Captain Drosdov
Captain of Soviet Submarine K-51

For nearly 50 years we were all convinced that Captain Drosdov and his U-boat K-51 was the assassin of s/s Hansa in 1944. But new information came about in 1991 to disprove this theory. How the real identity of the Captain responsible for this act was discovered makes for very interesting reading indeed. Judge for yourself...

In 1991 two Swedish reporters Roger Bengtsson and Jurgen von Zweigbergk learned from professor Jürgen Rohwer in Germany - that one particular Russian Colonel Igor Venkov sat on classified material in Morscow archive concerning U-boat activities in the Baltic during 1944/45. Mr Rohwer gave them a phone number which they tried - surprisingly someone answered in English saying " Colonel Venkov cannot take your phone call I am Captain Sjestopanov - what is your business?"

The Swedish reporter said : Please give us the circumstance regarding the sinking of the passanger steamer "Hansa" hit by Soviet sub K-51 Captain Drosdov - please give us the motives."

Than the answer came "Call back next Wednesday same time - good bye"

On the third "Wednesday's call" to Moscow (always at 15.00 hrs) something sensational happened. (only one questien at the time was permitted by the Russians) Captain Sjestopanov's voice sounded as he read a written comuniqué in the Radio News " The Hansa was sunk by the soviet Sub L-21 in command of Captain of third degree S.S Mogilevskij in the morning November 24 northwest of Visby on Gotland".

The two reporters did not believe what they heard - for more than 30 years it was commonly believed that a different sub and different russian captain did the job on Hansa and that included the Swedish Parliament, the Goverment, professor Rohwer - they were all wrong !

The two reporters went off to Moscow and Colonel Venkov supplied them with copies from the L-21 log book. [ see log book entries here ]

Mr Rohwer wrote several articles about the Gustloff and is well known to be most correct in everything. They contacted Mr Rohwer with their new findings who said " It is impossible - L-21 was laying mines off the coast of Courland Nov 24 and could not be at the same time in the Gotland area".

Colonel Venkov consulted the logbook once more and found that the minelaying operation off Courland was disrupted because of technical problems and L-21 had gone back to base taking the safe route west of Gotland and there he had met Hansa.

Mr Rohwer had no idea of the technical problems encountered by the L-21.

It is then a fact that L-21 after hitting the Hansa went straight back to Åbo base for repair and moored up next to Capt Marinesko's S-13.

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