The main military operations in the wwii. Interesting facts about the Great Patriotic War. WWII history

The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 - war of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against Nazi Germany and its allies (Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia); a decisive part of World War II.

In Russian historical literature, the Great Patriotic War is usually divided into three periods:

Period I (initial) from June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942 (the Red Army leaves a large territory, fought heavy defensive battles, the first major defeat of Nazi troops near Moscow, disrupting the blitzkrieg attempt);

II period (the period of a radical turning point in the war) from November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943 (the Nazis were defeated at Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge, in the North Caucasus, on the Dnieper);

III period (final) from January 1944 to May 8, 1945 (the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Crimea, the Baltic states, the restoration of the state border of the USSR, the liberation of the peoples of Europe and the defeat of the Hitlerite coalition);

On June 22, 1941, the German invasion of the USSR began. Early in the morning, after artillery and air preparation, German troops crossed the border of the USSR.

On June 22 at 12 noon, Molotov spoke on the radio with an official address to the citizens of the USSR, announcing the German attack on the USSR and announcing the beginning of the Patriotic War.

Battle for Moscow(September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942) - military operations of Soviet and German troops in the Moscow direction. It is divided into 2 periods: defensive (September 30 - December 4, 1941) and offensive (December 5, 1941 - April 20, 1942). At the first stage, the Soviet troops of the Western Front stopped the advance of the troops of the Army Group Center. In the course of defensive battles, the enemy was significantly drained of blood. On December 5-6, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive, and on January 7-10, 1942, they launched a general offensive along the entire front. In January-April 1942, the troops of the Western, Kalininsk, Bryansk and North-Western fronts defeated the enemy and threw him back 100-250 km. The Moscow battle was of great importance: the myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled, the plan for a blitzkrieg was thwarted, and the international position of the USSR was strengthened.

Defense of Sevastopol and the battle for the Crimea (September 12, 1941 - July 9, 1942) - military operations of Soviet and German troops in the Crimea during the Great Patriotic War. Fascist German troops invaded the Crimea on October 20, 1941, and after 10 days approached the outskirts of Sevastopol. A stubborn defense of Sevastopol began, field fortifications were created already in the course of the battles. After stubborn battles, having suffered serious losses, the Germans stopped frontal attacks on November 21 and proceeded to siege the city. On the morning of June 7, the enemy launched a decisive attack along the entire perimeter of the defense. The fight continued until July 9th. The 250-day defense of Sevastopol, despite its tragic end, showed the whole world the unyielding dedication of the Russian soldier and sailor.

Battle of stalingrad 1942 - 1943 Defensive (July 17 - November 18, 1942) and offensive (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943) operations carried out by Soviet troops in order to defend Stalingrad and defeat a large strategic enemy grouping operating in the Stalingrad direction. In defensive battles in the Stalingrad region and in the city itself, the troops of the Stalinrad Front and the Don Front managed to stop the offensive of the 6th Army of Colonel General F. Paulus and the 4th Panzer Army. At the cost of great efforts, the command of the Soviet troops managed not only to stop the advance of German troops in Stalingrad, but also to gather significant forces for the start of the counteroffensive. On November 19 - 20, the troops of the Southwestern Front, the Stalingrad and Don fronts went on the offensive and surrounded 22 divisions in the Stalingrad region. After repelling an enemy attempt in December to free the encircled grouping, Soviet troops eliminated it. January 31 - February 2, 1943 the remnants of the enemy army surrendered. The victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War.

Operation Spark- the offensive operation of the Soviet troops during the Great Patriotic War, carried out from 12 to 30 January 1943 with the aim of breaking the blockade of Leningrad. Blockade of Leningrad - a military blockade by German troops during the Great Patriotic War of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). It lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 (the blockade ring was broken on January 18, 1943) - 872 days. On the night of January 12, Soviet bombers launched a massive attack on enemy positions in the breakthrough zone, as well as on airfields and railway junctions in the rear. On January 13-17, the fighting took on a protracted and fierce character. The enemy put up stubborn resistance, relying on numerous defense nodes. On January 18, the blockade of Leningrad was broken.

Battle of Kursk 1943 Defensive and offensive operations carried out by Soviet troops in the Kursk region to disrupt a major German offensive. The German command, after the defeat of its troops at Stalingrad, intended to conduct a major offensive operation in the Kursk region. The Soviet command assigned the task of repelling the enemy offensive on the troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts. The enemy offensive began on 5 July. On July 12, there was a turning point in the course of the battle. On this day, the largest oncoming tank battle in history took place in the Prokhorovka area. On July 12, a new stage began in the Battle of Kursk, during which the Soviet counteroffensive developed. The main result of the battle was the transition of German troops to strategic defense. In the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War, the radical change started by the Battle of Stalingrad ended.

Belarusian operation(June 23 - August 29, 1944). The code name is Operation Bagration. One of the largest strategic offensive operations undertaken by the Soviet high command to defeat the Nazi Army Group Center and liberate Belarus. By the nature of combat operations and the achievement of the assigned tasks, the operation is divided into two stages. During the operation, Lithuania and Latvia were partially liberated. On July 20, the Red Army entered the territory of Poland and on August 17 approached the borders of East Prussia. By August 29, she entered the outskirts of Warsaw.

Berlin operation 1945 The final strategic offensive operation carried out by the Soviet troops from April 16 to May 8, 1945. The objectives of the operation were to defeat the group of German forces defending in the Berlin direction, capture Berlin and reach the Elbe to join the Allied forces. According to the nature of the tasks performed and the results, the Berlin operation is divided into 3 stages. 1st stage - breaking through the Oder-Neissen line of enemy defense (April 16 - 19); 2nd stage - encirclement and dismemberment of enemy troops (April 19 - 25); 3rd stage - the destruction of the encircled groups and the capture of Berlin (April 26 - May 8). The main objectives of the operation were achieved in 16 - 17 days.

At 22 hours 43 minutes CET on May 8, the war in Europe ended in the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces. The fighting lasted 1418 days. Nevertheless, having accepted the surrender, the Soviet Union did not sign a peace with Germany, that is, formally remained with Germany in a state of war. The war with Germany was formally ended on January 25, 1955 by the issuance of a decree by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the termination of the state of war between the Soviet Union and Germany."

We have collected for you the best stories about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. First-person stories, not invented, vivid memories of front-line soldiers and witnesses of the war.

A story about the war from the book of the priest Alexander Dyachenko "Overcoming"

I was not always old and weak, I lived in a Belarusian village, I had a family, a very good husband. But the Germans came, my husband, like other men, went to the partisans, he was their commander. We women supported our men as much as we could. This became known to the Germans. They arrived at the village early in the morning. They drove everyone out of their houses and, like cattle, drove to the station in the neighboring town. There the carriages were already waiting for us. People were stuffed into teplushki so that we could only stand. We drove with stops for two days, we were not given any water or food. When we were finally unloaded from the cars, some were no longer able to move. Then the guards began to throw them to the ground and finish off with rifle butts. And then they showed us the direction to the gate and said: "Run." As soon as we ran half the distance, we let the dogs down. The strongest ran to the gate. Then the dogs were driven away, everyone who remained, was lined up in a column and led through the gate, on which it was written in German: "To each - his own." Since then, boy, I cannot look at the tall chimneys.

She bared her hand and showed me a tattoo of a row of numbers on the inside of her arm, closer to the elbow. I knew it was a tattoo, my dad had a tank pierced on his chest because he is a tanker, but why inject numbers?

I remember that she also talked about how our tankers freed them and how lucky she was to live to this day. She didn’t tell me anything about the camp itself and what happened in it, she probably felt sorry for my childish head.

I learned about Auschwitz later. I found out and understood why my neighbor could not look at the pipes of our boiler room.

During the war, my father also ended up in the occupied territory. They got it from the Germans, oh, how they got it. And when our men drove the nemchura, those, realizing that the grown-up boys are tomorrow's soldiers, decided to shoot them. They gathered everyone and took them to the log, and then our airplane saw a crowd of people and gave a line next to it. The Germans are on the ground, and the boys are scattered. My dad was lucky, he ran away with a bullet in the arm, but ran away. Not everyone was lucky then.

My father entered Germany as a tanker. Their tank brigade distinguished itself near Berlin at the Seelow Heights. I've seen pictures of these guys. Youth, and all the chest in orders, a few people -. Many, like my dad, were drafted into the active army from the occupied lands, and many had something to take revenge on the Germans. Therefore, maybe they fought so desperately bravely.

They walked across Europe, freed concentration camp prisoners and beat the enemy, finishing them mercilessly. “We were eager to go to Germany itself, we dreamed of how we would smear it with the tracks of the tracks of our tanks. We had a special part, even the uniform was black. We still laughed, lest they confuse us with the SS. "

Immediately after the end of the war, my father's brigade was stationed in one of the small German towns. Rather, in the ruins that remained of him. Themselves somehow settled in the basements of the buildings, but there was no room for the dining room. And the brigade commander, a young colonel, ordered to knock down tables from shields and set up a temporary dining room right on the square of the town.

“And here is our first peaceful lunch. Field kitchens, cooks, everything is as usual, but the soldiers are not sitting on the ground or on the tank, but, as expected, at the tables. They had just begun to dine, and suddenly from all these ruins, cellars, crevices, like cockroaches, German children began to creep out. Someone is standing, and someone already cannot stand from hunger. They stand and look at us like dogs. And I don’t know how it happened, but I took the bread with my shot through my hand and put it in my pocket, I look quietly, and all our guys, without looking up at each other, are doing the same. ”

And then they fed the German children, gave everything that could somehow be hidden from dinner, the children of yesterday themselves, who, quite recently, without flinching, were raped, burned, and shot by the fathers of these German children in our land they had captured.

The brigade commander, a Hero of the Soviet Union, a Jew by nationality, whose parents, like all other Jews of a small Belarusian town, were buried alive by the punishers alive, had every right, both moral and military, to drive off the German "geeks" from their tankers with volleys. They devoured his soldiers, reduced their combat effectiveness, many of these children were also sick and could spread the infection among the personnel.

But the colonel, instead of shooting, ordered an increase in the rate of food consumption. And German children, on the orders of the Jew, were fed along with his soldiers.

Do you think what this phenomenon is - Russian Soldier? Where does such mercy come from? Why didn't they take revenge? It seems that this is beyond any strength - to find out that all your relatives were buried alive, perhaps by the fathers of the same children, to see concentration camps with many bodies of tortured people. And instead of "coming off" on the children and wives of the enemy, they, on the contrary, saved them, fed them, healed them.

Several years have passed since the events described, and my dad, after graduating from a military school in the fifties, again served in Germany, but already as an officer. Once, on the street of a city, a young German called out to him. He ran to my father, grabbed his hand and asked:

Don't you recognize me? Yes, of course, now it's hard to recognize me as that hungry ragged boy. But I remember how you fed us among the ruins then. Trust us, we will never forget this.

This is how we made friends in the West, by the power of arms and the all-conquering power of Christian love.

Alive. Let's withstand. We will win.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

It should be noted that not everyone was impressed by the speech of VM Molotov on the first day of the war, and the final phrase caused irony among some of the soldiers. When we, doctors, asked them how things were at the front, and we lived only this way, we often heard the answer: “We are draping. Victory is ours ... that is, the Germans! "

I cannot say that JV Stalin's speech had a positive effect on everyone, although most of him breathed warmth. But in the darkness of a long queue for water in the basement of the house where the Yakovlevs lived, I once heard: “Here! We became brothers, sisters! I forgot how I was imprisoned for being late. The rat squeaked when the tail was pressed! " The people were silent at the same time. I have heard about similar statements many times.

Two other factors contributed to the rise in patriotism. First, these are the atrocities of the fascists on our territory. Newspaper reports that in Katyn, near Smolensk, the Germans shot tens of thousands of Poles captured by us, and it was not us during the retreat, as the Germans assured, were perceived without malice. Everything could have happened. “We couldn't leave them to the Germans,” some reasoned. But the population could not forgive the murder of our people.

In February 1942, my senior operating nurse A.P. Pavlova received a letter from the liberated shores of the Seliger, which told how, after the explosion, tame fans in the German headquarters hut, they hanged almost all the men, including Pavlova's brother. They hung him on a birch near his native hut, and he hung for almost two months in front of his wife and three children. The mood of this news in the entire hospital became formidable for the Germans: both the staff and the wounded soldiers loved Pavlova ...

The second thing that made everyone happy was reconciliation with the church. The Orthodox Church showed true patriotism in its preparations for the war, and it was appreciated. Government awards fell on the patriarch and the clergy. These funds were used to create air squadrons and tank divisions named "Alexander Nevsky" and "Dmitry Donskoy". They showed a film where a priest with the chairman of the district executive committee, a partisan, destroys the atrocious fascists. The film ended with the old bell ringer going up the bell tower and sounding the alarm, before making a wide cross. It sounded directly: "Autumn yourself with the sign of the cross, Russian people!" The injured spectators and the staff had tears in their eyes when the lights came on.

On the contrary, the huge money contributed by the chairman of the collective farm, it seems, Ferapont Golovaty, caused angry smiles. “Look how he stole from the hungry collective farmers,” said the wounded from the peasants.

The activity of the fifth column, that is, internal enemies, also caused enormous indignation among the population. I myself saw how many of them there were: German planes were signaled from the windows even with colored rockets. In November 1941, in the hospital of the Neurosurgical Institute, they signalized from the window in Morse code. The doctor on duty Malm, a completely drunken and declassified person, said that the alarm came from the operating room window where my wife was on duty. The head of the hospital, Bondarchuk, said at the morning five minutes that he vouched for Kudrina, and two days later they took the signalmen, and Malm himself disappeared forever.

My violin teacher, Aleksandrov Yu.A., a communist, although a secretly religious, consumptive person, worked as the head of the fire department of the House of the Red Army at the corner of Liteiny and Kirovskaya. He chased a rocket launcher, clearly an employee of the House of the Red Army, but could not see him in the dark and did not catch up, but he threw the rocket launcher at Alexandrov's feet.

Life at the institute was gradually improving. The central heating has improved, the electric light has become almost constant, and there is water in the water supply system. We went to the movies. Such films as "Two Soldiers", "Once Upon a Time There was a Girl" and others were watched with undisguised feeling.

For "Two Soldiers" the nurse was able to get tickets to the cinema "October" for the show later than we expected. Arriving at the next session, we learned that a shell hit the courtyard of this cinema, where the visitors of the previous session were released, and many were killed and wounded.

The summer of 1942 passed through the hearts of ordinary people very sadly. The encirclement and defeat of our troops near Kharkov, which greatly increased the number of our prisoners in Germany, caused great depression on everyone. The new German offensive to the Volga, to Stalingrad, was very hard for everyone. The mortality rate of the population, especially increased in the spring months, despite some improvement in nutrition, as a result of dystrophy, as well as the death of people from aerial bombs and artillery shelling, was felt by everyone.

My wife and her ration cards were stolen from my wife in mid-May, which caused us to go hungry again. And it was necessary to prepare for the winter.

We not only cultivated and planted vegetable gardens in Rybatskoye and Murzinka, but received a hefty strip of land in the garden near the Winter Palace, which was given to our hospital. It was a wonderful land. Other Leningraders cultivated other gardens, squares, the Field of Mars. We even planted a dozen or so potato eyes with an adjacent piece of husk, as well as cabbage, rutabagas, carrots, seedlings and especially a lot of turnips. They planted wherever there was a piece of land.

The wife, fearing a lack of protein food, collected slugs from vegetables and marinated them in two large jars. However, they were not useful, and in the spring of 1943 they were thrown away.

The coming winter of 1942/43 was mild. Transport no longer stopped, all wooden houses on the outskirts of Leningrad, including the houses in Murzinka, were demolished for fuel and stocked up for the winter. There was electric light in the rooms. Soon, scientists were given special letter rations. As a candidate of sciences, I was given a letter ration of group B. It included 2 kg of sugar, 2 kg of cereals, 2 kg of meat, 2 kg of flour, 0.5 kg of butter and 10 packs of Belomorkanal cigarettes monthly. It was luxurious and it saved us.

My fainting has stopped. I even lightly kept watch with my wife all night, guarding the vegetable garden at the Winter Palace in turns, three times during the summer. However, despite the protection, every single head of cabbage was stolen.

Art was of great importance. We began to read more, go to the movies more often, watch film programs in the hospital, go to amateur concerts and artists who came to us. Once my wife and I were at a concert of D. Oistrakh and L. Oborin who had arrived in Leningrad. When D. Oistrakh played, and L. Oborin accompanied, it was chilly in the hall. Suddenly a voice said quietly: “Air raid, air raid! Those who wish can go down to the bomb shelter! " In the crowded hall, no one moved, Oistrakh smiled gratefully and understandingly at us all with his eyes alone and continued to play without stumbling for a moment. Although the explosions pushed at their feet and heard their sounds and the barking of anti-aircraft guns, the music absorbed everything. Since then, these two musicians have become my biggest favorites and fighting friends without dating.

By the fall of 1942, Leningrad was greatly emptied, which also facilitated its supply. By the time the blockade began, up to 7 million cards were being issued in a city overcrowded with refugees. In the spring of 1942, only 900 thousand were issued.

Many were evacuated, including part of the 2nd Medical Institute. The rest of the universities all left. But still, it is believed that about two million were able to leave Leningrad along the Road of Life. Thus, about four million died. (According to official data, about 600 thousand people died in besieged Leningrad, according to others - about 1 million. - Ed.) a figure that is significantly higher than the official one. Not all the dead ended up in the cemetery. The huge moat between the Saratov colony and the forest going to Koltushi and Vsevolozhskaya took in hundreds of thousands of dead people and was leveled to the ground. Now there is a suburban vegetable garden, and there are no traces left. But the rustling tops and the cheerful voices of those harvesting crops are no less happiness for the dead than the funeral music of the Piskarevsky cemetery.

A little about children. Their fate was terrible. They gave almost nothing on children's cards. I remember two cases especially vividly.

In the harshest part of the winter of 1941/42, I wandered from Bekhterevka to Pestel Street to my hospital. Swollen legs almost did not walk, my head was spinning, each careful step pursued one goal: to move forward and not fall at the same time. At Staronevsky, I wanted to go to a bakery to buy two of our cards and warm up a little. Frost chilled to the bone. I stood in line and noticed that a boy of about seven or eight years old was standing by the counter. He bent down and seemed to shrink all over. Suddenly, he snatched a piece of bread from the woman who had just received it, fell down, huddled in a crumpled way with his back up, like a hedgehog, and began greedily tearing the bread with his teeth. The woman who had lost her bread screamed wildly: perhaps a hungry family was waiting for her at home. The queue got mixed up. Many rushed to beat and trample the boy, who continued to eat, the quilted jacket and hat protected him. "Man! If only you could help, "someone shouted to me, apparently because I was the only man in the bakery. I started to feel pumped up and felt very dizzy. “You beasts, beasts,” I croaked and staggered out into the cold. I could not save the child. A light push was enough, and the angry people would certainly have mistaken me for an accomplice, and I would have fallen.

Yes, I'm a philistine. I didn't rush to save this boy. “Don't turn into a werewolf, a beast,” wrote our beloved Olga Berggolts these days. Wonderful woman! She helped many to endure the blockade and retained the necessary humanity in us.

On behalf of them, I will send a telegram abroad:

“Alive. Let's withstand. We will win. "

But the unwillingness to share the fate of the beaten child has forever remained a notch on my conscience ...

The second incident happened later. We just received, but for the second time, a letter ration and together with my wife carried it along Liteiny, heading home. The snowdrifts were quite high during the second blockade winter. Almost opposite the house of N.A.Nekrasov, from where he admired the front entrance, clinging to the grating immersed in the snow, was a child of four or five years old. He could hardly move his legs, huge eyes on a withered old man gazed with horror at the world around him. His legs were braided. Tamara pulled out a large, double lump of sugar and handed it to him. At first he did not understand and shrank all over, and then suddenly with a jerk he grabbed this sugar, pressed it to his chest and froze with fear that everything that had happened was either a dream or not true ... We went on. Well, what more could barely wandering ordinary people do?

BREAKING BLOCKADE

Every day all Leningraders talked about breaking the blockade, about the upcoming victory, peaceful life and the restoration of the country, the second front, that is, about the active involvement of the allies in the war. There was little hope for the allies, however. “The plan has already been drawn, but no Rooseveltats,” the Leningraders joked. They also recalled the Indian wisdom: "I have three friends: the first is my friend, the second is a friend of my friend and the third is the enemy of my enemy." Everyone believed that the third degree of friendship only unites us with our allies. (So, by the way, it turned out: the second front appeared only when it became clear that we could liberate the whole of Europe alone.)

Few people talked about other outcomes. There were people who believed that after the war Leningrad should become a free city. But everyone immediately cut off such people, remembering the "Window to Europe", and the "Bronze Horseman", and the historical significance for Russia of access to the Baltic Sea. But they talked about breaking the blockade every day and everywhere: at work, on duty on the roofs, when they “fought off planes with shovels,” extinguishing lighters, over scant food, going to bed in a cold bed and during the unwise self-service in those days. They waited and hoped. Long and hard. They talked about Fedyuninsky and his mustache, then about Kulik, then about Meretskov.

In the draft commissions, almost everyone was taken to the front. I was sent there from the hospital. I remember that only a two-armed one was released, surprised by the wonderful prostheses that hid his flaw. “Do not be afraid, take with stomach ulcers, tuberculosis. After all, all of them will have to be at the front no more than a week. If they do not kill, they will wounded, and they will go to the hospital, ”the military commissar of the Dzerzhinsky district told us.

Indeed, the war went on with great blood. When trying to break through to contact the mainland, piles of bodies remained under Krasny Bor, especially along the embankments. "Nevsky Piglet" and Sinyavinsky swamps did not leave the tongue. The Leningraders fought furiously. Everyone knew that behind his back his own family was dying of hunger. But all attempts to break the blockade did not lead to success, only our hospitals were filled with crippled and dying people.

With horror, we learned about the death of an entire army and the betrayal of Vlasov. This involuntarily had to be believed. After all, when they read to us about Pavlov and other executed generals of the Western Front, no one believed that they were traitors and "enemies of the people", as we were convinced of this. They recalled that the same was said about Yakir, Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, even about Blucher.

The summer campaign of 1942 began, as I wrote, extremely unsuccessfully and depressingly, but already in the fall they began to talk a lot about our stubbornness at Stalingrad. The fighting dragged on, winter was approaching, and in it we hoped for our Russian strength and Russian endurance. The good news about the counter-offensive at Stalingrad, the encirclement of Paulus with his 6th Army, Manstein's failure in attempts to break through this encirclement gave the Leningraders new hope on New Year's Eve, 1943.

I celebrated the New Year with my wife alone, returning by 11 o'clock to the closet where we lived at the hospital, from the round of evacuation hospitals. There was a glass of diluted alcohol, two slices of bacon, a 200 gram piece of bread and hot tea with a piece of sugar! A whole feast!

Events were not long in coming. Almost all of the wounded were discharged: who were discharged, who were sent to battalions of convalescents, who were taken to the mainland. But not for long we wandered around the empty hospital after the bustle of unloading it. Fresh wounded came in a stream directly from the positions, dirty, often bandaged with an individual bag over their greatcoat, bleeding. We were a medical battalion, a field hospital, and a front-line hospital. Some began to sort, others - to the operating tables for permanent operations. There was no time to eat, and there was no time for food.

This was not the first time such flows came to us, but this one was too painful and tiresome. All the time, the hardest combination of physical work with mental, moral human experiences with the clarity of the dry work of a surgeon was required.

On the third day, the men could no longer stand it. They were given 100 grams of diluted alcohol each and sent to sleep for three hours, although the emergency room was littered with wounded in need of urgent operations. Otherwise, they began to operate badly, half asleep. Well done women! They not only endured the hardships of the blockade many times better than men, died much less often from dystrophy, but also worked without complaining of fatigue and clearly fulfilling their duties.

In our operating room, they walked on three tables: at each - a doctor and a nurse, on all three tables - another nurse replacing the operating room. Career operating rooms and dressing nurses, one and all, assisted in the operations. The habit of working many nights in a row in Bekhterevka, the hospital named after On October 25th, she helped me out in an ambulance. I passed this test, I can proudly say as a woman.

On the night of January 18, a wounded woman was brought to us. On that day, her husband was killed, and she was seriously wounded in the brain, in the left temporal lobe. A splinter with fragments of bones penetrated into the depths, completely paralyzing both her right limbs and depriving her of the ability to speak, but while maintaining the understanding of someone else's speech. Female fighters came to us, but not often. I took her on my table, laid her on her right, paralyzed side, anesthetized the skin and very successfully removed a metal splinter and bone fragments that had invaded the brain. “My dear,” I said, finishing the operation and preparing for the next one, “everything will be fine. I took out the shard, and the speech will return to you, and the paralysis will completely disappear. You will fully recover! "

Suddenly, my wounded free hand lying on top began to beckon me to her. I knew that she would not start talking soon, and I thought that she would whisper something to me, although it seemed incredible. And suddenly, wounded with her healthy, bare, but strong fighter's hand, she covered my neck, pressed my face to her lips and kissed me hard. I couldn’t stand it. I did not sleep for the fourth day, almost did not eat, and only occasionally, holding a cigarette with a forcepsang, smoked. Everything was clouded in my head, and, like a man possessed, I rushed out into the corridor to come to my senses for at least one minute. After all, there is a terrible injustice in the fact that women, who continue the race and soften the morals of the beginning in humanity, are also killed. And at that moment, our loudspeaker began to speak, announcing the breakthrough of the blockade and the connection of the Leningrad Front with Volkhovsky.

It was deep night, but what began here! I stood bloody after the operation, completely stunned from what I had experienced and heard, and sisters, nurses, fighters ran to me ... Some with a hand on an "airplane", that is, on a splint that diverts the bent arm, some on crutches, some still bleeding through a recently applied bandage ... And then the endless kisses began. Everyone kissed me, despite my appearance frightening from the spilled blood. And I stood there, missing 15 minutes of the precious time to operate on other wounded in need, enduring these countless hugs and kisses.

A story about the Great Patriotic War of a front-line soldier

1 year ago, on this day, a war began, which divided the history of not only our country, but the whole world into before and after... The participant of the Great Patriotic War, Mark Pavlovich Ivanikhin, Chairman of the Council of Veterans of War, Labor, Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies of the Eastern Administrative District.

- - this is the day when our life broke in half. It was a good, bright Sunday, and suddenly they declared war, the first bombings. Everyone understood that they would have to endure a lot, 280 divisions went to our country. I have a military family, my father was a lieutenant colonel. A car immediately came for him, he took his "disturbing" suitcase (this is a suitcase in which the essentials were always ready), and together we went to the school, I as a cadet, and my father as a teacher.

Everything changed at once, it became clear to everyone that this war would be for a long time. Alarming news plunged into another life, said that the Germans are constantly moving forward. This day was clear, sunny, and in the evening the mobilization had already begun.

These are my memories, boys of 18 years old. My father was 43 years old, he worked as a senior teacher at the first Moscow Artillery School named after Krasin, where I also studied. This was the first school, which released officers who fought on "Katyushas" into the war. I fought the whole war on "Katyushas".

- Young inexperienced guys walked under the bullets. Was it certain death?

- We still knew a lot. Back in school, we all had to pass the standard for the TRP badge (ready for work and defense). They trained almost like in the army: you had to run, crawl, swim, and also taught to bandage wounds, apply splints for fractures, and so on. At least we were a little ready to defend our homeland.

I fought at the front from October 6, 1941 to April 1945. I took part in the battles for Stalingrad, and from the Kursk Bulge through Ukraine and Poland I reached Berlin.

War is a terrible test. It is permanent death, which is next to you and threatens you. Shells are bursting at your feet, enemy tanks are coming at you, flocks of German planes are aiming at you from above, artillery is shooting. It seems that the earth is turning into a small place where you have nowhere to go.

I was a commander, I had 60 people under my command. All these people must be answered. And, despite the planes and tanks that are looking for your death, you need to keep yourself in hand, and keep in the hands of soldiers, sergeants and officers. This is difficult to accomplish.

I can't forget the Majdanek concentration camp. We liberated this death camp, saw emaciated people: skin and bones. And especially I remember the kids with their hands cut, they took their blood all the time. We saw bags of human scalps. We saw the chambers of torture and experiments. To be honest, it aroused hatred of the enemy.

I also remember that we went into a reclaimed village, saw a church, and in it the Germans set up a stable. I had soldiers from all the cities of the Soviet Union, even from Siberia, many of them had their fathers killed in the war. And these guys said: "We'll get to Germany, we will kill the Fritz families, and we will burn their houses." And so we entered the first German city, the soldiers broke into the house of the German pilot, saw Frau and four small children. Do you think someone touched them? None of the soldiers did anything wrong to them. The Russian person is quick-witted.

All German cities that we passed remained intact, with the exception of Berlin, in which there was strong resistance.

I have four orders. Order of Alexander Nevsky, which he received for Berlin; Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, two Orders of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. Also a medal for military merit, a medal for the victory over Germany, for the defense of Moscow, for the defense of Stalingrad, for the liberation of Warsaw and for the capture of Berlin. These are the main medals, and there are about fifty of them in total. All of us who have gone through the war years want one thing - peace. And so that the people who won the victory were valuable.

Photo by Yulia Makoveichuk

143 million killed Soviet citizens, 1,800,000 killed in captivity or immigrated - the Great Patriotic War broke into every home on June 22, 1941. For 4 terrible years, fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, mothers and wives were left on the fronts. The Second World War is called "a terrible lesson of the past", "political miscalculation", "bloody massacre." Why did the terrible war begin, what is its course, what are the results?

Preconditions of the Second World War. Where do "legs grow"

The prerequisites are hidden in the Versailles-Washington system, established after the First World War. Germany, with her ambitions, was humiliated and brought to her knees. In the 1920s, the National Socialist German Workers' Party came out on political lease, promoting ultra-right views. Party supporters proclaimed the idea of ​​"revenge for defeat in the First World War", the establishment of world domination of the German nation. European politicians looked at a "rising Germany" and thought they could rule it. France and Great Britain "pushed" the country to the borders of the Union, pursuing their own benefits. But they could not think that on September 1, 1939, German troops would invade Poland (World War II would start).

ATTENTION! The Second World War lasted more than 6 years (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945). WWII - June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945.

Why did the Great Patriotic War start? 3 reasons

Historians talk about dozens of factors that influenced the start of the war. To be honest, the war began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. "Behind Europe's back" Germany and the Soviet Union agree that they will be "on the same side." After the outbreak of World War II, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. On September 22, 1939, the parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was solemnly held in Brest.

Joseph Stalin did not believe that Hitler would "stick a knife in the back" and attack the USSR. Moreover: when Minsk fell on June 28, 1941, the leader was in a panic (and even thought that he would be arrested for a crime against the people). The first days of the Second World War, the Red Army retreated, and the Germans easily took one city after another.

Do not forget that there were massive repressions in the USSR: during the last "purge" in June 1941, experienced military leaders were killed (shot, expelled).

The causes of the Second World War lie in:

1. Hitler's desire for "world domination" ("Germany from sea to sea"). Resources were needed for the conquests, and the territory of the USSR with its natural resources seemed like a “tidbit”.
2. The desire of the Soviet authorities to "crush" Eastern Europe for themselves.
3. Contradictions between the socialist system and capitalism.

What plans did Germany have?

German tacticians and strategists had several plans for the territory of the Soviet Union.

1. Military plan "Barbarossa". In the summer of 1940, a "blitzkrieg" plan was developed: in 10 weeks (that is, 2.5 months), German troops had to paralyze the industry of the Urals, crush the European part of the country and enter the Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan line. On June 17, 1941, Hitler signed the same order that launched the offensive.
2. "Ost". Jews and Gypsies were completely exterminated; Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians turned into "slaves" who served the German invaders. Up to 140 million people were to be killed. Mass genocide, violence, murders, concentration camps, torture, medical "experiments" - all this awaited those who live in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine today.
3. Oldenburg and Goering's Green Folder. Cultural and historical values ​​were to be exported to Germany. Soviet museums were simply plundered, and gold, precious stones, art and antiques were sent to the West in carriages.

By the summer of 1941, there were 5,500,000 trained to kill soldiers at the borders of the USSR against 2,900,000 Soviet ones (this is exactly the number of soldiers concentrated in the border districts). There is no need to talk about weapons: one rifle for three, a limited number of bullets, "rusty iron" - all this has repeatedly "surfaced" in the memories of veterans.

The Soviet Union was not ready for war:

1. Stalin ignored the memorandums about "pulling" the German armies to the lines. It seemed to the leader that Germany would not invade and fight on 2 fronts.
2. Lack of talented military leaders. The "War with little blood" technique proved to be a failure. The opinion that the Red Army would move to the West and the workers of the whole world would join its ranks was also untenable.
3. Problems with the supply of the army. According to some reports, the Wehrmacht had 16 times more rifles (not to mention tanks, aviation). The warehouses were close to the borders, so they were quickly captured by the enemy.

Despite all the miscalculations and problems, Soviet soldiers pulled out the victory with sweat and blood. In the rear, women, children, the elderly, and the disabled produced weapons day and night; the partisans risked their lives trying to gather as much information as possible about the enemy groups. The Soviet people rose up to defend the Motherland with their breasts.

How did the events develop?

Historians talk about 3 main stages. Each of them is divided into dozens of small stages, and behind each success of the Red Army there are shadows of the dead soldiers.

Strategic defense. June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942

During this time, the Barbarossa plan collapsed. At the first stages, the enemy troops took Ukraine, the Baltic states and Belarus without any problems. Moscow was ahead - an important geopolitical and economic goal. Taking Moscow would automatically mean the fragmentation of the Red Army and the loss of control.

September 30, 1941 - January 7, 1942, i.e. For almost 4 months heavy fighting went on with varying success, but the Soviet troops were able to push back the enemy.

The Battle of Moscow was Hitler's first failure. It became clear that the blitzkrieg had failed; the Western world saw that the "invincible Adolf" could lose; the morale and fighting spirit of the people rose.

But Stalingrad and the Caucasus were ahead. The victory at Moscow gave a "respite". A partisan struggle was gradually developing, and an anti-Hitler coalition was being formed. The USSR is putting the economy on a war footing, therefore, the supply of the army is improving (KV-1 and T-34 tanks, Katyusha rocket launcher, IL-2 attack aircraft).

A radical fracture. November 19, 1942 - late 1943

Until the fall of 1942, victories were on the side of the USSR, then on the side of Germany. At this stage, the strategic initiative passes into the hands of the Soviet Union: 26 strategic operations (23 of them are offensive), allied assistance and lend-lease, "first news" of the collapse of the Hitlerite coalition, strengthening the authority of the USSR.

All results were given by sweat and blood. At this stage, a number of major battles are distinguished, which "changed" the course of the war.

• Battle of Stalingrad and defeat of German troops;
• battle for the Dnieper;
• Kursk Bulge.

The stage ends at the end of 1943 with the liberation of Kiev and the "crossing of the Dnieper".

Europe liberated from Nazism. January 1944 - May 9, 1945

Recall that World War II ended on September 2, 1945. But Europe freed itself from the shackles of Nazism in the spring.

In the fall of 1944, the Soviet command carried out a number of operations to liberate the country's territory from enemy armies: Korsun-Shevchenkovskaya, Lvov-Sandomirskaya, Yassko-Kishinevskaya. The besieged Leningrad, which was "cut off" from food and security, was liberated. Thanks to the East Prussian, Vistula-Oder, West Carpathian operations, all conditions were created to "go to Berlin."

May 1, 1945 Adolf Hitler takes poison and leaves the people "to their fate." The provisional government, which "by chance" was headed by K. Doenitz, in "dying convulsions" is trying to bargain for a separate peace with Great Britain and France, but fails. Ahead are tribunals, high-profile scandals, trials and sentences. On May 8, 1945, the Act of Unconditional Surrender is signed in Karlshorst (a suburb of Berlin). Germany is defeated.

May 9, 1945 becomes Victory Day, a symbol of endless courage, solidarity and the ability to repel the enemy.

The Great Patriotic War is a terrible history lesson for which the Soviet Union paid too high a price. The exact number of deaths cannot be calculated (figures differ in different sources). But the Soviet people were faced with another task - to lift the ruined economy from its knees.

At 4 o'clock in the morning on June 22, 1941, the troops of Nazi Germany (5.5 million people) crossed the borders of the Soviet Union, German planes (5 thousand) began to bomb Soviet cities, military units and airfields. By this time, World War II had been going on in Europe for almost two years. At the first stage of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1942), the Red Army suffered one defeat after another, retreating further and further into the interior of the country. About two million Soviet soldiers were captured or killed. The reasons for the defeats were the army's unpreparedness for war, serious miscalculations of the top leadership, the crimes of the Stalinist regime, and the suddenness of the attack. But even in these difficult months, Soviet soldiers fought heroically against the enemy. The defenders of the Brest Fortress held out for a whole month after the front line had moved far to the east. At the end of 1941, the enemy stood several tens of kilometers from Moscow, and Leningrad was completely surrounded. But the German plan to end the war in the fall was thwarted. As a result of the counter-offensive of the Red Army near Moscow in December 1941, the Germans were driven back. Leningrad, which was in the blockade, courageously held on - despite the fact that in the most terrible blockade winter of 1941-42. from hunger and cold, hundreds of thousands of peaceful Leningraders died. In the summer of 1942, the German forces launched an offensive against Stalingrad. For several months, select units of the Wehrmacht stormed the city. Stalingrad was turned into ruins, but the Soviet soldiers who fought for every house survived and went on the offensive. In the winter of 1942-1943, 22 German divisions were surrounded. A turning point has come in the war. In the summer of 1943, the largest tank battle of the Second World War took place near Kursk, in which the Nazis lost about 350 tanks and 3.5 thousand killed. Under the blows of the Red Army, German units began to retreat to the borders of the Soviet Union. A partisan war broke out in the German rear. Echelons flew downhill, detachments of punishers and traitor policemen were destroyed. The Nazis responded to the actions of the partisans with terror against the civilian population, but the outcome of the war was already a foregone conclusion. By the summer of 1944, the Red Army liberated the territory of the Soviet Union and began to liberate the European states captured by the Nazis. Simultaneously with the Soviet Union, the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition - Britain, the United States and France - waged a war against the Germans. In the summer of 1944, the long-awaited second front was opened, which eased the position of the Red Army. In the spring of 1945, Soviet and allied troops entered Germany. The final Berlin operation began, in which the Soviet troops were commanded by Marshal G.K. Zhukov. On May 9, 1945, Zhukov, together with the Allied military leaders, accepted the surrender of Germany. The country paid a huge price for its victory: about 27 million people died, millions were crippled and disabled, a third of the national treasure was destroyed. Victory in the Great Patriotic War is one of the brightest pages in the history of our country.

The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) - the war of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against Nazi Germany and its European allies (Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia)

The history of the Great Patriotic War is divided into three stages:

1) June 22, 1941 - November 19, 1942, i.e. from the German attack on the USSR to the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad - the blitzkrieg was disrupted, creating conditions for a radical turning point in the war;

2) November 17, 1942 - December 1943 - a radical turning point during the Second World War and the Second World War, the transition of the strategic initiative to the Soviet Army ended with the crossing of the Dnieper and the liberation of Kiev;

3) 1944 - May 9, 1945, the complete expulsion of the invaders from the territory of the USSR, the liberation of the countries of Central and Southeast Europe by the Soviet Army, the final defeat and surrender of Nazi Germany.

GERMANY'S POSSIBLE ATTACK on the USSR

Preparations for war - from the end of the 20s.

BUT by 1941 the USSR was not ready for war.

The fascists have the military potential of all of Europe;

Repression of command personnel in the USSR

The element of surprise is also associated with Stalin's gullibility to Hitler's promises after 08/23/1939

Germany occupied: France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland.

Pro-German regimes: Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania.

Allies of Germany: Italy, Japan. Turkey.

Plan "Barbarossa"

Lightning war and the defeat of the USSR army in the summer campaign of 1941

Directions: "North" - to Leningrad (commanded by General von Leeb), "Center" - to Moscow (von Brauchitsch) and "South" - to Odessa and Kiev, in addition - Group "Norway" was supposed to control the situation in the North Sea ... The main direction - "Center" - to Moscow

By the summer of 1941 on the border of the USSR from the Barents to the Black Seas - 5.5 million soldiers (Germany + allies + satellites).

USSR: 4 military districts. 2.9 million people

Far East, South - 1.5 million people. (Turkey and Japan are expected to invade).

RETREATS OF THE SOVIET TROOPS (June-September 1941)

The first days of the war

On the eve of the war, Stalin repeatedly received intelligence about the impending attack, but refused to believe them. It was only at midnight on June 21 that a series of orders were issued to bring the troops to combat readiness - and this is not enough to deploy a multi-layered defense.

June 22, 1941... - powerful strikes of the air and mechanized armies of Germany. "On June 22, at exactly 4 o'clock, Kiev was bombed, they announced to us that the war had begun ..."

66 airfields were bombed. 1200 aircraft destroyed -> German air domination until summer 1943

June 23, 1941... - Headquarters of the High Command (Headquarters of the Supreme High Command). The head is Stalin.

June 30, 1941... - State Defense Committee (GKO). The chairman is Stalin. All the fullness of state, party, military power.

The retreat of the Red Army in the first month of the war

In the first month of the war, left: the Baltic States, Belarus, Moldova, most of the Ukraine. Losses - 1,000,000 soldiers, 724 thousand prisoners.

The 3 main failures of the first months of the war:

1) Smolensk defeat

Hitlerites: take possession of the "gates of Moscow" - Smolensk.

-> almost all the armies of the Western Front were defeated.

Command of the USSR: accused of treason a large group of generals, the head - the commander of the Western Front, Colonel General D.G. Pavlov. Court, execution.

The Barbarossa plan cracked: the capital was not captured in mid-July.

2) Southwest Russia and Kiev

500,000 dead, along with the commander of the Southwestern Front, Lieutenant General M.D. Kipronos.

Kiev was taken -> strengthening the positions of the Nazis -> breaking through the defense in the Moscow direction.

August 1941- the beginning of the blockade of Leningrad.

August 16, 1941. –order number 270. All who are in captivity are traitors and traitors. Families of captured commanders and political workers are repressed, families of soldiers are deprived of benefits.

3) on the Moscow direction to October-November 1941... 5 armies were surrounded and thus opened the way for the Nazis to Moscow

BATTLE FOR MOSCOW

The plan to take Moscow from Hitler - "Typhoon". On September 30, he spoke on the radio ("Not a single Moscow resident, be it a woman, an old man or a child, should leave the city ...")

According to the plan:

Army Group Center sweeps away the Soviet defenses and captures the capital before winter. The wagon train contains pink granite for the monument to the German victorious warrior on the site of destroyed Moscow (later it was used on Gorky Street - now Tverskaya - for facing buildings, including the Post Office).

Start October I am the approach of the Nazis to Moscow. Stalin urgently summoned Zhukov from Leningrad

16 october- the day of general panic in Moscow, valuables are being taken out, including the State Tretyakov Gallery (paintings)

6 November- Meeting of the Moscow City Council at the Mayakovskaya metro station. Stalin spoke. "Victory will be ours!" It was decided - the parade on November 7 - to be!

7 november- parade, from Red Square soldiers and militias (25 divisions) - went straight to the front on the street. Gorky and up to Voikovskaya, there is a front line

By the end of November 1941... - Germans at a distance of 25-30 km. from Moscow.

Departure "Dubosekovo" - 28 heroes-Panfilov (commanded by Panfilov), political instructor Klochkov: "Russia is great, but nowhere to retreat, behind Moscow!"

3 fronts:

United West - direct defense of Moscow (G.M. Zhukov);

Kalininsky (I.S. Konev);

South-West (S.K. Timoshenko).

5 armies of the Western and Reserve fronts - in the "cauldron".

600,000 people - surrounded (every 2nd).

Liberated Moscow, Tula, a significant part of the Kalinin region.

Losses during the counteroffensive:

USSR - 600,000 people.

Germany: 100,000-150,000 people

Near Moscow - the first major defeat since 1939

The blitzkrieg plan failed.

With the victory in the Moscow battle - a radical turn (but not yet a turning point!) In the course of the war in favor of the USSR.

The enemy is in favor of a strategy of a protracted war.

By the winter of 1941: losses - 5,000,000 people.

2 million - killed, 3 million - in captivity.

Counteroffensive - until April 1942

The successes are fragile, soon there will be heavy losses.

Unsuccessful attempt to break through the blockade of Leningrad (installed in August 1941)

The 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front was defeated, the command and the head - A.A. Vlasov - were taken prisoner.

Fascists: defeat in the Battle of Moscow -> you cannot launch an offensive along the entire Eastern Front -> strikes in the south.

Stalin: waiting for a second attack on Moscow, despite intelligence reports. The main forces are near Moscow.

The decree to inflict a number of distracting blows in the south (Crimea, Kharkov). Against - the head of the General Staff B.M. Shaposhnikov -> complete failure.

Dispersion of forces -> failure.

May 1942... - in the Kharkov direction, the Germans surrounded 3 armies of the Southwestern Front. 240 thousand prisoners.

May 1942... - defeat of the Kerch operation. "150 thousand prisoners of war in Crimea. After 250 days of siege, Sevastopol was surrendered.

June 1942- the advance of the Nazis to Stalingrad

July 28, 1942–"Order No. 227"- Stalin - "Not a step back, Under no circumstances surrender the city"

Retreating without an order from the command is a betrayal of the Motherland.

Fines (for commanders and political workers)

Penalties (for sergeants and privates).

Defensive detachments behind the belligerents. They have the right to shoot retreating people on the spot.

end of August- occupied Abgonerovo (the last settlement near Stalingrad)

Simultaneously: August 1942- a group of fascists in the Caucasus.

The beginning of September - they occupied the embankment, the square in front of the department store ... Fighting for every street, for every house

End of September - battles for height 102 ("Mamayev Kurgan" - now there is a monument to the motherland)

Autumn 1942 - 80 million people in the occupied territory.

-> the country has lost

Human resources;

The largest industrial areas;

Giant agricultural areas.

The main burden of the siege was on the 62nd Army under the command of General Chuikov. The seizure of Stalingrad = cutting the Volga transport artery through which bread and oil are delivered.

The period of the radical fracture.

Fundamental change = transition from defense to strategic offensive.

Battle of stalingrad

Frontier - Battle of Stalingrad.

November 19, 1942- Southwestern Front (N.F. Vatutin), Don Front (K.K. Rokossovsky), Stalingrad Front (A.I. Eremenko).

They surrounded 22 enemy divisions, 330 thousand people.

December 1942 - an attempt to break through the encirclement from the Middle Don (Italian-German troops). Failure.

The final stage of the counteroffensive:

the troops of the Don Front carried out an operation to eliminate the encircled enemy grouping.

The command of the 6th German army surrendered. F. Paulus (went over to our side and later began to live in the GDR, was the Chairman of the German Peace Committee).

During the period of the Battle of Stalingrad:

Losses of the fascists - 1.5 million people, ¼ of all forces.

Losses of the Red Army - 2 million people.

The final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad ® general offensive of the Soviet troops.

January 1943- a successful breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad south of Lake Ladoga. Corridor 8-11 km. "The Road of Life" on the ice of Lake Ladoga. Communication with the whole country.

The Battle of the Kursk Bulge (Oryol-Belgorod) is the final stage of the turning point.

Germany: planned to conduct a major offensive operation ("Citadel") in the Kursk region in the summer of 1943. In our headquarters - the operation was called "Suvorov \ Kutuzov", since its goal was to liberate 2 cities (Orel and Kursk) "The war brought us to Kursk and Orel, to the very enemy gates, such, brother, things ..."

They wanted to destroy the entire southern wing.

50 divisions, 16 armored and motorized. "Tiger", "Panther".

THE USSR: 40% of combined arms formations. Small superiority in the troops.

Central Front (K.K. Rokossovsky);

Voronezh Front (N.F. Vatutin);

Steppe Front (I.S. Konev) and other fronts.

First step

The Germans are on the offensive. Up to 35 km inland.

The largest oncoming tank battle since World War II.

1200 tanks on both sides. Russian victory

Second phase

The main groupings of the enemy have been defeated.

5 August 1943- Belgorod and Oryol were liberated -> the first artillery fireworks in Moscow.

The liberation of Kharkov = the end of the Battle of Kursk.

30 enemy divisions were defeated, loss of 500,000 people.

-> Hitler was unable to transfer a single division from the Eastern Front to Italy, where a political coup took place;

-> activation of the Resistance movement in Europe.

-> the collapse of the theory of "General Frost" - that is, weather conditions (winter, terrible frosts, which were characteristic for 1941-1942), which supposedly contributed to the hardy Russians. Battle of Kursk - the first summer battle

Counteroffensive at Kursk ® strategic offensive of the spacecraft along the entire front.

Soviet troops - to the West, 300-600 km.

Left-bank Ukraine, Donbass were liberated, bridgeheads in Crimea were seized.

Forcing the Dnieper.

-> the end of the battle for the Dnieper.

Hitlerite Germany - for strategic defense.

The period of the liberation of the USSR and the defeat of Nazi Germany

The successful actions of the Soviet army in 1944 in the "Stalinist" historiography were associated with the "military leader's genius" of this "father of nations". Hence the term - "10 Stalinist blows of 1944". Indeed, the SA offensive in 1944 is characterized by 10 major operations, and the general strategy is a constant change in the direction of the main attack (which did not allow the Germans to concentrate forces in any one direction)

Leningrad (L.A. Govorov) and Volkhov (K.A. Meretskov) front. Liberation of the Leningrad and Novgorod regions.

The 1st Ukrainian (N.F. Vatutin) and 2nd Ukrainian (I.S. Konev) fronts surrounded the Korsun-Shevchenko grouping. The central event of this "strike" was the restoration of the Soviet border: March 26, 1944- troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front - on the border with Romania.

3. Early May 1944- liberation of Crimea = completion of the autumn-winter offensive.

4. June-August 1944- liberation of Karelia. Finland withdrew from the war and broke off relations with Germany

5. Operation "Bagration" = liberation of Belarus., general direction - Minsk-Warsaw-Berlin. June 23 - August 17, 1944 Three Ukrainian Fronts (Rokossovsky, G.F. Zakharov, I.D. Chernyakhovsky), 1st Baltic Front (I.Kh.Bagramyan).

6. July-August 1944- the liberation of Western Ukraine. Lvov-Sandomierz operation End of August 1944- The offensive was stopped in the foothills of the Carpathians by the reinforced and fierce resistance of the Nazis.

7. August 1944- Iasi-Chisinau operation. 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts. Moldavia and Romania were liberated, 22 divisions of Army Group South Ukraine were destroyed. Romania, Bulgaria - the overthrow of the pro-fascist governments. These countries have declared war on Germany.

8. September 1944- from Moldova and Romania - to help the Yugoslav partisans. Josip Broz Tito

10. October 1944- Northern Fleet + Northern Front: liberation of the Soviet Arctic, expelling the enemy from the Murmansk region. The northeastern regions of Norway were cleared of the enemy.

LIBERATION TRAVEL OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE USSR

Romania ® Bulgaria ® part of Poland ® part of Norway

® part of Hungary ® Yugoslavia ® remainder of Poland ® remainder of Hungary ® Austria ®Czech Republic

End of September 1944 - at the request of I. Broz Tito (commander-in-chief), Soviet troops carry out the Belgrade operation to liberate the capital of Yugoslavia

October 1944- Belgrade is liberated.

LIBERATION OF BERLIN

February 1945- Vistula-Oder operation. = continuation of operation "Bagration"

600,000 soldiers died in Poland during its liberation.

Vistula-Oder operation = rescue of the Allied operation in the Ardennes (there American losses - 40,000 people).

Early April 1945 - complete liberation of Hungary and Austria.

250,000 people perished.

1st, 2nd Belorussian fronts (Zhukov, Rokossovsky), 1st Ukrainian (Konev).

Hitler committed suicide

May 8, 1945, v Karlshorst (near Berlin)- representatives of the USSR, USA, England, France and Germany signed an act of complete and unconditional surrender of Hitlerite Germany.

From the USSR - G.K. Zhukov. From Germany - Keitel (this general at the end of the 30s studied in the USSR on an exchange (!) After the non-aggression pact)

May 9, 1945- Soviet troops entered Prague, the Prague garrison resisted until May 12, not recognizing the act of surrender

THE RESULTS OF THE WORLD: the unconditional victory of the Soviet people. June 24, 1945 there was a parade on Red Square (they threw the banners of the Nazis to the Mausoleum, but - this is not shown in the chronicle - ordinary Muscovites felt sorry for the captured Germans, who were led along Moscow streets as a sign of victory, brought them bread)

17. WWII

Great Patriotic War 1941

The reasons for the failure of the USSR at the beginning of the war and the reasons for the failure of the blitz krieg.

Mein Kampf: Hitler declared that the destruction of the USSR as a social. The state is the meaning of his whole life. The purpose for which the National Socialist movement exists. Based on this, one of the directives of the Wehrmacht read: "many millions of people will become redundant in this territory, they will either have to die or move to Siberia."

In December 1940, Hitler approves the Bararossa plan: 2-3 months after the start of the war, German troops must reach the Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan line. The war began on June 22, 1941 at 4 am. It lasted 1418 days and nights.

There are 4 periods.

Until December 1, 1941, the USSR lost 7 million people. Several tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft. Reason: objective:

A) superiority in the material means of warfare

B) in human resources 400 million German. 197 million ussr.

C) more experience in modern warfare.

D) surprise of the attack.

Subjective:

A) Stalin's underestimation of diplomatic means of warfare. On June 14, 1941, a TASS statement was published in the newspapers, stating that Germany's preparations for war with the Soviet Union had no basis whatsoever.

B) the transfer of troops to a pre-war position was not carried out.

C) repression in the army: 85% of the command staff held their posts for less than one year. Of the 733 former commanders of the komrit to marshals, 579 were repressed. It takes 20 years to prepare an army commander.

D) distortions in ideological work.

The first period of the war.

June 30, 1941 the creation of the state. Defense Committee: Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Malinkov, Bulganin, Beria, Voznesenky, Kaganovich, Mikoyan.

It was done: introduced, on the model of the civil war, the institution of military commissars. In the shortest possible time, the military economy was transferred to a military track. By the winter of 1941, 10 million people and 1.5 thousand large industrial enterprises were sent to the east. The formation of new formations in the rear was accelerated. 36 divisions of the people's militia were formed. As a result - the defeat of the Germans near Moscow. On November 6, at the Mayakovskaya station, a meeting was held in honor of the Great October Revolution. Parade on November 7.

The defeat of the Germans near Moscow. Germany's first major defeat. July August 41, the governments of England and the United States announced their support for the USSR. Contacts were established with France, Slovakia, etc. An anti-Hitler coalition has been founded. It took shape on January 1, 1942. After the Japanese attack on the Hawaiian Islands. In the fall, the coalition already included 34 states with a population of 1.5 billion people. Revitalization of the resistance movement in all 12 countries occupied by Germany.

2 period of the war. Events and facts. Battle for stalingrad. Changes in the totalitarian democratic system: the end of repression, the elimination of the institution of military commissars. The growth of the Comintern. Revival of the traditions of the Russian army. Introduction of military ranks. Guards, shifting the emphasis in ideology to defending the fatherland. Strengthening the role of the church. Spring 1943. General offensive of the Soviet troops. Break of the blockade of Leningrad.

July 5, 1943 - Battle of the Kursk Bulge began. For the first time in the war, the balance of forces changed in favor of the Red Army, the isolation of Germany in the international arena began, the landing of the Anglo-American landing in Italy, the overthrow of the Mussolini regime in Italy. For the first time, the USSR surpassed Germany in the production of various types of military products. There is a development of positive personnel changes in the country. Voroshilov and Budyonny are on the sidelines.

Gross violations of national policy continue. Mass resettlement of Germans in the Volga region, destruction of their autonomies. 1943 - eviction of Kalmyks. 1944 - the eviction of Balkars, Chechens and Ingush, more than 1 million Tatars were evicted from the Crimea and the Caucasus.

Third Period of the War. Liberation mission of the Soviet troops. The year 1944 began with major offensive operations by Soviet troops in the northern and southern directions: lifting the blockade of Leningrad, liberating the Novgorod region, Estonia, right-bank Ukraine and Crimea. On June 6, 1944, a second front was opened in Europe. July 1944 - the liberation of Belarus, Operation Bagration. By the end of 1944, the entire Soviet territory was liberated. By the beginning of 1945, 11 European countries were liberated. During the liberation of the countries of Eastern Europe, more than 1 million Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. April 16, 1945 - the beginning of the Berlin operation. On May 8, the act of Germany's unconditional surrender was signed.

The fourth period of the war. The question of the participation of the USSR in the war against Japan was resolved in February 1945 at the Yalta Conference. The hostilities began on August 9 and ended on September 2. August 6 and 8 - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Kwantung Army was defeated in August 1945, and on September 2, Japan's surrender was signed on the American battleship Missouri.

Results of the Second World War.

Churchill: “It was the Russian army that released the guts from the German military machine.” In total, about 60 million people died in World War II. Of these, the USSR lost 27 million, Germany - 13, Poland - 6, China - 5 million. Japan - 2.5 million, Yugoslavia - 1.7 million, France, England and the United States - 1.3 million people. Of the 18 million imprisoned in concentration camps, 11 million died.

The international prestige of the USSR has sharply increased. The USSR received the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin. East Prussia with the city of Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) retreated to us. Changes in the totalitarian system. GULAG, repression, the formation of Stalinist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe and the resettlement of repressed peoples.

Everyone knows that this terrible period left an indelible imprint on world history. Today we will consider the most amazing historical facts about the Great Patriotic War, which are rarely mentioned in the usual sources.

Victory Day

It's hard to imagine, but in the history of the USSR there was a 17-year period when Victory Day was not celebrated. Since 1948, May 9 has been a simple working day, and January 1 (since 1930, this day has been a working day) was made a day off. In 1965, the holiday was returned to its place and marked with a wide celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Soviet victory. Since then, May 9 is again a day off. Many historians associate such a strange decision of the Soviet government with the fact that it was afraid of active independent veterans on this significant day off. The official order said that people should forget about the war and throw all their strength into rebuilding the country.

Imagine, 80 thousand officers of the Red Army during the Second World War were women. In general, in different periods of hostilities, there were from 0.6 to 1 million women at the front. From the fairer sex who voluntarily came to the front, the following were formed: a rifle brigade, 3 air regiments and a reserve rifle regiment. In addition, a women's school of snipers was organized, the pupils of which more than once entered the history of Soviet military achievements. A separate company of women sailors was also organized.

It should be noted that women at war performed combat missions no worse than men, as evidenced by the 87 titles of Hero of the Soviet Union awarded to them during the Second World War. In world history, this was the first case of such a massive struggle of women for their homeland. In the ranks soldier of the great patriotic war the fairer sex has mastered almost all military specialties. Many of them have served shoulder to shoulder with their husbands, brothers and fathers.

"Crusade"

Hitler viewed his attack on the Soviet Union as a Crusade, in which one can resort to terrorist methods. Already in May 1941, while implementing the Barbarossa plan, Hitler relieved his servicemen of any responsibility for their actions. Thus, his charges could do whatever they wanted with civilians.

Four-legged friends

During the Second World War, more than 60 thousand dogs served on different fronts. Thanks to the four-legged saboteurs, dozens of Nazi trains derailed. Tank destroyer dogs destroyed more than 300 units of enemy armored vehicles. Signal dogs obtained about two hundred reports for the USSR. On ambulance carts, dogs were taken from the battlefield at least 700 thousand wounded soldiers and officers of the Red Army. Thanks to the sapper dogs, 303 settlements were cleared. In total, the four-legged sappers surveyed more than 15 thousand km 2 of land. They found more than 4 million units of German mines and land mines.

Kremlin disguise

Considering, we will not once encounter the ingenuity of the Soviet military. During the first month of the war, the Moscow Kremlin literally disappeared from the face of the earth. At least it seemed so from the sky. Flying over Moscow, the fascist pilots were in complete despair, as their maps did not coincide with reality. The thing is that the Kremlin was carefully camouflaged: the stars of the towers and the crosses of the cathedrals were covered with covers, and the domes were repainted black. In addition, three-dimensional models of residential buildings were erected along the perimeter of the Kremlin wall, beyond which even the battlements were not visible. Manezhnaya Square and Aleksandrovsky Garden were partially made with plywood decorations of buildings, the Mausoleum received two additional floors, and a sandy road appeared between the Borovitsky and Spassky gates. The facades of the Kremlin buildings have changed their color to gray, and the roofs to red-brown. The palace ensemble has never looked so democratic during its existence. By the way, the body of V.I.Lenin was evacuated to Tyumen during the war.

The feat of Dmitry Ovcharenko

Soviet feats in the great Patriotic war have repeatedly illustrated the triumph of courage over weapons. On July 13, 1941, Dmitry Ovcharenko, returning with ammunition to his company, was surrounded by five dozen enemy soldiers. The rifle was taken away from him, but the man did not lose heart. Taking an ax out of his cart, he chopped off the head of the officer who was interrogating him. Then Dmitry threw three grenades at the enemy soldiers, which killed 21 soldiers. The rest of the Germans fled, with the exception of the officer, whom Ovcharenko caught up with and also beheaded. For his bravery, the soldier was awarded the title

Hitler's main enemy

WWII history does not always talk about this, but the leader of the Nazis considered his main enemy in the Soviet Union not Stalin, but Yuri Levitan. Hitler offered 250 thousand marks for the head of the announcer. In this regard, the Soviet authorities guarded Levitan in the most careful way, misinforming the press about his appearance.

Tanks from tractors

Considering interesting facts about the great Patriotic war, one cannot ignore the fact that due to an acute shortage of tanks, in emergency cases, the USSR Armed Forces made them from simple tractors. During the Odessa defensive operation, 20 tractors covered with sheets of armor were thrown into battle. Naturally, the main effect of such a decision is psychological. Attacking the Romanians at night with their sirens and lanterns on, the Russians forced them to flee. As for the weapons, many of these "tanks" were equipped with dummies of heavy weapons. Soviet soldiers of the great Patriotic war jokingly called such machines NI-1, which means "Fear".

Stalin's son

During the war, Stalin's son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, was captured. The Nazis offered Stalin to exchange his son for Field Marshal Paulus, who was held captive by the Soviet troops. The Soviet commander-in-chief refused, saying that the soldier would not be exchanged for a field marshal. Shortly before the arrival of the Soviet army, Yakov was shot. After the war, his family was exiled as a prisoner of war family. When Stalin was notified of this, he said that he would not make exceptions for relatives and break the law.

The fate of the prisoners of war

There are historical facts that make it especially unpleasant. Here is one of them. About 5.27 million Soviet soldiers were captured by the Germans, who were kept in terrible conditions. This fact is confirmed by the fact that less than two million Red Army soldiers returned to their homeland. The reason for the cruel treatment of prisoners by the Germans was the Soviet Union's refusal to sign the Geneva and Hague Conventions on Prisoners of War. The German authorities decided that if the other side did not sign the documents, then they may not regulate the conditions of detention of prisoners by world standards. In fact, the Geneva Convention regulates the treatment of prisoners regardless of whether the countries have signed the agreement.

The Soviet Union treated enemy prisoners of war much more humanely, as evidenced at least by the fact that died in the Great Patriotic War 350 thousand German prisoners, and the remaining 2 million returned home safely.

Feat of Matvey Kuzmin

In times World War II, interesting facts about which we are considering, the 83-year-old peasant Matvey Kuzmin repeated the feat of Ivan Susanin, who in 1613 led the Poles into an impenetrable swamp.

In February 1942, a German mountain rifle battalion was stationed in the village of Kurakino, which was tasked with breaking through to the rear of the Soviet troops planning a counteroffensive in the Malkinskiye Heights region. Matvey Kuzmin lived in Kurakino. The Germans asked the old man to act as a guide for them, offering food and a gun in exchange. Kuzmin agreed to the proposal and, having notified the nearest part of the Red Army through his 11-year-old grandson, set off with the Germans. Leading the Nazis along roundabout roads, the old man took them to the village of Malkino, where an ambush awaited them. Soviet soldiers met the enemy with machine-gun fire, and Matvey Kuzmin was killed by one of the German commanders.

Aerial ram

On June 22, 1941, Soviet pilot I. Ivanov decided to launch an air ram. This was the first military feat marked with the title

Best tanker

The most qualified tank ace during the Second World War was rightfully recognized as one who served in the 40th Tank Brigade. For three months of battles (September - November 1941), he took part in 28 tank battles and personally destroyed 52 German tanks. In November 1941, a brave tanker was killed near Moscow.

Losses during the Battle of Kursk

Losses of the USSR in the war- a difficult topic that they always try not to touch upon. So, the official data on the losses of Soviet troops during the Battle of Kursk were published only in 1993. According to researcher B. V. Sokolov, German losses in Kursk amounted to approximately 360 thousand killed, wounded and captured soldiers. The Soviet losses exceeded the Nazi ones by seven times.

The feat of Yakov Studennikov

On July 7, 1943, at the height of the Battle of Kursk, Yakov Studennikov - machine gunner of the 1019 regiment - fought on his own for two days. The rest of the soldiers from his calculation were killed. Despite the injury, Studennikov repulsed 10 enemy attacks and killed more than three hundred Nazis. For this feat he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The feat of the 1378th regiment of the 87th division

On December 17, 1942, not far from the village of Verkhne-Kumskoye, the soldiers of the company of Senior Lieutenant Naumov defended the height of 1372 m with two teams of anti-tank rifles. They managed to repel three enemy tank and infantry attacks on the first day and several more attacks on the second. During this time, 24 soldiers neutralized 18 tanks and about a hundred infantrymen. As a result, the Soviet brave men died, but went down in history as heroes.

Shiny tanks

During the fighting near Lake Hassan, Japanese soldiers decided that the Soviet Union, trying to outwit them, was using plywood tanks. As a result, the Japanese fired at Soviet equipment with ordinary bullets in the hope that this would be enough. Returning from the battlefield, the tanks of the Red Army were so densely covered with lead bullets melted from impact on the armor that they literally shone. Well, their armor remained intact.

Camel help

In the history of the Second World War, this is rarely said, but the 28-reserve Soviet army, formed in Astrakhan during the battles of Stalingrad, used camels as a draft force for transporting guns. The Soviet soldiers had to catch wild camels and tame them due to an acute shortage of automobile equipment and horses. Most of the 350 tamed animals died in various battles, and the survivors were transferred to economic units or zoos. One of the camels, which was given the name Yashka, reached Berlin with the soldiers.

Removal of children

Many little-known facts about the great Patriotic war cause sincere sorrow. During the Second World War, the Nazis removed thousands of children of "Nordic appearance" from Poland and the Soviet Union. The Nazis took children from two months to six years old and took them to a concentration camp called "Kinder KC", where the "racial value" of the children was determined. Those children who passed the selection were subjected to "initial Germanization". They were called and taught the German language. The child's new citizenship was confirmed by forged documents. Germanized children were sent to local orphanages. Thus, many German families did not even realize that the children they adopted were of Slavic origin. At the end of the war, no more than 3% of these children were returned to their homeland. The remaining 97% have grown and aged, considering themselves full-fledged Germans. Most likely, their descendants will never know about their true origin.

Minor heroes

Finishing with some interesting facts about Great Patriotic War, it should be said about the children-heroes. So, the title of Hero was awarded to 14-year-old Lenya Golikov and Sasha Chekalin, as well as 15-year-old Marat Kazei, Valya Kotik and Zina Portnova.

Stalingrad battle

In August 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered his troops heading to Stalingrad "not to leave a stone unturned." In fact, the Germans succeeded. When the fierce battle was over, the Soviet government concluded that it would be cheaper to build a city from scratch than to rebuild what was left. Nevertheless, Stalin unconditionally ordered the restoration of the city literally from the ashes. When clearing Stalingrad, so many shells were thrown at Mamayev Kurgan that for the next two years even weeds did not grow there.

For some unknown reason, it was in Stalingrad that the opponents changed their methods of fighting. From the very beginning of the war, the Soviet command adhered to flexible defense tactics, retreating in critical situations. Well, the Germans, in turn, tried to avoid mass bloodshed and bypassed large fortified areas. In Stalingrad, both sides seemed to have forgotten their principles and tripled the fiercest battle.

It all began on August 23, 1942, when the Germans attacked the city in a massive air attack. The bombing killed 40 thousand people, which is 15 thousand more than during the Soviet raid on Dresden in early 1945. The Soviet side in Stalingrad applied methods of psychological influence on the enemy. From the loudspeakers installed right on the front line, popular German music sounded, which was interrupted by messages about the next successes of the Red Army at the fronts. But the most effective means of psychological pressure on the Nazis was the beat of the metronome, which was interrupted after 7 blows by the message: "Every seven seconds, one Nazi soldier dies at the front." After 10-20 such messages, tango was turned on.

Considering interesting facts about the beginning of World War II and, in particular, about the Battle of Stalingrad, one cannot ignore the feat of Sergeant Nuradilov. On September 1, 1942, the machine gunner independently destroyed 920 enemy soldiers.

Memory of the Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad is remembered not only in the post-Soviet space. In many European countries (France, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, and others) streets, squares and squares were named in honor of the Battle of Stalingrad. In Paris, the metro station, square and boulevard are called "Stalingrad". And in Italy, one of the central streets of Bologna is named in honor of this battle.

Victory Banner

The original Victory Banner is kept in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces as a sacred relic and one of the brightest memories of war... Due to the fact that the flag is made of fragile satin, it can only be stored horizontally. The original banner is shown only on special occasions and in the presence of a guard. In other cases, it is replaced with a duplicate, which repeats the original 100% and even gets old the same way.