Share with friends: It is known that during the Great Patriotic War Hitler's armies were never able to reach the Middle Volga region, although in accordance with the Barbarossa plan, by the end of the summer of 1941 the Wehrmacht was supposed to reach the Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan line. Nevertheless, the war and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities that were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line. But these were not at all those self-confident occupiers with Schmeissers in their hands who walked across the Soviet border at dawn on June 22.
Destroyed cities were rebuilt by prisoners of war
We know that the victory over Nazi Germany came at an incredibly high price for our people. In 1945, a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing acute shortage working hands and smart heads, because millions of our fellow citizens died on the war fronts and in the rear, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists.
After the Potsdam Conference, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. According to him, when restoring the industry of the USSR and its destroyed cities and villages, it was intended to use the labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. At the same time, it was decided to transport all qualified German engineers and workers from the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to USSR enterprises.
According to the official Soviet history, in March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for restoration and development national economy countries. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the areas of the country that had suffered from the occupation and hostilities, and in industry and agriculture to reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it.
About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in prices of that time. In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, several camps were organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites.
Labor at that time was also needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official Soviet plans, in the last war years and immediately after the war, several new factories were planned to be built in Kuibyshev, including an oil refinery, a drill bit, a ship repair plant and a metal structures plant. It also turned out to be urgently necessary to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasov), the Avtotractorodetal plant (later the valve plant), the Srednevolzhsky Machine Tool Plant and some others. It was here that German prisoners of war were sent to work. But as it turned out later, they were not the only ones.

Six hours to get ready
Before the war, both the USSR and Germany were actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines - gas turbines. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet colleagues. The lag increased after in 1937, all the leading Soviet scientists working on the problems of jet propulsion fell under the Yezhov-Beri skating rink of repression. Meanwhile, in Germany, at the BMW and Junkers factories, the first samples of gas turbine engines were already being prepared for launch into mass production.
In the spring of 1945, the factories and design bureaus of Junkers and BMW found themselves in the Soviet occupation zone. And in the fall of 1946, a significant part of the qualified personnel of Junkers, BMW and some other German aircraft factories, in the strictest secrecy, on specially equipped trains, was transported to the territory of the USSR, or rather to Kuibyshev, to the village of Upravlencheskiy. In the shortest possible time, 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly qualified workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel were delivered here. Family members of these specialists came with them. As a result, at the end of October 1946, in the village of Upravlencheskiy there were more Germans than Russians.
Not long ago, former German electrical engineer Helmut Breuninger came to Samara, who was part of the very group of German technical specialists who were secretly taken to the village of Upravlencheskiy more than 60 years ago. In the late autumn of 1946, when the train carrying the Germans arrived in the city on the Volga, Mr. Breuninger was only 30 years old. Although by the time of his visit to Samara he had already turned 90 years old, he still decided on such a trip, albeit in the company of his daughter and grandson.

Helmut Breuninger with his grandson

In 1946 I worked as an engineer at state enterprise“Askania,” Mr. Breuninger recalled. “Back then, in defeated Germany, it was very difficult for even a qualified specialist to find a job. Therefore, when at the beginning of 1946, several large factories were launched under the control of the Soviet administration, there were a lot of people wanting to get a job there. And in the early morning of October 22, the doorbell rang at my apartment. A Soviet lieutenant and two soldiers stood on the threshold. The lieutenant said that my family and I were given six hours to get ready for subsequent departure to the Soviet Union. He didn’t tell us any details, we only learned that we would be working in our specialty at one of the Soviet defense enterprises.
Under heavy security in the evening of the same day, the train with technical specialists departed from the Berlin station. While loading onto the train, I saw many familiar faces. These were experienced engineers from our enterprise, as well as some of my colleagues from the Junkers and BMW factories. The train traveled for a whole week to Moscow, where several engineers and their families disembarked. But we moved on. I knew a little about the geography of Russia, but I had never heard of a city called Kuibyshev before. Only when they explained to me that it used to be called Samara, I remembered that there really is such a city on the Volga.
Worked for the USSR
Most of the Germans taken to Kuibyshev worked at Experimental Plant No. 2 (later - the Engine Plant]. At the same time, OKB-1 was 85 percent staffed by Junkers specialists, in OKB-2 up to 80 percent of the staff consisted of former BMW personnel, and 62 percent of OKB-3 personnel were specialists from the Ascania plant.
At first, the secret factory where the Germans worked was run exclusively by military personnel. In particular, from 1946 to 1949 it was headed by Colonel Olekhnovich. However, in May 1949, an engineer unknown to anyone at that time arrived here to replace the military, and was almost immediately appointed the responsible manager of the enterprise. For many decades, this man was classified in much the same way as Igor Kurchatov, Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. That unknown engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, later an academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.
Kuznetsov immediately directed all the creative forces of the design bureaus subordinate to him to develop a new turboprop engine, based on the German model YuMO-022. This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed power up to 4000 horsepower. It was modernized, its power was further increased and it was put into production. In subsequent years, the Kuznetsov Design Bureau produced not only turboprops, but also turbojet engines for bomber aircraft. German specialists took a direct part in the creation of almost each of them. Their work at the motor plant in the village of Upravlencheskiy continued until the mid-50s.
As for Helmut Breuninger, he was included in the first wave of moves from Kuibyshev, when some German specialists, along with their families, began to be transferred to Moscow factories. The last such group left the banks of the Volga in 1954, but the surviving German specialists returned home to Germany only in 1958. Since that time, the graves of many of these visiting engineers and technicians have remained in the old cemetery in the village of Upravlencheskiy. In those years when Kuibyshev was a closed city, no one looked after the cemetery. But now these graves are always well-groomed, the paths between them are sprinkled with sand, and the names in German are written on the monuments.

The Germans did not enter Moscow in November 1941 because the dams of the reservoirs surrounding Moscow were blown up. On November 29, Zhukov reported on the flooding of 398 settlements, without warning the local population, in 40-degree frost... the water level rose to 6 meters... no one counted people...

Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of “Echo of Moscow” is another program from the “Price of Victory” series. Today I am hosting it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I’ll immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello, Iskander.

Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.

And it is no coincidence that he was invited to us today, since it was today in the newspaper “Top Secret” that Iskander Kuzeev’s material entitled “The Moscow Flood” was published, which talks about a secret operation in the fall of 1941. The author of the article himself will tell you in more detail, and I will make one digression and simply tell you that, you see, life has its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I are trying to go in chronological order based on the events of the Second World War, but when something interesting comes, we go back, maybe we’ll get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our guest today, Iskander Kuzeev, investigated and wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why are we talking about a flood?

Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, which I became quite familiar with from memoir literature, in particular, the recently published memoirs of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow, in Russian. Guderian's troops, the 2nd Panzer Army, had practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time Soviet troops, which repelled Guderian’s attacks, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where practically no clashes took place. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops stood in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only in two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilovsky heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of Army Group Center were opposed in fact, one NKVD armored train that accidentally ended up there - it was coming from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, I became aware that individual, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.

This famous incident when some motorcyclists almost reached the Falcon?

Yes, yes, they were stopped on the second bridge across railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they protected it from air raids. Motorcyclists crossed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of ​​the current metro station "Rechnoy Vokzal", the weather was bad there, and as the researchers who worked on this topic told me, they went down to the ice to kick a ball, at that time 30 motorcyclists passed by, and they already stopped on the last bridge before the Sokol station. And there was one German tank between the current metro stations “Skhodnenskaya” and “Tushinskaya”.

Volokolamsk direction.

Yes. This is the Western Bridge over the diversion canal in the Tushino area. And as the people who were engaged in these studies told me, this was told to me in the management of the Moscow-Volga channel, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Moscow Channel", the most tall building on the hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and such a story was passed down from generation to generation, from there it was clearly visible: some lost German tank came out, stopped on the bridge, a German officer looked out, looked back and forth, something I wrote it down in my notebook and drove off somewhere in the opposite direction towards the Aleshkinsky forest. And third, there was German large-caliber artillery on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, an armored train was moving from the north to this point, and local residents crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began , where large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to study this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called the “Moscow Flood” took place.

So what kind of flood was this? They simply flooded a large area in order to impede the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?

Yes. That's right. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istrinsky hydroelectric complex, which is called the “Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex,” was blown up. Moreover, the drains were blown up below the level of the so-called “dead mark”, when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where the German troops were advancing hit the area of ​​​​the offensive and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istrinsky reservoir, and below it the mark is 143, that is, it turns out to be more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is a waterfall that washes away everything in its path, flooding houses and villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this; the operation was secret.

Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?

In Istra it was a military operation, that is, engineering control Western Front. But there was also another operation, which was carried out jointly by the management of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering department of the Western Front, and...

What other operation?

Another, in a different place.

Oh, there was another one.

There was also a second one, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which a decision was made to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, from a dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.

The first operation on the Istra Reservoir, November 1941?

Yes, end of November.

What about others?

That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?

There were two options for releasing water - from the Ivankovo ​​reservoir to the Volga downstream and releasing water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the Sestra River, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flowing where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It runs in a tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the level of the canal. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma spillway, which in case of any repair work allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same level of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to run these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and they do not consume, but produce electric current, so this is called generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the sluice doors were opened and a huge stream of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are located there at a very low level above the water various villages, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - the canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice broke, and streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people...

No precautions were taken.

And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, there were also constructions there - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail he says that metal gates were welded there that did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was discharged, imagine, a huge body of water from the Ivankovo ​​Reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River rose by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River rose by 6 meters.

Explain, as you just said, according to all the evidence - we did not see with our own eyes and did not feel with our skin - it was very heavy and cold winter, the frosts were terrible. This water, which poured out in huge quantities onto the earth's surface, was supposed to turn into ice.

Practically, yes. At first the ice was broken...

But then, in the cold, it all probably turned into ice?

But this does not happen immediately. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology with whom I spoke told me that it is enough to stand for half an hour knee-deep in such water and a person simply dies.

How many villages were flooded in this way?

In all these operations there is somewhere around 30-40.

But, if I’m not mistaken, there was an order from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Stalin, to flood, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?

There was an order. It didn't talk about flooding, it talked about destruction.

Villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups...

Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. And in accordance with this order, all villages deep into the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers were to be destroyed. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation against German troops. And there was even such a wording as “take the Soviet population with you.”

That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?

No, the retreating troops had to be withdrawn. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn precisely those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now is for those who defend Stalin. When individual excerpts from these materials were published on various blogs, a lot of Stalinists spoke in the comments and cited this phrase.

As an example of humanism.

Yes, yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, a lot of newsreels appeared about burned villages. Naturally, the question did not arise who burned them. There were Germans there, so cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.

That is, wherever there were Germans, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.

Did they report to Stalin?

Yes. In two weeks they reported that 398 settlements had been destroyed. And that’s why these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean...

Tenth, 10 percent.

Yes, and few people paid attention to this. Moreover, here in the report Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100 thousand Molotov cocktails, and so on, and so on.

Is this document genuine?

Yes, this is an absolutely genuine document, there is even data on where, in which archive it is located, a fund, an inventory.

In full - no.

I've never met. And do you cite it in the article?

We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and the report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command dated November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.

You know what else interests me in this whole story. The history, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And to be more honest, it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in military literature nor in memoirs was this story of the flooding told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some heading “top secret,” which is what the newspaper is called, strictly speaking, where did you publish?

The only thing I was able to find that was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it was published as “secret” and already in recent years The “secret” stamp was removed and the “chipboard” stamp was placed, and it was declassified only in 2006. And this book talked about the explosion of waterways in Istra. But nothing was said about the operation on the channel. I was able to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel; last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and Valentin Barkovsky’s book was published in a circulation of only 500 copies. And it talks about this in detail.

And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has had all its stamps removed, but apparently it is simply in libraries.

Well, yes, it was never reprinted.

I knew, of course, that many of the documents were classified, but in order to release a book immediately classified as “secret”, what circulation could it have had and who was it intended for then?

The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.

And then here’s the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described anywhere in German military literature?

Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts about whether everything was really flooded and people were dying there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not just a lot of people, but very elderly people who remembered this, who told it, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. A resident of the village named 1 May told me, this is a working village right at the level of the irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, but those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage area, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal simply saved them. Firstly, there was artillery firing from all sides. There were low, completely panel houses, lower than even peasant huts, and naturally, the artillery hit what was visible, and a potato storage facility with a high chimney was visible. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? They’ll kill you now.” And water began to flow, they went out and managed to get out along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal and go towards Dmitrov.

Iskander, tell me, is it known whether anyone kept such calculations of how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?

I couldn't find these calculations anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs on LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could have died there, that at home stand high above the river level, and even though there is an attic, there is also a roof. But when I talked to doctors, they said that there was little chance of survival in such a situation.

Is it even known what the approximate population of these villages was before the flood?

There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, this figure is now considered, the regular composition of the Red Army accounts for only one third of this number.

Even less.

Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling means the death of civilians.

Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes while the news broadcast passes, after which we will continue our conversation.

Good evening again, dear listeners. We continue the “Price of Victory” program, which is hosted today by me, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, author of the article “The Moscow Flood”, published in today’s issue of the newspaper “Top Secret”. And we talk with our guest about those events of the autumn of 1941, which Iskander Kuzeev describes. So, we settled on trying to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by releasing water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult; it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. Have you ever wondered how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?

Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were on higher ground were flooded and survived. But it’s also difficult to say how flooded they were. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that the flooding could not have happened at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are located very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a short historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built in the time of Catherine, there is such a village on the Istra River Catherine's Walls, and the canal passes through the city of Solnechnogorsk, it was not completed due to the fact that the need no longer existed. Almost all the structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all the hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the rivermen say, locked, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages on this route were navigable. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, it is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and the Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.

It's clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: “Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone.” To which follows the following response from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “So that information leaks to the Germans and so that they send their reconnaissance company to you? This is war, Comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He didn’t even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She too could have been covered by a wave.” Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not exactly fictional, but reconstructed?

This is a reconstruction, yes.

Reconstruction based on some individual evidence, apparently?

Yes. After all, the flow from the Istrinsky reservoir practically reached the Moscow River and could flood all these dacha villages, dachas in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra...

And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked with any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Sacrifice, the price of Victory is an issue that we constantly discuss. And as for simply purely military effectiveness, it was effective measure in order to stop the Germans?

In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilovsky Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument to General Vlasov in Russia.

Is it still worth it?

Yes. His name is stamped there; he commanded the 20th Army there.

And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.

Yes. Kuznetsov’s shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th Army.

But this same operation can be done differently, so there was no other way out?

Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...

We'll talk about this later, I just this situation interested. You can also say this, like those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because we can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was difficult, associated with huge victims, but it nevertheless turned out to be effective.

At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941; Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south should have converged somewhere in the Petushki area...

Well, yes, it’s a known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.

I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when they tried to find out the flood zone and at least the approximate number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. I’ll quote again, in this case the quote is accurate, since you heard it yourself: “See that hill? There are just skeletons piled up there.” And they pointed to a small hill on the bank of the Sestra River. “The Canal Army men lie there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulag people, who built this canal. That's why I'm asking this. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burial places, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?

Most likely, the cemeteries were on right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army soldiers, I still thought that I had misheard, and asked: “Red Army soldiers?” - “No, channel army men.” There, after all, the canal became a fortification structure and, in fact, all the canal builders can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. According to various sources, in the city of Dmitrov, scientists in the local museum counted, there, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.

Did you die or were you involved in construction?

They died during construction, there are mass graves there. I was told in the village of Test Pilot, on the shore of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures there have occupied the last collective farm field, began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they came across mass graves. Recently, builders reconstructed the Volokolamskoye Highway, they were building the third line of the tunnel and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamskoye Highways, there was a mass of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there was a mass of skeletons piled up under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell or simply stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was done at a continuous pace, and people simply died. There is such a case described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when just in front of everyone, a person fell into concrete.

Iskander, one more question. There is a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be surrendered to the Germans, was there actually a plan to flood the city of Moscow itself?

Yes, researchers who are associated with this topic also told me about this. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningradskoye Highway and the cottage village of the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and, as I was told, a ton of explosives was planted there, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of the Khimki River that flows from it, and this flow could simply fall on capital. I talked to a veteran former leader canal, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th lock at the intersection of Volokolamsk Highway and Svoboda Street, he says: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow, according to our calculations, could have risen to this level " And then a lot of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.

But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Are there only oral testimonies from people?

Yes. And there they told me that when they were dismantling the old bridge across the Klyazminskoye Reservoir, now a new bridge has been built there on Dmitrovskoe Highway, and already in the 80s they found explosives in huge quantities.

Which, apparently, was intended specifically for an explosion.

To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written “from 20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, but now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is completely inaccessible.

Actually, when we say that there is no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, one can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are opened, but very lazily, I would say.

And this story is in the form of a legend for a long time It was rumored that it was Hitler’s idea to flood Moscow after the Germans arrived. There was a play like this by Andrei Vishnevsky “Moskau See”, “Moscow Sea”. Such a reconstruction, when after Hitler’s victory they walk on boats...

It was as if it was a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to sink.

Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for the fact that they themselves could be flooded.

Yes, a transformation of real events.

By the way, Comrade Hitler himself also launched a similar operation in Berlin.

Yes, here, from these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators when it comes to salvation own life, then the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film “Liberation” there was an episode when the floodgates on the Spree River and the dampers were opened...

Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.

Who died there heroically. You can have different attitudes towards this film, which is also largely propaganda, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were literally opponents just five minutes ago, carried out the wounded together, held the cordon line together so that women and children could get out first, this is on Unter den Linden station, right next to the Reichstag.

By the way, about the film “Liberation” I could say that, yes, it is indeed perceived, and probably quite rightly, as a film primarily a propaganda film, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced there, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the film “Liberation” that made me think completely, perhaps not what the authors of the film expected. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was an option for flooding the city? No, there was an explosion; in my opinion, they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.

As for Krakow, I think this is also rather from the realm of legend, because Krakow stands very high...

There really was no flooding there. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet another page in the history of the war. To what extent did you feel like you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?

Oh, a lot of things are closed. In general, a very interesting topic is the attitude of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of the Meyerhold Theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected from scraps, diary entries from the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. I felt like I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London and people are killed in artillery attacks. Russian people were dying, they were shelled throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, they were shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see people’s attitude to this: “The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city.”

That is, both sides who fought did not take the civilian population into account, I think we can draw the following conclusion. By the way, if you look at the losses in the Second World War, not only of the Soviet Union, but also of all participants on both sides, both the anti-Hitler coalition and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses are the ratio, of course, in each country its own, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.

Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg occupied by Soviet troops. This did not happen.

Well, there are, of course, examples of such saving people. They can also probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having yielded to Hitler quickly enough, we know, there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people’s lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are still many discussions on the topic of the siege of Leningrad. This is a difficult topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, or perhaps more rational, policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.

Well, yes, it's a complicated story.

And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian’s memoirs, I read his notes, where he talked about the supply of food, that notices were posted that there was enough food so that the population did not worry in Orel, for example.

So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any calculations. And I, perhaps even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, this, that, I want to remind you once again that our program is about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word “price,” could have been different, in our opinion. And the price of Victory, which is primarily expressed by the number of dead, the number human lives, given and placed on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of this, because victory at any cost is very often, it seems to me, a Pyrrhic victory. In any case, you need to be able to look critically at your past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, what are your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be involved in it, some kind of investigation, research?

In the next issue we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that Nesterov’s memoirs, which were published on the Internet just the other day, deserve to be discussed separately. This is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records have survived. After all, it was dangerous to store them. There is, for example, the following entry: “Residents of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the city’s liberation from the Bolsheviks.” It is a miracle that such records have survived.

It’s a miracle that they survived in the hands of private individuals, because I think there is quite a lot of evidence of this kind. Another thing is that they all ended up, as they once said, “in the right place.” I think that many listeners probably remember that I have now conducted several programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod who is involved in collaboration during the war. And there are a lot of documents there. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there were a lot of documents preserved from that time, where there was a lot of evidence of how all this happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.

After all, Novgorod is a city that was occupied for almost four years.

Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, okay, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And we say goodbye to you, dear listeners, until our next program. All the best, goodbye.
Original taken from

On Defender of the Fatherland Day, it is worth recalling who the Russian soldier fought with and where the defenders of other fatherlands were at that time

This year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet Union in World War II. Therefore, on Defender of the Fatherland Day, it is worth recalling once again who the Russian soldier fought with and where the defenders of other fatherlands were at that time.

It turns out that it would be more logical for many European countries to celebrate May 9 not as Victory Day in World War II, but to remember their shameful surrender. After all, almost all of continental Europe by 1941 one way or another became part of the Third Reich. Of the more than two dozen European countries that existed by June 1941, nine were Spain, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia - together with Germany and Austria entered the war against the USSR.

The rest also did not resist the enemy for long:
Monaco - 1 day, Luxembourg - 1 day, Netherlands - 6 days, Belgium - 8 days, Yugoslavia - 12 days, Greece - 24 days, Poland - 36 days, France - 43 days, and then actually joined the aggressor and worked for his industry.
Even supposedly neutral countries - Switzerland and Sweden - did not stand aside. They provided Nazi Germany with the right of free transit of military cargo through their territory, and also received huge profits from trade. The trade turnover of “neutral” Portugal with the Nazis was so successful that in May 1945 it declared three days of mourning in connection with the death of Hitler.
But that's not all.
- The nationality of all those who died in battles on the Russian front is difficult or even impossible to establish. But the composition of the military personnel captured by our army during the war is known. Germans and Austrians - 2,546,242 people; 766,901 people belonged to other nations that declared war on us: Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, Finns and others, but another 464,147 prisoners of war were French, Belgians, Czechs and representatives of other European states that did not seem to be at war with us, - gives terrible figures of betrayal historian Vadim Kozhinov. - And while this multinational army was winning victories on the Russian front, Europe was, by and large, on the side of the Third Reich.

That is why, according to the recollections of the participants, during the signing of the act of surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, the head of the German delegation, Field Marshal Keitel, seeing among those present at the ceremony people in French military uniform, he could not contain his surprise: "How?! And these also defeated us, or what?!”
I wonder what the field marshal would say today to Europeans calling for Victory Day to be celebrated without Russia’s participation. He would probably remind them that the Wehrmacht conquered their countries faster than a couple of houses in Stalingrad.

After Nazi Germany captured the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and a number of western regions of the RSFSR, tens of millions of Soviet citizens found themselves in the occupation zone. From that moment on, they had to live in fact in a new state.

In the occupation zone

On July 17, 1941, on the basis of Hitler’s order “On civil administration in the occupied eastern regions”, under the leadership of Alfred Rosenberg, the “Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories” was created, which subordinates two administrative units: the Reichskommissariat Ostland with its center in Riga and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine with its center in Rivne.

Later it was planned to create the Reichskommissariat Muscovy, which was supposed to include the entire European part of Russia.

Not all residents of the German-occupied regions of the USSR were able to move to the rear. By various reasons About 70 million Soviet citizens remained behind the front line and suffered severe trials.
The occupied territories of the USSR were primarily supposed to serve as a raw material and food base for Germany, and the population - as a cheap labor force. Therefore, Hitler, if possible, demanded that agriculture and industry be preserved here, which were of great interest to the German war economy.

"Draconian measures"

One of priority tasks The German authorities in the occupied territories of the USSR were to ensure order. Wilhelm Keitel's order stated that, due to the vastness of the areas controlled by Germany, it was necessary to suppress civilian resistance through intimidation.

“To maintain order, commanders should not demand reinforcements, but use the most draconian measures.”

The occupation authorities maintained strict control over the local population: all residents were subject to registration with the police, moreover, they were prohibited from leaving their places of permanent residence without permission. Violation of any regulation, for example, the use of a well from which the Germans took water, could entail severe punishment up to death penalty by hanging.

The German command, fearing protest and disobedience of the civilian population, gave increasingly intimidating orders. Thus, on July 10, 1941, the commander of the 6th Army, Walter von Reichenau, demanded that “soldiers in civilian clothes, who are easily recognized by their short haircut, be shot,” and on December 2, 1941, a directive was issued calling for “shooting without warning at any civilian of any age and floor that approaches the front line,” and also “immediately shoot anyone suspected of espionage.”

The German authorities expressed every interest in reducing the local population. Martin Bormann sent a directive to Alfred Rosenberg, in which he recommended welcoming abortions of girls and women of the “non-German population” in the occupied eastern territories, as well as supporting the intensive trade in contraceptives.

The most popular method used by the Nazis to reduce the civilian population remained execution. Liquidations were carried out everywhere. Entire villages of people were exterminated, often based solely on suspicion of an illegal act. So in the Latvian village of Borki, out of 809 residents, 705 were shot, of which 130 were children - the rest were released as “politically reliable”.

Disabled and sick citizens were subject to regular destruction. So, already during the retreat in the Belarusian village of Gurki, the Germans poisoned two trains with soup containing local residents who were not to be transported to Germany, and in Minsk in just two days - November 18 and 19, 1944, the Germans poisoned 1,500 disabled old people, women and children.

The occupation authorities responded to the killings of German soldiers with mass executions. For example, after the murder of a German officer and five soldiers in Taganrog in the courtyard of plant No. 31, 300 innocent civilians were shot. And for damaging a telegraph station in Taganrog, 153 people were shot.

Russian historian Alexander Dyukov, describing the cruelty occupation regime, noted that, “according to the most conservative estimates, one in five of the seventy million Soviet citizens who found themselves under occupation did not live to see Victory.”
Speaking at the Nuremberg trials, a representative of the American side noted that “the atrocities committed armed forces and other organizations of the Third Reich in the East, were so stunningly monstrous that the human mind can hardly comprehend them." According to the American prosecutor, these atrocities were not spontaneous, but represented a consistent logical system.

"The Hunger Plan"

Another terrible means that led to a massive reduction in the civilian population was the “Famine Plan” developed by Herbert Bakke. The “Hunger Plan” was part of the economic strategy of the Third Reich, according to which no more than 30 million people were supposed to remain from the previous number of inhabitants of the USSR. The food reserves thus freed were to be used to meet the needs of the German army.
One of the notes from a high-ranking German official reported the following: “The war will continue if the Wehrmacht in the third year of the war is fully supplied with food from Russia.” It was noted as an inevitable fact that “tens of millions of people will die of hunger if we take everything we need from the country.”

The “hunger plan” primarily affected Soviet prisoners of war, who received virtually no food. During the entire period of the war, according to historians, almost 2 million people died of hunger among Soviet prisoners of war.
The famine hit no less painfully on those whom the Germans hoped to destroy first - the Jews and Gypsies. For example, Jews were prohibited from purchasing milk, butter, eggs, meat and vegetables.

The food “portion” for Minsk Jews, who were under the jurisdiction of Army Group Center, did not exceed 420 kilocalories per day - this led to the death of tens of thousands of people in winter period 1941-1942.

The most severe conditions were in the “evacuated zone” with a depth of 30-50 km, which was directly adjacent to the front line. The entire civilian population of this line was forcibly sent to the rear: the migrants were placed in the houses of local residents or in camps, but in the absence of places they could be placed in non-residential premises- barns, pigsties. The displaced people living in the camps for the most part did not receive any food - in best case scenario once a day “liquid gruel”.

The height of cynicism are the so-called “12 commandments” of Bakke, one of which says that “Russian people have become accustomed for hundreds of years to poverty, hunger and unpretentiousness. His stomach is stretchable, so [don’t allow] any fake pity.”

The school year 1941-1942 for many schoolchildren in the occupied territories never began. Germany counted on a lightning victory, and therefore did not plan long-term programs. However, by the next school year, a decree of the German authorities was promulgated, which declared that all children aged 8 to 12 years (born 1930-1934) were required to regularly attend 4-grade school from the beginning academic year, scheduled for October 1, 1942.

If for some reason the children could not attend school, parents or persons replacing them were required to submit an application to the head of the school within 3 days. For each violation of school attendance, the administration charged a fine of 100 rubles.

The main task of the “German schools” was not to teach, but to instill obedience and discipline. Much attention was paid to hygiene and health issues.

According to Hitler, soviet man he had to be able to write and read, and he didn’t need more. Now the walls of school classrooms, instead of portraits of Stalin, were decorated with images of the Fuhrer, and children, standing in front of German generals, were forced to recite: “Glory to you, German eagles, glory to the wise leader! I bow my peasant head very low.”
It is curious that the Law of God appeared among school subjects, but history in its traditional sense disappeared. Pupils in grades 6-7 were required to study books promoting anti-Semitism - “At the Origins of Great Hatred” or “Jewish Dominance in modern world" From foreign languages Only German remained.
At first, classes were conducted using Soviet textbooks, but any mention of the party and the works of Jewish authors was removed. The schoolchildren themselves were forced to do this, and during lessons, on command, they covered “unnecessary places” with paper. Returning to the work of the Smolensk administration, it should be noted that its employees took care of the refugees to the best of their ability: they were given bread, free food stamps, and sent to social hostels. In December 1942, 17 thousand 307 rubles were spent on disabled people alone.

Here is an example of the menu of Smolensk social canteens. Lunches consisted of two courses. The first course was barley or potato soups, borscht and fresh cabbage; was on the second barley porridge, mashed potatoes, stewed cabbage, potato cutlets and rye pies with porridge and carrots, were also sometimes served meat cutlets and goulash.

The Germans mainly used the civilian population for hard work– building bridges, clearing roads, peat mining or logging. They worked from 6 o'clock in the morning until late in the evening. Those who worked slowly could be shot as a warning to others. In some cities, for example, Bryansk, Orel and Smolensk, Soviet workers were assigned identification numbers. The German authorities motivated this by their reluctance to “pronounce Russian names and surnames incorrectly.”

It is curious that at first the occupation authorities announced that taxes would be lower than under the Soviet regime, but in reality they added taxes on doors, windows, dogs, excess furniture and even beards. According to one of the women who survived the occupation, many then existed according to the principle “we lived one day - and thank God.”

The Battle of Moscow (1941-1942) is one of the largest battles of the Second World War, both in terms of the number of participants and the territory on which it took place. The significance of the battle is enormous, it was on the verge of actual defeat, but thanks to the valor of the soldiers and the leadership talents of the generals, the battle for Moscow was won, and the myth of the invincibility of the German troops was destroyed. Where were the Germans stopped near Moscow? The course of the battle, the strength of the parties, as well as its results and consequences will be discussed further in the article.

Background of the battle

According to the general plan of the German command under code name"Barbarossa", Moscow was supposed to be captured three to four months after the start of the war. However, Soviet troops offered heroic resistance. The battle for Smolensk alone delayed German troops for two months.

Hitler’s soldiers approached Moscow only at the end of September, that is, in the fourth month of the war. The operation to capture the capital of the USSR received the code name “Typhoon”, according to it, German troops were supposed to cover Moscow from the north and south, then encircle and capture. The Moscow battle took place over a vast territory that stretched for a thousand kilometers.

Strengths of the parties. Germany

The German command deployed enormous forces. 77 divisions with a total number of more than 2 million people took part in the battles. In addition, the Wehrmacht had at its disposal more than 1,700 tanks and self-propelled guns, 14 thousand guns and mortars and about 800 aircraft. The commander of this huge army was Field Marshal F. von Bock.

USSR

The VKG Headquarters had at its disposal the forces of five fronts with a total number of more than 1.25 million people. Also, Soviet troops had more than 1000 tanks, 10 thousand guns and mortars and more than 500 aircraft. The defense of Moscow was led in turn by several outstanding strategists: A. M. Vasilevsky, I. S. Konev, G. K. Zhukov.

Course of events

Before finding out where the Germans were stopped near Moscow, it is worth talking a little about the course of military operations in this battle. It is usually divided into two stages: defensive (which lasted from September 30 to December 4, 1941) and offensive (from December 5, 1941 to April 20, 1942).

Defensive stage

The start date of the Battle of Moscow is considered to be September 30, 1941. On this day, the Nazis attacked the troops of the Bryansk Front.

On October 2, the Germans went on the offensive in the Vyazma direction. Despite stubborn resistance, German units managed to cut through Soviet troops between the cities of Rzhev and Vyazma, as a result of which the troops of actually two fronts found themselves in a cauldron. In total, more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers were surrounded.

After the defeat at Bryansk, the Soviet command organized a line of defense in the Mozhaisk direction. Residents of the city hastily prepared defensive structures: they dug trenches and trenches, and installed anti-tank hedgehogs.

During the rapid offensive, German troops managed to capture cities such as Kaluga, Maloyaroslavets, Kalinin, Mozhaisk from October 13 to 18 and came close to the Soviet capital. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced in Moscow.

Moscow is surrounded

Even before the actual imposition of a state of siege in Moscow, on October 15, the Civil Defense Command was evacuated from the capital to Kuibyshev (modern Samara); the next day the evacuation of all government agencies, the general staff, etc. began.

J.V. Stalin decided to stay in the city. On the same day, panic gripped the residents of the capital, rumors spread about leaving Moscow, and several dozen city residents tried to urgently leave the capital. Only by October 20 was it possible to establish order. On this day the city went into a state of siege.

By the end of October 1941, battles were already taking place near Moscow in Naro-Fominsk, Kubinka, and Volokolamsk. German air raids were regularly carried out on Moscow, which did not cause much damage, since the most valuable buildings in the capital were carefully camouflaged, and Soviet anti-aircraft gunners worked well. At the cost of huge losses, the October offensive of the German troops was stopped. But they almost reached Moscow.

Where were the Germans able to get? This sad list includes the suburbs of Tula, Serpukhov, Naro-Fominsk, Kaluga, Kalinin, Mozhaisk.

Parade on Red Square

Taking advantage of the relative silence at the front, the Soviet command decided to hold a military parade on Red Square. The purpose of the parade was to raise the morale of Soviet soldiers. The date was set for November 7, 1941, the parade was hosted by S. M. Budyonny, the parade was commanded by General P. A. Artemyev. Rifle and motorized rifle units, Red Navy men, cavalrymen, as well as artillery and tank regiments took part in the parade. The soldiers left the parade almost immediately to the front line, leaving unconquered Moscow behind...

Where did the Germans go? What cities were they able to reach? How did the Red Army soldiers manage to stop the enemy’s orderly battle formations? It's time to find out about it.

November Nazi offensive on the capital

On November 15, after a powerful artillery barrage, a new round of German offensive began near Moscow. Stubborn battles unfolded in the Volokolamsk and Klin directions. So, during the 20 days of the offensive, the Nazis managed to advance 100 km and capture cities such as Klin, Solnechnogorsk, Yakhroma. The closest settlement to Moscow, where the Germans reached during the offensive, turned out to be Yasnaya Polyana- the estate of the writer L.N. Tolstoy.

The Germans had about 17 km to the borders of Moscow itself, and 29 km to the walls of the Kremlin. By the beginning of December, as a result of a counterattack, Soviet units were able to drive the Germans out of previously occupied territories in the vicinity of the capital, including from Yasnaya Polyana.

Today we know where the Germans reached near Moscow - to the very walls of the capital! But they failed to take the city.

The onset of cold weather

As stated above, the Barbarossa plan provided for the capture of Moscow by German troops no later than October 1941. In this regard, the German command did not provide winter uniforms for the soldiers. The first night frosts began at the end of October, and the temperature dropped below zero for the first time on November 4. On this day the thermometer showed -8 degrees. Subsequently, the temperature very rarely dropped below 0 °C.

Not only were the German soldiers, dressed in light uniforms, unprepared for the first cold weather, but also the equipment, which was not designed to work in subzero temperatures.

The cold caught the soldiers when they were actually several tens of kilometers from Belokamennaya, but their equipment did not start in the cold, and the frozen Germans near Moscow did not want to fight. “General Frost” once again rushed to the rescue of the Russians...

Where were the Germans stopped near Moscow? The last German attempt to capture Moscow was made during the attack on Naro-Fominsk on December 1. During several massive attacks, German units managed to penetrate for a short time into the areas of Zvenigorod by 5 km, and Naro-Fominsk by up to 10 km.

After transferring the reserve, Soviet troops managed to push the enemy back to their original positions. The Naro-Fominsk operation is considered the last one carried out by the Soviet command at the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow.

Results of the defensive stage of the battle for Moscow

The Soviet Union defended its capital at great cost. The irretrievable losses of Red Army personnel during the defensive phase amounted to more than 500 thousand people. The German army at this stage lost about 145 thousand people. But during its attack on Moscow, the German command used virtually all available reserves, which by December 1941 were virtually depleted, which allowed the Red Army to go on the offensive.

At the end of November, after it became known from intelligence sources that Japan did not transfer about 10 divisions and hundreds of tanks to Moscow from the Far East. The troops of the Western, Kalinin and Southwestern fronts were equipped with new divisions, as a result of which, by the beginning of the offensive, the Soviet group in the Moscow direction consisted of more than 1.1 million soldiers, 7,700 guns and mortars, 750 tanks, and about 1 thousand aircraft.

However, she was opposed by a group of German troops, not inferior, and even superior in numbers. The number of personnel reached 1.7 million people, tanks and aircraft were 1200 and 650, respectively.

On December 5 and 6, troops on three fronts launched a large-scale offensive, and already on December 8, Hitler gave the order for German troops to go on the defensive. On December 12, 1941, Soviet troops liberated Istra and Solnechnogorsk. On December 15 and 16, the cities of Klin and Kalinin were liberated.

During the ten days of the Red Army's offensive, they managed to push the enemy back to different areas front at 80-100 km, and also create a threat of collapse to the German front of Army Group Center.

Hitler, not wanting to retreat, dismissed Generals Brauchitsch and Bock and appointed General G. von Kluge as the new army commander. However, the Soviet offensive developed rapidly, and the German command was unable to stop it. In just December 1941, German troops in different sectors of the front were pushed back 100-250 km, which meant the virtual elimination of the threat to the capital and the complete defeat of the Germans near Moscow.

In 1942, Soviet troops slowed down the pace of their offensive and failed to actually destroy the front of Army Group Center, although they inflicted an extremely heavy defeat on the German troops.

The result of the battle for Moscow

The historical significance of the defeat of the Germans near Moscow is invaluable for the entire Second World War. More than 3 million people, over two thousand aircraft and three thousand tanks took part in this battle on both sides, and the front stretched over more than 1000 km. Over the 7 months of the battle, Soviet troops lost more than 900 thousand people killed and missing, while German troops lost more than 400 thousand people over the same period. Important results of the Battle of Moscow (1941-1942) include:

• The German plan for “blitzkrieg” - a quick lightning-fast victory - was destroyed, Germany had to prepare for a long, exhausting war.
• The threat of the capture of Moscow ceased to exist.
• The myth about the indestructibility of the German army was dispelled.
• suffered serious losses of its advanced and most combat-ready units, which had to be replenished with inexperienced recruits.
• The Soviet command gained enormous experience in successfully waging war against the German army.
• After the victory in the Moscow battle, the anti-Hitler coalition began to take shape.

This is how the defense of Moscow took place, and such significant results were brought about by its positive outcome.