The carpenter who could change history

Georg Elser is an ordinary German carpenter who single-handedly planned and organized the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1939. He was a staunch Protestant and sympathized with the Communists. Unlike many of his compatriots, he was not fascinated by the ideas of the National Socialists from the very beginning and was most afraid of a new war. Listening to the Fuhrer's speeches, Elser came to the conclusion that only the murder of Hitler could stop the coming catastrophe. To eliminate the Fuhrer, Elser single-handedly developed a homemade bomb, which he himself mounted in a column next to the leader’s podium in a Munich beer hall, where Hitler spoke every year to fellow party members on the occasion of the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.

It took Elser almost a year to implement the plan. For this purpose, he spent almost 30 nights in the basements of the beer hall in order to hollow out a niche and mount the explosives without hindrance. As a result of the explosion, 7 people were killed on the spot, 63 were injured, but the Fuhrer himself remained unharmed. By an unfortunate coincidence, he unexpectedly shortened his speech to a short greeting and left the hall a few minutes before the explosion.

Elser was captured that evening on the Swiss border and confessed to everything, saying that he wanted to avoid more bloodshed. The Gestapo could not believe that the assassination attempt had been planned by them alone, and Hitler himself was convinced that the British intelligence services were behind the explosion. Georg Elser was placed in Dachau as a special prisoner and executed on April 9, 1945, just 20 days before the camp was liberated by the Allies.

Fighter against mass euthanasia

Kreissig went down in history as the only judge of the Third Reich who was not afraid to openly go against the decisions of the Fuhrer and even tried to turn the current legislation against the Nazis. Like many others, Kreissig voted for the NSDAP in the 1930s, but already in 1933 he refused to join the party. In 1940, he openly opposed Hitler's policy of euthanasia, calling it mass killing of the physically disabled, and even brought murder charges against one of the Nazis.

After this decisive act, Kreissig had to resign, and in 1942, by Hitler’s decision, he was retired, where he devoted himself to church activities. During the war, he was engaged in farming, on the territory of which he sheltered two Jewish refugees. After the war he was openly recognized as a hero of the resistance.

Hitler's personal enemy

Protestant priest Martin Niemöller, author of the famous poem “When They Came,” was sent to Dachau on Hitler’s personal orders for criticizing the Nazi regime. During the First World War, Niemöller was a submarine commander, but after the end of the war he went to study at a theological seminary and was ordained. From 1924 he voted for the NSDAP, and in 1933 he welcomed Hitler's rise to power as an alternative to communism. While remaining a National Socialist, he protested against the excommunication of “impure” nationalities from the church, he called for opposition to this law in his sermons and helped those who were persecuted.

In 1938, he was arrested for “attacks on the state” and sentenced to 7 months of hard labor. The Fuhrer, however, was very surprised by the leniency of the sentence and said that Niemöller would remain in prison until he turned blue. In 1941, the priest was sent to Dachau, where he served his sentence under relatively lenient conditions: the doors of his cell were not locked, and he was allowed visits. In conclusion, Niemöller came to the conclusion that the German church was equally responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. Martin Niemöller was released in 1945. In the post-war years, he actively advocated peace and disarmament.

"When they came"

“When the Nazis came for the communists, I was silent, I’m not a communist.

Then they came for the Social Democrats, I was silent, I’m not a Social Democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists, I was silent, I’m not a trade union member.

Then they came for the Jews, I was silent, I’m not a Jew.

And then they came for me, and there was no one left to protest."

Guillotine for "White Rose"

"White Rose" is an underground organization in Munich, the names of its members became symbols of the Southern German Resistance movement. The White Rose was created in Munich in the summer of 1942 by several students to agitate the city's residents against the Nazi regime. The organizers of the White Rose included a medical student at the University of Munich - Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie and several of their mutual friends. Young people were interested in art and music, sports and were united in their rejection of the political regime. Young people began writing and distributing leaflets calling for a fight against the Nazi regime.

At first, Hans Scholl intended to keep his sister away from political activities, but it was easier for Sophie to distribute leaflets - the SS did not stop her on the street so often to check. White Rose leaflets appeared not only in Munich, they were found in Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz. One of the leaflets reached the UK, where its text was broadcast by the BBC, and copies were scattered over Germany from British planes.

Another leaflet called for an uprising. But in February 1943, Sophie and her brother were arrested while trying to distribute a new batch of leaflets at the University of Munich, and after three days of trial and torture they were sentenced to guillotine along with other participants in the movement. The sentencing judge said later that he had never seen anyone more courageous than twenty-year-old Sophie Scholl. At the trial, Sophie said: "At the end of the day, someone had to start it. Our beliefs are shared by many others. They just don't dare say it like we do."

"Pirates of Edelweiss" and Gertrude Koch

The Edelweiss Pirates was a youth group that operated in Germany from 1939 to 1945. The name is due to the fact that edelweiss was one of the four symbols of the German Youth League, which was previously banned by Hitler. Despite the ban, young people continued to gather, sing songs and fight with the Hitler Youth. Cologne is considered the center of the unification, among whose citizens there were about 3,000 “pirates” - teenagers 14–18 years old, who had neither a central leader nor a common organizational structure. They wore the edelweiss emblem as an identification mark. After World War II began, they helped shelter prisoners, Jews and political prisoners, distributed short anti-Hitler leaflets, and wrote calls to fight on the walls.

During the war, the “pirates” went underground so as not to be involved in work for the benefit of the German army. In 1944, many members of the group were captured, 13 people were executed, and the rest were sent to concentration camps or to the front. After the end of the war, individual “pirates” continued to organize protests in East Germany, and the Germans themselves for quite a long time considered the “pirates” more bandits than heroes.

In the 80s, pirates were officially recognized as resistance fighters - albeit with low moral principles. Gertrud Koch - the last "Edelweiss pirate" - died in 2016. She was 17 years old when she was first captured by the Gestapo trying to write anti-Nazi slogans on a wall. She was arrested twice, interrogated and tortured, but somehow managed to escape and survive. Until the age of 92, she maintained a sense of humor and a fighting spirit, telling her loved ones: “No matter what happens, sing!” In 2008, she was awarded a bust of Heine for her activities in resistance to the regime of the Third Reich.

They warned Stalin about the start of the war

Scattered groups of the German Resistance, associated with Soviet intelligence and transmitting valuable information to it, received the common name “Red Chapel” after the end of the war. The term itself was invented by the SS men who were searching for illegal transmitters in Germany. In counterintelligence jargon, radio operators were called “musicians”, “pianists”, and since there were several transmitters, a whole orchestra or “capella” was formed. Among the organizers of one of the most famous Kapella cells were the German journalist and Luftwaffe officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen (Petty Officer) and the lawyer Arvid Harnack (Corsican).

A circle of like-minded people formed around them, uniting doctors, journalists, economists, artists, dancers and writers with different political views, but a common rejection of the Nazi regime. Since 1933, members of the Red Chapel helped shelter victims of the regime from persecution, distributed leaflets, collected information about preparations for war and transmitted it abroad. A narrow circle of resisters came into contact with Soviet intelligence. Beginning on June 17, 1941, members of the Red Chapel warned the USSR about an impending German attack on the Soviet Union.

During the war, they listened to Soviet radio stations and, based on reports from the USSR, created leaflets with facts contradicting Hitler’s propaganda, and Schulze-Boysen passed on data obtained through his service in the Luftwaffe to Soviet intelligence officers. In July 1942, the Nazis managed to decipher a previously intercepted radiogram from Soviet military intelligence from Moscow to Brussels, which contained the name of Schulze-Boysen and his address. This led to the group's failure and the arrest of many of its members.

On August 31, the Gestapo arrested Schulze-Boysen. In December 1942, he, his wife Libertas Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack were sentenced to death. Among the group members captured and executed later were the pregnant daughter of Russian emigrants, Liana Berkowitz, and the German woman, Elsa Imme. In 1969, the USSR posthumously awarded her the Order of the Patriotic War. In 1943, the Germans captured about 150 members of the Red Chapel movement, of whom about 50 were executed and 7 committed suicide. But it was not possible to completely stop the struggle of the Red Chapel.

Operation Valkyrie

The most famous and large-scale attempt to assassinate Hitler is considered to be the July 20 plot, organized within the ranks of the Wehrmacht. One of the key organizers of the conspiracy was Klaus Schenck, Count Stauffenberg, an aristocrat and colonel of the Wehrmacht. By the beginning of World War II, he had reached the status of second staff general and was sent to Poland, from where he wrote to his wife that “there are a lot of half-breeds in the country, they all need a firm hand and will serve Germany with their forced labor.” But, watching the mass shootings of civilians, Stauffenberg changed his views. In 1943, he was seriously wounded in Tunisia and lost one eye, his right hand and several fingers of his left hand. Having recovered from his injury, in 1943 he came to the conclusion that Hitler was leading the country to disaster, and began searching for like-minded people in the Wehrmacht, which was not accountable to either the Gestapo or the intelligence services.

The conspirators dreamed of killing Hitler. The plan to assassinate the Fuhrer and subsequently seize power was called “Operation Valkyrie” and appeared after the Allied landings in Normandy, when it became clear that defeat in the war was inevitable. The initial plan of operation was approved by the Fuhrer himself as a course of action to prevent internal unrest in the country. In fact, the plan of the conspirators’ operation included the assassination of Hitler, the arrest of party members and senior officials of the SS, Gestapo and intelligence services, as well as the transfer of power to the military.

The head of the operation was Stauffenberg, who was supposed to carry out the murder and lead the putsch. But the implementation of the operation encountered difficulties - the twice planned attempt on the Fuhrer’s life had to be postponed, and finally, the date of the putsch was postponed to July 20. According to the plan, the murder was to occur during a staff meeting. The conspirators planned that the meeting would be held in a bunker, but at the last moment it was moved to a wooden building nearby, one of the explosive devices did not go off, and a suitcase with a bomb left next to the Fuhrer was, by an absurd accident, moved away from the Fuhrer in the last seconds before the explosion.

The explosion killed four and injured 17 more people, but the Fuhrer, protected by a massive table, escaped with a slight injury and concussion. The putsch in the capital was also defeated. By the evening of the same day, Stauffenberg was captured and shot. His wife, pregnant with their fifth child, was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and the children were scattered to orphanages to erase the memory of the entire family of the traitor.

In Germany, the attitude towards Stauffenberg was very ambiguous for a long time: he was called either a hero or a traitor.

The anniversary of the Great Victory is getting closer. I would like to remind you that this is not just a victory - it is a victory of the Soviet people in the struggle for their very existence, because the goal of this war was the destruction of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR. This is the main thing that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those who gave their lives for the Victory should remember.

But after decades of work of a gigantic ideological machine, what is called the Second World War is associated in the minds of the modern average person in the West and increasingly in Russia itself with the so-called. The “Holocaust” - the genocide of European Jews, the caricature of Hitler, the horrors of Stalinism and D-Day - the opening of the Second Front in Europe. The Great Patriotic War increasingly seems to be one of the episodes, and not even the most significant, of the Second World War. Any idea of ​​the special, fundamentally different nature of the war of Nazi Germany and its allies against the USSR has been practically erased from modern mass consciousness. Meanwhile, this war was unique in its objectives, methods and consequences for world history. Between 1939 and 1945 two wars took place, partly coinciding in time and intertwined with each other, but, nevertheless, sharply different in nature.

One, from September 1939 to September 1945, was a “normal” “world” war between the largest imperialist powers of the world, differing from the first “world” only in its larger size and lethality.
The other - from June 22, 1941 to May 1945 - had all the traditional elements of the wars of European imperialism against non-European peoples, from the first crusades of the 11th century to the British conquest of India, the extermination of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the Opium Wars in China, the devastation of the African and Australian continents. The war of German imperialism and its European allies against the USSR absorbed this historical experience of colonialism and developed its techniques to an extremely concentrated and brutal expression. But her unique character lay elsewhere.

Plan Barbarossa was not just a military "blitzkrieg" plan to defeat the Red Army and the Soviet state. And not even just the plan to conquer Lebensraum - “living space” for the German nation and its colonization. It was a plan for a crusade, an ideological “holy war”, which aimed at the eradication of “Judeo-Bolshevism”, the destruction of the Soviet people, the ideological, state and economic foundations of their existence, especially the state existence of the Great Russian and other Slavic peoples who formed the backbone of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. For the Soviet people, the Great Patriotic War was a struggle for their historical existence - “to be or not to be.”

But the genocide of European Jews was “unique” only in the sense that it was genocide in Europe against Europeans. But in this respect, the Holocaust was not unique. It was preceded by the British genocide of the Irish. The example of the Irish shows that the ideology of European racism originates within the white race and only then begins to spread to non-European peoples, to “coloreds.”
White racism is now growing in Russia. Our champions of white racial solidarity with the whites of the West would do well to recall the authoritative opinion of the famous historian Christopher Hill: “most educated Englishmen belonging to the upper strata of society in the seventeenth century spoke about the Irish in the same way as, for example, the fascists about the Slavs or white South Africans about the indigenous population - in all these cases, contempt was the justification for the need to exploit.”
No, if we can generally talk about the uniqueness of any genocide, then, in the sense of its ideological origins and political objectives, such genocide was the genocide of the Soviet people, with which the Jewish genocide was inextricably linked.

Hitler pointed out the need to learn from the British the art of domination over conquered peoples and their exploitation. The USSR was to become Germany's "India" - a Nazi laboratory of racial politics, a bottomless source of slave labor and natural resources.

John Toland, renowned Hitler biographer, says:
“Hitler stated that he owed much of the idea of ​​concentration camps and the practicality of genocide to his study of British and American history. He admired the Boer prison camps in South Africa and the Indian camps in the Wild West, and in his inner circle often praised the effectiveness of exterminating the "red savages" in America through starvation and superior military force."

From the Fuehrer's Guide to the Administration of the Eastern Territories:
The Slavs must work for us. If we don't need them, they can die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German healthcare are unnecessary for them. High Slavic childbearing rates are undesirable. They can use contraception and have abortions to their heart's content. Education is dangerous. That's quite enough... if they can count to one hundred. At the very least, education is permissible if it helps prepare useful servants for us. Every educated person is our future enemy. We will leave religion to them as a distraction. As for food, they should not receive more than the bare minimum. We are the owners, everything to us.

The contribution of the Black Hundred and the White Guard movement to the ideology of German Nazism and its practice of genocide remains underestimated. And he was decisive in his way. It was the White Guard that created and tested Hitler’s central ideological synthesis - a combination of old European anti-Slavic racism and anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism and anti-Bolshevism.

The decisive link between Hitler and the Black Hundred was the Baltic German from Latvia Alfred Rosenberg and his white emigrant friends led by staff captain Fedor Vinberg. In the early 1920s, Vinberg and Rosenberg became the ideologists of a secret organization of Russian and German reactionaries - Aufbau, Reconstruction. It was through the White Guard Winberg and Rosenberg that Hitler adopted the synthesis of anti-Bolshevism and political anti-Semitism, which formed the ideological basis of Barbarossa.

According to the Fuhrer’s explanations before the start of the war, the upcoming campaign would be a struggle between “two worldviews.” Hitler described Bolshevism as a "social crime" and communism as a "huge danger to the future." Therefore, in the East, German soldiers will have to abandon their usual respect for the enemy.

In final instructions dated May 13, Chief of the General Staff Keitel declared the problems of "pacification" (a word borrowed from the terminology of North American genocide) too enormous and complex for conventional military tribunals and authorized troops to "take ruthless action themselves," to "liquidate" guerrillas and use "the most extreme methods "against hostile civilian populations. All officers were instructed to decide on the spot whether or not to shoot those suspected of hostile activities behind the front lines, while battalion-level commanders became responsible for taking hostages for collective retribution against the residents of a particular location. Crimes by German soldiers against civilians were to be tried by a tribunal only in cases where they threatened military discipline.

At the same time, from February 21, 1941, the propaganda services of the armed forces also prepared leaflets, posters and radio broadcasts addressed to Soviet military personnel and the civilian population. The first and most widespread of these accused Stalin's "Jewish-Communist" government of violating the treaties it had concluded with Germany. The leaflet implored the soldiers and officers of the Red Army not to “shed their blood for the Third International... for Stalin and his Jewish commissars,” whose regime was “hundreds of times worse” than the Tsarist regime. German troops were marching to put an end to “the criminal machinations of this Jewish clique that is tormenting and exploiting the peoples of the Soviet Union.”

One of the most enduring myths created by Nazi generals and their American masters during the Cold War is the myth that the Wehrmacht was not involved in genocide in the East. In reality, everything was the other way around. The Wehrmacht accepted the program of ideological warfare with such readiness and began to implement it with such zeal that it began to threaten the central role of the SS in cleansing the eastern Lebensraum of “Judeo-Bolshevism.” The Wehrmacht waged a political war of destruction, in no way inferior to its “comrades in arms” in black uniforms.

The central role in developing economic policy under the Barbarossa Plan was entrusted to a group of scientific experts at the General Staff. Their recommendations, outlined at two meetings in May '41, boiled down to the following plan. The European territory of the USSR would be divided into two zones: 1) a “zone of surplus” or “black earth” (Schwarzendezone) in the south, including the Caucasus, and 2) a “zone of hunger” (Hungergebiet) in the north, primarily around Moscow and Leningrad. In the “zone of surplus,” the population could hope to receive the minimum amount of food necessary for life. In the “hunger zone” it was doomed to extinction.

So the genocide of “many tens of millions” of Soviet people had to take the form of famine. And here, too, Hitler’s teachers were white settlers and the British in North America and Africa, the British in Ireland, Hindustan, China and Australia.
These were the historical origins and goals of Operation Barbarossa, which began in the pre-dawn hours of June 22, 1941 along a front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

There was only one force standing between these goals and their achievement - the Red Army.

All of Europe fought against us

The very first strategic counter-offensive of Soviet troops in the Great Patriotic War revealed a very unpleasant circumstance for the USSR. Among the enemy troops captured near Moscow were many military units France, Poland, Holland, Finland, Austria, Norway and other countries. The output data of almost all major European companies was found on captured military equipment and shells. In general, as one could assume and as they thought in the Soviet Union, the European proletarians would never take up arms against the state of workers and peasants, that they would sabotage the production of weapons for Hitler.

But exactly the opposite happened. Our soldiers made a very characteristic discovery after the liberation of the Moscow region in the area of ​​the historical Borodino Field - next to the French cemetery of 1812, they discovered fresh graves of Napoleon’s descendants. The Soviet 32nd Red Banner Rifle Division, Colonel V.I., fought here. Polosukhin, whose fighters could not even imagine that they were opposed "French allies".

A more or less complete picture of this battle was revealed only after the Victory. Chief of Staff of the German 4th Army G. Blumentritt published memoirs in which he wrote:

“The four battalions of French volunteers operating as part of the 4th Army turned out to be less resilient. At Borodin, Field Marshal von Kluge addressed them with a speech, recalling how, during the time of Napoleon, the French and Germans fought here side by side against a common enemy - Russia. The next day, the French boldly went into battle, but, unfortunately, they could not withstand either the powerful attack of the enemy or the severe frost and blizzard. They had never had to endure such trials before. The French legion was defeated, suffering heavy losses from enemy fire. A few days later he was taken to the rear and sent to the West..."

Here is an interesting archival document - a list of prisoners of war who surrendered to Soviet troops during the war. Let us remember that a prisoner of war is someone who fights in uniform with a weapon in his hands.

Hitler accepts the Wehrmacht parade, 1940 (megabook.ru)

So, Germans – 2 389 560, Hungarians – 513 767, Romanians – 187 370, Austrians – 156 682, Czechs And Slovaks – 69 977, Poles – 60 280, Italians – 48 957, French people – 23 136, Croats – 21 822, Moldovans – 14 129, Jews – 10 173, Dutch – 4 729, Finns – 2 377, Belgians – 2 010, Luxembourgers – 1652, Danes – 457, Spaniards – 452, gypsies – 383, Norse – 101, Swedes – 72.

And these are only those who survived and were captured. In reality, significantly more Europeans fought against us.

The ancient Roman senator Cato the Elder went down in history for always ending any of his public speeches on any topic with the words: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", which literally means: “Otherwise, I believe that Carthage should be destroyed.” (Carthage is a city-state hostile to Rome.) I am not ready to completely become like Senator Cato, but I will use any occasion to once again mention: in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the USSR, with its initial strength 190 million. man, did not fight with the 80 million Germans of that time. The Soviet Union practically fought from all over Europe, the number of which (with the exception of our allied England and partisan Serbia, which did not surrender to the Germans) was about 400 million. Human.

During the Great Patriotic War, 34,476.7 thousand people wore overcoats in the USSR, i.e. 17,8% population. And Germany mobilized as many as 21% from the population. It would seem that the Germans were more tense in their military efforts than the USSR. But women served in the Red Army in large numbers, both voluntarily and by conscription. There were a lot of purely female units and units (anti-aircraft, aviation, etc.). During a period of desperate situation, the State Defense Committee made a decision (remaining, however, on paper) to create women's rifle formations, in which only those loading heavy artillery guns would be men.

And among the Germans, even at the moment of their agony, women not only did not serve in the army, but there were very few of them in production. Why is that? Because in the USSR there was one man for every three women, and in Germany it was the other way around? No, that's not the point. In order to fight, you need not only soldiers, but also weapons and food. And their production also requires men, who cannot be replaced by women or teenagers. That's why the USSR was forced send women to the front instead of men.

The Germans did not have such a problem: all of Europe provided them with weapons and food. The French not only handed over all their tanks to the Germans, but also produced a huge amount of military equipment for them - from cars to optical rangefinders.

Czechs who have only one company "Skoda" produced more weapons than the entire pre-war Great Britain, built the entire fleet of German armored personnel carriers, a huge number of tanks, aircraft, small arms, artillery and ammunition.

The Poles built airplanes Polish Jews in Auschwitz they produced explosives, synthetic gasoline and rubber to kill Soviet citizens; the Swedes mined ore and supplied the Germans with components for military equipment (for example, bearings), the Norwegians supplied the Nazis with seafood, the Danes with oil... In short, all of Europe tried its best.

And she tried not only on the labor front. Only the elite troops of Nazi Germany - the SS troops - accepted into their ranks 400 thousand. “blond beasts” from other countries, but in total they joined Hitler’s army from all over Europe 1800 thousand. volunteers, forming 59 divisions, 23 brigades and several national regiments and legions.

The most elite of these divisions had not numbers, but proper names indicating national origin: “Valonia”, “Galicia”, “Bohemia and Moravia”, “Viking”, “Denemark”, “Gembez”, “Langemarck”, “Nordland” ", "Netherlands", "Charlemagne", etc.

Europeans served as volunteers not only in national, but also in German divisions. So, let's say, an elite German division "Greater Germany". It would seem that, at least because of the name, it should have been staffed only by Germans. However, the Frenchman who served in it Guy Sayer recalls that on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, there were 9 Germans in his infantry squad of 11 people, and besides him, a Czech also poorly understood the German language. And all this in addition to the official allies of Germany, whose armies burned and plundered the Soviet Union shoulder to shoulder - Italians, Romanian, Hungarians, Finns, Croats, Slovaks, besides Bulgarians, who at that time burned and plundered partisan Serbia. Even officially neutral Spaniards sent their “Blue Division” to Leningrad!

In order to evaluate the national composition of all the European bastards who, in the hope of easy prey, came to us to kill Soviet and Russian people, I will give a table of that part of the foreign volunteers who guessed in time to surrender to us:

Germans – 2 389 560, Hungarians – 513 767, Romanians – 187 370, Austrians – 156 682, Czechs And Slovaks – 69 977, Poles – 60 280, Italians – 48 957, French people – 23 136, Croats – 21 822, Moldovans – 14 129, Jews – 10 173, Dutch – 4 729, Finns – 2 377, Belgians – 2 010, Luxembourgers – 1652, Danes – 457, Spaniards – 452, gypsies – 383, Norse – 101, Swedes – 72.

This table, first published at the end of 1990, should be repeated for the following reasons. After the reign of “democracy” on the territory of the USSR, the table was continuously “improved” in terms of “enlarging the rows”. As a result, in “serious” books by “professional historians” on the topic of war, say, in the statistical collection “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century” or in the reference book “The World of Russian History”, the data in this table are distorted. Some nationalities have disappeared from it.

The Jews disappeared first, which, as you can see from the original table, served Hitler as many as the Finns and the Dutch combined. But I, for example, don’t see why we should throw out the Jewish verses from this Hitler song.

By the way, the Poles today are trying to push Jews away from the position of “the main sufferers of the Second World War,” and there are more of them on the lists of prisoners than there are officially and actually Italians who fought with us.

But the presented table does not reflect the true quantitative and national composition of prisoners. First of all, it does not represent our domestic scum at all, who, either due to acquired idiocy, or because of cowardice and cowardice, served the Germans - from Bandera to Vlasov.

By the way, they were punished offensively easily. It would be good if a Vlasovite fell prisoner into the hands of front-line soldiers. Then, more often than not, he got what he deserved. But the traitors contrived to surrender to the rear units, dressed in civilian clothes, pretended to be Germans when surrendering, etc. In this case, the Soviet court literally almost patted them on the head.

At one time, domestic anti-Soviet activists published collections of their memoirs abroad. One of them describes the judicial “sufferings” of a Vlasovite who defended Berlin: he changed clothes... to the Soviet soldiers who captured him... he introduced himself as a Frenchman and thus got to the military tribunal. And then to read his boasting is insulting: “They gave me five years in distant camps - and that was lucky. In a hurry - they considered them to be small workers and peasants. Soldiers captured with weapons and officers were given a ten.” While being escorted to the camp, he fled to the West.

Five years for killing Soviet people and treason! What kind of punishment is this?! Well, at least 20, so that widows and orphans’ mental wounds will heal and it won’t be so offensive to look at these vile hari...

For the same reason they are not included in the lists of prisoners of war Crimean Tatars, who stormed Sevastopol for Manstein, Kalmyks and so on.

Not listed Estonians, Latvians And Lithuanians, who had their own national divisions as part of Hitler’s troops, but were considered Soviet citizens and therefore served their meager sentences in Gulag camps, and not in GUPVI camps. (GULAG - the main directorate of camps - was responsible for keeping criminals, and GUPVI - the main directorate for prisoners of war and internees - prisoners.) Meanwhile, not all prisoners ended up in GUPVI, since this department counted only those who ended up in its rear camps from front-line transfer points.

Estonian legionnaires of the Wehrmacht fought against the USSR with particular fury (ookaboo.com)

But since 1943, national divisions of Poles, Czechs, and Romanians began to be formed in the USSR to fight the Germans. And the prisoners of these nationalities were sent not to the GUPVI, but directly to the recruitment points of such formations - they fought together with the Germans, let them fight against them too! By the way, there were such 600 thousand. Even de Gaulle was sent to his army 1500 French.

Before the start of the war with the USSR Hitler appealed to Europeans to crusade against Bolshevism. Here's how they responded to it (data for June - October 1941, which does not take into account huge military contingents Italy, Hungary, Romania and other allies of Hitler). From Spanish volunteers ( 18000 people) the 250th Infantry Division was formed in the Wehrmacht. In July, the personnel took the oath to Hitler and left for the Soviet-German front. During September-October 1941, from French volunteers (approx. 3000 people) the 638th Infantry Regiment was formed. In October, the regiment was sent to Smolensk and then to Moscow. From Belgians in July 1941 the 373rd Valonian battalion was formed (approximately 850 people), transferred to the subordination of the 97th Infantry Division of the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht.

From Croatian Volunteers were formed by the 369th Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment and the Croatian Legion as part of the Italian troops. Approximately 2000 Swedes signed up to volunteer in Finland. Of these, approximately 850 people took part in the fighting near Hanko, as part of a Swedish volunteer battalion.

By the end of June 1941 294 Norwegians already served in the SS regiment "Nordland". After the start of the war with the USSR, the volunteer legion “Norway” was created in Norway ( 1200 Human). After taking the oath to Hitler, he was sent to Leningrad. By the end of June 1941, the SS Viking division had 216 Danes. After the start of the war with the USSR, the Danish Volunteer Corps began to form.

Ours stand apart in aiding fascism Polish comrades. Immediately after the end of the German-Polish war, the idea of ​​​​creating a Polish army fighting on the side of Germany was proposed by the Polish nationalist Wladyslaw Gisbert-Studnicki. He developed a project for building a Polish 12-15 million pro-German state. Gisbert-Studnicki proposed a plan to send Polish troops to the eastern front. Later the idea of ​​a Polish-German alliance and 35 thousand Polish army supported by the Sword and Plow organization, associated with the Home Army.

In the first months of the war against the USSR, Polish soldiers in the fascist army had the so-called status HiWi (volunteer helpers). Later, Hitler gave special permission for Poles to serve in the Wehrmacht. After this, it was categorically forbidden to use the name in relation to Poles HiWi, because the Nazis treated them as full-fledged soldiers. Every Pole between the ages of 16 and 50 could become a volunteer; they only had to undergo a preliminary medical examination.

Poles were called upon, along with other European nations, to stand “in defense of Western civilization from Soviet barbarism.” Here is a quote from a fascist leaflet in Polish: “The German armed forces are leading the decisive struggle to protect Europe from Bolshevism. Any honest helper in this fight will be greeted as an ally..."

The text of the oath of the Polish soldiers read: “I swear before God with this sacred oath that in the fight for the future of Europe in the ranks of the German Wehrmacht I will be absolutely obedient to the Supreme Commander Adolf Hitler, and as a brave soldier I am ready at any time to devote my strength to fulfill this oath...”

It is amazing that even the strictest guardian of the Aryan gene pool Himmler allowed to form units from Poles SS. The first sign was the Goral Legion of the Waffen-SS. The Gorals are an ethnic group within the Polish nation. In 1942, the Nazis convened the Goral Committee in Zakopane. Was appointed "Goralenführer" Vaclav Krzeptovsky.

He and his inner circle made a series of trips to cities and villages, urging them to fight the worst enemy of civilization - Judeo-Bolshevism. It was decided to create a Goral volunteer legion of the Waffen-SS, adapted for operations in mountainous terrain. Krzeptovsky managed to collect 410 Highlanders But after a medical examination in the SS organs there remained 300 Human.

Another Polish SS Legion was formed in mid-July 1944. They joined it 1500 volunteers of Polish nationality. In October the legion was based in Rzechow, in December near Tomaszow. In January 1945, the legion was divided into two groups (1st Lieutenant Machnik, 2nd Lieutenant Errling) and sent to participate in anti-partisan operations in the Tuchola forests. In February, both groups were destroyed by the Soviet army.

President of the Academy of Military Sciences, Army General Makhmut Gareev gave the following assessment of the participation of a number of European countries in the fight against fascism: During the war, all of Europe fought against us. Three hundred and fifty million people, regardless of whether they fought with weapons in their hands, or stood at the machine, producing weapons for the Wehrmacht, did one thing.

During World War II, 20 thousand members of the French Resistance died. And 200 thousand French fought against us. We also captured 60 thousand Poles. 2 million European volunteers fought for Hitler against the USSR.

In this regard, the invitation of military personnel from a number of countries looks at least strange NATO to take part in the parade on Red Square in honor of the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory, says Colonel Yuri Rubtsov, member of the International Association of Historians of the Second World War, professor at the Military Humanitarian Academy. – This insults the memory of our defenders of the Fatherland, who died at the hands of numerous "Hitler's European friends".

Useful conclusion

During the Second World War against the Soviet Union, which had an initial population of just over 190 million. people, a European coalition of more than 400 million. people, and when we were not Russians, but Soviet citizens, we defeated this coalition.

All of Europe fought against us A

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On December 18, 1940, Hitler, in Directive No. 21, approved the final plan for the war against the USSR under the code name “Barbarossa”. To implement it, Germany and its allies in Europe - Finland, Romania and Hungary - created an invasion army unprecedented in history: 182 divisions and 20 brigades (up to 5 million people), 47.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 4.4 thousand . combat aircraft, 4.4 thousand tanks and assault guns, and 250 ships. The group of Soviet troops resisting the aggressors included 186 divisions (3 million people), about 39.4 guns and mortars, 11 thousand tanks and more than 9.1 thousand aircraft. These forces were not put on alert in advance. The directive of the Red Army General Staff on a possible German attack on June 22-23 was received in the western border districts only on the night of June 22, and already at dawn on June 22 the invasion began. After lengthy artillery preparation, at 4.00 in the morning, German troops, treacherously violating the non-aggression pact concluded with the USSR, attacked the Soviet-German border along its entire length from the Barents to the Black Sea. Soviet troops were taken by surprise. The organization of powerful counterattacks against the enemy was hampered by the fact that they were relatively evenly distributed along the entire front along the entire border and dispersed to great depths. With such a formation it was difficult to resist the enemy.

On June 22, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. addressed the citizens of the Soviet Union on the radio. Molotov. He said, in particular: “This unheard-of attack on our country is a treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression treaty was concluded between the USSR and Germany.”

On June 23, 1941, the highest body of strategic leadership of the armed forces was created in Moscow - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. All power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee (GKO), formed on June 30. He was appointed Chairman of the State Defense Committee and Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The country began to implement a program of emergency measures under the motto: “Everything for the front! Everything for victory! The Red Army, however, continued to retreat. By mid-July 1941, German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory, capturing Lithuania, Latvia, almost all of Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, creating a threat to Leningrad, Smolensk and Kyiv. A mortal danger loomed over the USSR.

OPERATIONAL REPORT No. 1 OF THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RKKA ARMY GENERAL G.K. ZHUKOVA. 10.00, June 22, 1941

At 4.00 on June 22, 1941, the Germans, without any reason, raided our airfields and cities and crossed the border with ground troops...

1. Northern Front: the enemy, with a flight of bomber-type aircraft, violated the border and entered the region of Leningrad and Kronstadt...

2. Northwestern Front. At 4.00 the enemy opened artillery fire and at the same time began to bomb airfields and cities: Vindava, Libava, Kovno, Vilna and Shulyai...

W. Western Front. At 4.20, up to 60 enemy aircraft bombed Grodno and Brest. At the same time, the enemy opened artillery fire along the entire border of the Western Front... With ground forces, the enemy is developing an attack from the Suwalki area in the direction of Golynka, Dąbrowa and from the Stokołów area along the railway to Wolkowysk. The advancing enemy forces are being clarified. ...

4. Southwestern Front. At 4.20 the enemy began shelling our borders with machine-gun fire. From 4.30, enemy planes bombed the cities of Lyuboml, Kovel, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky... At 4.35, after artillery fire in the Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml area, enemy ground forces crossed the border developing an attack in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml and Krystynopol...

The front commanders have put into effect a cover plan and, through the active actions of mobile troops, are trying to destroy the enemy units that have crossed the border...

The enemy, having forestalled our troops in deployment, forced units of the Red Army to take battle in the process of occupying their initial position according to the cover plan. Using this advantage, the enemy managed to achieve partial success in certain areas.

Signature: Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov

The Great Patriotic War - day after day: based on materials from declassified operational reports of the General Staff of the Red Army. M., 2008 .

RADIO SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE USSR and PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR V.M. MOLOTOV June 22, 1941

Citizens and women of the Soviet Union!

The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, instructed me to make the following statement:

Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims to the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities from their planes - Zhitomir, Kyiv, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, and more than two hundred people were killed and wounded. Enemy air raids and artillery shelling were also carried out from Romanian and Finnish territories.

This unheard of attack on our country is a treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression treaty was concluded between the USSR and Germany and the Soviet government fulfilled all the terms of this treaty in all good faith. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that during the entire duration of this treaty the German government could never make a single claim against the USSR regarding the implementation of the treaty. All responsibility for this predatory attack on the Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers (...)

The government calls on you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks even more closely around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet government, around our great leader Comrade. Stalin.

Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.

Foreign policy documents. T.24. M., 2000.

J. STALIN'S SPEECH ON RADIO, July 3, 1941

Comrades! Citizens!

Brothers and sisters!

Soldiers of our army and navy!

I am addressing you, my friends!

The treacherous military attack of Nazi Germany on our Motherland, which began on June 22, continues. Despite the heroic resistance of the Red Army, despite the fact that the enemy’s best divisions and the best units of his aviation have already been defeated and found their grave on the battlefield, the enemy continues to push forward, throwing new forces to the front (...)

History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon's army was considered invincible, but it was defeated alternately by Russian, English, and German troops. Wilhelm's German army during the first imperialist war was also considered an invincible army, but it was defeated several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops and was finally defeated by Anglo-French troops. The same needs to be said about the current Nazi German army of Hitler. This army has not yet encountered serious resistance on the continent of Europe. Only on our territory did it encounter serious resistance (...)

It may be asked: how could it happen that the Soviet government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there a mistake made here by the Soviet government? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. This is exactly the kind of pact Germany offered us in 1939. Could the Soviet government refuse such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if at the head of this power are even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. And this, of course, is subject to one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of the peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact(...)

In the event of a forced withdrawal of units of the Red Army, it is necessary to hijack all rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single carriage, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of bread or a liter of fuel (...) In areas occupied by the enemy, it is necessary to create partisan detachments, horse and foot, create sabotage groups to fight units of the enemy army, to incite partisan warfare anywhere, to blow up bridges, roads, damage telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to forests, warehouses, and carts. In occupied areas, create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, pursue and destroy them at every step, disrupt all their activities (...)

In this great war, we will have faithful allies in the people of Europe and America, including the German people, enslaved by Hitler’s bosses. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms (...)

In order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR, to repel the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland, the State Defense Committee was created, in whose hands all power in the state is now concentrated. The State Defense Committee has begun its work and calls on all the people to rally around the party of Lenin - Stalin, around the Soviet government for selfless support of the Red Army and Red Navy, for the defeat of the enemy, for victory.

All our strength is in support of our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Navy!

All the forces of the people are to defeat the enemy!

Forward, for our victory!

Stalin I. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. M., 1947.

Adolf Gitler

Head (Reich Chancellor) of the Third Reich, the main war criminal of World War II.

Adolf Hitler - leader (Führer) of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, head of National Socialist Germany (Reich Chancellor) in 1933-1945, supreme commander of the German armed forces in World War II.

Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn (Austria) on April 20, 1889 (since 1933, this day has been a national holiday in Nazi Germany). The father of the future Fuhrer, Alois Hitler, was first a shoemaker, then a customs officer; being illegitimate, until 1876 he bore his mother's surname Schicklgruber. Alois had the not very high rank of chief official (customs inspector). Mother, Clara, née Pölzl, came from a peasant family.

At the age of 16, Hitler graduated from school in Linz, which did not provide a complete secondary education. Attempts to enter the Vienna Academy of Art were unsuccessful. After the death of his mother (1908), Hitler moved to Vienna, where he lived in homeless shelters and did odd jobs. During this period, he managed to sell several of his watercolors, which gave him grounds to call himself an artist.

His views were formed under the influence of the extreme nationalist Linz professor Petsch and the famous anti-Semite Lord Mayor of Vienna K. Lueger. Hitler felt hostility towards the Slavs (especially the Czechs) and hatred towards the Jews. He believed in the greatness and special mission of the German nation.

World War I

In May 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, where he led his old lifestyle, selling watercolors. In the first years of the war, he volunteered for the German army. He served in France and Belgium as a private, then as a corporal, and took part in combat operations as a messenger for the headquarters of the Sixteenth Bavarian Reserve Regiment. He was wounded twice and awarded the Iron Cross of the 2nd and 1st degrees.

Leader of the NDSAP

Hitler perceived the defeat of the German Empire in the war and the November Revolution of 1918 as a personal tragedy. He considered the Weimar Republic to be the product of traitors who “stabbed in the back” the victorious German army.

At the end of 1918 he returned to Munich and joined the Reichswehr. On behalf of the command, he was engaged in collecting compromising material on participants in the revolutionary events in Munich. On the recommendation of Captain E. Rehm (who became Hitler's closest ally), he became a member of the Munich right-wing radical organization - the German Workers' Party. Quickly ousting its founders from the leadership of the party, he became the absolute leader - the Fuhrer. On Hitler's initiative, in 1919 the party adopted a new name - the German National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (in German transcription NSDAP). In German journalism of that time, the party was ironically called “Nazi” and its supporters “Nazis.” This name stuck with the NSDAP.

The basic ideas of Hitler that had emerged by this time were reflected in the NSDAP program (25 points), the core of which was the following requirements:Software installations of Nazism

restoring the power of Germany by uniting all Germans under a single state roof,

assertion of the dominance of the German Empire in Europe, mainly in the east of the continent - in the Slavic lands,

cleansing German territory from the “foreigners” littering it, especially Jews,

liquidation of the “rotten” parliamentary regime, replacing it with a vertical hierarchy corresponding to the German spirit, in which the will of the people

personified in a leader endowed with absolute power,

liberation of the people from the dictates of global financial capital and full support for small and handicraft production, creativity of people in liberal professions.

These ideas were outlined in Hitler's autobiographical book "My Struggle".

"Beer putsch"

By the beginning of the 1920s. The NSDAP has become one of the most prominent right-wing extremist organizations in Bavaria. E. Rehm stood at the head of the assault troops (German abbreviation SA). Hitler quickly became a political figure to be reckoned with, at least within Bavaria.

By the end of 1923, the crisis in Germany worsened. In Bavaria, supporters of the overthrow of the parliamentary government and the establishment of a dictatorship grouped around the head of the Bavarian administration, von Kahr; an active role in the coup was assigned to Hitler and his party.

On November 8, 1923, Hitler, speaking at a rally in the Munich beer hall "Bürgerbraukeler", proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and announced the overthrow of the government of traitors in Berlin. Top Bavarian officials, led by von Kahr, joined in this statement. At night, NSDAP assault troops began to occupy administrative buildings in Munich. However, soon von Kar and his entourage decided to compromise with the center. When Hitler led his supporters into the central square on November 9 and led them to the Feldgerenhala, Reichswehr units opened fire on them. Carrying away the dead and wounded, the Nazis and their supporters fled the streets. This episode went down in German history under the name “Beer Hall Putsch.”

In February - March 1924, the trial of the leaders of the coup took place. Only Hitler and several of his associates were in the dock. The court sentenced Hitler to 5 years in prison, but after 9 months he was released.

Hitler Reich Chancellor

During the absence of the leader, the party disintegrated. Hitler had to practically start all over again. Rem provided him with great help, beginning the restoration of the assault troops. However, a decisive role in the revival of the NSDAP was played by Gregor Strasser, the leader of right-wing extremist movements in North and North-West Germany. By bringing them into the ranks of the NSDAP, he helped transform the party from a regional (Bavarian) into a national political force.

Meanwhile, Hitler was looking for support at the all-German level. He managed to win the trust of the generals, as well as establish contacts with industrial magnates. When parliamentary elections in 1930 and 1932 brought the Nazis a significant increase in parliamentary mandates, the ruling circles of the country began to seriously consider the NSDAP as a possible participant in government combinations. An attempt was made to remove Hitler from the leadership of the party and rely on Strasser. However, Hitler managed to quickly isolate his associate and close friend and deprive him of all influence in the party. In the end, the German leadership decided to give Hitler the main administrative and political post, surrounding him (just in case) with guardians from traditional conservative parties. On January 31, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Reich Chancellor (Prime Minister of Germany).

Already in the first months of his stay in power, Hitler demonstrated that he did not intend to take into account restrictions, no matter who they came from. Using the Nazi-organized burning of the parliament building (Reichstag) as a pretext, he began the wholesale “unification” of Germany. First the communist and then the social democratic parties were banned. A number of parties were forced to dissolve themselves. Trade unions were liquidated, the property of which was transferred to the Nazi labor front. Opponents of the new government were sent to concentration camps without trial or investigation. Mass persecution of “foreigners” began, culminating a few years later in Operation Endlözung (Final Solution), aimed at the physical extermination of the entire Jewish population. Hitler's personal (real and potential) rivals in the party (and outside it) did not escape repression. On June 30, he personally took part in the destruction of SA leaders who were suspected of disloyalty to the Fuhrer. The first victim of this massacre was Hitler's longtime ally, Rehm. Strasser, von Kahr, former Reich Chancellor General Schleicher and other figures were physically destroyed. Hitler acquired absolute power over Germany.

In 1936-1939, Germany, under the leadership of Hitler, provided significant assistance to the Francoists during the Spanish Civil War. In 1938, Austria was occupied, then Czechoslovakia (the so-called “Munich Agreement”).

To strengthen the mass base of his regime, Hitler carried out a number of measures designed to gain popular support. Unemployment was sharply reduced and then eliminated. Large-scale humanitarian aid campaigns have been launched for people in need. Mass, cultural and sports celebrations, etc. were encouraged. However, the basis of the policy of the Hitler regime was preparation for revenge for the lost First World War. For this purpose, industry was reconstructed, large-scale construction began, and strategic reserves were created. In the spirit of revenge, propaganda indoctrination of the population was carried out.The Second World War

Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany's military efforts. The small Reichswehr was transformed into a million-strong Wehrmacht, tank troops and military aviation were restored. The status of the demilitarized Rhine Zone was abolished. Having secured Stalin's approval, Hitler sent his troops into Poland.

In 1939, World War II began. Having achieved success in military operations against France and England and conquered almost the entire western part of the continent, in 1941 Hitler turned his troops against the Soviet Union. The defeats of the Soviet troops at the first stage of the Soviet-German war led to the occupation by Hitler's troops of the Baltic republics, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and part of Russia. A brutal occupation regime was established in the occupied territories, which killed many millions of people.

However, from the end of 1942, Hitler’s armies began to suffer defeats. In 1944, Soviet territory was liberated from occupation, and fighting approached the German borders. Hitler's troops were forced to retreat in the west as a result of the offensive of the Anglo-American divisions that landed in Italy and on the coast of France.

Suicide of the Fuhrer

In 1944, a conspiracy was organized against Hitler, the purpose of which was his physical elimination and the conclusion of peace with the advancing Allied forces.

The Fuhrer was aware that the complete defeat of Germany was inevitably approaching. On April 30, 1945, in besieged Berlin, Hitler, together with his partner Eva Braun (whom he had married the day before), committed suicide, having previously killed his beloved dog Blondie. The Fuhrer's corpse was burned by those close to him in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery.