What should your children know about the Great Patriotic War? Little-known facts about the Great Patriotic War

Heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Submachine gunner of the 2nd separate battalion of the 91st separate Siberian volunteer brigade named after Stalin.

Sasha Matrosov did not know his parents. He was brought up in an orphanage and a labor colony. When the war began, he was not even 20. Matrosov was drafted into the army in September 1942 and sent to the infantry school, and then to the front.

In February 1943, his battalion attacked a Nazi stronghold, but fell into a trap, coming under heavy fire, cutting off the path to the trenches. They fired from three bunkers. Two soon fell silent, but the third continued to shoot the Red Army soldiers lying in the snow.

Seeing that the only chance to get out of the fire was to suppress the enemy’s fire, Sailors and a fellow soldier crawled to the bunker and threw two grenades in his direction. The machine gun fell silent. The Red Army soldiers went on the attack, but the deadly weapon began to chatter again. Alexander’s partner was killed, and Sailors was left alone in front of the bunker. Something had to be done.

He didn't have even a few seconds to make a decision. Not wanting to let his comrades down, Alexander closed the bunker embrasure with his body. The attack was a success. And Matrosov posthumously received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Military pilot, commander of the 2nd squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment, captain.

He worked as a mechanic, then in 1932 he was drafted into the Red Army. He ended up in an air regiment, where he became a pilot. Nikolai Gastello participated in three wars. A year before the Great Patriotic War, he received the rank of captain.

On June 26, 1941, the crew under the command of Captain Gastello took off to strike a German mechanized column. It happened on the road between the Belarusian cities of Molodechno and Radoshkovichi. But the column was well guarded by enemy artillery. A fight ensued. Gastello's plane was hit by anti-aircraft guns. The shell damaged the fuel tank and the car caught fire. The pilot could have ejected, but he decided to fulfill his military duty to the end. Nikolai Gastello directed the burning car directly at the enemy column. This was the first fire ram in the Great Patriotic War.

The name of the brave pilot became a household name. Until the end of the war, all aces who decided to ram were called Gastellites. If you follow official statistics, then during the entire war there were almost six hundred ramming attacks on the enemy.

Brigade reconnaissance officer of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade.

Lena was 15 years old when the war began. He was already working at a factory, having completed seven years of school. When the Nazis captured his native Novgorod region, Lenya joined the partisans.

He was brave and decisive, the command valued him. Over the several years spent in the partisan detachment, he participated in 27 operations. He was responsible for several destroyed bridges behind enemy lines, 78 Germans killed, and 10 trains with ammunition.

It was he who, in the summer of 1942, near the village of Varnitsa, blew up a car in which was the German Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard von Wirtz. Golikov managed to obtain important documents about the German offensive. The enemy attack was thwarted, and the young hero was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for this feat.

In the winter of 1943, a significantly superior enemy detachment unexpectedly attacked the partisans near the village of Ostray Luka. Lenya Golikov died like a real hero - in battle.

Pioneer. Scout of the Voroshilov partisan detachment in the territory occupied by the Nazis.

Zina was born and went to school in Leningrad. However, the war found her on the territory of Belarus, where she came on vacation.

In 1942, 16-year-old Zina joined the underground organization “Young Avengers”. She distributed anti-fascist leaflets in the occupied territories. Then, undercover, she got a job in a canteen for German officers, where she committed several acts of sabotage and was only miraculously not captured by the enemy. Many experienced military men were surprised at her courage.

In 1943, Zina Portnova joined the partisans and continued to engage in sabotage behind enemy lines. Due to the efforts of defectors who surrendered Zina to the Nazis, she was captured. She was interrogated and tortured in the dungeons. But Zina remained silent, not betraying her own. During one of these interrogations, she grabbed a pistol from the table and shot three Nazis. After that she was shot in prison.

An underground anti-fascist organization operating in the area of ​​modern Lugansk region. There were more than a hundred people. The youngest participant was 14 years old.

This underground youth organization was formed immediately after the occupation of the Lugansk region. It included both regular military personnel who found themselves cut off from the main units, and local youth. Among the most famous participants: Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Vasily Levashov, Sergey Tyulenin and many other young people.

The Young Guard issued leaflets and committed sabotage against the Nazis. Once they managed to disable an entire tank repair workshop and burn down the stock exchange, from where the Nazis were driving people away for forced labor in Germany. Members of the organization planned to stage an uprising, but were discovered due to traitors. The Nazis captured, tortured and shot more than seventy people. Their feat is immortalized in one of the most famous military books by Alexander Fadeev and the film adaptation of the same name.

28 people from the personnel of the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th rifle regiment.

In November 1941, a counter-offensive against Moscow began. The enemy stopped at nothing, making a decisive forced march before the onset of a harsh winter.

At this time, fighters under the command of Ivan Panfilov took up a position on the highway seven kilometers from Volokolamsk, a small town near Moscow. There they gave battle to the advancing tank units. The battle lasted four hours. During this time, they destroyed 18 armored vehicles, delaying the enemy's attack and thwarting his plans. All 28 people (or almost all, historians’ opinions differ here) died.

According to legend, the company political instructor Vasily Klochkov, before the decisive stage of the battle, addressed the soldiers with a phrase that became famous throughout the country: “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind us!”

The Nazi counteroffensive ultimately failed. The Battle of Moscow, which was assigned the most important role during the war, was lost by the occupiers.

As a child, the future hero suffered from rheumatism, and doctors doubted that Maresyev would be able to fly. However, he stubbornly applied to the flight school until he was finally enrolled. Maresyev was drafted into the army in 1937.

He met the Great Patriotic War at a flight school, but soon found himself at the front. During a combat mission, his plane was shot down, and Maresyev himself was able to eject. Eighteen days later, seriously wounded in both legs, he got out of the encirclement. However, he still managed to overcome the front line and ended up in the hospital. But gangrene had already set in, and doctors amputated both of his legs.

For many, this would have meant the end of their service, but the pilot did not give up and returned to aviation. Until the end of the war he flew with prosthetics. Over the years, he made 86 combat missions and shot down 11 enemy aircraft. Moreover, 7 - after amputation. In 1944, Alexey Maresyev went to work as an inspector and lived to be 84 years old.

His fate inspired the writer Boris Polevoy to write “The Tale of a Real Man.”

Deputy squadron commander of the 177th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment.

Viktor Talalikhin began to fight already in the Soviet-Finnish war. He shot down 4 enemy planes in a biplane. Then he served at an aviation school.

In August 1941, he was one of the first Soviet pilots to ram, shooting down a German bomber in a night air battle. Moreover, the wounded pilot was able to get out of the cockpit and parachute down to the rear to his own.

Then Talalikhin shot down five more German aircraft. He died during another air battle near Podolsk in October 1941.

73 years later, in 2014, search engines found Talalikhin’s plane, which remained in the swamps near Moscow.

Artilleryman of the 3rd counter-battery artillery corps of the Leningrad Front.

Soldier Andrei Korzun was drafted into the army at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War. He served on the Leningrad Front, where there were fierce and bloody battles.

On November 5, 1943, during another battle, his battery came under fierce enemy fire. Korzun was seriously injured. Despite the terrible pain, he saw that the powder charges were set on fire and the ammunition depot could fly into the air. Gathering his last strength, Andrei crawled to the blazing fire. But he could no longer take off his overcoat to cover the fire. Losing consciousness, he made a final effort and covered the fire with his body. The explosion was avoided at the cost of the life of the brave artilleryman.

Commander of the 3rd Leningrad Partisan Brigade.

A native of Petrograd, Alexander German, according to some sources, was a native of Germany. He served in the army since 1933. When the war started, I joined the scouts. He worked behind enemy lines, commanded a partisan detachment that terrified enemy soldiers. His brigade destroyed several thousand fascist soldiers and officers, derailed hundreds of trains and blew up hundreds of cars.

The Nazis staged a real hunt for Herman. In 1943, his partisan detachment was surrounded in the Pskov region. Making his way to his own, the brave commander died from an enemy bullet.

Commander of the 30th Separate Guards Tank Brigade of the Leningrad Front

Vladislav Khrustitsky was drafted into the Red Army back in the 20s. At the end of the 30s he completed armored courses. Since the fall of 1942, he commanded the 61st separate light tank brigade.

He distinguished himself during Operation Iskra, which marked the beginning of the defeat of the Germans on the Leningrad Front.

Killed in the battle near Volosovo. In 1944, the enemy retreated from Leningrad, but from time to time they attempted to counterattack. During one of these counterattacks, Khrustitsky's tank brigade fell into a trap.

Despite heavy fire, the commander ordered the offensive to continue. He radioed to his crews with the words: “Fight to the death!” - and went forward first. Unfortunately, the brave tanker died in this battle. And yet the village of Volosovo was liberated from the enemy.

Commander of a partisan detachment and brigade.

Before the war he worked on the railway. In October 1941, when the Germans were already near Moscow, he himself volunteered for a complex operation in which his railway experience was needed. Was thrown behind enemy lines. There he came up with the so-called “coal mines” (in fact, these are just mines disguised as coal). With the help of this simple but effective weapon, hundreds of enemy trains were blown up in three months.

Zaslonov actively agitated the local population to go over to the side of the partisans. The Nazis, realizing this, dressed their soldiers in Soviet uniforms. Zaslonov mistook them for defectors and ordered them to join the partisan detachment. The way was open for the insidious enemy. A battle ensued, during which Zaslonov died. A reward was announced for Zaslonov, alive or dead, but the peasants hid his body, and the Germans did not get it.

Commander of a small partisan detachment.

Efim Osipenko fought during the Civil War. Therefore, when the enemy captured his land, without thinking twice, he joined the partisans. Together with five other comrades, he organized a small partisan detachment that committed sabotage against the Nazis.

During one of the operations, it was decided to undermine the enemy personnel. But the detachment had little ammunition. The bomb was made from an ordinary grenade. Osipenko himself had to install the explosives. He crawled to the railway bridge and, seeing the train approaching, threw it in front of the train. There was no explosion. Then the partisan himself hit the grenade with a pole from a railway sign. It worked! A long train with food and tanks went downhill. The detachment commander survived, but completely lost his sight.

For this feat, he was the first in the country to be awarded the “Partisan of the Patriotic War” medal.

Peasant Matvey Kuzmin was born three years before the abolition of serfdom. And he died, becoming the oldest holder of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

His story contains many references to the story of another famous peasant - Ivan Susanin. Matvey also had to lead the invaders through the forest and swamps. And, like the legendary hero, he decided to stop the enemy at the cost of his life. He sent his grandson ahead to warn a detachment of partisans who had stopped nearby. The Nazis were ambushed. A fight ensued. Matvey Kuzmin died at the hands of a German officer. But he did his job. He was 84 years old.

A partisan who was part of a sabotage and reconnaissance group at the headquarters of the Western Front.

While studying at school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya wanted to enter a literary institute. But these plans were not destined to come true - the war interfered. In October 1941, Zoya came to the recruiting station as a volunteer and, after a short training at a school for saboteurs, was transferred to Volokolamsk. There, an 18-year-old partisan fighter, along with adult men, performed dangerous tasks: mined roads and destroyed communication centers.

During one of the sabotage operations, Kosmodemyanskaya was caught by the Germans. She was tortured, forcing her to give up her own people. Zoya heroically endured all the trials without saying a word to her enemies. Seeing that it was impossible to achieve anything from the young partisan, they decided to hang her.

Kosmodemyanskaya bravely accepted the tests. Moments before her death, she shouted to the assembled locals: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender!” The girl’s courage shocked the peasants so much that they later retold this story to front-line correspondents. And after publication in the Pravda newspaper, the whole country learned about Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat. She became the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.

In fact, all Soviet historiography about the war of 1941-1945 is part of Soviet propaganda. It was so often mythologized and changed that the real facts about the war began to be perceived as a threat to the existing system.

The saddest thing is that today's Russia has inherited this approach to history. The authorities prefer to present the history of the Great Patriotic War as it is beneficial to them.

Here are 10 facts about the Great Patriotic War that are not beneficial to anyone. Because these are just facts.

1. The fate of 2 million people who died in this war is still unknown. It is incorrect to compare, but to understand the situation: in the United States the fate of no more than a dozen people is unknown.

Most recently, through the efforts of the Ministry of Defense, the Memorial website was launched, thanks to which information about those who died or went missing has now become publicly available.

However, the state spends billions on “patriotic education”, Russians wear ribbons, every second car on the street goes “to Berlin”, the authorities are fighting “counterfeiters”, etc. And, against this background, there are two million fighters whose fate is unknown.

2. Stalin really did not want to believe that Germany would attack the USSR on June 22. There were many reports on this matter, but Stalin ignored them.

A document has been declassified - a report to Joseph Stalin, which was sent to him by the People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov. The People's Commissar named the date, citing a message from an informant - our agent at Luftwaffe headquarters. And Stalin himself imposes a resolution: “You can send your source to your *** mother. This is not a source, but a disinformer.”

3. For Stalin, the start of the war was a disaster. And when Minsk fell on June 28, he fell into complete prostration. This is documented. Stalin even thought that he would be arrested in the first days of the war.

There is a log of visitors to Stalin’s Kremlin office, where it is noted that the leader is not in the Kremlin for a day, and not for the second, that is, June 28. Stalin, as it became known from the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Anastas Mikoyan, as well as the manager of the Council of People's Commissars Chadayev (later the State Defense Committee), was at the “nearby dacha,” but it was impossible to contact him.

And then his closest associates - Klim Voroshilov, Malenkov, Bulganin - decide to take a completely extraordinary step: to go to the “nearby dacha”, which absolutely could not be done without calling the “owner”. They found Stalin pale, depressed and heard wonderful words from him: “Lenin left us a great power, and we screwed it up.” He thought they had come to arrest him. When he realized that he was called to lead the fight, he perked up. And the next day the State Defense Committee was created.

4. But there were also opposite moments. In October 1941, which was terrible for Moscow, Stalin remained in Moscow and behaved courageously.

Speech by J.V. Stalin at the Soviet Army parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941.

October 16, 1941 - on the day of panic in Moscow, all barrage detachments were removed, and Muscovites left the city on foot. Ashes flew through the streets: secret documents and departmental archives were burned.

The People's Commissariat of Education hastily burned even Nadezhda Krupskaya's archive. At the Kazansky station there was a train under steam for the evacuation of the government to Samara (then Kuibyshev). But

5. In the famous toast “to the Russian people,” said in 1945 at a reception on the occasion of the Victory, Stalin also said: “Some other people could say: you did not live up to our hopes, we will install another government, but the Russian people will not accept this.” did not go".

Painting by Mikhail Khmelko. "For the great Russian people." 1947

6. Sexual violence in defeated Germany.

Historian Antony Beevor, while researching for his 2002 book Berlin: The Fall, found reports in the Russian state archives of an epidemic of sexual violence in Germany. These reports were sent by NKVD officers to Lavrentiy Beria at the end of 1944.

“They were passed on to Stalin,” says Beevor. - You can see by the marks whether they were read or not. They report mass rapes in East Prussia and how German women tried to kill themselves and their children to avoid this fate."

And rape was not just a problem for the Red Army. Bob Lilly, a historian at Northern Kentucky University, was able to gain access to US military court records.

His book (Taken by Force) caused so much controversy that at first no American publisher dared to publish it, and the first edition appeared in France. Lilly estimates that about 14,000 rapes were committed by American soldiers in England, France and Germany from 1942 to 1945.

What was the actual scale of the rapes? The most often cited figures are 100 thousand women in Berlin and two million throughout Germany. These figures, hotly disputed, were extrapolated from the scant medical records that survive to this day. ()

7. The war for the USSR began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.

The Soviet Union de facto took part in World War II from September 17, 1939, and not from June 22, 1941. Moreover, in alliance with the Third Reich. And this pact is a strategic mistake, if not a crime, of the Soviet leadership and Comrade Stalin personally.

In accordance with the secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the Third Reich and the USSR (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), after the outbreak of World War II, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. On September 22, 1939, a joint parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was held in Brest, dedicated to the signing of an agreement on the demarcation line.

Also in 1939-1940, according to the same Pact, the Baltic states and other territories in present-day Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus were occupied. Among other things, this led to a common border between the USSR and Germany, which allowed the Germans to carry out a “surprise attack.”

By fulfilling the agreement, the USSR strengthened the army of its enemy. Having created an army, Germany began to conquer European countries, increasing its power, including new military factories. And most importantly: by June 22, 1941, the Germans had gained combat experience. The Red Army learned to fight as the war progressed and finally mastered it only towards the end of 1942 - beginning of 1943.

8. In the first months of the war, the Red Army did not retreat, but fled in panic.

By September 1941, the number of soldiers in German captivity was equal to the entire pre-war regular army. MILLIONS of rifles were reportedly abandoned in the flight.

Retreat is a maneuver without which there can be no war. But our troops fled. Not all, of course, there were those who fought to the last. And there were a lot of them. But the pace of the German advance was staggering.

9. Many “heroes” of the war were invented by Soviet propaganda. So, for example, there were no Panfilov heroes.

The memory of 28 Panfilov men was immortalized by the installation of a monument in the village of Nelidovo, Moscow region.

The feat of 28 Panfilov guardsmen and the words “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind » was attributed to the political instructor by employees of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, in which the essay “About 28 Fallen Heroes” was published on January 22, 1942.

“The feat of the 28 Panfilov guardsmen, covered in the press, is a fiction of the correspondent Koroteev, the editor of the Red Star Ortenberg, and especially the literary secretary of the newspaper Krivitsky. This fiction was repeated in the works of writers N. Tikhonov, V. Stavsky, A. Bek, N. Kuznetsov, V. Lipko, Svetlov and others and was widely popularized among the population of the Soviet Union.”

Photo of the monument in honor of the feat of the Panfilov guards in Almaty.

This is information from a certificate-report, which was prepared based on the investigation materials and signed on May 10, 1948 by the chief military prosecutor of the USSR armed forces, Nikolai Afanasyev. The authorities launched a whole investigation into the “feat of Panfilov’s men,” because already in 1942, fighters from the same 28 Panfilov men who were on the list of those buried began to appear among the living.

10. Stalin in 1947 canceled the celebration (day off) of Victory Day on May 9. Until 1965, this day was a regular working day in the USSR.

Joseph Stalin and his comrades knew very well who won this war - the people. And this surge of popular activity frightened them. Many, especially front-line soldiers, who lived for four years in constant proximity to death, stopped, tired of being afraid. In addition, the war violated the complete self-isolation of the Stalinist state.

Many hundreds of thousands of Soviet people (soldiers, prisoners, “Ostarbeiters”) visited abroad, having the opportunity to compare life in the USSR and in Europe and draw conclusions. It was a deep shock for the collective farmer soldiers to see how Bulgarian or Romanian (not to mention German or Austrian) peasants lived.

Orthodoxy, which had been destroyed before the war, revived for a time. In addition, military leaders acquired a completely different status in the eyes of society than they had before the war. Stalin feared them too. In 1946, Stalin sent Zhukov to Odessa, in 1947 he canceled the celebration of Victory Day, and in 1948 he stopped paying for awards and wounds.

Because not thanks to, but despite the actions of the dictator, having paid an exorbitant price, he won this war. And I felt like a people - and there was and is nothing more terrible for tyrants.

All dates and most interesting facts about the Great Patriotic War, become simply significant numbers and events that need to be learned and known, and all because there are fewer living witnesses who survived those terrible years. After all, for veterans, war has become a part of life and only from them we learn the truth about the great battles and victories of the Second World War.

It is interesting that many people think that the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War began at the same time. This is a misconception - and many other interesting facts can be attributed to incorrect statements.

The Second World War, which began with the aggression of Nazi Germany towards European states, dates back to 1939.

And in 1941, the Great Patriotic War began and by this time the Nazis had captured most of the territory of Europe, then Germany decided to attack the Soviet Union in order to expand the borders of its possessions to the east.

Germany overestimated its strength and therefore a quick war with the USSR did not work out as planned. The heroism of our people, who managed to defend their lands, in the battles near Moscow (where the myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled), at Stalingrad (a radical turning point during the Great Patriotic War and World War II), in the Battle of Kursk (after which the forced transfer of German troops took place from attacking actions to strategic defense on all fronts) and of course in the Battle of Berlin (after which more than 1 million people were awarded medals “For the Capture of Berlin”), he was able to crush all the plans of the Nazis, turn the tide of the war and liberate Europe.

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Formally, for everyone, World War II ended in May 1945, however, Japan, being an ally of the Nazis, did not intend to capitulate; it was forced to surrender in September of the same year. This was preceded by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as an attack by US military forces.

Rare photo - Young war heroes (click to enlarge)

However, Japan and the USSR did not reach a peace agreement and did not sign a treaty. These are quite little-known and interesting facts about the war; the Japanese aggression was terrifying and incredible.

During the war, Japan used sophisticated methods to exterminate the Chinese population - it bombed China with shells containing fleas infected with bubonic plague. After the explosion, the epidemic spread with incredible speed, claiming about 500 lives of the Chinese people.

The Nazis intended to eradicate the Soviet population and clear the territories of the allied countries in order to appropriate the lands for themselves.

However, there is also interesting facts about the Great Patriotic War not related to weapons and victories, for example, Princess Elizabeth, now the Queen of Great Britain, worked for 5 months as a mechanic on an ambulance, and figurines for Oscar were made of plaster due to a shortage of metal.

Facts about the war 1941 1945

There are such events and facts about the war 1941 1945, which seriously influenced the outcome of the battles, but could not be talked about for some time.

1. October 1941 is marked by the massacre of over 50,000 Jews in Odessa. Romanian troops under the leadership of Hitler dealt with the population. In history, this period is known as the “murder of the Jews of Odessa.”
2. 1942 December 17, Verkhne-Kumsky village. Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Naumov, together with soldiers from his company, having two crews of anti-tank rifles, repelled 3 attempts at enemy tank attacks at an altitude of 1372 m. The next day, several more attacks were repelled. The loss of several hundred enemy infantry and 18 tanks cost the lives of all 24 soldiers.
3. The most important date in the history of the Great Patriotic War, January 18, 1943, was the breakthrough of the besieged Leningrad ring. It was a very difficult liberation operation; Soviet troops attacked the main German positions from two sides at once.
4. The Berlin operation of 1945 is considered the largest battle in history and is even listed in the Guinness Book of Records. On both sides, approximately 3.5 million men, 52,000 guns and mortars, 7,750 tanks and 11,000 aircraft took part in the battle.

Victory Day was not celebrated in the Soviet Union for 17 years. Since 1948, for a long time, this “most important” holiday today was not actually celebrated and was a working day (instead, January 1 was made a day off, which had not been a day off since 1930). It was first widely celebrated in the USSR only almost two decades later - in the anniversary year of 1965. At the same time, Victory Day again became a non-working day. Some historians attribute the cancellation of the holiday to the fact that the Soviet government was pretty afraid of independent and active veterans. Officially, it was ordered: to forget about the war, to devote all efforts to restoring the national economy destroyed by the war.

80 thousand Soviet officers during the Great Patriotic War were women.

In general, from 600 thousand to 1 million representatives of the fairer sex fought at the front in different periods. For the first time in world history, women's military formations appeared in the Armed Forces of the USSR. In particular, 3 aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment (the Germans called the warriors from this unit “night witches”), the 125th Guards Bomber Regiment, and the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment. A separate women's volunteer rifle brigade and a separate women's reserve rifle regiment were also created. Women snipers were trained by the Central Women's Sniper School. In addition, a separate female company of sailors was created. It is worth noting that the weaker sex fought quite successfully. Thus, 87 women received the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” during the Great Patriotic War. History has never known such massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland as Soviet women showed during the Great Patriotic War. Having achieved enrollment in the ranks of the soldiers of the Red Army, women and girls mastered almost all military specialties and, together with their husbands, fathers and brothers, carried out military service in all branches of the Soviet Armed Forces.

Hitler viewed his attack on the USSR as a “Crusade” that should be waged using terrorist methods. Already on May 13, 1941, he released military personnel from any responsibility for their actions during the implementation of the Barbarossa plan: “No actions of Wehrmacht employees or persons acting with them, in the event of hostile actions against them by civilians, are subject to suppression and are not may be considered misdemeanors or war crimes..."

During World War II, over 60 thousand dogs served on various fronts. Four-legged saboteurs derailed dozens of enemy trains. More than 300 enemy armored vehicles were destroyed by tank destroyer dogs. Signal dogs delivered about 200 thousand combat reports. On ambulance sleds, four-legged assistants took about 700 thousand seriously wounded Red Army soldiers and commanders from the battlefield. With the help of sapper dogs, 303 cities and towns (including Kyiv, Kharkov, Lvov, Odessa) were cleared of mines, and an area of ​​15,153 square kilometers was surveyed. At the same time, over four million enemy mines and landmines were discovered and neutralized.

During the first 30 days of the war, the Moscow Kremlin “disappeared” from the face of Moscow. Probably the fascist aces were quite surprised that their maps were lying, and they could not detect the Kremlin while flying over Moscow. The thing is that, according to the camouflage plan, the stars on the towers and the crosses on the cathedrals were covered, and the domes of the cathedrals were painted black. Three-dimensional models of residential buildings were built along the entire perimeter of the Kremlin wall; the battlements were not visible behind them. Parts of Red and Manezhnaya Squares and the Alexander Garden were filled with plywood decorations of houses. The mausoleum became three-story, and a sandy road was built from the Borovitsky Gate to the Spassky Gate, representing a highway. If earlier the light yellow facades of the Kremlin buildings were distinguished by their brightness, now they have become “like everyone else” - dirty gray, the roofs also had to change their color from green to the general Moscow red-brown. Never before has the palace ensemble looked so democratic.

During the Great Patriotic War, V.I. Lenin’s body was evacuated to Tyumen.

According to the description of the feat of Red Army soldier Dmitry Ovcharenko from the decree awarding him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, on July 13, 1941, he was delivering ammunition to his company and was surrounded by a detachment of enemy soldiers and officers numbering 50 people. Despite the fact that his rifle was taken away, Ovcharenko did not lose his head and, grabbing an ax from the cart, cut off the head of the officer who was interrogating him. He then threw three grenades at the German soldiers, killing 21 people. The rest fled in panic, except for another officer, whom the Red Army soldier caught up with and also cut off his head.

Hitler considered his main enemy in the USSR not Stalin, but the announcer Yuri Levitan. He announced a reward of 250 thousand marks for his head. The Soviet authorities carefully guarded Levitan, and disinformation about his appearance was launched through the press.

At the beginning of World War II, the USSR experienced a great shortage of tanks, and therefore it was decided to convert ordinary tractors into tanks in emergency cases. Thus, during the defense of Odessa from the Romanian units besieging the city, 20 similar “tanks” lined with sheets of armor were thrown into battle. The main emphasis was placed on the psychological effect: the attack was carried out at night with the lights and sirens on, and the Romanians fled. For such cases and also because dummies of heavy guns were often installed on these vehicles, the soldiers nicknamed them NI-1, which stands for “For Fright.”

Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili was captured during the war. The Germans offered Stalin to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus, captured by the Russians. Stalin said that a soldier cannot be exchanged for a field marshal, and he refused such an exchange.
Yakov was shot shortly before the Russians arrived. His family was exiled after the war as a prisoner of war. When Stalin was informed about this exile, he said that tens of thousands of families of prisoners of war were being deported and he could not make any exception for the family of his own son - there was a law.

5 million 270 thousand soldiers of the Red Army were captured by the Germans. Their content, as historians note, was simply unbearable. Statistics also testify to this: less than two million soldiers returned to their homeland from captivity. In Poland alone, according to Polish authorities, more than 850 thousand Soviet prisoners of war who died in Nazi camps are buried.
The main argument for such behavior on the part of the German side was the refusal of the Soviet Union to sign the Hague and Geneva conventions on prisoners of war. This, according to the German authorities, allowed Germany, which had previously signed both agreements, not to regulate the conditions of detention of Soviet prisoners of war with these documents. However, in fact, the Geneva Convention regulated the humane treatment of prisoners of war, regardless of whether their countries signed the convention or not.
The Soviet attitude towards German prisoners of war was radically different. In general, they were treated much more humanely. Even according to the standards, it is impossible to compare the calorie content of the food of captured Germans (2533 kcal) versus captured Red Army soldiers (894.5 kcal). As a result, out of almost 2 million 400 thousand Wehrmacht fighters, just over 350 thousand people did not return home.

During the Great Patriotic War, in 1942, the peasant Matvey Kuzmin, the oldest holder of this title (he accomplished the feat at the age of 83), repeated the feat of another peasant - Ivan Susanin, who in the winter of 1613 led a detachment of Polish interventionists into an impenetrable forest swamp.
In Kurakino, the home village of Matvey Kuzmin, a battalion of the German 1st Mountain Rifle Division (the well-known “Edelweiss”) was quartered, which in February 1942 was tasked with making a breakthrough, going to the rear of the Soviet troops in the planned counter-offensive in the Malkin Heights area. The battalion commander demanded that Kuzmin act as a guide, promising money, flour, kerosene, and also a Sauer “Three Rings” hunting rifle. Kuzmin agreed. Having warned the military unit of the Red Army through his 11-year-old grandson Sergei Kuzmin, Matvey Kuzmin led the Germans for a long time along a roundabout road and finally led the enemy detachment to an ambush in the village of Malkino under machine-gun fire from Soviet soldiers. The German detachment was destroyed, but Kuzmin himself was killed by the German commander.

Only 30 minutes were allocated by the Wehrmacht command to suppress the resistance of the border guards. However, the 13th outpost under the command of A. Lopatin fought for more than 10 days and the Brest Fortress for more than a month. The first counterattack was carried out by border guards and units of the Red Army on June 23. They liberated the city of Przemysl, and two groups of border guards broke into Zasanje (Polish territory occupied by Germany), where they destroyed the headquarters of the German division and the Gestapo, and freed many prisoners.

At 4:25 a.m. on June 22, 1941, pilot Senior Lieutenant I. Ivanov carried out an aerial ramming attack. This was the first feat during the war; awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Lieutenant Dmitry Lavrinenko from the 4th Tank Brigade is rightfully considered the number one tank ace. During three months of fighting in September-November 1941, he destroyed 52 enemy tanks in 28 battles. Unfortunately, the brave tankman died in November 1941 near Moscow.

It was only in 1993 that official figures for Soviet casualties and losses in tanks and aircraft during the Battle of Kursk were published. "German casualties on the entire Eastern Front, according to information provided to the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW), in July and August 1943 amounted to 68,800 killed, 34,800 missing and 434,000 wounded and sick. German losses on Kursk arc can be estimated at 2/3 of the losses on the Eastern Front, since during this period fierce battles also took place in the Donetsk basin, in the Smolensk region and in the northern sector of the front (in the Mga region). Thus, German losses in the Battle of Kursk can be estimated approximately. in 360,000 killed, missing, wounded and sick, Soviet losses exceeded German ones in a ratio of 7:1,” writes researcher B.V. Sokolov in his article “The Truth about the Great Patriotic War.”

At the height of the battles on the Kursk Bulge on July 7, 1943, machine gunner of the 1019th regiment, senior sergeant Yakov Studennikov, alone (the rest of his crew died) fought for two days. Having been wounded, he managed to repel 10 Nazi attacks and destroyed more than 300 Nazis. For his accomplished feat, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

About the feat of the soldiers of the 316th SD. (divisional commander, Major General I. Panfilov) at the well-known Dubosekovo crossing on November 16, 1941, 28 tank destroyers met the attack of 50 tanks, of which 18 were destroyed. Hundreds of enemy soldiers met their end at Dubosekovo. But few people know about the feat of the soldiers of the 1378th regiment of the 87th division. On December 17, 1942, in the area of ​​the village of Verkhne-Kumskoye, soldiers from the company of senior lieutenant Nikolai Naumov with two crews of anti-tank rifles, while defending a height of 1372 m, repelled 3 attacks by enemy tanks and infantry. The next day there were several more attacks. All 24 soldiers died defending the heights, but the enemy lost 18 tanks and hundreds of infantrymen.

During the battles near Lake Khasan, Japanese soldiers generously showered our tanks with ordinary bullets, hoping to penetrate them. The fact is that Japanese soldiers were assured that tanks in the USSR were made of plywood! As a result, our tanks returned from the battlefield shiny - to such an extent they were covered with a layer of lead from bullets that melted when they hit the armor. However, this did not cause any harm to the armor.

In the Great Patriotic War, our troops included the 28th Reserve Army, in which camels were the draft force for the guns. It was formed in Astrakhan during the battles of Stalingrad: a shortage of cars and horses forced wild camels to be caught in the vicinity and tamed. Most of the 350 animals died on the battlefield in various battles, and the survivors were gradually transferred to economic units and “demobilized” to zoos. One of the camels named Yashka reached Berlin with the soldiers.

In 1941-1944, the Nazis exported thousands of small children of “Nordic appearance” aged from two months to six years from the USSR and Poland. They ended up in the Kinder KC children's concentration camp in Lodz, where their “racial value” was determined. Children who passed the selection were subjected to “initial Germanization.” They were given new names, forged documents, forced to speak German, and then sent to Lebensborn orphanages for adoption. Not all German families knew that the children they adopted were not of “Aryan blood” at all. Pafter the war, only 2-3% of the abducted children returned to their homeland, the rest grew up and grew old, considering themselves Germans. They and their descendants they do not know the truth about their origin and, most likely, will never know.

During the Great Patriotic War, five schoolchildren under the age of 16 received the title of Hero: Sasha Chekalin and Lenya Golikov - at 15 years old, Valya Kotik, Marat Kazei and Zina Portnova - at 14 years old.

In the battle of Stalingrad on September 1, 1943, machine gunner Sergeant Khanpasha Nuradilov destroyed 920 fascists.

In August 1942, Hitler ordered “no stone left unturned” in Stalingrad. Happened. Six months later, when everything was already over, the Soviet government raised the question of the inexpediency of rebuilding the city, which would cost more than building a new city. However, Stalin insisted on rebuilding Stalingrad literally from the ashes. So, so many shells were dropped on Mamayev Kurgan that after the liberation, grass did not grow on it for 2 whole years. In Stalingrad, both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, for an unknown reason, changed their methods of warfare. From the very beginning of the war, the Red Army used flexible defense tactics with withdrawals in critical situations. The Wehrmacht command, in turn, avoided large, bloody battles, preferring to bypass large fortified areas. In the Battle of Stalingrad, both sides forget about their principles and embark on a bloody battle. The beginning was made on August 23, 1942, when German aircraft carried out a massive bombing of the city. 40,000 people died. This exceeds the official figures for the Allied air raid on Dresden in February 1945 (25,000 casualties).
During the battle, the Soviet side used revolutionary innovations of psychological pressure on the enemy. Thus, from the loudspeakers installed at the front line, favorite hits of German music were heard, which were interrupted by messages about the victories of the Red Army in sections of the Stalingrad Front. But the most effective means was the monotonous beat of the metronome, which was interrupted after 7 beats by a comment in German: “Every 7 seconds one German soldier dies at the front.” At the end of a series of 10-20 “timer reports,” a tango sounded from the loudspeakers.

In many countries, including France, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy and a number of other countries, streets, gardens, and squares were named after the Battle of Stalingrad. Only in Paris is the name “Stalingrad” given to a square, boulevard and one of the metro stations. In Lyon there is the so-called “Stalingrad” bracant, where the third largest antique market in Europe is located. Also, the central street of the city of Bologna (Italy) is named in honor of Stalingrad.

The original Victory Banner rests as a sacred relic in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. It is forbidden to store it in a vertical position: the satin from which the flag is made is fragile. Therefore, the banner is laid horizontally and covered with special paper. Nine nails were even pulled out of the shaft, with which the panel was nailed to it in May 1945. Their heads began to rust and damage the fabric. Recently, the original Victory Banner was shown only at a recent congress of Russian museum workers. We even had to call an honor guard from the Presidential Regiment, explains Arkady Nikolaevich Dementyev. In all other cases, there is a duplicate, which repeats the original Victory Banner with absolute accuracy. It is displayed in a glass showcase and has long been perceived as a real Victory Banner. And even the copy is aging just like the historical heroic banner erected 64 years ago over the Reichstag.

For 10 years after Victory Day, the Soviet Union was formally at war with Germany. It turned out that, having accepted the surrender of the German command, the Soviet Union decided not to sign peace with Germany, and thus