Operation Hannibal

Operation Hannibal was a German military operation involving the withdrawal of German troops and civilians from East Prussia from mid-January 1945 as the Soviet Red Army advanced during the East Pomeranian Offensive.

By early January 1945, Karl Dönitz had realized that Germany was soon to be defeated and, wishing to save his submariners, had radioed a coded message on January 23 to Gdynia (Gotenhafen) to flee to the west and the operation was codenamed "Hannibal." Doenitz's avowed aim had been to evacuate as many people as possible away from the Soviets.

However, as late as April 1945, Adolf Hitler believed the war had to go on. The flood of refugees eventually turned the operation into one of the largest emergency evacuations by sea in history (over a period of five months, somewhere between 494 and 1,080 merchant vessels of all types and numerous naval craft, including Germany's largest remaining naval units, would transport over two million refugees and soldiers across the Baltic Sea to Germany^[1].

Operation

In early March, a task force comprised of the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer accompanied by three destroyers 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 refugees and soldiers who had been isolated in that area. They were taken to larger warships and other transports lying offshore. While a number of large transports were sunk, large liners 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 refugees and soldiers from the Oxhöfter Kämpe and took them to Hela. It is estimated that nearly 265,000 people were evacuated from Gdańsk (German: Danzig) to Hela during the month of April alone.^[2] On April 15, another large convoy consisting of four liners and other transports left Hela with over 20,000 refugees and soldiers. 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 Latvian city of Liepāja (Libau) with 18,000 soldiers and civilians.^[3] While several hundred of those who had boarded small ships on the last day of the war or later were captured by Soviet MTBs, evacuations to the West continued for at least a week after the end of the war.

Notes

1. ^ Williams, David, Wartime Disasters at Sea, Patrick Stephens Limited, Nr Yeovil, UK, 1997, p.225 (figure of 494 merchant vessels); Brustat-Naval, Fritz, Unternehmen Rettung, Koehlers Verlagsgeschellshaft, Herford, Germany, 1985, p.240 (figure of 790 vessels of all types); Koburger, Charles W., Steel Ships, Iron Crosses, and Refugees, Praeger Publishers, NY, 1989, p.92 (figure of 1,080 merchant vessels).

1. ^ Operation Hannibal, January - May 1945