MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea while evacuating civilians and military personnel from East Prussia and the German-occupied Baltic states, and German military personnel from Gotenhafen (Gdynia) as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate, 9,400 people died, making it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.
An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes. Only one ocean liner remains in service today.
SS Cap Arcona, named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen, was a large German ocean liner, later a ship of the German Navy, and finally a prison ship. A flagship of the Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft, she made her maiden voyage on 29 October 1927, carrying passengers and cargo between Germany and the east coast of South America, and for a brief period of time she was the largest and fastest ship on the route, until one month later she was surpassed on the same Europe-South America route by the Italian liner MS Augustus (1926).
Saint-Nazaire is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany.
Louis III de Bourbon, Prince of Condé was a prince du sang as a member of the reigning House of Bourbon at the French court of Louis XIV. Styled as Duke of Bourbon from birth, he succeeded his father in 1709 as Prince of Condé ; however, he was still known by the ducal title. He was prince for less than a year.
Agénor de Gramont, 10th Duke of Gramont was a French diplomat and statesman who also had the title Prince of Bidache.
The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), known in English as the Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. Among those involved in its development were prominent citizens such as Albert Ballin, Adolph Godeffroy, Ferdinand Laeisz, Carl Woermann, August Bolten, and others, and its main financial backers were Berenberg Bank and H. J. Merck & Co. It soon developed into the largest German, and at times the world's largest, shipping company, serving the market created by German immigration to the United States and later, immigration from Eastern Europe. On 1 September 1970, after 123 years of independent existence, HAPAG merged with the Bremen-based North German Lloyd to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
F.A. Heydtmann was captain of the Hamburg America Line’s ill-fated steamer Austria at the time of its sinking on September 13, 1858. As the Steamboat Austria disaster was caused by negligence of the crew, F.A. Heydtmann was ultimately considered responsible for the worst transatlantic steamer disaster of the 19th century, killing 449 passengers and crew. Heydtmann drowned along with his ship.
Achille was a Téméraire-class 74-gun French ship of the line built at Rochefort in 1803 after plans by Jacques-Noël Sané.
Kronprinz Wilhelm was a German ocean liner built for Norddeutscher Lloyd, a shipping company now part of Hapag-Lloyd, by the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, Germany, in 1901. She was named after Crown Prince Wilhelm, son of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, and was a sister ship of SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.
SS Saale was an ocean liner for North German Lloyd in the late 19th century, which was severely damaged in the 1900 Hoboken Docks Fire. On 30 June 1900, Saale was moored at the North German Lloyd piers in Hoboken, New Jersey, preparing to depart on a transatlantic crossing when some cotton on a nearby pier caught on fire and spread to the ship. Saale and several other ships were soon engulfed in flames; 99 passengers and crew on Saale were killed in the fire and subsequent sinking.
USS George F. Elliott (AP-13) was a Heywood-class transport acquired by the U.S. Navy during World War I and then reacquired by the Navy for service as a troop carrier during World War II. In 1942, she was attacked off Guadalcanal by Japanese planes and sank shortly thereafter.
USS Mercury (ID-3012) was a United States Navy transport ship during World War I. She was formerly the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner SS Barbarossa built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, Germany, in 1897, and operated by the North German Lloyd Line.
SS Arctic was a 2,856-ton paddle steamer, one of the Collins Line, which operated a transatlantic passenger and mail steamship service during the 1850s. She was the largest of a fleet of four, built with the aid of U.S. government subsidies to challenge the transatlantic supremacy of the British-backed Cunard Line. During her four-year period of service, the ship was renowned both for her speed and for the luxury of her accommodation.
SS City of Pretoria was a British cargo steamship. She was torpedoed and sunk in the Second World War with heavy loss of life.
USS Powhatan (ID–3013) was a transport ship for the United States Navy during World War I. She was originally Hamburg, a Barbarossa-class ocean liner built in 1899 by AG Vulkan of Stettin, Germany, for the Hamburg America Line. At the outset of World War I the ship was interned by the United States.
Rapido was an auxiliary cruiser that served in the Spanish Navy during the Spanish–American War in 1898. Before her Spanish Navy service, she served as the commercial passenger ship SS Columbia for the Hamburg America Line from 1889 to 1898. She returned to commercial service as Columbia with Hamburg America from 1899 to 1904, but early in 1904 the Imperial Russian Navy purchased her for service as the auxiliary cruiser Terek during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.
Teutonia was a screw steamer that was built by Caird & Company, Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland for the Hamburg Brazilianische Packetschiffahrt Gesellschaft in 1856. It later served with the Hamburg Amerika Line before being sold to British owners in 1877 and Italian owners in 1884, serving them under the names Regina, Piemontese, Città di Savona and Mentana The ship was scrapped in 1894.
SS Burdigala was an ocean liner that sailed the Atlantic Ocean from 1898 until World War I. The ship was built as the Kaiser Friedrich in 1898 for Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), a German shipping line. Designed to break the speed record for a transatlantic liner and thereby win the Blue Riband, the Kaiser Friedrich never achieved the necessary speeds. After a short career with NDL and an equally short period of service with NDL's main German competitor, the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft, the ship was mothballed for a decade. After being sold to the French shipping line Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique, it re-entered service as SS Burdigala. In 1916, while en route from Thessaloniki to Toulon, the liner struck a mine laid by the German U-boat U-73 in the Aegean Sea and sank near Kea, Greece.
Peter Frederik (Friderich) Wulff was a Danish naval officer. He headed the Royal Danish Naval Academy from 1824 to 1841. Wulff, his wife Henriette Wulf, and several of his children were loyal friends and supporters of the writer Hans Christian Andersen.
Hamburg 
