Syria. What was really

Complete nonsense and hysteria that goes on the Web, it's time to stop. Disinformation, unverified facts and outright brazen stuffing pour out of every iron. Scenes played out by roles, the number of 200s growing by leaps and bounds, utopian stories, one more beautiful than the other - for 4 days someone has been purposefully inflaming, shaking and trying to provoke a reaction to non-existent facts. I put it on the shelves, which of what I have seen over the past 4 days is a lie, and what happened in reality.

Analysis of fakes
1. Photo of the “destroyed column”
This image has gone viral on the web:

A crushed column in an open field, with a track from the rover and an incomprehensible trajectory - this is exactly the picture drawn in the simplest editor.

The original looks like this and refers to July 2014, when the column of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was defeated in the Donbass:

2. Video "from the scene"
This video (“Strike on Wagner”) with the work of the AC-130 was dragged directly from the “primary sources”
https://vk.com/nezugar_vk?w=wall-46268973_1048

However, in reality it was filmed on trials in 2010 and has a very indirect attitude towards Syria:

The second video, actively distributed as an attack video, is a 2015 simulator (AC-130 Gunship Simulator)

3. Audio recordings
The most widespread was a video with three voices, telling how “straight from there” the “sidekick” called and reported.

The story with these "revelations" is the most muddy. Three supposedly unrelated people record voice messages to abstract friends. The sound is very clear, the text is perfectly audible, there are no background noises (with the exception of the character who allegedly received a call from a Syrian friend - he has music playing in the background).

Of course, the records began to appear after any facts about what happened began to spread on the Web. Recording such files according to data from the Internet is a matter of five minutes. And their uniformity and high quality suggests that they were made with one goal - to be widely distributed, the quality of the content in this case did not matter.

4. Articles in the social. networks
Especially zealously replicated the above fakes in LiveJournal. Each text was just a collection of other fakes. They threw in: Strelkov, the channel in the WarGonzo telegram and several military and pseudo-military publics in VK. On the basis of their "information" such articles crawled. And, of course, they tried to sow panic and discord in society.

5. Number of people killed
An amazing story about how, as the number of publications on the topic of the fight grew, so did the information about the number of participants. And about composition. And about the wounded. The logic of events was violated more and more, the reaction was more and more harsh, and the authors of the news increasingly enjoyed the effect produced. Is it necessary to mention that the authors do not have any confirmation of the words (and I know for sure that they will not)?
Variations: from 100 to 644 (!) killed Russian citizens.

And this public took both the figure from the ceiling, and both fabricated videos. Good FACT-checking.

Who can engage in throwing fakes?
There is 1 month before the elections, and spreading the fake idea that the government refuses to support its “battalions” and exposes “hundreds and thousands” of people to the meat grinder is a great way to spoil the reputation of the presidential candidate most in demand among the people.

Fake authors kill two birds with one stone: they work for the political agenda in Russia and for the perception of participation in the war in Syria. Those who benefit from Assad's troops having no support, those who really need the SDF (de facto Kurds) to win the civil war in Syria, those who have very easily succeeded in campaigns to shape public opinion for a long time. years, perfectly throw in on the topic of "incredible losses" of Russia. The same organizations suited Egypt, Libya, Iraq, started against Damascus. They stumbled over Russia and reformatted the work. They did not take into account only that in Russia they were very well prepared for stuffing and fakes - thanks to the Ukrainian Maidan and the protracted Arab Spring.

What was really
The clearest information can be obtained from the ISIS Hunter Twitter account. According to these data, a group of IS moved from Es-Suwar towards Khusham (Khsham, Hisham, Khusham). We walked through the territory controlled by the Kurds and, apparently, with their full support. Hunters, the Syrian army and Russian volunteers went on the counteroffensive.

The retreat of the Kurdish and ISIS forces was towards the oil and gas refinery CONOCO (Tabia), which, as the pro-Assad forces thought, was under the control of the Kurds.

The fact is that there were no violent clashes between the forces of the SAA and the SDS (Kurds). Therefore, the Assadites had no reason to directly attack the SDF. But under the cover of ISIS, it would be very interesting for the Kurds to “throw out” the SAA from the eastern bank of the Euphrates. What they, in fact, did during the offensive under the auspices of the ISIS.

Since the SAA and the allies were ready for infantry and artillery, the offensive was repulsed. But what was really unknown was that a secret American base was sitting on CONOCO. This is not only an oil refinery, as many ignorant hypnotists write. This is a base for US troops and equipment, and, as we learned from the events of February 7-8, the equipment there is very, very serious. This also explains the secrecy of the base.

Further events unfolded as follows. While the SAA and the allies were counterattacking, the Americans realized the risks and began to repel the “attack” (although it was not intended for them, but for terrorists, against whom the States, it seems, are also fighting). Reports of a request made to the command post of the Russian Aerospace Forces are complete nonsense, because it was not known that the American base was on CONOCO, and the Americans did not begin to reveal themselves - this would raise many questions. It is much easier to resolve the situation after the fact, accusing the "Russians" of attacking "the Americans." As the events of recent days and hours show, this tactic worked "with a bang."

They really worked on government forces from a variety of guns, but there is no video of this work on the Web. As for the flying American flag, most likely it was not the proud Kurds who did it, but the Americans themselves. They declassified themselves in order to designate the territory and not receive a “reply” from the Russian Aerospace Forces. The situation is cunning and vile, like the Americans themselves.

Outcome
To date, there is no exact information about how many Russian citizens died during the American shelling. Neither the exact number of victims, nor the number of casualties. If the fact about the funeral of 20 ISIS Hunter fighters, everything else is a fake. And if you see or hear someone show you “authentic photos” or videos, or give you the number of victims, be aware that your opinion is being brutally manipulated.

The technical side of the picture: what was on the screen and what - in fact.

Shot from the film "Salyut-7"

Gloves and angels

Features of the picture can be felt from the first minutes. Cosmonauts Dzhanibekov and Savitskaya (surnames changed in the film) are engaged in welding during extravehicular activities, casually having fun with jokes about sex in space (hello, “ gravity”, which also began with jokes in outer space). Svetlana pierces her spacesuit, and the first woman to go out into outer space immediately finds herself in a stereotyped situation of a “maiden in trouble”. However, they are not in a hurry to save her, because the partner sees the otherworldly light with angels. After returning to Earth, the film version of Dzhanibekov is recognized as unsuitable for flights because of this.

In reality, there was a very successful spacewalk by Dzhanibekov and Savitskaya on July 25, 1984. It tested a universal hand tool (URI), which could cut, weld, solder and spray a coating.

The same spacewalk, Svetlana works photo by Vladimir Dzhanibekov

In the history of astronautics, there are two cases of damage to the spacesuit glove, but both of them, ironically, happened to American astronauts. On the STS-37 mission in 1991, a restrictive palm bar punctured the suit's glove, but this was not discovered until after the return - the air leak was too small to be noticed. In 2007, on the STS-118 mission, a glove was damaged during a spacewalk, the exit was completed ahead of schedule, but there was no danger - only two of the five layers were damaged. The Soviet/Russian Orlan suits also have many layers, and the fingertips are covered with plastic fingertips, so it is not so easy to pierce them. Also, absolute tightness is unattainable, and any spacesuit has atmospheric loss rates. And special spacesuits for extravehicular activities have additional cylinders in order to cope with a small leak.

Accident

Shot from the film "Salyut-7"

In the film, the solar panels of the station are damaged by meteorites, after which the shutdown of some unit that de-energized the station is shown. Hello again Gravity.

In reality, the station was de-energized for other reasons. The incident is described in great detail and clearly in the fourth book of the Rockets and People series by B.E. Chertok. On February 11, 1985, the current protection worked in the control system - it “knocked out traffic jams” at one of the transmitters of the radio communication system. Automation switched to backup. The main transmitter had already exhausted its resource, so its failure was not surprising. According to the instructions, it was necessary to wait for the arrival of specialists in the control system and the communication system, but the next shift at the MCC tried to turn on the main transmitter - but what if the automatic operation was accidental? Alas, this was a wrong decision - the command to turn on the main transmitter caused a short circuit, which disabled the receivers and decoders located in the same unit with the emergency transmitter. The station has lost the ability to receive commands from the Earth. A short circuit current of 100-120 amperes discharged the station's batteries and disabled the time program device, which was supposed to regularly give a command to recharge the batteries from solar panels. Without battery current, the thermal control system stopped working, and the station began to freeze - according to calculations, the temperature inside it should have dropped to -20 ° C. The deafened station could not be reanimated remotely, people had to fly.

Danger

In the picture and some documentaries, it is strongly emphasized that the uncontrolled fall of the Salyut could become a catastrophe on a global scale. Ironically, in 1991, the station made an uncontrolled deorbit, and unburned fragments fell into Argentina. Near the amateur observatory of Oro Verde lies one of the largest pieces as an exhibit.

Carloszelayeta/Wikipedia

In addition, finds of pipes, slabs, rings and other small fragments are mentioned. There were no victims. In the event of a station crash in a densely populated area, there could be single victims, but the real damage would be much less than the media hype.

Kidnapping and Mystery Photography

Another question that is raised both in films and in documentaries is that the Americans were supposedly going to steal the Salyut-7 station on the Space Shuttle. Very briefly and point by point:

1. "Salyut-7" - a civilian station, on which there should not have been anything particularly secret, astronauts from France and India flew to it under the Intercosmos program. The previous Salyut-6 station was visited by many cosmonauts from other countries from Cuba to Vietnam. The military stations were "Diamonds", which, for the purpose of secrecy, were designated as "Salutes" -2,3,5.

2. Technically, it would be extremely difficult to steal the station - you would have to cut off the solar panels and antennas, as well as remove more than 6 tons of cargo from the station and throw it away - the shuttle could return 14.4 tons from orbit, and Salyut-7 at the beginning of operation weighed 20, and with new flights, its mass only grew.

3. The shuttle with the mission STS-51B, which actually flew in the spring of 1985, was brought to a different inclination (57 ° instead of 51.6 ° for Salyut-7) and could only fly close to the station with a large difference in speeds. To go into orbit "Salyut-7" and get closer, he would not have enough fuel. Yes, and in the cargo hold in this mission there was a SpaceLab laboratory, which would have had to be thrown out in order to take the Salyut.

4. Over the past decades, no documents have surfaced that such a proposal was even put forward, not to mention the work plans, equipment and training for its implementation.

In the recently released film “Salyut-7. The story of one feat ”this version is repeated, and the journalists even went to Norman Taggart, a member of the STS-51B crew, who says that the rapprochement with the Salyut was accidental. It also claims that a photograph of the emergency station was allegedly taken from the shuttle. There she is:

The photo shows the Salyut-7 station, which really looks like an emergency one - additional panels are not deployed on one of the solar panels (narrow on the side of the main wide one), and the angle of rotation of the panels looks abnormal. Savinykh himself says in the program that he did not see this photograph in the Soviet archives, which means that the Americans took it. In Wikipedia, this photo is attributed as "a broken Salyut-7 station, the photo was taken by the crew of the Soyuz T-13". But this is not true - the link to the source is not available, but this photo is not signed in the web archive. I was unable to find this photo in the NASA online archives, it does not have a unique number that is often found in their archives. The agency Sovfoto / Eastfoto is indicated as the source of the photo, so, most likely, the explanation for Occam's razor is correct - this is a Soviet photograph, and Savinykh was mistaken.

Docking

Docking, as shown in the film, is neither historical nor realistic. First of all, in reality, the station practically did not rotate. And pitch rotation would make docking impossible. The Soviet / Russian docking station of the "pin-cone" system works like this:

"Science and Life", 1988

If the station rotated strongly, then at stage B, on the one hand, the inertia of the station weighing more than 20 tons would begin to act on the pin, and on the other hand, the inertia of the ship weighing 7 tons. The docking bar would have broken or vomited.

Forgotten Rapprochement

Laser rangefinder LPR-1 6ppc.ru

But an interesting and truly dramatic stage of rapprochement was not shown in any way. The fact is that ballistics could bring the ship closer to a distance of several kilometers to the station. The standard manual docking system VSK-1 (Vizir special cosmonaut) could be used from a distance of several hundred meters. And there was no option for manual rapprochement between them. In an extremely short time, RSC Energia engineers and CTC cosmonauts managed to develop a rendezvous method, when the ship commander measured the range with a military laser rangefinder LPR-1 and controlled the ship from a duplicate set of control knobs, and the flight engineer sat with a calculator and calculated the necessary maneuvers. This is described in more detail in a separate article.

Redramatized

A layer of frost and a flood at the station - blowing up a fly into an elephant, often seen in movies, to make it more dramatic. In reality, there was some frost at the station and it was very cold (knitted hats are a historical fact). In the negotiations, there is indeed a proposal from the MCC to spit and see if the spit freezes. Frozen in three seconds. When the station was warmed up, it became damp, and the astronauts used all the available fabric on rags. It was especially scary to wipe the cables before connecting. But, of course, the actual amount of water was less than what was drawn. Against the background of subsequent errors, I don’t even want to find fault with this.

Senseless heroism

The story with the solar sensor closed by a melted hood is sad because it is meaningless. In reality, the station was first turned by solar panels to the Sun by the ship's orientation engines (and this is even shown once in the film!), And the cables from the panels were connected directly to the batteries, bypassing any electronics. So all the heroism with a sledgehammer was simply not needed. A separate sad smile is caused by the fact that after the lens hood was finally successfully shot down, everything magically became fine, despite the fact that the Sun was along the longitudinal axis of the station and, in theory, out of sight of the sensor.

The story of the fire and high-speed spacewalk simply does not stand up to criticism. The plot of the fire is clearly taken from the story at the Mir station and is very much exaggerated for drama. And you won’t be able to immediately put on a spacesuit - there is low pressure, and you need to breathe pure oxygen for a long time in advance so that the nitrogen in the vessels does not boil.

At the same time, there were real dangers at the station. For example, due to non-working ventilation, the astronaut found himself in a bubble with a high content of carbon dioxide, which he exhaled. There was a real risk of suffocation and loss of consciousness. The second cosmonaut was supposed to control the worker at the station, and if possible, they carried ventilation sleeves with them. Too bad they didn't show it. The everyday heroism of life and work in the refrigerator without hot food and drink is absent on the screen.

In the autumn of 1773, the Pugachev uprising broke out. Until today, the events of those years do not reveal all their secrets. What was it: a Cossack revolt, a peasant uprising or a civil war?

Peter III

History is written by the winners. The history of the Pugachev uprising is still considered a controversial moment in Russian history. According to the official version, Pugachev and Peter III are different people, they had neither physiognomic resemblance nor similarity of characters, their upbringing was also excellent. However, until now, some historians are trying to prove the version that Pugachev and Emperor Peter are the same person. The story of Emelka, a runaway Cossack, was written by decree of Catherine. This version, albeit fantastic, is confirmed by the fact that during the "investigation" of Pushkin, none of those whom he asked about Pugachev knew about him. People were absolutely convinced that the emperor himself was the head of the army, no more, no less. According to sources, the decision to call himself Peter III came to Pugachev not by chance. He, in principle, liked to mystify. Even in the army, for example, showing off his saber, he claimed that Peter I gave it to him. It is not known for certain whose idea it was to assign the name, but the fact that it was strategically beneficial is obvious. The people would not follow the runaway Cossack, but would follow the Tsar. In addition, there were rumors among the people at that time that Peter wanted to give the peasants freedom, but "Katka ruined him." The promise of freedom to the peasants, in the end, became the trump card of Pugachev's propaganda.

Peasant war?

Was the war of 1773-1775 a peasant war? The question, again, is open. The main force of Pugachev's troops were, of course, not the peasants, but the Yaik Cossacks. Once free, they suffered more and more oppression from the state and lost their privileges. In 1754, by decree of Elizabeth, a monopoly on salt was introduced. This move dealt a severe blow to the economy of the Cossack army, which made money by selling salted fish. Even before the Pugachev uprising, the Cossacks organized uprisings, which over and over again became more massive and coordinated. Pugachev's initiative fell on fertile ground. The peasants really took an active part in the campaigns of the Pugachev army, but they defended their interests and solved their problems: they slaughtered the landlords, burned the estates, but, as a rule, they did not go further than their allotments. Binding the peasantry to their land is a very strong thing. After Pugachev read out the manifesto on liberty in Saransk, many peasants joined him, they turned Pugachev's campaign along the Volga into a triumphal procession, with bells, the blessing of the village priest and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. But weakly armed, tied to their land, they could not ensure a long-term triumph for the Pugachev uprising. In addition, it should be noted that Pugachev did not manage his troops alone. He had a whole staff of specialists who were definitely not of peasant origin, and some were not even Russian, but this side of the issue is a separate conversation.

money question

The Pugachev uprising became the most massive uprising in the entire history of Russia (not counting the revolution of 1917). Such a rebellion could not have taken place in a vacuum. Raising thousands and thousands of people to an armed long-term rebellion is not holding a rally, this requires resources, and considerable resources. Question: where did the fugitive Pugachev and the Yaik Cossacks get these resources. It has now been proven that Pugachev's uprising had foreign funding. First of all - the Ottoman Empire, with which Russia at that time was at war. Secondly, help from France; During that historical period, it was the main opponent of the growing Russian Empire. From the correspondence of the French residencies in Vienna and Constantinople, a figure emerges of an experienced officer of the Navarre regiment, who had to be transported from Turkey to Russia as soon as possible with instructions for the "so-called Pugachev's army." Paris allocated 50 thousand francs for the next operation. Supporting Pugachev was beneficial to all forces for whom Russia and its growth were a danger. There was a war with Turkey - forces from the fronts were transferred to fight against Pugachev. As a result, Russia had to end the war on unfavorable terms. Such is the "peasant war" ...

To Moscow

After the triumph of Pugachev's troops in Penza and Saransk, everyone was waiting for his "Moscow campaign". They were waiting for him in Moscow. They waited and feared. Seven regiments were drawn into the old capital, Governor-General Volkonsky ordered cannons to be placed near his house, “cleansing operations” were carried out among the inhabitants of Moscow, and all those who sympathized with the rebellious Cossack were seized. Finally, in August 1774, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was in the Danubian principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region. Moscow "exhaled", Pugachev decided not to go there. The reasons are still not clear. It is believed that the main reason for this was Pugachev's plans to attract the Volga and, especially, the Don Cossacks into his ranks. The Yaik Cossacks, who had lost many of their chieftains in the battles, were tired and began to grumble. The "surrender" of Pugachev was brewing.

Salavat Yulaev

The memory of the Pugachev uprising is kept not only in the archives, but also in toponyms and in the memory of the people. Salavat Yulaev is considered to be the hero of Bashkiria to this day. One of the strongest hockey teams in Russia bears the name of this outstanding person. Its history is amazing. Salavat became Pugachev's "right hand" when he was not 20 years old, took part in all the major battles of the uprising, Pugachev assigned the rank of brigadier general to his young handy. In the army of Pugachev, Salavat ended up with his father. Together with his father, they seized him, sent him to Moscow, and then into eternal exile in the Baltic city of Rogervik. Here Salavat was until his death in 1800. He was not only an outstanding warrior, but also a good poet who left a solid literary legacy.

Suvorov

The danger that Pugachev's uprising hid is evidenced by the fact that not anyone, but Suvorov himself, was attracted to pacify him. Catherine understood that delaying the suppression of the uprising could result in serious geopolitical problems. Suvorov's participation in the suppression of the rebellion played into the hands of Pushkin: when he was collecting material for his book on Pugachev, he said that he was looking for information about Suvorov. Alexander Vasilievich personally escorted Pugachev. This suggests at least that Emelyan Ivanovich was a person not just important, but extremely important. To regard the Pugachev uprising as another rebellion is highly unreasonable; it was a civil war, on the consequences of which the future of Russia depended.

Mystery shrouded in darkness

After the suppression of the rebellion and the execution of the main participants in the uprising, Catherine ordered to destroy all the facts about the peasant war. The village in which Pugachev was born was moved and renamed, Yaik - renamed Ural. All documents that in one way or another could shed light on the course of those events were classified. There is a version that it was not Pugachev who was executed, but another person. Yemelyan was "eliminated" back in the Butyrka prison. The authorities were afraid of provocations. Like it or not, now it is impossible to prove. Half a century after those events, Pushkin could not "find the ends", it remains to wait for new studies.

On the same topic:

Riot Emelyan Pugachev: what really happened

Here is the notorious interview of the Polish professor Ryszard Kaczmarek, author of the book "Polacy w Wehrmachcie"

Byaki Poles in the Wehrmacht - 4 ()

Poles in the Wehrmacht

Yuchuhloma
October 3rd, 2015
First, an interview with Ryszard Kaczmarek, author of the book "Polacy w Wehrmachcie", Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków. When we translated into InoSmi (or something like that)

How many former citizens of the 2nd Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth put on Hitler's uniforms?

There is no exact data. The Germans considered Poles drafted into the Wehrmacht only until the autumn of 1943. Then, 200 thousand soldiers arrived from the Polish Upper Silesia and Pomerania attached to the Reich. However, recruitment into the Wehrmacht lasted for another year and on a much larger scale. From the reports of the representative office of the Polish government in occupied Poland, it follows that by the end of 1944, about 450 thousand citizens of pre-war Poland were drafted into the Wehrmacht. In general, it can be considered that about half a million of them passed through the German army during the war. This means that every fourth man from Silesia or Pomerania fought in a German uniform.

In Poland, to this day, there is a belief that the Silesians and Kashubians, serving in the Wehrmacht, became traitors.

For the majority of the inhabitants of Silesia or Pomerania, the situation was clearly defined: either they join the army, or their families face severe repression, they will be sent to the general government or to concentration camps. After 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans launched mobilization to the fullest to make up for losses in units on the Eastern Front. The threat of reprisals against the families of mobilized soldiers was supposed to prevent desertion.
Of course, there were those who went to the Wehrmacht for ideological reasons. They believed in Nazism, that together with Hitler they would be able to build a new, Aryan Europe. But in the annexed Upper Silesia, only 8,000 members were accepted into the NSDAP, mostly leaders of the pre-war German national minority. This is not so much for a region with a population of one and a half million people. There were situations when fathers came to the draft board along with their sons and asked to be drafted into the same units in which they had served for the Kaiser.

But it was possible to escape even before mobilization.

Where? It was not so easy to get from Silesia to the General Government. And how can one exist there without documents, without work, in a foreign environment? In addition, there was always the question of the future fate of relatives. Today it is easy to make accusations, but then not everyone was capable of heroism.
This also follows from the traditional law-abidingness in Silesia and Pomerania. People are used to the fact that the authorities must obey. Moreover, they previously lived in the German state, and the Polish statehood was only a 20-year episode for them. The authorities ordered to stand under arms - and they went.

Without the slightest resistance?

If there was resistance, it was rather passive. During the departure of recruits, which at first were held at the stations with great fanfare, Polish songs were often sung. Mostly in Pomerania, especially in Polish Gdynia. In Silesia, in areas with traditionally strong ties with Polish speech: in the area of Pszczyna, Rybnik or Tarnowskie Góra. Recruits began to sing, then their relatives joined in, and soon it turned out that during the Nazi event the entire station was singing. Therefore, the Germans abandoned the solemn farewell, because it compromised them. True, they sang mostly religious songs. Situations when someone fled from mobilization happened extremely rarely.

But it would be possible not to sign folklists. Just like they did in Krakow or Warsaw.

This is also not true. Even the communist officials who rehabilitated the Silesians or Kashubians after 1945 understood that in the territories annexed to the Reich, folklisting was compulsory. In addition, the very talk of "signing folklist" is a misunderstanding. The sheets were not signed, everything was entered on them by a German official. Previously, residents had to fill out a questionnaire. Refusal meant arrest, deportation, and in extreme cases, a concentration camp. The questionnaire of several pages did not ask about nationality, but only about ancestors three generations ago (whether they lived in Silesia or were visitors), what school the children went to (Polish or German), about the organizations in which they were members, about military duty, about awards. Based on it, according to very precise calculations, the officials assigned a given Silesian or Kashubian to a specific category.

The first and second fell to ethnic Germans. "One" received those who were politically active before the war, and "two" - passive. The first and second were considered citizens of the Reich, but with the "two" it was impossible to move up the hierarchy of the NSDAP. The “troika” was received by people “with German blood”, who were Polonized, but could be Germanized. Initially, they were not given German citizenship, only over time the authorities had to determine their position. "Four" received those who were associated with Polish organizations. The Germans called them renegades. But it is worth remembering that the folklists were introduced in 1941, when recruitment into the army was already in full swing.

When did the Germans decide to recruit Poles?

Straightaway. In the autumn of 1939, the so-called police census was carried out. Everyone had to decide who he is: a Pole or a German. A few months later, those who identified themselves as German were called to the draft board.
That's when people realized what a trap they were in. During the census, they were called Germans in order to avoid repression - for example, the eviction of which people were terribly afraid. No one assumed that this meant service in the Wehrmacht. And the authorities said that those who declared themselves Germans were subject to the 1935 conscription law.
Volklist, in accordance with the Nazi racial policy, created a bureaucratic chaos in this system, from which the Germans could not get out until the end of the war. In 1941, it was decided that only owners of "ones" and "twos" could go into the army, since they were the only citizens of the Reich. But in the army units there were already many people with "triples" and even with "fours". According to Nazi law, they had to be released from service.

But the army did not want to do this and, together with the Upper Silesian Gauleiter Fritz Bracht, in 1942 achieved a change in the rules so that people from the “third category” could receive citizenship with a trial period that was supposed to last 10 years.
It even came to absurd situations, when the son received a “deuce” and immediately went into the army, and parents with a “four”, as renegades, were threatened with eviction to the lands of the governor-general. Or in general they were refused entry into the folklist. The command of the Wehrmacht reported that soldiers from Silesia complain that they are fighting for the Fuhrer, and their parents are deprived of all rights, and even ration cards are taken away. Therefore, revisions of categories and requests for recommissions were very common practice. A special commission, in which the most important functionaries of the German administration sat, carefully considered such applications until the end of 1944. Then it was already clear that the III Reich was falling apart, but Silesia was hastily preparing for defense against the Red Army.

And where did the Poles in German uniforms serve?

Everywhere. On the western and eastern fronts, at Rommel in Africa and in the Balkans. In the cemetery in Crete, where the dead members of the German landing of 1941 lie, I also found Silesian surnames. I found the same surnames in military cemeteries in Finland, where Wehrmacht soldiers who supported the Finns in the war with the USSR were buried.
At first it seemed that everything was not so bad. The first recruitment took place in the spring and summer of 1940. While the recruits went through training and got into their units, the war on the western front had already ended. The Germans captured Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland, defeated France. Hostilities continued only in Africa. At the junction of 1941 and 1942, the service was reminiscent of peacetime. I was in the army, so I can imagine that after a while a person gets used to new conditions and becomes convinced that it is possible to live, that no tragedy has occurred.

The Silesians wrote about how well they lived in occupied France. They sent home pictures with the Eiffel Tower in the background, drank French wine, spent their free time in the company of French women. They served in the garrisons on the Atlantic Wall, which was rebuilt at that time. I got on the trail of a Silesian who spent the whole war in the Greek Cyclades. Completely at peace, as if on vacation. Even his album, in which he painted landscapes, has been preserved.
When Hitler attacked the USSR in 1941, people from the third category of folklist were not immediately sent to the front. They were afraid they would desert. Stalingrad changed everything.

The old Silesians, who got to the eastern front in the uniform of the Wehrmacht, said that the day they were drafted into the army was the worst day in their lives.

Because at one point it turned out that conscription into the army means certain death. Recruits died most often, sometimes after only two months of service. People saw how their neighbors went to the front, and how soon after that the head of the local NSDAP organization came to their families. It was he who handed notices of the death of fathers and husbands. He circled the outskirts like an angel of death.
People were not afraid that someone would pay them off for service to the Germans, they were afraid of sudden death. The German soldier was also afraid, but in the center of the Reich, people believed in the meaning of war, in Hitler, in the fact that some miracle weapon would save the Germans. In Silesia, with few exceptions, no one shared this faith. But the Silesians were terribly afraid of the Russians.

Were they in the SS troops?

Of course, although we do not have many documents on this issue. At first, only volunteers were accepted there, usually members of the Hitler Youth, who had passed racial tests. But since 1943, the SS began to intercept recruits from the Wehrmacht. Racial criteria no longer play a big role. The recruits did not even immediately understand which part they were in. But we do not know exactly where and how they fought.

Nazi dignitaries emphasized that the soldiers from Silesia were skillful and courageous.

This is also evident from the reports of the command. They say that the Silesians are really good soldiers, and called on the officers to surround them with guardianship and not allow them to be discriminated against. And there were no special disciplinary problems with them, unlike the Alsatians who served in the Wehrmacht. Nearly 5,000 Silesians awarded the Iron Cross belonged to the third category of folklist, which means they had Polish citizenship before the war. Several hundred received the Knight's Cross, the highest German military award.
But at the same time, it is worth remembering what life at the front looked like. Does a soldier wake up thinking about politics? He wakes up with the thought of how to survive until the next day. And he respects his colleagues, no matter what part of Germany he comes from and how he feels about Hitler. In addition, people from Silesia were accustomed to work. They went to the army directly from the blast furnace or from the mine, where they were engaged in hard physical labor in difficult conditions. Good "material" for deadly service in the infantry.

And yet, there were no special Silesian or Pomeranian divisions.

There was a ban on the creation of this type of units. The number of people with the third category of folklist could not initially be higher than 5 percent of the total. The Germans simply did not trust the Silesians and Kashubians. They were skilled soldiers, but unreliable, which was confirmed when they began to pass to Anders. In addition, they could not be promoted to non-commissioned officer ranks, you can not even remember about officer ranks. And without officers and non-commissioned officers, you cannot create a military unit.

The scale of this mistrust was great. Silesians could not serve in the Air Force, tank troops, navy, intelligence, coast guard ...

This was further compounded by ignorance of the language. You can't be a member of an airplane crew without knowing German. The Germans regretted that this was a waste of manpower, because the Silesians, who dealt daily with complex equipment in their mines or factories, were ideal candidates for tankers or pilots. But in 1944 there was no time to teach them the language. Then they were taught only elementary expressions, commands and words of the oath. It got to the point that the Germans, in the end, were allowed to speak Polish.

How many Poles died in German uniforms?

Here, too, there is no exact data. It is clear that the greatest losses were on the eastern front, but we are not able to say how many Silesians or Kashubians fought there, let alone the fact that we do not know the number of dead or captured. But given that every second Wehrmacht soldier died, we can assume that up to 250,000 Poles could have died at the front.

Some, however, managed to transfer to Anders' army.

We know the exact figure - 89 thousand. Some deserted, some came from POW camps. Back in 1941, when a separate brigade of Carpathian riflemen fought in Africa, they developed a special system for pulling the Poles out of the camps. This was done by officers who looked through the questionnaires of the Red Cross for prisoners. Those who were of Polish origin were taken to separate camps and offered to serve in the army. The Poles themselves did not apply, because they were afraid of lynching.

Did the Silesians go over to the Berling army fighting on the side of the USSR?

There were few deserters here. The Soviets often killed prisoners, and those who managed to survive were treated as traitors. Stalin also had this point of view, who initially did not want to agree to the arrival of prisoners of war in the Polish Army. But, despite this, we know about 3 thousand soldiers who were captured on the eastern front, who were taken to the 3rd Infantry Division. Romuald Traugutt. They also fought on the Pomeranian Wall.
Those who returned to Poland after the war had to undergo a rehabilitation procedure. They usually didn't have much of a problem. Still, it was about peasants, workers, miners, people who were not involved in politics and did not cause problems for the communist authorities.

For many years, historians considered the topic of Poles in the Wehrmacht as taboo. Why?

A big role here was played by communist ideology and the historical paradigm, from which it followed that the Poles were exclusively victims of the Wehrmacht. Combatants wrote memoirs about guerrilla warfare or battles in the Anders army, only occasionally admitting that they had previously served in the Wehrmacht. However, historians began to write serious articles about this back in the 1980s. Paradoxically, five years ago, the scam with the “grandfather from the Wehrmacht” (meaning the pre-election rumor about the grandfather of Donald Tusk, then a candidate for the presidency of Poland) helped in this. Since then, the topic has ceased to be a taboo.
Another thing is that people were ashamed of their service in the Wehrmacht. Mariusz Malinowski made a film about the fate of the Silesians who ended up in the German army. I was at the demonstration of this film in several Silesian localities. After the showing of "Children of the Wehrmacht", the veterans who spoke in front of the camera were presented with flowers and congratulated by local politicians. You could see the surprise on their faces. What were they congratulated on? With service in the Wehrmacht? For them, it was a terrible drama, intensified by the fact that after the war they learned about the countless crimes committed by the Germans, not only by the Gestapo or the SS, but also by their army. When they were taken to the Wehrmacht, they may have known about the concentration camps, but no one thought that the army was also involved in the genocide. In the early 40s, the Wehrmacht enjoyed an unsullied reputation.

Aloisy Lysko, one of the heroes of Malinovsky's film, spent his whole life looking for his father, who died in a German uniform in Ukraine. Years later, he found his grave. And how many such people today?

We can assume that 2-3 million people in Poland have a relative who served in the Wehrmacht. How many of them know what happened to them? Probably few. Students constantly come to me and ask how to establish what happened to my uncle, to my grandfather. Their relatives were silent about this, they got off with the phrase that their grandfather died in the war. But this is no longer enough for the third post-war generation.

Bartosz Wieliński

Translation by Vladimir Glinsky, especially for the media2.

A small afterword.
- this is from the author of the blog where I found the interview.
This is not a historical document, but an article. Let us estimate the degree of likelihood of the figures.
89 thousand Poles transferred to the Anders Army - a figure from the allies.
Of those taken prisoner by the British, Anders's army entered
Until May 1945 - 54,898
after May 1945 - 13,795
total 68,693
In addition, 15,515 people did not join the Anders Army. Along with them were those taken prisoner by the Americans.
It turns out that at least 110,000 Poles were taken prisoner by the Allies.

Less is known about those taken prisoner by ours.
There is a book by the Austrian Karner "Karner" GUPVI Archipelago ", which contains a certificate from Colonel Bulanov dated 04/28/1956 (?).

In the book it is entitled "Statistics of the NKVD-GUPVI on prisoners of war", which reports the number of prisoners of war of each nationality registered in the GUPVI until 11/30/1956 (?). According to this certificate, 60272 Poles were registered, including 5 generals. Of these, 57,149 were repatriated and 3,127 died. At the time of writing the certificate, 1 Pole remained in captivity, one of them was a general.

The completeness of this information is questionable. Dont clear,
whether those transferred to the Polish Army on the Eastern Front are among the repatriated. The author of the article speaks of 3 thousand soldiers taken into a specific division. It is worth noting that at the time of our crossing the Polish border on July 22, 1944, there were 100,000 soldiers in the Berling army. Where they came from, our sources are silent. One way or another, with all the uncertainties, the total number of captured Poles from Poland, taken prisoner on different fronts, is not less than 170,000 people.
In this regard, the estimated figures from the article (about 500,000 Poles in the Wehrmacht, of which about 250,000 died) do not look too high.

Now about the Poles who fought not on the side of the Wehrmacht.

During the POLISH CAMPAIGN of the Wehrmacht in 39, Poland had a mobilized army (different numbers are given, but more than a million people), of which (it is alleged) 66 thousand people died.

The POLISH ARMY on the Eastern Front took part in the battles in eastern Belarus, Poland proper, Pomerania and in the storming of Berlin. Number by the end of the war - about 200,000 people (without units that were in the process of forming)
Irretrievable losses (dead and missing) 24707

ARMY ANDERS - number at different times of the war 48,000-77,000 people (after May 1945 it increased, but was soon disbanded). Participated in battles in Italy. Irretrievable losses, along with other Polish units in the west, were 3,500 people (another corps appeared there later).

FRENCH CAMPAIGN 1940 Losses killed 1400 people.

WARSAW UPRISING. Various figures are given for the losses of the armed insurgents, usually 15-20 thousand people (the losses of the unarmed population were at least an order of magnitude higher).

PARTISAN MOVEMENT. Its dimensions are greatly exaggerated, reliable figures are hardly possible. Polish partisans shot at everyone, Soviet partisans, Belarusian and Ukrainian nationalists, disloyal population, Germans and the Soviet army.

One way or another, in the first half of September 1939, a million Poles participated in the war, and in the spring of 1945 - up to 400 thousand. However, the war was long, and it seems that the Poles had to fight and die in it more as part of the Wehrmacht.

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Under the sultry sky of Palestine, In the noisy cities of Syria,
Warning qvos ego Will make the spirit of the enemy tremble.

Thanks for this post: STiv

02/12/2018