Alexander Marinesko

[Benoit Douville]

Can we consider Alexander Marinesko a War criminal? He was the Commander of the Soviet submarine S-13. He sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30th 1945 taking with her in the icy depths of the Baltic about 7000 Germans refugees, children, women and men! And later, on February 10th 1945 it is believed that about 3000 died from the action of Alexander Marinesko of the S-13 when he sunk the Steuben. This was during the mass evacuation of the German refugees order by Karl Dönitz at the end of the War called Operation Hannibal. Later on it was the Goya who was sunk. The operation to evacuate civilians from the East saved well over 2 million civilians from being rolled over by the Soviet front, the loss percentage was about 2% despite Soviet attempts to cut it down.

Source: Histoire de la Marine Allemande

[Kunikov]

Can we consider Alexander Marinesko a War criminal? He was the Commander of the Soviet submarine S-13. He sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30th 1945 taking with her in the icy depths of the Baltic about 7000 Germans refugees, children, women and men! And later, on February 10th 1945 it is believed that about 3000 died from the action of Alexander Marinesko of the S-13 when he sunk the Steuben. This was during the mass evacuation of the German refugees order by Karl Dönitz at the end of the War called Operation Hannibal. Later on it was the Goya who was sunk. The operation to evacuate civilians from the East saved well over 2 million civilians from being rolled over by the Soviet front, the loss percentage was about 2% despite Soviet attempts to cut it down.

Source: Histoire de la Marine Allemande

This has already been discussed on this forum, civilians were not the only ones on board.

[David Thompson]

Wilhelm Gustloff
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=gustloff
Killer Submarine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=gustloff
Alexandr Marinesko, a butcher or a hero?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... t=gustloff

See also the entries using the search term "Steuben"

[Kim Sung]

You can see how Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the link below

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&start=15

[Kim Sung]

You can see these link using Babel Fish.

http://www.peoples.ru/military/hero/marinesko

http://www.nev-almanah.spb.ru/2003/4n/readers.shtml

http://itogi.ru/paper2001.nsf/Article/I ... _3176.html

http://www.rodgaz.ru/index.php?action=A ... &issue=178

http://www.ifvremya.ru/cgi-bin/res.pl?F ... 030219.txt

http://soroksorok.ru/goods_241724.html

[Sergey Romanov]

Can we consider Alexander Marinesko a War criminal?

Can you explain why we should consider him as such?

[Benoit Douville]

Sergey,

Did Marinesko knew that those those boats were pack with German refugees? If so, I think he should be consider a War criminal.

Regards

[Kunikov]

Sergey,

Did Marinesko knew that those those boats were pack with German refugees? If so, I think he should be consider a War criminal.

Regards

Yes, he did a headcount before he sent them to the bottom.

[Sergey Romanov]

Benoit,

Did Marinesko knew that those those boats were pack with German refugees?

Do answer this question.

[Musashi]

Sergey,

Did Marinesko knew that those those boats were pack with German refugees? If so, I think he should be consider a War criminal.

Regards

There were also soldiers onboard and IIRC the ship was armed so it's simple - no warcrime.

[Kim Sung]

Any submarine commander of any country would've made the same decision in that situation.

[mars]

1.Marinesko did not know "Wilhelm Gustloff" was packed with many German refugee
2. "Wilhelm Gustloff" was belong to German Navy, a submarine train ship, at the date she was sunk, they were also many German military personals aboard the ship, so "Wilhelm Gustloff" was entirely a legal target according to rule of engagement in WWII
3. To allow civilians refugee aboard a military ship, Germans should knew the risk they took before this tragic occured
4. Marinesko was actually shock when he found the full scale of this tragidy after the war, he obviously felt very bad about this, and rarely talked about this "achievement" afterward

[David Thompson]

Let's start seeing some sources for these claims, gentlemen.

[Kim Sung]

4. Marinesko was actually shock when he found the full scale of this tragidy after the war, he obviously felt very bad about this, and rarely talked about this "achievement" afterward

Interesting. Could you provide sources for this?

[Benoit Douville]

I agree with David, let's see some sources. We are looking for the truth here and what really happened. What is amazed me is that Russian member here try to protect Marinesko, why? I rarely see German member here try to protect German personal who committed atrocities. I am not only talking about Marinesko but for example the massive rapes committed by the Red Army against the German women at the end of the War on German soil...

Regards