Ship of No Return

The Final Voyage of the Gustloff

In German with clear subtitles

ZDF Enterprises

Prod. Joseph Vilsmaier

Australian Distributor: Madman Entertainment 2009

This is a two-part made-for-TV dramatization of history’s greatest shipping tragedy. It is set in the closing days of the Second World War. The Russians are advancing steadily through Germany. Refugees are flooding the port of Gotenhafen in the hope of passage on a ship to the safer parts of Germany. The only remaining ship to get them out is the Wilhelm Gustloff, a pre-War cruise ship. Currently it houses over 1000 naval personnel, destined for the U-boat crews. As a naval ship it has its own naval captain, the arrogant and inexperienced Captain Petri. As a civilian ship, it also has a civilian captain, the indecisive and less-than-competent Captain Johannsen. Into this mix is thrown the young merchant navy captain Hellmut Kehding, appointed by the Transport Board to get the refugees out. The tensions between these three as well played out as the date for departure arrives. Kehding is viewed with contempt by Petri, who believes that Kehding is a coward for not joining the Navy.

The port is rife with Russian spies who are well aware that sinking the Gustloff will be a propaganda victory – the ship was launched on Hitler’s birthday as a cruise ship for German workers, and tomorrow is Hitler’s birthday. There are traitors both in the town and on the ship. Kehding’s brother is a member of German Security, and in these tense and desperate times he has everyone under suspicion including Kehding himself.

There are subplots running through the story. Kehding’s girlfriend is also in the city, looking after refugees. She is under suspicion because she came from an area now occupied by the Russians, as is her cousin, the Gustloff’s radio operator. There is a young German family fleeing the Russians. The father is lost somewhere in the war, the son is now of military age and will be conscripted for service if he is discovered. There is the corrupt Nazi party official who has smuggled prostitutes on board and is living it up while he still can. These all increase the tension on Kehding. He finds it increasingly difficult to maintain order, satisfy his superiors, and put up with the petty demands on him caused by sheer human nature in a time of crisis. The situation escalates until Kehding is ordered off his own bridge.

Kehding gets the refugees on board against the objections of the Navy, and must somehow get the unescorted ship to safety at Kiel. The Russians are waiting and the ship is torpedoed. Thousands of people died.

ZDF is the production arm of the German ZDF Television Network. They are highly regarded, and if this is an example of their work then that regard is well earned. The film is technically of high quality, the sub-plots do not get in the way of the main storyline, the characterisations add to the story and help explain it rather than just pad it out. The desperation of the refugees is well brought out, as is the disintegration of order in the chaos of a war being lost. ZDF managed to secure the services of Heinz Schon, a survivor, to ensure the authenticity.

Producer Norbert Sauer said “We were united by the desire to make an anti-war film which does justice to the victims of the war without concealing the responsibility of the perpetrators. I hope this film succeeds in doing just that." He did succeed. Although comparisons with Titanic are unavoidable, I think this is by far the more powerful film because of its wartime setting and its sympathetic coverage of the refugees. The immense sadness of the floating bodies is not drawn out. We are left with a sense of outrage that the people who caused it all were not brought to justice due to the expediencies of wartime, and a certain sympathy for young Kehding who did his best for humanitarian reasons but was betrayed by those in power.

The film took five years to make, and when first shown it had a massive 23 percent of the viewing audience. It won a DIVA award as the most successful German TV movie of 2008.

Madman will release the DVD in Australia on 18 February 2009. The DVD will also contain a 50-minute documentary on the disaster.

This review will appear in Volume 2:1 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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