Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of "Echo of Moscow" is another program from the series "The Price of Victory". Today I am leading it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I will immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello Iskander.
Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.
And it is no coincidence that he was invited to visit us today, since it was today that Iskander Kuzeev's article entitled “The Flood of Moscow” was published in the newspaper “Sovershenno Sekretno”, which deals with the secret operation of the autumn of 1941. The author of the article will tell you in more detail, but I will make one digression and just tell you that, you see, life disposes of it in its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I are trying to go to chronological order according to the events of the Second World War, but when something interesting comes up, we go back, maybe we will still get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our today's guest Iskander Kuzeev wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why is it a flood?
Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, with which I became quite familiar from memoirs, in particular, the memoirs of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow, recently published in Russian. Troops of Guderian, 2nd tank army, practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time, the Soviet troops, who repelled the attacks of Guderian, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where there were practically no clashes. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops were stationed in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only at two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilov heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of the Army Group "Center" opposed in fact, one armored train of the NKVD, which happened to be there - it was going from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, it became known to me that separate, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.
This famous case, when some motorcyclists almost reached the Sokol?
Yes, yes, they were stopped at the second bridge across the railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they guarded against air raids. The motorcyclists passed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of the current Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, there was non-flying weather, and as the researchers who dealt with this topic told me, they went down to the ice to drive the ball, at that time 30 motorcyclists passed, and their already stopped on the last bridge in front of Sokol station. And was alone german tank between the current metro stations Skhodnenskaya and Tushinskaya.
Volokolamsk direction.
Yes. This is the Western Bridge across the diversion channel in the Tushino region. And as I was told by the people who were engaged in these studies, this was told to me in the department of the Moscow-Volga Canal, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Canal named after Moscow", the tallest building on the hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and such a story was passed down from generation to generation, it was clearly visible from there: some kind of lost German tank got out, stopped on the bridge, a German officer looked out, looked back and forth, wrote something down in a notebook and left somewhere in the opposite direction to the side Aleshkinsky forest. And thirdly, large-caliber German artillery stood on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, it was at this point that the armored train was moving from the north, and the locals crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, to the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began where the large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to deal with this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called "The Flood of Moscow" took place.
So what was the flood? They simply flooded a large area in order to prevent the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?
Yes. Exactly. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istra hydroelectric complex, which is called the Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex, was blown up. Moreover, water outlets were blown up below the level of the so-called "dead mark", when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where they advanced German troops, hit the offensive area and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There, the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istra reservoir, and below its mark is 143, that is, it turns out more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is such a waterfall of water that washes away everything in its path, floods houses, villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this, the operation was secret.
Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?
On Istra, it was a military operation, that is, the engineering department of the Western Front. But there was also another operation, which was carried out jointly by the leadership of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering department of the Western Front, moreover ...
What other operation?
Another, in a different place.
Oh, there was another one.
There was also a second, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at Headquarters Supreme High Command, on which it was decided to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, this is from the dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus the troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.
The first operation on the Istra reservoir, is this November 1941?
Yes, end of November.
What about others?
That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?
There were two options for the release of water - from the Ivankovskoye reservoir to the Volga downstream and the release of water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the river Sestra, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flows where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It passes through the tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the canal level. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma spillway, which, in case of any repair work, allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same mark of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to start these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and do not consume, but produce electricity, so this is called a generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the gates of the locks were opened and a huge flow of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are various villages at a very low level above the water, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - a canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at the water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice was broken, and the streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people ...
No precautions were taken.
And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, they were still built there - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail tells - metal gates were welded there, which did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was dumped, imagine, a huge amount of water from the Ivankovsky reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River has risen by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River has risen by 6 meters.
Explain, as you just said, according to all the testimonies - we did not see with our own eyes and did not feel with our skin - it was very difficult and Cold winter The frosts were terrible. This water, which poured in huge quantities on the earth's surface, it had to turn into ice.
Almost yes. First, the ice broke...
But then, in the cold, it all turned, probably, into ice?
But it doesn't happen right away. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology, with whom I talked, told me that it is enough to stand knee-deep in such water for half an hour and the person simply dies.
How many villages were flooded in this way?
In all these operations somewhere around 30-40.
But, if I am not mistaken, was there an order from the Supreme Commander Comrade Stalin to flood, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?
There was an order. It wasn't about flooding, it was about destruction.
villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups ...
Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander. And in accordance with this order, all villages were to be destroyed in the depth of the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation, as it were, against German troops. And there was even such a wording "to take the Soviet population with them."
That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?
No, the retreating troops had to withdraw. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn exactly those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now, for those who defend Stalin. When separate excerpts from these materials were published in various blogs, a lot of Stalinists came out in the comments and cited this phrase.
As an example of humanism.
Yes Yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, there was a mass of newsreels about the burned villages. Naturally, there was no question of who burned them. The Germans were there, so the cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.
That is, wherever the Germans were, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.
Did they report to Stalin?
Yes. For two weeks, they reported that 398 settlements were destroyed. And so these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean ...
Tenth, 10 percent.
Yes, and very few people paid attention to it. And here, in the report, Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100,000 Molotov cocktails, and so on and so forth.
Is this document genuine?
Yes, this is an absolutely authentic document, there is even data on where, in what archive it is located, fund, inventory.
In full - no.
I have never met. Do you include it in the article?
We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and a report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.
You know what else interests me in this whole story. History, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And if more frankly - it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in military literature, nor in memoir literature, this story of flooding has been told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some kind of heading "top secret", as the newspaper is called, as a matter of fact, where did you print?
The only thing that I managed to find from what was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it came out with the stamp "secret" and already in last years the stamp “secret” was removed and the stamp “chipboard” stood, and it was declassified only in 2006. And in this book it was said about the explosion of spillways in Istra. And there was nothing said about the operation on the channel. I managed to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel, last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and a book by Valentin Barkovsky was published with a circulation of only 500 copies. And it goes into detail there.
And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has been stripped of all labels, but apparently it is just in libraries.
Well, it hasn't been reprinted yet.
I knew, of course, that many documents were classified, but in order to release a book and immediately classified it as “secret”, then what circulation could it have and for whom was it then intended?
The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.
And then there's the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described somewhere in the German military literature?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts that everything was really flooded and people were dying there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not like a lot of people, it’s very old people who remembered this, who told, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. I was told by a resident of the village named after May 1, this is a working village right at the level of irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, and those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal, they simply saved them. Firstly, there artillery hit from all sides. There were completely low panel houses, even lower than peasant huts, and naturally, artillery hit what was visible, but it was visible with a high chimney a potato store. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? You will be killed now." And the water began to flow, they got out and managed, along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal, to get out and go towards Dmitrov.
Iskander, tell me, is it known, did anyone keep such calculations, how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?
I haven't been able to find these numbers anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs in LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could die there, that at home stand high above the level of the river, and that there is still an attic, there is still a roof. But when I talked to the doctors, they said that there was little chance of being saved in such a situation.
Is it known at least what was the approximate population of these villages before the flood?
There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, now such a figure is considered, only one third of this number falls on the staff of the Red Army.
Even less.
Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling is the death of civilians.
Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes until the news release is over, after which we will continue our conversation.
Once again, good evening, dear listeners. We continue the program "The Price of Victory", which I am leading today, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is a journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, the author of the article "The Flood of Moscow", published in today's issue of the newspaper "Top Secret". And about those events of the autumn of 1941, which are described by Iskander Kuzeev, we are talking with our guest. So, we stopped at the fact that we tried to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by dumping water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult, it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. And you were not interested in how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?
Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were over high place, they were flooded and preserved. But there it is also difficult to say how much they were flooded. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that there could be no flooding at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a small historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built back in the time of Catherine; Almost all structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the rivermen say, locked up, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages on this navigable route. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, this is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and the Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.
It's clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: "Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone." What should be the answer of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “For information to leak to the Germans and for them to send their reconnaissance to you? This is a war, comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He did not even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She, too, could be covered with a wave. Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not that fictional, but reconstructed?
It's a reconstruction, yes.
Reconstruction according to some separate evidence, apparently?
Yes. After all, the flow from the Istra reservoir practically reached the Moskva River and could flood all these summer cottages, summer cottages in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra ...
And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked to any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Victims, the price of Victory - this is a question that we are constantly discussing. And as for purely military effectiveness, was it an effective measure to stop the Germans?
In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilov Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument in Russia to General Vlasov.
Is it still worth it?
Yes. His name is engraved there, he commanded the 20th Army there.
And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.
Yes. Kuznetsov's shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th army.
But after all, the same operation can be presented in a different way, that there was no other way out?
Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...
We'll talk about this later, I'm just interested in this situation. You can also say so, this is how those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because you can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was hard, associated with huge casualties, but it was nevertheless effective.
At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941, Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south were supposed to close somewhere in the Petushki area ...
Well, yes, it is a well-known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.
I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when you tried to find out the flood zone and at least the approximate number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. I will quote again, in this case the quote is accurate, since you yourself heard it: “Do you see that hill? There are just skeletons in bulk." And they pointed to a small mound on the banks of the Sestra River. “There are canal soldiers lying there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulags, who built this canal. Here's why I'm asking. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burials, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?
Most likely, the cemeteries were on the right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army, I still thought that I misheard, I ask: “Red Army men?” - "No, canal soldiers." After all, the channel has become fortification and, in fact, all the builders of the canal can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. According to various sources, in the city of Dmitrov, scientists in the local museum counted, there, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.
Died or were employed in construction?
They died on construction, there are mass graves. I was told in the village of Pilot-Test, on the banks of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures have occupied the last collective farm field there, they began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they stumbled upon mass graves. Recently, builders reconstructed the Volokolamsk Highway, the third line of the tunnel was being built and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamsk Highway streets, there were a lot of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there was a lot of skeletons in bulk already under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell, just stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was at a continuous pace, and people simply died. Such a case is described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when just in front of everyone, a person fell into concrete.
Iskander, one more question. There is such a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be handed over to the Germans, was there a plan to actually flood the city of Moscow itself?
Yes, I was also told about this by researchers who are connected with this topic. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningrad highway and the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo cottage village in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is located at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is located in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and there, as I was told, a ton of explosives was laid, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of that Khimka river that flows out of it, and this stream could simply collapse on capital. I spoke to a veteran former leader canal, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th gateway at the intersection of Volokolamskoye Highway and Svoboda Street, he says: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow, according to our calculations, could rise to this level ". And then the mass of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.
But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Is there only such evidence of people oral?
Yes. And they told me there when they dismantled the bridge across the Klyazma reservoir, the old one, now built there new bridge on Dmitrovsky highway, and there, already in the 80s, explosives were found in huge quantities.
Which, apparently, was designed specifically for the explosion.
To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written from “20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, and now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is absolutely inaccessible.
Actually, when we say that there is no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, we can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are being opened, but very lazily, I would say.
And this story in the form of a legend went around for a long time and it was attributed that it was Hitler's idea after the arrival of the Germans to flood Moscow. The play was such by Andrey Vishnevsky "Moskau Zee", "Moscow Sea". Such a reconstruction, when, after the victory of Hitler, people are walking on boats ...
It was like a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to flood.
Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for what they themselves could flood.
Yes, the transformation of real events.
By the way, Comrade Hitler himself, after all, also started a similar operation in Berlin.
Yes, here, in these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators when it comes to salvation. own life, then the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film "Liberation" there was such an episode when the locks on the Spree River were opened and the dampers ...
Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.
Who died heroically there. You can relate to this film, which is also largely propaganda, in different ways, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were opponents literally five minutes ago, they carried out the wounded together, together they held the cordon line so that women and children could be the first to go out, this is on station "Unter den Linden", right next to the Reichstag.
By the way, about the film "Liberation" I could say that, yes, it is really perceived and absolutely, probably, rightly so as a film primarily propaganda, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the movie "Liberation" that made me think completely, maybe not the ones that the authors of the film were counting on. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was a variant of flooding the city? No, there was an explosion, I think they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.
As for Krakow, I think it's more of a legend, because Krakow stands very high...
There, indeed, there was no flooding. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet opening another page in the history of the war. To what extent did it seem to you that you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?
Oh, a lot of closed. In general, very interesting topic attitudes of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of Meyerhold theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected to shreds diary entries from the time of the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. It seemed to me that I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London, people die during shelling. Russian people died, they were fired upon throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see the attitude of people to this: "The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city."
That is, both sides that fought against the civilian population were not considered, we can conclude this, I think. By the way, if you look at the losses in World War II, and not only Soviet Union, but also all participants on both sides, as anti-Hitler coalition, and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses - the ratio, of course, in each country is different, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.
Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg, occupied by Soviet troops. There was no such thing.
Well, there are, of course, examples of such human saving. They, too, can probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having lost to Hitler quite quickly, we know that there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people's lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are many more discussions still on the topic of the blockade of Leningrad. This is a heavy topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, perhaps, at least more rational policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.
Well, yes, there is a complicated story.
And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian's memoirs, I read his notes, where he spoke about the supply of food, that announcements were posted that there was enough food so that the population would not worry in Orel, for example.
So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any, without calculations. And so, perhaps, even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, about this, about this, I want to remind you once again that we have a program about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word "price", could be different, in our opinion. And the price of Victory, which is primarily expressed in the number of dead, the number human lives given and placed on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of it, because winning at any cost is very often, I think, a pyrrhic victory. In any case, one must be able to critically look at one's past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be engaged in it, any investigations, studies?
In the next issue, we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that those memoirs of Nesterov, which just recently were published on the Internet, they deserve to be discussed separately. It is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records survived. After all, it was dangerous to keep them. There is, for example, the following entry: "The inhabitants of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the liberation of the city from the Bolsheviks." It is a miracle that such records survived.
It is a miracle that they were preserved in the hands of private individuals, because I think that there is a lot of such evidence. Another thing is that they all got there, as they once said "where they need to go." I think that many listeners probably remember, I just did some programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod, who is collaborating during the war. And there are a lot of documents. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there are a lot of documents that have been preserved from that time, where there is a lot of evidence of how it all happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.
After all, Novgorod is a city that has been occupied for almost four years.
Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, well, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And with you, dear listeners, we say goodbye to our next program. All the best, goodbye.
Original taken from
The Germans who reached the Volga
It is known that during the Great Patriotic War the Nazi armies were never able to reach the Middle Volga region, although in accordance with the infamous Barbarossa plan, by the end of the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht was supposed to reach the Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan line. Nevertheless, the military and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities that were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line (Fig. 1-5).
But these were not at all those self-confident occupiers with "Schmeissers" in their hands, who marched through the Soviet border at dawn on June 22.
Destroyed cities were rebuilt by prisoners of war
Back in the middle of the war, right after Battle of Stalingrad, in many Soviet cities of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, German prisoners of war were delivered in whole echelons, who worked here mainly at national economic facilities. And after 1945, captured Germans were the main labor force on the construction of housing in those cities that a few years before were destroyed by tanks and guns of the Wehrmacht.
However, this fact was widely known in the Soviet years. But here is the information that shortly after the Potsdam Conference at our industrial enterprises Together with prisoners of war, the Soviet authorities forcibly forced thousands of "free" technical specialists from Germany to work, at that time they were classified as "Secret" and "Top Secret". At the same time, most of these Germans, before their forced move to the deep regions of the USSR, worked at the tank and aviation enterprises of the Reich. So the participation of German engineers and technicians in the restoration and development of the defense potential of our country is a completely special page of Soviet history that has only recently opened to us.
We know that victory is over Nazi Germany went to our people at an incredibly high price. In 1945, a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing an acute shortage of workers and smart heads, because tens of millions of our fellow citizens, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists, died on the war fronts and in the rear.
It is not surprising that after the Potsdam Conference, where the amount of reparations for each of the allies was determined, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. According to him, when restoring the industry of the USSR, its destroyed cities and villages, it was supposed to use the forced labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. And a little later, it was decided to take all qualified German engineers and workers, especially specialists from the defense industries, out of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to the enterprises of the USSR.
Nowhere in the open press about this decision of the government during the first years after the Victory was not a word said. However, in the following decades, Soviet people were categorically not recommended to discuss in any form the role played in the post-war restoration of the country's economy by forcibly removed from defeated Germany technical specialists.
According to the official Soviet history, in March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development National economy countries. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the areas of the country affected by the occupation and military operations, and in industry and agriculture reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it. About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in the prices of that time.
In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, in the area of Koptev ravine, adjacent to the Volga, several camps were also organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived in the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites. And workers in these years were urgently needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official information, in the last war years and immediately after the war, several new plants were to be built in Kuibyshev, including an oil refinery, a chisel, a ship repair plant, and a metal structure plant. It was also necessary to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasov), the Avtotractorodetal plant (later the valve plant), the Srednevolzhsky Machine Tool Plant, and some others.
Of course, at that time it was not mentioned anywhere that there was also a secret section in the list of newly built and reconstructed Kuibyshev industrial facilities approved by the government. But even if this document suddenly ended up in the hands of a foreign intelligence officer, he would not see here a single name of the enterprise, but only a strict series of letter ciphers and numbers of sensitive factories. Among them, under the code designations "OKB-1", "OKB-2" and OKB-3 "hidden especially secret design bureaus of experimental plant No. 2, which it was decided to place in the village of Upravlenchesky, on the territory of the Krasnoglinsky district of Kuibyshev formed shortly before ( Fig. 6, 7, 8).
The secret train was heading east
Since the thirties, both the USSR and Germany have been actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines - gas turbines. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet counterparts. This was largely facilitated by the fact that after 1937 all the leading Soviet scientists involved in the problems of jet propulsion fell under the Yezhov-Beria skating rink of repression. Meanwhile, in Germany, at the BMW and Junkers plants, the first samples of gas turbine engines (Fig. 9)
already prepared for launch into mass production. And the Germans managed to do it: in particular, by 1945, about five thousand copies of the engines of the YuMO-004 model were produced.
In this regard, one can imagine the feelings and emotions of the top Soviet leadership when in the spring of 1945 it became clear that the factories and design bureaus of Junkers (Dessau) and BMW (Stasfurt) were in the Soviet occupation zone. Almost immediately they began to work for the economy of the USSR. At the same time, since September 1945, for political reasons, the enterprises were turned into joint-stock companies.
Of course, the resumption of the work of these industries after almost a year of inactivity, even under Soviet control, was received by the Germans with enthusiasm. After all, this gave the country tens of thousands of jobs, and, consequently, wages and rations for workers, employees and their families. However, in 1946, the aviation industrial giants were again on the verge of a stop. Strange as it may seem, the former allies of the USSR turned out to be the culprits. Based on their intelligence data on the profile of products manufactured at the aircraft factories of the former Reich, the United States and England protested to the Soviet government about this: after all, according to the documents of the Potsdam Conference, it was forbidden to develop on the territory of each of the four occupation zones military equipment including gas turbine engines.
That is why in the fall of 1946, a significant part of the qualified personnel of Junkers, BMW and some other German aircraft factories, in the strictest secrecy, on specially equipped echelons, was taken to the territory of the USSR, or rather, to Kuibyshev, to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the shortest possible time, 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly qualified workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel. Together with them came 1174 family members of these specialists (Fig. 10-14).
As a result, at the end of October 1946, there were more Germans than Russians in the Upravlenchesky settlement.
Most of the Germans deported to Kuibyshev worked at the already mentioned experimental plant No. 2 (later - the engine building plant). At the same time, OKB-1 was 85 percent staffed by Junkers specialists, in OKB-2 up to 80 percent of the staff were former BMW personnel, and 62 percent of the staff of OKB-3 were specialists from the Askania plant.
At first, the secret factory where the Germans worked was run exclusively by the military. In particular, from 1946 to 1949 it was headed by Colonel Olekhnovich. However, in May 1949, an unknown engineer arrived here to replace the military, almost immediately appointed as the responsible head of the enterprise. For many decades, this man was classified in much the same way as Igor Kurchatov, Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. But now his name, which has already become legendary, is known to everyone: that obscure engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov (Fig. 15),
constructor with capital letter, and later an academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.
Kuznetsov immediately directed everything creative forces design bureaus subordinate to him to develop a new turboprop engine, which was based on the German model YuMO-022. This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed a power of up to 4 thousand horsepower. It was modernized, its power increased even more and launched into a series. In subsequent years, not only turboprops, but also turbojet bypass engines for bomber aircraft came out of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. German specialists were directly involved in the creation of almost each of them. Their work at the motor plant in the village of Upravlenchesky continued almost until the mid-1950s (Fig. 16, 17, 18).
We were given six hours to get ready.
In the summer of 2000, the former German electrical engineer Helmut Breuninger visited Samara, who was part of the same group of German technical specialists that more than half a century ago, under the cover of secrecy, was taken to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the deep autumn of 1946, when the train with the Germans arrived in our city, Mr. Breuninger was 36 years old (Fig. 19, 20).
In 1946, I worked as an engineer at the Askania state enterprise, Helmut Breuninger recalled during our conversation. - It must be said that in defeated Germany it was very difficult to find a job even for a qualified specialist. Therefore, when at the beginning of 1946 several large factories were launched under the control of the Soviet administration, there were a lot of people who wanted to work here. But I was immediately lucky: I got a job at Askania as an electrical engineer.
But in the early morning of October 22, the doorbell of my apartment rang. On the threshold stood a Soviet lieutenant and two soldiers. The lieutenant said that my family and I were given six hours to pack for the subsequent departure to the Soviet Union. He did not tell us any details, we only found out that we would work in our specialty at one of the Soviet defense enterprises.
Under heavy guard, in the evening of the same day, a train with technical specialists left the Berlin station. While loading into the train, I saw many familiar faces. These were experienced engineers from our enterprise, as well as some of my colleagues from the Junkers and BMW factories. For a whole week the train went to Moscow, where several engineers and their families unloaded. But we went further. None of the Germans knew the final destination of our forced journey. There was a rumor that we were going to Siberia, and we all shuddered in advance from the foreboding of terrible Siberian frosts.
However, a week after stopping in Moscow, we were brought to some small village and announced that from now on we would live and work here. I knew a little about the geography of Russia, but I had never heard of a city called Kuibyshev before. Only when they explained to me that it used to be called Samara, I remembered that there really was such a city on the Volga. But, of course, I only learned about its suburb with the name “Managerial”, which is difficult for a German, only at the moment of our arrival here.
It soon became clear that an aircraft engine plant was located here, and the production, to which specialists from Askania were sent, was called Experimental Design Bureau No. 3, or simply OKB-3. Here I worked until September 1950, after which, together with my family, I was transferred to one of the Moscow factories. But home, in Germany, we had a chance to return only in 1958.
Legendary "Main"
What was the name of their boss, the Germans were not supposed to know then - everyone called him simply “Chief”. And only in the 90s, Breuninger read in the newspapers that in the post-war Kuibyshev he worked under the leadership of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, who was already one of the leading Soviet designers of aircraft engines at that time (Fig. 21).
Surprisingly, but German veteran since the post-war period, bright memories have been preserved both about the pilot plant No. 2, and about the personal qualities of the chief designer of the enterprise, Nikolai Kuznetsov.
According to Breuninger, already at the first meetings with the "Chief", the engineers taken out of Germany were surprised to see that the Russian boss spoke their language well. mother tongue. It turns out that immediately after his appointment to Kuibyshev, Kuznetsov, in order to improve contacts with visiting specialists, ordered to organize courses for Soviet personnel on mastering the German language at the plant, which was stimulated by a bonus to the official salary. Later, classes also began with the Germans to study the Russian language. And Kuznetsov himself worked daily for an hour before the start of the working day with the translator Hans Pohl, and in mastering the language of defeated Germany, he soon achieved good success.
The German specialists with the "Chief" quickly developed a good relationship, - recalled Helmut Breuninger. - Once, already in the early 50s, several of our engineers plucked up courage, and with convenient occasion We asked him if they would soon let us go home. After all, we are not prisoners of war, they said. Although we understand that Germany is very guilty before Russia for the destruction and death of millions of people, but, probably, personally, over the years we have already atoned for our country.
The “Chief” listened attentively to the engineers and said that this issue did not depend on him, but promised to find out everything. It is not known where he called and with whom he talked about this, but already in 1951, German families began to take turns sending back to Germany. And already in 1953, not a single German specialist remained at the pilot plant.
Students, colleagues and ordinary citizens, in different time those who worked or met with Nikolai Dmitrievich also recall his personal human qualities exclusively in excellent tones. Here is what, for example, Yevgeny Gritsenko writes about him (Fig. 22),
doctor technical sciences, professor, who in 1994-2004 served as the CEO – general designer JSC "SNTK named after N.D. Kuznetsov":
Being an exceptionally modest person, Nikolai Dmitrievich never mentioned his personal proposals anywhere, theoretical developments, referring the achievements of the enterprise led by him to the merits of the entire team. Therefore, much in the development of the domestic aircraft engine industry remained, as it were, nameless. Meanwhile, most of the projects at the plant were first developed either by Nikolai Dmitrievich himself, or on the basis of his ideas and under his leadership. At the same time, everything that Nikolai Dmitrievich undertook was ahead of the work of related domestic and foreign firms. That was the style of his work.
Kuznetsov was well aware that one is not a warrior in the field, and therefore paid great attention to the education of the team. He was unusually patient and tolerant in the perception of the opinion of another person. Like no one else, he knew how to talk to subordinates without reminding them that he was the boss. Under no circumstances did he say: “I decided”, “I suggested”, “I applied”, but only: “Our team suggested”, “Our team developed”. At the forefront, he put the merits of the entire enterprise, but not his personal ones. This was his essence both as a general designer and as a person.
For the ability to create conditions in a team for calm, well-coordinated work in a difficult environment, and for this quality alone, he was already considered an outstanding leader of his time. When he scolded someone for various omissions in his work, even if he deserved it, he always did it correctly, without humiliating the person.
At the same time, Nikolai Dmitrievich always showed himself to be a very independent person. He recognized the authority of the luminaries of power and science only when they delved seriously into matters and offered something competent, sensible. Only then did he listen to them and respect their opinions.
All of the above only to a small extent characterizes the personality of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov. Of course, he was much more versatile, more complex - both as a person and as a designer. But this will probably be said and written by others.
The Germans got scared when the Russians drank vodka
But let's get back to the German engineer Helmut Breuninger.
It must be said that the living conditions of German specialists and their families in the Upravlenchesky settlement were much better than those of Soviet workers and employees working in the same production, the elderly German tourist continued his story. - We were immediately assigned to live in houses with all conveniences, and at the same time, all local residents were evicted from here to barracks (Fig. 23-27).
Visitors from Germany were paid up to three thousand rubles a month, and Soviet engineers for the same work - no more than 1200 rubles. In addition, special food rations were brought for us weekly. They contained good sausage, butter, cheese, tea, tobacco, canned food and other products, which, as I later learned, could not be found on free sale in Kuibyshev at that time.
I also want to emphasize from the memories of those years that in all the years of my family's life in the village of Upravlenchesky there have never been any conflicts or even verbal skirmishes between Germans and Russians. Although almost every step we took was almost openly controlled by the NKVD, we had more than enough opportunities for “informal” communication with the Soviet people. In particular, we often invited each other to small family celebrations. And the attitude of the Russians towards us has always been kind and benevolent, however, with an admixture of burning curiosity. After all, we were still people of different cultures.
Some of our customs or norms of behavior aroused bewilderment among the Russians. For example, they could not understand why the Germans drink not only vodka, but even wine in very small glasses, by their standards, savoring every sip. And we, for our part, watched with fear as the Russian men, without grimacing, drank vodka with faceted glasses. For example, it seemed to me that after such a dose a person should immediately fall and at least fall asleep, or even die. And the Russians - nothing, after such a drink they even sang and danced. Only then did I understand the meaning of the expression I accidentally heard: "What is good for a Russian is death for a German."
Or another example. When the hot summer came, we, several German families, went to the Volga to swim on the day off. Men wore shorts, and women wore short dresses for that time (that is, slightly below the knee). And when we walked through the village in such outfits, the Russians looked at us with fear and bewilderment. Only later we were told that the local population did not know the word “shorts” at that time, and everyone thought that the Germans were walking around in shorts. And this, according to the norms of that time, was very indecent. True, after a few days, the Russians got used to the shorts of German men - just like the indecently short dresses of German women, and stopped paying special attention to us (Fig. 28-32).
Meeting after half a century
In the same conversation, it became clear why Helmut Breuninger again decided to visit Samara more than fifty years after his forced assignment to the banks of the Volga. It turned out that this time he came here at the private invitation of the local Esperanto club, since the former electrical engineer had long been interested in learning this international language.
With him to Russia, he also took his daughter Emma and grandson Alexander. By the way, Emma was born in Moscow in 1956, when her father worked at one of the capital's enterprises. As an adult, she visited a number of cities in the Soviet Union, first of all, of course, in Moscow and Leningrad, but she was in Samara for the first time. Like her father, Emma spoke Russian quite well. But her son Alexander, the grandson of Mr. Helmut, did not know the Russian language.
The very next day after their arrival in Samara, the German guests went to the Upravlenchesky settlement. For Helmut Breuninger, rendezvous with the places of his youth brought a lot of emotions. He hardly recognized the village, which had grown greatly over the past half century, but noticed that the house where he and his family moved in 1946 was still in the same place, and had not changed much.
The former engineer, of course, failed to get into the engine plant. However, according to Mr. Breuninger, even outwardly the enterprise has changed a lot: new buildings and buildings have appeared, old structures have disappeared, there is much more greenery around the plant. In addition, the checkpoint turned out to be in a completely different place, so that the German guest could not even determine at which point of the enterprise half a century ago his office was located.
Mr. Breuninger could not even compare how much the old part of Kuibyshev-Samara has changed during this time. According to him, half a century ago, they generally tried not to let them out of the village of Upravlenchesky, and during the years of his work at OKB-3, he visited the old part of the city only two or three times. At the same time, he saw the post-war Kuibyshev only from the car window, so he simply did not remember any details.
But Mr. Breuninger said that already in the early 50s, after things began to improve little by little at the engine plant, German specialists began to be released one by one to their homeland. The last such group left for Germany in 1954. From them, as a keepsake for local residents, there were neat “Finnish” houses in which some of the families of German specialists lived. However, none of them survived to our days. The last of the surviving houses were demolished back in the 80s, and now modern residential "boxes" of the late Soviet era rise on the site of the former German village.
And in the old cemetery of the village of Upravlenchesky there were graves of visiting specialists who died here during the years of their forced stay. In those years when Kuibyshev was a closed city, no one cared for these graves, and as a result, they became almost indistinguishable. Only since the 1990s, after Samara was reopened to foreigners, did relatives of Germans who died after the war begin to come here, and even some of those specialists who worked half a century ago at Management. You could read the conversation with one of them, Helmut Breuninger, above.
Now the German graves at the local cemetery are always well-groomed, the names on the monuments are displayed on German, and the paths between them are regularly sprinkled with sand. Of course, even a tombstone can eventually crumble from time to time, but even time turns out to be powerless before human memory.
Valery EROFEEV.
Note.
To illustrate this article, a photo of Günther Spohr, one of the German specialists taken to post-war years in Kuibyshev, in the village of Upravlenchesky, to the pilot plant No. 2 (later SNTK named after N.D. Kuznetsov) in the village of Upravlenchesky. He photographed mainly his family, as well as everyday life and the life of German highly skilled workers and employees who worked next to him. These photos were found in the archives of Günther Spohr by his relatives and then made public via the Internet (Fig. 33-54).
For 1942, the map shows the maximum advance of the Nazi troops deep into the Soviet Union. On the scale of the Soviet Union, this is a small part, but what were the victims in the occupied territories.
If you look closely, then in the north the Germans stopped in the area of \u200b\u200bthe current Republic of Karelia, then Leningrad, Kalinin, Moscow, Voronezh, Stalingrad. In the south we reached the region of the city of Grozny. You can't describe it in two words.
From school course History we know that the Nazis in the USSR reached such cities as Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Grozny, Kalinin, Voronezh. After 1942, when the Nazis advanced as far as possible across the territory of the USSR, they began to retreat. You can see the progress of their progress on the map in more detail:
The Germans quite advanced deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. But they never managed to take strategically important cities: neither Moscow nor Leningrad were subdued. In the Leningrad direction, they were stopped near the town of Tikhvin. On the Kalinin direction - near the village of Mednoe. Near Stalingrad we reached the Volga, the last outpost was the village of Kuporosnoye. On the western front in the area of the city of Rzhev, the Germans managed to be knocked out at the cost of incredible efforts (recall the famous poem by Tvardovsky I was killed near Rzhev). They also fought furiously for the Caucasus, which had strategic importance- access to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Were stopped near the city of Maykop.
Where the Nazis got to is already a well-known matter, and every historian can accurately tell everything in detail, about every point, about every city and village in which fierce battles took place, everything is especially well described and remains in memory in books that can be through many years just to pick up and read.
And this is what the map looks like:
A lot of maps are shown, but I will say in words: During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis came close to Moscow, they were only 30 km from Moscow, but they were stopped there. Naturally, I know everything about the blockade of Leningrad, Battle of Kursk, Rzhev direction. Here is a map of the battle for Moscow.
http://dp60.narod.ru/image/maps/330.jpg
This is the line of maximum advance of the Germans amp; Co deep into Soviet territory.
There are many types of cards.
To be honest, I don’t really trust the Internet, I trust history textbooks more.
I myself live in Belarus and therefore the map may not be much different.
But here's a photo I took, just for you!
The Nazis went far, but, as you know, they failed to capture Moscow. Not so long ago I was interested in information when the Nazis began to retreat. It was possible to find only some facts of events near Moscow. You can quote:
The map shows the territory of the USSR, which the Germans managed to pass before November 15, 1942 (after which they went a little deeper and began to retreat):
The German attack on the USSR was in 1941, they almost achieved their goal, and the Nazis only had about thirty kilometers to reach Moscow, but they still failed, and here is a map where everything is described in detail
They were near Moscow - 30 km, and they were defeated there, it’s better to read it on Wikipedia, everything is described in detail there and there are dates from the video, see here. And here is the map in the pictures below, the sun is marked with black arrows.
During the Great Patriotic War, Nazi Germany captured a significant territory of the former USSR.
The troops of the Third Reich occupied many republics of the then Union. Among them are part of the RSFSR, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, the Baltic republics.
Below on the map you can see the border (thick red line), where the Nazis entered during the hostilities:
The battle for Moscow (1941-1942) is one of the most major battles World War II, both in terms of the number of participants in the parties, and in the territory in which it took place. The significance of the battle is enormous, it was on the verge of actual defeat, but thanks to the valor of the soldiers and the talents of the generals, the battle for Moscow was won, and the myth of the invincibility of the German troops was destroyed. Where did the Germans stop near Moscow? The course of the battle, the strength of the parties, as well as its results and consequences will be discussed further in the article.
History of the battle
According to the master plan of the German command, codenamed "Barbarossa", Moscow was supposed to be captured three to four months after the start of the war. However, the Soviet troops offered heroic resistance. The battle for Smolensk alone delayed the German troops for two months.
Hitlerite soldiers approached Moscow only at the end of September, that is, in the fourth month of the war. The operation to capture the capital of the USSR received the code name "Typhoon", according to which the German troops were to cover Moscow from the north and south, then surround and capture. The Moscow battle took place on a vast territory that stretched for a thousand kilometers.
Side forces. Germany
Huge forces were deployed by the German command. 77 divisions with a total number of more than 2 million people took part in the battles. In addition, the Wehrmacht had at its disposal more than 1,700 tanks and self-propelled guns, 14,000 guns and mortars, and about 800 aircraft. The commander of this huge army was Field Marshal F. von Bock.
USSR
For the Headquarters of the VKG, there were forces of five fronts with a total number of more than 1.25 million people. Also, the Soviet troops had more than 1000 tanks, 10 thousand guns and mortars and more than 500 aircraft. The defense of Moscow was in turn led by several outstanding strategists: A. M. Vasilevsky, I. S. Konev, G. K. Zhukov.
Course of events
Before finding out where the Germans were stopped near Moscow, it is worth talking a little about the course of hostilities in this battle. It is customary to divide it into two stages: defensive (which lasted from September 30 to December 4, 1941) and offensive (from December 5, 1941 to April 20, 1942).
defensive stage
September 30, 1941 is considered the start date of the battle for Moscow. On this day, the Nazis attacked the troops of the Bryansk Front.
On October 2, the Germans went on the offensive in the Vyazma direction. Despite stubborn resistance, the German units managed to cut through the Soviet troops between the cities of Rzhev and Vyazma, as a result of which the troops of actually two fronts ended up in a cauldron. In total, more than 600 thousand people were surrounded. Soviet soldiers.
After the defeat near Bryansk, the line of defense Soviet command was organized in the Mozhaisk direction. The inhabitants of the city hastily prepared fortifications: trenches and trenches were dug, anti-tank hedgehogs were placed.
During the rapid offensive, the German troops managed to capture such cities as Kaluga, Maloyaroslavets, Kalinin, Mozhaisk from October 13 to 18 and come close to the Soviet capital. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced in Moscow.
Moscow surrounded
Even before the actual introduction of a state of siege in Moscow, on October 15, the Defense Command was evacuated from the capital to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), the next day, the evacuation of all government agencies began, general staff etc.
JV Stalin decided to stay in the city. On the same day, the residents of the capital panicked, rumors spread about leaving Moscow, several dozen residents of the city tried to urgently leave the capital. Only by October 20 was it possible to establish order. On this day, the city went into a state of siege.
By the end of October 1941, fighting was already underway near Moscow in Naro-Fominsk, Kubinka, and Volokolamsk. Moscow was regularly raided by German aircraft, which did not cause much damage, since the most valuable buildings of the capital were carefully camouflaged, and the Soviet anti-aircraft gunners also worked well. At the cost of huge losses, the October offensive of the German troops was stopped. But they almost reached Moscow.
Where did the Germans get to? This sad list includes the suburbs of Tula, Serpukhov, Naro-Fominsk, Kaluga, Kalinin, Mozhaisk.
Parade on Red Square
Taking advantage of the relative silence at the front, the Soviet command decided to hold a military parade on Red Square. The purpose of the parade was to raise the morale of Soviet soldiers. The date was set for November 7, 1941, S. M. Budyonny hosted the parade, General P. A. Artemyev commanded the parade. Rifle and motorized rifle units, Red Navy, cavalrymen, as well as artillery and tank regiments took part in the parade. The soldiers left the parade almost immediately to the front line, leaving unconquered Moscow behind...
Where did the Germans go? What cities did they reach? How did the Red Army men manage to stop the enemy's orderly battle formations? It's time to find out about it.
November offensive of the Nazis on the capital
On November 15, after a powerful artillery preparation, a new round of the German offensive near Moscow began. Stubborn battles unfolded in the Volokolamsk and Klinsk directions. So, in 20 days of the offensive, the Nazis managed to advance 100 km and capture cities such as Klin, Solnechnogorsk, Yakhroma. The closest settlement to Moscow, where the Germans reached during the offensive, turned out to be Yasnaya Polyana - the estate of the writer Leo Tolstoy.
The Germans had about 17 km to the borders of Moscow itself, and 29 km to the walls of the Kremlin. By the beginning of December, as a result of a counterattack, the Soviet units managed to drive the Germans out of the earlier occupied territories in the vicinity of the capital, including from Yasnaya Polyana.
Today we know where the Germans reached near Moscow - to the very walls of the capital! But they failed to take the city.
The onset of cold weather
As mentioned above, the Barbarossa plan provided for the capture of Moscow by German troops no later than October 1941. In this regard, the German command did not provide for winter uniforms for soldiers. The first night frosts began at the end of October, and for the first time the temperature dropped below zero on November 4th. That day the thermometer showed -8 degrees. Subsequently, the temperature very rarely dropped below 0 °C.
Not only were they unprepared for the first cold German soldiers dressed in light uniforms, but also equipment that was not designed to work at low temperatures.
The cold caught the soldiers when they were actually a few dozen kilometers from Belokamennaya, but their equipment did not start in the cold, and the frozen Germans near Moscow did not want to fight. "General Frost" once again rushed to the rescue of the Russians ...
Where did the Germans stop near Moscow? The last German attempt to capture Moscow was made during the attack on Naro-Fominsk on December 1. In the course of several massive attacks, the German units managed to penetrate for a short time into the areas of Zvenigorod for 5 km, Naro-Fominsk up to 10 km.
After the transfer of the reserve, the Soviet troops managed to push the enemy back to their original positions. The Naro-Fominsk operation is considered the last one carried out by the Soviet command at the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow.
The results of the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow
The Soviet Union defended its capital at a huge cost. The irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army during the defensive phase amounted to more than 500 thousand people. at this stage, lost about 145 thousand people. But in the course of its attack on Moscow, the German command used virtually all the free reserves, which by December 1941 were actually depleted, which allowed the Red Army to go on the offensive.
At the end of November, after it became known from undercover sources that Japan was not Far East about 10 divisions and hundreds of tanks were transferred to Moscow. The troops of the Western, Kalinin and Southwestern fronts were equipped with new divisions, as a result of which, by the beginning of the offensive, the Soviet group in the Moscow direction consisted of more than 1.1 million soldiers, 7,700 guns and mortars, 750 tanks, and about 1 thousand aircraft.
However, she was opposed by a grouping of German troops, not inferior, but even superior in number. The number of personnel reached 1.7 million people, tanks and aircraft were 1200 and 650, respectively.
On the fifth and sixth of December, the troops of three fronts went on a large-scale offensive, and already on December 8, Hitler gives the order for the German troops to go on the defensive. In 1941, Istra and Solnechnogorsk were liberated by Soviet troops. On December 15 and 16, the cities of Klin and Kalinin were liberated.
During the ten days of the offensive, the Red Army managed to push back the enemy in different sectors of the front for 80-100 km, and also create a threat of collapse to the German front of Army Group Center.
Hitler, not wanting to back down, dismissed Generals Brauchitsch and Bock and appointed General G. von Kluge as the new commander of the army. However, the Soviet offensive developed rapidly, and the German command was unable to stop it. In total, in December 1941, German troops in different sectors of the front were driven back by 100-250 km, which meant the elimination of the threat to the capital, the complete defeat of the Germans near Moscow.
In 1942, the Soviet troops slowed down the pace of their offensive and failed to actually destroy the front of Army Group Center, although they inflicted an extremely heavy defeat on the German troops.
The result of the battle for Moscow
The historical significance of the defeat of the Germans near Moscow is invaluable for the entire Second World War. More than 3 million people, more than 2,000 aircraft and 3,000 tanks took part in this battle on both sides, and the front stretched for more than 1,000 km. During the 7 months of the battle, Soviet troops lost more than 900 thousand people killed and missing, German troops lost more than 400 thousand people over the same period. Important results of the battle for Moscow (1941-1942) can be indicated:
- The German plan of "blitzkrieg" - a quick lightning victory - was destroyed, Germany had to prepare for a long exhausting war.
- The threat of the capture of Moscow ceased to exist.
- The myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled.
- The German army suffered serious losses in its advanced and most combat-ready units, which had to be replenished with inexperienced recruits.
- The Soviet command gained tremendous experience for the successful conduct of the war with the German army.
- After the victory in the Moscow battle, an anti-Hitler coalition began to take shape.
This is how the defense of Moscow took place, and its positive outcome brought such significant results.
In the second half of November fascist troops entered the territory of the Ryazan region, occupied Skopin, Mikhailov, Miloslavskoye, and many other villages and towns. Before their arrival, the Soviet government destroyed everything that could not be evacuated so that the Germans would not get it.
In Ryazan, residents last day they did not know whether the enemy would enter the city or not. There were almost no troops for protection: a working regiment of volunteers, a few cadets from Vladimir, motorists, sappers, girls from the anti-aircraft division and the Ryazan police. November 26th only railway station Shilovo was visited by the commander of the 10th Army, recently formed near Penza, Philip Golikov (pictured). And on December 1, the rifle and cavalry divisions of his army began to unload from the trains in Ryazan and the surrounding area.
The Ryazan newspaper "Stalinskoye Znamya" practically did not publish any local reports. But people saw how many soldiers and horses were walking through the city.
Back in October, the population of Ryazan, in order to buy terribly expensive food at the market, began to sell clothes, watches, gold and silver things en masse. At enterprises issued cards to receive 800 grams of bread per day. Those who did not work received cards for 400 grams of bread. There were also "sugar" cards, which gave out gingerbread or caramel. “Fish” cards were sold very rarely. Vegetables and meat could only be bought at the market, there were practically none in stores.
Throughout November, Ryazan was bombed. German planes tried to damage the railway tracks, get into the station, into the woodworking (today's instrument) plant that worked for aviation, into Ryazselmash (they made shells there). The sky of the city was covered by the 269th anti-aircraft division, almost entirely composed of girls. The most powerful bombing was November 6th. The first bombs exploded at the Ryazan-1 station, damaging the wooden building of the station and the rails (despite the dark time of the day, the damage to the rails was repaired in one hour, and the station was repaired only in the spring of 1942). Two bombs hit the railway station market on the Small Highway, which at that time, fortunately, was empty of people. There was an explosion in kindergarten on Professor Kudryavtsev Street, where many children died. One bomb landed in a hospital on Kalyaev Street (now a railway technical school). A land mine dropped from an aircraft exploded in the yard of the NKVD headquarters: two horses were killed by shrapnel, and several employees were injured. In addition, bomb damage former home Saltykov-Shchedrin.
November 7 in Ryazan there was no demonstration in honor of the anniversary of the revolution: the authorities did not take risks, and the people who were busy with the funeral of the dead the day before had no time for celebration.
From November 8 in Ryazan curfew was introduced- from 22:00 to 07:00. Any movement at this time was allowed only with the passes of the commandant of the city.
The newspapers claimed that the Germans had suffered such terrible losses that they could no longer do anything with the USSR. Unbelievable numbers of enemy losses were called, which were hard to believe.
Frost hit. November 14 was minus 22 degrees.
Despite everything, the advance of the enemy to the east continued.
“10th motorized division of the 47th tank corps, - recalled the German General Guderian, - having reached the city of Mikhailov on November 27, she sent groups of demolition men to blow up the railway in the Ryazan-Kolomna section. However, these groups failed to fulfill their task: the Russian defense was too strong. On November 29, superior enemy forces for the first time put strong pressure on the 10th motorized division. Therefore, our troops were forced to leave Skopin ...”
In fact, there was no "defense of the Russians". railroad defended by fighter detachments from the inhabitants of Rybny, Lukhovits, etc. Armed with anything (hunting rifles, carbines of the 19th century, pistols), they caught or killed saboteurs, not letting them near the rails.
The head of the Mikhailovskaya office of the State Bank of the USSR by the name of Gavrilin, not having time to evacuate by car or cart, he collected all the money and valuables in two bags, shouldered them and left the city on foot on the evening of November 24. He walked 60 kilometers to Ryazan for five days, spending the night in nearby villages. Gavrilin arrived in Ryazan on November 29, carrying unharmed sacks. However, after some time he was taken into custody, and then sentenced to 10 years in the camps “for financial losses”: in comparison with the documents, there were not enough pieces of paper in the bags brought.
On November 25, the Germans for the first time expelled reconnaissance towards Ryazan. Near the Stenkino station, policemen saw two German motorcyclists. One was killed, and the second, while trying to turn around, overturned the motorcycle. He was taken prisoner. Another reconnaissance detachment of Germans on motorcycles, sent to the Zakharovsky district, arrived to the village of Popadino. The car of the head of the Zakharovsky police department, Andrian Usachev, was driving towards them. He was carrying a policeman and a female doctor. The Germans killed all three and shot the car.
In the village of Plakhino German motorcyclists tore off the red flag from the village council and fired several shots into the air, and then drove back.
In Zakharov at that time there lived an old pious woman - “wretched Polyushka” (revered today by many believers). She predicted that the Germans would not enter Zakharovo, and many local residents, confident in her words, did not evacuate. The German tankette did appear in the village, but it turned out that it was just reconnaissance. The old women said that in a couple of hours the Nazis only killed a Soviet worker who tried to throw a bottle of gasoline at them from around the corner.
On November 26, the head of the Ryazan garrison Murat and the commandant of the city of Samokhin announced state of siege. In the event of an enemy invasion, all working battalions, police and other services were issued an order. It detailed where to hide in the forests to start a guerrilla fight. On the same days, dozens of cars drove across the ice of the Oka towards Solotcha. In Shumashi, they were loaded onto sleighs and carried secret cargoes through the forest corners. Secret warehouses of weapons and ammunition, food supplies, warm clothes for the partisans were created.
Meanwhile, when equipping possible partisan bases, many deserters hiding in Meshchera. By December 1, the NKVD compiled lists of 11 "bandit groups" in the region with an estimated number of 62 people. The Chekists seriously feared that these "enemies Soviet power"can go over to the side of the Germans. But catching them began much later, in March 1942.
November 27 a brigade arrived at Ryazhsk station marines
, which was supposed to hold the defense here. From Skopin, they received a call from a telephone operator from a government communications center disguised in an ordinary house. She said that there were only about 70 Nazis in the city. Intelligence confirmed these data. Marines set out on foot from Ryazhsk and broke into Skopin on November 28. The sailors were helped by the fighters of the Skopinsky fighter battalion, who left their hometown a few days ago. After a two-hour battle, the enemies, firing back, ran along the road to Pavelets.
However, for the Germans, the Ryazan direction was also not the main one. They advanced on Tula and Moscow, and here was only the flank of Guderian's army. There were several hundred Germans in Serebryanye Prudy and Mikhailov, and even fewer in Pavelets and Chernav. Between these settlements motorcyclists and individual armored personnel carriers drove. The Germans had some artillery here, but all the tanks were fighting near Tula.
Soviet troops many more were preparing to attack against them - tens of thousands of people. But they were better armed. Filipp Golikov, whose soldiers unloaded in Ryazan and turned around from Poyarkov to Pronsk, December 1 sent a report to the headquarters of the Supreme High Command about the terrible state of parts of his army: “ The 326th Rifle, 57th and 75th Cavalry Divisions,” he wrote, “have no weapons at all, the rest must enter the battle without machine guns, mortars, vehicles, means of communication ...“There was only one communication company for the entire army, and relations between the headquarters of the divisions and the headquarters of the army were supported by horsemen galloping from village to village.
And yet, on December 5, the 10th Army was to launch an offensive.
