Day of Remembrance and Mourning: how the Great Patriotic War began
The Great Patriotic War began 85 years ago. This is the blackest day on the calendar. It will never be forgotten — June 22, 1941. Since then, on this day, we have remembered with bitterness and love the heroes who fell for their Homeland — the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army and the civilians of the Soviet country who took upon themselves the treacherous blow of the Nazis. Izvestia recalled how it was.
"We must exterminate"
The longest day of the year. A short, anxious Sunday night. The summer was not hot — in the western regions of the USSR, the weather was moderately warm, about 20 degrees, clouds, and rain drizzled from time to time. Sunday, June 22, was supposed to be clear in Moscow.
Adolf Hitler
What preceded this fateful day? Three months before the start of the war, in March, Adolf Hitler, speaking to his generals, said that cruelty would be the key to victory in the coming war against the Soviet Union: "We are obliged to exterminate the population, this is part of our mission to protect the German population. We will have to develop a depopulation technique. If I am asked what I mean by depopulation, I will answer that I mean the destruction of entire racial units." Millions of Germans succumbed to the hypnosis of Nazism.
"We, the soldiers of the Great Reich, are at war with the Soviet Union itself. But there is no such force that could restrain 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," recalled one of the participants in the invasion, a German corporal. These are very characteristic memories. They were taught to hate and despise, and they did.
On June 21, 1941, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, Vladimir Dekanozov, was going to present a protest note to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in connection with 180 violations of the USSR border by German aircraft from April 19 to June 19. The German minister did not receive the Soviet ambassador...
On the same day, Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain Ivan Maisky wrote to Moscow about a conversation with a British diplomat: "Cripps said that, in the opinion of most members of the British government, Hitler in the next 2-3 weeks, in one form or another, would put the USSR in front of a choice: major concessions or war. Personally, Cripps thinks that Hitler will not even give us such a choice, but will simply attack us, because the most important thing for him now is to smash the "military machine" of the USSR (if, of course, he succeeds)."
Everyone was aware of the high probability of an early outbreak of war. But the country's leadership considered it more logical for Hitler to switch to military operations against the USSR in six months or a year. This allowed the Germans to deliver an unexpected, extremely painful blow and gain the advantage of the initiative, which was felt for at least a year and a half.
The Red Army was not ready for the blitzkrieg that the Germans launched on the 22nd. That's the bitter truth. Both the heavy losses and the boilers into which large formations fell — all this was in the summer of 1941. But strategically, both the country and its armed forces were ready for a great confrontation, and this became the key to Victory. Millions of people showed genuine heroism both at the front and in the rear.
Air alert
The war began with a raid by German vultures. The Germans relied on this stunning blow. Airfield workers were among the first civilian victims of the invasion. About twenty thousand planes were lost without taking off. At 3:15 a.m., Luftwaffe bombers attacked Sevastopol, the Crimean coast. And they were rebuffed by naval anti-aircraft artillery. One bomb fell on a residential area, killing about twenty people and injuring more than a hundred. Then Brest and Minsk, Leningrad and Kiev, Grodno and Kronstadt were bombed. The Germans not only disabled strategically important facilities, they implemented the barbaric Hitlerite tactics of intimidation. "We must exterminate." In those hours, they did not imagine, they did not want to think that the one who raised the sword from the sword would die, that the brutality with which they came to our country would turn against them, forcing the Soviet people to fight selflessly, valiantly and to the bitter end.
Cinematographer Joseph Veinerovich, who was seconded to Belovezhskaya Pushcha to film a film sketch of the life of the bison, was waiting for a train at the train station in Minsk on the night of June 22. Suddenly, an unusual hum made him raise his head sharply: from the west, the sky was dotted with fly-like dots that took on the shapes of airplanes before his eyes. What is this, an exercise? No, the war was immediately clear. He took out his camera and started filming, filming... That's how we got the tragic and precious footage of the first minutes of the war. An apartment building is collapsing. In the frame is a crib with a doll. And her mistress was already dead. This was the beginning of a series of war crimes by the Nazis, who that night invaded the territory of our country to bring death and ruin. They've invaded to their own destruction. But how much grief they brought to the peoples of the Soviet Union — to those whom the Nazis had prepared for the fate of slaves... It was a war to destroy the people. But the invaders could not break the spirit of our country.
"Our cause is just!"
Early in the morning, in the Kremlin office, the country's leaders discussed the text of a speech that Vyacheslav Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was supposed to address the Soviet people. He intended to end his address like this: "The Government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakeable confidence that our valiant army and navy and the brave falcons of Soviet aviation will honorably fulfill their duty to the motherland, to the Soviet people, and deliver a crushing blow to the enemy, defeat and destroy." As a result, another conclusion appeared, apparently at Stalin's suggestion: "Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours!"
In this address, for the first time, the phrase "Patriotic war" was used, which caused an analogy with the events of 1812. "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 and came to his ruin. The same will happen with the arrogant Hitler, who 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," Molotov's words were remembered by everyone who stood at the loudspeakers that summer day. For them, the war began with this speech. And life was divided into the pre-war and the one in which every minute could be the last. History has drawn a line that has passed through the lives of two hundred million people, our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers.
Yuri Levitan's low baritone voice floated over the country. It sounded that day with anxiety and severe sorrow. For many weeks after that day, he will inform millions of compatriots about how our army left the cities with battles, about defeats and retreats. But always in his voice, in his intonation, faith in our people and confidence in the future victory remained.
Nina Soboleva, a graduate of the Leningrad school, and a future journalist, wrote in her diary: "At four in the morning, the guys and I were returning from the Neva embankment. We were walking along the Kryukov Canal, singing softly "Your beloved city can sleep in peace..." And at this very time!.. ...What's going to happen? Dad said that, of course, the Fascists would get what they deserved, but it was all very serious. He took the documents and went to the military enlistment office. Mom grabs one thing, then another, and everything falls out of her hands. The neighbors in the kitchen and in the hallway are talking about only one thing. Bella can be heard crying behind the wall at the Dolinovs' — after all, their little one has only recently been born, and here they will have to separate from her husband. The guys and I were going to meet today and take a steamer to Peterhof. It's all so far away — prom, dancing, laughing, all sorts of plans... It's only been a few hours."
In Leningrad, without waiting for summonses, about 100 thousand people came to the military commissariats on the same day. They could enlist in the army from the age of eighteen, although military enlistment offices most often refused young men who had not yet turned nineteen. Thousands of schoolchildren flocked to the military enlistment offices at the age of sixteen, at the age of seventeen... Both those who had served and those who had never smelled gunpowder came. They were united — a generation of winners.
The writer, veteran, military commander Vsevolod Vishnevsky on the first day of the war deduced the formula of Victory: "Everyone must say to himself, alone with his conscience:
"I will not tolerate fascist atrocities, deceptions, violence! I am ready for any fight, to the death. I will protect my homeland and help these and the peoples of Europe... The name of a Russian, the name of a Soviet person, must become and will become a worldwide name: a winner, a savior of culture, rights and freedoms."
The first day of mobilization, in accordance with the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was Monday, June 23. At that time, millions of people had no doubt that the war would end quickly. The power of the German military machine was underestimated by the people. This was the case in the early hours of the war. Within a few days, it became clear to everyone that the confrontation was going to be deadly.
They were standing to the death
And on the western borders of the country, from the Baltic Sea to Moldova— fierce fighting was already underway. The hardest ones. The fighters and commanders who met the enemy brought Victory closer when it was almost four long years away... At the cost of their lives. Incredibly expensive. Not a single border outpost retreated without an order. They stood to the death, delayed the enemy, winning back minutes, hours and days. This is the highest understanding of a soldier's duty.
Then, at the border, the first heroes disrupted the blitzkrieg. And the fact that on the very first day the war was called the patriotic war corresponded to the valor shown by our fighters on the border borders of the Soviet Union. The German command allocated half an hour to crush the resistance of the Soviet border guards. But they met with stubborn defense. On June 22, the day of the invasion, the first liberation of the city of Przemysl, captured by the enemies, took place. The 92nd Przemysl border detachment, together with the 99th Infantry Division, drove the invaders out of the city with a lightning counterattack. The fighters under the command of Senior Lieutenant Grigory Polivoda held the city until June 27, when the order to withdraw was received. The most astute Germans saw that the Red Army was capable of resisting. They had to see firsthand that Soviet soldiers and officers could win.
The author is the deputy editor—in-chief of the magazine "Historian"
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
