The essence of the falsification of Russian history begun by liberal-bourgeois circles - both homegrown and outlandish - is to replace our common past, the biography of the people, and with it the biographies of millions of compatriots who have dedicated their lives to the revival and prosperity of our Motherland, the struggle for her freedom from foreign domination.

Through the pages of the Pravda newspaper. Alexander Ognev, front-line soldier, professor, honored worker of science of the Russian Federation.
2012-03-06 12:54

The falsification of history is an attempt at a brazen substitution of Russia itself. One of the main objects of falsification, the anti-Soviet chose the story of the heroic deed of the Soviet people, who liberated the world from German fascism. It is clear that sincere patriots do not accept this game of thimble-makers. Therefore, the readers of Pravda warmly approved the article published by the newspaper on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, an article by a front-line soldier, Dr. philological sciences, Honorary Professor of Tverskoy state university Alexander Ognev and strongly recommended that the newspaper continue publishing his revelations of falsifiers of history. Fulfilling the wishes of readers, the editorial board of Pravda decided to publish the chapters of the study by Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation A.V. Ognev in the Friday issues of the newspaper.

The enemy of "Bagration" did not wait On June 6, 1944, the Anglo-American troops began a successful landing on the coast in Normandy. This, of course, hastened the defeat of Germany, but at the same time did not seriously affect the composition of the German troops on the Soviet-German front. By the beginning of July, out of 374 divisions that Germany had, there were 228 divisions on the Eastern Front, two-thirds of all combat-ready formations. 60 divisions were in France, Belgium and Holland, 26 in Italy, 17 in Norway and Denmark, and 10 in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.

In the summer of 1944, our Headquarters planned to inflict the main blow in Belarus. Soviet intelligence established that the most powerful enemy groups are located in Western Ukraine and Romania. They comprised about 59% of infantry and 80% of tank divisions. In Belarus, the German command held a less powerful army group "Center", commanded by Field Marshal E. Bush. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command came to the correct conclusion that the German command was expecting main blow of our troops not in Belarus, but on the southern wing - in Romania and in the Lvov direction.

The Soviet command prepared well and brilliantly conducted the Belarusian offensive operation under code name"Bagration". By the beginning of the operation, the 1st Baltic (commander - General I.Kh. Bagramyan), 3rd Belorussian (commander - General I.D. Chernyakhovsky, 2nd Belorussian (commander - General G.F. Zakharov) and 1st The Belarusian (commander - General K.K. Rokossovsky) fronts had 2,400,000 people, about 36,400 guns and mortars, 53,000 aircraft, 52,000 tanks.

The plan of the operation provided for a quick breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses in six directions - Vitebsk, Bogushevsky, Orsha, Mogilev, Svisloch and Bobruisk, to defeat the main forces of Army Group Center with deep blows from four fronts and destroy its troops in parts. This group had at its disposal 500,000 men, 9,500 guns and mortars, 900 tanks, and 1,300 aircraft.

Before Soviet troops the task of a strategic and political nature was set: to eliminate the enemy's ledge with a length of more than 1100 kilometers in the region of Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Minsk, to smash and destroy a large grouping of German troops. This was the main task of our troops in the summer of 1944. It was planned to create good prerequisites for the subsequent offensive of the Red Army in western regions Ukraine, in the Baltic States, Poland and East Prussia.

Our offensive in Belarus came as a surprise to the enemy. Tippelskirch, who then commanded the 4th Army, later wrote that "V. Model, who led the front in Galicia, did not allow the possibility of a Russian offensive anywhere except in his sector." The German High Command agreed with him. It considered possible our offensive in the Baltics. Field Marshal Keitel at a meeting of army commanders in May 1944 said: “On the Eastern Front, the situation has stabilized. You can be calm, because the Russians will not soon be able to launch an offensive.

On June 19, 1944, Keitel said that he did not believe in a significant Russian offensive in the central sector of the front. The Soviet command skillfully misinformed the enemy. In order to mislead the Germans, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command defiantly "left" in the south most their tank divisions.

Belarusian operation lasted from June 23, 1944 to August 29 - over two months. It covered more than one thousand two hundred kilometers along the front - from the Western Dvina to Pripyat and up to six hundred kilometers in depth - from the Dniester to the Vistula and Nareva.

"Second front" partisans

The partisans played an important role in this battle. On the eve of the Belarusian operation "Bagration", they reported on the location of 33 headquarters, 30 airfields, 70 large warehouses, the composition of more than 900 enemy garrisons and about 240 units, the direction of movement and the nature of the cargo transported by 1642 echelons of the enemy.

Rokossovsky wrote: “The partisans received specific tasks from us, where and when to strike at the communications and bases of the Nazi troops. They blew up more than 40,000 rails, blew up trains on the railway lines Bobruisk - Osipovichi - Minsk, Baranovichi - Luninets and others. From June 26 to June 28, the partisans derailed 147 echelons with troops and military equipment. They participated in the liberation of cities, occupied a number of large settlements on their own.

On June 23, Soviet troops broke through the German defenses. On the third day, five infantry divisions were surrounded in the Vitebsk region, which were defeated and surrendered on June 27. On June 27, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front encircled the Bobruisk grouping of the enemy - up to 40,000 soldiers and officers. On June 29 they were defeated. The German defense was broken through on June 23-28 in all directions of the 520-kilometer front. Soviet troops advanced 80-150 kilometers, surrounded and destroyed 13 enemy divisions. Hitler removed E. Bush from the post of commander of Army Group Center and put Field Marshal V. Model in his place.

On July 3, after a fierce battle, Soviet troops liberated the capital of Belarus, Minsk. The city was in ruins. The few surviving buildings were mined and prepared for the explosion. But they still managed to be saved: the Germans were prevented by the swiftness of our units breaking into the city.

In the ring with a diameter of about 25 kilometers, there were up to 40,000 Nazis. By the end of the day on July 7, the 12th, 27th and 35th army, 39th and 41st tank corps, surrounded near Minsk, were defeated. The acting commander of the 4th Army, General W. Muller, ordered the surrender. In the battles that lasted until July 11, the Germans lost over 70,000 people killed and about 35,000 captured, among them were 12 generals (three corps commanders and nine division commanders).

Our troops advanced 550-600 kilometers in a strip with a length of more than 1100 kilometers. This created good opportunities for an offensive in the Lvov-Sandomierz direction, in East Prussia and for a further attack on Warsaw and Berlin. As a result of the superbly conducted Operation Bagration, the German Army Group Center was utterly defeated. 17 German divisions and 3 brigades were destroyed, 50 divisions lost more than half of their strength. To stop the offensive of the Soviet troops, Hitler's command transferred to Belarus 46 divisions and 4 brigades from other sectors of the front.

The origins of the remarkable victories of the Red Army in 1944 were not only in our superiority in men and weapons, but mainly in the fact that Soviet generals and soldiers learned to fight well.

In those battles, eighteen-year-old fighter Yuri Smirnov asked for it to carry out a dangerous combat mission. He told the company commander: “I recently read the book “How the Steel Was Tempered”. Pavel Korchagin would also have asked for this landing.” He, being wounded, when he was unconscious, was taken prisoner. The enemy needed to urgently find out what goals were set for the Russian tank landing. But Yuri did not say a word, although he was brutally tortured the whole night. “In a frenzy, realizing that they could not achieve anything, they nailed him to the wall of the dugout.” “The landing party, the secret of which the Hero kept at the cost of his life, completed the task. The highway was cut, the offensive of our troops unfolded along the entire front ... "Komsomol member Yuri Smirnov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union

After crossing the Vistula, a company of the 220th regiment of the 79th guards division under the command of Lieutenant V. Burba, she fought off continuous attacks by German infantry and tanks. Only 6 people survived from the company, but they managed not to give up their position to the enemy. V. Burba performed a sacrificial feat while repulsing an enemy attack. When the tanks came very close, he, throwing a bunch of grenades, knocked out a tank, and under the second he rushed himself with a bunch of grenades in his hand. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A soldier of the 220th regiment, P. Khlyustin, at a critical moment of the battle, also rushed under a German tank with a bunch of grenades and helped stop the enemy attack. He was also posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Convincing signs of victory

H. Westphal admitted: “During the summer and autumn of 1944 German army suffered the greatest defeat in its history, surpassing even the Stalingrad one.

On June 22, the Russians went on the offensive on the front of Army Group Center ... Contrary to the warning of the General Staff ground forces, the defensive front held by Army Group Center was dangerously weakened, as Hitler ordered at its expense to strengthen the army group located to the south, where he expected the attack in the first place. The enemy broke through the front of Army Group Center in many places, and since Hitler strictly forbade elastic defenses, this army group was liquidated. Only the scattered remnants of 30 divisions escaped death and Soviet captivity.

Wehrmacht General Butlar even considered that "the defeat of the Army Group Center" put an end to the organized resistance of the Germans in the east. In the Belorussian operation, the German army group lost from 300,000 to 400,000 people killed. Guderian admitted: “As a result of this blow, Army Group Center was destroyed. We suffered huge losses- about twenty-five divisions.

The American researcher M. Seff wrote on June 22, 2004: “Sixty years ago, on June 22, 1944, the Red Army began its most important retaliatory campaign ... The operation went down in history as the “Belarusian battle”. It is it, and not Stalingrad and not Battle of Kursk eventually broke his back fascist army in the east. Wehrmacht staff officers watched with disbelief and growing fear as the "blitzkrieg" tactics they had used so effectively for fifteen months to seize the expanses of European Russia turned against them. Within a month, the German Army Group Center, which had been Germany's strategic stronghold in Russia for three years, was destroyed. tank columns The Red Army was surrounded by 100 thousand the best soldiers Germany. AT total The Germans lost 350,000 men. It was a defeat even greater than at Stalingrad. Seff warned political and military adventurers: “The lesson that Bagration clearly taught the Nazi Wehrmacht 60 years ago remains relevant to this day. Underestimating Russia is unwise: its people have a habit of winning when least expected of them.

The rapid advance of the Red Army to our western borders caused great concern to Churchill. In 1944, he considered that "Soviet Russia has become a mortal threat" and therefore it is necessary to "immediately create a new front against its rapid advance." It turns out that this front should not be created against the Germans, but against our offensive ...

To show how much the fighting efficiency of the Red Army, the military skill of its generals, officers and soldiers, has grown, an interesting comparison must be made. Allied troops landed in France on June 6, 1944. In four and a half months they reached Germany, covering 550 kilometers. average speed movement - 4 kilometers per day. On June 23, 1944, our troops began to advance from eastern border Belarus and on August 28 reached the Vistula. P. Karel in the book “Eastern Front” recorded: “In five weeks they fought 700 kilometers (that is, 20 km per day!) - the pace of the advance of the Soviet troops exceeded the pace of advancement of the tank groups of Guderian and Goth along the route Brest - Smolensk - Yelnya during the Blitzkrieg in the summer of 1941.

Now, in the foreign and "our" liberal press, the Soviet command is being scourged for supposedly cruel attitude to prisoners of war. Some S. Lipatov and V. Yaremenko in the article "March through Moscow" used the "march" of over forty thousand German prisoners of war through the streets of Moscow to discredit the Soviet system. Shedding tears, they wrote about how on July 17, 1944, the Germans "walked down the street dirty, lice, ragged." Dr. Hans Zimmer, in his book Encounter with Two Worlds, recalls: "Thousands of prisoners walked barefoot, or in footcloths or canvas slippers." The authors of the article could add that one of the prisoners, seeing Hero of the Soviet Union V. Karpov among the Muscovites, angrily showed him a tightly clenched fist, and he, an uncultured Asian, vilely mocked him - he turned his finger at his temple, making it clear that he stuffed fool. Is it possible to forget this?

“Thousands of people behind the cordon on the sidewalks rehearsed and on command shouted: “Hitler Kaput!” and spat abundantly in the columns. You might think that at that time hundreds of thousands of idle Muscovites were previously gathered many times in clubs and cinemas and held rehearsals under the strict supervision of the NKVD. Seriously speaking, the current unfortunate interpreters national history unable to understand that the terrible atrocities that the occupiers did in our country could not but cause Soviet people feelings of hatred towards them, and therefore "often the soldiers of the cordon used force or the threat of force when some hot women tried to attack the marchers with their fists."

In 1942, I. Ehrenburg urged: "The Germans cannot be tolerated." Hatred of fascism merged with hatred of them. On April 11, 1945, he wrote in Krasnaya Zvezda: “Everyone is running, everyone is rushing about, everyone is trampling each other ... There is no Germany: there is a colossal gang.” Three days later, in the article “Comrade Ehrenburg Simplifies” published in Pravda, G. Aleksandrov criticized him for not taking into account the stratification of the Germans when he claimed that they were all responsible for the criminal war.

Lipatov and Yaremenko assessed the "march" of German prisoners of war as a "humiliating performance", a "performance" that "obviously failed". How to understand the motives of such an unfriendly assessment? “People looked with amazement at the miserable remnants of that legendary, invincible, always victorious German Wehrmacht, which now passed by defeated and ragged.” The Germans were furiously eager to capture Moscow, intended to arrange a victory parade in it, to blow up the Kremlin. So they were given - just not as winners - the opportunity to pass through our capital. After this demonstrative "march" the premonition of the imminent and final Victory grew stronger among the Soviet people.

About German prisoners

German historians believe that more than three million German soldiers, of whom about a million died there. The death toll is clearly exaggerated. In the document of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR for the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was noted that 2,388,443 German prisoners of war were captured, transferred to the camps of the Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) and personally recorded. Released from captivity and repatriated 2031743 people. Died in captivity 356687 Germans. According to the latest data, during the war our troops captured 3,777,300 people, including 2,546,200 Germans and Austrians, 639,635 Japanese, 513,767 Hungarians, 187,370 Romanians, 48,957 Italians, 69,977 Czechs and Slovaks, 60,280 Poles, French - 23136, Yugoslavs - 21822, Moldovans - 14129, Chinese - 12928, Jews - 10173, Koreans - 7785, Dutch - 4729, Finns - 2377.

In Stalingrad, 110,000 emaciated and frostbite were taken prisoner. German soldiers. Most of them soon died - 18,000 arrived in places of permanent detention, of which about 6,000 returned to Germany. A. Blank in the article “Prisoners of Stalingrad” wrote: “Most of the arriving prisoners of war were severely emaciated, which caused dystrophy. Soviet doctors took a variety of measures to restore their strength and health. Was it easy to do this during the war, when high-calorie foods were worth their weight in gold? However, literally everything that was possible was done, and the results quickly showed up: many patients began to walk a little, the puffiness of the face disappeared.

Worse than dystrophy sypnyak. It was possible - though not without difficulty - to eliminate the total lice relatively quickly, but many Germans arrived at the camp already sick, overflowing the camp infirmary. Our tireless doctors, nurses and nurses did not leave the wards for days. The struggle was for every life. In special hospitals for prisoners of war located near the camp, dozens of doctors and nurses also saved German officers and soldiers from death. Many of our people fell victim to typhus. Doctors Lidia Sokolova and Sofya Kiseleva, the head of the medical department of the hospital, a young doctor Valentina Milenina, nurses, translator Reitman and many others fell seriously ill. Several of our workers died of typhus.”

Our ill-wishers should compare this with how the Germans treated Soviet prisoners of war.

Warsaw Uprising

The liberal media has long been spreading the idea that the Russians are to blame for many of Poland's troubles. D. Granin asked: “Was this whole war fair from the first to the last day?” And he answered: “Alas, there were many things that could not be attributed to this category: it is enough to recall the history of the Warsaw Uprising.” On September 14, 1999, the Russophobic "Memorial" condemned "the shameful inaction of the Soviet troops on the Vistula during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944." What is more here: purely dense ignorance or a vindictive desire to vilely spit on our army? The accusers, and there are many of them, do not want to delve into the essence of the military situation created at that time, they do not want to get acquainted with real documents.

The head of the Warsaw Uprising, General Bur-Komarovsky, then collaborated with representatives of the German command. He stated: "In this case the weakening of Germany is just not in our interests. In addition, I see a threat in the face of Russia. The farther away the Russian army is, the better for us.” A document about the negotiations of a senior officer was found in the Polish archives German service security P. Fuchs with the commander of the Home Army T. Bur-Komarovsky. A German officer tried to dissuade this Polish general from starting an uprising in Warsaw, but he answered him: “This is a matter of prestige. The Poles, with the help of the Home Army, would like to liberate Warsaw and appoint here Polish administration until the entry of Soviet troops. Bur-Komarovsky and his staff issued an order to their army, which proclaimed: “The Bolsheviks are in front of Warsaw. They declare that they are friends of the Polish people. This is an insidious lie. The Bolshevik enemy will face the same merciless struggle that shook the German occupier. Actions in favor of Russia are treason to the motherland. The Germans are fleeing. To fight the Soviets!”

Taylor acknowledged that the uprising "was more anti-Russian than anti-German." In the “History of Wars” it is said about him like this: “It was raised by the Poles, by the underground front (anti-communist) led by General T. Bur-Komarovsky in the hope that the Russians located beyond the Vistula would come to the rescue. But they were inactive while the German SS drowned the uprising in blood for 2 months. And not a word about the guilt of Bur-Komarovsky, who did not warn our command about the performance of the Varsovians. General Anders (in 1942 he took away from our country Polish troops, who were under his command, to Iran, and then to Italy), having learned about the uprising, sent a dispatch to Warsaw in which he wrote: “I personally consider the decision of the AK commander (on the beginning of the uprising) a misfortune ... The start of the uprising in Warsaw in the current situation is not only stupidity, but also a clear crime.

The British correspondent A. Werth asked K. Rokossovsky: “Was the Warsaw Uprising justified?” He replied: “No, it was a gross mistake ... The uprising would only make sense if we were already ready to enter Warsaw. We did not have such readiness at any of the stages ... Please note that we have more than two months of continuous fighting behind us.”

Stalin wanted to continue the offensive of our troops in order to occupy the area northwest of Warsaw and alleviate the position of the rebels. V. Karpov in the Generalissimo noted: “The Supreme Commander did not like very much when they did not agree with him. But in this case, it was understandable. He wanted to remove, bring down the intensity of foreign accusations that the Red Army did not come to the aid of the rebels in Warsaw, and Zhukov and Rokossovsky ... did not want for the sake of political interests make further sacrifices and continue the offensive, which, as they believed, would not bring success.

Our troops needed a breather. When they tried to advance, they suffered unjustifiably considerable losses. Time was needed to bring up the lagging rear, to prepare for the crossing over the Vistula and for the assault on the Polish capital. In addition, it was necessary to prevent the dangerous threat of the German grouping hanging from the north. K. Rokossovsky concluded: “Frankly speaking, the most unfortunate time to start an uprising was exactly the one in which it arose. As if the leaders of the uprising deliberately chose the moment to be defeated.

“The situation in Warsaw became more and more difficult, strife began among the rebels. And only then did the leaders of the AK decide to turn to the Soviet command through London. Boss General Staff A.I. Antonov, having received a dispatch from them, formalized the connection between our troops and the rebels. Already on the second day after that, on September 18, British radio broadcast that General Boer reported on the coordination of actions with Rokossovsky's headquarters, and also that Soviet aircraft were continuously dropping weapons, ammunition and food to the rebels in Warsaw.

It turns out that there were no insurmountable problems to contact the command of the 1st Belorussian Front. There would be a desire. And Boer hurried to establish contact with us only after the attempt by the British to supply the rebels with the help of aircraft failed. In the afternoon, 80 Flying Fortress aircraft appeared over Warsaw, accompanied by Mustang fighters. They passed in groups at an altitude of 4500 meters and dropped the load. Of course, at such a height, it dissipated and did not hit its intended purpose. German anti-aircraft guns shot down two aircraft. After this incident, the British did not repeat their attempts.

From September 13 to October 1, 1944 Soviet aviation made 4821 sorties to help the rebels, including 2535 with cargo for their troops. At the request of the rebels, our planes covered their areas from the air, bombed and stormed German troops in the city, dropped 150 mortars, 500 anti-tank rifles, machine guns, ammunition from aircraft , medicines, 120 tons of food.

Rokossovsky said: “Expanding assistance to the rebels, we decided to land a strong landing force on the opposite bank, in Warsaw, using floating equipment. The organization of the operation was taken over by the headquarters of the 1st Polish army. The time and place of the landing, the plan for artillery and aviation support, mutual actions with the rebels - everything was discussed in advance with the leadership of the uprising. On September 16, the landing units of the Polish army moved across the Vistula. They landed on sections of the coast that were in the hands of the rebel detachments. All calculations were based on that. And suddenly it turned out that in these areas ... the Nazis.

The operation was difficult. The first landing force barely managed to cling to the shore. I had to bring new forces into battle. Losses grew. And the leaders of the rebels not only did not provide any assistance to the landing, but did not even try to contact him. Under such conditions, it was impossible to stay on the western bank of the Vistula. I decided to stop the operation. Helped the paratroopers to return to our shore. ... We soon learned that, by order of Bur-Komarovsky and Monter, units and detachments of the AK, by the beginning of the landing, were withdrawn from the coastal outskirts into the depths of the city. Their place was taken by the Nazi troops. At the same time, the units of the Human Army that were here suffered: the soldiers did not warn them that they were leaving coastal strip". In this operation, we lost 11,000 soldiers, the 1st Army of the Polish Army - 6,500. S. Shtemenko spoke in detail about the essence and course of the Warsaw Uprising in the book “The General Staff during the War Years”.

Officer military intelligence Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Kolos was thrown out in September 1944 in the heat of battle in Warsaw to carry out a combat mission. There he was wounded and shell-shocked, but, as L. Shchipakhina wrote, in 10 days he “managed to organize a reconnaissance network, got in touch with the leadership of the Home Army and the People's Army, met with the commander-in-chief, General Bur-Komarovsky. He corrected the actions of our pilots, who dropped weapons and food to the rebels. When the rebels capitulated, I. Kolos left through the sewer pipes near Warsaw, went to the Vistula and swam across it, reported to the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal Rokossovsky, about the situation in Warsaw and handed over valuable documents.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Victory, the Polish embassy invited I. Kolos to a reception, where he heard insulting words from the lips of the President of Poland A. Kwasniewski addressed to the USSR and our army. When the time came to receive a reward from his hands, Kolos said: “Personally, I have long forgiven everyone who interfered with my life, forgave human injustice, envy and ingratitude. But personally, I cannot betray all those who died for the liberation of Warsaw, Poland, and there were more than 600 thousand of them. I cannot betray my fighting friend Dmitry Stenko, who died in Warsaw. To betray those scouts who tried to establish contact with the rebels before me. Bowing to the memory of the dead, I cannot accept the commemorative medal.”

B. Urlanis in his book “The War and the Population of Europe” pointed out that “during the Yugoslav resistance, about 300 thousand people died (out of about 16 million of the country’s population), almost 29 thousand Albanians (out of only 1 million population), and Polish - 33 thousand (out of 35 million). V. Kozhinov concluded: “The proportion of the population who died in a real struggle with the German authorities in Poland is 20 times less than in Yugoslavia, and almost 30 times less than in Albania! .. (We are talking about the fallen with weapons in their hands )". The Poles fought in the British units in Italy, as part of our troops and in 1939 with the Germans. 123,000 Polish soldiers died for their homeland in 1939-1945, which is 0.3% of the total population. We have lost about 5% of the country's population.

Churchill said that "without the Russian armies, Poland would have been destroyed, and Polish nation wiped off the face of the earth." Isn't it for these our merits that the monument to Marshal I. Konev was removed from Krakow? The former Prime Minister of Poland, M. Rakovsky, wrote: “The toppling of the monument to Marshal I. Konev and defiantly sending it for scrap was a symbolic act of cretinism. Monument to the man who saved Krakow. E. Bereznyak, the head of the underground group "Voice", which did a lot to save Krakow from destruction by the Germans, was invited to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the city. And the day before the holiday, on January 17, 1995, in a Krakow newspaper, he “read that on January 18, 1945, half-dressed, hungry soldiers of Marshal Konev burst into the city and looting and violence began. It was further said: those who tomorrow, on the 18th, will lay wreaths and flowers on the graves of the occupiers, can delete themselves from the list of Poles.

Katyn, again Katyn

The discussion about the Warsaw Uprising is not the only one" hot spot in our relations with Poland. How many authors talk about "the execution of 24,000 Polish officers in the 'peaceful' summer of 1939" in the USSR and demand that we atone for this guilt. So, on May 6, 1998, I had to read in Tverskaya Zhizn: “No logic, except for the logic of evil revenge for the defeat in the war of 1920, can explain their senseless and absolutely lawless destruction in May 1940. We ... bear a historical responsibility for this. We'll have to stop at this "responsibility".

On May 3, 1943, the head of the Main Propaganda Directorate, Heinrik, sent a secret telegram to the German authorities in Krakow: “Yesterday, part of the delegation of the Polish Red Cross returned from Katyn. They brought shell casings with which the victims of Katyn were shot. It turned out that these were German 7.65 caliber Gecko ammunition. Goebbels wrote on May 8, 1943: “Unfortunately, German uniforms were found in the graves near Katyn ... These finds must always be kept in strict confidence. If our enemies found out about this, the whole scam with Katyn would fail. War veteran I. Krivoy said: “I declare with full responsibility and categoricality that I saw Polish prisoners of war several times in 1941 - literally on the eve of the war. I affirm that the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn forest before the occupation of the city of Smolensk by the Nazis were alive! There are other facts that speak about the involvement of the Germans in this atrocity.

Y. Mukhin in the book "Anti-Russian meanness" showed that the Poles were shot not in the spring of 1940, but in the autumn of 1941, when the Nazis had already occupied Katyn. Documents dated 1941 were found in the pockets of the dead. He proved that fakes are presented under the guise of declassified archival documents. So, as if the Special Meeting of the NKVD issued a death sentence to Polish officers, executed in the spring of 1940. But this meeting was given the right to make such decisions only in November 1941. And "the fact that the Special Council did not pass death sentences before the start of the war is confirmed by thousands of authentic documents in the archives."

After the liberation of Katyn in 1943, an international commission chaired by the surgeon Burdenko established that the Poles had been shot by the Germans in the autumn of 1941. The conclusions of the commission are fully presented in Yu. Mukhin's study "Katyn Detective", the articles by V. Shved "Again about Katyn", A. Martirosyan "Who shot the Polish officers in Katyn" and other publications.

The Statement of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation of November 26, 2010 states: “The main documents of the Goebbels version of the execution of the Poles by the NKVD of the USSR are the so-called documents unexpectedly discovered in the autumn of 1992. The main one is the “March note of Beria I.V. Stalin of 1940, in which it is allegedly proposed to shoot 27 thousand Polish officers and allegedly there is a positive resolution of Stalin. At the same time, both the content of the “note” and the circumstances of its appearance raise legitimate doubts about its authenticity. The same applies to two other "evidence" documents: an extract from the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of March 5, 1940 and a note by the chairman of the KGB of the USSR A. Shelepin addressed to N. Khrushchev in 1959. All of them abound huge amount semantic and spelling errors, as well as design errors that are unacceptable for this level of documents. There are enough grounds to assert that they were made in the early 1990s on the initiative of Yeltsin's entourage. There are undeniable, documented facts and evidence, as well as direct material evidence, pointing to the execution of Polish officers not by the NKVD of the USSR in the spring of 1940, but by the German occupation authorities in the autumn of 1941, after the capture Smolensk region by the forces of the Wehrmacht.

None of this was taken into account by the State Duma of the Russian Federation. In December 2010, she adopted the Statement “On the Katyn tragedy and its victims”, which unsubstantiatedly asserts that the blame for the execution of Polish prisoners of war lies with Soviet leaders and NKVD officers.

Having learned about the decision of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Kasyanov to pay money to the repressed Poles, E. Argin asked: “Who paid money to the relatives of 80,000 Red Army soldiers who were captured after the Soviet-Polish war of 1920? ... Who paid money to the relatives of thousands of Soviet soldiers - the liberators of Poland, who were vilely, from behind, killed by local nationalists and the like?

Professor of Warsaw University P. Vechorkevich wrote about the attitude of the authors of Polish textbooks towards Russia: “Our vision of Polish-Russian history is martyrological. There is no end to the damage that we have suffered from the Russians. Although this damage cannot be denied, it should not be taken out of the general historical context either. You can’t inflate myths about “Muscovites”, who are all bad.”

I would like to believe that the Poles will eventually understand that it is impossible to accumulate only grievances and forget about huge contribution the Soviet people and Soviet state in the creation of their current statehood, that hatred of Russia will not bring them anything good, that history itself has doomed the Poles and Russians to live in peace and friendship.

Operation Bagration is a triumph of the Soviet theory of military art due to the well-coordinated offensive movement of all fronts and the operation to misinform the enemy about the location of the general offensive that began in the summer of 1944.

In order to demonstrate to other countries the significance of success, 57,600 German prisoners of war captured near Minsk were marched through Moscow - for about three hours a column of prisoners of war walked along the streets of Moscow, and after the march the streets were washed and cleaned.

German losses were also high in the command staff: 9 generals were killed, 22 were captured, 1 was missing and two committed suicide.

American researcher Steven Zaloga in 1995 estimated the losses of German troops as follows: 300,000 killed, 250,000 wounded, 120,000 taken prisoner (the city of Bobruisk became the main point of holding captured Germans). Total losses: about 670,000 people.

According to Soviet data, from June 23 to July 23, 1944, the Germans lost 381,000 killed, 158,480 prisoners, 2,735 tanks and self-propelled guns, 631 aircraft and 57,152 vehicles.

Losses of the Soviet side: 2956 tanks and 2447 pieces of artillery, 822 aircraft. The casualties amounted to: 178,507 people (7.6% of the personnel) killed and missing, 587,308 wounded.

The offensive of the Soviet troops was accompanied by heavy fighting. So, during the storming of Brest, 10 thousand Germans were killed and about one and a half were taken prisoner. Soviet soldiers entered almost empty city. The success of the offensive was ensured by the heroism of the soldiers and Rokossovsky, who developed the concept of the Lublin-Brest operation. When entering the Baltic states, the advance of the thinned Soviet units was so difficult that they even had to partially retreat. Troops along the entire front went on the defensive.

Subsequent events

Soviet troops poured into a huge gap 900 km long, which opened in the German defense lines between Army Groups North and South, and in a month and a half reached East Prussia, an outpost of the Third Reich. Army Group "North" was cut off from all land connecting routes (although it was freely supplied by sea and could be evacuated at any moment) and with heavy losses held the so-called Courland pocket (it was not a boiler in the full sense of the word), until surrender Germany in 1945.

Partisan zones, the first measures to renew the national economy.

While the troops of the Wehrmacht and the USSR fought for Moscow and Stalingrad, other wars were fought in the German rear: partisan and underground. The first partisan detachments consisted of soldiers who were surrounded and forced to hide in the forests. Later, the landing of specially trained detachments began in the German rear, communication was established with existing partisan groups. The "Great Land" provided all kinds of support to the partisans. Planes with a cargo of medicines and weapons were flowing in a continuous stream. Air support for major guerrilla battles often made the difference. Thanks to the operations carried out, hundreds of echelons of Germans were derailed, carrying fuel, tanks, and soldiers to the front. Bridges and motorcades were destroyed. But special attention should be paid to the so-called partisan zones.

A partisan zone is a partially liberated territory in which partisans were actively fighting.

Here are the most important conditions for the formation and expansion of partisan territories and zones:

1. Active fighting partisans

2. The presence of favorable geographical conditions (wooded and swampy areas).

3. The heroic struggle of the Soviet Army at the front, depriving the enemy of the opportunity to allocate forces sufficient to control the entire occupied territory.

Many villages were liberated from German oppression. In the partisan zones, with the active participation of the population, the organs of Soviet power were restored or their functions were performed by the partisan command, partisan commandants and other bodies. At the same time, collective farms, local industries, cultural, medical and other institutions were restored. In the partisan territories and zones, sowing and harvesting were carried out in an organized manner. Schools reopened. Such zones were the center of popular resistance, and marked the beginning of the renewal of the national economy.

The purpose of these zones was to create a basis for the restoration of the destroyed economy of the country, as well as, at least partially, free Belarus.

The materials presented in this test were taken from Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia.

Ru. wikipedia. org

In defense of such a source of information, I want to say that all the information in it is taken from various encyclopedias, subjected to verification and systematized.

Operation "Bagration"

In the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of May 1, 1944, the tasks of the Red Army for the summer and autumn were formulated. She had to complete the expulsion of the invaders with Soviet territory, restore the state border of the USSR along its entire length, withdraw the European allies from the war on the side of Germany and free the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and other peoples of Western Europe from fascist captivity. For solutions specified tasks during the summer-autumn campaign, it was planned to prepare and consistently conduct a whole series of strategic offensive operations in a vast area - from the Arctic to the Black Sea. Paramount in Stavka's plans Supreme High Command for the summer of 1944, the Belarusian operation was assigned.

By the summer of 1944, the front line in the Belarusian direction was bent in such a way that a huge ledge arose, which deeply wedged into the location of the Soviet troops. This ledge was an important strategic foothold for the Germans. Thanks to him, the German troops covered the approaches to Poland and East Prussia, maintained a stable position in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine. The Wehrmacht command also took into account the fact that the Belarusian network of railways and highways made it possible to maneuver forces and means in order to maintain interaction between the army groups "North", "Center" and "Northern Ukraine".

In addition, the ledge hung from the north over the troops of the 1st Ukrainian front and created the threat of flank attacks. Besides german aviation had the opportunity to raid Soviet communications and industrial centers, based on airfields in Belarus.

Therefore, the German command sought to keep the Belarusian ledge at any cost. It prepared him for a stubborn defense, the main role in which it was assigned to Army Group Center, led by Field Marshal E. Bush.

At the northern junction of the Army Group "Center", the defense was held by the formations of the German 16th Army, which was part of the Army Group "North", and at the southern - by the formations of the 4th Panzer Army from the Army Group "Northern Ukraine". The main enemy forces were concentrated in the areas of Polotsk, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk and Kovel, where they covered the most convenient directions for the offensive.

The troops of four fronts were supposed to take part in the Belarusian operation. The 1st Baltic Front under the command of General I. Kh. Chernyakhovsky - south of Vitebsk to Borisov. The 2nd Belorussian Front under General G.F. operated in the Mogilev direction. Zakharov. Troops of the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of General K.K. Rokossovsky aimed at Bobruisk, Minsk.

The developed Belarusian strategic offensive operation received code name"Bagration" - in honor of the outstanding Russian commander, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, infantry general Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration.

According to the nature of the hostilities and the content of the tasks, the Belarusian operation is divided into two stages. At the 1st stage, the Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk and Polotsk front-line operations were carried out and the encirclement of the Minsk group of the enemy was completed. In terms of duration, this stage took the period from June 23 to July 4.

The course of hostilities was as follows. On June 23, the troops of the 1st Baltic, 2nd and 3rd Belarusian fronts. The next day, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front entered the battle. The offensive of the main forces was preceded by reconnaissance in force, carried out on the morning of June 22 on the 1st Baltic, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts and on June 23 - on the 1st Belorussian front.

The troops of the 1st Baltic Front, together with the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front, already on June 25 surrounded 5 German divisions in the Vitebsk region and west of it and liquidated them by June 27. On this day, Orsha was liberated, on June 28 - Lepel, and on July 1 - Borisov. As a result, the German 3rd Panzer Army was cut off from the 4th Army.

Troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front after breaking through the enemy defenses along the river. Pronya, Basya and Dnepr liberated Mogilev on June 28. The troops of the right edge of the 1st Belorussian Front on June 27 surrounded over 6 German divisions in the Bobruisk region and liquidated them by June 29. At the same time, the troops of the front reached the line Svisloch - Osipovichi - Starye Dorogi. On July 3, eastern Minsk was liberated, which was surrounded by formations of the German 4th and 9th armies (over 100 thousand people). Somewhat earlier, on June 28, the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal E. Bush, was removed from his post. Instead, Field Marshal V. Model was appointed. This circumstance had no effect on the state of affairs at the front. Soviet troops continued to advance rapidly.

On July 4, the troops of the 1st Baltic Front liberated Polotsk and continued their attack on Siauliai. In 12 days, Soviet troops advanced 225-280 km at an average daily pace of up to 20-25 km, liberating most of Belarus.

The fascist German army group "Center" was defeated - its main forces were surrounded and defeated. With the release of our troops to the line Polotsk - Lake. Naroch - Molodechno - west of the city of Nesvizh, a gap of 400 km was formed in the strategic front of the enemy. An attempt by the German command to close it was unsuccessful.

At the 2nd stage of the Belarusian operation, which lasted from July 5 to August 29, the fronts, closely interacting with each other, successfully carried out 5 offensive operations: Siauliai, Vilnius, Kaunas, Belostok and Lublin-Brest.

The German divisions, which were surrounded in the area east of Minsk, tried to break through to the west and southwest. But during the fighting, most of the enemy soldiers and officers were either captured or destroyed.

The troops of the fronts continued to smash the remnants of the formations of Army Group Center and inflict heavy damage on enemy manpower and equipment.

The German command intensively transferred fresh units to this sector of the front from Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, as well as from the army groups North, South Ukraine and North Ukraine.

As a result of the offensive of the Soviet troops, all of Belarus, as well as part of Lithuania and Latvia, were liberated. Our troops entered the territory of Poland. We came close to the borders of East Prussia. German group armies "North" was isolated in the Baltic.

The success achieved during the Belarusian operation was used by the Headquarters for decisive actions in other directions. On July 10-24, the troops of the Leningrad, 3rd and 2nd Baltic fronts, as well as the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, went on the offensive. The front of the strategic offensive stretched from the Baltic to the Carpathians. The Soviet troops, which included the 1st Army of the Polish Army, crossed the state border of the Soviet Union with Poland on July 17-18.

By August 29, the advancing troops reached the line of Jelgava - Dobele - Augustov - pp. Narew and Vistula. Further promotion Soviet army was stopped by the enemy. The reasons for this are the general fatigue of the troops and the lack of ammunition. The Red Army in this sector of the front was forced to go on the defensive.

For 68 days of continuous offensive, Soviet troops in the 1100 km zone advanced westward by 550-600 km.

Literature

1. "Operation" Bagration "liberation of Belarus" Moscow, OLMA-PRESS, 2004

Naturally, to summer campaign 1944, both sides were preparing. The German command, led by Hitler, considered that their opponents would deliver a powerful blow from Ukraine, from the territory that had been liberated in the winter of 1943-1944, and cut off two army groups at once. It cannot be said that such grandiose plans were not hatched by the Soviet command before. For example, there was a plan polar Star”, during which they were going to cut off the entire army group “North”. Similarly, during the operation Big Saturn"could cut off two army groups at once with a blow to Rostov after Stalingrad. However, in the summer of 1944, the Soviet command had completely different plans.

Note that at first the situation developed, as they say, wherever you throw, everywhere is a wedge. In Ukraine, indeed, they achieved great success, but large mechanized formations of the enemy, many tanks, also gathered here. By that time, there were not so many new T-34-85s, and the prospects for the development of these successful strikes were rather vague (one of the major Soviet staff officers, General of the Army Sergei Shtemenko, frankly writes about this). In Belarus, the situation was also not sugar: the so-called “Belarusian balcony” was formed, which could not be moved. During the entire winter campaign, he was hollowed out from all sides, but the results were, frankly, disappointing. Moreover, in the spring of 1944, a commission state committee defense that resulted in heads flying. That is, people were removed from command, in particular, Vasily Sokolovsky was removed from the post of commander Western Front, and continue to peck his forehead at this "Belarusian balcony" seemed not the best idea. But nevertheless, it was decided to do just that: to try to destroy this giant ledge that hung over both Ukraine and prevented it from breaking into the Baltic states.

In the summer of 1944, Hitler expected the offensive of Soviet troops in Ukraine

As a reinforcement of those troops that were supposed to attack the "Belarusian Balcony", they sent new commanders instead of those removed as a result of the winter campaign. So the 37-year-old General Ivan Chernyakhovsky became the commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front. In general, it is worth noting that the fronts were cut more finely so that the commanders could sit closer to the troops and see what was happening.

They sent the conqueror of the Crimea, General Georgy Zakharov, a man of a rather complex character, who, first of all, having arrived on the 2nd Belorussian Front, began to teach everyone how to attack by the Crimean standards. But they quickly explained to him that in the forests of Belarus, these techniques of his that he offers are completely useless. And, in general, Sergei Shtemenko, who was mentioned above, was also sent as an observer from the Headquarters. He was a kind of counterbalance to the rather energetic, one might even say, authoritarian Zakharov, and constantly pulled him up. In fact, they had, to put it mildly, a difficult relationship, as, indeed, did the commanders of armies and even divisions. Therefore, planning was very careful, since the main task was not to frighten off the enemy. It was clear that most of the mechanized formations were in Ukraine, but if the Germans sniffed something out, that was all. The risk was huge.

The camouflage measures were widely deployed. First, there was strict radio silence. One of the Germans even spoke out: "I felt that something was wrong precisely because of the fact that the silence on the radio was complete." All marches were made at night. For this, the rear side of the car and the hood were painted white. It was strictly forbidden to make any overtaking. And just like that, in single file, like blind on, again, bright white painted signs, the cars moved at night. When morning came, everyone stopped and hid in the forest. Aircraft Po-2, "Kukuruzniki" constantly flew around the areas of concentration of troops. And those who broke the disguise were immediately dropped the pennant. It was, one might say, humiliating. And during the day - movement only in reverse side. And there were about a hundred cars to the front, which were allowed to drive around the clock. But this, again, was strictly regulated.

Commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army Pavel Rotmistrov at the command post, 1944

But back to planning. It was decided to strike in several places. Why? The fact is that the terrain was extremely difficult, it was dangerous to move large masses of troops. In addition, the concentration of tank armies in one place would have been noticed anyway. Therefore, they distributed blows along the front, deciding to bring down the German front gradually.

There is a well-known story about how Zhukov insisted that there should be one blow, and Rokossovsky said: "Let's hit Bobruisk from two sides." And I must say that shortly before the operation, Zhukov, who went to the area where the main attack from the east to Bobruisk was supposed to be, said: “Nothing, nothing, you will break through to Bobruisk, we will stretch out a hand to you. We will pull you out of those swamps where you are going to attack. And Rokossovsky remained just south of Bobruisk. He was sure that where he would strike, the Germans were weaker, even if the terrain was worse, and he would achieve more success. He managed to extort, and in a personal conversation with Stalin. When they told him: “Are you sure that you should strike two blows? Go out into another room, think, and then come back.” And so he returned three times like this (this is one of famous stories about how he was persuaded to act as Zhukov advises). Nevertheless, he defended his decision, and Stalin said: "Yes, let him act like that." And it helped later.

Operation Bagration began on the third anniversary of the attack on the USSR

By the way, the operation was postponed relative to the time when it was supposed to begin according to plans. Stalin, when the Allies landed in Normandy, wrote to Churchill that in the near future, in mid-June, the offensive would begin. But that did not happen. In fact, the operation began on June 22, but history most often appears on the 23rd, since reconnaissance in force began on the 22nd.

Unfortunately, Soviet memories about "Bagration" written like a blueprint: we had solid swamps, but we figured out how to break through them. In fact, everything was not so bad, and this engineering training played, rather, an auxiliary role. First of all, it was precisely the identification of the enemy’s defense system, the accumulation of sufficient forces in order to deliver a blow that would not be repelled. And most importantly, the Germans assembled a tank fist in Ukraine. They had seven tank divisions in the Northern Ukraine Army Group. In Belarus, in all Army Groups "Center" - one tank division. And, in fact, they did not have reserves to seal the breakthroughs. What they managed to do earlier, again, in the winter of 1943-1944, before that near Rzhev, was all at the expense of tank divisions. Soviet troops broke through somewhere - the Panzerwaffe immediately rushes there and stands up as a wall. And breaking through this wall was very difficult. And in Belarus, Army Group Center was, in fact, a colossus with feet of clay. But this colossus had to be hit hard enough to make him fall from his feet of clay. And that was precisely the point of this strong blow.

Army Group Center was commanded by Field Marshal Ernst Busch. Defense genius Model was in the Northern Ukraine Army Group. It was believed that it was he who would take the blow of the Red Army. The confidence was so strong that two days before the Soviet offensive, Bush went on vacation (which Hitler later reminded him of).

Army Group Center Commander Field Marshal Walter Model (next to the driver), 1944

Now let's move on to statistics. At the time of the start of the operation, the Reich air fleet consisted of almost 1,400 aircraft. The 3rd Air Fleet in the West had more than 500 machines, the 6th Air Fleet in Belarus - more than 600. On the Soviet side, they were opposed by more than 5330 aircraft, including 1800 attack aircraft, 400 light Po-2s and 2500 fighters.

As for tanks, the Germans had 530 tanks and self-propelled guns. Tanks, in fact, was less. Most of the armored vehicles were distributed among the infantry divisions. We had 4000 tanks. That is, the ratio of forces was 1:8.

But the main thing to evaluate is the number of mobile connections. The Germans had one tank and two tank-grenadier divisions. We had a cavalry-mechanized group of Pliev discharged from near Odessa, which was sent just to the place that Rokossovsky chose for himself. Rotmistrov's tank army was also involved, which had previously been advancing in the southwestern direction.

It all started on the right flank of the advancing troops (respectively, on the left flank of the Germans). As ordered by Hitler big cities in the band of the Army Group "Center" were declared "fortresses" (including Vitebsk), which had to be held at any cost. In fact, the idea is not so stupid, but nevertheless, at that time, the German military leaders, one might say, sabotaged it. So, Vitebsk, which held out the previous winter, was defeated in just a few days. They shifted the direction of the blows, hit a little further. And in just two days, they managed to create a threat of encirclement. Naturally, the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, Reinhardt, said: "Let's take it all away." They answered him: "No." That is, Bush played the role of a simple translator of Hitler's orders. Although he tried to politely turn upstairs: “Maybe we can still take him away?” But nevertheless, when they told him: “No”, he agreed and broadcast it down. And, accordingly, Vitebsk was surrounded very quickly. They tried to break out of it, but Hitler ordered to stay there until the end. In addition, he wished to send an officer of the General Staff to the “fortress” with this news, to which Reinhardt enthusiastically told him: “Such a wonderful order, my Fuhrer, I must deliver personally. I myself will parachute to Vitebsk.” Naturally, Hitler was taken aback, and the question of someone parachuting into Vitebsk, delivering this, of course, an important order, was closed. But nevertheless, the garrison was told on the radio: “A division must remain in this fortress. Name the commander."

57,600 German prisoners took part in Operation "Great Waltz"

The commander's name was Alfons Hitter. After holding out for almost twelve hours, he decided that he had no prospects, and rushed into the forests southwest of the city. There, in fact, the remnants of his division and corps under the command of General Gollwitzer were surrounded. Subsequently, they were among those who walked around Moscow.

Member of the Military Council of the 3rd Belorussian Front Vasily Makarov, Alexander Vasilevsky and Ivan Chernyakhovsky interrogate the commander of the 206th Infantry Division Alfons Hitter, 1944

One way or another, the "fortress" Vitebsk fell. AT German front a 150-kilometer gap formed. It was a breakthrough on their left flank. In the meantime, things went well with Rokossovsky. Despite the fact that Zhukov promised: "We will extend our hand to you, we will pull you out of the swamps," the offensive, which, in fact, he observed and which was carried out by Gorbatov's army, did not develop very quickly.

But the idea of ​​​​Rokossovsky - to break through the swamps - worked. The defense there was weaker, therefore, Pliev’s cavalry-mechanized group was quickly introduced into the breakthrough, tank corps, and Rokossovsky held out his hand (he broke through to Bobruisk faster). And so this single German tank division, when a serious crisis arose south of the city, turned 180 degrees, and she rushed to put out the fire there. While she ran from south to north, from north to south, the front was broken through, another pocket was formed, this time near Bobruisk. It was hit by the 9th Army, the same one that defended Rzhev, which was advancing near Kursk. Her fate was sad - she was defeated. At this point, on June 28, Bush is removed from command and Model is put in his place. I must say that Model did not save his 9th Army. In fact, he left her to the mercy of fate, realizing that the front needed to be restored.

"Bagration" is one of the largest military operations

Having two breakthroughs with a total front length of 700 kilometers, seeing the advancing Soviet mechanized units, the Germans were forced to flee with all their might to Minsk. At first they thought to hold the front in the area of ​​the Berezina River. Berezina is generally a cursed place: in 1812, Napoleon tried to retreat there very unsuccessfully, the same thing happened with the 4th German army.

Against the Soviet tank columns marching on Minsk, Model threw the 5th Panzer Division, which was one of two fully equipped divisions. It had about 200 tanks: more than half - "Tigers" and "Panthers". Rotmistrov did not have a single T-34-85 in July 1944.

And now two tank corps of Rotmistrov's army at full speed crash into this 5th tank division with "Tigers" and "Panthers". The battle, of course, did not work out in favor of the first. But since Rotmistrov was not the only contender for Minsk, the German division was unable to build a solid front. And the 2nd Tatsinsky guards corps of Burdeyny, advancing along the neighboring route, entered Minsk. From the south, respectively, entered the 1st Guards Tank Corps from the Rokossovsky front. It happened on July 3rd. And this mass of German infantry, which hurried first to the Berezina, and then to Minsk, was surrounded. By July 11, it was completely eliminated.

Operation "Bagration", which became the largest defeat Nazi troops in World War II, ended on 29 August. German losses amounted to approximately 500 thousand people. Of these, almost 300 thousand people were missing, 150 thousand were taken prisoner.

"Great Waltz" in Moscow, July 17, 1944

And finally, let's say a few words about the march of German prisoners of war through the streets of Moscow. The fact is that in the West, where things were not going very well, they doubted such a grandiose success of the Soviet army. And then they decided to carry out an operation called "The Great Waltz" (it was then a popular American film). More than 57 thousand German prisoners were gathered at the Moscow hippodrome and the Dynamo stadium. And on July 17, announcing it in the morning newspapers and on the radio (they didn’t tell anyone in advance), they were driven off by a march along Tverskaya Street and along the Garden Ring. Starting from the hippodrome and the Dynamo stadium, the prisoners walked to Mayakovsky Square, then divided into two streams: through Crimean bridge, Kanatchikovo station and to the Kursk railway station.

This procession was led by 19 generals who were taken prisoner. And only they were shaved. That is, in the morning they fed all the soldiers and officers with breakfast, and only the generals were given a shave. And behind them (the generals) was this mass of people who had previously run away from the attack aircraft through the forests. They looked rather miserable. Wandering through the woods for several weeks under strong psychological pressure, when your comrades are constantly mowing next to you, all this made an indelible impression on them for the rest of their lives.

A unit of the 3rd Belorussian Front is forcing the Luchesa River.
June 1944

This year marks 70 years since the Red Army carried out one of the largest strategic operations of the Great Patriotic War - Operation Bagration. During it, the Red Army not only liberated the people of Belarus from occupation, but also significantly undermined the forces of the enemy, brought the collapse of fascism closer - our Victory.

Unparalleled in terms of spatial scope, the Belarusian offensive operation is rightfully considered the greatest achievement of the national military art. As a result, the most powerful grouping of the Wehrmacht was defeated. This was made possible thanks to the unparalleled courage, heroism of determination and self-sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of people. Soviet soldiers and partisans of Belarus, many of whom died a heroic death on Belarusian soil in the name of Victory over the enemy.

Map of the Belarusian operation

After the offensive in the winter of 1943-1944. the front line formed in Belarus a huge ledge with an area of ​​\u200b\u200babout 250 thousand square meters. km, facing east. It penetrated deeply into the location of the Soviet troops and was of great operational and strategic importance for both sides. The elimination of this ledge and the liberation of Belarus opened the Red Army the shortest route to Poland and Germany, endangered flank attacks by the enemy army groups "North" and "Northern Ukraine".

On the central direction the Soviet troops were opposed by the Army Group "Center" (3rd tank, 4th, 9th and 2nd armies) under the command of Field Marshal E. Bush. It was supported by aviation of the 6th and partly of the 1st and 4th air fleets. In total, the enemy grouping included 63 divisions and 3 infantry brigades, in which there were 800 thousand people, 7.6 thousand guns and mortars, 900 tanks and assault guns, and more than 1300 combat aircraft. The reserve of the Army Group "Center" had 11 divisions, most of which were involved in the fight against the partisans.

During the summer-autumn campaign of 1944, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command planned to conduct a strategic operation for the final liberation of Belarus, in which the troops of 4 fronts were to act in concert. The troops of the 1st Baltic (commander general of the army), 3rd (commander colonel general), 2nd (commander colonel general G.F. Zakharov) and 1st Belorussian fronts (commander general of the army) were involved in the operation. , aviation long range, Dneprovskaya military flotilla, as well as a large number of formations and detachments of Belarusian partisans.

Commander of the 1st Baltic Front General of the Army
THEM. Baghramyan and Chief of Staff of the Front Lieutenant General
V.V. Kurasov during the Belarusian operation

The fronts included 20 combined arms, 2 tank and 5 air armies. In total, the group consisted of 178 rifle divisions, 12 tank and mechanized corps and 21 brigades. 5 air armies provided air support and cover for the troops of the fronts.

The idea of ​​the operation was to break through the enemy defenses in 6 directions with deep strikes from 4 fronts, encircle and destroy enemy groups on the flanks of the Belarusian ledge - in the areas of Vitebsk and Bobruisk, after which, advancing in converging directions on Minsk, surround and liquidate east of the Belarusian capital the main forces of Army Group Center. In the future, increasing the force of the strike, reach the line Kaunas - Bialystok - Lublin.

When choosing the direction of the main attack, the idea of ​​​​concentrating forces in the Minsk direction was clearly expressed. The simultaneous breakthrough of the front in 6 sectors led to the dissection of the enemy's forces, making it difficult for him to use reserves in repelling the offensive of our troops.

To strengthen the grouping, in the spring and summer of 1944, the Headquarters replenished the fronts with four combined arms, two tank armies, four breakthrough artillery divisions, two anti-aircraft artillery divisions, four engineering and sapper brigades. In the 1.5 months preceding the operation, the numerical strength of the grouping of Soviet troops in Belarus increased by more than 4 times in tanks, almost 2 times in artillery, and by two-thirds in aircraft.

The enemy, not expecting large-scale actions in this direction, expected to repel a private offensive of the Soviet troops with the forces and means of Army Group Center, located in one echelon, mainly only in the tactical defense zone, which consisted of 2 defensive lanes with a depth of 8 to 12 km . At the same time, using the terrain favorable for defense, he created a multi-lane, defense in depth, consisting of several lines, with a total depth of up to 250 km. Defense lines were built according to western shores rec. The cities of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Borisov, Minsk were turned into powerful defense centers.

By the beginning of the operation, the advancing troops included 1.2 million people, 34,000 guns and mortars, 4,070 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and about 5,000 combat aircraft. Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy in terms of manpower by 1.5 times, guns and mortars by 4.4 times, tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts by 4.5 times, and aircraft by 3.6 times.

In none of the previous offensive operations did the Red Army have such a quantity of artillery, tanks and combat aircraft, and such superiority in forces, as in the Belorussian one.

By the directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the tasks for the fronts were determined as follows:

Troops of the 1st Baltic Front to break through the enemy defenses northwest of Vitebsk, capture the Beshenkovichi area, and part of the forces, in cooperation with the right-flank army of the 3rd Belorussian Front, encircle and destroy the enemy in the Vitebsk area. Subsequently, develop an offensive on Lepel;

The troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front, in cooperation with the left wing of the 1st Baltic Front and the 2nd Belorussian Front, defeat the enemy's Vitebsk-Orsha grouping and reach the Berezina. To accomplish this task, the front had to strike in two directions (with the forces of 2 armies in each): on Senno, and along the Minsk highway on Borisov, and part of the forces on Orsha. The main forces of the front must develop an offensive towards the Berezina River;

Troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, in cooperation with the left wing of the 3rd and the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Fronts, to defeat the Mogilev group, liberate Mogilev and reach the Berezina River;

Troops of the 1st Belorussian Front to defeat the Bobruisk grouping of the enemy. To this end, the front was to deliver two blows: one from the Rogachev area in the direction of Bobruisk, Osipovichi, the second - from the area of ​​​​the lower reaches of the Berezina to Starye Dorogi, Slutsk. At the same time, the troops of the right wing of the front were to assist the 2nd Belorussian Front in defeating the enemy's Mogilev grouping;

The troops of the 3rd and 1st Belorussian Fronts, after the defeat of the enemy's flank groupings, were to develop an offensive in converging directions to Minsk and, in cooperation with the 2nd Belorussian Front and partisans, encircle its main forces east of Minsk.

The partisans were also given the task of disorganizing the work of the rear of the enemy, disrupting the supply of reserves, capturing important lines, crossings and bridgeheads on the rivers, and holding them until the approach of the advancing troops. The first undermining of the rails should be carried out on the night of June 20.

Much attention was paid to the concentration of aviation efforts on directing the main attacks of the fronts and maintaining air supremacy. Only on the eve of the offensive, aviation made 2,700 sorties and carried out powerful aviation training in areas of front breakthrough.

The duration of artillery preparation was planned from 2 hours to 2 hours and 20 minutes. Support for the attack was planned by methods of barrage, sequential concentration of fire, as well as a combination of both methods. In the offensive zones of the 2nd armies of the 1st Belorussian Front, operating in the direction of the main attack, for the first time support for the attack of infantry and tanks was carried out using the double barrage method.

At the headquarters of the 1st Belorussian Front. The chief of staff, Colonel General M.S., is on the phone. Malinin, far left - Front Commander General of the Army K.K. Rokossovsky. Bobruisk region. Summer 1944

The coordination of the actions of the troops of the fronts was entrusted to the representatives of the Headquarters - the chief of the General Staff of the Marshal of the Soviet Union and the deputy Supreme Commander Marshal of the Soviet Union. For the same purpose, the head of the operational department of the General Staff, General, was sent to the 2nd Belorussian Front. The actions of the air armies were coordinated by Air Chief Marshal A.A. Novikov and Air Marshal F.Ya. Falaleev. Marshal of Artillery N.D. arrived from Moscow to help the artillery commanders and headquarters. Yakovlev and Colonel-General of Artillery M.N. Chistyakov.

The operation required 400,000 tons of ammunition, about 300,000 tons of fuel, over 500,000 tons of food and fodder, which were delivered on time.

According to the nature of the hostilities and the content of the tasks, the operation "Bagration" is divided into two stages: the first - from June 23 to July 4, 1944, during which 5 front-line operations were carried out: Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk and Minsk, and the second - from July 5 to August 29, 1944, which included 5 more front-line operations: Siauliai, Vilnius, Kaunas, Bialystok and Lublin-Brest.

The 1st stage of the Bagration operation included breaking through the enemy defenses to the entire tactical depth, expanding the breakthrough towards the flanks and defeating the nearest operational reserves and capturing a number of cities, incl. the liberation of the capital of Belarus - Minsk; Stage 2 - development of success in depth, overcoming intermediate defensive lines, defeating the main operational reserves of the enemy, capturing important lines and bridgeheads on the river. Wisla. Specific tasks for the fronts were determined to a depth of up to 160 km.

The offensive of the troops of the 1st Baltic, 3rd and 2nd Belorussian fronts began on June 23. A day later, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front joined the battle. The offensive was preceded by reconnaissance in force.

The actions of the troops during the operation "Bagration", as in no other operation of the Soviet troops before that, almost exactly corresponded to its plan and the tasks received. During 12 days of intense fighting in the first stage of the operation, the main forces of Army Group Center were defeated.

German captured soldiers of the Army Group "Center" are being escorted through Moscow.
July 17, 1944

The troops, advancing 225-280 km at an average daily pace of 20-25 km, liberated most of Belarus. In the areas of Vitebsk, Bobruisk and Minsk, a total of about 30 German divisions were surrounded and defeated. The enemy front in the central direction was crushed. Results achieved created the conditions for a subsequent offensive in the Siauliai, Vilnius, Grodno and Brest directions, as well as for the transition to active operations in other sectors of the Soviet-German front.

Fighter, liberate your Belarus. Poster by V. Koretsky. 1944

The goals set for the fronts were fully achieved. The success of the Belorussian operation was timely used by the Headquarters for decisive actions in other directions of the Soviet-German front. On July 13, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front went on the offensive. The general offensive front expanded from Baltic Sea to the Carpathians. Soviet troops on July 17-18 crossed state border Soviet Union with Poland. By August 29, they reached the line - Jelgava, Dobele, Augustow and the Narew and Vistula rivers.

Vistula river. Crossing tanks. 1944

Further development of the offensive with an acute shortage of ammunition and fatigue of the Soviet troops would not have been successful, and by order of the Stavka they went over to the defensive.

2nd Belorussian Front: Front Commander General of the Army
G.F. Zakharov, member of the Military Council, Lieutenant General N.E. Subbotin and Colonel General K.A. Vershinin are discussing a plan to strike the enemy from the air. August 1944

As a result of the Belarusian operation, favorable conditions not only to inflict new powerful blows on enemy groupings operating on the Soviet-German front in the Baltic States, East Prussia and Poland, in the Warsaw-Berlin direction, but also to deploy offensive operations of the Anglo-American troops that landed in Normandy.

The Belarusian offensive operation of the group of fronts, which lasted 68 days, is one of the outstanding operations not only of the Great Patriotic War, but of the entire Second World War. Its distinguishing feature is its huge spatial scope and impressive operational and strategic results.

Military Council of the 3rd Belorussian Front. From left to right: Chief of Staff of the Front, Colonel-General A.P. Pokrovsky, a member of the Military Council of the Front, Lieutenant General V.E. Makarov, commander of the front troops, General of the Army I.D. Chernyakhovsky. September 1944

The troops of the Red Army, having launched an offensive on June 23 on a front of 700 km, by the end of August advanced 550-600 km to the west, expanding the front of hostilities to 1,100 km. The vast territory of Belarus and a significant part of eastern Poland were cleared of the German occupiers. Soviet troops reached the Vistula, the approaches to Warsaw and the border with East Prussia.

Battalion commander of the 297th Infantry Regiment of the 184th Division of the 5th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front Captain G.N. Gubkin (right) with officers on reconnaissance. On August 17, 1944, his battalion was the first in the Red Army to break through to the border of East Prussia

During the operation, the largest German group suffered a crushing defeat. Of the 179 divisions and 5 brigades of the Wehrmacht, then operating on the Soviet-German front, 17 divisions and 3 brigades were completely destroyed in Belarus, and 50 divisions lost more than 50% personnel, lost combat capability. German troops lost about 500 thousand soldiers and officers.

Operation "Bagration" showed bright examples high skill Soviet generals and military leaders. She made a significant contribution to the development of strategy, operational art and tactics; enriched military art experience in encircling and destroying large enemy groupings in a short time and in the most various conditions environment. The task of breaking through the powerful defense of the enemy was successfully solved, as well as rapid development success in operational depth due to the skillful use of large tank formations and formations.

In the struggle for the liberation of Belorussia, Soviet soldiers displayed mass heroism and high combat skills. 1500 of its participants became Heroes of the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands were awarded orders and medals of the USSR. Among the Heroes of the Soviet Union and those awarded were soldiers of all nationalities of the USSR.

Exclusively important role partisan formations played in the liberation of Belarus.

Parade of partisan brigades after liberation
the capital of Belarus - Minsk

Solving tasks in close cooperation with the troops of the Red Army, they destroyed over 15 thousand and captured more than 17 thousand enemy soldiers and officers. The motherland highly appreciated the feat of the partisans and underground fighters. Many of them were awarded orders and medals, and 87 who especially distinguished themselves became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

But the victory came at a high price. At the same time, the high intensity of hostilities, the early transition of the enemy to the defensive, the difficult conditions of the wooded and swampy terrain, the need to overcome large water barriers and other natural obstacles led to heavy losses in people. During the offensive, the troops of four fronts lost 765,815 people killed, wounded, missing and sick, which is almost 50% of their total strength to the start of the operation. And irretrievable losses amounted to 178,507 people. Our troops also had heavy losses in armament.

The world community appreciated the events on the central sector of the Soviet-German front. Political and military figures of the West, diplomats and journalists noted their significant influence on the further course of the Second World War. “The swiftness of the offensive of your armies is amazing,” wrote President of the United States of America F. Roosevelt on July 21, 1944 to I.V. Stalin. In a telegram to the head Soviet government dated July 24, British Prime Minister W. Churchill called the events in Belarus "victories of great importance." One of the Turkish newspapers stated on July 9: "If the advance of the Russians continues at the same pace, the Russian troops will enter Berlin faster than the Allied troops will finish operations in Normandy."

Professor Edinburgh University the well-known English specialist in military-strategic problems, J. Erickson, in his book “The Road to Berlin” emphasized: “The defeat of the Army Group Center by the Soviet troops was their biggest success achieved ... as a result of one operation. For the German army... it was a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, bigger than Stalingrad."

Operation Bagration was the first major offensive operation of the Red Army, carried out at a time when the armed forces of the United States and Great Britain began hostilities in Western Europe. However, 70% of the ground forces of the Wehrmacht continued to fight on the Soviet-German front. The catastrophe in Belarus forced the German command to transfer large strategic reserves here from the west, which, of course, created favorable conditions for the offensive operations of the allies after the landing of their troops in Normandy and the conduct of a coalition war in Europe.

The successful offensive of the 1st Baltic, 3rd, 2nd and 1st Belorussian fronts in the western direction in the summer of 1944 radically changed the situation on the entire Soviet-German front, led to a sharp weakening of the combat potential of the Wehrmacht. By liquidating the Belarusian ledge, they eliminated the threat of flank attacks from the north for the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which were advancing in the Lvov and Rava-Russian directions. The capture and retention of bridgeheads by the Soviet troops on the Vistula in the areas of Pulawy and Magnuszew opened up prospects for conducting new operations to defeat the enemy in order to full release Poland and the attack on the capital of Germany.

Memorial complex "Mound of Glory".

Sculptors A. Bembel and A. Artimovich, architects O. Stakhovich and L. Mitskevich, engineer B. Laptsevich. Overall Height of the memorial is 70.6 m. An earthen hill 35 m high is crowned by a sculptural composition of four bayonets lined with titanium, each 35.6 m high. The bayonets symbolize the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Belarusian and 1st Baltic fronts who liberated Belarus. Their base is surrounded by a ring with bas-relief images of Soviet soldiers and partisans. On the inside ring, made in the mosaic technique, the text is beaten off: “Glory to the Soviet Army, the Liberator Army!”

Sergey Lipatov,
Research Fellow at the Research
institute military history military academy
General Staff of the Armed Forces
Russian Federation .