EntranceScary stories about the Second World War. Myths and oddities of the Second Patriotic War
GRENADE ON AIRPLANES
During the defense of Sevastopol in 1942, the only case in the entire history of World War II and the Great Patriotic War occurred when the commander of a mortar company, Junior Lieutenant Simonok, shot down a low-flying German plane with a direct hit from an 82-mm mortar! This is as unlikely as bringing down a plane with a thrown stone or brick...
ENGLISH HUMOR PERFORMED BY A TORPEDO
A funny incident at sea. In 1943, a German and a British destroyer met in the North Atlantic. The British, without hesitation, were the first to throw a torpedo at the enemy... but the torpedo’s rudders jammed at an angle, and as a result, the torpedo made a cheerful circular maneuver and returned... The British were no longer joking as they watched their own torpedo rush towards them. As a result, they suffered from their own torpedo, and in such a way that the destroyer, although it remained afloat and waited for help, did not participate in hostilities until the very end of the war due to the damage received. There is only one mystery left in military history: why didn’t the Germans finish off the British? Either they were ashamed to finish off such warriors of the “queen of the seas” and the successors of Nelson’s glory, or they laughed so hard that they could no longer shoot...
POLYGLOTS
A curious incident occurred in Hungary. Already at the end of the war, when Soviet troops entered Hungary, as a result of battles and communication, the majority of Hungarians were sure that “fucking your mother” was an accepted greeting, like “hello.” Once, when a Soviet colonel came to a rally with Hungarian workers and greeted them in Hungarian, he was answered in unison “fucking your mother!”
NOT ALL GENERALS RETURNED
On June 22, 1941, in the zone of the southwestern front, Army Group “South” (commanded by Field Marshal G. Rundstedt) delivered the main blow south of Vladimir-Volynsky on the formations of the 5th Army of General M.I. Potapov and the 6th Army of General I.N. Muzychenko. In the center of the 6th Army zone, in the Rava-Russkaya area, the 41st Infantry Division of the oldest commander of the Red Army, General G.N., staunchly defended. Mikusheva. The division's units repelled the first enemy attacks together with the border guards of the 91st border detachment. On June 23, with the arrival of the main forces of the division, they launched a counterattack, pushed the enemy back across the state border and advanced up to 3 km into Polish territory. But, due to the threat of encirclement, they had to retreat...
Unusual intelligence facts. In principle, German intelligence “worked” quite successfully in the Soviet rear, except in the Leningrad direction. The Germans sent spies in large numbers to besieged Leningrad, providing them with everything they needed - clothes, documents, addresses, passwords, appearances. But, when checking documents, any patrol instantly identified “fake” documents of German origin. The works of the best specialists in forensic science and printing were easily discovered by soldiers and officers on patrols. The Germans changed the texture of the paper and the composition of the paints - to no avail. Any even semi-literate sergeant of the Central Asian conscription identified the linden at first sight. The Germans never solved the problem. And the secret was simple - the Germans, a quality nation, made the paper clips that were used to fasten documents from stainless steel, and our real Soviet paper clips were slightly rusty, the patrol sergeants had never seen anything else, for them the shiny steel paper clips sparkled like gold...
FROM PLANES WITHOUT PARACHUTES
A pilot on a reconnaissance flight during his return noticed a column of German armored vehicles moving towards Moscow. As it turned out, there was no one in the path of the German tanks. It was decided to drop troops in front of the column. They brought to the airfield only a complete regiment of Siberians in white sheepskin coats. When the German column was walking along the highway, suddenly low-flying planes appeared ahead, as if they were about to land, having slowed down to the limit, 10-20 meters from the snow surface. Clusters of people in white sheepskin coats fell from airplanes onto a snow-covered field next to the road. The soldiers got up alive and immediately threw themselves under the tracks of the tanks with bunches of grenades... They looked like white ghosts, they were not visible in the snow, and the advance of the tanks was stopped. When a new column of tanks and motorized infantry approached the Germans, there were practically no “white pea coats” left. And then a wave of planes flew in again and a new white waterfall of fresh fighters poured from the sky. The German advance was stopped, and only a few tanks hastily retreated. Afterwards it turned out that only 12 percent of the landing force died when they fell into the snow, and the rest entered into an unequal battle. Although it is still a terribly wrong tradition to measure victories by the percentage of living people who died. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine a German, American, or Englishman voluntarily jumping onto tanks without a parachute. They wouldn't even be able to think about it.
At the beginning of October 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command learned about the defeat of its three fronts in the Moscow direction from Berlin radio reports. We are talking about the encirclement near Vyazma.
AND ONE WARRIOR IN THE FIELD
On July 17, 1941 (the first month of the war), Wehrmacht Chief Lieutenant Hensfald, who later died at Stalingrad, wrote in his diary: “Sokolnichi, near Krichev. In the evening, a Russian unknown soldier was buried. He alone, standing at the gun, spent a long time shooting at a column of our tanks and infantry. And so he died. Everyone was amazed at his courage." Yes, this warrior was buried by the enemy! With honors... Later it turned out that it was the commander of the gun of the 137th Infantry Division of the 13th Army, Senior Sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin. He was left alone to cover the withdrawal of his unit. Sirotinin, took up an advantageous firing position from which the highway, a small river and a bridge across it were clearly visible. At dawn on July 17, German tanks and armored personnel carriers appeared. When the lead tank reached the bridge, a gun shot rang out. With the first shot, Nikolai knocked out a German tank. The second shell hit another one that was at the rear of the column. There was a traffic jam on the road. The Nazis tried to turn off the highway, but several tanks immediately got stuck in the swamp. And senior sergeant Sirotinin continued to send shells to the target. The enemy brought down the fire of all tanks and machine guns on the lone gun. A second group of tanks approached from the west and also opened fire. Only after 2.5 hours did the Germans manage to destroy the cannon, which managed to fire almost 60 shells. At the battle site, 10 destroyed German tanks and armored personnel carriers were burning out. The Germans had the impression that the fire on the tanks was carried out by a full battery. And only later did they learn that the column of tanks was held back by one artilleryman. Yes, this warrior was buried by the enemy! With honors...
ENGLISH HUMOR
Well-known historical fact. The Germans, demonstrating the supposedly impending landing on the British Isles, placed several dummy airfields on the coast of France, on which they “planed” a large number of wooden copies of aircraft. Work on creating these same dummy airplanes was in full swing when one day in broad daylight a lone British plane appeared in the air and dropped a single bomb on the “airfield”. She was wooden...! After this “bombing,” the Germans abandoned false airfields.
CAUTION, UNFORMAT!
The Germans who fought on the eastern front completely refute the stereotypes we have based on films about the Second World War. As German WWII veterans recall, “UR-R-RA!” they had never heard and did not even suspect the existence of such an attack cry from Russian soldiers. But they learned the word BL@D perfectly. Because it was with such a cry that the Russians rushed into an especially hand-to-hand attack. And the second word that the Germans often heard from their side of the trenches was “Hey, go ahead, fucking m@t!”, this booming cry meant that now not only infantry but also T-34 tanks would trample on the Germans.
G. P. Belskaya
Patriotic War of 1812
Unknown and little known facts
Introduction
Two hundred years ago, a kaleidoscope of rapidly developing events in Europe led Russia to a war with France, to a war that would later be called the Patriotic War. Such a war explodes life. It shakes up concepts and ideas, changing the traditional way of life, taking away everything familiar, ordinary, redundant, leaving only a rigid frame, the skeleton of life, often maiming and breaking it too. It exposes not only daily existence, but also the inner human appearance.
Nevertheless, it is precisely such wars that are capable of awakening the highest spirit in a person; in such wars, feats of self-sacrifice are performed. And the heroic sound of 1812 echoed for a long time in the subsequent history of Russia, an echo reminiscent of the people's feat.
They eagerly listened to this echo during the difficult years of trials of the next, twentieth century, drawing strength and hope, fighting again and again crushing the enemy. They listened to him, trying to understand the oddities and inconsistencies in the politics and life of the 19th century that caused this war. They remembered him when getting to the roots of the December uprising of 1825, when Russian officers came to Senate Square. This war influenced the entire history of Russia.
The book brought to your attention is compiled from articles published in the journal “Knowledge-Power” in 2010–2012 and written by historians working at leading universities in Moscow, Saratov, Samara, doctors of historical sciences, professors Viktor Bezotosny, Vladimir Zemtsov, Andrei Levandovsky, Anatoly Sadchikov, Nikolai Troitsky, Oksana Kiyanskaya, Anastasia Gotovtseva and, unfortunately, Mikhail Fyrnin, who died in 2010. The collection contains an article by the famous popularizer of history, candidate of historical sciences Elena Syanova, and articles by experts in Russian history, writers Mikhail Luskatov and Salavat Asfatullin.
Chapter first
Russia, France, Europe on the eve of the war
The social storms and upheavals of the French Revolution in Europe were quickly replaced by the era of the Napoleonic wars. The kaleidoscope of events unfolded rapidly. Hasty political decisions and miscalculations were largely explained by this. Politicians had to react under time pressure to events pushing them towards war and, at times, found themselves hostage to extraordinary circumstances. As a result, old Europe, without having time to look back, found itself tightly bound by Napoleonic chains.
Victor Bezotosny
Russia and France in Europe before the War of 1812
Why did the French and Russians fight each other? Is it really out of a feeling of national hatred? Or maybe Russia was possessed by a thirst to expand its borders, to increase its territory? Of course not. Moreover, among a significant part of the Russian ruling elite at the beginning of the 19th century, the opinion was established that “Russia no longer had the need to expand in its space.”
And Napoleon? Why, having come to power on the crest of a revolutionary wave, did he carry with him not only the French, but also the Italians, Germans, even the Spaniards, not to mention the Poles with his passionate desire to create THEIR OWN European empire? And why did the peoples of the Russian Empire, obedient to the will of their autocrat, decide to destroy the Napoleonic dream? Why did the Russians, British, Prussians, Austrians, Swedes, Spaniards and other peoples not like it so much? What logic made these forces fight each other? And specifically about Russia: what goals did it pursue by creating and actively participating in anti-Napoleonic coalitions?
The fact that these issues are very complex and ambiguous is evidenced by the fact that at the time being described, almost all coalition countries at least once switched sides, that is, former allies found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades and became opponents. The only thing that remained unchanged during the Napoleonic wars was the military confrontation between the French and the British.
So, the main players in the European arena were post-revolutionary France and the “mistress of the seas”, or “workshop of the world” - England. Continuous rivalry between these powers spanned several centuries, and it was the antagonistic contradictions between them that dictated and determined the main content of the Napoleonic wars as the two main opponents in the dispute for dominance on the continent. In Europe, three more large states can be identified that could then influence the balance of power - Russia, Austria and Prussia. The rest, due to their location or small size, were not independent players and could not pursue an independent policy without regard to their strong neighbors.
Russia occupied a special place, since it was undoubtedly a great European power, possessing a vast territory and significant human and material resources. It was approaching the importance of France and England, and its power was comparable to the leaders. In Central Europe, fragmented into small state formations, the role of peripheral poles of attraction has always been played by Austria and Prussia. Small feudal estates were traditionally grouped around them, although competitive Austro-Prussian contradictions were always strong, which made it easier for Napoleon to carry out French policies. Unlike Austria and Prussia, Russia, like England, was less vulnerable, which gave it greater independence and freedom of maneuver. Much depended on her position and behavior then; in addition, being geographically very advantageous, not in the center of Europe, she could choose allies. Perhaps Russia remained the only major continental power whose opinion Napoleon was forced to take into account.
Naturally, Russia had its own preferences and its own serious interests in the Baltic, Poland and Germany, the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. Actually, the Russian Empire at that time could have preferred one of three models of response to the struggle in Europe - to support France by entering into an alliance with it against England, to remain neutral, or, finally, together with England to oppose France and try to draw as many as possible into the anti-Napoleonic alliance European countries.
In Russian foreign policy in the years 1800–1815, all three models of behavior were tested at different times. But in our opinion, the second option has become purely theoretical over time. Although Alexander I at the very beginning of his reign would have liked to remain neutral, he simply failed to implement such an option. The existence of such a large state as Russia was already unthinkable away from pan-European interests. The range of possible priorities - with whom and against whom to be “friends” - was small. The choice was in favor of France or England. Why did Russia either act together with England or be in an alliance with France? Why did her position change so radically?
The dominant view in Russian historiography is this: Anglo-Russian rapprochement and joint struggle with post-revolutionary France is a natural policy arising from the threat of conquest by Napoleon. Another point of view - the idea of the natural and vital necessity of a union between France and Russia due to the absence of irreconcilable contradictions - was substantiated during the heyday of the Russian-French alliance at the end of the 19th century by historians A. Vandal and A. Trachevsky. In Soviet historiography, a supporter of this view was A. Z. Manfred, who talentedly interpreted the idea of community of interests and objective interest of the parties in the absence of territorial disputes between them. To be fair, we note that until recently, even among Soviet researchers, despite Manfred’s great authority, this conceptual position did not receive support among serious scientists.
Was Russia's alliance with France determined by geopolitical and strategic factors? Is he really that objective? Today there is a need to take a closer look at this problem. Even if we take the geopolitical factor, once and for all given to us as an impartial criterion, as an axiom, questions arise: why did Russian troops fight the French in 1799, 1805-1807, 1812-1815? Why did the factor “not work” during these times? For what reasons did the timid sprouts of the political union of France and Russia perish so quickly, unable to withstand even the brief test of time?
Let's start with the fact that France and Russia were large centralized states, but with different economic, social, ideological and religious foundations. Russia is a feudal state! The basis of its economy was serf-based agriculture. Trade turnover in foreign trade was almost entirely oriented toward England. No less important were the social and ideological aspects.
In fact, all Soviet historiography about the war of 1941-1945 is part of Soviet propaganda. It was so often mythologized and changed that the real facts about the war began to be perceived as a threat to the existing system.
The saddest thing is that today's Russia has inherited this approach to history. The authorities prefer to present the history of the Great Patriotic War as it is beneficial to them.
Here are 10 facts about the Great Patriotic War that are not beneficial to anyone. Because these are just facts.
1. The fate of 2 million people who died in this war is still unknown. It is incorrect to compare, but to understand the situation: in the United States the fate of no more than a dozen people is unknown.
Most recently, through the efforts of the Ministry of Defense, the Memorial website was launched, thanks to which information about those who died or went missing has now become publicly available.
However, the state spends billions on “patriotic education”, Russians wear ribbons, every second car on the street goes “to Berlin”, the authorities are fighting “counterfeiters”, etc. And, against this background, there are two million fighters whose fate is unknown.
2. Stalin really did not want to believe that Germany would attack the USSR on June 22. There were many reports on this matter, but Stalin ignored them.
A document has been declassified - a report to Joseph Stalin, which was sent to him by the People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov. The People's Commissar named the date, citing a message from an informant - our agent at Luftwaffe headquarters. And Stalin himself imposes a resolution: “You can send your source to your *** mother. This is not a source, but a disinformer.”
3. For Stalin, the start of the war was a disaster. And when Minsk fell on June 28, he fell into complete prostration. This is documented. Stalin even thought that he would be arrested in the first days of the war.
There is a log of visitors to Stalin’s Kremlin office, where it is noted that the leader is not in the Kremlin for a day, and not for the second, that is, June 28. Stalin, as it became known from the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Anastas Mikoyan, as well as the manager of the Council of People's Commissars Chadayev (later the State Defense Committee), was at the “nearby dacha,” but it was impossible to contact him.
And then his closest associates - Klim Voroshilov, Malenkov, Bulganin - decide to take a completely extraordinary step: to go to the “nearby dacha,” which was absolutely impossible to do without calling the “owner.” They found Stalin pale, depressed and heard wonderful words from him: “Lenin left us a great power, and we screwed it up.” He thought they had come to arrest him. When he realized that he was called to lead the fight, he perked up. And the next day the State Defense Committee was created.
4. But there were also opposite moments. In October 1941, which was terrible for Moscow, Stalin remained in Moscow and behaved courageously.
Speech by J.V. Stalin at the Soviet Army parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941.
October 16, 1941 - on the day of panic in Moscow, all barrage detachments were removed, and Muscovites left the city on foot. Ashes flew through the streets: secret documents and departmental archives were burned.
The People's Commissariat of Education hastily burned even Nadezhda Krupskaya's archive. At the Kazansky station there was a train under steam for the evacuation of the government to Samara (then Kuibyshev). But
5. In the famous toast “to the Russian people,” said in 1945 at a reception on the occasion of the Victory, Stalin also said: “Some other people could say: you did not live up to our hopes, we will install another government, but the Russian people will not accept this.” did not go".
Painting by Mikhail Khmelko. "For the great Russian people." 1947
6. Sexual violence in defeated Germany.
Historian Antony Beevor, while researching for his 2002 book Berlin: The Fall, found reports in the Russian state archives of an epidemic of sexual violence in Germany. These reports were sent by NKVD officers to Lavrentiy Beria at the end of 1944.
“They were passed on to Stalin,” says Beevor. – You can see by the marks whether they were read or not. They report mass rapes in East Prussia and how German women tried to kill themselves and their children to avoid this fate.”
And rape was not just a problem for the Red Army. Bob Lilly, a historian at Northern Kentucky University, was able to gain access to US military court records.
His book (Taken by Force) caused so much controversy that at first no American publisher dared to publish it, and the first edition appeared in France. Lilly estimates that about 14,000 rapes were committed by American soldiers in England, France and Germany from 1942 to 1945.
What was the actual scale of the rapes? The most often cited figures are 100 thousand women in Berlin and two million throughout Germany. These figures, hotly disputed, were extrapolated from the scant medical records that survive to this day. ()
7. The war for the USSR began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.
The Soviet Union de facto took part in World War II from September 17, 1939, and not from June 22, 1941. Moreover, in alliance with the Third Reich. And this pact is a strategic mistake, if not a crime, of the Soviet leadership and Comrade Stalin personally.
In accordance with the secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the Third Reich and the USSR (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), after the outbreak of World War II, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. On September 22, 1939, a joint parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was held in Brest, dedicated to the signing of an agreement on the demarcation line.
Also in 1939-1940, according to the same Pact, the Baltic states and other territories in present-day Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus were occupied. Among other things, this led to a common border between the USSR and Germany, which allowed the Germans to carry out a “surprise attack.”
By fulfilling the agreement, the USSR strengthened the army of its enemy. Having created an army, Germany began to conquer European countries, increasing its power, including new military factories. And most importantly: by June 22, 1941, the Germans had gained combat experience. The Red Army learned to fight as the war progressed and finally got used to it only towards the end of 1942 - beginning of 1943.
8. In the first months of the war, the Red Army did not retreat, but fled in panic.
By September 1941, the number of soldiers in German captivity was equal to the entire pre-war regular army. MILLIONS of rifles were reportedly abandoned in the flight.
Retreat is a maneuver without which there can be no war. But our troops fled. Not all, of course, there were those who fought to the last. And there were a lot of them. But the pace of the German advance was staggering.
9. Many “heroes” of the war were invented by Soviet propaganda. So, for example, there were no Panfilov heroes.
The memory of 28 Panfilov men was immortalized by the installation of a monument in the village of Nelidovo, Moscow region.
, .The leader (A.Hitler), the party (NSDAP) and the army (Wehrmacht), who promised to resettle Jews in Palestine - to fulfill the Balfour Declaration (1917) * - to essentially resolve the “shoals” remaining from the First World War in the Middle East, in Nuremberg ...were found guilty of the Holocaust. [And some illiterate comrades of their nation in the Russian Federation are still scared American fiction about lampshades made of human skin.]
*) "..According to Lloyd George, “...the Balfour Declaration is not a simple act of mercy. It should be understood that we are talking about a deal in exchange... for the support of Jews around the world for the Allied cause»
Among the possible purposes of issuing the declaration were:
- Encouraging the American Jewish Community to Pressure the US Government in order to get him to enter the First World War on the side of the Entente.
- Attempt to put pressure on Russian Jews in order to prevent the spread of Bolshevism among them and thereby prevent Russia from leaving the war.
- Britain gaining the moral right to control Palestine after the war. According to the Anglo-French agreement that preceded the declaration, in central Palestine it was planned to create a zone under the international, not British control.
Most eloquently, these oddities were noted publicly by Hitler himself. During a speech at a meeting of the “senior command staff” calling for a declaration of war on the United States (December 1941), he said: we know who is behind the US government...no further reference to the “address” that causes any other interpretations! During his last public interview in April 1945, when asked by a Swedish correspondent that he " thinking about solving the Jewish question", he barely restrained his irritation for being reminded of unfinished work and replied: " ...I can't think about it right now".
Who financed Hitler's campaign to the east? Who, in fact, needed the corridor through the Soviet Caucasus to Iran more? For whom did the five Soviet armies in northern Iran hold a bridgehead** from August 1941 to 1946? Who invested billions of (American and Greek***) money in military factories working for the German war machine in Europe?
**) What the hell is oil? What does the province of Mahabad border on ("On the other side of the Araks", map, timing 1:30) and what does Azerbaijan have to do with it?
***) What loans and for what (purpose) did Greek (definitely not with Hellenic leaders at the head) banks give during the Second World War?
What a monstrously strange story this is when not only the U-235 submarine itself, but also the top-secret cargo (enriched uranium and fuses) on it fall safe and sound into the hands of the Americans - and the cargo was transported all the way around Africa, it seems, to the Japanese. This was the only enriched uranium available to them, from which the Americans were able to make a bomb (they didn’t even have fuses) and then drop it on Hiroshima. All discussions about plans for a nuclear attack on the USSR are empty talk - why?
Scary math. Facts about World War II
The Second World War is the largest and bloodiest armed conflict that took place on our planet. All the facts and figures that you will now see are absolutely true. They hurt. They make you want to clench your fists helplessly. But this is our story.
The war began on September 1, 1939, when German and Slovak troops invaded Poland. Ended on September 2, 1945 with the surrender of the Japanese Empire.
That's six years and one day.
Children hiding from the bombing
62 of the 73 states that existed at that time took part in World War II. Six countries remained neutral.
Georgy Zhukov: “There is no sight more painful than the sight of the destroyed fruits of labor into which he invested his strength, talent, and love for his native land. There is no smell more bitter than the fumes of ashes.”
80% of the entire world population took part in hostilities.
Military operations took place on the territory of 40 states.
Delano Roosevelt: “Wherever peace is broken, peace is everywhere endangered.”
In total, about 110 million people were mobilized to participate in the war.
This is the population of modern Portugal, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Israel, Switzerland, Canada and Australia.
In total, between 45 and 60 million people died during the global conflict. There are no exact data, because... many died not on the battlefield, but from starvation resulting from the war.
This is the entire population of modern Italy.
Adolf Hitler: “An unusually active, powerful, cruel youth - that’s what I will leave behind. In our knightly castles we will raise youth before whom the world will tremble... Youth must be indifferent to pain. There should be no weakness or tenderness in her. I want to see in her gaze the sparkle of a predatory beast..."
The Soviet Union lost about 26.6 million of its citizens.
This is the population of modern Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara.
Among those killed in the USSR, 13.6 million were civilians.
These are several regions of Russia: Irkutsk, Voronezh, Orenburg, Omsk regions, Altai and Primorsky Territories.
Joseph Stalin: “Not a step back! This should now be our main call.”
On the territory of Germany and occupied Europe there were 14,033 points for isolation and extermination of people. These are concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos, etc.
Children who survived Auschwitz