WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The answer lay in the Kraft durch Freude-scheme. As a member of the DAF, a worker would be given the opportunity to go on low-price ship cruises to exotic destinations. This would make the workers happy, thereby increasing their work ability – hence the expression ‘Strength through Joy’.

Detailed explanation-2: -On January 30, 1945, the greatest maritime disaster in history occurred when the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a German luxury liner turned military transport ship sank in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Russian submarine. The sinking ship resulted in the loss of an estimated 9, 300 victims, including 5, 000 children.

Detailed explanation-3: -But whatever category those Wilhelm Gustloff victims fit into-U-boat trainees, Women’s Naval Auxiliary Members, Hitler Youth, reluctant conscripts, German civilians, mothers and children-they were part of a maritime tragedy that has yet to be rivaled in scale.

Detailed explanation-4: -Choose either number, in fact, and the result is the same: even with 1, 200 survivors picked up by rescue vessels, the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff was the worst disaster in maritime history, at least four times bigger, in terms of human life, than the sinking of the Titanic.

Detailed explanation-5: -It was wartime and the Russians and Germans had been killing each other since 1941. Only the Wilhelm Gustloff was a passenger liner, not a warship, and she was carrying more than 7, 000 non-combatants fleeing the war. All but a few hundred died that night in the largest single loss of life in maritime history.