After the capture of Berlin by our troops, documents were found in Hitler's office that were kept in a folder marked “secret”. The folder was called " Personal enemies Fuhrer and Germany,” and in it - separate lists “are subject to search, arrest and immediate trial for crimes committed against the Fuhrer and the Reich." In this list historical figures, included in the list of enemies of the Third Reich for their actions against Nazism.
In addition to Stalin and Zhukov, the list included the 28th US President Franklin Roosevelt, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army Charles de Gaulle, Bernard Montgomery - head of the British Armed Forces, Dwight Eisenhower - Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, etc. .
The list included not only generals and intelligence officers, but also figures of world culture and other personalities. In particular, it included: the designer of the T-34, the best tank of World War 2, Mikhail Koshkin, who was included in the list of Hitler’s personal enemies after his death, and therefore the cemetery in Kharkov where he was buried was razed to the ground.
The list included Sovinformburo announcer Yuri Levitan, for whose head the Nazis promised 250 thousand marks. A special SS group was preparing to be sent to Moscow to eliminate the speaker. In order to protect the main voice of the USSR, Levitan was assigned security, and false rumors about his appearance were spread around the city, fortunately few knew the announcer’s face.
In June 1941, it was Levitan who read the message about the beginning of the war and then, throughout all four years, informed the country about the situation at the fronts. Marshal Rokossovsky once said that Levitan’s voice was equivalent to an entire division. Hitler considered him enemy of the Reich No. 1 and threatened, when he took Moscow, to hang announcer Levitan first, and Kukryniks second, and then everyone else.
WHO ELSE WAS ON THE LIST
Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel (German: Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel) (February 14, 1916 - February 22, 1944) - Hero of the Soviet Union, German anti-fascist, partisan.
National Hero of Czechoslovakia, honorary citizen of 18 cities of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, commander of the international partisan brigade named after Jan Zizka, Tatar from Ufa Dayan Murzin, nicknamed “Black General”, whom Otto Skorzeny himself unsuccessfully hunted
Artist Boris Efimov ( living legend Soviet art, the oldest cartoonist on the planet, who drew Stalin and Hitler from life). Lived 107 years
Famous Kukryniksy. 
Artist Harris Yakupov
Black champion of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the legendary American Jesse Owens
The legendary sniper Vasily Zaitsev and tanker Mikhail BORISOV, who personally knocked out 7 “tigers” in 20 minutes of battle on the Kursk Bulge near Prokhorovka.
Ilya Starinov - saboteur who blew up the commandant of Kharkov, Lieutenant General Georg von Braun, along with his staff officers
Fighter pilot Mikhail Devyatayev, who escaped from a concentration camp on a Henkel-111 bomber along with other prisoners of war.
Submarine commander Alexander Marinesko - for the sinking of the superliner Wilhelm Gustlov, which was called the “Attack of the Century.” Marinesko was number 26 on the list of enemies of the Reich.
After watching the film “The Great Dictator,” Hitler declared the famous comedian Charlie Chaplin his enemy.
Viktor Leonov is the commander of the legendary detachment of naval reconnaissance special forces of the Northern Fleet, whom the Germans called the “Polar Fox” for the skill and surprise of operations.
German writer Enrich Maria Remarque Actress Marlene Dietrich was included in the list for the thoughts expressed in her books
German writer Bertolt Brecht Lion Feuchtwanger
In 1937, at one of his performances in Warsaw, Wolf Messing, a famous hypnotist and soothsayer, warned Hitler: if he rushed to the East, he would lose his head. The Fuhrer, having learned about the prediction, promised a reward of 200 thousand marks for the head of the insolent man.
A team of Dynamo Kyiv football players (Actually the Start team), who won the legendary death match against fascist pilots in occupied Kyiv
Writer Ilya Ehrenburg for his sharp satire on Hitler
And even the favorite character of the great optimist, who always believed in the victory of good over evil, Walt Disney, is the mouse Mickey Mouse, a symbol of a free and happy America. His name became the password for the operation during the landing of Allied forces in Normandy.
The lists were compiled by the Imperial Security Directorate of the RSHA at the request of the SD and the Gestapo, before the invasion of the USSR and appeared in the spring of 1941, as part of the Barbarossa plan, including the names of about 4,000 political and ideological opponents, more than half of whom were emigrants from Germany dangerous for the regime . The rest were represented by prominent Soviet party and government functionaries, intellectuals, military leaders, as well as persons interested in the German intelligence services for cooperation. The lists of personal enemies once again confirmed that Hitler was a psychopath who rose to power and plunged the world into the heat of a terrible war.
Based on Internet materials Nikolay Zubashenko
“Yuri Levitan’s voice was equivalent to an entire division,” - this is what Marshal Rokosovsky will say about the legendary announcer after the war. This happened later, and in 1931, when Levitan came to audition for the radio committee, he was not accepted. The voice was a let down. Levitan did not give up. He lived in the editorial office, in the back room, and corrected his diction in his free time. One night he was asked to read an excerpt from Pravda on air. Coincidence of circumstances - this release was heard by Stalin himself. And he was shocked. So overnight Yuri Levitan became the main announcer of the Soviet Union.
On June 22, 1941, at 12 noon, Levitan announced the beginning of the war. This is how the announcer himself talks about it. “I remember turning on the microphone. When I said “Moscow speaking!”, I felt that I could not speak further. A lump is stuck in my throat. They’re already knocking from the control room: “Why are you silent? Continue." He clenched his fists and continued: “Citizens and women of the Soviet Union...”
“He listed Stalin as enemy No. 2, and Levitan as enemy No. 1. And a reward for his head was promised, according to some sources, 100,000 marks, according to others - 200,000. At that time, a paradoxical amount,” says Efrem Kozlov, director of the information department of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise MGRS.
A month later - an artillery attack on a Moscow radio studio. German radio reports: Levitan has been killed. But after a few minutes a familiar voice is heard on the air. The bomb landed in the sewer and did not explode. Levitan is guarded around the clock. His appearance is a closely guarded secret. Announcer Anna Shatilova recalls that incredible rumors even spread among the people.” For some reason, there was a rumor that Levitan had no legs. That he can’t reach the microphone and they put a bench in front of him.”
Once they asked Stalin: “When is the victory?” “When will Levitan announce,” the commander-in-chief joked. Early in the morning of May 9, 1945, a crowd of people crowded into the control room. Everyone was waiting for the long-awaited report about the Victory to be brought. The special communications colonel handed him the package. He opened it and finally read the joyful message that everyone was waiting for soviet people and all over the world.
After the war, Levitan became a beloved announcer. But fame worries him little. The announcer's responsiveness was legendary.
“They even said that if someone doesn’t have money, you can borrow from Levitan, he will never refuse. And I remember we were standing in ASK-3. And suddenly an engineer came up: “Oh, excuse me, Yuri Borisovich, can I see you for a minute?” And I look - Yuri Borisovich gives him money,” recalls Anna Shatilova.
For outsiders - Yuri Borisovich. And for colleagues on the radio - just YurBor. He continued to work until his last days. At the end of his life he once admitted that he remembered by heart every word, every intonation of his military broadcasts.
A 17-year-old boy comes from Vladimir to enter the State Film College (VGIK), but the admissions committee refuses him - he is not the right age and appearance. The provincial dialect and Okanye make them laugh. This does not stop the Vladimir guy. By chance, he comes across an advertisement for a group of radio announcers. The audition is conducted by Vasily Kachalov himself and approves of his candidacy. So this lively boy becomes an intern of the Radio Committee.
During his studies, the guy did not waste time and worked hard on himself: he improved his diction and took lessons from the Moscow Art Theater artists. At the same time, he was assigned to be on duty in the studio - reading small news and announcing musical numbers. And so, on January 6, 1934, his “finest hour” came.
In the thirties, radio and night broadcasts were used to transmit newspaper articles to remote parts of the country. The announcers read out tomorrow's news almost syllable by syllable, and stenographers wrote down and sent articles to print. So all the inhabitants of the country found out without delay new information. That night, the young intern was assigned to read the editorial of the Pravda newspaper and heard the announcer, who liked to work at night with the radio on. The leader immediately contacted the head of the Radio Committee and ordered that this young man should read his speech at the XVII Congress. This is how the voice of the Soviet Union appeared - the voice of Yuri Levitan.
Yuri Levitan was responsible for voicing important state documents, it was he who reported on the rescue of the crew of the icebreaker “Chelyuskin”, the air flight of Valery Chkalov, the success of the Arctic expedition of Ivan Papanin. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Yuri Borisovich became the voice of the Information Bureau. Every resident of the USSR knew him. Rokossovsky said that Levitan’s voice was worth an entire division.
Levitan was so famous that even Hitler knew him, who considered the announcer his personal enemy No. 1. came second on this list. According to information from different sources The fascist command valued the speaker's head at 100 to 250 thousand German marks. Goebbels dreamed that Yuri Borisovich would read the message about the victory over the USSR and worked on a plan to kidnap the announcer by a special SS group. For this reason, Levitan's photographs were not published anywhere.
The war was a difficult time. In the fall of 1941, when the German troops arrived, Levitan had to broadcast from Sverdlovsk. By this time, all radio towers in the capital, which were good reference points for enemy aircraft, had been dismantled. The secrecy regime did not allow for proper preparation for the broadcast; often the text was read from a sheet that was given right before the broadcast. In such conditions, I had to draw out the words and skim through the next fragment while reading the previous one in order to understand what intonation to use.
In Sverdlovsk, Levitan lived in a barracks not far from the studio, which was located in the basement. The studio's signal was rebroadcast by dozens of stations throughout the union, hiding traces of the source.
In March 1943, the broadcast moved to Kuibyshev, from where he continued.
During the war years, Yuri Borisovich read more than 2,000 reports from the fronts and about 120 emergency messages. His voice had a strong emotional impact. Stalin claimed that the war would end when Levitan announced it.
On May 9, 1945, Levitan read out Order 369 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on the victory over Nazi Germany.
In 1975, Yuri Borisovich was awarded the title People's Artist RSFSR.
In 1980 - People's Artist of the USSR.
IN last years In his life, he focused on working with interns.
For which Soviet citizens were included in the list of personal enemies of the Fuhrer.
Many have heard more than once about the list of Hitler's personal enemies. it included different people: politicians - leaders of states hostile to Nazi Germany, military men, artists, athletes.
Most of them need no introduction: Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight Eisenhower, Bertolt Brecht, Josip Broz Tito, Georgy Zhukov, Alexander Marinesko, Ilya Starinov, Yuri Levitan, Kukryniksy, football players of Dynamo Kiev , who defeated the German pilots in a “death match”, black Olympic runner from the United States Jesse Owens.
But there were also those on this list whose names are not known to everyone today. “Russian Planet” decided to restore historical justice and dedicate the publication to these little-known heroes.
Black General - Russian James Bond
Dayan Bayanovich Murzin was born on January 20, 1921 in Bashkiria. He studied to become a teacher, worked as a rural teacher, and received a certificate of honor for his success. When the Soviet-Finnish war began, he was eager to go to the front, but he only got to fight in the Great Patriotic War. After graduating from the Riga Military School, Dayan Murzin served in the 10th Infantry Division of the Baltic Military District. There the war found him. From its first day, Murzin was on the front line.
In the next battle he was wounded and lost consciousness. Two soldiers carried Murzin on a raincoat, but they couldn’t get far, and Dayan Bayanovich asked his comrades to leave him. Fortunately, the wounded man was picked up local residents and taken to the hospital. Having recovered a little, Murzin decided to catch up with his division, but ended up in the Yampolsk group of partisans “For the Motherland” and remained there. First he was appointed commander of a reconnaissance platoon, and then company commander.
The group “For the Motherland” was part of the partisan unit S.A. Kovpak and operated in Belarus. The partisans carried out daring acts of sabotage: they derailed trains, blew up warehouses, bridges and roads.
In 1942, Murzin organized a partisan detachment in Ukraine, and a year later - in Moldova. In 1944, Murzin was transported to Czechoslovakia, where he became chief of staff and then commander of the famous international partisan brigade named after Jan Zizka.
I was the commander of a brigade, it consisted of five detachments,” recalled Dayan Bayanovich. - This is more than 2 thousand people. And I was only 23 years old then. And then the command ordered me to grow a beard so that I would look more respectable. With a beard they gave me 45 years - that’s how I lived until the end of the war. The beard was thick and black. That's why they called me the Black General.
There were heavy battles, the brigade inflicted big damage, and the Germans began to introduce their agents into it. One of the spies managed to lead the machine gunners to the partisans, a battle ensued in which Dayan Murzin was wounded in both legs, but was still able to escape by jumping into the river. The fast current carried him away from enemy bullets. After this, the hero hid in an empty bear den for four days and was on the verge of death. The punishers were combing the forest, their dogs were circling very close, but the Germans did not understand where exactly the partisan was and burned a haystack 15 meters from him.
Having recovered from his injuries, Dayan Murzin begins to smash the enemy with renewed vigor. Upon learning that the death of German soldiers was the work of “some pathetic gang of partisans,” Hitler becomes furious. He puts Murzin on his list of personal enemies and assigns 3 million Reichsmarks for the living Black General, and 2 million for the dead one.
The operation to destroy the partisans is entrusted to Otto Skorzeny himself, and an all-out hunt begins for the brigade. To save her, the command decides to transfer the partisans along with their commander to the border of Slovakia. The village in which some of the partisans remained was razed to the ground by the Nazis, no one survived...
Skorzeny joyfully reported to Hitler that the gang had been destroyed and was awarded. But after some time, the “destroyed” detachment, led by the “dead” commander, captures the commander of the tank army, General Muller, right under the enemy’s nose. The partisans managed to find out that Müller liked to visit the landowner’s estate, where a relative of one of the partisans worked as a housewife. She helped the partisans capture Müller.
The black general personally interrogates the commander, promises to spare his life in exchange for important information and gets his way. Murzin kept his word: Muller was left alive.
Partisan detachments from the Jan Žižka brigade liberated the cities of Vsetin and Zlín and took an active part in the anti-fascist uprising in Prague. According to some reports, they also detained the traitor general Vlasov.
Dayan Murzin.
The Englishman John Howland, whose father served with Dayan Murzin, wrote a book about the Black General. In this book, he compares Murzin with nothing less than James Bond, and not even in favor of the latter. According to the author, the real exploits of the partisan commander largely overshadow the literary adventures of agent 007.
Dayan Murzin, like another person on the list of Hitler’s personal enemies, “saboteur No. 1” Ilya Starinov, had various awards, but did not receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union...
In peacetime, Dayan Bayanovich showed himself in various fields of activity. First he worked in the public education system, then became a lawyer and worked in law enforcement agencies, and served as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He lived long life- 91 years old.
In order to be included in the list of Hitler's personal enemies, it was not at all necessary to serve in the army; it was enough to simply have anti-fascist views and express them in literature or painting.
Author of the Killer Joke
In the 70s, the comedy show Monthy Python (Monty Python) was released in Britain - purely English humor, with unexpected plot twists and a large dose of absurdity. One of the most successful sketches of this show was dedicated to a certain killer joke, with the help of which the British successfully fought the Nazis during World War II. But the creators of the show could hardly have known that the killer joke actually existed in history, only it was used not by the British, but by the Russians.
Cartoonist Vladimir Aleksandrovich Galba was born in 1908 in Kharkov. He lived in Leningrad, from the age of 18 he participated in exhibitions and collaborated with many newspapers and magazines. He has been drawing anti-fascist caricatures since the 30s. And when the war began and Leningrad was under siege, Galba’s cartoons were published every day in Leningradskaya Pravda, people were looking forward to them.
In one of the cartoons, a mad goalkeeper - Hitler - is rushing about in a football goal, and in the net there is a mountain of skulls in German helmets. So Soviet artist responded to Goebbels's saying: “German, war is football. Instead of a ball, we play with human heads."
And the killer joke we want to talk about did not appear in the newspaper, but right on the front line. In 1942, Vladimir Galba came from the besieged city to the Leningrad Front. The fighters accepted him as an old friend and asked him to draw something especially for them.
Galba attached a sheet of thick paper with thumbtacks to the log wall of the dugout and took a pencil with a soft lead.
A few minutes later, the crowd laughed when they saw Hitler looking like a stray dog. Then the artist painted a fat hog - Goering, an evil monkey - Goebbels. The Red Army sniper said to Galba: “You are doing great, caustic and accurate! Could you lure the enemy out of hiding?” “Let’s try,” Vladimir Alexandrovich smiled mysteriously.
And he drew a couple of caricatures of Hitler. We won’t describe them in detail: it’s too indecent... Let’s just say that the fascist leader was depicted in a tunic, but without trousers or underwear. The soldiers laughed, and then, on the orders of their political instructor Fokin, they divided these drawings into squares and proportionally transferred them to huge pieces of gauze. At night, the scouts stretched out these “canvases” in front of the Nazi trenches on power lines and stakes.
As they wrote in the Nevskoe Vremya newspaper, after seeing the cartoons, “the Nazis opened mad fire from guns and mortars at the giant cartoons. Moreover, to disrupt them, a lot of soldiers were thrown into battle. Our machine gunners and snipers did not sleep. Leaving many corpses on the field, the enemies retreated to their homes.” Their shots only made holes in the gauze, leaving the art unharmed.
Vladimir Galba.
“This is the case,” said Galba, “when laughter literally killed.” The political instructor was awarded an order for this battle, and Vladimir Alexandrovich was included in the list of Hitler’s personal enemies for his drawings and posters. IN Great Encyclopedia The cartoon says that our intelligence officers found a certain list of those sentenced to hanging on one of the killed Germans. It said that these enemies would be hanged "on Palace Square at the hour when the Wehrmacht troops enter the conquered Leningrad.”
The artist’s best wartime works were included in albums under the wonderful titles “Blitz-cry” and “Fritz-howl”, which were released in 1944. Already from these names it is clear that Galba was not only talented artist, but also had excellent command literary word. He wrote satirical epigrams on the enemies of his homeland, for example: “The drooping tail of the Norwegian Terrier, nicknamed Quisling, cannot hide.”
As a correspondent artist, Vladimir Galba was present at the Nuremberg trials. Until the end of his life he continued to do what he loved. Vladimir Alexandrovich died in 1984.
He predicted Plan Barbarossa
Well, the least known representative of the list of Hitler’s personal enemies to the general public was, perhaps, the writer and journalist, and according to some sources, intelligence officer Ernst Henry (real name Leonid Abramovich Khentov, was also known as Semyon Rostovsky). It is difficult to say exactly where he was born: according to some sources, it was Odessa, according to others - Tambov, according to others - Vitebsk.
Sources agree that he was the son of a manufacturer. In his youth he became interested in politics, went to Germany and became a courier for the Comintern, and then a member of the German Communist Party. For this activity he was arrested several times and served in Polish and German prisons. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Henry happened to be in London and, on the advice of friends, decided not to return to Germany. In England he worked as a journalist, although there is an opinion that this was only a cover for intelligence activities. It is known that Ernst Henry was in contact with the famous Kim Philby and other members of the “Cambridge Five”.
In any case, we are interested in him not so much as an intelligence officer, but as a writer. In 1937, Henry’s book “Hitler against the USSR” was published, in which the plan for the upcoming German attack on the Soviet Union was described in almost every detail. Much is predicted there accurately: the Anschluss of Austria, the destruction of Czechoslovakia with the help of the Sudeten Germans, a list of Hitler's main satellites. And most importantly - the victory of the USSR in the war. But not everything came true: for example, the author predicted that the Red Army would defeat Nazism with the help of the rebellious German proletariat. The German masses, according to Henry, should have rebelled after the very first bombs fell on the roofs of their houses...
Despite the obvious mistakes, which were quite obvious by the early 1940s, it is believed that Stalin studied the book “Hitler against the USSR” very carefully. And this could very well be true.
Here is what Yaroslav Dobrolyubov writes in the article “The Shine and Poverty of Military Futurology” (Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, 2002, No. 1): “If Henry mentally played “for the blacks,” thinking through a possible Nazi strategy, then the future Generalissimo tried to play “for the reds.” "on a real map of Europe. Henry predicted that instead of war in the West, Hitler, with the connivance of the Western powers, would go first to the East. Stalin did everything so that Paris would meet German tanks much earlier than Moscow, and the war would make Western democracies reliable allies of the USSR...” And so on.
Ernst Henry.
The author himself recalled in the early 1970s: “There was a joke that I broke into Hitler’s safes and found the Barbarossa plan there.” These are all fairy tales, this plan, and even then in draft form, was drawn up somewhere in 1940. My work was the result of an analysis of current reality, what a historian of our time should do. I just put myself in the place of the fascists, tried to think in their categories.”
Well, Hitler declared the author his personal enemy for this book. Or maybe also for his daring act in 1942, when Henry, straight from the BBC studio, greeted Soviet intelligence officers and declared to the whole world that the USSR had one of the best intelligence services in the world and the Gestapo was powerless against it.
In the early 50s, Ernst Henry returned to the USSR, was arrested and spent four years in prison. After his release he was engaged in journalism and research work. Henry's last book, entitled Anti-Man, was published in 1989, a year before his death, and was also dedicated to the Nazi leader.
These are the people who were on the list of Hitler's personal enemies. There are not many politicians in history who could boast of such a list, and such an extensive one at that. Why did the possessed Fuhrer collect enemies? For reasons of German pedantry? Were you afraid of undeservedly forgetting someone? Did you enjoy the process? Who will understand him, a fascist...
But, be that as it may, each new item on the list did not weaken its participants, but, on the contrary, made them stronger. Having learned that their name was included in the list of Hitler's personal enemies, they began to fight with redoubled force. Ultimately, the abundance of enemies and their courage destroyed Hitler. Because you need to be kinder to people, more humane, or something...
But, sad as it may be, Hitler's business is in a certain sense continues to live. IN Lately due to the aggravation of the international political situation in different countries They began to compete to see who could find the most enemies and declare it louder. Most of the propaganda materials, regardless of ideological orientation, are based on complete negativity.
I would like to suggest: maybe it’s better to do the opposite - start making lists of friends? And generally concentrate on positive images- both from the past and from the present. And laugh at your enemies, as Vladimir Galba did.
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Chapter 20. Hitler's personal enemy
Found guilty of theft of socialist property:
Hero of the Soviet Union (1990) captain 3rd rank Marinesko Alexander Ivanovich (1913–1963) - after graduating from school as a cabin boy and studying at a maritime technical school, he sailed on ships of the Black Sea Shipping Company, in 1933 he was drafted into the USSR Navy, served in a brigade submarines Baltic Fleet. In 1939 - assistant and then commander of the submarine. Since April 1943 - commander of the submarine S-13. In 1945 - for violation of military discipline he was demoted to military rank to senior lieutenant and appointed commander of a minesweeper, and then transferred to the reserve. In 1946–1948 sailed on ships of the Baltic Shipping Company. In 1949 he was sentenced to 3 years in prison for theft. In 1951 he was released from prison. In 1960 - reinstated to the rank of captain 3rd rank.
The commander of the S-13 submarine, Alexander Marinesko, will forever remain in history as submariner No. 1. And also A. Hitler’s personal enemy. The same number, although there is no documentary evidence that he actually made such statements. However, it is already clear that the Fuhrer had good reasons to declare Marinesko an enemy of the Reich. After all, the disaster of the Titanic superliner, which claimed the lives of 1,517 passengers, in terms of the number of victims could not be compared with the death of the huge German floating base "Wilhelm Gustlow" with a displacement of 25,484 tons, sunk by Marinesko. It was the largest military transport destroyed by our submariners during the war. The oceanic “unsinkable” giant had a length of 208 meters, nine decks, a church, two theaters, a swimming pool, a gym, several restaurants and cafes with winter garden and artificial climate. And even Hitler's personal apartments. Therefore, it is not surprising that, having learned about what had happened, the Fuhrer became furious and, according to some sources, ordered the execution of the head of the ship convoy.
It was no coincidence that the unprecedented attack of this liner, brilliantly carried out by the commander of the legendary submarine in the Stolpmünde area, was called the “attack of the century.” Moreover, not us, but the British. On January 30, 1945, the S-13 destroyed the pride of German shipbuilding. There were more than 6,000 people on board the ship. Of these, about 3,700 people. were well-trained crew members of the new submarines of the 3rd Reich. Marinesko, literally under the nose of the convoy, despite the storm, pursued the huge ship for several hours until it was ready for an accurate torpedo salvo.
The disaster lasted more than an hour. At 23:04, the liner sank, hit by three torpedoes. Only 1,230 people managed to escape. Marinesco's boat masterfully escaped pursuit, although it was pressed to the shore by the Germans and felt the impact of 240 depth charges dropped into the water.
According to the recollections of surviving eyewitnesses, despite the fact that the captain of the Gustlov and his assistants tried to calm the passengers, declaring that the ship had run aground, the panic was unimaginable. Crowds of maddened people rushed about the decks. There were not enough lifeboats. They made their way towards them with weapons - senior officers shot at junior officers, soldiers - at civilians. The explosion of torpedoes shorted out the electrical wiring, and before plunging into the abyss, the superliner lit up bright light- a short circuit caused a bright illumination to light up on the upper deck.
In the same campaign, the S-13 managed to destroy another German ship with a displacement of 14,660 tons - the General Steube, which carried more than 3 thousand Wehrmacht troops. This happened on February 9, 1945. “The salvo fired from the stern apparatus at 02:50 was extremely accurate,” recalled the boat’s navigator N. Redkoborodov. “Both torpedoes hit the target, the explosion was so powerful that the cruiser sank within a matter of minutes.” minutes." This time Marinesko gave “full speed ahead!” and, taking advantage of the enemy’s confusion, escaped pursuit without plunging under water.
Many books have been written about the “attack of the century.” At the same time, until recently, few people knew that A. Marinesko went on this famous month-and-a-half campaign almost as a fine. According to some reports, a supervisor, an employee of a special department, was even sent to S-13. According to others, confirmed by the memories of crew members, political commissar Lieutenant Colonel B. Krylov. There were good reasons for this.
The “emergency” happened on New Year’s Eve 1945 in the Finnish city of Turku. There have been many versions and speculations about this. Therefore, it is most logical to give the floor to A.I. himself. Marinesko, whose story we present (with slight abbreviations) based on the book of his friend, military writer A. Kron:
It was in Turku on New Year's Eve, forty-fifth. We are standing in a port, living on a floating base. The boat is completely ready to go to sea, we are waiting for orders. Mortal boredom, everyone is tired of each other - there’s nowhere else to go. My friend Petya L. and I decided to go to the city, there were guys we knew from the Soviet Control Commission living in a hotel there, we wanted to meet with them New Year. We arrive, there is no one. We go to the restaurant. It's open, but there's not a soul in the room. We drank moderately, ate a snack, and began to slowly sing Ukrainian songs. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the hostess appeared. Young, beautiful, you can immediately see that she is a fire woman. He sits down next to us and speaks in Russian. I blink at her: “Can’t my friend join me too?” I understood and called some of my assistants from the floor. And the four of us are already walking. And then they took the alcohol and something else from the table and went to the fifth floor, where she has her own apartment. Frankly, we liked each other... When we confessed to the base, we were greeted sternly. Both were threatened with court martial. But then everything worked out. A delegation from the command came to the division commander - we don’t want to go to sea with another commander. Divisional Commander Orel understood the mood of the crew and I went on a hike to atone for my guilt.
Captain 1st Rank Orel really had no choice. He ordered the commander of the C-13 to urgently go to sea and await further orders. And he added - don’t come back without victory. On January 11, 1945, the submarine headed along the coast of the island of Gotland into the open sea. After what happened, Marinesko simply had to “catch his luck” and rehabilitate himself in this campaign. After all, they directly hinted to him that the final point in his case had not yet been set. It’s good that he didn’t end up in court. History shows that the submarine heroes were lucky in this regard. In the same year, for example, the former commander of the S-7 submarine, Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain 3rd Rank S. Lisin, miraculously managed to avoid a tribunal. And in 1983 - to the chief of staff of the submarine division, captain 1st rank A. Gusev, who was the senior on board the nuclear submarine "K-429" with cruise missiles, sank in the Kamchatka region. The commander of this boat, Captain 1st Rank Suvorov, and the commander of the warhead-5, Captain 2nd Rank Likhomanov, were sentenced to imprisonment by the military tribunal of the Pacific Fleet. And Gusev, who did not prevent the commander’s unlawful actions, was protected from investigation and trial by fellow submariners.
Marinesko was also saved from the tribunal by the crew who came to his defense. Ordinary people loved him. But relations with representatives of official authorities - senior naval commanders, law enforcement agencies and government officials - have always been difficult: they oppressed, punished, deprived of awards, envied his luck...
Before the war, Marinesko dreamed of becoming a captain in the merchant fleet. But due to the prevailing circumstances, he was called up for submarine training courses. I graduated with honors from these courses. However, in the summer of 1937, he was unexpectedly dismissed from the fleet, although he successfully passed certification for the position of commander of a medium-class submarine. He was very upset by what happened, and for the first time he went on a drinking binge. Two weeks after this, another order unexpectedly arrived - to return to the USSR Navy. Marinesko became the commander of the M-96 boat, which soon received the title of “best submarine.” Red Banner Baltic Fleet", setting a record for emergency dive time - 19.5 seconds instead of 28 standard. Marinesko and all 18 members of his team were awarded personalized gold watches.
In 1945, unlike the enemy, who adequately responded to the “attack of the century,” Marinesko was sparingly congratulated after the campaign and given an order. Divisional Commander Orel still wanted to present him to the Hero, and the boat to the rank of “Guards”. But the emergency in Turku and the label of a drunkard and reveler attached to Marinesko did their job.
Returning from the campaign, he rightfully believed that he had completely atoned for all his past sins. But that was not the case. And he suffered - unauthorized absences, sprees, scandals and conflicts became more frequent. Twice his unworthy behavior was discussed at the party commission. But Marinesko did not draw any conclusions for himself. A. Kron wrote in the mentioned book: “What depressed him most was that his old guilt was not forgiven and forgotten, and out of stubbornness he responded to this with new violations of discipline and ridiculous antics. The craving for alcohol, previously explained by simple promiscuity, was already taking on a painful character. The first signs of epilepsy appeared. The already sick man drank and behaved outrageously. This is the only way I explain that Marinesko, always true to his word, twice gave the command and the party commission his word to improve and twice did not keep it... His last drunken outburst exhausted the patience of his superiors: Marinesko came to the base after an unauthorized absence in some random company, and was rude when drunk to the acting divisional commander and refused to apologize - in general, he had his mouth in his mouth. The brigade commander reports to the fleet commander. Solution: demote the rank to first lieutenant and assign him to the position of assistant on another boat. The decision was not even too harsh; the military leaders who made it valued Marinesco, wanted to save him for the submarine fleet and, probably, sincerely believed that they had no other choice.”
So, for violations of military discipline, “negligent attitude towards official duties and everyday promiscuity,” Marinesko became a senior lieutenant and commander of a minesweeper. The Komflot really did not want to transfer him to a command post. But Alexander Ivanovich, having learned that he had been demoted in rank and removed from S-13, obtained an appointment with the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy N. Kuznetsov, who was in Leningrad at that time.
Nikolai Gerasimovich listened carefully to the disgraced hero and seemed to have found a compromise solution - to appoint him commander of the minesweeper:
Serve a year, show your best side, and we'll get you back on the boat.
However, Marinesko persisted - then demobilize.
About two years civil life He spent his time on the water, serving as a captain's mate on the ships of the Baltic Shipping Company - the dry cargo ships "Seva" and "Yalta". From there he was finally written off to shore due to weakening of his eyesight.
The secretary of the Smolninsky district party committee, Nikitin, who knew Marinesko well, found him the position of caretaker at the Institute of Blood Transfusion. However, as it soon became clear, the director of this institute did not at all need an honest deputy for economic matters.
Kron calls this director K. We will give his last name in full, since he truly played a role in the fate of the Hero fatal role. This is V. Kuharchik, later sentenced to imprisonment. The cook immediately hinted to Marinesko what was required of him. However, Alexander Ivanovich did not want to participate in the construction of the director’s dacha at the expense of public funds. The relationship didn't work out. Marinesko openly expressed everything he thinks about grabbers and embezzlers. The cook hid. I began to wait for an opportunity.
Soon such an opportunity presented itself. In the courtyard of the institute there were discarded peat briquettes lying around. Marinesko decided to liquidate this landfill and delivered the briquettes to the homes of the institute’s employees, having previously received verbal permission from the director. And he called the OBKhSS. So Marinesko became a plunderer of socialist property and appeared in court.
I, like A. Kron, was unable to find traces of this case. It was destroyed due to the expiration of its shelf life. All that remained was the verdict, which the writer found in the archives of the Leningrad City Court. According to the verdict of A.I. Marinesko was sentenced in 1949 by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of June 4, 1947 “On criminal liability for theft of state and public property” to three years in prison. Along with the theft of peat briquettes, Marinesko was also accused of misappropriating a bed worth 543 rubles belonging to the institute.
An employee of the institute, who was present at the search as a witness, spoke about the circumstances under which Alexander Ivanovich “appropriated” this bed: “We had such iron beds at the institute before the war. Then they were taken to the attic and after the war they were written off as unusable. A tin tag with our inventory number is screwed to one of the bunks with wire. If Alexander Ivanovich wanted to appropriate this bed, he would have torn off the tag.”
In court, Marinesko also told the judges that he brought this old bed to his communal apartment for a while, because he, his new wife, infant and the mother-in-law had nothing to sleep on. And the prosecutor, a former front-line soldier, believed it. Having convinced himself that this case was not worth a damn, he dropped the accusation. The people's assessors expressed a dissenting opinion. However, the judge did not dare to acquit. This was not practiced then. The case was postponed, Marinesko was taken into custody. And already in a different composition of the court a guilty verdict was passed.
“They put me together with the thieves and the police,” said Alexander Ivanovich. - They cut their hair, shaved it, treated it like a Caudle. I was immediately robbed by someone unknown: the backpack that my wife had packed for me for the trip turned out to be empty. My wife sold all the clothes we bought on our voyages abroad, hired defenders, and ran around the whole city. Nothing helped…"
Punishment of A.I. Marinesko was serving in Kolyma. Here is just one interesting episode from the Hero’s camp epic, described in the mentioned book: “In prison, Marinesko kept to himself, however, he was respected. One day a book was stolen from him - a gift from his wife. He told the godfather about this. He gave his word that in ten minutes the book would be with him. But it turned out that the thief, a young guy, had already cut the book into cards. For a godfather not to keep his word is a terrible shame before the one to whom he gave it. The godfather atoned for his guilt before Marinesko cruelly - the young thief was killed by smashing his head against the wall.”
On October 10, 1951, Marinesko was released early from prison. In 1953, on the basis of Beria's amnesty act of March 27, his criminal record was cleared. In 1960, he was restored to the rank of captain 3rd rank. This happened after a screening of the German film in Moscow. feature film“Night has fallen on Gotenhafen,” which mentioned the commander of the submarine Marinesco, who sank the ocean giant Wilhelm Gustlow.
After his release from the camp, Marinesko worked as a loader and topographer. Then he got a job at the Mezon plant, where he showed his best side - his portrait hung on the Honor Board for a long time. But then trouble crept in again.
There is even less information about the second trial of Marinesko than about the first. It is not established exactly when this was. It is not even known by what rules - criminal or civil proceedings - this case was heard. Its essence was as follows. Marinesko soon needed money - he received a meager pension, his earnings were small. In addition, he paid alimony. The plant management met him halfway and allowed him to earn extra money above the established salary. A sudden audit revealed violations, the materials were sent to the court, which decided to recover from Marinesko all the surplus he received. Even when he resigned due to cancer of the throat and esophagus, these surpluses continued to be deducted from the pension according to the writ of execution.
No one at that time knew that he was an ace submariner and a real Hero. Alexander Ivanovich himself never emphasized his services to the Motherland to anyone, including the judges. When the owner of the apartment he was renting saw him with the Order of Lenin, he answered her briefly: “There was a war, many received it.”
For the first time, A. Kron spoke about Marinesko in a newspaper only in 1960. Thanks to him and Admiral I. Isakov, to whom the writer turned for help, Marinesko, who was dying of poverty and illness, had his pension increased. S.S. Smirnov, in his almanac “Feat,” spoke about it on television. And he managed, bypassing censorship, to convey to the audience the idea that the Hero lives in poverty.
This is how Marinesko became famous. Thousands of letters began to arrive at his address, in which people who wrote to him often invested money - three or five rubles.
He died hard. He died on November 29, 1963. And the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to submariner No. 1 only in 1990, at the request of the Military Council of the twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet and the Military Council Navy THE USSR.
Journalist of the newspaper Izvestia, which did a lot to restore the good name of A.I. Marinesko, Ed. Polyanovsky rightly and accurately called everything that happened for forty-five years around his name our “national shame.” I could talk about this for a long time. But is it worth it?
Back in the 50s, the Swedish Navy magazine opened a discussion on the S-13 submarine. And in 1971, the Swedes asked the question: why was Marinesko not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union? Similar questions were published in other Western media. mass media. What could we answer them?
To cite the words of a well-known political functionary that it was impossible to assign the Hero to the commander of “S-13”, since this would negatively affect the “results educational work among the cadets naval schools"? Or suggest reading an article published in 1967 in the Baltic Guardian newspaper, from which one can guess that the Gustlova was sunk by first mate Efremenkov, and Marinesko was drunk at that time? Tell how the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy S. Gorshkov, on a written request from the shipbuilders with a request to name the ship the name of Alexander Marinesko, imposed a laconic resolution - “Unworthy”. Or tell me how already in the second half of the eighties in Liepaja, by order of the political department of the Navy, the name “Marinesko” was torn off at night from the monument erected to the Hero with the money of the sailors?
Here we do not agree with the mentioned journalist Polyanovsky, who called what was happening by the state “attack of the century.” This is not an attack, but a minor behind-the-scenes fuss. No one will be able to erase the “Attack of the Century” and the name of its organizer from history. But the names of those who tried to denigrate submariner No. 1 are unlikely to be remembered today, at the beginning of the 21st century.
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