How far did the German troops advance in the USSR. Barbarossa's plan briefly. Exposure and punishment
The art of war is a science in which nothing succeeds except what has been calculated and thought out.
Napoleon
The Barbarossa plan is a plan for Germany's attack on the USSR, based on the principle of lightning war, blitzkrieg. The plan began to be developed in the summer of 1940, and on December 18, 1940, Hitler approved a plan according to which the war was to be ended by November 1941 at the latest.
Plan Barbarossa was named after Frederick Barbarossa, a 12th century emperor who became famous for his conquests. This traced elements of symbolism, to which Hitler himself and his entourage paid so much attention. The plan received its name on January 31, 1941.
Number of troops to implement the plan
Germany prepared 190 divisions for war and 24 divisions as a reserve. For the war, 19 tank and 14 motorized divisions were allocated. The total number of the contingent that Germany sent to the USSR, according to various estimates, ranges from 5 to 5.5 million people.
The apparent superiority in the technology of the USSR should not be taken into account, since by the beginning of the wars, German technical tanks and aircraft were superior to Soviet ones, and the army itself was much more trained. Suffice it to recall the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, where the Red Army demonstrated weakness in literally everything.
Direction of the main attack
The Barbarossa plan defined 3 main directions for the strike:
- Army Group South. A blow to Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea and access to the Caucasus. Further movement to the line Astrakhan - Stalingrad (Volgograd).
- Army Group Center. Line "Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow". Advance to Nizhny Novgorod, leveling the line "Wave - Northern Dvina".
- Army Group North. Attack on the Baltic states, Leningrad and further advance towards Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. At the same time, the army "Norway" was to fight in the north together with the Finnish army.
| SOUTH | CENTRE | NORTH | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target | Ukraine, Crimea, access to the Caucasus | Minsk, Smolensk, Moscow | Baltic States, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk |
| population | 57 divisions and 13 brigades | 50 divisions and 2 brigades | 29 division + army "Norway" |
| Commanding | Field Marshal von Rundstedt | Field Marshal von Bock | Field Marshal von Leeb |
| common goal | Get on line: Arkhangelsk - Volga - Astrakhan (Northern Dvina) |
||
Approximately by the end of October 1941, the German command planned to reach the Volga-Northern Dvina line, thereby capturing the entire European part of the USSR. This was the plan of the blitzkrieg. After the blitzkrieg, the lands beyond the Urals should have remained, which, without the support of the center, would quickly surrender to the winner.
Until about mid-August 1941, the Germans believed that the war was going according to plan, but in September there were already entries in the diaries of officers that the Barbarossa plan had failed and the war would be lost. The best proof that Germany in August 1941 believed that only a few weeks were left before the end of the war with the USSR is the speech of Goebbels. The Minister of Propaganda suggested that the Germans additionally collect warm clothes for the needs of the army. The government decided that this step was not necessary, since there would be no war in the winter.
Implementation of the plan
The first three weeks of the war assured Hitler that everything was going according to plan. The army advanced rapidly, winning victories, Soviet army suffered huge losses.
- 28 divisions out of 170 disabled.
- 70 divisions lost about 50% of their personnel.
- 72 divisions remained combat-ready (43% of those available at the start of the war).
During the same 3 weeks, the average rate of advance of German troops inland was 30 km per day.
By July 11, the army group "North" occupied almost the entire territory of the Baltic states, providing access to Leningrad, the army group "Center" reached Smolensk, the army group "South" went to Kyiv. These were the last achievements that fully corresponded to the plan of the German command. After that, failures began (still local, but already indicative). Nevertheless, the initiative in the war until the end of 1941 was on the side of Germany.
German failures in the North
The army "North" occupied the Baltic states without problems, especially since there was practically no partisan movement there. The next strategic point to be captured was Leningrad. It turned out that the Wehrmacht was not capable of this task. The city did not capitulate to the enemy, and until the end of the war, despite all efforts, Germany failed to capture it.
Failures of the Army Center
The "Center" army reached Smolensk without any problems, but got stuck under the city until September 10. Smolensk resisted for almost a month. The German command demanded a decisive victory and the advance of the troops, since such a delay under the city, which was planned to be taken without heavy losses, was unacceptable and cast doubt on the implementation of the Barbarossa plan. As a result, the Germans took Smolensk, but their troops were pretty battered.
Historians today evaluate the battle for Smolensk as a tactical victory for Germany, but a strategic victory for Russia, as they managed to stop the advance of troops on Moscow, which allowed the capital to prepare for defense.
Complicated the advance of the German army inland partisan movement Belarus.
Failures of the Army of the South
The "South" army reached Kyiv in 3.5 weeks and, like the "Center" army near Smolensk, got stuck in battles. In the end, it was possible to take the city in view of the clear superiority of the army, but Kyiv held out almost until the end of September, which also made it difficult for the German army to advance, and made a significant contribution to the disruption of the Barbarossa plan.
Map of the advance plan of the German troops
Above is a map showing the plan of the German command for the offensive. The map shows: in green - the borders of the USSR, in red - the border to which Germany planned to reach, in blue - the deployment and the plan to advance the German forces.
General state of affairs
- In the North, it was not possible to capture Leningrad and Murmansk. The advance of the troops stopped.
- In the Center, with great difficulty, we managed to get to Moscow. At the time the German army entered the Soviet capital, it was clear that no blitzkrieg had happened.
- In the South, they failed to take Odessa and capture the Caucasus. By the end of September, the Nazi troops had only captured Kyiv and launched an offensive against Kharkov and the Donbass.
Why did the blitzkrieg fail in Germany?
Germany failed the blitzkrieg because the Wehrmacht was preparing the Barbarossa plan, as it later turned out, on false intelligence. Hitler admitted this by the end of 1941, saying that if he had known the real state of affairs in the USSR, he would not have started the war on June 22.
The lightning war tactics were based on the fact that the country has one line of defense on the western border, all large army units are located on the western border, and aviation is located on the border. Since Hitler was sure that all Soviet troops were located on the border, this formed the basis of the blitzkrieg - to destroy the enemy army in the first weeks of the war, and then rapidly move inland without encountering serious resistance.
In fact, there were several lines of defense, the army was not located with all its forces on the western border, there were reserves. Germany did not expect this, and by August 1941 it became clear that the lightning war had failed, and Germany could not win the war. The fact that World War II lasted until 1945 only proves that the Germans fought very organized and brave. Due to the fact that they had the economy of the whole of Europe behind them (speaking of the war between Germany and the USSR, many for some reason forget that the German army included units from almost all European countries) they managed to fight successfully.
Did Barbarossa's plan fail?
I propose to evaluate the Barbarossa plan according to 2 criteria: global and local. Global(landmark - the Great Patriotic War) - the plan was thwarted, because the lightning war did not work, the German troops were bogged down in battles. Local(landmark - intelligence data) - the plan was implemented. The German command drew up the Barbarossa plan on the basis that the USSR had 170 divisions on the country's border, there were no additional defense echelons. There are no reserves and reinforcements. The army was preparing for this. In 3 weeks, 28 Soviet divisions were completely destroyed, and in 70, approximately 50% of the personnel and equipment were disabled. At this stage, the blitzkrieg worked and, in the absence of reinforcements from the USSR, gave the desired results. But it turned out that the Soviet command has reserves, not all troops are located on the border, mobilization brings quality soldiers into the army, there are additional lines of defense, the “charm” of which Germany felt near Smolensk and Kyiv.
Therefore, the disruption of the Barbarossa plan must be regarded as a huge strategic mistake of German intelligence, led by Wilhelm Canaris. Today, some historians associate this person with the agents of England, but there is no evidence for this. But if we assume that this is indeed the case, then it becomes clear why Canaris slipped an absolute “linden” to Hitler that the USSR was not ready for war and all the troops were located on the border.
The Germans did not enter Moscow in November 1941 because the dams of the reservoirs surrounding Moscow were blown up. On November 29, Zhukov reported on the flooding of 398 settlements, without warning the local population, in a 40-degree frost ... the water level rose to 6 meters ... no one counted people ...
Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of "Echo of Moscow" is another program from the series "The Price of Victory". Today I am leading it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I will immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello Iskander.
Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.
And it is no coincidence that he was invited to visit us today, since it was today that Iskander Kuzeev’s material entitled “The Flood of Moscow” was published in the newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, which deals with a secret operation in the fall of 1941. The author of the article will tell you in more detail, but I will make one digression and just tell you that, you see, life disposes of it in its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I are trying to go to chronological order according to the events of the Second World War, but when something interesting comes up, we go back, maybe we will still get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our today's guest Iskander Kuzeev wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why is it a flood?
Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, with which I became quite familiar with memoirs, in particular, the recently published memoirs in Russian of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow. Guderian's troops, the 2nd Panzer Army, had practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time, the Soviet troops, who repelled the attacks of Guderian, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where there were practically no clashes. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops were stationed in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only at two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilovsky heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of the Army Group "Center" opposed in fact, one armored train of the NKVD, which happened to be there - it was going from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, it became known to me that separate, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.
This famous case, when some motorcyclists almost reached the Sokol?
Yes, yes, they were stopped at the second bridge across railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they guarded against air raids. The motorcyclists passed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of the current Rechnoy Vokzal metro station; already stopped on the last bridge in front of Sokol station. And was alone german tank between the current metro stations Skhodnenskaya and Tushinskaya.
Volokolamsk direction.
Yes. This is the Western Bridge across the diversion channel in the Tushino region. And as I was told by the people who were engaged in these studies, this was told to me in the management of the Moscow-Volga Canal, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Canal named after Moscow", the most high building on a hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and such a story was passed down from generation to generation, it was clearly visible from there: some German tank got lost, stopped on the bridge, looked out German officer, looked back and forth, wrote down something in a notebook and left somewhere in the opposite direction towards the Aleshkinsky forest. And thirdly, large-caliber German artillery stood on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, it was at this point that the armored train was moving from the north, and the locals crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, to the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began where the large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to deal with this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called "The Flood of Moscow" took place.
So what was the flood? They simply flooded a large area in order to prevent the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?
Yes. Exactly. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istra hydroelectric complex, which is called the Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex, was blown up. Moreover, water outlets were blown up below the level of the so-called "dead mark", when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where the German troops were advancing hit the offensive area and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There, the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istra reservoir, and below its mark is 143, that is, it turns out more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is such a waterfall of water that washes away everything in its path, floods houses, villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this, the operation was secret.
Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?
In Istra, it was a military operation, that is, an engineering department Western front. But there was another operation that was carried out jointly by the leadership of the Moscow-Volga channel, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering management Western Front, and ...
What other operation?
Another, in a different place.
Oh, there was another one.
There was also a second, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which a decision was made to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, this is from the dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus the troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.
The first operation on the Istra reservoir, is this November 1941?
Yes, end of November.
What about others?
That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?
There were two options for the release of water - from the Ivankovskoye reservoir to the Volga downstream and the release of water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the river Sestra, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flows where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It passes through the tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the canal level. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma spillway, which, in case of any repair work, allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same mark of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to start these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and do not consume, but produce electricity, so this is called a generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the gates of the locks were opened and a huge flow of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are various villages at a very low level above the water, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - a canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at the water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice was broken, and the streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people ...
No precautions were taken.
And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, there were still built - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail tells - metal gates were welded there, which did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was dumped, imagine, a huge amount of water from the Ivankovsky reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River has risen by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River has risen by 6 meters.
Explain, as you just said, according to all the evidence - we did not see with our own eyes and did not feel with our skin - it was a very hard and cold winter, the frosts were terrible. This water, which poured in huge quantities on the earth's surface, it had to turn into ice.
Almost yes. First, the ice broke...
But then, in the cold, it all turned, probably, into ice?
But it doesn't happen right away. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology, with whom I talked, told me that it is enough to stand knee-deep in such water for half an hour and the person simply dies.
How many villages were flooded in this way?
In all these operations somewhere around 30-40.
But, if I'm not mistaken, there was an order Supreme Commander Comrade Stalin about flooding, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?
There was an order. It wasn't about flooding, it was about destruction.
villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups ...
Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander. And in accordance with this order, all villages were to be destroyed in the depth of the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation, as it were, against German troops. And there was even such a wording "to take the Soviet population with them."
That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?
No, the retreating troops had to withdraw. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn exactly those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now, for those who defend Stalin. When separate excerpts from these materials were published in various blogs, a lot of Stalinists came out in the comments and cited this phrase.
As an example of humanism.
Yes Yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, there was a mass of newsreels about the burned villages. Naturally, there was no question of who burned them. The Germans were there, so the cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.
That is, wherever the Germans were, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.
Did they report to Stalin?
Yes. For two weeks, they reported that 398 settlements were destroyed. And so these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean ...
Tenth, 10 percent.
Yes, and very few people paid attention to it. And here, in the report, Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100,000 Molotov cocktails, and so on and so forth.
Is this document genuine?
Yes, this is an absolutely authentic document, there is even data on where, in what archive it is located, fund, inventory.
In full - no.
I have never met. Do you include it in the article?
We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and a report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.
You know what else interests me in this whole story. History, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And if more frankly - it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in the military literature, nor in the memoir literature, this story of flooding has been told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some kind of heading "top secret", as the newspaper is called, as a matter of fact, where did you print?
The only thing that I managed to find from what was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it came out with the stamp "secret" and already in last years the stamp “secret” was removed and the stamp “chipboard” stood, and it was declassified only in 2006. And in this book it was said about the explosion of spillways in Istra. And there was nothing said about the operation on the channel. I managed to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel, last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and a book by Valentin Barkovsky was published with a circulation of only 500 copies. And it goes into detail there.
And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has been stripped of all labels, but apparently it is just in libraries.
Well, it hasn't been reprinted yet.
I knew, of course, that many documents were classified, but in order to release a book and immediately classified it as “secret”, then what circulation could it have and for whom was it then intended?
The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.
And then there's the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described somewhere in the German military literature?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts that everything was really flooded and people died there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not like a lot of people, this very old people who remembered this, who told, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. I was told by a resident of the village named after May 1, this is a working village right at the level of irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, and those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal, they simply saved them. Firstly, there artillery hit from all sides. There were completely low panel houses, even lower than peasant huts, and naturally, artillery hit what was visible, but it was visible with a high chimney a potato store. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? You will be killed now." And the water began to flow, they got out and managed, along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal, to get out and go towards Dmitrov.
Iskander, tell me, is it known, did anyone keep such calculations, how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?
I haven't been able to find these numbers anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs in LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could die there, that at home stand high above the level of the river, and that there is still an attic, there is still a roof. But when I talked to the doctors, they said that there was little chance of being saved in such a situation.
Is it known at least what was the approximate population of these villages before the flood?
There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, now such a figure is considered, only one third of this number falls on the staff of the Red Army.
Even less.
Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling is the death of civilians.
Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes until the news release is over, after which we will continue our conversation.
Once again, good evening, dear listeners. We continue the program "The Price of Victory", which I am leading today, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is a journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, the author of the article "The Flood of Moscow", published in today's issue of the newspaper "Top Secret". And about those events of the autumn of 1941, which are described by Iskander Kuzeev, we are talking with our guest. So, we stopped at the fact that we tried to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by dumping water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult, it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. And you were not interested in how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?
Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were on a higher place, they were flooded and survived. But there it is also difficult to say how much they were flooded. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that there could be no flooding at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a small historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built back in the time of Catherine; Almost all structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the rivermen say, locked up, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages on this navigable route. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, this is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.
Clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: "Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone." What should be the answer of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “For information to leak to the Germans and for them to send their reconnaissance to you? This is a war, comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He did not even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She, too, could be covered with a wave. Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not that fictional, but reconstructed?
It's a reconstruction, yes.
Reconstruction according to some separate evidence, apparently?
Yes. After all, the flow from the Istra reservoir practically reached the Moskva River and could flood all these summer cottages, summer cottages in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra ...
And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked to any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Victims, the price of Victory - this is a question that we are constantly discussing. And as for purely military effectiveness, was it an effective measure to stop the Germans?
In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilov Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument in Russia to General Vlasov.
Is it still worth it?
Yes. His name is engraved there, he commanded the 20th Army there.
And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.
Yes. Kuznetsov's shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th army.
But after all, the same operation can be presented in a different way, that there was no other way out?
Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...
We'll talk about this later, I'm just interested in this situation. You can also say that, this is how those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because you can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was hard, associated with huge casualties, but it was nevertheless effective.
At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941, Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south were supposed to close somewhere in the Petushki area ...
Well, yes, it is a well-known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.
I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when you tried to find out the flood zone and at least the estimated number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. Again, I will quote this case the quote is accurate, since you yourself heard it: “See that hill? There are just skeletons in bulk." And they pointed to a small mound on the banks of the Sestra River. “There are canal soldiers lying there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulags, who built this canal. Here's why I'm asking. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burials, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?
Most likely, the cemeteries were on the right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army, I still thought that I misheard, I ask: “Red Army men?” - "No, canal soldiers." There, after all, the canal became a fortification and, in fact, all the builders of the canal can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. By different sources, in the city of Dmitrov, counted scientists in the local museum, where, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.
Died or were employed in construction?
They died on construction, there are mass graves. I was told in the village of Test Pilot, on the banks of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures have occupied the last collective farm field there, they began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they stumbled upon mass graves. Builders recently reconstructed the Volokolamskoye Highway, the third line of the tunnel and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamsk highway, there are a lot of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there was a mass of skeletons in bulk already under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell, just stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was at a continuous pace, and people simply died. Such a case is described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when just in front of everyone, a person fell into concrete.
Iskander, one more question. There is such a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be handed over to the Germans, was there a plan to actually flood the city of Moscow itself?
Yes, I was also told about this by researchers who are connected with this topic. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningrad highway and the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo cottage village in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is located at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is located in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and there, as I was told, a ton of explosives was laid, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of that Khimka river that flows out of it, and this stream could simply collapse on capital. I talked with a veteran, a former head of the channel, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th gateway at the intersection of Volokolamskoye Highway and Svoboda Street, he says: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow is just, according to our calculations , it was up to this level that he could rise. And then the mass of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.
But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Is there only such evidence of people oral?
Yes. And they told me there when they dismantled the old bridge across the Klyazma reservoir, now a new bridge has been built there on the Dmitrovsky highway, and huge quantities of explosives were found there already in the 80s.
Which, apparently, was designed specifically for the explosion.
To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written from “20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, and now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is absolutely inaccessible.
Actually, when we say no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, we can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are opened, but very lazily, I would say.
And this story in the form of a legend went around for a long time and it was attributed that it was Hitler's idea after the arrival of the Germans to flood Moscow. The play was such by Andrey Vishnevsky "Moskau Zee", "Moscow Sea". Such a reconstruction, when, after the victory of Hitler, people are walking on boats ...
It was like a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to flood.
Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for what they themselves could flood.
Yes, the transformation of real events.
By the way, Comrade Hitler himself, after all, also started a similar operation in Berlin.
Yes, here, in these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators when it comes to salvation. own life, then the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film "Liberation" there was such an episode when the locks on the Spree River were opened and the dampers ...
Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.
Who died heroically there. You can have different attitudes to this film, which is also largely propaganda, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were opponents literally five minutes ago, they carried out the wounded together, together they held the cordon line so that women and children could be the first to go out, this is on station "Unter den Linden", right next to the Reichstag.
By the way, about the film "Liberation" I could say that, yes, it is really perceived and absolutely, probably, rightly so as a film primarily propaganda, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the movie "Liberation" that made me think completely, maybe not the ones that the authors of the film were counting on. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was a variant of flooding the city? No, there was an explosion, I think they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.
As for Krakow, I think it's more of a legend, because Krakow stands very high...
There, indeed, there was no flooding. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet opening another page in the history of the war. To what extent did it seem to you that you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?
Oh, a lot of closed. In general, very interesting topic attitudes of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of Meyerhold theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected to shreds diary entries from the time of the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. It seemed to me that I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London, people die during shelling. Russian people died, they were fired upon throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see the attitude of people to this: "The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city."
That is, both sides that fought against the civilian population were not considered, we can conclude this, I think. By the way, if you look at the losses in World War II, and not only Soviet Union, but also all participants on both sides, as anti-Hitler coalition, and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses - the ratio, of course, in each country is different, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.
Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg, occupied by Soviet troops. There was no such thing.
Well, there are, of course, examples of such human saving. They, too, can probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having lost to Hitler quickly enough, we know that there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people's lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are many more discussions still on the topic of the blockade of Leningrad. This is a heavy topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, perhaps, at least more rational policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.
Well, yes, there is a complicated story.
And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian's memoirs, I read his notes, where he spoke about the supply of food, that announcements were posted that there was enough food so that the population would not worry in Orel, for example.
So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any, without calculations. And so, perhaps, even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, about this, about this, I want to remind you once again that we have a program about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word "price", could be different, in our opinion. And the price of the Victory, which is primarily expressed in the number of dead, the number of human lives given and laid on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of it, because winning at all costs is very common, I think pyrrhic victory. In any case, one must be able to critically look at one's past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, what are your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be engaged in it, any investigations, studies?
In the next issue, we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that those memoirs of Nesterov, which just recently were published on the Internet, they deserve to be discussed separately. It is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records survived. After all, it was dangerous to keep them. There is, for example, the following entry: "The inhabitants of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the liberation of the city from the Bolsheviks." It is a miracle that such records survived.
It is a miracle that they were preserved in the hands of private individuals, because I think that there is a lot of such evidence. Another thing is that they all got there, as they once said "where they need to go." I think that many listeners probably remember, I just did some programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod, who is collaborating during the war. And there are a lot of documents. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there are a lot of documents that have been preserved from that time, where there is a lot of evidence of how it all happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.
After all, Novgorod is a city that has been occupied for almost four years.
Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, well, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And with you, dear listeners, we say goodbye to our next program. All the best, goodbye.
Original taken from
The internationally recognized term "collaborationism" refers to the cooperation of the local population of the occupied territories with the Nazis during the Second World War. In Ukraine, almost a quarter of a century of "independent" existence, attempts are being made to justify the traitors. In this row - decrees on liquidation Soviet monuments and their destruction without any decrees, about honoring Hauptmann Shukhevych and Bandera, about recognizing UPA warriors as veterans, about removing “communist-chauvinist literature” from libraries for destruction, etc. All this is accompanied by incessant attempts to whitewash Ukrainian nationalists “on a scientific level”, up to to the complete denial of such a phenomenon as Ukrainian collaborationism, in the works of V. Kosik, O. Romaniv, M. Koval, V. Sergiychuk and others.
It is necessary to remind about well-known facts. All the leaders of the OUN Wire - E. Konovalets, A. Melnik, S. Bandera, Ya. Stetsko - were agents of the German special services since the 1930s. This is confirmed by the same testimony of Abwehr Colonel E. Stolze: “In order to attract broad masses for subversive activities against the Poles, we recruited the head of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, Colonel of the Petliura army, a white émigré KONOVALETS ... Soon Konovalets was killed. The OUN was headed by Andrei MELNYK, whom, like Konovalets, we attracted to cooperate with German intelligence ... at the end of 1938 or at the beginning of 1939, a meeting was organized for Lahousen with Melnik, during which the latter was recruited and received the nickname “Consul” ... Germany was intensively preparing for a war against the USSR, and therefore, along the line of the Abwehr, measures were taken to intensify subversive activities, because. those measures that were carried out through Melnik and other agents seemed insufficient. For these purposes, a prominent Ukrainian nationalist Bandera Stepan was recruited, who during the war was released by the Germans from prison, where he was imprisoned by the Polish authorities for participating in a terrorist attack against the leaders of the Polish government.
Almost all the commanders of the Bandera UPA (not to be confused with the Bulba-Borovets UPA destroyed by Bandera with the help of the Nazis at the end of 1942-1943) are former officers of German units. 1939: "Ukrainian Legion", also known as the Bergbauerhalfe special unit (R. Sushko, I. Korachevsky, E. Lotovich), who fought as part of the Wehrmacht against Poland. 1939 - 1941: Abwehr battalions "Roland" and "Nachtigal" (Hauptmann R. Shukhevych, Sturmbannführer E. Pobigushchy, Hauptmanns I. Grinokh and V. Sidor, Oberst Lieutenants Y. Lopatinsky and A. Lutsky, Lieutenants of the Abwehr L. Ortynsky, M.Andrusyak, P.Melnyk) - all of them subsequently moved to the police "Schutzmannschaftbattalion-201", and from it to the UPA. The commander of the "Bukovina kuren" and the military assistant of the OUN (M) P. Voinovsky is a Sturmbannführer and commander of a separate SS punitive battalion in Kyiv. P. Dyachenko, V. Gerasimenko, M. Soltys - commanders of the "Ukrainian Legion of Self-Defense" of the OUN (M) in Volhynia, aka "Schutzmanschaft Battalion-31", which suppressed the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. And also B. Konik (shb-45), I. Kedyumich (shb-303) - the executioners of Babi Yar; K. Smovsky (shb-118) - Khatyn is on his conscience; shb number 3 - Kortelis. And also numerous "Ukrainian auxiliary police" (K. Zvarych, G. Zakhvalinsky, D. Kupyak), in 1943, in full force, merged into the SS division "Galicia". This is not counting the various Abverstelle teams (M. Kostyuk, I. Onufrik, P. Glyn). One cannot but agree with the thesis of the famous Canadian scientist V.V. Polischuk that “OUN was deprived of the Great Mechanic until 9 January 1945. Only in the OUN Banderi was a small one - up to 3 months - a break in the spivdії with occupiers - as long as the “power forces” were established ... (the end of 1942 - the beginning of 1943)”
The Battle for Moscow (1941-1942) is one of the largest battles of the Second World War, both in terms of the number of participants in the parties, and in terms of the territory on which it took place. The significance of the battle is enormous, it was on the verge of actual defeat, but thanks to the valor of the soldiers and the talents of the generals, the battle for Moscow was won, and the myth of the invincibility of the German troops was destroyed. Where did the Germans stop near Moscow? The course of the battle, the strength of the parties, as well as its results and consequences will be discussed further in the article.
History of the battle
According to master plan German command, codenamed "Barbarossa", Moscow was supposed to be captured three to four months after the start of the war. However, the Soviet troops offered heroic resistance. The battle for Smolensk alone delayed the German troops for two months.
Hitlerite soldiers approached Moscow only at the end of September, that is, in the fourth month of the war. The operation to capture the capital of the USSR received the code name "Typhoon", according to which the German troops were to cover Moscow from the north and south, then surround and capture. The battle of Moscow took place on vast territory that stretched for a thousand kilometers.
Side forces. Germany
The German command for were deployed huge forces. 77 divisions with a total number of more than 2 million people took part in the battles. In addition, the Wehrmacht had at its disposal more than 1,700 tanks and self-propelled guns, 14,000 guns and mortars, and about 800 aircraft. The commander of this huge army was Field Marshal F. von Bock.
the USSR
For the Headquarters of the VKG, there were forces of five fronts with a total number of more than 1.25 million people. Also, the Soviet troops had more than 1000 tanks, 10 thousand guns and mortars and more than 500 aircraft. The defense of Moscow was in turn led by several outstanding strategists: A. M. Vasilevsky, I. S. Konev, G. K. Zhukov.
Course of events
Before finding out where the Germans were stopped near Moscow, it is worth talking a little about the course of hostilities in this battle. It is customary to divide it into two stages: defensive (which lasted from September 30 to December 4, 1941) and offensive (from December 5, 1941 to April 20, 1942).
defensive stage
September 30, 1941 is considered the start date of the battle for Moscow. On this day, the Nazis attacked the troops of the Bryansk Front.
On October 2, the Germans went on the offensive in the Vyazma direction. Despite stubborn resistance, German units managed to cut the Soviet troops between the cities of Rzhev and Vyazma, as a result of which the troops of actually two fronts ended up in a cauldron. In total, more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers were surrounded.
After the defeat near Bryansk, the Soviet command organized a line of defense in the Mozhaisk direction. The inhabitants of the city hastily prepared fortifications: trenches and trenches were dug, anti-tank hedgehogs were placed.
During the rapid offensive, the German troops managed to capture such cities as Kaluga, Maloyaroslavets, Kalinin, Mozhaisk from October 13 to 18 and come close to the Soviet capital. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced in Moscow.
Moscow surrounded
Even before the actual introduction of a state of siege in Moscow, on October 15, the Defense Command was evacuated from the capital to Kuibyshev (modern Samara), the next day, the evacuation of all government agencies, the general staff, etc. began.
JV Stalin decided to stay in the city. On the same day, the residents of the capital panicked, rumors spread about leaving Moscow, several dozen residents of the city tried to urgently leave the capital. Only by October 20 was it possible to establish order. On this day, the city went into a state of siege.
By the end of October 1941, fighting was already underway near Moscow in Naro-Fominsk, Kubinka, and Volokolamsk. Moscow was regularly raided by German aircraft, which did not cause much damage, since the most valuable buildings of the capital were carefully camouflaged, and Soviet anti-aircraft gunners also worked well. At the cost of huge losses, the October offensive of the German troops was stopped. But they almost reached Moscow.
Where did the Germans get to? This sad list includes the suburbs of Tula, Serpukhov, Naro-Fominsk, Kaluga, Kalinin, Mozhaisk.
Parade on Red Square
Taking advantage of the relative silence at the front, the Soviet command decided to hold a military parade on Red Square. The purpose of the parade was to raise the morale of Soviet soldiers. The date was set for November 7, 1941, S. M. Budyonny hosted the parade, General P. A. Artemyev commanded the parade. Rifle and motorized rifle units, Red Navy, cavalrymen, as well as artillery and tank regiments took part in the parade. The soldiers left the parade almost immediately to the front line, leaving unconquered Moscow behind...
Where did the Germans go? What cities did they reach? How did the Red Army men manage to stop the enemy's orderly battle formations? It's time to find out about it.
November offensive of the Nazis on the capital
On November 15, after a powerful artillery preparation, a new round of the German offensive near Moscow began. Stubborn battles unfolded in the Volokolamsk and Klinsk directions. So, in 20 days of the offensive, the Nazis managed to advance 100 km and capture cities such as Klin, Solnechnogorsk, Yakhroma. To the closest locality to Moscow, where the Germans reached during the offensive, turned out to be Yasnaya Polyana - the estate of the writer Leo Tolstoy.
The Germans were about 17 km from the borders of Moscow itself, and 29 km from the walls of the Kremlin. By the beginning of December, as a result of a counterattack, the Soviet units managed to drive the Germans out of the previously occupied territories in the vicinity of the capital, including from Yasnaya Polyana.
Today we know where the Germans reached near Moscow - to the very walls of the capital! But they failed to take the city.
The onset of cold weather
As mentioned above, the Barbarossa plan provided for the capture of Moscow by German troops no later than October 1941. In this regard, the German command did not provide for winter uniforms for soldiers. The first night frosts began at the end of October, and for the first time the temperature dropped below zero on November 4th. That day the thermometer showed -8 degrees. Subsequently, the temperature very rarely dropped below 0 °C.
Not only German soldiers, dressed in light uniforms, were not ready for the first cold weather, but also equipment that was not designed to work at low temperatures.
The cold caught the soldiers when they were actually a few tens of kilometers from Belokamennaya, but their equipment did not start in the cold, and the frozen Germans near Moscow did not want to fight. "General Frost" once again rushed to the rescue of the Russians ...
Where did the Germans stop near Moscow? The last German attempt to capture Moscow was made during the attack on Naro-Fominsk on December 1. In the course of several massive attacks, the German units managed to penetrate for a short time into the areas of Zvenigorod for 5 km, Naro-Fominsk up to 10 km.
After the transfer of the reserve, the Soviet troops managed to push the enemy back to their original positions. The Naro-Fominsk operation is considered the last one carried out by the Soviet command at the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow.
The results of the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow
The Soviet Union defended its capital at a huge cost. The irretrievable losses of the personnel of the Red Army during the defensive phase amounted to more than 500 thousand people. at this stage, lost about 145 thousand people. But in the course of its attack on Moscow, the German command used virtually all the free reserves, which by December 1941 were actually depleted, which allowed the Red Army to go on the offensive.
At the end of November, after it became known from undercover sources that Japan was not Far East about 10 divisions and hundreds of tanks were transferred to Moscow. The troops of the Western, Kalinin and Southwestern fronts were equipped with new divisions, as a result of which, by the beginning of the offensive, the Soviet group in the Moscow direction had more than 1.1 million soldiers, 7,700 guns and mortars, 750 tanks, and about 1 thousand aircraft.
However, she was opposed by a grouping of German troops, not inferior, but even superior in number. The number of personnel reached 1.7 million people, tanks and aircraft were 1200 and 650, respectively.
On the fifth and sixth of December, the troops of three fronts went on a large-scale offensive, and already on December 8, Hitler gives the order for the German troops to go on the defensive. In 1941, Istra and Solnechnogorsk were liberated by Soviet troops. On December 15 and 16, the cities of Klin and Kalinin were liberated.
During the ten days of the offensive, the Red Army managed to push back the enemy in different sectors of the front for 80-100 km, and also create a threat of collapse to the German front of Army Group Center.
Hitler, not wanting to back down, dismissed Generals Brauchitsch and Bock and appointed General G. von Kluge as the new commander of the army. However, the Soviet offensive developed rapidly, and the German command was unable to stop it. In total, in December 1941, German troops in different sectors of the front were driven back by 100-250 km, which meant the elimination of the threat to the capital, the complete defeat of the Germans near Moscow.
In 1942, the Soviet troops slowed down the pace of their offensive and failed to actually destroy the front of Army Group Center, although they inflicted an extremely heavy defeat on the German troops.
The result of the battle for Moscow
The historical significance of the defeat of the Germans near Moscow is invaluable for the entire Second World War. More than 3 million people, more than 2,000 aircraft and 3,000 tanks took part in this battle on both sides, and the front stretched for more than 1,000 km. During the 7 months of the battle, Soviet troops lost more than 900 thousand people killed and missing, German troops lost more than 400 thousand people over the same period. Important results of the battle for Moscow (1941-1942) can be indicated:
- destroyed german plan"Blitzkrieg" - a quick lightning victory, Germany had to prepare for a long exhausting war.
- The threat of the capture of Moscow ceased to exist.
- The myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled.
- The German army suffered serious losses in its advanced and most combat-ready units, which had to be replenished with inexperienced recruits.
- The Soviet command gained tremendous experience for the successful conduct of the war with the German army.
- After the victory in the Moscow battle, an anti-Hitler coalition began to take shape.
This is how the defense of Moscow took place, and its positive outcome brought such significant results.
In the first months of the Great Patriotic War the troops of the Red Army suffered a crushing defeat: they randomly retreated, fell into boilers, surrendered ... But not everywhere the German troops easily penetrated deep into the territory of the Soviet Union: they met fierce resistance more than once and were driven back by desperate counterattacks. And in one place, the Wehrmacht for the entire duration of the war was never able to cross the border of the USSR thanks to the stamina and courage of the soldiers defending there. This place is called Musta-Tunturi.
Musta-Tunturi Ridge |
Musta-Tunturi is a mountain range that lies between the Sredny Peninsula and the mainland. If you translate the name from Finnish, you get "black tundra", but after the events of the Great Patriotic War, another name appeared near the ridge - "Valley of Death". fighting, which took place here from June 1941 to 1944, were the northernmost theater of land battles in the Second World War.
The war in Musta Tunturi from the very beginning had a different character from other places. Firstly, it began a week later - on June 29, 1941. The defenders of the ridge waited for seven days for the enemy to appear, strengthening their positions and listening to radio reports from other fronts. In their memoirs, some soldiers recalled how the mind refused to accept that fierce battles were going on throughout the country, the Red Army was retreating, and silence and calm reigned in Musta-Tunturi, and only seagulls were circling over the serene sea.
To crush the defenders of the ridge, the German command allocated an elite mountain rifle corps "Norway", which included experienced Austrian rangers. The German attack began on June 29, 1941, and the initial onslaught of "Norway" forced the Soviet troops to retreat to the peninsula, going over to the defense of the isthmus. The German assaults that followed for two weeks did not give any results, and the enemy was forced to retreat, suddenly attacked by the 135th Infantry Regiment, which managed to recapture the northern slope of the ridge from the Germans, having managed to gain a foothold there. Since then, for three years, incessant bloody battles have been going on in Musta-Tunturi - the Germans at all costs tried to break through to the Sredny Peninsula in order to open their way to the Murmansk port, where the northern fleet was based. During the three years of confrontation on the ridge, the positions of the warring armies were at the distance of a grenade throw, so the skirmishes and skirmishes did not stop for a moment. During all this time, the front line passed along the border of the USSR, and the Germans were never able to break through deep into the territory. Thus, Musta-Tunturi became the only place on the western border of the Soviet Union where the enemy did not manage to violate the western state border throughout the war.
Soldiers of the 12th Red Banner Marine Brigade Northern Fleet on the march through the Musta-Tunturi ridge | http://waralbum.ru/177462/ By 1944, the German army was no longer thinking about the offensive and was focused exclusively on defense. During the three years of confrontation at Musta Tunturi, German formations created impressive fortifications in the rocky terrain, equipped machine-gun emplacements, pillboxes, and artillery positions. On October 10, 1944, the Red Army drove out the German units from Musta-Tunturi, showing unparalleled bravery and courage. Under heavy machine gun fire, explosions of grenades and artillery shells, the Red Army soldiers crawled up impregnable rocks, overcoming rows of barbed wire. During the attack on the German positions, four men rushed to the machine-gun emplacements to give their comrades a chance to advance...
Memorial to the defenders of the Arctic | source By the end of 1944, the Arctic was completely cleared of German troops and the confrontation at Musta-Tunturi was completed. The defense of the ridge became an example of the boundless courage and bravery of Soviet soldiers, but, unfortunately, is not as well known as other battles of the Second World War. The feat of Soviet soldiers will forever remain in history, albeit on a small piece of land, but they did not let the enemy into their territory.
Illustration: Arctic 1941 by Yevgeny Khaldei
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