The liberation of which country ended with the defeat of the Nazi army. Liberation by the Red Army of the territory of the USSR and European states

No matter how the events of the Second World War are now interpreted and its history is not rewritten, the fact remains: having liberated the territory of the USSR from the Nazi invaders, the Red Army fulfilled the liberation mission - it returned freedom to 11 countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe with a population of 113 million people .

At the same time, without disputing the contribution of the allies to the victory over German Nazism at the same time, it is obvious that the Soviet Union and its Red Army did make a decisive contribution to the liberation of Europe. This is evidenced by the fact that the most fierce battles in 1944-1945, when, finally, on June 6, 1944, the second front was opened, nevertheless took place in the Soviet-German direction.

As part of the liberation mission, the Red Army carried out 9 strategic offensive operations, which were initiated by Yasso-Kishinevskaya (August 20-29, 1944).

During the operations carried out by the Red Army on the territory of European countries, significant Wehrmacht forces were defeated. For example, in Poland there are over 170 enemy divisions, in Romania - 25 German and 22 Romanian divisions, in Hungary - more than 56 divisions, in Czechoslovakia - 122 divisions.

The beginning of the liberation mission was laid by the restoration on March 26, 1944 of the State border of the USSR and the crossing of the Soviet-Romanian border by the Red Army in the area of the Prut River following the results of the Uman-Botoshansky operation of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. Then the Soviet troops restored a small - only 85 km - segment of the border of the USSR.

It is noteworthy that the regiment took over the protection of the liberated section of the border, the border guards of which took the first battle here on June 22, 1941. And the very next day, on March 27, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front crossed the Soviet-Romanian border, thereby proceeding to the direct liberation of Romania from the Nazis .

For about seven months, the Red Army liberated Romania - this was the longest stage of the liberation mission. From March to October 1944, more than 286 thousand Soviet soldiers shed their blood here, of which 69 thousand people died.

The significance of the Yasso-Kishinev operation on August 20-29, 1944, in the liberation mission, is due to the fact that during it the main forces of the Army Group "Southern Ukraine" were defeated and Romania was withdrawn from the war on the side of Nazi Germany, real prerequisites were created for the liberation of it itself, as well as other countries of southeastern Europe.

It is noteworthy that the operation itself is called the Yasso-Chisinau Cannes. It was carried out so brilliantly that it testified to the military talent of the Soviet military leaders who led this operation, as well as the high qualities, including professional and moral, of the commanders, and, of course, of His Majesty the Soviet Soldier.

The Iasi-Chisinau operation had a great influence on the further course of the war in the Balkans. Although the liberation of Romania itself continued until the end of October 1944, already in early September 1944, the Red Army began to liberate Bulgaria. The results of the operation had a demoralizing effect on its then leadership. Therefore, already on September 6-8, power in most cities and towns in Bulgaria passed to the anti-fascist Fatherland Front. On September 8, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, General F.I. Tolbukhin crossed the Romanian-Bulgarian border and, in fact, without a single shot, advanced through its territory. On September 9, the liberation of Bulgaria was completed. Thus, in fact, the liberation mission of the Red Army in Bulgaria was completed in two days.

Subsequently, Bulgarian troops took part in hostilities against Germany in the territory of Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria.

The liberation of Bulgaria created the prerequisites for the liberation of Yugoslavia. It should be noted that Yugoslavia is one of the few states that dared to challenge Nazi Germany back in 1941. It is noteworthy that it was here that the most powerful partisan movement in Europe was deployed, which diverted the significant forces of Nazi Germany and the collaborators of Yugoslavia itself. Despite the fact that the territory of the country was occupied, a significant part of it was under the control of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia under the leadership of I. Tito. Initially turning to the British for help and not receiving it, Tito wrote a letter to I. Stalin on July 5, 1944, wishing the Red Army to help the NOAU drive out the Nazis.

This became possible in September-October 1944. As a result of the Belgrade offensive, the troops of the Red Army, in cooperation with the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, defeated the German army group "Serbia", liberated the eastern and northeastern regions of Yugoslavia with its capital Belgrade (October 20).

Thus, favorable conditions were created for the preparation and conduct of the Budapest operation, which began 9 days after the liberation of Belgrade (October 29, 1944) and continued until February 13.

Unlike Yugoslavia, Hungary, like Romania and Bulgaria, was actually a satellite of Nazi Germany. In 1939, she joined the Anti-Comintern Pact and participated in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, the attack on Yugoslavia and the USSR. Therefore, a significant part of the population of the country had fears that the Red Army would not liberate, but conquer Hungary.

In order to dispel these fears, the command of the Red Army in a special appeal assured the population that it was entering Hungarian soil "not as a conqueror, but as a liberator of the Hungarian people from the German fascist yoke."

By December 25, 1944, the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts surrounded the 188,000th enemy grouping in Budapest. On January 18, 1945, the eastern part of the city of Pest was liberated, and on February 13, Buda.

As a result of another strategic offensive operation - Bolotonska (March 6 - 15, 1945), the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, with the participation of the 1st Bulgarian and 3rd Yugoslav armies, defeated the counteroffensive in the area north of about. Balaton grouping of German troops. The liberation of Hungary continued for 195 days. As a result of heavy battles and battles, the losses of Soviet troops here amounted to 320,082 people, of which 80,082 were irretrievable.

Soviet troops suffered even more significant losses during the liberation of Poland. More than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers gave their lives for its liberation, 1,416 thousand people were injured, almost half of all the losses of the Red Army during the liberation of Europe.

The liberation of Poland was overshadowed by the actions of the Polish government in exile, which initiated the uprising in Warsaw on August 1, 1944, inconsistent with the command of the Red Army.

The rebels counted on the fact that they would have to fight with the police and the rear. And I had to fight with experienced front-line soldiers and SS troops. The uprising was brutally suppressed on October 2, 1944. This is the price that Polish patriots had to pay for the ambitions of politicians.

The Red Army was able to begin the liberation of Poland only in 1945. The Polish direction, or rather the Warsaw-Berlin direction, was the main one from the beginning of 1945 until the end of the war. Only on the territory of Poland within its modern borders, the Red Army conducted five offensive operations: the Vistula-Oder, East Prussian, East Pomeranian, Upper Silesian and Lower Silesian.

The largest offensive operation in the winter of 1945 was the Vistula-Oder operation (January 12 - February 3, 1945). Its goal was to complete the liberation of Poland from the Nazi occupiers and create favorable conditions for a decisive offensive against Berlin.

During the 20 days of the offensive, Soviet troops completely defeated 35 enemy divisions, and 25 divisions suffered losses from 60 to 75% of their personnel. An important result of the operation was the liberation of Warsaw on January 17, 1945 by the joint efforts of the Soviet and Polish troops. On January 19, the troops of the 59th and 60th armies liberated Krakow. The Nazis intended to turn the city into a second Warsaw by mining it. Soviet troops saved the architectural monuments of this ancient city. On January 27, Auschwitz was liberated - the largest factory for the extermination of people, which was created by the Nazis.

The final battle of the Great Patriotic War - the Berlin Offensive - is one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Second World War. More than 300 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers laid down their heads here. Without dwelling on the analysis of the operation itself, I would like to note a number of facts that emphasize the liberating nature of the mission of the Red Army.

On April 20, the assault on the Reichstag was launched - and on the same day, food supply points for the population of Berlin were deployed on the outskirts of Berlin. Yes, the act of unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany was signed, but Germany itself, today's Germany, hardly considers itself the losing side.

On the contrary, for Germany it was liberation from Nazism. And if we draw an analogy with the events of another great war - the First World War, when in 1918 Germany was actually brought to its knees, then it is obvious that following the results of the Second World War, Germany, although it was divided, nevertheless was not humiliated and it was not subject to unbearable reparations, as was the case at the end of the Treaty of Versailles.

Therefore, despite the acuteness of the situation that developed after 1945, the fact that for more than half a century in Europe the “cold war” did not transform into a “hot” World War III seems to be a consequence of the decisions taken at the Potsdam Conference and their implementation in practice. And, of course, the liberation mission of our Red Army also made a certain contribution to this.

The main result of the final operations of the Red Army on the territory of a number of countries in Central, South-Eastern and Northern Europe was the restoration of their independence and state sovereignty. The military successes of the Red Army provided the political conditions for the creation of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international legal relations with the most active participation of the USSR, which determined the world order for many decades and guaranteed the inviolability of borders in Europe.

Bocharnikov Igor Valentinovich
(From a speech at the International Scientific Conference "Iasi-Chisinau Operation: Myths and Realities" on September 15, 2014).

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war on its shoulders and played a decisive role in defeating the armies of Germany and its allies. The main armed forces of Germany and its satellites were concentrated on the Soviet-German front. Here the main military events took place and the plans of the Nazi invaders suffered a complete collapse.

The distribution of the ground forces of Germany and its European allies along the fronts in 1941-1945*

* The distribution of troops is given in calculated divisions. When counting, two brigades are equated to one division.

World history has not known such a colossal concentration of troops and military equipment as on the Soviet-German front, where in different periods from 8 to 12.8 million people were concentrated on both sides, a huge amount of military equipment. Active hostilities were conducted here for 1320 days out of 1418, that is, they accounted for 93% of the front's existence. On the three fronts of the Western Allies - North African, Italian and Western European - active battles were fought only 1094 days out of 2069, or 53% of the period of existence of these fronts.

Of great importance for the victorious outcome of the war were the operations of the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1944, as a result of which the liberation of Soviet land was completed and hostilities were transferred beyond its borders.

The arrival of the Red Army was awaited with hope by millions of working people in the countries of Europe occupied by the Nazis; The success of the struggle of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition largely depended on the situation on the Soviet-German front.

It should be noted that even during this period, 1.8-2.8 times more enemy divisions were concentrated on the Soviet-German front than against the Allied forces. Under the influence of the victories of the Red Army and the troops of the allies, the movement of resistance to fascism intensified in the countries occupied and dependent on Nazi Germany. The Resistance fighters inflicted significant blows on the communications and garrisons of the enemy, disorganized the work of industrial enterprises, and diverted part of the armed forces of the Nazi coalition. They destroyed tens of thousands of enemy soldiers and officers, expelled the invaders and their accomplices from settlements, cities and vast areas. The main assistance to the resistance movement was the defeat by the Red Army of the main forces of Nazi Germany on the Soviet-German front. The USSR provided significant assistance in the development of the partisan movement by supplying weapons, ammunition, communications equipment and training partisan organizers. More than 40 thousand Soviet citizens fought in the ranks of anti-fascist fighters in European countries.

With the entry of Soviet troops into Romania in March 1944 and into Poland in July, the stage of liberation by the Red Army of foreign countries from the fascist yoke began.

The defeat of the enemy troops in the Iasi-Kishinev operation deprived the Nazis and the fascist Antonescu regime of armed support in Romania, created decisive conditions for the success of the anti-fascist armed uprising, the overthrow of the Antonescu dictatorship and Romania's exit from the war on the side of Germany. After the victory of the popular uprising in Romania on August 23, 1944 and the fall of the fascist regime, two Romanian armies fought in the same ranks with the Soviet troops for the liberation of their country, and then Hungary and Czechoslovakia. On September 8, Soviet troops crossed the Romanian-Bulgarian border and were enthusiastically received by the Bulgarian people, who were joined by the army. On September 9, an armed uprising won in Sofia, and the reactionary regime was overthrown. The government of the Fatherland Front came to power and declared war on Germany. 3 Bulgarian armies entered the fight against the German troops. In September-October 1944, the Red Army carried out the East Carpathian operation to support the Slovak armed uprising, in which Soviet partisans also participated. Together with the Soviet soldiers, the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps fought. Having overcome the Eastern Carpathians, they liberated the Transcarpathian Ukraine, part of Eastern Slovakia and entered the Hungarian lowland.

With the liberation of Bulgaria and the withdrawal of Soviet troops to the border with Yugoslavia, favorable conditions were created for the final defeat of the fascist troops on the territory of Yugoslavia, Greece and Albania. The operation to liberate the eastern rivers of Yugoslavia, which went down in history under the name Belgrade, is a vivid example of the cooperation of the allied armies during the Second World War. On October 20, 1944, Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, was liberated by the joint actions of the Soviet and Yugoslav troops. The defeat of the German troops on the territory of Yugoslavia had a positive effect on the struggle of the Albanian and Greek peoples. On November 29, 1944, the Albanian National Liberation Army completed the expulsion of all invaders from its territory. On October 12, the People's Liberation Army of Greece and the partisans liberated Athens, and on November 3, the entire territory of the country was cleared of invaders. On the territory of Hungary, Soviet troops fought intense battles from September 25, 1944. Having liberated Budapest on February 13, 1945 and defeated a large enemy grouping in the Lake Balaton area, the Red Army, together with the Bulgarian and Romanian troops, completed the liberation of Hungary on April 4.

At a time when Soviet troops were crushing the German army in Poland and East Prussia, formations of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts in February 1945 completed the defeat of the encircled enemy troops in Budapest. From March 6 to March 15, 1945, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, which included the 1st Bulgarian Army of General V. Stoychev, carried out the Balaton defensive operation, as a result of which the last attempt of the enemy to carry out a major counteroffensive was thwarted.

On March 16, the Vienna offensive operation of the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts began. On April 13, Vienna, the capital of Austria, was taken by storm, Soviet troops delivered the Austrian people from the Nazi yoke.

At the beginning of May 1945, an amphibious assault was prepared on the Danish island of Bornholm, where the Germans created a base for their naval ships and where a large number of troops from Pomerania were taken. The Germans refused the ultimatum of the Soviet command about the surrender of troops on the island. In this regard, on May 9, an amphibious assault was landed on the island, which forced the Nazis to lay down their arms.

During the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation, Soviet troops liberated the northern regions of Norway. King Ho-kon II of Norway declared that "the Norwegian people accepted the Red Army as a liberator."

In the context of the impending collapse of the Third Reich, on May 5, the patriots of Czechoslovakia raised an armed uprising in Prague and in a number of other cities. The rebels asked for help, and the Soviet Supreme High Command decided to speed up the Prague operation. During it, as in the first operation to liberate Czechoslovakia, assistance was provided to the insurgent patriots and the capital of Czechoslovakia was saved from destruction by the Nazis. The fighting on the territory of Czechoslovakia ended on the night of May 12 with the defeat and capture of a large enemy grouping.

The Prague operation of the Soviet troops was the last military operation of World War II in Europe.

By the end of 1944, all of Eastern Slovakia was liberated. In the winter and spring of 1945, Soviet troops liberated the important industrial centers of Czechoslovakia - Bratislava, Brno and Moravska Ostrava.

The words of US President F. Roosevelt, expressed as early as May 6, 1942, are known: “From the point of view of grand strategy ... it is difficult to get away from the obvious fact that the Russian armies destroy more enemy soldiers and weapons than all the other 25 states of the United Nations, taken together". “... It was the Russian army,” wrote British Prime Minister W. Churchill in September 1944, “that let the guts out of the German military machine.” General Charles de Gaulle said in December 1944: "The French know what Soviet Russia did for them, and they know that it was Soviet Russia that played the main role in their liberation."

The USA and Great Britain opened a second front in the summer of 1944, when the Armed Forces of the USSR, winning one victory after another, were approaching the borders of Germany from the east. The opening of the Second Front and the subsequent offensive actions of the allied forces in Western Europe played a significant role in shortening the time for the end of the war in Europe.

Distribution of ground forces of Germany and its European allieson the fronts in 1941-1945*

	November 1942	April 1943	January 1944	June 1944	January 1945
Council co-Germanic
Other fronts

* The distribution of troops is given in calculated divisions. When counting, two brigades are equated to one division.

With the entry of Soviet troops into Romania in March 1944 and into Poland in July, the stage of liberation by the Red Army of foreign countries from the fascist yoke began.

During the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation, Soviet troops liberated the northern regions of Norway. King Ho-kon II of Norway declared that "the Norwegian people accepted the Red Army as a liberator."

The Prague operation of the Soviet troops was the last military operation of World War II in Europe.

The victories of the Red Army in 1943 meant a radical turning point not only on the Soviet-German front, but also in the Second World War as a whole. They intensified the contradictions in the camp of Germany's allies. On July 25, 1943, the fascist government of B. Mussolini fell in Italy, and the new leadership, headed by General P. Badoglio, declared war on Germany on October 13, 1943. The resistance movement intensified in the occupied countries. In 1943, 300 thousand partisans of France, 300 thousand of Yugoslavia, over 70 thousand of Greece, 100 thousand of Italy, 50 thousand of Norway, as well as partisan detachments of other countries, were fighting the enemy. In total, 2.2 million people participated in the resistance movement.
The meetings of the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain contributed to the coordination of the actions of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. The first of the "big three" conferences was held November 28 - December 1, 1943 in Tehran. The main questions were military - about the second front in Europe. It was decided that no later than May 1, 1944, Anglo-American troops would land in France. A declaration was adopted on joint actions in the war against Germany and on post-war cooperation, and the issue of Poland's post-war borders was considered. The USSR undertook an obligation after the end of the war with Germany to enter the war against Japan.
In January 1944, the third and final stage of the Great Patriotic War began. By this time, the Nazi troops continued to occupy Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Karelia, a significant part of Belarus, Ukraine, the Leningrad and Kalinin regions, Moldova and the Crimea. The Hitlerite command kept in the East the main, most combat-ready troops numbering about 5 million people. Germany still had significant resources to wage war, although its economy had entered a period of serious difficulties.
However, the general military-political situation, in comparison with the first years of the war, changed radically in favor of the USSR and its Armed Forces. By the beginning of 1944, there were more than 6.3 million people in the active army of the USSR. The production of steel, iron, coal and oil production increased rapidly, and the development of the eastern regions of the country took place. The defense industry in 1944 produced five times more tanks and aircraft than in 1941.
The Soviet Army was faced with the task of completing the liberation of its territory, assisting the peoples of Europe in overthrowing the fascist yoke, and ending the war with the complete defeat of the enemy on his territory. The peculiarity of offensive operations in 1944 was that the enemy was dealt pre-planned powerful strikes in various directions of the Soviet-German front, forcing him to disperse his forces and hindering the organization of an effective defense.
In 1944, the Red Army inflicted a series of crushing blows on the German troops, which led to the complete liberation of the Soviet land from the fascist invaders. Among the largest operations are the following:

January-February - near Leningrad and Novgorod. The 900-day blockade of Leningrad, which had lasted since September 8, 1941, was lifted (over 640,000 inhabitants died of starvation during the blockade in the city; the food ration in 1941 was 250 g of bread a day for workers and 125 g for the rest);
february-mart - liberation of Right-Bank Ukraine;
aprilmay - liberation of the Crimea;
June August - Belarusian operation;
July-August - liberation of Western Ukraine;
beginning of August - Yasso-Kishinev operation;
October - the liberation of the Arctic.
By December 1944, the entire Soviet territory was liberated. On November 7, 1944, the Pravda newspaper published an order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 220: “The Soviet state border,” it said, “is restored all the way from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea” (for the first time during the war, Soviet troops reached the state border USSR March 26, 1944 on the border with Romania). All the allies of Germany left the war - Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary. The Hitler coalition completely disintegrated. And the number of countries that were at war with Germany was constantly increasing. On June 22, 1941 there were 14 of them, and in May 1945 - 53.

The successes of the Red Army did not mean that the enemy had ceased to pose a serious military threat. An army of almost five million opposed the USSR in early 1944. But the Red Army outnumbered the Wehrmacht both in numbers and in firepower. By the beginning of 1944, it numbered more than 6 million soldiers and officers, had 90,000 guns and mortars (the Germans had about 55,000), an approximately equal number of tanks and self-propelled guns, and an advantage of 5,000 aircraft.
The opening of a second front also contributed to the successful course of hostilities. On June 6, 1944, Anglo-American troops landed in France. However, the Soviet-German front remained the main one. In June 1944, Germany had 259 divisions on its Eastern Front, and 81 on the Western Front. Paying tribute to all the peoples of the planet who fought against fascism, it should be noted that it was the Soviet Union that was the main force that blocked A. Hitler's path to world domination . The Soviet-German front was the main front where the fate of mankind was decided. Its length ranged from 3000 to 6000 km, it existed for 1418 days. Until the summer of 1944 -
Liberation of the territory of the USSR by the Red Army
,Mupei states 267
the time of the opening of the second front in Europe - 9295% of the ground forces of Germany and its allies operated here, and then from 74 to 65%.
Having liberated the USSR, the Red Army, pursuing the retreating enemy, entered in 1944 into the territory of foreign countries. She fought in 13 European and Asian states. More than a million Soviet soldiers gave their lives for their liberation from fascism.
In 1945, the offensive operations of the Red Army assumed an even larger scale. The troops launched a final offensive along the entire front from the Baltic to the Carpathians, which was planned for the end of January. But due to the fact that the Anglo-American army in the Ardennes (Belgium) was on the verge of disaster, the Soviet leadership decided to start hostilities ahead of schedule.
The main blows were inflicted on the Warsaw-Berlin direction. Overcoming desperate resistance, the Soviet troops completely liberated Poland, defeated the main forces of the Nazis in East Prussia and Pomerania. At the same time, strikes were inflicted on the territory of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria.
In connection with the approach of the final defeat of Germany, the questions of joint actions of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition at the final stage of the war and in peacetime arose sharply. In February 1945, the second conference of the heads of governments of the USSR, the USA and England took place in Yalta. The conditions for the unconditional surrender of Germany were worked out, as well as measures to eradicate Nazism and turn Germany into a democratic state. These principles are known as "4 D" - democratization, demilitarization, denazification and decartelization. The Allies also agreed on the general principles for resolving the reparation issue, that is, on the amount and procedure for compensating the damage caused by Germany to other countries (the total amount of reparations was set at 20 billion US dollars, of which the USSR was to receive half). An agreement was reached on the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan 23 months after the surrender of Germany and on the return of the Kuril Islands and the southern part of Sakhalin Island to it. In order to maintain peace and security, it was decided to create an international organization - the UN. Its founding conference was held on April 25, 1945 in San Francisco.
One of the largest and most significant at the final stage of the war was the Berlin operation. The offensive began on 16 April. On April 25, all roads leading from the city to the west were cut. On the same day, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front met with American troops near the city of Torgau on the Elbe. April 30 began the assault on the Reichstag. On May 2, the Berlin garrison capitulated. May 8 - The surrender was signed.
In the last days of the war, the Red Army had to fight stubborn battles in Czechoslovakia. On May 5, an armed uprising against the invaders began in Prague. On May 9, Soviet troops liberated Prague.

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