"Attack of the Century" submarine "S-13"
Alexander Marinesko. 1945 Photo of the Year
One of the most important events in stories Russia in the XX century for the national identity is the Great Patriotic War - the sacred for all Russian. Actions to destroy its generalized image and its associated symbols are one of the information operations of the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
The USSR collapsed, but the information war of the West against Russia in this direction continues in the twenty-first century. These actions are aimed at belittling the greatness of the Soviet Union and its successor of Russia as a victor country and the destruction of the bond within the victorious people.
Victory counterfeiters
Significantly, back in August 1943, Jan Christian Smuts (Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa in 1939 – 1948 and Field Marshal of the British Army), one of Winston Churchill’s closest associates, arguing about the course of the war, expressed his concerns regarding its conduct: “We can certainly fight better, and comparison with Russia may become less unprofitable for us. An ordinary person should think that Russia is winning the war. If this impression remains, what will be our position in the international arena after compared with the position of Russia? Our position in the international arena can change dramatically, and Russia can become the diplomatic master of the world. This is undesirable and unnecessary and would have very bad consequences for the British Commonwealth of Nations. If we do not leave this war on equal terms, our position will be inconvenient and dangerous ... "
One of the latest evidence of the information war is the declaration of solidarity of the parliaments of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. October 20 The 2016 of the year, at the same time, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Polish Sejm adopted a declaration on the events of World War II, where responsibility for its commencement lies with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. And if so, then the events that interpret the history of the war at the end of the Nuremberg Tribunal should be revised, and the symbols and monuments reminiscent of the exploits of the Soviet people in the struggle against Nazism - destroyed.
Unfortunately, some of our opposition liberal intelligentsia, denying the exploits of 28 Panfilov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and other symbols of selfless struggle against the German invaders, has been saturated with this poison. The famous Kyrgyz and Russian writer Chingiz Aitmatov in his book “The Cassandra Brand” (1994) so figuratively described the war: “two heads of a physiologically monstrous monster clashed in the confrontation, not for life, but for death”. For them, the USSR is “the era of the Stalinguitler or, on the contrary, Hitler's Stalin”, and this is “their civil war”.
Meanwhile, the Russian scientist Sergei Kara-Murza in his book “Soviet Civilization” stresses that in a review of German literature on Stalingrad, the German historian Hettling writes: “In (German) historiography and in public opinion, two points of view were established: first on the part of the German Reich, the war was deliberately conceived and waged as a racially aggressive war of extermination; secondly, it was not only Hitler and the Nazi leadership who initiated it - the leaders of the Wehrmacht and representatives of private business also played a prominent role in unleashing the war. ”
The German writer Heinrich Belle, the Nobel Prize winner in literature, expressed his best view of the war in his last work, in fact, his will, Letter to My Sons: “... I have no reason to complain about the Soviet Union. The fact that I was sick there several times, was wounded there, laid in the “nature of things”, which in this case is called war, and I always understood: we were not invited there. ”
FAMOUS BATTLE EPISODE
The destruction of the image of the Great Patriotic War, of course, can not happen without the discretization of its symbols. Under the guise of searching for the truth, both events of the war and feats of its participants are interpreted differently. One such heroic event, which is reflected in our and Western literature, is the sinking of 30 on January 1945 by the Soviet submarine C-13 commanded by Captain 3 of the rank of Alexander Marinesko liner Wilhelm Gustloff in Danzig Bay. We call this famous military episode “the attack of the century”, while the Germans consider it to be the greatest maritime disaster, perhaps even more terrible than the death of the “Titanic”. In Germany, Gustloff is a symbol of disaster, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories.
Alexander Marinesko is one of the figures of the period of the Great Patriotic War, which is still causing controversy, as it is fanned by many myths and legends. Undeservedly forgotten, and then returned from non-existence - 5 May 1990, A.I. Marinesko was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments of Marinesko and its crew were erected in Kaliningrad, Kronstadt, St. Petersburg and Odessa. His name is listed in the Golden Book of St. Petersburg.
Here is how A.I. Marinesco in his article “Attacks“ S-13 ”(Neva magazine No. 7 for 1968) Admiral fleet Soviet Union Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov, People's Commissar and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the USSR from 1939 to 1947: “History knows many cases when heroic deeds accomplished on the battlefield remain in the shadows for a long time and only descendants evaluate their merits. It also happens that during the war years large-scale events are not given due importance, reports of them are questioned and lead people to surprise and admiration much later. This fate befell the Baltic ace - submariner A. Marinesko Alexander Ivanovich is no longer alive. But his feat will forever remain in the memory of Soviet sailors. ”
He further notes that “about the sinking of a large German ship in the Danzig Bay ... I personally found out only a month after the Crimea Conference. Against the background of everyday victories, this event apparently did not attach much importance. But even when it became known that Gustlav was sunk by the C-13 submarine, the command did not dare to introduce A. Marinesko to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In the complex and hectic nature of the commander of the C-13 high heroism, desperate courage coexisted with many shortcomings and weaknesses. Today he could have accomplished a heroic deed, and tomorrow he could be late for his ship, preparing to enter combat mission, or otherwise violate military discipline. ”
Without exaggeration, we can say that his name has a wide world fame. In the museum of the royal submarine forces of Great Britain, immediately after the war, an AI bust was installed. Marinesco.
As N.G. Kuznetsov, a participant in the Potsdam and Yalta conferences, in early February 1945, the Allied governments gathered in Crimea to discuss measures to ensure the final defeat of Nazi Germany, and to chart the paths of the postwar world.
“At the first meeting in the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Churchill asked Stalin: when would Soviet troops seize Danzig, where are a large number of German submarines under construction and ready? He asked to speed up the seizure of this port.
The anxiety of the English premiere was understandable. The military efforts of Great Britain and the supply of its population largely depended on shipping. However, wolf packs continued to rage at sea communications. Danzig was one of the main nests of the fascist underwater pirates. Here was the German diving school, the floating barracks for which served as the liner "Wilhelm Gustlav."
BATTLE FOR ATLANTIC
For the British, the allies of the USSR in the battle against Nazi Germany, the battle for the Atlantic was crucial for the entire course of the war. Winston Churchill in his book "The Second World War" gives the following assessment of the loss of the ship. In 1940, merchant ships lost a total displacement of 4 million tons, and in 1941-m more than 4 million tons. In 1942, after the United States became allies of Great Britain, almost 8 million tons of total tonnage of allied ships were sunk . Up until the end of 1942, German submarines sank more ships than the Allies had time to build. By the end of 1943, the increase in tonnage finally surpassed the total losses at sea, and in the second quarter the losses of German submarines surpassed their construction for the first time. Subsequently, the moment came when in the Atlantic the losses of enemy submarines exceeded the losses in merchant ships. But this, Churchill emphasizes, came at the cost of a long and bitter struggle.
German submariners smashed and caravans of Allied transports delivering military equipment and materials through a lend-lease to Murmansk. The infamous caravan PQ-17 from submarine strikes and aviation of 36 vessels lost 24 and with them 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, 3350 motor vehicles and 99 tons of cargo.
In World War II, Germany, instead of using raiders — surface fleet ships — switched to an unrestricted submarine warfare (uneingeschränkter U-Boot-Krieg), when submarines began to sink civilian merchant ships without warning and did not attempt to rescue the crews of these ships. In fact, the pirate motto was adopted: “Down them all”. At the same time, the commander of the German submarine fleet, Vice-Admiral Karl Dennitz developed the tactics of "wolf packs", when submarine attacks on convoys of ships were carried out by a group of submarines simultaneously. Karl Doenitz also organized a submarine supply system directly in the ocean, far from the bases.
To avoid the pursuit of submarines by allied anti-submarine forces, 17 September 1942, Doenitz ordered Triton Zero or “Laconia order” (Laconia-Befehl), which prohibited submarine commanders from making any attempts to rescue crews and passengers of sunken ships and ships.
Until September, 1942, the German submarines after the attack somehow somehow assisted the sailors of sunken ships. In particular, 12 September 1942, the submarine U-156 sank the British transport ship "Laconia" and assisted in the rescue of the crew and passengers. On September 16, four submarines (one Italian), which had several hundred rescued on board, were attacked by American aircraft, the pilots of which knew that the Germans and Italians were saving the British.
The “wolf packs” of Doenitz submarines inflicted great damage on the Allied convoys. At the beginning of the war, the German submarine fleet was the dominant force in the Atlantic. Great Britain, with great effort, defended its transport shipping, vital for the metropolis. In the first half of 1942, the loss of Allied transports from wolf packs of submarines reached the maximum number of 900 ships (with a displacement of 4 million tons). For the entire 1942 year, the Allied 1664 ships were sunk (7 790 697 tonnes), of which 1160 ships were submarines.
In 1943, a turnaround came - on every sunk ship of the allies the German submarine fleet began to lose one submarine. In total, 1155 submarines were built in Germany, of which 644 units were lost in combat. (67%). The submarines of that time could not be under water for long, they were constantly attacked by planes and ships of the Allied fleets on the way to the Atlantic. German submarines still managed to break through to heavily guarded convoys. But it was much harder for them to do this, despite the technical equipment with their own radars, enhanced anti-aircraft artillery weapons, and when attacking ships, they were homing acoustic torpedoes. However, in the 1945 year, despite the agony of the Hitler regime, the submarine war continued.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED 30 JANUARY 1945 OF THE YEAR
In January 1945, the Soviet army was rapidly advancing to the West, in the direction of Koenigsberg and Danzig. Hundreds of thousands of Germans, fearing retribution for the atrocities of the Nazis, became refugees and moved to the port city of Gdynia - the Germans called him Gotenhafen. On January 21, grand-admiral Karl Doenitz issued an order: “All German ships that are available must save from the Soviets everything that can be saved.” The officers received an order to redeploy submariner cadets and their military property, and in any free box of their ships to accommodate refugees, and especially women and children. Operation Hannibal was the largest evacuation of the population in the history of navigation: over two million people were transported by ships to the west.
In Germany, Gustloff is a symbol of disaster, and in Russia it is a symbol of our military victories. 1939 Photo of the Year
Built in 1937, the "Wilhelm Gustloff", named after the murdered associate of Hitler in Switzerland, was one of the best German airliners. The ten-deck liner with a displacement of 25 484 t seemed to them, like the Titanic, unsinkable. The magnificent cruise ship with a cinema and a swimming pool served as the pride of the Third Reich. He was called to demonstrate to the world the achievements of Nazi Germany. Hitler himself participated in the descent of the ship, which was his personal cabin. For Hitler's organization of cultural leisure, “Strength through Joy,” the liner transported vacationers to Norway and Sweden for a year and a half, and with the start of World War II became the floating barracks of 2 cadet training division of scuba diving.
30 January 1945 of the Year Gustloff departed on its last flight from Gotenhafen. About how many refugees and military were on board, data from German sources differ. As for the refugees, until 1990, the figure was almost constant, since many of the survivors of that tragedy lived in the GDR. According to their testimony, the number of refugees rose to 10 thousand people. With regard to the military on this flight, the latest sources speak of a figure of around 1,500 people. Passengers' assistants counted, one of them was officer Heinz Shen, who became the chronicler of the death of Gustloff after the war and the author of the documentary books on this subject, including The Catastrophe of Gustloff and SOS - Wilhelm Gustloff.
Shen describes in detail the story of the death of the liner. In late January, a blizzard raged over the Dantsing Bay. In Gotenhafen, work was in full swing day and night. The advanced units of the Red Army, tirelessly advancing to the west, caused an unprecedented panic, the fascists hurriedly removed the stolen property, dismantled the machines at the factories. And the buzz of Soviet guns was getting closer.
Wilhelm Gustloff, who was stationed at the quay wall, was ordered to take on 4 thousands of people to transfer them to Kiel. A liner is designed to carry passengers 1800. Early in the morning of January 25 a flood of military and civilians poured into the ship. People who had waited for transport for several days, were getting places by storm. Formally, all those entering the ship must have a special pass, but in reality the Hitlerite dignitaries who rescue their skin, officers of the military fleet, the SS, and the police — all those who have the ground burning under their feet — are randomly loading onto the ship.
29 January. In Gdynia, the roar of the Soviet "Katyushas" is heard more and more, but Gustloff continues to stand near the shore. There are already about 6 thousand people on board, but hundreds of people continue to storm the gangway.
30 January 1945 of the year ... Despite all the efforts of the crew, it was not possible to free the aisles. Only one room is not occupied - the apartments of Hitler. But when the family of the burgomaster of Gdynia, consisting of 13, appears, she is also involved. The order comes to 10 hours - leave the port ...
Midnight is approaching. The sky is covered with snow clouds. The moon is hiding behind them. Heinz Shen goes down to the cabin, pours a glass of brandy. Suddenly, the entire hull of the ship shudders, three torpedoes hit the side ...
"Wilhelm Gustloff" slowly immersed in water. To calm down from the bridge, it is reported that the airliner ran aground ... The vessel is gradually sinking to sixty meters deep. Finally, the last command is distributed: “Save yourself, who can!” Few were lucky: only about a thousand people were rescued by suitable ships.
Nine ships participated in their rescue. People tried to escape on rescue rafts and lifeboats, but most survived only a few minutes in icy water. In total, according to Shen, 1239 people survived, half of them, 528 people, - personnel of the German submariners, 123 man of the auxiliary female Navy, 86 injured, 83 crew member and only 419 refugees. Thus, about 50% of submariners survived, and only 5% of the remaining passengers. It should be recognized that most of the dead were women and children, the most vulnerable in any war. That is why in some German circles they are trying to classify the actions of Marinesko as “war crimes”.
In this respect, interesting is the novella Dantzing, Nobel Prize winner Günther Grass, The Crab Trajectory, which was based on the death of Wilhelm Gustloff, which almost immediately became a bestseller in Germany in 2002. The writing is written wittily, but it sounds, interrupting all the others, one leitmotif: an attempt to bring the actions of Hitler's Europe and their winner - the Soviet Union - to the same plane, based on the tragedy of war. The author describes the cruel scene of the death of the passengers of the “Gustloff” - dead children, “floating upside down” because of the bulky life jackets they were wearing. The reader is led to the idea that the C-13 submarine under the command of A.I. Marinesko sank the liner with the refugees on board, fleeing allegedly from the atrocities and rape of the advancing Red Army soldiers eager for revenge. And Marinesko is one of the representatives of this impending “horde of barbarians”. The author also draws attention to the fact that all four torpedoes prepared for the attack had the inscriptions - “For the Motherland”, “For the Soviet people”, “For Leningrad” and “For Stalin”. By the way, the latter just could not get out of the torpedo tube. The author describes the entire biography of Marinesco in some detail. It is emphasized that before the march he was called for interrogation by the NKVD for offenses, and only the departure to the sea saved him from the tribunal. His characteristic as a person with weaknesses, annoyingly repeated in the book by Grass, inspires on the emotional level to the reader the idea that the attack on Gustloff very much resembles a "war crime", this shadow is cast, although there is not the slightest basis for this. Yes, he drank not only narzan and loved to urge on women - who among the men in this is not sinful?
What kind of ship has launched at the bottom of Marinesko? The question here is much deeper - in the tragedy of war. Even the fairest war is inhuman, because civilians are the first to suffer from it. According to the inexorable laws of war, Marinesko stoked a warship. "Wilhelm Gustloff" had the appropriate signs: anti-aircraft armament and the flag of the German Navy, and also obeyed military discipline. In accordance with the UN Maritime Convention, it falls under the definition of a warship. And there is no fault at Marinesko in that he sank the ship, on which, besides the military, there were also refugees. A huge fault in the tragedy lies with the German command, which was guided by military interests and did not think about civilians. At a meeting at Hitler’s naval headquarters 31 in January 1945, the commander-in-chief of the German Navy stated that “from the very beginning it was clear that with such active shipments there must be a loss. Losses are always very heavy, but, to my great fortune, they have not increased. ”
Until now, we use data, in contrast to Schen figures, that 3700 submariners were killed at Gustloff, with which they could equip 70 crews of medium tonnage submarines. This figure, taken from the message of the Swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" from February 2 1945, appeared in the award list A.I. Marinesko for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in February 1945. But the type of commander of the submarine brigade of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Captain 1, rank L.А. Kurnikov lowered the level of the award to the Order of the Red Banner. A tenacious and legend, created in 1960, with the light hand of the writer Sergey Sergeevich Smirnov, who unveiled the unknown pages of the war at that time. But Marinesko was not "Hitler's personal enemy", and three-day mourning in Germany after the death of "Gustloff" was not declared. One of the arguments is that thousands more were waiting for the evacuation by sea, and the news of the disaster would have caused panic. Mourning was declared by Wilhelm Gustloff himself, the leader of the National Socialist Party in Switzerland, who was killed in 1936, and his murderer, student David Frankfurter, a Jew by birth, was called the personal enemy of the Fuhrer.
THE ACTIONS OF THE DOWNPAINS WHICH ARE ARRANGED UPON THEM
In 2015, the year to the 100 anniversary of the birth of A.I. Marinesko published a book by ME Morozova, A.G. Svisyuk, V.N. Ivaschenko “Submariner number 1 Alexander Marinesko. Documentary portrait "from the series" On the front line. The truth about the war. We must pay tribute, the authors have collected a large number of documents of the time and made a detailed analysis of this event of the Great Patriotic War.
However, reading their analysis, you have conflicting feelings. The authors seem to recognize "it is fully justified to award the Golden Star to the commander with two major victories" in this campaign, "if not for one, but huge but." "And the command of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet submarine brigade in 1945 managed to figure out this difficult matter by making the right decision." By “but” they mean precisely those weaknesses that are mentioned in this publication and describe Günther Grass in their story.
Also, the authors, recognizing the high risk of actions and the activity of C-13, call into question the heroic actions of the submarine crew, believing that “the general conditions of the situation at that time are perceived as rather simple, and the tactical situation at the time of the attack on Gustlof is even unprecedentedly easy . That is, from the point of view of the demonstrated skill and dedication, this particular case is very difficult to attribute to outstanding ones. ”
"Attack of the Century" dismantled in detail by experts. Speaking about the attack "C-13", it is worth first of all to note that almost the entire operation was carried out mainly in the surface position and in the coastal region. It was a big risk, since the submarine was in this position for a long time, and if detected (and Dantzing Bay - “home” for the Germans), it could with a high probability be destroyed. It is also worth mentioning the loss of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. In the Baltic Sea, the most complex maritime theater, for various reasons, the 49 of Soviet submarines from the 65, which were in the fleet at the beginning of the war, was lost.
The analysis at the meeting at Hitler’s 31 January 1945 was interesting. In particular, it was stated that due to the lack of escort forces, the fleet had to confine itself to the direct escort of the convoys. The only actual means of anti-submarine defense were airplanes with radar installations, the very weapon, which made it possible to paralyze the fighting of their submarines. The Air Force reported that they lacked neither fuel nor sufficiently effective equipment for such operations. The Fuhrer ordered the Air Force commanders to address this issue.
Nor does the attack detract from the fact that Gustloff left Gotenhafen without a proper convoy before the scheduled time, without waiting for escort ships, since it was necessary to urgently transfer German submariners from the already surrounded East Prussia. The only ship in escort was only the destroyer Leva, which, moreover, with the 12 hub, began to lag due to strong waves and the northwest wind. The running lights on the “Gustloff” played a fatal role after a message was received about the movement of a detachment of German minesweepers towards it - it was along these lights that Marinesko discovered the transport. To enter the attack, it was decided to overtake the liner on a parallel course in the surface position, to take a position on the nasal course corners and launch torpedoes. Began a long hour overtaking "Gustloff". During the last half hour, the boat developed its almost maximum stroke to 18 knots, which it was unlikely to perform even in running tests in 1941. After that, the submarine lay down on the combat course, strictly perpendicular to the port side of the transport, and produced a three torpedo salvo. The subsequent maneuvers in the combat report of the commander of the C-13 submarine, Captain 3 of the rank of Marinesko, were written: “... Dodged an urgent dive ... 2 TFR (patrol ships) and 1 TSS (minesweeper) discovered the submarine and began its pursuit. During the pursuit, the depth bomb 12 was dropped. Detached from the pursuit of ships. He didn’t have any damage from the depth bomb explosions. ”
Domestic submarines, unfortunately, by the beginning of the war did not have modern electronic means of detection. Almost the main source of information on the surface situation at the submarine remained a periscope. The Mars-type direction finders, which were in service, allowed the ear to determine the direction to the noise source with an accuracy of plus or minus 2 degrees. The range of the equipment with good hydrology did not exceed 40 KB. The commanders of German, British and American submarines had hydroacoustic stations at their disposal. With good hydrology, German submariners found a single transport in the direction finding mode at a distance of 100 kb, and from a distance of 20 kb they could receive a distance to it in the Echo mode. All this, of course, directly influenced the effectiveness of the use of domestic submarines, and demanded great training from personnel. At the same time, in submariners, like no one else, one person, objectively, predominates in the crew, a kind of God in a single confined space. Thus, the identity of the commander and the fate of the submarine is something whole. During the years of war in the operating fleets of the USSR, 229 commanders - participants of 135 (59%) combat campaigns at least once went into a torpedo attack, but only 65 (28%) of them managed to hit targets with torpedoes.
In one campaign, the C-13 submarine sank three military torpedoes Wilhelm Gustloff with a 25 484 displacement t and three military torpedoes General Von Steuben, 14 660 t. submarine "C-20" was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. With its heroic actions, C-1945 has brought the end of the war closer.
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