Individual Word Translation

[Cunard-WhiteStarLine]

Hello All,
I realize these letters may not even be translatable, but I figured I'd post this anyway. I have a newspaper clipping relating to the Wilhelm Gustloff and this is a tally of passengers - In German from 1945. The words before the numbers are what I am hoping to find out. I posted these below - the first set in two different formats, and the last word individually. Any help on these would be appreciated! Many Thanks!

Regards,
Eddie

[fridgeman]

This really is a hard one! The first word on the first image looks like "Soldaten" (soldiers), the second word may be "Besatzung" (crew) or "Besetzung" (manning).
I can show the pictures a relative of me the next days if you like, he knows the old german writing alot better.

[Cunard-WhiteStarLine]

Thanks for the initial help. If your relative or you need be, I can send larger files through email which may help some. It is an interesting list that (according to the article) was the list of people onboard when she left Gotenhafen in 45. It was given to first officer Louis Rese before the ship left port. I am not sure what the article means by "blinden passagiere", which I assume means blind passengers. I posted the entire piece with what I am looking to translate. Thanks!

[Cunard-WhiteStarLine]

Article:

[fridgeman]

This is a list of the people getting officialy embarked on the ship.
The 918 soldiers for example, were all from the 2. U-Boot-Lehrdivision and should have been brought to Kiel to fight on. The lower are parts more a boarding estimate.

Translation:
Soldaten (soldiers) 918
Besatzung (crew) 172
Mar.Helfer (abbreviation for marine volunteer) 373
Verwund. (abbreviation for wounded people) 73
----------
1537
Flüchtl.? (abb. for refugee) 3121
..........
4658
..........
+2-300 (aditional twohundred to threehundred) Gillau (a village in former Ostpreussen/today Giławy in Poland)

The last word you have encirled in white is Wilh.-Gustloff (ship's name)
Ah, and Blinder Passagier is a stowaway in english.

[Richard Hargreaves]

I am not sure what the article means by "blinden passagiere", which I assume means blind passengers. I posted the entire piece with what I am looking to translate. Thanks!

Not quite. A blinder Passagier is a stowaway.

A yellowed (ie old/faded) slip shows the number of people carried on the Gustloff: 4,958. This list was handed over by the First Officer, Louis Rese, shortly before the Gustloff's departure. The number of stowaways was never determined.

Interesting figures, not least because it's far lower than many of the estimates of the dead (some of which top 9,000 - so there must have been a hell of a lot of stowaways...)

[Cunard-WhiteStarLine]

Thank you for all the help. I know that the official "tally" of passengers was cut off at 5,000 (as history states), so this is just proof to go along with it. I bought this for my collection, but the seller told me it was from her days as a hospital ship. Once I received it in the mail, I knew I had something more interesting. Once again, the members of feldgrau came through!

[Richard Hargreaves]

As far as I know, Heinz Schön, Gustloff survivor/chronicler is still with us; he was certainly around 12 months ago, although he's in his mid-80s now. He popped up on a few Knopp documentaries fairly recently and was the adviser on the Gustloff mini-series which came out a couple of years back (and is a bit of a stinker, I'm told ). I don't have contact details, sadly, but his publishers, Arndt Verlag, might be able to help.

[Cunard-WhiteStarLine]

I actually have written him several months ago. I run the online museum site cunard-whitestarline.net and I used to focus on the great Cunarders and White Star ships. I learned of the Wilhelm Gustloff about 2 years ago and I became obsessed... I started turning several pages of my website into Wilhelm Gustloff and Robert Ley artifact pages, this being the latest acquisiton. Thus far though, no reply from Heinz or Jens "Jerzy" who dove on the wreck and recovered several items.