Article 1. Border of the Soviet Union
Article 2. How the Minister of the Third Reich declared war on the USSR
Article 4. Russian spirit
Article 6. Opinion of a Russian citizen. Memo on June 22
Article 7. Opinion of an American Citizen. Russians are best at making friends and at war.
Article 8. Treacherous West
Article 1. BORDER OF THE SOVIET UNION
http://www.sologubovskiy.ru/articles/6307/
On this early morning in 1941, the enemy dealt a terrible, unexpected blow to the USSR. From the first minutes, the border guards were the first to enter into a deadly battle with the fascist invaders and courageously defended our Motherland, defending every inch of Soviet land.
At 04:00 on June 22, 1941, after a powerful artillery preparation, the forward detachments of the fascist troops attacked the border outposts from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Despite the huge superiority of the enemy in manpower and equipment, the border guards fought stubbornly, died heroically, but did not leave the defended lines without an order.
For many hours (and in some areas for several days), the outposts in stubborn battles held back the fascist units on the border line, preventing them from seizing bridges and crossings over the border rivers. With unprecedented stamina and courage, at the cost of their lives, the border guards sought to delay the advance of the advanced units of the Nazi troops. Each outpost was a small fortress, the enemy could not capture it as long as at least one border guard was alive.
Thirty minutes took the Nazi General Staff to destroy the Soviet border outposts. But this calculation turned out to be untenable.
None of the almost 2,000 outposts that took the unexpected blow of superior enemy forces faltered, did not give up, not a single one!
The frontier fighters were the first to repulse the onslaught of the fascist conquerors. They were the first to come under fire from the tank and motorized hordes of the enemy. Before anyone else, they stood up for the honor, freedom and independence of their homeland. The first victims of the war and its first heroes were Soviet border guards.
The most powerful attacks were made on the border outposts located in the direction of the main attacks of the Nazi troops. In the offensive zone of the Army Group "Center" in the sector of the Augustow border detachment, two divisions of the Nazis crossed the border. The enemy expected to destroy the border outposts in 20 minutes.
1st border outpost of senior lieutenant A.N. Sivacheva defended for 12 hours, completely perished.
3rd outpost of Lieutenant V.M. Usova fought for 10 hours, 36 border guards repulsed seven attacks of the Nazis, and when the cartridges ran out, they launched a bayonet attack.
Courage and heroism were shown by the border guards of the Lomzhinsky border detachment.
4th outpost lieutenant V.G. Malieva fought until 12 noon on June 23, 13 people survived.
The 17th frontier outpost fought with the enemy infantry battalion until 07:00 on June 23, and the 2nd and 13th outposts held the line until 12:00 on June 22, and only by order did the surviving border guards withdraw from their lines.
The border guards of the 2nd and 8th outposts of the Chizhevsky border detachment bravely fought the enemy.
The border guards of the Brest border detachment covered themselves with unfading glory. The 2nd and 3rd outposts held out until 6 p.m. on June 22. 4th outpost of senior lieutenant I.G. Tikhonova, located by the river, for several hours did not allow the enemy to cross to the eastern bank. At the same time, over 100 invaders, 5 tanks, 4 guns were destroyed and three enemy attacks were repulsed.
In their memoirs, German officers and generals noted that only wounded border guards were captured, none of them raised their hands, did not lay down their arms.
Having marched solemnly across Europe, the Nazis from the first minutes were faced with unprecedented perseverance and heroism of fighters in green caps, although the superiority of the Germans in manpower was 10-30 times, artillery, tanks, planes were involved, but the border guards fought to the death.
The former commander of the German 3rd Panzer Group, Colonel-General G. Goth, was subsequently forced to admit: “both divisions of the 5th Army Corps, immediately after crossing the border, ran into the enemy’s dug-in guards, which, despite the lack of artillery support, held their positions until the latter."
This is largely due to the selection and staffing of border outposts.
Manning was carried out from all the republics of the USSR. The junior commanding staff and the Red Army were called up at the age of 20 for 3 years (they served in naval units for 4 years). Commanding personnel for the Border Troops were trained by ten border schools (schools), the Leningrad Naval School, the Higher School of the NKVD, as well as the Frunze Military Academy and the Military-Political Academy named after
V. I. Lenin.
The junior commanding staff was trained in the district and detachment schools of the MNS, the Red Army soldiers were trained at temporary training posts at each border detachment or a separate border unit, and naval specialists were trained in two training border naval detachments.
In 1939 - 1941, when staffing the border units and subunits on the western section of the border, the leadership of the Border Troops sought to appoint to command positions in the border detachments and commandant's offices persons of middle and senior commanding staff with service experience, especially participants in the hostilities at Khalkhin Gol and on the border with Finland. It was more difficult to staff border and reserve outposts with commanding staff.
By the beginning of 1941, the number of border outposts had doubled, and the border schools could not immediately meet the sharply increased need for middle commanding staff, so in the fall of 1939, accelerated training courses for the command of outposts from junior commanding staff and Red Army soldiers of the third year of service were organized, and the advantage was given to persons with combat experience. All this made it possible by January 1, 1941 to fully equip all border and reserve outposts in the state.
In order to prepare to repel the aggression of fascist Germany, the Government of the USSR increased the density of protection of the western section of the state border of the country: from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea. This section was guarded by 8 border districts, including 49 border detachments, 7 detachments of border ships, 10 separate border commandant's offices and three separate air squadrons.
The total number is 87459 people, of which 80% of the personnel were located directly on the state border, including 40963 Soviet border guards on the Soviet-German border. Of the 1747 frontier outposts guarding the state border of the USSR, 715 are located on the western border of the country.
Organizationally, the border detachments consisted of 4 border commandant's offices (each with 4 linear outposts and one reserve outpost), a maneuver group (a detachment reserve of four outposts, with a total strength of 200 - 250 people), a school for junior commanding staff - 100 people, headquarters, intelligence department, political agency and rear. In total, the detachment had up to 2000 border guards. The border detachment guarded the land section of the border with a length of up to 180 kilometers, on the sea coast - up to 450 kilometers.
Border outposts in June 1941 were staffed by 42 and 64 people, depending on the specific conditions of the terrain and other conditions of the situation. At the outpost numbering 42 people were the head of the outpost and his deputy, the foreman of the outpost and 4 squad commanders.
Its armament consisted of one Maxim heavy machine gun, three Degtyarev light machine guns and 37 five-shot rifles of the 1891/30 model. pieces for an easel machine gun, RGD hand grenades - 4 pieces for each border guard and 10 anti-tank grenades for the entire outpost.
The effective firing range of rifles is up to 400 meters, machine guns - up to 600 meters.
At the border post of 64 people were the head of the outpost and his two deputies, the foreman and 7 squad commanders. Its armament: two Maxim heavy machine guns, four light machine guns and 56 rifles. Accordingly, the amount of ammunition was more. By decision of the chief of the border detachment to the outposts, where the most threatened situation developed, the number of cartridges was increased by one and a half times, but the subsequent development of events showed that this stock was enough for only 1-2 days of defensive operations. The only technical means of communication for the outpost was a field telephone. The vehicle was two horse carts.
Since the Border Troops during their service constantly met various violators on the border, including armed ones and as part of groups with whom they often had to fight, the degree of preparedness of all categories of border guards was good, and the combat readiness of such units as a border outpost and a border post , the ship, was actually constantly full.
At 04:00 Moscow time on June 22, 1941, German aviation and artillery simultaneously, along the entire length of the USSR state border from the Baltic to the Black Seas, launched massive fire strikes on military and industrial facilities, railway junctions, airfields and seaports on the territory of the USSR to a depth of 250 300 kilometers from the state border. Armadas of fascist planes dropped bombs on the peaceful cities of the Baltic republics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Crimea. Border ships and boats, together with other ships of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets, with their anti-aircraft weapons, entered the fight against enemy aircraft.
Among the objects on which the enemy launched fire strikes were the positions of the covering troops and the places of deployment of the Red Army, as well as the military camps of the border detachments and commandant's offices. As a result of the artillery preparation of the enemy, which lasted from one to one and a half hours in various sectors, subunits and units of the covering troops and subunits of the border detachments suffered losses in manpower and equipment.
A short-term but powerful artillery strike was carried out by the enemy on the towns of the frontier outposts, as a result of which all the wooden buildings were destroyed or engulfed in fire, the fortifications built near the towns of the frontier outposts were largely destroyed, the first wounded and killed frontier guards appeared.
On the night of June 22, German saboteurs damaged almost all wire communication lines, which disrupted the control of border units and Red Army troops.
Following air and artillery strikes, the German high command moved its invasion troops along a front of 1,500 kilometers from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains, having in the first echelon 14 tank, 10 mechanized and 75 infantry divisions with a total strength of 1,900,000 troops equipped with 2,500 tanks , 33 thousand guns and mortars, supported by 1200 bombers and 700 fighters.
By the time of the enemy attack, only border outposts were located on the state border, and behind them, 3-5 kilometers away, were separate rifle companies and rifle battalions of troops that performed the task of operational cover, as well as defensive structures of fortified areas.
The divisions of the first echelons of the covering armies were located in areas remote from their designated deployment lines of 8-20 kilometers, which did not allow them to deploy in battle formation in a timely manner and forced them to engage in battle with the aggressor separately, in parts, disorganized and with heavy losses in personnel and military equipment.
The course of military operations of the frontier outposts and their results varied. When analyzing the actions of the border guards, it is imperative to take into account the specific conditions in which each outpost found itself on June 22, 1941. They depended to a large extent on the composition of the advanced enemy units that attacked the outpost, as well as on the nature of the terrain along which the border passed and the directions of action of the strike groups of the German army.
So, for example, a section of the state border with East Prussia ran along a plain with a large number of roads, without river barriers. It was in this area that the powerful German Army Group North deployed and struck. And on the southern sector of the Soviet-German front, where the Carpathian Mountains rose and the San, Dniester, Prut, and Danube rivers flowed, the actions of large groupings of enemy troops were difficult, and the conditions for the defense of border outposts were favorable.
In addition, if the outpost was located in a brick building, and not in a wooden one, then its defensive capabilities increased significantly. It must be borne in mind that in densely populated areas with well-developed agricultural land, building a platoon stronghold for an outpost was a great organizational difficulty, and therefore it was necessary to adapt premises for defense and build covered firing points near the outpost.
On the last night before the war, the border units of the western border districts carried out enhanced protection of the state border. Part of the personnel of the frontier outposts was on the border section in frontier detachments, the main part was in platoon strongholds, several border guards remained in the premises of the outposts for their protection. The personnel of the reserve units of the border commandant's offices and detachments were in the premises at the place of their permanent deployment.
For the commanders and Red Army men, who saw the concentration of enemy troops, it was not the attack itself that was unexpected, but the power and cruelty of the air raid and artillery strikes, as well as the mass character of the moving and firing armored vehicles. There was no panic, fuss or aimless shooting among the border guards. What happened for a whole month. Of course, there were losses, but not from panic and cowardice.
Ahead of the main forces of each German regiment, strike groups with a force of up to a platoon with sappers and reconnaissance groups on armored personnel carriers and motorcycles moved with the tasks of eliminating border detachments, capturing bridges, establishing the positions of the Red Army covering troops, and completing the destruction of border outposts.
In order to ensure surprise, these enemy units began advancing in some sections of the border even during the period of artillery and aviation preparation. To complete the destruction of the personnel of the frontier outposts, tanks were used, which, being at a distance of 500 - 600 meters, fired at the strongholds of the outposts, remaining out of reach of the outpost's weapons.
The first to discover the reconnaissance units of the Nazi troops crossing the state border were the border guards who were on duty. Using pre-prepared trenches, as well as terrain folds and vegetation, as a shelter, they entered into battle with the enemy and thereby gave a signal of danger. Many border guards died in battle, and the survivors withdrew to the strongholds of the outposts and joined the defensive operations.
On the river border areas, the advanced enemy units sought to capture the bridges. Border detachments for the protection of bridges were sent as part of 5-10 people with a light, and sometimes with an easel machine gun. In most cases, the border guards prevented the advance groups of the enemy from capturing the bridges.
The enemy attracted armored vehicles to capture bridges, carried out the crossing of his advanced units on boats and pontoons, surrounded and destroyed border guards. Unfortunately, the border guards did not have the opportunity to blow up the bridges across the border river and they were delivered to the enemy in good order. The rest of the personnel of the outpost also took part in the battles to hold bridges on the border rivers, inflicting serious losses on enemy infantry, but being powerless against enemy tanks and armored vehicles.
So, while protecting the bridges across the Western Bug River, the personnel of the 4th, 6th, 12th and 14th border outposts of the Vladimir-Volynsky border detachment died in full strength. The 7th and 9th border outposts of the Przemysl border detachment also perished in unequal battles with the enemy, protecting bridges across the San River.
In the zone where the shock groups of the Nazi troops were advancing, the advanced enemy units were stronger in number and weapons than the border outpost, and, moreover, they had tanks and armored personnel carriers. In these areas, border outposts could only hold back the enemy for up to one or two hours. The border guards fired from machine guns and rifles repulsed the attack of the enemy infantry, but the enemy tanks, after the destruction of the defensive structures by fire from the cannons, burst into the stronghold of the outpost and completed their destruction.
In some cases, the border guards managed to knock out one tank, but in most cases they were powerless against armored vehicles. In the unequal struggle with the enemy, the personnel of the outpost almost all perished. The border guards, who were in the basements of the brick buildings of the outposts, held out the longest, and, continuing to fight, they died, blown up by German land mines.
But the personnel of many outposts continued to fight with the enemy from the strongholds of the outposts to the last man. These battles continued throughout June 22, and individual outposts fought in encirclement for several days.
For example, the 13th outpost of the Vladimir-Volynsky border detachment, relying on strong defensive structures and favorable terrain conditions, fought in encirclement for eleven days. The defense of this outpost was facilitated by the heroic actions of the garrisons of the pillboxes of the fortified area of the Red Army, which, during the period of artillery and aviation preparation of the enemy, prepared for defense and met him with powerful fire from guns and machine guns. In these pillboxes, commanders and Red Army soldiers defended themselves for many days, and in some places for more than a month. German troops were forced to bypass the area, and then, using poisonous fumes, flamethrowers and explosives, destroy the heroic garrisons.
Having joined the ranks of the Red Army, along with it, the border guards bore the brunt of the fight against the German invaders, fought against its intelligence agents, reliably guarded the rear of the Fronts and Armies from attacks by saboteurs, destroyed the breakout groups and the remnants of the encircled enemy groups, everywhere showing heroism and Chekist ingenuity , fortitude, courage and selfless devotion to the Soviet Motherland.
Summing up, it must be said that on June 22, 1941, the fascist German command set off a monstrous war machine against the USSR, which fell upon the Soviet people with particular cruelty, which there was no measure or name. But in this difficult situation, the Soviet border guards did not flinch. In the very first battles, they showed boundless devotion to the Fatherland, unshakable will, the ability to maintain stamina and courage, even in moments of mortal danger.
Many details of the battles of several dozen border outposts are still unknown, as well as the fate of many defenders of the border. Among the irretrievable losses of border guards in the battles in June 1941, more than 90% were “missing”.
Not intended to repulse an armed invasion by regular enemy troops, the border outposts steadfastly held out under the onslaught of the superior forces of the German army and its satellites. The death of the border guards was justified by the fact that, dying in whole units, they provided access to the defensive lines of the Red Army cover units, which, in turn, ensured the deployment of the main forces of the Armies and Fronts and ultimately created the conditions for the defeat of the German armed forces and the liberation of the peoples of the USSR and Europe from fascism.
For courage and heroism shown in the first battles with the Nazi invaders on the state border, 826 border guards were awarded orders and medals of the USSR. 11 border guards were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, five of them posthumously. The names of sixteen border guards were assigned to the outposts where they served on the day the war began.
Here are just a few episodes of the fighting on that first day of the war and the names of the heroes:
Platon Mikhailovich Kubov
The name of the small Lithuanian village of Kybartai became widely known to many Soviet people on the very first day of the Great Patriotic War - a border outpost was located nearby, selflessly entering into an unequal battle with a superior enemy.
On that memorable night, no one slept at the outpost. Border guards continually reported on the appearance near the border of the Nazi troops. With the first explosions of enemy shells, the fighters took up all-round defense, and the head of the outpost, Lieutenant Kubov, with a small group of border guards, went to the site of the firefight. Three columns of the Nazis were heading towards the outpost. If he and his group accept the battle here, try to delay the enemy as much as possible, they will have time to prepare well at the outpost for a meeting with the invaders ...
A handful of fighters under the command of 27-year-old Lieutenant Platon Kubov, carefully disguised, repelled enemy attacks for several hours. One by one, all the soldiers died, but Kubov continued to fire from a machine gun. Out of ammo. Then the lieutenant jumped on his horse and rushed to the outpost.
The small garrison became one of the many outposts-fortresses that blocked, if only for a few hours, the path of the enemy. The border guards of the outpost fought to the last bullet, to the last grenade...
In the evening, local residents came to the smoking ruins of the border outpost. Among the piles of dead enemy soldiers, they found the mutilated bodies of the border guards and buried them in a mass grave.
A few years ago, the ashes of the Kubov heroes were transferred to the territory of the newly built outpost, which on August 17, 1963 was named after P. M. Kubov, a communist, a native of the village of Revolutionary Kursk region.
Alexey Vasilievich Lopatin
In the early morning of June 22, 1941, shells exploded in the courtyard of the 13th outpost of the Vladimir-Volynsky border detachment. And then planes with a fascist swastika flew over the outpost. War! For 25-year-old Alexei Lopatin, a native of the village of Dyukov, Ivanovo Region, it began literally from the first minute. The lieutenant, who had graduated from a military school two years earlier, commanded the outpost.
The Nazis hoped to crush the small unit on the move. But they miscalculated. Lopatin organized a strong defense. The group sent to the bridge over the Bug did not allow the enemy to cross the river for more than an hour. The heroes died one by one. The Nazis attacked the defense at the outpost for more than a day, and failed to break the resistance of the Soviet soldiers. Then the enemies surrounded the outpost, deciding that the border guards would surrender themselves. But the machine guns still hindered the advance of the Nazi columns. On the second day, a company of SS men was scattered, thrown at a small garrison. On the third day, the Nazis sent a fresh unit with artillery to the outpost. By this time, Lopatin hid his fighters and the families of the command staff in a secure basement of the barracks and continued to fight.
On June 26, the Nazi guns rained down fire on the ground part of the barracks. However, new attacks by the Nazis were again repulsed. On June 27, thermite shells rained down on the outpost. The SS men hoped to force the Soviet soldiers out of the basement with fire and smoke. But again the wave of the Nazis rolled back, met with well-aimed shots from the Lopatins. On June 29, women and children were sent from the ruins, and the border guards, including the wounded, remained to fight to the end.
And the battle continued for another three days, until the ruins of the barracks collapsed under heavy artillery fire ...
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded by the Motherland to a brave warrior, a candidate member of the party, Alexei Vasilyevich Lopatin. On February 20, 1954, his name was given to one of the outposts on the western border of the country.
Fedor Vasilievich Morin
A birch near the third blockhouse stood like a wounded soldier with a crutch, leaning on a dangling bough, broken by a shell fragment. The ground trembled all around, black smoke rising from the ruins of the outpost. The howl had been going on for more than seven hours.
In the morning, the outpost had no telephone connection with the headquarters. There was an order from the head of the detachment to withdraw to the rear lines, but a messenger sent from the commandant's office did not reach the outpost, struck by a stray bullet. And Lieutenant Fedor Marin did not even think about retreating without an order.
Rus, give up! - shouted the Nazis.
Marin gathered the seven fighters remaining in the ranks in the blockhouse, hugged and kissed each of them.
Better death than captivity, the commander said to the border guards.
We will die, but we will not surrender, - he heard in response.
Put on caps! Let's go in full force.
They loaded their rifles with the last rounds of ammunition, embraced once more, and charged at the enemy. Marin sang "The Internationale", the soldiers picked up, and it rang over the conflagration: "This is our last and decisive battle ..."
Two days later, a fascist sergeant major, taken prisoner by soldiers of a Red Army battalion, told how the Nazis were dumbfounded when they heard the revolutionary anthem through the roar.
Lieutenant Fyodor Vasilyevich Morin, who was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, is still in the line of sentries of the border today. On September 3, 1965, his name was given to the outpost, which he commanded.
Ivan Ivanovich Parkhomenko
Awakened at dawn on June 22, 1941 by the roar of artillery cannonade, the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Maksimov, jumped on his horse and rushed to the outpost, but before reaching it, he was seriously wounded. The defense was headed by political instructor Kiyan, but he soon died in a fight with the Nazis. The command of the outpost was taken over by Sergeant Major Ivan Parkhomenko. Fulfilling his instructions, machine gunners and arrows fired accurately at the Nazis crossing the Bug, trying not to let them come to our shore. But the superiority of the enemy was too great ...
The fearlessness of the foreman gave the border guards strength. Parkhomenko invariably appeared where the battle was in full swing, where his courage and commanding will were needed. A fragment of an enemy shell did not pass Ivan. But even with a broken collarbone, Parkhomenko continued to lead the fight.
The sun was already at its zenith when the trench, in which the last defenders of the outpost had concentrated, was surrounded. Only three could shoot, including the foreman. Parkhomenko had the last grenade left. The Nazis were approaching the trench. The foreman, gathering his strength, threw a grenade at the approaching car, killing three officers. Bleeding, Parkhomenko slid down to the bottom of the trench...
Before a company of the Nazis, the fighters of the border outpost under the command of Ivan Parkhomenko were exterminated, at the cost of their lives they delayed the advance of the enemy for eight hours.
On October 21, 1967, the name of the Komsomol member I. I. Parkhomenko was given to one of the willows of the border outposts.
Eternal glory and memory to the Heroes!!! We remember you!!!
http://gidepark.ru/community/832/content/1387276
The tragedy of June 1941 has been studied up and down. And the more it is studied, the more questions remain.
Today I would like to give the floor to an eyewitness of those events.
His name is Valentin Berezhkov. He worked as a translator. Translated to Stalin. Left a book of magnificent memoirs.
On June 22, 1941, Valentin Mikhailovich Berezhkov met ... in Berlin.
His memories are truly priceless.
After all, as they tell us, Stalin was afraid of Hitler. He was afraid of everything and therefore did nothing to prepare for the war. And they lie that everyone, including Stalin, was confused and scared when the war began.
And here's how it really happened.
As Foreign Minister of the Third Reich, Joachim von Ribbentrop declared war on the USSR.
“Suddenly at 3 am, or 5 am Moscow time (it was already Sunday June 22), the phone rang. An unfamiliar voice announced that Reich Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was waiting for Soviet representatives in his office at the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse. Already from this barking unfamiliar voice, from the extremely official phraseology, something ominous wafted.
On reaching the Wilhelmstrasse, we saw from a distance a crowd in front of the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although it was already dawn, the cast-iron canopy entrance was brightly lit by spotlights. Photojournalists, cameramen, and journalists fussed around. The official jumped out of the car first and opened the door wide. We left, blinded by the light of Jupiters and the flashes of magnesium lamps. A disturbing thought flashed through my head - is this really a war? There was no other way to explain such a pandemonium on the Wilhelmstrasse, and even at night. Photojournalists and cameramen relentlessly accompanied us. They now and then ran ahead, clicked the shutters. To the minister's apartment long corridor. Along it, stretched out, were some people in uniform. When we appeared, they clicked their heels loudly, raising their hands in a fascist salute. Finally, we ended up in the minister's office.
At the back of the room was a desk, behind which sat Ribbentrop in his everyday grey-green ministerial uniform.
When we came close to the writing table, Ribbentrop stood up, silently nodded his head, extended his hand and invited him to follow him to the opposite corner of the hall at the round table. Ribbentrop had a swollen face of a crimson color and cloudy, as if stopped, inflamed eyes. He walked ahead of us with his head down and staggering a little. "Is he drunk?" - flashed through my head. After we sat down and Ribbentrop began to speak, my assumption was confirmed. He must have been drinking really hard.
The Soviet ambassador was never able to state our statement, the text of which we took with us. Ribbentrop, raising his voice, said that now we would talk about something completely different. Stumbling over almost every word, he began to explain, rather confusedly, that the German government had data on the increased concentration of Soviet troops on the German border. Ignoring the fact that in recent weeks the Soviet embassy, on behalf of Moscow, has repeatedly drawn the attention of the German side to egregious cases of violations of the borders of the Soviet Union by German soldiers and aircraft, Ribbentrop stated that Soviet military personnel violated the German border and invaded German territory, although there are no such facts in there was no reality.
Ribbentrop went on to explain that he was summarizing the content of Hitler's memorandum, the text of which he immediately handed over to us. Then Ribbentrop said that the German government considered the situation as a threat to Germany at a time when she was waging a life-and-death war with the Anglo-Saxons. All this, Ribbentrop declared, is regarded by the German government and personally by the Fuhrer as the intention of the Soviet Union to stab the German people in the back. The Führer could not bear such a threat and decided to take measures to protect the life and safety of the German nation. The Fuhrer's decision is final. An hour ago, German troops crossed the border of the Soviet Union.
Then Ribbentrop began to assure that these actions of Germany were not aggression, but only defensive measures. After that, Ribbentrop stood up and drew himself up to his full height, trying to give himself a solemn air. But his voice clearly lacked firmness and confidence when he uttered the last phrase:
- The Führer instructed me to officially announce these defensive measures ...
We also got up. The conversation was over. Now we knew that shells were already exploding on our land. After the accomplished robbery attack, the war was officially declared ... Nothing could be changed here. Before leaving, the Soviet ambassador said:
“This is brazen, unprovoked aggression. You will regret that you have made a predatory attack on the Soviet Union. You will pay dearly for this…”
And now the end of the scene. Scenes of declaring war on the Soviet Union. Berlin. June 22, 1941. Office of Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop.
“We turned around and headed towards the exit. And then the unexpected happened. Ribbentrop, semenya, hurried after us. He began to say in a whisper, as if he personally was against this decision of the Fuhrer. He even allegedly talked Hitler out of attacking the Soviet Union. Personally, he, Ribbentrop, considers this madness. But he couldn't help it. Hitler made this decision, he did not want to listen to anyone ...
- Tell in Moscow that I was against the attack, - we heard last words Reich Minister, when they were already going out into the corridor ... ".
Source: Berezhkov V. M. “Pages of Diplomatic History”, “International Relations”; Moscow; 1987; http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/berezhkov_vm2/01.html
My comment: Drunken Ribbentrop and Soviet Ambassador Dekanozov, who not only "is not afraid", but also speaks directly with a completely undiplomatic directness. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that the German "official version" of the start of the war completely coincides with the version of Rezun-Suvorov. More precisely, the London inmate writer, traitor defector Rezun rewrote the version of Nazi propaganda in his books.
Like, poor defenseless Hitler defended himself in June 1941. And this is what the West believes? They believe. And they want to instill this faith in the population of Russia. At the same time, Western historians and politicians believe Hitler only once: June 22, 1941. Neither before nor after do they believe him. After all, Hitler said that he attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, exclusively defending himself from Polish aggression. Western historians believe the Fuhrer only when it is necessary to discredit the USSR-Russia. The conclusion is simple: who believes Rezun, he believes Hitler.
I hope you begin to understand a little better why Stalin considered the German attack to be impossible stupidity.
P.S. The fate of the characters in this scene is different.
Joachim von Ribbentrop was hanged by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Because he knew too much about behind-the-scenes politics on the eve and during the World War.
Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, the then Soviet ambassador to Germany, was shot by the Khrushchevites in December 1953. After the murder of Stalin, and then the murder of Beria, the traitors did the same thing that was happening in 1991: they smashed the security agencies. They cleared out everyone who knew and who knew how to make politics at the “world level”. And Dekanozov knew a lot (read his biography).
Valentin Mikhailovich Berezhkov lived a complex and interesting life. I recommend reading his book of memoirs to everyone.
http://nstarikov.ru/blog/18802
Article 3. Why was the German attack on the USSR called "treacherous"?
Today, on the 71st anniversary of the attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, I would like to write about an issue that, in my memory, has not become a subject of discussion, although it lies right on the surface.
On July 3, 1941, addressing the Soviet people, Stalin called the attack of the Nazis "treacherous."
Below is the full text of that speech, including the audio recording. But it is worth starting with the search for an answer to the question, why did Stalin call the attack "treacherous"? Why already on June 22 in Molotov's speech, when the country learned about the beginning of the war, Vyacheslav Molotov said: "This unheard-of attack on our country is an unparalleled treachery in the history of civilized peoples."
What is "perfidy"? It means "broken faith". In other words, both Stalin and Molotov characterized Hitler's aggression as an act of "broken faith." But faith in what? So, Stalin believed Hitler, and Hitler broke this belief?
How else to take this word? At the head of the USSR was a world-class politician, and he knew how to call a spade a spade.
I offer one answer to this question. I found it in an article by our famous historian Yuri Rubtsov. He is a doctor of historical sciences, professor at the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Yuri Rubtsov writes:
“During all 70 years that have passed since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, public consciousness has been looking for an answer to an outwardly very simple question: how did it happen that the Soviet leadership, having seemingly irrefutable evidence that Germany was preparing aggression against the USSR, so until the end in its Opportunity was not believed, and was taken by surprise?
This outwardly simple question is one of those to which people are looking for an answer endlessly. One of the answers is that the leader became the victim of a large-scale disinformation operation carried out by the German special services.
The Hitlerite command understood that the surprise and maximum force of a strike against the troops of the Red Army could be ensured only when attacking from a position of direct contact with them.
Tactical surprise in delivering the first blow was achieved only on the condition that the date of the attack was kept secret until the last moment.
On May 22, 1941, as part of the final stage of the operational deployment of the Wehrmacht, the transfer of 47 divisions to the border with the USSR began, including 28 tank and motorized divisions.
Summarized, all versions of the purpose for which such a mass of troops is concentrated near the Soviet border boiled down to two main ones:
- to prepare for the invasion of the British Isles, in order to protect them here, in the distance, from British air strikes;
- to ensure by force a favorable course of negotiations with the Soviet Union, which, according to hints from Berlin, were about to begin.
As expected, a special disinformation operation against the USSR began long before the first German military echelons moved east on May 22, 1941.
A. Hitler took a personal and far from formal part in it.
Let's talk about the personal letter that the Fuhrer sent on May 14 to the leader of the Soviet people. In it, Hitler explained the presence of about 80 German divisions near the borders of the Soviet Union by the need to "organize troops away from English eyes and in connection with recent operations in the Balkans." “Perhaps this gives rise to rumors about the possibility of a military conflict between us,” he wrote, switching to a confidential tone. “I want to assure you – and I give you my word of honor that this is not true…”
The Fuhrer promised, starting from June 15-20, to begin a massive withdrawal of troops from the Soviet borders to the west, and before that he conjured Stalin not to succumb to provocations that those German generals allegedly could go to, who, out of sympathy for England, “forgot about their duty” . “I look forward to seeing you in July. Sincerely yours, Adolf Hitler" - on such a "high" note
He completed his letter.
It was one of the peaks of the disinformation operation.
Alas, the Soviet leadership took the Germans' explanations at face value. In an effort to avoid war at all costs and not to give the slightest reason to attack, Stalin until the last day forbade bringing the troops of the border districts into combat readiness. As if the reason for the attack still somehow worried the Nazi leadership ...
On the last day before the war, Goebbels wrote in his diary: “The question of Russia is becoming more acute with every hour. Molotov asked for a visit to Berlin, but was resolutely refused. Naive assumption. This should have been done six months ago…”
Yes, if Moscow really got alarmed at least not half a year, but half a month before the hour "X"! However, Stalin was so possessed by the magic of confidence that a clash with Germany could be avoided that, even after receiving confirmation from Molotov that Germany had declared war, in a directive issued on June 22 at 7 o'clock. 15 minutes. Red Army to repulse the invading enemy, he forbade our troops, with the exception of aviation, to cross the line of the German border.
Here is a document cited by Yuri Rubtsov.
Of course, if Stalin believed Hitler's letter, in which he wrote “I look forward to seeing you in July. Sincerely yours, Adolf Hitler”, then it becomes possible to correctly understand why both Stalin and Molotov called the attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union with the word “treacherous”.
Hitler "broke Stalin's faith"...
Here it is necessary, perhaps, to dwell on two episodes of the first days of the war.
In recent years, a lot of dirt has been poured on Stalin. Khrushchev lied that Stalin, they say, hid in the country and was in shock. Documents don't lie.
Here is the "JOURNAL OF VISITS TO JV STALIN IN HIS KREMLIN OFFICE" in June 1941.
Since this historical material was prepared for publication by employees working under the leadership of Alexander Yakovlev, who had a certain hatred for Stalin, there can be no doubt about the authenticity of the documents cited. They have been published in:
- 1941: In 2 books. Book 1 / Comp. L. E. Reshin and others. M.: International. Fund "Democracy", 1998. - 832 p. - (“Russia. XX century. Documents” / Under the editorship of Academician A.N. Yakovlev) ISBN 5-89511-0009-6;
- The State Defense Committee decides (1941-1945). Figures, Documents. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2002. - 575 p. ISBN 5-224-03313-6.
Below you will find the entries "Journal of visits to I.V. Stalin in his Kremlin office" from June 22 to June 28, 1941. The publishers note:
“The dates of the reception of visitors, which took place outside Stalin's office, are marked with an asterisk. The journal entries sometimes contain the following errors: the day of the visit is indicated twice; there are no entry and exit dates for visitors; the sequence numbering of visitors is violated; names are misspelled."
So, before you are the real worries of Stalin in the first days of the war. Notice, no dacha, no shock. From the first minutes of the meeting and meeting to make decisions and issue instructions. In the very first hours, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was created.
June 22, 1941
1. Molotov NPO, deputy. Previous SNK 5.45-12.05
2. Beria NKVD 5.45-9.20
3. Tymoshenko NGO 5.45-8.30
4. Mehlis Nach. GlavPUR KA 5.45-8.30
5. Zhukov NGSH KA 5.45-8.30
6. Malenkov Secret. Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks 7.30-9.20
7. Mikoyan Deputy Previous SNK 7.55-9.30
8. Kaganovich NKPS 8.00-9.35
9. Voroshilov Deputy Previous SNK 8.00-10.15
10. Vyshinsky et al. MFA 7.30-10.40
11. Kuznetsov 8.15-8.30
12. Dimitrov member Comintern 8.40-10.40
13. Manuilsky 8.40-10.40
14. Kuznetsov 9.40-10.20
15. Mikoyan 9.50-10.30
16. Molotov 12.25-16.45
17. Voroshilov 10.40-12.05
18. Beria 11.30-12.00
19. Malenkov 11.30-12.00
20. Voroshilov 12.30-16.45
21. Mikoyan 12.30-14.30
22. Vyshinsky 13.05-15.25
23. Shaposhnikov Deputy NPO for SD 13.15-16.00
24. Tymoshenko 14.00-16.00
25. Zhukov 14.00-16.00
26. Vatutin 14.00-16.00
27. Kuznetsov 15.20-15.45
28. Kulik Deputy NPO 15.30-16.00
29. Beria 16.25-16.45
Last left 16.45
June 23, 1941
1. Molotov member GK rates 3.20-6.25
2. Voroshilov member GK rates 3.20-6.25
3. Beria member. TC rates 3.25-6.25
4. Timoshenko member GK rates 3.30-6.10
5. Vatutin 1st Deputy NGSH 3.30-6.10
6. Kuznetsov 3.45-5.25
7. Kaganovich NKPS 4.30-5.20
8. Zhigarev teams. VVS KA 4.35-6.10
Last released 6.25
June 23, 1941
1. Molotov 18.45-01.25
2. Zhigarev 18.25-20.45
3. Timoshenko NPO USSR 18.59-20.45
4. Merkulov NKVD 19.10-19.25
5. Voroshilov 20.00-01.25
6. Voznesensky Pred. Mr., Deputy Previous SNK 20.50-01.25
7. Mehlis 20.55-22.40
8. Kaganovich NKPS 23.15-01.10
9. Vatutin 23.55-00.55
10. Tymoshenko 23.55-00.55
11. Kuznetsov 23.55-00.50
12. Beria 24.00-01.25
13. Vlasik early. personal protection
Last released 01.25 24/VI 41
June 24, 1941
1. Malyshev 16.20-17.00
2. Voznesensky 16.20-17.05
3. Kuznetsov 16.20-17.05
4. Kizakov (Len.) 16.20-17.05
5. Salzman 16.20-17.05
6. Popov 16.20-17.05
7. Kuznetsov (Kr. m. fl.) 16.45-17.00
8. Beria 16.50-20.25
9. Molotov 17.05-21.30
10. Voroshilov 17.30-21.10
11. Tymoshenko 17.30-20.55
12. Vatutin 17.30-20.55
13. Shakhurin 20.00-21.15
14. Petrov 20.00-21.15
15. Zhigarev 20.00-21.15
16. Golikov 20.00-21.20
17. Shcherbakov secretary of the 1st CIM 18.45-20.55
18. Kaganovich 19.00-20.35
19. Suprun test pilot. 20.15-20.35
20. Zhdanov member p / bureau, secret. 20.55-21.30
Last left 21.30
June 25, 1941
1. Molotov 01.00-05.50
2. Shcherbakov 01.05-04.30
3. Peresypkin NKS, deputy. NCO 01.07-01.40
4. Kaganovich 01.10-02.30
5. Beria 01.15-05.25
6. Merkulov 01.35-01.40
7. Tymoshenko 01.40-05.50
8. Kuznetsov NK VMF 01.40-05.50
9. Vatutin 01.40-05.50
10. Mikoyan 02.20-05.30
11. Mehlis 01.20-05.20
Last left 05.50
June 25, 1941
1. Molotov 19.40-01.15
2. Voroshilov 19.40-01.15
3. Malyshev NK tank industry 20.05-21.10
4. Beria 20.05-21.10
5. Sokolov 20.10-20.55
6. Timoshenko Rev. GK rates 20.20-24.00
7. Vatutin 20.20-21.10
8. Voznesensky 20.25-21.10
9. Kuznetsov 20.30-21.40
10. Fedorenko teams. ABTV 21.15-24.00
11. Kaganovich 21.45-24.00
12. Kuznetsov 21.05.-24.00
13. Vatutin 22.10-24.00
14. Shcherbakov 23.00-23.50
15. Mehlis 20.10-24.00
16. Beria 00.25-01.15
17. Voznesensky 00.25-01.00
18. Vyshinsky et al. MFA 00.35-01.00
Last left 01.00
June 26, 1941
1. Kaganovich 12.10-16.45
2. Malenkov 12.40-16.10
3. Budyonny 12.40-16.10
4. Zhigarev 12.40-16.10
5. Voroshilov 12.40-16.30
6. Molotov 12.50-16.50
7. Vatutin 13.00-16.10
8. Petrov 13.15-16.10
9. Kovalev 14.00-14.10
10. Fedorenko 14.10-15.30
11. Kuznetsov 14.50-16.10
12. Zhukov NGSH 15.00-16.10
13. Beria 15.10-16.20
14. Yakovlev early. GAU 15.15-16.00
15. Tymoshenko 13.00-16.10
16. Voroshilov 17.45-18.25
17. Beria 17.45-19.20
18. Mikoyan Deputy Previous SNK 17.50-18.20
19. Vyshinsky 18.00-18.10
20. Molotov 19.00-23.20
21. Zhukov 21.00-22.00
22. Vatutin 1st Deputy NGSH 21.00-22.00
23. Tymoshenko 21.00-22.00
24. Voroshilov 21.00-22.10
25. Beria 21.00-22.30
26. Kaganovich 21.05-22.45
27. Shcherbakov 1st sec. MGK 22.00-22.10
28. Kuznetsov 22.00-22.20
Last released 23.20
June 27, 1941
1. Voznesensky 16.30-16.40
2. Molotov 17.30-18.00
3. Mikoyan 17.45-18.00
4. Molotov 19.35-19.45
5. Mikoyan 19.35-19.45
6. Molotov 21.25-24.00
7. Mikoyan 21.25-02.35
8. Beria 21.25-23.10
9. Malenkov 21.30-00.47
10. Tymoshenko 21.30-23.00
11. Zhukov 21.30-23.00
12. Vatutin 21.30-22.50
13. Kuznetsov 21.30-23.30
14. Zhigarev 22.05-00.45
15. Petrov 22.05-00.45
16. Sokokoverov 22.05-00.45
17. Zharov 22.05-00.45
18. Nikitin VVS KA 22.05-00.45
19. Titov 22.05-00.45
20. Voznesensky 22.15-23.40
21. Shakhurin NKAP 22.30-23.10
22. Dementiev Deputy NKAP 22.30-23.10
23. Shcherbakov 23.25-24.00
24. Shakhurin 00.40-00.50
25. Merkulov Deputy NKVD 01.00-01.30
26. Kaganovich 01.10-01.35
27. Tymoshenko 01.30-02.35
28. Golikov 01.30-02.35
29. Beria 01.30-02.35
30. Kuznetsov 01.30-02.35
Last left 02.40
June 28, 1941
1. Molotov 19.35-00.50
2. Malenkov 19.35-23.10
3. Budyonny deputy. NPO 19.35-19.50
4. Merkulov 19.45-20.05
5. Bulganin Deputy Previous SNK 20.15-20.20
6. Zhigarev 20.20-22.10
7. Petrov Gl. feature art. 20.20-22.10
8. Bulganin 20.40-20.45
9. Tymoshenko 21.30-23.10
10. Zhukov 21.30-23.10
11. Golikov 21.30-22.55
12. Kuznetsov 21.50-23.10
13. Kabanov 22.00-22.10
14. Stefanovsky test pilot. 22.00-22.10
15. Suprun test pilot. 22.00-22.10
16. Beria 22.40-00.50
17. Ustinov NK Voor. 22.55-23.10
18. Yakovlev GAUNKO 22.55-23.10
19. Shcherbakov 22.10-23.30
20. Mikoyan 23.30-00.50
21. Merkulov 24.00-00.15
Last left 00.50
And one more thing. Much has been written about the fact that on June 22 Molotov spoke on the radio, announcing the attack of the Nazis and the beginning of the war. Where was Stalin? Why didn't he do it himself?
The answer to the first question is in the lines of the "Journal of Visits".
The answer to the second question, apparently, lies in the fact that Stalin, as the political leader of the country, should have understood that in his speech all the people were waiting to hear the answer to the question "What to do?"
Therefore, Stalin took a break for ten days, received information about what was happening, thought about how to organize resistance to the aggressor, and only after that he spoke on July 3 not just with an appeal to the people, but with a detailed program of warfare!
Here is the text of that speech. Read and listen to the audio recording of Stalin's speech. You will find in the text a detailed program, up to the organization of partisan actions in the occupied territories, the hijacking of steam locomotives and much more. And this is just 10 days after the invasion.
That's strategic thinking!
The strength of the falsifiers of history lies in the fact that they juggle with their own invented clichés that have a given ideological orientation.
Read better documents. They contain the true Truth and Power...
July 3 marks the 71st anniversary of I.V. Stalin on the radio. Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov in his last interview called this speech one of the three "symbols" of the Great Patriotic War.
Here is the text of this speech:
“Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters!
Soldiers of our army and navy!
I turn to you, my friends!
The perfidious military attack of Hitler Germany on our Motherland, launched on June 22, continues, despite the heroic resistance of the Red Army, despite the fact that the best divisions of the enemy and the best units of his aviation have already been defeated and have found their grave on the battlefields, the enemy continues to climb forward, throwing new forces to the front. Hitler's troops managed to capture Lithuania, a significant part of Latvia, the western part of Belarus, and part of Western Ukraine. Fascist aviation is expanding the areas of operation of its bombers, bombarding Murmansk, Orsha, Mogilev, Smolensk, Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol. Our country is in serious danger.
How could it happen that our glorious Red Army surrendered a number of our cities and regions to the fascist troops? Are the German fascist troops really invincible troops, as the boastful fascist propagandists tirelessly trumpet about it?
Of course not! History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon's army was considered invincible, but it was defeated alternately by Russian, English, German troops. Wilhelm's German army during the first imperialist war was also considered an invincible army, but it was defeated several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops and was finally defeated by Anglo-French troops. The same must be said about Hitler's present German fascist army. This army has not yet encountered serious resistance on the European continent. Only on our territory did it meet with serious resistance. And if, as a result of this resistance, the best divisions of the fascist German army were defeated by our Red Army, then this means that the Nazi fascist army can be defeated and will be defeated just as the armies of Napoleon and Wilhelm were defeated.
As for the fact that part of our territory nevertheless turned out to be captured by fascist German troops, this is mainly due to the fact that the war of fascist Germany against the USSR began under favorable conditions for the German troops and unfavorable for the Soviet troops. The fact is that the troops of Germany, as a country waging war, were already fully mobilized and 170 divisions abandoned by Germany against the USSR and moved to the borders of the USSR were in a state of complete readiness, waiting only for a signal to march, while the Soviet troops needed more mobilize and advance to the borders. Of no small importance here was the fact that fascist Germany unexpectedly and treacherously violated the non-aggression pact concluded in 1939 between it and the USSR, regardless of the fact that it would be recognized by the whole world as the attacking side. It is clear that our peace-loving country, not wanting to take the initiative to violate the pact, could not take the path of treachery.
It may be asked: how could it happen that the Soviet government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there a mistake on the part of the Soviet government here? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was this pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet government refuse such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if at the head of this power there are even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. And this, of course, on one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of a peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact. What have we gained by signing a non-aggression pact with Germany? We ensured peace for our country for a year and a half and the possibility of preparing our forces for a rebuff if fascist Germany dared to attack our country in defiance of the pact. This is a definite gain for us and a loss for fascist Germany.
What did fascist Germany gain and lose by treacherously breaking the pact and attacking the USSR? She achieved by this some advantageous position for her troops in a short time, but she lost politically, exposing herself in the eyes of the whole world as a bloody aggressor. There can be no doubt that this short-lived military gain for Germany is only an episode, while the enormous political gain for the USSR is a serious and lasting factor on the basis of which the decisive military successes of the Red Army in the war against fascist Germany should unfold.
That is why our entire valiant army, our entire valiant navy, all our falcon pilots, all the peoples of our country, all the best people of Europe, America and Asia, and finally, all the best people of Germany stigmatize the perfidious actions of the German fascists and sympathize with To the Soviet government, they approve of the behavior of the Soviet government and see that our cause is just, that the enemy will be defeated, that we must win.
By virtue of the war imposed on us, our country entered into a mortal battle with its worst and treacherous enemy - German fascism. Our troops are fighting heroically against the enemy, armed to the teeth with tanks and aircraft. The Red Army and Red Navy, overcoming numerous difficulties, are selflessly fighting for every inch of Soviet land. The main forces of the Red Army, armed with thousands of tanks and aircraft, enter the battle. The courage of the soldiers of the Red Army is unparalleled. Our resistance to the enemy is growing stronger and stronger. Together with the Red Army, the entire Soviet people rises to defend the Motherland. What is required in order to eliminate the danger looming over our Motherland, and what measures must be taken in order to defeat the enemy?
First of all, it is necessary that our people, the Soviet people, understand the full depth of the danger that threatens our country, and renounce complacency, carelessness, and moods of peaceful construction, which were quite understandable in pre-war times, but pernicious at the present time, when the war is fundamentally changed position. The enemy is cruel and relentless. He sets as his goal the seizure of our lands, watered with our sweat, the seizure of our bread and our oil, extracted by our labor. It sets as its goal the restoration of the power of the landowners, the restoration of tsarism, the destruction of the national culture and national statehood of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and other free peoples of the Soviet Union, their Germanization, their transformation into slaves of German princes and barons. Thus, it is a question of life and death of the Soviet state, of life and death of the peoples of the USSR, of whether the peoples of the Soviet Union should be free or fall into enslavement. It is necessary that the Soviet people understand this and stop being carefree, that they mobilize themselves and reorganize all their work on a new, military basis, which knows no mercy for the enemy.
It is necessary, furthermore, that there be no place in our ranks for whiners and cowards, alarmists and deserters, that our people know no fear in the struggle and selflessly go to our Patriotic War of Liberation against the fascist enslavers. The great Lenin, who created our state, said that the main quality of the Soviet people should be courage, courage, ignorance of fear in the struggle, readiness to fight together with the people against the enemies of our Motherland. It is essential that this magnificent quality of a Bolshevik become the property of millions and millions of the Red Army, our Red Navy and all the peoples of the Soviet Union. We must immediately reorganize all our work on a military footing, subordinating everything to the interests of the front and to the tasks of organizing the defeat of the enemy. The peoples of the Soviet Union now see that German fascism is indomitable in its furious malice and hatred of our Motherland, which has ensured free labor and well-being for all working people. The peoples of the Soviet Union must rise up to defend their rights, their land against the enemy.
The Red Army, the Red Navy and all citizens of the Soviet Union must defend every inch of the Soviet land, fight to the last drop of blood for our cities and villages, show the courage, initiative and ingenuity inherent in our people.
We must organize all-round assistance to the Red Army, ensure an intensified replenishment of its ranks, ensure its supply with everything necessary, organize the rapid advance of transports with troops and military cargo, and provide extensive assistance to the wounded.
We must strengthen the rear of the Red Army, subordinating all our work to the interests of this cause, ensure the intensified work of all enterprises, produce more rifles, machine guns, guns, cartridges, shells, aircraft, organize the protection of factories, power plants, telephone and telegraph communications, establish local air defense .
We must organize a ruthless struggle against all sorts of rear disorganizers, deserters, alarmists, spreaders of rumors, destroy spies, saboteurs, enemy paratroopers, rendering prompt assistance to our destruction battalions in all this. It must be borne in mind that the enemy is cunning, cunning, experienced in deception and spreading false rumors. It is necessary to take into account all this and not succumb to provocations. All those who, by their alarmism and cowardice, interfere with the cause of defense, regardless of their faces, must immediately be brought to trial by a military tribunal.
With the forced withdrawal of Red Army units, it is necessary to steal the entire rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not to leave the enemy a single kilogram of bread, not a liter of fuel. The collective farmers must steal all the livestock, hand over the grain for safekeeping to state bodies for its removal to the rear areas. All valuable property, including non-ferrous metals, grain and fuel, which cannot be taken out must be unconditionally destroyed.
In areas occupied by the enemy, it is necessary to create partisan detachments, mounted and on foot, to create sabotage groups to fight against parts of the enemy army, to kindle guerrilla warfare everywhere and everywhere, to blow up bridges, roads, damage telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to forests, warehouses, convoys. In the occupied areas, create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, pursue and destroy them at every turn, disrupt all their activities.
The war with fascist Germany cannot be considered an ordinary war. It is not only a war between two armies. It is at the same time a great war of the entire Soviet people against the German fascist troops. The goal of this nationwide Patriotic War against the fascist oppressors is not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our country, but also to help all the peoples of Europe, groaning under the yoke of German fascism. In this war of liberation, we will not be alone. In this great war we will have true allies in the peoples of Europe and America, including the German people, enslaved by the Hitlerite rulers. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms. It will be a united front of the peoples standing for freedom against enslavement and the threat of enslavement from Hitler's fascist armies. In this regard, the historic speech by British Prime Minister Mr. Churchill on helping the Soviet Union and the US government's declaration of readiness to help our country, which can only arouse a feeling of gratitude in the hearts of the peoples of the Soviet Union, are quite understandable and revealing.
Comrades! Our strength is incalculable. An arrogant enemy will soon be convinced of this. Together with the Red Army, many thousands of workers, collective farmers, and intellectuals are rising to war against the attacking enemy. Millions of our people will rise up. The working people of Moscow and Leningrad have already begun to create a multi-thousand people's militia to support the Red Army. In every city that is in danger of being invaded by the enemy, we must create such a people's militia, raise all the working people to fight in order to defend our freedom, our honor, our homeland with our breasts in our Patriotic War against German fascism.
In order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR, to repulse the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland, the State Defense Committee was created, in whose hands all power in the state is now concentrated. The State Defense Committee has begun its work and calls on all the people to rally around the party of Lenin-Stalin, around the Soviet government for the selfless support of the Red Army and the Red Navy, for the defeat of the enemy, for victory.
All our strength is to support our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Fleet!
All the forces of the people - to defeat the enemy!
Forward, for our victory!
Speech of I.V. Stalin on July 3, 1941
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ldvaW4e8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pD5gf2OSZA&feature=related
Another speech of Stalin at the beginning of the War
Stalin's speech at the end of the war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrIPg3TRbno&feature=related
Sergey Filatov
http://serfilatov.livejournal.com/89269.html#cutid1
Article 4. Russian spirit
Nikolay Biyata
http://gidepark.ru/community/129/content/1387287
www.ruska-pravda.org
The fury of Russian resistance reflects the new Russian spirit, backed by newfound industrial and agricultural power.
Last June, most Democrats agreed with Adolf Hitler - in three months the Nazi armies would enter Moscow and the Russian case would be similar to the Norwegian, French and Greek ones. Even the American communists trembled in their Russian boots, believing in Marshal Timoshenko, Voroshilov and Budyonny less than in Generals Frost, Mud and Slush. When the Germans bogged down, the disillusioned fellow travelers returned to their former convictions, a monument to Lenin was opened in London, and almost everyone breathed a sigh of relief: the impossible had happened.
The purpose of Maurice Hindus' book is to show that the impossible was inevitable. According to him, the fury of Russian resistance reflects the new Russian spirit, behind which is the newfound industrial and agricultural power.
Few observers of post-revolutionary Russia can talk about it more competently. Among American journalists, Maurice Gershon Hindus is the only professional Russian peasant (he arrived in the United States as a child).
After four years at Colgate University and a graduate student at Harvard, he managed to maintain a slight Russian accent and close ties to the good Russian land. “I,” he sometimes says, spreading his arms in Slavonic, “is a peasant.”
Fufu, smells like Russian spirit
When the Bolsheviks began to "eliminate the kulaks [successful farmers] as a class," the journalist Hindus traveled to Russia to see what was happening to his fellow peasants. The fruit of his observations was the book Humanity Uprooted, a bestseller whose main thesis is that forced collectivization is hard, deportation to the Far North for forced labor is even harder, but collectivization is the greatest economic restructuring in human history ; it changes the face of the Russian land. She is the future. The Soviet planners were of the same opinion, and as a result, the journalist Hindus had unusual opportunities to observe how the new Russian spirit was born.
In Russia and Japan, he, relying on his direct knowledge, answers a question that may well decide the fate of the Second World War. What is this new Russian spirit? It's not that new. “Fu-fu, it smells like a Russian spirit! Previously, the Russian spirit had not been heard of, the view had not seen. Today, the Russian is rolling around the world, it catches your eye, it hits you in the face. These words are not taken from Stalin's speech. Their old witch named Baba Yaga always pronounces them in the most ancient Russian fairy tales.
Grandmothers whispered them to their grandchildren when the Mongols burned the surrounding villages in 1410.
They repeated them when the Russian spirit expelled the last Mongol from Muscovy twenty years before Columbus discovered the New World. They probably repeat them today.
three forces
By "the power of an idea" Hindu means that in Russia the possession of private property has become a social crime. “Deep in the minds of people - especially, of course, young people, that is, those who are twenty-nine and less years, and there are one hundred and seven million of them in Russia - the concept of the deep depravity of private entrepreneurship has penetrated.
By "strength of organization" the Hindu author understands the state's total control over industry and agriculture, so that every peacetime function actually becomes a military function. “Of course, the Russians never hinted at the military aspects of collectivization, and therefore foreign observers remained completely unaware of this element of a massive and brutal agricultural revolution. They emphasized only those consequences that concerned agriculture and society ... However, without collectivization, they would not have been able to wage war as effectively as they are waging it.
"Machine power" is an idea in the name of which an entire generation of Russians denied themselves food, clothing, cleanliness, and even the most basic comforts. "Like the strength of a new idea and a new organization, it saves the Soviet Union from being dismembered and destroyed by Germany." "In the same way," the author Hindus believes, "she will save him from the encroachments of Japan."
His arguments are less interesting than his analysis of Russian power in the Far East.
Russia's Wild East, stretching three thousand miles from Vladivostok, is fast becoming one of the largest industrial belts in the world. Among the most fascinating sections about Russia and Japan are those that debunk the legend that Siberia is an Asian glacier or a purely penal servitude. In fact, Siberia produces both polar bears and cotton, has large modern cities such as Novosibirsk (the "Siberian Chicago") and Magnitogorsk (steel), and is the center of Russia's gigantic arms industry. Hindus believe that even if the Nazis reach the Ural Mountains and the Japanese reach Lake Baikal, Russia will still remain a powerful industrial state.
No to a separate world
In addition, he believes that the Russians will not, under any circumstances, agree to a separate peace. After all, they are not just waging a war for liberation. In the form of a war of liberation, they continue the revolution. “Too alive to be forgotten, the memories of the sacrifices that people made for the sake of every machine tool, every locomotive, every brick for the construction of new factories ... Butter, cheese, eggs, white bread, caviar, fish, which should have been there are they and their children; textiles and leather, from which clothes and shoes were to be made for them and their children, were sent abroad ... to receive the currency that was paid for foreign cars and foreign services ... Indeed, Russia is waging a nationalist war; the peasant, as always, is fighting for his house and his land. But today's Russian nationalism rests on the idea and practice of Soviet or collectivized control over "the means of production and distribution" while Japanese nationalism rests on the idea of honoring the Emperor.
Directory
The somewhat emotional judgments of the author Hindus are surprisingly confirmed by the book of the author Yugov "The Russian Economic Front in Peace and Wartime." Not such a friend of the Russian revolution as the author Hindus, the economist Yugov is a former employee of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, who now prefers to live in the USA. His book on Russia is much more difficult to read than the book of the Hindu author, and contains more facts. It does not justify the suffering, death and oppression of people that Russia had to pay for its new economic and military power.
He hopes that one of the outcomes of the war for Russia will be a turn towards democracy, the only system in which he believes economic planning can really work. But the author Yugov agrees with the author Hindus in his assessment of why the Russians fight so fiercely, and it's not about the "geographical, everyday variety" of patriotism.
“The workers of Russia,” he says, “are fighting against a return to a private economy, against a return to the very bottom of the social pyramid ... The peasants are stubbornly and actively fighting Hitler, because Hitler would return the old landowners or create new ones according to the Prussian model. Numerous peoples of the Soviet Union are fighting because they know that Hitler is destroying all opportunities for their development ... "
“And finally, all citizens of the Soviet Union go to the front to fight resolutely until victory, because they want to defend those undoubtedly majestic - albeit inadequately and insufficiently implemented - revolutionary achievements in the field of labor, culture, science and art .. The workers, peasants, various nationalities and all citizens of the Soviet Union have many claims and demands against the dictatorial regime of Stalin, and the struggle for these demands will not stop for a day. But at present, for the people, the task of defending their country from the enemy, personifying the social, political and national reaction, is above all else.
"Time", USA
Article 5. Russians come for their own. Sevastopol - the prototype of the Victory
Author - Oleg Bibikov
Miraculously, the day of the liberation of Sevastopol coincides with the day of the Great Victory. In the May waters of the Sevastopol bays, even today we can see the reflection of the fiery Berlin sky and the Banner of Victory in it.
Undoubtedly, in the solar ripples of those waters one can also guess the reflection of other victories to come.
“Not a single name in Russia is pronounced with more reverence than Sevastopol” - these words belong not to a patriot of Russia, but to a fierce enemy, and they are not uttered with the intonation that we like.
Colonel General Karl Almendinger, appointed on May 1, 1944 as commander of the 17th German Army, reflecting offensive operation Soviet troops, referring to the army, said: “I received an order to defend every inch of the Sevastopol bridgehead. You understand its meaning. Not a single name in Russia is pronounced with more reverence than Sevastopol ... I demand that everyone defends in the full sense of the word, that no one retreats, that every trench, every funnel, every trench ... relation, and the enemy, wherever he appears, will become entangled in the network of our defenses. But none of us should even think of withdrawing to these positions, located in the depths. The 17th Army in Sevastopol is supported by powerful air and naval forces. The Führer is giving us enough ammunition, planes, armaments and reinforcements. The honor of the army depends on every meter of the entrusted territory. Germany expects us to do our duty."
Hitler ordered to keep Sevastopol at any cost. In fact, this is an order - not a step back.
In a sense, history repeated itself in a mirror image.
Two and a half years earlier, on November 10, 1941, an order was issued by the commander of the Black Sea Fleet F.S. Oktyabrsky, addressed to the troops of the Sevastopol defensive region: “The glorious Black Sea Fleet and the combat Primorsky Army are entrusted with the protection of the famous historical Sevastopol ... We are obliged to turn Sevastopol into an impregnable fortress and, on the outskirts of the city, exterminate more than one division of presumptuous fascist scoundrels ... We have thousands of wonderful fighters, powerful Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol coastal defense, glorious aviation. Together with us, the battle-hardened Primorsky Army ... All this gives us complete confidence that the enemy will not pass, will break his skull against our strength, our power ... "
Our army is back.
Then, in May 1944, Bismarck's old observation was again confirmed: do not hope that once you take advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever.
Russians always return their...
In November 1943, Soviet troops successfully carried out the Nizhnedneprovsk operation and blocked the Crimea. The 17th Army was then commanded by Colonel General Erwin Gustav Jeneke. The liberation of Crimea became possible in the spring of 1944. The start of the operation was scheduled for 8 April.
It was the eve of Holy Week...
For most contemporaries, the names of fronts, armies, unit numbers, the names of generals, and even marshals, say nothing or almost nothing.
It happened - like in a song. Victory is one for all. But let's remember.
The liberation of Crimea was entrusted to the 4th Ukrainian Front under the command of Army General F.I. Tolbukhin, a separate Primorsky Army under the command of General of the Army A.I. Eremenko, to the Black Sea Fleet under the command of Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky and Azov military flotilla under the command of Rear Admiral S.G. Gorshkov.
Recall that the 4th Ukrainian Front included: the 51st Army (commanded by Lieutenant General Ya.G. Kreizer), the 2nd Guards Army (commanded by Lieutenant General G.F. Zakharov), the 19th Tank Corps ( Commander Lieutenant General I.D. Vasiliev, he will be seriously wounded and on April 11 he will be replaced by Colonel I.A. Potseluev), 8th Air Army (commander Colonel General of Aviation, the famous ace T.T. Khryukin).
Every name is a significant name. Everyone has years of war behind them. Others began their battle with the Germans as early as 1914-1918. Others fought in Spain, in China, Khryukin had a sunken Japanese battleship on his account ...
From the Soviet side, 470 thousand people, about 6 thousand guns and mortars, 559 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1250 aircraft were involved in the Crimean operation.
The 17th Army included 5 German and 7 Romanian divisions - a total of about 200 thousand people, 3600 guns and mortars, 215 tanks and assault guns, 148 aircraft.
On the side of the Germans were a powerful network of defensive structures, which had to be torn to shreds.
Big wins are made up of tiny wins.
The chronicles of the war contain the names of privates, officers and generals. The chronicles of the war allow us to see the Crimea of that spring with cinematic clarity. It was a blissful spring, everything that could bloom, everything else sparkled with greenery, everything dreamed of living forever. The Russian tanks of the 19th tank corps had to bring the infantry into the operational space, crack the defense. Someone had to go first, lead the first tank, the first tank battalion into the attack, and almost certainly die.
The chronicles tell about the day of April 11, 1944: “The main forces of the 19th Corps were introduced into the breakthrough by the head tank battalion of Major I.N. Mashkarina from the 101st Tank Brigade. Leading the attackers, I.N. Mashkarin not only controlled the battle of his units. He personally destroyed six cannons, four machine-gun points, two mortars, dozens of Nazi soldiers and officers ... "
The brave battalion commander died that day.
He was 22 years old, he had already participated in 140 battles, defended Ukraine, fought near Rzhev and Orel ... After the Victory, he would be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). The battalion commander, who broke into the defense of the Crimea in the Dzhankoy direction, was buried in Simferopol in the Victory Square, in a mass grave ...
The armada of Soviet tanks broke into operational space. On the same day, Dzhankoy was also released.
Simultaneously with the actions of the 4th Ukrainian Front, the Separate Primorsky Army also went on the offensive in the Kerch direction. Its actions were supported by aviation of the 4th Air Army and the Black Sea Fleet.
On the same day, the partisans captured the city of Stary Krym. In response, the Germans, retreating from Kerch, carried out an army punitive operation, killing 584 people, shooting everyone who caught their eye.
Simferopol was cleared of the enemy on Thursday 13 April. Moscow saluted the troops that liberated the capital of Crimea.
On the same day, our fathers and grandfathers liberated the famous resort towns - Feodosia in the east, Evpatoria in the west. On April 14, on Good Friday, Bakhchisaray was liberated, and hence the Assumption Monastery, where many defenders of Sevastopol who died in Crimean War 1854–1856. On the same day, Sudak and Alushta were liberated.
Our troops swept like hurricanes through Yalta and Alupka. On April 15, Soviet tankers reached the outer defensive line of Sevastopol. On the same day, the Primorsky Army also approached Sevastopol from Yalta ...
And this situation was like a mirror image of the autumn of 1941. Our troops, preparing for the assault on Sevastopol, stood in the same positions that the Germans and Romanians were in at the end of October 1941. The Germans could not take Sevastopol for 8 months and, as Admiral Oktyabrsky foretold, they smashed their skull on Sevastopol.
Russian troops liberated their holy city in less than a month. The entire Crimean operation took 35 days. Directly storming the Sevastopol fortified area - 8 days, and the city itself was taken in 58 hours.
For the capture of Sevastopol, which could not be liberated immediately, all our armies were united under one command. On April 16, the Primorsky Army became part of the 4th Ukrainian Front. General K.S. was appointed the new commander of the Primorsky Army. Miller. (Eremenko was transferred to the commander of the 2nd Baltic Front.)
There have also been changes in the enemy camp.
General Jeneke was dismissed on the eve of the decisive assault. It seemed to him expedient to leave Sevastopol without a fight. Jeneke had already survived the Stalingrad cauldron. Recall that in the army of F. Paulus he commanded an army corps. In the Stalingrad cauldron, Yeneke survived only thanks to dexterity: he imitated a serious wound from shrapnel and was evacuated. Jeneke also managed to evade the Sevastopol cauldron. He did not see any point in the defense of the Crimea in the conditions of the blockade. Hitler thought otherwise. The next unifier of Europe believed that after the loss of the Crimea, Romania and Bulgaria would like to leave the Nazi bloc. On May 1, Hitler deposed Jeneke. General K. Almendinger was appointed commander-in-chief of the 17th Army.
From Sunday, April 16 to April 30, Soviet troops repeatedly made attempts to break into the defense; achieved only partial success.
The general assault on Sevastopol began on May 5 at noon. After a powerful two-hour artillery and aviation training, the 2nd Guards Army under the command of Lieutenant General G.F. Zakharov collapsed from the Mekenziev Mountains to the area of the North Side. Zakharov's army was to enter Sevastopol, crossing the Northern Bay.
The troops of the Maritime and 51st armies, after an hour and a half of artillery and aviation preparation, went on the offensive on May 7 at 10:30. On the main direction of Sapun-gora - Karan (village of Flotskoye), the Primorsky Army operated. To the east of Inkerman and Fedyukhin Heights, the 51st Army led the attack on Sapun Mountain (this is the key to the city) ... Soviet soldiers had to break through a multi-tiered fortification system ...
Hundreds of bombers of the Hero of the Soviet Union General Timofey Timofeevich Khryukin were irreplaceable.
By the end of May 7, Sapun Mountain became ours. Assault red flags were raised to the top by privates G.I. Evglevsky, I.K. Yatsunenko, Corporal V.I. Drobyazko, Sergeant A.A. Kurbatov ... Sapun Mountain - the forerunner of the Reichstag.
The remnants of the 17th Army, these are several tens of thousands of Germans, Romanians and traitors to the motherland, accumulated on Cape Chersonese, hoping for evacuation.
In a certain sense, the situation of 1941 was repeated, mirrored.
On May 12, the entire Chersonese peninsula was liberated. The Crimean operation is completed. The peninsula was a monstrous picture: the skeletons of hundreds of houses, ruins, conflagrations, mountains of human corpses, mangled equipment - tanks, planes, guns ...
A captured German officer testifies: “... replenishment was constantly coming to us. However, the Russians broke through the defenses and occupied Sevastopol. Then the command gave a clearly belated order - to hold strong positions on Chersonese, and in the meantime try to evacuate the remnants of the defeated troops from the Crimea. Up to 30,000 soldiers have accumulated in our sector. Of these, it was hardly possible to take out more than one thousand. On May 10, I saw four ships enter Kamysheva Bay, but only two left. Two other transports were sunk by Russian aircraft. Since then, I have not seen any more ships. Meanwhile, the situation was becoming more and more critical... the soldiers were already demoralized. Everyone fled to the sea in the hope that, perhaps, at the last minute, some ships would appear ... Everything was mixed up, and chaos reigned all around ... It was a complete disaster for the German troops in the Crimea.
On May 10, at one in the morning (at one in the morning!) Moscow saluted the liberators of the city with 24 volleys of 342 guns.
It was a victory.
This was a harbinger of the Great Victory.
The Pravda newspaper wrote: "Hello, dear Sevastopol! Beloved city of the Soviet people, hero city, hero city! The whole country joyfully greets you!" "Hello, dear Sevastopol!" - repeated then indeed the whole country.
"Strategic Culture Foundation"
S A M A R Y N K A
http://gidepark.ru/user/kler16/content/1387278
www.odnako.org
http://www.odnako.org/blogs/show_19226/
Author: Boris Yulin
I think everyone knows that on June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began.
But when reminded of this event on TV, you usually hear about the “preemptive strike”, “Stalin is no less guilty of the war than Hitler”, “why did we get involved in this unnecessary war for us”, “Stalin was an ally of Hitler” and other vile nonsense.
Therefore, I consider it necessary to once again briefly recall the facts - for the flow of Artistic Truth, that is, vile nonsense, does not stop.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked us without declaring war. Attacked deliberately, after a long and thorough preparation. Attacked with overwhelming force.
That is, it was brazen, undisguised and unmotivated aggression. Hitler made no demands or claims. He did not urgently try to scrape troops from anywhere for a "preemptive strike" - he just attacked. That is, he staged an act of obvious aggression.
On the contrary, we were not going to attack. In our country, mobilization was not carried out and did not even begin, orders were not given for an offensive or preparation for it. We fulfilled the terms of the non-aggression pact.
That is, we are a victim of aggression, without any options.
A non-aggression pact is not an alliance treaty. So the USSR has never (!) been an ally of Nazi Germany.
The Non-Aggression Pact is precisely the Non-Aggression Pact, no less, but no more. It did not give Germany the opportunity to use our territory for military operations, did not lead to the use of our armed forces in combat operations with Germany's opponents.
So all the talk about the alliance between Stalin and Hitler is either a lie or nonsense.
Stalin fulfilled the terms of the agreement and did not attack - Hitler violated the terms of the agreement and attacked.
Hitler attacked without putting forward claims or conditions, without giving the opportunity to resolve everything peacefully, so the USSR had no choice whether to enter the war or not. The war was imposed on the USSR without asking for consent. And Stalin had no choice but to fight.
And it was impossible to resolve the "contradictions" between the USSR and Germany. After all, the Germans did not seek to capture disputed territory or changing the terms of peace agreements in their favor.
The goal of the Nazis was the destruction of the USSR and the genocide of the Soviet people. It just so happened that the communist ideology, in principle, did not suit the Nazis. And it just so happened that in the place that represented the “necessary living space” and intended for the harmonious settlement of the German nation, some Slavs brazenly lived. And all this was clearly voiced by Hitler.
That is, the war was not for redrawing treaties and border lands, but for the destruction of the Soviet people. And the choice was simple - to die, disappear from the map of the Earth, or fight and survive.
Did Stalin try to avoid this day and this choice? Yes! Tried to.
The USSR made every effort to prevent a war. He tried to stop the division of Czechoslovakia, he tried to create a system of collective security. But the contractual process is complicated by the fact that it requires the consent of all the contracting parties, and not just one of them. And when it turned out to be impossible to stop the aggressor at the beginning of the journey and save the whole of Europe from the war, Stalin began to try to save his country from the war. To keep from war at least until readiness for defense is reached. But he managed to win only two years.
So on June 22, 1941, the power of the strongest army and one of the strongest economies in the world fell upon us without declaring war. And this power was intended to destroy our country and our people. No one was going to negotiate with us - only to destroy.
On June 22, our country and our people took the fight, which they did not want, although they were preparing for it. And they endured this terrible, hardest battle, broke the back of the Nazi creature. And they got the right to live and the right to be themselves.
Everyone remembers what the result of the negotiations between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama looked like. The leaders of the two countries could not look each other in the eyes. The moment of truth has come. The details of the meeting between the leaders of the two countries are beginning to leak out, and many still obscure things are becoming clear. Why didn't both presidents have a face. Today it is safe to say that today the two powers are closer than ever to fatal actions.
Everything turned out to be very simple. Understanding the impossibility of getting through the UN Security Council resolution necessary for the war on Syria, Washington relies on exerting pressure or striking at Iran. After all, it is not Syria that interests Washington, but Iran. The United States is moving troops to Kuwait, from here to the border with Iran is only 80 kilometers. The very troops that Obama promised to withdraw from Afghanistan will now be redeployed specifically to Kuwait. The first 15,000 servicemen have already received orders for redeployment.
Travel moods reign in the editorial offices of the Western media. Everything is moving towards a serious deterioration of the situation.
President Vladimir Putin said quite a lot in his own words, saying that he would not go on reconnaissance with anyone, joking that he had “been out of service for a long time.”
The world did not understand his joke, but was wary.
In this joke, as well as in all others, there is some truth, sometimes a very large share. But in general, it was necessary to carefully listen to what the Russian president says.
It looks like the US Marines are going to take a serious stand against the Russian paratroopers.
At the mere thought of what might happen, a cold sweat breaks out on the body. This position of ground forces, too dangerous in its proximity, is almost guaranteed to end in a collision.
This first step, the redeployment of 15,000 Marines to Kuwait, may not be the most obvious intention, because in the end you won’t start a war with such forces, but if this batch of military personnel is followed by the next one, it will be possible to speak with confidence about the impending threat.
So far, in fact, this redeployment plays into the hands of Russia more than America. Of course, now oil will creep up, the risks become higher. Russia will turn out to be the main beneficiary in this show, because it is always good to be a seller when the price of your product is high, and, of course, it is not profitable to buy oil when you yourself “raised” the price for it.
In this case, the US budget will bear the additional burden.
Another truth in this story is that neither president can back down in this confrontation. If Obama backs down, he will bury his election because Americans don't like wimps (who loves them?).
So Obama will have to come up with something to stay with a "beautiful face."
Putin can't back down either. In addition to geopolitical interests, there is an expectation among the citizens of Russia that their president will not surrender this time, as he has never surrendered before. No wonder they voted for him and entrusted him with building a strong Russia.
Putin cannot deceive the expectations of his citizens, he really never deceived those who voted for him, and it seems that this time he is also going to demonstrate his very advanced qualities of a leader, perhaps even a crisis manager.
The matter, perhaps, could be resolved peacefully if the presidents of the two countries announced some new idea, program, joint project of the two states. In this case, no one would dare to reproach their president, because two countries would benefit from this, and the whole world would become safer.
Both presidents would win here. But such a project still needs to be devised. Judging by the faces of Obama and Putin, there is no such project.
But there are growing disagreements.
In this case, Obama's career is a big question mark; nothing threatens Putin's career. Putin has already passed the elections, and Obama is still ahead.
However, as always in such cases, you need to look at the details. They are sometimes very eloquent.
Nuclear-powered ships make the first moves
According to some reports, nuclear-powered ships of the two most powerful fleets - the Northern and Pacific, in the coming days may receive a combat mission to take up a strike position in neutral waters off the US mainland. This has happened before, when in 2009 two nuclear-powered missile carriers surfaced in different places off the east coast of the United States. This was done quite deliberately, in order to indicate their presence.
The report of an American journalist, a military specialist, looks strange. Then he said that these boats are not terrible, because they do not have intercontinental missiles. It remains only to understand why a boat, which is located 200 nautical miles from the coast, needs intercontinental ballistic missiles, if its regular R-39s cover a distance of up to 1,500 nautical miles.
The R-39 rockets, solid propellant with three-stage sustainer engines used by the D-19 complex, are the largest submarine-launched missiles with 10 multiple nuclear warheads of 100 kilograms each. Even one such missile can lead to a global catastrophe for the whole country, on board the Project 941 Akula submarine that surfaced in 2009, 20 units are regularly located. Given that there were two boats, the optimistic mood of the American commentator on this event is simply incomprehensible.
Where is Georgia, and where is Georgia
The question may arise why now talk about what happened in 2009. I think there are parallels here. On August 5, 2009, when the military events of the 08.08.08 war were still fresh in the memory, serious pressure was put on Russia. Orders of the Russian authorities to withdraw from Abkhazia and South Ossetia were dictated almost by order. Then all the events revolved around Georgia. On July 14, 2009, the US Navy destroyer Stout entered Georgian territorial waters. Of course, this is putting pressure on the Russians. It was then, after half a month, that two boats surfaced off the coast of North America.
If one of them was near Greenland, then the second surfaced under the very nose of the largest naval base. Norfolk Naval Base is only 250 miles northwest of the resurfacing site, but it may be indicative that the boat surfaced is closer coastline the state of Georgia (this is the name of the former Georgian SSR, now Georgia, in the English manner.) That is, in some special way, these two events may intersect. You sent a ship to us in Georgia (Georgia), so get our submarine from your Georgia.
It looks like some kind of hellish joke, from which it would never occur to anyone to laugh. By this comparison of events, the author wants to show that one should not think that Putin has no way out and that he must give in in Syria, where the US Navy grouping is dozens of times more representative than the Russian Navy in Tartus, even after the arrival of Russian paratroopers there.
Today, the war can be such that having defeated Russia in Syria, one can again be surprised off the coast of Georgia. This is well understood in the Pentagon. Americans are good at understanding the meaning of what is said, and even better they understand the meaning of what is shown.
Thus, one should not expect Putin to back down from his plans in Syria. The only thing that can make Putin take a step back is truly normal human relations.
Naive Russians still believe in friendship. The author of these lines is already tired of repeating to his American colleagues and writing in his articles: Russians in general are best able to make friends and fight. Whichever of these the American president in Russian execution prefers to choose, it will always be done "from the heart and on a grand scale."
http://gidepark.ru/community/8/content/1387294
"Democratic" America surpassed Nazi Germany...
Olga Olgina, with whom I am constantly in contact in Hydepark, published an article by Sergei Chernyakhovsky, whom I know from honest, up-to-date publications.
I read it and thought...
June 22, 1941. I just published on my blogs an article by my friend Sergei Filatov “Why was the German attack on the USSR called “treacherous”?” And in one comment, an anonymous blogger, no data, I looked into his PM - he writes to me (I save his spelling):
“On June 22, 1941, at 4:00 am, the Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop presented the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin Dekanozov with a note declaring war. Officially, the formalities were observed."
This anonymous person is not happy that we Russians call the German attack on our Motherland treacherous.
And then I caught myself on the fact that ...
June 22, 1941, my parents survived. Father, a colonel, a former cavalryman, was then in Monino. At the aviation school. As they said then, from “horse to motor!” Prepared personnel for aviation .... Dad and mom experienced the first bombings ... and then .... Four terrible years of war!
I experienced another - March 19, 2011. When the NATO alliance began to bomb the Libyan Jamahiriya.
Why am I doing this?
“Foreign Minister Ribbentrop presented the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin Dekanozov with a note declaring war. Officially, the formalities were observed."
And was a note handed to the Ambassador of the Libyan Jamahiriya in some capital of some democratic country of the NATO alliance?
Were the formalities followed?
There is only one answer - no!
There were no notes, memorandums, letters, there were no formalities.
It turns out that this was a new, humane, democratic war of the humane, democratic West against a sovereign, Arab, African state.
To anyone who starts hinting at UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which allegedly gave the NATO alliance the right to this war, I will say - and all international lawyers who still have a conscience will support me: make a tube out of the paper of this resolution and insert it into one place . This resolution did not give anyone any right by any of its letters. Everything is invented, composed, distributed, and therefore cast in bronze! Unshakable as the Statue of Liberty!
I really like one image of her that I found on the Internet: the statue, unable to withstand the bullying of America and its partners over freedom and human rights, covers its face with its hands. She's ashamed!
Why are you ashamed?
Because there was no declaration of war. And no one can say about the perfidy of the West in relation to the Jamahiriya and personally to its leader, with whom every Western politician - and thousands of photographs confirm this - sought to kiss personally.
Kiss Judas!
Now each of us knows what it is!
Kissed - and now everything is possible!
Without notes and formalities!
And so I came to the most important thing: if the West is talking on every corner that it is ready to strike at Syria, then, forgive me, will the formalities be observed? Will notes declaring war be handed out IN ADVANCE to Syrian ambassadors in Western capitals?
Ah, no more ambassadors?
And no one to give?
What a shame!
It turns out that the smart, cunning West outdid Hitler. Now you can attack, bomb, kill, do any atrocities WITHOUT DECLARATION OF WAR!
And no perfidy!
Now read Chernyakhovsky's article, which Olgina published.
"Democratic" America surpassed Nazi Germany...
Olga Olgina:
Sergei Chernyakhovsky:
Sergei Filatov:
http://gidepark.ru/community/2042/content/1386870
Anonymous blogger:
http://gidepark.ru/user/4007776763/info
The situation in the world is now worse than it was in 1938-1939. Only Russia can stop the war
On June 22, we remember the tragedy. We mourn the dead. We are proud of those who took the blow and responded to it, as well as the fact that, having received this terrible blow, the people gathered their strength and crushed the one who dealt it. But all of this is in the past. And society has not remembered for a long time the thesis that for 50 years kept the world from war - "The forty-first year should not be repeated", and kept it not by repetition, but by practical implementation.
Sometimes even completely pro-Soviet oriented people and political figures (not to mention those who think themselves citizens of other countries) are skeptical about overloading the USSR economy with military spending, ironically about the “Ustinov Doctrine” - “The USSR must be ready to conduct a simultaneous war with any two other powers” (meaning the US and China) and assure that it was the adherence to this doctrine that undermined the economy of the USSR.
Whether it hurt or not is a big question, because until 1991, in the vast majority of industries, output grew. But why, at the same time, the shelves of the stores turned out to be empty, but at the same time they were filled with products for some two weeks after they were allowed to arbitrarily raise prices for them - this is another question for other people.
Ustinov really advocated this approach. But he did not formulate it: in world politics, the status of a great country has long been determined through the ability to wage a simultaneous war with any two other countries. And Ustinov knew why he defended it: because on June 9, 1941, he accepted the post of People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR and knew what it takes to arm the army when it is already forced to wage war underarmed. And with all the changes in the name of the post, he remained in it until he became Minister of Defense, until 1976.
Then, at the end of the 1980s, it was announced that the arms of the USSR were no longer needed, that the Cold War was over, and that now no one threatens us. The cold war has a very important advantage: it is not "hot". But as soon as it ended, it was the "hot" wars that began in the world, and now in Europe as well.
True, so far no one has attacked Russia - from among independent countries and directly. But, firstly, it has been repeatedly attacked by "small military entities" - on the instructions and with the support of large countries. Secondly, the big ones did not attack mainly because Russia still had the weapons that were created in the USSR, and, with all the decay of the army, state and economy, these weapons were enough to repeatedly destroy any of them individually and all together. But after the creation of the American missile defense system, this situation will no longer exist.
Moreover, the current situation in the world is not much better, or rather, no better than the situation that prevailed both before 1914 and before 1939-41. The talk that if the USSR (Russia) ceases to oppose the West, disarms and abandons its socio-economic system, then the threat of a world war will disappear and everyone will live in peace and friendship cannot even be considered as bewilderment. This is an outright lie aimed at the moral capitulation of the USSR, in particular, because most of the wars in history were wars not between countries with different socio-political systems, but between countries with a homogeneous system. In 1914, England and France were not much different from Germany and Austria-Hungary, and monarchist Russia fought on the side not of the last monarchies, but of the British and French democracies.
In the 1930s, one of the first to call for the creation of a European collective security system to repel possible Hitlerite aggression was the leader of fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini, and he agreed to an alliance with the Reich only when he saw that England and France were refusing to create such a system. And World War II began not with a war between capitalist countries and the socialist USSR, but with conflicts and wars between capitalist countries. And the immediate cause was the war between two not just capitalist, but fascist countries - Germany and Poland.
To believe that there can be no war between the United States and Russia because both of them today, let's say carefully, are "non-socialist", is simply to be a prisoner of the aberrations of consciousness. By 1939, Hitler had conflicts not so much with the USSR as with countries socially homogeneous to him, and there were fewer of these conflicts than those into which the United States has already become involved today.
Hitler then sent troops into the demilitarized Rhine zone, which, however, was located on the territory of Germany itself. He carried out the Anschluss of Austria, formally - peacefully on the basis of the will of Austria itself. With the consent of the Western powers, they seized the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and then captured Czechoslovakia itself. He fought on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War. There are four conflicts in total, of which one is actually armed. And everyone recognized him as an aggressor and said that the war was on the threshold.
USA and NATO today:
1. Twice they carried out aggression against Yugoslavia, dismembered it into parts, seized part of its territory and destroyed it as a single state.
2. They invaded Iraq, overthrew the national government and occupied the country, setting up a puppet regime there.
3. They did the same in Afghanistan.
4. They prepared, organized and unleashed the war of the Saakashvili regime against Russia and took it under open protection after a military defeat.
5. They carried out aggression against Libya, subjected it to barbaric bombardments, overthrew the national government, killed the leader of the country, and brought a barbaric regime to power in general.
6. They unleashed a civil war in Syria, they practically participate in it on the side of their satellites, they are preparing military aggression against the country.
7. They threaten war on sovereign Iran.
8. They overthrew the national governments in Tunisia and Egypt.
9. They overthrew the national government in Georgia and installed a puppet dictatorial regime there, but in fact occupied the country. Up to the deprivation of her right to speak her native language: now the main requirement in Georgia when applying for a civil service and obtaining a diploma of higher education is fluency in the US language.
10. Partially implemented the same or tried to implement it in Serbia and Ukraine.
A total of 13 acts of aggression, 6 of which are direct military interventions. Against four, including one armed, with Hitler by 1941. Words are pronounced differently - actions are similar. Yes, the US can say that in Afghanistan they acted in self-defence, but Hitler could also say that in the Rhineland he acted in defense of German sovereignty.
As if it would be absurd to compare the democratic United States with fascist Germany, but the Libyans, Iraqis, Serbs and Syrians killed by the Americans do not feel any better. In terms of the scale and number of acts of aggression, the United States has long and far surpassed Hitler's Germany of the pre-war period. Only Hitler, paradoxically, was much more honest: he sent his soldiers into battle, sacrificing their lives for him. The United States, on the other hand, mainly sends its mercenaries, while they themselves strike almost from around the corner, killing the enemy from aircraft from a safe position.
The United States, as a result of its geopolitical offensive, committed three times more acts of aggression and unleashed six times more military acts of aggression than Hitler did in the pre-war period. And the point in this case is not which of them is worse (although Hitler looks almost like a moderate politician against the backdrop of non-stop US wars in recent years), but that the situation in the world is worse than it was in 1938-39 . A leading and hegemonic country carried out more aggression than a similar country by 1939. Acts of Nazi aggression were relatively local and concerned mainly the adjacent territories. US acts of aggression are spread all over the world.
In the 1930s, there were several relatively equal centers of power in the world and Europe, which, with a good combination of circumstances, could prevent aggression and stop Hitler. Today there is one center of power, striving for hegemony and many times superior in its military potential to almost all other participants in world political life.
The danger of a new world war is greater today than in the second half of the 1930s. The only factor that makes it unrealistic so far is Russia's deterrent capabilities. Not other nuclear powers (their potential is insufficient for this), but Russia. And this factor will disappear in a few years, when the American missile defense system is created.
Maybe war is inevitable. Maybe she won't be. But it will not happen only if Russia is ready for it. The whole situation is developing too similar to the beginning of the twentieth century and the 1930s. The number of military conflicts involving the leading countries of the world is growing. The world is going to war.
Russia has no other choice: it must prepare for it. Transfer the economy to war footing. Look for allies. Re-equip the army. Destroy agents and the fifth column of the enemy.
June 22, 1941 really should not happen again.
Here is an article by Sergei Chernyakhovsky. I will add: of course, it should not happen again. But if it happens again, then the first blows, vile, treacherous, and you can’t call them otherwise, will fall on peaceful Syrian cities and villages ...
As it happened with the cities and villages of the Soviet Union.
June 22, 1941...
http://gidepark.ru/community/8/content/1386964
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
The eve of the war. In the spring of 1941, the approach of war was felt by everyone. Soviet intelligence reported almost daily to Stalin about Hitler's plans. For example, Richard Sorge (a Soviet intelligence officer in Japan) reported not only the transfer of German troops, but also the timing of the German attack. However, Stalin did not believe these reports, as he was sure that Hitler would not start a war with the USSR as long as England resisted. He believed that a clash with Germany could not occur until the summer of 1942. Therefore, Stalin sought to use the remaining time to prepare for war with maximum benefit. On May 5, 1941, he assumed the powers of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. He did not rule out the possibility of delivering a preventive strike against Germany.
There was a concentration of a huge number of troops on the border with Germany. At the same time, it was impossible to give the Germans a reason to accuse them of violating the non-aggression pact. Therefore, despite the obvious preparation of Germany for aggression against the USSR, Stalin only on the night of June 22 gave the order to bring the troops of the border districts into combat readiness. This directive came to the troops already when German aircraft bombed Soviet cities.
The beginning of the war. At dawn on June 22, 1941, the German army attacked Soviet soil with all its might. Thousands of artillery pieces opened fire. Aviation attacked airfields, military garrisons, communication centers, command posts of the Red Army, the largest industrial facilities in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people began, which lasted 1418 days and nights.
The country's leadership did not immediately understand what exactly happened. Still fearing provocations from the Germans, Stalin, even in the conditions of the outbreak of war, did not want to believe in what had happened. In the new directive, he ordered the troops to "defeat the enemy", but "not to cross the state border" with Germany.
At noon on the first day of the war, V. M. Molotov, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, addressed the people. Calling on the Soviet people to give a decisive rebuff to the enemy, he expressed confidence that the country would defend its freedom and independence. Molotov ended his speech with the words that became the program setting for all the years of the war: "Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours."
On the same day, it was announced general mobilization liable for military service, martial law was introduced in the western regions of the country, the Northern, North-Western, Western, South-Western, Southern fronts were formed. To guide them, on June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command (later - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command) was created, which included I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, S.K. Timoshenko, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov, B. M. Shaposhnikov and G. K. Zhukov. I. V. Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
The war required the rejection of a number of democratic forms of government, provided for by the 1936 Constitution.
On June 30, all power was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee (GKO), of which Stalin became chairman. At the same time, the activities of the constitutional authorities continued.
Forces and plans of the parties. On June 22, the two largest military forces at that time clashed in mortal combat. Germany and Italy, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, which acted on its side, had 190 divisions against 170 Soviet ones. The number of opposing troops on both sides was approximately equal and amounted to a total of about 6 million people. Approximately equal on both sides was the number of guns and mortars (48 thousand from Germany and the allies, 47 thousand from the USSR). In terms of the number of tanks (9.2 thousand) and aircraft (8.5 thousand), the USSR surpassed Germany and its allies (4.3 thousand and 5 thousand, respectively).
Taking into account the experience of military operations in Europe, the Barbarossa plan provided for a "blitzkrieg" war against the USSR in three main directions - against Leningrad (Army Group North), Moscow ("Center") and Kiev ("South"). In a short time, with the help of mainly tank strikes, it was supposed to defeat the main forces of the Red Army and reach the Arkhangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan line.
The basis of the tactics of the Red Army before the war was the concept of conducting military operations "with little blood, on foreign territory." However, the attack of the Nazi armies forced to reconsider these plans.
The failures of the Red Army in the summer - autumn of 1941. The suddenness and power of the German strike were so great that within three weeks Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine, Moldova and Estonia were occupied. The enemy advanced 350-600 km deep into the Soviet land. In a short time, the Red Army lost more than 100 divisions (three-fifths of all troops in the western border districts). More than 20,000 guns and mortars, 3,500 aircraft were destroyed or captured by the enemy (of which 1,200 were destroyed right on the airfields on the first day of the war), 6,000 tanks, and more than half of the logistics depots. The main forces of the troops of the Western Front were surrounded. In fact, in the first weeks of the war, all the forces of the "first echelon" of the Red Army were defeated. It seemed that a military catastrophe in the USSR was inevitable.
However, an "easy walk" for the Germans (which the Nazi generals, intoxicated by victories in Western Europe) Did not work out. In the first weeks of the war, the enemy lost up to 100 thousand people alone (this exceeded all the losses of the Nazi army in previous wars), 40% of tanks, almost 1 thousand aircraft. Nevertheless, the German army continued to maintain a decisive superiority of forces.
Battle for Moscow. The stubborn resistance of the Red Army near Smolensk, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, and in other sectors of the front did not allow the Germans to carry out their plans to capture Moscow by early autumn. Only after the encirclement of large forces (665 thousand people) of the Southwestern Front and the capture of Kiev by the enemy did the Germans begin preparations for the capture of the Soviet capital. This operation was called "Typhoon". To implement it, the German command ensured a significant superiority in manpower (3-3.5 times) and equipment in the directions of the main attacks: tanks - 5-6 times, artillery - 4-5 times. The dominance of German aviation remained overwhelming.
On September 30, 1941, the Nazis began a general offensive against Moscow. They managed not only to break through the defenses of the stubbornly resisting Soviet troops, but also to surround four armies to the west of Vyazma and two to the south of Bryansk. In these "cauldrons" 663 thousand people were taken prisoner. However, the encircled Soviet troops continued to pin down up to 20 enemy divisions. For Moscow, a critical situation has developed. The fighting was already going on 80-100 km from the capital. To stop the advance of the Germans, the Mozhaisk line of defense was hastily strengthened, reserve troops were pulled up. G.K. Zhukov, who was appointed commander of the Western Front, was urgently recalled from Leningrad.
Despite all these measures, by mid-October the enemy came close to the capital. The Kremlin towers were perfectly visible through German binoculars. By decision of the State Defense Committee, the evacuation of government agencies, the diplomatic corps, large industrial enterprises, and the population from Moscow began. In the event of a breakthrough by the Nazis, all the most important objects of the city had to be destroyed. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced in Moscow.
In the first days of November, the German offensive was stopped by the colossal exertion of forces, the unparalleled courage and heroism of the defenders of the capital. On November 7, as before, a military parade took place on Red Square, the participants of which immediately left for the front line.
However, in mid-November, the Nazi offensive resumed with renewed vigor. Only the stubborn resistance of the Soviet soldiers again saved the capital. The 316th Rifle Division under the command of General I.V. Panfilov distinguished itself, repulsing several tank attacks on the most difficult first day of the German offensive. The feat of a group of Panfilovites led by political instructor V. G. Klochkov, who for a long time detained more than 30 enemy tanks, became legendary. The words of Klochkov, addressed to the soldiers, spread all over the country: "Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat: behind is Moscow!"
By the end of November, the troops of the Western Front received significant reinforcements from the eastern regions of the country, which made it possible on December 5-6, 1941 to launch a counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow. In the very first days of the Moscow battle, the cities of Kalinin, Solnechnogorsk, Klin, and Istra were liberated. In total, during the winter offensive, Soviet troops defeated 38 German divisions. The enemy was pushed back from Moscow by 100-250 km. This was the first major defeat of the German troops during the entire Second World War.
The victory near Moscow was of great military and political significance. She dispelled the myth of the invincibility of the Nazi army and the hopes of the Nazis for a "blitzkrieg". Japan and Turkey finally refused to enter the war on the side of Germany. The process of creating the Anti-Hitler coalition was accelerated.
THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE OF 1942
The situation at the front in the spring of 1942. Side plans. The victory near Moscow gave rise to the illusions of the Soviet leadership regarding the possibility of a quick defeat of the German troops and the end of the war. In January 1942, Stalin set the Red Army the task of going over to the general offensive. This task has been repeated in other documents.
The only one who opposed the simultaneous offensive of the Soviet troops in all three main strategic directions was G.K. Zhukov. He rightly believed that there were no prepared reserves for this. However, under pressure from Stalin, the Headquarters nevertheless decided to attack. The dissipation of already modest resources (by this time the Red Army had lost up to 6 million people killed, wounded, captured) was bound to lead to failure.
Stalin believed that in the spring - summer of 1942 the Germans would launch a new offensive against Moscow, and ordered that significant reserve forces be concentrated in the western direction. Hitler, on the contrary, considered the strategic goal of the forthcoming campaign a large-scale offensive in the southwestern direction with the aim of breaking through the defenses of the Red Army and capturing the lower Volga and the Caucasus. In order to hide their true intentions, the Germans developed a special plan to misinform the Soviet military command and political leadership, codenamed "Kremlin". Their plan was largely successful. All this had grave consequences for the situation on the Soviet-German front in 1942.
German offensive in the summer of 1942. Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad. By the spring of 1942, the superiority of forces still remained on the side of the German troops. Before launching a general offensive in the southeastern direction, the Germans decided to completely seize the Crimea, where the defenders of Sevastopol and the Kerch Peninsula continued to offer heroic resistance to the enemy. The May offensive of the Nazis ended in tragedy: in ten days the troops of the Crimean Front were defeated. The losses of the Red Army here amounted to 176 thousand people, 347 tanks, 3476 guns and mortars, 400 aircraft. On July 4, Soviet troops were forced to leave the city of Russian glory Sevastopol.
In May, Soviet troops went on the offensive in the Kharkov region, but suffered a severe defeat. The troops of the two armies were surrounded and destroyed. Our losses amounted to 230 thousand people, more than 5 thousand guns and mortars, 755 tanks. The strategic initiative was again firmly captured by the German command.
At the end of June, German troops rushed to the southeast: they occupied the Donbass and reached the Don. There was a direct threat to Stalingrad. On July 24, Rostov-on-Don, the gates of the Caucasus, fell. Only now did Stalin understand the true purpose of the German summer offensive. But it was too late to change anything. Fearing the rapid loss of the entire Soviet South, on July 28, 1942, Stalin issued Order No. 227, in which, under the threat of execution, he forbade the troops to leave the front line without instructions from the higher command. This order went down in the history of the war under the name "Not a step back!"
In early September, street fighting broke out in Stalingrad, destroyed to the ground. But the stubbornness and courage of the Soviet defenders of the city on the Volga seemed to do the impossible - by mid-November, the offensive capabilities of the Germans had completely dried up. By this time, in the battles for Stalingrad, they had lost almost 700 thousand killed and wounded, over 1 thousand tanks and over 1.4 thousand aircraft. The Germans not only failed to occupy the city, but went on the defensive.
occupation regime. By the autumn of 1942, German troops managed to capture most of the European territory of the USSR. A strict occupation regime was established in the cities and villages they occupied. The main goals of Germany in the war against the USSR were the destruction of the Soviet state, the transformation of the Soviet Union into an agrarian and raw material appendage and a source of cheap labor for the "Third Reich".
In the occupied territories, the former governing bodies were liquidated. All power belonged to the military command of the German army. In the summer of 1941, special courts were introduced, which were given the right to pass death sentences for disobedience to the invaders. Death camps were created for prisoners of war and those Soviet people who sabotaged the decisions of the German authorities. Everywhere the occupiers staged demonstrative executions of party and Soviet activists, members of the underground.
All citizens of the occupied territories aged 18 to 45 were affected by labor mobilization. They had to work 14-16 hours a day. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet people were sent for forced labor in Germany.
The "Ost" plan, developed by the Nazis even before the war, contained a program for the "development" of Eastern Europe. According to this plan, it was supposed to destroy 30 million Russians, and turn the rest into slaves and resettle in Siberia. During the war years in the occupied territories of the USSR, the Nazis killed about 11 million people (including about 7 million civilians and about 4 million prisoners of war).
Partisan and underground movement. The threat of physical violence did not stop the Soviet people in the fight against the enemy, not only at the front, but also in the rear. The Soviet underground movement arose already in the first weeks of the war. In places subjected to occupation, party organs operated illegally.
During the war years, more than 6 thousand partisan detachments were formed, in which more than 1 million people fought. Representatives of most of the peoples of the USSR, as well as citizens of other countries, acted in their ranks. Soviet partisans destroyed, wounded and captured more than 1 million enemy soldiers and officers, representatives of the occupation administration, disabled more than 4 thousand tanks and armored vehicles, 65 thousand vehicles and 1100 aircraft. They destroyed and damaged 1,600 railway bridges and derailed over 20,000 railway trains. To coordinate the actions of the partisans in 1942, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, headed by P.K. Ponomarenko.
The underground heroes acted not only against the enemy troops, but also carried out the death sentences of the Nazi executioners. The legendary scout N. I. Kuznetsov destroyed the chief judge of Ukraine Funk, the vice-governor of Galicia Bauer, kidnapped the commander of the German punitive forces in Ukraine, General Ilgen. The general commissioner of Belarus to Cuba was blown up by the underground worker E. Mazanik right in bed in his own residence.
During the war years, the state awarded more than 184 thousand partisans and underground fighters with orders and medals. 249 of them were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The legendary commanders of partisan formations S. A. Kovpak and A. F. Fedorov presented themselves for this award twice.
Formation of the Anti-Hitler coalition. From the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Great Britain and the United States declared support for the Soviet Union. British Prime Minister W. Churchill, speaking on the radio on June 22, 1941, declared: "The danger to Russia is our danger and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of every Russian fighting for his land and home is the cause of free people and free peoples in every part of the world.
In July 1941, an agreement was signed between the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Hitler, and in early August, the US government announced economic and military-technical assistance to the Soviet Union "in the struggle against armed aggression." In September 1941, the first conference of representatives of the three powers was held in Moscow, at which issues of expanding military-technical assistance from Great Britain and the United States to the Soviet Union were discussed. After the US entered the war against Japan and Germany (December 1941), their military cooperation with the USSR expanded even more.
On January 1, 1942, in Washington, representatives of 26 states signed a declaration in which they pledged to use all their resources to fight a common enemy and not conclude a separate peace. Signed in May 1942, an agreement on the union of the USSR and Great Britain and in June - an agreement with the United States on mutual assistance finally formalized the military alliance of the three countries.
Results of the first period of the war. The first period of the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942 (until the Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive near Stalingrad), was of great historical significance. The Soviet Union withstood a military strike of such force that no other country could withstand at that time.
The courage and heroism of the Soviet people frustrated Hitler's plans for a "blitzkrieg". Despite heavy defeats during the first year of the struggle against Germany and its allies, the Red Army showed its high fighting qualities. By the summer of 1942, the transition of the country's economy to a war footing was basically completed, which laid the main prerequisite for a radical change in the course of the war. At this stage, the Anti-Hitler coalition took shape, which possessed huge military, economic and human resources.
What you need to know about this topic:
Socio-economic and political development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas II.
Domestic policy of tsarism. Nicholas II. Strengthening repression. "Police socialism".
Russo-Japanese War. Reasons, course, results.
Revolution of 1905 - 1907 The nature, driving forces and features of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. stages of the revolution. The reasons for the defeat and the significance of the revolution.
Elections to the State Duma. I State Duma. The agrarian question in the Duma. Dispersal of the Duma. II State Duma. Coup d'état June 3, 1907
Third June political system. Electoral law June 3, 1907 III State Duma. The alignment of political forces in the Duma. Duma activities. government terror. The decline of the labor movement in 1907-1910
Stolypin agrarian reform.
IV State Duma. Party composition and Duma factions. Duma activity.
The political crisis in Russia on the eve of the war. The labor movement in the summer of 1914 Crisis of the top.
The international position of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Beginning of the First World War. Origin and nature of war. Russia's entry into the war. Attitude towards the war of parties and classes.
The course of hostilities. Strategic forces and plans of the parties. Results of the war. The role of the Eastern Front in the First World War.
The Russian economy during the First World War.
Workers' and peasants' movement in 1915-1916. Revolutionary movement in the army and navy. Growing anti-war sentiment. Formation of the bourgeois opposition.
Russian culture of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
Aggravation of socio-political contradictions in the country in January-February 1917. The beginning, prerequisites and nature of the revolution. Uprising in Petrograd. Formation of the Petrograd Soviet. Provisional Committee of the State Duma. Order N I. Formation of the Provisional Government. Abdication of Nicholas II. Causes of dual power and its essence. February coup in Moscow, at the front, in the provinces.
From February to October. The policy of the Provisional Government in relation to war and peace, on agrarian, national, labor issues. Relations between the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The arrival of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd.
Political parties (Kadets, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks): political programs, influence among the masses.
Crises of the Provisional Government. An attempted military coup in the country. Growth of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. Bolshevization of the capital Soviets.
Preparation and conduct of an armed uprising in Petrograd.
II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Decisions about power, peace, land. Formation of public authorities and management. Composition of the first Soviet government.
The victory of the armed uprising in Moscow. Government agreement with the Left SRs. Elections to the Constituent Assembly, its convocation and dissolution.
The first socio-economic transformations in the field of industry, agriculture, finance, labor and women's issues. Church and State.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms and significance.
Economic tasks of the Soviet government in the spring of 1918. Aggravation of the food issue. The introduction of food dictatorship. Working squads. Comedy.
The revolt of the left SRs and the collapse of the two-party system in Russia.
First Soviet Constitution.
Causes of intervention and civil war. The course of hostilities. Human and material losses of the period of the civil war and military intervention.
The internal policy of the Soviet leadership during the war. "War Communism". GOELRO plan.
The policy of the new government in relation to culture.
Foreign policy. Treaties with border countries. Participation of Russia in the Genoa, Hague, Moscow and Lausanne conferences. Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the main capitalist countries.
Domestic policy. Socio-economic and political crisis of the early 20s. Famine of 1921-1922 Transition to a new economic policy. The essence of the NEP. NEP in the field of agriculture, trade, industry. financial reform. Economic recovery. Crises during the NEP and its curtailment.
Projects for the creation of the USSR. I Congress of Soviets of the USSR. The first government and the Constitution of the USSR.
Illness and death of V.I. Lenin. Intraparty struggle. The beginning of the formation of Stalin's regime of power.
Industrialization and collectivization. Development and implementation of the first five-year plans. Socialist competition - purpose, forms, leaders.
Formation and strengthening of the state system of economic management.
The course towards complete collectivization. Dispossession.
Results of industrialization and collectivization.
Political, national-state development in the 30s. Intraparty struggle. political repression. Formation of the nomenklatura as a layer of managers. Stalinist regime and the constitution of the USSR in 1936
Soviet culture in the 20-30s.
Foreign policy of the second half of the 20s - mid-30s.
Domestic policy. The growth of military production. Extraordinary measures in the field of labor legislation. Measures to solve the grain problem. Military establishment. Growth of the Red Army. military reform. Repressions against the command personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army.
Foreign policy. Non-aggression pact and treaty of friendship and borders between the USSR and Germany. The entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the USSR. Soviet-Finnish war. The inclusion of the Baltic republics and other territories in the USSR.
Periodization of the Great Patriotic War. First stage war. Turning the country into a military camp. Military defeats 1941-1942 and their reasons. Major military events Capitulation of Nazi Germany. Participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.
Soviet rear during the war.
Deportation of peoples.
Partisan struggle.
Human and material losses during the war.
Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Declaration of the United Nations. The problem of the second front. Conferences of the "Big Three". Problems of post-war peace settlement and all-round cooperation. USSR and UN.
Start " cold war". The contribution of the USSR to the creation of the "socialist camp". The formation of the CMEA.
Domestic policy of the USSR in the mid-1940s - early 1950s. Restoration of the national economy.
Socio-political life. Politics in the field of science and culture. Continued repression. "Leningrad business". Campaign against cosmopolitanism. "Doctors' Case".
Socio-economic development of Soviet society in the mid-50s - the first half of the 60s.
Socio-political development: XX Congress of the CPSU and the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult. Rehabilitation of victims of repressions and deportations. Intra-party struggle in the second half of the 1950s.
Foreign policy: the creation of the ATS. The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Exacerbation of Soviet-Chinese relations. The split of the "socialist camp". Soviet-American Relations and the Caribbean Crisis. USSR and third world countries. Reducing the strength of the armed forces of the USSR. Moscow Treaty on the Limitation of Nuclear Tests.
USSR in the mid-60s - the first half of the 80s.
Socio-economic development: economic reform 1965
Growing difficulties of economic development. Decline in the rate of socio-economic growth.
USSR Constitution 1977
Socio-political life of the USSR in the 1970s - early 1980s.
Foreign Policy: Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Consolidation of post-war borders in Europe. Moscow treaty with Germany. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Soviet-American treaties of the 70s. Soviet-Chinese relations. The entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Exacerbation of international tension and the USSR. Strengthening of the Soviet-American confrontation in the early 80s.
USSR in 1985-1991
Domestic policy: an attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. An attempt to reform the political system of Soviet society. Congresses of People's Deputies. Election of the President of the USSR. Multi-party system. Exacerbation of the political crisis.
Exacerbation of the national question. Attempts to reform the national-state structure of the USSR. Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. "Novogarevsky process". The collapse of the USSR.
Foreign policy: Soviet-American relations and the problem of disarmament. Treaties with leading capitalist countries. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Changing relations with the countries of the socialist community. Disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
the Russian Federation in 1992-2000
Domestic policy: "Shock therapy" in the economy: price liberalization, stages of privatization of commercial and industrial enterprises. Fall in production. Increased social tension. Growth and slowdown in financial inflation. The aggravation of the struggle between the executive and legislative branches. The dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. October events of 1993. Abolition of local bodies of Soviet power. Elections to the Federal Assembly. The Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 Formation of the presidential republic. Aggravation and overcoming of national conflicts in the North Caucasus.
Parliamentary elections 1995 Presidential elections 1996 Power and opposition. An attempt to return to the course of liberal reforms (spring 1997) and its failure. The financial crisis of August 1998: causes, economic and political consequences. "Second Chechen War". Parliamentary elections in 1999 and early presidential elections in 2000 Foreign policy: Russia in the CIS. Participation of Russian troops in the "hot spots" of the near abroad: Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan. Russia's relations with far-abroad countries. Withdrawal of Russian troops from Europe and CIS countries, Russian-American agreements, Russia and NATO, Russia and the Council of Europe, Yugoslav crises (1999-2000) and Russia's position.
- Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G. History of the state and peoples of Russia. XX century.
Vyacheslav Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR:
"The adviser to the German ambassador Hilger, when he handed the note, shed a tear."
Anastas Mikoyan, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee:
“Immediately, members of the Politburo gathered at Stalin’s. We decided that it was necessary to make a speech on the radio in connection with the outbreak of the war. Of course, they suggested that Stalin do it. But Stalin refused - let Molotov speak. Of course, this was a mistake. But Stalin was in such a depressed state that he did not know what to say to the people.
Lazar Kaganovich, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee:
“We gathered at Stalin's at night when Molotov received Schulenburg. Stalin gave each of us a task - to me for transport, to Mikoyan - for supplies.
Vasily Pronin, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Council:
“On June 21, 1941, at ten o'clock in the evening, Shcherbakov, secretary of the Moscow Party Committee, was summoned to the Kremlin. We had barely sat down when, addressing us, Stalin said: “According to intelligence and defectors, German troops intend to attack our borders tonight. Apparently, the war begins. Do you have everything ready in urban air defense? Report!" We were released at about 3 am. Twenty minutes later we arrived at the house. They were waiting for us at the gate. “They called from the Central Committee of the party,” the person who met him said, “and they instructed me to convey: the war has begun and we must be on the spot.”
- Georgy Zhukov, Pavel Batov and Konstantin Rokossovsky
- RIA News
Georgy Zhukov, General of the Army:
“At 4:30 am, Timoshenko and I arrived at the Kremlin. All the summoned members of the Politburo were already assembled. Me and the people's commissar were invited to the office.
I.V. Stalin was pale and sat at the table, holding a pipe not stuffed with tobacco in his hands.
We reported the situation. J.V. Stalin said in bewilderment:
“Is this not a provocation of the German generals?”
“The Germans are bombing our cities in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics. What kind of provocation is this…” S.K. Timoshenko answered.
... After some time, V.M. Molotov quickly entered the office:
"The German government has declared war on us."
JV Stalin silently sank into a chair and thought deeply.
There was a long, painful pause."
Alexander Vasilevsky,major general:
"At 4 o'clock with minutes, we became aware from the operational bodies of the district headquarters about the bombing of our airfields and cities by German aircraft."
Konstantin Rokossovsky,lieutenant general:
“At about four in the morning on June 22, upon receiving a telephone message from the headquarters, I was forced to open a special secret operational package. The directive indicated: immediately put the corps on combat readiness and advance in the direction of Rovno, Lutsk, Kovel.
Ivan Bagramyan, Colonel:
“... The first strike of German aviation, although it turned out to be unexpected for the troops, did not at all cause panic. In a difficult situation, when everything that could burn was on fire, when barracks, residential buildings, warehouses were collapsing before our eyes, communications were interrupted, the commanders made every effort to maintain leadership of the troops. They firmly followed the combat regulations that became known to them after opening the packages they had stored.
Semyon Budyonny, Marshal:
“At 04:01 on June 22, 1941, Comrade Timoshenko, People's Commissar, called me and said that the Germans were bombing Sevastopol and should I report to Comrade Stalin about this? I told him that it was necessary to report immediately, but he said: “You call!” I immediately called and reported not only about Sevastopol, but also about Riga, which the Germans are also bombing. Tov. Stalin asked: "Where is the People's Commissar?" I answered: “Here, next to me” (I was already in the People’s Commissar’s office). Tov. Stalin ordered the phone to be handed over to him ...
Thus the war began!
- RIA News
Iosif Geibo, deputy regiment commander of the 46th IAP, ZapVO:
“... My chest went cold. In front of me are four twin-engine bombers with black crosses on their wings. I even bit my lip. Why, these are Junkers! German Ju-88 bombers! What to do? .. Another thought arose: "Today is Sunday, and on Sundays the Germans do not have training flights." So it's a war? Yes, war!
Nikolai Osintsev, chief of staff of the division of the 188th anti-aircraft artillery regiment of the Red Army:
“On the 22nd, at 4 o’clock in the morning, we heard sounds: boom-boom-boom-boom. It turned out that it was German aircraft that unexpectedly flew into our airfields. Our planes did not even have time to change these airfields and all remained in their places. Almost all of them were destroyed."
Vasily Chelombitko, head of the 7th department of the Academy of Armored and Mechanized Troops:
“On June 22, our regiment stopped to rest in the forest. Suddenly we see planes flying, the commander announced a drill, but suddenly the planes began to bomb us. We understood that the war had begun. Here in the forest at 12 noon they listened to Comrade Molotov's speech on the radio and on the same day at noon received the first combat order of Chernyakhovsky about the division moving forward towards Siauliai.
Yakov Boyko, lieutenant:
“Today, i.e. 06/22/41, day off. While I was writing a letter to you, I suddenly hear on the radio that the brutal Nazi fascism bombed our cities ... But this will cost them dearly, and Hitler will no longer live in Berlin ... I now have only one in my soul hatred and the desire to destroy the enemy where he came from ... "
Pyotr Kotelnikov, defender of the Brest Fortress:
“In the morning we were awakened by a strong blow. Broke the roof. I was stunned. I saw the wounded and the dead, I realized: this is no longer an exercise, but a war. Most of the soldiers of our barracks died in the first seconds. Following the adults, I rushed to the weapon, but they did not give me rifles. Then I, with one of the Red Army men, rushed to extinguish the wares.
Timofei Dombrovsky, Red Army machine gunner:
“Airplanes poured fire on us from above, artillery - mortars, heavy, light guns - below, on the ground, and all at once! We lay down on the banks of the Bug, from where we saw everything that was happening on the opposite bank. Everyone immediately understood what was happening. The Germans attacked - war!
Cultural figures of the USSR
- All-Union Radio announcer Yuri Levitan
Yuri Levitan, announcer:
“When we, the announcers, were called to the radio early in the morning, the calls had already begun to ring out. They call from Minsk: “Enemy planes over the city”, they call from Kaunas: “The city is on fire, why aren’t you transmitting anything on the radio?”, “Enemy planes are over Kiev.” Women's crying, excitement: "Is it really war"? .. And now I remember - I turned on the microphone. In all cases, I remember myself that I only worried internally, only experienced internally. But here, when I uttered the words “Moscow is speaking”, I feel that I can’t continue to speak - a lump in my throat got stuck. They are already knocking from the control room - “Why are you silent? Go on! He clenched his fists and continued: "Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union ..."
Georgy Knyazev, Director of the Archives of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad:
V.M. Molotov's speech about the German attack on the Soviet Union was broadcast on the radio. The war began at 4 1/2 in the morning with an attack by German aircraft on Vitebsk, Kovno, Zhitomir, Kiev, and Sevastopol. There are dead. The Soviet troops were ordered to repulse the enemy, to drive him out of our country. And my heart trembled. Here it is, the moment we were afraid to even think about. Ahead... Who knows what's ahead!
Nikolay Mordvinov, actor:
“Makarenko was rehearsing... Anorov bursts in without permission... and in an alarming, muffled voice says: “War against fascism, comrades!”
So, the most terrible front has opened!
Woe! Woe!”
Marina Tsvetaeva, poet:
Nikolai Punin, art historian:
“I remembered the first impressions of the war ... Molotov’s speech, which A.A. ran in with disheveled hair (grayed) in a black Chinese silk robe . (Anna Andreevna Akhmatova)».
Konstantin Simonov, poet:
“The fact that the war had already begun, I learned only at two o'clock in the afternoon. All morning on June 22, he wrote poetry and did not answer the phone. And when he came up, the first thing he heard was war.
Alexander Tvardovsky, poet:
"War with Germany. I'm going to Moscow."
Olga Bergolts, poet:
Russian emigrants
- Ivan Bunin
- RIA News
Ivan Bunin, writer:
"June, 22. From a new page I am writing the continuation of this day - a great event - Germany this morning declared war on Russia - and the Finns and Romanians have already "invaded" its "limits".
Pyotr Makhrov, lieutenant general:
“The day the Germans declared war on Russia, June 22, 1941, had such a strong effect on my whole being that the next day, the 23rd (the 22nd was Sunday), I sent ordered letter Bogomolov [the Soviet ambassador to France], asking him to send me to Russia to enroll in the army, at least as a private.”
USSR citizens
- Residents of Leningrad listen to a message about the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union
- RIA News
Lydia Shablova:
“We were tearing shingles in the yard to cover the roof. The kitchen window was open and we heard the radio announce that the war had begun. Father froze. His hands dropped: “We will probably not finish the roof ...”.
Anastasia Nikitina-Arshinova:
“Early in the morning, a terrible roar woke me and the children. Shells and bombs burst, shrapnel screeched. I grabbed the children and ran barefoot into the street. We barely had time to grab some clothes with us. The street was terrified. Above the fortress (Brest) planes circled and dropped bombs on us. Women and children rushed around in a panic, trying to escape. In front of me lay the wife of one lieutenant and her son - both were killed by a bomb.
Anatoly Krivenko:
“We lived not far from the Arbat, in Bolshoy Afanasevsky Lane. There was no sun that day, the sky was covered with clouds. I was walking in the yard with the boys, we were chasing a rag ball. And then my mother jumped out of the entrance in one combination, barefoot, running and shouting: “Home! Tolya, go home immediately! War!"
Nina Shinkareva:
“We lived in a village in the Smolensk region. That day, my mother went to the neighboring village for eggs and butter, and when she returned, father and other men had already gone to war. On the same day, residents began to evacuate. A big car arrived, and my mother put on all the clothes that my sister and I had, so that in winter we also had something to wear.
Anatoly Vokrosh:
“We lived in the village of Pokrov, Moscow Region. On that day, the guys and I were going to the river to catch carp. Mother caught me on the street, told me to eat first. I went to the house and ate. When he began to spread honey on bread, Molotov's message about the beginning of the war was heard. After eating, I ran away with the boys to the river. We rushed about in the bushes, shouting: “The war has begun! Hooray! We will defeat everyone!" We had absolutely no idea what it all meant. The adults discussed the news, but I don't remember any panic or fear in the village. The villagers were doing their usual things, and on this day, and in the following cities, summer residents gathered.
Boris Vlasov:
“In June 1941, he arrived in Oryol, where he was assigned immediately after graduating from the Hydrometeorological Institute. On the night of June 22, I spent the night in a hotel, as I had not yet managed to transport my things to the allotted apartment. In the morning I heard some fuss, turmoil, and the alarm signal overslept. It was announced on the radio that an important government message would be broadcast at 12 o'clock. Then I realized that I overslept not a training, but a combat alarm - the war began.
Alexandra Komarnitskaya:
“I rested in a children's camp near Moscow. There, the camp leadership announced to us that the war with Germany had begun. Everyone—the counselors and the children—began to cry.”
Ninel Karpova:
“We listened to the message about the beginning of the war from the loudspeaker at the House of Defense. There were a lot of people there. I was not upset, on the contrary, I became proud: my father will defend the Motherland ... In general, people were not afraid. Yes, women, of course, were upset, crying. But there was no panic. Everyone was sure that we would quickly defeat the Germans. The men said: “Yes, the Germans will drape from us!”.
Nikolay Chebykin:
“June 22 was Sunday. Such a sunny day! And my father and I dug a cellar for potatoes with shovels. About twelve o'clock. Somewhere before five minutes, my sister Shura opens the window and says: “They are broadcasting on the radio:“ A very important government message will be transmitted now! Well, we put down the shovels and went to listen. It was Molotov. And he said that the German troops, treacherously, without declaring war, attacked our country. Crossed the state border. The Red Army is fighting hard. And he ended with the words: “Our cause is right! The enemy will be defeated! Victory will be ours!".
German generals
- RIA News
Guderian:
“On the fateful day of June 22, 1941, at 2:10 am, I went to the command post of the group and went up to the observation tower south of Bogukala. At 03:15 our artillery preparation began. At 3 o'clock 40 min. - the first raid of our dive bombers. At 04:15, the forward units of the 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions began to cross the Bug. At 6 hours 50 minutes at Kolodno, I crossed the Bug in an assault boat.
“On June 22, at three hours and minutes, four corps of the tank group, with the support of artillery and aviation, which was part of the 8th aviation corps, crossed the state border. Bomber aircraft attacked enemy airfields, with the task of paralyzing the actions of his aircraft.
On the first day, the offensive proceeded completely according to plan.
Manstein:
“Already on this first day, we had to get acquainted with the methods by which the war was waged on the Soviet side. One of our reconnaissance patrols, cut off by the enemy, was later found by our troops, it was cut out and brutally mutilated. My adjutant and I traveled a lot in areas where enemy units could still be located, and we decided not to surrender alive into the hands of this enemy.
Blumentritt:
“The behavior of the Russians, even in the first battle, was strikingly different from the behavior of the Poles and allies who were defeated on the Western Front. Even being in the encirclement, the Russians staunchly defended themselves.
German soldiers and officers
- www.nationaalarchief.nl.
Erich Mende, Oberleutnant:
“My commander was twice my age, and he had already had to fight the Russians near Narva in 1917, when he was in the rank of lieutenant. “Here, in these endless expanses, we will find our death, like Napoleon ...” he did not hide his pessimism. “Mende, remember this hour, it marks the end of the old Germany.”
Johann Danzer, artilleryman:
“On the very first day, as soon as we went on the attack, one of ours shot himself with his own weapon. Clutching the rifle between his knees, he inserted the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Thus ended the war and all the horrors associated with it.
Alfred Dürwanger, lieutenant:
“When we entered into the first battle with the Russians, they clearly did not expect us, but they could not be called unprepared either. Enthusiasm (we have) was not in sight! Rather, everyone was seized by a sense of the grandeur of the forthcoming campaign. And then the question arose: where, at which settlement will this campaign end?!”
Hubert Becker, lieutenant:
“It was a hot summer day. We walked across the field, suspecting nothing. Suddenly, artillery fire fell upon us. That's how my baptism of fire happened - a strange feeling.
Helmut Pabst, non-commissioned officer
“The advance continues. We are constantly moving forward through enemy territory, we have to constantly change positions. I'm terribly thirsty. There is no time to swallow a piece. By 10 am, we were already experienced, fired upon fighters, who had time to see a lot: positions abandoned by the enemy, tanks and vehicles wrecked and burned out, the first prisoners, the first killed Russians.
Rudolf Gshöpf, chaplain:
“This artillery preparation, gigantic in terms of power and coverage of the territory, was like an earthquake. Huge mushrooms of smoke were visible everywhere, instantly growing out of the ground. Since there was no talk of any return fire, it seemed to us that we had completely wiped this citadel off the face of the earth.
Hans Becker, tanker:
“On the Eastern Front, I met people who can be called a special race. Already the first attack turned into a battle not for life, but for death.
In 1941, Germany treacherously attacked the Soviet Union. The Barbarossa plan came into effect - a plan for a lightning war against the USSR, which, according to the plans of the military-political leadership of Germany, was supposed to lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union within 8-10 weeks. Having unleashed a war against the USSR, the Nazis put forward a version about the Red Army's invasion of Europe allegedly being prepared in 1941, about the threat of Germany, which, in order to protect its country and other Western European countries, was forced to start a pre-emptive "preventive" war against the Soviet Union. The explanation of war as a preventive measure was first given by Hitler in front of the generals of the Wehrmacht on the day of the attack on our country. He said that “the moment has now come when the expected policy is not only a sin, but a crime that violates the interests of the German people. And, consequently, all of Europe. Now about 150 Russian divisions are on our border. For a number of weeks there have been continuous violations of this border, not only on our territory, but also in the Far North of Europe, and in Romania. Soviet pilots they entertained themselves by not recognizing the border, apparently in order to prove to us in this way that they consider themselves the masters of these territories. On the night of June 18, Russian patrols again penetrated German territory and were pushed back only after a long skirmish. This was also stated in Hitler's appeal "To the soldiers of the Eastern Front", read out on the night of June 22, 1941 to the personnel of the Wehrmacht. In it, military actions against the Soviet Union were allegedly motivated by "Russian offensive intentions."
Officially, this version was launched on June 22, 1941 in a statement by the German ambassador F. Schulenburg, handed over to the Soviet government, and in a memorandum handed by I. Ribbentrop on the same day to the Soviet ambassador in Berlin V. Dekanozov - already after the invasion of German troops into the Soviet territory. Schulenburg's statement claimed that while Germany faithfully observed the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, Russia repeatedly violated it. The USSR waged "sabotage, terrorism, and espionage" against Germany, "opposed German attempts to establish a stable order in Europe." The Soviet Union entered into an agreement with England "in order to attack German troops in Romania and Bulgaria", concentrating "all available Russian armed forces on a long front from the Baltic to the Black Sea", the USSR "created a threat to the Reich." Therefore, the Fuhrer "ordered the German armed forces to repel this threat with all the means at their disposal." The memorandum of the German government, handed to Dekanozov, said: “The hostile behavior of the Soviet government towards Germany and the serious danger manifested in the movement of Russian troops to the German eastern border is forcing the Reich to retaliate.” The accusation of the Soviet Union of aggressiveness, of the intention to "blow up Germany from within" was contained in Hitler's appeal to the German people, read out on the morning of June 22 by Goebbels on the radio.
Thus, the Nazi leaders, trying to justify fascist aggression, argued that they were forced to take the path of a "preventive" war against the USSR, since it was allegedly preparing to attack Germany, to stab her in the back. The version of a “preemptive” strike is trying to remove from German fascism the responsibility for unleashing the war, leading to the assertion that the USSR was guilty of starting it, because, as follows from its judgments, the Wehrmacht took actions that were supposedly only offensive in the military sense, and in the political sense - quite justified. In a broader sense, according to some domestic historians, this issue also affects the problem of Nazi Germany's responsibility for World War II.
In a statement by the Soviet government in connection with the German attack on the USSR, these "justifications" for fascist aggression were qualified as a policy of "retroactively concocting accusatory material about the Soviet Union's non-compliance with the Soviet-German pact."
Domestic historians, revealing the origins of the version of the “preventive” war, emphasize that a similar point of view: “Germany’s war against the USSR is only a prevention of the Red Army’s preparing strike” was also expressed by other leaders of the Third Reich close to Hitler: Rudolf Hess, Heydrich, General - Colonel A. Jodl and others. These statements were picked up by the propaganda department of J. Goebbels and for a long time were used to deceive the German people and the peoples of other countries; the idea of a "preventive" war was intensively introduced into the minds of people. Under the influence of this and pre-war propaganda, many Germans, both at the front and in the rear, considered the war just, indicated in the report of the security service on July 7, 1941, "an absolutely necessary defensive measure" .
Hitler himself at a meeting on July 21, 1941 stated: “there are no signs of the USSR speaking out against us”
Domestic historians who reject the far-fetched false statements of the Nazis also rely on the fact that the version of a preventive attack - the most convenient way to justify aggression - was essentially rejected by none other than Hitler himself. At a meeting on July 21, 1941, he, characterizing Stalin's intentions, stated that "there are no signs of a speech (USSR. - M.F.) is not against us.” We emphasize that it was at this meeting that Field Marshal W. Brauchitsch received Hitler's instructions to begin developing a plan for attacking the USSR.
Let us mention another very important statement by Hitler, in which he concentratedly characterized the fundamental motives for his decision to start a war against the USSR - it is given in the work of the German historian J. Tauber. On February 15, 1945 (the end of the war was already approaching), Hitler returned to the topic of war. “The most difficult decision of this war was the order to attack Russia,” he said. - There was no longer any hope of ending the war in the West by landing on the English Isles. The war could go on without end; war, the prospects for participation in which the Americans were growing ... Time - time again and again! - more and more worked against us. The only way to force England to peace was to destroy the Red Army and deprive the British of the hope of opposing us on the continent with an equivalent enemy.
Let us note that there is not a single word about the threat of an attack by the Soviet Union on Germany, about a stab in the back, and about other arguments to justify a "preventive" attack on the USSR.
Goebbels: "Preventive war is the most reliable and convenient war, if we take into account that the enemy must still be attacked"
Let's also read the notes of the Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich J. Goebbels. On June 16, 1941, he wrote in his diary: “The Führer declares that we must achieve victory, whether we are right or wrong. We must achieve victory by any means, otherwise the German people will be wiped off the face of the earth. On July 9, in an atmosphere of euphoria from the victories of the Wehrmacht, he writes: “Preventive war is the most reliable and convenient war, if we take into account that the enemy must still be attacked at the first opportunity. This was the case with respect to Bolshevism. Now we will beat him until destruction. As they say, comments are superfluous here.
The version of a "preventive" war was rejected at the Nuremberg trials of the main war criminals in 1945-1946. Thus, the former head of the German press and broadcasting, G. Fritsche, stated in his testimony that he organized a wide campaign of anti-Soviet propaganda, trying to convince the public that “we only anticipated the attack of the Soviet Union ... The next task of German propaganda was to constantly emphasize that not Germany, but the Soviet Union, is responsible for this war, although there were no grounds for accusing the USSR of preparing an attack on Germany. And a number of German generals who testified at the trial did not deny this. Even Paulus, who was the developer of the Barbarossa plan, admitted that "any facts indicating the preparation of the Soviet Union for an attack did not fall into our field of vision." Field Marshal von Rundstedt stated: “In March 1941, I had no idea about the allegedly carried out (by the USSR. - M.F.) military preparations. He and other generals in Hitler's briefing were surprised to hear that "the Russians are arming quite heavily and are now deploying troops to attack us." According to General von Brauchitsch, during a visit to the 17th Army in June 1941, he became convinced that the grouping of the Red Army forces had a pronounced defensive character.
Map of Operation Barbarossa
“On June 22, 1941,” the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal notes, “without declaring war, Germany invaded Soviet territory in accordance with pre-prepared plans. The evidence presented to the tribunal confirms that Germany had elaborate plans to crush the USSR as a political and military force in order to clear the way for expansion to the East in accordance with her aspirations ... Plans for the economic exploitation of the USSR, mass deportation of the population, the murder of commissars and political leaders are part of a carefully crafted plan that began on 22 June without any warning or legal justification. It was clear aggression."
The thesis about the preventive attack, as G. Kumanev and E. Shklyar rightly note, was always included in the official explanations of their actions by the Nazi Reich. However, the plan for the invasion of Austria was developed 4 months before the Anschluss, Czechoslovakia - 11 months before its occupation, Poland - 5 months before the start of hostilities, the Soviet Union - almost a year before the attack. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that these countries were ready to make compromises and concessions in order not to give Germany a pretext for aggression.
The version of a "preventive" war is completely untenable; fascist Germany carried out unprovoked perfidious aggression. A. Utkin believes that “in general, the historiographic stars of the first magnitude on this issue agree that in June 1941, not a preventive war was launched, but the realization of Hitler’s true intentions, which were ideologically motivated, began.”
The inconsistency of the Nazi thesis about a "preventive" war has been quite thoroughly and in detail proved in many works of Russian historians. The facts they cited, based on archival and other sources, testify that the Soviet state did not plan any aggressive actions, not intending to attack anyone. Most Russian authors convincingly show that the thesis of Germany's "preventive" war against the Soviet Union aims to distort the socio-political essence of the Soviet people's war against Nazi Germany, its just, liberating character. At the same time, they rely on documents that have long become known, indisputably testifying to the barbaric, merciless nature of Germany's war against the USSR, the essence of which can be described in two words: conquer and destroy.
Hitler: “Our task in Russia is to destroy the state. It's about fighting to annihilate."
This requirement of cruelty to the population permeates the orders of the German command. So, Colonel General E. Gepner demanded: “The war against Russia ... This is a long-standing struggle of the Germans against the Slavs, the protection of European culture from the Muscovite-Asian invasion, a rebuff to Bolshevism. This struggle must have the goal of turning today's Russia into ruins, and therefore it must be waged with unheard-of cruelty.
In 1991, the German mass audience was presented with the exhibition “War of Annihilation. Crimes of the Wehrmacht in 1941-1944. Documentary exhibition. She demonstrated that on the basis of these orders a war of annihilation was waged against the USSR. The exhibition catalog convincingly shows that the Wehrmacht is responsible for the war in the East in 1941-1944, "contrary to international law", for the extermination of millions of people.
For actions against enemy civilians committed by Wehrmacht soldiers and civilians, - stated in the decree of Hitler as Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht of May 13, 1941 on military proceedings in the war with the Soviet Union - there will be no mandatory prosecution, even if the act is a war crime or misdemeanor . This decree legitimized draconian measures against the Soviet population, essentially considering the war with the Soviet Union as fundamentally different from all other "military campaigns" undertaken in 1939, notes the German historian J. Foerster. It should be considered, - he wrote, - "as the struggle of the Germans against the Slavs" with the aim of "destroying present-day Russia".
Hitler: "We don't need either tsarist or Soviet, no Russia"
Specifying long-term plans, Hitler said: “It should be quite clear that from these areas (captured lands. - M.F.) will never leave. According to the Fuhrer, they represent a "huge pie" that had to be "mastered." Three criteria were set for an occupied country: first, to take possession; secondly, manage; third, exploit. For the sake of this, “we will apply all necessary measures: executions, evictions, etc.” . He put it in monosyllables: "We do not need either tsarist or Soviet, no Russia."
Goering: “20 to 30 million people will die of starvation in Russia. It’s good that this will happen: after all, some peoples need to be reduced”
And what will happen to the Russians and other peoples of the country? Let us turn to the general plan "Ost" and to the documents relating to this plan. The plan itself was discovered in the German Federal Archives only at the end of the 80s of the last century. And it became available in digital form only in December 2009 . A document compiled by Dr. Wetzel, head of the colonization of the First Main Political Directorate of the Rosenberg Ministry, dated April 1942, states: “It is not only about the destruction of the state centered in Moscow. The point is most likely to defeat the Russians as a people ... from a biological, especially from a racial-biological point of view ... ". Here is another excerpt from the documents that have become known: “The destruction of the biological strength of the Eastern peoples through a negative demographic policy ... Its goal is to change in the future the quantitative ratio between foreign peoples and Germans in favor of the latter and thus reduce the difficulties that arise when dominating them.” Pitying subhumans, Hitler believed, makes no sense. “This year, 20 to 30 million people will die of starvation in Russia. It may even be good that this will happen: after all, some peoples need to be reduced, ”Goering said in an interview with Ciano in November 1941, echoing Hitler’s thoughts. In total, no more than 15-30 million people should remain on the territory of Russia, in his opinion. The rest, let them move to the east or die - as they please. Assessing the goals of the entire political leadership of Germany, the German historian O. Klöde writes that “not only Bolshevism, but also the Russian nation was subject to destruction ... And in the case of the Slavs in general, Hitler advocated the destruction of not only a different worldview, but also a foreign people.”
Those who remained alive were waiting for an unenviable account. In one of his table talks, Hitler said: “The peoples conquered by us must first of all serve our economic interests. The Slavs were created to work for the Germans, and nothing else. Our goal is to place one hundred million Germans in the places where they currently live. The German authorities should be housed in the best buildings, and the governors should live in palaces. Belts of beautiful German villages connected by centers and good roads will be located around provincial centers within a radius of 30-40 kilometers. On the other side of this belt there will be another world. Let the Russians live there, as they are used to. We will take only the best of their lands. Let the Slavic aborigines tinker in the swamp... Limit everything as much as possible! No printed publications ... No compulsory schooling ... ".
On the territory of the USSR, it was planned to create four Reichskommissariats - German provinces. Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and a number of other cities were to be wiped off the face of the earth. In the "Military folder", which is one of the most detailed documents in which the program for the exploitation of the territory of the USSR was outlined, the goal of turning the Soviet Union into a kind of German colony was formulated in a completely naked form. At the same time, the attitude towards starvation of the majority of the population was constantly emphasized.
The defeat of the Soviet Union was seen as a decisive prerequisite for establishing complete dominance over the European continent and at the same time as the starting point for gaining world domination. The German historian A. Hilgruber notes: "The Eastern campaign occupied a decisive place in the overall military concept of the Nazis", with the "successful completion of the Eastern War" they hoped to gain freedom of action "to implement their worldwide strategy". The famous German historian G.A. Jacobsen described Hitler's goals as follows: “He (Hitler. - M.F.) firmly decided to dismember Russia, mercilessly exploit and despotically oppress the “Eastern subhumans”, and also use the country for the Great German population. After the invasion of the Soviet state and the occupation of a number of territories, the Nazis began to implement a program of genocide against the "race of subhumans" - the Russian nation.
All of the above quite convincingly reveals the main goals of the military-political leadership of Germany in the war with the Soviet Union. They testify to the groundlessness of the allegations about the war between Hitler and Stalin, National Socialism and European Bolshevism, hammered into the heads of the Germans by Goebbels and his assistants and who today found like-minded people in Russia. A victory in the war by fascist Germany would not lead to the destruction of totalitarianism, as some neoliberal historians claim, but to the dismemberment of the country, the destruction of tens of millions of people and the transformation of the survivors into servants of German colonists.
Attempts to distort the nature of war today are becoming more and more cruel, evil, aggressive
An informed reader may ask whether it was worth it in such detail, in detail to disclose the goals of fascist Germany in the war against the USSR, documentary sources that are well known to the absolute majority of people who are not subject to a feeling of unkind attitude towards their people, towards their Fatherland. Apparently, it should have, since it is precisely this aspect of the war - the most important and defining character of it - that in recent years has been increasingly disappearing from television screens, being hushed up on the radio; almost nothing is reported about the barbaric plans of fascism in books about the Great Patriotic War, in a number of textbooks for schools and universities. On the eve of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, attempts to distort the nature of the war, the desire to lay responsibility on the USSR for almost its start "become more and more cruel, evil, aggressive." What has become undesirable is removed from school textbooks, - as M.V. Demurin (an extraordinary and plenipotentiary envoy of the II class), is the most important provision of the Great Patriotic War: "the most important thing is that the Russian people fought [the battle] not for the sake of glory, but for the sake of life." Unfortunately, the collapse of the USSR released and gave rise to forces that are interested in revising the origins and course of the Great Patriotic War. And today, 70 years after our victory over Germany, it is extremely important to comprehensively disclose the plans and goals of Nazi Germany in relation to the USSR and its people, as well as the far-reaching calculations of German fascism. They leave no room for any claims of "preventive" war on Hitler's part. The fate of not only the Soviet people, but also the peoples of the whole world depended on the outcome of the struggle of the Soviet state with fascist Germany.
The war on the part of the Soviet Union had a fundamentally different character. For the peoples of the USSR, the armed struggle against Germany and its allies became the Great Patriotic War for national independence their state, for the freedom and honor of their homeland. In this war, the Soviet people set themselves the goal of helping the peoples of other countries to free themselves from the Nazi yoke, to save a dead civilization from fascist barbarism.
All attempts, consciously or as a result of a one-sided view generated by the insufficient scientific qualifications of the authors, to rewrite and correct the past, to contribute to the distorted picture of the Great Patriotic War, are ultimately futile, no matter how they are in tune with one or another political situation.
Fiction about the war must be countered with the truth of history
Of course, the most important condition for this is the need to overcome the underestimation of the positions of the falsifiers, a resolute, offensive struggle against the distortion of the essence of the character of the Great Patriotic War. It is necessary to oppose the truth of history, based on documentary sources, to the widespread and continuing to increase fictions about the war, to deeply reveal the victories of the Soviet troops in the grandiose battles on the Soviet-German front.
Least of all Stalin and Beria
The question posed in the title of this article has been debated for decades, but to this day there is no honest, accurate and complete answer to it. However, for many people it is obvious: of course, Joseph Vissarionovich and Lavrenty Pavlovich bear the main responsibility for the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War. However, below are the facts, without taking into account which, in my deep conviction, an objective analysis of the then situation is impossible.
I'll start with the memoirs of the former Commander of Long-Range Aviation, Chief Marshal of Aviation A.E. Golovanov (the title, by the way, directly repeats the title of one of the sections of the book). He writes that in June 1941, commanding a separate 212th long-range bomber regiment subordinate directly to Moscow, he arrived from Smolensk to Minsk to be presented to the commander of the Air Force of the Western Special Military District I. I. Kopts and then to the commander of the ZapOVO D. G. Pavlov. During the conversation with Golovanov, Pavlov contacted Stalin via HF. And he began to ask the general questions, to which the commander of the district answered the following: “No, Comrade Stalin, this is not true! I have just returned from the defensive lines. There is no concentration of German troops on the border, and my scouts are working well. I'll check again, but I think it's just a provocation ... "
At the end of the conversation, Pavlov threw Golovanov: “The owner is not in the spirit. Some bastard is trying to prove to him that the Germans are concentrating troops on our border.”
Alarm messages
Today there is no way to establish exactly who this "bastard" was, but there is every reason to believe that the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria was meant. And that's why... On February 3, 1941, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a separate People's Commissariat of State Security headed by Vsevolod Merkulov was separated from the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. On the same day, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, leaving him in the post of head of the NKVD. But now he was not in charge of foreign intelligence, since the NKGB was in charge of it. At the same time, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs was still subordinate to the Border Troops, which had their own intelligence. Her agents did not include the "cream of society", but she was helped by simple train drivers, oilers, switchmen, modest settlers and residents of cordon towns ...
They collected information like ants, and it, concentrated together, gave the most objective picture of what was happening. The result of the work of this "ant intelligence" was reflected in Beria's notes to Stalin, three of which are given below in extracts from the 1995 collection "Hitler's Secrets on Stalin's Table", published jointly by the FSB of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation and the Moscow City Association of Archives. Bold text selections are mine everywhere.
So ... The first note is addressed immediately to Stalin, Molotov and People's Commissar for Defense Timoshenko:
Top secret
From April 1 to April 19, 1941, the border detachments of the NKVD of the USSR on the Soviet-German border obtained the following data on the arrival of German troops at points adjacent to the state border in East Prussia and the governor general.
In the border zone of Klaipeda region:
Two infantry divisions arrived, an infantry regiment, a cavalry squadron, an artillery battalion, a tank battalion and a company of scooters.
To Suwalki Lykk area:
Arrived up to two mechanized divisions, four infantry and two cavalry regiments, tank and sapper battalions.
To Myshinets-Ostrolenka area:
Up to four infantry and one artillery regiments, a tank battalion and a motorcycle battalion arrived.
To the Ostrov Mazowiecki - Malkinia Gorna area:
One infantry and one cavalry regiment arrived, up to two artillery battalions and a company of tanks.
To the area of Biala Podlaska:
One infantry regiment, two engineer battalions, a cavalry squadron, a company of scooters and an artillery battery arrived.
To the Vlodaa-Otchovok area:
Up to three infantry, one cavalry and two artillery regiments arrived.
To the Holm area:
Arrived up to three infantry, four artillery and one motorized regiments, a cavalry regiment and a sapper battalion. Over five hundred cars are also concentrated there.
To the Hrubieszow area:
Up to four infantry, one artillery and one motorized regiments and a cavalry squadron arrived.
To the Tomasov area:
The headquarters of the formation arrived, up to three infantry divisions and up to three hundred tanks.
To the Pshevorsk-Yaroslav area:
They arrived up to an infantry division, over an artillery regiment and up to two cavalry regiments ...
The concentration of German troops near the border took place in small units, up to a battalion, squadron, battery, and often at night.
In the same areas where the troops arrived, a large amount of ammunition, fuel and artificial anti-tank obstacles were delivered ...
During the period from April 1 to April 19, German planes violated the state border 43 times, making reconnaissance flights over our territory to a depth of 200 km.
“... Two army groups concentrated in the areas of Tomashov and Lezhaysk. In these areas, the headquarters of two armies were identified: the headquarters of the 16th army in the town of Ulyanuv ... and the headquarters of the army in the Usmierzh manor ... the commander of which is General Reichenau (requires clarification).
On May 25 from Warsaw ... the transfer of troops of all branches was noted. The movement of troops takes place mainly at night.
On May 17, a group of pilots arrived in Terespol, and a hundred aircraft were delivered to the airfield in Voskshenitsa (near Terespol) ...
Generals of the German army carry out reconnaissance near the border: May 11, General Reichenau - in the area of the town of Ulguvek ... May 18 - a general with a group of officers - in the Belzhets region ... May 23, a general with a group of officers ... in the Radymno region.
Pontoons, canvas and inflatable boats are concentrated in many points near the border. The largest number of them was noted in the directions to Brest and Lvov ... "
“Border detachments of the NKVD of the Ukrainian and Moldavian SSR additionally (our No. 1798 / B of June 2 of this year) obtained the following data:
Along the Soviet-German border
May 20 p. in Byala Podlyaska ... the location of the headquarters of the infantry division, the 313th and 314th infantry regiments, the personal regiment of Marshal Goering and the headquarters of the tank formation are noted.
In the Yanov-Podlyasky area, 33 km northwest of Brest, there are pontoons and parts for twenty wooden bridges...
Along the Soviet-Hungarian border
In the city of Brustura ... there were two Hungarian infantry regiments and in the Khust area - German tank and motorized units.
Along the Soviet-Romanian border ...
During May 21-24, they proceeded from Bucharest to the Soviet-Romanian border: through st. Pashkans - 12 echelons of German infantry with tanks; through st. Craiova - two echelons with tanks; at st. Three echelons of infantry arrived at Dormenashti and at st. Borshchov two echelons with heavy tanks and vehicles.
At the airfield in the Buzeu area ... up to 250 German aircraft were noted ...
The General Staff of the Red Army has been informed."
Beria, even in the half-month remaining before the start of the war, sent Stalin the accumulating data as they were obtained by the agents of the border troops of the NKVD. By June 18-19, 1941, it was clear to them: peacetime counts if not for hours, then for days!
But maybe I'm wrong? After all, Stalin's genuine visa is known on the special message of the People's Commissar of State Security V. N. Merkulov No. 2279 / M dated June 16, 1941, containing information received from the "Foreman" (Schulze-Boysen) and "Corsican" (Arvid Harnak). I quote from the collection of documents “Lubyanka. Stalin and the NKVD-NKGB-GUKR "Smersh". 1939 - March 1946 ":" Comrade. Merkulov. Maybe send your "source" from the German headquarters. aviation to the fucking mother. This is not a "source", but a misinformer. I. St.
This visa is now often cited as an argument against Stalin, losing sight of the fact that he shares the informants and expresses distrust only to one of them - from the Luftwaffe headquarters - the "Sergeant" (Schulze-Boysen), but not the "Corsican" (Harnack). Whether Stalin had grounds for this, let the reader judge for himself.
Although Harro Schulze-Boysen was an honest agent, his report of June 16 looks frivolous only because it confuses the date of the TASS report (not June 14, but June 6), and the second-rate Svirskaya hydroelectric power station, Moscow factories, "producing separate parts for aircraft, as well as car repair (?) workshops." Of course, Stalin had every reason to doubt the honesty of such "information".
However, having imposed a visa, Stalin then (information from the collection of documents "Hitler's Secrets on Stalin's Table") summoned V. N. Merkulov and the head of foreign intelligence P. M. Fitin. The conversation was conducted mainly with the second. Stalin was interested in the smallest details about the sources. After Fitin explained why intelligence trusts Corsican and Sergeant, Stalin said: "Go, check everything, double-check this information and report back to me."
Here are two facts, without knowing which, it is simply impossible to form a correct view of the events of that time.
There is a book "I am a fighter" by Major General of Aviation, Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Nefedovich Zakharov. Before the war, he commanded the 43rd Fighter Air Division of the Western Special Military District with the rank of colonel. He had experience of fighting in Spain (6 aircraft personally shot down and 4 in a group) and in China (3 personally shot down).
Here is what he writes (the quote is extensive, but every phrase is important here): “... Somewhere in the middle of the last pre-war week - it was either the seventeenth or the eighteenth of June of the forty-first year - I received an order from the aviation commander of the Western Special Military District to fly over the western border. The length of the route was four hundred kilometers, and it was necessary to fly from south to north - to Bialystok.
I flew out on a U-2 together with the navigator of the 43rd Fighter Air Division, Major Rumyantsev. The border areas west of the state border were packed with troops. In the villages, on the farms, in the groves, there were poorly camouflaged, or even not at all camouflaged tanks, armored vehicles, and guns. Motorcycles darted along the roads, cars - apparently, headquarters - cars. Somewhere in the depths of a vast territory, a movement was born, which here, at our very border, slowed down, resting on it ... and ready to overflow over it at any moment.
The number of troops recorded by our eye, at a glance, did not leave me any other options for reflection, except for the only one: war was approaching.
Everything that I saw during the flight was superimposed on my previous military experience, and the conclusion that I made for myself can be formulated in four words: "From day to day."
We flew then a little over three hours. I often landed the plane on any suitable site (the emphasis is mine everywhere. - S. B.), which could seem random if the border guard did not immediately approach the plane. The border guard appeared silently, silently saluted (that is, he knew in advance that our plane with urgent information would land soon! - S. B.) and waited for several minutes while I wrote a report on the wing. Having received a report, the border guard disappeared, and we again took to the air and, having traveled 30-50 kilometers, sat down again. And I wrote the report again, and the other border guard waited silently and then, saluting, silently disappeared. By evening, in this way, we flew to Bialystok and landed at the location of the division of Sergei Cherny ... "
By the way ... Zakharov reports that the district air force commander, General Kopets, took him after the report to the district commander. Here is another direct quote: "D. G. Pavlov looked at me as if he had seen me for the first time. I had a feeling of dissatisfaction when, at the end of my message, he smiled and asked if I was exaggerating. The intonation of the commander frankly replaced the word "exaggerate" with "panic" - he obviously did not fully accept everything that I said ... With that, we left.
As you can see, the information of Marshal Golovanov is reliably confirmed by the information of General Zakharov. And we are all told that Stalin "did not believe Pavlov's warnings."
Zakharov, as I understand it, sincerely does not remember when he flew on the instructions of General Kopts - on June 17 or 18? But most likely he flew on June 18th. In any case, not later ... And he flew on Stalin's instructions, although, of course, he himself did not know about this, just as Kopets did not know this either.
Let's think about it: why, if the task was given to Zakharov by the aviation commander of the ZapOVO, that is, a person from the department of People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko, the reports from Zakharov were everywhere accepted by border guards from the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of People's Commissar Beria? And they accepted silently, without asking questions: who, they say, are you and what do you need?
Why were there no questions? How come?! In a tense border atmosphere, an incomprehensible plane is landing near the border, and the border patrol is not interested: what, in fact, does the pilot need here?
This could happen in one case: when at the border under each, figuratively speaking, this plane was waiting for this plane.
Why were they waiting for him? Who needed, and even in real time, Zakharov's information? Who could give an order that united the efforts of Tymoshenko's and Beria's subordinates? Only Stalin. But why did Stalin need this? The correct answer - taking into account the second fact that I cite a little later - is one. This was one of the elements of the strategic sounding of Hitler's intentions, carried out personally by Stalin no later than June 18, 1941.
Imagine again the situation of that summer...
Stalin receives information about the impending war from illegal immigrants and legal overseas residencies of Merkulov from the NKGB, from illegal immigrants of General Golikov from the GRU of the General Staff, from military attachés and through diplomatic channels. But all this may be a strategic provocation of the West, which sees its own salvation in the clash between the USSR and Germany.
However, there is intelligence of the border troops created by Beria, and now it is not only possible, but necessary, to believe her information. This is integral information from such an extensive peripheral intelligence network that it can only be reliable. And this information proves the proximity of the war. But how to check everything finally?
The ideal option is to ask Hitler himself about his true intentions. Not the Fuhrer's entourage, but his own, because the Fuhrer more than once, unexpectedly even for the environment, changed the deadlines for the implementation of his own orders!
Here we come to the second (chronologically, perhaps the first) key fact of the last pre-war week. On June 18, Stalin appeals to Hitler about the urgent dispatch of Molotov to Berlin for mutual consultations.
Information about this proposal of Stalin to Hitler is found in the diary of Franz Halder, Chief of the General Staff of the Reich Ground Forces. On page 579 of the second volume, among other entries on June 20, 1941, there is the following phrase: "Molotov wanted to speak with the Fuhrer on 18.6." One phrase... But it reliably captures the fact of Stalin's proposal to Hitler for an urgent visit by Molotov to Berlin and completely turns the whole picture of the last pre-war days. Fully!
Hitler refuses to meet with Molotov. Even if he began to delay with an answer, this would be proof for Stalin that the war was near. But Hitler refused at once.
After Hitler's refusal, one did not have to be Stalin to draw the same conclusion that Colonel Zakharov did: "From day to day."
And Stalin instructed the People's Commissariat of Defense to ensure urgent and effective aerial reconnaissance of the border zone. And emphasizes that reconnaissance should be carried out by an experienced aviation commander high level. Perhaps he gave such a task to the commander of the Air Force of the Red Army Zhigarev, who visited Stalin's office from 0.45 to 1.50 on June 17 (in fact, already on 18) June 1941, and he called Kopts in Minsk.
On the other hand, Stalin instructs Beria to ensure the immediate and unhindered transmission of the information collected by this experienced aviator to Moscow ...
the day before
Realizing that Hitler did decide to go to war with Russia, Stalin immediately (that is, no later than the evening of June 18) began to give appropriate orders to the People's Commissariat of Defense.
Chronology is very important here, not only by days, but even by hours. For example, often - as evidence of Stalin's alleged "blindness" - it is reported that on June 13, S. K. Timoshenko asked him for permission to put the first echelons on alert and deploy the first echelons according to cover plans. But no permission was received.
Yes, June 13, so, presumably, it was. Stalin, realizing that the country was not yet ready for a serious war, did not want to give Hitler a single reason for it. It is known that Hitler was very unhappy that Stalin could not be provoked. Therefore, on June 13, Stalin could still hesitate - is it time to take all possible measures to deploy troops. Therefore, Stalin began his own soundings, starting with the TASS statement of June 14, which he most likely wrote after a conversation with Timoshenko.
But then followed the sounding described above, which completely changed Stalin's position no later than by the evening of June 18, 1941. Accordingly, all post-war descriptions of the last pre-war week should be considered fundamentally distorted!
Marshal Vasilevsky, for example, later stated that "... it was necessary to boldly step over the threshold", but "Stalin did not dare to do this." However, the events of June 19, 1941 in Kiev and Minsk (as well as in Odessa) prove that by the evening of June 18, 1941, Stalin made up his mind. Today it is known for sure that on June 19, 1941, the departments of the Western and Kiev special districts were transformed into front-line ones. This is documented and confirmed in memoirs. Thus, Marshal of Artillery N. D. Yakovlev, who was appointed chief of the GAU from the post of artillery commander of the Kiev OVO just before the war, recalled that by June 19 he “had already finished handing over to his successor and almost on the go said goodbye to now former colleagues. On the move, because the headquarters of the district and its departments these days just received an order to relocate to Ternopil and hastily curtailed work in Kiev.
Actually, already in 1976, in the book by G. Andreev and I. Vakurov “General Kirponos”, published by the Politizdat of Ukraine, one can read: “... in the afternoon of June 19, an order was received from the People's Commissar of Defense to the field department of the district headquarters to relocate to the city of Ternopil ".
In Ternopil, in the building of the former headquarters of the 44th Infantry Division, a front-line command post of General Kirponos was deployed. The FKP of General Pavlov at that time was unfolding in the Baranovichi region.
Could Timoshenko and Zhukov have ordered this without Stalin's direct sanction? And could such actions be taken without backing them up with Stalin's sanction to increase combat readiness?
But why did the war start with a strategic failure? Isn't it time, I repeat, to answer this question completely and honestly? So that everything that is said above is not left out of the brackets.
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