He recalled: Stalin was sure that the Germans would break into Moscow, but he planned to defend every house - until the arrival of fresh divisions from Siberia.
On October 12, 1941, the NKVD organized 20 groups of militant security officers: to protect the Kremlin, Belorussky Station, Okhotny Ryad and sabotage in areas of the capital that could be captured. Throughout the city, 59 secret warehouses with weapons and ammunition were set up, the Metropol and National hotels, the Bolshoi Theater, the Central Telegraph and... St. Basil's Cathedral were mined - it occurred to someone that if Moscow was captured, Hitler would come there. Meanwhile the British historian Nicholas Reeds in 1954 he suggested: if the soldiers of the Third Reich had entered Moscow, the “Stalingrad scenario” would have happened. That is, the Wehrmacht exhausts itself in multi-day battles from house to house, then troops arrive from the Far East, and then the Germans capitulate, and the war... ends in 1943!
Anti-aircraft gunners guarding the city. The Great Patriotic War. Photo: RIA Novosti / Naum Granovsky
Fact No. 2 - Officials started panicking
...On October 16, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution “On the evacuation of the capital of the USSR.” The majority understood it this way: any day now Moscow will be surrendered to the Germans. Panic began in the city: the metro was closed, trams stopped running. The very first to rush out of the city were party officials, who only yesterday had called for “war until victory.” Archival documents testify: “On the very first day, 779 senior employees of institutions and organizations fled from the capital, taking with them money and valuables worth 2.5 million rubles. 100 cars and trucks were stolen - these leaders used them to take their families out.” Seeing how the authorities were fleeing from Moscow, the people, picking up their bundles and suitcases, also rushed away. For three days in a row, the highways were clogged with people. But
Muscovites are building anti-tank fortifications. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Ustinov
Fact No. 3 - The Kremlin was not considered
...It is believed that the Wehrmacht was stuck 32 km from what was then Moscow: the Germans managed to capture the village of Krasnaya Polyana, near Lobnya. After this, information appeared that German generals, having climbed the bell tower, examined the Kremlin through binoculars. This myth is very persistent, but from Krasnaya Polyana the Kremlin can only be seen in the summer, and then in absolutely clear weather. This is impossible in snowfall.
On December 2, 1941, an American working in Berlin journalist William Shirer made a statement: according to his information, today the reconnaissance battalion of the 258th Wehrmacht division invaded the village of Khimki, and from there the Germans observed the Kremlin towers with binoculars. How they managed this is unclear: the Kremlin is certainly not visible from Khimki. Plus, on that day, the 258th Wehrmacht Division miraculously escaped encirclement in a completely different place - in the Yushkovo-Burtsevo area. Historians still have not come to a consensus when exactly the Germans appeared in Khimki (now there is a defense monument there - three anti-tank hedgehogs) - October 16, November 30, or still December 2. Moreover: in the Wehrmacht archives... there is no evidence of an attack on Khimki at all.
Fact No. 4 - There were no frosts
…Commander of the 2nd Reich Panzer Army, General Heinz Guderian after the defeat near Moscow, he blamed his failures on... Russian frosts. They say that by November the Germans would have already been drinking beer in the Kremlin, but they were stopped by the terrible cold. The tanks got stuck in the snow, the guns jammed and the grease froze. Is it so? On November 4, 1941, the temperature in the Moscow region was minus 7 degrees (before that it had rained in October, and the roads were soggy), and on November 8 - completely zero (!). On November 11-13, the air froze (-15 degrees), but soon warmed up to -3 - and this can hardly be called “terrible cold.” Severe frosts (minus 40°) struck only at the very beginning of the Red Army's counteroffensive - December 5, 1941 - and could not radically change the situation at the front. The cold played its role only when the Soviet troops drove the Wehrmacht armies back (this is where Guderian’s tanks really didn’t start), but stopped the enemy near Moscow in normal winter weather.
Two Red Army soldiers stand next to an overturned German tank, knocked out in the battle of Moscow. Photo: RIA Novosti / Minkevich
Fact No. 5 - Battle of Borodino
...On January 21, 1942, Russians and French met on the Borodino field for the second time in 130 years. The “Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism” - 2,452 soldiers - fought on the side of the Wehrmacht. They were tasked with defending Borodino from the advancing Soviet troops. Before the attack, he addressed the legionnaires Marshal von Kluge: “Remember Napoleon!” Within a few days, the legion was defeated - half of the soldiers died, hundreds were captured, and the rest were taken to the rear with frostbite. As in the case of Bonaparte, the French were unlucky on the Borodino field.
...December 16, 1941 Hitler, amazed by the flight of his army from Moscow, issued an order similar to Stalin’s, “Not a step back!” He demanded to “hold the front until the last soldier,” threatening division commanders with execution. The chief of staff of the 4th Army, Gunter Blumentritt, in his book “Fatal Decisions” indicated: “Hitler instinctively realized that a retreat in the snow would lead to the disintegration of the entire front and our troops would suffer the fate of Napoleon’s army.” This is how it ultimately turned out: three and a half years later, when Soviet soldiers entered Berlin...
The Borodino Museum was destroyed and burned by the Germans during the retreat. The photo was taken in January 1942. Photo: RIA Novosti / N. Popov
, “the cruelty of the occupation regime was such that, according to the most conservative estimates, one in five of the seventy million Soviet citizens who found themselves under occupation did not live to see Victory.”
The inscription on the school board: “The Russian must die so that we can live.” Occupied territory of the USSR, October 10, 1941
According to Taylor, the representative of the US prosecution at the Nuremberg trials, “the atrocities committed by the armed forces and other organizations of the Third Reich in the East were so stunningly monstrous that the human mind can hardly comprehend them ... I think analysis will show that they were not just madness and bloodlust. On the contrary, there was a method and a goal. These atrocities occurred as a result of carefully calculated orders and directives issued before or during the attack on the Soviet Union and representing a consistent logical system."
As the Russian historian G. A. Bordyugov points out, in the affairs of the Extraordinary State Commission “to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices” (June 1941 - December 1944), 54,784 acts of atrocities against civilians in the occupied Soviet territories were recorded . Among them are crimes such as “the use of civilians during hostilities, the forced mobilization of civilians, the shooting of civilians and the destruction of their homes, rape, the hunt for people - slaves for German industry.”
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| On the occupied territory, a thematic catalog of photographic documents of the Russian Archive. | |
The Nazi occupation of the USSR and its initiators were publicly condemned by an international tribunal during the Nuremberg trials.
Goals of war
As the German historian Dr. Wolfrem Werte noted in 1999, “The Third Reich's war against the Soviet Union was aimed from the very beginning at the seizure of territory up to the Urals, the exploitation of the natural resources of the USSR and the long-term subordination of Russia to German domination. Not only Jews, but also the Slavs who inhabited the Soviet territories captured by Germany in 1941-1944 faced a direct threat of systematic physical destruction... The Slavic population of the USSR... along with the Jews was proclaimed a “lower race” and was also subject to destruction.”
The military-political and ideological goals of the “war in the East” are evidenced, in particular, by the following documents:
The chief of staff of the operational leadership of the OKW, after appropriate corrections, returned the draft document “Instructions regarding the special problems of Directive No. 21 (variant of the Barbarossa plan)” presented to him on December 18, 1940 by the National Defense department, making a note that this draft could be reported to the Fuhrer after revision in accordance with the following provisions:
“The upcoming war will be not only an armed struggle, but also at the same time a struggle between two worldviews. To win this war in conditions where the enemy has a huge territory, it is not enough to defeat his armed forces, this territory should be divided into several states, headed by their own governments, with which we could conclude peace treaties.
The creation of such governments requires great political skill and the development of well-thought-out general principles.
Every large-scale revolution brings to life phenomena that cannot simply be cast aside. It is no longer possible to eradicate socialist ideas in today's Russia. These ideas can serve as an internal political basis for the creation of new states and governments. The Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia, which represents the oppressor of the people, must be removed from the scene. The former bourgeois-aristocratic intelligentsia, if it still exists, primarily among emigrants, should also not be allowed to come to power. It will not be accepted by the Russian people and, moreover, it is hostile towards the German nation. This is especially noticeable in the former Baltic states. Moreover, we must under no circumstances allow the Bolshevik state to be replaced by a nationalist Russia, which ultimately (as history shows) will again oppose Germany.
Our task is to create these socialist states dependent on us as quickly as possible with the least amount of military effort.
This task is so difficult that the army alone cannot solve it.”
30.3.1941 ... 11.00. Big meeting with the Fuhrer. Almost 2.5 hour speech...
The struggle of two ideologies... The huge danger of communism for the future. We must proceed from the principle of soldierly camaraderie. The communist has never been and will never be our comrade. We are talking about a fight of destruction. If we don't look at it this way, then even though we defeat the enemy, in 30 years the communist danger will arise again. We are not waging war in order to mothball our enemy.
Future political map of Russia: Northern Russia belongs to Finland, protectorates in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus.
The fight against Russia: the destruction of the Bolshevik commissars and communist intelligentsia. The new states must be socialist, but without their own intelligentsia. A new intelligentsia should not be allowed to form. Here only the primitive socialist intelligentsia will be sufficient. The fight must be waged against the poison of demoralization. This is far from a military judicial issue. Commanders of units and units are required to know the goals of the war. They must lead in the struggle..., keep the troops firmly in their hands. The commander must give his orders taking into account the mood of the troops.
The war will be very different from the war in the West. In the East, cruelty is a blessing for the future. Commanders must make sacrifices and overcome their hesitations...
Diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces F. Halder
The economic goals are formulated in the directive of Reichsmarschall Goering (written no later than June 16, 1941):
I. According to the orders of the Fuhrer, all measures must be taken for the immediate and fullest possible use of the occupied areas in the interests of Germany. All activities that could interfere with the achievement of this goal should be postponed or abandoned altogether.
II. The use of areas subject to occupation should be carried out primarily in the food and oil sectors of the economy. Getting as much food and oil as possible for Germany is the main economic goal of the campaign. Along with this, German industry must be provided with other raw materials from the occupied areas, as far as technically possible and taking into account the preservation of industry in these areas. As regards the type and volume of industrial production of the occupied areas that must be preserved, restored or reorganized, this must also be determined very first in accordance with the requirements that the use of agriculture and the oil industry poses for the German war economy.
German propaganda poster "Hitler's Warriors - Friends of the People."
This clearly expresses the guidelines for managing the economy in the occupied areas. This applies to both main goals and individual tasks that help achieve them. In addition, this also suggests that tasks that are not consistent with the main goal or interfere with maintaining it should be abandoned, even if their implementation in certain cases seems desirable. The point of view that the occupied regions should be put in order as soon as possible and their economy restored is completely inappropriate. On the contrary, the attitude towards individual parts of the country should be differentiated. Economic development and maintenance of order should be carried out only in those areas where we can extract significant reserves of agricultural products and oil. And in other parts of the country that cannot feed themselves, that is, in Central and Northern Russia, economic activity should be limited to the use of discovered reserves.
Main economic tasks
Baltic region
Caucasus
In the Caucasus it was planned to create an autonomous region (Reichskommissariat) within the Third Reich. The capital is Tbilisi. The territory would cover the entire Soviet Caucasus from Turkey and Iran to the Don and Volga. It was planned to create national entities within the Reichskommissariat. The basis of the economy of this region was to be oil production and agriculture.
Preparation for war and the initial period of hostilities
As Russian historian Gennady Bordyugov writes, “from the very beginning, the political and military leadership of Germany... demanded that soldiers be prepared for unlawful, essentially criminal, actions. Hitler’s ideas on this matter were a consistent development of the political principles that he outlined in his books written back in the 1920s... As mentioned above, on March 30, 1941, at a secret meeting, Hitler, speaking to 250 generals whose troops were to participate in Operation Barbarossa, called Bolshevism a manifestation of " social crime“. He stated that " it's about a fight of destruction“».
According to the order of the head of the Wehrmacht High Command, Field Marshal Keitel, dated May 13, 1941, “On military jurisdiction in the Barbarossa area and on special powers of troops,” signed by him on the basis of Hitler’s orders, a regime of unlimited terror was actually declared on the territory of the USSR occupied by German troops . The order contained a clause that actually exempted the occupiers from liability for crimes against the civilian population: “ Prosecution of acts committed by military personnel and service personnel against hostile civilians is not mandatory even where those acts also constitute a military crime or misdemeanor».
Gennady Bordyugov also points to the existence of other documentary evidence of the attitude of German military leaders towards the civilian population caught in the combat zone - for example, the commander of the 6th Army von Reichenau demands (July 10, 1941) to shoot “ soldiers in civilian clothes, easily recognizable by their short haircut", And " civilians whose manners and behavior appear to be hostile", General G. Hot (November 1941) - " immediately and ruthlessly stop every step of active or passive resistance", commander of the 254th division, Lieutenant General von Weschnitta (December 2, 1941) - " shoot without warning any civilian of any age or gender who approaches the front line" And " immediately shoot anyone suspected of spying».
Administration of occupied territories
There was no supply of food to the population from the occupation authorities; urban residents found themselves in especially difficult conditions. In the occupied territories, fines, corporal punishment, and in-kind and monetary taxes were established everywhere, the amounts of which were mostly set arbitrarily by the occupation authorities. The invaders applied various repressions to tax evaders, including execution and large-scale punitive operations.
Nazi demonstration on Freedom Square in Minsk, 1943.
Repression
The operation proceeded smoothly, excluding shifts in some of its stages over time. Their main reason was the following. On the map the settlement of Borki is shown as a compactly located village. In fact, it turned out that this village extends 6 - 7 km in length and width. When I established this at dawn, I expanded the cordon on the eastern side and organized the envelopment of the village in the form of pincers while simultaneously increasing the distance between the posts. As a result, I managed to capture and deliver to the gathering place all the village residents, without exception. It turned out to be favorable that the purpose for which the population was rounded up was unknown to him until the last moment. Calm reigned at the gathering place, the number of posts was reduced to a minimum, and the released forces could be used in the further course of the operation. The team of gravediggers received shovels only at the scene of the execution, thanks to which the population remained in the dark about what was coming. Discreetly installed light machine guns quelled the panic that arose from the very beginning when the first shots were fired from the execution site, located 700 m from the village. The two men tried to run, but fell after a few steps, hit by machine-gun fire. The shooting began at 9 o'clock. 00 min. and ended at 18:00. 00 min. Of the 809 rounded up, 104 people (politically reliable families) were released, among them were workers from the Mokrana estates. The execution took place without any complications, the preparatory measures turned out to be very expedient.
The confiscation of grain and equipment occurred, apart from the shift in time, systematically. The number of deliveries turned out to be sufficient, since the amount of grain was not large and the points for pouring unthreshed grain were not very far away...
Household utensils and agricultural implements were taken away with carts of bread.
I give the numerical result of the execution. 705 people were shot, of which 203 were men, 372 women, 130 children.
The number of collected livestock can only be determined approximately, since at the collection point the following were not recorded: horses - 45, cattle - 250, calves - 65, pigs and piglets - 450 and sheep - 300. Poultry could only be found in separate cases. What was found was handed over to the released residents.
The inventory collected included: 70 carts, 200 plows and harrows, 5 winnowing machines, 25 straw cutters and other small equipment.
All confiscated grain, equipment and livestock were transferred to the manager of the state estate of Mokrany...
During the operation in Borki, the following were consumed: rifle cartridges - 786, machine gun cartridges - 2496 pieces. There were no losses in the company. One watchman with suspected jaundice was sent to a hospital in Brest.
Deputy company commander, chief lieutenant of the security police Müller
On the occupied territory of the USSR, the destruction of Soviet prisoners of war who fell into the hands of the advancing German troops took place.
Exposure and punishment
In art
- “Come and See” (1985) - Soviet feature film directed by Elem Klimov, which recreates the eerie atmosphere of the occupation, the “everyday life” of the Ost plan, which envisioned the cultural devastation of Belarus and the physical destruction of most of its population.
- Road check of Alexey German.
After Nazi Germany captured the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and a number of western regions of the RSFSR, tens of millions of Soviet citizens found themselves in the occupation zone. From that moment on, they had to live in fact in a new state.
In the occupation zone
On July 17, 1941, on the basis of Hitler’s order “On civil administration in the occupied eastern regions”, under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, the “Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories” was created, which subordinates two administrative units: the Reichskommissariat Ostland with its center in Riga and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine with its center in Rivne.
Later it was planned to create the Reichskommissariat Muscovy, which was supposed to include the entire European part of Russia.
Not all residents of the German-occupied regions of the USSR were able to move to the rear. For various reasons, about 70 million Soviet citizens remained behind the front line and suffered difficult trials.
The occupied territories of the USSR were primarily supposed to serve as a raw material and food base for Germany, and the population as a cheap labor force. Therefore, Hitler, if possible, demanded that agriculture and industry be preserved here, which were of great interest to the German war economy.
"Draconian measures"
One of the primary tasks of the German authorities in the occupied territories of the USSR was to ensure order. Wilhelm Keitel's order stated that, due to the vastness of the areas controlled by Germany, it was necessary to suppress the resistance of the civilian population through intimidation.
“To maintain order, commanders should not demand reinforcements, but use the most draconian measures.”
The occupation authorities maintained strict control over the local population: all residents were subject to registration with the police, moreover, they were prohibited from leaving their places of permanent residence without permission. Violation of any regulation, for example, the use of a well from which the Germans took water, could entail severe punishment, including death by hanging.
The German command, fearing protest and disobedience of the civilian population, gave increasingly intimidating orders. So on July 10, 1941, the commander of the 6th Army, Walter von Reichenau, demanded that “soldiers in civilian clothes, who are easily recognized by their short haircut, be shot,” and on December 2, 1941, a directive was issued calling for “shooting without warning at any civilian of any age and floor that approaches the front line,” and also “immediately shoot anyone suspected of espionage.”
The German authorities expressed every interest in reducing the local population. Martin Bormann sent a directive to Alfred Rosenberg, in which he recommended welcoming abortions of girls and women of the “non-German population” in the occupied eastern territories, as well as supporting the intensive trade in contraceptives.
The most popular method used by the Nazis to reduce the civilian population remained execution. Liquidations were carried out everywhere. Entire villages of people were exterminated, often based solely on suspicion of an illegal act. So in the Latvian village of Borki, out of 809 residents, 705 were shot, of which 130 were children - the rest were released as “politically reliable”.
Disabled and sick citizens were subject to regular destruction. So, already during the retreat in the Belarusian village of Gurki, the Germans poisoned two trains with soup with local residents who were not to be transported to Germany, and in Minsk in just two days - November 18 and 19, 1944, the Germans poisoned 1,500 disabled old people, women and children.
The occupation authorities responded to the killings of German soldiers with mass executions. For example, after the murder of a German officer and five soldiers in Taganrog in the courtyard of plant No. 31, 300 innocent civilians were shot. And for damaging a telegraph station in Taganrog, 153 people were shot.
Russian historian Alexander Dyukov, describing the cruelty of the occupation regime, noted that “according to the most conservative estimates, one in five of the seventy million Soviet citizens who found themselves under occupation did not live to see Victory.”
Speaking at the Nuremberg trials, a representative of the American side noted that “the atrocities committed by the armed forces and other organizations of the Third Reich in the East were so stunningly monstrous that the human mind can hardly comprehend them.” According to the American prosecutor, these atrocities were not spontaneous, but represented a consistent logical system.
"The Hunger Plan"
Another terrible means that led to a massive reduction in the civilian population was the “Famine Plan” developed by Herbert Bakke. The “Hunger Plan” was part of the economic strategy of the Third Reich, according to which no more than 30 million people were supposed to remain from the previous number of inhabitants of the USSR. The food reserves thus freed were to be used to meet the needs of the German army.
One of the notes from a high-ranking German official reported the following: “The war will continue if the Wehrmacht in the third year of the war is fully supplied with food from Russia.” It was noted as an inevitable fact that “tens of millions of people will die of hunger if we take everything we need from the country.”
The “hunger plan” primarily affected Soviet prisoners of war, who received virtually no food. During the entire period of the war, almost 2 million people died of hunger among Soviet prisoners of war, according to historians.
The famine hit no less painfully on those whom the Germans hoped to destroy first - the Jews and Gypsies. For example, Jews were prohibited from purchasing milk, butter, eggs, meat and vegetables.
The food “portion” for Minsk Jews, who were under the jurisdiction of Army Group Center, did not exceed 420 kilocalories per day - this led to the death of tens of thousands of people in the winter of 1941-1942.
The most severe conditions were in the “evacuated zone” with a depth of 30-50 km, which was directly adjacent to the front line. The entire civilian population of this line was forcibly sent to the rear: the migrants were placed in the houses of local residents or in camps, but if there was no space, they could also be placed in non-residential premises - barns, pigsties. The displaced people living in the camps for the most part did not receive any food - at best, “liquid gruel” once a day.
The height of cynicism are the so-called “12 commandments” of Bakke, one of which says that “Russian people have become accustomed for hundreds of years to poverty, hunger and unpretentiousness. His stomach is stretchable, so [don’t allow] any fake pity.”
The school year 1941-1942 for many schoolchildren in the occupied territories never began. Germany counted on a lightning victory, and therefore did not plan long-term programs. However, by the next school year, a decree of the German authorities was promulgated, which declared that all children aged 8 to 12 years (born 1930-1934) were required to regularly attend a 4-grade school from the beginning of the school year, scheduled for October 1, 1942 of the year.
If for some reason the children could not attend school, parents or persons replacing them were required to submit an application to the head of the school within 3 days. For each violation of school attendance, the administration charged a fine of 100 rubles.
The main task of the “German schools” was not to teach, but to instill obedience and discipline. Much attention was paid to hygiene and health issues.
According to Hitler, a Soviet person had to be able to write and read, and he did not need more. Now the walls of school classrooms, instead of portraits of Stalin, were decorated with images of the Fuhrer, and children, standing in front of German generals, were forced to recite: “Glory to you, German eagles, glory to the wise leader! I bow my peasant head very low.”
It is curious that the Law of God appeared among school subjects, but history in its traditional sense disappeared. Pupils in grades 6-7 were required to study books promoting anti-Semitism - “At the Origins of the Great Hatred” or “Jewish Dominance in the Modern World.” The only foreign language left is German.
At first, classes were conducted using Soviet textbooks, but any mention of the party and the works of Jewish authors was removed. The schoolchildren themselves were forced to do this, and during lessons, on command, they covered “unnecessary places” with paper. Returning to the work of the Smolensk administration, it should be noted that its employees took care of the refugees to the best of their ability: they were given bread, free food stamps, and sent to social hostels. In December 1942, 17 thousand 307 rubles were spent on disabled people alone.
Here is an example of the menu of Smolensk social canteens. Lunches consisted of two courses. The first course was served with barley or potato soups, borscht and fresh cabbage; for the second course there was barley porridge, mashed potatoes, stewed cabbage, potato cutlets and rye pies with porridge and carrots; meat cutlets and goulash were also sometimes served.
The Germans mainly used the civilian population for heavy work - building bridges, clearing roads, peat mining or logging. They worked from 6 o'clock in the morning until late in the evening. Those who worked slowly could be shot as a warning to others. In some cities, for example, Bryansk, Orel and Smolensk, Soviet workers were assigned identification numbers. The German authorities motivated this by their reluctance to “pronounce Russian names and surnames incorrectly.”
It is curious that at first the occupation authorities announced that taxes would be lower than under the Soviet regime, but in reality they added taxes on doors, windows, dogs, excess furniture and even beards. According to one of the women who survived the occupation, many then existed according to the principle “we lived one day - and thank God.”
The troops of Nazi Germany cross the border river. Location unknown, June 22, 1941
The beginning of hostilities of Nazi Germany against the USSR. Lithuanian SSR, 1941
Units of the German army entered the territory of the USSR (from trophy photographs taken from captured and killed Wehrmacht soldiers). Location unknown, June 1941
Units of the German army on the territory of the USSR (from trophy photographs seized from captured and killed Wehrmacht soldiers). Location unknown, June 1941
German soldiers during the battle near Brest. Brest, 1941
Nazi troops are fighting near the walls of the Brest Fortress. Brest, 1941
German General Kruger in the vicinity of Leningrad. Leningrad region, 1941
German units enter Vyazma. Smolensk region, 1941
Employees of the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich inspect a captured Soviet light tank T-26 (photographing of the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich). The location of the shooting has not been established, September 1941.
A camel captured as a trophy and used by German mountain rangers. Krasnodar region, 1941
A group of German soldiers near a pile of Soviet canned food captured as a trophy. Location unknown, 1941
Part of the SS guards the vehicles with the population being driven away to Germany. Mogilev, June 1943
German soldiers among the ruins of Voronezh. Location unknown, July 1942
A group of Nazi soldiers on one of the streets of Krasnodar. Krasnodar, 1942
German soldiers in Taganrog. Taganrog, 1942
Raising the fascist flag by the Nazis in one of the occupied areas of the city. Stalingrad, 1942
A detachment of German soldiers on one of the streets of occupied Rostov. Rostov, 1942
German soldiers in a captured village. The location of the shooting has not been established, the year of shooting has not been established.
A column of advancing German troops near Novgorod. Novgorod the Great, August 19, 1941
A group of German soldiers in one of the occupied villages. The location of the shooting has not been established, the year of shooting has not been established.
Cavalry division in Gomel. Gomel, November 1941
Before retreating, the Germans destroy the railway near Grodno; the soldier puts in the fuse for the explosion. Grodno, July 1944
German units retreat between Lake Ilmen and the Gulf of Finland. Leningrad Front, February 1944
Retreat of the Germans from the Novgorod region. Location unknown, January 27, 1944
The Germans did not enter Moscow in November 1941 because the dams of the reservoirs surrounding Moscow were blown up. On November 29, Zhukov reported on the flooding of 398 settlements, without warning the local population, in 40-degree frost... the water level rose to 6 meters... no one counted people...
Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of “Echo of Moscow” is another program from the “Price of Victory” series. Today I am hosting it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I’ll immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello, Iskander.
Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.
And it is no coincidence that he was invited to us today, since it was today in the newspaper “Top Secret” that Iskander Kuzeev’s material entitled “The Moscow Flood” was published, which talks about a secret operation in the fall of 1941. The author of the article himself will tell you in more detail, and I will make one digression and simply tell you that, you see, life has its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I try to go in chronological order through the events of the Second World War, but when something comes... that’s interesting, we’re going back, maybe we’ll get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our guest today, Iskander Kuzeev, investigated and wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why are we talking about a flood?
Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, which I became quite familiar with from memoir literature, in particular, the recently published memoirs of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow, in Russian. Guderian's troops, the 2nd Panzer Army, had practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time, the Soviet troops, which repelled Guderian’s attacks, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where practically no clashes took place. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops stood in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only in two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilovsky heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of Army Group Center were opposed in fact, one NKVD armored train that accidentally ended up there - it was coming from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, I became aware that individual, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.
This famous incident when some motorcyclists almost reached the Falcon?
Yes, yes, they were stopped at the second bridge over the railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they protected it from air raids. Motorcyclists crossed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of the current metro station "Rechnoy Vokzal", the weather was bad there, and as the researchers who worked on this topic told me, they went down to the ice to kick a ball, at that time 30 motorcyclists passed by, and they already stopped on the last bridge before the Sokol station. And there was one German tank between the current metro stations “Skhodnenskaya” and “Tushinskaya”.
Volokolamsk direction.
Yes. This is the Western Bridge over the diversion canal in the Tushino area. And as the people who were engaged in these studies told me, this was told to me in the management of the Moscow-Volga canal, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Moscow Canal”, the tallest building on the hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and this story was passed down from generation to generation, from there it was clearly visible: some lost German tank came out, stopped on the bridge, a German officer looked out, looked back and forth, wrote something down in a notebook and drove off somewhere in the opposite direction Aleshkinsky forest. And third, there was German large-caliber artillery on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, an armored train was moving from the north to this point, and local residents crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began , where large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to study this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called the “Moscow Flood” took place.
So what kind of flood was this? They simply flooded a large area in order to impede the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?
Yes. Exactly. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istrinsky hydroelectric complex, which is called the “Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex,” was blown up. Moreover, the drains were blown up below the level of the so-called “dead mark”, when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where the German troops were advancing hit the area of the offensive and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istrinsky reservoir, and below it the mark is 143, that is, it turns out to be more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is a waterfall that washes away everything in its path, flooding houses and villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this; the operation was secret.
Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?
In Istra it was a military operation, that is, the engineering department of the Western Front. But there was also another operation, which was carried out jointly by the management of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering department of the Western Front, and...
What other operation?
Another, in a different place.
Oh, there was another one.
There was also a second one, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which a decision was made to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, from a dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.
The first operation on the Istra Reservoir, November 1941?
Yes, end of November.
What about others?
That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?
There were two options for releasing water - from the Ivankovo reservoir to the Volga downstream and releasing water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the Sestra River, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flowing where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It runs in a tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the level of the canal. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma Spillway, which, in case of any repair work, allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same level of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to run these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and they do not consume, but produce electric current, so this is called generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the sluice doors were opened and a huge stream of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are located there at a very low level above the water various villages, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - the canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice broke, and streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people...
No precautions were taken.
And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, there were also constructions there - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail he says that metal gates were welded there that did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was discharged, imagine, a huge body of water from the Ivankovo Reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River rose by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River rose by 6 meters.
Explain, as you just said, according to all the evidence - we did not see it with our own eyes and did not feel it with our skin - it was a very hard and cold winter, the frosts were terrible. This water, which poured out in huge quantities onto the earth's surface, was supposed to turn into ice.
Almost yes. At first the ice was broken...
But then, in the cold, it all probably turned into ice?
But this does not happen immediately. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology with whom I talked told me that it is enough to stand for half an hour knee-deep in such water and a person simply dies.
How many villages were flooded in this way?
In all these operations there is somewhere around 30-40.
But, if I’m not mistaken, there was an order from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Stalin, to flood, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?
There was an order. It didn't talk about flooding, it talked about destruction.
Villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups...
Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. And in accordance with this order, all villages deep into the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers were to be destroyed. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation against German troops. And there was even such a wording as “take the Soviet population with you.”
That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?
No, the retreating troops had to be withdrawn. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn precisely those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now is for those who defend Stalin. When individual excerpts from these materials were published on various blogs, a lot of Stalinists spoke in the comments and cited this phrase.
As an example of humanism.
Yes Yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, a lot of newsreels appeared about burned villages. Naturally, the question did not arise who burned them. There were Germans there, so cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.
That is, wherever there were Germans, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.
Did they report to Stalin?
Yes. In two weeks they reported that 398 settlements had been destroyed. And that’s why these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean...
Tenth, 10 percent.
Yes, and few people paid attention to this. Moreover, here in the report Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100 thousand Molotov cocktails, and so on, and so on.
Is this document genuine?
Yes, this is an absolutely genuine document, there is even data on where, in which archive it is located, a fund, an inventory.
In full - no.
I've never met. And do you cite it in the article?
We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and the report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command dated November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.
You know what else interests me in this whole story. The history, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And to be more honest, it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in military literature nor in memoirs was this story of the flooding told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some heading “top secret,” which is what the newspaper is called, strictly speaking, where did you publish?
The only thing I was able to find that was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it came out with the stamp “secret” and in recent years the stamp “secret” was removed and stood classified as “chipboard”, and it was declassified only in 2006. And this book talked about the explosion of waterways in Istra. But nothing was said about the operation on the channel. I was able to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel; last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and Valentin Barkovsky’s book was published in a circulation of only 500 copies. And it talks about this in detail.
And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has had all its stamps removed, but apparently it is simply in libraries.
Well, yes, it was never reprinted.
I knew, of course, that many of the documents were classified, but in order to release a book immediately classified as “secret”, what circulation could it have had and who was it intended for then?
The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.
And then here’s the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described anywhere in German military literature?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts about whether everything was really flooded and people were dying there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not just a lot of people, this very elderly people who remembered this, who told it, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. A resident of the village named 1 May told me, this is a working village right at the level of the irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, but those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage area, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal simply saved them. Firstly, there was artillery firing from all sides. There were low, completely panel houses, lower than even peasant huts, and naturally, the artillery hit what was visible, and a potato storage facility with a high chimney was visible. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? They’ll kill you now.” And water began to flow, they went out and managed to get out along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal and go towards Dmitrov.
Iskander, tell me, is it known whether anyone kept such calculations of how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?
I couldn't find these calculations anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs on LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could have died there, that at home stand high above the river level, and even though there is an attic, there is also a roof. But when I talked to doctors, they said that there was little chance of survival in such a situation.
Is it even known what the approximate population of these villages was before the flood?
There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, this figure is now considered, the regular composition of the Red Army accounts for only one third of this number.
Even less.
Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling means the death of civilians.
Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes while the news broadcast passes, after which we will continue our conversation.
Good evening again, dear listeners. We continue the “Price of Victory” program, which is hosted today by me, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, author of the article “The Moscow Flood”, published in today’s issue of the newspaper “Top Secret”. And we talk with our guest about those events of the autumn of 1941, which Iskander Kuzeev describes. So, we settled on trying to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by releasing water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult; it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. Have you ever wondered how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?
Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were on higher ground were flooded and survived. But it’s also difficult to say how flooded they were. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that the flooding could not have happened at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are located very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a short historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built in the time of Catherine, there is such a village on the Istra River Catherine's Walls, and the canal passes through the city of Solnechnogorsk, it was not completed due to the fact that the need no longer existed. Almost all the structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all the hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the river workers say, locked, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages were on this navigable route. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, it is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and the Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.
It's clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: “Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone.” To which follows the following response from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “So that information leaks to the Germans and so that they send their reconnaissance company to you? This is war, Comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He didn’t even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She too could have been covered by a wave.” Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not exactly fictional, but reconstructed?
This is a reconstruction, yes.
Reconstruction based on some individual evidence, apparently?
Yes. After all, the flow from the Istrinsky reservoir practically reached the Moscow River and could flood all these dacha villages, dachas in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra...
And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked with any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Sacrifice, the price of Victory is an issue that we constantly discuss. As for just purely military effectiveness, was this an effective measure to stop the Germans?
In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilovsky Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument to General Vlasov in Russia.
Is it still worth it?
Yes. His name is stamped there; he commanded the 20th Army there.
And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.
Yes. Kuznetsov’s shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th Army.
But the same operation can be done differently, so there was no other way out?
Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...
We'll talk about this later, I'm just interested in this situation. You can also say this, like those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because we can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was difficult, associated with huge victims, but it nevertheless turned out to be effective.
At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941; Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south should have converged somewhere in the Petushki area...
Well, yes, it’s a known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.
I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when they tried to find out the flood zone and at least the approximate number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. I’ll quote again, in this case the quote is accurate, since you heard it yourself: “See that hill? There are just skeletons piled up there.” And they pointed to a small hill on the bank of the Sestra River. “The Canal Army men lie there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulag people, who built this canal. That's why I'm asking this. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burial places, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?
Most likely, the cemeteries were on the right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army soldiers, I still thought that I had misheard, and asked: “Red Army soldiers?” - “No, channel army men.” There, after all, the canal became a fortification structure and, in fact, all the canal builders can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. According to various sources, in the city of Dmitrov, scientists in the local museum counted, there, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.
Did you die or were you involved in construction?
They died during construction, there are mass graves there. I was told in the village of Test Pilot, on the shore of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures there have occupied the last collective farm field, began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they came across mass graves. Recently, builders reconstructed the Volokolamskoye Highway, they were building the third line of the tunnel and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamskoye Highways, there was a mass of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there was a mass of skeletons piled up under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell or simply stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was done at a continuous pace, and people simply died. There is such a case described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when a person simply fell into concrete in front of everyone.
Iskander, one more question. There is a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be surrendered to the Germans, was there actually a plan to flood the city of Moscow itself?
Yes, researchers who are associated with this topic also told me about this. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningradskoye Highway and the cottage village of the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and, as I was told, a ton of explosives was planted there, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of the Khimki River that flows from it, and this flow could simply fall on capital. I spoke with a veteran, the former head of the canal, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th lock at the intersection of Volokolamsk Highway and Svoboda Street, he said: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow is exactly according to our calculations.” , it was to this level that he could rise.” And then a lot of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.
But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Are there only oral testimonies from people?
Yes. And there they told me that when they were dismantling the old bridge across the Klyazminskoye Reservoir, now a new bridge has been built there on Dmitrovskoe Highway, and already in the 80s they found explosives in huge quantities.
Which, apparently, was intended specifically for an explosion.
To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written “from 20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, but now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is completely inaccessible.
Actually, when we say that there is no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, one can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are opened, but very lazily, I would say.
And this story in the form of a legend circulated for a long time and it was attributed that it was Hitler’s idea to flood Moscow after the Germans arrived. There was a play like this by Andrei Vishnevsky “Moskau See”, “Moscow Sea”. Such a reconstruction, when after Hitler’s victory they walk on boats...
It was as if it was a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to sink.
Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for the fact that they themselves could be flooded.
Yes, a transformation of real events.
By the way, Comrade Hitler himself also launched a similar operation in Berlin.
Yes, here, from these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators; when it comes to saving his own life, the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film “Liberation” there was an episode when the floodgates on the Spree River and the dampers were opened...
Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.
Who died there heroically. You can have different attitudes towards this film, which is also largely propaganda, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were literally opponents just five minutes ago, carried out the wounded together, held the cordon line together so that women and children could get out first, this is on Unter den Linden station, right next to the Reichstag.
By the way, about the film “Liberation” I could say that, yes, it is indeed perceived, and probably quite rightly, as a film primarily a propaganda film, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced there, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the film “Liberation” that made me think completely, perhaps not what the authors of the film expected. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was an option for flooding the city? No, there was an explosion; in my opinion, they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.
As for Krakow, I think this is also rather from the realm of legend, because Krakow stands very high...
There really was no flooding there. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet another page in the history of the war. To what extent did you feel like you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?
Oh, a lot of things are closed. In general, a very interesting topic is the attitude of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of the Meyerhold Theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected from scraps, diary entries from the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. I felt like I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London and people are killed in artillery attacks. Russian people were dying, they were shelled throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, they were shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see people’s attitude to this: “The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city.”
That is, both sides who fought did not take the civilian population into account, I think we can draw the following conclusion. By the way, if you look at the losses in the Second World War, not only of the Soviet Union, but also of all participants on both sides, both the anti-Hitler coalition and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses are the ratio, of course, in each country its own, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.
Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg occupied by Soviet troops. This did not happen.
Well, there are, of course, examples of such saving people. They can also probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having yielded to Hitler quickly enough, we know, there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people’s lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are still many discussions on the topic of the siege of Leningrad. This is a difficult topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, or perhaps more rational, policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.
Well, yes, it's a complicated story.
And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian’s memoirs, I read his notes, where he talked about the supply of food, that notices were posted that there was enough food so that the population did not worry in Orel, for example.
So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any calculations. And I, perhaps even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, this, that, I want to remind you once again that our program is about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word “price,” could have been different, in our opinion. And the price of Victory, which is primarily expressed by the number of deaths, the number of human lives given and laid on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of this, because victory at any cost is very often, it seems to me, a Pyrrhic victory. In any case, you need to be able to look critically at your past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, what are your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be involved in it, some kind of investigation, research?
In the next issue we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that Nesterov’s memoirs, which were published on the Internet just the other day, deserve to be discussed separately. It is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records have survived. After all, it was dangerous to store them. There is, for example, the following entry: “Residents of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the city’s liberation from the Bolsheviks.” It is a miracle that such records have survived.
It’s a miracle that they survived in the hands of private individuals, because I think there is quite a lot of evidence of this kind. Another thing is that they all ended up, as they once said, “in the right place.” I think that many listeners probably remember that I have now conducted several programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod who is involved in collaboration during the war. And there are a lot of documents there. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there were a lot of documents preserved from that time, where there was a lot of evidence of how all this happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.
After all, Novgorod is a city that was occupied for almost four years.
Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, okay, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And we say goodbye to you, dear listeners, until our next program. All the best, goodbye.
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