For 1942, the map shows the maximum advance of the Nazi troops deep into the Soviet Union. On the scale of the Soviet Union, this is a small part, but what were the victims in the occupied territories.

If you look closely, then in the north the Germans stopped in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe current Republic of Karelia, then Leningrad, Kalinin, Moscow, Voronezh, Stalingrad. In the south we reached the region of the city of Grozny. You can't describe it in two words.

From the school history course, we know that the Nazis in the USSR reached such cities as Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Grozny, Kalinin, Voronezh. After 1942, when the Nazis advanced as far as possible across the territory of the USSR, they began to retreat. You can see the progress of their progress on the map in more detail:



The Germans quite advanced deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. But they never managed to take strategically important cities: neither Moscow nor Leningrad were subdued. In the Leningrad direction, they were stopped near the town of Tikhvin. On the Kalinin direction - near the village of Mednoye. Near Stalingrad we reached the Volga, the last outpost was the village of Kuporosnoye. On the western front in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe city of Rzhev, the Germans managed to be knocked out at the cost of incredible efforts (recall the famous poem by Tvardovsky I was killed near Rzhev). They also fought furiously for the Caucasus, which was of strategic importance - access to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Were stopped near the city of Maykop.



Where the Nazis got to is already a well-known matter, and every historian can accurately tell everything in detail, about every point, about every city and village in which fierce battles took place, everything is especially well described and remains in memory in books that can be through many years just to pick up and read.

And this is what the map looks like:



A lot of maps are shown, but I will say in words: During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis came close to Moscow, they were only 30 km from Moscow, but they were stopped there. Naturally, everyone knows the blockade of Leningrad, the Battle of Kursk, the Rzhev direction. Here is a map of the battle for Moscow.



http://dp60.narod.ru/image/maps/330.jpg

This is the line of maximum advance of the Germans amp; Co deep into Soviet territory.

There are many types of cards.

To be honest, I don’t really trust the Internet, I trust history textbooks more.

I myself live in Belarus and therefore the map may not be much different.

But here's a photo I took, just for you!



The Nazis went far, but, as you know, they failed to capture Moscow. Not so long ago I was interested in information when the Nazis began to retreat. It was possible to find only some facts of events near Moscow. You can quote:

The map shows the territory of the USSR, which the Germans managed to pass before November 15, 1942 (after which they went a little deeper and began to retreat):



The German attack on the USSR was in 1941, they almost achieved their goal, and the Nazis only had about thirty kilometers to reach Moscow, but they still failed, and here is a map where everything is described in detail



They were near Moscow - 30 km, and they were defeated there, it’s better to read it on Wikipedia, everything is described in detail there and there are dates from the video, see here. And here is the map in the pictures below, the sun is marked with black arrows.



During the Great Patriotic War Nazi Germany captured a significant territory of the former USSR.

The troops of the Third Reich occupied many republics of the then Union. Among them are part of the RSFSR, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, the Baltic republics.

Below on the map you can see the border (thick red line), where the Nazis entered during the hostilities:

The famous German plan "Barbarossa" can be briefly described something like this: it is almost unrealistic strategic plan Hitler to seize Russia as the main enemy on the way to world domination.

It is worth remembering that at the time of the attack on Soviet Union Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, almost unhindered captured half of the European states. Only Britain and the United States offered resistance to the aggressor.

The essence and goals of Operation Barbarossa

The Soviet-German non-aggression pact, signed shortly before the start of World War II, was for Hitler nothing more than a head start. Why? Because the Soviet Union, without assuming a possible betrayal, fulfilled the aforementioned agreement.

And the German leader thus bought time to carefully develop a strategy to capture his main enemy.

Why did Hitler recognize Russia as the biggest obstacle in the implementation of the blitzkrieg? Because the resilience of the USSR did not allow England and the United States to lose heart and, perhaps, to surrender, like many European countries.

In addition, the fall of the Soviet Union would serve as a powerful impetus to strengthen Japan's position on the world stage. And Japan and the United States had extremely tense relations. Also, the non-aggression pact allowed Germany not to launch an offensive in adverse conditions winter cold.

The preliminary strategy of the Barbarossa plan, point by point, looked something like this:

1. The powerful and well-prepared army of the Reich invades Western Ukraine, defeating the main forces of the disoriented enemy with lightning speed. After several decisive battles, the German forces finish off the scattered detachments of the surviving Soviet soldiers.
2. From the territory of the occupied Balkans, march victoriously to Moscow and Leningrad. Capture both archival cities to achieve the intended result of the city. The task of capturing Moscow as the political and tactical center of the country was especially highlighted. Interesting: the Germans were sure that Moscow would flock to defend every single remnant of the USSR army - and it would be easier than ever to utterly smash them.

Why was the German plan of attack on the USSR called the "Barbarossa" plan?

The strategic plan for the lightning-fast capture and subjugation of the Soviet Union got its name in honor of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century.

The aforementioned leader went down in history thanks to his numerous and successful conquests.

In the name of the plan "Barbarossa", there was undoubtedly a symbolism inherent in almost all actions and decisions of the leadership of the Third Reich. The name of the plan was approved on January 31, 1941.

Hitler's goals in World War II

Like any totalitarian dictator, Hitler did not pursue any special tasks (at least, those that could be explained by applying the elementary logic of a sound mind).

The Third Reich unleashed the Second world war with the only goal: to seize the world, to establish domination, to subjugate all countries and peoples to their perverted ideologies, to impose their picture of the world on the entire population of the planet.

How long did Hitler want to take over the USSR

In general, the Nazi strategists allotted only five months for the capture of the vast territory of the Soviet Union - a single summer.

Today, such arrogance may seem unfounded, if you do not remember that at the time of the development of the plan, the German army in just a few months, without much effort and loss, captured almost all of Europe.

What does blitzkrieg mean and what are its tactics

Blitzkrieg, or the tactics of lightning-fast capture of the enemy, is the brainchild of German military strategists at the beginning of the 20th century. The word Blitzkrieg comes from two German words: Blitz (lightning) and Krieg (war).

The blitzkrieg strategy was based on the possibility of capturing vast territories in record time (months or even weeks) before the opposing army came to its senses and mobilized the main forces.

The tactics of a lightning attack was based on the closest interaction of infantry, aviation and tank formations. german army. Tank crews, supported by infantry, must break through behind enemy lines and surround the main fortified positions important for establishing permanent control over the territory.

The enemy army, being cut off from all communication systems and all kinds of supplies, quickly begins to experience difficulties in solving the simplest issues (water, food, ammunition, clothing, etc.). Thus weakened, the forces of the attacked country are soon surrendered or destroyed.

When did Nazi Germany attack the USSR?

According to the results of the development of the Barbarossa plan, the Reich attack on the USSR was scheduled for May 15, 1941. The date of the invasion was shifted due to the Nazis carrying out the Greek and Yugoslav operations in the Balkans.

In fact, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war on June 22, 1941 at 4:00 am. This sad date is considered the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

Where did the Germans go during the war - map

Blitzkrieg tactics helped the German troops in the first days and weeks of the Second World War to cover vast distances across the territory of the USSR without any special problems. In 1942, a rather impressive part of the country was captured by the Nazis.

German forces reached almost Moscow. In the Caucasus, they advanced to the Volga, but after the battle of Stalingrad they were driven back to Kursk. At this stage, the retreat of the German army began. The invaders passed through the northern lands to Arkhangelsk.

Reasons for the failure of the Barbarossa plan

If we consider the situation globally, the plan fell through due to inaccurate data German intelligence. Wilhelm Canaris, who led it, could well have been British double agent as some historians say today.

If we take these unconfirmed data on faith, it becomes clear why he “fed” Hitler the disinformation that the USSR had practically no secondary lines of defense, but there were huge supply problems, and, besides, almost all the troops were stationed on the border.

Conclusion

Many historians, poets, writers, as well as eyewitnesses of the events described, admit that a huge, almost decisive role in the victory of the USSR over fascist Germany, the fighting spirit of the Soviet people played, the love of freedom of the Slavic and other peoples who did not want to drag out a miserable existence under the yoke of world tyranny.

The Germans who reached the Volga

It is known that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi armies were never able to reach the Middle Volga region, although in accordance with the infamous Barbarossa plan, by the end of the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht was supposed to reach the Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan line. Nevertheless, the military and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities that were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line (Fig. 1-5).

But these were not at all those self-confident occupiers with "Schmeissers" in their hands, who marched through the Soviet border at dawn on June 22.

Destroyed cities were rebuilt by prisoners of war

Back in the middle of the war, right after Battle of Stalingrad, in many Soviet cities of the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, German prisoners of war were delivered in whole echelons, who worked here mainly at national economic facilities. And after 1945, captured Germans were the main labor force in the construction of housing in those cities that had been destroyed by tanks and guns of the Wehrmacht a few years before.

However, given fact was widely known in Soviet years. But here is the information that shortly after Potsdam Conference on our industrial enterprises Together with prisoners of war, the Soviet authorities forcibly forced thousands of "free" technical specialists from Germany to work, at that time they were classified as "Secret" and "Top Secret". At the same time, most of these Germans, before their forced move to the deep regions of the USSR, worked at the tank and aviation enterprises of the Reich. So the participation of German engineers and technicians in the restoration and development of the defense potential of our country is a completely special page of Soviet history that has only recently opened to us.

We know that victory is over Nazi Germany went to our people at an incredibly high price. In 1945, a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing an acute shortage of workers and smart heads, because tens of millions of our fellow citizens, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists, died on the fronts of the war and in the rear.

It is not surprising that after the Potsdam Conference, where the amount of reparations for each of the allies was determined, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. According to him, when restoring the industry of the USSR, its destroyed cities and villages, it was supposed to use the forced labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. And a little later, it was decided to take all qualified German engineers and workers, especially specialists from the defense industries, out of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to the enterprises of the USSR.

Nowhere in the open press about this decision of the government during the first years after the Victory was not a word said. However, in the following decades, Soviet people were categorically not recommended to discuss in any form the role played in the post-war restoration of the country's economy by technical specialists forcibly taken out of defeated Germany.

According to the official Soviet history, in March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the country. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the areas of the country affected by the occupation and military operations, and in industry and agriculture reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it. About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in the prices of that time.

In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, in the area of ​​​​Koptev ravine, adjacent to the Volga, several camps were also organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived in the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites. And workers in these years were urgently needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official information, in the last war years and immediately after the war, several new plants were to be built in Kuibyshev, including an oil refinery, a chisel, a ship repair plant, and a metal structure plant. It was also necessary to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasov), the Avtotraktorodetal plant (later the valve plant), the Srednevolzhsky Machine Tool Plant, and some others.

Of course, at that time it was not mentioned anywhere that there was also a secret section in the list of newly built and reconstructed Kuibyshev industrial facilities approved by the government. But even if this document suddenly ended up in the hands of a foreign intelligence officer, he would not see here a single name of the enterprise, but only a strict series of letter ciphers and numbers of sensitive factories. Among them, under the code designations "OKB-1", "OKB-2" and OKB-3 "hidden especially secret design bureaus of experimental plant No. 2, which it was decided to place in the village of Upravlenchesky, on the territory of the Krasnoglinsky district of Kuibyshev formed shortly before ( Fig. 6, 7, 8).

The secret train was heading east

Since the thirties, both the USSR and Germany have been actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines - gas turbines. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet counterparts. This was largely facilitated by the fact that after 1937 all the leading Soviet scientists who dealt with the problems jet propulsion, fell under the Yezhov-Beria skating rink of repression. Meanwhile, in Germany, at the BMW and Junkers plants, the first samples of gas turbine engines (Fig. 9)

already prepared for launch into mass production. And the Germans managed to do it: in particular, by 1945, about five thousand copies of the engines of the YuMO-004 model were produced.

In this regard, one can imagine the feelings and emotions of the top Soviet leadership when in the spring of 1945 it turned out that the factories and design bureaus of Junkers (Dessau) and BMW (Stasfurt) were in the Soviet occupation zone. Almost immediately they began to work for the economy of the USSR. At the same time, since September 1945, for political reasons, the enterprises were turned into joint-stock companies.

Of course, the resumption of the work of these industries after almost a year of inactivity, even under Soviet control, was received by the Germans with enthusiasm. After all, this gave the country tens of thousands of jobs, and, consequently, wages and rations for workers, employees and their families. However, in 1946, the aviation industrial giants were again on the verge of a stop. Strange as it may seem, the former allies of the USSR turned out to be the culprits. Based on their intelligence data on the profile of products manufactured at the aircraft factories of the former Reich, the United States and England protested to the Soviet government about this: after all, according to the documents of the Potsdam Conference, it was forbidden to develop on the territory of each of the four occupation zones military equipment including gas turbine engines.

That is why in the fall of 1946, a significant part of the qualified personnel of Junkers, BMW and some other German aircraft factories, in the strictest secrecy on specially equipped echelons, was taken to the territory of the USSR, or rather, to Kuibyshev, to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the shortest possible time, 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly skilled workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel were brought here. Together with them came 1174 family members of these specialists (Fig. 10-14).

As a result, at the end of October 1946, there were more Germans than Russians in the Upravlenchesky settlement.

Most of the Germans deported to Kuibyshev worked at the already mentioned experimental plant No. 2 (later - the engine building plant). At the same time, OKB-1 was 85 percent staffed by Junkers specialists, in OKB-2 up to 80 percent of the staff were former BMW personnel, and 62 percent of the staff of OKB-3 were specialists from the Askania plant.

At first, the secret factory where the Germans worked was run exclusively by the military. In particular, from 1946 to 1949 it was headed by Colonel Olekhnovich. However, in May 1949, an unknown engineer arrived here to replace the military, almost immediately appointed as the responsible head of the enterprise. For many decades, this man was classified in much the same way as Igor Kurchatov, Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. But now his name, which has already become legendary, is known to everyone: that obscure engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov (Fig. 15),

constructor with capital letter, and later an academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.

Kuznetsov immediately directed all the creative forces of the design bureaus subordinate to him to the development of a new turboprop engine, which was based on the German YuMO-022 model. This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed a power of up to 4 thousand horsepower. It was modernized, its power increased even more and launched into a series. In subsequent years, not only turboprops, but also turbojet bypass engines for bomber aircraft came out of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. German specialists were directly involved in the creation of almost each of them. Their work at the motor plant in the village of Upravlenchesky continued almost until the mid-1950s (Fig. 16, 17, 18).

We were given six hours to get ready.

In the summer of 2000, the former German electrical engineer Helmut Breuninger visited Samara, who was part of the same group of German technical specialists that more than half a century ago, under the cover of secrecy, was taken to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the deep autumn of 1946, when the train with the Germans arrived in our city, Mr. Breuninger was 36 years old (Fig. 19, 20).

In 1946, I worked as an engineer at the Askania state enterprise, Helmut Breuninger recalled during our conversation. - It must be said that in defeated Germany it was very difficult to find a job even for a qualified specialist. Therefore, when at the beginning of 1946 several large factories were launched under the control of the Soviet administration, there were a lot of people who wanted to work here. But I was immediately lucky: I got a job at Askania as an electrical engineer.

But early morning On October 22, the doorbell of my apartment rang. On the threshold stood a Soviet lieutenant and two soldiers. The lieutenant said that my family and I were given six hours to pack for the subsequent departure to the Soviet Union. He did not tell us any details, we only found out that we would work in our specialty at one of the Soviet defense enterprises.

Under heavy guard, in the evening of the same day, a train with technical specialists left the Berlin station. While loading into the train, I saw many familiar faces. These were experienced engineers from our enterprise, as well as some of my colleagues from the Junkers and BMW factories. For a whole week the train went to Moscow, where several engineers and their families unloaded. But we went further. None of the Germans knew the final destination of our forced journey. There was a rumor that we were going to Siberia, and we all shuddered in advance from the foreboding of terrible Siberian frosts.

However, a week after stopping in Moscow, we were brought to some small village and announced that from now on we would live and work here. I knew a little about the geography of Russia, but I had never heard of a city called Kuibyshev before. Only when they explained to me that it used to be called Samara, I remembered that there really was such a city on the Volga. But, of course, I only learned about its suburb with the name “Managerial”, which is difficult for a German, only at the moment of our arrival here.

It soon became clear that an aircraft engine plant was located here, and the production, to which specialists from Ascania were sent, was called Experimental Design Bureau No. 3, or simply OKB-3. Here I worked until September 1950, after which, together with my family, I was transferred to one of the Moscow factories. But home, in Germany, we had a chance to return only in 1958.

Legendary "Main"

What was the name of their boss, the Germans were not supposed to know then - everyone called him simply “Chief”. And only in the 90s, Breuninger read in the newspapers that in the post-war Kuibyshev he worked under the leadership of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, who was already one of the leading Soviet designers aircraft engines (Fig. 21).

Surprisingly, but German veteran since the post-war period, bright memories have been preserved both about the pilot plant No. 2, and about the personal qualities of the chief designer of the enterprise, Nikolai Kuznetsov.

According to Breuninger, already at the first meetings with the "Chief", the engineers taken out of Germany were surprised to see that the Russian boss spoke their language well. mother tongue. It turns out that immediately after his appointment to Kuibyshev, Kuznetsov, in order to improve contacts with visiting specialists, ordered to organize courses for Soviet personnel on mastering the German language at the plant, which was stimulated by a bonus to the official salary. Later, classes also began with the Germans to study the Russian language. And Kuznetsov himself worked daily for an hour before the start of the working day with the translator Hans Pohl, and in mastering the language of defeated Germany, he soon achieved good success.

German specialists quickly developed good relations with Glavny, recalled Helmut Breuninger. - Once, already in the early 50s, several of our engineers plucked up courage, and at an opportunity asked him if they would soon begin to let us go home. After all, we are not prisoners of war, they said. Although we understand that Germany is very guilty before Russia for the destruction and death of millions of people, but, probably, personally, over the years we have already atoned for our country.

The “Chief” listened attentively to the engineers and said that this issue did not depend on him, but promised to find out everything. It is not known where he called and with whom he talked about this, but already in 1951, German families began to take turns sending back to Germany. And already in 1953, not a single German specialist remained at the pilot plant.

Students, colleagues and ordinary citizens, in different time those who worked or met with Nikolai Dmitrievich also recall his personal human qualities exclusively in excellent tones. Here is what, for example, Yevgeny Gritsenko writes about him (Fig. 22),

doctor of technical sciences, professor, who in 1994-2004 worked as a general director - general designer of N.D. Kuznetsov":

Being an exceptionally modest person, Nikolai Dmitrievich never mentioned his personal proposals, theoretical developments anywhere, attributing the achievements of the enterprise he led to the merits of the entire team. Therefore, much in the development of the domestic aircraft engine industry remained, as it were, nameless. Meanwhile, most of the projects at the plant were first developed either by Nikolai Dmitrievich himself, or on the basis of his ideas and under his leadership. At the same time, everything that Nikolai Dmitrievich undertook was ahead of the work of related domestic and foreign firms. That was the style of his work.

Kuznetsov was well aware that one is not a warrior in the field, and therefore paid great attention to the education of the team. He was unusually patient and tolerant in the perception of the opinion of another person. Like no one else, he knew how to talk to subordinates without reminding them that he was the boss. Under no circumstances did he say: “I decided”, “I suggested”, “I applied”, but only: “Our team suggested”, “Our team developed”. At the forefront, he put the merits of the entire enterprise, but not his personal ones. This was his essence both as a general designer and as a person.

For the ability to create conditions in a team for calm, well-coordinated work in a difficult environment, and for this quality alone, he was already considered an outstanding leader of his time. When he scolded someone for various omissions in his work, even if he deserved it, he always did it correctly, without humiliating the person.

At the same time, Nikolai Dmitrievich always showed himself to be a very independent person. He recognized the authority of the luminaries of power and science only when they delved seriously into matters and offered something competent, sensible. Only then did he listen to them and respect their opinions.

All of the above only to a small extent characterizes the personality of Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov. Of course, he was much more versatile, more complex - both as a person and as a designer. But this will probably be said and written by others.

The Germans got scared when the Russians drank vodka

But let's get back to the German engineer Helmut Breuninger.

It must be said that the living conditions of German specialists and their families in the Upravlenchesky settlement were much better than those of Soviet workers and employees working in the same production, the elderly German tourist continued his story. - We were immediately assigned to live in houses with all conveniences, and at the same time, all local residents were evicted from here to barracks (Fig. 23-27).

Visitors from Germany were paid up to three thousand rubles a month, and Soviet engineers for the same work - no more than 1200 rubles. In addition, special food rations were brought for us weekly. They contained good sausage, butter, cheese, tea, tobacco, canned food and other products, which, as I later learned, could not be found on free sale in Kuibyshev at that time.

I also want to emphasize from the memories of those years that in all the years of my family's life in the village of Upravlenchesky there have never been any conflicts or even verbal skirmishes between Germans and Russians. Although almost every step we took was almost openly controlled by the NKVD, we had more than enough opportunities for “informal” communication with the Soviet people. In particular, we often invited each other to small family celebrations. And the attitude of the Russians towards us has always been kind and benevolent, however, with an admixture of burning curiosity. After all, we were still people of different cultures.

Some of our customs or norms of behavior aroused bewilderment among the Russians. For example, they could not understand why the Germans drink not only vodka, but even wine in very small glasses, by their standards, savoring every sip. And we, for our part, watched with fear as the Russian men, without grimacing, drank vodka with faceted glasses. For example, it seemed to me that after such a dose a person should immediately fall and at least fall asleep, or even die. And the Russians - nothing, after such a drink they even sang and danced. Only then did I understand the meaning of the expression I accidentally heard: "What is good for a Russian is death for a German."

Or another example. When the hot summer came, we, several German families, went to the Volga to swim on the day off. Men wore shorts, and women wore short dresses for that time (that is, slightly below the knee). And when we walked through the village in such outfits, the Russians looked at us with fear and bewilderment. Only later we were told that the local population did not know the word “shorts” at that time, and everyone thought that the Germans were walking around in shorts. And this, according to the norms of that time, was very indecent. True, after a few days, the Russians got used to the shorts of German men - just like the indecently short dresses of German women, and stopped paying special attention to us (Fig. 28-32).

Meeting after half a century

In the same conversation, it became clear why Helmut Breuninger again decided to visit Samara more than fifty years after his forced assignment to the banks of the Volga. It turned out that this time he came here at the private invitation of the local Esperanto club, since the former electrical engineer had long been interested in learning this international language.

With him to Russia, he also took his daughter Emma and grandson Alexander. By the way, Emma was born in Moscow in 1956, when her father worked at one of the capital's enterprises. As an adult, she visited a number of cities in the Soviet Union, first of all, of course, in Moscow and Leningrad, but she was in Samara for the first time. Like her father, Emma spoke Russian quite well. But her son Alexander, the grandson of Mr. Helmut, did not know the Russian language.

The very next day after their arrival in Samara, the German guests went to the Upravlenchesky settlement. For Helmut Breuninger, rendezvous with the places of his youth brought a lot of emotions. He hardly recognized the village, which had grown greatly over the past half century, but noticed that the house where he and his family moved in 1946 was still in the same place, and had not changed much.

To the motor plant former engineer, of course, did not succeed. However, according to Mr. Breuninger, even outwardly the enterprise has changed a lot: new buildings and buildings have appeared, old structures have disappeared, there is much more greenery around the plant. In addition, the checkpoint turned out to be in a completely different place, so that the German guest could not even determine at which point of the enterprise half a century ago his office was located.

Mr. Breuninger could not even compare how much the old part of Kuibyshev-Samara has changed during this time. According to him, half a century ago, they generally tried not to let them out of the village of Upravlenchesky, and during the years of his work at OKB-3, he visited the old part of the city only two or three times. At the same time, he saw the post-war Kuibyshev only from the car window, so he simply did not remember any details.

But Mr. Breuninger said that already at the beginning of the 50s, after things began to improve little by little at the engine plant, German specialists began to be released one by one to their homeland. The last such group left for Germany in 1954. From them, as a keepsake for local residents, there were neat “Finnish” houses in which some of the families of German specialists lived. However, none of them survived to our days. The last of the surviving houses were demolished back in the 80s, and now modern residential "boxes" of the late Soviet era rise on the site of the former German village.

And in the old cemetery of the village of Upravlenchesky there were graves of visiting specialists who died here during the years of their forced stay. In those years when Kuibyshev was a closed city, no one cared for these graves, and as a result, they became almost indistinguishable. Only since the 1990s, after Samara was reopened to foreigners, relatives of Germans who died after the war began to come here, and even some of those specialists who worked half a century ago at the Management. You could read the conversation with one of them, Helmut Breuninger, above.

Now the German graves at the local cemetery are always well-groomed, the names on the monuments are displayed on German, and the paths between them are regularly sprinkled with sand. Of course, even a tombstone can eventually crumble from time to time, but even time turns out to be powerless before human memory.

Valery EROFEEV.

Note.

To illustrate this article, a photo of Günther Spohr, one of the German specialists taken to post-war years in Kuibyshev, in the village of Upravlenchesky, to the pilot plant No. 2 (later SNTK named after N.D. Kuznetsov) in the village of Upravlenchesky. He photographed mainly his family, as well as the daily life and life of German highly skilled workers and employees who worked next to him. These photos were found in the archives of Günther Spohr by his relatives and then made public via the Internet (Fig. 33-54).

To share with friends: It is known that during the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi armies were never able to reach the Middle Volga region, although in accordance with the Barbarossa plan, by the end of the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht was supposed to reach the Arkhangelsk-Kuibyshev-Astrakhan line. Nevertheless, the military and post-war generations of Soviet people were still able to see the Germans even in those cities that were located hundreds of kilometers from the front line. But these were not at all those self-confident invaders with "Schmeissers" in their hands, who walked across the Soviet border at dawn on June 22.
Destroyed cities were rebuilt by prisoners of war
We know that the victory over Nazi Germany came at an incredibly high price for our people. In 1945, a significant part of the European part of the USSR lay in ruins. It was necessary to restore the destroyed economy, and in the shortest possible time. But the country at that time was experiencing an acute shortage of workers and smart heads, because millions of our fellow citizens, including a huge number of highly qualified specialists, died on the war fronts and in the rear.
After the Potsdam Conference, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a closed resolution. According to him, when restoring the industry of the USSR, its destroyed cities and villages, it was supposed to use the labor of German prisoners of war to the maximum extent. At the same time, it was decided to take all qualified German engineers and workers out of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany to the enterprises of the USSR.
According to official Soviet history, in March 1946, the first session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second convocation adopted the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the country. In the first post-war five-year plan, it was necessary to completely restore the regions of the country that had suffered from the occupation and hostilities, and in industry and agriculture to reach the pre-war level, and then surpass it.
About three billion rubles were allocated from the national budget for the development of the economy of the Kuibyshev region in the prices of that time. In the vicinity of post-war Kuibyshev, several camps were organized for former soldiers of the defeated Nazi armies. The Germans who survived in the Stalingrad cauldron were then widely used at various Kuibyshev construction sites.
Working hands at that time were also needed for the development of industry. After all, according to official Soviet plans, in the last war years and immediately after the war, it was planned to build several new plants in Kuibyshev, including an oil refinery, a chisel, a ship repair plant, and a metal structure plant. It also turned out to be an urgent need to reconstruct the 4th GPP, KATEK (later the plant named after A.M. Tarasov), the Avtotraktorodetal plant (later the valve plant), the Middle Volga Machine Tool Plant and some others. It was here that German prisoners of war were sent to work. But as it turned out later, not only them.

Six hours to pack
Before the war, both the USSR and Germany were actively developing fundamentally new aircraft engines - gas turbines. However, German specialists were then noticeably ahead of their Soviet counterparts. The gap widened after in 1937 all the leading Soviet scientists involved in the problems of jet propulsion fell under the Yezhov-Beria rink of repression. In the meantime, in Germany, at the BMW and Junkers plants, the first samples of gas turbine engines were already being prepared for launch into mass production.
In the spring of 1945, the factories and design bureaus of Junkers and BMW ended up in the Soviet occupation zone. And in the fall of 1946, a significant part of the qualified personnel of Junkers, BMW and some other German aircraft factories, in the strictest secrecy, was taken to the territory of the USSR on specially equipped echelons, or rather, to Kuibyshev, to the village of Upravlenchesky. In the shortest possible time, 405 German engineers and technicians, 258 highly skilled workers, 37 employees, as well as a small group of service personnel were brought here. Family members of these specialists came with them. As a result, at the end of October 1946, there were more Germans than Russians in the Upravlenchesky settlement.
Not so long ago, the former German electrical engineer Helmut Breuninger came to Samara, who was part of the same group of German technical specialists that was secretly taken to the Upravlenchesky settlement more than 60 years ago. In the deep autumn of 1946, when the train with the Germans arrived in the city on the Volga, Mr. Breuninger was only 30 years old. Although by the time of his visit to Samara he was already 90 years old, he still decided on such a trip, however, in the company of his daughter and grandson.

Helmut Breuninger with his grandson

In 1946, I worked as an engineer at the Askania state enterprise,” Mr. Breuninger recalled. - Then in defeated Germany it was very difficult to find a job even for a qualified specialist. Therefore, when at the beginning of 1946 several large factories were launched under the control of the Soviet administration, there were a lot of people who wanted to get a job there. And in the early morning of October 22, the doorbell of my apartment rang. On the threshold stood a Soviet lieutenant and two soldiers. The lieutenant said that my family and I were given six hours to pack for the subsequent departure to the Soviet Union. He did not tell us any details, we only found out that we would work in our specialty at one of the Soviet defense enterprises.
Under heavy guard, in the evening of the same day, a train with technical specialists left the Berlin station. While loading into the train, I saw many familiar faces. These were experienced engineers from our enterprise, as well as some of my colleagues from the Junkers and BMW factories. For a whole week the train went to Moscow, where several engineers and their families unloaded. But we went further. I knew a little about the geography of Russia, but I had never heard of a city called Kuibyshev before. Only when they explained to me that it used to be called Samara, I remembered that there really was such a city on the Volga.
Worked for the USSR
Most of the Germans evacuated to Kuibyshev worked at Experimental Plant No. 2 (later - Engine Building Plant]. At the same time, OKB-1 was staffed by 85 percent of Junkers specialists, in OKB-2 up to 80 percent of the staff consisted of former BMW personnel, and 62 percent of the personnel of OKB-3 were specialists from the Askania plant.
At first, the secret factory where the Germans worked was run exclusively by the military. In particular, from 1946 to 1949 it was headed by Colonel Olekhnovich. However, in May 1949, an unknown engineer arrived here to replace the military, almost immediately appointed as the responsible head of the enterprise. For many decades, this man was classified in much the same way as Igor Kurchatov, Sergei Korolev, Mikhail Yangel, Dmitry Kozlov. That unknown engineer was Nikolai Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, later an academician and twice Hero of Socialist Labor.
Kuznetsov immediately directed all the creative forces of the design bureaus subordinate to him to the development of a new turboprop engine, which was based on the German YuMO-022 model. This engine was designed back in Dessau and developed up to 4000 horsepower. It was modernized, its power increased even more and launched into a series. In subsequent years, not only turboprops, but also turbojet bypass engines for bomber aircraft came out of the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. German specialists were directly involved in the creation of almost each of them. Their work at the motor plant in the village of Upravlenchesky continued until the mid-1950s.
As for Helmut Breuninger, he fell into the first wave of moving from Kuibyshev, when some German specialists, together with their families, began to be transferred to Moscow factories. The last such group left the banks of the Volga in 1954, but the surviving German specialists managed to return home, to Germany, only in 1958. Since that time, the graves of many of these visiting engineers and technicians have remained in the old cemetery of the Upravlenchesky settlement. In those years when Kuibyshev was a closed city, no one cared for the cemetery. But now these graves are always well-groomed, the paths between them are covered with sand, and the names in German are displayed on the monuments.

In the second half of November fascist troops entered the territory of the Ryazan region, occupied Skopin, Mikhailov, Miloslavskoye, and many other villages and towns. Before their arrival, the Soviet government destroyed everything that could not be evacuated so that the Germans would not get it.
In Ryazan, residents last day they did not know whether the enemy would enter the city or not. There were almost no troops for protection: a working regiment of volunteers, a few cadets from Vladimir, motorists, sappers, girls from the anti-aircraft division and the Ryazan police. Only on November 26, the commander of the 10th Army, recently formed near Penza, Filipp Golikov (pictured), arrived at the Shilovo railway station. And on December 1, the rifle and cavalry divisions of his army began to unload from the trains in Ryazan and the surrounding area.

The Ryazan newspaper "Stalinskoye Znamya" practically did not publish any local reports. But people saw how many soldiers and horses were walking through the city.

Back in October, the population of Ryazan, in order to buy terribly expensive food at the market, began to sell clothes, watches, gold and silver things en masse. At enterprises issued cards to receive 800 grams of bread per day. Those who did not work received cards for 400 grams of bread. There were also "sugar" cards, which gave out gingerbread or caramel. “Fish” cards were sold very rarely. Vegetables and meat could only be bought at the market, there were practically none in stores.
Throughout November, Ryazan was bombed. German planes tried to damage railways, to get to the station, to the woodworking (today instrumental) plant that worked for aviation, to Ryazselmash (shells were made there). The sky of the city was covered by the 269th anti-aircraft division, almost entirely composed of girls. The most powerful bombing was November 6th. The first bombs exploded at the Ryazan-1 station, damaging the wooden building of the station and the rails (despite the dark time of the day, the damage to the rails was repaired in one hour, and the station was repaired only in the spring of 1942). Two bombs hit the railway station market on the Small Highway, which at that time, fortunately, was empty of people. There was an explosion in kindergarten on Professor Kudryavtsev Street, where many children died. One bomb landed in a hospital on Kalyaev Street (now a railway technical school). A land mine dropped from an aircraft exploded in the yard of the NKVD headquarters: two horses were killed by shrapnel, and several employees were injured. In addition, bomb damage former home Saltykov-Shchedrin.
November 7 in Ryazan there was no demonstration in honor of the anniversary of the revolution: the authorities did not take risks, and the people who were busy with the funeral of the dead the day before had no time for celebration.
From November 8 in Ryazan curfew was introduced- from 22:00 to 07:00. Any movement at this time was allowed only with the passes of the commandant of the city.
The newspapers claimed that the Germans had suffered such terrible losses that they could no longer do anything with the USSR. Unbelievable numbers of enemy losses were called, which were hard to believe.

Frost hit. November 14 was minus 22 degrees.
Despite everything, the advance of the enemy to the east continued.
“10th motorized division of the 47th tank corps , - recalled German general Guderian - having reached the city of Mikhailov on November 27, she sent groups of demolition men to blow up the railway in the Ryazan-Kolomna section. However, these groups failed to fulfill their task: the Russian defense was too strong. On November 29, superior enemy forces for the first time put strong pressure on the 10th motorized division. Therefore, our troops were forced to leave Skopin ...”
In fact, there was no "defense of the Russians". railroad defended by fighter detachments from the inhabitants of Rybny, Lukhovits, etc. Armed with anything (hunting rifles, carbines of the 19th century, pistols), they caught or killed saboteurs, not letting them near the rails.
The head of the Mikhailovskaya office of the State Bank of the USSR by the name of Gavrilin, not having time to evacuate by car or cart, he collected all the money and valuables in two bags, shouldered them and left the city on foot on the evening of November 24. He walked 60 kilometers to Ryazan for five days, spending the night in nearby villages. Gavrilin arrived in Ryazan on November 29, carrying unharmed sacks. However, after some time he was taken into custody, and then sentenced to 10 years in the camps “for the admitted monetary losses”: compared to the documents, there were not enough pieces of paper in the bags brought.
On November 25, the Germans for the first time expelled reconnaissance towards Ryazan. Near the Stenkino station, policemen saw two German motorcyclists. One was killed, and the second, while trying to turn around, overturned the motorcycle. He was taken prisoner. Another reconnaissance detachment of Germans on motorcycles, sent to the Zakharovsky district, arrived to the village of Popadino. The car of the head of the Zakharovsky police department, Andrian Usachev, was driving towards them. He was carrying a policeman and a female doctor. The Germans killed all three and shot the car.
In the village of Plakhino German motorcyclists tore off the red flag from the village council and fired several shots into the air, and then drove back.
In Zakharov at that time there lived an old pious woman - “wretched Polyushka” (revered today by many believers). She predicted that the Germans would not enter Zakharovo, and many locals, confident in her words, did not evacuate. The German tankette did appear in the village, but it turned out that it was just reconnaissance. The old women said that in a couple of hours the Nazis only killed a Soviet worker who tried to throw a bottle of gasoline at them from around the corner.

On November 26, the head of the Ryazan garrison Murat and the commandant of the city of Samokhin announced state of siege. In the event of an enemy invasion, all work battalions, police and other services were issued an order. It detailed where to hide in the forests to start a guerrilla fight. On the same days, dozens of cars drove across the ice of the Oka towards Solotcha. In Shumashi, they were loaded onto sleighs and carried secret cargoes through the forest corners. Created secret warehouses of weapons and ammunition, food supplies, warm clothes for the partisans.
Meanwhile, when equipping possible partisan bases, many deserters hiding in Meshchera. By December 1, the NKVD compiled lists of 11 "bandit groups" in the region with an estimated number of 62 people. The Chekists seriously feared that these "enemies Soviet power"can go over to the side of the Germans. But catching them began much later, in March 1942.
November 27 a brigade arrived at Ryazhsk station marines , which was supposed to hold the defense here. From Skopin, they received a call from a telephone operator from a government communications center disguised in an ordinary house. She said that there were only about 70 Nazis in the city. Intelligence confirmed these data. Marines set out on foot from Ryazhsk and broke into Skopin on November 28. The sailors were helped by the fighters of the Skopinsky fighter battalion, who left hometown a few days ago. After a two-hour battle, the enemies, firing back, ran along the road to Pavelets.
However, for the Germans, the Ryazan direction was also not the main one. They advanced on Tula and Moscow, and here was only the flank of Guderian's army. There were several hundred Germans in Serebryanye Prudy and Mikhailov, and even fewer in Pavelets and Chernava. Between these settlements motorcyclists and individual armored personnel carriers drove. The Germans had some artillery here, but all the tanks were fighting near Tula.
Soviet troops many more were preparing to attack against them - tens of thousands of people. But they were better armed. Filipp Golikov, whose soldiers unloaded in Ryazan and turned around from Poyarkov to Pronsk, December 1 sent a report to the headquarters of the Supreme High Command about the terrible state of parts of his army: “ The 326th Rifle, 57th and 75th Cavalry Divisions,” he wrote, “have no weapons at all, the rest must go into battle without machine guns, mortars, vehicles, communications…“There was only one communications company for the entire army, and communication between the headquarters of the divisions and the headquarters of the army was supported by horsemen galloping from village to village.
And yet, on December 5, the 10th Army was to launch an offensive.