On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the territory of the USSR without declaring war. The Great Patriotic War began, which from the first days differed from the war in the West in its scope, bloodshed, the extreme tension of the struggle, the mass atrocities of the Nazis, and the unprecedented self-sacrifice of the citizens of the USSR.
The German side presented the war as a preventive (precautionary). The fabrication of a preventive war was intended to give the attack on the USSR the appearance of a moral justification. The decision to invade was made by the fascist leadership not because the USSR threatened Germany, but because fascist Germany aspired to world domination. The guilt of Germany as the aggressor cannot be questioned. On June 22, Germany carried out, as the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg found, a carefully prepared attack on the USSR “without any warning and without a shadow of legal justification. It was a clear attack." At the same time, some facts of the pre-war history of our country remain the subject of controversy among historians. So, in some works it is alleged that the USSR was allegedly preparing an attack on Germany. This far-fetched version is borrowed from Hitler's propaganda. As evidence, they refer to the draft directive on delivering a preemptive strike against German troops concentrated near the borders of the USSR. The draft of such a directive was actually prepared at the General Staff in May 1941 with the participation of A.M. Vasilevsky. But there was no political expediency, no real forces for delivering a preemptive strike, just as the directive itself did not exist. The project remained a project. Of course, this cannot change the assessment of the German attack on the USSR as an act of aggression. In the national historical memory of the people, the war of 1941-1945. will forever remain as Patriotic, liberation. And no details of interest to historians can obscure this indisputable fact.
In June 1940, the German General Staff began to develop a plan for a war against the USSR, and on December 18, Hitler approved the Barbarossa plan, which provided for the completion of the military campaign against the USSR during the "blitzkrieg" in two to four months. The documents of the German leadership left no doubt that they were betting on the destruction of the USSR and millions of its citizens. The Nazis intended to "defeat the Russians as a people", to undermine their "biological strength", to destroy their culture.
Germany and its allies (Finland, Hungary, Romania, Italy) concentrated 190 divisions (5.5 million soldiers and officers), 4.3 thousand tanks, 5 thousand aircraft, 47.2 thousand guns and mortars along the border of the USSR . In the western border military districts of the USSR, 170 divisions (3 million soldiers and commanders), 14.2 thousand tanks, 9.2 thousand combat aircraft, 32.9 thousand guns and mortars were concentrated. At the same time, 16% of the tanks and 18.5% of the aircraft were under repair or in need of repair. The blow was applied in three main directions: to Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv.
There are three periods in the history of the Great Patriotic War. During the first period (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) the strategic initiative belonged to Germany. The Wehrmacht managed to seize the initiative, using the surprise factor of the attack, the concentration of forces and means in the main directions. Already in the first days and months of the war, the Red Army suffered huge losses. In three weeks of fighting, the aggressor completely defeated 28 Soviet divisions, and another 70 lost more than half of their personnel and equipment. The retreat of the Red Army units was often disorderly. A significant part of the fighters and commanders of the Red Army was captured. According to German documents, at the end of 1941 they had 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war.
What were the reasons for the defeats of the Red Army at the initial stage of the war? First of all, it should be emphasized that the USSR was faced with the strongest and invincible army of the world at that time. The forces and means of Germany and its allies at the beginning of the war were 1.2 times greater than the forces and means of the USSR. In certain positions, the Armed Forces of the USSR were numerically superior to the enemy army, but inferior to it in strategic deployment, in the quality of many types of weapons, in experience, training and literacy of personnel. By the beginning of the war, it was not possible to complete the rearmament of the army: there were not enough modern tanks, aircraft, automatic small arms, and means of communication.
Secondly, serious damage was inflicted to the command cadres during the repressions. In 1937-1939. about 37 thousand commanders of various ranks were dismissed from the army, most for political reasons. Of these, 3-4 thousand were shot as "conspirators", 6-8 thousand were convicted. Although the vast majority of those dismissed and convicted were rehabilitated and returned to the army, the repressions undermined the combat effectiveness of the Red Army. A significant part of the command staff (55%) was in their positions for less than six months. This was due to the fact that the size of the Red Army had more than doubled since 1939.
Thirdly, serious military-strategic miscalculations made by the Soviet political and military leadership had an effect on the formation of the military concept, in assessing the strategic situation in the spring and summer of 1941, in determining the timing of a possible attack on the USSR and the directions of the main attacks of the German troops, which ensured strategic and tactical surprise and multiple superiority of the aggressor in the main directions.
Fourthly, miscalculations were made in the organization of defense and training of troops. The army was in the process of reorganization, the tank corps were not yet combat-ready, the pilots had not yet learned how to fight on the new equipment, the western borders had not been fully fortified, the troops had not learned how to fight on the defensive.
From the first days of the war, the restructuring of the life of the country on a military basis began. The principle of maximum centralization of leadership was put at the basis of the restructuring of the activities of the party, state authorities and administration. On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was created, headed by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. On July 10, Stalin was appointed chairman of the Stavka (Stavka of the Supreme High Command). On June 30, the State Defense Committee was organized under the chairmanship of Stalin. All power in the country was concentrated in his hands. The main activity of the State Defense Committee was the work of deploying the Armed Forces, preparing reserves, providing them with weapons, equipment, and food. During the war years, the State Defense Committee adopted about 10,000 resolutions. Under the leadership of the Committee, the Headquarters planned 9 campaigns, 51 strategic operations and 250 front-line ones.
Military mobilization work has become the most important direction of the state's activity. The general mobilization of those liable for military service made it possible by July to replenish the army with 5.3 million people. During the war years, 34.5 million people (17.5% of the pre-war population) were mobilized into the army and to work in industry (taking into account those who served before the start of the war and volunteers). More than a third of this staff was in the army, of which 5-6.5 million people were constantly in the army. (17.9 million people were recruited to serve in the Wehrmacht - 25.8% of the population of Germany in 1939). Mobilization made it possible to form 648 new divisions during the war, 410 of them in 1941.
Military operations at the front in 1941 were extremely tragic. In the autumn of 1941, Leningrad was blockaded. On the central sector of the front, the Battle of Smolensk unfolded on July 10. A dramatic situation developed in September in the Kyiv region, where there was a threat of encirclement of Soviet troops. The enemy closed the encirclement, captured Kyiv, destroying and capturing more than 600 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. Having defeated the Kyiv grouping of Soviet troops, the German command resumed the offensive of Army Group Center on Moscow. The defense of Odessa continued for more than two months. From October 30, 1941, Sevastopol fought heroically for 250 days.
The attack on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) began on 30 September. Despite the heroic resistance of the Soviet troops, the enemy was approaching Moscow. From October 20, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. On November 7, a military parade took place on Red Square, which was of great moral, psychological and political significance. On the other hand, the morale of the German troops was significantly broken. Their losses on the Eastern Front had no precedent: in June-November 1941 they were three times more than in Poland and on the Western Front, and the losses in the officer corps were five times more than in 1939-1940. On November 16, after a two-week pause, a new German offensive began on Moscow. Simultaneously with the repulse of the enemy offensive, a counteroffensive was being prepared. On December 5, the troops of the Kalinin Front (I.S. Konev), and on December 6, the Western (G.K. Zhukov) and South-Western (S.K. Timoshenko) went on the offensive. The Soviet side had 1100 thousand soldiers and officers, 7.7 thousand guns and mortars, 774 tanks, 1 thousand aircraft against 1708 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, 13.5 thousand guns and mortars, 1170 tanks, 615 aircraft .
In the battle near Moscow from November 16 to December 5, German troops lost 155 thousand people killed and wounded, about 800 tanks, 300 guns and up to 1.5 thousand aircraft. In total, until the end of 1941, Germany and the allies lost on the Eastern Front 273.8 thousand people killed, 802.7 thousand wounded, 57.2 thousand missing.
For a month of fighting, Moscow, Tula and a significant part of the Kalinin region were liberated. In January 1942, the counter-offensive near Moscow developed into a general offensive of the Red Army. However, by March 1942 the power of the offensive dried up, the army suffered heavy losses. It was not possible to develop the success of the counteroffensive along the entire front, which lasted until April 20, 1942. The battle for Moscow was of great importance: the myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled, the plan for a lightning war was thwarted, and the international position of the USSR was strengthened.
The partisan movement became an important direction in the fight against the enemy. Already in July 1941, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on organizing a partisan movement in the occupied territories. In May 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was formed (chief - first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Belarus P.K. Ponomarenko). The total number of partisans during the war years amounted to 2.8 million people. Acting as auxiliary forces of the Red Army, the partisans diverted up to 10% of the enemy's armed forces.
In the spring and summer of 1942, the German troops took advantage of the miscalculations of the Soviet command, which was expecting a new attack on Moscow and concentrated more than half of the armies, 62% of aircraft and up to 80% of tanks here. The German command was preparing an offensive in the south, trying to capture the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. Soviet troops in the south were not enough. Distracting offensive operations in the Crimea and in the Kharkov direction turned into major defeats. German troops occupied the Donbass, went to the big bend of the Don. On July 24, the enemy captured Rostov-on-Don. The situation at the front was critical.
On July 28, the people's commissar of defense issued order No. 227 ("Not a step back!"), Which was intended to stop manifestations of cowardice and desertion, categorically forbade retreat without an order from the command. The order introduced penal battalions and companies for military personnel to serve their sentences for criminal and military crimes. In 1942, 25 thousand people were sent to them, in the subsequent years of the war - 403 thousand. Within each army, 3-5 detachments were created (200 people each), obliged to shoot alarmists on the spot in case of panic and disorderly withdrawal of units . The detachments were disbanded in the autumn of 1944.
In August 1942, the enemy reached the banks of the Volga near Stalingrad and the foothills of the Caucasus Range. On August 25, the battle for Stalingrad began, which became decisive for the outcome of the entire war. Stalingrad became synonymous with the mass heroism of the soldiers and the resilience of the Soviet people. The main burden of the struggle for Stalingrad fell on the lot of the armies led by V.I. Chuikov, M.S. Shumilov, A.I. Lopatin, divisions A.I. Rodimtseva and I.I. Lednikov. The defensive operation in Stalingrad cost the lives of 324,000 Soviet soldiers. By mid-November, the offensive capabilities of the Germans dried up, and they went on the defensive.
The war demanded a change in the proportions in the development of the national economy, the improvement of the structure of state management of the economy. At the same time, the rigidly centralized management system created was combined with the expansion of the powers of economic bodies and the initiative of the workers. The first six months of the war were the most difficult for the Soviet economy. Industrial production more than halved, and the production of military equipment and ammunition dropped sharply. People, industrial enterprises, material and cultural values, and livestock were evacuated from the frontline zone. For this work, the Council for Evacuation Affairs was created (chairman N.M. Shvernik, deputies A.N. Kosygin and M.G. Pervukhin). By the beginning of 1942, more than 1,500 industrial enterprises were transported, including 1,360 defense ones. The number of evacuated workers reached a third of the staff. From December 26, 1941, workers and employees of military enterprises were declared mobilized for the entire period of the war, unauthorized leaving the enterprise was punished as desertion.
At the cost of the enormous efforts of the people, from December 1941 the decline in industrial production stopped, and from March 1942 its volume began to grow. By mid-1942, the restructuring of the Soviet economy on a war footing was completed. In the context of a significant reduction in labor resources, measures to provide labor force for industry, transport, and new buildings have become an important direction of economic policy. By the end of the war, the number of workers and employees reached 27.5 million people, of which 9.5 million worked in industry (against the level of 1940, this was 86-87%).
Agriculture was in an incredibly difficult situation during the war years. Tractors, motor vehicles, horses were mobilized for the needs of the army. The village was left practically without draft power. Almost the entire able-bodied male population was mobilized into the army. The peasants worked to the limit of their capabilities. During the war years, agricultural production fell catastrophically. Grain harvest in 1942 and 1943 amounted to 30 million tons compared with 95.5 million tons in 1940. The number of cattle was reduced by half, pigs - by 3.6 times. Collective farms had to hand over almost the entire harvest to the state. For 1941-1944 66.1 million tons of grain were harvested, and in 1941-1945. - 85 million tons (for comparison: 22.4 million tons were harvested in 1914-1917). Difficulties in agriculture inevitably affected the food supply of the population. From the first days of the war, a rationing system was introduced to provide the urban population with food.
During the war, extreme conditions were created for the functioning of the financial system. During the war years, revenues to the budget increased through taxes and fees from the population. Government loans and money emission were used to cover the deficit. During the war years, voluntary contributions were widespread - collections of funds from the population to the Defense Fund and the Red Army Fund. During the war, the Soviet financial system showed high mobilization capabilities and efficiency. If in 1940 military spending accounted for about 7% of the national income, then in 1943 it was 33%. Military spending increased sharply in 1941-1945. amounted to 50.8% of all budget expenditures. At the same time, the state budget deficit amounted to only 2.6%.
As a result of emergency measures and the heroic labor of the people, already from the middle of 1942 the USSR had a strong military economy, which provided the army with everything necessary in ever-increasing volumes. During the war years, almost twice as much military equipment and weapons were produced in the USSR than in Germany. We used material and raw material resources and equipment better than in the German economy. The Soviet economy proved to be more efficient during the war years than the economy of fascist Germany.
Thus, the model of the mobilization economy that took shape in the 1930s proved to be very effective during the war years. Rigid centralism, directive planning, the concentration of the means of production in the hands of the state, the absence of competition and market egoism of individual social strata, the labor enthusiasm of millions of people played a decisive role in ensuring economic victory over the enemy. Other factors (lend-lease, the labor of prisoners and prisoners of war) played a subordinate role.
The second period (November 19, 1942 - the end of 1943) is the period of a radical change. On November 19, 1942, the Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive and on November 23 closed the ring around the enemy troops. The cauldron contained 22 divisions with a total strength of 330,000 soldiers and officers. The Soviet command offered to surrender to the encircled troops, but they refused. On February 2, 1943, the grandiose battle near Stalingrad ended. During the liquidation of the encircled grouping of the enemy, 147 thousand soldiers and officers were killed, 91 thousand were captured. Among the prisoners were 24 generals, along with the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal F. Paulus.
The operation near Stalingrad grew into a general strategic offensive that lasted until the end of March 1943. Stalingrad raised the authority of the USSR, led to the rise of the resistance movement in European countries, and contributed to the strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The battle on the Volga predetermined the outcome of the battles in the North Caucasus. There was a threat of encirclement of the enemy's North Caucasian grouping, and it began to retreat. By mid-February 1943, most of the North Caucasus was liberated. Of particular importance was the breakthrough of the enemy blockade of Leningrad in January 1943 by the troops of the Leningrad (A. A. Govorov) and Volkhov (K. A. Meretskov) fronts.
In the summer of 1943, the Wehrmacht command decided to organize a powerful offensive in the Kursk region. The plan "Citadel" was based on the idea: with unexpected counter strikes from Orel and Belgorod, to surround and destroy Soviet troops on the Kursk ledge, and then develop an offensive inland. For this, it was supposed to use a third of the German formations located on the Soviet-German front. At dawn on July 5, the Germans attacked the defenses of the Soviet fronts. The Soviet units stubbornly defended each defensive line. On July 12, an unprecedented tank battle in the history of wars unfolded near Prokhorovka, in which about 1200 tanks took part. On August 5, Soviet troops captured Orel and Belgorod, and on August 23 they liberated Kharkov. The Battle of Kursk ended with the capture of Kharkov. In 50 days of fighting, German troops lost half a million soldiers and officers, 2952 tanks, 844 guns, 1327 aircraft. The losses of the Soviet troops were comparable to the German ones. True, the victory at Kursk was achieved with less bloodshed than before: if Stalingrad claimed the lives of 470 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, then 253 thousand died during the Battle of Kursk. The victory at Kursk secured a radical change in the course of the war. The omnipotence of the Wehrmacht on the battlefields is over.
Having liberated Orel, Belgorod, Kharkov, the Soviet troops launched a general strategic offensive at the front. The radical turning point in the course of the war, begun near Stalingrad, was completed by the battle for the Dnieper. On November 6, Kyiv was liberated. From November 1942 to December 1943, 46.2% of Soviet territory was liberated. The collapse of the fascist bloc began. Italy was withdrawn from the war.
One of the important sectors of the struggle against the Nazi invaders was ideological, educational, propaganda work. Newspapers, radio, party propagandists and political workers, cultural figures explained the nature of the war, strengthened faith in victory, instilled patriotism, devotion to duty and other high moral qualities. The Soviet side countered the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism and genocide with such universal values as: national independence, solidarity and friendship of peoples, justice, humanism. Class, socialist values were not discarded at all, but were largely replaced by patriotic, traditionally national ones.
During the war years, there were changes in the relationship between the state and the church. Already on June 22, 1941, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Sergius, blessed all the Orthodox to defend the Fatherland. The words of the metropolitan carried a huge charge of patriotism, pointed to the deep historical source of people's strength and faith in victory over enemies. Like the official authorities, the church defined the war as national, domestic, patriotic. Anti-religious propaganda has stopped in the country. On September 4, 1943, Stalin met with Metropolitans Sergius, Alexiy, and Nikolai, and on September 12, the Council of Bishops elected Metropolitan Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. The Council adopted a document stating that “everyone guilty of treason to the general church cause and who went over to the side of fascism, as an opponent of the Cross of the Lord, let him be considered excommunicated, and a bishop or cleric - defrocked.” By the end of the war, there were 10,547 Orthodox churches and 75 monasteries in the USSR (before the war, about 380 churches and not a single monastery). Open churches became new centers of Russian national identity, and Christian values became an element of national ideology.
The third period (1944 - May 9, 1945) is the final period of the war. By the beginning of 1944, the German armed forces had 315 divisions, 198 of which fought on the Eastern Front. Together with the Allied troops, there were 4.9 million soldiers and officers here. German industry produced a significant amount of armaments, although the German economic situation was steadily deteriorating. The Soviet industry surpassed the German one in the production of all major types of weapons.
1944 in the history of the Great Patriotic War became the year of the offensive of the Soviet troops on all fronts. In the winter of 1943-1944 the German army group "South" was defeated, the Pravoberezhnaya and part of Western Ukraine was liberated. Soviet troops reached the state border. In January 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was completely lifted. On June 6, 1944, a second front was opened in Europe. During the operation "Bagration" in the summer of 1944, Belarus was liberated. Interestingly, the operation "Bagration" almost mirrored the German blitzkrieg. Hitler and his advisers believed that the Red Army would strike a decisive blow in the south, in Galicia, where the prospect of an attack on Warsaw, in the rear of Army Group Center, opened up before the Soviet troops. It was in this direction that the German command concentrated reserves, but miscalculated. Going on the offensive in Belarus on June 22, 1944, the Soviet troops fought 700 km in five weeks. The pace of the offensive of the Soviet troops exceeded the pace of advancement of the tank groups of Guderian and Hoth in the summer of 1941. In the autumn, the liberation of the Baltic began. In the summer-autumn campaign of 1944, Soviet troops advanced 600-1100 km, completing the liberation of the USSR. Enemy losses amounted to 1.6 million people, 6700 tanks, more than 12 thousand aircraft, 28 thousand guns and mortars.
In January 1945, the Vistula-Oder operation began. Its main goal was to break the enemy grouping on the territory of Poland, reach the Oder, seize bridgeheads here and provide favorable conditions for striking at Berlin. After bloody battles, Soviet troops reached the banks of the Oder on February 3. During the Vistula-Oder operation, the Nazis lost 35 divisions.
At the final stage of the war, German troops in the West stopped serious resistance. Almost unopposed, the Allies advanced to the East. The Red Army was faced with the task of inflicting a final blow on fascist Germany. The Berlin offensive operation began on April 16, 1945 and continued until May 2. The troops of the 1st Belorussian (G.K. Zhukov), 1st Ukrainian (I.S. Konev), 2nd Belorussian (K.K. Rokossovsky) fronts took part in it. Berlin was fiercely defended by more than a million German soldiers. The advancing Soviet troops numbered 2.5 million fighters, 41.6 thousand guns and mortars, 6250 tanks and self-propelled guns, 7.5 thousand aircraft. On April 25, the encirclement of the Berlin group was completed. After the German command rejected the ultimatum to surrender, the assault on Berlin began. On May 1, the banner of Victory fluttered over the Reichstag, and the next day the garrison capitulated. On the night of May 9, an act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst. However, German troops still held Prague. Soviet troops liberated Prague with a swift throw.
The turning point in the war and the victory were the result of an incredible exertion of forces, the mass heroism of the people, which amazed enemies and allies. The idea that inspired the workers of the front and rear, uniting and multiplying their strength, was the idea of defending the Fatherland. The acts of the highest self-sacrifice and heroism in the name of victory, embodied by: squadron commander Nikolai Gastello, 28 Panfilov soldiers led by political instructor V.G. Klochkov, underground fighter Liza Chaikina, partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev, sergeant Yakov Pavlov and his famous "Pavlov's House" in Stalingrad, underground worker from the "Young Guard" Oleg Koshevoy, private Alexander Matrosov, scout Nikolai Kuznetsov, young partisan Marat Kazei , Lieutenant General D.M. Karbyshev and many thousands of other heroes of the Great Patriotic War.
For courage and heroism, the defenders of the Motherland were awarded more than 38 million orders and medals, more than 11.6 thousand people received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, among whom were representatives of most nationalities of the country, including 8160 Russians, 2069 Ukrainians, 309 Belarusians, 161 Tatar, 108 Jews, 96 Kazakhs. 16 million 100 thousand home front workers were awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." The title of Hero of Socialist Labor was awarded to 202 home front workers. Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" 14 million 900 thousand people were awarded, and more than 1 million 800 thousand people were awarded the medal "For the victory over Japan".
Nazi Germany was defeated, but the world war was still going on. The USSR declared war on Japan. This step was dictated by both allied obligations and the interests of the Soviet Union in the Far East. Japan did not openly oppose the USSR, but throughout the war remained an ally of Germany. She concentrated near the borders of the USSR one and a half million army. The Japanese navy detained Soviet merchant ships, in fact blocked the ports and sea borders of the Soviet Far East. On April 5, 1945, the Soviet government denounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty of 1941.
By August, the Soviet command had transferred part of its forces from Europe to the Far East (over 400,000 men, over 7,000 guns and mortars, and 2,000 tanks). Over 1.5 million soldiers, over 27 thousand guns and mortars, over 700 rocket launchers, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, over 3.7 thousand aircraft were concentrated against the Kwantung Army. The forces of the Pacific Fleet (416 ships, about 165 thousand sailors), the Amur Flotilla, and border troops were involved in the operation. The commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops was Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky.
On August 6 and 9, the US military dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that from August 9 it would consider itself at war with Japan. Soviet troops defeated the main forces of the Kwantung Army within 10 days, which began to capitulate on August 19. In the second half of August 1945, Soviet troops liberated Manchuria, Northeast China, the northern part of Korea, captured South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The military campaign in the Far East lasted 24 days. In its scope and dynamism, it occupies one of the first places among the operations of the Second World War. The losses of the Japanese totaled 83.7 thousand people killed, more than 640 thousand prisoners. The irretrievable losses of the Soviet Army amounted to about 12 thousand people. September 2, 1945 Japan capitulated.
With the liquidation of the center of war in the Far East, the Second World War ended. The main result of the Great Patriotic War was the elimination of the mortal danger of the USSR-Russia, the threat of enslavement and genocide of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR. Soviet troops liberated, in whole or in part, 13 countries in Europe and Asia.
The USSR made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Germany and its allies. The Soviet Union was the only country that was able to stop Germany's victorious march in 1941. In fierce battles one on one with the main force of the fascist bloc, the USSR achieved a radical turning point in the world war. This created the conditions for the liberation of Europe and hastened the opening of the Second Front. The USSR eliminated fascist domination over the majority of enslaved peoples, preserving their statehood within historically just boundaries. The Red Army defeated 507 Nazi divisions and 100 divisions of its allies, which is 3.5 times more than the Anglo-American troops on all fronts of the war. On the Soviet-German front, the bulk of Wehrmacht military equipment was destroyed (77 thousand combat aircraft, 48 thousand tanks, 167 thousand guns, 2.5 thousand warships and vehicles). More than 73% of the total losses of the German army suffered in battles with the Armed Forces of the USSR. The Soviet Union was thus the main military-political force that determined the victory and defense of the peoples of the world from enslavement by fascism.
The war caused the Soviet Union a huge demographic loss. The total human losses of the USSR amounted to 26.6 million people, 13.5% of the number of the USSR at the beginning of the war. During the war years, the losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR amounted to 11.4 million people. Of these, 5.2 million people died in battle and died of wounds during the stages of sanitary evacuation; 1.1 million died of wounds in hospitals; 0.6 million were non-combat losses; 5 million people went missing and ended up in Nazi concentration camps. Taking into account those who returned from captivity after the war (1.8 million people) and almost a million people from among those previously recorded as missing, but who survived and were re-conscripted into the army, the demographic losses of the military personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR amounted to 8.7 million people.
The war unleashed by the Nazis turned into a human tragedy for Germany itself and its allies. Only on the Soviet-German front, the irretrievable losses of Germany amounted to 7181 thousand military personnel, and with the allies - 8649 thousand people. The ratio between Soviet and German deadweight losses is 1.3:1. At the same time, one should keep in mind the fact that the number of prisoners of war who died in Nazi camps (more than 2.5 million people out of 4.6 million) was more than 5 times higher than the number of enemy soldiers who died in Soviet captivity (420 thousand people out of 4.4 million). The total irretrievable demographic losses of the USSR (26.6 million people) are 2.2 times greater than the losses of Germany and its satellites (11.9 million). The big difference is explained by the genocide of the Nazis against the population in the occupied territories, which claimed the lives of 17.9 million people.
During the war years, all the peoples of the USSR suffered great irreparable losses. At the same time, the losses of Russian citizens amounted to 71.3% of the total demographic losses of the Armed Forces. Among the dead military personnel, Russians suffered the greatest losses - 5.7 million people (66.4% of all dead), Ukrainians - 1.4 million (15.9%), Belarusians - 253 thousand (2.9%), Tatars - 188 thousand (2.2%), Jews - 142 thousand (1.6%), Kazakhs - 125 thousand (1.5%), Uzbeks - 118 thousand (1.4%), other peoples of the USSR - 8.1%.
Strengthening the country's defense capability on the eve of the warThe Second World War, which began on September 1, 1939, forced the Soviet government to pay serious attention to strengthening the country's defense capability. The Soviet Union had every opportunity to solve this problem. Bolshevik modernization, carried out under the leadership of I.V. Stalin, turned the USSR into a powerful industrial power. By the end of the 30s. The Soviet Union came second in the world and first in Europe in terms of total industrial production. As a result of the industrial market, in a short historical period (13 years), such modern sectors of the economy as aviation, automotive, chemical, electrical, tractor building, etc. were created in the country, which became the basis of the military-industrial complex.
Strengthening the defense capability was carried out in two directions. The first is the build-up of the military-industrial complex. From 1939 to June 1941, the share of military spending in the Soviet budget increased from 26% to 43%. The output of military products at that time was more than three times ahead of the general rate of industrial growth. In the east of the country, defense plants and backup enterprises were built at an accelerated pace. By the summer of 1941, almost 20% of all military factories were already located there. The production of new types of military equipment was mastered, some samples of which (T-34 tanks, BM-13 rocket launchers, Il-2 attack aircraft, etc.) were qualitatively superior to all foreign counterparts. In June 1941, the army had 1225 T-34 tanks (design bureau M.I. Koshkin) and 638 heavy tanks KV (design bureau Zh.Ya. Kotin). However, it took at least 2 years to completely re-equip the tank fleet.
On the eve of the war, Soviet aviation was also in the stage of rearmament. By this time, most of the aircraft that brought world fame to the country and set 62 world records had already lost their superiority over foreign technology. It was necessary to update the aircraft fleet, to create a new generation of combat vehicles. Stalin constantly followed the development of aviation, met with pilots and designers.
The slightest changes in the design of mass-produced machines were made only with the permission of Stalin and were formalized by resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Since the beginning of 1941, the aviation industry has completely switched to the production of only new aircraft. By the beginning of the war, the army received 2.7 thousand of the latest aircraft: Il-2 attack aircraft (Design Bureau S.V. Ilyushin), Pe-2 bombers (Design Bureau V.M. Petlyakov), LaGG-3 and Yak-1 fighters (Design Bureau S A. Lavochkin, A. I. Mikoyan and A. S. Yakovlev Design Bureau). However, new types of aircraft accounted for only 17.3% of the aircraft fleet of the USSR Air Force. Only 10% of combatant pilots managed to master the new machines. Thus, the process of re-equipping the Air Force was in full swing and it took at least 1.5 years to complete it.
The second direction of strengthening the country's defense capability was the reorganization of the Red Army, increasing its combat capability. The army moved from a mixed to a territorial-personnel system of organizations, which was introduced in the 1920s in order to save money. in the personnel system. On September 1, 1939, a law on universal conscription was introduced. The number of armed forces from August 1939 to June 1941 increased from 2 to 5.4 million people. The growing army needed a large number of qualified military specialists. At the beginning of 1937, there were 206,000 officers in the army. Over 90% of the command, military medical and military technical staff had higher education. Among political workers and business executives, from 43 to 50 percent received military or special education. At that time it was a good level.
Tens of thousands of officers received new assignments every year. Personnel leapfrog had a negative impact on the level of discipline and combat training of the troops. A huge shortage of commanders formed, which increased from year to year. In 1941, only in the ground forces there were not enough 66,900 commanders at the headquarters, and in the Air Force, the shortage of flight personnel reached 32.3%.
The Soviet-Finnish War (November 30, 1939 – March 12, 1940) exposed shortcomings in the Red Army's tactical training. Stalin removes Voroshilov from the post of People's Commissar for Defense. Analyzing the results of the war, the new People's Commissar of Defense S. Timoshenko, in particular, noted that “our commanders and headquarters, having no practical experience, did not know how to really organize the efforts of the military branches and close interaction, and most importantly, they did not know how to really command ".
The results of the Finnish war forced Stalin to take a whole range of measures aimed at strengthening the command staff of the Red Army. So, on May 7, 1940, new military ranks were introduced in the Soviet Union, and a month later over 1,000 people became generals and admirals. Stalin made a bet on younger military leaders. People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko was 45 years old, and Chief of the General Staff K.A. Meretskov - 43. The Navy was headed by 34-year-old Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, and the air force - 29-year-old General P.V. Levers. The average age of regimental commanders at that time was 29-33 years old, divisional commanders 35-37 years old, and corps and army commanders 40-43 years old. The new nominees were inferior to their predecessors in terms of education and experience. Despite their great energy and desire, they did not have time to master their duties of leading troops in difficult conditions.
L. Trotsky, being in exile and waging an active struggle against Stalin, repeatedly publicly stated: “In the Red Army, not everyone is devoted to Stalin. They still remember me there." Realizing this, Stalin began a thorough cleaning of his main support - the army and the NKVD - from all "unreliable elements." Faithful ally of Stalin V.M. Molotov told the poet F. Chuev: “1937 was necessary. Considering that after the revolution we cut right and left, we won, but the remnants of enemies from different directions existed and in the face of the imminent danger of fascist aggression, they could unite. We owe to 1937 that we did not have a "fifth column" during the war.
On the very eve of the Great Patriotic War, as a result of the implementation of the non-aggression pact with Germany, the Soviet Union pushed its borders to the west by 400-500 km. The USSR included Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, as well as Bessarabia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The population of the Soviet Union increased by 23 million people. As Tippelskirch noted, many leading German generals regarded this as Hitler's blunder. In the spring of 1941, the General Staff of the Red Army, together with the headquarters of the districts and fleets, developed the "Plan for the Defense of the State Border of 1941", according to which the troops of the border districts were supposed to prevent the enemy from invading the territory of the USSR, firmly cover the mobilization, concentration and deployment with stubborn defense in fortified areas the main forces of the Red Army; active air operations to delay the concentration and disrupt the deployment of enemy troops, thereby creating the conditions for a decisive offensive. Covering the western border of the USSR with a length of 4.5 thousand km was assigned to the troops of 5 military districts. It was planned to include about 60 divisions in the first echelons of the covering armies, which, as the first strategic echelon, were supposed to cover the mobilization and entry into battle of the troops of the second strategic echelon. Despite the TASS statement of June 14, 1941, which refuted rumors of an impending war, starting from April 1941, urgent measures were taken to increase the combat readiness of the army. A number of these measures were built taking into account the proposals of the General Staff of May 15, 1941, according to which it was planned to defeat the main forces of the Nazi troops concentrated to attack the USSR (some historians, without sufficient grounds, believe that this document was "practical preparation on the instructions of Stalin preemptive strike against Germany).
In April-May, 800 thousand reservists were called up (under the guise of training camps) to replenish the troops of the western districts. In mid-May, a covert redeployment of 7 armies (66 divisions) of second-echelon troops from the inner districts to the western ones began, bringing them to full combat readiness. On June 12, 63 divisions of the reserves of the western districts moved secretly, by night marches, into the composition of the covering armies to the border. On June 16, from the places of permanent deployment of the second echelon of the covering armies, the transfer (under the guise of exercises) to the places of concentration of 52 divisions began to be carried out. Although the Soviet troops were pulled up to the border, their strategic deployment was carried out without bringing the covering troops to repulse the aggressor's preemptive strike. The mistake of the military-political leadership at the moment consisted in an inadequate assessment of the state of the Armed Forces: the Red Army was not capable of launching a counterattack and did not have real capabilities for defense. The plan for covering the border, developed by the General Staff in May 1941, did not provide for the equipping of defensive lines by troops of the second and third operational echelons.
Preparing for a war against the USSR, the German leadership tried to hide its intentions. It saw the suddenness of the attack as one of the decisive factors in the success of the war, and from the very beginning of the development of its plans and preparations, it did everything possible to disorient the Soviet government and command. The leadership of the Wehrmacht sought to hide from the personnel of its troops for as long as possible all the data on Operation Barbarossa. In accordance with the instructions of the OKW headquarters of May 8, 1941, the commanders of formations and units had to inform the officers about the upcoming war against the USSR about 8 days before the start of the operation, the privates and non-commissioned officers - only in the very last days. The order required to create among the German troops and the population the impression that the landing on the British Isles was the main task of the summer campaign of the Wehrmacht in 1941, and the activities in the East "are of a defensive nature and are aimed at preventing the threat from the Russians." From the autumn of 1940 to June 22, 1941, the Germans managed to carry out a whole range of measures aimed at large-scale disinformation against England and the USSR. Hitler managed to drive a wedge of mistrust between Stalin and Churchill. The warnings of Soviet intelligence officers were contradictory and the country's leadership justifiably refused to listen to them. In addition, there was a belief that Hitler would not risk a war on two fronts, and England and the United States were provoking a premature clash between Germany and the USSR. According to Stalin's calculations, Germany could defeat England only not earlier than the spring of 1942.
However, the iron logic of Stalin did not take into account the adventurous spirit of Hitler. The well-known West German historian of the Second World War G.-A. Jacobsen writes that for Hitler the following considerations had much more weight in deciding to attack the USSR. “If the Soviet Union - England's last continental sword - is defeated, there is hardly any hope left for Great Britain for future resistance. She would have to stop fighting, especially if she could get Japan to act against England and East Asia before the US entered the war. If, in spite of all this, she continues to fight, Hitler decided, by capturing European Russia, to carry out the conquest of new huge economically important areas, using the reservoir of which, if necessary, he can withstand a longer war. Thus, his great dream was finally realized: Germany acquired in the East the living space that she claimed for her population. At the same time, no state in Europe could no longer challenge Germany's dominant position ... Not the least role was played by the fact that the "final clash" of both systems - National Socialism and Bolshevism - one day would still become inevitable; this moment seemed to Hitler the most favorable for this, for Germany had a strong, battle-tested armed force and, moreover, was a country highly equipped for war.
At a meeting at the Berghof on July 31, 1940, Hitler stated the following: “If Russia is defeated, England's last hope will fade. Germany will then become the ruler of Europe and the Balkans... In the course of this clash with Russia, it must be finished. In the spring of 1941... The sooner Russia is defeated, the better. The operation makes sense only if we defeat this state with one blow. Another major historian, the Englishman A. Taylor, notes that “the invasion of Russia can be presented (it will be presented by Hitler as such) as a logical consequence of the doctrines that he proclaimed for about 20 years. He began his political career as an anti-Bolshevik, set himself the task of destroying Soviet communism ... He saved Germany from communism, as he himself claimed; now he will save the world. "Lebensraum" (living space) was Hitler's doctrine, which he borrowed from geopolitics in Munich shortly after the First World War. Germany must have living space if she wants to become a world power, and it can only be mastered by conquering Russia.
Traditionally, in the history of the Great Patriotic War, there are three main stages:
. the initial period of the war - from June 22, 1941 to November 19, 1942,
. the period of a radical turning point in the course of the war - from November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943,
. the period of the victorious end of the war - from the beginning of 1944 to May 9, 1945
On the night of June 22, 1941, the German invasion of the USSR began without a declaration of war. Hitler's allies were Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, who also sent their troops. Actual support for Germany was provided by Bulgaria, Turkey, Japan, formally remaining neutral. The factor of surprise played a decisive role in many respects in the temporary failures of the Red Army. In the very first hours and days, the Soviet troops suffered huge losses. On June 22, 1,200 aircraft were destroyed (800 of them at airfields). By July 11, about 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were captured. Within a month, German troops advanced 350-500 km, reaching the old border. Another important factor in the failure of the Red Army was the lack of experience in modern warfare. German troops, who captured almost all of Europe, tested the latest schemes of battle tactics. In addition, as a result of the robbery of the occupied countries, the Nazis got various materials and property worth 9 billion pounds sterling, which was twice the pre-war national income of Germany. At the disposal of the Nazis were weapons, ammunition, equipment, transport, captured from 12 British, 22 Belgian, 18 Dutch, 6 Norwegian, 92 French and 30 Czechoslovak divisions, as well as weapons accumulated in the occupied countries, and the current production of their defense enterprises. As a result, the German military-industrial potential by June 1941 was 2.5 times higher than the Soviet one. It should also be taken into account that the main blow of the German troops was expected in a southwestern direction, towards Kyiv. In fact, the main blow of the German troops was inflicted by the Army Group "Center" in a westerly direction towards Moscow.
According to the Barbarossa plan, it was supposed to destroy the main forces of the Red Army in 10 weeks. The result of the plan was to expand the eastern border of the Reich to the line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan. On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created to lead the country's defense, headed by I.V. Stalin. On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces was formed (from July 10 - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command). It included A.N. Antonov, N.A. Bulganin, A.M. Vasilevsky (Chief of the General Staff since June 1942), N.G. Kuznetsov (Commissar of the Navy), V.M. Molotov, S.K. Timoshenko, B.M. Shaposhnikov (Chief of the General Staff in July 1941 - May 1942). On July 19, Stalin became People's Commissar for Defense, and on August 8, 1941 - Supreme Commander. As early as May 6, 1941, Stalin became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Thus, in the hands of Stalin, formally, all party, state and military power was now united. Other emergency bodies were also created: the Evacuation Council, the Committee for the Accounting and Distribution of Labor, etc.
The outbreak of the war was an unusual war. A war began, in which it was not only about maintaining the social order or even statehood, but about the physical existence of the peoples inhabiting the USSR. Hitler emphasized that "we must wipe this country off the face of the earth and destroy its people."
According to the Ost plan, after the victory, the dismemberment of the USSR, the forced deportation of 50 million people beyond the Urals, genocide, the destruction of leading cultural centers, and the transformation of the European part of the country into a living space for German colonists were envisaged. “The Slavs must,” wrote Nazi Party Secretary M. Bormann, “work for us. If we don't need them, they may die. The health care system is not needed. Births among the Slavs are undesirable. They must use contraception and practice abortion, and the more the better. Education is dangerous. As for food, they should not receive more than necessary. During the war years, 5 million people were driven to Germany, of which 750 thousand died as a result of ill-treatment.
The inhuman plans of the Nazis, their brutal methods of warfare intensified the desire of the Soviet people to save the Motherland and themselves from complete extermination and enslavement. The war acquired a national liberation character and rightly went down in history as the Great Patriotic War. Already in the first days of the war, units of the Red Army showed courage and steadfastness. From June 22 to July 20, 1941, the garrison of the Brest Fortress fought. Heroic defense of Liepaja (June 23-29, 1941), Kiev (July 7 - September 24, 1941), Odessa (August 5 - October 16, 1941), Tallinn (August 5-28, 1941), Moonsund Islands (September 6 - October 22, 1941), Sevastopol (October 30, 1941 - July 4, 1942), as well as the Battle of Smolensk (July 10 - September 10, 1941) made it possible to disrupt the "blitzkrieg" plan - a lightning war . Nevertheless, in 4 months the Germans reached Moscow and Leningrad, captured 1.5 million square kilometers with a population of 74.5 million people. By December 1, 1941, the USSR lost more than 3 million people killed, missing and captured.
The GKO in the summer and autumn of 1941 took a number of emergency measures. The mobilization was successfully carried out. Over 20 million people applied for enrollment in the Red Army as volunteers. At the critical moment of the struggle - in August - October 1941 - a huge role in the defense of Moscow and Leningrad and other cities was played by the people's militia, numbering about 2 million people. In the vanguard of the fighting people was the Communist Party; by the end of the war, up to 80% of the members of the CPSU (b) were in the army. During the war, almost 3.5 million were accepted into the party. In the battles for the freedom of the motherland, 3 million communists died, which amounted to 3/5 of the pre-war membership of the party. Nevertheless, the size of the party grew from 3.8 to 5.9 million. The lower levels of the party played a big role in the first period of the war, when, by decision of the GKO, city defense committees were established in more than 60 cities, headed by the first secretaries of the regional committees and city committees of the CPSU (b). In 1941, an armed struggle began behind enemy lines. On July 18, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the Organization of the Fight in the Rear of the German Troops”, which obliged the party committees to deploy underground party and Komsomol committees behind enemy lines, organize and lead the partisan movement.
On September 30, 1941, the battle for Moscow began. In accordance with the Typhoon plan, German troops surrounded five Soviet armies in the Vyazma region. But the encircled troops fought courageously, pinning down the significant forces of Army Group Center, and by the end of October helped stop the enemy at the Mozhaisk line. From mid-November, the Germans launched a new offensive against Moscow. However, by the beginning of December, the forces of the German group were completely exhausted. On December 5-6, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive. By mid-January 1942, the enemy was pushed back 120-400 km. This victory of the Red Army was of great military and political significance. It was the first major German defeat since the start of World War II. The myth of the invincibility of the Nazi army was dispelled. The lightning war plan was finally thwarted. The victory near Moscow significantly strengthened the international prestige of our country and contributed to the completion of the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.
Under the cover of the Red Army retreating in bloody battles, the most difficult work to mobilize the national economy was unfolding in the country. New people's commissariats were created for the operational management of key industries. Under the leadership of the Evacuation Council (Chairman N.M. Shvernik, Deputy N.A. Kosygin), an unprecedented transfer of industrial and other facilities to the East of the country took place. 10 million people, 1523 large enterprises, huge material and cultural values were taken there in a short time. Thanks to the measures taken, by December 1941 the decline in military production was stopped, and from March 1942 its growth began. State ownership of the means of production and the strictly centralized system of economic management based on it allowed the USSR to quickly concentrate all resources on military production. Therefore, yielding to the aggressors in terms of the size of the industrial base, the USSR was soon far ahead of them in the production of military equipment. Thus, based on one metal-cutting machine in the USSR, 8 times more aircraft were produced, for each smelted ton of steel - 5 times more tanks.
A radical change in the work of the Soviet rear predetermined a radical change in combat operations. From November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, Soviet troops of three fronts: Stalingrad (commander A.I. Eremenko), Don (K.K. Rokossovsky) and South-Western (N.F. Vatutin) - surrounded and destroyed Nazi troops near Stalingrad. The Stalingrad victory became a radical turning point in the course of the war. It showed the whole world the strength of the Red Army, the increased skill of Soviet military leaders, the strength of the rear, which provided the front with a sufficient amount of weapons, military equipment and equipment. The international prestige of the Soviet Union grew immeasurably, and the positions of fascist Germany were seriously shaken. From July 5 to August 23, 1943, the Battle of Kursk took place, which completed a radical change. From the moment of the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops held the strategic initiative until the end of the war. During the period from November 1942 to December 1943, 50% of the occupied territory was liberated. G.K. Zhukova, A.M. Vasilevsky, K.K. Rokossovsky.
The partisan movement provided significant assistance to the Red Army. In May 1942, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks P. Ponomarenko was appointed chairman. In Moscow in 1942, a meeting of the commanders of the largest partisan formations was held (S.A. Kovpak, M.A. Naumov, A.N. Saburov, A.F. Fedorov and others). The partisan struggle gained its greatest scope in the North-West, in Belarus, a number of regions of Ukraine, and in the Bryansk region. At the same time, numerous underground organizations were engaged in reconnaissance, sabotage, and information of the population about the situation on the fronts.
At the final stage of the war, the Red Army had to complete the liberation of the territory of the USSR and liberate the countries of Europe. In January - February 1944, the Leningrad-Novgorod operation was carried out. On January 27, the blockade of the heroic Leningrad was liquidated, which lasted 900 days. In April - May, Odessa and Crimea were liberated. In the context of the opening of the second front (June 6, 1944), Soviet troops launched strikes in different directions. From June 10 to August 9, the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation took place, as a result of which Finland withdrew from the war. From June 23 to August 29, the largest summer offensive operation of the Soviet troops in the war took place - Operation Bagration to liberate Belarus, during which Belarus was liberated, and Soviet troops entered Poland. The Iasi-Kishinev operation on August 20-29 led to the defeat of German troops in Romania. In the autumn of 1944, Soviet troops liberated Bulgaria and Yugoslavia from the Nazis.
At the beginning of 1945, ahead of schedule, at the request of the Allies, who experienced difficulties due to the German offensive in the Ardennes, Soviet troops launched the Vistula-Oder operation (January 12 - February 3, 1945), as a result of which Poland was liberated . In February - March 1945, Hungary was liberated, and in April, Soviet troops entered Vienna, the capital of Austria. On April 16, the Berlin operation began. The troops of three fronts: the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian (commanders - marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev) - within two weeks defeated the 1 millionth enemy group and on May 2 captured the capital of Nazi Germany. On the night of May 8-9, the surrender of Germany was signed. From May 6 to May 11, 1945, Soviet troops carried out the Prague operation, coming to the aid of the insurgent Prague and defeating German troops in Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet Union made a huge contribution to the victory over Japan. Within three weeks, from August 9 to September 2, the Soviet Army defeated the most combat-ready and powerful 1 million Kwantung Army, liberating Manchuria, as well as South Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and North Korea. September 2, 1945 Japan capitulated. The Second World War ended with the victory of the peace-loving, democratic, anti-militarist forces over the forces of reaction and militarism. The decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism was made by the Soviet people. Heroism and self-sacrifice became a mass phenomenon. The exploits of I. Ivanov, N. Gastello, A. Matrosov, A. Maresyev were repeated by many Soviet soldiers. During the war, the advantage of the Soviet military doctrine was revealed. Such generals as G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky, I.S. Konev, A.M. Vasilevsky, R.Ya. Malinovsky, N.F. Vatutin, K.A. Meretskov, F.I. Tolbukhin, L.A. Govorov, I.D. Chernyakhovsky, I.Kh. Bagramyan.
The unity of the peoples of the USSR has stood the test. It is significant that representatives of 100 nations and nationalities of the country became Heroes of the Soviet Union. The patriotic spirit of the Russian people played a particularly important role in the victory in the war. In his famous speech on May 24, 1945: “I raise a toast to the health of the Russian people first of all,” Stalin acknowledged the special contribution of the Russian people. Created in the late 30s. the administrative-command system made it possible to concentrate human and material resources in the most important directions for defeating the enemy.
The historical significance of the victory of the USSR in the war lies in the fact that the totalitarian, terrorist model of capitalism, which threatened world civilization, was defeated. The possibility of a democratic renewal of the world and the liberation of the colonies opened up. The Soviet Union emerged from the war as a great power.
Causes, nature, main stages of the Great Patriotic War
September 1, 1939 Germany attacked Poland. Thus began the Second World War. England and France, bound with Poland by a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, declared war on Germany. During September, Poland was defeated. What the Anglo-French guarantees cost Poland was shown by the first month of the bloody war. Instead of 40 divisions, which the French headquarters promised the Polish command to throw against Germany on the third day of the war, only from September 9, individual units of 9 divisions carried out an unsuccessful operation in the Saar. Meanwhile, according to Jodl, Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, the Allies had 110 divisions on the Western Front against 22 German ones, as well as an overwhelming advantage in aviation. However, England and France, having the opportunity to conduct a major battle against the Germans, did not do this. On the contrary, Allied planes dropped leaflets over the trenches of the German troops with calls to turn their weapons against the Soviets. The so-called "strange war" began, when there was practically no fighting on the Western Front until April 1940.
On September 17, 1939, when German troops reached Warsaw and crossed the line specified in the secret protocol, by decision of the Soviet government, the Red Army troops were ordered to "cross the border and take under their protection the life and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus." The reunification of the peoples of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus with Russia into a single statehood was the end of their centuries-old struggle to restore historical justice, since the entire territory from Grodno, Brest, Lvov and the Carpathians is primordially Russian lands. For the majority of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the arrival of the Red Army in 1939 meant a truly historic deliverance from cruel national, social and spiritual oppression.
On September 28, 1939, an agreement "On Friendship and Borders" was signed between Germany and the USSR. According to the treaty, the western border of the USSR now ran along the so-called Curzon Line, recognized at one time by England, France, the USA and Poland. One of the secret protocols of the treaty stipulated that a small part of southwestern Lithuania would remain with Germany. Later, according to a secret protocol dated January 10, 1941, this territory was acquired by the USSR for 31.5 million Reichsmarks (7.5 million dollars). At the same time, the USSR managed to solve a number of important foreign policy tasks.
In the autumn of 1939, the USSR concluded treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Baltic states. On their basis, garrisons of Soviet troops were placed on the territory of these states. The purpose of this Soviet foreign policy action was to ensure the security of the Baltic states, as well as to prevent attempts to draw them into the war. Under an agreement dated October 10, 1939, the USSR transferred to Lithuania the city of Vilna and the Vilna region, which belonged to Belarus.
In the conditions of the aggravated military-political situation in Europe, the urgent task for the USSR was to ensure the security of the northwestern approaches to Leningrad, the largest industrial center of the country. Finland, which occupied pro-German positions, refused Soviet proposals to lease the port of Hanko to the USSR for 30 years to set up a military base, transfer part of the Karelian Isthmus, part of the Rybachy Peninsula and several islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland - a total of 2761 km2 in exchange for 5529 km2 of the Soviet territories in East Karelia. In response to Finland's refusal, the USSR declared war on November 30, 1939, which lasted until March 12, 1940. Britain, France, the USA, Sweden, Norway, and Italy provided military assistance to Finland. On December 14, 1939, the Council of the League of Nations adopted a resolution excluding the USSR from its ranks. Under the peace treaty of March 12, 1940, Finland agreed to move its border with the USSR. The USSR undertook to withdraw its troops from the Petsamo region, which Finland voluntarily ceded to them under the 1920 treaty. The new border was extremely beneficial for the USSR not only from a political (security of Leningrad), but also from an economic point of view: 8 large pulp and paper enterprises ended up on Soviet territory , HPP Rauhala, railway along Ladoga.
The provision of a German loan to the USSR in the amount of 200 million marks (at 4.5% per annum) allowed the USSR to strengthen the country's defense capability, because what was supplied was either just weapons (ship weapons, samples of heavy artillery, tanks, aircraft, as well as important licenses ), or what weapons are made on (lathes, large hydraulic presses, etc., machinery, installations for producing liquid fuel from coal, equipment for other types of industry, etc.).
By April 1940, the so-called "strange war" was over. The German army, having accumulated significant human and military-technical forces, switched to an all-out offensive in Western Europe. On April 5, Germany invaded Denmark; a few hours later, the Danish government capitulated. On April 9, they captured Oslo, but Norway resisted for about 2 months. By May 10, 1940, Germany had already captured Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. France was next. As a result of Operation Gelb, France was defeated, resisted for only 44 days. On June 22, the Petain government signed a surrender, according to which most of the territory of France was occupied.
The quick victory of Germany over France significantly changed the balance of power in Europe, which required the Soviet leadership to adjust its foreign policy. Calculations for the mutual attrition of opponents on the Western Front did not materialize. In connection with the expansion of German influence in Europe, there was a real danger of blocking certain circles of the Baltic countries with Germany. In June 1940, the USSR accused Lithuania of anti-Soviet actions, demanding a change of government and agreeing to the deployment of additional military units in Lithuania. On June 14 such consent was received from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The measures taken by Moscow decisively influenced the further course of events in this regard: the People's Seimas of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (State Duma) on July 21-24, 1940 adopted a declaration on the proclamation of Soviet power in their countries, entry into the USSR. In August 1940, the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by its decision, accepted Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia into the USSR.
In the summer of 1920, at the request of the USSR, Romania transferred Bessarabia to it, which was annexed to Moldova by the ASSRS (1929 - 1940 Tiraspol). Thus, the USSR found itself in close proximity to the oil regions of Romania, the exploitation of which served the Reich as "an indispensable prerequisite for the successful conduct of the war." Hitler retaliated by making an agreement with the Fascist government of General Antonescu to transfer German troops to Romania. The tension between the USSR and Germany escalated even more with the signing on September 27, 1940 in Berlin of a pact between Germany, Italy and Japan on the actual division of the world. The trip of V.M. Molotov to Berlin on November 12-13, 1940 and his negotiations with Hitler and Ribbentrop did not lead to an improvement in the situation. An important achievement of the foreign policy of the USSR was the conclusion of the Neutrality Treaty with Turkey (March 1941) and Japan (April 1941).
At the same time, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, economic and trade relations were intensively developing between the two countries. According to Goebbels, Hitler assessed these agreements as a specifically Stalinist policy, calculated on the economic dependence of the Reich on the supply of industrial raw materials, which Germany could be deprived of at the right time. These are agricultural goods, oil products, manganese and chromium ores, rare metals, etc. The USSR received from German firms industrial products and armaments worth 462.3 million marks. These are machine tools, high-strength steel, technical equipment, military equipment. At the same time, extremely scarce raw materials were flowing into Germany from the United States or through branches of American corporations in third countries. Moreover, deliveries of American oil and petroleum products were carried out until 1944. 249 US monopolies traded with Germany throughout the war.
The foreign policy of the USSR during the Second World War
The foreign policy of the Soviet Union was one of the factors of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Its main task was to create the best conditions in the international arena for defeating the enemy. The main goal also identified specific tasks:
1. Strive for the "bourgeois" states that were at war with Germany and Italy to become allies of the USSR.
2. To prevent the threat of an attack by Japan and drawing neutral states into the war on the side of the fascist aggressors.
3. To promote the liberation from the fascist yoke, the restoration of sovereignty, the democratic development of the countries occupied by the aggressors.
4. Strive for the complete elimination of fascist regimes and the conclusion of a peace that excludes the possibility of a repetition of aggression.
The threat of enslavement imperiously demanded the unification of the efforts of all countries that fought against fascism. This determined the emergence of an anti-Hitler coalition of three great powers - the USSR, the USA and England. About 50 countries joined them during the course of the war, including some of Germany's former allies. The international legal registration of the coalition took place in several stages. The steps of its creation were the signing in Moscow on July 12, 1941 of the “Agreement between the governments of the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Germany”, the conclusion of similar agreements between the USSR and the emigrant governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland, the exchange of notes on August 2 between the USSR and the USA on the extension of year of the Soviet-American trade agreement and economic assistance from the United States to the Soviet Union.
An important stage in the formation and strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition was the Moscow Conference of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the three powers (September 29 - October 1, 1941), at which the United States and Britain pledged from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 to supply us with 400 aircraft, 500 tanks, 200 anti-tank rifles, etc. The USSR was granted an interest-free loan in the amount of 1 billion dollars. However, lend-lease deliveries were carried out during this period slowly and in small quantities. To strengthen the alliance with Britain and the USA, on September 24, the USSR joined the "Atlantic Charter", signed on August 14, 1941 at a meeting between W. Churchill and F. Roosevelt. For the USSR, this was not an easy decision. In this document, the United States and Britain declared that they did not seek territorial acquisitions in this war and would respect the right of peoples to choose their own form of government. The legitimacy of the borders that existed before the outbreak of World War II was emphasized. The Allies did not consider the USSR as a real force on the world stage, and therefore there was not a word about it or the Soviet-German front in the text of the document. In essence, their charter was of a separate nature, expressing the claims of the two powers to maintain world domination. The USSR expressed in a special declaration its agreement with the basic principles of the charter, emphasizing that their practical implementation should be consistent with the circumstances ...
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, located in the Hawaiian Islands, without declaring war. On December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. England did the same. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The World War II zone expanded significantly. On January 1, 1942, in Washington, 26 states of the anti-fascist coalition, including the USSR, the USA, Britain and China, signed a declaration under which they pledged to use all their military and economic resources to fight against the fascist bloc. These countries became known as the "United Nations".
On May 26, 1942, an agreement was signed between England and the USSR on an alliance in war and post-war cooperation. In June 1942, the US and the USSR signed an agreement "On the principles applicable to mutual assistance and the conduct of war against aggression." However, our allies were in no hurry to open a second front. During the London talks in May 1942, Churchill handed Molotov a note to Stalin stating: "We do not bind ourselves to act and cannot make any promise." Churchill motivated his refusal by the lack of sufficient funds and forces. But in reality, political considerations played a major role. The British Minister of Aviation Industry M. Brabazon bluntly stated that "the best outcome of the struggle on the Eastern Front would be the mutual exhaustion of Germany and the USSR, as a result of which England could take a dominant position in Europe." The infamous statement of the future US President G. Truman echoed this thesis: “If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, we should help Germany, and thus let them kill like as much as possible." Thus, the calculations for the future leadership in the world of maritime powers were already based on the fight against fascism in World War II.
On June 12, 1942, Anglo-Soviet and Soviet-American communiqués were published stating that "full agreement was reached on the urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942." However, not only 1942, but also 1943 passed, and the second front in Western Europe was never opened. In the meantime, Allied forces launched major amphibious operations in North Africa and later in Sicily and Italy. Churchill even suggested replacing the second front with a strike "in the soft underbelly of Europe" - a landing in the Balkans in order to bring Anglo-American troops into the countries of South-Eastern Europe before the Red Army, advancing from the east, approached, and thereby establish the dominance of the maritime powers in this region, which played an important geopolitical significance.
The victories of the Red Army near Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk were of great international significance. They demonstrated to the whole world the increased power of the Soviet state. The heavy losses of Nazi Germany on the Soviet-German front sharply weakened both its armed forces and the German rear. The resistance movement intensified - Stalingrad became the beginning of a new stage of this movement in France, Belgium, Norway and other occupied countries. Anti-fascist forces also grew in Germany itself, disbelief in the possibility of victory more and more seized its population. Under the influence of the defeat of the Italian army on the Soviet front and the operations of the allies in the Mediterranean basin, Italy capitulated on September 3, 1943 and broke with Nazi Germany. Mussolini was overthrown. Soon allied troops landed in Italy. The Germans responded by occupying the northern and central parts of the country. The new Italian government declared war on Germany.
In connection with the decisive successes of the Red Army by the end of 1943, the essence of the problem of the second front also changed. Victory over Germany was already a foregone conclusion; it could be achieved by the forces of the USSR alone. The Anglo-American side was now directly interested in opening a second front in Western Europe. From October 19 to October 30, 1943, a conference of foreign ministers of the three states was held in Moscow. The conference adopted a "Declaration on the responsibility of the Nazis for the committed atrocities", and also prepared the conditions for a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR, the USA and England. This was also facilitated by the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943. In an interview with a Reuters correspondent, I.V. Stalin pointed out that the dissolution of the Comintern exposed the lies about Moscow's intention to Bolshevize other states, that the Communist Parties were not acting in the interests of their own peoples, but on orders from outside. The dissolution of the Comintern was positively received by the leaders of the allies, primarily the United States. Relations between Moscow and other communist parties have changed; more emphasis was placed on bilateral contacts between the leadership of the CPSU (b), primarily I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov, with leaders of foreign communist parties.
On the eve of the Tehran meeting of allied leaders, US President F. Roosevelt said that "the United States must occupy Northwest Germany ... We must reach Berlin." From the point of view of the Americans, Churchill's Mediterranean strategy, which was supported by the US government until mid-1943, had exhausted itself. The second front in the West gave America the opportunity to "keep the Red Army out of the vital areas of the Ruhr and the Rhine, which an offensive from the Mediterranean would never achieve." The growing superiority of the Americans in manpower and technology forced Churchill to accept their plan.
The Tehran Conference, at which I. Stalin, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill first met, was held from November 28 to December 1, 1943. The main issue of the conference was the question of opening a second front. Despite Churchill's attempts to put forward his "Balkan" option for discussion, the Anglo-American side was forced to set a deadline for the start of the Overlord plan - May 1944 (in fact, the landing began on June 6). At the conference, the Allies put forward projects for the dismemberment of Germany. At the insistence of the USSR, the question of the Anglo-American plans for the dismemberment of Germany was submitted for further study. The conference participants exchanged views on the issue of the borders of Poland, and the Soviet delegation proposed to accept the "Curzon line" as the eastern border, and the "line of the river" as the western border. Oder". Churchill agreed in principle with this proposal, hoping that he would be able to return the émigré "London government" to power in Poland. The conference adopted the "Three Powers Declaration on Iran". Soviet and British troops were brought into Iran in 1941 in order to prevent the Germans from violating the sovereignty of this neutral country. The declaration provided for the withdrawal of allied troops and the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of Iran after the war. The question of war with Japan was also discussed. The USSR agreed to enter the war against Japan. However, no specific agreement has been reached. The first meeting of the Big Three was a success. Despite the presence of sharp disagreements on certain issues, the leaders of the three great powers were able to work out agreed solutions. The results of the Tehran Conference were a great success for Soviet foreign policy.
The help of the allies was of great importance for the USSR at the final stage of the war. It was a well-thought-out foreign policy strategy of Western countries from beginning to end, or, in the words of Western historians, "an act of calculated self-interest." Until 1943, inclusive, the assistance to the USSR was provided by the Americans in such a way as to prevent it from gaining a decisive advantage over Germany. The overall Lend-Lease supply plan was estimated at $11.3 billion. Although the total volume of industrial supplies amounted to 4% of the gross industrial production in the USSR during the war years, the volume of deliveries for individual types of weapons was significant. So, cars - about 70%. 14,450 aircraft were delivered (since 1942, the USSR produced 40,000 aircraft annually), 7,000 tanks (with 30,000 tanks produced annually), machine guns - 1.7% (of the production level of the USSR), shells - 0.6 %, pistols - 0.8%, mines - 0.1%. After the death of F. Roosevelt, the new US President G. Truman on May 11, 1945 issued a directive to stop supplies to the USSR for military operations in Europe, and in August an order to stop all supplies to the USSR from the moment the act of surrender of Japan was signed. The refusal of unconditional assistance to the USSR testified to a fundamental change in the position of the United States, while it should be noted that the USSR, returning debts under Lend-Lease, was obliged to pay 1.3 billion dollars (for 10 billion loans), while England paid only 472 million dollars for a loan of 30 billion dollars.
From February 4 to February 11, 1945, the Crimean Conference of the leaders of the three great powers was held in Yalta. At the conference, its participants solemnly proclaimed that the goal of the occupation and allied control of Germany was "the destruction of German militarism and Nazism and the creation of a guarantee that Germany will never again be in a position to disturb the peace." The agreements "On the zones of occupation of Germany and on the management of greater Berlin" and "On the control mechanism in Germany" were adopted. At the insistence of the USSR, the three occupation zones - Soviet, American and British - were joined by an occupation zone for French troops. Also, at the insistence of the Soviet side, the issue of German reparations was considered. Their total amount was about 20 billion dollars, of which the USSR claimed half. Roosevelt supported the Soviet position on this issue. The Polish question was acute at the conference. England and the USA linked their hopes of influencing Poland with the return of the exile government there. Stalin did not want this. Post-war relations with the USSR depended on the composition of the government in Poland. In response to W. Churchill's remark that Poland is "a matter of honor" for England, Stalin remarked that "for Russia this is a matter of both honor and security." The USSR managed to achieve the legal termination of the Polish government in exile. The conference determined the conditions for the USSR to enter the war against Japan two or three months after the end of the war in Europe. It was decided to convene a United Nations conference on 25 April 1945 in San Francisco to adopt the text of the UN Charter. The Crimean Conference adopted the "Declaration on a Liberated Europe" and the final document "Unity in the organization of peace, as well as in the conduct of war." Both documents outlined specific joint actions to destroy fascism and reorganize Europe on a democratic basis.
The Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945) summed up the joint actions of the USSR, the USA and England in World War II. The USSR delegation was headed by I.V. Stalin, USA - President G. Truman, Great Britain - first W. Churchill, and from July 29 the new Prime Minister C. Attlee. The main issue of the conference is the question of the future of Germany. In relation to it, the so-called "plan of 3 D" was adopted; demilitarization, denazification (liquidation of the Nazi party) and democratization of Germany. The issue of German reparations was settled. At the conference, the allies confirmed their consent to the transfer of the city of Konigsberg to the USSR with the surrounding areas and came to an agreement on the western border of Poland. The Soviet delegation confirmed in Potsdam the agreement concluded at Yalta on the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan within the agreed timeframe. The Council of Foreign Ministers (CMFA) was also established, to which the Allies entrusted the preparation of a peace settlement, primarily the drafting of peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland. The Confederation confirmed the intention of the Allied Powers to bring Nazi criminals to justice.
Despite the agreed decisions, the Potsdam Conference showed that the maritime powers have their own program of action in Germany, different from both the Soviet proposals and the obligations they assumed. During the days of the conference, the first experimental explosion of the atomic bomb was carried out in the United States, which the Americans soon used in Japan, barbarously destroying hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki without any military necessity. This was an attempt at threatening political influence on the USSR, heralding the approach of the Cold War era.
The history of homeland. Edited by M.V. Zotova. - 2nd ed., corrected. and additional
M.: Publishing House of MGUP, 2001. 208 p. 1000 copies
The initial period of the Great Patriotic War. Reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in 1941-1942
World War II was the result of a global confrontation that engulfed the planet. On the eve of the war, the foundations of two blocs were laid ( coalitions): Nazi (Germany, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Romania, etc.) and anti-Hitler (England, France, USA). Decisive importance in the plans of fascist Germany was attached to the defeat of the USSR. Patriotic War 1941-1945 became an important part of the Second World War.
By the beginning of the war, the USSR had superiority in tanks, was also not inferior in artillery and the size of the army (5 million 374 thousand people against 5.5 million people of the German troops). The process of introducing the latest weapons was slow. New samples (tanks T-34, KB, IL-2 aircraft) were just beginning to be mastered, the rearmament of the army was delayed, and many obsolete aircraft remained. Stalin's personal mistakes in determining the timing of the start of the war and assessing Germany's plans led to the disorientation of the military command. In an effort to delay the start of the war, Stalin ignored the intelligence data and refused to give the order to bring the troops to full combat readiness. The military concept adopted by the Red Army did not correspond to the situation and was aimed exclusively at conducting offensive operations and war on enemy territory.
The Second World War began on June 22, 1941. Its beginning was extremely unfavorable for the Red Army. During the first 3 weeks, our troops suffered huge losses in manpower - 850 thousand people, and in general, as a result of the summer-autumn campaign of 1941, more than 5 million people were killed, wounded and captured. Almost all aircraft and a significant part of the tanks were lost. Reasons for failure in the initial period of the war: the miscalculations of Stalin and his inner circle in assessing the military situation and the timing of the start of the war; strategic mistakes of the military command (extension of troops along the entire border, weak fortification of the "new" border in the west, bareness of the rear); the suddenness of the attack of the Wehrmacht, the advantages of the "first strike" and its power in the name of implementation blitzkrieg, extensive combat experience in modern warfare, accumulated by that time by the Wehrmacht; repressions in the highest echelons of the Red Army, knocking out some of the experienced generals and officers, instilling fear in military commanders, lack of initiative and independence; the offensive nature of the Soviet military doctrine, which provides for the immediate defeat of the enemy in the event of an attack and the transfer of the war to his territory; moral and psychological unpreparedness for war as a result of the "Non-Aggression Pact" and the efforts of official propaganda; lack of understanding by the military leadership of the nature of the war, insufficient training of personnel, poor organization of communications, supplies and medical care. In addition, the Soviet leadership mistakenly considered the main direction of a possible enemy strike to be the South-West, in fact it turned out to be the West.
A number of shortcomings in the then Red Army should be recognized. It was a large, but not yet mobile enough army. The soldiers were badly trained. The army learned to fight already during the war, at the cost of great sacrifices. At the same time, new command cadres grew up, understanding the nature and methods of conducting modern military operations.
On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command was created for the strategic leadership of the armed forces (then Headquarters of the Supreme Commander). It was headed first by S.K. Timoshenko, then by I.V. Stalin. On June 29, 1941 martial law was introduced in the country. June 30, 1941 established State Defense Committee(GKO), which was also headed by I.V. Stalin. All power in the state was concentrated in the hands of the GKO. Initially, it included I.V. Stalin, L.P. Beria, V.M. Molotov, G.M. Malenkov, K.E. Voroshilov. Then L.M. Kaganovich, N.A. Bulganin, N.A. Voznesensky.
The offensive of the German troops was carried out simultaneously in three directions: the army groups North, Center, South advanced respectively in the directions of Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv. German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory. They occupied Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, right-bank Ukraine, Moldova. The huge Western Front collapsed in a matter of days. In early July, the front command, headed by General D.G. Pavlov was arrested, convicted and shot. On August 16, Stalin issued order number 270, according to which all those who were surrounded and surrendered were declared traitors.
On September 30, 1941, the general offensive of the German troops of the Army Group Center began in the direction of Moscow ( Operation Typhoon). The evacuation began in the capital. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced here, panic began. Divisions quickly formed militia, which plugged the gaps at the front. Only at the cost of enormous efforts and heavy losses was it possible to stop the advance of the Nazis.
In the autumn of 1941, our troops suffered a heavy defeat in Ukraine, its capital Kyiv fell, a large group of troops was surrounded, and losses in people and military equipment were great. The stubborn defense of Kyiv temporarily diverted the German tank forces from the Moscow direction, which allowed them to gain time to prepare the defense of Moscow. A similar role was played by the heroic defense of Leningrad, which found itself in a blockade, but chained significant enemy forces to itself.
On December 5 - 6, 1941, the counteroffensive of the Red Army began. 38 German divisions were defeated, the enemy was driven back 100-250 km. The defeat of the Germans near Moscow and the subsequent offensive of the Red Army in December 1941 - March 1942 thwarted the German plan lightning war and contributed to the exposure of the myth of the invincibility of the German army.
After the victory near Moscow and the winter campaign, it became possible to stabilize the front and build up forces. But in the first half of 1942, in order to consolidate the successes, Stalin demanded to launch a series of offensive operations. This mistake of the Commander-in-Chief led to a series of heavy defeats and huge losses.
The new offensive of the German armies, which began after the unsuccessful operations of the Red Army near Kharkov in May 1942, developed to the south, which was unexpected for Stalin. Having occupied Kharkov and the Crimea, the German troops again seized the strategic initiative. They occupied the Donbass, went to the North Caucasus and the Volga. Our command plugged the gaps with unfired recruits, often poorly armed. The troops suffered heavy losses, but could not withstand the powerful onslaught of the Wehrmacht. At the end of August 1942, the German advanced units reached the Volga. Soon the fighting unfolded in Stalingrad itself. The city was almost completely destroyed, but the Nazis did not succeed in taking it.
49. A radical change during the Great Patriotic War
According to most historians, radical change during WWII began with the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad. In the counteroffensive during the Stalingrad operation, which began on November 19, 1942, it was supposed to defeat the German troops in the southern direction and improve the situation near Moscow and Leningrad. The troops of the Southwestern (commander N.F. Vatutin), Don (commander K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (commander A.I. Eremenko) fronts participated in the offensive. In the battles for Stalingrad, the German army lost 700 thousand killed and wounded, more than 1 thousand tanks and 1.4 thousand aircraft. 91 thousand people were captured, including 24 generals led by Field Marshal F. Paulus. As a result of the Battle of Stalingrad, the strategic initiative passed to the Red Army, which marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the war.
The next stage was the Battle of Kursk. In the summer of 1943, the Wehrmacht command transferred more than 34 divisions to the Eastern Front to make up for losses, facilitating the operations of the Anglo-American troops in North Africa and Italy. Another strategic offensive operation (" Citadel”), the German command planned to conduct in the area of the Kursk ledge with the participation of 50 divisions, of which 20 were tank and motorized with a total of 900 thousand people.
The Headquarters concentrated a powerful group of troops on the Kursk Bulge, which outnumbered the enemy forces. The Soviet command decided to switch to a deliberate defense in order to defeat the tank groupings and go on the counteroffensive. The troops of the Central Front (General K.K. Rokossovsky), the Voronezh Front (General N.F. Vatutin), and the Steppe Fronts (General I.S. Konev) participated in the counteroffensive operation. During the Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23), Orel, Belgorod, and Kharkov were liberated. These events marked end of the turning point in the war, the strategic initiative finally passed to the Red Army.
In August 1943, the battle for the Dnieper began, which lasted 4 months. As a result of fierce battles, the Eastern Wall (a system of powerful fortifications erected by the Nazis) was broken through and the path to the Right-Bank Ukraine, Moldova and Eastern Europe was opened.
In the summer of 1944, a large-scale offensive began in Belarus (June 23 - August 29), in Western Ukraine (July 13 - August 29) and in Moldova (August 20 - 29). During the Belarusian operation (code name " Bagration”, June 23 - August 29, 1944) Army Group Center was defeated and Belarus, Latvia, part of Lithuania, and eastern Poland were liberated. Soviet troops reached East Prussia. During the Iasi-Kishinev operation in the south, the enemy army group "South" was surrounded and destroyed.
50. Results and lessons of the Great Patriotic War. The role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazi Germany
Berlin operation, which was led by marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. On May 8, 1945, the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. Day 9 May in the USSR was announced Victory Day.
The question of the fate of Germany began to be decided as early as the beginning of 1945. On this issue, conferences of the Big Three were held in Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July - August 1945), the focus of which was questions related to the fate of Germany. The country was divided into four occupation zones, its disarmament was envisaged ( demilitarization), liquidation of the German military industry and the fascist party ( denazification). The Allies also recognized the demands made by the USSR for German reparations ($10 billion)
In exchange for agreeing to start a war with Japan (no later than 3 months after the end of hostilities in Europe), the Soviet Union received consent to the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles. East Prussia was divided between the USSR and Poland, as a result, the city of Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad) went to the USSR, Poland received Danzig (Gdansk) and access to the Baltic Sea. By decision of the allies, it was created United Nations(UN) as an instrument for maintaining peace and developing cooperation. The governments of the three powers Declaration on Liberated Europe.
World War II ended with the complete defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism. The Great Patriotic War was its most important component. On the Soviet-German front, 607 enemy divisions were defeated. Germany lost up to 10 million people in the war with the USSR, i.e., the relative losses of Germany were the largest among all the warring countries. This forced the Nazi leadership to draft 14-year-old boys into the army at the end of the war. The losses of the Soviet Union were the largest in absolute terms. Specialists in historical statistics and historical demography estimate the loss of the killed at 14-15 million people, of which 8.7 million are military personnel (of which 2.9 million died in Nazi captivity). The youngest age group, drafted into the Red Army in the fall of 1944, but who did not have time to take part in hostilities, is 17-year-olds. About 2.3 million people, mainly from among those who collaborated with the occupiers, emigrated. During the Second World War, a third of the country's national wealth was destroyed. The Soviet people defended their independence and, with the support of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, made a decisive contribution to the victory.
The victory placed the USSR among the leading powers of the world and raised its prestige high in the international arena. Subsequently, the USSR took part and became a full member of various international organizations, primarily the UN. The result of the post-war reorganization of the world was a new geopolitical situation, based on a two-block confrontation - the United States and Western Europe against the USSR and Eastern Europe.
The Great Patriotic War had a liberation character for the USSR. In the fight against fascism, the Soviet people defended their national independence and territorial integrity, although they paid a very high price for victory.
Successes at the front were achieved at the cost of a huge number of soldiers' lives. Many losses were irreplaceable. It was "a victory with tears in the eyes." However, it was during the war that the possibilities of the system itself were realized - super-centralized management, the utmost exertion of all forces, the mobilization of huge natural and human resources for the struggle. The victory in the war and the defeat of fascism had a direct impact on the socio-psychological atmosphere in the country. The war caused an upsurge of patriotic feelings among the Soviet people, a manifestation of heroism, a readiness to defend the Fatherland against any external enemy. There were hopes for a better life, the weakening of the press of the Stalinist dictatorship.
51. Soviet rear and partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War
June 24, 1941 was created Evacuation Council, and on June 30 - State Defense Committee(GKO), which exercised full power in the country and led the restructuring of the economy on a war footing. The State Defense Committee was subordinate to the Operational Bureau for Control over the Fulfillment of Military Orders, the Evacuation Council, the Transport Committee and other organizations.
June 29, 1941 in the Directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the slogan " All for the front, all for victory Along with this, the main directions for restructuring the economy were outlined:
1) evacuation of industrial enterprises, material assets and people from the frontline to the east. The evacuation took place in two stages: summer - autumn 1941 and summer - autumn 1942. The first stage was the most difficult: due to the advance of the Nazis in August 1941, the evacuation from Belarus was suspended, in September - from Leningrad and the region. In total, 7 million people, 1530 large enterprises were evacuated at the first stage. A quarter of the rolling stock of the railways is involved. By the middle of 1942, the equipment of 2,500 industrial enterprises and over 10 million people had been moved to the east;
2) the transition of factories and factories in the civilian sector to the production of military equipment. For example, the Kirov Leningrad Plant and the Kharkov Diesel Plant were merged with the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant for the production of tanks ("Tankograd"). Similar enterprises have developed in the Volga region and the Gorky region;
3) accelerated construction of new industrial facilities. In the first year of the war alone, 850 factories of various profiles, mines, mines, etc. were built.
Emergency measures were taken to organize production - from June 26, 1941, compulsory overtime work was introduced for workers and employees, the working day for adults was increased to 11 hours with a 6-day working week, holidays were canceled. In December 1941, all employees of military industries were declared mobilized and assigned to work at these enterprises.
As a result, by the end of 1941, it was possible to stop the decline in industrial production, and at the end of 1942, the USSR was significantly ahead of Germany in the production of military equipment, not only in quantity (2,100 aircraft, 2,000 tanks monthly), but also in qualitative terms - from June 1941 year, mass production of mortar installations of the type " Katyusha", later modernized T-34/85 tanks, heavy IS tanks, new self-propelled artillery mounts, etc. appeared. Methods for automatic welding of armor (E.O. Paton) were developed, automatic machines for the production of cartridges were designed. Its maximum the level of arms production reached in 1944. At the end of this year, part of the military enterprises began conversion.
partisan movement. In the autumn of 1942, German troops captured the vast territory of the USSR. About 80 million people ended up in occupation, who were forced to perform various labor duties related to mine clearance, construction and repair of bridges, railways, and military installations.
From the first days of the beginning of the war, resistance to the invaders began on the territory occupied by the enemy. Underground party cells were created and operated, which took over the organization of the resistance. On June 29, 1941, in the directive of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Executive Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a call was made for the deployment of a resistance movement. It set the tasks of disorganizing enemy communications in the occupied territories, destroying transport and communications.
It was planned to create sabotage groups to destroy the Nazis and their accomplices, to disrupt military operations and food supplies. Despite the fact that the directive was approved by a resolution of the Central Committee of the party on July 18, the partisan movement was initially spontaneous.
The first partisan detachments were formed in the winter of 1941-1942. in the Tula and Kalinin regions. They included communists who went underground, the local population and soldiers of the defeated units. At first, not all partisan detachments had radio contact with " Big land» and a regular supply of weapons and ammunition.
In 1942, a Central headquarters of the partisan movement, which was headed by P.N. Ponomarenko. At all army headquarters, departments for relations with partisan detachments were created. Since that time, the partisan movement has acquired an organized character, and its actions began to be coordinated with the actions of the army.
To fight partisan movement punitive actions were carried out in the occupied territories. However, the partisan detachments multiplied and grew stronger. Entire regions were liberated from the Germans. Since the autumn of 1942, the partisans controlled a number of regions of Belarus, the northern part of Ukraine, Smolensk, Bryansk and Oryol regions. By 1943, underground and sabotage work was carried out in almost all the occupied cities. Large partisan formations, regiments and brigades began to form. In the summer and autumn of 1942, the Germans were forced to transfer 24 divisions from the front to fight the partisans.
At the head of the partisan formations were commanders who had great authority, who knew how to unite and lead people. Among them were career military, party and economic leaders: S.A. Kovpak, A.N. Saburov, A.F. Fedorov, N.Z. Kolyada, S.V. Grishin and others. The real basis of the mass partisan movement was small detachments who knew the area well and had contact with the population.
Since the summer of 1943, partisan formations began to interact with the advanced units of the Red Army in conducting combined arms operations.
During the offensive near Kursk, operations were carried out " rail war" And " Concert”, aimed at undermining enemy communications and disabling railways. As the Red Army advanced, partisan formations were merged into subdivisions of regular units.
During the years of the Second World War, partisans destroyed 1.5 million enemy soldiers and officers, blew up 2 thousand trains, 12 thousand bridges, 65 thousand cars, 2.3 thousand tanks, 1.1 thousand aircraft, 17 thousand km of lines connections. More than 50 thousand Soviet citizens, mostly prisoners of war who escaped from concentration camps, took an active part in the resistance movement in Europe.
52. Main battles and commanders of the Great Patriotic War
In a number of battles of the initial period of the war, victory was not won, but serious losses were inflicted on the enemy in manpower and equipment, and, perhaps more importantly, time was taken away from him, he was not given the opportunity to implement the plan lightning war.
Smolensk battle lasted from July 10 to September 10, 1941. Soviet troops under the command of S.K. Timoshenko, G.K. Zhukov, F.I. Kuznetsov and A.I. Eremenko in a number of defensive and offensive operations stopped the offensive of the Nazi Army Group " Center» in the Moscow strategic direction. At the turn of Yartsevo - Yelnya - r. Desna was thwarted by an enemy plan for a lightning-fast capture of Moscow.
Battle for Kyiv happened from July 11 to September 26, 1941. The capture of Ukraine and its capital became the most important task of the German army group " South". Soviet troops of the Southwestern Front under the command of M.P. Kirponos in July-August repelled Army Group South from the West. After that, the German command transferred tank troops from the Moscow direction to the Kiev direction, as a result of which the attack of the Army Group Center on Moscow was initially carried out only by infantry divisions, i.e. slowly. Having received reinforcements in the form of tank groups, in September the enemy broke through the defenses of the North-East and South-East of Kyiv. Most of the troops of the Southwestern Front were surrounded, on September 19 Kyiv fell. But the German command irrevocably lost time. Only at the very end of September 1941, the tank troops were returned to the Moscow direction.
Battle for Leningrad in July 1941, when the troops of the German army group " North”, having superior forces, launched an attack on the city and managed to reach its outskirts and Lake Ladoga in September. The city was cut off from the rear of the country. During the 900-day blockade, the troops of the Leningrad Front, which were successively commanded by G.K. Zhukov, I.I. Fedyuninsky, M.S. Khozin and L.A. Govorov, the forces of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla repelled all enemy attacks.
It is extremely important that due to the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, Army Group North in the autumn of 1941 practically did not help the Nazi offensive on Moscow. She did not fulfill her task of taking the city, and she sent tank units to help Army Group Center very late.
In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken through in a narrow section, and at the end of January 1944, it was completely lifted.
The really decisive Battle for Moscow, Stalingradskaya And Battle of Kursk(for their description, see the questions “The initial period of the Great Patriotic War…” and “The radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War”).
In August 1943, the battle for the Dnieper which lasted 4 months. As a result of fierce battles, the Eastern Wall (a system of powerful fortifications erected by the Nazis) was broken through and the path to the Right-Bank Ukraine, Moldova and Eastern Europe was opened.
In the summer of 1944, a large-scale offensive began in Belarus (June 23 - August 29), in Western Ukraine (July 13 - August 29) and in Moldova (August 20 - 29). During Belarusian operation(codenamed "Bagration", June 23 - August 29, 1944) Army Group Center was defeated and Belarus, Latvia, part of Lithuania, and eastern Poland were liberated. Soviet troops reached East Prussia. During Iasi-Kishinev operation in the south, Army Group South was surrounded and destroyed.
Liberation of the states of Central Europe and the defeat of Germany. During Vistula-Oder operation(January 12 - February 3, 1945) an enemy group defending on the territory of Poland was defeated (600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers died during the operation). On February 3, 1945, Soviet troops reached the Oder, providing favorable conditions for delivering a decisive blow to Berlin. At the end of March - the first half of April 1945, Hungary and the eastern part of Austria were liberated.
From April 16 - May 8, 1945, the final Berlin operation, which was led by marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. On May 8, 1945, the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. May 9th was declared Victory Day in the USSR
Commanders of the Great Patriotic War
A.M. Vasilevsky from the summer of 1941 he was deputy chief of the General Staff. In the spring of 1942, he participated in the preparation of plans for the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. In the summer of 1942, he became chief of the General Staff and coordinated the actions of the fronts. In 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He directly participated in the planning and development of the most important military operations, solved the issues of providing the fronts with material and technical means and people and providing reserves. In February 1945 A.M. Vasilevsky was introduced to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and appointed commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front. In June 1945 he was appointed commander in chief of the Soviet troops in the Far East. Under his leadership, an operation was planned and carried out to defeat the Kwantung Army on August 9 - September 2, 1945.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov during the Second World War he proved himself to be a great strategist. Commanded the Reserve Front. During the Elninsk offensive, he defeated 5 enemy divisions. Commanding the troops of the Leningrad Front, he used tough measures, thereby achieving stabilization of the front and not surrendering Leningrad. In the Battle of Moscow, he organized the troops of the Western Front for a successful counteroffensive. In 1942-1943. Zhukov coordinated the actions of the fronts in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the crossing of the Dnieper, the liberation of Kyiv. In 1944, he defeated the enemy in the Korsun-Shevchenko and Prokurov-Chernigov operations. Coordinated the actions of the fronts in the Belarusian operation. In 1944-1945. commanded the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts in the Vistula-Oder and Berlin operations. May 8, 1945 G.K. Zhukov was the chairman of the meeting of representatives of the allied command to sign the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany and sign it on behalf of the USSR. In June, the Victory Parade took place on Red Square in Moscow.
I.S. Konev with the beginning of the Second World War, the 19th Army under his command took on the blow of the tank units of the Army Group "Center" and held the Nazis for 2 months. Carried out command in September 1941 in the battle of Smolensk. Then he was appointed commander of the Western Front. In October 1941 he became commander of the Kalinin Front. Participated in the preparation of the counteroffensive near Moscow. From August 1942 to February 1943 he again led the Western Front. In mid-March 1943 he was appointed commander of the North-Western Front, and in June - Steppe. In August 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front liberated Kharkov and successfully completed the Belgorod-Kharkov operation. In the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, troops under the command of I.S. Konev was surrounded and completely destroyed the enemy group. Carrying out command of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, he did not allow the enemy to escape from the "cauldron". He participated in the Berlin operation and the liberation of Prague.
R.Ya. Malinovsky WWII met by the commander of the 48th rifle corps on the border of the USSR along the river. Rod. In August 1941 he was appointed commander of the 6th Army and fought heavy defensive battles. In 1941-1942. commanded the Southern and North Caucasian Fronts. In 1942, he defeated the fascist group, which was going to the aid of the German troops, who were surrounded near Stalingrad. From 1943 he commanded the troops of the Southern and then the Southwestern Front. His troops liberated Nikolaev and Odessa. In the Iasi-Kishinev operation, he defeated the Army Group "South". The troops under his command played an important role in the liberation of Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Heading the Trans-Baikal Front, he dealt the main blow to the Japanese Kwantung Army.
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky from August 1941 to July 1942 he was at the head of the 16th Army, then commanded the Bryansk, Don, Central, Belorussian, 1st Belorussian, 2nd Belorussian fronts. Participated in the battle of Smolensk, the battle of Moscow, the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. The troops under his leadership fought in the Belarusian, East Prussian, East Pomeranian operations. June 24, 1945 commanded the Victory Parade.
S.K. Timoshenko from May 7, 1940 to July 19, 1941, he served as People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. From September 1941 to June 1942 he was Commander-in-Chief of the South-West direction. He led the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Rostov-on-Don in the autumn of 1941, thereby preventing the Nazis from breaking through to the Caucasus. In July 1942 he was appointed commander of the Stalingrad Front, and then the North-Western. From March 1943 until the end of the war, he was a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, coordinated the actions of a number of fronts, took part in the development and conduct of a number of offensive operations.
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 outbreak 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, initiating 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 bright 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.
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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 the USSR was slowly getting back 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 fascist 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.
Great Patriotic War 1941-1945
Weasel - a tiny, pretty animal, belongs to the order of carnivores. It is quite aggressive and dangerous for all types of small animals, especially often attacks domestic animals in settlements.
There are a huge number of living organisms in the world. Each of them is unique in its own way. But there are such amazing species that directly affect human life and nature itself. They are called bacteria
The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is a war between the USSR and Germany within the framework of World War II, which ended with the victory of the Soviet Union over the Nazis and the capture of Berlin. The Great Patriotic War became one of the final stages of World War II.
Causes of the Great Patriotic War
After the defeat in the First World War, Germany remained in an extremely difficult economic and political situation, however, after Hitler came to power and carried out reforms, the country was able to build up its military power and stabilize the economy. Hitler did not accept the results of the First World War and wanted to take revenge, thereby leading Germany to world domination. As a result of his military campaigns, in 1939 Germany invaded Poland and then Czechoslovakia. A new war has begun.
Hitler's army was rapidly conquering new territories, but until a certain point between Germany and the USSR there was a non-aggression peace treaty signed by Hitler and Stalin. However, two years after the start of World War II, Hitler violated the non-aggression agreement - his command developed the Barbarossa plan, which involves a swift German attack on the USSR and the seizure of territories within two months. In case of victory, Hitler got the opportunity to start a war with the United States, and he also had access to new territories and trade routes.
Contrary to expectations, the unexpected attack on Russia did not produce results - the Russian army turned out to be much better equipped than Hitler expected and offered significant resistance. The company, designed for several months, turned into a protracted war, which later became known as the Great Patriotic War.
The main periods of the Great Patriotic War
- The initial period of the war (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942). On June 22, Germany invaded the territory of the USSR and by the end of the year was able to conquer Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus - the troops moved inland to capture Moscow. Russian troops suffered huge losses, the inhabitants of the country in the occupied territories were captured by the Germans and were driven into slavery in Germany. However, despite the fact that the Soviet army was losing, she still managed to stop the Germans on the way to Leningrad (the city was taken under blockade), Moscow and Novgorod. The Barbarossa plan did not give the desired results, the battles for these cities continued until 1942.
- The period of a radical change (1942-1943) On November 19, 1942, the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops began, which yielded significant results - one German and four allied armies were destroyed. The Soviet army continued to advance in all directions, they managed to defeat several armies, start pursuing the Germans and push the front line back towards the west. Thanks to the build-up of military resources (the military industry worked in a special mode), the Soviet army was significantly superior to the German one and could now not only resist, but also dictate its terms in the war. From the defending army of the USSR turned into an attacker.
- The third period of the war (1943-1945). Despite the fact that Germany managed to significantly increase the power of its army, it was still inferior to the Soviet one, and the USSR continued to play a leading offensive role in hostilities. The Soviet army continued to advance towards Berlin, recapturing the occupied territories. Leningrad was recaptured, and by 1944, Soviet troops moved towards Poland, and then Germany. On May 8, Berlin was taken, and the German troops declared unconditional surrender.
Major battles of the Great Patriotic War
- Defense of the Arctic (June 29, 1941 - November 1, 1944);
- Battle for Moscow (September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942);
- Blockade of Leningrad (September 8, 1941 - January 27, 1944);
- Battle of Rzhev (January 8, 1942 - March 31, 1943);
- Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943);
- Battle for the Caucasus (July 25, 1942 - October 9, 1943);
- Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23, 1943);
- Battle for the Right-Bank Ukraine (December 24, 1943 - April 17, 1944);
- Belarusian operation (June 23 - August 29, 1944);
- Baltic operation (September 14 - November 24, 1944);
- Budapest operation (October 29, 1944 - February 13, 1945);
- Vistula-Oder operation (January 12 - February 3, 1945);
- East Prussian operation (January 13 - April 25, 1945);
- Battle for Berlin (April 16 - May 8, 1945).
The results and significance of the Great Patriotic War
The main significance of the Great Patriotic War was that it finally broke the German army, preventing Hitler from continuing his struggle for world domination. The war became a turning point in the course of the Second World War and, in fact, its completion.
However, the victory was given to the USSR hard. The country's economy was in a special regime during the war, the factories worked mainly for the military industry, so after the war they had to face a severe crisis. Many factories were destroyed, most of the male population died, people were starving and could not work. The country was in the most difficult condition, and it took many years for it to recover.
But, despite the fact that the USSR was in a deep crisis, the country turned into a superpower, its political influence on the world stage increased sharply, the Union became one of the largest and most influential states, along with the United States and Great Britain.
