Alexander Marinesko

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Alexander Marinesko

Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko (Russian: Александр Иванович Маринеско, Aleksandr Ivanovich Marinesko, Alexander Marinesco; Romanian: Alexandru Marinescu; January 15, 1913 - November 25, 1963) was a Soviet sailor and, during World War II, the captain of the S-13 submarine, which sank the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with recent research suggesting that more than 9,000 died.

Born in Odessa, Marinesko was the son of a Romanian sailor and a Ukrainian woman. He trained in the Soviet Navy as part of the Black Sea Fleet, and was later moved to a command position in the Baltic Fleet.

The Wilhelm Gustloff was evacuating mostly civilians. There are different opinions about this hit, ranging from praise to accusations of a war crime. Defenders of Marinesko maintain that the ship was armed, was not marked adequately as a hospital ship and was carrying more than 1,000 military forces, including submarine trainees, female naval auxiliary aides, anti-aircraft forces, Croat volunteers: ergo strictly within in the law it passes as a legal military target.

Only days later, Alexander Marinesko sank a second German ship, Steuben, this time carrying mostly wounded military personnel, with an estimated total number of 3,000^{[citation needed]} casualties. This way, Marinesko became also the most successful Soviet submarine commander as for tonnage of ships sunk (42,000 BRT; not counting those, he also sank a small transport ship).

Marinesko monument, Kaliningrad

However, Marinesko was not awarded for this the Hero of the Soviet Union title: his commanders refused to trust reports regarding the scale of the hit; in addition, he was deemed a controversial person, "not suitable to be a hero". Instead, after the hits were confirmed, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Due to problems with discipline and his alcoholism, in September 1945 Marinesko was removed from submarine command, with a lowered rank, and in November he was put into reserve.

He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously, in 1990. He is one of the more prominent characters in Günter Grass' novel Crabwalk.