18th century serf gun components. Russian serf guns
22nd of June early morning, having carefully prepared the aviation and artillery forces, German troops crossed the borders of the Soviet Union. After 2 hours, V.M. Molotov had already hosted the German Ambassador W. Schulenberg. This visit took place exactly at 05:30, as evidenced by the entries in the visitors' book. German Ambassador provided an official statement containing information about the USSR’s sabotage actions against Germany. The documents also spoke of the political manipulations of the Soviet Union directed against Germany. The essence of this statement was that Germany was taking military action to counter the threat and protect its territory.
Molotov officially announced the start of the war. And this fact raises many questions. Firstly, the announcement was made much later. The population of the country heard the radio speech only at 12:15. More than 9 hours have passed since the start of hostilities, during which the Germans bombed our territory with might and main. From the German side, the appeal was recorded at 6:30 (Berlin time). It was also a mystery that it was Molotov, not Stalin, who announced the start of hostilities. Modern historians put forward more than one version. Some argue that the head of the USSR was on vacation at that time. According to the version of foreign historians Brackman and Payne, Stalin was vacationing in Sochi during this period. There is also an assumption that he was on the spot and simply refused, shifting all responsibility to Molotov. This statement is based on entries in the journal about visitors - on this day Stalin hosted a reception and even received the British ambassador.
There are also disagreements regarding the authorship of the text, which was compiled for an official speech. According to G.N. Peskova, who worked to restore the chronology of events, the text of the message was handwritten by Molotov. But based on the style of presentation and corrections made later in this text, they came to the conclusion that the content of the text was edited by Stalin. Subsequently, Molotov spoke on the radio mentioning that he was acting on behalf of Joseph Vissarionovich. Later, when comparing the content of the written text and the spoken speech, historians discovered some differences, which mainly concerned the scale of the territories attacked. There were other discrepancies, but they were not important strategic importance. In any case, the fact that the war began earlier than indicated in official sources time, documented by researchers.
Every year on the eve of a terrible and tragic date for our people - June 22, I ask myself again and again how could this happen? How a country that was preparing for war and had perhaps the strongest army at that time suffered a crushing defeat, 4 million Red Army soldiers surrendered and were captured, and the people were on the verge of extermination. Who is to blame for this? Stalin? Quite acceptable, but is he the only one? Maybe someone else is involved in this, maybe someone else's wrong actions are hiding another White spot stories about World War II? Let's try to figure it out. A year before the war 1940 Summer. World War II has been raging for almost a year. Hitler and the Germany he led are reaching unprecedented heights. France was defeated, and with this victory almost all of continental Europe was at the feet of the Nazis. The Wehrmacht begins to prepare for war with England. On July 16, 1940, Hitler signed Directive No. 16 on the preparation of an operation to land troops in Great Britain, codenamed " Sea lion" Not a word about the war with the USSR. War with Soviet Union Hitler doesn't need it. Hitler is not suicidal. And he read the great strategists of Germany's past: Clausewitz and Bismarck. They bequeathed to the Germans that they should never fight with Russia. War with Russia is suicide: this is huge territory, which cannot be occupied by any armies, is impassable swamps and forests, a cruel winter with wild frosts. And this is an army of millions; plus Stalin's industrialization gives this army the latest tanks, planes and artillery. This is a people who have never recognized foreign invaders, their own - yes, foreign - no. To decide on a war with Russia, you must either have a huge, strong, professional army with a militarized economy subordinate to it, or be suicidal with a guarantee of failure. As for the first, it has long been no secret total troops of Germany and the USSR. These figures are even given in history textbooks. Before the attack on the USSR, Hitler had about 3,500 tanks, about 4,000 aircraft, 190 divisions, and this number included all divisions (motorized, tank, and infantry). What about the other side? Comparing the German Wehrmacht and the USSR before the war, in all reference books, textbooks and books I always observed one detail, perhaps unnoticed by other researchers. Bringing German forces, researchers give all the troops concentrated near the border with the USSR. This is the overwhelming number of the entire Wehrmacht, besides this, Germany only has occupation forces in the occupied countries of Europe. When citing Soviet forces, only Western Military District, KOVO and PribVO (Western, Kiev and Baltic military districts) are given. But this is not the entire Soviet army. But it still turns out that Germany is several times inferior in number to even these districts. And if you compare the Wehrmacht with the entire Red Army? Only a madman could attack such a colossus as the USSR. Or someone who had no choice but to launch a self-defeating attack. This is exactly what happened on June 22, 1941. Who and by what unjustified actions forced Hitler to take this step, which ultimately destroyed him and the Third Reich? Unjustified appetites of the aggressor The USSR, acting as a real aggressor, seized foreign territories and occupied independent states. There is nothing strange in this; this is how any aggressors, both past and present, acted and act. In 1940, the Baltic countries were attacked: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina - two historical regions of Romania. What changes, what happens after these seizures on political map world? First. The borders of the Reich and the USSR touch, that is, now “only a spark is needed for fire.” And this spark is struck by one of our military leaders - Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. Second. The oil fields of Romania are just a stone's throw away - 180 kilometers. This is a direct threat to the Reich. Without oil war machine the Wehrmacht will stop. Third. With the occupation of the Baltic states, a direct threat arose to the most important supply artery of the Reich - the supply of Baltic Sea iron ore from Luleå (Sweden). And without iron ore, Germany, naturally, would also not be able to fight successfully - this is the most important resource. The “Romanian oil” aspect is especially important. After Stalin’s step and the execution of this step, G.K. Zhukov, among other things, the USSR developed following problems: Romania, having become an ally of Hitler, spoiled relations with the USSR (what else, when territory is taken away from you?), the front with Germany increased by 800 kilometers, plus another springboard for Hitler to attack the USSR. The worst thing is that Stalin scared Hitler. It was Zhukov’s seizure of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina that excited the Fuhrer and the German military command. There is a direct threat oil fields Romania. From this moment on, a strike against the USSR begins to be developed. Alternatives to June 22 Although history doesn’t like the subjunctive mood, it’s still “what would have happened if?” Germany is going to war with the British Empire and is preparing for a difficult landing on foggy Albion. All this is known, but could Zhukov change anything? It is quite possible that Stalin could listen to the voice of Georgy Konstantinovich and resolve military issues with him. In the summer of 1940 there were several alternatives. Let's look at them. First. Don’t stop after striking Bessarabia, but move on and capture all of Romania. Hitler, who concentrated his army along Atlantic coast, would not have had the opportunity to successfully interfere with Zhukov. Ten divisions in Poland and Slovakia do not count. With the capture of all of Romania, the oil fields of Ploesti leave the hands of Germany - and this puts the Reich in a dependent position. Synthetic fuel is not a solution: there is not enough of it, it is of poor quality and very expensive. Second. Zhukov could have recommended that Stalin wait a little until the Reich got bogged down in a war with England. After all, landing on the island of Albion is a very risky and complex matter, and even if everything goes well, then even then Stalin and Zhukov will have a moment that is very advantageous for the attack - the very moment when the German army ends up on this island - and for successful operation it would take about 80-85% of the Wehrmacht. But what happened happened. The Red Army, having captured Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, stopped. Yes, you will say that Stalin did not set the task for Zhukov to crush Romania in the summer of 1940. But Zhukov could have tried, if he had been the strategist that our directors and writers portray him to be, to suggest to Stalin an almost win-win option. Didn't tell me. He was afraid or did not understand the strategy of waging war. “As a result of the successful development of offensive operations of the Central, Southern and Southwestern fronts, the Red Army occupied the cities of Brussels, Amsterdam, Bruges and others during the liberation campaign. In the direction of Vienna, Salzburg, Strasbourg, enemy troops in numbers were surrounded and surrendered...” This is, or almost so, the words of military reports from the front, when the Red Army would subjugate Europe. But do we need this?***** EDITOR'S COMMENT What is the reason for the defeats of the Red Army in initial period war? IN Soviet time usually sought an explanation in the surprise of the attack, in Germany's superiority in military force(which in fact did not happen), in the incomplete transition of the country to a war footing (which also did not happen). The “partial loss of command and control” was briefly mentioned, which is a misconception, since in this case we are talking about the partial preservation of command and control. This is the opinion of famous Russian historians Yu.T. Temirov and A.S. Donets in the book “War” (M., “EXMO”, 2005). They call the main reason for the defeats of 1941 the completely incompetent command and control of troops on the part of the Chief of the General Staff G.K. Zhukov, as well as the general inability of the command staff of the Red Army to fight. The mediocrity of Zhukov and the commanders of the Red Army was caused by the authoritarianism of the System itself, which deprived the commanders of initiative and forced them to follow the stupid orders of the communists, and by repressions in the army in the pre-war period, and by the extremely weak and poor-quality training of the command staff. The authors of the book compare the terms of training of specialists and commanders in German army and in Soviet army: The Germans, on average, spent 5-10 times more time on this preparation, and in some cases 30 times more. But the decisive role in the defeat of the Red Army was played by Zhukov’s mediocrity as a commander; he fought “not with skill, but with numbers,” and accepted completely ridiculous tactical decisions, destroyed thousands of tanks and millions of soldiers. As a result, Zhukov was punished and removed from his post, Stalin was going to shoot him for his mistakes, but he was hardly dissuaded (Zhukov himself hid this in his memoirs, explaining his removal from the post of Chief of the General Staff by the fact that he allegedly had a fight with Stalin - this is another lie of a narcissist “commander”) But even today Russian historians cannot tell the whole truth about the war. The glaring fact is that 3.5 million German army 4 million surrendered in just six months of war Soviet soldiers, and about a million more were repressed during this period for their reluctance to fight (in total there were 5.5 million people in the Red Army on June 21, 1941). The most important reason defeats - the reluctance of the army to fight for Stalin, for the hateful power of the commissars. This has never happened in history when entire units of the Red Army surrendered to the enemy, having tied up their commissars. Moreover, out of 4 million soldiers and officers who surrendered, about 1.5 million began to fight on the side of the enemy (including the million-strong Russian People's Liberation Army of General Vlasov). There could be ten, a hundred traitors. But not one and a half million! These are no longer traitors, this is a Civil War. The people, tired of the bloody communist junta, were waiting for liberation. But the tragedy was that Hitler was not a “liberator” at all, he was a conqueror. And when the people realized this, the whole course of the war immediately changed. Therefore, after all main reason defeats at the beginning of the war - the pre-war Bolshevik yoke, which did not allow people to understand at all the meaning of protecting such an ugly and rotten state as the USSR from the enemy. It is curious that today at all events in connection with the events of 1941 (on the “Stalin Line”, etc.) the idea is conveyed that “they died, but did not give up.” “Soviet-trained” historians claim the same thing in their articles. But what about the fact that during 6 months of the war, out of a 5.5 million-person army, 4 million surrendered to the Germans, about a million more were repressed for their unwillingness to fight (600 more than a thousand as of October in Beria’s certificate, of which about 30 thousand were shot as of October), and only about 500 thousand soldiers and officers from the pre-war Red Army were killed or wounded in hostilities? Naked statistics show that they just SURRENDERED, and did not die - EVERYONE SURRENDERED: about 80% of the pre-war composition of the Red Army surrendered to the Germans! Let the Red Army surrender for political reasons, and many historians call it the “Act Civil War", and not betrayal. But there was the crappy power of the USSR - and it had its own people: things are different. The Red Army actually betrayed its people, which it was supposed to protect, which fed and clothed it, which trained it, which gave it the best in the world military equipment- while living from hand to mouth. Even the fact that 4 million Soviet prisoners of war were in the rear of the advancing 3.5 million enemy army seems absurd: they could well have dispersed the puny guards and seized power behind German lines, thereby carrying out an operation to encircle the entire advancing German army. But instead, for weeks they walked in an endless column to the West in front of the windows of the Belarusians - dreaming of Hitler’s imminent victory and a new life without the Bolsheviks. That is, not so much in German captivity, how many are captives of their own illusions. This is precisely the tragedy, and it is hushed up in every possible way even today, because the behavior of 4 million surrendered Red Army soldiers must somehow be explained - and it is difficult to explain. It is much easier to call them “heroes,” although Stalin considered them traitors (80% of his army!). And it’s even easier to continue the odious lie that “they died, but did not give up.” And the truth is that in the Land of Slaves, which was Stalin’s USSR, the army can only consist of slaves. And such an Army of slaves cannot fight, even having the best technology in the world, because it does not understand the purpose of this: a slave will never be a patriot of his slavery. As a result, Hitler simply took advantage of this situation. Among other things, a huge gift awaited him: he started the war with 3.5 thousand antediluvian tanks, and in the first weeks of the war, the surrendered units of the Red Army gave him another 6.5 thousand the latest tanks, among which a significant part are KV and T-34. They became impact force Wehrmacht in the attack on Smolensk, Moscow and Leningrad, acquiring the indices “KV(r)” and “T-34(r)”. Another paradox initial stage The war is that all of conquered Europe gave Hitler only 3.5 thousand tanks to attack the USSR, and the surrendered Red Army added another 6.5 thousand, bringing the number of tanks in Hitler’s army in July 1941 to 10 thousand! And this is kept silent (the number of tanks the Germans had in July-October 1941 is hidden), although without this fact it is difficult to understand how with 3.5 thousand tanks it is possible to defeat an army that has 27 thousand tanks, including the invincible KV and T-34... Sergey GRIGORIEV, Vitebsk “Secret Research”