The main content of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War consisted of repelling enemy attacks with the forces of the first strategic echelon while simultaneously carrying out the mobilization and strategic deployment of the Armed Forces of the USSR, moving reserves from the depths of the country, and transferring the management system and economy to a martial law. At the same time, the evacuation of the population, industrial and agricultural equipment, material and cultural assets, property of institutions and civilians to the rear areas of the country was carried out from the front line.

Basic legal and regulatory framework

activities of the leadership of the western regions of the Soviet Union

In the initial period of the war, the activities of party and Soviet bodies in the western regions of the USSR were carried out on the basis of resolutions and directives of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government.

On June 22, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Decree “On the mobilization of those liable for military service in the Leningrad, Baltic special, Western special, Kiev special, Odessa, Kharkov, Oryol, Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Ural, Siberian, Volga, North Caucasus and Transcaucasian military districts.” In accordance with it, in the regions that were within the boundaries of these districts, conscription from the reserves of military personnel began in 1905–1918. birth.

On the same day, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On martial law” was adopted, according to which martial law was declared and came into force in Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kalinin, Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, Murmansk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan , Smolensk, Tula and Yaroslavl regions, Krasnodar Territory, Belorussian SSR, Karelo-Finnish SSR, Latvian SSR, Lithuanian SSR, Moldavian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, Estonian SSR, in the Crimea and in the cities of Moscow and Leningrad.

At the same time, on the same day, the NKGB of the USSR sent a directive to its regional and district departments “On the activities of state security bodies in connection with the outbreak of hostilities with Germany.” The same instructions were received by the relevant local authorities NKVD.

On June 23, by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the Main Command was created. In general, this body was the highest body of strategic leadership of the armed struggle.

On June 23, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a Resolution that defined the tasks of party and Soviet bodies in wartime conditions.

On June 24, their own Decree “On the creation of the Evacuation Council” and the Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR “On the protection of enterprises and institutions and the creation of destruction battalions” were issued.

On June 27, a resolution was issued by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the evacuation of the population, industrial facilities and material assets from the front line. At the same time, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a Resolution on the mobilization of communists and Komsomol members.

On June 29, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a directive to party and Soviet organizations in the front-line regions “On organizing the forces of the people to defeat the enemy and the deployment of a nationwide partisan struggle in the rear of the Nazi armies.”

On the same day, as well as additionally on July 1, the regional and district departments of the NKVD received new directives of the NKGB of the USSR “On the tasks of state security agencies in wartime conditions,” which specified their activities.

On June 30, by a joint resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, an emergency supreme government agency USSR - State Defense Committee (GKO), “in view of the current state of emergency and in order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR to repel the enemy who treacherously attacked our homeland.” This body was endowed with full power on the territory of the USSR, it was given broad legislative, executive and administrative functions, it united the military, political and economic leadership of the country. His orders and resolutions were binding for execution by all state authorities and management of the country and all other government structures.

On July 2, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On universal compulsory training of the population for air defense” was issued. It was introduced for the entire population aged 16 to 60 years. In accordance with the directive, the creation of primary formations of local air defense (LAD) began.

On July 10, by decree of the State Defense Committee, the Headquarters of the Main Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, it was headed by the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin.

On the same day, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted a resolution “On the organization of local air defense in cities and towns of the RSFSR.” Responsibility for organizing MPVO was assigned to regional and regional executive committees, councils of people's commissars of autonomous republics, and in cities - to city executive committees.

Main activities

some western regions of the Soviet Union

in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War

Kaluga region

June 22 – in connection with Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, rallies were held in Kaluga at machine-building and electromechanical plants, match factories and clothing factories, in which more than 9 thousand people took part.

July 3 – the first residents of the city of Kaluga were sent to build the Rzhev-Vyazemsky defensive fortifications.

On July 5, the formation of a people's militia began in Kaluga; it included 3,884 volunteers. At the same time, 44 fighter battalions were organized to fight German saboteurs and paratroopers and protect factories, bridges, roads, and warehouses. More than 2 thousand residents of the region were sent to construct defensive structures.

July 10 - the cities of the Kaluga region Lyudinovo and Sukhinichi were subjected to enemy bombing for the first time. Almost at this time, the evacuation of the population and material assets deep into the country began. The first train with workers and equipment from the Lyudinovsky (now diesel locomotive) plant was sent to Syzran. Later, the Duminichesk plant "Revolutionary" and the Dudorovsky (Ulyanovsk region) glass plant were evacuated, which were sent respectively to Borisoglebsk, Voronezh region, and to Sverdlovsk.

Tver region

June 23 - by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the mobilization of conscripts of military age into the Red Army began in the region, which was completed by military registration and enlistment offices during the first two weeks of the war. More than 200 thousand people were drafted into the region. Tens of thousands of people went to the front as volunteers. Along with this, militia units and extermination battalions were created at enterprises and institutions.

June 29 – the directive of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On organizing the forces of the people to defeat the enemy and the deployment of a nationwide partisan struggle in the rear of the Nazi armies” was sent to the leaders of party and Soviet organizations in the front-line regions. Kalinin regional and district party committees began organizing partisan detachments. To lead the fight behind enemy lines, it was planned to create 24 underground party committees.

Along with this, at the same time, the civilian population of the region began work on the construction of a defensive line with a length of about 240 km. Up to 150 thousand people were employed in construction. Work was carried out almost around the clock.

At the same time, the evacuation of the population, industrial equipment, agricultural machinery, livestock, material and cultural assets, property of institutions and civilians to the rear areas of the country began from the front line.

July 5 - German troops invaded the western regions of the Kalinin region. They captured the first regional center of the Kalinin region - the city of Sebezh.

Smolensk region

On June 23, mobilization began in the Smolensk region. During the first weeks of the war, 183 thousand residents of the region were mobilized into the Red Army. At the same time, about 20 thousand volunteers were sent to the front.

On the night of June 29, Smolensk, Vyazma and Roslavl were subjected to massive attacks by enemy aircraft. Almost from the first days of the war, the Smolensk region became the distant and then the near rear of the Red Army. In hospitals and clinics located in schools and other public buildings, tens of thousands of wounded were treated. Smolensk donors, mainly women, donated about 25 thousand liters of blood for the wounded.

With the beginning of the war, air defense squads began to be created in factories and plants, in educational institutions and institutions, and fighter battalions were formed to fight enemy landing groups thrown into the rear. In total, 26 fighter battalions were created in the region, with more than 3 thousand people, and about 200 self-defense groups. Along with this, the beginning of the organization of the partisan movement in the Smolensk region was laid.

Already at the beginning of July, construction of defensive structures began in the region. Residents of Smolensk surrounded their city from the southwest with a 10-kilometer strip of earthen fortifications and equipped resistance centers on the city streets. Ambushes by groups of tank destroyers were set up in tank-dangerous directions. Up to 300 thousand people and 40 thousand carts were employed daily in defensive work.

On July 8, the Regional Committee for the Evacuation of Population and Property was created in the Smolensk region. Under the leadership of this committee, about 21 thousand wagons with the population, plant equipment, supplies of raw materials, as well as more than 300 thousand heads of cattle, about 1.5 thousand tractors and other property were evacuated from the region.

Bryansk region

In June, an armored train division was formed in Bryansk, which a week later took part in hostilities as part of the 21st Army. In addition, in the same month, the 331st Proletarian Rifle Division was formed from volunteers from the city of Bryansk and the region.

About 100 thousand people were sent to build defensive structures in July. In every city and region, militia units were formed.

In early July, in accordance with the orders of the State Defense Committee and the relevant People's Commissariat, the evacuation of leading industrial enterprises, other important facilities and equipment to the eastern regions of the country began. First of all, the enterprises of the Red Profintern, the carriage building plant named after. Uritsky (now PA "Meliormash"), mechanical plant named after. Kirov (now Arsenal Production Association), a cracker factory, a garment factory, and railway junctions.

In total, about 140 trains, or almost 300 thousand tons of economic cargo, were removed from Bryansk, and over 100 thousand specialists and workers were evacuated.

Pskov region

On June 22, the mobilization of military personnel of 14 ages began in the Pskov region. In the first days of the war, 15 thousand people were drafted from Pskov alone (out of a population of 68 thousand people).

On July 2, the bombing of Pskov and Velikiye Luki began and on the same day permission was received to organize evacuation commissions. As the front approached, the evacuation of the population from cities began. To maintain order and build defensive structures near Pskov and Velikiye Luki, destroyer battalions were created, which included party workers, NKVD officers, workers, students, intelligentsia. One of the tasks of these battalions was to fight saboteurs and spies. Under these conditions, about 1.5 thousand suspicious individuals were detained around Pskov alone.

At the beginning of July, German troops were approaching the southern outskirts of the Pskov land. Already on July 4 they occupied Ostrov, and on July 9 Pskov.

In general, in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Armed Forces suffered a heavy defeat. In three weeks they left Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova and a significant part of Ukraine.

During this time, German troops advanced deep into the territory of the Soviet Union:

• in the northwestern direction at 450-500 km,
• western – at 450-600 km
• and in the southwest - 300-350 km.

The Red Army lost killed, wounded, missing and captured:

• 815 thousand people,
• more than 21 thousand guns and mortars,
• over 11 thousand tanks,
• 4 thousand aircraft.

The losses of the German Wehrmacht were:

• 79 thousand people,
• 1 thousand guns and mortars,
• about 500 tanks,
• up to 800 aircraft.

Plan:

USSR in the late 30s. and the beginning of World War II

USSR in the late 30s. and the beginning of the Second World War

The internal political and economic development of the USSR at the end of the 30s remained complex and contradictory.

The economic development of the USSR was determined by the tasks of the third five-year plan (1938 - 1942). Despite the successes (in 1937, the USSR took second place in the world in terms of production), the industrial lag behind the West was not overcome, especially in the development of new technologies and in the production of consumer goods. The main efforts in the 3rd Five-Year Plan were aimed at developing industries that ensure the country's defense capability. In the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia, the fuel and energy base was developing at an accelerated pace. “Double factories” were created in the Urals, Western Siberia, and Central Asia.

In agriculture, the tasks of strengthening the country's defense capability were also taken into account. Plantings of industrial crops (cotton) expanded. By the beginning of 1941, significant food reserves had been created.

Particular attention was paid to the construction of defense factories. However, the creation of modern types of weapons for that time was delayed. New aircraft designs: the Yak-1, Mig-3 fighters, and the Il-2 attack aircraft were developed during the 3rd Five-Year Plan, but they were not able to establish widespread production before the war. The industry also had not mastered the mass production of T-34 and KV tanks by the beginning of the war.

Major events were carried out in the field of military development. The transition to a personnel system for recruiting the army has been completed. The law on universal conscription (1939) made it possible to increase the size of the army to 5 million people by 1941. In 1940, the ranks of general and admiral were established, and complete unity of command was introduced.

Social events were also driven by defense needs. In 1940, a program for the development of state labor reserves was adopted and the transition to an 8-hour working day and a 7-day working week was implemented. A law was passed on judicial liability for unauthorized dismissal, absenteeism and lateness to work.

At the end of the 1930s, international tensions increased. The Western powers pursued a policy of concessions to Nazi Germany, trying to direct its aggression against the USSR. The culmination of this policy was the Munich Agreement (September 1938) between Germany, Italy, England and France, which formalized the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

In the Far East, Japan, having captured most of China, approached the borders of the USSR. In the summer of 1938, an armed conflict occurred on the territory of the USSR in the area of ​​Lake Khasan. The Japanese group was repulsed. In May 1938, Japanese troops invaded Mongolia. Units of the Red Army under the command of G.K. Zhukov defeated them in the area of ​​the Khalkhin Gol River.

At the beginning of 1939, the last attempt was made to create a system of collective security between England, France and the USSR. The Western powers delayed negotiations. Therefore, the Soviet leadership moved towards rapprochement with Germany. On August 23, 1939, a Soviet-German non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) was concluded in Moscow. Attached to it was a protocol on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. The interests of the USSR were recognized by Germany in the Baltic states and Bessarabia.

On September 1, Germany attacked Poland. Under these conditions, the leadership of the USSR began to implement the Soviet-German agreements of August 1939. On September 17, the Red Army entered Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. In 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became part of the USSR.

In November 1939, the USSR started a war with Finland in the hope of its quick defeat, with the goal of moving the Soviet-Finnish border away from Leningrad in the Karelian Isthmus region. At the cost of enormous efforts, the resistance of the Finnish armed forces was broken. In March 1940, a Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, according to which the USSR received the entire Karelian Isthmus.

In the summer of 1940, as a result of political pressure, Romania ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR.

As a result, large territories with a population of 14 million people were included in the USSR. Foreign policy agreements of 1939 delayed the attack on the USSR for almost 2 years.

The initial period of the Great Patriotic War

Periodization of the Great Patriotic War:

I period (September 1, 1939 - June 1942) - expansion of the scale of the war while maintaining the superiority of the aggressor forces.

II period (June 1942 - January 1944) - a radical turning point in the course of the war, initiative and superiority in forces passed into the hands of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.

III period (January 1944 - September 2, 1945) - the final stage of the war: the defeat of the army and the collapse of the ruling regimes of the aggressor states.

On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. World War II began. On September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany. In April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, the German offensive began against France, Belgium, and Holland. On June 22, 1940, France capitulated. The Compiègne Armistice was signed between France and Germany.

By the summer of 1941, Germany and its allies had captured virtually all of Europe. In 1940, the fascist leadership developed the Barbarossa plan, the goal of which was the lightning defeat of the Soviet Armed Forces and the occupation of the USSR. To do this, 153 German divisions and 37 divisions of its allies - Italy, Finland, Romania and Hungary - were concentrated in the eastern direction. German troops were supposed to strike in three directions: central - Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow, northern - Baltic states - Leningrad, southern - Ukraine, South-East. A lightning-fast campaign was planned to capture the USSR before the fall of 1941 - a “blitzkrieg”.

Beginning of 1944 - May 9, 1945 - the period of liberation of the territory of the USSR, the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from the aggressor and the surrender of Nazi Germany.

The participation of the USSR in World War II continued with the period of the Soviet-Japanese War (August 9 - September 2, 1945).

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941 with widespread aerial bombing and offensive ground forces Germany and its allies along the entire European border of the USSR (over 4.5 thousand km). On June 23, the Headquarters of the Main Command was formed. On June 30, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created. J.V. Stalin was appointed commander-in-chief and chairman of the State Defense Committee.

At the end of June - the first half of July 1941, major defensive battles unfolded. In the central direction, all of Belarus was captured. The Smolensk battle lasted for more than two months. In the northwestern direction, the Baltic states are occupied, Leningrad is blockaded (blockade - 900 days). In the south, Kyiv was defended until September 1941, Odessa until October, Moldova and right-bank Ukraine were occupied.

Reasons for the temporary failures of the Red Army:

economic and military-strategic advantages of Germany;

experience in modern warfare and the superiority of the German army in technical equipment;

miscalculations of the Soviet leadership in assessing the real military situation;

the rearmament of the Red Army was not completed at the beginning of the war;

poor professional training of command personnel.

At the end of September - beginning of October 1941, the German Operation Typhoon began, aimed at capturing Moscow. The first line of defense was broken through on October 5-6. Bryansk and Vyazma fell. The second line near Mozhaisk delayed the German advance for several days. On October 19, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. The Red Army managed to stop the enemy.

On November 15, 1941, the second stage of the Nazi offensive against Moscow began. At the beginning of December, the enemy managed to reach the approaches to Moscow.

On December 5 - 6, 1941, the Red Army counteroffensive began, as a result of which the enemy was thrown back 100 - 250 km from Moscow.

The turning point of the Great Patriotic War

From November 1942 to November 1943, a radical change was made in the course of the Great Patriotic War, when the strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Soviet command, and the Armed Forces of the USSR moved from defense to strategic offensive.

After the Moscow defeat, the German command could no longer carry out an offensive along the entire Eastern Front. Determining the objectives of the summer campaign of 1942, it decided to deliver the main blow in the south, trying to capture the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. The Soviet command expected a new attack on Moscow in the summer of 1942, so more than half of the armies, almost 80% of tanks, and 62% of aircraft were concentrated here. And in the south, only 5.4% of our divisions and 3% of tanks are against the main forces of Germany.

At the end of July 1942, German troops under the command of General von Paulus struck a powerful blow on the Stalingrad front, and in August they reached the Volga and intensified their offensive. On August 25, 1942, a state of siege was introduced in Stalingrad.

From the first days of September the heroic defense of Stalingrad began. The battles for the city, for every street, every house continued continuously for more than 2 months. Soviet troops under the command of V.I. Chuikov and M.S. Shumilov repelled up to 700 enemy attacks.

November 19, 1942 Soviet troops The Southwestern (N.F. Vatutin) and Don (K.K. Rokossovsky) fronts began the grandiose offensive Operation Uranus. A day later, the Stalingrad Front emerged (A.I. Eremenko). The offensive was unexpected for the Germans. It developed at lightning speed and successfully. On November 23, 1942, the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts united, as a result of which the German group at Stalingrad (330 thousand soldiers and officers under the command of General von Paulus) was surrounded.

An attempt by the Nazi command to break through the encirclement front with the forces of Army Group Don (30 divisions) ended in another major defeat for German and Italian forces. On February 2, 1943, the remnants of von Paulus's army capitulated. Over the entire period of the battle of Stalingrad, the enemy lost 1.5 million people, 1/4 of all forces operating on the Eastern Front.

The victory in the Battle of Stalingrad led to a widespread offensive by the Red Army on all fronts: in January 1944 the blockade of Leningrad was broken, in February the North Caucasus was liberated, in February-March the front line in the Moscow direction moved back by 130-160 km.

The radical turning point during the Second World War, which began at Stalingrad, was completed during Battle of Kursk(July 5 – August 23, 1943). German leaders planned in the summer of 1943 to conduct a major offensive operation (codenamed "Citadel") in the Kursk region. To carry out the operation, the enemy concentrated up to 50 divisions (900 thousand people), 1.5 thousand tanks, and more than 2 thousand aircraft. On the Soviet side, more than 1 million people, 3,400 tanks, and about 3 thousand aircraft were involved. The Battle of Kursk was commanded by Marshals G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, generals N.F. Vatutin, K.K. Rokossovsky. At the first stage, the German troops went on the offensive, which ended on July 12 with the largest tank battle in the Second World War in the area of ​​the village of Prokhorovka. At the second stage of the battle, Soviet troops defeated the main enemy forces. On August 5, Belgorod and Orel were liberated. In honor of this victory, the first artillery salute during the war years was fired in Moscow. On August 23, Kharkov was liberated.

During the Battle of Kursk, 30 enemy divisions were defeated. The victory at Kursk accelerated the collapse of the fascist coalition.

The victory at Kursk ensured the further successful offensive of our troops. In September 1944, Left Bank Ukraine and Donbass were liberated, in October the Dnieper was crossed, and Kyiv was captured in November.

The final period of the Great Patriotic War

In 1944 - 1945 The USSR achieved economic and military-strategic superiority over Germany.

On June 6, 1944, Great Britain and the USA landed their troops under the command of General D. Eisenhower in Normandy. A second front was opened in Europe.

The political unity of the German bloc weakened; Japan never spoke out against the USSR. After the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of B. Mussolini, Italy capitulated and declared war on Germany.

In 1944, the Red Army carried out a number of major operations that completed the liberation of the territory of the USSR.

In January 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was lifted (900 days), the Korsun-Shevchenko operation was carried out, during which Soviet troops liberated Right Bank Ukraine and the southern regions of the USSR (Crimea, Odessa, etc.).

In the summer of 1944, the Red Army carried out one of the largest operations of the Great Patriotic War (Bagration). Belarus was completely liberated.

In 1944, the liberation campaign of the Soviet Armed Forces in Europe began. Soviet troops liberated Romania, Bulgaria, part of Poland, Norway, and Hungary.

In April 1945, Soviet troops began the Berlin operation. Troops of the 1st (commander - Marshal G.K. Zhukov), 2nd (commander - Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky) Belarusian and 1st Ukrainian (commander - Marshal I.S. Konev) fronts destroyed the Berlin enemy group. The fascist leadership was demoralized. A. Hitler committed suicide. On May 1, the capture of Berlin was completed and the Red Banner of Victory (Egorov, Kantaria, Berest) was hoisted over the Reichstag.

On May 8, 1945, in the Berlin suburb of Kalshorst, the Act of Unconditional Surrender of Germany was signed. On May 9, the remnants of German troops were defeated in the area of ​​​​Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. On June 24, the Victory Parade took place on Red Square in Moscow.

On July 17 - August 2, 1945, the Potsdam (Berlin) Conference took place, which resolved the problems of post-war settlement. Conference results:

an agreement on the demilitarization (liquidation of the war industry) and denazification (ban of the fascist party) of Germany;

creation of the International Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials);

creation of the United Nations;

recognition of the USSR's demand for reparations to be paid by Germany; the USSR's consent to start a war with Japan;

the agreement of the allies to the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to the USSR, the inclusion of the Baltic republics in the USSR, the transfer of the USSR to East Prussia from the city of Koenigsberg.

On August 8, 1945, the USSR declared war on Japan. Within a month, Soviet troops liberated Manchuria, North Korea, and captured South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

On September 2, 1945, Japan signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender. This meant the end of the Second World War.

The main result of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War was the victory over fascism, in which the USSR played a decisive role. Throughout the Second World War, the Soviet-German front was the main one: it was here that 507 divisions of the Wehrmacht and 100 divisions of Germany’s allies were defeated, while US and British troops defeated 176 divisions.

One of the main results of the war was a new geopolitical situation, which was characterized by a confrontation between two systems - capitalist and socialist. In 7 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, leftist, democratic forces came to power. From that time on, the USSR was surrounded mainly by friendly states. The Soviet people paid a huge price for these gains. 27 million Soviet citizens died. 1,710 cities and over 70 thousand villages lay in ruins.

Victory in the war was achieved thanks to unparalleled courage and patriotism Soviet people, which manifested itself in the creation of a people's militia, in the partisan movement. The selfless labor of millions of home front workers provided the economic basis for military victories.

Main events and problems (1941 – 1942)

Introduction

Let us note right away that there is no way to talk in detail in the essay about the events and problems of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany: every small period of time from the first days of the offensive of the German armies to the victory in Stalingrad is a whole layer of history with its own reasons and consequences. For example, several chapters are devoted to the breakthrough of the defense of the Western Front (commander D. Pavlov) in V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate”. The events from the first day of the war to the defeat of the Germans near Moscow occupied the first book of the three-volume novel “The Living and the Dead” by K. Simonov. The list of historical, memoir and fiction literature on this topic alone significantly exceeds the boundaries allotted for an abstract.

Therefore, dwelling briefly on the well-known key moments of the first period of the Great Patriotic War, we will try, relying on various sources, to trace, mainly, the cause-and-effect relationships of the development of events, without detailing them.

Chapter first. Causes of the war.

1. Confrontation

On June 2, 1941, at four o'clock in the morning, Hitler, violating the peace treaty, gave the order to his troops to cross the border of the USSR and invade our Motherland. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders began.

To believe that the reason for the attack was Hitler’s desire to destroy the Soviet Union as a hotbed of Marxism and provide Germany with additional living space would be more than naive: Germany was fighting a protracted war with England at that time, and fighting a war on two fronts meant too much risk. However, Hitler went after him. Why?

Hitler came to power without making a secret of his intentions, revealed in detail in the book ²Mein Kampf², which became the Bible of National Socialism. The book is absurd and illogical in many ways, because... premises for proofs are elevated to the rank of axioms.

Here are a few excerpts from this masterpiece.

²When talking about territories in Europe that should be conquered, we mainly mean only Russia. This country exists for people who have the power to take it.² ²Currently, the rulers of Russia have no intention of entering into any kind of honest alliance. We must not forget that they are blood-stained criminals who were lucky in a tragic hour. These criminals destroyed a large state, killed the entire population and have been tyrannizing it for many years now. Germany is the second target of Bolshevism. Therefore, it would be madness on our part to seek

Not a single Western government doubted the sincerity of Hitler's intentions. Now the task came down to only one thing: to create conditions for Hitler to translate these intentions into reality. Of course, for this you will have to give up some principles, but is it worth remembering them when it comes to the defeat of Bolshevism?!

Hitler takes a tentative step and introduces his, then still small, troops into the demilitarized Ruhr region - France does not protest. Hitler sharply increases the size of his armed forces and expands military production, which is a direct violation of the Versailles Treaty - England and France ask the German ambassadors for explanations and are satisfied with them. There were also no protests from England and France regarding the Anschluss of Austria. It was the turn of Czechoslovakia, which had one of the strongest armies in Europe at that time. It was enough for England and France, bound by mutual assistance treaties with Czechoslovakia, to hit the table with their fists, and Hitler’s aggressive intentions would immediately cease.

But the prime ministers of these countries, Chamberlain and Deladier, who arrived in Munich to decide the fate of their ally (September 29-30, 1938), only ask the Fuhrer to give his word that the annexation of the Sudetenland to Germany is his last territorial claims. And, of course, they receive such a promise. “It’s terrible, what nonentities are in front of me!” - Hitler throws at the backs of the delegates leaving at the end of the meeting 1

Recalling the first days of Hitler's chancellorship, the Minister of Propaganda and Press, Hitler's closest associate, Dr. Goebbels, satisfactorily explained to his employees on April 5, 1940: “In 1933, the Prime Minister of France should have said (and if I had been him, I would have said) this: ²Yeah, the Reich Chancellor became the man who wrote ²Mein Kampf², where it says such and such. We will not tolerate such a person next to us: either he gets away, or we start a war!² Such a course of action would be quite logical. But no one did. We were not touched, we were allowed to pass the dangerous zone, and we were able to bypass all the pitfalls..² 2

Western governments immediately accepted Hitler, seeing in him and his program the force that could crush a communist state. True, Hitler wrote in his book that Germany’s worst and eternal enemy is France, which must be crushed first, but even the French government did not take this too seriously: firstly, an agreement was concluded between France, England, Czechoslovakia and Poland a military alliance of mutual assistance, and secondly, France fenced itself off from Germany with a powerful defensive Maginot Line, which not a single warrior would dare to take on the move. Who imagined that at the right time Hitler would not storm the defensive line, but would simply bypass it from the north, not caring about the neutrality of Denmark and Belgium?

The hatred of Western democracies for the Soviet Union was reinforced by the official statements of its leaders.

The idea that war with the capitalist world could be avoided was never discussed in the Bolshevik leadership. The inevitability of such a war was considered axiomatic, and the only question was about timely and better preparedness for it.

Back in 1925, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade Stalin recalled revolutionary crises in capitalist countries and the need to help the revolutionary proletariat. “The question about our army, about its power, about its readiness will definitely arise before us... as a burning question... we will have to speak out, but we will have to speak out last. And we will come forward in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, a weight that could tip the scale.²

It is this statement that reflects the essence of Stalin’s foreign policy: not to be the first to get into a fight, but to wait “until the capitalists fight among themselves...²

In 1938 it was published Short course history of the CPSU (b), the main author of which was Comrade Stalin. In this work, the truth of which was not subject to any criticism, we find a curious logical construction: ²To destroy the danger of foreign intervention, it is necessary to destroy the capitalist encirclement.²

Let us remember that this was written in 1938, when the whole world was a capitalist environment for the Soviet Union. Who then?

t. Is Stalin going to destroy? All newspapers and magazines were filled with such statements not only from the leader of the Soviet people, but also from military leaders and people of lower rank.

Action equals reaction. Western governments fence themselves off from the USSR with buffer states bordering it, giving them loans for weapons and concluding mutual assistance agreements with them. In this situation, the appearance of Hitler, openly rushing to the east, could not have come at a better time. That is why Czechoslovakia was given to the Fuhrer, who rejected Stalin’s proposal to send Soviet troops into the country to protect against Hitler. President Goha said that Russian troops, having entered the country, would never leave it voluntarily. It is not known whether the President of Czechoslovakia was familiar with the works of the Soviet Marshal Tukhachevsky, in particular, with his statement: “Every territory occupied by us is, after occupation, already Soviet territory, where the power of workers and peasants will be exercised.² But Mr. Gokha’s insight cannot be denied.

2. Non-aggression pact

From about mid-1938, Hitler began to probe the possibilities of establishing contacts with the Soviet Union, somehow immediately forgetting his previous statements about the disastrousness of such a step. In Germany, anti-Soviet protests ceased, trade ties with the USSR were restored and expanded, Soviet delegations visited military factories in Germany, where they were shown the power of the revived Reich. No, Hitler did not change his beliefs. But he needs to reach the borders of the Soviet Union, capturing Poland for this. Realizing that the governments of England and France may remember their treaties with Poland on mutual assistance (and if not, then the people will remind them - democracy after all), Hitler is trying to protect himself from a very possible attack against him and the USSR.

Stalin solves this solitaire, and after the failure of negotiations with England and France on mutual assistance in August 1939, he receives German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in Moscow, and, unexpectedly for the whole world, concludes a non-aggression treaty with Germany (details on the reaction to this treaty of European countries says Genevieve Tabui). Already during the war with Germany, speaking on the radio on July 3, 1941, Comrade Stalin explained that only the desire for peace did not allow the Soviet Union to reject the proposal of “such a degenerate as Hitler.” But Comrade Stalin kept silent about the fact that, along with the non-aggression pact, he personally signed a secret protocol in which he pledged to attack Poland from the east as soon as the German offensive began in the west. He also kept silent about the fact that for such a courtesy Hitler agreed not to prevent Stalin from joining the USSR Baltic states and part of the Romanian lands (future Moldavia).

V. Suvorov (without citing sources) writes that as soon as Ribbentrop left the office, Stalin joyfully shouted: “He deceived me!” He deceived Hitler!² And Hitler shouted the same thing about Stalin when he received the documents signed in Moscow.

Stalin was happy that he had direct access to the borders

Prussia through the Baltic states and contact with German troops in Poland, which gave a huge advantage in the event of a surprise attack on Germany. But the main thing is that the Soviet leader predicted that England and France would act against Hitler after his attack on Poland. And in this war, when the opponents exhaust their strength, the winner will be he, Stalin, who came out last.

Hitler was delighted not only by the receipt of products and strategic raw materials from the USSR under the agreement, but, above all, by the acquisition of a convenient springboard for an attack on a gullible neighbor. The fact that Hitler also regarded the treaty signed in Moscow as a worthless piece of paper is evidenced by Goering’s statement to the Finnish leadership: “The Soviet-German treaty is a temporary agreement that will disappear by itself after the fall of England.”3

On September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland. Stalin violated secret protocol and did not support Hitler, despite his reminders of the need to end the war as quickly as possible. Only two weeks later, when Warsaw fell, the Soviet Union announced that since the Polish state had ceased to exist, the Red Army was taking the fraternal peoples of Western Ukraine and Belarus under its protection. By some well-planned accident, the Red Army advanced significantly beyond the line agreed upon in the secret protocol. Hitler not only did not protest, but gave the order to his troops to immediately withdraw, and even in a solemn atmosphere handed over the now border city of Brest to representatives of the Soviet command. The first round was won by Stalin - no one could call him an aggressor, but only a Liberator.

The governments of England and France, yielding to the demands of their people regarding the invasion of German troops into Poland, were nevertheless forced to declare war on Germany, the beginning of which was later called “strange,” because no military action followed. Giving evidence on Nuremberg trials, the chief of staff of the operational leadership of the German High Command, Jodl, stated: “If we were not defeated back in 1939, it was only because approximately 110 French and British divisions that stood during our war with Poland in the West against 23 German divisions remained completely inactive.²

Hitler, having secured neutrality from the USSR, entered France through Belgium (occupying Denmark, Holland and Norway along the way), and entered Paris practically without fighting (Stalin congratulated Hitler on this joyful event). This was followed by the most severe defeat of the English expeditionary forces on the French coast of the English Channel, then the expulsion of the British from Mediterranean Sea and the capture of the Balkans. By 1941, all of Europe with the exception of the Iberian Peninsula, Sweden, Switzerland, as well as Finland and Italy (German allies) was in the hands of Hitler.

This was (finally!) Stalin’s first major victory over Hitler's Germany: the prediction of the Soviet leader that the capitalists would sooner or later fight among themselves came true. Now we should ²...draw Europe into the war, remaining neutral ourselves, then, when the opponents exhaust each other, throw the full power of the Red Army into the balance.²

And although Stalin did not expect such quick and easy victories for Hitler, there was undoubtedly a strategic gain for the USSR: by creating occupation regimes, Germany not only dispersed its troops throughout the European continent, but also became involved in a protracted war with England. The new Prime Minister of England, Churchill, vowed under no circumstances to make peace with Hitler and to continue the war until complete victory over Germany. Stalin was also encouraged by the fact that Churchill began to seek contacts with Soviet Union for a joint fight against fascism. Historical paradox: the worst enemy of Soviet Russia, the organizer of the Entente campaigns against it, is now looking for help from the Bolsheviks!

Still, Stalin had to hurry: he did not really trust Churchill’s statements about the war to a victorious end.

Having ended the war with Finland in 1940 and moving the USSR border away from Leningrad, Stalin began to concentrate his troops on the western borders of the country.

Former Soviet intelligence officer Viktor Suvorov (V. Rezun), who defected to the West and was sentenced to death for treason, then carried out a huge research work(moreover, relying only on open documents), proving that it was Stalin who was the first to prepare to attack Germany. And even

One can have different attitudes towards V. Suvorov’s books (his first publications were unanimously refuted by Soviet historians), but the facts he cites cannot be disputed.

V. Suvorov proves that the memoirs of Soviet military leaders, explaining the reasons for the defeats of the Red Army in the first period of the war by the mere temporary unpreparedness of the country, and by the fact that the Red Army was at that time in the stage of rearmament, mislead readers. Having brought together disparate facts from various sources into a single system, V. Suvorov shows that in 1941 the Soviet Union significantly exceeded the German armed forces in terms of the number of aircraft, tanks and artillery; that in terms of their characteristics, Soviet artillery and especially tanks were many orders of magnitude higher than those possessed by Germany; that the number of Soviet troops concentrated on the western borders of the USSR was many times greater than in the German armies; that the functionality of the Red Army's weapons, its military regulations and events carried out in the last pre-war months on the western border of the USSR were aimed at offensive, and not at all defensive. To list in an abstract all the data given by V. Suvorov would mean retelling his books in detail. Therefore we will only refer to them.

Of course, Hitler understood that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. I also understood how disastrous a war on two fronts would be for Germany. But he also understood that the neutral Stalin could stab him in the back at any moment: England was not going to capitulate, and Hitler, despite the weak protests of his generals, gave the order to the General Staff to begin developing a plan for an attack on the USSR ( Plan ²Barbarossa²).

After the arrival in Berlin (1940) of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov, who refused to discuss plans for the territorial redistribution of the world with Hitler and ignored the Fuhrer’s remark about the need to keep a significant number of troops in Romania, neighboring the USSR, to protect the oil regions, Hitler gives the order to speed up the development of a plan for an attack on the USSR. As can be seen from the memoirs of German generals

However, the idea of ​​a blitzkrieg against the USSR seemed unrealistic to them.

“The war with Russia is a senseless undertaking, which, in my opinion, cannot have a happy ending,” writes Field Marshal von Rudstatt in May 1941. – But if for political reasons war is inevitable, we must agree that it cannot be won during just one summer campaign... We cannot defeat the enemy and occupy the entire western part of Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea in just a few months.²

But the Fuhrer is always right! - this is one of the postulates of the Third Reich, and on December 18, 1940, Hitler signed the Barbarossa plan - essentially his own death sentence. A few days later, this plan, obtained from the Goering Ministry of Aviation, was already on Stalin’s desk.

But the Barbarossa plan is just a plan. The timing of its implementation has not yet been determined. And then Hitler is informed that Russian troops are concentrating in large numbers in the south of Ukraine, and a military river flotilla is stationed at the mouth of the Danube. V. Suvorov explains in detail the meaning of this maneuver, which Soviet military leaders are silent about . Back in 1927, Stalin pointed out the importance of oil for the army: “It is impossible to fight without oil.” And whoever has an advantage in the oil business has a chance of victory in the coming war.²

Hitler understood this no worse than the Soviet leader. In a dispute with Guderian about the choice of the main directions of tank attacks, Hitler angrily said: “You want to fight without oil - okay, let’s see what happens.”

Practically sole supplier There were Romanian oil fields near the city of Ploiesti for Germany. It is enough to destroy the oil fields (and they are less than an hour’s flight from the Soviet Black Sea coast) or block the oil pipeline going to the Romanian ports (Danube Flotilla), and German aviation and tank armies will be left without fuel. It was this fact, as well as the obvious possibility of the destruction of the Norwegian ports by Soviet aviation and the navy, from where strategic raw materials (in particular nickel, manganese and molybdenum) arrived in Germany, forced Hitler to set deadlines preemptive strike on the Soviet Union, despite all the disadvantages for Germany of such a step. Hitler had no other alternative.

Since May 1941, Red Army units began to secretly move to the western borders of the USSR. This was, according to V. Suvorov, the largest transfer of troops in history. Stalin still had more than a month at his disposal before the planned attack on Germany, so many units were understaffed, the artillery was withdrawn to the rear to shoot the guns, the aviation located at camouflaged airfields did not have the necessary reserves of fuel and ammunition, numerous echelons with manpower and equipment still were in the rear or on the way.

Chapter two. From the border to Moscow.

1. The first weeks of the war

On the evening of June 21, 1941, Chief of the General Staff Zhukov was informed that a defector who had crossed the Bug appeared to the border guards, claiming that German troops were reaching the starting lines for the offensive, which would begin on the morning of June 22. Immediately reporting this to Stalin, Zhukov gave him a pre-prepared directive for the western military districts with the task of not succumbing to any provocative actions that could cause major complications.².

At the same time, it was ordered that all units be put on combat readiness. Keep the troops dispersed and camouflaged.²

The very word “dispersed” indicates Stalin’s desire to hide the true scale of the concentration of Soviet troops on the border: the next provocation will be repelled by dispersed troops.

²The transmission of the directive to the districts was completed at 00.30 minutes on June 22, 1941² There were 3.5 hours left before the start of the war...

Hitler's troops went on the offensive along almost the entire front from the Baltic to the Black Seas. Together with Germany, Italy, Romania, Hungary and Finland entered the war against the Soviet Union. On the very first day, the bombing of Minsk, Kyiv, Riga, Tallinn and other cities began. Taken by surprise, the border guards and advanced Soviet units, despite fierce resistance, were defeated and began to retreat. Communication not only between military districts, but also individual formations was interrupted - pre-prepared German saboteurs tried their best here. ²The General Staff... could not obtain truthful information from the headquarters of the districts and troops, and, naturally, this could not but put, at some point, the High Command and the General Staff in a difficult position.²

Massive attacks by German aviation and tank breakthroughs brought confusion to the control of Soviet troops. Many units were surrounded and defeated in the very first days of the war, thousands of Red Army soldiers were captured. Only the Black Sea Fleet was not defeated. Fleet Commander Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, on his own initiative, declared readiness No. 1 on June 21 and repelled a German air raid without suffering significant losses or losing a single aircraft. When Stalin was informed about this, he did not believe it...

German tank and motorized units advancing in the Vilnius-Minsk direction, by the evening of June 23, had expanded the breakthrough at the junction of the North-Western and Western fronts to 130 km, and by June 25 had advanced 230 km.

On the right wing of the Western Front, enemy units, having bypassed and blocked the heroically defending Brest Fortress, also advanced forward. The capital of Belarus, Minsk, found itself in a ring. The Soviet troops did not have time to retreat and were surrounded. On June 28, Minsk fell.

The situation was somewhat more successful for the Red Army on the Southwestern and Southern Fronts, where Romanian and Hungarian troops were mainly advancing. The German command had to send the forces of the 1st Panzer Group, which was making its way to Kyiv, to this direction, as a result of which the attack on Kiev was slowed down, which made it possible for Soviet troops to better prepare for the defense of the city.

Why did the Soviet Union begin to suffer defeats in the initial period of the war? There are several reasons for this.

The official version is that Hitler attacked unexpectedly.

But now it is well known that there was no surprise. Stalin received many messages from his Western agents that war could start any day. Beria reported his last message to Stalin on June 21, 1941, proposing to summon the informant to Moscow and erase him into camp dust. Stalin did not believe the report.

Perhaps he didn’t believe it because there were too many such messages, and this already looked like disinformation. In addition, Stalin also had contrary information. The head of military intelligence, General Golikov, reporting on the concentration of Nazi troops on the Soviet border, makes an unexpected conclusion: Hitler missed the moment to attack the USSR in 1941 - the German army was completely unprepared for winter operations. There is vague information mentioned by G.K. Zhukov and L. Bezymensky that Stalin received a personal letter from Hitler, in which the Fuhrer swears on the honor of the head of the German state that he is not going to attack Russia.

The disinformation organized by the German General Staff, explaining the accumulation of German troops on the western borders of the Soviet Union by the need for them to rest before landing in England, also reassured Stalin. Even frequent flights of German planes over the western regions of the country for obvious reconnaissance purposes did not shake the Soviet leader’s confidence that these were only cases of testing the Soviet Union’s reaction to minor provocations.

But the main thing is that Stalin simply could not imagine that Hitler would decide to fight on two fronts, and even in the middle of summer, when there were only three months left before the autumn thaw! But even if Hitler decides to take such a disastrous step for him, it is necessary to slow him down for three weeks, until the moment when the Red Army is completely ready to launch an offensive itself! The entire command staff - from district commanders to lieutenants - is informed of Stalin's order not to respond to possible provocations under any circumstances. Failure to comply with the order will result in execution. Not for the Soviet people, but for Hitler, a TASS message dated May 13, 1941 was published, refuting rumors that Germany was going to attack the USSR. The second reason follows from the first. V. Suvorov, using documents, argues that the reason for the catastrophe that broke out for the Soviet Union was that the Red Army, preparing for an attack on Germany, dismantled its defensive fortifications, cleared bridges, pulled up its still understaffed troops and equipment close to the border, placing , them under enemy blows. The Soviet troops, who were ready to fight on the territory of Prussia and Poland, did not even have maps of the border areas. Participants also write about this in their memoirs.

The losses in people and equipment on the very first day of the war were enormous.

Aircraft designer A. Yakovlev recalls: “... at dawn, Hitler’s aviation, simultaneously with air raids on a number of cities, suddenly attacked our border airfields and destroyed a large number of aircraft. It is easy to understand the consequences of this fact for the Soviet ground forces: they lost air protection from attack by enemy aircraft... By noon of the first day of the war, we had lost 1,200 aircraft: 300 were killed in air battles and 900 were destroyed at airfields.²2

If Stalin had struck first (which is what he was preparing for), the picture would have turned out completely different. But Hitler struck first...

The headquarters of the Soviet High Command, headed by Stalin, created on June 23, realized already on the fourth day of the war that its orders to defeat the enemy were not realistic. It was necessary to rebuild and move to strategic defense. But this took time, and the Red Army Charter oriented it only towards the offensive: “We will defeat the enemy with little blood, with a mighty blow” - the main leitmotif of Soviet songs of the pre-war era.

Analyzing the reasons for the failures of the first days of the war, Zhukov, among other things, admits that on the eve of the war, partly Western District were located in the Bialystok ledge, curved towards the enemy... Such an operational configuration of troops created

the threat of deep envelopment and encirclement from Grodno and Brest by attacking the flanks... the deployment of troops was not deep and powerful enough to prevent a breakthrough and envelopment of the Bialystok group.² Of course, for defense such a disposition of troops was extremely unfavorable. And for the offensive?

Zhukov also admits that the top command staff lacks sufficient experience in skillfully leading troops in difficult situations.

in the context of large, fierce battles taking place over a vast area. But Zhukov is silent that as a result of Stalin’s repressions of 1937-1940, not only the top leadership of the USSR Armed Forces was destroyed, but also lower-ranking command staff, many of whom had experience fighting in Spain, Finland and Khalkin-Gol. In an open letter to the writer I. Ehrenburg, international journalist Ernst Henry (May 30, 1965)

provides amazing data on this matter. The letter was not published, it was circulated on lists, but K. Simonov refers to it in an interview with Zhukov.

E. Henry writes that before the war the following were repressed:

Of the 4 army commissars of 1st rank…………………….3

Out of 4 army commanders…………………………………… 2

Out of 12 commanders of 2nd rank……………………………12

Of the five marshals…………………………………….3 …

Of the 6 flagships of the 1st rank ………………………………….6

Of the 15 army commissars of 2nd rank………………….15

Of the 57 corps commissars……………………………50…

Out of 199 division commanders……………………………………136

Out of 367 brigade commanders…………………………………….. 221

……………………………………………………………….

²This is not complete data. The total number of repressed Red Army commanders cannot be counted. ... No defeat ever leads to such monstrous losses of command personnel.².

Let us recall that generals Rokkosovsky and Meretskov were also repressed, then released and were the authors of many victories.

Stalin had to replace the lack of command personnel with less experienced people before the war and during the war, and this was also one of the reasons for the first defeats of the Red Army.

2. Continuation of the offensive of the German armies

The troops of the Northwestern Front, despite the order of the Headquarters, were unable to delay German tanks on the Northern Dvina. Having crossed the river, the enemy captured Pskov on July 9. A terrible danger loomed over Leningrad.

On the Western Front, after heavy fighting on the river. Berezina, Soviet troops began to retreat to the Dnieper. Defensive battles for Kyiv began.

On the Southwestern Front, German-Romanian units captured Berdichev and Voronezh. Soviet troops' counterattacks and timely

their withdrawal made it possible to avoid encirclement.

Only on the Karelian Isthmus were the battles of a local nature,

and the Red Army successfully repelled enemy attacks.

After three weeks of fierce fighting, Soviet troops were forced to leave Latvia. Lithuania, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine and Moldova. The German army advanced 300-600 km deep into the territory of the USSR.

However, it must be emphasized that such a victorious march with which Hitler’s armies marched across Europe did not happen in the Soviet Union. Germany's victories cost it enormous sacrifices: by mid-July, the Nazis had lost more than 100 thousand soldiers and officers, over 1,200 aircraft and over 1,500 tanks. Despite the difficult situation, Soviet troops continued to defend themselves.

It should be noted that I.V. Stalin, as head of the government, head of the party and Supreme Commander-in-Chief, quickly and firmly took the leadership of the defense into his own hands. Military factories were evacuated to the East, the preparation of reserve armies began, the partisan movement was organized in the occupied territories, but he failed to stop the advance of German troops in the first months of the war.

Army Group North was breaking through to Leningrad; the “Center” group, having captured Smolensk, opened the way for the German armies to Moscow; Army Group South, having captured right-bank Ukraine, was preparing for an attack on the Caucasus. Hitler was so confident of an imminent victory over the Soviet Union that already on July 8 he held a meeting with the generals, at which operations in the Middle East and Africa with the participation of troops transferred there from Russia were seriously discussed... However, subsequent events showed that the generals were somewhat in a hurry .

In August 1941, near Yelnya, units of the Red Army stopped the advance of German troops, among which were selected SS divisions. After protracted defensive battles, the 24th Army (commander K.I. Rakutin) launched a powerful counterattack, with the task of encircling the German group on the Yelninsky ledge. On September 6, our troops entered Yelnya. Near Yelnya, the enemy lost up to 47 thousand people and a large amount of equipment killed and wounded. And although it was not possible to encircle and completely destroy the enemy, this was the first significant victory of the Red Army since the beginning of the war. The success of the Yelnya operation, of course, did not mean a turning point in the war: the situation on the Central and Southwestern Fronts continued to remain extremely difficult. Stalin, despite Zhukov’s warning that Kyiv must be abandoned and our armies must be withdrawn to the left bank of the Dnieper, blowing up the bridges behind them, stubbornly did not give the order to withdraw from the city. And when such an order came, it was too late: the troops of the Southwestern Front were surrounded, destroyed or captured. The front commander, Colonel General M.P., died in the battles. Kirpanos. Only 150 thousand soldiers and officers of the Southwestern Front managed to avoid encirclement and fight back to the East.

After such a major defeat, Stalin began to listen carefully to the recommendations of the General Staff.

At the same time (June-August 1941), an anti-fascist coalition of three powers was created - the USSR, England and the USA. Already on the day of Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union, Churchill declared on the radio: “... any person or state that fights against Nazism will receive

our help²... because ²the invasion of Russia is only a prelude to an attempt to invade the British Isles.² A similar statement was made by American President Roosevelt.

Soviet historians, trying to downplay the importance of Anglo-American supplies, argued that “this assistance could not have any decisive significance for the gigantic battles on the Soviet-German front . ² Meanwhile, one can cite impressive columns of figures (weapons, transport, strategic raw materials, products) proving that the Allied assistance still mattered, especially in the first two years of the war.

By September 1941, the advance of the German armies had slowed down somewhat: losses in manpower and equipment began to take their toll. It turned out that German tanks were poorly suited for driving on Russian roads, and the low survivability of their engines constantly required repair or replacement. The USSR General Staff used the resulting respite to replenish weapons and further train reserves.

However, the strength of the German armies had not yet been spent. Having blocked Leningrad, Hitler hoped, by taking the city, to cut the Murmansk-Moscow railway line, thereby depriving the Red Army of supplies from the allies, which began to come from England through the North and Baltic seas. Stalin sends Zhukov to Leningrad, replacing Marshal Voroshilov, who showed himself to be an unsuccessful commander. Zhukov arrived in Smolny when the Front Military Council was already discussing the possibility of surrendering the city. Zhukov closed the meeting, forbidding even thinking about such events. Leningrad turned into an impregnable fortress, enduring 900 days of starvation blockade, but did not surrender to the enemy. The heroic defense of Leningrad attracted significant forces of the German army.

3. Operation failure ²Typhoon ²

On October 6, Stalin summons Zhukov to Moscow and sends him to the headquarters of the Western Front to understand the situation on the outskirts of the capital. Moscow was defended by three fronts: Western (commander Colonel General Konev), Reserve (commander Marshal Budyonny) and Bryansk (commander Lieutenant General Eremenko). Having a significant superiority in manpower and equipment, on September 30 the enemy, with attacks from Guderian’s group and the 2nd Army, broke through the defenses of our troops and rushed to Orel. The Bryansk Front was dissected, its troops retreated to the east with heavy losses. The forces of the Western Front were sent to help Eremenko, but the counterattack was not successful: a significant part of the Western and Reserve Fronts were surrounded west of Vyazma.

Arriving at the headquarters of the Western Front, Zhukov called Stalin on October 8. Having reported on the current difficult situation and that the Mozhaisk direction was virtually left without cover, Zhukov asked to pull troops to the Mozhaisk line from wherever possible. Otherwise, enemy tanks may suddenly find themselves near Moscow.

Getting acquainted with the situation on the Western Front, Zhukov saw that it was much worse than he had imagined. Communication with the troops was disrupted. Many units, deprived of orders, retreated in disorder.

October 10, Headquarters appoints Zhukov commander of the Western Front. Konev remained his deputy.

At the cost of enormous efforts, defenses begin to be created on the lines of Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, Maloyaroslavets, and Kaluga. It was not possible to create a continuous line of defense; there were not enough troops for this. As early as October 7, the transfer of reserves began to the western direction. 11 arrived at the front's disposal rifle divisions, 16 tank brigades and more than 40 artillery regiments. WITH Far East and other remote rear areas there were trains with troops and equipment.

On October 13, fierce fighting began in all operationally important directions leading to Moscow. The bombing of the Soviet capital became more frequent. But thanks to the fact that the Supreme High Command concentrated near Moscow large groups fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft units, as well as the actions of self-defense units, there was no significant destruction in the capital. The State Defense Committee (GKO) decides to evacuate part of the central institutions and the entire diplomatic corps to Kuibyshev. From October 20, a state of siege was introduced in Moscow and its surrounding areas by decree of the State Defense Committee.

Headquarters, led by Stalin, remained in Moscow.

Hitler's troops were still moving forward, but in some areas their movement had clearly slowed down. Thus, having approached Zvenigorod and occupied the village of Ershovo two kilometers north of it, the Germans were unable to enter the city and cross the Moscow River.

Hitler's troops were unable to capture Tula in the southern direction. Thus, the plans of the Nazi command to capture Moscow by mid-October were thwarted.

November 6 in the metro station. Mayakovskaya held a ceremonial meeting dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution, at which Stalin spoke, and in the morning a traditional military parade took place on Red Square. This was an event of great political significance: the whole world saw that Moscow was not giving up and would continue to fight.

By this time, the enemy had prepared the second stage of the attack on Moscow, codenamed “Typhoon”.

On November 15, the Germans struck on the Kalinin Front, which had rather weak defenses. Having a significant superiority in tanks, German troops broke through the defenses of the 30th Army and began to rapidly develop an offensive towards Klin.

On the same day, a powerful blow was delivered in the Volokolamsk area. The battles of November 16-18 were very difficult for the Red Army: the enemy tried to break through to Moscow with their tank spearheads at any cost. The front of our defense arched towards Moscow.

But the advance of German troops towards Moscow also had its shadow side: the stretching of troops on a wide front led to this. that in the final battles on the near approaches to Moscow they lost their penetrating ability. During the 20 days of the second stage of their offensive, German troops lost more than 155 thousand killed and wounded, about 800 tanks, at least 300 guns and a significant number of aircraft. The attack on Moscow began to slow down and stopped by December 1941, despite the fact that in some areas there were about 25 km left to Moscow.

On the morning of December 5, unexpectedly for the enemy, the troops of the Kalinin Front went on the offensive. The next day, the Western and Southwestern Fronts went on the offensive.

The directive stated that “the sudden onset of severe frosts on the Eastern Front and the associated difficulties in supplying supplies forced the immediate cessation of all major offensive operations...²

But it was not just the weather conditions, which were the same for German and Soviet troops. The very idea of ​​blitzkrieg failed. As V. Suvorov sarcastically notes, Hitler should have guessed that after autumn in Russia there is also winter. Hitler's soldiers were freezing in their summer uniforms, the tanks stopped because... were not provided with winter lubrication; the runways had to be cleared for aircraft. The supply of the shock armies was constantly interrupted due to the actions of partisans in the German rear. Hitler and his generals should have foreseen all this, rather than preparing for the victory parade on Red Square, the invitation cards for which had already been printed.

The Soviet reserve troops were equipped according to weather conditions, and Soviet tanks did not stop due to freezing engines. It was not the Russian winter, but the self-confidence and miscalculations of the German High Command that marked the beginning of the impending defeat of the German armies near Moscow.

On the central sector of the Western Front, the offensive began on December 18. Under the blows of the Red Army, the fascist troops, suffering heavy losses and abandoning their equipment, rolled back to the west. The enemy was driven back from Moscow. Thus the myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled.

4.Situation on other fronts

Simultaneously with the victory near Moscow, the Red Army achieved success on the Volkhov Front, liberating the city of Tikhvin.

Fierce fighting also took place in the southern direction. Sevastopol continued to defend itself. To alleviate the situation in the city, the Soviet command at the end of December carried out the first major landing operation in the history of the Patriotic War: in winter conditions, ships of the Azov Flotilla and the Black Sea Fleet landed troops in the area of ​​Kerch and Feodosia. The German command was forced to suspend the assault on Sevastopol and transfer part of its troops to Eastern Crimea. But the enemy did not have the strength to move to the western coast of the Caucasus. The strategic initiative on the eve of 1942 passed to the Soviet command: the offensive launched by the Red Army in December began to develop along the entire front. The troops of the Kalinin and Western fronts operated successfully. Fighting was already taking place in the areas of Vyazma, Mozhaisk, and Ostashkov. The Moscow, Tula regions and a number of districts of the Kalinin and Smolensk regions were cleared of the enemy. But this was not yet a decisive success - the German armies remained as strong as before. By the summer of 1942, they prepared a new big offensive.

Chapter three. From defeat to victory on the Volga

1. The situation at the fronts in 1942.

The Soviet command, taking into account the increased power of its Armed Forces, began to plan a major summer offensive. A breakthrough was in sight Leningrad blockade, liberation of Smolensk and Kharkov. The General Staff believed that the enemy would deliver the main blow on the central sector of the front, where the main reserves were concentrated. But, as it turned out, the Germans launched a massive offensive in the south. This mistake of the General Staff and the overestimation of the capabilities of the Red Army, associated with successful winter operations, led to dire consequences.

With their new offensive, the Nazi command hoped to cut communications connecting the center of the country with the south, to seize the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus, the fertile lands of the Don and Kuban, creating real conditions for the complete defeat of the USSR. It was also assumed that as a result of a successful offensive, Turkey and Japan would enter the war with the Soviet Union. The absence of a second front in Europe allowed the Nazi command to concentrate its main forces in the south and build them up throughout the year.

On May 8, 1942, the Nazis went on the offensive on the Kerch Peninsula, where the Red Army was also preparing to break through to Crimea.

By order of the front commander, Lieutenant General D.T. Kozlova

Masses of tanks, artillery and infantry were gathered in extremely narrow areas. Field warehouses, hospitals and other logistics support were also brought here. German reconnaissance worked well (fortunately, it was not difficult to see such a concentration of troops on the bare Kerch soil) and a preemptive strike was launched against Kozlov’s armies. The situation repeated itself on June 22, 1941, only on a smaller scale. The German offensive began with bombing and artillery bombardment. There were so many Soviet troops gathered in a narrow area that it was impossible to miss. The command posts that had already been pulled up to the front line came under fire, and the Soviet troops were left without control. Warehouses of ammunition, fuel, and spare parts exploded. Since the Soviet troops themselves intended to launch an offensive, minefields and the wire barriers were removed, which also facilitated the enemy's breakthrough.

On May 16, the Nazis captured Kerch. Our troops suffered heavy losses during the evacuation from Crimea to Taman. Almost all of the surviving military equipment went to the enemy.

As a result of the defeat on the Kerch Peninsula, the defending Sevastopol found itself in a difficult situation.

Having a significant superiority in manpower and equipment, the Nazis began an assault on the city on June 7, after five days of artillery and aviation preparation. Reinforcements approached Sevastopol only from the sea and in small quantities. The city's defenders lacked ammunition. On June 30, the command decided to leave the city. The ships of the Black Sea Fleet could not approach the shore to evacuate the Sevastopol garrison, and boats and small vessels could not accommodate all the soldiers, officers and wounded. The units remaining on the shore continued to resist for several more days, but were defeated or captured. A small part of the fighters were able to break through the German lines and go into the mountains to join the partisans (an epic must be written about the partisan war in the Crimea, undeservedly forgotten in Soviet times. We will refer only to one book by P.V. Makarov, the prototype of the main character of the series “His Adjutant” Excellencies²).

The situation in the Kharkov direction was also unsuccessful for our troops. The troops of the Southwestern Front (commanded by Marshal Timoshenko), having launched a successful offensive, were unable to develop it. The enemy, inflicting a heavy defeat on the 9th Army Southern Front, went to the rear of our units advancing on Kharkov. Soviet troops were surrounded. Only a small part of the troops managed to break through the ring and get through to their own. Major defeats of our troops in the Crimea and near Kharkov had an extremely unfavorable impact on the entire course of the summer campaign of 1942. The Soviet command was forced to decide to go on the defensive.

The German armies went on the offensive against the Southwestern and Bryansk fronts. The defense of the Soviet troops was broken through in a strip of about 300 km. German troops advanced 160-170 km and reached the Don. Rostov was captured, which created the opportunity for German troops to move to the Caucasus and the Volga.

2. Battle of Stalingrad

The capture of the Caucasus or blocking it along the Novorossiysk-Astrakhan line meant the cessation of the supply of strategic raw materials from the allies, which were supplied through Iran along two railway lines: Batumi - Novorossiysk and Baku - Ordzhonikidze. But the main thing is that the exit of German troops to the Volga interrupted the main channel for the supply of Baku and Grozny oil to the center - practically the only sources of fuel, without which the continuation of the war was unthinkable. Northern oil deposits had not yet been discovered, and Bashkir oil was relatively small in volume. In addition, it was obvious that the Germans, having reached the Volga, would turn north and cut the only Siberian railway line. And this meant that all the factories in the Urals and Siberia built before 1941 (Magnitka, Zlatoust, Krasnoyarsk, etc.) and factories evacuated beyond the Urals would not be able to supply their products to the Soviet troops.

The Headquarters of the Soviet Supreme High Command well understood all the disastrous consequences of such a development of events. However, a lack of equipment and a number of strategic miscalculations allowed the German troops to carry out a significant part of their plans: they took Novorossiysk and occupied the North Caucasus up to the Main Caucasus Range. By the summer of 1942, only the Volga with its stronghold, Stalingrad, remained under the control of Soviet troops in this direction. The capture of the city by the Germans would mean disaster.

The attempt to delay the advance of German troops to the East failed: after fierce fighting, the enemy crossed the Don and entered the operational space in the Volga steppes. In this direction, Hitler's armies in numbers and technical equipment significantly exceeded the capabilities of the Soviet troops.

On May 17, 11 German divisions broke through the defenses of the left wing of the Southwestern Front and turned south, trying to connect with their troops, thereby creating an outer defensive ring around Stalingrad. The enemy’s successes could have been more significant if the Headquarters of the Soviet High Command had not organized a series of offensive operations on the Western Front, tying up the available Nazi reserves. However, the Volga bridgehead turned out to be blocked, deprived of support, along the north-south line. The main reserves could only come from the east via the Volga. The strategic mistake made had to be corrected immediately. Stalin issued the famous order No. 227, which demanded harsh measures (in fact, execution) against those who left their held positions. The main requirement of the order boiled down to the formula “Not a step back!” The Stalingrad Front was created. On the approaches to Stalingrad, the construction of defensive lines began (mainly by the city’s residents).

The ring around Stalingrad continued to shrink. The lack of men and equipment on the Stalingrad front ensured the rapid advance of German troops towards the city. By August, the balance of forces on this front was clearly not in favor of the Soviet armies: out of 38 divisions, only 18 were fully equipped. The defense of Stalingrad was held by 187 thousand people, 360 tanks, 337 aircraft, 7900 guns and mortars. Small troops stretched along a front of 530 km. The enemy concentrated 250 thousand people, about 740 tanks, 1,200 aircraft, 7,500 guns and mortars against the Soviet troops. The enemy's overwhelming superiority in manpower, in the air and in armored vehicles allowed him to break through fortified lines and build on his success as he approached the city.

Considering the extension of the Stalingrad Front and the difficulty of command and control, the Headquarters of the Soviet High Command divided this front into two: Stalingrad (commanded by Lieutenant General Gordov) and South-Eastern (commanded by Colonel General Eremenko). The chief of the general staff, Colonel General Vasilevsky, was appointed coordinator of the actions of both fronts. Despite a number of successful offensive operations of the Stalingrad Front, the Germans were getting closer and closer to the city. Fighting had already taken place in the area of ​​the Tractor Plant, where the workers’ militia held the defense together with regular troops. In order to prevent German reserves from being brought up to Stalingrad, the Headquarters began private offensive operations on the Western Front (commander Zhukov).

In his book “Shadow of Victory,” Viktor Suvorov views these operations as pointless, especially since the offensive on the Western Front ended in failure. Suvorov accuses Zhukov of incompetence: instead of transferring troops to Stalingrad, he allegedly started unnecessary battles in the Rzhev area.

Although V. Suvorov’s analysis and conclusions are, as a rule, correct, here he is clearly falsifying the facts, settling scores with the late marshal: the order for operations on the Western Front was given personally by Stalin, and the transfer of troops to Stalingrad was impossible due to the line blocking the Volga bridgehead German armies. The battles in the western direction did not allow the German command to bring additional reserves to the city.

At the end of August 1942, German troops reached the Volga on both sides of Stalingrad. Now reinforcements for the defending troops could only come from the east through a small section of the river opposite the city. The Supreme High Command sent everything possible to Stalingrad, with the exception of accumulating strategic reserves. In September, fighting began directly in the city.

The Germans brought tanks into the city and carried out regular bombings. But their offensive was difficult: battles took place for every house and even inside one house, when the lower floors were occupied by the enemy, and the upper floors were occupied by our fighters. The meager replenishment of manpower and ammunition passed through the Volga at night on small ships, boats and rafts under constant bombing and artillery fire from the Germans.

Suffering heavy losses, the enemy reached the Volga in some parts of the city. In some places there was no more than 100 m to the river, held by our troops. But the strength of the Soviet troops was running out.

In these seemingly last hours of the city’s defense, the 13th Guards Division of General Rodimtsev, transferred from the Headquarters reserve, was transported across the Volga to help the besieged troops. On September 16, the division, with the support of aviation and artillery, recaptured Malakhov Kurgan.

Faced with fresh forces of Soviet troops, the enemy stopped the offensive. There was a temporary lull.

During all these events, a huge amount of work was going on at the Headquarters of the Soviet High Command to prepare a counteroffensive. The General Staff presented a plan for the defeat of the Stalingrad group, taking into account the accumulated reserves and enemy forces. Calculations showed that the Stalingrad group of Germans was largely drained of blood and would have to go on the defensive. During the fierce battles, the Soviet side accumulated significant reserves that had the latest weapons. It was also taken into account that in the battles in the Stalingrad direction, the enemy troops had a significant number of Romanian, Italian and Hungarian troops, which were inferior in stamina to the German armies. In addition, the satellite troops were less armed and less experienced, and therefore, in conditions of encirclement, they would not be able to offer the same resistance as the German units. Based on these data, a plan was developed for simultaneous attacks on the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts with the aim of connecting them behind the Germans, west of Stalingrad. Lieutenant General Rokossovsky was appointed commander of the Stalingrad Front (renamed Donskoy). The Southwestern Front was commanded by Lieutenant General Vatutin. The counteroffensive was prepared in the strictest secrecy; even the front commanders did not know about it until now. Of course, Hitler did not know about the impending offensive either, demanding to take Stalingrad by mid-October. Fulfilling the Fuhrer's order, the enemy launched a new offensive. But Soviet troops attacked the enemy’s flanks from the south. The offensive of the Don Front thwarted the plans of the German command to capture the city

In mid-November 1942, defensive battles in the area of ​​Stalingrad and the Caucasus ended the first period of the Great Patriotic War.

The Germans' operational miscalculations were aggravated by poor intelligence. After the war, the chief of the German general staff, Jodl, admitted: “We had absolutely no idea about the strength of the Russians in this area. There was nothing here before, and suddenly a blow of great force was struck, which was of decisive importance².

The first attack by Soviet troops was carried out on November 17 against Group B, consisting mainly of German allies. The Southwestern Front broke through the enemy's defenses and formed an outer ring of encirclement. Then the Stalingrad Front (commander Eremenko) went on the offensive, which was given the task of throwing back the enemy troops and joining the Southwestern Front. The Don Front (commanded by Lieutenant General Batov) was supposed to launch auxiliary strikes, pinning down the enemy north of the city and depriving him of maneuverability. This achieved complete encirclement of Paulus's 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army.

On November 23 at 16:00, in the area of ​​the Sovetsky farm, the 45th tank brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Zhidkov was the first to meet with the 36th mechanized brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Rodionov. The ring on the Volga bridgehead around the German troops closed. This marked the end of the first stage of the counteroffensive. The second stage began - the liquidation of the encircled enemy.

Lacking ammunition, warm clothing and food, Paulus’s group, surrounded in Stalingrad, had to rely only on outside help. Hitler sent the encircled troops everything that could be delivered by air, but the planes were met by hurricane fire from our anti-aircraft artillery and fighter squadron. Most enemy aircraft could not land even to load the seriously wounded, and cargo dropped by parachute most often ended up in Soviet troops.

To stabilize the situation and release the 6th Army of Paulus, the Nazi command formed Army Group Don under the command of Field Marshal Manstein. But the troops of the Southwestern Front imposed protracted battles on Manstein, and he failed to break through to Stalingrad. Soviet troops tore the enemy front into separate sections, forming “cauldrons” in which about 17 German divisions died. The attacks were carried out by tank units, long-range artillery and aviation. At the end of December, at a meeting of the State Defense Committee, Stalin proposed transferring the final liquidation of the enemy into the hands of one commander, indicating that there was no longer a need for two fronts (Southwestern and Stalingrad). The GKO members agreed, and the troops of the Stalingrad Front (commander Eremenko) were transferred to Rokossovsky. This was one of Stalin’s tricks: not to allow a person to become exalted, despite all his merits, and at the same time to disrupt friendly ties between people. General Eremenko bore the entire burden of the defense of Stalingrad on his shoulders. But when victory was already visible, he was removed from business. Relations between Zhukov and Rokossovsky on the one hand and Eremenko on the other remained strained for a long time.

In January 1943, the external front was moved westward from Stalingrad by more than 250 km. There was no hope left for Paulus to get out of the encirclement. To prevent bloodshed, the Headquarters ordered the command of the Don Front to present the 6th Army with an ultimatum to surrender on generally accepted conditions. However. Hitler's command rejected the ultimatum, ordering its troops to fight to the last bullet. To prevent the commander of the 6th Army, General Poilus, from being captured alive, Hitler awarded him the rank of Field Marshal. Never in modern history have German officers with such high ranks surrendered to the enemy. Hitler hoped that Paulus would draw the appropriate conclusions to preserve the tradition...

On January 22, the troops of the Don Front went on the offensive. On January 31, the southern group of German troops was finally defeated. Field Marshal von Paulus surrendered to Soviet troops with his entire headquarters. On February 2, the remnants of the northern group of German troops also surrendered. From November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, 32 enemy divisions and 3 brigades were destroyed. The total enemy losses were about 1.5 million people.

The Stalingrad epic ended with the complete victory of the Soviet armed forces, which gave rise to a radical turning point in the war. This was not only a military, but also a political victory: allies and enemies were convinced of the increased power of the Red Army. State mourning was declared in Germany. Goebbel's propaganda tried to assure the world that the successes of the Soviet Union always occurred in the winter period of the war, as was the case in December 1941 near Moscow, and that Germany would now draw appropriate conclusions from temporary failures. And everyone will be convinced of this in the summer of 1943.

In the summer of 1943 there was the Kursk Bulge...

Conclusion

Western democracies provided Hitler with the conditions to arm Germany, viewing it as a striking force against the Soviet Union. For his part, Stalin saw in Hitler a man capable of starting a war in Europe between capitalist states, a war in which the Soviet Union would be the last to enter and would emerge victorious. However, Hitler, despite the obvious impossibility of waging a war on two fronts, driven into a dead end by Stalin, was forced to be the first to attack the USSR, which itself was preparing for an attack.

The initial period of the Great Patriotic War took place with the clear superiority of the German armies. Having delivered a pre-emptive strike, Hitler’s troops already in the first days of the war destroyed almost all the heavy equipment of the Red Army, which had been pulled to the borders for their own offensive. Tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers were killed and captured. The Soviet leadership and the General Staff, at the cost of incredible efforts, began to organize the defense of the country, managing to stop and defeat the Germans near Moscow by the end of 1941.

Unsuccessful planning by the Soviet General Staff of operations in the summer campaign of 1942 again led to huge losses in manpower and equipment, to the abandonment of Crimea, Kharkov and Rostov, which allowed German troops to reach strategically important directions in the Caucasus and Volga region.

The defense of Stalingrad, and then the complete defeat of the Nazi armies blockading the city, marked a radical turning point in the course of the war.

Concluding a brief review of the events of the first period of the Great Patriotic War, it is appropriate to dwell on the characteristics of Hitler’s military leadership.

V. Suvorov assesses it as inept. He points to the absence of a single center for commanding troops (each branch of the military had its own command), and the lack of interaction between troops even within the same front. Of course, specialists should judge this, but how then can we explain the organization of environments not only of ours? large connections, but also entire fronts? How to explain the successful actions of German troops in the summer campaign of 1942 and their approach to Stalingrad? How to explain the very successful actions of Hitler's generals in subsequent defensive battles in conditions unfavorable for the Germans?

Let us also pay attention to the fact that in 1941-1942 all major operations that ended in the defeat of our troops took place with an overwhelming enemy advantage in manpower and equipment. Meanwhile, the total number of Soviet troops, as well as artillery, tanks and aircraft, significantly exceeded everything that Germany had. Let us add that the characteristics of the Red Army's weapons were several orders of magnitude higher than those of the Germans. Finally, the enemy’s extended communications, which were also constantly destroyed by partisans, created tangible difficulties for the German armies. And under such conditions, Hitler’s General Staff was able to plan operations, each time proving to be stronger than the Soviet troops at the right time and in the right place.

It seems that the German General Staff was far from amateurs. Of course, Hitler interfered with their plans and put forward his own, remaining at the level of a corporal in military thinking. Of course, by taking command of the ground forces and then declaring himself Supreme Commander, Hitler hastened the fall of the Third Reich. But this is not the fault of the German generals, but their misfortune. The first two years of the war showed that Hitler's armies were led by people with extensive strategic experience.

It took time for Soviet military leaders to gain such experience. The defeat of Germany in the war with the Soviet Union, among other factors, was due to the constantly growing level of Soviet industry, which managed to provide the army with everything necessary in difficult conditions, the increasing level of army leadership on the part of the Soviet General Staff, which was able to learn from catastrophic failures, and the more skillful actions of commanders fronts and lower-level commanders who mastered the science of winning during battles, and the spiritual qualities of the Soviet people waging a war of liberation.

At the Nuremberg trials, explaining the reasons for the defeat

Germany, Goering said approximately the following: it was not the level of industry, not the size of the Red Army and not the quantity of its weapons - we knew this approximately. The main thing is that we did not know and did not understand the Soviet Russians. But the Russian person has always been and will remain a mystery to foreigners.²

Therefore, it is better, paying tribute to the German generals, to remember a line from a poem by K. Simonov:

²Yes, the enemy was brave. The greater our glory!²

Literature

1. Bagramyan I.Kh. This is how the war began. – M., 1971

2. Bezymensky L. Special folder ²Barbarossa² - M.. 1972

3. Vasilevsky A.M. Life's work. – M., 1973

4. World history. – M., 1965, volume X

5. Gorchakov O. The Eve or the Tragedy of Cassandra. – zh-l Sputnik, 1989, №-5

6. Gudarian G. Memoirs of a soldier. – Smolensk, 1998

7. Dyakov Yu.L., Bushueva T.S. The fascist sword was forged in the USSR. – M., 1992

8. Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. – M., 1969

9. J-l Bolshevik. – 1938, No.-20

10. Makarov P.V. In two fights. – Simferopol, 1956

11. Manstein E. Lost victories - M., 1958

12. The occult messiah and his Reich. = New York - Moscow., 1991

13. Rozanov G.L. - Stalin, Hitler. M., 1991

14. Sandalov L.M. Experienced - M., 1966

15. Stalin I.V. Soch., vol. 6, 10

16. Suvorov V. Icebreaker. – M., 1993, Day-²M² - M., 1994,

Suicide - M., 2000, Shadow of Victory - M., 2001

17. Tabui J. 20 years of diplomatic struggle. – M.. 1960

18. Trotsky L. Stalin. – M., 1990, vol. 2

19 Tukhachevsky M.N. – Fav. works. T. 1

20. Speer A. Memoirs. – Smolensk, 1997

21. Shtemenko S.M. General Staff during the war. – M., 1968

22. Yakovlev A. The purpose of life. – M., 1973

Introduction 1

Chapter first. Causes of the war

1. Confrontation 1

2. Non-aggression pact 7

Chapter two. From the border to Moscow

1. The first weeks of the war 15

V. Suvorov. Shadow of Victory. M.. 2001

V. Suvorov. Suicide. M..2000, ch. 6

Periodization of the Great Patriotic War:

I period (September 1, 1939 - June 1942) - expansion of the scale of the war while maintaining the superiority of the aggressor forces.

II period (June 1942 - January 1944) - a radical turning point in the course of the war, initiative and superiority in forces passed into the hands of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.

III period (January 1944 - September 2, 1945) - The final stage wars: the defeat of the army and the collapse of the ruling regimes of the aggressor states.

On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland. World War II began. On September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany. In April 1940, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, the German offensive began against France, Belgium, and Holland. On June 22, 1940, France capitulated. The Compiègne Armistice was signed between France and Germany.

By the summer of 1941, Germany and its allies had captured virtually all of Europe. In 1940, the fascist leadership developed the Barbarossa plan, the goal of which was the lightning defeat of the Soviet Armed Forces and the occupation of the USSR. To do this, 153 German divisions and 37 divisions of its allies - Italy, Finland, Romania and Hungary - were concentrated in the eastern direction. German troops were supposed to strike in three directions: central - Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow, northern - Baltic states - Leningrad, southern - Ukraine, South-East. A lightning-fast campaign was planned to capture the USSR before the fall of 1941 - a “blitzkrieg”.

Beginning of 1944 - May 9, 1945 - the period of liberation of the territory of the USSR, the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from the aggressor and the surrender of Nazi Germany.

The participation of the USSR in World War II continued with the period of the Soviet-Japanese War (August 9 - September 2, 1945).

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941 with extensive air bombing and the offensive of the ground forces of Germany and its allies along the entire European border of the USSR (over 4.5 thousand km). On June 23, the Headquarters of the Main Command was formed. On June 30, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created. J.V. Stalin was appointed commander-in-chief and chairman of the State Defense Committee.

At the end of June - the first half of July 1941, major defensive battles unfolded. In the central direction, all of Belarus was captured. The Smolensk battle lasted for more than two months. In the northwestern direction, the Baltic states are occupied, Leningrad is blockaded (blockade - 900 days). In the south, Kyiv was defended until September 1941, Odessa until October, Moldova and right-bank Ukraine were occupied.

Reasons for the temporary failures of the Red Army:

· economic and military-strategic advantages of Germany;

· experience in modern warfare and the superiority of the German army in technical equipment;

· miscalculations of the Soviet leadership in assessing the real military situation;

· the rearmament of the Red Army was not completed at the beginning of the war;

· poor professional training of command staff.

At the end of September - beginning of October 1941, the German Operation Typhoon began, aimed at capturing Moscow. The first line of defense was broken through on October 5-6. Bryansk and Vyazma fell. The second line near Mozhaisk delayed the German advance for several days. On October 19, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. The Red Army managed to stop the enemy.

On November 15, 1941, the second stage of the Nazi offensive against Moscow began. At the beginning of December, the enemy managed to reach the approaches to Moscow.

The war began early in the morning of June 22, 1941 with powerful attacks from the air and mechanized armies of Germany. Already on the first day, German aviation bombed 66 airfields and destroyed 1,200 Soviet aircraft, gaining air supremacy by the summer of 1943.

On June 29, 1941, the country introduced martial law. The next day, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created, in whose hands all the fullness of state, party and military power (the functions of the Supreme Council, the Government and the Central Committee of the Party) was concentrated. J.V. Stalin became the chairman of the State Defense Committee. For strategic leadership of the armed forces, on June 23, the Headquarters of the Main Command (later the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command) was created, which was also headed by Stalin.

Already in the first month of the war, the Red Army abandoned almost the entire Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova and most of Ukraine. It lost about 1 million soldiers, including 724 thousand prisoners. Almost all the armies of the Western Front were defeated, against which Germany dealt the main blow, trying to capture the “gates of Moscow” - Smolensk. It was a disaster. To deflect blame from themselves, the country's leadership organized a trial of a large group of generals led by the commander of the Western Front, Colonel General D.G. Pavlov. They were accused of treason and shot.

In the central, Moscow direction, the enemy was temporarily stopped 300 km from Moscow during a two-month Battle of Smolensk(July 10 - September 10, 1941). The strategic plan of the German command to capture the Soviet capital by mid-summer had cracked. At the same time, at the end of September, Soviet troops suffered a serious defeat near Kiev. Five armies were surrounded. A small part of those surrounded escaped the ring, more than half a million people were captured, most of the soldiers died in battle along with the command led by the commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel General M.D. Kirponos. Having captured Kiev, the enemy was able to turn the situation around in the Moscow direction, breaking through the defenses of the Red Army. From the end of September, the four-month Moscow Battle unfolded here, in the first weeks of which five militia armies found themselves in a “cauldron.” 600 thousand people were surrounded (every second defender of Moscow).

During the summer-autumn campaign of 1941, by the winter of 1941, the Red Army had lost almost 5 million people, of whom 2 million were killed and about 3 million were captured. On August 16, 1941, Order No. 270 was issued, declaring all those who were captured as traitors and traitors. According to the order, the families of captured commanders and political workers were subject to repression, while the relatives of soldiers were deprived of the benefits provided to the families of war participants.

The first and only victory of the Red Army at the initial stage of the war was Moscow Battle(September 30, 1941 - January 1942). The German General Staff called the operation to capture Moscow “Typhoon.” He believed that Army Group Center, like a typhoon, would sweep away Soviet defenses and capture the capital of the USSR before the onset of winter. By the end of November, the Germans approached Moscow to a distance of 25-30 km. Since October 20, the capital was under siege. In October, three fronts were created for the defense of Moscow: Western - directly defending Moscow (commander Army General G.K. Zhukov), Kalinin (commander General I.S. Konev), South-Western (commander Marshal S.K. Timoshenko). On December 5-6, at the cost of incredible efforts, from Kalinin (Tver) to Yelets, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive. Along the entire front, within a month, the enemy was driven back 100-150 km from Moscow. The entire Moscow and Tula regions, a significant part of the Kalinin region, were liberated. During the counteroffensive, the Red Army lost more than 600 thousand people; the enemy, retreating, numbered 100-150 thousand. Near Moscow, German troops suffered their first major defeat since 1939. The “lightning war” plan completely failed. Since the Battle of Moscow, there has been a radical turn in the course of the war in favor of the USSR. The enemy switched to a strategy of protracted war.

However, the successes of the counteroffensive along the entire front, which lasted until April 1942, in directions other than the western one, turned out to be fragile and soon resulted in major losses. In the northwestern direction, an attempt to break through failed siege of Leningrad, installed by the enemy in August 1941. Moreover, the 2nd shock army The Volkhov Front, on which the Headquarters placed special hopes for breaking the blockade, was completely defeated, and its command, led by Lieutenant General A.A. Vlasov, was captured.

After the Moscow defeat, the German command could no longer carry out an offensive along the entire Eastern Front. Determining the objectives of the summer campaign of 1942, it decided to deliver the main blow in the south, trying to capture the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. The Soviet command expected a new attack on Moscow in the summer of 1942. It concentrated here more than half of the armies, almost 80% of tanks, 62% of aircraft. And in the south, only 5.4% of our divisions and 2.9% of tanks are against the main forces of Germany. Simultaneously with strengthening the defense of Moscow, Stalin, contrary to the opinion of the General Staff and its chief B.M. Shaposhnikov, gave instructions to carry out several diversionary offensive operations in the south - in the Crimea, in the Kharkov direction, and in a number of other places. The dispersion of forces doomed this plan to failure, which turned into a new disaster. In May 1942, in the Kharkov region, the Germans surrounded three armies of the Southwestern Front, and 240 thousand people were captured. In the same month, the Kerch operation also ended in defeat. In Crimea, 149 thousand people were captured. The defeat led to a new strategic retreat of the Soviet troops: in August, one group of enemy troops reached the banks of the Volga in the Stalingrad area, and another in the Caucasus.

By the fall of 1942, more than 80 million people found themselves in the territory occupied by the Nazis. The country lost not only its enormous human resources, but also its largest industrial and agricultural areas. The Soviet command was forced with the iron hand of terror to stop the flight of troops. On July 28, 1942, Stalin signed order No. 227 (“Not a step back!”). From now on, any retreat without orders from the command was declared a betrayal of the Motherland. The order introduced penal battalions (for commanders and political workers) and penal companies (for privates and sergeants); barrage detachments were also created, located behind the backs of the warring fighters. They had the right to shoot retreating people on the spot.

On August 25, 1942, a state of siege was introduced in Stalingrad. Started Battle of Stalingrad. The main brunt of the fight for the city, into which the enemy broke into, fell to the 62nd Army under the command of Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov. The German command attached particular importance to the capture of Stalingrad. Its capture would make it possible to cut the Volga transport artery, through which bread and oil were delivered to the center of the country.