When trains arrived from Danzig with the families of 500 high ranking Nazis in the civil administration, Koch wanted them prioritized for the evacuation ships, but Dönitz refused. Admiral Karl Dönitz felt that the earlier the evacuation took place, the better its chance of success, a reasonable assumption. He wanted the evacuation postponed as long as possible. The local “Reichs Defense Commissar,” Gauleiter Eric Koch, was an ardent Nazi who didn’t want to appear weak in the eyes of the Führer. Nazi Party officials haggled with the Navy over who was in charge of Hannibal, about the precise start date, even about who was to be rescued first. The last months of the Third Reich featured scenes of unimaginable confusion, and this was no exception. When they arrived in Pillau, these refugees found not salvation, but chaos. This was human misery on a grand scale, reminiscent of what had happened to Soviet civilians during the German invasion of 1941. The trek was a harrowing one, replete with sub-zero temperatures, blizzards, and Soviet air attacks. Here, rumor had it, they would be evacuated to the west. They were making for the coast, for the safety of the ports Pillau or Gotenhafen. German refugees were on the road in the winter of 1944-45, great columns of men, women, and children, desperate to flee as the onrushing Soviets overran their homes. Image courtesy of the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum. The Wilhelm Gustloff underway not long after it was launched in May 1937.
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