How they surrendered in World War II. Russians surrender: a historical experience

"Unknown tragedies of the First World War. Prisoners. Deserters. Refugees." M.V. Oskin.

The order for the 2nd Army of the North-Western Front, No. 4 dated July 25, 1914, read: “In one of the reports, I saw that several lower ranks were missing. In most cases, the missing subsequently find themselves in captivity. captivity is shameful. Only the seriously wounded can find an excuse. Explain it in all parts. "
General A.V. Samsonov, suffering from the severity of the defeat, shot himself on August 17 while trying to get out of the encirclement. It is characteristic that the officers of his headquarters, who were with him, could not even say how exactly this happened, they only heard the sound of a shot and could not find his body, which was subsequently buried by the Germans in a common grave. But only the commander himself did so! The subordinates were in no hurry to take an example from their commander.
Commander of the 23rd Army Corps, Gen. K. A. Kondratovich managed to escape from his troops to the rear, where he declared himself sick. Komkor-15 General N. N. Martos was taken prisoner in the general confusion of skirmishes in the Russian rear. And - with weapons in hand, without resistance.

But here is the commander-13 gene. N. A. Klyuev led the divisional column, which made its way from a loose "bag". In front of the last chain of German machine guns, General Klyuev ordered to capitulate. Question: who is to blame for the fact that twenty thousand Russian soldiers surrendered here unwounded? They personally or their superiors who ordered the capitulation?
General Klyuev himself ordered his orderly to go to the Germans with a white handkerchief in his hands. To whom, then, does the characteristic apply: being captured is shameful? Here, for the first time, that pernicious tendency of the quality of a small part of the pre-war Russian officer corps, which handed over soldiers subordinate to them, was manifested.
General P. N. Krasnov quotes the phrase of such a Russian prisoner who did not even understand what was happening, but acted “like everyone else”: “I was faithful to the Tsar and the Fatherland to the end and was captured not of my own free will. Everyone surrendered, me and I didn't know it was already a prisoner."

What is the fault of the soldiers of Samsonov's army, who turned out to be hostages of the wrong strategic decision of pre-war planning and its mediocre execution on the part of the generals of the North-Western Front?
Alexander Vasilyevich Samsonov himself, who realized too late the pre-war unpreparedness, acted as required by the code of officer honor. Probably, one cannot say that suicide is the only way out. Not everyone dares to do this, and it is not necessary.
But it is one thing to surrender in a hopeless situation, when it is already impossible to break through and so you do not want to die. And it is quite another to hand over the people entrusted to you when you have a whole corps behind your back. This is a military crime.

What is the fault of the rank and file, in front of whom the generals easily surrendered, including the corps commanders (a total of fifteen generals surrendered in the 2nd Army then)? When were the two most numerous groups that made their way out of the encirclement led not by generals, but by a colonel and a staff captain?
Yes, the personnel of the 13th Army Corps consisted of two-thirds of the reserve, that is, in fact, it was non-cadre. However, most of the corps was "surrendered" by their own commanders, who did not show an example of fidelity to duty.
Of the highest ranks of the 13th Army Corps, only the chief of staff of the 36th Infantry Division, Colonel Vyakhirev, left the encirclement. And in total, only one hundred and sixty-five people of Staff Captain Semechkin and Lieutenant Dremanovich and a team of scouts made their way from the 13th Army Corps.
These people simply did not lay down their arms on the orders of their commander, but went into the forest, and, having tried their luck, achieved it. Who would condemn those who surrendered on the orders of a superior commander? But there were officers who went against the boss in the name of fulfilling military duty and demanding an oath.

The total losses of the 2nd Russian Army during the East Prussian offensive operation amounted to about 8,000 killed, 25,000 wounded and up to 80,000 captured. The enemy also captured up to five hundred guns and two hundred machine guns.
The losses of the Germans during the operation against the 2nd Army from August 13 amounted to about thirteen thousand people. Let's look at the loss ratio. It is obvious that some of the wounded were also taken into account in the mass of prisoners, because most of the wounded ended up in German captivity.
In this case, against 13,000 losses among the Germans, the Russians have no more than 20,000, which is explained both by the defensive battles of the Germans in prepared areas in advance and by the advantage of the Germans in technology. The rest are prisoners.
That is, those who have gone "at the expense" exclusively by an enemy maneuver - surrendered in the "cauldron". Or - "surrendered" by commanders. Why didn't fifteen generals lead the breakthrough? Even more so - ordering their people to surrender.

The perniciousness of the wrong perception of captivity in relation to the command staff was understood immediately after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. But, unfortunately, it has not been elevated to an axiom within the Russian military machine itself.
Assessing the results of the Far Eastern conflict, the former commander of the Manchurian army, General. A. N. Kuropatkin wrote: “Along with true feats, there are also cases of low stubbornness of individual units and, in particular, individuals. Cases of surrender by the unwounded in the last war were frequent not only among the lower ranks, but also among officers.
Unfortunately, in relation to these persons the existing laws were not applied in all severity. Upon returning from captivity, some officers had already received command of separate units before their trial and, returning to the regiments, took command of companies and battalions.
Directly from Japan, former prisoners of war received orders from the military department to be appointed even as division chiefs. Meanwhile, there can be only one circumstance that justifies the surrender: it is a wound. All those who surrendered unwounded must be held accountable for not fighting to the last drop of blood."
In fairness, it should be said that with the level of leadership that General Kuropatkin showed, defeats and captures were not surprising.

The essence of the problem is different: why did the officers who surrendered unwounded then receive high command posts? They have already once despised the oath and the requirements of military legislation, which means they would not hesitate to do it later.
First, it was necessary to figure it out, and only then to restore such officers in the army, and even with a promotion. In comparison with the USSR, the situation here is clearly a lost one: the Soviet generals who returned from captivity were carefully checked, but even those of them who were not subjected to reprisals, but were reinstated in the army, did not receive high positions.
The main thing here is the example shown by the attitude of the political leadership of the Russian Empire to such cases. An example that contrasted sharply with the reprisals against surrendering privates during the First World War.
If you look closely at the documents of that time, you cannot fail to note the efforts of the generals issuing repressive orders to cover up their own confusion caused by the fact that the war did not go according to the scenario planned before the war. Now we had to learn during the war itself and, gritting our teeth, do everything to achieve victory. And it's not easy.

Suffice it to recall just the justification of Gen. A. A. Blagoveshchensky, who fled from his troops of the 6th Army Corps during the East Prussian operation. The flight of the commander forced the corps to retreat, which exposed the right flank of the central corps of the 2nd Army, which were surrounded - "double coverage".
In his defense, General Blagoveshchensky stated that he was "not used to being with the troops." As A. A. Kersnovsky says on this occasion: “We see, in this way, that in the Russian army there could be commanders who were “not accustomed to being with the troops”, that such commanders were entrusted with corps and that they lacked the honesty to confess their "unaccustomed" in peacetime and give way in advance to more deserving ones.
In such a practice it was almost impossible to determine whether all possibilities for resistance had been exhausted or not. As well as to determine the measure of responsibility of each surrendered fighter, thrown not so much into battle as "to be slaughtered" by their commanders.
The same 6th Corps retreated to the rear in a panic, but isn't this a natural reaction to the behavior of the commander? On the other hand, why did none of the senior officers of the retreating corps, who perfectly understood that the withdrawal exposes the rear of the center of the army, take responsibility and hold back the troops?
Again, everyone, probably, remembered that captivity is rather a misfortune, and not a shame, which was an example of the Russo-Japanese War. Since they forgave not only those who surrendered ("take" prisoners - wounded or unarmed), but also those who surrendered.

What punishment did Generals Stessel, Fok and Reiss, who surrendered Port Arthur in 1904, suffer? After a long and closed trial - the minimum. Such an attitude of the authorities towards those who, without hesitation, surrendered thousands of soldiers to the enemy, only encouraged the surrender.
Hence, the gene who surrendered the whole corps. N. A. Klyuev, and who had already given the order from captivity to surrender the Novogeorgievsk fortress, its commandant, gene. N.P. Bobyr, and its commandant, General, who fled from the Kovno fortress. V. N. Grigoriev.
In peacetime, they were all considered good servicemen, and since 1909 General Klyuev generally held the post of chief of staff of the Warsaw Military District, that is, he was directly preparing for the fight against Germany. Well prepared, nothing to say.

How, in this case, should one treat the lower ranks who surrendered, who, by orders of the commanders, were placed not only in a hopeless, but directly in a suicidal position? For example, can one consider cowards and traitors a couple of platoons left from a battalion advancing on level ground and now stuck in front of barbed wire, in which artillery did not break through?
About such a case (the unsuccessful offensive of the 7th and 9th armies of the Southwestern Front on the Strypa River in a vain attempt to help dying Serbia) is reported, for example, by A. A. Svechin:
“I had to observe the work of staff bureaucrats in January 1916. The exhausted attacking units of the neighboring corps, falling 300 meters from the Austrian position under heavy machine-gun fire, threw their rifles, raised their hands and in this form continued to move through the wire and the Austrian trenches.
The authorities believed that the trenches had been taken, but the attacking units, not supported by reserves, could not resist the counterattack and surrendered. Three attacks were made in the evening twilight for several days in a row.
Instead of recognizing the insufficiency of artillery preparation, the bureaucrats believed that the whole trouble was that the reserves followed at too great distances, and insisted on a closer advance of the latter, which only increased losses and confusion with each new assault.

At the same time, the death of hundreds of our own soldiers can be presented in a relation in such a way that it will be possible to count on another award or promotion. An example of such a situation is given in February 1915 - the 1st Prasnysh operation in East Prussia.
A participant in those battles, which were characterized by large and senseless losses, since the attack on Prasnysh could not give any operational bonuses, the officer shows:
“We had to advance across the terrain completely open, with an ascent towards the German trenches, the ground was frozen, and the chains, lying down from unbearable fire, could not dig in and were completely shot.
The Germans even did better. When the attackers approached a completely intact wire fence, they ordered to drop their rifles, which, willy-nilly, had to be done, and then they were allowed one by one into the trenches as prisoners.
From a formal point of view, it turns out the voluntary surrender of soldiers into captivity. And that means - certain reprisals. What if it's human? Who is to blame for the fact that the Russian arrows hung on a wire that was not destroyed by artillery?
Who is to blame for the fact that the Russian artillery did not have shells (already in December 1914, the orders of the Supreme High Command prohibited the expenditure of more than one shell per gun per day)? Are these same arrows advancing on the open area in the forehead on machine guns?

For comparison: in November 1915, the commander of the German 82nd Reserve Infantry Division, General Faberius, was captured by the partisan detachment of Staff Captain Tkachenko.
When escorting to the rear, taking advantage of the oversight of the head of the escort, who met an old comrade along the way and decided to celebrate the meeting with strong drinks, Faberius grabbed a revolver and shot himself, unable to bear the shame of captivity.
How many Russian generals acted in a similar way, if we remember that sixty-six Russian generals were captured, and only one dared to escape from captivity - the division commander-48 gene. L. G. Kornilov?
True, age and trials in captivity also affected. Of the sixty-six captured generals, eleven died in captivity, which amounted to 16%, while the overall mortality rate of Russian prisoners of war was 5.6%. According to S. V. Volkov, seventy-three Russian generals were captured.
It is obvious that most of the generals were captured in "cauldrons", since the general is by no means in the forefront directly on the battlefield.
In particular, near Tannenberg in August 1914, fifteen generals were captured by the Germans, in the August forest in February 1915 - eleven, and finally, in the Novogeorgievsk fortress - seventeen.
Thus, two-thirds of the captured Russian generals were captured at just three points in the vast theater of operations, which was the Eastern Front of the First World War.

Again, parallels. The first commander of the First World War to be removed from his post was just a German - commander-8 gene. M. von Prittwitz und Gaffron, who defended the same East Prussia from the Russians.
He only dared to doubt the success of the struggle for the province, sending a telegram to the Headquarters about his intention to withdraw beyond the Vistula after the first lost battle near Gumbinnen, and was immediately dismissed.
Someone was displaced for incompetence. But the difference is again in the timing of the replacement. Such mediocrity as the commander-in-chief of the armies of the North-Western Front, Gen. Ya. G. Zhilinsky, was removed only after the lost operation, when the losses of the front amounted to the same number as at the beginning of the operation - a quarter of a million, including one hundred and fifty thousand prisoners.
This requires truly outstanding mediocrity, and someone put General Zhilinsky not only in the chiefs of the Warsaw Military District, but before that in the chiefs of the General Staff.

The very pre-war selection of commanders shows that the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century was in a broken state, which was objectively caused by the bourgeois modernization of the country. Exactly the same situation was in Austria-Hungary, which is confirmed by the results of the clash of Austro-Hungarian and Russian weapons on the fields of the First World War.
The experience of the war allowed the best people to advance, as evidenced by the simple fact that in the summer campaign of 1916 (Brusilov breakthrough), the losses of the Russian army by prisoners were five times less than the bloody losses. But how many people had to be lost before that?
And, even if we ignore the calculation of patriotism, and talk about monarchical statehood, how many career officers were lost in vain - the pillars of the existing regime?

For me, when I began to carefully study the real history of the Second World War, the most shocking discovery was not even just the numbers of losses in the incredible scale of defeats and "cauldrons" in which the Soviet army fell with depressing frequency throughout the first half of the war. Even more striking was the extent of the surrender; But what about the “Russians don’t give up” learned in childhood ?? But the facts are stubborn: in the first 4 months of 1941 alone, about 3.5 million people surrendered to the Germans - in fact, ALL the "cover army" that stood before the Germans on June 22. Those who did not give up - for the most part fled through the forests and fields.

The Nazis did not even know what to do with such a grandiose number of captured men - they did not have and could not have any suitable infrastructure for keeping such a large number. Therefore, most of those prisoners of the "first convocation" they simply starved to death - very few people survived until the liberation.

Massively surrendered in 1942 ... In general, a nightmare. And somehow it contradicts the legend that we have about the "incredible stamina of the Russian soldier." But it is not easy to write about this in LiveJournal - our Stalinists - "patriots" and "witnesses of the cult of Victory" are instantly overexcited.

And then I read all sorts of materials about the First World War. And it turned out that there was about the same thing, namely: the Russian soldiers are very willing - more willing than anyone else! - were taken prisoner. However, it is difficult to talk about this either - here "patriots" of a different kind are already running in - from the category of "lamb sweets", "lieutenant Golitsyn" and "tsar-priest Nikolai."

But in the latest issue of the magazine "Expert" (No. 44 of October 31, 2016), an article by the historian Sergei Nefedov "On the Russian Revolution" was published, where this question about the "valor of the Russian army" is once again considered in great detail. It is a sin not to quote excerpts:

“The Russian armies, defeated in the summer campaign of 1915, lost 2.4 million soldiers, including 1 million prisoners ... At a meeting on July 30, 1915, Minister of War A.A. Polivanov said that “demoralization, surrender, desertion is on a grand scale."
"The stamina of the army began to decline, and mass surrenders to the pden became a common occurrence," General A. Brusilov testifies. Modern researchers have calculated that in general, during the war, Russia lost 3.9 million prisoners, three times more than Germany, England and France combined. For every 100 killed in the Russian army, there were 300 prisoners, in the German, British and French armies - from 20 to 26, that is, Russians surrendered 12-15 times more often than soldiers of other armies.
The number of deserters by the beginning of 1917 was 1.5 million (for comparison: in the German army there were 35-45 thousand deserters, in the English - 35 thousand)

"Replenishments sent from reserve battalions came to the front with a leakage of 25% on average," testifies M.V. ".
(I can't give a link to the article - the damn "Expert" has stopped posting the latest issues on its website).

This is all about the question of how the representatives of our people "love and know how to fight." DON'T LOVE - that's for sure. Well, the "patriots", of course, as well as the gentlemen "nationalists", it is better to immediately forget about all the information received.

For a long time I was going to bring together the numbers of German trophies in the first months of the "Russian campaign" of 1941. The fact is that the "military strategists" from the camp of Soviet patriots of the dead-end spill, in every possible way downplay the loss of prisoners. That is, the fact that the battles were fierce and the losses of those killed were huge - no one seems to dispute this. But somehow they don’t want to talk about the prisoners, in every possible way downplaying their number. Therefore, I will simply give a brief summary of the number of prisoners and military equipment captured by the Wehrmacht in the largest "cauldrons" in the period up to November 1941, i.e. during the first 4 months of the war.

A reasonable question: where are the firewood from? That is, where did the data come from? The data are taken from the capital work "History of the Second World War" by General Kurt von Tippelskirch, who served during the war in the General Staff of the German Ground Forces. Of course, the German general is not a decree for Soviet patriots of the 2009 model. However, no one has yet refuted Tippelskirch's verified and exact figures (although, I think, the analytical-stupid department should subsequently fill this gap and declare Tippelskirch an asshole and a rushing liberal intellectual). And in general, something, but the Germans do not take punctuality, and even in moments that are unpleasant for themselves. So the data is generally accurate. In addition, frankly speaking, nowhere else, except from the Germans, is there anywhere to take data on the number of Soviet prisoners. The Soviet Union did not have accurate data on the number of dead and captured of its soldiers and officers. It's paradoxical, but it's a fact. The terrible wording "missing" concealed behind itself captivity, death, desertion - yes, anything. But even the exact number of "missing" by years and fronts is still unknown. So excuse me, but Tippelskirch is apparently the most reliable source for the numbers of prisoners and war trophies.

By June 22, the Germans concentrated in strategic deployment areas: 81 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division, 17 tank, 15 motorized, 9 security and police divisions. As a reserve of the main command, another 22 infantry divisions, 2 tank, 2 motorized divisions and one police division were on the way. Total: 140 combined arms divisions, plus 10 security and police divisions (including SS divisions).

In three air fleets (one for each army group), there were 1,300 bombers.

In addition, Hungary agreed to allocate 15 divisions in the event of a war with the USSR. But most of them were not combat-ready. Mussolini placed at the disposal of Germany an expeditionary force consisting of 3 divisions. Assistance was received from Spain in the form of the notorious "blue division", which fought in the autumn of 1941 on the Volkhov front.

In addition, Finland began covert mobilization on June 17, but evaded a political union with Germany. Romania was also ready to take part in the war, having lost Bessarabia shortly before and dreaming of a political revenge. But the Romanian army, although numerically larger than the Finnish, was worse trained and worse armed, that is, Romania itself needed Germany's help in bringing the army to perfection.

The size of the Red Army, according to German estimates (which turned out to be generally correct), was as follows: 150 rifle divisions, 36 motorized brigades and 32 cavalry divisions, of which at the beginning of the war 25 rifle divisions, 7 cavalry divisions and several motorized brigades were connected on other borders , primarily on the border with China (captured by Japan). The Germans used their own identification of units and formations of the Red Army. In fact, the organization of the armored forces in the spacecraft was somewhat different: the basis was mechanized corps, as well as tank and motorized divisions. But these are details of interest only to specialists.

In general, according to German estimates, the USSR, in the event of a war, could immediately mobilize up to 12 million reservists. It remained only unclear how much the Soviet military industry would be able to arm the mobilized people. We now know that the Soviet military industry could not immediately solve this problem. At the beginning of the war, the new mobilized fighters fought 2-3 men per rifle, with one firing the rifle and the other two waiting to be killed to take his weapon. However, as the first months of the fighting showed, it was not at all the lack of personal small arms that was the main problem of the Red Army.

On April 10, 1941, the USSR decided to put all military formations in the West on alert. And on May 1, military preparations began. This is a very remarkable fact and is interpreted in different ways. Known, for example, the point of view that this testified to the intentions of the USSR to attack Germany. This point of view seems to be confirmed also by the fact that on May 6 Stalin headed the Council of People's Commissars, that is, he united the highest party and state power in his hands. But did the USSR want to attack Germany, and Germany delivered a preemptive strike? Or the USSR simply expected a German attack, receiving information about German divisions converging to the border. But a fact is a fact: the German attack could not have been unexpected. From childhood we were accustomed to the idea that June 22, 1941 was so unexpected for the "party and government" (read - for Stalin), that only this explains all the subsequent terrible defeats of the first months of 1941. But the fact remains: the divisions of the Red Army began to prepare for war two months before June 22. No matter how one interprets this fact.

I omit the strategic plans and observation of divisions by army groups (of which, as everyone remembers, there were three: "North", "South" and "Center"). I dwell only on the dry figures of the main war trophies and prisoners captured by the Wehrmacht in the first months of 1941 in various so-called. "cauldrons". After doing some work, I summarized these numbers in the following table.

Battle	expiration date	Captured (people)	tanks	guns
Bialystok double boiler (Bialystok and Minsk)	July 10	328 898	3 332	1 809
Pervomaisk-Novoarkhangelsk-Uman (was captured by 2 army commanders)	8 August	103 000	317	858
Mogilev-Orsha-Polotsk-Nevel-Smolensk	5th of August	310 000	3 000	3 000
Roslavl	8 August	38 000	250	250
Mozyr area	24 August	78 000	144	700
Kyiv	September 26	665 000	884	3 718
Chernigovka	October 10	100 000	212	672
Vyazma	October 13	663 000	1 242	5 412
Total		2 285 898	9 381	16 419

Therefore, in just the first 4 months of fighting in the largest boilers, 2 million 285 thousand 898 soldiers and officers of the Red Army surrendered to German captivity , including many generals and even two army commanders. The troops left the enemy tanks and guns safe and sound. As you can see, the Germans received almost 10 thousand tanks (whole!) And 16 thousand guns. The Germans were simply shocked as they marched along the Russian roads and looked at the completely serviceable tanks and guns abandoned by the Soviet crews. In addition to large boilers, scattered detachments of Red Army soldiers surrendered, who escaped the "boilers" themselves.

Red Army soldiers surrender.

It is impossible to determine the exact number of captured "small boilers" and simply surrendered to the mercy of the winner. In total, according to German data, by the autumn of 1941, they had about 3 million people in their hands.

Peasant women cry, looking at the column of captured Red Army soldiers.

This turned out to be rather an unpleasant surprise, since the Germans simply did not have food to feed such a number of prisoners who had fallen on their heads. Since childhood, all of us have known films and books about the unbearable conditions in which captured Red Army soldiers languished in German captivity, literally dying of hunger. It's true, that's how it really was. But the thing is that all this was not the result of some special bestial cruelty of the Germans, but simply they had nothing to feed the prisoners.

Anyone who has a minimal idea of ​​what questions of quartermaster supply are will understand that even with all the desire, even in peacetime, it is extremely difficult to solve the problem of accommodating and feeding three million people. And the time was not peaceful, and, frankly, the Germans had no reason to somehow take special care of the captured Red Army soldiers, if Comrade Stalin himself said that they were not prisoners at all, but traitors and that he would not be interested in them. Here is such a kind uncle: he took and declared almost three million of his recent citizens as traitors who deserve death. And one moment. The Germans simply had nowhere to get provisions to feed the prisoners, since food for the Wehrmacht was sent centrally with German pedantry and nothing was said about any extra three million mouths in the papers. And in the occupied territory with food was tight. Why tight? And Comrade Stalin and then fussed.

Here is a fragment of the appeal of Joseph Vissarionovich: “It is necessary to steal the entire rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not to leave the enemy a single kilogram of bread ...”. Many probably remember the poignant shots from the film "They Fought for the Motherland", when the remnants of the regiment retreat at night through blazing grain fields. So the order was carried out not to leave the enemy a single kilogram of bread. At the same time, the angry reaction of the peasants from the film is quite understandable - after all, the retreat of the Red Army doomed them to starvation in winter due to the destruction of the crop. The leader of the peoples, of course, did not care about such trifles. He believed that when retreating, it was necessary to leave only scorched earth to the enemy. The fact that in this way a terrible blow is inflicted on the population living on this earth, Joseph Vissarionovich worried little. And let alone the fact that at the same time millions of Soviet prisoners were doomed to starvation - this certainly could not bother the Leader of the Peoples.

Interestingly, when in early 1945 Hitler decided to use the same scheme, destroying all the infrastructure in the Allied offensive zones, the Minister of Industry Speer considered this madness and sabotaged Hitler's orders, began to develop plans for how to pump poison gas into the ventilation of the bunker. There was nothing like this in the USSR. The Soviet commissars unquestioningly carried out all, even the most ruthless in relation to their population, Stalin's orders.

German temporary camp for Soviet prisoners of war. 1941

But let's get back to the captured soldiers of the Red Army, who were dying of starvation in temporary camps. There are cases when German officers simply dismissed the prisoners, because they did not want to doom people to a painful death. But these are all details. It is very painful to describe them, because we are not talking about captured French or residents of Burkina Faso, but about captured Russian soldiers and officers. But a reasonable question: why did they surrender? After all, it is possible to explain the capture, as shown in the film "The Fate of a Man" - a soldier is driving in a car, suddenly there is an explosion, the car turned over, came to his senses, and the Germans were already around. What to do here? Here, of course, captivity cannot be avoided. But the surrender of 100 thousand people at once, or even 600 thousand, as was the case in the Kiev pocket and in the Vyazma region, how to explain this? Moreover, they surrendered without using up ammunition, having hundreds of serviceable tanks and thousands of guns with shells. But they surrendered! Surrendered after the shortest encirclement. How about to explain it?

In principle, I agree with Comrade Stalin here - they were traitors. They betrayed the country that called them and gave them weapons, they betrayed the government of this country. It is a fact! And who will argue here, will argue with Comrade Stalin himself. But I put the question a little differently: what country did these three million people betray? Has it ever been in Russian history that entire divisions, one by one, surrendered to the enemy, and even with all their weapons and ammunition? Not! This has never happened in Russian history! This happened only under the brilliant comrade Stalin. Why? Yes, because it was not Russia, but the Council of Deputies. And these people betrayed not Russia, but the Stalinist Soviet of Deputies, which in the previous period showed itself in all its glory.

Scoops like to talk about the fact that "the people really loved Stalin." You know, the true love of the people is well manifested in times of dashing trials, such as war. Or guys dressed in tunics, these are not the people? Three million is not the people? Sorry, this is the real people. If today three thousand respondents are enough to talk about the opinion of the people, which is considered a “representative sample”, then three million people in 1941 were more than a representative sample - it was mostly young people, that is, supposedly something new that created the Soviet of Deputies. And they, having surrendered, said clearly and unambiguously: “We do not want to defend the Soviet power, the Soviet state and Comrade Stalin personally. They burn with a blue flame and they will all fall into tartarara. A very representative sample.

References to the unprecedentedly strong Wehrmacht and its extensive experience gained in past campaigns, so de, the Red Army in the first months of the war simply could not offer organized resistance, are unconvincing. There and then, when the troops wanted to resist, the Germans received an adequate response. Is the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress already forgotten? Just think, well, discard emotions: how did it happen that the small garrison of the Brest Fortress, completely surrounded, almost without ammunition, lasted a whole month and the Germans took the fortress only when almost the entire garrison died? And compare this with the month-long battle for Kyiv, when 600 thousand people with tanks and guns surrendered to the Germans after only a week of encirclement. The difference is outrageous. The garrison of the Brest Fortress wanted to resist and heroically resisted, although they had almost no means to do so. And the grouping of the Red Army in the Kyiv region did not want to resist, and even having every opportunity to continue fighting, surrendered to the Germans. Yes, just imagine what would have happened to the German offensive if the Kyiv pocket had resisted as well as the defenders of the Brest Fortress! And if the Vyazma cauldron also resisted? But they didn't want to resist! And surrendered after a short simulation of defense.

Or another example. In October 1941, in the Rostov region, units of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive with the forces of three armies and even recaptured Rostov from the Germans on November 29 (further, the counteroffensive, however, bogged down on the Mius River). But a fact is a fact: in October 1941, in the Vyazma region, 663 thousand people surrendered with a thousand tanks and five thousand guns, but elsewhere the troops can organize such resistance that they even recapture Rostov, occupied by the Germans. And in general, everywhere the Germans met scattered resistance from small detachments of the Red Army, with periodic counterattacks. It turns out whoever wanted to fight, he fought. And fought very successfully. But this only makes the facts of the "single" surrender of tens and hundreds of thousands of troops in "boilers" more monstrous. By the way, this is understandable from the point of view of mathematical statistics. In small groups, the presence of several fanatical commissars, communists and Komsomol members, who, of course, were going to defend the USSR to the last, had a strong influence on other fighters and small formations resisted even in the environment. But in large contingents, the influence of the communists was already leveled and the general dull dissatisfaction with the communists and Stalin came to the fore, hence the huge number of prisoners. There are cases when fighters killed communists and commissars before surrendering or neutralized them, handing them over to the Germans.

In general, the period of June-December 1941 is still waiting for its researchers. Researchers of non-military strategy and tactics - it’s just that almost everything has already been chewed. And the researchers of those social processes that operated during this period. In the meantime, with the most cursory study, we can say that 1941 was not a Patriotic War, but a continuation of the Civil War. This, of course, is a very simplified statement, but only from this angle can the events of 1941 be explained without contradictions.

Well, so, something like an afterword.

The largest military defeat of Nazi Germany, which served as the starting point for a decisive turning point in the course of the war, was Stalingrad. As you know, the act of surrender was signed by Paulus on January 30, 1943. As a result, 90 thousand soldiers and officers of the 6th Army fell into Soviet captivity. This was the first, after the Jena disaster of 1804, the military defeat of Germany in the form of the surrender of an entire army. According to Manstein, on February 5, at a meeting at headquarters dedicated to the death of Paulus's army, Hitler said the following: “I alone bear responsibility for Stalingrad! I could perhaps say that Goering misinformed me about the possibility of air supply, and thus shift at least part of the responsibility to him. But he is my successor, whom I appointed myself, and therefore I cannot allow him to be responsible for Stalingrad. Despite the fact that Paulus signed the surrender order and himself surrendered, Hitler not only did not deprive him of the rank of field marshal (assigned to him shortly before the surrender), but declared national mourning in Germany, and all the soldiers and officers of the 6th Army, who died near Stalingrad, were declared heroes.

Why did I cite Stalingrad as an example? In order to somehow plead for the military success of the Red Army? No, of course, Stalingrad was indeed a major military success for the Red Army. But I just want to use the example of Stalingrad, comparing it at least with the defense of Kyiv, to show what happens when the troops really want to fight.

Paulus's army ceased resistance when all the supplies - combat and food - practically ran out, in a situation of complete encirclement that lasted more than two months and in severe Russian frosts. At the same time, 90 thousand people were captured. The battle for Kyiv lasted a month, and in the complete encirclement of the Red Army were only one week. Let me remind you that 665 thousand people surrendered to German captivity (against the German 90 thousand in Stalingrad), with 884 tanks and 3.7 thousand guns (in Stalingrad, the 6th Army had almost no whole tanks and guns). I'm not saying that the battle for Kyiv took place in ideal weather and climatic conditions, and the soldiers of the Red Army did not experience the slightest problem due to the weather. Similarly, they did not experience problems with ammunition and food. Well, the attitude towards their prisoners is very striking. Hitler called the soldiers of the 6th Army, including Paujuls, heroes, Stalin called all the prisoners traitors (his well-known maxim: “The Red Army has no prisoners, but only traitors” - several million traitors, strong!). And, finally, Hitler, who forbade Paulus to leave Stalingrad, fully admitted his guilt for the death of the 6th Army, without shifting responsibility to anyone. After Stalingrad, no one was shot or removed from office. Stalin never admitted his guilt for the military losses of the Red Army and did nothing but shift the responsibility to the generals of the Red Army. As they say, the comparison is very striking.

On July 16, 1941, no order No. 0019 was issued. There was a GKO-169ss resolution (No. 00381) on the arrest of the commander of the Western Front, General Pavlov, and a number of other senior officers:

“The State Defense Committee establishes that units of the Red Army in battles with the German invaders in most cases hold high the great banner of Soviet power and behave satisfactorily, and sometimes outright heroically, defending their native land from fascist robbers. However, along with this, the State Defense Committee must admit that individual commanders and ordinary soldiers show instability, alarmism, shameful cowardice, throw down their weapons and, forgetting their duty to the Motherland, grossly violate their oath, turn into a herd of sheep, in a panic fleeing from an insolent enemy.

While paying honor and glory to the brave fighters and commanders, the State Defense Committee considers it necessary at the same time that the strictest measures be taken against cowards, alarmists, and deserters.

Nevertheless, following Dalin, the same order, to the point of words, is quoted by Solzhenitsyn:

“When the Soviet-German war began, the natural movement of the people was to breathe and free themselves, the natural feeling was disgust for their power ... Stalin’s order (0019, 16.7.41) was not in vain pounding: “On all fronts there are numerous elements that even run towards to the enemy and at the first contact with him they throw weapons "" .

Moreover, the modern revisionist historian Joachim Hoffman also cites this order, however, at the same time he names a different number and date: No. 001919 of September 12, 1941.

And such an order really existed. On September 12, 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command issued Directive No. 001919 on the creation of detachments in rifle divisions. From the explanatory part of the directive:

“The experience of fighting German fascism has shown that in our rifle divisions there are quite a few panicky and directly hostile elements who, at the first pressure from the enemy, drop their weapons, start shouting “we are surrounded” and drag the rest of the fighters with them. As a result of such actions of these elements, the division takes to flight, abandons its materiel, and then, alone, begins to leave the forest. Similar phenomena take place on all fronts. If the commanders and commissars of such divisions were at the height of their task, alarmist and hostile elements could not prevail in the division ... " .

There is nothing particularly seditious in this directive: it simply states that there are cowards and alarmists in the army - it would be surprising if after almost four months of defeats there were no such. However, in the retelling of all three mentioned authors there are words about the Red Army soldiers who are so eager to surrender that they run towards the enemy. But this is not in the directive itself.

The verbatim coincidence of the quote from the authors suggests that they borrowed it from the same source. And Hoffman is so careless that he refers to this source of the quote: “Abteilung Wehrmacht-Propaganda. RW 4/v. 329 Sowejetrussland (Sammlung von Unterlagen), Juli - Dezember 1941”, which translates into Russian as “Wehrmacht propaganda department. RW 4/v. 329 Soviet Russia (collection of documents), July - December 1941.

Shortly after the publication of the directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Wehrmacht propagandists made a fake based on it to prove the massive betrayal of Soviet prisoners of war. The real directive was rewritten and supplemented with a few colorful touches - for example, about “numerous elements” running towards the Germans.

Having made a fake, Wehrmacht propagandists began to scatter leaflets in which they wrote about how the soldiers of the Red Army were surrendering en masse and that those who had not yet surrendered should do so immediately.

One of them fell into the hands of Solzhenitsyn, who referred to it as a genuine "Stalinist directive."

"Obzor" offers those who are interested in history, and not only him, another historical "research", which appeared in the Lithuanian media, this time - in the weekly "Veidas". Its author - Petras Stankeras - not so long ago "famous" for having doubted the reality of such a phenomenon as the Holocaust. But he stubbornly continues to develop a military theme. True, only in such a perspective, which, presumably, provides the greatest probability of publication. And that means a fee. This is in demand today. And who will cling to the words there: people of various nationalities surrendered, but, you see, it was the Russians who annoyed Dr. Stankeras with something very much. Therefore, he, shoulder to shoulder with his like-minded truth-tellers, develops the topic that is closer to the "street lamp". Khatyn? What Khatyn?

70 years ago, when the so-called Great Patriotic War began in the Soviet Union, Soviet soldiers and officers began to surrender en masse. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army was even forced to issue the well-known order No. 270 on the responsibility of those who surrendered.

World War II caused irreparable damage to human civilization, claiming tens of millions of lives, destroying cities and cultural monuments, instilled in humanity the ideology of cruelty and violence, which left its mark on several subsequent generations. But a special place among the severe trials of the war is held in captivity. It is associated not only with physical suffering, deprivation and mass deaths, but also with a severe psychological and moral crisis that the prisoners had to endure.

Soviet military propaganda stated that during the war years 36,000 Soviet servicemen were captured by the enemy, all the rest were considered missing. The truth about the prisoners of war made its way with difficulty. In 1993, the Russian General Staff stated that during the war years 3.3 million soldiers were captured and disappeared without a trace. Nevertheless, as a result of comparing the data of Russia and Germany (and the Germans very meticulously compiled lists of captured enemies), it turned out that in 1941 the Germans captured 3.4 million Soviet troops, in 1942 - 1.6 million, in 1943 - 565 thousand, in 1944 - 147 thousand, and even in 1945 - another 34 thousand, and in general - 5.75 million Soviet soldiers and officers.

There was no such shame in the history of mankind: the elite of the Soviet state - the military - ran over to the side of the enemy. The most shameful thing for the commissar authorities was that high-ranking officials of the Red Workers 'and Peasants' Army, including generals, were also captured by the enemy. Therefore, communist propaganda about Soviet patriotism did not give any practical benefit.

Should have died but not surrendered

Of the four million Soviet soldiers who surrendered in the first years of the war, more than half were passive defectors who only dreamed of how to take up arms and fight against Stalin and the communist dictatorship.

During the years of the Soviet-German war, surrender was equated with dishonor and betrayal, prisoners of war were considered deserters, many of them, returning to their homeland after the war, ended up in Soviet concentration camps. The survivors had to hear reproaches until the end of their lives: “You should have died, but not surrendered.”

In tsarist Russia, cases of surrender were very rare. According to published official data, from 1700 to 1904 there were no cases of mass surrender to the enemy. The First World War changed everything. The infamous 2nd Army in 1914 lost 135,000 soldiers captured by the enemy. After the coup d'état of 1917, during the civil war, surrender from the White Army to the Red Army and vice versa was a normal thing.

Most likely, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin knew from his own experience that violence, both in times of peace and in war, is a much more effective method than ostentatious Soviet patriotism. The most cruel and most ridiculous orders in his empire were to be carried out immediately and on time, as prescribed by military rules. It concerned everyone - from the marshal to the private, who wisely assimilated the realities of the war: a German machine gunner could not hit, shoot past, but in case of disobedience, it was no longer possible to hope for "past".

In the first years of the Russian-German war, the encircled Soviet troops began to surrender en masse to the enemy, so on August 16, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command was forced to sign order No. 270. This document ordered to destroy those who surrendered "by all means, both ground and air, and the families of surrendered Red Army soldiers to be deprived of state benefits and assistance.

The order was signed by I. Stalin, Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, V. Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee, Marshals of the Soviet Union S. Budyonny, K. Voroshilov, S. Timoshenko, V. Shaposhnikov and General of the Army G. Zhukov. The order was addressed to all members and candidates of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, secretaries of districts and districts, the Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union republics. The order was not intended for publication, but it was read out without fail in all squadrons, companies, batteries, squadrons and headquarters. According to the style of writing and content, it can be assumed that it was compiled by the Supreme.

By Order 270, every serviceman, regardless of his official position, was obliged to demand that the senior in rank, if his unit was surrounded, fight until the last chance to break through to his own. It is difficult to imagine a situation when a soldier demands something from a general...

The commander of the Leningrad Front, General Georgy Zhukov, indulging the Soviet dictator, went even further: on September 28, he indicated to his subordinates in an encrypted telegram that “it is necessary to explain to all personnel that the families of soldiers who have surrendered will be shot, and they themselves, upon returning from captivity, will also be shot." With the literal execution of the order, even babies would have to be shot!

The servants of the tyrant, over whom the Damocles sword of failures in the war constantly hung, were even more cruel than their master. With their orders and telegrams, the Soviet commissars surpassed even Genghis Khan. For the desertion of one soldier, he destroyed ten of his colleagues, but it did not even occur to him to kill the coward's family in his rear.

Only during the Battle of Stalingrad, 13.5 thousand soldiers and officers were shot for the intention to surrender to the enemy. And this does not indicate the level of demoralization of the Red Army - this indicates the scale of terror.

All prisoners of war became traitors

In response to Stalin's Order No. 270 and the aforementioned ciphered telegram, the Germans published a number of fairly objective propaganda articles. One of them was published on May 10, 1942 in the front-line newspaper Die Fronte under the title “Prisoners of war are enemies. How Stalin treats his soldiers. The article says: “The Soviets consider all prisoners of war to be traitors. They refused to participate in international treaties that were signed by all cultural countries: there is no exchange of seriously wounded, there is no postal communication between prisoners of war and their loved ones ... Soviet leaders, not without reason, fear that anyone who finds himself on the other side of the "socialist paradise" upon returning to the USSR, he will understand the Bolshevik lies ... "

The Germans were tolerant of Russian soldiers who surrendered: they promised everyone who voluntarily went over to their side not to be given the status of a prisoner of war, to create satisfactory living conditions, provide good food and take them out of the combat area to the deep rear. The wounded and sick were promised urgent medical care. Each one who surrendered voluntarily was offered to make a decision within seven days: either he joins the Russian Liberation Army, one of the national liberation units, volunteers in the rear, or work in his specialty. After the war, everyone was guaranteed the right to return to their homeland.

In other countries that participated in the Second World War, including Germany, the attitude towards captured soldiers was completely different. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ordered the soldiers who were in a hopeless situation to surrender and try to save their lives (and not material values) so that in the future they could serve the Motherland.

The Americans counted the length of service for prisoners of war to receive the next rank, accumulated a salary, and upon returning from captivity, they were awarded orders and medals for their steadfastness, for the fact that they survived in captivity, saved themselves for themselves, their families and the Motherland.

On July 28, 1942, V. Stalin signed another of his famous orders No. 227, well known as "Not a step back!", which forbade any retreat - otherwise he threatened to be shot. Only after many years after the war, in 1957, these orders were changed. Nevertheless, in the Charter of the Armed Forces of the USSR, the expression remained: "captivity is dishonor." Until January 1, 1997, the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Voluntary surrender into captivity” was in force, the most severe punishment for which was execution.

The vicious policy of Adolf Hitler is the main factor that crosses out all the advantages of a first-class military organization. His defeat in the war with the Soviet Union was political, and his defeat in the war was the consequence of a political defeat. The policy pursued by A. Hitler (some prisoners of war were considered worse than cattle, the preservation of collective farms, the behavior of "representatives of the superior race" in the occupied territories, etc.) showed that the German government was no better than the Soviet one.

Colonel-General of the Wehrmacht Heinz Guderian spoke best of all: "Hitler managed to rally the Russians under the banner of Stalin." If it were not for the pernicious racist policy of Hitler, then I. Stalin would not have been saved by either a million-strong army or talented generals. Orders, including the aforementioned 270th, would not help either.

Translation: Vladimir Vakhman

So that readers have the opportunity to draw conclusions on their own, and not on the prompts of various kinds of "historians", "Overview" below publishes the text of that very order

Order No. 270 of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army

Not only friends recognize, but our enemies are forced to admit that in our war of liberation against the Nazi invaders, the Red Army units, their vast majority, their commanders and commissars behave impeccably, courageously, and sometimes downright heroically. Even those units of our army that accidentally broke away from the army and were surrounded, retain the spirit of stamina and courage, do not surrender, try to inflict more damage on the enemy and leave the encirclement. It is known that individual units of our army, once surrounded by the enemy, use every opportunity to inflict defeat on the enemy and break out of the encirclement.

Deputy Commander of the Western Front, Lieutenant-General Boldin, being in the area of ​​​​the 10th Army near Bialystok, surrounded by Nazi troops, organized detachments from the Red Army units that remained behind enemy lines, which fought for 45 days behind enemy lines and made their way to the main forces Western Front. They destroyed the headquarters of two German regiments, 26 tanks, 1049 cars, transport and staff vehicles, 147 motorcycles, 5 artillery batteries, 4 mortars, 15 heavy machine guns, 8 light machine guns, I aircraft at the airfield and a depot of bombs. Over a thousand German soldiers and officers were killed. On August 11, Lieutenant General Boldin hit the Germans from the rear, broke through the German front and, joining our troops, led 1,654 armed Red Army soldiers and commanders out of the encirclement, of which 103 were wounded.

The commissar of the 8th mechanized corps, brigade commissar Popel, and the commander of the 406th joint venture, colonel Novikov, fought out 1,778 armed men from the encirclement. In stubborn battles with the Germans, the Novikov-Popel group traveled 650 kilometers, inflicting huge losses on the rear of the enemy.

The commander of the 3rd Army, Lieutenant General Kuznetsov, and a member of the Military Council, Army Commissar 2nd Rank Biryukov, with fighting, led 498 armed Red Army soldiers and commanders of units of the 3rd Army out of the encirclement and organized the exit from the encirclement of the 108th and 64th rifle divisions.

All these and numerous other similar facts testify to the steadfastness of our troops, the high morale of our fighters, commanders and commissars.

But we cannot hide the fact that recently there have been several shameful facts of surrender to the enemy. Some generals set a bad example for our troops.

The commander of the 28th Army, Lieutenant General Kachalov, being encircled along with the headquarters of the group of troops, showed cowardice and surrendered to the German fascists. The headquarters of the Kachalov group came out of the encirclement, parts of the Kachalov group made their way out of the encirclement, and Lieutenant General Kachalov preferred to surrender, preferred to desert to the enemy.

Lieutenant General Ponedelin, who commanded the 12th Army, once surrounded by the enemy, had every opportunity to break through to his own, as did the vast majority of his army units. But Ponedelin did not show the necessary perseverance and will to win, succumbed to panic, chickened out and surrendered to the enemy, deserted to the enemy, thus committing a crime against the Motherland as a violator of the military oath.

The commander of the 13th Rifle Corps, Major General Kirillov, who found himself surrounded by Nazi troops, instead of fulfilling his duty to the Motherland, organizing the units entrusted to him for a staunch rebuff to the enemy and getting out of the encirclement, deserted from the battlefield and surrendered to the enemy . As a result, parts of the 13th Rifle Corps were defeated, and some of them surrendered without serious resistance.

It should be noted that with all the above facts of surrendering to the enemy, the members of the military councils of the armies, commanders, political workers, special detachments who were surrounded, showed unacceptable confusion, shameful cowardice and did not even try to prevent the cowardly Kachalov, Ponedelin, Kirillov and others from surrendering enemy.

These shameful facts of surrender to our sworn enemy testify to the fact that in the ranks of the Red Army, which staunchly and selflessly defends its Soviet Motherland from vile invaders, there are unstable, cowardly, cowardly elements. And these cowardly elements exist not only among the Red Army soldiers, but also among the leadership. As you know, some commanders and political workers, by their behavior at the front, not only do not show the Red Army soldiers examples of courage, stamina and love for the Motherland, but, on the contrary, hide in the cracks, fiddle in the offices, do not see and do not observe the battlefield, at the first serious difficulties in in battle they give in to the enemy, tear off their insignia, desert from the battlefield.

Is it possible to tolerate in the ranks of the Red Army cowards who desert to the enemy and surrender, or such cowardly commanders who, at the first hitch at the front, tear off their insignia and desert to the rear? No! If we give free rein to these cowards and deserters, they will quickly decompose our army and ruin our Motherland. Cowards and deserters must be destroyed.

Is it possible to consider commanders of battalions or regiments such commanders who hide in the cracks during the battle, do not see the battlefield, do not observe the progress of the battle on the field, and still imagine themselves to be commanders of regiments and battalions? No! These are not commanders of regiments or battalions, but impostors. If we give free rein to such impostors, they will in a short time turn our army into a continuous office. Such impostors must be immediately removed from their posts, demoted, transferred to the rank and file, and, if necessary, shot on the spot, putting forward in their place brave and courageous people from the ranks of the junior command staff or from the Red Army.

I order:

1. Commanders and political workers who, during a battle, tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, are considered malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest as families of deserters who have violated the oath and betrayed their homeland.

To oblige all higher commanders and commissars to shoot such deserters from the command staff on the spot.

2. The units and subunits that are surrounded by the enemy selflessly fight to the last opportunity, take care of the material part, like the apple of their eye, make their way to their rear of the enemy troops, defeating the fascist dogs.

To oblige each serviceman, regardless of his official position, to demand from a superior commander, if part of him is surrounded, to fight to the last opportunity in order to break through to his own, and if such a commander or part of the Red Army men, instead of organizing a rebuff to the enemy, prefer to surrender, - destroy them by all means, both ground and air, and deprive the families of Red Army soldiers who have surrendered of state benefits and assistance.

3. To oblige the commanders and commissars of divisions to immediately remove from their posts the commanders of battalions and regiments who hide in crevices during the battle and are afraid to direct the course of the battle on the battlefield, reduce them from their positions as impostors, transfer them to privates, and, if necessary, shoot them on the spot, putting forward in their place brave and courageous people from the junior command staff or from the ranks of distinguished Red Army soldiers.

Read the order in all companies, squadrons, batteries, squadrons, commands and headquarters.

Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army:

I. Stalin

Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee

V.Molotov

Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Budyonny

Marshal of the Soviet Union K. Voroshilov

Marshal of the Soviet Union S. Timoshenko