Panic gave way to death as thousands of people succumbed to hypothermia. Many had died before the ship sank, choosing suicide over drowning. Of the many nurses on board the
Gustloff, only a few survived. Dr. Hans Ritter, a survivor, reported what he saw:
The Gustloff had disappeared beneath the waves. But all around me were the bodies, like dark, pitiful rag bundles - some crying, some praying, some screaming.
In the freezing water, Karl Hoffman was sure he would also die.
I jumped into the water, swimming quickly away from the ship so that the suction would not carry me into the depths. At first I did not feel the icy cold of the water at all. I grabbed the side of a fully loaded lifeboat and held on for dear life...Death screams and cries for help filled the air. Two children who were still alive clung solidly on to me and screamed for their mother. I lifted them the best I could into the crowded lifeboat. If they were later rescued, I cannot say.
Trying to stay alive in the water, Hoffman fought back the ice and death. He, and about 550 others, were rescued by T-36, a German torpedo boat. On board the rescue ship, people died of exposure and exhaustion. Three babies were born on
T-36 that night. (The rescue ship itself sank on May 5, 1945 after it was bombed by Russian planes.)
As Hoffman related what he and fellow crew members did to save civilians, he also commented on his service in the German Navy:
We, the almost 1,000 survivors, had escaped death one more time. We members of the Germany Navy were comrades, loved our homeland, and believed we were doing the right thing through our service. None of us wanted to be heroes, and we do not honor our casualties as such, only as human beings who had done their duty according to the oath they had taken.
Captain Marinesko and his S-13 crew had not exhausted their supply of torpedoes. Not many days later, S-13 struck again.