" He adopted it. The child became one of just 949 known survivors of the greatest maritime disaster in history, its 7,000 dead far outstripping those of the Titanic, Lusitania, Laconia. Yet, amid global tragedy on the scale of 1945, the horrors of the Wilhelm Gustloff remain known only to some Germans and a few historians. "

― Max Hastings , Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945