CHAPTER ONE: “YOU HAVE TO GO ON THIS SHIP”
1. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans (London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), 61.
2. Edward A. Westermann, Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing War in the East (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas), 191.
3. Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 191.
4. “Nazis Fight for Time and Political Miracle,” New York Times, February 11, 1945, final ed.
5. Victor Shiff, “‘Last Fortress’ of the Nazis—in the Alps East of Switzerland Hitler’s Henchmen Are Expected to Make a Final Stand.” New York Times, February 11, 1945, final ed.
6. “Red Army Wins Elbing Port, Threatens Danzig Rail Line” New York Times, February 11, 1945, final ed.
7. Author email with Horst Woit, Kimberly, Ontario, July 25, 2007.
8. National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/central-plains/kansas-city/finding-aids/lincoln-naturalization.html, last accessed May 16, 2012.
9. Cindy-Lang Kubick, “Lincoln Woman Survived Refugee Boat Sinking,” Lincoln Journal Star, January 28, 2006, final ed.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Author interview with Eva Dorn Rothschild, Ascona, Switzerland, April 16, 2012.
13. Milda Bendrich letter to Inge Roedecker, June 9, 1981, courtesy of Inge Bendrich Roedecker.
14. Author telephone interview with Inge Roedecker, March 9, 2012.
15. Kater, Hitler Youth, 88.
16. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007, letter to author as well as clipping of: Robert Dolgan, “30 Years Can’t Erase Vision of Ship Sinking,” Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH.
17. Author telephone conversation with Peter Petrus, Sept. 8, 2011.
18. Author interview with Rita Rowand, Washington, DC, January 29, 2012.
19. Kater, Hitler Youth. 44-45.
20. Inge Salk diary entry, diary courtesy of Rita Rowand.
21. Letter from Walter Salk to parents January 14, 1945, courtesy of Rita Rowand.
22. Author interview with Irene Tschinkur East and Ellen Tschinkur Maybee, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 4, 2012.
23. Author email with Irene East, March 29, 2012.
24. Author interview with Irene East and Ellen Maybee, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 4, 2012.
25. Ibid.
26. Author interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2012.
27. Max Egremont, Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011), 40.
28. Author interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2012.
CHAPTER TWO: HITLER’S HOSTAGES: LIFE IN THE EASTERN TERRITORIES
1. Ursula Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival: Working Through a Nazi Childhood (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 75.
2. Author interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2011.
3. Laurence Steinhardt to Cordell Hull, September 9, 1939. FRUS, 861.20/481, 779-780, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, DC.
4. Gunther telegram to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, 9/16/39, Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, Record Group 59, Stack 250.740.0011 European War, 1939/332, NARA, Washington, DC.
5. Cordell Hull to Joseph Kennedy, September 1, 1939, FRUS, 740.00116 European War 1939/19a, 541-542. NARA, Washington, DC.
6. Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: Hill & Wang, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), 448-449.
7. “Baltic Germans Arrive in Danzig: More than 2,000 from Latvia and Estonia land over the weekend from 3 ships,” New York Times. October 31, 1939, final ed.
8. Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 34-35.
9. Kater, Hitler Youth, 14.
10. Author interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2011.
11. Gunther to Cordell Hull, conveying a telegram from Ambassador Anthony J. Dresel Biddle Jr., FRUS, 740.00116 European War 1939/61, 554-555, NARA, Washington, DC.
12. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, Perseus Book Group, 2010), 126.
13. Ruth Weintraub, video testimony, RG 50.155 #03 US Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Washington, DC.
14. Michael Burleigh, Moral Combat: Good and Evil In World War Two (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 145.
15. Snyder, Bloodlands, 131.
16. Stanislaw Jaskolski, Come with Me and Visit Hell, trans. Jakub Przedzienkowski, Kindle ed., http://www.amazon.com/Come-With-Visit-Hell-ebook/dp/B005CM1TZ6, last accessed April 17, 2012.
17. Marke Orski, Des Francais au camp de concentration de Stutthof, Gdansk: Muzeum Stutthof w Sztutowie: 1995. Note: Of the 13 Americans imprisoned in Stutthof, 5 were Jewish and 8 were US citizens of Polish origin.
18. Jaskolski, Come with Me.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Marian Kampinski, testimony, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.
22. Max Egremont, Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2011), 272.
23. Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, phone interview with author, January 5, 2012.
24. This and subsequent recollections of Helga Reuter Knickerbocker from author’s interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, November 6, 2011, Las Vegas, NV, and email and phone correspondence.
25. Victor Schiff, “‘Last Fortress’ of the Nazis—In the Alps East of Switzerland Hitler’s Henchmen are Expected to Make a Final Stand,” New York Times, February 11, 1945, final ed.
26. The History Place, http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/hitleryouth/hj-prelude.htm, last accessed May 4, 2012.
27. Edward A. Westermann, Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 129.
28. This and subsequent recollections of Irene Tschinkur East and Ellen Tschinkur Maybee from author’s interview December 5-6, 2011, and email and phone correspondence.
29. Kater, Hitler Youth, 19.
30. This and subsequent recollections of Eva Dorn, from author’s interview with Eva Dorn Rothschild, Ascona, Switzerland, April 15, 2012.
31. Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939-1945, foreword by Jak P. Mailmann Showell (London, UK: Chatham Publishing, 2005) 172.
32. Andrew Nagorski, The Greatest Battle; Stalin, Hitler and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow that Changed the Course of World War Two (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 91.
33. Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival,106.
34. Burleigh, Moral Combat, 240.
35. As quoted in Prit Buttar, Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front, 1944-1945 (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2010), 77.
36. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Prussian Nights, A Poem,” trans. by Robert Conquest (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974.)
37. Ibid.
38. Propaganda leaflet distributed to Red Army soldiers at time of East Prussian offensive.
39. Victor Schiff, “‘Last Fortress’ of the Nazis, New York Times, February 11, 1945, final ed.
40. David Welch. The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, 2nd ed. (Abingdon Oxon, Canada: Routledge, 1993), 138.
41. Bernt Engelmann, In Hitler’s Germany: Everyday Life in the Third Reich, trans. Krishna Winston (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 284.
42. Submarine Gazette, IV, 9, February 26, 1944, Submarine Force Library and Museum, Groton, CT.
43. John Toland, The Last 100 Days (New York: Random House, 1976), 1.
44. Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, eds., The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler’s Personal Aides (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 41.
45. Westermann, Hitler’s Police Battalions, 222, 242-243.
46. Alexander Werth, Russia at War: 1941-1945 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1964), 701.
47. Dora Love, testimony of Dora Love on life at Stutthof, Shoah Resource Center, International School for Holocaust Studies Source, Yad Vashem Archives 0.3-7504
48. Toland, The Last 100 Days, 3.
49. Ibid., 3.
50. Record Group 226 OSS Box 136 A-1 Stockholm-MO-OP-5 Folder 2309, NARA, Washington, DC.
51. “There’s No Stopping the Russians,” Submarine Gazette, IV, 14, April 1, 1944, Box 157, Submarine Force Library & Museum, Naval Submarine Base, New London, CT.
52. Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans (London, Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), 62.
53. As quoted in Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival, 181.
54. From report on conditions in Denmark about November 15, 1944 to Headquarters, from Stockholm, December 8, 1944. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 13 Folder 210 Stockholm-SO-INT-2, NARA, Washington, DC.
55. “12-mile Gain in East; Russians Turn German Defense in North,” New York Times, January 30, 1945, final ed.
CHAPTER THREE: OPERATION HANNIBAL AND THE CROWN OF THE FLEET, THE WILHELM GUSTLOFF
1. Karl Dönitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, trans. R.H. Stevens with David Woodward (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 431.
2. Ibid., 433.
3. Ibid., 433.
4. Kurt Reitsch, attaché German embassy in Ankara, Turkey, writing to Admiral Conrad Englehardt, January 26, 1965. Ost-Dok. 4/21, Bundesarchiv, Lastenausgleichsarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
5. Dönitz, Memoirs, 466.
6. “Reich Besieged: Black Days for Hitler,” New York Times, February 4, 1945, final ed.
7. Dönitz, Memoirs, 432-435.
8. Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz and The Baltic Sea—The Third Reich’s Last Hope 1944-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 195.
9. Ibid., 196.
10. Excerpt from report #146, Dr. Med. Peter Siegel, Homburg-Saar, Univ.-Franenkink. Ost-Dok. 4/1 Bundesarchiv, Lastenausgleichsarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
11. Dönitz, Memoirs, 466.
12. “Student Admits to Killing Nazi Chief,” New York Times, December 10, 1936, final ed.
13. “No Speedy Revenge Expected,” New York Times, February 12, 1936, final ed.
14. David Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion Under Nazism (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), 80.
15. “Nazi’s Slayer Is Freed,” New York Times, June 2, 1945, final ed.
16. Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, vol. 2 (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1992), 751.
17. “Hitler Takes Up Jew’s Challenge. At Gustloff Funeral He Says They Have created a New Nazi Martyr,” New York Times, February 13, 1936, final ed.
18. David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda, 2nd ed. (Oxon, Canada: Routledge, 1993), 69-70.
19. Bernt Englemann, In Hitler’s Germany: Everyday in the Third Reich, trans. Krishna Winston (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 60-61.
20. Shelley Baranowski, Strength Through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 132.
21. Eiber Ludwig, ed. KZ-Aussenlager Blohm und Voss im Hamberger KZGedenkstätte Neuengamme, Karin Schawe, site administrator, http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/index.php?id=940, last accessed March 5, 2012.
22. Baranowski, Strength Through Joy, 153.
23. Welch, The Third Reich, 114.
24. Ibid., 60.
25. “Nazis Launch Ocean Liner for Workers on Vacation,” wireless to New York Times. May 6, 1937, final ed.
26. “Ship Captain Dies at Sea: Master of German Vacation Vessel Victim of Heart Disease,” New York Times, April 24, 1938, final ed.
27. British Official Wireless—London—Aug 12, Sydney Morning Herald: August 13, 1938, p 11.
28. Germans From England—“JA” On a Special Trip Out to Sea,” Life Magazine, May 2, 1938, vol. 4, no. 18, 20-21.
29. “Reich’s Cruise Ships Held Potential Plane Carriers,” special cable to New York Times, May 1, 1938, final ed.
30. Paul Vollrath, “Tragedy of the ‘Wilhelm Gustloff,” Seabreezes: the Magazine of Ships and the Sea, vol. 55, no. 424 (Liverpool, England), April 1981, 225.
31. Ibid., 226.
32. Ibid., 226.
33. Ibid., 226.
34. Ibid., 226.
35. Ibid., 227.
CHAPTER FOUR: “WE KNEW WE HAD TO GET OUT”
1. Author email with Horst Woit, April 30, 2008.
2. Author email with Horst Woit, July 30, 2007.
3. “Vain Efforts to Halt Soviet Advance, Germans Fortifying Berlin,” The Advocate, January 27, 1945, final ed., http:/www.trove.nla.gov.au./ndp/del/article/68912009, last accessed June 12, 2012.
4. Author email with Irene Tschinkur East, July 2, 2012.
5. Ruth Weintraub testimony, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 76-77.
6. Author interview with Horst Woit, August 2007.
7. Prit Buttar, Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany’s Eastern Front: 1944-1945 (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2010), 138-146; Eva Kretein, Eva’s War: A True Story of Survival (Albuquerque, NM: Amador Publishers, 1990), 12-16.
8. Juergen Thorwald, Defeat in the East (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), 70.
9. “Russians Disdainful of Fawning Germans; East Prussians Quickly Shed Arrogance,” New York Times, February 1, 1945, final ed.
10. James Charles Roy, The Vanished Kingdom: Travels Through the History of Prussia (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 235.
11. Henrik Eberle, and Matthias Uhl, eds., The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler’s Personal Aides (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), 139.
12. Author telephone call with Horst Woit, March 7, 2012.
13. Ursula Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival: Working Through a Nazi Childhood (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 2.
14. Mahlendorf, Shame,103.
15. Author interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2011.
16. Life Magazine, May 2, 1938, vol. 4, no. 18, 39.
17. Milda Bendrich letter to Inge Roedecker.
18. Author telephone interview with Inge Roedecker, March 9, 2012.
19. Stockholms-Tidningen newspaper, January 24, 1945, as quoted in Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 (New York: Macmillan, 2004), 318.
20. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 13 Folder 210 Stockholm-SO-INT-2, NARA, Washington, DC.
21. Record Group 226 OSS Field Station files Box 136 Folder 2305 A-1 Stockholm-MO-OP-1, NARA, Washington, DC.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. As quoted in Thorwald, Defeat in the East, 14.
25. September 13, 1944, Record Group 226, Box 136, folder 2305 A-1 Stockholm-MO-OP-1, NARA, Washington, DC.
26. As quoted in Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009), 73.
27. Eberle and Uhl, The Hitler Book,166.
28. Eberle, The Hitler Book, 181.
29. “Russians Sweep On–Break Obra River Line in 21-mile Smash into Reich,” New York Times, January 31, 1945, final ed.
30. Ibid.
31. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 318.
32. As quoted in Richard Bessel, Germany 1945: From War to Peace, 73.
33. Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 326.
34. Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany: 1944-1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 179.
35. 740.001 European War 1939/12390: Telegram, 153, Chargé d’affairs Berlin, Leland B. Morris to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, June 23, 1941. NARA, Washington, DC.
36. Record Group 226 OSS Box 136 A-1 Stockholm-MO-OP-5 Folder 2309, NARA, Washington, DC.
37. Record Group 226 OSS Box 136 A-1 Stockholm-MO-OP-5 Folder 2309, NARA, Washington, DC.
38. Maria Soszynska, testimony US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.
39. Ruth Weintraub Kurt, video testimony, RG 50.155 #03 US Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Washington, DC.
40. Stanislaw Jaskolski, Come with Me and Visit Hell, trans. Jakub Przedzienkowski, published by Jakub Przedzienkowski, July 2010, available as ebook only, www.amazon.com/Come-With-Visit-Hell-ebook/dp/B005CM1TZ6.
41. W.H. Lawrence, “1,000 Poles slain as foe quit Lodz. Prisoners massacred methodically before dawn as Russians neared,” New York Times, February 5, 1945, final ed.
42. Kershaw, The End, xvii.
CHAPTER FIVE: SAVING A SCUTTLED REPUTATION
1. Marcin Jamkowski, “Ghost Ship Found,” National Geographic, February 2005, http://ngm.nationalgreographic.com/features/world/europe/balticsea /steuben/text?source-ge.
2. V.I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13, Ost-Dok. 4/64, 67. Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
3. Timothy Snyder. “Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Killed More?” New York Times, March 10, 2011.
4. Jamkowski, “Ghost Ship Found.”
5. Martin J. Bollinger, Stalin’s Slave Ships: Kolyma, the Gulag Fleet, and the Role of the West (Westport, CT: Praeger Press, 2003), 86.
6. Norman Polmar and Jurrien Noot, Submarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718-1990 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 83.
7. V. I. Dimitriev writing to Schön “in order to choose a precious object for his attack” on the subject of the S-13.
8. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 100, 108, 109.
9. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 102, 109.
10. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 13, Folder 212 Stockholm-SO-INT-2. NARA, Washington, DC. Various dispatches including October 26, 1944, October 28, 1944, November 3, 1944, January 15, 1945 speak to the new U-boats.
11. Victor Korzh, Red Star Under the Baltic: A First Hand Account of Life on Board a Soviet Submarine in World War Two, trans. Clare Burstall and Vladimir Kisselnikov (South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword Maritime, Pen and Sword Books, 2004).
12. V.I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13.
13. Jamkowski, “Ghost Ship Found.”
14. V. I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13.
15. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 132.
16. Victor Korzh, Red Star, 31.
17. Polmar and Noot, Submarines,133.
18. Korzh, Red Star, 31.
19. “Wilhelm Gustloff German Hospital Ship Sunk,” Mercantile Marine, https://sites.google.com/a/mercantilemarine.org/mercantile-marine/War-time-Stories/german, last accessed March 17, 2010.
20. Ibid.
21. USSR S-13 of the Soviet Navy–Submarine of the S (Stalinet) class–Allied Warships of WW2–uboat.net, http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5098.html, last accessed February 12, 2012.
22. Ibid.
23. Korzh, Red Star, 69.
24. V.I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13.
25. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 (New York: Macmillan, 2004), 328.
26. “Order of the People’s Commissar of the USSR Navy, April 9, 1939, No. 0161 Moscow–Confidential/Declassified, 73, Submarine Force Library and Museum, Groton, CT.
27. Ibid., 7.
28. Ibid.
29. Testimony of Admiral Karl Dönitz during Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, May 9, 1946, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/05-09-46.asp, last accessed May 17, 2012.
30. Ibid., 81.
31. Ibid., 81.
32. The words on the torpedoes were covered in Paul Vollrath’s memoir, in V.I Dimitriev’s letters, and other websites noted in the bibliography.
33. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 92.
34. David Ritchie, Shipwrecks: An Encylopedia of the World’s Worst Disasters at Sea (New York: FactsOnFile, Infobase Holdings Co., 1996), 208.
35. Ritchie, Shipwrecks, 208.
CHAPTER SIX: BATTLE FOR THE BALTIC
1. Dönitz, Karl Dönitz. Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, trans. R. H. Stevens with David Woodward (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 398-399.
2. Victor Korzh, Red Star Under the Baltic: A First-hand account of Life on Board a Soviet Submarine in World War Two, trans. Clare Burstall and Vladimir Kisselnikov (South Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2004), xxii.
3. Führer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939-1945, foreword by Jak P. Mallmann Showell (London: Chatham Publishing, 2005; Greenhill Books, 2006), 39.
4. Spencer C. Tucker, ed., Naval Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (Oxford, England: ABC-Clio, 2002), 324-325.
5. Führer Conferences, 39.
6. Peter Padfield, War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict During World War II (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), 3.
7. Tucker, Naval Warfare, xxxi.
8. Führer Conferences, 32.
9. Ibid., 22-24.
10. Vice Admiral Freidrich Ruge, Der Seekrieg, The German Navy’s Story 1939-1945, (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1957), 99-100.
11. Ibid.
12. Norman Polmar and Jurrien Noot, Submarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718-1990 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 75.
13. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 74.
14. Ibid., 98.
15. Führer Conferences, 143.
16. Ibid., 80.
17. Dönitz, Memoirs, 209.
18. Führer Conferences, 277.
19. Dönitz, Memoirs, 373.
20. Tillmann Tegeler, “The Expulsion of the German Speakers from Baltic Countries,” 71-81, in Steffan Prauser and Arfon Rees, eds., The Expulsion of ‘German’ Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War EUI working paper No. 2004/1. (European University Institute, Florence, Italy, Department of History and Civilization. http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/2599/HEC04-01.pdf;jsessionid=2560C0CC62 EDC882D47D022A3B59A335?sequence=1, last accessed June 13, 2012.
21. Führer Conferences, 236.
22. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 98.
23. Ibid., 102, 236.
24. Dönitz, Memoirs,153.
25. US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Laurence A. Steinhardt, Moscow, to Sec. State Cordell Hull, October 4, 1939, NARA, Washington, DC.
26. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 13 Folder 218 Stockholm-SO-INT-2, September 29, 1944, NARA, Washington, DC.
27. Howard D. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea–The Third Reich’s Last Hope 1944-1945 (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2007), 10.
28. Fürher Conferences, 233.
29. Ibid., 222.
30. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 103.
31. Ibid., 108.
32. Führer Conferences, 289.
33. Korzh, Red Star, 5.
34. Polmar and Noot, Submarine, 109.
35. Submarine Gazette, vol. IV, no. 5, January 29, 1944, Submarine Force Library and Museum, Groton, CT.
36. Ibid.
37. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 108.
38. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 13 Folder 212 Stockholm-SO-INT-2, To – Digit London, dispatched 16.40, January 15, 1945, NARA, Washington, DC.
39. “Order of the People’s Commissar of the USSR Navy, April 9, 1939, No. 0161 Moscow—Confidential/Declassified; Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 97.
40. Polmar and Noot, Submarines, 99.
41. Ibid.
42. Grier, Hitler, Dönitz, and the Baltic Sea, 11.
43. Führer Conferences, 176.
CHAPTER SEVEN: CHAOS ON DECK
1. Excerpt from report #146 by Dr. Med. Peter Siegel, Homburg-Saar, Univ.-Franenkink, Ost-Dok, 4/1 Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
2. This and subsequent recollections of Eva Dorn come from author’s interview with Eva Dorn in Ascona, Switzerland April 16, 2012.
3. Paul Vollrath, “Tragedy of the ‘Wilhelm Gustloff,” Seabreezes: the Magazine of Ships and the Sea, April 1981, vol. 55, no. 424, Liverpool, England, 228-229.
4. Max Hastings, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 (New York: Macmillan, 2004), 328.
5. Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 455.
6. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007, letter to author as well as clipping of: Robert Dolgan, “30 Years Can’t Erase Vision of Ship Sinking,” Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH.
7. Ibid.
8. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 227.
9. Ibid., 227-228.
10. This and subsequent recollections from Horst Woit come from author’s interview with Horst Woit in Kimberly, Ontario, August 2007, as well as email and telephone correspondence since 2007.
11. Eva Dorn interview with author, April 15, 2012, Ascona, Switzerland.
12. Hastings, Armageddon, 328.
13. Juergen Thorwald, Defeat in the East: Russia Conquers–January to May 1945 (New York: Bantam Books,1980), 7, 8, 50. Also see Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).
14. Heinz Schön, SOS Wilhelm Gustloff, Die größte Schiffskatastrophe der Geschichte (Stuttgart: Motor buch Verlag, 1998), 6-11.
15. Ibid.
16. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 228.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. This and subsequent recollections from Helga Reuter Knickerbocker are from author’s interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, November 6, 2012.
20. Author interview with Horst Woit, Kimberly, Ontario, August 2007.
21. This and subsequent reflections from Ellen Tschinkur Maybee from author’s interview with Ellen Tschinkur Maybee, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 5-6, 2011.
22. Cindy Lange-Kubick, “Lincoln Woman Survived Refugee Boat Sinking, Lincoln Journal Star, January 28, 2006, final ed.
23. Testimony of Wilhelm Zahn to German naval board of inquiry, February 4, 1945, Ost-Dok, 4/64 Bundesarchiv, Beyreuth, Germany.
24. David Ritchie, Shipwrecks: An Encyclopedia of the World’s Worst Disasters at Sea (New York: FactsOnFile, Infobase Holdings Co, 1996), 243.
25. Wilhelm Zahn to Naval Board of Inquiry, February 4, 1945, Ost-Dok. 4/64, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
26. Testimony Harry Weller, captain and survivor, Ost-Dok 4/1, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
27. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony in July 10, 2007 letter to author.
28. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 229.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Robert Jackson, Battle of the Baltic: The Wars of 1918–1945 (South Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Books, 2007), 176.
32. V.I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13, Ost-Dok. 4/64, 67, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
33. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 230.
CHAPTER EIGHT: PLUMMETING TO THE SEA FLOOR
1. This and subsequent recollections from Irene Tschinkur East from author’s interview with Irene Tschinkur East, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 5-6, 2011, as well as email correspondence from December 2011 to present.
2. Adolf Hitler radio address to German Folk Project Muse, Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with Milton S. Eisenhower Library, http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781603444415, last accessed March 7, 2012.
3. This and subsequent recollections from Helga Reuter Knickerbocker from author’s interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2011.
4. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 231.
5. Wilhelm Zahn to board of inquiry, February 4, 1945, Ost-Dok, 4/64 Bundesarchiv, Beyreuth, Germany.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. This and subsequent recollections from Milda Bendrich’s letter to her daughter Inge Roedecker, July 1981.
9. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007, letter to author as well as clipping of: Robert Dolgan, “30 Years Can’t Erase Vision of Ship Sinking,” Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH.
10. Ibid.
11. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 231.
12. Ibid.
13. Alfred Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1986).
14. Cindy Lange-Kubick, “Lincoln Woman Survived Refugee Boat Sinking,” Lincoln Journal Star, January 28, 2006, final ed.
15. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 232.
16. Author interview with Inge Roedecker, March 9, 2012.
17. Ibid.
18. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007 letter to author.
19. This and subsequent recollections from Eva Dorn Rothschild from author’s interview with Eva Dorn, April 16, 2016, Ascona, Switzerland.
20. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 231.
21. Eva Dorn interview with author, April 16, 2012, Ascona, Switzerland.
22. Vollrath, Seabreezes, 232.
CHAPTER NINE: THE LITTLE RED SWEATER
1. Paul Vollrath, “The Tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff,” Seabreezes: the Magazine of Ships and the Sea, April 1981, vol. 55, no. 424, 1981. 232.
2. Excerpt from report #146 by Dr. Med. Peter Siegel, Homburg-Saar, Univ.-Franenkink, Ost-Dok. 4/1, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
3. This and subsequent recollections from Helga Reuter Knickerbocker are from author’s interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, NV, November 6, 2011.
4. Capt. Heinz Vollmers of the MS Gotenland writing to Adm. Conrad Englehardt. 1945. Ost-Dok. 4/76, 124-125, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
5. Excerpt from report #146 by Dr. Med. Peter Siegel, Homburg-Saar, Univ.-Franenkink, Ost-Dok. 4/1, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
6. Letter from Maj. Erich Schirmack to Adm. Conrad Englehardt, October 27, 1965, Ost-Dok. 4/76, 127, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
7. Heinz Schön correspondence, Ost-Dok. 4/64, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
8. Paul Vollrath, Seabreezes, 234.
9. Ibid., 234.
10. Author interview with Horst Woit, Kimberly, Ontario, August 2007.
11. Heinz Schön correspondence, Ost-Dok. 4/64, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
12. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007, letter to author as well as clipping of: Robert Dolgan, “30 Years Can’t Erase Vision of Ship Sinking,” Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH.
13. This and subsequent recollections from Irene Tschinkur East are from author’s interview with Irene Tschinkur East, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 5-6, 2011, and email correspondence thereafter.
14. Author telephone interview with Inge Bendrich Roedecker, March 9, 2012.
15. “Report about refugee transports out of Gotenhafen, January, February, March, 1945,” Ost-Dok. 4/21, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
16. “RAF Hits Dresden Heavy Night Blow: 1,400 Planes Also Attack Oil Plant Near Leipzig and Targets in Magdeburg, New York Times, February 14, 1945, final ed.
17. This and subsequent recollections from Eva Dorn Rothschild are from author’s interview with Eva Dorn Rothschild, Ascona, Switzerland, April 16, 2012.
CHAPTER TEN: THE FORGOTTEN STORY
1. Adm. Karl Dönitz, “Uber die Teilnalme des Ob.d.M. an der Führerlage,” Jan. 31, 1945, 4 pm., Ost-Dok. 4/3, 149-150, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
2. Heinz Schön addresses the problem of the numbers in his book SOS Wilhelm Gustloff Die größte Schiffskatastrophe der Geschichte (Stuttgart: Motor buch Verlag, 1998).
3. “German Liner Seen Sunk: Finnish Radio Says Only 1,000 of 8,700 Aboard Were Saved,” New York Times, February 19, 1945, final ed.
4. “6,000 Died in Wartime Sinking,” New York Times, January 31, 1955, final ed.
5. “Nachricthen Für Die Truppe,” February 19, 1945, seite 4.
6. Ibid.
7. Karl Dönitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, trans. R.H. Stevens, David Woodward (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), 466.
8. Karl Dönitz, “Uber die Teilnalme des Ob.d.M. an der Führerlage,” Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
9. Dönitz, Memoirs, 153.
10. Wilhelm Zahn testimony before the board of inquiry, February 4, 1945, Ost-Dok. F-64, Bundesarchiv, Beyreuth, Germany.
11. Englehardt to Hering, November 24, 1964, Ost-Dok. 4/64, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
12. Englehardt to Hering, November 17, 1965, Ost-Dok. 4/64, Bundesarchiv, Bayreuth, Germany.
13. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 318.
14. Felice Fey, email correspondence with author, October 17, 2011.
15. Alfred Maurice de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam: The Anglo-Americans and the Expulsion of the Germans, Background, Execution, Consequences (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977), 13.
16. “‘World’s Oldest’ Shipwreck found in the Baltic Sea,” Baltic News Network, July 16, 2011, http://bnn-news.com/world’s-oldest-shipwreck-baltic-sea-32412, last accessed March 14, 2012.
17. Author interview with Mike Boring, telephone, January 17, 2012.
18. Ibid.
19. Christian Caryl, “Not Forever Amber: Treasure Hunters Seek a Golden Room,” US News & World Report, July 4, 2000, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/amber.htm, last accessed March 8, 2012.
20. Record Group 226 OSS E125 Box 135 Folder 216 Stockholm-SO-INT-2, October 26, 1944, NARA, Washington, DC.
21. Record Group 226 OSS E125, Box 13, Folder 212, Stockholm-SO-INT-2, To – Digit London, dispatched 16.40, January 15, 1945. NARA, Washington, DC.
22. Battle Cry, July 8, 1958.
23. Elisabeth Noelle Neumann, The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion, Our Social Skin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 27.
24. Ibid., 29.
25. Henrik Eberle, Henrik and Matthias Uhl, eds., The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler’s Personal Aides (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), xv.
26. Gertrud Mackprang Baer, “Germans Wrestle with the Culture of Memory,” The Toronto Star, April 29, 2005, A25.
27. Ursula Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival, Working Through a Nazi Childhood (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 10.
28. As quoted in Neumann, The Spiral of Silence, 77.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “WE HAD TO GET OVER IT”
1. Rose Rezas Petrus testimony included in July 10, 2007, letter to author as well as clipping of: Robert Dolgan, “30 Years Can’t Erase Vision of Ship Sinking,” Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH.
2. Albert Schweitzer, “The Problem of Peace,” Nobel Lecture, November 4, 1954, Oslo, Norway, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1952/schweitzer-lecture.html, last accessed May 17, 2012.
3. The 1945 Potsdam Conference (1945) allowed for the mass expulsion of the German population from Czechoslovakia and from the territories given over to Russian and Polish administration.
4. Marcin Jamkowski, “Ghost Ship Found,” National Geographic, February 2005, http://ngm.nationalgreographic.com/features/world/europe/balticsea/steuben/text?source-ge; V. I. Dimitriev writing to Heinz Schön on the subject of the S-13. Ost-Dok. 4/64, 67, Bundesarchiv, Beyreuth, Germany.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Jury Lebedev, Deputy Director of the A.I. Marinesko Museum of the Russian Underwater Forces, as quoted in Sergey Glezerov, “The Heroic Deed of Marinesko and the Tragedy of the German Gustloff,” http://rusnavy.com/history/events/marinesko.htm?print=Y, last accessed September 7, 2012.
9. Author email correspondence with Horst Woit, May 8, 2008.
10. Ursula Mahlendorf, The Shame of Survival. Working Through a Nazi Childhood (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), 220.
11. Jefferson Caffery, Ambassador to France, to Cordell Hull, April 14, 1945, FRUS, 1945, vol. 3, 935, NARA, Washington, DC.
12. Author email correspondence with Horst Woit, September 26, 2011.
13. Simon Rees, German POWs and the Art of Survival, Weider History Group, Historynet.com, published online July 17, 2007.
14. Author email correspondence with Horst Woit, May 4, 2008.
15. This and subsequent recollections of Irene Tschinkur East come from author’s interview with Irene Tschinkur East, Tecumseh, Ontario, December 5-6, 2011.
16. This and subsequent recollections of Helga Reuter Knickerbocker are from author’s interview with Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, Las Vegas, November 6, 2011.
17. Author telephone interview with Inge Roedecker, March 9, 2012.
18. “Nine German Refugees Figure in Sea Drama. Over a Thousand Miles in 32-foot Yacht. Afraid of Another War. Exhausted on Arrival at Checkpoint,” Waterford News, August 27, 1948, 6.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Elmear Ni Bhraonain, “Son charged with killing his mother bids a final farewell,” Irish Independent, March 14, 2012, final ed.
22. Letter courtesy of Rita Rowand.
23. Salk confirmation courtesy of Rita Rowand.
24. Cindy Lange-Kubick, “Lincoln Woman Survived Refugee Boat Sinking,” Lincoln Journal Star, January 28, 2006, final ed.
25. Obituary of Leonilla Zobs, Lincoln Journal Star, March 22, 2011, final ed.