The art of war is a science in which nothing succeeds except what has been calculated and thought out.
Napoleon
Plan Barbarossa is a plan for a German attack on the USSR, based on the principle of lightning war, blitzkrieg. The plan began to be developed in the summer of 1940, and on December 18, 1940, Hitler approved a plan according to which the war was to end in November 1941 at the latest.
Plan Barbarossa was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the 12th century emperor who became famous for his campaigns of conquest. This contained elements of symbolism, to which Hitler himself and his entourage paid so much attention. The plan received its name on January 31, 1941.
Number of troops to implement the plan
Germany was preparing 190 divisions to fight the war and 24 divisions as reserves. 19 tank and 14 motorized divisions were allocated for the war. The total number of troops that Germany sent to the USSR, according to various estimates, ranges from 5 to 5.5 million people.
The apparent superiority in USSR technology is not worth taking into account, since by the beginning of the war, Germany's technical tanks and aircraft were superior to those of the Soviet Union, and the army itself was much more trained. Suffice it to recall the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, where the Red Army demonstrated weakness in literally everything.
Direction of the main attack
Barbarossa's plan determined 3 main directions for attack:
- Army Group "South". A blow to Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea and access to the Caucasus. Further movement to the line Astrakhan - Stalingrad (Volgograd).
- Army Group "Center". Line "Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow". Advance to Nizhny Novgorod, aligning the Volna - Northern Dvina line.
- Army Group "North". Attack on the Baltic states, Leningrad and further advance to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. At the same time, the “Norway” army was supposed to fight in the north together with the Finnish army.
| SOUTH | CENTER | NORTH | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target | Ukraine, Crimea, access to the Caucasus | Minsk, Smolensk, Moscow | Baltic states, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk |
| Number | 57 divisions and 13 brigades | 50 divisions and 2 brigades | 29th Division + Army "Norway" |
| Commanding | Field Marshal von Rundstedt | Field Marshal von Bock | Field Marshal von Leeb |
| General goal | Get on line: Arkhangelsk – Volga – Astrakhan (Northern Dvina) |
||
Around the end of October 1941, the German command planned to reach the Volga - Northern Dvina line, thereby capturing the entire European part of the USSR. This was the plan for the lightning war. After the blitzkrieg, there should have been lands beyond the Urals, which, without the support of the center, would have quickly surrendered to the winner.
Until about mid-August 1941, the Germans believed that the war was going according to plan, but in September there were already entries in the diaries of officers that the Barbarossa plan had failed and the war would be lost. The best proof that Germany in August 1941 believed that there were only a few weeks left before the end of the war with the USSR was Goebbels’ speech. The Minister of Propaganda suggested that the Germans collect additional warm clothes for the needs of the army. The government decided that this step was not necessary, since there would be no war in the winter.
Implementation of the plan
The first three weeks of the war assured Hitler that everything was going according to plan. The army rapidly moved forward, winning victories, but the Soviet army suffered huge losses:
- 28 divisions out of 170 were put out of action.
- 70 divisions lost about 50% of their personnel.
- 72 divisions remained combat-ready (43% of those available at the start of the war).
Over the same 3 weeks, the average rate of advance of German troops deep into the country was 30 km per day.
By July 11, the Army Group “North” occupied almost the entire Baltic territory, providing access to Leningrad, the Army Group “Center” reached Smolensk, and the Army Group “South” reached Kyiv. These were the latest achievements that were fully consistent with the plan of the German command. After this, failures began (still local, but already indicative). Nevertheless, the initiative in the war until the end of 1941 was on the side of Germany.
Germany's failures in the North
Army “North” occupied the Baltic states without any problems, especially since there was practically no partisan movement there. The next strategic point to be captured was Leningrad. Here it turned out that the Wehrmacht was beyond its strength. The city did not capitulate to the enemy and until the end of the war, despite all efforts, Germany was unable to capture it.
Army Failures Center
Army "Center" reached Smolensk without problems, but was stuck near the city until September 10. Smolensk resisted for almost a month. The German command demanded a decisive victory and the advancement of troops, since such a delay near the city, which was planned to be taken without large losses, was unacceptable and called into question the implementation of the Barbarossa plan. As a result, the Germans took Smolensk, but their troops were pretty battered.
Historians today evaluate the Battle of Smolensk as a tactical victory for Germany, but a strategic victory for Russia, since it was possible to stop the advance of troops towards Moscow, which allowed the capital to prepare for defense.
The advance of the German army deep into the country was complicated by the partisan movement of Belarus.
Failures of the South Army
Army “South” reached Kyiv in 3.5 weeks and, like Army “Center” near Smolensk, was stuck in battle. Ultimately, it was possible to take the city due to the clear superiority of the army, but Kyiv held out almost until the end of September, which also hampered the advance of the German army and made a significant contribution to the disruption of Barbarossa’s plan.
Map of the German advance plan
Above is a map showing the German command's offensive plan. The map shows: in green – the borders of the USSR, in red – the border to which Germany planned to reach, in blue – the deployment and plan for the advancement of German troops.
General state of affairs
- In the North, it was not possible to capture Leningrad and Murmansk. The advance of the troops stopped.
- It was with great difficulty that the Center managed to reach Moscow. At the time the German army reached the Soviet capital, it was already clear that no blitzkrieg had happened.
- In the South it was not possible to take Odessa and seize the Caucasus. By the end of September, Hitler's troops had just captured Kyiv and launched an attack on Kharkov and Donbass.
Why Germany's blitzkrieg failed
Germany's blitzkrieg failed because the Wehrmacht prepared the Barbarossa plan, as it later turned out, based on false intelligence data. Hitler admitted this by the end of 1941, saying that if he had known the real state of affairs in the USSR, he would not have started the war on June 22.
The tactics of lightning war were based on the fact that the country has one line of defense on the western border, all large army units are located on the western border, and aviation is located on the border. Since Hitler was confident that all Soviet troops were located on the border, this formed the basis of the blitzkrieg - to destroy the enemy army in the first weeks of the war, and then quickly move deeper into the country without encountering serious resistance.
In fact, there were several lines of defense, the army was not located with all its forces on the western border, there were reserves. Germany did not expect this, and by August 1941 it became clear that the lightning war had failed and Germany could not win the war. The fact that the Second World War lasted right up to 1945 only proves that the Germans fought in a very organized and brave manner. Thanks to the fact that they had the economy of the whole of Europe behind them (speaking of the war between Germany and the USSR, many for some reason forget that the German army included units from almost all European countries) they were able to fight successfully.
Did Barbarossa's plan fail?
I propose to evaluate the Barbarossa plan according to 2 criteria: global and local. Global(reference point - the Great Patriotic War) - the plan was thwarted, since the lightning war did not work out, the German troops were bogged down in battles. Local(landmark – intelligence data) – the plan was carried out. The German command drew up the Barbarossa plan based on the assumption that the USSR had 170 divisions on the country’s border and there were no additional echelons of defense. There are no reserves or reinforcements. The army was preparing for this. In 3 weeks, 28 Soviet divisions were completely destroyed, and in 70, approximately 50% of the personnel and equipment were disabled. At this stage, the blitzkrieg worked and, in the absence of reinforcements from the USSR, gave the desired results. But it turned out that the Soviet command had reserves, not all troops were located on the border, mobilization brought high-quality soldiers into the army, there were additional lines of defense, the “charm” of which Germany felt near Smolensk and Kiev.
Therefore, the failure of the Barbarossa plan should be viewed as a huge strategic mistake of German intelligence, led by Wilhelm Canaris. Today, some historians connect this man with English agents, but there is no evidence of this. But if we assume that this is really the case, then it becomes clear why Canaris palmed Hitler off with the absolute lie that the USSR was not ready for war and all the troops were located on the border.
The famous German plan “Barbarossa” can be briefly described as follows: it is Hitler’s almost unrealistic strategic plan to capture Russia as the main enemy on the path to world domination.
It is worth remembering that by the time of the attack on the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, had almost unopposedly captured half of the European states. Only Britain and the USA resisted the aggressor.
The essence and goals of Operation Barbarossa
The Soviet-German non-aggression pact, signed shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War, was nothing more than a head start for Hitler. Why? Because the Soviet Union, without assuming a possible betrayal, fulfilled the said agreement.
And the German leader thus gained time to carefully develop a strategy for capturing his main enemy.
Why did Hitler recognize Russia as the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the blitzkrieg? Because the resilience of the USSR did not allow England and the USA to lose heart and, perhaps, surrender, like many European countries.
In addition, the fall of the Soviet Union would serve as a powerful impetus to strengthen Japan's position on the world stage. And Japan and the United States had extremely tense relations. Also, the non-aggression pact allowed Germany not to launch an offensive in the unfavorable conditions of winter cold.
The preliminary strategy of the Barbarossa plan looked something like this:
- A powerful and well-trained Reich army invades Western Ukraine, instantly defeating the main forces of the disoriented enemy. After several decisive battles, German forces finish off the scattered detachments of surviving Soviet soldiers.
- From the territory of the captured Balkans, march victoriously to Moscow and Leningrad. Capture both cities that are extremely important to achieve the intended result. The task of capturing Moscow as the political and tactical center of the country was especially highlighted. Interesting: the Germans were sure that every single remnant of the USSR army would flock to Moscow to defend it - and it would be as easy as shelling pears to completely defeat them.
Why was Germany's attack plan on the USSR called Plan Barbarossa?
The strategic plan for the lightning capture and conquest of the Soviet Union was named after Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire in the 12th century.
The said leader went down in history thanks to his numerous and successful campaigns of conquest.
The name of the Barbarossa plan undoubtedly reflected the symbolism inherent in almost all actions and decisions of the leadership of the Third Reich. The name of the plan was approved on January 31, 1941.
Hitler's goals in World War II
Like any totalitarian dictator, Hitler did not pursue any special goals (at least those that could be explained using the elementary logic of common sense).
The Third Reich unleashed the Second World War with the sole purpose: to take over the world, establish dominance, subjugate all countries and peoples to its perverted ideologies, and impose its picture of the world on the entire population of the planet.
How long did it take for Hitler to take over the USSR?
In general, Nazi strategists allocated only five months - a single summer - to capture the vast territory of the Soviet Union.
Today such arrogance may seem unfounded, unless we remember that at the time the plan was developed, the German army had captured almost all of Europe in just a few months without much effort or loss.
What does blitzkrieg mean and what are its tactics?
Blitzkrieg, or the tactic of lightning the capture of the enemy, is the brainchild of German military strategists of the early 20th century. The word Blitzkrieg comes from two German words: Blitz (lightning) and Krieg (war).
The blitzkrieg strategy was based on the possibility of capturing vast territories in record time (months or even weeks) before the opposing army came to its senses and mobilized its main forces.
The tactics of a lightning attack were based on the close cooperation of infantry, aviation and tank formations of the German army. Tank crews, supported by infantry, must break through behind enemy lines and surround the main fortified positions important for establishing permanent control over the territory.
The enemy army, being cut off from all communication systems and all supplies, quickly begins to experience difficulties in solving the simplest issues (water, food, ammunition, clothing, etc.). The forces of the attacked country, thus weakened, are soon captured or destroyed.
When did Nazi Germany attack the USSR?
Based on the results of the development of the Barbarossa plan, the Reich's attack on the USSR was scheduled for May 15, 1941. The date of the invasion was shifted due to the Nazis carrying out the Greek and Yugoslav operations in the Balkans.
In fact, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war on June 22, 1941 at 4:00 am. This mournful date is considered the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
Where did the Germans go during the war - map
Blitzkrieg tactics helped German troops in the first days and weeks of the Second World War to cover enormous distances across the territory of the USSR without any particular problems. In 1942, a fairly impressive part of the country was captured by the Nazis.
German forces reached almost Moscow. In the Caucasus they advanced to the Volga, but after the Battle of Stalingrad they were driven back to Kursk. At this stage, the retreat of the German army began. The invaders passed through the northern lands to Arkhangelsk.
Reasons for the failure of Plan Barbarossa
If we consider the situation globally, the plan failed due to the inaccuracy of German intelligence data. William Canaris, who led it, may well have been a British double agent, as some historians claim today.
If we take these unconfirmed data on faith, it becomes clear why he “fed” Hitler the misinformation that the USSR had practically no secondary lines of defense, but there were huge supply problems, and, moreover, almost all the troops were stationed on the border.
Conclusion
Many historians, poets, writers, as well as eyewitnesses of the events described, recognize that a huge, almost decisive role in the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany was played by the fighting spirit of the Soviet people, the love of freedom of the Slavic and other peoples who did not want to drag out a miserable existence under oppression world tyranny.
The Germans did not enter Moscow in November 1941 because the dams of the reservoirs surrounding Moscow were blown up. On November 29, Zhukov reported on the flooding of 398 settlements, without warning the local population, in 40-degree frost... the water level rose to 6 meters... no one counted people...
Vitaly Dymarsky: Good evening, dear listeners. On the air of “Echo of Moscow” is another program from the “Price of Victory” series. Today I am hosting it, Vitaly Dymarsky. And I’ll immediately introduce you to our guest - journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev. Hello, Iskander.
Iskander Kuzeev: Hello.
And it is no coincidence that he was invited to us today, since it was today in the newspaper “Top Secret” that Iskander Kuzeev’s material entitled “The Moscow Flood” was published, which talks about a secret operation in the fall of 1941. The author of the article himself will tell you in more detail, and I will make one digression and simply tell you that, you see, life has its own way, and I repeat, Dmitry Zakharov and I try to go in chronological order through the events of the Second World War, but when something comes... that’s interesting, we’re going back, maybe we’ll get ahead of ourselves. And today we are returning back to the autumn of 1941, when the events that our guest today, Iskander Kuzeev, investigated and wrote about took place. Iskander, what are we talking about? What kind of secret operation took place in the fall of 1941 and why are we talking about a flood?
Let me start with some preface. I have always been fascinated by the episode of November 1941, which I became quite familiar with from memoir literature, in particular, the recently published memoirs of Guderian, who fought south of Moscow, in Russian. Guderian's troops, the 2nd Panzer Army, had practically completed the encirclement of Moscow from the south. Tula was surrounded, the troops approached Kashira, moved towards Kolomna and Ryazan. And at this time, the Soviet troops, which repelled Guderian’s attacks, received reinforcements from the north of the Moscow region, where practically no clashes took place. In the north of the Moscow region and further along the Tver region, Kalinin was taken, the troops stood in the vicinity of Rogachevo and Konakovo, and clashes there took place practically only in two points: near the village of Kryukovo and on the Permilovsky heights between Yakhroma and Dmitrov, where the troops of Army Group Center were opposed in fact, one NKVD armored train that accidentally ended up there - it was coming from Zagorsk towards Krasnaya Gorka, where German artillery was already stationed. And there were no other clashes in this region. At the same time, already when I began to get acquainted with this topic, I became aware that individual, literally units of German military equipment had penetrated the territory of Moscow.
This famous incident when some motorcyclists almost reached the Falcon?
Yes, yes, they were stopped at the second bridge over the railway, which later became known as the Victory Bridge. There, two of our machine gunners guarded this bridge, and they protected it from air raids. Motorcyclists crossed the first bridge across the canal and in the area of the current metro station "Rechnoy Vokzal", the weather was bad there, and as the researchers who worked on this topic told me, they went down to the ice to kick a ball, at that time 30 motorcyclists passed by, and they already stopped on the last bridge before the Sokol station. And there was one German tank between the current metro stations “Skhodnenskaya” and “Tushinskaya”.
Volokolamsk direction.
Yes. This is the Western Bridge over the diversion canal in the Tushino area. And as the people who were engaged in these studies told me, this was told to me in the management of the Moscow-Volga canal, as it is now called, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Moscow Canal”, the tallest building on the hill between the 7th and 8th locks, and this story was passed down from generation to generation, from there it was clearly visible: some lost German tank came out, stopped on the bridge, a German officer looked out, looked back and forth, wrote something down in a notebook and drove off somewhere in the opposite direction Aleshkinsky forest. And third, there was German large-caliber artillery on Krasnaya Gorka, which was already ready to shell the Kremlin, an armored train was moving from the north to this point, and local residents crossed the canal and reported this to the leadership, the Ministry of Defense, and after that the shelling of this point began , where large-caliber artillery was stationed. But there were no troops in this place. When I began to study this topic, I found out what was happening - exactly the event that in this publication is called “The Moscow Flood” took place.
So what kind of flood was this? They simply flooded a large area in order to impede the advance of German troops, do I understand correctly?
Yes. That's right. In the Volokolamsk direction, the dam of the Istra hydroelectric complex, which is called the “Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Complex,” was blown up. Moreover, the drains were blown up below the level of the so-called “dead mark”, when water descends to discharge the spring flood. Huge streams of water in the place where the German troops were advancing fell on the offensive area and several villages were washed away, and the stream reached almost to the Moscow River. There the level is 168 meters above sea level, the mark of the Istrinsky reservoir, and below it the mark is 143, that is, it turns out to be more than 25 meters. Imagine, this is a waterfall that washes away everything in its path, flooding houses and villages. Naturally, no one was warned about this; the operation was secret.
Who carried out this operation? Troops or some civil services?
In Istra it was a military operation, that is, the engineering department of the Western Front. But there was also another operation, which was carried out jointly by the management of the Moscow-Volga Canal, which is now called the Moscow Canal, and the same engineering department of the Western Front, and...
What other operation?
Another, in a different place.
Oh, there was another one.
There was also a second one, or rather, even two, since the second operation was carried out at two points. When the Germans occupied Kalinin and came close to the line of the Moscow-Volga canal and there were no forces to repel these attacks, evacuation was already being prepared, Stalin was already preparing to evacuate to Kuibyshev, now Samara, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which a decision was made to release water from all six reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Ikshinskoye, Pyalovskoye, Pestovskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, and to release water from the Ivankovskoye reservoir, which was then called the Moscow Sea, from a dam near the city of Dubna. This was done in order to break the ice and thus troops and heavy equipment would not be able to cross the Volga and the Moscow Sea and would not be able to cross this line of six reservoirs near Moscow.
The first operation on the Istra Reservoir, November 1941?
Yes, end of November.
What about others?
That is, all these operations were carried out one after another at the end of November. And what is the result, if I may say so? What did the Soviet command sacrifice in order to stop the German troops?
There were two options for releasing water - from the Ivankovo reservoir to the Volga downstream and releasing water from the reservoirs towards Moscow. But a completely different option was adopted. To the west of the canal flows the Sestra River, it passes through Klin-Rogachevo and flows into the Volga below Dubna, flowing where the canal passes high above the surrounding area. It runs in a tunnel under the canal. And the Yakhroma River flows into the Sestra River, which also flows much below the level of the canal. There is the so-called Emergency Yakhroma Spillway, which, in case of any repair work, allows water from the canal to be discharged into the Yakhroma River. And where the Sestra River flows under the canal, there are emergency hatches, also provided for the repair of engineering structures that allow water from the canal to be discharged into the Sestra River. And the following decision was made: through the pumping stations that raise water to the Moscow reservoirs, they all stand at the same level of 162 meters above sea level, it was decided to run these pumping stations in the reverse, so-called generator mode, when they spin in the other direction and they do not consume, but produce electric current, so this is called generator mode, and the water was released through these pumping stations, all the sluice doors were opened and a huge stream of water rushed through this Yakhroma spillway, flooding the villages, there are located there at a very low level above the water various villages, there are peat enterprises, experimental farms, a lot of irrigation canals in this triangle - the canal, the Yakhroma River and the Sestra River, and a lot of small villages that are located almost at water level. And in the fall of 1941, the frost was 40 degrees, the ice broke, and streams of water flooded the entire surrounding area. All this was done in secrecy, so people...
No precautions were taken.
And at the third point, where the Sestra River passes under the canal, there were also constructions there - there is a book by Valentin Barkovsky, a veteran of the Moscow-Volga canal, there is a researcher such as Mikhail Arkhipov, he has a website on the Internet, where he talks about this in detail he says that metal gates were welded there that did not allow water from the Sestra River to flow into the Volga, and all the water that was discharged, imagine, a huge body of water from the Ivankovo Reservoir went into the Sestra River and flooded everything around. According to Arkhipov, the level of the Yakhroma River rose by 4 meters, the level of the Sestra River rose by 6 meters.
Explain, as you just said, according to all the evidence - we did not see it with our own eyes and did not feel it with our skin - it was a very hard and cold winter, the frosts were terrible. This water, which poured out in huge quantities onto the earth's surface, was supposed to turn into ice.
Practically, yes. At first the ice was broken...
But then, in the cold, it all probably turned into ice?
But this does not happen immediately. I wondered how a person could be saved in such a situation. And the professor of anesthesiology with whom I spoke told me that it is enough to stand for half an hour knee-deep in such water and a person simply dies.
How many villages were flooded in this way?
In all these operations there is somewhere around 30-40.
But, if I’m not mistaken, there was an order from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Stalin, to flood, in my opinion, more than 300 villages around Moscow in order to stop the German advance?
There was an order. It didn't talk about flooding, it talked about destruction.
Villages. As a matter of fact, one story is very famous. This is where Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was caught, these sabotage groups...
Yes, this is in accordance with this order 0428 of November 17 at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. And in accordance with this order, all villages deep into the front at a distance of 40-60 kilometers were to be destroyed. Well, there is such an ornate wording that this is an operation against German troops. And there was even such a wording as “take the Soviet population with you.”
That is, the sabotage groups were supposed to take the Soviet population with them before burning the village?
No, the retreating troops had to be withdrawn. But since they had already retreated and since there was an order to burn precisely those villages that were behind the front line, this postscript was simply a fiction. This postscript now is for those who defend Stalin. When individual excerpts from these materials were published on various blogs, a lot of Stalinists spoke in the comments and cited this phrase.
As an example of humanism.
Yes, yes. But this phrase means absolutely nothing, we know. And then, when the offensive began, a lot of newsreels appeared about burned villages. Naturally, the question did not arise who burned them. There were Germans there, so cameramen came and filmed the burned villages.
That is, wherever there were Germans, to this depth, as Comrade Stalin ordered, all these villages where the Germans stood had to be destroyed in one way or another.
Did they report to Stalin?
Yes. In two weeks they reported that 398 settlements had been destroyed. And that’s why these 30-40 flooded villages are a drop in the ocean...
Tenth, 10 percent.
Yes, and few people paid attention to this. Moreover, here in the report Zhukov and Shaposhnikov write that artillery was allocated for this, and aviation, and the mass of these saboteurs, 100 thousand Molotov cocktails, and so on, and so on.
Is this document genuine?
Yes, this is an absolutely genuine document, there is even data on where, in which archive it is located, a fund, an inventory.
In full - no.
I've never met. And do you cite it in the article?
We will have an addition in the next issue and we will talk about it, we will publish order 0428 and the report, the report of the Military Council of the Western Front to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command dated November 29, 1941. This immediately clears up the whole picture.
You know what else interests me in this whole story. The history, to put it diplomatically, is little known. And to be more honest, it is practically not known at all. In our country, as I understand it, neither in military literature nor in memoirs was this story of the flooding told anywhere, or it was somewhere, but under some heading “top secret,” which is what the newspaper is called, strictly speaking, where did you publish?
The only thing I was able to find that was published in previous years was a book edited by Marshal Shaposhnikov, which was published in 1943, dedicated to the defense of Moscow, and it came out with the stamp “secret” and in recent years the stamp “secret” was removed and stood classified as “chipboard”, and it was declassified only in 2006. And this book talked about the explosion of waterways in Istra. But nothing was said about the operation on the channel. I was able to find this only in a book that was published for the anniversary of the Moscow-Volga channel; last year the 70th anniversary was celebrated, and Valentin Barkovsky’s book was published in a circulation of only 500 copies. And it talks about this in detail.
And this book, edited by Shaposhnikov, has had all its stamps removed, but apparently it is simply in libraries.
Well, yes, it was never reprinted.
I knew, of course, that many of the documents were classified, but in order to release a book immediately classified as “secret”, what circulation could it have had and who was it intended for then?
The circulation is very small. Well, for the management team.
And then here’s the question. Did the Germans know about this operation and was it described anywhere in German military literature?
Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. When I had doubts about whether everything was really flooded and people were dying there, I traveled all over this territory in the Yakhroma-Rogachevo-Konakovo-Dubna square, and I met a lot of people there, well, not just a lot of people, this very elderly people who remembered this, who told it, and this story was passed down from generation to generation. A resident of the village named 1 May told me, this is a working village right at the level of the irrigation canals flowing into Yakhroma, and he told me how my grandmother survived all this, she survived. Many did not survive, but those who survived left memories. She said that they hid in a potato storage area, and several soldiers who crossed Yakhroma and the irrigation canal simply saved them. Firstly, there was artillery firing from all sides. There were low, completely panel houses, lower than even peasant huts, and naturally, the artillery hit what was visible, and a potato storage facility with a high chimney was visible. And so they say: “Why are you sitting here? They’ll kill you now.” And water began to flow, they went out and managed to get out along the road that ran along the embankment just above the canal and go towards Dmitrov.
Iskander, tell me, is it known whether anyone kept such calculations of how many people died as a result of the flooding of these villages?
I couldn't find these calculations anywhere. And when they published on blogs, I gave excerpts to my friends, there were a lot of objections from Stalinist people, it was clear from their blogs on LiveJournal that they were ardent admirers of Stalin, they said that in general no one could have died there, that at home stand high above the river level, and even though there is an attic, there is also a roof. But when I talked to doctors, they said that there was little chance of survival in such a situation.
Is it even known what the approximate population of these villages was before the flood?
There are no such estimates for specific villages. It is known that out of 27 million, this figure is now considered, the regular composition of the Red Army accounts for only one third of this number.
Even less.
Two thirds are civilians. The military told me that there is no need to raise this topic at all, because any shelling means the death of civilians.
Iskander, I will interrupt you and interrupt our program for a few minutes while the news broadcast passes, after which we will continue our conversation.
Good evening again, dear listeners. We continue the “Price of Victory” program, which is hosted today by me, Vitaly Dymarsky. Let me remind you that our guest is journalist, historian Iskander Kuzeev, author of the article “The Moscow Flood”, published in today’s issue of the newspaper “Top Secret”. And we talk with our guest about those events of the autumn of 1941, which Iskander Kuzeev describes. So, we settled on trying to find out how many people lived and how many died in those 30-40 villages that were flooded by special order of the Supreme High Command by releasing water from the Istra and other reservoirs at the end of 1941. It is clear that such calculations are difficult; it is unlikely that we will find the exact number. Have you ever wondered how many of these villages were later revived? Do they exist now or is there nothing left of them and everything was built in a new place?
Many villages that stood almost at water level were rebuilt. Those villages that were on higher ground were flooded and survived. But it’s also difficult to say how flooded they were. Here I must respond to opponents who have already spoken out about the fact that the flooding could not have happened at all, that the villages on the Sestra River are located very low above the water level. This is due to the fact that there was no flooding there. Here I must make a short historical digression. The Sestra River is located on the route of the old canal, which began to be built in the time of Catherine, there is such a village on the Istra River Catherine's Walls, and the canal passes through the city of Solnechnogorsk, it was not completed due to the fact that the need no longer existed. Almost all the structures were already ready. This canal is actually on the Moscow-Petersburg highway. And when the Nikolaev railway was built, the construction of the canal stopped, but all the hydraulic structures were built - locks, mills. And the Sestra River to Solnechnogorsk, it was all, as the river workers say, locked, there were a lot of locks and mills. And all these old hydraulic structures did not allow floods to overflow, so the villages on this route were navigable. One village where I visited, for example, is called Ust-Pristan, it is at the confluence of the Yakhroma and the Istra, and the houses are very low, it is clear that if the rise was 6 meters, then all this could be flooded.
It's clear. I have your article in front of me and I want to read out the dialogue between Zhukov and Stalin. When Stalin says that everything should be ready in two days, Zhukov objects to him: “Comrade Stalin, we must evacuate the population from the flood zone.” To which follows the following response from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “So that information leaks to the Germans and so that they send their reconnaissance company to you? This is war, Comrade Zhukov, we are fighting for victory at any cost. I have already given the order to blow up the Istra dam. He didn’t even regret his dacha in Zubatovo. She too could have been covered by a wave.” Well, as I understand it, this is not a real dialogue? Not exactly fictional, but reconstructed?
This is a reconstruction, yes.
Reconstruction based on some individual evidence, apparently?
Yes. After all, the flow from the Istrinsky reservoir practically reached the Moscow River and could flood all these dacha villages, dachas in Zubatovo, which are on Rublevka and up to the Rublevskaya dam. The level there is 124 meters, and the level of Istra...
And, tell me, Iskander, have you talked with any military leaders, our strategists, military experts? Sacrifice, the price of Victory is an issue that we constantly discuss. As for just purely military effectiveness, was this an effective measure to stop the Germans?
In general, yes. After all, the front line from Kalinin to Moscow was actually reduced to two points - the village of Kryukovo, known even from songs, and Permilovsky Heights, where there is a monument, by the way, the only monument to General Vlasov in Russia.
Is it still worth it?
Yes. His name is stamped there; he commanded the 20th Army there.
And, well, as one of, not a separate monument to him.
Yes. Kuznetsov’s shock army then appeared there when the offensive began, an armored train of the 73rd NKVD, and some other military units, including the 20th Army.
But the same operation can be done differently, so there was no other way out?
Well, yes, and this operation was not the only one of its kind. After all, there was another dictator on the other side...
We'll talk about this later, I'm just interested in this situation. You can also say this, like those Stalinists who object to you, well, they dispute the fact itself, but why should they dispute the fact itself, because we can say that there was no other way out, yes, it was difficult, associated with huge victims, but it nevertheless turned out to be effective.
At the same time, yes, there was a risk that the war would end in 1941; Guderian had already received orders to move towards Gorky. Troops from the north and south should have converged somewhere in the Petushki area...
Well, yes, it’s a known thing that Hitler had already decided that Moscow had actually fallen and that troops could be transferred to other directions.
I want to return once again to the question of the number of victims. I will once again refer to your article, where you write that when they tried to find out the flood zone and at least the approximate number of victims, the villagers turned your attention to something else. I’ll quote again, in this case the quote is accurate, since you heard it yourself: “See that hill? There are just skeletons piled up there.” And they pointed to a small hill on the bank of the Sestra River. “The Canal Army men lie there.” Apparently, these are the people, the Gulag people, who built this canal. That's why I'm asking this. Apparently, there, in addition to villages, in addition to living souls, there were some burial places, cemeteries, and so on, which were also all flooded?
Most likely, the cemeteries were on the right side. In the village of Karmanovo, where they told me about the Canal Army soldiers, I still thought that I had misheard, and asked: “Red Army soldiers?” - “No, channel army men.” There, after all, the canal became a fortification structure and, in fact, all the canal builders can also be considered people who became victims of this war, the defense of Moscow. According to various sources, in the city of Dmitrov, scientists in the local museum counted, there, according to their estimates, from 700 thousand to 1.5 million people died.
Did you die or were you involved in construction?
They died during construction, there are mass graves there. I was told in the village of Test Pilot, on the shore of the Ikshinsky reservoir, now some structures there have occupied the last collective farm field, began to build cottages on a small mound, and there they came across mass graves. Recently, builders reconstructed the Volokolamskoye Highway, they were building the third line of the tunnel and the interchange at the intersection of Svoboda and Volokolamskoye Highways, there were a lot of skeletons under each support, there was a cemetery, and there were a lot of skeletons piled up under the canals themselves. There, if a person fell or simply stumbled, there was an order not to stop any concrete work, everything was done at a continuous pace, and people simply died. There is such a case described in the literature during the construction of the 3rd lock, when a person simply fell into concrete in front of everyone.
Iskander, one more question. There is a version that when the Soviet leadership was preparing to evacuate from Moscow and when it was believed that Moscow would have to be surrendered to the Germans, was there actually a plan to flood the city of Moscow itself?
Yes, researchers who are associated with this topic also told me about this. There is such a Khimki dam between the Leningradskoye Highway and the cottage village of the current Pokrovskoye-Glebovo in the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo park. This dam holds the entire cascade of reservoirs north of Moscow - Khimkinskoye, Pirogovskoye, Klyazminskoye, Pestovskoye, Uchinskoye and Ikshinskoye, is at a level of 162 meters, like all reservoirs, the water in the Moscow River is in the city center at a level of 120 meters, that is the drop is 42 meters, and, as I was told, a ton of explosives was planted there, including this dam and its dead volume, which is already below the discharge of flood waters, below the discharge of the Khimki River that flows from it, and this flow could simply fall on capital. I talked with a veteran, the former head of the canal, we were sitting on the third floor of the building next to the 7th lock at the intersection of Volokolamskoe Highway and Svoboda Street, he said: “Here, we are sitting on the third floor, the flow is just right, according to our calculations.” , it was to this level that he could rise.” And then a lot of even high-rise buildings would practically be flooded.
But there is no documentary evidence of these plans, as I understand it? Are there only oral testimonies from people?
Yes. And there they told me that when they were dismantling the old bridge across the Klyazminskoye Reservoir, now a new bridge has been built there on Dmitrovskoe Highway, and already in the 80s they found explosives in huge quantities.
Which, apparently, was intended specifically for an explosion.
To blow up the bridge. But here this territory is closed, back in the 80s it was possible to drive along this dam, and there was a “brick” and it was written “from 20.00 to 8.00”, that is, the road was only closed in the evening, but now it is completely closed, fenced with barbed wire and this area is completely inaccessible.
Actually, when we say that there is no documentary evidence, documentary evidence, one can also assume that we simply do not have access to all documents, because, as you know, our archives are opened, but very lazily, I would say.
And this story in the form of a legend circulated for a long time and it was attributed that it was Hitler’s idea to flood Moscow after the Germans arrived. There was a play like this by Andrei Vishnevsky “Moskau See”, “Moscow Sea”. Such a reconstruction, when after Hitler’s victory they walk on boats...
It was as if it was a purely propaganda move that Hitler was going to sink.
Or maybe it was some kind of preparation for the fact that they themselves could be flooded.
Yes, a transformation of real events.
By the way, Comrade Hitler himself also launched a similar operation in Berlin.
Yes, here, from these operations, it is clear that there is very little difference between two such dictators; when it comes to saving his own life, the dictator is ready to sacrifice the lives of his own people. In the film “Liberation” there was an episode when the floodgates on the Spree River and the dampers were opened...
Yes, and the actor Olyalin, who played Captain Tsvetaev there.
Who died there heroically. You can have different attitudes towards this film, which is also largely propaganda, but there was an amazing scene when the Germans, who were literally opponents just five minutes ago, carried out the wounded together, held the cordon line together so that women and children could get out first, this is on Unter den Linden station, right next to the Reichstag.
By the way, about the film “Liberation” I could say that, yes, it is indeed perceived, and probably quite rightly, as a film primarily a propaganda film, but there are quite a lot of real events of the war reproduced there, from which every unbiased person can draw their own conclusions . I remember, for example, a lot of episodes from the film “Liberation” that made me think completely, perhaps not what the authors of the film expected. And about how Comrade Stalin gave orders to take certain cities at any cost, and so on. Therefore, this film also has its own, so to speak, perhaps even historical value. By the way, in my opinion, flooding was being prepared not only in Berlin. It seems to me that somewhere else, in my opinion, in Poland there was an option for flooding the city? No, there was an explosion; in my opinion, they wanted to blow up Krakow completely.
As for Krakow, I think this is also rather from the realm of legend, because Krakow stands very high...
There really was no flooding there. First of all, thank you for opening, although perhaps not completely yet, yet another page in the history of the war. To what extent did you feel like you opened it, and how much is still closed on this page?
Oh, a lot of things are closed. In general, a very interesting topic is the attitude of the military leadership towards the civilian population. Just the other day, the memoirs of the Meyerhold Theater director Alexander Nesterov were published. This is such a titanic feat of the Moscow poet German Lukomnikov, who turned out to have decayed, literally collected from scraps, diary entries from the war, 1941-42, in Taganrog. And when I read these diary entries of Nesterov, my hair just stood on end. I felt like I was reading passages from Orwell's 1984, when bombs are systematically dropped on the city of London and people are killed in artillery attacks. Russian people were dying, they were shelled throughout the winter of 1941 and in the summer of 1942, the city and its residential areas were shelled, people died, they were shelled and bombs were dropped on residential buildings. The front-line city of Rostov surrendered several times and was again occupied by Soviet troops. And from these diary entries one can see people’s attitude to this: “The Bolsheviks dropped bombs, the Bolsheviks shelled the city.”
That is, both sides who fought did not take the civilian population into account, I think we can draw the following conclusion. By the way, if you look at the losses in the Second World War, not only of the Soviet Union, but also of all participants on both sides, both the anti-Hitler coalition and supporters of Germany, you can see that purely military losses are the ratio, of course, in each country its own, it all depends on the degree of participation in the war - but much more civilians died than on the battlefields.
Yes. At the same time, I did not hear that, for example, the Germans bombed Koenigsberg occupied by Soviet troops. This did not happen.
Well, there are, of course, examples of such saving people. They can also probably be treated differently. Many, for example, believe that the same French, having yielded to Hitler quickly enough, we know, there was practically no resistance there, that by doing so they simply saved people’s lives and saved cities, the same Paris, relatively speaking, occupied by the Germans, it remained so , as it was. And there are still many discussions on the topic of the siege of Leningrad. This is a difficult topic. There's an insane amount of people there. Firstly, that this blockade could have been avoided if they had pursued a wiser, or perhaps more rational, policy in relations with Finland, on the one hand.
Well, yes, it's a complicated story.
And in none of the occupied cities was there such a situation as in Leningrad. In Guderian’s memoirs, I read his notes, where he talked about the supply of food, that notices were posted that there was enough food so that the population did not worry in Orel, for example.
So people were sacrificed without looking back, without any calculations. And I, perhaps even indirectly answering many of our listeners who often write to us why we are talking about this, this, that, I want to remind you once again that our program is about the price of Victory. The price of Victory, I emphasize the word “price,” could have been different, in our opinion. And the price of Victory, which is primarily expressed by the number of deaths, the number of human lives given and laid on the altar of this Victory. And just to get to the bottom of this, because victory at any cost is very often, it seems to me, a Pyrrhic victory. In any case, you need to be able to look critically at your past and somehow understand it. Iskander, as we say in interviews with writers, what are your creative plans? Will you continue this topic? Will you still be involved in it, some kind of investigation, research?
In the next issue we plan to continue this topic specifically in the Moscow region. I think that Nesterov’s memoirs, which were published on the Internet just the other day, deserve to be discussed separately. This is very interesting. It is a miracle that such records have survived. After all, it was dangerous to store them. There is, for example, the following entry: “Residents of Taganrog are celebrating the anniversary of the city’s liberation from the Bolsheviks.” It is a miracle that such records have survived.
It’s a miracle that they survived in the hands of private individuals, because I think there is quite a lot of evidence of this kind. Another thing is that they all ended up, as they once said, “in the right place.” I think that many listeners probably remember that I have now conducted several programs with a researcher from Veliky Novgorod who is involved in collaboration during the war. And there are a lot of documents there. I even went to Veliky Novgorod and saw that there were a lot of documents preserved from that time, where there was a lot of evidence of how all this happened. Occupation is also a very difficult topic. So there are some documents, evidence.
After all, Novgorod is a city that was occupied for almost four years.
Smaller, there Pskov, in my opinion, was under German occupation for the longest time. Well, okay, I thank Iskander Kuzeev for our conversation today. And we say goodbye to you, dear listeners, until our next program. All the best, goodbye.
Original taken from
For 1942, the map shows the maximum advance of fascist troops into the depths of the Soviet Union. On the scale of the Soviet Union, this is a small part, but what were the victims in the occupied territories.
If you look closely, in the north the Germans stopped in the area of the current Republic of Karelia, then Leningrad, Kalinin, Moscow, Voronezh, Stalingrad. In the south we reached the area of the city of Grozny. You can't describe it in a few words.
From the school history course we know that the Nazis in the USSR reached such cities as Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Grozny, Kalinin, Voronezh. After 1942, when the Nazis advanced as far as possible across the territory of the USSR, they began to retreat. You can see their progress in more detail on the map:
The Germans advanced quite a lot deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. But they were never able to take strategically important cities: neither Moscow nor Leningrad submitted. In the Leningrad direction they were stopped near the city of Tikhvin. In the Kalinin direction - near the village of Mednoye. Near Stalingrad we reached the Volga, the last outpost was the village of Kuporosnoye. On the western front, near the city of Rzhev, the Germans were knocked out at the cost of incredible efforts (remember Tvardovsky’s famous poem “I was killed near Rzhev”). They also fought furiously for the Caucasus, which was of strategic importance - access to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. They were stopped near the city of Maykop.
Where the fascists reached is already a well-known matter, and every historian can accurately tell everything in detail, about every point, about every city and village in which fierce battles took place, everything is especially well described and remains in the memory in books that can be read through For many years I just picked it up and read it.
And this is what the map looks like:
There are a lot of maps shown, but I will say in words: During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis came close to Moscow, they were only 30 km away from Moscow, but they were stopped there. Naturally, I know everything about the blockade of Leningrad, the Battle of Kursk, and the Rzhev direction. Here is a map of the battle for Moscow.
http://dp60.narod.ru/image/maps/330.jpg
This is the line of maximum advance of the Germans &; Co deep into Soviet territory.
There are many types of cards.
To be honest, I don’t really trust the Internet; I trust history textbooks more.
I live in Belarus myself and therefore the map may not be much different.
But here’s the photo I took, just for you!
The Nazis went far, but, as you know, they failed to capture Moscow. I was interested in information not long ago when the Nazis began to retreat. It was possible to find only some facts about events near Moscow. You can quote:
The map shows the territory of the USSR, which the Germans managed to pass through until November 15, 1942 (after which they went a little deeper and began to retreat):
The German offensive against the USSR was in 1941, they almost achieved their goal, and the Nazis had only about thirty kilometers left to reach Moscow, but they still failed, but here is a map where everything is described in detail
The troops of Nazi Germany cross the border river. Location unknown, June 22, 1941
The beginning of hostilities of Nazi Germany against the USSR. Lithuanian SSR, 1941
Units of the German army entered the territory of the USSR (from trophy photographs taken from captured and killed Wehrmacht soldiers). Location unknown, June 1941
Units of the German army on the territory of the USSR (from trophy photographs seized from captured and killed Wehrmacht soldiers). Location unknown, June 1941
German soldiers during the battle near Brest. Brest, 1941
Nazi troops are fighting near the walls of the Brest Fortress. Brest, 1941
German General Kruger in the vicinity of Leningrad. Leningrad region, 1941
German units enter Vyazma. Smolensk region, 1941
Employees of the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich inspect a captured Soviet light tank T-26 (photographing of the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich). The location of the shooting has not been established, September 1941.
A camel captured as a trophy and used by German mountain rangers. Krasnodar region, 1941
A group of German soldiers near a pile of Soviet canned food captured as a trophy. Location unknown, 1941
Part of the SS guards the vehicles with the population being driven away to Germany. Mogilev, June 1943
German soldiers among the ruins of Voronezh. Location unknown, July 1942
A group of Nazi soldiers on one of the streets of Krasnodar. Krasnodar, 1942
German soldiers in Taganrog. Taganrog, 1942
Raising the fascist flag by the Nazis in one of the occupied areas of the city. Stalingrad, 1942
A detachment of German soldiers on one of the streets of occupied Rostov. Rostov, 1942
German soldiers in a captured village. The location of the shooting has not been established, the year of shooting has not been established.
A column of advancing German troops near Novgorod. Novgorod the Great, August 19, 1941
A group of German soldiers in one of the occupied villages. The location of the shooting has not been established, the year of shooting has not been established.
Cavalry division in Gomel. Gomel, November 1941
Before retreating, the Germans destroy the railway near Grodno; the soldier puts in the fuse for the explosion. Grodno, July 1944
German units retreat between Lake Ilmen and the Gulf of Finland. Leningrad Front, February 1944
Retreat of the Germans from the Novgorod region. Location unknown, January 27, 1944
