Much has been said and written about one of the bloodiest wars of the last century. In a series of diverse events, there was a place for heroism, courage, heroism, hard work and boundless faith in victory. The courage of the multinational people of the USSR and the desperate desire to put an end to fascism allowed Soviet soldiers to install the banner of victory on the Brandenburg Gate on May 2, 1945. Numerous equally interesting facts about the Second World War, which belong to the category of little or completely unknown, left their imprint in the series of events of the war years. Interesting facts about the Second World War (Great Patriotic War).

To be a holiday, but ...

There was an official order to make every effort to ensure that people forgot about the war and focused on the active restoration of the country.

The well-known Victory Parade, which became the first after the end of the bloodshed, was held in Moscow at the end of June of the victorious year.

The celebration of the main holiday of the country - "Victory Day" since 1948 was canceled, and May 9 was an ordinary working day.

For the first time, extensive celebrations of the great day were organized in 1965, after which it was declared a holiday.

Approximate death toll

Only in the late 80s of the last century, actions were intensified to clarify the number of dead.

Information about the number of deaths varies. According to reliable, but very vague information, the number of Soviet citizens who died at the front and in the rear from the beginning of World War II until its end is 43 million people.

During the period 1941-45, more than 26 million people died.

The total number of losses of the Wehrmacht for the entire period of hostilities does not exceed 8 million people.

The number of citizens who died in captivity and went into exile exceeds 1.8 million.

The total number of Soviet children deported to Germany remains unknown. The approximate number of those returned to their homeland is also unknown, but it does not exceed 3% of the total number of abducted children.

The blockade of Leningrad is one of the many terrible and heroic moments in the history of the Soviet people. Everyone knows that the city is not located on an island. However, this did not help its inhabitants and defenders to avoid the difficult conditions of the blockade. The duration of the siege, in which the armies of Germany, Finland, Italy and Spain participated, was 872 days.

The daily norm of bread in besieged Leningrad

According to official data, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the population of the USSR was 194 million people. After its completion, only 127 million remained.

Military labor of women

Both men and women participated in the 1941 war.

For valor and courage, officer ranks were awarded to 80 thousand representatives of the fair sex.

The number of women who participated in hostilities on the fronts of the Second World War fluctuates between 600 thousand and 1 million.

Traditional for this war period was the creation of diverse women's formations (flight, rifle, naval, etc.) and volunteer brigades.

To become a sniper and get to the front, women underwent special training at the central sniper school.

87 representatives of the weaker sex were awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union".

The exploits of the labor front

Over 130 types of weapons were created by defense enterprises for the front.

For the first Soviet mobile multiple launch rocket system "Katyusha", shells were produced at factories operating in Baku.

30 thousand rubles - the contribution of a 90-year-old collective farmer, which has become an impressive part of the funds used to form tank columns and aviation squadrons.

In the list of interesting factors about the Second World War, it is worth noting the volume of personal savings of citizens given to meet the military needs of the country, can be expressed in meager numbers:

• gold - 15 kg;
• silver - 952 kg;
• cash - 320 million rubles.

There is a place for heroism

The feat of Alexander Matrosov was not the only one: over four hundred similar cases were recorded in the documents of the war years.

It is known for certain that the first hero of the Great Patriotic War, who closed an enemy machine gun on 08/24/1941 with his own body, was political instructor and tanker Alexander Pankratov. His example inspired another 58 Soviet soldiers to perform a similar feat.

Feats were also performed by specially trained animals. For example, dogs were trained and became tank destroyers, signalmen, orderlies, and sappers. Thanks to four-legged friends, it was possible to neutralize over three hundred pieces of equipment and over 4 million enemy land mines and mines, receive 200 thousand important dispatches, remove about 700 thousand soldiers from combat positions, and clear over 3 hundred large settlements.

About awards

"For the Capture of Berlin" - a medal awarded to approximately 1.1 million Soviet soldiers.

Almost every person who participated in the hostilities was worthy of awards. However, the awards were issued in insufficient quantities, which did not allow timely recognition of all the heroes. Only with the beginning of peaceful everyday life, the personnel department organized events to search for the awardees.

Detection of enemy aircraft

One million - the number of awards returned to their rightful owners by the end of 1956. To receive an order or medal, citizens had to personally apply to the relevant authorities.

A huge number of awards remained unclaimed: often veterans simply did not live up to the solemn and long-awaited moment.

The feat of war correspondents was highly appreciated, as evidenced by numerous orders and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Something that cannot be ignored

So that the Kremlin would not suffer from the bombing, it was decided to disguise the buildings as city blocks and install plywood decorations on the squares.

The difficult situation of the war years did not prevent by 1943 from completing the restoration of the Church and the Patriarchate. In the post-war country, a council for the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was created.

The P.08 pistol, designed by Georg Luger, was recognized as unique and was made by hand in single copies.

For German tankers and pilots, methamphetamine was officially added to food rations.

On the territory of Ukraine, the invaders, together with the inhabitants, burned 334 settlements.

Koriukovka, a city in the Chernihiv region, became famous thanks to the atrocities of the invaders: in 2 days the invaders burned 1290 buildings and killed 7 thousand civilians.

The middle of autumn 1941 for the hero city of Odessa was marked by the death of 50 thousand Jews. The massacre was carried out by soldiers of the Romanian troops, who acted on the side of Nazi Germany.

Hitler's personal enemy, according to him, was the announcer Y. Levitan, for whose death a fabulous reward of 250 thousand marks was appointed. The speaker was constantly under guard.

The well-known fact of signing the act of surrender of Germany did not at all mean the establishment of peace between the two states. The decision to "formally" end the hostility was made by the Presidium of the Supreme Council at the end of January 1955.

This is by no means all the interesting facts about the Great Patriotic War. Much remains to be learned from the archives. It is a pity that eyewitnesses of those distant events will no longer have to confirm the authenticity of the facts.

1. During World War II, the Taj Mahal was covered with a huge canopy to make it look like a store of bamboo. In this way, any Japanese bomber pilot could be misled. In 1971, he was again camouflaged during the Indo-Pakistani War.

2. After World War II, Jewish mercenary groups nicknamed “Nokmim” appeared who sought out those who had terrorized Jews or their families during the war and meticulously executed them.

3. The Red Army (USSR) defeated 75-80% of the German troops during the Second World War. US forces / destroyed only 20-25%.

4. During World War II, there was a secret American program to disguise plastic explosives as flour. It was such a disguise that even pastries could be made from this "flour", which later could be used to make explosives.

5. A private in the US Army during the Italian campaign single-handedly forced the surrender of four machine gunners and captured 10 Italian prisoners of war. He was stripped of the medal only because he is a combat private in the US Army.

6. During the Second World War, the official gesture that accompanied the oath of allegiance in the United States was similar to the Nazi salute (Hitler). Therefore, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered to change it and put a hand on his heart.

7. During World War II, US Army Lieutenant Robert Klingman used the propeller of his F4U Corsair (single-seat carrier-based fighter) to destroy enemy reconnaissance aircraft. His weapon jammed, but he attempted an air ram, went into the tail of the enemy and, with the propeller of his aircraft, violated the control of the enemy aircraft, as a result of which it crashed. Robert Klingman returned to base and was awarded the Navy Cross.

8. There is an account in which the events that took place during the Second World War are posted, which correspond in date and time in real time (only with a difference of 70 years).

9. "Night Witches" were members of the women's aviation regiment of Russian bombers. These pilots turned off their engines so that they would not be heard on approach, skimmed through the sky and bombed German targets. The Night Witches dropped 3,000 tons of bombs on German positions and constantly evaded enemy aircraft, as a result of which the German command had no choice but to promise the German pilots the Iron Cross for the destruction of at least one aircraft from the Night Witches.

10. The plot of the battle near the Death Star from the cult film Star Wars was based on a Royal Air Force operation during World War II.

11. During World War II, three bombs hit the same church in Malta. Two of them just bounced off to the side and didn't explode. The latter broke through the roof of the church, fell among the people who took refuge during the raid, but did not explode.

12. In the ranks of the Polish army as an ordinary soldier during the Second World War, there was an ordinary bear and, ultimately, its presence played an important role in the battle for Monte Cassino.

13. Only finished paying off her World War II debts in 2006.

14. declared neutrality during World War II and so thousands of people invested their hard-earned money in banks. When depositors passed away, relatives were deprived of any access to their money, and banks continued to receive interest on invested funds.

15. During World War II, Italy issued an ultimatum demanding that they accept the Italian occupation. The Greeks answered “then it is war”. In the ensuing duel, the unarmed Greeks steadfastly held the line against the Italian forces, thus forcing Germany to intervene, diverting resources from the upcoming invasion of the USSR.

16. During World War II, the Manhattan Project used the code name "copper" for the element plutonium.

17. During World War II, Canadian soldier Leo Major single-handedly captured about 93 Nazis in the Netherlands. He also later single-handedly captured the city of Zwolle, also in the Netherlands, to escape the Germans. To everything he was blind to one.

18. The total losses of the USA, Great Britain and France during the Second World War together were approximately equal to the losses of the Soviet Union in the decisive battle of Leningrad. In general, Soviet losses are 26 times greater than those of other allies.

19. Fritz Haber, a German chemist, created a process for the production of fertilizers, which today make it possible to produce about half of the world's food. He also created chlorine gas. After his death, chlorine gas was used in the gas chambers, and pesticides were used to fertilize the soil.

20. Lauri Terni was a soldier who fought under three flags: Finnish, German (when he fought the Soviets in World War II) and American (where he was known as Larry Thorne) when he served in the US Army as a special forces soldier in the war.

21. During World War II, Britain shipped most of its stocks and foreign securities in boxes labeled “fish”. They were stored for years in an office building in downtown Montreal, where about 5,000 people worked throughout the war with no idea what was hidden in their basement.

22. The United States repeatedly bombed Tokyo during World War II, resulting in more than 100,000 casualties, more than the total number of casualties in and combined.

23. There is a separate cemetery in France for American soldiers who were executed for rape or murder during World War II.

24. The US only produced 139 cars during World War II because all factories used production capacity and supplies for the needs of the army.

PLANE Grenade

During the defense of Sevastopol in 1942, the only case in the history of World War II and the Great Patriotic War occurred when the commander of a mortar company, Junior Lieutenant Simonok, shot down a low-flying German aircraft with a direct hit from an 82-mm mortar! This is as unlikely as shooting down a plane with a thrown stone or brick ...

ENGLISH HUMOR PERFORMED BY TORPEDA

A curious incident at sea. In 1943, a German and British destroyer met in the North Atlantic. The British, without hesitation, were the first to hit the enemy with a torpedo ... but the rudders of the torpedo jammed at an angle, and as a result, the torpedo made a circular cheerful maneuver and returned ... The British were no longer joking watching their own torpedo rush towards them. As a result, they got it from their own torpedo, and in such a way that the destroyer, although it remained afloat and waited for help, did not participate in hostilities until the very end of the war due to the damage received. Only one thing remains a mystery of military history: why didn't the Germans finish off the British? Either they were ashamed to finish off such warriors of the "queen of the seas" and receivers of Nelson's glory, or they neighed so that they could no longer shoot ...

POLYGLOTS

A curious incident occurred in Hungary. Already at the end of the war, when Soviet troops entered Hungary, as a result of battles and communication, most Hungarians were sure that “f @ b your mother” is an accepted greeting, like “hello”. Once, when a Soviet colonel came to a rally to the Hungarian workers and greeted them in Hungarian, they answered him in chorus “fuck your mother!”.

NOT ALL GENERALS RETRACTED

On June 22, 1941, in the zone of the southwestern front, Army Group South (commanded by Field Marshal G. Rundstedt) delivered the main blow south of Vladimir-Volynsky on the formations of the 5th Army of General M.I. Potapov and the 6th Army of General I.N. Muzychenko. In the center of the strip of the 6th Army, in the area of ​​​​Rava-Russkaya, the 41st Rifle Division of the oldest commander of the Red Army, General G.N. Mikushev. The division's units repulsed the first blows of the enemy together with the border guards of the 91st border detachment. On June 23, with the approach of the main forces of the division, having launched a counterattack, they pushed the enemy back beyond the state border and advanced up to 3 km into Polish territory. But, due to the threat of encirclement, they had to move away ...

Unusual intelligence facts. In principle, German intelligence quite successfully "worked" in the Soviet rear, except for the Leningrad direction. The Germans sent spies in large numbers to besieged Leningrad, supplying them with everything they needed - clothes, documents, addresses, passwords, appearances. But, when checking documents, any patrol instantly revealed "fake" documents of German production. The works of the best specialists in forensic science and printing were easily detected by soldiers and officers from patrols. The Germans changed the texture of the paper, the composition of the paints - to no avail. Any even semi-literate sergeant of the Central Asian conscription revealed a linden at first sight. The Germans never solved the problem. And the secret was simple - the Germans, a high-quality nation, made the paper clips that fastened the documents out of stainless steel, and our real Soviet paper clips were slightly rusty, the patrol sergeants had never seen others, for them the shiny steel clips sparkled like gold ...

FROM AIRCRAFT WITHOUT PARACHUTE

The pilot, who made a reconnaissance flight during the return, noticed a column of German armored vehicles moving towards Moscow. As it turned out, there was no one in the way of German tanks. It was decided to drop troops in front of the column. Only a completed regiment of Siberians in white sheepskin coats was brought to the airfield. When the German column was walking along the highway, low-flying aircraft suddenly appeared in front, as if they were about to land, dropping their speed to the limit, 10-20 meters from the snow surface. Clusters of people in white coats rained down from the planes onto a snow-covered field next to the road. The soldiers got up alive and immediately threw themselves under the caterpillars of tanks with bundles of grenades ... They looked like white ghosts, they were not visible in the snow, and the advance of the tanks was stopped. When a new column of tanks and motorized infantry approached the Germans, there were practically no “white jackets” left. And then a wave of planes again flew in and a new white waterfall of fresh fighters poured from the sky. The German advance was halted and only a few tanks retreated hastily. After it turned out that when falling into the snow, only 12 percent of the landing force died, and the rest entered into an unequal battle. Although all the same it is a terribly wrong tradition to measure victories by the percentage of dead living people. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine a German, an American, or an Englishman voluntarily and without a parachute jumping on tanks. They wouldn't even think about it.

In early October 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command learned about the defeat of three of its fronts in the Moscow direction from messages from the Berlin radio. We are talking about the encirclement near Vyazma.

AND ONE WARRIOR IN THE FIELD

On July 17, 1941 (the first month of the war), Lieutenant of the Wehrmacht Hensfald, who later died near Stalingrad, wrote in his diary: “Sokolnichi, near Krichev. In the evening they buried a Russian unknown soldier. He alone, standing at the cannon, shot at a column of our tanks and infantry for a long time. And so he died. Everyone marveled at his bravery." Yes, this warrior was buried by the enemy! With honors ... Later it turned out that it was the gun commander of the 137th Infantry Division of the 13th Army, Senior Sergeant Nikolai Sirotinin. He was left alone to cover the retreat of his unit. Sirotinin, took an advantageous firing position, from which the highway, a small river and a bridge across it were clearly visible. At dawn on July 17, German tanks and armored personnel carriers appeared. When the lead tank reached the bridge, a gunshot rang out. With the first shot, Nikolai knocked out a German tank. The second shell hit another, closing the column. There was a traffic jam on the road. The Nazis tried to turn off the highway, but several tanks immediately got stuck in a swamp. And senior sergeant Sirotinin continued to send shells at the target. The enemy brought down the fire of all tanks and machine guns on a lone gun. A second group of tanks approached from the west and also opened fire. Only after 2.5 hours the Germans managed to destroy the cannon, which managed to fire almost 60 shells. At the battlefield, 10 destroyed German tanks and armored personnel carriers were burning down. The Germans got the impression that a full battery was firing at the tanks. And only later did they learn that a single gunner was holding back the column of tanks. Yes, this warrior was buried by the enemy! With honors...

ENGLISH HUMOR

Known historical fact. The Germans, exposing the supposedly impending landing on the British Isles, placed on the coast of France several fake airfields, on which a large number of wooden copies of aircraft were “planed”. Work on the creation of these same dummies-aircraft was in full swing when one day in broad daylight a lone British plane appeared in the air and dropped one single bomb on the "airfield". She was wooden...! After this "bombardment" the Germans abandoned false airfields.

BEWARE, UNFORMED!

The Germans who fought on the eastern front completely refute the stereotypes that have developed in our films about the Second World War. As the German veterans of the Second World War remember "UR-R-RA!" they have never heard and do not even suspect the existence of such an attacking cry of Russian soldiers. But the word BL@D they learned excellently. Because it was with such a cry that the Russians rushed into the attack, especially hand-to-hand. And the second word that the Germans often heard from their side of the trenches - “Hey, go ahead, fucking @ m @ t!”, This booming cry meant that now not only infantry but also T-34 tanks would trample on the Germans.

How was camel dung used against German tankers?

While in the North African theater of World War II, German tank crews started a tradition of running over piles of camel dung "for good luck." Seeing this, the Allies made anti-tank mines disguised as these piles. After several of them worked, the Germans began to avoid untouched manure. Then the allies made mines that looked like heaps of manure with traces of caterpillars that had already run over them.

In 1940, the British, fearing a possible land invasion by the Germans and their multiple superiority in tanks, were looking for all possible ways to resist them. In one of the instructions, the militias were advised to use a hammer or an ax to fight tanks. The fighter should choose an elevation, for example, a tree or the second floor of a building, and wait for an enemy car there, and then jump onto it and start hitting the tower with a hammer. And when the head of a surprised German appears from there, throw a grenade inside the tank.

On July 17, 1975, the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz and the American Apollo docked. It was planned that at the moment of docking, the ships were supposed to fly over Moscow, but the calculations were not entirely correct, and the astronauts shook hands while flying over the Elbe River. It is symbolic that 30 years earlier, a meeting of Soviet and American soldiers, allies in World War II, took place on the Elbe.

The operation to land the allied troops in Normandy in June 1944 was being prepared in conditions of strict secrecy. Shortly before her, British intelligence was greatly puzzled by crossword puzzles in the Telegraph newspaper, in which the code words of the operation appeared every now and then. Among them were Utah and Omaha - the code names for the beaches where the landing was planned, as well as Mulberry, Neptune and even Overlord - the code name for the entire operation. The crossword editor during interrogation stated that these were ordinary words, and their choice was not dictated by any special circumstances. Later it turned out that the editor was part-time teacher and often asked his students what words they would like to include in the crossword puzzle, and the boys heard these five words in the conversations of American soldiers stationed near the school.

In August 1943, American and Canadian troops conducted Operation Cottage to liberate the Japanese-occupied island of Kiska in the Pacific Ocean. Intelligence reported that the Japanese garrison on the island could be up to 10,000 people, but the Americans did not know that the entire garrison had been evacuated under cover of fog two weeks before the start of the operation. More than 8,000 Marines took part in the landing, and after nine days of exploring the island, they were convinced that it was empty. Despite the lack of resistance, the losses of the Americans and Canadians amounted to more than 300 people - most of them were victims of fire on their own, the rest were blown up by mines.

Nazi Germany spent a lot of resources on the development and production of the world's first long-range ballistic missiles V-2, but their combat effectiveness was very weak. Rocket factories made extensive use of concentration camp labor under harsh conditions, and it has been established that more people died in the production of V-2 rockets than from bombing with these weapons.

Aircraft carriers are not only surface ships. There were projects of submarine aircraft carriers, the Japanese were especially successful in their creation during the Second World War - the aircraft took off from the surface position of the vessel. It was from one of these submarines that the Japanese carried out the only bombing of the continental United States during the war. Another unusual type is the aircraft carrier, which is an aircraft that carries other aircraft. They were used in the First World War by the Germans, in the Second World War - by the Soviet and Japanese troops (in the latter, carried aircraft were delivered to the target by kamikaze). In addition, the Americans had two aircraft-carrying airships in the 1930s. Aircraft carriers have lost relevance as refueling aircraft have developed.

During World War II, German sailors carried a cat aboard the battleship Bismarck. The battleship was scuttled by the British squadron 9 days after going to sea, only 115 of the 2200 crew members were saved. The cat was picked up by English sailors and taken on board the destroyer Cossack, which after 5 months was torpedoed by a German submarine and sank. Subsequently, the cat, nicknamed Unsinkable Sam, was transferred to the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, which also sank. Only after that they decided to leave Sam on the shore, and he himself lived until 1955.

War is a tragic event and a loss for both sides fighting each other. The Second World War undoubtedly left its mark in many countries, claimed millions of lives. Many films have been made about this war, books have been written. But there is interesting facts about World War II that are not mentioned in the history books.

1. German soldiers set up hidden traps with mines, they did it behind works of art. But they did it so clumsily and crookedly that it was immediately evident. And such traps were quickly noticed and neutralized.
2. The swastika, which was an integral attribute of the Germans, turns out to have originated in ancient civilizations, it was a religious symbol, and was a symbol of fertility and good luck in many ancient cultures.
3. During the Second World War, 40 thousand people served on submarines, only 10 thousand soldiers returned alive.
4. Most Jews and Gypsies were subjected to horrific torture and experiments. Doctors broke their bones several times in order to understand how long they could do this until the bone came out. They hit the head with a hammer to see how strong the skull was. Drugs and infections were introduced into the body. One professor used 3,000 twins for his experiments, of which only 200 survived. The doctor removed their eyeballs, changed the color of the eyes with dyes. Once he sewed two twins together. This is only a small part of all the cruelty that was.
5. When the Germans captured Paris, Hitler never managed to get on the Eiffel Tower., the French deliberately damaged the elevator so that they could not use it, and the Fuhrer did not want to climb on foot.
6. Yevgeny Lozovsky and his colleague were able to save 8,000 Jews during the Holocaust. They showed cunning and made a piece epidemic of typhus. And the German soldiers simply could not enter the city, fearing to get infected.
7. Hitler wanted to capture all of Moscow, then completely kill all the inhabitants. And on the site of the city to make a piece reservoir.
8. The Japanese made 9,000 airships during the war. These ships were made of paper and silk. The purpose of these balloons was to deliver incendiary bombs to the United States. Approximately 1,000 balloons reached Michigan. As a result, six Americans died. They were peaceful people, a pregnant woman and five children, they were just relaxing on a picnic.

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9. During the war, in order to protect young children from gas attacks, spacesuits for children were invented.. With the help of a special device, the children were pumped up with air.

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10. World War II is the largest. It lasted 6 years, 61 states took part in it, at that time there were only 73 of them. 80% of the world's population took part in the war in one way or another.
11. Many years have passed since the end of the war, but Russia and Japan did not conclude a peace treaty at the end of the war. They had a conflict over territory that they could not divide. It turns out formally the war continued between Japan and Russia.
12. At the end of the war, Jewish mercenary groups appeared. They searched for those who had hurt and harmed the Jews during the war, and brutally executed those they found. Most of all they wanted revenge.
13. For the first time in history, about 600 thousand women fought at the front. Three regiments were created. 46 Guards night bomber, it was also called night witches. 586 Fighter Regiment, and 125 Guards Bomber. Women snipers were trained, and there was a female company of sailors. The title of hero was given to 87 women.
14. The first German soldier to be killed was killed by the Japanese. The first American to die was killed by a Russian soldier.
15. The war with Germany caused huge losses and resolutions. 27 million people died in the Soviet Union. 18 million soldiers were seriously injured or ill, most of them were left disabled. 6 million people were taken prisoner, 4 million of them died. Due to such a significant reduction in the population, there was little working-age population of the country left. Every Soviet family had a loss. The war left behind many orphans, invalids and widows.

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