Traitors of the motherland The main Soviet traitors of the Great Patriotic War

The most famous general of the collaborators. Perhaps the most titled in the Soviet style: Andrei Andreyevich earned all-Union respect in the Great Patriotic War even before lifelong disgrace - in December 1941, Izvestia published a lengthy essay on the role of commanders who played a significant role in the defense of Moscow, where there was a picture of Vlasov; Zhukov himself highly appreciated the significance of the participation of the lieutenant general in this campaign. He betrayed, unable to cope with the "proposed circumstances", guilty of which, in fact, he was not. Commanding the 2nd shock army in 1942, Vlasov tried for a long time, but unsuccessfully, to withdraw his unit from the encirclement. He was captured, being sold by the headman of the village, where he tried to hide, cheaply - for a cow, 10 packs of makhorka and 2 bottles of vodka. “Not even a year has passed,” as the captive Vlasov sold his homeland even cheaper. The high-ranking Soviet commander inevitably had to pay for his loyalty by action. Despite the fact that Vlasov, immediately after the capture, declared his readiness to assist the German troops in every possible way, the Germans decided for a long time where and in what capacity to determine him. Vlasov is considered the head of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). This association of Russian prisoners of war created by the Nazis ultimately did not significant influence to the outcome of the war. The traitor general was caught by ours in 1945, when Vlasov wanted to surrender to the Americans. He later confessed "to cowardice", repented, realized. In the 46th, Vlasov was hanged in the courtyard of the Moscow Butyrka, like many other high-ranking collaborators.

Shkuro: a surname that determines fate

In exile, the ataman met with the legendary Vertinsky, and complained that he had lost - he probably felt a quick death - even before he bet on Nazism along with Krasnov. The Germans made this emigrant, popular in the White movement, an SS Gruppenführer, trying to unite under him the Russian Cossacks who found themselves outside the USSR. But nothing good came of it. At the end of the war, Shkuro was handed over to the Soviet Union, he ended his life in a noose - in 1947, the ataman was hanged in Moscow.

Krasnov: not nice, brothers

Cossack chieftain Pyotr Krasnov, after the Nazi attack on the USSR, also immediately announced his active desire to assist the Nazis. Since 1943, Krasnov has been in charge of the Main Directorate Cossack troops The Imperial Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories of Germany - in charge, in fact, the same amorphous structure as that of Shkuro. The role of Krasnov in the Second World War and the end of his life path are similar to the fate of Shkuro - after extradition by the British, he was hanged in the courtyard of the Butyrka prison.

Kaminsky: fascist self-manager

Bronislav Vladislavovich Kaminsky is known for the leadership of the so-called Lokot Republic in the village of the same name in the Oryol region. He formed from among the local population an SS RONA division that plundered villages in the occupied territory and fought with partisans. Himmler personally awarded Kaminsky iron cross. Participant in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. As a result, he was shot by his own people - according to the official version, for showing excessive zeal in looting.

Tonka the machine gunner

A nurse who managed to get out of the Vyazemsky cauldron in 1941. Having been taken prisoner, Antonina Makarova ended up in the aforementioned Lokot Republic. She combined cohabitation with the policemen with mass executions from a machine gun of residents found to have links with partisans. According to the most rough estimates, over one and a half thousand people were killed in this way. After the war, she hid, changed her surname, but in 1976 she was identified by surviving witnesses of the executions. Sentenced to death and destroyed in 1979.

Boris Holmston-Smyslovsky: "multi-level" traitor

One of the few known active Nazi aides who died a natural death. White émigré, career soldier. He entered the service in the Wehrmacht even before the start of World War II, the last rank was Major General. He took part in the formation of Russian volunteer units of the Wehrmacht. At the end of the war, he fled with the remnants of his army to Liechtenstein, and this state of the USSR did not extradite him. After World War II, he collaborated with the intelligence agencies of Germany and the United States.

Executioner of Khatyn

Grigory Vasyura was a teacher before the war. Graduated military school connections. At the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was taken prisoner. Agreed to cooperate with the Germans. He served in the SS punitive battalion in Belarus, while showing bestial cruelty. Among other villages, he and his subordinates destroyed the infamous Khatyn - all its inhabitants were herded into a barn and burned alive. Vasyura shot those who ran out of the machine gun. After the war, he spent a short time in the camp. Well settled in peaceful life, in 1984 Vasyura even managed to get the title of "Veteran of Labor". Greed ruined him - the insolent punisher wanted to receive the Order of the Great Patriotic War. In this regard, they began to find out his biography, and everything was revealed. In 1986, Vasyura was shot by a tribunal.

Source Balalaika24.ru.

9. With enthusiasm, as their liberators, they met the Germans Crimean Tatars. At the headquarters of the German 11A in the Crimea, a department is being created for the formation of the Crimean Tatar enemy forces. By January 1942, "Muslim committees" and "Tatar national committees" were formed in all cities of the Crimea, which in the same 1942 sent 8684 Crimean Tatars to the German army and another 4 thousand to fight the partisans of the Crimea. In total, with a population of 200 thousand Tatars, 20 thousand volunteers were sent to serve the Germans. From this number, the 1st Tatar Mountain Jaeger Brigade of the SS was formed. On August 15, 1942, the "Tatar Legion" began to operate, which included Tatars and other peoples of the Volga region who spoke the Tatar language. The "Tatar Legion" managed to form 12 field Tatar battalions, of which the 825th battalion was located in Belynichi, Vitebsk region. Later, on February 23, 1943, on the day of the Red Army, the battalion in full strength went over to the side of the Belarusian partisans, entered the 1st Vitebsk brigade of Mikhail Biryulin and fought against Nazi German invaders near Lepel. In Belarus, in the occupied territory, the Tatars who collaborated with the Germans grouped around Mufti Yakub Shinkevich. "Tatar committees" were in Minsk, Kletsk, Lyakhovichi. The end of the Second World War for the Tatar traitors and traitors was as tragic and well-deserved as for other collaborators. Only a few managed to hide in the countries of the Middle East and in Turkey. Their plans to achieve victory over the "Bolshevik barbarians", to create a free Federal Republic under the mandate of the German Empire failed.

On May 10, 1944, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Beria, turned to Stalin with a request: "Given the treacherous actions of the Crimean Tatars, I propose to evict them from the Crimea." The operation took place in the period from May 18 to July 4, 1944. Without bloodshed and resistance, about 220 thousand Tatars and other nonresident residents of Crimea were evacuated. *

10. Caucasian highlanders greeted the German troops with joy, presented Hitler with a golden harness - "Allah is above us - Hitler is with us." In the program documents of the "Special Party of Caucasian Fighters", which united 11 peoples of the Caucasus, the task was to defeat the Bolsheviks, Russian despotism, to do everything to defeat Russia in the war with Germany, and the "Caucasus - to the Caucasians".

In the summer of 1942, with the approach of German troops to the Caucasus, the insurrectionary movement intensified everywhere. Soviet power was liquidated, collective farms and state farms were dissolved, major uprisings broke out. German saboteurs - paratroopers, in total about 25 thousand people, participated in the preparation and conduct of the uprisings. Chechens, Karachais, Balkars, Dagestanis, and others began to fight against the Red Army. The only way to suppress the uprisings and the unfolding armed struggle against the Red Army and partisans was deportation. But the situation at the front (fierce battles near Stalingrad, Kursk) did not allow for an operation to deport the peoples of the North Caucasus. It was brilliantly carried out in February 1944.

On February 23, the resettlement of the Caucasian peoples began. The operation was well prepared and was a success. By its beginning, the motives for the eviction were brought to the attention of the entire population - betrayal. Leading officials, religious figures of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other nationalities took a personal part in explaining the reasons for the resettlement. The campaign achieved its goal. Of the 873,000 people evicted, only 842 resisted and were arrested. For success in evicting traitors, L. Beria was awarded the highest commander's order of Suvorov, 1st degree. The eviction was forced and justified. Many hundreds of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Crimean Tatars, and others went to the side of our worst enemy - the German invaders, to serve in the German army.

11. In August 1943 in Kalmykia a Corps is created from the traitors of the Kalmyks, which fights near Rostov and Taganrog, then (in the winter of 1944-1945) in Poland, and conducts heavy battles with units of the Red Army near Radom.

12. The Wehrmacht drew personnel from traitors, emigrants and prisoners of war Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Armenians. From the Azerbaijanis, the Germans formed the Bergman (Highlander) Special Purpose Corps, which participated in the suppression of the uprising in Warsaw. The 314th Azerbaijani regiment fought as part of the 162nd German infantry division.

13. From among the Armenian prisoners of war, the Germans formed eight infantry battalions at the training ground in Pulaw (Poland) and sent them to the Eastern Front.

14. Volunteers - traitors - Georgian emigrants entered the service of the Germans in the first days of the war. They are used as the vanguard of the German Army Group "South". At the beginning of July 1941, a reconnaissance and sabotage group "Tamara - 2" thrown into the rear of the Red Army in the North Caucasus. Georgian saboteurs took part in Operation Shamil to seize the Grozny oil refinery. At the end of 1941, a "Georgian Legion" from 16 battalions. In addition to the Georgians, the Legion included Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Circassians. In the spring of 1943, all Legion battalions were transferred to Kursk and Kharkov, where they were defeated by units of the Red Army.

After the end of the Second World War, the fate of the soldiers of the military formations of the Caucasus was in the hands of our allies, and later the Soviet justice. All received their deserved punishment.

15. All this evil spirits were skillfully handled by anti-Soviet propaganda. Although it was not easy, it is far from easy to substantiate the reasons for an armed uprising against one's Motherland, which is waging a holy, just war for independence and freedom. Understanding well that the moral strength of a fighter, his stamina in battle is drawn from patriotic feelings, our enemies paid great attention to the moral, psychological, ideological training of the personnel of the newly formed units. That is why almost all units and formations of collaborators received the names of "national", "liberation", "people's". To fulfill the tasks of developing moral and psychological stability and maintaining discipline in parts of the collaborators, clergymen and German ideologists were involved. Information support was given special attention, because it was necessary to change the views on the content and essence of the ongoing armed struggle. These tasks were solved, including by numerous media. Almost all military units and formations of traitors had their own printed organs. AT ROA General Vlasov, for example, had its own organ "People's Anti-Bolshevik Committee", which published newspapers in Berlin: "For Peace and Freedom", "For Freedom", "Zarya", "ROA Fighter", etc. Special newspapers were published in other military units of collaborators: "Soviet warrior", "Front-line soldier" and others, in which the events taking place at the front were skillfully falsified. Thus, for example, the Red Army newspaper, published in Berlin, was distributed on the Leningrad Front under the guise of a front political department newspaper. On the first page of the newspaper, the slogan is printed: “Death to the German occupiers”, and then the Order of the Supreme High Command No. previous work for the sowing campaign. All former collective farmers born in 1910 and older must be demobilized from the Red Army. On the second page of the newspaper heading: "Warriors are studying the order of the leader." Here, they say, in the speeches of the soldiers, the mediocrity of comrade is noted. Stalin, and that "the place of every Red Army soldier has long been in the ranks of the ROA, which, under the leadership of Lieutenant General Vlasov, is preparing for battles with Judeo-Bolshevism."

In Belarus, a copy of Pravda was published with the slogan: “Long live the Union of Russia and Great Britain”, So: "More than 5 million former soldiers of the Red Army have already surrendered." Leaflets were thrown at the partisans in the form exactly the same as the Soviet ones from Moscow, but on the back: “Switch to the side of Germany”, “Cooperate with the German army”, “This is a pass for surrender.” The Fake Newspaper New way” was published in Borisov, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Orsha, Mogilev. An exact copy of the Soviet front-line newspaper "For the Motherland" with anti-Soviet content was published in Bobruisk. In the Caucasus, the newspaper "Dawn of the Caucasus" was published, in Stavropol "Morning of the Caucasus", "Free Kalmykia" in Elista, the organ of all the highlanders of the Caucasus was the "Cossack Blade", etc. In a number of cases, this anti-Soviet propaganda and falsification achieved its goal.

16. Today, the deliberate and deliberate falsification of the results of the Second World War and the Second World War in general, the historical victories of the Soviet people and its Red Army has increased significantly. The goal is obvious - to take away the Great Victory from us, to consign to oblivion those atrocities and atrocities that were committed by the Nazis and their accomplices, traitors and traitors to their homeland: Vlasov, Bandera, Caucasian and Baltic punishers. Today their barbarism is justified by the "struggle for freedom", "national independence". It looks blasphemous when the SS men from the Galicia division, who have not been killed by us, are in law, receive additional pensions, and their families are exempted from paying for housing and communal services. The day of the liberation of Lviv - July 27 was declared "a day of mourning and enslavement by the Moscow regime." Alexander Nevsky Street was renamed Andriy Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church, who in 1941 blessed the 14th Grenadier division SS "Galicia".

Today, the Baltic countries demand billions of dollars from Russia for "Soviet occupation". But have they really forgotten that the Soviet Union did not occupy them, but saved the honor of all three Baltic states from the inevitable fate of being part of the defeated Nazi coalition, gave them the honor to become part of the general system of the countries that defeated fascism. Lithuania in 1940 received back, previously selected by Poland, the Vilna region with the capital Vilnius. Forgotten! It is also forgotten that the Baltic countries since 1940. By 1991, to create their new infrastructure, they received from the Soviet Union (in today's prices) 220 billion dollars. With the help of the Soviet Union, they created a unique high-tech production, built new power plants, incl. and nuclear, which provides 62% of all energy consumed, ports and ferries (3 billion dollars), airfields (Siauliai - 1 billion dollars), created a new merchant navy, built oil pipelines, completely gasified their countries. Forgotten! The events of January 1942, when traitors to the Motherland on June 3, 1944 burned to the ground the village of Pirgupis and also the village of Raseiniai, were forgotten. The village of Audrini in Latvia, where today the NATO air force base, suffered the same fate: 42 courtyards of the village, together with the inhabitants, were literally wiped off the face of the earth. The Rezekne police, led by a beast in the guise of a man Eichelis, already by July 20, 1942, managed to exterminate 5128 residents of Jewish nationality. Latvian "fascist riflemen" from the SS troops annually on March 16 arrange a procession with a solemn march. A marble monument was erected to the executioner Echelis. For what? Former punishers, SS men from the 20th Estonian division and Estonian policemen, who became famous for the total extermination of Jews, thousands of Belarusians and Soviet partisans, every year on July 6 parade with banners along Talin, and celebrate the day of the liberation of their capital - September 22, 1944, as a day of mourning. Former SS Colonel Rebane, a granite monument was erected, to which children are brought to lay flowers. The monuments to our generals, liberators have long been destroyed, the graves of our brothers-in-arms patriots have been desecrated. In Latvia, in 2005, the vandals, unrestrained by impunity, already thrice (!) mocked the graves of the fallen soldiers of the Red Army. Why, why do they desecrate the graves of the heroes-soldiers of the Red Army, destroy their marble slabs, kill them a second time? The West, the UN, the Security Council, Israel are silent, they are not taking any measures. Meanwhile, Nuremberg Trials 11/20/1945-10/01/1946 for carrying out a conspiracy against Peace, humanity and the gravest war crimes, he sentenced Nazi war criminals not to be shot, but to be hanged. On December 12, 1946, the UN General Assembly upheld the validity of the sentence. Forgotten! Today in some countries of the CIS there is an exaltation, glorification of criminals, punishers and traitors. May 9 - historical day, day Great Victory is no longer celebrated - a working day, and even worse, a "day of mourning."

The time has come to give a resolute rebuff to these deeds, not to praise, but to expose all those who, with weapons in their hands, became servants of the Nazis, committed atrocities, destroyed the elderly, women and children. The time has come to tell the truth about collaborators, enemy military, police units, traitors and traitors to the Motherland.

Betrayal and betrayal always and everywhere caused feelings of disgust and indignation, especially betrayal of the previously given oath, the military oath. These betrayals, the oath of crime, have no statute of limitations.

17. On the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union in 1941-1944. A truly nationwide struggle of honest Soviet people, partisans and underground fighters unfolded against numerous military formations from among the White emigrants, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, who became in the service of the Nazis. How hard it was for the Soviet people and the soldiers of the Red Army to fight, fighting, in fact, on two fronts - in front of the German hordes, in the rear - traitors and traitors.

Treason and betrayal during the holy years of the Second World War were indeed of significant proportions. Collaborators, policemen and punishers brought great human losses, suffering and destruction. To betrayal, to traitors to the Motherland, who took up arms on the side of the Nazis, Nazi Germany who swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler, attitude Soviet people was unequivocal - hatred and charity. Popular approval was caused by the retribution that is deserved, the criminals suffered in court.

Author: Veteran of the Great Patriotic War and military intelligence, chairman of the Military Scientific Society at the State Cultural and Leisure Institution " Central House officers of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus ”(until 2012) retired Major General Vorobyov Vladimir Nikiforovich.

Traitors and traitors in the Great Patriotic War

The theme of collaborationism - betrayal and cooperation Soviet citizens with fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War- is relevant, because those who betrayed the interests of their homeland, traitors, today are exalted, monuments are erected to them, they are considered spokesmen for protest against communism, " Stalinist regime, fighters for freedom and independence. All this, of course, causes bewilderment and resolute protest of every honest person, especially veterans.Great Patriotic War.

Westerners-Democrats the theme of betrayal, voluntary service to the Nazis in the years Great Patriotic Wardon't care at all. But betrayal, betrayal of the Motherland always and everywhere causes feelings of disgust and contempt. Voluntary, at least short-term, cooperation with our sworn enemy cannot be justified by anything.

Let's tell the truth, the collaborationist movement in the territory of the Soviet Union temporarily occupied by the Germans was quite massive. According to various estimates, collaborators from among the dispossessed, convicted, dissatisfied with the Soviet regime, anti-Soviet emigrants, and, partly from prisoners of war of the Red Army, in the service of the Nazis in the Wehrmacht, police units, SS and SD, were from 1 to 2.5 million people.

Attack Nazi Germany the White émigré part of the population of Russia, officers, landlords and capitalists, who were not finished off and fled abroad, met with great enthusiasm. There was a desire to take revenge for the defeat in the civil war, to start liberation campaign against the Bolsheviks now with the help of German bayonets.

A special, rather numerous category of traitors were natives of the Caucasus, the Baltic states, the German Volga region, as well as Russian emigrants in Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. There were many former soldiers of the White Army: Kolchak, Wrangel, Denikin. All of them volunteered to serve Hitler, joining hostile military and police formations that acted against the Red Army, Soviet, French, Yugoslav partisans on their own or as part of the Wehrmacht, Abwehr, SS and SD troops.

All this brotherhood was in demand by Hitler, as a military force that had experience in combat operations during the First World War and the fight against Soviet power in subsequent years.

1. The main unifying force of the campaign Russian traitors against the Soviet Union Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which on September 12, 1941 in Belgrade creates a Separate Russian Corps (ORK) under the command of the chief of Russian emigration in Serbia, General of the Volunteer Russian Army M.F. Skorodumova. In the corps there were traitor volunteers from the 1st Cossack Regiment, from Bessarabia, Bukovina and even from Odessa. On January 29, 1943, the personnel of the ORC is sworn in: “I swear holy before God that in the fight against the Bolsheviks - the enemies of my Fatherland, I will provide Supreme Leader Germany, Adolf Hitler, unconditional obedience and I will be ready, like a brave warrior, at any time to sacrifice my life for this oath. Soldiers of the ORC wore the uniform of the Wehrmacht with sleeve badge"ROA" (Russian Liberation Army). The combat path of the ORK began in early 1944 against the Yugoslav partisans Broz Tito, and in September 1944 the corps joined the Russian Liberation Army of General Vlasov. The surviving 4.5 thousand ORC soldiers, after the defeat of the Red Army, capitulated to the British army and, having received the status of "displaced persons", fled to the USA, Canada, Australia. Today, the unfinished headquarters of the corps operates in the United States, has its own organ, the Union of Officials, and publishes the magazine Nashi Vesti, which is also published in Moscow.

The heavy losses suffered by the Germans on the Soviet-German front forced the German leadership to enlist Red Army prisoners of war in the fight against the Soviet Union. Voluntary entry into enemy formations for prisoners of war was the only way to save their lives, to escape from inevitable death in a concentration camp, meaning in the future, at the first opportunity, in the first battle, go over to the side of the Red Army or to the partisans.

In March 1942, in the village of Osintorf (Belarus), the formation of the Russian National People's Army(RNNA), which initially included prisoners of war from the ZZ-th A, the 1st Cavalry Corps and the 4th Airborne Corps of the ZF. Deadly exhausted, exhausted Red Army soldiers after laundering, fattening were enrolled in the ranks. By August 1942, the RNNA numbered about 8 thousand people. It was proposed to command the army, who was in captivity, the commander of the 19th A ZF, Lieutenant General M.F. Lukin. But he resolutely refused to cooperate with the Germans. accepted the army former commander 41st SD Colonel Boyarsky. Parts of the RNNA took part in the hostilities against the 1st Caucasian Corps of P.A. Belov in May 1942.

The major defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad gave rise to ferment in parts of the RNNA. Soldiers en masse began to go over to the side of the Red Army and the partisans. And at the same time, traitors were found in the Red Army who voluntarily, without any resistance, surrendered to the Germans. These are not white emigrants and not prisoners of war, these are the worst enemies of the Soviet government, which raised and educated them, gave them high positions and great military ranks. This is Vlasov and the Vlasovites - the Russian Liberation Army (ROA).

The ROA was headed by a lieutenant general, commander of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front, voluntarily offered his services to the Nazis on July 11, 1942 to fight their own people. A. Vlasov, in 1939 the commander of the 99th SD of the KOVO, was awarded the Order of Lenin. Since the beginning Great Patriotic Warhe is already the commander of the 4th MK, then he commands the 37th A, defending Kyiv, and the 20th A, which is fighting near Moscow. Since March 1942 he has been in command of the 2nd Ud. And where in the village. Tukhovezh, Leningrad region, surrendered. On August 3, he turned to the German command with a proposal to create a ROA. In September 1944, after a meeting with the SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler, Vlasov forms two divisions of the ROA: "... the tasks of the divisions can only be solved in alliance and cooperation with Germany." The divisions entered the battle against the Red Army on April 13, 1945 near Furstenwalde on the Oder bridgehead, and in May 1945 in Czechoslovakia they were defeated and ceased to exist. The command of the ROA on May 11, 1945 was caught and arrested. August 1, 1946 12 traitors and traitors led by Vlasov were hanged. Despite the petition of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of A. Yakovlev in 2001 to reconsider the case of the Vlasovites, the Military Collegium Supreme Court Russia refused to rehabilitate traitors to the Motherland.

Vlasov turned out to be a godsend for the Nazis, as the worst enemies of the Soviet people began to concentrate around him. Hitler did not have much confidence in Vlasov and the ROA, as well as in all Soviet people, believing, and not without reason, that under certain circumstances, at the first opportunity, they would break their promises and go over to the side of the Red Army. And it's true, there were a lot of such cases.

The betrayal of Vlasov and the Vlasovites laid bare all the meanness, vanity, careerism, selfishness and cowardice of a small number of servicemen - perjurers who faithfully served the sworn enemy of the Soviet people and all mankind - fascism.

During the Great Patriotic War in each infantry division of the Germans from white emigrants and prisoners of war, several infantry battalions "OST" were formed, which received the number of their division."Ost-battalions" fought the partisans, carried out security service. German officers were appointed battalion commanders, since the Germans did not have much confidence in the OST. Later, the battalions were transferred to Europe. The last "ost-battalion" was defeated by the Red Army in January 1945.

The larger Russian collaborationist formations were the eastern regiments and brigades. For example, the 2nd TA Guderian included the Desna volunteer regiment. In the Bobruisk region in June 1942, the 1st Eastern Reserve Regiment operated, in the Vitebsk region - the Kaminsky brigade and others.

At the headquarters of all Army Groups and Armies of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, special headquarters were created for the commanders of special forces, who monitored the reliability of the formed units and conducted combat training with them.

In the summer of 1942, the Nazi troops entered the Cossack regions of the Don, Kuban, and Terek. Cossack structures received permission from the German authorities to form battalions, regiments and divisions. The 1st Cossack division, consisting of 11 regiments, 1200 bayonets each, in the spring of 1944 ended up in Belarus in the Baranovichi, Slonim, Novogrudok region, where they entered into battle with the partisans, and then with the advanced units of the Red Army. Having suffered significant losses, the division, by order of the atamans of the Cossack Camp Krasnov and Shkuro, is transferred to Italy, where on May 3 it capitulated to the British. Later, 16 thousand Cossacks were transferred to Novorossiysk, where they were tried by the Military Tribunal. Everyone got what they deserved.

Through the efforts of the leadership of the Main Directorate of the Cossack troops of the white generals P. Krasnov and A. Shkuro, the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps (KKK) was created as part of two divisions and the Plastun brigade. The formations fought with units of the Red Army until the end of the war. Only in May 1945 did they lay down their arms in Yugoslavia.

Special forces, which were formed only from among Russian emigrants, acted against the partisans and the Red Army. Disguised in the uniform of the Red Army, police or railway workers, having well-made documents, reconnaissance saboteurs were thrown into the rear of the Red Army. Penetrating into the rear, they conducted reconnaissance, committed major sabotage. Special place in the first days of the war, it was occupied by the 800th Brandenburg Special Forces Regiment. In the first hours of the war, saboteurs of the regiment in Kobrin and Brest disabled the power plant and water supply, interrupted wired connection With Brest fortress, shot in the back, alerted to the commanders of the Brest garrison.

To create an insurrectionary movement in the Soviet rear and fight against partisans, as well as for the leadership of intelligence. sabotage activities on the Soviet-German front in June 1941, a headquarters was created in the Abwehr. A white emigrant, a former officer of the tsarist army, General A. Smyslovsky, who is also a major general, is appointed chief of staff. german army Arthur Homeston. From this headquarters on the territory of Belarus in Minsk, Mogilev, Orsha, Slutsk, Baranovichi and Polotsk, residencies began to operate with a large number of agents who infiltrated the partisans and underground. With the approach of the Red Army troops, the residencies were ordered to remain in place to continue sabotage and reconnaissance. Those left to settle were selected from the elderly, the disabled, who were not subject to mobilization into the army. To communicate with these agents, safe houses, points with radio communications were created. By 1943, the total number of agents increased by more than 40 times. For this, Smyslovsky was awarded the Order of the German Eagle. Later, Smyslovsky became the Commander of the 1st Russian National Army (RNA), which received the status of an ally of the Wehrmacht.

In March 1942, to destabilize the Soviet rear, the Germans create another reconnaissance and sabotage body, the Zeppelin Enterprise. The front-line organs of the Zeppelin operated throughout the entire length of the Soviet-German front. In the same year, the Zeppelin organ created the 1st Russian National SS Brigade in the prisoner of war camp in Suwalki (Poland)., which in May 1943 was fighting fierce battles with the partisans of the Begoml zone, where it suffered big losses. In August 1943 the brigade under the command of Gil (2800 people) went over to the side of the partisans and entered into battle with the German invaders in Dokshitsy and Krulevshchizna, but already as part of the Zheleznyak brigade of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone. For these actions, V. Gil-Rodionov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

The National Labor Union (NTS) operated on the temporarily occupied territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. NTS was created back in 1930 from Russian emigration. The main goal of the union is the fight against Bolshevism by creating internal anti-Soviet underground organizations. The headquarters of the NTS was located in Berlin. The leadership of the NTS in Berlin concluded an agreement with the Abwehr on the conduct of joint actions against the Soviet Union in the upcoming armed conflict. Since the beginning Great Patriotic WarNTS groups appeared in Orsha, Gomel, Mogilev, Polotsk, Bobruisk, Borisov, Minsk and in 72 other cities of Russia and Ukraine. Close cooperation of the NTS was imposed with the traitors of General Vlasov.

In the spring of 1944, in Borisov and Bobruisk, the NTS created two nationalist organizations - the Union of Struggle Against Bolshevism and the Union of Belarusian Youth. The purpose of the created unions is "the struggle against Judeo-Bolshevism." Unstable former members of the CPSU(b) and VLKSM were accepted into the unions with a probationary period of 6 months. Those who "suffered" from the Soviet regime and those who were repressed were accepted as honorary members. Armed squads were created in the unions. All young people were obliged to join unions and squads, they were given weapons and uniforms. In connection with the approach of the Red Army troops, the activities of the NTS and the "unions" in the spring of 1944 were terminated.

2. In the western occupied regions of Belarus, where it was the largest number nationalists, in the cities of Novogrudok, Baranovichi, Vileyka, Bialystok, collaborationist organizations "Self-defense" ("Samaakhovs") were created. In 1942, such formations were created throughout Belarus, designed mainly to fight partisans.

A larger formation against the Belarusian partisans was the "Belarusian Regional Defense" (BKA), led by the traitor Franz Kuschel, a former officer in the Polish army. The prisoner of war Kushel in the spring of 1941 was sent to Minsk under the supervision of the NKVD. From the first days Great Patriotic War he was a translator of the German field commandant's office, then, in October 1941, he created the "Belarusian Samaakhova Corps". The 1st division of the corps was stationed in Minsk, the 2nd - in Baranovichi, the 3rd - in Vileyka. The personnel of the corps took an oath: “I swear that side by side with a German soldier I will not let go of my arms until the last enemy of the Belarusian people is destroyed.” After the German front in Belarus collapsed in June 1944, the soldiers of the corps, throwing down their weapons, fled to their homes.

In the summer of 1942, the German leadership of the Minsk police began the formation of police battalions, sworn enemies of the partisans. In total, 20 battalions of 500 people each were formed, including the 48th battalion in Slonim, the 49th in Minsk, the 60th in Baranovichi, the 36th regiment in Urechye, etc. The battalions received Active participation in major anti-partisan operations: "Cottbus" in the Lepel area, "Herman", "Swamp Fever", "Hamburg", etc. The hatred of the partisans for these formations was fanatical and immeasurable. On the hats of the traitors there was a cockade with the image of "Pursuit", and on the left sleeve - a white-red-white bandage.

On January 25, 1942, by order of Hitler, the 1st Belorussian SS Grenadier Brigade "Belarus" was created from among the traitors who had fled to Germany. At the end of 1944, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Sieglin formed the 30th Belorussian SS division from the defeated and retreating police formations and units of the Samaakhova, which took part in the battles against the Anglo-American troops on the Western Front. Having suffered significant losses, the remnants of the division joined the Vlasov ROA. When the Germans allowed the head of the Belarusian Rada Ostrovsky to form another Belarusian SS division, the task turned out to be impossible - traitors and traitors from among the dispossessed and criminals who fled from justice, selfish people and just cowards, at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, hoping to earn encouragement for their deeds, hundreds and thousands began to go over to the partisans.

On June 22, 1943, the Commissar General of Belarus, Cuba, approved the creation of a youth organization and the Charter of the Union of Belarusian Youth. Nobody joined the organization. The Belarusian people had to endure too much grief and suffering during the 3 years of occupation. Punitive operations in Belarus were carried out mainly by police battalions from the Baltics, Ukraine and Poland. The Latvian policemen were especially atrocious in operations: "Winter Magic" - February 1943, "Spring Festival" - April 1943, "Heinrich" - November 1943, and the 18th Latvian police battalion in the operation "Riga".

In the course of these and other punitive operations, thousands, hundreds of thousands of civilians were shot and burned alive. 209 cities and towns turned out to be in ruins, 9200 villages and villages were burned, including 186 with all the inhabitants. Among them is Khatyn. In total, only Latvians left their bloody trail on the territory of Belarus - the 15th division, 4 police regiments, 26 battalions. Armed bandits of the Polish legion of lieutenant Milashevsky, the legions of Kmititsa and Mrachkovsky committed atrocities in Belarus. There were also punishers from Ukraine. The Nachtigal reconnaissance and sabotage battalion operated as part of the German Brandenburg regiment, carried out punitive operations in the Brest and Mogilev regions.

3. On the territory of Ukraine, immediately after the arrival of the Germans, the formation of collaborationist national military units, police units under various titles: "All-Ukrainian Liberation Army" (VOA), "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (UPA), "Ukrainian National Army" (UNA). The formations were used to fight against Red Army units and partisans. The creation of military units was headed by the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Colonel Melnyk, and the well-known nationalist Stepan Bandera. The latter, back in the twenties, held the post of leader of the Western Ukrainian youth, and in 1932 became deputy chairman of the OUN. For organizing the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, General Peratsky Bandera, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. But in 1939, with the arrival of the Germans in Warsaw, Bandera returned to Western Ukraine, where he created detachments of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Detachments quickly grow into regiments and divisions. Soon the UPA has more than 200 thousand people, including. 15 thousand divisions "Galicia". The UPA is conducting an armed struggle against the Soviet partisans and the Polish Home Army in the territory of Western Ukraine, Bukovina and in the forests of the forests of Pinsk.

The war is being waged for an "independent" Ukraine "without gentlemen of the landlords, capitalists and Bolshevik commissars." But the Bandera UPA still swore allegiance to Hitler : “I, a Ukrainian volunteer, with this oath voluntarily place myself at the disposal of the German army. I swear allegiance and obedience to the German leader and Supreme Commander of the German Army, Adolf Hitler." For this obedience, the UPA was hard hit by the Red Army. The combat formation of the 14th division of the SS Grenadiers "Galicia", which became part of the 13th AK of the 4th A of the Army Group "Western Ukraine", was completely defeated in July 1944 in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation near Brody. From the Brodsky boiler, where 30 thousand died and 17 thousand soldiers and officers were captured, no more than 1 thousand "Galicians" escaped. The "Sumskaya" division of the UPA was defeated even earlier, near Stalingrad. The division "Vilna Ukraine" fought as part of the AK "Hermann Goering" and was also completely defeated by the Red Army near Dresden.

On the entire Soviet-German front, a significant number of units and subunits of Ukrainian nationalists fought with the Red Army, which were united in the "Ukrainian Vizvolne Viysko" or "Ukrainian National Liberation Army" (UNSO), which by the end of the war had more than 80 thousand troops. They had a distinctive sign - a sleeve "zhovtnevo-blakitnaya" patch with a trident.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the traitors who surrendered were deported to the Soviet Union and put on trial. Some of them went underground to the "forest brothers". Having a large amount of weapons and ammunition, the detachments of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by Bandera, killed Soviet leaders, resisted Soviet power until their suppression and destruction in the early 1950s. Bandera himself fled to Munich, where he was overtaken by a just punishment - on October 15, 1959, he was destroyed by a member of the KGB of the USSR.

4. AT dwarf states In the Baltics - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia at the end of 1918, under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, workers and landless peasants came to power. But, the internal counter-revolution, having rallied with external forces, drowned the young, fragile Soviet power in blood. As a result of the coups, the fascist dictatorship of Smetona and Ulmanis is established. Parliaments are dissolved in all states, all political parties are banned. Despite the fact that in June-July 1940 people's governments were formed in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the countries voluntarily joined the Soviet Union, the people fully felt the advantages of socialism over capitalism, and National Armies(29th Lithuanian SC, 24th Latvian SC, 22nd Estonian SC) were retained. From the first days of the German invasion, the big proprietors, the capitalists and the bourgeoisie, together with the national army that had fled home, stood at the service of the Germans, began shooting in the back of the soldiers of the Red Army, hoping to regain everything they had lost with the help of the German fascists. It was these segments of the population that launched active work to create collaborationist, punitive police and armed formations. Enormous assistance in this was provided by the German “fifth column”, the strongholds of which were numerous German and joint ventures, cultural and other institutions. In Latvia, for example, it was planned a week before the German invasion - on June 15, 1941, to carry out sabotage by the forces of the "fifth column" with arson of warehouses, explosions of bridges, and capture of important objects. But this idea was debunked. On the night of June 13-14, more than 5 thousand members of the "fifth column" were arrested, the same number were deported, including part of the command staff of the 24th rifle corps.

The command of the Red Army knew about the unfavorable situation in the Baltic military formations. On June 21, 1940, the commander of the BOVO troops, General D. Pavlov, turned to NPO Marshal S. Timoshenko with a proposal to immediately disarm the personnel of the three UK, as well as the population. For failure to surrender weapons - execution. But the request was not granted.*

5. Before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the “Lithuanian Legion” was created in East Prussia, the purpose of which was: “In the event of a German attack on the USSR, which will take place in the spring of 1941, we Lithuanians must raise an uprising in the rear of the Red Army.” And so it happened. From the first days of the German invasion, the Lithuanian underground went into action. In Kaunas, nationalist armed detachments came out against the Red Army and with particular cruelty against the Jewish population. Jewish pogroms began in all the Baltic countries.

24 rifle battalions were formed in Lithuania, some of them are being transferred to Belarus. On October 14, 1941, in just one day, they executed more than 2 thousand Belarusians in the village of Smilovichi, in Minsk - 1775 people, in Slutsk 5 thousand civilians. The 3rd Lithuanian battalion was located in Molodechno, another one in Mogilev. The 3rd and 24th Lithuanian battalions took part in the operation against the Belarusian partisans "Swamp Fever" in the Baranovichi and Slonim regions. In addition to these battalions, the “Lithuanian Territorial Corps” (LTK) was also formed in Lithuania - 19 thousand people. The Lithuanian bourgeois nationalists, who went underground a year ago, crawled out of their holes and, trying to please their new masters, began committing excesses not only in Belarus, but also on their own land. On August 15-16, 1941, these traitors shot 3,207 old people, women and children in the village of Bayorai. The village of Pirgupis was burned to the ground on June 3, 1944, along with its 119 inhabitants. During the three years of occupation, the Nazis and their accomplices, the nationalists, destroyed over 700 thousand local residents, the sixth part of Lithuania. With the advent of the Red Army, these henchmen fled with the Nazis to the West, and many, fearing a well-deserved punishment, took refuge in remote farms and forests, organizing bandit gangs. But the renegades were overtaken by a well-deserved punishment.

6. In Latvia, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the shelling of the military units of the Red Army, the headquarters of the PribVO in Riga began. More than 100 thousand people joined the punitive, police and other Nazi military formations from the nationalists of Latvia. In 1941 -1943. 45 police battalions were formed, with a total number of 15 thousand people, who fought against the Belarusian and Ukrainian partisans, destroyed civilians. Some of them fought in the German Army Group "North". In Belarus, 15 Latvian battalions were deployed in Stolbtsy, Stankovo, Begoml, Gantsevichi, Minsk and other cities. The battalions took part in Operation Winter Magic against partisans in the Baranovichi, Berezovsky, and Slonim regions. From April 11 to May 4, 1944, the 15th Latvian SS division, the 2nd and 3rd Latvian police regiments were fighting in the “Spring Festival” operation in the Ushach-Lepel partisan zone.

A bloody trail was left by punishers from Latvia on the territory of Belarus. The 18th police battalion, which was stationed in Stolbtsy and the 24th in Stankovo, were distinguished by particular cruelty in the destruction of civilians of Belarusians and Jews. In February - March 1943, these battalions in the operation "Winter Magic" in Rossony - Osveyskaya partisan zone, destroyed, burned alive 15 thousand local residents, drove more than 2 thousand to hard labor in Germany, destroyed 158 settlements. On the caps of the traitors there was a cockade with the image of a skull, and on the left sleeve there was a red-white-red flag - "Latvian SS".

In Latvia there was a "Latvian Legion", which united all police battalions, military units of the SS and other military formations from traitors, servants to the Nazis. The "Legion" included the 15th and 19th Latvian SS volunteer divisions of 18 thousand people each. Both divisions were merged into the VIth Latvian SS Volunteer Corps. The 15th division fought against the Red Army in East Prussia, and the 19th - on the Volkhov front. The end of the Great Patriotic War "Latvian Riflemen" was captured by our allies.*

7. Long before the Great Patriotic War, the top leadership of the Estonian state and the army established contact with German intelligence Abwehr and Reich. Their common interest was the units of the Red Army and the Navy. As early as 1935, employees of the German embassy in Talin intensified their intelligence and intelligence activities. In 1936 and 1937 Abwehr chief Canaris visited Estonia twice. In 1939, the Triple Alliance of intelligence agencies of Estonia, Finland, and Germany was formed. A massive influx of sabotage and reconnaissance groups into the territory of the Soviet Union begins. With the arrival of the Red Army troops on the territory of Estonia in 1940, agents and intelligence agents intensify their work. By July 1940, the Estonian agents already numbered more than 60 thousand people. Despite the fact that by the beginning of World War II the Estonian army (22nd Estonian SC) and the country as a whole had been cleared of the "fifth column", it was not possible to achieve complete success in the fight against enemy agents. During Great Patriotic War on the territory of Estonia, 34 police and 14 infantry battalions were formed, which were used to fight Soviet partisans in the Leningrad region and conduct military operations on the Baltic and Leningrad fronts. In the spring of 1944 five more police regiments are being formed. The personnel of the Estonian units were dressed in the uniform of the Estonian army and wore a white armband with the inscription "In the service of the German army."

At the end of August 1942, the "Estonian Legion" was created, which included the 3rd Estonian SS Volunteer Brigade. In January 1944, the 3rd brigade was reorganized into the 20th Waffen-Grenadier SS division and sent to the Eastern Front in the Narva region, then to the Volkhov Front against the 2nd shock army Red Army. Near Narva, the 300th Special Purpose Division of Estonian collaborators also fought.

Cooperation and servility to the Germans, their special services in the Baltic countries continued throughout the entire period Great Patriotic War. Even on the territory already liberated by the Red Army, reconnaissance and sabotage groups and agents were sent en masse.

8. In preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union, the German command was extremely interested in the formation of allied troops from the Muslim population. The formation of military units was carried out by the "Turkestan National Committee" (TNC), located in Wünsdorf (Germany). In 1941, the first 450th Turkic infantry battalion was created, which was the basis for the creation of the "Turkestan Legion". The "Legion" included only Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Tajiks, Kyrgyz. Later, in 1942, another 452, 781, 782 infantry battalions were formed in Poland from among the Turkic prisoners of war. In total, 14 infantry battalions of 1000-1200 people were formed there. in everyone. The battalions were sent to Ukraine to fight the Soviet partisans. In November 1943, the 1st East Muslim Regiment was formed with deployment in Minsk. In total, there were 181,402 people in the ranks of the Turkestan Legion, which served in the Wehrmacht. These troops took part in the fight against partisans and the conduct of hostilities on the Soviet-German front.

9. With enthusiasm, as their liberators, the Germans were met by the Crimean Tatars. At the headquarters of the German 11A in the Crimea, a department is being created for the formation of the Crimean Tatar enemy forces. By January 1942, “Muslim committees” and “Tatar national committees” were formed in all cities of Crimea, which in the same 1942 sent 8,684 Crimean Tatars to the German army and another 4 thousand to fight the Crimean partisans. In total, with a population of 200 thousand Tatars, 20 thousand volunteers were sent to serve the Germans. From this number, the 1st Tatar Mountain Jaeger Brigade of the SS was formed. On August 15, 1942, the "Tatar Legion" began to operate, which included Tatars and other peoples of the Volga region who spoke the Tatar language. "Tatar Legion" managed to form 12 field Tatar battalions, of these, the 825th battalion is located in Belynichi, Vitebsk region. Later, on February 23, 1943, on the day of the Red Army, the battalion in full strength went over to the side of the Belarusian partisans, entered the 1st Vitebsk brigade of Mikhail Biryulin and fought against the Nazi invaders near Lepel. In Belarus, in the occupied territory, the Tatars who collaborated with the Germans grouped around Mufti Yakub Shinkevich."Tatar committees" were in Minsk, Kletsk, Lyakhovichi. The ending Great Patriotic Warfor the Tatar traitors and traitors, it became as tragic and deserved as for other collaborators. Only a few managed to hide in the countries of the Middle East and in Turkey. Their plans to achieve victory over the "Bolshevik barbarians", to create a free Federal Republic under the mandate of the German Empire failed.

On May 10, 1944, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Beria, turned to Stalin with a request: "Given the treacherous actions of the Crimean Tatars, I propose to evict them from the Crimea." The operation took place in the period from May 18 to July 4, 1944. Without bloodshed and resistance, about 220,000 Tatars and other nonresident residents of Crimea were evacuated. *

10. The Caucasian highlanders greeted the German troops with joy, presented Hitler with a golden harness - "Allah is above us - Hitler is with us." In the program documents of the "Special Party of Caucasian Fighters", which united 11 peoples of the Caucasus, the task was to defeat the Bolsheviks, Russian despotism, to do everything to defeat Russia in the war with Germany, and the "Caucasus - to the Caucasians".

In the summer of 1942, with the approach of German troops to the Caucasus, the insurrectionary movement intensified everywhere.Soviet power was liquidated, collective farms and state farms were dissolved, major uprisings broke out. German saboteurs - paratroopers, in total about 25 thousand people, participated in the preparation and conduct of the uprisings. Chechens, Karachays, Balkars, Dagestanis, and others began to fight against the Red Army. The only way to suppress the uprisings and the unfolding armed struggle against the Red Army and partisans was deportation. But the situation at the front (fierce battles near Stalingrad, Kursk) did not allow for an operation to deport the peoples of the North Caucasus. It was brilliantly carried out in February 1944.

On February 23, the resettlement of the Caucasian peoples began. The operation was well prepared and was a success. By its beginning, the motives for the eviction were brought to the attention of the entire population - betrayal. Leading officials, religious figures of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other nationalities took a personal part in explaining the reasons for the resettlement. The campaign achieved its goal. Out of 873,000 people. evicted resisted and only 842 people were arrested. For success in evicting traitors, L. Beria was awarded the highest commander's order of Suvorov, 1st degree. The eviction was forced and justified. Many hundreds of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Crimean Tatars, and others went to the side of our worst enemy - the German invaders, to serve in the German army.

11. In August 1943, a Corps of traitor Kalmyks was created in Kalmykia, which fought near Rostov and Taganrog, then (in the winter of 1944-1945) in Poland, fought hard battles with units of the Red Army near Radom.

12. The Wehrmacht drew personnel from traitors, emigrants and prisoners of war, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Armenians. From the Azerbaijanis, the Germans formed the Bergman (Highlander) Special Purpose Corps, which participated in the suppression of the uprising in Warsaw. The 314th Azerbaijani regiment fought as part of the 162nd German infantry division.

13. From among the Armenian prisoners of war, the Germans formed eight infantry battalions at the training ground in Pulaw (Poland) and sent them to the Eastern Front.

14. Volunteers - traitors - Georgian emigrants entered the service of the Germans in the first days of the war. They are used as the vanguard of the German Army Group South. In early July 1941, the reconnaissance and sabotage group "Tamara - 2" is thrown into the rear of the Red Army in the North Caucasus. Georgian saboteurs took part in Operation Shamil to seize the Grozny oil refinery. At the end of 1941, the "Georgian Legion" was created in Warsaw from 16 battalions. In addition to the Georgians, the Legion included Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Circassians. In the spring of 1943, all Legion battalions were transferred to Kursk and Kharkov, where they were defeated by units of the Red Army.

After graduation Great Patriotic Warthe fate of the soldiers of the military formations of the Caucasus was in the hands of our allies, and later Soviet justice. All received their deserved punishment.

15. All this evil spirits were skillfully handled by anti-Soviet propaganda. Although it was not easy, it is far from easy to substantiate the reasons for an armed uprising against one's Motherland, which is waging a holy, just war for independence and freedom. Understanding well that the moral strength of a fighter, his stamina in battle is drawn from patriotic feelings, our enemies paid great attention to the moral, psychological, ideological training of the personnel of the newly formed units. That's why almost all units and formations of collaborators received the names of "national", "liberation", "people's". To fulfill the tasks of developing moral and psychological stability and maintaining discipline in parts of the collaborators, clergymen and German ideologists were involved. Information support was given special attention, because it was necessary to change the views on the content and essence of the ongoing armed struggle. These tasks were solved, including by numerous media. Almost all military units and formations of traitors had their own printed organs. The ROA of General Vlasov, for example, had its own body, the People's Anti-Bolshevik Committee, which published newspapers in Berlin: For Peace and Freedom, For Freedom, Dawn, Fighter of the ROA, and others. In other military units, collaborators published special newspapers: "Soviet warrior", "Front-line soldier", etc., in which the events taking place at the front were skillfully falsified. Thus, for example, the Red Army newspaper, published in Berlin, was distributed on the Leningrad Front under the guise of a front political department newspaper. On the first page of the newspaper, the slogan is printed: “Death to the German occupiers,” and then Order No. 120 of the Supreme High Command, prescribing: “Send all former MTS tractor drivers and foremen of tractor brigades to the places of their former work for the sowing campaign. All former collective farmers born in 1910 and older must be demobilized from the Red Army. On the second page of the newspaper heading: "Warriors are studying the order of the leader." Here, they say, in the speeches of the soldiers, the mediocrity of comrade is noted. Stalin, and that "the place of every Red Army soldier has long been in the ranks of the ROA, which, under the leadership of Lieutenant General Vlasov, is preparing for battles with Judeo-Bolshevism."

In Belarus, a newspaper copy of Pravda was published with the slogan: "Long live the Union of Russia and Great Britain," and then: "More than 5 million former Red Army soldiers have already surrendered." Leaflets were thrown at the partisans in the form exactly the same as the Soviet ones from Moscow, but on the back: "Go over to the side of Germany", "Cooperate with the German army", "This is a pass for surrender." The fake newspaper "New Way" was published in Borisov, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Orsha, Mogilev. An exact copy of the Soviet front-line newspaper "For the Motherland" with anti-Soviet content was published in Bobruisk. In the Caucasus, the newspaper "Dawn of the Caucasus" was published, in Stavropol "Morning of the Caucasus", "Free Kalmykia" in Elista, the organ of all the mountaineers of the Caucasus was the "Cossack Blade", etc. In a number of cases, this anti-Soviet propaganda and falsification achieved its goal.

16. Today, the conscious and deliberate falsification of the results Great Patriotic Warand the Second World War in general, the historical victories of the Soviet people and its Red Army increased significantly. The goal is obvious - to take away the Great Victory from us, to consign to oblivion those atrocities and atrocities that were committed by the Nazis and their accomplices, traitors and traitors to their homeland: Vlasov, Bandera, Caucasian and Baltic punishers. Today their barbarism is justified by the "struggle for freedom", "national independence". It looks blasphemous when the SS men from the Galicia division, who have not been killed by us, are in law, receive additional pensions, and their families are exempted from paying for housing and communal services. The day of the liberation of Lviv - July 27 was declared "a day of mourning and enslavement by the Moscow regime." Alexander Nevsky Street was renamed Andriy Sheptytsky, Metropolitan of the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church, who in 1941 blessed the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia" to fight the Red Army.

Today, the Baltic countries demand billions of dollars from Russia for "Soviet occupation". But have they really forgotten that the Soviet Union did not occupy them, but saved the honor of all three Baltic states from the inevitable fate of being part of the defeated Nazi coalition, gave them the honor to become part of the general system of the countries that defeated fascism. Lithuania in 1940 received back, previously selected by Poland, the Vilna region with the capital Vilnius. Forgotten! It is also forgotten that the Baltic countries since 1940. By 1991, to create their new infrastructure, they received from the Soviet Union (in today's prices) 220 billion dollars. With the help of the Soviet Union, they created a unique high-tech production, built new power plants, including a nuclear one, which provides 62% of all energy consumed, ports and ferries (3 billion dollars), airfields (Siauliai - 1 billion dollars), created a new merchant fleet, built oil pipelines, completely gasified their countries. Forgotten! The events of January 1942, when traitors to the Motherland on June 3, 1944 burned to the ground the village of Pirgupis and also the village of Raseiniai, were forgotten. The village of Audrini in Latvia, where today the NATO air force base, suffered the same fate: 42 courtyards of the village, together with the inhabitants, were literally wiped off the face of the earth. The Rezekne police, led by a beast in the guise of a man Eichelis, already by July 20, 1942, managed to exterminate 5128 residents of Jewish nationality. Latvian "fascist riflemen" from the SS troops annually on March 16 arrange a procession with a solemn march. A marble monument was erected to the executioner Echelis. For what? Former punishers, SS men from the 20th Estonian division and Estonian policemen, who became famous for the total extermination of Jews, thousands of Belarusians and Soviet partisans, every year on July 6 parade around Tallinn with banners, and celebrate the day of the liberation of their capital - September 22, 1944 as a day of mourning. Former SS Colonel Rebane, a granite monument was erected, to which children are brought to lay flowers. The monuments to our generals, liberators have long been destroyed, the graves of our brothers-in-arms patriots have been desecrated. In Latvia, in 2005, the vandals, unrestrained by impunity, already thrice (!) mocked the graves of the fallen soldiers of the Red Army. Why, why do they desecrate the graves of the heroes-soldiers of the Red Army, destroy their marble slabs, kill them a second time? The West, the UN, the Security Council, Israel are silent, they are not taking any measures. Meanwhile, the Nuremberg Trials 11/20/1945-10/01/1946. for carrying out a conspiracy against Peace, humanity and the gravest war crimes, he sentenced Nazi war criminals not to be shot, but to be hanged. On December 12, 1946, the UN General Assembly upheld the validity of the sentence. Forgotten! Today in some countries of the CIS there is an exaltation, glorification of criminals, punishers and traitors. May 9 is a historical day, the Great Victory Day is no longer celebrated - a working day, and even worse, a “day of mourning”.

The time has come to give a resolute rebuff to these deeds, not to praise, but to expose all those who, with weapons in their hands, became servants of the Nazis, committed atrocities, destroyed the elderly, women and children. The time has come to tell the truth about collaborators, enemy military, police units, traitors and traitors to the Motherland.

Betrayal and betrayal always and everywhere caused feelings of disgust and indignation, especially betrayal of the previously given oath, the military oath. These betrayals, the oath of crime, have no statute of limitations.

17. On the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union in 1941-1944. A truly nationwide struggle of honest Soviet people, partisans and underground fighters unfolded against numerous military formations from among the White emigrants, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, who became in the service of the Nazis. How difficult it was for the Soviet people and the soldiers of the Red Army to fight, fighting, in fact, on two fronts - in front of the German hordes, in the rear - traitors and traitors.

Treason and betrayal in the sacred years Great Patriotic Warwere really big. Collaborators, policemen and punishers brought great human losses, suffering and destruction. To betrayal, to traitors to the Motherland, who took up arms on the side of the Nazis, Hitler's Germany, who swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler, the attitude of the Soviet people was unequivocal - hatred and contempt. Popular approval was caused by the retribution that is deserved, the criminals suffered in court.

18. However, perpetrated in the years Great Patriotic Warmonstrous atrocities and destruction in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union cannot be compared with those irretrievable losses and consequences of the betrayal committed during the deliberate and purposeful collapse of the Great Superpower of the USSR.

World history does not know examples of treason and betrayal of such magnitude and such consequences as it was in the Soviet Union in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century. During these years, an action unprecedented in its destructiveness took place. Gorbachev's treacherous policy, the notorious perestroika, far-fetched acceleration and new thinking - all this is nothing but epoch-making idiocy.

When it became completely obvious that the policy of the traitor Gorbachev and his clique represented by the chief architect of perestroika, CIA agent A. Yakovlev, traitor E. Shevardnadze and others would lead the country to irreparable collapse and collapse - the top communist party and the Soviet government began to save their own skin, embarking on the path of betrayal and betrayal of the interests of their country and their people. They are the ones who guide power structures(KGB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Defense) allowed the anti-people, anti-socialist forces to rage and act in a rather organized manner. These forces, under the false slogans of fighting for freedom and democracy, for human rights, a developed market and the subsequent "heavenly life", found support in the mindset of a part of the country's population, mainly. The connivance and inactivity of the leadership of the party and the state, the power structures made it possible to quickly create a "fifth column" from among the traitors and turncoats, which was immediately headed and financed by the United States and the West. To eliminate its probable adversary and competitor - the Soviet Union, in an effort to rule the whole world in an American way, the United States did not spare trillions of dollars. In the early 1990s, the United States nevertheless managed to achieve its goal, conceived back in the 1950s - to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The goal was achieved with huge financial investments and ideological war, but by the hands of homegrown traitor democrats.

Taking advantage of the amazing inactivity and indecision of President Gorbachev, and then the State Emergency Committee, the United States and the "fifth column" represented by Yeltsin, Gaidar, Burbulis, Shakhrai and others were able to quickly take the initiative and power into their own hands. Power overnight passed into the hands of capitulators, opportunists, shifters, careerists and simply traitors. It was they who sent the Great Superpower along the path indicated by the United States - devastation, disasters, armed conflicts and even wars. Complete capitulation and admiration for the United States and the West ensued. Collaborators, traitors and traitors imposed capitalism on the peoples of the Soviet Union by force, managed to plunder and appropriate industrial giants, gold, oil, gas and land. But “Selling, trading land is the same as a mother,” Leo Tolstoy said long ago.

Already created in Russia new class oligarchs, large owners and businessmen from those people who, in a cunning and clever way, contrived, at a time of great turmoil, to rob, steal everything that had been created for thousands of years and rightfully belonged to all the people. These nouveaux riches today form the basis of the new government in Russia.

19. a huge role these thieves' transformations were played by the media, which were a tool for manipulating public consciousness. In the gigantic counter-revolution, in the tragedy of the 20th century, corrupt media, pro-Western propaganda and information warfare, having received dollar support and the active participation of the “fifth column” (ideological shifters, henchmen and just scoundrels), managed to deceive the Soviet people with amazing, incomprehensible ease. People believed in the mafia of the newspaper line, false television propaganda, were simply fooled. The people believed those noisy promises to “get on the rails” and other provocative statements that, they say, “if you give us power, we will give you a prosperous life, prosperity, freedom and democracy, but only vote for us, otherwise you will lose.” The country was immediately seized by some kind of epidemic of stupidity, servile subordination of the media and groveling before the "prosperous West."

20. The magnitude of the crimes committed by modern traitors is enormous, it cannot be measured by anything.

Over the past 15 years, Russia, the successor of the Soviet Union (except for Moscow and St. Petersburg) has been in ruins, the country has been thrown back economically for many years. The vast majority of the population was in the abyss and poverty. Bribery and embezzlement have entangled the whole country. Corruption, robbery and murder flourish to this day. The death rate exceeded the birth rate. There were millions of refugees, homeless children. This was not even in the yearsGreat Patriotic War. Drug addiction, prostitution, human trafficking arose and reached unprecedented proportions. The number of gambling houses and brothels is countless. The people are in poverty, and in London, on the Cote d'Azur, there are 800 dollar millionaires who fled from justice, including Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana. There are 33 dollar billionaires and 88 millionaires in Moscow. This is more than in any other city in the world.

Russia in terms of welfare today is in 62nd place out of 177 countries of the world. In 2005, she dropped another 5 positions. In terms of state budget expenditures per student, Russia is in second to last place in the world, ahead of Zimbabwe, but in terms of the number of dollar billionaires, it is in second place after the United States. But for that, the state border and customs are being strengthened, rapidly depleted Natural resources, there were international gas conflicts. In general, the Russian economy remains far from the level of the Soviet pre-perestroika 1990.

All this did not exist under the Soviet Union, and could not exist due to the very nature of the progressive socialist way of life. If it were the Soviet Union, it would not be worse. The Motherland would live in a friendly family of peoples, without wars and refugees, without poverty and in prosperity, as the Chinese live today in their prosperous socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party.

"Religion is worst enemy Soviet patriotism... History does not confirm the merits of the church in the development of genuine patriotism.”
Magazine "Godless" June 1941

By the beginning of World War II, there was not a single functioning Orthodox church in 25 regions of the RSFSR, and no more than 5 churches functioned in 20 regions. In Ukraine, there was not a single functioning church in the Vinnitsa, Donetsk, Kirovograd, Nikolaev, Sumy, Khmelnytsky regions; one each operated in Lugansk, Poltava and Kharkov.26 According to the NKVD, by 1941 there were 3,021 Orthodox churches in the country, of which almost 3,000 were located in the territories of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, which ceded to the USSR in 1939-1940, Poland and Finland

The membership of the Union of Militant Atheists in 1932 reached 5 million people. It was planned to increase the number of its members to 22 million by 1938. 28 The circulation of anti-religious publications reached 140 million copies by the beginning of the war.

Many myths are associated with the date of the German attack on the USSR, which have become especially widespread in the church environment. According to one of the most famous, the date of June 22 was allegedly chosen by Hitler in accordance with astrological forecasts. This legend is also repelled by those who are not averse to presenting the events of June 1941 as a campaign of "pagan Germany" against " Orthodox Russia".. However, the German General Staff, when choosing the day and time of the strike on the USSR, was guided by considerations of a different plan ...

Usually the night from Saturday to Sunday was the most "undisciplined" in the Red Army. In the military units, baths were arranged, followed by abundant libations; command staff on Sunday night, as a rule, was absent being with their families; for the rank and file, this night has always been the most suitable for "self-driving". It was this, quite earthly calculation (and not at all the "whisper of the stars") that guided the Nazi command when choosing several dates for the attack on the USSR. The events of the first day of the war brilliantly showed the validity of this calculation.

Having received the news of the beginning of the war, the guardian of the patriarchal throne, Met. Sergius (Stragorodsky), as modern church historians say, released his
"Message to the Shepherds and Flocks of Christ's Orthodox Church". The fact of his appearance
22.6.1941 still disputed

The message said: “The fascist robbers have attacked our Motherland... The pitiful descendants of the enemies of Orthodox Christianity want to once again try to bring our people to their knees before untruth... But this is not the first time the Russian people have to endure such trials. FROM God's help and this time he will scatter the fascist enemy force into dust... The Church of Christ blesses all Orthodox to defend the sacred borders of our Motherland.”37 The message also contained a hidden reproach to the authorities, who asserted that there would be no war. At the Metropolitan Sergius, this place is expressed as follows: “... we, the inhabitants of Russia, hoped that the fire of war, which had engulfed almost the entire globe, would not reach us ...” ... Sergius has already called the “sly considerations” about “possible benefits” on the other side of the front nothing more than a direct betrayal of the Motherland.39 However, the effectiveness of such rhetoric inexorably turned to dust as the German armies to the East...
In the history of wars, it is impossible to find an analogue of such an initially loyal attitude towards the aggressor, which was demonstrated by the population of the regions of the USSR occupied by the Germans. And the fact that so many Russians were ready to go over to the Germans in advance looks incredible to many. But that's exactly what happened. Examples of an initially hostile attitude towards the expulsion of the Bolsheviks were the exception rather than the general rule. German filmmakers did not need to resort to artificial scenery in order to capture on film examples of the Soviet population meeting German troops with bread and salt and throwing flowers on German tanks. These shots are the clearest evidence of such an abnormal perception of an alien invasion ...

Is it any wonder that the Russian emigration took the German attack on the USSR with no less enthusiasm. For many Russian exiles, there was a real hope of an early "liberation" of the Motherland. Moreover, such hopes were met regardless of church jurisdiction (and not only in ROCOR - as Soviet historiography tried to present it). The German invasion of the USSR was welcomed by the Parisian ROCOR hierarch, Met. Seraphim (Lukyanov), who later transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate. In his address on the occasion of the German attack, he declared: “May the Almighty bless the great Leader of the German people, who raised the sword against the enemies of God himself ... May the Masonic star, sickle and hammer disappear from the face of the earth.”45 He accepted June 22, 1941 with no less joy. Archimandrite John (Shakhovskoy, future Archbishop of San Francisco), who then belonged to the “Evlogian” jurisdiction: “The bloody operation to overthrow the Third International is entrusted to a skillful German surgeon, experienced in science.”46 And even the cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr. Georgy Benigsen recalls the beginning of the war in Riga: “There is hidden joy on all faces ...”.47
. V. Tsypin: “In all the cities and in many villages left by the Soviet administration, priests were announced, either in the position of exiles, or hiding underground, or earning a living by some craft or service. These priests received permission from the occupying commandants to hold divine services in closed rooms.”41 Another eyewitness (psalmist of the Nikolo-Konets parish of the Gdov district of the Pskov region S. D. Pleskach) noted the following: “The Russian people completely changed as soon as the Germans appeared. Ruined temples were erected, church utensils were made, vestments were delivered from where they were preserved, and temples were built and repaired a lot. Everywhere was painted... When everything was ready, then a priest was invited and the church was consecrated. At that time, there were such joyful events that I cannot describe.”42 Such feelings were characteristic of the population of the most diverse regions of the occupied territory. Journalist V. D. Samarin describes the German occupation in Orel in this way: “A religious feeling, hidden deep under the Bolsheviks, woke up, surfaced to the surface of the soul. Prayers filled the churches, miraculous icons were carried around the villages. They prayed like they hadn't prayed for a long time."

Adolf Hitler and Orthodox emigration

“... if the government of the German Reich wishes
to involve Russian Orthodox Churches in cooperation
in the fight against the communist godless movement...,
then the government of the Reich will find from our side
full consent and support.
Met. Evlogii (Georgievsky), October 1937

It is noteworthy that the first contacts of the Russian emigration with Hitler date back to the early 1920s.4 The mediator in these contacts was Alfred Rosenberg. Born in the Russian Empire, studied at Kiev University and served in the Russian army during World War I, Rosenberg spoke Russian better than German. Surrounded by Hitler, he found fame as the best specialist in Russia and the "Russian soul", and it was he who was entrusted with the development race theory in Nazi ideology. It is possible that it was he who convinced Hitler of the expediency of friendly relations with the Russian Orthodox Church in Germany. So, in 1938, the Nazis built an Orthodox church in Berlin. Cathedral Resurrection of Christ on the Kurfürstendamm and funded the overhaul of 19 Orthodox churches from the imperial treasury.
In addition, by Hitler's decree of February 25, 1938, the Russian parishes subordinate to Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgievsky) were transferred under the jurisdiction of the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (hereinafter referred to as ROCOR).5 Prof. cited here. Pospelovsky is inclined to dramatize this event somewhat, exposing it as one of the cornerstones of the church-emigre schism. However, it must be taken into account that the confrontation between the Karlovtsy Synod and Met. Evlogiem began long before Hitler came to power and was nevertheless church-administrative, and not theological and not political in nature. It would also be fair to note that only 6% of Russian emigrant parishes were under the jurisdiction of Met. Evlogiya, and the remaining 94% were subordinate to the Synod Abroad.6 Even based on elementary arithmetical logic, it would hardly be fair to speak of “schismatic aspirations of the Karlovtsy”.

Hitler was probably guided by the same logic when he wished to “centralize” the Orthodox parishes on the territory of the Reich, and therefore subordinated the Eulogian “minority” to the synodal “majority” (it would be strange if he did the opposite. In the story of the Evlogian parishes, Hitler was driven by the idea to centralize everything to facilitate control over religious organizations.7 To achieve this goal, he created the Reich Ministry of Religious Cults, granted the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church the state status of a “corporation of public law” (which only Lutherans and Catholics had) and transferred 13 Evlogian parishes under the jurisdiction of the German Diocese.
As for the construction of an Orthodox cathedral by the Nazis and the overhaul of 19 churches, the letter of thanks to Hitler signed by the then First Hierarch of ROCOR Metropolitan Anastassy (Gribanovsky) is also connected with this beneficence.
Hitler acted as a "builder and trustee" of churches, and the expression of gratitude by the primate of the Church for such a beneficence is a completely normal and natural phenomenon for traitors. It is impossible not to take into account the fact that in the pre-war 1938, Hitler was personified as a man who honestly won the elections and headed a government recognized by all countries of the world.
As noted above, Hitler was perceived by the Russian emigration as a counterbalance to godless Bolshevism. As early as 1921, the Supreme Monarchist Council was negotiating with Hitler about possible assistance in the event of his coming to power in preparing the clergy for Russia liberated from the Bolsheviks.9 Unlike the leaders of Western democracies, Hitler did not allow himself the expression "Russian communism", preferring another the term is Judeo-Bolshevism. Such terminology suited the Russian emigration quite well and did not hurt the ear. The Russophobic passages in Mein Kampf were little known, and it is not surprising that even the most notorious Russophiles like I. A. Ilyin urged the Russian emigration "not to look at National Socialism through Jewish eyes."
It would be quite fair to assume that Hitler's pro-Orthodox gestures were of a diplomatic and propagandistic nature. Such gestures could win sympathy in the countries of potential allies, in countries with a predominantly Orthodox faith (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece). On September 1, 1939, the German Wehrmacht broke into the Polish border. II World War started...
Despite the fact that Hitler acted as an outright aggressor, his attack on Poland did not seriously affect the perception of him by the Russian emigration. This circumstance allowed the Nazis to make another pro-Orthodox gesture after the occupation of Poland. A general return to the Orthodox, parishes taken from them, began. As the journal Church Life wrote, “... the Orthodox population is met with a benevolent attitude on the part of the German authorities, who, at the first request of the population, return to them the church property taken by the Poles.”13 In addition, with the support of the German authorities, an Orthodox theological institute was opened in Wroclaw .

Church policy of the Nazis in the occupied regions of the USSR

“Orthodoxy is a colorful ethnographic ritual”
(Reich Minister Rosenberg).

The areas occupied by the Germans (almost half of the European part of the USSR) were subjected to territorial division into Reichskommissariats, which consisted of districts, regions, districts, districts and volosts. The front-line territory was under the control of the Wehrmacht. Northern Bukovina, Moldova, Bessarabia and the Odessa region were transferred to Romania. Galicia was annexed to the Polish General Government. The rest of the territory was the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine" (with the center in Rivne). The central part of Belarus formed the General Commissariat of Belarus. The north-west of the Brest and Grodno regions went to East Prussia (all-German laws were in force here). Most of the Brest, as well as the Pinsk and Polissya regions went to the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine", and the north-west of the Vilna region - to the general district of Lithuania. The general district of Belarus itself was part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland.51
The national question, according to the Nazi ideologist Rosenberg, was “to reasonably and purposefully support the desire for freedom of all these peoples ... to separate state formations (republics) from the vast territory of the Soviet Union and organize them against Moscow in order to liberate the German Reich for the coming centuries from the oriental nightmare.”52
Concerning religious policy Germans in the occupied lands, it can hardly be characterized unambiguously. Several mutually exclusive approaches dominated here, but the most common were two ...
The position of the Reich Minister of the Eastern Lands, Alfred Rosenberg, can be formulated something like this: “The way of life of the Russian people has been shaped for centuries under the influence of Orthodoxy. The Bolshevik clique deprived the Russian people of this pivot and turned them into an unbelieving, unruly herd. For centuries Russians have been drummed from ambos that "all power is from God." The tsarist government, having failed to provide its subjects with a decent standard of living, was able, with the help of the Church, to form in the people the consciousness that deprivation, suffering and oppression benefit the soul. Such a sermon ensured the rulers the servile obedience of the people. This point was completely ignored by the Bolsheviks, and it would be foolish of us to repeat their mistake. Therefore, it is in our own interests to revive these Orthodox postulates in the minds of the people, if we want to keep them in check. It is much better if autonomous and unaccountable to each other church structures are created in the Eastern lands in order to exclude the possibility of the emergence of a single powerful church organization.
Such was the position of Rosenberg, which determined the attitude of the Nazis towards the Russian Orthodox Church and which was guided to one degree or another by Nazi officials. Its main provisions were outlined in a letter from Rosenberg to the Reichskommissars of Ostland and Ukraine dated May 13, 1942. They can be formulated as follows: Religious groups should not engage in politics. They should be divided according to national and territorial features. Nationality must be especially strictly observed in the selection of leaders of religious groups. Territorially, religious associations should not go beyond the boundaries of one diocese. Religious societies should not interfere with the activities of the occupying authorities.53
The church policy of the Wehrmacht can be characterized as the absence of any policy towards the Church. Their own code of conduct, loyalty to old traditions contributed to the spread among the German military of a steady antipathy towards manifestations of Nazi fanaticism and racial schizophrenia. Only this can explain the fact that front-line generals and officers turned a blind eye to directives and instructions from Berlin, if they were based on the theory of "untermensch". A lot of evidence and documents have been preserved not only about the warm welcome of the German army by the Russian population, but also about the “non-Nazi” attitude of German soldiers towards the population of the regions of the USSR they occupied. In particular, documents have been preserved on orders to German soldiers to remember that they are not in the occupied territories, but on the land of an ally.54 Quite often, soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht showed sincere friendliness and sympathy for the people, who suffered for two decades under the rule of the Bolsheviks. In the ecclesiastical question, such an attitude resulted in all-round support for the restoration of church life.
The military not only willingly supported the initiatives of the local population to open parishes, but also provided various assistance in the form of funds and building materials for the restoration of destroyed churches. A lot of evidence has also been preserved that the German military themselves took the initiative to open churches in the territories under their control and even ordered them to do so.55 So, for example, in the memorandum of Z. V. Syromyatnikova "On the stay in the territory of the Kharkov region occupied by German troops from December 15 to December 22, 1941" it was noted: “The German command pays special attention to the work of churches. In a number of villages where the churches were not destroyed, they are already working... In the villages where they were destroyed, the order was given to the elders to immediately find premises and open churches.”56
Sometimes the initiative of the Germans took anecdotal forms. The same fund also contains a certificate from the representative of the Sebezh commandant’s office dated 10/8/1941: “This is real in that the German authorities, which liberated the peasantry from the Bolsheviks, are raising the question of opening a service in the Livskaya Church, and therefore I personally authorize you, Rybakov Yakov Matveyevich, in the absence of a priest - to take the place of a priest and perform a church rite. Request: there can be no refusals, in which a real certificate was issued signed by the representative of the German authorities Engelhard "... To which Rybakov replies:" I can’t be a priest, because I didn’t receive a blessing from the bishop, moreover, according to the Christian According to the law, bigamists cannot be priests, but I am a bigamist”...57
It should be noted that the assistance of the German army in the restoration of Russian Orthodox churches has always been based on the principles of "Christian humanism". The commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, himself took part in the Orthodox service in Borisov with German officers.
The above characteristics and examples quite clearly reflect the diversity of church life in the territories of the USSR occupied by the Germans, for it becomes quite obvious that the scope and nature of the “religious revival” largely depended on the local characteristics of the occupation administration (NSDAP and SS or Wehrmacht). Therefore, it is advisable to consider the position of the ROC in the territories occupied by the Germans not by periods of war, but by regions and regions.

The position of the Church in the Baltics

“They didn’t cheat.
They coped with the NKVD, and it is not difficult to deceive these sausage makers.
Metropolitan Vilensky and Lithuanian Sergius (Voskresensky).

At the time of the arrival of the German army in the Baltic countries, Met. Sergius (Voskresensky). He held this post from January 1941. Before the flight of the Bolsheviks from Riga, Met. Sergius was ordered to evacuate. Contrary to the order, he took refuge in the crypt of the Riga Cathedral.
Sergius in the world Dimitry Voskresensky, was born in Moscow in 1898 in the family of a Moscow priest and before the revolution he studied at the seminary, which he did not have time to finish. At the beginning of the revolution, he was a novice in the Danilov Monastery. In the same place, he took monasticism with the name Sergius. Researchers who talked with people who knew personally note that in the 1920s he was a religious monk, who, nevertheless, loved life and secular pleasures, liked to drink and spend time among young people, for which he was repeatedly penalized. Since 1926, he became an employee of the office of the Moscow Patriarchate. Probably, in the 30s, Bishop Sergius closely collaborated with Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky), which influenced the further career of the young bishop.63

With the arrival of the Germans in the Baltic States (the Wehrmacht entered Riga on June 30), Met. Sergius tried to find a common language with the new government. With his diplomacy, success was assured to him in advance. He was able to teach himself right light. He soon established himself well as a fierce anti-communist. With the help of luxurious banquets and generous gifts, Met. Sergius acquired the necessary acquaintances with party functionaries and the highest ranks of the SS. The metropolitan's comfortable house and personal fleet made an impression on the Germans.
Unlike other Soviet territories under German occupation, in the Baltics, the territory of the Russian Orthodox Church expanded and the power of its exarch strengthened, despite the fact that tendencies towards autocephaly were openly manifested in Estonia and Latvia. Immediately after the withdrawal of the Soviets from the Baltics, the Metropolitans of Latvia and Estonia tried to restore their lost independence from Moscow. 20.7.1941 Metropolitan Riga Augustin (Peterson) made a request to the German authorities with a request to restore the Latvian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. A similar request, but on behalf of the Estonian Orthodox Church, was made by Met. Tallinn Alexander (Paulus). It seemed that a church schism was inevitable. But on September 12, 1941, Met. Sergius (Voskresensky) turned to the German authorities with a memorandum in which he explained all the undesirability for Berlin to allow the Church in Latvia and Estonia to submit to the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose Western European exarch lived in London and had close relations with the British government. Vladyka Sergius managed to prove to the Germans the advantages of the canonical subjugation of the Baltic states. In other words, he proposed to leave the Baltic states under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church, and him as its exarch.
In fact, Sergius got permission from Berlin. As a result, the split in the Baltic did not take place, and some "autocephalists", not without the participation of Sergius, even had to deal with the Gestapo. The Germans are tired of enduring the ambitious statements of the supporters of autocephaly, who demanded the expulsion from Latvia of the "Bolshevik protege", an agent of the Cheka, Exarch Metr. Sergius.64 In Latvia, the split ended in November 1941, when the Gestapo demanded that Met. Augustine of the immediate termination of the activities of his Synod.65
As for his relations with Moscow, the Germans at first advocated breaking them off. However, Mr. Sergius managed to convince Berlin that the Russian Orthodox Church never reconciled with the Soviet government, submitting to it only outwardly. The exarch also proved to the Germans that their interference in the administration of the Church (such as breaking canonical ties with Moscow) could be used by the Soviets for anti-German propaganda.
All these negotiations led to the fact that when in 1942 Met. Estonian Alexander broke with Sergius, while another Estonian bishop (Paul of Narva) remained faithful to him, the Germans decided that the metropolitans Alexander and Augustine should be called respectively the metropolitans of Revel and Riga, and not Estonian and Latvian, because. the metropolitan of all three Baltic states is Sergius (Voskresensky).66 Instructions sent to fascist officials stated that, although parishes in Estonia could be included both in the Estonian diocese of Met. Alexander, and to the Russian diocese, ep. Paul, the German command prefers that as many parishes as possible enter the Russian diocese. It should be noted that most of the parishes in the Baltic States remained under the control of Met. Sergius. This is partly due to the fact that the flock did not want to break off relations with the Russian Church, and partly to the fact that everyone saw which side the Germans were on.
Finally, the German policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church in the Baltics was formulated at a meeting in the Reichsministry of the Eastern Lands on 20.6.1942. The essence of the outcome of the meeting was approximately as follows:
1. The occupying authorities consider it beneficial for themselves to unite all Orthodox around the Moscow exarch with the aim of evicting them after the war to the Reichskommissariat "Moscow".
2. For the German leadership, it is not so important to whom the exarch in the Baltics is nominally subordinate - Moscow or Constantinople, especially since the stay of the exarch of the Patriarch of Constantinople in London really cannot be pleasant.
3. Such a policy enables the occupying authorities to emphasize their religious tolerance and use the completely anti-communist speeches of Exarch Sergius for propaganda purposes.67
One can only guess about the pressure that Met. Sergius (Stragorodsky) from the side of the Soviet authorities, demanding from him the condemnation of their Baltic exarch. In the end, the Bolsheviks achieved their goal, and on September 22, 1942, Metropolitan. Sergius (Stragorodsky) sent a message stating: “... For the sake of the good of the motherland, the people do not count their victims and shed their blood and give their very life ... But in Riga in early August, our Orthodox bishops appeared ... at the head with Sergius Voskresensky sent from Moscow, who “did not want to suffer with the people of God,” but preferred “to have the sweetness of sin temporarily” (Heb. 11:25), to live happily, eating from grains from the fascist table ... Hair stand on end when reading about the torture of women, children and the wounded by the Nazis. And Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky with his “companions”-bishops telegraph Hitler that they “admire the ongoing (Hitler) heroic struggle” (against the defenseless?!) and “pray to the Almighty, may He bless the (fascist) weapons with a speedy and complete victory ... 68 This message did not cause resentment among the exarch of the Baltics, and when the Bishops' Council of 1943 excommunicated all the clerics who had shown themselves to be collaborators from the Church, and Metropolitan was named among them. Sergius (Voskresensky), the latter, published an article in the Baltic newspapers entitled “Stalin is not Saul, he will not become Paul,” in which he ridiculed the illusory hopes for peace between the Communists and the Church,69 but still did not break with Moscow. It is noteworthy that the Germans also demanded this break from him, when Met. Sergius (Stragorodsky) became Patriarch, but Bishop Sergius convinced them of the illogicality of such a demand, explaining that the Bolsheviks would be able to use the resulting church schism in anti-German propaganda - playing on the intervention of the occupying authorities in internal church affairs.
In fact, the only thing that was not possible for Met. To achieve Sergius from Berlin, this is permission for the canonical subordination of Belarus to itself. Rosenberg had his own ideas about this.
But despite the "failure" of Met. Sergius with Belarus, it will not be a mistake to call him the most active hierarch of the Russian Church who collaborated with the Nazis in the occupied territory of the USSR. “In addition to rebuilding the church organization and defending the interests of the Church on the territory of his exarchate, Met. Sergius made a lot of efforts for the spiritual nourishment of the Orthodox flock in the northwestern regions of the USSR captured by the Nazis. What is worth only one Pskov Mission (which will be discussed in the corresponding chapter). All this activity could not arouse the approval of the Soviet authorities.
People who dare to do this, quite rightly, were listed by her in the category of enemies of the people and accomplices of the Nazis. The punishing sword of Soviet justice, according to Stalin's plan, was to serve here as partisan detachments operating in the occupied territory. It was to them that the call of the Soviet leader was addressed “to create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, to persecute and destroy them at every turn ...”.70 Met. Sergius (Voskresensky) was one of these accomplices. According to the recollections of people who knew him closely, he seriously feared for his safety...
On April 28, 1944, on the way from Vilnius to Kaunas, Exarch Sergius and those accompanying him were liquidated by unknown persons. According to local residents, the attackers were dressed in German military uniforms. The Germans said that the murder of the metropolitan was organized by Soviet partisans. Soviet propaganda attributed this murder to the Nazis.
Riga priest Fr. Nikolai Trubetskoy, who served 10 years for participating in the Pskov Mission, claims to have met a man in the camp, allegedly a former Soviet partisan, who told him that he participated in the murder of the metropolitan, committed by order of Soviet intelligence.71
On the dubiousness of the version of the murder of Met. Sergius speaks to the Germans also from the fact that none of the modern church historians could coherently argue the logic according to which it would be beneficial for the Germans to get rid of Met. Sergius.

The position of the Church in Belarus

Belarus was one of the first regions to be occupied as a result of the Wehrmacht's rapid advance to the East, and at the same time, for the Germans, it was a clear example of the results of Soviet rule. As the historian of the Belarusian Church wrote, ep. Athanasius (Martos), “German troops found church and religious life in Eastern Belarus in a ruined state. There were no bishops and priests, churches were closed, converted into warehouses, theaters, and many were destroyed. There were no monasteries, the monks dispersed.”
Belarus, together with the Baltic States, was part of one Reichskommissariat (Ostland), due to the fact that the exarch of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, Met. Nikolai (Yarushevich) did not betray his homeland and preferred to remain on Soviet territory, Belarus and Ukraine found themselves without a ruling bishop.
Literally from the very beginning of the occupation in the church life of Belarus, there was a confrontation between supporters of subjugation to Moscow and those who preferred autocephaly. Encouraging Belarusian nationalism, the Nazis sought to create a national autocephalous Church, relying here on Belarusian nationalists who came here from the Czech Republic and Poland.
The essence of the Nazi religious policy in Belarus was reduced to seven points:
1. To organize the Orthodox Church independently, without any relations with Moscow, or Warsaw, or Berlin.
2. The Church must bear the name "Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox National Church".
3. The church is governed by its sv. canons, and the German government does not interfere in its internal life.
4. Sermon, teaching of the Law of God, Church administration must be carried out in the Belarusian language.
5. The appointment of bishops must be made with the knowledge of the German authorities.
6. The statute of the “Belarusian Orthodox Autocephalous National Church” must be presented to the German authorities.
7. Services must be celebrated in Church Slavonic.74
in March 1942, the Council of Belarusian Bishops elected Archbishop Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky). By the time the Council was held, the Belarusian Church already included 6 dioceses:
1. Minsk - led by Met. Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky).
2. Grodno-Bialystok (located outside the Reichskommissariat "Ostland" and therefore received the status of an exarchate) - led by the archbishop. Venedikt (Bobkovsky), who received the rights of the exarch of East Prussia.
3. Mogilev - with Bishop Filofei (Narko).
4. Vitebsk - with bishop. Athanasius (Martos).
5. Smolensk-Bryansk - with bishop. Stefan (Sevbo).
6. Baranovichsko-Novgorodskaya.75

The refusal to declare the autocephaly of the Belarusian Church could not please the Belarusian nationalists. That is why they made every effort to remove Metr. Panteleimon from the management of the Church - efforts that ultimately succeeded. At the insistence of the nationalists, the Nazis handed over the management of the Church to his closest assistant, Archbishop. Filofei (Narko). Filofei also wrote in his letter to the Reichskommissar "Ostland" H. Lohse dated 30.7.1942: "This is a very important and responsible position, requiring the accuracy and correctness of the church canon of the sacred universal Orthodox Church..." 77
Ultimately, on August 30, 1942, the so-called. All-Belarusian Orthodox Church Council. The initiators of its convocation were supporters of autocephaly. The result of four days of work of the council was the development of the statute of the Belarusian Church and the approval of measures to achieve autocephaly. A telegram was sent to Hitler: “The First All-Belarusian Church Council in Minsk, on behalf of the Orthodox Belarusians, sends you, Mr. Reich Chancellor, heartfelt gratitude for the liberation of Belarus from the Moscow-Bolshevik godless yoke, for the opportunity to freely organize our religious life in the form of the Holy Belarusian Orthodox Autocephalous Church and wishes the fastest complete victory Your invincible weapon." 79 Messages to the heads of other Churches were handed over to the Nazis only a year later.
In May 1944, the Council of Belarusian Bishops issued a resolution calling Bolshevism a "satanic offspring" and a "son of the devil"81,
When the Belarusian bishops (led by Metropolitan Panteleimon) fled to Germany, they all joined ROCOR, which once again confirms their "pro-Russian position".
Although Rosenberg demanded from Gauleiter Lohse that the Russian Church, observing moderation, not extend its influence to the Orthodox Belarusians, it was not so easy for the latter to fulfill such a directive. In its reports, the SD was forced to state the absence of autocephalous priests.82 In addition, in the western regions of Belarus, where the position of Catholicism was strong, the Germans were inclined to support the Orthodox, seeing the Polish “fifth column” in the Catholic population.
One of distinguishing features During the German occupation in Belarus, there was a particular prevalence of the inhuman treatment of the civilian population by the occupiers. Mass round-ups, arrests, punitive raids by the SS could not arouse tender feelings among the local residents towards the creators of the “new order”.
Probably, this explains the fact of cooperation of about a dozen Belarusian clergy with the Soviet underground and the NKVD. Sometimes such clergy had to pay for this not only with their own lives, but also with the lives of their parishioners. So, for example, the priest Horostovo, Minsk diocese, Fr. John Loiko for active partisan work was burned by the SS in his own church, along with 300 parishioners. Miraculously escaped a similar fate and the priest Kuzma Raina, whose activities as a partisan informer was exposed by the Gestapo. Such behavior of the clergy (as, indeed, the behavior of the Germans) strikingly distinguished Belarus from other regions of the USSR occupied by the Germans.
.
In Belarus itself, the German occupation caused a "religious upsurge" everywhere. In Minsk alone, where by the arrival of the Germans there was not a single functioning church, after only 3-4 months, already 7 of them were opened and 22 thousand children were baptized. 120 churches were opened in the Minsk diocese. The occupying Nazi authorities opened pastoral courses, graduating 20-30 priests, deacons, and psalmists every few months.83 Similar pastoral courses were also opened in Vitebsk. In November 1942, the relics of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk. In May 1944, the relics of the saint were transferred to Polotsk, where there were 4 churches and a monastery.84 In some regions of Belarus, for example, in Borisov, up to 75% of pre-revolutionary churches were restored (in Borisov itself, 21 churches). The process of "revival of church life" continued until the very retreat of the Germans from Belarus. So, in the report of the command of the Army Group "Center" for January-February 1944, it was said that 4 churches were reopened in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe 4th Army, and in Bobruisk, for the first time during the Epiphany War, a religious procession took place on the river. Berezina with the participation of 5000 people.

Church in occupied Ukraine

German instructor teaches Vlasov combat tactics

In the history of every war there are heroes and villains. The Great Patriotic War is no exception. Many pages of that terrible era are covered with darkness - including those that are shameful to remember. Yes, there are topics that are carefully avoided when discussing the history of the war. One of these unpleasant topics is collaborationism.

What is collaborationism? In the academic definition that gives international law, this is - conscious, voluntary and deliberate cooperation with the enemy, in his interests and to the detriment of his state. In our case, when it comes to the Great Patriotic War, collaborationism is cooperation with the Nazi occupiers. The policemen and "Vlasovites" get here, and with them all the others who went to the service of the German authorities. And there were - and there were a lot of them!

Many Soviet citizens, being in captivity or in the occupied territory, went to the service of the Germans. Their names were not widely publicized, and we were not particularly interested in them, contemptuously calling them “policemen” and “traitors”.

If you face the truth, you have to admit: there were traitors. They served in the police, carried out punitive operations - and acted in such a way that seasoned SS executioners could envy them. They left their bloody traces in the Smolensk region ...

According to FSB Colonel A. Kuzovov, in Soviet years engaged in the search for traitors, there were many punitive formations in the Smolensk region. Many historians believe that the Nazis on Smolensk land, earlier than in other occupied territories, began to create armed detachments from Soviet citizens, primarily from prisoners of war.

After all, there were many prisoners of war here: it was in the Smolensk region that one of the largest disasters of the initial period of the war occurred - the encirclement of parts of the Western and Reserve fronts west of Vyazma in October 1941. And not everyone who was surrounded was ready to courageously overcome the hardships of captivity and concentration camps - some went to the service of the Nazis in the hope of surviving at any cost, even at the cost of betrayal. Of these, units were formed to fight partisans and carry out punitive actions.

You can list these units for a long time, as they were actively created: the Volga-Tatar legion "Idel-Ural", Ukrainian nationalist hundreds, Cossack battalions, Vlasov: 624, 625, 626, 629th battalions of the so-called Russian Liberation Army. There are many black "feats" behind these units.

On May 28, 1942, the punishers of the 229th ROA battalion machine-gunned children, women and the elderly of the Titovo farm. The same punitive detachment destroyed the village of Ivanovichi. All residents were shot in the back of the head. Once the punishers shot one and a half thousand civilians within three days.

In the village of Starozavopye, Yartsevo district, the punishers hanged 17 people on one gallows. Among the hanged were three children.

The Vlasovites went on a punitive operation in Belarus, destroying 16 villages in two weeks. They were guided by the principle: "History will write everything off." The Belarusian village of Khatyn, world-famous for its tragedy, was destroyed by the 624th battalion of the ROA, which had previously “worked” in our places - about three hundred Smolensk villages shared the fate of Khatyn. They say that if you collect their ashes, you would get a stele 20 meters high ...

During the occupation in the Yartsevo region alone, 657 civilians were shot. 83 people were tortured, brutally killed and burned, 42 were hanged. 75 villages were burned.

The punishers acted cruelly, barbarously.

One of the punitive detachments of the so-called "Schmidt group", based in the village of Prechistoye at the field gendarmerie, was headed by former senior lieutenant Vasily Tarakanov. His company of punishers carried out raids in the surrounding area, destroying villages in the Baturinsky, Dukhovshchinsky, Prechistensky and Yartsevsky regions (now these are the territories of the Yartsevsky and Dukhovshchinsky regions).

cockroaches Vasily Dmitrievich, born in 1917, native Yaroslavl region. Before the war, he graduated from high school, worked as a projectionist, studied at the military infantry school. During the year he fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. In the summer of 1942 he surrendered.

In captivity, Tarakanov began to cooperate with the Germans, took an oath of allegiance to the Third Reich and joined the punitive unit. This detachment operated on the territory of the Smolensk and Bryansk regions. The company of Vasily Tarakanov "worked" with the population in the Yartsevsky district with particular cruelty.

On February 15, 1943, in the village of Gutorovo, punishers shot and burned 147 women, old people and children. The policemen practiced shooting at live targets.

Punishers from the Tarakanovsky company were distinguished by their characteristic handwriting: they shot people right in the huts. First the adults were killed, then the children were killed. The “company” himself, on a dispute, fell into the eye of a woman or a child. Tarakanov had a kind of "standard" for murders - five people a day. And in the village of Gutorovo, the punisher, having entered the excitement, shot seven people at once from a machine gun.

Eyewitnesses recalled that the punishers killed people casually, for no apparent reason. Many residents were shot in the huts "just like that." Tarakanov personally threw two small children into the fire. For conscientious service in establishing the “new order”, Tarakanov was awarded three German medals and received an officer rank, which in itself is already eloquent, because the Germans tried not to assign officer ranks to Russians, as representatives of the “lower race”. So, he cured himself to the fullest ...

He was respected by his accomplices in the bloody business and Tarakanov's ally, the punisher-sadist Fyodor Zykov.

Zykov Fedor Ivanovich Born in 1919, native of the Kalinin region. Before the war - Komsomol activist, assessor of the People's Court. He began to fight in Belarus in 1941. In the autumn of the same year, he was captured and, going over to the side of the Germans, became part of the Schmidt Group. Fought in the company of V. Tarakanov. During the liberation of the Smolensk region, he retreated along with units of the Wehrmacht. He was trained at a special school in the city of Letzen and, as part of 50 Vlasov officers, was sent to serve in the Auschwitz (Auschwitz) concentration camp.

Zykov's inhuman cynicism discouraged even his Nazi superiors. Seeing someone off to be shot, Zykov along the way polished his well-groomed nails with a manicure nail file .... then, with a well-groomed hand, he raised the parabellum and killed the man.

Sometimes attacks of rabies were found on him, and then Zykov shouted that someday he would burn all of Russia - just as he burned the entire Prechistensky district.

Zykov personally tortured the captured partisans. So, seventeen-year-old Alexander Prudnikov, the sadist cut off the feet and hands, cut off his ears, nose, tongue with a dagger, carved stars on his body, gouged out his eyes - and continued this monstrous massacre for several hours. Punishers tried to destroy all witnesses to their crimes. Fortunately, some bystanders managed to escape.

Thanks to their testimony, it was possible to bring to justice many punishers and policemen - for example, such "craftsmen" as the gunsmith Ivanchenko, who repaired the weapons of punishers in the village of Titovo. Ivanchenko tested the combat effectiveness of weapons on civilians, thus shooting 90 people. He hanged himself after receiving the summons.

But the main characters in our story - Vasily Tarakanov and Fedor Zykov - turned out to be, as they say, seasoned wolves.

Tarakanov, having fallen into the hands of the Soviet authorities after the war, managed to hide his participation in the activities of the "Schmidt group" and went through the case like an ordinary policeman. He was given 25 years in the camps, but after 7 years he was released. The victorious country generously pardoned yesterday's enemies...

After his release, the executioner lived in the village of Kupanskoye, Yaroslavl region. In a quiet, picturesque place, he lived as a closed old man, having managed to get a family, becoming a grandfather, he ran the household. And even received "on the sly" two anniversary awards: "20 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" and "50 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR." But his instincts did not allow him to relax: when in 1987, 45 years after his betrayal, KGB investigators raided him, they found a shotgun loaded with buckshot under the featherbed under the feather bed of the old man Tarakanov.

Punisher Tarakanov retribution caught up only after more than forty years - in February 1987.

And his accomplice Fyodor Zykov lived in Vyshny Volochek, now the Tver region. He also managed to hide his "exploits" from the Soviet state security. And he also wore commemorative medals issued by the military registration and enlistment office ... His name began to appear during the next check of the statement on the fact of the execution of the inhabitants of the village of Gutorovo. This also happened more than forty years after the war.

When Zykov was arrested, he asked for the last time to play the accordion. A particularly cynical touch - the exposed punisher played ... "Farewell of the Slav".

Forty years have passed since the destruction of the Smolensk villages. But the years have not been able to lessen the guilt of the aged punishers. In 1987, 70-year-old Tarakanov was tried at the Palace of Culture of Smolensk railway workers, whose merits were noted the highest measure punishment. And two years later, on May 5, 1989, the death sentence for 70-year-old Zykov was announced here. In 1988, Tarakanov was shot. Zykov followed him two years later. These were among the last death sentences carried out in the Soviet Union.

They try not to advertise these pages of history - after all, it is generally accepted that the heroism of the Soviet people was massive, universal. But it is known that from one and a half to two million Soviet citizens collaborated with the invaders. We must not forget the bloody results of this cooperation. If only because the Smolensk region is the only region in Russia that has not been able to restore the pre-war population ...