On December 18, 1940, Hitler in Directive No. 21 approved the final plan for the war against the USSR under the code name "Barbarossa". To implement it, Germany and its allies in Europe - Finland, Romania and Hungary - created an invasion army unprecedented in history: 182 divisions and 20 brigades (up to 5 million people), 47.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 4.4 thousand combat aircraft, 4.4 thousand tanks and assault guns, and 250 ships. In the grouping of Soviet troops that opposed the aggressors, there were 186 divisions (3 million people), about 39.4 guns and mortars, 11 thousand tanks and more than 9.1 thousand aircraft. These forces were not brought into combat readiness. The directive of the General Staff of the Red Army about a possible German attack on June 22-23 arrived in the western border districts only on the night of June 22, and the invasion began at dawn on June 22. After a long artillery preparation, at 4.00 in the morning, German troops, treacherously violating the non-aggression pact concluded with the USSR, attacked the Soviet-German border along its entire length from the Barents to the Black Seas. The Soviet troops were taken by surprise. The organization of powerful counterattacks against the enemy was hampered by the fact that they were relatively evenly distributed along the entire front along the entire border and dispersed to a great depth. With such a formation, it was difficult to resist the enemy.
On June 22, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov. In particular, he said: “This unheard-of attack on our country is an unparalleled treachery in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany.
On June 23, 1941, the highest body of strategic leadership of the armed forces, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, was created in Moscow. All power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee (GKO), formed on June 30. Chairman of the GKO and Supreme Commander Was assigned . The country began to implement a program of emergency measures under the motto: “Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! The Red Army, however, continued to retreat. By mid-July 1941, German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory, capturing Lithuania, Latvia, almost all of Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, creating a threat to Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev. Mortal danger hung over the USSR.
OPERATIONAL REPORT No. 1 OF THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RKKA ARMY GENERAL G.K. Zhukov. 10.00, June 22, 1941
At 04:00 on June 22, 1941, the Germans, without any reason, raided our airfields and cities and crossed the border with ground troops ...
1. Northern front: the enemy with a link of bomber-type aircraft violated the border and went to the region of Leningrad and Kronstadt ...
2. Northwestern front. The enemy at 0400 opened artillery fire and at the same time began to bomb airfields and cities: Vindava, Libava, Kovno, Vilna and Shulyai ...
Z. Western Front. At 4.20, up to 60 enemy aircraft bombarded Grodno and Brest. At the same time, the enemy opened artillery fire on the entire border of the Western Front .... With ground forces, the enemy is developing a strike from the Suwalki area in the direction of Golynk, Dąbrowa and from the Stokołów area along railway to Volkovysk. The advancing enemy forces are being specified. …
4. Southwestern Front. At 4.20 the enemy began shelling our borders with machine-gun fire. From 04.30 enemy planes have been bombarding the cities of Lyuboml, Kovel, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky ... At 04.35, after artillery fire in the area of \u200b\u200bVladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml, enemy ground forces crossed the border, developing an attack in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml and Krystynopol ...
The front commanders have put into effect a cover plan and by active actions of mobile troops they are trying to destroy the part of the enemy that has crossed the border ...
The enemy, having preempted our troops in deployment, forced the Red Army units to take up battle in the process of taking up their starting position according to the cover plan. Using this advantage, the enemy managed to achieve partial success in certain areas.
Signature: Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov
The Great Patriotic War - day after day: based on declassified operational reports of the General Staff of the Red Army. M., 2008 .
RADIO SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE USSR COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS AND PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR V.M. MOLOTOV June 22, 1941
Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union!
The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following statement:
Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities - Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, moreover, more than two hundred people were killed and wounded. Enemy aircraft raids and artillery shelling were also carried out from the Romanian and Finnish territories.
This unheard-of attack on our country is treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany and the Soviet government fulfilled all the conditions of this pact in all good faith. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that during the entire period of the validity of this treaty, the German government could never make a single claim against the USSR regarding the implementation of the treaty. All responsibility for this robbery attack on Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers (...)
The government calls on you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks still more closely around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet government, around our great leader Comrade. Stalin.
Our cause is right. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.
Documents of foreign policy. T.24. M., 2000.
J. STALIN'S RADIO SPEECH, July 3, 1941
Comrades! Citizens!
Brothers and sisters!
Soldiers of our army and navy!
I turn to you, my friends!
The treacherous military attack of Nazi Germany on our Motherland, launched on June 22, continues. Despite the heroic resistance of the Red Army, despite the fact that the best divisions of the enemy and the best parts of his aviation have already been defeated and found their grave on the battlefields, the enemy continues to push forward, throwing new forces to the front (...)
History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon's army was considered invincible, but it was defeated alternately by Russian, English, German troops. Wilhelm's German army during the first imperialist war was also considered an invincible army, but it was defeated several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops and was finally defeated by Anglo-French troops. The same must be said about Hitler's current German fascist army. This army has not yet encountered serious resistance on the European continent. Only on our territory did it meet serious resistance (...)
It may be asked: how could it happen that the Soviet government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there a mistake on the part of the Soviet government here? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was this pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet government refuse such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if at the head of this power there are even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. And this, of course, on one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of a peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact (...)
With the forced withdrawal of Red Army units, it is necessary to steal the entire rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of bread or a liter of fuel (...) In areas occupied by the enemy, it is necessary to create partisan detachments, mounted and on foot, to create sabotage groups to fight against parts of the enemy army, to incite guerrilla war everywhere and everywhere, to blow up bridges, roads, damage telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to forests, warehouses, carts. In the occupied areas, create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, pursue and destroy them at every step, disrupt all their activities (...)
In this great war we will have true allies in the peoples of Europe and America, including the German people, enslaved by the Nazi bosses. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms (…)
In order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR, to repulse the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland, the State Defense Committee was created, in whose hands all power in the state is now concentrated. The State Defense Committee has begun its work and calls on all the people to rally around the party of Lenin-Stalin, around the Soviet government for the selfless support of the Red Army and the Red Navy, for the defeat of the enemy, for victory.
All our strength is to support our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Fleet!
All the forces of the people - to defeat the enemy!
Forward to our victory!
Stalin I. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. M., 1947.
Battle of Moscow 1941 - battles with the Nazi armies, which took place from October 1941 to January 1942 around the Soviet capital, which was one of the main strategic goals of the forces axes during their invasion of the USSR. The defense of the Red Army thwarted the attack of the German troops.
The German offensive, called "Operation Typhoon", was planned to be carried out in the form of two "pincer" encirclements: one north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front, primarily by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups, with the simultaneous interception of the Moscow-Leningrad railway , and the other - south of the Moscow region against the Western Front south of Tula with the help of the 2nd Panzer Group. The 4th German field army was to attack Moscow head-on from the west.
Initially, Soviet troops were on the defensive, creating three defensive belts, deploying newly created reserve armies and transferring troops from the Siberian and Far Eastern military districts to help. After the Germans were stopped, the Red Army carried out a large counteroffensive and a number of smaller offensive operations, as a result of which the German armies were pushed back to the cities of Orel, Vyazma and Vitebsk. Part of the Nazi forces in the course of this almost got into an environment.
Battle for Moscow. Documentary from the series "Unknown War"
Background of the battle for Moscow
The original German invasion plan (Plan Barbarossa) called for the capture of Moscow four months after the start of the war. On June 22, 1941, the Axis troops invaded the Soviet Union, destroyed on the ground most enemy air forces and moved inland, destroying entire enemy armies through blitzkrieg tactics. The German Army Group North moved towards Leningrad. Army Group South occupied Ukraine, and Army Group Center moved towards Moscow and by July 1941 had crossed the Dnieper.
In August 1941, German troops captured Smolensk, an important fortress on the way to Moscow. Moscow was already subjected to great danger, but a decisive attack on it would weaken both German flanks. Partly out of awareness of this, partly in order to quickly seize agricultural and mineral resources Ukraine, Hitler ordered to first concentrate the main forces in the northern and southern directions and defeat the Soviet troops near Leningrad and Kiev. This delayed the German attack on Moscow. When it was resumed, the German troops were weakened, and the Soviet command was able to find new forces to defend the city.
The plan of the German attack on Moscow
Hitler believed that the capture of the Soviet capital was not a priority task. He believed that it was easiest to bring the USSR to its knees, depriving it of economic forces, primarily the developed regions of the Ukrainian SSR east of Kiev. German Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces Walther von Brauchitsch advocated a speedy advance to Moscow, but Hitler replied that "such a thought could only come to the hardened brains." Head of the General Staff of the Ground Forces Franz Halder he was also convinced that the German army had already inflicted sufficient damage on the Soviet troops, and now the capture of Moscow would mark the final victory in the war. This view was shared by most of the German commanders. But Hitler ordered his generals to first surround the enemy troops around Kiev and complete the conquest of Ukraine. This operation was successful. By September 26, the Red Army had lost up to 660 thousand soldiers in the Kiev region, and the Germans moved on.
Promotion of German troops in the USSR, 1941
Now, since the end of the summer, Hitler has redirected his attention to Moscow and assigned this task to Army Group Center. The forces that were to conduct the offensive Operation Typhoon consisted of three infantry armies (2nd, 4th and 9th), supported by three tank groups (2nd, 3rd and 4th) and an aviation 2 -m Air Fleet ("Luftflot 2") Luftwaffe. In total, they amounted to two million soldiers, 1,700 tanks and 14,000 guns. German air force, however, suffered considerable damage in the summer campaign. The Luftwaffe lost 1,603 aircraft completely destroyed and 1,028 damaged. Luftflot 2 could provide only 549 serviceable vehicles for Operation Typhoon, including 158 medium and dive bombers and 172 fighters. The attack was supposed to be carried out using standard blitzkrieg tactics: to throw tank wedges deep into the Soviet rear, surround the Red Army units with “pincers” and destroy them.
Wehrmacht three Soviet fronts opposed near Moscow, forming a line of defense between the cities of Vyazma and Bryansk. The troops of these fronts also suffered greatly in previous battles. However, it was a formidable concentration of 1,250,000 men, 1,000 tanks and 7,600 guns. The USSR Air Force in the first months of the war suffered horrendous losses (according to some sources, 7,500, and, according to others, even 21,200 aircraft). But in the Soviet rear, new aircraft were hastily manufactured. By the beginning of the battle for Moscow, the Red Army Air Force had 936 aircraft (of which 578 were bombers).
According to the plan of the operation, the German troops were to break the Soviet resistance along the Vyazma-Bryansk front, rush to the east and surround Moscow bypassing it from the north and south. However, continuous fighting weakened the power of the German armies. The logistical difficulties were also very acute. Guderian wrote that some of his wrecked tanks were not being replaced by new ones, and there was not enough fuel from the start of the operation. Since almost all Soviet men were at the front, women and schoolchildren went out to dig anti-tank ditches around Moscow in 1941.
The beginning of the German offensive (September 30 - October 10). Battles near Vyazma and Bryansk
The German offensive initially went according to plan. The 3rd Panzer Army broke through the enemy's defenses in the center, meeting almost no resistance, and rushed further in order to encircle Vyazma together with the 4th Panzer Group. Other units were to be supported by the 2nd Panzer Group Guderian close the ring around Bryansk. The Soviet defense was not yet fully built, and the "pincers" of the 2nd and 3rd tank groups converged east of Vyazma on October 10, 1941. Four Soviet armies (19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd) were here in a huge ring .
But the surrounded Soviet troops continued to fight, and the Wehrmacht had to use 28 divisions to destroy them. This shackled the forces that could have supported the advance on Moscow. The remnants of the Soviet Western and Reserve Fronts retreated to new defensive lines around Mozhaisk. Although casualties were high, some of the Soviet units were able to emerge from the encirclement in organized groups ranging in size from platoons to rifle divisions. The resistance of those surrounded near Vyazma gave the Soviet command time to reinforce the four armies that continued to defend Moscow (5th, 16th, 43rd and 49th). FROM Far East three rifle and two tank divisions were transferred to them, and others were on their way.
In the south, near Bryansk, the actions of the Soviet troops were just as unsuccessful as at Vyazma. The 2nd German Panzer Group made a detour around the city and, together with the advancing 2nd Infantry Army, captured Oryol by October 3, and Bryansk by October 6.
Operation Typhoon - German advance to Moscow
But the weather began to change to the disadvantage of the Germans. On October 7, the first snow fell and quickly melted, turning roads and fields into marshy bogs. The "Russian thaw" began. The advance of the German tank groups slowed noticeably, which gave the Soviet troops the opportunity to retreat and regroup.
The Red Army soldiers sometimes successfully counterattacked. For example, the German 4th Panzer Division near Mtsensk was ambushed by Dmitry Lelyushenko's hastily formed 1st Guards Rifle Corps, which included Mikhail Katukov's 4th Tank Brigade. Newly created Russian tanks T-34 hid in the forest while the Germans rolled past them. Then the Soviet infantry held back the German offensive, and soviet tanks victoriously attacked them from both flanks. For the Wehrmacht, this defeat was such a shock that a special investigation was appointed. Guderian discovered to his horror that the Soviet T-34s were almost invulnerable to German tank guns. As he wrote, "our Panzer IV (PzKpfw IV) tanks, with their short 75 mm guns, could only blow up the T-34 by hitting their engine from behind." Guderian noted in his memoirs that "the Russians have already learned something."
The German advance was slowed down by other counterattacks. The German 2nd Infantry Army, operating north of Guderian's forces against the Bryansk Front, came under heavy pressure from the Red Army, which had air support.
According to German data, during this first period of the battle for Moscow, 673 thousand fell into two bags - near Vyazma and Bryansk Soviet soldiers. Recent studies have given smaller, but still huge numbers - 514 thousand. The number of Soviet troops defending Moscow thus decreased by 41%. On October 9, Otto Dietrich of the German Propaganda Ministry, quoting Hitler himself, predicted at a press conference the imminent annihilation of the Russian armies. Since Hitler had not yet lied about the military events, Dietrich's words convinced foreign correspondents that the Soviet resistance near Moscow was about to collapse completely. The spirit of German citizens, which had fallen greatly with the start of Operation Barbarossa, rose noticeably. There were rumors that by Christmas the soldiers would return home from the Russian front and that the "living space" seized in the east would enrich all of Germany.
But the resistance of the Red Army has already slowed down the breakthrough of the Wehrmacht. When the first German detachments approached Mozhaisk on October 10, they stumbled upon a new defensive barrier there, occupied by fresh Soviet troops. On the same day, Georgy Zhukov, recalled from the Leningrad Front on 6 October, led the defense of Moscow and the combined Western and Reserve Fronts. His deputy was Colonel-General Konev. On October 12, Zhukov ordered that all available forces be concentrated on strengthening the Mozhaisk line. This decision was supported by the actual head of the Soviet General Staff Alexander Vasilevsky. The Luftwaffe still controlled the skies wherever they appeared. Stuka (Junkers Ju 87) and bomber groups made 537 sorties, destroying about 440 Vehicle and 150 pieces of artillery.
On October 15, Stalin ordered the evacuation of the leadership of the Communist Party, the General Staff and administrative institutions from Moscow to Kuibyshev (Samara), leaving only a small number of officials in the capital. This evacuation caused panic among Muscovites. On October 16-17, most of the capital's population tried to flee by jamming trains and damming roads out of the city. To ease the panic somewhat, it was announced that Stalin himself would remain in Moscow.
Fights on the Mozhaisk line of defense (October 13 - 30)
By October 13, 1941, the main forces of the Wehrmacht reached the Mozhaisk line of defense - a hastily built double row of fortifications on the western approaches to Moscow, which went from Kalinin (Tver) towards Volokolamsk and Kaluga. Despite recent reinforcements, only about 90,000 Soviet soldiers defended this line - too few to stop the German advance. Given this weakness, Zhukov decided to concentrate his forces at four critical points: the 16th Army of General Rokossovsky defended Volokolamsk. Mozhaisk was defended by the 5th army of General Govorov. The 43rd Army of General Golubev stood at Maloyaroslavets, and the 49th Army of General Zakharkin at Kaluga. The entire Soviet Western Front - almost destroyed after the encirclement near Vyazma - was recreated almost from scratch.
Moscow itself was hastily fortified. According to Zhukov, 250,000 women and teenagers were building trenches and anti-tank ditches around the capital, shoveling three million cubic meters of land without the help of machinery. The factories of Moscow were hastily transferred to war footing: the car factory began to make automatic weapons, the watch factory made detonators for mines, the chocolate factory produced food for the front, automobile repair stations repaired damaged tanks and military equipment. Moscow had already been subjected to German air raids, but the damage from them was relatively small thanks to powerful air defense and skillful actions of civilian fire brigades.
On October 13, 1941, the Wehrmacht resumed the offensive. Initially, the German forces tried to bypass the Soviet defenses by moving northeast towards the weakly defended Kalinin and south towards Kaluga. By October 14, Kalinin and Kaluga were captured. Encouraged by these first successes, the Germans launched a frontal attack against the enemy fortified line, taking Mozhaisk and Maloyaroslavets on October 18, Naro-Fominsk on October 21, and Volokolamsk on October 27, after stubborn battles. Due to the growing danger of flank attacks, Zhukov was forced to retreat east of the Nara River.
In the south, Guderian's second tank group at first went to Tula easily, because the Mozhaisk line of defense did not extend so far to the south, there were few Soviet troops in the area. However, bad weather, problems with fuel, destroyed roads and bridges delayed the movement of the Germans, and Guderian did not reach the outskirts of Tula until 26 October. The German plan provided for the rapid capture of Tula in order to pull a claw from it east of Moscow. However, the first attack on Tula was repulsed on October 29 by the 50th Army and civilian volunteers after a desperate battle near the city itself. On October 31, the German High Command ordered a halt to all offensive operations until the painful logistical problems were resolved and the mudslide stopped.
Break in battles (November 1-15)
By the end of October 1941, the German troops were severely exhausted. They operated only a third of the vehicles, the infantry divisions were reduced to half, or even a third of the composition. Stretched supply lines prevented the delivery of warm clothes and other winter equipment to the front. Even Hitler, it seemed, had already come to terms with the idea of the inevitability of a long struggle for Moscow, since the prospect of sending in such Big city tanks without the support of heavily armed infantry looked risky after the costly capture of Warsaw in 1939.
To boost the spirit of the Red Army and the civilian population, Stalin ordered November 7, the day of the October Revolution, to be held, the traditional military parade on the Red Square. Soviet troops marched past the Kremlin, heading straight for the front from there. The parade was of great symbolic importance, demonstrating unwavering determination to fight the enemy. But despite this bright "show", the position of the Red Army remained unstable. Although 100,000 new troops reinforced the defenses of Klin and Tula, where renewed German attacks were about to be expected, the Soviet line of defense remained comparatively weak. Nevertheless, Stalin ordered several counteroffensives against the German forces. They were launched despite the protests of Zhukov, who pointed to the complete absence of reserves. The Wehrmacht repulsed most of these counter-offensives, and they only weakened the Soviet troops. The Red Army's only notable success was only southwest of Moscow, at Aleksin, where Soviet tanks inflicted serious damage on the 4th Army, because the Germans still lacked anti-tank guns to deal with the new, heavily armored T-34 tanks. .
From October 31 to November 15, the Wehrmacht High Command prepared the second stage of the offensive against Moscow. The combat capabilities of Army Group Center had fallen heavily from battle fatigue. The Germans were aware of the continuous influx of Soviet reinforcements from the east and that the enemy had considerable reserves. But given the enormity of the victims suffered by the Red Army, they did not expect that the USSR would be able to organize a staunch defense. Compared to October, the Soviet rifle divisions took up a much stronger defensive position: a triple defensive ring around Moscow and the remnants of the Mozhaisk line near Klin. Most Soviet troops now had multi-layered protection, with a second echelon behind them. Artillery and sapper teams were concentrated along the main roads. Finally, the Soviet troops - especially the officers - were now much more experienced.
By November 15, 1941, the ground was completely frozen, there was no more mud. The armored wedges of the Wehrmacht, including 51 divisions, were now about to move forward to surround Moscow and link up to the east of it, in the Noginsk area. The German 3rd and 4th Panzer Groups were to concentrate between the Volga Reservoir and Mozhaisk, and then pass the Soviet 30th Army at Klin and Solnechnogorsk, surrounding the capital from the north. In the south, the 2nd Panzer Group intended to bypass Tula, still held by the Red Army, move towards Kashira and Kolomna, and from them towards the northern pincer, to Noginsk. The German 4th Infantry Army in the center was to pin down the troops of the Western Front.
The resumption of the German offensive (November 15 - December 4)
On November 15, 1941, German tank armies launched an offensive towards Klin, where there were no Soviet reserves due to Stalin's order to attempt a counteroffensive near Volokolamsk. This order forced the withdrawal of all forces from Klin to the south. The first German attacks split the Soviet front in two, tearing the 16th Army from the 30th. Several days of fierce fighting followed. Zhukov recalled in his memoirs that the enemy, despite the losses, attacked head-on, wanting to break through to Moscow at any cost. But "multilayered" protection reduced the number of Soviet casualties. The 16th Russian Army was slowly retreating, constantly snarling at the German divisions that were pressing it.
The 3rd German Panzer Group on November 24, after heavy fighting, captured Klin, and on November 25 - Solnechnogorsk. Stalin asked Zhukov if Moscow could be defended, ordering him to "answer honestly, like a communist." Zhukov replied that it was possible to defend, but reserves were urgently needed. By November 28, the German 7th Panzer Division had secured a foothold behind the Moscow-Volga Canal - the last major obstacle to Moscow - and took up a position less than 35 km away. from the Kremlin, but a powerful counterattack by the 1st Soviet Shock Army forced the Nazis to retreat. To the north-west of Moscow, the Wehrmacht forces reached Krasnaya Polyana, a little over 20 km. from the city. German officers could see some of the large buildings of the Russian capital through field glasses. The troops of both sides were severely depleted, in some regiments there were 150-200 fighters left.
On November 18, 1941, fighting resumed in the south, near Tula. The 2nd German Panzer Group tried to encircle this city. And here the German troops were badly battered in previous battles - and still did not have winter clothes. As a result, their advance was only 5-10 km. in a day. German tankers were subjected to flank attacks from the Soviet 49th and 50th armies located near Tula. Guderian, however, continued the offensive, taking Stalinogorsk (now Novomoskovsk) on November 22, 1941 and surrounding the Soviet rifle division stationed there. November 26 german tanks approached Kashira, the city that controls the main highway to Moscow. The next day, a stubborn Soviet counterattack began. The 2nd cavalry corps of General Belov, supported by hastily put together formations (173rd rifle division, 9th tank brigade, two separate tank battalions, militia detachments), stopped the German offensive near Kashira. In early December, the Germans were driven back and the southern approaches to Moscow were secured. Tula did not give up either. In the south, the Wehrmacht forces did not approach Moscow as closely as they did in the north.
Encountering strong resistance in the north and south, the Wehrmacht attempted on December 1 to mount a direct attack on the Russian capital from the west along the Minsk-Moscow highway, near Naro-Fominsk. But this attack had only weak tank support against the powerful Soviet defenses. Faced with the unshakable resistance of the 1st Guards motorized rifle division and flank counterattacks of the 33rd Russian Army, the German offensive stalled and four days later was repulsed by the launched Soviet counteroffensive. On December 2, one German reconnaissance battalion managed to reach the city of Khimki - about 8 km from Moscow - and capture here the bridge over the Moscow-Volga canal, as well as the railway station. This episode marked the farthest breakthrough of German troops to Moscow.
Meanwhile, severe frosts began. November 30th Fedor von Bock reported to Berlin that the temperature was -45°C. Although, according to the Soviet meteorological service, the lowest temperature in December reached only -28.8°C, German troops without winter clothes froze even with them. Their technical equipment was not adapted for such severe weather conditions. Among German soldiers more than 130 thousand cases of frostbite were noted. The oil in the engines froze, the motors had to be warmed up for several hours before use. Cold weather also hurt the Soviet troops, but they were better prepared for it.
The Axis offensive against Moscow stopped. Heinz Guderian wrote in his diary: “The attack on Moscow failed ... We underestimated the strength of the enemy, the distance and the climate. Fortunately, I stopped my troops on December 5, otherwise the catastrophe would have been inevitable.
Some historians believe that artificial floods played an important role in protecting Moscow. They were set up mainly to break the ice and prevent German troops from crossing the Volga and the Moscow Sea. The first such act was the explosion of the Istra reservoir dam on November 24, 1941. The second was the discharge of water from 6 reservoirs (Khimki, Iksha, Pyalovsk, Pestov, Pirogov, Klyazma) and the Moscow Sea near Dubna on November 28, 1941. Both of them were carried out by order Soviet General Staff 0428 dated November 17, 1941. These floods in the midst of severe winter time partially flooded about 30-40 villages.
Although the offensive of the Wehrmacht was stopped, German intelligence believed that the Russians had no more reserves left, and they would not be able to organize a counteroffensive. This assessment turned out to be wrong. The Soviet command transferred over 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks and more than 1,500 aircraft from Siberia and the Far East to Moscow. By early December, when the offensive proposed by Zhukov and Vasilevsky was finally approved by Stalin, the Red Army created a reserve of 58 divisions. Even with these new reserves, the Soviet troops involved in the Moscow operation numbered only 1.1 million, only slightly outnumbering the Wehrmacht. However, thanks to the skillful deployment of troops, a ratio of two to one was achieved at some critical points.
On December 5, 1941, a counter-offensive with the aim of "removing the immediate threat to Moscow" began on the Kalinin Front. The Southwestern and Western fronts began their offensive operations a day later. After several days of little advance, Soviet troops in the north retook Solnechnogorsk on December 12, and Klin on December 15. In the south, Guderian's army hastily retreated to Venev, and then to Sukhinichi. Thule's threat was lifted.
The counteroffensive of the Russian army near Moscow in the winter of 1941
On December 8, Hitler signed Directive No. 9 ordering the Wehrmacht to go on the defensive along the entire front. The Germans were unable to organize strong defensive lines in the places where they were at that time and were forced to retreat in order to consolidate their lines. Guderian wrote that on the same day there was a discussion with Hans Schmidt and Wolfram von Richthofen, and both these commanders agreed that the Germans could not hold the current front line. On December 14, Halder and Kluge, without Hitler's approval, gave permission for a limited withdrawal west of the Oka River. On December 20, during a meeting with the German commanders, Hitler forbade this withdrawal and ordered his soldiers to defend every piece of land. Guderian protested, pointing out that cold losses exceeded combat losses and that the supply of winter equipment was hampered by the difficulties of the route through Poland. Nevertheless, Hitler insisted on defending the existing front line. Guderian was fired on December 25, along with Generals Hoepner and Strauss, commanders of the 4th Panzer and 9th Field Army. Fedor von Bock was also fired, technically for medical reasons. The commander-in-chief of the ground forces, Walter von Brauchitsch, was removed from his post even earlier, on December 19.
Meanwhile, the Soviet advance continued in the north. The Red Army liberated Kalinin. Retreating before the Kalinin Front, the Germans found themselves in a "ledge" around Klin. The front commander, General Konev, tried to cover the enemy troops in it. Zhukov transferred additional forces to the southern end of the "ledge" so that Konev could trap the German 3rd Panzer Army, but the Germans managed to withdraw in time. Although it was not possible to create an encirclement, the Nazi defenses here were destroyed. A second encirclement attempt was made against the 2nd Panzer Army near Tula, but met strong resistance at Rzhev and was abandoned. The protrusion of the front line at Rzhev lasted until 1943. In the south, an important success was the encirclement and destruction of the 39th German Corps, which defended the southern flank of the 2nd Panzer Army.
The Luftwaffe was paralyzed in the second half of December. Until January 1942, the weather remained very cold, making it difficult to start the engines of cars. The Germans were short of ammunition. The Luftwaffe practically disappeared from the sky over Moscow, and the Soviet Air Force, operating from better prepared bases and supplied from a close rear, strengthened. On January 4, the sky cleared. The Luftwaffe were quickly receiving reinforcements, and Hitler hoped they would "save" the situation. Two groups of bombers arrived from Germany re-equipped (II./KG 4 and II./KG 30). Four groups of transport aircraft (102 Junkers Ju 52) were deployed near Moscow from the 4th German Air Force to evacuate encircled units and improve the supply of the German front. This last desperate effort by the Germans was not in vain. The air support helped prevent the complete rout of Army Group Center, which the Russians were already aiming for. From December 17 to 22, Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed 299 vehicles and 23 tanks near Tula, making it difficult to pursue the retreating German army.
In the central part of the front, the Soviet advance was much slower. Only on December 26, Soviet troops liberated Naro-Fominsk, on December 28 - Kaluga, and on January 2 - Maloyaroslavets, after 10 days of fighting. Soviet reserves were running out, and on January 7, 1942, Zhukov's counteroffensive was stopped. It threw back the exhausted and freezing Nazis by 100-250 km. from Moscow. Stalin demanded new offensives to trap and destroy Army Group Centre, but the Red Army was overworked and these attempts failed.
The attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR began at 4 am on June 22, 1941, when the German military aviation launched the first strikes on a number of Soviet cities and strategic military and infrastructure facilities. Having attacked the USSR, Germany unilaterally broke the non-aggression pact between the countries, concluded two years earlier for a period of 10 years.
Background and preparation of the attack
In the middle of 1939, the USSR changed the course of its foreign policy: the collapse of the idea " collective security”and the dead end of negotiations with Great Britain and France forced Moscow to move closer to Nazi Germany. On August 23, the head of the German Foreign Ministry, I. von Ribbentrop, arrived in Moscow. On the same day, the parties signed a non-aggression pact for a period of ten years, and in addition to it, a secret protocol, which stipulated the delimitation of the spheres of interests of both states in Eastern Europe. Eight days after the signing of the treaty, Germany attacked Poland - the Second World War began.
The rapid victories of German troops in Europe caused concern in Moscow. The first deterioration in Soviet-German relations occurred in August-September 1940, and was caused by the provision of foreign policy guarantees by Germany to Romania after it was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR (this was stipulated in a secret protocol). In September, Germany sent its troops to Finland. By this time, the German command had already been developing a plan for a lightning war (“blitzkrieg”) against the Soviet Union for more than a month.
In the spring of 1941, relations between Moscow and Berlin deteriorated sharply again: less than a day had passed since the signing of the Soviet-Yugoslav friendship treaty, as German troops invaded Yugoslavia. The USSR did not react to this, as well as to the attack on Greece. After the defeat of Greece and Yugoslavia, German troops began to concentrate near the borders of the USSR. Since the spring of 1941, Moscow received information from various sources about the threat of attack from Germany. So, at the end of March, a letter to Stalin with a warning that the Germans were transferring tank divisions from Romania to southern Poland was sent by British Prime Minister W. Churchill. Germany's intention to attack the USSR was reported by a number of Soviet intelligence officers and diplomats - Schulze-Boysen and Harnack from Germany, R. Sorge from Japan. However, some of their colleagues reported the opposite, so Moscow was in no hurry to draw conclusions. According to G.K. Zhukov, Stalin was sure that Hitler would not fight on two fronts and would not start a war with the USSR until the end of the war in the West. His point of view was shared by the head of the intelligence department, General F. I. Golikov: on March 20, 1941, he presented Stalin with a report in which he concluded that all the information about the inevitability of the imminent start of the Soviet-German war “should be regarded as disinformation coming from the British and even maybe German intelligence.
With the threat of conflict growing, Stalin assumed the formal leadership of the government: on May 6, 1941, he assumed the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. The day before, he spoke in the Kremlin at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies, in particular, saying that it was time for the country to move "from defense to offensive." On May 15, 1941, People's Commissar of Defense S. K. Timoshenko and the newly appointed Chief of the General Staff G. K. Zhukov presented to Stalin “Considerations on the strategic deployment plan armed forces Soviet Union in case of war with Germany and its allies. It was assumed that the Red Army would strike at the enemy at the moment when the enemy armies were in the deployment stage. According to Zhukov, Stalin did not want to hear about a preventive strike against German troops. Fearing a provocation that could give Germany a pretext for an attack, Stalin forbade opening fire on German reconnaissance aircraft, which had been increasingly crossing the Soviet border since the spring of 1941. He was convinced that, by observing the utmost caution, the USSR would avoid war, or at least delay it until a more favorable moment.
On June 14, 1941, by order of the Soviet government, TASS published a statement stating that rumors about Germany's intention to break the non-aggression pact and start a war against the USSR were groundless, and the transfer of German troops from the Balkans to eastern Germany was probably connected with other motives. . On June 17, 1941, Stalin was informed that the Soviet intelligence officer Schulze-Boysen, an employee of the German aviation headquarters, said: “All German military measures to prepare an armed uprising against the USSR are completely over, and a strike can be expected at any time.” The Soviet leader imposed a resolution in which he called Schulze-Boysen a disinformer and advised him to be sent to hell.
On the evening of June 21, 1941, a message was received in Moscow: a sergeant major of the German army, a staunch communist, crossed the Soviet-Romanian border at the risk of his life and said that the offensive would begin in the morning. The information was urgently conveyed to Stalin, and he gathered the military and members of the Politburo. People's Commissar of Defense S. K. Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff G. K. Zhukov, according to the latter, asked Stalin to accept a directive to put the troops on alert, but he doubted, suggesting that the Germans could have planted a defector officer on purpose in order to provoke a conflict. Instead of the directive proposed by Tymoshenko and Zhukov, the head of state ordered another, short directive, indicating that the attack could begin with a provocation by the German units. On June 22, at 0:30, this order was transmitted to the military districts. At three o'clock in the morning, all those gathered at Stalin's dispersed.
Start of hostilities
Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, German aviation destroyed a significant part of the Soviet aviation in the western districts with a sudden attack on airfields. The bombing of Kiev, Riga, Smolensk, Murmansk, Sevastopol and many other cities began. In a declaration read on the radio that day, Hitler stated that Moscow allegedly "treacherously violated" the friendship treaty with Germany, as it concentrated troops against it and violated German borders. Therefore, the Führer said, he decided to "come out against the Judeo-Anglo-Saxon warmongers and their assistants, as well as the Jews from the Moscow Bolshevik center" in the name of "the cause of peace" and "the security of Europe."
The offensive was carried out according to a previously developed plan "Barbarossa". As in previous military campaigns, the Germans expected to use the tactics of "blitzkrieg" ("blitzkrieg"): the defeat of the USSR was supposed to take only eight to ten weeks and be completed even before Germany ended the war with Great Britain. Planning to end the war before winter, the German command did not even bother to prepare winter uniforms. The German armies as part of three groups were to advance on Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev, having previously surrounded and destroyed enemy troops in the western part of the USSR. The army groups were led by experienced military leaders: Field Marshal von Leeb commanded the North Army Group, Field Marshal von Bock commanded the Center Army Group, and Field Marshal von Rundstedt commanded the South Army Group. Each army group was given its own air fleet and tank army, the Center group had two of them. The ultimate goal of Operation Barbarossa was to be the achievement of the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line. work industrial enterprises located to the east of this line - in the Urals, in Kazakhstan and Siberia - the Germans expected to paralyze with the help of air strikes.
Giving instructions to the High Command of the Armed Forces, Hitler emphasized that the war with the USSR should become a "conflict of two worldviews." He demanded a "war of annihilation": "carriers of the state political idea and political leaders" were ordered not to be taken prisoner and shot on the spot, which was contrary to the norms international law. Anyone who resisted was ordered to be shot.
By the time the war began, 190 divisions of Germany and its allies were concentrated near the Soviet borders, of which 153 were German. They included more than 90% of the armored forces of the German army. The total number of armed forces of Germany and its allies intended to attack the USSR was 5.5 million people. They had more than 47,000 guns and mortars, 4,300 tanks and assault guns, and about 6,000 combat aircraft at their disposal. They were opposed by the forces of five Soviet border military districts (with the outbreak of the war, they were deployed in five fronts). In total, there were over 4.8 million people in the Red Army, who had 76.5 thousand guns and mortars, 22.6 thousand tanks, and approximately 20 thousand aircraft. However, only 2.9 million fighters, 32.9 thousand guns and mortars, 14.2 thousand tanks and more than 9 thousand aircraft were in the border districts of the above.
After 4 o'clock in the morning, Stalin was awakened by a phone call from Zhukov - he said that the war with Germany had begun. At 4:30 a.m., Tymoshenko and Zhukov again met with the head of state. In the meantime, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov, at the direction of Stalin, went to a meeting with the German ambassador W. von der Schulenburg. Until the return of Molotov, Stalin refused to order counterattacks on enemy units. The conversation between Molotov and Schulenburg began at 5:30. On behalf of the German government, the ambassador read out a note as follows: “In view of the further intolerable threat that has arisen for the German eastern border as a result of the massive concentration and training of all the armed forces of the Red Army, the German government considers itself forced to take military countermeasures.” The head of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs tried in vain to challenge what the ambassador had said and to convince him of the innocence of the USSR. Already at 5:45, Molotov was in Stalin's office together with L.P. Beria, L.Z. Mekhlis, as well as Timoshenko and Zhukov. Stalin agreed to give a directive on the destruction of the enemy, but emphasized that the Soviet units should not violate the German border anywhere. At 7:15 a.m., the corresponding directive was sent to the troops.
Stalin's entourage believed that it was he who should speak on the radio with an appeal to the population, but he refused, and Molotov did it instead. In his address, the head of the NKID announced the start of the war, noted that the German aggression was the cause, and expressed confidence in the victory of the USSR. At the end of his speech, he uttered the famous words: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours!" In order to prevent possible doubts and rumors about the silence of Stalin himself, Molotov added several references to him to the original text of the appeal.
On the evening of June 22, British Prime Minister W. Churchill spoke on the radio. He said that in the current situation, his anti-communist views recede into the background, and the West should provide "Russia and the Russian people" with all the help it can. On June 24, F. Roosevelt, President of the United States, made a similar statement in support of the USSR.
Retreat of the Red Army
In total, only on the first day of the war, the USSR lost at least 1200 aircraft (according to German data - more than 1.5 thousand). Many nodes and lines of communication were rendered unusable - because of this, the General Staff lost contact with the troops. Due to the inability to fulfill the requirements of the center, the commander of the aviation of the Western Front, I. I. Kopets, shot himself. On June 22, at 9:15 pm, the General Staff sent a new directive to the troops with an order to immediately launch a counteroffensive, “regardless of the border”, encircle and destroy the main enemy forces within two days, and capture the areas of the cities of Suwalki and Lublin by the end of June 24. But the Soviet units failed not only to go on the offensive, but also to create a continuous defensive front. The Germans had a tactical advantage on all fronts. Despite the enormous efforts and sacrifices and the colossal enthusiasm of the fighters, the Soviet troops failed to stop the enemy's offensive. Already on June 28, the Germans entered Minsk. Due to the loss of communications and panic on the fronts, the army became almost uncontrollable.
Stalin was in a state of shock for the first 10 days of the war. He often intervened in the course of events, several times called Timoshenko and Zhukov to the Kremlin. On June 28, after the surrender of Minsk, the head of state went to his dacha and for three days - from June 28 to 30 - he stayed there without a break, not answering calls and not inviting anyone to his place. Only on the third day, the closest associates came to him themselves and persuaded him to return to work. On July 1, Stalin arrived in the Kremlin and on the same day stood at the head of the newly formed State Committee defense (GKO) - an emergency management body that received full power in the state. In addition to Stalin, the GKO included V. M. Molotov, K. E. Voroshilov, G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria. Later, the composition of the committee changed several times. Ten days later, Stalin also headed the Headquarters of the Supreme Command.
To rectify the situation, Stalin ordered to send marshals B. M. Shaposhnikov and G. I. Kulik to the Western Front, but the first fell ill, and the second himself was surrounded and with difficulty got out, disguised as a peasant. Stalin decided to shift the responsibility for failures on the fronts to the military command on the ground. Commanding Western Front army general D. G. Pavlov and several other military leaders were arrested and sent to a military tribunal. They were accused of an "anti-Soviet conspiracy", of deliberately "opening the front to Germany", and then of cowardice and alarmism, after which they were shot. In 1956 they were all rehabilitated.
By the beginning of July 1941, the armies of Germany and its allies occupied most of the Baltic states, Western Ukraine and Belarus, approached Smolensk and Kiev. The Army Group Center advanced the deepest into Soviet territory. The German command and Hitler believed that the main enemy forces had been defeated, and the end of the war was near. Now Hitler was wondering how to quickly complete the defeat of the USSR: continue to advance on Moscow or encircle Soviet troops in Ukraine or Leningrad.
Version of Hitler's "preemptive strike"
In the early 1990s, V. B. Rezun, a former Soviet intelligence officer who fled to the West, published several books under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, in which he claimed that Moscow planned to be the first to hit Germany, and Hitler, having started the war, only prevented the attack of the Soviet troops. Later, Rezun was supported by some Russian historians. However, an analysis of all available sources shows that if Stalin was going to strike first, then in a more favorable situation. As of the end of June-beginning of July 1941, he sought to delay the war with Germany and was not ready for an offensive.
22 JUNE 1941 OF THE YEAR - THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
On June 22, 1941, at 4 am, without declaring war, Nazi Germany and its allies attacked the Soviet Union. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War fell not just on Sunday. This was religious holiday All the saints who shone in the Russian land.
Parts of the Red Army were attacked by German troops along the entire length of the border. Riga, Vindava, Libava, Siauliai, Kaunas, Vilnius, Grodno, Lida, Volkovysk, Brest, Kobrin, Slonim, Baranovichi, Bobruisk, Zhytomyr, Kiev, Sevastopol and many other cities, railway junctions, airfields, naval bases of the USSR were bombed , artillery shelling of border fortifications and areas of deployment of Soviet troops near the border from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians was carried out. The Great Patriotic War began.
Then no one knew that it would go down in the history of mankind as the most bloody. No one guessed that the Soviet people would have to go through inhuman trials, go through and win. Rid the world of fascism, showing everyone that the spirit of a Red Army soldier cannot be broken by the invaders. No one could have imagined that the names of the hero cities would become known to the whole world, that Stalingrad would become a symbol of the resilience of our people, Leningrad a symbol of courage, Brest a symbol of courage. That, on a par with male warriors, old men, women and children will heroically defend the earth from the fascist plague.
1418 days and nights of war.
Over 26 million human lives...
These photographs have one thing in common: they were taken in the first hours and days of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
On the eve of the war
Soviet border guards on patrol. The photograph is interesting because it was taken for a newspaper at one of the outposts on the western border of the USSR on June 20, 1941, that is, two days before the war.
German air raid
The first to take the blow were the border guards and the fighters of the cover units. They not only defended, but also went on the counterattack. For a whole month, a garrison fought in the rear of the Germans Brest Fortress. Even after the enemy managed to capture the fortress, some of its defenders continued to resist. The last of them was captured by the Germans in the summer of 1942.
The picture was taken on June 24, 1941.
During the first 8 hours of the war, Soviet aviation lost 1,200 aircraft, of which about 900 were lost on the ground (66 airfields were bombed). The Western Special Military District suffered the greatest losses - 738 aircraft (528 on the ground). Having learned about such losses, the head of the Air Force of the district, Major General Kopets I.I. shot himself.
On the morning of June 22, Moscow radio broadcast the usual Sunday programs and peaceful music. Soviet citizens learned about the beginning of the war only at noon, when Vyacheslav Molotov spoke on the radio. He reported: "Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country."
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1941 poster
On the same day, a decree was published by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the mobilization of those liable for military service born in 1905-1918 on the territory of all military districts. Hundreds of thousands of men and women received summons, appeared at the military registration and enlistment offices, and then went to the front in trains.
Mobilization opportunities Soviet system, multiplied during the Great Patriotic War by the patriotism and sacrifice of the people, played an important role in organizing a rebuff to the enemy, especially at the initial stage of the war. The call "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" was accepted by all the people. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens voluntarily went into the army. In just a week since the beginning of the war, more than 5 million people were mobilized.
The line between peace and war was invisible, and people did not immediately perceive the change of reality. It seemed to many that this was just some kind of masquerade, a misunderstanding, and soon everything would be resolved.
The fascist troops met stubborn resistance in the battles near Minsk, Smolensk, Vladimir-Volynsky, Przemysl, Lutsk, Dubno, Rovno, Mogilev and others.And yet, in the first three weeks of the war, the troops of the Red Army left Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine and Moldova. Minsk fell six days after the start of the war. The German army advanced in various directions from 350 to 600 km. The Red Army lost almost 800 thousand people.
The turning point in the perception of the war by the inhabitants of the Soviet Union, of course, was August 14. It was then that the whole country suddenly learned that The Germans occupied Smolensk . It really was a bolt from the blue. While the fighting was going on "somewhere out there, in the west," and cities flashed in the reports, the location of which many could imagine with great difficulty, it seemed that the war was still far away anyway. Smolensk is not just the name of the city, this word meant a lot. Firstly, it is already more than 400 km from the border, and secondly, only 360 km from Moscow. And thirdly, unlike Vilna, Grodno and Molodechno, Smolensk is an ancient purely Russian city.
The stubborn resistance of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 frustrated Hitler's plans. The Nazis failed to quickly take either Moscow or Leningrad, and in September the long defense of Leningrad began. In the Arctic, Soviet troops, in cooperation with the Northern Fleet, defended Murmansk and the main base of the fleet - Polyarny. Although in Ukraine in October-November the enemy captured the Donbass, captured Rostov, and broke into the Crimea, nevertheless, here, too, his troops were fettered by the defense of Sevastopol. The formations of the Army Group "South" could not reach the rear of the Soviet troops remaining in the lower reaches of the Don through the Kerch Strait.
Minsk 1941. Execution of Soviet prisoners of war
September 30th within Operation Typhoon the Germans started general attack on Moscow . Its beginning was unfavorable for the Soviet troops. Pali Bryansk and Vyazma. On October 10, G.K. was appointed commander of the Western Front. Zhukov. On October 19, Moscow was declared under a state of siege. In bloody battles, the Red Army still managed to stop the enemy. Having strengthened the Army Group Center, the German command resumed the attack on Moscow in mid-November. Overcoming the resistance of the Western, Kalinin and right flanks of the Southwestern fronts, the enemy strike groups bypassed the city from the north and south and by the end of the month reached the Moscow-Volga canal (25-30 km from the capital), approached Kashira. On this, the German offensive bogged down. The bloodless Army Group Center was forced to go on the defensive, which was also facilitated by the successful offensive operations of the Soviet troops near Tikhvin (November 10 - December 30) and Rostov (November 17 - December 2). On December 6, the counteroffensive of the Red Army began. , as a result of which the enemy was driven back from Moscow by 100 - 250 km. Kaluga, Kalinin (Tver), Maloyaroslavets and others were liberated.
On guard of the Moscow sky. Autumn 1941
The victory near Moscow was of great strategic and moral-political significance, since it was the first since the beginning of the war. The immediate threat to Moscow was eliminated.
Although, as a result of the summer-autumn campaign, our army retreated 850-1200 km inland, and the most important economic regions fell into the hands of the aggressor, the plans for the "blitzkrieg" were nevertheless frustrated. The Nazi leadership faced the inevitable prospect of a protracted war. The victory near Moscow also changed the balance of power in the international arena. They began to look at the Soviet Union as the decisive factor in the Second World War. Japan was forced to refrain from attacking the USSR.
In winter, units of the Red Army carried out an offensive on other fronts. However, it was not possible to consolidate the success, primarily because of the dispersal of forces and means along a front of enormous length.
During the offensive of the German troops in May 1942, the Crimean Front was defeated on the Kerch Peninsula in 10 days. May 15 had to leave Kerch, and July 4, 1942 after a hard defense fell Sevastopol. The enemy completely took possession of the Crimea. In July - August, Rostov, Stavropol and Novorossiysk were captured. Stubborn battles were fought in the central part of the Caucasus Range.
Hundreds of thousands of our compatriots found themselves in more than 14 thousand concentration camps, prisons, ghettos scattered throughout Europe. Dispassionate figures testify to the scale of the tragedy: only on the territory of Russia, the fascist invaders shot, choked in gas chambers, burned, and hanged 1.7 million. people (including 600 thousand children). In total, about 5 million Soviet citizens died in concentration camps.
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But, despite the stubborn battles, the Nazis failed to solve their main task - to break through into the Transcaucasus to master the oil reserves of Baku. At the end of September, the offensive of the fascist troops in the Caucasus was stopped.
To contain the enemy onslaught in the east, the Stalingrad Front was created under the command of Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. On July 17, 1942, the enemy under the command of General von Paulus struck a strong beat on the Stalingrad front. In August, the Nazis broke through to the Volga in stubborn battles. From the beginning of September 1942, the heroic defense of Stalingrad began. The battles went on literally for every inch of land, for every house. Both sides suffered huge losses. By mid-November, the Nazis were forced to stop the offensive. The heroic resistance of the Soviet troops made it possible to create favorable conditions for them to go over to the counteroffensive at Stalingrad and thereby initiate a radical change in the course of the war.
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By November 1942, almost 40% of the population was under German occupation. The regions captured by the Germans were subject to military and civil administration. In Germany it was even created special ministry on Affairs of the Occupied Regions headed by A. Rozenberg. Political supervision was in charge of the SS and police services. On the ground, the occupiers formed the so-called self-government - city and district councils, in the villages the posts of elders were introduced. Persons dissatisfied with the Soviet government were involved in cooperation. All residents of the occupied territories, regardless of age, were required to work. In addition to participating in the construction of roads and defensive structures, they were forced to clear minefields. Civilian population, mostly young people, were also sent to forced labor in Germany, where they were called "Ostarbeiter" and used as cheap labor. In total, 6 million people were hijacked during the war years. From hunger and epidemics in the occupied territory, more than 6.5 million people were destroyed, more than 11 million Soviet citizens were shot in camps and at their places of residence.
November 19, 1942 Soviet troops moved into counteroffensive at Stalingrad (Operation Uranus). The forces of the Red Army surrounded 22 divisions and 160 separate units of the Wehrmacht (about 330 thousand people). The Nazi command formed the Don Army Group, consisting of 30 divisions, and tried to break through the encirclement. However, this attempt was not successful. In December, our troops, having defeated this grouping, launched an offensive against Rostov (Operation Saturn). By the beginning of February 1943, our troops liquidated the grouping of fascist troops caught in the ring. 91 thousand people were taken prisoner, led by the commander of the 6th German Army, Field Marshal von Paulus. Behind 6.5 months of the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943) Germany and its allies lost up to 1.5 million people, as well as a huge amount of equipment. military power Nazi Germany was significantly undermined.
The defeat at Stalingrad caused a deep political crisis in Germany. It was declared three days of mourning. The morale of the German soldiers fell, defeatist sentiments swept over the general population, which less and less believed the Fuhrer.
The victory of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the course of World War II. The strategic initiative finally passed into the hands of the Soviet Armed Forces.
In January-February 1943, the Red Army was conducting an offensive on all fronts. In the Caucasian direction, Soviet troops advanced by the summer of 1943 by 500-600 km. In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken.
The command of the Wehrmacht planned summer 1943 conduct a major strategic offensive operation in the area of the Kursk salient (Operation Citadel) , defeat the Soviet troops here, and then strike at the rear of the Southwestern Front (Operation Panther) and subsequently, building on success, again create a threat to Moscow. To this end, up to 50 divisions were concentrated in the area of the Kursk Bulge, including 19 tank and motorized divisions, and other units - a total of over 900 thousand people. This grouping was opposed by the troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts, which had 1.3 million people. During the battle for Kursk Bulge the largest tank battle World War II.
On July 5, 1943, a massive offensive of the Soviet troops began. Within 5 - 7 days, our troops, stubbornly defending themselves, stopped the enemy, who had penetrated 10 - 35 km beyond the front line, and launched a counteroffensive. It started July 12 near Prokhorovka , where the largest oncoming tank battle in the history of wars (with the participation of up to 1,200 tanks on both sides) took place. In August 1943, our troops captured Orel and Belgorod. In honor of this victory in Moscow, a salute was fired for the first time with 12 artillery volleys. Continuing the offensive, our troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the Nazis.
In September, Left-bank Ukraine and Donbass were liberated. On November 6, formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front entered Kiev.
Having thrown the enemy back 200-300 km from Moscow, the Soviet troops set about liberating Belarus. From that moment on, our command held the strategic initiative until the end of the war. November 1942 to December 1943 Soviet army moved westward by 500-1300 km, freeing about 50% of the territory occupied by the enemy. 218 enemy divisions were destroyed. During this period, partisan formations inflicted great damage on the enemy, in the ranks of which up to 250 thousand people fought.
Significant successes of the Soviet troops in 1943 intensified diplomatic and military-political cooperation between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. On November 28 - December 1, 1943, the Tehran Conference of the "Big Three" was held with the participation of I. Stalin (USSR), W. Churchill (Great Britain) and F. Roosevelt (USA). The leaders of the leading powers of the anti-Hitler coalition determined the timing of the opening of a second front in Europe (the landing operation "Overlord" was scheduled for May 1944).
Tehran Conference of the "Big Three" with the participation of I. Stalin (USSR), W. Churchill (Great Britain) and F. Roosevelt (USA).
In the spring of 1944 Crimea was cleared of the enemy.
Under these favorable conditions, the Western Allies, after two years of preparation, opened a second front in Europe in northern France. June 6, 1944 the combined Anglo-American forces (General D. Eisenhower), numbering over 2.8 million people, up to 11 thousand combat aircraft, over 12 thousand combat and 41 thousand transport ships, having crossed the English Channel and the Pas de Calais, started the biggest war in years landing Norman operation ("Overlord") and entered Paris in August.
Continuing to develop the strategic initiative, in the summer of 1944, Soviet troops launched a powerful offensive in Karelia (June 10 - August 9), Belarus (June 23 - August 29), in Western Ukraine (July 13 - August 29) and in Moldova (June 20 - 29 August).
During Belarusian operation (code name "Bagration") Army Group Center was defeated, Soviet troops liberated Belarus, Latvia, part of Lithuania, eastern Poland and reached the border with East Prussia.
The victories of the Soviet troops in the southern direction in the autumn of 1944 helped the Bulgarian, Hungarian, Yugoslav and Czechoslovak peoples in their liberation from fascism.
As a result of the hostilities of 1944, the state border of the USSR, treacherously violated by Germany in June 1941, was restored along its entire length from the Barents to the Black Sea. The Nazis were expelled from Romania, Bulgaria, from most regions of Poland and Hungary. In these countries, pro-German regimes were overthrown, and patriotic forces came to power. The Soviet Army entered the territory of Czechoslovakia.
While the block of fascist states was falling apart, the anti-Hitler coalition was growing stronger, as evidenced by the success of the Crimean (Yalta) conference of the leaders of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain (from February 4 to 11, 1945).
But still the decisive role in defeating the enemy at the final stage was played by the Soviet Union. Thanks to the titanic efforts of the entire people, the technical equipment and armament of the army and navy of the USSR by the beginning of 1945 had reached the highest level. In January - early April 1945, as a result of a powerful strategic offensive on the entire Soviet-German front, the Soviet Army decisively defeated the main enemy forces with the forces of ten fronts. During the East Prussian, Vistula-Oder, West Carpathian and the completion of the Budapest operations, Soviet troops created the conditions for further strikes in Pomerania and Silesia, and then for an attack on Berlin. Almost all of Poland and Czechoslovakia, the entire territory of Hungary were liberated.
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The capture of the capital of the Third Reich and the final defeat of fascism was carried out during Berlin operation(April 16 - May 8, 1945).
April 30 in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery Hitler committed suicide .
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On the morning of May 1, over the Reichstag, sergeants M.A. Egorov and M.V. Kantaria was hoisted the Red Banner as a symbol of the Victory of the Soviet people. On May 2, Soviet troops completely captured the city. The attempts of the new German government, which on May 1, 1945, after the suicide of A. Hitler, was headed by Grand Admiral K. Doenitz, to achieve a separate peace with the USA and Great Britain failed.
May 9, 1945 at 0043 In the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, the Act of Unconditional Surrender of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany was signed. On behalf of the Soviet side, this historical document was signed by the hero of the war, Marshal G.K. Zhukov, from Germany - Field Marshal Keitel. On the same day, the remnants of the last large enemy grouping on the territory of Czechoslovakia in the Prague region were defeated. City Liberation Day - May 9 - became the Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. The news of the Victory spread like lightning all over the world. The Soviet people, who suffered the greatest losses, greeted her with popular rejoicing. Truly, it was a great holiday "with tears in the eyes."
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In Moscow, on Victory Day, a festive salute was fired from a thousand guns.
Great Patriotic War 1941-1945
Material prepared by Sergey SHULYAK
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