About June 22, 1941 for children. The day the war began. June. Russia - USA: Before the fight

According to the widely known version, the Great Patriotic War began on June 22 at 4:00 am. It was this date and time that became the commemoration of the most severe, bloody and merciless war. They are reflected in textbooks, folk art and have forever been deposited in the minds of millions of people. There are versions that the first military strikes were delivered earlier. So when did the Germans take their first steps and which cities were the first to suffer from the raids of the fascist invaders?

Among the first

June 22, 1941 in the USSR was not just a Sunday, it was a great Orthodox holiday - the Day of All Saints Who Shone in the Land of Russia. The invaders carried out attacks all along the border. In his speech on the radio on June 22, Molotov named Kiev, Zhitomir, Sevastopol, and Kaunas among the first cities to be bombed. Historians often mention Odessa as well.

Target - airfields

Some sources claim that the targets of the first raids of the fascists were not at all the settlements themselves. Enemies bombed airfields in order to destroy as many Soviet fighters as possible. Along the way, settlements located in the immediate vicinity suffered from their actions. In his memoirs, Khrushchev, describing the raids on Kiev, indicates that they damaged the planes in the hangars.

In the 60s it became known that in the first hours of the German attacks 66 Soviet airfields were attacked. Almost all of them were located near the border. This made it possible for the enemies to carry out several raids and inflict enormous damage on Soviet aviation. According to official data, 1,200 combat vehicles were destroyed that day, some historians call the figure 1,800 aircraft.

Air strikes on Kiev began on June 22 at about 4:00 am. Bombs fell on enterprises and industries, bridges and highways, airfields. As a result of the first attack, more than 20 people died, more than 75 were injured of varying severity.

Despite the surprise attack, there was no panic in the city that day. The order for general mobilization was received only the next day - June 23. In one day, more than 200,000 representatives of the male population were drafted into the ranks of the Soviet army. On the 24th, reports of hostilities appeared in local newspapers.

Zhitomir, named by Molotov in his speech among the first to take the blow, learned about the war early in the morning on June 22. At 6 o'clock in the morning, an operational headquarters was formed there. The military registration and enlistment offices began to mobilize. The regional committee and the regional executive committee received information that the outskirts of Zhitomir were subjected to air strikes.

However, according to the memoirs of Vladimir Perov, who at that time held the post of chairman of the Zhytomyr Regional Executive Committee, on the first day of the war, Nazi planes flew over the city, but on June 22 Zhitomir survived without bombing. And only on the 24th the city was fired upon by German planes, 12 bombs were thrown on Zhitomir.

In official reports, the attack of the German air forces on Kaunas took place at 4:20 p.m. on June 22, 1941. After air strikes, enemy tanks, artillery and infantry launched an offensive, concentrating the main strike forces on the Kaunas-Vilnius front.

Throughout the day, German fighters destroyed warehouses, communication centers, settlements, airfields and caused huge damage to the city.

In Odessa on June 22, a general mobilization was announced. Initially, only men of a certain age were allowed - from 1908 to 1918 years of birth. But at the same time, the number of volunteers of other ages grew very quickly, everyone wanted to defend the Motherland. After 3 days, martial law was officially introduced in Odessa, its suburbs. Interestingly, in the first month of hostilities, theaters and cultural institutions functioned as usual, the inhabitants of the city did not experience all the horrors of the war.

There is a version that in the very first days of the war Odessa was saved by the excessive self-confidence of the German command. Historian Viktor Savchenko claims that the invaders considered Odessa as the capital of the territory controlled by Romania. They believed that the city would fall quickly and did not launch airstrikes against it. The first bomb exploded in Odessa only a month later - on July 22.

Sevastopol

The war came to Sevastopol earlier than to other cities of the Soviet Union - the first bombs were dropped on the city at 3:15 am. Earlier, the officially approved time of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. It was at 3 hours 15 minutes that the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky, called the capital and reported to Admiral Kuznetsov that an air raid had been made on Sevastopol and anti-aircraft artillery was returning fire.

The Germans tried to block the fleet. They dropped bottom non-contact mines of enormous power. The bombs were dropped by parachute when the projectile reached the surface of the water, the mounts were torn off, and the bomb went to the bottom. These mines had specific targets - Soviet ships. But one of them fell on a residential area - about 20 people died, more than 100 were injured.

Warships and air defense systems were ready to retaliate. As early as 03.06, the chief of staff of the Black Sea Fleet, Rear Admiral Ivan Eliseev, gave the order to open fire on fascist planes that had invaded far into the airspace of the USSR. With this, he left a mark in a series of historical events - he gave the first military order to repel enemy attacks.

It is interesting that for a long time Eliseev's feat was either hushed up, or adjusted to the framework of the official chronology of military operations. That is why in some sources you can find information that the order was given at 4 o'clock in the morning. In those days, this order was issued contrary to the orders of the higher military command and, according to the laws, it was supposed to be shot.

June 22 at 3:48 in Sevastopol already had the first victims of the Great Patriotic War. 12 minutes before the official announcement of the outbreak of hostilities, German bombs cut off the lives of civilians. A monument to the first victims of the war was built in Sevastopol in memory of them.

June, 22. An ordinary Sunday afternoon. More than 200 million citizens are planning how to spend their day off: go on a visit, take their children to the zoo, someone is in a hurry to go to football, someone on a date. Soon they will become heroes and victims of war, killed and wounded, soldiers and refugees, blockade and concentration camp prisoners, partisans, prisoners of war, orphans, and invalids. Winners and veterans of the Great Patriotic War. But none of them know about it yet.

In 1941 The Soviet Union was quite firmly on its feet - industrialization and collectivization bore fruit, industry developed - out of ten tractors produced in the world, four were Soviet-made. Dneproges and Magnitka have been built, the army is being re-equipped - the famous T-34 tank, Yak-1, MIG-3 fighters, Il-2 attack aircraft, Pe-2 bomber have already entered service with the Red Army. The world situation is turbulent, but the Soviet people are confident that "the armor is strong and our tanks are fast." In addition, two years ago, after three hours of negotiations in Moscow, the USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov and the German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years.

After an abnormally cold winter of 1940-1941. a rather warm summer has come to Moscow. There are attractions in the Gorky Park, and football matches are held at the Dynamo Stadium. The Mosfilm film studio is preparing the main premiere in the summer of 1941 - the editing of the lyrical comedy Hearts of Four, which will only be released in 1945, has just been completed here. Starring the favorite of Joseph Stalin and all Soviet moviegoers, actress Valentina Serova.

June 1941 Astrakhan. Near the village of Linear

1941 Astrakhan. On the Caspian Sea

July 1, 1940. A scene from the film "My Love" directed by Vladimir Korsh-Sablin. In the center is actress Lydia Smirnova as Shurochka

April 1941 A peasant welcomes the first Soviet tractor

July 12, 1940. Residents of Uzbekistan work on the construction of a section of the Great Fergana Canal

August 9, 1940, Byelorussian SSR. Collective farmers of the village of Tonezh, Turovsky district, Polesie region for a walk after a hard day

May 05, 1941 Kliment Voroshilov, Mikhail Kalinin, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrey Andreev, Alexander Shcherbakov, Georgy Malenkov, Semyon Timoshenko, Georgy Zhukov, Andrey Eremenko, Semyon Budyonny, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and others on the presidium of the ceremonial meeting dedicated to the graduation commanders who graduated from military academies. Joseph Stalin speaking

June 1, 1940. Civil defense training in the village of Dikanka. Ukraine, Poltava region

In the spring and summer of 1941, exercises of the Soviet military began to be held more and more often on the western borders of the USSR. A war is already in full swing in Europe. Rumors are reaching the Soviet leadership that Germany may attack at any moment. But such messages are often ignored, as a non-aggression pact was recently signed.
August 20, 1940. Villagers talk with tankers during military exercises

Higher and higher and higher
We strive for the flight of our birds,
And in every propeller breathes
Calmness of our borders ”.

Soviet song, better known as "March of the Aviators"

June 1, 1941. An I-16 fighter is suspended under the wing of the TB-3 aircraft, under the wing of which a high-explosive bomb weighing 250 kg

September 28, 1939 USSR People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop shake hands after signing the joint Soviet-German Treaty on Friendship and Border

Field Marshal V. Keitel, Colonel General W. von Brauchitsch, A. Hitler, Colonel General F. Halder (from left to right in the foreground) near the table with a map during a meeting of the General Staff. In 1940, Adolf Hitler signed the main directive number 21 under the code name "Barbarossa"

On June 17, 1941 V.N.Merkulov sent to I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov an agent message received by the NKGB of the USSR from Berlin:

“A source working at the headquarters of the German aviation reports:
1. All German military measures in preparation for an armed attack against the USSR are completely over, and a strike can be expected at any time.

2. In the circles of the aviation headquarters, the TASS message of June 6 was perceived very ironically. They emphasize that this statement cannot have any meaning ... "

There is a resolution (regarding point 2): “Comrade Merkulov. You can send your "source" from the headquarters of the German aviation to the fucking mother. This is not a “source”, but a disinformer. I. Stalin "

July 1, 1940 Marshal Semyon Timoshenko (right), General of the Army Georgy Zhukov (left) and General of the Army Kirill Meretskov (2 left) during an exercise in the 99th Infantry Division of the Kiev Special Military District

June 21, 21:00

At the site of the Sokal commandant's office, a German soldier, corporal Alfred Liskof, was detained, having swam across the Bug river.

From the testimony of the chief of the 90th border detachment, Major Bychkovsky:“In view of the fact that the translators in the detachment are weak, I called the teacher of the German language from the city ... and Liskoff repeated the same thing again, that is, that the Germans were preparing to attack the USSR at dawn on June 22, 1941 ... Ustilug (first commandant's office) heavy artillery fire. I realized that it was the Germans who opened fire on our territory, which was confirmed immediately by the interrogated soldier. He immediately began to call the commandant, but the connection was broken. "

21:30

In Moscow, a conversation took place between the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov and the German Ambassador Schulenburg. Molotov protested against numerous violations of the USSR border by German aircraft. Schulenburg avoided answering.

From the memoirs of corporal Hans Teuchler:“At 22 o'clock we were lined up and read out the order of the Fuehrer. Finally, we were told directly why we are here. Not at all for throwing into Persia to punish the British with the permission of the Russians. And not in order to lull the vigilance of the British, and then quickly transfer troops to the English Channel and land in England. No. We - soldiers of the Great Reich - are in for a war with the Soviet Union itself. But there is no such force that could hold back the movement of our armies. For the Russians it will be a real war, for us it will be just a Victory. We will pray for her. "

June 22, 00:30

Directive No. 1 was sent to the districts, containing an order to secretly occupy firing points on the border, not to succumb to provocations and to bring the troops on alert.

From the memoirs of the German general Heinz Guderian:“On the fateful day of June 22 at 2.10 am I went to the command post of the group ...
At 3:15 pm, our artillery preparation began.
At 3 hours 40 minutes - the first raid of our dive bombers.
At 4:15 am, the crossing of the Bug began. "

03:07

The commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Oktyabrsky, called the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Georgy Zhukov and said that a large number of unknown aircraft were approaching from the sea; the fleet is on full alert. The admiral offered to meet them with naval air defense fire. He was instructed: "Take action and report to your People's Commissar."

03:30

The Chief of Staff of the Western District, Major General Vladimir Klimovskikh, reported on the German air raid on the cities of Belarus. Three minutes later, the chief of staff of the Kiev district, General Purkaev, reported on the air raid on the cities of Ukraine. At 03:40 am, the commander of the Baltic region, General Kuznetsov, announced a raid on Kaunas and other cities.

From the memoirs of I.I.Geibo, deputy regiment commander of the 46th IAP, ZapVO:“... My chest went cold. In front of me are four twin-engined bombers with black crosses on their wings. I even bit my lip. Why, these are Junkers! German Ju-88 bombers! What to do? .. Another thought arose: "Today is Sunday, and Germans do not have training flights on Sundays." Is it a war? Yes, war! "

03:40

People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko asks Zhukov to report to Stalin about the beginning of hostilities. Stalin, in response, ordered that all members of the Politburo be assembled in the Kremlin. At this point, Brest, Grodno, Lida, Kobrin, Slonim, Baranovich, Bobruisk, Volkovysk, Kiev, Zhitomir, Sevastopol, Riga, Vindava, Libava, Shauliai, Kaunas, Vilnius and many other cities were bombed.

From the memoirs of Alevtina Kotik, born in 1925 (Lithuania):“I woke up from the fact that I hit my head on the bed - the earth shook from the falling bombs. I ran to my parents. The Pope said, “The war has begun. We must get out of here! " We did not know with whom the war began, we did not think about it, it was just very scary. Dad was a military man, and therefore he was able to call a car for us, which took us to the railway station. They took only their clothes with them. All furniture and household utensils remained. First, we rode a freight train. I remember how my mother covered me and my brother with her body, then they got on a passenger train. The fact that the war with Germany was learned somewhere around 12 o'clock from the people we met. Near the town of Shauliai, we saw a large number of wounded, stretchers, doctors. "

At the same time, the Belostok-Minsk battle began, as a result of which the main forces of the Soviet Western Front were surrounded and defeated. German troops captured a significant part of Belarus and advanced to a depth of over 300 km. On the part of the Soviet Union, 11 rifle, 2 cavalry, 6 tank and 4 motorized divisions were destroyed in the Bialystok and Minsk "boilers", 3 corps commanders and 2 division commanders were killed, 2 corps commanders and 6 division commanders were captured, 1 corps commander and 2 commanders divisions were missing.

04:10

The Western and Baltic special districts reported on the beginning of hostilities by German troops in the land sectors.

04:12

German bombers appeared over Sevastopol. The enemy raid was repulsed, and the attempt to strike at the ships was thwarted, but residential buildings and warehouses were damaged in the city.

From the memoirs of Anatoly Marsanov from Sevastopol:“I was then only five years old ... The only thing that remained in my memory: on the night of June 22, parachutes appeared in the sky. It became light, I remember, the whole city was lit up, everyone was running, such joyful ones ... They were shouting: “Parachutists! Parachutists! ”... They do not know that these are mines. And they gasped - one in the bay, the other - down the street below us, so many people killed! "

04:15

The defense of the Brest Fortress began. The first attack by 04:55 the Germans occupied almost half of the fortress.

From the memoirs of the defender of the Brest Fortress Pyotr Kotelnikov, born in 1929:“In the morning we were awakened by a strong blow. Broke through the roof. I was stunned. I saw the wounded and killed, I realized that this was no longer an exercise, but a war. Most of the soldiers in our barracks were killed in the first seconds. I followed the adults rushing to arms, but they didn’t give me a rifle. Then I with one of the Red Army men rushed to extinguish the clothing warehouse. Then I went with the soldiers to the cellars of the barracks of the neighboring 333rd Infantry Regiment ... We helped the wounded, carried them ammunition, food, water. Through the western wing we made our way to the river at night to get water, and came back. "

05:00

Moscow time, Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop summoned Soviet diplomats to his office. When they arrived, he informed them about the beginning of the war. The last thing he said to the ambassadors was: "Tell Moscow that I was against the attack." After that, telephones did not work in the embassy, ​​and the building itself was surrounded by SS detachments.

5:30

Schulenburg officially informed Molotov about the beginning of the war between Germany and the USSR, reading a note: “Bolshevik Moscow is ready to strike in the back of National Socialist Germany, which is fighting for existence. The German government cannot be indifferent to the serious threat on the eastern border. Therefore, the Fuehrer ordered the German armed forces to avert this threat by all means and means ... "

From the memoirs of Molotov:"The adviser to the German ambassador, Hilger, shed a tear when he handed the note."

From the memoirs of Hilger:“He gave vent to his indignation, saying that Germany attacked a country with which it had a non-aggression pact. This has no precedent in history. The reason given by the German side is an empty pretext ... Molotov concluded his angry speech with the words: “We did not give any grounds for this”.

07:15

Directive No. 2 was issued, instructing the USSR troops to destroy enemy forces in areas where the border was violated, to destroy enemy aircraft, and also to “bomb Konigsberg and Memel” (modern Kaliningrad and Klaipeda). The USSR Air Force was allowed to enter "the depth of German territory up to 100-150 km." At the same time, the first counterattack of Soviet troops took place near the Lithuanian town of Alytus.

09:00

At 7:00 Berlin time, Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda Josef Goebbels read on the radio Adolf Hitler's appeal to the German people in connection with the outbreak of the war against the Soviet Union: “... Today I decided to put the fate and future of the German Reich and our people back into our hands soldier. May the Lord help us in this struggle! "

09:30

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail Kalinin signed a number of decrees, including a decree on the imposition of martial law, on the formation of the Headquarters of the High Command, on military tribunals and on general mobilization, which was subject to all persons liable for military service from 1905 to 1918 born.

10:00

German bombers raided Kiev and its suburbs. The railway station, the Bolshevik plant, the aircraft plant, power plants, military airfields, and residential buildings were bombed. According to official figures, 25 people died as a result of the bombing, according to unofficial figures, there were many more victims. However, a peaceful life continued in the capital of Ukraine for several more days. Only the opening of the stadium, scheduled for June 22, was canceled; on this day, the football match Dynamo (Kiev) - CSKA was to be held here.

12:15

Molotov on the radio made a speech about the beginning of the war, where he first called it patriotic. Also in this speech, for the first time, the phrase that has become the main slogan of the war sounds: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours".

From Molotov's appeal:“This unheard-of attack on our country is treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized peoples ... This war was imposed on us not by the German people, not by the German workers, peasants and intellectuals, whose sufferings we well understand, but by a clique of bloodthirsty fascist rulers of Germany who enslaved the French and Czechs. , Poles, Serbs, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece and other peoples ... This is not the first time our people have to deal with an attacking arrogant enemy. At one time, our people responded to Napoleon's campaign in Russia with the Patriotic War, and Napoleon was defeated, came to his collapse. The same will happen with the arrogant Hitler, who has announced a new campaign against our country. The Red Army and all our people will once again wage a victorious patriotic war for the Motherland, for honor, for freedom. "

The workers of Leningrad listen to the news about the attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union

From the memoirs of Dmitry Savelyev, Novokuznetsk: “We gathered at the poles with loudspeakers. We listened attentively to Molotov's speech. Many had a feeling of some kind of alertness. After that, the streets began to empty, after a while groceries disappeared from the shops. They weren’t bought - just the supply decreased ... People were not afraid, but rather focused, they did everything that the government told them. "

After a while, the text of Molotov's speech was repeated by the famous announcer Yuri Levitan. Thanks to his soulful voice and the fact that Levitan read the front-line reports of the Soviet Information Bureau throughout the war, it is believed that he was the first to read the message about the beginning of the war on the radio. Even Marshals Zhukov and Rokossovsky thought so, as they wrote about in their memoirs.

Moscow. Announcer Yuri Levitan during filming in the studio

From the memoirs of the announcer Yuri Levitan:“When we, the announcers, were called on the radio early in the morning, the calls began to ring out. They call from Minsk: “Enemy planes over the city”, they call from Kaunas: “The city is on fire, why aren't you broadcasting anything on the radio?”, “Enemy planes over Kiev”. Women's crying, excitement - "is it really a war? .. And now I remember - I turned on the microphone. In all cases, I remember myself that I was worried only internally, only internally worried. But here, when I uttered the word “Moscow is speaking,” I feel that I can’t speak any further - a lump in my throat is stuck. They are already knocking from the control room - “Why are you silent? Continue! " He clenched his fists and continued: "Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union ..."

Stalin made a speech to the Soviet people only on July 3, 12 days after the start of the war. Historians are still arguing why he was silent for so long. Here is how Vyacheslav Molotov explained this fact:“Why me and not Stalin? He didn’t want to be the first. We need to have a clearer picture, what tone and what approach ... He said that he would wait a few days and speak when the situation on the fronts becomes clear. "

And here is what Marshal Zhukov wrote about it:"AND. V. Stalin was a strong-willed person and, as they say, "not from a cowardly ten". Confused, I saw him only once. It was at dawn on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked our country. During the first day, he could not really pull himself together and firmly manage events. The shock inflicted on JV Stalin by the enemy's attack was so strong that he even lost his voice, and his orders for organizing the armed struggle did not always correspond to the current situation. "

From Stalin's speech on the radio on July 3, 1941:"The war with fascist Germany cannot be considered an ordinary war ... Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms."

12:30

At the same time, German troops entered Grodno. A few minutes later, the bombing of Minsk, Kiev, Sevastopol and other cities began again.

From the memoirs of Ninel Karpova, born in 1931 (Kharovsk, Vologda region):“We listened to the message about the beginning of the war from a loudspeaker at the House of Defense. There were a lot of people crowded there. I was not upset, on the contrary, I became proud: my father will defend the Motherland ... In general, people were not afraid. Yes, the women, of course, were upset, crying. But there was no panic. Everyone was confident that we would quickly defeat the Germans. The men said: "Yes, the Germans will skewer from us!" "

Recruiting offices were opened in military registration and enlistment offices. In Moscow, Leningrad and other cities, queues lined up in them.

From the memoirs of Dina Belykh, born in 1936 (Kushva, Sverdlovsk region):“All men were immediately called up, including my dad. Dad hugged mom, they both cried, kissed ... I remember how I grabbed him by the tarpaulin boots and shouted: “Daddy, don't go! You will be killed there, killed! " When he got on the train, my mother took me in her arms, we both sobbed, she whispered through her tears: "Wave to dad ..." What is it, I sobbed, I could not move my hand. We never saw him again, our breadwinner. "

Calculations and the experience of the mobilization carried out showed that to transfer the army and navy to wartime, it was required to call up 4.9 million people. However, when the mobilization was announced, conscripts of 14 ages were called up, the total number of which was about 10 million people, that is, almost 5.1 million people more than was required.

The first day of mobilization for the Red Army. Volunteers at the October military registration and enlistment office

The call of such a mass of people was not caused by military necessity and introduced disorganization in the national economy and alarm in the masses. Not realizing this, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.I.Kulik suggested that the government additionally call on the older ages (born in 1895-1904), the total number of which was 6.8 million people.

13:15

To capture the Brest Fortress, the Germans put into operation new forces of the 133rd Infantry Regiment on the South and West Islands, but this "did not bring any changes in the situation." The Brest Fortress continued to defend itself. Fritz Schlieper's 45th Infantry Division was sent to this sector of the front. It was decided that only infantry would take the Brest Fortress - no tanks. The capture of the fortress was given no more than eight hours.

From a report to the headquarters of Fritz Schlieper's 45th Infantry Division:“The Russians are fighting fiercely, especially behind our attacking companies. In the Citadel, the enemy organized a defense with infantry units supported by 35–40 tanks and armored vehicles. The fire of Russian snipers led to large losses among officers and non-commissioned officers. "

14:30

Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano told the Soviet ambassador to Rome Gorelkin that Italy had declared war on the USSR "from the moment German troops entered Soviet territory."

From Ciano's diaries:“He perceives my message with rather great indifference, but it is in his nature. The message is very short, without further ado. The conversation lasted two minutes. "

15:00

The pilots of the German bombers reported that they had nothing more to bomb, all airfields, barracks and accumulations of armored vehicles were destroyed.

From the memoirs of the Air Marshal, Hero of the Soviet Union G.V. Zimin:“On June 22, 1941, large groups of fascist bombers attacked 66 of our airfields, where the main aviation forces of the western border districts were based. First of all, airfields, on which aviation regiments armed with aircraft of new designs were based, were subjected to air strikes ... As a result of attacks on airfields and in fierce air battles, the enemy managed to destroy up to 1200 aircraft, including 800 at airfields. "

16:30

Stalin left the Kremlin for Blizhnyaya Dacha. Even members of the Politburo are not allowed to see the leader until the end of the day.

From the memoirs of a member of the Politburo Nikita Khrushchev:
“Beria said the following: when the war began, members of the Politburo gathered at Stalin's. I do not know, all or just a certain group, which most often gathered at Stalin's. Stalin was morally completely depressed and made the following statement: “The war has begun, it is developing catastrophically. Lenin left us the proletarian Soviet state, and we fucked it up. " I literally put it that way.
“I,” he says, “refuse the leadership,” and left. He left, got into the car and drove to a nearby dacha.

Some historians, referring to the recollections of other participants in the events, claim that this conversation took place a day later. But the fact that in the first days of the war Stalin was confused and did not know how to act is confirmed by many witnesses.

18:30

The commander of the 4th Army Ludwig Kübler gives the order to "pull back his own forces" from the Brest Fortress. This is one of the first orders for the retreat of German troops.

19:00

The commander of Army Group Center, General Fyodor von Bock, gives the order to stop the execution of Soviet prisoners of war. After that, they were kept in hastily fenced fields with barbed wire. This is how the first prisoner of war camps appeared.

From the notes of the SS Brigadeführer G. Keppler, the commander of the Der Führer regiment from the SS Das Reich division:"In the hands of our regiment were rich trophies and a large number of prisoners, among whom there were many civilians, even women and girls, the Russians forced them to defend themselves with weapons in their hands, and they fought bravely together with the Red Army."

23:00

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is making a radio address in which he said that England "will provide Russia and the Russian people with all the assistance it can."

Winston Churchill's speech on BBC radio:“Over the past 25 years, no one has been a more consistent opponent of communism than me. I will not take back a single word that I have said about him. But all this pales before the spectacle unfolding now. The past with its crimes, follies and tragedies disappears ... I see Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields that their fathers have cultivated since time immemorial ... I see how the vile Nazi war machine is approaching all this. "

23:50

The Main Military Council of the RKKA sent out Directive No. 3, ordering on June 23 to inflict counterattacks on enemy groups.

Text: Information Center of the publishing house "Kommersant", Tatiana Mishanina, Artem Galustyan
Video: Dmitry Shelkovnikov, Alexey Koshel
Photo: TASS, RIA Novosti, Ogonyok, Dmitry Kuchev
Design, programming and layout: Anton Zhukov, Alexey Shabrov
Kim Voronin
Commissioning Editor: Artem Galustyan

An air defense fighter is monitoring from the roof of a house on Gorky Street. Photo: TASS / Naum Granovsky

75 years ago, on June 22, 1941, the troops of Nazi Germany invaded the USSR. The Great Patriotic War began. In Russia and some countries of the former Soviet Union, June 22 is the Day of Remembrance and Mourning.

June 22, 1941 for the USSR and its capital Moscow was determined in Berlin a week before this date - on Saturday, June 14, at a meeting of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of Nazi Germany. On it, Adolf Hitler gave the last orders for the attack on the USSR from 04 a.m. on June 22, 1941.

On the same day, a TASS report on Soviet-German relations was circulated, which stated:

"According to the USSR, Germany is just as steadfastly adhering to the terms of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, as the Soviet Union, which is why, in the opinion of Soviet circles, rumors about Germany's intention to break the pact and launch an attack on the USSR are groundless."

However, June 22, 1941 for the world's first state of workers and peasants could have come a month or a week earlier. The leaders of the Third Reich originally planned an invasion of Russia in the early hours of Thursday 15 May. But on April 6, together with the troops of the allies - Italy and Hungary - the Germans entered Yugoslavia. The Balkan campaign forced Hitler to postpone the conquest of Moscow.

Until noon on June 22, 1941 (and there are hundreds of archival evidence of that) Moscow did not know about the German invasion.

04:30. 48 sprinklers rolled out onto the streets (according to documents).
05:30. Almost 900 windshield wipers started working. The morning was fine, sunny, painting with "the gentle light of the walls of the ancient Kremlin."
From approximately 07:00. In parks, squares and other places of the usual gathering of people, "exit" tray trade began to unfold, summer buffets, pubs and billiard rooms were opened - the coming Sunday promised to be very warm, if not hot. And in places of mass recreation, an influx of townspeople was expected.
07:00 and 07:30. (according to the Sunday schedule - on regular days half an hour earlier). Dairy shops and bakeries opened.
08:30 and 09:00. Grocery stores and grocery stores began to work. Manufactured goods stores, except for GUM and TSUM, were closed on Sundays. The assortment of goods is, in essence, the usual for a peaceful capital. In "Molochnaya" on Rochdelskaya they offered cottage cheese, curd mass, sour cream, kefir, yogurt, milk, cheese, feta cheese, butter and ice cream. All products are of two or three grades and names.

In Moscow - an ordinary Sunday day

Gorky street. Photo: TASS / F. Kislov

Gastronome No. 1 "Eliseevsky", the main one in the country, has put boiled, semi-smoked and uncooked sausages, sausages, sausages from three to four names, ham, boiled pork of three names on the shelves. The fish department offered fresh sterlet, lightly salted Caspian herring (in bulk), hot smoked sturgeon, pressed and red caviar. The surplus included Georgian wines, Crimean Madeira and sherry, ports, one vodka and one rum, and four brandy names. At that time there were no time limits on the sale of alcohol.

GUM and TSUM exhibited the entire range of the domestic clothing and footwear industry, chintz, drapes, bostons and other fabrics, costume jewelry, fiber suitcases of various sizes. And jewelry, the cost of individual samples of which exceeded 50 thousand rubles - a fifth of the price of the legendary T-34 tank, the Il-2 victory attack aircraft and three anti-tank guns - 76 mm ZIS-3 cannons according to the "price list" of May 1941. No one that day could have imagined that the Central Department Store in Moscow would turn into an army barracks in two weeks.

From 07:00 the Dynamo stadium began to prepare for the big "mass event". On it at 12 o'clock a parade and competition of athletes were supposed to take place.
At about 08:00, 20 thousand schoolchildren were brought to Moscow from cities and districts of the region - for a children's party, which began at 11 o'clock in the Sokolniki park.

There was no "ferment" of school graduates on Red Square and on the streets of Moscow on the morning of June 22, 1941. This is the "mythology" of Soviet cinema and literature. The last graduation parties in the capital were held on Friday, June 20.

In a word, all 4 million 600 thousand "ordinary" residents and about one million guests of the capital of the USSR did not know until lunchtime on June 22, 1941 that the biggest and bloodiest war against the invaders in the history of the country had begun at night.

01:21. The border with Poland, absorbed by the Third Reich, was crossed by the last train loaded with wheat, which the USSR supplied under an agreement with Germany on September 28, 1939.
03:05. 14 German bombers, taking off from Konigsberg at 01:10, dropped 28 magnetic bombs near the raid near Kronstadt, 20 km from Leningrad.
04:00. Hitler's troops crossed the border in the Brest region. Half an hour later, they began a large-scale offensive on all fronts - from the southern to northern borders of the USSR.

And when at 11 o'clock in the Sokolniki park the pioneers of the capital met their guests - the pioneers of the Moscow region with a solemn line-up, the German advanced 15, and in some places even 20 km inland.

Top-notch solutions

Moscow. V.M.Molotov, I.V. Stalin, K.E. Voroshilov (from left to right in the foreground), G.M. Malenkov, L.P. Beria, A.S. Shcherbakov (from left to right in the second row) and other members of the government are heading to Red Square. Photo chronicle TASS

Only the country's top leadership, the command of the military districts, the first leaders of Moscow, Leningrad and some other large cities - Kuibyshev (now Samara), Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), knew that the war was going on in the rear in the first half of the day on June 22, 1941, Khabarovsk.

06:30. A candidate member of the Politburo, secretary of the Central Committee and first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Alexander Sergeevich Shcherbakov, convened an emergency meeting of key leaders of the capital with the participation of senior officers of the NCO, NKVD and directors of major enterprises. He and the chairman of the city executive committee Vasily Prokhorovich Pronin had general ranks by that time. The meeting worked out the priority measures to ensure the life of Moscow in wartime.

By phone, direct from the city committee, orders were given to strengthen the protection of water supply systems, heat and electric energy, transport and, above all, the subway, food warehouses, refrigerators, the Moscow Canal, railway stations, defense enterprises and other important facilities. At the same meeting, the concept of Moscow's camouflage, including the construction of models and dummies, and the protection of government and historical buildings, was formulated "in draft".

At the suggestion of Shcherbakov, on June 23, a ban was introduced on entry to the capital for everyone who did not have a Moscow residence permit. Residents of the Moscow region also fell under him, including those who worked in Moscow. Special passes were introduced. Even Muscovites had to straighten them, going to the forest for mushrooms or to a suburban dacha - they were not allowed back to the capital without a pass.

15:00. At the afternoon meeting, which took place after the speech on the radio by the People's Commissar Molotov and after Shcherbakov and Pronin had visited the Kremlin, the authorities of the capital, in agreement with the generals of the Moscow Military District, decided to install anti-aircraft batteries at all high-altitude points of the capital. Later, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of the USSR Armed Forces, created the next day, June 23, this decision was called "exemplary." And they sent a directive to the Military Districts to provide anti-aircraft protection of cities, following the example of the capital.

Ban on photography

One of the notable decisions of the second meeting of the Moscow leadership on June 22, 1941: an appeal was formulated to the population to hand over personal cameras, other photographic equipment, film and reagents within three days. From now on, only accredited journalists and employees of special services could use photographic equipment.

This is partly why there are few photographs of Moscow of the first days of the war. Some of them are even staged, as, for example, the famous photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei "Muscovites listen to the radio address of Comrade Molotov about the beginning of the war on June 22, 1941". On the first day of war in the capital of the Union at 12 o'clock in the afternoon (the time of the live broadcast of the speech of the People's Commissar Molotov) it was +24 degrees C. And in the photo - people in coats, hats, in a word, dressed in autumn, as in the twenties of September, when , presumably, this picture was taken.

By the way, the clothes of the people in that staged photo are very different from T-shirts, white canvas boots and trousers, in which in another photo on June 22, 1941, Muscovites buy soda on Gorky Street (now Tverskaya).

At the same morning meeting on June 22, 1941, which was chaired by Alexander Shcherbakov, a special resolution was adopted - "to prevent and suppress panic moods" in connection with the invasion of Hitler's troops into the USSR. The party secretary and the actual owner of the capital advised all leaders and, especially, artists, writers, and newspapermen to "adhere" to the position that the war would end in a month, maximum one and a half. And the enemy will be defeated on its territory. "And he drew special attention to the fact that in Molotov's speech the war was called" sacred. " (in addition to the existing posts and regalia) as the head of the Soviet Information Bureau - the main and, in fact, the only source of information for the masses during the Great Patriotic War.

Stripping

Muscovites are enrolled in the ranks of the people's militia. Photo: TASS

One of the results of the last meeting of the Moscow leadership, which took place after 21:00, was the decision to create fighter battalions. Apparently, they were initiated in the Kremlin, because a day later, the general leadership of the units was entrusted to the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, head of the NKVD Lavrenty Beria. But the country's first destroyer battalion was put under arms in Moscow, on the third day of the war, June 24, 1941. In the documents, the destroyer battalions were designated as "volunteer formations of citizens capable of wielding weapons." The prerogative of admission to them remained with the party, Komsomol, trade union activists and other "verified" (as in the document) persons who were not subject to conscription. The task of the extermination battalions included the fight against saboteurs, spies, Hitler's accomplices, as well as bandits, deserters, marauders and speculators. In short, everyone who threatened order in cities and other settlements during wartime.

On the fourth day of the war, the Moscow fighter carried out the first raids, choosing for the beginning the working closets and gateways of Zamoskvorechye, the barracks of Maryina Roshcha. The "cleanup" was quite effective. Taken 25 bandits with weapons. Five especially dangerous representatives of criminals were eliminated in a shootout. Seized food (stew, condensed milk, smoked meats, flour, cereals) and industrial goods stolen before the start of the war from one of the warehouses in the Filay area.

The reaction of the leader

General Secretary of the CPSU (b) Joseph Stalin. Photo: TASS

In Moscow - not only the city committee of the CPSU (b) and the city executive committee, but the entire supreme power of the USSR. According to the "reflected" documents, Stalin was informed about the invasion of Hitler's troops almost immediately - at about 04: 35-04: 45. He, as usual, had not yet gone to bed, and, according to one of the versions, was at the "nearby dacha".

The subsequent (second) report on the advance of the Germans along the entire front made a strong impression on the leader. He locked himself in one of the rooms and did not leave it for about two hours, after which he allegedly went to the Kremlin. Vyacheslav Molotov did not read the text of his speech. And he demanded to report to him on the situation at the fronts every half hour.

According to the testimony of a number of military leaders, just this was the most difficult thing to do - communication with active units, waging fierce battles with German troops, was weak, or even completely absent. In addition, by 18-19 o'clock on June 22, 1941, the Nazis were surrounded, according to various sources, from a total of 500 thousand to 700 thousand soldiers and officers of the Red Army, who with incredible efforts, with a terrible shortage of ammunition, equipment and weapons, tried to break through the "rings" of the Nazis.

However, according to other, also "reflected" documents, on June 22, 1941, the leader was on the Black Sea, at his dacha in Gagra. And, according to the USSR Ambassador to the United States, Ivan Maisky, "after the first report on the German attack, he fell into prostration, completely cut himself off from Moscow, remained out of touch for four days, drinking to a stupor."

Is that so? Or not? It's hard to believe. It is no longer possible to check - the documents of the Central Committee of the CPSU have since been massively burned and destroyed at least 4 times. For the first time in October 1941, when panic began in Moscow after the Nazis entered the outskirts of Khimki and the passage of a column of Nazi motorcyclists along Leningradsky Prospekt in the Sokol area. Then at the end of February 1956 and the end of October 1961, after the exposure of Stalin's personality cult at the XX and XXII Congresses of the CPSU. And finally, in August 1991, after the defeat of the Emergency Committee.

And is it necessary to check everything? The fact remains that in the first 10 days of the war, the most difficult time for the country, Stalin was neither heard nor seen. And all orders, orders and directives of the first week of the war were signed by marshals and generals, people's commissars and deputies of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR: Lavrentiy Beria, Georgy Zhukov, Semyon Timoshenko, Georgy Malenkov, Dmitry Pavlov Vyacheslav Molotov and even the "party governor" of the capital, Alexander Shcherbakov.

Molotov's appeal

12:15. From the studio of the Central Telegraph, one of the leaders of the Soviet state, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov, made an address on the radio.

It began with the words: "Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union! The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, instructed me to make the following statement. Today, at 4 am, without making any claims to the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country ... "The speech ended with the famous words that turned into the idiom of the entire Great Patriotic War:" Our business is just! The enemy will be defeated! Victory will be ours! ".

12.25. Judging by the "visit log", Molotov returned from the Central Telegraph to Stalin's office.

Muscovites listened to the speech of the People's Commissar, mainly through loudspeakers installed on all streets of the city, as well as in parks, stadiums and other places of mass gathering of people. In the performance of the announcer Yuri Levitan, the text of Molotov's speech was repeated 4 times at different times.

Muscovites are listening to the news about the attack of Nazi Germany on our homeland. Photo: TASS / Evgeny Khaldei

Moreover, from about 09:30. Until 11:00, a serious discussion was allegedly going on in the Kremlin about who should make such an appeal? According to one version, all, as one, members of the Politburo believed that Stalin himself should do it. But he actively denied it, repeating the same thing: the political situation and the situation at the fronts "are not yet clear," and therefore he will speak out later.

As time went. And delaying information about the beginning of the war became dangerous. At the suggestion of the leader, Molotov became the one who would notify the people of the beginning of the holy war. According to another version, there was no discussion, because Stalin himself was not in the Kremlin. They wanted, it was, to instruct the "All-Union Headman" Mikhail Kalinin to tell the people about the war, but he even read from a piece of paper, stumbling, in syllables.

Life after the outbreak of war

The news of the invasion of Hitler's troops on June 22, 1941, judging by the documents of the archives (reports of employees and freelance agents of the NKVD, police reports), as well as the recollections of eyewitnesses, did not plunge the residents and guests of the capital into despondency and did not change their plans too much.

Already after the announcement of the beginning of the war, Moscow-Adler passenger trains departed from the Kursk railway station exactly on schedule. And on the night of June 23 - to Sevastopol, which Hitler's aviation fiercely bombed back at 05:00 on June 22. True, passengers who had tickets to the Crimea were dropped off in Tula. And the train itself was allowed only to Kharkov.

Brass bands played in the parks during the day, and performances were staged in theaters with full halls. Hairdressers worked until the evening. The pubs and billiard rooms were practically packed with visitors. In the evening, the dance floors were not empty either. The famous foxtrot melody "Rio Rita" was heard in many parts of the capital.

A distinctive feature of the first day of war in Moscow: mass optimism. In conversations, in addition to strong words of hatred for Germany and Hitler, it sounded: "Nothing. A month. Well, one and a half. Let's break, crush the reptile!" Another metropolitan sign on June 22, 1941: after the news of the attack of the Nazis, people in military uniforms everywhere, even in pubs, began to skip the line.

Anti-aircraft artillery guarding the city. Photo: TASS / Naum Granovsky

An impressive example of the efficiency of the Moscow authorities. By their order, after 2 pm on June 22, 1941, before feature films (and these were "Shchors", "If there is war tomorrow," "Professor Malok", "The Oppenheim Family", "Boxers"), short films like "Blackout of a residential building", "Take care of the gas mask", "The simplest shelters from aerial bombs".

In the evening Vadim Kozin sang in the Hermitage garden. In the restaurants "Metropol" and "Aragvi", judging by the "consumption sheets" of the kitchen and the buffet, sandwiches with pressed (black) caviar, herring with onions, fried pork loin in wine sauce, kharcho soup, chanakhi (lamb chowder ), lamb cutlet on the bone with a complex garnish, vodka, KB cognac and sherry wine.

Moscow has not yet fully realized that a big war is already underway. And on the fields of its battles, thousands of soldiers of the Red Army have already fallen, hundreds of civilians of Soviet cities and villages have died. In a day, the registry offices of the city will mark the influx of fathers and mothers with a request to replace the name Adolf in the birth certificates of their sons with Anatoly, Alexander, Andrey. Being Adolphs (in common parlance - Adiks), who were massively born in the second half of 1933 and at the end of 1939, in June 1941 became not only disgusting, but also unsafe.

A week later . In the capital of the USSR, they will gradually begin to introduce cards for food, household goods, footwear and fabric.
In two weeks... Muscovites will see newsreels in which Soviet villages, villages and towns are burning and women and young children shot by the Nazis lying near their huts.
Exactly one month later... Moscow will survive the first raid of Hitler's aviation, and with its own eyes, not in the cinema, it will see the mutilated bodies of those killed under the rubble of fellow citizens, destroyed and burning houses.

In the meantime, on the first day of the war, in Moscow everything is approximately the same as in the textbook poem by Gennady Shpalikov "On the dance floor Forty-first year": "It's nothing that Poland does not exist. But the country is strong. In a month - and no more - the war will end ... "

Evgeny Kuznetsov

On December 18, 1940, Hitler, in Directive No. 21, approved the final plan for the war against the USSR under the code name "Barbarossa". For its implementation, Germany and its allies in Europe - Finland, Romania and Hungary - created an invading army unprecedented in history: 182 divisions and 20 brigades (up to 5 million people), 47.2 thousand guns and mortars, about 4.4 thousand combat aircraft, 4.4 thousand tanks and assault guns, and 250 ships. In the grouping of Soviet troops opposing the aggressors, there were 186 divisions (3 million people), about 39.4 guns and mortars, 11 thousand tanks and more than 9.1 thousand aircraft. These forces were not put on alert in advance. The directive of the General Staff of the Red Army about a possible attack by Germany on June 22-23 did not reach the western border districts until the night of June 22, and already at dawn on June 22, the invasion began. After a lengthy artillery preparation, at 4:00 am, German troops, treacherously violating the non-aggression pact concluded with the USSR, attacked the Soviet-German border along its entire length from the Barents to the Black Seas. Soviet troops were taken by surprise. The organization of powerful counterattacks against the enemy was hampered by the fact that they were relatively evenly distributed along the entire front along the entire border and dispersed to great depths. With such a formation, it was difficult to resist the enemy.

On June 22, on the radio, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov. In particular, he said: “This unheard-of attack on our country is unprecedented treachery in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was carried out despite the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany. "

On June 23, 1941, the supreme body of strategic leadership of the armed forces, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, was created in Moscow. All power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee (GKO) formed on June 30. He was appointed Chairman of the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The country began to implement a program of emergency measures under the motto: “Everything for the front! Everything for the victory! " The Red Army, however, continued to retreat. By mid-July 1941, German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory, capturing Lithuania, Latvia, almost all of Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova, and created a threat to Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev. Mortal danger loomed over the USSR.

OPERATIONAL SUMMARY No. 1 OF THE CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RKKA GENERAL OF THE ARMY G.K. Zhukov. 10.00, June 22, 1941

At 4.00 on 22.06.1941, the Germans, without any reason, raided our airfields and cities and crossed the border with ground troops ...

1. Northern Front: the enemy violated the border with a bomber-type aircraft link and entered the Leningrad and Kronstadt regions ...

2. Northwestern Front. The enemy opened artillery fire at 4.00 and at the same time began to bomb airfields and cities: Vindava, Libava, Kovno, Vilno and Shuliai ...

Z. Western Front. At 4:20 am, up to 60 enemy aircraft were bombarded by Grodno and Brest. At the same time, the enemy opened artillery fire on the entire border of the Western Front ... By ground forces, the enemy is developing a strike from the Suwalki area in the direction of Golynka, Dombrow and from the Stokolow area along the railway to Volkovysk. The advancing enemy forces are being specified. ...

4. Southwestern Front. At 4:20 am, the enemy began shelling our borders with machine-gun fire. From 4.30 on, enemy aircraft bombarded the cities of Lyuboml, Kovel, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky ... At 4.35, after artillery fire in the Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml area, enemy ground troops crossed the border developing a strike in the direction of Vladimir-Volynsky, Lyuboml and Krystynopol ...

The front commanders have put in place a cover plan and by active actions of mobile troops are trying to destroy the enemy units that have crossed the border ...

The enemy, preempting our troops in deployment, forced the Red Army units to engage in battle in the process of occupying an initial position according to the cover plan. Using this advantage, the enemy was able to achieve partial success in some areas.

Signature: Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov

The Great Patriotic War - day after day: based on the materials of declassified operational reports of the General Staff of the Red Army. M., 2008 .

SPEECH ON THE RADIO OF THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE USSR and PEOPLE'S COMMISSIONER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE USSR V.M. MOLOTOV June 22, 1941

Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union!

The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, instructed me to make the following statement:

Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without making any claims to the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities from their planes - Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas and some others, and more than two hundred people were killed and wounded. Enemy aircraft raids and artillery shelling were also carried out from the Romanian and Finnish territories.

This unheard-of attack on our country is treachery unparalleled in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country was carried out in spite of the fact that a non-aggression pact was concluded between the USSR and Germany, and the Soviet government fulfilled all the terms of this treaty with all conscientiousness. The attack on our country was carried out, despite the fact that during the entire period of this treaty, the German government could never present a single claim to the USSR for the implementation of the treaty. All responsibility for this predatory attack on the Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers (...)

The government calls on you, citizens and women of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks even more closely around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet government, around our great leader, Comrade. Stalin.

Our cause is right. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.

Foreign policy documents. T.24. M., 2000.

STALIN'S SPEECH ON THE RADIO, July 3, 1941

Comrades! Citizens!

Brothers and sisters!

Soldiers of our army and navy!

I appeal to you, my friends!

The treacherous military attack by Hitlerite Germany on our Motherland, which began on June 22, continues. Despite the heroic resistance of the Red Army, despite the fact that the best divisions of the enemy and the best units of its aviation have already been defeated and found a grave on the battlefields, the enemy continues to climb forward, throwing new forces to the front (...)

History shows that there are no invincible armies and never happened. Napoleon's army was considered invincible, but it was defeated alternately by Russian, English, German troops. During the first imperialist war, Wilhelm's German army was also considered an invincible army, but it was defeated several times by Russian and Anglo-French troops and, finally, was defeated by Anglo-French troops. The same must be said about Hitler's current German fascist army. This army has not yet met serious resistance on the continent of Europe. Only on our territory did it meet serious resistance (...)

One may ask: how could it have happened that the Soviet government agreed to conclude a non-aggression pact with such treacherous people and monsters as Hitler and Ribbentrop? Was there not a mistake on the part of the Soviet government here? Of course not! A non-aggression pact is a peace pact between two states. It was precisely such a pact that Germany proposed to us in 1939. Could the Soviet government refuse such a proposal? I think that no peace-loving state can refuse a peace agreement with a neighboring power, if even such monsters and cannibals as Hitler and Ribbentrop are at the head of this power. And this, of course, under one indispensable condition - if the peace agreement does not affect, either directly or indirectly, the territorial integrity, independence and honor of the peace-loving state. As you know, the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR is just such a pact (...)

In case of the forced withdrawal of the Red Army units, it is necessary to hijack the entire rolling stock, not to leave the enemy a single steam locomotive, not a single carriage, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of bread or a liter of fuel (...) In the areas occupied by the enemy, it is necessary to create partisan detachments, horse and foot to create sabotage groups to fight parts of the enemy army, to kindle a partisan war everywhere and everywhere, to blow up bridges, roads, damage telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to forests, warehouses, carts. In the occupied areas, create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, pursue and destroy them at every step, disrupt all their activities (...)

In this great war, we will have loyal allies in the person of the peoples of Europe and America, including the German people enslaved by Hitler's rulers. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms (...)

In order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR, to repulse the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland, the State Defense Committee has been created, in whose hands all the power in the state is now concentrated. The State Defense Committee has begun its work and calls on the entire people to rally around the Lenin-Stalin party, around the Soviet government for selfless support of the Red Army and the Red Fleet, for the defeat of the enemy, for victory.

All our forces are to support our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Navy!

All the forces of the people - to defeat the enemy!

Forward to our victory!

Stalin I. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. M., 1947.

In the terrible and bloody confusion of the first day of the Great Patriotic War, the exploits of those soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, border guards, sailors and pilots, who, sparing their own lives, reflected the onslaught of a strong and skillful against, stand out clearly.

War or provocation?

On June 22, 1941, at five hours 45 minutes in the morning, an urgent meeting began in the Kremlin with the participation of the country's top military and political leadership. There was, in fact, one question on the agenda. Is this a full-scale war or a border provocation?

Joseph Stalin, pale and sleepy, was sitting at the table, holding a pipe not full of tobacco in his hands. Addressing the People's Commissar for Defense Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army General Georgy Zhukov, the actual ruler of the USSR asked: "Is this not a provocation of the German generals?"

“No, Comrade Stalin, the Germans are bombing our cities in the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. What kind of provocation is this? " - Timoshenko answered gloomily.

Offensive in three main directions

By this time, fierce border battles were already raging on the Soviet-German border. Events developed rapidly.

Army Group North of Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb advanced in the Baltics, breaking the battle formations of General Fyodor Kuznetsov's North-Western Front. At the forefront of the main attack was General Erich von Manstein's 56th Motorized Corps.

Army Group South of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt operated in Ukraine, inflicting with the forces of the First Panzer Group of General Ewald von Kleist and the Sixth Field Army of Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau a strike between the Fifth and Sixth Armies of the Southwestern Front of General Mikhail Kirponos, advancing 20 kilometers.

The main blow of the Wehrmacht, which numbered seven million 200 thousand people against five million 400 thousand soldiers and commanders in the Red Army, was delivered in the zone of the Western Front, which was under the command of General Dmitry Pavlov. The strike was carried out by the forces of Army Group "Center" of Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock, which included two tank groups at once - the Second General Heinz Guderian and the Third General Hermann Goth.

A sad picture of the day

Hanging from the south and from the north over the Bialystok salient, in which General Konstantin Golubev's 10th Army was located, both German tank armies moved under the base of the salient, crushing the defenses of the Soviet front. By seven o'clock in the morning, Brest, which was part of Guderian's offensive zone, was captured, but the units defending the Brest fortress and the station fought fiercely in complete encirclement.

The actions of the ground forces were actively supported by the Luftwaffe, which destroyed on June 22 1,200 aircraft of the Red Army aviation, many still at airfields in the first hours of the war, and won air supremacy.

General Ivan Boldin, whom Pavlov sent by plane from Minsk to restore contact with the command of the 10th Army, described the sad picture of the day in his memoirs.

During the first 8 hours of the war, the Soviet army lost 1200 aircraft, of which about 900 were destroyed on the ground. In the photo: June 23, 1941 in Kiev, Grushki district.

Nazi Germany counted on a strategy of blitzkrieg. Her plan, called "Barbarossa", meant the end of the war before the autumn thaw. Photo: German aircraft bombing Soviet cities. June 22, 1941.

The day after the start of the war, in accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the mobilization of 14 age groups liable for military service (born in 1905-1918) in 14 military districts was announced. In the other three districts - Trans-Baikal, Central Asian and Far Eastern - mobilization was carried out a month later under the guise of "large training camps." In the photo: recruits in Moscow, June 23, 1941.

Simultaneously with Germany, Italy and Romania declared war on the USSR. Slovakia joined them a day later. In the photo: a tank regiment at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization. Stalin before being sent to the front. Moscow, June 1941.

On June 23, the Headquarters of the Main Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR was created. In August, it was renamed the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. In the photo: columns of fighters go to the front. Moscow, June 23, 1941.

On June 22, 1941, the USSR state border from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea was guarded by 666 border outposts, 485 of them were attacked on the very first day of the war. None of the outposts attacked on June 22 withdrew without an order. In the photo: children on the streets of the city. Moscow, June 23, 1941.

Of the 19,600 border guards who met the Nazis on June 22, more than 16,000 were killed in the first days of the war. In the photo: refugees. June 23, 1941.

At the start of the war, three groups of German armies were concentrated and deployed near the borders of the USSR: "North", "Center" and "South". Air support was provided by three air fleets. In the photo: collective farmers are building defensive lines in the frontline zone on July 01, 1941.

Army "North" was supposed to destroy the forces of the USSR in the Baltic, as well as capture Leningrad and Kronstadt, depriving the Russian fleet of its strongholds in the Baltic. "Center" provided an offensive in Belarus and the capture of Smolensk. Army Group South was responsible for the offensive in western Ukraine. In the photo: the family leaves their home in Kirovograd. August 1, 1941.

In addition, in occupied Norway and Northern Finland, the Wehrmacht had a separate army "Norway", which had the goal of capturing Murmansk, the main naval base of the Northern Fleet Polyarny, the Rybachiy peninsula, as well as the Kirov railway north of Belomorsk. In the photo: columns of fighters are moving to the front. Moscow, June 23, 1941.

Finland did not allow Germany to strike at the USSR from its territory, but received instructions from the German commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces to prepare for the start of the operation. Without waiting for an attack, on the morning of June 25, the Soviet command launched a massive airstrike on 18 Finnish airfields. After that, Finland announced that it was at war with the USSR. In the photo: graduates of the Military Academy. Stalin. Moscow, June 1941.

On June 27, Hungary also declared war on the USSR. On July 1, at the direction of Germany, the Hungarian Carpathian group of troops attacked the Soviet 12th Army. In the photo: nurses provide assistance to the first wounded after the Nazi air raid near Chisinau, June 22, 1941.

From July 1 to September 30, 1941, the Red Army and the Soviet Navy carried out the Leningrad strategic operation. According to the Barbarossa plan, the capture of Leningrad and Kronstadt was one of the intermediate goals, followed by an operation to capture Moscow. In the photo: a link of Soviet fighters flies over the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad. 01 August 1941

One of the largest operations in the first months of the war was the defense of Odessa. The bombing of the city began on July 22, and in August Odessa was surrounded by German-Romanian troops from land. In the photo: one of the first German aircraft shot down near Odessa. July 1, 1941.

The defense of Odessa delayed the advance of the right wing of the troops of Army Group South for 73 days. During this time, the German-Romanian troops lost over 160 thousand troops, about 200 aircraft and up to 100 tanks. In the photo: scout Katya from Odessa talks to the soldiers, sitting in a cart. District Red Dalnik. 01 August 1941

The original Barbarossa plan envisioned the capture of Moscow during the first three to four months of the war. However, despite the successes of the Wehrmacht, the increased resistance of the Soviet troops prevented its implementation. The German offensive was delayed by the battles for Smolensk, Kiev and Leningrad. In the photo: anti-aircraft gunners defend the sky of the capital. August 1, 1941.

The battle for Moscow, which the Germans called Operation Typhoon, began on September 30, 1941, with the main forces of Army Group Center advancing. In the photo: flowers to wounded soldiers in a Moscow hospital. June 30, 1941.

The defensive stage of the Moscow operation was conducted until December 1941. And only at the beginning of 1942, the Red Army launched an offensive, throwing the German troops back 100-250 kilometers. In the photo: beams of searchlights of the air defense troops illuminate the Moscow sky. June 1941.

At noon on June 22, 1941, the whole country listened to the radio address of the USSR People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov, who announced the German attack. “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours, ”was the concluding phrase of the address to the Soviet people.

"Explosions are shaking the earth, cars are burning"

“Trains and warehouses are on fire. Ahead, to our left, there are large fires on the horizon. Enemy bombers are constantly scurrying in the air.

Skirting the settlements, we are approaching Bialystok. Further we go, worse it becomes. More and more enemy aviation is in the air ... We did not have time to move 200 meters from the plane after landing when the noise of engines was heard in the sky. A nine Junkers appeared, they descend over the airfield and drop bombs. Explosions are shaking the earth, cars are burning. The airplanes on which we had just arrived were also engulfed in fire ... ”Our pilots fought to the last opportunity. In the early morning of June 22, the deputy squadron commander of the 46th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Senior Lieutenant Ivanov Ivanov, at the head of the I-16 troika, took a battle with several He-111 bombers. One of them was shot down, and the rest began to drop bombs and turn back.

At this moment, three more enemy vehicles appeared. Considering that the fuel was running out, and the cartridges ran out, Ivanov decided to ram the leading German plane and, going into its tail and making a hill, sharply hit the tail of the enemy with his propeller.

Soviet fighter I-16

Exact air ramming time

A bomber with crosses crashed five kilometers from the airfield, which was defended by Soviet pilots, but Ivanov was mortally wounded when the I-16 fell on the outskirts of the village of Zagortsy. The exact time of the ram - 4:25 - was recorded by the pilot's wristwatch, which stopped from hitting the dashboard. Ivanov died on the same day in a hospital in Dubno. He was only 31 years old. In August 1941, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

At five hours 10 minutes in the morning, Junior Lieutenant Dmitry Kokarev from the 124th Fighter Aviation Regiment took his MiG-3 into the air. Left and right, his comrades took off to intercept German bombers who attacked their field airfield in Vysoke Mazowiecka near Bialystok.

Shoot down the enemy at any cost

During a fleeting battle on the plane of 22-year-old Kokarev, weapons refused, and the pilot decided to ram the enemy. Despite the targeted shots of the enemy gunner, the brave pilot approached the enemy Dornier Do 217 and shot it down, landing himself on a damaged aircraft at the airfield.

Pilot Oberfeldwebel Erich Stockmann and gunner NCO Hans Schumacher burned to death in a downed plane. Only the navigator, squadron commander Ober-Lieutenant Hans-Georg Peters and flight radio operator Feldwebel Hans Kovnatski, who managed to jump out with parachutes, managed to survive after the rapid attack of the Soviet fighter.

All in all, on the first day of the war, at least 15 Soviet pilots carried out an air ram against Luftwaffe pilots.

Fighting surrounded by days and weeks

On the ground, the Germans also began to suffer losses from the beginning of the invasion. First of all, it faced fierce resistance from the personnel of 485 attacked border outposts. According to the Barbarossa's plan, no more than half an hour was set aside for capturing each one. In fact, soldiers in green caps fought for hours, days, and even weeks, never retreating anywhere without orders.

The neighbors also distinguished themselves - the Third Border Outpost of the same detachment. Thirty-six border guards, led by 24-year-old Lieutenant Viktor Usov, fought for more than six hours against the Wehrmacht infantry battalion, repeatedly launching bayonet counterattacks. Having received five wounds, Usov died in a trench with a sniper rifle in his hands and in 1965 was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The 26-year-old Lieutenant Alexei Lopatin, the commander of the 13th frontier post of the 90th Vladimir-Volynsky frontier detachment, was also posthumously awarded the Golden Star. Leading a perimeter defense, he fought with his subordinates for 11 days in complete encirclement, skillfully using the structures of the local fortified area and advantageous folds of the terrain. On June 29, he managed to get out of the encirclement of women and children, and then, returning to the outpost, he, like his soldiers, died in an unequal battle on July 2, 1941.

Landing on the enemy shore

The soldiers of the Ninth frontier post of the 17th Brest frontier detachment of Lieutenant Andrei Kizhevatov were one of the most staunch defenders of the Brest fortress, which was stormed by the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht for nine days. The thirty-three-year-old commander was wounded on the first day of the war, but until June 29 he continued to lead the defense of the barracks of the 333rd Regiment and the Terespol Gate and died in a desperate counterattack. 20 years after the war, Kizhevatov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

On the section of the 79th Izmail border detachment, which was guarding the border with Romania, on June 22, 1941, 15 enemy attempts were repelled to cross the Prut and Danube rivers to capture a bridgehead on Soviet territory. At the same time, well-aimed fire of soldiers in green caps was supplemented by aimed volleys of the army artillery of the 51st Infantry Division of General Pyotr Tsirulnikov.

On June 24, the division's fighters, together with border guards and sailors of the Danube military flotilla, led by Lieutenant-Commander Ivan Kubyshkin, crossed the Danube and captured a 70-kilometer bridgehead on Romanian territory, which they held until July 19, when, by order of the command, the last paratroopers left for the eastern bank of the river ...

Commandant of the first liberated city

The first city that should be recognized as liberated from German troops was Przemysl (or Przemysl - in Polish) in Western Ukraine, which was attacked by the 101st Infantry Division from the 17th Field Army of General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, advancing on Lviv and Tarnopol.

Fierce battles ensued for him. On June 22, Przemysl was defended by the soldiers of the Przemysl border detachment for 10 hours, who then retreated, having received the appropriate order. Their stubborn defense made it possible to gain time before the arrival of the regiments of the 99th rifle division of Colonel Nikolai Dementyev, who the next morning, together with border guards and soldiers of the local fortified area, fell on the Germans, knocking them out of the city and holding it until June 27.

The hero of the battles was the 33-year-old senior lieutenant Grigory Polivoda, who commanded a combined battalion of border guards and became the first commander whose subordinates cleared the Soviet city of the enemy. He was rightfully appointed commandant of Przemysl and died in battle on July 30, 1941.

Gaining time and tightening up new reserves

At the end of the first day of the war with Russia, the Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht Ground Forces, General Franz Halder, noted with some surprise in his personal diary that after the initial stupor caused by the suddenness of the attack, the Red Army went into action. “Without a doubt, there have been cases of tactical withdrawal on the side of the enemy, albeit indiscriminately. There are no signs of an operational withdrawal, ”the German general wrote.

Red Army soldiers go on the attack

He did not suspect that the war that had just begun and was victorious for the Wehrmacht would soon turn from lightning-fast into a life-and-death struggle between the two states, and the victory would not go to Germany at all.

General Kurt von Tippelskirch, who became a historian after the war, described the actions of the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in his works. “The Russians held on with unexpected firmness and tenacity, even when they were bypassed and surrounded. By doing this, they gained time and gathered new reserves for counterattacks from the depths of the country, which, moreover, were stronger than expected. "