Lieutenant General Andrei Andreevich Vlasov at the beginning of 1942 was one of the most popular personalities in the USSR. After the battle of Moscow, where he was named in Stalin’s order as one of the most distinguished army commanders, a ditty was sung about him: “The guns spoke in a deep voice, / the thunder of the guns rumbled, / General Comrade Vlasov / gave the Germans pepper.” But just six months later, his name was branded as a symbol of betrayal.

Background

In the winter of 1941/42, after the Germans were driven back from Moscow, the Soviet high command was going to complete the ongoing defeat of the occupiers. In addition to continuing the offensive on central direction, it was planned to strike the enemy in Ukraine and near Leningrad. It was planned not only to lift the blockade of the city on the Neva, but also to inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy Army Group North and push it back from the northern capital.

The plan of the Headquarters provided for the delivery of two counter strikes. Having crossed the Volkhov, the Volkhov Front under the command of Army General Kirill Meretskov was supposed to advance to the rear of the enemy troops besieging Leningrad. From the Neva, the Leningrad Front, commanded by Lieutenant General Mikhail Khozin, was to be struck. Two fronts captured the German 18th Army in a pincer movement.

During the offensive of the Volkhov Front a vital role was assigned 2nd shock army under the command of Lieutenant General Grigory Sokolov. This army was formed in November 1941 in the Volga region as the 26th combined arms army. Initially, it was intended to cover the area east of Moscow in the event of a German breakthrough there. In December 1941, she was transferred to the Volkhov Front, which had just successfully completed the Tikhvin offensive operation. The Germans planned to surround Leningrad with a second ring and link up with Finnish troops east of Lake Ladoga, but were forced to retreat across the Volkhov River.

Grigory Sokolov, who joined the army from the NKVD, turned out to be unsuitable for his new position. Marked by a whole series of ridiculous orders, he alienated the commanders of all formations. His leadership, when attempting to go on the offensive on January 7, 1942, brought great losses to the army. After only two weeks in office he was dismissed. On January 10, Lieutenant General Nikolai Klykov became the new commander of the army.

Failure of the winter offensive

On January 13, 1942, the 2nd Shock Army crossed the Volkhov River again, this time successfully. biting into enemy defense and repelling frequent German counterattacks, it gradually formed a bridgehead up to 60 km deep west of the Volkhov River. All army formations crossed to this bridgehead. Its bottleneck in figurative and literally there remained a neck between Myasny Bor and Spasskaya Polist, connecting it with the eastern bank of the Volkhov. Since February, the Germans have been trying to localize the breakthrough Soviet troops, narrow the corridor of the 2nd Shock Army, or even cut it off completely.

In its turn Soviet command made preparations to continue the offensive. Great importance was given to the capture of the city and railway station Lyuban. The 2nd Shock Army approached it from the south. The 54th Army attacked from the north Leningrad Front. With the capture of Lyuban, the German group in the area of ​​Chudovo station would have been cut off.

On February 25, the 2nd Shock Army resumed its offensive and three days later, individual units reached the outskirts of Lyuban. But the Germans restored the situation with a counterattack. By this time, Soviet offensives on Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk, near Vyazma and Rzhev had failed. The headquarters, however, planned to try their luck in the Leningrad direction. On March 9, a group of its representatives led by Marshal Kliment Voroshilov and GKO member Georgy Malenkov arrived at the headquarters of the Volkhov Front “to strengthen it.” The group also included General Vlasov.

Meanwhile, the front command already knew from the prisoners that the Germans were going to go on the offensive with the goal of cutting off the 2nd Shock Army in the bridgehead. The information was true: the decision on this offensive was made on March 2 at a meeting with Hitler.

2nd drum environment

On March 15, 1942, the Germans launched an offensive on both sides of the neck that connected the 2nd strike with the “mainland”. Fierce fighting raged here until April 8. Several times the Germans managed to cut the corridor at Myasny Bor, but Soviet troops again restored it in counterattacks. In the end, the corridor remained with the Soviet troops, but the ability to supply the army along it sharply deteriorated: in mid-April, ice drift and flooding on the Volkhov began, and enemy aircraft dominated the clear spring sky.

The failure of the offensive was followed by organizational conclusions. The commander of the 2nd Shock Army, Klykov, was dismissed and replaced by Vlasov. The Volkhov Front was abolished and a group of troops became part of the Leningrad Front. Based on Vlasov’s report, General Khozin sent a proposal to Headquarters to stop further offensive attempts and withdraw the 2nd Shock Army beyond the Volkhov. On May 12, the Headquarters agreed to this. The withdrawal of the 2nd strike from the “bag” began.

In the first days, we managed to withdraw a cavalry corps, a tank brigade, two rifle divisions and two brigades. But on May 22, the Germans went on the offensive with the goal of cutting off the escape route for the remaining units, which they succeeded in doing. Seven divisions and six brigades, numbering more than 40 thousand soldiers, 873 guns and mortars, were completely surrounded. Attempts to break through the encirclement again and ensure the supply of troops in the “cauldron” by air did not lead to success.

On June 9, the Volkhov Front, led by Meretskov, was restored. He was tasked with saving the 2nd strike. In fierce battles on June 22, it was possible to establish land communication with it. By this time, the bridgehead of the 2nd strike had narrowed so that it was shot right through by German artillery. Over the next three days, the corridor was either cut by the Germans or restored again. Several times the 2nd strike, on Vlasov’s orders, went for a breakthrough. On June 25, the ring closed completely.

Surrender of Vlasov

General Vlasov, until the last moment, while there were still chances to save the army, remained with it and led the operation on the western bank of the Volkhov. After the Germans established complete control over the breakthrough area, Vlasov gave the order to the remaining units to break out of the encirclement as best they could. Vlasov himself headed a group of staff workers. He had already emerged from encirclement in September 1941 near Kiev, when he commanded the 37th Army. This time he failed. His group dispersed. Vlasov himself was captured by the Germans on July 11, 1942.

It is obvious that until the moment of capture, Vlasov did not plan to cooperate with the enemy. Otherwise, he would have announced the surrender of the 2nd strike even earlier. This would be an unprecedented precedent during the Great Patriotic War, which would have a great resonance in the world, and in addition would greatly increase Vlasov’s shares with his new owners. But he didn’t go for it then. The betrayal began later - when Vlasov, in captivity, proposed to the Germans to create an army of collaborators.

This summer, search groups, who had a little money from the Ministry of Defense for their search, were brought for a week to raise and bury a grandfather who fought in the 42nd in the 2nd Shock. He is 86 years old (God bless him) he is a former junior military technician 1102 rifle regiment, miraculously survived. At the funeral he began to speak his mind:

""" If Vlasov had not appeared in April 1942, we would all have died here. Our group took the regiment's banner out of the encirclement, several people from the regiment headquarters left us here, if not for Vlasov, Khozin would have rotted us here (general Khozin commanded the Leningrad Front and temporarily the 2nd Shock) We stood here because Vlasov was with us all spring, Vlasov every day, either in the artillery regiment, then with us, then with the anti-aircraft gunners - always with us, if it weren’t for the general. if we would have given up back in May"""
The cameras were immediately turned off, the organizers began to make excuses that the old man was in captivity, etc. And the grandfather went wild, little puny, almost no hair, and began to scald: “We ate bark before Vlasov, and drank water from the swamp, we were animals, our 327th division was CROSSED OUT from the Leningrad Front’s food certificates (Khrushchev later restored the Voronezh 327th Yu).

The death of the 1102nd Infantry Regiment, the feat of these Voronezh guys, is not noted anywhere. They died (the regiment died, unlike other units that surrendered) in battle. In all materials of TsAMO, the 1102nd regiment died a heroic death. It is not in the reports of the Volkhov Front, it is not in the reports of the Leningrad Front, there is no 1102nd infantry regiment yet, there are no fighters. There are no 1102nd regiments.

On March 9, A. Vlasov flew to the headquarters of the Volkhov Front, on 03/10/42 he was already at CP 2 Ud.A in Ogoreli, and on 03/12/42 he led the battle to capture the ill-fated Krasnaya Gorka, which was taken by the 327th Infantry Division along with the 259th Infantry Division, 46th Infantry Division, 22 and 53 OBR 03/14/42. Krasnaya Gorka is almost the farthest section of the ring; staff commanders almost never came there, limiting themselves to control through an intermediate point in Ozerye, where there was a small task force of officers, medical battalions, a food warehouse, and the place was not marshy. Krasnaya Gorka had no significance, but it was like a thorn. And then a whole lieutenant general appeared with her and immediately established control and interaction between the formations, since they often beat each other, especially at night. Then the Germans blocked the corridor at Myasnoy Bor for the first time on March 16, 1942. The blame for this lies entirely with the commanders of 59 and 52 A (Galanin and Yakovlev) and the commander of the Meretskov Front. He then personally led the clearing of the corridor, sending 376 Rifle Division there and pouring in 3,000 non-Russian reinforcements 2 days before. Those who came under bombing for the first time, some died (many), some fled without breaking through the corridor. One regiment commander, Khatemkin (as he was called - both Kotenkin and Kotenochkin) shot himself after that. Meretskov was confused, he clearly speaks about this in his memoirs. The main action to break through the ring was carried out by 2 Ud.A itself from the inside. Who do you think led these efforts? That's right, A. Vlasov, personally commanding in the area east of Novaya Keresti units of the 58th Specialized Brigade and 7th Guards Tank Brigade, as well as courses for junior lieutenants.

During his stay in the 2nd Ud.A from March 9 to June 25, 1942, Lieutenant General A. Vlasov did everything he could, as a military man and as a person, including while surrounded at Myasny Bor. In a situation where, instead of food and ammunition, fresh newspapers are dumped into the cauldron, it is unlikely that anyone would have done more. When, at the moment of the greatest concentration of people around (by the way, the majority who had time, dressed in clean clothes, going to last Stand, fortunately, they managed to bring in supplies of new underwear and summer uniforms before the complete encirclement) before the breakthrough on the night of 06.25.42 west of the river 20 minutes before the appointed hour, 2 regiments of guards mortars (28 and 30 Guards Minp) deliver a concentrated attack directly on them with four regimental salvoes, there is no time for sentimentality. Nevertheless, even on the night of June 25, 1942, he made an attempt to exit the ring towards the bullet of Lavrenty Palych, trying to refuse the task assigned to him, but fate did not...

Three times loyal general. The last secret Andrey Vlasov.

http://www.epochtimes.ru/content/view/10243/34/

So - autumn 1941. The Germans attack Kyiv. However, they cannot take the city. The defense has been greatly strengthened. And it is headed by a forty-year-old Major General of the Red Army, commander of the 37th Army, Andrei Vlasov. A legendary figure in the army. He has gone all the way - from private to general. He went through the civil war, graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod theological seminary, and studied at the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. Friend of Mikhail Blucher. Just before the war, Andrei Vlasov, then still a colonel, was sent to China as military advisers to Chai-kan-shi. He received the Order of the Golden Dragon and a gold watch as a reward, which aroused the envy of all the generals of the Red Army. However, Vlasov was not happy for long. Upon returning home, at the Alma-Ata customs, the order itself, as well as other generous gifts from Generalissimo Chai-kan-shi, were confiscated by the NKVD...

Even Soviet historians were forced to admit that the Germans “got punched in the face for the first time,” precisely from the mechanized corps of General Vlasov.

This has never happened in the history of the Red Army; with only 15 tanks, General Vlasov stopped tank army Walter Model in the suburbs of Moscow - Solnechegorsk, and pushed back the Germans, who were already preparing for a parade on Red Square in Moscow, 100 kilometers away, while liberating three cities... This was something to earn the nickname “the savior of Moscow”. After the battle of Moscow, the general was appointed deputy commander of the Volkhov Front.

Andrei Vlasov understood that he was flying to his death. As a person who had gone through the crucible of this war near Kiev and Moscow, he knew that the army was doomed, and no miracle would save it. Even if this miracle is himself - General Andrei Vlasov, the savior of Moscow.

Troops 59 A already from 12/29/41 fought to break through enemy fortifications on the river. Volkhov, suffering heavy losses in the zone from Lezno - Vodosje to Sosninskaya Pristan.
The commissioning of 2 Ud.A only complemented the almost continuous attacks of formations 52 and 59 A, the battles took place on January 7 and 8.
The target of the offensive of 2 Ud.A also on January 27 was not Lyuban, but the city of Tosno; on 02/10-12/42 a joint offensive of 2 Ud.A from the south, 55 A from the north, 54 A from the east, 4 and 59 A from southeast in the direction of Tosno, but it did not happen for a number of reasons; only at the end of the 3rd decade of February did the redirection of attacks from 2 Ud.A to Lyuban take shape, in order to at least cut off the Germans in the Chudovsky Cauldron; 54A also hit there in March.
59 A did not have any instructions to connect with 4 A, it was breaking through the German defense to connect with 2 Ud.A, advancing from the southwest both towards Lyuban and towards Chudovo; 59 A, putting more than 60% of its initial l / s, was withdrawn to the south into the breakthrough zone, and its strip north of Gruzino was occupied by 4 A; to unite with 4 Moreover, there was no need due to the fact that both armies had the closest connection in the elbow connection in the Gruzino region.
The Germans blocked the corridor at Myasny Bor for the first time not on 03/16/42; the corridor was restored only on March 28, 1942 with a narrow thread of 2 km.
General A. Vlasov flew to 2 Ud.A already on 03/10/42, by 03/12/42 he was already in the Krasnaya Gorka area, which, under his leadership, on 03/14/42 units of 2 Ud.A were able to take; from 03/20/42 he was transferred to lead the breakthrough of the intercepted corridor from inside the boiler, which he did - the corridor was broken through from the inside, not without help, of course, from the outside.
On May 13, 1942, not only I. Zuev flew to Malaya Vishera - how can one imagine the flight of only one member of the Military Council without the army commander to report to the front commander M. Khozin; All three flew out for the report - Vlasov, Zuev, Vinogradov (NS Army); there was no talk of any hopelessness in Vlasov’s report; There, a counter-offensive plan was approved 2 Ud. and 59 And towards each other by cutting off the German “finger” hanging over the corridor - in TsAMO there are maps, sweepingly signed by Vlasov’s hand (approximately as in the photo) with an offensive plan and dated around 05/13/42; the plan for a joint offensive appeared because previously the attempt of 59 A alone to break through the “finger” from the outside with the forces of the Arkhangelsk fresh 2nd Infantry Division against its own 24th Guards, 259th and 267th Infantry Divisions inside had ended in complete failure, while the 2nd Infantry Division lost on the battlefield in 14 days, 80% of their fighters were surrounded and barely escaped with the remnants.
The withdrawal of troops did not begin on 05/23/42, and the headquarters near the village of Ogoreli was moved by fire due to the news of the appearance of the Germans in the village of Dubovik in the rear of our troops (and this was just reconnaissance), the troops behind the headquarters panicked, but quickly recovered; the departure was not massive, but planned, this is more exact word, since they retreated along lines that had previously been developed, approved, and prepared in detail.
The first time the corridor was breached was on 06/19/42, it lasted until the evening of 06/22/42, during which time about 14,000 people came out.
On the night of June 25, 1942, a decisive assault was planned. positions, before this our units received a massive attack in their concentrated battle formations at 22.40-22.55 by several regimental salvoes of two regiments of our RS (28 Guards and 30 Guards Minp); from 23.30 the units began to break through, about 7,000 people came out; The fighting inside the ring continued actively for another 2 days.

The total number of our prisoners from units 2 Ud.A in the cauldron ranged from 23,000 to 33,000 people. together with several parts 52 and 59 A; About 7,000 people died in the cauldron and during a breakthrough from inside.
http://www.soldat.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23515

Note to the head of the special department of the NKVD of the Volkhov Front

To Senior Major of State Security Comrade MELNIKOV

In accordance with the tasks set by you for the period of your business trip in the 59th Army from 06/21 to 06/28/42, I report:

By the end of the day on June 21, 1942, units of the 59th Army broke through the enemy defenses in the Myasnoy Bor area and formed a corridor along the narrow-gauge railway. approximately 700–800 meters wide.

In order to hold the corridor, units of the 59th Army turned their front to the south and north and occupied combat areas parallel to the narrow-gauge railway.

A group of troops covering the corridor from the north with its left flank, and a group covering the corridor from the south with its right flank, bordered the pore. Gain weight...

By the time units of the 59th Army reached the river. It turned out that the message from Shtarm-2 about the allegedly occupied lines of the 2nd Shock Army along the river. To gain weight were unfaithful. (Base: report of the commander of the 24th Rifle Brigade)

Thus, there was no ulnar connection between units of the 59th Army and the 2nd Shock Army. This connection did not exist subsequently.

The resulting corridor on the night from 21 to 22.06. Food products were delivered to the 2nd Shock Army by people and on horses.

From 21.06. and until recently, the corridor was under fire from enemy mortar and artillery fire; at times, individual machine gunners and machine gunners infiltrated into it.

On the night of June 21-22, 1942, units of the 2nd Shock Army advanced towards units of the 59th Army, approximately in the corridor with forces: the first echelon of the 46th Division, the second echelon of the 57th and 25th Brigades. Having reached the junction with units of the 59th Army, these formations went through the corridor to the rear of the 59th Army.

In total, on the day of June 22, 1942, 6,018 wounded people and about 1,000 people left the 2nd Shock Army. healthy soldiers and commanders. Both among the wounded and among the healthy there were people from most of the formations of the 2nd Shock Army.

From 06/22/42 to 06/25/42 no one left the 2nd UA. During this period, the corridor remained on the western bank of the river. Gain weight. The enemy fired strong mortar and artillery fire. fire. In the corridor itself there was also infiltration of machine gunners. Thus, the exit of units of the 2nd Shock Army was possible with battle.

On the night of June 24-25, 1942, a detachment under the overall command of Colonel KORKIN, formed from Red Army soldiers and commanders of the 2nd Shock Army who emerged from encirclement on June 22, 1942, was sent to reinforce units of the 59th Army and secure the corridor. measures taken enemy resistance in the corridor and on the western bank of the river. The plumpness was broken. Units of the 2nd UA moved in a common flow from approximately 2.00 on June 25, 1942.

Due to almost continuous enemy air raids during 06/25/42, the flow of people leaving the 2nd UA was stopped at 8.00. On this day, approximately 6,000 people came out. (according to the calculations of the counter standing at the exit), 1,600 of them were sent to hospitals.

From surveys of commanders, Red Army soldiers and operational personnel of the Special Divisions of the formations, it is obvious that the leading commanders of units and formations of the 2nd UA, when organizing the withdrawal of units from encirclement, did not count on leaving in battle, as evidenced by the following facts.

Detective officer of the 1st department. OO NKVD front lieutenant state. security comrade ISAEV was in the 2nd Shock Army. In a report addressed to me, he writes:

“On June 22, it was announced in hospitals and units that those who wish could go to Myasnoy Bor. Groups of 100–200 soldiers and commanders, lightly wounded, moved to M. Bor without orientation, without signs and without group leaders, ending up on the front line of the enemy’s defense and captured by the Germans. Before my eyes, a group of 50 people wandered into the Germans and were captured. Another group of 150 people walked towards the German front line of defense, and only with the intervention of a group of the Special Department of 92 pages div. switching to the enemy's side was prevented.

At 20 o'clock on June 24, by order of the division's logistics chief, Major BEGUNA, the entire division's personnel, about 300 people, set off along the clearing of the central communication line to M. Bor. Along the way, I observed the movement of similar columns from other brigades and divisions, numbering up to 3,000 people.

The column, having passed from the Drovyanoe Pole clearing up to 3 km, was met by a strong barrage of machine gun, mortar and artillery fire. enemy fire, after which the command was given to move back to a distance of 50 meters. When retreating back, there was mass panic and groups fleeing through the forest. We split into small groups and scattered through the forest, not knowing what to do next. Each person or small group solved their further task independently. There was no single leadership for the entire column.

Group 92 page div. 100 people decided to go the other way, along the narrow-gauge railway. As a result, we passed through a barrage of fire to Myasnoy Bor with some losses.”

The detective officer of the 25th Infantry Brigade, political instructor SHCHERBAKOV, writes in his report:

“June 24 this year. From early morning, a barrier detachment was organized, which detained all passing military personnel capable of carrying weapons. Together with the remnants of units and subunits, the brigades were divided into three companies. In each company, an operative, an employee of the NKVD OO, was assigned for maintenance.

When reaching the starting line, the command did not take into account the fact that the first and second companies had not yet moved to the starting line.

Having pushed the third company forward, we placed it under heavy enemy mortar fire.

The company command was confused and could not provide leadership to the company. The company, having reached the flooring under enemy mortar fire, scattered in different directions.

The group moved to the right side of the flooring, where there were detective officer KOROLKOV, platoon commander - ml. Lieutenant KU-ZOVLEV, several soldiers of the OO platoon and other units of the brigade, came across enemy bunkers and lay down under enemy mortar fire. The group consisted of only 18–20 people.

The group could not attack the enemy in such numbers, so the platoon commander KUZOVLEV suggested returning to the starting line, joining other units and leaving on the left side of the narrow-gauge railway, where enemy fire was much weaker.

Concentrating on the edge of the forest, the head of the OO comrade. PLAKHAT-NIK found Major KONONOV from the 59th Infantry Brigade, joined his group with his people, with whom they moved to the narrow-gauge railway and left together with the 59th Rifle Brigade.”

Operative officer of the 6th Guard. of the mortar division, state security lieutenant Comrade LUKASHEVICH writes about the 2nd division:

- All brigade personnel, both privates and commanders, were informed that the exit would begin by assault at exactly 23.00 on June 24, 1942 from the starting line of the river. Gain weight. The first echelon was the 3rd battalion, the second echelon was the second battalion. No one from the brigade command, service chiefs, or battalion commands came out of the encirclement due to the delay at the command post. Having broken away from the main body of the brigade and, obviously, starting to move in a small group, one must assume that they died along the way.

An operative of the Front's OO reserve, Captain GORNOSTAYEV, working at the concentration point of the 2nd Shock Army, had a conversation with those who had escaped the encirclement, about which he writes:

“Through our workers, commanders and soldiers who came out, it is established that all units and formations were given a specific task about the order and interaction of entering the formation in battle. However, during this operation, a disaster occurred, small units were confused, and instead of a fist, there were small groups and even individuals. The commanders, for the same reasons, could not control the battle. This happened as a result of heavy enemy fire.

There is no way to establish the actual position of all the parts, because no one knows. They declare that there is no food, many groups are rushing from place to place, and no one will bother to organize all these groups and fight to connect.

This is how the situation in the 2nd Shock Army that developed at the time of its exit and when it left the encirclement is briefly characterized.

It was known that the Military Council of the 2nd Shock Army was supposed to leave on the morning of June 25, but their exit did not take place.

From conversations with Deputy Head of the NKVD OO of the 2nd Shock Army Art. State Security Lieutenant Comrade GORBOV, with the soldiers accompanying the Military Council of the Army, with the driver of the Member of the Military Council, comrade. ZUEVA, from Beginning. chemical services of the Army, the Prosecutor of the Army and other persons, to one degree or another, aware of the attempt to escape from the encirclement of the Military Council, the following is obvious:

The Military Council came out with security measures in front and from the rear. Having encountered enemy fire resistance on the river. Plump, head guard under the command of Deputy. The head of the 2nd Shock Army, Comrade GORBOV, took the lead and went to the exit, while the Military Council and rear guards remained on the western bank of the river. Gain weight.

This fact is indicative in the sense that even when the Military Council left, there was no organization of the battle and control of the troops was lost.

Persons who went out alone and in small groups after June 25 of this year know nothing about the fate of the Military Council.

To summarize, it should be concluded that the organization of the withdrawal of the 2nd Shock Army suffered from serious shortcomings. On the one hand, due to the lack of interaction between the 59th and 2nd Shock Armies to secure the corridor, which largely depended on the leadership of the Front headquarters, on the other hand, due to confusion and loss of control of the troops of the 2nd Shock Army headquarters and headquarters connections when leaving the environment.

As of June 30, 1942, 4,113 healthy soldiers and commanders were counted at the concentration point, among them there were persons who came from encirclement under very strange circumstances, for example: on June 27, 1942, one Red Army soldier came out and said that he lay in the crater and is now returning. When he was asked to eat, he refused, declaring that he was full. The route to the exit was described by a route that was unusual for everyone.

It is possible that German intelligence used the moment of leaving the encirclement of the 2nd UA to send in converted Red Army soldiers and commanders who had previously been captured by them.

From a conversation with Deputy I know from the head of the PA Army - Comrade GORBOV that in the 2nd UA there were facts of group betrayal, especially among Chernigov residents. Comrade GORBOV in the presence of the Head. OO 59th Army Comrade NIKITIN said that 240 people from Chernigov betrayed their Motherland.

In the first days of June, in the 2nd UA there was an extraordinary betrayal of the Motherland on the part of the assistant. the head of the encryption department of the Army headquarters - MALYUK and an attempt to betray the Motherland by two more employees of the encryption department.

All these circumstances suggest the need for a thorough check of all personnel of the 2nd UA by strengthening security measures.

Beginning 1 branch of the NKVD organization

Captain of State Security - KOLESNIKOV.

Top secret
DEPUTY People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR to Commissar of State Security 1st Rank Comrade ABAKUMOV

REPORT

About the disruption of the military operation

On the withdrawal of troops of the 2nd Shock Army

From the enemy environment
According to agent data, interviews with commanders and soldiers of the 2nd Shock Army who emerged from encirclement, and personal visits to the site during combat operations of units and formations of the 2nd, 52nd and 59th armies, it was established:

Encirclement of the 2nd Shock Army consisting of the 22nd, 23rd, 25th, 53rd, 57th, 59th Rifle Brigades and the 19th, 46th, 93rd, 259th, 267th, 327th, 282nd and 305th rifle divisions The enemy managed to carry out this operation only because of the criminally negligent attitude of the front commander, Lieutenant General Khozin, who did not ensure the implementation of the Headquarters directive on the timely withdrawal of army troops from Lyuban and the organization of military operations in the Spasskaya Polist area.

Having taken command of the front, Khozin from the village area. Olkhovki and the Gazhi Sopki swamps brought the 4th, 24th and 378th rifle divisions into front reserve.

The enemy, taking advantage of this, built a narrow-gauge railway through the forest to the west of Spasskaya Polist and freely began to accumulate troops to attack the communications of the 2nd Shock Army Myasnoy Bor - Novaya Kerest.

The front command did not strengthen the defense of communications of the 2nd Shock Army. Northern and southern road The 2nd Shock Army was covered by the weak 65th and 372nd Rifle Divisions, stretched out in a line without sufficient firepower on insufficiently prepared defensive lines.

The 372nd Rifle Division by this time occupied a defense sector with a combat strength of 2,796 people, stretching 12 km from the village of Mostki to mark 39.0, which is 2 km north of the narrow-gauge railway.

The 65th Red Banner Rifle Division occupied a 14 km long defense sector with a combat strength of 3,708 people, stretching from the corner of the forest of the southern clearing of the flour mill to the barn 1 km from the village of Krutik.

The commander of the 59th Army, Major General Korovnikov, hastily approved the raw diagram of the division's defensive structures, presented by the commander of the 372nd Infantry Division, Colonel Sorokin; the defense headquarters did not check it.

As a result, of the 11 bunkers built by the 8th company of the 3rd regiment of the same division, seven turned out to be unusable.

The front commander Khozin and the front chief of staff, Major General Stelmakh, knew that the enemy was concentrating troops against this division and that they would not provide defense of the communications of the 2nd Shock Army, but they did not take measures to strengthen the defense of these sectors, having reserves at their disposal.

On May 30, the enemy, after artillery and air preparation with the help of tanks, launched an attack on the right flank of the 311th Regiment of the 65th Infantry Division.

The 2, 7 and 8 companies of this regiment, having lost 100 soldiers and four tanks, retreated.

To restore the situation, a company of machine gunners was sent out, which, having suffered losses, withdrew.

The Military Council of the 52nd Army threw its last reserves into battle - the 54th Guards rifle regiment with a complement of 370 people. The replenishment was introduced into battle on the move, uncoupled, and at the first contact with the enemy they scattered and were stopped by barrage detachments of special departments.

The Germans, having pushed back units of the 65th Division, came close to the village of Teremets-Kurlyandsky and cut off the 305th Infantry Division with their left flank.

At the same time, the enemy, advancing in the sector of the 1236th Infantry Regiment of the 372nd Infantry Division, broke through weak defense, dismembered the second echelon of the reserve 191st Infantry Division, reached the narrow-gauge railway in the area of ​​40.5 and linked up with the advancing units from the south.

The commander of the 191st Rifle Division repeatedly raised the question with the commander of the 59th Army, Major General Korovnikov, about the need and advisability of withdrawing the 191st Rifle Division to Myasny Bor in order to create a strong defense along the northern road.

Korovnikov did not take any measures, and the 191st Rifle Division, inactive and not erecting defensive structures, remained standing in the swamp.

Front commander Khozin and commander of the 59th Army Korovnikov, being aware of the concentration of the enemy, still believed that the defense of the 372nd division had been broken through by a small group of machine gunners, and, therefore, reserves were not brought into battle, which enabled the enemy to cut off the 2nd shock army.

Only on June 1, 1942, the 165th Infantry Division was brought into battle without artillery support, which, having lost 50 percent of its soldiers and commanders, did not improve the situation.

Instead of organizing the battle, Khozin withdrew the division from the battle and transferred it to another sector, replacing it with the 374th Infantry Division, which moved back somewhat at the time of the change of units of the 165th Infantry Division.

The available forces were not brought into battle in a timely manner; on the contrary, Khozin suspended the offensive and began moving division commanders:

He removed the commander of the 165th Infantry Division, Colonel Solenov, and appointed Colonel Morozov as the division commander, releasing him from the post of commander of the 58th Infantry Brigade.

Instead of the commander of the 58th Infantry Brigade, the commander of the 1st Infantry Battalion, Major Gusak, was appointed.

The chief of staff of the division, Major Nazarov, was also removed and Major Dzyuba was appointed in his place; at the same time, the commissar of the 165th Infantry Division, senior battalion commissar Ilish, was also removed.

In the 372nd Rifle Division, the division commander, Colonel Sorokin, was removed and Colonel Sinegubko was appointed in his place.

The regrouping of troops and the replacement of commanders dragged on until June 10. During this time, the enemy managed to create bunkers and strengthen the defense.

By the time it was surrounded by the enemy, the 2nd Shock Army found itself in an extremely difficult situation; the divisions numbered from two to three thousand soldiers, exhausted due to malnutrition and overworked by continuous battles.

From 12.VI. to 18.VI. 1942, soldiers and commanders were given 400 g of horse meat and 100 g of crackers, on subsequent days they were given from 10 g to 50 g of crackers, on some days the fighters received no food at all; which increased the number of exhausted fighters, and deaths from starvation appeared.

Deputy beginning The political department of the 46th division, Zubov, detained a soldier of the 57th rifle brigade, Afinogenov, who was cutting a piece of meat from the corpse of a killed Red Army soldier for food. Having been detained, Afinogenov died of exhaustion on the way.

Food and ammunition in the army ran out, they were transported by air due to white nights and the loss of the landing site near the village. Finev Meadow was essentially impossible. Due to the negligence of the army's logistics chief, Colonel Kresik, the ammunition and food dropped by planes into the army were not fully collected.
Total Sent to the Army Collected by the Army 7.62mm rounds 1,027,820 682,708 76mm rounds 2,222 1,416 14.5mm rounds 1,792 Not received 37mm anti-aircraft rounds 1,590 570 122mm rounds 288 136

The position of the 2nd Shock Army became extremely complicated after the enemy broke through the defense line of the 327th Division in the Finev Lug area.

The command of the 2nd Army - Lieutenant General Vlasov and the division commander, Major General Antyufeev - did not organize the defense of the swamp west of Finev Lug, which the enemy took advantage of, entering the division's flank.

The retreat of the 327th division led to panic, the army commander, Lieutenant General Vlasov, was confused, did not take decisive measures to detain the enemy, who advanced to Novaya Keresti and subjected the rear of the army to artillery fire, cut off the 19th Guards and 305th from the main forces of the army rifle divisions.

Units of the 92nd Division found themselves in a similar position, where an attack from Olkhovka by two infantry regiments With 20 tanks, the Germans, with the support of aviation, captured the lines occupied by this division.

The commander of the 92nd Rifle Division, Colonel Zhiltsov, showed confusion and lost control at the very beginning of the battle for Olkhovka.

The withdrawal of our troops along the Kerest River line significantly worsened the entire position of the army. By this time, the enemy artillery had already begun to sweep the entire depth of the 2nd Army with fire.

The ring around the army closed. The enemy, having crossed the Kerest River, entered the flank, penetrated our battle formations and launched an attack on the army command post in the Drovyanoye Pole area.

The army command post turned out to be unprotected; a special department company of 150 people was brought into battle, which pushed back the enemy and fought with him for 24 hours - June 23. The military council and army headquarters were forced to change their location, destroying communications facilities and, essentially, losing control of the troops. The commander of the 2nd Army, Vlasov, and the chief of staff, Vinogradov, showed confusion, did not lead the battle, and subsequently lost all control of the troops.

This was used by the enemy, who freely penetrated into the rear of our troops and caused panic.

On June 24, Vlasov decides to withdraw the army headquarters and rear institutions in marching order. The entire column was a peaceful crowd with disorderly movement, unmasked and noisy.

The enemy subjected the marching column to artillery and mortar fire. The Military Council of the 2nd Army with a group of commanders lay down and did not emerge from the encirclement. The commanders heading for the exit safely arrived at the location of the 59th Army. In just two days, June 22 and 23, 13,018 people emerged from encirclement, of which 7,000 were wounded.

The subsequent escape from the encirclement of the enemy by the 2nd Army soldiers took place in separate small groups.

It has been established that Vlasov, Vinogradov and other senior officials of the army headquarters fled in panic, withdrew from the leadership of combat operations and did not announce their location, they kept it under wraps.

The military council of the army, in particular in the persons of Zuev and Lebedev, showed complacency and did not stop the panicky actions of Vlasov and Vinogradov, broke away from them, this increased the confusion in the troops.

On the part of the head of the special department of the army, state security major Shashkov, decisive measures were not taken in a timely manner to restore order and prevent betrayal at the army headquarters itself:

On June 2, 1942, during the most intense combat period, he betrayed his Motherland - he went over to the enemy’s side with encrypted documents - pom. beginning 8th Department of the Army Headquarters, 2nd Rank Quartermaster Technician Semyon Ivanovich Malyuk, who gave the enemy the location of the 2nd Shock Army units and the location of the army command post. There have been cases of individual unstable military personnel voluntary surrender captured by the enemy.

July 10, 1942 agents we arrested German intelligence Nabokov and Kadyrov testified that during the interrogation of captured servicemen of the 2nd Shock Army, the following were present in the German intelligence agencies: the commander of the 25th Infantry Brigade, Colonel Sheludko, the assistant chief of the army's operational department, Major Verstkin, Quartermaster 1st Rank Zhukovsky, and the deputy commander of the 2nd Shock Army. Colonel Goryunov and a number of others who betrayed the command and political composition of the army to the German authorities.

Having taken command of the Volkhov Front, Army General Comrade. Meretskov led a group of troops of the 59th Army to join forces with the 2nd Shock Army. From 21 to 22 June this year. units of the 59th Army broke through the enemy defenses in the Myasnoy Bor area and formed a corridor 800 m wide.

To hold the corridor, army units turned their front to the south and north and occupied combat areas along the narrow-gauge railway.

By the time units of the 59th Army reached the Polnet River, it became clear that the command of the 2nd Shock Army, represented by Chief of Staff Vinogradov, had misinformed the front and had not occupied defensive lines on the western bank of the Polnet River. Thus, there was no ulnar connection between the armies.

On June 22, a significant amount of food was delivered to the resulting corridor for units of the 2nd Shock Army by people and on horseback. The command of the 2nd Shock Army, organizing the exit of units from the encirclement, did not count on leaving in battle, did not take measures to strengthen and expand the main communications at Spasskaya Polist and did not hold the gate.

Due to almost continuous enemy air raids and shelling of ground troops on a narrow section of the front, exit for units of the 2nd Shock Army became difficult.

Confusion and loss of control of the battle on the part of the command of the 2nd Shock Army completely aggravated the situation.

The enemy took advantage of this and closed the corridor.

Subsequently, the commander of the 2nd Shock Army, Lieutenant General Vlasov, was completely at a loss, and the chief of staff of the army, Major General Vinogradov, took the initiative into his own hands.

He kept his latest plan a secret and didn’t tell anyone about it. Vlasov was indifferent to this.

Both Vinogradov and Vlasov did not escape the encirclement. According to the chief of communications of the 2nd Shock Army, Major General Afanasyev, who was delivered on July 11 on a U-2 plane from behind enemy lines, they walked through the forest in the Oredezhsky region towards Staraya Russa.

The whereabouts of members of the military council Zuev and Lebedev are unknown.

The head of the special department of the NKVD of the 2nd Shock Army, State Security Major Shashkov, was wounded and shot himself.

We continue the search for the military council of the 2nd Shock Army by sending agents behind enemy lines and partisan detachments.

Head of the special department of the NKVD of the Volkhov Front Senior Major of State Security MELNIKOV

REFERENCE

on the situation of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front for the period JANUARY - JULY 1942

Army Commander - Major General VLASOV
Member of the Military Council - divisional commissar ZUEV
Chief of Army Staff - Colonel VINOGRADOV
Beginning Special Department of the Army - State Major. safety checkers

In January 1942, the 2nd Shock Army was tasked with breaking through the enemy’s defense line in the Spasskaya Polist - Myasnoy Bor sector, with the task of pushing the enemy to the northwest, jointly with the 54th Army, capturing the Lyuban station, cutting the Oktyabrskaya railway , completing its operation by participating in the general defeat of the enemy’s Chudov group by the Volkhov Front.
Fulfilling the assigned task, the 2nd Shock Army on January 20–22 of this year. broke through the enemy's defense front in an area of ​​8–10 km indicated to her, brought all units of the army into the breakthrough, and for 2 months, in stubborn bloody battles with the enemy, advanced to Lyuban, bypassing Lyuban from the southwest.
The indecisive actions of the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front, which was marching to join the 2nd Shock Army from the northeast, extremely slowed down its advance. By the end of February, the offensive impulse of the 2nd Shock Army ran out of steam and the advance stopped in the area of ​​Krasnaya Gorka, southwest of Lyuban.
The 2nd Shock Army, pushing back the enemy, drove into its defenses in a wedge stretching 60–70 km through wooded and swampy terrain.
Despite repeated attempts to expand the initial breakthrough line, which is a kind of corridor, no success was achieved...
March 20–21 this year the enemy managed to cut off the communications of the 2nd Shock Army, closing the corridor, with the intention of tightening the ring of encirclement and complete destruction.
Through the efforts of the 2nd Shock Army, units of the 52nd and 59th armies, the corridor was opened on March 28th.
May 25 this year Headquarters of the Supreme High Command gave the order from June 1 to begin the withdrawal of units of the 2nd Shock Army to the southeast, i.e. V reverse direction through the corridor.
On June 2, the enemy closed the corridor for the second time, having carried out a complete encirclement of the army. From that time on, the army began to be supplied with ammunition and food by air.
On June 21, in a narrow area 1–2 km wide in the same corridor, the enemy’s front line was broken through for the second time and the organized withdrawal of units of the 2nd Shock Army began.
June 25 this year the enemy managed to close the corridor for the third time and stop leaving our units. From that time on, the enemy forced us to stop supplying the army with air due to the large loss of our aircraft.
Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on May 21 this year. ordered units of the 2nd Shock Army, retreating from the northwest to the southeast, firmly covering themselves at the Olkhovka-Lake Tigoda line from the west, striking the main forces of the army from the west and simultaneously striking the 59th Army from the east to destroy the enemy in the Priyutino-Spasskaya salient Polish...
Commander of the Leningrad Front, Lieutenant General KHOZIN hesitated to carry out the order from Headquarters, citing the impossibility of moving equipment off-road and the need to build new roads. By the beginning of June this year. units did not begin to withdraw, but to the General Staff of the Red Army, signed by KHOZIN and the beginning. Staff of the STELMAKH front sent a report about the beginning of the withdrawal of army units. As it was later established, KHOZIN and STELMAKH deceived the General Staff, by this time the 2nd Shock Army was just beginning to pull back the rear of its formations.
The 59th Army acted very indecisively, launched several unsuccessful attacks and did not complete the tasks set by Headquarters.
Thus, by June 21 this year. formations of the 2nd Shock Army in the amount of 8 rifle divisions and 6 rifle brigades (35-37 thousand people), with three regiments of the RGK 100 guns, as well as about 1000 vehicles, concentrated in an area several kilometers south of N. Kerest on an area of ​​6x6 km.
According to data available from the General Staff as of July 1 of this year, 9,600 people with personal weapons left the units of the 2nd Shock Army, including 32 employees of division headquarters and army headquarters. According to unverified data, the head of the Special Barma came out.
According to data sent to the General Staff by an officer General Staff, Army Commander VLASOV and member of the Military Council ZUEV 06.27. They reached the western bank of the Polist River, guarded by 4 machine gunners, ran into the enemy and scattered under his fire; supposedly no one else saw them.
Chief of Staff STELMAKH 25.06. on HF reported that VLASOV and ZUEV reached west bank Polist River. The withdrawal of troops was controlled from the destroyed tank. Further fate theirs is unknown.
According to the Special Department of the NKVD of the Volkhov Front on June 26 of this year, by the end of the day 14 thousand people had left the units of the 2nd Shock Army. There is no information about the actual position of army units and formations at the front headquarters.
According to the statement of the commissar of a separate communications battalion PESKOV, Army Commander VLASOV and his headquarters commanders were moving towards the exit in the 2nd echelon; the group led by VLASOV came under artillery and mortar fire. VLASOV ordered to destroy all radio stations by burning, which led to the loss of command and control of the troops.
According to the head of the Special Department of the Front, as of June 17 The situation of the army units was extremely difficult; there were numerous cases of exhaustion of soldiers, illnesses from hunger, and an urgent need for ammunition. By this time, according to the General Staff, passenger planes daily supplied air to army units with 7–8 tons of food with a requirement of 17 tons, 1900–2000 shells with a minimum requirement of 40,000, 300,000 rounds, a total of 5 rounds per person.
It should be noted that, according to the latest data received from the General Staff on June 29. this year, a group of military personnel from units of the 2nd Shock Army entered the sector of the 59th Army through enemy rear lines into the area Mikhaleva, with absolutely no losses. Those who came out claim that in this area the enemy forces are few in number, while the passage corridor, now tightened by a strong enemy group and targeted by dozens of batteries of mortars and artillery, with daily intensified air strikes, is today almost inaccessible for the breakthrough of the 2nd Shock Army from the west, as well as the 59th Army from the east.

It is characteristic that the areas through which 40 servicemen leaving the 2nd Shock Army passed were precisely indicated by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for the exit of units of the 2nd Shock Army, but neither the Military Council of the 2nd Shock Army nor the Military Council The Volkhov Front did not ensure the implementation of the Headquarters directive.

Myasnoy Bor is a tragic page in the history of our Fatherland, the history of the Great Patriotic War. From the very beginning, as soon as Leningrad was under siege, steps were taken to liberate the city on the Neva from the enemy siege. In January 1942, troops of the Volkhov Front began an offensive. The 2nd Shock Army operated most successfully. On January 17, she successfully broke through the defenses in the Myasnoy Bor area. At the time of the offensive, the forces were unequal. The attacks of our troops were repelled by hurricane fire from the enemy, which the artillery was unable to suppress. The coming spring thaw sharply disrupted the supply of the army. Headquarters did not allow the troops to withdraw. The only thing left was defense. The enemy tried to close the breakthrough and, having gathered fresh forces, blocked the road near Myasny Bor on March 19. The delivery of food and ammunition to the troops of the 2nd Shock stopped completely. The enemy fired incessantly from artillery and mortars into the breakthrough area. The breakthrough cost such victims that the narrow strip of tormented forest and swamps west of the village of Myasnoy Bor began to be called the “Valley of Death” in March 1942. The Supreme Commander sent General Vlasov, who had distinguished himself in the battles near Moscow and was a holder of the Order of Lenin, to the rescue of those surrounded. the massif had turned into mush upon his arrival.

This Soviet general was in Stalin’s special regard and was known as his favorite. In December 1941, together with Zhukov and Rokossovsky, he was called the “savior of Moscow.” In 1942, the leader entrusted him with a new, responsible mission. No one could have imagined that soon the surname of this general would become as common as the name of Judas. Andrei Vlasov will forever remain in history as traitor No. 1, the commander of the so-called Russian Liberation Army, created by the Germans mainly from former Soviet prisoners of war. Alas, the ominous shadow of Vlasov’s betrayal fell on a completely different army, which he commanded, but which never betrayed. The Second Shock was formed in early 1942 to break the siege of Leningrad, when the Headquarters planned to build on the success of the Battle of Moscow and on other sectors of the front. Hundreds of thousands of fighters were thrown into the January counter-offensive in the north-west. Unfortunately, the Soviet command did not take into account that the Germans were still very strong, and their pre-prepared defenses were exceptionally strong. After long bloody battles, the Second Shock was surrounded. General Vlasov was sent to save her.

Alexey Pivovarov, author of the film: “As in the story of Rzhev and Brest, we wanted to talk about those episodes of the Great Patriotic War, which, on the one hand, very clearly characterize this war, and on the other hand, were deliberately kept for many years forgotten by official historians. The Second Shock is one of them. For me, this is a story of desperate heroism, devotion to duty and massive self-sacrifice, which were never appreciated by the Motherland. Worse yet: after Vlasov’s betrayal, all the surviving fighters and commanders of the Second Shock Army were put on a “black list”: some were repressed, others were forever branded as unreliable. And the most offensive thing: they, like those who fought in the ROA, also began to be called “Vlasovites.” Unfortunately, unlike the defenders Brest Fortress, the fighters of the Second Shock never found their Sergei Smirnov - an influential defender who, with his publications, would restore their good name. In our film, we tried to correct this injustice by telling about the tragedy that took place in the Novgorod forests in 1942.” “Second Shock. Vlasov’s Devoted Army” involves months of filming at battle sites and in specially built sets, dozens of hours of interviews with surviving participants in the events and a whole range of modern television special effects, computer graphics and complex staged reconstructions. Together with Alexey Pivovarov, the story of the Second Shock is told by Isolda Ivanova, the adopted daughter of one of dead officers this army, which, even in the stagnant years, found and interviewed hundreds of my stepfather’s former colleagues. Their guide through the forest swamps was Alexander Orlov, a search engine who has been searching for and interring the remains for half a century. forgotten heroes Second Shock.

Also watch HD 720p watch for free without registration.

These days, 73 years ago, the battles in the Myasny Bor area were coming to a sad conclusion. The chain of events that followed the Lyuban offensive operation, which was carried out by units of the 2nd Shock, 4th, 52nd, 54th and 59th, was completed Soviet armies. The goal of this operation, which began in winter, was to break the blockade of Leningrad and defeat units of the 18th German Army, and the capture of the city of Lyuban, after which the operation was later named, was private problem big offensive operation Volkhov Front. The center of defense of the German group in the Lyuban direction was the city of Chudovo. The 54th Army, with a strike from Pogostye to Lyuban, was supposed to meet there with units of the 2nd Shock Army that had broken through German front between the villages of Myasnoy Bor and Spasskaya Polist, which corresponded to the plan to encircle the enemy’s Chudovskaya group.

Due to the voluntary surrender of the last commander of the 2nd Shock Army, Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov, and his subsequent activities to create the Russian Liberation Army, as well as unsuccessful completion of the operation with big amount killed and missing, these battles are poorly described in the literature, and the soldiers of the 2nd shock, who survived the meat grinder of the Volkhov Cauldron, but were captured, were branded traitors.

The situation in the area of ​​operations of the 2nd Shock and 54th Armies that had developed by the beginning of spring 1942 was mirrored for the German and Soviet troops: the 2nd Shock Army broke through the German front north of Novgorod, cut the Novgorod-Chudovo and Novgorod-Leningrad railways, and half the distance to the positions of the troops defending the besieged city. The supply of Soviet troops passed through a bottleneck created in German positions at the very beginning of the operation, which could not be expanded despite repeated attempts; a corridor was formed on the German side, in the center of which was the city of Lyuban. Soviet troops made efforts to encircle the Germans, and they, in turn, tried to cut the neck through which the 2nd Shock Army was supplied. The main and most important difference in the position of the two opposing sides was in the supply routes for the warring troops. The Red Army did not have a developed network of roads; the area between Spasskaya Polist and Myasny Bor was very swampy and with a large number of small rivers and streams. While there were frosts, this was not a big problem, but with the onset of spring the ice melted and roads had to be built. Construction proceeded under constant shelling, and the delivery of goods to the 2nd Shock Army proceeded intermittently, accompanied by great difficulties and losses. The Germans had a favorable situation for supplying their units; they controlled a section of the Leningrad-Moscow railway and a parallel highway between the same cities at that point, which made it possible to use both a large number of trucks, as well as captured Soviet locomotives and carriages.

Map of the Lyuban offensive operation

As a result of bloody battles, the Soviet offensive fizzled out by mid-April 1942 without achieving its goals. The troops suffered heavy losses, units found themselves in a semi-encirclement - a pocket, and by the end of April the focus of the fighting shifted to the supply corridor of the 2nd Shock Army, the fighting became fierce, often turning into hand-to-hand combat. At the same time, on April 20, 1942, Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov was appointed to the post of commander of the 2nd Shock Army.

Major General A. A. Vlasov during the battles near Moscow

Vlasov was not new to the war, he fought on the Southwestern Front, first as commander of the 4th Mechanized Corps, and then as commander of the 37th Army, defended Kyiv, commanded the troops of the 20th Army in the Battle of Moscow, from March 8 In 1942, he was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the Volkhov Front.

Having taken control of the troops, Lieutenant General Vlasov assessed the current situation: the condition of the troops inside the bag was quite deplorable, people were weakened and starving, there were problems with uniforms, especially with shoes, there was a huge shortage of personnel in the units, most of divisions are such only on paper. In addition, the defense lines run along a flooded melt water terrain and swamps, there are very few places where you can dry and warm up, in addition, such places are under regular artillery fire and bombing by German aircraft, there are problems with evacuating the wounded, there is a disdainful attitude towards the bodies of the dead, because there is no strength and opportunity to remove and bury them, all this contributes to the spread of disease and decline morale troops. However, troops continue to fight and there are no mass surrenders.

What did the captured Soviet military leader tell the Germans?

This document was preserved in an envelope glued to the album "Battle of Volkhov", which was published in a limited edition in December 1942 by the 621st Propaganda Company of the 18th German army. It ended up in the possession of a German collector who approached me with a request for help in finding a Russian museum or colleague interested in bringing the find to Russia.

Fragments of the protocol published below have already been published in No. 4 of the Military Historical Journal for 1991 (translation from a copy stored in the Lubyanka archives), but I have read its full text for the first time. Here he is.

“Secret.

Report on the interrogation of the commander of the 2nd Soviet-Russian Shock Army, Lieutenant General Vlasov.

Part I

Brief information regarding biography and military career.

Vlasov was born on September 1, 1901 in the Gorky region (as in the text - B.S.). Father: peasant, owner of 35–40 morgens of land (morgen – 0.25 hectares, therefore, the area of ​​the allotment is approximately 9–10 hectares, that is, Vlasova’s father was a middle peasant, and not a kulak, as she claimed Soviet propaganda. – B.S.), an old peasant family. Received secondary education. In 1919 he studied for 1 year at Nizhny Novgorod University. In 1920 he joined the Red Army.

“Vlasov did not hide anything from the Germans and told the enemy everything he knew or heard. However, nothing indicated the possibility of his transferring to the service of the enemy.”

V. was initially not accepted into the Communist Party, as a former seminarian.

1920 – attends the school for junior commanders. Then he commands a platoon on the Wrangel front. Continues army service until the end of the war in 1920. Then, until 1925, he was a platoon commander and acting company commander. 1925 – attends the school for secondary commanders. 1928 – school for senior commanders (in his autobiography, dated April 16, 1940, brigade commander A. A. Vlasov reported: “In the period 1928–1929, he graduated from the tactical rifle courses for improving the command staff of the Red Army “Vystrel” in Moscow.” - B .WITH.). 1928 - battalion commander, 1930 - joins the Communist Party with the aim of promotion in the Red Army. 1930 - teaches tactics at the officer school in Leningrad. Since 1933 - assistant to the head of department 1a (operational department) at the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District (in the autobiography of A. A. Vlasov, written on April 16, 1940, it is said: “Since February 1933, transferred to the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District, where he held positions: assistant chief of the 1st sector of the 2nd department - 2 years; assistant chief of the combat training department - 1 year, after which he was chief for 1.5 years. educational department courses for military translators of the intelligence department of the Leningrad Military District." The 2nd department at that time was actually called the operational department. – B.S.). 1930 – regiment commander. 1938 – for a short time, chief of staff of the Kyiv Military District, after participating in the Soviet-Russian military delegation to China. During this period he was promoted to the rank of colonel. At the end of his trip to China in 1939, he became commander of the 99th division in Przemysl. 13 months commander of this division. 1941 - commander of the motorized mechanized corps in Lemberg (Lvov - B.S.). In the battles between Lemberg and Kyiv, the motorized mechanized corps was destroyed. After this, he was appointed commander of the Kyiv fortified area. At the same time he was transferred to the newly formed 37th Army. He left the encirclement in the Kyiv area with a small group of people. After this, he was temporarily appointed to the disposal of General (actually Marshal - B.S.) Timoshenko in order to restore the material support units of the Southwestern Front. A month later he was already transferred to Moscow to take command of the newly formed 20th Army. Then - participation in defensive battles around Moscow. Until March 7 - commander of the 20th Army. March 10 – transfer to the headquarters of the Volkhov Front. Here he began his career as a tactical adviser to the 2nd Shock Army. After the removal of the commander of the 2nd Shock Army, General Klykov, took command of this army on April 15th.

Data on the Volkhov Front and the 2nd Shock Army.

Composition of the Volkhov Front in mid-March: 52nd, 59th, 2nd shock and 4th armies.

Commander of the Volkhov Front: Army General Meretskov.

Commander of the 52nd Army: Lieutenant General Yakovlev.

Commander of the 59th Army: Major General Korovnikov.

Commander of the 4th Army: unknown.

Characteristics of Army General Meretskov.

Egoist. A calm, objective conversation between the army commander and the front commander took place with great difficulty. Personal antagonism between Meretskov and Vlasov. Meretskov tried to push Vlasov. Very unsatisfactory orientation and unsatisfactory orders from the front headquarters of the 2nd Shock Army.

Brief description of Yakovlev.

Has reached good luck in the military field, but is not satisfied with its use. Personnel officers often passed him over for promotions. Known to be a drunkard...

Structure of the 2nd Shock Army.

Famous brigades and divisions. It is noteworthy that those units of the 52nd and 59th armies that were located in the Volkhov pocket were not subordinate to the 2nd Shock Army.

By mid-March, the units of the 2nd Shock Army looked very exhausted. They suffered heavy losses throughout the heavy winter fighting. There were sufficient weapons, but not enough ammunition. In mid-March, supplies were already poor and the situation was getting worse day by day.

Information about the enemy as of mid-March was of low quality.

Reasons: lack of intelligence sources, only a few prisoners were captured.

The headquarters of the 2nd Shock Army believed in mid-March that the army was confronted by approximately 6–8 German divisions. It was known that in mid-March these divisions received significant reinforcements.

In mid-March, the 2nd Shock Army was faced with the following tasks: capturing Lyuban and linking up with the 54th Army.

Due to the subordination of the 2nd Shock Army to the Volkhov Front, and the 54th Army to the Leningrad Front, it was not possible to agree on orders for a joint attack on Lyuban.

Information about real situation The 54th Army reached the headquarters of the 2nd Shock Army very rarely and in most cases did not correspond to reality and exaggerated the successes of the army. With the help of such methods, Meretskov wanted to encourage the 2nd Shock Army to move faster towards Lyuban.

After the connection of the 2nd shock and 54th armies, the next task was the defeat of the German troops concentrated in the Chudovo-Luban area. The ultimate task of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts in the winter of 1942, as Vlasov believes, is the liberation of Leningrad by military means.

In mid-March, the plan for connecting the 2nd Shock Army with the 54th Army boiled down to the following: concentrating the forces of the 2nd Shock Army to attack Lyuban through Krasnaya Gorka, strengthening the flank in the Dubovik - Eglino area with the help of the 13th Cavalry Corps, conducting auxiliary attacks on Krivino and Novaya Derevnya.

According to the commander of the 2nd Shock Army, this plan failed for the following reasons: insufficient striking power, too exhausted personnel, insufficient supplies.

They stuck to the plan of advancing towards Lyuban until the end of April.

At the beginning of May, Lieutenant General Vlasov was summoned to Malaya Vishera for a meeting with the front headquarters, which was temporarily headed by Lieutenant General Khozin from the Leningrad Front (M.S. Khozin, who commanded the Leningrad Front, which from April 23 to June 8 included The troops of the temporarily abolished Volkhov Front also made themselves a scapegoat for the death of the 2nd Shock Army. On June 8, he was removed from his post with the damning wording: “For failure to comply with the order of the Headquarters on the timely and rapid withdrawal of the troops of the 2nd Shock Army, for paperwork and bureaucracy. methods of troop control, for separation from the troops, as a result of which the enemy cut off the communications of the 2nd Shock Army and the latter was put in an exceptionally difficult situation.” But, strictly speaking, the enemy cut off the communications of the 2nd Shock Army even before Khozin began to command. troops of the Volkhov Front - B.S.). At this meeting, Vlasov received an order to evacuate the Volkhov cauldron. The 52nd and 54th armies were supposed to cover the retreat of the 2nd Shock Army. On May 9, a meeting took place between the commander of the 2nd Shock Army and division commanders, brigade commanders and commissars at army headquarters, to whom he first announced his intention to retreat.

Note. Testimony from defectors about the 87th Cavalry Division first arrived on May 10 at the headquarters of the 18th Army, with subsequent news arriving between May 10 and 15.

Between 15 and 20 May the troops were ordered to retreat. Between 20 and 25 May the retreat began.

For the evacuation of the Volkhov cauldron there was the following plan.

First, the withdrawal of rear services, heavy equipment and artillery under the protection of infantry with mortars. Then follows the retreat of the remaining infantry to three successive lines:

1st line: Dubovik – Chervinskaya Luka;

2nd line: Finev Lug - Olkhovka;

3rd sector: border of the Kerest River.

The retreat of the 2nd Shock Army was to be covered from the flanks by the forces of the 52nd and 59th armies. Units of the 52nd and 59th armies, located inside the Volkhov cauldron, were supposed to leave it in the eastern direction last.

The reasons for the failure of the retreat: extremely poor condition of the roads (spill), very poor supplies, especially with ammunition and provisions, lack of unified leadership of the 2nd shock, 52nd and 59th armies from the Volkhov Front.

The fact that on May 30 the broken encirclement ring was again closed by German troops, the 2nd Shock Army became aware only two days later. In connection with this closure of the encirclement, Lieutenant General Vlasov demanded from the Volkhov Front: the 52nd and 59th armies to knock down the German barriers at any cost. In addition, he moved all the forces of the 2nd Shock Army at his disposal to the area east of Krechno in order to open a German barrier from the west. Lieutenant General Vlasov does not understand why the front headquarters did not follow a general order for all three armies to break through the German barrier. Each army fought more or less independently.

On June 23, the 2nd Shock Army made its last effort to break through to the east. At the same time, the forces of the 52nd and 59th armies, deployed to cover the flanks from the north and south, ceased to control the situation (literally: kamen... ins Rutschen - slipped, slid. In a fragment of the interrogation protocol published in the Military Historical Journal , a translation that is more gentle for the command of the 52nd and 59th armies, but does not correspond to the text of the German original, is given: “At the same time, to cover the flanks, units of the 52nd and 59th armies began to move from the north and south - B.S.” .). On May 24 (probably a typo, it should be: June 24. - B.S.) unified leadership of the 2nd Shock Army became impossible and the 2nd Shock Army broke up into separate groups.

Lieutenant General Vlasov especially emphasizes the destructive impact of German aviation and the very high losses caused by barrage artillery fire.

According to Lieutenant General Vlasov, about 3,500 wounded from the 2nd Shock Army emerged from the encirclement in the east, along with minor remnants of individual units.

Lieutenant General Vlasov believes that about 60,000 people from the 2nd Shock Army were either captured or destroyed. (in all likelihood, Vlasov means losses for March - June. For comparison: for this period the 18th german army lost 10,872 people killed and 1,487 people missing, as well as 46,473 people wounded, and a total of 58,832 people, which is less than the irretrievable losses of Vlasov’s army alone. German irretrievable losses turn out to be five times less than the irretrievable losses of the 2nd Shock Army alone. But at that time Lindemann’s army was fighting against the 52nd and 59th armies, a significant part of whose formations also ended up in the cauldron and suffered no less damage than Vlasov’s army. In addition, the 4th and 54th armies acted against the 18th German armies. It can be assumed that the irretrievable losses of these three armies were at least three times greater than the irretrievable losses of the 2nd shock. – B.S.). He could not provide any information about the number of units of the 52nd and 59th armies located in the Volkhov cauldron.

Intentions of the Volkhov Front.

The Volkhov Front wanted to withdraw the 2nd Shock Army from the Volkhov pocket to the east and concentrate it in the Malaya Vishera area for restoration, while holding the Volkhov bridgehead.

After the restoration of the 2nd Shock Army, it was planned to deploy it in the northern part of the Volkhov bridgehead in order to advance to Chudovo with the 2nd Shock Army from the south and the 54th and 4th Armies from the north. Due to the development of the situation, Lieutenant General Vlasov does not believe in the implementation of this plan.

According to Lieutenant General Vlasov, the plan for the military release of Leningrad will continue to be implemented.

The implementation of this plan will significantly depend on the restoration of the divisions of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts and on the arrival of new forces.

Vlasov believes that with the forces currently available, the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts are not able to launch a large-scale offensive in the Leningrad area. In his opinion, the available forces are barely enough to hold the Volkhov Front and the line between Kirishi and Lake Ladoga.

Lieutenant General Vlasov denies the need for commissars in the Red Army. In his opinion, in the period after the Finnish-Russian war, when there were no commissars, command staff felt better.

Part II

interrogation of the commander of the 2nd Soviet-Russian shock army, Lieutenant General Vlasov

Acquisition.

The oldest age group among those called up, known to him, was born in 1898, the younger age group was born in 1923.

New formations.

In February, March and April, large-scale deployment of new regiments, divisions and brigades was carried out. The main area of ​​the new formations should be in the south, on the Volga. He, Vlasov, is poorly oriented in the new formations within Russia.

Military industry.

In Kuznetskaya industrial region, in the southeastern Urals, a significant military industry has been created, which is now reinforced by industry evacuated from the occupied territories. There are all the main types of raw materials: coal, ore, metal, but no oil. Siberia may only have small, underutilized oil fields. Product production is increased by reducing the duration of the production process. Vlasov’s opinion is that the industry in the Kuznetsk region will be sufficient to meet the minimum needs of the Red Army for heavy weapons, even with the loss of the Donetsk region.

Food situation.

The food situation can be said to be stable. It will be impossible to completely do without Ukrainian grain, but in Siberia there are significant land area, recently mastered.

Foreign supplies.

The newspapers pay attention great attention supplies from England and America. According to newspaper reports, weapons, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, and food products are allegedly arriving in large quantities. In his army, he only had American-made telephones. He did not see any foreigners in his army.

He heard the following about the creation of a second front in Europe: in Soviet Russia There is a general opinion, also reflected in the newspapers, that this year the British and Americans will create a second front in France. This was allegedly firmly promised to Molotov.

Operational plans.

According to Stalin's order No. 130 of May 1, the Germans were to be finally expelled from Russia during this summer. The beginning of the great Russian summer offensive was the offensive near Kharkov. For this purpose, a large number of divisions were transferred to the south in the spring. Northern Front neglected. This may explain the fact that the Volkhov Front was unable to obtain new reserves.

Tymoshenko's offensive failed. Vlasov, despite this, believes that perhaps Zhukov will launch a medium or large offensive from Moscow. He still has enough reserves.

If Tymoshenko’s new tactics, “elastic defense” (slipping away in time), had been used on Volkhov, then he, Vlasov, would probably have emerged with his army from encirclement unharmed. He is not competent enough to appreciate how widely these tactics can be applied, despite the current attitudes.

According to Vlasov, Tymoshenko is, in any case, the most capable leader of the Red Army.

When asked about the significance of our offensive on the Don, he explained that gasoline supplies from Transcaucasia could be critical for the Red Army, since a replacement for Transcaucasian oil could hardly be found in Siberia. Gasoline consumption within Russia is already strictly limited.

IN in general terms he notes that it is quite remarkable that he, as army commander, was not informed of the wider operational situation; this is kept so secret that even army commanders have no knowledge of the plans of the command in their own areas of responsibility.

Armament.

He had not heard of the construction of super-heavy 100-ton tanks. In his opinion, the best tank is the T-34. The 60-ton KV, in his opinion, is too bulky, especially considering that its armor protection needs to be strengthened.

Relatives of defectors.

In principle, they stopped shooting them in Russia, with the exception of relatives of defecting commanders. (Here Vlasov intentionally or accidentally misinformed the Germans. Order No. 270 Headquarters Supreme High Command of August 16, 1941 provided only for the arrest of the families of defectors, that is, those who voluntarily surrender to the enemy, and even then only if the defectors are commanders or commissars. True, G.K. Zhukov, when he was commander of the Leningrad Front, sent ciphergram No. 4976 dated September 28, 1941 to the Political Directorate Baltic Fleet: “Explain to all personnel that all families of those who surrendered to the enemy will be shot and upon returning from captivity they will also all be shot.” It is unlikely that this threat was not brought to the attention of the military personnel on the Leningrad Front. However, it had only propaganda value. In practice, Zhukov was too short-handed to shoot the families of defectors. After all, executions were carried out by the NKVD, and it was guided by Order No. 270, which did not provide for such severe repressions. Vlasov may have heard something about Zhukov’s order, which was formally canceled as illegal only in February 1942. Perhaps he also knew about Stalin’s telephone message to the military council of the Leningrad Front on September 21, 1941, in which the leader demanded, without hesitation, to use weapons against women, old people and children, whom the Germans allegedly sent to the front lines of the Soviet troops to persuade them to surrender . However, there was nothing said there about the possible execution of the families of defectors. It is possible that the former commander of the 2nd Shock Army was already thinking about entering the service of the Germans and was selling himself: they say, then I would have to risk the lives of my family and friends. – B.S.).

Attitude towards Russian prisoners of war in Germany.

People don’t believe that Russian prisoners of war are shot in Germany. Rumors are spreading that, under the influence of the Fuhrer, the attitude towards Russian prisoners of war in Lately improved.

Leningrad.

The evacuation of Leningrad continues day and night. The city will be held by military means under any circumstances for reasons of prestige.

Personal information.

For about three months now, Colonel General Vasilevsky has been holding the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army.

Marshal Shaposhnikov resigned from this post due to health reasons.

Marshal Kulik is no longer in command. He was stripped of his marshal rank.

Marshal Budyonny, according to unconfirmed information, received a new assignment - to form new formations in the army rear.

Voroshilov is a member of the Supreme Military Council in Moscow. He no longer has troops under his command."