Steven Christian
Member
This kind of sounds like another Mister Rogers was a deadly Seal sniper thing. As in an internet story repeated over and over again with many people reporting it as true without checking it out.
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Discover new research on all aspects of the sinking, interesting Titanic facts, and learn more about the Titanic's passengers and crew.
Titanic cameos
- Thread starter Matthew Chapman
- Start date
Arun Vajpey
Member
Eric Braeden appeared fairly fit in Cameron's film and as he was a 56 year old actor playing the role of a 48 year old man who had lived and died over 80 years earlier, I guess it fits well enough.
I have only seen Braeden in one other role, that of young Dr Charles Forbin in the 1969-70 cold war sci-fi thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project. It is a very well made cold war film and the script seems to have been written a few years before.
The supposed survival of a not yet 4 year-old Eric Braeden (born Has-Jorg Gudegast) during the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff on 30th January 1945 has been mentioned in several on-line accounts including his Wikipedia biography. The following is the relevant excerpt.
That is a fairly definitive source information and so if anyone has the book, perhaps they could check the references. In any case, the actor is alive and now apparently recovered from the cancer diagnosed last year.
I think this is also important information because what is known about Braeden's early childhood makes it highly unlikely that his family were in East Prussia or the occupied Baltic states in January 1945.
Eric Braeden was born Hans-Jorg Gudegast in Bredenbeck, a small town some 15 km west of Kiel. His father Wilhelm Gudegast was the mayor of the town and as far as is known, Hans-Jorg remained there till the town was overrun and occupied by British troops in April 1945. It appears that the stop-line for the western allies as agreed with the Soviet High Command was to the east of Bredenbek but short of Kiel, but Field Marshal Montgomery advanced beyond the line and occupied Kiel as well. Monty appears to have got away with it because after the war Kiel became part (and later Capital) of Schleswig-Holstein province, part of what became West Germany before the 1989 reunification. Hans-Jorg and his family eventually relocated to the US where he went on to become the actor we know about.
Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that the Gudegast family was ever in either East Prussia or the occupied Baltic States during World War 2. The Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating German troops and civilians from that sector when it was torpedoed by the Soviet S-13 submarine and sunk in January 1945 with the largest loss of life in maritime history. Hans-Jorg Gudegast was less than 4 years old at the time and so unlikely to have remembered much even if he had been on board, which I seriously doubt. If the "survival" is mentioned in the aforemntioned book, it must be a fake story someone told Eric Braeden years later and he, unable to remember himself, believed it.
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Steven Christian
Member
Like Thomas I went and read the first pages of his book that covered up until he was 12. Didn't see any mention of the Wilhelm Gustloff. As for Eric Braeden I always liked him as an actor. Remember watching him in the "Rat Patrol" when I was a kid. He was in a lot of 60's and 70's tv shows. And as we discussed before I thought he did a great job in The Forbin Project. Never saw his or any other soap operas so can't say much about them.
Arun Vajpey
Member
Yes, he did. It is a relatively lesser known but very well made film. I have the very good Mediumrare Blu-ray release that includes a commentary by the director Joseph Sargent. I'll have to check to see if there is any mention of Wilhelm Gustloff in that narrative.
Steven Christian
Member
It's a really good movie IMO. Dated special effects wise but in some ways more relevant today than when it was released 50+ years ago. Somebody had some foresight back then.
Michael Hinz
Member
Good point by Arun. I also wondered how he got to prussia after getting Born in Schleswig Holstein where the Red Army never landed…
Another point that speaks against it, is that some newspapers wrote that he was with his hole family on the ship and at that they survived the sinking. This would be a rare example of a complete Family survived the sinking…
Maybe I must get the autobiography to Check the source…
Another point that speaks against it, is that some newspapers wrote that he was with his hole family on the ship and at that they survived the sinking. This would be a rare example of a complete Family survived the sinking…
Maybe I must get the autobiography to Check the source…
Michael Hinz
Member
I like him too, he seems to be a real gentlemen. Sadly, he is not well known in his german native country, because some of his famous soap operas were not synchronized or ever shown in german TV.
Steven Christian
Member
I watched a interview he gave about his autobiography. He talked about his childhood but didn't mention being on that ship. He also mentioned his brothers took him to where they could see the fires when Hamburg got bombed. Can't imagine his family would have moved east when most were trying desperately to go west to escape the Russians.
Steven Christian
Member
He said he left Germany at an early age and didn't find out what went on there until later in his life. When I lived there there were only a few tv channels and I don't remember any American shows being played back then. But I could be wrong about that because we didn't have a tv as it was all in German. We just went to the movies a lot.
Arun Vajpey
Member
Yes, I think it is a fake story that Eric Braeden himself could not have known whether true or false.
After the unsatisfactory Yalta Conference, mutual suspicions, mistrust and plans to backstab were rife among the Western and Soviet "allies". The British in particular didn't trust Stalin and expected him to break his agreements on some pretext, something about which Roosevelt wasn't too convinced. The agreed stop-line for the Western forces in Schleswig-Holstein was beyond Bradenbek (and so included the town) but short of Kiel. But the British had received intelligence that Stalin planned to violate the Yalta terms and use the isthmus created by the stop-line to invade Denmark, the objective being control of the Great Belt sea lanes and easy access to the North Sea during the forthcoming "Cold War" which they all knew would follow. Not wanting that to happen, Monty received (clandestine?) orders to cross the stop line and occupy Kiel and surrounding areas as well, which he proceeded to do with gusto, delivering an "ultimatum" demanding unconditional surrender to the German troops, which he knew very well they would be only too glad to accept.
The following is an excerpt from a message that Monty sent to the German commanders in charge of Kiel, something that led to the Luneburg-Heath Surrender:
He [Field Marshal Montgomery] told the Germans: "You must understand three things: Firstly, you must surrender to me unconditionally all the German forces in Holland, Friesen and the Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands in Schleswig-Holstein and in Denmark. Secondly, when you have done that, I am prepared to discuss with you the implications of your surrender: how we will dispose of those surrendered troops, how we will occupy the surrendered territory, how we will deal with the civilians, and so forth. And my third point: If you do not agree to Point 1, the surrender, then I will go on with the war and I will be delighted to do so." Monty added, as an after-thought, "All your soldiers and civilians may be killed."
It is easy to read between the lines of what Monty meant by "all your soldiers and civilians may be killed"; not by the British troops of course - they would never have threatened to do that - but by the rampant Red Army soldiers who would storm the isthmus unless the British were already there. The Germans got the point, surrendered and the British were very much in Kiel when the Russians got close.
So, the Gudegast family remained in British controlled Schleswig-Holstein, little Hans-Jorg grew up, emigrated to America as a teenager and went on to become the actor we now know as Eric Braeden who played the role of J J Astor in James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic.
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