Alexander Marinesko: "attack of the century" from a bully. The Fuhrer's personal enemy: how Alexander Marinesko destroyed the color of the Nazi submarine fleet with three torpedoes

Captain of the 3rd rank, known for the "Attack of the Century". Hero of the Soviet Union (1990).

Biography

Childhood and youth

Alexander Ivanovich was born in Odessa. From 1920 to 1926 he studied at a labor school. From 1930 to 1933, Marinesko studied at the Odessa Nautical College.

Alexander Ivanovich himself never wanted to be a military man, but only dreamed of serving in the merchant fleet. In March 1936, in connection with the introduction of personal military ranks, Marinesko received the rank of lieutenant, and in November 1938 - senior lieutenant.

After graduating from retraining courses, he served as an assistant commander on the L-1, then as commander of the M-96 submarine, the crew of which, following the results of combat and political training in 1940, took first place, and the commander was awarded a gold watch and promoted to lieutenant commander.

War time

In the early days of the Great Patriotic War, the M-96 under the command of Alexander Ivanovich was relocated to Paldiski, then to Tallinn, stood in position in the Gulf of Riga, had no collisions with the enemy. In August 1941, they planned to transfer the submarine to the Caspian Sea as a training one, then this idea was abandoned.

On August 12, 1942, the M-96 went on another combat campaign. On August 14, 1942, the boat attacked a German convoy. According to Marinesko's report, he fired two torpedoes at German transport. According to German sources, the attack was unsuccessful - the ships of the convoy observed the trail of one torpedo, which they successfully evaded. Returning from the position, Marinesko did not warn the Soviet patrols, and when surfacing, he did not raise the naval flag, as a result of which his own boats almost sank the boat.

At the end of 1942, Marinesko was awarded the rank of captain of the 3rd rank. In April 1943, Marinesko was appointed commander of the S-13 submarine. The submarine under his command went on a campaign only in October 1944. On the very first day of the campaign, on October 9, Marinesko discovered and attacked the Siegfried transport. The attack with four torpedoes from a short distance failed, and artillery fire from the 45-mm and 100-mm guns of the submarine had to be fired at the transport.

From January 9 to February 15, 1945, Marinesko was on his fifth military campaign, during which two large enemy transports, Wilhelm Gustloff and Steuben, were sunk. Before this campaign, the commander of the Baltic Fleet V.F. Tributs decided to bring Marinesko to court-martial for unauthorized abandonment of the ship in a combat situation, but he delayed the execution of this decision, allowing the commander and crew to atone for their guilt in a military campaign.

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

On January 30, 1945, S-13 attacked and sent the Wilhelm Gustloff liner to the bottom, on which there were 10,582 people:

918 cadets of junior groups of the 2nd submarine training division
173 crew members
373 women from the Auxiliary Marine Corps
162 seriously wounded soldiers
8956 refugees, mostly old people, women and children

Transport, the former ocean liner "Wilhelm Gustloff", went without a convoy. Due to a lack of fuel, the liner was heading straight, without performing an anti-submarine zigzag, and the damage to the hull received earlier during the bombing did not allow it to reach high speed. It was previously believed that the German Navy was seriously damaged. So, according to the Marine magazine, 1,300 submariners died with the ship, among whom were fully formed submarine crews and their commanders. According to the commander of the division, captain 1st rank A. Orel, the dead German submariners would be enough to equip 70 submarines of medium tonnage. Subsequently, the Soviet press called the sinking of "Wilhelm Gustloff" "the attack of the century", and Marinesko - "submariner No. 1".

End of the war

On February 10, 1945, a new victory followed - on the way to the Danzig Bay, S-13 sank the Steuben ambulance transport, on board which were 2,680 wounded military personnel, 100 soldiers, about 900 refugees, 270 military medical personnel and 285 ship crew members. Of these, 659 people were saved, of which the wounded were about 350. It must be borne in mind that the ship was armed with anti-aircraft machine guns and guns, went on guard and transported healthy soldiers as well. In this regard, strictly speaking, it could not be attributed to hospital courts. It should also be noted that Marinesco identified the attacked ship as the light cruiser Emden. The S-13 commander was not only forgiven for his previous sins, but was also presented with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the higher command replaced the Golden Star with the Order of the Red Banner. The sixth military campaign from April 20 to May 13, 1945 was considered unsatisfactory. Then, according to the commander of the submarine brigade, Captain 1st Rank Kournikov, Marinesko:

On May 31, the commander of the submarine division submitted a report to the higher command, in which he indicated that the submarine commander was drinking all the time, was not engaged in official duties, and his continued stay in this position was inappropriate. On September 14, 1945, Order No. 01979 of the Commissar of the Navy N.G. was issued. Kuznetsov, where it was said:

From October 18, 1945 to November 20, 1945, Marinesko was the commander of the minesweeper T-34 of the 2nd division of minesweepers of the 1st Red Banner Mining Brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. On November 20, 1945, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy No. 02521, Senior Lieutenant Marinesko A.I. was retired. Submarines under the command of Alexander Marinesko made six military campaigns during the Great Patriotic War. Two transports sunk, one damaged. The M-96 attack in 1942 ended in a miss. Alexander Marinesko holds the record among Soviet submariners in terms of the total tonnage of enemy ships sunk: 42,557 gross register tons.

post-war period

After the war, in 1946-1949, Marinesko worked as a senior mate on the ships of the Baltic State Commercial Shipping Company, in 1949 - as deputy director of the Leningrad Research Institute of Blood Transfusion. In 1949 he was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of squandering socialist property, he served his sentence in 1949-1951 in Vanino. In 1951-1953 he worked as a topographer for the Onega-Ladoga expedition, since 1953 he was in charge of a group of the supply department at the Mezon plant in Leningrad. Marinesko died in Leningrad after a serious and prolonged illness on November 25, 1963. He was buried at the Theological Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Nearby is the Museum of Russian Submarine Forces. A.I. Marinesko. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was awarded posthumously on May 5, 1990.

Memory

Monuments of A.I. Marinesko are installed in Kaliningrad, Kronstadt, St. Petersburg and Odessa.
In Kronstadt, on house number 2 on Kommunisticheskaya Street, in which Marinesko lived, a memorial plaque was installed.
Marinesco is dedicated to the feature films "Forget about the return" and "The first after God."
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is described in the Nobel laureate Günther Grass's novel Trajectory of the Crab.
In the name of A.I. Marinesko named the embankment in Kaliningrad and the street in Sevastopol.
Stroiteley Street in Leningrad, where Marinesko also lived, was renamed Marinesko Street in 1990. There is a memorial plaque on it.
The flag of the submarine "C-13" is exhibited at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces.
In St. Petersburg there is the Museum of Russian Submarine Forces. A.I. Marinesko.
A stone block with a memorial plaque was installed in Vanino.
In Odessa:
- A memorial plaque was installed on the building of the Odessa Naval School, on Sofievskaya Street, in house No. 11, where Marinesko lived as a child.
- Name A.I. Marinesko wears the Odessa Naval School.
- Also, a memorial plaque is installed on the building of the labor school where he studied.
- In 1983, the students of the Odessa school No. 105 created a museum named after A.I. Marinesko.

This coming Sunday marks exactly 60 years since the event that still excites the imagination. We are talking about the famous "attack of the century" - the sinking on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine "S-13" under the command of Alexander Marinesko of the German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff". Passions have especially flared up recently, after the story "The Trajectory of the Crab" was published in Germany. Its author Günther Grass reveals the unknown pages of the flight of East Germans to the West, and in the center of events is the Gustloff disaster.
About the legendary "attack of the century", about the secrets and mysteries of this story, we are talking with a military researcher, chairman of the St. Petersburg Center for International Cooperation "Reconciliation" Yuri Lebedev.
In recent years, he has dealt with this issue a lot, worked with domestic and foreign sources, talked with submariners who participated in the "attack of the century", traveled to Germany to find out the arguments of that side.

Yuri Mikhailovich, why today the personality of the Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Marinesko again, as at the dawn of perestroika, is in the center of public attention?

Marinesko is an iconic figure, a man of legend. During the years of the Khrushchev thaw, and then perestroika, he began to be perceived as a folk hero unrecognized by the authorities, who suffered for the truth, as a victim of the Stalinist regime. And it was fair. We would not have today's Marinesko, if not for the efforts of the writers Alexander Kron and Sergei Smirnov. However, as often happens, instead of a real person, a legend was created, which now lives firmly and with which many people do not want to part.

A new wave of interest in the death of the Gustloff was caused by the clarification and rethinking of previously unknown pages of the Great Patriotic War, and this is especially important today, in the year of the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory. As it turned out, so many myths and outright falsifications have been piled up around the “attack of the century” for many years that it is sometimes necessary to get to the bottom of the truth with great difficulty.

You have repeatedly stressed that you are the defender of Alexander Marinesko. So from what and from whom is it required today to protect the identity of the legendary submariner?

I believe that Marinesko really needs protection today. And above all, from the assertion formed in German society that Marinesko sank the “ship of refugees”. And although Grass's book does not support this accusation, it nonetheless shows Marinesco as a "terminator" programmed for destruction. But we are deeply concerned about how Europe perceives a person who in Russia is considered the pride of the nation.

- What happened in the Baltic Sea that night at the very end of January, the victorious forty-fifth?

In those days, the Red Army was rapidly moving west towards Koenigsberg and Danzig. Hundreds of thousands of Germans, fearing retribution for the atrocities of the Nazis, became refugees and moved towards the port city of Gdynia, the Germans called it Gotenhafen. It became the last hope for many people: not only large warships, but also large liners stood here - everyone could take thousands of refugees on board. One of them was the Wilhelm Gustloff, which seemed unsinkable to the Germans.

Built in 1937, the magnificent cruise ship with a cinema and a swimming pool was the pride of the Third Reich, it was designed to demonstrate to the whole world the achievements of Nazi Germany. Hitler participated in the descent of the ship, which even had his own cabin. For the Hitlerite cultural leisure organization “Strength through Joy”, the liner delivered vacationers to Norway and Sweden for a year and a half, and with the outbreak of World War II it became a floating barracks for cadets of the 2nd diving training division.

Despite the considerable number of refugees on the Gustloff, when this ship left Gotenhafen on its last voyage, it did not have the official status of a “refugee ship”. This is confirmed by the same Grass: “It was not a Red Cross hospital ship, not a transport ship chock-full of refugees, that stood at the pier, but an armed liner subordinate to the Navy, on which they loaded everything.”

What, in your opinion, was the starting point for the emergence of numerous legends around the "attack of the century"?

I believe that such a starting point was the award list for Alexander Marinesko, where the report of the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet was taken as a basis. It said that 8,000 people were on board the Gustloff at the time of the sinking, of which 3,700 were trained submariners. It is alleged that only 998 people were saved (who exactly is not indicated). All the authors writing about Marinesko relied on this award list and on a message from a Swedish newspaper. On the basis of an unverified report, they concluded that 3,700 submariners were killed, which would be enough to man 70 submarines.

Another thing is also important: the report of the Swedish newspaper indicates 4,000 dead women and children.

- What kind of data can be trusted?

I happened to visit the German town of Meltenort near Kiel at the monument to the dead submariners in the first and second world wars. Here, the names of 28,751 German submariners are immortalized on bronze plaques. There is also a memorial plaque dedicated to Gustloff, which lists 390 names of servicemen of the 2nd Diving Training Division.

The same 390 names are also given in the books of Heinz Schön, one of those "passenger assistants" who counted the refugees on the Gustloff. This list is based on the report of the commander of the German submarine forces dated April 12, 1945 about the missing on January 30 during the death of the Gustloff. According to the document, out of 390 dead, there were only eight officers, of which only one of them could theoretically be a submarine commander by rank, and the rest, by their rank, could not yet hold this position.

- So how many passengers were on board the Gustloff at the time of its death?

In how many people were on the Gustloff, the data of German sources differ. With regard to military submariners and auxiliary personnel of the German Navy, the figure remains almost unchanged - it is within one and a half thousand people. But it is difficult to say how many refugees there were. At least there were about 9,000 of them. However, it is known exactly how many were saved. Despite the fact that nine ships participated in the rescue operation, over a thousand people managed to survive the disaster, of which half (528 people) were German submariners. Thus, 50% of the submariners and only 5% of the refugees survived.

- Why did both sides hide the true picture of what happened?

The death of the Gustloff is not without reason called a "covered tragedy." In Soviet times, it was always said that the vessel was the color of the German submarine fleet and the local Nazi elite with their families, but the dead refugees were never mentioned, and post-war Germans, who grew up with a sense of repentance for the crimes of the Nazis, hushed up this story because they feared accusations of revanchism .

- How, in your opinion, today you can qualify the event that happened on January 30, 1945?

Based on what we know now, we must say that this is one of the most tragic pages of the war, where the brilliant skills of the crew of the S-13 submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko intertwined and the death of a huge number of peaceful German citizens who became hostages of the war. This is a brilliant military operation carried out in the most difficult conditions, the result of which was a tragic ending. Today we need to understand: the meaning of the "attack of the century" is not in exactly how many German submariners were destroyed, but in another - the seemingly unsinkable symbol of Nazism, the dream ship promoting the Third Reich, was destroyed. And the civilians who were on the ship became hostages of the agonizing German military machine... Even the most just war is inhuman, because the civilian population suffers first of all from it. According to the laws of war, Marinesko sank a warship, and it is not his fault that peaceful Germans died in the process - women and children, completely unarmed before the war.

Prepared by Sergey GLEZEROV.

Comments

The documentary tells about the fate of the submarine captain Alexander Marinesko, the most legendary and mysterious hero of the Russian submarine fleet. For 60 years, historians, politicians, sailors have been breaking spears around his person. The authors of the publications are trying to uncover the secret of the "attack of the century", but many mysteries are still associated with the name of Captain Marinesko. Moreover, in relation to his person, fleet historians and submariners have long been divided into two parties: "Marines" and "anti-Marines". The latter ironically call Alexander Marinesko "Ilya Muromets of the submarine fleet" and consider him a penal and a hooligan, who only by chance managed to arrange the biggest disaster in the fleet.

On January 30, 1945, the S-13 submarine under the command of Marinesko (in a "penalty" campaign) sent the German superliner "Wilhelm Gustloff" to the bottom, and on February 10 the transport ship "General von Steuben". There were over 8,000 people on both ships. Nazi Germany did not know such one-time losses during the entire world war. It is believed that the largest maritime disaster is the death of the Titanic, when 1513 people drowned. Marinesco's attack resulted in 7,700 deaths.

There is a legend that it was on the "Gustloff" that the Germans took the famous "Amber Room" to Germany. At least, divers are still searching for a room in the area of the ship crash in the Baltic Sea.

For these attacks, Alexander Marinesko became the last submariner to receive the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" in the Great Patriotic War. But the very story of the S-13 attack and the death of the Gustloff was hushed up by both the Soviet and German sides for a very long time. Then the Soviet side rested on the fact that a military vessel with military personnel on board was flooded. The Germans, on the other hand, claimed that most of the victims - at least 6 thousand people - were refugees from Koenigsberg. Both of these are true. It is also true that Captain Marinesko, after the war and until his death, will not consider himself a hero and will never call the January campaign of S-13 a feat. In private letters, he calls it following military duty and regulations.

In 1945, Marinesko was dismissed, and he never returned to the fleet ...

Now there are only two survivors of the famous campaign. One of them, Aleksey Astakhov, was always extremely reluctant to make contacts with journalists. The group was able to talk to a veteran submariner who helped clear up the legends surrounding Marinesco's name.

Alexander Marinesko. Photo 1945

One of the most important events in the history of Russia in the 20th century for national self-consciousness is the Great Patriotic War - sacred for all Russians. Actions to destroy its generalized image and symbols associated with it is one of the information operations of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The USSR collapsed, but the information war of the West against Russia in this area continues into the 21st century. These actions are aimed at belittling the greatness of the Soviet Union and its successor Russia as a victorious country and destroying the bonds within the victorious people.

FALSIFIERS OF VICTORY

It is significant that back in August 1943, Jan Christian Smuts (Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa in 1939-1948 and Field Marshal of the British Army), one of Winston Churchill's closest associates, talking about the course of the war, expressed his fears regarding its conduct: “We can certainly fight better, and the comparison with Russia may become less disadvantageous for us. It must seem to the average person that Russia is winning the war. If this impression continues, what will be our position in the international arena after, compared with the position of Russia? Our position in the international arena may change dramatically, and Russia may become the diplomatic master of the world. This is undesirable and unnecessary and would have very bad consequences for the British Commonwealth of Nations. If we do not leave this war on equal terms, our position will be uncomfortable and dangerous ... "

One of the latest proofs of the information war is the declaration of solidarity of the parliaments of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. On October 20, 2016, at the same time, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Sejm of Poland adopted a declaration on the events of the Second World War, where Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are responsible for its start. And if so, then the events that interpret the history of the war following the results of the Nuremberg Tribunal should be revised, and the symbols and monuments reminiscent of the exploits of the Soviet people in the fight against Nazism should be destroyed.

Unfortunately, part of our opposition liberal intelligentsia has also become saturated with this poison, denying the exploits of the 28 Panfilovites, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and other symbols of the selfless struggle against the German invaders. The well-known Kyrgyz and Russian writer Chingiz Aitmatov in his book "The Brand of Cassandra" (1994) so figuratively described the war: "two heads of a physiologically single monster grappled in a confrontation not for life, but for death." The USSR for them is “the era of Stalin-Hitler or, on the contrary, Hitler-Stalin,” and this is “their internecine war.”

Meanwhile, the Russian scientist Sergei Kara-Murza in his book “Soviet Civilization” emphasizes that in a review of German literature on Stalingrad, the German historian Hettling writes: “In (German) historiography and in public opinion, a unity of views has been established on two points: on the part of the German Reich, the war was deliberately conceived and waged as a war of conquest of annihilation along racial lines; secondly, it was not only Hitler and the Nazi leadership who initiated it - the tops of the Wehrmacht and representatives of private business also played a significant role in unleashing the war.

The German writer Heinrich Bell, the Nobel laureate in literature, expressed his view of the war best of all in his last work, in fact, a testament, “Letter to my sons”: “... I have not the slightest reason to complain about the Soviet Union. The fact that I was ill there several times, was wounded there, is inherent in the “nature of things”, which in this case is called war, and I always understood: we were not invited there.”

FAMOUS BATTLE EPISODE

The destruction of the image of the Great Patriotic War, of course, cannot occur without discretization of its symbols. Under the guise of a search for truth, both the events of the war and the exploits of its participants are interpreted differently. One of these heroic events, which is reflected in our and Western literature, is the sinking on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine "S-13" under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Marinesko of the liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" in the Danzig Bay. We call this famous combat episode the "Attack of the Century", while the Germans consider it the largest maritime disaster, perhaps even more terrible than the death of the Titanic. In Germany, the Gustloff is a symbol of disaster, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories.

Alexander Marinesko is one of the figures of the period of the Great Patriotic War, which still causes controversy, since it is fanned by many myths and legends. Undeservedly forgotten, and then returned from oblivion - May 5, 1990 A.I. Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments to Marinesko and his crew were erected in Kaliningrad, Kronstadt, St. Petersburg and Odessa. His name is included in the Golden Book of St. Petersburg.

Here is how he explained such an underestimation of the actions of A.I. Marinesko in his article “Attacking the S-13” (Neva magazine No. 7 for 1968), Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, Commissar and Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy from 1939 to 1947: “History knows many cases when heroic deeds committed on the battlefield, remain in the shadows for a long time and only descendants appreciate them on merit. It also happens that during the war years, large-scale events are not given due importance, reports about them are questioned and lead people to surprise and admiration much later. Such a fate befell the Baltic ace - submariner Marinesko A.I. Alexander Ivanovich is no longer alive. But his feat will forever remain in the memory of Soviet sailors.

Further, he notes that “I personally learned about the sinking of a large German ship in the Danzig Bay only a month after the Crimean Conference. Against the backdrop of everyday victories, this event, apparently, was not given much importance. But even then, when it became known that the Gustlav was sunk by the S-13 submarine, the command did not dare to present A. Marinesko to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In the complex and restless nature of the C-13 commander, high heroism, desperate courage coexisted with many shortcomings and weaknesses. Today he could accomplish a heroic feat, and tomorrow he could be late for his ship, preparing to leave for a combat mission, or in any other way violate military discipline.

It can be said without exaggeration that his name is also widely known all over the world. Immediately after the war, a bust of A.I. Marinesko.

As N.G. Kuznetsov, a participant in the Potsdam and Yalta conferences, at the beginning of February 1945, the governments of the allied powers gathered in the Crimea to discuss measures to ensure the final defeat of fascist Germany and outline the paths for the post-war world.

“At the very first meeting in the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Churchill asked Stalin: when will the Soviet troops capture Danzig, where a large number of German submarines under construction and ready are concentrated? He asked to expedite the capture of this port.

The anxiety of the English premier was understandable. Britain's war effort and the supply of its population depended largely on maritime transport. However, the wolf packs continued to rampage on sea lanes. Danzig was one of the main nests of fascist submarine pirates. The German diving school was also located here, the floating barracks for which was the Wilhelm Gustlav liner.

BATTLE FOR THE ATLANTIC

For the British, allies of the USSR in the battle against Nazi Germany, the battle for the Atlantic was of decisive importance for the entire course of the war. Winston Churchill in the book "The Second World War" gives the following assessment of the losses of the ship's staff. In 1940, merchant ships with a total displacement of 4 million tons were lost, and in 1941 - more than 4 million tons. In 1942, after the United States became allies of Great Britain, almost 8 million tons of ships were sunk from the total increased tonnage of allied ships . Until the end of 1942, German submarines sank more ships than the Allies had time to build. By the end of 1943, tonnage gains finally surpassed total losses at sea, and in the second quarter, German U-boat losses surpassed their construction for the first time. Subsequently, the moment came when in the Atlantic the losses of enemy submarines exceeded the losses in merchant ships. But this, Churchill emphasizes, came at the cost of a long and bitter struggle.

German submariners also smashed caravans of allied transports delivering military equipment and materials to Murmansk under Lend-Lease. The infamous PQ-17 caravan lost 24 out of 36 ships from submarine and aircraft strikes, and together with them 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, 3350 vehicles and 99,316 tons of cargo.

In World War II, instead of using raiders - ships of the surface fleet - Germany switched to unrestricted submarine warfare (uneingeschränkter U-Boot-Krieg), when submarines began to sink civilian merchant ships without warning and at the same time did not try to save the crews of these ships. In fact, a pirate motto was adopted: "Sink them all." At the same time, the commander of the German submarine fleet, Vice Admiral Karl Dennits, developed the tactics of "wolf packs", when submarine attacks on convoys of ships were carried out by a group of submarines at the same time. Karl Doenitz also organized a supply system for submarines directly in the ocean, away from bases.

To avoid the pursuit of submarines by Allied anti-submarine forces, on September 17, 1942, Dönitz issued the Triton Zero order or “Laconia-Befehl order”, which forbade submarine commanders from making any attempt to save the crews and passengers of sunken ships and ships.

Until September 1942, after the attack, German submarines somehow provided assistance to sailors of sunken ships. In particular, on September 12, 1942, the submarine U-156 sank the British transport ship Laconia and assisted in the rescue of the crew and passengers. On September 16, four submarines (one Italian), carrying several hundred rescued, were attacked by American planes whose pilots knew that the Germans and Italians were rescuing the British.

The "wolf packs" of Doenitz's submarines inflicted great damage on the Allied convoys. At the beginning of the war, the German submarine fleet was the dominant force in the Atlantic. Great Britain, with great effort, defended its transport shipping, vital to the mother country. In the first half of 1942, the loss of Allied transports from "wolf packs" of submarines reached a maximum of 900 ships (with a displacement of 4 million tons). For the whole of 1942, 1,664 Allied ships (with a displacement of 7,790,697 tons) were sunk, of which 1,160 ships were submarines.

In 1943, a turning point came - for every Allied ship sunk, the German submarine fleet began to lose one submarine. In total, 1155 submarines were built in Germany, of which 644 units were lost in combat. (67%). Submarines of that time could not stay under water for a long time, they were constantly attacked by planes and ships of the allied fleets on their way to the Atlantic. German submarines still managed to break through to heavily guarded convoys. But it was already much more difficult for them to do this, despite the technical equipment of their own radars, reinforced anti-aircraft artillery weapons, and when attacking ships, with homing acoustic torpedoes. However, in 1945, despite the agony of the Nazi regime, the submarine war was still going on.

In January 1945, the Soviet army was rapidly moving to the West, in the direction of Koenigsberg and Danzig. Hundreds of thousands of Germans, fearing retribution for the atrocities of the Nazis, became refugees and moved towards the port city of Gdynia - the Germans called it Gotenhafen. On January 21, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz gave the order: "All available German ships must save everything that can be saved from the Soviets." The officers were ordered to redeploy the submarine cadets and their military equipment, and in any free corner of their ships - to accommodate refugees, and especially women and children. Operation Hannibal was the largest evacuation of the population in the history of navigation: over two million people were transported by sea vessels to the west.

In Germany, the Gustloff is a symbol of disaster, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories. Photo from 1939

Built in 1937, the Wilhelm Gustloff, named after a slain associate of Hitler in Switzerland, was one of the finest German liners. The ten-deck liner with a displacement of 25,484 tons seemed to them, like the Titanic in its time, unsinkable. A magnificent cruise ship with a cinema and a swimming pool served as the pride of the Third Reich. It was intended to demonstrate to the whole world the achievements of Nazi Germany. Hitler himself participated in the descent of the ship, which was his personal cabin. For the Hitlerite cultural leisure organization “Strength through Joy”, the liner transported vacationers to Norway and Sweden for a year and a half, and with the outbreak of World War II it became a floating barracks for cadets of the 2nd diving training division.

January 30, 1945 "Gustloff" went on his last flight from Gotenhafen. About how many refugees and soldiers were on board, the data of German sources differ. With regard to refugees, until 1990 the figure was almost constant, since many of the survivors of that tragedy lived in the GDR. According to their testimonies, the number of refugees has grown to 10,000 people. With regard to the military on this flight, the latest sources speak of a figure within one and a half thousand people. Passenger assistants were engaged in counting, one of them was officer Heinz Schön, who after the war became the chronicler of the death of the Gustloff and the author of documentary books on this topic, including The Gustloff Catastrophe and SOS - Wilhelm Gustloff.

Shen describes in detail the story of the sinking of the liner. At the end of January, a snow storm raged over Danzing Bay. In Gotenhafen, day and night, work was in full swing. The advanced units of the Red Army, tirelessly advancing to the west, caused an unprecedented panic, the Nazis hastily took out the stolen property, dismantled the machines at the factories. And the rumble of Soviet guns was getting closer.

"Wilhelm Gustloff", standing at the quay wall, receives an order to take on board 4 thousand people to transfer them to Kiel. And the liner is designed to carry 1800 passengers. In the early morning of January 25, a stream of military and civilians poured onto the ship. People who have been waiting for transport for several days are storming places. Formally, everyone entering the ship must have a special pass, but in reality, Nazi dignitaries are randomly loaded onto the ship, saving their own skins, officers of the navy, SS and police - all those whose earth is burning under their feet.

January 29. In Gdynia, the roar of the Soviet Katyushas is heard more and more, but the Gustloff continues to stand by the shore. There are already about 6 thousand people on board, but hundreds of people continue to storm the gangway.

January 30, 1945 ... Despite all the efforts of the crew, the passages could not be freed. Only one room is not occupied - Hitler's apartments. But when the family of the burgomaster of Gdynia, consisting of 13 people, appears, she also takes care of it. At 10 o'clock an order comes - to leave the port ...

Midnight is approaching. The sky is covered with snow clouds. The moon hides behind them. Heinz Shen descends into the cabin, pours a glass of cognac. Suddenly the whole hull of the ship shudders, three torpedoes hit the side ...

The Wilhelm Gustloff slowly sinks into the water. To calm down, they say from the bridge that the liner has run aground ... The ship is gradually sinking to a depth of sixty meters. Finally, the last command is given: "Save yourself, who can!" Few were lucky: only about a thousand people were saved by the approaching ships.

Nine ships participated in their rescue. People tried to escape on life rafts and boats, but most only lasted a few minutes in the icy water. In total, according to Shen, 1239 people survived, of which half, 528 people, were the personnel of German submariners, 123 people of the female auxiliaries of the Navy, 86 wounded, 83 crew members and only 419 refugees. Thus, about 50% of the submariners and only 5% of the rest of the passengers survived. It must be admitted that most of the dead were women and children, the most vulnerable in any war. That is why in some German circles they are trying to classify Marinesco's actions as "war crimes."

In this regard, the story of the native of Danzing, the Nobel laureate Günther Grass, The Trajectory of the Crab, published in 2002 in Germany and almost immediately became a bestseller, is interesting, based on the death of Wilhelm Gustloff. The essay is written witty, but it sounds, interrupting all the others, one leitmotif: an attempt to bring the actions of Hitler's Europe and their winner - the Soviet Union - onto the same plane, based on the tragedy of the war. The author describes the brutal scene of the death of the Gustloff passengers - dead children "floating upside down" because of the bulky life jackets they were wearing. The reader is led to the idea that the S-13 submarine under the command of A.I. Marinesko sank a liner with refugees on board, allegedly fleeing from the atrocities and rapes of the advancing Red Army soldiers, thirsting for revenge. And Marinesko is one of the representatives of this impending "horde of barbarians." The author also draws attention to the fact that all four torpedoes prepared for the attack had inscriptions - “For the Motherland”, “For the Soviet people”, “For Leningrad” and “For Stalin”. By the way, the latter just could not get out of the torpedo tube. The author describes in some detail the entire biography of Marinesko. It is emphasized that before the campaign, he was called for interrogation by the NKVD for misconduct, and only going to sea saved him from the tribunal. Grass's persistent characterization of him as a man with weaknesses, on an emotional level, instills in the reader the idea that the attack on the Gustloff very much looks like a "war crime", such a shadow is cast, although there is not the slightest reason for this. Yes, he drank not only narzan and liked to follow women - which of the men is not sinful in this?

What kind of ship did Marinesco sink to the bottom? The question here is much deeper - in the tragedy of war. Even the most just war is inhuman, because the civilian population suffers first of all from it. According to the inexorable laws of war, Marinesko sank a warship. "Wilhelm Gustloff" had the appropriate signs: anti-aircraft weapons and the flag of the German Navy, and also obeyed military discipline. Under the UN Maritime Convention, it falls under the definition of a warship. And it is not Marinesko's fault that he sank the ship, on which, in addition to the military, there were also refugees. A huge blame for the tragedy lies with the German command, which was guided by military interests and did not think about civilians. At a meeting at Hitler's headquarters on naval matters on January 31, 1945, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy stated that “from the very beginning it was clear that with such active transportation there should be losses. Losses are always very heavy, but, fortunately, they did not increase.

Until now, we have used data, in contrast to Shen's figures, that 3,700 submariners died on the Gustloff, who could have equipped 70 crews of medium-sized submarines. This figure, taken from the report of the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" dated February 2, 1945, appeared in the award list of A.I. Marinesko for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in February 1945. But the VRID of the commander of the KBF submarine brigade, captain 1st rank L.A. Kournikov reduced the level of the award to the Order of the Red Banner. The legend, created in the 1960s with the light hand of the writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, who at that time made public the unknown pages of the war, is also alive. But Marinesco was not "Hitler's personal enemy", and a three-day mourning was not announced in Germany for the death of the Gustloff. One argument is that thousands more people were waiting to be evacuated by sea, and the news of the disaster would have caused panic. Mourning was declared for Wilhelm Gustloff himself, the leader of the National Socialist Party in Switzerland, who was killed in 1936, and his killer, student David Frankfurter, a Jew by origin, was named the Fuhrer's personal enemy.

ACTIONS OF SUBMARINES, WHICH ARE STILL DISCUSSED

In 2015, to the 100th anniversary of the birth of A.I. Marinesko published a book by M.E. Morozova, A.G. Svisyuk, V.N. Ivashchenko "Submariner No. 1 Alexander Marinesko. Documentary portrait” from the series “On the front line. The truth about the war. We must pay tribute, the authors collected a large number of documents of that time and made a detailed analysis of this event of the Great Patriotic War.

However, reading their analysis, you experience conflicting feelings. The authors seem to recognize "it is quite justified to award the "Gold Star" to the commander with two major victories" in this campaign, "if not for one, but a huge but." "And the command of the KBF submarine brigade in 1945 managed to sort out this difficult issue, making the right decision." By "but" they mean precisely those weaknesses that Günther Grass describes in the said publication and describes in his story.

Also, the authors, recognizing the great risk of actions and the activity of the S-13, question the heroic actions of the submarine crew, believing that “the general conditions of the then situation are perceived as quite simple, and the tactical situation at the time of the attack on the Gustloff is even unprecedentedly easy . That is, from the point of view of the skill and dedication shown, this particular case is very difficult to attribute to the outstanding ones. ”

"Attack of the Century" is analyzed in detail by experts. Speaking about the S-13 attack, it is worth noting first of all that almost the entire operation was carried out mainly on the surface and in the coastal area. This was a big risk, since the submarine was in this position for a long time, and if discovered (and Danzing Bay is “home” for the Germans), it could most likely be destroyed. Here it is also worth mentioning the losses of the KBF. In the Baltic, the most complex theater of naval operations, 49 of the 65 Soviet submarines that were in the fleet at the beginning of the war were lost for various reasons.

The analysis made at a meeting at Hitler's headquarters on January 31, 1945 is curious. In particular, it was pointed out that, due to the lack of escort forces, the fleet had to confine itself to the direct guarding of convoys. The only actual means of anti-submarine defense were aircraft with radar installations, the very one that made it possible to paralyze the combat operations of their submarines. The Air Force reported that they lacked neither fuel nor sufficiently effective equipment for such operations. The Fuhrer ordered the Air Force command to deal with this issue.

The attack does not detract from the fact that the Gustloff left Gotenhafen without an appropriate escort ahead of schedule, without waiting for the escort ships, since it was necessary to urgently transfer German submariners from the already surrounded East Prussia. The only ship in the guard was only the destroyer Leve, which, moreover, with a 12-knot course, began to lag behind due to heavy seas and a side north-west wind. A fatal role was played by the navigation lights turned on on the Gustloff after a message was received that a detachment of German minesweepers was moving towards it - it was through these lights that Marinesko discovered the transport. To go on the attack, it was decided to overtake the liner on a parallel course in the surface position, take a position on the forward heading angles and launch torpedoes. A long hour-long overtaking of the Gustloff began. During the last half hour, the boat developed its almost maximum speed to 18 knots, which it hardly did even during the sea trials in 1941. After that, the submarine lay down on a combat course, strictly perpendicular to the port side of the transport, and fired a three-torpedo salvo. About the subsequent maneuvers in the combat report of the commander of the S-13 submarine, Captain 3rd Rank Marinesko, it is written: “... Evaded by an urgent dive ... 2 TFR (patrol ships) and 1 TSC (minesweeper) discovered the submarine and began its pursuit. During the pursuit, 12 depth charges were dropped. Break away from the pursuit of the ships. He had no damage from the explosions of depth charges.

Domestic submarines, unfortunately, by the beginning of the war did not have modern electronic detection equipment. In practice, the periscope remained the main source of information about the surface situation near the submarine. The Mars-type noise direction finders in service made it possible to determine by ear the direction to the noise source with an accuracy of plus or minus 2 degrees. The range of the equipment with good hydrology did not exceed 40 kb. The commanders of German, British and American submarines had sonar stations at their disposal. German submariners, with good hydrology, detected a single transport in the noise direction finding mode at a distance of up to 100 kb, and already from a distance of 20 kb they could get a range to it in the "Echo" mode. All this, of course, directly affected the effectiveness of the use of domestic submarines, required great training from the personnel. At the same time, among submariners, like no other, the crew is objectively dominated by one person, a kind of God in a single enclosed space. Thus, the personality of the commander and the fate of the submarine are something whole. During the war years, in the active fleets of the USSR, out of 229 commanders participating in military campaigns, 135 (59%) at least once launched a torpedo attack, but only 65 (28%) of them managed to hit targets with torpedoes.

The submarine "S-13" in one campaign sank the military transport "Wilhelm Gustloff" with a displacement of 25,484 tons with three torpedoes, and the military transport "General von Steuben", 14,660 tons, with two torpedoes. Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 20, 1945 submarine "S-13" was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. With their heroic actions, the S-13 brought the end of the war closer.

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100 years ago, on January 2 (15), 1913, Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko (Marinescu) was born in Odessa.
The famous submariner, whose name is associated with the "attack of the century". Commander of the Red Banner submarine S-13 of the Red Banner submarine brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, captain of the 3rd rank, known for the “Attack of the Century”. The hero of the USSR. For some, he is a hero, for others, a child killer ...
Who was really Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko?

I already wrote in detail about Marinesko and the "attack of the century" here:

Here I will say this...

Yes, in the USSR, for propaganda reasons, they created a "cult of Marinesko": monuments were erected to him in Kaliningrad, Kronstadt and Odessa, streets and a naval school were named in his honor, Marinesko was dedicated to the feature films "Forget about the return" (1985) and "The first after God "(2005)...

At the same time, Marinesko was accused of the massacre of civilians, including small children, who were evacuated on a ship sunk by him ...

Was the "attack of the century" a feat or a crime?
I have already written in detail about this famous episode of the war (see links above), so draw your own conclusions.

Now I want to talk about something else. When I read about Marinesko, it seems to me that I understood his character - after all, he never wanted to be a military man, but only dreamed of serving in the merchant fleet. But in November 1933 he was sent to special courses for the command staff of the RKKF, after which he was appointed navigator on the submarine Shch-306 ("Haddock") of the Baltic Fleet, in March 1936, in connection with the introduction of personal military ranks, Marinesko received the rank of lieutenant, in November 1938 - senior lieutenant. After graduating from retraining courses at the S. M. Kirov Red Banner Diving Training Unit, he served as an assistant commander on the L-1, then as commander of the M-96 submarine, the crew of which, following the results of combat and political training in 1940, took first place, and the commander was awarded gold medals. hours and promoted to Lieutenant Commander...
Everything seems to be fine, but there were unpleasant moments in his biography: in October 1941, Marinesko was expelled from the candidates for membership of the CPSU (b) for drunkenness and organizing gambling card games in the submarine division, and on New Year's Eve from 1944 to 1945 for two days left the ship, the crew of which during this time "distinguished itself" by sorting out relations with the local population.

Marinesko and his friend were released to the city (Turku, neutral Finland). In an empty hotel restaurant, they, with Slavic breadth, asked to set the table for six. As he himself recalled: "We drank moderately, had a snack, and began to slowly sing Ukrainian songs." Marinesko charmed a young beautiful hostess of the hotel - a Swede and stayed with her.

In the morning, the maid knocked, said that the bridegroom of the mistress with flowers was waiting downstairs. "Get out," he said. - "You won't marry me?" - "I'm not getting married," Marinesco said, "but send me away anyway."
Soon there was a knock on the door again, now an officer from the boat: "Trouble, there is a commotion at the base, they are looking for you. The Finnish authorities have already been told ...". "Get out," she said. "How so - I can not." - "I drove the groom away for your sake. What kind of winners are you, you are afraid to sleep with a woman."
And the commander said to the officer: "You didn't see me."
Returned in the evening.

There was a rumor that he was recruited by enemy intelligence. Marinesco was to appear before a military tribunal.
The crew refused to go to sea with another commander.
The commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral V.F. Tributs, decided to bring Marinesko to trial by a military tribunal for unauthorized abandonment of the ship in a combat situation, but made it possible to atone for his guilt in a military campaign.

Alexander Evstafievich Orel, division commander (later - admiral, commander of the Baltic Fleet):
- I allowed them to go to sea, let him redeem himself there. They told me: "How did you let such an Arkharovian go?" And I believed him, he did not return empty from the campaign.

It was in this campaign that Marinesko sank two large enemy transports - Wilhelm Gustloff and Steuben ...

Soviet historians pathetically wrote:
In a severe storm, the S-13 submarine under the command of A. Marinesko sank the miracle ship Wilhelm Gustlov, on board of which the color of the fascist submarine fleet left Koenigsberg: 3,700 officers, crews for 70-80 submarines, high-ranking officials, generals and high command , as well as an auxiliary women's battalion (guards in the camps, SS men) - 400 people. The feat of submariners was called the "attack of the century." Germany has declared three days of mourning. The commander of the convoy was shot on Hitler's personal order. Captain Marinesko was declared his personal enemy.

However, later in the article "Legend of Marinesko" this legend was refuted:
This is not just a lie. This is a criminal lie. Because the sinking of Gustlov can only be considered the attack of the century from one side - never before has such a small unit destroyed so many people at one time. Even in the famous bombing of Dresden (25,000 dead), several thousand pilots participated ... Not counting women and men, 3,000 children died in the icy water. Hitler took the news of the tragedy with surprising indifference. Marinesko did not fall into any lists of enemies. Mourning was not declared, and could not be declared - the death of the ship was not officially reported. Both Captain Peterson and the commander of the security forces survived until May 9, 1945 ... And soon after the war, Marinesko was removed from the boat for drunkenness.

Yes. it was like that. On September 14, 1945, order No. 01979 of the People's Commissar of the Navy N. G. Kuznetsov was issued, which stated:
“For negligence in official duties, systematic drunkenness and everyday promiscuity of the commander of the Red Banner submarine S-13 of the Red Banner submarine brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, captain 3rd rank Marinesko Alexander Ivanovich, removed from his position, demoted in military rank to senior lieutenant and enlisted at the disposal of the military council of the same fleet.
In 1960, the order to demote was canceled, which made it possible for Marinesko, by that time already very ill, to receive a full pension.

From October 18, 1945 to November 20, 1945, Marinesko was the commander of the minesweeper T-34 of the 2nd minesweeper division of the 1st Red Banner minesweeper brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (Tallinn Marine Defense Region). On November 20, 1945, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy No. 02521, Senior Lieutenant Marinesko A.I. was transferred to the reserve.

After the war, in 1946-1949, Marinesko worked as a senior mate on the ships of the Baltic State Merchant Shipping Company, in 1949 - as deputy director of the Leningrad Research Institute of Blood Transfusion.
In 1949 he was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of squandering socialist property, he served his sentence in 1949-1951 in Vanino.
They say that the squandering consisted in the fact that he distributed "state coal" to the families of the dead Red Navy soldiers so that they would have something to warm themselves in the harsh post-war winter ...

Since 1948, Marinesko worked as a deputy director at the Institute of Blood Transfusion. The grabber director was building a dacha, he wanted to get rid of the principled deputy. With the consent of the director, Alexander Ivanovich took the decommissioned peat briquettes lying around in the yard to the homes of low-paid workers. The director, Vikentiy Kukharchik, called the OBKhSS himself.
The first composition of the court broke up. The prosecutor, a front-line soldier, seeing the linden, refused the accusation, both people's assessors expressed a dissenting opinion. Only Judge Praskovya Vasilievna Varkhoeva did not give up.
Marinesko was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
For such a period they do not send far. But Marinesko was driven to Kolyma. They stuffed me into the same car with the recent policemen.

From Marinesko's story to the writer Kron: " The distribution of food is in their hands... I feel we won't get there. I began to look closely at people - not all of them are bastards. I see: mostly a swamp, it is always on the side of the strong! Fortunately, there were several sailors nearby. We agreed... At the next distribution of food, a fight broke out. I confess to you: I kicked in the ribs and was happy. The head of the train appeared, figured it out, "power" was transferred to the sailors.

These letters are more than half a century old. Alexander Ivanovich wrote them to Valentina Ivanovna Gromova, his second wife.

"Hello, dear, dear Valyushka!
The city of Vanino is a large village, there is no running water, no sewerage.
A strong snow blizzard swept our house up to the roof, and in order to get out, we had to crawl out through a hole in the ceiling (for a makeshift stove) and clear the snow from the door.
I do not lose hope and I am firmly convinced that I will happily live out my life with you (up to 80-90 years), I have already begun preparations, I gave 50 rubles for this paycheck to the tailor, whom I ordered to sew a "Muscovite" - a short coat from an overcoat, and In total, you have to pay 200 rubles for the work.
With that, loving you immensely, your servant and husband. 4/1-1951"

These are censored letters.

And this is real life. A book was stolen from Marinesko - a gift from his wife. Having learned about this, the owner of the chamber, the "godfather", said: "In a minute you will have the book." But it turned out that the young thief had already cut the book into cards. By order of the "godfather" four lessons killed the guy: they swung him and - on the floor.
In his own way, in an animal way, he was "cherished" in the cell. What is the attraction of personality even for a lesson? After all, they did not know about the exploits of Marinesko.

Alexander Ivanovich found a way to correspond not through the camp mailbox.
"Hello, dear Valyusha! The authorities came to check on us and, having learned that I was not writing letters through the PO box 261/191, they took all your letters that I kept and punished me by removing me from the foremen and transferring them to loaders.
Goodbye, my invisible happiness! 29/1-1951"

Marinesko's mother, old woman Tatyana Mikhailovna, got a job to help her son. She wrote a letter to Stalin.

"Our dear and beloved Joseph Vissarionovich!
The mother of the war hero Alexander Marinesko, who suffered in agony, is writing to you.
Over my son hung - a lie!
Our dear Joseph Vissarionovich! I kneel before you, I beg you - help... Comfort your mother's heart. Be a father to my son.
We know that you are the most just person on earth."

Anxiety is brewing: "Dear Valyusha! I am writing a third letter, but there is still no answer from myself. Probably, you are already tired of waiting for me."
She answered from some northern Zateika, where she worked on a geological exploration expedition. She called to herself.

“There was no limit to my joy. But is there a court in Zateyka where I could get a job as a foreman of the ship? And will they take me?
Now I have a good “Muscovite”, but there’s nothing else, it’s not even quite decent to go straight to you in Zateyka, which means you need to stop by Leningrad for documents and other trifles - at least for a razor. If you knew how much I want to be with you! I don't want to linger even for a moment. But now it has become much more difficult to earn offsets. Today I received a letter from my mother ... He is going to send a parcel to me. I will not write about my feelings, because I am to blame for everything. Write to her that when I am free and we save a little money, we will definitely come to her in Odessa ... "

"I'M BEGIN TO LOSE FAITH IN SOVIET AUTHORITY"

On October 10, 1951, he was released early. Sat for almost two years. By this time, the director of the institute had already been imprisoned for embezzlement.
In 1951-1953 he worked as a loader, topographer of the Onega-Ladoga expedition, since 1953 he led a group of the supply department at the Mezon Leningrad plant, where he earned many thanks, his portrait hung on the Board of Honor.

Until 1960, when Alexander Kron appeared in the newspaper, no one around knew about the military merits of Alexander Ivanovich. The owner of the apartment once saw the Order of Lenin and asked. "There was a war," he answered shortly, "many received it."

In the late fifties, having lived together for 15 years, Alexander Ivanovich broke up with Valentina. They remained on good terms.
He received a small pension, so his income was limited. Plus child support. Factory managers went forward, allowed to earn above the ceiling. A revision came up, according to the court (again the court!) Marinesko began to return the surplus. When he fell mortally ill - two cancers, throat and esophagus, the surplus began to be deducted from the pension.

About two hundred officers, among them - 20 admirals and generals, 6 Heroes of the Soviet Union, 45 submarine commanders and commissars appealed to the Central Committee of the CPSU:
"Given the exceptional merits of A.I. Marinesko to our Motherland, we earnestly ask and intercede for the appointment of Marinesko a personal pension. It cannot be considered fair that such a well-deserved submarine commander was in a pension provision in an immeasurably worse position than officers who did not participate in the war " .

The request was refused.

Marinesko wrote to Kron: "Recently, at the age of 51, I am beginning to lose faith in Soviet power."

There was also a joy at the end of life. There was a small corner. The woman who shared the last torment.
Valentina Alexandrovna Filimonova:
- We met with friends. Trousers in patches, a jacket on elbows in patches. The only thing was the shirt, the collar of the shirt fell off, just kept on the tie. Clean, very neat, but already so poor. He went to see me off and stayed with me. He had some kind of attraction force, like hypnosis, both children and adults felt it. He had an unusual gait: his head was slightly raised - so proudly, majestically striding. Especially when they went out to the embankment, to the Neva - it merged with granite. He brought 25 rubles as a payday, a little more as an advance. And in order to show my mother that a man really appeared in the house, I began to put my money on him and gave it to my mother.
A year later, we went with him to a meeting of veteran submariners, I didn’t understand anything: they call Sasha’s last name and such a thunder of applause, they don’t let him talk further. It was only then, a year later, that I found out who he was.

They only had a life - a year. The other two Alexander Ivanovich was painfully, mortally ill.

M. Weinstein, former divisional mechanic, friend:
Marinesko was in a very bad hospital. He did not have enough experience for the hospital. We, veterans, went to the commander of the Leningrad naval base Baikov. The admiral was furious: "In our hospital, the devil knows who is being treated, but is there no place for Marinesko?" Immediately ordered, gave his car.

Valentina Alexandrovna:
- It was then, and not later, as many write, that on the way from hospital to hospital we saw ships in the roadstead, and Sasha cried for the only time: "I will never see them again."

Mikhail Weinstein was the last to see Marinesko:
- He was in a sad mood: "That's it, this is the end." It's time for dinner, and the wife is rumpled. He says: “Nothing, let him look, he can. She unbandaged her stomach, and I saw the tube that came from the stomach. Valentina Alexandrovna inserted a funnel and began to pour something liquid. We drank a glass of cognac with him, it was all the same - the doctors allowed. He said: "Just don't clink glasses" - and they poured cognac into the funnel. The throat was black, apparently, they were irradiated. And the second time I came, there was already a tube in my throat. It quickly became clogged, Sasha was suffocating, and Valentina Alexandrovna cleaned it every 20-30 minutes.Now that death was near, he, as always in the most difficult moments in the war, jumped fighting spirit.Apparently, when I entered, he was confused, he could no longer speak, took a piece of paper and wrote: “Misha, you have frightened eyes. Drop it. Now I believe in life. I'm going to have an artificial esophagus."

November 25, 1963 Alexander Ivanovich died. At the age of 50.
He was buried at the Theological Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

The money that he was overpaid at the factory did not have time to deduct everything from a small pension. And the dead remained indebted to the Soviet government.

Fate, as if testing him, subjected him to double tests. Two dismissals from the fleet (the first - because of the "questionnaire"). Two courts. Two crayfish with two tubes.
And the hat in a circle was also thrown twice - on the monument and during his lifetime. On October 4, 1963, the writer Sergei Smirnov said in a TV show that the legendary submariner lives practically in poverty.
From all over the country, money poured into Leningrad, including from students, pensioners - often three, five rubles each.
Valentina Alexandrovna was now able to quit her job, they put a bed next to her in the ward.
He died, and all the translations went ...

After Marinesco's death, his name was withdrawn from circulation.

The shipbuilders turned to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Gorshkov, with a request to name one of the ships after Alexander Marinesko. The admiral put a resolution on the collective letter - "Unworthy".
Sergey Georgievich Gorshkov received both of his Gold Stars of the Hero many years after the war - as a gift. It was with his participation that the epic of Malaya Zemlya with Colonel Brezhnev was inflated. He commanded the fleet for 30 years.
- Marinesko? He just got lucky with this sinking, - he answered with irritation. - Yes, and in 1945 it no longer played a role, the end of the war ...

This means that those who stormed Berlin three months later have no price at all.
He, Sergei Georgievich, refused to support the application for a personal pension for Marinesko's mother. Tatyana Mikhailovna outlived her son by 12 years. She lived in Odessa in a communal apartment, in her ninth decade she went to the yard for firewood and water and received a pension - 21 rubles.
She is to blame, mother, she is to blame: she gave birth to the wrong son ...

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was awarded posthumously on May 5, 1990.

I think that Marinesco was not initially eager to become a sailor, and felt out of his element, service in the Navy was too strict for him. Yes, he fought bravely, although not always successfully: out of six military campaigns carried out by Marinesko during the Great Patriotic War, three were unsuccessful, but he is the first "heavyweight" among Soviet submariners: he has two sunk transports with a displacement of 42,557 gross - registered tons.
It was believed that this was the largest ship sunk as a result of a submarine attack, but in fact, submariners from other countries also sank much larger ships, including combat ones, for example, the American submarine Archerfish destroyed the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano with a displacement of 71 890 brt, and the German boat U-47 14 October 1939 sank an English battleship "Royal Oak" with a displacement of 29,150 brt right in the harbor of Scapa Flow).

According to modern data, 406 sailors and officers of the 2nd submarine training division, 90 members of their own crew, 250 female soldiers of the German fleet and 4,600 refugees and wounded died with the Gustloff. Of the German submariners, 16 officers died (including 8 of the medical service), the rest were poorly trained cadets who still needed at least a six-month training course.
Nearly 3,000 children were among the dead.
There are other estimates of the number of victims, up to 9343 people.

Contrary to the assertions of a number of military and historians, a three-day mourning for the sunken ship in Germany was not declared (during the entire war it was declared only for the 6th Wehrmacht Army destroyed in Stalingrad) and Hitler did not declare Marinesko his personal enemy. Hitler, apparently, was not very worried about the death of cadets and children sailing on the Gustloff ...

Be that as it may, the Wilhelm Gustloff was the largest ship in terms of tonnage sunk by Soviet submariners, and the second in terms of the number of victims.

Did Marinesko know that there were children on the ship?
Probably not. He erroneously identified "Steuben" as "Emden". Winter night, bad weather, the harsh Baltic Sea ... in such conditions, he completed a combat mission, not knowing what he was doing. It's just a war, alas.

Marinesko was not at all a bronze monument to himself during his lifetime. A living person, with its own strengths and weaknesses. Apparently, Marinesko was a kind slob, fond of gambling, drinking, women ... Apparently, he was a gambling, addicted person, capable of exploits, recklessness, and good deeds. I do not think that the sailor was a cannibal who dreamed of the blood of German children. Perhaps Alexander Ivanovich never found out about the dead children at all.

Years after the war, a meeting between a Soviet submarine torpedo operator and one of the survivors from a torpedoed ship took place:
The assistant treasurer on the Wilhelm Gustloff was only eighteen years old on the day of the disaster. To him, who collected and studied almost all the materials related to the death of the liner, not too much gratitude was expressed. The meeting-memorial opened with his report "The death of Wilhelm Gustloff - through the eyes of the Russians"; in the course of the report, he made it clear that for his searches he repeatedly visited the Soviet Union and even met with the boatswain of the C-13 submarine, moreover, he maintains friendly relations with the same Vladimir Kurochkin, who, on the orders of the commander, sent three torpedoes to the target; there is even a photograph of him shaking hands with this elderly man, who, as Heinz Schön later noted with restraint, "also lost his comrades."
After the report, he was avoided. Many listeners considered him a Russophile. For them, the war never ended. For them, the Russians remained Ivans, and the three torpedoes were the murder weapon. And for Vladimir Kurochkin, the nameless sunken ship was packed to capacity with fascists who attacked his homeland and left scorched earth behind them during their retreat.
Only from the story of Heinz Schön did he learn that after the torpedo attack, more than four thousand children died, who drowned, froze or were carried away by the whirlpool from the ship that went to the bottom. For a long time these children dreamed of the boatswain in nightmares.

Meanwhile, the US Air Force pilot Paul Tibbets understood that random civilians would die after the atomic bombing, but until the end of his days he considered himself a soldier who had fulfilled his duty and contributed to the speedy end of the war ...

What then to make claims to Marinesco?
It's not for us to judge him.
And by what measure the life and deeds of Alexander Marinesko are weighed - only God can judge about that ...

Everlasting memory.

In glorifying Marinesko and his "feat", we first of all demonstrate ignorance of history, disregard for facts and blatant violation of universal human values. We are once again proving to the "light" that leavened patriotism, mixed with imaginary victories, is dearer to us than the true heroes of the war, whose real exploits, perhaps, are less impressive. For some reason, we always need "left-handers who shoe a flea" in order to feel complete. Maybe in order to make it easier to hide from society behind their loud fame the unpleasant facts of numerous defeats or the figures of miserable military successes due to a vicious military organization, poor training and backward technical equipment. After all, it is high time to understand that the feat of our sailors is not that they sank as many ships or more than the British, but that, despite a lot of adverse factors and circumstances, they honestly fulfilled their duty to their Motherland and caused damage to the enemy to such an extent. as far as it was possible for them.