By June 1941, the Second World War, having drawn into its orbit about 30 states, came close to the borders of the Soviet Union. There was no force in the West that could stop the army of Nazi Germany, which by that time had already occupied 12 European states. The next military-political goal - the main one in its significance - was the defeat of the Soviet Union for Germany.

Deciding to unleash a war with the USSR and relying on "lightning speed", the German leadership intended to complete it by the winter of 1941. In accordance with the "Barbarossa" plan, a giant armada of selected, well-trained and armed troops was deployed near the borders of the USSR. German General base made the main bet on the crushing power of a sudden first strike, the swiftness of the throw of concentrated forces of aviation, tanks and infantry to the vital political and economic centers of the country.

Having completed the concentration of troops, Germany attacked our country early in the morning of June 22 without declaring war, bringing down a flurry of fire and metal. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against the Nazi invaders began.

For 1418 long days and nights, the peoples of the USSR marched towards victory. This path was incredibly difficult. Our Motherland fully knew both the bitterness of defeats and the joy of victories. The initial period was especially difficult.

German invasion of Soviet territory

While a new day, June 22, 1941, was breaking in the east, the shortest night of the year was still going on on the western border of the Soviet Union. And no one could even imagine that this day would be the beginning of the most bloody war that would last four long years. The headquarters of the German army groups, concentrated on the border with the USSR, received the prearranged signal "Dortmund", which meant - to start the invasion.

Soviet intelligence revealed the preparations the day before, about which the headquarters of the border military districts immediately reported to the General Staff of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). So, the chief of staff of the Baltic Special Military District, General P.S. Klenov at 10 pm on June 21 reported that the Germans had completed the construction of bridges across the Neman, and the civilian population was ordered to evacuate at least 20 km from the border, “there is talk that the troops were ordered to take their starting position for the offensive.” Chief of Staff of the Western Special Military District, Major General V.E. Klimovskikh reported that the wire fences of the Germans, which still stood along the border during the day, were removed by evening, and in the forest, located not far from the border, the noise of motors was heard.

In the evening, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V.M. Molotov invited the German ambassador Schulenburg and told him that Germany, without any reason, was deteriorating relations with the USSR every day. Despite repeated protests from the Soviet side, German planes continue to intrude into its airspace. There are persistent rumors about the upcoming war between our countries. The Soviet government has every reason to believe this, because the German leadership did not react in any way to the TASS report of June 14. Schulenburg promised to immediately report the complaints he had heard to his government. However, this was just a simple diplomatic excuse on his part, because the German ambassador was well aware that the Wehrmacht troops were on full alert and were just waiting for a signal to move east.

With the onset of dusk on June 21, the Chief of the General Staff, General of the Army G.K. Zhukov received a phone call from the Chief of Staff of the Kiev Special Military District, General M.A. Purkaev and reported on a German defector, who said that at dawn the next day the German army would start a war against the USSR. G.K. Zhukov immediately reported this to I.V. Stalin and People's Commissar of Defense Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. Stalin summoned Timoshenko and Zhukov to the Kremlin and, after an exchange of opinions, ordered to report on the draft directive prepared by the General Staff on bringing the troops of the western border districts to combat readiness. Only late in the evening, after receiving a cipher from one of the residents of Soviet intelligence, who reported that there would be a decision that night, this decision was war, adding another point to the draft directive read to him that the troops should in no case succumb to possible provocations, Stalin allowed to send it to the districts.

The main meaning of this document boiled down to the fact that he warned the Leningrad, Baltic, Western, Kyiv and Odessa military districts about a possible attack by the aggressor during June 22-23 and demanded "to be in full combat readiness to meet a sudden attack by the Germans or their allies." On the night of June 22, the districts were ordered to covertly occupy fortified areas on the border, by dawn to disperse all aviation over field airfields and camouflage it, keep the troops dispersed, put the air defense on alert without additional lifting of assigned personnel, and prepare cities and objects for blackout . Directive No. 1 categorically forbade the holding of any other events without special permission.
The transmission of this document was completed only at half past one in the morning, and the entire long journey from the General Staff to the districts, and then to the armies, corps and divisions as a whole, took more than four hours of precious time.

Order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 1 of June 22, 1941 TsAMO.F. 208.Op. 2513.D.71.L.69.

At dawn on June 22, at 3:15 am (Moscow time), thousands of guns and mortars of the German army opened fire on the border outposts and the location of the Soviet troops. German planes rushed to bombard important targets in the entire border strip - from the Barents Sea to the Black. Many cities were subjected to air raids. In order to achieve surprise, the bombers flew over the Soviet border in all sectors at the same time. The first strikes hit precisely the bases of the latest types of Soviet aircraft, command posts, ports, warehouses, and railway junctions. Massed enemy air strikes thwarted the organized exit of the first echelon of border districts to the state border. Aviation, concentrated on permanent airfields, suffered irreparable losses: on the first day of the war, 1,200 Soviet aircraft were destroyed, and most of them did not even have time to take to the air. However, despite this, in the first day the Soviet Air Force made about 6 thousand sorties and destroyed over 200 German aircraft in air battles.

The first reports of the invasion of German troops into Soviet territory came from the border guards. In Moscow, at the General Staff, information about the flight of enemy aircraft across the western border of the USSR was received at 03:07. At about 4 o'clock in the morning, the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov called I.V. Stalin and reported the incident. At the same time, already in plain text, the General Staff informed the headquarters of the military districts, armies and formations about the German attack.

Upon learning of the attack, I.V. Stalin called for a meeting of senior military, party and government officials. At 5:45 a.m., S.K. arrived at his office. Timoshenko, G.K. Zhukov, V.M. Molotov, L.P. Beria and L.Z. Mehlis. By 7:15 a.m., Directive No. 2 was drawn up, which, on behalf of the People's Commissar of Defense, demanded:

"one. Troops to attack the enemy forces with all their strength and means and destroy them in areas where they violated the Soviet border. Do not cross the border until further notice.

2. Reconnaissance and combat aviation to establish the places of concentration of enemy aviation and the grouping of its ground forces. Destroy aircraft at enemy airfields and bomb the main groupings of his ground forces with powerful strikes by bomber and ground attack aircraft. Air strikes should be carried out to the depth of German territory up to 100-150 km. Bomb Koenigsberg and Memel. Do not make raids on the territory of Finland and Romania until special instructions.

The prohibition to cross the border, besides the limitation of the depth of air strikes, indicates that Stalin still did not believe that a “big war” had begun. Only by noon the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - Molotov, Malenkov, Voroshilov, Beria - prepared the text of the statement of the Soviet government, which Molotov spoke on the radio at 12:15.

Speech on the radio by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
and People's commissioner for foreign affairs
Molotova V.M. dated June 22, 1941 TsAMO. F. 135, Op. 12798. D. 1. L.1.

At a meeting in the Kremlin were adopted major decisions, which laid the foundation for turning the whole country into a single military camp. They were issued as decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: on the mobilization of those liable for military service in all military districts, with the exception of the Central Asian and Trans-Baikal, as well as the Far East, where the Far Eastern Front had existed since 1938; on the introduction of martial law in most of the European territory of the USSR - from the Arkhangelsk region to the Krasnodar Territory.

Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on martial law
and on the approval of the Regulations on Military Tribunals
dated June 22, 1941 TsAMO. F. 135, Op. 12798. D. 1. L.2.

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on mobilization by military districts.
Reports of the High Command of the Red Army for June 22-23, 1941
TsAMO. F. 135, Op. 12798. D. 1. L. 3.

On the morning of the same day, the first deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR N.A. Voznesensky, having gathered people's commissars responsible for the main industries, gave the orders provided for by the mobilization plans. Then no one even thought that the outbreak of war would very soon break everything planned, that it would be necessary to urgently evacuate industrial enterprises to the east and create there, essentially anew, the military industry.

Most of the population learned about the beginning of the war from Molotov's speech on the radio. This unexpected news deeply shocked the people, aroused alarm for the fate of the Motherland. At once, the normal course of life was disrupted, not only plans for the future were upset, there was a real danger to the lives of relatives and friends. At the direction of the Soviet and party organs, rallies and meetings were held at enterprises, institutions, and collective farms. The speakers condemned the German attack on the USSR and expressed their readiness to defend the Fatherland. Many immediately applied for voluntary enlistment in the army and asked to be immediately sent to the front.

Germany's attack on the USSR was not only a new stage in the life of the Soviet people, to one degree or another it affected the peoples of other countries, especially those who were soon to become its main allies or opponents.

The government and people of Great Britain immediately breathed a sigh of relief: a war in the east, at least for a while, would push back the German invasion of the British Isles. So, Germany has one more, besides quite a serious opponent; this would inevitably weaken it, and therefore, the British reasoned, the USSR should immediately be considered as its ally in the struggle against the aggressor. This is exactly what Prime Minister Churchill expressed, who on the evening of June 22 spoke on the radio about another German attack. “Any person or state that fights against Nazism,” he said, “will receive our help ... This is our policy, this is our statement. It follows from this that we will give Russia and the Russian people all the help we can ... Hitler wants to destroy the Russian state because, if successful, he hopes to withdraw the main forces of his army and aviation from the east and throw them on our island.

The US leadership made an official statement on June 23. Acting Secretary of State S. Welles read it on behalf of the government. The statement emphasized that any rallying of forces against Hitlerism, regardless of their origin, would hasten the fall of the German leaders, and that the Hitlerite army was now the main danger to the American continent. The next day, President Roosevelt told a press conference that the United States was pleased to welcome another opponent of Nazism and intended to provide assistance to the Soviet Union.

The population of Germany learned about the beginning of a new war from the Fuhrer's appeal to the people, which was read on the radio by the Minister of Propaganda I. Goebbels on June 22 at 5:30. He was followed by Foreign Minister Ribbentrop with a special memorandum listing accusations against the Soviet Union. It goes without saying that Germany, as in her previous aggressive actions, placed all the blame for unleashing the war on the USSR. In his address to the people, Hitler did not forget to mention the “conspiracy of Jews and democrats, Bolsheviks and reactionaries” against the Reich, the concentration of 160 Soviet divisions on the borders, which allegedly threatened not only Germany, but also Finland and Romania for many weeks. All this, they say, forced the Fuhrer to undertake an "act of self-defense" in order to secure the country, "to save European civilization and culture."

The extreme complexity of the rapidly changing situation, the high mobility and maneuverability of military operations, the stunning power of the first strikes of the Wehrmacht showed that the Soviet military-political leadership did not have an effective system of command and control. As planned earlier, the leadership of the troops was carried out by the people's commissar for defense, Marshal Timoshenko. However, without Stalin, he could not solve almost a single issue.

On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR was created, consisting of: People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Timoshenko (Chairman), Chief of the General Staff Zhukov, Stalin, Molotov, Marshal Voroshilov, Marshal Budyonny and People's Commissar Navy Admiral Kuznetsov.

At the Stavka, an institute of permanent advisers to the Stavka was organized, consisting of Marshal Kulik, Marshal Shaposhnikov, Meretskov, Chief of the Air Force Zhigarev, Vatutin, Chief of Air Defense (Air Defense) Voronov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Beria, Voznesensky, Zhdanov, Malenkov, Mekhlis.

Such a composition allowed the Headquarters to quickly solve all the tasks of leading the armed struggle. However, it turned out two commanders-in-chief: Timoshenko - legal, who, without Stalin's sanction, did not have the right to give orders active army, and Stalin - actual. This not only complicated command and control, but also led to belated decisions in the rapidly changing situation at the front.

Events on the Western Front

From the first day of the war, the most alarming situation developed in Belarus, where the Wehrmacht dealt the main blow with the most powerful formation - the troops of Army Group Center under the command of Field Marshal Bock. But the Western Front that opposed it (commander General D.G. Pavlov, member of the Military Council, Corps Commissar A.F. Fominykh, chief of staff General V.E. Klimovskikh) had considerable forces (Table 1).

Table 1
The balance of forces in the Western Front at the beginning of the war

Forces and means	Western front *	Army Group "Center" (without 3 mgr) **	Ratio
Personnel, thousand people
Tanks, units
Combat aircraft, units

* Only serviceable equipment is taken into account.
** Until June 25, the 3rd Panzer Group (TG) operated in the zone of the North-Western Front.

On the whole, the Western Front was slightly inferior to the enemy in terms of guns and combat aircraft, but significantly outnumbered him in terms of tanks. Unfortunately, it was planned to have only 13 rifle divisions in the first echelon of the covering armies, while the enemy concentrated 28 divisions in the first echelon, including 4 tank divisions.
Events on the Western Front unfolded in the most tragic way. Even in the course of artillery preparation, the Germans captured bridges across the Western Bug, including in the Brest region. Assault groups were the first to cross the border with the task of capturing border outposts literally within half an hour. However, the enemy miscalculated: there was not a single frontier post that would not offer him stubborn resistance. The border guards fought to the death. The Germans had to bring the main forces of the divisions into battle.

Fierce fighting broke out in the skies over the border regions. The pilots of the front waged a fierce struggle, trying to wrest the initiative from the enemy and prevent him from seizing air supremacy. However, this task turned out to be impossible. Indeed, on the very first day of the war, the Western Front lost 738 combat vehicles, which accounted for almost 40% of the aircraft fleet. In addition, on the side of the enemy pilots there was a clear advantage in both skill and quality of equipment.

The belated exit to meet the advancing enemy forced the Soviet troops to engage in battle on the move, in parts. On the directions of the aggressor's strikes, they failed to reach the prepared lines, which means that they did not succeed in a continuous front of defense. Having met resistance, the enemy quickly bypassed the Soviet units, attacked them from the flanks and rear, sought to advance their tank divisions as far as possible in depth. The situation was aggravated by sabotage groups thrown out on parachutes, as well as submachine gunners on motorcycles rushing to the rear, who disabled communication lines, captured bridges, airfields, and other military installations. Small groups of motorcyclists fired indiscriminately from machine guns in order to give the defenders the appearance of being surrounded. With ignorance of the general situation and loss of control, their actions violated the stability of the defense of the Soviet troops, causing panic.

Many rifle divisions of the first echelon of the armies were dismembered from the very first hours, some were surrounded. Communication with them was interrupted. By 7 o'clock in the morning the headquarters of the Western Front had no wired connection even with the armies.

When the front headquarters received the directive of the People's Commissar No. 2, the rifle divisions were already drawn into the fighting. Although the mechanized corps began advancing to the border, but due to their great distance from the areas of the enemy’s breakthrough, communications disruption, the dominance of German aviation in the air, “fall on the enemy with all their might” and destroy his strike groups, as required by the order of the People's Commissar, Soviet troops, naturally they couldn't.

A serious threat arose on the northern face of the Bialystok ledge, where the 3rd Army of General V.I. Kuznetsova. Constantly bombarding the army headquarters located in Grodno, the enemy put out of action all communication centers by the middle of the day. Neither the headquarters of the front, nor the neighbors could not be contacted for a whole day. Meanwhile, the infantry divisions of the 9th German Army had already managed to push Kuznetsov's right-flank formations to the southeast.

On the southern face of the ledge, where the 4th Army, led by General A.A. Korobkov, the enemy had a three-four-fold superiority. Management was broken here as well. Not having time to take the planned lines of defense, the rifle formations of the army under the blows of the 2nd Panzer Group of Guderian began to retreat.

Their retreat put the formations of the 10th Army, which was in the center of the Bialystok ledge, in a difficult position. From the very beginning of the invasion, the front headquarters had no connection with it. Pavlov had no choice but to send by plane to Bialystok, to the headquarters of the 10th Army, his deputy General I.V. Boldin with the task of establishing the position of the troops and organizing a counterattack in the Grodno direction, which was envisaged by the wartime plan. The command of the Western Front for the entire first day of the war did not receive a single report from the armies.

Yes, and Moscow throughout the day did not receive objective information about the situation on the fronts, although in the afternoon it sent its representatives there. To clarify the situation and help General Pavlov, Stalin sent the largest group to the Western Front. It included the deputies of the people's commissar of defense marshals B.M. Shaposhnikov and G.I. Kulik, as well as the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General V.D. Sokolovsky and the head of the operational department, General G.K. Malandin. However, it was not possible to reveal the actual situation both on this front and on others, to understand the situation. This is evidenced by the operational report of the General Staff for 22 hours. “German regular troops,” it stated, “during June 22 fought with the border units of the USSR, having little success in certain areas. In the afternoon, with the approach of the advanced units of the field troops of the Red Army, the attacks of the German troops on the predominant stretch of our border were repulsed with losses for the enemy.

Based on the reports of the fronts, the People's Commissar of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff concluded that the battles were mainly fought near the border, and the largest enemy groupings are the Suwalki and Lublin, and the further course of the battles will depend on their actions. Due to the misleading reports of the headquarters of the Western Front, the Soviet High Command clearly underestimated the powerful German grouping that struck from the Brest region, however, it was not oriented in the general air situation either.

Believing that there were enough forces for a retaliatory strike, and guided by the pre-war plan in case of a war with Germany, the People's Commissar of Defense signed Directive No. 3 at 21:15. The troops of the Western Front were ordered to cooperate with the North-Western Front, holding back the enemy in the Warsaw direction with powerful counterattacks to the flank and rear, destroy his Suwalki grouping and, by the end of June 24, capture the Suwalki area. The next day, together with the troops of other fronts, it was necessary to go on the offensive and defeat the strike force of Army Group Center. Such a plan not only did not correspond to the true situation, but also prevented the troops of the Western Front from creating a defense. Pavlov and his staff, having received Directive No. 3 late at night, began preparations for its implementation, although it was simply unthinkable to do this in the hours remaining before dawn, and even in the absence of communication with the armies.

On the morning of June 23, the commander decided to launch a counterattack in the direction of Grodno, Suwalki with the forces of the 6th and 11th mechanized corps, as well as the 36th cavalry division, uniting them into a group under the command of his deputy General Boldin. Formations of the 3rd Army were also to take part in the planned counterattack. Note that this decision was absolutely unrealistic: the formations of the 3rd Army operating in the direction of the counterattack continued to withdraw, the 11th mechanized corps fought intense battles on a wide front, the 6th mechanized corps was too far from the area of ​​the counterattack - 60-70 km, even further from Grodno was the 36th cavalry division.

At the disposal of General Boldin was only part of the forces of the 6th mechanized corps of General M.G. Khatskilevich, and then only by noon on June 23. Considered by right the most complete in the Red Army, this corps had 1022 tanks, including 352 KB and T-34. However, during the advance, being under the incessant attacks of enemy aircraft, he suffered significant losses.

Fierce battles unfolded near Grodno. After the capture of Grodno by the enemy, the 11th mechanized corps of General D.K. Mostovenko. Before the war, he had only 243 tanks. In addition, in the first two days of fighting, the corps suffered significant losses. However, on June 24, the formations of the Boldin group, with the support of front-line aviation and the 3rd long-range bomber corps of Colonel N.S. Skripko managed to achieve some success.

Field Marshal Bock sent the main forces of the 2nd Air Fleet against the Soviet troops, which launched a counterattack. German planes hovered continuously over the battlefield, depriving parts of the 3rd Army and Boldin's group of the possibility of any maneuver. Heavy fighting near Grodno continued the next day, but the forces of the tankers quickly dried up. The enemy pulled up anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, as well as an infantry division. Nevertheless, Boldin's group managed to chain significant enemy forces to the Grodno region for two days and inflict significant damage on him. The counterattack eased, albeit not for long, the position of the 3rd Army. But it was not possible to wrest the initiative from the enemy, and the mechanized corps suffered huge losses.

Panzer Group Hoth deeply embraced Kuznetsov's 3rd Army from the north, while General Strauss' 9th Army formations attacked it from the front. Already on June 23, the 3rd Army had to withdraw beyond the Neman in order to avoid encirclement.

The 4th Army of General A.A. found itself in extremely difficult conditions. Korobkov. Guderian's tank group and the main forces of the 4th Army, advancing from Brest in the northeast direction, cut the troops of this army into two unequal parts. Fulfilling the directive of the front, Korobkov was also preparing a counterattack. However, he managed to collect only parts of the tank divisions of the 14th mechanized corps of General S.I. Oborina, and the remnants of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions. And they were opposed by almost two tank and two infantry divisions of the enemy. The forces were too unequal. The 14th mechanized corps suffered heavy losses. Rifle divisions were also bled. The oncoming battle ended in favor of the enemy.

The gap with the troops of the North-Western Front on the right wing, where the Goth tank group rushed, and the difficult situation on the left wing, where the 4th Army was withdrawing, created a threat of deep coverage of the entire Bialystok grouping both from the north and from the south.

General Pavlov decided to reinforce the 4th Army with the 47th Rifle Corps. At the same time, the 17th mechanized corps (a total of 63 tanks, in divisions of 20-25 guns and 4 anti-aircraft guns) was transferred from the front reserve to the river. Sharu to create a defense there. However, they failed to create a solid defense along the river. The enemy tank divisions crossed it and on June 25 approached Baranovichi.

The position of the troops of the Western Front became more and more critical. Of particular concern was the northern wing, where an uncovered gap of 130 km was formed. Field Marshal Bock removed the Goth tank group, which rushed into this gap, from subordination to the commander of the 9th Army. Having received freedom of action, Goth sent one of his corps to Vilnius, and the other two to Minsk and bypassing the city from the north, in order to connect with the 2nd Panzer Group. The main forces of the 9th Army were turned to the south, and the 4th - to the north, in the direction of the confluence of the Shchara and Neman rivers, to cut the encircled grouping. The threat of complete catastrophe loomed over the troops of the Western Front.

General Pavlov saw a way out of the situation in delaying the advance of the 3rd Panzer Group Gotha with reserve formations united by the command of the 13th Army, three divisions, the 21st Rifle Corps, the 50th Rifle Division and the retreating troops were transferred to the army ; and at the same time, the forces of the Boldin group continue to deliver a counterattack on Gotu's flank.

The 13th army of General P.M. did not have time yet. Filatov to concentrate his forces, and most importantly, to put in order the troops retreating from the border, including the 5th Panzer Division of the North-Western Front, as enemy tanks broke into the location of the army headquarters. The Germans seized most of the vehicles, including those with encryption documents. The command of the army came to its own only on June 26th.

The position of the troops of the Western Front continued to deteriorate. Marshal B.M. Shaposhnikov, who was at the headquarters of the front in Mogilev, turned to the General Headquarters with a request to immediately withdraw the troops. Moscow allowed the withdrawal. However, it is already too late.

For the withdrawal of the 3rd and 10th armies, deeply bypassed by the tank groups of Hoth and Guderian from the north and south, there was a corridor no more than 60 km wide. Moving off-road (all roads were occupied by German troops), under continuous attacks by enemy aircraft, with an almost complete absence of vehicles, in dire need of ammunition and fuel, the formations could not break away from the pressing enemy.

On June 25, the Stavka formed a group of armies of the reserve of the High Command, headed by Marshal S.M. Budyonny as part of the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd armies. Their formations, which began advancing as early as May 13, arrived from the North Caucasian, Orel, Kharkov, Volga, Ural and Moscow military districts and concentrated in the rear of the Western Front. Marshal Budyonny was given the task of starting to prepare a defensive line along the Nevel, Mogilev line and further along the Desna and Dnieper rivers to Kremenchug; at the same time "to be ready, on special instructions from the High Command, to launch a counteroffensive." However, on June 27, the Headquarters abandoned the idea of ​​​​a counteroffensive and ordered Budyonny to urgently occupy and firmly defend the line along the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, from Kraslava to Loev, preventing the enemy from breaking through to Moscow. At the same time, the troops of the 16th Army, which had arrived in Ukraine before the war, and from July 1, the 19th Army, were also rapidly transferred to the Smolensk region. All this meant that the Soviet command finally abandoned offensive plans and decided to switch to strategic defense, transferring the main efforts to the western direction.

On June 26, Hoth's tank divisions approached the Minsk fortified area. The next day, the advanced units of Guderian entered the approaches to the capital of Belarus. The formations of the 13th Army were defending here. Fierce fighting began. At the same time, the city was bombarded by German aircraft; fires broke out, water supply, sewerage, power lines, telephone communications failed, but most importantly, thousands of civilians died. Nevertheless, the defenders of Minsk continued to resist.

The defense of Minsk is one of the brightest pages in the history of the Great Patriotic War. The forces were too unequal. The Soviet troops were in dire need of ammunition, and to bring them up, there was not enough transport or fuel, besides, part of the warehouses had to be blown up, the rest were captured by the enemy. The enemy stubbornly rushed to Minsk from the north and south. At 4 pm on June 28, units of the 20th Panzer Division of the Gota group, breaking the resistance of the 2nd Rifle Corps of General A.N. Ermakov, broke into Minsk from the north, and the next day the 18th Panzer Division from the Guderian group rushed towards them from the south. By evening, the German divisions connected and closed the encirclement. Only the main forces of the 13th Army managed to withdraw to the east. A day earlier, the infantry divisions of the 9th and 4th German armies connected east of Bialystok, cutting off the escape routes of the 3rd and 10th Soviet armies. The encircled grouping of troops on the Western Front was divided into several parts.

Almost three dozen divisions fell into the cauldron. Deprived of centralized control and supply, they, however, fought until July 8. On the inner front of the encirclement, Bock had to keep first 21 and then 25 divisions, which accounted for almost half of all the troops of Army Group Center. On the outer front, only eight of its divisions continued their offensive towards the Berezina, and even the 53rd Army Corps was operating against the 75th Soviet Rifle Division.

Exhausted by continuous battles, difficult transitions through forests and swamps, without food and rest, the encircled were losing their last strength. The reports of Army Group Center reported that as of July 2, 116 thousand people were taken prisoner in the area of ​​Bialystok and Volkovysk alone, 1505 guns, 1964 tanks and armored vehicles, 327 aircraft were destroyed or captured as trophies. The prisoners of war were kept in appalling conditions. They were housed in rooms not equipped for living, often right under the open sky. Hundreds of people died every day from exhaustion and epidemics. The weak were ruthlessly destroyed.

Until September, the soldiers of the Western Front left the encirclement. At the end of the month to the river. Sozh left the remnants of the 13th mechanized corps, led by their commander, General P.N. Akhlyustin. 1667 people, of which 103 were wounded, were brought out by the deputy commander of the front, General Boldin. Many who did not manage to get out of the encirclement began to fight the enemy in the ranks of partisans and underground fighters.

From the first days of the occupation, in areas where the enemy appeared, resistance from the masses began to arise. However, it developed slowly, especially in the western regions of the country, including Western Belarus, whose population was merged into the USSR only a year before the start of the war. At first, mainly sabotage and reconnaissance groups sent from behind the front line, many military personnel who were surrounded, and partly local residents began to operate here.

On June 29, on the 8th day of the war, a directive was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions, which, along with other measures to turn the country into a single military camp to provide a nationwide rebuff to the enemy, contained instructions on the deployment of the underground And partisan movement, organizational forms, goals and objectives of the struggle were determined.

Of great importance for the organization of partisan struggle behind enemy lines was the appeal of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army of July 15, 1941 “To the military personnel fighting behind enemy lines”, issued in the form of a leaflet and scattered from aircraft over the occupied territory. In it, the activity of Soviet soldiers behind the front line was assessed as a continuation of their combat mission. The military personnel were asked to switch to the methods of guerrilla warfare. This leaflet-appeal helped many encircled people find their place in the common struggle against the invaders.

The fighting was already far from the border, and the garrison of the Brest Fortress was still fighting. After the withdrawal of the main forces, part of the units of the 42nd and 6th rifle divisions, the 33rd engineer regiment and the border outpost remained here. The advancing units of the 45th and 31st Infantry Divisions were supported by siege artillery. Barely recovering from the first stunning blow, the garrison took up the defense of the citadel with the intention of fighting to the end. The heroic defense of Brest began. Guderian recalled after the war: "The garrison of the important Brest fortress, which held out for several days, blocked the railway and highways leading through the Western Bug to Mukhavets, was especially fiercely defended." True, the general for some reason forgot that the garrison held out not for several days, but for about a month - until July 20.

By the end of June 1941, the enemy had advanced to a depth of 400 km. The troops of the Western Front suffered heavy losses in men, equipment and weapons. The air force of the front lost 1483 aircraft. The formations remaining outside the encirclement fought in a strip over 400 km wide. The front was in dire need of replenishment, but he could not even get what he was supposed to be fully staffed according to the pre-war plan in case of mobilization. It was disrupted as a result of the rapid advance of the enemy, an extremely limited number of vehicles, disruption railway transport and general organizational confusion.

By the end of June, the Soviet military-political leadership realized that in order to repel aggression, it was necessary to mobilize all the forces of the country. To this end, on June 30, an emergency body was created - the State Defense Committee (GKO), headed by Stalin. All power in the state was concentrated in the hands of the GKO. His decisions and orders, which had the force of wartime laws, were subject to unquestioning implementation by all citizens, party, Soviet, Komsomol and military bodies. Each member of the GKO was responsible for a specific area (ammunition, aircraft, tanks, food, transport, etc.).

In the country, the mobilization of those liable for military service continued in 1905-1918. birth in the army and navy. During the first eight days of the war, 5.3 million people were drafted into the armed forces. From the national economy, 234 thousand motor vehicles and 31.5 thousand tractors were sent to the front.

The headquarters continued to take emergency measures to restore the strategic front in Belarus. Army General D.G. Pavlov was removed from command of the Western Front and put on trial by a military tribunal. Marshal S.K. was appointed the new commander. Timoshenko. On July 1, the Stavka transferred the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd armies to the Western Front. In essence, a new front of defense was being formed. In the rear of the front, in the Smolensk region, the 16th Army was concentrated. The transformed Western Front now consisted of 48 divisions and 4 mechanized corps, but by July 1, the defense at the turn of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper was occupied by only 10 divisions.

The resistance of the Soviet troops, surrounded near Minsk, forced the command of Army Group Center to disperse their formations to a depth of 400 km, and the field armies fell far behind the tank groups. In order to more clearly coordinate the efforts of the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups to capture the Smolensk region and during the further attack on Moscow, Field Marshal Bock united both groups on July 3 into the 4th Panzer Army, led by Kluge's 4th Field Army. The infantry formations of the former 4th Army were united by the 2nd Army (it was in the reserve of the Wehrmacht Ground Forces Command - OKH), under the command of General Weichs, to eliminate the Soviet units surrounded west of Minsk.

In the meantime, fierce battles were going on in the interfluve of the Berezina, the Western Dvina and the Dnieper. By July 10, enemy troops crossed the Western Dvina, reached Vitebsk and the Dnieper south and north of Mogilev.

One of the first strategic defensive operations of the Red Army, later called the Belorussian one, ended. For 18 days, the troops of the Western Front suffered a crushing defeat. Of the 44 divisions that were originally part of the front, 24 were completely lost, the remaining 20 lost from 30 to 90% of their composition. Total losses - 417,790 people, including irretrievable - 341,073 people, 4,799 tanks, 9,427 guns and mortars and 1,777 combat aircraft. Leaving almost all of Belarus, the troops retreated to a depth of 600 km.

Defense of the North-Western Front and the Baltic Fleet

The Baltics also became the arena of dramatic events with the beginning of the war. The North-Western Front, which was defending here under the command of General F.I. Kuznetsova was much weaker than the fronts operating in Belarus and Ukraine, since he had only three armies and two mechanized corps. Meanwhile, the aggressor concentrated large forces in this direction (Table 2). Not only Army Group North under the command of Field Marshal W. Leeb took part in the first strike against the North-Western Front, but also the 3rd Panzer Group from the neighboring Army Group Center, i.e. Kuznetsov's troops were opposed by two of four German tank groups.

table 2
The balance of forces in the strip of the North-Western Front at the beginning of the war

Forces and means	Northwestern	army group	Ratio
		"North" and 3 tgr
Personnel, thousand people
Guns and mortars (without 50 mm), units
Tanks,** units
Combat aircraft**, units

* Without the forces of the Baltic Fleet
**Only serviceable

Already on the first day of the war, the defense of the North-Western Front was split. Tank wedges punched deep holes in it.

Due to the systematic disruption of communications, the commanders of the front and the armies were unable to organize command and control of the troops. The troops suffered heavy losses, but they could not stop the advance of the tank groups. In the zone of the 11th Army, the 3rd Panzer Group rushed to the bridges across the Neman. And although specially dedicated demolition teams were on duty here, along with the retreating units of the army, enemy tanks also slipped over the bridges. “For the 3rd tank group,” wrote its commander, General Goth, “it was a big surprise that all three bridges across the Neman, the capture of which was part of the group’s task, were captured intact.”

Having crossed the Neman, Hoth's tanks rushed to Vilnius, but ran into desperate resistance. By the end of the day, the formations of the 11th Army were dismembered into parts. Between the North-Western and Western fronts, a large gap was formed, which turned out to be nothing to close.

During the first day, German formations wedged to a depth of 60 km. While a deep penetration of the enemy required vigorous response measures, both the front command and the army command showed obvious passivity.

Order of the Military Council of the Baltic Special Military District No. 05 dated June 22, 1941
TsAMO. F. 221. Op. 1362. D. 5, volume 1. L. 2.

On the evening of June 22, General Kuznetsov received Directive No. 3 from the People's Commissar, in which the front was ordered: Baltic Sea, deliver a powerful counterattack from the Kaunas region to the flank and rear of the enemy's Suwalki grouping, destroy it in cooperation with the Western Front, and by the end of June 24, capture the Suwalki region.

However, even before receiving the directive, at 10 o'clock in the morning, General Kuznetsov ordered the armies and mechanized corps to launch a counterattack on the enemy's Tilsit grouping. Therefore, the troops carried out his order, and the commander decided not to change tasks, essentially not fulfilling the requirements of Directive No. 3.

Six divisions were to attack the Gepner Panzer Group and restore the position along the border. Against 123 thousand soldiers and officers, 1800 guns and mortars, more than 600 enemy tanks, Kuznetsov planned to put up about 56 thousand people, 980 guns and mortars, 950 tanks (mostly light).

However, a simultaneous strike did not work out: after a long march, the formations entered the battle on the move, most often in scattered groups. Artillery, with an acute shortage of ammunition, did not provide reliable support to the tanks. The task remained unfulfilled. The divisions, having lost a significant part of their tanks, withdrew from the battle on the night of June 24th.

At dawn on June 24, the fighting flared up with renewed vigor. More than 1,000 tanks, about 2,700 guns and mortars, and more than 175,000 soldiers and officers took part in them on both sides. Parts of the right flank of the 41st motorized corps of Reinhardt were forced to go on the defensive.

An attempt to resume the counterattack the next day was reduced to hasty, poorly coordinated actions, moreover, on a wide front, with a low organization of control. Instead of delivering concentrated strikes, the corps commanders were ordered to operate "in small columns in order to disperse enemy aircraft." Tank formations suffered huge losses: only 35 tanks remained in both divisions of the 12th mechanized corps.

If as a result of the counterattack it was possible for some time to delay the advance of the 41st motorized corps of Reinhardt in the Siauliai direction, then the 56th corps of Manstein, bypassing the counterattacking formations from the south, was able to make a swift throw to Daugavpils.

The position of the 11th Army was tragic: it was squeezed in pincers between the 3rd and 4th tank groups. The main forces of the 8th Army were more fortunate: they stayed away from the armored fist of the enemy and retreated to the north in a relatively organized manner. The interaction between the armies was weak. Almost completely stopped the supply of ammunition and fuel. The situation required decisive measures to eliminate the enemy's breakthrough. However, having no reserves and having lost control, the front command could not prevent the retreat and restore the situation.

Field Marshal Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht Ground Forces, ordered the 3rd Panzer Group Goth to be turned southeast, towards Minsk, as envisaged by the Barbarossa plan, so from June 25 it was already operating against the Western Front. Using the gap between the 8th and 11th armies, the 56th motorized corps of the 4th tank group rushed to the Western Dvina, cutting the rear communications of the 11th army.

The Military Council of the North-Western Front considered it expedient to withdraw the formations of the 8th and 11th armies to the line along the rivers Venta, Shushva, Viliya. However, on the night of June 25, he made a new decision: to launch a counterattack by the 16th Rifle Corps of General M.M. Ivanov to return Kaunas, although the logic of events required the withdrawal of units beyond the river. Viliya. Initially, the corps of General Ivanov had a partial success, but he could not complete the task, and the divisions retreated to their original position.

In general, the front troops did not fulfill the main task - to detain the aggressor in the border zone. Attempts to eliminate the deep breakthroughs of German tanks in the most important directions also failed. The troops of the North-Western Front could not hold on to intermediate lines and rolled back further and further to the northeast.

Military operations in the north westbound deployed not only on land, but also at sea, where the Baltic Fleet was hit by enemy aircraft from the very first days of the war. By order of the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral V.F. Tributs on the night of June 23, the installation of minefields at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland began, and the next day, the same barriers began to be created in the Irben Strait. The increased mining of fairways and approaches to bases, as well as the dominance of enemy aircraft and the threat to bases from land, fettered the forces of the Baltic Fleet. Dominance at sea for a long time passed to the enemy.

During the general withdrawal of the troops of the North-Western Front, the enemy met stubborn resistance at the walls of Liepaja. The German command planned to capture this city no later than the second day of the war. Against the small garrison, which consisted of parts of the 67th Infantry Division of General N.A. Dedayev and the naval base of Captain 1st Rank M.S. Klevensky, the 291st Infantry Division operated with the support of tanks, artillery and marines. Only on June 24, the Germans blocked the city from land and sea. The inhabitants of Liepaja, led by the defense headquarters, fought together with the troops. Only on the orders of the command of the North-Western Front on the night of June 27 and 28, the defenders left Liepaja and began to make their way to the east.

On June 25, the North-Western Front received the task of withdrawing troops and organizing defense along the Western Dvina, where the 21st mechanized corps of General D.D. was advanced from the Stavka reserve. Lelyushenko. During the withdrawal, the troops found themselves in a difficult situation: after an unsuccessful counterattack, the management of the 3rd mechanized corps, led by General A.V. Kurkin and the 2nd Panzer Division, left without fuel, were surrounded. According to the enemy, more than 200 tanks, more than 150 guns, as well as several hundred trucks and cars were captured and destroyed here. Of the 3rd mechanized corps, only one 84th motorized division remained, and the 12th mechanized corps lost 600 out of 750 tanks.

The 11th Army found itself in a difficult position. I'm leaving for the river. Viliya was hindered by enemy aircraft, which destroyed the crossings. A threat of encirclement was created, and the transfer of troops to the other side moved very slowly. Having received no help, General Morozov decided to withdraw to the northeast, but only on June 27 it turned out that the enemy, who had captured Daugavpils the day before, cut this path as well. Only the eastern direction remained free, through forests and swamps to Polotsk, where, on June 30, the remnants of the army entered the strip of the neighboring Western Front.

Field Marshal Leeb's troops were rapidly advancing deep into the territory of the Baltic states. Organized resistance was provided by the army of General P.P. Sobennikov. The line of defense of the 11th Army remained uncovered, which Manstein immediately took advantage of, sending his 56th motorized corps along the shortest path to the Western Dvina.

To stabilize the situation, the troops of the North-Western Front needed to gain a foothold on the line of the Western Dvina. Unfortunately, the 21st mechanized corps, which was to defend itself here, had not yet reached the river. Failed to timely take up the defense and formations of the 27th Army. And the main goal of the Army Group "North" at that moment was precisely a breakthrough to the Western Dvina with the direction of the main attack on Daugavpils and to the north.

On the morning of June 26, the German 8th Panzer Division approached Daugavpils and captured the bridge across the Western Dvina. The division rushed to the city, creating a very important bridgehead for the development of the offensive on Leningrad.

South-east of Riga, on the night of June 29, the advance detachment of the 41st motorized corps of General Reinhardt crossed the Western Dvina near Jekabpils on the move. And the next day, the advanced units of the 1st and 26th army corps of the 18th German army broke into Riga and captured the bridges across the river. However, a decisive counterattack of the 10th Rifle Corps of General I.I. Fadeev, the enemy was driven out, which ensured the systematic withdrawal of the 8th Army through the city. On July 1, the Germans recaptured Riga.

As early as June 29, the Headquarters ordered the commander of the North-Western Front, simultaneously with the organization of defense along the Western Dvina, to prepare and occupy the line along the river. Great, while relying on the fortified areas there in Pskov and Ostrov. From the reserve of the Stavka and the Northern Front, the 41st Rifle and 1st Mechanized Corps, as well as the 234th Rifle Division, advanced there.

Instead of generals F.I. Kuznetsova and P.M. Klenov on July 4, generals P.P. Sobennikov and N.F. Vatutin.

On the morning of July 2, the enemy struck at the junction of the 8th and 27th armies and broke through in the direction of Ostrov and Pskov. The threat of an enemy breakthrough to Leningrad forced the command of the Northern Front to create the Luga task force in order to cover the southwestern approaches to the city on the Neva.

By the end of July 3, the enemy captured Gulbene in the rear of the 8th Army, depriving it of the opportunity to retreat to the river. Great. The army, commanded by General F.S. Ivanov, was forced to retreat north to Estonia. A gap formed between the 8th and 27th armies, where the formations of the 4th tank group of the enemy rushed. On the morning of the next day, the 1st Panzer Division reached the southern outskirts of the Island and immediately crossed the river. Great. Attempts to discard it were unsuccessful. On July 6, the Germans completely captured the Island and rushed north to Pskov. Three days later, the Germans broke into the city. There was a real threat of a German breakthrough to Leningrad.

In general, the first defensive operation of the North-Western Front ended in failure. For three weeks of hostilities, his troops retreated to a depth of 450 km, leaving almost the entire Baltic. The front lost over 90 thousand people, more than 1 thousand tanks, 4 thousand guns and mortars and more than 1 thousand aircraft. His command failed to create a defense capable of repelling the attack of the aggressor. The troops were not able to gain a foothold even on such barriers that were advantageous for defense, such as pp. Neman, Western Dvina, Velikaya.

A difficult situation developed at sea. With the loss of bases in Liepaja and Riga, the ships moved to Tallinn, where they were subjected to constant fierce bombing by German aircraft. And in early July, the fleet had to come to grips with organizing the defense of Leningrad from the sea.

Border battles in the area of ​​the Southwestern and Southern fronts. Actions Black Sea Fleet

The Southwestern Front, commanded by General M.P. Kirponos, was the most powerful grouping of Soviet troops concentrated near the borders of the USSR. The German Army Group "South" under the command of Field Marshal K. Rundstedt was tasked with destroying Soviet troops in the Right-Bank Ukraine, preventing them from retreating beyond the Dnieper.

The Southwestern Front had enough strength to give a worthy rebuff to the aggressor (Table 3). However, the very first day of the war showed that these possibilities could not be realized. From the first minute of the connection, headquarters, airfields were subjected to powerful air strikes, and the air force was unable to provide proper opposition.

General M.P. Kirponos decided to inflict two blows on the flanks of the main enemy grouping - from the north and south, each with the forces of three mechanized corps, in which there were a total of 3.7 thousand tanks. General Zhukov, who arrived at the front headquarters on the evening of June 22, approved his decision. The organization of a front-line counterattack took three days, and before that only part of the forces of the 15th and 22nd mechanized corps managed to advance and attack the enemy, and in the 15th mechanized corps there was only one forward detachment of the 10th Panzer Division. To the east of Vladimir-Volynsky a counter battle broke out. The enemy was detained, but soon he again rushed forward, forcing the counterattacks to retreat beyond the river. Styr, in the region of Lutsk.

The decisive role in defeating the enemy could be played by the 4th and 8th mechanized corps. They included over 1.7 thousand tanks. The 4th mechanized corps was considered especially strong: it only had 414 vehicles at its disposal for the new KB and T-34 tanks. However, the mechanized corps was fragmented into parts. His divisions operated in different directions. By the morning of June 26, the 8th mechanized corps of General D.I. Ryabysheva went out to Brody. Of the 858 tanks, barely half remained, the other half, due to all kinds of breakdowns, lagged behind almost on a 500-kilometer route.

At the same time, mechanized corps were being concentrated to deliver a counterattack from the north. The strongest in the 22nd mechanized corps, the 41st tank division, was attached in parts to rifle divisions and did not take part in the frontal counterattack. The 9th and 19th mechanized corps, which advanced from the east, had to overcome 200-250 km. Both of them totaled only 564 tanks, and even then of the old types.

Meanwhile, rifle formations fought stubborn battles, trying to delay the enemy. On June 24, in the zone of the 5th Army, the enemy managed to encircle two rifle divisions. A 70-kilometer gap was formed in the defense, using which the German tank divisions rushed to Lutsk and Berestechko. The surrounded Soviet troops defended stubbornly. For six days, units made their way to their own. Of the two infantry regiments of the division that were surrounded, only about 200 people remained. Exhausted in continuous battles, they retained their battle banners.

The soldiers of the 6th Army also staunchly defended themselves in the Rava-Russian direction. Field Marshal Rundstedt assumed that after the capture of Rava-Russkaya, the 14th motorized corps would be introduced into the battle. According to his calculations, this should have happened by the morning of June 23. But all Rundstedt's plans were thwarted by the 41st division. Despite the fierce fire of German artillery, massive bomber strikes, the regiments of the division, together with the battalions of the Rava-Russky fortified area and the 91st border detachment, held back the advance of the 4th Army Corps of the 17th Army for five days. The division left its positions only by order of the army commander. On the night of June 27, she withdrew to the line east of Rava-Russkaya.

On the left wing Southwestern Front defended the 12th army of General P.G. Monday. After the transfer of the 17th Rifle and 16th Mechanized Corps to the newly created Southern Front, the only rifle corps remained in it - the 13th. He covered the 300-kilometer section of the border with Hungary. For now, there was silence.

Intense battles unfolded not only on the ground, but also in the air. True, the fighter aircraft of the front could not reliably cover the airfields. In the first three days of the war alone, the enemy destroyed 234 aircraft on the ground. Bomber aircraft were also used inefficiently. In the presence of 587 bombers, front-line aviation during this time made only 463 sorties. The reason is unstable communications, the lack of proper interaction between combined arms and aviation headquarters, and the remoteness of airfields.

On the evening of June 25, the 6th Army of Field Marshal V. Reichenau crossed the river on the 70-kilometer stretch from Lutsk to Berestechko. Styr, and the 11th Panzer Division, almost 40 km away from the main forces, captured Dubno.

On June 26, the 8th mechanized corps entered the battle from the south, the 9th and 19th from the northeast. The corps of General Ryabyshev advanced from Brody to Berestechko by 10-12 km. However, other connections could not support his success. The main reason for the uncoordinated actions of the mechanized corps was the lack of a unified leadership of this powerful tank grouping from the front command.

More successful, despite the smaller forces, were the actions of the 9th and 19th mechanized corps. They were included in the 5th Army. There was also a task force headed by the first deputy front commander, General F.S. Ivanov, who coordinated the actions of the formations.

On the afternoon of June 26, the corps finally attacked the enemy. Overcoming enemy resistance, the corps commanded by General N.V. Feklenko, together with the infantry division, reached Dubno by the end of the day. Operating to the right of the 9th mechanized corps of General K.K. Rokossovsky turned around along the Rivne-Lutsk road and entered into battle with the 14th Panzer Division of the enemy. He stopped her, but he couldn't move a single step further.

Near Berestechko, Lutsk and Dubno, an oncoming tank battle unfolded - the largest since the beginning of World War II in terms of the number of forces participating in it. About 2 thousand tanks collided on both sides in a section up to 70 km wide. Hundreds of aircraft fought fiercely in the sky.

The counterattack of the Southwestern Front delayed for some time the advance of the Kleist group. In general, Kirponos himself believed that the border battle was lost. The deep penetration of German tanks in the Dubno area created the danger of a blow to the rear of the armies, which continued to fight in the Lvov salient. The military council of the front decided to withdraw the troops to a new defensive line, about which it reported to the Headquarters, and, without waiting for the consent of Moscow, gave the armies the appropriate orders. However, the Headquarters did not approve the decision of Kirponos and demanded that counterattacks be resumed. The commander had to cancel his own orders that had just been given, which had already begun to be carried out by the troops.

The 8th and 15th mechanized corps barely managed to get out of the battle, and then a new order: stop the withdrawal and strike in a northeast direction, in the rear of the divisions of the 1st tank group of the enemy. There was not enough time to organize the strike.

Despite all these difficulties, the battle flared up with renewed vigor. Troops in stubborn battles in the Dubno region, near Lutsk and Rivne, until June 30, fettered the 6th army and the enemy tank group. German troops were forced to maneuver in search of weak spots. The 11th Panzer Division, having covered itself with part of its forces from the attack of the 19th Mechanized Corps, turned to the southeast and captured Ostrog. But it was nevertheless stopped by a group of troops created on the initiative of the commander of the 16th Army, General M.F. Lukin. Basically, these were units of the army that did not have time to sink into trains to be sent to Smolensk, as well as the 213th motorized division of Colonel V.M. Osminsky from the 19th mechanized corps, whose infantry, having no transport, lagged behind the tanks.

The soldiers of the 8th mechanized corps tried with all their might to break out of the encirclement, first through Dubno, and then in a northerly direction. The lack of communication did not allow coordinating their own actions with neighboring connections. The mechanized corps suffered heavy losses: many soldiers died, including the commander of the 12th Panzer Division, General T.A. Mishanin.

The command of the Southwestern Front, fearing the encirclement of the armies defending in the Lvov ledge, decided on the night of June 27 to begin a systematic withdrawal. By the end of June 30, Soviet troops, leaving Lvov, occupied a new line of defense, which is 30-40 km east of the city. On the same day, the vanguard battalions of the mobile corps of Hungary went on the offensive, which on June 27 declared war on the USSR.

On June 30, Kirponos received the task: by July 9, using the fortified areas on the state border of 1939, "to organize a stubborn defense by field troops, with the allocation of anti-tank artillery weapons in the first place."

Korostensky, Novograd-Volynsky and Letichevsky fortified regions, built in the 1930s 50-100 km east of the old state border, were put on alert with the outbreak of war and, reinforced by rifle units, could become a serious obstacle to the enemy. True, there were gaps in the system of fortified areas, reaching 30-40 km.

The troops of the front had to retreat 200 km deep into the territory in eight days. Particular difficulties fell on the lot of the 26th and 12th armies, which had the longest path ahead, and with the constant threat of an enemy strike to the rear, from the north, by formations of the 17th army and the 1st tank group.

In order to impede the advance of the Kleist group and gain time to withdraw its troops, the 5th Army launched a counterattack on its flank from the north with the forces of two corps, which had exhausted their forces to the limit in previous battles: in the divisions of the 27th Rifle Corps, there were about 1.5 thousand people, and the 22nd mechanized corps had only 153 tanks. There was not enough ammunition. The counterattack was hastily prepared, the attack was carried out on a hundred-kilometer front and at different times. However, the fact that the blow fell in the rear of the tank group gave a significant advantage. Mackensen's corps was detained for two days, which made it easier for the Kirponos troops to get out of the battle.

The troops retreated with heavy losses. A significant part of the equipment had to be destroyed, since even a minor malfunction could not be eliminated due to the lack of repair facilities. In the 22nd mechanized corps alone, 58 out-of-service tanks were blown up.

On July 6 and 7, enemy tank divisions reached the Novograd-Volynsky fortified area, the defense of which was to be strengthened by the retreating formations of the 6th Army. Instead, some parts of the 5th Army were able to come out here. Here, the group of Colonel Blank, which got out of the encirclement, went on the defensive, created from the remnants of two divisions - a total of 2.5 thousand people. For two days, the subdivisions of the fortified area and this group held back the onslaught of the enemy. On July 7, Kleist's tank divisions captured Berdichev, and a day later, Novograd-Volynsk. Following the tank group on July 10, the infantry divisions of the 6th Army of Reichenau bypassed the fortified area from the north and south. It was not possible to stop the enemy even on the old state border.

A breakthrough in the Berdichevsky direction was of particular concern, because it created a threat to the rear of the main forces of the Southwestern Front. By joint efforts, formations of the 6th Army, the 16th and 15th mechanized corps held back the onslaught of the enemy until July 15.

To the north, the enemy's 13th Panzer Division captured Zhitomir on July 9. Although the 5th Army tried to delay the rapid advance of enemy tanks, the approaching infantry divisions repelled all of its attacks. In two days, German tank formations advanced 110 km and on July 11 approached the Kiev fortified area. Only here, on the defensive line created by the troops of the garrison and the population of the capital of Ukraine, the enemy was finally stopped.

The militia played an important role in repulsing the enemy's attack. Already on July 8, 19 detachments with a total number of about 30 thousand people were formed in Kyiv, and in general, over 90 thousand people joined the ranks of the militia in the Kiev region. An 85,000-strong corps of volunteers was created in Kharkov, a corps of five divisions with a total of 50,000 volunteers was created in Dnepropetrovsk.

Not as dramatic as in Ukraine, the war began in Moldova, where the border with Romania along the Prut and the Danube was covered by the 9th Army. It was opposed by the 11th German, 3rd and 4th Romanian armies, which had the task of pinning down the Soviet troops and, under favorable conditions, going on the offensive. In the meantime, the Romanian formations sought to capture bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Prut. In the first two days, fierce battles broke out here. It was not without difficulty that the bridgeheads, except for one in the Skulyan region, were liquidated by Soviet troops.

Hostilities also flared up in the Black Sea. At 03:15 on June 22, enemy aircraft raided Sevastopol and Izmail, and artillery fired on settlements and ships on the Danube. Already on the night of June 23, fleet aviation took retaliatory measures by raiding military installations in Constanta and Sulina. And on June 26, a special strike group of the Black Sea Fleet, consisting of the leaders "Kharkov" and "Moscow", struck at this port of Constanta. They were supported by the cruiser "Voroshilov" and the destroyers "Savvy" and "Smyslivy". The ships fired 350 130mm shells. However, the 280-mm German battery covered the Moskva leader with return fire, which hit a mine while retreating and sank. At this time, enemy aircraft damaged the leader "Kharkov".

On June 25, the Southern Front was created from the troops operating on the border with Romania. In addition to the 9th, it included the 18th Army, formed from troops transferred from the Southwestern Front. The management of the new front was created on the basis of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, headed by its commander, General I.V. Tyulenev and the chief of staff, General G.D. Shishenin. The commander and his headquarters in the new location faced enormous difficulties, primarily due to the fact that they were completely unfamiliar with the theater of operations. In his first directive, Tyulenev set the front troops the task: “To defend the state border with Romania. In the event of an enemy crossing and overflying into our territory, destroy him with active actions by ground troops and aviation and be ready for decisive offensive operations.

Taking into account the success of the offensive in Ukraine and the fact that the Soviet troops in Moldova held their positions, Field Marshal Rundstedt decided to surround and destroy the main forces of the Southern and South- Western fronts.

The advance of the German Romanian troops against the Southern Front began on 2 July. In the morning, strike groups attacked the formations of the 9th Army in two narrow sections. The main blow from the Iasi region was delivered by four infantry divisions at the junction of rifle divisions. Another blow by the forces of two infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade hit one rifle regiment. Having achieved decisive superiority, the enemy already on the first day broke through the poorly prepared defenses on the river. Prut to a depth of 8-10 km.

Without waiting for the decision of the Headquarters, Tyulenev ordered the troops to begin a retreat. However, the High Command not only canceled it, on July 7 Tyulenev received an order to throw the enemy behind the Prut with a counterattack. Only the 18th Army adjoining the Southwestern Front was allowed to withdraw.

The undertaken counterattack managed to delay the offensive of the 11th German and 4th Romanian armies operating in the Chisinau direction.

The situation on the Southern Front was temporarily stabilized. The delay of the enemy allowed the 18th Army to withdraw and occupy the Mogilev-Podolsky fortified area, and the 9th Army managed to gain a foothold west of the Dniester. On July 6, its left-flank formations that remained in the lower reaches of the Prut and Danube were united into the Primorsky Group of Forces under the control of General N.E. Chibisov. Together with the Danube military flotilla, they repelled all attempts by the Romanian troops to cross the border of the USSR.

The defensive operation in Western Ukraine (later it was called the Lvov-Chernivtsi strategic defensive operation) ended in the defeat of the Soviet troops. The depth of their retreat ranged from 60-80 to 300-350 km. Northern Bukovina and Western Ukraine were left, the enemy went to Kiev. Although the defenses in the Ukraine and Moldova, in contrast to the Baltic states and Belarus, still retained some stability, the fronts of the Southwestern strategic direction were unable to use their numerical superiority to repel the attacks of the aggressor and, as a result, were defeated. By July 6, the casualties of the Southwestern Front and the 18th Army of the Southern Front amounted to 241,594 people, including 172,323 irretrievable people. They lost 4381 tanks, 1218 combat aircraft, 5806 guns and mortars. The balance of power changed in favor of the enemy. Possessing the initiative and retaining offensive capabilities, Army Group South was preparing a strike from the area west of Kyiv to the south in the rear of the Southwestern and Southern fronts.

The tragic outcome of the initial period of the war and the transition to strategic defense

The initial period of the Great Patriotic War, which lasted from June 22 to mid-July, was associated with serious setbacks by the Soviet Armed Forces. The enemy has achieved major operational and strategic results. His troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory. Under the onslaught of the enemy, the Red Army was forced to retreat almost everywhere. Latvia, Lithuania, almost all of Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova were under occupation. About 23 million fell into fascist captivity Soviet people. The country has lost many industrial enterprises and sown areas with ripening crops. A threat was created to Leningrad, Smolensk, Kiev. Only in the Arctic, Karelia and Moldavia was the enemy advance insignificant.

During the first three weeks of the war, out of 170 Soviet divisions that took the first blow from the German military machine, 28 were completely defeated, and 70 lost more than half personnel And military equipment. Only three fronts - the North-Western, Western and South-Western - irretrievably lost about 600 thousand people, or almost a third of their strength. The Red Army lost about 4 thousand combat aircraft, over 11.7 thousand tanks, about 18.8 thousand guns and mortars. Even at sea, despite the limited nature of hostilities, the Soviet Navy lost its leader, 3 destroyers, 11 submarines, 5 minesweepers, 5 torpedo boats, and a number of other warships and transports. More than half of the reserves of the border military districts remained in the occupied territory. The losses suffered had a heavy impact on the combat readiness of the troops, who were in dire need of everything: ammunition, fuel, weapons, transport. It took the Soviet industry more than a year to replenish them. Back in early July, the German General Staff concluded that the campaign in Russia had already been won, although not yet completed. It seemed to Hitler that the Red Army was no longer able to create a continuous front of defense even in the most important areas. At a meeting on July 8, he only specified further tasks for the troops.

Despite losses, the Red Army troops, fighting from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, by mid-July had 212 divisions and 3 rifle brigades. And although only 90 of them were full-blooded formations, and the rest had only half, or even less than the regular staff, it was clearly premature to consider the Red Army defeated. The Northern, Southwestern and Southern Fronts retained their ability to resist, and the troops of the Western and Northwestern Fronts were hastily restoring their combat capability.

At the beginning of the campaign, the Wehrmacht also suffered losses that it did not know from the previous years of the Second World War. According to Halder, on July 13, over 92 thousand people were killed, wounded and missing in the ground forces alone, and the damage in tanks averaged 50%. Approximately the same data are already given in post-war studies by West German historians who believe that from the beginning of the war until July 10, 1941, the Wehrmacht lost eastern front 77,313 people. The Luftwaffe lost 950 aircraft. In the Baltic Sea, the German fleet lost 4 minelayers, 2 torpedo boats and 1 hunter. However, the losses of personnel did not exceed the number of field reserve battalions available in each division, due to which they were replenished, so the combat effectiveness of the formations was basically preserved. Since mid-July, the offensive capabilities of the aggressor remained large: 183 combat-ready divisions and 21 brigades.

One of the reasons for the tragic outcome of the initial period of the war is the gross miscalculation of the political and military leadership of the Soviet Union regarding the timing of aggression. As a result, the troops of the first operational echelon found themselves in an exceptionally difficult situation. The enemy smashed the Soviet troops in parts: first, the formations of the first echelon of the covering armies, located along the border and not put on alert, then with counter strikes, their second echelons, and then, developing the offensive, he preempted the Soviet troops in occupying advantageous lines in depth, on the move mastering them. As a result, the Soviet troops were dismembered and surrounded.

The attempts of the Soviet command to strike back with the transfer of hostilities to the territory of the aggressor, undertaken by him on the second day of the war, no longer corresponded to the capabilities of the troops and, in fact, were one of the reasons for the unsuccessful outcome of the border battles. The decision to switch over to strategic defense, adopted only on the eighth day of the war, turned out to be belated. In addition, this transition took place too hesitantly and at different times. He demanded the transfer of the main efforts from the southwestern direction to the western one, where the enemy delivered his main blow. As a result, a significant part of the Soviet troops did not fight as much as moved from one direction to another. This gave the enemy the opportunity to destroy formations in parts, as they approached the area of ​​concentration.

The war revealed significant shortcomings in command and control. The main reason is the poor professional training of the command personnel of the Red Army. Among the reasons for the shortcomings in command and control was excessive attachment to wired communications. After the very first strikes by enemy aircraft and the actions of his sabotage groups, permanent wire communication lines were disabled, and the extremely limited number of radio stations, the lack of the necessary skills in their use, did not allow establishing stable communications. The commanders were afraid of radio direction finding by the enemy, and therefore avoided using the radio, preferring wire and other means. And the bodies of strategic leadership did not have pre-prepared command posts. The Headquarters, the General Staff, the commanders of the branches of the armed forces and the branches of the armed forces had to lead the troops from offices in peacetime that were absolutely unsuitable for this.

The forced withdrawal of Soviet troops made mobilization in the western border districts extremely difficult and to a large extent disrupted. Headquarters and rear divisions, armies, fronts were forced to fighting within peacetime.

The initial period of the Great Patriotic War ended with the defeat of the Soviet Armed Forces. The military-political leadership of Germany did not hide its glee at the expected close victory. As early as July 4, Hitler, intoxicated by the first successes at the front, declared: “I always try to put myself in the position of the enemy. In fact, he already lost the war. It's good that we defeated the Russian tank and air forces at the very beginning. The Russians won't be able to restore them anymore." And here is what the chief of the general staff of the Wehrmacht ground forces, General F. Halder, wrote in his diary: "... it would not be an exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia was won within 14 days."

However, they miscalculated badly. Already on July 30, during the battles for Smolensk, for the first time in two years of the Second World War, the Nazi troops were forced to go on the defensive. And the same German General F. Halder was forced to admit: “It became quite obvious that the method of conducting hostilities and the fighting spirit of the enemy, as well as the geographical conditions of this country, were completely different from those that the Germans met in the previous“ lightning wars, which led to successes that astonished the whole world. During the bloody battle of Smolensk, the heroic Soviet soldiers frustrated the plans of the German command for a "lightning war" in Russia, and the most powerful army grouping "Center" was forced to go on the defensive, postponing the non-stop attack on Moscow for more than two months.

But our country had to make up for the losses incurred, to rebuild industry and agriculture on a war footing. This required time and a colossal exertion of the forces of all the peoples of the Soviet Union. To stop the enemy at all costs, not to let yourself be enslaved - for this, Soviet people lived, fought, and died. The result of this massive feat of the Soviet people was the Victory won over the hated enemy in May 1945.

The material was prepared by the Research Institute (Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

Photo from the archive of the Voeninform Agency of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Documents reflecting the activities of the leadership of the Red Army on the eve and in the first days of the Great Patriotic War, provided Central Archive Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

• Dates:
  June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945
• Location of the event:
  Eastern and Central Europe, water areas of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans
• Cause:
  German aggression
• Outcome:
  The victory of the USSR, the unconditional surrender of Germany

Foreign policy situation on the eve of the Great Patriotic War

By the end of the 1930s, the international situation sharply worsened. The contradictions between the leading capitalist powers that led to the First World War not only persisted, but also significantly intensified. With the formation of the USSR, these contradictions received a new, class-ideological coloring.

The catalyst for a new global war was the economic crisis, which since 1929 has engulfed the leading countries of the world. An arms race begins, the centers of a future world war arise. In 1933, the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. In fact, this meant the open preparation of Germany for a new war. Moreover, the new political leadership of this country did not hide its revanchist plans and goals. The Hitlerite leadership set out to establish Germany's dominance on the European continent and on the world stage. One of the most important goals of Germany was the capture and destruction of the USSR.

After the Munich agreement on the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the failure of attempts to negotiate with Great Britain and France on the creation of a military-political union, the USSR found itself in an extremely dangerous situation. There was a real danger of a war on two fronts: in the West - against Germany, on Far East- against Japan, which unleashed a conflict near the Khalkhin Gol River, which threatened to escalate into wider clashes. As a result, Moscow accepted Germany's proposal to conclude a Soviet-German non-aggression pact. The agreement was signed on August 23-24, 1939 for a period of 10 years. At the same time, a “secret protocol” was signed, and on September 28, an agreement on friendship and cooperation was concluded.

Articles

Video

The beginning of the Great Patriotic War

In the early morning of Sunday, June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany and its allies launched a military strike of unprecedented force on the Soviet country.

As a result of the unfavorable outcome of the border battles, the fascist German troops advanced 350-600 kilometers within a few weeks, captured the territory of Latvia, Lithuania, part of Estonia, Ukraine, almost all of Belarus and Moldova, part of the territory of the RSFSR, reached Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev.

The primary task for the Soviet government was the formation of bodies of military-political control capable of exercising effective leadership in the armed struggle and organizing the work of the front and rear.

In order to unite the efforts of all state and party bodies, public organizations, on June 30, 1941, by a joint decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created, in whose hands all power was concentrated in the state.

On the second day after the start of the war, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the High Command was created to manage all the combat activities of the Armed Forces of the USSR. On July 10, it was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (chairman - I. V. Stalin).

Articles

Informative articles

Video

Autumn 1941

Events in the war unfolded dramatically. From the first days, using the factor of surprise, the 5-million-strong German army in the main directions was 3-4 times superior to the Soviet troops, quickly moved forward and by September 1941 began the blockade of Leningrad, captured Kyiv and reached the outskirts of Moscow.

Articles

Video

Moscow battle

The first major battle during which the Nazi troops were defeated was the Battle of Moscow. It lasted from September 30, 1941 to April 20, 1942. 3 million people participated in it from both sides. As a result, Soviet troops pushed the enemy back 100-350 kilometers from Moscow, but Germany continued to have the strategic initiative.

Articles

Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the war, played a decisive role. At some stages, more than 2 million people participated in it from both sides. As a result, a grouping of fascist German troops numbering 330 thousand people was surrounded and defeated; 80 thousand German soldiers and officers, together with the commander of Field Marshal von Paulus, were captured. The losses of the German army and its allies during the Battle of Stalingrad exceeded 800 thousand people, 2 thousand tanks, 3 thousand aircraft, 10 thousand guns.

Articles

Video

Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23, 1943) completed a radical turning point in the war. More than 4 million people, 13 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, more than 12 thousand aircraft took part in it from both sides. The losses of the German troops amounted to 500 thousand people, one and a half thousand tanks. The strategic initiative completely passed to the Soviet army.

Articles

Operations in autumn 1943 - spring 1944

Having liberated Left-Bank Ukraine, Soviet troops crossed the Dnieper and in November 1943 took Kyiv. In the winter of 1944, Soviet troops defeated the invaders near Leningrad, in the Right-Bank Ukraine, and in March entered the territory of Romania. In May of the same year, Crimea was liberated. During these operations, more than 170 enemy divisions were defeated.

Articles

Video

Belarusian offensive operation

The largest operation of 1944 was the Belorussian offensive operation "Bagration", which was carried out from June 23 to August 29. It was carried out by the troops of four Soviet fronts, consisting of 168 divisions and 20 brigades numbering 2.3 million people. As a result of the operation, 80 enemy divisions were defeated, and 17 divisions and 3 brigades were completely destroyed, and 50 lost more than half of their strength.

Informative articles

Opening of the Second Front

The Belorussian operation, pulling more than 50 German divisions from the Western Front, contributed to the opening of the Second Front, the beginning of which was the Normandy landing operation, which began on June 6, 1944. The landing Anglo-American troops, consisting of 15 divisions, broke through the German defenses and began the liberation of France. In August 1944, Paris was liberated.

Articles

End of the Great Patriotic War

The Nazi bloc collapsed. Hitler's troops were expelled from Italy and Belgium. Romania, Bulgaria, Finland and Hungary left the war. Soviet troops liberated Poland and, together with the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, entered Belgrade.

In January 1945, Soviet troops began the Vistula-Oder operation, completed the liberation of Poland and reached the approaches to Berlin. In April of the same year, Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive against Berlin. The operation was carried out by the troops of three Soviet fronts, the 1st and 2nd armies of the Polish Army, totaling about 2 million people. As a result of the 23-day operation, Soviet troops defeated the Berlin grouping of enemy troops and on May 2 captured Berlin by storm. On May 9, Soviet troops entered Prague. The German command capitulated, the Great Patriotic War ended victoriously.

Current page: 1 (total book has 66 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 37 pages]

Proletarians of all countries, unite /

INSTITUTE

MARXISM-LENINISM under the Central Committee of the CPSU

great patriotic

wars Soviet Union

1941-1945

in six volumes

Editorial committee:

POSPELOV P. N. (Chairman),

ANDREEV V. A., ANTONOV A. I., BAGRAMYAN I. Kh.,

BELOV P. A., BOLTIN E. A. (deputy chairman),

M. G. Bragin, F. I. Golikov, A. A. Grechko, I. D. Eliseev,

ZHELTOE A. S., ZHILIN P. A., ZHUKOV E. M., ZHURAVLEV N. A.

I. N. Zemskov, L. F. Ilyichev, D. M. Kukin, V. V. Kurasov,

A. P. KUCHKIN, I. I. MINTS, V. P. MOSKOVSKII (deputy chairman),

G. D. Obichkin, Z. S. Osipov, B. N. Polevoy, S. I. Rudenko,

A. L. SIDOROV, V. D. SOKOLOVSKY, B. S. TELPUHOVSKY,

A. A. Timofeevsky, V. M. Khvostov (N. I. Shatagin)

INSTITUTE OF MARXISM-LENINISM under the Central Committee of the CPSU DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

MOSCOW -1960

HISTORY

great patriotic

Soviet Union

1941-1945

volume one

THE PREPARATION AND UNLEASHING OF WAR BY THE IMPERIALIST

POWERS

MILITARY PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OF THE UNION OF THE SSR

MOSCOW -1960

Six-volume work "History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945" developed by a team of researchers from the Department of the History of the Great Patriotic War of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU (Head of the Department Boltin E.A., Deputy Head of the Department Telpukhovsky B.S.) on the basis of: documentary materials stored in the central party and state, departmental and local archives of the USSR; materials from the archives of the German Democratic Republic, the Polish People's Republic, the Czechoslovak Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the Romanian People's Republic, the Hungarian People's Republic; published documents of the USSR and other countries, as well as Soviet and foreign scientific and historical literature.

Deborin G. A. (head),

Zastavenko G. F., Lekomtsev F . 3.,

Semenov N. A. (literary editor),

Tamonov F.I., Shuktomov P.I.,

Ekshtein A. E.

A and p a n em yang M. E., B o g w w E. Yu., V o l t i n E. A., G p a x o v A. N., Komkov G. D., Krasnov I. I., M o n and n M. E., Nazar o v P. A., Niki t and n A. F., Nikitin E. F., Gerhard Nitsche (GDR], Os t about I-Ovsyany I. D., II p oector D.M., S e k u hundred in the VA, T p u khan o v skip V. G., Fomin V. T.. Shishkin S. N., Gein ts Schumann (GDR)

,.The people will never be defeated, in which the workers and peasants for the most part recognized, felt and saw that they were defending their own, Soviet power - the power of the working people, that they were defending the cause, the victory of which would provide them and their children with the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits culture, all the creations of human labor."

V. I. LENIN

INTRODUCTION

The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union of 1941-1945, imposed on our people by predatory German imperialism, is the most difficult and at the same time the most heroic period in the history of our Motherland. Not a single nation has endured such severe trials that befell the Soviet people in these years. In a military storm, the might of the country of socialism was revealed with renewed vigor.

The Soviet people rose up in the Patriotic War in order to repulse the second attempt by international imperialism after foreign intervention and civil war to destroy the world's first socialist state by force of arms. This war ended with the complete victory of the USSR and the defeat of the most powerful army of the capitalist world at that time - the army of fascist Germany, which relied on the military and economic potential of almost all of bourgeois Europe.

In his report at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on January 14, 1960. First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, head of the Soviet government N. S. Khrushchev said:

“The glory of the valiant sons and daughters of our people will live forever, who shed their blood, gave their lives in the struggle for the freedom and independence of the Motherland in civil war and the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet people are deeply grateful to those who heroically repulsed the onslaught of the enemy and, sparing no effort, strengthened and strengthens the might of their homeland, standing guard over the peaceful labor of the Soviet people.

Having taken under the guidance Communist Party victory in the war against German fascism, the Soviet people accomplished the greatest feat. He rightfully acquired for himself the glory of a heroic people, a victorious people, a heroic people, a liberator people.

1 N. S. Khrushchev. Disarmament is the way to consolidate peace and ensure friendship among peoples. M., Gospolitizdat, 1960, p. 49.

The victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany, in its significance and consequences, is an outstanding event in world history that determined the fate of generations. This victory saved the conquest of socialism in the USSR from the mortal danger, eliminated the fascist threat to the national and state existence of the Soviet people. Having crushed a strong, cruel and insidious enemy, the working people of the USSR fulfilled their internationalist duty to all mankind, eliminating the formidable danger of its enslavement by the hordes of German fascism. The Soviet people dispelled the crazy plans of the German imperialists who dreamed of world domination.

In the severe trials of the Great Patriotic War, the superiority of socialism over capitalism manifested itself with great force. It is the socialist public and political system gave the Soviet Union that irresistible power that enabled its people and army to defend their freedom and independence with honor under the most difficult conditions, stop the invasion of the Nazi hordes and defeat them, and render fraternal assistance to the peoples of Europe in liberation from the fascist yoke. The war demonstrated with all force and persuasiveness the historical invincibility of socialism, the decisive superiority of the new social system over capitalism that is becoming obsolete.

The Soviet people, rallied around the Communist Party and the Soviet government, showed during the war years their selfless devotion to the ideas of communism. On the fields of the gigantic battles of the Great Patriotic War, the question of the continued existence of socialist society, the independence and independence of our state, the life and death of the peoples of the Soviet Union was decided. The future of all peoples enslaved by fascism, the fate of modern civilization depended on the outcome of the grandiose single combat between the USSR and fascist Germany. Defending their socialist Fatherland, the Soviet people at the same time defended all mankind, all the achievements of world culture from fascist barbarism. This clearly expressed the leading role of socialism in historical development modern society. The national interests of the Soviet people in the war fully coincided with the international line, which stems from the very essence of the socialist system, from the noble principles of proletarian solidarity.

In the Great Patriotic War, the peoples of the USSR were not left alone. All the progressive forces of the world were on their side. The working people of foreign countries, in the name of their national and international interests, launched a liberation struggle against fascism, striving to render all possible assistance to the Soviet people. The mighty will of the peoples to defeat fascism and the desire of the ruling circles of those capitalist countries that entered the war with Nazi Germany to defend their positions led to the common interests of freedom-loving peoples in waging war, which led to the emergence of an anti-fascist coalition of peoples and governments. However, the burden of military trials and the hardships of the war fell on the coalition members far from evenly. The main efforts in the armed struggle against the fascist invaders fell to the share of the Soviet Union: the outcome of the war was decided and determined on the Soviet-German front.

The rulers of fascist Germany, who set themselves the goal of destroying socialism, physically exterminating and enslaving the Soviet people, threw against

The USSR has a multi-million, well-equipped army. Relying on a "blitzkrieg", Germany attacked the USSR suddenly and treacherously, which at first provided her with noticeable military advantages. This led to the fact that the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war found itself in a very difficult situation. The Red Army retreated to the east, leaving their native towns and villages with a significant part of their population, large material and cultural values ​​accumulated by the labor of many generations of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Moldavians and other peoples of our Motherland.

In connection with the temporary failures of the Soviet troops, their forced retreat, the morale of the front and rear was of particular importance. In the most difficult conditions, in an atmosphere of temporary superiority of the enemy forces, it was necessary, first of all, to withstand, repulse the enemy onslaught, and stop the Nazi hordes. This required enormous physical and moral stress, selfless steadfastness, courage and bravery of the army and people. It was necessary not only to block the path of the enemy, but also to expel him from the borders of the Soviet land, to defeat his armed forces, to inflict a mortal defeat on the very system of fascism. For this, it was necessary to have great economic and military power, excellent military organization, and high military art.

All this turned out to be achievable and possible for the Soviet people, who unconditionally love their Motherland, brought up by the Communist Party on the Leninist ideas of defending the socialist Fatherland, on overcoming difficulties. Our country has not only withstood the formidable trials of the war, which would have inevitably led to the collapse of any bourgeois state, but has also become even stronger and tempered in severe battles. The patriotism, steadfastness and courage of millions of modest Soviet people, educated and inspired by our Leninist party, were the main factor that ensured the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Having fundamentally changed the initially unfavorable course of military events, the Soviet Armed Forces moved from retreat and defense to a powerful offensive. Both the defense and the offensive took place in difficult conditions, were associated with overcoming enormous difficulties. From the first to the last day, the war demanded from Soviet soldiers and officers unshakable stamina and boundless courage, readiness for sacrifice, great military skill and selfless determination to defeat the enemy.

The Soviet Armed Forces fulfilled their tasks with honor and fully justified the trust of their people and the aspirations of the working people of foreign countries. Victory in the Great Patriotic War was achieved by the feats of arms of Soviet soldiers - workers of socialism, dressed in soldier's and officer's overcoats. In the course of the war, the features of the Red Army were revealed in all their grandeur - a new type of army, the liberation army of a socialist state, educated in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and proletarian internationalism.

Victory in the Great Patriotic War was also achieved by the heroic labor of our glorious working class, the collective farm peasantry, and the Soviet intelligentsia in the rear.

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The superiority of the socialist economic system over the declining capitalist system, the solidarity of the Soviet people around the party and the government, their mighty will to defeat the enemy, the support of the Soviet Union by the progressive forces of the world - all this was reflected in the heroic struggle of our people, in the activity and strength of its rear, in winning an economic victory over the enemy, in the methods and forms of armed struggle, which has assumed a nationwide character, in an unprecedented rise in morale in the rear and at the front.

The German imperialists and their general staff strove to achieve an advantage over the Soviet Union. That is why, long before the attack on the USSR, they transferred their economy to war footing and put the economies of the European countries they enslaved to the service of their aggressive plans. They created an army of many millions in advance, drilled in a misanthropic spirit, poisoned by the fascist crazy idea as if the Germans were the “superior race” and were called upon to dominate other peoples, the army was technically well equipped. However, the German generals, not being completely sure of the superiority of their forces, decided to secure for themselves such an additional temporary gain, which gives the surprise of the attack.

The German General Staff, despite the fact that it took into account the permanent factors of war, attached even greater importance to temporary, incidental factors, on the use of which the German-fascist theory of "blitzkrieg" was based. It showed the maniacal faith of the German imperialists in the effectiveness of the following circumstances: faster deployment of armies and equipping them with means that could intimidate, stun, and paralyze the enemy; taking advantage of the attacking side; destruction of opponents one by one.

Under all these circumstances, undertaking a war against the Soviet Union, the German imperialists and their generals had no doubts about victory. Due to their class narrowness and prejudice, they could not understand the sources of the strength of the Soviet Union, due to the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist one. Being unable to realize the strength and durability of the socialist social and state system, they could not correctly assess the economic and military potential of the USSR, they did not see those factors that cement Soviet society, give it a special solidity, internal unity and indestructible firmness. They, like the imperialists of other countries, did not know the soul of the Soviet man, they underestimated his deep patriotism, love and devotion to the socialist motherland. In imperialist circles, the view was widespread that the USSR was only a “geographical concept)), that at the very first blows of the German army, this “colossus with feet of clay” would crumble into its component parts. They hoped to turn the Soviet people into a "mass of slaves" ruled by a "hierarchy of masters."

The calculations of the German imperialists, which largely coincided with the opinion of the ruling circles and other capitalist powers, did not stand the test in the crucible of war. The situation on the Soviet-German front from the first to the last day was strikingly different from the military situation in capitalist Europe. The Soviet people with the greatest selflessness defended their native Soviet

system, which the Nazis did not count on at all. They had to face the mighty will of the Soviet people, inspired by socialist patriotism, the just, liberation goals of the war against the fascist invaders. The Soviet people were the decisive force that broke the war machine of fascist Germany.

The defeat of Germany in the war with the Soviet Union was not accidental. The German imperialists tried to go against the objective laws of social development. They sought to crush socialism and reverse world history to put regression in the place of progress, savagery and barbarism in the place of culture and civilization. They wanted to ensure the triumph of the old, obsolete social system over the new, young and growing social system, to which the future belongs. They counted on enslaving free peoples, trampling on the national independence of many countries, and challenging the conscience and honor of entire nations. The storm they sowed turned into a hurricane that swept away both the Nazi war machine and the Hitler regime.

The lessons of the Second World War are very instructive; they characterize the inexorability of the laws of history. However, not everyone in the capitalist countries has yet understood these lessons. This alone can explain why some politicians imperialist states call the free workers of the socialist countries "slaves of communism" and repeat the mistakes of the Nazis, which led the latter to a complete military and political catastrophe.

The results of the Second World War are deliberately distorted by the bourgeois falsifiers of history, in the role of numerous historians, propagandists, generals and politicians of the capitalist countries who have placed themselves at the service of imperialist interests. The falsifiers of history are making every effort to eradicate from the hearts of millions of people the grateful memory of the immortal feat of the Soviet people and their army. To this end, they seek to belittle the significance of the victories of the Soviet Armed Forces.

One of the favorite tricks of falsification is that the victories of the Red Army are attributed to some unique historical accident. The authors of such "theories" involuntarily expose the true background of their views. They make it clear that in a new war, random factors can turn in the other direction, and therefore it is worth "replaying the war" in order to again try to crush socialism by force of arms. The West German revanchists are especially zealous in this direction. But they must not forget that if the German militarists again risked unleashing world war their country would be swept off the face of the earth.

The victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War cannot be belittled. No one will be able to erase from the memory of the peoples, from the history of the great feat of the Soviet people! Not only our contemporaries, but also future generations will always cherish the memory of the heroic fighters who defeated the fascist hordes in mortal battles, will honor the memory of those who saved the bright future of mankind.

It is not the miscalculations and mistakes of the German generals and his idol Hitler that explain the defeat of Germany in World War II, although such miscalculations

took place. The biggest mistake of German imperialism was the war it launched, especially the attack on the Soviet Union. The Munich policy of the USA, England and France contributed to the outbreak of war. The lessons of the war testify that the creators of this policy severely miscalculated.

The German imperialists did not justify the hopes of the statesmen of the USA, Britain and France, whom they so diligently assured of their "peacefulness" towards the capitalist West. Broadly advertising their anti-Soviet plans, the German imperialists sought more and more concessions from the Western powers, and the ruling circles of the latter, blinded by class hatred for the USSR, made these concessions, believing that after satisfying Germany's "latest" claims, they would be able to come to an agreement with her and "canalize" Hitler's aggression to the East, against the country of socialism.

Thus, the American and British monopolies helped Germany to arm itself, and the British and French governments, supported by influential US circles, renounced collective security, cleared the way for the aggressor, and gave him a series of European countries. How this policy ended is known. Germany attacked Poland and then France, intending to defeat England as well. Such was the real price of the "appeasement" of the German imperialists, carried out by the ruling circles of some capitalist states. It is all the more surprising that after the Second World War the governments of the United States, Britain and France willingly meet similar new assurances of "peacefulness", widely squandered by the West German militarists and revanchists.

The formation of the anti-fascist coalition was evidence of the correctness of the foreign policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, thanks to which the real threat of the creation of a united anti-Soviet front of the capitalist powers, which was outlined in Munich, was averted. The pre-war policy of the party and government ensured such domestic and international conditions, on the basis of which the Soviet people achieved victory over fascist Germany and imperialist Japan.

The victory of the Soviet Union was prepared by all the gigantic creative activity of the Communist Party and the people and ensured by the wisdom and will of the Party, the unity of the Party and the people. This world-historic victory was the triumph of the Leninist policy of the Communist Party, aimed at building socialism in the USSR, at strengthening its economic independence and defense capability, at developing the creative forces of the people.

“In implementing the policy of industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture, our people, under the leadership of the Party and its Central Committee, at the head of which I.V. Stalin stood for many years, carried out the most profound transformations. Overcoming all the difficulties in its path, breaking the resistance of class enemies and their agents - Trotskyists, right-wing opportunists, bourgeois nationalists and others - our party, the entire Soviet people achieved historic victories, built a new, socialist society. Lagging behind in the past, our country has become a mighty industrial-collective-farm socialist power.

1 N. S. X p On the control figures for the development of the national economy of the USSR for 1959–1965. M., Gospolitizdat, 1959, pp. 6-7.

Thanks to the victory of socialism, the Soviet Union turned out to be the strength of fascist Germany not only in moral and political terms, but also in economic terms. The economic assistance to the Soviet Union during the war from the United States, Britain and Canada had a certain positive value, but in terms of the scale of the ongoing armed struggle, it was clearly disproportionate and by no means decisive. In fact, the economy and technology of the USSR were forced to enter into combat with the economy and technology of Nazi Germany , its allies and the occupied countries of Europe. From this single combat, the workers of the Soviet rear came out victorious. Despite the fact that the German fascists at the beginning of the war captured a significant part of our country with a population of many millions, rich natural resources and many industrial enterprises, the USSR already from 1942 began to produce more military equipment and weapons than Nazi Germany. This was reflected in the decisive advantages of the Soviet socialist system over the capitalist system. The victory of socialism in our country created such economic, moral and defensive possibilities that in the final analysis determined the superiority of the forces of the Soviet Union over the forces of the states of the fascist bloc.

The victory over German imperialism showed the correctness of the home and foreign policy of the Communist Party, the inextricable link between the CPSU and the broad masses of the working people, the unity and solidarity of the Soviet people around the Communist Party.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the decisive driving force behind the nationwide rebuff to the enemy. It organized, rallied and directed the efforts of tens of millions of Soviet people at the front and in the rear towards a single goal. The Party inspired them to heroic feats of arms and labor, instilled in their hearts a deep faith in victory, unshakable determination and readiness to defend every inch of Soviet land, to fight the enemy until it is completely defeated.

Conscious of all its historical responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland and the cause of socialism, the Central Committee of the Party showed unshakable courage and Bolshevik skill in overcoming the enormous difficulties caused by the perfidious attack of fascist Germany, directed all the forces of the Party and the people, all the resources of the country to win victory. In a difficult hour of trials, the Communist Party told the people in full voice the truth about the danger looming over our country and called on the Soviet people to stand up for the defense of the Motherland, to devote all their strength to the sacred struggle against the fascist aggressors.

The Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government, on the basis of a deep knowledge of the economic laws of socialism, developed and scientifically substantiated ways of restructuring the national economy for the needs of the war. All the vigorous organizational and educational activities of our Party during the war years were aimed at achieving the victory of the Soviet people over the Nazi invaders and the Japanese imperialists.

The Communist Party devoted its best forces to the front, to the cause of winning victory over the enemy. Many leading party and government officials were sent to military work. Almost a third of the members and candidate members of the Central Committee of the party were on the fronts of the Patriotic War. Outstanding organizers and leaders of the armed struggle and the work of the rear of the country were

prominent figures of the party, members of its Central Committee, leaders of local party organizations. From the very first days of the war, the Communist Party took all measures to strengthen the Red Army. Tens of thousands of responsible party, Soviet, trade union and Komsomol workers went to the front. The communists educated Soviet soldiers in the spirit of selfless devotion to the socialist motherland and hatred for its enemies, strengthened revolutionary order and discipline in the troops, and increased their stamina and combat effectiveness.

A lot of mass-political work was also carried out among the population in the rear. The most prominent leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet state, local party and Soviet workers, scientists and cultural figures, countless propagandists and agitators were in the midst of the masses, raising the spirit of the people, strengthening their confidence in victory, mobilizing all the forces of the working people to help the front, to defeat the Nazi invaders .

On the territory occupied by the enemy, underground party organizations carried out political work among the population. Under the conditions of enemy occupation, they remained the guiding force under whose leadership the Soviet patriots acted. Underground communists, risking their lives, selflessly carried the word of the Bolshevik truth to the masses, inspired and raised people to fight against the invaders. Under the leadership of Party organizations, numerous partisan detachments and brigades arose and deployed their combat activities in the occupied regions, which became a threat to the Nazi invaders.

The enormous organizational, ideological and educational work of the Communist Party at the front and in the rear was the most important factor in our victory. Thanks to the tireless work of the Party among the masses, the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union became truly nationwide. It was led by brave soldiers at the front and courageous partisans, supported by the population, behind enemy lines, it was led by workers at machine tools and open-hearth furnaces, railroad workers on steel lines, collective farmers in the fields, scientists in laboratories and design bureaus. Millions of Soviet citizens built defensive lines, steadfastly endured the incredible hardships and hardships of wartime. Unprecedented courage and heroism, together with the soldiers of the Red Army, was shown by the population of the besieged hero cities - Odessa, Sevastopol, Leningrad, Stalingrad. Hundreds of thousands of patriots protected the country from Nazi air raids and the intrigues of enemy agents. A huge contribution to the achievement of victory over the enemy was made by Soviet women and youth, who selflessly, sparing no effort, worked for the needs of the front.

In the course of the war, all the greatness and power of Soviet, socialist patriotism was revealed. This life-giving patriotism is a kind of alloy, a fusion of the best national patriotic traditions of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR with their unshakable devotion to socialism and legitimate pride in the great social gains made in the Soviet Union.

The strength of Soviet patriotism surpassed the mechanical training and blind discipline of the German fascist army, poisoned by the poison of chauvinism and nationalism. During the Patriotic War, the moral superiority of the Soviet people, educated by the Communist Party, was especially clearly revealed.

The most important result of the defeat of the fascist states, which constituted the main striking force of international imperialist reaction, was the transformation of socialism into a world system. As a result of our victory, the balance of forces in the world arena changed radically in favor of socialism. A business October revolution supported and continued by the socialist revolutions in a number of European and Asian countries. On the bright path of socialism are the great Chinese people, working people of European countries of people's democracy, the peoples of Mongolia, North Korea, North Vietnam.

The world system of socialism arose as a result of the falling away from capitalism and the transition to the path of socialism of a number of countries in Europe and Asia, which rallied in the great fraternal community of equal socialist states. The power and unity of the socialist camp is ensured above all by the unity of the communist and workers' parties, based on the unshakable and historically proven principles of Marxism-Leninism.

The formation of socialist states in Europe and Asia and the further development of the national liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries hastened the disintegration of the colonial system of imperialism. During the post-war years, the colonial yoke was thrown off by about one and a half billion people. The non-socialist states of Asia and Africa, which have arisen in the place of former colonies and semi-colonies, adhere to a peace-loving policy and in this respect are in solidarity with the socialist states. The vast zone of the countries of the East has ceased to be a reserve of imperialism. Beats last hour colonialism, and millions of people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are winning national independence.

Thanks to the transformation of socialism into a world system and the collapse of the former colonial empires, the capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union has sunk into oblivion. The neighbors of the USSR along almost the entire length of its borders were not hostile, but friendly socialist and such neutral non-socialist countries as Afghanistan and Finland. Our country has emerged from a state of international isolation, and in the balance of power that took shape after the Second World War, the possibility of restoring capitalism in our country through foreign military intervention has disappeared. “There are no forces in the world now,” said N. S. Khrushchev at the 21st Congress of the CPSU, “that could restore capitalism in our country, crush the socialist camp. The danger of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union is excluded. This means that socialism has won not only completely, but definitively.

The victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War further strengthened the Soviet social and state system. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and its Leninist Central Committee, our people resumed the war-interrupted movement towards communism. In a relatively short period of time, he basically eliminated all the negative consequences of the war, healed the most serious wounds inflicted by the occupiers on our national economy. Already in 1947-1948. industrial production in the USSR not only reached the pre-war level,

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941 - the day when the Nazi invaders and their allies invaded the territory of the USSR. It lasted four years and became the final stage of the Second World War. In total, about 34,000,000 Soviet soldiers took part in it, more than half of which died.

Causes of the Great Patriotic War

The main reason for the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War was the desire of Adolf Hitler to lead Germany to world domination by capturing other countries and establishing a racially pure state. Therefore, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, then Czechoslovakia, initiating World War II and conquering more and more territories. The successes and victories of Nazi Germany forced Hitler to violate the non-aggression pact concluded on August 23, 1939 between Germany and the USSR. He developed a special operation called "Barbarossa", which meant the capture of the Soviet Union in a short time. Thus began the Great Patriotic War. It went through three stages.

Stages of the Great Patriotic War

Stage 1: June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942

The Germans captured Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus and Moldova. The troops moved inland to capture Leningrad, Rostov-on-Don and Novgorod, but the main goal of the Nazis was Moscow. At this time, the USSR suffered heavy losses, thousands of people were taken prisoner. On September 8, 1941, the military blockade of Leningrad began, which lasted 872 days. As a result, the Soviet troops were able to stop the German offensive. The Barbarossa plan failed.

Stage 2: 1942-1943

During this period, the USSR continued to build up its military power, industry and defense grew. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the Soviet troops, the front line was pushed back - to the west. The central event of this period was the greatest Battle of Stalingrad in history (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943). The goal of the Germans was to capture Stalingrad, the big bend of the Don and the Volgodonsk isthmus. During the battle, more than 50 armies, corps and divisions of enemies were destroyed, about 2 thousand tanks, 3 thousand aircraft and 70 thousand vehicles were destroyed, German aviation was significantly weakened. The victory of the USSR in this battle had a significant impact on the course of further military events.

Stage 3: 1943-1945

From defense, the Red Army gradually goes over to the offensive, moving towards Berlin. Several campaigns aimed at destroying the enemy were implemented. A guerrilla war breaks out, during which 6200 partisan detachments are formed, trying to fight the enemy on their own. The partisans used all means at hand, down to clubs and boiling water, set up ambushes and traps. At this time, there are battles for the Right-Bank Ukraine, Berlin. The Belarusian, Baltic, and Budapest operations were developed and put into action. As a result, on May 8, 1945, Germany officially recognized defeat.

Thus, the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War was actually the end of the Second World War. The defeat of the German army put an end to Hitler's desire to gain dominance over the world, universal slavery. However, the victory in the war came at a heavy price. Millions of people died in the struggle for the Motherland, cities, villages and villages were destroyed. All the last funds went to the front, so people lived in poverty and hunger. Every year on May 9th we celebrate Great Victory over fascism, we are proud of our soldiers for giving life to future generations, providing a brighter future. At the same time, the victory was able to consolidate the influence of the USSR on the world stage and turn it into a superpower.

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The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is the most terrible and bloody war in the entire history of the USSR. This war was between two powers, the mighty power of the USSR and Germany. In a fierce battle, for five years, the USSR nevertheless won worthy of its opponent. Germany, when attacking the union, hoped to quickly capture the whole country, but they did not expect how powerful and selenium the Slavic people were. What did this war lead to? To begin with, we will analyze a number of reasons, because of what it all started?

After the First World War, Germany was greatly weakened, a severe crisis overcame the country. But at that time Hitler came to power and introduced a large number of reforms and changes, thanks to which the country began to prosper, and people showed their trust in him. When he became the ruler, he pursued such a policy in which he informed the people that the nation of Germans was the most excellent in the world. Hitler was ignited by the idea of ​​​​revenging for the First World War, for that terrible lose, he had the idea to subjugate the whole world. He began with the Czech Republic and Poland, which later grew into the Second World War

We all remember very well from history books that until 1941 a non-aggression treaty was signed between the two countries of Germany and the USSR. But Hitler still attacked. The Germans developed a plan called "Barbarossa". It clearly stated that Germany should capture the USSR in 2 months. He believed that if he had at his disposal all the strength and power of the country, then he would be able to go to war with the United States with fearlessness.

The war began so quickly, the USSR was not ready, but Hitler did not get what he wanted and expected. Our army put up a lot of resistance, the Germans did not expect to see such a strong opponent in front of them. And the war dragged on for a long 5 years.

Now we will analyze the main periods during the entire war.

The initial stage of the war is June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942. During this time, the Germans captured most of the country, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus also got here. Further, the Germans already had Moscow and Leningrad in front of their eyes. And they almost succeeded, but the Russian soldiers turned out to be stronger than them and did not allow this city to be captured.

Unfortunately, they captured Leningrad, but what is most surprising, the people living there did not let the invaders into the city itself. There were battles for these cities until the end of 1942.

The end of 1943, the beginning of 1943, was very difficult for the German troops and at the same time happy for the Russians. The Soviet army launched a counteroffensive, the Russians began to slowly but surely retake their territory, and the invaders and their allies slowly retreated to the west. Some of the allies were destroyed on the spot.

Everyone remembers very well how the entire industry of the Soviet Union switched to the production of military supplies, thanks to which they were able to repulse the enemies. The retreating army turned into attackers.

The final. 1943 to 1945 The Soviet soldiers gathered all their strength and began to recapture their territory at a fast pace. All forces were directed towards the invaders, namely to Berlin. At this time, Leningrad was liberated, and other previously captured countries were recaptured. The Russians resolutely marched on Germany.

The last stage (1943-1945). At this time, the USSR began to take away its lands bit by bit and move towards the invaders. Russian soldiers retook Leningrad and other cities, then they proceeded to the very heart of Germany - Berlin.

On May 8, 1945, the USSR entered Berlin, the Germans announced their surrender. Their ruler could not stand it and independently left for the next world.

And now the worst part of the war. How many people died so that we would now live in the world and enjoy every day.

In fact, history is silent about these terrible figures. The USSR concealed for a long time, then the number of people. The government hid data from the people. And people then understood how many died, how many were taken prisoner, and how many missing people to this day. But after a while, the data nevertheless surfaced. According to official sources, up to 10 million soldiers died in this war, and about 3 million more were in German captivity. These are terrible numbers. And how many children, old people, women died. The Germans mercilessly shot everyone.

It was a terrible war, unfortunately it brought a lot of tears to families, there was devastation in the country for a long time, but slowly the USSR got on its feet, post-war actions subsided, but did not subside in the hearts of people. In the hearts of mothers who did not wait for their sons from the front. Wives who were left widows with children. But what a strong Slavic people, even after such a war, he rose from his knees. Then the whole world knew how strong the state was and how strong in spirit people lived there.

Thanks to the veterans who protected us when they were very young. Unfortunately, on this moment there are only a few of them left, but we will never forget their feat.

Report on the Great Patriotic War

June 22, 1941 at 4 o'clock in the morning, Germany attacked the USSR without declaring war. Such an unexpected event briefly put the Soviet troops out of action. The Soviet army adequately met the enemy, although the enemy was very strong and had an advantage over the Red Army. Germany had a lot of weapons, tanks, planes, when the Soviet army was just moving from cavalry protection to armory.

The USSR was not ready for such a large-scale war, many of the commanders at that moment were inexperienced and young. Of the five marshals, three were shot and recognized as enemies of the people. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was in power during the Great Patriotic War and did everything possible for the victory of the Soviet troops.

The war was cruel and bloody, the whole country stood up to defend the Motherland. Everyone could join the ranks of the Soviet army, the youth created partisan detachments and tried to help in every possible way. All men and women fought for the defense of their native land.

900 days lasted the struggle for Leningrad residents, who were in the blockade. Many soldiers were killed and taken prisoner. The Nazis created concentration camps, where they mocked and starved people. The fascist troops expected that the war would end within 2-3 months, but the patriotism of the Russian people turned out to be stronger, and the war dragged on for a long 4 years.

In August 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began, lasting six months. The Soviet army won and captured more than 330,000 Nazis. The Nazis could not come to terms with their defeat and launched an attack on Kursk. 1200 vehicles took part in the Battle of Kursk - it was a massive battle of tanks.

In 1944, the troops of the Red Army were able to liberate Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Moldova. Also, Soviet troops received support from Siberia, the Urals and the Caucasus and were able to drive enemy troops away from their native lands. Many times the Nazis wanted to lure the troops of the Soviet army into a trap by cunning, but they did not succeed. Thanks to the competent Soviet command, the plans of the Nazis were destroyed and then they set in motion heavy artillery. The Nazis let go into battle heavy tanks such as: "tiger" and "panther" but, despite this, the Red Army gave a worthy rebuff.

At the very beginning of 1945, the Soviet army broke into Germany and forced the Nazis to admit defeat. From May 8 to May 9, 1945, the Act of surrender of the forces of Nazi Germany was signed. Officially, May 9 is considered Victory Day, and is celebrated to this day.

Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

Rhythmic gymnastics is called one of the most elegant and at the same time difficult sports. The combination of gymnastic and dance elements that gymnasts perform to music is considered a very popular sport in our time.

Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, the largest Russian city, one of the three federal cities in Russia.

Introduction

The plan and power of the aggressor. Causes of failure and heroism of the Red Army

Mobilization of the forces of the Soviet people to repulse the enemy. Operational actions of the military leadership and difficulties in organizing the country's defense

A radical change during the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. The expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the territory of the USSR

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union had a developed diversified economy capable of meeting all its needs, including in the field of defense. In connection with the aggravation of the international situation and the growing danger of aggression, especially after the seizure of power in Germany by fascism, the USSR in the pre-war years took a number of significant measures to accelerate the development of the military industry. So, in the first years of the third five-year plan, calculated for 1938-1942, the annual increase in military production reached 39%, while the increase in the output of the entire Soviet industry amounted to 13%. Allocations for military needs grew rapidly. In 1939 they amounted to 25.6%, in 1940 - 32.6%, in the first half of 1941 - 43.3% of the country's state budget.

However, the Great Patriotic War began in extremely unfavorable conditions for Soviet economy conditions. Hitler's Germany, long before the attack on the USSR, transferred its economy to war footing. Having enslaved the countries of Europe, Germany significantly strengthened its already militarized economy with their human reserves, raw materials, industrial products, including military ones. In general, the base of the heavy industry of fascist Germany and the countries occupied by it exceeded the heavy industry of the USSR by about 2-2.5 times.

The aim of the work is to study the history of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.

· Consider the plans of the aggressor;

· Analyze the period of mobilization of Soviet troops;

· Analyze the fundamental turning point in the war in a historical aspect.

1. The plan and power of the aggressor. Causes of failure and heroism of the Red Army

On December 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 21, known as the "Barbarossa Plan", a plan to launch a sudden powerful tank and air attack on the Soviet Union, encircle and destroy the main forces of Soviet troops in the border areas, then quickly advance and capture the most important administrative, political and industrial and raw materials centers: Donbass, Minsk, Kyiv, Leningrad, Moscow. Within 6-8 weeks of reaching the line Arkhangelsk - r. Volga-Astrakhan, in fact, the victorious end of the war. After the defeat of the USSR, it was planned to seize independent countries in the Mediterranean basin, British colonies in Africa, in the Near and Middle East, invade the British Isles, and launch military operations against America. As early as the autumn of 1941, the German generals expected to begin conquering Iran, Iraq, Egypt, the Suez Canal, and then India, where the Nazis were to link up with the Japanese troops.

Thus, Hitler's plans were worldwide, but for their successful implementation it was necessary to defeat the USSR, on whose territory four Reichskommissariats - German provinces - were to be formed. According to the plans of the fascist command, the population of the USSR was subject to Germanization; 30-40% were supposed to be evicted beyond the Urals, 10-15% to be Germanized, and the rest to be destroyed. “We are talking about a struggle for annihilation ... In the East, cruelty itself is a blessing for the future,” Hitler said at a meeting of the generals on March 30, 1941.

At dawn on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany treacherously attacked the USSR. The war began under exceptionally favorable conditions for the Nazis, who were thoroughly preparing for war with the Soviet Union, using not only the patronage and assistance of overseas partners, but also the military-industrial potential of enslaved Europe. 28 million people worked for the war machine of Nazi Germany. On the eve of the war, German industry, together with satellites and occupied countries, extracted and produced (in million tons):

coal - 391.2 (in the USSR - 251.9)

cast iron - 25.3 (in the USSR - 14.0)

steel - 30.9 (in the USSR - 19.1)

The number of metal-cutting machine tools in Germany was 1.7 million units, in the USSR - 710 thousand. In addition, German industry had been working only for the war for more than one year.

The mobilized Nazi army had two years of experience in waging war in Europe.

Causes of failure and heroism of the Red Army

The "surprise" attack of fascist Germany, the massive bombardment of aviation and artillery led to the loss of stable command and control. On the very first day of the war, 1,200 Soviet aircraft were destroyed, over 800 burned down at the airfields. A large number of equipment was destroyed, which did not enter the battle. By the end of June 22, the Nazi troops had penetrated up to 50 km into the borders of the Soviet state.

The troops of the western border districts, consisting of 170 divisions, which were not put on combat readiness and had not completed their strategic deployment, were dispersed over a broad front and in great depth. The balance of power was also not in favor of the Red Army. The enemy outnumbered our troops: in men - 1.8 times, in tanks - 1.5 times, in aircraft - 3.2 times, in guns and mortars - 1.25 times. In the direction of the main attacks, the enemy had a 4-6-fold superiority.

Repressions were "cut down" from five marshals - three, from five army commanders of the 1st rank - three, from ten commanders of the 2nd rank - all, from 57 commanders - 50, from 186 division commanders - 154, from 16 army commissars of the 1st and 2nd rank - all, out of 28 corps commissars - 25, out of 64 divisional commissars - 58, out of 456 colonels - 401. Of the total (733) senior commanders and political workers - from brigade commander to marshal - 579 were repressed. Since May 1937 From September 1938 to September 1938, about half of the regimental commanders, almost all division and brigade commanders, all corps commanders and district commanders, and most political workers were repressed.

July 1941 Halder makes a clearly premature conclusion in his diary: “It will not be an exaggeration if I say that the campaign against Russia was won within 14 days. Of course, it's not finished yet. The vast extent of the territory and the stubborn resistance of the enemy, using all means, will fetter our forces for many weeks to come.

However, this was hampered by the stubborn resistance of the Red Army. Fierce battles flared up along the entire Soviet-German front. On the second day of the war, Soviet troops counterattacked the enemy near Przemysl and defended the city for five days. Zastava A.V. Lopatina bravely fought in the encirclement for 11 days, the Brest Fortress remained impregnable for more than a month. Soviet pilots fearlessly went to rams. At the cost of their own lives, fighters and commanders.

The Red Army defended every inch of their native Fatherland.

Despite the setbacks, temporary confusion, forced retreat, the Red Army did not lose its combat capability. The Soviet-German front became the main front of World War II.

2. Mobilization of the forces of the Soviet people to repulse the enemy. Operational actions of the military leadership and difficulties in organizing the country's defense

army military war domestic

At 12 o'clock. On the afternoon of June 22, a government message was broadcast on the radio about the perfidious attack of fascist Germany on the USSR. On behalf of the party and the government, on the first day of the war, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, V.M. Molotov, called on the people to a holy war for their Fatherland. His words sounded with optimism: “Our cause is just! The enemy will be defeated! Victory will be ours”, which became the battle slogan of the front and rear of the Patriotic War. On the same day, Metropolitan Sergius addressed all believers.

On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was created to lead the armed struggle. The mobilization of those liable for military service in 1905-1918 was announced. birth. Queues of volunteers lined up at the recruiting stations. In Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, they began to enroll in the people's militia, destruction battalions for the purposes of local defense and the fight against saboteurs and paratroopers. On June 26, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on the payment of cash benefits to the families of the mobilized.

On June 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR addressed the party and Soviet bodies of the front-line regions with a directive that outlined a program to organize the fight against the fascist aggressor. It was necessary in as soon as possible transfer the national economy to a war footing, increase the production of weapons and ammunition, ensure the fastest advance of military echelons, ensure the protection of enterprises, power plants, means of communication, etc. With the forced withdrawal of the Red Army units, everything of value - factories, machine tools, equipment, etc. - should be evacuated or destroyed so that the enemy would not get anything. In the areas temporarily occupied by the enemy, partisan detachments, underground party and Komsomol organizations were to be created. All Soviet citizens were called upon to selflessly fight for their homeland, to wage a merciless fight against home front disorganizers, deserters, alarmists, cowards and spreading false rumors.

The war required a radical restructuring of the political, state and military leadership. On June 30, 1941, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created under the chairmanship of I.V. Stalin. It was an emergency wartime body that led the country through local Soviet and party bodies and through its representatives in the union and autonomous republics and regional centers. In the summer of 1941, city defense committees were created in the front-line areas.

For more precise and flexible control of the Red Army units, on July 10, the Headquarters of the High Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, headed by Stalin. To improve strategic leadership, the High Commands of three main directions were created: northwestern (Marshal of the Soviet Union K. Voroshilov), western (Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Timoshenko), southwestern (Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Budyonny). On July 16, Stalin was appointed People's Commissar of Defense, and from August 8, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The headquarters became known as the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.

Thus, all the political, economic and military leadership of the country was concentrated in the hands of one person who, in principle, had usurped all power long ago - Stalin. During the war, the Council for the Evacuation, the Committee for the Accounting and Distribution of Labor, the Soviet Information Bureau were created. In total, in the summer and autumn of 1941, 10 million people and 1,523 industrial enterprises were taken to the rear areas.

In order to ensure an uninterrupted supply of food and industrial goods to the population, a rationed supply was introduced in July through the rationing system.

The patriotism of the Soviet people manifested itself in shock work under the motto “Everything for the front! Everything for victory!”, the creation of the National Defense Fund, the donation of warm clothes for front-line soldiers, etc.

Thus, from the first day of the war, the USSR promptly mobilizes all forces to defeat the enemy, the country turns into a single military camp.

Operational actions of the military leadership and difficulties in organizing the defense of the country.

In the summer and autumn of 1941, heavy defensive battles went on in three main directions: northwestern, western and southwestern (Leningrad-Moscow-Kyiv).

In the northwestern direction, the Nazis attached paramount importance to the capture of Leningrad and Kronstadt. This would ensure the promptness of the supply of army groups "North" and "Center" by sea. After capturing the northwestern regions of the USSR, Army Group North intensified the Nazi offensive against Moscow together with Army Group Center. The fall of Leningrad represented not only the loss of the most important economic and strategic center, but also brought great political sense- the beginning of the destruction of communism from its cradle.

In August-September 1941, critical days came for the defense of Leningrad. On September 8, the troops of the "North" group blocked the southern outskirts of the city. From the north it was blocked by Finnish troops. The city was systematically subjected to artillery shelling and aerial bombardment. In November-December 1941, the bread ration was 250 g for workers and 125 g for employees, dependents, children, "black, sticky, like putty, watery, mixed with cellulose and sawdust, and nothing more." Leningrad will courageously endure 900 days of a terrible blockade.

In the western direction, having captured Minsk in early July, the Nazis launched an offensive against Smolensk, an outpost of the Soviet capital. The battle of Smolensk unfolded on a front 900 km long and lasted almost 2 months. On July 14, in the area of ​​​​the city of Orsha, for the first time, rocket-propelled mortars were used, lovingly called by the Red Army "Katyusha". West of Smolensk in early August, 310,000 Soviet soldiers were captured, the Nazis captured over 3,000 tanks and the same number of guns.

Attempts by the command of the Red Army to rectify the situation at the front turned out to be unrealized. The connection didn't work well. The operational situation changed quickly and was not always taken into account by headquarters. The dominance of German aviation made it difficult for the troops to interact. Yes, and combat experience had to be acquired at the cost of blood.

Repulsing the fierce attacks of the enemy, the Red Army launched offensive operations in the region of Velikiye Luki, near Bobruisk, in the direction of Dukhovshchina and Yartsevo. The counterattack in the Yelnya area in early September was especially successful, as a result of which 8 fascist divisions were defeated and the city of Yelnya was liberated. In these battles, the Soviet Guard was born.

Smolensk fell, but the battle for it was a major strategic success. The Soviet command gained time to prepare strategic reserves and carry out defensive measures in the Moscow direction. In addition, the enemy could not attack in the center, since the slow advance of Army Group North and South exposed the flanks of Army Group Center.

In the southwestern direction, having reached the Dnieper, Hitler decided to launch an attack on Kyiv, Donbass, Rostov, hoping to deprive the USSR of the most important economic base - bread, coal, metal and oil. The capture of the Left-Bank Ukraine could open the way to Moscow through Bryansk and Orel.

At the end of August 1941, the German command transferred a strong tank grouping to the south. Back in July, the Chief of the General Staff and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR G.K. Zhukov proposed to leave Kyiv in connection with the threat of encirclement of a large group of Red Army troops by the enemy, for which he was actually removed from his posts by Stalin and sent to the front in the Yelnya region. Only on September 17, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief decided to leave Kyiv, but the encirclement closed around the Southwestern Front. Soviet troops lost 665 thousand Red Army soldiers, about 4 thousand guns, 884 tanks.

For more than 2 months, from August 8 to October 16, 1941, the defense of Odessa, blockaded from land, continued, the most important base of the Black Sea Fleet. For 69 days of fierce fighting, the enemy lost thousands of soldiers and officers. In connection with the threat of the capture of the Crimea by the Nazis, by order of the Headquarters, the Soviet troops left the city.

In the second half, October 1941, the Nazis broke into the Crimea. Their attempts to seize Sevastopol on the move were repulsed.

The heroic defense of the city began, lasting 250 days. Repeated assault, intense bombing of the city fettered large enemy forces, inflicting huge losses on him.

Thus, despite the great results achieved by the Nazi army during its summer offensive, the Wehrmacht did not achieve the defeat of the Red Army, which inflicted significant damage on it, gained combat experience, and gained time to mobilize forces in decisive battles.

3. A radical change during the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. The expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the territory of the USSR

In mid-July 1942, the Germans reached the bend of the Don, where it comes closest to the Volga in the region of Stalingrad. The city must not fall! was Stalin's order. And it reflected not just another whim of the leader, but the strategic calculation of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. With the loss of the largest industrial center on the Volga, the already meager defense potential was reduced, the country was losing the most important strategic foothold. The prospects for a further offensive by the Nazis on the uncovered areas of the Center, the Urals, Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Thus, favorable conditions were created for Turkey and Japan to enter the war. According to Lieutenant V. Nekrasov, a participant in the defense of Stalingrad, who became a writer after the war, the “bitter summer” of 1942 seemed more terrible than the summer of 1941: an oppressive feeling of “mortal danger” gripped the country even more than a year earlier.

July fell Rostov-on-Don - the gates of the Caucasus. In the big bend of the Don, several Soviet divisions were surrounded. In order to stabilize the critical situation, the People's Commissar of Defense of the Union of the USSR I.V. Stalin issued Order No. 277 on July 28, known as the order “Not a step back!”. Emphasizing the huge losses suffered by the country - Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, Donbass and other regions (more than 70 million people, more than 800 million poods of grain per year and more than 10 million tons of metal per year), he stated: we now have no preponderance over the Germans either in manpower reserves or in grain supplies. Retreating further means ruining oneself and at the same time ruining our Motherland ... Not a step back!

Alarmists and cowards must be exterminated on the spot...”.

August 1942, at the cost of huge losses, the Germans managed to break through northwest of Stalingrad and reach the Volga. On September 14, fighting took place in the area of ​​the station, and a few days later the enemy reached the Volga in the area of ​​the central pier. Particularly fierce battles unfolded for Mamaev Kurgan, the territory of the Tractor Plant, the industrial settlements "Barrikada" and "Red October". In some places the Germans broke through to the banks of the Volga. The motto of the defenders of Stalingrad - the soldiers of the 62nd Army of General V. Luikov, the 64th Army of General M. Shumilov, the divisions of Generals A. Rodimtsev, L. Gurtiev and others - became the words of sniper Vasily Zaitsev: “There is no land for us beyond the Volga! »

The courageous defense of Stalingrad and the Caucasus allowed the Soviet command to concentrate strategic reserves to create a radical change in the course of the war.

The counteroffensive of the Red Army near Stalingrad began on November 19, 1942 with the forces of the South-Western (General N. Vatutin), Don (General K. Rokossovsky), and on November 20 - Stalingrad (General A. Eremenko) fronts. On January 8, 1943, an ultimatum to surrender was presented to the encircled enemy grouping (22 divisions with a total number of 330 thousand people). The commander of the grouping of troops, General Paulus, at the insistence of Hitler, rejected the ultimatum. On January 10, Soviet troops began to rout the enemy, and on February 2 it was all over. Over 147 thousand German soldiers and officers were killed, 91 thousand soldiers, more than 2.5 thousand officers, 24 generals, led by Field Marshal Paulus, were taken prisoner. A large amount of equipment and ammunition was captured. The Nazis lost a quarter of all the forces operating on the Soviet-German front. Hitler declared three days of mourning.

The victory on the Volga marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the course of the entire war. The initiative to conduct military operations passed to the Red Army, whose combat operations were supported by shock labor throughout the country.

March 1943 The Supreme Soviet of the USSR assigns Stalin the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

The expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the territory of the USSR.

As a result of the major victories won by the Red Army in 1943, the nature of hostilities changed radically. “The war has entered that stage,” noted in the report of I.V. Stalin on November 6, 1943, “when it comes to the complete expulsion of the invaders from Soviet soil and the elimination of the fascist “new order” in Europe.” A powerful offensive by the Soviet troops unfolded from the first days of 1944. The peculiarity of offensive operations was that powerful blows were delivered to the enemy in various directions of the huge Soviet-German front. This made it difficult for the Nazi troops to maneuver in creating an effective defense. From January 14 to March 1, the troops of the Leningrad, Volkhov and 2nd Baltic fronts, in cooperation with the Baltic Fleet, carried out the Novgorod operation in Leningrad and defeated the enemy grouping "North". Leningrad was completely liberated from the blockade, which lasted 900 days. The Leningrad and Novgorod regions were cleared of invaders.

Simultaneously with the offensive near Leningrad and Novgorod, Soviet troops carried out major operations in the South-West. It was necessary to defeat the enemy on a broad front from Southern Polissya to the Black Sea, liberating the Right-Bank Ukraine, reach the State Border and transfer military operations beyond its borders. In January-February 1944, Soviet troops surrounded over 20 divisions in the area of ​​the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky ledge on the Dnieper. On March 26, units of the Red Army reached the State Border of the USSR.

Having liberated the Right-Bank Ukraine, Soviet troops began to eliminate the enemy group in the Crimea. In the first half of April, Kerch and Simferopol were liberated. On May 9, Sevastopol was recaptured, and on May 12, Crimea again became Soviet.

In the summer of 1944, Operation Bagration began - the liberation of Belarus. On the front from the Western Dvina to Pripyat, on June 23, Soviet units went on the offensive, accounting for almost half of all forces and equipment operating on the Soviet-German front. Near Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Minsk, large fascist forces were surrounded. On July 3, Minsk was liberated.

July, Soviet troops liberated Vilnius, crossed the Neman and reached the border with East Prussia.

In June-July, the troops of the Leningrad and Karelian fronts, with the support of the ships of the Baltic Fleet, the Ladoga and Onega flotillas, defeated the enemy on the Karelian Isthmus and on August 9 reached the State border.

Simultaneously with the liberation of Belarus, the liberation of Ukraine was completed. By the end of October, Soviet troops entered the Transcarpathian Ukraine.

August began the Iasi-Chisinau operation in Moldova. By the end of August, Moldova was liberated.

In October 1944, the Red Army drove the Nazis out of the Soviet Arctic.

As a result of offensive operations in 1944, the Nazis were expelled from Soviet territory. The state border of the USSR from the Barents to the Black Sea was restored.

Conclusion

It is impossible to understand the Soviet victories of late 1942 and the summer of 1943 without talking about the titanic efforts to restructure the Soviet economy, completely reoriented by 1942 to the production of armaments by reducing the production of civilian products. In November 1941, industrial production, disorganized by the German occupation of the most important economic regions and the relocation of more than 1,500 factories to the east, fell to 52% of the level of November 1940. However, after the completion of the second stage of the evacuation of industrial potential (summer 1942), a clear rise in economic indicators. Activity played an important role in this.

The Committee for the Accounting and Distribution of Labor Resources, which was entrusted with the task of providing relocated enterprises with a workforce. The severity of the problem was determined by the fact that 11 million people were in the ranks of the Red Army. Under these conditions, in February 1942, the government carried out the mobilization of the urban population, and in November extended this measure to rural residents. During this year alone, 3 million people, including 830,000 young men and women who had just graduated from school, were compulsorily sent to industry and construction. In addition, in order to replace the skilled workers who went to the front, 1,800,000 adults and young men underwent an accelerated course of study in factory schools (FZU). These measures were accompanied by a broad campaign of "socialist competition" and "record-setting", as in better times the Stakhanov movement, as well as the tightening of working conditions and labor discipline (decrees of June 26, 1941 on increasing the working day, of December 26, 1941 on limiting staff turnover, etc.).

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