Soviet geologists recall funny cases. The funniest incidents in the war. New life of Karl Marx's Capital

Winter of '44. Late evening.
The squad walks through the forest all day. There are 15-20 kilometers left to the city where the soldiers are going.
However, night is upon us. I don’t really want to spend the night in a forest/field. The patrol discovered a "riga" in a forest clearing. We looked around and it seemed to be in order. Abandoned, not used by anyone. The chest of drawers decided to spend the night in it.

We had dinner without lighting a fire (you never know!), assigned an outfit, and went to bed. They decided to leave the outfit inside - it would be noticeable in the snow from the outside, but if they heard anything, they would have time to get ready. Lights out...

After some time, the duty officer shakes the chest of drawers - commander, there is someone here!
Didn't understand. Who?! Where?!
The duty officer explains. As soon as everyone settled down, the snow crunched outside. It's like someone is coming. No one is visible through the crack of the door. Then it became heard that someone was walking around the barn. Here, listen!...

Indeed, you could hear the snow creaking as if someone was coming.
Like, one. Hm. As soon as the door passes, we jump out. There - depending on the circumstances... Let's go!
Pushing the door open, they jumped out and ran away. It's already a winter night around. Silence. No one. Hm. We looked for traces - no. None.
Damn, I went to bed. If anything happens again, wake me up. The chest of drawers fell asleep.

After some time, the duty officer again heard the creaking of snow, as if someone was walking. Pushes the commander - again! He cursed and listened. Creaks, dog! We need to decide radically - separation, rise! (almost in a whisper). The soldiers instantly and silently woke up and instinctively checked. The dresser made sure everything was fine. To battle! There is someone outside. By sound - on the left. We go out, disperse, act according to the situation. Forward!

The squad jumped out of the barn, fell apart, and lay down. Night. Winter. Silence. No one. Shoppiets! We searched the entire field - there are no traces. They examined the walls and roof of the barn - nothing.

The squad gathered in the barn. They are discussing. Then someone says - there is the sound of footsteps outside! Everyone froze. Someone was walking calmly along the wall of the barn. The commander raised his hand - get ready! The steps creaked and creaked. We reached the door. Someone pulled the door handle. Again. Then he pulled with all his might - you could hear that the handle could not stand it and came off. And then there was a terrible roar. The fighters rushed outside on command...

No one. A torn handle was found in an iron barrel near the door. And - no traces! Until the morning everyone sat and waited for the “guest”, without parting with their weapons. But no one else came.

At dawn the squad moved out. We decided to have breakfast “on the spot” so as not to spoil our appetite)))

Upon arrival "at the place" they reported to "whoever needed it." No traces other than those left by the soldiers were found. Yes, the doorknob was lying in a barrel by the door. Yes, it was not easy to snatch her out of the door, but this does not fall within the competence of the “authorities”.

Here's a story. It was told to me by two of those who were there - one of the soldiers and a former chest of drawers. Why do I remember this one? Because no one was scared by the unusualness of the situation. The guys simply took weapons and went to look at the situation. Damn, we weren't afraid of anything! Well, that was a generation! I bow down.

I heard this story during my military service in the distant Primorsky Territory from my immediate superior, Captain Kolya Plekhanov, over a mug of diluted alcohol.

A short background: I served as a senior technician in the electronic warfare maintenance group in a reconnaissance aviation regiment. The direction finder on aircraft is filled with liquid nitrogen.

Now the actual story itself.
There was one cadre in my commander’s regiment (during his service in the Western Group of Military Forces). He had warts on his hands, and he heard that in beauty salons they burn off warts with liquid nitrogen.
As a truly Russian man, he decided - why go to a beauty salon and pay money when at the airport there is this liquid nitrogen to *her mother.
Once during the flights, this guy decided to carry out a procedure to burn out warts - he took the filling nozzle from a machine with liquid nitrogen and #banned it on his hand.
After about 10 min. his hand turned the color of boiled crayfish. It’s not worth doing - you need to go to the doctor. Just what can I say? I couldn’t think of anything smarter to say to the doctor:
- Yes, I scalded myself with boiling water at lunch.
A doctor, a woman no longer young and far from aviation:
- Listen, son, I’ve been working in medicine for thirty years now and I can tell the difference between a burn and frostbite, just tell me where the hell did you manage to frostbite your hand in thirty-degree heat?

(Darling)

About a year ago, around 1983, I was a pomnachkara in a platoon guarding military cargo of the Black Sea Fleet. We brought a terribly secret military cargo somewhere, like Feodosia, and we’re sitting in the sailor’s quarters, drinking with the people.
And then suddenly the duty officer comes.
The orderly yells: “Company duty officer on the way out!”
And the company duty officer is already tired...
We had this guy from Odessa - Valera Shmulkevich. He decided to help the hospitable sailors. He put on a bandage and reported to the officer. Those who served know that the formula of the report (like the “Our Father” is unchanged) sounds: “Comrade Major! During your absence, no incidents happened!”
Valera begins: “Comrade Major!”
In response he hears: “Guard Major!”
Valera corrects herself: “I wish I had lived like this! Comrade Guard Major!”
And then our half-educated student realizes that the standard report contradicts logic! Then he continues: “I see you for the first time, but nothing has happened yet!”
The major, turning purple, asks: “Last name?”
Valera answers: “Junior Sergeant Shmulkevich.”
The major turns around and, muttering a non-statutory “understood”, leaves into the dark southern night...

While serving in the army, the company commander once called me and said:
- Sergeant Levitsky, you will go on guard guard. Choose nine smarter soldiers and prepare them - they will go with you as sentries.
Well, what can you do - we have to go. He selected nine soldiers, put them in the red corner and began to check whether they knew the duties of sentries. And this is a whole chapter in the regulations of the guard service, which tells what the sentry should do and what he should not do.
But a sentry on duty is not allowed to do many things - sleep, talk, eat, drink, and also “perform natural needs.” When I read it for the first time, I stumbled over these same “needs.” Well, if they simply wrote “poop, pee” or “relieve themselves - big and small” - everyone would understand it, but our military theorists need everything to be more sophisticated, more instructive.
And my soldiers are simple people, although intelligent. They say that you can’t sleep, talk, eat, or drink, but they’re silent about your needs, as if it were cutting off. I ask a leading question:
- What else can’t be done there?
It starts with the word “send”. They thought, their foreheads wrinkled. But one remembered and said joyfully:
- Natural needs cannot be sent.
“That’s right,” I say. - What kind of needs are these? - I want to make sure that they understand everything.
“Oh,” they answer, “well, there are all sorts of letters, you can’t send parcels...
In our company, we didn’t call the toilet anything other than the post office.

(Cadet Bigler)

Continuing the stories about the nuclear submarine division when I served there in the mid-sixties.
Next to the division, somewhere a couple of kilometers away, there was a coastal defense battery on the shore. I must say, they guarded our division like adults - border guards were guarding on the hills, although, of course, it was very far from the border, and they were guarding for real, they even shot one unauthorized person (if anyone is interested, you can look at the sites “Pavlovsky Bay” - there and maps and images from space).
So, about twenty to thirty people served in this battery, and in addition to the usual service, they kept cows for fresh milk, etc. The battery stood on the seashore, the cliff to the sea was about twenty meters high.
And then we somehow find out that one of their cows fell off a cliff. Well, she fell and fell, but it turns out that the soldiers quickly went down to her, killed her while she was alive, and sent the meat to the canteen.
A month later, this cow's meat runs out, and the next one falls. And everything repeats itself.
Their cows grazed freely, no one looked after them. But when the fourth cow fell, the command became concerned, the growth was not so fast, and it was possible to be left without a herd. I had to appoint a shepherd.
This is how food was organized in the Armed Forces of the USSR.

A program about military chefs.
They show their training and a kind of rosy-cheeked young man who in a joyful tone broadcasts what his father-commanders most likely forced him to learn. After one phrase I was left in a precipitate:
"The cook must know WHAT he is preparing..."
Apparently there were precedents ;)

I served in the Internal Troops in Petrozavodsk, military unit 5600. At the KMB we were drilled hard, very hard. Especially in terms of combat. Do you know: "MOUTH! RIGHT SHOULDER FORWARD! STRAIGHT!!! LEFT SHOULDER FORWARD!!! STRAIGHT!!!" well, etc.
And, accordingly, ensign Dobranov (a good surname, kind) served with me. Married man, has a small daughter, about 6 years old. To say that he is a joker is to say nothing at all.
One day we were standing in the smoking room, directly next to the entrance to the company. Our glorious warrant officer Dobranov is walking, leading his little daughter by the hand. And before entering, he lets this little cute creature pass in front of him and loudly so that not only the daughter can hear: “RIGHT SHOULDER FORWARD! RIGHT!!! ONE, TWO, THREE!!! RIGHT!!!”
A very good person.

During the second Chechen campaign, riot police units from various regions of the country were often sent to serve in Chechnya. Once, a riot police group consisting of Tatars got there this way. And it began to act very effectively, much more effectively than other similar groups. No one could understand what the secret of their effectiveness was. It seems that the preparation is ordinary and the people there are not supermen.
One day, after another operation, they delivered several captured militants and one of those who was involved in the interrogation thought of asking the detainee why the Tatars are such good fighters. To which the militant replied that the radio frequencies used by the riot police are no secret for the militants. In general, some people have the same radios and others have the same ones. And the negotiations of the riot police during the battle are listened to by the militants. Other groups speak Russian and the militants understand everything, but these “babble something in their own language, and you can’t understand what they’re up to.”

This was in the 70s. A lieutenant colonel from one of the departments of the Ministry of Defense went home after a day's duty. Since he lived in the region, on the way home he decided to have a snack at the station cafe. I went in, took a couple of sandwiches and 100 grams. Apparently, he chewed something not very fresh (it was a hot summer) and he felt uneasy and unwell. And then, by the way, a patrol showed up...
In short, they clearly smelled the smell and detained him as a “sleazy” officer (and even in uniform). Since he was below the rank of colonel, he was detained. By lunchtime they sorted it out, released him, but sent a corresponding “news” to the service.
Two days later, the Head of the Department gathered all his officers and made a speech:
- Well, you can drink it when you’re tired... Well, a glass... Well, a bottle... But why get drunk?

My father was a senior lieutenant during World War II. After the war with the Germans, their artillery regiment was sent to fight the Japanese. They stood somewhere on the outskirts of some city in the Far East. They were fed mainly gaoliang and chumiza, the whole regiment cursed: a little more - and, they said, everyone’s eyes would become slanted. Something tasty could be bought in the city bazaar; officers often grazed there.
And then one day a friend came running to his father, the same old man, all white, his eyes wide as saucers: at the market his pistol was cut off and its holster. That is, the tribunal. Father says - let's go to the colonel, throw yourself at his feet, admit your mistakes, maybe he will help out somehow, the guy is very good. Went.
The colonel yelled, of course, at first, and then he said: take all the officers and a few more terrible sergeants and bring to me all the main old men from the market, the foremen of the ranks.
They brought him in, the colonel told them: my officer at the market lost his pistol. If they are not found before sunset today, I will bring the regiment into the city and destroy the market, and the city will get it.
The gun appeared out of nowhere in the tent on the bed half an hour later! And no one saw how.
Lucky for the lieutenant.

The Nazis waited for their equipment and tried to tow the tank closer to the repair parts. Apparently they decided that the crew had left the tank, somehow closing the hatches. And the stop occurred because... the tank ran out of fuel (the most common reason for the KV-1 to stop). The Nazis hooked the KV with their tractor, but were unable to move the colossus. Then they hooked it with two of their light tanks in order to tow the KV-1 to their location along with the crew... and open it there without any obstacles.

But their calculation did not work - when they started towing, our tank started up from the “pusher” and famously pulled the German tanks now towards our location...
The German tank crews were forced to leave their tanks and KV-1 without any problems, so it pulled them to our positions...))))) Such an amusing curiosity!

The tank was very successful in terms of combat and not very good performance. It was distinguished by high survivability, especially in the summer. As I already wrote, the armor of these heavy tanks was not penetrated either by German 37-mm anti-tank guns or by the guns of the Pz-III, Pz-IV and Pz-38 tanks that were in service with the Panzerwaffe.

The Germans could only “take off his shoes” - remove the track with a direct hit. But KV-1 tanks could move even without them, and not only on roads.

The Germans had to use a method of fighting against the KV that was very similar to how primitive people hunted mammoths. Only German tanks distracted the attention of the KV crew until an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun was installed behind it.

Only by hitting the gap between the hull and the turret with a shell was it possible to jam the turret and thereby finally turn the Soviet tank into a dead block. There is a known case when about ten German tanks were engaged in distracting the KV crew!
At the beginning of the war, one KV-1 tank could make a lot of noise not only behind enemy lines, but also on the front line. There would be fuel and ammunition. The story of one battle with documents http://2w.su/memory/970

Unfortunately, the Soviet army did not have enough KV tanks in 1941 to stop the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht into the interior of the country. The Germans respected Soviet heavy tanks. They did not blow up tanks in good condition, but slightly modernized them, painted crosses on them, transferred their crew and sent them into battle, only now for Germany.
Here are the photo facts...

Modernized captured Soviet tank KV-1 from the 204th tank regiment of the 22nd tank division of the Wehrmacht.

The Germans installed on it, instead of a 76.2 mm cannon, a German 75 mm KwK 40 L/48 cannon, as well as a commander’s cupola. Time taken 1943

According to German data, out of the 28,000 tanks available in the Red Army units before the start of the war, more than 14,079 tanks were lost in two months of hostilities by August 22, 1941. A significant part of these vehicles was lost during the battles or was destroyed during the retreat, but a huge amount of equipment was abandoned serviceable in parks, on marches due to lack of fuel, or abandoned due to malfunctions, many of which could be eliminated in a short time.

According to some data, in the initial period of the war, the Germans received up to 1,100 T-26 tanks in good condition, about 500 BT tanks (all modifications), more than 40 T-28 tanks and more than 150 T-34 and KV tanks. Tanks captured in good condition were used by the units that captured them and usually served until they were completely damaged.

2. ANOTHER CASE! ABSOLUTELY KILLED (memoirs of a German Colonel General Erhard Routh). The 6th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht was part of the 41st Panzer Corps. Together with the 56th Tank Corps, it made up the 4th Tank Group - the main striking force of Army Group North, whose task was to capture the Baltic states, capture Leningrad and link up with the Finns. The 6th Division was commanded by Major General Franz Landgraf. It was armed mainly with Czechoslovak-made PzKw-35t tanks - light, with thin armor, but with high maneuverability and maneuverability. There were a number of more powerful PzKw-III and PzKw-IV. Before the start of the offensive, the division was divided into two tactical groups. The more powerful one was commanded by Colonel Erhard Routh, the weaker one by Lieutenant Colonel Erich von Seckendorff.

In the first two days of the war, the division's offensive was successful. By the evening of June 23, the division captured the Lithuanian city of Raseiniai and crossed the Dubissa River. The tasks assigned to the division were completed, but the Germans, who already had experience of campaigns in the west, were unpleasantly surprised by the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops. One of the units of Routh's group came under fire from snipers who were occupying positions on fruit trees growing in the meadow. Snipers killed several German officers and delayed the advance of German units for almost an hour, preventing them from quickly encircling Soviet units. The snipers were obviously doomed, since they found themselves inside the location of German troops. But they completed the task to the end. The Germans had never encountered anything like this in the West.

How the only KV-1 ended up in the rear of Routh’s group on the morning of June 24 is unclear. It is possible that he simply got lost. However, in the end, the tank blocked the only road leading from the rear to the group’s positions.

This episode is described not by regular communist propagandists, but by Erhard Routh himself. Routh then fought the entire war on the Eastern Front, passing through Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk, and ended it as commander of the 3rd Panzer Army and with the rank of colonel general. Of the 427 pages of his memoirs that directly describe the fighting, 12 are devoted to a two-day battle with a single Russian tank at Raseiniai. Routh was clearly shocked by this tank. Therefore, there is no reason for mistrust. Soviet historiography ignored this episode. Moreover, since it was first mentioned in the domestic press by Suvorov-Rezun, some “patriots” began to “expose” the feat. I mean, this is not a feat, but so-so.

The KV, whose crew was 4 people, “exchanged” itself for 12 trucks, 4 anti-tank guns, 1 anti-aircraft gun, possibly several tanks, as well as several dozen Germans killed and dying from wounds. This in itself is an outstanding result, given the fact that until 1945, in the vast majority of even victorious battles, our losses were higher than the German ones. But these are only direct losses of the Germans. Indirect - losses of the Zeckendorf group, which, while repelling the Soviet attack, could not receive help from the Routh group.

Accordingly, for the same reason, the losses of our 2nd Panzer Division were less than if Routh had supported Zeckendorff.

However, perhaps more important than the direct and indirect losses of people and equipment was the loss of time by the Germans. On June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht had only 17 tank divisions on the entire Eastern Front, including 4 tank divisions in the 4th Panzer Group. KV held one of them alone. Moreover, on June 25, the 6th Division could not advance solely due to the presence of a single tank in its rear. One day of delay for one division is a lot in conditions when German tank groups were advancing at a high pace, tearing apart the defenses of the Red Army and creating many “cauldrons” for it. After all, the Wehrmacht actually completed the task set by Barbarossa, almost completely destroying the Red Army that opposed it in the summer of ’41. But due to such “incidents” as an unexpected tank on the road, it did it much slower and with much greater losses than planned. And in the end he ran into the impassable mud of the Russian autumn, the deadly frosts of the Russian winter and the Siberian divisions near Moscow. After which the war entered a hopeless protracted stage for the Germans.

And yet the most amazing thing in this battle is the behavior of four tankers, whose names we do not know and will never know. They created more problems for the Germans than the entire 2nd Panzer Division, to which, apparently, the KV belonged. If the division delayed the German offensive for one day, then a single tank delayed it for two. It was not for nothing that Routh had to take away the anti-aircraft guns from Zeckendorf, although it would seem that the opposite should have been the case.

It is almost impossible to assume that the tankers had a special task to block the only supply route for Routh’s group. We simply had no intelligence at that moment. This means that the tank ended up on the road by accident. The tank commander himself realized what an important position he had taken. And he deliberately began to hold her back. It is unlikely that the tank standing in one place can be interpreted as a lack of initiative; the crew acted too skillfully. On the contrary, standing was the initiative.

Sitting in a cramped iron box for two days, in the June heat, is torture in itself. If this box is also surrounded by an enemy whose goal is to destroy the tank along with the crew (in addition, the tank is not one of the enemy’s targets, as in a “normal” battle, but the only goal), this is absolutely incredible physical and psychological stress for the crew. Moreover, the tankers spent almost all of this time not in battle, but in anticipation of battle, which is incomparably harder morally.

All five combat episodes - the defeat of a column of trucks, the destruction of an anti-tank battery, the destruction of an anti-aircraft gun, shooting at sappers, the last battle with tanks - in total hardly even took an hour. The rest of the time the KV crew wondered from which side and in what form they would be destroyed next time. The battle with anti-aircraft guns is especially indicative. The tankers deliberately delayed until the Germans installed the cannon and began to prepare to fire, so that they could shoot for sure and finish the job with one shell. Try to at least roughly imagine such an expectation.

Moreover, if on the first day the KV crew could still hope for the arrival of their own, then on the second, when their own did not come and even the noise of the battle at Raseinaya died down, it became clearer than clear: the iron box in which they had been roasting for the second day would soon enough turn into their common coffin. They took it for granted and continued to fight.

Here is what Erhard Routh himself writes about this: “Nothing important happened in our sector. The troops improved their positions, conducted reconnaissance in the direction of Siluwa and on the eastern bank of Dubissa in both directions, but mainly tried to find out what was happening on the southern bank. We met only small units and individual soldiers. During this time, we established contact with patrols of Kampfgruppe von Seckendorff and the 1st Panzer Division at Lidavenai. While clearing the wooded area to the west of the bridgehead, our infantry encountered larger Russian forces that were still holding out in two places on the west bank of the Dubissa River.

In violation of accepted rules, several prisoners captured in the last battles, including one Red Army lieutenant, were sent to the rear on a truck, guarded by just one non-commissioned officer. Halfway back to Raseinai, the driver suddenly saw an enemy tank on the road and stopped. At this moment, the Russian prisoners (there were about 20 of them) unexpectedly attacked the driver and guard. The non-commissioned officer was sitting next to the driver, facing the prisoners when they tried to snatch the weapons from both of them. The Russian lieutenant had already grabbed the non-commissioned officer's machine gun, but he managed to free one hand and hit the Russian with all his might, throwing him back. The lieutenant collapsed and took several more people with him. Before the prisoners could rush at the non-commissioned officer again, he freed his left hand, although three were holding him. Now he was completely free. With lightning speed, he tore the machine gun from his shoulder and fired a burst at the rioting crowd. The effect was terrible. Only a few prisoners, not counting the wounded officer, managed to jump out of the car to hide in the forest. The car, in which there were no living prisoners, quickly turned around and rushed back to the bridgehead, although the tank fired at it.

This little drama was the first sign that the only road leading to our bridgehead was blocked by a KV-1 super-heavy tank. The Russian tank also managed to destroy the telephone wires connecting us with the division headquarters. Although the enemy's intentions remained unclear, we began to fear an attack from the rear. I immediately ordered Lieutenant Wengenroth's 3rd Battery of the 41st Tank Destroyer Battalion to take a position in the rear near a flat hilltop close to the command post of the 6th Motorized Brigade, which also served as the command post of the entire battle group. To strengthen our anti-tank defense, I had to turn a nearby battery of 150-mm howitzers 180 degrees. The 3rd company of Lieutenant Gebhardt from the 57th tank engineer battalion was ordered to mine the road and its surroundings. The tanks assigned to us (half of Major Schenk's 65th Tank Battalion) were located in the forest. They were ordered to be ready to counterattack as soon as necessary.
Time passed, but the enemy tank, which blocked the road, did not move, although from time to time it fired in the direction of Raseinaya. At noon on June 24, the scouts whom I sent to clarify the situation returned. They reported that apart from this tank, they found no troops or equipment that could attack us. The officer commanding this unit made the logical conclusion that this was a single tank from the detachment that attacked the von Seckendorff battle group.

Although the danger of attack had dissipated, measures had to be taken to quickly destroy this dangerous obstacle or, at least, drive the Russian tank away. With his fire, he had already set fire to 12 supply trucks that were coming to us from Raseinaya. We were unable to evacuate the wounded in the fighting for the bridgehead, and as a result several people died without receiving medical attention, including a young lieutenant who was shot at point-blank range. If we could get them out, they would be saved. All attempts to bypass this tank were unsuccessful. The vehicles either got stuck in the mud or collided with scattered Russian units still wandering through the forest.

Therefore I ordered Lieutenant Wengenroth's battery. recently received 50-mm anti-tank guns, make your way through the forest, approach the tank within effective shooting range and destroy it. The battery commander and his brave soldiers gladly accepted this dangerous task and set to work with full confidence that it would not drag on too long. From the command post at the top of the hill we watched them as they carefully made their way through the trees from one ravine to another. We weren't alone. Dozens of soldiers climbed onto the roofs and climbed into the trees, waiting with intense attention to see how the undertaking would end. We saw how the first gun approached 1000 meters to the tank, which was sticking out right in the middle of the road. Apparently, the Russians did not notice the threat. The second gun disappeared from sight for some time, and then emerged from the ravine directly in front of the tank and took up a well-camouflaged position. Another 30 minutes passed, and the last two guns also returned to their original positions.

We watched what was happening from the top of the hill. Suddenly, someone suggested that the tank was damaged and abandoned by the crew, since it was standing completely motionless on the road, representing an ideal target. (One can imagine the disappointment of our comrades, who, sweating profusely, dragged the guns to firing positions for several hours, if that were the case.) Suddenly the first of our anti-tank guns fired, a flash flashed, and the silver track ran straight into the tank. The distance did not exceed 600 meters. A ball of fire flashed and a sharp crack was heard. Direct hit! Then came the second and third hits.

The officers and soldiers shouted joyfully, like spectators at a merry performance. “We got it! Bravo! The tank is finished! The tank did not react at all until our guns scored 8 hits. Then its turret turned around, carefully found the target and began to methodically destroy our guns with single shots from an 80 mm gun. Two of our 50mm cannons were blown to pieces, the other two were seriously damaged. The personnel lost several people killed and wounded. Lieutenant Wengenroth led the survivors back to avoid unnecessary losses. Only after nightfall did he manage to pull out the guns. The Russian tank was still tightly blocking the road, so we were literally paralyzed. Deeply shocked, Lieutenant Wengenroth returned to the bridgehead with his soldiers. The newly acquired weapon, which he trusted unconditionally, turned out to be completely helpless against the monstrous tank. A feeling of deep disappointment swept through our entire battle group.

It was necessary to find some new way to master the situation.

It was clear that of all our weapons, only 88-mm anti-aircraft guns with their heavy armor-piercing shells could cope with the destruction of the steel giant. In the afternoon, one such gun was withdrawn from the battle near Raseinai and began to carefully creep towards the tank from the south. The KV-1 was still turned to the north, since it was from this direction that the previous attack was carried out. The long-barreled anti-aircraft gun approached to a distance of 2000 yards, from which satisfactory results could already be achieved. Unfortunately, the trucks that the monstrous tank had previously destroyed were still burning along the side of the road, and their smoke was making it difficult for the gunners to take aim. But, on the other hand, this same smoke turned into a curtain, under the cover of which the gun could be dragged even closer to the target. Having tied many branches to the gun for better camouflage, the gunners slowly rolled it forward, trying not to disturb the tank.

Finally, the crew reached the edge of the forest, from where visibility was excellent. The distance to the tank now did not exceed 500 meters. We thought that the very first shot would give a direct hit and would certainly destroy the tank that was interfering with us. The crew began to prepare the gun for firing.

Although the tank had not moved since the battle with the anti-tank battery, it turned out that its crew and commander had nerves of iron. They calmly watched the approach of the anti-aircraft gun, without interfering with it, since while the gun was moving, it did not pose any threat to the tank. In addition, the closer the anti-aircraft gun is, the easier it will be to destroy it. A critical moment came in the duel of nerves when the crew began to prepare the anti-aircraft gun to fire. It was time for the tank crew to act. While the gunners, terribly nervous, were aiming and loading the gun, the tank turned the turret and fired first! Every projectile hit its target. The heavily damaged anti-aircraft gun fell into a ditch, several crew members died, and the rest were forced to flee. Machine-gun fire from the tank prevented the removal of the gun and the collection of the dead.

The failure of this attempt, on which great hopes were pinned, was very unpleasant news for us. The optimism of the soldiers died along with the 88 mm gun. Our soldiers did not have the best day, chewing canned food, since it was impossible to bring hot food.

However, the biggest fears have disappeared, at least for a while. The Russian attack on Raseinai was repulsed by the von Seckendorff battle group, which managed to hold Hill 106. Now there was no longer any fear that the Soviet 2nd Panzer Division would break through to our rear and cut us off. All that remained was a painful thorn in the form of a tank, which was blocking our only supply route. We decided that if we couldn’t deal with him during the day, then we’ll do it at night. The brigade headquarters discussed various options for destroying the tank for several hours, and preparations began for several of them at once.

Our sappers suggested simply blowing up the tank on the night of June 24/25. It should be said that the sappers, not without malicious satisfaction, watched the unsuccessful attempts of the artillerymen to destroy the enemy. Now it's their turn to try their luck. When Lieutenant Gebhardt called for 12 volunteers, all 12 people raised their hands in unison. To avoid offending others, every tenth person was chosen. These 12 lucky ones waited impatiently for the night to come. Lieutenant Gebhardt, who intended to personally command the operation, familiarized all sappers in detail with the general plan of the operation and the personal task of each of them individually. After dark the lieutenant set off at the head of a small column. The road ran east of Height 123, through a small sandy area to a strip of trees among which the tank was found, and then through sparse forest to the old concentration area.

The pale light of the stars flickering in the sky was quite enough to outline the contours of nearby trees, the road and the tank. Trying not to make any noise so as not to give themselves away, the soldiers who had taken off their shoes climbed to the side of the road and began to examine the tank from a close distance in order to outline the most convenient path. The Russian giant stood in the same place, its tower froze. Silence and peace reigned everywhere, only occasionally there was a flash in the air, followed by a dull rumble. Sometimes an enemy shell would fly past with a hiss and explode near the crossroads north of Raseinaya. These were the last echoes of the heavy battle that had been going on in the south all day. By midnight, artillery fire on both sides finally stopped.

Suddenly, a crash and footsteps were heard in the forest on the other side of the road. Ghost-like figures rushed towards the tank, shouting something as they ran. Is this really the crew? Then there were blows on the tower, the hatch opened with a clang and someone climbed out. Judging by the muffled clinking, food had arrived. The scouts immediately reported this to Lieutenant Gebhardt, who began to be annoyed with questions: “Perhaps we should rush at them and capture them? They appear to be civilians." The temptation was great, since it seemed very easy to do. However, the tank crew remained in the turret and remained awake. Such an attack would alarm the tank crews and could jeopardize the success of the entire operation. Lieutenant Gebhardt reluctantly rejected the offer. As a result, the sappers had to wait another hour until the civilians (or were they partisans?) left.
During this time, a thorough reconnaissance of the area was carried out. At 01.00, sappers began to act, as the tank crew fell asleep in the turret, unaware of the danger. After demolition charges were installed on the track and thick side armor, the sappers set fire to the fuse and ran away. A few seconds later, a loud explosion broke the silence of the night. The task was completed, and the sappers decided that they had achieved decisive success. However, before the echo of the explosion died down among the trees, the tank’s machine gun came to life, and bullets whistled around. The tank itself did not move. Probably its caterpillar was destroyed, but it was not possible to find out, since the machine gun was furiously firing at everything around. Lieutenant Gebhardt and his patrol returned to the beachhead visibly despondent. Now they were no longer confident of success, and it also turned out that one person was missing. Attempts to find him in the dark led to nothing.

Shortly before dawn, we heard a second, weaker explosion somewhere near the tank, the cause of which we could not find. The tank machine gun came to life again and for several minutes poured lead all around. Then there was silence again.

Soon after this it began to get light. The rays of the morning sun painted the forests and fields with gold. Thousands of drops of dew sparkled like diamonds on the grass and flowers, and the early birds began to sing. The soldiers began to stretch and blink sleepily as they rose to their feet. A new day was beginning.

The sun had not yet risen high when the barefoot soldier, hanging his tied boots over his shoulder, walked past the brigade command post. Unfortunately for him, it was I, the brigade commander, who noticed him first and rudely called him over. When the frightened traveler stretched out in front of me, I in clear language demanded an explanation for his morning walk in such a strange way. Is he a follower of Father Kneipp? If yes, then this is not the place to show off your hobbies. (Papa Kneipp in the 19th century created a society under the motto “Back to Nature” and preached physical health, cold baths, sleeping in the open air and the like.)

Greatly frightened, the lone wanderer began to get confused and bleat indistinctly. Every word had to be extracted from this silent intruder literally with pincers. However, with each of his answers my face brightened. Finally, I patted him on the shoulder with a smile and shook his hand in gratitude. To an outside observer who did not hear what was being said, this development of events might seem extremely strange. What could the barefoot guy say to make the attitude towards him change so rapidly? I could not satisfy this curiosity until the order for the brigade for the day was given with a report from a young sapper.

“I listened to the sentries and lay in a ditch next to a Russian tank. When everything was ready, I, together with the company commander, hung a demolition charge, which was twice as heavy as the instructions required, to the tank track and lit the fuse. Since the ditch was deep enough to provide shelter from shrapnel, I awaited the results of the explosion. However, after the explosion, the tank continued to shower the edge of the forest and the ditch with bullets. More than an hour passed before the enemy calmed down. Then I got close to the tank and examined the track in the place where the charge was installed. No more than half of its width was destroyed. I didn't notice any other damage.

When I returned to the meeting point of the sabotage group, she had already left. While searching for my boots, which I had left there, I discovered another forgotten demolition charge. I took it and returned to the tank, climbed onto the hull and hung the charge from the gun muzzle in the hope of damaging it. The charge was too small to cause serious damage to the machine itself. I crawled under the tank and blew it up.

After the explosion, the tank immediately fired at the edge of the forest and the ditch with a machine gun. The shooting did not stop until dawn, only then did I manage to crawl out from under the tank. I was sad to discover that my charge was too low after all. Having reached the collection point, I tried to put on my boots, but found out that they were too small and generally not my pair. One of my comrades put mine on by mistake. As a result, I had to return barefoot and was late.”

This was the true story of a brave man. However, despite his efforts, the tank continued to block the road, firing at any moving object it spotted. The fourth decision, which was born on the morning of June 25, was to call in dive bombers. Ju-87 to destroy a tank. However, we were refused because planes were needed literally everywhere. But even if they were found, it is unlikely that the dive bombers would be able to destroy the tank with a direct hit. We were confident that fragments of nearby explosions would not frighten the crew of the steel giant.

But now this damned tank had to be destroyed at any cost. The combat power of the garrison of our bridgehead will be seriously undermined if the road cannot be unblocked. The division will not be able to complete the task assigned to it. Therefore, I decided to use the last resort we had, although this plan could lead to large losses in people, tanks and equipment, but it did not promise guaranteed success. However, my intentions were to mislead the enemy and help keep our losses to a minimum. Our intention was to divert the KV-1's attention with a feint attack from Major Schenk's tanks and bring the 88mm guns closer to destroy the terrible monster. The terrain around the Russian tank contributed to this. There it was possible to secretly sneak up on the tank and set up observation posts in the wooded area on the eastern road. Since the forest was quite sparse, our nimble PzKw-35t could move freely in all directions.

Soon the 65th Tank Battalion arrived and began firing at the Russian tank from three sides. The KV-1 crew began to become noticeably nervous. The turret was spinning from side to side, trying to catch the impudent German tanks in its sights. The Russians fired at targets flashing among the trees, but were always late. A German tank appeared, but literally disappeared at the same moment. The crew of the KV-1 tank was confident in the strength of its armor, which resembled elephant skin and reflected all shells, but the Russians wanted to destroy the enemies that were harassing them, while at the same time continuing to block the road.

Fortunately for us, the Russians were overcome by excitement, and they stopped watching their rear, from where misfortune was approaching them. The anti-aircraft gun took up a position next to the place where one of the same ones had already been destroyed the day before. Its menacing barrel aimed at the tank, and the first shot rang out. The wounded KV-1 tried to turn the turret back, but the anti-aircraft gunners managed to fire 2 more shots during this time. The turret stopped rotating, but the tank did not catch fire, although we expected it to. Although the enemy no longer responded to our fire, after two days of failure we could not believe our success. Four more shots were fired with armor-piercing shells from an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun, which ripped open the monster’s skin. Its gun rose helplessly, but the tank continued to stand on the road, which was no longer blocked.

Witnesses to this deadly duel wanted to get closer to check the results of their shooting. To their great amazement, they discovered that only 2 shells penetrated the armor, while the remaining 5 88-mm shells only made deep gouges in it. We also found 8 blue circles marking where 50mm shells hit. The result of the sappers' sortie was serious damage to the track and a shallow gouge on the gun barrel. But we did not find any traces of hits from shells from 37-mm cannons and PzKW-35t tanks. Driven by curiosity, our “Davids” climbed onto the defeated “Goliath” in a vain attempt to open the tower hatch. Despite all efforts, its lid did not budge.

Suddenly the barrel of the gun began to move, and our soldiers ran away in horror. Only one of the sappers retained his composure and quickly thrust a hand grenade into the hole made by the shell in the lower part of the turret. There was a dull explosion and the hatch cover flew off to the side. Inside the tank lay the bodies of the brave crew, who had previously only received injuries. Deeply shocked by this heroism, we buried them with full military honors. They fought until their last breath, but this was just one small drama of the great war.

After the only heavy tank blocked the road for 2 days, it began to operate. Our trucks delivered supplies to the bridgehead necessary for the subsequent offensive."

(C) different places on the Internet

During the Great Patriotic War there were cases of Russian psychic attacks. This is how eyewitnesses tell about it: “The regiment rose to its full height. An accordion player walked from one flank, playing either the Vologda picks “Under the Fight”, or the Tver “Buza”. Another accordion player walked from the other flank, playing the Ural “Mommy”. Young, beautiful orderlies walked to the center, waving their handkerchiefs, and the entire regiment uttered the traditional mooing or grunting, which dancers usually emit when things are heading towards a fight, to intimidate the enemy. After such a psychic attack, the Germans could be taken in the trenches with bare hands, they were on the verge of mental insanity.

Story 1.
My grandfather fought from the first days of the war and ended it near Keninsberg.
The story that happened to my grandfather happened after another injury. Having received another bullet in the leg during the battle, my grandfather ended up in the hospital. Despite the level of medicine at that time, but thanks to the professionalism of military doctors (for which the Russian Army has always been famous), the wound healed successfully, and my grandfather was getting ready to go back to the front. And then one evening, after lights out, he felt severe pain in his lower abdomen. Got out of bed and went to the doctor. And the doctor was an old Russian grandfather who had been a doctor, probably, back in the First World War. The grandfather complained to him of pain and asked for some pill. The doctor felt his stomach, went into his closet and took out a large bottle of alcohol. I took two glasses and filled them to the brim. “Drink,” said the doctor. Grandfather drank. The doctor waved another glass himself! “Lie down,” the doctor commanded. Grandfather lay down on the table. From such an amount of alcohol, drunk on an empty stomach (war!), the grandfather immediately passed out... He woke up in the ward. No appendix. But with a headache... These are the people who defeated fascism!

Story 2.
My grandfather had a friend Misha, a terrible goofball, but at the same time an artillery lieutenant.
This friend commanded a multiple rocket launcher (as it is now called) called "Katyusha". It was good, or bad command, but the machine ran and made a lot of noise.
It was the summer of 1942. A Katyusha battalion was redeployed near Stalingrad; one of the cars simply stalled along the way (the auto industry is the auto industry, either in 1942 or 2010). We dug around and repaired it as best we could using improvised means. They rolled it up, of course, for a successful repair. Well, let's go catch up with ours. According to the Russian reliability of the maps, naturally, we got lost...
The steppe, the road to an unknown destination, and then suddenly they see a column of dust in the steppe. They are slowing down. Binoculars to your eyes - a German tank column. Rushing like at home - brazenly, like at a parade, above the tower hatches are the sleek faces of the Krauts.
Uncle Misha, either out of fear or out of impudence after drinking alcohol, turns the car with its front wheels into a ditch (Katyusha is a terrible weapon, but the aiming ability is almost zero, and it only hits squares with a canopy) and fires a salvo with almost direct fire. The first rows were set on fire - the devil was in a panic. Such a mess - 8 tanks are about to be scrapped..
Well, “Katyusha”, on the quiet - “legs, my legs”... They gave Uncle Misha a Hero (the crew - Slava), but they only took him away immediately for being 20 minutes late from vacation to the train (immediately after the award - okay, they didn’t put him in the penalty box ). The special officer turned out to be a bastard; the train remained in Moscow for another day. It looks like a fairy tale, but General Paulus stopped the offensive for a day. These days, German intelligence frantically searched for the positions of our troops. Well, they couldn’t believe in the one and only “Katyusha” that shot out of a drunken fright...

Story 3.
One day, one Soviet unit on the march went too far ahead, and the field kitchen was left somewhere behind. The unit commander sends two Kyrgyz soldiers to find her - they don’t speak Russian, it’s of little use in battle, in short, bring it and give it. They left, and there was no news from them for two days. Finally, they come with backpacks filled with German sweets, schnapps, etc. One of them has a note. It is written (in Russian): “Comrade Stalin! For us they are not languages, and for you they are not soldiers. Send them home.”

History 4.
In August 1941, in the Daugavpils area, Ivan Sereda was preparing lunch for the Red Army soldiers. At this time, he saw a German tank moving towards the field kitchen. Armed only with a carbine and an ax, Ivan Sereda took cover behind her, and the tank, driving up to the kitchen, stopped and the crew began to get out of it. At that moment, Ivan Sereda jumped out from behind the kitchen and rushed to the tank. The crew immediately took refuge in the tank, and Ivan Sereda jumped onto the armor. When the tankers opened fire with a machine gun, Ivan Sereda bent the barrel of the machine gun with blows of an ax, and then covered the tank’s viewing slots with a piece of tarpaulin. Next, he began to hit the armor with the butt of the ax, while giving orders to the Red Army soldiers, who were not nearby, to throw grenades at the tank. The tank crew surrendered, and Ivan Sereda forced them to tie each other's hands at gunpoint. When the Red Army soldiers arrived, they saw a tank and a tied-up crew.

History 5.
My grandfather served in aviation. At the field airfield, in the distance, there was a toilet... Sitting there, that means my grandfather, doing his business... It was getting dark. There were knots knocked out of the boards in the wall of the toilet. So my grandfather noticed three German intelligence officers coming out of the forest. Well, when they approached, he shot them down with a pistol. Received the Order of the Red Star.
The dudes clearly did not expect that fire would be opened on them from the toilet...

History 6.

Memories of one of the veterans

At the beginning of December of the same 1942, we stood on the defensive in the Round Grove area. Soon I had the opportunity to meet the foreman again. It was like that. He comes up to me and says:
- As directed by the platoon commander, assign me three soldiers. We need to bring a hot lunch and vodka from the field kitchen. She is two kilometers from our front line, in the forest.
I carried out the order. The sergeant major and three soldiers took the empty canisters and went to the company kitchen. To get to it, they had to go through the forest, then pass through a small clearing in which there was not a single tree, and then go back into the forest, where there was a kitchen.
The unexpected happened (although can this be called unexpected in a war?). When leaving the forest, one of the fighters was killed. Fortunately for the survivors, this happened when leaving the forest into a clearing.
The fact is that tanks had previously passed through this clearing and made a deep rut. One soldier lay down in it, and the sergeant major and the other soldier quickly returned to the forest and disguised themselves.
The one lying in the rut was relatively safe. He tried to slowly, crawl across the clearing, but heard the whistle of bullets next to him. However, the soldier was not at a loss.
He quietly took the stick, took off his helmet, put it on the stick and raised it above him. Continuing to move in this position, I heard that shooting was coming at the helmet. This lasted more than an hour. Finally the shooting ended. From fatigue and tension, the fighter dozed off right in the rut...
The sergeant major and the soldier, who were in the forest, realized that the German “cuckoo” sniper, who was firing and hiding in a tree, had run out of ammunition. They began to slowly approach this very tree. Approaching the pine tree, they saw a “cuckoo”.
The foreman shouted: “Hyunda hoch!” - and began to aim at the German with a machine gun. There was a rustling sound. A rifle with an optical sight flew from above. Then the shooter himself came down.
The foreman and the soldier searched him, took away his weapon, lighter and smoking pipe. The German was sorry to part with the pipe. Muttering incomprehensible words, he began to cry. The pipe was really great. It depicted a dog's head with glass eyes. When the smoker inhaled the smoke, the dog's eyes began to glow.
Having made sure that the former sniper was disarmed, the foreman pointed his finger at him - they say, go to where you shot, there the Russian Ivan is lying in a tank rut, bring him to us.
The German understood and approached the sleeping soldier.
“Rus Ivan, com,” said the fascist. The fighter woke up and saw a German in front of him. The sergeant major and the second soldier, having watched what was happening, burst out laughing. The same two were not laughing. The foreman patted the shoulder of the man lying in the tank rut and said:
- Instead of a hundred grams, you will get half a liter and a can of American stew. This is how this tragic and at the same time funny story ended.
Unfortunately, due to the passage of time, I have forgotten the names of the characters involved. Not a single meeting of fellow soldiers of the 80th Guards Lyuban Order of Kutuzov Rifle Division took place without memories of this curious incident.”

In fact, all Soviet historiography about the war of 1941-1945 is part of Soviet propaganda. It was so often mythologized and changed that the real facts about the war began to be perceived as a threat to the existing system.

The saddest thing is that today's Russia has inherited this approach to history. The authorities prefer to present the history of the Great Patriotic War as it is beneficial to them.

Here are 10 facts about the Great Patriotic War that are not beneficial to anyone. Because these are just facts.

1. The fate of 2 million people who died in this war is still unknown. It is incorrect to compare, but to understand the situation: in the United States the fate of no more than a dozen people is unknown.

Most recently, through the efforts of the Ministry of Defense, the Memorial website was launched, thanks to which information about those who died or went missing has now become publicly available.

However, the state spends billions on “patriotic education”, Russians wear ribbons, every second car on the street goes “to Berlin”, the authorities are fighting “counterfeiters”, etc. And, against this background, there are two million fighters whose fate is unknown.

2. Stalin really did not want to believe that Germany would attack the USSR on June 22. There were many reports on this matter, but Stalin ignored them.

A document has been declassified - a report to Joseph Stalin, which was sent to him by the People's Commissar of State Security Vsevolod Merkulov. The People's Commissar named the date, citing a message from an informant - our agent at Luftwaffe headquarters. And Stalin himself imposes a resolution: “You can send your source to your *** mother. This is not a source, but a disinformer.”

3. For Stalin, the start of the war was a disaster. And when Minsk fell on June 28, he fell into complete prostration. This is documented. Stalin even thought that he would be arrested in the first days of the war.

There is a log of visitors to Stalin’s Kremlin office, where it is noted that the leader is not in the Kremlin for a day, and not for the second, that is, June 28. Stalin, as it became known from the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, Anastas Mikoyan, as well as the manager of the Council of People's Commissars Chadayev (later the State Defense Committee), was at the “nearby dacha,” but it was impossible to contact him.

And then his closest associates - Klim Voroshilov, Malenkov, Bulganin - decide to take a completely extraordinary step: to go to the “nearby dacha”, which was absolutely impossible to do without calling the “owner”. They found Stalin pale, depressed and heard wonderful words from him: “Lenin left us a great power, and we screwed it up.” He thought they had come to arrest him. When he realized that he was called to lead the fight, he perked up. And the next day the State Defense Committee was created.

4. But there were also opposite moments. In October 1941, which was terrible for Moscow, Stalin remained in Moscow and behaved courageously.

Speech by J.V. Stalin at the Soviet Army parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941.

October 16, 1941 - on the day of panic in Moscow, all barrage detachments were removed, and Muscovites left the city on foot. Ashes flew through the streets: secret documents and departmental archives were burned.

The People's Commissariat of Education hastily burned even Nadezhda Krupskaya's archive. At the Kazansky station there was a train under steam for the evacuation of the government to Samara (then Kuibyshev). But

5. In the famous toast “to the Russian people,” said in 1945 at a reception on the occasion of the Victory, Stalin also said: “Some other people could say: you did not live up to our hopes, we will install another government, but the Russian people will not accept this.” did not go".

Painting by Mikhail Khmelko. "For the great Russian people." 1947

6. Sexual violence in defeated Germany.

Historian Antony Beevor, while researching for his 2002 book Berlin: The Fall, found reports in the Russian state archives of an epidemic of sexual violence in Germany. These reports were sent by NKVD officers to Lavrentiy Beria at the end of 1944.

“They were passed on to Stalin,” says Beevor. - You can see by the marks whether they were read or not. They report mass rapes in East Prussia and how German women tried to kill themselves and their children to avoid this fate."

And rape was not just a problem for the Red Army. Bob Lilly, a historian at Northern Kentucky University, was able to gain access to US military court records.

His book (Taken by Force) caused so much controversy that at first no American publisher dared to publish it, and the first edition appeared in France. Lilly estimates that about 14,000 rapes were committed by American soldiers in England, France and Germany from 1942 to 1945.

What was the actual scale of the rapes? The most often cited figures are 100 thousand women in Berlin and two million throughout Germany. These figures, hotly disputed, were extrapolated from the scant medical records that survive to this day. ()

7. The war for the USSR began with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.

The Soviet Union de facto took part in World War II from September 17, 1939, and not from June 22, 1941. Moreover, in alliance with the Third Reich. And this pact is a strategic mistake, if not a crime, of the Soviet leadership and Comrade Stalin personally.

In accordance with the secret protocol to the non-aggression pact between the Third Reich and the USSR (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), after the outbreak of World War II, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. On September 22, 1939, a joint parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army was held in Brest, dedicated to the signing of an agreement on the demarcation line.

Also in 1939-1940, according to the same Pact, the Baltic states and other territories in present-day Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus were occupied. Among other things, this led to a common border between the USSR and Germany, which allowed the Germans to carry out a “surprise attack.”

By fulfilling the agreement, the USSR strengthened the army of its enemy. Having created an army, Germany began to conquer European countries, increasing its power, including new military factories. And most importantly: by June 22, 1941, the Germans had gained combat experience. The Red Army learned to fight as the war progressed and finally got used to it only towards the end of 1942 - beginning of 1943.

8. In the first months of the war, the Red Army did not retreat, but fled in panic.

By September 1941, the number of soldiers in German captivity was equal to the entire pre-war regular army. MILLIONS of rifles were reportedly abandoned in the flight.

Retreat is a maneuver without which there can be no war. But our troops fled. Not all, of course, there were those who fought to the last. And there were a lot of them. But the pace of the German advance was staggering.

9. Many “heroes” of the war were invented by Soviet propaganda. So, for example, there were no Panfilov heroes.

The memory of 28 Panfilov men was immortalized by the installation of a monument in the village of Nelidovo, Moscow region.

The feat of 28 Panfilov guardsmen and the words “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind » was attributed to the political instructor by employees of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, in which the essay “About 28 Fallen Heroes” was published on January 22, 1942.

“The feat of the 28 Panfilov guardsmen, covered in the press, is the invention of the correspondent Koroteev, the editor of the Red Star Ortenberg, and especially the literary secretary of the newspaper Krivitsky. This fiction was repeated in the works of writers N. Tikhonov, V. Stavsky, A. Bek, N. Kuznetsov, V. Lipko, Svetlov and others and was widely popularized among the population of the Soviet Union.”

Photo of the monument in honor of the feat of the Panfilov guards in Alma-Ata.

This is information from a certificate-report, which was prepared based on the investigation materials and signed on May 10, 1948 by the chief military prosecutor of the USSR armed forces, Nikolai Afanasyev. The authorities launched a whole investigation into the “feat of Panfilov’s men,” because already in 1942, fighters from the same 28 Panfilov men who were on the list of those buried began to appear among the living.

10. Stalin in 1947 canceled the celebration (day off) of Victory Day on May 9. Until 1965, this day was a regular working day in the USSR.

Joseph Stalin and his comrades knew very well who won this war - the people. And this surge of popular activity frightened them. Many, especially front-line soldiers, who lived for four years in constant proximity to death, stopped, tired of being afraid. In addition, the war violated the complete self-isolation of the Stalinist state.

Many hundreds of thousands of Soviet people (soldiers, prisoners, “Ostarbeiters”) visited abroad, having the opportunity to compare life in the USSR and in Europe and draw conclusions. It was a deep shock for the collective farmer soldiers to see how Bulgarian or Romanian (not to mention German or Austrian) peasants lived.

Orthodoxy, which had been destroyed before the war, revived for a time. In addition, military leaders acquired a completely different status in the eyes of society than they had before the war. Stalin feared them too. In 1946, Stalin sent Zhukov to Odessa, in 1947 he canceled the celebration of Victory Day, and in 1948 he stopped paying for awards and wounds.

Because not thanks to, but despite the actions of the dictator, having paid an exorbitant price, he won this war. And I felt like a people - and there was and is nothing more terrible for tyrants.