Myths about the war 1941. Nikolai Starikov: Myths about the German army near Stalingrad in the Great Patriotic War

If Russia has an army, there will be Russia. This is an immutable rule at all times. But behind the election battles, we began to forget the real battles. In which our grandfathers showed all the power and brilliance of Russian weapons. On November 19, 1942, the counteroffensive of the Red Army began, which led to the encirclement of German troops near Stalingrad. On February 2, 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad ended - it ended with the catastrophe of the German troops.

The battles to destroy the 6th encircled army of Pauls continued for more than two months. As a result, the German army suffered such a defeat from which it could never recover.
Today, on the day of the Russian army, I want to remember these important days for the history of our country.

And dispel the myths.

Myths about the German army.

Military journalist Heinz Schroeter was commissioned to write a book about Stalingrad by ... Adolf Hitler. But when the author finished it, the book was not printed. Too hard and real. The book was published after the war.

So - 7 myths about Stalingrad and the German army as a whole.

Myth one. german army has always been a well-functioning mechanism

It is no secret that the lack of warm clothes in the war winter of 1941-1942 is usually explained by the stupidity of Hitler, who supposedly firmly believed that he would meet the deadlines for the Barbarossa plan. And he will defeat the Russians before the onset of cold weather.

Let it be. But then comes the autumn of 1942. And after it, the second military winter will inevitably come. How are German soldiers dressed? They still don't have warm clothes.

To dress the soldiers, the German command sent very strange clothes to the front line of the mountain. As H. Schroeter writes - "which could bring a lot of joy to the whole gypsy camp."

Blue, red and green striped and plaid shawls. Light yellow angora wool long sleeve pullovers, ring patterned socks in all sizes, fur vests with knitted patterns in the form of crowns.

Knitted sweaters. Ladies' coats (!). Clutches, gloves. Caps with and without ribbons (!). Slippers, slippers made of camel wool. Warmers for coffee pot.

Half boots for skates (!).

Almost all of these clothes were destroyed by the Germans during the retreat or fell into our soldiers. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht also fell a little: “The lucky ones from the 101st infantry division of the Wehrmacht, who got to the warehouse, left “in this form, as if they needed to perform in a circus, and not go to the front line.”
But about how the troops that fell into the boiler were supplied.

Aircraft deliver supplies to the German units surrounded near Stalingrad. Every day, less cargo arrives than needed. First of all, we need ammunition, ammunition, food and fuel.

Starvation is already beginning in the troops, a shortage of fuel and weapons is beginning.

German planes, which made their way through the frost, land on the airfields, Russian anti-aircraft guns and fighters
What kind of cargo did they deliver to the cauldron?

Five tons of lollipops (!).

Several dozen boxes of condoms(!).

The next two planes arrive. They are loaded with marjoram and pepper.
Four tons of spices.

The next pilot sits down. What kind of cargo? Propaganda literature and posters.

A ton of plastic bags for hand grenades. There are no grenades.

But there are laces. And more pepper.

Fight in caps, in half boots for skates. Having from food lollipops and peppers. And instead of cartridges - a box of condoms.
Here you have the vaunted German clarity ...

Myth two. German propaganda was more effective than ours

The mechanism taps for seven seconds and the text repeats.

A leaflet is scattered over the German positions. Hitler is on it. In one hand he has a German award - the Iron Cross, and with the other he points to the grave. Below is an inscription, a quote from the Fuhrer's speech: “I promised you glory and land. Now you have both."

(Our propaganda was very effective. Look at the wartime posters ... (For example, this one is “Daddy kill the German”)

Myth three. Punctuality was hallmark precisely the German army

The Germans surrounded in Stalingrad were presented with an ultimatum. They were asked to respond and surrender. The ultimatum expired at 10 am on January 10, 1943.

The Germans refused.

At 1002 hours on January 10, 1943, five thousand guns and rocket launchers began artillery preparation ...

Myth four. The German army fought voluntarily, and the soldiers of the Red Army were driven by detachments

In the cauldron, in the location of four divisions in the west and south of Stalingrad, 364 German servicemen were shot in eight days by the verdict of the tribunals.

They were shot for cowardice, leaving without an order, for desertion, for stealing food.

In four divisions, in eight days - 364 people.

Data on the rest of the days and other divisions has not been preserved ...

Myth five. The German army fought voluntarily, and the soldiers of the Red Army were sent to penal units

Here is a description of the fate of one German penal battalion. Penal units, by the way, appeared in the German army earlier than in ours by about six months.

The German penal battalion is being transported to the front in freight cars. They put 60 people in them, unloaded the 51st. And nine corpses.
The tasks of the penal battalion are a special working unit that neutralizes mines. Still - the fight against the partisans. Weapons - only one in four. Soon there were already 2,800 German penalty boxers near Stalingrad.

Only in January 1943, when the liquidation of the Stalingrad cauldron began, the command decided that the penalists deserved to "fight with weapons in their hands." That is, weapons were given to ALL the penalized when the end was not far off. They were divided into ordinary parts, and they shared the fate of their comrades ...

Myth six. The German army looked dignified in all situations

The last airfield that still functioned in the boiler was located in the Pitomnik. This is a little more than eight kilometers from Stalingrad. Those who wanted to get on the plane went there.

The wounded and the healthy, the sick and the mad with hunger.
Snow, deep snow. Cold. Piercing wind.

First there were dozens of people, then hundreds, then thousands.

Who lost strength, fell and just froze.

There is no help. Dozens of exhausted people lie along the road, stretching out their hands, calling for help, crying.

Cars try to avoid them. A few days later, cars drive right over the stiff bodies. Frozen bones crack like glass.
Right on the road, crashed planes and stalled cars.

The dying crawl around. Some of them are being dragged by their comrades in their shawls.

Around the thrown weapon and ammunition. Everything, as in the army of Napoleon in 1812.

Several thousand reached the airfield. 14,000 German soldiers were left lying on the road to the Nursery ...

Myth seven. The German army did not respect their Russian opponents

How much more respect. When the Germans' cauldron ran out of food and ammunition, one of their resisting groups contacted their division and asked what they should do.

The answer was: "Remember the Russians at the silo."

The story about the Russians at the silo was as follows.

The German 71st Infantry Division surrounded the grain depots defended by our soldiers. Three days after the encirclement, the Russian soldiers betrayed the command by radio that they had nothing to eat. To which they received the answer: "Fight, and you will forget about hunger."

Three days later, the soldiers again transmitted - "We have no water, what should we do?".

And again they received the answer: "The time has come, comrades, when your mind and cartridges will replace your food and drink."

The defenders held out for another two days, after which they transmitted the last radiogram: "We have nothing more to shoot with."

Five minutes later the answer came: "The Soviet Union thanks you, your life was not meaningless" ...

(All facts from the book - H. Schroeter Stalingrad. The Great Battle through the Eyes of a War Correspondent, M. Tsentrpoligraf, 2007)

P.S. No one has yet succeeded in conquering our people. But to deceive, confuse and force them to destroy the power themselves have already succeeded twice in one century.

From the website editor: This article by the former assistant chief of the General Staff Colonel "V. Slavin" was published 11 years ago, in 2007. It came out as a response to the crazy books of such a "rezun" as M. Solonin. And despite the fact that “Slavin” seems to be criticizing Solonin, this article was followed by a nervous reaction from the general, front-line soldier M. Gareev and the military historian, front-line soldier O. Rzheshevsky. What was it that an officer of the General Staff showed back in 2007, who at one time had access to the archives of the General Staff directly? Nothing special - the Red Army was not preparing to defend itself .... She was not preparing to attack first, as the “rezuns” and Solonin yell, but she was not preparing for defense either ...

“I was prompted to take up writing this article by the recent publication of a new book by the historian Mark Solonin “June 23: M Day”. The views of this researcher on the initial period of the Great Patriotic War have always seemed interesting to me. We have few historians who have such a developed logic of thinking. That is why I treat the works of Mr. Solonin with great attention.

However, do I always agree with him? Yes, almost never. And at the same time, I would like to wish both Mark Solonin and the authors of other publications devoted to the events of the late 1930s - the first half of the 1940s, by all means heed the following advice: let's finally delve into the essence of the content of the documents, and not try to confirm their conjectures with them . And at the same time be guided by the rule formulated by Pope Leo XIII: "The main law of history is not to dare to lie, the second is not to be afraid to tell the truth."

NOT YESTERDAY STARTED

But, unfortunately, the trouble with almost all domestic historians (even military historians) is that when they get a document of operational or strategic planning, they cannot understand it in principle. Our researchers of the past, as a rule, are so professionally far from the process of planning the use of troops that attempts to confirm their messages on the basis of a full-fledged analysis of primary sources do not lead to anything worthwhile. This fully applies to the last book of Mark Solonin, and to other publications dedicated to the same time.

However, it is not only unprofessionalism that fails our scientists and publicists.

For decades, historians different countries in their writings, they sought to answer questions about who was responsible for the outbreak of World War II, why a relatively local European conflict grew into a global confrontation, which statesmen and to what extent are responsible for such a development of events. At the same time, domestic researchers tried to cover as fully as possible all the details of the events that led to the tragedy of the summer of 1941 and, it should be noted, even during the existence of the USSR, based on available sources, they did a lot of work.

Nevertheless, the appearance of new documents that began in the late 1980s, the expansion of access to archival funds, and the liberation of historians from the harsh ideological dictates of the authorities set the task of rethinking this topic.

By the way, Russian historical science is not the first time faced with a similar problem. Similar processes took place in it in the 19th - early 20th centuries in relation to the study of the history of another Patriotic War - 1812. During the first 50 years after the defeat of Napoleonic France, research was carried out exclusively within the framework of the official version of events, which was reinforced by the personal proximity of leading historians to the throne.

But in the 1860s, a process of reassessment of established views began, which was far from easy and painless. As now, there were also enough hasty conclusions, biting statements, the prevalence of emotions over the essence of historical problems. Be that as it may, it was not until the 100th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812 that a more or less objective fundamental work was published, summarizing the results of many works and still retaining scientific significance.

In the development of research into the history of the Great Patriotic War, apparently, a similar process is going on. For almost 50 years, within the framework of the version of events officially recognized in the USSR, formulated back in 1941-1945 and enshrined in the speeches of the leaders of the Soviet state and the Communist Party, a description of the main periods and most important episodes of the war was given, many documents of those years were published, and an extensive literature on various issues.

However, the understanding gradually grew that the more we learn about the facts of those years, the more difficult it is to keep unchanged official version. Therefore, ideological control steadily increased. By the early 1980s, the vast majority of studies of the history of the Great Patriotic War began to resemble each other like two drops of water. It's in some degree explains the boom in historical sensations that swept the country in the second half of the 1980s.

"Troublemaker"

In the early 1990s, the process of reassessing the history of the Soviet Union went far enough. The thesis about "Stalin's mistakes" that led to the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War has already become common in any literature.

Since 1993, the military-political problems on the eve of the armed confrontation between the USSR and Nazi Germany have been at the center of the discussion caused by the publication of Viktor Suvorov's books in Russia. Although these works were written in the genre of historical journalism, they quite clearly outlined the circle of the least developed problems in historiography.

Over the past years, the controversy surrounding the books of Suvorov-Rezun has split into several directions.

Some authors simply reject the version of the intelligence defector. Others refute it, referring to a number of mistakes and inaccuracies of the former GRU officer. Still others, taking into account the ambiguous and weak provisions of these books, attract all new documentary materials for the analysis of the author's version, which, in principle, not so much convince as confirm the need for further development of these topics.

Be that as it may, the discussion that unfolded led to the discovery of new archival documents indicating that the Soviet leadership, of course, had its own view of the political situation of that period and tried to use it to its advantage. The materials and studies that have appeared have shown that the traditional official version of the exclusively defensive intentions of the USSR is becoming less and less substantiated.

Naturally, a new round of discussion has not escaped a certain politicization. This was primarily due to Suvorov's support for the old version of German propaganda about the "preventive nature" of the Third Reich's attack on the USSR and blaming the Soviet leadership for unleashing World War II. Proponents of the traditional version believe that the desire to prove that the Soviet Union had offensive intentions against Germany serves as a justification for the thesis that came from the lips of Hitler and his henchmen as a justification for declaring war on the Soviet Union, inflicting a “preemptive strike” on it, so to speak.

Therefore, for example, from the point of view of official Russian historians, headed by the leadership of the Academy of Military Sciences, everything that speaks in favor of the option of Moscow's offensive intentions "should be denied always, everywhere and no matter what." In addition, according to our good old tradition, the unfolding controversy continues to use non-scientific arguments, juggling and interpersonal skirmishes.

Some defenders of the traditional version declare the ongoing discussion as a manifestation of an "anti-scientific tendency" and call, in the spirit of Soviet censorship, to "not allow" opponents to publish their research. But this only confirms the opinion of the famous German writer Thomas Mann that "we are more often angry and indignant, opposing some idea, when we ourselves are not too sure of our own position and are internally ready to accept the opposite side."

As a rule, supporters of the traditional version prefer to debate precisely around the concept of Viktor Suvorov. This is rather strange, since, perhaps, none of the serious researchers supports it in its full form. As a result, one gets the impression that these problems can only be considered from the point of view of the author of The Icebreaker or from the point of view of the members of the AVN presidium and the administration of the Institute. military history Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. However, this is not the case, since the documentary materials and studies of recent years that have become available allow us to propose other conceptual approaches to the problem under discussion.

HYPNOSIS OF PREJUDICE

At all times, international politics has been a fierce struggle for control over the available resources, which were taken from a weak neighbor in various ways. The 20th century was no exception in this regard. Therefore, in historical works, it is necessary to objectively consider Soviet foreign policy without any propaganda blinkers, but from the point of view of the real interests, goals and capabilities of the USSR. At the same time, we are not talking about justifying or accusing Moscow and the Kremlin, as is often practiced in Russian historical literature that continues the traditions of Soviet propaganda.

As a rule, several parties act in the events described, each of which seeks to achieve its goals and defend its interests. In Russian historiography, on the other hand, the approach prevails when the researcher (based only on his own likes or dislikes) divides all participants in the events of the past into “good” and “bad” (“progressive” and “reactionary”, etc.). Which in the end only leads to a distortion of the historical perspective.

This feature of the human psyche is a breeding ground for the emergence and consolidation of prejudiced opinion, which is the most serious obstacle to the development of historical science, which, like any other science, is based on the principle of reasoned proof of conclusions. As a result, citing in their writings finally declassified documents that refute the established official version of events, the authors of such publications manage in a number of cases to consider these documents as confirming it!

Such is the hypnosis of preconceived notions.

Meanwhile, as it is now reliably known, information, sufficiently detailed and accurate, about the planning and timing of the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR, began to arrive in Moscow already in December 1940. Gradually, the information was refined and acquired a completely finished form. As Hitler changed the timing of the upcoming offensive of the Wehrmacht, they also became known to Soviet intelligence with amazing efficiency.

The reaction from the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, the General Staff of the Red Army, of course, should have followed. Did Moscow want to pre-empt the impending invasion of the Nazi troops? But who does not understand the benefits of such a strike? Of course they did!

Then why did General of the Army Makhmut Gareev, despite the fact that he himself published for the first time information that back in March 1941, the Soviet military-political leadership received intelligence data on the approximate dates for the start of the war (June 12) , suddenly claims that in 1941 the Soviet Union did not and could not think of any preventive war against Germany?

Yes, in the Kremlin, and especially in General Staff, not only could, but were obliged to "think" about how to create the most favorable conditions entry into the war with the Third Reich and its satellites. Otherwise, it should be concluded that the entire Soviet leadership, and above all the military, consisted of complete idiots who could not understand quite obvious things and acted in accordance with their own, vague interests.

It is clear that such an assumption is completely inconsistent with what we know about the owners of the Kremlin and the leadership of the General Staff of the Red Army and the People's Commissariat of Defense, about their actions in the 1930s-1940s.

According to Vyacheslav Molotov (see his conversations with Felix Chuev), who at that time was the second person in the Soviet state-political elite after Stalin, preparations for the inevitable war with Germany were, of course, carried out: “Otherwise, why would we it was necessary to transfer from the depths of the country to the western border military districts a total of seven armies? This is a great power! Why carry out a secret mobilization of eight hundred thousand conscripts and move them to the borders as part of the reserve divisions of the military districts?

True, Molotov, frankly covering up his personal mistakes and miscalculations, convinces us that they “didn’t know for sure” the specific date for the German attack, but the troops were already concentrating.

Naturally, the question arises, what will happen after the Red Army deploys on the western borders of the USSR? Given that it was still not entirely clear - would Germany attack in 1941 at all?

“Time was lost,” Molotov concludes. “Hitler got ahead of us!”

What, you ask, ahead of?

Supporters of the traditional version could not refute these materials, but a new argument was found.

So, both Dmitry Volkogonov, and Makhmut Gareev, and other researchers argue that "no one is aware of any documents, plans that would confirm Stalin's plan to attack Germany at a certain moment."

Indeed, many documents are still unknown. But not because they were searched for and not found. Many important archival funds are closed to historians. And a number of primary sources stored in the General Staff were destroyed on the personal order of Marshal Georgy Zhukov by one of the leaders of the modern Academy of Military Sciences. Although this is a matter of time, the reason why some venerable scientists allow themselves to assert that “there are no such documents” will be made public.

However, here's what's interesting: even the well-known documents of Soviet military planning are far from convincing proof of the defensive intentions of the USSR.

DEFAULT AND NEGATIVE RESULTS

It seems to be a good and holy goal - to protect the great feat of the people, who defended their freedom and independence at the cost of millions of lives of their best sons, from all kinds of insinuations. But it was transformed into a screen that, for the sake of the interests of a number of personalities of the military leadership, concealed facts that testified to their personal mistakes and mistakes. This is what allowed the ideological opponents of Russia, first with individual publications, and then with a systemic stream of articles and “research”, within the framework of a real information war, to present the people with their history in a form that would make them ashamed.

Today, a well-defined ideological line can already be clearly traced: using the subjunctive mood, to correct the results of the Second World War on the basis of a biased analysis of little-known facts of history, to reduce the international authority of Russia, to associate and fix in the minds of people its foreign policy with the concept of aggression, to revive the thesis about the "Soviet military threat."

It is obvious that not only in Germany did they firmly grasp the order of the "iron" Chancellor Bismarck: "Woe to that statesman who ... does not find reasons for starting a war, reasons that would continue to remain convincing even after the war." The Nazi government implemented this idea so masterfully that even today some want to voice it again, and others, who do not bother to study the materials of the Nuremberg trials, believe in the legend of “preventive war”. Although, let me remind you, official accusations against the USSR about the preparation of aggression were voiced in a memorandum handed over by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich, Ribbentrop, to the Soviet ambassador in Berlin at 4 am on June 22, 1941.

However, in mind, logic and analytical thinking, the main engine of the idea of ​​​​preventive war, Viktor Rezun, cannot be denied. People interested in the history of the Second World War should read his books. They have the main thing for thinking people - directions of research. But the conclusions - they should not be thoughtlessly repeated. They must be made by yourself. And substantiate on the basis of obtained objective and systematized information. But, unfortunately, those who have access to closed-end funds are in no hurry to share it. Moreover, a significant part of the documents has been declassified. And those who, in line with their official duty, are obliged to convincingly refute Rezun's version, still do not do this.

Some "prominent military scientists" do not consider it possible to stoop to such an allegedly low level. Although no one, except for these people themselves, has long believed that their level of historical knowledge is so high. The proud title of doctor of historical, and even more so of military sciences today, to knowledgeable people, only says that this representative of the “patriarchs” of national history or military thought thoroughly studied one (yes, yes, don’t be surprised), precisely one very narrow issue of military art or stories.

How smarter man the more he doubts. Too often today's pillars of military-historical thought began to bring the main historical argument: this cannot be, simply because it can never be.

But Suvorov-Rezun says he can. Moreover, he does not just speak, but book after book convincingly substantiates his judgments.

Many believe. In Russia, the people are greedy for "non-standard thoughts", "asymmetric answers", etc.

A ray of light in the dark realm could be a military-scientific conference held at the Ministry of Defense on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War. In a series of senseless, so to speak, “on the occasion” and “in connection with” speeches, real analytical reports worthy of the country’s military leaders, clearly focused on historical parallels, having a very definite applied orientation, flashed there.

But they did shine. And they went out.

The published collection of conference materials, despite the high official position of the speakers, struck with its "editedness" in the spirit of the early 1980s. Everything that could not please the native orthodox people, who are directly responsible for the release of the collection, fell out of the reports.

“They order to take over the messenger, and another letter is thrust into his empty bag.” Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, as usual, is right. Nothing has changed for many centuries.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST

The ability of the military department to cross out on the information field any, even the most unconditional victory won on the battlefield, is becoming systemic pathological in our country. Not at all supporting the versions of official historians (who are defending their dogmas to death), we will nevertheless try to give a number of arguments to counterbalance the versions of Viktor Suvorov-Rezun and Mark Solonin.

The latter, as mentioned above, has just published a new and, no doubt, very interesting book. It states the thesis that the Soviet Union was preparing to start a war against Germany on June 23, 1941. Moreover, a provocation was planned for June 23, similar to the one that served as a pretext for the USSR attack on Finland in the winter of 1939, in order to prove the need to strike at the Third Reich. In the book, this is quite logical and convincingly substantiated.

But the author's hypothesis is based on the assumption that exact dates the Soviet military-political leadership did not know the German attacks on the USSR. However, Moscow knew about them. On June 18, 1941, formations and units of the western border military districts of the USSR were brought to full combat readiness. Already on June 20, the districts reported that the established areas were occupied by troops and that they were ready to repel the offensive.

No "surprise attack" is confirmed by any documents other than "memories and reflections" of those who shamefully lost the beginning of the war. So why invent something for the Germans? On June 22, they themselves will become the most real and unconditional aggressors. It is only necessary to help the whole world, and especially Great Britain and the USA, to recognize this fact. This means that the Germans must be allowed to enter the territory of the USSR and “stubbornly defend themselves” for 5-10 days.

In the substantiation of the German legend of a preventive war, the supporters of this version today clearly trace the following directions:

1. To identify and single out, stick out, exaggerate the aggressive component of the pre-war foreign policy of the Soviet Union, to prove Moscow's "interest" in the war with Germany.
2. To disguise as much as possible the aggressive preparations of the German side, especially the documents, the timing and sequence of the development of the Barbarossa plan.
3. "Create" strike groups of Soviet troops on the border with Germany, preferably with a huge number of tanks and aircraft, as the basis for conducting offensive operations of that time and bring them into the appropriate combat-ready state.
4. By interpreting the documents in a biased way, single out the aggressive component of the Soviet military plans and, on their basis, determine the specific date of the attack. Closer to June 22, 1941, so that preventive action is evident.

And so, while long-declassified (and not declassified) documents continue to be hidden from the public in closed archives, the process, as they say, has begun: “new” historical facts are systematically thrown in, combined with appropriate comments.

Whether this process will become ideologically irreversible, time will tell. Now there is still an opportunity to try to figure it out and prove that at least in 1941, if the Germans had not attacked, the USSR itself would not have started the war.

And in 1942? Here I'm not sure anymore - it could very well be. And they were going to "rush to Europe" indisputably. Most importantly, they would just be “worthless politicians” if they didn’t intend to.”

Let's analyze the main false myths about the Great Patriotic War, purposefully invented or resulting from illiterate reasoning of people who do not know or are trying to denigrate the history of our country.

1. The USSR fought against Nazi Germany and its few allies

In fact, the entire united Europe fought against the USSR. European Union.

The countries occupied by Hitler always presented themselves as victims. Like, evil invaders came, what could we do against them? It was impossible to fight. They were forced to work under pain of death, starved and tortured. However, in reality, it turns out that in the West under the Germans, everything was not so bad. It was our troops, retreating, who blew up industrial enterprises so that they would not get to the enemy. Partisans and residents of the territories occupied by the Nazis staged sabotage and sabotage. In most occupied European countries, workers worked diligently, getting paid and drinking beer after work.

Just one fact: the weapons that Germany captured in the defeated countries were enough to form 200 divisions. No, this is not a mistake: 200 divisions. We had 170 divisions in the western districts. It took the USSR several five-year plans to provide them with weapons. In France, after its defeat, the Germans immediately seized up to 5,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 3,000 aircraft, and 5,000 locomotives. In Belgium, they appropriated half of the rolling stock for the needs of their economy and war.

Without the Czech military industry and Czech tanks, we would not have had four tank divisions, which would have made it impossible to attack the Soviet Union, - admitted Helmut Ritgen, lieutenant colonel of the Wehrmacht tank troops. Strategic raw materials, weapons, materials, equipment - a united Europe provided the Nazis with everything they needed. Including human resources: about 2,000,000 people volunteered for the Nazi army.

2. Soviet soldiers fought only because there were detachments behind them, who shot the retreating from machine guns

Since the losses of German troops, even at the beginning of the war, despite the retreat of the Red Army, were unprecedentedly high, and in some places some units were completely defeated, the opponents Great Victory I had to come up with a myth that Soviet soldiers were forced to fight under machine guns, shooting the retreating. To make the theory sound more convincing, executions from machine guns were attributed to special NKVD barrage detachments, which allegedly hid behind the backs of soldiers and simply shot all those retreating. In reality, the NKVD detachments really existed, and their duty was to protect the rear of the Soviet armies, like other military police in any army in the world. These units played a significant role in restoring order in the troops of the Red Army. Take for example the data on the "Battle of Stalingrad":

During August and September 1942, the barrage detachments of the Stalingrad Front detained 36,109 people. Of them: 730 people. was arrested. Of these 730 arrested, 433 were shot; 1056 people were sent to penal companies; 33 people in penal battalions; 33,851 people were sent to their units for further service. That is, out of 36,000 people, only 433 people were shot for serious crimes, which is a little more than one percent. And these data refer to the time when the “atrocities of the detachments” allegedly took place. Perhaps, among the 433 shot, not all were so guilty that they should have been executed, but given the difficult situation near Stalingrad, this was a necessary measure. In addition, there is no need to talk about any execution from machine guns, and all the detainees were first arrested and sentenced by a military tribunal. Later, when the front was stabilized, such harsh measures were no longer resorted to.

3. The USSR filled up the Nazis with corpses

AT recent years 15-20 we often hear that the ratio of losses of the USSR and Germany with the allies in World War II was 1:5, 1:10, or even 1:14. Further, of course, a conclusion is made about “filling up with corpses”, inept leadership, and so on. However, mathematics is an exact science. For example, the population of the Third Reich at the beginning of the Second World War was 85 million people, of which more than 23 million were men of military age. The population of the USSR is 196.7 million people, of which 48.5 million are men of military age.

So, even without knowing anything about the real numbers of losses on both sides, it is easy to calculate that victory through the complete mutual destruction of the male population of military age in the USSR and Germany is achieved by a loss ratio of 48.4/23 = 2.1, but not 10.

By the way, here we do not take into account the allies of the Germans. If you add them to these 23 million, then the ratio of losses will become even smaller. At the same time, it should be taken into account that at the very beginning of the war, the Soviet Union lost large densely populated territories, so the actual number of men of military age was even less. However, if, indeed, for every killed German the Soviet command would put 10 Soviet soldiers, then after the Germans would have killed 5 million people, the USSR would have killed 50 million - that is, we would have no one else to fight , and in Germany there would still be as many as 18 million men of military age.

4. Won in spite of Stalin

All these myths add up to a global statement, expressed in one phrase: "We won in spite of." Despite the illiterate commanders, mediocre and bloodthirsty generals, the totalitarian Soviet system and personally Joseph Stalin. History knows many examples when a well-trained and equipped army lost battles because of mediocre generals. But for a country to win the global war of attrition despite the state leadership, this is something fundamentally new. After all, war is not only a front, not only questions of strategy, and not only problems of supplying troops with food and ammunition. This and the rear, this Agriculture, this is industry, this is logistics, these are issues of providing the population with medicines and medical care, bread and housing. Soviet industry from the western regions in the first months of the war was evacuated beyond the Urals. Was this titanic logistical operation carried out by enthusiasts against the will of the country's leadership? In new places, workers stood up to the machines in an open field, while new buildings of workshops were being laid - was it really only out of fear of repression? Millions of citizens were evacuated beyond the Urals, to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the residents of Tashkent overnight sent home everyone who remained on the forecourt - is it really contrary to the cruel customs of the Soviet country? Is all this possible if society is fragmented, if it lives in a state of cold civil war with the authorities, if it does not trust the leadership? The answer is actually obvious.

The myth that the Soviet Union won the war solely with the help of severe frosts, mudslides and snowstorms is the leading one in the list of myths about the war.

If you look at the plans of the German command to attack the USSR, it becomes clear that the victory over the main forces of the Soviet army should have occurred during the summer or, at the very least, summer-autumn campaign. That is, Hitler initially did not plan to conduct active fighting during the cold season. But as a result of the most powerful blows and the capture of key cities of the USSR, the defense of the Red Army did not break, and the German units suffered losses that they had not yet experienced.

Up to five divisions of the Germans were defeated, and the attack on Moscow stopped for a long time. It is worth noting that all these events took place in the summer and early autumn. At the same time, the weather conditions in the summer of 1941, as you know, turned out to be almost ideal for the German offensive.

It is known that, hoping to end the war before winter, the German command did not bother to timely purchase winter clothes and other necessary equipment.

In addition, one should not forget that the thaw, which slowed down the German offensive near Moscow, acted on both sides. Moreover, its effect on the retreating Red Army was in some respects even more negative than on the Wehrmacht: for the advancing side, a tank stuck in the mud is just some fuss of engineering units to pull it out, but for the retreating side, a tank stuck in the mud is equal to a tank lost in battle.

Fans of this myth spread it strictly to the 41st, 42nd year, but do not talk about subsequent years. For example, the Great Battle of Kursk or Operation Bagration is hushed up. These battles took place exclusively in the summer.

6. The decisive importance of the second front and the supply of Lend-Lease

"Allies" from the first days of Hitler's aggression against the USSR did not hide their unfriendly attitude towards the Soviet Union. And participation in the war was motivated only by selfish interests. Suffice it to recall a quote from an article by the future US President Truman, which was published in the "central" American newspaper "New York Times" on June 24, 1941, that is, a day after the German attack on the Soviet Union: "If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, then we should help Germany, and thus let them kill as many as possible ”... Just one fact: their financial tycoons financed both sides - nothing personal, just business ! By the way, the United States became the richest country in the world after the Second World War, having previously robbed, robbed and enslaved a significant part of the world. Today, some American-loving historians speak breathlessly about Lend-Lease (American supplies of equipment and weapons to the USSR during the war years). But, firstly, this is a drop in the ocean (only 4 percent of what was produced during the war years in our country), and secondly, this is again a business. Few people know that for these "friendly" deliveries the USSR, and then Russia, paid off the Yankees until 2006! No one today remembers that there were so-called "reverse" Lend-Lease agreements, according to which "brothers in arms" were supposed to provide the US Army with goods, services, transport services after the war, and even allow the use of military bases. By the way, the "reverse lend-lease" of the USSR amounted to $ 2.2 million. Another aspect that is unfavorable for the USSR is in connection with the "assistance of the allies." Having stretched out with the opening of the second front until 1944, the United States and England in the very first serious battle with the already weakened Hitler received a furious blow. The Red Army had to save the “allies” at the cost of additional losses. In January 1945, the British Prime Minister Churchill plaintively asked for help from I.V. Stalin, and he replied: “We are preparing for

offensive, but the weather is not conducive to our offensive. However, given the position of our allies on the western front, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to complete the preparations at an accelerated pace and, regardless of the weather, open wide offensive operations against the Germans along the entire central front no later than the second half of January. So the opening of the second front turned into "extra" losses for our troops.

7. Allies. Operation Unthinkable

Not only did the “allies” constantly delay the supply of weapons, delay the opening of a second front, and opened it when the outcome of the war was a foregone conclusion, but they also planned a military operation unprecedented in its cynicism.

In early April 1945, just before the end of the Great Patriotic War, W. Churchill, the Prime Minister of our ally, Great Britain, ordered his chiefs of staff to develop an operation of surprise strike against the USSR - Operation Unthinkable. It was given to him on May 22, 1945 on 29 pages.

According to this plan, the attack on the USSR was to begin following the principles of Hitler - a sudden blow. On July 1, 1945, 47 British and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians who did not expect such boundless meanness from the allies. The blow was supposed to be supported by 10-12 German divisions, which the “allies” kept undisbanded in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark, they were trained daily by British instructors: they were preparing for war against the USSR. The war was supposed to lead to the complete defeat and surrender of the USSR.

The Anglo-Saxons were preparing to break us with terror - the savage destruction of large Soviet cities with crushing blows from the waves of "flying fortresses". Several million Russian people were supposed to die in “fire tornadoes” worked out to the smallest detail. So Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were destroyed ... Now they were preparing to do this with us, with the allies.

However, on June 29, 1945, the day before the planned start of the war, the Red Army suddenly changed its location for the insidious enemy. This was the decisive weight that shifted the scales of history - the order was not given to the Anglo-Saxon troops. Prior to this, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, showed the power Soviet army and the enemy's military experts were inclined to call off the attack on the USSR.

What images arise in a Russian citizen who is told about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War? Most likely - downcast columns of prisoners, wandering under the protection of German machine gunners, Soviet tanks broken and stuck in the mud on the roadsides and in the field, planes burned at airfields ... The series can be continued.

Most of these images came from photographs taken in the summer of 1941. Almost all of these photos, and even the documentary chronicle, were taken after the battles, when days and weeks had passed. There are relatively few pictures taken in battle, not before. In addition, most of the pictures were taken on busy highways, where huge masses of Nazis walked and drove back and forth. But not all battles, the battles took place along the main roads, a significant number of equipment knocked out in battle could be found near thousands of villages, villages, in copses, on country roads.

Therefore, there was the myth of the small-scale mechanization of the Red Army, parts of which allegedly moved only on foot or with the help of horses, and the Wehrmacht only by car. Although if we compare the states of the infantry division of the Wehrmacht and the motorized rifle division of the Red Army, then there is no lag, the mechanization is almost equal. The Red Army had plenty of mechanized corps and tank brigades.

Against the background of such a picture was created the myth of the unwillingness of Soviet soldiers to fight for the Bolsheviks, Stalin. Although even in Soviet times, enough materials were published that tell about the difficult battles of the initial stage of the war, mass heroism, the exploits of border guards, pilots, tankers, artillerymen, and infantry.

These myths and other similar conjectures are born due to a lack of understanding of the real picture of the life of the country in the pre-war period and at the beginning of the war, or, even worse, they are created deliberately, waging an information war against our country and people. It must be understood that even the richest state cannot keep a multimillion-strong army under arms in a period when there is no war, tearing off millions of healthy men from real production. In the borderlands there are troops that will become the basis of the grouping for the first operation of the war, only with the declaration of war is the gigantic mechanism of mobilization launched. But even potential military personnel, who are mobilized in the first place, do not gather in peacetime in a zone of 50-300 km from the enemy, they are mobilized where they live and work. Even the current conscription and officers may not be on the border with the enemy, but in the Caucasus, Siberia, Far East. That is, there are very limited troops on the border, far from the entire payroll of the peacetime army. Only in the case of mobilization, the troops are increased to wartime states, huge masses of people and equipment are being transported to the front, perhaps only still potential.

Mobilization can be launched even before the start of hostilities, but this requires very important reasons, a political decision by the country's leadership. At this point created the myth that "intelligence reported", but the tyrant was stupid ... The beginning of mobilization is not just an internal event, but a step of great political importance, causing a huge resonance in the world. It is almost impossible to conduct it covertly, a potential enemy can use it as a pretext for war. Therefore, in order to actually start a war, very weighty, reinforced concrete grounds are needed. Starting a war, from a political and military point of view, was unreasonable, the main plans for defense construction were to be completed in 1942. The basis for such a decision could be intelligence or analysis of the political situation. But, despite the widespread opinion about the power of Soviet intelligence, the actual intelligence was highly inconsistent. crumbs important and useful information simply drowned in a mass of gossip, outright misinformation.

From a political point of view, relations between the Reich and the Union were quite normal, there was no threat: financial and economic cooperation, the absence of territorial disputes, a non-aggression pact, delimitation of spheres of influence. In addition, which also played a crucial role in assessing the date of the start of the war, the Kremlin understood that it was very likely in the short term, the Third Reich was associated with a war with England. Until the issue with Britain was resolved, fighting the Soviet Union was an extremely adventurous step, beyond normal logic. Berlin did not send any diplomatic signals that usually start a war - territorial claims (as to Czechoslovakia, Poland), demands, ultimatums.

When Berlin did not react in any way to the TASS message of June 14 (it said that reports published abroad about the impending war between the USSR and Germany had no basis), Stalin began mobilization processes, but without announcing it: they advanced to the border from the depths of the border military districts of the division, the promotion began along railway unmobilized troops from the internal districts to the border of the rivers Western Dvina and Dnieper. There were other events that completely reject the speculation on the topic: "Stalin did not believe."

The Red Army actually entered the war without completing the mobilization, so at the beginning of the war it had 5.4 million people, and according to the mobilization plan of February 1941 (MP-41) in wartime states, it was supposed to be 8 .68 million people. That is why in the border divisions, when they entered the battle, there were approximately 10 thousand people, instead of the prescribed St. 14 thousand. Even worse was the situation in the rear units. The troops of the border and internal military districts were divided into three operationally unrelated parts - units directly at the border, units at a depth of about 100 km from the border, and troops about 300 km from the border. The Wehrmacht got the opportunity to take advantage of the number of personnel, the number of pieces of equipment and destroy the Soviet troops in parts.

By June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht was completely mobilized, its number was increased to 7.2 million people. Strike groups were concentrated on the border and crushed the Soviet border divisions before the Red Army could change the balance of power. Only in the process of the battle for Moscow could the situation be changed.

The myth of the superiority of defense over attack, on the new western border of the USSR in 1940-1941 they built a line of fortifications, fortified areas (URs), they are also called the "Molotov line". By the war, many structures were unfinished, uncamouflaged, without communications, and so on. But, most importantly, there were not enough forces on the border to hold back the blow of the German army, even relying on the URs. The defense could not hold back the onslaught of the Wehrmacht, the German troops had vast experience in breaking the lines of defense since the First World War, applying it in 1940 on the border with France. For a breakthrough, assault groups with sappers, explosives, flamethrowers, aircraft, and artillery were used. For example: on the 22nd near the city of Taurage in the Baltic states, the 125th rifle division took up defense, but the Wehrmacht broke through it in less than a day. The divisions and units covering the border could not provide the necessary density of defense. They were sparse over a vast area, so the German strike groups quickly broke into the defenses, though not at the pace they expected.

The only way to stop the enemy's breakthrough was counterattacks with their own mechanized corps. The border districts had mechanized corps, where new types of tanks, the T-34 and KV, were sent in the first place. On June 1, 1941, the Red Army had 25,932 tanks, self-propelled guns and tankettes (although some of them were in combat readiness (as at the present time, there are a certain number of units in the parks, and 60 percent ready to go into battle immediately), in western special districts had 13 981. The mechanized corps were "hostages" of the general unfavorable situation, due to the collapse of the defense in several directions at once, they were forced to scatter between several targets. In addition, the mechanized corps were inferior in the organizational part, the German tank groups numbered 150-200 thousand .people from several motorized corps, reinforced by artillery, motorized infantry and other units.The Soviet mechanized corps numbered about 30 thousand people.Wehrmacht tank units, having fewer tanks than the Red Army, reinforced them with more powerful motorized infantry and artillery, including anti-tank.

The general strategy of the leadership of the Red Army was absolutely correct - operational counterattacks, only they could stop the enemy strike groups (there was no tactical atomic yet). Unlike France, the Red Army, with its fierce counterattacks, was able to buy time, inflict heavy losses on the enemy, which ultimately led to the failure of the "blitzkrieg" plan, and hence the entire war. Yes, and the leadership of the Wehrmacht drew conclusions, became more cautious (not Poland and France), began to pay more attention to the defense of the flanks, slowing down the pace of the offensive even more. It is clear that the organization of the counterattacks was not up to par (but it is not for us to judge, the current cabinet prosecutors could not organize their similarities), the concentration was weak, there was not enough air cover, units rushed into battle from the march, units. The mechanized corps were forced to go on the attack without suppressing the enemy's defenses with artillery, it was not enough, and the one that was behind. There was not enough of their own infantry to support the tank attack. This led to heavy losses of armored vehicles, the Germans quite easily burned old types of tanks. Tanks of new types were more effective, but they could not replace a full-fledged attack with the support of aviation, artillery and infantry. The myth of the invulnerability of tanks T-34, KV for the Wehrmacht just another guess. Like, if Stalin had ordered them to be “riveted” in sufficient quantities, then the enemy would have been stopped at the border. The Wehrmacht had 50 mm PAK-38 anti-tank guns that could penetrate even KV armor using sub-caliber shells. In addition, the Wehrmacht had anti-aircraft guns and heavy field guns, which also pierced the armor of the latest Soviet tanks. These tanks still required fine-tuning, were technically unreliable, for example, the V-2 diesel engine, in 1941, its passport resource did not exceed 100 engine hours on the stand and an average of 45–70 hours in the tank. This led to the frequent failure of new tanks on marches for technical reasons.

But it was the mechanized corps that saved the infantry from complete annihilation. They delayed the movement of the enemy, saved Leningrad from being captured on the move, and held back the advance of the German tank group E. von Kleist in the South-West direction.

The myth about the decrease in the combat capability of the command corps due to repression does not stand up to criticism. The percentage of those who were repressed from the general command staff is very small, the decrease in the quality of training of command personnel is associated with rapid growth armed forces of the USSR in the prewar period. If in August 1939 the Red Army numbered 1.7 million people, then in June 1941 - 5.4 million people. In the high command, a number of commanders came to the top, who later became the best commanders of the Second World War. A significant role was also played by the lack of combat experience among a significant part of the Red Army, and the Wehrmacht was already an army that “tasted blood” and won a number of victories, the French army, for example, was then considered the best in Europe.

We must also understand the fact that the huge columns of prisoners of war, which are often shown on TV, may not be military personnel at all. The Wehrmacht in cities and other villages drove to the camps all those liable for military service from the age of 18. In addition, one must understand that not all front-line fighters are in the division - about half of them. The rest are artillerymen, signalmen, there were many builders (before the war, large-scale work was carried out to strengthen the border), military rear services. Getting into the environment, the units fought, tried to break through, while there was fuel, ammunition, food. The operational summary of Army Group Center for June 30 stated: “A lot of trophies were captured, various weapons (mainly artillery guns), a large number of various equipment and a lot of horses. The Russians are suffering huge losses in the dead, there are few prisoners. The "rear guards" were less trained, their mental training was also worse than that of the front line fighters, who mostly died with weapons in their hands. Or were injured. An impressive newsreel column of grooms, signalers and builders could easily be recruited from one corps, and entire armies were surrounded.

The Wehrmacht crushed the border divisions, the so-called "deep" corps 100-150 km from the border, they could not stop the enemy, the "weight categories" were too different, but they did the maximum - they won time and forced the enemy to throw into battle the units that they planned to introduce into fight in the second stage of the "blitzkrieg". A huge minus was the fact that the retreating Soviet units had to abandon a huge amount of equipment that ran out of fuel and which could, under other conditions, be restored. The mechanized corps burned down in the fire of war, and so far there was nothing to restore them - if in June and early July 1941 the Soviet command had mechanized corps in the hands, then by August - October they were gone. This was one of the causes of other disasters in the first year of the war: the Kyiv "boiler" in September 1941, the Vyazemsky, Bryansk and Melitopol "boilers" in October 1941.

German soldiers inspect the damaged and burnt-out T-20 Komsomolets artillery tractor. A burnt driver is seen, killed while trying to get out of the car. 1941

Sources:
Isaev A.V. Antisuvorov. Ten myths of World War II. M., 2004.
Isaev A.V., Drabkin A.V. June 22. Black day of the calendar. M., 2008.
Isaev A. V. Dubno 1941. The greatest tank battle of World War II. M., 2009.
Isaev A.V. "Boilers" of the 41st. WWII, which we did not know. M., 2005.
Isaev A.V. Unknown 1941. Stopped blitzkrieg. M., 2010.
Pykhalov I. The Great Slandered War. M., 2005.
Pykhalov I., Dyukov A. et al. Great slanderous war-2. We have nothing to repent of! M., 2008.

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One of the most notable primary sources of myths about the Great Patriotic War was Khrushchev's report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU. But there were others, ranging from cinema and literature, masquerading as historiography, to outright fantasies, born with purely propaganda purposes. On the day of the Great Victory, it is worth refuting the most common of them again.

Every year, just before May 9, a lot of historical falsifications and unscrupulous interpretations emerge in the Russian-language information space aimed at belittling this significant date and the most important event for our society - Victory in the Great Patriotic War. It would be useful to note the loudest of them in order to once again separate truth from fiction.

"The USSR was on the side of Hitler"

“The difference in the demographic losses of military personnel is monstrous - 8.6 million for the USSR and 5 million for Germany and its allies. The explanation for this fact is no less monstrous.

In early May, on the Belarusian-Polish border, a correspondent of the allegedly “Belarusian”, but in fact created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland and the Polish Public Television, the BelSat TV channel tried to ask the leader of the Night Wolves Alexander “Surgeon” Zaldostanov: “When did the Second World War, the USSR acted on the side of Hitler ... "
- Who spoke? – said Zaldostanov.
“USSR,” the television man confirmed.
The surgeon answered the journalist very emotionally, but a few words should be said about the essence of the question. So, the facts and only the facts.

In 1919, Poland, having decided to profit from the territories of the former Russian Empire, against the backdrop of the Civil War and with the support of the Entente countries, intervened against Soviet Russia, Soviet Belarus and Soviet Ukraine. As a result of the Soviet-Polish war, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus fell under the control of Warsaw.

In September 1938, the great powers of Great Britain and France, following the policy of appeasing Hitler, ordered Czechoslovakia to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany. The agreement was sealed in Munich on September 30 and went down in history as the Munich Agreement. Hitler did not limit himself to the Sudetenland alone, occupying all of Czechoslovakia, except for the Teshin region. Poland, having presented an ultimatum to the Czech authorities, occupied it. The great powers did not react to the division of the country.

It should be noted that mutual assistance pacts were in force between the USSR and France, the USSR and Czechoslovakia since 1935, this tripartite alliance could well stop Hitler. But France preferred to turn a blind eye to its obligations, and Poland torpedoed the proposal of the USSR to send troops, categorically refusing to let them through its territory.

On September 1, 1939, the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, but it was a "Strange War" - the powers did not take any hostilities. On September 4, France and Poland concluded an agreement on mutual assistance, which had no development. Poles' requests for military support went unanswered. On September 9, the Polish leadership began negotiations for asylum in neighboring countries, September 13 evacuated the gold reserves abroad, and on September 17 fled to Romania. On the same day, having stated that the Polish state had actually ceased to exist, the USSR began to send its troops into the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus.

Yes, earlier the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, known as. But Poland itself signed a similar treaty, known as the Hitler-Pilsudski Pact, back in 1934.

"Intelligence reported"

“In a report from Berlin dated May 6, 1941, the naval attache in Berlin reported: “The Soviet citizen Bozer told the assistant to our naval attache that, according to one German officer from Hitler’s headquarters, the Germans were preparing an invasion of the USSR through Finland by May 14, Baltic and Latvia. At the same time, powerful air raids on Moscow and Leningrad and parachute landings are planned ... ”- these are also the words of Khrushchev. And again it is not clear how Stalin should have reacted to such a "serious" report. Moreover, as we know from history, the real war did not begin on May 14 and developed in a completely different way.

But let us digress from the report to the 20th Congress. After all, intelligence really reported, Richard Sorge named the date. Much later, historians and publicists repeatedly turned to this issue and, in confirmation of Stalin's distrust of intelligence, they cited a real document - a report by an agent under the pseudonym "Sergeant" with Stalin's own obscene resolution: "Maybe send our" source "from the German headquarters. aviation to e ... mother. This is not a "source", but a misinformer ... "

With all due respect to the feat of our intelligence, it should be noted that if we arrange the reports of agents in chronological order, we get the following. In March 1941, the agents "Sergeant" and "Corsican" report that the attack will take place around May 1. April 2 - that the war will begin on April 15, and April 30 - that "from day to day." May 9 is the date "May 20 or June". Finally, on June 16, a report arrives: "A blow can be expected at any time." In total, Richard Sorge from March to June 1941 named at least seven different dates for the start of the war, and back in March he assured that Hitler would attack England first, and in May he reported that "this year the danger may pass." On June 20, his own report arrives that "war is inevitable." The analytical service in intelligence did not yet exist at that time. All these messages fell on the table to Stalin. The result is not difficult to predict.

In general, it was already clear that war was coming. There was a rearmament of the Red Army. Under the guise of large training camps, covert mobilization of reservists was carried out. But intelligence could not give an exhaustive answer about the date the confrontation began. The decision to mobilize did not simply mean the removal of workers, tractors, and motor vehicles from the national economy. It meant the immediate start of the war, mobilization is not carried out just like that. The Soviet leadership in this situation rightly believed that better later than earlier, the rearmament of the Red Army should have ended in 1942.

"Stalin bled the Red Army"

Subsequently, these words were overgrown with facts, for example, in journalistic works one can find the following data: in 1940, out of 225 regiment commanders of the Red Army, only 25 people graduated from military schools, the remaining 200 people are people who graduated from junior lieutenant courses and came from the reserve. It is alleged that on January 1, 1941, 12% of the commanding staff of the Red Army did not have a military education, in the Ground Forces this number reached 16%. Consequently, Stalin "bled" the army on the eve of the war.

Indeed, in the 1930s and 1940s, a wave of repressions also swept through the Red Army. According to declassified documents today, from 1934 to 1939, more than 56,000 command personnel left the army. Of these, 10 thousand were arrested. 14 thousand people were fired for drunkenness and moral decay. The rest were dismissed for other reasons: illness, disability, and so on. Moreover, in the same period, 6,600 previously dismissed commanders were reinstated in the army and positions after additional proceedings.

To understand the scale of the army's "purge", we note that in 1937 Voroshilov stated: "The army has 206 thousand commanding personnel in the state." The total number of the Red Army in 1937 was 1.5 million people.

However, the poor training of the commanders of the Red Army was indeed recorded, but it was not caused by repressions. Already in 1939, the number of the Red Army increased to 3.2 million fighters, by January 1941 - up to 4.2 million people. By the beginning of the war, the number of commanders reached almost 440 thousand commanders. The country was preparing for war, the army was growing, rearmament was underway, but the training of command personnel was really late.

"Corpses overwhelmed"

The problem, however, is that modern Russian and German sources use different methods for calculating losses. In one case (the Russian method), the concept of “irretrievable losses” includes those who died at the fronts, died from wounds in hospitals, went missing, were taken prisoner, as well as non-combat losses - those who died from diseases, as a result of accidents, and so on. Moreover, statistical calculations are based on operational accounting of losses according to monthly reports from the troops.

The very concept of "irretrievable losses", as it is easy to see, is not equivalent to the concept of "dead". War has its own laws, a record is kept of those who can join the ranks. For example, servicemen who were encircled at the beginning of the war are also included in irretrievable losses, despite the fact that more than 939,000 of them were subsequently re-conscripted into the army in the liberated territories. 1 million 836 thousand servicemen returned from captivity after the war. In total, excluding 2 million 775 thousand people from the number of irretrievable losses, we get the demographic losses of the Soviet armed forces - 8 million 668 thousand people.

The German methodology takes into account the number of those killed, those who died from wounds and those who did not return from captivity, that is, the dead, demographic losses. The irretrievable losses of Germany on the Soviet-German front amounted to 7 million 181 thousand, and this is only Germany, and taking into account the allies - 8 million 649 thousand military personnel. Thus, the ratio of German and Soviet irretrievable losses is 1:1.3.

The difference in the demographic losses of military personnel is monstrous - 8.6 million for the USSR and 5 million for Germany and its allies. The explanation for this fact is no less monstrous: during the Great Patriotic War, 4 million 559 thousand Soviet military personnel were captured by the Nazis, 4 million 376 thousand Wehrmacht military personnel were captured by the Soviets. More than 2.5 million of our soldiers died in Nazi camps. 420 thousand German prisoners of war died in Soviet captivity.

"We won in spite of..."

Within the framework of one publication, it is almost impossible to cover the entire array of "black myths" about the Great Patriotic War. Here are the criminals from the penal battalions, who decided, according to the cinematography, the outcome of several battles. And one rifle for three (“You will get weapons in battle!”), Which easily transforms into . And detachments shooting in the back. And tanks with welded hatches and a crew immured alive. And homeless children, from whom they prepared suicide bombers. And many many others. All these myths add up to a global statement, expressed in one phrase: "We won in spite of." Despite the illiterate commanders, mediocre and bloodthirsty generals, the totalitarian Soviet system and personally Joseph Stalin.

History knows many examples when a well-trained and equipped army lost battles because of mediocre generals. But for a country to win the global war of attrition despite the state leadership, this is something fundamentally new. After all, war is not only a front, not only questions of strategy, and not only problems of supplying troops with food and ammunition. This is the rear, this is agriculture, this is industry, this is logistics, these are issues of providing the population with medicines and medical care, bread and housing.

Soviet industry from the western regions in the first months of the war was evacuated beyond the Urals. Was this titanic logistical operation carried out by enthusiasts against the will of the country's leadership? In new places, workers stood up to the machines in an open field, while new buildings of workshops were being laid - was it really only out of fear of repression? Millions of citizens were evacuated beyond the Urals, to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the residents of Tashkent overnight sent home everyone who remained on the forecourt - is it really contrary to the cruel customs of the Soviet country?

When Leningrad held on, in spite of everything, hungry women and children stood at the machine tools for 12 hours, turning the cases of shells, the poet Dzhambul wrote to them from distant Kazakhstan: “Leningraders, my children! / Leningraders, my pride!” - and from these verses wept in the Far East. Didn't this mean that the whole country was held together from top to bottom by a moral core of unprecedented strength?

Is all this possible if society is fragmented, if it lives in a state of cold civil war with the authorities, if it does not trust the leadership? The answer is actually obvious.

The Soviet country, the Soviet people - each in his own place, by joint efforts - accomplished an incredible feat, unprecedented in history. We remember. We are proud.