"Price of Victory": Swastika over Taimyr (Full version).

More than sixty years have passed since the battles of the Great Patriotic War died down on the Kola land. However, the polar tundra and the Arctic seas, and often the hills surrounding the distant garrisons of the Northern Fleet, continue to keep the secrets of the past.

The book of the military journalist S.A. Kovalev is devoted to the activities of the German Navy in the Soviet North. On the basis of archival materials and his own research, the author tells about the operations in which ships and submarines took part, performing in complete secrecy in Soviet northern waters not only combat missions, but also transporting important strategic cargo and serving the construction of secret bases and warehouses, many of which which have not yet been found.

The book opens a new series of publishing house "Veche" "Naval Chronicle", dedicated to the brightest and most entertaining pages of naval history.

S. A. Kovalev

Swastika over Taimyr

To readers

Before you is a book about the arctic secrets of fascist Germany, which we inherited in a kind of legacy.

It would seem that a great many books, magazine and newspaper articles of various genres have been written about the Second World War: from serious scientific research to the simplest fiction. But, with rare exceptions, this "multi-ton block" was entirely devoted to our participation in the most terrible of the world wars. But any information about those who came to our land with a sword, to the shores of Murman and Siberia, in particular, was scarce and fragmentary for many years. Only today we have come to understand a paradoxical, but at the same time completely obvious thought: without personally understanding and thoroughly showing the new generations of Russians the place and role of the enemy in that war, we thereby simply belittle the role of everyone who gave their lives for Russia, but yet - the victorious fascism! After all, what you, dear reader, are now holding in your hands is the fruit of work that lasted ... several decades. Painstaking and, in the main, for obvious reasons - a completely thankless job. There is nothing surprising!

After all, this is not a famously twisted historical detective story, but a selection of facts and events that were previously most often kept under various classifications of secrecy. To exclude possible "misunderstanding" of individual readers, as the author, I would like to emphasize that the main information sources of the day of this book were domestic and foreign publications unfamiliar to the mass reader, as well as personal memories of direct participants in the events described.

Unfortunately, most of the eyewitnesses of the mysterious finds in the Soviet Arctic categorically refused to have their names or positions mentioned on the pages of this book. And the main argument here was one: "We gave a non-disclosure agreement." To the greatest regret, most of them with the same conviction they left us forever. It would seem that a decade and a half has passed since the end of the Soviet Union, more than half a century, since those who unleashed the Second World War left for another world, we live in a completely different state and in time, but the well-developed Soviet "system » secrecy continues to work without a hitch today. Nevertheless, as an author, I am sincerely grateful to all the courageous people who still dared to tell about that “something” that they saw during wintering on remote Arctic islands or Siberian winterings, which was systematized by me, and today - fell on pages of this book. At the same time, I leave the hope that this version of the book is not yet the final truth. Perhaps it will help to find new witnesses to the long-standing events of the Second World War and the first post-war years, both on the territory of Russia and abroad. And maybe it will also allow you to learn at least from relatives the new names of heroes who have forever remained somewhere in the icy deserts and on the shores of remote Arctic archipelagos (especially under unclear circumstances), which is extremely important for young Russians to study our non-fictional history.

For many years, we knew everything that happened in our Arctic, at best, from victorious reports about the next achievement of Russian and Soviet scientists, polar explorers, pilots or sailors. And only thanks to the well-known Soviet polar historians and devotees - Sergei Smirnov and Mikhail Belov - did they learn about the heroic battle of the crew of the simple icebreaking steamer "A Sibiryakov" with the fascist battleship "Admiral Scheer". Any other information about Soviet activities in the Arctic seas and archipelagos did not reach a simple layman, and sometimes even individual statesmen. Therefore, one should not be surprised that even the full representative of Soviet Russia in Norway, Alexandra Kollontai, before entering the diplomatic service in 1923, knew very little about the Arctic and did not even suspect where the Svalbard archipelago was located.

Introduction

More than sixty years have passed since the last artillery shots of the war time died down on the Kola land. However, the polar tundra and the Arctic seas, and often the hills surrounding the remote garrisons of the Northern Fleet, continue to keep numerous military secrets and throw us new riddles, to which sometimes there are no even supposed answers.

So, at the end of the 50s of the XX century, the first garrison of North Sea nuclear submariners appeared on the Kola Peninsula - the city of Zaozersk. Over the past half century, it has been called differently: Severomorsk-7, Murmansk-150, Zaozerny, but among the Severomors it has always remained the Western Lyceum and the capital of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet. By the beginning of the 21st century, a whole generation of Soviet boys had grown up here, served on nuclear submarines, and had already retired, who were once brought to the North by their fathers, who mastered our first nuclear-powered ships here. Those boys who, while hiking for mushrooms, had to carefully look under their feet, not so much for the opportunity to find the coveted red-headed “trophy”, but in order not to step on an anti-personnel mine or an unexploded artillery shell, whose rusty sides could peek out from under any creeping birches. And those who found here human skulls in pierced helmets and human bones with scraps of khaki, black or mouse-colored cloth.

It was these boys, in a close circle of fellow servicemen, who first spoke about their strange discoveries among the surrounding rocks. Those finds that did not fit into the post-war polar landscapes with dugouts mangled by explosions or abandoned and swollen trenches. Yes, and about the strange names of individual corners on the banks of the West Litsky Bay, such as: "Plant of Seaplanes", "Falconer's Cellar", "German Checkpoint" or "German Quay".

But in those years, they were unaware that it was here, among the hills around Zapadnaya Litsa, that most of the Arctic mysteries of the Third Reich were born, which not only gave rise to the “shadows” of the swastika near our Taimyr, but also became fatal for several thousand Soviet, German, English and other military and civilian sailors. Riddles that were never written about in Soviet literature. About those that are still waiting for their researchers and publishers.

The Soviet polar explorers from the Akademik Shokalsky research vessel, which on July 27, 1943 was slowly sailing ten miles east of the Novaya Zemlya Cape Spore Navolok, did not know about this either. The flight did not portend any surprises. Nazi ships and submarines hadn't been here since last year. And planes with black crosses on their wings were a rarity.

Prologue. Death among the icebergs

SPEAR HUNTING IN THE KARA SEA

Let's start with Doenitz's "Arctic wolves".

The Kara Sea was originally considered the Russian sea, and in the first months of the Great Patriotic War - also our deep rear. Meanwhile, already the August days of 1942 showed that this opinion is erroneous and the enemy is looking for an opportunity to get into our deep tyn. Moreover, since that time the Kara Sea has become the front line of defense on the northern wing of the huge Soviet-German front. True, we learned about this only when our transports and warships began to break apart and perish from the blows of fascist torpedoes. However, even after the war, all information about the battles in the Arctic remained hidden for a long time under various degrees of secrecy. And what have they achieved?

Soviet military historians spoke extremely sparingly about the battles and tragedies off the coast of Soviet Siberia during the Great Patriotic War. It is not surprising that today the inhabitants of Russia, at best, know about the unsuccessful raid in the Kara Sea of the fascist battleship Admiral Scheer. Moreover - about several attacks by German submarines on Soviet transports that were going along the Northern Sea Route. But these are just individual episodes of the war in the Soviet Arctic. And if we do not remember that during the years of military hard times, almost three dozen Soviet transports and escort ships, as well as more than one and a half thousand military and civilian sailors and polar explorers, died here, then our descendants are unlikely to be able to find out about this. Meanwhile, the “forgetfulness” of military researchers of the Great Patriotic War had certain grounds.

Here is how the People's Commissar of the Navy of the USSR, Admiral Nikolai Kuznetsov, recalled those days:

It must be admitted that in the pre-war period we, in the People's Commissariat of the Navy, underestimated the importance of sea routes in the North and insufficiently developed the problem of their protection. Therefore, already during the war years, it was necessary to create new naval bases, airfields, and allocate ships for escort service.

UNUSUAL NAZIS TRANSITION. BUT WHY WAS THEY CAREFUL?

But Vihman was clearly not in a hurry to the Norwegian base, and after the return of our "eska" the command of the Northern Fleet found out about this. Indeed, upon arrival at Polyarnoye, the S-101 commander reported that the fascist boat was heading north, and not southwest or west. Yu.A. Panteleev, at that time - the commander of the White Sea military flotilla.

After the war, we learned that on August 28, 1943, U-639 operated in the Kara Sea as part of the Viking group for only a month. During this time, namely on August 1, she set up sixteen TMS mines to the west of Cape Russian Zavorot (a sand spit on the northwestern outskirts of the Pechora Bay). And two weeks later, according to the plan of operation "Zeehund" ("Seal") - twenty-four TMV mines in the Gulf of Ob.

Interestingly, the Gulf of Ob, sandwiched between the Yamal Peninsula and the Gydan Peninsula, is the longest bay in the Soviet Arctic. North winds are especially frequent over it, almost instantly turning into storms, and the Ob River annually brings to the Kara Sea a huge amount of silt and sand, which form vast and very dangerous mouth bars at the entrance. It was here that the most difficult river areas began, and not every captain was ready to navigate his ship on his own here. But the mighty Ob has always been especially important for Russia.

After all, the West Siberian region is one of the largest economic regions of our country, rich in oil and endless forests. In addition, only along the Ob at that time it was possible to get to the Novosibirsk region - an important industrial (ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy) and agricultural (wheat, rye, barley, flax and vegetables) rear region of our country.

Thus, Lieutenant Wichmann (if he was not in a hurry to get a new set of mines or for some other reason) would have had a great opportunity to successfully hunt Soviet transports here for another month with the help of torpedoes. But he was in a hurry!

A SERIOUS SUCCESS OF THE SEVEROMOR

With their accurate torpedo strike, the Soviet S-101 submariners not only destroyed the Nazi submarine. They immediately destroyed the entire complex system that the Kriegsmarine command, together with the Luftwaffe command, had been creating in the Soviet sector of the Arctic for at least ten years. So far, only fragmentary data have been found on this system. But the time will come when we will know everything about her. In the meantime, consider a selection of facts about the existence of the "Arctic system" of the Third Reich, which became known in the 60 years after the end of World War II. How it was conceived and how its designs were brought to life, the reader has yet to learn. But back in the summer of 1942, and primarily relying on the peculiarities of the Russian character, it began to act, however, at first it nevertheless failed. And its first significant shortcomings were clearly shown by the unsuccessful raid of the Admiral Scheer, a detailed account of which you will find in chapter 2.

But at the same time, this operation, with the perfectly appropriate name "Wunderland" ("Wonderland", "Wonderland"), also indicated the special vulnerability of the regions of our Northern Sea Route, and also that most Soviet transports in the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea did not at all enjoy. At the same time, the captains of individual Soviet transports and the heads of the polar stations of the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Route (GUSMP) believed that they were in the deep rear of the Soviet Union. Even a year after the start of hostilities in the Arctic, they often used open radio communications and thus “delivered” extremely valuable intelligence information to the enemy about the current location of their ships. It also helped that a number of communications instructions, available, for example, on icebreakers, were absent at the coastal polar stations, and the communication documents of the day of the icebreakers of the Northern and Far Eastern Shipping Companies differed markedly from each other. Yes, the combat training of the personnel of the polar stations for the first military summer navigation (1942) on the Northern Sea Route was more than poorly organized. Moreover, the radio operators of both the polar stations and on the icebreakers of the Main Directorate of the NSR turned out to be unprepared for round-the-clock watchkeeping and ensuring the combat activities of the North Sea ships guarding them. And the almost complete absence of wired communications at Novaya Zemlya stations and the use of radio communications as the only means of combat control of units and individual subunits of the Novaya Zemlya Naval Base made it possible for the enemy to easily intercept these radio messages and radio communications, quickly determine the location of one or another Soviet radio station and turn it into a radio beacon for submarines Doenitz. Here are just a few examples.

During the entire navigation of 1942, the zone of radio silence established for our ships to the west of the meridian of 85 degrees (on the approaches to Dixon) was often not maintained in practice. Worse, the administration of the port of Dixon (the headquarters of the western sector of maritime operations in the Arctic was located here) even established a procedure, following which, twelve hours before approaching the island of the same name, icebreakers and single ships were required to report the expected time of their arrival at the port. Allegedly - in order to avoid artillery fire on them by Soviet coastal batteries. I would like to emphasize that the Kuibyshev steamer (captain Tokovenko), whose radio operator strictly complied with this requirement and transmitted an open radiogram to Dixon, was soon discovered by the German submarine U-601 (captain Lieutenant Peter Ottmar Grau) and sunk.

At the same time, the radio stations in Dudinka and Igarka transmitted daily reports to Dixon in clear text, listing all the ships in the port and their cargo operations. At the same time, communication between Dixon and transport ships at sea remained open until August 27 (that is, almost until the appearance of the fascist raider here, and partly after that). Even after the death of Kuibyshev and A. Sibiryakov, some captains managed to openly go on the radio (Ussuri, Shchors), and the Belomorkanal, when moving to Dikson Island, also openly announced on the radio the time of its intended exit from Kozhevnikov and the initial point of its entry.

The polar stations of the Main Directorate of the NSR did not lag behind them either. Some of them, not having the means for covert communication, openly reported to Dikson about all ships passing in the station's visibility zone. There could not have been a better clue of the day for German radio intelligence officers. And a vivid example of this was the case with the Murmanets motorboat, well known to all Soviet polar explorers.

THE APPEARANCE OF THE GERMANS IN THE ICE DESERT WE COULD EXPECT

After all, it was only in the pre-war years that the Soviet Union really paid attention to the trans-Arctic communications of our country, including military sailors. However, the Great Patriotic War showed that too many years of practical study and development of the regions of the Northern Sea Route were missed. By the way, it is a pity that today we are just beginning to give a proper assessment of the role of the Arctic in the day of the new Russia, while continuing not to remember the deeds and testaments of our grandfathers.

The first special group of three commanders of the Naval Forces of the Red Army was sent east of Novaya Zemlya only in 1935. She began a detailed study of the Northern Sea Route and the conditions of ice navigation, got acquainted here with the organization of the escort service for ships in ice, the existing Arctic bases, and also began to develop the necessary documents that should amend the existing organization for the escort of warships in ice. The sailors worked hard, and the following year, as part of the Special Purpose Expedition (EON-3), the destroyers Stalin (commander - lieutenant commander V. Obukhov) and Voikov (commander - captain 3- rank M. Sukhorukov). This campaign showed that warships, even with weak hulls, with proper support along the Northern Sea Route, can be used to replenish the ship composition of both the Northern and Pacific fleets. But the same trip along the Arctic seas revealed the poor knowledge and equipment of individual sections of the Northern Sea Route.

And yet a year later, in the summer of 1937, the Special Detachment of Hydrographic Vessels (OOGS) left for the Far East along the Arctic seas, which included two icebreaking hydrographic vessels (“Ocean” and “Okhotsk”) and a hydrographic vessel with a reinforced hull - "Kamchadal". If both icebreakers successfully passed the entire route and reached Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on September 19. then the Kamchadal, which went to sea ten days later than its brothers, together with the icebreakers accompanying it, had to spend the winter in the southwestern part of the Laptev Sea. And this wintering had the most negative consequences of the day of the development of the Northern Sea Route.

As a result of the unskilled leadership of the Arctic navigation by the leadership of the Glavsevmorput in various regions of the Arctic, more than twenty ships, icebreakers and icebreaking steamers were left for the winter. During this wintering, almost all ships left in the Arctic were significantly damaged, and one was crushed by ice and sank.

Only in 1940 did a new passage of warships along the Northern Sea Route take place - the Soviet submarine Shch-423 left for the Pacific Ocean as part of EON-10. This transition will be discussed in more detail below.

Chapter I

1. A BRIEF DISCUSSION THROUGH THE SPIRALS OF WORLD AND NAVY HISTORY

But back to 1939. While preparing for a new war, fascist Germany again had to consider the real possibility of a war against Great Britain, which had a powerful navy. And here it turned out that the expected military clash, in addition to the long-known "obverses of the military medal", could have many "reverses" that were not noticeable in peacetime, firmly closed together.

For the war with the British Isles, reliably sheltered from any enemy by the waves of the Atlantic, the North Sea and the English Channel, the Third Reich needed a strong navy that could successfully compete with the English fleets in the ocean zone. However, the defeat of Kaiser Germany in the First World War and the ensuing Treaty of Versailles for many years deprived the Germans of the opportunity to build a modern Navy. According to the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany, which lost the war, was allowed to keep the ancient battleships of the Deutschland and Lothringen type, which were built at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the Gazelle-class cruisers, designed and built at the end of the 19th century, in the navy.

Over time, the Germans were allowed to replace them, but ... The Entente countries, during the years of the First World War, despite the losses suffered in naval battles, which significantly strengthened their fleets, assumed that the losing Germany was left to build only coastal defense battleships. And in this case, the recent imperials, securely closed in the Baltic Sea by British and French battleships, will be left with only one enemy with an equally weak navy - Soviet Russia.

True, Germany had its own dissenting opinion on this matter. But at first the Germans really bitterly called their fleet "pygmy". Especially deplorable were the Deutschlands and Lothringens and the armored Gazelle, fit only for days of training trips, where crews and cadets could gain some familiarity with the sea. No self-respecting naval sailor could put up with such coercion. And in the end, despite all the prohibitions, by the beginning of new naval battles, the command of the Kriegsmarine, as the Navy of the Third Reich became known from now on, began to look for an acceptable way out. True, the German designers were the first to find it.

After serious consultations with the sailors, they installed powerful artillery and diesel engines in the small hulls of the battleships authorized by Versailles, and these new buildings began to be called "pocket battleships" with someone's light hand. And by the mid-1930s, the German navy received from shipbuilders five new battleships and "pocket battleships", seven cruisers, more than twenty destroyers and almost sixty submarines.

2. The Nazis needed free access to the ocean

For successful raider operations, the Nazis needed an open outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, which they did not have. Of course, bases located outside German territory could help them out. But these bases were not.

Faced with such problems, the leadership of the Third Reich began to urgently look for an ally with free access to the Atlantic. And in the late 1930s, the Soviet Union became such for Nazi Germany.

Already in August-September 1939, a trade and credit agreement was signed between the USSR and Germany in Berlin (08/19/1939) and two agreements in Moscow: the Non-Aggression Treaty and the Secret Protocol (08/23/1939) and the Treaty of Friendship and Border ( September 28, 1939).

Without going into discussions about the intricacies of political intrigues and interstate relations, we can say that the Soviet leadership, taking into account the realities of the politics of that time, "choosed the lesser of two evils." But at the same time, it also calculated that Germany, which was in dire need of Soviet supplies of strategic raw materials and oil, would have to agree, if not with all Soviet conditions, then at least with many. However, Germany was not left behind.

The Soviet-German alliance, first theoretically, and then in practice, strengthened Hitler's faith in the possibility of a real "breakthrough" of the naval blockade of the Reich, locked in the narrowness of the English Channel and the Northern Passage. At the same time, only forty-one German transports were intercepted by the enemy or flooded by their own team. More than three hundred fascist ships managed to take refuge in neutral ports (including Soviet ones) and after some time still return to their native shores. But the main "advantage" of the new German-Soviet relations could be something else.

3. GET STARTED

By September 17, 1939, without waiting for a final decision on the creation of a secret base, German transports Cordillere and San Louis arrived in Murmansk with cargo and equipment. By the end of November 1939, thirty-six German transports (including "X Leonard", "New York", "Pollina", "Tobingen") gathered on the roads of Murmansk. In addition, from October 23, the fascist prize team brought an American steamer here "City of Flint", captured by the raider "Deutschland". True, it is strange that this seizure was without a high-profile international scandal: on October 28, the liner was released and returned to the United States. Along with other ships, the steamer Iller also came to the Kola Bay, on board of which, in addition to 35 crew members, there were 15 more passengers. According to the official version of that time, at Abram Cape they took refuge from the ships of the Royal Navy of Great Britain. Today, however, there is another opinion.

Most likely, from the very beginning, the Bremen liner, which had taken refuge here, was supposed to become a floating base for placing on board the service team of the secret base on the Kola Peninsula. And if necessary, it is easy to turn into a capacious and high-speed transport for the transfer of German landing units to the British Isles.

Indeed, until the end of the autumn of 1939, the fascist High Command was looking for options for creating a forward point for the transfer of troops to the British Isles, bypassing the lines of the British blockade (through the territory of Sweden and Finland). And the secret base in the North was to become one of the main strongholds here. The “birthday” of the secret base on Murman can most likely be considered October 18, 1939.

On that day, according to the head of the US FBI E. Hoover Day, a secret meeting between A. Hitler and J. Stalin took place in Lvov, where they signed a "certain" military agreement. True, such a decision could have been made in the course of personal correspondence between Stalin and Hitler.

What kind of document it was still remains a mystery, but it can be assumed that one of the issues resolved here could relate directly to Basis Nord. What is this hypothesis based on?

4. DIFFICULTIES OF CREATING BASIS NORD

The choice of a place for a secret base was not made immediately - the port of Murmansk had to be excluded. Instead, the Germans were offered, on the basis of a concession (military colony), to create a base in the Teriberskaya Bay or in the Bolshaya Zapadnaya Litsa Bay.

The professional assessment of the proposed bays was entrusted to the German naval attache in the Soviet Union - Kapiten zur see von Baumbach.

Norbert von Baumbach was a well-known naval officer to Grand Admiral Raeder. Back in 1924, in the rank of corvette captain, he assisted the Finns in creating a national submarine force. Ten years later, the Finnish submarine forces became the basis for the formation of the 1st German submarine flotilla - a real school of practical training for the day for all senior officers of the future submarine forces of the Kriegsmarine.

After returning from Finland, von Baumbach became a naval attache at the German Embassy in Moscow. In October 1939, he visited the Teriberskaya Bay and recognized it as “a bay not sufficiently protected from the weather and not suitable for

for the forward base of the German fleet.

It is difficult to agree with such an assessment.

5. WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE NAZIS SECRET BASE?

Very little is known about her right now.

1. According to German sources, the location of the base was indicated by the coordinates of 69 degrees 25 minutes north latitude and 32 degrees 26 minutes east longitude.

2. From December 1939 to April 1940, the captain zur see Nischlag was the senior naval commander at the base. Previously, he commanded a German logistics unit in Istanbul and was assigned to Basis Nord in light of the preparations for the Norwegian operation. In July 1940, the commander of the special supply ship Fenitsia became the senior naval commander of the base.

Corvette Captain Gaushofer. The overall leadership of Basis Nord was entrusted to the Kriegsmarine.

3. Until May 1940, Nazi meteorological vessels were assigned to the secret base: Viking-5, Sachsenwald (650 gross weight), Kedingen, Cordillere supply ships (12,055-16,500 gross weight) and the aforementioned "Fenitsia" (4124 brt.), as well as the tanker "Jan Bellem" (11,766 brt.). Some of these ships, due to the inconvenience of the Bolshaya Zapadnaya Litsa raid, eventually moved to the Teriberskaya Bay and the Iokangi raid, and the Jan Wellem during the Norwegian operation (April 1940) had to throw itself ashore at the Ufut Fjord

4. Until December 1939, the base was a high-speed transport-banana carrier "Iller" (officially owned by the company "North German Lloyd", previously sailing along the Azores-Bremen line). Initially, it was this ship that was assigned to go to the Pacific Ocean along the Northern Sea Route. But later it was replaced by the Ems (Komet) transport, not so fast, but with a stronger hull and more numerous crew.

Chapter 2. Traces of "ghosts" with a swastika even near Taimyr

1. ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN HOURS OF THE GRAPH ZEPPELIN FLIGHT FOR SCIENCE. AND NOT ONLY…

The appearance of Nazi submarines in the Arctic, the creation of secret camps and the construction of warehouses could not have taken place if not for one scientific flight over the Soviet Arctic. Today in Russia, few people know about the Arctic flight of the Graf Zeppelin airship, stories about which once sounded from any loudspeaker and did not leave the pages of even the village newspaper. Today this gap will be filled.

The Arctic has always been closer to the lands of the Reich and therefore was mastered more thoroughly and energetically than the icy mountains of the sixth continent. But only today it became known that even the Kaiser's sailors began to master the future transoceanic route. True, in those days in the North they did not go further than the islands of Novaya Zemlya, and even more so they could not imagine that in thirty years their successors - Kriegsmarine submariners would see with their own eyes the blue massifs of domed peaks of mountain ranges on the banks of the Lena. With the outbreak of World War II, the Northern Sea Route, "shortly" connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was also included in the sphere of vital interests of the Reich. Our joint Soviet-German exploration of the Barents and Kara Seas in 1927 played a significant role in the study of the Soviet Arctic. Then - joint work on Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land during the Second IPY. True, Soviet historians for many years for some reason tried not to remember this. Therefore, a detailed analysis of those, rather intelligence than scientific, studies is still waiting in the wings.

Widely known in the 30s of the last century, the Arctic flight of the Graf Zeppelin airship, which took place in July 1931 under the command of Dr. Hugo Eckener, was forgotten in the USSR with the outbreak of World War II. And if the former radio operator of the expedition, Ernst Krenkel, did not tell about him after the war in his book “RAEM - my call signs”, Soviet readers would probably have no idea about this very interesting historical event. The reasons for this strange forgetfulness in the Soviet Union were well presented by the Dane Steensen in his book The Northern Sea Route, which was published in 1957. Here he directly pointed out that thanks to this flight, Soviet science received valuable scientific information. However, German science and military command received even more valuable materials, which played their role during the Kriegsmarine military operations against the Northern Sea Route ten years later.

For the first time, the German aeronaut Walter Bruns spoke about such a flight, who came up with a project to organize air communication between Europe and America along the northern coast of Siberia. On the basis of this project, in 1924, the international society "Aeroarctic" was created for the study of the Arctic with the help of aeronautic ships. Its first chairman was the famous polar traveler Fridtjof Nansen, who has always been a sincere supporter of the scientific study of the Arctic deserts. However, the majority of the members of the society were representatives of Germany, who, with commendable perseverance and assertiveness, strove to use all the flights of aerial giants for their national purposes. It is easy to guess that the first substantive conversation about flights to the Arctic took place in 1928 in Murmansk at a meeting of the International Arctic Congress of the Aeroarctic Society.

After the death of F. Nansen in 1930, the Aeroarctic Society was already headed by Captain Walter Bruns, who continued to implement the plans of his predecessor and even planned several flights of German aeronautic ships (zeppelins) in the high latitudes of the Arctic, but for some reason already ... only over the Soviet sector .

2. ARCTIC "WEREWOLF"

The July sun of the last pre-war year barely warmed the glossy expanse of the Goose Bank. On the horizon, the tops of the rocks of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago were visible. On the sea surface, slowly, leaning towards the throat of the White Sea, the fishing trawler RT-312 "Abrek" glided, having managed to fill its capacious holds with cod during the fishing season. A sleepy silence reigned on the ship. The crew, tired during the fishing, rested. Only the running watch was awake.

Standing on the captain's watch, the senior assistant of the Abrek, Valentin Dartau, habitually and leisurely examined the horizon. The watch was coming to an end, the weather conditions were simple. Ahead - the long-awaited house. Suddenly, the eyes of the senior assistant stumbled upon the inconspicuous gray silhouette of a two-masted ship, quickly “rising” from the horizon. It cut the waters of the Barents Sea like a knife, predatoryly clinging to the sea “mirror”. Within half an hour, the silhouette turned into a mysterious ship, not in a hurry to raise the national flag. The gray “ghost” did not look like any known Soviet transport ship or Soviet fisherman, although the red flag was clearly visible on board, specially painted on its board according to wartime rules. From the deserted and silent deck and the squat superstructures of the stranger, it was as if breathed with inexplicable hostility. Another half an hour, and the meeting ships dispersed. When the sun illuminated the inscription on the stern of a strange ship, Valentin Dartau read with amazement its name - "Danube" and below the port of registry - Leningrad.

And without raising the national flag, the gray ghost quickly disappeared, as if dissolved in a light haze near Kolguev Island. The first officer of the 312th gave the command to record in the logbook about an unusual meeting with a ship whose name he had never heard in polar waters, and again began to rule the navigation watch. What kind of stranger he was, he learned only after many years.

With the outbreak of World War II, a large number of transport and passenger ships of the Reich found themselves outside the Baltic and North Seas. They were forced to take refuge in neutral ports or in the ports of friendly countries. If German ships left Murmansk under the cover of the polar night for German ports, then the "Pacific" group "stuck" in the South Seas for another year. To return these ships to the Reich, a reconnaissance ship was needed, which would be the first to go all the way to the Pacific Ocean and return back.

This is how the idea of the Fall Grun operation was born, and the auxiliary cruiser Komet (formerly the Ems cargo-passenger steamer) became the reconnaissance ship. Captain zur see Robert von Eissen was appointed head of the reconnaissance transition.

3. TRACES OF UNDERWATER "GHOSTS"

The sight of the powerful Zeiss periscope slowly glided along the spurs of the Kharaulakh Range, spread out like an amphitheater over the calm waters of the Neyol Bay. He then smoothly passed along the gentle mountain slopes with still whitening spots of last year's snow and along the domed peaks that stretched along the banks of the mighty Russian river Lena, then he froze, carefully peering into the wild, like a prehistoric forest. Having surveyed the horizon, a bearded lieutenant captain in a cap with a crumpled, once white case once again carefully “walked” along the near bank with pebbles scattered everywhere and rare thickets of dwarf birch, then sharply turned to the same bearded senior engineer, in the red twilight of the central post tensely awaiting his command.

To the ascent!

A minute later, the chief mech, without taking his eyes off the depth gauge, reported:

The boat is in position!

Blow out the tanks!

4. THE BASIS OF THE NAZIS ARCTIC SYSTEM

Little is known about the role assigned to the crews of German submarines in the Arctic “system” created by the Kriegsmarine command, as well as about most of these well-guarded secrets of the Third Reich. It only remains for us to collect everything that appeared in the post-war years on the pages of the open press, and present to the readers of this book in a short reference.

It is known that from July to October 1943, up to thirteen submarines from the Viking group operated in the Kara Sea. Let us carefully consider the areas where their radio transmissions were detected, which were revealed in those days by the radio reconnaissance officers of the Northern Fleet according to the handwriting of German radio operators.

On August 13, one of the "Vikings" went on the air near Belushya Bay, and on August 18 - near Krestovy Island (Novaya Zemlya). A week later, on August 26, he "lit up" at the Minin skerries. On the morning of August 28, with an unknown purpose, he went on the air near Cape Krasheninnikov (the eastern shore of the Matochkin Shar Strait).

Another fascist submarine went on the radio on August 22 ... also at Cape Krasheninnikov. In August, she completely circled both Novaya Zemlya islands, while she visited the Bay of Prosperity. It was this knowledge that prompted a careful study of the basis of the Arctic "system" of the Nazis - the activities of their combat submarines, of which, by analogy with the "gray wolves", only a part can be safely called "polar or arctic wolves". Another part of it, performing its own tasks known only to their commanders, can also be safely called "escort boats". True, until now the line separating these submarines was absent in the open press. These lines may raise doubts among individual opponents, but it would be even more misleading to consider all the fascist submarines that operated off our polar shores only as warships. But judge for yourself!

It is well known that in the summer of 1943, U-354 operated in the Kara Sea as part of the Viking group, which consisted of submarines of the 13th flotilla, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Karl Heinz Herbschleb. It was on board that there was a special radio intelligence group (a prototype of the future OSNAZ ship groups) and special equipment for listening to the radio communications of Soviet ships sailing along the Northern Sea Route. For patrolling, this "Viking" was assigned an area between Dikson Island and the edge of the Nordenskiöld archipelago.

5. SECRETS OF ALEXANDRA'S EARTH

The most famous of all the secret bases of the Nazis in the Soviet sector of the Arctic is the secret stronghold of the meteorological expedition “Treasure Detector. It existed in 1943–1944 (there is evidence that Soviet pilots observed base depots as early as 1942) on the westernmost island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago - Alexandra Land. A meteorological detachment led by Lieutenant A. Macus and scientific leader V. Dress was brought to the island from Tromsø aboard the steamship Kedingen. Part of the detachment's equipment was delivered by plane. The expedition began its work on October 15, 1943. In the spring and summer of the following year, the personnel were poisoned by bear meat, and the German polar explorers were hastily evacuated by plane.

For the first time, our historians managed to find out about this secret base in September 1951, when the structures of the “treasure hunters” were accidentally discovered by the Soviet survey party led by Toporkov from the Arctic Project.

This phenomenon is difficult to explain even today. After all, for the first time a fascist aircraft of the Do-215 type, circling over the archipelago, was seen by Soviet pilots of the Polar Aviation in March 1941. During the war, our polar explorers observed signs of the clear presence of the Nazis here. And the crew of Ilya Mazuruk - also the work of an unknown radio station, red rockets, someone else's food warehouse, covered with a metal mesh from bears. And yet, only on September 12, 1951, when the Semyon Dezhnev icebreaking steamer arrived in the Cambridge Strait separating the islands of George Land and Alexandra Land, Soviet specialists examined the island. Here, not far from the edge of the eastern glacier, at a point with coordinates 80 degrees 50 minutes north latitude and 47 degrees 04 minutes east longitude, a fascist weather station was found: five dugouts for about three dozen people, a weather platform and an antenna radio mast. The weather station was located half a kilometer from the coast, at an altitude of thirty meters above sea level and was invisible from the coast.

The residential log bunker consisted of seven control rooms, a bedroom, a dining room, a kitchen, and storerooms. A quarter of the structure was buried in the ground, and its upper part was painted with white oil paint for camouflage purposes. The residential bunker was surrounded by trenches with machine gun nests, in which two company mortars, several light machine guns, a large amount of ammunition and a powerful radio station were found. Secret charters and meteorological observation logs were thrown into the soldiers' dugout. Not far away, on the coastal dry land, a small motor boat lay, and five kilometers away, a compact but powerful radio station was thrown under an awning, the antenna rack of which was an easily retractable likeness of a well crane.

Later it was found out that a minefield of a dozen galvanic mines with a centralized control system was placed on the approaches to the weather station.

S. A. Kovalev

Swastika over Taimyr

To readers

Before you is a book about the arctic secrets of fascist Germany, which we inherited in a kind of legacy.

hands, is the fruit of work that lasted ... several decades. Painstaking and, in the main, for obvious reasons - a completely thankless job. There is nothing surprising!

True, later, in state and bureaucratic "ignorance", she was outstripped by the acting head of the Russian government, Yegor Gaidar, who in January 1992 even said from a high rostrum, they say, the day of the new Russia: "The North is unprofitable!". Meanwhile, Yegor Timurovich, both during the period of his duties, acting. the head of government, and as an economist, could not help but know that almost 100% of the explored national reserves of nickel, cobalt, tantalum, tin, niobium and rare earth elements are concentrated in our Arctic. And also - that the potential gas potential of the continental shelf of the Barents and Kara Seas today is estimated at 50-60 billion US dollars and makes up almost 80% of all reserves in our country.

I would like to consider such a statement by one of the recent so-called reformers of the new Russia as an "accidental slip of the tongue." However, an official of this rank has no right to make such mistakes. And even more so - to forget the words of the great Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, who, unlike other sovereign husbands, sincerely cared for Russia and firmly believed in Russian power, growing precisely in Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. Fortunately for Russia, Mr. Gaidar's official statement did not have time to become a direct indication to all interested parties that Russia's unique polar regions are no longer needed.

In previous years, no less serious prohibition was also imposed on the history of military operations in the Kara Sea during the last world war. Even the honored submarine commanders, who on their ships repeatedly passed to the Far East along the seas of the Northern Sea Route or wintered near Biruli Bay on Taimyr, as well as near Tiksi, did not suspect what events had taken place here just twenty years before they arrived here. And the ruins, whose structures, the entrances to whose mines they accidentally noticed through the eyepieces of boat periscopes on the prehistoric shores of Taimyr or on the desert coast of the Laptev Sea. But often they saw evidence of the Nazi bases that once existed here, which, by the will of fate, we inherited. And yet, they didn't guess. And quietly passed by. Only when they retired did they share an amazing observation about a strange cemetery near the ruins of barracks on the shore of Biruli Bay, where crosses with half-erased inscriptions, made ... in the Gothic style, stood above the swollen mounds.

All of the above, as well as a number of other problems that visibly or invisibly accompanied the processing of the information received and its transposition into an acceptable form, for a long time did not make it possible to start publishing chapters from the already clearly looming book. And even - to find a suitable title for this book, thanks to which it would not immediately receive a negative "assessment", and especially from Russian people, but "Soviet hardening". And suddenly - "Eureka!". Once upon a time, when I was a cadet, I managed to read an extremely fascinating book "Shadows in the Ocean", which introduced Soviet readers to previously unknown facts, most often deadly encounters between people and sharks. One day, memories of this once read book “raised” its title from my subconscious. Quite unexpectedly, I remembered that the German submariners, lovingly calling their ships "polar wolves", always remembered that they were serving on "steel sharks". Yes, yes, on those "sharks" whose shadows during the Second World War appeared not only in the Baltic, North, Black and Mediterranean seas, but also in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and even off the coast of Antarctica and the Arctic. And the sailors who ran them, already after the second military campaign, proudly received the Military badge of a submariner with an invariable eagle holding a fascist swastika in its paws. German sailors laid future fuel and food bases on the remote islands of the Soviet Arctic, and after our Victory they were forced to leave them deep in the rear of the Soviet Union. But maybe there are still forgotten Nazi bases, abandoned factories or caches in the Russian North?

I tried to answer this difficult question in my book.

Annotation:

The book opens a new series of publishing house "Veche" "Naval Chronicle", dedicated to the brightest and most entertaining pages of naval history.

Swastika over Taimyr
Sergei Alekseevich Kovalev

maritime chronicle
More than sixty years have passed since the battles of the Great Patriotic War died down on the Kola land. However, the polar tundra and the Arctic seas, and often the hills surrounding the distant garrisons of the Northern Fleet, continue to keep the secrets of the past.

The book opens a new series of publishing house "Veche" "Naval Chronicle", dedicated to the brightest and most entertaining pages of naval history.

S. A. Kovalev

Swastika over Taimyr

To readers

Before you is a book about the arctic secrets of fascist Germany, which we inherited in a kind of legacy.

All of the above, as well as a number of other problems that visibly or invisibly accompanied the processing of the received information and translating it into an acceptable form, for a long time did not make it possible to start publishing chapters from the already clearly looming book. And even - to find a suitable title for this book, thanks to which it would not immediately receive a negative "assessment", and especially from the Russian people, but "Soviet hardening". And suddenly - "Eureka!". Once upon a time, when I was a cadet, I managed to read an extremely fascinating book "Shadows in the Ocean", which introduced Soviet readers to previously unknown facts, most often deadly encounters between people and sharks. One day, memories of this once read book “raised” its title from my subconscious. Quite unexpectedly, I remembered that the German submariners, lovingly calling their ships "polar wolves", always remembered that they were serving on "steel sharks". Yes, yes, on those "sharks" whose shadows during the Second World War appeared not only in the Baltic, North, Black and Mediterranean seas, but also in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and even off the coast of Antarctica and the Arctic. And the sailors who piloted them, already after the second military campaign, proudly received the Military badge of a submariner with an invariable eagle holding a fascist swastika in its paws. German sailors laid future fuel and food bases on the remote islands of the Soviet Arctic, and after our Victory they were forced to leave them deep in the rear of the Soviet Union. But maybe there are still forgotten Nazi bases, abandoned factories or caches in the Russian North?

I tried to answer this difficult question in my book.

Swastika over Taimyr Kovalev Sergey Alekseevich

S. A. Kovalev Swastika over Taimyr

S. A. Kovalev

Swastika over Taimyr

To readers

Before you is a book about the arctic secrets of fascist Germany, which we inherited in a kind of legacy.

I tried to answer this difficult question in my book.

From the book Everyday Life of the Population of Russia during the Nazi Occupation author Kovalev Boris Nikolaevich

Kovalev B. H. Everyday life of the population of Russia during the Nazi occupation The author dedicates this book to his teachers: N. D. Kozlov, G. L. Sobolev, T. E. Novitskaya and the unforgettable A. Y. Leikin. Introduction Man in occupation. Who is he? Man or woman, old man or

From the book of the KGB. Heads of state security agencies. Declassified Fates author Mlechin Leonid Mikhailovich

Chapter 23 NIKOLAI DMITRIEVICH KOVALEV On June 20, 1996, after Barsukov's resignation, Colonel General Nikolai Dmitrievich Kovalev was appointed Acting Director of the Federal Security Service. On July 9, he was confirmed in his position. He was born in 1949 in Moscow. After

From the book Encyclopedia of Delusions. Third Reich author Likhacheva Larisa Borisovna

From the book Military Mysteries of the Third Reich author Nepomniachtchi Nikolai Nikolaevich

Wilhelm WOLF ZODIAC AND SWASTIKA (Translated from English by S. Tsebakovsky.) Memoirs of Himmler's life astrologer. Published in 1970

From the book Sinister Secrets of Antarctica. Swastika in ice author Osovin Igor Alekseevich

Swastika in the ice It is a reliable fact that during the third German Antarctic expedition III, the Reich staked out a large territory located in West Antarctica on Queen Maud Land between 20 ° east longitude and 10 ° west

From the book From the KGB to the FSB (instructive pages of national history). book 2 (from MB RF to FSK RF) author Strigin Evgeny Mikhailovich

Kovalev Valentin Alekseevich Curriculum vitae: January 10, 1944, born in Moscow. Higher education, graduated from the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University. After graduation, he taught at the Law

From the book Encyclopedia of the Third Reich author Voropaev Sergey

Swastika See Symbols of the Third Reich

From the book Hitler's Europe against the USSR. Unknown history of World War II author Shumeiko Igor Nikolaevich

SWASTIKA - TO THE CROSS The next important topic is "Fascism and Religion". And here the overlaps are just as harmful. “Let's show Hitler if it didn't work out as a Satanist, then by Satan himself! Enemy of Christianity. And Hitler was a politician, a European politician! As the saying goes: "Not for that wolf

From the book The Emperor Who Knew His Fate. And Russia, which did not know ... author Romanov Boris Semyonovich

Tibet, swastika, Green dragon Speaking of Rasputin and the mysticism of the history of the Royal Family, one cannot help but recall the Buddhist healer P. A. Badmaev, with whom Rasputin was closely associated. Unfortunately, this is still the least studied part of the history of the Royal Family, and indeed

From the book Soviet aces. Essays on Soviet pilots author Bodrikhin Nikolay Georgievich

Kovalev Konstantin Fedotovich Born on May 20, 1913 in the village of Mingrelskaya, Kuban region. Shortly after graduating from the construction school in Novorossiysk, he was drafted into the Red Army and in 1937 graduated from the Stalingrad Military Aviation Pilot School. Have worked

From the book Internal Troops. History in faces author Shtutman Samuil Markovich

KOVALEV Alexander Antonovich (02/22/1899–04/08/1942) Head of the Main Directorate of the Border and Internal Guard (since 09/29/1938 - border and internal troops) of the NKVD of the USSR (01/29/1938–02/03/1939) brigade commander (12/23/1935) commander of the division (01/14/1938) Born in the city of Cherikov, Mogilev province, in a Belarusian family

From the book The defeat of Denikin 1919 author Egorov Alexander Ilyich

Annex III. E. Kovalev. Battle with the Cavalry Army of Budyonny at Bataysk and Olginskaya. 1920 In No. 71 of the Military Byli, Colonel Ryabinsky placed the article “Cavalry Case on January 6, 1920, in which he describes the attack of the volunteer cavalry brigade of General Barbovich and

From the book "The Occult Reich". The main myth of the XX century author Zhukov Dmitry Anatolievich

Swastika We have to answer one more question. Was Hitler's choice of the swastika as a symbol for the National Socialist movement a demonstration of "continuity" between the NSDAP and populist (theosophical) organizations that actively used this

From the book Aryan Myth in the Modern World author Shnirelman Viktor Alexandrovich

The swastika - from a solar symbol to a Nazi sign It remains to say a few words about the swastika, inherited by Nazism from Austrian Ariosophy. The swastika has long served as an important religious symbol in various regions of the world. It is easy to find in various

From the book The New Templars. Confessors of the "Black Order" author Vasilchenko Andrey Vyacheslavovich

Chapter 4. SWASTIKA OVER THE CASTLE OF WERFENSTEIN Attempts to create a new religious order, which would in essence resemble the Templars, Lanz began to undertake immediately after he left the walls of the abbey of the Holy Cross. Lanz planned to create not just a religious

From the book History of the Swastika from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Wilson Thomas

O. BYCHKOVA: Good evening, good afternoon, this is the program "The Price of Victory", in the studio of the RTVi television company, radio "Echo of Moscow" Olga Bychkova. Vitaly Dymarsky delegated to me the authority to start this program - he will join us in just a few minutes. Well, today we have a guest Sergey Kovalev, writer, historian, author of the book "Swastika over Taimyr". Sergey Kovalev, in addition, captain of the first rank, first deputy. editor-in-chief of the editorial office of the journal "Sea Collection". Sergey Alekseevich, good evening to you.

Sergei KOVALEV: Good evening.

O. BYCHKOVA: Well, the book is called “Swastika over Taimyr”, now I will show it. Here Vitaly Dymarsky is coming straight to us. I'll start asking right away. Vitaly, sit down here, don't leave me, please. If you'll excuse me, I'll immediately ask where the swastika over Taimyr came from and what is it doing there so far?

V. DYMARSKY: Good evening.

Sergei KOVALEV: Good evening.

V.DYMARSKY: I beg your pardon.

S.KOVALEV: The swastika over Taimyr started off in a very interesting way. I graduated from the Leningrad Higher Naval Diving School and spent my entire service in the Northern Fleet, on submarines and at the headquarters of the submarine forces. Back in school, I first heard that before the Great Patriotic War, a submarine with the entire crew, D-1 submarine, "Dekembrist" disappeared in Motovsky Bay. This is the first Soviet submarine, in 1940, on November 13, even before the start of hostilities, it disappeared with the entire crew. And in 1981, fate threw me right there, next to this Motovsky Bay, where for the first time I again, well, already came close to the mystery of this submarine.

For a long time I tried. Well, as you understand, in those days they didn’t really like it when you were interested in such secrets. Yes. Moreover, it turned out that her death, well, of course, death, when the crew went missing for 70 years, turned out to be associated with the secret existence of a secret German base, the Nord base. In the same place in Zapadnaya Litsa, where one of our bases, the Northern Fleet, is now.

When I began to work with Basis Nord, I served there for 15 years. Therefore, all the hills, of course, crawled, came in his free time from work, of course. And it turned out that there are a lot of structures, some deaf structures, as well as rocks, against which the roads paved with stone abut. That is, they directly abut.

O. BYCHKOVA: Right into the rocks?

S.KOVALEV: Straight into the rocks, yes. That is, at first it caused a long bewilderment. But in the end it became clear that these rocks were undermined from the inside and were simply collapsed. That is, this road does not just rest against the rock, especially since it is paved with stone. This, for example, if you once had to visit Lviv or Chernivtsi, there are beautiful stone-paved streets - that's about the same road there.

V.DYMARSKY: It didn't work out.

S. KOVALEV: To nowhere. Well, initially it was nowhere, but I understand that in fact it turns out to be somewhere. Moreover, I was interested that these structures were located between the lines of the Soviet and German defenses of the wartime. Moreover, if anyone visits there one day, look, because the German and Soviet defenses are a very serious difference.

O. BYCHKOVA: Is it possible to repeat geographically where it is located?

S. KOVALEV: Geographically. This means that if you go west from Murmansk, there is such a lip Bolshaya Zapadnaya Litsa, there is the city of Zaozersk.

V. DYMARSKY: This is a former closed city.

S. KOVALEV: Severomorsk-7, Murmansk-150.

V.DYMARSKY: City number.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, it has a number plate, but now it is a normal, closed territorial administrative entity. Well, there, at least, live not only the military, but already civilians. This is how it appeared, which means the first attempt to understand why no one talks about this base. Then, in the same place in the House of Officers, it became possible to get to the books of the 50s, a very interesting library has always been in this Zapadnaya Litsa - this is the capital of the Soviet nuclear fleet. A very interesting library. And there I once stumbled upon Weiner's book "The Northern Fleet of the Great Patriotic War", a 1966 edition. So it was there that I first encountered the fact that, it turns out, we had secret German bases in the Arctic archipelagos. Particularly in Franz Josef Land. And, in particular, I noticed that there is such a Nagursky Bay, where our border guards are now stationed. And 2 or 3 years ago, members of the Security Council even flew there, who opened this outpost of border guards there in a new form.

O. BYCHKOVA: So there were secret German bases, you say.

S.KOVALEV: So I'm going down there, right? Ours, ours, Soviet.

O. BYCHKOVA: Were there German bases on our territory?

S.KOVALEV: There were German bases on our territory, yes. That is, if "Basis Nord" - it was in agreement with our Soviet government, then in Nagursky Bay - well, let's say so ... In principle, the Arctic - it is very peculiar. That is, on one island from one end there could be our polar explorers, at the other end German polar explorers. And they each other, well, pretended at least that they did not know about the existence of each other.

V. DYMARSKY: Sergey Alekseevich, maybe let's go back to the beginning of this story, that is, to the history of 1940, to the "Decembrist", well, it's clear that the year 1940 - we are still, as it were, friends with Germany, and, apparently, that's why that story was covered, hidden. But why did it happen anyway?

S. KOVALEV: Death?

V. DYMARSKY: Yes, death.

S. KOVALEV: The fact is that this base was established in October 1939 by agreement. Since in Murmansk... Well, with the beginning of the Second World War, we will throw it even further.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, actually, the beginning of the Second World War is September 1, 1939, and this is October. That is, almost immediately after the start.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, yes, yes. This means that in Murmansk we have gathered almost 30 German ships, which, as in a neutral port, took refuge from English ships. These 30 ships - they stood, and openly, in the roadstead near Abram-Cape. We have such a place, Abram-Cape in the Kola Bay. They stood. That is, the German sailors quite calmly went to the city, the ships were being repaired in Murmansk. We are allies.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, we are allies, we are not adversaries - why not?

S. KOVALEV: But over time, apparently, some specific problems arose between the British and Soviet governments, and therefore these ships were gradually diverted to Zapadnaya Litsa, even further west, there, closer to the Finnish border. This is if you imagine the Rybachy Peninsula, and under it is just Motovsky Bay and under it Western Faces.

V.DYMARSKY: And then it was Finland, not Norway?

S.KOVALEV: Finland, yes, yes, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: Now it's Norwegian.

S.KOVALEV: Now it is Norwegian, and then Finland, yes. And now it has been relegated even further, beyond the Pechenga Bay. And earlier on the Rybachy Peninsula it passed then. And so they took me there, where, in general, no one could get it. The Soviet fishing collective farm was removed from there, that is, they were transferred to Karelia, these fishermen - this is what we called the Comintern collective farm. It consisted of Russified Finns, Nords and, according to Article 58, comrades who helped them there.

V. DYMARSKY: The irony of fate. The Anti-Comintern Pact and the state farm of the Comintern, right?

S.KOVALEV: Yes. They were literally evicted overnight. It was allowed to pick up, well, 20 kilograms, no more. And, accordingly, they were in Karelia ... Moreover, during my service in Zapadnaya Litsa, I managed to get acquainted with a man who lived as a child in one of these villages, Malaya Litsa, and then he settled in Petrozavodsk in Karelia. Moreover, he graduated from the higher party school, so he firmly convinced everyone that they were specially evicted only in order to create a base for submarines of our Northern Fleet, no more, no less.

V. DYMARSKY: Why, after all, "Decembrist"?

S. KOVALEV: “Decembrist” again, right? Excuse me, let's go back to the "Decembrist". This means that the base existed for almost a whole year and helped in August 1940 to transfer the so-called “Komet” cruiser, aka “Semyon Dezhnev”, aka “Danube”, aka “Donau”, aka again “Semyon Dezhnev” by the northern sea route in the Far East and "Tokio Maru" in the Pacific Ocean. That is, a werewolf, a real auxiliary werewolf cruiser.

V. DYMARSKY: Passing from hand to hand?

S. KOVALEV: No, no, he led the entire German crew, but the name simply changed depending on the area of navigation. As a result, somewhere in late October - early November, information was leaked in English newspapers. It was a secret passage, our ships, our icebreakers escorted him to the Far East, and he staged a very serious massacre there. And information leaked out. But the British already had information that there was a certain base in Zapadnaya Litsa, where German ships were stationed, supply vessels were stationed. And here, most likely, an English submarine came. Maybe lay mines, maybe, I don’t know what else to do, and the “Decembrist”, who went to the exercises simply in the Motovsky Bay, in his waterways, went out, sank and disappeared. That is, the observation posts observed by the evening only that a certain periscope of the submarine was leaving the Motovsky Bay, and that was it.

V. DYMARSKY: Blown up?

S.KOVALEV: No, there was no explosion. Just disappeared.

O. BYCHKOVA: Where to?

S.KOVALEV: Also unknown. Because there was diesel fuel on the surface, a broken lifeline and sticking up the battery, which the commission supposedly attributed to the submarine of the "Decembrist" type. Everything, there was nothing else.

V. DYMARSKY: And so nothing is still known?

S.KOVALEV: And it is still unknown. So, no crew - no one surfaced from the submarine, that is, no dead, no one surfaced, no boat was found, no traces.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, maybe they are just buried?

S. KOVALEV: They are still lying there, to this day. That is, 70 years they ...

V.DYMARSKY: But why did she die?..

S. KOVALEV: It is still unknown. Most likely a ram. There would be an explosion, this is a huge sultan of sea water and plus a huge flash.

V.DYMARSKY: Ejection.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, an outlier. Torpedo - the same thing if a torpedo. Means, slipped the maximum depth. That is, here is the official version: it slipped through the fault of the crew - well, it was standard at that time - through the fault of the crew, it slipped through the maximum depth and crushed it there. But in fact, it turned out that, most likely, she was rammed. So he died, and after that, no matter how hard they tried to look for her, this submarine, for some reason, behind the scenes they stumbled upon a misunderstanding, and in the very top ...

O. BYCHKOVA: And they closed these searches one way or another.

S. KOVALEV: They covered it, yes.

O. BYCHKOVA: Why?

S.KOVALEV: It's hard to say. Most likely, because of this "Basis Nord", so that this information does not surface.

V. DYMARSKY: Sergey Alekseevich, then this, after all, the question arises. It's 1940, right? But there were apparently many German bases of this kind in the north. That kind, anyone, huh?

S. KOVALEV: So far, 11 are known.

V.DYMARSKY: Some caches, right?

S. KOVALEV: Yes, yes, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: And there are rumors, rumors are still going around that they are almost still standing there mothballed.

S.KOVALEV: Well, there are some, there are some.

V. DYMARSKY: And now - is this still considered a secret object?

S. KOVALEV: I don't think so, but it's simply not profitable to show that we had bases so deep around the Kara Sea. That is, the mouth of the Yenisei, the Ob and even the Lena. There is an assumption that the famous Stolb Island is this one ... I’ll immediately take the opportunity that it’s a pity that the “Searchers” of Channel One, who, in my opinion, went there last year in the fall to look for this base, well, they did everything to make it can not found. Andrey I. is our famous seeker. Because it's very strange. In general, it aroused a very strange interest in me that he walked along the banks of the Lena River at the same time, as it is known that the only stone island there in the delta is Stolb Island, all the rest are formed by ice and sand that melt, and not a single sane polar explorer I wouldn't set up a base there.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, Lena is quite far to the east.

S.KOVALEV: It is very far away. This is beyond the Vilkitsky Strait, in general, the Laptev Sea.

V.DYMARSKY: This is Eastern Siberia already.

S.KOVALEV: Yes, this is Eastern Siberia. Therefore, such bases exist. But, in particular, in Lena, this 200-meter berth is very strange, which, in general, exists, and the most interesting thing is that Austrian and German tourists frequent there.

V. DYMARSKY: Now already?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, for the last 5 years.

V.DYMARSKY: So it's a well-known fact there, naturally?

S.KOVALEV: No, they are on tour.

V. DYMARSKY: A tourist object, a tourist object. So, travel agencies there sell tickets, tours.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, and, behold, it is the German and Austrian ones that have become frequent. Why is it interesting. And there is even information that they want to organize a diving center there. What for?

V.DYMARSKY: This is extreme.

Sergei KOVALEV: Extreme, extreme, yes. Cold. But why?

V. DYMARSKY: By the way, about the cold. Well, since I really was late for the broadcast, I did not have time to take questions from our listeners and viewers who came before the broadcast, but I remember one question very well, only, unfortunately, I do not remember the author, I apologize to him. The question sounds a bit naive, but in a normal person, it apparently evokes the right associations. He says, "We were told all the time that the Germans weren't ready for winter." Well, I mean 1941, the harsh winter of 1941, all these pictures, frostbitten, in bast shoes. - And at the same time, the Germans in the Arctic, the Germans in our north, well, they hardly went there unprepared, right?

S.KOVALEV: Of course, it is unlikely.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, after all, there was no winter, and the cold was not such a surprise for them, such a surprise that fell from the sky.

S. KOVALEV: The emphasis should be put a little differently there.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, of course, yes. Because this is a very naive and strange question, but nonetheless.

S. KOVALEV: Because winter, yes. They were ready to take Moscow within 2-3 months, Peter. And so when it turned out that, it turns out, not everything was as planned, winter came and they really were not ready. Of course, they went to the Arctic ready.

V. DYMARSKY: But did they have uniforms?

S.KOVALEV: Everything is ready. Moreover, several findings are known. Why do I say that not all of them remained mothballed, because several bases were found after the war in the 50s and 60s.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, they were not even discovered during the war?

S.KOVALEV: No, no!

O. BYCHKOVA: That is, they did not even know about their existence.

S. KOVALEV: They did not know and did not suspect. Because the Germans, unfortunately, well, or fortunately, maybe for the Germans, but unfortunately for us, they are really excellent sailors. They calmly went to the Arctic, and even now it turned out. This is the first book from the marine chronicle I have, the second one has just come out - "Mysteries of the Sixth Continent" - these are the Germans in Antarctica. Well, rather so. The name was the working title "Unknown War for Antarctica", but most of it is dedicated to the Germans there, in Antarctica. Do you understand? And they went there and got their way.

O. BYCHKOVA: So how long were they there? Until what time?

S. KOVALEV: Until 1944. That is, in particular, Berulia Bay is so interesting - it is the southeastern part of the Kara Sea, and the Germans mined some kind of ore there. Then they were brought by submarines to us in Linohamari, this is the Pechenga Bay. There they were reloaded from submarines to surface ships and taken to Germany. Naturally, a question arose. Firstly, submarines cannot take much away, this time. Secondly, what kind of ore is this, which is carried in small quantities? And third, what happened in Linohamari? Because in Linohamari there was a very interesting point, which was much better protected, even Altenfjord, where the (INAUDIBLE) famous stands. Do you understand? There is such artillery, such fortified areas, that no one suspected anything. Most likely, they mined Beryllium there in Berulia Bay, or uranium on the shores of Khariton Laptev. And in Linohamari, there may have been a uranium enrichment plant.

V. DYMARSKY: Good. But these bases - you said 11 of them in total, right?

S.KOVALEV: No, more have been found. But the thing is, I managed to find 11.

V.DYMARSKY: Well, let's operate with this number for now. They, as I understand it, are located quite far to the east in the north, right?

S. KOVALEV: Yes, yes, yes. Just a northern sea route map.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, let's at least show the audience, very approximately. Is there a map in the book?

S. KOVALEV: No, this one is not available, unfortunately – this one appeared recently, we managed to get it.

V.DYMARSKY: It's a pity. But, nevertheless, I will return to my question. 11 of these bases that you know about are quite far to the east. Tactical, strategic purpose, if you like, of these bases?

S.KOVALEV: Everything is clear. The fact is that when the infamous PQ-17 convoy was destroyed in July 1942, the Allies refused to send us cargo through Lend-Lease until the end of the polar day. And we, to be honest, near Stalingrad at that time were very strong, strong, already near Rostov, the Germans entered the Caucasus, got stuck. Therefore, the decision was made...

V. DYMARSKY: Moreover, the Northern route - it is necessary to make a reservation here - was the main, in general, the Lend-Lease supply route, right? There was also through Alaska.

S.KOVALEV: No, the Northern Sea Route is very rare.

V. DYMARSKY: Not the Northern Sea, the northern direction.

S. KOVALEV: Ah, the North Wing, yes, yes, yes. There were a few more - through the Far East.

V. DYMARSKY: There was also through Alaska.

Sergei KOVALEV: Through Iran. Well, the Northern route is the shortest.

V.DYMARSKY: The shortest and largest volume was transmitted there.

S.KOVALEV: Yes, we managed to make the biggest one. And when the transportation was stopped, then, of course, some decision had to be made. Because there is a lot of cargo accumulated in the USA, and in Iceland, and our army, in general, was already in great need. Plus, by this time the Northern Fleet had suffered quite large losses in surface ships, and help was needed. And then they remembered the Northern Sea Route, which for some reason before that - yes, there were victories, yes, flights over the Pole and so on - but what very few people remembered was that this is also the shortest route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic and vice versa. Here it is, the share of our Siberian shores is the shortest way.

The cruiser Komet, accompanied by our icebreakers, passed it in 15 days. That is, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. And if he had gone south, through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, around Africa, he would have had to go for more than one month. Finally remembered. Plus the safest, like, ours, the safest. But it turned out that the Germans had already penetrated there by this time.

That is, the famous "Admiral Scheer", an armadillo that Sibiryakov shot at one time, he passed around the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya and entered the Kara Sea by the Northern Route. He diverted boats from Novaya Zemlya, diverted the attention of our command, "Admiral Scheer" penetrated the Kara Sea and tried to intercept at the Vilkitsky Strait - here, Severnaya Zemlya, here Novaya Zemlya. Here at Severnaya Zemlya, this is the Laptev Strait, the Vilkitsky Strait, he wanted to intercept 50 transports and the entire icebreaking fleet. They were accompanied by only 3 destroyers - one leader and two destroyers that were without weapons. Therefore, such an easy prey would be for an armadillo, you understand? Destroy our entire, almost entire merchant fleet, the icebreaker fleet completely, and plus this replenishment, the latest destroyers. But fortunately for us, the weather of the Arctic intervened. That is, firstly, he got into a heavy ice field, then he lost his air scout. And in the end, he heard the negotiations that were held between the transports, but the elbow was close, but it was not possible to take it. Therefore, he moved south to Dixon, where the coal depots were located, and hit, ran into Sibiryakov by chance.

V.DYMARSKY: Thank you for the answers to our questions so far, and there will certainly be more. Let me remind you that our guest is Sergey Alekseevich Kovalev, writer-historian, author of the book “Swastika over Taimyr”. And we will continue this conversation in a few minutes in the presence for the first time at the "Price of Victory" we have a woman as a host, Olga Bychkova.

O. BYCHKOVA: Yes, yes. Well, somehow I tried to reassure our guest, to say that I also had sailors among my ancestors. I'm almost mine.

S.KOVALEV: I have calmed down.

V. DYMARSKY: Yes. Well, we say goodbye for a few minutes and continue our conversation with Sergey Kovalev.

V. DYMARSKY: Once again, I welcome the audience of the Ekho Moskvy radio station and the RTVi TV channel, this is the Price of Victory program. Well, I was left alone as the host, Vitaly Dymarsky. Olga Bychkova left us, preparing for the next program. We saw her off with tears in our eyes. And we are the host of the program and our today's guest Sergey Alekseevich Kovalev, captain of the 1st rank, historian, writer, captain of the 1st rank and 1st deputy chief editor of the Marine Collection magazine. Incidentally, the world's oldest magazine. How old is he? Over 150 years old?

S. KOVALEV: 162.

V. DYMARSKY: 162 years old - this is the magazine, the leadership of which magazine includes our today's guest.

S. KOVALEV: Moreover, I would like to note right away that he did not stop publishing for a single month. Even during the civil war, there were 2 of them - one in Petrograd, and the second in Tunisia, in Bizerte.

V. DYMARSKY: Seriously? Our emigration?

Sergei KOVALEV: Emigrants, yes. Our commander of the submarine "Duck" Nestor Monastyrev, captain of the 2nd rank, produced the "Sea Collection" there.

V. DYMARSKY: Sergey Alekseevich, let's get back to our topic - this is how we called it, you called your book like this, “Swastika over Taimyr”. Here we have a lot of questions, including before the broadcast, and during the broadcast they already come. Anyway, here is the question we asked you before our short break. All the same, I would like, perhaps, more clearly, in a military way, so to speak: what interest did the Germans have in the Russian north, let's say? Let's call it that.

S.KOVALEV: Well, first of all, these are the riches of the Russian north. First of all, this is Siberia, Chukotka, you know, these precious metals, precious metals, ores, furs. Including…

V. DYMARSKY: And did they manage to take it all out?

S. KOVALEV: Yes, yes, yes. It was taken out. There is information about this in previously closed archives, then the NKVD was. But in 1999, in my opinion, the archives of the NKVD were published for the first time in the Naval Collection, which revealed that German submarines even came to the camps of local residents and received something there. Well, furs for sure, but ore, as I said, they dug themselves, on their own. And the second. The Northern Sea Route is the shortest route between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean. And firstly, the north has always been for us - this is the ocean that no enemy has ever been able to close to us. If the Baltic or Black Sea straits, the Turks and Germans have always calmly closed, and the Far East has always been exactly the far. The only road that was very difficult for all materials and cargo to pass through was an open gate for us, which, unfortunately, we always used as a stepson for some reason.

V. DYMARSKY: Sergey Alekseevich, such a question. Well, the German bases, as we said, are there along virtually the entire North.

Sergei KOVALEV: Northern Sea Route, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: Yes. Were there any naval battles? Were there any clashes? Or, as it were, the Germans lived on their own, we on our own?

S. KOVALEV: No. The fact is that the Germans - they used the Northern Sea Route and these bases only in order to cut off our communications from the United States. Because along the Northern Sea Route, as the most protected, we have always carried the most important strategic cargo.

V.DYMARSKY: Was it successful?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, they succeeded.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, it was not a secret for us that the Germans were there?

S. KOVALEV: No, it was a secret for us, and no one understood why they knew almost exactly where the transports carrying these goods were. Only after the war, in particular, on Franz Josef Land, which I called Alexander Land, there is such an island, and there is Nagursky Bay. There, the Germans had the 24th direction-finding base of the Kriegsmarine, from which they took direction-finding all conversations, at least along the western sector of the Northern Sea Route. And any careless exit of our captain of our transport was immediately taken direction, and submarines in the Kara Sea were near Novaya Zemlya, and in ambushes near the Gulf of Ob and the Yenisei Gulf.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, all right. Look, they're in ambush, right? They're attacking our convoy, aren't they? But this is no longer a secret. So, it is clear that the Germans are there, since someone attacked, right?

S.KOVALEV: Yes. But the thing is, they found out when the torpedoes exploded already.

V.DYMARSKY: Well, it's clear, yes.

S. KOVALEV: And under whom they exploded - this, you understand. The Kara Sea - they live there for a very short time, who got into the water. Plus 4 - plus 8 degrees even in summer. That is, the ships disappeared. For example, the following is known. In 1943, out of 4 transports, the Germans destroyed 2 transports that were carrying goods for Norilsk Nickel and, in my opinion ... In general, for the Norilsk, for sure, the mining and smelting plant carried cargo and some cargo to the Yenisei and Ob, to Dudinka there. And out of 4 transports, 2 were destroyed. But unfortunately, the team thought that it was on the mines that they were blown up, because the Germans used electric torpedoes, which are outwardly traceless.

V. DYMARSKY: Arthur asks: "Did the Germans try to use the Northern Sea Route to communicate with Japan?"

S. KOVALEV: They tried. Tried. In particular, the mentioned cruiser "Komet" - he went to the Far East, and from the Bering Strait he went to "Tokio Maru" and landed his own in Japan ... Well, there was a very interesting translator, he was called the German naval attache translator Kurt Krepsch so famous. Which was immediately organized by our railroad, through Vladivostok, he quickly got to Moscow to Norbert von Baumbach - this is the German naval attaché in Moscow.

V. DYMARSKY: Who was in the embassy.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, he was in the embassy. Why it was organized so quickly, no one knows. But especially for him, a supply ship was brought from the Pacific Ocean.

V. DYMARSKY: So, something here... Alishka from Kazan: “I read that the Germans landed troops on Matochkin Shar and the Kara Bay. Is it true? What did they do, how did it end?

S.KOVALEV: They landed. Moreover, during the First World War there is a 99% chance that there was a German base there, on Matochkin Shar, which our military personnel discovered in the 60s. And the dynamo that stood there, it even started up and started working.

V.DYMARSKY: How did the Germans supply their bases? Here, they ask you.

S. KOVALEV: Winter delivery. There were supply ships that went... Look at the map - it's not that far. If you go there from Franz Josef Land, for example, it is much closer than, say, from Norway or, moreover, from Germany.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, we also need to bring more to Franz Josef Land.

S.KOVALEV: Yes. So they imported across the Atlantic, normally.

V.DYMARSKY: That is, in addition to the fact that they existed there, they were regularly supplied?

S. KOVALEV: Warehouses, huge warehouses, yes. There is an interesting Rudolf Island there, and warehouses there, at least in the 60s, our sailors observed the Nazi warehouses with interest. Well, of course, apparently, now they are gone, but, nevertheless.

V. DYMARSKY: All right, Sergey Alekseevich. Yet another question. So you say that now they don’t exist, but until recently - at least, I didn’t know all this in such detail as you write in your book, of course, but some rumors reached me. That there were some kind of caches, that they found stew, sweets, chocolate, which was not there. That is, all this is actually until recently?

S.KOVALEV: It existed until the end, yes.

V.DYMARSKY: Maybe it still exists?

S.KOVALEV: Perhaps even now. Why this is now a very interesting question - here, in the light of the fight against terrorism, the famous, international terrorism, after all, such bases exist. Yes, there are technical means from the 30s and 40s. But the fact is that these are normal bases that have been mothballed and that can be used, at least for the preparation and installation of some weapons, for example.

V. DYMARSKY: So. Here is the question. This is before our program yet came. Yes, well, this is the question. Yuran from Vladivostok, he writes about your book: “The author of the book touched on a rather interesting little-known topic, for which I thank him. But judging by the references to the sources with which he worked - and these are mainly newspaper and magazine articles, monographs and memoirs of the nameless ... ”I saw here that you don’t name, right?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, I don't name them on purpose.

V. DYMARSKY: People are still hiding.

S.KOVALEV: People still want to remain incognito, yes.

S. KOVALEV: So, I worked with the archives, and in particular with the archives of the Northern Fleet and the Murmansk archives. But you're right: it's very hard to find in the archives. Because, firstly, this material was classified at one time, and it could well have been under a double stamp, not only secret, but also Soviet secret. And so far, unfortunately, it has not been declassified. That is, unfortunately, we will not find direct confirmation yet, while we find indirect ones.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, a Muscovite nitsahon also praises your book, which he read, as he even writes, with great interest. However, he has questions. "First. How did our valiant agencies, first of all, military counterintelligence, generally thwart the construction and active use by the Germans of bases in these regions of the Soviet North?

S. KOVALEV: This is easy to explain. In particular, the crew of the Komet cruiser apparently did a lot in 1940, when we together guided it along the Northern Sea Route. But at the same time, for at least a month near Novaya Zemlya, we lost him from attention.

V. DYMARSKY: When did they do it?

S. KOVALEV: When they did. That is, for almost the whole of July 1940, he wandered somewhere in the area of \u200b\u200bthe western shores of Novaya Zemlya. And no one knows what he was doing there, because he was waiting for our caravans to cross. And we, including our own organs, did not want to fully disclose ourselves, and therefore, naturally ...

V. DYMARSKY: That is, is it still a secret?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, still.

V. DYMARSKY: And now what is there to keep secret?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, it's hard to say. But many are still secret. Although, there is hope that, after all, now 70 years have passed - well, probably, it will slowly open up.

V. DYMARSKY: Do you suspect or assume, maybe you know that, after all, some archival documents exist?

S. KOVALEV: Unfortunately, they were sent to Germany only at the end of the 1990s. But in Germany they can be found. We have them, we know that.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, did we just give it to the Germans or what?

S. KOVALEV: They gave it back, yes. Made a gift. This is the gift we made.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, in the German archives you can talk about this topic…

S.KOVALEV: You can find it. You can, you can, you can find it. Necessarily. And in ours, perhaps we will find something. But, unfortunately, we have a lot, and good purges have been carried out in the archives.

V. DYMARSKY: So. Here's another question. These bases are German. That is, these are not only islands, they entered the mainland?

S.KOVALEV: On the mainland they could, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: Since you have the book "Swastika over Taimyr", that is, the Germans were in Taimyr?

S.KOVALEV: Yes, they were in Taimyr. Here, in particular, let us once again return to the Berulia Bay, where until 1944, listen carefully! Until the autumn of 1944, when we had already driven the Germans abroad, German submarines went there to Berulia Bay, north of Novaya Zemlya. Look who sees the map now, they went and there was, well, you can call it a concentration camp. Naturally, this beryllium was mined by our prisoners of war.

V. DYMARSKY: By the way, who worked there?

S.KOVALEV: Yes. Here are the prisoners of war.

V. DYMARSKY: That is, prisoners of war from Germany have already been brought there, right? Through Germany back?

S.KOVALEV: No, no, no, everything is by sea.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, I understand. Through Germany, prisoners of war were returned to their homeland as prisoners of war, of course, forced laborers.

S.KOVALEV: Most likely, through Norway.

V. DYMARSKY: Did our prisoners of war end up in Germany, and then they were taken to work?

S. KOVALEV: They were taken to work through Norway, yes, yes, yes.

V.DYMARSKY: Well, that's what I'm talking about. It turns out that the irony of fate, our prisoners of war came to their homeland already as prisoners of war.

S.KOVALEV: Yes. After the end of the war, our Gulag camp was there until 1953. Those who have visited those areas can still observe crosses with Gothic inscriptions.

V.DYMARSKY: Here, like some, a veteran submariner - you see, he also does not write his name, does not reveal it - he writes that before the war the Germans went into the Gulf of Ob and stockpiled weapons.

S. KOVALEV: They could.

V.DYMARSKY: But before the war, I mean, before June 1941.

S. KOVALEV: Yes, yes, yes. Cruiser "Komet", most likely at this time. I agree.

V.DYMARSKY: So, what else? Did our residency abroad tell us about the bases?

S. KOVALEV: It is unlikely, unlikely - they were minding their own business.

V. DYMARSKY: How did the Germans supply? They supplied themselves.

S. KOVALEV: Supply ships. By the way, I remember an interesting moment. There was a Körntern, such an interesting supply ship that sailed along the Svalbard-Novaya Zemlya-Hammerfest triangle. Our sailors, when it was captured in 1945, when the fleet was divided, all the documentation was destroyed. But quite by accident, these laboratory journals were found in the hold of laboratories for determining the salinity of water, where one could easily find out which triangle he walked on. All 3 years. And the ship provided submarine operations in the Kara Sea.

V.DYMARSKY: Boris also asks: "After the war, the Soviet naval forces partially used the bases and ships of the German fleet."

S. KOVALEV: Used, used.

V. DYMARSKY: “Did they use the equipment of the German Navy there, in the Arctic?”

S. KOVALEV: They used it, they used it, yes. In particular, sonar beacons, which we first encountered in 1943, when they managed to sink U639 off the northern tip of the Earth. The S-101 of Lieutenant Commander Yegorov sank her submarine. And the same "eska" worked nearby, S-54 captain of the 3rd rank Bratishko. So, she was repeatedly called by an unknown vessel with light and hydroacoustic beacons. Moreover, if we remember, "eski" - their prototype is "seven", German submarines. They looked like them. Therefore, most likely, the captain of this ship was mistaken and he simply believed that this was a German woman, that is, he was waiting for U639. It so happened that our two Soviet submarines ended up between this unknown transport and U639 Oberleutnant Wichmann, which was sunk. Here are some interesting things.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, here all kinds of confirmation come to us. Alex writes to us: “Grandfather served in Taimyr and saw the German base. There were still food and stew. Edible."

S. KOVALEV: Edible - well, permafrost, so why not edible?

V. DYMARSKY: Well, in general, yes. The stew generally keeps well.

S. KOVALEV: Moreover, I have good friends who told me about when they found this base in Matochkin's ball, where the dynamo was German from the First World War, with a German stamp. There were also candies, which were enough, one candy was enough for three days - the person did not sleep. I ate this lollipop, and for three days you can not sleep.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, yes. That is, supportive.

S.KOVALEV: Yes, something tonic, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: Like we have lemongrass bushes in the Far East.

S.KOVALEV: Schisandra, yes.

V. DYMARSKY: But look, is this a legend or not? Is it true - here, truth without a name - is it true that one of the purposes of "Sheer" was to raise an uprising in the Gulag?

S. KOVALEV: Hardly, hardly. He really ... I heard the opinion that he was carrying weapons for the rebels, because this was the plan - to raise an uprising in the Gulag. And for this there was such a unit Brandenburg-800 - they prepared people to throw and, accordingly, raise an uprising. And you understand that if it were possible to raise an uprising along the Northern Sea Route, it would not only be that so many troops were pulled away from the front, but also the transports along the Northern Sea Route would be stopped in addition. That is, he could carry a weapon, but to raise it is unlikely. No, it's not serious.

V. DYMARSKY: Alexander asks: “Did the passage of the German airship Zeppelin help in determining the base construction area?”

S.KOVALEV: Still how, still how. That is, if we now impose these well-known bases on the Zeppelin route, then they will coincide, completely. That is, then, in principle ... Well, let's say so. It is unpleasant to say there that we were taken advantage of - our curiosity. Graf Zeppelin was the German Aeroarctic Society. That is, the conversation about flying to the Soviet Arctic was back in 1928, the first one took place. But the flight took place in 1931. So, on the German side there was a German crew, there were many German scientists, Dr. Eckener, on our side - Professor Rudolf Samoylovich. Rudolf Samoilovich - he, in principle, took control from the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya. And due to the fact that there was an opportunity to study the Arctic very well, in detail, where no man had set foot before, of course, the airship flew at a very low altitude and, accordingly, photographed everything. But the most offensive later turned out that instead of unloading these photo and film materials, the Germans calmly took them to Berlin, and then said that they were exposed. Well, they took advantage of us, they used us in this matter. And then they surfaced. They later surfaced when the Germans later had the most detailed maps, such that we never even dreamed of, even the Arctic ones.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, you know, since you have intrigued many people today… Here, however, is the question: “He served in Nerpichye Bay. What do you know about her? - asks Michael.

S.KOVALEV: Oh, this is an interesting lip. It is precisely there under these rocks that one should look for some structures. Maybe warehouses. Well, in general, it’s better to look in Andreeva Bay.

V. DYMARSKY: Listen, here is an absolutely amazing message. We will check it, of course, if it is true. “I am ready to finance an expedition to abandoned bases. Quite seriously, ”the man says his phone number.

S.KOVALEV: Fine, let's meet.

V. DYMARSKY: But, in my opinion, he does not live in Russia, judging by the address. But it doesn't matter, he left the phone, so, suddenly, it will work out.

Sergei KOVALEV: Thank you.

V. DYMARSKY: And the last question. You have intrigued all listeners today with your new book about Antarctica. Were there Germans?

S. KOVALEV: There were.

V. DYMARSKY: Yes? And there too?

S.KOVALEV: And there too.

V. DYMARSKY: Well, then, Sergey Alekseevich, I want to take your word of honor that you will come to us again, already with that book about Antarctica. Because I also confess to one thing - a lot of messages came in, I didn’t read them, which thought that today you are telling, as they write, unscientific fiction, that this is something like a UFO series and so on.

S.KOVALEV: But confirmed by facts, right?

V. DYMARSKY: But I think that today you have dissuaded even all the doubters. Thank you for this conversation. At the end we have, as always, a portrait of Tikhon Dzyadko, Pavel Ivanovich Batov. Well, Sergey Alekseevich Kovalev and I say goodbye, I hope not for a long time. All the best.

S. KOVALEV: Goodbye.

PORTRAIT BY TIKHON DZYADKO

T. DZYADKO: Pavel Ivanovich Batov is one of the most notable commanders of the Great Patriotic War. The publication "Independent Military Review" puts him in 2nd place among the commanders of combined arms armies. It looks like he went through all the wars of the 20th century in which he had the opportunity to participate. In November 1915, he was drafted into the army and went to the front, was the commander of the intelligence department, and was seriously wounded. For personal heroism, non-commissioned officer Batov was awarded 2 soldier's St. George's crosses and 2 combat medals.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Red Army, fought against Wrangel and participated in the liberation of Crimea. He took a lively part in the Spanish Civil War and in the Soviet-Finnish War. After her, he was appointed deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District.

Batov enters the Great Patriotic War at its very beginning, fights on different fronts, and in 1942 takes command of the 65th Army, and until the end of the war he was its commander. The 65th Army under his leadership participated in the final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad, in Operation Ring to destroy the encircled German group of Field Marshal Paulus. Batov, together with the 65th Army, participates in the operations of the Don and Central Fronts, and on the Second Belorussian, participates in Operation Bagration.

After the war, he was in the leadership of the group of Soviet troops in Germany. After returning to the Union, and then is a senior military specialist in the People's Liberation Army of China. In total, during his life in the Tsarist, Red and Soviet armies, Pavel Batov served 70 years.