The Second World War is interesting. Impressive and little-known facts about World War II

Red Army soldier, Stalingrad

World War II (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945) was the largest armed conflict in the history of mankind. 62 states out of 73 existing at that time took part in it - this is 80% of our planet.

Currently, World War II is the only conflict in which nuclear weapons were used.

Military operations during World War II took place on the territory of 40 states. In total, about 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces.

Human losses worldwide reached about 65 million people, 26 million of whom were citizens of the USSR.

During the entire Second World War, the German armed forces suffered the most losses on the Soviet front - 70-80% of losses. During the entire war, about 7 million German citizens died.

After the war, Adolf Hitler's former adviser, Joachim von Ribbentrop, voiced 3 main reasons for Germany's defeat: unexpectedly stubborn Soviet resistance; global supplies of weapons and equipment from the United States and the success of Western allies in the struggle for air supremacy.

The Holocaust led to the violent death of 60% of Europe's Jews and the extermination of about a third of the entire Jewish population of our planet.

As a result of the war, some countries were able to achieve independence: Ethiopia, Iceland, Syria, Lebanon, Vietnam, Indonesia.

During World War II, on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States carried out atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to hasten Japan's surrender. About 70-80 thousand people died at the same time during the bombing of Hiroshima. Some of the dead who were near the explosion simply disappeared in a split second, disintegrating into molecules in the hot air: the temperature under the plasma ball reached 4000 degrees Celsius. The subsequent light radiation burned the dark pattern of clothing into people’s skin and left silhouettes human bodies on the walls.

According to Hitler's calculations, in 1941 the Soviet Union as a powerful power should have ceased to exist. Then Hitler would not have had an enemy behind him, and he would have received a large number of raw materials and agricultural products.

Determine at least approximately military power Soviet Union during the war it was almost impossible. For twenty years the USSR, which had already fenced itself off iron curtain from the rest of the world, provided information about himself only when it was in the interests of the state. Often the data was presented in an embellished manner, and where it was advantageous, the situation was portrayed as less favorable than in reality.

Adolf Hitler's father and mother were related, so he always spoke very briefly and vaguely about his parents.

In his youth, Adolf Hitler showed great interest in painting and even then decided that he would become an artist, and not an official, as his father wanted. He tried to enter the art academy twice, but failed each time. entrance exams. However, he worked as an artist for some time and successfully sold his paintings.

During the Siege of Leningrad, according to various sources, from 600 thousand to 1.5 million people died. Only 3% of them died from bombing and shelling; the remaining 97% died of starvation.

In the first years of its existence, the fighting qualities of the Red Army, which played a decisive role in World War II, were low, since it was formed from heterogeneous elements - units of the old army, detachments of Red Guards and sailors, and peasant militias.

During the Holocaust, the only successful uprising took place at the Sobibor concentration camp, led by Soviet prisoner officer Alexander Pechersky. Immediately after the prisoners escaped, the death camp was closed and wiped off the face of the earth.

Before the war, Leningrad was one of the largest industrial centers of the Soviet Union. Despite the blockade of Leningrad, death, famine and the closure of many factories, the city's enterprises continued to operate, but on a smaller scale.

Over the course of his life, Hitler had 20 assassination attempts, the first of which occurred in 1930, and the last in 1944.

The longest air battle of World War II was the Battle of Britain, which lasted from July 1940 to May 1941.

Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945, when Berlin was surrounded by Soviet troops. Hitler died from a shot in the temple, but no visible injuries were found on his wife. The corpses were doused with gasoline and burned that same day.

During the Great Patriotic War, more than 29 million people were drafted into the ranks of the Red Army, in addition to the 4 million who were under arms at the beginning of the war.

The Battle of Stalingrad, which took place during the Second World War, became one of the bloodiest in human history: more than 470 thousand Soviet soldiers and about 300 thousand German soldiers died on the battlefield, which lasted from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943. Victory Soviet army in this battle the political and military prestige of the Soviet Union was highly raised.

The scale of celebrations in honor of Victory Day in the USSR began to increase only 20 years after the actual victory, thanks to Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. For the first 20 years, celebrations were limited, for the most part, to fireworks. In the first 20 post-war years, only one parade in honor of the Victory was held on the territory of the USSR - on June 24, 1945.

The act of unconditional surrender of the Germans armed forces was signed on May 7 in Reims, France. Surrender Nazi Germany entered into force on May 8 at 23:01 Central European Time and May 9 at 01:01 Moscow time.

Having accepted the surrender, the Soviet Union did not sign peace with Germany—in fact, Germany and the Soviet Union remained at war. The decree to end the state of war was adopted by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR only on January 25, 1955.

The Second World War ended on September 2, 1945 with the signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Japan on board the American battleship Missouri.

Sources:

1 en.wikipedia.org

2 en.wikipedia.org

3 en.wikipedia.org

4 en.wikipedia.org

5 en.wikipedia.org

6 militera.lib.ru

7 en.wikipedia.org

8 en.wikipedia.org

9 en.wikipedia.org

10 en.wikipedia.org

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In the year of victory over fascism, Nazism and Japanese militarism, Bob Marley and Nikita Mikhalkov, Evgeny Petrosyan and Leonid Yakubovich were born, but Pugacheva, Putin and Schwarzenegger were not yet “in the project”. You see how long ago that time was. And if we stop celebrating Victory Day, soon our children will become like English schoolchildren, among whom three out of four do not know. And in Japanese schools, in general, the history of World War II is not discussed separately. So, a few words about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and about brothels in Japanese-occupied territory, desu.

If you don’t read books and get your knowledge about global massacre number two from computer games and films made by those born in 1945, then you can miss not only interesting things, but also important things. And then it will remain a mystery under what kind of bridge Hitler was caught with his tail or why the stew was called the “second front”.

But really, why, and what kind of war was it?

1. World War II is the most destructive conflict in human history. The most money was spent on its maintenance, the greatest damage was caused to the economy and property, maximum number people - according to various sources, from 50 to 70 million people. More than any other war, World War II influenced the further course of world history.

2. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest humanitarian losses in the war - 26.6 million people, and only officially.

3. Four out of five German soldiers, killed on the battlefields, laid down their lives on the Eastern Front.

4. The Holocaust claimed the lives of one and a half million children. Approximately 1.2 million of them were Jews, tens of thousands were from Roma families.

5. Eighty percent of Soviet men born in 1923 did not live to see the end of the Great Patriotic War.

6. The Battle of Stalingrad, which became a turning point in the war, turned out to be the bloodiest in the history of the world, approximately 1.6 million people died in it. The corpses were counted in piles and buckets.

7. In the occupied German territories, Red Army soldiers raped more than 2 million German women aged 13 to 70 years. The winners are not judged.

8. On the bank deposit of Max Heiliger - a man who did not exist - the SS men put money, gold and jewelry that they seized from the Jews.

9. The swastika is an ancient religious symbol used by many civilizations. It still occurs in the symbolism of Hinduism and Buddhism. Swastikas were found in the ruins of ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Chinese temples. Greetings in various Asian languages ​​​​come from the Sanskrit word “svasti” (compare with “hello”). Hitler adopted the swastika as the symbol of the National Socialists in 1920. The flag with it too. At the same time, swastika stripes were also worn by soldiers of the southern units of the Red Army, recruited from Kalmyk Buddhists, who were distinguished by their special military audacity.

10. In 1935, British engineer Robert Watson-Watt began work on a “death ray.” This was the name given to a supposedly possible creation of a beam of radio waves that could destroy solid objects - enemy aircraft. Instead of a “death ray”, the result was a radar - a device for detecting aircraft and monitoring their movement. Nowadays, the United States has already learned how to shoot down ballistic missiles with a laser, but 68 years ago this could only have been science fiction.

11. Approximately 600 thousand Jews served in the US Army during World War II, about 8,000 of them died in battle, another 27 thousand were wounded, captured or missing.

12. More people died during the siege of Leningrad Soviet people(military and civilian) than on other fronts of the war of the Americans and the British combined.

13. Japanese kamikazes as a phenomenon appeared in October 1944, the idea of ​​Vice Admiral Onishi, in response to the technological superiority of US forces. Approximately 2,800 suicide pilots were killed in action. They drowned 34 American ship, damaged 368, killed 4,900 sailors and wounded 4,800.

14. Many Jews in the camps became subjects of medical experiments. For example, doctors irradiated the gonads of men and women with X-rays to find out what dose of radiation was sufficient to sterilize Untermensch. Surgeons broke and fused bones of experimental prisoners many times in order to find out how much regeneration bone tissue is capable of. The science of organ transplantation was also developing at full speed. The results of many nightmarish experiments have been useful to modern peaceful medicine. But their very fact led to the taboo of eugenics. Japanese military doctors carried out similar experiments on residents of China, preparing for a chemical-bacteriological war against the USSR and Mongolia.

15. Dr. Joseph Mengele used approximately 3 thousand twins, mostly Gypsies and Jews, for his savage genetic exercises. Only about 200 of them survived. One day, a doctor came up with the idea to create artificial “Siamese twins” by combining two ordinary, Romanian ones. Did the “Angel of Death” plan to open a circus after the war?

16. In addition to Jews and Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses also ended up in the gas chambers of the Third Reich - a total of approximately 11 thousand adherents of the multinational sect.

17. In 1941, private American army received 21 dollars a month, in 1942 - already 50 dollars.

18. During air attack At Pearl Harbor, out of 96 laid up US Navy ships, 18 were disabled. 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,280 were wounded.

19. German submarines sent about 2,000 ships of the anti-Hitler coalition to the bottom, at the cost of losing 781 submarines.

20. First jet planes were used by the Germans in World War II. Among these is the Messerschmitt ME-262. However, these successful fighting machines were created too late to influence the outcome of the conflict.

21. The most powerful self-propelled artillery gun in history was named “Karl” in honor of its developer, General Karl Becker. The length of the barrel was 4.2 meters. Shells with a 60-centimeter diameter penetrated concrete walls two to three meters thick. Only seven such monsters were created. The Karl guns were used by the Krauts during the siege of the Brest Fortress and Sevastopol.

22. In Berlin, there was a brothel called “Salon Kitty” for foreign diplomats and other important people. The brothel was stocked with microphones, and 20 top-class prostitutes underwent a multi-week intensive course in spy training. They were taught to extract from clients important information in progress idle chatter. A feature film was made about a brothel.

23. The Second World War put an end to the planetary dominance of old Europe, its teeth were knocked out, and the centers of influence on the weather in our big house called Earth moved to the USA and the Soviet Union, countries that became superpowers. Invention and first application experiences nuclear weapons marked the beginning cold war, which some people are still itching to imitate.

24. Most historians believe that the first day of World War II was September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. Others say that the global carnage began much earlier - on September 18, 1931, with the invasion Japanese troops to Manchuria. But there are also scientists who generally consider the 1st and 2nd World Wars to be one protracted war with a break for the growth of a new generation of cannon fodder.

25. During the war, hamburgers in the United States were called “Liberty Steaks” to avoid sounding Germanic. Hamburg, they say, and we will bomb the burghers there and eat steaks, if you please.

26. Erich "Bubie" Hartmann, a German military pilot, became and is still considered the best fighter ace in aviation history during the war. He has 352 aerial victories, incl. 345 - over Soviet aircraft, in 1525 combat missions. After the war, the first ace of the Reich spent 10 years in Soviet camps, and upon returning to Germany, he commanded a Bundeswehr squadron. At the age of 48, he retired, not wanting to fly on “bad American planes,” which at that time were really so-so.

27. Adolf Hitler's nephew William fled to the United States shortly before the war, and, with the permission of President Roosevelt, participated in the war against his uncle. William Patrick Hitler was a pharmacist's assistant, so he only beat the Nazis indirectly. After the war, he changed his last name to Stewart-Houston and became rich from his memoirs.

28. The German Nazis exterminated millions of Poles. But some Polish children seemed to them anthropologically similar to the Germans, so the Nazis kidnapped about 50 thousand boys and girls from Polish families for “Germanization” in the homes of the “true Aryans” of Vaterland.

29. A purely Nazi invention were the so-called. Sonderkommando. In Auschwitz, the Sonderkommando was a special unit of physically strong prisoners who were tasked with inviting newly arrived “subhumans” into the gas chamber, then removing the corpses and pulling out the gold teeth, and then burning and/or burying them. The team members naturally became wild and went crazy.

30. Above Hitler’s desk hung a photo of Henry Ford in a decorous frame. In turn, Ford carefully kept the portrait of the Fuhrer on his desk in Dearborn. The great industrialist was an anti-Semite and the Fuhrer personally admiringly referred to him in the book “My Struggle.” However, the Ford company was also friends with the Soviet Union. I wonder if Zionists drive Fords today?

31. The Greatest tank battle in history took place between the forces of the Red Army and the German invaders on Kursk Bulge July 5 - August 23, 1943. Almost 6 thousand tanks, 4 thousand aircraft, about two million soldiers and officers took part in it. After the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops finally seized the strategic initiative.

32. Mortality among prisoners of war of Germans, Italians, Romanians, Hungarians in Soviet camps (a piece of wild land, fenced barbed wire) reached 85 percent. In camps for displaced persons in 1945, many German war criminals posed as refugees, thus avoiding hot pursuit of retribution.

33. A huge number of Japanese spies worked in Mexico, from where they tried to monitor the US Atlantic Fleet.

35. If it became necessary to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan, Tokyo would be the next target city. There were plans for Kyoto, but the Americans decided not to touch it due to its cultural and historical value. You see, they didn’t feel sorry for German Dresden. But there are half of them without nuclear warheads ancient city razed to the ground.

36. Rudolf Hess, who held the rank of “Deputy Fuhrer,” was called “Fräulein Anna” behind his back at the top of the Reich - because of homosexual inclinations. Hess's second nickname was “Brown Mouse.” After fleeing to Britain, Genosse Rudolf was declared insane and became the last prisoner in the Tower of London prison, where he sat from 1941 until Nuremberg trials. Until his death in 1987, Hess remained a convinced National Socialist, and in 2011, the German authorities destroyed his grave so that neo-Nazis would not hold their Sabbaths there.

37. The name of the automobile concern "Volkswagen" was invented by Hitler, who wanted to give the people of Germany the opportunity to acquire strong and inexpensive cars. The development of which was entrusted to the well-known Jacob Porsche.

38. The United States of America was the only country against which the Reich government officially declared war - on December 11, 1941. The Germans did not stand on ceremony with other states.

39. The Nazis called their regime the Third Reich (lasted from 1933 to 1945) because the First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), and the Second was the united Germany of 1871-1918. The Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was destroyed by the World War economic crisis and the rise of Adolf Hitler to totalitarian power. Every revolution has its Napoleon.

40. An amazing battle involving cavalry took place on August 2, 1942 near the village of Kushchevskaya Krasnodar region. The Cossack units of the Red Army offered fierce resistance to the Nazi advance. Some sources report that in the Battle of Kushchevsky horsemen successfully attacked tanks. The angry Cossacks chopped down the German infantry, as in the First World War, with sabers, into cabbages.

41. To this day, very effective means the legendary Soviet "Katyusha" - a rocket-propelled grenade launcher based on truck. Adopted into service in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, the Katyusha could fire up to 320 shells in 25 seconds. The Germans called these machines “Stalin's organs” for their resemblance to the pipe system of a musical instrument and the deafening roar during firing.

42. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US President Roosevelt wanted a bulletproof car. Since by law it was impossible to spend more than $750 on a car, Roosevelt got a Cadillac limousine that belonged to a gangster for free. The President even joked about this: “I hope Mr. Capone won’t mind.” And Mister was in prison and suffered from syphilis.

43. In the German elections of 1928, less than 3% of Germans voted for the NSDAP. And exactly ten years later, Adolf Hitler was named Time magazine's man of the year. But in 1939 and 1942, that is, twice, Joseph Stalin was declared person of the year, in 1940 and 1949 - Winston Churchill. Know ours.

44. The Nazis “licked” the Nazi salute from the Italian fascists, and those from the ancient Romans. From whom the Romans themselves spied the “ridge” is not really clear.

45. In 1974, Japanese intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda, born in 1922, came out to people from the jungle of the Pacific island of Luban. He Robinson lived on it for 29 years (a year longer than the hero of Defoe’s book), not knowing that his country had capitulated and nothing threatened him. So the Soviet joke about the partisan grandfather who derailed trains for many years after the Victory is not such a fairy tale.

46. ​​The war between the USSR and Japan formally, on paper, ended only in 1956. But a “bad peace” did not work out either - the corresponding agreement has not yet been signed. Therefore, Japan considers the southern Kuril Islands its own, and half of Sakhalin as a territory with an unsettled status. From time to time the Kremlin promises to give Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and all sorts of Habomai to the Japanese, but that’s what the Kremlin makes promises. Meanwhile, in the southern Kuril Islands, ancient Russian melancholy is blooming with concrete graying.

47. Writer Ian Fleming “based” his agent “007” on the spy of Yugoslav origin Dusko Popov (1912 - 1980). This guy came to intelligence with knowledge of 5 languages ​​and own recipe sympathetic ink. Popov was the first superspy to take photographs on microfilm. Dusko knew when the Japanese were going to attack Hawaii, but the FBI did not believe the intelligence officer. After retiring, the spy lived happily in a penthouse and had a reputation as a womanizer, the likes of which the world has never seen.

48. Since 1942, American military sailors in Pacific Ocean used the Navajo Indians to encrypt and decipher radiograms. The Navajo language did not have words for, for example, torpedo or bomber, so they were replaced by "folk" ones. About 400 Indians worked for the Victory, and the Japanese unusual language, and even encrypted, turned out to be too tough.

49. In 1939, the Nazis launched the “T4” euthanasia program in Germany, according to which from 80 to 100 thousand German disabled people, paralytics, epileptics, mentally retarded people and the insane were taken from hospitals and killed. At first, injections were used for killing, then poisonous gases. The program was closed after numerous protests from relatives of patients and church authorities.

50. All countries participating in the war had chemical munitions, but, according to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, they had no right to use them. The convention, however, was ignored by the Italian fascists in Ethiopia (1936) and the Japanese militarists in China. The farther from Geneva, the more “possible”.

1. During World War II, the Taj Mahal was covered with a huge canopy to make it look like a bamboo reserve. In this way, any Japanese bomber pilot could be misled. In 1971, it was again camouflaged during the Indo-Pakistan War.

2. After World War II, Jewish mercenary groups nicknamed “Nokmim” appeared who sought out those who terrorized Jews or their families during the war and meticulously executed them.

3. The Red Army (USSR) defeated 75-80% German troops During the Second World War. US forces destroyed only 20-25%.

4. During World War II, there was a secret American program to disguise plastic explosives as flour. This was such a disguise that even baked goods could be made from this “flour”, which could later be used to make explosives.

5. A U.S. Army private during the Italian campaign single-handedly forced the surrender of four machine gunners and captured 10 Italian prisoners of war. He was stripped of his medal simply because he is a combat private in the US Army.

6. During World War II, the official gesture that accompanied the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States was similar to the Nazi salute (Hitler). Therefore, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered it to be changed and put his hand on his heart.

7. During World War II, US Army Lt. Robert Clingman used the propeller of his F4U Corsair (a single-seat carrier-based fighter) to destroy an enemy reconnaissance aircraft. His weapon jammed, but he attempted an air ram, went into the enemy’s tail and, with the propeller of his plane, disrupted the control of the enemy plane, as a result of which it crashed. Robert Clingman returned to base and was awarded the Navy Cross.

8. There is an account where events that occurred during the Second World War are posted, which correspond in date and time in real time (only with a difference of 70 years).

9. The "Night Witches" were members of the Russian Women's Bomber Aviation Regiment. These pilots turned off their engines to avoid being heard as they approached, glided across the sky and bombed German targets. The “Night Witches” dropped 3,000 tons of bombs on German positions and constantly evaded enemy aircraft, as a result of which the German command had no choice but to promise the German pilots the “Iron Cross” for the destruction of at least one aircraft from the “Night Witches”.

10. The prototype for creating the plot of the battle near the “Death Star” from the cult film “ star Wars" served as a combat operation for the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

11. During World War II, three bombs hit the same church in Malta. Two of them simply bounced to the side and did not explode. The latter pierced the roof of the church, fell among the people who had taken refuge during the raid, but never exploded.

12. In the ranks Polish Army The common bear was listed as a private soldier during World War II and, ultimately, his presence played an important role in the Battle of Monte Cassino.

13. only finished paying off her World War II debts in 2006.

14. declared neutrality during World War II and therefore thousands of people invested their hard-earned money in banks. When depositors passed away, relatives were deprived of any access to their money, and banks continued to receive interest on the invested funds.

15. During World War II, Italy issued an ultimatum demanding acceptance of the Italian occupation. The Greeks replied “then it’s war.” In the ensuing battle, the unarmed Greeks steadfastly held the line against the Italian troops, thereby forcing Germany to intervene, diverting resources from the upcoming invasion of the USSR.

16. During World War II, the Manhattan Project used the code name “copper” for the element plutonium.

17. During World War II, Canadian soldier Leo Major, alone, captured about 93 Nazis in the Netherlands. He also later single-handedly captured the city of Zwolle, also in the Netherlands, to escape the Germans. He was blind to everything.

18. The total losses of the United States, Great Britain and France during World War II together were approximately equal to the losses of the Soviet Union in the decisive battle of Leningrad. All in all, Soviet losses 26 times more compared to the losses of other allies.

19. Fritz Haber, a German chemist, created a process for producing fertilizers that today produce about half of the world's food. He also created chlorine gas. After his death, chlorine gas was used in gas chambers, and pesticides for soil fertilization.

20. Lauri Terni was a soldier who fought under three flags: Finnish, German (when he fought the Soviets in World War II), and American (where he was known as Larry Thorne) when he served in the US Army as a special forces soldier in the war.

21. During World War II, Great Britain shipped most of its stocks and foreign securities in boxes labeled “fish.” They were stored for years in an office building in downtown Montreal where some 5,000 people worked throughout the war with no idea what was hidden in their basement.

22. The United States bombed Tokyo repeatedly during World War II, causing more than 100,000 casualties, more than total victims in and combined.

23. There is a separate cemetery in France for American soldiers who were executed for rape or murder during World War II.

24.The United States produced only 139 automobiles during World War II because all factories were using production capacity and supplies for the army.

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.

During World War II, the Germans produced unique pistols mounted in a belt buckle. They were made by hand in single copies for high-ranking SS officers and members of the Nazi Party. To activate the gun, you had to press a small lever with inside buckles - then the front part bounced off, and the barrels built into the base extended in a cocked state. To shoot, you had to press another lever again.

In 1940, the next Edinburgh derby was to take place between the football teams Hibernian and Hearts. Due to heavy fog, BBC commentator Bob Kingsley, from his position, could not see the players on the field at all and what was happening there, but was ordered to broadcast radio no matter what - otherwise the Germans listening in on the broadcast could guess about the weather and bomb the city without hindrance. Kingsley could only rely on the noise of the fans when goals were scored, but he conducted a full-fledged commentary throughout the match, inventing dangerous moments, saves and fouls. The match ended in a victory for Hearts with a score of 6:5.

During World War II, German sailors carried a cat aboard the battleship Bismarck. The battleship was scuttled by a British squadron 9 days after going to sea, only 115 of the 2,200 crew members survived. The cat was picked up by English sailors and taken on board the destroyer Cossack, which 5 months later was torpedoed by a German submarine and sank. Subsequently, the cat, nicknamed Unsinkable Sam, was transferred to the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, which also sank. Only after this they decided to leave Sam on the shore, and he lived until 1955.

During World War II, the famous American playing card manufacturing company Bicycle made special decks for the US government that were sent to American prisoners in German prisons. When wet, pieces appeared on the cards topographic map, which showed escape routes.

During the Second World War, work was carried out in the USSR to create an aircraft based on the A-40 tank. During flight tests, the tank glider was towed by a TB-3 aircraft and was able to rise to a height of 40 meters. It was assumed that after uncoupling tow rope the tank must independently glide to the desired point, drop its wings and immediately enter the battle. The project was closed due to the lack of more powerful towing vehicles, which were needed to solve more important tasks.

The Red Army machine gunner Semyon Konstantinovich Hitler, a Jew by nationality, took part in the Great Patriotic War. The award list has been preserved, according to which Hitler was nominated for the medal “For Military Merit” for performing a feat. True, the “Feat of the People” database reports that the medal “For Courage” was awarded to Semyon Konstantinovich Gitlev - it is unknown whether the surname was changed accidentally or intentionally.

During World War II, the Americans developed a project to bomb Japan using bats. At a temperature of 4 °C, when the animal hibernates, it was planned to attach an incendiary time bomb to its body. Already from the plane, thousands of bats had to descend from the planes on self-expanding parachutes, and after waking up, fly into hard to reach places various buildings, setting them on fire. Although tests have confirmed the effectiveness this method“bombing”, the project was eventually curtailed, including due to the appearance of a nuclear bomb.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the USSR experienced a large shortage of tanks, and therefore a decision was made to in case of emergency convert ordinary tractors into tanks. 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 headlights 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.”

The drug pervitin (a derivative of methamphetamine) was widely used to stimulate Wehrmacht soldiers - its tablets were officially included in the rations of pilots and tank crews. Civilians also used it - they were on sale chocolate candies filled with pervitin, although the Ministry of Health subsequently recognized its dangers and banned production. The pharmacists who created Pervitin were taken to the United States after the war and participated in the creation of drugs that were already used by the American army in Korea and Vietnam.

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.

Levitan's reports and messages were not recorded during the Great Patriotic War. Only in the 1950s was a special recording of them for history organized.

Initially, the term “bazooka” was used to refer to a musical wind instrument similar to a trombone. During the Second World War, the American army received the M9 anti-tank grenade launcher, which, due to its external resemblance to the same instrument, and according to another version, because of the sound of a flying projectile similar to its sound, was also called a bazooka.

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.

During World War II, Allied pilots flying over tribal regions were advised to carry a rope in case of an emergency landing to facilitate contact with the natives. When they approached, it was supposed to casually take a string out of your pocket and make shapes like a “cat’s cradle” out of it. Several times the pilots had to resort to this activity, and the natives watched with friendly interest, and then asked for a rope and demonstrated the figures known to them.

At the beginning of World War II, the German Coca-Cola bottling plant lost its supply of ingredients from the United States. Then the Germans decided to produce another drink from food waste - apple pulp and whey - and called it “Fanta” (short for the word “fantasy”). The director of this plant, Max Keith, was not a Nazi, so the widespread belief that Fanta was invented by the Nazis is a misconception. After the war, Keith contacted the parent company, Coca-Cola restored its ownership of the factory and did not abandon the new drink, which had already gained popularity.

In some Hollywood films about World War II, American soldiers of different races can be seen fighting side by side. This is not true, since racial segregation in the US Army was only abolished in 1948. Racial divisions also played a role in the construction of the Pentagon, which took place in 1942 - separate toilets were built there for whites and blacks, and the total number of toilets was twice as many as needed. True, the signs “for whites” and “for blacks” were never hung thanks to the intervention of President Roosevelt.

The German bomber of the Second World War, the Junkers Ju-87, was equipped with a siren, which was activated by the flow of incoming air. It howled loudly during a dive and was intended to have a psychological effect on the enemy.

Leonid Gaidai was drafted into the army in 1942 and first served in Mongolia, where he trained horses for the front. One day a military commissar came to the unit to recruit reinforcements for the active army. To the officer’s question: “Who’s in the artillery?” - Gaidai replied: “I am!” He also answered other questions: “Who is in the cavalry?”, “In the navy?”, “In reconnaissance?”, which displeased the boss. “Just wait, Gaidai,” said the military commissar, “Let me read out the whole list.” Later, the director adapted this episode for the film “Operation Y and Shurik’s Other Adventures.”

It is known that in the wars of the 19th century, the First and Second World Wars, many countries used armored trains. However, in addition to this, they tried to fight with the help of individual combat units - armored tires. They were almost like tanks, but limited in movement only by rails.

In 1944, junior lieutenant Japanese army Onoda Hiro was ordered to lead a guerrilla detachment on the Philippine island of Lubang. Having lost his soldiers in battle, Onoda managed to survive and disappeared into the jungle. In 1974, Onoda Hiro was found on the same island where he was still conducting partisan activities. Not believing in the end of the war, the lieutenant refused to lay down his arms. And only when Onoda’s immediate commander arrived on the island and ordered to surrender, he came out of the jungle, admitting the defeat of Japan.

In Nazi Germany, the Nobel Prize was banned after the Peace Prize was awarded to the opponent of National Socialism, Karl von Ossietzky, in 1935. German physicists Max von Laue and James Frank entrusted the custody of their gold medals to Niels Bohr. When the Germans occupied Copenhagen in 1940, the chemist de Hevesy dissolved these medals in aqua regia. After the end of the war, de Hevesy extracted the gold hidden in the aqua regia and donated it to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. New medals were made there and re-presented to von Laue and Frank.

During World War II, trained dogs actively helped sappers clear mines. One of them, nicknamed Dzhulbars, was discovered while clearing mine sites in European countries in Last year war 7468 mines and more than 150 shells. Shortly before the Victory Parade in Moscow on June 24, Dzhulbars was injured and could not participate in the military dog ​​school. Then Stalin ordered the dog to be carried across Red Square on his overcoat.

During World War II, the Germans occupied the Netherlands and the royal family was evacuated to Canada. There, the current Queen Juliana gave birth to her third daughter, Margrit. The ward in the maternity hospital where the birth took place was declared outside Canadian jurisdiction by a special decree of the Canadian government. This was done so that Princess Margriet could lay claim to the throne of the Netherlands in the future, because having received foreign citizenship at birth, she would have lost this right. In gratitude to the Canadians after returning home, the Dutch royal family sends thousands of tulip bulbs every year to Ottawa, where the annual tulip festival takes place.

In 1942, Stalin invited the US Ambassador to watch the film “Volga, Volga” with him. Tom liked the film, and Stalin gave President Roosevelt a copy of the film through him. Roosevelt watched the film and did not understand why Stalin sent him. Then he asked to translate the lyrics. When a song dedicated to the steamship “Sevryuga” was played: “America gave a steamship to Russia: / Steam from the bow, wheels at the back, / And terrible, and terrible, / And a terribly quiet move,” he exclaimed: “Now it’s clear!” Stalin reproaches us for our quiet progress, for the fact that we have not yet opened a second front.”

August 6, 1945 Japanese engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was among those who were in Hiroshima during the atomic bombing of the city. After spending the night in a bomb shelter, the next day he returned to his hometown, Nagasaki, and was exposed to the second atomic explosion. Until the beginning of 2010, Yamaguchi remained the last living person officially recognized as a victim of the two bombings mentioned at once.

Hitler's army included several units composed of Muslims. The most exotic was the Free India Legion (‘Freies Indien’), most of whose soldiers came from the Muslim parts of India and the territories of modern Pakistan and Bangladesh, captured by the Nazis in North Africa. 62% of Chechens served the Nazis.

During the years of the Great Patriotic War, St. Isaac's Cathedral was never subjected to direct shelling - only once did a shell hit the western corner of the cathedral. According to the military, the reason is that the Germans used the highest dome of the city as a target for shooting. It is unknown whether the city leadership was guided by this assumption when they decided to hide in the basement of the cathedral valuables from other museums that had not been removed before the start of the blockade. But as a result, both the building and the valuables were safely preserved.

When the Allies were preparing to land in Europe, given the shortage of metal, they seriously considered the project of building a fleet of huge aircraft carriers made of ice. It came down to a real prototype - a smaller copy of an aircraft carrier made from a frozen mixture of water and sawdust, but large similar ships were never built.

Vitamin A contained in carrots is important for healthy skin, growth, and vision. However, there is no direct connection between eating carrots and good eyesight No. The beginning of such faith was laid in the Second World War. The British developed a new radar that allowed pilots to see German bombers at night. To hide the existence of this technology, the British Air Force circulated press reports that such visions were the result of the pilots' carrot diet.

In both world wars, the Americans used Indians of different tribes as radio operators. The Germans and Japanese, intercepting radio messages, could not decipher them. In World War II, for the same purposes, the Americans used the Basque language, which is very little widespread in Europe with the exception of the Basque country in northern Spain.

On August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a Go game was being played in the suburbs for one of Japan's most honorable titles. The blast wave broke the glass and left the room in chaos, but the players restored the stones on the board and played the game to the end.

Selection of records

On May 8, 1945, the Act of Unconditional Surrender of the German Armed Forces was signed, which meant the cessation of hostilities on all fronts and the end of the Great Patriotic War for the Soviet people. May 9 of the same year went down in history as Victory Day. Very soon we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of this important event for all of us. On the occasion of the holiday, we have collected the most Interesting Facts not only about the Great Patriotic War, but also about the Second World War in general.

1. During World War II, Japan dropped bombs filled with fleas infected with bubonic plague on China. This entomological weapon caused an epidemic that killed between 440 thousand and 500 thousand Chinese.
CDC

2. During World War II, Princess Elizabeth (the current Queen of Great Britain) served as an ambulance driver. Her service lasted five months.
Archive photo

3. Japanese soldier Hiro Onoda surrendered 27 years after the end of World War II. The junior lieutenant of military intelligence of the Japanese armed forces hid on the island of Lubang until 1974, not believing in the end of the world conflict and continuing to collect information about the enemy. He regarded information about the end of the war as massive disinformation on the part of the enemy and surrendered only after former Imperial Japanese Army Major Yoshimi Taniguchi personally arrived in the Philippines and gave the order to cease combat operations.
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4. The number of Chinese killed by the Japanese during World War II exceeds the number of Jews killed due to the Holocaust.
Ministry of the Navy

5. During World War II, the Paris Cathedral Mosque helped Jews escape German persecution; Fake Muslim birth certificates were issued here.
LPLT

6. 80% of all Soviet men born in 1923 died during World War II.
ww2gallery/CC BY-NC 2.0

7. Winston Churchill lost the election in 1945 after winning World War II.
United Nations Information Office, New York

8. In 1942, during the bombing of Liverpool, carried out on the orders of the Fuhrer, the area where his nephew, William Patrick Hitler, was born and lived for some time was destroyed. In 1939, William Patrick left Great Britain for the United States. In 1944, he enlisted in the US Navy, burning with hatred for his uncle. He later changed his last name to Stewart-Houston.
Archive photo

9. Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a Japanese man who survived both atomic bombings of Japan - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The man died in 2010 from stomach cancer at the age of 93.
Hiromichi Matsuda

10. During World War II, Japan accepted Jewish refugees and rejected German protests.
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11. At least 1.1 million Jewish children were killed during the Holocaust.
Archive photos

12. A third of the Jews alive at that time were killed during the Holocaust.
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13. Czechoslovak President Emil Haha suffered a heart attack during negotiations with Hitler regarding the surrender of Czechoslovakia. Despite his serious condition, the politician was forced to sign the act.
Archive photo

14. In October 1941, Romanian troops under the control of Nazi Germany killed more than 50,000 Jews in Odessa. Today the event is known under the term “murder of the Jews of Odessa.”
Brunnengr?ber

15. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Canada declared war on Japan even earlier than the United States.
Archive photo

16. During World War II, Oscar figurines were made of plaster due to a metal shortage.
Prayitno / Thank you for (6 million +) views/CC BY 2.0

17. During the German occupation of Paris, Adolf Hitler was unable to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower because the elevator drive was deliberately damaged by the French. The Fuhrer refused to go up on foot.
Archive photos

18. During World War II, doctor Eugeniusz Lazowski and his colleague saved 8,000 Jews from the Holocaust. They simulated a typhus epidemic and thus stopped the entry of German troops into the city.
Archive photo

19. Hitler planned to capture Moscow, kill all the inhabitants and create an artificial reservoir on the site of the city.
Recuerdos de Pandora/CC BY-SA 2.0

20. The Russians killed more Germans during the Battle of Stalingrad than the Americans did in the entire Second World War.
Archive photo

21. Carrots do not improve vision. This is a false belief that was spread by the British in order to hide from the Germans information about new technologies that allowed pilots to see German bombers at night during the Second World War.
Nicholas Noyes/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

22. Spain maintained neutrality in the First and Second World Wars, but was subjected to civil war(1936-1939), in which 500,000 people died.
Archive photo

23. During the German invasion of Poland, Wizna was defended by only 720 Poles, holding back the onslaught of the German 19th Army Corps, which consisted of more than 42 thousand soldiers, 350 tanks and 650 guns. They managed to stop the offensive for three days. In World War II, 20% of Poland's population died - the highest figure of any country.
Hiuppo

24. Brazil was the only independent country in Latin America to directly participate in the hostilities of World War II.
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25. Mexico was the only country to oppose the German annexation of Austria in 1938 just before the outbreak of World War II.
Archive photo

26. During World War II, 2 million German women aged 13 to 70 were raped by Red Army soldiers. Source

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27. In World War II, the United States and New Zealand secretly tested 3,700 tsunami bombs that were intended to destroy coastal cities.