First day of the war. Preparing for a counteroffensive

Reviews about the book:

It will be useful only for those who want to consider and learn the history of the birth of the USSR “from all sides.” I recommend reading it to people with an analytical mind, who can separate the author’s personal opinion from the real facts of history from the text. P.S. The author of the book, judging by what is written, does not digest the times of the USSR, he is an opponent of those years.

Abramov Ivan0

Other books on similar topics:

See also in other dictionaries:

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia

The article is devoted to the actions of Stalin in the period June 29-30, 1941, when, according to memoirs, the head of the Soviet state I.V. Stalin in the critical days after the fall of Minsk was in a depressive non-working state, called ... ... Wikipedia - This term has other meanings, see State Defense Committee (disambiguation). They should not be confused with state committees, the central government bodies of the USSR. Not to be confused with committees at... ... Wikipedia

In most memoirs of Soviet military leaders, the idea is tirelessly repeated that the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found the majority of the Red Army soldiers sleeping peacefully, which is why the troops of the border districts were defeated. Naturally, Stalin is to blame, who did not heed the warnings of the military and until the last resisted putting the army on combat readiness...

Likewise, French and German generals swore in their memoirs that they tried their best to dissuade Napoleon and Hitler, respectively, from attacking Russia, but they did not listen. The goal in all three cases is the same - to shift the blame for defeats from oneself to the head of state, and each time studying the documents gives a completely opposite picture.

Ten days to assemble an army

Who was in Stalin's office

And who, by the way, said that he didn’t do this?

Nikita Khrushchev claimed that in the first week of the war, Stalin withdrew from affairs and was in prostration. Western historians also wrote that the head of the USSR disappeared from the media for 10 days. We decided to find out what Stalin was doing after June 22, 1941.

June 22

Georgy Zhukov claimed that he called Stalin at half past midnight before the start of the war and informed him about the state of affairs on the border. The Kremlin already knew about the defector’s reports about Hitler’s order to attack the USSR. Most sources indicate that Joseph Vissarionovich expressed doubts about the reliability of this information.

After receiving the first information about the bombing, he appeared in his office at 5:45 a.m., as recorded in the visitors’ notebook.

“His pockmarked face was drawn. A depressed mood was visible in him,” recalled the manager of the Council of People’s Commissars, Yakov Chadayev. At seven in the morning, Stalin made a call to the first secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, in Minsk and urged him to “personally transfer his work to the Military Council of the front.”

In this conversation, Joseph Stalin spoke unsatisfactorily about the military. In particular, he said: “The headquarters doesn’t know the situation well.”

In general, historians characterize this day as a time of uncertainty and expectation of reliable information from the fronts. The last visitor left Stalin's office at 16:45.

June 23

The visitors' notebook notes that Stalin twice received senior Soviet officials. Molotov was the first to enter at 3:20 a.m., the last to leave was the head of the 1st department (protection of senior officials) of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR, Nikolai Vlasik, at one in the morning the next day. On this day, Stalin signed the Decree on general open mobilization.

June 24

On this day, the first to enter Stalin’s office was the People’s Commissar of Medium Engineering of the USSR, Vyacheslav Malyshev. It was at 16:20. By all accounts, the USSR became aware of the impending catastrophe.

Stalin decided to form an Evacuation Council, headed by Kosygin and Shvernik. Subsequent events showed how correct and timely this step was. The same can be said about the creation of the Soviet Information Bureau.

June 25

On this day, numerous meetings were recorded in the visitors' notebook. Stalin received his subordinates twice: from midnight to 5:50 am and from 19:40 to 1 am on June 26.

He signed the directive “On the formation of the Army Group of the Reserve of the High Command” under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny. This decision indicated that Moscow was aware of the possibility of the Wehrmacht’s main attack turning from the center to the south.

Orders were also given for the forced withdrawal of the 3rd and 10th armies in order to escape the threat of encirclement near Minsk. At the same time, the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, Yakov Chadayev, witnessed Stalin's conversation with the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Semyon Timoshenko about Yakov Dzhugashvili, who asked to go to war.

Stalin categorically spoke out against any benefits for his eldest son. Order No. 222 “On the immediate implementation of the procedure for considering cases by military tribunals” was signed. The Kremlin did not forget about Germany’s allies. Soviet aviation bombed southern and central Finland, primarily Helsinki and Turku.

June 26

Stalin's working day began at 12 hours 10 minutes and ended at 23 hours 20 minutes. Information from the fronts was still unstable. From the orders signed on this day, the specifics of the decisions taken should be noted:

The procedure for issuing benefits and field money to active-duty military personnel.
- Transformation of transport prosecutor's offices of railways and water basins into military prosecutor's offices.
- Transfer of ownership of uniforms issued to privates and junior commanding officers leaving for the front.

Stalin also held an emergency meeting with Zhukov, who was urgently recalled from the Southwestern Front, with Timoshenko and Vatutin. It was about the dramatic situation on the Western Front. German tanks approached Minsk.

June 27

On this day, Stalin began receiving visitors in his office from half past five in the evening until almost three in the morning on the 28th. A meeting of Politburo members was held.

Joseph Vissarionovich proposed mobilizing the communists in order to strengthen control in the troops and emphasize ideological and political work in the Red Army.

Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party were also signed “on the removal from Moscow of state reserves of valuable metals, precious stones, the Diamond Fund of the USSR and the valuables of the Kremlin Armory.”

By this time, numerous facts of German atrocities had already become known, so it was decided to organize the removal of people from territories that could be occupied by the enemy.

June 28

The first name in the visitors' notebook is Molotov, who entered Stalin's office at half past seven in the evening. The last to leave was Merkulov at 00:15 on the 29th.

Stalin spent almost the entire day alone. Historian Georgy Kumanev, who repeatedly talked with Molotov, referring to the words of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, wrote about the deep experiences of the first person of the state, associated primarily with political miscalculations.

“He really didn’t believe that war was so close. And this position of his turned out to be wrong,” Molotov recalled. British historian Simon Montefiore also adheres to this version: “A nervous breakdown seems quite plausible and possible. Stalin was greatly depressed by the failures at the front and was mortally tired.”

At the same time, there are disagreements among historians regarding the date of the psychological crisis that led to the conflict with the military.

June 29

According to Zhukov, on June 29, Stalin visited the People's Commissariat of Defense twice, where a conflict occurred between the head of state and the high command. The military received harsh criticism about the helplessness of the highest ranks of the Red Army, who cannot even establish normal communication.

Molotov subsequently spoke about the conversation in a raised voice, turning into insulting reproaches.

“...Stalin lost his composure when he learned that the Germans were in charge of Minsk for the second day, and to the west of the capital of Belarus, the enemy slammed a trap around the bulk of the troops of the Western Front, which meant: the way for Hitler’s armies to Moscow was open,” wrote Ivan Stadnyuk, relying on eyewitnesses of that meetings.

Meanwhile, there are other official documents that speak of overcoming the crisis of power. In particular, on this day, the People's Commissariat of Defense, in agreement with Stalin, established the post of Air Force commander with the broadest powers. Pavel Zhigarev was appointed to this position.

Stalin expanded the range of issues that the new head of combat aviation could decide independently. He explained this by saying that this branch of the military must respond to threats as quickly as possible, and not engage in various approvals.

The situation in the sky began to gradually improve, as far as possible under those conditions. The obvious correctness of this decision was demonstrated by the battle for Moscow.

There is also an alternative version, according to which Stalin withdrew from governing the country. It is based on the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, who referred to the stories of Lavrentiy Beria.

The general position of anti-Stalinist historians boils down to the actual desertion of the head of state at the beginning of the war. In particular, American bibliographers of Stalin (Jonathan Lewis and Philip Whitehead) described this period as follows: “Stalin was in prostration. For a week he rarely left his villa in Kuntsevo. His name disappeared from the newspapers. For 10 days the Soviet Union had no leader Only on July 1 did Stalin come to his senses.” However, historical documents indicate the opposite.

On the same topic:

Where was Stalin actually hiding in the first days of the war?

76 years ago, on the night of June 21-22, 1941, fighting broke out along almost the entire western border of the Soviet Union. The Red Army suffered heavy losses, but nevertheless fought battles in the border areas, which eventually made it possible to mobilize the army, as well as to evacuate industry and property.

The first day of the war did not become the bloodiest or the most significant in the series that followed it - everything was still just beginning, and there were four years of battles ahead. However, it was June 22, 1941 that became a watershed that forever changed the fate of tens of millions of Soviet people. How did the events of that day develop?

22.06, 03:55–03:57

22.06, 04:30–05:00

22.06, 06:40–07:00

22.06, 08:30–09:00

22.06, 12:00–13:00

22.06, 14:00–16:00

03:45, Baltic Sea. The death of the ship "Gaisma"

Returning from laying mines, four German boats intercepted the Soviet steamer Gaisma off the southeastern coast of Gotland. The ship was traveling from Riga to Lubeck with a cargo of timber. Without any warning, the ship was fired upon and then sunk by two torpedoes. Radio operator Stepan Savitsky managed to broadcast a radiogram at the last moment at 4:15: “Torpedoed. "Gaisma" is sinking. Farewell". His radiogram saved several other Soviet ships.

The blast wave threw most of the crew overboard. The sailors who found themselves in the water were shot by the Germans with machine guns. Six people died, two were captured. The remaining 24 crew members reached the Latvian coast by boat 14 hours later, where they buried Captain N.G., who had died from his wounds. Duve.

German torpedo boats of the 3rd flotilla moored alongside the mother ship Adolf Lüderitz, Finland, 1941. It was the boats of this flotilla, S 59 and S 60, that sank the steamer Gaisma.

The air battle of June 22 was one of the most intense in the history of war. The symbol of the first day of the Great Patriotic War was the attacks of German aircraft on Soviet airfields. Recalls the former pilot of the 165th Fighter Aviation Regiment, later Hero of the Soviet Union, Sergei Dmitrievich Gorelov: “Three regiments – about 200 aircraft – were concentrated at the Lvov airfield. And just on my birthday, at three o’clock in the morning, they started bombing us. We all jumped up, ran to the airfield, and there... Almost all the planes were destroyed or damaged. My I-16 was no exception. When I approached him, it seemed to me that he, askew, with a broken left wing, seemed to be looking at me and asking: “Where are you going? Why the hell are you sleeping?

“Sleeping airfields” that turned into gasoline fires in the very first few minutes of the war are, in fact, just an established cliche. Of course, there were also such cases - for example, the 66th attack air regiment in the Lvov region simultaneously lost 34 aircraft, more than half of the 63 aircraft of the air regiment. However, a much more common scheme was to warn about a raid by ground services, lift the duty unit into the air and fight, successful or unsuccessful. Thus, at 04:55 in the morning in the Dubno area, fighter pilot of the 46th IAP Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov shot down a German Heinkel-111 bomber with a ramming attack after expending its ammunition.

A line of I-153 Chaika fighters destroyed on June 22 at Alytus airfield. In the newly formed 236th IAP, to which they belonged, due to a shortage of flight personnel, there was no one to take them into the air.

This was a large-scale Luftwaffe operation, the goal of which was achieved through successive attacks on the same targets. Success for the attackers often came not from the first, but from the third or even fifth strike on airfields, when Soviet duty units found themselves in the process of refueling or reloading weapons. The main problem of the Soviet Air Force was the lack of airfield maneuver, that is, the ability to fly to another site, since in the spring of 1941, the construction of concrete runways began at many airfields in the border districts, and the air regiments were forced to remain on the same sites where they met the war. What happened next was a matter of technique - a conveyor belt of air strikes against the same targets brought success to the Luftwaffe, if not on June 22, then a day or two later.

USSR border. Artillery preparation begins, lasting 20–30 minutes along the entire border

From the memoirs of German tank officer Oscar Munzel: “Powerful artillery fire from heavy guns breaks up wisps of fog. Here and there beyond the Bug, shell explosions are heard. At 03:15 Berlin time the infantry begins its attack. It turned out to be a complete surprise for the enemy, and he offers almost no resistance... The crossing of the Bug is proceeding flawlessly.”

German infantry is preparing to cross the Bug in rubber boats.

There was no time to withdraw troops from the Brest Fortress before the start of hostilities. The withdrawal took three hours, and in fact it didn’t even have time to start. The fortress became a mousetrap for the units located in it. Already in the first minutes of the war, a hail of artillery shells and volleys of rocket launchers fell upon it.

Defender of the Brest Fortress Ivan Dolotov recalls: “On the night of June 22, 1941, about half of the regiment was on the territory of the fortress. A large team was on the night shift at the construction of a bunker at Fort Berg. Regimental school in the camp. As a result of a sudden hurricane attack by artillery and aviation, catastrophic destruction of the barracks and other buildings occurred in the fortress. There were many killed and wounded, stone buildings and the ground were burning. On a combat alert, the unit on duty, Lieutenant Korotkov, lined up the available personnel in the corridor and ordered: take up defensive positions at the windows of the first floor of the barracks...”

Everything that was outside the strong casemates was swept away by fire. Artillery and vehicles in open parks instantly became a pile of twisted iron. Next to the guns at the hitching posts stood the horses of the artillery and mortar units. The unfortunate animals were already killed by shrapnel in the first hours of the war. All exits from the citadel of the fortress were cluttered with broken equipment.

Due to the fact that parts of two Soviet divisions were unable to leave the Brest Fortress, they were unable to take up defensive positions on the border. On both sides of Brest, bypassing the fortress, units of Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group invaded the territory of the USSR.

As for the assault on the fortress itself, the German command seriously miscalculated in assessing the strength of its walls. Later, in his report on the assault, the commander of the 45th Infantry Division, General Schlipper, admitted: “The plan for the artillery attack was not designed so much for actual action as rather entirely for surprise.”

In other words, they wanted to frighten Soviet soldiers and commanders. This became one of the first miscalculations of the German command in the war with the USSR. The soldiers stationed in the casemates of the fortress survived a barrage of artillery fire. When German infantry entered the fortress, they were met with counterattacks and machine gun and rifle fire from all sides. For the first time during the war with the USSR, the German commander gave the order to retreat. A group of Germans who broke into the citadel found themselves surrounded and blocked in the club - a former church. Instead of a quick capture within a few hours, the battles for the Brest Fortress turned into a multi-day epic for the Germans with constant losses.

USSR border. German infantry goes on the offensive

Border guard Anatoly Loginov recalls: “When the war started, I was on duty at the outpost. At about 2-3 o'clock, heavy bombers, Junkers, passed to the east at high altitude. Around four the artillery opened fire. She shot for about ten minutes. The head of the outpost asks:

- Well, sergeant major? War or provocation?

- War.

- Well, then take the right flag with the soldiers. We will fight.

Soon the infantry came, I won’t say en masse. We had good weapons: two heavy machine guns, SVT automatic rifles and one PPD machine gun. We fought until about five o'clock, the guys launched a counterattack 3-4 times. At 5 o’clock, an order came from the commandant’s office with a messenger to abandon the state border and join the regular units of the Red Army.”

The Red Army machine gunners fought to the last.

Berlin. Meeting of USSR Ambassador Vladimir Dekanozov with German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. The minister handed the ambassador a note that actually announced the start of war

The translator of the USSR Ambassador in Berlin, Vladimir Dekanozov, Valentin Berezhkov recalled:

“Suddenly at 5 a.m. Moscow time... the phone rang. An unfamiliar voice announced that Reich Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was waiting for Soviet representatives in his office at the Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse.

Having driven out onto Wilhelmstrasse, from a distance we saw a crowd near the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although it was already dawn, the entrance with a cast-iron canopy was brightly illuminated by floodlights. Photographers, cameramen, and journalists were bustling around. The official jumped out of the car first and opened the door wide. We went out, blinded by the light of Jupiters and the flashes of magnesium lamps. An alarming thought flashed through my head - is this really war? There was no other way to explain such a pandemonium on Wilhelmstrasse, especially at night...

When we came close to the desk, Ribbentrop stood up, silently nodded his head, extended his hand and invited us to follow him to the opposite corner of the room at the round table. Ribbentrop had a swollen crimson face and dull, as if frozen, inflamed eyes. He walked ahead of us, head down and staggering a little. “Is he drunk?” – flashed through my head.

After we sat down at the round table and Ribbentrop began to speak, my assumption was confirmed. He apparently really drank heavily.

Stumbling over almost every word, he began to explain rather confusingly that the German government had information regarding the increased concentration of Soviet troops on the German border. Ignoring the fact that over the past weeks the Soviet embassy, ​​on behalf of Moscow, has repeatedly drawn the attention of the German side to flagrant cases of violation of the border of the Soviet Union by German soldiers and aircraft, Ribbentrop stated that Soviet soldiers violated the German border and invaded German territory, although there were no such facts in there was no reality."

This is what the building of the German Foreign Office looked like at Wilhelmstrasse 76

Moscow. Meeting between People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov and German Ambassador to Moscow Schulenburg. The Ambassador handed over a note from the German government

On the night of June 22, a telegram arrived from Berlin, which ordered Schulenburg to immediately go to Molotov and declare that the movements of Soviet troops on the German border had assumed such a scale that the Reich government could not ignore. It therefore decided to take appropriate countermeasures. The telegram emphasized that the ambassador should not enter into any discussions with Molotov.

On the morning of June 22, the USSR Foreign Minister saw the German Ambassador for the second time in a few hours, but the situation had changed dramatically during this time.

From the report of the German 51st Assault Engineer Battalion: “The Russian soldiers put up an outstanding resistance, surrendering only when they were wounded and fighting to the last. Individual elements of the Russian fortified line were exceptionally good in terms of material and weapons. The concrete was mostly a mixture of granite, cement and iron, which was very strong and could withstand heavy artillery fire.”

The fortifications that had just been built on the new border and their garrisons, following the border guards, stood up to defend the country. Their stubborn resistance held back the enemy's onslaught. The fortified areas inflicted the first significant losses on the Germans. The commander of the German 28th Infantry Division, in a report on the battles in the Sopotskin area in Belarus, wrote: “In the fortification area from Sopotskino and to the north... we are talking, first of all, about the enemy, who firmly decided to hold on at all costs and did so... Only with the help of powerful demolition weapons could one destroy one bunker after another... The division’s means were not enough to capture numerous structures.”

German sappers move forward to blow up a Soviet bunker.

Even unoccupied and uncombat-ready bunkers in the Baltics forced the Germans to spend time on artillery training on concrete boxes in formwork. Only after this did the infantrymen cautiously approach them. However, the insufficient number of troops in the border armies did not allow them to take up a strong defense along the line of fortifications on the state border. The bunkers held back the onslaught of the German armies, but could not stop it for more than a few hours. German heavy artillery and sappers broke through corridors in the defense of fortified areas. Columns of tanks and motorized infantry broke through them into the territory of the USSR.

Tallinn. The command of the Baltic Fleet received a radiogram from People's Commissar N.K. Kuznetsov with an order to begin the measures provided for in the cover plan. The fleet began mine laying

Minelayer "Marty" - a participant in the first Soviet mine laying of the Great Patriotic War in the Baltic.

The first raids of Soviet bombers on enemy territory. Aircraft of the 7th Mixed Air Division bomb troop concentrations in the Tilsit area

Crashed SB bomber. It was this aircraft that was the main vehicle of the Soviet bomber aviation at the beginning of the war - unfortunately, it was extremely vulnerable, both due to obsolescence and due to improper use.

Moscow. Following the official declaration of war, Directive No. 2 was sent to the troops

"1. The troops are to attack enemy forces with all their might and means and destroy them in areas where they have violated the Soviet border.

2. Using reconnaissance and combat aircraft to establish the concentration areas of enemy aircraft and the grouping of their ground forces.

Using powerful strikes from bomber and attack aircraft, destroy aircraft at enemy airfields and bomb groups of his ground forces. Air strikes should be carried out to a depth of 100–150 km on German territory.”

The crew of the Soviet BT tank, 1941. There is calm and determination on their faces.

Bombing of airfields in the capital of Ukraine Kyiv

Nikolai Dupak, a film actor who was filming in Kyiv in 1941, recalls: “On Saturday I was reading and re-reading something - I went to bed late and woke up from gunfire. I go out onto the balcony, a man also comes out of the next room: “What is that?” - “Yes, there may be maneuvers of the Kyiv Military District.” As soon as he said this, and suddenly, maybe a hundred meters away, a plane with a swastika turns around and goes to bomb the bridge over the Dnieper. It was around 7 am...”

Not all of the first Luftwaffe raids took place with impunity - as for this Junkers Ju-88.

Lithuania. The motorized brigade of the German 7th Panzer Division reached Kalvaria

Soldiers of the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht march on Lithuanian soil, summer 1941

Lithuania. The Germans bring mechanized troops into battle in the directions of Taurage, Siauliai; Kybartai, Kaunas and Kalvaria, Alytus

Soviet T-28 tanks abandoned by the crews in the Alytus area. In conditions of retreat, the slightest malfunction meant the loss of equipment.

Lithuania. The infantry of the 291st Wehrmacht division occupied Palanga

As long as the offensive is progressing well, you can be favorable towards the prisoners. Interrogation of an unknown Soviet pilot, everyone is in a good mood.

Brest is captured, resistance is offered only by soldiers in the Brest Fortress and in the railway station building

A German infantryman in the Brest Fortress on the banks of the Bug, in front is the ring barracks of its citadel. You can see how serious the artillery and mortar fire was, destroying almost all the vegetation.

Moscow. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov reads an appeal to the citizens of the Soviet Union on the radio

Soviet people greeted the news of the start of the war in different ways.

Dmitry Bulgakov recalls: “I lived in the village of Skorodnoye, Bolshesoldatsky district, Kursk region. It was pouring rain that day. I was sitting at home, and suddenly I saw my friend and like-minded person Seryozha running through the mud. He and I were very worried that we would not be able to go to war - Khalkhin Gol and the Finnish War ended without us. Successful... Runs: “War!” We ran to the club in the rain and through the mud. And there people gather, a rally. There were no visitors from the area, only local assets - a bookkeeper, an accountant. Speakers: “We will smash them! This and that”... And when the Germans arrived, they were collecting eggs for them... The mood was like this - it’s a pity that we won’t get there, because they will quickly be defeated, and again we won’t get anything.”

Sofia Fatkulina: “When the war began, it was such a terrible picture! Horses galloped into all the villages and reported that the war had begun. At the age of conscription I went to the military registration and enlistment office. On the Volga, those leaving for the front were loaded onto ships. You know, everyone stood on the shore, and the whole Volga was crying.”

Announcement of the start of war.

Alexey Maksimenko: “I met the war in Kuibyshev on the way to my place of service. The train stopped. I went out onto the platform, took a mug of beer, and I saw that people had gathered at the loudspeaker, listening: “War!” Women are baptized. I didn’t finish my glass of beer and quickly got on the train so as not to miss it. Something like this: “There’s a war there, and you’re drinking beer here.” I got into the carriage, and in it the conversation was only about the war: “How can this be?!” We have a friendship treaty with the Germans?! Why did they start?!” The older ones say: “Of course they promised, but look - they have already captured half of Europe, and now it’s our turn. There were bourgeois states there, they occupied them, but we have a communist regime - all the more so it’s like a bone in their throat. Now it will be difficult for us to fight them.” There was an understanding that something terrible had happened, but at that time, being 18 years old, I was not able to appreciate the tragedy and complexity of the situation.”

Maryana Milutina recalls: “I was in my third year at the 1st Medical Institute. That day we had an exam in physiology, which I did not know. When I heard on the radio that the war had started, I thought: “How good, maybe they’ll give me at least a C!” So my first feeling was a feeling of relief.”

Olympics Polyakova writes in her diary: “...Is our liberation really approaching? Whatever the Germans are, they won’t be worse than ours. And what do we care about the Germans? We will live without them. The Germans will win - there is no doubt. Forgive me Lord! I am not an enemy of my people, my homeland... But we must face the truth: we all, all of Russia, passionately desire victory for the enemy, whatever he may be.”

Sobering up will come in just six months, when Polyakova finds herself in the hungry and cold occupied Gatchina. Three years later, in the spring of 1945 near Munich, according to her friend Vera Pirozhkova, “...she has already stated that all Germans should be put in a concentration camp. I asked again: “Everyone?” She thought for a second and answered firmly: “Everyone.”.

On the faces of Muscovites there is a whole gamut of feelings.

Valentin Rychkov recalls: “The adults greeted the war with tears in their eyes, with concern, and upset. They ran to each other, whispered, exchanged opinions, and realized that a terrible disaster was approaching. And we, the youth, are enthusiastic and militant. We gathered in the city garden on the dance floor, but there was no talk of any dancing. We all split into two groups. One group of “military specialists” argued that in 2–3 weeks there would be nothing left of the Nazis. The second, more sedate group said: “No, not 2-3 weeks, but 2-3 months - and we will have a complete victory, they will defeat the fascists.” What added excitement to this was an unusual phenomenon. At this time in the west there was not the usual “sunset like a sunset”, but a crimson-red-bloody one! They also said: “It was our Red Army that attacked the Germans with all its firepower, as can be seen even in Siberia!” And I... Now I don’t know for what reason, but then I stood and thought: “What are they talking about?” My friend Romashko, who is still alive and can confirm, asks: “And you, Valka, why are you standing and not speaking your opinion?” And I say literally the following: “No, guys, our victory will take at least 2-3 years.” What a fuss has started here! How could I not be insulted! How they weren’t accused! I kept thinking, if only I wouldn’t get punched in the face for such a forecast. But it turned out that, although I was closer to the truth, I was very, very wrong..."

An optimistic mood was characteristic of the majority of young patriots, brought up by “victorious” films like “If Tomorrow is War,” literary works by writers like Nikolai Shpanov and massive propaganda that assured that “We will beat the enemy on his territory”. The organizational and instructional department of the personnel management of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks reported: “The mobilization is taking place in an organized manner, in accordance with the plans. The mood of those mobilized is cheerful and confident... a large number of applications are received for enlistment in the ranks of the Red Army... There are many facts when girls ask to go to the front... rallies in factories and factories, on collective farms and institutions are held with great patriotic enthusiasm ".

Unlike the youth, who perceived what was happening almost as a holiday, the older generation, who remembered the First World War and the Civil War, did not feel much enthusiasm and habitually began to prepare for long-term hardships. In the very first hours of the war, queues grew in shops and markets. People bought salt, matches, soap, sugar and other food and essential goods. Many took savings from savings banks and tried to cash in domestic loan bonds. “We rushed to the store. People were running through the streets, buying everything they had in stores, but there was nothing left for us, there were only assorted sets, we bought five boxes and returned home.”, - recalls Nikolai Obrynba.

Rome, Italy. Italian Foreign Minister Ciano di Cortelazzo reads out the Italian government's declaration of war to USSR Ambassador Gorelkin

Due to the fact that Germany declared war on the USSR, Italy, as an ally of Germany and a member of the Triple Alliance, also declared war on the Soviet Union from the moment German troops entered Soviet territory - that is, from 05:30 on the morning of June 22. The exchange of embassies between the government of Italy and the government of the Soviet Union had to be settled through intermediaries.

For the Italians, entering the war against the USSR turned out to be a disastrous gamble. In the photo, the commander of the Italian Expeditionary Force, General Giovanni Messe, inspects his soldiers.

Western Belarus. The German 18th Panzer Division engages the Soviet 30th Panzer Division of the 14th Mechanized Corps. The first tank battle on the Soviet-German front

Late series T-26 tanks left by the crews in the city of Kobrin from the 14th Mechanized Corps.

Lithuania. The Germans are drawn into street battles for the city of Taurage in Lithuania

Lieutenant General V.F. recalls Zotov: “At 4:00 on June 22, we were awakened by the explosions of artillery shells... The explosion of the first shells set fire to the house where the headquarters of the 125th Infantry Division was located... The city was shelled by hurricane fire from enemy artillery. Knowing that the buildings in the city were mostly wooden, the enemy fired mainly with incendiary shells, as a result of which the city was on fire 15–20 minutes after the start of the artillery shelling.”

However, the troops of the Baltic District managed to occupy the defense zones assigned to them even before the war.

Soon German tanks and motorized infantry in armored personnel carriers approached the burning city. The highway bridge over the Jura River was blown up, but the railway bridge fell into the hands of the attackers intact. The battle for Taurage resulted in intense street fighting. The combat log of the German 1st Panzer Division that stormed the city emphasized: "The enemy fights stubbornly and fiercely".

German motorcyclists at the entrance to Taurage (German: Taurogen)

Until late at night in Taurage there were battles for every house and every crossroads. Only by midnight the Soviet units defending the city were pushed back to the northeastern outskirts. German Colonel Ritgen, who served at that time in the 6th Panzer Division advancing in the same direction, recalled: “Enemy resistance in our sector turned out to be much stronger than expected. Our path was blocked by six anti-tank ditches, covered by infantrymen and snipers perched in the trees. Fortunately for us, they did not have anti-tank guns or mines. Since no one surrendered, there were no prisoners."

The Soviet infantrymen defended themselves stubbornly and fiercely, but the forces were unequal. The 125th Rifle Division, stretched along the front, was immediately attacked by an entire German tank corps. By the night of June 22-23, the division was practically destroyed. The final finishing blow came at night. The division headquarters came under a sudden attack. A number of headquarters commanders were killed or went missing, and communications equipment was lost. To add insult to injury, the unit was decapitated. German tanks continued their advance along the highway to Siauliai.

Lithuania. A major success for the German 3rd Panzer Group: two bridges across the Neman near the city of Alytus were captured intact

The bridges across the Neman were prepared for explosion by the 4th Engineer Regiment of the Baltic Special District, but the bridges were not destroyed. It is possible that saboteurs from Brandenburg had a hand in this.

Capturing existing bridges intact and quickly building temporary ones is one of the components of the success of the German blitzkrieg. The photo shows an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun, the famous “akht-akht,” crossing the river.

As soon as the first German tanks reached the eastern bank of the river, they were met by fire from Soviet tanks. This was the first meeting of German tank crews with T-34 tanks. The T-34, stationed in a position next to the bridge, immediately knocked out a PzKpfw 38(t) that had crossed the river. Return fire from the 37 mm guns of the German tanks was ineffective. Participants in the battles recalled:

“The chief of staff, Major Belikov, ordered us to go to the western part of the city and find out what was burning there... A whole column of civilians was walking towards us from the city... The crowd moved apart in both directions and we drove at full speed. But when we passed, people from the crowd started shooting at us with machine guns and our motorcycle was knocked out in front of our barracks.

At about 11:30, they brought to the headquarters a wet woman who had swam across the Neman, who said that she had seen German tanks outside the city, but immediately the prosecutor shouted “provocation, spy,” and immediately shot her. 30 minutes later, near the bridge, the soldiers detained a man who was Lithuanian and told us in broken Russian that German tanks were already in the city, but the detective shot him too and called him a provocateur.

We approached our tank, knocked, and the hatch opened. We say that German tanks are on the road next to us, and the tank driver replies that he does not have armor-piercing shells. We approached another tank, there was a platoon commander who quickly ordered: follow me! and two or three tanks immediately turned out of the bushes, went straight at the German tanks - shooting at the German tanks as they went, and then came right up close - rammed them and threw them into a ditch (they destroyed half a dozen German tanks and did not lose a single one). And they rushed across the bridge to the west bank. But as soon as we crossed the bridge, we met a group of German tanks, one of which immediately caught fire, and then ours caught fire. Then I saw only fire, smoke, heard the roar of explosions and the clang of metal.”

Moscow. At a meeting with Stalin, a decision was made on mobilization according to an enhanced version, a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces on mobilization was prepared and signed

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR announces mobilization on the territory of the following military districts: Leningrad, Baltic special, Western special, Kyiv special, Odessa, Kharkov, Oryol, Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Ural, Siberian, Volga, North Caucasus and Transcaucasian. Those liable for military service who were born from 1905 to 1918 inclusive are subject to mobilization.

As of the morning of June 22, the Red Army de jure and de facto remained a peacetime army. The signal for preparations for mobilization was a government announcement on the radio at noon. Formalities followed a few hours later. The telegram announcing the mobilization was signed by the People's Commissar of Defense on June 22, 1941 at 16:00 and submitted to the Central Telegraph of the Ministry of Communications at 16:40. In 26 minutes, the mobilization telegram was sent to all republican, regional, regional and district centers.

The first day of mobilization in Moscow - the queue at the Oktyabrsky district military registration and enlistment office

Why was mobilization not announced earlier? What happened during these few hours in the Kremlin and the General Staff? Sometimes they say that Stalin fell into prostration and fled to his dacha. Entries in the log of visits to the Kremlin office do not confirm this version. Already the first decisions made indicate hard work and analysis of the situation several steps forward. According to the pre-war mobilization plan, 4.9 million people were required to be drafted to transfer the army and navy to wartime. However, when mobilization was actually announced, conscripts of 14 ages were called up at once, the total number of which was about 10 million people, i.e. almost 5.1 million people more than what was theoretically required. This suggests that the country's top leadership realized the scale of the disaster already in the middle of the day on June 22.

In fact, within a few hours after the start of the war, a plan was ready to lead the country and the army out of the crisis situation. Conscription with a large reserve made it possible to form new divisions. It was these new formations, not provided for by pre-war plans, that became life-saving reserves. They appeared at the front at critical moments, preventing the crisis from developing into a disaster. The famous Panfilov division, the formations that saved Leningrad, Moscow, which delayed the fall of Kyiv - all of them were the brainchild of mobilization telegrams sent out on June 22. When planning Barbarossa, German staff officers greatly underestimated the ability of the USSR to rebuild the army after defeats in the first battles.

UK, London. Radio broadcast of a speech by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

« Today at 4 o'clock in the morning Hitler invaded Russia. The danger for Russia is our danger and the danger of the United States. The cause of every Russian fighting for his land and home is the common cause of free people and free peoples in every part of the globe. We will provide Russia and the Russian people with all the help we can.”

The future allies kept their word - after just over two months, supplies began to the USSR, which were later secured by the Lend-Lease agreement. The photo shows British Hurricane fighters near Murmansk, autumn 1941.

Moscow. Directive No. 3 was sent to the troops

June 22 began and ended with a directive from Moscow. This was already the third directive of the day. However, as before, the orders of the high command were late for the rapid development of events. Directive No. 3 remained in history thanks to the pronounced offensive spirit that permeated all its lines. So, it stated: “The armies of the Southwestern Front, firmly holding the state border with Hungary, with concentric attacks in the general direction of Lublin with the forces of the 5th and 6th Army... encircle and destroy the enemy group advancing on the Vladimir-Volynsky, Krystynopol front, and by the end of June 26, capture the Lublin region ».

For the troops who were unable to hold the state border, these words sounded mocking. However, there were reasons for this. Head of the Operations Department of the Southwestern Front, future Marshal I.Kh. Bagramyan recalled: “I couldn’t help but think that the optimism in the assessments in the document from the center was largely inspired by our rather cheerful reports.”.

Alas, in the confusion of the first days, for many Red Army soldiers, the war ended before it began. Those who surrender pass by a column of German equipment and German soldiers lying in a ditch.

Lithuania. The vanguards of the German 57th Tank Corps of the 3rd Panzer Group reached the village of Varenai (Lithuania), having advanced 70 km in a day

“On June 22, we opened the door without understanding what was behind it,”- this is how Hitler described the beginning of the war with the USSR. The significance of this day for the course of world history is enormous, but from a military point of view it was not special: the decisions taken on this day could not radically change the situation. The turning point occurred before the invasion, when the chance to deploy the Red Army on the western border was lost. This decided the fate of the border battle - it was lost even before the start of hostilities.

German soldiers cross the border. The war has just begun...

June 22 was by no means the bloodiest day in the history of the war. It would be a mistake to believe that the Germans, who achieved a strategic surprise attack, immediately destroyed large forces of the Red Army. On the first day of the war, no major encirclements had yet occurred.

A different picture emerged in the war in the air. The air battle on June 22, 1941 covered a large area at once, with German fighter and bomber squadrons penetrating deep into the rear areas of special districts. Soviet naval bases were also hit. If the mining of exits from fleet bases was intended to intimidate, then attacks on airfields on June 22 became part of a multi-day operation to destroy the air forces of the western districts. She was the biggest success of the Germans. Most of the losses of Soviet aircraft occurred on June 22.

The first day of the war, of course, was remembered by everyone who lived at that time, better than many others from the 1418 days of the Great Patriotic War, since it was the watershed that divided people’s lives into “before” and “after.” Konstantin Simonov, who was at the front from the first days, later wrote in the novel “The Living and the Dead”:

“Where they were now hurrying, the smoke of the burning village rose higher and higher. Riding ahead of Sintsov, battalion commander Ryabchenko either covered this smoke with himself, or when his horse stumbled and turned to the side, he opened it again. - Komarov, oh Komarov! - What? - Let me smoke! – What’s going on? “Yes, so, suddenly I wanted to...” Sintsov did not explain why he wanted to. And he wanted to because, now looking at this distant smoke ahead, he tried to force himself to get used to the difficult thought that, no matter how much they had left behind them, there was still a whole war ahead.

Let's mark with dotted lines, with strokes, some seemingly insignificant episodes, which, when put together, even then signified our future Victory.

In the sky above the Brest Fortress

Memorial plaque in the Brest Fortress

The 45th German Division fought at Brest in full force until July 1, 1941. The Brest Fortress, which was the first to take the blow, did not give up. Then, two assault battalions, reinforced with artillery, were left against a handful of our fighters, surrounded on all sides and deprived of water and food.

The revival of Russia began with it.

300 years later, in 1941, Smolensk again stood as an unbreakable wall on the path of foreign troops. The Battle of Smolensk began on July 10, 1941. It was a large residential city. There was no defensive line prepared there. Already both the “Molotov Line” and the “Stalin Line” are deep behind German lines. The road to Moscow is open. Hitler knew this, and planned to take Smolensk on the move, in 12 days. But this battle lasted two months.

Battle for Smolensk

It was there, near Smolensk, that “Operation Barbarossa” finally collapsed.

We continue - with dotted lines, strokes...

Already on July 14, we used rocket artillery for the first time. “07/14/1941 at 15:15 the battery of captain I.A. Flerov struck the Orsha railway junction, where German wagons with ammunition and tanks with fuel were parked..... The enemy suffered heavy losses, and panic arose in its ranks. Those of the Nazis who survived were taken prisoner. Soviet soldiers affectionately called this miracle weapon “Katyusha,” and German soldiers nicknamed it “Stalin’s organ” (Stalinorgel).”

Aviation was increasingly used to destroy German tanks. She inflicted blows with special thermite balls and bottles with a flammable mixture.

On August 30–31, our pilots destroyed more than 100 tanks. At the same time, 8 enemy airfields were subjected to air strikes, where 57 aircraft were destroyed. So we weren’t the only ones losing planes on the ground at the beginning of the war.

On August 11, the Chief of the German General Staff, Franz Halder, wrote in his diary: “The general situation shows more and more clearly that the colossus of Russia ... was underestimated by us.”

Yelnya

We achieved our first significant success near Yelnya, where the 24th Army carried out an offensive operation from August 30 to September 8. The plan of the then General Georgy Zhukov was based on a classic two-way envelopment with the encirclement and defeat of the Germans in parts.

At 7 o'clock in the morning, about 800 guns, mortars and rocket launchers rained down a barrage of fire on the enemy. After four days of stubborn resistance, the enemy began to retreat under the threat of encirclement. On September 6, Yelnya was liberated. On September 8, the Elninsky ledge, which jutted into our defenses, was cut off. Five German divisions lost 45 thousand people in a week of fighting on one sector of the front.

Now - I ask for a moment of attention.

During the defeat of France and its entire army, during the defeat of the British expeditionary forces in France, and the capture of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, the German army lost 45,774 killed. That is, the total German losses in a week near Yelnya in September 1941 are comparable to the losses for a whole year (!) of the war in Europe. “Here, near Yelnya, the Soviet Guard was born. The first four rifle divisions (100, 127, 153 and 161st), which particularly distinguished themselves in battle, were awarded the title “Guards”.

And all this too - 1941.

The price of first successes

Near Smolensk, our irretrievable losses amounted to 486,171 people, and sanitary losses - 273,803 people. Scary numbers. But the Germans’ tank divisions also lost half of their personnel and vehicles, with total losses amounting to about half a million people. Here for the first time - already in the first months of the war - we began to reach parity in losses.

Who was the last defender of the Brest Fortress?

These people deserve the greatest admiration.

COLONEL GENERAL GUDERIAN

ABOUT THE DEFENDERS OF THE BREST FORTRESS

Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress

This book cannot limit itself to one episode with a ram in the sky over the Brest Fortress. Its defense is like a tuning fork: the Brest Fortress set the heroic tone of the entire Great Patriotic War. And even though we only became aware of the defenders’ feat after the war, the Germans knew. They knew their fate.

It would seem: how can ancient fortifications of the century before last protect against weapons of the 20th century - tanks, airplanes, flamethrowers, asphyxiating gases (and they were also used against the defenders of the fortress)?

The fortifications of Brest looked impressive, but only externally. By the way, one of the designers of the “modernization” of the forts in 1913 was the tsarist officer Dmitry Karbyshev - the same indomitable General Karbyshev, whom the Germans, together with other prisoners of the Mauthausen concentration camp, would turn into an ice block in the cold in February 1945.

The Brest Fortress attracts amazing coincidences: in a camp for Soviet prisoners of war, General Karbyshev became close to the same Major Pyotr Gavrilov, who from June 22, 1941 led the defense of the fortress. On July 23 (I repeat – JULY) Gavrilov was taken prisoner, seriously wounded. Not a week later, not ten days later - a month and one day after the start of the war. By some miracle, Major Gavrilov survived in German captivity. After his release, he was reinstated in rank and taken back into service. And in 1957, when the whole country learned about Brest’s feat, Gavrilov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The earthen rampart of Brest with casemates, in principle, created some opportunities for defense. In 1939, the Poles also did not surrender immediately. They heroically defended the fortress from the armored corps of General Guderian for three days. On September 14 and 16, seven attacks were repelled. And they left the fortress only on the night of September 17: the forces were unequal, there were only 2–2.5 thousand Poles. At dawn the Germans entered it. They did not stay in Brest and soon handed it over to our troops. By the way, it was there that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in 1918 – with the same Germans.

Guderian in his memoirs, however, does not praise the Poles, focusing more on the chaos in the German units. “On September 14... I quickly began the march to Brest in order to use surprise to achieve success... An attempt to take this citadel with a sudden attack by tanks failed only because the Poles placed an old Renault tank at the entrance gate, which prevented our tanks from breaking into the city... The 20th Motorized Division and the 10th Tank Division launched a joint attack on the citadel on September 16. They stormed the crest of the rampart, but the attack failed because the infantry regiment... did not follow the order to advance directly behind the artillery barrage. When the regiment, to whose advanced units I immediately went, belatedly and without orders again launched an attack, it, unfortunately, suffered heavy losses without achieving success. My adjutant... tried to stop the fire that the units advancing from behind were firing at their own advanced units, but was shot down by a Polish sniper.”

So, the fortifications of the fortress allowed the Poles to hold out for three days - this is known. Alas, we do not know exactly how many days our defenders of the fortress held out. More precisely, how many weeks, months.

We do not know the name of the man who scratched on the wall with a bayonet: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20.VII.41.” He didn't sign up.

July 20... This means that this soldier had been fighting in the dungeons of the Brest Fortress for a month, practically without food or ammunition. Our soldiers had canned food and ammunition, but no water at all. The Germans quickly realized this and blocked access from the ruins of the fortress to the river. They waited until the last defenders, who dug into the ground among the mountains of corpses decomposed in the heat, simply died of thirst. Despite this, only the organized defense of the fortress, by some miracle, continued until August 1941. But for a long time afterwards the Germans were afraid to approach the dungeons. Like zombies rising from hell, black shadows rose from there at night, and machine gun fire sounded. According to German sources, the last pockets of resistance in Brest were suppressed only in September. When Kyiv and Smolensk had already fallen. There are other legends. The North Caucasian press published a story about how, already in late autumn, at the moment when the SS men were lined up on the parade ground to be awarded for their next “feats”...

“...A tall, fit Red Army officer emerged from the underground casemates of the fortress. He was blind... and walked with his left arm outstretched. His right hand lay on the holster of his pistol, he was in a torn uniform, but walked with his head held high, moving (by touch) along the parade ground. Unexpectedly for everyone, the German general suddenly clearly saluted the Soviet officer, the last defender of the Brest Fortress, followed by all the officers of the German division. The Red Army officer took a pistol from his holster and shot himself in the temple. When they checked his documents - party and military IDs - they found out that he was a native of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a senior lieutenant of the border troops.”

Last name: Barkhanoev. She is not among those whose names are immortalized on the plaques of the Brest Hero Fortress memorial complex. There are no names of 3/4 of the defenders, who forever remained Unknown Soldiers. But there really are quite a lot of other Caucasian – including Vainakh – surnames. So it's a good legend, correct. She goes around on the Internet under the name “The Last Defender of the Brest Fortress.” However, this is not entirely accurate; this hero was not the last defender.

The writer Sergei Smirnov, thanks to whom we learned about the feat of the heroes of Brest, for many years tried to find out who was the last, or the last. One of the chapters of his famous book, awarded the Lenin Prize, is called “The Last”. Smirnov recorded the amazing story of the Jewish violinist Stavsky, who was later shot in the ghetto. This story was given by Sergeant Major Durasov, who himself was wounded near Brest, was captured and remained in the work team at the German hospital.

“Once,” Durasov recalls, in April 1942, “the violinist was two hours late for work and, when he arrived, he excitedly told his comrades what had happened to him. The Germans stopped him on the road and took him to the fortress. There, among the ruins, a wide hole was punched in the ground, going somewhere deep down. A group of German soldiers stood around her with machine guns at the ready.

- Get down there! - the officer ordered the violinist. – There, in the dungeon, one Russian is still hiding. He doesn't want to give up and shoots back. You must persuade him to go upstairs and lay down his arms - we promise to spare his life.

When the violinist came down, a shot rang out in the darkness.

“Don’t be afraid, come here,” said the unknown man. “I just shot into the air.” This was my last cartridge. I myself decided to go out - my food supply had long since run out. Come and help me...

When they somehow climbed up, the last of his strength left the stranger, and he, closing his eyes, sank exhaustedly onto the stones of the ruins. The Nazis, standing in a semicircle, silently looked at him with curiosity. In front of them sat an incredibly emaciated man, covered with thick stubble, whose age was impossible to determine. It was also impossible to guess whether he was a fighter or a commander - all his clothes hung in rags.

Apparently, not wanting to show his weakness to his enemies, the unknown man made an effort to get up, but immediately fell on the stones. The officer gave the order, and the soldiers placed an open can of canned food and cookies in front of him, but he did not touch anything. Then the officer asked him if there were still Russians there, in the dungeon.

“No,” answered the unknown person. – I was alone, and I went out only to see with my own eyes your powerlessness here, here, in Russia...

By order of the officer, the musician translated these words of the prisoner to him.

And then the officer, turning to his soldiers, said:

– This man is a real hero. Learn from him how to defend your land..."

This was in April 1942. The name and fate of the hero remained unknown.

The Brest Fortress laid down, in modern terms, one of the main algorithms of that war. Its defenders could have been killed. It was possible to be captured. But it was impossible to defeat them.

Time after time, the destroyed centers of resistance came to life again and the next day they were snarled by fire, and after the next report on the “final” clearing of the fortress, the German military cemetery in its vicinity continued to expand. When Major Gavrilov led the defense on June 24, he had 400 fighters.

Slightly more than that of the Spartan king Leonidas, who immortalized himself over the centuries.

From the inscriptions on the slabs of the Brest Fortress memorial:

SHUMKOV Alexander Ivanovich

r. in 1913 in the city of Konstantinovka, Donetsk region, in the Red Army from 1939, graduated from junior courses. lieutenants, lieutenant, commander of the 9th rifle company

SHUMKOVA Lyubov Sergeevna

r. in 1919 in the village of Romanovo, Lebedyansky district, Lipetsk region, the wife of Lieutenant A.I. Shumkov, commander of the 9th rifle company of the 84th joint venture, died on June 22, 1941.

SHUMKOVA Svetlana Aleksandrovna,

Moscow Anabasis of the gallant General Blumentritt

If I take Kyiv, I will take Russia by the feet; if I take Petersburg, I will take her by the head; Having occupied Moscow, I will strike her in the heart.

Napoleon I

It is clear that in the reports of the Sovinformburo our people praised themselves. How else? We need to maintain morale. It’s not a good idea to sprinkle ashes on your head... But the fact is that the Germans praised us no less!

True, this became clear after the war, when the diaries of Hitler’s generals were published. If a German military leader had said this out loud while unsuccessfully storming or retreating from Moscow, he would have been stripped of his orders and rank and shot in front of the line. The Wehrmacht also did not stand on ceremony with this.

In 1946–48, the Americans tried to find out from captured German generals what the secret of the invincibility of the Russian army was. These battered warriors were not suitable for the role of Malchish-Kibalchish, and they answered questions honestly. As a result of these interviews, or interrogation reports, the book “Fatal Decisions of the Wehrmacht” appeared, which the American editor presented quite frankly: “We Americans must benefit from the unsuccessful experiences of others.”

One of those who was forced to talk about their defeats was the chief of staff of the 4th Wehrmacht Army, General Gunther Blumentritt1. Surprisingly, this fascist speaks much more positively about the enemy - the Russians - than some of our own “liberal” publicists do today. Although in some places its purely European denseness even evokes tenderness - and yet the second war was fought by a man against us. In general, General Blumentritt is making a very interesting Russia.

“Close communication with nature allows Russians to move freely at night in the fog, through forests and swamps. They are not afraid of the dark, endless forests and cold. They are no stranger to winter, when the temperature drops to minus 45. The Siberian, who can be partially or even fully considered Asian, is even more resilient, even stronger... We already experienced this ourselves during the First World War, when we had to face the Siberian Army Corps "

Yes, the Siberians, who came to the aid of Moscow, managed to impress the polished German officer. Immediately he remembered us and all the past...

“For a European, accustomed to small territories, the distances in the East seem endless... The horror is intensified by the melancholic, monotonous nature of the Russian landscape, which has a depressing effect, especially in the gloomy autumn and painfully long winter. The psychological influence of this country on the average German soldier was very strong. He felt insignificant, lost in these endless spaces.”

This is how it turns out. We saw the Krauts as monsters, stranglers, destroyers of people. But it turns out that their subtle mental organization suffered from the vastness of the Russian expanses... They had to act according to Freud - through force, to squeeze out of themselves their psychological European complexes on this oppressive boundless land. Burn, shoot, rape. And why did such subtle natures bother with us? But the characteristic, you see, is interesting. You can't come up with something like this on purpose. In short, Blumentritt doesn’t like our nature, but he values ​​the Russian soldier highly, based on his own bitter experience of two wars.

“The Russian soldier prefers hand-to-hand combat. His ability to endure hardship without flinching is truly amazing. This is the Russian soldier whom we came to know and respect a quarter of a century ago.”

Are you filled with respect? That’s why they shot prisoners right on the march, throwing the corpses on the side of the road. Or were they afraid and therefore committed atrocities? No, we, Slavic subhumans, cannot understand the subtleties of the enemy’s mental organization. What follows is even more interesting. It turns out that the Germans did not know our defense potential! Secrecy was well established in the pre-war USSR, which the intelligentsia considered a stupid spy mania. Let me emphasize that these memories do not refer to the spring of 1945, when we stood on the outskirts of Berlin, but to the autumn of 1941, when the Germans advanced to Moscow.

“It was very difficult for us to get a clear picture of the equipment of the Red Army... Hitler refused to believe that Soviet industrial production could be equal to German. We had little information regarding Russian tanks. We had no idea how many tanks Russian industry was capable of producing per month. It was difficult to even get maps, since the Russians kept them a great secret. The maps we had were often incorrect and misleading.

We also did not have accurate data about the combat power of the Russian army. Those of us who fought in Russia during the First World War thought it was great, and those who did not know the new enemy tended to underestimate it.”

There were, as it turns out, cool heads at the top of the German generals. And they decided to speak out - while the war had not yet begun.

“Field Marshal von Rundstedt, commander of Army Group South and, after Field Marshal von Manstein, our most talented commander during the Second World War, said the following about the approaching war in May 1941:

“The war with Russia is a senseless undertaking, which, in my opinion, cannot have a happy ending. But if, for political reasons, war is inevitable, we must agree that it cannot be won during the summer campaign alone.”

But then the war began - and the Germans were at a loss. Not Europe, gentlemen, this is not Europe at all for you. Yes, we are Scythians...

“The behavior of the Russian troops, even in the first battles, was in striking contrast with the behavior of the Poles and Western allies in defeat. Even surrounded, the Russians continued stubborn fighting. Where there were no roads, the Russians remained inaccessible in most cases. They always tried to break through to the east... Our encirclement of the Russians was rarely successful.”

The war continued and presented more and more unpleasant surprises.

“From Field Marshal von Bock to the soldier, everyone hoped that soon we would be marching through the streets of the Russian capital. Hitler even created a special sapper team that was supposed to destroy the Kremlin.

When we came close to Moscow, the mood of our commanders and troops suddenly changed dramatically. We discovered with surprise and disappointment in October and early November that the defeated Russians had not ceased to exist as a military force. Over the past weeks, enemy resistance has intensified, and the tension of the fighting increased every day ... "

Blumentritt is unlikely to have read “War and Peace” and, of course, he has not heard about the club of the people’s war. But he constantly dwells on Napoleon’s fate in his memoirs. No, comparing Hitler with Bonaparte was not a naked invention of Soviet propaganda. The Germans themselves thought so.

“Deep in our rear, in vast forested and swampy areas, the first partisan detachments began to operate... They attacked transport columns and trains with supplies, forcing our troops at the front to endure great hardships. The memory of Napoleon's Grand Army haunted us like a ghost. The book of memoirs of Napoleonic General Caulaincourt, which always lay on Field Marshal von Kluge’s desk, became his bible. There were more and more coincidences with the events of 1812.”

More and more coincidences? What did you want? Second Patriotic War!

But the episode with the French again attacking Moscow in 1941 seems absolutely amazing, as if invented by an inventive screenwriter. However, no, this is not science fiction, but the authentic memoirs of a Wehrmacht general.

“The four battalions of French volunteers operating as part of the 4th Army turned out to be less resilient. 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. The next day, the French boldly went into battle, but, unfortunately, they could not withstand either the enemy’s powerful counterattack or the severe frost and blizzard. They had never had to endure such trials before. The French legion was defeated... A few days later it was withdrawn to the rear and sent to the West.”

Battle on the Borodino field. Autumn 1941

If I were writing a film script from the era of the Napoleonic wars, I would give up on strict adherence to historical truth and insert this episode with the French legion, in the gray Wehrmacht uniform, dying on the snow-covered field of Borodino. Here there would be truth on a different level - artistic.

“And suddenly a new, no less unpleasant surprise befell us. During the battle for Vyazma, the first Russian T-34 tanks appeared... As a result, our infantrymen found themselves completely defenseless. At least a 75 mm gun was required, but it had yet to be created. In the Vereya area, T-34 tanks, as if nothing had happened, passed through the battle formations of the 7th Infantry Division, reached artillery positions and literally crushed the guns located there.”

He trampled them right into the dirt

It’s not enough to kill a Russian soldier, he must also be knocked down!

Frederick II the Great

But maybe this same Blumentritt was a renegade in the Wehrmacht, a kind of moral monster, despite his high position? Maybe he was the only one among the German militarists who paid tribute to the enemy? Not really.

Here is a book with the catchy title “1941 through the eyes of the Germans. Birch crosses instead of iron ones” by Briton Robert Kershaw. It is based on a series of interviews with surviving veterans of the campaign against Russia. These are the most ordinary soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht. “The Russians don’t give up. An explosion, another, everything is quiet for a minute, and then they open fire again..."

“We watched the Russians in amazement. They didn’t seem to care that their main forces were defeated..."

“Loaves of bread had to be chopped with an axe. A few lucky people managed to acquire Russian uniforms...” “My God, what are these Russians planning to do to us? We will all die here!..” However, maybe this is the truth of the trenches, but those who led the invasion and saw, so to speak, the whole picture in volume, have a different opinion? In the memoirs of German military leaders - and this is a huge literature - there is, of course, a lot of narcissism, attempts to justify themselves, to explain themselves to their descendants. Nevertheless, all military generals as one give credit to the Russians - starting from the first days of the war.

Colonel General (later Field Marshal) von Kleist, in the summer of 1941 - commander of the 1st Panzer Group, which was advancing in Ukraine:

“The Russians showed themselves to be first-class warriors from the very beginning, and our successes in the first months of the war were simply due to better training. Having gained combat experience, they became first-class soldiers. They fought with exceptional tenacity and had amazing endurance..."

General von Manstein (also a future field marshal):

“It often happened that Soviet soldiers raised their hands to show that they were surrendering to us, and after our infantrymen approached them, they again resorted to weapons; or the wounded man feigned death, and then shot at our soldiers from the rear.”

Diary of General Halder (1941):

“It should be noted the tenacity of individual Russian formations in battle. There have been cases when garrisons of pillboxes blew themselves up along with the pillboxes, not wanting to surrender.” (Record dated June 24.) “Information from the front confirms that the Russians are fighting everywhere to the last man... It is striking that when artillery batteries, etc. are captured, few surrender.” (June 29.) “The fighting with the Russians is extremely stubborn. Only a small number of prisoners were captured." (July 4.)

Field Marshal Brauchitsch (July 1941):

“The uniqueness of the country and the unique character of the Russians gives the campaign a special specificity. The first serious opponent."

I will add that for the Nazis he was the last. In general, everything is clear and quite obvious. But in order to finish with the Germans, I will give the entire story described by the commander of the 41st Wehrmacht Panzer Corps, General Reinhart. About how the Germans first saw the Soviet KV heavy tank. I think the story is amazing.

“About a hundred of our tanks, of which about a third were T-IVs, took up their starting positions for a counterattack. From three sides we fired at the iron monsters of the Russians, but everything was in vain... The Russian giants, echeloned along the front and in depth, came closer and closer. One of them approached our tank, hopelessly stuck in a swampy pond. Without any hesitation, the black monster drove over the tank and crushed it into the mud with its tracks. At this moment a 150 mm howitzer arrived. While the artillery commander warned of the approach of enemy tanks, the gun opened fire, but again to no avail.

One of the Soviet tanks came within 100 meters of the howitzer. The gunners opened fire on him with direct fire and scored a hit - it was like being struck by lightning. The tank stopped. “We knocked him out,” the artillerymen sighed with relief. Suddenly, someone from the gun crew screamed heart-rendingly: “He’s gone again!” Indeed, the tank came to life and began to approach the gun. Another minute, and the shiny metal tracks of the tank slammed the howitzer into the ground like a toy. Having dealt with the gun, the tank continued its journey as if nothing had happened.”