Submarine with 13 characteristics. The actions of submariners, which are still debated

January 30, 1895 born in Schwerin William Gustloff, future middle-level functionary of the National Socialist Party.
January 30, 1933 came to power Hitler; this day became one of the most significant holidays in the Third Reich.
January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Gustloff Landesgruppenleiter of Switzerland based in Davos. Gustloff conducted active anti-Semitic propaganda, in particular, contributed to the dissemination of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in Switzerland.
January 30, 1936 medical student Frankfurter came to Davos with the aim of killing Gustloff. From a newspaper bought at a station kiosk, he learned that the governor was “with his Fuhrer in Berlin” and would return in four days. On February 4, a student killed Gustloff. Next year name "Wilhelm Gustloff" was assigned to a sea liner laid down as "Adolf Gitler".
January 30, 1945 years, exactly 50 years after birth Gustloff, Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of captain 3rd rank A. Marinesko torpedoed and sent the liner to the bottom "Wilhelm Gustloff".
January 30, 1946 Marinesko was demoted in rank and transferred to the reserve.

He began his working life as a small bank employee in the city of the seven lakes of Schwerin, and Gustloff compensated for his lack of education with diligence.
In 1917, the bank transferred its young, diligent clerk, who was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, to its branch in Davos. The Swiss mountain air completely cured the patient. While working at the bank, he organized a local group of the National Socialist Party and became its leader. The doctor who treated Gustloff for several years spoke of his patient as follows: “Limited, good-natured, fanatical, recklessly devoted to the Fuhrer: “If Hitler orders me to shoot my wife at 6 o’clock tonight, then at 5.55 I will load the revolver, and at 6.05 I will the wife will be a corpse." Member of the Nazi Party since 1929. His wife Hedwig worked as Hitler's secretary in the early 1930s.

On February 4, 1936, Jewish student David Frankfurter entered a house marked W. Gustloff, NSDAP. He left for Davos a few days earlier - January 30, 1936 Without luggage, with a one-way ticket and a revolver in my coat pocket.
Gustloff's wife showed him into the office and asked him to wait; the frail, short visitor did not arouse any suspicion. Through the open side door, next to which hung a portrait of Hitler, the student saw a two-meter giant—the owner of the house—talking on the phone. When he entered the office a minute later, Frankfurter silently, without getting up from his chair, raised his hand with a revolver and fired five bullets. Quickly walking to the exit - amid the heartbreaking screams of the murdered man's wife - he went to the police and stated that he had just shot Gustloff. Called to identify the killer, Hedwig Gustloff looks at him for a few moments and says: “How could you kill a man! You have such kind eyes!”

For Hitler, Gustloff's death was a gift from heaven: the first Nazi killed by a Jew abroad, moreover, in Switzerland, which he hated! The all-German Jewish pogrom did not take place only because the Winter Olympic Games were being held in Germany in those days, and Hitler could not yet afford to completely ignore world public opinion.

The Nazi propaganda apparatus made the most of the event. A three-week period of mourning was declared in the country, national flags were lowered at half-mast... The farewell ceremony in Davos was broadcast by all German radio stations, the melodies of Beethoven and Haydn were replaced by Wagner's "Twilight of the Gods"... Hitler spoke: "Behind the murderer stands the hate-filled force of our Jewish enemy, trying to enslave the German people... We accept their challenge to fight!" In articles, speeches, and radio broadcasts, the words “a Jew shot” sounded like a refrain.

Historians view Hitler's propaganda use of Gustloff's murder as a prologue to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

Gustlov is dead, long live Wilhelm Gustlov!

The insignificant personality of V. Gustloff, almost unknown before the assassination attempt, was officially elevated to the rank of Blutzeuge, a holy martyr who fell at the hands of a mercenary. It seemed that one of the main Nazi figures had been killed. His name was given to streets, squares, a bridge in Nuremberg, an air glider... Classes on the topic were held in schools "Wilhelm Gustloff, killed by a Jew".

In the name "Wilhelm Gustloff" was named the German Titanic, the flagship of the fleet of an organization called Kraft Durch Freude, abbreviated KdF - "Strength through joy".
Led it Robert Ley, head of the state trade unions "German Labor Front". He was the one who invented the Nazi salute Heil Hitler! with an outstretched hand and ordered that it be carried out first by all civil servants, then by teachers and schoolchildren, and even later by all workers. It was he, a famous drunkard and “the greatest idealist in the labor movement,” who organized a fleet of ships KdF.

The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, having come to power, in order to increase the social base of support for their policies among the German population, outlined the creation of a broad system of social security and services as one of their activities.
Already in the mid-1930s, the average German worker, in terms of the level of services and benefits that he was entitled to, compared favorably with workers in other European countries.
A whole flotilla of passenger ships to provide cheap and affordable travel and cruises was conceived for construction as the embodiment of the ideas of National Socialism and their propaganda.
The flagship of this fleet was to be a new comfortable airliner, which the authors of the project planned to name after the German Fuhrer - "Adolf Gitler".

The ships symbolized the National Socialist idea of ​​a classless society and were themselves, in contrast to the luxury cruise ships sailing on all seas for the rich, “classless ships” with the same cabins for all passengers, giving the opportunity to “perform, at the will of the Fuhrer, locksmiths of Bavaria, postmen Cologne, housewives of Bremen at least once a year have an affordable sea voyage to Madeira, along the Mediterranean coast, to the shores of Norway and Africa" ​​(R. Ley).

On May 5, 1937, at the Hamburg shipyard, Blum and Voss solemnly launched the world's largest ten-deck cruise ship, commissioned by KdF. Gustloff's widow, in the presence of Hitler, broke a bottle of champagne on the side, and the ship received its name - Wilhelm Gustloff. Its displacement is 25,000 tons, length is 208 meters, cost is 25 million Reichsmarks. It is designed for 1,500 vacationers, who have glazed promenade decks, a winter garden, a swimming pool...

Joy is a source of strength!

Thus began a short happy time in the life of the liner; it would last a year and 161 days. The “floating holiday home” worked continuously, the people were delighted: the prices for sea travel were, if not low, then affordable. A five-day cruise to the Norwegian fjords cost 60 Reichsmarks, a twelve-day cruise along the coast of Italy - 150 RM (the monthly earnings of workers and employees were 150-250 RM). While sailing, you could call home at an ultra-cheap rate and vent your delight to your family. Vacationers abroad compared living conditions with their own in Germany, and the comparisons most often turned out to be not in favor of foreigners. A contemporary reflects: “How did Hitler manage to take control of the people in a short time, to accustom them not only to silent submission, but also to mass rejoicing at official events? A partial answer to this question is given by the activities of the KdF organization.”

Gustlov's finest hour fell in April 1938, when, in stormy weather, the team rescued the sailors of the sinking English steamer Pegaway. The English press paid tribute to the skill and courage of the Germans.

The inventive Ley used the windfall propaganda success to use the liner as a floating polling station for the popular vote on the annexation of Austria to Germany. On April 10, at the mouth of the Thames, Gustlov took on board about 1,000 German and 800 Austrian citizens living in the UK, as well as a large group of journalist observers, left the three-mile zone and anchored in international waters, where the vote was held. As expected, 99% of voters voted yes. British newspapers, including the Marxist Daily Herald, were lavish in their praise of the union ship.

The ship's last cruise took place on August 25, 1939. Unexpectedly, during a planned voyage in the middle of the North Sea, the captain received a coded order to urgently return to port. The time for cruises was over—less than a week later, Germany attacked Poland and World War II began.

A happy era in the life of the ship ended during the fiftieth anniversary voyage, September 1, 1939, on the first day of World War II. By the end of September it had been converted into a floating hospital with 500 beds. Major personnel changes were made, the ship was transferred to the naval forces, and next year, after another restructuring, it became a barracks for cadet sailors of the 2nd training division of submarines in the port of Gotenhafen (Polish city of Gdynia). The elegant white sides of the ship, a wide green stripe along the sides and red crosses - everything is painted over with dirty gray enamel. The chief physician's cabin of the former infirmary occupied by a submariner officer with the rank of corvette captain, now he will determine the functions of the vessel. The portraits in the wardroom have been replaced: the smiling “great idealist” Ley gave way to the stern Grand Admiral Doenitz.

With the outbreak of war, almost all KdF ships ended up in military service. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was converted into a hospital ship and assigned to the German Navy - Kriegsmarine. The liner was repainted white and marked with red crosses, which was supposed to protect it from attack in accordance with the Hague Convention. The first patients began to arrive on board during the war against Poland in October 1939. Even in such conditions, the German authorities used the ship as a means of propaganda - as evidence of the humanity of the Nazi leadership, most of the first patients were wounded Polish prisoners. Over time, when German losses became noticeable, the ship was sent to the port of Gothenhafen (Gdynia), where it took on board even more wounded, as well as Germans (Volksdeutsche) evacuated from East Prussia.

The educational process proceeded at an accelerated pace, every three months - another graduation, replenishment for submarines - new buildings. But gone are the days when German submariners almost brought Great Britain to its knees. In 1944, 90% of course graduates expected to die in steel coffins.

Already the autumn of '43 showed that the quiet life was ending - on October 8 (9), the Americans covered the harbor with a bomb carpet. The floating hospital Stuttgart caught fire and sank; this was the first loss of a former KdF ship. The explosion of a heavy bomb near Gustlov caused a one and a half meter crack in the side plating, which was brewed. The weld will still remind itself on the last day of Gustlov’s life, when the S-13 submarine will slowly but surely catch up with the initially faster floating barracks.

In the second half of 1944, the front came very close to East Prussia. The Germans of East Prussia had certain reasons to fear revenge from the Red Army - the great destruction and killings among civilians in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union were known to many. Germanpropaganda depicted the “horrors of the Soviet offensive.”

In October 1944, the first detachments of the Red Army were already on the territory of East Prussia. Nazi propaganda began a widespread campaign to “expose Soviet atrocities,” accusing Soviet soldiers of mass murder and rape. By spreading such propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goal - the number of volunteers in the Volkssturm militia increased, but the propaganda also led to increased panic among the civilian population as the front approached, and millions of people became refugees.

“They ask the question why the refugees were terrified of the revenge of the soldiers of the Red Army. Anyone who, like me, saw the destruction left by Hitler’s troops in Russia, will not rack his brains over this question for long,” wrote the long-time publisher of the magazine Der Spiegel R. Augstein.

On January 21, Grand Admiral Doenitz gave the command to begin Operation Hannibal - the largest evacuation of the population by sea of ​​all time: more than two million people were transported to the West by all the ships at the disposal of the German command.

At the same time, the submarines of the Soviet Baltic Fleet were preparing for the war-ending attacks. A significant part of them was blocked for a long time in the Leningrad and Kronstadt ports by German minefields and steel anti-submarine nets deployed by 140 ships in the spring of 1943. After breaking the blockade of Leningrad, the Red Army continued its offensive along the shores of the Gulf of Finland, and the capitulation of Finland, an ally of Germany opened the way for Soviet submarines to the Baltic Sea. Stalin's order followed: submariners based in Finnish harbors to detect and destroy enemy ships. The operation pursued both military and psychological goals - to complicate the supply of German troops by sea and to prevent evacuation to the West. One of the consequences of Stalin’s order was Gustlov’s meeting with the submarine S-13 and its commander, Captain 3rd Rank A. Marinesko.

Nationality: Odessa.

Captain of the third rank A. I. Marinesko

Marinesko, the son of a Ukrainian mother and a Romanian father, was born in 1913 in Odessa. During the Balkan War, my father served in the Romanian navy, was sentenced to death for participating in the mutiny, fled from Constanta and settled in Odessa, changing the Romanian surname Marinescu into the Ukrainian style. Alexander's childhood was spent among the piers, dry docks and cranes of the port, in the company of Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Turks; they all considered themselves first and foremost residents of Odessa. He grew up in the hungry post-revolutionary years, tried to snatch a piece of bread wherever he could, and caught bulls in the harbor.

When life in Odessa returned to normal, foreign ships began to arrive at the port. Dressed and cheerful passengers threw coins into the water, and Odessa boys dived after them; Few people managed to get ahead of the future submariner. He left school at the age of 15, knowing how to read, write somehow and “sell his vest sleeves,” as he later often said. His language was a colorful and bizarre mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, flavored with Odessa jokes and Romanian curses. A harsh childhood hardened him and made him inventive, teaching him not to get lost in the most unexpected and dangerous situations.

He began life at sea at the age of 15 as a cabin boy on a coastal steamer, graduated from a nautical school, and was called up for military service. Marinesko was probably a born submariner; he even had a naval surname. Having started his service, he quickly realized that a small ship was most suitable for him, an individualist by nature. After a nine-month course, he sailed as a navigator on the submarine Shch-306, then completed command courses and in 1937 became the commander of another boat, M-96 - two torpedo tubes, 18 crew members. In the pre-war years, M-96 bore the title "the best submarine of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet", putting emergency dive time record - 19.5 seconds instead of 28 standard, for which the commander and his team were awarded a personalized gold watch.

By the beginning of the war, Marinesko was already an experienced and respected submariner. He had a rare gift for managing people, which allowed him to move without loss of authority from “comrade commander” to an equal member of the feast in the wardroom.

In 1944, Marinesko received under his command a large submarine of the Stalinets series, S-13. The history of the creation of boats in this series deserves at least a few lines, as it is a vivid example of secret military and industrial cooperation between the USSR and the Third Reich before the war. The project was developed by order of the Soviet government in an engineering bureau owned jointly by the German navy, Krupp and the shipyard in Bremen. The bureau was headed by the German Blum, a retired captain, and it was located in The Hague - in order to circumvent the provision of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which prohibited Germany from developing and building submarines.

At the end of December 1944, the S-13 was in the Finnish port of Turku and was preparing to go to sea. It was scheduled for January 2, but Marinesko, who had been on a spree, appeared on the boat only the next day, when the “special department” of the security service was already looking for him as a defector to the enemy’s side. After evaporating the hops in the bathhouse, he arrived at headquarters and honestly told about everything. He couldn’t or didn’t want to remember the names of the girls and the place of the “spree,” he only said that they drank Pontikka, Finnish potato moonshine, compared to which “vodka is like mother’s milk.”

The S-13 commander would have been arrested if not for the acute shortage of experienced submariners and Stalin’s order, which had to be carried out at any cost. Divisional commander Captain 1st Rank Orel ordered the C-13 to urgently put to sea and wait for further orders. On January 11, the fully fueled C-13 headed along the coast of the island of Gotland into the open sea. For Marinesco, returning to base without a victory was tantamount to being court-martialed.

As part of Operation Hannibal, on January 22, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff in the port of Gdynia (then called Gotenhafen by the Germans) began accepting refugees on board. At first, people were accommodated with special passes - primarily several dozen submarine officers, several hundreds of women from the naval auxiliary division and almost a thousand wounded soldiers. Later, when tens of thousands of people gathered in the port and the situation became more difficult, they began to let everyone in, giving priority to women and children. Since the planned number of places was only 1,500, refugees began to be placed on decks, in the passages. Women soldiers were even placed in an empty swimming pool. In the last stages of the evacuation, the panic intensified so much that some women in the port, in desperation, began to give their children to those who managed to get on board, in the hope of at least saving them in this way. In the end , January 30, 1945, the ship's crew officers had already stopped counting the refugees, whose number had exceeded 10,000.
According to modern estimates, there should have been 10,582 people on board: 918 junior cadets of the 2nd training submarine division (2. U-Boot-Lehrdivision), 173 crew members, 373 women from the auxiliary naval corps, 162 seriously wounded military personnel, and 8,956 refugees, mostly old people, women and children.

Attack of the century.

Captain Gustlov Peterson is 63 years old; he has not driven ships for many years and therefore asked for two young sea captains to help him. The military command of the ship was entrusted to an experienced submariner, corvette captain Tsang. A unique situation has arisen: on the ship’s command bridge there are four captains with an unclear distribution of powers, which will be one of the reasons for Gustloff’s death.

On January 30, accompanied by a single ship, the torpedo bomber Lev, Gustloff left the port of Gotenhafen, and a dispute immediately broke out among the captains. Tsang, who knew more than the rest about the danger of attacks by Soviet submarines, proposed to go in a zigzag with a maximum speed of 16 knots, in which case slower boats would not be able to catch up with them. “12 knots, no more!” - Peterson objected, recalling the unreliable weld in the side plating, and insisted on his own.

Gustloff walked along a corridor in minefields. At 19:00 a radiogram was received: a formation of minesweepers was on a collision course. The captains gave the command to turn on the identification lights to avoid a collision. The last and decisive mistake. The ill-fated radiogram remained forever a mystery; no minesweepers appeared.

Meanwhile, S-13, having unsuccessfully plowed the waters of the prescribed patrol route, on January 30 headed for the Danzig Bay - there, as Marinesko’s intuition told her, there must be an enemy. The air temperature is minus 18, snow is blowing.

At about 19 o'clock the boat surfaced, just at that time the lights on Gustloff came on. In the first seconds, the officer on duty could not believe his eyes: the silhouette of a giant ship was glowing in the distance! He appeared on the Marinesco bridge, wearing the non-standard, oily sheepskin sheepskin coat known to all Baltic submariners.

At 19:30, Gustloff's captains, without waiting for the mystical minesweepers, ordered the lights to be turned off. It’s too late - Marinesko has already grabbed his cherished goal with a death grip. He could not understand why the giant ship did not zigzag and was accompanied by only one ship. Both of these circumstances will make the attack easier.

A joyful mood reigned on Gustloff: a few more hours and they would leave the danger zone. The captains gathered in the wardroom for lunch; a steward in a white jacket brought pea soup and cold meat. We rested for some time after the arguments and excitement of the day, and drank a glass of cognac for success.

On the S-13, four bow torpedo tubes are prepared for attack, on each torpedo there is an inscription: on the first - "For the Motherland", On the second - "For Stalin", on third - "For the Soviet people" and on the fourth - "For Leningrad".
700 meters to the target. At 21:04 the first torpedo is fired, followed by the rest. Three of them hit the target, the fourth, with the inscription "For Stalin", gets stuck in a torpedo tube, ready to explode at the slightest shock. But here, as often with Marinesko, skill is complemented by luck: the torpedo engine stalls for an unknown reason, and the torpedo operator quickly closes the outer cover of the apparatus. The boat goes under water.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second one blew up the empty swimming pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. The passengers' first thought was that they had hit a mine, but Captain Peterson realized it was a submarine, and his first words were:
Das war's - That's all.

Those passengers who did not die from the three explosions and did not drown in the cabins on the lower decks rushed to the lifeboats in panic. At that moment, it turned out that by ordering the watertight compartments in the lower decks to be closed, according to the instructions, the captain had accidentally blocked part of the team, which was supposed to lower the boats and evacuate passengers. Therefore, in the panic and stampede, not only many children and women died, but also many of those who climbed to the upper deck. They could not lower the lifeboats because they did not know how to do this, besides, many of the davits were iced over, and the ship was already heavily listing. Through the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some boats were able to be launched, but many people still found themselves in the icy water. Due to the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats, already full of people.

About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

One torpedo destroyed the side of the ship in the area of ​​the swimming pool, the pride of the former KdF ship; it housed 373 girls from the naval auxiliary services. Water gushed out, fragments of colorful tiled mosaics crashed into the bodies of the drowning people. Those who survived - there were not many of them - said that at the moment of the explosion the German anthem was playing on the radio, ending Hitler’s speech in honor of the twelfth anniversary of his rise to power.

Dozens of rescue boats and rafts lowered from the decks floated around the sinking ship. Overloaded rafts are surrounded by people frantically clinging to them; one by one they drown in the icy water. Hundreds of dead children's bodies: life jackets keep them afloat, but the children's heads are heavier than their legs, and only their legs stick out of the water.

Captain Peterson was one of the first to leave the ship. A sailor who was in the same rescue boat with him would later say: “Not far from us, a woman was floundering in the water screaming for help. We pulled her into the boat, despite the captain’s cry of “Leave us alone, we are already overloaded!”

More than a thousand people were rescued by the escort ship and seven ships that arrived at the scene of the disaster. 70 minutes after the first torpedo exploded, Gustloff began to sink. At the same time, something incredible happens: during the dive, the lighting that failed during the explosion suddenly turns on, and the howl of sirens is heard. People look in horror at the devilish performance.

S-13 was lucky again: the only escort ship was busy rescuing people, and when it began to throw depth charges, the “For Stalin” torpedo was already neutralized, and the boat was able to leave.

One of the survivors, 18-year-old administrative trainee Heinz Schön, collected materials related to the history of the liner for more than half a century, and became a chronicler of the greatest ship disaster of all time. According to his calculations, on January 30 there were 10,582 people on board Gustlov, 9,343 died. For comparison: the disaster of the Titanic, which ran into an underwater iceberg in 1912, cost the lives of 1,517 passengers and crew members.

All four captains escaped. The youngest of them, by the name of Kohler, committed suicide shortly after the end of the war - he was broken by the fate of Gustloff.

The destroyer "Lion" (a former ship of the Dutch Navy) was the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the surviving passengers. Since in January the temperature was already −18 °C, there were only a few minutes left before irreversible hypothermia set in. Despite this, the ship managed to rescue 472 passengers from the lifeboats and from the water.
The guard ships of another convoy, the cruiser Admiral Hipper, which also, in addition to the crew, also had about 1,500 refugees on board, also came to the rescue.
Due to fear of attack from submarines, he did not stop and continued to retire to safe waters. Other ships (by “other ships” we mean the only destroyer T-38 - the sonar system did not work on the Lev, the Hipper left) managed to save another 179 people. A little more than an hour later, new ships that came to the rescue could only fish dead bodies from the icy water. Later, a small messenger ship that arrived at the scene of the tragedy unexpectedly found, seven hours after the sinking of the liner, among hundreds of dead bodies, an unnoticed boat and in it a living baby wrapped in blankets - the last rescued passenger of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

As a result, according to various estimates, from 1200 to 2500 people out of a little less than 11 thousand on board managed to survive. Maximum estimates place losses at 9,985 lives.

Gustlov's chronicler Heinz Schön in 1991 found the last survivor of the 47 people of the S-13 team, 77-year-old former torpedo operator V. Kurochkin, and visited him twice in a village near Leningrad. Two old sailors told each other (with the help of a translator) what happened on the memorable day of January 30 on the submarine and on Gustloff.
During his second visit, Kurochkin admitted to his German guest that after their first meeting, almost every night he dreamed of women and children drowning in icy water, screaming for help. When parting, he said: “War is a bad thing. Shooting at each other, killing women and children - what could be worse! People should learn to live without shedding blood...”

In Germany, the reaction to the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff at the time of the tragedy was rather restrained. The Germans did not disclose the scale of losses, so as not to worsen the morale of the population even further. In addition, at that moment the Germans suffered heavy losses in other places. However, after the end of the war, in the minds of many Germans, the simultaneous death of so many civilians and especially thousands of children on board the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a wound that even time did not heal. Along with the bombing of Dresden this tragedy remains one of the most terrible events of the Second World War for the German people.

Some German publicists consider the sinking of Gustlov a crime against civilians, the same as the bombing of Dresden. However, here is the conclusion made by the Institute of Maritime Law in Kiel: “Wilhelm Gustloff was a legitimate military target, there were hundreds of submarine specialists, anti-aircraft guns on it... There were wounded, but there was no status as a floating hospital. The German government on 11/11/44 declared the Baltic Sea an area of ​​​​military operations and ordered the destruction of everything that floats. The Soviet armed forces had the right to respond in kind."

Disaster researcher Heinz Schön concludes that the liner was a military target and its sinking was not a war crime, because:
ships intended for transporting refugees, hospital ships had to be marked with the appropriate signs - a red cross, could not wear camouflage colors, could not travel in the same convoy with military ships. They could not carry any military cargo, stationary or temporarily placed air defense guns, artillery pieces or other similar means on board.

"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a warship, being assigned to the navy and armed forces, on which six thousand refugees were allowed to board. The entire responsibility for their lives, from the moment they boarded the warship, lay with the appropriate officials of the German navy. Thus, the Gustloff was a legitimate military target of Soviet submariners, due to the following facts:

"Wilhelm Gustloff" was not an unarmed civilian ship: it had weapons on board that could be used to fight enemy ships and aircraft;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was a training floating base for the German submarine fleet;
"Wilhelm Gustloff" was accompanied by a warship of the German fleet (destroyer "Lion");
Soviet transports with refugees and wounded during the war repeatedly became targets for German submarines and aircraft (in particular, motor ship "Armenia", sunk in 1941 in the Black Sea, was carrying more than 5 thousand refugees and wounded on board. Only 8 people survived. However, “Armenia”, like "Wilhelm Gustloff", violated the status of a medical ship and was a legitimate military target).

... Years have passed. Most recently, a correspondent for Der Spiegel magazine met in St. Petersburg with Nikolai Titorenko, a former peacetime submarine commander and author of a book about Marinesko, “Hitler’s Personal Enemy.” This is what he told the correspondent: “I don’t feel any feelings of vengeful satisfaction. I imagine the death of thousands of people on Gustloff rather as a requiem for the children who died during the siege of Leningrad and all those who died. The Germans’ path to disaster began not when Marinesko gave the command to the torpedoists, but when Germany abandoned the path of peaceful agreement with Russia indicated by Bismarck."

Unlike the lengthy search for the Titanic, finding the Wilhelm Gustloff was easy.
Its coordinates at the time of sinking turned out to be accurate, and the ship was at a relatively shallow depth - only 45 meters.
Mike Boring visited the wreck in 2003 and made a documentary about his expedition.
On Polish navigation maps the place is marked as "Obstacle No. 73"
In 2006, a bell recovered from a shipwreck and then used as decoration in a Polish seafood restaurant was exhibited at the Forced Paths exhibition in Berlin.

On March 2-3, 2008, a new television film was shown on the German channel ZDF called “Die Gustloff”

In 1990, 45 years after the end of the war, Marinesko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Later recognition came thanks to the activities of the Marinesko Committee, which operated in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Kaliningrad. In Leningrad and Kaliningrad, monuments were erected to the S-13 commander. A small museum of Russian submarine forces in the northern capital bears Marinesko’s name.

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 and perceive him as a national hero. Last year, a monument to Marinesko appeared in Kaliningrad, his name was included 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 ship Wilhelm Gustloff. We call this famous battle 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.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the name Marinesco is known to everyone in Germany, and the theme of “Gustloff” today, many years later, excites the press and public opinion. Especially recently, after the story “The Trajectory of the Crab” was published in Germany and almost immediately became a bestseller. Its author, the famous German writer, Nobel Prize laureate Günther Grass, reveals the unknown pages of the flight of East Germans to the West, and in the center of events is the Gustlof disaster. For many Germans, the book became a real revelation...

It is not for nothing that the death of the Gustlof is called a “hidden tragedy”, the truth about which was hidden for a long time by both sides: we always said that the ship was the flower 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 at the Gustlof, about the horrors of the Germans fleeing East Prussia, were immediately perceived as “extreme right-wing”. Only with the fall of the Berlin Wall and 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"

Whether we like it or not, we still cannot avoid the question: what did Marinesco sink - a warship of the Hitlerite elite or a ship of refugees? What happened in the Baltic Sea on the night of January 30, 1945?

In those days, the Soviet army was rapidly advancing to the West, in the direction of Konigsberg 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 received orders to redeploy submarine cadets and their military equipment, and to place refugees, and primarily women and children, in any free corner of their ships. Operation Hannibal was the largest evacuation in the history of navigation: over two million people were transported to the west.

Gotenhafen became the last hope for many refugees - not only large warships stood here, but also large liners, each of which 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 swimming pool served as the pride of the Third Reich and was intended to demonstrate to the world the achievements of Nazi Germany. Hitler himself participated in the launching of the ship, which contained his personal cabin. For Hitler’s 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 training division of submarines.

On January 30, 1945, the Gustlof set off on its last voyage from Gotenhafen. German sources differ on how many refugees and military personnel were on board. As for refugees, until 1990 the figure was almost constant, since many 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. As for the military, the figure remained almost unchanged - it was within one and a half thousand people. The counting 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 Disaster” and “SOS - Wilhelm Gustloff.”

The submarine "S-13" under the command of Alexander Marinesko hit the liner with three torpedoes. The surviving passengers left terrible memories of the last minutes of the Gustlof. People tried to escape on life rafts, but most survived only a few minutes in the icy water. Nine ships participated in the rescue of its passengers. Horrifying pictures are forever etched in my memory: children's heads are heavier than their legs, and therefore only their legs are visible on the surface. Lots of children's feet...

So, how many managed to survive this disaster? According to Shen, 1,239 people survived, of which half, 528, were German submarine personnel, 123 female naval auxiliaries, 86 wounded, 83 crew members and only 419 refugees. These figures are well known in Germany and today there is no point in hiding them here. Thus, 50% of the submariners survived and only 5% of the refugees. We have to admit that mostly women and children died - they were completely unarmed before the war. This was the price of the “attack of the century”, and this is why in Germany today many Germans consider Marinesko’s actions a war crime.

Refugees become hostages of a ruthless war machine

However, let's not rush to conclusions. The question here is much deeper - about the tragedy of war. Even the most just war is inhumane, because it primarily affects the civilian population. According to the inexorable laws of war, Marinesko sank a warship, and it is not his fault that he sank a ship with refugees. Huge blame for the tragedy lies with the German command, which was guided by military interests and did not think about civilians.

The fact is that the Gustlof left Gotenhafen without proper escort and earlier than planned, 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. The fatal role was played by the side lights turned on on the Gustlof after a message was received about a detachment of German minesweepers moving towards it - it was by these lights that Marinesko discovered the liner. And finally, the ship left on its last voyage not as a hospital ship, but as a military transport, painted gray and equipped with anti-aircraft guns.

To this day, Schön’s figures are practically unknown to us, but data continue to be used that the flower of the German submarine fleet died on the Gustlof - 3,700 sailors, who could have manned 70 to 80 submarines. This figure, taken from a report in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on February 2, 1945, was considered indisputable in our country and was not questioned. The legends created back in the 1960s with the light hand of the writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, who raised the then unknown pages of the war - the feat of Marinesko and the defense of the Brest Fortress, are still unusually tenacious. But no, Marinesko was never a “personal enemy of Hitler,” and three days of mourning were not declared in Germany for the death of the Gustlof. This was not done for the simple reason that thousands more people were awaiting evacuation by sea, and 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 called Hitler's personal enemy.

Why do we still hesitate to name the true scale of that tragedy? As sad as it is to admit it, we are afraid that Marinesko’s feat will fade. However, today even many Germans understand: the German side provoked Marinesko. “It was a brilliant military operation, thanks to which the initiative for dominance in the naval war in the Baltic was firmly seized by Soviet sailors,” says Yuri Lebedev, deputy director of the Museum of Russian Submarine Forces named after A.I. Marinesko. “With its actions, the S-13 submarine brought the end of the war. It was a strategic success for the Soviet navy, and for Germany - the largest naval 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 the Gustlof is not an indictment of Marinesco, but of Hitler's Germany."

By recognizing that on the sunken Gustlof there were not only German submariners, but also refugees, we will take another step towards recognizing a historical, albeit unpleasant fact for us. But we need to get out of this situation, because in Germany “Gustlof” is a symbol of trouble, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories. The issue of Gustloff and Marinesco is a very complex and delicate one, affecting the present and future of relations between Russia and Germany. It is not for nothing that the German Consul General Ulrich Schöning, who recently visited the Museum of the Russian Submarine Forces named after A. I. Marinesko, left the following entry in the book of honorary visitors: “60 years after the tragic events of the Second World War, the time has finally come when Russians and Germans are building the future together. This is encouraged by the death of the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945.”

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

Baltic Sea, Bay of Danzig, evening of January 30, 1945. Storm. Temperature - 18C, snow flurries, fierce gusts of wind.

From the Nazi liner Wilhelm Gustloff, a minesweeper is spotted walking between the ship and the shore. In response to the semaphore request “Who are you?” in response they signaled with a salty word... On the liner they realized that they were theirs! Obviously, the minesweeper or boat decided to take refuge from the storm behind the bulk of the Gustloff...

On the liner and in a bad dream, they could not imagine that it was the Soviet submarine "S-13" under the command of third-rank captain A.I. Marinesko. In the night, in the foamy breakers, looking like a German minesweeper or boat, heading out on the combat course of the “Attack of the Century”...

"Wilhelm Gusloff" - a symbol of the greatness of the Third Reich

In 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party NSDAP came to power in Germany with Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. The party was slyly called "socialist workers", which emphasized the "classless character" of the Nazi regime. One of the areas of its activity was the creation of a broad system of social security and services for the common people, which would make it possible to increase the base of support for Nazi policies among the German population. To spread the influence of Nazi ideas and organize leisure activities for the working class, an organization such as “Strength through Joy” was created, which was part of the German Labor Front. The main goal of this organization was to create a system of recreation and travel for German workers. To realize this goal, among other things, a whole flotilla of passenger ships was built to provide cheap travel and cruises. The flagship of this fleet was to be a new comfortable airliner, which the authors of the project planned to name after the Fuhrer - “Adolf Hitler”.

When in 1937 the cruise liner, ordered from the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, was ready for launch, on Hitler’s initiative, the Nazi leadership decided to name the liner after the “hero of the National Socialist cause and suffering for the German people” Wilhelm Gustloff - "Wilhelm Gustloff" The background is as follows: at the beginning of February 1936, in Davos, the previously little-known Swiss NSDAP activist Wilhelm Gustloff, a little-known but very frenzied Nazi and admirer of Hitler, was killed by a Jewish anti-fascist medical student, David Frankfurter. He said: “If for the sake of Hitler it is necessary to kill my wife, then I will do it without delay.” The story of his death gained scandalous publicity, especially in Germany, given the nationality of the killer. In the light of the propaganda of the ideas of National Socialism, the case of the murder of a German, moreover, the leader of the National Socialists of Switzerland, became an ideal confirmation of the Nazi conspiracy theory of world Jewry against the German people. From one of the ordinary leaders of foreign Nazis, Wilhelm Gustloff turned into a “symbol of suffering.” He was buried with state honors, in his honor numerous rallies were held throughout Germany, which were skillfully exploited by state propaganda, and they decided to name the liner after him. At the ceremonial launching of the liner in Hamburg on May 5, 1937, in addition to the main leaders of the Nazi regime, Adolf Hitler, Gustloff’s widow also arrived, and at the ceremony, according to tradition, “for good luck,” she broke a bottle of champagne on the side of the liner. The liner was “baptized” by Hitler personally and at the banquet raised a toast: “To a great Germany.” Thousands and thousands of people listened in fascination and applauded, exploding with cries of delight, when the Fuhrer spoke hysterically, sometimes falling silent, sometimes breaking into a squeal, against the backdrop of a snow-white airliner from a podium covered with red material in a white circle, where a swastika was ominously writhing. “It will be a paradise for fighters for Greater Germany!” said Hitler. And then the sounds of a march rushed from many loudspeakers: “Germany, Germany above all! From the Elbe to Memel, from the Meuse to the Adige”!..

High party officials, representatives of the SS, SA, SD - security assault detachments of the Nazi party - went on the first voyage to the Canary Islands.

It was a nine-deck modern tourist liner with a displacement of 25,484 tons, a length of 208 meters with theaters, restaurants, winter gardens, cinemas, a swimming pool, a gym, with 1,500 identical comfortable cabins and personal apartments for Adolf Hitler.

In addition to her cruise activities, the Wilhelm Gustloff remained a state-owned ship and was involved in various activities carried out by the German government. So on May 20, 1939, "Wilhelm Gustloff" for the first time transported troops - German volunteers of the Condor Legion, who took part in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco and distinguished themselves by the massacres of the civilian population of Spain. The arrival of the ship in Hamburg with “war heroes” on board caused a great stir throughout Germany. A special welcoming ceremony was held at the port with the participation of state leaders.

During the war, "Gustloff" became a hospital, and then a training base for a higher school of submariners. The German naval flag was raised on it, anti-aircraft guns were installed, and the liner was repainted in the colors of the Navy. Since 1940, it has been converted into a floating barracks. Used as a training vessel for the 2nd Submarine Training Division in the port of Gotenhafen (Gdynia) Poland.

In the second half of 1944, the front approached East Prussia, the lair of German militarism. The Germans had certain reasons to fear revenge from the Red Army - for the murder of millions of Soviet civilians, the gigantic destruction in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, the incalculable suffering that German fascism brought to our country.

In October 1944, the Red Army entered the territory of East Prussia. The first German city captured by Soviet troops was Nemmersdorf (now the village of Mayakovskoye, Kaliningrad region). A few days later, the Germans managed to recapture the city for a while, and the Nazi propaganda of the shrunken Aryan Goebbels poured gasoline on the fire - depicted the “horrors of the Soviet offensive”, began a wide campaign to “expose Soviet atrocities”, accusing Soviet soldiers of the massacres of children, women, and the elderly , rape, destruction - which was, naturally, absolute nonsense. In fact, the Nazis used special SS units, groups of traitors from Soviet prisoners of war, Bandera punitive forces, who attacked German farms, killing the local population. Then representatives of the Red Cross and journalists from neutral countries were called in to testify to the world community about the “horrors” allegedly committed by the Red Army. By spreading such propaganda, the Nazis achieved their goal - the number of volunteers in the Volkssturm militia increased, the desperate resistance of Wehrmacht soldiers to the advancing units of the Red Army increased significantly. However, the propaganda also led to increased hysteria and panic among the civilian population. As the front approached, millions of people became refugees, leaving their homes and rushing to the West. At the beginning of the second ten days of January, the Red Army launched a powerful offensive along the entire Central Front two weeks earlier than scheduled (in response to W. Churchill’s request). As a result of the offensive in the Danzig-Konigsberg area, a powerful group of German troops was pressed to the sea, which included up to 580 thousand soldiers and officers, up to 200 thousand Volkssturmists. It was armed with 8,200 guns and mortars, about 700 tanks and assault guns, and 515 aircraft. Troops under the command of Marshals of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky, K.K. Rokosovsky (3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts) under the 43rd Army of the 1st Belorussian Front I.Kh. Bagramyan and the Baltic Fleet Admiral V.F. .Tributsa squeezed this group from all sides.

At Headquarters, Hitler convenes a meeting on January 20, 1945, at which a decision is made to evacuate everything possible from Danzig by sea. Thus began the special operation "Hannibal", proposed by the commander of the German Navy, Grand Admiral K. Dennitz, which went down in history as the largest evacuation by sea in history. During this operation, almost 2 million people were evacuated to Germany - on large ships like the Wilhelm Gustloff, as well as on bulk carriers, tugs, and warships.

At the meeting, K. Dennitz was given the task of concentrating as many marine transport vehicles as possible in Danzing Bay. The Wehrmacht SS units will ensure the loading of the most “valuable personnel” found in Danzig, secret documentation, secret samples of weapons, equipment, and parts for them. Hitler issues an order that clearly defines who should be evacuated from Danzig first: submarine crews who have completed a full course of training, “civilians” of the naval base garrison, family members of the leadership. Simultaneously with the Wilhelm Gustloff, several more heavy-duty ships were supposed to go to sea, loaded to capacity, since the German transport fleet in the Baltic suffered heavy losses from attacks by Soviet aviation, submariners, and boats.

At a meeting of representatives of the fleet and civilian authorities on January 27, the captain of the Wilhelm Gustloff announced Hitler's order for loading. This is what V.S. Gemanov, who did a lot of research work on the history of the C-13, writes in his book “Feat C13”. “The first to be loaded into the cabins were the “birds” of a special flight: officers in black uniforms and caps with skulls on high crowns. From the concentration camps - Stutthof, Majdanek, Auschwitz. Every now and then the brakes of passenger cars stopping in front of the ramp squeal. local Fuhrers and Gauleiters from East Prussia and Pomerania, generals in gray-blue greatcoats with red satin lapels and fur collars. Behind each of them, orderlies and adjutants carry suitcases, boxes, bales. Surely they contain “battle trophies” - paintings and gold watches , rings and precious stones, priceless museum lace and furs, the finest porcelain sets.

Heeled boots rattled rhythmically on the stones of the embankment. The wind blew open the skirts of their black greatcoats. Silver chevrons on the sleeves and twisted cords hanging from the shoulders sparkled. Well-fed, red-cheeked, strong guys clearly kept alignment in the ranks; there were the favorites of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz - the submariners!"

This was the color of the fascist German submarine fleet (Kriegsmarine) - 3,700 people, crews for 100 of the latest submarines. Submarines with new hydro- and acoustic devices, new self-launching torpedoes, ready for a complete blockade of England.

“Legends circulated about submariners - incorrigible bullies and revelers. What legends are there! Dry reports from the commandant’s office quite colorfully described the fairly frequent “meetings” of submariners with Wehrmacht soldiers, usually ending in grandiose massacres. Most often, such brawls broke out in nightclubs over girls. The police and patrol officers were always on the side of the submariners. Everything was allowed to them! The Fuhrer favored them. It was not for nothing that the tradition introduced during the First World War took root again: when submariners entered theaters and cinemas, restaurants and bars, all those present had to stand up."

400 women from the auxiliary naval battalion "CC" tapped their heels on the pier towards the gangplanks. Women's CC units from concentration camps. As the liner was loading, cars with red crosses drove up to it. According to intelligence data, bandaged dummies were loaded onto the liner. Boxes with loot. Everyone who witnessed the loading claimed that among those who arrived on the liner there were an absolute minority of people in civilian clothes. And there are only a few civilian refugees: women, children, old people. Every single one of them was allowed onto the liner through the cordon of SS men and machine gunners only with special passes. The panic and commotion in the port was unimaginable, refugees - women with children, old people - everyone was trying to get on ships going to Germany. To divert attention from the nobility, a number of wounded, refugees, and women and children were also loaded onto the Gustloff. There were over 7 thousand people on the ship.

Already at the exit from the port of Gdynia, when on January 30, four tugboats began to take the liner out to sea, it was surrounded by small ships with refugees, and some of the people were taken on board. Distraught women, terrified by Nazi Goebbels propaganda, gave their children to the liner. There were about 10,000 people on board. According to other sources, up to 11,000.

The captain of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" was the most experienced "sea wolf" - sea captain Friedrich Peterson. However, despite the experience of the captain and his senior mate, the commander of the naval forces in the Baltic sent two more experienced captains to the ship. In January 1945, Corvetten-Captain Wilhelm Zahn, one of the leaders of the submarine training division, an experienced submarine commander, who accounted for several tens of thousands of tons of sunk ships, was appointed commander of the convoy and military captain of the liner. (It was V. Zahn who, on Hitler’s orders, would be shot after the sinking of the S-13 Wilhelm Gustloff.)

During the transition between the highest ranks on the liner, a conflict broke out. Some suggested going in zigzags, constantly changing course, throwing Soviet submarines off the scent. Others believed that there was no need to be afraid of boats - the Baltic was filled with mines, hundreds of German ships were cruising at sea, and one should be afraid of airplanes. Therefore, they suggested going directly, at full speed, in order to quickly avoid the danger zone. The weather was consistent with the decision made.

Storm 6 points. Periodically whipping snow whirlwinds. Complete darkness. Occasionally the moon peeks through the clouds, the temperature is -18C degrees. The liner was able to reach speeds of up to 15 knots.

Submariner from God. "C-13"

At that moment, the Soviet submarine S-13 was cruising at a position near Danzig Bay in search of a target. A radiogram was received from the Main Command: “To submarine captains at sea. The rapid advance of the Red Army, which has Danzig as one of its operational directions, is forcing the enemy to begin evacuating the Königsberg area in the coming days. In this regard, we must expect a sharp increase in traffic in the Danzig Bay area.” .

The submarine was commanded by captain 3rd rank Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko.

Born in Odessa. Father, Iona Marinescu, Romanian, served in the Romanian Royal Navy. Once he beat an officer for humiliation, after which he had to flee to Russia. He changed his last name in the Ukrainian manner and became Marinesko. He married an Odessa woman. Alexander Ivanovich himself was an excellent swimmer. He began going to sea at the age of thirteen as a sailor's apprentice.

At the school of cabin boys, as the best, his training period was shortened and, without exams, he was transferred to the Odessa naval ship. He sailed on the ships of the Black Sea Shipping Company "Ilyich" and "Red Fleet" as a sailor, then became the 2nd mate. In the USSR Navy since 1933. Komsomolets. In 1934, he completed special courses for Navy command personnel, after which he was appointed commander of the warhead-1 on the submarine Shch-306. In 1938, a graduate of the Underwater Diving Training Unit named after S.M. Kirov. Since November 1938, VRID assistant commander on the submarine "L-1" ("Leninets"). In May 1939, he was appointed commander of the M-96, a Malyutka-class submarine that had not yet been commissioned. Member of the CPSU(B) since 1944. At sea, he acted contrary to all the laws of underwater warfare and even logic. He acted boldly, assertively, inventively, on the verge of risk, moving away from templates. This illogicality contained the highest logic of his victories.

“My father was full of character, very independent, he did not offend himself or his subordinates,” said Marinesko’s daughter, Leonora Marinesko. “As a child, I remember he was very strict. But also kind. If he punished, it was to the point!”

The sailors of all the crews he had to command called him Batya.

Back in 1940, the Malyutka, under the command of Marinesko, set a diving speed record, carried out torpedo firing more successfully than anyone else, and was recognized as the best in the Baltic.

On the "Malyutka" Marinesko sinks a German transport with a displacement of 7,000 tons and is awarded the Order of Lenin. Lands reconnaissance groups from submarines on the enemy coast. There would have been much more victories, but from the autumn of 1941 to 1944, Soviet submarines were blocked by minefields, network obstacles, in besieged Kronstadt and Leningrad. Attempts to break the underwater blockade led to large losses of submarines. At this time, the participation of submarines in the war in the Baltic was greatly limited.

In 1944, Marinesko was appointed to command the more powerful submarine S-13, which was almost twice as large and powerful as the Malyutka. RKKF class "C" (Medium) submarines take their history from 1932, when Soviet submarine specialists in the Dutch Hague at the design bureau "Ingeneer Kontor Vor Shiffbau" of the German company "Deschimag Weser", which was engaged in the design and supervision of the construction of the submarine, ordered design a submarine according to our tactical and technical order. Germany, according to the Treaty of Versailles, did not have the right to engage in the production of submarines on its territory and therefore designed and built submarines for the fleets of other states abroad. The most experienced and talented design engineers in Germany worked in the bureau.

In terms of their performance characteristics, class "C" submarines were modern for their time.

Surface displacement - 837 tons, underwater - 1090 tons. Length - 777m.

Width - 64m. The main mechanisms are 2 diesel engines with a total power of 4000 l/s and 2 electric motors with a total power of 1100 l/s. Two screws. The full fuel supply is 40 tons. Surface speed up to 19.5 knots, underwater speed up to 8.7 knots. Cruising range up to 8200 miles. Submerged up to 139 miles. Immersion depth - 100 meters. Immersion time - 40 seconds. Armament - 4 533 mm bow torpedo tubes, two stern. A total of 12 torpedoes. One 100 mm gun, 200 rounds. One 45 mm gun - 500 rounds.

Time spent under water is 72 hours. Maximum autonomy up to 45 days. Crew - 6 officers, 16 foremen, 21 ordinary sailors.

The submarine "S-13" was laid down on October 19, 1938 at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), entered service on August 14, 1941, and the naval flag was raised on it. Joined the KBF. Operated on enemy communications in the Baltic Sea. Made 4 military campaigns. Made 12 attacks with the release of 19 torpedoes. Having sunk the Finnish transport "HERA" (1379 GRT) on 09/11/1942, the Finnish steamer "Jussi H" (2325 GRT) on 09/12/1942, the liner "Wilhelm Gustlov" (25484 GRT) on 01/30/1945, 02/10/1945 transport "General Steuben" (1466 brt), damaging the Dutch steamship "Anna W" (290 brt) on 09/18/1942 and the transport "Siegfried" (563 brt) on 10/09/1944. 04/20/1945 awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Let the noble rage...

But let's return to what happened on January 30, 1945. On the Gustloff they receive a radiogram that minesweepers are coming to meet him, clearing the fairway of mines. So that the minesweepers could determine the location of the liner, they decided to turn on the lights on it for a few minutes.

When the commander of the Soviet submarine "S-13", an experienced naval "wolfhound" A.I. Marinesko, who was on the surface, saw the "Wilhelm Gustloff", he realized that this goal should not be missed under any circumstances. It was clear that those who were running on it were those under whom the earth was burning, who were up to the very top in the blood of the peoples of the USSR and Poland. He ordered the dive and the command to attack. Acoustic foreman 2 articles I.M. Shpantsev, picking up the noise of the propellers, reported to the central post: “The bearing is quickly changing to the bow!” The target was moving to the west. It was impossible to attack from a very acute angle. Marinesko developed a daring plan of attack, bordering on madness. While submerged, the boat crossed the liner's course behind its stern, surfaced and went between the shore and the Gustloff, catching up with transport. Usually submarines of that time were unable to catch up with surface ships, but Captain Petersen was sailing 15 knots slower than the design speed, given the significant overcrowding of passengers and uncertainty regarding the condition of the ship after many years of inactivity and repairs after the bombing damaged the hull. At first glance, indeed, only a suicide could have pursued the liner on the surface, between the shore with its coastal batteries, minefields, in shallow water, where the depth did not exceed 30 meters on a 77-meter-long submarine, cut off from the sea by convoy ships.

But no - the cold mind, the clear calculation of the experienced submariner Wolfhound Marinesko. He clearly understood that if the Germans were expecting danger, it would only be from the sea or from the sky. Who among them would think that a Soviet submarine would attack from the shore? A feeling of revenge and excitement captured the entire crew. A winged rumor flew from compartment to compartment: “We have found a large airliner! We are going on the attack! Tell the commander: “Ready for any test!” Ready to take risks! Ready to die!" Enormous tension reigned on the S-13. In order to catch up with the liner and take a position for a torpedo salvo, it was necessary to squeeze maximum power out of the diesel engines in forced mode. The mechanics and mechanical engineer Ya.S. Kovalenko worked in hellish conditions . At the limit of human physical capabilities. In a terrible roar, temperatures above 60C, in the soot of exhaust gases, burnt oil, their naked torsos in sweat were instantly covered with soot. Those who fainted were immediately replaced by sailors from other warheads of the boat. The crew provided the submarine with maximum speed in 19 knots. The risk was huge, the diesel engines could fail, the waves could overwhelm and capsize the boat. But the commander relied on his subordinates, and they relied on him and believed in him. The chase lasted two hours.

The Germans were not new to the sea, we must pay tribute: their watch observers saw the boat, but in the foamy breakers in a submerged position it looked quite like a minesweeper or a boat whose captain decided to hide from the storm behind a powerful liner. In response to a semaphore request - “Who are you?” Marinesko, without being confused, ordered the signalman Ivan Antipov, an experienced sailor and fighter who had fought both on land and at sea, near Riga and Libau, to respond to the request in any word. He immediately responded with a salty swear word... From the liner - a long “dash”, which meant “Got it!” As already mentioned, the Germans mistook the submarine for their minesweeper.

By 21.00 "C-13" caught up with the airliner. From the surface position at a distance of less than 1000 m at 21:04 she fired the first torpedo with the inscription “For the Motherland”, then “For the Soviet people” and “For Leningrad”. The fourth, already cocked, torpedo got stuck in the torpedo tube and almost exploded, but it was neutralized.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up the swimming pool where the women of the CC naval auxiliary battalion were located, and the last hit the engine room. The first thought of the passengers was that they had run into a mine, but Captain Peterson realized from the roar of one explosion after another that it was a submarine, and his first words were “Das war’s” (That’s all).

The noble rage of the Soviet people, accumulated in torpedoes collected in factories by women and children, for destroyed and burned cities and villages, for mass murder and torture, incalculable suffering, tore the Krupp steel of the side of the liner to shreds. Thousands of tons of icy Baltic water roared, furiously boiling, seething foam, poured into the transport, filling the compartments, sweeping away everything in its path. The booming explosions of torpedoes and the roar of water rushing inside, clearly audible in the submarine compartments, were a rewarding musical victory march for Soviet submariners. Those passengers who did not die from the three explosions and did not drown in the cabins on the lower decks rushed to the lifeboats in panic. At that moment, it turned out that by ordering the watertight compartments in the lower decks to be closed, according to the instructions, the captain had accidentally blocked part of the team, which was supposed to lower the boats and evacuate passengers. Therefore, in the panic and stampede, not only many children and women died, but also many of those who climbed to the upper deck. Furious senior officers broke through to the top, splitting the skulls of their subordinates with the handles of their pistols. Some shot their families, shot themselves, realizing that there would be no salvation in the icy water. Those who were stronger climbed up in a merciless crush, pushed away, crushed the weaker ones, exposing the rabid bestial essence of German Nazism. They couldn’t lower the lifeboats on the upper deck because they didn’t know how to do it, and besides, many of the boats were iced over, and the ship was already listing heavily. Those who found themselves on the icy deck rolled into the sea, frantically clinging to each other. Through the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some boats were able to be launched, but many people still found themselves in the icy water. Due to the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats, already full of people. For unknown reasons, all the lights on the liner turned on, and the ship's siren howled. It is possible that this is exactly what “Dante’s Inferno” looked like in what was happening on the symbol of the German Reich “Wilhelm Gutsloff” going under the water. So, under the wild roar of the siren, full of illumination, the liner sank under the water.

The convoy ships opened heavy anti-aircraft fire, deciding that the ships were being attacked by planes.

The destroyer Lowe was the first to arrive at the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the surviving passengers. Later, coast guard ships joined him... Since the temperature in January was already 18 °C, there were only a few minutes left before irreversible hypothermia set in. Despite this, the ship managed to rescue 472 passengers from the lifeboats and from the water. The guard ships of another convoy, the cruiser Admiral Hipper, also came to the rescue, which, in addition to the crew, also had about 1,500 refugees on board. Due to fear of attack from submarines, he did not stop and continued to retire to safe waters. The T-38 destroyer saved another 179 people. A little more than an hour later, new ships that came to the rescue could only fish dead bodies from the icy water.

As a result, according to various estimates, from 1000 to 2000 people out of 11 thousand on board survived. Maximum estimates place losses at 9,985 lives.

The death of the liner alarmed the entire Nazi Reich. Three days of national mourning were declared in the country. Hitler included Marinesko on the list of his personal enemies.

A special commission was hastily created to investigate the circumstances of the ship's sinking. The Fuhrer had something to lament. More than six thousand members of the military elite and submarine crews who evacuated from Danzig died on the liner.

For some time after the torpedoes hit the liner, those on the bridge of the C-13 observed the agony of the transport. Marinesko ordered the dive, heading for the torpedoed ship, believing that the German ships would not bomb the boat among the sinking fascists scattered around the ship. The destroyers, having arrived at the supposed location of the boat, slowed down, some of them stopped moving and began listening to the noise of the boat with sonar devices in passive mode, trying to detect it in the active operation mode of sonar stations.

Marinesko, with his head in his hands, listened attentively to acoustician foreman 2 articles I.M. Shpantseva. The life of the submariners now depended on his hearing. The commander gave clear commands to the crew.

Acousticist report: “Left 170 - noise of propellers. Destroyer! Right 100 - noise of propellers. Patrol ship! Left 150 - noise of propellers. Destroyer! Right 140 - patrol ship! Directly ahead - sonar transmissions"... It seemed that everything - the boat was taken in pincers! You can’t escape maneuverable, high-speed ASW ships: shallow water, on one side the shore, on the other - a semi-ring of enemy ships. The semi-ring shrinks and closes, turning into a ring of about ten ASW ships. In this seemingly hopeless situation, Marinesko, who perfectly knows the tactics of German anti-aircraft submarines, finds a way out - he directs the boat to where the explosions of depth charges occurred. The water stirred up by explosions, mixed with mud, silt, sand from the bottom of the sea, and air bubbles, formed a powerful “protective curtain” - a wall impenetrable to ultrasonic waves of sonars. And through the many “walls” that had formed, the boat again went at low speed towards the sunken liner.

The boat either froze and slowly crept like a tiger on the hunt, then, like an arrow, it took off from its place, onto which depth charges immediately rained down.

So, maneuvering with speed, course, depth, under furious bombing for 4 hours, the “S-13” managed to break away from its pursuers, reach depth and lie down on the ground.

"21 hours 55 minutes. An airliner was detected on a parallel course.

22 hours 55 minutes. Elements of target movement have been established: course 280, speed 15 knots, displacement 18-20 thousand tons.

23 h.04 min. We went on combat course 15.

23 h.08 min. A three-torpedo salvo to the left side (from the shore) from bow torpedo tubes No. 1,2,4 from a distance of 2.5-3 kbt.

23h.09 min. A minute later - explosions of three torpedoes. The liner began to sink.

23 hours 26 minutes The acoustician hears the operation of the SPD.

23 hours 45 minutes The pursuit began.

In total, the PLO ships dropped 250 depth charges. The squares of the sea where the boat was located were literally plowed.

On this trip the crew won another victory. Persistently continuing the hunt, on the night of February 10, the submarine sank the large-capacity transport "General von Steuben" (14,660 tons). Together with him, about three and a half thousand officers and soldiers of the German tank forces went to the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

After the submarine returned to base, the commander of the RKKF submarine division, A. Orel, signed an award sheet on February 20 with a petition to award Marinesko the Gold Star of the Hero. This submission states, in particular: “Captain 3rd Rank A.I. Marinesko has been in the position of submarine commander since 1939. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he has been participating in military campaigns...

In 1941, commanding the submarine "M-96", he made two military campaigns in the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga, during which he acted courageously and decisively, carrying out command assignments to combat the Nazi invaders at sea.

In 1942... in the Gulf of Finland he sank an enemy transport with a displacement of 7 thousand tons, for which he was awarded the Order of Lenin.

In 1944, commanding the submarine "S-13", he pursued and sank with artillery one transport with a displacement of 5 thousand tons in the immediate vicinity of the enemy fleet base.

But the command awards Marinesko only with the Order of the Red Banner. Afterwards, there was a lot of speculation about why Marinesko was not awarded the Hero Star. I will express the most plausible, in my opinion, version. Often in conversations with veterans of the Great Patriotic War, I heard a simple truth. They said: “The hatred of the enemy for the devastated cities, villages, the death of comrades, the blood of women, children, for the atrocities that the USSR suffered from German fascism was so great that we dreamed that, having come to Germany, we would do the same with the Germans the very thing that they did on our land, we will repay them in kind. But the Russian people are surprisingly quick-witted. Having entered Germany, we saw the same unfortunate, hungry women, children, old people who suffered from the Nazis. We are not fascists, we are not fighting against the people ". The Soviet Army entered Europe not for revenge, but to liberate the peoples of Europe from the brown plague. The order from Headquarters stated: for looting in relation to the local population, they would be brought to court by a military tribunal, up to and including execution, and there were such cases that cooled too hot heads.

On New Year's Day 1945 in Turku, in fascist Finland, which emerged from the war, a base of Soviet submarines was located in the port, among which was the S-13. While in the city, Marinesko spent two nights visiting the owner of a local restaurant, where, previously, in response to the verbal attacks of local fascists against Soviet officers, he forced the orchestra to play “The Internationale”, but did not arrive at the base, which disrupted the military campaign. If at sea Marinesko was prudent and cunning, then on the shore he sometimes knew neither moderation nor caution. The Special Department was greatly concerned about his absence - kidnapped? Recruited? A captain who knows the operational situation, maps... In addition to everything, those who studied the history of the S-13 write that the crew also “distinguished themselves.” While the commander was “visiting”, part of the crew, apparently taking to their chests, became for some time in the former fascist Turku “Schwarze Tod” - “black death”, “three times communists” - that’s what the Germans called the Soviet marines, and took up fists, a showdown with the local Schutzmanns - policemen wearing the uniform worn by Wehrmacht soldiers, who came running from all over the city to hear the noise, and the Finns passing by also got it... The battle cry of the Soviet sailors sounded over the city: “Polundra!” The sailors were somehow calmed down...

So, with bruises under their eyes, in torn vests, but a proud, friendly, invincible crew, they appeared before the command of the division A. Orel, special officers, and the military commandant of Turku.

As one of our journalists later wrote, “then, many years later, in civilian life, sailors told their children how famously, like sailors, they turned up the noses of former fascists.”

A disrupted military campaign, an agitated local population. Such an offense could bring Marinesko to the tribunal. But there weren't enough submarines. A new commander was appointed to the boat with orders to go to sea. But here the crew again showed character and maritime brotherhood, declaring that they would go on a campaign only with Marinesko. The story was noisy and reached Kuznetsov and Zhdanov. Zhdanov perfectly understood the sailors - three years of exhausting war, hungry besieged Leningrad, hundreds of thousands of deaths, a game of cat and mouse with death under water. 13 submarines - "esoks" - fought in the Baltic. The only one who survived, under the unlucky number 13. The first days in a well-fed, prosperous city not devastated by the war... Zhdanov asked the command to release Marinesko.

Giving farewell to the crew, A. Orel strictly ordered that they return only with victory! Atone for guilt like fines.

So “S-13” with captain Marinesko became the first and only penalty submarine in the USSR Navy. And the sailors atoned for their guilt by sending the Wilhelm Gustloff to the bottom.

The reward for the fines in the Red Army was the removal of criminal records and full restoration of their rights as full citizens of the USSR.

Therefore, the proposal to the Hero’s Star did not find understanding among the command. Taking into account Marineko’s previous “some merits,” on February 27, the acting brigade commander L. Kurnikov lowered the status of the award by two levels. As a result, on March 13, an Order was issued to award Marineko the Order of the Red Banner. Together with the commander, the status of awards was lowered for the crew members of the C-13, which greatly upset Marinesko, although the boat became Red Banner on April 20, 1945. As you can see, Marinesko came out of a difficult situation for him unscathed, and even with an order. For excellent performance of command assignments, all members of the boat's crew were awarded government awards. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on April 20, 1945, the submarine "C-13" was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Having completed four combat cruises and spent 140 days at sea, the C-13 won six brilliant victories, bringing the total tonnage of enemy ships sunk to 47 thousand tons, which was the highest figure among the RKKF submarines. Marinesko holds the record among all Soviet submariners for the tonnage of ships sunk.

The fact that Marinesko was not awarded the Star may have been played by envious people, whisperers, and rear rats, of whom there were always plenty in the rear. It must be said that Stalin severely punished honored Heroes who violated discipline, and did not allow anyone to indulge in delusions of grandeur.

The fate of Alexander Ivanovich Marineko was not easy in the future - the nature of the sea independent free wolfhound affected it. In addition, all sorts of spiteful critics in the USSR and abroad tried to discredit his name. He died in Leningrad on November 25, 1963, after a serious long illness. He was buried at the Bogoslovskoye cemetery in the northern capital. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was posthumously awarded on May 5, 1990.

About A.I. Marinesko, the commander of the legendary "C-13" and his world-famous "Attack of the Century", the largest disaster at sea in the history of mankind, in comparison with which the death of the "Titanic" looks very pale, it seemed that everything had already been written, analyzed in detail , how veteran submariners and thousands of other honest people in our country and abroad fought for justice to prevail and a national hero to receive official recognition. I thought that everything was behind me. Moreover, our allies in the war - the British, who were never particularly fond of Russia, officially recognized the significance of the "Attack of the Century" for the salvation of thousands and thousands of their compatriots, since the attack sent to the bottom more than a hundred crews of the Kriegsmarine submarine, which would could use the latest submarines to unleash thousands of homing torpedoes on allied ships and ships. As a symbol of recognition, gratitude and deep respect, a bust of A.I. was erected in the maritime center of England - Portsmouth. Marinesko. Portsmouth for the British is the same as Krondstadt or Sevastopol, the city of valor and glory of Great Britain, for Russia. English veterans of the Royal Navy, in particular of the northern convoys, raised the question of erecting a monument to the commander of the "C-13" in England, rightly believing that his name should appear in the Book of Heroes who have served the great naval power, the former "mistress of seas", on a par with such legendary figures as Admiral Nelson. The fact that more than 3 thousand submariners and 100 submarine commanders sank to the bottom of the Baltic was also recognized by authoritative Kriegsmarine historians K. Becker and Yu. Rover. About the importance of the “Attack of the Century” - the sinking of the “Wilhelm Gustloff” for the fate of England and the approaching victory of the Allies in the Second World War back in 1945, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral of the Fleet E. Cuningham, said.

Immediately after the Great Patriotic War, the fascist remnants who fed the Third Reich, the imperialists of the USA, England, and Europe, adopted the methods of the shrunken “Aryan” Goebbels, the propaganda machine for whitening Nazism and its crimes against humanity began working at full power, accusing the USSR and, as its heir, Russia of the outbreak of the Second World War. Consider the completely false statement of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk that “Russia attacked Germany and Ukraine in 1941.” Such figures want a revision of the results of World War II. They are trying to turn the USSR from a victim of aggression into an “aggressor”.

In the West, revanchists began to make “truthful” feature films and documentaries, and publish articles about how “Russian barbarians” allegedly drowned 10,000 thousand wounded and refugees on the Gustloff.

They want to turn our submariners from avengers into murderers of “civilians,” which is completely untrue.

But why don’t these unfortunate scribblers and film scribblers make films about how the “Wolf Packs of the Kriegsmarine”, the wolf packs of Doenitz, acted with an all-out submarine war, indiscriminately sinking commercial, military, and hospital ships? Neutrals also got it. Those who escaped on boats were killed by German submariners with machine guns and machine guns.

Or about the Heroic campaign of the ships of the Baltic Fleet of the RKKF in 1941 from Tallinn to Leningrad. Then 52 ships were lost from mines, torpedoes, and bombings, most of which carried refugees and hospitals. Up to 8 thousand people died. But the West is silent about this.

In 1941, in the Black Sea, the Germans sunk the Soviet hospital-liner "Armenia", which had 5,000 wounded and was sailing under the red crosses. Only 8 people were saved...

Even under Goebbels, German propaganda turned trains bombed by Soviet aviation with troops into trains with wounded and refugees, sunken ships - again with wounded, broken ammunition warehouses - into German farms, and depicted the “horrors” perpetrated by the Soviet Army against the civilian population of Vaterland. ..

We are now seeing something similar in the work of propaganda in “independent Ukraine,” where the laurels of the shrunken “Aryan” Goebbels clearly haunt someone. A.I. Marinesko could not even imagine that in his hometown-hero Odessa, seventy years later, the Nazis would march around and burn those who did not kneel before the brown plague alive...

Crazed, biased scribblers-ghouls jumped out of moldy caches in crowds with “new modern data” about the Great Patriotic War and the feat of “C-13”. The feat of the 28 Panfilov men is a fiction, Nikolai Gastello, on a plane engulfed in flames, together with the crew, did not ram a tank column of the Nazis, and Alexander Matrosov, under the threat of execution, was forced to cover the embrasure of the pillbox with his chest by the special officer who was going on the attack next to him......

If we consider the death of the airliner from a moral, ethical, legal point of view, which pervert scribblers love to press on, then the commander of the S-13 did not commit any war crimes. As already mentioned, the Gustloff was officially transferred to the German Navy, the Navy flag was raised on it, and anti-aircraft guns were installed. He was a legitimate military target. The refugees, women and children who died on the liner became hostages of the Nazi regime.

Monuments to A.I. Marinesko, memorial plaques, installed in Kaliningrad, Kronstadt, St. Petersburg, Odessa.

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is described in the novel The Trajectory of the Crab by Nobel laureate Günter Grass.

An embankment in Kaliningrad and a street in Sevastopol are named after A.I. Marinesko.

Stroiteley Street in Leningrad, where Marinesko also lived, was renamed in 1990 to Marinesko Street. There is a memorial plaque on it.

The flag of the submarine “C-13” is on display at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces.

In St. Petersburg there is the Museum of Russian Submarine Forces named after. A. I. Marinesko.

A stone block with a memorial plaque was installed in Vanino.

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.

The Odessa Naval School is named after A.I. Marinesko.

Also, a memorial plaque is installed on the building of the labor school where he studied. The electric train of the Odessa Railway is named after him.

In 1983, with the help of students from Odessa school No. 105 (search group “Memory of the Heart”), a museum named after A. I. Marinesko was created.

There is a descent called Marinesko (formerly Sofievsky descent).

The feature films “Forget About Returning” and “First After God” are dedicated to Marinesko.

Revanchists of all stripes strive to revise the results of the Second World War, the holy war of the Soviet people against the brown plague, and try to discredit our heroes, our memory.

A.I. Marinesko and his crew are heroes! And the “Attack of the Century” was definitely!

Andrey Shachenkov

submarine IX-bis series

    3laid on October 19, 1938 at plant No. 112 (Krasnoe Sormovo) in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) under serial number 263. On April 25, 1939, the submarine was launched and on June 11, 1941 began the transition to the Baltic along the Mariininsky water system to Leningrad . On June 22, the ship met under the command of Senior Lieutenant Malanchenko Petr Petrovich as part of the submarine training brigade. The beginning of the war found “S-13” in the city of Voznesenye. On June 25, the submarine arrived in Leningrad.

Submarine "S-13" in fine art.
Works by artists Emyshev and Rodionov, postage stamps of Russia and Moldova.

    Until July 31, the submarine underwent sea trials, and only on August 14, 1941, it became part of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. On August 30, “S-13” was included in the 1st division of the 1st brigade of the Red Ban Baltic Fleet submarine. The submarine was supposed to be relocated to the North, for which purpose the S-13 underwent docking in the first half of September. The submarine was ready for the transition when the Germans blockaded Leningrad from land, and the submarine remained in the Baltic.

    Having safely wintered through the first winter of the siege in Leningrad, the S-13 left for its first combat campaign to a position in the Gulf of Bothnia (position No. 8) only on September 2, 1942. This year, Soviet submarines have not yet penetrated this area. The commander of the 1st division of the submarine, captain 2nd rank, went to ensure the trip to sea Yunakov Evgeniy Gavrilovich. The S-13 was escorted to the dive point by minesweepers and patrol boats. At 2.30 the escort left the boat and it continued on its own. On the evening of September 3, the first meeting with the enemy took place at the Helsinki lighthouse. When the periscope was raised, the submarine was detected twice by an enemy patrol boat, which dropped 7 depth charges on it. On the night of September 8, “S-13” completed crossing the Gulf of Finland, and in the evening of the next day it entered the Åland Sea. On the afternoon of September 11, the submarine was in the Gulf of Bothnia.

    The enemy did not expect the actions of Soviet submarines in this area, so the opportunity to open an account presented itself at the end of the current day, when S-13 discovered the Finnish steamer Gera (1.379 GRT) with a cargo of coal for Finland. The first torpedo passed by, and then the submarine opened artillery fire (13 100-mm shells were fired). The transport stopped moving and, having received another torpedo, disappeared under water. Three hours later, the submarine sinks a new target - the Finnish transport Jussi X (2.325 GRT), transporting piece cargo to Königsberg. Of the 22 crew members of the ship, only one sailor survived. While patrolling in a given area, the S-13 had several chances to add to the tally of sunk ships, but the attacks were thwarted due to personnel errors, and on the morning of September 17, when attempting to attack, the S-13 was thrown into shallow water by a wave. Finally, on the evening of September 17, “S-13” fired a torpedo at the Dutch motor-sail schooner “Anna V” (290 GRT). The torpedo missed its target. The ship dodged the second torpedo. Then the submarine's 100-mm gun came into play (24 shells were fired). After the transport caught fire, another torpedo was fired, passing under the bow of the ship. The burning schooner drifted to the shore, where six days later it was discovered completely burned out by the Finns, and was eventually dismantled. During the attack by a submarine, 5 people on board the ship were killed. (It should be noted that some sources attribute this victory to the S-9 submarine). Continuing patrolling, the S-13 repeatedly detected both single ships and enemy convoys, but the attacks were frustrated for various reasons. Only on October 4, the submarine launched a torpedo attack on the convoy, but it was unsuccessful. On the evening of October 10, S-13 began returning to base. Off Vaindlo Island on October 15, the submarine was attacked by Finnish patrol boats VMV-13 and VMV-15. The S-13 received damage from close explosions of depth charges: the gyrocompass and echo sounder were out of order, the vertical rudder was jammed at 28° to the left, several battery tanks were cracked, and sea water began to flow into the ship through a knocked-out fitting on the depth gauge. The submarine lay down on the ground, where it carried out repairs for 6 hours at a depth of 60 meters. It was never possible to put the rudder into operation, and the submarine had to navigate the remaining part of its journey using electric motors. On the evening of October 17, towed by the boat "MO-124" and the minesweeper "No. 34", the ship was brought to Lavensari. On October 19, “S-13” arrived safely in Kronstadt. On October 22, the submarine moved to Leningrad for repairs and wintering. For a successful combat campaign, all members of the submarine's crew received government awards.

Transport Hera, sunk by S-13 on September 11, 1942.
Steamship Jussi H, sunk by S-13 on September 12, 1942.
Motor-sail schooner Anna W, destroyed September 18, 1942.
Submarine "S-13" wintering near the wall of the Kalashnikov (Sinop) embankment in the area of ​​​​the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Leningrad, winter 1942/1943.

    On April 19, 1943, during artillery exercises, the closing of the fender cover of the first shots accidentally hit the capsule of one of the shells. The gunpowder in the cartridge exploded, killing one Red Navy man. The result of the incident “for negligent performance of official duties” was the removal of the S-13 commander Malanchenko from his post. In his place, the captain of the 3rd rank, who had previously commanded the M-96, was appointed Marinesko Alexander Ivanovich .

    In 1943, the Germans reliably blocked the Gulf of Finland, stuffing it with mines and covering it with anti-submarine nets. On August 12, the S-13, ready for the cruise, moved to Kronstadt, but since a breakthrough into the open part of the Baltic was impossible, the trip was canceled, and on November 6 the submarine stood up for repairs.

    Only after Finland left the war in September 1944, Red Banner Baltic Fleet submarines using Finnish skerry fairways again gained the opportunity to reach enemy communications. Until the end of September 1944, the S-13 underwent combat training. On October 1, the submarine set out on its second combat mission. On the morning of October 8, the submarine took up a position north of the Hel Peninsula (position No. 5). On October 9, S-13 discovered and attacked the trawler Siegfried (563 brt), wasting 4 torpedoes on it. According to the commander's report, having noticed the attack (3 torpedoes were fired), the ship evaded them with a sharp stop, the fourth torpedo passed by as the trawler increased its speed. The submariners used artillery (39 - 100 mm and 14 - 45 mm shells were fired), counting 11 hits. According to the commander's report, the target began to sink quickly. Considering the job done, the submarine departed, but the damaged ship, despite underwater holes and the injury of one of the crew members, still managed to throw itself onto the sandbanks of the Hel Spit, and was soon put back into service. (According to other sources, the victim of the S-13 attack was the 563 GRT training ship Nordpol, which died). On October 13, "S-13" moved to Cape Brewsterort, and on October 21 - to Vindava. On October 25, the submarine received an order during daylight hours to remain on the southwestern approaches to Lyu Bay, where the day before the ships of the 2nd Kriegsmarine battle group (pocket battleship Lützow, destroyers Z-28 and Z-35, 5 destroyers) bombed Soviet units on the Syrve Peninsula. Due to the fact that the enemy ships had already left the area, not a single target for attack could be found. On November 11, “S-13” returned safely to Hanko.

Probably the most famous victim of Soviet submarine torpedoes is the liner Wilhelm Gustlow and the S-13 attack pattern on January 30, 1945.
Read more about the legends of the death of “Wilhelm Gustlov”

    On November 19, “S-13” moved to Helsinki, where it underwent dock repairs. On December 22, the submarine arrived at Hanko, from where on January 11, 1945, it again set out on a combat mission. This was the most successful campaign of the S-13 and the finest hour of its commander. The boat was to patrol the area between the Rikshöft lighthouse and Kolberg (position No. 4 - new). Several times the boat detected convoys, but each time the opposition of the escort ships forced it to retreat. Finally, at 21.10 (Moscow time everywhere) on January 30, the boat discovered the Wilhelm Gustlow liner (25.484 GRT), on board which were about 6,600 people, mostly civilian refugees. Its guard consisted of the destroyer Löwe, which was not detected by the submarine. (Assigned to the torpedo escort "TF-1" left for base due to a leak). When the submarine discovered the ship, it was moving in the direction of 105° - almost a strict counter-course relative to the Gustlov. The speed of both the boat and the liner was 12 knots. After 14 minutes, the commander of the S-13 identified the elements of the target’s movement and began approaching, and two minutes later the submarine moved into a positional position. The target began to move away. At 21.35. "S-13" floats up and increases speed. The heading angle of the liner towards the submarine is 120° from the port side. Realizing that the ship is slipping away, the submarine squeezes all it can out of its engines. At 21.55. "S-13" to set course 280°. The hour-long race for the liner begins. Finally, 23.04. the submarine lies on a combat course of 15° - strictly perpendicular to the left side of the Gustlov. 23.08. the commander gives the command “Fire”. At the moment when the torpedoes left the torpedo tube, the distance to the target was 4.5 kbt, the calculated angle of impact was 85°. Of the four torpedoes prepared for launch, one did not come out due to a malfunction of the automatic torpedo tube, but the other three hit the target. An hour later, the ship sank, taking with it the lives of about 5.5 thousand people. (The Germans now claim that there were already about 9,000 refugees on board the liner, which significantly increases the death toll). While the Loewe and the ships of the convoy following were engaged in rescuing people from the Gustlov, the S-13 left the scene of the disaster. True, the destroyer T-36 dropped 12 depth charges, the explosions of which were heard on the submarine.

Liner "General Steuben" (until 1931 "Munich")

    The final chord was the attack on February 10th. At 2.50 "S-13" fired two torpedoes at the Emden-class light cruiser, accompanied by two destroyers. In reality - the hospital ship (former liner) "General Steuben" (14,660 GRT) guarded by the destroyer "T-196" and torpedo catcher "TF-10". On board the ship were 2,680 wounded Wehrmacht soldiers, 270 medical personnel, 100 soldiers, 285 crew members and about 900 civilians and refugees. The ship sank, becoming a mass grave for more than 3.5 thousand people. The escort ships engaged in rescuing those in distress did not pursue the S-13, and it safely left the scene of the disaster. On February 15, the submarine arrived in Turku, and on April 20, 1945, the S-13 was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On the same day, the submarine set out on its last combat mission. The submarine was to operate south of the island of Gotland (position No. 8). The head of the underwater navigation department of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet Headquarters, Rear Admiral, went out to sea as a support person on board the submarine. A.M. Stetsenko. It was never possible to launch an attack, while the S-13 itself several times became the target of attack by submarines and enemy aircraft. According to the conclusion of the commander of the submarine brigade, captain 1st rank Alexander Evstafievich Orel about the actions of the S-13 commander Marinesko in the last military campaign:

Gunners "S-13" (from left to right): P.G. Zubkov, N.K. Goncharov, G.E. Bystrov, N.D. Nekryty, A.G. Pikhur, V.N. Sorokin and I.R. Shevtsov. Turku, April-May 1945.
On the bridge of the S-13, the commander of the warhead-2-3, captain-lieutenant K.E. Vasilenko. Turku, April 1945.

Submarine "S-13" after the end of the war. Late 1940s - early 1950s (4, 5)

    " 1. During the period of being at sea, in a position, in a zone of intense enemy traffic since 04/23/45, I detected targets 7 times, but could not attack...
    2. 24.04. at 23.38. The Shp detected a convoy, but, having surfaced, he could not open the hatch... The attack failed, since it was impossible to see anything through the periscope at that time.
    3. 26.04 at 01.35 discovered the operation of the search device... The opportunity to attack was missed due to the wrong actions of the commander.
    4. 27.04. at 22.46. The ShP detected the noise of the TR and the operation of two SPDs. After 7 minutes, at a distance of 35 kbt, I visually detected a TR guarding two SKRs and two SKAs. The commander refused the attack due to high visibility. The commander’s actions were incorrect: before that, he brought the submarine to the bright part of the horizon, and then did not follow the enemy, did not move to the dark part of the horizon...
    5. 28.04. at 16.41, while under water, he detected the noise of a TR and the operation of two UZPNs via the Shp... The commander increased the speed to 4 knots and after 14 minutes abandoned the attack, considering himself beyond the maximum angle of attack... The opportunity to attack was missed due to the fault of the commander, who did not try to get closer with the enemy, and took care of the battery, fearing that it would have to be charged several nights in a row.
    6. 28.04. at 19.23. detected the noise of TR... I didn’t see the enemy through the periscope. Nine minutes later, the commander allegedly established, without changing the three-node stroke, that he was outside the maximum angle of attack.
    7. 02.05. they detected the noise of a TR... Apparently, the commander incorrectly determined the direction of movement and therefore did not get close to the enemy...
    8.03.05. at 10.45. The periscope detected a TR guarding two TFRs, but failed to attack due to improper maneuvering.
    Conclusion: The submarine did not complete its combat mission. The commander’s actions are unsatisfactory...»

    On September 14, 1945, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy “for neglect of official duties, systematic drunkenness and everyday promiscuity” A.I. Marinesko was removed from command of the submarine, demoted to senior lieutenant and appointed commander of the minesweeper.

    After the war, the S-13 served in the Baltic. On September 7, 1954, the ship was withdrawn from service, disarmed and converted into a floating combat training room for the 2nd VVMU (from October 6, 1954, “KBP-38”). On March 23, 1956, the ship was transferred to the group of floating craft of the Navy Research Institute No. 11, and on December 17, 1956, it was removed from the lists and handed over for dismantling.

Full-scale model of the cabin of the submarine "S-13". Museum "Military Glory of the Urals", Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Sverdlovsk region. Photo by E. Chirva, 2019 more photos =====>>>>

4 combat campaigns

02.09.1942 – 19.10.1942
01.10.1944 – 11.11.1944
11.01.1945 – 15.02.1945
20.04.1945 – 23.05.1945

Sank 5 transports (44,138 GRT), damaged 1 (563 GRT)
09/11/1942 TR "Gera" (1.379 GRT)
09/11/1942 TR "Jussi X" (2.325 GRT)
09/17/1942 TR "Anna V" (290 GRT)
01/30/1945 TR "Wilhelm Gustlov" (25.484 GRT)
02/10/1945 TR "Steuben" (14.660 GRT)
Trawler "Siegfried" (563 GRT) damaged

The unlucky number of the Soviet submarine under the command of Alexander Marinesko, who became the heroine of the Great Patriotic War, brought bad luck, not to the crew members, but to the opponents, among whom were not only military equipment, but also civilian ships.

Masters of Underwater Attack

It is believed that the Soviet submarine S-13 was the fastest and most unsinkable during the war years. It seems that the entire German leadership was afraid of her, and Hitler’s allies also suffered from the attacks of the underwater hunter. In particular, during the period from 1942 to 1945, 2 ships of the Finnish army, one Dutch ship and three German ships became victims of the “unlucky” submarine. Among the dead are thousands of people, both military and refugees and emigrants. But the war years knew no mercy, mowing down the civilian population of both sides.
Alexander Marinesko's team tried to carry out an attack when the enemy did not expect an attack. Getting as close as possible to the enemy ship, the submarine’s guns launched deadly torpedo strikes, destroying the floating craft. The chances of escape after meeting with S-13 were zero.

"Titanic" in German

One of the major victims of the Soviet submarine was the German transport ship Wilhelm Gustlow. The meeting of the ship with the Marinesco crew in January 1945 turned out to be fatal. Formally, according to the law of war, an enemy ship equipped with weapons for defense was equated to a military vessel. That is why Soviet submariners decided to attack the Gustslov.
Having approached its victim at a distance of 700 meters, the S-13 fired three torpedoes at the enemy. The attack killed 9 thousand people, including many women and children. The ship carried evacuees from Germany; only a thousand people were saved; the crew of the ship accompanying the Gustlov helped them, taking them on board. Until now, this tragedy is considered one of the largest in terms of the number of victims. By the way, six times fewer people died on the Titanic than on the Wilhelm Gustlov.

A mistake that cost you your title

One of the last victims of the S-13 submarine was the passenger liner General Steuben, which unfortunately met with Soviet submariners in February 1945. On board the ship were wounded, refugees, and German military personnel. The total number of passengers exceeded 4,000 people. It is possible that the ship would have avoided a tragic fate if not for the mistake of the Soviet command.
The fact is that Alexander Marinesko’s team mistook this ship for a German cruiser. According to the wartime monetary reward for such a sacrifice, 20 thousand rubles were due. And the destroyed enemy transport ship was valued at three thousand rubles. Mistaking the passenger liner for a battle cruiser, the submariners rushed in pursuit and sank the General Steuben.
The captain of the deadly submarine was presented with an award for his military services. And they even wanted to give him a Hero of the Soviet Union. After all, he became a living legend of the war years for the destroyed cruiser. But the mistake was identified, and Marinesko never became a Hero, receiving this award only in 1990 posthumously. Perhaps the commander himself realized his guilt for the death of civilians, even if they belonged to the population of the aggressor country. Because in April 1945, he periodically began to go on binges, which led to his transfer to the reserve. It is worth noting that the number of ships destroyed by C-13 became a record among submariners. No other submarine could surpass the victories of the “unlucky” submarine of Alexander Marinesko.