On December 20, 1942, German tanks reached the small frozen river Myshkov. From there, to Stalingrad and the 6th army of General Paulus surrounded in it, there were some 35-40 kilometers left. The fierce battles that took place there, one of their participants, Yuri Bondarev, described in the novel “Hot Snow”, according to which director Gavriil Egiazarov made the film of the same name - one of the best Soviet films about that War ...
Infantry cadet with the soul of an artilleryman
The main characters of Bondarev are artillerymen, and the story is told from the perspective of Lieutenant Nikolai Kuznetsov, commander of the fire platoon of the battery.
Meanwhile, the author himself began his military career not at all as an officer and not as an artilleryman. In the summer of 1942, 18-year-old Bondarev was sent to the 2nd Berdichev Infantry School, but did not manage to get the title - in October, the cadets were urgently sent to the front, near Stalingrad.
There, yesterday's cadet became the commander of a mortar crew, in December near Kotelnikov he was shell-shocked, wounded, received frostbite and ended up in the “gods of war” after the hospital, and became an officer only by the end of the war.
In 1967, when Bondarev, while collecting material for a future novel, tried to meet with von Manstein in Munich, the 80-year-old Nazi field marshal refused the meeting, citing poor health.
According to Bondarev, he himself did not particularly regret that the attempt failed. He admitted that he “felt for him what twenty-five years ago when he fired at his tanks in the unforgettable days of 1942. I understood why this “undefeated on the battlefield” did not want to meet with the Russian soldier.”
Why Manstein
The 6th Army was considered one of the most combat-ready in the Wehrmacht. It was she who was instructed to wipe out the city on the Volga. Did not work out. More than 330 thousand German soldiers and officers were surrounded, and Field Marshal Erich von Manstein was entrusted with rescuing them.
Why to him? Behind him was the authorship of the victorious 1940 campaign against France, the occupation of the Crimea in 1941 and the capture of Sevastopol in 1942. Hitler considered him the best military strategist: if Manstein fails, no one succeeds.
The field marshal hastily formed the Don army group. It included several large formations, the most powerful of which was the tank group of General Hermann Goth. The operation was called in German stiltedly - Wintergewitter ("Winter Thunderstorm").
Corporate identity: hit where you didn't expect
The offensive began on December 12, 1942. The Germans almost immediately broke through the outer ring of encirclement in the Kotelnichesky direction, literally sweeping away the 302nd Infantry Division of the 51st Army of General Nikolai Trufanov and breaking into operational space.
The Soviet command was expecting an attack, but to the west, from Nizhne-Chirskaya. There, on the middle Don, the distance to the 6th Army was only 40 kilometers.
As a result, Manstein managed to outplay the Soviet generals Andrei Eremenko (Stalingrad Front) and Nikolai Vatutin (Southwestern Front). He chose a longer route and struck from the south. On December 13, Goth's tankers reached the Aksai River, having covered a quarter of the way to Stalingrad. There was very little left, and the encirclement ring would have been broken.
How General Volsky managed to surprise first Stalin and then Goth
Attack of Soviet KV-1 tanks of the Stalingrad Front with infantry support.
To eliminate the breakthrough, the Headquarters hastily transferred the 2nd guards army General Rodion Malinovsky. But she had to make a forced march in the winter for almost 300 kilometers, and before her approach the enemy had to be somehow delayed.
The command assigned this task to the 4th mechanized corps of General Vasily Volsky, separate tank regiments and the 20th anti-tank artillery brigade.
Before telling how General Volsky managed to surprise the Germans, it is impossible to keep silent about the incident in which he managed to surprise ... Stalin himself.
The fact is that on the eve of the counter-offensive near Stalingrad, in November 1942, Volsky sent a letter to Stalin, which could have huge consequences. At least for Vasily Timofeevich himself.
Here is what Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky said about this letter in a conversation with Konstantin Simonov: “Volsky wrote to Stalin something like the following. Dear Comrade Stalin. I consider it my duty to inform you that I do not believe in the success of the upcoming offensive (operations to encircle and defeat the Paulus army - ed. note). We do not have enough manpower and resources for it. I am convinced that we will not be able to break through the German defenses and accomplish the task assigned to us. That this whole operation could end in a catastrophe, that such a catastrophe would cause incalculable consequences, bring us losses, adversely affect the entire situation of the country, and after that the Germans could find themselves not only on the Volga, but also beyond the Volga ...
As an honest member of the party, Volsky asked to check the reality of the decisions taken, and, perhaps, to abandon the operation altogether.
The letter reached the addressee, but fortunately, neither the author himself, nor the developers of the plan of Operation Uranus, victorious for us, were harmed. General Volsky took part in our counter-offensive, and subsequently he was repeatedly awarded and promoted in rank. It was he who made Goth “turn around”.
Active defense was imposed on the Nazis: Volsky's tankers from all sides, including from the rear, counterattacked Goth's divisions. This “revolving battle”, as the Germans dubbed it (the opponents changed places several times, storming the heights south of Verkhne-Kumsky), lasted for five whole days.
Then on December 19 Goth brought the 17th Panzer Division into battle. She broke through the right flank of the Soviet defense, threatening the 4th mechanized corps with encirclement. With a heavy heart, Volsky was forced to withdraw his units to the next line of defense - the Myshkov River.
From there, to the Paulus grouping, Manstein's tankers had some 35 kilometers left. But the time was won - behind the back of the 4th Corps, the 8th and 3rd Guards Rifle Divisions of Malinovsky's army had already taken up defense and the infantry units of the 5th Shock Army, reinforced by two tank brigades, were deploying.
“Thunderstorm” was, but “thunder” did not strike
Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (left), commander of the Wehrmacht 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Arthur Schmidt and his adjutant Wilhelm Adam after surrendering. Stalingrad, Beketovka, headquarters of the Soviet 64th Army.
One of the important parts of the “Winter Thunderstorm” was the Donnerschlag (“Thunderbolt”) plan, according to which the 6th Army was to go from the “cauldron” to a breakthrough, break through to the Donskaya Tsaritsa River and connect with Manstein’s troops. But the paradox was that the commander of the encircled did not dare to take such a step.
After reviewing the plan, the chief of staff of the 6th Army, General Arthur Schmidt, replied to the field marshal that this would lead to complete disaster. And Paulus agreed with him, referring to the fact that the Fuhrer had categorically forbidden him to leave Stalingrad. The commander of Army Group "Don" did not insist.
Could the 6th Army break through to Manstein's troops? This is still being debated in historical forums. It is only known that the encircled group had only 30 kilometers of fuel left. In addition, as soon as Paulus began to break through, he was immediately attacked from all sides by Soviet units, who followed the slightest changes on the front line. The risk was too great and the resources too few.
A day that contained four days, and naphthalene instead of snow
Hoth's tanks fell upon the Soviet positions on the north bank of the Myshkova River. In Bondarev's novel and the film based on it, our artillerymen, infantrymen and tankers beat them off for exactly a day, after which, after waiting for the Germans to run out of steam, General Bessonov (Georgy Zhzhyonov played him wonderfully in the film) introduces a fresh tank corps into battle and pushes the enemy back.
In fact, the battles lasted not one day, but four, from 20 to 24 December. Scary and dramatic. With tank attacks and repeated bombing of our positions.
The snow here was really hot - from the flames of wrecked tanks, explosions of aerial bombs and artillery shots. The Germans, having occupied a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river, tried several times to expand it and each time rolled back.
By the end of the film, the viewer also believed that the snow was hot - against the backdrop of wrecked tanks, destroyed trenches and communications. The fact is that during the filming of the famous film with snow, a problem arose.
They filmed battles at a tank training ground near Novosibirsk, relying on local frosts and heavy snow. And at first, Siberia justified itself even more than that: from the cold, the filming equipment failed.
But in March, winter suddenly ended, and the snow began to melt quickly. I had to bring a whole car of naphthalene and sprinkle the “trenches” with it. The smell was terrible, but only the participants in the filming knew about it.
The finale of the picture was filmed in Alabino near Moscow in late April - early May. The weather was already summery. And according to the memoirs of the actors, they literally melted in their overcoats and quilted jackets. But there was no naphthalene. Here snow was depicted by chalk and lime ...
End of "Winter Storm"
Knocked out and sat down on a forced (the landing gear was released from the aircraft) german fighter Messerschmitt Bf.109 in the center of Stalingrad. Summer 1943.
And then, in 1942, the fate of the “Winter Thunderstorm” was decided not on Myshkovaya, but 250 kilometers northwest. According to Manstein's plan, there should have been two deblocking strikes: the main one was delivered by Goth, and the auxiliary one, from Nizhne-Chirskaya, by General Karl-Adolf Hollidt.
But there, the troops of the Southwestern Front, together with the 6th Army of the Voronezh Front, went on the offensive on December 16 and, during Operation Little Saturn, broke through the enemy’s defenses held by Germany’s allies, the Italians and Romanians.
General Hollidt, whose flank was dangerously exposed, was no longer up to Stalingrad. The Soviet units approached the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, aiming at Rostov-on-Don.
Manstein realized that a strategic catastrophe was brewing: Army Group A, which included Don, could be cut off from North Caucasus and surrounded. It was necessary to urgently strengthen the collapsing Chir front.
When the wall began to crumble, and the iron beams even on the middle floors became hot and began to creak with a creak, the crowd holding the defenses rushed through the main entrance and the first floor windows into the street. They were emaciated, broken people who could hardly stand on their feet due to fatigue. They were unarmed, and their faces, contorted with horror, blackened with soot. Sweat poured from them. They raised their hands, staggered, stumbled and fell down the stairs into the open area. Only 40 out of 300 of them survived. Then, for another 15 minutes, the groans and insane screams of those who were surrounded by fire, who were covered with blackened walls, and who were wounded by our shots, were heard. They were consumed by fire, and no one could help them.” (Völkischer Beobachter, autumn 1942.)
With this excerpt from a German newspaper article describing the Battle of Stalingrad and seemingly anticipating events in Berlin three years later, I, dear readers, take the liberty of beginning this article on the Battle of Stalingrad from a somewhat unusual perspective. Not from a perspective that ignores the suffering and horrors of the war that the Soviet soldier witnessed, as it may seem at first, but from a completely different point of view, which will open your eyes, the reader, and allow you to see more.
On July 17, the world paid tribute to the memory of the Battle of Stalingrad for the 75th time. It is covered with many myths and is part of the truth of the victor that was the Soviet Union - a monstrous dictatorship, exactly the same (if not worse) than the Nazis.
Now we are in the endless steppes deep in the Russian rear, where only wormwood grows, and only a monotonous edge stretches for hundreds of kilometers. This region is so vast that the soldiers of the German army fell into despair and depression, moving forward, even when the Red Army was completely defeated, and its soldiers were taken prisoner by the millions due to the absolute dilettantism of the supreme Soviet political leadership. Infinite Rus' literally swallowed up the Germans.
And yet, in just over a year, the Germans managed, advancing, to reach Tsaritsyn itself, as Stalingrad was originally called, while other German units, operating as part of Operation Edelweiss, were approaching Baku. German soldiers photographed with camels, and time zones separated them from home just like thousands of kilometers.
Thus, the conditions were created for the start of one of the most terrible battles of the largest military conflict in the history of mankind. The goal was set - to conquer the city that bears the name of the Soviet dictator, and thus cut off the strategic transport route - the Volga.
In the desire to capture Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht was guided by a whole range of ideological and strategic considerations. For the same reasons, the Soviet troops fought a stubborn defense, which eventually culminated in the first major victory of the Red Army. This victory not only returned shoulder straps to many Soviet officers, but also contributed to the fact that the commanders received previously unprecedented autonomy in matters of warfare. The fact is that Stalin, unlike Hitler, finally allowed his commanders to do what they knew how and what they were prepared for.
Context
The Battle of Stalingrad began 75 years ago
Reflex 17.07.2017The tragedy of the last flight to Stalingrad
Die Welt 01/25/2017The bloodiest battle of World War II
The National Interest November 29, 2016However, there would have been no victory at Stalingrad if the Allies had not sent Soviet Union(and he faced enormous difficulties and lost most of his industrial and food base) weapons, ammunition, food, fuel and everything without which it was impossible to conduct modern mobile warfare.
True, not only the supply of weapons played a role, but also the very important struggle waged by the Allies in North Africa. The victory there prevented an attempt to inflict a strategic blow on the resources of the world in the second direction, which fought against the Nazi military force. The enemy was defeated, and important resources for the Allied armies, that is, for the Red Army, were saved.
But the truth of the victor, which we have been taught for decades, had its own pathos, and in its own way it “dissected” parts of history so that they suited the communist regime. Based on this concept, the victorious Soviet Union was given the dubious right to turn those countries where its tanks reached into their own provinces.
In Russia, in this sense, everything is still the same, because its version of history begins in June 1941, when a former Nazi ally invaded the territory of the USSR, and the friendship between Adolf and Joseph came to an end. The corresponding ideologically narrow view of history after June 1941 also fits into this framework. The wider context, which is literally decisive for overall assessment events are completely excluded.
But if we turn to the military operations and battles that took place in North Africa both before and during the Battle of Stalingrad, then we will understand that they are in no way inferior to the battles on the Eastern Front either in scale or in terms of the military forces involved. If we talk about their results, then the battles in North Africa even surpass the achievements on the Eastern Front, for example, in terms of the number of captured Germans and the destroyed German military forces, which, if everything had turned out differently, could have been involved on the Soviet front, and this is a radical would change the balance of power in favor of the enemy.
The mission of the Afrika Korps and Italian forces in North Africa was to seize oil fields in the Middle East and the Suez Canal, as well as to cut communications between Europe and India. The success of these forces would lead, if not to the defeat of the allies, then at least to the prolongation of the conflict, which means millions of new victims.
The end of these military operations after the victory of the British Commonwealth of Nations at El Alamein and after the landing of American troops in North Africa meant for the Axis the loss of more than a million soldiers, 2,500 tanks and a huge amount of ammunition, which were strategic for the victory of the Axis and were not used on the Eastern Front. And the enemy suffered these losses precisely at the time when the Battle of Stalingrad reached its climax, which marked a turning point on the Eastern Front of World War II.
In addition, it is important, in my opinion, to emphasize that our Czechoslovak soldiers fought against a common enemy both on the African front and on the East. True, the paradox of history is that there were fewer of these Czechoslovak fighters than those Czechs who, under the pressure of circumstances, served in the Wehrmacht, and that after the war, despite the fact that they risked their lives for our freedom, the communist dictatorship subjected them to repression.
The purpose of the article is not to question or downplay the first successful battle of the Red Army. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the victory over the Afrika Korps and Italian troops helped break some of the huge pincers that Germany was about to close, thereby cutting off the Allies from a significant part of the resources, primarily oil.
The same tactics eventually led Nazi Germany and its satellites to defeat. After all, after the Romanian oil fields were captured, and American aircraft began to strike at refineries producing synthetic fuel, the German military machine began to slip until it finally stopped.
History is the teacher of life (Historia magistra vitae), as the ancient Latin proverb says. It would be good if we once and for all learn a lesson from history and accept it as it is. I'm talking about the undisguised truth, not raped by the Red Army, not hung in the courtyard of the Pankrats prison, not robbed by servants of lies, not slandered by the "prostitutes" of the communist and Nazi ideology, not sent to prison or camp - the truth, which from time immemorial has been inconvenient for criminals .
This also applies to ourselves. Our past is also imperfect, but we must know it in order to finally heal from it.
The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.
Ruins of Stalingrad. February 1943
It was the bloodiest battle of World War II. It was so cruel that the Soviet Union hid the truth. Now the secret is out.
Time: January 31, 1943. Location: basement of a shell-destroyed department store in the Soviet city of Stalingrad. But it was not the unfortunate and emaciated faces of the Nazis that burned into the memory of the soldiers of the Soviet Red Army when they opened the underground hole in which the exhausted commanders of Adolf Hitler took refuge.
“Scum, human excrement and who knows what else accumulated up to the waist,” Major Anatoly Zoldatov recalled. “The stench was incredible. There were two toilets, and above both were signs "No Russians allowed."
The incredibly terrible, but legendary and decisive Battle of Stalingrad had just ended with the terrible and humiliating defeat of the Nazi 6th Army. It will take a couple of years with a little, and Nazi Germany capitulates.
Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Vinokur was the first to notice the commander lying in the corner with awards on his chest. German troops. “When I came in, he was lying on the bed. He lay there in an overcoat and cap. He had two weeks of stubble on his cheeks, and it seemed that he had lost all his courage, ”vinokur recalled. This commander was Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus.
The stories of participants in the battle on the Volga, during which 60,000 German soldiers and 500,000 to a million Red Army soldiers died, form part of a collection of previously unknown conversations with Russian soldiers in Stalingrad. These materials were published for the first time in the form of the book "Stalingrad Protocols", which was prepared for publication by the German historian Jochen Hellbeck. He gained access to several thousand recordings of interviews with Red Army soldiers who participated in World War II. These records are kept in the archives of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
The stories of the participants, which were originally planned to be included in the annals of the "Great Patriotic War" of the Soviet Union, are so frank and full terrible details that the Kremlin published only a small part of them after 1945, preferring the generally accepted version from the arsenal of Stalinist propaganda. These "protocols" lay idle in the Moscow archives until 2008, when Hellbeck managed to get access to 10,000 pages of these documents on a prompt.
From the stories of the participants it follows that one of the main motives for the furious counteroffensive of the Red Army was the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the occupying German army. Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev told his interlocutor: "You see young girls, children hanging from trees in the park - this has a tremendous impact."
Major Petr Zayonchkovsky said that he found the body of his deceased comrade, who was tortured by the Nazis: “The skin and nails on his right hand were completely torn off. The eye was burned out, and on the left temple there was a wound from a red-hot piece of iron. The right half of his face was covered with a flammable liquid and burned.
First-hand stories also bring to mind the terrible trials that befell both sides during the hardest and most exhausting street battles, when they fought for every house. Sometimes it turned out that the soldiers of the Red Army occupied one floor of the building, while the Germans held the other. “Grenades, machine guns, bayonets, knives and shovels are used in street fighting,” recalled Lieutenant General Chuikov. They stand face to face and thrash each other. The Germans can't stand it."
From the point of view of history, these protocols are of great importance, because they cast doubt on the claims of the Nazis, later taken up by the opponents of the Soviet Union on cold war, that the soldiers of the Red Army fought so decisively only because otherwise they would have been shot by the Soviet secret police.
British historian Anthony Beevor, in his book Stalingrad, claims that 13,000 Soviet soldiers were shot during the Battle of Stalingrad. He also notes that more than 50,000 Soviet citizens fought on the side of the German troops in Stalingrad alone. However, Soviet documents obtained by Hellbeck indicate that by mid-October 1942, that is, three and a half months before the Nazis were defeated, less than 300 people were shot.
It is possible that some of the interviews were given solely for the purposes of Soviet propaganda. This question remains open. From conversations with political workers it follows that they played an important role in the battle, inspiring the soldiers to fight. The political officers said that at the height of the battle they handed out leaflets to the soldiers, which spoke of the "hero of the day." “It was considered a shame if a communist did not walk in the forefront and did not lead soldiers into battle,” recalled Brigadier Commissar Vasiliev.
Hellbook notes in its protocols that between August and October 1942 the number of CPSU members in Stalingrad grew from 28,500 to 53,500 people, and that the Red Army was confident in its political and moral superiority over the Nazis. "The Red Army was political army“, the historian told Spiegel magazine.
However, Stalingrad cost dearly even to those victorious heroes of the Red Army who managed to survive in this most bloody battle of the Second World War. Vasily Zaitsev, who claimed to have killed 242 Germans, was the army's best sniper. “You often have to remember, and memory has a powerful effect,” he said a year later, when the term “PTSD” had not yet been invented. “Now my nerves are shattered and I am constantly trembling.” Other Stalingrad survivors committed suicide years later.
"The Independent", UK
Delivery of military cargo to the area of Stalingrad. 1942
Street fight in Stalingrad. September 1942
Fight in one of the shops of the plant Red October. December 1942
Killed Germans. Stalingrad area, winter 1943
February 2 marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, which was marked by the surrender of the 330,000th group of Field Marshal Paulus, or rather, what was left of it after two months of hunger, shelling and bombing. IN Soviet captivity about 90,000 people were killed. Germany did not know such a defeat. Stalingrad was the beginning of a radical change in the Great Patriotic War. Remembering this day of military glory of Russia, the editorial staff of the portal publishes an article by Doctor of Historical Sciences. Protodeacon Vladimir Vasilik, dedicated to various myths related to the Battle of Stalingrad.
MYTH #1.
The victory at Stalingrad was achieved thanks to Stalin's order No. 227, penal battalions and detachments.
Indeed, after the defeat of our troops near Kharkov in May 1942, the fall of Sevastopol on July 4, 1942 and the abandonment of Rostov, fearing a further retreat and trying to stabilize the situation, Stalin signed order No. 227 on July 28, 1942, which received the name “Ni step back!" This order called for resistance and condemned the widespread thesis that the vast expanses of the country provided ample opportunities for retreat. The order provided for punitive measures, up to and including execution, for leaving positions and retreating without an order. He demanded the restoration of iron discipline. The repressive measures were aimed at stopping the advance of the Nazis by any means, which could lead to an irreparable disaster. This order established penal divisions and army barrage detachments. On July 30, the order was read out in all units and made a tremendous impression, playing an important mobilizing role.
Here is how, for example, Konstantin Simonov recalled the impact of this order on the minds of people: “The poems “If your house is dear to you” were written by me under the direct impression of Stalin’s July order, the meaning of which was that there was nowhere to retreat further, that it was necessary to stop the enemy at any, the most merciless price, or perish ... Now the movement of life seemed to be some kind of leap in the future - either jump over, or die.
As the former penal battalion member, three times seriously wounded veteran of the war, major general, notes, failure to take the necessary, sometimes harsh measures in a critical situation can lead to irreparable. This is well illustrated by the following example: during a train crash, a foot was caught between two cars. young man, and he could not free himself from this vice, and the car was already on fire, and the flame was approaching. Suddenly, a military man with a saber appeared nearby, he pulled it out of its scabbard to chop off a clamped and already crushed foot. Those present violently protested and did not allow the military man to “maim” the young man. So he burned alive along with the car. Isn't this a direct analogy with how our Motherland would have burned down in the fire of the war imposed on us if these harsh measures had not been taken?
However, a legitimate question arises: how big were the repressions really? How many were, for example, punished for desertion during the Battle of Stalingrad? The English historian Anthony Beaver speaks of 13,000 executed. In reality, this value is overestimated by 12 times: the German researcher Josef Hellbeck in his book “Stalingrad. Memoirs of Witnesses and Eyewitnesses ”gives much closer to reality data - 668 were shot and 1200 were sent to penal companies and battalions.
The number of fines during the Battle of Stalingrad amounted to no more than 1%
It is also a myth that the penalty boxers allegedly won the victory at Stalingrad. The penal himself, an officer of irremovable composition, that is, in fact, a suicide bomber, holder of many military orders A.V. Pyltsyn categorically rejects the idea of the decisive contribution of penal battalions to the victory in the Great Patriotic War, including the Battle of Stalingrad. He especially notes in his works that the number of fines during the Battle of Stalingrad amounted to no more than one percent of the total number of Soviet soldiers and officers.
Unfortunately, this myth was also paid tribute to by A.I. Solzhenitsyn, who wrote in The Gulag Archipelago about the flow of fines, whose blood became, in his opinion, the cement for the foundation of the victory at Stalingrad. For this, he received a fair rebuke from the hero of the Battle of Stalingrad, commander of the 62nd Army, Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov:
“I am painfully experiencing the insult inflicted by you on us, the people of Stalingrad. I say because I myself experienced 200 fiery days and nights, all the time I was on the right bank of the Volga and in Stalingrad. Perhaps, in your opinion, I, as a penal, was appointed to command the 62nd Army, about the merits of which our newspaper Pravda wrote on November 25, 1942: “The petition, which mentions the armies defending Stalingrad, emphasizes the special role th Army, which repelled the main German attacks on Stalingrad, its commander, Lieutenant General Comrade Chuikov V.I. and his chief assistants Colonel Gorokhov, Major General Rodimtsev, Major General Guryev, Colonel Balvinov, Colonel Gurtiev and others.” In your opinion, Solzhenitsyn, it turns out that the guard divisions were “cemented” by penal companies?! Is it possible that the sniper fighter Vasily Zaitsev, who destroyed about 300 Nazis, Sergeant Yakov Pavlov and the group of fighters of different nationalities led by him, defended the house for 58 days and nights, which the Nazis never took, but put more corpses around this house than during the capture of the French the capital of Paris - were these good defenders of Stalingrad "cemented" by penal companies? Was the glorious son of the Spanish people Ruben Ibarruri a penalty box or “cemented” by the penalty box? You, Solzhenitsyn, dare to mock these heroes.
According to the reasonable opinion of the modern German researcher Josef Hellbeck, there was simply no work for the detachments: the fighters had sufficient motivation and the will to resist. The heroes of Stalingrad mentioned by Marshal Chuikov are vivid examples of this.
MYTH #2.
It stems from the first. Allegedly, the Soviet soldiers were a faceless mass, poorly armed and trained, and won only by numbers.
“Here we must conquer every meter of land in heavy battles”
Again, this is refuted by the aforementioned exploits of Vasily Zaitsev, Yakov Pavlov, Ruben Ibarruri and hundreds of others. But let's cite the testimonies of the enemies, written not after the war, but on the spot, from the trenches of Stalingrad:
“Equipped with the most modern weapons, the Russian strikes us with the most severe blows. This is most clearly manifested in the battles for Stalingrad. Here we must conquer every meter of land in heavy battles and bring great sacrifices, as the Russian fights stubbornly and fiercely, to the last breath ... " (From a letter from Corporal Otto Bauer, p/n 43396 B, to Hermann Kuge. 18.XI.1942).
“... Stalingrad is hell on earth, Verdun, red Verdun, with new weapons. We attack daily. If we manage to occupy 20 meters in the morning, the Russians will push us back in the evening…” (From a letter from Corporal Walter Opperman, p/n 44111, to his brother on 18.XI.1942).
At the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans had a numerical advantage
“... When we arrived in Stalingrad, there were 140 of us, and by September 1, after two weeks of fighting, only 16 remained. All the rest were wounded and killed. We do not have a single officer, and a non-commissioned officer was forced to take command of the unit. Every day up to a thousand wounded are taken out of Stalingrad to the rear. As you can see, we have a lot of losses…” (From a letter from a soldier Heinrich Malhus, p / p 17189, to corporal Karl Weitzel. 13.XI.1942).
“... You can’t show up from behind shelters during the day, otherwise you will be shot like a dog. The Russian has a sharp and accurate eye. There were once 180 of us, only 7 remained. Machine gunners No. 1 used to be 14, now there are only two ... " (From a letter from machine gunner Adolf to his mother. 18.XI.1942).
And as for the number - it should be noted that at the beginning and in the middle of the Battle of Stalingrad, the numerical advantage was with the Germans. The units of the 6th Army of Paulus advancing at the end of July numbered 270 thousand people against 160 thousand Soviet soldiers, 3000 guns and mortars against 2200 Soviet, 500 tanks against 400 Soviet. And even at the beginning of the offensive operation "Uranus" on November 19, 1942, superiority Soviet troops was minimal: in personnel - 1.1 to 1, guns and mortars - 1.5 to 1, in tanks - 2.2 to 1, in aviation - 1.1 to 1. Meanwhile, for large-scale offensive operations, military science requires a fourfold superiority in manpower and technology. This proves that already during the Battle of Stalingrad we fought not by numbers, but by skill.
Myth number 3.
The Germans, who experienced the horrors of the blockade, were innocent victims of both regimes - Hitler's and Stalin's, equally responsible for the war.
It was this false concept that led to the performance of the Urengoy boy Nikolai Denisov in the Bundestag, in which he mourns the fate of poor German prisoners of war.
And how did many of them themselves relate to the fate that had befallen them? As to fair retribution and God's judgment. Here are some more excerpts from the letters:
“... Yes, here you have to thank God for every hour that you stay alive. Here no one escapes his fate. The worst thing is that you have to meekly wait until your hour comes. Either an ambulance train home, or immediate and terrible death in the other world. Only a few, God's chosen lucky ones, will safely survive the war at the front near Stalingrad ... " (From a letter from soldier Paul Bolze to Maria Smud. 18.XI.1942).
November 19. If we lose this war, we will be avenged for everything we have done. Thousands of Russians and Jews were shot with their wives and children near Kiev and Kharkov. It's just incredible. But that is why we must exert all our strength to win the war.
5 January. Our division has a cemetery near Stalingrad, where over 1,000 people are buried. That's just terrible. People who are now being sent from transport units to the infantry can be considered sentenced to death.
January 15. There is no exit from the boiler and never will be. From time to time, mines explode around us ... " (From the diary of officer F.P. of the 8th light rifle and machine gun park of the 212th regiment.).
By the way, the last letter explains the fierce resistance that the Germans put up even in the Stalingrad cauldron. It is explained by propaganda that suggested that “subhuman” Russians do not know mercy, as well as the fear of retribution for actually committed crimes, of which there were more than enough. The mentioned thousands of executed Russians and Jews near Kiev are only the tip of the iceberg. One execution in Babi Yar on September 30, 1941 - 100 thousand people. In Crimea, the Germans and their accomplices - the Crimean Tatars - killed 50,000 Crimean Jews, not to mention many ordinary Soviet citizens. During the occupation, 22,828 civilians and Soviet prisoners of war were shot, tortured or driven into slavery in Simferopol, 69,866 people in Sevastopol, 11,707 in Yalta, 43,429 in Kerch, 12,598 in Evpatoria, 11,300 in Feodosia, etc. .
In Odessa, the Romanians and Germans destroyed about 140 thousand inhabitants.
But what happened near Stalingrad or in Stalingrad itself! Here is just one act of the Commission on the Investigation of Atrocities Nazi German invaders, dedicated to the terrible Dulag No. 205, where, according to various sources, from 6,000 to 15,000 prisoners of war and civilians of Stalingrad died:
“After the liberation on January 22 by units of the Red Army of the village of Alekseevka, Gorodishchensky district, a prisoner of war camp was discovered in its vicinity, designated by the German command under No. 205. Here, behind barbed wire, in dark and cramped pits dug in the open steppe, by the time the Soviet troops contained 950 prisoners of war, of which some are civilians of the city of Stalingrad. The vast majority of prisoners from hunger, beatings, exhaustion, overwork were so weak that they were unable to move without outside help.
And here is how the civilian population was treated:
“Below is published an act on the atrocities of the Nazi scoundrels in the village of Skosyrskaya, Rostov region: ‟Before retreating from the village, the Germans committed massacre over the civilian population. Hitler's bandits shot a 6th grade student of a secondary school Grigory Pashutin, a hospital employee Leonid Perepelkin, a tractor driver Christopher Shilov, a collective farm chairman Yegor Kharitonov, a disabled Nikanor Lyutin, Alexander Shirokoradenko, Andrey Shilov, Alexander Semenov and others. There were sick Soviet citizens in the local hospital. Fascist monsters drove them to the river and shot them. Some of the patients could not move and remained in the hospital. The Nazis burned the hospital along with the sick citizens who were in it.” The act was signed by: Captain Mitrofanov, Captain Kovtunov, military assistant Tkalenko, junior lieutenant Kolesnikov, residents of the village of Skosyrskaya M. Kharitonova, M. Voronina, A. Shevchenko, S. Voronina and L. Shilova. (Sovinformburo)
I believe that after such descriptions, many will not want to feel sorry for the unfortunate Germans, and even more so to equate them with our Red Army soldiers, who treated captured Germans in a completely different way. They were not kept in the open air, they were given a normal working ration. Unfortunately, this did not save many who reached extreme exhaustion. Of the 90 thousand prisoners at Stalingrad, 27 thousand died from dystrophy. However, measures were taken, 35 thousand prisoners of war were sent for treatment and put on enhanced allowances. After 1949, about 60,000 Stalingrad prisoners returned to Germany. Many German prisoners of war have kept the warmest memories of Soviet captivity, incomparable to what our captured soldiers and officers of the Germans encountered.
And, finally, many German prisoners of war rightly considered their own leadership to be the cause of all their troubles, which refused to accept the offer of surrender and doomed their soldiers to a senseless death. Here is just one example:
“Everyone on the battery - 49 people - read the Soviet ultimatum leaflet. At the end of the reading, I told my comrades that we are doomed people and that the ultimatum presented to Paulus is a lifeline thrown to us by a generous enemy ... " (From the testimony of the captured Martin Gander).
“... I read an ultimatum, and burning anger at our generals boiled up in me. They apparently decided to finally kill us in this damn place. Let the generals and officers fight themselves. Enough for me. I'm fed up with war... (From the testimony of the captured corporal Josef Schwartz, 10th company of the 131st infantry regiment of the 44th infantry division. II.I.1943).
MYTH #4.
Stalingrad was supposedly just one of the "key places" of the Second World War.
Comparison of the battle of Stalingrad and El Alamein looks simply indecent
In order to justify the inaction of England and the United States in 1941-1943 and to inflate their very modest contribution to the Victory over fascism, in the British and American historiography the concept of the so-called "key places" of the Second World War was developed, which supposedly decided its outcome. In this concept, the Battle of Stalingrad was miraculously equated with the battle of El Alamein in Egypt in October 1942, because if, as a result of Stalingrad, Hitler could not break through to the Volga and, accordingly, further south and east, then as a result of the battles near El Alamein, Alamein, he could not reach the Suez Canal and capture Palestine. Of course, if the salvation of Palestine is considered the main result of the Second World War, then the Anglo-Saxon historians are right. However, it is clear to any sane person that its main result is the defeat of the Third Reich and its allies and ridding the world of the fascist plague. From this point of view, the comparison of the battle of Stalingrad and El Alamein looks simply indecent. Let's take a look at some data. So, near Stalingrad, at the time of the offensive, about 1 million fighters equipped with 15 thousand guns and rocket launchers participated from our side. They were also opposed by a million-strong German-Romanian group, which had more than 10 thousand guns and large-caliber mortars. Near El Alamein, 220 thousand British, French and Greeks with 2359 guns fought against 115 thousand Germans and Italians, who were armed with 1219 artillery pieces. From July 1942 to February 1943, the Italo-German bloc lost no more than 40 thousand people killed and wounded in North Africa. During the same time, at least 760 thousand enemy soldiers were put out of action in the interfluve of the Don and Volga. These data are provided by Western researchers themselves. The heads of the allied powers themselves were well aware of the very modest nature of their efforts and paid tribute to the Soviet Union and the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad. Here is what F.D. wrote in his letter to Stalingrad. Roosevelt:
“On behalf of the peoples of the United States of America, I present this letter to the city of Stalingrad to mark our admiration for its valiant defenders, whose courage, fortitude and selflessness during the siege from September 13, 1942 to January 31, 1943, will forever inspire the hearts of all free people...».
And Churchill quite frankly called the battles for El Alamein "a pinprick." Hitler felt the same way about the war in North Africa. Marshal Rommel remarked: "The campaign in North Africa was given secondary importance in Berlin, and neither Hitler nor the General Staff took it particularly seriously." Meanwhile, the Battle of Stalingrad really was the beginning of a radical turning point in the war. The victory in it plunged Germany into mourning, kept Japan and Turkey from entering the war with the USSR, forced many German allies look for ways to separate world. And, finally, she inspired all people of good will to fight against fascism.
Remembering the Battle of Stalingrad, we ponder the ways of God's Providence
Remembering the Battle of Stalingrad, we ponder the ways of God's Providence. The Lord has led and is leading Russia through trials, falls and rebirth, just as He led Israel of the Old Testament. The terrible military catastrophe of 1941 and the defeats of 1942 gave way to great victories that had no analogues in world history. All this, of course, is connected with the incredible, terrible feat of the Soviet people, the great military and labor efforts. But we must remember Who is the source of strength, courage and wisdom. In the Battle of Stalingrad and, more broadly, in the Great Patriotic War, by His mercy to Russia and the judgment of the occult Reich, the Lord told us: "It was from Me."
In conclusion, we quote the words of a participant in the Great Patriotic War, its hero, a great old man who recently died:
"This great terrible Patriotic War, of course, was the result of God's allowance for our apostasy from God, for our moral, moral violation of God's law and for the fact that in Russia they tried to do away with religion, with faith, with the Church. Such was the enemy's plan: for complete atheism to reign everywhere.
The Lord foresaw these enemy plans, and in order not to allow their implementation, the Lord allowed the war. Not by chance. And we see that the war really converted people to the faith, and the rulers reacted to the Church in a completely different way. Especially when Stalin issued a decree on the opening of churches in Russia. This, undoubtedly, moved the mercy of God to our country, to our Church, to our people. Humanly, of course, we can say that the high military spirit of our soldiers won. And we must pay tribute to the leadership of the country, which erected such a brilliant commander as Zhukov. In former times, the Lord raised Suvorov and Kutuzov for Russia. In our time, Georgy Zhukov was the grace of God. We owe our salvation to him.
Immediately rose, strengthened and improved with us military equipment. As a human being, we attribute all this to the fact that people have united and successfully worked on the front line and in the rear. This is right. But the Lord gave them strength, energy and intelligence.
When I read the memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, I was struck by the moment where he writes about how he was amazed at the beginning of the war by the genius of the strategic plans of the German generals. Then he was surprised at the mistakes and miscalculations that they later made. This, for its part, says Zhukov. For my part, I will say: it was all done by the Wisdom of God! The Lord, whom He wants to punish, always deprives of reason, mind... And the same person who at first showed wisdom, when the grace of God receded, makes mistakes.
When the Lord had already decided to give help to our people, our army, He darkened the minds of the Nazis, and gave our military leaders wisdom, military ingenuity, courage and success. The Lord gave strength, energy, intelligence to our designers and engineers in order to win. As the saying goes: "Without God - not to the threshold!"
The trouble is that we do not see the Providence of God and do not give glory to the Lord for the fact that He showed such providence, such care. It is sad...
As a matter of fact, after all, Russia has risen from insignificance, has grown to a great power only by the grace of God, only by the power of God, by miracles ... And no one wants to talk about this.
Indeed, most often they prefer to remain silent about this. But this needs to be spoken out loud. Especially now, in our difficult time, in many ways reminiscent of the pre-war. So that Russia will grow again to a great power, and we - to the extent of those great people who suffered the Victory given to us by God...
WONDER PALACE
(Fairy tale turned into reality)
In which city - we will find out later, on what days - we will tell at the end, near the big blue river a miracle palace grew up. Previously, fairy tales were only told about such magical castles, songs were only sung about such palaces, but now it stands - alive and bright. And to get into it, you need to be the "crown prince of the proletariat" - the pioneer of our great, rich and powerful country. The doors of this palace are always open for him! And here, under a fabulous roof, came back from school, two friends - pioneers - Volodya and Vasya. ended in the palace last works by equipment. A few more days - and within its walls the bells of children's voices will sound, the youth of the country will flow in a noisy wave.
The friends pushed open the front oak door and found themselves in the lobby. Here, directly opposite them, stood an aquarium, the water of the fountain gently falling. And on the sides, on pedestals of polished walnut, towered two ancient figures of black-headed wrestlers trimmed in bronze. The walls are painted ancient pompeii: in an ornament of painted natural flowers - a mythical winged lion and vases. Above the marble fireplace is a mirror, and on both sides are high candelabra.
The friends, fascinated by what they saw, went on up the marching marble stairs. At its foot stood a candelabrum with torch-shaped tulips, and a milky-pink wall stretched along. On the first landing there is a multicolored window: red, blue, yellow and orange pieces of glass. The pioneers ran through all four floors of the palace. The voice that shouted "welcome" to them turned into dozens of inviting gentle voices. It attracted the pioneers of 38 palace rooms.
Here, here, to me, to the room the color of the sea!
Over here, friends! My walls are as fresh as a green meadow!
To me guys! I am lemon! I have many toys!
And how beautiful I am, raspberry!
Light gray!
Orange!
Dairy!
Blue as the sky!
Volodya first got into a light gray room fine arts. In it, he saw a statue of Hercules, Venus de Milo and other sculptures of the ancient world. Small easels, paints, brushes! Volodya is an artist. He took a brush and painted a turquoise sky and a blinding sun. And he called the picture: "My pioneer life."
In a lemon-colored room for October, he found models railway, steamships, clockwork tanks. On tiny rails, locomotives with wagons ran, tanks crawled from corner to corner.
In the reading room, with oak paneled walls, where there were busts of ancient philosophers - Homer, Sophocles and Socrates, and nearby - in the book depository, Volodya looked at interesting children's books.
Then Volodya entered the dark orange room and saw there busts of writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Maxim Gorky, Demyan Bedny and others. Room of young writers. Volodya looks at the bust of Maxim Gorky and it seems to him that great writer asks:
Well, how? Satisfied, pioneer? What a palace! What a luxury! How many books!
And Volodya answers:
Just a living fairy tale, Alexei Maksimovich! The palace is ours! And the books are so breathtaking! Remember how, as a child, your mother beat you for taking a ruble and buying books with it, and taking away Andersen's fairy tales from you? Your childhood was dark, you will not envy.
What is me? To whom do I speak? - Volodya thought to himself, looked at the window, and there the night had already blurred.
Where is Vasya? Vasya, huh?
And Vasya, meanwhile, ended up in a room of high-quality metals. Here - a small open-hearth furnace, blooming and you can visually learn how steel is brewed.
Then he moved to the laboratory of artistic carving, to the rooms of young tourists, naturalists, music, ballet and found himself in a two-room small printing house. It contains fonts, paper-cutting and printing machines. All in order to type and print a children's newspaper.
And here is the naval cabinet. Models of ships, submarines, maps of seas and oceans.
Chu! What's happened? Hum? Noise? Yes, it's a tractor!
Vasya is in the autotractor laboratory. Real tractor. All his insides are revealed. Gearbox! Motor! Tractor model "STZ-3"!
Attention! Now you will listen to the radio station of Paris.
Vasya went up to the mezzanine. Here is the radio station. The best receivers. You can listen to Moscow, all the cities of the USSR, Paris, London, Warsaw and other major European centers.
Vasya ran past the physics and mathematics classroom, home lessons room, rest areas, climbed the stairs to the third floor. And what a staircase! Oak parapets - and they have 16 multi-colored windows!
In search of each other, the friends simultaneously ran into the white hall from opposite sides.
And they froze at the door. What a shine! How much light! The parquet floor is transparent like a mirror. Their eyes were presented with a huge hall in the Empire style, four marble columns with bronze capitals (the upper part of the columns). There are two large crystal and four small chandeliers in the hall. The ceiling is in plaster bas-reliefs, the walls are in high reliefs (round sculptures). There are purple-silk curtains on the windows. Around a long polished table are small, soft, also purple-silk armchairs. On the walls are portraits of Lenin, Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov, and on a special pedestal is a bust of Lenin's grandfather. In this hall there will be costumed children's balls, Christmas trees, evenings of mass games and dances.
When they went outside, the stars were trembling in the night sky. The blue river turned black, and on it the lights of the boats moved quietly and flickered. At the two entrance doors of the palace, spherical lanterns burned on pedestals, along the sidewalk - two-horned ones. Electric vases blazed on the roof and neon tubes glowed with two joyful words: - Palace of Pioneers.
***
This fairy tale has been turned into reality. In the city named after Stalin, on Leninskaya Street, not far from the banks of the beautiful Volga, in the former building of the city party committee, on the initiative of Comrade Vareikis, a luxurious Palace of Pioneers was equipped. It opens May 5th. A wonderful Stalinist gift to our happy children!
