Editing SS General von Steuben (section)

==World War II==
The ship, now called ''Steuben'', was commissioned in 1939 as a ''[[Kriegsmarine]]'' accommodation ship. In 1944, she was pressed into service as an armed transport ship, taking German troops to eastern Baltic ports and returning wounded troops to [[Kiel]].

===Operation Hannibal===
Along with the {{MV|Wilhelm Gustloff||2}} and numerous other vessels, ''Steuben'' was part of the largest evacuation by sea in modern times. The [[Operation Hannibal]] evacuations surpassed the [[Dunkirk evacuation|British evacuation]] at [[Dunkirk]] in both size of the operation and number of people evacuated.

By early January 1945, Grossadmiral [[Karl Dönitz]] realized that Germany was soon to be defeated. Wishing to save his submariners, he radioed a coded message on 23 January 1945 to the [[Baltic Sea]] port of Gotenhafen (the Polish city and port of [[Gdynia]] under German occupation) to evacuate to the West, under the code name ''Operation Hannibal''.

Submariners at that point were schooled and housed in ships floating in the Baltic ports, most of them at Gotenhafen. Among the ships were {{SS|Deutschland|1923|2}}, {{SS|Hamburg|1925|2}}, ''Hansa'', and ''Wilhelm Gustloff''.

Notwithstanding the losses suffered during the operation, over two million people were evacuated ahead of the [[Red Army]]'s advance into East Prussia and [[Danzig]] (now Gdańsk, [[Poland]]).

In the winter of 1945, [[East Prussia]]n refugees headed west, away from the city of [[Königsberg]] and ahead of the Soviet advance into the Baltic States and East Prussia. Thousands fled to the Baltic seaport at Pillau (now [[Baltiysk]], Russia), hoping to board ships that would carry them to the relative safety of Western Germany. ''Steuben'' was part of the fleet sent for the purpose.

===Final voyage===
On 9 February 1945, the 14,660-ton ''Steuben'' sailed from Pillau, near Königsberg on the Baltic coast, for Swinemünde (now [[Świnoujście]], Poland). Official reports listed 2,800 wounded German soldiers; 800 civilians; 100 returning soldiers; 270 navy medical personnel (including doctors, nurses and auxiliaries); 12 nurses from Pillau; 64 crew for the ship's anti-aircraft guns, 61 naval personnel, radio operators, signal men, machine operators and administrators, plus 160 merchant navy crewmen, for a total of 4,267 people on board.<ref>Koburger, Charles W., ''Steel Ships, Iron Crosses, and Refugees'', Praeger Publishers, NY, 1989, p.7. Koburger also notes that other equally reliable sources put the total embarked at 3,300.</ref> Due to the rapid evacuation ahead of the Red Army's advance, many Eastern German and Baltic refugees boarded the ''Steuben'' without being registered, increasing the number of those on board to approximately 5,200.

Just before midnight on 9 February, the [[Soviet submarine S-13|Soviet submarine ''S-13'']], commanded by [[Alexander Marinesko]], fired two [[torpedo]]es 14 seconds apart at the ''Steuben''; both hit her [[Port and starboard|starboard]] [[Bow (watercraft)|bow]], just below the [[Bridge (nautical)|bridge]], where many of the crew were sleeping. Most were killed by the impact of the torpedoes. According to survivors, the ''Steuben'' sank by the bow and listed severely to starboard before taking her final plunge, within about 20 minutes of the torpedo impacts. An estimated 4,500 people died in the sinking. German [[S138-class torpedo boat|torpedo boat]] [[SMS G196|''T-196'']] hastily pulled up beside ''Steuben'' as she sank; its crew pulled about 300 survivors straight from ''Steuben'''s slanting decks and brought them to Kolberg in [[Pomerania]] (today [[Kołobrzeg]], Poland). A total of 650 people were rescued from the ''Steuben''.