Talk:Alexander Marinesko

Older talk
The Russian version disagrees with the English version here. The Russian article says that Hitler did not call Marinesku, claims only 5300 people died, and that Marinesku was praised for the attack. The Russian article also does not talk about the controversial nature of the sinking, nor the non-military people on board. -- IlyaHaykinson 23:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Some things are fixed. Even rus artcl says military was only about 1,300. mikka (t) 21:50, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Old talk
I've removed: Alexander Marinescu (romanian transcription, as he was romanian ethnically) - added by anonymous user. Russian sources say he was Ukrainian, so we need a confirmation if he was Romanian ethnically. Besides, he was not called Marinescu, but Marinesko, even if it is true. Pibwl &larr; &laquo;  19:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I am currently reading Crabwalk by Gunter Grass, which states that his father was Romanian (by which, I guess, is meant "from Romania", and not Moldovan, Bessarabian, etc.). The "-sco" ending is a frequent trasliteration of the "-scu" one, and it was common habit at the time for a Romanian to transliterate his or her name when using it among foreigners (see Eugene Ionesco, Helene Vacaresco etc) - his father may have opted to do so himself, or authorities might have changed it for him (Grass -or rather, Grass' first person narrator- claims the latter happened, but that is just an opinon). The issue of Ukrainian in Russian sources refers to any or all of these: his Ukrainin mother, the fact that he was born in Odessa, the hostility between Romanians and Soviets, the issue of Moldovans/Romanians. I suggest inclusion in Category:People of Romanian descent pending the creation of more definite ones (if the latter is indeed possible, given the Moldovan issue in between Romanians and cats for "Romanian Russians", "Romanian Ukrainians", "Romanian Soviet citizens"...). Dahn 18:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

4,500 victims of Steuben
Dampfschiff General von Steuben

Xx236 15:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Disaster
This page is an absolute mess. Without additional sources on him it's REALLY hard to justify the very negative tone and allegations made by this article. If he's really as much of a shmuck as the article implies, fine, but we need sources to back it up. TallNapoleon (talk) 08:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Schmuck?! The article's implications seem to be more along the lines that he was an incompetent drunken bullshitter. Either way, more proof is needed to back up this assertion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.16.208.177 (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

POV mess
This is article is about a simple captain of a submarine who happened to sink a huge ship carrying mostly civilians. This should be fairly uncontroversial, this was war, he did not have any idea what he is sinking etc etc etc. There is nor reason for sentences like "supporters of Marinesco claim" and similar nonsense and wikipedia consensus is not required to retroactively approve the sinking of ships that happened during WWII. Richiez (talk) 19:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

This article is still a very poor example. Lots of POV words from two different points of view. I wouldn't put much trust in a single word in this article. The article classifies opinions as "far-right" or "generally accepted". Its very poorly sourced. Bad article. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Source and objectivity
Most of this article is a direct translation from the Russian language Wikipedia entry with some selective editing. The Russian language article has source documents listed but is not footnoted to indicate which sources provide what information and many are German sources. Clearly, German sources have a bias regarding the Wilhelm Gustloff. The only likely objective treatment is to provide the view from both sides of the story.Федоров (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The German article about the Wilhelm Gustloff looked ok the last time I looked so there should be not much bias regarding the sinking. Do you suspect that something is likely to be incorrect about the other biographic information, like alcohol and other issues? Richiez (talk) 14:09, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see this article still lacks reliable sources so I will pretty soon trim it down to the facts which I remember as beeing completely uncontroversial. IOW last call to add sources before it will be stubbed. Richiez (talk) 11:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * please state objections to specific claims. please remember in wikipedia the policy is verifiability, not "cite every word". - Altenmann >t 03:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

2015 edits
Hi, I would like to copy-edit this page to address some of the current issues.

Some of the proposed changes:

(1) Reduce the level of personal details overall.

(2) Modify the sentence in the lead as follows

"...the captain of the S-13 submarine, which sank the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with recent research showing that over 9,000 died (almost 5000 of whom were children[1]) when the ship sank, most of whom were civilians fleeing the advance of the Red Army."

to: "...the captain of the S-13 submarine, which sank the German military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff. By one estimate,[3] 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. (Using language from MV Wilhelm Gustloff article).

(3) Sources are needed here:
 * "Because of the long inactivity, the level of battle training of the crew was low. Marinesko began to find consolation in alcohol, and he was expelled as a candidate member of the Communist Party."
 * Then Marinesko exposed his submarine to real risk by prematurely returning without any warning to his base. Soviet patrol boats attacked M-96, and a tragedy was avoided by sheer luck.
 * Although only half of the unit returned, without the machine...
 * Of the 13 units of the Type S (Stalinets), Series IX and IXbis, only this boat survived the war. (and how is this relevant in this article?)
 * After spending New Year's night 1945 in Hanko with a Swedish woman, the owner of a restaurant, Marinesko disappeared for several days. It was proposed that he be court-martialed as a deserter, and this could be fatal for him.

(4) I don't see the term "disaster" applicable in this context, as the sinking was that of legitimate military target, and, while loss of life is tragic, the "worst maritime disaster" does not apply.

From Legal-dictionary: Shipwreck (redirected from Maritime Disaster) SHIPWRECK. The loss of a vessel at sea, either by being swallowed up by the waves, by running against another vessel or thing at sea, or on the coast.

Etc

Any comments, suggestions or concerns before I proceed? I will begin by adding tags. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)