The carpenter who could change history

Georg Elser is an ordinary German carpenter who single-handedly planned and organized the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1939. He was a staunch Protestant and sympathetic to the communists. Unlike many compatriots, from the very beginning he was not fascinated by the ideas of the National Socialists and most of all feared new war. Listening to the speeches of the Fuhrer, Elser came to the conclusion that only the assassination of Hitler could stop the coming catastrophe. In order to eliminate the Fuhrer, Elser single-handedly developed a home-made bomb, which he himself built into a column next to the leader’s podium in the Munich pub, where Hitler spoke every year to fellow party members on the occasion of the anniversary of the Beer Putsch.

It took Elser almost a year to implement the plan. For this, he spent almost 30 nights in the cellars of a pub to gouge a niche and mount explosives without hindrance. As a result of the explosion, 7 people were killed on the spot, 63 were injured, but the Fuhrer himself remained unharmed. By an unfortunate coincidence, he unexpectedly reduced his speech to a brief greeting and left the hall a few minutes before the explosion.

Elser was captured on the same evening at the border with Switzerland, and he confessed to everything, saying that he wanted to avoid more bloodshed. The Gestapo could not believe that the assassination was planned by him alone, and Hitler himself was convinced that the British secret services were behind the explosion. Georg Elser was placed in Dachau as a special prisoner and shot on April 9, 1945, just 20 days before the camp was liberated by the Allies.

Fighter against mass euthanasia

Kreissig went down in history as the only judge of the Third Reich who was not afraid to openly go against the decisions of the Fuhrer and even tried to turn the current legislation against the Nazis. Like many others, Kreissig voted for the NSDAP in the 1930s, but already in 1933 he refused to join the party. In 1940, he openly opposed Hitler's policy of euthanasia, calling it the mass killing of the physically handicapped, and even charged one of the Nazis with murder.

After this decisive act, Kreissig had to resign, and in 1942, by Hitler's decision, he was retired, where he devoted himself to church activities. During the war years, he was engaged in household farming, on the territory of which he sheltered two Jewish refugees. After the war, he was openly recognized as a hero of the resistance.

Hitler's personal enemy

Protestant priest Martin Niemöller, author of the famous poem "When They Came", came to Dachau on Hitler's personal order for criticizing the Nazi regime. During the First World War, Niemoller was a submarine commander, but after the end of the war he went to study at a theological seminary and received a spiritual order. From 1924 he voted for the NSDAP, and in 1933 he welcomed Hitler's rise to power as an alternative to communism. Remaining a National Socialist, he protested against the excommunication of "unclean" nationalities from the church, he called for opposition to this law in his sermons and helped those who were persecuted.

In 1938, he was arrested for "attacking the state" and sentenced to 7 months hard labor. The Fuhrer, however, was very surprised by the lenientness of the sentence and declared that Niemoller would remain in custody until he turned blue. In 1941, the priest was sent to Dachau, where he served his sentence on relatively mild conditions: the doors of his cell were not locked, he was allowed visits. In conclusion, Niemöller came to the conclusion that the German Church was equally responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. Martin Niemöller was released in 1945. AT post-war years he actively campaigned for peace and disarmament.

"When they came"

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I was silent, I'm not a communist.

Then they came for the Social Democrats, I was silent, I'm not a Social Democrat.

Then they came for trade unionists, I was silent, I'm not a trade union member.

Then they came for the Jews, I was silent, I'm not a Jew.

And then they came for me and there was no one left to protest."

Guillotine for "White Rose"

"White Rose"- an underground organization in Munich, the names of its members became symbols of the resistance movement of South Germany. The White Rose was created in Munich in the summer of 1942 by several students to agitate the inhabitants of the city to resist the Nazi regime. The organizers of the White Rose included a medical student at the Munich university - Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie and several of their mutual friends. Young people were interested in art and music, sports and were united in their rejection of the political regime. Young people began to write and distribute leaflets calling to fight the Nazi regime.

At first, Hans Scholl intended to keep his sister away from political activity, but it was easier for Sophie to distribute leaflets - the SS did not stop her on the street so often to check. Leaflets of the "White Rose" appeared not only in Munich, they were found in Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz. One of the leaflets ended up in the UK, where its text was broadcast by the BBC, and copies were scattered over Germany from British aircraft.

Another leaflet called for an uprising. But in February 1943, Sophie and her brother were arrested while trying to distribute a new portion of leaflets at the University of Munich, after three days of trial and torture, they were sentenced to guillotining along with other members of the movement. The sentencing judge later said he had never seen anyone more courageous than twenty-year-old Sophie Scholl. At the trial, Sophie said: "In the end, someone had to start. Our beliefs are shared by many others. It's just that they, unlike us, are hesitant to say so."

"Pirates of Edelweiss" and Gertrude Koch

The Edelweiss Pirates was a youth group active in Germany from 1939 to 1945. The name is due to the fact that edelweiss was one of the four symbols of the German Youth Union, which was previously banned by Hitler. Despite the ban, the youth continued to gather, sing songs and fight with the Nazi Youth. Cologne is considered the center of the association, among whose citizens there were about 3,000 "pirates" - teenagers aged 14-18 who had neither a central leader nor a common organizational structure. As an identification mark, they wore the edelweiss emblem. After the Second began World War, they helped to shelter prisoners, Jews and political prisoners, distributed brief anti-Hitler leaflets, wrote calls to fight on the walls.

During the war years, the "pirates" went underground so as not to be involved in work for the benefit of the German army. In 1944, many members of the group were captured, 13 people were executed, and the rest were sent to concentration camps or to the front. After the end of the war, individual "pirates" continued to organize protests in East Germany, and the Germans themselves for quite a long time considered the "pirates" more like bandits than heroes.

In the 80s, the pirates were officially recognized as resistance fighters - albeit with low moral principles. Gertrude Koch - the last "Edelweiss pirate" - died in 2016. She was 17 when she was first captured by the Gestapo for attempting to write anti-Nazi slogans on a wall. She was arrested twice, interrogated and tortured, but somehow managed to escape and survive. Until the age of 92, she retained a sense of humor and a fighting spirit, telling her relatives: "Whatever happens, sing!" In 2008, she was awarded a bust of Heine for her work in resisting the regime of the Third Reich.

They warned Stalin about the start of the war

The disparate groups of the German Resistance, associated with Soviet intelligence and passing valuable information to it, received the common name "Red Chapel" after the end of the war. The term itself was invented by the SS, who were searching for illegal transmitters in Germany. In the jargon of counterintelligence, radio operators were called "musicians", "pianists", and since there were several transmitters, a whole orchestra or "chapel" was formed. Among the organizers of one of the most famous Capella cells were the German journalist and Luftwaffe officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen (Sergeant Major) and the lawyer Arvid Harnack (Corsican).

A circle of like-minded people formed around them, bringing together doctors, journalists, economists, artists, dancers and writers with different political views, but a common rejection of the Nazi regime. Since 1933, members of the "Red Chapel" have helped to shelter victims of the regime from persecution, distributed leaflets, collected information about preparations for war and passed it on abroad. A narrow circle of resistance came into contact with Soviet intelligence. Beginning on June 17, 1941, members of the Red Chapel warned the USSR about the impending German attack on the Soviet Union.

During the war years, they listened to Soviet radio stations and, on the basis of reports from the USSR, created leaflets with facts that contradicted Hitler's propaganda, and Schulze-Boysen passed on data obtained through service in the Luftwaffe to Soviet intelligence officers. In July 1942, the Nazis managed to decipher an earlier intercepted radiogram from Soviet military intelligence from Moscow to Brussels, which called the name of Schulze-Boysen and his address. This led to the failure of the group and the arrest of many of its members.

On August 31, the Gestapo arrested Schulze-Boysen. In December 1942, he, his wife Libertas Schulze-Boysen and Arvid Harnack were sentenced to death penalty. Among the members of the group captured and executed later were the pregnant daughter of Russian emigrants, Liana Berkovits, and the German Elsa Imme. In 1969, the USSR posthumously awarded her the Order of the Patriotic War. In 1943, the Germans seized about 150 members of the Red Chapel movement, of which about 50 were executed, 7 committed suicide. But it was not possible to completely stop the struggle of the "Red Chapel".

Operation Valkyrie

The most famous and large-scale attempt to assassinate Hitler is considered to be the July 20 plot, organized in the ranks of the Wehrmacht. One of the key organizers of the conspiracy was Klaus Schenk, Count Stauffenberg, an aristocrat, colonel of the Wehrmacht. By the beginning of World War II, he approached the status of the second staff general and was sent to Poland, from where he wrote to his wife that "there are a lot of half-breeds in the country, they all need a firm hand and will serve Germany with their forced labor." But, watching the mass executions of civilians, Stauffenberg changed his views. In 1943, he was seriously wounded in Tunisia and lost one eye. right hand and some fingers of the left hand. After recovering from his wound, in 1943 he came to the conclusion that Hitler was leading the country to disaster, and began to search for like-minded people in the Wehrmacht, which was not accountable to either the Gestapo or the secret services.

The conspirators dreamed of killing Hitler. The plan to kill the Fuhrer and then seize power was called "Operation Valkyrie" and appeared after the Allied landings in Normandy, when it became clear that defeat in the war was inevitable. The original plan of operation was approved by the Fuhrer himself as a course of action to prevent internal unrest in the country. In fact, the plan of the conspirators' operation included the assassination of Hitler, the arrest of party members and senior officials of the SS, Gestapo and special services, as well as the transfer of power into the hands of the military.

The staff leader of the operation was Stauffenberg, who was supposed to carry out the assassination and lead the putsch. But the implementation of the operation ran into difficulties - the twice-planned attempt on the life of the Fuhrer had to be postponed, and finally, the date of the putsch was postponed to July 20. According to the plan, the murder was to take place during a staff meeting. The conspirators planned that the meeting would be held in a bunker, but at the last moment it was moved to a wooden building nearby, one of the explosive devices did not work, and the suitcase with the bomb left next to the Fuhrer in the last seconds before the explosion was moved away from the Fuhrer by an absurd accident.

Four people died from the explosion, another 17 people were injured, but the Fuhrer, protected by a massive table, escaped with a minor wound and shell shock. The coup in the capital was also defeated. By the evening of the same day, Stauffenberg was captured and shot. His wife, pregnant with her fifth child, was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and the children were scattered to orphanages to erase the memory of the entire family of the traitor.

In Germany, the attitude towards Stauffenberg was very ambiguous for a long time: he was called either a hero or a traitor.

On December 18, 1940, Hitler in Directive No. 21 approved the final plan for the war against the USSR under the code name "Barbarossa". To implement it, Germany and its allies in Europe - Finland, Romania and Hungary - created an invasion army unprecedented in history: 182 divisions and 20 brigades (up to 5 million people), 47.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 4.4 thousand combat aircraft, 4.4 thousand tanks and assault guns, and 250 ships. in a grouping Soviet troops opposing the aggressors, there were 186 divisions (3 million people), about 39.4 guns and mortars, 11 thousand tanks and more than 9.1 thousand aircraft. These forces were not brought to combat readiness in advance. The directive of the General Staff of the Red Army about a possible German attack on June 22-23 arrived in the western border districts only on the night of June 22, and the invasion began at dawn on June 22. After a long artillery preparation, at 4.00 in the morning, German troops, treacherously violating the non-aggression pact concluded with the USSR, attacked the Soviet-German border along its entire length from the Barents to the Black Seas. The Soviet troops were taken by surprise. The organization of powerful counterattacks against the enemy was hampered by the fact that they were relatively evenly distributed along the entire front along the entire border and dispersed to a great depth. With such a formation, it was difficult to resist the enemy.

June 22 on the radio with an appeal to citizens Soviet Union Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov. In particular, he said: “This unheard-of attack on our country is an unparalleled treachery in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany.

On June 23, 1941, the highest body of strategic leadership of the armed forces, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, was created in Moscow. All power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee (GKO), formed on June 30. He was appointed Chairman of the State Defense Committee and Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The country began to implement a program of emergency measures under the motto: “Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! The Red Army, however, continued to retreat. By mid-July 1941, German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory, capturing Lithuania, Latvia, almost all of Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, creating a threat to Leningrad, Smolensk and Kyiv. Mortal danger hung over the USSR.

OPERATIONAL REPORT No. 1 OF THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RKKA ARMY GENERAL G.K. Zhukov. 10.00, June 22, 1941

At 04:00 on June 22, 1941, the Germans, without any reason, raided our airfields and cities and crossed the border with ground troops ...

1. Northern front: the enemy, with a flight of bomber-type aircraft, violated the border and went into district of Leningrad and Kronstadt...

2. Northwestern Front. The enemy at 0400 opened artillery fire and at the same time began to bomb airfields and cities: Vindava, Libava, Kovno, Vilna and Shulyai ...

Z. Western Front. At 4.20, up to 60 enemy aircraft bombarded Grodno and Brest. Simultaneously across the border Western Front The enemy opened artillery fire.... With ground forces, the enemy is developing a strike from the Suwalki area in the direction of Golynk, Dąbrowa and from the Stokołów area along railway to Volkovysk. The advancing enemy forces are being specified. …

4. Southwestern Front. At 4.20 the enemy began shelling our borders with machine-gun fire. From 04.30 enemy planes have been bombarding the cities of Lyuboml, Kovel, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky ... At 04.35, after artillery fire in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bVladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml, enemy ground forces crossed the border, developing an attack in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml and Krystynopol ...

The front commanders have put into effect a cover plan and by active actions of mobile troops they are trying to destroy the part of the enemy that has crossed the border ...

The enemy, having preempted our troops in deployment, forced the Red Army units to take up battle in the process of taking up their starting position according to the cover plan. Using this advantage, the enemy managed to achieve partial success in certain areas.

Signature: Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov

Great Patriotic War- day after day: based on declassified operational reports of the General Staff of the Red Army. M., 2008 .

RADIO SPEECH BY THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE USSR COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS AND PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR V.M. MOLOTOV June 22, 1941

Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union!

The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following statement:

Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities - Zhitomir, Kyiv, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, moreover, more than two hundred people were killed and wounded. Enemy aircraft raids and artillery shelling were also carried out from the Romanian and Finnish territories.

This unheard-of attack on our country is treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized peoples. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, and the Soviet government fulfilled all the conditions of this pact in all good faith. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that during the entire period of the validity of this treaty, the German government could never make a single claim against the USSR regarding the implementation of the treaty. All responsibility for this predatory attack on the Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers (...)

The government calls on you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks still more closely around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet government, around our great leader Comrade. Stalin.

Our cause is right. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.

The documents foreign policy. T.24. M., 2000.

J. STALIN'S RADIO SPEECH, July 3, 1941

Comrades! Citizens!

Brothers and sisters!

Soldiers of our army and navy!

I turn to you, my friends!

The treacherous military attack of Nazi Germany on our Motherland, launched on June 22, continues. Despite the heroic resistance of the Red Army, despite the fact that the best divisions of the enemy and the best parts of his aviation have already been defeated and found their grave on the battlefields, the enemy continues to push forward, throwing new forces to the front (...)

History shows that there are no invincible armies and never have been. Napoleon's army was considered invincible, but it was defeated alternately by Russian, English, German troops. German army Wilhelm during the first imperialist war was also considered an invincible army, but it was defeated several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops and was finally defeated by Anglo-French troops. The same must be said about Hitler's current German fascist army. This army has not yet encountered serious resistance on the European continent. Only on our territory did it meet serious resistance (...)

It may be asked: how could it happen that the Soviet government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there a mistake on the part of the Soviet government here? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was this pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet government refuse such a proposal? I think that not a single peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if at the head of this power there are even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop. And this, of course, on one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect either directly or indirectly the territorial integrity, independence and honor of a peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact (...)

With the forced withdrawal of the Red Army units, it is necessary to steal the entire rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of bread or a liter of fuel (...) In areas occupied by the enemy, partisan detachments, horse and foot, create sabotage groups to fight against units of the enemy army, to kindle guerrilla warfare everywhere and everywhere, to blow up bridges, roads, damage telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to forests, warehouses, carts. In the occupied areas, create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, pursue and destroy them at every step, disrupt all their activities (...)

In this great war we will have true allies in the peoples of Europe and America, including the German people, enslaved by the Nazi bosses. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms (…)

In order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR, to repulse the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland, a State Committee Defense, in whose hands all power in the state is now concentrated. The State Defense Committee has begun its work and calls on all the people to rally around the party of Lenin-Stalin, around the Soviet government for the selfless support of the Red Army and the Red Navy, for the defeat of the enemy, for victory.

All our strength is to support our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Fleet!

All the forces of the people - to defeat the enemy!

Forward to our victory!

Stalin I. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. M., 1947.

Noiseless celebrations on the occasion of the 70th anniversary Great Victory, but the memory of the feat of our people, who was able to break the back of Hitler's Nazism, will never fade away, it will forever remain in our hearts. And questions about what made it possible to achieve it will not disappear. The courage and heroism of the Soviet fighters - of course, the wisdom of the military and political leadership - of course, the superiority of the socialist system in terms of mobilizing society to repel the enemy - of course. But if we approach the assessment as objectively as possible historical events, then it must be admitted that in a number of cases the enemy himself helped the Soviet Union with his grossest mistakes. Of course, the Soviet Headquarters also had miscalculations, but in the end, the Hitlerite Headquarters turned out to have much more of them, which made it possible to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory this year for us, and not for the Nazis. In general, more than once or twice the Nazis themselves unwittingly helped to defeat them.

On the day of June 22, which became forever a black date in the Russian calendar, when our Fatherland had to feel the weight of the treacherous invasion, it's time to remember the unsuccessful decisions of Hitler and his entourage, which turned out to be very successful for our country. Let's single out five key Nazi blunders during the Great Patriotic War.

The first miscalculation is Hitler's intention to end the war victoriously for himself with one blow, before the onset of winter cold

Before Hitler, this mistake was made by many who wanted to conquer our country. swedish king Charles XII he was probably sure after his victory near Narva that the Russian army was not afraid of him - as a result, Poltava happened. Napoleon and was completely able to enter Moscow just before the desired date for the onset of severe Russian frosts, but instead of warm apartments, his guardsmen received ashes and were eventually forced to flee not only from the Cossacks of the ataman Platova but also from the merciless cold.

Surely the Nazi generals were aware of the troubles of their predecessors, but they stepped on the same rake of a blitzkrieg that was impossible in the vast Russian expanses. And now, judging by media reports, there are people in the West who want to try to stand on them again - now under the flag of one disarming missile strike.

Hitler, fortunately, did not have such in 1941, and the far from perfect FAA that appeared later did not make the weather in the fighting, so he could only rely on the speed of his tank groups. But no matter how high it was, they could not even theoretically occupy the Soviet territory outlined by the Barbarossa plan from the end of June to the end of October.

Surprisingly, none of the Nazi commanders dared to object to the Fuhrer, who assured everyone that the Wehrmacht would be able to defeat the Red Army during the border battles. In fact, the Germans managed to defeat only the first strategic echelons of the personnel units of the Soviet troops. While the Wehrmacht sent one group of the groggy Red Army after another into the boilers, the Soviet Union was able to mobilize, create detachments militia, and most importantly, to evacuate a significant part of the industry to the east of the country.

The miscalculation of the second - the beginning of hostilities against the USSR in the face of confrontation with Great Britain, which automatically meant for Nazi Germany a war on two fronts

If rains in autumn and frosts in winter in Russia turned out to be a complete surprise for Hitler's generals, then they, in theory, could not forget about the war with Great Britain. And by June 22, 1941, this war was in full swing at sea, in the air, and partly on land, in North Africa. Moreover, the mad Hitler, in fact, in parallel with the Barbarossa plan, was preparing an invasion of the British Isles. And it is possible that he did not implement the Sea Lion plan simply because his right leg told him so. He was impatient to deal with the Bolsheviks, and no one could dissuade him.

Timid hints from the environment that the war with England was by no means over were brushed aside by him, who believed in his infallibility. However, the Nazis repeatedly made attempts to reconcile with the British, and then with the Americans, including completely adventurous ones, in the form of a flight R. Hess right on the eve of the issuance of the Dortmund order, which set in motion the plan of attack on the USSR. It is possible that the Nazis would have succeeded in something if the leadership of the United States and Great Britain did not then have such prominent political figures as Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill who would never make a deal with the brown devil and really didn't. So the calculation of the fascist command on their anti-communism did not materialize.

More precisely, it was only partially justified - the Western allies were in no hurry to open a second front in Europe, but nevertheless diverted significant forces of the naval and air force Nazi Germany. Well, with their bombing they caused some damage to the industrial potential of the Third Reich, which again was in the hands of the Soviet Union.

The third miscalculation was the rejection of a fast breakthrough to Moscow in July 1941.

Paradoxically, despite the strategic blunders with the start of the so-called Eastern Campaign, the Wehrmacht could still win in 1941 due to the factor of surprise, preemption of the Soviet troops in strategic deployment and mistakes already on our part. True, we can judge this retrospectively only conditionally - history does not know the subjunctive mood. With a high degree of certainty, one can only assert that the Nazis could still break into Moscow, but whether they would get stuck in heavy street battles, as a year later in Stalingrad, or not, is not known.

Only one thing is known for certain - in mid-July, tanks Guderian occupied part of Smolensk and could move almost unhindered towards the Soviet capital, but they ... did not do this, but turned south to surround the Southwestern Front. It was another whim of Hitler and the self-satisfied Nazi generals - everything turned out so well for them at the beginning of the war that they decided to play, so to speak, in public. Not just defeat the Soviets, but with fireworks. Well, the Nazis were able to arrange another giant cauldron near Kyiv, but in the end they lost precious time in our hands.

The only general from the entire Nazi camarilla who tried to protest against the turn of his tanks to the Kiev direction was Heinz Guderian. He stubbornly argued the need to move towards Moscow. But, fortunately for us, Hitler made his next fatal decision - to surround the capital of Ukraine first.

In this regard, it should be noted that I.V. Stalin turned out to be right, objecting to the proposal of his generals to leave Kyiv. In addition to political damage, this also threatened with an offensive by the Nazis on Moscow a month earlier than it actually began.

Fourth miscalculation - Nazi Germany relied on weak allies

The “unfamous” Soviet-Finnish war led Hitler and his entourage into a double delusion - regarding the weakness of the Red Army and regarding the strength of the Finnish troops. In fact, the latter could not, and were not particularly eager to solve strategically important tasks.

At the same time, it must be said directly that the Finnish military bears equal responsibility with the Germans for the blockade of Leningrad - it approached the city on the Neva from the north. But exactly what was approaching - the army of Suomi did not create any serious problems in front of our troops in Karelia, and to the north too. In 1944, when there was a real possibility that the country of a thousand lakes would be occupied by the Soviet Union, the government Paasikivi went to a separate peace with a recent enemy and declared war on a recent ally.

Bulgaria and Romania turned out to be exactly the same unreliable satellites of Hitler. They also in 1944, after "sudden" upheavals in their capitals, turned their weapons against the Third Reich.

Italy almost did exactly the same trick, but Duce went into the shadows Mussolini spetsnaz prevented Otto Skorzeny, who returned him to the Olympus of political power, from which his partisans sent him straight to the gallows six months later. And in general, during the Second World War, the Nazi troops were forced more than once to save their unfortunate allies from the Apennines. Moreover, this cost Germany very dearly - the forced invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941 delayed the start of Operation Barbarossa for a month, which, coupled with other above-mentioned problems, turned the fight with the USSR into an uncomfortable winter period for the heat-loving Wehrmacht.

In the summer of 1943, in the midst of the decisive Battle of Kursk, Hitler had to withdraw SS divisions in order to stop the Western Allies who had landed in Italy. True, by this moment it had finally become clear that the Nazis would not be able to break through to Kursk, but the troops sent to the Apennines were largely not enough to contain the Soviet counteroffensive.

The role played by the Romanian and Italian "assistants" of the Wehrmacht in its defeat at Stalingrad is well known throughout the world. The retreat of the first allowed our troops to surround the 6th Army Paulus, and the departure of the second, fortunately for us, deprived the Don group of the field marshal Manstein chances of unlocking it.

But the main blow in the back to the Third Reich was dealt by the key "ally" - Japan. Its participation in the war against the USSR, to our other happiness, was reduced only to unsuccessful attempts to organize a truce. The Soviet leadership rejected the deal with Hitler and brought the matter to the storming of Berlin and the suicide of the leader of the Nazis.

Fifth miscalculation - ill-treatment of the civilian population in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR and atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war

Preparing for aggression against the USSR, Hitler noted for his elite that it would be a war against the ideology of Bolshevism, and in it all means, in his opinion, were good. As a result, the Nazis and their lackeys committed so many bloody atrocities that traces of them are still being found.

The fascists and their actually anti-Soviet lawyers tried and to this day are trying to justify themselves by the fact that the Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Convention on the Rights of Prisoners of War. But the attitude towards people does not depend on papers - first of all, it is determined by state policy and propaganda. To many Germans Nazi ideology inspired and indeed, unfortunately, inspired the perception of the inhabitants of the USSR as racially inferior. propaganda machine Goebbels convinced her compatriots that Soviet citizens live poorly, that they are sloppy, lazy. As for the Jews, immediately after the establishment of the fascist order, they began to purposefully exterminate them by punitive Einsatzkommandos. About what happened in those years in the temporarily occupied territory, the author of these lines spoke in the article "Occupied Russia" svpressa.ru/war21/article/121246/.

It is noteworthy that in most Western European countries they behaved somewhat differently. But on the territory of Yugoslavia, Poland, Orthodox Greece and especially the Soviet Union, the Nazis gave free rein to their bestial theory of the racial superiority of some people over others to the fullest. Well, they got almost a nationwide rebuff here. However, this miscalculation was initially predetermined by the viciousness of the Nazi ideology itself.

Refutation from the past

Hitler's OKW officer Helmut Greiner I could not even imagine that in the near future, on a historical scale, it would become fashionable among Russophobes and anti-Soviet people to rewrite history and whitewash people like him, otherwise he would not have been so frank in his memoirs. In them, he directly says that Hitler, long before the invasion and even the emergence of the Barbarossa plan, notified of his plans to attack the Soviet Union. So this miscalculation of the Nazis was not provoked by anything, as the Nuremberg Tribunal established. One can briefly quote this Hitlerite staff officer when and how it happened: “On the afternoon of July 29, the head of the Wehrmacht’s operational leadership, General of Artillery Jodl ... reported ... in strict secrecy that the Fuhrer plans to suppress the Soviet Union by force of arms.” This caused the German command, according to Greiner, "great confusion", because they knew that "the Soviet Union ... intends to strictly adhere to the treaty." This refers to the non-aggression pact, as well as a number of other Soviet-German agreements of that time. But Hitler, as we now know, did not stop him from planning his main mistake - a strike on the USSR.

HISTORY LESSONS

The anniversary of the Great Victory is getting closer. I would like to remind you that this is not just a victory - this is the victory of the Soviet people in the struggle for their very existence, because the purpose of this war was the destruction of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR. This is the main thing that the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of those who gave their lives for the Victory should remember.

But after decades of operation of a gigantic ideological machine, what is called the Second World War is associated in the minds of the modern layman in the West and increasingly in Russia itself with the so-called. The "Holocaust" - the genocide of European Jews, the caricature of Hitler, the horrors of Stalinism and D-Day - the opening of the Second Front in Europe. The Great Patriotic War is increasingly presented as one of the episodes, and not even the most significant, of the Second World War. From the modern mass consciousness, any idea of ​​the special, fundamentally different nature of the war of Nazi Germany and its allies against the USSR turned out to be practically erased. Meanwhile, this war was unique in its tasks, methods and consequences for world history. Between 1939 and 1945 there were two wars, partly coinciding in time and intertwined with each other, but, nevertheless, sharply different in nature.

One, from September 1939 to September 1945, was a "normal" "world" war between the major imperialist powers of the world, differing from the first "world" only larger sizes and lethality.
The other - from June 22, 1941 to May 1945 - had all the traditional elements of the wars of European imperialism against non-European peoples, from the first crusades of the 11th century to the British conquest of India, the extermination of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the opium wars in China, the devastation of the African and Australian continents. The war of German imperialism and its European allies against the USSR absorbed this historical experience of colonialism and developed its methods to the utmost concentrated and brutal expression. But her unique character lay elsewhere.

The Barbarossa plan was not just a "blitzkrieg" military plan to defeat the Red Army and the Soviet state. And not only the plan to conquer Lebensraum - " living space for the German nation and its colonization. That was the plan crusade, the ideological "holy war", which aimed to eradicate "Judeo-Bolshevism", the destruction of the Soviet people, the ideological, state and economic foundations of its existence, primarily the state existence of the Great Russian and other Slavic peoples, who formed the backbone of Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. For the Soviet people, the Great Patriotic War was a struggle for its historical existence - "to be or not to be."

But the genocide of European Jews was "unique" except in the sense that it was a genocide in Europe against Europeans. But the Holocaust was not unique in this respect either. It was preceded by the British genocide of the Irish. The example of the Irish shows that the ideology of European racism originates within the white race and only then begins to spread to non-European peoples, to the “colored”.
White racism is on the rise in Russia right now. It is worth recalling to our champions of white racial solidarity with the whites of the West the authoritative opinion of the famous historian Christopher Hill: “the majority of educated Englishmen belonging to the upper strata of society of the seventeenth century spoke about the Irish in the same vein as, for example, the Nazis about the Slavs or white South Africans about the indigenous population - in all these cases, contempt was an excuse for the need to exploit.
No, if one can speak at all about the uniqueness of any genocide, then, in the sense of its ideological origins and political tasks, such a genocide was the genocide of the Soviet people, with which the Jewish genocide was inextricably linked.

Hitler pointed out the need to learn from the British the art of dominating conquered peoples and exploiting them. The USSR was to become the German "India" - the Nazi laboratory of racial politics, a bottomless source of slave labor and natural resources.

John Toland, famous biographer of Hitler, says:
“Hitler claimed that he owed much of the idea of ​​concentration camps and the practicality of genocide to his study of the history of England and the United States. He admired the Boer prisoner camps in South Africa and for the Indians in the Wild West and in his inner circle, often praised the effectiveness of the destruction of the "red savages" in America by starvation and superior military force.

From the Fuehrer's Guide to the Administration of the Eastern Territories:
The Slavs must work for us. If we don't need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German healthcare are superfluous for them. High Slavic fertility is undesirable. They can use birth control and have abortions to their heart's content. Education is dangerous. Pretty good...if they can count to a hundred. As a last resort, education is permitted if it helps to prepare useful servants for us. Each educated person- our future enemy. We will leave religion to them as a distraction. As far as food is concerned, they should not receive more than the required minimum. We are the owners, we are everything.

The contribution of the Black Hundred and the White Guard movement to the ideology of German Nazism and its practice of genocide remains underestimated. And he was decisive in his own way. It was the White Guard that created and tested the central ideological synthesis of Hitler - the combination of the old European anti-Slavic racism and anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism and anti-Bolshevism.

The decisive link between Hitler and the Black Hundreds was Alfred Rosenberg, a Baltic German from Latvia, and his white emigrant friends, led by staff captain Fyodor Vinberg. In the early 1920s, Vinberg and Rosenberg became the ideologists of a secret organization of Russian and German reactionaries - Aufbau, Reconstruction. It was through the White Guard Vinberg and Rosenberg that Hitler adopted the synthesis of anti-Bolshevism and political anti-Semitism, which formed the ideological basis of Barbarossa.

According to the Fuhrer's explanations before the start of the war, the upcoming campaign will be a struggle between "two worldviews." Hitler described Bolshevism as a "social crime" and communism as "an enormous danger to the future". Therefore, in the East, German soldiers will have to give up their habitual respect for the enemy.

In final instructions dated May 13, Chief of Staff Keitel declared the problems of "appeasement" (a word borrowed from the terminology of the North American genocide) too vast and difficult for conventional military tribunals and authorized the troops to "take ruthless action themselves", "eliminate" guerrillas and use "the most extreme methods » against hostile civilians. All officers were instructed to decide on the spot whether or not to shoot those suspected of hostilities behind the front lines, while battalion-level commanders became responsible for taking hostages for collective retribution on the inhabitants of one or another point. crimes German soldiers against the civilian population were to be tried by a tribunal only if they threatened military discipline.

At the same time, from February 21, 1941, the propaganda services of the armed forces also prepared leaflets, posters and radio broadcasts addressed to Soviet military personnel and the civilian population. The first and most widespread of these accused Stalin's "Jewish-Communist" government of violating the treaties it had concluded with Germany. The leaflet implored the soldiers and officers of the Red Army not to "shed their blood for the Third International ... for Stalin and his Jewish commissars", whose regime was "hundreds of times worse" than the Tsarist one. German troops were marching to put an end to "the criminal machinations of this Jewish clique that is torturing and exploiting the peoples of the Soviet Union."

One of the most enduring myths created by Nazi generals and their American masters during cold war, is a myth about the non-involvement of the Wehrmacht in the genocide in the East. In reality, it was the other way around. The Wehrmacht accepted the program of ideological warfare with such alacrity and set about implementing it with such zeal that it threatened the central role of the SS in clearing "Judeo-Bolshevism" from the eastern Lebensraum. Wehrmacht led political war to destruction, in no way inferior to their "comrades in arms" in black uniforms.

Central role in development economic policy within the framework of the Plan, Barbarossa was entrusted to a group of scientific experts at the General Staff. Their recommendations, set out at two meetings in May 1941, boiled down to the following plan. The European territory of the USSR will be divided into two zones: 1) the "zone of excess", or "black earth" (Schwarzendezone) in the south, including the Caucasus, and 2) the "zone of hunger" (Hungergebiet) in the north, primarily around Moscow and Leningrad. In the “surplus zone”, the population could hope to receive the minimum amount of food necessary for life. In the "hunger zone" it was doomed to extinction.

So the genocide of "many tens of millions" of Soviet people had to take the form of starvation. And here, too, Hitler's teachers were white settlers and the British in North America and Africa, the British in Ireland, Hindustan, China and Australia.
Such were the historical origins and goals of Operation Barbarossa, which began in the predawn hours of June 22, 1941 along the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Between these goals and their achievement stood only one force - the Red Army.

The Red Army soldier Hitler, during the defense of the 174.5 height of the Tiraspol fortification district, destroyed the enemy with his fire for eight days. As a machine gunner, he supported the advance of his platoon with fire. Being surrounded and wounded, comrade. Hitler fired until he ran out of ammunition, after which, without throwing his weapons, he got out to his own, in total destroying more than a hundred Wehrmacht soldiers. For his feat, Hitler was awarded the medal "For Courage".

On the fields of the Great Patriotic War also fought: Major General of the Red Army Borman, Red Army soldier Goering, Art. technician-lieutenant Hess - and other comrades. It was probably not easy to live and fight with such names. Glory and everlasting memory heroes!

AWARD SHEET

Surname, name and patronymic ______ Hitler Semyon Konstantinovich

Military rank_____ Red Army soldier

Position, part _____ gunner of the 73OPB machine gun of the Tiraspol UR

Presented for _____ award with a medal for military merit

1. Year of birth_____1922

2. Nationality_____Jew

3. Since when has he been in the Red Army _____ since 1940

4. Party membership _____ member of the Komsomol

5. Participation in battles (where and when) _____ in the Tiraspol fortified. area

6. Does he have injuries and concussions _____

7. What was previously awarded (for what distinctions) _____ was not previously awarded

I. Brief, specific statement of personal military feat or merit

Being a gunner of an easel machine gun comrade. Hitler continuously destroyed hundreds of enemy with his well-aimed fire for 8 days.

When attacking a height of 174.5 comrade. Hitler with his fire Art. the machine gun supported the advance of the platoon’s page, however, the enemy, having come from the rear, surrounded the platoon and dispersed it, comrade. Hitler with his machine gun, already wounded, was left alone among the enemy, but he did not lose his head, but fired until he used up all the cartridges, and then crawled among the enemy at a distance of 10 km ...

II. Conclusion of superiors

Tov. Hitler S.K. being a gunner Art. machine gun showed exceptional composure, stamina and courage in battle when destroying the enemy. Tov. Hitler is a well-trained machine gunner and a staunch fighter. Tov. Hitler deserves the medal "For Courage".

Commander (Chief) ___________

III. Conclusion of the Military Council of the Army

Worthy of the medal "FOR COURAGE"

Commander Primorsk. Army Lieutenant General Safronov

Member of the Military Council Brigadier Commissar Kuznetsov

Note that at the beginning of the war, awards for very serious feats were given rather "modestly" (August 19 - two months of the war had not yet passed, four more difficult years were ahead of the country), rather than later, when the army had already fought more, and people knew "that how much". It is very remarkable that Comrade Hitler destroyed many fascists and retreated to his own, having used up all the ammunition and not abandoning the machine gun, in 1943-44-45. for such a high performance, he would most likely receive an order.

Borman Alexander Vladimirovich, major general. ATRed Army since 1921. He participated in the Great Patriotic War from the very beginning. For the skillful leadership of combat operations, the organization of the combat work of the Air Force of the 40th Army on the South-Western Front awarded the order"A red star".

"... Comrade BORMAN By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 27, 1942, for the skillful leadership and organization of the combat work of the Air Force of the 40th Army on Southwestern Front awarded with the order "RED STAR".

Before the Patriotic War, he was awarded the Order of LENIN. Participates in the Patriotic War from 22.6.1941 in the following positions: Deputy. Commander of the Air Defense Forces, Commander of the Air Force of the 40th Army, Commander of the 220th Air Division, now the 1st Guards Fighter Air Division, Deputy. Commander of the 8th Air Army and from December 1, 1942 Commander of the 216th Aviation Division.

From 18.5. By 4 July 1942, units of the 220th Air Division had shot down 117 and shot down 34 enemy planes in aerial combat. In addition, 5 enemy aircraft were destroyed during the attack on airfields.

From 1.12.42 to 5.4.43 years for the period of command of comrade. BORMAN division and offensive operations to liberate the North Caucasus from the Nazi invaders in parts made 2,610 sorties, with a total flight time of 2,670 hours, of which: 497 sorties for reconnaissance of enemy troops, 736 sorties for escorting attack aircraft, and 736 sorties for covering friendly troops - 477 sorties, to intercept enemy aircraft - 75 sorties, to destroy enemy transport aircraft and clear the air of enemy aircraft - 50 sorties, to attack enemy motorized mechanized troops - 536 sorties, to reconnoiter enemy crossings - 32, zhel. dor. objects - 30, enemy airfields - 10 and for the destruction of enemy floating assets - 13 sorties.

82 air battles were carried out. Shot down in air battles - 9 (?) And 17 enemy aircraft were shot down. In addition, 12 aircraft were destroyed on the ground during attacks on enemy airfields.

By assault actions, parts of the division were destroyed and damaged on the ground: vehicles with troops and cargo - 902, tanks - 45, armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers - 48, gas tankers - 20, artillery pieces - 42, mortars - 25, of which 13 were six-barreled, a supply with cargo and ammunition - 240, horses - 228, ammunition depots - 10 were blown up, 2 locomotives were damaged, 2 railways were damaged. wagons, 1 steamboat, 4 barges, 4 boats. Suppressed 38 ZA, 21 anti-aircraft gun points. Destroyed - 2815 enemy soldiers and officers.

Obtained combat experience on the fronts of the Patriotic War comrade. BORMANN skillfully conveys to the commanders and flight personnel of the regiments. - Skillfully and courageously directs the combat work of the air regiments of the division. Disciplined. Demanding commander and organizer ... "

Goering Shopshil Matveyevich, Red Army soldier, signalman. In the Red Army since 1942

"... Red Army soldier Goering Sh. M., being a telephone operator, during the fighting on the right bank of the Dnieper River to expand and hold the right-bank bridgehead north of Kyiv, showed himself brave, courageous, ready for self-sacrifice in the name of victory over the enemy, knowing very well his job, as a communicator.

Under strong artillery mortar fire of the enemy, he repeatedly laid a connection, from firing positions on obl. paragraph. Only in one day of hostilities on 10/12/43, when the enemy went over to the counterattack Comrade. Goering, under enemy fire, caused 18 breaks in communication lines.

Red Army soldier Goering Sh. M. is worthy of the government award of the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree.

Hess Evgeny Pavlovich, senior technician-lieutenant, in the Red Army since June 1941

"... Comrade Hess has extensive experience in the repair and restoration of combat vehicles, acquired during the defense of Stalingrad. He skillfully applied his combat experience in the repair of combat vehicles in difficult winter conditions. , flexible work of repair teams. Comrade Hess quickly and efficiently restored combat vehicles and they went into battle mercilessly to smash the German invaders. Comrade Hess is proactive, resourceful, has good organizational skills. During the fighting of the regiment, his brigade repaired 8 medium and 10 small tanks."

Goth Nikolai Vyacheslavovich, brig military doctor, in the Red Army from February 1918.

"... Brigvrach GOT, Nikolai Vyacheslavovich has been serving in the Red Army since 1918. An active participant in the fronts civil war against Yudenich and the White Poles. In E. G. he works as a senior therapist and Chairman of the Hospital Medical Commission. In this work Comrade. Goth has shown himself to be a true enthusiast, a qualified general practitioner who perfectly understands the challenges facing him.

During his work in E. G. 1171 through the therapeutic departments, led by comrade. Goth passed 4.569 patients; through the Hospital Commission led by him - 1,002 wounded and sick. Counseling all severe therapeutic cases at the Hospital Comrade. Goth, with his qualified conclusions, saved quite a few lives of patients. From day to day, in addition to his great main work Comrade. Goth educates young cadres of military general practitioners, of whom 4 currently hold the positions of Heads of Therapeutic Departments. Comrade Goth introduced a lot of new things into the clinic and the treatment of patients with alimentary malnutrition and scurvy, significantly reducing the mortality of patients ... "

Yuri Sergeevich Manstein, captain, with the Red Army from June 1941

"... In the most critical and difficult areas, Comrade MANSHTEIN personally supervised the evacuation of the materiel from the battlefield and the neutral zone. For example, under his personal guidance there was an evacuation in the district of UST-TOSNO, IM IZHORA, STARO-PANOV, KRASNY BOR and on the left bank of the river. NEVA in the area of ​​recent hostilities.

In the period from January 9 to 28, under the leadership of Comrade MANSHTEIN, a joint evacuation group pulled 231 combat vehicles from the battlefield and frontline roads.

(original spelling and punctuation retained)

Source: fishki.net

somehow with friends, search engines, visited the "museum partisan movement» in a remote village in the Mogilev region. Many curious things were learned about the partisans. In particular, the grandfathers shared about this fact - by the spring of the 42nd, the partisan detachments were conditionally divided into “Polish”, “Jewish” and “ours”. So, quite a considerable number of Germans and Czechs who deserted from the active army served in “ours”, although by the end of the 42nd, the NKVD controlled “our” detachments a little less than completely.

No wonder! The country was international. I don’t know about the Hitlers, but quite a few Bormanns and Mullers lived in the USSR, and the tragedy is that many of them were exiled during the war years to the Kazakh steppes, like a fifth column. Many of them laid down their lives for their homeland, fighting against their compatriots, with whom contact was lost during the time of Peter I, when many Germans left for Russia and found their second homeland here!

“According to the founder of the Jewish Messianic community (the first Jewish-Christian community in Russia) Joseph Rabinovich, the Jewish question can be solved only if they believe in their brother Jesus Christ.”

Nikolas. where are the examples of the fact that the Jews are directly raking the heat with the wrong hands? In addition, the banking business is theirs.

BARON Yes, I agree. Adapted, among other things, to seek opportunities to find cannon fodder instead of her sons in the pursuit of her own interests. The Patriotic War and today's Israeli army are exceptions to the rule, since this is a choice only between life or death and everything has to be put at stake. All-IMXO. More about the Jews, without me.

Nikolas. This suggests that this nation is more beaten, and therefore more adapted to everything. back IMHO

Yes exactly!
They are simply forced to be ready for war there, because they live surrounded by enemies
And they really appreciate their soldiers.
The guide told me (when I was on an excursion there) that if a Jew is captured, then he must tell everything, because there is nothing more important than the life of one Jew, they immediately change all their locations.
And in Russia there are hardly any Jews in the army.

BARON, Alina noticed everything correctly. The country of Israel is their country, and even more so surrounded by enemies, which is why they serve there. HERE AND NOW, people of this nationality are generally engaged in more profitable business than any military service. In general, you won’t find their children in the lists of participants in hostilities, and even those who are serving in the army. (But their dads are very fond of talking about patriotism, the Fatherland and duty to the Motherland). AT post-war USSR, and especially in the late Brezhnev-Gorbachev era, exactly the same trend was observed. However, this is a completely different story of modern times, and the blog is not about that. We deviate from the topic.

Alina. apparently the wrong Jews live in the State of Israel. Everyone, absolutely, serves in the army. So it was in the USSR, in those days

Perhaps "very mediocre ideas about the Jews in the war."
Although... I have dealt with Nicholas, and I know that he is very delicate in his statements in dealing with girls.

Rzhevsky
Today's Jews do not represent the war.
Is that a few, or in the country of Israel.

Nicholas
I liked how the veteran talks about the war.
About our attitude towards women ... and Georgians, for example, in those military conditions.

Andrei A, I will not argue about the numbers and official statistics of the ratio of the number of GSS to the number of those who lived and fought. I think that the Second World War and fascism carried a direct threat to the very existence of the Jews, hence such figures. Wars that do not directly affect their interests and where you can limit yourself to the lives of workers and peasants, but not your own children, do not have such a ratio. In particular, the last two Chechen wars (especially significant) and the same Afghanistan (your example is the exception rather than the rule). By the way, the attitude of front-line soldiers and home front workers during the Great Patriotic War to this topic was also very ambiguous. There were such expressions as “went to the Tashkent front” and “received a medal for the defense of Tashkent” in relation to persons of this nationality.
P.S. “The percentage of losses among Russians is somewhat higher than the percentage of Russians in the population, by 1.14-1.22 times according to various censuses.
For a significant number of nationalities, the percentage of losses and the percentage of the population are close. Including the Jews, if we take the data on the number of Jews in 1939. Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Chuvashs, Buryats are also like that.
So the Jews cannot be attributed to those who “sat out in the rear” and had much fewer losses than the average. Such as the Ingush and Chechens, who account for a share of the losses in Soviet army 10 times less than their share in the population. Or the nationalities of Dagestan, where this share is 4 times less. But the neighboring Ossetians - their share of losses is 0.6 of their share in the population (and, by the way, largest number Heroes of the Soviet Union per 1000 dead from all nationalities of the USSR). iguanodonna.livejournal.com website

Alina,
Very mediocre ideas about the Jews in the war. The Jews fought for their existence, because. everyone knew about the extermination of them by the Nazis without exception and they did not surrender due to immediate destruction in the event of nationality being clarified, and of the more or less significant nationalities in Russia, they have the highest ratio of the number of Heroes of the Soviet Union to the number of those who fought, and to the number of those living in country at the time too.
From fresh. I personally know a Jew born in 1958, who was a navigator long-range aviation was twice in Afghanistan and has a wound and a concussion, so that he would not get off these business trips (the connections and influence of his relatives were quite enough for this). I won’t say anything about Chechnya, I don’t know, it’s not my age.

I never cease to be amazed.
Jews, and in the war?

Yes ... A very eloquent example that a person should be judged by his deeds, and not by his last name, first name, and so on.
I read the blog and immediately remembered for some reason the series "Students" ... educational institution, where the main characters received a profession, a mathematician worked with only one name speaking to many - Adolf. Everyone around this teacher giggled, whispered: "Hitler." But one day this man told his student why he was called that. It turns out that that was the name of his uncle, a violinist, a person with poor eyesight. That Adik went to the front and died there. And the sister, in memory of him, and not of Hitler, named her son Adolf. Like this...

If this was the case, you can give the hero of the USSR.

Ordinary people were not shot, this applied to those who stood close to greater power.

At the height of the war, my grandfather was given a medal for bravery for seeing a group of infiltrators from a telephone pole in the distance.

Alina, judging by the Red Army book, Hitler was a Jew. As for the rest of the surnames, there were quite a lot of Russified Germans in Imperial Russia and its army. Manstein is one of them. In the Drozdov division of Wrangel in civilian life, such a surname is mentioned among senior officers (father and son Manstein were in it). History sometimes gives out such knees that you wonder. It is known that the very first chairman of the Tsaritsyno city Cheka was a certain Alfred Karlovich Borman, from the Latvian shooters.
As for the rest, you need to delve into the sources, but it is unlikely to find anything about the origin of ordinary Red Army soldiers, and even junior and middle-level commanders. Here is something on the topic of Soviet Germans in the Great Patriotic War
www.pobeda1945.su
In fairness, it is worth noting the reverse examples. Heroes of the Soviet Union in the service of the Luftwaffe
reibert.info

At first I thought it was a joke.
The origin of these Red Army men is interesting.
Find out who their ancestors were?

Yes, Rzhevsky .. You are the original of course in terms of finding non-trivial topics for communication. Well, how can you not put "five" here ?!

Yes, indeed, they were shot, it turns out. not all. *** Mikhalkov in his craft "Burnt by the Sun-2" was forced to admit this.

Alicia, I thought about that too. It is surprising that they did not fall under repression or did not change their surnames.

Rzhevsky
Thank you for reading with great interest!
It turns out that there were our Hitlers, and Goerings, or rather namesakes.
It's amazing how the NKVD didn't shoot them for such names?

Highly interesting information. Yes ... with such surnames it was not easy for the soldiers of the Red Army, but people fought, showed heroism - Eternal memory to them and thanks for the Peaceful Sky! And of course, thanks to all the veterans (and no matter what surnames) who fought and defended our Motherland from fascism!

Interesting.
I have never looked at the soldiers of the Red Army from such a "family" angle of view.
What is called - amazing nearby. Unusual, non-standard and not consonant with the Russian ear, surnames and names often impose certain fetters on their owners, fetter, dictate a model of behavior unusual for them ...

During the fighting in the Second World War, our Hitlers, Goerings, Bormanns ... probably had to prove their patriotism, refute an unsuccessful family affiliation and show double or triple courage in order to escape from the captivity of stereotypes and get away from ridicule ...

Eternal memory to the heroes of the last war! And Russians, and Jews - and Ivanovs, and our Hitlers ...

And here's another interesting fact.
Karl Marx - SS Standartenführer! :))

www.wolfschanze.ru

Thank you Volodya for an interesting blog.