of Soviet forces. Most of the crew and passengers died...
was torpedoed and sunk by L-3
Soviet submarine L-3
The World War II Soviet submarine L-3 belonged to the L-class or Leninets class of minelayer submarines. It had been named Bolshevik and later Frunzenets, before it was decided that submarines should stop having names and carry numbers instead....
, with the loss of over 6,000 lives; 183 survived.
Initially, on his becoming President of Germany on May 1, Donitz was determined to continue the war, going so far as to instruct Colonel General Carl Hilpert
Carl Hilpert
Carl Hilpert was an officer in the German Army during World War II.Hilpert was born in Nuremberg, Bavaria....
that combat troops would have priority in evacuation to Germany from the Courland Pocket
Courland Pocket
The Courland Pocket referred to the Red Army's blockade or encirclement of Axis forces on the Courland peninsula during the closing months of World War II...
. It wasn't until the afternoon of May 6, with British troops practically on his doorstep, that he saw the writing on the wall.
From May 1 to May 8, over 150,000 people were evacuated from the beaches of Hela. At 21:00 on May 8, 1945, the last day of the war, a convoy consisting of 92 large and small vessels left the Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
n city of Liepāja
Liepaja
Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...
with 18,000 soldiers and civilians. While several hundred of those who had boarded small ships on the last day of the war or after were captured by Soviet MTBs, evacuations to the West continued for at least a week after all such movements were prohibited by the terms of the German surrender.
Losses
In addition to the GoyaGoya (ship)
The Goya was a German transport ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea, near the end of the Second World War, while carrying wounded Wehrmacht troops and civilians who were fleeing the advance of Soviet forces. Most of the crew and passengers died...
, Gustloff, and Steuben, 158 other merchant vessels were lost during the 15-week course of Operation Hannibal (January 23-May 8, 1945).
See also
- Cap ArconaSS Cap ArconaThe Cap Arcona was a large German luxury ocean liner, formerly of the Hamburg-South America line. It transported passengers between Germany and South America up until 1940 when it was taken over by the German Navy....
- GoyaGoya (ship)The Goya was a German transport ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea, near the end of the Second World War, while carrying wounded Wehrmacht troops and civilians who were fleeing the advance of Soviet forces. Most of the crew and passengers died...
- Wilhelm GustloffWilhelm Gustloff (ship)The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German KdF flagship during 1937-1945, constructed by the Blohm & Voss shipyards. It sank after being torpedoed by the Soviet submarine on 30 January 1945....
- Steuben
- List of World War II ships