Russia, as it were, has set itself apart and is celebrating some kind of its own separate war, distorted by propaganda myths, outright lies and patriotic pathos. It contains GREAT heroes who won a GREAT victory in a GREAT war but never received it. This victory is smeared on the lips of those who have appropriated it for themselves every year from the rostrum of the mausoleum. And the people smack their lips enthusiastically - we are heroes.
Myth 1
The greatest Battle of Good and Evil in History is called the “Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People against the Nazi Invaders” and lasted 4 years, from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945.
Reality
The Second World War - it is under this name that the rest of the world knows the great battle - lasted (the main part) from September 1, 1939 (the attack of the Third Reich and the subsequent attack of the USSR on Poland on September 17) until September 2, 1945 (the surrender of the Japanese Empire). In many countries, local military conflicts within the Second World War have their own names, but nowhere except the Soviet Union did the name PART of the war replace the name of the WHOLE war.
The reason that forced the Soviet leadership to create their own historiography on this matter was the fact that the Soviet Union de facto took part in the Second World War from September 17, 1939 on the side of the Third Reich (for more details, see Myth No. 2) (September 17, 1939 The USSR, by prior agreement with Germany, attacked Poland. The red-browns celebrated their joint victory in Brest. - ER).
That is why the calculation of the war from June 22, 1941 - the moment when the Soviet Union was forced to start fighting AGAINST the Third Reich, was fundamental for Soviet historiography.
The land war between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich on the territory of Eastern Europe is the largest, but still an episode (i.e., one of a number of episodes) of the global conflict that took place between the Allies (later the Anti-Hitler Coalition) on the one hand and the Axis Powers on the other. another (for more details, see Myth No. 5).
Moreover, there is only 1 (one) country on the planet that participated in the Second World War from its very beginning to the very end, that is, it rattled off the entire war from bell to bell. This country is the British Empire (the author forgot about the USSR, which began drumming since Khalkhin Gol and Spain - ER).
Three photographs showing the reaction of a 16-year-old German soldier when he was captured by the Americans. Germany, 1945
Myth 2
Soviet Ideology was the principled opponent of Fascism, and the Soviet Union was the principle enemy of Nazi Germany. All fascist accomplices are our enemies, all collaborators are traitors.
Reality
Soviet ideology became the principle opponents of Fascism mainly since 1938, and only fully since 1941. Propaganda of this time (1933-1939) depicts the German regime and life in Germany in general in much the same way as the social structure and life in the USA, France or the British Empire. That is, this country is ruled by bourgeois forces that are fundamentally opposed to truly popular power - the power of workers and peasants.
Now this fact seems surprising, but at first fascism (if we are talking about German fascism, then the more correct term is “Nazism”, because in the narrow sense the concept of “fascism” applies only to the Italian fascist party) did not seem evil to anyone. The entire history of the global struggle against fascism is a history of gradual insights and a gradual transition to anti-fascism of countries, peoples and individual groups. Even the British Empire, which can boast of the most principled and consistent anti-fascist position, professed appeasement tactics for a long time.
On September 30, 1938, in Munich, Prime Minister of the British Empire Neville Chamberlain and Prime Minister of France Edouard Daladier signed an agreement with Reich Chancellor of the Third Reich Adolf Hitler and Prime Minister of Italy Benito Mussolini, according to which Germany's right to occupy part of Czechoslovakia was de facto recognized. This fact, called the “Munich Agreement,” is considered a shameful stain on the reputation of Britain and France, who at that moment were trying to come to an agreement with Hitler and not bring the matter to conflict.
As for the Soviet Union, its cooperation with Germany from 1922 to 1939 was extremely large-scale. Before the Nazi Party came to power in the USSR, Germany was viewed as the closest candidate for a socialist revolution, and after that, as a strategic ally in the fight against Western capitalism. The USSR and Germany traded abundantly, exchanged technologies, and actively cooperated in the military sphere (in 1920-30, the USSR had at least three large centers for training German military personnel and developing military technologies, which certainly violated the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty). In many ways, the USSR laid the foundations for the iron machine of the Wehrmacht, which captured most of Europe and fell on the USSR itself on June 22, 1941.
Brothers in Arms
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 de facto entered the war on the side of the Third Reich, invading 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.
In the USSR, everyone knew that Brest was a Hero-Fortress, but not everyone knew why all the other settlements that distinguished themselves in the first days of the war were called “Hero-Cities”, and only Brest - “Hero-Fortress”. The answer is quite banal: the residents of Brest did not show themselves in any way during the Third Reich’s attack on the USSR.
They did not at all consider themselves citizens of the country that had just been attacked, because two years ago they were citizens of Poland, which the USSR divided with the Third Reich, jointly celebrating this event with a solemn parade.
The German attack was resisted by a military garrison based near Brest - in the old fortress. Naturally, it consists entirely of Soviet troops who arrived here quite recently. That is why only the fortress is the hero - and not the city (by the way, before that, in 1939, the Brest Fortress was defended from Nazi troops by the Poles and we must give them credit, they defended it with dignity - ER).
Also, few people know about the heroic defense of some cities (for example, Lvov) from the Nazi invaders in September 1939. The defense of Lvov was not bloody, but was extremely dramatic - the Germans entered the outskirts of the city (as well as later on the outskirts of Moscow) on September 12, and then Polish troops drove them out for ten days, until the Red Army approached from the other side and offered the garrison surrender the city.
Only on June 22, 1941, with the attack of the Third Reich on the USSR, the Eternal Principled Enmity of Workers and Peasants with the Nazis, which we know so well from Soviet textbooks, begins. As Orwell wrote about this, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Myth 3
The Soviet people, in a single impulse, fought against the Nazi Invaders, some in the ranks of the Red Army, some in the ranks of the partisans, and some simply doing little harm. Only traitors and other collaborators did not fight.
Reality
Let's start with the fact that a significant part of the people who were later part of the “Soviet people”, at the very least, did not identify themselves with it.
I have already written above about the Brest Fortress, but most people do not imagine the scale of the phenomenon. As a result of the Polish campaign of the Red Army in 1939, the Soviet Union occupied a territory of almost 200 thousand square kilometers, which included Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Eastern Poland and Southwestern Lithuania.
In total, 13 million people lived in this territory. In a matter of months, the Soviet authorities organized a “popular will” in this territory and annexed them to the corresponding Soviet republics. In June-July 1940, the Red Army occupied Bessarabia and Western Bukovina virtually without a fight: a territory of 50 thousand square kilometers, where 3 million 776 thousand people lived (since August 2, 1940 - the Moldavian SSR).
In June 1940, the USSR occupied Estonia, Latvia and part of Lithuania, which, after the “elections”, became the corresponding Soviet republics on July 21-22. In total, the territories occupied by the USSR at this time were approximately equal in size and population to, for example, a country like Italy.
At the same time, in the occupied territories, the Soviet government is purging them of unreliable and class-alien elements to the workers and peasants. These elements were arrested without trial, imprisoned, exiled to Siberia, and in extreme situations, shot.
The most famous are the deportation operations of residents of the Baltic states (Operation 1940, during which up to 50,000 people were evicted, and Operation Surf in 1949, during which more than 100,000 were evicted), and mass executions of Polish military personnel (in the Katyn Forest, in Starobelsky camp, in Ostashkovsky camp and other places, a total of 22,000 people).
It is easy to imagine that the population of all these territories was not eager to defend the USSR from anyone, even from the bald devil. But even in that part of the Soviet Union that was Soviet until 1939, to put it mildly, not everyone supported Soviet power.
Nationalist sentiments were strong in Belarus and Ukraine, because with the composition of the Soviet Union (just as previously as part of the Russian Empire), both nations were actually asked to forget their culture, completely replacing it with Russian.
In addition, in Ukraine the memory of the 1933 famine was still too fresh. 1941 is separated from the Holodomor by some 8 years - this is as much as separates us from the Orange Revolution, and 5 years more than separates us from Yeltsin’s departure, that is, in 1941 the ENTIRE adult population of Ukraine remembered well - not from stories, but from my own experience - the greatest tragedy that has befallen this country in its entire history. Therefore, the words “let there be Germans, just not advice - IT WILL NOT BE WORSE” for Ukrainians not only sounded psychologically convincing, but are also (as we see now) an objective truth.
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War is a surreal event, during which the Red Army mainly... does not even retreat, but rather crumbles into dust. Later, the Germans would remember June-July 1941 with the words “there is no enemy ahead, and no rear behind” (because the convoy could not keep up with the German units rapidly moving deeper into Soviet territory and not encountering resistance). The soldiers do not want to fight, do not understand what they are fighting for, and desert en masse.
Cases of rare heroism these days look as surreal as the mass exodus of Red Army soldiers. Konstantin Simonov’s book “100 Days of War,” dedicated to the chaos of the first days of the Great Patriotic War, was never published in the USSR (it was published only in 1982 in a heavily revised form under the title “Different Days of the War”). Only with the advent of barrier detachments and penal battalions was discipline established in the troops, and a “united impulse” was finally achieved, during which the Soviet people... and so on.
Myth 4
All Germans during the war were fascists, every German soldier was an SS man.
Reality
This is not the biggest problem associated with the war (I would call it a “minor myth”), but my sense of justice requires me to put in a good word for the Germans. They did not deserve the place in history that they occupy today. From all the great history and grandiose thousand-year culture (which gave us the modern structure of cities and the principles of trade, many crafts and religious reformation, a significant part of classical music and philosophy, and much, much more), we remember today “Hyundai Hoch” and “Hitler - kaput."
Germany after the collapse of the “Second Reich” was the ruins of a huge state with rich cultural and, importantly, military traditions. The Wehrmacht was initially created as an organization devoid of any political coloring; This was the color of the opponents of the Wehrmacht, the “assault troops” (“stormtroopers” or “brownshirts”).
After the Night of the Long Knives, stormtroopers (like other German paramilitary organizations) became part of the Wehrmacht, but they did not play leading roles there. Almost the entire leadership of the Wehrmacht remained out of politics until 1939, and a significant part of the leadership remained non-party until July 20, 1944, when, after the famous assassination attempt on Hitler, organized by high-ranking military opponents of Nazism, Hitler actually forced all the generals to join the party under threat of death.
According to the verdict of the court for the conspiracy on July 20, the following were shot: one field marshal, 19 generals, 26 colonels, 2 ambassadors, 7 diplomats of another level, 1 minister, 3 secretaries of state and the chief of the criminal police of the Reich (a total of 200 people according to the verdict and about 5,000 without trial, about 7,000 more were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps). Among others, Admiral Canaris (hanged in a steel collar) and Rommel (left in his office with a pistol, committed suicide) died.
There were almost no members of the NSDAP among the rank and file of the Wehrmacht until the very end of the war: they were more common among officers and their number did not exceed 5% of the total number of the Wehrmacht.
“Party” conscripts and volunteers tried to get into the SS Troops, which, on the one hand, were considered more privileged, on the other, were much more politicized, and carried out almost all the tasks of clearing out civilians, executing commissars, Jews, etc. But even the SS troops often resisted particularly cannibalistic party orders.
For ordinary Germans, the rise to power of the Nazis was a spontaneous phenomenon: the same as the rise to power in Russia of a small and unpopular Bolshevik party. The desire of the Germans to cleanse themselves of the Nazi past after defeat in the war (denazification, banning nationalist political forces, etc.) certainly deserves respect, and serves as an example for other nations that have gone through similar stages in their history.
Myth 5
Nazi Germany was defeated by the Soviet Union.
Reality
Generally speaking, it is incorrect to talk about the victory of COUNTRY over COUNTRY in a global military conflict between large coalitions of states. It is incorrect not only terminologically, but also purely humanly: dividing such an orange as “Victory” between those who made a “larger” contribution and those who, from our point of view, made a “smaller” contribution, is simply ugly: all coalition soldiers - comrades in arms, and everyone’s contribution was invaluable. The soldiers died in the same way, on land, at sea and in the air, and their victory was, as the famous song sang, “one for all.”
As I already wrote in the analysis of Myth No. 1, the only country that fought the entire war from start to finish was the British Empire. Today, most people think of the island of the same name when they hear the word “Britain,” but in 1939 Britain was the largest nation ever to exist, occupying a quarter of the Earth’s landmass, and was home to 480 million people (a quarter of the Earth’s population).
The British Empire included Britain itself, as well as Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Canada, India (modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka), Guyana (British Guiana), about a quarter of the African continent (vertical a strip from Egypt to South Africa plus areas of the central Atlantic coast) and a large part of the Middle East (modern Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates). The sun never truly set on the British Empire.
The economic and military power of this state significantly exceeded the forces of the Third Reich - however, the fact that it was “scattered” around the world, and the main hostilities took place in Europe, significantly worsened the capabilities of the British in the fight against Germany, which was completely located in Europe.
An American soldier from the 12th Armored Division next to a group of German prisoners somewhere in the forest in Germany
Soviet officers and American soldiers during a meeting on the Elbe in April 1945
After the German Blitz Krieg in Poland, and then in the Benelux countries and France, a long trench war begins between the Germans and the British, taking place mainly at sea, and called the “Battle of the Atlantic”. This battle lasted almost the entire 6 years of the war and cost the lives of approximately 100,000 people, turning the Atlantic Ocean into one of the main theaters of combat.
Other significant theaters of action include North Africa, where German forces fought British forces on land, China (and southeast Asia), where the Empire of Japan fought a long list of countries, most of which it captured, then the Pacific, where the Empire of Japan and the United States fought a naval war in 1941-1945, and, of course, the “Eastern Front” - a land theater of military operations in Eastern Europe, where the Third Reich and the USSR fought.
The last theater was the most significant in terms of the volume of military efforts and the number of losses, and the most important for all allies without exception. Therefore, starting from June 22, 1941, the United States included the USSR in the “Lend-Lease” program - the transfer of weapons, materials and supplies to the warring party “on credit”, under which they had already supplied weapons to Britain.
In total, goods worth 11 billion dollars (140 billion in modern prices), about 17 and a half million tons of various goods, were supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease. These were weapons (small arms, tanks, explosives, ammunition), airplanes, locomotives, cars, ships, machinery and equipment, food, non-ferrous and ferrous metals, clothing, materials, chemical reagents, and so on. I would especially like to note the 330 thousand liters of alcohol.
In a number of areas, Lend-Lease accounted for a significant share of the total volume of goods used in the USSR during the war: for example, about a third of all explosives used in the USSR in 1941-1945, about 40% of copper and more than 50 % aluminum, cobalt, tin, wool, railway rails, etc. The number of locomotives delivered to the USSR under Lend-Lease was 2 and a half times greater than what was produced by Soviet industry during the war years, most of the Katyushas were on Studebaker chassis, and almost all the canned meat that reached the front was American-made. (By the way, the USSR’s debt for Lend-Lease has not yet been repaid, unlike all other participating countries).
Phrases like “we would have won without it” or “they would have lost if it weren’t for us” are fantastically amateurish. But since the conversation is often and purposefully diverted in this direction, I must express my personal opinion: “From my (humble) point of view, without the six years of heroic efforts of the British in the Battle of the Atlantic, without the four years of colossal injections of American money into Lend-Lease, which saved hundreds thousands of lives of Soviet citizens, without many other small and medium-sized victims and pockets of resistance from other countries and peoples, the Soviet Union had too slim a chance of winning the war against the Third Reich; with a high degree of probability, the Soviet Union would have lost it.” Once again: this is my humble personal opinion.
And, by the way, there is a high probability that after the defeat of the Soviet Union the Allies would still have won the war - the power of the British Empire and the wealth of the United States would still have done their job.
British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (right) reads the surrender pact in the presence of German officers (from left to right): Major Friedel, Admiral Wagner, Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg in the headquarters tent of the 21st Army Group, Luneburg Heath, 4 May 1945. The pact provided for a cessation of hostilities on the fronts in northern Germany, Denmark and Holland from 8 a.m. on May 5. German forces in Italy surrendered earlier, on April 29, and the remnants of the army in Western Europe on May 7, on the Eastern Front on the 8th. The five-year war in the vastness of Europe was over
We, like rednecks, have set ourselves apart and are celebrating some kind of our own separate war, perverted by propaganda myths, outright lies and patriotic pathos. In it, we are GREAT heroes who won a GREAT victory in a GREAT war, but never received it. This victory is smeared on our lips every year from the rostrum of the mausoleum by those who appropriated it for themselves. And we smack our lips enthusiastically - we are heroes.
The war in the east was fundamentally different from the war in the west. When a German soldier entered Danish or French cities, he had strict instructions - first of all, to behave as correctly as possible towards civilians. On Soviet territory, a Wehrmacht soldier was officially exempt from any responsibility for any crimes against the population. The goal of the Nazis was not the destruction of communism, the true goal was the destruction of the peoples of the Soviet Union: Slavs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, so the myth that it was more useful for our ancestors to submit to the Germans is not only morally ugly, but also simply stupid. It is probably not long ago for today’s generation to understand and withstand these tests, but another more important task for today’s generation is to preserve respectful memory of the generation of winners of fascism and preserve that objective memory of the crimes of the fascists and the feat of our people.
A new documentary series dedicated to May 9, 2014. Presenter - Mikhail Porechenkov. The documentary was based on the book by V.R. Medinsky "War. Myths of the USSR 1939-1945". In addition - video in which you can see how Medinsky drove Latynina (a liberal defender of the Nazis) into hysterics.
Episode 1 Plan Ost
Multi-part documentary television film exposing modern myths about the Great Patriotic War. Based on the book by V.R. Medinsky "War. Myths of the USSR 1939-1945". Film 1 - "Plan Ost". The series tells in detail about the fascist “Plan Ost”, according to which it was planned to completely exterminate the Slavic population in the territories of Eastern Europe and the USSR, refuting the modern myth that if the USSR had surrendered to the Nazis without a fight, the civilian population would have received incredible advantages and a standard of living in the country has improved many times.
Episode 2. The first days of the war
The series tells in detail about the actions of Soviet military leaders in the summer of 1941, refuting the myth that the USSR was absolutely unprepared for war, and I.V. Stalin was “prostrated,” leaving the country without a leader.
Episode 3. Militias and collaborators
The series details the civilians who voluntarily gave up their armor and went to the front as militias, refuting the modern myth that the people's militia from citizens of the Soviet Union was formed under the threat of reprisals by force. The series also tells about collaborators - citizens of the Soviet Union who helped Nazi Germany in the occupied territories.
Episode 4 Penal battalion
The series tells in detail about the real number of penal battalions in the Soviet army, refuting the myth that hundreds of penal battalions fought on all fronts under the strict cover of barrier detachments.
Episode 5 Lend-Lease. Allied contribution
Mythologizing Lend-Lease is harmful and even dangerous. In its radical form it looks something like this. The Americans not only fought bravely with the British themselves, but also supported the Red Army. In fact, she owes all her victories to her allies.
Episode 6. Prisoners of war
Let's look at the main false myths about the Great Patriotic War, purposefully invented or resulting from illiterate reasoning of people who do not know or are trying to denigrate the history of our country.
1. The USSR fought against Nazi Germany and its few allies
In fact, the entire united Europe fought against the USSR. European Union.
The countries occupied by Hitler always presented themselves as victims. Like, evil invaders came, what could we do against them? It was impossible to fight. They were forced to work on pain of death, starved and tortured. However, in reality it turns out that in the West under the Germans everything was not so bad. It was our troops, retreating, who blew up industrial enterprises so that they would not fall to the enemy. Partisans and residents of territories occupied by the Nazis carried out sabotage and sabotage. In most occupied European countries, workers worked diligently, receiving wages and drinking beer after work.
Just one fact: the weapons that Germany captured from the defeated countries were enough to form 200 divisions. No, this is not a mistake: 200 divisions. We had 170 divisions in the western districts. To provide them with weapons, the USSR needed several five-year plans. In France, after its defeat, the Germans immediately seized up to 5,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 3,000 aircraft, 5,000 locomotives. Belgium appropriated half of the rolling stock for the needs of its economy and the war.
Without the Czech military industry and Czech tanks, we would not have four tank divisions, which would make an attack on the Soviet Union impossible,” admitted Lieutenant Colonel of the Wehrmacht tank forces Helmut Ritgen. Strategic raw materials, weapons, materials, equipment - united Europe provided the Nazis with everything they needed. Including human resources: about 2,000,000 people volunteered for Hitler’s army.
2. Soviet soldiers fought only because there were barrage detachments behind them, who shot the retreating ones with machine guns
Since the losses of German troops even at the beginning of the war, despite the retreat of the Red Army, were unprecedentedly high, and in some places some units were completely defeated, opponents of the Great Victory had to come up with a myth that Soviet soldiers were forced to fight under machine guns, shooting the retreating. To make the theory sound more convincing, executions from machine guns were attributed to special NKVD barrage detachments, which allegedly hid behind the soldiers and simply shot all those retreating. In reality, NKVD detachments did exist, and their duty was to protect the rear of the Soviet armies, as well as other military police in any army in the world. These units played a significant role in restoring order in the Red Army. Take for example the data on the “Battle of Stalingrad”:
During August and September 1942, 36,109 people were detained by barrage detachments of the Stalingrad Front. Of these: 730 people. was arrested. Of these 730 arrested, 433 were shot; 1056 people were sent to penal companies; 33 people in penal battalions; 33,851 people were sent to their units for further service. That is, out of 36 thousand people, only 433 people were shot for serious crimes, which is a little more than one percent. And these data refer to the time when the “atrocities of the barrage detachments” allegedly occurred. Perhaps, among the 433 executed, not all were so guilty that they should have been executed, but based on the difficult situation at Stalingrad, this was a necessary measure. In addition, there is no need to talk about any execution from machine guns by our own people, and all those detained were first arrested and sentenced by a military tribunal. Later, when the front was stabilized, such harsh measures were no longer resorted to.
3. The USSR filled the Nazis with corpses
In the last 15-20 years, one has often heard that the ratio of losses of the USSR and Germany with their allies in World War II was 1:5, 1:10, or even 1:14. Then, naturally, a conclusion is drawn about “being littered with corpses,” inept leadership, and so on. However, mathematics is an exact science. For example, the population of the Third Reich at the beginning of World War II was 85 million people, of which more than 23 million were men of military age. The population of the USSR is 196.7 million people, of which 48.5 million are men of military age.
So, even without knowing anything about the real numbers of losses on both sides, it is easy to calculate that victory through the complete mutual destruction of the male population of military age in the USSR and Germany is achieved by a loss ratio of 48.4/23 = 2.1, but not 10.
By the way, here we do not take into account the German allies. If you add them to these 23 million, then the loss ratio will become even smaller. It should be taken into account that at the very beginning of the war, the Soviet Union lost large densely populated territories, so the actual number of men of military age was even smaller. However, if, in fact, for every killed German the Soviet command would sacrifice 10 Soviet soldiers, then after the Germans would have killed 5 million people, the USSR would have died 50 million - that is, we would have no one else to fight , and in Germany there would still be as many as 18 million men of military age left.
4. We won in spite of Stalin
All these myths add up to a global statement, expressed in one phrase: “We won in spite of.” Despite illiterate commanders, mediocre and bloodthirsty generals, the totalitarian Soviet system and Joseph Stalin personally. History knows many examples when a well-trained and equipped army lost battles due to incompetent commanders. But for a country to win a global war of attrition in defiance of state leadership is something fundamentally new. After all, war is not only the front, not only questions of strategy, and not only problems of supplying troops with food and ammunition. This is the rear, this is agriculture, this is industry, this is logistics, these are issues of providing the population with medicines and medical care, bread and housing. Soviet industry from the western regions was evacuated beyond the Urals in the first months of the war. Was this titanic logistics operation really carried out by enthusiasts against the will of the country's leadership? In new places, workers stood at their machines in an open field while new workshop buildings were being laid out - was it really only out of fear of reprisals? Millions of citizens were evacuated beyond the Urals, to Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the residents of Tashkent in one night dismantled everyone who remained on the station square to their homes - really in defiance of the cruel morals of the Soviet country? Is all this possible if society is divided, if it lives in a state of cold civil war with the authorities, if it does not trust the leadership? The answer is actually obvious.
The myth that the Soviet Union won the war solely with the help of severe frosts, mud and snowstorms is the leading one in the list of myths about the war.
If you look at the plans of the German command to attack the USSR, it becomes clear that victory over the main forces of the Soviet army should have happened during the summer or, at most, the summer-autumn campaign. That is, Hitler initially did not plan to conduct active hostilities during the cold period. But as a result of powerful attacks and the capture of key cities of the USSR, the defense of the Red Army did not break, and the German units suffered losses that they had never experienced before.
Up to five German divisions were defeated, and the attack on Moscow stopped for a long time. It is worth noting that all these events took place in the summer and early autumn. At the same time, weather conditions in the summer of 1941, as is known, turned out to be almost ideal for the German offensive.
It is known that, hoping to end the war before winter, the German command did not bother with the timely purchase of winter clothing and other necessary equipment.
In addition, we should not forget that the muddy roads that slowed down the German offensive near Moscow affected both sides. Moreover, its effect on the retreating Red Army was in some respects even more negative than on the Wehrmacht: for the advancing side, a tank stuck in the mud is just some fuss of engineering units to pull it out, but for the retreating side, a tank stuck in the mud is equal to a tank lost in battle.
Fans of this myth spread it strictly to the 41st and 42nd years, but do not talk about subsequent years. For example, the Great Battle of Kursk or Operation Bagration are kept silent. These battles took place exclusively in the summer.
6. The decisive importance of the second front and Lend Lease supplies
From the first days of Hitler’s aggression against the USSR, the “Allies” did not at all hide their unfriendly attitude towards the Soviet Union. And participation in the war was motivated only by selfish interests. Suffice it to recall a quote from an article by the future US President Truman, which was published in the “central” American newspaper “New York Times” on June 24, 1941, that is, the day after Germany attacked the Soviet Union: “If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, then we should help Germany, and thus let them kill as many as possible”... Just one fact: their financial tycoons financed both sides - nothing personal, just business ! By the way, the United States became the richest country in the world after World War II, having previously robbed, robbed and enslaved a significant part of the world. Today, some American-loving historians speak breathlessly about Lend-Lease (American supplies of equipment and weapons to the USSR during the war). But, firstly, this is a drop in the ocean (only 4 percent of what was produced during the war in our country), and secondly, this is again a business. Few people know that the USSR and then Russia paid the Yankees for these “friendly” supplies until 2006! Nobody today remembers that there were so-called “reverse” Lend-Lease agreements, according to which “brothers in arms” were supposed to provide the US Army with goods, services, transportation services after the war, and even allow the use of military bases. By the way, the “reverse Lend-Lease” of the USSR amounted to $2.2 million. Another unfavorable aspect for the USSR in connection with “allied help”. Having waited until 1944 to open the second front, the USA and England received a bone-chilling blow in the first serious battle with an already weakened Hitler. The Red Army had to save its “allies” at the cost of additional losses. In January 1945, English Prime Minister Churchill plaintively requested help from I.V. Stalin, and he replied: “We are preparing for
offensive, but the weather now is not favorable for our offensive. However, taking into account the position of our allies on the western front, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to complete preparations at an accelerated pace and, regardless of the weather, to open broad offensive operations against the Germans along the entire central front no later than the second half of January.” So the opening of a second front resulted in “extra” losses for our troops.
7. Allies. Operation Unthinkable
Not only did the “allies” constantly delay the supply of weapons, delay the opening of the second front, and opened it when the outcome of the war was a foregone conclusion, but they also planned a military operation unprecedented in its cynicism.
At the beginning of April 1945, just before the end of the Great Patriotic War, W. Churchill, the Prime Minister of our ally, Great Britain, gave an order to his chiefs of staff to develop a surprise attack on the USSR - Operation Unthinkable. It was provided to him on May 22, 1945, containing 29 pages.
According to this plan, the attack on the USSR was to begin following Hitler's principles - with a surprise attack. On July 1, 1945, 47 British and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were supposed to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians who did not expect such boundless meanness from the allies. The strike was supposed to be supported by 10-12 German divisions, which the “allies” kept unformed in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark, they were trained daily by British instructors: they were preparing for the war against the USSR. The war was supposed to lead to the complete defeat and surrender of the USSR.
The Anglo-Saxons were preparing to break us with terror - the savage destruction of large Soviet cities with crushing blows from waves of “flying fortresses”. Several million Russian people were supposed to die in “fire tornadoes” worked out to the smallest detail. This is how Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo were destroyed... Now they were preparing to do this to us, the allies.
However, on June 29, 1945, the day before the planned start of the war, the Red Army unexpectedly changed its deployment for the insidious enemy. This was the decisive weight that moved the scales of history - the order was not given to the Anglo-Saxon troops. Prior to this, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, showed the power of the Soviet Army and the enemy’s military experts were inclined to cancel the attack on the USSR.
It was not by chance that we chose such a title; we will talk about the mysteries of the Second World War, and not the Great Patriotic War. Sometimes during a war such strange and contradictory events occur that they are difficult to believe. Especially considering that the archives are still classified and there is no access to them. What kind of secrets does the history of those years keep, from the point of view of the allies of the USSR?
Let's try to figure it out.
15. The mystery of Netaji's death
Subhas Chandra Bose, also known as Netaji, is a Bengali by birth and one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement. Today Bose is revered in India on a par with Nehru and Gandhi. To fight the British colonialists, he collaborated with the Germans and then with the Japanese. He headed the collaborationist pro-Japanese administration “Azad Hind” (“Free India”), which he proclaimed “the government of India.”
From the Allies' point of view, Netaji was a very dangerous traitor. He communicated with both German and Japanese leaders, but at the same time was on friendly terms with Stalin. During his life, Bos had to run a lot from various foreign intelligence services, he hid from British surveillance, was able to change his identity and begin building his Empire of Revenge. Much in Bose’s life remains a mystery, but historians still cannot find an answer to the question - whether he died or is quietly living out his life somewhere in Bengal. According to the officially accepted version, the plane on which Bos tried to escape to Japan in 1945 suffered a plane crash. It seems that his body was cremated, and the urn with the ashes was transported to Tokyo to the Renkoji Buddhist Temple. Both before and now there are many people who do not believe in this story. So much so that they even analyzed the ashes and reported that the ashes belonged to a certain Ichiro Okura, a Japanese official.
It is believed that Bos lived out his life somewhere in strict secrecy. The Indian government admits that they have about forty secret files on Bose, all sealed, and they refuse to divulge the contents. It is said that the release will have detrimental consequences for India's international relations. In 1999, one file surfaced: it was related to the location of Netaji and the subsequent investigation that took place in 1963. However, the government refused to comment on this information.
Many still hope that one day they will be able to find out what really happened to Netaji, but this is definitely not going to happen anytime soon. The National Democratic Union in 2014 refused a request to release Bose's classified materials. The government is still afraid to publish even those documents that have been declassified as secret. According to official information, this is due to the fact that the information contained in the documents could still harm India's relations with other countries.
14. Battle of Los Angeles: Air defense against UFOs
Just don't laugh. Hoax or mass psychosis? Call it what you want, but on the night of February 25, 1942, all Los Angeles air defense services bravely - and absolutely unsuccessfully - fought a UFO.
"It happened in the early morning hours of February 25, 1942; just three months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States had just entered World War II and the military was on high alert when the attack took place over the sky California. Witnesses reported seeing a large, round object glowing pale orange in the skies of Culver City and Santa Monica, along the entire Pacific coast."
Sirens wailed and searchlights began scanning the sky over Los Angeles, and more than 1,400 shells from anti-aircraft guns pelted the mysterious object, but it, calmly moving across the night sky, disappeared from view. No aircraft were shot down, and in fact, no satisfactory explanation has ever been found. The Army's official statement was that "unidentified aircraft" had allegedly entered Southern California airspace. But US Secretary of the Navy Frank Nose later canceled the reports and called the incident a "false alarm."
13. Die Glocke - Nazi bell
Work on Die Glocke (translated from German as “bell”) began in 1940, and was managed from the “SS brain center” at the Skoda factory in Pilsen by designer Hans Kammler. Kammler's name is closely associated with one of the Nazi organizations involved in the development of various types of “miracle weapons” - the Ahnenerbe occult institute. At first, the “miracle weapon” was tested in the vicinity of Breslau, but in December 1944, a group of scientists was transported to an underground laboratory (with a total area of 10 km²!) inside the Wenceslas mine. The documents describe Die Glocke as "a huge bell made of solid metal, about 3 m wide and approximately 4.5 m high." This device contained two counter-rotating lead cylinders filled with an unknown substance codenamed Xerum 525. When turned on, the Die Glocke illuminated the shaft with a pale purple light.
In the throes of the Reich, the Nazis seized every chance, hoping for a technological miracle that could change the course of the war. At that time, vague hints of some unusual engineering developments began to be found in documents. Polish journalist Igor Witkowski conducted his own investigation and wrote the book “The Truth about Wunderwaffe”, from which the world learned about the top-secret project “Die Glocke”. Later, a book by British journalist Nick Cook, “The Hunt for Point Zero,” appeared, which explored similar matters.
Witkovsky was absolutely sure that Die Glocke was intended to be a breakthrough in the field of space technology, and was intended to generate fuel for hundreds of thousands of flying saucers. More precisely, disc-shaped aircraft with a crew of one or two people. They say that at the end of April 1945, the Nazis planned to use these devices to carry out Operation “Spear of Satan” - to strike Moscow, London and New York. About 1,000 finished “UFOs” were allegedly subsequently captured by the Americans - in underground factories in the Czech Republic and Austria. Is it true? Maybe. After all, the US National Archives declassified documents from 1956, which confirm that the development of the “flying saucer” was carried out by the Nazis. Norwegian historian Gudrun Stensen believes that at least four Kammler flying disks were “captured” by the Soviet army from a factory in Breslau, however, Stalin did not pay enough attention to the “saucers”, since he was more interested in the nuclear bomb.
There are even more exotic theories about the purpose of Die Glocke: according to the US writer Henry Stevens, author of the book “Hitler's Weapons - Still Secret!”, the bell was not a spacecraft, it worked on red mercury, and was intended for time travel .
Polish intelligence services neither confirm nor deny Witkowski’s research: the interrogation protocols of SS Gruppenführer Sporrenberg are still classified. Vitkovsky insisted on this version: Hans Kammler took the “Bell” to America, and no one knows where it is now.
12. Nazi "golden train"
World War II documents prove that in 1945, during the retreat, the Nazis removed from Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) an armored train loaded with valuables and tons of gold confiscated from the governments of occupied countries and seized from people who ended their lives in concentration camps. The train was 150 meters long and could contain up to 300 tons of gold!
Allied forces recovered some of the Nazi gold at the end of the war, but most of it, apparently loaded onto a train, disappeared into oblivion. The train was carrying precious cargo from Wroclaw to Walbrzych, however, it disappeared on the way, under still unclear circumstances - as it fell into the ground. And since 1945, no one has seen the train again, and all attempts to find it have been unsuccessful.
In the vicinity of Walbrzych there is an old tunnel system built by the Nazis, in one of which, according to local legends, the missing train stands. Local residents believe that the train may be located in an abandoned tunnel that existed on the railway between Walbrzych and the town of Swiebodzice. The entrance to the tunnel is most likely somewhere under an embankment near the Wałbrzych station. From time to time, this same Walbrzych begins to feel feverish from the next message about the discovery of treasures from the time of the Third Reich.
Specialists of the Mining and Metallurgical Academy named after. Stanislav Staszic in 2015 seemed to have completed the operation to search for the ghostly “golden train”. Apparently, the search engines were unable to make any grand discoveries. Although during the work they used modern technology, for example, a cesium magnetometer, which measures the level of the earth's magnetic field.
According to the laws of Poland, if a treasure is discovered, it must be handed over to the state. Although what a treasure this is...obviously part of captured property! The chief custodian of Polish antiquities, Piotr Zuchowski, recommended refraining from searching for treasures on his own, since the missing train could be mined. So far, Russian, Polish and Israeli media are closely following the search for the Nazi armored train. Theoretically, each of these countries can lay claim to part of the find.
11. Planes are ghosts
Phantoms of crashed planes are a sad and beautiful legend. Specialists in anomalous phenomena know of many cases of aircraft appearing in the sky, which date back to the time of the last war. They are seen in the skies over British Sheffield, and over the notorious Peak District in the north of Derbyshire (more than five dozen planes crashed there), and in other places.
Richard and Helen Jason were among the first to report such a story when they spotted a World War II bomber in the skies of Derbyshire. They remembered that he was flying very low, but surprisingly quietly, silently, without making a single sound. And the ghost just disappeared at some point. Richard, being an Air Force veteran, believes it was an American Bi-24 Liberator bomber with 4 engines.
They say that such phenomena are observed in Russia. As if in clear weather in the sky above the village of Yadrovo, Volokolamsk region, you can hear the characteristic sounds of a low-flying plane, after which you can see a slightly blurred silhouette of a burning Messerschmitt trying to land.
10. The story of the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg
The story of the life, and especially the death, of Raoul Gustav Wallenberg is one of those that is interpreted completely differently by Western and domestic sources. They agree on one thing - he was a hero who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. Tens of thousands. He sent them so-called protective passports of Swedish citizens awaiting repatriation to their homeland, and thereby saved them from concentration camps. By the time Budapest was liberated, these people were already safe, thanks to papers from Wallenberg and his associates. Raoul also managed to convince several German generals not to carry out Hitler's orders to transport Jews to death camps and he prevented the destruction of the Budapest ghetto in the last days before the Red Army advance. If this version is correct, then Wallenberg managed to save at least 100 thousand Hungarian Jews! But what happened to Raul himself after 1945 is obvious to Western historians (rotted by the bloody KGB in the dungeons of the Lubyanka), but for ours it is not so clear.
According to the most common version, after the capture of Budapest by Soviet troops on January 13, 1945, Wallenberg, along with his driver, was detained by a Soviet patrol in the building of the International Red Cross (according to another version, he himself came to the location of the 151st Infantry Division and asked for a meeting with the Soviet command; according to the third version, he was arrested by the NKVD in his apartment). After this, he was sent to the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Malinovsky. But on the way he was again detained and arrested by military counterintelligence officers SMERSH. According to another version, after his arrest at his apartment, Wallenberg was sent to the headquarters of the Soviet troops. On March 8, 1945, Budapest Radio Kossuth, which was under Soviet control, reported that Raoul Wallenberg had died during street fighting in Budapest.
Western media consider it proven that Raoul Wallenberg was arrested and transported to Moscow, where he was kept in the internal MGB prison at Lubyanka. The Swedes tried unsuccessfully for many years to find out the fate of the arrested man. In August 1947, Vyshinsky officially stated that Wallenberg was not in the USSR and that the Soviet authorities knew nothing about him. But in February 1957, Moscow no less officially informed the Swedish government that Wallenberg had died on July 17, 1947 in a cell in the Lubyanka prison from a myocardial infarction. No autopsy was performed, and the story about the heart attack did not convince either Raul’s relatives or the world community. Moscow and Stockholm agreed to investigate the case within the framework of a bilateral commission, but in 2001 the commission concluded that the search had reached a dead end and ceased to exist. There are unconfirmed reports that refer to Wallenberg as “Prisoner No. 7,” who was interrogated in July 1947, a week (!) after he allegedly died of a heart attack.
Several documentaries and feature films have been made about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, but none of them reveals the mystery of his death.
9. The Fuhrer's missing globe
The "Führer's Globe" is one of the giant models of the "Columbus Globe", released for leaders of states and enterprises in two limited batches in Berlin in the mid-1930s (and in the second batch, adjustments were already made to the world map). The same Hitler globe was commissioned for the headquarters of the Reich Chancellery by the architect Albert Speer. The globe was huge; it can be seen in the newsreel of the opening of the new Reich Chancellery building in 1939. Where exactly that globe went from the headquarters is unknown. At auctions here and there, from time to time another “Hitler’s globe” is sold, thousands of them for 100 euros.
American World War II veteran John Barsamian found the globe a few days after the surrender of Nazi Germany, in the bombed alpine residence of the Fuhrer, the Eagle's Nest, in the mountains above Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. The American veteran also sold at auction a package of military documents from those years that allowed him to take the globe to the United States. The permit states the following: "One globe, language - German, origin - Eagle's Nest residence."
Experts note that in different collections there are several globes that allegedly belonged to Hitler. However, the globe found by Barsamyan has the best chance of being considered real: its authenticity is confirmed by a photograph showing Lieutenant Barsamyan with a globe in his hands - in the Eagle's Nest.
Once upon a time, Charlie Chaplin in his film “The Great Dictator” showed Hitler’s globe as his main and favorite accessory. But Hitler himself hardly particularly valued the globe, because not a single photograph of Hitler with its background has survived (which, in general, is pure speculation and assumptions).
Before Barsamyan’s discovery, Western media categorically stated that Lavrentiy Beria personally stole the globe, apparently believing that he had captured not only Berlin, but the entire globe. Well, we cannot deny that it is likely that the Fuhrer’s personal globe still stands in one of the offices at Lubyanka.
8. Treasures of General Rommel
Nicknamed the “Desert Fox,” Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was undoubtedly the outstanding commander of the Third Reich; he confidently won the First World War, his name inspired horror and fear in the Italians and British. In World War II he was less fortunate: the Reich sent him to lead military operations in North Africa. SS-Sturmbannführer Schmidt led a special “division-Schutzkommando” in the Middle East: following in the footsteps of Rommel’s army, this team robbed museums, banks, private collections, libraries and jewelry stores in the cities of North Africa. They mainly took gold, currency, antiques and art treasures. The looting continued until Rommel's corps began to suffer defeats and the Germans began to retreat, suffering losses under continuous British bombing.
In April 1943, the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition landed in Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, and pressed the Germans to Cape Bon Peninsula, along with all the looted belongings (none of this, by the way, is “Rommel’s gold”, rather these are African SS treasures) . Schmidt found an opportunity to load valuables into 6 containers and went out to sea on ships towards Corsica. Further opinions differ. They say that the SS men reached Corsica, but American aircraft swooped in and destroyed them. There is also the most beautiful version that Sturmbannführer Schmidt managed to hide or drown treasures near the Corsican coast, which was replete with hiding places, grottoes and underwater caves.
"Rommel's treasures" have been searched for all these years and are still being sought. At the end of 2007, Briton Terry Hodgkinson said that he knew exactly where to dig - at the bottom of the sea at a distance of just under a nautical mile from the Corsican city of Bestia. However, nothing has happened so far and the treasure has not been found.
7. Foo fighters are UFOs
No, we're not talking about Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters, but the World War II phenomenon that his band was named after. The term Foo Fighters is taken from the slang of Allied pilots - this is how they called unidentified flying objects and strange atmospheric phenomena that they saw in the skies over Europe and the Pacific Ocean.
Coined by the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the term "pho fighters" was subsequently officially adopted by the US military in November 1944. Pilots flying at night over Germany began reporting sightings of fast-moving luminous objects following their aircraft. They have been described in various ways, usually as red, orange or white balls that perform complex maneuvers before suddenly disappearing. According to the pilots, the objects followed the planes and generally behaved as if they were being controlled by someone, but did not show hostility; It was not possible to break away from them or shoot them down. Reports of them appeared so often that such objects received their own name - foo fighters, or, less commonly, kraut fireballs. The military took observations of these objects seriously, as they suspected that they were a secret weapon of the Germans. But it later turned out that German and Japanese pilots had observed similar objects.
On January 15, 1945, Time magazine published a story entitled "Foo Fighter", which reported that US Air Force fighters had been chasing "fireballs" for more than a month. After the war, a group was created to study such phenomena, which proposed several possible explanations: it could be electrostatic phenomena similar to St. Elmo's fire, or optical illusions. In general, there is an opinion that if the term “flying saucers” had already been coined then, in 1943-1945, foo fighters would have fallen into this category.
6. Where did the "Bloody Flag" go?
The Blutfahne or "Blood Flag" is the first Nazi shrine to appear after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich (an unsuccessful attempt to seize government power by the National Socialist Workers' Party led by Hitler and General Ludendorff; they and about 600 supporters were defeated in Munich beer pub "Bürgerbräukeller", where the Prime Minister of Bavaria gave a speech). Approximately 16 Nazis died, many were wounded, and Hitler was arrested and convicted of treason. By the way, he spent his time in Landsberg prison under very lenient conditions, and it was there that most of his main book was written.
The Nazis who died during the Beer Hall Putsch were later declared martyrs, and the events themselves were declared the National Revolution. The flag under which they marched (and on which, according to the official version, drops of the blood of the “martyrs” fell) was later used during the “blessing” of party banners: at party congresses in Nuremberg, Adolf Hitler attached new flags to the “sacred” banner. It was believed that its touch to other flags endowed them with divine power, and SS officers swore allegiance exclusively to this banner. The "Bloody Flag" even had a keeper - Jacob Grimminger.
The flag was last seen in October 1944, during one of Himmler's ceremonies. It was initially believed that the Allies destroyed the flag during the bombing of Munich. Nobody knows what happened to him next: whether he was saved and taken out of the country, or whether he was thrown to the walls of the mausoleum in Moscow in 1945. The fate of Jacob Grimminger, unlike the “Bloody Flag,” is known to historians. He not only survived the war, but also took up a minor post as a representative of the city administration in Munich.
5. The Ghost of Pearl Harbor - P-40
One of the most intriguing ghost planes of World War II was the P-40 fighter that crashed near Pearl Harbor. Doesn't sound too mysterious, does it? Only this plane was later seen in the sky - a year after the Japanese attack.
On December 8, 1942, American radar detected a plane heading directly for Pearl Harbor from Japan. Two fighter jets were tasked with checking and quickly intercepting the mysterious aircraft. It was a P-40 fighter that had been used in the defense of Pearl Harbor the year before. What was even stranger was that the plane was on fire and the pilot was apparently killed. The P-40 dived to the ground and crashed.
Rescue teams were sent immediately, but they were unable to find the pilot - the cabin was empty. There was no sign of the pilot! But they found a flight diary, which reported that the specified plane was on the island of Mindanao, 1,300 miles in the Pacific Ocean. But if he was the wounded defender of Pearl Harbor, how did he survive on the island for a year, how did he lift the crashed plane into the sky? And where did he go? What happened to his body? This remains one of the most baffling mysteries.
4. Who were the 17 British from Auschwitz?
In 2009, historians conducted excavations on the territory of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. They discovered a strange list that contained the names of 17 British soldiers. Opposite the names there were some signs - ticks. Nobody knows why this list was created. Also, several German words were written on the paper, but these words did not help in solving the mystery (“since then,” “never,” and “now”).
There are several assumptions about the purpose of this list and who these soldiers were. The first assumption is that British prisoners of war were used as skilled workers. Many were housed in Auschwitz in camp E715, where they were assigned to lay cables and pipes. Another theory is that the names of British soldiers on the list are the names of traitors who worked for the CC unit during the war - they may have been part of the secret British Schutzstaffel (SS) brigade that fought for the Nazis against the Allies. None of these theories have been proven to date.
3. Who betrayed Anne Frank?
The diary of a 15-year-old Jewish girl, Anne Frank, made her name famous throughout the world. In July 1942, with the beginning of the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands, the Frank family (father, mother, older sister Margot and Anna) took refuge in a secret room in the office of their father's company in Amsterdam, at 263 Prinsengracht, along with four other Dutch Jews. They hid in this shelter until 1944. Friends and colleagues delivered food and clothing to the Franks at great risk to their lives.
Anna kept a diary from June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944. At first she wrote for herself, but in the spring of 1944 the girl heard on the radio a speech by the Minister of Education of the Netherlands: all evidence of the period of occupation should become public domain. Impressed by his words, Anna decided after the war to publish a book based on her diary. And from that moment she began to write not only for herself, but thinking about future readers.
In 1944, the authorities received a denunciation of a group of Jews hiding, and the Dutch police with the Gestapo came to the house where the Frank family was hiding. Behind a bookcase they found the door where the Frank family had been hiding for 25 months. Everyone was immediately arrested. An informant who made an anonymous phone call, which led to the Gestapo, but has not yet been identified - the informer's name was not in the police reports. History offers us the names of three alleged informers: Tonny Ahlers, Willem van Maaren and Lena van Bladeren-Hartoch, all of whom knew the Franks, and each of them could have feared arrest for failure to inform. But historians do not have an exact answer as to who betrayed Anne Frank and her family.
Anna and her sister were sent to forced labor at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany. Both sisters died from a typhoid epidemic that broke out in the camp in March 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated. Their mother died in Auschwitz in early January 1945.
Otto, Anna's father, was the only one in the family to survive the war. He remained in Auschwitz until its liberation by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. After the war, Otto received from a family friend, Miep Heath, who helped them hide, Anna’s notes that she had collected and saved. Otto Frank published the first edition of these notes in 1947 in the original language under the title “In the Back Wing” (a shortened version of the diary, with notes of a personal and censorship nature). The book was published in Germany in 1950. The first Russian edition, entitled “The Diary of Anne Frank,” in a magnificent translation by Rita Wright-Kovaleva, was published in 1960.
2. Amber room
Treasures that have mysteriously disappeared are doubly attractive. The Amber Room - “the eighth wonder of the world” - has always been the object of desire for rulers and kings. They say that Peter I literally begged her from Frederick during a meeting in November 1716, when an alliance between Russia and Prussia was concluded. Peter I immediately boasted of the gift in a letter to Catherine: “... he gave me... the Yantarny office, which has long been desired.” The Amber Cabinet was packed and transported with great precautions from Prussia to St. Petersburg in 1717. Amber mosaic panels were installed in the lower hall of the People's Chambers in the Summer Garden.
In 1743, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna instructed Master Martelli, under the supervision of Chief Architect Rastrelli, to expand the office. There were clearly not enough Prussian panels for the large hall, and Rastrelli introduced gilded wooden carvings, mirrors and mosaic paintings of agate and jasper into the decoration. And by 1770, under the supervision of Rastrelli, the office was transformed into the famous Amber Room of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, adding in size and luxury.
The Amber Room was rightfully considered the pearl of the summer residence of the Russian emperors in Tsarskoe Selo. And this famous masterpiece disappeared without a trace during World War II. Well, not completely without a trace.
The Germans purposefully went to Tsarskoe Selo for the Amber Room, it seems that even before the start of the war, Alfred Rohde promised Hitler to return the treasure to its historical homeland. There was no time to dismantle and evacuate the room, and the invaders took it to Königsberg. After 1945, when the Nazis were driven out of Königsberg by Soviet troops, traces of the Amber Room were lost. Some of its fragments pop up around the world from time to time - for example, one of the four Florentine mosaics was found. It was believed that the room burned down in the ruins of Königsberg Castle. It is believed that the room was discovered by special units of the American army searching for art objects stolen by the Nazis, and secretly taken to the United States, after which it fell into the hands of private collectors. It was also assumed that the Amber Room was sunk along with the steamship Wilhelm Gustloff, or it could have been on the cruiser Prinz Eugen transferred to the United States as part of reparations.
During the Soviet Union, they searched carefully for the Amber Room, and the search was supervised by the State Security Committee. But they didn’t find it. And three decades later, in the 1970s, it was decided to start restoring the Amber Room from scratch. Mainly Kaliningrad amber was used. And today an accurately recreated copy of the lost treasure can be seen in Tsarskoye Selo, in the Catherine Palace. Perhaps she is even more beautiful than before.
1. Link No. 19
This is perhaps the most widely circulated of the mystical stories of the Second World War. Flight 19 (Flight 19) of five Avenger torpedo bombers, which performed a training flight on December 5, 1945, which ended in the loss under unclear circumstances of all five vehicles, as well as the PBM-5 Martin Mariner rescue seaplane sent in search of them " This miracle is considered one of the strangest and most unusual not only in the history of US Navy aviation, but also in the history of all world aviation.
This happened a few months after the end of the war. On December 5, 1945, as part of flight No. 19, a flight of 4 Avenger torpedo bombers, controlled by US Marine Corps and Fleet Aviation pilots, who were undergoing a retraining program for this type of aircraft, led by the fifth torpedo bomber, piloted by Marine Corps instructor pilot Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor was required to complete a routine exercise from the refresher program course. “Navigation Exercise No. 1” was a typical one - it involved flying over the ocean along a route with two turns and training bombing. The route was a standard one, and this and similar routes in the Bahamas area were systematically used for naval pilot training throughout World War II. The crew was experienced, the flight leader, Lieutenant Taylor, had flown about 2,500 hours on this type of torpedo bomber, and his cadets were also not beginners - they had a total flight time of 350 to 400 hours, of which at least 55 hours on “Avengers” of this type.
The planes took off from the Navy base in Fort Lauderdale, successfully completed a training mission, but then some nonsense begins. The flight goes off course, Taylor turns on the emergency radio beacon and finds himself in direction finding - within a radius of 100 miles from the point with coordinates 29°15′ N. w. 79°00′ W d. Then they change course several times, but cannot understand where they are: Lieutenant Taylor decided that the planes of the flight were over the Gulf of Mexico (it seems that this error was a consequence of his belief that the islands over which they flew were the Florida archipelago Keys, and a flight to the northeast should take them to the Florida peninsula). The fuel runs out, Taylor gives the command to splash down, and...there is never any more news from them. The PBM-5 Martin “Mariner” rescue seaplane that took off found no one and nothing, and itself also disappeared.
Later, a large-scale operation was carried out to search for the missing aircraft, involving three hundred army and navy aircraft and twenty-one ships. National Guard units and volunteers scoured the Florida coast, Florida Keys and Bahamas for debris. The operation was terminated without success after a few weeks, and all the lost crews were officially declared missing.
The Navy investigation initially placed the blame on Lt. Taylor; however, they later changed the official report and the loss of the link was described as occurring for "unknown reasons." Neither the pilots' bodies nor the aircraft were ever found. This story seriously added to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle legend.
These 15 facts are considered mystical and mysterious by the media of those countries that during World War II called themselves allies of the USSR. Whether to share their views on that war and their ability to list many facts, but never mention the USSR as the winner of Nazism, is a personal matter for everyone. What is certain is that any war gives rise to myths and legends that will survive for many more generations.
This article contains an analysis of the main false myths about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, as well as some events related to the war that occurred before it began or after its end. The article examines myths and theories purposefully invented by Russophobes or resulting from illiterate reasoning of people who do not know or are trying to denigrate the history of Russia and the USSR. The article does not consider folk myths about the war, which do not denigrate, but only somewhat distort or exaggerate events. Also, the article does not discuss conspiracy theories, hypotheses about secret behind-the-scenes games and other conjectures and alternative interpretations of events, documents about which are classified as “secret”.Submyth: Russian soldiers took bicycles from German women
A photograph has been widely circulated in which a Russian soldier allegedly takes a bicycle from a German woman. In fact, the photographer captured a misunderstanding. In the original Life magazine publication, the caption under the photo reads: “A misunderstanding occurred between a Russian soldier and a German woman in Berlin over a bicycle he wanted to buy from her.”
More detailed comments from the author of the photo are also available:
“A Russian soldier tries to buy a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945.
The misunderstanding happened after a Russian soldier tried to buy a bicycle from a German woman in Berlin.
Having given her the money for the bicycle, he believes that the deal has been completed. However, the woman thinks differently.”
In addition, experts believe that the photo is not a Russian soldier. The cap he is wearing is Yugoslavian, the roller cap is not worn in the same way as was customary in the Soviet army, and the material of the rollercoat is also not Soviet. Soviet rolling sheets were made of first-class felt and did not wrinkle as much as can be seen in the photograph.
