What happened to the Soviet military leaders in German captivity? Large fish.
When people talk about Soviet military leaders of the Great Patriotic War, they most often remember Zhukov, Rokossovsky, and Konev. While honoring them, we almost forgot the Soviet generals who made a huge contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany.
1.Arm Commander Remezov is an ordinary Great Russian.
In 1941, the Red Army abandoned city after city. Rare counter-offensives by our troops did not change the oppressive feeling of impending disaster. However, on the 161st day of the war - November 29, 1941, the elite German troops of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler tank brigade were driven out of the largest southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Stalin telegraphed congratulations to senior officers taking part in this battle, including the commander of the 56th division, Fyodor Remezov. It is known about this man that he was an ordinary Soviet general and called himself not a Russian, but a Great Russian. He was also appointed to the post of commander of the 56th on the personal order of Stalin, who appreciated Fyodor Nikitich’s ability, without losing composure, to conduct a stubborn defense against the advancing Germans, who were significantly superior in strength. For example, his decision, strange at first glance, with the forces of the 188th Cavalry Regiment to attack German armored vehicles in the area of the Koshkin station (near Taganrog) on October 17, 1941, which made it possible to withdraw the cadets of the Rostov Infantry School and parts of the 31st Division from a crushing blow. While the Germans were chasing the light cavalry, running into fiery ambushes, the 56th Army received the necessary respite and was saved from the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler tanks that broke through the defenses. Subsequently, Remezov’s bloodless fighters, together with soldiers of the 9th Army, liberated Rostov, despite Hitler’s categorical order not to surrender the city. This was the first major victory of the Red Army over the Nazis.
2. Vasily Arkhipov – tamer of the “royal tigers”<к сожалению не нашел фото>.
By the beginning of the war with the Germans, Vasily Arkhipov had successful combat experience with the Finns, as well as the Order of the Red Banner for breaking through the Mannerheim Line and the title of Hero Soviet Union for the personal destruction of four enemy tanks. In general, according to many military men who knew Vasily Sergeevich well, at first glance he accurately assessed the capabilities of German armored vehicles, even if they were new products of the fascist military-industrial complex. Thus, in the battle for the Sandomierz bridgehead in the summer of 1944, his 53rd Tank Brigade met the “Royal Tigers” for the first time. The brigade commander decided to attack the steel monster in his command tank in order to inspire his subordinates by personal example. Using the high maneuverability of his vehicle, he several times walked into the side of the “sluggish and slow beast” and opened fire. Only after the third hit did the “German” burst into flames. Soon his tank crews captured three more “royal tigers”. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Arkhipov, about whom his colleagues said “doesn’t drown in water, doesn’t burn in fire,” became a general on April 20, 1945.
3. Rodimtsev: “But pasaran.”
Alexander Rodimtsev in Spain was known as Camarados Pavlito, who fought in 1936-1937 with Franco's Falangists. For the defense of the university city near Madrid, he received the first gold star of a hero of the Soviet Union. During the war against the Nazis, he was known as the general who turned the tide of the Battle of Stalingrad. According to Zhukov, Rodimtsev’s guards literally at the last moment struck the Germans who had come ashore on the Volga. Later, recalling these days, Rodimtsev wrote: “On that day, when our division approached the left bank of the Volga, the Nazis took Mamayev Kurgan. They took it because for every one of our fighters there were ten fascists advancing, for every one of our tanks there were ten enemy tanks, for every “Yak” or “Il” that took off there were ten “Messerschmitts” or “Junkers”... the Germans knew how to fight, especially in such numerical and technical superiority." Rodimtsev did not have such forces, but his well-trained fighters of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, also known as the Airborne Forces formation, fighting in the minority, turned fascist Goth tanks into scrap metal and killed them in hand-to-hand urban battles significant number German soldiers of Paulus's 6th Army. As in Spain, in Stalingrad Rodimtsev repeatedly said: “but pasaran, the Nazis will not pass.”
4. Alexander Gorbatov - enemy of Beria<к сожалению не смог загрузить фото>.
Former non-commissioned officer of the tsarist army Alexander Gorbatov, who was awarded the rank of major general in December 1941, was one of those who were not afraid to conflict with his superiors. For example, in December 1941, he told his immediate commander Kirill Moskalenko that it was stupid to throw our regiments into a frontal attack on the Germans if there was no objective need for this. He responded harshly to the abuse, declaring that he would not allow himself to be insulted. And this was after three years of imprisonment in Kolyma, where he was transferred as an “enemy of the people” under the notorious Article 58. When Stalin was informed about this incident, he grinned and said: “Only the grave will correct the hunchback.” Gorbatov also entered into a dispute with Georgy Zhukov regarding the attack on Orel in the summer of 1943, demanding not to attack from the existing bridgehead, but to cross the Zushi River in another place. At first Zhukov was categorically against it, but, on reflection, he realized that Gorbatov was right. It is known that Lavrenty Beria had a negative attitude towards the general and even considered the stubborn man his personal enemy. Indeed, many did not like Gorbatov’s independent judgments. For example, after carrying out a number of brilliant operations, including the East Prussian one, Alexander Gorbatov unexpectedly spoke out against the assault on Berlin, proposing to begin a siege. He motivated his decision by the fact that the “Krauts” would surrender anyway, but this would save the lives of many of our soldiers who went through the entire war.
5. Mikhail Naumov: lieutenant who became a general.
Finding himself in occupied territory in the summer of 1941, wounded senior lieutenant Mikhail Naumov began his war against the invaders. At first he was a private in the partisan detachment of the Chervony district of the Sumy region (in January 1942), but after fifteen months he was awarded the rank of major general. Thus, he became one of the youngest senior officers, and also had an incredible and one-of-a-kind military career. However, such a high rank corresponded to the size of the partisan unit led by Naumov. This happened after the famous 65-day raid stretching almost 2,400 kilometers across Ukraine to Belarusian Polesie, as a result of which the German rear was pretty bled dry.
June 9th, 2016
Original taken from oper_1974 V
Original taken from oper_1974 in "Lost" party cards and generals in captivity. 1941
From the statement
to the Party Bureau of Arsenal 22
Colonel Goltvyanitsky Nikolai Alexandrovich,
Assistant Chief of the 5th Division of the 141st Infantry Division. (in 1941)
At the beginning of the Patriotic War, I was in the 141st Infantry Division as a Temporary Deputy. division chief of staff for logistics. We went to the front on June 18, 1941, and on June 23 we entered into battle with the enemy as part of the 6th Army.
On June 30, 1941, in the Podvysokoye-Pervomaisk area on the Sinyukha River, the 6th, 12th, 26th and other armies were surrounded by the Germans, including the 141st Infantry Division, where I was.
Upon receipt of the order to leave the encirclement and break through the encirclement chains, it was ordered to destroy all documentation, both general and party-related. After giving such an order, the commander of the 141st Infantry Division, Major General Tonkonogov, and the division chief of staff, Colonel Bondarenko, personally checked the implementation of the orders. During this period, many communists destroyed their party cards.
At one o'clock in the morning on August 1, 1941, by order of the army commander (breakthrough group), Lieutenant General Muzychenko, we launched an assault on the encirclement rings. They broke through one ring, but there were five rings. Approaching the Novo-Odessa point, we launched an assault, began to break through, but encountered very large enemy forces.
The Germans, going on the offensive against us, split our group into several parts. In those battles, the division commander (Major General Tonkonogov was captured near the village of Podvysokoye) and the chief of staff died.
On August 7, in this area, we, conducting intensified battles with the advancing enemy, reinforced by the tanks of von Kleist’s army, suffered heavy losses. At that time, our group was commanded by the chief of artillery of the 37th Rifle Corps (I don’t remember his last name), and the commissar was the regimental commissar from the 80th Rifle Division.
I was nominated to the position of chief of staff of this group. The commissar of the headquarters was the battalion commissar Lipetsky. German troops launched a decisive offensive and broke through. At this time, the group commander and commissar were seriously wounded. They began to destroy their party cards.
And at the suggestion of the battalion commissar Lipetsky, who destroyed his party card, I also hid my card in the foundation of the house; during the raid and bombing by enemy aircraft, this house was destroyed by bombs.
On the night of August 9, 1941, we, divided into separate groups, nevertheless, they broke through and began to advance along the German rear in the direction of the front line: Nikolaev, Kherson, Borislav, Krivoy Rog. On August 24, 1941, in the region of Dneprodzerzhinsk, we crossed the Dnieper and became available to the headquarters of the newly formed 6th Army. On September 9, 1941, I received an appointment to the 261st Infantry Division to the position of Deputy. chief of staff.
Memoirs of Major General Ya.I. Tonkonogova,
commander 141SD 37SK 6A
Kyiv. 03/19/1983
06/19/41. The 141st SD goes west. Order from corps commander Zybin: to reach the new border by night marches. Yampol - halt. There, beyond the old border, is a rock road. The main forces of the division are in two columns. Crossroads. Zybin was driving along the rock road from Proskurov, checking the 80th division.
Met and reported. And we walked with blank cartridges. I asked him: “Have you read your order, Comrade Kombrig, written on the basis of the order of the commander of the 6th Army. We are going to the border with the camp property, autobat. And without ammunition? Allow us to return one company of the autobat, take ammunition for the division. Or ask the commander of 6A.”
He listened and nodded his head: “I understand you, Yakov Ivanovich. But I served 33 months. I don’t want any more. An order is an order.” - “Then I will do it myself, but between us.”
I unloaded the tents and ordered the head of the garrison in Shepetovka to send 30 vehicles for ammunition. Commissioner A.I. Kushchevsky asks: “Yakov Ivanovich, but nothing will happen? Think about it, without an order.” Pom. nachart - the order was printed, the cars left in the evening of 06/19/41.
Semyon Petrovich Zybin (September 18, 1894 - August 5, 1941) - brigade commander, commander of the 37th Rifle Corps.
By the morning of June 22, 1941, the column entered the forest on the line Brody - Podkamen - the town of Ustinovo. Radiogram from the right column: “Unknown planes bombed Novopochaiev, Ustinovo is burning.” A special officer colonel is hovering nearby: “Repeat the request.”
Answer: “The regiment commander is wounded. NS. Do you understand? The hum of heavy aircraft, squadrons in the direction of Shepetivka, Kyiv.”
06.22.41. They dug in, but the cars had not yet arrived. The division lies in the trenches, with a battle ahead. By the evening of June 22, the cars arrived. Ammunition was issued. And the anti-aircraft division shot down the Rama.
How Zybin worried, realizing how much ammunition was needed. But he could not do anything, as he was shackled in prison. The will was nailed down. Then we met: I understood everything, but me...
He managed the corps well. He said to Prokhorov and me: “Comrade generals, our retreat should not just be a retreat, but a change: one division covers 1/3 of the corps. And the corps’ artillery should do the same.” Management is wonderful. I wrote to Zybin’s brother: “Your brother died honestly, in battle. At the edge of the Green Gate.”
In Green Gate - next to NP 141 SD, CP 37SK, CP16 MK, to the left of the road in the forest to Kopenkovatoe. To the right of the road, behind the forester's house - NP 80 SD. To the north in the forest, facing west - 139 SD. In the rear there are warehouses, rear areas, regimental hospitals. Artillery of two armies.
CP of the 6th and 12th armies - in Podvysokye until 5.08.41. August 5, 41, after 18.00, meeting of the Military Councils. What to do? In the evening, destroy the materiel, and at dawn - for a breakthrough.
Behind me is KP 16 MK Sokolov, calculations. Commanders with pistols and machine guns, 120 mm mortars, but there were no shells, even before the Green Gate. Tragedy, tragedy of the dead, relatives and friends...
Having returned with Kushchevsky from the Military Council on August 5, he wrote an order to destroy the materiel. We're driving in the car, we got out. Artillerymen clean the guns of the GAP 141 SD. Artillery of one battery in wheat, harvest. Come over.
I ask the battery commander: “Why are you cleaning it? Did you receive the order? There are no shells.” The battalion commander could not say, but the commander of the gun: “Comrade General! When a person dies, they wash him. So we decided to wash them before they die.”
Dolmatovsky did not write about this in Roman-Gazeta. Dolmatovsky did not show the soul of the soldier and the commanders - how worried they were that they were facing the death of their equipment and their own... It is difficult to read daub, sycophancy when you know him. Snow...
Mikhail Georgievich Snegov (November 12, 1896 - April 25, 1960) - Major General (1940), participant in the First World War, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. In 1941 he was captured by the Germans, after the war he returned to the USSR and continued his service.
We are sitting in a barracks in Zamość. German officers and a general and his wife came to look at the Russian generals. They come to us, we prepared lunch - pulp, dumped it on the table. The retinue and the deputy commandant enter, speaking Russian.
The pulp was put back into the pot. Snegov commands: stand up! Out of habit or stupidity, or something else forced him. I threw a pot of pulp at him. In Khristinovka, the battle is ongoing, there are no shells. Order from the 6th Army Command: Uman base. We arrived, there were a lot of shells, but the caliber was wrong...
Efim Sergeevich Zybin (1894-1946) - Major General (1940), participant in the First World War, Civil War and Great Patriotic War. In 1941 he was captured by the Germans, after the war he was arrested in the USSR and executed.
Kyiv. 2.04.1983. (Saturday).
About Zybin - he understood me, did not judge me, and was worried that there was no ammunition. “Follow the order, general”...About Snegov - Abramidze said everything about him that he considered necessary about him. He didn't walk with a rifle at the ready...
Muzychenko with M. in the T-34 tank at 10.00. 08/06/41 rushed south past the positions of our troops in the Emilovo region, shooting continuously. The tank was hit and Muzychenko was captured. The driver blew himself up and the tank.
Ponedelin is a victim. Tyulenev acted unworthily, giving Headquarters information about Ponedelin’s slowness and indecisiveness in leaving the encirclement to the East.
While the 6th and 12th armies carried out Tyulenev’s order to act in the North-East, to hold the Khristinovka - Potash - Zvenigorodka front, the 18th army exposed the left flank of the 6th army, quickly leaving through Golovanevsk to Pervomaisk, facilitating the 49th mu GSK Germans coverage from the south of the group of 6 and 12 armies. Ponedelin was shot in 1950. Tyulenev saved the Southern Front and the 18th Army, and 40 thousand of the 6th and 12th armies died through his fault.
Ivan Nikolaevich Muzychenko (1901 - December 8, 1970) - Lieutenant General (1940). In the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, commander of the 6th Army. One of the Soviet generals captured by the Germans.
Paavel Grigoryevich Ponedeelin (1893 - 1950) - Soviet military leader, commander of the 12th Army, major general (1940). One of the Soviet generals captured by the Germans. Upon returning to the USSR, he was shot on August 25, 1950. Rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.
Ivan Vladimirovich Tyulenev (1892 - 1978) - army general, complete gentleman St. George's Cross 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th class, Hero of the Soviet Union.
The 80th SD was entrusted on August 2 with the task of establishing contact with 18A, reaching the right bank of the Yatran. Prokhorov went out and broke through to the right, along Yatran. I met Prokhorov in Proskurov, at a meeting, after returning from the Finnish War. Tall, strong, sharp. Good, smart commander
Brigade commander Prokhorov received the 80th SD on the Karelian Isthmus. His predecessor, brigade commander Monakhov, was removed - for the unorganized movement of the division to the front, about 800 people were “lost” and ended up in other units.
None of the generals were in Uman, in the Uman pit. We met in captivity in Hammelburg, V.I. Prokhorov. I was with the first group of generals: Egorov, S.A. Tkachenko. They introduced me to the underground.
In Flossenburg, Prokhorov hit the capo and killed him. The guards went and beat him to a pulp. Then, exhausted, he was sent to Revere, where he was given a lethal injection. From there they were sent to the crematorium. Autumn 1943 (Early 1944). General Mikhailov N.F. witness to the death of General Prokhorov V.I. Lieutenant Colonel Porodenko, NSh 10 TD 16 MK Sokolov, came to the Union together with Tonkonogov. "Stone bag" (Lefortovo).
Vasily Ivanovich Prokhorov (1900-1943) - Major General, commander of the 80th Red Banner Donetsk Rifle Division.
12/17/83. Kyiv.
In Hammelburg, in the “Oflag XSh-D” there were: generals Nikitin I.S., Alakhverdov Kh.S., Panasenko N.F., later generals Karbyshev D.F., Tkachenko S.A., Thor G.I.
On January 26, 1943, active participants of the Hammelburg underground were transferred from the Nuremberg Gestapo prison to Flossenburg: General Mikhailov N.F., Fisenko G.I., Panasenko N.F., Eruste R.R., Nikolaev B.I., Kopelets B.I. ., Kikot G.I., later generals Pavlov P.P., and Mitrofanov N.I. General Mikhailov N.F. saw the death of General Prokhorov V.I.
113 thousand prisoners passed through the penal convict concentration camp Flossenburg. “From 1941 to 1945, over 80 thousand prisoners died from torture and were burned. Among the victims of the camp were about 27,000 Soviet prisoners of war, only 102 people remained.” On April 23, 1945, the camp column, escorted by the Germans to Dachau, was liberated by the Americans.
Captured generals in the world wars (using the examples of the generals of the RIA and the Red Army): experience of historical research and comparative analysis
The problem of being in captivity of the generals of the Russian Imperial Army (RIA) during the years Great War up to recent years belonged to the category of little studied. Moreover, there were no works that compared the situation of Russian and Soviet captured generals during the two World Wars. In a special work, which was published in 2010, the object of our study was the fate of captured Russian generals in 1914-1917. In the process of research, the authors solved the following problems: they established the exact number of Russian generals captured by the enemy in 1914-1917, identified them, established the circumstances of their captivity, analyzed the conditions of detention and found out their further fates. As a result of generalizing a large amount of factual material, statistical conclusions were made. Thus, in practice, we confirmed the fundamental thesis of the General Staff of Lieutenant General N. N. Golovin: “War statistics are needed for the sociology of war.” Golovin emphasized the value and importance of military statistical methods in the study of various phenomena and processes of war. In this report, we would like to introduce listeners to the main results of studying the complex issue of the captivity of Russian and Soviet generals during the two World Wars of the twentieth century.
I. Number of captured generals
We have established that in 1914-1917, 66 RIA generals who were in active service at the time of captivity were captured in German and Austrian captivity. Of this number, 6 people are those generals who, during the announcement of general mobilization in Russia on July 17 (30), 1914, were on the territory of Germany and Austria-Hungary (for treatment, on leave, etc.) and were subjected to internment, becoming after the declaration of war in prisoners of war. It is curious that such persons are absent among the captured Soviet generals. As a result, directly at the theater of military operations in 1914-1917, 60 Russian generals were captured by the enemy (5 of them to the Austro-Hungarians, the rest to the Germans). In 1941-1944, at the theater of military operations, 83 Soviet generals and representatives of the highest command and command staff of the Red Army were captured in rank equal to them (only one of them was probably captured by the Romanians, the rest by the Germans). Taking into account the increase in the number of general positions during the Second World War and some “devaluation” of general ranks, approximately equal amount generals of the Russian Imperial and Red armies.
II. Circumstances of capture
During two wars, greatest number the generals were captured during the operations successfully carried out by the Germans to encircle large formations of the RIA and the Red Army. But if during the Great War, as a rule, there were only encirclements of army corps and, consequently, the capture of corps commanders, then during the Second World War, thanks to the skillful use of mechanized troops of the Wehrmacht, encirclements of armies and even fronts took place, with the subsequent capture of army commanders . Thus, in August 1914, as a result of the encirclement of the central corps of the 2nd Army of General A.V. Samsonov, 18 generals were captured, while the XX Army Corps was encircled in February 1915 - 12. After the capitulation of Novogeorgievsk, 17 generals surrendered. So, 50 out of 60 Russian generals were captured by the enemy as a result of successful encirclement operations. The remaining cases of capture represent losses during combat operations (the retreat of the 1st Army of General P.K. Rennenkampf - 3, the defeat of the 48th Infantry Division of General L.G. Kornilov - 3, during the Lodz operation - 2 and during the capture of Moonsund archipelago - 3).
During the Second World War, a similar picture was observed: in 1941, 63 Soviet generals were captured. Almost all of them were captured by the Germans also during successful operations to encircle large formations (Bialystok - Minsk, Uman, Kiev “cauldron”, Vyazma). Moreover, in contrast to the period of the Great War, the army commanders were captured: S.V. Vishnevsky, F.A. Ershakov, M.F. Lukin, I.N. Muzychenko, P.G. Ponedelin, M.I. Potapov. Another army commander - A. A. Vlasov - was handed over to the enemy by local residents when leaving the encirclement after the enemy eliminated the remnants of the 2nd shock army on the Volkhov front. To summarize, let us again cite the authoritative opinion of N.N. Golovin: “Until the autumn of 1915, maneuver warfare prevailed on the Russian front; in this type of struggle, battles are always more decisive than in positional warfare, and, therefore, the victor has a greater opportunity to take prisoners. Since the autumn of 1915, the struggle in the Russian theater has acquired a predominantly positional character, this reduces the possibility of capture (for example, encirclement, deep persecution).” After the summer campaign of 1915, the enemy failed to carry out any major encirclements. This circumstance excluded the possibility of the capture of representatives of the Russian generals. Note that the overwhelming majority of enemy generals were captured by Russians also as a result of the surrender of their troops (the encirclement of two Turkish corps near Sarykamysh in 1914, the surrender of Przemysl in 1915 and the capture of Erzurum in 1916).
Periodization of the captivity of representatives of the generals according to the years of the two wars:
1914/1941 1915/1942 1916 / 1943 1917/1944
25 63 32 16 0 3 3 1
The above systematization clearly demonstrates the successful nature of the military operations of the Russian and Soviet armed forces during the various campaigns of the two wars. Thus, during the unsuccessful campaigns of 1914-1915 and 1941-1942, 57 and 79 Russian and Soviet generals were captured, respectively. In 1916 and 1943, the qualifications of the senior command staff of both armies improved, and large encirclements were avoided. In fact, in 1916 and 1943 during the war, there was a turning point in favor of Russia and the Soviet Union. One of the many consequences of this turning point was changes in the ratio of casualties (bloods / prisoners). However, further, the Red Army continued to increase its power, which resulted in numerous successful operations on all fronts and the final victory, and the Russian Imperial Army, plunged into revolutionary chaos, in fact, by the summer of 1917 it had turned into an uncontrollable crowd that did not want to fight. These opposite phenomena are clearly illustrated by the statistics of the capture of generals. In 1944, only one, three times seriously wounded (!!!) Soviet general* was accidentally captured by the enemy. In 1917, during an operation on the Moonsund archipelago, a German landing party captured three Russian combat generals, who were powerless in the face of the situation and were unable to give a fighting impulse to the wild masses of soldiers of the third-rank regiments that made up the garrison of the fortifications of the archipelago.
The inability to counter successful German offensives with effective management, the lack of skills in fighting surrounded, as well as the quickly emerging fear and timidity of the generals in front of the Germans who were obviously more skilled in military affairs, entailed large losses in prisoners in 1914-1915 and 1941-1942. However, further, during the course of two wars by 1916 and 1943, respectively, it was possible to develop a system to counter German offensive tactics and reduce the loss of prisoners. The collapse of the military machine in one case (Russia) and its strengthening in another (USSR) predetermined the outcome of the fighting and, consequently, the nature of losses on the fronts.
III. Being in captivity
If our analysis according to the previous criteria demonstrates the similarity of trends that took place during the two World Wars, then the conditions of stay and behavior in captivity of Russian and Soviet generals are radically different. Thus, during the First World War, we can talk about only one reliably established case of direct murder by the Germans of a captured Russian general - A. S. Saychuk. The circumstances of the fatal wound of Major General Saychuk could not be clarified. However, known facts- Afanasy Semyonovich fought to the last (captured on August 18, 1914 after the order of surrender, which was given by his immediate superior, General N.A. Klyuev), was a Knight of St. George for the defense of Port Arthur, was held in Japanese captivity, and hardly wanted a repeat for himself to a similar fate - make it very likely that he tried to escape, or resisted the German soldiers who took him prisoner. Lynching committed by German military personnel cannot be ruled out. Numerous facts of extrajudicial killings and arbitrariness are recorded in documents related to the East Prussian operation.
During the Second World War, the Germans killed at least three Soviet generals and commanders of equal ranks right on the battlefield, and another 22 died in captivity (several people were shot for violating the regime, pro-Soviet or anti-German, which is not the same agitation , the creation of underground cells, etc., and the majority died of illness, the consequences of wounds and a terrible regime, including from systematic beatings). In 1914-1917, 5 Russian generals died in German captivity, but no beatings were allowed against them. Moreover, they had orderlies from among captured soldiers, they were paid a salary, allowed trips into the city, allowed to receive and acquire extra food. As one of the most difficult phenomena of German captivity, searches are mentioned, the victims of which were all prisoners without exception, not excluding generals.
There is no need to retell here the nightmares that accompanied the Soviet generals’ time in captivity, especially during the first war winter of 1941/1942. Later, the Germans, as they say, came to their senses and slightly softened the regime for keeping prisoners, especially those who showed loyalty or took a neutral position. The reason for the serious difference in the conditions of detention of captured generals in 1914-1917 and 1941-1945 is that in all the wars that Russia waged with its opponents, it was for them a full-fledged, respected enemy, subject international law. Failure to comply with the unwritten customs of war, including the conditions of detention of captured military leaders, could cost the violator dearly, regardless of the outcome of the armed confrontation. It is difficult to imagine that during the Napoleonic, Crimean and Russian-Japanese wars, the enemy would carry out executions against captured Russian generals similar to those that took place during the Second World War. Russian Empire there was no need to stimulate the resistance of their troops by consciously and publicly refusing to support all prisoners, as well as by qualifying any circumstances of being captured as deliberate treason, which excluded the “problem-free” return of prisoners to their homeland after the end of the war.
Since the beginning of the war soviet government faced an unexpected phenomenon - the reluctance of a significant part of the regular army to fight the advancing Germans. The logic of the totalitarian regime implied the use of any means to strengthen the resistance of its own troops, including excluding them from the opportunity to “sit out” the war in relatively comfortable captivity. The question of practical actions of the Soviet leadership to create conditions for the Germans to tighten the regime for holding prisoners of war is a topic independent research. This took place, especially on initial stage war, and the attitude of the Germans towards captured Soviet military leaders not so much as equal soldiers of the enemy army (as in all past wars), but as carriers of a hostile ideology, which resulted in a conscious refusal of guarantees of personal safety even to captured persons.
III. Cooperation with the enemy in captivity
In 1941, for the first time in 20 years of Soviet power, the conditions of captivity opened up for numerous Soviet citizens the opportunity for free discussions on all pressing issues of the pre-war life of the “most advanced society”, and also made it possible to publicly analyze the reasons for the colossal failures of the “invincible” Red Army. Numerous memoirists (loyal German officers and prisoners who survived the war) testify to the boundless hatred and contempt of a significant part of captured soldiers and commanders for everything that was associated in the mass consciousness with the Soviet regime and socialist society, personally with Comrade Stalin and his methods of warfare. The prisoners did not hesitate to discuss issues of Soviet life and poverty, the tragedy of collectivization, the terror of 1937-1938, as well as the “skillful” command and control of troops by “Stalin’s people’s commissars”, “first red officers”, “heroes of the liberation of Finland” and other “liberation campaigns” . It is quite natural that many representatives of the command staff of the Red Army took part in such discussions, including some of those generals who are traditionally considered loyal to the Soviet regime (M.F. Lukin, I.P. Prokhorov, etc.).
It should be noted here that these democratic processes, to the joy of I.V. Stalin, were suppressed by the Germans, who by the end of 1941 established a prisoner detention regime that did not contribute to the manifestation of any social activity. Each representative of the command staff, like any other prisoner, formed his attitude towards the enemy individually. Judging by various evidence, human behavior in German captivity was influenced by various factors, for example, the degree of previously hidden hatred of Soviet power, due to personal experience, including those associated with the repressions of 1937-1938. Not all prisoners viewed Germany as an enemy. For many “sub-Soviet” people, including military leaders, the Stalinist regime seemed a greater evil than yesterday’s “sworn friend” of the USSR - the Nazi Reich. Someone's behavior was influenced by the general cultural level and the desire to break out of the primitive ideological clutches of Soviet propaganda.
The transformation of the attitude of prisoners towards Germany and its army occurred as a result of the establishment of a cannibalistic order that the Germans created in prisoner of war camps around the late autumn of 1941. The anti-Soviet and anti-Stalinist potential of captured personnel soldiers and commanders of the Red Army was not used by the pragmatic German command. However, it was not only about “anti-Soviet conversations” in captivity. Already in the summer of 1941, a completely unprecedented phenomenon became apparent, which had no analogues not only during the Great War, but also in Russian history as a whole - voluntary and very active cooperation of representatives of the highest command with the enemy. Moreover, sometimes truly amazing cases took place: for example, in 1941-1942, Major Generals B. S. Richter and M. M. Shapovalov defected to the enemy side right on the battlefield. In 1941, brigade commander I.G. Bessonov surrendered to the German guards. Shapovalov, who transferred on August 14, 1942, motivated his action, as evidenced by the German interrogation protocol, “by the desire to actively participate in the fight against the Stalinist government that he hated and the system existing in the USSR.” But it should be noted here that most of the Soviet generals, who subsequently collaborated with the Germans or showed their disloyalty to the Soviet government in captivity, were captured in a hopeless situation, having exhausted all possibilities for resistance. Thus, Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov, contrary to numerous myths and speculations, was captured by the enemy after grueling, multi-day wanderings around the German rear.
In 1941-1945, at least 15 captured Soviet generals were engaged in practical anti-Soviet activities on the side of the Wehrmacht and in other government structures of Germany. Moreover, some limited themselves to formal membership in various structures, but most of took part in the armed struggle. Needless to say, nothing like this happened during the Great War. None of the captured Russian generals committed treason. Moreover, in pre-revolutionary Russian society there were no such deep conflicts and contradictions that could have provoked mass cooperation of Russian prisoners with the enemy in 1914-1917. True, after the events February Revolution 1917, the Germans and Austrians took a number of practical actions to separate the mass of Russian prisoners of war along national lines. The enemy attempted to create Ukrainian military formations from among the soldiers of the Russian army. There is reason to believe that one of the Russian captured generals reacted favorably to their creation, but nothing more.
During the First World War, there were no prerequisites for high treason among captured Russian generals, although attempts to understand the reasons for the defeats and criticism of certain operational decisions of the higher command certainly took place. But none of the representatives of the Russian generals, as well as the headquarters and career chief officers who were captured, considered it possible for themselves to participate in the war on the side of Germany or its allies.
A completely different picture is observed in German prisoner of war camps, starting in the summer of 1941. The impossibility of opposition sentiments manifesting under the conditions of the Stalinist state, and at the same time the presence of complex social contradictions, contributed to the formation of open anti-Stalinist protest in conditions of relative freedom from total control by punitive and other bodies of Soviet power. At the same time, it was clear to most opposition-minded people, including captured military leaders, that eliminating Soviet power in the country could only be done with the help of a kind of “third force”, subject to a favorable attitude towards it on the part of Germany. However, the Nazis adhered to completely different attitudes. They decisively contradicted the aspirations of the nationally minded Soviet military, who made desperate and numerous attempts to create a Russian army and prototype Russian state. Insurmountable contradictions between the Nazis and Stalin's opponents among Soviet prisoners of war predetermined the collapse of the anti-Soviet resistance during the Second World War and the tragic fate of its participants, including former captured generals of the Red Army.
IV. Return from captivity
After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, the gradual repatriation of prisoners of war began. Most of the captured Russian generals arrived in Moscow from Germany on a hospital train in the summer of 1918. The situation of the flaring civil war required personal choice. Generals who did not completely undermine their health in captivity had to choose one of the many armies that fought in the space of the former Russian Empire, service in which corresponded to their fundamental views and beliefs. Former captured Russian generals served in the Red Army, in the White armies of A. V. Kolchak, N. N. Yudenich, A. I. Denikin, P. N. Wrangel, as well as in national armed formations. Some of the repatriates tried to evade armed struggle on the fields of the civil war. None of the former captured generals were subjected to repression for the fact of being in captivity. But at least five became victims of the Red Terror and subsequent repressions of the Soviet regime.
After the end of World War II, the picture looked different. Soviet generals who returned from captivity were subjected to careful scrutiny, and the very fact of being in captivity, if not charged with guilt, was considered, in the best traditions of Soviet society, as a discrediting circumstance. When studying the post-war fates of captured Soviet generals, the researcher comes to the conclusion that the bodies of the GUKR SMERSH and then the USSR Ministry of State Security sometimes did not require objective information about the behavior of a particular person in captivity to apply repression. Based on the Stalinist political thesis about the depravity of any reason for being captured, the former military leader should have been convicted under any, even flimsy, pretext and on absurd grounds. According to our calculations, at least 17 people suffered this fate.
In addition, based on out-of-court decisions, they were sentenced to death penalty another 15 generals and equivalent commanders who, from the point of view of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, collaborated with the enemy and fought against the party and the Soviet state. More than 20 Soviet generals only lost the opportunity to continue a prosperous career, avoiding repression. However, in Soviet society, until the early 1980s, a wary attitude towards former prisoners was inculcated, which was expressed in various kinds restrictions. The corresponding suspicions were initiated and cultivated by the highest party nomenklatura. Only the death in captivity of such generals as D.M. Karbyshev, G.I. Thor, I.M. Shepetov, whose death was painted in heroic tones, made possible a positive story about them on the pages of Soviet literary works, movie screens, etc.
To summarize, it should be recognized that the Bolsheviks liquidated the Russian military tradition, which clearly defined the nature of the general and officer’s stay in enemy captivity, the destruction of the moral and religious basis of the military oath, as well as the steady desire to ultimately destroy or push its bearers to the margins of life in a socialist state , created social conditions for extraordinary and unprecedented behavior of representatives of the command staff of the Red Army in German captivity in 1941-1945, compared to the situation in 1914-1917.
Notes
N. N. Golovin believed that, based on the overall results and results, the 1914 campaign was quite successful for the Russian army. At the readings, F. A. Gushchin’s point of view about the results of the 1914 campaign caused controversy during the discussion of his report. - Approx. ed.
Quote by: Aleksandrov K. M. Officer Corps of the Army of Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov 1944-1945 // Biographical reference book. Ed. 2. M., 2009. P. 872.
In General's destinies during the Second World War.
During military operations, for one reason or another, military personnel are sometimes captured, so according to archival data from Germany, during all the years of World War II, a total of almost 35 million people were captured; according to researchers, officers from this total number prisoners accounted for about 3%, and captured military officers with the rank of generals numbered less, only a few hundred people. However, it is precisely this category of prisoners of war that has always been of particular interest to the intelligence services and various political structures warring parties, therefore most of all experienced ideological pressure and other various forms of moral and psychological influence.
In connection with which the question involuntarily arises, which of the warring parties had greatest number captured senior military personnel officials who had the rank of general, in the Red Army or in the German Wehrmacht?
From various data it is known that during the Second World War, 83 generals of the Red Army were captured in German captivity. Of these, 26 people died due to various reasons: shot, killed by camp guards, died from disease. The rest were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of these, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals sentenced to different deadlines conclusions. The remaining 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of inspection, but then gradually transferred to the reserve (link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).
The vast majority of Soviet generals were captured in 1941, a total of 63 generals of the Red Army. In 1942, our army suffered a number of defeats. And here, surrounded by the enemy, 16 more generals were captured. In 1943, three more generals were captured and in 1945 - one. In total during the war - 83 people. Of these, 5 are army commanders, 19 corps commanders, 31 division commanders, 4 chiefs of army staff, 9 chiefs of army branches, etc.
In the book of modern researchers of this issue, F. Gushchin and S. Zhebrovsky, it is stated that allegedly about 20 Soviet generals agreed to cooperate with the Nazis; according to other sources, there were only 8 generals who agreed to cooperate with the Germans (http://ru.wikipedia.org /wiki) if this data corresponds to reality, then of these 20 only two generals are known who voluntarily and openly went over to the side of the enemy, this is Vlasov and another of his fellow traitors, the former commander of the 102nd Infantry Division, brigade commander (major general) Ivan Bessonov is the one who in April 1942 proposed to his German masters to create special anti-partisan corps, and that’s it, the names of the traitor generals are not specifically mentioned anywhere.
Thus, the majority of Soviet generals who fell into the hands of the Germans were either wounded or unconscious and subsequently behaved with dignity in captivity. The fate of many of them still remains unknown, just as the fate of Major General Bogdanov, commander of the 48th Rifle Division, Major General Dobrozerdov, who headed the 7th Rifle Corps, is still unknown, the fate of Lieutenant General Ershakov, who in September 1941 took command of the 20th Army, which was soon defeated in the battle of Smolensk.
Smolensk became a truly unlucky city for Soviet generals, where Lieutenant General Lukin commanded at the beginning the 20th Army, and then the 19th Army, which was also defeated there in the battle of Smolensk in October 1941.
The fate of Major General Mishutin is full of secrets and mysteries, an active participant in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he commanded a rifle division in Belarus, and there he disappeared without a trace during the fighting.
Only at the end of the 80s was an attempt made to pay tribute to generals Ponedelin and Kirillov, who flatly refused to cooperate with the Germans.
The fate of Major General Potapov of the tank forces was interesting; he was one of the five army commanders whom the Germans captured during the war. Potapov distinguished himself in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, where he commanded the Southern Group, and at the beginning of the war he commanded the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front. After his release from captivity, Potapov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and later promoted to the rank of Colonel General. Then, after the war, he was appointed to the post of first deputy commander of the Odessa and Carpathian military districts. His obituary was signed by all representatives of the high command, which included several marshals. The obituary said nothing about his capture and stay in German camps. So it turns out that not everyone was punished for being in captivity.
The last Soviet general (and one of two Air Force generals) captured by the Germans was Aviation Major General Polbin, commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Corps, which supported the activities of the 6th Army, which surrounded Breslau in February 1945. He was wounded, captured and killed, and only then did the Germans establish the identity of this man. His fate was completely typical for all those who were captured in recent months wars(link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).
What about the captured German generals? How many of them ended up at Stalin's grubs under the protection of NKVD special forces? If, according to various sources, there were from 4.5 to 5.7 million Soviet soldiers and commanders captured by the Germans, and there were almost 4 million Germans and their allies captured in the USSR, a difference of a whole million in favor of the Germans, then As for the generals, the picture was different; almost five times more German generals were captured by the Soviets than Soviet ones!
From the research of B.L. Khavkin it is known:
The first captured generals ended up in the GUPVI (Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR) in the winter of 1942-1943. These were 32 prisoners of Stalingrad led by the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal General Friedrich Paulus. In 1944, another 44 generals were captured. 1945 was especially successful for the Red Army, when 300 German generals were captured.
According to information contained in a certificate from the head of the prison department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Colonel P.S. Bulanov dated September 28, 1956, in total there were
376 German generals, of which 277 were released from captivity and repatriated to their homeland, 99 died. Among the dead, the official statistics of the GUPVI included those 18 generals who were sentenced to death by the Decree of April 19, 1943 and hanged as war criminals.
The number of captured generals and admirals included the highest ranks of the ground forces, Luftwaffe, navy, SS, police, as well as government officials who received the rank of general for services to the Reich. Among the captured generals, most were representatives of the ground forces, as well as, oddly enough, retirees(link: http://forum.patriotcenter.ru/index.php?PHPSESSID=2blgn1ae4f0tb61r77l0rpgn07&topic=21261.0).
There is practically no information that any of the German generals were captured wounded, shell-shocked, or with weapons in their hands, and surrendered in a civilized manner, with all the attributes of the old Prussian military school. More often than not, Soviet generals burned alive in tanks, died on the battlefield and went missing.
Captured German generals were kept practically in resort conditions, for example in camp No. 48, founded in June 1943 in former house During the holiday of the Central Committee of the Railway Workers' Trade Union in the village of Cherntsy, Lezhnevsky district, Ivanovo region, in January 1947 there were 223 captured generals, of which 175 were Germans, 35 Hungarians, 8 Austrians, 3 Romanians, 2 Italians. This camp was located in a park in which linden trees grew, there were walking paths, and flowers bloomed in the flower beds in the summer. The zone also had a vegetable garden, occupying about 1 hectare of land, in which the generals worked at will and vegetables, from which they went to their table in addition to the existing food standards. Thus, the generals' nutrition was improved. The patients were given an additional ration, which included meat, milk and butter. However, there were also hunger strikes in the camp, the participants of which protested against poor service in the canteen, under-delivery of rationed food, blackouts, etc. There were no attempts to escape from captivity, or attempts to raise any kind of riot or uprising among the German generals.
A completely different picture was observed with the Soviet generals, 6 of them, risking their lives, escaped from the camp in order to continue to fight in the ranks of the partisans, these are Major Generals I. Alekseev, N. Goltsev, S. Ogurtsov, P. Sysoev, P. Tsiryulnikov and brigade commissar I. Tolkachev (link: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki). Another 15 Soviet generals were executed by the Nazis for preparing escapes and underground activities.
Regarding the cooperation of German generals with Soviet authorities much is known, the facts confirm that the generals collaborated with the Soviets very actively and willingly, for example, in February 1944, Generals Seidlitz and Korfes took personal part in the work of agitation in German military units surrounded in the area of Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Seidlitz and Korfes even met with Army General Vatutin, with whom a plan of action was agreed upon. 500 thousand copies of Seidlitz’s appeal to the officer corps and soldiers of the encircled group with a call to stop resistance in order to avoid senseless casualties were printed and dropped from airplanes. The German general Seidlitz apparently dreamed of becoming the new liberator of Germany and even asked the Soviet leadership to give him permission to form German national units, but the Russians, like the Germans, did not trust defectors; captured Germans were allowed mainly to engage in propaganda work to disintegrate the enemy troops at the front and nothing more, and Vlasov received the Germans’ go-ahead to actually form ROA troops only in the fall of 1944. right before the start of the catastrophe of the Third Reich, when the Germans no longer had anyone to send to the front line.
Soon in the summer of 1944, immediately after the last attempt on Hitler's life, realizing that the Reich was coming to an end, almost all the generals led by Paulus rushed to cooperate with the Soviet administration. From that moment on, Paulus reconsidered his position in relation to the anti-fascist movement and on August 14 he entered to the Union of German Officers and makes an appeal to the German troops at the front, the appeal was broadcast on the radio, leaflets with its text were thrown into the location of the German troops, apparently this had an impact on many soldiers and officers. Goebbels’ department even had to launch a counter-propaganda campaign to prove that this appeal was a falsification.
War is a cruel test, it does not spare even generals and marshals. A general in the army is a very big power, and with it a very big responsibility. Every military leader has ups and downs, each has his own destiny. One becomes a national Hero forever, and the other disappears into oblivion.
The greatness of the feat of our people in the Great Patriotic War lies in the fact that, although at a terribly high price, it endured a powerful blow to the hitherto invincible German army and did not allow it, as the Wehrmacht command had hoped, to carry out the notorious blitzkrieg to the East.
"SPECIAL TREATMENT"
Unfortunately, there are still many dark spots associated with this terrible war. Among them are the fates of Soviet prisoners of war. For during these years, 5,740,000 Soviet prisoners of war passed through the crucible of German captivity. Moreover, only about 1 million were in concentration camps by the end of the war. The German lists of the dead included a figure of about 2 million. Of the remaining number, 818,000 collaborated with the Germans, 473,000 were killed in Wehrmacht camps in Germany and Poland, 273,000 died and about half a million were killed en route, 67,000 soldiers and officers escaped . According to statistics, two out of three Soviet prisoners of war died in German captivity. The first year of the war was especially terrible in this regard. Of the 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans during the first six months of the war, by January 1942, about 2 million had died or been destroyed. The mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war even exceeded the rate of reprisals against Jews during the peak of the anti-Semitic campaign in Germany.
The architect of the genocide was not a member of the SS or even a representative of the Nazi Party, but just an elderly general who was on duty. military service since 1905. This is Infantry General Hermann Reinecke, who headed the department of prisoners of war losses in the German army. Even before the start of Operation Barbarossa, Reinecke made a proposal to isolate Jewish prisoners of war and transfer them into the hands of the SS for “special processing.” Later, as a judge of the "people's court", he sentenced hundreds of German Jews to the gallows.
At the same time, Hitler, having received active support from the Wehrmacht in the campaign of mass extermination of Jews, was finally convinced of the possibility of implementing a plan for the total destruction of individual nations and nationalities.
DEATH AND STATISTICS
Stalin's attitude towards his prisoners of war was extremely cruel, even despite the fact that his own son was among them in 1941. In essence, Stalin’s attitude to the issue of prisoners of war was manifested already in 1940 in the episode with the Katyn forests (execution Polish officers). It was the leader who initiated the concept “anyone who surrenders is a traitor,” which was later attributed to the head of the political department of the Red Army, Mehlis.
In November 1941, the Soviet side expressed a weak protest over the mistreatment of prisoners of war, while refusing to cooperate with the activities of the International Red Cross in exchanging lists of people captured. Equally insignificant were the protests of the USSR at the Nuremberg trials, at which Soviet prisoners of war were represented by only one witness - medical service lieutenant Evgeniy Kivelisha, who was captured in 1941. The episodes cited by Kivelisha and confirmed by other testimony indicated that with Soviet military personnel were treated the same as representatives of Jewish nationality. Moreover, when gas chambers were first tested in the Auschwitz camp, the first victims were Soviet prisoners of war.
The Soviet Union did nothing to get the Nazis accused of crimes against prisoners of war - neither the elderly organizer and ideologist Reinecke, nor the commanders of the troops Hermann Hoth, Erich Manstein and Richard Ruff, nor the SS commanders Kurt Meyer and Sepp Dietrich, who were opposed Serious charges have been brought forward.
Unfortunately, most of our prisoners of war, released from German dungeons, were later sent to Soviet camps. And only after Stalin’s death the process of their rehabilitation began. Among them, for example, there were such worthy people as Major Gavrilov, the hero of the defense of the Brest Fortress, who spent more time in Soviet camps than in German ones. Stalin is said to have precisely defined his attitude to this problem: “The death of one person is a tragedy, the death of several thousand people is a statistic.”
FATES OF GENERALS
The fates of not only many soldiers-prisoners of war are tragic, but also the fates of Soviet generals. Most of the Soviet generals who fell into German hands were either wounded or unconscious.
During the Second World War, 83 generals of the Red Army were captured in German captivity. Of these, 26 people died for various reasons: shot, killed by camp guards, or died from disease. The rest were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of these, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order # 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
The remaining 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of verification, but then gradually transferred to the reserve.
There are still many secrets in the fates of those generals who found themselves in German captivity. Let me give you a few typical examples.
The fate of Major General Bogdanov remains a mystery. He commanded the 48th Infantry Division, which was destroyed in the first days of the war as a result of the Germans advancing from the Riga region to the Soviet borders. In captivity, Bogdanov joined the Gil-Rodinov brigade, which was formed by the Germans from representatives of Eastern European nationalities to carry out anti-partisan tasks. Lieutenant Colonel Gil-Rodinov himself was the chief of staff of the 29th Infantry Division before his capture. Bogdanov took the position of chief of counterintelligence. In August 1943, the brigade's soldiers killed all German officers and went over to the side of the partisans. Gil-Rodinov was later killed while fighting on the side of the Soviet troops. The fate of Bogdanov, who also went over to the side of the partisans, is unknown.
Major General Dobrozerdov headed the 7th Rifle Corps, which in August 1941 was tasked with stopping the advance of the German 1st Panzer Group to the Zhitomir region. The corps' counterattack failed, partially contributing to the Germans' encirclement of the Southwestern Front near Kiev. Dobrozerdov survived and was soon appointed chief of staff of the 37th Army. This was the period when, on the left bank of the Dnieper, the Soviet command regrouped the scattered forces of the Southwestern Front. In this leapfrog and confusion, Dobrozerdov was captured. The 37th Army itself was disbanded at the end of September and then re-established under the command of Lopatin for the defense of Rostov. Dobrozerdov withstood all the horrors of captivity and returned to his homeland after the war. Further fate is unknown.
Lieutenant General Ershakov was, in the full sense, one of those who were lucky enough to survive from Stalin's repressions. In the summer of 1938, at the height of the purge process, he became commander of the Ural Military District. In the first days of the war, the district was transformed into the 22nd Army, which became one of three armies sent to the very thick of the battles - to the Western Front. At the beginning of July, the 22nd Army was unable to stop the advance of the German 3rd Panzer Group towards Vitebsk and was completely destroyed in August. However, Ershakov managed to escape. In September 1941, he took command of the 20th Army, which was defeated in the battle of Smolensk. At the same time, under unknown circumstances, Ershakov himself was captured. He went through captivity and remained alive. Further fate is unknown.
Before the start of the war, Lieutenant General Lukin commanded the Transbaikal Military District. In May 1941, Stalin, in a state of panic, decided to take a number of countermeasures to repeated manifestations of ill will on the part of Hitler. These included the creation of the 16th Army on the basis of the Transbaikal Military District, which was later redeployed to Ukraine, where it was destroyed in the first days of the war. Lukin subsequently commanded the 20th Army, and then the 19th, which was also defeated in the battle of Smolensk in October 1941. The commander was captured. In December 1942, Vlasov approached the mutilated general (without one leg, with a paralyzed arm) with an offer to join the ROA (Russian Liberation Army). Similar attempts were made by Trukhin, the chief of staff of the Vlasov army, a former colleague of Lukin, but they were not crowned with success. At the end of the war, Lukin returned to his homeland, but was not reinstated in active service (pretext: medical reasons).
The fate of Major General Mishutin is full of secrets and mysteries. He was born in 1900, took part in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, and by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he commanded a rifle division in Belarus. There he disappeared without a trace during the fighting (a fate shared by thousands of Soviet soldiers). In 1954, former allies informed Moscow that Mishutin held a high position in one of the Western intelligence services and worked in Frankfurt. According to the presented version, the general first joined Vlasov, and then last days War was recruited by General Patch, commander of the American 7th Army, and became a Western agent. Another story, presented by the Russian writer Tamaev, seems more realistic, according to which an NKVD officer who investigated the fate of General Mishutin proved that Mishutin was shot by the Germans for refusing to cooperate, and his name was used by a completely different person who was recruiting prisoners of war into the Vlasov army. At the same time, the documents on the Vlasov movement do not contain any information about Mishutin, and the Soviet authorities, through their agents among prisoners of war, from the interrogations of Vlasov and his accomplices after the war, would undoubtedly have established the actual fate of General Mishutin. In addition, if Mishutin died as a hero, then it is not clear why there is no information about him in Soviet publications on the history of Khalkhin Gol. From all of the above it follows that the fate of this man still remains a mystery.
At the beginning of the war, Lieutenant General Muzychenko commanded the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front. The army included two huge mechanized corps, on which the Soviet command had high hopes (they, unfortunately, did not come true). The 6th Army managed to provide strong resistance to the enemy during the defense of Lvov. Subsequently, the 6th Army fought in the area of the cities of Brody and Berdichev, where, as a result of poorly coordinated actions and lack of air support, it was defeated. On July 25, the 6th Army was transferred to the Southern Front and destroyed in the Uman pocket. General Muzychenko was also captured at the same time. He passed through captivity, but was not reinstated. Stalin's attitude towards the generals who fought on the Southern Front and were captured there was harsher than towards the generals captured on other fronts.
At the beginning of the war, Major General Novikov led a regiment that fought on the Prut River and then on the Dnieper. Novikov successfully commanded the 2nd Cavalry Division during the defense of Stalingrad and the 109th Rifle Division during the Battle of Crimea and during rearguard operations near Sevastopol. On the night of July 13, 1942, the ship on which the retreating units were evacuated was sunk by the Germans. Novikov was captured and sent to the Hammelsburg camp. He actively participated in the resistance movement, first in Hummelsburg, then in Flussenburg, where he was transferred by the Gestapo in the spring of 1943. In February 1944, the general was killed.
Major General Ogurtsov commanded the 10th Tank Division, which was part of the 15th Mechanized Corps of the Southwestern Front. The defeat of the division as part of the "Volsky group" south of Kyiv decided the fate of this city. Ogurtsov was captured, but managed to escape while being transported from Zamosc to Hammelsburg. He joined a group of partisans in Poland, led by Manzhevidze. On October 28, 1942 he died in battle on Polish territory.
The fates of Major Generals Ponedelin and Kirillov are a clear example despotism and cruelty that characterized the Stalinist regime. On July 25, 1941, near Uman, the defeated forces of the Soviet 6th Army (under the command of the aforementioned Muzychenko), together with the 12th Army, entered the “battalion group” under the command of the former commander of the 12th Army, General Ponedelin. The battalion group fighting on the Southern Front was tasked with escaping the enemy encirclement. However, the group was defeated, and all units involved in the release operation were destroyed. Ponedelin and the commander of the 13th Rifle Corps, Major General Kirillov, were captured. Soon after, they were accused of desertion, and to this day their fate remains unknown.
In his memoirs, published in 1960, Army General Tyulenev, who commanded the Southern Front, does not mention this fact. However, he repeatedly quotes the text of a telegram signed by him and the corps commissar Zaporozhets, who was a commissar of the same front, in which Ponedelin is accused of “spreading panic” - at that time the most serious of crimes. However, facts indicate that Ponedelin, an experienced officer who held the position of chief of staff of the Leningrad Military District before the war, was used as a cover for mistakes made by the Southern Front itself and its commander, Army General Tyulenin.
Only at the end of the 80s in Soviet literature an attempt was made to pay tribute to generals Ponedelin and Kirillov, who flatly refused to cooperate with the Germans. This became possible after Headquarters Directive No. 270 of August 17, 1941 was declassified. It, in particular, accused Lieutenant General Kachalov, commander of the 28th Army, who died a heroic death on the battlefield, as well as Major Generals Ponedelin and Kirillov in desertion and going over to the side of the enemy. In fact, the generals did not cooperate with the Germans. They were forced to take photographs with Wehrmacht soldiers, after which the fabricated photographs were distributed throughout the positions of the Soviet troops. It was precisely this kind of misinformation that convinced Stalin of the betrayal of the generals. While in the Wolfheide concentration camp, Ponedelin and Kirillov refused to go over to the side of the Russian Liberation Army. Kirillov was later transported to Dachau. In 1945, the Americans released Ponedelin, after which he immediately contacted the Soviet military mission in Paris. On December 30, 1945, Ponedelin and Kirillov were arrested. After five years in Lefortovo, serious charges were brought against them in the so-called “Leningrad case”. They were sentenced to death by a military tribunal and shot on August 25, 1950. General Snegov, commander of the 8th Rifle Corps, which was part of the “Ponedelin battalion group,” was also captured near Uman, but, in all likelihood, was not subjected to reprisals after returning home.
Major General of Tank Forces Potapov was one of five army commanders whom the Germans captured during the war. Potapov distinguished himself in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, where he commanded the Southern Group. At the beginning of the war, he commanded the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front. This association fought, perhaps, better than others until Stalin made the decision to shift the “center of attention” to Kyiv. On September 20, 1941, during fierce battles near Poltava, Potapov was captured. There is information that Hitler himself talked to Potapov, trying to convince him to go over to the side of the Germans, but the Soviet general flatly refused. After his release, Potapov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and later promoted to the rank of colonel general. Then he was appointed to the post of first deputy commander of the Odessa and Carpathian military districts. His obituary was signed by all representatives of the high command, which included several marshals. The obituary said nothing about his capture and stay in German camps.
The last general (and one of two Air Force generals) captured by the Germans was Aviation Major General Polbin, commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Corps, which supported the activities of the 6th Army, which surrounded Breslau in February 1945. He was wounded, captured and killed, and only then did the Germans establish the identity of this man. His fate was completely typical of everyone who was captured in the last months of the war.
Division Commissioner Rykov was one of two high-ranking commissars captured by the Germans. The second person of the same rank captured by the Germans was the commissar of the brigade Zhilyankov, who managed to hide his identity and who later joined the Vlasov movement. Rykov joined the Red Army in 1928 and by the beginning of the war he was commissar of the military district. In July 1941, he was appointed one of two commissars assigned to the Southwestern Front. The second was Burmistenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Communist Party. During the breakthrough from the Kyiv cauldron, Burmistenko, and with him the front commander Kirponos and the chief of staff Tupikov, were killed, and Rykov was wounded and captured. Hitler's order required the immediate destruction of all captured commissars, even if this meant the elimination of "important sources of information." The Germans tortured Rykov to death.
Major General Samokhin was a military attaché in Yugoslavia before the war. In the spring of 1942, he was appointed commander of the 48th Army. On the way to his new duty station, his plane landed in German-occupied Mtsensk instead of Yelets. According to the former chief of staff of the 48th Army, and later Marshal of the Soviet Union Biryuzov, the Germans then captured, in addition to Samokhin himself, Soviet planning documents for the summer (1942) offensive campaign, which allowed them to take countermeasures in a timely manner. An interesting fact is that shortly after this, Soviet troops intercepted a German plane with plans for a summer offensive of the German army, but Moscow either drew the wrong conclusions from them or ignored them altogether, which led to the defeat of Soviet troops near Kharkov. Samokhin returned from captivity to his homeland. Further fate is unknown.
Major General Susoev, commander of the 36th Rifle Corps, was captured by the Germans dressed in the uniform of an ordinary soldier. He managed to escape, after which he joined an armed gang Ukrainian nationalists, and then went over to the side of the pro-Soviet Ukrainian partisans, led by the famous Fedorov. He refused to return to Moscow, preferring to remain with the partisans. After the liberation of Ukraine, Susoev returned to Moscow, where he was rehabilitated.
Air Major General Thor, who commanded the 62nd Air Division, was a first-class military pilot. In September 1941, while commander of a long-range aviation division, he was shot down and wounded while conducting ground combat. He went through many German camps and actively participated in the resistance movement of Soviet prisoners in Hummelsburg. The fact, of course, did not escape the attention of the Gestapo. In December 1942, Thor was transported to Flussenberg, where on February 23, 1943, " special methods processing".
Major General Vishnevsky was captured less than two weeks after he assumed command of the 32nd Army. At the beginning of October 1941, this army was abandoned near Smolensk, where within a few days it was completely destroyed by the enemy. This happened at a time when Stalin was assessing the likelihood of military defeat and planning to move to Kuibyshev, which, however, did not prevent him from issuing an order for the destruction of a number of senior officers who were shot on July 22, 1941. Among them: Commander Western Front Army General Pavlov; Chief of Staff of this front, Major General Klimovskikh; the chief of communications of the same front, Major General Grigoriev; Commander of the 4th Army, Major General Korobkov. Vishnevsky withstood all the horrors of German captivity and returned to his homeland. Further fate is unknown.