February 2, 2018 Russia celebrates the 75th anniversary of the defeat fascist troops near Stalingrad.
Until now, disputes about the significance of this grandiose battle in world history have not subsided, and myths, clichés and outright lies are constant companions of almost any mention of the Battle of Stalingrad. Let's try to separate the wheat from the chaff, shall we?
"TO PEOPLE WITH STEEL HEARTS"
You can't deceive history, you can't reverse it. But you can retouch in the right color and rotate something in the right way. Especially if the Second World War ended long ago, and a new generation has grown up, brought up on Hollywood blockbusters and preferring computer games to documentary historical prose.
At first everything was honest and straightforward. Almost all newspapers, magazines, films and radio broadcasts of the allied countries after the defeat of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad told the truth. The New York Times of February 7, 1943 reported:
"The final destruction of the remnants german army near Stalingrad was the end of a story that generations will remember. In this great war, there has never been such a fierce siege and such unbending resistance.
Roosevelt then declared: the most significant changes in World War II took place in Stalingrad. Churchill sent to the USSR a sword forged by special decree of King George VI with an engraved inscription: “People with hearts of steel- to the citizens of Stalingrad as a sign of respect for them by the English people.
But later everything changed.
THE MYTH OF LOCAL SIGNIFICANCE
The main lie about Stalingrad, which is being imposed on the world today by the West, is that the battle on the Volga did not play a key role in World War II and was local, says Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society. - Allegedly main battle unfolded in North Africa, in El Alamein. But these military actions are not comparable either in terms of losses or military efforts.
In fact, about 1 million soldiers participated in the Battle of Stalingrad from the side of the Red Army, they were also opposed by a million-strong German-Romanian group. Near El Alamein, 220 thousand British, French and Greeks fought against 115 thousand Germans and Italians.
From July 1942 to February 1943 in North Africa, the Italo-German bloc lost no more than 40 thousand people killed and wounded. During the same time, at least 760 thousand enemy soldiers were put out of action in the interfluve of the Don and Volga.
If the disaster at Stalingrad caused three days of mourning in Germany, like an unprecedented defeat, then the “desert fox” himself, German Field Marshal Rommel, spoke eloquently about the events near El Alamein: “Neither Hitler nor General base did not take the operation in North Africa particularly seriously."
SAVING LEND-LEASE?
The idea that the supply of arms by the Allies for the Red Army played a key role in the Battle of Stalingrad is widespread both in the West and in our country. There is certainly some truth in this statement.
Allies began to supply military equipment in the USSR already in the winter of 1941. And this was a significant help for the Red Army, exhausted in heavy battles. But the full truth is that by the beginning of the battle on the Volga, the agreed supply programs for the USSR were only 55% fulfilled by the Americans and the British.
In 1941-1942, the USSR received only 7% of the goods sent from the United States to different countries during the war years. The main amount of weapons and other materials was received by the Soviet Union only in 1944-1945 - already after a radical change in the course of the war.
THE TRAGEDY OF PEOPLE
Of course, not everything that is said about the Battle of Stalingrad in the Western press or in some Russian media is not true. One of the most difficult pages of Stalingrad is the tragedy of civilians who were not evacuated from the city before the start of the battle.
According to some data, by the summer of 1942, 490 thousand people lived in Stalingrad. From February to May 1942, thousands of evacuees from Leningrad were added to them. According to some Volgograd journalists, by the summer of 1942 there were more than 600,000 people in the city.
According to members of the "Children of Military Stalingrad" society, Stalin did not allow the evacuation of civilians and even children. He believed that Soviet soldiers would fight better knowing that behind them were defenseless city dwellers.
According to other sources, there was no official ban on the evacuation, but it began too late. Only 100,000 people managed to cross the Volga. The civilians who remained in the city died during fierce fighting.
TRANSITION TO THE SIDE OF THE WEhrmacht
Another of the "uncomfortable" pages of the Stalingrad epic is the transition to the 6th German army a large number Soviet soldiers. According to Western historians Manfred Kerig and Rüdiger Overmans, every fifth soldier in Paulus's army was Russian.
Already in September 1942, when the first German attack on Stalingrad was stopped, the political departments and departments of the NKVD of the armies near Stalingrad began to receive reports from the front that "former Soviet soldiers" were often fighting against them.
It is believed that at the most dramatic moment of the Stalingrad epic, about 50 thousand Russians went over to the side of the Germans. Most Russian historians believe that this figure is greatly overestimated.
The documents of the 6th Army mention 20,000 so-called Khivs (Hilfswilliger - German “willing to help”). These are people who were captured and did dirty work in German troops Oh. The Germans usually did not trust them with weapons.
NO STEP BACK!
On July 28, 1942, Stalin's famous order No. 227 "Not a step back!" was issued, which forbade retreat without an order, formed penal battalions, as well as barrage detachments, which were allowed to shoot alarmists, deserters and cowards on the spot.
Some historians and publicists believe that it was largely thanks to this order that the Red Army managed to stop the German offensive near Stalingrad. Historian and writer Alexei Isaev, author of the book "Myths and Truth about Stalingrad", believes that the role of the order "Not a step back!" in the Battle of Stalingrad is greatly exaggerated: “The barrage detachments were usually formed not from parts of the NKVD, but from cadets of military schools. But there were few of them, and there was no sense from them on the streets of Stalingrad. Most often, detachments acted as ordinary rifle units.
Nevertheless, according to official data, according to order No. 227, about 13.5 thousand soldiers were shot during the battles in Stalingrad, which corresponds to almost an entire rifle division. The commander of the 62nd Army, Vasily Chuikov, said: "In a burning city, we cannot afford a guard watch for cowards."
One of the interesting trends recent years- promotion of negative stamps about our history in computer games. Western programmers have already created a whole universe of military battles.
For example, a game based on the events of the Battle of Stalingrad Call of Duty is very popular all over the world, in which three Red Army soldiers are given one rifle and sent to attack, forcing them to wait until the armed soldier is killed so that his comrades can pick up weapons. The fighters are driven into the attack by detachments of the NKVD, who urge them on with machine-gun bursts and shouts: “Stalin ordered, damn it, only forward!”
There is another game - about the Second world war in which the Red Army does not exist, as if the USSR did not take part in the war against Hitler.
In another popular game, all the exploits of Soviet soldiers come down to the execution of deserters, while the Americans land in Normandy and liberate Europe from the Nazis, and the Russians, as always, have nothing to do with it.
Computer games cover hundreds of millions of people, - says the deputy head of the scientific and methodological department of the Victory Museum Sergey Belov, - the data entered into them are replicated throughout the world and projected onto the consciousness of schoolchildren. Need to expand line domestic games, to create truthful stories about the Second World War, in which Russia would be adequately represented.
Elena Khakimova.
RIA Novosti/A. Kapustiansky.
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 of the German troops lying in a corner with awards on his chest. “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 who were originally planned to be included in the annals of the "Great Patriotic War" Soviet Union 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."
In terms of history, these protocols have great importance, because they raise doubts about the Nazi claims, 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
From the memoirs of S.E. Briskin
STALINGRAD.
After 8-10 days of formation and training of the regiment, we received an urgent order to load into wagons and go to the front near Stalingrad. Near Stalingrad at the front, there was a catastrophic situation. Railway data wagons, the Germans bombed. The entire division marched at an accelerated pace, day and night, in the direction from Volsk to Stalingrad. Near the front, the columns marched only at night. We walked, I would say, ran more than 500 km. From the move, at night, they entered Stalingrad and the regiment was stationed near the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.
Only ruins remained of the city, it was all in ruins. In the morning, from the move, they rushed to the attack, into battle. Unfortunately, our regiment suffered huge losses in manpower and equipment. Nikolai and I were wounded, but did not leave the battery. The entire regiment was such a hero. In rifle companies and battalions, up to 30% of the personnel remained in service. Describing the fight is very difficult, it's hell. A continuous rumble and whistle of shells and bullets, explosions of shells, bombs. Because of the explosions of shells and bombs, from the dust, you can’t see anything, you can’t hear the commands of commanders, voices, solid smoke and dust, fear involuntarily enters your mind, you feel helpless, you strive to go deep into the ground like a mole, fear in everyone's eyes and deeds, the cries for help of the wounded and shell-shocked, the dead, as if alive, sit and lie in different poses. You shoot mechanically, knowing that whoever shoots first will remain alive, the wild cries of the burned, weeping and grief in the eyes of horses and people who first fell into a bloody battle.
You look at scattered, in various poses, pieces of human bodies, it is especially scary when a severed head with eyes looking at you, and you imagine yourself, there are no words ... The last phase of this horror, when indifference sets in and you want to be killed as soon as possible. Alexei! If someday someone tells you a story from front-line life and the story seems implausible to you, it can’t be nonsense, don’t blame him, because anything can happen. I have seen many incredible stories, and someday I will tell you.
If someone tells you that during the fight he did not develop fear, you may not believe him.
When we repulsed the attack German tanks and infantry, for the first time, especially when you see how our shells fired from a cannon, hitting the armor of German tanks, bounce off as balls and tanks move into position and shoot at you and fire on the infantry, there is a feeling of helplessness and fear to disgrace. In such cases, the support of your commander or comrade is necessary. You calm down and continue to fight.
It is terrible to remember how German warplanes “ironed” us from the sky at a low altitude, when you see the smiling face of the pilot, because they mercilessly bombed and fired at us from machine guns and cannons from a low altitude. The most terrible and unpleasant thing was that we were powerless, we could not raise our heads, we could not fight back.
You remember your friends, comrades, the wounded, the dead, the missing, you write about horses, but your hands and eyelids tremble, your heart beats faster, then you have to take medicine and calm down for a long time. Let the veterans not be offended by me, but I cannot attend the gatherings of people with memories of the war. It costs me years of my life.
I'm sorry. I will continue my thought. was long years at the front, constantly participated in battles, together with the infantry, and accompanied her, you get used to the feeling of fear and, naturally, you find a way out in any situation, fear is dulled, everything and even life becomes indifferent to you. Every front-line day passed in such tension and feelings. At the front, as in life, there are many exciting, interesting and everyday things. Are you asking me to tell you something exciting, an event? I repeat. Every day, hour, minute in battle is exciting. You get some rest when there is a calm at the front. Listen.
Imagine the snow-covered, waterless steppe near Stalingrad. The air temperature is 40-42 degrees below zero. Water is in one place, in a beam, in a well. One well for many military units. The area is viewed and shot through by the Germans. Water can only be taken at night or during the day, crawling and standing in line for a long time. Water was needed by people, horses and for cooking. Many soldiers died and were wounded in the area of the well. As from the opera "...People died for metal", but here for water. You tell me that it was possible to melt the snow. At night, we freely melted the snow. Melted snow is not tasty to drink, you can cook food, and we prepared water. During the day, for every smoke, the Germans opened fire from all types of weapons. We did not even heat the dugouts where we were during the day.
Our horses were at a distance of 200-300m. from guns, in a beam, in shelter. In such a frost, it was necessary to take the horses for a walk every hour in order to avoid their death. There was not enough food for the horses. They poor gnawed all the wooden parts of the limbers of the guns, we fed them with part of our rations. We did everything possible and impossible, and not a single horse died in our country, either from frost or from hunger.
Alexei! Imagine what happens when hundreds of barrels of guns of different calibers simultaneously fire at the enemy without interruption for some time. This is called artillery preparation before the infantry advances. 19 November 1942 The holiday "Day of Artillery" was established in honor of the offensive and the beginning of the defeat of the Nazis near Stalingrad. This holiday is also our merit, the merit of soldiers and officers. The German troops were surrounded.
In December 1942 The Germans suddenly attacked the positions of our infantry regiment. The infantry began to retreat. Superiority in manpower and technology were on their side. Our artillery observation post was in the position of the infantry. On the NP were: the battery commander, the commanders of the reconnaissance, communications, soldiers. Nikolai Zaikin and I were with platoons for batteries. I was in charge of the battery. The battery commander, Captain Vashchuk, called me to the phone and ordered me to immediately open fire with the battery on the NP, because. German infantry surrounded the NP. To open fire from 4 guns, and even on our own, from such a close distance - meant the death of all those on the NP. I didn’t raise my hand to order to open fire, I can’t. I tell the battalion commander that I am raising all the people and I will attack the Germans, and we will help out all of ours. The battalion commander growled to me on the phone that if I did not open fire on the NP and remained alive, then they would shoot me with my own hands. I consulted with Nikolai and he said that there is an order, it must be carried out, and if the commander said that he would shoot, he would do it. It was difficult to follow orders for my conscience. I gave the command. 4 guns with direct fire, rapid fire, fired at the Germans and hit the dugout where ours were. The Germans were partially destroyed, some retreated to their positions, others lay down. I gave the order to leave gunners and section commanders at the guns, and raised the rest of the soldiers on the attack, drove out the Germans and freed ours. When we cooled down after a hot fight, we looked around and were horrified. The whole earth around the dugout and the dugout was pitted with shell explosions, dead Germans were lying around. They burst into the dugout and saw a terrible picture. Our captain was covered in blood, he was shot through by German machine gunners and our fragments. One eye leaked out, half of it was torn out, the hand hung. The commander of the reconnaissance section and two soldiers were wounded. All the wounded were urgently evacuated to the medical unit. The fight continued. I had to take over, temporarily, command of the battery. For this fight, Nikolai and I received combat medals "For Courage". We never dreamed that our battalion commander would remain alive. I suggested that our battery officers send some of their money to the commander's wife, who was evacuated in Kazakhstan with three children. Everyone agreed. Despite the fact that we were afraid of him, we imitated him and respected him for his justice, decency and extraordinary courage in battle. The money was transferred by the chief finance officer of the regiment, my countryman, until February 1945, until my last shell shock. Whether the money was transferred afterwards, I do not know. To finish the story about the battalion commander, Captain Vashchuk I.S., I will tell you that in 1970, on the day of the 25th anniversary of the Victory, my family and I went to Ukraine in the city of Smela. I remembered from a conversation with the battalion commander that he was born and lived in the town of Smela. We arrived in the city, wonderful people who worked in the Gorvoenkomat and in the passport office of the city police, gave me Vashchuk's address. Whether he was alive or dead, they didn't know. We arrived at the address, but found no one. Vashchuk's neighbor told us that 5 years ago, i.e. in 1965, Vashchuk installed a lock in her door and died. The meeting with my commander's wife took place in a warm, friendly atmosphere. For the first time she saw the one who, with the officers, sent her money, which she needed so much at that time. It was a happy moment for both of us. My wife, mine and all the neighbors were happy, to whom I told in detail about their hero, about our joint service, front-line affairs, and I was very sorry that I did not find him alive. With us, Maria Petrovna, that was the name of the battalion commander's wife, friendly relations were established. At that difficult time, we, at her request, sent her parcels with shoes, clothes, food and, if possible, fulfilled her orders. Maria Petrovna died in 1982. To my great regret, communication with the Vashchuk family was interrupted.
In December 1942 I was accepted by candidates for membership of the CPSU/b/. The recommendations were given to me by the commanders of the regiment and battery.
At the beginning of January 1943 the command put forward an ultimatum to the Germans on a ceasefire and their surrender. The Germans rejected the offer. January 10, 1943 our troops launched an offensive along the entire perimeter of Stalingrad and the front. The attack was successful. The Stalingrad and Don fronts were united. The meeting of the troops took place in a snowy steppe, in bright sunny and frosty weather. The soldiers and commanders of the Don and Stalingrad fronts ran towards each other, shouted something on the run, were happy, rejoiced like children, laughed, not knowing why, threw up their hats, fired into the air, saluted our Victory, hugged and kissed when they met . This was our first VICTORY over the Germans. The commanders and soldiers were grouped in a circle, and drank 100 grams, for starters, for the joy of success, meeting and uniting the fronts. It was the day of the complete encirclement of the Germans near Stalingrad and the beginning of the complete defeat of the army of Paulus.
After the January offensive, we occupied the German trenches and there, in the dugout, I found a very beautiful, I would say luxurious, accordion. The secretary of the Komsomol committee of the regiment saw him and asked him to give him the tool. I refused. After some time, a messenger came to me with an order to send the tool to the regiment. I didn't obey. Harmful my character and not smart age. The leader of the Komsomol came to me again and, on behalf of the political officer of the regiment, demanded that I give him an instrument. I agreed to comply. He took the accordion apart, put them in a bag and gave them to the captain. Today, I wouldn't do such a stupid thing. I did not like that by force or by office they would take away from me what belongs to me, and, moreover, my donkey stubbornness.
From that day I began to have problems of growth in my service and awarding me with orders and medals. God bless him. This is on his conscience.
I'll tell you, Alyosha, an interesting and stupid case.
Late in the evening, we hear the roar of the plane and then we see it landing at the Germans. On alarm, the guns were brought into combat condition and opened fire on the transport aircraft. Either the visibility is bad, perhaps they were in a hurry, but we didn’t get on the plane, but we also didn’t let them unload the necessary ammunition and food. The plane managed to take off and flew away. They were lucky, and we were upset.
At the end of January 1943 the Germans were severely short of ammunition, food and reserves. All counterattacks of the German troops were repulsed, the encirclement was narrowing. They suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment. The approach of the defeat of the Germans was felt. All battles, as in agony, were bloody and cruel. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Frost completed and brought closer the day of the defeat of the Germans near Stalingrad.
One afternoon, our observer reported that the German kitchen was approaching the enemy position. The weapon opened fire and destroyed the smoking kitchen. The Germans were approaching the destroyed kitchen, wanting to save something, but we opened fire again, dispersed the soldiers, many remained lying in place. To this day, I have doubts whether we did the right thing, that the starving people were deprived of their last. But this is the rule of war. Yes, God be their judge. He gave them back.
The Stalingrad epic is over. The Germans surrendered along with their Field Marshal von Paulus. Columns with captured Germans, under escort, marched to the camps. Ragged, hungry soldiers, dressed in whatever, frost is not an aunt, dirty, pitiful, it was unpleasant to look at them, it was hard to believe that they were part of a powerful and formidable army. Along the way of the columns of prisoners, on both sides of the road lay the corpses of dead and frozen Germans. The spectacle is unpleasant, rather scary. It was no longer the German army, not Wehrmacht soldiers.
February 2, 1943 The Battle of Stalingrad ended. In honor of the Victory, all participants in the battle received medals "For the Victory at Stalingrad." Military units were renamed into Guards. Now I served in the 269th Guards Rifle Regiment, 88th Guards Division, 6th Guards Army (former 62nd Army) under the command of Lieutenant General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, a hero and a courageous man and commander.
It is unfortunate that the historical city-monument Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd. This fact and other facts show that we do not respect our history and our ancestors. After all, the Stalingrad land was abundantly shed with the blood of our valiant soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in the civil and Patriotic wars and with the blood of our opponents. Buried tens of thousands human lives reds, whites, Germans. In my opinion, I think that in all people's opinion, this land should be immortalized and called sacred. It is unfortunate that the history and feat of the people becomes the policy of individuals or groups of individuals. In my opinion, one should not talk about the feat of our ancestors and today's heroes from holiday to holiday, but constantly at school, secondary and higher educational institutions, everywhere and especially in the Kremlin, at state and political events. Then it will be a real holiday, recognition and understanding of the feat of our people and will further encourage everyone to love and respect our Motherland.
After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, the personnel were counted, it turned out that from 10 to 30% of the commanders and soldiers remained in the ranks, and the rest were wounded and killed.
After my story about the war, you want to sum up and give me brief description war, no details. Listen.
War is exhausting, bloody battles, transitions, victories and defeats, digging trenches and dugouts, a sea of blood, corpses, wounded and shell-shocked, disfigured, heartbreaking cries of “Forward!”, “For the Motherland!”, “For Stalin!”, This is joy and grief, friendship and betrayal, the joy of receiving medals, orders, congratulations and resentment at the injustice of commanders, the dream of humanly shitting, sleeping and eating, a crazy dream of a home, relatives and friends, of women, great desire drink vodka and go to bed with a beautiful and desirable woman, enjoy the silence, not hear or flinch from the explosions of shells, the whistle of bullets and the roar of flying bombs, etc. and so on. This is a very short list of what I would like. I think that you and so it is clear. What's next? As they say today, the question is interesting.
On November 19, 1942, Soviet troops near Stalingrad launched a counteroffensive (Operation Uranus) and 4 days later closed the encirclement around the 6th German Army operating in the Stalingrad area, General Friedrich Paulus. Thus began a radical change in the Great Patriotic war in favor of the Soviet Union. With this major event wars in the Soviet Russian historiography a number of myths are connected, which are refuted upon closer acquaintance with the facts.
Here are the myths.
Firstly, by the time the Stalingrad counteroffensive began, the Red Army and its commanders had learned how to fight and acted decisively and skillfully.
Secondly, the strike near Stalingrad was completely unexpected for the Germans, since they managed to keep the preparations for it in absolute secrecy.
Thirdly, this blow was the only main blow of the Red Army in the autumn-winter campaign of 1942.
And finally, fourthly, Marshal Zhukov played a decisive role in planning and conducting the Stalingrad counteroffensive.
In addition, we like to talk about 91 thousand prisoners captured during the surrender near Stalingrad, but they bypass the question of how many Paulus soldiers and officers were able to return home after the war.
How was it really? Here is what the special department of the Stalingrad Front reported about the first day of the Soviet counteroffensive (and the most truthful reports about the situation at the front are the reports of special officers, since they were not responsible for the course of hostilities): "Personnel in the offensive are poorly camouflaged, moving crowded and full growth; if it weren’t for cloudiness, which prevents the enemy from widely using aviation, then our units would have suffered heavy losses ... In the 13th mechanized corps, 34 tanks failed, 27 of them were blown up by enemy mines.
It is not surprising that our tankers suffered heavy losses. After all, they had to be guided by the idiotic order of Comrade Stalin of September 19, 1942, which ordered "tank units of the Army in the Field, from the moment they approached the battle formations of their infantry, begin an enemy attack with powerful fire on the move from all tank weapons, both from guns and from machine guns, not be afraid that the shooting will not always be aimed. Shooting from tanks on the move should be the main type of fire impact of our tanks on the enemy and, above all, on his main force. " Since stabilizers that made it possible to conduct aimed fire from tank guns appeared only in the 50s, Stalin's order doomed tankers to shooting into the white light like a pretty penny and wasting shells.
Nor can it be said that the Germans knew nothing about the Soviet counter-offensive in advance. As noted in his memoirs, the former head of the armies of the East of the German military intelligence, the famous Reinhard Gehlen, "On November 4, 1942, an important report was received along the Abwehr line. It said:" According to information received from a trusted person, on November 4, a meeting of the military council was held under Stalin, which was attended by twelve marshals and generals ... It was decided to carry out all the planned offensive operations before November 15, as long as it allows weather. The main blows: from Grozny in the direction of Mozdok, in the area of Lower and Upper Mamon in the Don region, near Voronezh, Rzhev, south of Lake Ilmen and near Leningrad.
There are also references to this report in the works of German and other foreign researchers. Hitler and other leaders of the Wehrmacht were informed about him on November 7th. There would be enough time to withdraw the 6th Army from Stalingrad. In fact, the Soviet troops were originally supposed to go on the offensive near Stalingrad in more early dates(in one of Zhukovsky's reports to Stalin, November 15 appears), and only a delay in the concentration of forces and means forced it to be postponed until November 19. In reality, the Soviet Southwestern Front delivered the main blow not on its right wing, near the Upper and Lower Mamon hamlets, against the Italians, but on the left wing, against the Romanians. However, it is quite likely that a deeper envelopment of the enemy and a strike on the right flank of the Southwestern Front were originally envisaged, as the unknown agent reported.
Today, most of the documents relating to the planning of the Stalingrad counteroffensive remain secret. Therefore, they are not in the just published two-volume documentary "Battle of Stalingrad" (M.: OLMA-Press, 2002). And in any case, a strike from the southwest threatened to cut off the German group at Stalingrad. However, Hitler did not want to withdraw troops to the Don - this would mean recognition of the collapse of the strategy on Eastern Front. Moreover, almost until the very day of the counteroffensive, the troops of the 6th Army continued active fighting in Stalingrad, trying to throw Soviet units into the Volga. This deprived the German command of the opportunity to take at least palliative measures - to transfer part of the divisions of the 6th Army from the city to strengthen the flanks, defended by much less combat-ready Romanian units.
Marshal Zhukov, in his memoirs, claimed that he developed the idea of a counteroffensive together with Marshal Vasilevsky, and then directly coordinated its preparation. However, in reality, both the preparation and the direct leadership of the troops at the beginning of the Stalingrad counteroffensive was carried out by Vasilevsky. Zhukov, on the other hand, devoted most of his time to preparing the main blow of the 1942 campaign in the western direction. Reinhard Gehlen on November 6, even before reading the report on the conference in the Kremlin, stated: "The main direction of future Russian operations ... is becoming more and more clear in the Army Group Center zone. However, it is still unclear whether the Russians intend to conduct a major operation along with this on the Don, or they will limit their aims in the south for the reasons that they will not be able to achieve success simultaneously in two directions due to lack of forces.In any case, it can be concluded that their preparations for an offensive in the south have not advanced so far as to assume here in in the near future - simultaneously with the expected offensive against Army Group Center - a major operation.
The head of German intelligence in the East underestimated the scale and speed of concentration Soviet troops on the southern front. But he was not mistaken in that the offensive on the Don would be auxiliary to the offensive in the western direction. This is proved by the distribution of forces and means. The troops of the Western and Kalinin Fronts, which launched on November 25, under the leadership of Zhukov, Operation Mars - the attack on Rzhev, totaled, together with the reserves located in the rear, 1.9 million people, more than 24 thousand guns and mortars, 3300 tanks and 1100 aircraft. During the operation, it was supposed to defeat the Army Group "Center" and go to the Baltic Sea. At that time, on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, the Don, Stalingrad and South-Western fronts had only 1.1 million people, 15 thousand guns and mortars, 1400 tanks and more than 900 aircraft. Only after the Zhukovsky offensive failed and the strike groups of the Kalinin and Western fronts were surrounded (having lost 1850 tanks and half a million people, they broke through to their own with great difficulty), the reserves were transferred to the south. The failed operation "Mars" was announced by Zhukov, and after him, Soviet historians"auxiliary" in relation to the operation "Uranus" - the Stalingrad counteroffensive.
Not everything went smoothly during the further Soviet offensive in the Stalingrad area. I want to bring here one little-known episode. Beria reported to Stalin: “According to the Special Department of the NKVD of the Stalingrad Front, on the night of December 27, 1942, Major General Larin, a member of the Military Council of the 2nd Guards Army, shot himself in his apartment. Larin left a note with the following content: “I don’t and. Please don't touch my family. Rodion clever man. Long live Lenin." Rodion - commander of the 2nd guards army Comrade Malinovsky. On December 19 this year, leaving for the front line, Larin behaved nervously, walked to his full height and was slightly wounded by a bullet in the leg, it seemed that he was looking for death "(RGASPI, f. 83, op. 1, d 19, sheet 8).
The suicide of Ivan Larin did not at all follow from the military situation. The 2nd Guards successfully pushed back Manstein's tank group, which was rushing to the rescue of Paulus. Perhaps Larin was afraid that the special officers would begin to promote the case of Malinovsky's adjutant Captain Sirenko, who deserted back in August and went with two comrades across the front line to create an independent partisan detachment and fight the Germans. A report on this case was attached to Lavrenty Pavlovich's report on Larin's suicide. Sirenko left a note in which he claimed that "our generals have shown themselves incapable of command, decomposed, drunk, debauched, like the old lecher General Zhuk (Major General Zhuk was on southern front deputy commander for artillery and arrived at the front headquarters along with Malinovsky from the 6th army). That the generals carry various "wives" and "daughters" with them, but simply carry prostitutes. Having seen enough of all this, he, Sirenko, decided that he should actively fight the Germans for his homeland and decided to join the partisans "(RGASPI, f. 83, op. 1, d. 19, l. 11-12). And in days of the Stalingrad victory, Soviet generals were more afraid of the special officers than the Germans.
Finally, it is worth remembering tragic fate German prisoners captured in Stalingrad. Their situation turned out to be no better than the situation of Soviet prisoners in German camps in the tragic winter of 1941/1942. Of the 91,000 German prisoners in Stalingrad (according to other sources, there were 110,000), only 5,000 survived. More than half of the survivors were officers: officer camps provided better food and more qualified training. medical care. Tens of thousands German soldiers perished from hunger and epidemics, being also weakened by 73 days of malnutrition in the "boiler". According to the few survivors, in the first days of captivity they were often not only not given food, but even the last supplies were taken away. Many also could not stand the exhausting marches on foot from the ruins of Stalingrad to the camps. As the German historian Rüdiger Overmans writes, “the vast majority did not see any cruelty in the fact that the guards shot the lagging behind. It was still impossible to help them, and the shot was considered an act of mercy compared to a slow death from the cold.” He also admits that many soldiers, being too exhausted, would not have survived in captivity even if the food were tolerable. Nearly 20,000 "accomplices" captured in Stalingrad - former Soviet prisoners who served in auxiliary positions in the 6th Army - also died. They were shot or died in the camps.
Got out on the current holidays to the library, to Gorkovka, all people are like people, and he is to the library :), thanks for Vika's company vi_lagarto Doesn't matter. Actually, I was there once, I even subscribed to a reader's subscription .. and it cost about three rubles (in 2005), and now admission is free. It is very cold in the reading room, but the more interesting it is.. the brain does not overheat :) (just kidding). So what did I find there! Look, read .. we return and plunge into real life 70 years ago .. We read the newspaper Stalingradskaya Pravda dated January 5, 1944. (in general, there is a whole file for different years, but these are particulars).Pay attention to the style, the purity of style, how the press is read!!.. I was delighted! And our current unfortunate PR people of various mayors and deputies will not even be able to write like that, no matter how they boast of their intelligence and superiority over people from vocational technical schools (and not only). Learn because it is easiest to poke an ignoramus into his mistakes, but you yourself must express your thoughts beautifully - you still need to be able to! :) However, enough criticism, let's enjoy the wonderful ..
01 Library Gorky. Reading room. 
02 First page Official information, military-political topics
03 In the lower left corner. Front page
04 Slightly larger than the one in the upper right corner
05 Page #2
06 Page #3 about the heroes of Stalingrad. General Shumilov. 
07 Page #3 in full, below is a TASS photo from last year "Prisoners of the Nazis in the Stalingrad area" 
08 Page #4. Labor reports, news from the front 
09 World news
with a mini-review of the Stalingrad truth of January 5, 1944, that's all. And now some more photos of the newspaper from other dates and years.
Sad frame:
10 Unfortunately barbarism exists :( Well, why do this? Can you copy :( 
11 A newspaper is a rarity Cuts like this are very common :( 
Now just interesting moments on the pages of the newspaper (zomboyaschik affected))
12 Everything is calm in MTS
13 Before Putin I thought at first about the namesake of our president. I say the same zomboyaschik affected. And here everything is not about him at all. And about the problems of fishing on the Don. 
14 Agrotechnics of hundred-pound crops. 
15 Soon! In the best cinemas! New sound feature film 
17 A fragment of a painting by Stepan Razin. Artist Surikov. And try to prove to today's children that Stepan Razin does not speak on a cell phone) 
18 Aunt, give me "Summer", just not the one that is bad ..) 
And eternal theme- Relevant today :)
19 Dar-mountain, children's leisure.
20 Bring the roads into exemplary order
And some photos from the pages of the newspaper. You won't find such city corners now. The city has changed. Here I photographed the Stalingrad truth for 1937.
21 Near the Theater of Musical Comedy
22 On the Volga embankment
23 Cyclists immediately remembered Denis
