Losses of Soviet equipment in the Battle of Stalingrad. Dmitry Filin - about the Battle of Stalingrad

5. Losses of other participants in the war and the ratio of irretrievable losses

2. Oath of the Komsomol Members and Young Communists of the Stalingrad Region, who joined the ranks of the Defenders of Stalingrad November 1942 German barbarians destroyed Stalingrad, the city of our youth, our happiness. They turned the schools and institutes where we studied, factories and

Civilian losses and general losses of the population of the USSR Regarding the losses of the Soviet civilian population in 1941–1945, there are no reliable statistics. They can only be determined by estimation, first establishing the total irrecoverable losses

Losses of the parties Here is what the historian Shvedov writes about losses: “The starting point for assessing the losses of Russian troops in the battle, of course, is the loss list compiled at the headquarters of M. I. Kutuzov by September 13–14. To check the data of this loss list, it is important to assess the forces

Chapter 6. Losses of the parties According to official data, losses of the Volkhov, Leningrad and Ladoga fronts military flotilla were: Killed: 40,085 people; Wounded: 73,589 people; Total: 113,674 people. The headquarters of the Volkhov Front presented the following figures in their reporting documents

The Battle of Stalingrad

One of the bloodiest battles in history, the Battle of Stalingrad was the biggest defeat for the German army.

Background to the Battle of Stalingrad

By mid-1942, the German invasion had already cost Russia more than six million soldiers (half of whom were killed and half captured) and much of its vast territory and resources. Thanks to the frosty winter, the exhausted Germans were stopped near Moscow and pushed back a little. But in the summer of 1942, with Russia still reeling from enormous losses, German troops were again ready to demonstrate their formidable fighting force.

Hitler's generals wanted to attack again in the direction of Moscow in order to capture the capital of Russia, its heart and nerve center, and thus crush the bloc. O most of the remaining Russian military forces, but Hitler personally commanded the German army, and now listened to the generals much less often than before.

In April 1942, Hitler issued Directive No. 41 , in which he described in detail his plan for the Russian Front for the summer of 1942, codenamed "Plan Blau". The plan was to concentrate all available forces on the southern part of an extended front, destroy the Russian forces in that part of the front line, and then advance in two directions simultaneously to capture the two most important remaining industrial centers of southern Russia:

1. Breakthrough to the southeast, through the mountainous regions of the Caucasus, capturing the rich oil fields on the Caspian Sea.
2. A breakthrough east to Stalingrad, a major industrial and transport center on the western bank of the Volga River, Russia's main inland waterway, whose source is north of Moscow and flows into the Caspian Sea.

It is important to note that Hitler's directive did not require the capture of the city of Stalingrad. The directive stated “In any case, we should try to reach Stalingrad itself, or at least expose it to our weapons to such an extent that it ceases to serve as a military-industrial and transport center.”. The German army achieved this goal with minimal losses on the first day of the Battle of Stalingrad. There was a stubborn battle for the city, until the very last meter, and then Hitler refused to retreat from Stalingrad, which cost him the entire southern campaign and terrible losses on both sides. Hitler so wanted his troops to enter the city named after Stalin, the Soviet dictator and Hitler's arch-enemy, that he was obsessed with the idea, no matter what, until the large German forces in the Stalingrad area were destroyed to the last soldier

The German attack on southern Russia began on June 28, 1942, a year after the invasion of Russia. The Germans advanced quickly, supported by armored forces and air power, and behind them came the troops of their Italian, Romanian and Hungarian allies, whose task was to secure the German flanks. The Russian front collapsed, and the Germans quickly advanced towards the last natural line of defense in southern Russia - the Volga.

On July 28, 1942, in a desperate attempt to stop the impending catastrophe, Stalin issued Order No. 227 (“Not a step back!” ), where it was said that “We must persist until last straw blood to defend every position, every meter of Soviet territory, cling to every piece of Soviet land and defend it to the last opportunity“ . NKVD workers appeared in the front-line units and shot anyone who tried to desert or retreat. However, Order No. 227 also appealed to patriotism by making it clear how serious the military situation was.

Despite all the efforts of the 62nd and 64th armies, located west of Stalingrad, they were unable to stop the German advance towards the city. The deserted, arid steppe provided an excellent springboard for an attack, and Soviet troops were driven back to Stalingrad, which stretched along the western bank of the Volga.

On August 23, 1942, the advanced units of the German 6th Army reached the Volga slightly north of Stalingrad and captured an 8-kilometer strip along the river bank, and German tanks and artillery began to sink ships and ferries crossing the river. On the same day, other units of the 6th Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, and hundreds of bombers and dive bombers of the 4th air fleet The Luftwaffe began an active bombing campaign against the city, which would continue daily for a week, destroying or damaging every building in the city. The Battle of Stalingrad has begun.

Desperate battles for Stalingrad

In the first days of the battle, the Germans were confident that they would quickly occupy the city, despite the fact that the defenders of Stalingrad fought fanatically. The situation in the Soviet army was not the best. There were initially 40,000 soldiers in Stalingrad, but these were mostly poorly armed reserve soldiers, local residents who had not yet been evacuated, and there was every chance that Stalingrad would be lost within a few days. The leadership of the USSR was extremely clear that the only thing that could still save Stalingrad from conquest was excellent command, a combination of high-quality military skills and iron will, and the utmost mobilization of resources.

In fact, the task of saving Stalingrad was assigned to two commanders:

At the all-Union level, Stalin ordered General Zhukov leave the Moscow front and go to the south of Russia to do everything possible. Zhukov, the best and most influential Russian general World War II, he was practically Stalin’s “crisis manager”.

At the local level, General Vasily Chuikov, deputy commander of the 64th Army located south of Stalingrad, an energetic and decisive commander, was appointed to a regional command post. He was informed of the gravity of the situation, and was appointed the new commander of the 62nd Army, which still controlled most of Stalingrad. Before he left, he was asked: “How did you understand the task?”. Chuikov replied “We will defend the city or die” . His personal leadership over the next months, reinforced by the sacrifice and tenacity of the defenders of Stalingrad, showed that he was true to his word.

When General Chuikov arrived at Stalingrad, the 62nd Army had already lost half its personnel, and it was clear to the soldiers that they had walked into a death trap; many tried to escape beyond the Volga. General Chuikov knew that the only way to hold Stalingrad was to gain time at the cost of blood.

The defenders of Stalingrad were informed that all checkpoints on the Volga were guarded by NKVD troops, and anyone crossing the river without permission would be shot on the spot. In addition, fresh reinforcements began to arrive at Stalingrad, including elite units, crossing the Volga under enemy fire. Most of them were killed, but they allowed Chuikov, despite enormous pressure from German troops, to continue to hold at least part of Stalingrad.

The average life of a soldier from the reinforcement troops in Stalingrad was 24 hours! Entire units were sacrificed in the desperate defense of Stalingrad. One of these, perhaps the hardest hit in the Battle of Stalingrad, was the elite 13th Guards Division, sent across the Volga to Stalingrad just in time to repel an attack by German forces near the city center. Of the 13th Division's 10,000 personnel, 30% were killed in the first 24 hours of arrival, and only 320 survived the Battle of Stalingrad. As a result, the mortality rate in this unit reached a terrible 97%, but they managed to defend Stalingrad at the most critical moment.

The concentration of forces and intensity of hostilities in Stalingrad was unprecedented, units attacked along the entire front line, about one and a half kilometers wide or a little less. General Chuikov was forced to constantly move his command post in the city from place to place in order to avoid death or capture, and, as a rule, he did this at the very last moment.

Simply sending reinforcements to replace the dead was not enough. In order to reduce losses, Chuikov sought to reduce the gap between Soviet and German positions to an absolute minimum - so close that German dive bombers Stuka(Junkers Ju-87) could not have dropped bombs on Soviet positions without hitting German soldiers. As a result, the fighting in Stalingrad was reduced to an endless series of small battles for every street, every house, every floor, and sometimes for every room in the building.

Some key positions in Stalingrad changed hands up to fifteen times during the battle, each time with terrible bloodshed. Soviet troops had the advantage of fighting in destroyed buildings and factories, sometimes using only knives or grenades instead firearms. The ruined city was perfect for a large number of snipers on both sides. The head of the sniper school of the German army (according to Alan Clark - SS Standartenführer Heinz Thorwald, approx. lane), but was killed by one of them (Vasily Zaitsev, approx. lane). Some lucky Soviet snipers became famous heroes. One of them killed 225 German soldiers and officers by mid-November (the same Vasily Zaitsev, approx. lane).

The Russians nicknamed Stalingrad “street fighting academy”. The troops also went hungry for a long time because the German artillery shelled everyone crossing the Volga, so soldiers and ammunition were sent first, not food. Many soldiers were killed while crossing the river to Stalingrad or during the evacuation after being wounded in the city.

The German advantage of heavy fire from tanks and dive bombers was gradually offset by increased Soviet artillery of all types, from mortars to rocket launchers, which were concentrated east of the Volga, where German tanks could not reach them, and were protected from dive bombers Stuka air defense weapons. The Soviet Air Force also stepped up its attacks, increasing the number of aircraft and using better trained pilots.

For the soldiers and civilians remaining in Stalingrad, life turned into an endless hell of gunfire, explosions, the howls of dive bombers and Katyusha rockets, smoke, dust, rubble, hunger, the smell of death and fear. This continued day after day, week after week, greatly increasing the incidence of the disease.

At the end of October 1942, Soviet troops held only a narrow strip of the front, and some were isolated in Stalingrad. The Germans tried to launch another major offensive in an attempt to take the city before winter set in, but dwindling resources and growing ammunition shortages stopped them. But the battle continued.

Hitler, increasingly enraged by the halt, moved more divisions closer to Stalingrad and into the city, weakening the German flanks in the empty steppes west and south of Stalingrad. He suggested that the Soviet troops would soon run out of supplies, and therefore would not be able to attack the flanks. Time has shown how wrong he was.

The Germans again underestimated the resources of the Soviet troops. The continued weakening of the German flanks near Stalingrad, due to more and more German units being transferred to the city, gave General Zhukov the long-awaited opportunity for which he had been preparing since the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Just as at the Battle of Moscow the year before, the harsh Russian winter set in, causing the German army's mobility to plummet.

General Zhukov planned and prepared a large-scale counteroffensive, codenamed Operation Uranus , within which it was planned to attack the German flanks in the two most weak points- 100 miles west of Stalingrad and 100 miles south of it. The two Soviet armies were to meet southwest of Stalingrad and encircle the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, cutting off all its supply lines. It was the classic big Blitzkrieg, except this time the Russians did it to the Germans. Zhukov's goal was to win not only the Battle of Stalingrad, but the entire campaign in southern Russia.

The preparations of the Soviet troops took into account all operational and logistical aspects. More than a million Soviet soldiers were assembled in utmost secrecy, that is, significantly more than in the German army, and 14 thousand heavy artillery pieces, 1,000 T-34 tanks and 1,350 aircraft. Zhukov prepared a large-scale surprise attack, and when the Soviet army's preparations were finally noticed by the Germans in late October, it was too late to do anything. But Hitler's disbelief in similar development the situation prevented us from doing anything. When the German chief of staff proposed surrendering Stalingrad in order to shorten the German front, Hitler cried out: “I will not give up the Volga!”.

The Soviet counteroffensive began on November 19, 1942, three months after the start of the Battle of Stalingrad. It was the first fully prepared attack by Soviet forces in World War II, and it was a great success. Soviet troops attacked the German flanks, which consisted of the 3rd and 4th Romanian armies. Soviet troops already knew from interrogating prisoners of war that Romanian troops had low morale and weak supplies of resources.

Pressured by a sudden large-scale attack by Soviet artillery and advancing tank columns, the Romanian front collapsed within hours, and after two days of battle the Romanians surrendered. German units rushed to help, but it was too late, and four days later the advanced units of the Soviet army met each other about 100 kilometers west of Stalingrad.

Besieged Germans

All 6th german army was trapped near Stalingrad. To prevent the Germans from breaking the encirclement, the Soviets expanded the space separating the 6th Army from the rest of the German forces to more than 100 miles wide and quickly moved 60 divisions and 1,000 tanks there. But instead of trying to break out of the encirclement, General von Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, received orders from Hitler to stay and hold his position at all costs.

Hermann Goering, Hitler's deputy and head of the Luftwaffe, promised Hitler that his air force would help the 6th Army by supplying 500 tons of aid per day. Goering had not yet consulted Luftwaffe headquarters about this, but this was exactly what Hitler wanted to hear. Air deliveries continued until the surrender of the 6th Army, but their volumes were less than 100 tons per day, far less than needed, and during these deliveries the Luftwaffe lost 488 transport aircraft. The 6th Army quickly ran out of fuel, ammunition and food, and the German soldiers were severely hungry.

Only three weeks later, on December 12, 1942, Field Marshal von Manstein's Army Group finally attacked the Russian barrier, but failed to reach the encircled 6th Army. The Germans advanced only 60 kilometers towards Stalingrad and were then driven back by a Soviet counterattack. Despite being surrounded and starved, the German 6th Army continued to fight and held its ground as long as it could. Hitler demanded that they not surrender even after von Manstein's failed attempt made it clear that they would remain surrounded.

When the 6th Army rejected the surrender ultimatum, Soviet forces launched a final attack to finally defeat it. They estimated the number of besieged Germans at 80,000 soldiers, when in fact there were more than 250,000 encircled Germans.

On January 10, 1943, 47 Soviet divisions attacked the 6th Army from all sides. Knowing that captivity in Russia would be cruel, the Germans continued to fight with hopelessness.

A week later, the space occupied by the Germans was halved, they were pushed back to Stalingrad, and the Germans had only one runway left in their hands, and it was under fire. On January 22, 1943, the hungry, cold and exhausted 6th Army began to disperse. A week later, Hitler promoted Paulus to field marshal and reminded him that no German field marshal had ever been captured alive. But Paulus was captured the next day, in a basement in Stalingrad.

Results of the Battle of Stalingrad

On February 2, 1943, the last pockets of German resistance went out. Hitler was furious, blaming Paulus and Goering for the huge losses instead of blaming himself. The Germans lost almost 150 thousand soldiers, and more than 91,000 were captured by Soviet troops. Only 5,000 of them returned home after many years in Soviet camps. Taking into account the losses of their Romanian and Italian allies, the German side lost approximately 300,000 soldiers. The Soviet army lost 500 thousand soldiers and civilians.

At Stalingrad, in addition to heavy losses, the German army also lost its aura of invincibility. The Soviet soldiers now knew that they could defeat the Germans, and their morale rose and remained high until the end of the war, which was still 2 and a half years away. This victory also raised the morale of the British and American armies. In Germany bad news were hidden for a long time, but in the end they became known and undermined the morale of the Germans. It is clear that the Battle of Stalingrad was a major turning point in World War II, and after it the direction of the war turned against Germany. Happy Stalin promoted Zhukov to Marshal of the Soviet Union. He also made himself a Marshal, although he was a civilian.

The surviving defenders of Stalingrad were finally able to leave the destroyed city, and the 62nd Army was renamed the “Guards” Army, which emphasized the elitism of the unit. They fully deserve this high honor. General Vasily Chuikov led his soldiers until the end of the war, and thanks to the experience gained at the “Stalingrad Academy of Street Fighting”, they (as the 8th Guards Army) led the Soviet army in Berlin in 1945, and Chuikov personally accepted the surrender of Berlin on May 1, 1945 year. He was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union (1955), and in 1960 became Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. He is buried in Stalingrad with many of his soldiers.

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Feature film Stalingrad - German director Joseph Vilsmeier. The Battle of Stalingrad through the eyes of the Germans. Viewing is not recommended for persons under 16 years of age.

200 days and nights: Vladimir Putin bowed to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad

Vesti.ru: “Thank you and bow to you for Stalingrad and the great victory,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

More than two million dead on both sides, one and a half million Red Army soldiers. Everything is approximately, victims continue to be found to this day. In the Volgograd museum "Russia - My History" the president is shown photographs of Soviet soldiers found by search engines in the summer...

Large-scale celebrations took place in Volgograd in honor of the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. The heroic battle on the banks of the Volga continued for 200 days and nights, turning the tide of World War II. Thousands of people came to Mamayev Kurgan to venerate the fallen heroes. Flowers to Eternal Flame laid down by President Vladimir Putin.

Under the dazzling sun, soldiers of the honor guard climb the steps of Mamayev Kurgan. 75 years ago, the most terrible battle in human history ended here. In the hall of military glory, Vladimir Putin kneels and straightens the ribbons of the wreath, a long minute of silence...
On the days of the heaviest battles the enemy's superiority in men was fivefold, A in tanks - twelvefold. There was no time to sleep, eat or bandage wounds. And there is nowhere to retreat...

On this holy day for every Volgograd resident, veterans receive congratulations and gratitude from the president.

“Our country stood up to the enemy as an indestructible stronghold. Unyielding Stalingrad stood up. Soviet soldiers seemed to have grown into the wounded land and turned every street, trench, house, and firing point into an impregnable fortress. With the same valor, its inhabitants fought for the city. This is a single resistance, readiness for self-sacrifice, spiritual power were truly invincible, incomprehensible, incomprehensible and terrible for the enemy. The fate of the Motherland, the whole world, was decided then in Stalingrad And here at the very same time. fully appeared the unbending character of our people. He fought for his home, for the lives of his children and, having defended Stalingrad, saved the fatherland", said Russian President Vladimir Putin...

In the fall of 1942, walls burst in Stalingrad, iron warped, and the soldiers continued to fight.

“The entire generation of winners accomplished not only feats of arms. They passed on to us a great legacy - love for the motherland, readiness to defend its interests and independence, to be persistent in the face of any trials, to take care of home country and work for its prosperity. These simple and understandable truths are the essence of our lives. And we have no right to leave things unfinished, to show cowardice and indecisiveness. We must to equal in our actions the achievements of our fathers and grandfathers. Just like them, we deserve to achieve our goals, to achieve more than we have already achieved. We were certainly proud and will continue to be proud of what was done for us. And, relying on this foundation, we will move forward, only forward. Let's be strong and honest. We will lead new generations pass on to them the great traditions of our great people. Thank you and low bow for Stalingrad and the great victory,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin.

More than two million dead on both sides, one and a half million Red Army soldiers. Everything is approximately, victims continue to be found to this day. In the Volgograd museum "Russia - My History" the president is shown photographs of Soviet soldiers found by search engines in the summer. By pressing a button, together with activists of the Victory Volunteers movement, the president launches virtual reality, in which the events of the Battle of Stalingrad are recreated.

“We should not just admire what was done before us (many thanks to our ancestors for this, without this nothing would have happened). But if we want to be on their level, we must achieve our results, our victories and strive for them “We will overcome the difficulties that face us at all costs,” Vladimir Putin expressed confidence.

The losses of the Soviet troops were great - 480 thousand people died at Stalingrad, more than 500 thousand were injured.

* * * * *
"According to A.M. Borodin, Deputy Director of the Museum of Defense, during the construction of the monument on Mamayev Kurgan Vuchetich wanted to immortalize the names of all the dead, but stopped when he was given lists of 2 million people, and that was not all! The official figures for army losses in the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted 200 days, are 1,347 thousand, of which 675 thousand are irrevocable. According to data from the book of memoirs of participants in the battles “Turning Point”: about 625 thousand died in defense, and in offensive operation about 486 thousand and total losses of the Red Army with reference to Academician Samsonov 1.5 million. It is believed that out of more than 400 thousand civilians, 180-200 thousand died, and most likely much more. Only refugees and evacuees in Stalingrad were estimated at up to 500 thousand, they were not rewritten, and all the archives were lost. According to official data, about 300 thousand were evacuated (obviously without taking into account deaths during the crossing), the evacuation began only after August 23, not counting the previously evacuated children from orphanages and families of the regional and city leadership. 50 thousand people liable for military service were sent to form units on the left bank somewhere in August, several thousand more townspeople joined the units of Rodimtsev (13th Infantry Division) and Sarajevo (10th NKVD Division). 18 trains with 23 thousand workers of the tractor plant and their families were sent to the Urals in October. The Germans evicted about 200 thousand (from another source - 40 thousand) - some were sent to Germany to work, some to camps in Belaya Kalitva - at the end of September the German commandant ordered the residents to leave the city.
They say that in the sixties Borodin asked Chuyanov, the party leader and former head of the defense committee: “Why didn’t you save the people?” He even waved his hands at him: “What are you talking about, you couldn’t even mention evacuation.” And he told how Stalin called and demanded that all measures be taken to prevent evacuation. “Evacuation is panic,” said Stalin. It was forbidden to even talk about evacuation until August 23..." http://www.proza.ru/2018/01/09/646

According to official data, Soviet troops in the Stalingrad direction in the period from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943 lost 1,347,214 people, of which 674,990 were irrevocable. This does not include the troops of the NKVD and the people's militia, whose irretrievable losses were especially great. During the 200 days and nights of the Battle of Stalingrad, 1,027 battalion commanders, 207 regiment commanders, 96 brigade commanders, 18 division commanders died. The irretrievable losses of weapons and equipment amounted to: 524,800 small arms, 15,052 guns and mortars, 4,341 tanks and 5,654 combat aircraft...

In our opinion, to estimate the number of unique notices outside the Russian Federation, it is more correct to use data on the share of the population of the RSFSR in the population of the USSR as of January 1, 1941. It was 56.2 percent, and minus the population of Crimea, transferred to Ukraine in 1954, and with the addition of the population of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, included in 1956 as part of the RSFSR, it was 55.8 percent. Then the total number of unique notifications can be estimated at 26.96 million, and taking into account notifications from the border and internal troops - at 27.24 million, and excluding those who remained in exile - 26.99 million people.

This figure practically coincides with our estimate losses of the Soviet armed forces in killed and killed at 26.9 million people.

As Russian historian Nikita P. Sokolov notes, “according to the testimony of Colonel Fedor Setin, who worked in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense in the mid-1960s, the first group estimated the irretrievable losses of the Red Army at 30 million people, but these figures “were not accepted at the top.” N.P. Sokolov also notes that G.F. Krivosheev and his comrades do not take into account “the mobilization carried out directly by units of the active army on the territory of the regions occupied by the Germans after their liberation, the so-called unorganized marching replenishment. Krivosheev indirectly admits this when he writes that “during the war years, the following were taken from the population: in Russia... 22.2 percent of able-bodied citizens..., in Belarus - 11.7 percent, in Ukraine - 12.2 percent.” Of course, in Belarus and Ukraine no less “able-bodied population” was conscripted than in Russia as a whole, only here a smaller part was conscripted through military registration and enlistment offices, and a larger part was conscripted directly to the unit.”

The fact that the volume of Soviet irretrievable losses was enormous is evidenced by those few surviving veterans who personally had the opportunity to go into attacks. Thus, Guard Captain A.I. Shumilin, the former commander of a rifle company, recalled: “More than one hundred thousand soldiers and thousands of junior officers passed through the division. Of these thousands, only a few survived.” And he recalls one of the battles of his 119th Infantry Division on the Kalinin Front during the counteroffensive near Moscow: “On the night of December 11, 1941, we went out near Maryino and lay down at the starting point in front of the village in the snow. We were told that after two shots from the forty-five, we should get up and go to the village. It's already dawn. No shots were fired. I asked on the phone what was going on and was told to wait. The German rolled out anti-aircraft batteries for direct fire and began shooting soldiers lying in the snow. Everyone who ran was torn to pieces at the same moment. The snowy field was covered with bloody corpses, pieces of meat, blood and splashes of intestines. Of the 800 people, only two managed to get out by evening. I wonder if there is a list of personnel for December 11, 41? After all, no one from the headquarters saw this massacre. With the first anti-aircraft shot, all these participants fled in all directions. They didn’t even know that they were firing at the soldiers from anti-aircraft guns.”

The Red Army's losses of 26.9 million dead are approximately 10.3 times higher than the Wehrmacht's losses on the Eastern Front (2.6 million dead). The Hungarian army, which fought on the side of Hitler, lost about 160 thousand killed and died, including about 55 thousand who died in captivity. The losses of another German ally, Finland, in the fight against the USSR amounted to about 56.6 thousand killed and died, and about 1 thousand more people died in battles against the Wehrmacht. The Romanian army lost about 165 thousand killed and died in battles against the Red Army, including 71,585 killed, 309,533 missing, 243,622 wounded and 54,612 died in captivity. 217,385 Romanians and Moldovans returned from captivity. Thus, of the missing people, 37,536 people must be classified as killed. If we assume that approximately 10 percent of the wounded died, then the total losses of the Romanian army in battles with the Red Army will be about 188.1 thousand dead..." https://military.wikireading.ru/33471

Anniversary statistical collection “The Great Patriotic War” Federal State Statistics Service, Moscow 2015, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/doc_2015/vov_svod_1.pdf

A year ago, in February 2017, another foray about losses in the Great Patriotic War took place, either authorized or just to check how the population would react to the terrible gigantic losses. Already on the part of the co-chairs of the “Immortal Regiment”, after two months of discussion, the topic died down again. And on May 9, the old figure of 27 million losses was again announced.

"co-chairman of the movement "Immortal Regiment of Russia" presented the report "Documentary basis of the People's Project "Establishing the fate of missing defenders of the Fatherland", within the framework of which studies were carried out on the decline in the population of the USSR in 1941-45. He changed the idea of ​​​​the scale of losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War war.

According to declassified data from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the losses of the Soviet Union in World War II amount to 41 million 979 thousand, and not 27 million, as previously thought. This is almost one third of the modern population of the Russian Federation. Our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers are hidden behind this terrible figure. Those who gave their lives for our future. And, perhaps, the biggest betrayal is to forget their names, their feat, their heroism, which formed our common great Victory.

— General population decline in the USSR 1941-45. - more than 52 million 812 thousand people. Of these, irretrievable losses as a result of war factors are more than 19 million military personnel and about 23 million civilians. The total natural mortality of military personnel and civilians during this period could have amounted to more than 10 million 833 thousand people (including 5 million 760 thousand deaths of children under the age of four). The irretrievable losses of the population of the USSR as a result of war factors amounted to almost 42 million people... The information provided is confirmed by a huge number of original documents, authoritative publications and testimonies."

08:56 24.03.2016

The website of the Zvezda TV channel publishes a series of articles about the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 by the writer Leonid Maslovsky, based on his book “Russian Truth”, published in 2011.

The website of the Zvezda TV channel publishes a series of articles about the Great Patriotic War of 1941– 1945 by writer Leonid Maslovsky, based on his book “Russian Truth”, published in 2011. In his original materials, Maslovsky, in his words, exposes “the myths invented by Russia’s ill-wishers about the events of the Great Patriotic War and shows the greatness of our Victory.” The author notes that in his articles he intends to “show the unseemly role of the West in preparing Germany for war with the USSR.” It should be noted that from the very beginning of the war, the government and military leaders of the USSR under the leadership of I.V. Stalin sought to save as much as possible more lives our fighters. This was not always possible, but concern for preserving the lives of our soldiers and officers can be traced throughout the war. For example, already in 1941, Stalin issued order No. 281 “On the procedure for presenting military orderlies and porters for government awards for good combat work.” This order equated rescuing the wounded with a military feat. For carrying 15 wounded with weapons from the battlefield, the orderly and the porter were awarded the medal “For Military Merit” or “For Courage”; for the removal of 25 wounded - the Order of the Red Star, 40 - the Order of the Red Banner, 80 - the Order of Lenin. For carrying out 100 wounded, the orderly and porter were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Facts indicating a desire to preserve the life of every soldier refute the lie that the Soviet leadership did not take into account the deaths of people at the fronts and filled the Germans with corpses. By the way, according to the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of May 6, 1942, local authorities had to issue pensions to disabled people within two days after discharge from the hospital. This is caring for people, and not empty chatter about democracy. “By the Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of October 3, 1941, adopted on Stalin’s initiative, regional, regional and republican relief committees were created to serve sick and wounded soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. This contributed to improving their service. As a result, during the war years, USSR hospitals returned more than seven million soldiers to duty, which accounted for 71% of wounded and 91% of sick soldiers and officers,” writes Yu. V. Emelyanov. These figures also lead to other thoughts. They say that during the war years 9.86 million of our soldiers and officers were wounded. Statistics show that for one killed soldier there were usually up to three wounded, that is, there were usually three times as many wounded as killed. Dividing 9.86 by three, we get the number of Soviet military personnel killed in battle during the Great Patriotic War, and it is equal to 3.287 million people. And these are all soldiers and officers of the Red Army killed in battle during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. There were no others killed in battle. This calculation, of course, has an error, but with a large number of wounded, this error is not so significant. In addition, the calculation is based on accurate Soviet data medical institutions . The resulting number of killed and number of wounded indicate the absurdity of liberal researchers' claims about tens of millions of Soviet military personnel killed during the war. In this case, the origin of the information is also explained, which cannot be said about German sources and information about losses cited by our liberals like Solzhenitsyn. If the Germans had not killed and fed our prisoners of war, just as we did not kill and fed German prisoners of war, then during the Great Patriotic War Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 3 million 287 thousand soldiers and officers of the Red Army would have died. That is, the irretrievable losses of military personnel of Germany and its allies on the Eastern Front in the period from 1941 to 1945 would have been more than twice as large as the losses of the Red Army. Thus, we can say, and this is true, that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were killed in battles more than twice as many enemy soldiers and officers compared to the soldiers and officers of the Soviet army killed in battle. This speaks of the double superiority in military art and armament of the Soviet army over the German army and that our government and our military leaders took care of people. The rest of our military losses are due to the fact that the Germans, waging a war to exterminate the Soviet people, killed and tortured , starved, shot our prisoners of war. Obviously, most of the irretrievable losses of the Red Army indicated by our scientists and historians can only be explained by an inflated number of captured Soviet soldiers and, as a consequence, an inflated number of those killed in captivity. The exact number of Soviet prisoners of war has not yet been established by our historians and researchers, since they are still using the data of the Mansteins and Goebbels. To the issue of saving people, we must also add that for the removal of each wounded, a monetary reward was provided in addition to the monthly one accrued to all military personnel of the USSR, including privates, a monetary amount that depended on the position held and military rank. Additional monetary rewards were also awarded for downed aircraft, destroyed tanks and other expensive types of enemy military equipment. But, of course, our soldiers did not fight for money. And there is no such money for which a person is ready to give his life. They fought for the Motherland, because at that time the word “Motherland” was written in the heart of every soldier with a capital letter. On January twenty-sixth, in the area of ​​​​the village of Red October and on the slopes of Mamayev Kurgan, the troops of the Don Front joined forces with the troops of Chuikov’s 62nd Army, with the month of August who fought in the city. The surrounded group of German troops was divided into two parts. On January thirty-first, the troops of the southern part laid down their arms and surrendered. Field Marshal Paulus and his staff were also captured. On February 2, the northern group of German troops also laid down their arms. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, ended. Our aviation made a significant contribution to the defeat of the enemy. Long-range aviation of Headquarters under the command of A.E. Golovanov in January 1943 alone carried out 1,595 sorties to eliminate the enemy group encircled in the Stalingrad area. And not only from the ground, but also from a flight altitude, Golovanov saw the defeated German divisions and wrote the following about what he saw: “I had to see a lot in my life, participating in battles both before and after the Battle of Stalingrad. But what I witnessed at Stalingrad, I have never seen anywhere else. Imagine the expanses of the steppe, especially along the roads, dotted with tens of thousands of killed and simply frozen enemy soldiers in clothes that do not correspond to the Russian winter, frozen in various poses; huge amount various equipment, distorted, burned and completely intact. Packs of wolves and other predators prowled among the dead and frozen soldiers. The pictures showing the French flight from Moscow in 1812 are only a faint shadow of what the enemy found for himself on the fields of Stalingrad. It is unlikely that there is an artist now who could reproduce this. Truly the saying of Alexander Nevsky: “Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword!” – was once again completely confirmed at Stalingrad. Whoever saw all this from the air will never forget this picture.” Rokossovsky writes that in the cauldron the troops of the Don Front captured over 91 thousand soldiers and officers, including 24 generals, and captured 5,762 guns and over three thousand mortars , over 12 thousand machine guns, 156,987 rifles, over 10 thousand machine guns, 744 aircraft, 1,666 tanks, 261 armored vehicles, 80,438 motor vehicles, over 10 thousand motorcycles, 240 tractors, 571 tractors, three armored trains, 58 steam locomotives, 1,403 wagons, 696 radio stations, 933 telephone sets, 337 different warehouses, 13,787 wagons and a lot of other military equipment. On the occasion of the defeat of the enemy in Stalingrad, a rally was organized, but Rokossovsky and Voronov were not present at it, because by order of the Headquarters, on February 4, they flew by plane to Moscow and on the same day they came to the Kremlin and were received by Stalin. About Stalin’s reception of them, Rokossovsky writes: “Seeing us, he quickly approached and, without allowing us to report our arrival according to regulations, began to shake our hands, congratulating us on the successful completion of the operation to eliminate the enemy group. It was felt that he was pleased with the course of events. We talked for a long time. Stalin expressed some thoughts about the future development of hostilities. Encouraged by wishes for new successes, we left his office.” The Don Front was renamed the Central Front, the 21st, 65th and 16th Air Armies were transferred to the Yelets region. The losses of enemy troops during the battles from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, that is, from the time of the offensive of the Soviet troops until the liquidation of the encircled group, amounted to over 800 thousand soldiers and officers, as well as up to two thousand tanks and assault guns, over ten thousand guns and mortars, about three thousand combat and transport aircraft. In total, during the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted 200 days and nights, Germany and its allies lost one-fourth of the forces operating at that time on the Soviet-German front. “The total losses of enemy troops in the Don, Volga, Stalingrad area amounted to 1.5 million people, up to 3,500 tanks and assault guns, 12 thousand guns and mortars, up to three thousand aircraft and large number other technology. Such losses of forces and assets had a catastrophic impact on the overall strategic situation and shook the entire military machine to its core. Hitler's Germany "- wrote G.K. Zhukov. Currently, many, especially liberal, researchers are persistently looking for the mistakes of our military leaders in the Battle of Stalingrad. They do this not with the aim of establishing the truth (and such a truth of mistakes without connection with competent decisions is needed only by the Americans and other Russophobic states), but with the aim in any way of presenting the Soviet leaders and military commanders as limited people, allegedly because of whose inept actions all their lives were wasted in vain. soldiers' blood. In this desire to cast our leaders and military commanders in a bad light, they do not hesitate to use any means, including direct falsification of events and manipulation of facts. With their slander they achieve several goals: they arouse the reader’s hatred of the leaders of that time due to pity for the supposedly senseless deaths, belittle the significance of the Battle of Stalingrad and belittle the former greatness of the Russian people. Did our military leaders make mistakes when leading their troops during the Battle of Stalingrad? Of course, they allowed it, as it has always been and will be with current leaders. But these mistakes were insignificant and could not lead to the defeat of our troops. And while looking for, and more often inventing, these mistakes, liberal researchers do not say a word about the mistakes of the Nazis, which led them to complete defeat at Stalingrad. This desire to humiliate us and extol the enemy suggests that such researchers themselves are Hitlerites, like all Nazis, they very much regret that Soviet soldiers and officers won the Battle of Stalingrad, and, not being able to change anything, they strive to humiliate the victors, to take away the pride of victory in the Battle of Stalingrad from the current generation. In fact, the Battle of Stalingrad was won by Soviet troops thanks to the competent military actions of commanders and soldiers and our superiority over the enemy in weapons. “Headquarters and the General Staff skillfully and purposefully conducted the entire battle. The carefully developed battle plan is distinguished by the originality of the plan and the depth of its operational-strategic content. The handwriting of a mature and talented military leadership school was visible in it. Headquarters and the General Staff did a tremendous job in preparing and carrying out the operation: communicating tasks to the executors and specifying them with the commanders of the fronts and armies, resolving issues of interaction at all levels of command, and providing logistical support to the troops. In general, they did their best to successfully win the battle. The commanders of the front troops, N.F. Vatutin, A.I. Eremenko and K.K. Rokossovsky, as well as their military councils and headquarters, coped superbly with their complex tasks in the Battle of Stalingrad, while demonstrating increased skill in command and control,” wrote A. M. Vasilevsky. At Stalingrad, our troops defeated the monstrous force of the Nazis armed with tanks, guns, and planes, and no one except the Russians with Stalin at their head could defeat this force. In 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, the German-occupied world thanked the Russians for giving them hope of salvation, and the rest of the world for delivering them from the fear of being enslaved by the Nazis.A. M. Vasilevsky writes that during the war, US President Franklin Roosevelt sent Stalingrad a letter with the following content: “On behalf of the people of the United States of America, I present this letter to Stalingrad to note our admiration for its valiant defenders, whose courage, fortitude and dedication in the siege from September 13, 1942 to January 31, 1943 will forever inspire the hearts of all free people. Their glorious victory stopped the tide of invasion and became a turning point in the war of the allied nations against the forces of aggression.” The diploma is still kept in the museum of the hero city of Stalingrad (Volgograd). “On November 28, 1943, before the opening of the plenary meeting of the Tehran Conference of the Heads of the Three Allied Powers, W. Churchill presented the Soviet delegation on behalf of King George VI with a symbolic gift of the English people to the heroes of Stalingrad - a huge sword with a two-handed hilt and an inlaid scabbard, forged by hereditary gunsmiths of Great Britain. The inscription is engraved on the blade of the sword: “A gift from King George VI to people with hearts of steel - the citizens of Stalingrad as a sign of respect for them by the English people.” Having accepted the gift from Churchill’s hands, Stalin took out the blade and kissed thanked him for the gift. Then Stalin showed the sword to Roosevelt, put the gift in a case, and handed it to Voroshilov.” During the war, Western observers wrote that one Battle of Stalingrad was actually equal to one major war. Very little time passed, and the Americans and the British forgot about their words of gratitude. A. M. Vasilevsky had every reason to write: “The bookstores of the bourgeois West continue to be flooded with the most varied “research” in which the events that took place both on the Volga and on other sections of the Soviet-German front are biased and tendentious.” Some of the authors of such “studies”, such as the American General Walker, agree that the Battle of Stalingrad did not happen at all. This general said that the battle on the Volga was just a propaganda invention of the communists. It seems that such a statement could only be made by a person suffering from mental instability... Bourgeois falsifiers, having lost all sense of proportion, put the Battle of Stalingrad on a par with the landing of American troops on the island of Guadalcanal. But it is known that the number of the Japanese garrison defending this island did not exceed two thousand people.” Since 1985, and especially since 1991, the book counters of not only Western, but also Russian stores began to be flooded with the works of counterfeiters. And at present, in Russian bookstores there is a significant number of books by authors who deliberately distort the events of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, including the events of the Battle of Stalingrad. But there is every reason to believe that our glory will triumph, the city will return its glory-covered name, and the descendants of the soldiers of Stalingrad, centuries later, will recognize themselves as descendants of the heroes who fought at Stalingrad and defeated, smashed to smithereens a monstrous enemy. To be continued… The opinions expressed in the publications of Leonid Maslovsky are the opinions of the author and may not coincide with the opinions of the editors of the Zvezda TV channel website.

Representatives of different nationalities fought in the ranks of the Wehrmacht during the Battle of Stalingrad - Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Finns, Estonians. Among them were the so-called “Khiwis” - voluntary assistants to the German army from among Soviet citizens.

After the defeat near Moscow, the German army still represented a formidable force, but it had already begun to experience personnel difficulties. Hitler made a difficult decision for himself - to supplement the German units with allied divisions. So 27 Romanian, 17 Finnish, 13 Hungarian, 9 Italian, 2 Slovak and 1 Spanish divisions were sent to the Eastern Front. Many of them were transferred to the southern sector of the front, from where the attack on Stalingrad was planned.

However, the “international” did not bring real strengthening to the Wehrmacht. The Allied troops turned out to be ill-prepared for prolonged combat operations: their military discipline was lame and, in general, they were not very eager to give their lives for the Fuhrer. Following the rapid defeat of the flanks that covered the Romanian divisions, by the beginning of February 1943, the Red Army forced the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus to capitulate.
Among the vanquished were not only the Western allies of the Third Reich, but also Soviet citizens, as well as white emigrants who actively replenished the 6th Army on the eve of the Battle of Stalingrad. The most unfortunate thing is that in the “international” of the German satellites, the “Russian units” of the Wehrmacht were the first in number. In some divisions the number of “hiwis” reached 27%. Soviet historiography preferred to remain silent about this.

A large influx of volunteers into the ranks of the Wehrmacht occurred after the Nazis seized the lands of the Don Army: at first, defectors were used as loaders, drivers, ammunition carriers, sappers, messengers, but at the height of the Stalingrad events they began to be more often involved in military operations.
The commander of one of the Wehrmacht battalions, Jochen Leser, recalled how two Red Army soldiers joined the ranks of his formation shortly after capture and immediately became involved in fighting. One of them became number two in the machine gun crew, and as soon as the first one died, he took his place.
The civilian population of the USSR, who went over to the enemy’s side, was often used in government bodies in the German-occupied territories of the Stalingrad region and in the occupied areas of Stalingrad itself. They served as elders, burgomasters, and also in the auxiliary police. Among them were many residents of Ukraine.

At the final stage Battle of Stalingrad The “Von Stumpfeld” division (named after its commander, Lieutenant General Hans Joachim von Stumpfeld), formed mainly from Russian soldiers, loudly announced itself. Towards the end of the battle, it began to be actively replenished with former Red Army officers who were appointed to command posts. For example, in January 1943, former Red Army major Tukhminov headed the Kamensky battalion.
The division was formed on December 12, after the 6th Army was surrounded. Its location - the western bank of the Chir River between Height 161 and the Lisinsky farmstead - was an extremely strategically important bridgehead. Stumpfeld willingly involved Cossacks who knew this area thoroughly in combat sorties. It is curious that the Cossacks, who were called “Volunteers of the Eastern Troops,” in this division were equal in status to fighters of German nationality. The Stumpfeld soldiers fought mostly with captured Soviet weapons. Thus, they were armed with 42 Soviet-made anti-tank rifles.
The destruction of the division occurred shortly after the surrender of Field Marshal Paulus and his 6th Army. The last line of defense of the Von Stumpfeld division, the Tractor Plant, was able to hold out no more than a week after the completion of the main part of the fighting for Stalingrad.

However, even after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, scattered, abandoned to the mercy of fate, the “Russian formations” continued to resist units of the Soviet army. The position of the traitors was hopeless. They were awaited either by execution after being captured, or death on the battlefield. For example, the Cossack unit of Yesaul Nesterenko tried to make its way to the West to join the surviving Wehrmacht formations, but ultimately found its death on the war-ravaged lands of Stalingrad.
Some of the “Khiwi”, together with the Nazis, continued to wage partisan warfare in the extensive network of Stalingrad dungeons. The most large-scale actions took place in the area of ​​the Confectionery Factory, where on the eve of the surrender the Germans, with the involvement of captured Red Army soldiers and civilians, built a real underground city.

The remnants of the “Russian units” from the 6th Army fought until the end of spring 1943. Thus, according to the testimony of one of the NKVD employees, on May 4, near the city of Konstantinovsk, which is 300 kilometers west of Stalingrad, a group of soldiers dressed in Soviet uniform was detained. military uniform. It later turned out that five of them turned out to be German soldiers, and two were former soldiers of the Red Army. The Russians, after a short interrogation, were shot, and the Germans were transported to the NKVD department in Rostov-on-Don.

The exact number of Soviet citizens who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht is unknown. Many of them died during the battles, many died from illnesses and wounds in the first days of captivity, and some still managed to break through to the West. But with most of the traitors Soviet authorities dealt with on the spot.
According to the archives of the 6th Wehrmacht Army, 20,300 Russians fought in its composition; some German historians put the figure at 70 and even 90 thousand. The works of Manfred Keurig and Rüdiger Overmans calculate the size of the encircled German group. There are about 50 thousand Russians there. For comparison, there were only about 5 thousand Romanians in it.