German Liner Wilhelm Gustloff, 1945

It’s probably safe to say that few people have ever heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff, making it reasonable to ask why it would make it into my top ten most famous shipwreck list. The reason is because this list is not just about the most famous, but the most significant shipwrecks as well, in which case this German liner easily fits the bill. What makes it so? The fact that it was responsible for the largest single loss of life in maritime
history when the overloaded vessel—fleeing the advancing Red Army into northern Poland in the winter of 1944-45—left the port of Danzig (modern day Gdansk) one cold January evening in 1945 only to be sunk by a Russian submarine shortly after reaching the open sea. Not only did it sink in a matter of minutes, but with a water temperature just a degree or two above freezing, even those not trapped below decks had a minimal chance of surviving in the frigid waters of the Baltic. The final death toll from this horrific event? No one will ever know the precise number of people who died when the Gustloff went down as the ship had no passenger list and, as a refugee ship, was loaded to three times her normal capacity. However, best estimates are that as many as 10,000 people were jammed onboard the ship, with a mere 900 or so managing to be rescued from the frigid waters, making it the greatest loss of life from a single ship sinking in history.