Hitler's leadership - aggression against the USSR. Aggression against the USSR We forge the swords of Victory

war barbaross domestic soviet

Since April 1938, the Soviet side has embarked on negotiations with Finland "on ensuring mutual security", but soon began to be more and more inclined towards a forceful solution of the issue. Stalin was not embarrassed that on July 27, 1932, the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Finland, and General K. G. Mannerheim, who returned to the army in 1931, built a defensive line on the Karelian Isthmus for 8 years because of fear of aggression from the southern neighbor.

In the summer of 1939, the head of the artillery of the Red Army, G. Kulik, in a conversation with General N. Voronov, assured that victory over the Finnish army could be achieved in 10-20 days. Having guessed the intentions of the Soviet leadership, the Finnish side began to strengthen the border line, and since October, civilians have been taken inland from the border regions. On October 2, the Finnish government tried to regulate relations with the USSR through the mediation of Germany. However, Ribbentrop made it clear that Hitler did not intend to interfere in Russo-Finnish relations.

As early as March 5, 1939, M. Litvinov proposed to the Finnish government to transfer four islands in the Gulf of Finland to the USSR to create observation points there Baltic Fleet promising a lucrative trade deal in return.

The secret protocol allowed the USSR to take a tougher line towards Finland. At the talks held in October 1939, the Soviet government offered Finland to move the border away from Leningrad, lease the port of Hanko to the USSR for 30 years, and transfer some territories in Karelia and the Arctic. In exchange, Finland was offered more than 5,000 square kilometers in Karelia. But the Finnish delegation did not agree with any of these proposals and left Moscow on 13 November. On November 30, Soviet troops crossed the Finnish border.

During October-November 1939, Soviet aircraft violated Finnish airspace 52 times. But Stalin's calculation did not materialize. The Finns fought steadfastly, and the war dragged on for 105 days. The Red Army suffered heavy losses, but in February 1940 was able to crush the Finnish defenses and capture Vyborg. The bet on new Soviet-German relations was fully justified: Germany did not interfere in the conflict. As a result, the Finnish government agreed to all the demands of the USSR. But Stalin's plans were much more ambitious. Not without reason, on March 31, 1940, the Karelian Autonomous Republic was transformed into the federal Karelian-Finnish Republic: Finland was to become its integral part. The weakness of the Red Army forced these plans to be abandoned.

As the war continued, the Soviet Union became increasingly isolated. 8,000 volunteers from Sweden arrived in Finland, Norwegian, Danish, British volunteers were going to go. A detachment of 50 volunteers was assembled by a cousin of F. Roosevelt, but he got to Helsinki already at the end of the war. There was also material assistance: 10 million dollars from the United States (but with the condition that they would be used to purchase food), although the government promised 60 million; 300 thousand pounds sterling of donations were sent by the British; money even came from Abyssinia.

From the second half of December 1939, the army of the French General M. Weygand was concentrated in the Middle East as a counterbalance to the Soviet Caucasian front. On February 5, 1940, in Paris, at a meeting of the British and French military, it was decided to send 50,000 volunteers from France and two British divisions to help Finland. However, neither Sweden nor Norway agreed to their transit through their territory.

In early March 1940, peace negotiations began in Moscow. As a result of its signing on March 12, Finland lost more than 35 thousand square meters. km of territory, 11% of the inhabitants became refugees, and Stalin also demanded the payment of reparations. In addition, during the second half of March, the NKVD evicted more than 450,000 Finns from the Soviet part of the Karelian Isthmus. Characteristically, on the morning of March 14, the Finnish troops, who were informed of the truce, began to withdraw from the front line inland. And suddenly at 11.45 Soviet artillery opened heavy fire on the unsuspecting Finns, inflicting significant losses on their troops and civilians.

Finnish war had great importance for further developments. The shortcomings of the Red Army appeared, and the Soviet military leaders did everything to eliminate them. At the same time, the obvious weakness shown by the Soviet armed forces in the war with Finland led the German command to underestimate their true power.

Having received carte blanche from Germany for freedom of action in the Baltic states, Stalin, as his conversations with G. Dimitrov testify, until the summer of 1940 believed that the Sovietization of these regions would happen by itself. However, the negative or skeptical attitude of the peoples, the Baltic states towards the prospect of a communist dictatorship soon left no doubt about a different outcome of events. As you know, on the night of June 15, 1940, the Soviet government presented Lithuania, and on June 16 - Latvia and Estonia, ultimatums demanding the formation of government offices that would take positions friendly to the USSR. Already on June 17, ships of the Baltic Fleet blocked the Estonian coast, and by July 67,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were brought into the Baltic states (in the presence of a 65,000-strong contingent in the three Baltic armies).

When units of the 2nd Army of the Belarusian Military District entered Lithuania on June 15, the commander of the Lithuanian armed forces, Division General V. Vitkauskas, issued an order in which it was ordered to meet them as friendly. Earlier, the Minister of the Interior of Lithuania, K. Epucas, even forbade telling jokes about the Red Army, whose garrisons had already been in Lithuania since October 1939.

• June 26 V.M. Molotov, using the current situation in Europe, presented an ultimatum to Romania, handing it to the ambassador to the USSR G. Davidescu. In it, the government in Bucharest was ordered to withdraw its military units from the territory of Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia within two days. Without waiting for the expiration of the ultimatum, on June 28 the Red Army crossed the Dniester, entering these territories. The Romanians had no choice but to hastily evacuate the most valuable property and move away from the advancing Soviet troops. After all, all calls for help sent to Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Belgrade remained unheeded.
• On October 22, 1940, Cripps (British Ambassador to the USSR), with the consent of Churchill, suggested to Stalin that the process of improving Anglo-Soviet relations be opened. At the same time, London undertook to recognize the annexation of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland, Bessarabia and Bukovina by the Soviet Union, demanding neutrality from Stalin in a possible Anglo-German conflict. However, the Moscow leaders refused to make such a promise. This greatly upset Churchill, who hoped in Cripps' ability to draw Stalin into the big alliance against Hitler, which he had been dreaming of since the mid-1930s.

Cripps' goal was to sign such an agreement that would copy Stalin's pact with Hitler. Cripps did not think about the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of the Soviet government in relations with Germany, the reasons for the failure of the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations in the summer of 1939, the hostility between London and Moscow during the Soviet-Finnish war, due to the left-wing romantic position of a true friend of the USSR. On his own initiative, he flew to Ankara, establishing Soviet-Turkish relations; he achieved the expulsion from England to the USSR in the autumn of 1940 of 350 Baltic sailors, whose fate, most likely, was deplorable.

May 1940 was a turning point in relations between the USSR and Nazi Germany. After Germany started big war in the West, the Soviet Union decided to make full use of the possibilities inherent in the secret protocols. In June 1940, the Soviet government accused the Baltic countries of violating mutual assistance treaties and demanded an increase in the Soviet military presence there and the creation of "people's governments" in these countries. The Baltic states were unable to resist. Additional units of the Red Army were introduced there, "people's governments" were created, and new elections were held, in which only candidates from local communist parties participated. The new parliaments immediately applied for joining the USSR. In early August 1940, the Soviet Union was replenished with three more republics. As in the Polish lands captured in the fall of 1939, repressions immediately began there. Tens of thousands of "unreliable" were deported to Siberia or sent to camps. In the same summer, a similar operation was carried out with Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, which belonged to Romania.

All this could not but alert Germany, which was then engaged in the conquest of France. Although the war plan against Soviet Union was developed by Hitler in the spring of 1940, its implementation was postponed indefinitely. Even speaking to the military, Hitler said that the treaty with the USSR would be respected as long as it was expedient. In Moscow, they looked at it in much the same way. And big and long war in Western Europe seemed the most successful way out, since it delayed a possible conflict with Germany. But France surrendered unexpectedly quickly - already in June 1940, German troops entered Paris without a fight. In fact, from that moment preparations began for an attack on the USSR according to the Barbarossa plan.

It would seem that Stalin sufficiently fully demonstrated his devotion to the treaty with Germany: he severed relations with the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Norway, which, after the occupation of their territories, were in exile. In June 1941, on his orders, a Yugoslav mission headed by M. Gavrilovich was sent to Turkey. But in April-May 1941, the USSR established diplomatic relations with the puppet regimes of Denmark, Belgium, Norway, the anti-Hitler government of Iraq, and on December 6, 1940, an agreement on trade and mutual payments was signed with "independent" Slovakia. But even after that, Hitler, in a conversation with Mussolini, stubbornly repeated: "My attitude towards Stalin does not exceed his distrust of me." But Hitler did not yet know that Stalin ordered all aluminum smelted to be sent to mobilization reserves. It was this measure, together with supplies from the United States, that helped the Soviet industry produce 20,000 combat aircraft in the first 12 months of the war. However, the Fuhrer knew something else: the content of the conversation between the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR and the Ambassador of Yugoslavia on July 14-18, 1940, Molotov, in particular, said: the plans outlined by Hitler in the book "My Struggle" will not be implemented, and if he intends to occupy Ukraine , then the Red Army will occupy Berlin.

From September 1940, the German secret services carried out a series of measures to mask the upcoming attack on the USSR. In order to more subtly hide the truth, rumors about just such an action were deliberately spread, so that the impression was created of a false leak of provocative information. At this time, V. Keitl repeated: a war with the Soviet Union is unlikely, but since the autumn of 1940, the General Staff of the German Ground Forces has been taking preventive measures in the event of an attack by the USSR, while speeding up preparations for a war with it. And Hitler, in turn, kept repeating: in July 1941, we will present decisive demands to Stalin on the terms of cooperation (calming down Italy and Japan). But the high command of the German army and navy saw that the question of war with the Soviet Union was practically resolved and its options were only being debated. So, on July 28, 1940, the head of the operational department of the fleet, Vice-Admiral K. Fricke, proposed the following plan: to occupy the Soviet Union along the Ladoga-Smolensk-Crimea line, and then dictate German peace conditions.

The war of nerves did not subside: in May 1941, Goebbels, at the request of the Fuhrer, ordered the composers to write music for a song dedicated to the invasion of England. Apparently, he did not know that in February 1941, Stalin was ahead of him with such an event (meaning the "Holy War").

Spreading rumors about a possible invasion of Ukraine, Goebbels denied them by others - about the arrival of Stalin himself in Berlin. For this purpose, in deep secrecy (but in such a way that it became known), red flags were sewn, so that even Nazi bosses believed in the reality of the visit of the owner of the Kremlin. And it is not surprising: the specific place of his negotiations with the Fuhrer was secretly called - Berlin or Koenigsberg, after which Stalin should go on vacation to Baden-Baden.

Goering organized the "leakage" of the "list of demands" to the Soviet Union: the demobilization of the Red Army, the control of German firms over Baku oil, the creation of a separate government in Ukraine, the guarantee of the German fleet entering the Pacific Ocean. Roman radio in mid-June 1941 even reported that the signing of an agreement on a military alliance between Germany and the USSR was being prepared.

Starting from March 24, sapper units of the Wehrmacht have been building fortifications along the Soviet-German border - as it turned out, fake ones.

Goebbels also distinguished himself by publishing the article "The Cross as an Example" in the newspaper (June 13, 1941). It contained undisguised threats against the UK. On the same day, by order of the Wehrmacht command, the issue was confiscated, and Goebbels publicly condemned his "shameful act." After all, he knew that 800,000 copies of Hitler’s appeal to the troops had long been in the printing houses, urging them to fight bravely against the Bolshevik empire…

... It is known that on November 10, 1940, a Soviet government delegation headed by Molotov left Moscow for Berlin. It consisted of 60 people, including 17 employees of the NKVD. They settled in Bellevue Castle in the Tiergarten. Molotov's talks on November 12-13 were aimed at one thing: to probe Hitler's intentions. If the Soviet people's commissar succeeded in this, the Nazi dictator only finally became convinced of a deep distrust of Stalin's promises. Mutual compliments (Hitler called the USSR " Russian Empire”, and Molotov qualified the Bosporus and Dardanelles as “historic gates of England to attack the Soviet Union”) did not save the situation. Perhaps Hitler became aware that a month ago, Stalin and Molotov considered possible variant war on two fronts: against Germany and the German allies - Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland, and in the east with Japan. Hitler tried to direct the interests of the USSR to East Asia and the Middle East. However, in a conversation with the Fuhrer, Molotov stubbornly insisted on the interest of the Soviet Union in Finland, Romania, Turkey and the straits, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, Greece, and recalled Germany's previous obligations. Soviet Premier did not deviate a single step from Stalin's instructions, repeating: we need bases in Bulgaria and an entrance to the Black Sea from the south, and not the Indian Ocean. Let Bulgaria take the Greek islands in the Aegean as a payment for providing the Navy of the Soviet Union with bases.

Hitler was indignant even without these claims: first, Stalin demanded Bessarabia for himself, then Bukovina, as if not noticing the services that Germany provided him during the Soviet-Finnish war. The pleasant in many respects conversation with R. Hess, in fact, the General Secretary of the NSDAP, did not smooth out the rough edges. Even though Molotov assured him: the parties and state institutions both countries - similar phenomena of a new type.

Hitler was so sure of a future victory over the USSR that on November 15, 1940, he signed a decree on the preparation of a German housing program after the war. It provided that 80% of the apartments will be 4-room (with an area of ​​at least 62 sq. m), 10% - 5-room (86 sq. m and more).

By the end of November 1940, the USSR was ready to sign five more secret protocols with Germany: on the withdrawal of German military units from Finland; Soviet fleet Bosphorus and Dardanelles. On November 26, at 8.50 am, the text of a document from Moscow under No. 2362 was handed over to the Reichs Chancellery, setting out the actual conditions under which the Soviet Union entered the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo bloc. Stalin never received an answer to it. However, Hitler was wrong, repeating the thesis of the German liberals in 1848 about Russia - a colossus with feet of clay.

Four months after the signing of the Barbarossa plan by Hitler, the Central Bureau was created in Berlin to prepare a solution to the issue of the Eastern space (later the Eastern Ministry), headed by A. Rosenberg. With the participation developed plans for the development Soviet territories: Crimea and the Baltic States would be turned into German colonies, Belarus, Little Russia and Turkestan - into buffer powers (with the expansion of their territory), a federation would arise in the Caucasus under the auspices of Germany, and Russia would turn into an object of German policy. G. Himmler expected to increase the birth rate in Ukraine, while simultaneously reducing it in Russia (for the latter, 2.9 million km 2 of territory with 60 million inhabitants would be left). However, Hitler considered such outlines too soft, ordering to focus on the eviction of the Slavs, Germanization and colonization.

Hitler, of course, wanted to destroy the "Bolshevik danger", but his main goal was to destroy the British Empire. It was this brilliant prospect that the Fuhrer drew to Molotov at the negotiations in Berlin in November 1940. He claimed that he wanted to create a world coalition of interested countries (with the participation of the Soviet Union), whose interests would be satisfied "at the expense of the British bankruptcy estate." But the negotiations showed that the division of spheres of influence on a global scale was hardly possible, and Hitler confirmed his decision to start a war against the USSR. The Fuhrer believed that the victory over the only possible ally of England in the east would not allow her to resist the onslaught of the Wehrmacht for a long time, and in the event of a protracted war, Germany would use the resources of Eastern Europe. Hitler spoke about this to the highest German military leaders as early as July 1940.

It should be noted that those German diplomats who did not want the outbreak of war deliberately embellished in their reports the readiness of the USSR to repulse the enemy, but in fact strengthened Hitler's distrust.

It was easy to get confused in the intricacies of various concepts. After all, Hitler was persuaded to be friends with Russia, and not to fight, F. Halder and W. Brauchitsch, and Goering, not remembering the difficulties of the economy, developed the idea of ​​drawing the USSR into a war with Britain. Admiral E. Raeder, General E. Rommel, B. Mussolini called for the 12 divisions to seize the Suez Canal no later than the autumn of 1941 and thereby bring England to its knees. Having visited Field Marshal T. von Bock in the hospital on December 3, 1940, Hitler heard from him a warning about the “factor of 1812” - the danger of a war with the Soviet Union, not knowing exactly its potential.

So, Hitler was ready at any convenient moment to violate the non-aggression pact. But until the last moment, both the Soviet Union and Germany pretended to be on good terms. This was caused not only by the desire to mislead a potential enemy. The Treaty of Friendship was beneficial to both countries from an economic point of view and therefore respected. When, at the end of 1940, the USSR agreed to increase grain supplies to Germany by 10 percent, Germany was forced in return to increase the supply of aluminum and cobalt to the USSR, which the Soviet industry was then short of. The USSR also received cars, machine tools and weapons. Within two years, taking into account the experience of conflicts in Far East and the war with Finland, the USSR was able to significantly improve the combat effectiveness of its armed forces, create new types of weapons and begin military production in the east of the country and in the Urals.

However, in general, the USSR was not ready for war. In the spring of 1941, Germany was objectively in an advantageous position. She had a battle-tested army, an established production of the most modern weapons and all the resources of Europe. In the West, no one, except England, offered resistance, and the United States took an indefinite position.

In the USSR, the political leadership was convinced that there was still time before the war. The personnel of the Soviet armed forces suffered serious losses due to repressions. The mass production of the latest weapons was not mastered. There was no clear concept of warfare: even after the Finnish company, the command staff of the Red Army was convinced that the enemy would be beaten on its territory. Finally, Soviet propaganda obviously went too far, demonstrating confidence that there would be no war with Germany. On June 14, 1941, TASS was still officially denying rumors of a possible war, and those who tried to talk about it risked their freedom. However, some measures have been taken. In June 1940, the USSR introduced a six-day work week and an eight-hour working day (since August 1929, the working week was five days, the working day was seven hours long), and absenteeism could be brought to justice. Workers have lost the right to freely change jobs. At the beginning of 1941, changes were made to the five-year plan in order to speed up the implementation of military programs. Soviet diplomacy achieved great success: on April 13, 1941, an agreement was concluded with Japan on neutrality, and at least for a while the danger of a war on two fronts was over.

Stalin continued to believe that Germany would not violate the non-aggression pact. Messages about the inevitability of Hitler's aggression against the USSR, and in the very near future, received both through the channels of foreign intelligence and from some Western leaders, he regarded as a provocation. Even in the military units stationed in the western regions, many commanders went on scheduled vacations in June 1941. No one in the country, from a great leader to an ordinary border guard, was seriously prepared for the fact that in the early morning of June 22, 1941, German troops crossed the Soviet border.

Stalin seemed to be confused. So much so that he even ordered V.M. Molotov. The leader himself decided to address the people only on July 3. "Brothers and sisters ..." - so he called his listeners.

When concluding the treaties in 1939, both the Nazi leadership and the Stalinist entourage understood that the agreements were temporary and a military clash in the future was inevitable. The question was only about timing.

Already in the first months of the Second World War, the leadership of the USSR, relying on the agreements reached with Germany, decided to implement its own military-political plans. With the approval of their German partner, the Stalinist leadership concluded mutual assistance treaties with the Baltic states - September 28, 1939 with Estonia, October 5 with Latvia, October 10 with Lithuania. We will not touch upon the ministries, nor the foreign and financial policy, nor the economic system," that the very expediency of concluding such agreements is explained only by "Germany's war with England and France."

Subsequently, the tone of the talks changed noticeably: they began to take place in an atmosphere of dictatorship on the part of the Soviet participants. In June 1940, at the request of Molotov, some members of the cabinet of A. Merkys in Lithuania were removed. Molotov then demanded that Lithuanian Minister of the Interior Skucas and the head of the political police department Povilaitis be brought to justice immediately as "the direct perpetrators of provocative actions against the Soviet garrison in Lithuania." On June 14, he also addressed an ultimatum to the government of Lithuania, in which he demanded the formation of a new, pro-Soviet government, the immediate passage of Soviet troops into the territory of a neighboring sovereign state "to place them in the most important centers of Lithuania" in an amount sufficient to prevent "provocative actions" against the Soviet garrison in Lithuania. On June 16, Molotov demanded from the government of Latvia the formation of a pro-Soviet government and the introduction of additional troops. 9 hours were allotted for considering the ultimatum. On the same day, with an interval of only thirty minutes, the Soviet People's Commissar presented a similar ultimatum to the representative of Estonia. The requirements of the Soviet leadership were met. On June 17, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR granted A.A. Zhdanov and A.Ya. Vyshinsky. Previously, such powers were granted to V.G. Dekanozov. Stalin's representatives took up the selection of new cabinets of ministers, and through the Comintern and the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - preparing public opinion for joining the USSR. On July 14, elections to the highest economic bodies were held in the Baltic states. And on July 21, declarations on state power were adopted in Lithuania and Latvia (in which Soviet system its organization) and the declaration of joining the USSR. On the same day, the Estonian State Duma adopted a similar document on state power, and a day later, a declaration on Estonia's accession to the USSR.

Similarly, the leadership of the USSR decided the fate of Bessarabia, occupied by Romania in 1918. On June 27, 1940, the USSR presented an ultimatum to the government of Romania, which proposed the liberation by the Romanian troops and the occupation by the Soviet armed forces of the territory of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina within 4 days. Rumania's appeal for help to England and Germany did not give positive results. On the evening of June 27, the proposals of the USSR were adopted by the Crown Council of Romania. And on June 28, the Red Army began to occupy these territories.

Relations between the USSR and Finland developed in a special way. Back in the spring of 1939, the Soviet government "in the interests of ensuring the security of Leningrad and Murmansk" suggested that Finland consider leasing certain islands in the Gulf of Finland to the USSR for the defense of sea approaches to Leningrad. At the same time, it was proposed to agree on a partial change of the border on the Karelian Isthmus with compensation due to a much larger territory in Karelia. These proposals were rejected by the Finnish side. At the same time, measures were taken in Finland to ensure the country's security. Reservists were mobilized into the army, direct contacts of the Finnish command with the highest military officials of Germany, England and Sweden intensified.

New negotiations, begun in mid-October 1939 at the initiative of the USSR, on the conclusion of a defensive joint treaty with mutual territorial concessions also reached an impasse.

In the last days of November, the Soviet Union, in an ultimatum form, offered Finland to unilaterally withdraw its troops 20-25 km deep into the territory. In response, the Finnish proposal was made to withdraw the Soviet troops to the same distance, which would mean doubling the distance between the Finnish troops and Leningrad. However, official Soviet representatives, who were not satisfied with this development of events, declared the "absurdity" of such proposals by the Finnish side, "reflecting the deep hostility of the Government of Finland to the Soviet Union." After that, war between the two countries became inevitable. On November 30, Soviet troops began fighting against Finland. In unleashing the war, the decisive role was played not so much by the desire to ensure the security of the northwestern borders of the USSR, but by the political ambitions of Stalin and his entourage, their confidence in military superiority over a weak small state.

Stalin's original plan was to create a puppet government of "People's Finland" headed by Kuusinen. But the course of the war thwarted these plans. The fighting took place mainly on the Karelian Isthmus. A quick defeat of the Finnish troops did not work. The fighting took on a protracted character. The commanding staff acted timidly, passively, the weakening of the army as a result of the mass repressions of 1937-1938 affected. All this led to great losses, failures, slow progress. The war threatened to drag on. The League of Nations offered mediation to resolve the conflict. On December 11, the 20th session of the Assembly of the League of Nations formed a special committee on the Finnish question, and the next day this committee turned to the Soviet and Finnish leadership with a proposal to stop hostilities and start peace negotiations. The Finnish government immediately accepted this proposal. However, in Moscow this act was perceived as a sign of weakness. Molotov responded with a categorical refusal to the call of the League of Nations. In response to this, on December 14, 1939, the Council of the League adopted a resolution on the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations, condemned "the actions of the USSR directed against the Finnish state" and called on the member countries of the League to support Finland. In England, the formation of a 40,000th expeditionary force began. The governments of France, the United States and other countries were preparing to send military and food aid to Finland.

Meanwhile, the Soviet command, having regrouped and significantly strengthened its troops, launched a new offensive on February 11, 1940, which this time ended with a breakthrough of the fortified areas of the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus and the retreat of the Finnish troops. The Finnish government agreed to peace talks. On March 12, a truce was concluded, and on March 13 hostilities at the front ceased. Finland accepted the conditions offered to it earlier. The security of Leningrad, Murmansk and the Murmansk railway was ensured. But the prestige of the Soviet Union was seriously damaged. The Soviet Union was excluded from the League of Nations as an aggressor. The prestige of the Red Army also fell. The losses of the Soviet troops amounted to 67 thousand people, Finnish 23 thousand. In the West, and above all in Germany, there was an opinion about the internal weakness of the Red Army, about the possibility of achieving an easy victory over it in a short time. The results of the Soviet-Finnish war confirmed Hitler's aggressive plans against the USSR.

The growing danger of war was taken into account by the leadership of the USSR in the plans for the development of the country's economy. There was a wide economic development of the eastern regions of the country, old industrial centers were modernized and new industrial centers were created in the rear. Double enterprises were built in the Urals, in the republics Central Asia, in Kazakhstan, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Far East.

In 1939, on the basis of the People's Commissariat of the Defense Industry, 4 new People's Commissariats were created: the aviation industry, shipbuilding, ammunition, weapons. The defense industry developed at a faster pace. During the three years of the Third Five-Year Plan, the annual increase in industrial production amounted to 13%, and defense - 33%. During this time, about 3900 large enterprises were put into operation, built in such a way that they could be transferred to the production of military equipment and weapons in a short time. The implementation of plans in the field of industry was fraught with great difficulties. The metallurgical and coal industries could not cope with planned targets. Steel production declined, and there was practically no increase in coal production. This created serious difficulties in the development of the national economy, which was especially dangerous in the face of the growing threat of a military attack.

The aviation industry lagged behind, mass production of new types of weapons was not established. Huge damage was caused by repressions against the personnel of designers and heads of defense industries. In addition, due to economic isolation, it was impossible to acquire the necessary machine park and advanced technology abroad. Some problems with new technology were resolved after the conclusion of an economic agreement with Germany in 1939, but the implementation of this agreement, especially in 1940, was constantly disrupted by Germany.

The government took emergency measures aimed at strengthening labor discipline, increasing the intensity of labor and training qualified personnel. In the autumn of 1940, a decision was made to create state labor reserves (FZU).

Measures were taken to strengthen the Soviet Armed Forces. In 1941, 3 times more funds were allocated for defense needs than in 1939. The number of personnel army increased (1937 - 1433 thousand, 1941 - 4209 thousand). The equipment of the army increased with equipment. On the eve of the war, the KV heavy tank, the T-34 medium tank (the best tank in the world during the war), as well as the Yak-1, MIG-3, LA-4, LA-7, Il-2 attack aircraft, Pe-2 bomber. However, the mass production of new technology has not yet been established. Stalin expected to complete the rearmament of the army in 1942, hoping to "outwit" Hitler, strictly observing the agreements reached.

In order to strengthen the combat power of the Armed Forces, a number of organizational measures were taken.

On September 1, the Law on universal conscription and the transition of the Red Army to a personnel recruitment system was adopted. The draft age was reduced from 21 to 19 years, increasing the number of recruits. The network of higher and secondary educational institutions- 19 military academies and 203 military schools were created. In August 1940, complete unity of command was introduced in the army and navy. At the same time, army party organizations were strengthened, and measures were taken to improve party political work. Much attention was paid to improving discipline as the basis for the combat capability of the troops, and combat and operational training was intensified.

Since the middle of 1940, after the victory over France, the Hitlerite leadership, continuing to increase military production and deployment of the army, began direct preparations for war with the USSR. On the borders with the Soviet Union, the concentration of troops began under the guise of rest in preparation for Operation Sea Lion. The Soviet leadership was inspired by the idea of ​​deploying troops in order to advance to the Middle East to seize British possessions.

Hitler launched a diplomatic game with Stalin, involving him in negotiations on joining the "tripartite pact" (Germany, Italy, Japan) and dividing spheres of influence in the world - the "legacy of the British Empire." The probing of this idea showed that Stalin favorably reacted to such a possibility. In November 1940, Molotov was sent to Berlin for negotiations.

On November 12 and 13, 1940, Hitler held two lengthy conversations with Molotov, during which the prospects of the USSR joining the "Pact of Three" were discussed in principle. As issues in which the USSR is interested, Molotov named "ensuring the interests of the USSR in the Black Sea and the straits", as well as in Bulgaria, Persia (in the direction of the Persian Gulf) and some other regions. Hitler raised the question of the USSR's participation in the "dividing of the British inheritance" before the Soviet Prime Minister. And here he also found mutual understanding, however, Molotov suggested first discussing other issues that are presented to him at the meeting. this moment more relevant. It is quite possible that Molotov was afraid to give England a pretext for complicating Soviet-British relations. But something else is also possible - Molotov wanted confirmation of his authority to negotiate on these issues from Stalin. One way or another, having told Hitler that he "agreed with everything," Molotov departed for Moscow.

On November 25, the German ambassador to Moscow, Count Schulenburg, was invited to the Kremlin for a secret conversation. Molotov informed him that the Soviet Government could, under certain conditions, join the "Pact of Three". The conditions of the Soviet side were as follows: the immediate withdrawal of German troops from Finland; securing the Black Sea borders of the USSR; the creation of Soviet bases in the area of ​​the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; recognition of Soviet interests in the areas south of Baku and Batumi in the direction of the Persian Gulf; Japan's renunciation of the rights to coal and oil concessions on Sakhalin Island. After laying out the terms, Molotov expressed the hope that an answer would soon be received from Berlin. But there was no response. On December 18, 1940, the Barbarossa plan was signed, Germany was closely involved in preparing an attack on the USSR, and its diplomatic service regularly stated through the Soviet ambassador in Berlin that a response to Stalin was being prepared, agreed with the rest of the participants in the pact, and was about to arrive. This confirmed Stalin's opinion that there would be no war in 1941, and he regarded all the warnings about the impending attack as the intrigues of England, which sees its salvation in the conflict between the USSR and Germany.

Meanwhile, in March 1941, German troops were brought into Bulgaria. In April - early May, Germany occupied Yugoslavia and Greece. In late May - early June, the island of Crete was captured by German airborne troops, which ensured air supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean.

In the spring of 1941 it became increasingly clear that the situation was becoming threatening. In March-April, intensive work was underway at the Soviet General Staff to refine the plan for covering the western borders and the mobilization plan in case of war with Germany. In late May - early June, at the request of the military leadership, 500 thousand reservists were called up from the reserve and at the same time another 300 thousand assigned staff to staff the fortified areas and special branches of the armed forces with specialists. In mid-May, instructions were given to the border districts to speed up the construction of fortified areas on the state border.

In the second half of May, the transfer of 28 rifle divisions began from the internal districts by rail to the western borders.

By this time, on the borders with the Soviet Union from the Barents to the Black Sea, in accordance with the Barbarossa plan, the main forces of the Nazi Reich and its allies were completing the deployment - 154 German divisions (of which 33 were tank and motorized) and 37 divisions of Germany's allies (Finland, Romania , Hungary).

Stalin received big number reports through various channels about an imminent German attack, but there was no response from Berlin to proposals for a new agreement. To sound out Germany's position, a TASS statement was made on June 14, 1941 that the USSR and Germany were fulfilling their obligations under the treaty. This TASS statement did not shake Hitler's position; there was not even a report about it in the German press. But Soviet people and the Armed Forces were misled.

Despite the demands of the military leadership, even in this threatening situation, Stalin did not allow the troops of the border districts to be put on alert, and the NKVD, on the instructions of Beria, carried out arrests for "alarmist moods and disbelief in the policy of friendship with Germany."

In the course of the pre-war crisis, created by the preparations for war by fascist Germany against Poland, a world military conflict broke out, which they failed, and some political circles of Western states did not want to prevent. In turn, the efforts of the USSR to organize a rebuff to the aggressor were not completely consistent. The conclusion of a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany brought the Soviet Union out of the threat of war on two fronts in 1939, delayed the clash with Germany for two years and made it possible to strengthen the country economically and military-strategically. However, these opportunities have not been fully exploited.

The Western countries fell victim to the policy of encouraging aggression and collapsed under the blows of the Hitlerite war machine. However, the support of Germany from the Soviet Union, carried out at the initiative of Stalin, caused damage to the anti-fascist forces and contributed to the strengthening of Germany during the initial period of the world war. Dogmatic faith in the observance of treaties with Hitler and Stalin's inability to assess the real military-political situation did not allow using the received delay of a military clash to fully prepare the country for an imminent war.

Reasons for the failures of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the aggression. Disruption of the lightning war plan.

Period 1941 -1945 - one of the most tragic, but also heroic pages in the history of our Motherland. For four long years the Soviet people waged a mortal struggle against Hitler's fascism. It was in the full sense of the word the Great Patriotic War. It was about the life and death of our state, our people. The war of fascist Germany pursued the goal not only of capturing living space - new territories, rich natural resources and fertile land, but also the destruction of the existing social structure of the USSR, the extermination of a significant part of the population. Hitler repeatedly stated that the destruction of the USSR as a socialist state is the meaning of his whole life, the goal for which the National Socialist movement exists. Concretizing this idea of ​​the Fuhrer, one of the directives of the "Economic Headquarters Ost" indicated: "Many millions of people will become redundant in this territory, they will have to die or move to Siberia ...". And these theories and plans were not empty words.

The Great Patriotic War still continues to be at the forefront of ideological and political battles, causing a violent clash of different points of view. In the part of Western, and now our historiography, attempts do not stop to rewrite its history, at least to some extent to rehabilitate the aggressor, to present his perfidious actions as a “preventive war” against “Soviet expansionism”. These attempts are complemented by a desire to distort the question of "the main architect of victory", to cast doubt on the USSR's decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism.

Fascist Germany prepared well in advance and carefully for a war against the Soviet Union. Back in December 1940, at the height of the air attack on England, the Barbarossa plan was approved, which outlined the military plans of the Nazis in the East. They provided for the lightning defeat of the Soviet Union during one summer campaign in 1941, even before the end of the war with England. For 2 - 3 months, the fascist army was supposed to capture Leningrad, Moscow, Kyiv, the Central Industrial Region, Donbass and reach the Volga line along the Astrakhan - Arkhangelsk line. Reaching this line was considered winning the war.

On June 22, 1941, at 4 o'clock in the morning, the fascist German troops, without declaring war, unleashed a blow of tremendous force on the borders of the Soviet state. In the early days, events developed almost exactly according to the Barbarossa plan. The command of the fascist army already believed that the days of the Soviet state were numbered. However, the blitzkrieg did not work out. It took on a protracted character, lasting 1418 days and nights.

Historians distinguish four periods in it: the first - from June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942; the second - from November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943 - the period of a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War; the third - from the beginning of 1944 to May 8, 1945 - the period of the defeat of Nazi Germany; the fourth - from August 9 to September 2, 1945 - the period of the defeat of imperialist Japan.

Military historians identify another period: the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, which took a little less than a month. During this time, major and truly tragic events took place.

The fascist army group "North" captured almost the entire Baltic, entered the territory Leningrad region and started fighting at the turn of the Luga River.

Army Group Center captured almost all of Belarus, came close to Smolensk and began fighting for the city.

Army Group "South" captured a significant part of the Right Bank of Ukraine, approached Kiev and started a battle in its vicinity.

Until now, people often wonder: how did this happen? Why did the fascist army in an extremely short time penetrate deeply into the borders of our country and create a mortal threat to the vital centers of the Soviet state? There are different answers to these questions. Their main difference lies in what reasons - objective or subjective - are brought to the fore.

We proceeded from the premise that the causes of our failures at the beginning of the war were primarily of an objective nature. In the first place among them I would like to put the great superiority of fascist Germany in the field of material means of warfare. In its hands were the economic and military resources of almost the entire Western Europe, huge reserves of metal, strategic raw materials, metallurgical and military plants, all weapons. This allowed the Nazis to saturate the troops not only with a variety of military equipment, but also by means of transportation, which increased their striking power, mobility and maneuverability. According to these indicators, the Wehrmacht surpassed the Soviet troops, which were in the process of rearmament and reorganization.

We were still poor in order to set up the mass production of new weapons and military equipment in a timely manner, to adequately equip the army with everything necessary. Given our material capabilities, we needed more time to prepare to repel aggression. Therefore, by the beginning of the war, our army was significantly inferior to the army of Nazi Germany in terms of technical equipment. We were extremely lacking in road transport, which made the troops inactive. We also lacked modern tanks and combat aircraft, automatic small arms, modern means of communication, and so on.

The Germans also outnumbered us in manpower. The population of the conquered states of Europe, together with Germany, was 400 million people, and in our country - 197 million people. This allowed the Nazis to put a large part of the German population under arms, using the population of enslaved countries to work in the military industry.

Further, the fascist armies had extensive experience in modern warfare. As waging war, they were able to improve faster military equipment, to work out the most optimal methods of its use in combat conditions. As a result, by the time of the attack on the Soviet Union, the army of Nazi Germany was the strongest and most prepared in the capitalist world. Its power increased especially rapidly with the outbreak of the Second World War. To solve the tasks of the Barbarossa plan, the German command allocated 152 divisions (including 19 tank and 15 motorized) and 2 brigades. In addition, Finland, Romania and Hungary contributed 29 more infantry divisions and 16 brigades. They were opposed by 170 of our divisions and 2 brigades, which were part of the western military districts. They had 2 million 680 thousand people in their ranks.

And, finally, the suddenness of the German attack for the personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR, for the entire Soviet people, although not for their political and military leadership. But here the factors of a subjective nature already begin.

One of them is Stalin's overestimation of diplomatic means in delaying the war. Knowing our unpreparedness for war, he tried to prevent it from starting in 1941. To do this, he demanded the punctual implementation of the non-aggression pact and the trade agreement, and in every possible way looked for an opportunity to start a diplomatic dialogue with the Germans. Not wanting to listen to intelligence reports, to the advice of military and diplomatic workers, Stalin at the same time treated the admonitions of the enemy with confidence. In 1941 he sent a confidential letter to Hitler, in which he sharpened the question of Germany's military preparations near our borders. Having dispelled Stalin's fears "by the honor of the Reich Chancellor", Hitler explained in his answer that the maneuvers of 130 German divisions (!!!) near the borders of the USSR were dictated by the need to prepare them for an invasion of England beyond the reach of British aviation. On Stalin's initiative, on June 14, 1941, a TASS report was published stating that there was talk in the West that a war between the Soviet Union and Germany would begin in the near future. And further it was proved that these conversations have no grounds. Giving this message, Stalin declared: “We need to hold out for 2-3 months. In the autumn the Germans will not start the war. And by the spring of 1942 we will be ready.” Counting on this message to start a dialogue, Stalin was mistaken. The diplomatic means he chose did not help to postpone the war.

To avoid war, Stalin demanded that the military not give the Germans a reason to unleash it. To do this, the troops had to remain in place, not to carry out exercises and maneuvers near the border, and not even interfere with the flights of German aircraft over our territory. The military knew how the violation of Stalin's will would end, and they complied with his demands. As a result, our army remained peacefully deployed until the war itself. This put her in an extremely difficult position. It turned out to be stretched both along the front and in depth. Whereas the German army was compressed into three shock fists, with which it beat on this stretched grid. In the directions of the main attacks, the Germans had a huge superiority, which made it easy to shred our battle formations.

The military, and above all the chief of the General Staff, General of the Army G.K. Zhukov, persistently suggested that Stalin bring the army to a state of combat readiness. But he categorically rejected such proposals, confidently relying on his diplomatic skills. He yielded only a day before the start of the war. But the directive on bringing the troops on combat readiness to the executors did not have time to arrive.

A serious reason for our failures was also Stalinist repressions. They affected thousands of military leaders. Many major Soviet military theorists were repressed. Among them are M.N. Tukhachevsky, A.N. Egorov, I.P. Uborevich, A.A. Svechin, Ya.Ya. Alknis, S.M. Belitsky, A.M. Volke, A.V. Golubev, G.S. Isserson, V.A. Medikov, A.I. Cork, N.E. Kakurin, R.P. Eideman, A.N. Lapchinsky, A.I. Verkhovsky, G.D. Guy and many others. Without a doubt, this caused enormous damage to the combat capability of the Red Army.

For example, it takes at least 10-12 years to train a major of the General Staff, and 20 years for a commander. And almost all of them were repressed. This disorganized the army, pulled talented commanders out of its ranks. In their place, often insufficiently literate and experienced people came. 85% commanders of our Armed Forces held their posts for less than a year. By the beginning of the war, only 7% of commanders had higher military education, and 37% did not pass and full course training in secondary military educational institutions. Of the 733 senior commanders and political workers (starting with the brigade commander and up to the Marshal of the Soviet Union), 579 were repressed. From May 1937 to September 1938, almost all division and brigade commanders, all corps commanders and commanders of military districts, most political workers were repressed corps, divisions and brigades, about half of the regimental commanders, a third of the regimental commissars. Almost all of this information about the losses of the command staff of the Red Army was known to German intelligence. It is no coincidence that General F. Halder, Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces of Nazi Germany, wrote in May 1941: “The Russian officer corps is exceptionally bad. It makes a worse impression than in 1933. It will take Russia 20 years to reach its former height.” True, Halder was mistaken, the officer corps of the Red Army was recreated during the Great Patriotic War. However, they had to pay a very high price for it.

Distortions in ideological work also affected the failures of the initial period of the war. For a long time, such negative stereotypes as the belief in the absolute invincibility of the Red Army, the weakness and limitations of the enemy, and the low moral and political state of his rear were clearly expressed in the public consciousness of the Soviet people. “The Soviet people were told so much about the colossal power of the Red Army,” A. Werth wrote, “that ... the irresistible advance of the Germans ... was a terrible blow for him. Many wondered how this could have happened. However, in the face of a terrible threat, there was no time to analyze the causes of what had happened. Some, however, quietly grumbled, but ... the only thing left was to fight the invaders.

There were other reasons as well. But they played a less significant role and had less serious consequences. The question is often asked: how did it happen that, having put the Soviet Union on the brink of catastrophe, fascist Germany not only failed to consolidate its success, but also suffered defeat itself?

Despite the strongest Hitler strike, our colossal losses (on the very first day of the war, 900 aircraft were destroyed by the Germans at airfields alone), the Soviet people courageously faced the danger hanging over the country. The plan to defeat the Red Army in frontier battles was not carried out. Her resistance grew, crossing out the operational plans and schedules of the Wehrmacht command, punctually calculated by the day and hour. Already in the first days of the war, our troops not only defended, but also went on the offensive: on June 23-25, the troops of the North-Western and Western fronts carried out an offensive operation, on July 6-8, in the Liepaja region, the Nazis were driven back 30-40 km.

This was achieved at the cost of the heroic efforts and dedication of Soviet soldiers and officers. Thus, the soldiers of the 100th Infantry Division, having an extremely limited number of anti-tank weapons, for 4 whole days held back the advance of the enemy mechanized corps, which had 340 tanks. In the fight against tanks, they used ordinary bottles of gasoline. Mainly with their help, 126 tanks were destroyed. There are thousands of such examples. The special patriotism of the Soviet people, who defended their Motherland, had an effect. This was not taken into account by the fascist leadership. G. Goering at the Nuremberg trials said that it knew well how many guns, tanks, aircraft the Red Army had and what quality. But it did not know the mysterious soul of the Russian man, and this ignorance became fatal. But, of course, this is not the only thing.

From its first hours, the war was for the CPSU(b) and its members a test of their readiness to act in emergency conditions, to play the role of organizers and leaders, to mobilize the masses in word and deed to defend the Motherland. Without participating in the determination of the political course, without being able to influence decision-making, ordinary communists were the first to take a hit, paying for miscalculations, mistakes and direct crimes of the leadership. They maintained the party's ties with the masses, its authority among the people.

The overwhelming majority of communists, including party activists, showed themselves worthily in the extreme conditions of the first days of the war. However, fettered by obligatory submission to higher authorities, they had the right to act in accordance with the situation only within limited limits. It should be noted that the seriousness of the moment was not realized everywhere. The war, which in peacetime was spoken of as an inevitable but distant prospect, turned out to be unexpected for those who were accustomed to acting on direct instructions from the center, and many party workers at first were not fully aware of their tasks.

At the beginning of the war, the necessary work was carried out in the military-organizational field. To guide the Armed Forces, the Headquarters of the High Command was created under the chairmanship of I.V. Stalin. Somewhat later, Stalin's positions were further strengthened: he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

The war also necessitated the introduction of a special administration of the country. On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created, headed by I.V. Stalin. It included: V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, G.M. Malenkov, N.A. Bulganin, L.P. Beria, N.A. Voznesensky, L.M. Kaganovich, A.I. Mikoyan. All power in the state was concentrated in the hands of this body. Its decisions were binding on all citizens of the Soviet state, party, Soviet, trade union, Komsomol organizations and military bodies. Local defense committees were created in the front-line cities. They united, under party leadership, civil and military power in the localities.

Particular attention was paid to strengthening the morale of the troops and the entire population of the country. On July 16, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution "On the reorganization of political propaganda bodies and the introduction of the institution of military commissars in the Red Army."

However, it was not possible to achieve full stability of the moral factor in the initial period of the war. This was hampered, first of all, by the strategic situation on the fronts, which was developing contrary to pre-war ideas about the invincibility of the Red Army, its ability to defeat any enemy with "little blood, a mighty blow."

At the same time, a task of exceptional importance was being solved - transferring the national economy of the country to a military footing, deploying military production in the east of the country, and evacuating material resources and people from areas occupied by the enemy. In the summer and autumn of 1941, 10 million people, 1,523 enterprises, including 1,360 large ones, were evacuated and placed in the Urals, Siberia, the Volga region, and Kazakhstan. In a new place, in an exceptionally short time, sometimes after one or two weeks, the factories began to produce products.

In the initial period of the war, great efforts were made to strengthen the Armed Forces, restore and improve their combat effectiveness. This was more than necessary, because in the first six months of the war, 3.9 million Soviet military personnel were captured, of which by the beginning of 1942 only 1.1 million remained alive. In the rear of the country, the formation of new formations was widely deployed.

With the end of the initial period of the war, the situation at the front was still developing in favor of the Germans. On September 9, they came close to Leningrad, starting its 900-day siege. Surrounding the main forces of our South Western Front, the Nazis captured Kyiv. In the center was the famous battle of Smolensk, here the enemy was 300 km from Moscow.

The fascist German command believed that the capture of the capital of the USSR would make it possible in the main to complete military operations in the East before winter. The battle near Moscow began on September 30, 1941 and ended on January 8, 1942. It has two periods: defensive - from September 30 to December 4, 1941 and a counteroffensive period - from December 5 - 6, 1941 to January 7 - 8, 1942 During the defensive period, the Nazi troops carried out two general offensives, as a result of which they came close to Moscow in the northwest and north, but could not take it.

This was made possible thanks to the unsurpassed heroism and resilience of the Soviet troops. Tens and hundreds of thousands of warriors, risking themselves, held the defensive lines to the end. Often the enemy managed to move forward only by destroying all the defenders. The soldiers of the divisions distinguished themselves to the greatest extent: the 316th General I.V. Panfilov, 78th Colonel V.P. Beloborodov, 32nd Colonel V.I. Polosukhin, 50th General I.F. Lebedenko, as well as communist companies and battalions formed from Muscovites.

On December 5, 1941, a turning point came in the Battle of Moscow. Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive, which was planned in advance. In a short time, the enemy strike groupings were defeated and thrown back from Moscow by 100-250 km. The counteroffensive near Moscow in early January 1942 developed into a general offensive of the Soviet troops in the main strategic directions. During it, about 50 enemy divisions were defeated. Only the ground forces of the Wehrmacht lost almost 833 thousand people.

A significant role in these successes was played by the nationwide struggle behind enemy lines. In the occupied territory, the fight against the invaders was led by more than 250 underground regional committees, city committees and district committees of the party. By the end of 1941, more than 2 thousand partisan detachments were operating, the core of which were communists and Komsomol members. The partisans smashed the headquarters, attacked the garrisons, blew up warehouses and bases, cars and trains, destroyed bridges and means of communication.

In the initial period of the war, the people's militia was actively formed, which played an important role in strengthening the front-line rear and replenishing the troops with reserves. 36 divisions joined the active army militia of which 26 went through the entire war, and 8 were awarded the title of guards.

The defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow is the decisive military-political event of the first year of the Great Patriotic War and the first major defeat of the Germans in World War II. Near Moscow, the fascist plan for the rapid defeat of the USSR was finally thwarted. The "blitzkrieg" strategy, successfully used by the Nazis in Western Europe, proved to be untenable in the fight against the Soviet Union. Germany was faced with the prospect of waging a protracted war for which she had not prepared.

The victory near Moscow raised the international prestige of the USSR, had a positive impact on the fighting of the allies on other fronts, contributed to the strengthening of the national liberation movement in the occupied countries, and accelerated the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Fascist Germany, plotting an attack on the Soviet Union, hoped that it would be possible to isolate the USSR in the international arena, to unite the main capitalist powers against it, and above all the United States and Britain. However, these plans were not destined to come true.

Already in the first days of the Hitlerite attack, the governments of Britain and the United States declared their intention to support the Soviet Union. On July 12, 1941, the USSR and England signed an agreement "On joint actions in the war against Germany." In early August, the US government decided to provide economic assistance to our country. Contacts were established with the Free French National Committee, with the emigrant governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland and other occupied countries. Thus, the foundation of the anti-fascist coalition was laid.

In early December 1941, Japan suddenly attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor (Hawaii). The US went to war with Japan, and then with Germany and Italy. This accelerated the formation of the anti-fascist coalition; on January 1, 1942, 26 states, including the USSR, Britain and China, signed a declaration on pooling military and economic resources to defeat the fascist bloc. By the autumn of 1942, the anti-fascist coalition already included 34 states with a population of about 1.5 billion people.

Under the influence of the victories of the Red Army, the resistance movement intensified in all 12 countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis. In total, 2.2 million people took part in it, of which most were in Yugoslavia, Poland, and France. By their actions, they distracted tens of thousands of enemy soldiers, weakened the rear of the fascist army.

Having achieved significant results during the winter offensive, the Red Army was still unable to fully solve the tasks assigned to it in defeating the enemy. The main reason for this was the lack of superiority in forces and means over the enemy, as well as sufficient experience in conducting offensive operations in modern warfare. In addition, the factors that gave temporary advantages to the aggressor have not yet completely exhausted themselves. Nazi Germany still possessed powerful military and economic resources. The position of her army was made easier by the fact that there was still no second front in Europe (although the allies promised to open it in 1942), and Germany could maneuver with its own forces, transferring reserves to the Soviet-German front. And yet, in the summer of 1942, the Germans were unable to organize an offensive along the entire front, concentrating their efforts only in the southern direction.

The success of the Germans here was also facilitated by two unsuccessfully carried out by us offensive operations. Near Kharkov, as a result of our defeat, the army and the army group were surrounded. Part of the forces fought out of the encirclement, but suffered heavy losses. The failure in the Crimea led to the fact that we left the Kerch Peninsula and put the defenders of Sevastopol in a stalemate. Despite the unprecedented stamina and heroism in the eleven-month defense, they were forced to leave the city on the night of July 2.

The German command launched an offensive in two directions - to the Caucasus and Stalingrad, hoping to deprive us of the last large agricultural region, to seize the North Caucasian oil, and if possible, the oil of the Transcaucasus. Despite the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, the Nazis captured the Donbass, the Right Bank of the Don, approached the foothills of the Main Caucasian Range, created a direct threat to Stalingrad.

The main event of the armed struggle on the Soviet-German front in the second half of 1942 - early 1943 was the Battle of Stalingrad. It began on July 17 with the breakthrough of the Nazi troops into the big bend of the Don. Its defensive period lasted 4 months and ended on November 18, 1942. The enemy tried to capture the city at all costs, we defended it with even greater stubbornness.

By the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad, our army had already learned how to fight. A new detachment of talented commanders has grown up, who have mastered well the methods of conducting modern combat. The increase in the technical equipment of the troops played a significant role in the defense of the city. By this time, much more weapons were coming to the front than before, although there were still not enough of them. But this shortage was no longer catastrophic. Near Stalingrad, the Soviet command began to form tank armies, which later became the main striking force of the fronts. The number of artillery and combat aircraft also increased.

One of the reasons for the victory of our troops in the defense of Stalingrad is heroism and steadfastness Soviet soldiers. Until the last opportunity, they defended every hillock, every house, every street, every enterprise. Often, when attacking, the enemy occupied them only when all the defenders were killed. The names of the soldiers who fought on the banks of Malaya Rossoshka, on the Mamaev Kurgan, in the workshops of the Barrikady plant, in a residential building called Pavlov's House, and in other places have gone down in history forever. Even the fascist newspaper Berliner Berzenzeitung of October 14, 1942, described the battles in Stalingrad in this way: “For those who survive the battle, overstraining all their feelings, this hell will remain forever in their memory, as if it had been scorched with a red-hot iron. The traces of this struggle will never be erased ... Our offensive, despite the numerical superiority, does not lead to success.

During the first period of the war, the Stalinist totalitarian-bureaucratic system also underwent a certain evolution. It could not function in the old way, since the very first battles of the war showed that people promoted to command posts after purges and repressions often do not know how or even are not able to act on their own initiative. Blind execution of the order did little. The punishability of the initiative in the prewar years led to the fact that at all levels of government there were many performers, but there was a catastrophic lack of worthy organizers and leaders. In addition, Stalin's power became virtually absolute: he simultaneously headed the Council of People's Commissars, the State Defense Committee, the People's Commissariat of Defense, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, was the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (practically the General Secretary), and also held a number of other positions. The need to resolve all issues through Stalin, a person who was not sufficiently competent in military affairs, led to delays, loss of time, and often to wrong decisions. Pre-war crimes of the regime ( mass repression, dispossession, ignoring national specifics) led to the fact that among the opponents of the Red Army were tens of thousands of people inside the country, especially in national areas.

Initially, the actions of the Stalinist regime were in line with the pre-war policy. The families of the commanders who surrendered were arrested, and the families of the Red Army soldiers who surrendered were deprived of state benefits. The introduction of the institution of military commissars had a connotation of distrust in commanding cadres. Mass executions were carried out in prisons and camps. All the blame for the defeats at the front was shifted to specific performers. So, almost the entire command of the Western Front, headed by General D.G., was shot. Pavlov. Only by the end of 1941 did mass repressions stop.

Semi-spontaneously, semi-consciously, changes began in the functioning of the system. A group of military leaders advanced who could take the initiative. The traditions of the Russian army began to revive, starting with military ranks and epaulettes, creations of the guard. In propaganda, the emphasis was shifted to the need to defend the Fatherland, to Russian patriotism. The role of the church has increased significantly. The institute of military commissars was liquidated, the Comintern was dissolved.

The Land of the Soviets was for German imperialism the main obstacle on the way to the establishment of world domination. German fascism, acting as the shock fist of international reaction, in the war against the USSR sought to destroy the Soviet social system, and not only to seize its territory, that is, pursued class goals. This was the fundamental difference between the war of fascist Germany against the USSR and the wars it waged against the capitalist countries.

By destroying the world's first socialist state - the main force of social progress - the Nazis hoped to inflict a mortal blow on the international workers' and national liberation movement, to reverse the social development of mankind. Hitler admitted to M. Bormann that the purpose of his whole life and the meaning of the existence of National Socialism was the destruction of Bolshevism ( Le testament politique de Hitler. Paris, 1959, p. 61.).

The war against the USSR was considered by the Nazis as a special war in which they staked on the physical extermination of the majority of Soviet people - the bearers of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. At a meeting of the leadership of the Wehrmacht on March 30, 1941, the head of the fascist state, as evidenced by the diary of the chief of the general staff of the ground forces, summarized: “We are talking about the struggle for annihilation ... In the East, cruelty itself is good for the future” ( F. Halder. Military diary, vol. 2, pp. 430 - 431.). The Nazi leadership demanded the merciless destruction of not only the fighters of the Soviet Army, but also the civilian population of the USSR.

The documents of the fascist Reich testify that the Soviet state was subject to dismemberment and complete liquidation. It was supposed to form four Reichskommissariats on its territory - German colonial provinces: "Ostland", "Ukraine", "Moscow" and "Caucasus", which were to be managed by a special "Eastern Ministry" headed by A. Rosenberg ( V. Dashichev. The Bankruptcy of the Strategy of German Fascism, vol. 2, p. 18.).

According to the "Instructions on Special Areas", signed by the Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht, Field Marshal W. Keitel, the commander of the occupying armed forces was appointed the highest representative of the armed forces on the territory of the Reichskommissariats. He was endowed with dictatorial powers.

The criminal goals of the German imperialists in relation to the peoples of Eastern Europe, and especially to the peoples of the Land of Soviets, are convincingly shown by the so-called General Plan "Ost", the directive "On Special Jurisdiction in the Barbarossa Area and Special Measures for the Troops", instructions on the attitude towards Soviet prisoners of war and other documents.

Although the master plan "Ost" has not yet been found in the original, the materials at the disposal of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal give a clear idea of ​​\u200b\u200bit ( The plan was developed by the main department of imperial security. On May 25, 4940, the considerations for this plan were presented to Hitler, who approved them as a directive. Subsequently, additions and changes were made to the general plan "Ost" aimed at implementing the predatory goals of German fascism on the territory of the USSR (The defeat of German imperialism in the Second World War. Articles in documents. M., 1960, pp. 225 - 236).). This plan provided for the colonization of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, the destruction of millions of people, the transformation into slaves of the Reich of the surviving Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, as well as Poles, Czechs and other peoples of Eastern Europe. It was planned to evict within 30 years 65 percent of the population of Western Ukraine, 75 percent of the population of Belarus, 80-85 percent of the Poles from the territory of Poland, a significant part of the population of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - about 31 million people in total. Later, the German leadership increased the number of persons to be evicted from Eastern Europe to 46-51 million people. It was planned to resettle 10 million Germans on the "liberated" lands, and gradually "Germanize" the remaining local residents (according to the calculations of the Nazis, about 14 million people) ( The Defeat of German Imperialism in the Second World War, pp. 227 - 232.).

In the occupied territory of the Soviet Union, the Nazis provided for the destruction of higher and secondary schools. They believed that the education of the enslaved peoples should be the most elementary - it is enough for a person to be able to sign and count to 500 at the most. The main goal of education, in their opinion, was to inspire the Soviet population with the need for unquestioning obedience to the Germans ( Ibid., pp. 226 - 227.).

The fascist invaders intended to "defeat the Russians as a people, to divide them." At the same time, the leaders of the "Eastern policy" planned to divide the territory of the Soviet Union, "inhabited by Russians, into various political regions with their own governing bodies" and "to ensure separate national development in each of them" ( "Top secret! Only for command!”, p. 101.). The general plan "Ost" planned the extermination of the Russian intelligentsia as the bearer of the culture of the people, their scientific and technical knowledge, as well as an artificial reduction in the birth rate.

The program for the mass extermination of Soviet people was the directive “On special jurisdiction in the Barbarossa region and special measures of the troops”, signed by the chief of staff of the Wehrmacht Supreme High Command on May 13, 1941. It removed responsibility from Wehrmacht soldiers and officers for future crimes in the occupied territory of the USSR, demanding to be ruthless towards Soviet citizens, carry out mass repressions and shoot on the spot without trial anyone who shows even the slightest resistance or sympathizes with the partisans.

For Soviet people who were in captivity, it was prescribed to create a regime of inhuman conditions and terror: to set up camps in the open, fencing them only with barbed wire; use prisoners only for hard, exhausting work and keep them on half-starvation rations, and if they try to escape, they are shot without warning.

The bestial appearance of fascism is revealed by the "Instruction on the treatment of political commissars" dated June 6, 1941, which demanded the extermination of all political workers of the Soviet Army ( Fall Barbarassa, S. 321-323.).

Thus, fascist Germany was preparing to destroy the Land of Soviets, turn it into its colony, exterminate most of the Soviet people, and turn the survivors into slaves.

The economic goals of the aggression included the robbery of the Soviet state, the depletion of its material resources, the use of the public and personal wealth of the Soviet people for the needs of the "Third Reich". “According to the orders of the Fuhrer,” one of the directives of the fascist German command said, “it is necessary to take all measures for the immediate and complete use of the occupied regions in the interests of Germany ... To get Germany as much food and oil as possible is the main economic goal of the campaign” ( Ibid., S. 365.).

The initiators of the economic robbery of the USSR were the German military-industrial concerns that brought Hitler to power. Specific proposals and directives on the use of the economic resources of the USSR during the war were developed by the department of the military economy and armaments, which was part of the Design Bureau. This department was headed by General of the Infantry G. Thomas, a member of the supervisory board of the Goering and Bergman-Borsig concerns and a member of the arms council, which included such representatives of the German monopolies as Zengen, Vogler, Pensgen ( G. Rozanov. Plan Barbarossa. Ideas and ending. M., 1970, p. 65.).

In November 1940, Thomas's administration began developing proposals for the use of economic resources for the needs of the Wehrmacht already in the first months of the war against the USSR throughout its European part up to the Ural Mountains. The proposals noted that it was necessary to prevent the destruction by the Soviet Army during the retreat of food supplies, raw materials and industrial goods, the destruction of defense industry plants, mines and railway lines. Particular attention was paid to the importance of capturing the Caucasian oil-bearing region. The mastery of the Caucasus, as well as the region of the mouth of the Volga, was proposed to be included among the most important tasks of the eastern campaign ( The German Campaign in Russia. Planning and Operations (1940 - 1942). Washington, 1955, p. 20 - 21.).

In order to obtain and study detailed data on the Soviet military industry, on the sources of raw materials and fuel, at the beginning of 1941, a department of the military-economic headquarters for special purposes was formed in Thomas’s administration under the code name “Oldenburg” ( Fall Barbarossa, S. 356.). For the high command and industrial circles of Germany, Thomas's department compiled a certificate containing an assessment of the economic and military potential of the Soviet Union as of March 1941. A card index was attached to it listing the most important factories of the USSR ( Ibid., S. 89-108.). Based on these and other documents, plans were developed for the economic robbery of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. On February 12, 1941, under the chairmanship of Goering, a meeting was held on the "Eastern Question", at which the goals of the economic robbery of the USSR were explained. “The supreme goal of all activities carried out in the east,” Goering said at this meeting, “should be to strengthen the military potential of the Reich. The task is to withdraw from the new eastern regions the largest quantity of agricultural products, raw materials, labor power" ( D. Projector. Aggression and disaster. M., 1972, p. 178.).

On April 29, 1941, the Nazi leadership clarified the functions of the Oldenburg headquarters and expanded its structure. With the outbreak of hostilities against the Soviet Union, the headquarters was entrusted with the management of the economy of the occupied territory of the USSR. 5 economic inspections, 23 economic teams and 12 of their branches were subordinate to the local headquarters. In the rear of each of the army groups, an economic inspectorate was to operate, the task of which was the "economic use" of this territory.

The organizational structures of the Oldenburg headquarters, economic inspections and commands were identical. In each link, the following were established: "Group M", which was responsible for supplying and arming the troops and for organizing transportation; "Group L", which was in charge of food supply and agriculture; "group B", responsible for the state of trade and industry, as well as forestry, financial and banking problems, the exchange of goods and the distribution of labor ( Anatomy of war. New documents on the role of German monopoly capital in the preparation and conduct of the Second World War (hereinafter referred to as the Anatomy of War). Translation from German. M., 1971, pp. 319, 320.).

The headquarters of "Oldenburg" developed instructions and directives for managing the economy of the occupied regions of the USSR. These documents were brought together in the so-called "Green folder" ( "Top secret! Only for command!”, p. 100.). They detailed the goals and sequence of the economic robbery of the Soviet Union. The documents of the "Green Folder" provided for the immediate export to Germany of stocks of valuable raw materials (platinum, magnesite, rubber, etc.) and equipment. Other important types of raw materials were to be preserved until the moment when “the economic teams following the troops decide whether these raw materials will be processed in the occupied regions or exported to Germany” ( Fall Barbarossa. S. 395.). Most of the Soviet industrial enterprises that produced peaceful products were planned to be destroyed. Which branch of industrial production was to be preserved, restored or organized again in the occupied regions of the USSR, the fascist leadership determined, based only on the needs of the German military machine ( Ibid., S. 365.).

The Nazi invaders expected to provide their armed forces with food by robbing the occupied regions of the USSR, which doomed the local population to starvation. “Undoubtedly,” it was said at one of the meetings on economic issues on May 2, 1941, “if we manage to pump out everything that we need from the country, then tens of millions of people will die of starvation” ( Ibid., S. 362.).

The military goals of Nazi Germany's aggression against the USSR were to defeat the Soviet Armed Forces and occupy most of the European territory of the Soviet Union up to the Volga and the Northern Dvina in the course of a fleeting summer campaign even before the end of the war with England. The achievement of these goals was the central link in the fascist plans for the conquest of world domination. The geopolitical theory of K. Gaushofer, which was one of the foundations of the fascist ideology and German military doctrine, said: whoever owns Eastern Europe from the Elbe to the Volga, he owns all of Europe and, ultimately, the whole world ( "Zeitschrift fur Militargeschichte", 1964, No. 6, S. 932.).

The political, economic and military goals of Germany in the war against the USSR were closely interconnected and reflected the combined interests of the German monopolies, the fascist leadership and the command of the Wehrmacht.

Recently, the old, dilapidated version of preventive war has been pulled out of the bins again and again. Its primary source should be considered "Hitler's Appeal to the German people and soldiers Eastern Front on the day of Nazi Germany's attack on the USSR. It was then that the fascist dictator put forward the thesis that he was forced to start hostilities in order to prevent the USSR from attacking Germany and eliminate the "Soviet threat" allegedly hanging over Europe. From the first day of the war, the fascist adventurers repeated this vile provocative slander countless times to the fooled population of the "third empire", to the duped soldiers of the German army, to the tormented and disgraced peoples of Europe. Hitler's plan for organizing a "crusade against Bolshevism" was based on this vile fabrication.

We asked the doctor historical sciences, professor of the department national history and the historiography of G. A. Shirokov to tell how Nazi Germany was preparing aggression against the USSR.

The German fascists had been preparing an attack on the Soviet Union for a long time. In general terms, the plan "Barbarossa" was mentioned by Hitler in February 1933 at a meeting with the generals, where Hitler stated: "The main task of the future army will be the conquest of a new living space in the East and its ruthless Germanization." The idea of ​​conquering Russia was clearly formulated by Hitler after the Anschluss of Austria, i.e. in 1938. Hitler’s childhood friend, engineer Josef Greiner, wrote in his Memoirs about a conversation with SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich, who told him: “War with the Soviet Union is a decided matter” .

Having established themselves in Europe, the fascist rulers turned their eyes to the East. Not a single Wehrmacht military plan was prepared as fundamentally as the Barbarossa plan. Two major periods can be distinguished in the preparation by the German General Staff of the war against the USSR. The first - from July to December 18, 1940, that is, until Hitler signed Directive No. 21; and the second from 18 December 1940 until the beginning of the invasion. During the first period of preparation, the General Staff developed the strategic principles of warfare, determined the forces and means necessary for an attack on the USSR, and carried out measures to increase the armed forces of Germany.

The following participated in the development of the war plan against the USSR: the operational department of the General Staff of the ground forces (chief - Colonel Greifenberg), the department of foreign armies of the East (chief - Lieutenant Colonel Kinzel), the chief of staff of the 18th Army, General E. Marx, deputy. Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces F. Paulus.

The first calculations for the war plan against the USSR, at the direction of Hitler, began to be made on July 3, 1940. On this day, General Halder ordered Colonel Greifenberg to determine the timing of the deployment of troops and the necessary forces in the event of a war with the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1940. A few days later, Halder was presented with the following considerations :

a) the deployment of troops will last 4-6 weeks;

b) it is necessary to defeat the Russian army. It is desirable to advance deep into the USSR so that German aviation can destroy its most important centers;

c) 80-100 divisions are needed. The USSR has 70-75 good divisions.

Field Marshal V. Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, reported these calculations to Hitler. Having familiarized himself with the preliminary considerations of the General Staff, Hitler ordered that the Russian problem be tackled more energetically.

To speed up the development of the plan for the "eastern campaign", on July 23, Halder ordered General E. Marx to be sent from the 18th Army to the General Staff (this army was the first to be deployed near the borders of the Soviet Union). E. Marx began to develop a plan on July 29, 1940. On the same day, Hitler received Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces, and Colonel General Jodl, Chief of Staff of the Operations Command, and told them that he wanted to defeat the USSR in the autumn of 1940. In general, approving this intention, Keitel expressed doubts about the timing of its implementation. underdeveloped network of highways and railways in Poland, in his opinion, could not provide in a short time the concentration of forces necessary to defeat the Red Army. Keitel and Jodl, according to the latter, allegedly showed convincingly that 100 divisions were clearly not enough for this purpose. In this regard, Hitler decided to postpone the attack on the Soviet Union until the spring of 1941. He was afraid of the fate of Napoleon, who could not end the fighting in Russia before winter.

Armed with the instructions of Hitler and Halder, the “expert in Russian affairs” (as E. Marx was considered since the First World War) developed a stormy activity. At the beginning of August 1940, E. Marx reported to Halder on the draft of Operation OST. This was a detailed and complete development, which took into account all the data available at the General Staff about the armed forces and the economy of the USSR, about the terrain, climate and road conditions of the future theater of operations. In accordance with the plan, it was planned to create two large shock groups north and south of the Pripyat swamps and the deployment of 147 divisions, including 24 tank and 12 motorized. The outcome of the entire campaign against the USSR - it was emphasized in the development - to a large extent depends on how effective the strikes of tank and motorized formations turn out to be.

So that the Soviet troops could not repeat the maneuver of the Russian army in 1812, i.e. avoid the battle in the border zone and withdraw their troops in depth, the German tank divisions should have, according to E. Marx, rapidly move forward into the location of the enemy. The duration of the "eastern campaign" is 9-17 weeks. The development was approved by Halder.
E. Marx led the planning of the "eastern campaign" until the beginning of September, and then, at the direction of Halder, handed over all the materials to General F. Paulus, who had just been appointed to the post of deputy. chief of the general staff.

Under the leadership of F. Paulus, the staff of the General Staff continued to work on the plan. On October 29, 1940, F. Paulus submitted a note to Halder, in which he outlined the principles of waging war against the Soviet Union. It noted the advantages of the German troops over the Soviet ones (the presence of combat experience), and therefore the possibility of successful operations of the German troops in a maneuverable fleeting war.

F. Paulus believed that in order to achieve a decisive superiority in forces and means, it was necessary to ensure the surprise of the attack.

Like E. Marx, F. Paulus focused on depriving the Red Army troops of the opportunity to retreat deep into the country and conduct a mobile defense. The German groupings were faced with the task of creating gaps in decisive directions, encircling and destroying Soviet troops, preventing them from retreating.

At the same time, another plan of war against the USSR was being developed. On September 19, 1940, the head of the country's defense department, Warlimont, reported to Yodl a draft plan drawn up by Lieutenant Colonel B. Lossberg. The plan emphasized the need to create three army groups instead of the two proposed by E. Marx on the basis of Hitler's earlier instructions with the concentration of forces north of the Pripyat marshes in order to pass the shortest route to Moscow through Smolensk. The third group was supposed to strike at Leningrad. As it turned out later, B. Lossberg borrowed these ideas from F. Paulus, being in contact with him in violation of Jodl's order.

For four months, the General Staff developed a plan for a war against the USSR. On November 12 (according to other sources, November 19), 1940, Halder reported the Otto program (as the plan of war against the Soviet Union was originally called) to Brauchitsch, who on December 5 presented the plan to Hitler. The latter agreed with his main strategic provisions, indicated the approximate date for the start of the war - the end of May 1941, and ordered that preparations for war against the USSR be launched at full speed in accordance with this plan.

So, the war plan against the USSR was developed, received Hitler's approval, but they were in no hurry to approve it: they decided to check the reality of the implementation of the plan in the military game of the leadership of the General Staff, which was entrusted to General Paulus. The participants in the development of the plan acted as commanders of army groups and tank groups. The game consisted of three stages.
The first began on November 29 with the invasion German troops and battles in the border zone. On December 3, the second stage of the operation was lost - an offensive with the aim of capturing the Minsk-Kyiv line. Finally, on December 7, the destruction of possible targets that could be beyond this border was lost. Each stage of the game ended with a detailed analysis and summing up the position and condition of the troops. The results of the game made it possible to make some adjustments to the plan.

But the high command of the ground forces was not limited to these games. Halder summoned the chiefs of staff of the three army groups that had been created by that time, told them the main data from the developed plan and demanded that they state their thoughts on the main problems of conducting an armed struggle against the Soviet Union. All proposals that differed significantly from the plan of the General Staff were discussed under the leadership of Halder and Paulus at a meeting with the chiefs of staff of army groups and armies on December 13, 1940. The meeting participants came to the conclusion that the USSR would be defeated within 8-10 weeks.

After making the necessary clarifications, General Jodl ordered Warlimont to develop a directive based on the plan of war against the USSR approved by Hitler. This directive, number 21, was prepared and reported to Hitler on 17 December. Before approving the document, he demanded a number of changes.

On December 18, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 21 of the Supreme High Command, which received the code name "Option Barbarossa" and is the main guiding document of the war against the USSR.

From Directive No. 21: "The German armed forces must be ready to defeat Soviet Russia in the course of a short-term campaign ..."

After Hitler signed Directive No. 21, the second period of preparation by the General Staff of the war against the USSR began. Whereas prior to Directive No. 21, training was limited mainly to the development of a plan in the General Staff of the ground forces and the training of reserves, now the plans of all branches of the armed forces were already thought out in detail.

The war plan against the USSR is a whole complex of political, economic and strategic measures of the Hitlerite leadership. In addition to directive No. 21, the plan included directives and orders from the supreme command and the main commands of the branches of the armed forces on strategic concentration and deployment, logistics, theater preparation, camouflage, disinformation, and so on. The political goal of the war is reflected in a group of documents bearing the code name " General plan"Ost""; in Goering's Green Folder; directive “On special jurisdiction in the area of ​​Barbarossa and on special measures of the troops” of May 13, 1941; in the "Instructions on Special Areas" of March 13, 1941, which outlined the system of the occupation regime in the conquered territory, and other documents.

The political essence of the war plan consisted in the destruction of the Soviet Union, the transformation of our country into a colony of fascist Germany, the conquest of world domination.

The General Plan "Ost" is one of the most shameful documents in the history of mankind, which revealed the criminal plans of the Nazis to exterminate and Germanize the Slavic peoples. The plan was designed for 20-30 years and defined three lines:

- "biological" dismemberment of the Slavic peoples through mass destruction (46-51 million people) and forcible Germanization of the elective part;

The transformation of Eastern Europe into an area of ​​SS military settlements,

Eugenic weakening of the Slavic peoples.

The Nazis planned to deport 65% of the population of Western Ukraine, 75% of the population of Belarus, a significant part of the population of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia within 30 years. In this territory they intended to settle 10 million Germans. The remaining indigenous population (according to their calculations, 14 million people) was supposed to be gradually Germanized and used as unskilled labor.

The drafters of the "Ost" plan intended "to defeat the Russians as a people, to divide them."

The program for the mass extermination of Soviet people was the directive "On special jurisdiction in the Barbarossa region and special measures for the troops." Trampling on all international law, she demanded to show ruthlessness to Soviet citizens, to carry out mass repressions and to shoot on the spot without trial anyone who would show even the slightest resistance or sympathize with the partisans. From the directive: “... The crimes of hostile civilians, until further notice, are withdrawn from the jurisdiction of military and field courts.
Partisans must be mercilessly destroyed by troops in battle or in pursuit.

Any other attacks by hostile civilians on the armed forces, their members and personnel serving the troops must also be suppressed by the troops on the spot using the most extreme measures ... "

Any responsibility for any crimes on Soviet soil was removed from the Nazi soldiers and officers. Moreover, they were aimed at it. On June 1, 1941, the twelve commandments for the conduct of Germans in the East were drawn up. Here are excerpts from them.

“... No explanations or justifications, let the Russians see our workers as leaders.

... In view of the fact that the newly annexed territories must be permanently assigned to Germany and Europe, much will depend on how you place yourself there. You must make it clear to yourself that for centuries you are the representatives of great Germany and the standard-bearers of the National Socialist revolution and the new Europe. Therefore, with the consciousness of your dignity, you must carry out the most stringent and merciless measures that the state will require of you ... Berlin June 1, 1941 G. Bakke.

Commanders of armies and tank groups gave similar instructions to their troops. From the order of the commander-in-chief, Field Marshal von Reichenau: “... In the event of the use of weapons in the rear of the army by individual partisans, take decisive and cruel measures against them.<…>Without going into political considerations for the future, the soldier has a twofold task:

1. Complete destruction of the Bolshevik heresy, the Soviet state and its armed forces.

2. Merciless eradication of enemy cunning and cruelty and thereby ensuring the security of the German armed forces in Russia.

Only in this way can we fulfill our historic mission to liberate the German people forever from the Asiatic-Jewish danger.”

Let the reader forgive us, but we decided to bring another document testifying to the bloodthirstiness of the Nazis.

From the “Memo of the German Soldier”: “Soldier of great Germany, you will be invulnerable and invincible, exactly following the following instruction. If you don't complete at least one of them, you will die.

To save yourself, act on this “Reminder”.

Remember and do:

1) In the morning, afternoon, at night, always think about the Fuhrer, let other thoughts not disturb you, know that he thinks and does for you. You only have to act, not be afraid of anything, you, a German soldier, are invulnerable. Not a single bullet, not a single bayonet will touch you. No nerves, heart, pity - you are made of German iron. After the war, you will again find a new soul, a clear heart - for your children, for your wife, for great Germany. Now act decisively, without hesitation.

2) A German cannot be a coward. When it gets hard for you, think of the Fuhrer. You will feel joy and relief. When the Russian barbarians attack you, think of the Fuhrer and act decisively. They will all die from your blows. Remember the greatness, the victory of Germany. For your personal glory, you must kill exactly 100 Russians, this is the fairest ratio - one German is equal to 100 Russians. You have no heart and nerves, they are not needed in a war. Destroy pity and compassion in yourself, kill every Russian, do not stop if there is an old man or a woman, a girl or a boy in front of you. Kill, in this way you will save yourself from death, secure the future of the whole family and become famous forever.

3) Not a single world power can resist the German pressure. We will bring the whole world to its knees. The German is the absolute master of the world. You will decide the fate of England, Russia, America. You are a German, as befits a German, destroy all living things that resist on your way, always think about the sublime, about the Fuhrer - you will win. Neither a bullet nor a bayonet will take you. Tomorrow the whole world will kneel before you.”

For Soviet people who were in captivity, it was prescribed to create a regime of inhuman conditions and terror: to set up camps in the open, fencing them only with barbed wire; use prisoners only for hard, exhausting work and keep them on half-starvation rations, and if they try to escape, they are shot without warning.

Especially the appearance of fascism is revealed by the "Instruction on the treatment of political commissars" dated June 6, 1941, which demanded the extermination of all political workers of the Red Army.
Hitler's strategists planned in every possible way to kindle national enmity between the peoples of the Soviet Union. This idea runs like a red thread through the entire section of the "Directives", entitled "Attitude towards the population on territorial grounds."

With regard to the Baltic Soviet republics, it was pointed out that there “it is most expedient for the German authorities to rely on the remaining Germans, as well as on Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians. The contradictions between national groups and the remaining Russians should be used in the interests of Germany.

Finally, the same about the Caucasus: "The contradictions between the natives (Georgians, Armenians, Tatars, etc.) and the Russians should be used in our interests."

In the occupied territory, it was planned to destroy medium and higher schools. The Nazis believed that the education of the enslaved peoples should be the most elementary. Here is what Reichsführer SS Himmler wrote about this: “There should be no higher schools for the non-German population of the eastern regions. It is enough for him to have a four-class public school. The aim of the training should be to teach only simple counting, up to 500 at the most, the ability to sign, the suggestion that the divine commandment is to obey the Germans, to be honest, diligent and obedient. I consider the ability to read unnecessary. And the head of the party office and secretary of the Fuhrer Martin Bormann said: “The Slavs should work for us. When we no longer need them, they may die. Forced vaccinations and health services are not necessary for them. A high birth rate among the Slavs is undesirable. Their education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count to one hundred. The best and acceptable will be an education that will form useful coolies for us. Any educated person is a future enemy.” The main goal of the training is to inspire the Soviet population with the need for unquestioning obedience to the Germans.

The economic goals of the aggression included the robbery of the Soviet state, the depletion of its material resources, the use of the public and personal wealth of the Soviet people for the needs of the Third Reich.

The program for the economic plunder of the Soviet Union was contained in instructions and directives, summarized in the so-called "Goering Green File". Its documents provided for the immediate export to Germany of stocks of valuable raw materials (platinum, magnesite, rubber, etc.) and equipment. “Getting as much food and oil for Germany as possible is the main economic goal of the campaign,” one of the directives of Goering's Green File said.

The Nazi invaders hoped to provide their armed forces with food by robbing the occupied regions of the USSR, which doomed the local population to starvation.
The section of Goering's Green Folder entitled "Regulation of Consumption" states: "All the raw materials, semi-finished products and finished products we need should be removed from trade by orders, requisitions and confiscations."

In the order of the commander-in-chief, Field Marshal von Reichenau, on the behavior of the troops, we read: "... supplying food to local residents and prisoners of war is unnecessary humanity ..."
Appointed as the head of economic policy in the occupied territory of the USSR (the Oldenburg plan), Goering declared: “I intend to rob, and it is effective,” and taught his subordinates: “You must be like setter dogs. What may be useful to the Germans must be removed from the warehouses and delivered here.

Goering's "Green Folder" on economic policy in Russia said: "When we take everything we need from the country, tens of millions of people will undoubtedly die of starvation."

It is hard to believe that people can think of such fanaticism. So, the motto of the invaders: destroy, rob, exterminate! This is what they did in practice.

The Barbarossa plan also contained ways to achieve the goals set. Its main idea was to deliver a lightning strike on the Soviet Union (blitzkrieg), which was supposed to lead to surrender.

The plan, in particular, provided for the covert concentration of large troop masses and combat assets on the border with the USSR; delivering sudden strikes against Soviet troops concentrated in the border areas; exit by July 11 to the line of Leningrad, Smolensk, Kyiv; subsequent occupation of the territory of the Soviet Union for 1.5-2 months until the line "A-A" (Arkhangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan).

From Directive No. 21 (Plan Barbarossa): “... The ultimate goal of the operation is to create a defensive barrier against Asian Russia along the Volga-Arkhangelsk common line. Thus, if necessary, the last industrial region remaining with the Russians in the Urals can be paralyzed with the help of aviation ... Adolf Hitler.

The war against the USSR was planned to start at the end of May 1941. Subsequently, in connection with the events in the Balkans, Hitler postponed the attack several times. In mid-May, he announced that the launch date for Operation Barbarossa was 22 June. On May 30, Hitler finally confirmed this date.

What would have happened if Operation Barbarossa had succeeded? Our country was to break up into 4 German Reichskommissariats.

3. Reichskommissariat Moscow. It includes the general commissariats: Moscow, Tula, Leningrad, Gorky, Vyatka, Kazan, Ufa, Perm.

4. Reichskommissariat Ostland. General Commissariats: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus.

5. Reichskommissariat Ukraine. General Commissariats: Voyno-Podolia, Zhitomir, Kyiv, Chernigov, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Tavria, Dnepropetrovsk, Stalino, Rostov, Voronezh, Stalingrad, Saratov, Volga Germans.

6. Reichskommissariat Caucasus. General commissariats: Kuban, Stavropol, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Gorsky commissariat and the main commissariat of Kalmykia. (The creation of the Reichskommissariat Turkestan was also supposed later.)

Already by June 1941, all posts were handed out in Berlin, including the posts of 1050 regional commissars. In Tbilisi, Rosenberg's deputy Arno Shikedanz was appointed, in Moscow - Gauleiter Siegfried Kashe, in Riga - Gauleiter Lohse, in Rovno - Gauleiter Erich Koch.

According to the Barbarossa plan, attention should be paid to the following.

Firstly, the change in the date for the start of the war served as a pretext for falsifiers of history to consider this change one of Hitler's "fatal decisions" that allegedly led to the defeat of Nazi Germany (Zeitler, Guderian, etc.). But not everything depended on Hitler: the peoples of Greece and Yugoslavia offered heroic resistance to the invaders, and the flood of the western rivers, which dragged on until June, also did not depend on him.

Secondly, no matter how the Nazis rushed with the Sea Lion plan, threatening England with terrible punishments, they failed to hide the Barbarossa plan in the safes.

In Berlin, since 1934, the quiet American S. Wood served as a trade attaché at the US Embassy. He managed to establish contacts with high-ranking Nazis. Already in August 1940, one of his informants reported that the Nazi leadership was planning a war against the USSR. In Washington, at first, they treated this information with a certain distrust. But a thorough check convinced the president of their veracity. In early January 1941, S. Wood managed to get and send to Washington a document that dispelled all doubts - Directive No. 21 of December 18, 1940, the so-called "Barbarossa" plan. The document was soon presented to F. Roosevelt with an indication that the State Department and the FBI consider it identical to the original. In March 1941, the US government warned the Soviet government of an impending attack.

Thirdly, despite the thoroughness of the development of the plan and the German punctuality, it was fundamentally flawed.

The plan proceeded from a clear overestimation of the forces and capabilities of Nazi Germany and an underestimation of the forces of the Soviet Union.

The German command, relying on intelligence estimates, ignored the potential of the Soviet economy. In every possible way forcing the timing of the attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler, in a conversation with Field Marshal Keitel in August 1940, said: "Russia is only at the stage of creating its military-industrial base, but is far from ready in this regard."
In reality, contrary to the forecasts of Hitler's intelligence, which believed that it would be able to disorganize our rear, disable a number of key defense enterprises, the Soviet economy, even in the conditions of relocation of industry to the eastern regions, was able, as a result of intensive mobilization of all means, not only to maintain its stable position, but also to supply the front with everything necessary and on an ever-increasing scale.

Perhaps one of the most fatal miscalculations German leadership there was an incorrect assessment of the Soviet mobilization ability. In August 1941, German military intelligence estimated it at 370-390 divisions, that is, approximately 7.5-8 million people, while the actual mobilization capacity of the USSR turned out to be 4 times higher. This miscalculation can in no way be explained by ignorance of the facts, since the data on the population of the USSR in 1939-1940. were well known to the German side. Although the 1939 census data on the sex and age structure of the population of the USSR were never published, the materials of the previous 1926 census were known, as well as the fact that the losses of Germany and Russia during the First World War and the Civil War were close to each other in proportion to the population, as well as the vital statistics of the interwar period. All this made it possible to fairly accurately assess the mobilization ability of the Soviet Union.

The plan proceeded from the possibility of isolating the Soviet Union in the international arena.

Finally, the viciousness of the German fascist war plan also consisted in the fact that it was aligned with the complete mobilization of the army, the transfer of the German national economy to serve the needs of the war, the concentration of the necessary number of troops in the directions strategically necessary for the offensive, the use of the experience of waging modern warfare gained by the German army in campaigns against the states of Western Europe, etc.

Life soon confirmed the unreality and adventurism of the German fascist plan.

At the same time, the USSR made great efforts to strengthen the country's foreign policy positions. At the most tense moment, when the political crisis in Europe reached its highest intensity, and the second World War was already on the threshold, the Soviet government, determined to block the path of fascist aggression, did everything in its power to save humanity from bloody slaughter. The USSR put forward a plan for collective security in Europe and throughout the world, proposing that Britain and France conclude an agreement on joint action against Hitler's aggression. The implementation of these measures could have prevented the outbreak of war by the fascist aggressors.

However, the British and French governments chose a different path. They pushed the Nazis to unleash an aggressive war, hoping to weaken Germany as a result of military operations, to eliminate a dangerous competitor. Their policy of "non-intervention" accompanied the Italo-German intervention in Spain, the position of "neutrality" - the capture of Austria, the Munich Agreement - the enslavement of Czechoslovakia. Pursuing an insidious two-faced policy, the Western powers in the summer of 1939 disrupted military negotiations in Moscow. The reactionary ruling circles of the Western countries, desiring the weakening of the USSR, sought to push Germany against our country, to create a united front against it. fascist states, considering German fascism and Japanese militarism as a striking force in the war. The Soviet Union faced the prospect of a war on two fronts simultaneously - in the West and in the Far East, moreover - in isolation, without allies.

In order to thwart the plans of the imperialists to organize a "crusade" against the USSR, to delay the outbreak of war as far as possible, the Soviet government was forced in August 1939 to conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany proposed by the German government. In that particular situation, this was the only correct decision, which made it possible to split the emerging anti-Soviet bloc of imperialist states and achieve a delay, which was extremely necessary for strengthening the defense capability of the USSR. But the time allotted to us for this turned out to be insufficient. The respite given to the Soviet people by history after the end of civil war, amounted to only two decades. This short period of time that our country had at its disposal did not allow us to fully complete all the preparations for repelling fascist aggression.

Thus, the situation and the general state of forces on the eve of the Nazi attack on the USSR were not in favor of the Red Army. All this predetermined the unfavorable course of hostilities for her in the initial period of the war.

1 Aggression against the USSR

In the early morning of June 22, 1941, fascist Germany, violating the non-aggression pact, suddenly, treacherously, without declaring war, unleashed a huge blow on the Soviet Union. The allies of fascist Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Finland, headed by the reactionary governments, also entered the war against the USSR.

In the difficult conditions of the outbreak of war, the Communist Party and the Soviet government developed a program to mobilize all the forces of the people to fight the enemy, appealed to the working class, the collective farm peasantry and the intelligentsia with the appeal: "Everything for the front, everything for victory!"

All Soviet people, all the peoples of the multinational country of Soviets have risen to holy war for the honor, freedom and independence of their homeland.

As early as June 23, 1941, crowded rallies took place at the enterprises of Bryansk. The working people and youth of the city unanimously adopted resolutions in which they declared that they were ready, at the first call of the party and government, to defend their homeland with weapons in their hands.

The newspaper “Orlovskaya Pravda”1 wrote about the patriotic upsurge of the workers of the Bryansk plant “Krasny Profintern” (now JSC BMZ): “The impudent provocation of the German fascists, who provoked the Soviet Union to war, caused a storm of indignation among the workers of the city. Crowded rallies took place in the workshops of the Krasny Profintern plant.

At rallies, workers and specialists warmly approve of the measures Soviet government and declare their full readiness to smash the enemy. The Krasnoprofinternovtsy undertook to maximize labor productivity, to produce more locomotives and wagons, which our country, the Red Army, needs. The machine builders undertake to further increase revolutionary vigilance, to work even more intensely and stubbornly and to restore Bolshevik order in production. Everything is to strengthen the Motherland, to defeat the enemy - these are the unanimous statements of the workers of Ordzhonikidzegrad. Similar meetings of working people took place in the cities of Klintsy, Novozybkov and other districts of the Bryansk region.

Industrial enterprises were transferred to the production of military products. The men who went to the front were replaced by women and teenagers. 14.5 thousand students and pupils came to industrial enterprises of the region on Komsomol vouchers, 300 thousand teenagers came to agricultural work. Here is the Letter to the newspaper "Bryansk Rabochiy", published in No. 150 of July 4, 1941:

We forge the swords of Victory!

We, Komsomol tenth-graders of the schools of the mountains. Bryansk, who come to the call of the Central Committee of the Komsomol to work for enterprises, state farms and collective farms, are determined to work hard, hard, selflessly to help their native country forge the swords of victory.

All members of the Komsomol and all non-allied youth - high school students should by their work contribute to the victory of our Motherland over the insidious enemy. We must work in any areas, wherever we are sent. No matter how difficult this work may be, we will do it with the proud consciousness that, by working in the rear, we are helping the Red Army destroy bloody fascism to death.

N. Inozemtseva, A. Kovaleva, M. Laevskaya, M. Mochanis, L. Loginova, V. Shankina are Komsomol graduates of Bryansk schools.

With the approach of the front in the Bryansk region, a titanic work was done to evacuate people and material values ​​to the eastern regions of the country. In Sverdlovsk, Nizhny Tagil, Gorky, Krasnoyarsk, Ust-Katov, 7,550 freight wagons were sent. Together with the equipment of enterprises, qualified workers, engineering and technical workers were evacuated. Only from Bryansk 60 thousand people were evacuated.

In the first days of the war, our region sent over 200 thousand of its inhabitants to the Red Army. A division of armored trains was formed in the Bryansk region. Already on June 28, 1941, as part of the 21st Army, he took part in the battles in the Polesie region.

In August 1941, the workers of the Krasny Profintern plant manufactured, staffed from among the volunteers and sent the armored train No. 2 “For the Motherland” to the front.

From the volunteers of Bryansk and the region, the 331st Proletarian Rifle Division was formed, which defended the capital of our Motherland - Moscow, and then fought through to Prague.

On August 14, 1941, the Bryansk Front was created, which was entrusted with the responsible task of covering the Moscow strategic area from the southwest and preventing the breakthrough of Guderian's tank group to Moscow. For construction defensive lines in July - August 1941, Bryansk sent 130 thousand people. About how large-scale construction work was organized, says a lot of documents of those times.