War years. Uninvented stories about the war: “Get ready, little women, for a terrible

In fact, all Soviet historiography about the war of 1941-1945 is part of Soviet propaganda. It was mythologized and changed so often that the real facts about the war began to be perceived as a threat to the existing system.

The saddest thing is that today's Russia has inherited this approach to history. The authorities prefer to present the history of the Great Patriotic War as it suits them.

Here are collected 10 facts about the Great Patriotic War, which are not beneficial to anyone. Because these are just facts.

1. The fate of 2 million people who died in this war is still unknown. It is incorrect to compare, but to understand the situation: in the United States, the fate of no more than a dozen people is unknown.

Most recently, through the efforts of the Ministry of Defense, the Memorial website was launched, thanks to which information about those who died or went missing has now become publicly available.

However, the state spends billions on “patriotic education”, Russians wear ribbons, every second car on the street goes “to Berlin”, the authorities are fighting against “falsifiers”, etc. And, against this background, two million fighters whose fate is unknown.

2. Stalin really did not want to believe that Germany would attack the USSR on June 22. There were many reports on this subject, but Stalin ignored them.

The declassified document is a report to Joseph Stalin, which was sent to him by the People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov. The People's Commissar named the date, referring to the message of the informant - our agent at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe. And Stalin himself imposes a resolution: “You can send your source to *** mother. It's not a source, it's a disinformer."

3. For Stalin, the outbreak of war was a disaster. And when Minsk fell on June 28, he went into complete prostration. This is documented. Stalin even thought that he would be arrested in the first days of the war.

There is a journal of visitors to Stalin's Kremlin office, where it is noted that there is no leader in the Kremlin for one day, no second, that is, June 28th. Stalin, as it became known from the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Anastas Mikoyan, and also the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars Chadaev (later the State Defense Committee), was at the "near dacha", but it was impossible to contact him.

And then the closest associates - Klim Voroshilov, Malenkov, Bulganin - decided on a completely extraordinary step: to go to the "near dacha", which was categorically impossible to do without calling the "owner". They found Stalin pale, depressed, and heard wonderful words from him: “Lenin left us a great power, and we pissed it off.” He thought they were here to arrest him. When he realized that he was called to lead the fight, he cheered up. And the next day the State Defense Committee was created.

4. But there were also opposite moments. In October 1941, terrible for Moscow, Stalin remained in Moscow and behaved courageously.

Speech by I. V. Stalin at the parade of the Soviet Army on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941.

October 16, 1941 - on the day of the panic in Moscow, all barrage detachments were removed, and Muscovites left the city on foot. Ashes flew through the streets: they burned secret documents, departmental archives.

In the People's Commissariat of Education, even the archive of Nadezhda Krupskaya was burned in a hurry. At the Kazan station there was a train under steam for the evacuation of the government to Samara (then Kuibyshev). But

5. In the famous toast “to the Russian people”, said in 1945 at a reception on the occasion of the Victory, Stalin also said: “Some other people could say: you have not justified our hopes, we will put another government, but the Russian people will did not go".

Painting by Mikhail Khmelko. "For the great Russian people." 1947

6. Sexual violence in defeated Germany.

Historian Anthony Beevor, doing research for his book "Berlin: The Fall", published in 2002, found reports in the Russian state archive about the epidemic of sexual violence in Germany. These reports at the end of 1944 were sent by the NKVD officers to Lavrenty Beria.

“They were passed on to Stalin,” Beevor says. “You can see by the marks whether they were read or not. They report mass rapes in East Prussia and how German women tried to kill themselves and their children to avoid this fate.”

And rape was not only a problem for the Red Army. Bob Lilly, a historian at Northern Kentucky University, was able to access the archives of US military courts.

His book (Taken by Force) caused so much controversy that at first no American publisher dared to publish it, and the first edition appeared in France. According to Lilly's rough estimates, about 14,000 rapes were committed by American soldiers in England, France and Germany from 1942 to 1945.

What was the real scale of the rapes? The most commonly quoted figures are 100,000 women in Berlin and two million throughout Germany. These figures, hotly disputed, were extrapolated from the meager medical records that have survived to this day. ()

7. The war for the USSR began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.

The Soviet Union de facto took part in the Second World War from September 17, 1939, and not at all from June 22, 1941. And in alliance with the Third Reich. And this pact is a strategic mistake, if not a crime of the Soviet leadership and Comrade Stalin personally.

In accordance with the secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the Third Reich and the USSR (Molotov-Ribentrop Pact), after the outbreak of World War II, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. On September 22, 1939, a joint parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was held in Brest, dedicated to the signing of an agreement on the demarcation line.

Also in 1939-1940, according to the same Pact, the Baltic States and other territories in present-day Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus were occupied. Among other things, this led to a common border between the USSR and Germany, which allowed the Germans to make a “surprise attack”.

Fulfilling the agreement, the USSR strengthened the army of its enemy. Having created an army, Germany began to seize the countries of Europe, increasing its power, including new military factories. And most importantly: by June 22, 1941, the Germans gained combat experience. The Red Army learned to fight in the course of the war and finally got used to it only by the end of 1942 - the beginning of 1943.

8. In the first months of the war, the Red Army did not retreat, but fled in panic.

By September 1941, the number of soldiers in German captivity was equal to the entire pre-war regular army. In flight, according to reports, MILLIONS of rifles were thrown.

Retreat is a maneuver without which there is no war. But our troops fled. Not all, of course, were those who fought to the last. And there were many. But the pace of the advance of the German troops was stunning.

9. Many "heroes" of the war were invented by Soviet propaganda. So, for example, there were no Panfilov heroes.

The memory of 28 Panfilovites was immortalized by the installation of a monument in the village of Nelidovo, Moscow Region.

The feat of 28 Panfilov guardsmen and the words “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind » attributed to the political instructor by the employees of the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, in which the essay “On 28 Fallen Heroes” was published on January 22, 1942.

“The feat of 28 Panfilov guardsmen, covered in the press, is a fiction of the correspondent Koroteev, the editor of Krasnaya Zvezda Ortenberg, and especially the literary secretary of the newspaper Krivitsky. This fiction was repeated in the works of writers N. Tikhonov, V. Stavsky, A. Beck, N. Kuznetsov, V. Lipko, Svetlov and others and was widely popularized among the population of the Soviet Union.

Photo of the monument in honor of the feat of the Panfilov guards in Alma-Ata.

This is information from a certificate-report, which was prepared based on the materials of the investigation and signed on May 10, 1948 by Nikolai Afanasyev, Chief Military Prosecutor of the USSR Armed Forces. the authorities staged a whole investigation into the “feat of the Panfilovites”, because already from 1942, fighters from those same 28 Panfilovites who were listed as buried began to appear among the living.

10. Stalin in 1947 canceled the celebration (day off) of Victory Day on May 9th. Until 1965, this day in the USSR was an ordinary working day.

Joseph Stalin and his comrades-in-arms knew perfectly well who won in this won - the people. And this surge of popular activity frightened them. Many, especially the front-line soldiers, who lived for four years in constant proximity to death, have ceased, they are tired of being afraid. In addition, the war violated the complete self-isolation of the Stalinist state.

Many hundreds of thousands of Soviet people (soldiers, prisoners, "Ostarbeiters") traveled abroad, having the opportunity to compare life in the USSR and in Europe and draw conclusions. It was a deep shock for the collective farm soldiers to see how Bulgarian or Romanian (not to mention German or Austrian) peasants live.

Orthodoxy, which had been destroyed before the war, revived for a time. In addition, military commanders acquired a completely different status in the eyes of society than they had before the war. Stalin feared them too. In 1946, Stalin sent Zhukov to Odessa, in 1947 he canceled the celebration of Victory Day, in 1948 he stopped paying for awards and injuries.

Because not thanks to, but in spite of the actions of the dictator, having paid an exorbitant price, he won this war. And I felt like a people - and there was and is nothing more terrible for tyrants.

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941, the day when the Nazi invaders and their allies invaded the territory of the USSR. It lasted four years and became the final stage of the Second World War. In total, about 34,000,000 Soviet soldiers took part in it, more than half of which died.

Causes of the Great Patriotic War

The main reason for the start of the Great Patriotic War was the desire of Adolf Hitler to lead Germany to world domination by capturing other countries and establishing a racially pure state. Therefore, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, then Czechoslovakia, starting World War II and conquering more and more territories. The successes and victories of Nazi Germany forced Hitler to violate the non-aggression pact concluded on August 23, 1939 between Germany and the USSR. He developed a special operation called "Barbarossa", which meant the capture of the Soviet Union in a short time. Thus began the Great Patriotic War. It went through three stages.

Stages of the Great Patriotic War

Stage 1: June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942

The Germans captured Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus and Moldova. The troops moved inland to capture Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don and Novgorod, but the main goal of the Nazis was Moscow. At this time, the USSR suffered heavy losses, thousands of people were taken prisoner. On September 8, 1941, the military blockade of Leningrad began, which lasted 872 days. As a result, the Soviet troops were able to stop the German offensive. The Barbarossa plan failed.

Stage 2: 1942-1943

During this period, the USSR continued to build up its military power, industry and defense grew. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the Soviet troops, the front line was pushed back - to the west. The central event of this period was the greatest Battle of Stalingrad in history (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943). The goal of the Germans was to capture Stalingrad, the big bend of the Don and the Volgodonsk isthmus. During the battle, more than 50 armies, corps and divisions of enemies were destroyed, about 2 thousand tanks, 3 thousand aircraft and 70 thousand vehicles were destroyed, German aviation was significantly weakened. The victory of the USSR in this battle had a significant impact on the course of further military events.

Stage 3: 1943-1945

From defense, the Red Army gradually goes over to the offensive, moving towards Berlin. Several campaigns aimed at destroying the enemy were implemented. A guerrilla war breaks out, during which 6200 partisan detachments are formed, trying to fight the enemy on their own. The partisans used all means at hand, down to clubs and boiling water, set up ambushes and traps. At this time, there are battles for the Right-Bank Ukraine, Berlin. The Belarusian, Baltic, and Budapest operations were developed and put into action. As a result, on May 8, 1945, Germany officially recognized defeat.

Thus, the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War was actually the end of the Second World War. The defeat of the German army put an end to Hitler's desire to gain dominance over the world, universal slavery. However, the victory in the war came at a heavy price. Millions of people died in the struggle for the Motherland, cities, villages and villages were destroyed. All the last funds went to the front, so people lived in poverty and hunger. Every year on May 9, we celebrate the day of the Great Victory over fascism, we are proud of our soldiers for giving life to future generations, providing a brighter future. At the same time, the victory was able to consolidate the influence of the USSR on the world stage and turn it into a superpower.

Briefly for children

More

The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is the most terrible and bloody war in the entire history of the USSR. This war was between two powers, the mighty power of the USSR and Germany. In a fierce battle, for five years, the USSR nevertheless won worthy of its opponent. Germany, when attacking the union, hoped to quickly capture the whole country, but they did not expect how powerful and selenium the Slavic people were. What did this war lead to? To begin with, we will analyze a number of reasons, because of what it all started?

After the First World War, Germany was greatly weakened, a severe crisis overcame the country. But at this time, Hitler came to power and introduced a large number of reforms and changes, thanks to which the country began to prosper, and people showed their trust in him. When he became the ruler, he pursued such a policy in which he informed the people that the nation of Germans was the most excellent in the world. Hitler was ignited by the idea of ​​​​revenging for the First World War, for that terrible lose, he had the idea to subjugate the whole world. He began with the Czech Republic and Poland, which later grew into the Second World War

We all remember very well from history books that until 1941 a non-aggression treaty was signed between the two countries of Germany and the USSR. But Hitler still attacked. The Germans developed a plan called "Barbarossa". It clearly stated that Germany should capture the USSR in 2 months. He believed that if he had at his disposal all the strength and power of the country, then he would be able to go to war with the United States with fearlessness.

The war began so quickly, the USSR was not ready, but Hitler did not get what he wanted and expected. Our army put up a lot of resistance, the Germans did not expect to see such a strong opponent in front of them. And the war dragged on for a long 5 years.

Now we will analyze the main periods during the entire war.

The initial stage of the war is June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942. During this time, the Germans captured most of the country, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus also got here. Further, the Germans already had Moscow and Leningrad in front of their eyes. And they almost succeeded, but the Russian soldiers turned out to be stronger than them and did not allow this city to be captured.

Unfortunately, they captured Leningrad, but what is most surprising, the people living there did not let the invaders into the city itself. There were battles for these cities until the end of 1942.

The end of 1943, the beginning of 1943, was very difficult for the German troops and at the same time happy for the Russians. The Soviet army launched a counteroffensive, the Russians began to slowly but surely retake their territory, and the invaders and their allies slowly retreated to the west. Some of the allies were destroyed on the spot.

Everyone remembers very well how the entire industry of the Soviet Union switched to the production of military supplies, thanks to which they were able to repulse the enemies. The retreating army turned into attackers.

The final. 1943 to 1945 The Soviet soldiers gathered all their strength and began to recapture their territory at a fast pace. All forces were directed towards the invaders, namely to Berlin. At this time, Leningrad was liberated, and other previously captured countries were recaptured. The Russians resolutely marched on Germany.

The last stage (1943-1945). At this time, the USSR began to take away its lands bit by bit and move towards the invaders. Russian soldiers retook Leningrad and other cities, then they proceeded to the very heart of Germany - Berlin.

On May 8, 1945, the USSR entered Berlin, the Germans announced their surrender. Their ruler could not stand it and independently left for the next world.

And now the worst part of the war. How many people died so that we would now live in the world and enjoy every day.

In fact, history is silent about these terrible figures. The USSR concealed for a long time, then the number of people. The government hid data from the people. And people then understood how many died, how many were taken prisoner, and how many missing people to this day. But after a while, the data nevertheless surfaced. According to official sources, up to 10 million soldiers died in this war, and about 3 million more were in German captivity. These are terrible numbers. And how many children, old people, women died. The Germans mercilessly shot everyone.

It was a terrible war, unfortunately it brought a lot of tears to families, there was devastation in the country for a long time, but slowly the USSR got on its feet, post-war actions subsided, but did not subside in the hearts of people. In the hearts of mothers who did not wait for their sons from the front. Wives who were left widows with children. But what a strong Slavic people, even after such a war, he rose from his knees. Then the whole world knew how strong the state was and how strong in spirit people lived there.

Thanks to the veterans who protected us when they were very young. Unfortunately, at the moment there are only a few of them left, but we will never forget their feat.

Report on the Great Patriotic War

June 22, 1941 at 4 o'clock in the morning, Germany attacked the USSR without declaring war. Such an unexpected event briefly put the Soviet troops out of action. The Soviet army adequately met the enemy, although the enemy was very strong and had an advantage over the Red Army. Germany had a lot of weapons, tanks, planes, when the Soviet army was just moving from cavalry protection to armory.

The USSR was not ready for such a large-scale war, many of the commanders at that moment were inexperienced and young. Of the five marshals, three were shot and recognized as enemies of the people. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was in power during the Great Patriotic War and did everything possible for the victory of the Soviet troops.

The war was cruel and bloody, the whole country stood up to defend the Motherland. Everyone could join the ranks of the Soviet army, the youth created partisan detachments and tried to help in every possible way. All men and women fought for the defense of their native land.

900 days lasted the struggle for Leningrad residents, who were in the blockade. Many soldiers were killed and taken prisoner. The Nazis created concentration camps, where they mocked and starved people. The Nazi troops expected that the war would end within 2-3 months, but the patriotism of the Russian people turned out to be stronger, and the war dragged on for a long 4 years.

In August 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began, lasting six months. The Soviet army won and captured more than 330,000 Nazis. The Nazis could not come to terms with their defeat and launched an attack on Kursk. 1200 vehicles took part in the Battle of Kursk - it was a massive battle of tanks.

In 1944, the troops of the Red Army were able to liberate Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Moldova. Also, Soviet troops received support from Siberia, the Urals and the Caucasus and were able to drive enemy troops away from their native lands. Many times the Nazis wanted to lure the troops of the Soviet army into a trap by cunning, but they did not succeed. Thanks to the competent Soviet command, the plans of the Nazis were destroyed and then they set in motion heavy artillery. The Nazis launched heavy tanks such as the "Tiger" and "Panther" into battle, but despite this, the Red Army gave a worthy rebuff.

At the very beginning of 1945, the Soviet army broke into Germany and forced the Nazis to admit defeat. From May 8 to May 9, 1945, the Act of surrender of the forces of Nazi Germany was signed. Officially, May 9 is considered Victory Day, and is celebrated to this day.

Someday everyone heard that Baikal is a very large lake, but now, those who have not seen it think that these are just words. And now let's analyze that the distance between the Northern capital

• Writer Yuri Kazakov. life and creation

  Yuri Pavlovich Kazakov (1927-1982) is one of the writers of the Soviet period of Russian history. Kazakov is a native of Moscow and his childhood years in an ordinary simple family pass

• Proper nutrition - message report

  Eating right is one of the most important things you can do to protect your health. In fact, up to 80% of premature heart disease and strokes can be prevented with your

• Jerboa - message report

  Very small rodents - jerboas - live in moderately hot semi-deserts and steppes of the Eastern Hemisphere. These creatures are distinguished by their characteristic appearance - a shortened body and elongated hind legs.

• Why shouldn't water be polluted? - message report

  Water is the most important source for humans. Without it, the existence of living beings is impossible. She must be treated with respect. Since pure fresh water is very difficult to replace

The opposition of the Russian people to the aggression of Germany and other countries seeking to establish a "new world order". This war became a battle between two opposing civilizations, in which the Western world set as its goal the complete destruction of Russia - the USSR as a state and nation, the seizure of a significant part of its territories and the formation of puppet regimes subject to Germany in the rest of its parts. The Judeo-Masonic regimes of the USA and England, who saw Hitler as an instrument for the implementation of their plans for world domination and the destruction of Russia, pushed Germany to war against Russia.

On June 22, 1941, the German armed forces, consisting of 103 divisions, including 10 tank divisions, invaded Russia. Their total number numbered five and a half million people, of which more than 900 thousand were military personnel of the Western allies of Germany - Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, etc. 4300 tanks and assault guns were attached to this perfidious Western international , 4980 combat aircraft, 47200 guns and mortars.

Opposing the aggressor, the Russian armed forces of five western border military districts and three fleets were twice as inferior to the enemy in manpower, and in the first echelon of our armies there were only 56 rifle and cavalry divisions, which were difficult to compete with the German tank corps. The aggressor also had a great advantage in terms of artillery, tanks and aircraft of the latest designs.

By nationality, more than 90% of the Soviet army opposing Germany were Russians (Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians), which is why it can be called the Russian army without exaggeration, which does not in the least detract from the feasible contribution of other peoples of Russia in confronting the common enemy.

Treacherously, without declaring war, having concentrated overwhelming superiority on the direction of strikes, the aggressor broke through the defenses of the Russian troops, seized the strategic initiative and air supremacy. The enemy occupied a significant part of the country, moved inland up to 300 - 600 km.

On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was created (from August 6 - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command). All power was concentrated in the State Defense Committee (GKO), created on June 30. Since August 8, I.V. Stalin became the Supreme Commander. He gathered around him the outstanding Russian commanders G. K. Zhukov, S. K. Timoshenko, B. M. Shaposhnikov, A. M. Vasilevsky, K. K. Rokossovsky, N. F. Vatutin, A. I. Eremenko, K. A. Meretskov, I. S. Konev, I. D. Chernyakhovsky and many others. In his public speeches, Stalin relies on the feeling of patriotism of the Russian people, urging them to follow the example of their heroic ancestors. The main military events of the summer-autumn campaign of 1941 were the Battle of Smolensk, the defense of Leningrad and the beginning of its blockade, the military catastrophe of the Soviet troops in Ukraine, the defense of Odessa, the beginning of the defense of Sevastopol, the loss of Donbass, the defensive period of the Moscow battle. The Russian army retreated 850-1200 km, but the enemy was stopped in the main directions near Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov and went on the defensive.

The winter campaign of 1941-42 began with a counteroffensive by Russian troops in the western strategic direction. In the course of it, a counteroffensive near Moscow, the Luban, Rzhev-Vyazemskaya, Barvenkovsko-Lozovskaya and Kerch-Feodosiya landing operations were carried out. Russian troops removed the threat to Moscow and the North Caucasus, eased the situation in Leningrad, completely or partially liberated the territory of 10 regions, as well as over 60 cities. The blitzkrieg strategy collapsed. About 50 enemy divisions were destroyed. A large role in defeating the enemy was played by the patriotism of the Russian people, which was widely manifested from the first days of the war. Thousands of folk heroes like A. Matrosov and Z. Kosmodemyanskaya, hundreds of thousands of partisans behind enemy lines, already in the first months, greatly shook the morale of the aggressor.

In the summer-autumn campaign of 1942, the main military events unfolded in the southwestern direction: the defeat of the Crimean Front, the military catastrophe of the Soviet troops in the Kharkov operation, the Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad, Donbass, Stalingrad defensive operations, the battle in the North Caucasus. In the northwestern direction, the Russian army carried out the Demyansk and Rzhev-Sychevsk offensive operations. The enemy advanced 500 - 650 km, went to the Volga, captured part of the passes of the Main Caucasian Range. The territory was occupied, where before the war 42% of the population lived, a third of the gross output was produced, and more than 45% of the sown area was located. The economy was transferred to the war footing. A large number of enterprises were relocated to the eastern regions of the country (only in the second half of 1941 - 2,593, including 1,523 large ones), and 2.3 million heads of cattle were exported. In the first half of 1942, 10,000 aircraft, 11,000 tanks, approx. 54 thousand guns. In the 2nd half of the year, their output increased by more than 1.5 times.

In the winter campaign of 1942-43, the main military events were the Stalingrad and North Caucasian offensive operations, the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad. The Russian army advanced 600-700 km to the west, liberating a territory of over 480 thousand square meters. km, defeated 100 divisions (40% of the enemy forces on the Soviet-German front). In the summer-autumn campaign of 1943, the Battle of Kursk was the decisive event. The partisans played an important role (Operation Rail War). During the battle for the Dnieper, 38 thousand settlements were liberated, including 160 cities; with the capture of strategic bridgeheads on the Dnieper, conditions were created for an offensive in Belarus. In the battle for the Dnieper, the partisans carried out Operation Concert to destroy enemy communications. The Smolensk and Bryansk offensive operations were carried out in other directions. The Russian army fought up to 500 - 1300 km, defeated 218 divisions.

During the winter campaign of 1943-44, the Russian army carried out an offensive in the Ukraine (10 simultaneous and consecutive front-line operations united by a common plan). She completed the defeat of Army Group South, went beyond the border with Romania and transferred the fighting to its territory. Almost simultaneously, the Leningrad-Novgorod offensive operation unfolded; Leningrad was finally released. As a result of the Crimean operation, Crimea was liberated. Russian troops advanced west by 250 - 450 km, liberated approx. 300 thousand sq. km of territory, reached the state border with Czechoslovakia.

In June 1944, when the United States and Britain realized that Russia could win the war without their participation, they opened a 2nd front in France. This worsened the military-political position of Germany. In the summer-autumn campaign of 1944, Russian troops carried out the Belorussian, Lvov-Sandomierz, East Carpathian, Iasi-Kishinev, Baltic, Debrecen, East Carpathian, Belgrade, partly Budapest and Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive operations. The liberation of Belarus, Little Russia and the Baltic states (except for some regions of Latvia), partially Czechoslovakia was completed, Romania and Hungary were forced to surrender and entered the war against Germany, the Soviet Arctic and the northern regions of Norway were liberated from the invaders.

The 1945 campaign in Europe included the East Prussian, Vistula-Oder, completion of the Budapest, East Pomeranian, Lower Silesian, Upper Silesian, West Carpathian, Vienna and Berlin operations, which ended with the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. After the Berlin operation, Russian troops, together with the 2nd Army of the Polish Army, the 1st and 4th Romanian armies and the 1st Czechoslovak corps, carried out the Prague operation.

The victory in the war greatly raised the spirit of the Russian people, contributed to the growth of their national self-consciousness and faith in their own strength. As a result of the victory, Russia regained most of what was taken from her as a result of the revolution (except for Finland and Poland). The historical Russian lands in Galicia, Bukovina, Bessarabia, etc. returned to its composition. Most of the Russian people (including Little Russians and Belarusians) again became a single entity in one state, which created the preconditions for their unification in a single Church. The fulfillment of this historic task was the main positive outcome of the war. The victory of Russian arms created favorable conditions for Slavic unity. At some stage, the Slavic countries united with Russia in something like a fraternal federation. The peoples of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia for a certain period realized how important it was for the Slavic world to stick together in the fight against the West's encroachments on the Slavic lands.

At the initiative of Russia, Poland received Silesia and a significant part of East Prussia, from which the city of Konigsberg with its surrounding territory passed into the possession of the Russian state, and Czechoslovakia regained the Sudetenland occupied by Germany earlier.

The great mission to save humanity from the “new world order” was given to Russia at a huge price: the Russian people and the fraternal peoples of our Fatherland paid for this with the lives of 47 million people (including direct and indirect losses), of which approximately 37 million people were actually Russians (including Little Russians and Belarusians).

Most of all, it was not the military who directly participated in the hostilities that died, but civilians, the civilian population of our country. The irretrievable losses of the Russian army (killed, dead from wounds, missing, killed in captivity) amount to 8 million 668 thousand 400 people. The remaining 35 million are the lives of the civilian population. During the war years, about 25 million people were evacuated to the East. Approximately 80 million people, or about 40% of the population of our country, turned out to be in the territory occupied by Germany. All these people became "objects" of the implementation of the misanthropic program "Ost", were subjected to brutal repressions, died from the famine organized by the Germans. About 6 million people were driven into German slavery, many of them died from unbearable living conditions.

As a result of the war, the genetic fund of the most active and viable part of the population was significantly undermined, because in it, first of all, the strongest and most energetic members of society, capable of producing the most valuable offspring, perished. In addition, due to the fall in the birth rate, the country missed tens of millions of future citizens.

The enormous price of victory fell most heavily on the shoulders of the Russian people (including the Little Russians and Belarusians), because the main hostilities were fought on their ethnic territories, and it was to them that the enemy was especially cruel and merciless.

In addition to huge human losses, our country suffered colossal material damage. Not a single country in its entire history and in the Second World War had such losses and barbaric destruction from the aggressors as fell on Great Russia. The total material losses of Russia in world prices amounted to more than a trillion dollars (US national income over several years).

We have collected for you the best stories about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. First-person stories, not invented, living 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 in any way we could. The Germans became aware of this. They arrived at the village early in the morning. They drove everyone out of their houses and, like cattle, drove to the station in a neighboring town. The wagons were already waiting for us there. People were stuffed into carts so that we could only stand. We drove with stops for two days, we were not given water or food. When we were finally unloaded from the wagons, some of us were no longer able to move. Then the guards began to drop them to the ground and finish them 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, the dogs were released. The strongest ones ran to the gate. Then the dogs were driven away, all who remained were 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 can't look at the tall chimneys.

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

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

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

My father also ended up in the occupied territory during the war. They got it from the Germans, oh, how they got it. And when ours drove the Germans, those, realizing that the grown-up boys were tomorrow's soldiers, decided to shoot them. They gathered everyone and took them to the log, and then our plane saw a crowd of people and gave a queue nearby. The Germans are on the ground, and the boys are in all directions. My dad was lucky, he ran away, shot through his hand, but he ran away. Not everyone was lucky then.

My father entered Germany as a tanker. Their tank brigade distinguished itself near Berlin on the Seelow Heights. I saw pictures of these guys. Youth, and the whole chest in orders, several people -. Many, like my dad, were drafted into the army from the occupied lands, and many had something to avenge on the Germans. Therefore, perhaps, they fought so desperately bravely.

They marched across Europe, liberated the prisoners of concentration camps and beat the enemy, finishing off mercilessly. “We rushed into Germany itself, we dreamed of how we would smear it with the tracks of our tank tracks. We had a special part, even the uniform was black. We still laughed, no matter how they confused us with the SS men.

Immediately after the end of the war, my father's brigade was stationed in one of the small German towns. Or rather, in the ruins that were left of him. They themselves somehow settled in the basements of buildings, but there was no room for a dining room. And the commander of the brigade, 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 dinner. 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 German children began to crawl out of all these ruins, cellars, cracks like cockroaches. Someone is standing, and someone is already unable to 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 hand and put it in my pocket, I look quietly, and all our guys, without raising their eyes from each other, do the same.

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

The brigade commander, 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, had every right, both moral and military, to drive away the German "geeks" from their tankers with volleys. They ate his soldiers, lowered their combat effectiveness, many of these children were also sick and could spread the infection among the personnel.

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

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

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

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

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

Alive. We will endure. We will win.

THE TRUTH ABOUT WAR

It should be noted that the speech of V. M. Molotov on the first day of the war did not make a convincing impression on everyone, and the final phrase aroused irony among some soldiers. When we, doctors, asked them how things were at the front, and we lived only for this, we often heard the answer: “We are draping. Victory is ours… that is, the Germans!”

I can't say that JV Stalin's speech had a positive effect on everyone, although the majority felt warm from him. But in the darkness of a long line for water in the basement of the house where the Yakovlevs lived, I once heard: “Here! Brothers, sisters became! I forgot how I was put in jail for being late. The rat squeaked when the tail was pressed! The people remained silent. I have heard similar statements many times.

Two other factors contributed to the rise of patriotism. Firstly, these are the atrocities of the Nazis on our territory. Newspaper reports that in Katyn near Smolensk the Germans shot tens of thousands of Poles captured by us, and not us during the retreat, as the Germans assured, were perceived without malice. Everything could be. “We couldn’t leave them to the Germans,” some argued. 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 banks of Seliger, which told how, after the explosion of hand 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: Pavlova was loved by both the staff and the wounded soldiers ... I made sure that the original letter was read in all the wards, and Pavlova's face, yellowed from tears, was in the dressing room before everyone's eyes ...

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 rained down on the patriarch and the clergy. With these funds, air squadrons and tank divisions with the names "Alexander Nevsky" and "Dmitry Donskoy" were created. They showed a film where a priest with the chairman of the district executive committee, a partisan, destroys atrocious fascists. The film ended with the old bell ringer climbing the bell tower and sounding the alarm, before that he crossed himself widely. It sounded directly: “Autumn yourself with the sign of the cross, Russian people!” The wounded spectators and the staff had tears in their eyes when the lights were turned on.

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

The activities 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 multi-colored rockets. In November 1941, in the hospital of the Neurosurgical Institute, they signaled from the window in Morse code. The doctor on duty, Malm, who was completely drunk and declassed, said that the alarm came from the window of the operating room where my wife was on duty. The head of the hospital, Bondarchuk, said at a five-minute morning meeting that he vouched for Kudrin, and two days later they took the signalmen, and Malm himself disappeared forever.

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

Life at the institute gradually improved. The central heating began to work better, the electric light became almost constant, there was water in the plumbing. We went to the movies. Films such as "Two Soldiers", "Once upon a time there was a girl" and others were watched with an undisguised feeling.

At "Two Fighters" the nurse was able to get tickets to the cinema "October" for a session later than we expected. When we arrived at the next screening, we learned that a shell hit the courtyard of this cinema, where visitors from the previous screening were let out, and many were killed and wounded.

The summer of 1942 passed through the hearts of the townsfolk very sadly. The encirclement and defeat of our troops near Kharkov, which greatly increased the number of our prisoners in Germany, brought great despondency to everyone. The new offensive of the Germans to the Volga, to Stalingrad, was very hard for everyone to experience. The mortality 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 air bombs and artillery shelling, was felt by everyone.

In mid-May, my wife and her ration cards were stolen from my wife, which is why we were again very hungry. And it was necessary to prepare for the winter.

We not only cultivated and planted kitchen gardens in Rybatsky and Murzinka, but received a fair amount of land in the garden near the Winter Palace, which was given to our hospital. It was excellent land. Other Leningraders cultivated other gardens, squares, the Field of Mars. We planted even a dozen or two potato eyes with an adjacent piece of husk, as well as cabbage, rutabaga, carrots, onion seedlings, and especially a lot of turnips. Planted wherever there was a piece of land.

The wife, fearing a lack of protein food, collected slugs from vegetables and pickled 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 the wooden houses on the outskirts of Leningrad, including the houses in Murzinka, were demolished for fuel and stocked up for the winter. The rooms had electric lights. 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 every month. It was luxurious and it saved us.

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

Art was of great importance. We began to read more, to go to the cinema more often, to watch film programs in the hospital, to go to amateur concerts and to the artists who came to visit us. Once my wife and I were at a concert of D. Oistrakh and L. Oborin who arrived in Leningrad. When D. Oistrakh played and L. Oborin accompanied, it was cold in the hall. Suddenly a voice said softly, “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, not for a moment stumbling. Although the explosions pushed at my feet and I could hear their sounds and the yelping of anti-aircraft guns, the music absorbed everything. Since then, these two musicians have become my biggest favorites and fighting friends without knowing each other.

By the autumn of 1942, Leningrad was very empty, which also facilitated its supply. By the time the blockade began, up to 7 million cards were being issued in a city overflowing with refugees. In the spring of 1942, only 900 thousand of them were issued.

Many were evacuated, including part of the 2nd Medical Institute. All other universities left. But still, they believe that about two million people were able to leave Leningrad along the Road of Life. So about four million died (According to official figures, about 600 thousand people died in besieged Leningrad, according to others - about 1 million. - Ed.) figure much higher than the official one. Not all the dead ended up in the cemetery. The huge ditch between the Saratov colony and the forest leading to Koltushi and Vsevolozhskaya took in hundreds of thousands of the dead and was leveled to the ground. Now there is a suburban vegetable garden, and there are no traces left. But the rustling tops and cheerful voices of the harvesters are no less happiness for the dead than the mournful music of the Piskarevsky cemetery.

A little about children. Their fate was terrible. Almost nothing was given on children's cards. I remember two cases particularly vividly.

In the most severe part of the winter of 1941/42, I wandered from Bekhterevka to Pestel Street to my hospital. Swollen legs almost did not go, his head was spinning, each cautious step pursued one goal: to move forward and not fall at the same time. On Staronevsky I wanted to go to the bakery to buy two of our cards and warm up at least a little. The frost cut to the bone. I stood in line and noticed that a boy of seven or eight years old was standing near the counter. He leaned over and seemed to shrink. Suddenly he snatched a piece of bread from the woman who had just received it, fell down, huddled up in a bag with his back up, like a hedgehog, and began to greedily tear the bread with his teeth. The woman who lost her bread screamed wildly: probably, a hungry family was waiting impatiently at home. The line got mixed up. Many rushed to beat and trample the boy, who continued to eat, a padded jacket and a hat protected him. "The male! If only you could help,” someone called out to me, apparently because I was the only man in the bakery. I was shaken, my head was spinning. “You beasts, beasts,” I croaked and, staggering, went out into the cold. I couldn't save the child. A slight push was enough, and I would certainly have been taken by angry people for an accomplice, and I would have fallen.

Yes, I am a layman. I did not rush to save this boy. “Do not turn into a werewolf, a beast,” our beloved Olga Berggolts wrote these days. Wonderful woman! She helped many to endure the blockade and preserved in us the necessary humanity.

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

“Alive. We will endure. We'll win."

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

The second incident happened later. We have just received, but already for the second time, a letter ration, and together with my wife we ​​carried it along Liteiny, heading home. Snowdrifts were quite high in the second blockade winter. Almost opposite the house of N. A. Nekrasov, from where he admired the front entrance, clinging to the grate immersed in snow, was a child of four or five years old. He moved his legs with difficulty, huge eyes on a withered old face peered with horror at the world around him. His legs were tangled. Tamara pulled out a large, double, lump of sugar and handed it to him. At first he didn’t understand and shrunk all over, and then he suddenly grabbed this sugar with a jerk, pressed it to his chest and froze in fear that everything that had happened was either a dream or a lie ... We moved on. Well, what more could barely wandering inhabitants do?

BREAKTHROUGH THE BLOCCADE

All Leningraders spoke daily about breaking the blockade, about the upcoming victory, peaceful life and the restoration of the country, the second front, that is, about the active inclusion of the allies in the war. On the allies, however, little hope. “The plan has already been drawn, but there are no Roosevelts,” the Leningraders joked. They also recalled the Indian wisdom: "I have three friends: the first is my friend, the second is the 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 that the second front appeared only when it became clear that we could liberate the whole of Europe alone.)

Rarely did anyone talk about other outcomes. There were people who believed that Leningrad after the war should become a free city. But everyone immediately cut them off, recalling 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, for meager food, getting into a cold bed and during unwise self-service in those days. Waiting, hoping. Long and hard. They talked either 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 I gave liberation only to a two-armed man, surprised by the wonderful prostheses that hid his defect. “Don't be afraid, take it with a stomach ulcer, tuberculous. After all, all of them will have to be at the front for no more than a week. If they don’t kill them, they will wound them, and they will end up in the hospital,” the military commissar of the Dzerzhinsky district told us.

Indeed, the war went on with great bloodshed. When trying to break through to communication with the mainland, piles of bodies remained under Krasny Bor, especially along the embankments. "Nevsky Piglet" and Sinyavinsky swamps did not leave the tongue. 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.

With horror, we learned about the death of an entire army and the betrayal of Vlasov. This 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 remembered that the same was said about Yakir, Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, even 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 approached, 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, and Manstein's failure to break through this encirclement gave Leningraders new hope on New Year's Eve 1943.

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

Events were not long in coming. Almost all of the wounded were discharged: some were commissioned, some were sent to convalescent battalions, some were taken to the mainland. But we did not long wander around the empty hospital after the bustle of unloading it. A stream of fresh wounded went straight from their positions, dirty, often bandaged with an individual bag over their overcoat, bleeding. We were both a medical battalion, a field hospital, and a front-line hospital. Some began to sort, others - to operating tables for permanent operation. There was no time to eat, and there was no time for food.

It was not the first time that such streams came to us, but this one was too painful and tiring. 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 and sent to sleep for three hours, although the emergency room was littered with the wounded in need of urgent operations. Otherwise, they began to operate badly, half-asleep. Well done women! Not only did they endure the hardships of the blockade many times better than men, they died much less often from dystrophy, but they also worked without complaining of fatigue and clearly fulfilling their duties.

In our operating room, they went on three tables: behind each - a doctor and a nurse, on all three tables - another sister, replacing the operating room. Personnel operating and dressing nurses all assisted in operations. The habit of working for many nights in a row in Bekhterevka, the hospital. On October 25, she helped me out on the ambulance. I passed this test, I can proudly say, like women.

On the night of January 18, a wounded woman was brought to us. On this day, her husband was killed, and she was seriously wounded in the brain, in the left temporal lobe. A shard with fragments of bones penetrated into the depths, completely paralyzing her both 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 my right, paralyzed side, anesthetized the skin and very successfully removed the metal fragment and bone fragments that had penetrated into the brain. “My dear,” I said, finishing the operation and getting ready for the next one, “everything will be fine. I took out the shard, and speech will return to you, and the paralysis will completely disappear. You will make a full recovery!"

Suddenly, my wounded free hand from above began to beckon me to her. I knew that she would not soon begin to speak, and I thought that she would whisper something to me, although it seemed incredible. And suddenly, wounded with her healthy naked, but strong hand of a fighter, she grabbed my neck, pressed my face to her lips and kissed me hard. I couldn't take it. I did not sleep for the fourth day, almost did not eat, and only occasionally, holding a cigarette with a forceps, smoked. Everything went haywire in my head, and, like a man possessed, I ran out into the corridor in order to at least for one minute come to my senses. After all, there is a terrible injustice in the fact that women - the successors of the family and softening the morals of the beginning in humanity, are also killed. And at that moment, our loudspeaker spoke, announcing the breaking of the blockade and the connection of the Leningrad Front with the Volkhovsky.

It was a deep night, but what started here! I stood bloodied after the operation, completely stunned by what I had experienced and heard, and sisters, nurses, soldiers ran towards me ... Some with a hand on an “airplane”, that is, on a splint that abducts a bent arm, some on crutches, some still bleeding through a recently applied bandage . And so began the endless kissing. Everyone kissed me, despite my frightening appearance from spilled blood. And I stood, missed 15 minutes of the precious time for operating on other wounded in need, enduring these countless hugs and kisses.

The story of the Great Patriotic War of a front-line soldier

1 year ago, on this day, a war began that 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, tells.

– – this is the day when our life was broken in half. It was a good, bright Sunday, and suddenly war was declared, 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 “alarming” suitcase (this is a suitcase in which the essentials were always ready), and we went to the school together, I as a cadet, and my father as a teacher.

Everything changed immediately, it became clear to everyone that this war would be for a long time. Disturbing news plunged into another life, they said that the Germans were constantly moving forward. That day was clear and sunny, and in the evening 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. It was the first school that released officers who fought on the Katyusha into the war. I fought in the Katyusha throughout the war.

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

“We still did a lot. Even at school, we all needed to pass the standard for the TRP badge (ready for work and defense). They trained almost like in the army: they had to run, crawl, swim, and they also taught how to bandage wounds, apply splints for fractures, and so on. Although we were a little ready to defend our Motherland.

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 reached Berlin.

War is a terrible ordeal. It is a constant death that is near you and threatens you. Shells are exploding at your feet, enemy tanks are coming at you, flocks of German aircraft are aiming at you from above, artillery is firing. It seems that the earth turns into a small place where you have nowhere to go.

I was a commander, I had 60 people under my command. All these people need to be held accountable. And, despite the planes and tanks that are looking for your death, you need to control yourself, and control the soldiers, sergeants and officers. This is difficult to do.

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

I still remember that we went into a recaptured village, saw a church, and the Germans set up a stable in it. I had soldiers from all the cities of the Soviet Union, even from Siberia, many of their fathers died in the war. And these guys said: “We will reach 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 a German pilot, saw a Frau and four small children. Do you think someone touched them? None of the soldiers did anything bad to them. The Russian person is outgoing.

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

I have four orders. Order of Alexander Nevsky, which he received for Berlin; Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, two Orders of the Patriotic War of the 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 survived the war years want one thing - peace. And so that the people who won the victory were valuable.

Photo by Yulia Makoveychuk

I was born on May 20, 1926 in the village of Pokrovka, Volokonovsky district, Kursk region, in the family of an employee. His father worked as a secretary of the village council, an accountant at the Tavrichesky state farm, his mother was an illiterate peasant woman from a poor family, half an orphan, and was a housewife. There were 5 children in the family, I was the eldest. Before the war, our family often went hungry. The years 1931 and 1936 were especially difficult. During these years, the villagers ate the grass growing around; quinoa, cattail, cumin roots, potato tops, sorrel, beet tops, katran, sirgibuz, etc. In these years there were terrible queues for bread, chintz, matches, soap, salt. Only in 1940 did life become easier, more satisfying, more fun.

In 1939, the state farm was destroyed, deliberately recognized as harmful. Father began to work at the Yutanovskaya state mill as an accountant. The family left Pokrovka for Yutanovka. In 1941, I graduated from the 7th grade of the Yutanovskaya secondary school. Parents moved to their native village, to their house. Here the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 found us. I remember this sign well. On June 15 (or 16) in the evening, together with other teenagers from our street, we went to meet the cattle returning from the pasture. Those who met met at the well. Suddenly, one of the women, looking at the setting sun, shouted: “Look, what is this in the sky?” The solar disk has not yet completely sunk below the horizon. Behind the horizon, three huge pillars of fire blazed. "What will happen?" The old woman Kozhina Akulina Vasilievna, the midwife of the village, said: “Get ready, old ladies, for the terrible. There will be a war! How did this old woman know that the war would break out very soon.

There they announced to everyone that Nazi Germany had attacked our Motherland. And at night, carts with men who received summons to call for war were pulled to the regional center, to the military registration and enlistment office. Day and night in the village one could hear the howling, the crying of women and old people, who were seeing off their breadwinners to the front. Within 2 weeks, all young men were sent to the front.

My father received the summons on July 4, 1941, and on July 5, Sunday, we said goodbye to my father, and he went to the front. Troubled days dragged on, news from fathers, brothers, friends, grooms were waiting in every house.

My village had a particularly hard time due to its geographical location. The highway of strategic importance, connecting Kharkov with Voronezh, passes through it, dividing Sloboda and Novoselovka into two parts.

From Zarechnaya Street, where my family lived in house number 5, there was an uphill climb, quite steeply. And already in the autumn of 1941, this highway was mercilessly bombed by fascist vultures that broke through the front line.

The road was packed to overflowing with those moving east, towards the Don. There were army units that got out of the chaos of the war: ragged, dirty Red Army soldiers, there was equipment, mostly lorries - cars for ammunition, refugees were walking (then they were called evacuees), they were driving herds of cows, flocks of sheep, herds of horses from the western regions of our Motherland. This flood destroyed the crop. Our houses never had locks. Military units were located at the behest of commanders. The door to the house opened, and the commander asked: “Are there any soldiers?” If the answer is "No!" or “Already gone”, then 20 or more people came in and collapsed from fatigue on the floor, immediately fell asleep. In the evening, in each hut, the housewives cooked potatoes, beets, soup in 1.5-2-bucket irons. They woke the sleeping fighters and offered to have dinner, but not everyone sometimes had the strength to get up to eat. And when the autumn rains began, the wet, dirty windings were removed from the tired sleeping fighters, dried by the stove, then they kneaded the dirt and shook it out. Overcoats were dried by the stove. The inhabitants of our village helped in any way they could: with simple products, treatment, the legs of the fighters soared, etc.

At the end of July 1941, we were sent to build a defensive line, outside the village of Borisovka, Volche-Aleksandrovsky village council. August was warm, people in the trenches were apparently invisible. The comfrey spent the night in the sheds of three villages, took crackers and raw potatoes, 1 glass of millet and 1 glass of beans from home for 10 days. They didn’t feed us in the trenches, they sent us for 10 days, then they let us go home to wash, fix our clothes and shoes, help our family, and after 3 days come back to do heavy earthworks.

Once 25 people were sent home. When we walked through the streets of the district center and went to the outskirts, we saw a huge flame that engulfed the road along which we should go to our village. Fear, terror took possession of us. We were approaching, and the flames were rushing, spinning with a crash, howling. Burning wheat on one side and barley on the other side of the road. The length of the fields is up to 4 kilometers. The grain, burning, makes a crack like the sound of a machine gun scribbling. Smoke, fumes. The older women led us around through the Assikov gully. At home they asked us what was burning in Volokanovka, we said that wheat and barley were burning on the vine - in a word, unharvested bread was burning. And there was no one to clean up, tractor drivers, combine operators went to war, working cattle and equipment were driven east to the Don, the only lorry and horses were taken into the army. Who set it on fire? For what purpose? What for? - still no one knows. But because of the fires in the fields, the region was left without bread, without grain for sowing.

1942, 1943, 1944 were very difficult years for the villagers.

No bread, no salt, no matches, no soap, no kerosene were brought to the village. There was no radio in the village; they learned about the state of hostilities from the mouths of refugees, fighters and just all sorts of talkers. In autumn, it was impossible to dig trenches, because the black soil (up to 1-1.5 m) got wet and dragged along behind our feet. We were sent to clean up and level the highway. The norms were also heavy: for 1 person 12 meters in length, with a width of 10-12 meters. The war was approaching our village, the battles were going on for Kharkov. In winter, the flow of refugees stopped, and army units went daily, some to the front, others to rest - to the rear ... In winter, as in other seasons, enemy planes broke through and bombed cars, tanks, army units moving along the road. There was not a day that the cities of our region - Kursk, Belgorod, Korocha, Stary Oskol, Novy Oskol, Valuyki, Rastornaya - were not bombed, so that the enemies did not bomb airfields. The large airfield was located 3-3.5 kilometers from our village. The pilots lived in the houses of the villagers, ate in the canteen located in the building of the seven-year school. Pilot officer Nikolai Ivanovich Leonov, a native of Kursk, lived in my family. We escorted him to assignments, said goodbye, and my mother blessed, wanting to return alive. At this time, Nikolai Ivanovich led the search for his family, lost during the evacuation. Subsequently, there was a correspondence with my family from which I learned that Nikolai Ivanovich received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, found a wife and eldest daughter, but never found a little daughter. When the pilot Nikolai Cherkasov did not return from the mission, the whole village mourned his death.

Until the spring and autumn of 1944, the fields of our village were not sown, there were no seeds, there was no living tax, no equipment, and the old women, the youngsters were not able to process and sow the fields. In addition, the saturation of the fields with mines interfered. The fields are overgrown with impenetrable weeds. The population was doomed to a half-starved existence, mainly eating beets. It was prepared in the autumn of 1941 in deep pits. Beets were fed to both the soldiers of the Red Army and the prisoners in the Pokrovsky concentration camp. In the concentration camp, on the outskirts of the village, there were up to 2 thousand captured Soviet soldiers. Late August - early September 1941, we dug trenches and built dugouts along the railway from Volokonovka to Staroivanovka station.

Those who were able to work went to dig trenches, but the unemployable population remained in the village.

After 10 days, the comfreys were allowed to go home for three days. At the beginning of September 1941, I came home, like all my friends in the trenches. On the second day, I went out into the yard, an old neighbor called me: “Tan, you came, and your friends Nyura and Zina left, evacuated.” I was in what I was, barefoot, in one dress I ran up the mountain, onto the highway, to catch up with my friends, not even knowing when they had left.

Refugees and soldiers marched in groups. I rushed from one group to another, crying and calling my friends. I was stopped by an elderly fighter who reminded me of my father. He asked me where, why, to whom I was running, if I had any documents. And then he said menacingly: “March home, to his mother. If you deceive me, I will find you and shoot you.” I got scared and ran back along the side of the road. So much time has passed, and even now I wonder where the forces came from then. Running up to the gardens of our street, I went to the mother of my friends to make sure that they had left. My friends left - it was a bitter truth for me. Having cried, she decided that she had to return home and ran through the gardens. Grandmother Aksinya met me and began to shame me that I was not saving the harvest, trampling, and called me to talk to her. I tell her about my misadventures. I'm crying... Suddenly we hear the sound of flying fascist planes. And the grandmother saw that the planes were making some kind of maneuvers, and they were flying ... bottles! (So, screaming, said the grandmother). Grabbing my hand, she went to the brick basement of a neighbor's house. But as soon as we stepped out of the hallway of my grandmother's house, there were many explosions. We ran, grandmother was in front, I was behind, and only ran to the middle of the neighbor's garden, when grandmother fell to the ground, and blood appeared on her stomach. I realized that my grandmother was wounded, and screaming ran through three estates to my house, hoping to find and take rags to bandage the wounded. Running to the house, I saw that the roof of the house had been torn off, all the window frames were broken, glass fragments were everywhere, out of 3 doors there was only one skewed door on a single hinge. There is not a soul in the house. In horror, I run to the cellar, and there we had a trench under the cherry tree. In the trench were my mother, my sisters and brother.

When the bomb explosions stopped and the sound of the all-clear siren rang out, we all left the trench, I asked my mother to give me rags to bandage Grandma Ksyusha. My sisters and I ran to where my grandmother lay. She was surrounded by people. Some soldier took off his undercoat and covered the grandmother's body. She was buried without a coffin at the edge of her potato garden. The houses of our village remained without windows, without doors until 1945. When the war was coming to an end, they began to gradually give glass and nails according to the lists. I continued to dig trenches in warm weather, like all adult fellow villagers, to clean the highway in the slush.

In 1942 we were digging a deep anti-tank ditch between our village of Pokrovka and the airfield. There I got in trouble. I was sent upstairs to clear the ground, the ground crawled under my feet, and I could not resist and fell from a 2-meter height to the bottom of the trench, got a concussion, a shift in the spinal discs and an injury to my right kidney. They treated with home remedies, a month later I worked again at the same facility, but we did not have time to finish it. Our troops retreated with battles. There were strong battles for the airfield, for my Pokrovka.

On July 1, 1942, Nazi soldiers entered Pokrovka. During the fighting and the deployment of fascist units in the meadow, along the banks of the Quiet Pine River and in our gardens, we were in the cellars, occasionally looked out to find out what was happening on the street.

To the music of harmonicas, sleek fascists checked our houses, and then, having taken off their military uniforms and armed with sticks, they began to chase chickens, killed them and roasted them on skewers. Soon there was not a single chicken left in the village. Another military unit of the Nazis arrived and ate ducks and geese. For the sake of fun, the Nazis scattered the feather of birds in the wind. For a week, the village of Pokrovka was covered with a blanket of fluff and feathers. The village looked as white as after falling snow. Then the Nazis ate pigs, sheep, calves, did not touch (or maybe did not have time) old cows. We had a goat, they did not take goats, but mocked them. The Nazis began to build a bypass road around the mountain Dedovskaya Shapka with the help of captured Soviet soldiers imprisoned in a concentration camp.

The earth - a thick layer of black soil was loaded onto trucks and taken away, they said that the earth was loaded onto platforms and sent to Germany. Many young girls were sent to Germany for hard labor, they were shot and flogged for resistance.

Every Saturday, by 10 o'clock, our rural communists were to appear at the commandant's office of our village. Among them was Dudoladov Kupriyan Kupriyanovich, the former chairman of the village council. A man two meters tall, overgrown with a beard, sick, leaning on a stick, he walked to the commandant's office. Women always asked: “Well, Dudolad, have you already gone home from the commandant’s office?” It was like checking the time. One of the Saturdays was the last for Kupriyan Kupriyanovich, he did not return from the commandant's office. What the Nazis did with him is unknown to this day. On one of the autumn days of 1942, a woman came to the village, covered with a checkered scarf. She was assigned to an overnight stay, and at night the Nazis took her away and shot her outside the village. In 1948, her grave was searched for, and a Soviet officer who arrived, the husband of the executed woman, took away her remains.

In mid-August 1942, we were sitting on a cellar mound, the Nazis in tents in our garden, near the house. None of us noticed how brother Sasha went to the fascist tents. Soon we saw how the fascist kicked the seven-year-old kid ... Mom and I rushed at the fascist. The fascist knocked me down with a blow of his fist, I fell. Mom took Sasha and me crying to the cellar. One day a man in a fascist uniform came up to our cellar. We saw that he was repairing the cars of the Nazis and, turning to his mother, said: “Mom, there will be an explosion late at night. No one should leave the cellars at night, no matter how the military rages, let them yell, shoot, close up tight and sit. Pass it on quietly to all the neighbors, all along the street. There was an explosion at night. They shot, ran, the Nazis were looking for the organizers of the explosion, shouting: "Partisan, partisan." We were silent. In the morning we saw that the Nazis had removed the camp and left, the bridge over the river had been destroyed. Grandfather Fyodor Trofimovich Mazokhin, who saw this moment (we called him grandfather Mazai in childhood), said that when a car drove onto the bridge, a bus filled with military men followed it, then a car, and suddenly a terrible explosion, and all this equipment collapsed into the river . Many fascists died, but by morning everything was pulled out and taken out. The Nazis hid their losses from us Soviet people. By the end of the day, a military unit arrived in the village, and they cut down all the trees, all the bushes, as if they had shaved the village, there were bare huts and sheds. Who is this person who warned us, the inhabitants of Pokrovka, about the explosion, who saved the lives of many, no one in the village knows.

When occupiers rule on your land, you are not free to dispose of your time, you have no rights, life can end at any moment. On a rainy night in late autumn, when the residents had already entered their homes, there was a concentration camp in the village, its guards, the commandant's office, the commandant, the burgomaster, and the Nazis burst into our house, breaking the door. They, illuminating our house with lanterns, dragged all of us from the stove and put us facing the wall. The mother was the first, then the sisters, then the crying brother, and the last was me. The Nazis opened the chest and dragged everything that was newer. They took a bicycle, dad's suit, chrome boots, a sheepskin coat, new galoshes, etc. from the valuables. When they left, we stood still for a long time, afraid that they would return and shoot us. Many were robbed that night. Mom would get up in the dark, go out into the street and watch which chimney the smoke would come out of to send one of us, the children, me or sisters, to ask for 3-4 burning coals to light the stove. They ate mostly beets. Boiled beets were carried in buckets to the construction of a new road, to feed the prisoners of war. They were great sufferers: ragged, beaten, rattling shackles and chains on their legs, swollen with hunger, they walked back and forth with a slow, staggering gait. Fascist guards with dogs walked along the sides of the column. Many died right on the construction site. And how many children, teenagers were blown up by mines, were wounded during the bombing, skirmishes, during air battles.

The end of January 1943 was still rich in such events in the life of the village as the appearance of a huge number of leaflets, both Soviet and Nazi. Already frostbitten, in rags, fascist soldiers were walking back from the Volga, and fascist planes dropped leaflets on the villages, where they talked about victories over Soviet troops on the Don and Volga. We learned from Soviet leaflets that battles for the village were coming, that the inhabitants of Slobodskaya and Zarechnaya streets had to leave the village. Having taken all the belongings so that they could hide from the frost, the residents of the street left and for three days outside the village in the pits, in the anti-tank ditch, they suffered, waiting for the end of the battles for Pokrovka. The village was bombed by Soviet planes, as the Nazis settled in our homes. Everything that can be burned for heating - cabinets, chairs, wooden beds, tables, doors, all the Nazis burned. When the village was liberated, Golovinovskaya street, houses, sheds were burned.

On February 2, 1943, we returned home, cold, hungry, many of us were ill for a long time. On the meadow separating our street from Slobodskaya lay the black corpses of the murdered fascists. Only at the beginning of March, when the sun began to warm, and the corpses thawed, was the burial in the common grave of the Nazi soldiers who died during the liberation of the village organized. In February-March 1943, we, the inhabitants of the village of Pokrovka, kept the highway in constant good condition, along which vehicles with shells also went, Soviet soldiers to the front, and he was not far away, the whole country was intensely preparing for the summer general battle on the formed Kursk salient. May-July and the beginning of August 1943, together with my fellow villagers, I was again in the trenches near the village of Zalomnoye, which is located along the Moscow-Donbass railway.

On my next visit to the village, I learned about the misfortune in our family. Brother Sasha went with the older boys to the Torah. There was a tank that had been knocked out and abandoned by the Nazis, there were a lot of shells around it. The children put a large projectile with the wings down, put a smaller one on it, and hit the third one. From the explosion, the guys were lifted up and thrown into the river. My brother's friends were wounded, one had his leg broken, another had a wound in his arm, leg and part of his tongue was torn off, his brother's big toe was torn off, and there were countless scratches.

During the bombing or shelling, for some reason it seemed to me that they wanted to kill only me, and they were aiming at me, and I always asked myself with tears and bitterness, what had I managed to do so badly?

War is scary! This is blood, the loss of relatives and friends, this is robbery, these are the tears of children and the elderly, violence, humiliation, deprivation of a person of all the rights and opportunities given by his nature.

From the memoirs of Tatyana Semyonovna Bogatyreva