1942, Results of the armed struggle on the Soviet-German front

The stage of the Second World War, covering the events of the spring, summer and autumn of 1942, was characterized by a particularly difficult and intense struggle of the Soviet Armed Forces against the combined forces of the fascist bloc for more than seven months. At this time, along with the ongoing battles for Leningrad and Crimea, the largest battle of World War II, Stalingrad, unfolded. Simultaneously and in direct connection with it, the battle for the Caucasus also unfolded. Here, on the southern wing of the front, there was a center of armed struggle throughout this stage of the war. A huge amount of forces and means were involved in the long and difficult defensive battles in the south. The enemy attracted here during July - November 1942 almost all the forces of Army Groups "A" and "B" - seven armies. In total, this amounted to about 80 of the most combat-ready divisions, or 30 percent of all enemy forces that were at that time on the Soviet-German front.

At the same time, active hostilities were going on in the areas of Demyansk, Rzhev and Voronezh. On the seas and in the air, just as in 1941, independent operations and daily combat activities of the Navy, Air Force and Air Defense Forces of the country were carried out. The forces of the partisan movement also intensified the fight against the enemy. To an ever greater extent, they coordinated their actions with the actions of the regular troops of the Soviet army.

The intensity and scope of the struggle on the huge Soviet-German front (4-6 thousand km) increased. The main strike strategic grouping of the Nazi armies, which launched the summer offensive in a zone up to 800 km, by the end of the stage, was already operating on a front of about 2400 km, that is, the width of the zone of active operations increased by 3 times. The depth of penetration of the enemy into the territory of the USSR during his offensive amounted to 650 km in the Stalingrad direction and up to 1000 km in the Caucasus. Since intense battles were also fought in summer and autumn in other sectors, the general front of active operations of the Soviet Armed Forces by the end of autumn 1942 was very significant.

The armed struggle on the Soviet-German front went through two stages - spring and summer-autumn, which differed sharply from one another both in the nature of the hostilities and in their results. The Soviet Armed Forces were unable to launch a major offensive planned for the summer of 1942. As a result of the unsuccessful outcome of the spring battles, they lost their strategic initiative and were forced to conduct a defensive campaign from June 28, which lasted almost five months.

Thus, for the second time during the war, strategic defense became the main type of military operations of the Soviet Armed Forces. The Soviet army consistently carried out a number of major operations that frustrated the strategic plans of the German Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front.

Suffering heavy losses in the fight against the stubbornly resisting Soviet troops on the Stalingrad, Caucasian and other directions of the Soviet-German front, the enemy was forced to bring here all his strategic reserves, transfer forces from other theaters of military operations, send huge flows of march reinforcements and echelons of military equipment, weapons and other material and technical means of combat. But all this did not bring the desired success to Nazi Germany. In total, from April 1 to November 18, 1942, the Nazi command additionally transferred about 70 divisions here from the West. And taking into account the 16 formations formed directly in the theater of operations and entered into battles against the Soviet army, the total number of Wehrmacht divisions that additionally entered the fight against it reached more than 80.

During the period of the spring battles of 1942, as well as during the defensive campaign of the Soviet Armed Forces in the summer and autumn, the fascist German command sent an additional 10 divisions against the Soviet army on average every month. In addition, 250,000 marching reinforcements were sent to the front every month. The total number of enemy formations by the end of the stage reached 278, or in terms of divisions - 270. This was the largest number of forces involved by the Nazis on the Soviet-German front in the entire Second World War. The Soviet army, in the course of the heroic struggle against the Nazi troops and the armies of the allies of the Third Reich, inflicted irreparable losses on them, which during the spring, summer and autumn of 1942 amounted to about 1 million people, 20.4 thousand guns, over 1.5 thousand tanks and over 4,000 aircraft.

The Soviet Navy also caused great damage to the enemy. Ensuring the escort of convoys on the external sea lanes of the Soviet Union and disrupting German shipping by sea, the Northern Fleet sank 13 warships and 28 transports from May to November 1942, and the submarine forces of the Baltic Fleet sank about 60 enemy transports. This forced the Nazi command to allocate additional forces to protect the sea lanes linking Germany with Finland, Norway, Sweden, and also providing supplies to the troops on the northern sector of the front.

Significant losses during the spring and summer-autumn battles of 1942 were also suffered by the Soviet Armed Forces.

Despite the heroic resistance of the Soviet troops, the enemy managed to break through to Voronezh, reach the Volga near Stalingrad and capture a number of passes of the Main Caucasian Range. The enemy completely captured the coal and metallurgical base of the country - the Donbass, the rich agricultural regions of the Kuban and the Don, part of the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus and cut off the most convenient communications linking the South of the country with the Center.

As a result of the forced withdrawal of the Soviet army into the interior of the country, by the autumn of 1942, the occupiers seized an area of ​​1,795 thousand square meters. km. Before the war, about 80 million people, or almost 42 percent of the total population, lived on it, large factories of heavy engineering and other industries of the USSR were located. Before the war, about 71 percent of pig iron and 60 percent of steel were produced here. The territory occupied by the enemy contained 47 percent of all sown areas in the USSR.

The fierce battles waged by the Soviet Armed Forces in repulsing a major offensive by the Wehrmacht in 1942 required a huge expenditure of material resources. From May to November, the combat losses of only one aircraft amounted to more than 7 thousand. The losses of ammunition were especially great during the forced withdrawal of Soviet troops in the southwestern direction.

What are the main reasons why the enemy managed to advance so far in 1942 on the southern wing of the front? Why were the Soviet troops able to stop the enemy only on the Volga and Caucasian borders?

The reasons for the temporary military failures of the Soviet Army in the spring and early summer of 1942 can be reduced to two groups. The first covers the objective political, economic and strategic conditions of warfare, the second - refers to the area of ​​subjective factors.

One of the main reasons for objective failures was that the enemy concentrated very large forces in order to strike in one strategic direction. So, if in 1941, to implement the Barbarossa plan, the Wehrmacht leadership was able to allocate 190 divisions (taking into account the formations of Germany's allies in aggression) for a simultaneous offensive in three strategic directions, then to implement the strategic plan for the second round of the eastern campaign, the Nazis deployed only in one southeast direction, 90 fully equipped divisions equipped with modern weapons and military equipment for that time. As a result, the enemy managed to create a large superiority in forces in this direction. Having forestalled the Soviet army in opening active hostilities in the spring of 1942, the fascist German troops achieved major successes in the Crimea and in the Kharkov region and again seized the strategic initiative.

The fighting took place for the enemy in favorable conditions. The Hitlerite command took advantage of the favorable strategic situation in Europe. Expecting that the second front would not be opened in the summer and autumn of 1942, it could use troops for decisive actions on the Eastern Front, concentrate a large grouping here to deliver a powerful initial blow to the Soviet army in the summer of 1942. At the same time, the German command continued in a calm situation, to transfer a huge number of divisions from West to East and bring them in to build up forces in the course of the offensive itself. The second front in Western Europe could have diverted from the East 40-60 divisions of the German ground forces and certain aviation forces, which the Soviet command had the right to count on when planning the strategic actions of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1942, but it was not opened.

All this demanded an enormous effort from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Armed Forces had to once again fight the armed forces of fascist Germany (and its allies in aggression) one on one, waging an unequal struggle under very difficult conditions.

The complexity of the struggle in the spring and early summer was also determined by the fact that the Soviet army was forced to start repelling a major Wehrmacht offensive in conditions when the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command did not have trained strategic reserves. In addition, it should be said that in the troops during this period there was a process of organizational restructuring and technical re-equipment; industry was not yet fully able to provide the army with modern military equipment, especially tank equipment, and ammunition. The completion of all these measures had to be carried out already during the beginning of the summer offensive of the enemy, while overcoming new difficulties that arose as a result of the failures of the Soviet troops in the spring battles. At the end of May, it was decided to create ten combined arms armies from among the available reserve formations of the Ground Forces by June - July 1942, but there were no real opportunities for their formation by this date.

By the middle of 1942, the Soviet military industry was already completing perestroika and increasing the production of weapons. Nevertheless, it could not yet provide such a quantity of aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces and mortars, which would be enough at the same time to replenish the troops and to form new formations and formations. Meanwhile, the active army experienced a great need for weapons and military equipment. In the spring, the planes and tanks available in it were 50 percent obsolete, and more than half of the aircraft fleet were fighters. The problem of ammunition was especially acute for the Soviet troops. Their shortage in 1942 was the greatest for the entire time of the war.

Many formations that entered the fight against the enemy in the south did not have sufficient combat experience. The experience gained in the fight against the enemy, acquired in the battle near Moscow, has not yet been fully generalized and has not become the property of all the troops of the army in the field.

The difficult situation at the front made it difficult to create strategic reserves. The headquarters was forced to carry out all the work on their formation, staffing with rank and file and officers, armament, training and cohesion in an extremely short time, which could not but have negative consequences.

Such were the objective reasons for the temporary failures of the Soviet Army in the spring and early summer of 1942.

Factors of a subjective order were associated mainly with certain miscalculations in assessing the situation in the spring of 1942, in making strategic decisions and in leading troops in individual command and control levels.

However, the temporary setbacks of the Soviet army could not change the build-up of forces by the Soviet army and the Soviet Union as a whole. The finale of the autumn battles convincingly showed that the course of the struggle was more and more determined by the constantly operating factors of victory, which continued to develop steadily, creating the necessary basis for a turning point in the war in favor of the USSR, in favor of the entire anti-fascist coalition.

The Soviet Armed Forces were eventually able to come out of severe trials with honor and make a worthy contribution to the ongoing struggle for a radical change. The general results of the struggle in the spring, summer and autumn of 1942 allow us to conclude that during this period the Soviet-German front was still the main front of the Second World War. Its decisive role was manifested primarily in the fact that it was here that Nazi Germany's plans to conquer world domination were finally thwarted. The Volga and Caucasian borders became for the Wehrmacht that insurmountable barrier that blocked its path of escalation of aggression to other regions of the world. Having failed to defeat the Soviet Armed Forces, having failed to achieve the main goal - the withdrawal of the USSR from the war, the fascist German army was forced to switch to strategic defense for the second time during the world war. Thus, the political and military leadership of the Third Reich admitted the failure of their offensive plans.

The decisive role of the Soviet-German front was determined by the fact that the main forces of the fascist bloc were still located here (two-thirds of the Wehrmacht troops and almost all the forces of Germany's European allies). On this front, the losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to 95 percent of all losses in the spring and summer-autumn periods of 1942. All the existing and created strategic reserves of the Nazi high command were involved here. The heroic resistance of the Soviet Army to the main forces of the Wehrmacht created a very favorable environment for the Anglo-American partners of the USSR in the anti-fascist coalition for the preparation and deployment of an offensive campaign in North Africa. This campaign was launched by the armed forces of Great Britain and the United States in late October - early November.

And finally, the significance of the selfless struggle of the Soviet Armed Forces consisted in the fact that, as before, it remained an incentive for the activation and growth of the forces of the national liberation, anti-fascist movement in the countries occupied by fascist Germany and militaristic Japan. The last thought was very succinctly expressed in his book “The Second World War” by the famous French historian A. Michel: “The Soviet Union gave everyone an example of firmness in the struggle and showed that resistance to the invaders leads to success. In all countries, the communist parties, which were at the forefront of the underground struggle, drew strength and confidence from this example.

By the end of March, the winter campaign of 1942-1943, which began with a brilliant breakthrough of the Red Army near Stalingrad, ended. 11 front-line formations of the Red Army from 12, 49 combined arms, 3 tank and 13 air armies participated in the offensive operations of this campaign. As a result, the total length of the front of offensive operations reached 1,700 km. The cardinal difference of this campaign from the previous ones was that the Red Army for the first time managed to carry out successful strategic operations (Stalingrad and Voronezh-Kharkov), as a result of which large enemy groups were surrounded and destroyed, gigantic gaps were formed in its defense, which there was nothing to fill. It was a demonstration of the military art of a new level for the Soviet command, quite comparable with the best examples of Wehrmacht operations in 1941-1942.

But at the same time, there were still many “diseases” of 1941 in the actions of the Soviet command and the Red Army as a whole. troops and the ability to counter the enemy. In practically all strategic and front-line operations, the capabilities of friendly troops were overestimated, while the enemy's ability to resist was stubbornly underestimated. The consequence of this was the “unexpectedly” effective defense of the enemy in the North Caucasus, the Sinyavinsky ledge, in the “Demyansky cauldron” and the Rzhev-Vyazemsky “balcony”. And Manstein's counterattack near Kharkov and Belgorod became a complete surprise.

The underestimation of the enemy was also reflected in the stubborn desire to attack on all fronts at once, in the hope that the enemy was already morally suppressed and was about to “run”. In a word, the mistakes of the winter offensive of 1942 were almost completely repeated. The inability of the Headquarters to assess the prospects and choose a decisive direction led to the desire to attack everywhere. While the concentration of all possible reserves in the south, indeed, could lead to the complete collapse of this flank of the German front. In this regard, the plan to use the 1st Tank Army of M.E. turned out to be deeply erroneous. Katukov in the swamps near Demyansk, while the success of the tank corps on the Don showed directly where its strike force was to be used.

And the Soviet high command turned out to be incapable of a wide maneuver by the forces of the fronts, preferring to throw into battle only those reserves that were already concentrated in advance in certain areas. Rates. As a result, a situation arose when in the decisive direction near Kharkov, the score went to regiments and brigades, and around the Rzhev-Vyazemsky "balcony" several tank corps were uselessly trampling around, in the swamps near Demyansk, an entire tank army was stuck, which included more tanks than the entire German Army Group "Don"!

From the memoirs of Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky:

“... I involuntarily thought about the reasons for the many defeats of the Soviet troops over the past period, in particular in the operation associated with the loss of Kharkov and Belgorod. In my opinion, this happened because our Supreme High Command, when conducting an offensive or defensive operation, did not pay due attention to the timely creation of the necessary reserves, during the offensive all forces were expended to the limit, the front was pulled into a thread, breaking away from its bases. The capabilities of the enemy and the state of their troops were not taken into account. Desire prevailed over possibilities ...

The absence of operational reserves in the depths of our defense allowed the enemy, after breaking through the front in narrow sectors, to go with impunity to a deep encirclement of Soviet troops, and, having surrounded, to destroy them without hindrance ...

I believed that the management of the fronts should be carried out from the center - by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff. They also coordinate the actions of the fronts, for which the General Staff exists. Already the first months of the war showed the futility of the created improvised operational command bodies of the "directions" that united the management of several fronts. These "directions" were quite rightly eliminated. Why did the Headquarters again begin to use the same thing, but under a different name - the representative of the Headquarters for coordinating the actions of the two fronts? Such a representative, being with the commander of one of the fronts, most often, interfering in the actions of the commander, replaced him. At the same time, he did not bear any responsibility for the state of affairs, which was completely assigned to the front commander, often received conflicting orders on the same issue: one thing from the Headquarters, and another from its representative. The latter, being in the capacity of coordinator at one of the fronts, naturally showed a great interest in bringing as many forces and means as possible to where he himself was. This was most often done to the detriment of other fronts, which had to carry out no less complex operations.

From the memoirs of General S.M. Shtemenko:

“After the abolition of the main commands in the areas, the need for live communication between the Headquarters and the General Staff with the fronts increased even more. Coordination of combat operations of the fronts, control over the execution of directives of the Supreme High Command, assistance to them in planning, preparing and carrying out operations with decisive goals - all this required systematic visits to the place of responsible persons capable of independently making important decisions and giving appropriate instructions. It was then, in fact, that the already well-known ... institute of representatives of the Stavka arose.

Most often, the Stavka was represented locally by the First Deputy Supreme Commander G.K. Zhukov and Chief of the General Staff A.M. Vasilevsky. Some of the then commanders of the fronts later claimed that the constant presence of Zhukov or Vasilevsky next to them had a negative effect on the leadership of the troops. There may be some truth in this criticism (mainly post-war). But on the whole, we think, the activities of the Stavka representatives justified themselves. The situation required the presence at the fronts of persons who would have the experience and power to quickly resolve the most important issues, often beyond the competence of the front commander. Continuous work directly in the army, in the main directions of G.K. Zhukov was predetermined primarily (by his position as First Deputy Supreme Commander. As for A.M. Vasilevsky, he, of course, should have been more in the General Staff. But the Supreme Commander did not consult with anyone on this matter. Considering, apparently, such the situation is normal, I.V. Stalin almost always, at the first meeting with Vasilevsky and Zhukov, upon returning from the front, asked them how soon they were thinking of going to the front again.

An unforgivable and inexplicable mistake was the Stavka's consent to the suicidal attacks of Marshal Timoshenko's troops against the German defense at the Demyansk bridgehead. Those reserves that could well have played a decisive role in the destruction of the German Army Group A in the North Caucasus and the Don Group on the outskirts of the Dnieper were destroyed thoughtlessly, ineffectually and in the most criminal way near Demyansk.

Even in the winter of 1943, the best commanders from among the marshal constellation of the Red Army - Konev, Govorov, Meretskov still could not free themselves from the attractive simplicity of "frontal assaults", although the tactics of detours and envelopments had already given amazing results in the Don steppes.

Fortunately, the commanders who stood a few steps below learned much faster. During the winter offensive in the south, the commanders of corps, divisions, brigades, regiments and battalions demonstrated dozens of examples of brilliant tactical skill, surpassing the enemy in using his favorite weapon - a deep tank strike. Even the cavalry of the Red Army in a number of cases proved to be extremely effective under the command of bold and enterprising commanders.

But still, the main result was that the winter campaign as a whole ended in an undeniable victory for the Red Army. The enemy was forced to leave an area of ​​more than 480 thousand square meters. km., unable to maintain even the milestones achieved in 1942, the Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses. About 100 divisions - almost 40% of all his formations - were defeated, the total losses in the dead, wounded and prisoners amounted to about 1.7 million people. The German army lost over 3,500 tanks, 24,000 guns and 4,300 combat aircraft. These were losses from which the Wehrmacht could not recover. In fact, his strength was broken in the winter battles of 1942-1943. and could not recover. The final turning point took place in the summer of 1943 during an attempt by the German command to take revenge.

Victory on the Kursk Bulge

At the end of March 1943, there was a brief lull on the entire more than 2,000 km long Soviet-German front. Both sides were forced to take a timeout after intense winter battles - the losses in both people and equipment turned out to be too heavy. But the headquarters did not stop their work on developing plans for a new campaign. The command of both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was aware that the upcoming summer battles were to be a turning point.

The configuration of the front line, which had taken shape by the end of the winter campaign, had one feature that attracted the attention of the General Staff officers on both sides. A deep ledge in the area of ​​Orel, Kursk, Belgorod (later called the "Kursk Bulge"), dangerously hanging over the flanks of the German Army Groups "Center" and "South", gave the Soviet command an excellent opportunity to deliver an enveloping strike with a turn to the south or north. But the German command also had the opportunity to encircle the main forces of the two Soviet fronts with a classic strike under the base of the ledge, which could lead to the destruction of the entire central part of the Red Army front.

It was this prospect that had a decisive influence on the preparation of the German plan for the summer offensive, for only it promised revenge for Stalingrad. The new operation was called "Citadel".

“This offensive is of decisive importance. It must end with a quick and decisive success... must give us the initiative for the spring and summer of this year. In this regard, all preparatory measures should be carried out with the greatest care and energy. On the direction of the main attacks, the best formations, the best weapons, the best commanders and a large amount of ammunition must be used. Every commander, every rank and file must be imbued with the consciousness of the decisive significance of this offensive. The victory near Kursk should be a torch for the whole world.

Almost all possible reserves of the Wehrmacht were transferred to Kursk. On the flanks of the Kursk ledge, powerful strike groups were created. On the north, the strike force of the Army Group Center included 22 divisions (8 tank divisions), on the southern flank, in the Army Group South, 19 divisions (9 tank divisions) were allocated for the strike. The new plan of the German command was an attempt to repeat the best examples of 1941-1942, but there was a significant difference - it soon became clear that the Soviet command was able to determine the direction of this strike and the formations of the Red Army began building a powerful defensive line.

Indeed, the Central (commander - General of the Army K.K. Rokossovsky) and Voronezh (commander - General of the Army N.F. Vatutin) fronts, which covered the Kursk salient, received by that time the task, using defense in depth, to wear down and bleed the enemy’s strike groups, creating thus the conditions for launching a decisive offensive. But the Soviet command also did not have a unity of views. N.F. Vatutin and the commander of the Southern Front, Colonel-General R.Ya. Malinovsky persistently offered to launch a preemptive strike in the direction of the Donbass. Stalin hesitated, he was impressed by the offensive mood of the commanders. Noting this inclination of Stalin to active actions, Marshal G.K. Zhukov subsequently recalled: “The basic laws of operational-strategic art I.V. Stalin did not adhere. He was like a temperamental fist fighter, some got excited and hurried to join the battle. Hot and in a hurry, I.V. Stalin did not always correctly take into account the time required for the comprehensive preparation of the operation. But this time caution prevailed, and Stalin leaned towards the point of view of G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky, who insisted on the need to meet the enemy's attack with a pre-prepared defense, backed up by powerful reserves in depth. In mid-April, the General Staff began developing an operation, the first stage of which included the defense of the Kursk salient, and the second stage was supposed to carry out two independent operations: "Kutuzov" to defeat the enemy near Orel and "Commander Rumyantsev" - the destruction of the Belgorod-Kharkov grouping.

Sharp disagreements also arose among the German generals. The main opponent of the Citadel plan was E. Manstein and the command of Army Group South: “We proposed,” Manstein himself later recalled, “during the enemy’s attack on the Donbass, which we expected, to retreat and let the enemy armies go west approximately to the Melitopol line. Dnepropetrovsk. At the same time, we had to prepare a large force in the rear of the northern flank of the army group. These forces were to defeat the enemy advancing there, in order to strike from there to the southeast or south into the deep flank of the enemy armies advancing through the Donbass to the lower Dnieper, and destroy them on the coast.

An experienced commander suggested, abandoning the offensive, "to catch the enemy in a counterattack" - to repeat his recent success near Kharkov, but on a larger scale. Manstein was not alone. One of the tank generals of the Wehrmacht, Friedrich Mellenthin, later noted that the shortcomings of the Citadel offensive plan were quite obvious: “the German army was deprived of all its advantages associated with conducting maneuver operations, and had to fight the Russians in their chosen positions. But the campaign of 1941 and 1942 proved that our tank forces actually did not know defeat if they were able to maneuver freely in the vast expanses of Russia. Instead of trying to create conditions for maneuver through a strategic retreat and sudden attacks on calm sectors of the front, the German command did not think of anything better than to throw our wonderful tank divisions into the Kursk salient, which by that time had become the strongest fortress in the world.

But Hitler was relentless - offensive and only offensive! The secret of Hitler's surprisingly constant insensitivity to the opinion of military experts was explained by the fact that, despite his experience as a soldier in the First World War, he still remained a politician. As in the case of the Paulus army, so this time for Hitler the most important was the political aspect of the upcoming operation. In his speech on the eve of it, he bluntly stated that the success of the Citadel would have not only military, but also political significance: it would help Germany to keep its allies and frustrate the plans of the Western powers to create a second front, and would positively affect the internal situation of the Third Reich. It should also be recalled that it was at this time that the Wehrmacht troops suffered a severe defeat in North Africa. On May 13, the German-Italian Army Group Africa, surrounded in Tunisia, capitulated. Up to 240 thousand prisoners were captured, half of them were German soldiers and officers. The Tunisian disaster ended the Italo-German epic in North Africa. During the period from December 1940 to May 1942, according to Allied estimates, Italian and German troops lost a total of 625,000 soldiers and officers, 7,596 aircraft, 2,100 tanks, and 650 merchant ships. In addition, the Italians lost 150 thousand people in East Africa.

It was necessary to urgently restore the prestige of the Wehrmacht, which had been seriously damaged as a result of the military disasters of 1943, and to return to the German soldier a sense of his own superiority. These tasks were to be carried out by an impressive display of military might.

It was this argument that became decisive in approving the plan for Operation Citadel. The German command had enough information about the depth of the Russian defense in the directions of the planned strike. In his order before the start of the operation, Hitler set the goal of crushing the Russian defenses on the most fortified sector of the front, thereby instilling in the enemy the idea that any resistance to the German military machine was useless.

"Soldiers!

From today you are launching a major offensive, the outcome of which may be decisive for the war.

Your victory should, more than ever before, strengthen the conviction throughout the world that it is ultimately useless to offer any kind of resistance to the German army.

In addition, a new heavy defeat of the Russians would further undermine the already undermined faith in many Soviet units in the possibility of the Bolsheviks' success. The day will come - and they, in spite of everything, as in the last war, will fall ... what has helped the Russians so far to achieve this or that success, were, first of all, their tanks.

My soldiers! Finally, you now have better tanks than them. Their seemingly inexhaustible manpower reserves are so worn out in two years of war that they have been forced to call upon the youngest of ages and the oldest. They are surpassed by our infantry, just as before, always - our artillery, our tank destroyers, our tankers, our sappers and, above all, our aviation had superiority.

The colossal blow that will hit the Soviet armies this morning must therefore shake them to their foundations.

And you must know that everything can depend on the success of this battle.

I myself, as a soldier, know very well what I demand from you, despite this, we must, no matter how bitter and difficult for everyone the war, ultimately achieve victory.

It was no coincidence that Hitler emphasized the importance of tanks in the upcoming battle. Tank units of the Wehrmacht on the eve of the "Citadel" received new heavy tanks Pz-VI "Tiger" and Pz-V "Panther", which had powerful weapons and thick armor. It was on them that the hopes of the high command of the Wehrmacht were pinned - the new tanks were supposed to crack the Soviet defenses. In order to saturate the troops with new equipment, Hitler even postponed the start date of the operation by almost a month. But this circumstance played a fatal role - the Soviet troops completed the creation of defense in depth and prepared to repel the offensive.

By the time Operation Citadel began, an unprecedentedly powerful defense had been created by the efforts of the Soviet troops in the directions of the expected strike. Here, for the first time, the experience of defensive battles of the previous period was fully taken into account. The ease with which the German troops broke through the defenses of the Red Army was due to its insufficient depth and lack of reserves. The defending divisions, as a rule, were located evenly along the entire line of defense, due to the fact that the commanders tried to cover all sectors of the defense. The enemy, on the contrary, concentrated his strike groups on breakthrough sectors, withdrawing troops from secondary sectors, and achieved multiple superiority in both manpower and equipment. A paradoxical situation often arose - the German troops, inferior in total to the units of the Red Army, easily broke through its defenses.

But during the period of preparation for the beginning of the summer campaign of 1943, it became obvious that a profound transformation was taking place in the Red Army, the result of which was a completely different preparation for a defensive operation. For the first time in the entire period of the war, instead of the usual one or two, less often three, defense lines with a depth of 15-40 km, formations of both the Central and Voronezh fronts prepared eight lines and lines of defense with a total depth of up to 300 km.

Moreover, the commander of the Central Front, General K.K. Rokossovsky, having determined the most likely direction of the enemy's strike, concentrated 58% of rifle divisions, 87% of tanks, 70% of artillery on a front section of 95 km (31% of the entire length of the front line). The main front-line reserves were concentrated in the same direction - a tank army and two tank corps. “It was certainly a risk. - Marshal Rokossovsky himself later admitted. - But we deliberately went for such a concentration of forces, confident that the enemy would use his favorite method - a blow with the main forces under the base of the ledge. Our reconnaissance and partisans confirmed that a powerful grouping of enemy troops was being created exactly in the direction where we expected. Commander of the Voronezh Front, General N.F. Vatutin, believing that the enemy would be able to strike in three directions, and deployed his main forces on a 164-kilometer front. For the first time, a whole front was created in the rear of the defending troops as a reserve of the Headquarters - Stepnoy, numbering almost half a million soldiers and officers, more than 8 thousand guns and mortars, 1.4 thousand tanks. Such a colossal reserve was supposed to guarantee the Soviet defense against any accidents.

The troops of both fronts were specially prepared for the fight against German tanks. The entire defense was built on the basis of anti-tank areas, all cannon and even howitzer artillery was prepared for direct fire at tanks. Special detachments of tank destroyers were created, provided with all available arsenal of means, incl. and dogs specially trained to blow up tanks. Bomber and assault aircraft practiced tactics against tanks. It was armed with a new, previously unused secret weapon - special anti-tank cumulative bombs. One hit of such a bomb was enough to destroy any enemy tank. The IL-2 attack aircraft could drop 312 such bombs in one flight. Fire lines for anti-tank ambushes were created along the entire depth of the defense, hundreds of kilometers of special barriers were built - ditches, pit traps, scarps, gouges, more than 1 million anti-tank mines were installed. In the defense zone of the Voronezh and Central Fronts, more than 10,000 km of trenches and communication passages were dug.

Never before had German tanks encountered such a defense. In addition to everything, the Soviet troops on the Kursk salient had a very significant superiority. Taking into account the forces of the Steppe Front, it reached more than two times in manpower, 1.8 times in tanks, 2.8 times in guns and mortars. It seemed that the enemy would not be able to advance a single step and would be destroyed already on the way. However, the battle on the Kursk salient turned out to be extremely difficult for both sides, and its outcome was far from immediately determined.

One of the greatest battles of the Great Patriotic War began in the early morning of July 5, 1943. The German troops, as expected by the Soviet command, struck at the formations of the Central and Voronezh fronts with the clear intention of "cutting" the base of the Kursk salient. But this time the German offensive was forestalled by artillery counter-preparation. Two hours before it began, the artillery of both fronts launched a preemptive strike against the enemy troops advancing to their starting positions, as a result, the enemy had to postpone the prepared strike for 2.5-3 hours.

Only at half past five in the morning did the German troops strike at the defense of the Central Front, marking the main direction of the offensive - through the village. Olkhovatka on Kursk. On the 45-km sector of the front, the offensive was carried out by nine enemy divisions, incl. two tanks. The "armored fist" of Army Group Center - over 500 tanks supported by 300 bombers - was supposed to break into the multi-layered Soviet defenses. As before, the enemy demonstrated the highest level of interaction on the battlefield. Heavy artillery from closed positions suppressed the firepower of the Soviet defense, groups of bombers of 50-60 bombers attacked command posts, reserves, and troop positions. At this time, large groups of tanks and infantry in armored personnel carriers attacked the front line of the Soviet defense. A novelty was the use of heavy tanks "Tiger", "Panther" and heavy self-propelled guns "Ferdinand" in the offensive. Using the range of their guns and the excellent qualities of optics, they fired from afar, remaining out of the reach of anti-tank defenses, successfully suppressing the surviving firing points. This tactic allowed the German divisions on the second attempt to break into the first line of defense of the 13th army of General N.P. Pukhov to a depth of 8-15 km and encircle units of the 81st and 15th divisions. But now, unlike the encirclements of 1941-42. Soviet troops continued to stubbornly defend themselves - the experience gained by the commanders, confidence in the ambulance allowed them to successfully repel enemy attacks. The strike of the armored armada was met by Soviet artillery fire, tank counterattacks, and air strikes. Especially successful were the attacks of the IL-2 attack aircraft using new cumulative bombs. Thus, six aircraft of the 58th Guards Assault Regiment destroyed 18 enemy tanks in 20 minutes of combat. The commander of the front sent army and front reserves to the rescue of the encircled. The battle quickly reached its climax. On July 6, the command of the Central Front launched a counterattack on the advancing enemy with the forces of one rifle and two tank corps. But too little time was allotted for its organization, and the blow did not achieve its goal - the attacks of Soviet tanks stumbled upon the deadly fire of heavy German tanks. It was only possible to release the encircled units and stop the enemy offensive.

As usual, the German command began to look for weakly covered areas of defense and changed the direction of the main attack, turning it to the village. Ponyri. But even here the German tanks got bogged down in a well-organized and skillfully controlled defense. The front commander, General K.K. Rokossovsky, taking a conscious risk, removed reserves from the non-attacked sectors of the front and threw them into battle. On July 6-9, Ponyri became a key point in the struggle of the opposing forces on the second line of defense of the Central Front. But by July 12, the enemy was able to advance only 10-12 km, having used up the offensive capabilities of the troops. The heaviest losses in tanks, the broken skeletons of which literally littered the battlefield, made the further offensive of the Wehrmacht on the northern face of the Kursk ledge unpromising - even in the event of a successful breakthrough of the Soviet defense, there was nothing left to throw at Kursk.

By that time, the main hopes of the enemy were associated with operations on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge against the troops of the Voronezh Front. The powerful forces of the Wehrmacht were concentrated here, incl. and its elite units - four SS divisions, perfectly equipped and trained. But the first day of the offensive did not lead to success. Only in the minefields of the defensive zone of the 6th and 7th Guards Armies of the Voronezh Front, the enemy lost 67 tanks, 12 tanks were destroyed by sapper detachments using demolition dogs. It was tanks that became the main goal of all Soviet defense forces, including aviation and artillery of all kinds. After each new attack, more and more smoky fires of wrecked German tanks appeared in front of the positions of the Soviet defense. On the second day of the offensive, the command of the Army Group "South" concentrated its strike forces in a narrow area and managed to break through two lines of defense in the direction of the village. Oboyan. Commander of the Voronezh Front, General N.F. Vatutin tried to stop the enemy with tank counterattacks. Three tank corps and formations of the 1st tank army were involved in the counterattack. But during the preparation of the counterattack, a number of unfortunate miscalculations were made quite in the spirit of the summer battles of 1941. Thus, the 2nd Tank Corps, transferred from the Southwestern Front, was forced to make a two-day 200-kilometer march (instead of the admissible instructions of 30-40 km) and arrived at the appointed place only two hours before the start of the offensive. There was no time left to prepare the strike - reconnaissance of the area, ensuring interaction with neighbors and clarifying tasks. As a result, the actions of the corps were inconclusive. The 10th Panzer Corps, having made a 100-km march, arrived in the designated area only by the end of the day on July 8 and did not take part in the counterattack. The 5th Guards Tank Corps was the only one that managed to go on the offensive at the scheduled time. But he did not receive the support of other corps and, having fallen under the concentrated attacks of enemy aircraft and tanks, he suffered heavy losses - 77 tanks out of 85. The brunt of the struggle that day was borne by the formations of the 1st Panzer Army, but its counterattack did not reach its goal.

From the memoirs of the commander of the 1st tank army M.E. Katukov:

“By this time, there was a general opinion in the 1st Panzer that it was simply not advisable to inflict a counterattack on tank brigades and corps under the current situation ... After all, their tank forces not only outnumber ours, but also have a significant advantage in armament! Enemy "tigers" can fire their 88-mm guns at our vehicles at a distance of up to 2 kilometers, being within the range of fire of the 76.2-mm guns of our thirty-fours. In a word, the Nazis are able to carry on a successful firefight with us from distant frontiers. Wouldn't it be better under these conditions to put off a counterattack and continue to rely on our carefully prepared defense in depth? Meanwhile, we will grind enemy equipment and manpower. And when we bleed their parts, we break the fascist armored fist, then the favorable moment will ripen for delivering a mighty counterattack. But so far, that moment has not come.

We reported these considerations to the front commander. They waited for an answer, but did not receive it by the end of the night. In the meantime, the deadline for fulfilling the point of the order on a counterattack had come, and we had no choice but to advance the tanks.

Reluctantly, I gave the order for a counterattack. And the steppe, which a minute ago seemed deserted, deserted, was filled with the rumble of hundreds of engines. Thirty-fours crawled out from behind shelters and, on the move, reorganizing themselves into battle formation, rushed at the enemy. The infantry chains moved behind the tanks ... Already the first reports from the battlefield near Yakovlevo showed that we were doing something completely different from what was needed. As expected, the brigades suffered serious losses. With pain in my heart, I saw with the NP how thirty-fours were burning and smoking ... "

The counter attacks of the Soviet tank corps did not stop the advance of the enemy, but turned out to be heavy losses for them. "Tigers" and "Panthers" from shelters and from a long distance shot thirty-fours, remaining practically invulnerable to the fire of Soviet tanks. The actions of the German aviation turned out to be very effective. Here the enemy used a new powerful anti-tank weapon - Yu-87 dive bombers armed with 37-mm cannons that pierced the horizontal armor of Soviet tanks. Only on the first day of fighting, the famous German ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel destroyed 12 Soviet tanks. The total losses of the tank formations of the Voronezh Front during the counterattacks that day amounted to 343 tanks.

The selfless attacks of the Soviet tankers bled the shock formations of the front, but at the suggestion of General M.E. Katukov go on the defensive front commander General N.F. Vatutin did not answer. There was a real threat of a repetition of the events of the summer of 1941, when in large-scale but fruitless attacks the Southwestern Front lost all its mechanized corps and lost its offensive capabilities. The situation changed only after the commander of the 1st Tank Army appealed directly to I. Stalin, who canceled the order to counterattack. In this episode, the essence of the relations that have changed during the two years of the war among the high command of the Red Army was very clearly manifested. By the summer of 1943, Stalin had already ceased to consider the generals only as “cogs” in the control machine, intended only to carry out his will. The Supreme Commander already recognized the right of military leaders, up to the level of the army commander, to have their own opinion and, moreover, was often inclined to share it. Awareness of this changed attitude strengthened the conceit of military leaders, increased their self-esteem, and, hence, their ability to make and implement their own decisions, to bear responsibility for them.

The command of the Army Group "South" in search of a weak area of ​​\u200b\u200bdefense deployed its tank spearhead in the direction of the village. Prokhorovka. There was a real threat of a breakthrough in the defense of the Voronezh Front. And again, the Soviet Headquarters threw its main trump card on the scales - the most powerful reserves. On the way of the Germans to Kursk, three armies were deployed at once, and General N.F. Vatutin received an additional two guards armies - the 5th combined arms lieutenant general A.S. Zhadov and the 5th tank lieutenant general P.A. Rotmistrov.

Having received such powerful reinforcements, the command of the Voronezh Front planned a new attack on Yakovlevo with the aim of encircling and destroying the German 4th Panzer Army, the 3rd Panzer Corps and the formations of the Raus Corps. For this, the forces of five armies were involved, incl. - two tanks. And again the commander was clearly in a hurry to go on the offensive. There was clearly not enough time to implement such a large-scale plan, and the prospects for such an offensive, when the enemy still retained powerful tank reserves, were very doubtful. On July 11, the German command continued the offensive, and on the very first day, the formations of the four armies of the Voronezh Front were forced to leave their advanced positions. The question of the encirclement of the 4th German Panzer Army disappeared by itself, now the main thing was to stop the enemy, who was rapidly advancing to the Prokhorovka area. The 5th Guards Tank Army was advanced towards the 2nd SS Panzer Corps with the task of defeating the enemy. And again, General N.F. Vatutin preferred the tactics of a frontal strike, although it was already very clear that frontal attacks were extremely beneficial only to the enemy, who had a three to five-fold advantage in the range of fire. Rotmistrov's tank army, having made a forced 300-km march, together with two tank corps attached to it, was sent to attack the 2nd SS tank corps. But instead of a flank attack, it turned out to be a counter attack. On the morning of July 12, a grandiose tank battle unfolded near Prokhorovka, which is considered the largest oncoming tank battle of the Second World War, in which several hundred tanks and self-propelled guns participated on both sides. In a narrow 5-kilometer space, two armored armadas moved towards each other, the battle very quickly reached the highest bitterness on both sides. Soviet and German tanks "jumped into each other, grappled already could disperse, fought to the death, while one of them flared with a torch ... But the wrecked tanks, if their weapons did not fail, continued to fire." Rotmistrov's army had more than a twofold superiority over the enemy in the number of combat vehicles, but could not solve the assigned tasks, while suffering heavy losses - over 500 tanks and self-propelled guns. Finally realizing that frontal attacks were not successful, the front command ordered the tank formations to go on the defensive on July 15-16.

The result of these fierce counterattacks was the suspension of the German offensive on the sector of the Voronezh Front. Usually the battle of Prokhorovka is considered the culminating point of the Battle of Kursk and is regarded as an undoubted victory for the Red Army. Indeed, the enemy offensive in this sector was suspended, but at the same time, the German 3rd Panzer Corps managed to advance another 10-15 km in the defense zone of the 69th Army, formations of the 5th Guards Army had to retreat 1-2 km.

Results of the Second World War. Conclusions of the Defeated Specialists German Military

1942 offensive

1942 offensive

In the spring of 1942, the question arose before the German high command in what form to continue the war: to attack or defend. Going on the defensive would be an admission of our own defeat in the 1941 campaign and would deprive us of the chances of successfully continuing and ending the war in the East and West. 1942 was the last year in which, without fear of immediate intervention by the Western powers, the main forces of the German army could be used in an offensive on the Eastern Front. It remained to be decided what should be done on a 3,000-kilometer front in order to ensure the success of an offensive carried out by relatively small forces. It was clear that on most of the front the troops had to go on the defensive and that the proposed offensive had a chance of success only if all mobile forces and the best infantry divisions were concentrated in its direction. The decision was facilitated by the appearance at the front of the troops of Germany's allies - Italians, Romanians and Hungarians - with a total number of up to 35 divisions. True, the armament and combat training of these troops were not up to the mark and they did not have experience in waging war in the Russian theater of operations, however, if this large reserve of fresh forces were introduced into the German defense and mixed with the German troops, the experiment would obviously be would have succeeded. In the meantime, the German command decided to use the Allied forces in a separate section of the front, namely, along the Donets River, and later on the Don, and in this way directly invited the Russians, who were certainly aware of the state and combat capability of the Allied forces, to strike at this sector.

The German high command decided to launch an offensive in the south of the Eastern Front, a decision in which military-economic considerations played a large role: the availability of oil in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, as well as the rich agricultural and industrial areas of Eastern Ukraine. Russian attempts to prevent the preparation of the German army for the offensive in the spring of 1942 yielded only minor local successes.

On June 28, 1942, five German, two Romanian, one Italian and one Hungarian armies began their offensive. First, they delivered the main blow from Izyum and Kharkov in an easterly direction. All armies were consolidated into two army groups, of which the southern one (Army Group A) was to reach the lower reaches of the Don, while the northern one (Army Group B) was to reach the Volga on both sides of Stalingrad on a broad front. The offensive was again to be purely frontal. At first it developed according to plan. But very soon the left flank was held up by the strong resistance of the Russians and could not cross the Don and move east, although several bridgeheads were captured. This time, the Russians did not allow their armies to be encircled, but made a planned withdrawal, preserving the integrity of their front. They, of course, suffered heavy losses, but their final defeat did not follow.

From that moment on, both army groups began to move in different directions. Hitler insisted on the continuation of the offensive of Army Group "A" towards the oil regions of the Caucasus, while Army Group "B" with its right flank was to advance on Stalingrad in order to cut the allegedly important communication route - the Volga and paralyze the industry of Stalingrad. The fulfillment of these orders expanded the front of both army groups from 500 km between Taganrog and Kursk to almost 2 thousand km between Tuapse and Elbrus. Mozdok, Elista. Stalingrad and Voronezh. The depth of the operational area was now 750 km. Not surprisingly, insurmountable supply difficulties soon arose.

Such a division of the German strike force into two parts led to the fact that in one decisive place near Stalingrad, the 6th army of General Paulus, reinforced by several divisions of other armies, formed a narrow wedge, the top of which, although it reached the city, but its mass was not enough in order to capture and hold the city and, in addition, to provide reliable protection for their flanks. By his stubbornness, Hitler prevented this dangerous situation from being eliminated by the timely withdrawal of Paulus's army. He turned Stalingrad into a symbol and became so determined not to give it up that it was impossible to talk him out of it.

The Stalingrad catastrophe caused by Hitler's stubbornness needs no detailed description. It began on November 19, 1942, when the Russians broke through the front of the 3rd Romanian Army northwest of Stalingrad. At the same time, the front of the 4th Romanian Army south of Stalingrad was also broken through. November 22, Stalingrad was surrounded. The plan developed by Paulus to break out of the encirclement was banned by Hitler. It was also impossible to persuade Hitler to a different decision because Goering, for his part, managed to assure him that the supply of the encircled army could be ensured by the daily delivery of 500 tons of necessary supplies by air. However, the average daily aviation power in supplying the 6th Army only occasionally reached 100 tons. Thus, due to the unscrupulous attitude of the high command towards its troops, the fate of the 6th Army was finally decided. Manstein's attempt to liberate the 6th Army with a deblocking blow was not successful.

As a conclusion from this sad chapter of German military history, it should be written that in the wide expanses of the eastern theater of operations, in the absence of reliable ground rear communications, the supply of troops can be ensured to some extent only with the help of a very powerful air fleet. Operations as bold as the Stalingrad one depend to a large extent on the availability of such capabilities. The delivery of supplies by air must be covered by aviation, which alone can ensure air supremacy over the combat area. At that time, the Germans no longer had such aviation forces.

In December 1942, the Russians managed to defeat the 4th Romanian Army north of Stalingrad and thereby eliminate all attempts to free the 6th Army from the encirclement, as well as to achieve the withdrawal of the German army from the Caucasus. On January 30, 1943, the 6th Army capitulated. On the day when her encirclement ended, she numbered 265 thousand people. Of this number, 90 thousand people were taken prisoner, 34 thousand wounded were taken out of Stalingrad by plane and over 100 thousand people died. With great difficulty, General Kleist managed to save his Army Group A, withdrawing it in early January 1943 beyond the Don in its lower reaches. At the end of January 1943, Voronezh had to be abandoned in the northern sector of the former offensive front of the German army.

So, the summer campaign of 1942 ended with a heavy defeat for the German army. Since that time, German troops in the East have ceased to advance forever.

From the book I fought on the T-34 author Drabkin Artem Vladimirovich

ORDER ON THE ISSUANCE OF VODKA TO THE SERVICE UNITS OF THE SERVICE ARMY FROM NOVEMBER 25, 1942 No. 0883 of November 13, 1942 1. In accordance with the resolution of the State Defense Committee of November 12, 1942 No. d. to start issuing vodka to military units of the army in the next

From the book A6M Zero author Ivanov S. V.

Dutch East Indies - December 1941-March 1942 Already on December 28, 1941, the 3rd Kokutai carried out the first raid on the Dutch East Indies. Seven A6M2s and one reconnaissance aircraft landed on Tarakan Island near Borneo. Here the Japanese were attacked by seven Brewster B-339 Buffalo fighters from 1

From the book History of the Conquest of Constantinople author Villardouin Geoffroy de

From the book The Rise of Stalin. Defense of Tsaritsyn author Goncharov Vladislav Lvovich

Aleutian Islands - June 1942 - February 1943 The complete failure at Midway forced the Japanese to do everything. in order to complete the auxiliary strike on the Aleutian Islands with at least the appearance of victory. Two light aircraft carriers participated in the operation: Ryujo, which, among others,

From the book I beat "Stalin's falcons" author Yutilainen Ilmari

From the book I was buried alive. Notes of a divisional scout author Andreev Petr Kharitonovich

Chapter 19. Offensive and counter-offensive (June 20, 1206 - February 4, 1207) A day after the deblockade of Adrianople, the French heard that King Johannitsa was located in the nearby fortress of Rodestuik. In the morning the army took off and galloped in that direction to join him in

From the book Blockade of Leningrad. Complete chronicle - 900 days and nights author Suldin Andrey Vasilievich

Chapter XII. The offensive of the White Cossacks in October 1918 and their defeat The balance of forces on the front of Krivomuzginskaya, Gromoslavka by September 29 turned out to be far from in favor of the red weapons. The White Cossacks continued their impetuous onslaught with extraordinary tenacity and unprecedented

From the book 14th Panzer Division. 1940-1945 author Grams Rolf

Offensive 1941-1942

From the author's book

Summer Offensive 1942 June 1942 was running out. The soldiers for more than a month and a half of being in the rear, without fighting, freshened up and tightened up. Even the "old men" from the new replenishment had gorged themselves and seemed even younger. But the last days of rest were approaching. That's what we called

From the author's book

Summer 1942 offensive of the Germans in the Tula direction Exactly one month the division took up defensive positions in the Bolkhov direction. They changed the defense sector several times and each time rebuilt defensive structures, strengthened the lines. Having suffered heavy losses in July

From the author's book

May 5, 1942? Ilya Ehrenburg’s famous article “On Hatred” was published in Krasnaya Zvezda, where he wrote that “the feeling of anger is a petty and base feeling ... The feeling of anger does not tempt us even now ... Anger drives every soldier of fascism. Losing the battle, they're after

From the author's book

May 19, 1942? A government delegation headed by V. M. Molotov flew from Moscow to the United States via England on a TB-7 aircraft. For this flight, pilots E.K. Poussin, A.P. Shtepenko and S.M. Romanov were awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Crew members V. Obukhov, A.

From the author's book

May 29, 1942? Hitler watched the famous Soviet documentary “The Defeat of the Germans near Moscow” and commented on it: “This winter, we have experienced especially difficult trials also because the clothes of our soldiers, the level of their equipment and motorization are in no way

From the author's book

May 30, 1942? At a military meeting with US President Roosevelt, V. M. Molotov again raised the issue of a second front. Roosevelt, like Churchill a few days earlier, promised to work this out with the military. At a dinner in honor of the Soviet delegation, Roosevelt in a private conversation

From the author's book

May 31, 1942? For 5 months of 1942, 85 new orphanages were opened in besieged Leningrad, which sheltered 30 thousand children. After the death of her mother, 12-year-old Tanya Savicheva got into one of these houses, who kept a diary during the blockade, short notes about how she

From the author's book

Chapter 6. OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSE IN THE SOUTHERN SECTION OF THE EASTERN FRONT IN 1942 With the onset of snowmelt and the onset of a period of spring thaw, the mobility of troops was significantly reduced. The division continued to hold the conquered positions on the front on both sides

1. Military operations in 1942

On November 19, 1942, the offensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began, which ended with the encirclement of more than 300 thousand German soldiers and officers, their subsequent defeat and surrender. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht lost up to 1.5 million people, which was about a quarter of all German forces operating at that time on the Soviet-German front. This victory of the Red Army finally buried the blitzkrieg plans. Before the victory over Germany, however, it was still very far away. As Churchill said wittily then: “Stalingrad is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.”

ZiS-Z is firing at the enemy. Autumn 1942 Stalingrad

Captured German soldiers of the 6th Army of General Paulus

In the Far East, by the end of 1942, the aggressor also received a rebuff. At first, after December 7, 1941, the Japanese practically succeeded in everything: in March 1942 they were already off the coast of Australia, but their further advance encountered resistance from the United States. The Japanese achieved all their initial goals in almost four months: the Malay Peninsula, the Dutch West Indies, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the southern part of Burma were completely captured. As a result of extensive conquests, the Japanese lost 15 thousand people, 380 aircraft and 4 destroyers. In 1941-1942. The Japanese captured a territory 10 times larger than the territory of Japan itself - 4.2 million km 2 with a population of 200 million people. Soon, however, the easily conquered territories were in danger of being torn away. On July 3, 1942, the Japanese strike force in the battle with the US fleet at Midway Atoll lost four aircraft carriers - the color of the Japanese navy. As a result, the Japanese lost the advantage. Although they retained superiority in battleships and cruisers, this was no longer of practical importance, since the main role in the naval war belonged to aircraft carriers (and the Japanese had only eight of them). The Battle of Midway Atoll was a turning point in the Pacific War, as it gave the Americans an invaluable respite. From the end of 1942, Essex-class aircraft carriers began to enter the American fleet, which provided the Americans with an air superiority and predetermined the defeat of Japan.

Battle of Midway Atoll

On April 18, 1942, American bombers made the first raid on Tokyo, and after a while the city was practically destroyed and depopulated, like other major Japanese cities. Japanese air defense was not ready for raids of this magnitude.

The third sign of the coming defeat of the Axis was the news of the failure of Rommel's Afrika Korps, which was already on the threshold of Egypt, ready to move further through the Middle East and Turkey to join the German 17th Army, breaking through the Kuban and the Caucasus.

If the encirclement closed behind the German 6th Army near Stalingrad on November 23, then in Africa the British troops defeated the Germans at El Alamein by November 4, 1942.

On November 8, immediately after the victory at El Alamein, Operation Torch began - the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. The operation was led by American General Dwight Eisenhower, the future President of the United States. As a result of a successful landing, the Italian troops in Tunisia and the African Corps were driven out by superior Allied forces to a narrow strip of the Libyan coast: 250 thousand soldiers (including 125 thousand Germans) were pressed to the sea. Hitler forbade them to surrender, and capitulation followed only in May 1943. Thus, during 1942, Italy lost three of its colonies, which it had before Mussolini came to power. This greatly undermined the authority of the Duce.

Name the events of 1942 that became a turning point in World War II.

2. The New Order and the Resistance Movement

Part of the territory occupied by Nazi Germany was included in the Third Reich, some territories turned into German governor-generals. Their life was subordinated to the needs of the economy of the Nazi coalition, and the population was subjected to restrictions, was deprived of many rights, forcibly taken to work in Germany, and often became a victim of persecution on ethnic grounds. Attempts to resist were resolutely suppressed.

The real tragedy was experienced by the Jewish population of European countries. It is no coincidence that the Nazi policy of its systematic destruction was called the "holocaust" (from the Greek holokaustos - "burned whole"). In 1942, death camps began to appear in the occupied territories (Treblinka, Belzec, Jasenovac, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Majdanek, etc.), where millions of prisoners were executed and tortured, a significant part of which were Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies.

In regions with a compact Jewish population (Poland, part of the regions of the USSR, Yugoslavia), the Nazis created ghettos (special areas of the city, separated from other areas by a wall or barbed wire). All the Jews living in the city were driven into the ghetto. Ghettos were usually set up close to railroads so that later their inhabitants could be easily transported to extermination camps.

The victims of the fascist regime were not only Jews, but also representatives of the Slavic peoples. According to the plan of action of the Nazis in the event of the defeat of the USSR in the occupied eastern territories (plan "Ost"), the Slavs were to be partially Germanized, and partially taken out of the Urals or destroyed. During the war years, 5 million Russians, 3 million Ukrainians, 3 million Poles, 1.5 million Belarusians were killed - all of them were killed on a national basis. In total, it was planned to liquidate 30 million Slavs of Eastern Europe.

In the occupied territories there were those who voluntarily supported the new regime and even actively contributed to it. SS men from the Baltic States, Norway, Holland, France and Ukraine, battalions of Crimean Tatars, Chechens and Georgians, soldiers of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) led by former General A. Vlasov fought in the ranks of the German army. Some ROA fighters were pushed into the service of Hitler by resentment at the cruel actions of the Soviet government and hatred of the Stalinist regime. Others were forced to enter by force, threatening reprisals if they refused.

However, most of the inhabitants of the conquered countries experienced the period of occupation with fear and hatred. Many Europeans joined the ranks of underground resistance groups that organized resistance to the Nazis. Resistance took various forms - from strikes to armed guerrilla struggle.

The officers of the former royal army of Yugoslavia first declared war on the Croats (German allies), and then began to fight the invaders. After Hitler's attack on the USSR in Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito, a communist underground is formed - the People's Liberation Army (PLA). By 1943, Tito's detachments had established strong ties with Great Britain, which began to supply the PLA with weapons and ammunition. Partisans also appeared in Greece and Albania.

Active operations against the Nazis were carried out by the Polish Home Army (AK) (National Army), which offered armed resistance in Poland itself, Western Belarus, Western Ukraine and Lithuania. AK was subordinate to the Polish government in exile in London. The Polish Resistance fighters derailed trains, committed sabotage at military factories, and organized assassination attempts on German officials and military personnel. It was the AK members who found out that the Germans at the plant in Peenemünde were assembling V-1 and V-2 rockets, after which the British bombed the factory, frustrating plans to create a “weapon of retaliation”.

The resistance movement did not bypass Germany itself. By 1942, the Gestapo had practically liquidated the Resistance cells; in 1943, new underground centers appeared in Berlin, Thuringia, Saxony, Munich and Hamburg. They conducted anti-Hitler agitation and organized the production of defective products at military factories. Many German anti-fascists became members of the Soviet intelligence network "Red Chapel", were arrested by the Gestapo and executed. In 1943, in fascist Italy, a powerful strike shook the Fiat factory. The strikers were supported by 300,000 workers from other factories. The strikers openly condemned fascism, demanded an end to the war and the restoration of democracy in the country.

3. Main events on the fronts of the Second World War in 1943 - the first half of 1944

If the battles on the Eastern Front convinced Hitler that he faced a resolute and staunch enemy, then the battles with the troops of the Western states only strengthened his confidence in their insufficient combat capability. He retained this faith until the last days of the war. Even after the victories won by the allies in Africa and Italy, he was still convinced that their soldiers would not withstand the first full-fledged attack of the Wehrmacht and would rush to run.

On July 12, 1943, on the Kursk Bulge, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive along a front of 2,000 km. As a result, the strategic initiative completely passed to the Soviet army. The victory at the Kursk Bulge testified to the growing superiority of the economic potential of the USSR. After this victory, the inequality of efforts undertaken within the framework of the struggle of the anti-Hitler coalition against Nazi Germany became especially clearly visible.

With the defeat of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in 1943, it became obvious that the efforts made by the USSR were inadequate to the efforts of the allies. As compensation for this weakness, Roosevelt made concessions to Stalin on territorial issues. Stalin wanted to keep what he received from Hitler under the secret protocol of August 23, 1939.

On January 21, 1943, at a meeting in Casablanca, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to continue the war until the unconditional surrender of Germany. In May 1943, Stalin joined this demand. He was already talking about the surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan.

The landing of American troops in Sicily

Chronicle of events

July - August 1943 - the battle on the Kursk Bulge. Operation Husky (husky - Eskimo dog) - the landing of Anglo-American troops in Sicily; capitulation of Italian troops, arrest of Mussolini.

The beginning of September 1943 - the beginning of the liberation of Southern Italy by the forces of the Anglo-American troops.

June 6, 1944 - the beginning of Operation Overlord - the landing of the Anglo-American troops in Normandy, the opening of the Second Front.

September 1944 - Finnish withdrawal from the war.

Based on the map, determine why, despite the presence of the allied front in Italy, Stalin insisted on opening the Second Front.

The fate of Stalingrad, Warsaw, Berlin bypassed Paris, as its commandant, General von Choltitz, ignored Hitler's order to destroy the city. In addition, the German command refused to conduct active hostilities in large Italian cities, whose architectural monuments were of great value. This was in complete contrast to how the Wehrmacht behaved on the Eastern Front.

The landing of the Anglo-American troops in Normandy

By the end of 1944, in addition to the original German lands, the German Reich was left with something like a reduced Habsburg monarchy: Croatia, Slovenia, most of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Northern Italy.

In the Far East, the Americans switched to the process of reconquering the territories lost at one time, which in historiography was called "island hopping".

Based on the map on p. 118-119, determine which islands were recaptured by the United States in 1943-1944.

At the end of 1944, the Americans launched an offensive in Burma, then in the Philippines. In the naval battle for the Philippines, the Japanese had more battleships, but they were defeated in the air.

The amphibious landing route in the Philippines was opened, and American troops under Commander General Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyta Island on October 20. The Japanese decided that it was possible to destroy MacArthur's transport ships before the arrival of the main American fleet. The largest naval battle in history at Leith Gulf followed, involving 282 ships. It went on for four days. The Japanese eventually lost 3 battleships, 4 large aircraft carriers and 6 heavy cruisers; Americans - a light aircraft carrier and 2 escort cruisers. This defeat meant the end of the Japanese fleet.

4. Events in autumn 1944 - spring 1945

In Europe, in September-November 1944, the Allied offensive began on the Western Wall, which was a system of German long-term fortifications erected in 1936-1940. in the west of Germany, in the border strip from Kleve to Basel. In December-January, German troops attempted a counteroffensive in the Ardennes.

The idea of ​​the Ardennes operation and its leadership belonged entirely to Hitler himself. The purpose of the German offensive in the Ardennes was to break through to Antwerp, which had become the center of supply for the Anglo-American troops, and cut the communication system of the Allied army in Belgium and Holland. However, it could not be carried out due to the lack of reserves and the superiority of Allied aviation in the air.

Of great importance was the destruction by Allied aviation of the communications of cities in Germany. These bombings were aimed primarily at destabilizing Germany, and not at destroying industry.

The bombings had a positive effect on the morale of the population of the United States and Great Britain. The English physicist P. Blackett wrote at that time about the Allies' conception of themselves as righteous gods, throwing thunder and lightning at the heads of their hated enemies. He called this phenomenon the Jupiter complex. The most unattractive side of the “Jupiter complex” was the use of the rhetoric of “righteous fighters” to justify their not always honest actions and decisions. Only this complex can explain one of the most tragic pages in the history of the Second World War - the destruction of Dresden, the greatest monument of European civilization, the treasury of world culture.

The attack of the Anglo-American troops on Dresden was the result of the desire of Roosevelt and Churchill to prove to Stalin that they were doing everything possible to help the efforts of the Eastern Front. On February 14, 1945, 2978 tons of bombs were dropped on Dresden. For seven days and nights in the city, according to various sources, from 25 thousand to 135 thousand people died.

Express your attitude to the bombing of Dresden by aircraft of the Anglo-American troops. Can they be justified? Why?

The final defeat of fascist Germany was predetermined by the successful offensive of the Soviet army in 1944. By the end of the summer of 1944, the state border of the USSR was restored, and the Soviet troops, pursuing the enemy, entered the territory of neighboring states: Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Norway. On the Eastern Front, from January to February 1945, the Vistula-Oder operation was successfully carried out. In the course of it, the liberation of Poland was completed and conditions were created for delivering a decisive blow to Berlin.

In March 1945, Kesselring, who had a reputation in Germany as a military genius, was appointed commander-in-chief of the German troops in the West. However, the Allies still successfully crossed the Rhine, which had long been considered by the Allies as the last obstacle on the way to the heart of Germany.

Chronicle of events

Spring 1945

- the defeat of the East Prussian grouping by Soviet troops and the implementation of a large-scale offensive in the direction of Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna;

The Second World War. Military operations in the Pacific Ocean and in Southeast Asia (1941-1945)

G.K. Zhukov

Field Marshal W. Keitel signs the act of unconditional surrender of Germany

- the invasion of Americans into Saxony and Thuringia beyond the boundaries established at the Yalta Conference;

- the completion of the Ruhr operation, after which the Allied offensive turned into a victorious march;

- meeting of the Soviet 5th Guards and 1st American armies in the Torgau area on the Elbe.

In April-May 1945, Soviet troops carried out two successful operations - Berlin and Prague.

It is curious that there was a competition between the Soviet armies in Berlin, who would quickly reach the Reichstag, which for the Soviet soldiers symbolized the Third Reich. In fact, the symbol of German democracy - the Reichstag after the fire of 1933 was empty, and its members did not gather.

April 30, 1945 Hitler and his inner circle committed suicide. On May 2, to the commander of the 8th Guards Army V.I. General Krebs, Chief of the German General Staff, appeared to Chuikov and announced that the Berlin garrison subordinate to him was laying down their arms.

On May 7, in Reims, representatives of the allied command and the chief of staff of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht High Command, General A. Jodl, signed the act of surrender of Germany, but Stalin believed that the act should be signed in Berlin, and achieved his goal. On May 8, 1945, in the suburbs of Berlin - Karlshorst, at 23:00 CET, an act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed.

What explains Stalin's desire to sign the act of capitulation of Germany in Berlin?

From July 1 to July 4, 1945, the Allies occupied the sectors due to them in Berlin in exchange for the liberation by the Americans of Saxony and Thuringia, which, by agreement, was to be occupied by the USSR, and not by the Americans, who were carried away by the offensive.

5. War with Japan

At the Tehran Conference (1943), the Allies agreed that after the completion of hostilities in Europe, the USSR would help put an end to the domination of the Japanese invaders. In 1945, at the Yalta Conference, Stalin signed the conditions for the USSR to enter the war against Japan: international recognition of the Mongolian People's Republic; the return of the southern part of Sakhalin Island lost in 1905 by Russia and the transfer of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union; ensuring the rights to lease Port Arthur and jointly with China operate the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Western Railway.

The main reason for the US interest in involving the USSR in the war with Japan was the possible huge losses in overcoming the resistance of the Japanese. Even on the small Japanese island of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, out of 120 thousand Japanese defending the island, only 106 people were captured. Everyone else preferred death in battle or suicide. The Americans, during the storming of the island, lost 12.5 thousand people. American public opinion was shocked. General MacArthur predicted that American losses in the war with Japan would amount to 1 million, and the war would drag on for a year before Japan surrendered.

The landing of American troops on about. Okinawa. April 1945

During the three-month operation to capture Okinawa, the Japanese used kamikaze attacks 1,500 times, which the Japanese called "kikusai" (chrysanthemums floating on the water). As a result of these attacks, 34 American ships were sunk, 368 ships were damaged. These heavy losses greatly contributed to the decision to use a nuclear bomb against Japan. However, the strategic offensive of aviation against Japan and the Mariana Islands with the use of aviation began in the summer of 1944. Due to the constant bombardment of Japanese cities, 8.5 million people left, military production practically stopped. The Japanese, despite stubborn resistance, were close to complete collapse. Two-thirds of merchant ships were sunk, factories shut down for lack of coal and raw materials, and per capita food consumption dropped to 1,200 kilocalories a day—lower than in Germany during the worst period of World War I.

Japan's military position was hopeless, but the demand for "unconditional surrender" was insulting to her army. She was ready to fight to the death. By that time, the Americans already had a nuclear bomb. No one knew what the result of its application would be, but many hoped that it would be effective enough to force the Japanese to surrender. The decision to bomb Japanese cities with atomic bombs was made personally by President Truman. On August 6, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing 71,000 people in an instant. The Americans dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki. As a result, 80 thousand people died.

Some historians believe that the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese was just a show of US military power. How justified, from your point of view, was this bombing? Justify your position.

On August 9, in accordance with the decision of the Yalta Conference, the USSR entered the war in the Pacific. The Kuril Islands and Sakhalin were liberated from Japanese troops by the Red Army, and the Kwantung Army was defeated in Northeast China. On August 10, Japan officially announced its readiness to accept the terms of the Potsdam Conference with a reservation regarding the preservation of the structure of imperial power in the country. The next day, the United States agreed to the Japanese amendment, and on August 14, the emperor of Japan was able to insist on surrender to the military leadership, and the Japanese informed the allies about this. A radio message to the Japanese was recorded on tape, which spoke of the decision. However, young extremist officers broke into the palace and killed the general who commanded the guards, but they could not find the film, and they did not dare to touch the person of the emperor. On August 15, a radio broadcast took place in which the emperor announced the surrender of Japan.

Destroyed Nagasaki

The Americans, in addition to Japan, occupied South Korea. On September 2, 1945, an act of unconditional surrender of Japan was signed aboard the American battleship Missouri.

6. Results of the war

The human losses in World War II turned out to be horrendous: in general, 54 million people died, of which 27 million (a quarter of those called up) were on the fronts, 24 million civilians. The USSR lost 26.5 million (according to other sources - 20.3 million, including 15 million civilians), Asian countries as a whole - 13.6 million, Poland and the Balkan countries - 9 million, Germany - 6.6 million, England, France, Scandinavia - 1.3 million, Italy and Austria - 750 thousand, USA - 229 thousand people.

One out of every 22 Soviet people died in the war, 25 Germans, 46 Japanese, 150 Italians, 150 British, 200 French, 500 Americans.

Poland, taking into account the total number of its population, suffered the most: 15% of the population became victims of the war, the USSR lost 10% of the population. Japan lost over a million soldiers in battles and from bombing - 600 thousand 35 million people died in China, and not so much in battles as from general disasters. Of the 5.6 million Soviet prisoners of war, 3.3 million (60%) died. Of the 235,473 British and English POWs in Germany, 8,348 died.

On September 17, 1947, peace treaties were signed in Paris with Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Finland, and Italy. All defeated countries had to pay reparations, mostly in the form of material supplies.

World War II changed the political map of the world.

Determine from the map what territorial changes have occurred since the end of World War II in Europe.

The USSR received the largest territorial increments: 500,000 km2 with a population of 20 million.

The Allied peace treaty with Japan was signed in San Francisco on September 8, 1951. The USSR did not accede to this treaty, it signed the Moscow Declaration with Japan, which entered into force on December 12, 1956. The declaration ended the state of war, peace and good neighborly relations between the two countries have been restored. Japan was democratized under the imperial regime, and in 1952 it gained full independence. The country has lost everything that it has captured since the end of the 19th century: Taiwan (Formosa), returned to China, Sakhalin, which was ceded to the USSR, and Korea, which was divided into two parts - North and South.

The war was finally ended by the Nuremberg trials (November 20, 1945 - October 1, 1946) over the main Nazi criminals and the Tokyo Tribunal (May 3, 1946 - November 12, 1948) over Japanese war criminals.

The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials were essential for establishing the principles and norms of modern international law, which consider aggression as the gravest crime.

Questions and tasks

1. Why, despite the fact that Nazi Germany was inferior in material resources to the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, did the war last for six years? 2. What military events in 1942 testified to the coming defeat of the Axis countries? 3. Do you agree with the formulation of the question of the priority of the Eastern or Western Front in World War II? Justify your position. 4. What explains the entry of the USSR into the war with Japan, with which there was an agreement on neutrality? 5. What were the results of World War II? What lessons should humanity learn from World War II? 6. In the West, there is an opinion that the Second World War did not inflict such terrible wounds on humanity as the First World War. What arguments will supporters of this point of view use? What evidence can be given to refute it? 7. During the Nuremberg trials, the Soviet side vetoed the discussion of the following issues: 1. The attitude of the USSR to the Treaty of Versailles. 3. Soviet non-aggression pact with Germany. 4. Socio-political system in the USSR. 5. Baltic republics. 7. Straits. 8. Balkans. 9. Poland. What were the motives of the Soviet government for not allowing discussion of these issues? 8. Analyze the data given in the table and draw conclusions.

German "Fortress Europe" by 1943

	Length, km	The available forces of the Wehrmacht and its allies in this area	Number of soldiers per 1 km, pers.
Eastern front
Finland
Norway
Western Europe
Southeast Europe