In 1939, planning an attack on Poland and anticipating the possible entry of Great Britain and France into the war on its side, the leadership of the Third Reich decided to protect itself from the east - in August a Non-Aggression Treaty was concluded between Germany and the USSR, dividing the areas of interests of the parties in Eastern Europe. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. On September 17, the Soviet Union sent troops into Western Ukraine and Western Belarus and later annexed these territories. A common border appeared between Germany and the USSR. In 1940, Germany captured Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and defeated France. The victories of the Wehrmacht gave rise to hopes in Berlin for a quick end to the war with England, which would allow Germany to devote all its strength to defeating the USSR. However, Germany failed to force Britain to make peace. The war continued.
The decision to war with the USSR and the general plan for the future campaign were announced by Hitler at a meeting with the high military command on July 31, 1940, shortly after the victory over France. The Fuhrer planned to liquidate the Soviet Union by the end of 1941.
The leading place in planning Germany's war against the USSR was taken by the General Staff of the Wehrmacht Ground Forces (OKH), headed by its chief, Colonel General F. Halder. Along with the General Staff of the Ground Forces, the headquarters of the operational leadership of the Supreme High Command played an active role in planning the “eastern campaign.” armed forces Germany (OKW) led by General A. Jodl, who received instructions directly from Hitler.
On December 18, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 21 of the Supreme High Command of the Wehrmacht, which received the code name “Barbarossa Option” and became the main guiding document in the war against the USSR. The German armed forces were given the task of “defeating Soviet Russia in one short-term campaign,” for which it was supposed to use all ground forces with the exception of those that performed occupation functions in Europe, as well as approximately two-thirds of the air force and a small part of the navy. With rapid operations with deep and rapid advance of tank wedges, the German army was supposed to destroy the Soviet troops located in the western part of the USSR and prevent the withdrawal of combat-ready units into the interior of the country. Subsequently, quickly pursuing the enemy, German troops had to reach a line from where Soviet aviation would not be able to carry out raids on the Third Reich. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to reach the Arkhangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan line.
The immediate strategic goal of the war against the USSR was defeat and destruction Soviet troops in the Baltic states, Belarus and Right Bank Ukraine. It was assumed that during these operations the Wehrmacht would reach Kyiv with fortifications east of the Dnieper, Smolensk and the area south and west of Lake Ilmen. The further goal was to timely occupy an important military and economically Donetsk coal basin, and in the north - quickly reach Moscow. The directive required operations to capture Moscow to begin only after the destruction of Soviet troops in the Baltic states and the capture of Leningrad and Kronstadt. The task of the German Air Force was to disrupt the opposition of Soviet aviation and support its own ground forces in decisive directions. The naval forces were required to ensure the defense of their coast, preventing the Soviet fleet from breaking through from the Baltic Sea.
The invasion was scheduled to begin on May 15, 1941. The estimated duration of the main hostilities was 4-5 months according to plan.
With the completion of development general plan In the war of Germany against the USSR, operational-strategic planning was transferred to the headquarters of the branches of the armed forces and formations of troops, where more specific plans were developed, tasks for the troops were clarified and detailed, and measures were determined to prepare the armed forces, the economy, and the future theater of military operations for war.
The German leadership proceeded from the need to ensure the defeat of Soviet troops along the entire front line. As a result of the planned grandiose “border battle,” the USSR should have had nothing left except 30-40 reserve divisions. This goal was supposed to be achieved by an offensive along the entire front. The Moscow and Kiev directions were recognized as the main operational lines. They were provided by army groups “Center” (48 divisions were concentrated on a 500 km front) and “South” (40 German divisions and significant Allied forces were concentrated on a 1250 km front). Army Group North (29 divisions on a 290 km front) had the task of securing the northern flank of Group Center, capturing the Baltic states and establishing contact with Finnish troops. The total number of divisions of the first strategic echelon, taking into account Finnish, Hungarian and Romanian troops, was 157 divisions, of which 17 tank and 13 motorized, and 18 brigades.
On the eighth day, German troops were supposed to reach the line Kaunas - Baranovichi - Lvov - Mogilev-Podolsky. On the twentieth day of the war, they were supposed to capture territory and reach the line: Dnieper (to the area south of Kyiv) - Mozyr - Rogachev - Orsha - Vitebsk - Velikiye Luki - south of Pskov - south of Pärnu. This was followed by a pause of twenty days, during which it was planned to concentrate and regroup formations, give rest to the troops and prepare a new supply base. On the fortieth day of the war, the second phase of the offensive was to begin. During it, it was planned to capture Moscow, Leningrad and Donbass.
In connection with Hitler's decision to expand the scope of Operation Marita (attack on Greece), which required the involvement of additional forces, changes were made to the war plan against the USSR in mid-March 1941. The allocation of additional forces for the Balkan campaign required postponing the start of the operation to a later date. All preparatory measures, including the transfer of mobile formations necessary for the offensive in the first operational echelon, had to be completed by approximately June 22.
To attack the USSR, by June 22, 1941, four army groups were created. Taking into account the strategic reserve, the group for operations in the East consisted of 183 divisions. Army Group North (commanded by Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb) was deployed in East Prussia, on the front from Memel to Goldap. Army Group Center (commanded by Field Marshal Feodor von Bock) occupied the front from Gołdap to Wlodawa. Army Group South (commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt), under the operational subordination of the Romanian Ground Forces Command, occupied the front from Lublin to the mouth of the Danube.
In the USSR, on the basis of the military districts located on the western border, according to the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on June 21, 1941, 4 fronts were created. On June 24, 1941, the Northern Front was created. According to a certificate compiled on the eve of the war by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, General Vatutin, there were a total of 303 divisions in the ground forces, of which 237 divisions were included in the group for operations in the West (of which 51 were tank and 25 motorized). The group for operations in the West was built into three strategic echelons.
The North-Western Front (commanded by Colonel General F.I. Kuznetsov) was created in the Baltic states. The Western Front (commanded by Army General D. G. Pavlov) was created in Belarus. The Southwestern Front (commanded by Colonel General M.P. Kirponos) was created in Western Ukraine. The Southern Front (commanded by Army General I.V. Tyulenev) was created in Moldova and Southern Ukraine. The Northern Front (commanded by Lieutenant General M. M. Popov) was created on the basis of the Leningrad Military District. The Baltic Fleet (commanded by Admiral V.F. Tributs) was stationed in the Baltic Sea. The Black Sea Fleet (commanded by Vice Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky) was stationed in the Black Sea.
Topics about the myths of 1941 - on the occasion of the recent black anniversary.
In the very vast and diverse black mythology of 1941, a special place is occupied by myths revolving around the causes and preconditions of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, and the Second World War in general. Unlike fiction about the dominance of cavalrymen or about a decapitated army, these myths are not the product of popular reflection; they are purposefully created and introduced into the consciousness of our average person by a geopolitical enemy. The goal is to shift, in whole or in part, the blame for unleashing the world massacre onto the USSR and thereby achieve the exclusion of Russia from the list of victorious powers. And then, if possible, raise the issue of territorial compensation and reparations to the “victims of Russian aggression.” This idea is now actively promoted by the self-proclaimed leadership of Ukraine, blocking any international resolutions condemning the Nazis. But even before the 2014 coup in Kyiv, this idea was very popular in the West. Moreover, you should be careful.
All these discussions about the “equal responsibility” of two tyrants seem to hang in emptiness, in no way correlated with reality. Their authors - if they are not idiots or schizophrenics - must certainly feel the falsity of their own statements, which completely ignore the indisputable fact that it was the USSR, and not Germany, that was subjected to aggression and was forced to wage stubborn battles on its own territory for several years simply for the sake of preserving its state independence. And in order to somehow retouch this immutable fact, they have to resort to considerable resourcefulness. Unfortunately, many people fall for this resourcefulness. Well, let’s try again to mentally plunge into “that endless summer day” and comprehend what happened then and what could not have happened under any circumstances.
So, myth #1. And perhaps the most vile. It is a myth that the USSR itself planned to strike Germany first. But Hitler got ahead of the aggressor in time. The motives of the USSR within this mythologeme vary depending on whose interests the particular myth-maker is voicing - from the Bolsheviks’ desire for “world revolution and the dominance of the Third International” to Stalin’s desire to “divert the attention of the world community from the problem of the Holodomor.” But in any case, Hitler’s Germany plays the noble role of defender of “centuries-old European values” from the invasion of “bloodthirsty Asian (option: Bolshevik) hordes.” Soviet propaganda of the pre-war years, which depicted future war certainly “with little blood loss and on enemy territory.” “And on enemy soil we will defeat the enemy with little bloodshed, with a mighty blow,” rang out from all the speakers before the war almost more often than the famous “Three tankmen, three cheerful friends.” And also numerous gossip (usually without specifying specific names and places): someone somewhere saw how on June 22 posters were burned calling the Red Army on a campaign for the liberation of the world proletariat, some anonymous grandfather in 1968, having seen a soldier sporting new chrome boots muttered ominously: “It was the same in 1941!” - exactly like the raging false holy fool from the film about Peter the Great.
But there is no documentary evidence for this myth. Nowhere - except for the official speeches of Dr. Goebbels and the memoirs of Nazi war criminals, who, naturally, will justify their own atrocities. The military and political leadership of the USSR did not give any orders to prepare for an aggressive war.
I will say more: the army remained not mobilized until June 22, 1941. The mobilization order came out only on the 23rd, the next day. The attack of Hitler's hordes was met by divisions and corps staffed according to peacetime standards. Starting a war against the strongest army in Europe, which brought the entire continent to its knees within a few months, with an unmobilized army, would be tantamount to suicide, and Stalin is anything but a suicide. Let us remember the beginning of the First World War, what a cry was raised by German diplomacy because of the order of Nicholas II about partial mobilization of the army. And why? Yes, because mobilization means preparation for war, and everyone understands this very well. Stalin also understood this - and therefore, even being confident that the Germans would attack soon, he did not give the order for mobilization, so as not to provoke this attack ahead of time.
Soviet border guards on patrol. Western border, June 20, 1941
Stalin did not need war. Just at the turn of 1939 - 1940, the Red Army began large-scale technical re-equipment following the results of the Civil War in Spain and Winter War against Finland. These conflicts revealed many shortcomings in the military equipment in service with the Red Army; these shortcomings had to be urgently eliminated - just in anticipation of a major conflict with Germany. By June 1941, rearmament had not yet been completed. T-34 tanks had just begun to enter service with the troops, and the heavy KV tank, despite the fact that the mere sight of this fortress on tracks terrified the Germans, had many technical flaws. Aviation units continued to be equipped with obsolete aircraft such as I-16, TB-3 and SB-2 - easy prey for the German Messerschmitts. and Focke-Wulfs. The defensive structures along the line of the old state border of the USSR were not occupied by troops, and the construction of defensive structures along the new state border was just underway. In order for the Red Army to resist Hitler's Wehrmacht on equal terms, it was necessary to try to delay the war until 1942, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the unfinished war between the Germans and England gave hope that this could be done. And simply, unlike Trotsky, Stalin was not a supporter of the idea of an immediate “world revolution,” professing the slogans of “building socialism in one particular country” and “peaceful coexistence of two political systems.” Stalin was a pragmatist who understood, unlike his opponents within the party, that an attempt to export revolution in the conditions of unfinished industrialization could not end in anything other than a crushing defeat. And then you will have to forget about all socialism for a long time.
Hitler blesses his soldiers to invade the USSR
On the contrary, Hitler drove an invasion army of unprecedented numbers to the borders of the USSR. It consisted of 190 divisions of all types of troops (153 German divisions, the rest from satellite countries), over 5 million people. The invasion army was perfectly mobilized, had experience of fighting in Europe (and, by the way, everywhere and everywhere the war was of an aggressive nature on the part of the Nazi Reich). And equipped big amount tanks, planes and artillery. That is, she was perfectly prepared for an attack. If this army was going to defend itself, why was not a single tank dug into the ground (as was the case in 1945 during the defense of Berlin and Prague)? If Hitler only “preempted Russian (or Bolshevik - in this case it doesn’t matter) aggression” - where are the traces of preparation to repel this aggression? Where did the German strategists get such confidence that the “aggression” could be “preempted”?
Ultimately, the propaganda myth about “Soviet aggression” and “ preemptive strike"refute the testimony of Field Marshal Paulus, who found himself in Soviet captivity after Battle of Stalingrad. This Paulus, by the way, was developer plan "Barbarossa". And other captured German officers and generals are unanimous that in 1941, Wehrmacht strategists expected exclusively defensive actions from the USSR.
What about Soviet propaganda? - someone will ask. - How about “with little loss and on foreign territory”? Here Stalin and his propagandists found themselves hostage to their own “most progressive ideology in the world.” It was assumed that in the event of an attack by aggressive Europe on “the world’s first country of workers and peasants,” the situation in Russia in 1917 would be repeated in the enemy’s camp: soldiers from among the working people would rebel against their oppressors and would not shed the blood of their fellow workers. And the Red Army will only have to march victoriously through the cities of the recent enemy, establishing Soviet power to the joy of the local workers and peasants. "“There is a deeply rooted harmful prejudice that in the event of war, the population of the countries at war with us will necessarily and almost completely rebel against their bourgeoisie, and all that remains for the Red Army to do is to march through the enemy’s country in a triumphal march and establish Soviet power,” he wroteI. Zaporozhets spoke about this, addressing Marshal Timoshenko on the eve of the war. Stalin's propaganda, alas, did not take into account the ability of the Nazi propaganda machine to subjugate minds by speculating on the basest instincts of the crowd. As a result, the German “class brothers” marched victoriously almost to Moscow, without experiencing the slightest discomfort from the need to rob and exterminate the civilian population - for this population was promised to them as slaves and guaranteed their personal pass to the caste of masters.
Myth No. 2. Essentially it is a softened version of the previous one. They say that two equally bloodthirsty and equally greedy tyrants in 1939 agreed to divide the world and jointly unleashed the Second World War. But then something was not shared, and as a result, Hitler invaded the USSR, and Stalin, from the category of war criminals (where he supposedly belonged) managed to crawl into the ranks of the winners. These theories are very popular in modern Ukraine and Poland and are ultimately aimed at the same thing as the first myth - to hold the USSR responsible for the war and demand compensation from modern Russia. However, they do not correlate well with reality and are easily refuted with the help of... a geographical map. Let's see where he directed his offensive actions in 1939 - 1940. Hitler, and where - Stalin. And we will see that Hitler acted as a classic conqueror, annexing to his empire countries that had never before been part of the orbit of German influence - such as Greece, Yugoslavia or Denmark. Stalin’s actions were aimed at returning to the USSR the territories that before 1914 belonged to the Russian Empire and were lost by Russia during the First World War and the subsequent revolution. Taking advantage of the revolutionary chaos and the collapse of the front, the same Germany imposed the humiliating and predatory Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Russia, seizing the territories of the Baltic states, Belarus and Ukraine in its favor. Even earlier, Finland disappeared, having declared its independence, “taking” with it the Russian Vyborg and the place of our military glory - the Gangut Peninsula. Romania, under the guise of the Civil War, “privatized” our Bessarabian province, including those territories where no Romance-speaking population had ever lived. Engulfed in Civil War and led by the cosmopolitan government of Lenin, Russia was unable to prevent this plundering of its own territories. Thus, the talk in 1939 was not about aggression, but about the liberation of previously occupied Russian lands. The USSR did not lay claim to anything beyond this.
Molotov signs the Non-Aggression Pact between the USSR and Germany.
Ribbentrop stands behind him
The West is comfortable. Periodically initiating unrest in Russia, he over and over again nibbled off large pieces of territory from us (with a Russian population, by the way). And then he bristled at the “rules of international law” in order to prevent the strengthened Russian state from returning stolen goods and liberating suffering fellow citizens from occupation. I apologize for the pathos, but indeed, on the lands torn away from Russia, the new owners with enviable consistency carried out genocide of the Russian population. And this was the case not only during the dismemberment of the USSR, but also during the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 - 1918. The beginning of the Second World War in the West and the non-participation of the USSR in this war (on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) allowed Stalin to at least partially restore historical justice - to return Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Baltic states, Vyborg to the orbit of Russian influence, and also to ensure the presence of military base on Gangut. Who knows - if not for the heroic defense of this very military base, perhaps the Germans in 1941 would have broken into Leningrad on the shoulders of the retreating Soviet troops, and instead of the Leningrad blockade there would have been a Leningrad massacre in our history...
Munich agreement. In “the same ranks” with Hitler (in the center) and Mussolini (to the right of Hitler)
stand the “pillars of Western democracy” Chamberlain and Daladier (to the left of Hitler)
And those who dare to reproach us with the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”, accusing us of unleashing the Second World War, should be sternly reminded of the Munich Agreement, which gave Czechoslovakia to the Nazis to be torn to pieces. England and France signed the fact that this same Munich agreement, which actually gave Nazi aggression a free hand, a year (!!!) before the disputed pact. That the USSR honestly tried to conclude a collective security agreement with England and France. And only when faced with outright sabotage from Western democracies did the Soviet government move towards rapprochement with Germany. Poland also had a non-aggression pact with Germany (which, by the way, willingly participated in the division of Czechoslovakia with the Nazis), which formally became the first victim of the Second World War. So, I strongly recommend that Western leaders who accuse the USSR of jointly unleashing the World War together with Nazi Germany look in the mirror with each such statement. Dot. The topic is exhausted.
Myth 3. Today he is very much loved both in ultranationalist circles and among some of the “Orthodox” radicals - the “professional spiritual children” of the late Fr. Daniil Sysoev. This myth, without disputing the aggressive nature of the war on the part of Germany, insists that Hitler’s aggression was nothing more than a crusade of Christian Europe against godless Bolshevism, that the German invasion was aimed at liberating the Russian people from the yoke of “Jews and Khachs” (sysoids talk about "godless Bolsheviks"). Well, Goebbels's propaganda, trying to win over Nazi Germany as many allies and volunteers as possible really shouted about a “crusade against Bolshevism,” but I already spoke about the “honesty” of Goebbels’s propaganda - it is at zero. If we take texts “for internal consumption”, not propaganda ones, then the picture that emerges is exactly the opposite of the Sysoev-Provirninsky cliches. I already had the honor of what were Hitler's true plans regarding Russia and the Russians. I'll add a few more juicy touches.
The "liberators" have arrived
From Hitler's statements: “We must develop the technique of depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by depopulation, I will say that I mean the elimination of entire racial units. And this is what I intend to accomplish... If I can send the flower of the German nation into the heat of war without the slightest regret about shedding valuable German blood, then, of course, I have the right to eliminate the millions of the inferior race who multiply like worms!
From Himmler’s speech at Wewelsburg Castle, March 1941: “Our task is not to Germanize the East in the old sense of the word, that is, to instill in the population the German language and German laws, but to ensure that only people of truly German blood live in the East... For this it is necessary eliminate a significant part of the subhumans inhabiting the eastern lands. The number of Slavs must be reduced by thirty million people; The fewer of them left, the better.”
From Goering’s conversation with the Italian Minister of the Interior: “This year in Russia between 20 and 30 million people will die of hunger. It may even be good that this will happen; after all, some nations need to be reduced.”
From the diary of Chief Corporal Johannes Herder: “In one village we captured the first twelve residents we came across and took them to the cemetery. They forced them to dig a spacious and deep grave for themselves. There is and cannot be any mercy for the Slavs. Damned humanity is alien to us.”
From the diary of Corporal Paul Fogg: “We tied these girls up, and then lightly ironed them with our caterpillars, so it was nice to look at.”
The "liberators" have arrived. Only the “liberated” ones don’t look happy at all
This is not how liberators are greeted. Not with such scared faces
Russian children shot by the German occupiers in Rostov.
Well, neither give nor take, the bloody Bolshevik executioners who personally participated
in the persecution of the Church. Or is it the “liberated Russian people”?
"Valiant liberators" pose against the backdrop of a "liberated" Russian girl
Punishers hang a girl. Who knows why? Possibly a partisan or underground worker.
Possibly a Komsomol member. Or perhaps they hang him just like that, to intimidate him.
So I’m wondering how the sysoids will interpret this frame that captured
large-scale, on a truly German scale, robbery of civilians?
"The valiant German army returns poultry looted by the Bolsheviks
to its rightful owners"?
Or maybe "Russian peasants, filled with gratitude
to your liberators, are you ready to give up your last for the needs of the Christ-loving German army?
The rape of Russian women by Nazi soldiers was not considered a crime by the latter.
I wonder what the sysoids think about this? "Komsomol whores were raped
and collective farm activists, therefore rape is justified"? Or completely in Hitler’s
spirit: "Improvement of the breed"?
Hitler's soldiers pose against the backdrop of a newly hanged nurse.
In fact, according to all the norms of international law that already existed then,
Medical personnel of warring armies are inviolable.
And perhaps the most eloquent thing is the photo. This is not a montage or a Bolshevik fake -
They love to flaunt this photo on neo-Nazi public pages on VKontakte, mocking
a hanged woman and her child, whom the "Christ-loving German army"
“freed” from her mother.
Agree, a very high-quality “liberation”. Russians were forever freed from the “Jews”, and from the “khachas”, and from the Bolshevik yoke... and from life at the same time. And from the territory. And from resources. Those who like to speculate that the German occupiers, they say, dealt only with communists, Komsomol members and collective farm activists - that is, with those who directly took part in the persecution of the Church, it is worth strictly recalling only one name: Tanya Savicheva. In what kind of “persecution of the Church” did this Leningrad little girl manage to take part? And here is a far from complete list of Khatyn children burned alive by punitive forces:
Misha Zhidovich (5 years old)
- Slava Zhidovich (7 years old)
- Kolya Baranovsky (6 years old)
- Anton Novitsky (4 years)
- Misha Novitsky (2 years)
- Kostya Novitsky (5 years old)
- Lena Baranovskaya (7 years old)
- Yuzya Kaminskaya (5 years old)
- Lenya Zhelobkovich (4 years old)
- Misha Zhelobkovich (2 years)
- Anya Yaskevich (4 years)
In what kind of “persecution of the Church” did these little ones manage to take part? So there is no need to talk about “liberators” or “Christian Europe” here. Leave these stories for those who can't read. By the way, the Waffen-SS included Armenian, Azerbaijani, North Caucasian, and Crimean Tatar legions. The Germans attached special importance to inciting national separatism among non-Russian peoples. So it doesn’t work out with “the liberation of the Russian nation from the yoke of the Jews and Khachas.” It doesn't work out.
Uniform of the Caucasian SS legions
Not to mention the fact that war is an extremely expensive business (one artillery shell costs as much as an average passenger car). And that, oddly enough, people die in war. One can only imagine Hitler sacrificing “pure” German blood for the sake of the liberation of some Slavs, whom he did not hesitate to call “Huns” and “a wild Asian horde” only while in a madhouse. Yes, Hitler would have destroyed Bolshevism and uprooted the communist infection. But only in order to take over our lands and our resources. The Russians were destined for best case scenario the fate of the Papuans.
_____________________________
Notes
E These soldiers were preparing to be sent to Czechoslovakia to suppress the “Euromaidan” there. Usually soldiers were entitled to tarpaulin boots, but on the eve of hostilities they decided to “pamper” them.
Even if we keep in mind the preventive strike plan developed by G.K. Zhukov as Chief of the General Staff, it should be noted that a) this plan did not become the basis for any orders; b) it was about preventive strike, that is, about an attempt to forestall impending aggression, but nothing more.
Let me remind you: this is a man who made lying his profession, the author of the famous formula: “The more monstrous the lie, the sooner they will believe it.”
The Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter was one of the best fighters in the world at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
If Hitler, attacking the USSR, was only “defending the traditional values of European civilization from wild Asian hordes,” then what “wild Asian hordes” did he imagine in France? And in Sweden? And in Greece?
Strictly speaking, the Red Army before the war had a numerical superiority in tanks and aircraft. However, the vast majority of Soviet tanks in service at that time were only suitable for scrap metal. Modern T-34 and KV combat vehicles (which, by the way, were much superior to their German counterparts in their tactical and technical characteristics) were available in only 1,475 units - against 4,300 tanks for the Wehrmacht. Airplanes capable of competing on equal terms with German ones began to appear in the USSR only during the war.
So he took it and climbed through, brazenly, like a soaped one, after the “forces of good” in the person of England, France and America smashed the Nazi vermin. And the millions of Soviet citizens who died in the name of Victory are, they say, “the nonsense of Putin’s propaganda.”
I foresee objections: Galicia at the time of 1914 was not part of Russia. Russian empire took possession of its territory short time during the First World War, but then was forced to leave it under the blows of superior Austro-German forces. It's right. But it is also true that the Galicia-Volyn principality is one of the oldest in Rus', that Lviv was founded by the Russian prince Daniil and named by him in honor of his son, Prince Lev. It is also true that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, taking advantage of the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus', “pocketed” Galicia, which as a result ended up first as part of Poland, and then, after the collapse of the latter, as part of Austria-Hungary. It is also true that during the First World War the overwhelming majority of Galicians greeted the Russian Army with bread and salt (for which these people were subjected to repression in 1915-1916 by the returning Austrian occupiers).
Belarusians and Poles. The Germans cleared out the Jewish population immediately, in 1941, but Khatyn perished in March 1943.
Books used when writing this article:
1) A.I. Balashov, G.P. Rudakov. "History of the Great Patriotic War"
2) V. Medinsky. "War. Myths of the USSR"
3) I. Pykhalov. "The Great Slandered War"
4) N. Narochnitskaya. "For what and with whom did we fight?"
5) G. Picker. "Hitler's Table Talks"
On June 22, 1941, in the early morning, Germany, with the support of its allies - Italy, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Slovakia - suddenly and without warning attacked the USSR. The Soviet-German war began, in Soviet and Russian historiography called the Great Patriotic War.
German troops launch a powerful surprise attack along the entire western Soviet border with three large army groups: "North", "Center" and "South" (a total of 181 divisions, including 19 tank and 14 motorized, 18 brigades and 3 air fleets) . On the very first day, a significant part of Soviet ammunition, fuel and military equipment was destroyed or captured; About 1,200 aircraft were destroyed. On June 23-25, the Soviet fronts tried to launch counterattacks, but failed.
By the end of the first ten days of July, German troops captured Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine, Moldova and Estonia. The main forces of the Soviet Western Front were defeated in the Battle of Bialystok-Minsk.
The Soviet Northwestern Front was defeated in a border battle and driven back. However, the Soviet counterattack near Soltsy on July 14-18 led to the suspension of the German offensive on Leningrad for almost 3 weeks.
On June 25, Soviet planes bomb Finnish airfields. On June 26, Finnish troops launched a counteroffensive and soon regained the Karelian Isthmus, previously captured by the Soviet Union, without crossing the old historical Russian-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus (north of Lake Ladoga, the old border was crossed to great depth). On June 29, German-Finnish troops launched an offensive in the Arctic, but their advance deeper into Soviet territory was stopped.
In Ukraine, the Soviet Southwestern Front is also defeated and driven back from the border, but the counterattack of Soviet mechanized corps does not allow German troops to make a deep breakthrough and capture Kyiv.
In a new offensive on the central sector of the Soviet-German front, launched on July 10, Army Group Center captured Smolensk on July 16 and encircled the main forces of the recreated Soviet Western Front. In the wake of this success, and also taking into account the need to support the offensive on Leningrad and Kyiv, on July 19, Hitler, despite the objections of the army command, gave the order to shift the direction of the main attack from the Moscow direction to the south (Kyiv, Donbass) and north (Leningrad). In accordance with this decision, the tank groups advancing on Moscow were withdrawn from the Center group and sent to the south (2nd tank group) and north (3rd tank group). The attack on Moscow was to be continued by the infantry divisions of Army Group Center, but the battle in the Smolensk region continued, and on July 30 Army Group Center received orders to go on the defensive. Thus, the attack on Moscow was postponed.
On August 8-9, Army Group North resumed its offensive on Leningrad. The front of the Soviet troops is dissected, they are forced to retreat in diverging directions towards Tallinn and Leningrad. The defense of Tallinn pinned down part of the German forces, but on August 28, Soviet troops were forced to begin evacuation. On September 8, with the capture of Shlisselburg, German troops encircled Leningrad.
On September 4, the Chief of the General Staff of the German Armed Forces, General Jodl, received from Marshal Mannerheim a categorical refusal to advance on Leningrad.
On September 6, Hitler, by his order (Weisung No. 35), stops the advance of the North group of troops on Leningrad, and gives the order to Field Marshal Leeb to give up all the tanks and a significant number of troops in order to “as quickly as possible” begin the attack on Moscow. Having abandoned the assault on Leningrad, Army Group North launched an offensive in the Tikhvin direction on October 16, intending to link up with Finnish troops east of Leningrad. However, a counterattack by Soviet troops near Tikhvin liberates the city and stops the enemy.
In Ukraine, in early August, troops of Army Group South cut off the Dnieper and encircle two Soviet armies near Uman. However, they failed to capture Kyiv again. Only after the troops of the southern flank of Army Group Center (2nd Army and 2nd Tank Group) turned south did the position of the Soviet Southwestern Front sharply deteriorate. The German 2nd Tank Group, having repelled a counterattack from the Bryansk Front, crossed the Desna River and on September 15 united with the 1st Tank Group, advancing from the Kremenchug bridgehead. As a result of the battle for Kyiv, the Soviet Southwestern Front was completely destroyed.
The disaster near Kiev opened the way for the Germans to the south. On October 5, the 1st Tank Group reached the Sea of Azov near Melitopol, cutting off the troops of the Southern Front. In October 1941, German troops captured almost the entire Crimea, except for Sevastopol.
The defeat in the south opened the way for the Germans to Donbass and Rostov. On October 24, Kharkov fell, and by the end of October the main cities of Donbass were occupied. On October 17, Taganrog fell. On November 21, the 1st Tank Army entered Rostov-on-Don, thus achieving the goals of Plan Barbarossa in the south. However, on November 29, Soviet troops knock out the Germans from Rostov (See Rostov operation (1941)). Until the summer of 1942, the front line in the south was established at the turn of the river. Mius.
On September 30, 1941, German troops begin an attack on Moscow. As a result of deep breakthroughs by German tank formations, the main forces of the Soviet Western, Reserve and Bryansk Fronts found themselves surrounded in the area of Vyazma and Bryansk. In total, more than 660 thousand people were captured.
On October 10, the remnants of the Western and Reserve Fronts united into a single Western Front under the command of Army General G.K. Zhukov.
On November 15-18, German troops, with the end of the thaw, resumed their attack on Moscow, but by December they were stopped in all directions.
On December 1, the commander of the Center Group, General Field Marshal von Bock, reports that the troops are exhausted and are not able to continue the offensive.
On December 5, 1941, the Kalinin, Western and Southwestern fronts launched a counteroffensive. The successful advance of Soviet troops forces the enemy to go on the defensive along the entire front line. In December, as a result of the offensive, troops of the Western Front liberated Yakhroma, Klin, Volokolamsk, Kaluga; Kalinin Front liberates Kalinin; Southwestern Front - Efremov and Yelets. As a result, by the beginning of 1942, the Germans were thrown back 100-250 km to the west. The defeat near Moscow was the first major defeat of the Wehrmacht in this war.
The success of Soviet troops near Moscow prompts the Soviet command to launch a large-scale offensive. On January 8, 1942, the forces of Kalinin, Western and Northwestern Front go on the offensive against the German Army Group Center. They fail to complete the task, and after several attempts, by mid-April, they have to stop the offensive, suffering heavy losses. The Germans retain the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead, which poses a danger to Moscow. Attempts by the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts to release Leningrad were also unsuccessful and led to the encirclement of part of the forces of the Volkhov Front in March 1942.
Every year on the eve of a terrible and tragic date for our people - June 22, I ask myself again and again how could this happen? How a country that was preparing for war and had perhaps the strongest army at that time suffered a crushing defeat, 4 million Red Army soldiers surrendered and were captured, and the people were on the verge of extermination. Who is to blame for this? Stalin? Quite acceptable, but is he the only one? Maybe someone else is involved in this, maybe someone else's wrong actions are hiding another White spot stories about World War II? Let's try to figure it out. A year before the war 1940 Summer. World War II has been raging for almost a year. Hitler and the Germany he led are reaching unprecedented heights. France was defeated, and with this victory almost all of continental Europe was at the feet of the Nazis. The Wehrmacht begins to prepare for war with England. On July 16, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 16 on the preparation of an operation to land troops in Great Britain, codenamed “Sea Lion”. Not a word about the war with the USSR. Hitler does not need a war with the Soviet Union. Hitler is not suicidal. And he read the great strategists of Germany's past: Clausewitz and Bismarck. They bequeathed to the Germans that they should never fight with Russia. A war with Russia is suicide: this is a huge territory that cannot be occupied by any armies, it is impenetrable swamps and forests, a cruel winter with wild frosts. And this is an army of millions; plus Stalin's industrialization gives this army the latest tanks, planes and artillery. This is a people who have never recognized foreign invaders, their own - yes, foreign - no. To decide on a war with Russia, you must either have a huge, strong, professional army with a militarized economy subordinate to it, or be suicidal with a guarantee of failure. As for the first, the total number of troops in Germany and the USSR has long been no secret. These figures are even given in history textbooks. Before the attack on the USSR, Hitler had about 3,500 tanks, about 4,000 aircraft, 190 divisions, and this number included all divisions (motorized, tank, and infantry). What about the other side? Comparing the German Wehrmacht and the USSR before the war, in all reference books, textbooks and books I always observed one detail, perhaps unnoticed by other researchers. Bringing German forces, researchers give all the troops concentrated near the border with the USSR. This is the overwhelming number of the entire Wehrmacht, besides this, Germany only has occupation forces in the occupied countries of Europe. When citing Soviet forces, only Western Military District, KOVO and PribVO (Western, Kiev and Baltic military districts) are given. But this is not the entire Soviet army. But it still turns out that Germany is several times inferior in number to even these districts. And if you compare the Wehrmacht with the entire Red Army? Only a madman could attack such a colossus as the USSR. Or someone who had no choice but to launch a self-defeating attack. This is exactly what happened on June 22, 1941. Who and by what unjustified actions forced Hitler to take this step, which ultimately destroyed him and the Third Reich? Unjustified appetites of the aggressor The USSR, acting as a real aggressor, seized foreign territories and occupied independent states. There is nothing strange in this; this is how any aggressors, both past and present, acted and act. In 1940, the Baltic countries were attacked: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina - two historical regions of Romania. What changes, what happens after these seizures on the political map of the world? First. The borders of the Reich and the USSR touch, that is, now “only a spark is needed for fire.” And this spark is struck by one of our military leaders - Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. Second. The oil fields of Romania are just a stone's throw away - 180 kilometers. This is a direct threat to the Reich. Without oil war machine the Wehrmacht will stop. Third. With the occupation of the Baltic states, a direct threat arose to the most important supply artery of the Reich - the supply of Baltic Sea iron ore from Luleå (Sweden). And without iron ore, Germany, naturally, would also not be able to fight successfully - this is the most important resource. The “Romanian oil” aspect is especially important. After Stalin’s step and the execution of this step, G.K. Zhukov, among other things, the USSR had the following problems: Romania, having become an ally of Hitler, spoiled relations with the USSR (what else, when territory is taken away from you?), the front with Germany increased by 800 kilometers, plus another springboard for Hitler to attack THE USSR. The worst thing is that Stalin scared Hitler. It was Zhukov’s seizure of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina that excited the Fuhrer and the German military command. There is a direct threat to the oil fields of Romania. From this moment on, a strike against the USSR begins to be developed. Alternatives to June 22 Although history doesn’t like the subjunctive mood, it’s still “what would have happened if?” Germany is going to fight with British Empire and is preparing for the most difficult landing on Foggy Albion. All this is known, but could Zhukov change anything? It is quite possible that Stalin could listen to the voice of Georgy Konstantinovich and resolve military issues with him. In the summer of 1940 there were several alternatives. Let's look at them. First. Don’t stop after striking Bessarabia, but move on and capture all of Romania. Hitler, who concentrated his army along the Atlantic coast, would not have been able to successfully interfere with Zhukov. Ten divisions in Poland and Slovakia do not count. With the capture of all of Romania, the oil fields of Ploesti leave the hands of Germany - and this puts the Reich in a dependent position. Synthetic fuel is not a solution: there is not enough of it, it is of poor quality and very expensive. Second. Zhukov could have recommended that Stalin wait a little until the Reich got bogged down in a war with England. After all, landing on the island of Albion is a very risky and difficult matter, and even if everything goes well, then even then Stalin and Zhukov will have a moment that is very favorable for the attack - the very moment when the German army ends up on this island - and for a successful operation it would take about 80-85% of the Wehrmacht. But what happened happened. The Red Army, having captured Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, stopped. Yes, you will say that Stalin did not set the task for Zhukov to crush Romania in the summer of 1940. But Zhukov could have tried, if he had been the strategist that our directors and writers portray him to be, to suggest to Stalin an almost win-win option. Didn't tell me. He was afraid or did not understand the strategy of waging war. “As a result of the successful development of offensive operations of the Central, Southern and Southwestern fronts, the Red Army occupied the cities of Brussels, Amsterdam, Bruges and others during the liberation campaign. In the direction of Vienna, Salzburg, Strasbourg, enemy troops in numbers were surrounded and surrendered...” This, or almost this, could have been the words of military reports from the front, when the Red Army would have subjugated Europe. But do we need this?***** EDITOR'S COMMENT What was the reason for the defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war? In Soviet times, they usually sought an explanation in the surprise of the attack, in Germany’s superiority in military strength (which in fact did not exist), in the incompleteness of the country’s transition to war (which also did not happen). The “partial loss of command and control” was briefly mentioned, which is a misconception, since in this case we are talking about the partial preservation of command and control. This is the opinion of famous Russian historians Yu.T. Temirov and A.S. Donets in the book “War” (M., “EXMO”, 2005). They call the main reason for the defeats of 1941 the completely incompetent command and control of troops on the part of the Chief of the General Staff G.K. Zhukov, as well as the general inability of the command staff of the Red Army to fight. The mediocrity of Zhukov and the commanders of the Red Army was caused by the authoritarianism of the System itself, which deprived the commanders of initiative and forced them to follow the stupid orders of the communists, and by repression in the army in the pre-war period, and by the extremely weak and poor-quality training of command personnel. The authors of the book compare the terms of training of specialists and commanders in the German army and in Soviet army: The Germans, on average, spent 5-10 times more time on this preparation, and in some cases 30 times more. But the decisive role in the defeat of the Red Army was played by Zhukov’s mediocrity as a commander; he fought “not with skill, but with numbers,” made completely ridiculous tactical decisions, destroyed thousands of tanks and millions of soldiers. As a result, Zhukov was punished and removed from his post, Stalin was going to shoot him for his mistakes, but he was hardly dissuaded (Zhukov himself hid this in his memoirs, explaining his removal from the post of Chief of the General Staff by the fact that he allegedly had a fight with Stalin - this is another lie of a narcissist “commander”) But even today Russian historians cannot tell the whole truth about the war. The glaring fact is that 4 million Soviet soldiers surrendered to the 3.5 million German army in just six months of the war, and about a million more were repressed during this period for their unwillingness to fight (in total there were 5.5 million in the Red Army on June 21, 1941 . Human). The most important reason defeats - the reluctance of the army to fight for Stalin, for the hateful power of the commissars. This has never happened in history when entire units of the Red Army surrendered to the enemy, having tied up their commissars. Moreover, out of 4 million soldiers and officers who surrendered, about 1.5 million began to fight on the side of the enemy (including the million-strong Russian People's Liberation Army of General Vlasov). There could be ten, a hundred traitors. But not one and a half million! These are no longer traitors, this is a Civil War. The people, tired of the bloody communist junta, were waiting for liberation. But the tragedy was that Hitler was not a “liberator” at all, he was a conqueror. And when the people realized this, the whole course of the war immediately changed. Therefore, after all, the main reason for the defeats of the beginning of the war was the pre-war Bolshevik yoke, which did not allow people to understand at all the meaning of protecting such an ugly and rotten state as the USSR from the enemy. It is curious that today at all events in connection with the events of 1941 (on the “Stalin Line”, etc.) the idea is conveyed that “they died, but did not give up.” “Soviet-trained” historians claim the same thing in their articles. But what about the fact that during 6 months of the war, out of a 5.5 million-person army, 4 million surrendered to the Germans, about a million more were repressed for their unwillingness to fight (600 more than thousand as of October in Beria’s certificate, of which about 30 thousand were shot as of October), and only about 500 thousand soldiers and officers from the pre-war Red Army were killed or wounded in hostilities? Naked statistics show that they just SURRENDERED, and did not die - EVERYONE SURRENDERED: about 80% of the pre-war composition of the Red Army surrendered to the Germans! Let the Red Army surrender for political reasons, and many historians call this an “Act of Civil War”, and not a betrayal. But there was the crappy power of the USSR - and it had its own people: things are different. The Red Army actually betrayed its people, which it was supposed to protect, which fed and clothed it, which trained it, which gave it the best military equipment in the world - while living from hand to mouth . Even the fact that 4 million Soviet prisoners of war were in the rear of the advancing 3.5 million enemy army seems absurd: they could well have dispersed the puny guards and seized power behind German lines, thereby carrying out an operation to encircle the entire advancing German army. But instead, for weeks they walked in an endless column to the West in front of the windows of the Belarusians - dreaming of Hitler’s imminent victory and a new life without the Bolsheviks. That is, not so much in German captivity, but in captivity of one’s own illusions. This is precisely the tragedy, and it is being hushed up in every possible way even today, because the behavior of the 4 million surrendered Red Army soldiers must be explained somehow - and it is difficult to explain. It is much easier to call them “heroes,” although Stalin considered them traitors (80% of his army!). And it’s even easier to continue the odious lie that “they died, but did not give up.” And the truth is that in the Land of Slaves, which was Stalin’s USSR, the army can only consist of slaves. And such an Army of slaves cannot fight, even having the best technology in the world, because it does not understand the purpose of this: a slave will never be a patriot of his slavery. As a result, Hitler simply took advantage of this situation. Among other things, a huge gift awaited him: he started the war with 3.5 thousand antediluvian tanks, and in the first weeks of the war, the surrendered units of the Red Army gave him another 6.5 thousand new tanks, among which a significant part were KV and T-34. They became impact force Wehrmacht in the attack on Smolensk, Moscow and Leningrad, acquiring the indices “KV(r)” and “T-34(r)”. Another paradox initial stage The war is that all of conquered Europe gave Hitler only 3.5 thousand tanks to attack the USSR, and the surrendered Red Army added another 6.5 thousand, bringing the number of tanks in Hitler’s army in July 1941 to 10 thousand! And this is kept silent (the number of tanks the Germans had in July-October 1941 is hidden), although without this fact it is difficult to understand how with 3.5 thousand tanks it is possible to defeat an army that has 27 thousand tanks, including the invincible KV and T-34... Sergey GRIGORIEV, Vitebsk “Secret Research”
Attack of Hitler's Germany on the USSR began at 4 a.m. on June 22, 1941, when German military aircraft launched the first strikes on a number of Soviet cities and strategic military and infrastructure facilities. By attacking the USSR, Germany unilaterally broke the non-aggression pact between the countries, concluded two years earlier for a period of 10 years.
Prerequisites and preparation for the attack
In mid-1939, the USSR changed the course of its foreign policy: the collapse of the idea of “collective security” and the deadlock in negotiations with Great Britain and France forced Moscow to move closer to Nazi Germany. On August 23, the head of the German Foreign Ministry, J. von Ribbentrop, arrived in Moscow. On the same day, the parties signed a Non-Aggression Pact for a period of ten years, and in addition to it, a secret protocol that stipulated the delimitation of the spheres of interests of both states in Eastern Europe. Eight days after the treaty was signed, Germany attacked Poland and World War II began.
The rapid victories of German troops in Europe caused concern in Moscow. The first deterioration in Soviet-German relations occurred in August-September 1940, and was caused by Germany providing foreign policy guarantees to Romania after it was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR (this was stipulated in the secret protocol). In September, Germany sent troops to Finland. By this time, the German command had been developing a plan for a lightning war (“blitzkrieg”) against Soviet Union.
In the spring of 1941, relations between Moscow and Berlin deteriorated sharply again: not even a day had passed since the signing of the Soviet-Yugoslav friendship treaty when German troops invaded Yugoslavia. The USSR did not react to this, as well as to the attack on Greece. After the defeat of Greece and Yugoslavia, German troops began to concentrate near the borders of the USSR. Since the spring of 1941, Moscow received information from various sources about the threat of an attack from Germany. Thus, at the end of March, a letter to Stalin warning that the Germans were transferring tank divisions from Romania to southern Poland was sent by British Prime Minister W. Churchill. A number of Soviet intelligence officers and diplomats reported on Germany's intention to attack the USSR - Schulze-Boysen and Harnack from Germany, R. Sorge from Japan. However, some of their colleagues reported the opposite, so Moscow was in no hurry to draw conclusions. According to G.K. Zhukov, Stalin was confident that Hitler would not fight on two fronts and would not start a war with the USSR until the end of the war in the West. His point of view was shared by the head of the intelligence department, General F.I. Golikov: on March 20, 1941, he presented Stalin with a report in which he concluded that all data about the inevitability of the imminent outbreak of the Soviet-German war “must be regarded as disinformation coming from the British and even, maybe German intelligence."
In the face of the growing threat of conflict, Stalin took formal leadership of the government: on May 6, 1941, he took over as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. The day before, he spoke in the Kremlin at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies, in particular, saying that it was time for the country to move “from defense to offense.” On May 15, 1941, People's Commissar of Defense S.K. Timoshenko and the newly appointed Chief of the General Staff G.K. Zhukov presented to Stalin “Considerations on the plan for the strategic deployment of the armed forces of the Soviet Union in the event of war with Germany and its allies.” It was assumed that the Red Army would strike the enemy at a time when the enemy armies were in the process of deployment. According to Zhukov, Stalin did not even want to hear about a preventive strike on German troops. Fearing a provocation that could give Germany a pretext for attack, Stalin forbade opening fire on German reconnaissance aircraft, which had increasingly crossed the Soviet border since the spring of 1941. He was convinced that, by exercising extreme caution, the USSR would avoid war or at least delay it until a more favorable moment.
On June 14, 1941, by order of the Soviet government, TASS published a statement in which it was stated that rumors about Germany’s intention to break the non-aggression pact and start a war against the USSR were devoid of any basis, and the transfer of German troops from the Balkans to eastern Germany was probably associated with other motives . On June 17, 1941, Stalin was informed that Soviet intelligence officer Schulze-Boysen, an employee of the German aviation headquarters, said: “All German military measures to prepare an armed attack against the USSR are completely completed, and a strike can be expected at any time.” The Soviet leader imposed a resolution in which he called Schulze-Boysen a disinformer and advised him to be sent to hell.
On the evening of June 21, 1941, a message was received in Moscow: a sergeant major of the German army, a convinced communist, crossed the Soviet-Romanian border at the risk of his life and reported that the offensive would begin in the morning. The information was urgently transferred to Stalin, and he gathered the military and members of the Politburo. People's Commissar of Defense S.K. Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff G.K. Zhukov, according to the latter, asked Stalin to accept a directive to put troops on combat readiness, but he doubted it, suggesting that the Germans could have planted the defector officer on purpose in order to provoke a conflict. Instead of the directive proposed by Tymoshenko and Zhukov, the head of state ordered another, short directive, indicating that the attack could begin with a provocation of German units. On June 22 at 0:30 am this order was transmitted to the military districts. At three o'clock in the morning everyone gathered at Stalin's left.
Start of hostilities
Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, German aviation, with a sudden attack on airfields, destroyed a significant part of Soviet aviation in the western districts. The bombing of Kyiv, Riga, Smolensk, Murmansk, Sevastopol and many other cities began. In a declaration read out on the radio that day, Hitler said that Moscow allegedly “treacherously violated” the treaty of friendship with Germany because it concentrated troops against it and violated German borders. Therefore, the Führer said, he decided “to oppose the Judeo-Anglo-Saxon warmongers and their assistants, as well as the Jews from the Moscow Bolshevik center” in the name of “the cause of peace” and “the security of Europe.”
The offensive was carried out according to the previously developed Barbarossa plan. As in previous military campaigns, the Germans hoped to use the tactics of “lightning war” (“blitzkrieg”): the defeat of the USSR was supposed to take only eight to ten weeks and be completed before Germany ended the war with Great Britain. Planning to end the war before winter, the German command did not even bother to prepare winter uniforms. The German armies, consisting of three groups, were to attack Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv, having previously encircled and destroyed enemy troops in the western part of the USSR. The army groups were led by experienced military leaders: Army Group North was commanded by Field Marshal von Leeb, Army Group Center by Field Marshal von Bock, Army Group South by Field Marshal von Rundstedt. Each army group was assigned its own air fleet and tank army; the Center group had two of them. The ultimate goal of Operation Barbarossa was to reach the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line. The Germans hoped to paralyze the work of industrial enterprises located east of this line - in the Urals, Kazakhstan and Siberia - with the help of air strikes.
Giving instructions to the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, Hitler emphasized that the war with the USSR should become a “conflict of two worldviews.” He demanded a “war of destruction”: “the carriers of the state political idea and political leaders” were ordered not to be captured and shot on the spot, which was contrary to international law. Anyone who offered resistance was ordered to be shot.
By the time the war began, 190 divisions of Germany and its allies were concentrated near the Soviet borders, of which 153 were German. They included more than 90% of the armored forces of the German army. The total number of armed forces of Germany and its allies intended to attack the USSR was 5.5 million people. They had at their disposal more than 47 thousand guns and mortars, 4,300 tanks and assault guns, and about 6 thousand combat aircraft. They were opposed by the forces of five Soviet border military districts (at the beginning of the war they were deployed on five fronts). In total, there were over 4.8 million people in the Red Army, who had 76.5 thousand guns and mortars, 22.6 thousand tanks, and approximately 20 thousand aircraft. However, in the border districts of the above there were only 2.9 million soldiers, 32.9 thousand guns and mortars, 14.2 thousand tanks and more than 9 thousand aircraft.
After 4 o'clock in the morning, Stalin was awakened by a phone call from Zhukov - he said that the war with Germany had begun. At 4:30 am, Tymoshenko and Zhukov again met with the head of state. Meanwhile, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov, on Stalin's instructions, went to a meeting with the German Ambassador V. von der Schulenburg. Until Molotov returned, Stalin refused to order counterattacks against enemy units. The conversation between Molotov and Schulenburg began at 5:30 am. On instructions from the German government, the ambassador read out a note with the following content: “In view of the further intolerable threat created for the German eastern border as a result of the massive concentration and training of all the armed forces of the Red Army, the German government considers itself forced to take military countermeasures.” The head of the NKID tried in vain to dispute what the ambassador said and convince him of the innocence of the USSR. Already at 5 hours 45 minutes, Molotov was in Stalin’s office along with L. P. Beria, L. Z. Mehlis, as well as Timoshenko and Zhukov. Stalin agreed to give a directive to destroy the enemy, but emphasized that Soviet units should not violate the German border anywhere. At 7:15 a.m. the corresponding directive was sent to the troops.
Stalin's entourage believed that it was he who should speak on the radio with an appeal to the population, but he refused, and Molotov did it instead. In his address, the head of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs announced the beginning of the war, noted that German aggression was to blame, and expressed confidence in the victory of the USSR. At the end of his speech, he uttered the famous words: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours!" In order to prevent possible doubts and rumors about the silence of Stalin himself, Molotov added several references to him in the original text of the address.
On the evening of June 22, British Prime Minister W. Churchill spoke on the radio. He stated that in the current situation, his anti-communist views are receding into the background, and the West must provide “Russia and the Russian people” with all the help it can. On June 24, F. Roosevelt, President of the United States, made a similar statement in support of the USSR.
Retreat of the Red Army
In total, on the first day of the war alone, the USSR lost at least 1,200 aircraft (according to German data - more than 1.5 thousand). Many nodes and lines of communication were rendered unusable - because of this, the General Staff lost contact with the troops. Due to the inability to fulfill the demands of the center, the commander of the aviation of the Western Front, I. I. Kopets, shot himself. On June 22, at 21:15, the General Staff sent a new directive to the troops with instructions to immediately launch a counteroffensive, “disregarding the border,” to encircle and destroy the main enemy forces within two days and to capture the areas of the cities of Suwalki and Lublin by the end of June 24. But the Soviet units failed not only to go on the offensive, but also to create a continuous defensive front. The Germans had a tactical advantage on all fronts. Despite the enormous efforts and sacrifices and the colossal enthusiasm of the soldiers, the Soviet troops failed to stop the enemy’s advance. Already on June 28, the Germans entered Minsk. Due to the loss of communication and panic at the fronts, the army became almost uncontrollable.
Stalin was in a state of shock for the first 10 days of the war. He often interfered in the course of events, summoning Timoshenko and Zhukov to the Kremlin several times. On June 28, after the surrender of Minsk, the head of state went to his dacha and for three days - from June 28 to 30 - stayed there continuously, not answering calls and not inviting anyone to his place. Only on the third day his closest associates came to him and persuaded him to return to work. On July 1, Stalin arrived in the Kremlin and on the same day became the head of the newly formed State Defense Committee (GKO), an emergency governing body that received full power in the state. In addition to Stalin, the GKO included V. M. Molotov, K. E. Voroshilov, G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria. Later, the composition of the committee changed several times. Ten days later, Stalin also headed the Supreme Command Headquarters.
To rectify the situation, Stalin ordered to send Marshals B.M. Shaposhnikov and G.I. Kulik to the Western Front, but the former fell ill, and the latter himself was surrounded and had difficulty getting out, disguised as a peasant. Stalin decided to shift responsibility for failures on the fronts to the local military command. The commander of the Western Front, Army General D. G. Pavlov, and several other military leaders were arrested and sent to a military tribunal. They were accused of an “anti-Soviet conspiracy”, of deliberately “opening the front to Germany”, and then of cowardice and alarmism, after which they were shot. In 1956, they were all rehabilitated.
By the beginning of July 1941, the armies of Germany and its allies occupied most of the Baltic states, Western Ukraine and Belarus, and approached Smolensk and Kyiv. Army Group Center advanced the deepest into Soviet territory. The German command and Hitler believed that the main enemy forces had been defeated and the end of the war was near. Now Hitler was wondering how to quickly complete the defeat of the USSR: continue to advance on Moscow or encircle Soviet troops in Ukraine or Leningrad.
The version of Hitler's "preventive strike"
In the early 1990s, V. B. Rezun, a former Soviet intelligence officer who fled to the West, published several books under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, in which he claimed that Moscow planned to be the first to strike Germany, and Hitler, having started the war, only forestalled an attack by Soviet troops. Rezun was later supported by some Russian historians. However, an analysis of all available sources shows that if Stalin was going to strike first, it would be in a more favorable situation. At the end of June and beginning of July 1941, he sought to delay the war with Germany and was not ready for an offensive.
