The submarines combat activity of the Axis countries on the Baltic theater of military operations in 1941-1945
The research subject of this article are the combat operations of the submarines of the German and Finnish maritime forces in the Baltic theater of military operations during the Russian Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, which has not yet received objective coverage in neither Russian nor foreign historiographies. The article analyzes the reasons behind the allocation of groups of submarines for operations in the Baltic Sea by the German command, and the main parameters that describe the combat activity of German and Finnish submarines. The author also draws conclusions regarding the causes that have made these operations less effective in the region, compared with the results of the submarines of the Soviet Baltic fleet. The German command for the first time allocated a small group of submarines for battle action in the Baltic military theater in the summer of 1941. It was believed that submarines could create an underwater danger there, which, together with the mine danger, would lead to a significant reduction in the movements of the Soviet fleet outside the Gulf of Finland. With the same aim, the Finnish submarines were also to be used in the named gulf. The planned targets were only partially achieved. In 1942, only Finnish submarines operated in this zone, with the chief aim of strengthening the anti-submarine defense. The period of the most intensive use of enemy submarines was the period from July 1944 to January 1945. At the first stage (up to the beginning of September 1944), through its actions the enemy tried to constrain the activity of the Soviet Baltic Fleet in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland. At the second stage, due to Finland’s exit from the war, the deployment area of German submarines shifted to the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, where they tried without any particular success to interfere with the Soviet naval communications. The work of the submarines of the “Axis” countries in the Baltic Sea in 1941-1945 has for the first time become the subject of a special study in the presented article. At the heart of this research lie the documents from the archives of Germany, the United States, Great Britain and Finland, which are introduced for the first time into scientific circulation. The study of the activities of enemy submarines in the Great Patriotic War is of great importance for the reconstruction of its reliable history, and also creates the basis for a comparative analysis of the combat activity of Soviet submarines in the indicated period.