Attack of the hobbits According to the "traditional", or rather, fantasy version of the same Karamzin, the "Mongols" were nomadic tribes living approximately in the south of the modern Irkutsk region, related to the Eastern Turks. This, in general, a short phrase, probably, can break the record

Anti-communist attack Anti-communist elements tried to turn criticism of the excesses of collectivization into criticism of Stalin and the party leadership. Alternately attacking the Leninist leadership from right and left opportunist positions, they tried to advance

On the trail of the liner

"Right to board!" Marinesko commanded. Soon he saw more lights belonging to the liner and the guard ship. By the speed of their movement, the Soviet submariner decided that he was dealing with a fascist convoy, consisting of a Nuremberg-class light cruiser and patrol ships that were leading a large ship to the west. Marinesko crossed the course of the convoy, turned around and followed it at full speed already from the coast. He decided that the Germans would not notice his attack from this side. At 2308 hours S-13, breaking through the guards, fired a salvo of four bow torpedo tubes at the largest ship. It was a 9-deck handsome cruise ship "Wilhelm Gustloff". The war was ending, torpedoes could not be spared. The ship did not have long to live ...

Three Soviet torpedoes at the speed of a courier train, they rushed to the German liner, which gave about 20 knots (37 km / h) in a stormy sea. The fourth torpedo did not come out of the apparatus, it had to be sucked back with great difficulty, but three steel cigars hit the huge ship perfectly: in the bow, middle and stern. The Gustloff was hit to death...

"In normal mode" the fascist liner was designed to accommodate 1800 passengers and crew members. According to current German data, on that ill-fated night there were more than 10,000 people on it - 173 crew members, 162 wounded soldiers, up to 1,300 officers, non-commissioned officers and privates of the 2nd submarine training division, including 373 women. The rest are refugees. And now, after the S-13 salvo, the Fuhrer's steel favorite, who was present at its launch 10 years before the tragedy, sank, according to German data, in 45 minutes ...

Of all those on board the liner, according to current data, the Germans managed to save 1239 people. They were taken to the cruiser. It turned out to be not a light Nuremberg, but a heavy Admiral Hipper. From these data it follows that there were originally 927 "real submariners", and not 3,700 people, and how many of them died is not reported. But since total losses in the personnel of the fascist submarine were huge - by that time the British and American fleets had sunk more than 700 Unterseebots, with which more than 30,000 submariners had gone to the bottom of the sea - then every trained submariner who died on the Gustloff was dear to the Kriegsmarine . Moreover, they were waiting for submarines not only of the well-known fleets of the anti-Hitler coalition of the VII and IX series, but also of the latest, XXI and XXIII series, which, according to the fascist admirals, it would be difficult for the coalition fleets to fight. Therefore, the Soviet writer Alexander Kron, who wrote the story "The Sea Captain" about Marinesko, called the sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" "the attack of the century."

The sinking of the liner, named after the deceased leader of the Swiss fascists, an ally of Hitler, was not particularly advertised in the Soviet Union before Kron. AT Western Europe, especially in Germany, he is remembered from the moment of his death until now. And in the 1970s, with the light hand of a writer who knew Alexander Marinesko well, this event in the USSR began to be more and more singled out from the list of military victories of Soviet submariners. After all, along with "Gustloff" allegedly died most of of the 3700 non-commissioned officers and commanders of the diving school in Gdynia (Gotenhafen) who were on board. The Soviet cap-three left the submarine fleet of Nazi Germany without replenishment with one blow!

The Soviet press wrote that, having learned about the sinking of the Gustloff, Hitler ordered to shoot the head of the guard of the convoy, declared Marinesko a "personal enemy" and set a reward of 1 million Reichsmarks for his head. In Germany, a three-day mourning was allegedly declared, as after Stalingrad. The German archives do not confirm such actions of Hitler, but emphasize that thousands of "civilians" died along with the liner. Well, we have the sinking of the Gustloff, and today some still call it the "attack of the century." But was she? Was it an event that, according to the results, neither before nor after it was achieved for a century, that influenced the course further development history or military equipment? Such as, say, the flight of the Wright brothers in 1903, the sinking of three British cruisers by Otto Weddigen in 1914, the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945, or the launch artificial satellite Land in 1957? Let's consider the events in more detail.

Captain Marinesko: from "M-96" to "S-13"

Of the 1.1 million tonnage sunk by Soviet submariners during the Great Patriotic War, about 50 thousand tons of enemy ships were sent to the bottom by Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko. The fact that it was a real "sea wolf" can be said without any exaggeration. At the age of 16, after graduating from the jung school, he already went on the ships of the merchant fleet. Then he graduated from Odessa nautical school and in 1933 he became a long-distance navigator, assistant captain of the Red Fleet steamship of the Black Sea Shipping Company. In 1935 he graduated from special courses for commanders and began serving in the Navy as an assistant captain of the Shch-306 submarine. After studying at the Higher Special Courses for Diving Commanders in 1937, Senior Lieutenant Marinesko accepted the M-96 submarine of the Baltic Fleet.

Boats of class "M", "Malyutki", were ships of coastal action, with a displacement of only 258 tons. They had a crew of 18-22 people, were armed with one 45-millimeter gun and had only 2 torpedo tubes that were loaded in the base. These submarines did not have spare torpedoes for reloading their vehicles after firing. The commander of the "Baby" Marinesko was intelligent, and in 1940 the People's Commissar of the Navy for the excellent performance of torpedo firing awarded him a gold nominal watch. After the start of the Great Patriotic War, in 1942, "M-96", having overcome 20 German minefields, sank a transport of 7 thousand tons, for which Lieutenant Commander Marinesko was awarded the Order of Lenin. In the spring of 1943, he received the S-13 boat.

Symbol of Soviet-German friendship

Type "C" boats were the most advanced Soviet medium submarines. The history of their creation is interesting. In 1926 the leadership navy Germany invited the leadership of the Soviet Navy to purchase drawings of the most successful medium submarine of the Kaiser Navy type UB-III, designed in 1918. Our naval engineers considered the German project obsolete and decided to launch large-scale production of Shch-type submarines. The basis for the "Pike" was the English submarine L-55, built according to a less successful project than the German one. She was sunk in the Gulf of Finland during the Civil War and then raised. And the Germans launched work on the modernization of their Troikas. In 1932, Soviet shipbuilders managed to get acquainted with the E-1 submarine, which was being built by the Germans for Spain, which was a development of the UB-III. Now the leadership of the RKKF was very interested in the project, and Deshimag was offered to make working drawings of submarines under Soviet weapons. In 1934, 3 hulls were laid down in the USSR, and already at the end of 1935, two of them were launched. The tests of the boats were so successful that the Soviet side refused further cooperation with Deshimag and launched the "Soviet-German project" into a large series under the letter "C" - "medium".

During the Great Patriotic War, 30 such submarines fought with the German fleet. With an underwater displacement of 1090 tons, they were armed with one 45 and one 100 mm guns, six torpedo tubes with 12 torpedoes (that is, they could reload the tubes and make another salvo). With a crew of 44 people, a surface speed of up to 40, and an underwater speed of up to 18 km / h, the "esks" could, without entering the base for up to 30 days, serve even in the ocean. But the Germans were not left out! The Soviet "eska" of the 9th series became the basis of the German "steel sharks" of the 7th, the most massive and formidable series of the submarine fleet of Nazi Germany. Moreover, the Germans doubled the maximum depth of immersion of their "esks", and in total they built ... 704 units!

"Thirteenth" goes to sea

On April 19, 1943, "S-13" under the command of Alexander Marinesko, having passed anti-submarine barriers, in a gambling attack sank an armed transport of 5 thousand tons with artillery fire, for which its commander received the Order of the Red Banner. As you can see, Marinesko was a resourceful and decisive officer. Judging by some memories of him, and on land too. I could have missed a glass, and closed with a Swede in a hotel for three days. After all, he was then a little over thirty, and each exit to the sea could be the last ...

In the spring of 1943, the Germans, in order to protect their shipping in the Baltic from Soviet submarines, blocked the Gulf of Finland from the Porkkaludd peninsula to the island of Naissaar with double-row anti-submarine nets made of 18 mm thick steel cable. On both sides of the nets, starting from the very bottom, they also put minefields out of 8.5 thousand min. To listen to the depths, sound-finding stations were installed, and for shelling the water area, in the event of the appearance of Soviet submarines on the surface, coastal batteries. Moreover, about 120 ships of anti-submarine forces were on duty on the water. Soviet aviation could not prevent the Nazis from establishing anti-submarine lines. The Baltic Fleet - and its submarines in the first place - was tightly locked up in Kronstadt and Leningrad for more than a year.

Forced rest

Of course, the Baltic sailors did not sleep soundly. Those who did not leave to fight on land repaired ships damaged by enemy bombs and shells as best they could, prepared for battles and campaigns. Considering that Leningrad continued to remain in blockade and a significant part of the civilian repair personnel was either evacuated or died, repairs could not be carried out quickly. Yes, and the damage to the ships was very significant. But the Baltic Fleet lived. Its surface ships, from destroyers and above, participated in counterbattery, preventing German artillerymen from shelling Leningrad with impunity. But it was hard for the Baltics to do the main combat work, practicing navigation and combat skills - the water area was too small and shallow. Yes, and many ship commanders changed their places of service. As Vice-Admiral Lev Vladimirsky, transferred to the Baltic from the Black Sea, noted in his diary, "... the ships are placed along the Neva and Nevkas. After the evacuation of Hanko in the forty-first, the ships did not sail, with the exception of single crossings of Kronstadt-Leningrad and changing places on the Neva ".

It was especially difficult for submariners to restore their combat skills. After all, the depths of the water area did not exceed 20-30 meters, and the height of the "eska" from the keel to the edge of the felling was about 9 meters. How to dive without risking hitting the bottom? Of course, Marinesko did a lot to maintain the combat readiness of his ship, but the forced separation from combat work always leaves a negative imprint on the actions of the personnel and on the work of equipment. Perhaps that is why the fourth torpedo did not "launch" at the S-13 during the Gustloff attack? But, halfway out of the torpedo tube, it could become disastrous for the boat and crew ...

The Germans took advantage of this state of the Baltic Fleet. Although the blockade of Leningrad was finally broken in the summer of 1944, the German historian F. Ruge notes in his book "The Navy of the Third Reich" that in November 1944, during the evacuation German units from Courland, German coastal defense ships, without a single loss, navigated through the Baltic Sea 704 ships with a carrying capacity of 1.6 million tons. In December, the Germans carried 575 ships (1.1 million tons), losing only one trawler. In the last six months of the war in the Baltic Sea, the Germans did not see a single Soviet destroyer or larger ship, "... although there were attractive targets for them - slow-moving German convoys with weak security."

Ruge's assessment is also confirmed by the top-secret order of the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR N.G. Kuznetsov No. 00260 dated December 20, 1944 "On checking the combat activities of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet". So: "... I have repeatedly noted major shortcomings and passivity in the fulfillment of their combat missions by the fleet ... belated and untimely deployment of a reserve of submarines in the Baltic Sea and their floating bases in the ports of Finland ... the fleet did not complete the task assigned to it to block the peninsula (Svorbe. - Auth.), not allowing the transport of reserves and the evacuation of enemy troops. As a result, through the Irben Strait, not only systematic feeding (by the enemy) of their troops took place, but two divisions were freely removed from the peninsula. "

And this is despite the fact that as early as June 3, 1943, in accordance with the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of May 31, 1943 No. 761-189, the People's Commissar of the Navy Kuznetsov, by his order No. boat, torpedo boat, hunter boat and aircraft for sinking enemy ships! And the payouts were huge! For a battleship: to the ship's commander - 25,000 rubles; middle and senior command staff - 5,000 rubles. to each; junior command staff - 1000 rubles. to each; sailors - 500 rubles each. For a cruiser: 20,000, 3,000, 1,000, 500 rubles, respectively. For a destroyer or submarine: 10,000, 2,500, 600, 300 rubles. For a transport vessel (displacement not specified): 3000, 1000, 200, 200 rubles. Behind patrol ship or minesweeper: 2000.500, 200, 100 rubles. For a barge, tug or armed schooner: 1000, 300, 100, 50 rubles.

As you can see, the Soviet submariners had plenty of grounds for decisive action at the final stage of the war.

"S-13" goes down in history

The main campaign in the combat biography of Alexander Marinesko began on January 11, 1945. He spotted the "convoy" leaving the Danzig Bay, after 19 days of being at sea, at 21:10 on January 30. Why to attack Marinesco, despite the fact that cash reward if successful, would he have been much less, chose transport, and not "Hipper"? According to some sources, the enemy cruiser pulled ahead, and the S-13 torpedoes could no longer reach it ...

And yet, Marinesko chased the Germans, although he had to do it "in a positional position", in which only the cabin remains above the water. It was stormy, spray flew, a foamy breaker dispersed from the felling. The boat could be pulled under water, washing the commander off the navigation bridge. In this position, for more than two hours, the S-13, in order to take up a position for an attack, walked less than a kilometer from the Germans. But darkness winter night and the audacity of the commander of our submarine, the vigilance of the German observers was dulled ...

A word about the enemy

The senior ship of the convoy, the armored handsome heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper" with a displacement of 13,900 tons, was the most powerful German ship in the Baltic, more powerful than any of the cruisers of the Baltic Fleet. The shell of each of the 8 guns of its main caliber weighed more than 100 kilograms. In addition, the "Hipper" had 18 more guns with a caliber half as large, and even more than 30 anti-aircraft guns and ... 12 torpedo tubes. In general, if the captain of a heavy cruiser knew who the surf was foaming not far from the convoy, he would have sunk the S-13 in the blink of an eye. And besides the "Hipper", there were also destroyers, a minesweeper, and boats in the convoy ...

The Wilhelm Gustloff, the largest protected transport, was a 25,484 ton 9-deck cruise ship launched in the mid-1930s. It was intended for cruise flights of the "best representatives of the German people", and therefore had a swimming pool, gymnastic and dance halls, restaurants, cafes, a winter garden, a church and even ... Hitler's personal cabin. Throughout the war, the ship stood in Gdynia, where it was used as floating base for submarines. And at almost midnight on January 30, 1945, his course intersected with the course of the Soviet submarine S-13. Above the "Wilhelm Gustloff" three high fountains of icy Baltic water rose in succession. Only now did the Germans understand who was raising the breaker very close ...

Who was on the Gustloff?

Rear Admiral Yu.S. Russin, who in 1945 served as a senior assistant to the Soviet submarine L-21 with the rank of lieutenant commander, recalled in his memoirs: “On the evening of February 15, after Marinesko reported to the brigade command about the results of the campaign, we gathered in his cramped cabin. .. AI Marinesko, smiling, said: "Whom we drowned, we do not know, but we know that we sent to the bottom of the fascist ship of large displacement ...".

Who was drowned by Marinesko on February 20, 1945 was the first to be reported by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. According to her, from nine to ten thousand people were on board the sunken liner, including 22 Gauleiters of the Polish lands and the lands of East Prussia; 3,700 non-commissioned officers and 100 submarine commanders who completed special courses to manage submarines intended for the complete blockade of England; an auxiliary battalion of SS troops in the amount of 300 people; officials, generals and senior officers reporting directly to Himmler. 988 people were saved. As you can see, the data of the Swedish newspaper are very different from modern ones.

After a daring attack, the guard ships pursued the S-13 for two days, dropping about 240 depth charges on it. But the "S-13" survived, and on February 9, again at the exits from the Danzig Bay, at 22.15 Marinesko sank the steamer "General Steuben" with a displacement of 14,660 tons. In 1945, our press claimed that there were more than 3,000 soldiers and officers on the ship who were evacuating to the defense of Berlin. Now the Germans claim that there were 3,000 seriously wounded on the ship, and only 300 people were saved.

After the sinking of the Steuben, while heading to the base, the Marinesko boat was attacked by a German submarine, which chased the S-13 underwater for six hours and fired 8 torpedoes at it. Already when approaching the base, Marinesco spent more than three miles under the ice with the S-13. She returned to the S-13 base on February 15, after more than a month of heroic combat work in the stormy winter Baltic. But Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko did not become a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1945 ...

Most likely, because the same Swedish newspapers made a terrible noise. After all, there were civilians on the Gustloff, and seriously wounded on the Steuben. Surely Goebbels propaganda took advantage of this. Agree, to assign the captain of the 3rd rank of Marinesko Hero then, in February, "at the top" could well seem somehow awkward. Now, if he had done all this later, like, for example, captain 3rd rank V. Konovalov ...

April 17, 1945 (just two weeks before the surrender of Germany!) Vladimir Konovalov, commanding the submarine "L-3", intercepted a convoy of eight ships. According to Soviet claims, they had reinforcements on board for the German groups in Königsberg, Danzig and Gotenhafen. According to British data, the ships evacuated refugees from the Hel Peninsula. Konovalov sank the Goya steamship with a displacement of only 5,230 tons, but there were 6,385 people on board (as he was hung with grapes). Only 165 people were rescued, all of them turned out to be soldiers. But no one would guarantee that out of the 6,220 dead, half were civilians. But two days later, on April 19, Konovalov sank the heavy floating battery "Robert Muller". Its displacement was only about 1,000 tons, but even if there were 6,000 civilians, it was a warship, and Captain 3rd Rank Konovalov became a Hero of the Soviet Union. Therefore, it can be assumed that if Marinesko was sunk after the Gustloff, a destroyer circling nearby, the Star of the Hero would be provided to him. And if he had sent the Hipper to the bottom, without even touching the Gustloff, then I do not exclude that this Star would have been handed to him in the Kremlin by Comrade Stalin himself and would have personally sent a couple of boxes of Georgian cognac for the S-13 crew. As he sent to "friend Churchill", despite the fact that the English "Lancasters" in front of the very noses of the advancing Soviet troops burned to the ground, in general, "civilian" Dresden ...

In general, Marinesko and 6 other crew members received the Order of the Red Banner, the entire team received the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War. "S-13" also became the Red Banner.

So was there an "attack of the century"?

For Soviet submariners - it was unambiguous. Larger than the "Wilhelm Gustloff" in terms of displacement, a ship, a larger total displacement of all ships sunk in one campaign, neither Russian nor Soviet submariners have sunk in the entire 20th century. Well, now let's try to evaluate the impact of the result of that attack on the course of further events of World War II. Let's take into account that the crew of the German boat of the XXIII series was to consist of 44 people, and the boat of the XXIII series - of 57. If we assume that all 927 "real" submariners out of 1300 who belonged to the 2nd training division of the submarine forces died along with the Gustloff, then it turns out that the German submarine fleet lost ... 30 crews at once. 30 crews would have changed the course of the war at sea in 1945, when the Atlantic was teeming with anti-submarine defense ships, and from above not a single German boat could not get into keen eye radar patrol aircraft "Liberator"? Unlikely...

So, according to the influence on the development of the course of the Second World War at sea, there was no "attack of the century" sinking "Wilhelm Gustloff" by Alexander Marinesko.

It cannot be called such by the tonnage of the ship sunk in one attack, because the most large ship, sunk by a submarine in one battle, was the Japanese aircraft carrier "Shinano" with a displacement of about 70,000 tons, sunk by 6 torpedoes by the commander of the American submarine "Archerfish" commander (corresponds to our captain of the 2nd rank) Joseph Inright.

So, was it necessary to award Marinesko posthumously the title of Hero of the Soviet Union many years after the war? Was he like that? Certainly - was!

Let's mentally put ourselves on the bridge of the S-13 submarine, rushing in the darkness of a stormy winter filled with mines. Baltic Sea. Preparing an attack at gunpoint from the Hipper and other escort ships. We will “sit” under water under the roar of depth charges, we will even just stay a month “on a business trip” locked up on a cold iron vessel called a “submarine”. In my opinion, even if we mentally survive all this without frost on the skin, we are already worthy of the medal "For Courage" ...

On January 30, 1945, the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko sank the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. This event went down in history as the "Attack of the Century". For a long time it was not customary to talk about it. Today, all bans have been lifted, many documents have been declassified, and the story of the attack has formed the basis of books and documentaries. For Sevastopol, the name of Alexander Marinesko is not someone else's. A street and school No. 61 are named in his honor. Veteran submariners remember the name of the Hero in the lessons of courage.

In 1937, 24-year-old Alexander Marinesko entered the Leningrad Diving Training Unit to train as a submarine commander. Then he did not suspect that in the same year in Germany the liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" ("Wilhelm Gustloff"), the largest ship of the German cruise fleet, which the entire Third Reich was proud of, was launched. Fate will bring the liner and the submarine C-13 under the command of Marinesco only 8 years later, bringing down Hitler's hopes to make a turning point during the Second World War.

At the beginning of the Second World War, in 1940, the Wilhelm Gustloff liner was converted into a floating barracks and used as a training ship for submariners. It was this ship, as conceived by the commander-in-chief of the navy of Nazi Germany, Karl Doenitz, that was the main acting force in the implementation of Operation Hannibal, the largest evacuation of the population by sea in history.

In the second half of 1944, Germany commissioned 98 new submarines that hunted for caravans of American and British ships in the Atlantic and Baltic. German submarines could lead to the closure of the second front, and then the Wehrmacht divisions would be transferred to the east. In January 1945, German submarine officers trained for new submarines were to be evacuated from Gdynia on board the Wilhelm Gustloff. Total number passengers on board the liner was more than 10 thousand people.

January 12, 1945, the forces of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts began the Vistula-Oder offensive. A day earlier, on January 11, the S-13 submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko set off on its fourth voyage. On this military campaign, the captain left with a penalty box, because on the eve he arbitrarily left the location of the unit.

On January 30, 1945, the commander of the Soviet S-13 submarine Alexander Marinesko noticed the lights of the enemy ship Wilhelm Gustloff, but the target was too far away for a successful torpedo. For two hours, the submarine followed the liner, choosing best position to attack. The S-13 submarine was moving along the coast at top speed. In the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea, it could easily be detected by enemy aircraft, but the night, weather and storm played a role, and in the evening at the beginning of the tenth C-13 bypassed the liner, it was decided to attack.

At the Wilhelm Gustloff, the submariners fired three torpedoes with inscriptions: "For the Motherland", "For the Soviet people" and "For Leningrad". The night sky was illuminated by three explosions, and the ship quickly sank to the bottom. Of the 10,582 people on board, only 1,200 managed to escape. Data vary in sources. There is a legend that it was on the Gustloff that the Germans took the Amber Room to Germany. Divers are still searching for her in the area of ​​the ship crash in the Baltic Sea.

After a successful attack, the Soviet submarine continued its quiet move, because this was not the end of her combat mission. After 10 days, the S-13 submarine successfully attacked the General von Steuben transport ship, on board of which there were more than three thousand German soldiers and officers.

After the S-13, under the command of Captain 3rd Rank Marinesko, as a result of a skillful maneuver and well-aimed torpedo salvo, sent two ships and almost a division of enemy soldiers to the bottom of the Baltic in just one trip, the submarine commander fell out of favor. The author of "Attack of the Century" - this is how, by the way, the events of January 30, 1945 were dubbed by the world media - instead of the Golden Star of the Hero, he received the Order of the Red Banner of Battle.

Soviet citizens learned about the feat of the submariner only in 1960, shortly before his death, when the first material about Marinesko's military merits was published. He became folk hero, an example for submariners. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ivanovich was awarded posthumously in 1990.

Alexander Marinesko is one of the most controversial figures of the Great Patriotic War, around whom controversy still does not subside. A man covered in many myths and legends. Undeservedly forgotten, and then returned from oblivion.

Today in Russia they are proud of him, they perceive him as national hero. Last year, a monument to Marinesko appeared in Kaliningrad, his name was entered in the Golden Book of St. Petersburg. Many books have been published dedicated to his feat, among them the recently published "Submariner No. 1" by Vladimir Borisov. And in Germany they still cannot forgive him for the death of the Wilhelm Gustloff ship. 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 sinking of the Titanic.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the name of Marinesko in Germany is known to everyone, and the topic of "Gustloff" today, after many years, excites the press and public opinion. Especially in recent times, after the story "The Trajectory of the Crab" came out in Germany and almost immediately became a bestseller. Its author, the famous German writer, Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass, reveals the unknown pages of the flight of East Germans to the West, and in the center of events is the Gustloff disaster. For many Germans, the book was a real revelation...

The death of the Gustloff is not without reason called a "hidden tragedy", the truth about which both sides hid for a long time: we always said that the ship was the color of the German submarine fleet and never mentioned the thousands of dead refugees, and the post-war Germans, who grew up with a sense of repentance for crimes of the Nazis, hushed up this story, because they feared accusations of revanchism. Those who tried to talk about those killed on the Gustloff, about the horrors of the German flight from East Prussia, were immediately perceived as "extreme right." Only with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the entry into a united Europe did it become possible to look more calmly to the east and talk about many things that were not customary to remember for a long time...

The price of the "attack of the century"

In those days, the Soviet army was rapidly advancing 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 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 to the west.

Gotenhafen became the last hope for many refugees - there were not only large warships, but also large liners, each of which could take on board thousands of refugees. 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 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 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.

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. As for refugees, until 1990 the figure was almost constant, since many of the survivors of that tragedy lived in the GDR - and there this topic was not subject to discussion. Now they began to testify, and the number of refugees grew to ten thousand people. In relation to the military, the figure almost did not change - it is within one and a half thousand people. The calculation was carried out by "passenger assistants", one of whom was Heinz Schön, who after the war became the chronicler of the death of the Gustloff and the author of several documentary books on this topic, including The Gustloff Catastrophe and SOS - Wilhelm Gustloff.

So, how many managed to survive this catastrophe? According to Shen, 1239 people survived, of which half, 528 people, - personnel German submariners, 123 female auxiliaries of the navy, 86 wounded, 83 crew members and only 419 refugees. These figures are well known in Germany and today it makes no sense to hide them with us. Thus, 50% of the submariners and only 5% of the refugees survived. We have to admit that, basically, women and children died - they were completely unarmed before the war. Such was the price of the "attack of the century" and that is why in Germany today many Germans consider Marinesco's actions a war crime.

Refugees become hostages of a ruthless war machine

The fact is that the Gustloff left Gotenhafen without proper escort and 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 Germans knew that this area was especially dangerous for ships. A fatal role was played by the side 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 liner. And, finally, on her last voyage, the ship left not as a hospital ship, but as a military transport, painted in grey colour and equipped with anti-aircraft guns.

Until now, Shen's figures are practically unknown to us, and data are still being used that the color of the German submarine fleet died on the Gustloff - 3,700 sailors, who could have equipped from 70 to 80 submarines. This figure, taken from the report of the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" dated February 2, 1945, was considered indisputable by us and was not questioned. Until now, the legends created back in the 1960s with light hand writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, who raised the then unknown pages of the war - Marinesko's feat and defense Brest Fortress. But no, Marinesco was never "Hitler's personal enemy", and a three-day mourning was not announced in Germany for the death of "Gustloff". This was not done for the simple reason 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, was named Hitler's personal enemy.

Why do we still hesitate to name the true extent of that tragedy? It is sad to admit it, but we are afraid that the feat of Marinesko will fade. However, today even many Germans understand that the German side provoked Marinesko. "It was brilliant military operation, thanks to which the initiative of dominance in the naval war in the Baltic was firmly intercepted by Soviet sailors, - says Yuri Lebedev, Deputy Director of the Museum of Russian Submarine Forces named after A.I. Marinesko. - By its actions, the S-13 submarine brought the end of the war closer. It was a strategic success for the Soviet navy, and for Germany, the biggest maritime disaster. Marinesko's feat is that he destroyed the seemingly unsinkable symbol of Nazism, a dream ship promoting the "Third Reich". And the civilians who were on the ship became hostages of the German military machine. Therefore, the tragedy of the death of "Gustloff" is not an accusation against Marinesco, but against Hitler's Germany."

Recognizing that not only German submariners, but also refugees were on the sunken Gustloff, we will take one more step towards recognizing a historical, albeit unpleasant for us, fact. But we need to get out of this situation, because in Germany "Gustloff" is a symbol of trouble, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories. The question of "Gustloff" and Marinesko is a very complex and delicate one, affecting the present and future of relations between Russia and Germany. It was not for nothing that Consul General of Germany Ulrich Schoening, who recently visited the Museum of the Submarine Forces of Russia named after A.I. This is called for by the sinking of the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945.

Today we have the opportunity to move towards reconciliation even in such a difficult issue - through historical authenticity. After all, there are no black and white colors in history. And the uniqueness of Marinesko is that his personality does not leave anyone indifferent. His legendary personality may be destined for immortality. He became a legend and will remain so...

Alexander Marinesko became "submariner No. 1" thanks to the "Attack of the Century", during which the liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" was sunk. He was very self-willed, drank a lot, was in prison, and his major feat committed against the orders of his superiors.

Baltic from Odessa

Marinesko was born in Odessa, from childhood he loved and knew the sea, he learned to dive and swim perfectly at the age of 7. According to Marinesco himself, every morning, together with friends, they went to the sea and spent time there swimming and catching gobies, mackerel, chirus and flounder.
Biographers argue about Marinesko's criminal youth. Odessa in those years was indeed a gangster city, exactly as Babel described it in his famous stories.
By inheritance from his father, a sailor and a Romanian by nationality, Marinesko inherited a violent temper and a craving for adventure. In 1893, Marinescu Sr. beat an officer, was put on trial, where he was threatened with the death penalty. He escaped from the punishment cell, swam across the Danube, married a Ukrainian woman, and went into hiding for a long time.
It would seem that everything in the character and biography of Marinesko Jr. led to the fact that he would become the captain of a Soviet merchant ship on the Black Sea, a smuggler and a merry fellow. But fate and Marinesko decided otherwise: not the southern, but the northern seas, not the merchant fleet, but the navy, not the captain sea ​​ship, and the commander of an underwater predator.
Of the 13 diesel-electric torpedo submarines of the Baltic Fleet of class "C" (medium), only one survived during the war, under the unlucky number 13. The one commanded by Marinesko from Odessa.

Alcoholism

The author of the Soviet apologetic book dedicated to Marinesko - "Sea Captain" - Alexander Kron recalls that his first acquaintance with the legendary submariner took place in 1942: Marinesko drank alcohol with colleagues.
"Drunk" stories happened to Marinesko regularly. In October 1941, the submariner was expelled from the candidates for membership of the CPSU (b) for organizing gambling card games and alcohol abuse. Exactly one year later, then still the commander of the M-96 boat, Marinesko successfully landed a Soviet landing force in Narva Bay, hunting for the German Enigma cipher machine. The operation ended in failure - the car was never found - but the actions of the submariner were highly appreciated, Marinesko was presented for an award and reinstated as a candidate member of the party, but in the combat description they again mentioned an addiction to alcohol.
In April 1943, Marinesko was appointed commander of the S-13 boat, the very one on which he would accomplish his main military exploits. And his civil “exploits” never stopped: “During the summer and autumn of the forty-third, Marinesko visited the guardhouse twice, and received a warning through the party line, and then a reprimand. The reason for the penalties was not drinking in itself, Alexander Ivanovich drank no more than others at that time, but in one case, unauthorized absence, in the other - being late.

Women

The most scandalous incident, after which Marinesko was almost handed over to a military tribunal, happened to him in early 1945. It took place in Turku, on the territory of neutral Finland. In October 1944, during a military raid, the crew of Marinesko destroyed the German Siegfried transport: the torpedo attack on the Soviet submarine failed and the sailors entered into an artillery duel, in which the S-13 won, however, receiving damage.

Therefore, from November to December 1944, the S-13 was under repair in Finland. The team and the captain languished from idleness, the blues attacked. Throughout his life, Marinesko was married three times and at that time his next marriage was falling apart. AT new year's eve Marinesko, along with another Soviet officer, went on a spree ... and disappeared.
As it turned out later, Marinesko met the owner of one of the local hotels, a Swede, and stayed overnight with her. The commander of the Soviet submarine was wanted. Time is military, Finland has just left the war, in general, the fears were different. But Marinesko was just having fun - love for women turned out to be stronger than a sense of duty.

"Penalty" boat

After the Finnish scandal, Marinesko had one way - to the tribunal. But the team loved the commander, and the authorities appreciated him as an experienced sailor, although at that time there were no outstanding military successes for Marinesko. The commander of the Baltic Fleet, Vladimir Tributs, decided to postpone the punishment: this is how the S-13 became the only “penalty” boat, by analogy with penal battalions, in the Soviet fleet. In the January campaign of 1945, Marinesko, in fact, set off for a feat. Only a very large sea "booty" could save him from punishment.

"Attack of the Century"

For almost a month, the S-13 cruised unsuccessfully in a given area. The submariners failed to locate the target. Marinesko decides to break the order and change course. What drove them? Excitement, flair, the need to excel or the sailor waved his hand, they say, "seven troubles one answer" - we will never know.
On January 30, at 21:15, the S-13 discovered in the Baltic waters the German transport Wilhelm Gustlov, accompanied by an escort, carrying a modern estimates over 10 thousand people, most of whom were refugees from East Prussia: the elderly, children, women. But also on the Gustlov were German submarine cadets, crew members and other military personnel.
Marinesko began hunting. For almost three hours, the Soviet submarine followed the giant transporter (the displacement of the Gustlov was over 25 thousand tons. For comparison: the steamer Titanic and the battleship Bismarck had a displacement of about 50 thousand tons).
Having chosen the moment, Marinesko attacked the Gustlov with three torpedoes, each of which hit the target. The fourth torpedo with the inscription "For Stalin" got stuck. The sailors miraculously managed to avoid an explosion on the boat. Avoiding the pursuit of the German military escort, the S-13 was bombed by over 200 depth charges.
Ten days later, the S-13 sank another German giant liner, the General Steuben, with a displacement of almost 15,000 tons.
Thus, Marinesko's winter campaign became the most outstanding combat raid in the history of the Soviet submarine fleet, but the commander and crew were deprived of well-deserved awards and glory. Perhaps because Marinesko and his team were the least like textbook Soviet heroes.

Conviction and epileptic seizures

The sixth raid, which Marinesko made in the spring of 1945, was considered unsuccessful. According to the testimony of people who knew Marinesko, he began to have epileptic seizures, and conflicts with superiors and drunken stories continued. The submariner allegedly independently turned to the leadership with a request to dismiss him from the fleet, but the order of the People's Commissar of the Navy N. G. Kuznetsov speaks of removal from office "due to negligent attitude to his duties, drunkenness and everyday promiscuity."
In the late forties, Marinesko finally abandoned the sea and became deputy director of the Leningrad Research Institute of Blood Transfusion. Strange choice! Soon Marinesko was accused of embezzlement and sentenced to three years: an obscure act and for those years a rather lenient sentence. However, the legendary submariner served part of the term in Kolyma.

Somersaults of memory

Disputes about the identity of Marinesko and the legendary "Attack of the Century" have not subsided for fifty years. What was it? Immediately after the Second World War, a monument to Marinesco was erected in the Royal Navy Museum of Great Britain. In the USSR, the team was deprived of well-deserved awards, the feat was hushed up, and in 1967 an article was published in the Sovetsky Baltiets newspaper saying that Gustlov drowned Efremenkov, and Marinesko was "out of order".
In the mid-80s, Izvestia started a two-year newspaper war with the USSR Ministry of Defense and the leadership of the Navy, according to Marinesko's publication, undeservedly forgotten hero The military took a different view. Even the daughters of Marinesko from different marriages had different attitudes towards the personality of their father: one considered him a scoundrel, the other thanked the people who tried to restore good name Alexander Ivanovich.
Abroad, the attitude towards the personality of Marinesko is also ambiguous. Nobel Prize winner in Literature Günther Grass has published Trajectory of the Crab, a fictional study of Attack of the Century, where dark colors described the commander of the Soviet submarine. American journalist John Miller visited twice Soviet Union for information about Marinesko, in order to write a book about a drunkard and a rebel, for the desperate courage of the "underwater ace" who gained fame.
Marinesko’s later military attestations are full of reprimands and other “service inconsistencies”, but in one of his early maritime teachers they wrote: “May neglect personal interests for the sake of service”, and even, supposedly, there is a very short characteristic: “Capable of a feat”.