Missing persons count Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War are still underway. However, given the lack of information and the inconsistency of some of the information, this will not be easy.
Counting Difficulties
Almost every Russian family has relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. It is no longer possible to know the fate of many of them. So, the talented military pilot Leonid Khrushchev, the son of the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (in 1953-1964), Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, is still considered missing.
In 1966-1968, the calculation of casualties in the Great Patriotic War was carried out by the commission of the General Staff, in 1988-1993, a team of military historians was engaged in mixing and verifying the materials of all previous commissions. Despite this, we still do not know exactly how many Soviet soldiers and officers died in this war, especially since there is no exact data on the number of missing people.
Today, the data on losses, which were published in 1993 by a group of researchers led by consultant of the Military Memorial Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Grigory Krivosheev, are recognized as official. However, Doctor of Historical Sciences Makhmut Gareev does not consider these data to be final, finding many flaws in the commission's calculations. In particular, some researchers total losses Soviet Union during the war years in 26.6 million is called incorrect.
Writer Raphael Grugman points out a number of pitfalls that the commission did not pay attention to and which will be difficult for any researcher. In particular, the commission did not take into account such a category of persons as policemen and Vlasovites killed by partisans and killed in battles with the Red Army. What types of losses are they attributed to - dead or missing? Or even rank as an enemy camp?
Often, in front-line reports, the missing were combined with prisoners, which today introduces considerable confusion when counting them. For example, it is not clear to whom to rank the soldiers who did not return from captivity, because among them were those who died, those who joined the enemy, and those who remained abroad.
Very often missing people were added to the lists with total number losses. So, after the Kyiv defensive operation(1941) the missing were attributed to those killed and taken prisoner - in total more than 616 thousand people.
To date, there are many unmarked graves where Soviet soldiers are buried, and it is completely unclear how many of them are listed as missing. Let's not forget the deserters. Only according to official data, about 500 thousand mobilized disappeared without a trace on the way to the military enlistment offices.
Another problem is the almost complete destruction in the 1950s of the registration cards of the reserve and enlisted personnel of the Red Army. That is, we do not know the real number of those mobilized during the Great Patriotic War, which makes it difficult to calculate real losses and single out the “missing” category among them.
Such different numbers
results fundamental research by the Krivosheev group, the losses of personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR in combat operations for the period from 1918 to 1989 were published in the book “Secrecy has been removed. Losses of the Armed Forces in wars, hostilities and military conflicts.
In particular, it says that during the years of the Great Patriotic War (including during the campaign in the Far East against Japan in 1945), the total irretrievable demographic losses (killed, missing, captured and did not return from it, died from wounds, illnesses and as a result of accidents) of the Soviet Armed Forces, together with the border and internal troops, amounted to 8 million 668 thousand 400 people.
But there are researchers who are scaling up Soviet losses to completely unthinkable levels. The most impressive figures are given by the writer and historian Boris Sokolov, who estimated the total number of deaths in the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces in 1941-1945 at 26.4 million people with German losses on the Soviet-German front at 2.6 million (ratio 10:1). In total, he counted 46 million Soviet citizens who died in the Great Patriotic War.
However, official science he calls such estimates absurd, since for all the years of the war, taking into account the pre-war number of military personnel, no more than 34.5 million people were mobilized, of which about 27 million were direct participants in the war. Based on Sokolov's statistics, the Soviet Union finished off the enemy with the forces of only a few hundred thousand military, which does not fit in with the realities of the war.
Not returning from the war
Krivosheev's group conducted a statistical study of a large array of archival documents and other materials containing information about casualties in the army and navy, border and internal troops NKVD. Initially, the number of all irretrievable losses of soldiers and officers during the war was determined to be approximately 11.5 million people.
Later, 939.7 thousand servicemen were excluded from this number, who were registered at the beginning of the war as missing, but were again drafted into the army on the territory liberated from occupation. The researchers also subtracted from their calculations 1 million 836 thousand former military personnel who returned from captivity after the end of the war.
After long calculations, reconciliations with various sources, in particular, with the reports of the troops and the data of the repatriation authorities, the category of irretrievable losses acquired the figure of 8 million 668 thousand 400 people. The number of missing and captured by the commission was estimated at 3 million 396.4 thousand people.
It is known that in the first months of the war there were significant losses, the nature of which was not documented (information about them was collected subsequently, including German archives). They amounted to 1 million 162.6 thousand people. Where to take them? It was decided, to the servicemen who were missing and were taken prisoner. In the end, it turned out 4 million 559 thousand people.
Russian publicist and journalist Leonid Radzikhovsky calls this figure too high and writes his own - 1 million 783 thousand 300 people. True, he does not include all the prisoners in it, but only those who did not return home.
Yours or someone else's?
Many Soviet citizens in the first months of the war ended up in the occupied territory of the USSR. According to German sources, by May 1943, 70 thousand Soviet citizens, mostly from among prisoners of war, served in the police of the Military Directorate and about 300 thousand in police teams. Only representatives of the Turkic and Caucasian peoples in the German military formations, there were about 150 thousand people.
After the end of the war, part of the Soviet citizens who went over to the side of the enemy was repatriated and excluded from the category of losses. But some part went missing, dying or not wanting to return to their homeland. This raises a methodological problem that researchers face. If at the time of capture of Soviet military personnel with with good reason were attributed to our losses, then, therefore, after entering the service in the German army and police, they can be credited to the enemy’s account? For now, this is a debatable issue.
It is even more difficult to qualify Soviet prisoners of war already listed as missing, some of whom deliberately went over to the side of the Reich. Among them, including about 100 thousand Latvians, 36 thousand Lithuanians and 10 thousand Estonians. Can they be considered irretrievable losses? Clarification of this issue will significant influence on the results of the count of missing persons.
Return names
In January 2009, in St. Petersburg, at a meeting of the Russian organizing committee "Victory", data on the number of missing people were announced by the President of the Russian Federation. Those who could not be found either among the dead or among the former prisoners of war turned out to be 2.4 million people. The names of 6 million soldiers out of 9.5 million who are in the registered 47,000 mass graves in our country and abroad also remain unknown.
It is curious that the data on the number of missing Soviet soldiers coincide with the number of those in German army. In a German radiotelegram from the Wehrmacht’s Loss Records Department dated May 22, 1945, the number 2.4 million people is noted opposite the category “missing”.
Many independent researchers believe that the real number of missing Soviet soldiers much higher than the official one. This can be evidenced by the analysis of the Books of Memory, where about half of the citizens who were drafted into the ranks of the Red Army and did not return from the war are marked as missing.
Candidate of military sciences Lev Lopukhovsky believes that the official data on the results of the work of the Krivosheev group are underestimated by 5-6 million people. According to him, the commission did not take into account the huge category of militia soldiers who died, went missing and were captured, which is at least 4 million.
Losses in the category "missing" Lopukhovsky urged to compare with the data of the card files of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense. Only the number of missing sergeants and soldiers there exceeds 7 million people. The names of these servicemen are recorded in the reports of the commanders of military units (1,720,951 people) and in the registration data of military registration and enlistment offices (5,435,311 people).
All this suggests that more or less exact number, reflecting the number of missing Soviet soldiers, no. Today, the missing soldiers and officers, as well as the military personnel not buried properly, but taken into account in the losses, are the main object of activity for the Russian search movement. It should be noted that to date, Russian search teams have returned the names of approximately 28,000 soldiers previously considered missing.
Instructions for finding information about soldiers who did not return from the front.
Every May 9, the "Immortal Regiment" is held. I would also like to participate, but I know almost nothing about my front-line relatives. Where to look for information?
More than 6.3 million soldiers died in the Great Patriotic War, 4.5 million went missing. The fate of the dead and missing is not known to every family. The reasons for this can be completely different. But, fortunately, today this information can be found out, even if no documents and photographs of the soldier have been preserved. Most of the archival files of the Great Patriotic War period have already been digitized and are stored in public databases on the Internet. With their help, you can trace the military path of a soldier, learn about his injuries, awards, place and circumstances of death, burial place.
The father of my husband's mother was called to the front in July 1941 and died in one of the first battles, - shared the journalist of the Svoikirovsky portal Valentina Rogacheva. - Mother came to the funeral - "Dead." But neither the place of burial, nor any information at all was not. Then the Germans burned down the village where my mother-in-law's family lived during the retreat, and there was no data at all about her father: no photographs, no documents - everything burned down. All her life she dreamed of at least something to know about her father. And so, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, I learned in the news that the data of soldiers of the Great Patriotic War were being digitized. We started looking for information on the Internet. All that we knew was the full name, year of birth and year of conscription. In one of the public databases, they found him in the lists of those buried in a mass grave on the territory of Belarus and a postscript stating that he died in battle. And although the place of burial is not indicated quite definitely, it is now at least clear that he died not in captivity, but in battle, that he was buried, albeit in a mass grave.
So, all you need to know for the first stage of the search is the last name, first name and patronymic of the deceased or missing person, his date and place of birth. This can be obtained from relatives. It is also desirable to know where the soldier was called.
What databases can be used
There are four main databases with documents digitized from the archives, which are constantly updated:
- . A generalized data bank on the dead and missing during the Great Patriotic War and post-war period. The personal information contained in them is more than 20 million records;
- . The data bank contains 12.5 million entries on awarding orders and medals "For Courage" (about 4.6 million people were awarded) and "For Military Merit" (more than 5.2 million people were awarded), as well as 22 million cards of the accounting award card index and file cabinets of awarding the Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degree to the 40th anniversary of the Victory;
- . The portal was created by the Ministry of Defense by decision of the Russian Organizing Committee "Victory". It summarizes the data banks "Memorial" and "The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." Here you can see historical maps and combat logs;
- - website of the all-Russian movement "Immortal Regiment". Users upload data about their front-line relatives on their own. On the this moment in base " Immortal Regiment» more than 400 thousand entries.
Screenshot from obd-memorial.ru
However, it is worth keeping in mind a few points. Firstly, the name of a soldier could be written incorrectly when entering the front (for example, Snigirev instead of Snegirev, Kiril instead of Kirill), the same applies to the date of birth (some recruits themselves asked to change their age in order to get to the front). So if you can’t find a person by the exact full name and date of birth, you can try to write the last name as it would be perceived by ear, and change the year of birth by a couple of years upward or downward. Secondly, if you are looking for information on the place of conscription or birth, you need to remember that the administrative-territorial division of the regions of the RSFSR has changed. For example, Oparinsky, Lalsky and Podosinovsky districts were included in the Kirov region only in 1941, and before that they belonged to Arkhangelsk region. You can check the administrative division on the website, and you can learn more about the intricacies of searching through databases.
In addition to databases on the Internet, there are also Books of Memory. These are large printed publications in several volumes, in which the dead during the Great Patriotic War are listed by name (in alphabetical order). There are such books in every region: in Kirov you can ask for them in the library named after Herzen. It may be that the name of your relative is not in any of the databases, nor in the Book of Memory. In this case, you can try to send the official one by mail (!) to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. But for this you need to know more accurate information about the deceased (for example, in which part he served) and you will have to wait about six months for an answer.By the way, in rare cases You can also find letters from the front. For example, on websites and or in the digitized “Letters from the Front” (you need to view it manually). But you have to search by last name and initials.
What if a soldier goes missing?
The count of the missing during the Great Patriotic War is still being carried out. Various researchers call the figure from 4 to 7 million people. It is difficult to determine the exact number, since in front-line reports the missing were sometimes combined with prisoners or entered into lists with the total number of losses. About 500 thousand people were mobilized in the first days of the war, but were not included in the lists of troops. Some families received neither letters from the front, nor "funerals".
Information about the missing person may also be stored in one of the open bases data. First of all, it is still the same OBD "Memorial". If you have information that a soldier was captured, try typing his first and last name in Latin (Ivan Petrov). In addition, there is a separate electronic data of prisoners of war - Saxon Memorials.Those who fell into German captivity are listed in alphabetical order. If the German camp in which the prisoner of war was located was liberated Soviet troops, after the end of the war, such a person could end up in the NKVD check-filtration camp. Alas, there is an electronic database of PFL prisoners only for natives Perm Territory. You can try to find filtration and verification cases and captured German cards through the State Archives of the Kirov Region
Search teams can also help in finding information about the missing. Since 1989, “Memory Watches” have been held in the regions where there were hostilities, during which search engines raise the fallen soldiers, identify them, and then search for relatives throughout the country. Some keep documents that help identify a person, in rare cases, letters to relatives or personal items with a signature (for example, a spoon). But, as a rule, a person can be identified by a soldier's medallion - a small metal capsule into which a piece of paper with the soldier's data was inserted.
Photo: serovglobus.ru
It indicated the name, military rank, year and place of birth, place of mobilization and family address. An archive of records from all found medallions can be found on the Internet: they are entered in special books - “Names from Soldiers' Medallions”, which are published on search traffic Russia. Having found a familiar name in the lists, you can find out when, where and by whom the fighter was found. If the record contains information that the relatives of the deceased have been found, you can request their contacts in the search party. You can also search for information by the name of the fighter.
And now briefly:
1. We find out from the relatives of the deceased his full name, place and date of birth, as well as the year and place of conscription.
2. Looking for information in databases. First of all, through OBD "Memorial". We are trying to type a full name with errors: the way they are perceived by ear.
3. Looking for Additional information: we learn the soldier's combat path and awards on the website "Memory of the people".
4. We are looking for digitized or decoded front-line letters on the Internet by the name of a fighter.
The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 is a terrible grief, the wounds from which are still bleeding. In those terrible years, the total human losses in our country are estimated at approximately 25 million people, of which 11 million were soldiers. Of these, approximately six million are considered “officially” dead.
In this case, it is believed that relatives at the very least know where they died and were buried. native person. All the rest are missing/captured and never returned from it. The statistics are terrible. Not only have we lost so many soldiers, we have no idea where half of them are! Be that as it may, the relatives of the dead and missing do not despair and continue to search. For which they are to be commended.
But how to find a dead soldier in the Second World War, especially if you don’t have any decent experience in this? In this article, we have collected the most general recommendations, which, nevertheless, can help you in this difficult matter. By the way, the found remains of German soldiers are identified in Germany according to approximately the same algorithm. Of course, adjusted for more accurate and complete information from the archives.
Things to Remember
First, immediately tune in to hard and painstaking work. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, at least 40 thousand people went missing in Russia in 2004 alone! Just think about these numbers: in the age of digital technology, total tracking of train and plane tickets, people “manage” to disappear on a truly industrial scale. Many of them are never found.
Now think about how difficult it can be to find a person who disappeared in the midst of hostilities (especially in the initial period of the war). So do not despair, having experienced the first difficulties.
Where to start
You must clearly know the name, surname and patronymic. Since it can be very difficult to find a dead soldier in the Second World War, you must remember these data especially clearly. Try to remember: didn’t the person have a habit of somehow changing his name or surname? It happens that because of this soldier they could not be found for several decades, until quite by chance they remembered that Elisha called himself Alexei, Prokofy in the hands of the clerk turned into Peter ...
If a person’s last name could be perceived incorrectly by ear, look for more or less suitable options among all. So, Carriers may well be Perevoshchikov. In a word, finding a WWII soldier can be very difficult.
Other initial information
In addition, you need to know where and when the person was called. As a rule, this data is relatively easy to find. If there are at least some letters, postcards, official documents of those years in which the unit in which the soldier fought was mentioned, collect them all. Put it on the map, trace the route of the military unit, check with official sources. So you can find a WWII soldier, having only the most general information.
Of course, it is difficult to say when the person died, from whom letters stopped coming: it is quite possible that the postal service, and the soldier was alive for several more months, during which the unit managed to cover many hundreds of kilometers. But in some cases, such a search yields results.
Pay Special attention for serious injuries. It is known that a lot of people died from wounds. As a rule, they were buried in sanitary burials in the immediate vicinity of the hospital. Sometimes documents about the fact of burial were preserved, and sometimes not. Simply put, if the last letter from a soldier came from the hospital when the man wrote about his injury, it is quite possible that he died there.
Alas, in this case you will have to upset: it is very difficult to look for such burial places. You will have to rummage through the archives and track the route of a particular one. Firstly, it is very long and difficult. Secondly, there are few guarantees of success. And further. Most often, soldiers were buried en masse in sanitary burials, and often in one underwear. No medallions, no marks on the map... So often you can only count on a more or less exact burial place.
Type of army
Oddly enough, but this information is often given the latest value. Attention! Before you find a dead soldier in the Second World War, find out as accurately as possible in which troops he served: information about the dead is stored in different archives. Let's summarize. At first, you need to find out the most basic information: full name, date and place of conscription, the number of the unit in which the soldier served, and at least the approximate date of his death.
Searching on the Internet
Recently, this direction has gained great popularity, but you should not rely on it too much: there is no common database, various sources draw information from archives, etc. However, it is still worth a try. If you did not find any data, do not rush to despair: contact the owners of the resource, describe your problem. In the case when they work directly with documents, specialists may well know some nuances, or give helpful tips up to and including assistance in your quest.
So (theoretically) you can find a WWII soldier by last name. Of course, it is more likely to succeed if this surname was quite original. Otherwise, you will have to go through hundreds of options.
Also, don't forget to visit genealogy sites and archive resources. Send inquiries to the Ministry of Defense: it is quite possible that there is at least some information about where and when the soldier served before his death or disappearance. And further. No one is responsible for the accuracy of information on such sites. There is no guarantee that the information will be valid.
By the way. Before you find a dead soldier in the Second World War, try to find out at least something about his colleagues. It often happens that people who died on the same day are buried in the same place. Moreover, information about some of them reached relatives, while other relatives remained completely unaware of the fate of their relative.
Try to reach out to your like-minded people who are also looking for their loved ones who fought in those places or the same unit. Together, it will be more convenient for you to coordinate efforts: someone can search the Internet, while the rest will take care of the archives.
memory books
Almost every local museum of local lore has information about the soldiers who were called up and died. In the places along which the front line passed, in these documents one can often find a list of names of soldiers who died and were buried here. Also pay attention to the monuments: they also have granite stelae, on which the names and surnames of those soldiers who died during the liberation of a particular settlement are carved.
Paradoxically, but this information often turns out to be much more detailed than information from quite official sources. Remember that almost everyone has a Book of Memory more or less. big city. Contact people in citywide forums: if one of them has access to this document, he may well check whether it contains information about your desired relative. This is how you can find a WWII soldier by last name.
Requests to the archives
For some reason, it is believed that all information about the dead is stored only in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense, but this is not so. If your relative served in the navy, naval aviation or some coastal services, then information about him should be sought in the archives of the Navy, located in the city of Gatchina.
The most difficult thing happens in cases where a person belonged to the military personnel of various parts of the NKVD. Their archive is located in Moscow, in the State Military Archive. But some of the information on the employees of the NKVD and SMERSH is still classified, so the probability of issuing such data is very low. In any case, find the grave of a WWII soldier from special parts is simply impossible.
The fact that relatives did not always know about real specifics services in similar areas. Often, according to the documents, they served in ordinary infantry units, but they themselves fought in a completely different area.
To get information about a soldier from these archives, you need to write (it is highly desirable to print) a letter that contains brief information about the soldier, his name, patronymic, rank ... In a word, all the basic information. A clean envelope and stamps must be attached to the letter, as this will greatly speed up the receipt of a response message.
If you do not know the military rank of the missing person at all, or if you have reason to believe that he could have been awarded the rank of officer, write as follows6 “Please also check the information on departments 6, 9 and 11.” The fact is that these sections of the archive store information on all military ranks and ranks. We immediately warn you that the financing of this institution is very stunted, and therefore it is quite possible to wait up to six months or longer for a response from it.
Simply put, if possible, it is best to personally visit the archive and ask all your questions there. Of course, finding a soldier by last name (if you don’t have other data) is unlikely to work out that way, but if you have more information, the chance of success is quite high.
Parsing query results to archive
It should be understood that even in conditions of war, losses were indeed recorded in sufficient detail and this information was sent for storage. Each unit regularly reported to the Central Headquarters on irretrievable losses, and the reports indicated lists of names, rank, date and place of death, information about relatives and the place of burial.
If a serviceman is classified as missing, it means that he was absent from the location of the unit for some time, and his search, which (theoretically) should have taken 15 days, did not yield any results. A lot of missing people in the initial period of the war. This is due to the fact that at that time many units were completely destroyed, all their documents were lost or deliberately destroyed by the command during the retreat.
Note that finding a missing soldier in this case is almost impossible. All that remains is a search in regional and local memory books.
Important! It often happened that a person, wounded and lagging behind his unit, after lying in the hospital, fought in another unit. At this time, a funeral came from the first. It often happened that there were no survivors, the person actually "disappeared". Try again to search among the entire CIS. Often, a relative finds soldiers who "died" a long time ago.
The man was demobilized, realized that he had nowhere to go, and therefore remained in a place that he liked. Relatively recently, one family found their grandfather, who was considered dead a long time ago (two funerals), but since 1946 he lived quietly in Estonia. So it doesn't hurt to contact the authorities local government Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, etc. In general, finding a Soviet soldier who died on the territory of these countries can be very difficult.
Answer options from the archive
Thus, from the archive in response to your request, four possible answers can come at once:
The most desirable option when information comes about the full name of the soldier, his rank, unit, date and place of death, and the place of burial.
A message indicating the military unit, as well as the date and place of the missing person.
A response may be received indicating the alleged place of loss (the first months of the war) and the alleged number of the military unit, which was often obtained from close relatives based on the results of their survey (the unit number was on the postmarks from the last letter, if any).
Message about total absence data on a serviceman in the card file of irretrievable losses. As we have already said, this is due to the death of a soldier in the first months of the war, when reports from the unit simply were not sent due to its complete death.
If you received the first two answers, then consider yourself lucky: from this moment on, you can arm yourself with cards and look for the resting place of your ancestor (at least a tentative one). This is how you can find the burial place of a WWII soldier.
Other cases
These include death in the hospital (which we have already mentioned), death in German captivity, or the probable release of a fighter from it, followed by a check by the NKVD.
If you have an assumption that the soldier died of wounds in the hospital, you must send a request to the Military Medical Museum (more precisely, its archive). If the last letter contains information about the injury (written by a friend from the words, for example), but there is no information about the treatment, you will have to arm yourself with reference books and maps and find out which specific military field hospitals operated in those places.
In the event that you assume the capture of a soldier, then you should also send a request to the central archive of the Ministry of Defense: at the moment, there are a little more than 300 thousand cards of soldiers who died in German captivity. Perhaps you will be lucky.
Many are wondering where to find the PDA of a missing soldier? PDA in this case is the personal file of an amnestied, or rather, “filtered” fighter. The fact is that the soldiers released from captivity were checked by the NKVD. If there was no reason to find fault with him, then often separate documents were not compiled at all. In all other cases, duplicate cards must be kept in the archives of the FSB.
Here's how to find a soldier who died in WWII. We hope that our advice has helped you in some way.
1.1. Home search
1.2. If letters from the front are preserved
1.3. Web search
1.4. Books of Memory
1.6. Received a response from TsAMO. Response Analysis
1.7. Search in the military registration and enlistment office
2.1. Preparing to visit the archive
2.2. Search for personal information in the archive
2.3. Working with documents of military units in the archive
3.1. Search for information about military personnel admitted to the hospital
3.2. Search for information about military personnel who were in German captivity
3.3. Search for information about convicted military personnel
3.4. Search for information about military personnel of divisions militia
3.5. Search for information about servicemen who fought as part of penal companies and battalions
3.6. Search for information about servicemen who went to the front as part of marching companies
3.7. Search for information about the military personnel of the ski battalions
3.8. Search for information about demobilized military personnel
3.9. Search for information about servicemen who died and went missing in the battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940.
3.10. Search for information about partisans
3.11. Finding information about members of the Navy
3.12. Search for information about members of the AUCP(b) and VLKSM
3.13. Search for information about military personnel who participated in the liberation of cities
Introduction
If you want to establish the fate of your relative, who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War, then get ready for a long and laborious work. Do not expect that it is enough to ask a question and someone will tell you in detail about your relative. And there is no magic key to the secret door, behind which stands the box with the inscription "The most detailed information about Sergeant Ivanov I.I. for his great-grandson Edik". Information about a person, if preserved, is scattered across dozens of archives in the smallest, often unrelated fragments. It may turn out that after spending several years searching, you will not learn anything new about your relative. But it is possible that Lucky case will reward you after just a few months of searching.
Below is a simplified search algorithm. It may seem complicated. In fact, everything is much more complicated. Here are described ways to search for information, if it has been preserved somewhere. But the information you needed might not have been preserved at all: the hardest of all wars was going on, not only individual servicemen died - regiments, divisions, armies died, documents disappeared, reports were lost, archives burned ... It is especially difficult (and sometimes impossible) to find out the fate of servicemen , who died or went missing in encirclement in 1941 and in the summer of 1942
Total deadweight loss armed forces USSR (RKKA, Navy, NKVD) in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11.944 thousand people. It should immediately be noted that these are not dead, but for various reasons excluded from the lists of units. According to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense N 023 dated February 4, 1944, irretrievable losses include "those who died in battle, went missing at the front, died from wounds on the battlefield and in medical institutions, died from diseases received at the front, or died at the front from other causes and captured by the enemy. Of this number, 5,059 thousand people went missing. In turn, of the missing, most of them ended up in German captivity (and only less than a third of them survived to liberation), many died on the battlefield, and many of those who ended up in the occupied territory were subsequently re-conscripted into the army. The distribution of irretrievable losses and missing by the years of the war (I remind you that the second number is part of the first) is shown in the table:
| Year | Irretrievable losses (thousand people) | Missing (thousand people) |
| 1941 | 3.137 | 2.335 |
| 1942 | 3.258 | 1.515 |
| 1943 | 2.312 | 367 |
| 1944 | 1.763 | 167 |
| 1945 | 800 | 68 |
In total, 9,168 thousand servicemen died or died of wounds in the Great Patriotic War, and the total direct human losses of the Soviet Union for all the years of the Great Patriotic War are estimated at 26.6 million people. (The numerical data on losses are taken from the works of Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheev, 1998-2002, which seem to us the most reliable and least politicized of all known estimates of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.)
One more reference. For comparison. In 2006, in the Russian Federation, a different sources from 60 to 100 thousand people. At least five divisions (!) In just one year, went missing in peacetime, with a total accounting of everyone and everyone in dozens of computer databases (from the Pension Fund to the bank of sold railway tickets), with the number of many " power structures"already, probably, exceeding the size of the army, in a country with a population half the population of the Soviet Union during the war! By the way, in last decade Russia's population is declining by almost 1 million people annually, and before the "reforms" began, the population growth in the RSFSR was more than half a million people a year. Such are the losses modern Russia in peacetime. Only Russia! And there is also Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan ... Now we have been divided and set against each other, but we fought and won together!
Find specific person it won't be easy. And, if you, after reading this note to the end, are still ready to establish the fate of the fighter who died in the battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland, then start.
Good luck to you!
1. First steps: the number of the military unit is unknown
1.1. Home Search
It would be nice to know the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and place of birth. Without this information, it will be very difficult to search.
The place of birth must be indicated in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the prewar years. The correspondence between pre-revolutionary, pre-war and modern administrative-territorial division can be found on the Internet. (Handbook of the administrative division of the USSR in 1939-1945 on the site SOLDIER.ru.)
Usually it is not difficult to find out the time of conscription and the place of residence of the conscript. By place of residence, you can determine which District Military Commissariat (RVK) he was called up to.
If a medal or order has been preserved that a soldier was awarded during the war, then by the number of the award, you can determine the number of the military unit and even find out a description of the feat or military merits of the recipient.
Ranks can be determined by the insignia in the surviving photographs. If the rank is unknown, then belonging to the rank and file, command and political composition can be very approximately determined by the education and pre-war biography of the serviceman.
It is very important at this stage to determine in the troops of which People's Commissariats (People's Commissariats, or in modern terms - ministries) your relative served: People's Commissariat of Defense ( ground troops and aviation) Navy(including coastal units and aviation of the Navy), People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD troops, border units). Cases of different departments are stored in different archives. (Addresses of departmental archives on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
The main task at the first stage should be set - finding out the date of death and the number of the military unit in which the soldier was at least for some time.
1.2. If letters from the front are preserved
All letters from the front were viewed by military censors, the servicemen were warned about this, therefore, usually the letters did not indicate the names and numbers of military units, the names of settlements, etc.
The first thing to determine is the number of the Field Post Station (PPS or "field mail"). By the number of the teaching staff, it is often possible to determine the name of the military unit. ("Handbook of field postal stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945", "Handbook of military units - field mails of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the SOLDIER.ru website.) It should be borne in mind that in this case it is not always possible to determine a specific unit ( regiment, battalion, company) as part of a military unit. ("Recommendations" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
In addition to the PPP number, the stamp (in the center) has the date the letter was registered at the PPP (actually the date the letter was sent) - it will also come in handy in further searches. The text of the letter may contain information about the rank of a serviceman, about his military specialty, about rewarding, about belonging to an ordinary, junior command (sergeant), command (officer) or political composition, etc.
1.3. Web search
There are several available databases on the Internet with search by surnames. Unfortunately, there is no single search resource for last names, there is not even a single list of databases, so searching the Internet can take quite a long time. (Link page on SOLDAT.ru website.)
At present (2007), by order of the Ministry of Defense, an electronic data bank is being developed for all servicemen of the USSR who died and went missing during the Great Patriotic War. The data bank is created on the basis of documents stored in TsAMO: lists of irretrievable losses, German personal cards for prisoners of war, etc. The data bank is posted on the Internet. The site is currently in test mode. The site can be searched by last name, place of conscription and some other keywords. It is possible to view scans of original documents in which the found personalities are mentioned.
When searching on the Internet, you should also check consonant surnames and first names, especially if the surname is poorly perceived by ear - with repeated rewriting, the surname could be distorted.
It is necessary to search in several search engines on the Internet, specifying known information about the relative as the search string. Even search system will tell you something interesting on your request, you should repeat the search for various combinations of words, check synonyms and possible abbreviations of terms, names, names.
You should definitely visit genealogical and military-historical sites and forums, browse the catalogs of sections of military literature on the sites digital libraries.
You should not completely trust the information received from the Internet - often no one is responsible for its reliability, so always try to check the facts obtained from other sources. If verification fails, then make a note or just remember which of the information was obtained from an unverified source. In the future, you will often come across information that is unlikely, unreliable, doubtful, or even, most likely, false. For example, very soon you will have a list of namesakes, a wanted relative, who have some biography facts that match the ones you need. You don’t need to throw anything away, but be sure to indicate the source from which you received it for each new fact - maybe in a year you will have new information that will make you evaluate the information collected in a new way.
If right now you have a desire to ask your question at the military-historical forum, do not rush. To get started, read the posts on this forum in recent weeks. It may turn out that such questions have already been asked more than once, and regular forum visitors have already answered them in detail - in this case, your question will cause irritation. In addition, each forum has its own rules and traditions, and if you want to get a friendly answer, then try not to violate the norms of behavior adopted on the forum. Usually, the first time you post to a forum, you should introduce yourself. And don't forget to include your address. Email for those who want to reply to you by letter.
1.4. Books of Memory
In many regions, Books of Memory have been issued, which contain alphabetical lists of the inhabitants of the region who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Books of Memory are multi-volume publications, they can be found in the regional library and in the military registration and enlistment offices of the region, but it is difficult to find them outside the region. In some regions, in addition to the regional Book of Memory, Books of Memory of some regions have been issued. Some Books are available in electronic versions on the Internet. Since publications of different regions, republics and districts were prepared by different editorial teams, the set of personal information and design of different publications are different. As a rule, military personnel born or drafted into the army in this region are indicated in the Books of Memory of the Regions. Both Books of Memory should be checked - issued at the place of birth and at the place of conscription of a military man. (Links to electronic versions of the Books of Memory on the Internet on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
In the Books of Memory of some areas on the territory of which fighting, provides information about the military personnel who died and were buried in the region. If you know in which region the serviceman died, you need to check the Memory Book of the corresponding region.
big base data of the dead soldiers is available in the museum on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, and museum staff provide information both in person and by phone, but the database installed in the museum is abbreviated (contains only the last name, first name, patronymic and year of birth), and the full database, created with state money, is now is privately owned and practically inaccessible.
If you are unable to access the the right Books Memory, you can ask to check the book of the desired area on an Internet forum with military-historical or genealogical topics. In addition, many cities have their own websites on the Internet, and most of these sites have their own regional forums. You can ask a question or make a request on such a forum, and you will most likely be given advice or a hint, and if the settlement is small, then you may be asked some question in the military enlistment office or museum.
It should be borne in mind that there are also errors in the Books of Memory, their number depends on the conscientiousness of the editorial team.
1.5. Archive request
Most of the documents relating to the period of the Great Patriotic War are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Below, the search for military personnel of the People's Commissariat of Defense (NPO) will be mainly described and, accordingly, references will be made to the TsAMO archive, since it is in it that the archives of the People's Commissariat of Defense (and then the Ministry of Defense) are stored from June 22, 1941 to the eighties. (Addresses of departmental archives on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
The card index of the dead and missing servicemen of the NPO during the years of the Great Patriotic War is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Similar file cabinets of losses are available in: a) the Central Naval Archive in Gatchina - for the personnel of the fleet, coastal service and aviation of the Navy, b) the Russian State Military Archive in Moscow - for persons who served in bodies, formations and units NKVD, c) archive of the Federal border service FSB of the Russian Federation in the city of Pushkino, Moscow Region - by border guards.
To obtain information about the fate of a serviceman, it is necessary to send a request to TsAMO (or to other archives indicated above), in which briefly indicate the known information about the serviceman. It is also recommended to include a postal envelope with a stamp and your home address in the envelope to expedite the response. ( Mailing address TsAMO and a sample application on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
If the military rank of a serviceman is unknown or there is reason to believe that he could be awarded officer rank, then in the application to TsAMO you should write "Please check the personal file cabinets and file cabinets of losses of the 6th, 9th, 11th departments of TsAMO" (in departments 6, 9, 11, file cabinets are maintained, respectively, for political, private and sergeant, officers).
It is recommended to simultaneously send an application in the same letter with a request to "Clarify the awards" and indicate the surname, name, patronymic, year and place of birth of the serviceman. TsAMO has a card file of all awarded Red Army servicemen, and it may turn out that the serviceman you are looking for was awarded a medal or order. (The image of the "Account card of the awarded" and the application form on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
Due to the insufficient funding of the archive, the answer from it may come by mail in 6-12 months, therefore, if possible, it is better to visit the archive in person. (TsAMO address on SOLDAT.ru website.) You can also make a request at the military commissariat, in which case the request to the archive will be issued on the form of the military commissariat with the signature of the military commissar and the seal.
1.6. Received a response from TsAMO. Response Analysis
1.6.1. It should be noted that during the war, the registration of the dead military personnel was organized quite clearly (as far as it was possible in the conditions of the war), and each unit reported to the higher headquarters a list of irretrievable losses, in which for each deceased his last name, first name, patronymic, year birth, rank, position, date and place of death, place of burial, conscription office, address of residence and names of parents or wife. All these reports were collected in the Department for Manning the Troops of the General Staff of the Red Army (later - in the Central Bureau of Losses of the Red Army), and after the war they were transferred to TsAMO, and on their basis a file of irretrievable losses was compiled.
Information from the report of the military unit was transferred to the personal card, the card indicates the number of the military unit and the number under which this report was taken into account.
A notice of the death of a serviceman was sent by the headquarters of the unit in which the deceased served, as a rule, to the draft board. The military registration and enlistment office issued a duplicate of the notice, which was handed over to relatives, and on its basis a pension was subsequently issued. The original notices remained in storage at the military registration and enlistment office. The original notices were round stamp and a corner stamp with the name of the military unit, or its conventional five-digit number. Some of the notices were sent by the headquarters of the military units directly to relatives, bypassing the military registration and enlistment office, which was a violation of the established procedure. Part of the notices of post-war issuance was issued by the district military registration and enlistment offices on the proposal of the Central Bureau of Losses. All notices issued by the military registration and enlistment offices had the stamp and details of the military registration and enlistment office, and the number of the military unit, as a rule, was not given.
The notice indicated: the name of the unit, rank, position, date and place of death of the serviceman and the place of burial. (Image of a notice of the death of a serviceman on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
Two ways of indicating the names of the Won units should be distinguished: a) in the period 1941-42. the documents indicated the actual name of the unit - for example, 1254 rifle regiment, possibly indicating the number of the rifle division; b) in the period 1943-45, the conditional name of the military unit was indicated - for example, "military unit 57950", which corresponded to the same 1254 sp.
1.6.2. A serviceman who was absent from the unit for an unknown reason was considered missing, and the search for him within 15 days did not yield any results. Information about the missing was also transmitted to the higher headquarters, and a notice of the missing was sent to relatives. In this case, the notice indicated the name of the military unit and the place where the serviceman disappeared.
Most often, servicemen who are reported missing died during the retreat, or during reconnaissance in battle, or in the environment. It was difficult to witness their death for various reasons. The missing also included servicemen who were taken prisoner, deserters, seconded officers who did not arrive at their destination, scouts who did not return from their mission, personnel of entire units and subunits in the event that they were defeated and there were no those commanders left who could reliably report to the authorities about specific types of losses. However, the reason for the absence of a serviceman could be not only his death. For example, a soldier who lagged behind a unit on the march could be included in another military unit, in which he then continued to fight. The wounded from the battlefield could be evacuated by soldiers of another unit and sent directly to the hospital. There are cases when relatives during the war received several notices ("funeral"), and the person turned out to be alive.
1.6.3. In those cases when no information about irretrievable losses was received from the military unit to the higher headquarters (for example, in the event of the death of a unit or its headquarters in an environment, loss of documents), a notice to relatives could not be sent, because. the lists of the military personnel of the unit were among the lost staff documents.
After the end of the war, the district military registration and enlistment offices carried out work to collect information about servicemen who had not returned from the war and were called up by these military registration and enlistment offices (door-to-door survey). On the basis of information from the military registration and enlistment offices, the card file of losses was replenished with cards compiled based on the results of a survey of relatives. Such cards could contain the entry "correspondence was interrupted in December 1942", and the number of the military unit was usually absent. If the number of the military unit is indicated in the card drawn up on the basis of a report from the military registration and enlistment office, then it should be treated as probable, presumptive. The date of the disappearance of a serviceman in this case was set by the military commissar by adding three months to the date of the last letter (three months were recommended by the Directive of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
Household survey sheets are also stored in TsAMO (department 9), and they may contain information that is not in the card. When filling out the card, not all the information given in the door-to-door survey sheet was usually entered into it, since it was not possible to verify the information recorded from the words of relatives. Therefore, if it is known that the family of a serviceman received letters from him from the front, but later these letters were lost, then some information from these letters (the number of the teaching staff, the date of the letter) may be in the records of the door-to-door survey. When answering an inquiry about the fate of a serviceman, archive workers are not able to find the statements of the door-to-door survey. You will have to look for them on your own, but, most likely, with a personal visit to the archive. The number of the RVC report with the year indicated on the back of the personal card.
1.6.4. In the first months of the war, part of the military registration and enlistment offices ended up in the occupied territory, and their archives, including the lists of conscripts, perished. Therefore, for military personnel called up from the western regions of the country before the war and in the first months of the war, there may be no cards in the irretrievable loss department.
1.6.5. Thus, a letter from TsAMO may contain 4 response options:
1) Report on the death of a serviceman, indicating the number of the military unit, date and place of death, rank and place of burial
2) A report of a missing serviceman, indicating the number of the military unit, date and place of loss
3) A report of a missing serviceman, compiled on the basis of a survey of relatives, with incomplete, unverified or inaccurate information
4) Message about the absence of information about the serviceman in the file of losses
If you are lucky, and the answer from TsAMO contains the name of the military unit, then you can proceed to clarify combat way soldier (see below)
If you are VERY lucky, and in the card file of the awarded TsAMO there was a registration card for your relative, and an extract from it was sent to you in the response of the archive, then simultaneously with clarifying the combat path, you should start searching for the award sheet, which contains short description feat or merit of the awarded.
1.7. Search in the military registration and enlistment office
1.7.1. If the answer from the archive does not indicate the number of the military unit or there is no information in the archive, then you will have to continue the search for the serviceman at the military registration and enlistment office at the place of conscription. You can send an application to the military registration and enlistment office by mail or appear in person. The latter is, of course, preferable. If the exact address of the military enlistment office is unknown, then only the name can be indicated on the envelope locality(without a street and a house), and in the column "To" write: "Rayvoenkomat" - the letter will reach. The application must include all known information about the serviceman. (Sample application to the RVC and postal codes on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
1.7.2. A conscript could be sent as part of marching companies to the front, or sent to a reserve or training regiment or brigade stationed at that time near the place of conscription, or to a unit formed in this area. Marching companies were usually not sent directly to the combat unit, but first arrived at the army or front transit point (PP) or at the army or front reserve rifle regiment (or reserve rifle brigade). The newly formed or reorganized military units were sent to the front and participated in the hostilities under their own number.
1.7.3. In the military registration and enlistment office for each conscript, a "Conscription card" was drawn up and is still kept. On her reverse side the penultimate item contains the number of the recruiting team and the date the team was sent. (Image of the recruiting card on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
1.7.4. Further, in the same military registration and enlistment office, by the number of the draft team and the date, the "Name list for the team" is searched. In addition to the name list, it contains the number of the military unit (conditional - "military unit N 1234", or valid - "333 s.d.") and the address of this unit. (The image of the name list for the team on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
1.7.5. If the part number is conditional, then you need to determine the real number. ("Directory conditional names military units (institutions) in 1939-1943" and "Directory of military units - field mails of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
1.7.6. It should be recalled that the archives of the military commissariats located in the temporarily occupied territories in the western regions and republics of the Soviet Union could be lost.
1.7.7. If it is not possible to find out at the recruiting office where the conscript was sent, then last hope- spare and training units stationed at that time near the settlement of the call. Usually they were sent to train previously non-serving recruits. Further search for information should be made in the documents of these parts. (Handbook "Deployment of spare and training parts"On the SOLDIER.ru website.)
In addition, it is necessary to try to find out which military units were formed near the conscription settlement. This can be done at the regional military registration and enlistment office.
1.7.8. If it is known that the family of the deceased serviceman received a survivor's pension, then the pension file for the recipient of the pension (usually one of the parents, wife or children) should be sought in the department of social security. In the pension case, there must be a copy or even the original of the document on the basis of which the pension was assigned - this document may be a death notice or a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office indicating the number of the military unit. In addition, the pension file may contain copies of the marriage registration certificate, birth certificates of children and other documents of the pensioner. The pension file is stored in the archive of the Pension Fund branch for 20 years after the death of the pensioner, sometimes more.
1.7.9. If at this stage it was possible to find out the number of the unit to which the conscript was sent, then you can proceed to clarify the combat path of the serviceman (see below). Some special cases are discussed in Section 3.
2. Work in the archive
2.1. Preparing to visit the archive
If the number of the military unit is known, then you can proceed to the most interesting, exciting and at the same time the most difficult stage of work - determining the combat path of a serviceman. Perhaps you will be able to establish the place and circumstances of death. But before that, it is recommended to read articles on military history sites and get acquainted, at least in general terms, with the structure of the Armed Forces, with the main battles during the Great Patriotic War, with military ranks and positions.
Then, if, for example, the number of the regiment is known, you should determine which division it was part of in the period of time you are interested in, which battalions and separate units were part of the regiment, which army and front the division operated in, its deployment ... Maybe any information that is found will be useful. (A lot of necessary information posted in the "References" section on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
Keep in mind that connections may have been renamed and rebuilt, so pay attention to the dates of rebuilds and renames. The reorganization was usually carried out in connection with the death or renaming of the unit, in which case the vacant number was assigned to the newly formed military unit. Of course, the old and new military units had nothing in common, except for the numbers, so their funds are kept separately in the archive. Reformed formations must be searched for taking into account the formation number (for example: 96th division of the 3rd formation). When a military unit was renamed (for example, when it was awarded the title of Guards with a change in number), the documents continued to be stored at the same headquarters, and after the war (or when the unit was disbanded), all documents were transferred to the archive as part of a single fund.
Documents of renamed military units will need to be searched in the archive by their last name, even if you are interested in the period before the renaming.
2.2. Search for personal information in the archive
The next step will be a personal visit to TsAMO.
You should pay attention to the fact that the effectiveness of your work in the archive will depend on the degree of your preparation for visiting the archive. Ignorance of some features of the archive, rules of work, office work, etc. can lead to a waste of time.
Some issues can be resolved in the archive during the day - this is mainly personal information about a soldier. Here is a list of questions that can be cleared up relatively quickly:
1. Establishing the fate of the card index of the dead 2. Familiarization with the award card 3. Search for an award order and an award sheet with a brief description of the feat or merits of the recipient 4. Familiarization with the officer’s service record 5. Familiarization with the officer’s personal file (only to relatives, with the personal permission of the head of the archive and in the presence of the head of the department) 6. Establishing the name of a soldier by the number of the medal or order (only representatives search parties, and for the rest - at the request of the military registration and enlistment office) 7. Search for reports from military registration and enlistment offices about military personnel who did not return from the war, and statements of door-to-door survey
Each of these questions takes 2-5 hours. If you are going to study some documents in the reading room, it is recommended that you first order the necessary documentation in the reading room - after that you will have free time- and then start looking for personal information. ("Features of searching for documents in TsAMO" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
Before visiting TsAMO, you should clarify by phone the work schedule of the archive departments you need.
2.3. Working with documents of military units in the archive
Issues related to the study of documentation in the archive reading room (for example, establishing the combat path of a serviceman or military unit) may require several days, and sometimes several weeks of hard work. You can even get the documentation necessary for work only the next day after the order. The exception is the inventory of divisions, armies, fronts, which can be obtained within a few minutes. ("Features of searching for documents in TsAMO" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
If, for example, the regiment number is known, then it is necessary to order and receive inventories of the funds of the regiment and division. Inventory of funds of divisions can be received during the day, and inventories of funds of regiments will be issued only the next day after the order. The inventories list the names and numbers of cases stored in the archive. In the funds of military units, there are usually such cases as the "Book of the names of private and non-commissioned officers", "Ledger officers", "Journal of irretrievable losses". These should be ordered and viewed first. Cases such as "Journal of Combat Operations", "Combat Route of the Regiment (Division)", "Book of Orders" may also be useful. If you order these cases in the morning, then get them the next day.
If the serviceman you are looking for is found in the record book, you should write out all the essential information and continue searching in the record book for the next period. In the event of the departure of a serviceman from the unit, an entry was made in the appropriate column on the date of departure and the number of the order. In the "Book of Orders" you should find the necessary order, it must indicate the reason why the soldier was excluded from the list of the unit (for example: for training, at the disposal of a higher headquarters, etc.) and the name of the unit to which he left. The number of the order of the higher organization may also be indicated there.
The replenishment and secondment should also be mentioned in the orders in parts. The order is given about the fact of a change in the state of personnel (arrival and departure) and removal from allowance. Sometimes the names are listed in the order, but often only the number of arrivals or departures is given with the mention of the attached list, which, as a rule, is not included in the file. You can check the distribution lists for the regiment (if preserved) for the issuance of monetary support to military personnel for the previous, for the desired and subsequent months.
The next step is to establish the course of hostilities to the nearest day - this is done according to the combat logs, combat reports of the unit commander and unit commanders, operational reports, orders, other documents, as well as similar documents higher and neighboring military units, mentioning this military unit. Thus, it is sometimes possible to narrow geographical area to the village, and the time of death - up to an hour.
If it is established that the serviceman has been transferred to another unit, then the search must be continued by ordering inventories of the funds of this unit.
To search for information about military personnel sent to reserve and training units and to transit points, it is necessary to study the inventories of the armies and fronts that included these military units.
Information about which military units were part of the formation can be found in the journal "Combat and numerical strength". Each military unit regularly sent these reports to the higher headquarters.
2.4.1. If you have come to the archive for the first time, and you still do not know anything other than the number of the army or division, take a directory of rifle divisions from the scientific reference library of the TsAMO reading room or combined arms armies. In them you will learn the structure of these formations, their subordination, i.e. entry into the higher formations of troops at various times. Then order an inventory of the affairs of the division or army. It is recommended that you first order cases from the army fund.
2.4.2. What should I do if there is no case of interest in the inventory of the army, division or regiment taken (for example, there is no documentation for a certain period of time) or there is nothing in the ordered case that could shed light on the events that took place? There are two ways:
1) order the affairs of subordinate units and divisions
2) sequentially order the affairs of neighbors and higher authorities - divisions, corps, armies, fronts (the affairs of the fronts are probably secret)
2.4.3. In the absence of information about the encirclement and failures of divisions and armies, it should be sought in the army and front funds in the affairs of the armed forces, services and departments of headquarters and, especially, in the affairs of political agencies.
2.4.4. One of the forms of reporting is reports on the combat and strength of troops (hereinafter referred to as BChS) as of a specific date. They consist of digital data reflecting the staffing and payroll for the personnel and weapons of combat units, combat support units, rear units, NKVD units, attached formations, as well as institutions, the number of which was not normalized by NPO standards (state bank, field postal station, etc.). .P.). Reports on BChS were submitted once every 5 days - by regiments, divisions and individual army units.
2.4.5. Official confirmation of the participation of a serviceman in hostilities can be obtained from the military registration and enlistment office. Each military registration and enlistment office has a directory in which for each military unit and even for small units the dates of their entry into the composition are indicated. Active Army.
3. Special occasions
3.1. Search for information about military personnel admitted to the hospital
3.1.1. If it is established that the serviceman has left for the hospital, then a request should be sent to the Archive of Military Medical Documents of the Military Medical Museum of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. ("Addresses of departmental archives" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)
A request to the Archive of Military Medical Documents should also be sent if no information about the soldier has been found so far: it may turn out that he was wounded and is listed in the file cabinet. Question to those who worked in the archive: is there a file cabinet in the archive?
3.1.2. If the date and place of the wounded serviceman are known, then you need to try to establish the number of the hospital to which he was sent. To do this, according to the inventories of the rear departments of the army and the front, one should find rear reports, as well as reports from subordinate units and institutions about the place of deployment, current work, the movement of ranballs, evacuation routes, etc. documents that may contain information about the location. From these same documents, it will probably be possible to establish the numbers of hospitals subordinate to the rear departments of the front and the army. After establishing the hospital number, you can request his reports on losses, as well as burial books, in the 9th department of TsAMO. ("Guide to the deployment of hospitals" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
3.2. Search for information about military personnel who were in German captivity
3.2.1. During the war years, there were more than 5 million Soviet people (military and civilians) in German captivity. of these, approximately 3 million people died in captivity, and an insignificant part remained in the West after liberation. There, at our former allies- turned out to be most of the files German camps.
German personal cards for prisoners of war who died or died in captivity are stored in TsAMO (an incomplete card file contains 321,000 cards). Cards for released prisoners of war were transferred to the regional departments of the MGB in 1946-48. for current work.
3.2.2. Soldiers liberated by Soviet troops from German prisoner of war camps were sent to the NKVD check-filtration camps (PFL). In the camp, investigators from the counterintelligence department "Smersh" found out the circumstances of the capture and the conditions of detention in the concentration camp.
Of course, the assertions of modern journalists that all military personnel released from German captivity were sentenced to 10-25 years and sent to Soviet concentration camps. In cases that did not require a detailed check, the filtration case was not even started, only a card was drawn up, and the serviceman was usually sent to the army reserve rifle regiment, and these are the vast majority. In other cases, former prisoners of war could be sent to penal companies (officers usually lost their ranks). The term of stay of former prisoners of war in the PFL usually did not exceed one or two months.
In the archive of the FSB of a regional or republican center in the region of the place of residence or birth of a serviceman, there may be a filtration and verification file for him. You can get information about the existence of the case by phone. Relatives of the case can be issued for review and making copies. To do this, you should send a request to the archive or contact the local department of the FSB, which will issue a request, receive the file by field mail and familiarize the applicant with it.
In half of the regions, the filtration and verification files were transferred from the archives of the FSB to the state (regional) archives. There are no such cases in TsAMO, but there may be a German "Personal Camp Card". Files for those born before 1910 could be destroyed in the archives of the FSB upon expiration of the storage period (75 years from the year of birth).
3.2.3. If a serviceman was convicted for collaborating with the Germans while in captivity, then the request should be sent to the Main Information Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation through the internal affairs body at your place of residence.
3.2.4. The International Tracing Service, set up after the Second World War, initially looked only for missing Germans. Now the scope of its activities has expanded somewhat: the missing Germans are still being searched here, but the search service also finds documents about prisoners for free. German concentration camps 1933-1945, about foreigners who disappeared in Germany, about those who were driven into this country, and about the children of all these people who disappeared in Germany. Address of the International Tracing Service: Grosse Allee 5-9, 34444 AROLSEN, Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Phone: (0 56 91) 6037. http://deutsch.its-arolsen.org/
3.2.5. You should also send a request to the International Red Cross. ("Address and sample questionnaire" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
3.3. Search for information about convicted military personnel
3.3.1. Information about convicted servicemen is stored in the 5th department of TsAMO. If it is known that the serviceman was convicted, then 3 different requests should be sent to TsAMO: one about fate, the second about awards, and the third about condemnation. All of them will disperse to different departments of TsAMO. The last request should indicate that the soldier was convicted, and ask for the number of the military unit in which he served before the arrest, and send a copy of the verdict of the military tribunal.
3.3.2. The personal file of the convict must be kept in the archives of the body that passed the sentence, i.e. it can be in the materials of either the tribunal of the military unit, or the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, or the FSB Department of the region where the court session took place. You can find out about the existence of the case by phone. If the file is in the archive, then, according to the existing rules, only the relatives of the convict can be acquainted with it, only in the presence of an archive employee, and only if the convict has been rehabilitated. But according to some information, the archives staff allow deviations from the rules, and if you can convince them, then, upon your written application, photocopies of some documents can be sent by mail. If you want to get acquainted with the case, you must write an application to the FSB at your place of residence.
3.4. Search for information about the military divisions of the people's militia
In the first years of the war, several rifle divisions of the people's militia (sdno) were formed from among the volunteers. If there is no information about the militia in TsAMO, then it is recommended to look through the archives at the place of his residence for the funds of the organization in which he worked before enrolling in the militia. Organizational orders must contain a record of being sent to a division of the people's militia or at the disposal of the RVC. Thus, you can set the division number or the name of the draft board. A further search is carried out at TsAMO in the division fund, and if the order for the organization does not indicate the division number, then you should first find out the division number in the RVC.
3.5. Search for information about servicemen who fought as part of penal companies and battalions
Penal companies and battalions were created by order N227 of July 28, 1942 (this order is known as "Not a step back!"). Penal battalions were formed on each front in the amount of from one to three, officers convicted by military tribunals were sent to them, according to the verdict of the tribunal, in cases where they were not deprived of their officer rank.
Penal companies existed in combined arms armies (up to ten penal companies), they were sent:
a) officers convicted by military tribunals, in cases where, by the verdict of the tribunal, they were deprived of their officer rank, b) privates and sergeants convicted by military tribunals, by the verdict of the tribunal, c) privates and sergeants who committed a disciplinary offense, by orders of commanders of military units (from the commander of the regiment and above), d) civilian prisoners (only men), for whom serving their sentence in the camp was replaced by service in penal battalions.
Tank and aviation armies did not have their own penal units; penal units from these armies were sent to penal units of combined arms armies and fronts.
Servicemen were sent to penal units for a period of 1 or 2 months, and for prisoners, the term of service in penal companies was calculated depending on the term of punishment to which they were sentenced by the court, according to the following scheme: up to 5 years in prison - a month, 5-8 years - two months, up to ten (this was the maximum sentence at that time) - three months.
After any injury, the servicemen of the penal units were released from further punishment and sent to the medical battalion, and after treatment - to the reserve regiment. retired set time military personnel were considered exempt from punishment and were sent either to their unit or to the reserve rifle regiment of the army, while the officers were restored to their former rank and position.
For combat operations, penal subunits were transferred to operational subordination to divisions. Information about penal subunits should be sought in the funds of the corresponding armies and fronts, and information about their activities may be in the funds of the divisions and regiments to which they were assigned. In TsAMO there are also numerous funds for storing documents of penal companies and battalions, which any researcher can get acquainted with.
3.6. Search for information about servicemen who went to the front as part of marching companies
3.6.1. Sometimes a search in the military registration and enlistment office gives only the date the team was sent from the recruiting station, and there is no destination address. But even if the address is specified, then with further search it sometimes turns out that the team did not arrive at the specified address. As mentioned above, military teams and marching companies were sent:
a) in reserve rifle regiments (zsp) and brigades (zsbr) of armies and fronts,
b) to transit points (PP) of the army or front,
c) directly to combat units
3.6.2. Reserve rifle regiments and brigades were part of the combined arms armies, fronts and military districts. The following categories of servicemen were sent to the zsp and zsbr:
1) conscripts called up for military service, 2) recovered servicemen from hospitals, 3) servicemen who fell behind their units and teams, 4) servicemen released from German concentration camps and checked by the NKVD, 5) servicemen who arrived from reserve rifle regiments of internal military districts, 6 ) military personnel who arrived from military educational institutions, 7) citizens newly drafted in the liberated territory, 8) personnel of disbanded units, 9) newly drafted persons who had not previously served in the army, etc.
In the reserve regiments, training was carried out, the formation of marching units and the direction to the front in the active units in the specialty. The time spent by a serviceman in a reserve regiment usually ranged from several days to a month and only in rare cases exceeded 3-4 months.
It is necessary to distinguish between the permanent and variable composition of the reserve regiment. Everything said in the previous paragraphs refers to the variable composition of the reserve regiment. The rifle battalions of the regiment were equipped with a variable composition, training battalion, a battalion of convalescents, a school of junior lieutenants and some other units. But the reserve regiment also had a permanent composition, which included company and battalion commanders, regiment headquarters, auxiliary units and regiment services (medical unit, separate communications company, engineer platoon, household platoon, etc.). For the permanent staff, the reserve rifle regiment was a place of permanent service.
Information about reserve regiments and brigades should be sought in the funds of the troop recruitment directorates of the corresponding armies, fronts or military districts. (Directory of the deployment of reserve and training regiments on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
3.6.3. Transit points were created for prompt decision issues when moving teams, supplying food, uniforms and weapons. According to the documents of the transit point, you can set the path for the further following of the team in case of a change in destination, you can also find the list of the team there.
Cases of transit points should be sought in the funds of the troop recruitment departments of the respective armies, fronts and military districts.
3.6.4. If the date of sending the team to the front is known, but the final address is unknown, then you can try to trace the path of the echelon:
a) according to the documents of the organizational control department of the military district of dispatch (these documents have not yet been declassified), b) according to the documents of the military communications department (VOSO) of the General Staff of the Army (also not declassified), c) according to the documents of the staffing departments of the headquarters of the fronts, d) according to the documents of the archive MPS (may not be declassified).
Documentation in the VOSO services was kept very strictly and punctually, all of it must be preserved, but, unfortunately, almost all documents are still secret. To get acquainted with them, you need to obtain through the Archive Service of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation a permit to work with secret documents structures mentioned above.
3.6.5. It should be borne in mind that in wartime average speed train traffic was small, therefore, when calculating arrival dates, it must be taken into account that a military echelon could overcome a distance of, for example, 300 km in 10 hours and 5 days.
3.6.6. And the most unpleasant result of the search may be, probably, the establishment of the fact of negligent or criminal failure to fulfill their duties in accounting for military personnel by commanders of military units. Cases are known when marching reinforcements immediately upon arrival were put into battle, even without enrollment in the lists of the unit. War...
3.7. Search for information about the military personnel of the ski battalions
Separate ski battalions (ski battalions) were formed in the reserve ski regiments of the internal military districts in the autumn and winter of 1941-1942. Spare ski regiments were part of the Arkhangelsk, Moscow, Ural, Volga and Siberian military districts, they were disbanded in the spring of 1942, but before that they had formed and sent to the front almost 300 ski battalions with a staff of 570 people each.
The conscripts, born in the second half of 1922, were drafted into the Red Army in the fall of 1941, so most of them were sent precisely to the reserve ski regiments being formed at the same time.
Skibats were armed with PPSh assault rifles, light mortars, and light machine guns. Therefore, they were used at the forefront of offensives, and in connection with this, the number of casualties was very large. The vast majority of the ski battalions were disbanded within 2-3 months after arriving at the front. By the time of disbandment, the ski battalions usually had 40-80 fighters left. Funerals were rarely sent home, personnel records and combat documents were often lost, because. the headquarters of many battalions perished. For example: out of 44 skibats who ended up on the Volkhov Front in December 1941 - March 1942, TsAMO has documents for only two skibats.
The affairs of individual ski battalions should be sought in the funds of the formations to which they were attached.
3.8. Search for information about demobilized military personnel
When a soldier was demobilized, he handed over his Red Army book to the headquarters of his unit, after which he was issued a passage certificate (travel document), usually to the place from which he was called up. After arriving at the destination, the serviceman had to register with the military registration and enlistment office, pass a passing certificate, receive a military ID, and only after that he could receive a passport.
If it is known that a participant in the war was demobilized either after the end of the war, or during the war after being discharged from the hospital, you should look for information about him in the military enlistment office. The archive of the military commissariat contains a registration card of the military reserve, which contains information about his military service and about his places of work after demobilization until deregistration. When changing the place of residence, the registration card and the personal file were sent to the military registration and enlistment office at the new place of residence and are now stored in the military enlistment office in which he was deregistered.
If it is known that a war veteran received a disability pension, then you should contact the pension department - the number of the hospital that issued the disability certificate may be indicated on the personal card. Further search for information should be carried out in the Archive of Military Medical Documents of the Military Medical Museum of the RF Ministry of Defense. ("Addresses of departmental archives" on the site SOLDAT.ru.) It is recommended to send two requests to the archive: one for a search in the general file cabinet, and the second for a search in the funds of a particular hospital. The answer to the request may be negative, because many hospitals did not file their records after the war.
3.9. Search for information about servicemen who died and went missing in the battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940.
"Nominal list of servicemen of the Soviet Army who died and went missing in the battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940." stored in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA) (fund 34980, year 1939-1940, inventory 15). It includes 126,875 people who died in battle, went missing and died from wounds in hospitals.
3.10. Search for information about partisans
Information about partisan detachments in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union is stored in the fund Central Headquarters partisan movement at Headquarters Supreme High Command in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI).
3.11. Finding information about members of the Navy
Documents of the Navy (including records of personnel and personal files of officers) for the period up to 1941 are stored in the Russian State Archive of the Navy (191065, St. Petersburg, Millionnaya st., 35 ).
Documents for the period since 1941 are stored in the Central Naval Archive (188350, Leningrad region, Gatchina, Krasnoarmeisky lane, 2). Among them are documents of departments, institutions, units and ships of the Navy, materials on personnel: a card index of records of irretrievable losses of personnel of the Navy during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945; filing cabinets for enlisted and foremen; personal files of admirals and officers of the Navy; award materials.
The branch of the Central Naval Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (123362, Moscow, Malaya Naberezhnaya Street, 11/25) stores documents of naval brigades and marine brigades for 1941-1945.
3.12. Search for information about members of the AUCP(b) and VLKSM
By last name, first name and patronymic, year and place of birth, as well as by the number of a party or Komsomol ticket, you can find documents in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI).
In TsAMO you can find information about the heads of the party bureau in the affairs of party meetings, reports, etc. This helps when the position and part are known, but the last name, first name and patronymic are not known.
3.13 Search for information about military personnel who participated in the liberation of cities
In some cases, the names of cities are known, in the liberation of which a serviceman took part (for example, from letters or memoirs). In the "Handbook on the liberation of cities" (available on the soldier.ru website), you can determine the numbers of the units and formations that participated in the liberation of the city.
4. Conclusion
Of course, it is impossible to foresee and describe all possible cases in any reference book. But now you've got a general idea of search. And, if you, after checking all the sources of information described above, have not found an answer to your questions, then try to seek advice or hints on the military history forum. You already know how to formulate your question correctly.
In preparing the document, materials from the website and forum Soldat.ru, as well as other military-historical and genealogical sites, were used.
An updated version of this document is posted on the site genobooks.narod.ru.
Permission is granted to freely copy and distribute this document.
Comments and additions are accepted in the form of a finished text.
The author of most of the above information is Ivlev Igor Ivanovich, editor of the Soldat.ru website, director of the Arkhangelsk State Socio-Memorial Center "Poisk"
Design, editing, compilation: Meller Alexander Leonidovich meller#aha.ru genobooks.narod.ru 1993.sovnarkom.ru
If you want to establish the fate of your relative, who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War, then get ready for a long and laborious work. Do not expect that it is enough to ask a question and someone will tell you in detail about your relative. And there is no magic key to the secret door, behind which is a box with the inscription "The most detailed information about Sergeant Ivanov II for his great-grandson Edik." Information about a person, if preserved, is scattered across dozens of archives in tiny, often unrelated fragments. It may turn out that after spending several years searching, you will not learn anything new about your relative. But it is possible that a lucky break will reward you after only a few months of searching.
Below is a simplified search algorithm. It may seem complicated. In fact, everything is much more complicated. Here are described ways to search for information, if it has been preserved somewhere. But the information you needed might not have been preserved at all: the hardest of all wars was going on, not only individual servicemen died - regiments, divisions, armies died, documents disappeared, reports were lost, archives burned ... It is especially difficult (and sometimes impossible) to find out the fate of servicemen , who died or went missing in encirclement in 1941 and in the summer of 1942
In total, the irretrievable losses of the armed forces of the USSR (Red Army, Navy, NKVD) in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11.944 thousand people. It should immediately be noted that these are not dead, but for various reasons excluded from the lists of units. According to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense N 023 dated February 4, 1944, irretrievable losses include "those who died in battle, went missing at the front, died from wounds on the battlefield and in medical institutions, died from diseases received at the front, or died at the front from other causes and captured by the enemy. Of this number, 5,059 thousand people went missing. In turn, of the missing, most of them ended up in German captivity (and only less than a third of them survived to liberation), many died on the battlefield, and many of those who ended up in the occupied territory were subsequently re-conscripted into the army. The distribution of irretrievable losses and missing by the years of the war (I remind you that the second number is part of the first) is shown in the table:
|
Year |
Dead Losses (thousand people) |
Killed and died from wounds (thousand people) |
|
|
Total |
Missing |
||
|
1941 |
3.137 |
2.335 |
|
|
1942 |
3.258 |
1.515 |
|
|
1943 |
2.312 |
||
|
1944 |
1.763 |
||
|
1945 |
|||
|
Total |
11.944 |
5.059 |
9.168 |
In total, 9,168 thousand servicemen died or died of wounds in the Great Patriotic War, and the total direct human losses of the Soviet Union for all the years of the Great Patriotic War are estimated at 26.6 million people. (The numerical data on losses are taken from the works of Colonel-General G.F. Krivosheev, 1998-2002, which seem to us the most reliable and least politicized of all known estimates of the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War.)
1. First steps
1.1. Home search
First of all, you need to know exactly the last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and place of birth. Without this information, it will be very difficult to search.
The place of birth must be indicated in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the prewar years. The correspondence between pre-revolutionary, pre-war and modern administrative-territorial division can be found on the Internet. (Handbook of the administrative division of the USSR in 1939-1945 on the site SOLDIER.ru.)
Usually it is not difficult to find out the time of conscription and the place of residence of the conscript. By place of residence, you can determine which District Military Commissariat (RVK) he was called up to.
Ranks can be determined by the insignia in the surviving photographs. If the rank is unknown, then belonging to the rank and file, command and political composition can be very approximately determined by the education and pre-war biography of the serviceman.
If a medal or order has been preserved that a soldier was awarded during the war, then by the number of the award, you can determine the number of the military unit and even find out a description of the feat or military merits of the recipient.
Be sure to interview the relatives of the soldier. Much time has passed since the end of the war, and the soldier's parents are no longer alive, and his wife, brothers and sisters are very old, much has been forgotten. But when talking with them, some insignificant detail may come up: the name of the area, the presence of letters from the front, words from a long-lost "funeral" ... Write everything down and for each individual fact, be sure to indicate the source: "Smirnova S.I. story 10.05 .2008". You need to write down the source because conflicting information may appear (grandmother said one thing, but another is indicated in the certificate), and you will have to choose a more plausible source. It should be borne in mind that family legends sometimes convey certain events with distortions (something was forgotten, something was mixed up, something the narrator "improved" ...).
It is very important at this stage to determine in the troops of which People's Commissariats (People's Commissariats, or in modern terms - ministries) your relative served: the People's Commissariat of Defense (ground forces and aviation), the Navy (including coastal units and aviation of the Navy), People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD troops, border units). Cases of different departments are stored in different archives. (Addresses of departmental archives on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
The main task at the first stage should be set - finding out the date of death and the number of the military unit in which the soldier was at least for some time.
1.2. If letters from the front are preserved
All letters from the front were viewed by military censors, the servicemen were warned about this, therefore, usually the letters did not indicate the names and numbers of military units, the names of settlements, etc.
The first thing to determine is the number of the Field Post Station (PPS or "field mail"). By the PPP number it is often possible to determine room military unit. ("Handbook of field postal stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945", "Handbook of military units - field mails of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the SOLDIER.ru website. ) It should be borne in mind that in this case it is not always possible to determine a specific unit (regiment, battalion, company) as part of a military unit. ("Recommendations" on the website SOLDAT.ru. )
Until September 5, 1942, the address of a military unit usually consisted of the PPS number and the numbers of specific military units served by this PPS (regiment, battalion, company, platoon). After September 5, 1942, the actual numbers of military units were not indicated in the address, and instead of them, within each specific PPS, conditional numbers of addressees were introduced. Such conditional numbers could include from two to five or six characters (letters and numbers). It is impossible to determine the actual number of the military unit by the conditional number of the addressee. In this case, only the number of the division or army can be determined by the PPS number, and the number of the regiment, battalion, company will remain unknown, because. each army had its own unit coding system.
In addition to the PPP number, the stamp (in the center) has the date the letter was registered at the PPP (actually the date the letter was sent) - it will also come in handy in further searches. The text of the letter may contain information about the rank of a serviceman, about his military specialty, about rewarding, about belonging to an ordinary, junior command (sergeant), command (officer) or political composition, etc.
2. Internet search
2.1. United data bank "Memorial"
2.1.1. by the most great resource on the Internet is the official website of the Ministry of Defense "United data bank "Memorial"". The data bank was created on the basis of documents stored in TsAMO: reports of irretrievable losses, journals of those who died in hospitals, alphabetical lists of burials, German personal cards for prisoners of war, post-war lists of those who did not return from the war, etc. Currently (2008) the site works in test mode. The site can be searched by last name, place of conscription, year of birth and some other keywords. It is possible to view scans of original documents in which the found personalities are mentioned.
When searching, you should also check consonant surnames and first names, especially if the surname is poorly perceived by ear - with repeated rewriting, the surname could be distorted. The operator could also make a mistake when entering handwritten information into the computer.
In some cases, there are several documents for one soldier, for example: a report on irretrievable losses, a nominal list of those who died from wounds, an alphabetical list of those who died in a hospital, a military burial record card, etc. And of course, very often there are no documents for a serviceman - this mainly applies to missing persons in initial period war.
2.2.1. In addition to the site of the OBD "Memorial", there are several available databases on the Internet with a search by surnames (Page of links on the site SOLDIER.en).
2.2.2. Regardless of the search results on the OBD Memorial website and databases, it is necessary to search in several search engines on the Internet, specifying known information about the relative as the search string. Even if the search engine tells you something interesting for your query, you should repeat the search for different combinations of words, check synonyms and possible abbreviations of terms, names, names.
2.2.3. You should definitely visit genealogical and military-historical sites and forums, look through the catalogs of sections of military literature on the sites of electronic libraries. Read the memoirs of soldiers and officers found on the Internet who served on the same sector of the front as your relative, as well as descriptions of the military operations of the front, army, division in which he served. This will help you a lot in your future work. . And it’s just useful to know about the everyday life of that big war.
2.2.4. You should not completely trust the information received from the Internet - often no one is responsible for its reliability, so always try to check the facts obtained from other sources. If verification fails, then make a note or just remember which of the information was obtained from an unverified source. In the future, you will often come across information that is unlikely, unreliable, doubtful, or even, most likely, false. For example, very soon you will have a list of namesakes, a wanted relative, who have some biography facts that match the ones you need. You don’t need to throw anything away, but be sure to indicate the source from which you received it for each new fact - maybe in a year you will have new information that will make you evaluate the information collected in a new way.
2.2.5. If right now you have a desire to ask your question at the military-historical forum, do not rush. To get started, read the posts on this forum in recent weeks. It may turn out that such questions have already been asked more than once, and regular forum visitors have already answered them in detail - in this case, your question will cause irritation. In addition, each forum has its own rules and traditions, and if you want to get a friendly answer, then try not to violate the norms of behavior adopted on the forum. Usually, the first time you post to a forum, you should introduce yourself. And don't forget to include an email address for those who want to reply to you by email.
2.3. Books of Memory
2.3.1. In many regions of the country, Books of Memory have been issued, which contain alphabetical lists of the inhabitants of the region who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Books of Memory are multi-volume publications, they can be found in the regional library and in the military registration and enlistment offices of the region, but it is difficult to find them outside the region. In some regions of the country, in addition to the regional Book of Memory, Books of Memory of individual regions have been issued. Some Books are available in electronic versions on the Internet. Since the publications of different territories, regions, republics and districts were prepared by different editorial teams, the set of personal information and design of different publications are different. As a rule, military personnel born or drafted into the army in this region are indicated in the Books of Memory of the Regions. Both Books of Memory should be checked: the one published at the place of birth and the one published at the place of conscription of the serviceman. (Links to electronic versions of the Books of Memory on the Internet on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
In the Books of Memory of some regions where hostilities took place, there is information about the servicemen who died and were buried in the region. If you know in which region the serviceman died, you need to check the Memory Book of the corresponding region.
2.3.2. A large database of dead servicemen is available at the museum on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, and museum staff provide information both in person and by phone, but the database installed in the museum is abbreviated (contains only last name, first name, patronymic and year of birth), and the complete database, funded by public funds, is now privately owned and virtually inaccessible. In addition, with the appearance of the OBD Memorial website on the Internet, both databases can be considered outdated.
2.3.3. If you yourself can not get access to the necessary Books of Memory, then you can ask to check the book of the desired area on an Internet forum with military history or genealogical topics. In addition, many cities have their own websites on the Internet, and most of these sites have their own regional forums. You can ask a question or make a request on such a forum, and you will most likely be given advice or a hint, and if the settlement is small, then you may be asked some question in the military enlistment office or museum.
It should be borne in mind that there are also errors in the Books of Memory, their number depends on the conscientiousness of the editorial team.
3. Getting information from the archive
3.1. On the personal account of the dead and missing military personnel
3.1.1. This subsection provides brief information about the personal account of servicemen who died and went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Basic knowledge of record keeping is essential for further work with archival documents.
3.1.2. It should be noted that during the war, the accounting of dead servicemen was organized quite clearly (as far as it was possible in the conditions of war). With an interval of 10 days (sometimes less often), each military unit of the Active Army sent a list of irretrievable losses to the higher headquarters - "Report on irretrievable losses ...". In this report, for each deceased serviceman, the following was indicated: last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, rank, position, date and place of death, place of burial, conscription office, address of residence and names of parents or wife. Reports from different units were collected at the Office for the Manning of Troops General Staff Red Army (later - in the Central Loss Bureau of the Red Army). Similar reports were submitted by hospitals about military personnel who died from wounds and diseases.
After the war, these reports were transferred to TsAMO, and on their basis a file of irretrievable losses was compiled. Information from the report of the military unit was transferred to the personal card of the serviceman, the number of the military unit and the number under which this report was taken into account were indicated in the card.
3.1.3. A notice of the death of a serviceman was sent by the headquarters of the unit in which the deceased served, as a rule, to the draft board. The military registration and enlistment office issued a duplicate of the notice, which was sent to relatives, and on its basis a pension was subsequently issued. The original notices remained in storage at the military registration and enlistment office. The original notice had a round seal and a corner stamp with the name of the military unit or its conditional five-digit number. Some of the notices were sent by the headquarters of the military units directly to the relatives, bypassing the military registration and enlistment office, which was a violation of the established procedure. Part of the notices of post-war issuance was issued by the district military registration and enlistment offices on the proposal of the Central Bureau of Losses. All notices issued by the military registration and enlistment offices bore the seal and details of the military registration and enlistment office, and the number of the military unit, as a rule, was not given.
The notice of the death of a serviceman indicated: the name of the unit, rank, position, date and place of death of the serviceman and the place of burial. (Image of a notice of the death of a serviceman on the SOLDIER website.en.)
3.1.4. Two ways of indicating the names of military units in open (unclassified) correspondence should be distinguished:
a) in the period 1941-42. the actual name of the unit was indicated in the documents - for example, 1254 rifle regiment (sometimes indicating the division number);
b) in the period 1943-45. the conditional name of the military unit was indicated - for example, "military unit 57950", which corresponded to the same 1254 sp. Five-digit numbers were assigned to NPO units, and four-digit numbers were assigned to NKVD units.
3.1.5. A serviceman who was absent from the unit for an unknown reason was considered missing, and the search for him within 15 days did not yield any results. Information about the missing was also transmitted to the higher headquarters, and a notice of the missing was sent to relatives. In this case, the notice of the missing serviceman indicated the name of the military unit, the date and place of the missing serviceman.
Most of the servicemen who are listed as missing died during the retreat, or during reconnaissance in battle, or in the environment, i.e. in cases where the battlefield was left behind by the enemy. It was difficult to witness their death for various reasons. Also missing were:
- Soldiers taken prisoner
- deserters,
- business travelers who did not arrive at their destination,
- scouts who did not return from the mission,
- the personnel of entire units and subunits in the event that they were defeated and there were no commanders left who could reliably report to the authorities about specific types of losses.
However, the reason for the absence of a serviceman could be not only his death. For example, a soldier who lagged behind a unit on the march could be included in another military unit, in which he then continued to fight. The wounded from the battlefield could be evacuated by soldiers of another unit and sent directly to the hospital. There are cases when relatives during the war received several notices ("funeral"), and the person turned out to be alive.
3.1.6. In those cases when no information about irretrievable losses was received from the military unit to the higher headquarters (for example, in the event of the death of a unit or its headquarters in an environment, loss of documents), a notice to relatives could not be sent, because. the lists of the military personnel of the unit were among the lost staff documents.
3.1.7. After the end of the war, the district military commissariats carried out work to collect information about servicemen who had not returned from the war (household survey). In addition, the relatives of a serviceman who did not return from the war could, on their own initiative, draw up a “Questionnaire for a non-returning from war” at the military registration and enlistment office.
On the basis of information from the military registration and enlistment offices, the card file of losses was replenished with cards compiled based on the results of a survey of relatives. Such cards could contain the entry "correspondence was interrupted in December 1942", and the number of the military unit was usually absent. If the number of the military unit is indicated in the card drawn up on the basis of a report from the military registration and enlistment office, then it should be treated as probable, presumptive. The date of the disappearance of a serviceman in this case was usually set by the military commissar by adding three to six months to the date of the last letter. The directive of the MVS of the USSR recommended that the district military commissars set the date of missing according to the following rules:
1) if the relatives of a serviceman who did not return from the war lived in the non-occupied territory, then three months should be added to the date of the last letter received,
2) if the relatives of a soldier who did not return from the war remained in the occupied territory during the war, then three months should be added to the date of liberation of the territory.
Household survey sheets and questionnaires are also stored in TsAMO (department 9), and they may contain information that is not in the card. When filling out the card, not all the information given in the household survey sheet was usually entered into it. or questionnaire, since there was no opportunity to verify the information recorded from the words of relatives. Therefore, if it is known that the family of a serviceman received letters from him from the front, but later these letters were lost, then some information from these letters (the number of the teaching staff, the date of the letter) may be in the records of the door-to-door survey. When answering an inquiry about the fate of a serviceman, archive workers are not able to find the statements of the door-to-door survey. You will have to look for them on your own, but, most likely, with a personal visit to the archive. The number of the RVC report with the year indicated on the back of the personal card. After the appearance on the Internet of the website of the OBD "Memorial", it became possible to conduct an independent search for source documents.
3.2. Brief information about archives
Most of the documents relating to the period of the Great Patriotic War are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Below, the search for military personnel of the People's Commissariat of Defense (NPO) will be mainly described and, accordingly, references will be made to the TsAMO archive, since it is in it that the archives of the People's Commissariat of Defense (and then the Ministry of Defense) are stored from June 22, 1941 to the eighties. (Addresses of departmental archives on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
The card index of the dead and missing servicemen of the NPO during the years of the Great Patriotic War is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Similar loss files are available in:
a) the Central Naval Archive in Gatchina - for the personnel of the fleet, coastal service and aviation of the Navy,
b) the Russian State Military Archive in Moscow - for persons who served in the bodies, formations and units of the NKVD,
c) the archive of the Federal Border Service of the FSB of the Russian Federation in the city of Pushkino, Moscow Region - for border guards.
In addition to the listed archives, the necessary documentation may be in the state regional archives and departmental archives.
Part of the information can be obtained on the OBD Memorial website
To obtain information about the fate of a serviceman, it is necessary to send a request to TsAMO (or to other archives indicated above), in which briefly indicate the known information about the serviceman. It is also recommended to include a postal envelope with a stamp and your home address in the envelope to expedite the response. (Postal address of TsAMO and a sample application on the site SOLDAT.ru.)
If the military rank of a serviceman is unknown or there is reason to believe that he could have been awarded an officer rank, then in the application to TsAMO you should write "Please check the personal file cabinets and file cabinets of losses of the 6th, 9th, 11th TsAMO departments" (in departments 6, 9 , 11 file cabinets are maintained for political, private and sergeant, officer corps, respectively).
It is recommended to simultaneously send an application in the same letter with a request to "Clarify the awards" and indicate the surname, name, patronymic, year and place of birth of the serviceman. TsAMO has a card file of all awarded Red Army servicemen, and it may turn out that the serviceman you are looking for was awarded a medal or order. (The image of the "Account card of the awarded" and the application form on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
Due to the insufficient funding of the archive, the answer from it may come by mail in 6-12 months, therefore, if possible, it is better to visit the archive in person. (TsAMO address on SOLDAT.ru website.) You can also make a request at the military commissariat, in which case the request to the archive will be issued on the form of the military commissariat with the signature of the military commissar and the seal.
Since 2007, only citizens of the Russian Federation have been allowed to enter TsAMO - this is the instruction of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which apparently forgot that natives of all the republics of the USSR fought and died in the war.
3.4. Received a response from TsAMO. Response Analysis
Thus, a letter from TsAMO (or the result self search in OBD "Memorial") may contain 4 possible answers:
1) A report on the death of a serviceman indicating the number of the military unit, the date and place of death, rank and place of burial.
2) A report of a missing serviceman, indicating the number of the military unit, the date and place of the loss.
3) A report of a missing serviceman, compiled on the basis of a survey of relatives, with incomplete, unverified or inaccurate information.
4) Reporting the absence of information about the serviceman in the loss card file.
If you are lucky, and the answer from TsAMO contains the name of the military unit, then you can proceed to clarify the combat path of the serviceman (see below)
If you are VERY lucky, and in the card file of the awarded TsAMO there was a registration card for your relative, and an extract from it was sent to you in the response of the archive, then you should familiarize yourself with the award sheet in the same TsAMO, which contains a brief description of the feat or merits of the recipient. The description of work in TsAMO is given below, and the description of the search in the military registration and enlistment office can be skipped.
If, however, it was not possible to establish the number of the military unit in which your relative served, then you will have to continue the search in the military registration and enlistment office and in other departmental archives. More on this below.
4. Search for information on the place of conscription
4.1. Brief information about the organization of work in the RVC for the staffing of the Active Army
4.1.1. In order to correctly make a request to the district military registration and enlistment office (RVK), you should familiarize yourself with the organization of the work of the RVC on staffing the Active Army (DA).
4.1.2. RVC carried out the call and mobilization of citizens, as well as their distribution to duty stations.
Citizens drafted into the army (that is, those who had not previously served) could be sent
- to a reserve or training regiment or brigade stationed at that time near the place of conscription,
- to the military unit formed in the area.
Citizens mobilized from the reserve (i.e., already serving in the army) could be sent immediately to the front as part of marching companies or battalions.
4.1.3. Marching companies (battalions) were usually not sent directly to the combat unit, but first arrived at the army or front transit point (PP) or at the army or front reserve rifle regiment (or reserve rifle brigade).
4.1.4. Newly formed, reorganized or understaffed military units were sent to the front and participated in hostilities under their own numbers.
4.1.5. Reserve regiments and brigades accepted unprepared military contingents, carried out initial military training and sent military personnel to the front or to educational establishments. Sending to the front was usually carried out as part of marching companies or battalions. It is necessary to distinguish between permanent and variable composition of spare military units. The permanent staff included military personnel who ensured the functioning of the military unit: the headquarters of the regiment, management, commanders of battalions, companies and platoons, employees of the medical unit, a separate communications company, etc. The variable composition included military personnel enlisted in the spare part for military training. The period of stay in spare parts of variable composition ranged from several weeks to several months.
4.1.6. In the military enlistment office of conscription for each conscript (that is, for the first time called up and who had not previously served in the army), a "Conscription card" was drawn up. It contained information about the conscript, the results of a medical examination and information about the parents. On its reverse side, the penultimate paragraph contains the number of the draft team and the date the team was sent. (Image of the recruiting card on the SOLDIER website.en.)
4.1.7. A conscripted reserve is a person who has passed a valid military service in the Red Army and the RKVMF, and in the reserve of 1 or 2 categories. Upon arrival at the RVC at the place of residence from service (or for other reasons), a “Regular Service Card” was issued, in which there was no information about relatives, medical data was briefly given, the dates of issue of the mobilization order and the place of registration, the conditional number of the draft team were indicated , to which the person liable for military service was assigned when mobilization was announced. Also, information about the issuance of a military ID, place of work, position, home address was entered into the registration card. The second copy of the registration card was at the headquarters of the unit to which the citizen was assigned. (The image of the registration card of a person liable for military service on the SOLDIER website.en.)
Under the numbers of draft teams, the already existing personnel formations and their parts were specially encrypted, which, when mobilized, were supposed to deploy to the number of wartime states due to the call-up of military reserve assigned to them. Accordingly, lists of such recruiting teams may be preserved in the RVC, and in different RVC for the same regular military unit, the number of the draft team was the same, because. the personnel military unit, where specific conscripts followed, is the same.
4.1.8. In addition to the above documents, each RVC kept the following journals:
- Alphabet books called in Soviet Army during the Great Patriotic War...
- Alphabetical books for registering the dead...,
- Nominal lists of privates and sergeants, recorded as dead and missing ...
The above "Alphabetical books called up to the Soviet Army ..." were compiled on the basis of draft cards and registration cards of a person liable for military service, but they have a much smaller set of information compared to the original documents. In many military registration and enlistment offices, draft cards and registration cards were destroyed after the expiration of the storage period. In some military registration and enlistment offices these documents are still kept.
4.1.9. When sending a draft team, the military registration and enlistment office compiled a "Nominal list for the draft team." In addition to the nominal list of military personnel, it contains the number of the military unit (conditional - "military unit N 1234", or valid - "333 s.d.") and the address of this unit. (Image of the name list per team on the SOLDIER website.en.) In many military registration and enlistment offices, "Name lists ..." were destroyed after the expiration of the storage period. In some military registration and enlistment offices they are still kept.
4.2. Search for information in the military registration and enlistment office
4.2.1. If the answer from the archive does not indicate the number of the military unit or if there is no information about the serviceman in the archive, then you will have to continue the search at the military registration and enlistment office at the place of conscription. You can send an application to the military registration and enlistment office by mail or appear in person. The latter is, of course, preferable. If the exact address of the military enlistment office is unknown, then only the name of the city can be written on the envelope (without specifying the street and house), and in the column "To" write: "Rayvoenokat" - the letter will reach. The application must include all known information about the serviceman. (Sample application to the RVC and postal codes on the SOLDIER website.en.)
Since registration documents with different names were drawn up for conscripts and those mobilized, and it is not always known whether the wanted person served in the army before the war, it is recommended to ask for copies of both documents in the application to the RVC: the Conscription card and the Registration card of the person liable for military service.
4.2.2. If the response received from the RVC contains the conditional number of the military unit, then you need to determine the actual number. ("Directory of conditional names of military units (institutions) in 1939 - 1943" and "Directory of military units - field mails of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
4.2.3. It should be recalled that the archives of the military commissariats located in the temporarily occupied territories in the western regions and republics of the Soviet Union could be lost.
4.2.4. Finding information about personnel and the direction of marching companies and battalions is very difficult, because. in the process of moving to the front line, marching units could be redirected at transit points (PP) located along the route, or re-staffed in reserve rifle regiments and brigades of armies and fronts. The marching companies that arrived at the combat unit were sometimes, due to circumstances, immediately put into battle without being properly enlisted in the unit's staff.
4.3. Spare parts and military units of local formation
4.3.1. If it is not possible to find out at the recruiting office where the conscript was sent, then the search should be continued in the funds spare and training units stationed at that time near the settlement of the draft. Usually they were sent to train previously non-serving recruits. Further search for information should be made in the documents of these parts. at TsAMO. (Handbook "Dislocation of spare and training units" on the SOLDIER.ru website.)
