It turns out that this is quite difficult to do. Maybe, of course, if you dig into German libraries or, even worse, into archives, you could dig up something systematized, but in domestic or English-language books there is a disorderly disparity of numbers without any attempt to comprehend the discrepancy between them.
The matter is even more complicated by the fact that Russian historians have a habit, when talking about the death rate of our soldiers in German captivity, to pull out the largest numbers of those captured from the heap, because this allows the Nazi crimes to be more clearly shaded, and when setting out to compare Soviet and German losses, they take the smallest of the German figures, and even it is declared overpriced.
For example, V.K. Luzherenko, in the article " Captivity: the tragedy of millions"written for the last volume of the four-volume" The Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945", on p. 180 says that out of 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war captured in 1941, by the beginning of 1942 only 1.1 million remained alive (the rest of the type died), not at all embarrassed by the fact that earlier (p. 172) he declares the figure of 2.8 million Soviet prisoners captured in 1941 to be overestimated. The team of G.F. Krivosheev does not lag behind him, in his " Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century". So, he estimates the number of Soviet prisoners of war who died in German camps at 2.5 million, at the same time indicating that 4.06 million Soviet soldiers were captured by the Germans, 1.8 million returned from captivity, 180 thousand preferred emigration to return to their homeland, and more than 800 thousand were liberated by the Germans from the camps.The expense of the Krivosheev brigade is one million more than the income.
Let's try to clear this pile. Let's start with sources.
First of all, the number of prisoners taken Eastern Front known from decade-long summary reports of Wehrmacht units. The last known figure from this source is 5,750,000 prisoners taken between June 1941 and June 1944. Only this source gives a systematically overestimated number (an overestimation of the number of captured prisoners according to the reports of units is typical not only for the Germans - we see the same thing in Soviet reports, comparing the number "captured" from the reports with the number received by the NKVD.). So, in 1941, according to reports, 3,906,765 Soviet soldiers were captured. However, already in the OKH report of December 25, these data are questioned ( Durch nunmehr festgestellte Fehlmeldungen hat sich die Gesamtzahl der sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen um rund 500 000 verringert) and the sturgeon was slaughtered by 500 thousand people, reporting only 3,350,639 captured Russians, instead of 3,890,198 according to ten-day reports. Alexander Dallin in Deutsche Herrschaft in Russland 1941-1945 gives a close figure of 3,335,000 prisoners for 1941. His East German colleague Ditte Gerns in the book Hitlers Wehrmacht in der Sowjetunion for some reason takes away 500,000 again and talks about 2,835,000 prisoners this year.
Soviet sources are primarily data on the missing, known to us from the book mentioned above, edited by G.F. Krivosheev. This source gives a systematically underestimated figure, which is typical for all summary data on losses.
In addition, you need to understand that not all the missing were captured. In addition to the prisoners, the number of missing also includes those killed, who remained on the land occupied by the Germans, and those who fell behind their units but were not taken prisoner - those who joined the partisans or dispersed through the Ukrainian and Belarusian villages. The last few were few. In the second half of the war, among those called up in the liberated territories, 937,000 were called up again. However, some of these re-conscripts had previously been in German captivity, but were released.
The second Soviet source is the data of the Rehabilitation Commission under the President of the Russian Federation. This source relies on personal data and, therefore, also gives an estimate from below.
Данные о количестве военнопленных из Гернса и Комисии по реабилитации и из Кривошеева по пропавшим без вести, по годам войны таковы: Даллин Гернс Комиссия Кривошеев 1941 3,355,000 2,835,000 2,000,000 2,335,482 1942 1,653,000 1,653,000 1,339,000 1,515,221 1943 565,000 565,000 487,000 367,806 1944 147,000 147,000 203,000 167,563 1945 34,000 34,000 40,600 68,637 Total: 5,754,000 5,254,000 4,069,600 4,454,709 The most noticeable discrepancy is shown in 1941, which is not surprising at all - from the Soviet side, the largest number of documents should be lost in this year, and in general there was a fair amount of chaos, Sodom and Gomorrah. The Rehabilitation Commission, judging by the roundness of the figure, generally issued an estimated value.
On the other hand, you need to understand that the Soviet and German numbers were counted according to different bases. If Krivosheev counts only those who properly received a soldier's book, that is, virtual bureaucratic images of Soviet soldiers, then the Germans counted on the heads of everyone who passed through the gates of the camp. And not only soldiers, but also fighters got into the camps militia, extermination squads, policemen, and sometimes just men of military age.
How many Soviet soldiers died in German captivity? Krivosheev writes that the death of 673,050 people is documented (according to German file cabinets). But in reality, more of them died. It is known that 1,836,500 people were released from captivity and returned to their homeland, at least 180,000 more emigrated to other countries. In addition, 823,230 people were liberated from the camps by the Germans; some of them were recruited into volunteer units or "Khivi", the other part was disbanded and subsequently re-mobilized into the Red Army. In total, 2,839,730 people came out of the camps alive. The difficulty here is the accounting of released prisoners who were killed in the service of the Germans in the ranks of the "Vlasovites", various kinds of "Eastern Legions", policemen, etc. They are undoubtedly included in the demographic losses of the USSR, but it would be nonsense to include them in Soviet military losses. Yes, and the figure of the losses of this "contingent" is dissolved in German statistics and is not known in its pure form. That is, without taking into account the "Vlasovites", the number of our soldiers who died in the camps can be estimated at 1.2 million to 3.1 million people. The most realistic estimate is based on the Gerns figures (2.4 million), bearing in mind that not only active duty soldiers, but also paramilitaries, as well as men called up but not enlisted in the armed forces, are counted here.
Enemy captivity is the inevitable fate of many soldiers and officers participating in any major battle. The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) was not only the bloodiest in the history of mankind, it also set an anti-record for the number of prisoners. More than 5 million Soviet citizens visited fascist concentration camps, only about a third of them returned to their homeland. They all learned something from the Germans.
The scale of the tragedy
As you know, during the First World War (1914-1918), more than 3.4 million Russian soldiers and officers were captured by representatives of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Of these, about 190 thousand people died. And although, according to numerous historical testimonies, the Germans treated our compatriots much worse than the captured French or British, the conditions of keeping Russian prisoners of war in Germany in those years are incomparable with the horrors of fascist concentration camps.
The racial theories of the German National Socialists led to mass murders, tortures and atrocities committed against defenseless people, monstrous in their cruelty. Hunger, cold, illness, unbearable living conditions, slave labor and constant abuse - all this testifies to the systematic extermination of our compatriots.
According to various experts, in total, from 1941 to 1945, the Germans captured about 5.2 - 5.7 million Soviet citizens. There is no more accurate data, since no one thoroughly took into account all the partisans, underground fighters, reservists, militias and employees of various departments who found themselves in enemy dungeons. Most of them died. It is known for sure that after the end of the war, more than 1 million 863 thousand people returned to their homeland. And about half of them were suspected by the NKVD of complicity with the Nazis.
The Soviet leadership, in general, considered every soldier and officer who surrendered as almost a deserter. And the natural desire of people to survive at any cost was perceived as a betrayal.
The Nazis made excuses
At least 3.5 million Soviet soldiers and officers died in captivity. High-ranking Nazis during the Nuremberg trials (1945-1946) tried to justify themselves by the fact that the leadership of the USSR did not sign the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929. Say, this fact allowed the Germans to violate the norms international law towards Soviet citizens.
The Nazis were guided by two documents:
the directive “On the treatment of political commissars” of June 6, 1941 (the war had not yet begun), which obliged soldiers to shoot communists immediately after being captured;
the order of the command of the Wehrmacht "On the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war" dated September 8, 1941, which actually untied the hands of the Nazi executioners.
More than 22 thousand concentration camps were created on the territory of Germany and the occupied states. It is simply impossible to talk about all of them in one article, so let's take as an example the infamous "Uman Pit", located on the territory of the Cherkasy region of Ukraine. There, Soviet prisoners of war were kept in a huge open-air pit. They died en masse from hunger, cold and disease. Nobody removed the bodies. Gradually, the camp "Uman Pit" turned into a huge mass grave.
Survival
The main thing that Soviet prisoners of war learned while being with the Germans was to survive. By some miracle, about a third of the prisoners managed to overcome all the hardships and hardships. Moreover, rational fascists often fed only those inhabitants of concentration camps who were used in various industries.
So, in order to maintain the efficiency of Soviet citizens in the camp located at locality Hammerstein (now it is the Polish town of Czarne), each person received daily: 200 g of bread, vegetable stew and a substitute for a coffee drink. In some other camps, the daily ration was half that.
It is worth saying that bread for prisoners was prepared from bran, cellulose and straw. And the stew and drink were small portions of a foul-smelling liquid, often causing vomiting.
If we take into account the cold, epidemics, overwork, then one has only to marvel at the rare ability to survive developed by Soviet prisoners of war.
Schools of saboteurs
Very often the Nazis put their prisoners in front of a choice: execution or cooperation? Under pain of death, some soldiers and officers chose the second option. Most of the prisoners who agreed to cooperate with the Nazis served as guards in the same concentration camps, fought with partisan formations, and participated in numerous punitive operations against the civilian population.
But the Germans often sent the most sensible and active accomplices who aroused confidence to sabotage schools of the Abwehr (Nazi intelligence). Graduates of such military educational institutions parachuted into the Soviet rear. Their task was espionage in favor of the Germans, the spread of disinformation among the population of the USSR, as well as various sabotage: undermining railways and other infrastructure.
The main advantage of such saboteurs was their knowledge of Soviet reality, because no matter how you teach the son of a White Guard emigrant raised in Germany, but from Soviet citizen he will still be different manner of behavior in society. Such spies were quickly identified by the NKVD. It is quite another thing - a traitor who grew up in the USSR.
The Germans approached the training of agents carefully. Future saboteurs studied the basics of intelligence work, cartography, subversive work, they jumped with a parachute and drove various vehicles, mastered Morse code and work with a walkie-talkie. Sports training, methods psychological impact, collection and analysis of information - all this was part of the course of a novice saboteur. The training period depended on the intended task and could last from one month to six months.
There were dozens of such centers organized by the Abwehr in Germany and in the occupied territories. For example, in the Mission intelligence school (near Kaliningrad), radio operators and intelligence officers were trained to work in the deep rear, and in Dahlwitz they taught parachuting and subversive activities, the Austrian town of Breitenfurt was a training center for technicians and flight personnel.
Slave work
Soviet prisoners of war were mercilessly exploited, forcing them to work 12 hours a day, and sometimes more. They were involved in hard work in the metallurgical and mining industries, in agriculture. In the mines and steel mills, prisoners of war were valued primarily as free labor.
According to historians, approximately 600-700 thousand former soldiers and officers of the Red Army were involved in various industries. And the income received by the German leadership as a result of their exploitation amounted to hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks.
Many German enterprises (breweries, car factories, agricultural complexes) paid the management of concentration camps for the "rent" of prisoners of war. They were also used by farmers, mainly during sowing and harvesting.
Some German historians, trying to somehow justify such exploitation of concentration camp prisoners, argue that in captivity they mastered new working specialties for themselves. Say, former soldiers and officers of the Red Army returned to their homeland as experienced mechanics, tractor drivers, electricians, turners or locksmiths.
But it's hard to believe. After all, highly skilled labor at German enterprises has always been the prerogative of the Germans, and the Nazis used representatives of other peoples only to perform hard and dirty work.
Interrogation of prisoners of the Smolensk battle. Documents of the 3rd Panzer Group of the Wehrmacht
NARA, T 313, R 224, f.f. 816 - 896
One soldier from the 166th regiment, who lived in Molotov (before and after - Perm), said the following:
His regiment suffered heavy losses at Polotsk and around July 4th came to the Nevel area. Responsibility for this retreat was assigned to the commander of the regiment, Major S. (Tatar by origin), and 05.07. he was shot personally by the commander of the division, major general G. (regiment number, division number, commander's surname are the same - M.S.). The mood in the troops is very tense. One mention of the possibility of being captured (surrendered) is enough for execution. Letters home are prohibited.
This testimony was confirmed by another prisoner from this regiment. In addition, he said that it was forbidden to listen to the regimental radio. During the German broadcasts in Russian, everyone was expelled from the premises.
From the same regiment, a political instructor of the reserve directly subordinate to the division was also taken prisoner. It was not possible to find out his last name, because. he threw away all the papers. According to him, he was supposed to teach history and geography in the company. He was shot (underlined by me - M.S.).
Another part of the prisoners was from the 19th regiment, formed in Zhytomyr and 19.07. who arrived in the Velikiye Luki region (a rifle regiment with such a number does not correspond to these circumstances - M.S.). This regiment was commanded by a senior lieutenant. The real commander of the regiment, together with the political commissar, fell behind (remained in Zhytomyr?). The regiment was broken. Lack of weapons and ammunition. Divisional affiliation is unknown. The commanders told the interrogated that the Germans treated the prisoners very badly. Therefore, one of them said that before his capture, he wanted to commit suicide.
In the afternoon of 20.07. near Savenka, the 19th TD repulsed an attack (314?) of the enemy division. The division formed in the Urals with an unknown number (314th?) arrived by train to Velikiye Luki, from there on foot to (...) and back. The division has not yet participated in the battles, it is very tired of the marches, it is armed with grenades against tanks, because. it was known that there were German tanks near Velikie Luki.
From noon 16.07. before noon on July 17, 152 prisoners were captured (most of them were defectors), among them 53 Ukrainians. Captured in the area of Usviaty...
The testimonies of the prisoners agree that the German leaflets have a great effect. It is necessary, however, to drop many more leaflets, because officers and political commissars burn everything they find. It is advised to drop leaflets in the rear in order to eliminate the fear of the German soldiers among the population.
In Verechye, about 7 km west of the lake Cösta captured 6-7 thousand liters of fuel.
A prisoner from 102 joint ventures showed:
08/01/41 the division was involved in the river. Howl at Yartsevo. They were told that there was only one German regiment there that needed to be knocked out, Smolensk was in the hands of the Russians, the Germans retreated far back, the German regiment located in Yartsevo was completely surrounded.
During the attack, the division suffered heavy losses. the regiment advanced along with a company of tanks, some of which were knocked out immediately during the first attack. The regiment supposedly had no anti-tank guns, but only 30-40 machine guns. Each received 90 rifle rounds.
During the attack, a chain of politically reliable people who urged the attackers on with their weapons. Therefore, it is difficult to surrender. they are shooting from behind.
The junior lieutenant from the 30th joint venture showed:
The regiment is part of the 64th Rifle Division (correctly - M.S.) Apparently, even before the current battles on the river. Vop south of the motorway, the regiment suffered heavy losses in the Vitebsk region and was replenished between Smolensk and Vyazma. There this lieutenant got into the regiment. There are very few active (real) officers in the regiment. He himself was a non-commissioned officer in the Lithuanian army and after several short courses was promoted to junior lieutenant.
The order for the new commissioning of the regiment said that on the river. Yell are the weak German forces airborne paratroopers that need to be destroyed. The regiment had to make at least 3 attacks. If they failed, they were threatened with execution. The deterrent and urging element are the communists. Unexpected pocket checks are often carried out in search of German leaflets. During a march without contact with the enemy, officers and commissars are at the end of the column to keep everything in hand. Officers and commissars went ahead in the attack (emphasis mine - M.S.). They acted selflessly.
The mood is depressed, there is no trust in the command. The battalion was provided with uniforms only by 50%. Some did not have boots or overcoats. Arming with rifles happened in the last hour. The machine gun company did not wait for its machine guns and was used as a rifle company.
The command transmits the testimony of the quartermaster (chief of logistics?) of the 25th rifle corps, taken prisoner in the sector of the 19th TD. The prisoner said:
Initially, he was a company commander, and then quartermaster for 11 years. He was accused of counter-revolution and sentenced for this to 10 years in prison, of which he served 3 years in a Kharkov prison, then was again taken into the army to his former position. Has the rank of major.
The 25th sk is part of the 19th Army. The 25th SC includes the 134th, 162nd and 127th Rifle Divisions (that's right - M.S.).
134th SD: formed in Mariupol before the Polish campaign as part of the 515th, 738th, 629th regiments of the 534th artillery howitzer. regiment (without one division), 410th light. artillery regiment, as well as one reconnaissance battalion, one btl. communications, one sapper and one autobtl.
There were no tanks in this or the other two divisions.
162nd Rifle Division: Formed in Artyomovsk in August 1939 as part of the 501st Rifle Regiment and one division of the 534th Art Howitzer. shelf. Other units of this division are unknown to the prisoner.
127th Rifle Division: formed in Kharkov this year (1941) as part of the 395th Regiment. Other units of this division are unknown to the prisoner.
For mobilization to wartime states, all divisions between 01.-03.06. left the formation area and after 16 days on foot arrived in the replenishment areas: Zolotonosha, Lubny, Rzhishchev (that's right; the 19th Army, formed on the basis of the administration and troops of the North Caucasian Military District, was concentrated there, the Army headquarters in Cherkasy - M .FROM.). After replenishment of the entire body between 27.6. and 05.07. by rail was sent to the Smolensk region, the main part of the trains was sent from Darnitsa. There 05.07. unloading began and then marches on foot to the concentration area around Vitebsk. Corps command post in Yanovichi, 19th Army command post in Rudnya.
In addition, the corps includes the 248th light corps artillery regiment, the 248th sapper btl. and 263rd btl. connections.
Motor transport units are only in divisions, they are not in the corps. According to the state, the army should have a motor regiment. Since this regiment was never used, the prisoner believes that it de facto did not exist.
Food bases of 25 UK are located in Kyiv and Kremenchug. Food for 10 days (including for railway transport) was taken at the base. The missing should have been obtained at the army warehouses in Smolensk and Vitebsk. Because Smolensk and Vitebsk were repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, army food stores were moved to Liozno and Rudnya on the railway line Vitebsk - Smolensk (10.07.41). Food bases of the corps contain a stock of long-term stored products up to 14 days; perishable products are taken locally.
Military units have with them a supply of food for 4 days (according to the plan for 5 days), namely, a soldier for 1 day (iron ration) and one daily dacha in a company, battalion and regiment. The slaughter platoon had one vehicle with slaughtering equipment and one with a refrigerator. Live cattle for slaughter in the next 2 days chase after the part. In the future, livestock was received at the location. The baking company has a supply of flour for only one day, then it receives flour at the bases, which are provided with supplies for 3-4 days.
Commander of the 19th Army: Lieutenant General Konev.
Commander of the 25th Rifle Corps: Major General Chestokhvalov, who was allegedly taken prisoner in the battle on July 16-17. In any case, the corps from that moment was controlled only by the chief of staff Vinogradov. In the forest, 40 km south of Belaya, he is trying to collect and reorganize the remaining parts of the corps broken between Vitebsk and Smolensk.
The prisoner with his driver and car left the building on 07/20/41. Since then, he knows nothing about his corps. He moved through the forests to observe the attitude of the Germans towards the civilian population. On the basis of his, as he said, reassuring observations, he decided to surrender.
The mood in the troops during his departure was very gloomy. Desertion is common, as for soldiers, their own lives are more precious than the struggle for a misunderstood idea. Therefore, harsh measures are applied to deserters. Due to the flow of refugees and in some places retreating military units, all conventional and railways are completely clogged. The departing trains with the civilian population also led to congestion on the railways, and in addition, they have a morally overwhelming effect on the troops they meet. Movement [of the civilian population] from place to place within the country is prohibited under the threat of severe punishment.
For suitable recent times from Siberia, the troops are especially horrified by German air and tank attacks. The daily reports on the Russian radio about the increase in labor productivity, heard recently, are a propaganda device to support the mood, while in the German-occupied section of the Smolensk [region] there is a real increase in the harvest (income?)
Our leaflets dropped over the Russian front, in his opinion, are somewhat unsuccessfully worded. The arguments about Jewish power in Russia are not very impressive. In his opinion, a hint of a future solution of the agrarian question and a mention of the freedom of workers with better wages would have had a much greater success.
Those who are able to think independently and even most of the common people do not believe the information transmitted by radio about Russian losses.
The system of denunciations among commanders is especially highly developed. After a major "purge" among the commanders of the troops, reserve officers are placed in the vacant positions, even those who were previously considered politically unreliable, as in the case of himself.
Before making such a decision to surrender, he personally convinced himself in the villages occupied by us that the reports of Russian propaganda about the [cruel] behavior of the German troops and terror are false.
He does not believe in an imminent uprising of the Russian people, even in the event of further major setbacks [at the front]. Rather, there will be a [final] collapse of the Russian army.
12th TD reports:
Interrogation of prisoners taken by the advance detachment of the 25th MP on August 4 revealed that the losses of the 89th rifle division have been very large lately. Only 300-400 people allegedly remained in the 400th regiment. The 390th and 400th regiments received reinforcements three times, in last days 30 people per company, they also received officers. The reinforcements are made up of communists of all ages, mainly chairmen of collective farms, executive committees, and so on. Everything that is trustworthy has been collected. The Russians are allegedly waiting for the German offensive in order to be able to surrender.
translated by Vasily Risto
Dates vary. Some cause well-deserved pride and bright memory. But there are dates of sorrow and warning. The latter always included the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
Three quarters of a century has passed. During this time, we have not been able to fully realize at what cost we managed to reach the Victory. After all, next to the heroes of the front and rear, partisan detachments and underground organizations, there are victims and executioners. Novgorod land from 1941 to 1944 experienced all the horrors of war and occupation. On December 7, 1947, an open trial of German war criminals began in Novgorod.
Hell Address: West of Novgorod
A well-known German photograph was taken on the highway between Myasny Bor and Chudovo: on the road washed out by rains there is a poster with the inscription: “Here begins the ass of the world!”. Soviet soldiers in German prisoner-of-war camps, what happened to them was called much more briefly and succinctly: hell. Few of them could survive, some after the Nazi camps had to end up in Stalin's. Therefore, next to the memoirs published during the “thaw” and “perestroika”, there are also their criminal cases. The words of yesterday's prisoners of war can be compared with the official data of the ChGK - the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the Nazi Invaders, established in November 1942.
In their post-war memoirs, generals and marshals move fronts, win decisive victories and receive well-deserved orders. The truth of war is much more prosaic. And dirtier.
On the territory of the modern Novgorod region during the Great Patriotic War, more died in the camps for Soviet prisoners of war than British soldiers during the entire Second World War. world war. London counted 286,200 people, Novgorod land such calculations are almost impossible.
There is still no final number. The German command in official data indicates a figure of 5 million 270 thousand people. The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk claims that our loss of prisoners amounted to 4 million 559 thousand people. The difference is more than 700 thousand people! Many of these people were taken prisoner and perished in camps in the North-West of Russia.
What could a person who found himself a little west of Novgorod at the end of the summer of 1941 experience? Probably the worst thing is the misunderstanding of the realities of this life situation. Why here, many kilometers from the Soviet border, do the enemies feel so confident? Where partisan detachments who fearlessly attack the enemy?
A couple of years ago, I was asked to write an introduction to a book whose author, Alexander Klein, was able to experience all this for himself. A Leningrad student who voluntarily went to the front, he didn’t even really have time to fight, as his unit was surrounded. A long and hard road "to his own" began.
And although many collective farmers treated the guy in the overcoat very sympathetically, fed him, they clearly lost faith that “the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours”: “Partisans were not met. Residents vaguely said that, they say, at first they were, until the Germans announced that whoever came out of the forest would be forgiven.
- And forgiven. They didn't touch.
Who is hiding in the forest? I asked.
- The chairman of the collective farm, from the general store, even a communist alone.
- And you didn't touch it? I wondered.
- Not. Only as if they took a subscription, that they would not do anything against it.
I just shook my head: I didn’t believe.
Terrible oxymoron: "captured by the liberators"
Goebbels' employees in every possible way disseminated information about confusion and unrest in the ranks of the Red Army. Analyzing the course of hostilities, German propaganda emphasized not only the senselessness, but also the criminality of the struggle against Germany. Photos of prisoners or surrendering were preceded by the inscription: "Captured by the liberators."
The Nazis tried to use for these purposes the appearance of the Red Army soldiers: exhausted and hungry - while all the blame was shifted to the Soviet side. The article “The Unfortunate and the Happy” wrote about how “the number of Russian prisoners of war is increasing every day. In large parties they pass through the city under the protection of German soldiers. It's a pity to look at them... What did the Bolsheviks do to the Russian people?
It is bitter to read about how Klein wanted to be extradited to the Nazis by his yesterday's comrades in arms and locals: "Nodding at me when I pretended to be asleep, he (one of the circled - B.K.) suggested: “Let's hand it over. And we will still be paid for the Jew ... ".
The tragedy of the situation in 1941 was aggravated by the fact that few of the soldiers of the Red Army who were taken prisoner survived the first military winter. And among them were different people: the wounded, encircled, defectors. The latter went over to the side of the enemy, including as a result of the influence of enemy propaganda.
"National" ration
After the identification of Jews, communists and commissars, by the end of the autumn of 1941, the Germans for some time stopped dividing the captured Red Army soldiers into separate national groups. But then this policy began to take somewhat different forms. Here it is very instructive to compare the book of Alexander Klein with the testimony of another person - Yuri Gal. The latter, a former prisoner of war, gave them during interrogation in the Big House, in Leningrad, shortly after the end of the war.
Klein writes: “Later, already in Gatchina, I noticed the desire of the Nazis at any cost to cause discord among the multinational mass of our prisoners. The means by which this was achieved were astoundingly anecdotal. So Ukrainians in Gatchina began to give one cigarette a day, Belarusians - two (or vice versa), Tatars - two, and someone else - one or two each. Only we, the Russians, were not supposed to do anything, except for a miserable basic ration, which took on various sizes depending on how much the division could allocate for the maintenance of its prisoners.
At special formations in the camps, prisoners of war were asked about their nationality. Russians were lined up in one column, Ukrainians in another, Tatars and Caucasians in a third, and so on. In the very first days, Jews were separated from the bulk of the prisoners and destroyed.
In September 1941, at one of the meetings of the military leadership that considered the treatment of prisoners of war, Otto Breutigam, a liaison officer for the Eastern Ministry under the Wehrmacht's High Command, complained that the "Einsatzkommandos" often destroyed all the "circumcised", mistaking them for Jews. Notorious Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, who was present, said that this was the first time he had heard that Muslims practice the custom of circumcision.
Yu. V. Gal recalled: “Ukrainians began to be placed in a separate barrack, they were not driven to work and they were promised that they would soon recruit police units for the occupied cities, in particular, for Pskov. The Cossacks in the camp had a privileged job - in the slaughterhouse. They were full, and speculated in the camp with surplus meat. The Baltic peoples also received privileges. They were used only in intra-camp work, and in the spring of 1942 they were released home - to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Russians were used in the most difficult work: loading shells on railway, digging ditches, building fortifications".
Geneva is out of the question
The Nazis hypocritically argued that the terrible situation of Soviet prisoners of war was due to the fact that the USSR did not sign the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1929. In fact, compliance with the convention is not based on the principle of reciprocity. Its 82nd article says the following: "If, in case of war, one of the belligerents turns out to be not participating in the convention, nevertheless, the provisions of such remain binding on all belligerents who have signed the convention."
The Soviet government did not consider it necessary to sign the Convention, because it joined the Hague Conference, which contains all the most important provisions of the Geneva Conference. In addition, as Aron Schneer rightly notes: “One of the reasons why the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention as a whole was its disagreement with the division of prisoners along ethnic lines. According to the leaders of the USSR, this provision was contrary to the principles of internationalism.
Western countries turned out to be more pragmatic and, in fact, trying to prevent conflicts on ethnic grounds that could and did arise in conditions of captivity, advocated the division of prisoners along ethnic lines. The refusal of the USSR to sign the convention allowed the Nazis to use this fact and leave Soviet prisoners without any protection and control from the International Red Cross and other organizations that helped prisoners of Western countries.
Five last steps forward
Hitler's extermination camps in Poland and Germany are very well known: Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor. The camps in the occupied territory of the USSR, where thousands of Soviet prisoners of war died, are much less known. One of them was in Chudov.
The act on accounting for damage and investigating the atrocities of the Nazi invaders of the Chudovsky district states the following: was a camp for Soviet prisoners of war. The same camp for prisoners of war was located at the Chudovo 2 station.
Employees of the ChGK exhumed the remains: “A special commission that opened the pits - graves, found that during the hostage of the Nazi invaders in the territory of the Chudovsky district, 53,256 prisoners of war were killed ...” (act dated April 25-26, 1945 ).
Information about German atrocities was collected by representatives of various government agencies, including Chekists and policemen. It was necessary not only to determine the amount of damage caused by the occupation, but also to bring war criminals to justice. The first documents were prepared by employees of the state security agencies a few months after the release of Chudov - in the summer of 1944. Various testimonies were collected: “Residents of the Oskuy village of the Chudovsky district, citizens Varlamova V., Katenicheva K., testified: “During the stay of the German invaders in the territory of the Oskuy village, in the open air, in the premises of a stone church, in which there was not a single glass , as well as in the barnyard there were camps for Soviet prisoners of war. Prisoners of war were subjected to inhuman abuse, starved, removed outer clothing and shoes, in severe December frosts they were driven to physically hard work. Exhausted and unable to move, they were beaten with rubber truncheons and butts, as a result of beatings and starvation big number prisoners of war died.
The population, seeing the suffering and hunger of the soldiers of the Red Army, threw them food products on the road: bread, potatoes, but those who raised these products were beaten to a pulp. During the retreat of the German barbarians, all prisoners of war were lined up, and the camp commandant announced: "Whoever cannot move himself can take five steps forward." Exhausted and hungry prisoners of war, in the hope of providing transport for their transportation, 55 people went out of action. Everyone who came out was taken outside the barnyard and shot from machine guns in front of everyone, and the wounded were finished off with rifle butts.”
All prisoners of war were used for heavy physical work from 6-7 o'clock in the morning to 9-10 o'clock in the evening. From overwork, hunger and beatings, as they gave 200 grams of bread and one liter of gruel made from wood flour, 20-25 people died daily.
The guards and escorts of the camp, without any reason, beat people who were exhausted and unable to move with sticks. This was done in order to make them rise. Then they shot at the prisoners and threw their corpses into an open field in the cold or into a ravine.
There were cases when the wounded were buried half-dead in a pit, as a result of which the earth continued to move for a long time.
In order to hide the traces of their crimes, the Nazi monsters completely destroyed the premises in which the prisoners of war were located. So the pigsties at the Kommunar state farm and the camp, located in the city of Chudovo on Vladimirskaya Street, were burned.
In the remaining camps at the Pioner state farm, one can be convinced of the incredibly cruel living conditions of prisoners of war, they all lived in damp, dirty and cold rooms, in winter and summer, horses were with the prisoners. All prisoners of war slept in heaps, it was not uncommon for the lower ones to die at night. The food for prisoners of war in the camp, located at the Pioner state farm, was a bowl of soup made from waste potato husks and 200 grams of bread made from wood flour. After the liberation of the camp, at the moment, the corpses of prisoners of war dressed in rags, emaciated, with traces of brutal beatings are thawing out from under the snow.
The way out of hell is only in the cemetery
The war was still going on, and testimonies were already being collected for future trials of Nazi war criminals. All of them echo the pages of Alexander Klein's book. “December 13, 1944 Protocol of interrogation of Minina Akulina Fedorovna, born in 1895, housewife, lives in the Kommunar state farm, Chudovo village, house number 3. In 1941, in August, the Chudovsky district was occupied by the Germans. On the territory of the city of Chudovo, at the Kommunar state farm, the German gendarmerie division No. 61 was quartered and here, on the territory of the state farm, there was a camp of Russian prisoners of war ...
In this camp, up to 40-50 people were killed and died of starvation every day. The Germans buried Russian prisoners of war here in the camp. They buried them in large trenches. The corpses were piled in trenches in several rows.
The act of April 26, 1945 cited the result of a forensic medical examination: “Near the camp there is a cemetery on an area of 60 by 50 m, surrounded by barbed wire. In this area, 12 ditches were discovered, each 50 meters long and 4 meters wide. When tearing ditches, the depth of the latter is set at 3 meters. At the entrance to the cemetery there is a high cross with the inscription: “Russian soldiers. 1941".
We also meet the same cross at Klein: “The murdered man was ordered to undress and take him to the cemetery. Opposite the entrance gate of the camp, near two dilapidated barracks, there was another "exit" gate. The cemetery was right behind them. Someone's honest hands, with the permission of the invaders, placed there over one of the mass graves a huge six-fingered wooden cross with the inscription: “Russian soldiers. 1941".
The examination of the remains was professionally carried out by the lieutenant colonel of the medical service, Professor Vladimirsky. He noted the following: “The putrefaction of corpses reaches such an extent that in some corpses the bone skeleton is held in clothing. On some corpses, ligaments still hold the bones together. On corpses, where, although poorly, pronounced fatty tissue, the latter has turned into a fatty tissue. The clothes worn on the corpses, some are torn with little effort. Some types of fabrics are quite well preserved and are difficult to tear. The conclusions of a professional physician are specific and include materials obtained during the work of the commission.
And here is the picture of this place three years before, when Alexander Klein was here: “The graves began two or three steps from the gate. In winter, the dead were slightly covered with snow. To a grave size four square meters and three or four meters deep they dumped the corpses. Someone went down, stacked them side by side. Then they sprinkled a little earth on top and laid other dead. So they lay in several layers.
When the sun warmed, the graves filled with water. The corpses surfaced in different poses, some on their sides, some on their backs, some on their stomachs, some with open eyes, slightly hesitating when the wind blew, swam in this “pool”.
With great difficulty they covered the old graves with earth. They poured mounds. They dug a new mass grave, but it immediately filled with water. Dug another one. Both began to fill up quickly ... ".
Not everyone believed General Vlasov
In the spring of 1942, the situation of the prisoners improved slightly. They began to be regarded not as unnecessary human material, but as a force in demand. The reason for this change was the victory of the Red Army near Moscow: lightning war, planned by Hitler and his allies, failed. And then Battle of Stalingrad the Nazis began to raise the question of the possibility of creating a Russian anti-Bolshevik army. For this purpose, one of the Soviet generals who are in their captivity. Naturally, these commanders of the Red Army did not experience the hardships that fell to the lot of their soldiers. And the main impact on the part of the Nazi "specialists" was not on their body, but on their mind. It is difficult to say what inspired some of these people to cooperate with the Nazis to a greater extent: the realities of Stalinism, a naive belief in the ability to outwit the secret services of the Third Reich and start their own game, or the desire to serve the "great Fuhrer in the fight against the yoke of the Judeo-Bolshevism"?
An unequivocal assessment of the activities of General Andrei Vlasov as a traitor and traitor in our country has undergone some changes by the end of the 20th century. Authors appeared who began to claim that he was a representative of the so-called "third force", which fought for a Russia free from communist oppression.
On April 26, 1943, an open letter from Lieutenant General A.A. was distributed in the occupied territory of the North-West of the RSFSR. Vlasov "Why did I take the path of fighting Bolshevism?". It contains the former commander of the 2nd shock army talked about his life path.
Specifically stipulating that Soviet authority didn’t offend him personally, the first reason that forced him to cooperate with the Germans, Vlasov called the mismatch of the ideals for which he fought on the side of the Reds in civil war, and the results of the first decades of Bolshevik rule: collectivization, repressions of 1937-1938.
During the war with Germany, he, according to him, honestly fulfilled his duty as a soldier and faithful son of the Motherland. He saw the reasons for the defeats of 1941 in the unwillingness of the Russian people to defend the Bolshevik government, in the system of violence and the irresponsible leadership of the army on the part of large and small commissars.
All this made him think: “Come on, do I defend the Motherland, do I send people to death for the Motherland. Is it not for Bolshevism, masquerading as the holy name of the Motherland, that the Russian people shed their blood?
The conclusions of the "open letter" were as follows: the tasks facing the Russian people can be resolved in alliance and cooperation with Germany. The business of the Russians, their duty is the struggle against Stalin, for peace, for new Russia in the ranks of the anti-Bolshevik movement.
This appeal was widely distributed among the Russian population in the occupied territory. The newspaper with him also fell into the hands of the prisoner of war Alexander Klein: “After the end of the divorce, being idle for a few minutes, I read the appeal of General Vlasov. I remember one of the first phrases: “Soviet power did not offend me in any way,” something like that. Further, the general or the one who wrote for him very sensibly explained the need to fight Bolshevism for the freedom of the Russian people and called for joining the organized Russian Liberation Army (ROA).
“Now it starts,” I thought. “But will the prisoners be able to forget the executions, hunger, cold - everything that they experienced during that year of the war? ..”
But Klein has no doubt about who benefits from this army, which is being created almost two years after the start of the war: “Let them not fool around: this is a screen - the “Russian Liberation Army”. For whom should she liberate Russia? For the Germans. Maybe Vlasov himself is not such a reptile and not a fool. The letter is very well written. But I'm sure he wrote from dictation. He knows that he has no turning back: hit or miss ... "
For Klein, any assistance to the Germans with weapons in their hands, in someone else's form, is a kind of point of no return: “Go to it (in ROA - B.K.) means to say goodbye to the motherland forever. There will be prisoners, so as not to die of hunger, they will go. But they have no other choice. And here everyone is free. The Germans keep dreaming about Russia from the time of the impostors. Here they are messing around. Either they tried to add Stalin's son to the turmoil, or something else. You can’t trust them, no matter what they promise ... "
It seemed to Klein that his behavior in German captivity, and most importantly, his knowledge would be in demand by the Soviet command. But 1944 brought him both release and a new arrest. German camps were replaced by Soviet ones. He was finally rehabilitated only in 1966.
He's still lucky. After all, the vast majority of his comrades in German captivity perished forever in the terrible winter of 1941-1942.
On August 16, 1941, Order No. 270 of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command No. 270 was issued, according to which all Soviet military personnel who surrendered were declared traitors to the motherland.
According to this order, each Red Army soldier was obliged to fight to the last opportunity, even if the military unit was surrounded by enemy forces; It was forbidden to surrender to the enemy.
Violators could be shot on the spot; while they were recognized as deserters
In the photo-Prisoners, the commander of the 12th Army of the Red Army, Major General P.G. Ponedelin (in the center) and the commander of the 13th Rifle Corps of the 12th Army, Major General N.K. Kirillov.
All of them were sentenced to death in absentia. At the same time, while in captivity, all these generals behaved courageously and patriotically. Neither bullying nor promises of the Nazis broke their will. After the war, they were released by the Western allies and voluntarily returned to their homeland, where they were arrested almost immediately. In 1950, on the basis of the same order No. 270, they were again convicted and shot. 
Captured Soviet tankers from the 2nd tank division 3rd Mechanized Corps of the North-Western Front near their KV-1 tank. At the end of June 1941, near the town of Raseiniai, together with another KV-1 of the same unit, fought for a fork in the road. After losing the ability to fire, it was surrounded by German soldiers, the surviving crew members were taken prisoner after the Germans managed to break off the driver's hatch cover with a crowbar. 
A German Lieutenant interrogates a captured Soviet lieutenant near Leningrad. Autumn 1941 
Two German soldier capture a Red Army soldier. 
SS soldiers pose with a captured Red Army soldier in a trench. In the hands of the German on the right is a captured Soviet PPSh assault rifle. 
Search of a captured Red Army soldier. May 1942, in the area of the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge. 
Interrogation of a captured Soviet lieutenant. May 1942, the region of the Rzhev-Vyazemsky salient 
A captured Red Army soldier shows the Germans on the map the information they are interested in. 
Captured Red Army soldier showing the Germans commissars and communists 
German guard lets his dogs have fun with a "living toy"
