Where did the German army reach in the USSR. Barbarossa's plan briefly. Why was the German plan of attack on the USSR called the "Barbarossa" plan?
In near-historical articles, interviews and memoirs relating to the Battle of Moscow, a myth has long and firmly taken root, which can be summarized as follows: “On October 16, the Germans broke through to Khimki. Panic broke out in Moscow.
Despite the obvious inconsistency in terms of the date and the breakthrough as the cause of the panic (one and a half months remained before the real Germans in Khimki), this legend roams widely on the Internet, developing in attempts to explain it (they specify, for example, that motorcyclists broke through from Tver).
Moreover, the myth about the Germans in Khimki in mid-October turned out to be so tenacious that it got into the notorious school textbook of Danilov and Kosulina, which is currently recommended by the ministry as the main and mandatory one ( “By mid-October, the enemy came close to the capital. The Kremlin towers were perfectly visible through German binoculars.) and even in a jubilee article for the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow - a fragment from a book being prepared for publication, edited by G.F. Krivosheev "The Great Patriotic War on the Russian land":
“Suffering heavy losses, the enemy went to the near approaches to Moscow and was stopped at the turn:
Khimki (19 km from Moscow, 17 October)
…»
(“Military History Journal”, 12’2006).
In general, the rumor of October 41st, 60 years later, penetrated into the official history textbook and the official press organ of the RF Ministry of Defense, and this, with the subject studied up and down, is a very impressive fact.
And in this regard, I am interested in the question - who and when first introduced this myth into circulation?
Is there any real reason for it, for example, the rumors that Muscovites used to explain the evacuation of government offices that began in mid-October?
Or did this explanation arise after the war, when the events of the autumn of 1941 moved away and mixed up in people's memory?
“And what would I do with the archive then, on October 13, when I myself left Moscow for Tashkent, when Moscow was overwhelmed by panic, like a squall, when the Germans had already come very close, when the defense line ran a hundred, seventy kilometers, and in some places and closer, when they said that a German paratrooper had been dropped in Khimki!”
M. Belkin "Crossing Fates"
http://www.ipmce.su/~tsvet/WIN/belkina/belkB09.html
ADF:
I repeat that in the post we are talking First of all, about the absurdity of the date October 16-17. The fact that the Germans then, on the November-December border, appeared in Khimki, though only in the form of reconnaissance units, is beyond doubt. And who, and how far they have reached - this is a separate topic, in which there are enough ambiguities. You can look at it, for example, here it is.
Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of "Echo of Moscow" is another program from the series "The Price of Victory". Today I am leading it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I will immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello Iskander.
Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.
And it is no coincidence that he was invited to visit us today, since it was today that Iskander Kuzeev’s material entitled “The Flood of Moscow” was published in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which deals with a secret operation in the fall of 1941. The author of the article will tell you in more detail, but I will make one digression and just tell you that, you see, life disposes of it in its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I are trying to go to chronological order according to the events of the Second World War, but when something interesting comes up, we go back, maybe we will still get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our today's guest Iskander Kuzeev wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why is it a flood?
Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, with which I became quite familiar with memoirs, in particular, the recently published memoirs in Russian of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow. Guderian's troops, the 2nd Panzer Army, had practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time, the Soviet troops, who repelled the attacks of Guderian, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where there were practically no clashes. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops were stationed in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only at two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilovsky heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of the Army Group "Center" opposed in fact, one armored train of the NKVD, which happened to be there - it was going from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, it became known to me that separate, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.
This famous case, when some motorcyclists almost reached the Sokol?
Yes, yes, they were stopped at the second bridge across railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they guarded against air raids. The motorcyclists passed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of the current Rechnoy Vokzal metro station; already stopped on the last bridge in front of Sokol station. And there was one German tank between the current Skhodnenskaya and Tushinskaya metro stations.
Volokolamsk direction.
Yes. This is the Western Bridge across the diversion channel in the Tushino region. And as I was told by the people who were engaged in these studies, this was told to me in the management of the Moscow-Volga Canal, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Canal named after Moscow", the most high building on a hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and such a story was passed down from generation to generation, it was clearly visible from there: some German tank got lost, stopped on the bridge, looked out German officer, looked back and forth, wrote down something in a notebook and left somewhere in the opposite direction towards the Aleshkinsky forest. And thirdly, large-caliber German artillery stood on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, it was at this point that the armored train was moving from the north, and the locals crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, to the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began where the large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to deal with this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called "The Flood of Moscow" took place.
So what was the flood? They simply flooded a large area in order to prevent the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?
Yes. Exactly. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istra hydroelectric complex, which is called the Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex, was blown up. Moreover, water outlets were blown up below the level of the so-called "dead mark", when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where the German troops were advancing hit the offensive area and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There, the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istra reservoir, and below its mark is 143, that is, it turns out more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is such a waterfall of water that washes away everything in its path, floods houses, villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this, the operation was secret.
Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?
On Istra, it was a military operation, that is, the engineering department of the Western Front. But there was also another operation, which was carried out jointly by the leadership of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering department of the Western Front, moreover ...
What other operation?
Another, in a different place.
Oh, there was another one.
There was also a second, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which a decision was made to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, this is from the dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus the troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.
The first operation on the Istra reservoir, is this November 1941?
Yes, end of November.
What about others?
That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?
There were two options for the release of water - from the Ivankovskoye reservoir to the Volga downstream and the release of water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the river Sestra, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flows where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It passes through the tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the canal level. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma spillway, which, in case of any repair work, allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same mark of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to start these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and do not consume, but produce electricity, so this is called a generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the gates of the locks were opened and a huge flow of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are various villages at a very low level above the water, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - a canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at the water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice was broken, and the streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people ...
No precautions were taken.
And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, there were still built - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail tells - metal gates were welded there, which did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was dumped, imagine, a huge amount of water from the Ivankovsky reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River has risen by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River has risen by 6 meters.
Explain, as you just said, according to all the evidence - we did not see with our own eyes and did not feel with our skin - it was a very hard and cold winter, the frosts were terrible. This water, which poured out in huge quantities on earth's surface, it was supposed to turn into ice.
Almost yes. First, the ice broke...
But then, in the cold, it all turned, probably, into ice?
But it doesn't happen right away. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology, with whom I talked, told me that it is enough to stand knee-deep in such water for half an hour and the person simply dies.
How many villages were flooded in this way?
In all these operations somewhere around 30-40.
But, if I am not mistaken, was there an order from the Supreme Commander Comrade Stalin to flood, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?
There was an order. It wasn't about flooding, it was about destruction.
villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups ...
Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander. And in accordance with this order, all villages were to be destroyed in the depth of the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation, as it were, against German troops. And there was even such a wording "to take the Soviet population with them."
That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?
No, the retreating troops had to withdraw. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn exactly those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now, for those who defend Stalin. When separate excerpts from these materials were published in various blogs, a lot of Stalinists came out in the comments and cited this phrase.
As an example of humanism.
Yes Yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, there was a mass of newsreels about the burned villages. Naturally, there was no question of who burned them. The Germans were there, so the cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.
That is, wherever the Germans were, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.
Did they report to Stalin?
Yes. For two weeks, they reported that 398 settlements were destroyed. And so these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean ...
Tenth, 10 percent.
Yes, and very few people paid attention to it. And here, in the report, Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100,000 Molotov cocktails, and so on and so forth.
Is this document genuine?
Yes, this is an absolutely authentic document, there is even data on where, in what archive it is located, fund, inventory.
In full - no.
I have never met. Do you include it in the article?
We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and a report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.
You know what else interests me in this whole story. History, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And if more frankly - it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in the military literature, nor in the memoir literature, this story of flooding has been told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some kind of heading "top secret", as the newspaper is called, as a matter of fact, where did you print?
The only thing that I managed to find from what was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it came out with the stamp "secret" and already in last years the stamp “secret” was removed and the stamp “chipboard” stood, and it was declassified only in 2006. And in this book it was said about the explosion of spillways in Istra. And there was nothing said about the operation on the channel. I managed to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel, last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and a book by Valentin Barkovsky was published with a circulation of only 500 copies. And it goes into detail there.
And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has been stripped of all labels, but apparently it is just in libraries.
Well, it hasn't been reprinted yet.
I knew, of course, that many documents were classified, but in order to release a book and immediately classified it as “secret”, then what circulation could it have and for whom was it then intended?
The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.
And then there's the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described somewhere in the German military literature?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts that everything was really flooded and people died there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not like a lot of people, this very old people who remembered this, who told, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. I was told by a resident of the village named after May 1, this is a working village right at the level of irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, and those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal, they simply saved them. Firstly, there artillery hit from all sides. There were completely low panel houses, even lower than peasant huts, and naturally, artillery hit what was visible, but it was visible with a high chimney a potato store. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? You will be killed now." And the water began to flow, they got out and managed, along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal, to get out and go towards Dmitrov.
Iskander, tell me, is it known, did anyone keep such calculations, how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?
I haven't been able to find these numbers anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs in LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could die there, that at home stand high above the level of the river, and that there is still an attic, there is still a roof. But when I talked to the doctors, they said that there was little chance of being saved in such a situation.
Is it known at least what was the approximate population of these villages before the flood?
There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, now such a figure is considered, only one third of this number falls on the staff of the Red Army.
Even less.
Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling is the death of civilians.
Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes until the news release is over, after which we will continue our conversation.
Once again, good evening, dear listeners. We continue the program "The Price of Victory", which I am leading today, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is a journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, the author of the article "The Flood of Moscow", published in today's issue of the newspaper "Top Secret". And about those events of the autumn of 1941, which are described by Iskander Kuzeev, we are talking with our guest. So, we stopped at the fact that we tried to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by dumping water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult, it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. And you were not interested in how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?
Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were on a higher place, they were flooded and survived. But there it is also difficult to say how much they were flooded. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that there could be no flooding at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a small historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built back in the time of Catherine; Almost all structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the rivermen say, locked up, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages on this navigable route. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, this is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.
Clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: "Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone." What should be the answer of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “For information to leak to the Germans and for them to send their reconnaissance to you? This is a war, comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He did not even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She, too, could be covered with a wave. Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not that fictional, but reconstructed?
It's a reconstruction, yes.
Reconstruction according to some separate evidence, apparently?
Yes. After all, the flow from the Istra reservoir practically reached the Moskva River and could flood all these summer cottages, summer cottages in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra ...
And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked to any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Victims, the price of Victory - this is a question that we are constantly discussing. And as for purely military effectiveness, was it an effective measure to stop the Germans?
In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilov Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument in Russia to General Vlasov.
Is it still worth it?
Yes. His name is engraved there, he commanded the 20th Army there.
And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.
Yes. Kuznetsov's shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th army.
But after all, the same operation can be presented in a different way, that there was no other way out?
Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...
We'll talk about this later, I'm just interested in this situation. You can also say that, this is how those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because you can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was hard, associated with huge casualties, but it was nevertheless effective.
At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941, Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south were supposed to close somewhere in the Petushki area ...
Well, yes, it is a well-known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.
I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when you tried to find out the flood zone and at least the estimated number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. I will quote again, in this case the quote is accurate, since you yourself heard it: “Do you see that hill? There are just skeletons in bulk." And they pointed to a small mound on the banks of the Sestra River. “There are canal soldiers lying there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulags, who built this canal. Here's why I'm asking. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burials, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?
Most likely, the cemeteries were on the right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army, I still thought that I misheard, I ask: “Red Army men?” - "No, canal soldiers." There, after all, the canal became a fortification and, in fact, all the builders of the canal can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. According to various sources, in the city of Dmitrov, they counted scientists in the local museum, where, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.
Died or were employed in construction?
Died on a construction site mass graves. I was told in the village of Test Pilot, on the banks of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures have occupied the last collective farm field there, they began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they stumbled upon mass graves. Recently, builders reconstructed the Volokolamsk Highway, the third line of the tunnel was being built and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamsk Highway streets, there were a lot of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there was a lot of skeletons in bulk already under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell, just stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was at a continuous pace, and people simply died. Such a case is described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when just in front of everyone, a person fell into concrete.
Iskander, one more question. There is such a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be handed over to the Germans, was there a plan to actually flood the city of Moscow itself?
Yes, I was also told about this by researchers who are connected with this topic. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningrad highway and the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo cottage village in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is located at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is located in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and there, as I was told, a ton of explosives was laid, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of that Khimka river that flows out of it, and this stream could simply collapse on capital. I talked with a veteran, a former head of the channel, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th gateway at the intersection of Volokolamskoye Highway and Svoboda Street, he says: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow is just, according to our calculations , it was up to this level that he could rise. And then the mass of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.
But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Is there only such evidence of people oral?
Yes. And they told me there when they dismantled the old bridge across the Klyazma reservoir, now a new bridge has been built there on the Dmitrovsky highway, and huge quantities of explosives were found there already in the 80s.
Which, apparently, was designed specifically for the explosion.
To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written from “20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, and now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is absolutely inaccessible.
Actually, when we say that there is no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, we can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are being opened, but very lazily, I would say.
And this story in the form of a legend went around for a long time and it was attributed that it was Hitler's idea after the arrival of the Germans to flood Moscow. The play was such by Andrey Vishnevsky "Moskau Zee", "Moscow Sea". Such a reconstruction, when, after the victory of Hitler, people are walking on boats ...
It was like a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to flood.
Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for what they themselves could flood.
Yes, the transformation of real events.
By the way, Comrade Hitler himself, after all, also started a similar operation in Berlin.
Yes, here, from these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators, when it comes to saving his own life, the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film "Liberation" there was such an episode when the locks on the Spree River were opened and the dampers ...
Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.
Who died heroically there. You can have different attitudes to this film, which is also largely propaganda, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were opponents literally five minutes ago, they carried out the wounded together, together they held the cordon line so that women and children could be the first to go out, this is on station "Unter den Linden", right next to the Reichstag.
By the way, about the film "Liberation" I could say that, yes, it is really perceived and absolutely, probably, rightly so as a film primarily propaganda, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the movie "Liberation" that made me think completely, maybe not the ones that the authors of the film were counting on. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was a variant of flooding the city? No, there was an explosion, I think they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.
As for Krakow, I think it's more of a legend, because Krakow stands very high...
There, indeed, there was no flooding. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet opening another page in the history of the war. To what extent did it seem to you that you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?
Oh, a lot of closed. In general, very interesting topic attitudes of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of Meyerhold theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected to shreds diary entries from the time of the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. It seemed to me that I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London, people die during shelling. Russian people died, they were fired upon throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see the attitude of people to this: "The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city."
That is, both sides that fought against the civilian population were not considered, we can conclude this, I think. By the way, if you look at the losses in the Second World War, and not only the Soviet Union, but also all the participants on both sides, how anti-Hitler coalition, and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses - the ratio, of course, in each country is different, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.
Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg, occupied by Soviet troops. There was no such thing.
Well, there are, of course, examples of such human saving. They, too, can probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having lost to Hitler quickly enough, we know that there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people's lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are many more discussions still on the topic of the blockade of Leningrad. This is a heavy topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, perhaps, at least more rational policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.
Well, yes, there is a complicated story.
And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian's memoirs, I read his notes, where he spoke about the supply of food, that announcements were posted that there was enough food so that the population would not worry in Orel, for example.
So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any, without calculations. And so, perhaps, even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, about this, about this, I want to remind you once again that we have a program about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word "price", could be different, in our opinion. And the price of the Victory, which is primarily expressed in the number of dead, the number of human lives given and laid on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of it, because winning at any cost is very often, I think, a pyrrhic victory. In any case, one must be able to critically look at one's past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, what are your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be engaged in it, any investigations, studies?
In the next issue, we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that those memoirs of Nesterov, which just recently were published on the Internet, they deserve to be discussed separately. It is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records survived. After all, it was dangerous to keep them. There is, for example, the following entry: "The inhabitants of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the liberation of the city from the Bolsheviks." It is a miracle that such records survived.
It is a miracle that they were preserved in the hands of private individuals, because I think that there is a lot of such evidence. Another thing is that they all got there, as they once said "where they need to go." I think that many listeners probably remember, I just did some programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod, who is collaborating during the war. And there are a lot of documents. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there are a lot of documents that have been preserved from that time, where there is a lot of evidence of how it all happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.
After all, Novgorod is a city that has been occupied for almost four years.
Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, well, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And with you, dear listeners, we say goodbye to our next program. All the best, goodbye.
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Event maps: Attack of fascist Germany on the USSR Defeat of fascist Germany A radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War Victory over militaristic Japan Video archive materials: A. HitlerRibbentrop-Molotov PactJune 22, 1941Beginning of the Great Patriotic WarTank battle near the village of ProkhorovkaStalingradBerlin operationTehran ConferenceYalta ConferenceSigning of the German Surrender ActVictory Parade.
In January 1933, the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany (see video archive). A hotbed of military tension arose in the center of Europe. The attack of fascist Germany on Poland on September 1, 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War.
On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war (see video archive). By this time, Germany and its allies captured virtually all of Europe. This allowed her to use the military-industrial potential of the occupied countries to strike at the Soviet Union. The superiority in the technical equipment of the German army (i.e. in tanks, aircraft, communications) and the accumulated experience of modern warfare led to the
the offensive of the German troops on the Soviet front in the summer of 1941.
The Soviet Union was not prepared to repel aggression. The rearmament of the Red Army was not completed. By the beginning of the war, the creation of new defensive lines had not been completed. Huge damage to the combat capability of the army was inflicted Stalinist repressions in the army. In 1937-1938. during the repressions, 579 out of 733 people of the highest command of the Armed Forces (from the brigade commander to the marshal) died. This resulted in serious mistakes in the development of military doctrine. The biggest miscalculation of I.V. Stalin (see video archive) was ignoring the information of Soviet intelligence officers about the exact date of the start of the war. The Red Army was not put on alert. MASS REPRESSIONS IN THE RED ARMY (for the period 1936-1938) THE HIGH COMMAND OF THE RED ARMY IS REPRESSED out of 5 marshals 3 out of 2 army commissars of the 1st rank 2 out of 4 commanders of the 1st rank 2 out of 12 commanders of the 2nd rank 12 out of 2 fleet flagships of the 1st rank 2 of 15 army commissars of the 2nd rank 15 of 67 corps commissars 60 of 28 corps commissars 25 of 199 division commanders 136 of 397 brigade commanders 221 of 36 brigade commissars 34
As a result, a significant part of Soviet aircraft and tanks was destroyed in the first days of the war. Large formations of the Red Army were surrounded, destroyed or captured. In general, the Red Army lost 5 million people (killed, wounded and captured) during the first months of the war. The enemy occupied Ukraine, Crimea, the Baltic States, Belarus. On September 8, 1941, the blockade of Leningrad began, which lasted almost 900 days (see map). However, the stubborn resistance of the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1941 frustrated Hitler's plan lightning war(plan "Barbarossa").
With the beginning of the war, the efforts of the ruling party and government were directed to mobilize all forces to repulse the enemy. It was held under the slogan “Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! The restructuring of the economy on a war footing began. Her integral part was the evacuation of industrial enterprises and people from the frontline zone. By the end of 1941, 1523 enterprises were relocated to the East of the country. Many civilian plants and factories switched to the production of military products.
In the first days of the war, the formation of a people's militia began. Underground resistance groups and partisan detachments were created behind enemy lines. By the end of 1941, more than 2,000 partisan detachments were operating in the occupied territory.
In the autumn of 1941, Hitler launched two attacks on Moscow (Operation Typhoon), during which the German units managed to get closer to the capital by 25-30 km. In this critical situation
the army was greatly assisted by the people's militia. In early December, the counteroffensive began. Soviet troops, which lasted until April 1942. As a result, the enemy was driven back from the capital by 100-250 km. The victory near Moscow finally crossed out german plan"blitzkrieg".
The names of Soviet military leaders became known to the whole world: Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, Ivan Stepanovich Konev, Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky.
The city of Stalingrad on the Volga became a symbol of the resilience and heroism of Soviet soldiers. The defense of Stalingrad began in September 1942. In two months of fierce fighting, the defenders of Stalingrad repelled 700 enemy attacks. By the middle of 1942, German troops were forced to stop the offensive due to heavy losses. On November 19, 1942, the offensive of the Soviet troops began (Operation Uranus). It developed at lightning speed and successfully. Within 5 days, 22 enemy divisions were surrounded. All attempts to break through the encirclement from the outside were repulsed (see map). The encircled group was cut into pieces and destroyed. Over 90 thousand German soldiers and the officers surrendered.
The victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The strategic initiative passed to the Soviet command. In the winter of 1943, a broad offensive of the Red Army began on all fronts. In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. In February 1943, the North Caucasus was liberated.
In the summer of 1943, biggest battle Second World War - Battle of Kursk. It started with a massive offensive
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German troops near Kursk (July 5, 1943). After a grandiose tank battle near the village of Prokhorovka on July 12, the enemy was stopped (see video archive). The counteroffensive of the Red Army began. It ended with the complete defeat of the German troops. In August, the cities of Orel and Belgorod were liberated. The Battle of Kursk meant the completion of a radical change in the Great Patriotic War (see.
map). In the autumn of 1943, most of Ukraine and the city of Kyiv were liberated.
1944 was the year full release territory of the USSR from invaders. Belarus was liberated (Operation Bagration), Moldova, Karelia, the Baltic States, all of Ukraine and the Arctic. Summer and autumn 1944 Soviet army crossed the border of the USSR and entered the territory of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Norway. As Soviet troops approached, armed uprisings broke out in a number of countries. During armed uprisings in Romania and Bulgaria, pro-fascist regimes were overthrown. At the beginning of 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Poland, Hungary, and Austria (see map).
In April 1945, the Berlin operation began under the command of Marshal Zhukov. The fascist leadership was completely
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demoralized. Hitler committed suicide. On the morning of May 1, Berlin was taken (see video archive). On May 8, 1945, representatives of the German command signed the Act of Unconditional Capital
lations (see video archive). On May 9, the remnants of German troops were defeated in the region of Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, May 9 became the Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War (see video archive).
The Great Patriotic War was an integral part of the Second World War (1939-1945). The allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition were Great Britain and the USA. Allied troops made a significant contribution to the liberation of Western and Central Europe. However, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the struggle against fascism. The Soviet-German front remained the main one throughout the Second World War. The landing of Anglo-American troops in Northern France and the opening of a second front took place only on June 6, 1944. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union entered the war with Japan, fulfilling its allied obligations. The war in the Far East lasted from August 9 to September 2 and ended with the complete defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army. Japan's signing of the Instrument of Surrender meant the end of World War II (see map).
The Soviet people paid a huge price for their victory. During the war years, about 27 million people died. 1710 cities lay in ruins (see video archive), more than 70 thousand villages and villages were burned. Thousands of plants and factories were destroyed in the occupied territory, museums and libraries were looted. However, mass heroism at the front and selfless labor Soviet people in
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the rear was allowed to defeat Nazi Germany in this difficult and bloody war.
Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union.
Battle of Kursk
The defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad
The front line to the beginning of the Soviet counter-offensive
Russian troops (11/19/1942)
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The direction of the strikes of the Soviet troops in November 1942. The encirclement of the Nazi troops
Front line on 11/30/1942.
The direction of the blow of the Nazi troops, who tried to break through to the encircled group
The counteroffensive of the Nazi troops and their withdrawal
Front line by December 31, 1942
The final liquidation of the encircled non-German fascist troops (January 10 - February 2, 1943)
The front line by 07/05/1943 The offensive of the Nazi troops Defensive battles and counterattacks of the Soviet troops The line at which they were stopped German fascist troops Soviet counteroffensive
The position of the troops on August 9, 1945 "" I Fortified areas of the Japanese troops The direction of the strikes of the Soviet troops
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The strikes of the Soviet-Mongolian troops The action of the Pacific Fleet
Airborne assaults
The action of the People's Liberation
Chinese army
Japanese counterattacks and their withdrawal atomic bombing American aircraft of Japanese cities The signing of the Act of unconditional surrender of Japan
He recalled: Stalin was sure that the Germans would break into Moscow, but he planned to defend every house - before the approach of fresh divisions from Siberia.
On October 12, 1941, the NKVD organized 20 groups of Chekist militants: to protect the Kremlin, Belorussky railway station, Okhotny Ryad and sabotage in areas of the capital that could be captured. 59 secret warehouses with weapons and ammunition were set up throughout the city, the Metropol and National hotels, the Bolshoi Theater, the Central Telegraph Office and ... St. Basil's Cathedral were mined - it occurred to someone that if Moscow was captured, Hitler would come there. Meanwhile, the British historian Nicholas Reeds in 1954, he suggested that if the soldiers of the Third Reich had entered Moscow, the "Stalingrad scenario" would have happened. That is, the Wehrmacht exhausts itself in multi-day battles from house to house, then troops arrive with Far East, and then the Germans capitulate, and the war ... ends in 1943!
Anti-aircraft gunners guarding the city. The Great Patriotic War. Photo: RIA Novosti / Naum Granovsky
Fact #2 - Officials started the panic
... October 16, 1941 State Committee Defense adopted a resolution "On the evacuation of the capital of the USSR." Most understood it this way - from day to day Moscow will be handed over to the Germans. Panic began in the city: the metro was closed, trams stopped running. The very first to rush out of the city were party officials, who just yesterday called for a "war to victory." Archival documents testify: “On the very first day, 779 senior employees of institutions and organizations fled from the capital, taking with them money and valuables worth 2.5 million rubles. 100 cars and trucks were stolen - these leaders used them to take their families." Seeing how the authorities fled from Moscow, the people, picking up bundles and suitcases, also rushed away. Three days in a row the highway was packed with people. But
Muscovites are building anti-tank fortifications. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Ustinov
Fact #3 - The Kremlin was not considered
... It is believed that the Wehrmacht was stuck 32 km from the then Moscow: the Germans managed to capture the village of Krasnaya Polyana, near Lobnya. After that, it was reported that German generals, having climbed the bell tower, examined the Kremlin through binoculars. This myth is quite stable, but the Kremlin can only be seen from Krasnaya Polyana in summer, and then in absolutely clear weather. In snowfall this is not possible.
On December 2, 1941, an American journalist William Shearer made a statement: according to his information, today the reconnaissance battalion of the 258th division of the Wehrmacht invaded the village of Khimki, and from there the Germans surveyed the Kremlin towers with binoculars. It is not clear how they managed to do this: the Kremlin is even more invisible from Khimki. Plus, the 258th division of the Wehrmacht on that day miraculously escaped encirclement in a completely different place - in the Yushkovo-Burtsevo area. Historians still have not come to a consensus when exactly the Germans appeared in Khimki (now there is a defense monument - three anti-tank hedgehogs) - October 16, November 30, or still December 2. Moreover: in the archives of the Wehrmacht ... there is no evidence of an attack on Khimki at all.
Fact #4 - There were no frosts
…Commander of the 2nd Panzer Army of the Reich, General Heinz Guderian after the defeat near Moscow, he blamed his failures on ... Russian frosts. Say, by November the Germans would already be drinking beer in the Kremlin, but they were stopped by terrible cold. The tanks got stuck in the snow, the guns jammed - the grease froze. Is it so? On November 4, 1941, the temperature in the Moscow region was minus 7 degrees (before that, it rained in October, and the roads became muddy), and on November 8 it was completely zero (!). On November 11-13, the air froze (-15 degrees), but soon warmed up to -3 - and this can hardly be called "terrible cold." Severe frosts (under minus 40°C) struck only at the very beginning of the Red Army's counter-offensive - December 5, 1941 - and could not radically change the situation at the front. The cold played its role only when the Soviet troops drove the Wehrmacht armies back (this is where Guderian's tanks really did not start), but stopped the enemy near Moscow in normal winter weather.
Two Red Army soldiers stand next to an inverted German tank, shot down in the battle near Moscow. Photo: RIA Novosti / Minkevich
Fact #5 - Battle of Borodino
... On January 21, 1942, the Russians and the French met on the Borodino field for the second time in 130 years. On the side of the Wehrmacht, the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism fought - 2452 soldiers. They were instructed to defend Borodino from the advancing Soviet troops. Before the attack, he turned to the legionnaires Marshal von Kluge: "Remember Napoleon!" In a few days, the legion was defeated - half of the soldiers died, hundreds were captured, the rest were taken to the rear with frostbite. As in the case of Bonaparte, the French were not lucky on the Borodino field.
... On December 16, 1941, Hitler, struck by the flight of his army from Moscow, issued an order similar to Stalin's, "Not a step back!" He demanded to "hold the front to the last soldier", threatening to shoot the division commanders. The chief of staff of the 4th Army, Gunther Blumentritt, in his book Fatal Decisions, pointed out: "Hitler instinctively realized that a retreat in the snow would lead to the collapse of the entire front and our troops would suffer the fate of Napoleon's army." And so it ended up: after three and a half years, when soviet soldiers entered Berlin...
Museum "Borodino" was destroyed and burned by the Germans during the retreat. The picture was taken in January 1942. Photo: RIA Novosti / N. Popov
To share with friends: It is known that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi armies were never able to reach the Middle Volga region, although in accordance with the Barbarossa plan, by the end of the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht was supposed to reach the Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan line. Nevertheless, the military and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities that were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line. But these were not at all those self-confident invaders with "Schmeissers" in their hands, who walked across the Soviet border at dawn on June 22.Destroyed cities were rebuilt by prisoners of war
We know that victory is over Nazi Germany went to our people at an incredibly high price. In 1945, a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing an acute shortage of workers and smart heads, because millions of our fellow citizens, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists, died on the war fronts and in the rear.
After the Potsdam Conference, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. According to him, when restoring the industry of the USSR, its destroyed cities and villages, it was supposed to use the labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. At the same time, it was decided to take all qualified German engineers and workers out of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to the enterprises of the USSR.
According to the official Soviet history, in March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the country. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the areas of the country affected by the occupation and military operations, and in industry and agriculture reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it.
About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in the prices of that time. In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, several camps were organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived in the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites.
Working hands at that time were also needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official Soviet plans, in the last war years and immediately after the war, it was planned to build several new plants in Kuibyshev, including an oil refinery, a chisel, a ship repair plant, and a metal structure plant. It also turned out to be an urgent need to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasov), the Avtotraktorodetal plant (later the valve plant), the Middle Volga Machine Tool Plant and some others. It was here that German prisoners of war were sent to work. But as it turned out later, not only them.
Six hours to pack
Before the war, both the USSR and Germany were actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines - gas turbines. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet counterparts. The gap widened after in 1937 all the leading Soviet scientists involved in the problems of jet propulsion fell under the Yezhov-Beria rink of repression. In the meantime, in Germany, at the BMW and Junkers plants, the first samples of gas turbine engines were already being prepared for launch into mass production.
In the spring of 1945, the factories and design bureaus of Junkers and BMW ended up in the Soviet occupation zone. And in the fall of 1946, a significant part of the qualified personnel of Junkers, BMW and some other German aircraft factories, in the strictest secrecy, was taken to the territory of the USSR on specially equipped echelons, or rather, to Kuibyshev, to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the shortest possible time, 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly skilled workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel were brought here. Family members of these specialists came with them. As a result, at the end of October 1946, there were more Germans than Russians in the Upravlenchesky settlement.
Not so long ago, the former German electrical engineer Helmut Breuninger came to Samara, who was part of the same group of German technical specialists that was secretly taken to the Upravlenchesky settlement more than 60 years ago. In the deep autumn of 1946, when the train with the Germans arrived in the city on the Volga, Mr. Breuninger was only 30 years old. Although by the time of his visit to Samara he was already 90 years old, he still decided on such a trip, however, in the company of his daughter and grandson. 
Helmut Breuninger with his grandson
In 1946, I worked as an engineer at the Askania state enterprise,” Mr. Breuninger recalled. - Then in defeated Germany it was very difficult to find a job even for a qualified specialist. Therefore, when at the beginning of 1946 several large factories were launched under the control of the Soviet administration, there were a lot of people who wanted to get a job there. And in the early morning of October 22, the doorbell of my apartment rang. On the threshold stood a Soviet lieutenant and two soldiers. The lieutenant said that my family and I were given six hours to pack for the subsequent departure to the Soviet Union. He did not tell us any details, we only found out that we would work in our specialty at one of the Soviet defense enterprises.
Under heavy guard, in the evening of the same day, a train with technical specialists left the Berlin station. While loading into the train, I saw many familiar faces. These were experienced engineers from our enterprise, as well as some of my colleagues from the Junkers and BMW factories. For a whole week the train went to Moscow, where several engineers and their families unloaded. But we went further. I knew a little about the geography of Russia, but I had never heard of a city called Kuibyshev before. Only when they explained to me that it used to be called Samara, I remembered that there really was such a city on the Volga.
Worked for the USSR
Most of the Germans evacuated to Kuibyshev worked at Experimental Plant No. 2 (later - Engine Building Plant]. At the same time, OKB-1 was staffed by 85 percent of Junkers specialists, in OKB-2 up to 80 percent of the staff consisted of former BMW personnel, and 62 percent of the personnel of OKB-3 were specialists from the Askania plant.
At first, the secret factory where the Germans worked was run exclusively by the military. In particular, from 1946 to 1949 it was headed by Colonel Olekhnovich. However, in May 1949, an unknown engineer arrived here to replace the military, almost immediately appointed as the responsible head of the enterprise. For many decades, this man was classified in much the same way as Igor Kurchatov, Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. That unknown engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, later an academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.
Kuznetsov immediately directed all the creative forces of the design bureaus subordinate to him to the development of a new turboprop engine, which was based on the German YuMO-022 model. This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed up to 4000 horsepower. It was modernized, its power increased even more and launched into a series. In subsequent years, not only turboprops, but also turbojet bypass engines for bomber aircraft came out of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. German specialists were directly involved in the creation of almost each of them. Their work at the motor plant in the village of Upravlenchesky continued until the mid-1950s.
As for Helmut Breuninger, he fell into the first wave of moving from Kuibyshev, when some German specialists, together with their families, began to be transferred to Moscow factories. The last such group left the banks of the Volga in 1954, but the surviving German specialists managed to return home, to Germany, only in 1958. Since that time, the graves of many of these visiting engineers and technicians have remained in the old cemetery of the Upravlenchesky settlement. In those years when Kuibyshev was a closed city, no one cared for the cemetery. But now these graves are always well-groomed, the paths between them are covered with sand, and the names in German are displayed on the monuments.
