1941. Red Army in Romania: the first weeks of the war

On the southern flank of the German-Soviet front, the events of that tragic summer of 1941 did not take place at all according to the scenario of Hitler's plan "Barbarosa". They took place according to the plan of the General Staff of the Red Army to cover the frontier (Special) districts of the borders of the USSR with troops.

Based on the memoirs of military leaders, the memories of the participants in those tragic events, I would like to present my version of those events in our now Odessa region, which at that time, unlike other sections of the border, the USSR were not so catastrophic.

In the first weeks of the war, two episodes - the actions of the border guards of the Danube military flotilla and the troops covering the state border on the Danube and the raid on Constanta by ships of the Black Sea Fleet (in my opinion, not very successful) brought confidence not only to the participants in those events, but to the whole people to the coming victory over fascism.

Background. In 1918, royal Romania, taking advantage of the collapse of imperial Russia and the weakness of the young Soviet state of workers and peasants, captured the North. Bukovina and Bessarabia (Moldavia and Budzhak). The border ran along the Dniester River.

Despite repeated diplomatic appeals from the Soviet government, Romania refused to return these territories. Only after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (conspiracy) in 1939, which secured the zones of influence in Eastern Europe for the great powers, after the “liberation” campaigns of the Red Army in Western Ukraine and the Baltic states, the USSR was able to satisfy its claims.

By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 21, 1940, the troops of the 9th Army, concentrated on the Soviet-Romanian border and put on alert, were to cross the Dniester River and clear the territory from the Romanian troops to the Danube and Prut rivers.

Deprived of all allies (England and France) on June 28, the Crown Council of Romania had to transfer Bessarabia (Moldavia and Budzhak) and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union without resistance. On July 3, 1940, the operation of the 9th Army of the ODVO was completed and these territories became part of the USSR. The arrangement of the border and frontier outposts immediately began.

Taking advantage of the weakness of Romania, on August 30, Hungary annexed the lands of Northern Transylvania, inhabited mainly by Hungarians and captured after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and on September 7, Southern Dobrudja went to Bulgaria, as a result of which Romania lost a third of its territories.

On November 24, 1940, the Prime Minister, General Ion Antonescu (to whom the new King of Romania, Mihai granted unlimited powers), dreaming of regaining the lost territories, signed an agreement with the Axis countries (Germany, Italy, Japan), and joined the Trilateral Pact. Was received with joy. Romania is the only country in Europe that had oil fields.

At the beginning of the new year, 1941, echelons of German troops from occupied France and Poland began to arrive in Romania. In the spring there were, according to some sources, more than 300 thousand, according to others - 500 thousand. The troops were deployed in the areas of extraction and processing of oil products (Constanta, Ploiesti), for their protection, as well as in the north of Romania - for a future attack on the USSR.

In addition, about 325 thousand Romanian soldiers and officers were concentrated on the Soviet-Romanian border. German and Romanian troops entered the Antonescu Army Group, which was covered by about 600 aircraft. The forces of the Red Army opposing them were approximately equal in number, but they had advantages in tanks, aircraft, and other equipment. But the Germans were preparing to strike the main blow at the junction of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts, where they concentrated powerful groups. While the Soviet troops were evenly dispersed along the entire border, the advantage in technology was not significant.

Premonition of war. Being surrounded by capitalist countries, the young Soviet Republic, feeling the hostility of the states bordering on it, took maximum measures to strengthen the country's combat readiness in the event of a surprise attack. Moreover, the mood of the USSR for a world revolution, for the victory of "workers and peasants" throughout the world was a foreign policy doctrine. The Comintern became the herald, where, in my opinion, not the best contingent of all the communist parties of the world gathered, soon turned into a bureaucratic, deliberative body. Therefore, living surrounded by enemies that it created for itself, the USSR pursued a line of self-isolation from other (capitalist) countries.

There was preparation for war. The youth was widely trained in schools, institutes, factories and collective farms in military specialties: pilots, paratroopers in flying clubs, snipers - Voroshilov shooters, sanitary workers, radio operators in OSAVIAKhIM. Soviet newspapers, feature films, political publications throughout the country set the people on the inevitability of war. And since the USSR was almost constantly at war - the CER (Chinese Eastern Railway), the war in China, Lake. Khasan, Khalkin-Gol, the war in Spain, Finland, "liberation" campaigns in Western Ukraine, the Baltic States, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, numerous provocations (Karatsupa and his dogs - over 300 border violators), then the people were ready for the upcoming war with the Nazis .

With the growing threat of war, urgent measures were taken to increase the country's combat readiness. In May 1941, reserves were called up to replenish the western military districts almost to wartime states. Cadets of military schools were urgently released with direction to the western and border districts, and most importantly, a covert transfer from the internal districts of the second echelon of divisions began according to the plan for covering the state border. From Romania constantly received information about the massive movement of troops. In Bucharest, more and more military men in German uniforms appeared. On the border, groups of German officers were seen conducting reconnaissance and watching the Soviet border. Over the Danube fairway and the adjacent territory, intruder aircraft increasingly appeared. From fighters raised from Soviet airfields, they quickly left for their territory.

On June 18-21, 1941, the troops of the OdVO were put on alert. Since our "ally" - Germany could not be provoked, regiments, battalions were put forward for shooting in summer camps, as well as for tactical and staff exercises.

On June 19, 1941, the People's Commissariat of Defense ordered the dispersal of aircraft at field airfields and their camouflage. However, many air unit commanders found this order difficult (optional!?) to comply with. Because on the airfields of the regiments were the latest, recently arrived and standing under a tarpaulin, aircraft for which they had not yet been retrained, neither pilots nor technicians. But most importantly, these commanders were afraid that when landing on field airfields by poorly trained crews, these aircraft could receive various types of damage - which often happened. Hundreds of units of combat aircraft were destroyed in the first minutes of the war due to the negligence and irresponsibility of the command. For example, at the Chisinau airfield, 7 SB aircraft, 3 R-ZeT aircraft, 2 U-2 aircraft were destroyed, since commander Osinenko A.S. did not fully comply with the order to transfer aircraft to field airfields.

On June 21, 1941, the commanders of the border districts and the People's Commissar of the Navy received a directive from the People's Commissariat of Defense and the General Staff to put the special (border) military districts on full alert to repel a sudden attack by the Germans and their allies. In the border zone of the OdVO on the night of June 22, 7 rifle, 2 cavalry, 2 tank and 1 motorized divisions and fortified areas were alerted and took up positions to cover the state border. The number 1 Danube military flotilla and the base of the Black Sea Fleet - Sevastopol were put on alert, up to the blackout of city blocks.

The personnel of the fleet were called to combat posts. The base of the Black Sea Fleet was ready for battle. At about 3 o'clock in the morning on June 22, the posts of VNOS (Air observation, warning and communication) reported the approach of an armada of German bombers. By order of the commander of the fleet, Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky, ships and anti-aircraft defense batteries opened fire. At 0315, the first German bomber was shot down by Lieutenant Kotov's anti-aircraft battery. The Germans were faced with the task of blocking the fleet in the bays and preventing it from going to sea. But this did not happen. Due to the timely measures taken to darken Sevastopol, the mines dropped by parachute fell not into the fairway, but onto the shore, where they exploded, destroying houses and killing people. The report of the fleet commander to Moscow about the air raid on the base was the first signal of WAR.

On the Soviet-Romanian border, by June 1941, only earthen battalion defense areas were prepared, in contrast to the old border with concrete fortifications. On command readiness No. 1, they were occupied by units of the 51st Perekop Rifle Division under the command of Lieutenant General P.G. Tsirulnikova. On June 22, mortar and artillery fire was opened on Reni, Izmail and on the bases of the Danube Fleet. At the same time, Romanian aviation began bombing Bolgrad, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, Izmail and airfields. But thanks to a timely order, the ships from the Danube bases were transferred to other parking lots, and the planes were placed at field airfields. Attempts by assault groups of Romanian troops to seize a bridgehead and gain a foothold on the eastern bank of the Danube were repelled by border guards of the 79th detachment and troops of the 51st Perekop division.

A relative calm settled on the Danube, since the main blow was delivered to the north, at the junction of the Southern and Southwestern fronts. But the systematic shelling of the coastal cities of Chilia, Izmail and Reni continued, thereby impeding the movement of Soviet troops and the Danube military flotilla.

Danube landing. To stop shelling, the commander of the 51st Perekop division, General P.G. Tsirulnikov gave permission to land troops on the Romanian bank of the Danube and destroy the batteries stationed there. On the morning of June 24, after aerial reconnaissance, a detachment consisting of 4 armored boats and 2 artillery support monitors went to Cape Satul Nou. An airborne detachment consisting of a consolidated company of border guards of the 79th border detachment, a machine-gun and rifle company of the 51st rifle division and a platoon of Danube sailors was adopted on the armored boat. In a short skirmish, two Romanian companies were defeated and 70 soldiers and officers were taken prisoner. 2 guns and 10 machine guns were captured. To develop success, a rifle battalion of the 51st rifle division was transferred to the cape. Cape Satul Nou was completely cleared of Romanian troops. There were no losses on the Soviet side.

Meanwhile, the command was developing a plan to capture the city of Kiliya-Veke. Since June 22, border guards have repeatedly crossed to the Romanian coast with the aim of reconnaissance of enemy positions, sabotage and capture of prisoners. Reconnaissance of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, which was to take part in the landing, mapped the positions and firepower of the enemy. Interviewed local residents who visited the other side during the Romanian occupation.

Raid on Constanta. On June 25, the People's Commissar of the Navy approved, presented to him by the command of the Black Sea Fleet, a plan of attack on the port and oil depots of Constanta.

To do this, a strike group of ships was created, consisting of the leaders of the destroyers "Kharkov" and "Moscow" under the command of the captain of the second rank M.F. Romanov and aviation of the Black Sea Fleet in the amount of 13 aircraft. The support group consisted of the cruiser Voroshilov and the destroyers Smart and Smart (Rear Admiral T.A. Novikov). It was planned to strike before dawn with bomber aircraft, after which the artillery of the strike group of ships entered into action. To achieve the surprise of the strike, the ships had to leave the base at nightfall and move on a false course. In February 1941, minefields were laid around Constanta at a distance of 17 miles - 31 kilometers. Only the highest ranks of the Romanian and German command knew the passage along the fairway.

On June 25, 1941 at 20.10, the strike group of ships left Sevastopol. Two hours later, a group of support ships followed her. At 5.00 the leaders "Kharkov" and "Moscow" lay down on the combat course and from a distance of 24 km. opened fire on oil storage facilities and the port of Constanta. In 10 minutes, about 300 shells were fired. Warehouses and oil terminals caught fire in the port. Maneuvering and moving away from the fire of the Tirpitz railway battery with a caliber of 280 mm., the leader of the "Moscow" was blown up in a minefield, broke and sank. Romanians attribute its sinking to their batteries. There is also an assumption that the sinking was carried out by a Soviet submarine. But such an assumption is unlikely - the silhouettes of their ships were known to the submariners.

The leader of "Kharkov" could not help, because. he himself was at that moment under fire from coastal batteries and repulsed the attacks of German bombers. Having shot down 2 of them, he repulsed the attack, but received damage to the boilers from dangerously close explosions of aerial bombs. About 70 people of the Moskva leader, including the commander, were picked up by Romanian boats.

Following the base, the leader "Kharkov" and the destroyer "Savvy", who entered the guard of the damaged ship, abeam Bugaz, were attacked by a submarine. Dodging torpedoes, the destroyer attacked her with depth charges and sank her. There were obvious signs of her death. This, as it turned out later, was the Soviet submarine M-118, which was on combat duty. Due to poor coordination of actions and lack of communication, their own drowned their own. By the way, after the war, nearby, 100 meters from the sunken "M-118", another sunken "baby" was found - perhaps at the same time. An M-type submarine can be seen on the 411 battery memorial.

Meanwhile, on the Danube, events unfolded as follows. For the capture of the city of Kiliya-Veke, 4 armored and 10 border boats were allocated. Artillery support was provided by 2 monitors and the 99th howitzer regiment. Major P.N. was appointed to command the landing. Sirota - commander of the 23rd Infantry Regiment. At dawn on June 26, coastal batteries and bombers of the Black Sea Fleet opened fire on several positions on the Romanian coast in order to mask the landing site. In the first echelon of the landing was the 3rd rifle company of Lieutenant Yurkovsky. When approaching the shore, the boats were seen and artillery fire was opened on them. Despite the damage received, the boats of the first landing wave moored to the shore, the company attacked the enemy and knocked him out of his positions, which made it possible to occupy the city. By 10.00 on June 26, the city of Kiliya-Veke was captured by the landing of the 23rd Infantry Regiment and border guards. The garrison of the city and the frontier post were defeated. More than 200 soldiers and officers were killed, and 720 people laid down their arms. Trophies were 8 guns, 30 machine guns. The landing party lost 5 people killed and 7 wounded. On the same day, the islands of Tataru and Daller were occupied. Thus, a bridgehead 76 km long was captured on Romanian territory. along the Kiliya branch of the Danube from Rapida to Periprava. The Danube military flotilla was able to support the actions of the ground forces without fear of shelling.

From the beginning of the war, reconnaissance groups began to form in the border cities to work on the territory of Romania. Scouts were trained from trusted local residents - after all, from 1918 to 1940 this territory was captured by Romania. Separate groups traveled to Bucharest, bringing valuable information about the enemy and the mood of the civilian population.

51 Perekop division, border guards and sailors of the Danube military flotilla heroically held the bridgehead, despite all the intensifying attacks of the Romanian troops. And they left him only by order of the command, because. to the north, the situation escalated and there was a threat of a blow to the flank and encirclement of Soviet troops on the Danube. On July 19, the last ships of the Danube flotilla, with landing troops removed from the Romanian coast, left the Danube and went to Odessa.

By this time, the Nazi troops captured the Baltic states and Belarus, took Minsk, Lvov, Chisinau, the defense of Kyiv and Leningrad began.

Valery LUTSEVICH,

Search group "Free Odessa"

“... was carried out by the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts in August in the Chisinau-Iasi region. By order of the Supreme Commander I.V. Stalin, the task of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts was to encircle and defeat the German-Romanian army group "Southern Ukraine" in the Chisinau region.

The relations of the Soviet Union with Romania, as, indeed, with all other neighbors, did not work out from the moment of the creation of "the world's first state of workers and peasants." As soon as they came to power and canceled all the obligations of the tsarist government, the Bolsheviks nationalized all valuables for the needs of the world revolution, including the gold reserves of Romania, which had been stored since 1915 in the Imperial Bank. While the Bolsheviks were conquering Russia, the Romanians, taking advantage of the situation, occupied and annexed Bessarabia in January 1918. In 1919, the Romanian troops took an active part in the suppression of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, at the same time winning the right to Bukovina and Transylvania. In a word, "boyar" Romania, as well as "pan" Poland, were the worst enemies of the Soviet power, and the Bessarabian issue made it even more difficult to establish normal relations. The USSR did not recognize the annexation of Bessarabia and repeatedly insisted on the return of the occupied territories, the Romanians, in turn, brazenly demanded the return of the gold reserves.

The great powers also did not legally recognize Bessarabia as part of Romania, but they did not particularly object. Moreover, the Romanian government constantly reminded that it was protecting the entire European civilization on the Dniester from Bolshevism. The Romanian royal government was intensively "friends" with England and France in exchange for guarantees of its immunity.

However, in the 1930s the situation changed dramatically: the Versailles system collapsed, the Anglo-French positions in Europe weakened more and more, and the influence of Germany and Italy increased. The activities of the Communist Party, which received instructions from the Comintern, intensified: "... only the overthrow of the capitalist governments, only the establishment of a workers' and peasants' government and joining the Soviet Union on the basis of equality and reciprocity, only the implementation of socialism will provide the working people of the Balkan countries with national equality, a free and happy life."

The beginning of the war in Europe, the successes of Germany, the passive position of England and France, the "popularization of the grandiose experience of the USSR" in Poland and Finland forced Bucharest to feverishly look for a real ally against Moscow. Attempts to get guaranteed support from the neighbors did not bring results. Hungary and Bulgaria had their own territorial claims against Romania. Italy expected to continue rapprochement with Hungary and limited itself to general promises. All this required Romania to revise its foreign policy in favor of rapprochement with the only possible adversary of the USSR at that time - Germany. On April 15, 1940, King Carol II expressed the opinion that Romania should join the "German political line". On May 28, 1940, a new German-Romanian treaty was signed, according to which it was supposed to increase oil supplies to Berlin by 30% in exchange for providing the Romanian army with modern weapons. The Romanian leadership began to insistently offer Hitler cooperation in any field at his request. At the same time, attempts were made to improve relations with the Soviet Union. On June 1, Romania proposed to the USSR to expand trade, but the Soviet side did not support this proposal; Stalin had already decided on the final settlement of the Bessarabian question.

On June 26, the Soviet government issued an ultimatum to Romania demanding to clear the territory of Bessarabia, and along with Northern Bukovina, which had never been part of the Russian Empire. 48 hours were given to make a decision. Berlin, interested in mutually beneficial cooperation with Moscow in redrawing the map of Europe, advised Bucharest to yield, and by the end of the next day the Romanian government accepted the Soviet terms. On June 28, 1940, the divisions of the Red Army, led by Zhukov, moved to the Dniester, to liberate the Moldovans and Ukrainians from the oppression of the "Romanian boyars". On June 29, the first echelons reached the Prut River and occupied crossings; by the end of July 1, the new border was completely occupied by Soviet troops. The occupation of the territories did not end: the Soviet side, in addition, demanded from Romania the return of the stolen rolling stock and "compensation for damage" caused by the Romanian army during the withdrawal from Bessarabia, estimating it at almost 2.6 billion lei.

In this situation, Hungary and Bulgaria decided that it was time for them to realize their territorial claims too. In an effort to fan the contradictions in the Balkans and increase their own influence, they were supported by all the great powers, including the Soviet Union. As a result of the Romanian-Bulgarian negotiations held in August-September and the second Vienna arbitration, Romania transferred the territory of Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, and Northern Transylvania went to Hungary. The total area of ​​the country has decreased by 49 thousand square meters. km and a population of 3 million people. Germany guaranteed the inviolability of the new borders.

It goes without saying that from the point of view of the Kremlin myth-makers, the occupation of Bessarabia and Bukovina by the Red Army "meet the interests of all peoples interested in resolving the conflict and served the cause of strengthening Soviet-Romanian relations", but the rejection of Northern Transylvania demonstrated "the rejection of the reactionary rulers of Romania from the remnants of sovereignty."

On September 6, 1940, Carol II abdicated in favor of his son Mihai I, and the former chief of the General Staff, General Ion Antonescu, became the head of the Romanian government. The new Romanian government, unaware that its relations with the proletarian state had significantly “strengthened”, decided to speed up rapprochement with Germany, and already on September 15-17, a request was sent to Berlin to send a military mission to Romania. In the first decade of December, German troops with a total of 25 thousand people arrived in Romania to train the Romanian army and protect oil sources. On November 23, 1940, Romania officially joined the Tripartite Pact.

In January 1941, Antonescu agreed to the passage of German troops through Romanian territory to attack Yugoslavia and Greece. In May of the same year, Romania accepted Hitler's offer to deploy German troops on its territory intended to attack the Soviet Union and take part in the war against the USSR. In addition, Romania was the main supplier of oil to Germany.

On June 22, 1941, the Antonescu government sent 13 divisions and 9 brigades to the front as part of the 3rd and 4th armies. Until mid-August, they operated on the territory of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. After forcing the Dniester, the 3rd Army, renamed the Expeditionary Army, fought under Manstein's 11th Army in southern Ukraine and Crimea. The 4th Romanian Army, after capturing Odessa, was returned to Romania.

In the summer campaign of 1942, the Romanian government, at the request of Hitler, again allocated a significant contingent of troops for operations on the Eastern Front. 26 Romanian divisions operated near Stalingrad. On the Volga, the Red Army utterly defeated the 3rd Army and the 6th Army Corps, after which the number of Romanian divisions in the active troops was significantly reduced. From June 22, 1941 to January 1, 1944, the Romanian army lost up to 660 thousand people, including irrevocably - about 410 thousand.

In 1944, Romania was experiencing a deep internal political crisis. After Stalingrad and Kursk, the desire to conclude a separate peace with Britain and the United States intensified in leading circles, but secret negotiations with the allies did not lead to success. Churchill's "Balkan option" had by then been rejected in favor of Operation Overlord.

At the end of March, Konev's armies reached the Soviet-Romanian border. On April 2, 1944, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR issued a statement stating: “The Soviet government informs that the advancing units of the Red Army, pursuing the German armies and the Romanian troops allied with them, crossed the Prut River in several sections and entered Romanian territory. The Supreme High Command of the Red Army issued an order to the Soviet advancing units to pursue the enemy until he was defeated and capitulated.

At the same time, the Soviet government declares that it does not pursue the goal of acquiring any part of Romanian territory or changing the existing social system of Romania, and that the entry of Soviet troops into Romania is dictated solely by military necessity and the continuing resistance of enemy troops.

On April 10, the GKO adopted a resolution in which instructions were given on the line of conduct of the Soviet troops and command on the territory of Romania. The military command was required to preserve the existing Romanian authorities, the system of administrative and social structure. The general management of the organization of civilian administration and control over its activities was entrusted to the Military Council of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. The work of the local administration was directed by Soviet military commandants appointed from among "politically trained and morally stable officers."

At the request of the Romanian government, on April 12, Moscow offered Romania the following terms for a truce: a break with the Germans and a declaration of war on Germany; restoration of the border under the 1940 treaty; compensation for losses caused to the Soviet Union in the course of hostilities on its territory and occupation; providing Soviet and other allied troops with the opportunity to move freely on Romanian territory in any direction in accordance with the military situation. The Antonescu government refused to accept these terms. Well, Comrade Stalin said, the peoples "will have to take matters into their own hands of their liberation from the German yoke," and the Red Army will fulfill its "internationalist duty."

In terms of the summer-autumn campaign, the offensive of the Soviet troops in the Southwestern theater of operations was of the utmost importance. After the landing of the Allied troops in Normandy, Stalin was no longer in a hurry to visit Berlin, which would have led to an immediate end to the war. Until that moment, it was necessary to "liberate from the fascist yoke" as many European countries as possible, "thwart plans for their enslavement by the imperialist states" and, under the reliable protection of the USSR, "decide their own fate."

“The most important thing was also that,” General Professor M.M. does not hide. Minasyan, - that the liberation of these peoples by the Red Army should inevitably lead to the creation of truly people's democratic regimes in the Balkans ... "

The success of the strike in the south deprived the Reich of its allies and the possibility of obtaining strategic materials and food exported from Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, and threatened to reach the borders of Germany itself. The Germans understood this very well and attached great importance to the southern sector of the front, which covered the path to the Balkans, but they miscalculated twice in assessing the situation. At first, they expected a Soviet strike south of the Carpathians, pulling most of the tank divisions to the threatened direction, but instead disaster struck in the Army Group Center zone. The German command came to the conclusion that the enemy had temporarily postponed the "Balkan option", that a major offensive operation in the south was unlikely in the near future, and made major regroupings in the Warsaw, Krakow and East Prussian directions - and again they were mistaken.

On July 15, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General A.I. Antonov handed over to the command of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts the order of the Headquarters to submit by the end of the month their thoughts and calculations on conducting a joint offensive operation in the Iasi and Chisinau region in order to defeat the troops of the Southern Ukraine Army Group, liberate Moldova and withdraw Romania from the war .

IASSIAN-CHISINAU OPERATION

By mid-August 1944, at a 580 km line passing through Krasnoilsk, Pashkani, north of Yass and further along the Dniester to the Black Sea, the troops of the Southern Ukraine Army Group under the command of General Hans Frisner, divided into two army groups: Wöhler, occupied - 8th German, 4th Romanian armies and the 17th separate German army corps and "Dumitrescu" - 6th German and 3rd Romanian armies. The troops of the army group had 25 German and 22 Romanian divisions, 5 Romanian mountain rifle and infantry brigades. They were supported by part of the forces of the 4th Air Fleet and the Romanian Aviation Corps. Before that, at the end of July, 12 divisions, including 6 armored and 1 motorized, from the Army Group "Southern Ukraine" were transferred to Belarus and Western Ukraine.

The withdrawal of such a significant number of divisions from the Army Group "Southern Ukraine" led to its weakening and greatly worried Antonescu. On August 4, the marshal met with Hitler to find out the further intentions of the Reich leadership. The Fuhrer assured the Romanian dictator that the Wehrmacht would defend Romania as its own territory. But, in turn, he demanded assurances from Antonescu that Romania would remain an ally of the Reich under any circumstances and would take over the maintenance of the German troops operating on Romanian territory.

Using numerous water barriers and hilly terrain, the enemy created a strong defense with a developed system of field fortifications, engineering barriers and a number of long-term reinforced concrete structures to a depth of 80 km. It included three, on the Iasian direction four defensive lines. In addition, in the depths, lines along the Prut and Seret rivers were equipped. The German-Romanian group with rears consisted of 900 thousand people, 7600 guns and mortars, 404 tanks and assault guns, 810 aircraft.

When planning the operation, the Soviet command took into account that the enemy troops were deployed on an arc curved to the east, the left wing of which rested on the Carpathians, and the right wing on the Black Sea. At the same time, most divisions and the most combat-ready German 6th Army occupied the top of the ledge; the operational density here was 8 km per division. On the flanks, the operational density reached 18–20 km per division, and mainly Romanian troops defended there. The Stalingrad disposition was exactly repeated. True, in order to increase the stability of the Romanian divisions, in which capitulation moods grew, they were interspersed with German formations, which were supposed to play the role of "corset knitting needles for the Romanians."

On August 2, the Headquarters sent a directive with specific tasks to the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts. They were to break through the enemy's defenses in two areas far from each other - northwest of Yass and south of Bendery - and, striking in converging directions, encircle and destroy the main forces of the South Ukraine Army Group, and then develop the offensive at a high pace in depth of Romania.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front, commanded by General Malinovsky, delivered the main blow with the forces of the 27th, 52nd, 53rd combined arms and 6th tank armies from the area northwest of Yass in the general direction to Vaslui, Falchiu, cutting off the escape routes the Yassko-Kishinev grouping of the enemy to the west, an auxiliary strike - by the forces of the 7th Guards Army and the cavalry-mechanized group along the Seret River to ensure the right flank of the main grouping. After the encirclement of the Yassko-Chisinau grouping, the main forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were to advance in the direction of Focsani, forming the outer front of the encirclement and, together with the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, destroy the encircled grouping.

The 3rd Ukrainian Front, under the command of General Tolbukhin, delivered the main blow with the forces of the 57th, 37th and right wing of the 46th Army from the Kitskansky bridgehead, from the area south of Bender, in the direction of Yermoklia, Selemet, Khushi, an auxiliary strike - part of the forces of 46 -th Army in cooperation with the Danube military flotilla through the Dniester estuary in the direction of Belgorod-Dniester. The Danube flotilla was supposed to land troops northwest and south of the city, and with the release of troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front to the Danube, assist them in crossing the river and ensure unhindered movement along it. After the encirclement of the Yassko-Kishinev grouping, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were tasked with developing the offensive in the general direction of Reni and Izmail, preventing the enemy from withdrawing beyond the Prut and Danube.

The actions of the ground forces were supported by the 5th and 17th air armies. The Black Sea Fleet had the task of supporting the troops of the coastal flank of the 3rd Ukrainian Front with fire, disrupting the enemy's coastal sea communications, and delivering air strikes against his naval bases.

The coordination of the actions of the fronts was carried out by the representative of the Headquarters, Marshal S.K. Timoshenko.

91 divisions, 3 fortified areas, 3 tank and 3 mechanized corps, 2 separate tank, 1 self-propelled artillery brigade and 1 motorized rifle brigade, 7 tank and 20 self-propelled artillery regiments - 1,314,200 people, 16,000 guns and mortars, 893 rocket artillery installations, 1870 tanks and self-propelled guns and 2200 combat aircraft. The Soviet troops included the 1st Romanian Volunteer Infantry Division named after Tudor Vladimirescu, recruited from Romanian emigrants and former prisoners of war.

In the course of preparation, a number of regroupings were carried out, powerful strike groups were created in the directions of the main attacks. 67-72% of infantry, up to 61% of artillery, 85% of tanks, almost all aircraft were concentrated here. Thanks to this, in the breakthrough sectors, the fronts had superiority over the enemy: in people - 4-8 times, in artillery - 6-11 times, in tanks - 6 times. This provided them with the opportunity to continuously build up the power of strikes and maintain high rates of advance. The artillery density in the breakthrough areas reached 240–280 barrels per 1 km of the front. Such a high concentration of firepower allowed Malinovsky to abandon the aviation preparation for a breakthrough. For the first time in the war, perspective aerial photography of all the main routes of action of mobile troops and crossings to a depth of 60–80 km was made on both fronts. During the spring, the fronts mobilized about 400 thousand people in the liberated regions of Ukraine, in some formations the replenishment amounted to more than half of the personnel.

On August 18-19, the Germans finally revealed the Soviet preparations for the offensive and even set a date for its start. General Frisner addressed all the senior officers of the German and Romanian troops with a special appeal, in which he warned that in the coming days a large offensive of the Red Army should be expected. Frisner demanded to defend the positions to the last possible, to ensure close cooperation of the allied forces: “Shoulder to shoulder with our tried and tested Romanian comrades, relying on our combat training, our weapons and our fortified positions, we can meet these attacks with resolute confidence.”

There was no more time left.

The offensive of both fronts began on the morning of August 20 after strong artillery, and on the 3rd Ukrainian Front and aviation training, which suppressed the first position of the main line of defense.

The troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front on the very first day broke through the tactical defense of the enemy to the full depth and advanced 16 km. The German command, trying to stop the advance, in the Yass region threw three infantry and 1st tank divisions into counterattacks. But this did not change the situation, since more than 1000 Soviet tanks entered the business. In the band of the 27th Army, General S.G. Trofimenko, after overcoming the second line of defense, the 6th Panzer Army under the command of General A.G. was introduced into the breakthrough. Kravchenko, who had 506 combat vehicles. This was the only case during World War II when a tank army entered a "clean" breakthrough. By the end of the day, its formations reached the third defensive strip, which ran along the Mare ridge. The offensive of the 3rd Ukrainian Front also developed at a high pace. The 37th, 46th and 57th armies broke through the main line of defense during the day and, having advanced 12 km in depth, wedged in places into the second line.

The calculation turned out to be accurate: the Romanians faltered, again exposing the flanks of the German divisions. General Frisner writes: “... the reason for this relatively quick success was not numerical superiority, but, above all, the insufficient stamina and unreliability of many Romanian formations ... A significant part of the personnel of these divisions abandoned their positions even during artillery preparation ... the enemy unexpectedly quickly managed to penetrate deep into the location 7th and 5th Romanian infantry divisions, which left their positions without a fight.

During August 20, Army Group "Southern Ukraine" lost 6 divisions at once and in one day was on the verge of disaster. In the evening, General Wehler reported: "The impression that the Romanian units make can be defined as catastrophic."

On the second day of the offensive, the strike force of the 2nd Ukrainian Front waged a stubborn struggle for the third lane on the Mare ridge, and the 7th Guards Army of General M.S. Shumilov and the horse-mechanized group of General SI. Gorshkov - for Tirgu Frumos. On August 21, the German command pulled together units of 12 divisions, including two tank divisions, to the breakthrough area. The most stubborn battles unfolded on the outskirts of Iasi, where the enemy troops launched counterattacks three times. But the introduction of the 18th (250 vehicles) and 23rd (190 vehicles) tank and 5th guards cavalry corps into battle in the band of the 52nd Army frustrated Frisner's plans. By the end of the day, Malinovsky's troops finally crushed the enemy's defenses. Having expanded the breakthrough to 65 km along the front and up to 40 km in depth and having overcome the third defensive line, they captured the cities of Iasi and Tirgu Frumos and entered the operational space.

The troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front also completed the breakthrough that day. The 7th (203 vehicles) and 4th Guards (237 vehicles) mechanized corps introduced into the battle advanced up to 30 km in depth and actually cut off the 6th German army from the 3rd Romanian.

On the evening of August 21, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command ordered the fronts to reach the Khushi region as quickly as possible in order to complete the encirclement of the enemy grouping and open the road to the main economic and political centers of Romania.

On August 22, the German command began the withdrawal of the Dumitrescu group from the Chisinau ledge over the Prut River. At the same time, the Veler group received an order to retreat to the rear defensive position Trajan. But it was already too late. On the morning of August 22, the 4th Guards Army of General I.V. went on the offensive along the river. Galanina. Acting in conjunction with the 52nd Army of General K.A. Koroteeva, by the end of the day she advanced 25 km and took possession of two crossings over the Prut. Bypassing the nodes of enemy resistance, the 18th Panzer Corps made a swift 50-kilometer throw to Khushi. On the outer front of the encirclement, Soviet troops captured Vaslui. Kravchenko's tank army rushed to the Focsha Gates in order to break through the fortified area on the move and thereby open the way to Central Romania, Bulgaria, to the borders of Yugoslavia and Hungary.

Tolbukhin's front also achieved major successes. Connections of the 7th mechanized corps of General F.G. Katkova went to the Gura-Galbena area, and the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps, having occupied Tarutino and Comrat, developed an offensive on Leovo. Thus, the 3rd Romanian army was finally isolated from the 6th German army.

By the end of August 22, the shock groups of the fronts had intercepted the main routes of the enemy's retreat to the west. The sailors of the Danube Flotilla, together with the landing group of the 46th Army, crossed the Dniester Estuary, liberated the city of Belgorod-Dniester and developed the offensive in a southwestern direction.

On August 23, the 18th Tank Corps went to the Khushi area, the 7th Mechanized Corps to the crossings over the Prut in the Leuseni area, and the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps to Leovo. The operational encirclement of the Chisinau enemy grouping was completed.

On the same day, the 46th Army of General I.T. Shlemina, in cooperation with the Danube Flotilla, completed the encirclement of the 3rd Romanian Army, which ceased resistance the next day. The Dumitrescu group ceased to exist. The 6th Army was transferred to the direct subordination of the command of the Army Group "Southern Ukraine". The army was given the task of quickly moving troops across the Prut and organizing defenses on its western bank. But these attempts were in vain, the front collapsed, no one controlled the troops: “... there were no headquarters, no rears, no special non-combat units; everyone, from the general to the staff clerk, turned into ordinary fighters.

At 8:30 pm on August 23, the German command became aware of the major political changes in Romania and the fall of the Antonescu government. The position of the German troops has changed radically. Three hours later, a decision was made, sanctioned by Hitler, to withdraw by the shortest route to the Carpathians. But this task proved to be impossible.

On August 24, the 5th shock army of General N.E. Berzarina liberated Chisinau. On August 25, the creation of an internal front to encircle the Yassko-Chisinau enemy grouping was completed. 18 out of 25 German divisions ended up in a giant "cauldron". Almost all the Romanian formations at the front were defeated by this time.

Thus, on the fifth day of the operation, the encirclement of the main forces of Army Group South Ukraine was achieved. The troops operating on the external front occupied the cities of Roman, Bacau, Byrlad and approached the city of Tekuch. A band 100–120 km deep formed between the inner and outer fronts of the encirclement. Thus, favorable conditions were created for the elimination of the encircled grouping and the rapid advance of Soviet troops deep into Romanian territory. These tasks were already being solved in the new military-political conditions.

The Soviet command, having allocated 34 divisions, one tank and two mechanized corps to eliminate the encircled group, the rest of the forces of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, including the 6th tank army, aimed deep into Romania. In the development of the offensive on the external front, the main role was assigned to the troops of Malinovsky.

By the end of August 27, the group surrounded to the east of the Prut ceased to exist. Soon that part of the troops was also destroyed, which managed to cross to the western bank of the Prut with the intention of breaking through to the Carpathian passes. The enemy suffered a crushing defeat. Of the 25 German formations, 18 were eliminated, two divisions of the 17th Army Corps withdrew in full force. The defeated units of three infantry divisions and the remnants of the 1st Panzer and 10th Motorized Divisions also managed to escape. The command of Army Group "Southern Ukraine" stated that the corps and divisions of the 6th Army must be considered as completely lost and that this defeat represents the greatest catastrophe that the Army Group has ever experienced.

At this time, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were developing success towards Northern Transylvania and in the Foksha direction, reaching the approaches to Ploiesti and Bucharest. Formations of the 46th Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, in cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet, launched an offensive in the coastal direction.

The German command made attempts to detain the Soviet troops, buy time to restore the front. In the OKW directive of August 26, General Frisner was tasked with creating and maintaining defenses along the line of the Eastern Carpathians, Fokshany, Galati, although the army group had neither the strength nor the means for this. Six heavily battered divisions of the 8th Army retreated to the Carpathians. There were 29 Hungarian battalions on the Hungarian-Romanian border, which operated mainly in front of the right wing and the center of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. In front of its left wing and the 3rd Ukrainian Front, the remnants of the formations retreating from the front, as well as the rear units of the Southern Ukraine Army Group and individual German garrisons, defended themselves.

The enemy put up stubborn resistance on the outskirts of the Eastern Carpathians. The remnants of the German divisions concentrated here and the Hungarian battalions fought using the mountainous and wooded terrain, which was advantageous for defense. However, the 7th Guards, 40th Army of General Zhmachenko and the mechanized cavalry group of Gorshkov, advancing in this direction, managed to push the enemy back and overcome the Eastern Carpathians.

The offensive of the troops of the left wing of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, which included the 27th, 53rd, 6th tank armies and the 18th tank corps, was successfully developing. These troops, with the active support of aviation, crushed individual pockets of resistance and quickly moved south. The tank army overcame the Focsani fortified line and occupied Focsani on August 26. The next day, she approached the city of Buzau, the mastery of which opened the way to Ploiesti and Bucharest.

Tolbukhin's troops, advancing south along both banks of the Danube, cut off the retreat of the defeated enemy troops to Bucharest. The Danube Flotilla and the Black Sea Fleet, assisting the offensive of the ground forces, provided crossings across the Danube, landed troops, and struck with naval aviation.

Thus, the fronts of Generals Malinovsky and Tolbukhin successfully carried out the Iasi-Kishinev operation, surrounded and destroyed the largest enemy grouping in an exceptionally short time. During the fighting from August 20 to September 3, Soviet troops defeated and destroyed 22 German and almost all Romanian divisions at the front. 106 thousand German soldiers and officers were taken prisoner, including 25 generals and a huge amount of military equipment. The enemy suffered such heavy damage that it took him about a month to restore a continuous front.

The Iasi-Kishinev operation is one of the largest and most outstanding operations of the Soviet Armed Forces in terms of its strategic and military-political significance. Such a large-scale and decisive defeat led to the collapse of the German defense on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, and changed the entire military-political situation in the Balkans. Romania withdrew from the war on the side of Germany and on August 24 declared war on it.

The losses of the Soviet troops in ten days of fighting amounted to 13,197 people killed and 53,933 wounded, 75 tanks and self-propelled guns, 111 aircraft.

Back in June 1944, at a secret meeting of representatives of the palace circles, the army, national and communist parties, a military committee was formed, which took a course to prepare an armed uprising, overthrow the Antonescu government and withdraw Romania from the war on the side of the Axis powers. The beginning of the uprising was scheduled for August 26, but the rapid development of events at the front accelerated the performance. On the evening of August 23, by order of King Mihai, Marshal Antonescu was arrested in the royal palace in Bucharest and, together with his ministers, was placed under arrest in a safe house of the Central Committee of the CPR. Parts of the garrison were ordered to occupy and protect state institutions, the central telephone exchange, telegraph, radio station and other important objects, interrupt communications between German institutions and military units and prevent their movement.

In the very first hours of the uprising, a so-called government of specialists was formed under the chairmanship of General C. Sanatescu, in which the national-bourgeois parties played a leading role. At 11:30 p.m., Bucharest radio announced the removal of the Antonescu government and the creation of a "government of national unity", the declaration of the Romanian king on the cessation of hostilities against the United Nations and Romania's acceptance of the Soviet armistice conditions was announced.

On the morning of August 24, the Chief of the Romanian General Staff sent a telegram to Frisner's headquarters. It stated that “the command of the Romanian armed forces ensures the free exit of German units from the territory of Romania and wishes to avoid all kinds of armed clashes between German and Romanian troops, provided that the German troops do not obstruct the Romanian troops during their movement to the south ... Romanian ground, the air and naval forces stop fighting and all hostile activities against the Soviet troops ... "

This option did not suit either Hitler or Stalin.

The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR made a statement in which it confirmed the Soviet position, but did not fail to recall that "the assistance of the Romanian troops to the troops of the Red Army in the elimination of German troops is the only means of an early cessation of hostilities on the territory of Romania and the conclusion of a truce by Romania with the coalition of allies."

The Fuhrer, of course, reacted more sharply. As Clark notes, the Nazis were sincerely amazed at the betrayal of the allies every time: “Unbelievable, but the“ betrayal ”of the allies and the explosions of hatred and revenge that began to occur in the occupied territories with the weakening of the German administration were a shock to the Wehrmacht and even to the SS. Until now, having followed with serene confidence the Machiavellian precept "Better to be feared than loved", the Germans nevertheless believed that since they are a nation of masters, no one but the Bolsheviks and Jews would ever think to resist them.

Having received news of the events in Bucharest, Hitler ordered the "putsch to be suppressed", the king arrested, and a government headed by a general friendly to Germany established. Frisner was given emergency powers to operate in Romania. Field Marshal Keitel and General Guderian, in a report to the Fuhrer, proposed "to take all measures to ensure that Romania disappears from the map of Europe, and the Romanian people cease to exist as a nation."

On the morning of August 24, the Germans bombarded Bucharest and went on the offensive, for which they managed to scrape together the 5th anti-aircraft division, an infantry regiment, a company of tanks and two assault gun brigades. General management of the operation was entrusted to the head of the German air force mission in Romania, General A. Gerstenberg. Frisner ordered the commanders of the German military units stationed in the rear areas of Romania to support Gerstenberg with all the forces and means at their disposal. On August 26, it became obvious that the general could not cope with the task. The troops sent against the rebels were led by General Stachel, the former commandant of Warsaw. In connection with the opening of hostilities by German troops against Romania, the Romanian government ordered its troops to start hostilities for the expulsion of the Germans from the country and for the liberation of Transylvania.

At the beginning of the uprising, the Germans had about 14 thousand soldiers and officers in Bucharest and its suburbs. In addition, they hoped to transfer part of the forces from the Ploiesti region to the city. The German command pinned great hopes on the paramilitary formations of the Romanian Germans, in which there were over 40 thousand people. On the side of the rebels in the capital there were approximately 7,000 servicemen and 50 armed patriotic groups. However, the German command failed to use the superiority in forces and suppress the uprising in Bucharest. Soviet troops continued to finish off the German formations and rapidly advanced towards the city. At the same time, Romanian troops from other parts of the country began to arrive in Bucharest. The balance of power here was rapidly changing in favor of the rebels. By August 28, the number of Romanian troops in the capital reached about 39 thousand people. This allowed the rebels not only to repel the attacks of the Germans, but also to take decisive action themselves and defeat the German garrison. The next day, they cleared Bucharest and its environs of the enemy and held them until the approach of Soviet troops. Armed clashes with the Germans also took place in Ploiesti, Brasov and some other cities and regions of Romania.

The troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts, after the successful completion of the Iasi-Kishinev operation, launched a vigorous offensive in the central part of Romania and on the outskirts of Bulgaria.

On August 29, the Stavka set the task for Malinovsky and Tolbukhin - to complete the defeat of the Nazis in Romania. The 2nd Ukrainian Front was to develop the offensive in the direction of Turnu Severin with its main forces, occupy the Ploesti oil-industrial region, clear Bucharest of the remnants of German troops, and by September 7 capture the Kampulung, Pitesti, Giurgiu line. In the future, this grouping of troops was to reach the Danube south of Turnu Severin. The troops of the right wing of the front advanced in a northwestern direction with the task of capturing the passes through the Eastern Carpathians and by September 15 reaching the line of Bistrica, Cluj, Sibiu. Then they struck at Satu Mare in order to assist the 4th Ukrainian Front in overcoming the Carpathians and reaching the areas of Uzhgorod and Mukachevo. The troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were to, developing the offensive in their entire zone, occupy Northern Dobruja, cross the Danube in the Galati, Izmail sector and reach the Romanian-Bulgarian border by September 5–6.

Fulfilling the directive of the Headquarters, Malinovsky's troops delivered new powerful blows to the enemy. Overcoming the stubborn resistance of the German troops, the 5th Guards Tank Corps of the 6th Tank Army on August 29 defeated them on the outskirts of Ploiesti and broke into the city. By the morning of August 30, by the joint efforts of the corps and the 3rd Guards Airborne Division of the 27th Army, Ploiesti was completely cleared of the enemy. Together with the Soviet troops, the 18th Romanian Infantry Division, which operated from the front, as well as Romanian units and work detachments blocked by the Germans in the city, participated in the liberation of Ploiesti.

During August 30 and 31, Soviet and Romanian troops defeated the enemy in the valley of the Prakhova River and liberated the entire Ploeshty region. As a result, the threat to Bucharest from the north was eliminated, the Wehrmacht lost Romanian oil, and Soviet troops were able to quickly advance into Transylvania. General Butlar noted: “... On August 30, the Russians captured the Ploiesti oil region, despite the stubborn resistance of individual scattered units supported from the air. From a military-economic point of view, this was the most difficult and, one might say, decisive blow for Germany.

Two other corps of Kravchenko's tank army successfully advanced on Bucharest. Following them, the troops of the 53rd Army of General I.M. Managarov, and to the south of it the 46th army of Shlemin. Their task was to defeat the German units blocking the approaches to Bucharest as quickly as possible and to assist the rebels.

The "reactionary figures" in the Romanian government were well aware that along with the Red Army, the Soviet order would also come to Bucharest. Therefore, they tried to prevent this, insisting on stopping the further advance of the Red Army deep into Romania, proposing to declare Bucharest, the Ilfov region and the entire western territory of the country a zone where Soviet troops were not to enter. With such a proposal, representatives of Sanatescu turned to both commanders of the fronts. At the same time, it was pointed out that the Romanian government was taking upon itself the liquidation of German troops on the territory not yet occupied by the "liberators". The generals did not even listen to this childish babble and continued to fulfill the tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The 6th Panzer, 53rd and 46th armies came close to Bucharest and thus ensured the consolidation of the victory of the uprising.

Separate parts of Shlemin's army passed through the Romanian capital on August 29–30. On August 30 and 31, troops of the 6th Panzer and 53rd Soviet armies, as well as parts of the Vladimirescu division, entered Bucharest. The Soviet command appointed Major General I.N. Burenin and took "under the protection of the main Romanian war criminals" - members of the Antonescu government. On June 1, 1946, they were executed by the people's court.

The further offensive of the 2nd Ukrainian Front was already carried out jointly with the Romanian army, which turned its weapons against the German Reich. By the beginning of the entry into the war with Germany, Romania had two armies, which included nine combat-ready divisions, the remnants of seven defeated divisions that had returned from the front, and 21 training divisions. They were poorly armed, had a small amount of artillery and had almost no tanks.

Formations of the 1st Romanian Army, commanded by General N. Machich, covered the border with Hungary and Yugoslavia in the west and northwest. They were at a distance of 200-300 km from the Soviet troops. From the remnants of the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies, the 4th army was formed under the command of General G. Avramescu. She received the task of covering the Romanian-Hungarian border in the north.

An exceptionally favorable situation developed for the Soviet troops in Romania. Up to six enemy divisions operated in front of the right wing and the center of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, there were no German troops in front of the left wing and Tolbukhin's armies. The prospect opened up in a short time to completely clear the territory of Romania from the enemy. After the withdrawal of the Headquarters of the 4th Guards and 52nd armies into the reserve, Malinovsky had four combined arms armies, which had 10 rifle corps; one rifle corps was in front reserve.

The German command sought to restore the collapsed strategic front, close the southern flank of Army Group South Ukraine with Army Group F, located in Yugoslavia, and create a strong defense along the line of the Eastern and Southern Carpathians and the Western Balkans. It concentrated the remnants of the Southern Ukraine Army Group, as well as Hungarian units, in Transylvania, intending to launch a surprise attack on the Romanian troops and capture the passes in the Carpathians before the Soviet troops entered there.

On the morning of September 5, five German and Hungarian divisions, supported by tanks and aircraft from the Turda region, launched an offensive against the 4th Romanian Army, which had just entered this sector and did not have time to organize defense. By the end of September 6, the enemy managed to advance 20-30 km. In the next two days, under his onslaught, the Romanians retreated another 20–25 km. At the same time, the Germans launched an offensive against the 1st Romanian army. On September 6, they crossed the Danube northwest of Turnu Severin and threatened to capture the city of Timisoara and the large industrial center of Resita.

In this difficult situation, by agreement with the government of Romania, the 1st and 4th Romanian armies, the 4th separate army corps and the 1st aviation corps - a total of 20 divisions - from September 6 came under operational control of the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. By that time, they numbered 138 thousand people, 1809 mortars, 611 guns and 113 serviceable aircraft.

Malinovsky, in order to defeat the enemy grouping advancing against the 4th Romanian army, immediately sent the 27th and 6th tank armies. To destroy the enemy forces advancing against the 1st Romanian army, the 53rd army and the 18th tank corps were involved. The actions of these troops were supported by the 5th Air Army, which included the Romanian Aviation Corps.

On September 5, the Stavka ordered the 2nd Ukrainian Front, advancing in a westerly direction, to turn its main forces to the north and northwest and strike at Cluj and Deva, and the right-flank armies to overcome the Transylvanian Alps and the southern part of the Carpathian ridge ... The general task was to reach the line of Satu Mare, Cluj, Deva, Turnu Severin and help the 4th Ukrainian Front break into Transcarpathia. In the future, he had to go to the Tissa River in the Nyiregyhaza, Szeged section.

We had to advance in extremely difficult conditions. Tanks with difficulty overcame the Carpathian passes. Enemy aircraft continuously bombed the narrow mountain passes. Finally, the troops of the 6th Panzer Army, having overcome the mountain range, reached the Sibiu region on September 7th. Soviet and Romanian soldiers jointly repelled the enemy's counterattacks and went on the offensive. Especially stubborn battles flared up near the city of Turda.

From August 31 to September 6, the 46th and 57th armies of the 3rd Ukrainian Front marched in a southwestern direction and, without meeting resistance, reached the Bulgarian border. Following them, the 37th Army advanced to the coastal flank.

On September 12, an Armistice Agreement with Romania was signed in Moscow. The Soviet-Romanian border of 1940 was restored and the "Viennese arbitration" on Northern Transylvania was annulled. The Romanian government undertook to send at least 12 infantry divisions to participate in the war against Germany and Hungary under the general leadership of the Soviet command, as well as to compensate for the losses caused to the USSR.

To control the fulfillment of the terms of the armistice, an Allied Control Commission was created in Romania, consisting of representatives of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain, chaired by Marshal R.Ya. Malinovsky.

Meanwhile, the main forces of the front, continuing the offensive, fought fierce battles with the stubbornly defending enemy.

On September 9, the Stavka reinforced the front with the 4th and 6th Guards Cavalry Corps from its reserve, and on September 10, with the 46th Army and the 7th Mechanized Corps transferred from the 3rd Ukrainian Front. The right neighbor - the front of General Petrov - that day began the Carpathian offensive operation and slowly moved towards the passes.

By September 15, with the efforts of the 27th and 6th Panzer (September 12 became Guards) armies and the 4th Romanian Army, the enemy was driven back to their original positions. The troops reached the defensive line, passing along the rivers Muresh and Ariesh. Under their onslaught, the German-Hungarian formations began to leave their positions in a number of sectors and retreat into the interior of the country. 53rd Army and 18th Tank Corps of General P.D. Govorunenko, who advanced into the defense zone of the 1st Romanian Army, by the end of September 12, forward formations reached the Petrosheni area and Turnu-Severin. Acting ahead, the tank corps captured the regions of Brad and Deva. The troops of General Managarov, having overcome the Transylvanian Alps, reached these areas three days ahead of schedule. They defeated the advanced units of the enemy and seized a bridgehead for the deployment of army and front forces in the Hungarian plain. Having repulsed the enemy's fierce attacks, the Soviet and Romanian troops thwarted his attempts to capture the passes.

The successful actions of the main forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front in the Southern Carpathians endangered the entire group of German-Hungarian troops with a powerful flank attack. However, in mid-September, the German command managed to concentrate 27 divisions here, including 6 tank and motorized divisions, and restore a solid line of defense. Army Group "Southern Ukraine" September 23 was transformed into Army Group "South". In the second half of September, stubborn battles continued in this sector, especially in Northern Transylvania.

Reinforcing its troops in the Cluj and Turda region with two tank divisions and two Hungarian mountain rifle brigades, the enemy organized powerful counterattacks against the 27th, 6th Guards Tank and 4th Romanian armies. The advance of the Soviet-Romanian troops in this direction stalled.

The situation on the left wing of the front was different. Here, the troops of the 53rd Army, in cooperation with the 1st Romanian Army, developing an offensive to the northwest, liberated the cities of Arad and Belyush and on September 22 reached the Romanian-Hungarian border. On September 23, formations of the 18th Tank Corps and the 243rd Rifle Division of Colonel N.N. Parfentiev, having entered the Hungarian land, occupied the village of Battonya, and three days later - the first Hungarian city - Mako.

So, in September, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front advanced in the west and northwest from 300 to 500 km, frustrated the plans of the German command to stabilize the front on the line of the Southern Carpathians, cleared part of Northern Transylvania from the enemy and reached the borders of Yugoslavia and Hungary. Their offensive was still carried out in close cooperation with the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, the forces of the Black Sea Front and the Danube military flotilla, which at that time undertook a campaign to Bulgaria from Dobruja and the southeastern regions of Romania.

By October 5, two Romanian armies fought along with the Soviets - 23 divisions, a separate motorized regiment and an aviation corps. After October 16, 17 divisions remained in the Romanian troops at the front, which were poorly equipped and felt a lack of weapons and military equipment. The rest of the formations were assigned to the rear.

In October 1944, Romania was completely cleared of German troops. On October 25, units of the 40th army of Zhmachenko and the 4th Romanian army of General Avramescu liquidated the last strongholds of the enemy in the country - they expelled him from the cities of Satu Mare and Carey.

About seven months, from the end of March 1944. The Red Army fought for the liberation of Romania. Of decisive importance in achieving this goal was the Iasi-Kishinev operation, during which 16 German divisions were destroyed. The liberation of Romania was achieved at the cost of great sacrifices. From March to October 1944, more than 286,000 Soviet soldiers shed their blood on Romanian soil, of which 69,000 died and went missing. During the fighting, the Soviet troops lost here 2083 guns and mortars, 2249 tanks and self-propelled guns, 528 aircraft. The losses of the Romanian troops in the fight against the Germans from August 23 to October 30 amounted to more than 58 thousand people killed, wounded and missing.

The capture of Romania and the entry of Soviet troops to the borders of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Hungary predetermined the question of the imminent expulsion of German troops from all the Balkan countries.

BULGARIAN OPERATION

Bulgaria was a constitutional monarchy, in Soviet terminology, it was a "monarcho-fascist" state. For several decades, the royal court was associated with Germany, being its ally in the First World War. German capital played an important role in the economy of an agricultural country as a whole. Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were established in 1934.

With the outbreak of World War II and the transfer of hostilities to the Mediterranean zone, all interested parties tried to strengthen their influence in the Balkans. Hitler in October 1940 invited Tsar Boris III to enter into the Tripartite Pact, promising support for Bulgarian territorial claims to Greece regarding Western Thrace, but Sofia was afraid to complicate relations with England, Turkey, Yugoslavia and the USSR. The Soviet government offered to conclude a mutual assistance treaty "which will help Bulgaria in the realization of her national aspirations not only in Western but also in Eastern Thrace" and organize the supply of weapons. At the same time, Soviet diplomacy, quickly accustomed to communicating in the language of secret protocols, repeatedly warned Berlin that it considered Bulgaria a "security zone of the USSR." England and the United States hoped to keep Bulgaria in a position of neutrality.

Hungary joined the Tripartite Pact on 20 November and Romania on 23 November. Everyone put pressure on Sofia. Hitler, who had already signed the directive for the invasion of Greece, which provided for the use of Bulgarian territory, promised to ensure that Bulgaria did not participate in the war. The Soviet Union regularly reminded that only it "is able to guarantee the security of Bulgaria" while maintaining "its current regime and meeting its historical demands." The Anglo-Americans strongly dissuaded them from accepting the Soviet proposals.

The Bulgarian leadership was well aware that rapprochement with England meant being drawn into the war, and rapprochement with the USSR was fraught with social changes. Tsar Boris, presumably, especially liked the hint at the possibility of preserving the “current regime”. In this situation, the entry into the Tripartite Pact in Sofia was considered the lesser of evils. On January 15, 1941, Germany agreed to satisfy Bulgarian demands for access to the Aegean Sea, and on January 20, Bulgaria decided to join the Tripartite Pact on the terms of non-intervention in the Anglo-German war and the maintenance of German troops on Bulgarian territory. However, under German pressure, on February 2, Sofia assumed the costs of maintaining Wehrmacht units, and on the same day a military agreement was signed, according to which the Bulgarian army was actually placed under German control.

On March 1, the Bulgarian government announced its accession to the Tripartite Pact, on the same day German troops entered the country, intended to invade Greece and Yugoslavia, and on March 5, England broke off diplomatic relations with Sofia. On April 6, the Wehrmacht launched an operation in the Balkans, which ended with the surrender of Yugoslavia on April 17 and Greece on April 23.

After the Balkan campaign, German troops were withdrawn from Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government did not declare war on the Soviet Union and did not join Germany at the time of its attack on the USSR. And although England and the United States were formally at war with Bulgaria, the Soviet Union did not fight with it, and a Bulgarian envoy was in Moscow and Kuibyshev throughout the war. The Germans used Bulgaria as a source of raw materials and a naval base on the Black Sea.

In the summer of 1943, after the death of Tsar Boris, the government appointed a regency council under the young heir to the throne, Simeon.

Since the summer of 1941, an active resistance movement began to unfold in the country. Since the presence of the Germans on the territory of Bulgaria did not have the character of an occupation, this movement was not essentially anti-fascist either. It was aimed at overthrowing the "reactionary" bourgeois-democratic regime, changing the existing system and creating a new society according to the Soviet model. Naturally, the organizer and leader of the movement was the Bulgarian Workers' Party of Communists. The Communist Party called on the working people to fight against the "monarcho-fascist dictatorship", striving to involve the broadest possible masses of the people in the struggle. In June 1941, the first partisan detachment was formed, and already in April 1943, by decision of the Central Committee of the BRP, the Main Headquarters of the People's Liberation Insurgent Army was organized. The hardships of wartime, the ruin of the economy, the tightening of the police regime expanded the social base of the Resistance.

On April 17, 1944, the Soviet government presented a note in which the attention of the Bulgarian government was drawn to the incompatibility of normal relations between the USSR and Bulgaria with such facts when, due to the deteriorating military situation in Germany, the port cities of Varna and Burgas were turned into German bases. During this period, they were actively used to evacuate troops from the Crimea. The Kremlin offered the Bulgarians to immediately stop the use of Bulgarian territory and ports by Germany against the Soviet Union. The only result of such a decision could only be the occupation of the country. In addition, the Soviet government expressed a desire to restore the Soviet consulate in Varna, as well as to establish consulates in Burgas and Ruse.

In a note dated May 18, the Soviet government noted that the Bulgarian government was "looking for pretexts to evade a direct proposal ... to open Soviet consulates in Bulgaria", and warned that without meeting these demands "it will consider it impossible to maintain relations with Bulgaria as a state which helps and intends to continue to help Hitler's Germany in the war against the Soviet Union.

The Bulgarian representatives stubbornly denied all the accusations, reminding them that they did not take part in the war against the USSR.

At the same time, the Bagryanov government that came to power was looking for the possibility of making peace with England and the United States: “The Bulgarian monarcho-fascists, fearing their people and the entry of the Red Army into Bulgaria, agreed to the occupation of the country by Anglo-American troops.” However, these soundings did not lead to Bulgaria's withdrawal from the war.

By August 1944, the question of consulates had lost its relevance; on August 12, in a new note, the question was posed directly and specifically: "If Bulgaria thinks of somehow getting out of the impasse, then at present the only question can be a break between Bulgaria and Germany." A week later, the triumphal offensive of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts began. Three days later, the government of Antonescu fell. The remnants of the German troops, defeated in Romania, retreated to Bulgarian territory. German ships and transport ships moved to Bulgarian ports.

On August 26, the Bagryanov government announced that Bulgaria, observing complete neutrality, in accordance with the Hague Convention, would disarm German troops who refused to leave its territory. The Bulgarian General Staff, with the knowledge of the government, officially clarified with the German command the procedure for the unhindered withdrawal of German troops from Bulgaria. So did the commander of the Bulgarian fleet, who did not take any action against the German ships in the Bulgarian ports. The Bulgarian government stubbornly did not want to fight with anyone. General Schneckenburger, who represented the German command in Bulgaria as "fictitious internment, which is understood as internment for an external effect."

The ruling circles of Bulgaria were much more afraid of the Soviet presence. In Bagryanov's secret report to the regent Prince Kirill on August 31, the head of government recommended that everything be done to prevent the entry of Soviet troops into Bulgarian soil. At the same time, he believed that it was necessary to continue negotiations with representatives of England and the United States and in no case allow the "Bolshevization" of the country.

Further aggravation of the internal political crisis that arose in connection with the Red Army's entry to the country's borders led to the resignation of the Bagryanov government and the formation on September 2 of a new government headed by K. Muraviev, one of the right-wing leaders of the Bulgarian Agricultural People's Union. The new government, which lasted only seven days, denounced the Tripartite Pact, announced the evacuation of the Bulgarian expeditionary forces from the occupied regions of Greece and Yugoslavia, as well as its intention to speed up negotiations with England and the United States on a truce, released all political prisoners and prisoners of war of the allies, dissolved the political police . The break in relations with Germany was said to be carried out if the German troops in Bulgaria refused to disarm.

The government of the USSR considered this insufficient and on September 5 declared war on Bulgaria. With the declaration of war on Bulgaria by the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain were forced to stop political negotiations with its representatives. On September 6, the Bulgarian delegation in Cairo was informed that in the future they could only be conducted with the participation of the USSR.

“The declaration of war by the Soviet Union against the fascist government of Bulgaria did not cause any damage to the interests of the Bulgarian people. On the contrary, it was the decisive condition for his release.” But the Bulgarian government managed to save its people from participation in the worldwide slaughter for five years, now it will have to take up arms.

The approach of the Red Army allowed the Bulgarian communists to proceed to the direct preparation of an armed uprising. On September 2, the Central Committee of the BRP decided to rouse the people to fight for the overthrow of the government and the establishment of the power of the Fatherland Front. By decision of the Sofia district committee, an operational bureau was created for the armed protection of strikes and demonstrations, envisaged by the plan for the uprising in the capital. It was planned to inflict the main blow on the Military Ministry by a combined detachment and military units that had gone over to the side of the Fatherland Front. By the beginning of the uprising, 11 partisan brigades and 38 detachments with a total number of 18 thousand people were operating in the country, and together with members of combat groups - up to 30 thousand people.

The main forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front by the beginning of September 1944 occupied the Romanian-Bulgarian border in the area from Giurgiu to Mangalia. The troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, pursuing the retreating enemy, on September 6 reached the Romanian-Yugoslav border in the Turnu Severin region and isolated from Bulgaria those German formations that were fighting in the Eastern Carpathians and Transylvania.

The strategic situation on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front allowed Tolbukhin's headquarters to quickly prepare and carry out an operation to occupy Bulgaria. With the defeat of the Southern Ukraine Army Group, the enemy defense in Romania collapsed, and the German troops operating in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece were isolated from the Carpathian-Transylvanian group defending in the northwestern part of Romania and Hungary.

Bulgaria had an army with a total strength of 450 thousand people. It consisted of five combined arms armies and two expeditionary corps - a total of 22 divisions and 7 brigades. Nine divisions and two cavalry brigades were in occupation service in Yugoslavia and Greece. When their withdrawal to Bulgaria began, German troops attacked them and disarmed some units. Their control was lost. Most of the remaining formations were stationed south of the Balkan Range. In the northeastern part of the country, where the actions of the 3rd Ukrainian Front were unfolding, there were 4 divisions. In the Black Sea ports of Varna, Burgas and in the Danube port of Ruse (Rushchuk) there were German and Bulgarian ships. The total number of German troops in Bulgaria, taking into account the units withdrawn from Romania, at the end of August was estimated at 30 thousand people.

The German command sought to maintain its position in Bulgaria. It was guided by the instructions of Hitler, who on July 31, 1944, in a conversation with General Jodl, said that "without Bulgaria, we are practically completely unable to ensure calm in the Balkans." At the end of August, the German ambassador to Bulgaria A. Bekerle told the regents that the German troops did not intend to leave Bulgaria in the near future. The leadership of the Reich hatched plans for organizing a coup d'etat in Bulgaria and coming to power as the head of government of the leader of the Bulgarian fascists A. Tsankov, intended to transfer German troops from Yugoslavia to Bulgaria.

On September 5, the day war was declared on Bulgaria, the Soviet Headquarters approved the plan for the Bulgarian operation, developed by the Military Council of the 3rd Ukrainian Front with the participation of Marshal Zhukov, a representative of the Headquarters. In the course of it, Tolbukhin's troops were to reach the line of Dzhurdzhu, Karnobat, Burgas, capture the ports of Varna and Burgas, capture the enemy's fleet and liberate the coastal part of Bulgaria. Their advance was planned to a depth of 210 km.

The 3rd Ukrainian Front had about 258 thousand people, 5583 guns and mortars, 508 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1026 combat aircraft in the 46th, 57th and 37th armies. For operations in the southern part of Dobruja in the direction of Aytos, Burgas, all his forces were concentrated - 28 rifle divisions, 2 mechanized corps and the 17th air army. To support the offensive in this direction, three assault air divisions of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were also involved.

The Black Sea Fleet was supposed to block Varna and Burgas, with the approach of the mobile troops of the front, land an amphibious assault and, together with them, take possession of these ports. The Danube flotilla, transferred on August 30 to the operational subordination of Tolbukhin, was supposed to capture all enemy watercraft on the Danube in the area of ​​​​the port of Ruse, cover the actions of ground forces from possible attacks by his ships and, in cooperation with the 46th army, seize the port.

The absence of a pre-prepared defense, the low density of the Bulgarian troops and the almost complete confidence of the Soviet command that they would not resist, made it possible not to plan artillery and air preparations for the offensive. It was decided to start the offensive by advancing advanced mobile detachments in columns, following them in an hour to advance the vanguard regiments of the divisions of the first echelon of the corps, and then the main forces of all three combined arms armies.

The front command attached particular importance to the rapid liberation of Varna and Burgas, since this would deprive the enemy of the last bases on the Black Sea and inevitably lead to the death of his fleet. "The decisive offensive of the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front was supposed to cause panic and confusion among the ruling circles of Bulgaria and be a signal for the start of a popular armed uprising."

On September 8, at 11 am, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front crossed the Romanian-Bulgarian border with forward detachments, and an hour and a half later - with the main forces. Without firing a shot, they rapidly advanced along their routes in a south-westerly direction. The first reports of the commanders of regiments and divisions left no doubt that the Bulgarian army would not resist the Soviet troops. The population enthusiastically welcomed the Red Army. Given this, Stalin instructed the Bulgarian troops not to disarm. By the end of the first day of the operation, the mobile troops of the front advanced up to 70 km and reached the Ruse-Varna line. At dawn on September 8, the main forces of the amphibious assault landed in the port of Varna, and at 13 o'clock in the port of Burgas - a detachment of about 4,000 people. Before that, an airborne assault was thrown into Burgas.

On the evening of September 8, the Stavka clarified the task for the troops of the front, ordering the next day to advance in the direction of Burgas and Aytos, take possession of them and reach the line of Ruse, Razgrad, Targovishte, Karnobat. Carrying out this task, mobile formations on September 9 advanced up to 120 km.

With the entry of Soviet troops into the territory of Bulgaria, the Muraviev government declared war on Germany, but on September 9 it was overthrown. The government of the Fatherland Front, headed by Kimon Georgiev, came to power, which turned to the USSR with a request for a truce. On the same day, the new government issued an order for the arrest of the regents and all members of the old governments that pursued a "pro-German, anti-people policy." The leaders of the foreign leadership of the Communist Party hastened to Sofia from Moscow.

In connection with these events, the Stavka sent a new directive to Tolbukhin on September 9 at 19:00. It said: “In view of the fact that the Bulgarian government broke off relations with the Germans and declared war on Germany and asks the Soviet government to begin negotiations on a truce, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, in accordance with the instructions of the State Defense Committee, orders to complete the operation to occupy the settlements planned according to the plan by 9 pm on September 9 and from 22:00 on September 9 with. stop hostilities in Bulgaria, firmly entrenched in that strip of Bulgaria, which is occupied by our troops.

On the same day, Stalin signed the order: “The operations of our troops in Bulgaria were launched because the Bulgarian government did not want to break off its relations with Germany and gave shelter to the German armed forces on the territory of Bulgaria. As a result of the successful actions of our troops, the goal of military operations was achieved: Bulgaria severed its relations with Germany and declared war on her. Thus, Bulgaria ceased to be the bulwark of German imperialism in the Balkans, which it had been for the past thirty years.

Anti-Bulgarian actions followed from Germany. The concentration of German troops on the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border began. The northwestern regions of the country, and especially the area of ​​Sofia, were not protected from possible attacks by the ground forces of Army Group F and enemy aircraft. The possibility of an invasion of Bulgaria under some pretext by Turkish troops from Eastern Thrace was also not ruled out. The Soviet troops stopped 300 km from Sofia and 360-400 km from the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border.

On the evening of September 9, Georgy Dimitrov, who was in Moscow, asked the Soviet command to receive an authorized delegation of the new government at the headquarters of the 3rd Ukrainian Front.

On September 10, General Tolbukhin received a delegation headed by D. Ganev, a member of the Politburo of the CPB. She informed the front command about the armed uprising, the political platform of the Fatherland Front government and its desire to conclude a truce with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition as soon as possible and asked for military assistance. The Soviet side granted the last request immediately.

On September 13, the Headquarters instructed to send the Chief of Staff of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, General of the SS, to Sofia. Biryuzov to guide the actions of the Soviet troops and organize interaction with the Bulgarian army through the General Staff of Bulgaria. At the same time, it was ordered to advance the 34th Rifle Corps to the Sofia region and relocate part of the forces of the 17th Air Army there. On September 15, Soviet troops entered Sofia, three days later they took up positions northwest and southwest of the city, riding the roads leading to the capital.

On September 17, the Bulgarian army entered the operational subordination of the Soviet command. September 20 was followed by a directive from the Stavka on the transfer of troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front to the western and southern regions of the country. The troops of the 57th Army, having made a 500-kilometer march, reached the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border by the end of September. The 37th Army and the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps by that time were concentrated in the areas of Kazanlak, Nova Zagora, Yambol. This reliably ensured the left wing of the front and the security of the southern regions of Bulgaria. The main forces of the Bulgarians were concentrated in the direction of Sofia, Nish for subsequent actions on the left flank of Tolbukhin.

With the liberation of Bulgaria and the withdrawal of Soviet troops to the border with Yugoslavia, more favorable conditions were created for the defeat of the Wehrmacht on the territory of Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania.

During the occupation, that is, the liberation, of Bulgaria, the Red Army lost only 154 people dead and 514 wounded, another 11,773 soldiers suffered from dysentery.

On October 28, 1944, the USSR, Great Britain and the USA signed an armistice agreement with Bulgaria.

“As a result of the seventh strike, the Moldavian SSR was liberated, Germany's allies - Romania and Bulgaria, who declared war on it, were put out of action. The Soviet Army received ample opportunities for an offensive in Hungary, the Balkans and for deep coverage of the fascist troops from the south.

The Soviet strategy demonstrated the skillful choice of the direction of the main attacks of the two interacting fronts, the skillful organization of operations to encircle large enemy groupings with their subsequent destruction, and the creation of favorable prerequisites for carrying out the ninth Stalinist strike in the future.

In our literature, the actions of the Red Army in Romania and Bulgaria are stubbornly referred to as "Liberation" and the "price of the liberation mission" is calculated. Since we are talking about the occupation by troops during the war of the territory of sovereign states hostile to the Soviet Union, it would be more correct to speak of their occupation and replacement of the existing system. Moreover, the Soviet troops continued to stay here after the war for another fourteen years, continuing to "liberate" the Romanian and Bulgarian peoples from the "reactionary capitalist governments" and controlling the process of the formation of "truly people's democratic" - communist regimes in the Balkans.

Step by step, all the recipes for "Sovietization" and the theory of class struggle were used. First, the old state machine was broken down, the "police-fascist" parliament was dissolved, the state apparatus and the army were purged, the police were disbanded, "fascist" newspapers were closed, and printing houses were confiscated. The institute of assistant commanders for political affairs was introduced in the army.

It was soon announced that the Sofia People's Court would try 653 people for fascist activities, including 126 former ministers and members of parliament. This was just the beginning.

The presence of the Red Army on Bulgarian territory "favored the further development of the revolution in Bulgaria in 1944–1947." in the image and likeness of the Bolshevik revolution, up to the physical liquidation of the representatives of the dynasty. Communist terror unfolded in Bulgaria, thousands of representatives of the propertied classes, the "reactionary" intelligentsia and officers were destroyed, almost all members of the royal family were executed, including the minor tsar.

In the first government of the Fatherland Front, out of sixteen ministers, there were only four communists. But the Communist Party had real power. As it strengthened, the "bourgeois elements" disappeared from the government, and behind the "elements" and the parties they represented. Further, everything went according to a well-known scenario: the liquidation of the classes guilty of the proletariat, the cleansing of the party itself from various deviations and their carriers, the creation of a commission to identify agents and provocateurs, the fight against spies and enemies of the people, the adoption of the five-year plan, the course towards the construction of socialism, the personality cult of Stalin and his "little brother" - Vylko Chervenkov ...

Comintern veteran Georgy Dimitrov, speaking at the Fifth Party Congress, directly pointed out that the power of the Bulgarian communists rests on Soviet bayonets: the majority of the people, the working people of town and countryside, with the active and leading role of the working class and its communist vanguard... measures of people's power, the vigilance and energy of our party, but also to a large extent the presence in the country of units of the Soviet Liberation Army, which, by the very fact of their presence, to a certain extent, fettered the actions of the reaction.

In Romania, due to the fact that the number of communists in the country did not exceed one thousand people, the process of "democratization" developed somewhat more slowly, but also in the right direction. And here the presence of the Red Army "restrained the forces of reaction and thereby favored the development of the revolution ... It created the necessary conditions and prerequisites for the subsequent defeat of the ruling classes of landowners and capitalists ..."

At the first stage, when the main problem was the speedy withdrawal of Romania from the war, the Soviet government did not raise any objections to the composition of the new government of Romania, formed from representatives of the four main political parties. The Communists and Social Democrats were represented in it by two ministers without portfolios. It soon became clear that Prime Minister Sanatescu was a "reactionary general" and members of the government were "proteges of big business and landlords." They brazenly demanded the disarmament of proletarian detachments who did not want to serve in the army and were carrying out a "revolutionary seizure" of state institutions and enterprises in the localities. The Romanian Communist Party could not put up with such a situation, and the Allied Control Commission could not but support it. As early as November 4, the commission, through Romanian newspapers, expressed dissatisfaction with the progress in fulfilling the terms of the Armistice Agreement. After the memorandum was published, the Sanatescu government resigned. A new government was formed, but the “reactionary majority”, not infected with Bolshevism, prevailed in it, and Sanatescu again became prime minister.

A member of the Military Council of the 2nd Ukrainian Front reported indignantly to the Politburo: “The state apparatus is not being purged of reactionary elements… Several dozen newspapers are published in Bucharest, over which only partial control has been established. The situation is the same in radio broadcasting, publishing, entertainment enterprises, etc. ”

In order to "struggle for democratic transformations and the peaceful development of the revolution," the Communists, Social Democrats, the Farmers' Front and the united trade unions created the National Democratic Front.

On December 2, after mass demonstrations organized by the front in Bucharest, having existed for less than a month, the second government fell. He was replaced by the cabinet of General N. Radescu, which turned out to be "no less reactionary", although the number of NDF representatives in it increased. In February 1945, mass demonstrations were organized in a number of cities demanding the resignation of the Radescu government and a series of provocations were organized with shooting at demonstrators (of course, some “reactionaries” shot at the people, and right from the windows of the royal palace!). The Soviet military authorities declared that they could not allow such a tense situation to exist in the rear of the Red Army, the newspaper Pravda published an article in which it was unequivocally emphasized that "General Radescu is pursuing a policy that is in many ways similar to the fascist dictatorship of Antonescu." Representatives of the People's Democratic Front on February 27 demanded the resignation of the cabinet.

Finally, on March 2, the king was forced to entrust the formation of a new "government of the concentration of democratic forces" to the chairman of the Front of Landowners, Pyotr Groze, who was one of the leaders of the NDF. Then things got easier, since the communists themselves assert that: “If we talk about the class essence of power in Romania after March 6, 1945, about the real correlation of the classes that fought in the country, then it was a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.” In the shortest possible time, a law was adopted on the implementation of agrarian reform, the dissolution of the "reactionary Senate", the closure of "pro-fascist newspapers", the creation of a unicameral parliament and the holding of elections.

Using the "military-administrative resource", the material assistance of the USSR, the dissatisfaction of the people with the former state structures that led the country to military defeat, promising land, democratic reforms and an increase in living standards, the CPR and its partners in the left bloc in November 1946 received 84% of the electoral mandates . On December 30, 1947, "at the request of the masses," King Mihai abdicated the throne. By decision of the Parliament, the Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed. After the destruction of the monarchy and the expulsion of the king in February 1948, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party merged into the single and only Romanian Workers' Party in the country. The remaining political associations and organizations, as accomplices of fascism and imperialism, engaged in "anti-people wrecking activities", were liquidated in the course of political trials and repressions against their leaders and activists.

The further path of the country copies the historical experience of the Bolsheviks: nationalization, the struggle against cosmopolitanism, "for the purity of the ranks" in the party, the defeat of the "right deviation", the persecution of the intelligentsia, forced industrialization, the cooperation of the peasants, the cultural revolution, the construction of the "foundations of socialism" on the basis of a planned economy .

“We sing glory, glory to Stalin and we go forward along his path.”

All this time, "the organs of the Soviet military command were still vigilantly guarding the interests of the Soviet Union." Romania remained the "rear" of the Red Army until 1958.

Instead of the "brown plague" Eastern Europe was inoculated with "red fever". Comparing Stalin and Hitler, Professor Trevor-Ruper noted: “Sometimes it is believed that Hitler and Stalin are fundamentally opposite phenomena, one extreme right dictator, the other extreme left. This is not true. Both, in essence, although in different ways, aspired to the same power based on the same classes and supported by the same methods. And if they fought and insulted each other, they did so not as incompatible political antipodes, but as well-chosen rivals. They admired, studied, and envied each other's methods; their common hatred was directed against nineteenth-century Western civilization, which both openly wished to destroy."

It is characteristic that all this "people's power" like a house of cards collapsed simultaneously with the Soviet Union. The completely bankrupt "national communism" in Romania, which remained impoverished after all the social and economic experiments, ended in 1989 with the execution of the Ceausescu couple.

By the beginning of the 1940s. Romania became one of Germany's most important allies in Eastern Europe. The German leadership expected not only to use the territory of Romania as a springboard for an attack on the USSR in the southwestern direction, but also to attract Romanian troops to the upcoming "blitzkrieg". Despite the well-known disadvantages of its army, including the poor quality of weapons, poor training and lack of personnel motivation, Romania had a very impressive mobilization potential, and this also did not go unnoticed by Berlin.

Antonescu and Hitler

On the eve of the war, Adolf Hitler unequivocally took the side of the Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu, supporting the latter in the internal political confrontation with the Iron Guard, a Romanian right-wing radical organization that was trying to organize a coup d'état and take power in the country into their own hands. Even at the very beginning of 1941, up to half a million Nazi soldiers were transferred to Romania - officially to help Antonescu in the fight against the Iron Guard putschists. In fact, this is how Hitler began preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union by Romania. Antonescu, Hitler promised to annex to Romania the lands of Transnistria, which was called the original Romanian territory, allegedly inhabited by Russified Romanians.

By the beginning of the summer of 1941, in Romania, in the immediate vicinity of the Romanian-Soviet border, impressive German-Romanian forces with a total number of more than 600 thousand people were stationed - the 11th German Army, part of the 17th German Army, the 3rd and 4th Romanian army. The general leadership of both the German and Romanian armies was carried out by the commander of Army Group South, German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Ion Antonescu personally took direct command of the Romanian armies. The Romanian leadership set itself the task of occupying Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria, for which it was supposed to seize bridgeheads on the left bank of the Prut River, necessary for a more effective attack on Soviet positions. The 3rd Romanian Army with a total strength of over 74 thousand military personnel included a mountain corps consisting of 3 mountain brigades (1st, 2nd and 4th) and a cavalry corps consisting of 3 cavalry brigades (5th, 6th th, 8th), as well as 5 squadrons of bomber and reconnaissance aircraft and support units. The army was commanded by Corps General Petre Dumitrescu, who was considered one of the best Romanian commanders of that period. The 4th Romanian army included the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 11th army corps, commanded by Corps General Nicolae Chupertsa.

As for the Soviet troops, one of the main strongholds of defense on the border with Romania was the Danube military flotilla. It consisted of: 1) a division of monitors (5 monitors), 2) a division of armored boats (22 boats), 3) a detachment of minesweepers (7 minesweepers), 4) a detachment of half-gliders (6 half-gliders), 1 minelayer, 1 command ship, 1 floating workshop, 1 hospital ship, 2 wheeled tugs, 12 auxiliary boats. In addition, the flotilla included the 46th separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion, the Danube coastal defense sector consisting of 6 coastal artillery batteries, the 96th fighter aviation squadron with 14 aircraft, the 17th machine gun company and a separate rifle company. The flotilla was commanded by Rear Admiral Nikolai Osipovich Abramov, who began his service as a machinist in the tsarist fleet. A participant in the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, Nikolai Abramov (pictured) was an experienced naval officer. Prior to his appointment to the Danube military flotilla, he commanded the Dnieper military flotilla, was the deputy chief of staff of the Black Sea Fleet.

In addition, the forces of the 79th border detachment participated in the defense of Soviet territory in this direction, including the division of the naval border guard of the NKVD of the USSR - 4 boats "sea hunter", 25 small river boats. The detachment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Savva Grachev, a veteran of the Civil War and military operations against the Basmachi detachments in Central Asia. The largest land formation was the 51st Perekop Rifle Division, commanded by Major General Pyotr Tsirulnikov, also an experienced commander, a participant in the Civil, Soviet-Polish and Soviet-Finnish wars, assigned to the division after commanding one of its rifle regiments.

Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, Romanian military aviation attacked the territory of the Soviet Union - the settlements of the Moldavian SSR, the Akkerman and Chernivtsi regions of the Ukrainian SSR, the Crimean ASSR of the RSFSR. At the same time, Romanian and German artillery began shelling the border area of ​​the Soviet Union. Assault units of the Romanian army began crossing the Prut River in order to capture bridgeheads on Soviet territory. However, despite the fact that Romania had long hatched revanchist plans, hoping to regain control over Bessarabia and Bukovina, and in addition to take possession of Transnistria, the combat power of the Romanian army left much to be desired. Technically, the armed forces of Romania were very far behind the Red Army. Without the support of Germany, Romania would never have mastered the war against the Soviet Union. But, having attacked the USSR together with the Nazis in the early morning of June 22, 1941, Romania was convinced that its armies would be able to quickly capture the border Soviet territories. And in this self-confidence of the Romanian generals lay a serious mistake - the Romanians simply underestimated the potential of the Soviet troops stationed on the Soviet-Romanian border.

True, the beginning of hostilities was promising. Already on June 22-23, Romanian troops managed to capture five bridgeheads. The Soviet units stationed on the border began fighting for their liberation, and by June 25, four bridgeheads were liquidated. In the hands of the Romanian army, only a small bridgehead remained in the Skulyan region. Therefore, the only thing left for the enemy was to continue shelling Soviet territory. On June 23, Major General Pyotr Tsirulnikov (pictured) decided to agree with the demands of the commander of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, Major P.N. Orphans and allow landings on the Romanian bank of the Danube. The Soviet paratroopers were supposed to land in the area of ​​​​the city of Kiliya-Veke - with the aim of destroying the artillery units of the Romanian army stationed there.

The landing detachment was tasked with capturing the fortified positions of the Romanian troops at Cape Satul-Nou. For this purpose, 4 armored boats, Udarny and Martynov monitors, a consolidated border company, 1 machine gun and 1 rifle companies, as well as three artillery batteries were equipped, which were supposed to provide fire support for the landing operation from the east coast. The operation began early in the morning on June 24, 1941. After artillery shelling of the Romanian territory, Soviet paratroopers landed on it. They very quickly defeated two Romanian companies, crushing their resistance and capturing 70 Romanian soldiers and officers. Following the vanguard of the landing, a rifle battalion from the 51st Perekop Rifle Division was landed on the bridgehead captured by the Soviet troops. So Cape Satul-Nou was completely captured by Soviet troops, and in parts of the Red Army and the NKVD there were not even dead - all the losses amounted to about 10 people wounded.

After the capture of Cape Satul-Nou, it was decided to land a second landing detachment - already in Kiliya-Vek itself. It was decided to carry out the second stage of the landing operation with the forces of 4 armored boats and 10 border boats, the landing detachment itself included three rifle battalions of the 23rd rifle regiment, commanded by Major Sirota. The general command of the landing was carried out by the commander of the Kiliya group of ships, Lieutenant Commander I.K. Kubyshkin.

The landing operation at Kiliya Veka began late in the evening of June 25, 1941. Since the number of boats was limited, the landing detachment landed in three echelons - each with one battalion. Since the late time of day was chosen, the Romanian troops failed to respond in time to the landing of the landing detachment. By the time the Romanian observers spotted the disembarking Soviet soldiers, it was already too late. The Romanian batteries opened fire on the Soviet boats, but the main landing forces had already managed to land in Kiliya-Vek. The garrison of the Romanian city could not offer worthy resistance to the Soviet troops, and on the same night Chilia-Veke was occupied by three Soviet battalions. In the morning, fighting continued in the vicinity of the city, and by 10 am on June 26, 1941, Soviet paratroopers managed to occupy a bridgehead up to 3 kilometers deep. During the battle near Kiliya-Veke, the Romanian border outpost and the infantry and artillery battalion were destroyed. The losses of the Romanian army amounted to at least 200 people killed, 500-700 Romanian soldiers and officers were captured. Soviet paratroopers captured 8 artillery pieces, 30 machine guns and about a thousand rifles. By the way, the losses of the Soviet paratroopers cannot even be compared with the Romanian ones - only 5 people died on the Soviet side, 7 more people were injured. The landing operation in Kiliya-Veka demonstrated the real superiority of the Soviet army over the Romanian troops.

The capture of Kiliya-Veke made it possible to continue the landing operation on the Romanian bank of the Danube. On June 26, 1941, boats of the Danube Flotilla landed several more units of the 51st Infantry Division, which captured a number of villages and islands on the Soviet-Romanian border and, thereby, created a single large bridgehead of Soviet troops from the mouth of the Rapida River to Periprava, with a length of about 70 kilometers . Thanks to the success of the landing operation, the ships of the Soviet fleet were able to more effectively support the ground units and formations of the Red Army. General Peter Tsirulnikov ordered to hold the Kiliya-Veke bridgehead by any means in order to gain a foothold in Romanian territory and not retreat back. Unfortunately, due to the general superiority of the enemy at the front, the Soviet troops that advanced into Romanian territory could not count on the imminent arrival of impressive reinforcements and the transfer of the war to enemy territory. Nevertheless, several more units of the 23rd Infantry Regiment were landed in Kiliya-Vek.

The very fact that the Soviet troops captured a bridgehead on Romanian territory infuriated both the Romanian and German command. On June 27, Romanian troops made their first attempt to regain control of Chilia Veche, but it was unsuccessful. Then there was the second attempt - on June 29, the third - on July 3, the fourth - on July 4, the fifth - on July 6. All this time, Soviet troops continued to hold the defense of Kiliya-Veke, repelling enemy attacks. 18 Romanian attacks bogged down - the Romanian troops were unable to cope with the Soviet rifle units. Who knows how long the Soviet troops could have held the bridgehead in Kiliya-Veka, if not for the general advance of the German and Romanian troops in Ukraine. The bridgehead in Kiliya-Veke was abandoned by July 19, 1941 by order of the higher command, and the boats and ships of the Danube Flotilla with the personnel of rifle units left Kiliya-Veke and retreated to Odessa.

Despite the fact that, in general, the Danube landing did not have a serious impact on the course of hostilities in the first month of the war, it became the first Soviet landing operation of the Great Patriotic War. It was this circumstance that allowed the Danube landing operation to remain forever in the military. But, of course, one should not forget about the courage and skill of the Soviet soldiers and officers, who were able to capture an important bridgehead on Romanian territory almost without loss. The landing in Kiliya-Veka showed that the Romanian army was simply not able to act as a full-fledged enemy of the Soviet troops, even small border units.

Further events on the Soviet-Romanian border developed in July 1941 unfavorably for the Soviet side. Numerous and well-armed Wehrmacht forces were concentrated on the territory of Romania, which, together with the Romanian armies, launched an offensive against Soviet positions. On July 3, 1941, Soviet troops abandoned their positions on the Prut River, as a result of which the Romanian formations captured the left bank and continued to move deep into Bessarabia. However, the losses of the Romanian troops during the fighting on the territory of Bessarabia remained extremely high. By the beginning of July 1941, the German-Romanian troops had lost up to 8,000 people killed, and on July 10, the Soviet troops managed to stop the offensive of the Romanian armies.

At the same time, Soviet aviation launched air strikes on the main cities of Romania. So, Constanta and Ploiesti, important industrial centers of Romania, were subjected to air strikes, in which, moreover, there were large oil storage facilities and oil refineries, which the Nazis hoped to use during the offensive. Only when the 9th Soviet Army withdrew from its positions on July 11 did the Romanian army get the opportunity to advance in Moldova and the Odessa region of the Ukrainian SSR. On July 16, 1941, Chisinau fell, and on July 23, Romanian troops entered Bendery.

Many participants in the Danube landing operation, who by this time were lucky enough to survive, continued to serve in parts of the Red Army. Many hardships fell to the lot of General Pyotr Tsirulnikov. He was captured by the Germans in October 1941, but soon escaped, which did not save him from arrest. From February 1942 to August 1953 he was imprisoned, and on August 28, 1953 he was released, rehabilitated and reinstated in rank, continued to serve in the Soviet army and retired in 1957 due to illness from the post of head of the military department of the MAI . Rear Admiral Nikolai Abramov was more fortunate - he was not touched, for almost the entire war he commanded various training units of the Navy, then in 1945-1946. was the commander of the naval forces of Poland, and in 1948-1960. served under the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, dealing with issues of the military-industrial complex.

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On June 22, 1941, together with Germany, fascist Romania attacked the USSR. The main goal of Romania's foreign policy was the return of territories transferred in 1940 to the Soviet Union, Hungary and Bulgaria. Despite the tense relations with the last two states, in reality, under the auspices of Germany, Romania could only claim the return of the lands occupied by the USSR (Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia).

Preparing for an attack

For military operations against the USSR, the Romanian 3rd Army (mountain and cavalry corps) and the 4th Army (3 infantry corps), with a total strength of about 220 thousand, were intended. According to statistics, the Romanian army was the largest among the troops allied with Germany.

However, 75% of the Romanian soldiers were from among the destitute peasants. They were distinguished by unpretentiousness, patience, but they were illiterate and therefore could not understand the complex army equipment: tanks, vehicles, rapid-fire German guns, machine guns confused them. The national composition of the Romanian army was also motley: Moldovans, gypsies, Hungarians, Turks, Transcarpathian Ukrainians. Romanian officers were extremely poorly trained. There were no fighting traditions in the Romanian army, on which military personnel could be trained. As a German corporal recalls: “The Romanian army was the most demoralized. The soldiers hated their officers. And the officers despised their soldiers.”

Along with the infantry, Romania provided the largest contingent of cavalry. Six pre-war cavalry brigades were deployed in divisions in March 1942, and in 1944 the number of regiments in each division was increased from three to four. The regiments were traditionally divided into two types - roshiors (Rosiori) and kalarashi (Calarasi). Roshiors in the 19th - early 20th centuries. called the Romanian regular light cavalry, reminiscent of hussars. Calarasi were territorial cavalry formations, recruited from large and medium-sized landowners, who provided themselves with horses and some equipment. However, already in 1941, the whole difference was reduced only to names. Foreign observers have repeatedly noted that, compared with ordinary infantry divisions, high discipline and a spirit of military brotherhood reigned in the Romanian cavalry.

The logistics of the army were poor. All this was known to Hitler, so he did not count on the Romanian army as a force capable of solving strategic problems. The German General Staff planned to use it mainly for support service in rear areas.

Invasion of the USSR

The first German troops numbering 500,000 people arrived in Romania as early as January 1941 under the pretext of protecting the Antonescu regime from the Iron Guard. Also, the headquarters of the 11th German army was transferred to Romania. However, the Germans settled down near the oil fields, as they were afraid of losing access to Romanian oil in the event of larger legionary riots. By that time, Antonescu had managed to enlist the support of the Third Reich in the fight against legionnaires. In turn, Hitler demanded that Antonescu assist Germany in the war against the USSR. Despite this, no joint agreements were concluded.

By the beginning of World War II, the 11th German Army and units of the 17th German Army and the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies with a total strength of more than 600,000 people were drawn to the Romanian-Soviet border. The Romanian command planned to capture small bridgeheads on the left bank of the Prut (the river along which the eastern Romanian border runs) and launch an offensive from them. Bridgeheads were located at a distance of 50-60 km from each other.

At 3:15 am on June 22, Romania attacked the USSR. Romanian aviation in the first hours of the fighting launched air strikes on the territory of the USSR - the Moldavian SSR, the Chernivtsi and Akkerman regions of the Ukrainian SSR, the Crimean ASSR of the Russian SFSR. At the same time, artillery shelling of border settlements began from the southern bank of the Danube and the right bank of the Prut. On the same day, after artillery preparation, the Romanian and German troops crossed the Prut near Kukonesti-Veki, Skulen, Leushen, Chory and in the direction of Cahul, the Dniester near Kartal, and also tried to force the Danube. The plan with bridgeheads was partially implemented: already on June 24, Soviet border guards destroyed all Romanian troops on the territory of the USSR, with the exception of Sculen. There the Romanian army took up defensive positions. The Romanian troops were opposed by the 9th, 12th and 18th Soviet armies, as well as the Black Sea Fleet.

The occupation of Bukovina, Bessarabia and the interfluve of the Dniester and the Bug

Hitler agreed to the annexation of Bessarabia, Bukovina and the interfluve of the Dniester and the Southern Bug to Romania. These territories came under the control of the Romanian authorities, they established the Bukovina Governorate (under the rule of Rioshianu), the Bessarabian Governorate (Governor - K. Voiculescu) and Transnistria (G. Aleksyanu became the governor). Chernivtsi became the capital of the Bukovina governorate, Chisinau became the capital of the Bessarabian governorate, and first Tiraspol and then Odessa became the capital of Transnistria.

These territories (primarily Transnistria) were necessary for Antonescu's economic exploitation. They carried out active Romanianization of the local population. Antonescu demanded that the local authorities behave as if "the power of Romania had been established in this territory for two million years", and declared that it was time to move on to an expansionist policy that included the exploitation of all kinds of resources in the occupied territories.

The Romanian administration distributed all local resources, which were previously state property of the USSR, to Romanian cooperatives and entrepreneurs for exploitation. The local population was mobilized to serve the needs of the Romanian army, which led to damage to the local economy due to the outflow of labor. In the occupied territories, the free labor of the local population was actively used. The inhabitants of Bessarabia and Bukovina were used for the repair and construction of roads and technical structures. By Decree-Law No. 521 of August 17, 1943, corporal punishment of workers was introduced by the Romanian administration. Also, local residents of the regions were taken to the Third Reich as Ostarbeiters. About 47,200 people were driven from the territories controlled by Romania to Germany.

In agriculture, the labor of "working communities" - former collective farms and state farms - was used. Each community had at its disposal from 200 to 400 hectares of land and consisted of 20-30 families. They grew crops both for their own needs and for the needs of the Romanian troops and administration. The communities and farms were not engaged in cattle breeding, since all the cattle were expropriated by the Romanian army. Of the total produced in the community for the year, the Romanian authorities were allowed to leave only 80 kg of grain per adult and 40 kg per child for food, the rest was confiscated. In cities and other settlements where they were not engaged in agriculture, a card system for buying bread was introduced. For a day, one person received from 150 to 200 g of bread. In 1942, Antonescu issued an order according to which the norms for issuing food in Bessarabia were reduced to a minimum (apparently, this was the minimum calorie necessary for physical survival), while the harvest was collected under the supervision of the police and the gendarmerie, and agricultural products, up to to production waste, were transferred to the jurisdiction of local Romanian authorities.

The Romanian administration pursued a policy of Romanization in the occupied regions. A number of laws were passed that forced out Russian, Ukrainian and other languages ​​not only from the business sphere, but also from everyday life. Thus, all books in Russian, including those written in pre-reform Russian, were compulsorily withdrawn from libraries. Books in other European languages ​​were also confiscated. The confiscated literature was dealt with in different ways: some were burned on the ground, some were taken to Romania.

The population of the occupied territories was divided into three categories - ethnic Romanians, national minorities and Jews, who received identity cards of different colors (Romanians - white, national minorities - yellow, Jews - green); all representatives of the Romanian state apparatus (including educators and priests) were ordered to "prove to the population that they are Romanians."

A repressive policy was carried out against the civilian population, affecting all spheres of life. According to the orders of the Romanian gendarmerie, not only weapons that were in private use were subject to confiscation, but also all radios of private individuals. Repressions were envisaged even for group singing in the street. It should be noted that these orders in many respects have something in common with similar German ones that were in force in Ukraine. As the local Romanian authorities themselves admitted, in reality, the Germans controlled the occupational activities of Romania, moreover, in order to avoid the Romanians’ unwillingness to fight on the side of Germany, the Germans deployed the so-called “points for the re-education of Romanian deserters”, and the advancing Romanian units were often followed by SS barrage detachments .

Gradual Romanianization of educational institutions was carried out. First of all, this concerned Transnistria, where more Ukrainians and Russians lived than Moldovans. Romanian language teachers were sent to schools in the region and assigned to each class. In Chisinau, a strict law was introduced that generally forbade speaking Russian. In addition, the administration required the use of Romanian equivalents of Slavic names: Dmitry - Dumitru, Mikhail - Mihai, Ivan - Ion, etc. The local population did not obey these laws. According to the governor of Chisinau, "the use of the Russian language is once again becoming a custom." In order to resist Romanian laws and preserve the original culture of the peoples of Bessarabia, the intelligentsia created underground circles. These societies were persecuted by the police, as they carried out the popularization and propaganda of the non-Romanian cultures of Bessarabia and Bukovina among the population.

Battle of Stalingrad

In September 1942, the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies arrived at Stalingrad, along with them were units of the Romanian Air Force: the 7th link of fighters, the 5th link of bombers, the 1st link of bombers, the 8th link of fighters, 6 th link of fighter-bombers and 3rd link of bombers. These links were supposed to provide air support to the Romanian armies and the German 6th. The 3rd Army under the command of Petre Dumitrescu defended the German positions from the Don. By November 19, 1942, this army numbered about 152,490 men. The 4th Army under the command of Constantine Constantinescu took up positions south of Stalingrad. In November 1942, this army numbered 75,580 men.

Between the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies was the 6th German army under the command of Friedrich Paulus. Also in this region were the German 4th Army, the Italian 8th Army and the Hungarian 2nd Army, which, together with the Romanian troops, were part of Army Group B. They were opposed by the 51st and 57th Soviet armies.

On November 19, the first major battle took place near Stalingrad with the participation of Romanian troops. It began with Soviet artillery preparation, after which the Red Army went on the offensive. The Romanian units found themselves in a difficult situation, since heavy Soviet tanks took part in the offensive. In this regard, they had to retreat to Raspopinskoye. Another major battle took place in this village, when Soviet tank units tried to liberate the village. The Romanian troops managed to repel the attack, but the Red Army broke through the Stalingrad front near the 3rd Romanian army in two places.

By the end of November 20, the front near the 3rd Army was broken through for 70 kilometers. In this regard, the army headquarters was transferred to the Morozovskaya settlement, and the 15,000-strong group of General Mihai Laskar was surrounded. On the same day, the 51st and 57th Soviet armies launched an offensive against the 4th Romanian, and in the evening the 1st and 2nd Romanian divisions were defeated. On November 21, the 22nd Division tried to ease the pressure on the Mihai Lascar group, but along the way it was itself drawn into the battle. The 1st Romanian division tried to help the 22nd division, however, during the counteroffensive, they mistakenly arrived at the Soviet positions. Only on November 25 did the remnants of the 1st division manage to leave the dangerous area.

On the evening of November 22, the Laskar group tried to get out of the encirclement, but on the way to the German positions, Mihai Laskar was captured, and most of the soldiers were killed. On November 23, this group was destroyed. Many Romanian units were also surrounded. On November 24, the Red Army continued its offensive, as a result of which the Romanian units suffered heavy losses. Only 83,000 Romanian soldiers managed to escape from the encirclement. The Stalingrad Front was now passing along the Chir River.

In the days that followed, the situation at the front only worsened. On November 25, the 4th Romanian division, under the pressure of the Soviet troops, was forced to retreat. However, on November 26, the Romanian-German troops took the initiative in their own hands, stopping the Soviet offensive. On November 27, during the operation of the German troops "Wintergewitter", the advancing Soviet units were stopped at Kotelnikovo. Although the offensive of the Red Army was suspended, but during the operation, the 4th Romanian Army suffered losses of more than 80% of its personnel. On December 16, Soviet troops launched Operation Little Saturn, as a result of which the Romanian armies again suffered heavy losses. On the night of December 18-19, the 1st Corps, while trying to retreat, was detained by the 6th Soviet Army and defeated. To the south of the defeated 3rd Army, there were still the 4th Romanian Army and the 8th Italian Army, which jointly defended and tried to establish contact with the German troops in Stalingrad. The Italian army was defeated on December 18, and on December 26, the 4th Army retreated, having suffered serious losses. On January 2, the last Romanian troops left the Chir River.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Romanian troops suffered a total loss of 158,850 people, the Romanian Air Force lost 73 aircraft during the battles. Of the 18 Romanian divisions stationed near Stalingrad, 16 suffered heavy losses. Another 3,000 Romanian soldiers were captured. On February 2, 1943, the battle of Stalingrad ended with the victory of the Red Army.

Krasnodar operation

In December, the Romanian troops were defeated near Stalingrad, and in the Caucasus, a difficult situation developed for the 2nd mountain division. On December 4, 1942, the 2nd division received an order to leave North Ossetia. The retreat was carried out in difficult conditions, at low temperatures and constant attacks by Soviet troops. The 17th German army was already in the Kuban, in which there were 64,000 Romanian soldiers.

On January 11, 1943, the 6th and 9th Cavalry Divisions, together with the German 44th Corps, blocked the Red Army's path to Krasnodar. On January 16, the 9th division entered into battle with three Soviet divisions, during which it was able to repel the attack. On February 12, the troops of the Red Army entered Krasnodar, and then made an attempt to dislodge the German armies from the Kuban. The 2nd Romanian mountain division was in a difficult situation, and therefore on February 20 the German 9th infantry division and the 3rd Romanian mountain division temporarily suspended the Soviet offensive and broke through to the 2nd division.

At the same time there was a reorganization of the Kuban front. Two Romanian cavalry divisions were sent to Anapa and the Black Sea coast. The rest of the Romanian divisions were attached to the German troops or divided into several parts. The 2nd Mountain Division remained in its original positions. This reorganization preceded the Soviet advance towards the Taman Peninsula. The offensive began on February 25, 1943. The 17th German Army managed to hold its positions and repel the attack, and all Romanian units also remained in their positions. Despite the successful actions of the Romanian-German troops, they suffered heavy losses. Because of this, the 17th Army reduced the front line, and the 2nd Mountain Division left the Kuban and retreated to the Crimea. On March 25, Soviet troops again tried to break through the German defenses, but the offensive again ended in failure. During the battle, the 1st Romanian battalion distinguished itself, which did not allow the Red Army to encircle the 17th Army. During the third Soviet offensive in April, the 19th division was forced to withdraw to the rear due to heavy losses. On May 26, the fourth offensive began, this time Anapa became the main direction. During the battles of the Red Army, by June 4, only Hill 121 was taken. By that time, the 19th division had returned to the front.

In early June 1943, the intensity of the fighting in the Kuban decreased, during a break, the 3rd Mountain Division was sent to the Crimea. On July 16, Soviet troops launched another offensive, but were driven back to their original positions. On July 22, two Soviet battalions broke through to Novorossiysk, all attempts to repel the offensive were unsuccessful. During the battle for the city, the Romanian-German troops suffered heavy losses, some units lost more than 50% of their personnel. Meanwhile, the evacuation of Romanian troops to the Crimea continued, the Romanian air force units were sent to Kerch, the 6th Cavalry Division was also sent to the Crimea. The 4th Mountain Division arrived to replace it.

On September 9, the Novorossiysk-Taman offensive operation of the Red Army began. In order not to lose control over Novorossiysk, the Romanian-German troops threw all their forces into battle. However, the Red Army conducted a landing operation on September 10, landing 5,000 people in the port of Novorossiysk. On September 15, the battle for Novorossiysk ended - the German-Romanian troops were driven out of it. In the north of the Kuban, a difficult situation also developed, in connection with which the Romanian troops began to retreat.

On September 4, plans began to be developed for the evacuation of the Romanian-German troops from the Taman Peninsula, and in mid-September, after the defeat of the German troops in Novorossiysk, evacuation began. The 1st and 4th divisions left the region by aircraft on 20 September. On September 24 and 25, the rest of the Romanian units retreated from the Kuban to the Crimea, but the 10th Infantry Division only got to the Crimea on October 1. The retreat was accompanied by constant battles with the Soviet troops. As a result, from February to October, the Romanian troops lost 9668 people (of which 1598 were killed, 7264 were wounded and 806 were missing.

Coup d'état and foreign policy reorientation

On August 23, 1944, Ion Antonescu, with his advisers, on the advice of the faithful Mihai I, Constantin Senatescu, went to the palace of Mihai I in order to report on the situation at the front and discuss further military operations. By that time, during the Iasi-Chisinau operation, there was a breakthrough of 100 km at the front, and Antonescu urgently arrived at the king. He did not know that Mihai I and the Communist Party agreed on a coup d'etat, and the Communists were even preparing an armed uprising. Ion Antonescu, arriving at the palace, was arrested and removed from power. At the same time, in Bucharest, communist-led military units and volunteer detachments took control of all state institutions, telephone and telegraph stations, depriving the country's leaders and German commanders of communication with Germany. At night, Mihai I spoke on the radio. During his speech, he announced a change of power in Romania, a cessation of hostilities against the USSR and a truce with Great Britain and the United States, as well as the formation of a new government headed by Constantin Sănetescu. Despite this, the war continued. Not all Romanian officers knew about the armistice or supported the new government. So, hostilities in the south of Moldova continued until August 29, but already on August 31, Soviet troops occupied Bucharest.

The coup was not beneficial to Germany and the German troops stationed in Romania. It was the Army Group "Southern Ukraine", which included the 6th German Army, the 8th German Army, the 17th German Army Corps and the 2nd Hungarian Army. In order to suppress the uprising in Bucharest, German units were sent there, which were stopped by Romanian troops loyal to the king. German aviation undertook several bombardments of Bucharest, Romanian fighters entered into fierce battles with them. The German troops, who were at the front near the Prut, also immediately went to the capital of Romania, but they were surrounded by the Red Army. At the same time, Romanian troops attacked German military units stationed in Ploiesti to protect oil fields. These units tried to retreat from Ploiesti to Hungary, but suffered heavy losses and were unable to advance further. As a result, more than 50,000 German soldiers fell into Romanian captivity. The Soviet command sent 50 divisions to help the Romanian troops and the rebels.

In Romanian historiography, it is generally accepted that the Romanian people independently overthrew Ion Antonescu and defeated the German armies that were in Romania, and the help of the USSR and other foreign policy factors did not play the most significant role in the coup d'état.

Ion Antonescu was extradited to the Soviet Union, the Siguranian service that supported him was dissolved. However, later he returned the former conductor of the USSR back to Romania, where he, according to the verdict of the tribunal, was shot along with some of his entourage.

75 years ago, on June 28, 1940, Soviet troops entered the territory of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Two days earlier, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov presented an ultimatum to the Romanian ambassador in Moscow demanding that these territories be immediately handed over to the Soviet Union. Bessarabia was supposed to go to the USSR according to the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but nothing was said about Bukovina. Hitler resented Stalin's growing appetites, but advised the Romanians to give in. On the evening of June 27, Bucharest accepted the Soviet ultimatum. Romanian troops left Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina without a fight. On July 1, Soviet troops reached the new border along the Prut and Danube.

Residents of Chisinau at the parade on the occasion of the arrival of the Red Army. 04-05.07.1940:

a bit of history:
The main myth associated with the voluntary accession to the Soviet Union of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, formerly part of the territory of Romania, is that this accession took place according to the clearly expressed will of the local population and without any connection with the secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, according to to which Bessarabia was assigned to the Soviet sphere of interests.

In fact, these territories were annexed under the threat of the use of military force, and the will of the local population to join the USSR was never expressed.

Bessarabia was annexed to Romania by the 1918 Treaty of Bucharest with Germany and its allies and the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria. Until 1918, Bessarabia was part of the Russian Empire and the Russian Republic, and Bukovina was an Austrian province. The USSR did not recognize the annexation of Bessarabia, although it repeatedly expressed its readiness to recognize Bessarabia as Romanian territory if Romania agreed to waive the demand for the return of the Romanian gold reserves, which was transferred to Russia for temporary storage in 1916-1917 after the occupation of most of the territory of Romania by the troops of the Central Powers. In 1924, on the left bank of the Dniester, along which the then Soviet-Romanian border passed, the Moldavian ASSR was created, in which ethnic Moldavians (Romanians) were a minority and which was seen as a springboard for the return of Bessarabia and the future creation of the Moldavian SSR. In August 1928, Romania joined the Briand-Kellogg Pact, in which the Soviet Union also participated and which provided for the rejection of war as a means of the state's foreign policy. According to the secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR received Bessarabia in its sphere of influence. However, there was no talk about Northern Bukovina in any of the secret Soviet-German protocols, but after the occupation of this territory by the Red Army, Hitler did not raise a fuss, because he was not yet ready for war with the Soviet Union. On April 9, the NKID protested to the Romanian authorities about the alleged 15 shelling of Soviet border posts from Romanian territory and the mining of bridges across the Dniester that had begun. In May, a partial mobilization of Romanian troops was announced. On May 11, the headquarters of the Kyiv military district ordered a set of mobilization sets of maps of the Romanian border zone. On June 1, Germany warned Romania that it would remain neutral in the event of a Soviet-Romanian armed conflict, although it continued to supply Bucharest with captured Polish weapons in exchange for oil. On the same day, Romania offered the USSR to expand trade, but was refused. On June 9, by order of the People's Commissariat of Defense, to prepare an operation against Romania, the Directorate of the Southern Front was created, headed by General G.K. Zhukov, and the next day, Soviet troops began to advance to the border.

On June 23, Molotov announced to the German ambassador Schulenburg about the intention of the USSR in the near future to annex not only Bessarabia, but also Northern Bukovina, and promised to take into account German economic interests in Romania. Schulenburg stated that since Bukovina did not appear in the secret protocol, he should request Berlin. On June 25 Moscow received a reply on behalf of Ribbentrop. He declared that the claims to Bukovina were unexpected, asked that the interests of the Germans living there and in Bessarabia be taken into account, but assured that Germany would comply with the non-aggression pact. At the same time, Ribbentrop expressed his readiness to influence Romania in terms of the peaceful cession of these territories so that Romania would not turn into a theater of war. On the same day, the troops of the Southern Front received a directive on political work during the war with Romania.

On June 26, 1940, the Soviet government in an ultimatum demanded that Romania transfer Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, predominantly populated by Ukrainians, to the USSR. On June 27, mobilization was announced in Romania, but Bucharest, on the advice of Berlin, accepted the ultimatum on the night of the 28th. On the morning of June 28, the Red Army, without meeting resistance, entered the territory of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and on June 30 reached the new border on the Prut River. The entry of troops lasted for six days and was slowed down due to frequent breakdowns of Soviet tanks and vehicles. On July 3, the new border with Romania was finally closed from the Soviet side. Those Romanian soldiers who did not have time to cross the Prut were disarmed and captured.

No own authorities that would ask for the admission of these territories to the USSR were created in Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The activities of the Moldovan and Ukrainian Soviet and party organs were immediately extended to them. On August 2, 1940, the Moldavian SSR was formed, which included 6 out of 9 districts of Bessarabia and 6 out of 14 districts of the Moldavian ASSR. The remaining territories of Bessarabia and the Moldavian ASSR, as well as Northern Bukovina, became part of the Ukrainian SSR.

Initially, the population did not show hostility to the Soviet troops. However, forced collectivization, the closing of churches, shortages of goods and repressions against the intelligentsia and members of the propertied classes changed the situation. In the spring and summer of 1941, about 30 thousand people of "anti-Soviet elements" were deported from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. On April 1, 1941, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Nikita Khrushchev, informed Stalin: “Some of the peasants of the nearest four villages of the Glyboksky district of the Chernivtsi region went to the regional center - the village of Glybokoye, demanding to send them to Romania. The crowd numbered about one thousand people, mostly men. In the middle of the day on April 1, the crowd entered the village of Glybokoye, approached the building of the regional department of the NKVD, some carried crosses, there was one white banner (which, as the participants in this procession themselves explained, was supposed to symbolize peaceful intentions). An inscription was pasted on one cross: “Look, brothers, these are the crosses that the Red Army soldiers crippled” ... At about 19:00 on April 1, a crowd of 500-600 people in the Glybok region tried to break into Romania. The border guards opened fire. As a result, according to preliminary data, about 50 people were killed and wounded, the rest fled. Nobody broke through the border."

Stalin replied to Khrushchev: “In general, from your message it is clear that your work in the border areas is going very badly. Of course, you can shoot people, but shooting is not the main method of our work.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, most of the mobilized Moldovans (Romanians) of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina voluntarily surrendered to the Romanian troops. Here, the Romanians took more than 80 thousand prisoners, who were immediately dismissed to their homes and partially drafted into their army. It is also worth noting that during the Great Patriotic War, out of 2,892 people who participated in the Soviet partisan movement in Moldova, there were only seven ethnic Moldovans. The indigenous population of Bessarabia clearly considered the return to the bosom of Romania as a boon in comparison with the Soviet occupation, providing an opportunity to partisan against the Germans to the encircled Red Army soldiers and the Soviet and party workers sent here. And the well-known song about the “dark-skinned Moldavian woman” gathering a Moldavian partisan detachment, written in 1940 just in connection with the annexation of Bessarabia to the USSR, is nothing more than a poetic image that has nothing to do with reality.
Boris Sokolov "Mythical War"

1. Soviet T-26 tank in a field in Bessarabia. 1940

2. A Soviet officer is talking to peasants in Bessarabia. 1940

3. Soviet T-26 tanks on the street of the Bessarabian town. June-July 1940

4. Soviet and Romanian officers in the negotiations during the Bessarabian operation. June-July 1940

5. Soviet tanks BT-7 at the parade in Chisinau. 04-06.07.1940

6. Soviet artillery tractors T-20 "Komsomolets" with 45-mm guns at the parade in Chisinau. 04-06.07.1940

7. Soviet tractor tractors SHTZ-NATI tow 152-mm howitzers 1909/30 at the parade in Chisinau. 04-06.07.1940

8. Residents of Bessarabia are watching Soviet armored vehicles BA-10 passing along the road. June-July 1940

9. Soviet T-26 tank and BA-10 armored vehicles on the road in Bessarabia. June-July 1940

10. Bessarabian peasants watching the crossing of the Soviet troops across the river. June-July 1940

11. Soviet armored vehicles BA-10 on the road in Bessarabia. June-July 1940

12. Disarmed by the Red Army, the Romanian gendarmes in the ranks. June-July 1940

13. Tractor tractors "Stalinets" tow 122-mm A-19 hull guns during a parade in Chisinau. 04-06.07.1940

14. Soviet officer during the disarmament of the Romanian gendarmes in Bessarabia. June-July 1940.

15. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (1895-1970) with Bessarabian peasants. 1940

16. Residents of Chisinau at the parade on the occasion of the arrival of the Red Army. 04-05.07.1940

18. Soviet pilot talking to Bessarabian peasants at the U-2 aircraft. June-July 1940

20. Red Army soldiers cross the river on a raft in Bessarabia. June-July 1940

21. Red Army soldiers on the banks of the river in Bessarabia, waiting for the crossing. June-July 1940