Partisans: how the "people's avengers" fought in the Great Patriotic War.

07.07.43: The Hitlerite newspaper Deutsche Zeitung in Kroathien published a second article by the German major Schaefer, in which the author complains about the enormous difficulties that the Hitlerite command has to experience in the fight against the Soviet partisan detachments. He writes that the partisans have machine guns, machine guns, and artillery. Separate partisan detachments skillfully maintain contact with each other.

The author is especially "indignant" at the "wrong tactics" of the partisans, the "cunning methods" with which they deceive the Nazi punitive detachments. The guerrillas, Schaefer writes, when faced with difficulties, quickly and imperceptibly disperse in the forests, and then reunite at the agreed place. "They," he writes, "fight stubbornly, boldly, and brutally." “It is not an easy job,” the author laments, “to fight against partisans on forest roads and paths in the very thick of the forest. You have to cross the forest in all directions, through the thicket and swamps. When crossing swampy places, German soldiers are forced to take each other's hands so as not to drown. Clothes are dried directly on the soldier's body. You have to sleep on damp ground. But quiet nights are rare, for partisans attack at night. The supply of food, weapons and ammunition to the German troops is carried out with great difficulty, because the partisans mine the roads.

All this, declares a Hitlerite officer, forces the German command to use in the fight against partisans not only SS and police units, but also aviation and even German soldiers who have arrived from the front for treatment. The tactics of the German command, according to Schaefer, is to "surround the partisans with superior forces, not to push back, but to destroy them." “However,” the Hitlerite major laments, “this is easier to achieve in words than in deeds. Enjoying the support of the population, the guerrillas have an excellent information network. They learn in advance about every movement of the German units, as a result of which the operations undertaken by the German troops often turn out to be meaningless. ("Red Star", USSR)*

04.07.43: According to the Berlin correspondent of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, it is recognized in Berlin circles that the Soviet partisans cause the German command a lot of trouble. “Russian guerrilla warfare,” the correspondent writes, “especially in forest and swampy areas, puts German soldiers before severe trials. The fight against the partisans demanded many sacrifices on the German side.

According to the correspondent, in order to fight the Soviet partisans, the German command is forced to use special SS troops and large police detachments. The Germans had to build special strongholds and fortified positions, as well as a large number of towers with round-the-clock surveillance. The Soviet partisans, writes the correspondent, direct their blows primarily against the German lines of communication in the rear, which, according to German circles, causes them pain. ("Red Star", USSR)

27.05.43: The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reports that the Germans are frightened by the growth of guerrilla warfare in Belarus. The operations of the Soviet partisans have taken on such a scale that the Germans are forced to bring in ever larger forces to fight them. According to the newspaper, some time ago, large units of the "SS" and numerous detachments of the Nazi police surrounded Minsk, completely isolating it from the outside world. After that, a mass raid began in the city, which lasted for a week. None of the residents of Minsk escaped the search.

The Svenska Dagbladet newspaper writes that, according to the Germans, “Soviet partisan detachments in the surrounding forests were supported from Minsk. Their actions interfered with the supply of the front and made the work of the German authorities extremely difficult. In Minsk, the newspaper writes, stockpiles of weapons and secret weapons were discovered. ("Izvestia", USSR)

JANUARY 1943 :

14.01.43: The fascist German occupiers are alarmed by the growth of the partisan movement in the occupied Soviet regions. Hitler's newspaper "Hamburger Fremdenblat" complains about the "cunning" of the Soviet partisans, who, according to her, are particularly successful in forest areas. The newspaper writes that the German troops have to carry out a thorough reconnaissance of the area. To fight the partisans, the Germans were forced to create a special "security police".

Hitler's newspaper admits that among the partisans there are a lot of excellent snipers, so the fight against them, in her words, "requires experienced people." The newspaper points out that the partisan detachments are communicating with each other by radio.

The newspaper complains that German soldiers are often victims of partisans and that the latter destroy bridges and blow up trains.

Another Nazi newspaper, the National Zeitung, accuses the civilian population of the occupied regions of helping the partisans. According to the newspaper, the Soviet partisans "are conducting real military operations against the German troops and especially against their rear communications." The newspaper complains about the difficulties of the fight against the partisans, who, in her words, "find their home in". ("Red Star", USSR)

14.10.42: A war correspondent for the Hitlerite newspaper Minsker Zeitung writes: “The fight against the Soviet partisans is going on among forests and swamps around individual railway lines. The guerrillas are constantly trying to blow up tracks, lay mines under rails and bridges, cut telegraph wires, attack trains, damage signaling and raid stations and bridges. The SS troops and aviation participate in the fight against the partisans. The forests on both sides of the railroad tracks have been cut down so that German railroad personnel can observe the area. Despite this, the guerrillas often manage to cause damage to the railways. Steam locomotives go off the rails, shots are fired from ambushes, German railroad workers are dying, locomotives are blown into the air. At night, trains are forced to run without lighting and signal lights. Guerrilla warfare is being waged mercilessly."

And here is how the Nazi newspaper Vilnaer Zeitung describes the entry of the Nazi troops into the Soviet city they captured: “The city is busy. The army is followed by the police. All around, the ground trembles, and a giant concrete building is blown into the air. This infernal machine has done its job. The police are taken to clean up the city. All access roads to it are blocked, no one is let in or out of the city. All suspicious persons are arrested. Here in the city they seem to be only “harmless” pedestrians, and outside the city they form entire detachments. Reprisal against them is merciless. All men must be registered. Those who cannot prove that they permanently reside in the city are expelled. At night, someone blows up all the bridges. The temporary bridge is constantly guarded from saboteurs by the police. The main task of the police is to clear the rear areas, and often you have to fight fierce battles with partisans for every street, for every square, for ". ("Red Star", USSR)

AUGUST 1942 :

25.08.42: Increasingly, war correspondents appear in Hitler's newspapers about the grave difficulties created for the German troops by Soviet partisans. War correspondents emphasize that in many places all roads have become dangerous for the Germans. Here is the picture that the correspondent of the Völkischer Beobachter paints:

“A small seaside town in the Crimea. On the road, when leaving this city, we notice a pillar with the inscription: “Keep weapons in combat readiness, there is a danger of partisan attacks!”. We drive along the road, on the right is a slope, densely overgrown with shrubs. Suddenly, a shot rings out. The sight glass of the truck is broken. The second bullet hits the wheel. The car stops. We jump out of the trucks, looking for cover. Shots follow one after another, but we don't see anyone. The partisans run from one place to another and conduct continuous fire.

The newspaper "National Zeitung" publishes the story of the commander of an SS company sent to participate in the operation against the partisan detachment.

“How many hardships and fear we have experienced,” the author writes, “during these months of fighting the partisans, but so far the detachment has not been found. By attacking railways, bridges, carts, military columns and police detachments, the partisans remain elusive, hiding in the forest. Last night they came to the village, uniting on its outskirts with other companies. Suddenly, a skirmish with partisans begins on the streets of the village. The people of the village take their side. We, of course, responded later to the population, as expected. A similar fate befell in the following days all the villages that hospitably received the partisans. In the morning we go deep into the forest for two and a half kilometers. Suddenly, a fierce fire starts from everywhere. Many of our soldiers fall dead and wounded. A fierce battle begins. All the advantages are on the side of the enemy, as he is almost invisible and has a good weapon. We have to call the planes, however, the partisans make their way through our lines.

“Who would have thought,” the Hitlerite punisher exclaims plaintively in conclusion, “that we have to solve such combat missions in such a time.” ("Red Star", USSR)

06.08.42: A correspondent of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, who visited the occupied Soviet regions, sent a correspondence in which he writes: “In Belarus, where big battles took place in 1941, the fighting is still going on. Soviet partisans in groups of 200-300 people undertake unexpected sorties against the occupying detachments and attack the camps of the German troops. With frenzied attacks, they inflict heavy losses on the Germans. When the Germans send vastly superior forces against them, the partisans instantly disappear. A good-natured, long-bearded peasant works with a plow from morning to evening. At sunset, he returns home. At nightfall, he takes a hidden machine gun, and a peaceful peasant becomes a dangerous partisan.

The actions of the partisans often take such a turn that the Germans have to put bombers into action. But for the German pilots, this is associated with a risk, since the Russians open a hurricane of fire from machine guns. In winter, fighting with the partisans represented for the Germans a terrible stage of the war in Russia. Among the partisans there are women and even children. A German officer said that in the winter a 12-year-old boy was captured, who had crossed the front line many times. The boy did not give any information. His specialty was setting fire to houses where German soldiers slept. He courageously accepted the message of the death sentence, and before being shot he exclaimed: "Long live the motherland!" Those who help the Germans also live in fear of partisan retaliation.”

Regarding the situation of the population of the occupied regions, the correspondent writes that they have neither housing nor food, and they are deprived of the opportunity to get food. ("Red Star", USSR)

The Nazis are seriously alarmed by the difficult situation created for them in Belarus. At every step the German fascist enslavers encounter the most severe resistance of the entire population, which frustrates all the measures of the occupying authorities. “A mysterious terrible curse weighs on us in Belorussia,” exclaims the Hitlerite newspaper Neues Wiener Tageblat. - German officials do not find anything here that could facilitate their activities. They have to struggle here with insurmountable difficulties. The peasants do not want to put up with the new conditions of property. The artisans did not respond to our call.”

In order to break the resistance of the Belarusian people, the Nazis brutally crack down on the recalcitrant, kill men and women, old people and children. At the same time, they launched vile propaganda among the population, trying to prove that “Belarusians have nothing in common with Russians” and that “the fate of Belarus,” in the words of the Hitlerite newspaper Krakauer Zeitung, “is inseparable from the fate of Germany.” Citizens of Soviet Belarus respond with a bullet and a grenade to all calls of the invaders to obedience. No wonder the same Hitlerite newspaper admitted that "the most urgent task of the Germans in Belarus is the suppression of the partisan movement." The scope of this movement is evidenced by the report of the Nazi newspapers that one of these days a special order of the occupation authorities "on the organization of German self-defense" will be published. ("Red Star", USSR)

01.07.42: The German fascist newspaper Hamburger Fremdenblatt published an article by Lieutenant General Tiszowitz in its June 25 issue. Hitler's general, who experienced the strength and might of the Red Army on his back, is forced to admit that, unlike Belgium, Holland, France and other European countries, on the Soviet-German front, the German invaders "encountered unusually stubborn resistance already in border battles. Soviet soldiers fight with unparalleled courage. When the situation is hopeless, they prefer to blow themselves up along with the fortification than to give up. The highest Soviet command staff also proved to be at the height of the tasks assigned to them throughout the campaign.

The Hitler general recalls with horror the winter operations of the Red Army, which cost the Nazi bandits huge losses in manpower and equipment, “in winter,” he writes, “our regiment stood on the Donets, south of Kharkov. Our difficulties reached the extreme. I, - declares the author, - fought at Verdun, on the Somme, in Flanders. All this is zero compared to what was required of each of us in the east.

Further, the Hitlerite general is forced to recognize the courage of the Soviet partisans. “The partisans,” he writes, “know that if they are caught, they are threatened with execution, but they are indifferent to this. When the German soldiers were preparing to shoot one young woman, - the general narrates with cynical frankness about the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis on the Soviet people, - she did not lose her composure and put her hand to her heart, showing where. ("Red Star", USSR)

JUNE 1942 :

27.06.42: Hitlerite officials complain about the "exceptional difficulties of work" in the occupied Soviet regions. During Rosenberg's stay in Ukraine, Hitler's commissar Koch spoke, who was forced to note that "all German leaders working in Ukraine, as well as district commissars and agricultural leaders, are often completely alone in their posts." Rosenberg himself spoke even more frankly, sharing his "impressions" of the trip to the occupied Soviet regions. According to the Ostdeutscher Beobachter, Rosenberg, after returning from the occupied regions of Ukraine, said that the German authorities “failed to establish cooperation with the local population. Everywhere armed detachments are operating, killing. ("Red Star", USSR)

11.06.42: In an editorial, the Swedish newspaper Gothenburgs Posten writes that after the attack of the Nazi armies on the USSR, the Russians, by their heroic resistance to the enemy, aroused respect for themselves throughout the world. “Today,” the newspaper writes, “everyone speaks with admiration about the fearlessness and excellent fighting qualities of Soviet soldiers. Soviet weapons also amazed the world with their quantity and quality. Even the Germans do not hide this. They met a nation fully armed, a nation that does not ask or give mercy, but fights to the end. The most characteristic phenomenon of the struggle waged by the Soviet people is the partisan movement behind enemy lines. The Russian partisans do not give the Germans a moment's rest, although they know perfectly well that if they are taken prisoner, they will be immediately shot. The Russian soldier, the defender of the motherland in the war with Germany, has won glory, and will be spoken of with admiration. He fights with fearlessness for the sake of protecting sacred Russia and the social order that he has built and which he believes. ("Red Star", USSR)

07.06.42: The Kölnische Zeitung newspaper wrote last autumn: "The gallows for Russian partisans and partisans are the trees of German freedom." A good land mine landed on the editors. ("Red Star", USSR)

02.06.42: Soviet partisans cause a lot of anxiety and losses to the Germans. As the German press itself admits, the scope of the struggle of the people's avengers is even hard to imagine. “The Soviet partisan,” writes the Frankfurter Zeitung in its issue of May 24, “has an ability, incomprehensible to us, to live in the forests and put up stubborn resistance to our troops. In winter, in addition to fierce defensive battles on the front lines, an equally fierce struggle broke out, one might say a war in the rear of our front. At the same time, partisan units could be based on well-prepared strongholds in the forests with weapons and food depots.

German convoy units, police battalions and field gendarmerie had to defend themselves from the enemy all the time. Anyone who has survived the winter in the East knows the difficulties that befell the units in the rear, as well as the fact that many fell in the fight against the partisans. At home, they have no idea about this fight, which is unusual for us. Such an adversary as lightning appears and disappears, attacks, cuts communications, blows up railway tracks. He knows all the paths. Whoever has experienced this struggle on two fronts will understand what our troops have experienced.” ("Red Star", USSR)

MAY 1942 :

16.05.42: The Italian newspaper Corriera della Sera published an article about guerrilla warfare in the temporarily occupied Soviet regions. The whole article reflects the animal fear of the Nazis before the sacred hatred of the Soviet people. The author of the article writes that the German command finally “understood the danger of guerrilla warfare. Partisans are not easy to fight. The guerrilla war turned out to be completely unknown to the soldiers until now. They did not know how to deal with this enemy, whose activities border on fanaticism!

The author is clearly struck by the elusiveness of the partisans. “In order to successfully fight the partisans,” he writes, “you must also find them, and this is much more difficult than the fight against them itself. Many partisans, dressed in civilian clothes, mingle with the population during the day and take the most.” ("Red Star", USSR)

07.05.42: The glorious deeds of the Soviet partisans haunt the German invaders. The newspaper "Deutsche Zeitung in Ostland" in the article "Guerrilla War in Donbass" states: "The Bolsheviks are waging a guerrilla war here. No soldiers or civilians are visible between the lines. The enemy appears in one place or another. The supply of food and ammunition to the German troops is associated with exceptional difficulties. Transport columns cannot be sent without guards. In every village there are small enemy detachments that attack us.”

The newspaper "Königsberger Algemeine Zeitung" writes: "Our tank detachment has been given a very serious task - to protect one section from partisans. The partisans have settled in a wooded swampy area, where we do not dare to go. The bridge across the swamp has been blown up, and all approaches to the forest have been mined. The partisans often attack our shock troops».

War correspondent Janssen writes in "Danziger Forposten" that "in the mountains of the southern part of the Crimea there are Soviet partisan detachments, which have large stocks of weapons, ammunition and food."

In Das Reich, one SS officer states: “Partisans attack roads and railway lines in broad daylight. Last night they took two German sappers with them. They use all sorts of tactical methods. The guerrillas are constantly moving from place to place. If you meet a detachment of forest workers, you never know if they are hiding partisan short rifles under their clothes. Recently, the activities of the partisans have become even more active.

The Swedish magazine "Nu" in the last issue publishes a long article about the struggle of Soviet partisans.

“The struggle of the partisans showed,” writes the magazine, “that the war united the Russian people even more. The defense of Russia against the army, which won so many victories on the continent, amazed the whole world.” The magazine notes the big role in the war “of the Soviet partisan detachments, which inflicted huge damage to the German troops.” Soon after the start of the war, writes the magazine, alarming reports began to appear in the reports of the German command that “fighting continued and flared up again behind the German lines.”

“The partisans,” writes the magazine further, “are well-armed and enjoy the boundless sympathy of the population and its active support. A guerrilla war is going on in all the occupied regions of the USSR. Partisans blow up bridges, ferries, military trains, freight trains. They appeared on the roads, where they captured or killed messengers, destroyed vehicles, set fire to fuel depots, shot through tankers, attacked armored vehicles, tanks and aircraft, destroyed them with hand grenades. German tanks and armored vehicles often fell into traps. Attacks on German headquarters were also reported more than once. Many German generals were killed by partisans. Night raids were often made on the villages captured by the Germans.

In conclusion, the magazine writes: “The partisans maintain the will to resist the occupying authorities and destroy the traitors who enter the service of the invaders.

The partisans publish hectographed newspapers and leaflets, organize secret rallies, and post appeals to the population. The influx of new people into partisan detachments.” ("Red Star", USSR)

04.03.42: The newspaper Krakauer Zeitung published an article by the war correspondent of the SS troops, Schneider, who admits that Soviet partisans are active everywhere in the rear of the German troops. “They,” the correspondent declares, “are trying to destroy the German military columns and, in general, everything that could benefit the Germans.” The correspondent cites the following episode: once, from a village located north of S., the German headquarters was informed that the partisans daily attack the soldiers stationed in this village, kill them and threaten to hang the headman of the village appointed by the German command. When food was being taken from this village for German soldiers, the partisans raided the village and killed two German soldiers and a non-commissioned officer. To eliminate the partisans, an SS detachment was sent, which tried to surround the forest where the partisans settled. in the forester's hut, in which, according to their information, the headquarters of the partisan detachment was located. However, they failed to capture anyone. Partizans ("Red Star", USSR)

21.02.42: The German newspaper "Hamburger Fremdenblatt" published an article by one of the leaders of the "SS" detachments, Fritz Carstens, who admits that the Soviet partisans do not give life to the invaders. “Our bitter experience,” complains Carstens, “shows that in all the occupied regions, after the retreat of the Soviet troops, illegal groups were created. The partisans often destroy German warehouses of food, raw materials, as well.” ("Red Star", USSR)

DECEMBER 1941 :

04.12.41: The German command tried to explain the retreat of the Nazi troops from Rostov by saying that they had to turn back specifically to punish the civilian population attacking the rear of the German army. Von Kleist's flight in such an explanation should have looked like a punitive expedition, moreover, it included it turned out to be something like 6 German divisions. This ridiculously stupid "explanation" was intended to hide the major defeat suffered by the Germans near Rostov. It goes without saying that the Germans failed to hide this fact, and the imprudent statement made in a hurry about the “reasons” for leaving Rostov played a bad joke on them ...

The American "Washington Post" writes about this: "If you believe the Nazis' claims that they evacuated Rostov because of the actions of the partisans, then it turns out that they are so weak that they cannot cope with the partisans" ... London "Times" writes that the version about the partisans "as an explanation for the retreat is, of course, a lie", but in itself it represents "a more terrible and deadly sentence from one's own lips than anything previously issued against the Germans."

It so happened that the German fascist invaders, against their will, told the whole world about the carefully concealed and silent war that is raging on the occupied Soviet lands, c. ("Izvestia", USSR)

21.11.41: The German newspaper Brüsseler Zeitung published in Belgium published an article reflecting the Nazis' fear of Soviet partisans.

The newspaper is indignant that "legitimate methods of war" are not liked by the Bolsheviks, who are fighting fiercely, and that "the entire civilian population has risen to fight." We will have to step up the fight against the partisans, the newspaper says.

The Nazi leaflet also complains about the stubbornness of the soldiers of the Red Army. “The enemy in the East cannot be compared with other soldiers that the German army had to fight,” the newspaper says, lamenting the “fury of Russian soldiers in battle.”

The Nazi newspaper especially dislikes the prospects winter war in the conditions of continuous active activity of partisans. “The enemy wants,” the newspaper laments, “so that the Germans do not sit idle in the winter. The Soviets, who are accustomed to glorify the exploits of the partisans during the civil war, will not find it difficult to fulfill. ("Pravda", USSR)

07.10.41: The Swiss newspaper National Zeitung, commenting on the situation on the Eastern Front, notes the steadfastness and organization of the resistance of the Soviet troops. This steadfastness of the Soviet army, the newspaper writes, is emphasized even in the stories of many Germans who participated in this war. It is quite understandable, therefore, that "motorized fortresses," as the Germans call tanks in their reports, can advance only at the cost of enormous effort and heavy losses. German newspapers are filled with long lists of dead tankmen and soldiers of motorized troops.

The newspaper calls the struggle of Soviet units behind enemy lines and the struggle of partisans a kind of small war, in which not only small partisan detachments take part, but also entire military units.

The Soviet army showed its firm and irrevocable determination to deprive the advancing enemy of absolutely everything. The main role, however, is played by the readiness of the Soviet army not to yield to the enemy, no matter what position the Soviet troops find themselves in. Every district, every house, every wall is used in the organization of defense. As a result, the Germans suffer huge losses. The stories of the Germans themselves about individual episodes of the war only confirm the fearlessness of the Soviet soldiers and the stubbornness of the Soviet resistance. The lessons of the war on the Eastern Front are very instructive. They show how important such a factor as "the psychology of a soldier" is.

14.09.41: The German newspaper "Völkischer Beobachter" published an article "The Face of War in the East", in which it acknowledges that the German army encountered unexpected difficulties on the Eastern Front.

“Here,” writes the newspaper, “in reality, everything turns out differently than we imagined. In this campaign, the German soldier finds himself, as it were, transferred to another part of the world, to another planet, and this should not be understood only in a geographical sense. The reason for this is the people living in this country.”

The newspaper bitterly complains that during the battle on the battlefield, “Bolshevik fighters continue to fight even when they are in the most difficult position. This is not only the behavior of the peasants, dressed in uniform, but also the commanders.

The mode of action of this enemy cannot be foreseen. German soldiers have long been accustomed to the fact that the front can be 100 kilometers in the rear. Each wagon driver must have a rifle or automatic pistol at hand. Even the higher headquarters located far from the front put up guards at night, as in the advanced positions. A special chapter is the description of what hardships the German soldier had to endure and what tasks to solve. It is not surprising, the newspaper says, if a soldier scolds "home-grown strategists" who are not satisfied with the course of operations with strong words. ("Pravda", USSR)

09.08.41: The Times of India, in a weekly review of military operations, notes that the German fascists met with great difficulties that they did not foresee. The guerrilla war, the destruction of all materials by the Soviet troops during the retreat, the effective counterattacks of Soviet tanks - all this creates such difficulties that cause concern for the German command.

The newspaper "Tribune" in a detailed article also notes that the Germans are in a very difficult situation. The Red Army, the newspaper writes, showed not only valor, but also good training.

In addition, the Russians launched a guerrilla war. Disorganized and disadvantaged, the Germans curse the Russians. They call Russian tactics diabolical. When the devil begins to call the politics of another diabolical, one can easily imagine to what a disastrous position he has been brought.

To maintain their very battered troops on the eastern front, the Germans even withdrew several divisions from Libya. German air force serious losses were also inflicted. To reinforce them, planes were deployed from the western front. The German army is stuck. Winter is coming with its terrible whip to. ("Pravda", USSR)

JULY 1941 :

30.07.41: Among the staff documents captured during the defeat of one enemy unit were field newspapers, the content of which sheds light on what is happening in the fascist rear. From the materials published in these newspapers, one can clearly imagine how frightened the fascists are by the growth of the partisan movement.

The field newspaper "Blucher" (No. 6), published for one of the tank formations, reports in detail on the partisan methods of struggle used by the Red Army and the population. One officer, among other things, writes: “In the campaign, we had to pass through 20 villages. In every village, we were fired upon by red snipers who had settled in peasant huts. They also shot at us when we moved from one village to another.”

Each issue of this newspaper contains reports of partisan attacks on regular German units. In No. 9 of July 4, it is reported that partisans attacked a group of German signalmen in the forest and killed an officer. The next issue of the newspaper details the battle between the partisan group and the German quartermaster unit.

Judging by the materials published in the field newspapers, the fascist command is also very concerned about the partisan actions of the civilian population. The same newspaper Blucher, in its issue of July 9, cites a number of cases of damage to railway lines, arson of warehouses, destruction of crops, and so on.

Another fascist newspaper, the Gubener Zeitung, published a large amount of correspondence about the partisan actions of the population of the city of D., which began after it had been occupied by the fascists.

A fascist war correspondent writes: “Night street fighting with snipers is becoming a common and everyday occurrence. But that's not all. In broad daylight, shots rumble here from around the corner, from attics, from windows. Every inhabitant we meet on the street, every woman who seems to bow to us - all of them can disappear at any moment into the labyrinth of narrow alleys and small houses, take up arms and start shooting at us from ambush. And they do it! They are doing it even now, although the city has been in our hands for several days already.”

The war correspondent goes on to describe how, while driving through the streets of the city on a motorcycle, he was constantly under fire from all sides. From all that has been said, the newspaper draws the following conclusion: “New for us is the medieval method of warfare used by the enemy from around the corner, in the yard and on the street. This war is waged by men and women who do not wear military uniforms, so that the struggle is peaceful, ". ("Red Star", USSR)

13.07.41: The Dagens Nyheter newspaper published an article by the well-known Swedish military publicist Colonel Bratt, dedicated to the guerrilla war in the rear of the German troops. The author writes: “Everyone says that the Russians are waging a guerrilla war with devilish skill. Formally, there is no reason to object here: a guerrilla war conducted by soldiers dressed in uniform does not contradict the “law of war”. The Russian soldier proved capable of guerrilla warfare, requiring individual action. The Germans emphasize that the "small war" waged behind the main front line is hard, cruel, and brings huge losses. From articles published in the Russian press, it is clear that the Russian partisans use the grain fields as shelter. One can imagine what efforts it takes for the Germans to clear Russian fields and forests from partisans armed with rifles and machine guns.
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("Red Star", USSR)
("Izvestia", USSR)

The partisan movement has repeatedly proved its effectiveness during wars. The Germans were afraid of the Soviet partisans. "People's avengers" destroyed communications, blew up bridges, took "languages" and even made weapons themselves.

History of the concept

Partizan is a word that came to Russian from the Italian language, in which the word partigiano denotes a member of an irregular military detachment that enjoys the support of the population and politicians. Partisans fight with the help of specific means: warfare behind enemy lines, sabotage or sabotage. A distinctive feature of guerrilla tactics is covert movement through enemy territory and a good knowledge of the terrain. In Russia and the USSR, such tactics have been practiced for centuries. Suffice it to recall the war of 1812.

In the 30s in the USSR, the word "partisan" acquired a positive connotation - only partisans who supported the Red Army were called that. Since then, in Russia this word has been extremely positive and is almost never used in relation to enemy partisan groups - they are called terrorists or illegal military formations.

Soviet partisans

Soviet partisans during the Great Patriotic War were controlled by the authorities and performed tasks similar to those of the army. But if the army fought at the front, then the partisans had to destroy enemy lines of communication and means of communication.

During the war years, 6,200 partisan detachments worked in the occupied lands of the USSR, in which about a million people took part. They were controlled by the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, developing coordinated tactics for scattered partisan associations and directing them towards common goals.

In 1942, Marshal of the USSR Kliment Voroshilov was appointed to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the partisan movement, and they were asked to create a partisan army behind enemy lines - the German troops. Despite the fact that the guerrillas are often thought of as randomly organized units of the local population, the "people's avengers" behaved in accordance with the rules of strict military discipline and took the oath like real soldiers - otherwise they would not have survived the brutal conditions of war.

Life of partisans

The worst of all for the Soviet partisans, who were forced to hide in the forests and mountains, was in winter. Before that, not a single partisan movement in the world had faced the problem of cold - in addition to the difficulties of survival, the problem of camouflage was added. In the snow, the partisans left traces, and the vegetation no longer hid their shelters. Winter dwellings often harmed the mobility of partisans: in the Crimea, they built mostly ground dwellings like wigwams. In other areas, dugouts predominated.

Many partisan headquarters had a radio station, through which he contacted Moscow and transmitted news to the local population in the occupied territories. With the help of radio, the command ordered the partisans, and they, in turn, coordinated air strikes and provided intelligence information.

There were also women among the partisans - if for the Germans, who thought of a woman only in the kitchen, this was unacceptable, then the Soviets in every possible way agitated the weaker sex to participate in the partisan war. Female scouts did not fall under the suspicion of enemies, female doctors and radio operators helped with sabotage, and some brave women even took part in hostilities. It is also known about officer privileges - if there was a woman in the detachment, she often became the “camping wife” of the commanders. Sometimes everything happened the other way around and wives instead of husbands commanded and intervened in military matters - such a mess higher authorities tried to stop.

Guerrilla tactics

The basis of the tactics of the "long arm" (as the Soviet leadership called the partisans) was the implementation of reconnaissance and sabotage - they destroyed the railways through which the Germans delivered trains with weapons and products, broke high-voltage lines, poisoned water pipes or wells behind enemy lines.

Thanks to these actions, it was possible to disorganize the rear of the enemy and demoralize him. The great advantage of the partisans was also that all of the above did not require large human resources: sometimes even a small detachment could implement subversive plans, and sometimes one person.
When the Red Army advanced, the partisans struck from the rear, breaking through the defenses, and unexpectedly thwarted the enemy's regrouping or retreat. Prior to this, the forces of the partisan detachments were hiding in the forests, mountains and swamps - in the steppe regions, the activities of the partisans were ineffective.

The guerrilla war was especially successful in Belarus - forests and swamps hid the "second front" and contributed to their success. Therefore, the exploits of the partisans are still remembered in Belarus: it is worth remembering at least the name of the Minsk football club of the same name.
With the help of propaganda in the occupied territories, the "people's avengers" could replenish the fighting ranks. However, partisan detachments were recruited unevenly - part of the population in the occupied territories kept their nose to the wind and waited, while other people familiar with the terror of the German occupiers were more willing to join the partisans

rail war

The "Second Front", as the German invaders called the partisans, played a huge role in the destruction of the enemy. In Belarus in 1943 there was a decree “On the destruction of the enemy’s railway communications by the method of rail warfare” - the partisans were supposed to wage the so-called rail war, undermining trains, bridges and spoiling enemy tracks in every possible way.

During the operations "Rail War" and "Concert" in Belarus, the movement of trains was stopped for 15-30 days, and the army and equipment of the enemy were also destroyed. Undermining enemy formations even in the face of a shortage of explosives, the partisans destroyed more than 70 bridges and killed 30,000 German fighters. On the first night of Operation Rail War alone, 42,000 rails were destroyed. It is believed that over the entire period of the war, the partisans destroyed about 18 thousand enemy units, which is a truly colossal figure.

In many ways, these achievements became a reality thanks to the invention of the partisan craftsman T.E. Shavgulidze - in field conditions, he built a special wedge that derailed trains: the train ran into a wedge, which was attached to the tracks in a few minutes, then the wheel was moved from the inside to the outside of the rail, and the train was completely destroyed, which did not happen even after mine explosions .

In addition to repair, the partisans were also engaged in design work: “A large number of improvised mines, machine guns and partisan grenades have an original solution for both the entire structure as a whole and its individual components. Not limited to inventions of a “local” nature, the partisans sent a large number of inventions and rationalization proposals to the mainland.

The most popular handicraft weapons were homemade PPSh submachine guns - the first of them was made in the Razgrom partisan brigade near Minsk in 1942. The partisans also made "surprises" with explosives and unexpected varieties of mines with a special detonator, the secret of which was known only to their own. "People's Avengers" easily repaired even undermined German tanks and even organized artillery battalions from repaired mortars. Partisan engineers even made grenade launchers.

The most famous case of a voluntary transition in order to fight on the side of the USSR is the story of the German corporal Fritz Hans Werner Schmenkel
Fritz was born on February 14, 1916 in the town of Varzovo near the town of Stettin, now Szczeci, his father, a communist, was killed in 1923 in a skirmish with the Nazis. In November 1941, F. Schmenkel deserted from the ranks of the German army and near the city of Bely, Kalinin (now Tver) region, intending to cross the front line in order to join the Red Army, but ended up with the Soviet partisans on February 17, 1942, he was accepted into a partisan detachment "Death to fascism", and from that time to March 1943 he was a scout, machine gunner, participant and leader of many military operations on the territory of the Nelidovsky and Belsky districts of the Kalinsk (now Tver) region and in the Smolensk region. The partisans gave him a name "Ivan Ivanovich".

From the testimony of partisan Viktor Spirin: - At first, they did not trust him and did not give him weapons. They even wanted to shoot if the situation was difficult. Local residents interceded, whom he helped with the housework while he wandered in the autumn and winter of 1941. At the end of February, we were attacked and fired upon by a German reconnaissance detachment. Schmenkel had only one pair of binoculars through which he watched the fight. Noticing a German hiding behind a Christmas tree and conducting aimed fire at the house, he asked for a rifle. He was allowed to take it - they lay in a heap in the passage, but I did not give him mine. He killed the German with one shot. After that, we began to trust him(although from the testimony of another partisan, they did not trust him for a long time - "They appointed him on patrol, and put their man in the shelter") they gave him the dead man's rifle and a Parabellum pistol.
May 6, 1942 on the road Dukhovshchina - White detachment collided with a German tank column and was forced to retreat in battle. We were already leaving when Shmenkel ran up to Vasiliev, the assistant commander of the detachment, and said that there were barrels of fuel on the tanks and that they should be shot at. After that, we opened fire with incendiary cartridges and burned five tanks.
Soon Fritz-Ivan became an irreplaceable and authoritative fighter in the detachment. The partisans fought mainly with captured weapons captured from the Germans. However, no one except Fritz-Ivan knew how to handle a machine gun, and he willingly helped the partisans master the technique. Even the commander of the detachment consulted with him when carrying out this or that operation.

From the testimony of partisan Arkady Glazunov: - Our detachment was surrounded by the Germans, and we fought back for about two weeks. Then everyone dispersed into small groups and made their way out of the encirclement. Schmenkel was with us and left the encirclement with one of our partisans. About a month later, our detachment gathered in the forest. Schmenkel also sought us out. He was severely frostbite, but again fought against the Germans. All partisans treated him like their own person and respected him..
The German command found out which German soldier under the pseudonym " Ivan Ivanovich" fighting on the side of the Soviet partisans, an announcement was circulated in the villages and among the German soldiers "Whoever catches Schmenkel is rewarded: for a Russian 8 hectares of land, a house, a cow, for a German soldier - 25 thousand marks and 2 months of vacation."

At the beginning of 1944, Shmenkel was captured by the Nazis and, by order of a military court, was shot in Minsk on February 22 of the same year. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 6, 1964, for active participation in the partisan movement, exemplary performance of combat missions of the command during the Great Patriotic War and the heroism and courage shown at the same time, German citizen Schmenkel Fritz Paul was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.

There is information about another German soldier who fought as part of the partisan raid formation "13" under the command of Sergei Grishin, who operated on the territory of 19 districts of the Smolensk, Vitebsk and Mogilev regions. In March and April 1943, south - west of Smolensk, units of the German army carried out a major operation against Grishin's detachment. Below are excerpts from the materials of two interrogations by the Germans of a girl and a defector from this partisan detachment:

Those who joined the partisans: one gypsy; one German soldier who joined the partisans after being wounded; about 200 Ukrainian deserters in German uniforms, including a major, whose name I do not know, but he works at headquarters. A German soldier fights alongside partisans against the Germans; speaks Russian badly.

There is a German soldier in the group, he deserted and joined us near the village of Kolyshki. We call him Fedya, I don't know his German name. A section of partisans ambushed a group of 10 Russian POWs and two German soldiers; one soldier was killed. Ten prisoners of war are now fighting on our side. A German soldier was shot from a machine gun by Fedya, who asked for it. He is very active and has been nicknamed "the hero". Verbal portrait of Fedya: 19 years old, medium height, thin, dark blond hair; dressed: German uniform without insignia, white fur hat with red star

There were 30 men in our cavalry platoon, including one German soldier named Fedya. His real name is Friedrich Rosenberg or Rosenholtz. He lived near Hamburg. As far as I know, he deserted. He is respected, but the group does not trust him and is constantly watched.

It is quite possible that we are talking about the same Fritz Schmenkel, the area of ​​\u200b\u200baction of the detachments approximately coincides, although there was no Death to Fascism detachment in the regiment "13". The name Fedya looks like Fritz, on the other hand, Fedya's age is indicated as 19 years old, and Fritz was already 27 years old at that time, plus discrepancies in the place of birth.

In the book "Notes of a military translator" Vernik S.M. again tells about Belarus in 1943, where in the town of Ostryn he met with an Austrian from Vienna named Kurt, who fought on the side of the partisans.
...Kurt comes from a suburb of Vienna. His father is a worker. Kurt remembers well the year 1934, the revolutionary battles with the Austrian fascists on the working outskirts of Vienna. Although he was not yet ten years old, he and his comrades brought cartridges to the workers. ... when I was drafted into the army and was supposed to be sent to the Eastern Front, my father said during our last conversation: "Kurt, you should not fight for the Nazis."
In Belarus, the train in which Kurt and the soldiers of his regiment were traveling to the Eastern Front was raided by Soviet aircraft during which Kurt deserted. A couple of days later, partisans detained him, after which, having joined the partisan detachment, he fought against German troops for two years.

If anyone has more information about these German soldiers or similar cases, please share.

How did the Germans fight the partisans?

It was easier for the Germans to fight the partisans if they united in large groups. To this end, German special agencies even distributed fake leaflets on behalf of the Soviet command. Corresponding denials appeared in the partisan press. Thus, the bulletin of the Selyanskaya Gazeta on May 7, 1943 warned:

“Recently, the Nazis concocted a leaflet and scattered it in some regions of Ukraine and Belarus. In this leaflet, allegedly on behalf of the Soviet military authorities, the partisans are invited to stop their actions alone and in small detachments, unite in large detachments and fulfill the order to jointly march with the regular units of the Red Army. This order, says the Hitler fake, will follow as soon as the harvest is in the barns, and the rivers and lakes are covered with ice again.

The purpose of this provocation is obvious. The Germans are trying on the eve of the decisive spring-summer battles to delay the actions of the partisans. The Nazis want the partisans to stop fighting and take a wait-and-see position.

During the first two years of the war, captured partisans were usually shot on the spot by the Germans and the police after a short interrogation. It was only on October 5, 1943, that a special order “Treatment of captured bandits” was issued, according to which captured partisans and defectors should henceforth be considered not only as a source of intelligence information and manpower for Germany, but also as a possible replenishment of the increasingly thinning collaborationist formations. In July 1943, the Western Headquarters of the partisan movement was forced to admit that the partisans captured during combat operations were spared life, more or less tolerable living conditions were created:

“The command of the fascist army allocates horses to the families of partisans for the cultivation of estates. At the same time, these partisan families are required to ensure that their father, son or brother, etc. return to the house, leave the partisan detachment ...

This tactic of the German fascist invaders has some effect on the weak partisans. There are cases of a single transition of partisans to the side of the enemy.

“Instead of the usual executions on the spot, they (the Nazis. - B. C.) a partisan who is captured or goes over to their side is enrolled in the police, they are given rations for a family, even a cow is given for 2-3 families. Newly captured or crossed are placed separately. They are not even allowed to communicate with the policemen who have transferred to the service of the Nazis in the winter. Of these, separate groups are created and sent to catch small groups of partisans.

The Nazis specially send wives of partisans to the forests so that they persuade their husbands and bring them to the Germans, promising them good rations. This fascist propaganda and the method of their struggle had some influence on cowards, morally unstable, who, due to isolation from the command of the detachments, weak educational work, being in small groups and alone, went over to the side of the enemy.

For the month of May, from the detachments of Gukov and Kukharenko, who until the end of the month were in a triangle (Vitebsk - Nevel - Polotsk. - B.S.) and were subjected to continuous raids by the Nazis and the police, went over to the side of the enemy up to 60 people, mostly from the former Zelenovites (“greens”, or “wild partisans”, who had not previously been subordinate to Moscow. - B.S.) and deserters from the Red Army...

In the description of the German actions, which was given by the command of the Okhotin brigade, one can feel respect for the formidable enemy that the Wehrmacht was:

“German tactics in a surprise attack on partisans always boiled down to one thing: shelling from all types of available weapons, followed by an attack. But the enemy never used relentless pursuit tactics. Having achieved success from the first attack, he stopped there. This was one of the weaknesses of German tactics.

When defending, in cases of partisan attacks, the enemy turned around quickly and, turning around, assuming battle formation, fought very stubbornly, always almost to the point of complete exhaustion of his forces (loss of people and expenditure of ammunition). This was one of the strengths of the enemy, but it led him to heavy losses in people.

There was not a single case that the enemy did not accept the battle imposed on him. Even having run into a partisan ambush, he never fled in a panic, but, retreating with a fight, took his dead, wounded and weapons. In such cases, the enemy did not consider losses, but did not leave his dead and wounded.

The weak side of German tactics was that the Fritz were afraid of the forest. They ambushed partisans only in settlements. There was not a single case of the Germans ambushing partisans in the forest.

The strength of German tactics was defensive tactics. Wherever the Germans went, and if they had to stop at least for a short time, then they always dug in, which the partisans never used against themselves.

Partisan methods of struggle (hidden concentration of forces in the forest at night, in order to surprise partisans at dawn, ambushes, mining partisan roads, etc.) the enemy began to use only recently.

In addition, since August 1943, continuous bombing of the partisan zone by aircraft began. “Almost not a single village in the Ushachsky and Lepelsky districts, occupied by partisans, has not been attacked by fascist vultures. In this case, German students also practiced (students-pilots. - B. WITH.)".

Indeed, according to German sources, the last year and a half of the war, the Luftwaffe used the Eastern Front as a kind of training ground for graduates of flight schools. Freshly minted pilots had to get comfortable in the air and gain experience in fighting a weaker enemy in the face of the Soviet Air Force before entering into a deadly battle with a much more formidable enemy - the Anglo-American "flying fortresses". Partisan zones, on the other hand, were an ideal target for training. The partisans, of course, did not have either fighters or anti-aircraft guns, and it was possible to shoot down an aircraft from a rifle or machine gun only at a very low altitude. Young German pilots were hardly worried about the fact that their bombs fall primarily on the heads of civilians in villages and towns, who, by the will of fate, ended up on the territory of the partisan region. However, the pilots of the "flying fortresses" also did not think about the life and death of the German burghers, bringing down the bomb load on the cities of Germany ...

In the struggle in the occupied territory, all sides widely used the traditional methods of guerrilla warfare, including disguise as the enemy. So, on June 16, 1944, the order for the 889th German security battalion noted: “Recently, partisans have been trying to capture more prisoners (a few days remained before the start of the general Soviet offensive in Belarus - Operation Bagration. - B.S.). WITH For this purpose, they drive in German uniforms in trucks along the main highways and, picking up German soldiers who ask for a ride, deliver the latter to their camp. A similar incident took place on June 2, 1944 on the highway Bobruisk - Starye Dorogi. All soldiers are pointed out the danger of driving in unfamiliar vehicles. Drivers are forbidden to take unfamiliar soldiers with them.

The Germans also resorted to a masquerade, in particular, they created false partisan detachments from policemen or Vlasovites dressed in Red Army uniforms or civilian clothes. They made contact with small groups or single partisans, encouraged them to join the detachment, and then, after waiting for an opportune moment, destroyed or captured them. The Germans even introduced special distinctive headdresses for their partisans. Such false detachments often robbed the population in order to later shift the blame on real partisans. However, the latter also sometimes thoroughly robbed the population, dressed in German or police uniforms.

But it happened that false partisan detachments turned into real ones. This happened, for example, with a detachment of 96 people led by ROA officers Captain Tsimailo and Senior Lieutenant Golokoz. The latter, instead of fighting the partisans, established contact with the Zakharov brigade operating in the Vitebsk region and revealed the truth to him. As a result, on July 17, 1943, 55 false partisans, led by Golokoz, joined the real ones, having previously killed the Germans who were with them - two radio operators and a captain. The remnants of the detachment, together with Tsimailo, managed to escape.

Sometimes false underground centers were created, with the help of which the secret field police caught real underground workers. According to this scheme, a "military council" operated in Minsk, consisting of German agents - the former commanders of the Red Army Rogov and Belov (he was eventually killed by partisans) and the former secretary of the Zaslavl district committee of the party Kovalev, who "concurrently" was a member of the genuine Minsk Underground Committee . At first, the "military council" was a real underground organization, headed by commanders and commissars of the Red Army, who, unfortunately, were not familiar with the rules of conspiracy. The organization has grown too much, almost half of Minsk knew about its activities. It got to the point that at the house where the headquarters of the "military council" was located, guards were openly posted, who checked the documents of ordinary underground workers who came there. Very quickly, they learned about the organization in the Minsk GUF. The leaders of the "war council" were arrested and bought their lives at the cost of betrayal. Now, under the control of the Gestapo, they sent underground fighters allegedly to a partisan detachment, on the way the police stopped trucks, and their passengers ended up in a concentration camp. As a result, hundreds of underground workers were arrested and shot and several partisan detachments were defeated.

Sometimes pseudo-partisan detachments were created by the locals themselves - after they had been liberated by the Red Army. The goal here was one and rather mundane - to receive an indulgence for being under occupation, and at the same time "on legal basis» profit from the good of former German accomplices. The history of one such detachment, discovered by the Special Department of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps in the Konyshevsky district of the Kursk region, was told by the head of the Special Department of the Central Front, L.F. Tsanava, in a letter to Ponomarenko dated March 13, 1943: of the village of Bolshoe Gorodkovo, Konyshevsky District Ryzhkov Vasily Ivanovich, born in 1915, native and resident of B. Gorodkovo, non-party, with a secondary education, former junior commander of the 38th separate battery of the headquarters of the 21st Army, in October 41, he voluntarily surrendered to captured by the Germans. The “commissar” of this detachment was a resident of the village of Maloye Gorodkovo, Summin Tikhon Grigoryevich, a former Red Army soldier, who returned to the village after being occupied by the Germans. Ryzhkov V.I. On March 2, Special Correspondent (Special Department of the Corps. - B.S.) arrested. Summin T. G. has fled, is currently being sought.

The investigation into the Ryzhkov case and the activities of the detachment established the following. On February 8, 1943 B. Gorodkovo and M. Gorodkovo were liberated from the Germans by the Red Army units; Ryzhkov and Summin organized a false partisan detachment on February 12, 1943. The specified detachment, under the guise of fighting German accomplices, carried out round-ups and searches in adjacent settlements, took away property and livestock from some former elders and policemen. Part of the selected was distributed to passing military units, and part was appropriated.

Hiding behind the name of the commander of the partisan detachment, Ryzhkov contacted the advancing units, misleading them with the fictitious actions of the “partisan detachment”.

On November 20, 1943, Ryzhkov and Summin gathered the members of the detachment and, threatening with weapons, offered to go to the regional center - Konyshevka, in order to allegedly organize Soviet power there and head the body of Soviet power in the region ... There are signals about the existence of several more such detachments " .

I don’t know if the KGB managed to find Summin and what was the fate of Ryzhkov - execution, penal battalion or Gulag.

Often the Germans defeated the partisans, using their own methods of struggle. Thus, the commander of the Osipovichi partisan unit, which included several partisan brigades, Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General Nikolai Filippovich Korolev, testified in the final report: “In Bobruisk, Mogilev, Minsk and other cities, “volunteer” battalions “Berezina”, “Dnepr” began to form, "Pripyat" and others that were intended to fight the partisans. To replenish these battalions and to train command personnel in Bobruisk, the "Eastern Reserve Regiment" was created.

I must say that some of these "volunteers", who completely sold out to the Germans, actively fought against the partisans. Using partisan tactics, they penetrated forests in small groups and organized ambushes on partisan roads. So, in March 1943, one of the battalions organized an ambush on the site of partisan days in the Zolotkovo forest, which was run into by the headquarters group of the partisan brigade "For the Motherland". During the battle, the commander of this brigade, Major Flegontov Alexei Kandievich, died (I note that Flegontov was not a simple major, but a major of state security, which was equivalent to an army general's rank. - B. WITH.)…

Later, with the release Soviet Army of a significant part of the Soviet territory occupied by the enemy, police and treacherous garrisons were transferred to our region from the regions liberated by the Soviet Army. In October 1943, a regiment arrived in the village of Vyazye under the command of the former Dorogobuzh landowner and White émigré Bishler (isn't this Bishler the one who wrote the text of the leaflet about partisan cannibalism, which will be discussed below? - B. WITH). This regiment then took an active part in blocking the partisans of the Pukhovichi, Cherven and Osipovichi regions at the end of May 1944.

Korolev also wrote about the "traitorous battalion" of Major Buglai, who arrived in the Osipovichi region to fight the partisans and "settled in the villages located in close proximity to the partisan zone. Its personnel were well trained in the methods of fighting partisans and skillfully used the tactical blunders of individual detachments. He waged an active struggle by ambushes in forests, on partisan roads and at river crossings, by surprise attacks on partisan outposts in the villages ... "

The paradox was that as the Red Army successfully advanced to the west, the position of the partisans did not improve, but, on the contrary, worsened. The partisan territories now fell into the operational zone, and later into the front line of the Wehrmacht. The partisans increasingly had to engage in battle with regular army units, which were superior to them both in terms of weapons and combat training. Collaborationist formations fled from the regions liberated by Soviet troops moved to all the shrinking occupied territories. In these formations there were now people who, as a rule, vehemently hated the communists, did not count on the mercy of the Red Army and partisans, and had extensive experience in fighting the latter. At the same time, many other collaborators, hoping to earn forgiveness, joined the partisans by the hundreds and thousands. It is no coincidence that at the time of connection with the Soviet troops in the partisan brigades of Belarus, from a third to a quarter of the fighters were former policemen, Vlasovites and "volunteers" of the Wehrmacht. However, in practice, a sharp increase in numbers did not strengthen, but weakened the partisan detachments and formations. After all, no more ammunition was delivered to them, and the overgrown detachments became, as mentioned, less maneuverable and more vulnerable to attacks from the air and on the ground.

Complicated the situation and another circumstance. As stated in the report of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement (end of 1942), “using the remnants of anti-Soviet formations and persons whose interests are infringed Soviet power, the German command is trying to impose a Civil War on us, forming combat military units from the dregs of human society ... ”Indeed, in the occupied territories in 1941-1944 there was a real civil war, complicated by acute ethnic conflicts. Russians killed Russians, Ukrainians killed Ukrainians, Belarusians killed Belarusians. Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians fought Russians and Belarusians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians fought Poles, Chechens and Ingush, Karachays and Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Kalmyks fought Russians, etc. In principle, this situation suited the Germans, because it allowed them to spend fewer own troops and police to fight various partisans.

How many people participated in the Soviet partisan movement? After the war, the writings of historians often featured a figure of more than a million people. However, familiarity with wartime documents forces us to reduce it by at least half.

Ponomarenko and his staff kept statistics, but the data received was far from always accurate. The commanders of partisan brigades and formations sometimes did not have information about the number of individual detachments, and sometimes, we repeat, they deliberately overestimated it, hoping to get more weapons and ammunition. True, they soon realized that supply from the center was limited by such objective factors as the weather, the availability of landing sites convenient and inaccessible to enemy fire weapons, and the number of transport aircraft. Therefore, they often began to underestimate the number of detachments in order to correspondingly underestimate the losses incurred and more freely report on the successes achieved.

In 1944, after the liberation of the republic, the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement compiled a final report, according to which there were 373,942 people in the ranks of the partisans. Of these, 282,458 people were in combat formations (brigades and separate partisan detachments), and more

79,984 people were used as scouts, liaison officers or were employed in the protection of partisan zones. In addition, about 12,000 people were members of the underground anti-fascist committees, especially in the western regions of the republic. In total, the underground in Belarus, as it turned out after the war, was more than 70 thousand people, of which over 30 thousand were considered liaison and intelligence agents of the partisans.

In Ukraine, the scope of the partisan movement was much smaller. Although after the war Khrushchev claimed that by the beginning of 1944 there were more than 220,000 Soviet partisans operating here, this figure looks absolutely fantastic. Indeed, by that time, the entire Left Bank of the Dnieper, where the most numerous partisan formations operated, had been liberated from the Germans. And on March 5, 1943, Ponomarenko, in a report to Stalin, estimated the total number of 74 partisan detachments in Ukraine at 12,631 people. Almost all of these detachments belonged to large formations of Kovpak, Fedorov, Naumov, and others. In addition, as the head of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement pointed out, there were partisan reserves and detachments on the Right Bank and in the regions of Left-Bank Ukraine that had not yet been liberated, with which communication was lost, the general over 50 thousand people. During subsequent raids, the formations of Kovpak, Saburov and others increased by two to three times due to local replenishment, but in any case, the number of Soviet partisans on the Right Bank was three to four times lower than the figure mentioned by Khrushchev. As noted in a certificate prepared on February 15, 1976 by the Institute of Party History under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, there. unlike other republics and regions, there were no registration cards at all, either for 220,000 or for any smaller number of partisans.

The relatively weak development of the pro-Soviet partisan movement in Ukraine compared to Belarus and the occupied regions of the RSFSR is explained by a number of factors. Historically, Ukrainian lands have always been richer than Belarusian ones, which means that the population is more prosperous. For this reason, it suffered more severely during the revolution, and later - from collectivization and the resulting famine. The famine in Ukraine turned out to be stronger than in Belarus, also because Agriculture the creation of collective farms was undermined more thoroughly here. But by the beginning of World War II, it had partially recovered and, thanks to better climatic conditions, it still outperformed the agriculture of Belarus in terms of productivity. The last in the course of the war had to supply the Army Group Center - the most numerous of all the German army groups in the East. Therefore, food supplies for the occupiers caused especially strong discontent here. In addition, the natural conditions of Belarus, covered with forests and swamps, were ideal for guerrilla warfare.

Thanks to this, many more encircled Red Army soldiers settled in the Belarusian forests than in the Ukrainian steppes, which also created a massive base for the pro-Soviet partisan movement.

It should also be taken into account that in Western Ukraine the most influential among the local residents was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Nationalist organizations in Belarus have never been so popular, although here, as in Ukraine, a sharp confrontation with the Polish population continued. If in Galicia and Volyn the Ukrainians relied on the OUN and the UPA in this confrontation, then in Belarus Orthodox Belarusians (unlike Catholic Belarusians) saw Soviet partisans as their comrades-in-arms in the fight against the Poles.

In other occupied union republics, the scale of the partisan movement was even smaller than in Ukraine. By April 1, 1943, there were 110,889 partisans throughout the territory occupied by the Germans, located mainly in Belarus, Ukraine, the Crimea, as well as in the Smolensk and Oryol regions. At that time, three sabotage groups of 46 people were operating in Estonia, 13 groups with a total number of 200 people in Latvia, and 29 groups with 199 people in Lithuania. The overwhelming majority of the population of the Baltic states had no sympathy for the Soviet system and looked at the German occupation as a lesser evil. And in Moldova, out of 2892 ethnic Moldovan partisans, there were only seven, and the bulk were Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The song about “a dark-skinned Moldavian woman gathering a partisan Moldavian detachment” is nothing more than a poetic fantasy. Moldovans clearly preferred to return to Romania after a year of Soviet domination.

The total number of participants in the Soviet partisan movement, assuming that about the same number of partisans operated on the rest of the lands as on the Belarusian one, can be estimated at about half a million people (only in combat units).

I note that there were much more collaborators among prisoners of war and residents of the occupied territories than partisans and underground fighters. Only in the Wehrmacht, in the military and police formations of the SS and SD, according to various estimates, from one to one and a half million former Soviet citizens served. In addition, several hundred thousand people were in the local auxiliary police and peasant self-defense units, on the one hand, and served as elders, burgomasters and members of local governments, as well as doctors and teachers in schools and hospitals opened by the Germans, on the other hand. True, it is difficult to say how collaborators can be considered those who had to work in occupational institutions in order not to simply die of hunger.

Now about irretrievable losses. By January 1, 1944, they amounted to individual republics and regions (excluding Ukraine and Moldova): Karelian-Finnish SSR - 752 killed and 548 missing, and only 1300 (of this number, only 1086 knew the names and addresses of relatives); Leningrad region - 2954.1372.4326 (1439); Estonia - 19, 8, 27; Latvia -56, 50.106 (12); Lithuania - 101.4.115 (14); Kalinin region - 742.141, 883 (681); Belarus - 7814, 513, 8327 (389); Smolensk region - 2618, 1822, 4400 (2646); Oryol region - 3677, 3361, 7038 (1497); Krasnodar Territory - 1077, 335, 1412 (538); Crimean ASSR - 1076, 526, 1602 (176); total - 20 886, 8680, 29 566 (8487). These figures are certainly incomplete, but they illustrate quite well the relative intensity of guerrilla combat activity in various regions.

To this it must be added that in the seven months remaining until the end of the partisan movement, the Soviet partisans suffered the greatest losses caused by the large-scale punitive operations undertaken against them with the participation of army formations. Only in Belarus, the partisans then lost 30,181 people killed, missing and captured, that is, almost four times more than in the previous two and a half years of the war. General irretrievable losses Soviet partisans by the end of the war can be estimated at least 100 thousand people.