During two world wars. Beginning of World War II

A terrible war with large-scale human losses began not in 1939, but much earlier. As a result of the First World War of 1918, almost all European countries acquired new borders. Most were deprived of part of their historical territory, which led to small wars in conversations and in minds.

In the new generation, hatred of enemies and resentment for lost cities were brought up. There were reasons to resume the war. However, in addition to psychological reasons, there were also important historical prerequisites. The Second World War, in short, involved the entire globe in hostilities.

Causes of the war

Territorial disputes. The winners of the 1918 war, England and France, divided Europe with their allies at their own discretion. The collapse of the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire led to the emergence of 9 new states. The lack of clear boundaries gave rise to great controversy. The defeated countries wanted to return their borders, and the victors did not want to part with the annexed territories. All territorial issues in Europe have always been resolved with the help of weapons. It was impossible to avoid the start of a new war.

Colonial disputes. The defeated countries were deprived of their colonies, which were a constant source of replenishment of the treasury. In the colonies themselves, the local population raised liberation uprisings with armed clashes.

Rivalry between states. After the defeat, Germany wanted revenge. It was always the leading power in Europe, and after the war it was limited in many ways.

Dictatorship. The dictatorial regime in many countries has strengthened significantly. The dictators of Europe first developed their armies to suppress internal uprisings and then to seize new territories.

The emergence of the USSR. The new power was not inferior to the power of the Russian Empire. It was a worthy competitor to the USA and leading European countries. They began to fear the emergence of communist movements.

Start of the war

The Germans did not recognize their defeat in 1918 and the Versailles agreements, which oppressed the interests of Russia and Germany. Power went to the Nazis, blocs of fascist states began to form, and large states did not have the strength to resist German aggression. Poland was the first on Germany's path to world domination.

At night September 1, 1939 German intelligence services launched Operation Himmler. Dressed in Polish uniforms, they seized a radio station in the suburbs and called on the Poles to rebel against the Germans. Hitler announced aggression from the Polish side and began military action.

After 2 days, England and France declared war on Germany, having previously entered into agreements with Poland on mutual assistance. They were supported by Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India and the countries of South Africa. The war that began became a world war. But Poland did not receive military-economic assistance from any of the supporting countries. If British and French troops were added to the Polish forces, then German aggression would be instantly stopped.

The population of Poland was delighted at the entry of its allies into the war and waited for support. However, time passed and no help came. The weak point of the Polish army was aviation.

The two German armies “South” and “North”, consisting of 62 divisions, opposed 6 Polish armies of 39 divisions. The Poles fought with dignity, but the numerical superiority of the Germans turned out to be the decisive factor. In almost 2 weeks, almost the entire territory of Poland was occupied. The Curzon Line was formed.

The Polish government left for Romania. The defenders of Warsaw and the Brest Fortress went down in history thanks to their heroism. The Polish army lost its organizational integrity.

Stages of the war

The Polish armed forces did not have time to deploy, the top leadership was weak, and the allied powers were in no hurry to help. The result was the complete cupping of Polish territory.

France and England did not change their foreign policy until May of the following year. They hoped that German aggression would be directed against the USSR.

In April 1940, the German army entered Denmark without warning and occupied its territory. Immediately after Denmark, Norway fell. At the same time, the German leadership implemented the Gelb plan and decided to surprise France through the neighboring Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The French concentrated their forces on the Maginot Line rather than in the center of the country. Hitler attacked through the Ardennes Mountains beyond the Maginot Line. On May 20, the Germans reached the English Channel, the Dutch and Belgian armies capitulated. In June, the French fleet was defeated, and part of the army managed to evacuate to England.

The French army did not use all the possibilities of resistance. On June 10, the government left Paris, which was occupied by the Germans on June 14. After 8 days, the Compiègne Armistice was signed (June 22, 1940) - the French act of surrender.

Great Britain was supposed to be next. There was a change of government. The USA began to support the British.

In the spring of 1941, the Balkans were captured. On March 1, the Nazis appeared in Bulgaria, and on April 6 in Greece and Yugoslavia. Western and Central Europe were under Hitler's rule. Preparations began for an attack on the Soviet Union.

From June 22, 1941 to November 18, 1942 The second stage of the war lasted. Germany invaded the territory of the USSR. A new stage has begun, characterized by the unification of all military forces in the world against fascism. Roosevelt and Churchill openly declared their support for the Soviet Union. On July 12, the USSR and England entered into an agreement on general military operations. On August 2, the United States pledged to provide military and economic assistance to the Russian army. England and the USA promulgated the Atlantic Charter on August 14, to which the USSR later joined with its opinion on military issues.

In September, the Russian and British military occupied Iran to prevent the formation of fascist bases in the East. The Anti-Hitler Coalition is being created.

The German army encountered strong resistance in the fall of 1941. The plan to capture Leningrad could not be carried out, since Sevastopol and Odessa resisted for a long time. On the eve of 1942, the plan for a “lightning war” disappeared. Hitler was defeated near Moscow, and the myth of German invincibility was dispelled. Germany faced the need for a protracted war.

In early December 1941, the Japanese military attacked a US base in the Pacific Ocean. Two powerful powers went to war. The USA declared war on Italy, Japan and Germany. Thanks to this, the anti-Hitler coalition strengthened. A number of mutual assistance agreements were concluded among allied countries.

From November 19, 1942 to December 31, 1943 The third stage of the war lasted. It is called a turning point. The hostilities of this period acquired enormous scale and intensity. Everything was decided on the Soviet-German front. On November 19, Russian troops launched a counteroffensive near Stalingrad (Battle of Stalingrad July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943). Their victory provided a strong impetus for subsequent battles.

To regain the strategic initiative, Hitler carried out an attack near Kursk in the summer of 1943 ( Battle of Kursk July 5, 1943 - August 23, 1943). He lost and went into a defensive position. However, the allies of the Anti-Hitler Coalition were in no hurry to fulfill their duties. They expected the exhaustion of Germany and the USSR.

On July 25, the Italian fascist government was liquidated. The new head declared war on Hitler. The fascist bloc began to disintegrate.

Japan did not weaken the group on the Russian border. The United States replenished its military forces and launched successful offensives in the Pacific.

From January 1, 1944 to May 9, 1945 . The fascist army was driven out of the USSR, a second front was being created, European countries were being liberated from the fascists. The joint efforts of the Anti-Fascist Coalition led to the complete collapse of the German army and the surrender of Germany. Great Britain and the United States carried out large-scale operations in Asia and the Pacific.

May 10, 1945 – September 2, 1945 . Armed actions are carried out in the Far East, as well as in Southeast Asia. The US used nuclear weapons.

Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945).
World War II (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945).

Results of the war

Military action could lead to the collapse of civilization. War criminals and fascist ideology were condemned in all world trials.

In 1945, a decision was signed in Yalta to create the UN to prevent such actions.

The consequences of the use of nuclear weapons over Nagasaki and Hiroshima forced many countries to sign a pact banning the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The countries of Western Europe lost their economic dominance, which passed to the United States.

Victory in the war allowed the USSR to expand its borders and strengthen the totalitarian regime. Some countries became communist.

1) The Soviet Union lived a peaceful life, maintaining neutrality, and the German army was mobilized and armed to the teeth treacherously attacked a peace-loving country on June 22;

2) our tanks, guns and planes are better than the German ones, but we had very few of them, much less than the enemy.

These theses are cynical and blatant lies, which does not prevent them from migrating from one political and “historical” work to another. In one of the last Soviet encyclopedic dictionaries published in the USSR in 1986, we read: “The Second World War (1939-1945) was prepared by the forces of international imperialist reaction and began as a war between two coalitions of imperialist powers. Subsequently, all states that fought against the countries of the fascist bloc began to accept the character of a just, anti-fascist war, which was finally determined after the USSR entered the war(see Great Patriotic War 1941-1945).” The thesis about the peaceful Soviet people, the gullible and naive Comrade Stalin, who was first “thrown away” by the British and French imperialists, and then vilely and treacherously deceived by the villain Hitler, has remained almost unchanged in the minds of many ordinary people and in the works of post-Soviet “ scientists" of Russia.

Throughout its fortunately relatively short history, the Soviet Union has never been a peace-loving country in which “children slept peacefully.” Having failed in their attempt to fan the flames of the world revolution, the Bolsheviks made a conscious bet on war as the main tool for solving their political and social problems both within the country and abroad. They intervened in most major international conflicts (in China, Spain, Vietnam, Korea, Angola, Afghanistan...), helping the organizers of the national liberation struggle and the communist movement with money, weapons and so-called volunteers. The main goal of the industrialization carried out in the country since the 30s was the creation of a powerful military-industrial complex and a well-armed Red Army. And we must admit that this goal is perhaps the only one that the Bolshevik government managed to achieve. It is no coincidence that, speaking at the May Day parade, which, according to the “peace-loving” tradition, opened with a military parade, People’s Commissar of Defense K. Voroshilov said: “The Soviet people not only know how, but also love to fight!”

By June 22, 1941, the “peace-loving and neutral” USSR had already been participating in World War II for almost two years, and participated as aggressor country.


Having signed the Moloto-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, which divided most of Europe between Hitler and Stalin, the Soviet Union launched an invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939. At the end of September 1939, 51% of Polish territory was “reunited” with the USSR. At the same time, a lot of crimes were committed against the soldiers of the Polish army, which was devastated by the German invasion and practically did not resist parts of the Red Army - Katyn alone cost the Poles almost 30 thousand officers’ lives. The Soviet occupiers committed even more crimes against civilians, especially those of Polish and Ukrainian nationality. Before the start of the war, the Soviet government in the reunified territories tried to drive almost the entire peasant population (and this is the vast majority of residents of Western Ukraine and Belarus) into collective and state farms, offering a “voluntary” alternative: “ collective farm or Siberia" Already in 1940, numerous trains with deported Poles, Ukrainians and, somewhat later, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians moved to Siberia. The Ukrainian population of Western Ukraine and Bukovina, which at first (in 1939-40) massively greeted Soviet soldiers with flowers, hoping for liberation from national oppression (from the Poles and Romanians, respectively), experienced all the delights of Soviet authorities. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that in 1941 the Germans were already greeted here with flowers.

On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union started a war with Finland, for which it was recognized as an aggressor and expelled from the League of Nations. This “unknown war”, hushed up in every possible way by Soviet propaganda, is an indelible shame on the reputation of the Land of Soviets. Under the far-fetched pretext of a mythical military danger, Soviet troops invaded Finnish territory. “Wipe the Finnish adventurers from the face of the earth! The time has come to destroy the vile booger who dares to threaten the Soviet Union!“- this is what journalists wrote on the eve of this invasion in the main party newspaper “Pravda”. I wonder what kind of military threat to the USSR this “booger” could pose with a population of 3.65 million people and a poorly armed army of 130 thousand people.

Now about one more of Stalin’s thesis: “History did not give us enough time, and we did not have time to mobilize and technically prepare for a treacherous attack.” It's a lie.

The statement that by June 1941 Germany secretly pulled together troops and military equipment to the borders of the USSR, providing a significant advantage in military equipment, preparing a treacherous surprise attack on a peaceful country, is also untrue. According to German data, confirmed by European military historians ( see “World War II,” ed. R. Holmes, 2010, London), on June 22, 1941, a three-million-strong army of German, Hungarian and Romanian soldiers prepared for an attack on the Soviet Union, which had four tank groups with 3266 tanks and 22 fighter air groups (66 squadrons), which included 1036 aircraft.

The version about the surprise of the Wehrmacht attack does not look convincing. Even if we agree with the stupidity and naivety of the Soviet party and military leadership and Stalin personally, who categorically ignored intelligence data and Western intelligence services and overlooked the deployment of a three-million-strong enemy army on the borders, then even then, with the military equipment at the opponents’ disposal, the surprise of the first strike could ensure success in within 1-2 days and a breakthrough to a distance of no more than 40-50 km. Further, according to all the laws of combat operations, the temporarily retreating Soviet troops, using their overwhelming advantage in military equipment, they were supposed to literally crush the aggressor. But events on the Eastern Front developed according to a completely different, tragic scenario...

Soviet historical science divided the history of the war into three periods. Least attention was paid to the first period of the war, especially the summer campaign of 1941. It was sparingly explained that the German successes were caused by the surprise of the attack and the unpreparedness of the USSR for war. In addition, as Comrade Stalin put it in his report (October 1941): “For every step deep into Soviet territory, the Wehrmacht paid with gigantic irreparable losses” (the figure was given as 4.5 million killed and wounded, two weeks later in In an editorial in the Pravda newspaper, this figure of German losses increased to 6 million people). What actually happened at the beginning of the war?

From dawn on June 22, Wehrmacht troops poured across the border along almost its entire length - 3,000 km from the Baltic to the Black Seas. The Red Army, armed to the teeth, was defeated in a few weeks and driven back hundreds of kilometers from the western borders. By mid-July, the Germans occupied all of Belarus, capturing 330 thousand Soviet troops, capturing 3,332 tanks and 1,809 guns and numerous other military trophies. In almost two weeks, the entire Baltic region was captured. In August-September 1941, most of Ukraine was in the hands of the Germans - in the Kiev cauldron, the Germans surrounded and captured 665 thousand people, captured 884 tanks and 3,718 guns. By the beginning of October, the German Army Group Center had reached almost the outskirts of Moscow. In the cauldron near Vyazma, the Germans captured another 663 thousand prisoners.

According to German data, scrupulously filtered and clarified after the war, in 1941 (the first 6 months of the war) the Germans captured 3806865 Soviet soldiers, captured or destroyed 21 thousand tanks, 17 thousand aircraft, 33 thousand guns and 6.5 million small arms.

Military archives declassified in the post-Soviet era generally confirm the volume of military equipment abandoned and captured by the enemy. As for human losses, it is very difficult to calculate them in wartime; moreover, for obvious reasons, in modern Russia this topic is practically taboo. And yet, a comparison of data from military archives and other documents of that era allowed some Russian historians striving for the truth (G. Krivo-sheev, M. Solonin, etc.) to determine with a sufficient degree of accuracy that in 1941. except for surrender 3.8 million people, The Red Army suffered direct combat losses (killed and died from wounds in hospitals) - 567 thousand people, wounded and sick - 1314 thousand people, deserters (who evaded captivity and the front) - from 1 to 1.5 million people. and missing or wounded, abandoned during a stampede - about 1 million people The last two figures were determined from a comparison of the personnel of Soviet military units on June 22 and December 31, 1941, taking into account accurate data on the personnel replenishment of units for this period.

On January 1, 1942, according to Soviet data, 9,147 German soldiers and officers were captured ( 415 times fewer Soviet prisoners of war!). German, Romanian and Hungarian losses in manpower (killed, missing, wounded, sick) in 1941 amounted to 918 thousand people. - most of them occurred at the end of 1941 ( five times less than Comrade Stalin announced in his report).

Thus, the first months of the war on the Eastern Front led to the defeat of the Red Army and the almost complete collapse of the political and economic system created by the Bolsheviks. As the figures of human losses, abandoned military equipment and vast territories captured by the enemy show, the scale of this catastrophe is unprecedented and completely dispels the myths about the wisdom of the Soviet party leadership, the high professionalism of the Red Army officer corps, the courage and fortitude of Soviet soldiers and, most importantly, the -givingness and love for the Motherland of ordinary Soviet people. The army practically crumbled after the first powerful blows of the German units, the top party and military leadership became confused and showed their complete incompetence, the officer corps turned out to be unprepared for serious battles and the vast majority, abandoning their units and military equipment, fled from the battlefield or surrendered to the Germans ; abandoned by officers, demoralized Soviet soldiers surrendered to the Nazis or hid from the enemy.

Direct confirmation of the gloomy picture painted are the decrees Stalin issued in the first weeks of the war, immediately after he managed to cope with the shock of the terrible disaster. Already on June 27, 1941, a decree was signed on the creation of the notorious barrage detachments (ZO). In addition to existing special detachments of the NKVD, ZO existed in the Red Army until the fall of 1944. Barrier detachments, available in each rifle division, were located behind regular units and detained or shot on the spot soldiers fleeing from the front line. In October 1941, 1st Deputy Head of the Directorate of Special Departments of the NKVD Solomon Milshtein reported to the Minister of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria: “... from the beginning of the war to October 10, 1941, the special departments of the NKVD and ZO detained 657,364 military personnel who lagged behind and fled from the front.” . In total, during the war years, according to Soviet official data, military tribunals convicted 994 thousand military personnel, of them 157593 - shot(7810 soldiers were shot in the Wehrmacht - 20 times less than in the Red Army). For voluntary surrender and cooperation with the occupiers he was shot or 23 former Soviet generals hanged(not counting dozens of generals who received camp sentences).

Somewhat later, decrees were signed on the creation penal units, through which, according to official data, they passed 427910 military personnel(penal units existed until June 6, 1945).

Based real figures and facts preserved in Soviet and German documents(decrees, secret reports, notes, etc.), one can draw a bitter conclusion: in no country that became a victim of Hitler’s aggression was there such moral decay, mass desertion and cooperation with the occupiers as in the USSR. For example, the number of personnel of military formations of “voluntary assistants” (the so-called hiwi), police and military units from Soviet military personnel and civilians by mid-1944 exceeded 800 thousand people(only the SS served more 150 thousand former Soviet citizens).

The extent of the catastrophe that befell the Soviet Union in the first months of the war came as a surprise not only to the Soviet elite, but also to the leadership of Western countries and, to some extent, even to the Nazis. In particular, the Germans were not ready to “digest” such a number of Soviet prisoners of war - by mid-July 1941, the flow of prisoners of war exceeded the Wehrmacht’s ability to protect and maintain them. On July 25, 1941, the command of the German army issued an order for the mass release of prisoners of a number of nationalities. By November 13, according to this order, it was released 318,770 Soviet prisoners of war (mostly Ukrainians, Belarusians and Baltic states).

The catastrophic extent of the defeats of the Soviet troops, accompanied by mass surrender, desertion and cooperation with the enemy in the occupied territories, raises the question of the causes of these shameful phenomena. Liberal democratic historians and political scientists often note the abundance of similarities in the two totalitarian regimes - Soviet and Nazi. But we must not forget about their fundamental differences in attitude towards one's own people. Hitler, who came to power democratically, led Germany out of devastation and post-war humiliation, eliminated unemployment, built excellent roads, and conquered new living space. Yes, in Germany they began to exterminate Jews and Gypsies, persecute dissidents, introduce the most severe control over the public and even personal lives of citizens, but no one expropriated private property, did not massively shoot or imprison aristocrats, the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, did not force them into collective farms and did not dispossess the peasants - The standard of living of the vast majority of Germans increased. And, most importantly, with their military, political and economic successes, the Nazis managed to instill in the majority of Germans a belief in the greatness and invincibility of their country and their people.

The Bolsheviks, who seized power in Tsarist Russia, destroyed the best part of society and, having deceived almost all layers of society, brought to their peoples famines and deportations, and for ordinary citizens - forced collectivization and industrialization, which grossly broke the usual way of life and lowered the standard of living of the majority of ordinary people.

In 1937-1938 was arrested by the NKVD authorities 1345 thousand people, of which 681 thousand - shot. On the eve of the war, in January 1941, according to official Soviet statistics, 1930 thousand convicts were kept in the Gulag camps, and another 462 thousand people. were in prisons, and 1200 thousand were in “special settlements” (total 3 million 600 thousand people). Therefore, the rhetorical question: “Could the Soviet people, living in such conditions, under such orders and such power, en masse show courage and heroism in battles with the Germans, defending with their breasts the “socialist fatherland, their native communist party and the wise Comrade Stalin?” - hangs in the air, and the significant difference in the number of surrendered prisoners, deserters and military equipment abandoned on the battlefield between the Soviet and German armies in the first months of the war is convincingly explained by different attitudes towards his citizens, soldiers and officers in the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Fracture.
We won't stand behind the price

In October 1941, Hitler, anticipating the final defeat of the Soviet Union, was preparing to host a parade of German troops in the citadel of Bolshevism - Red Square. However, events at the front and in the rear already at the end of 1941 began to develop differently from his scenario.

German losses in battles began to grow, logistical and food assistance from the allies (mainly the United States) to the Soviet army increased every month, and military factories evacuated to the East began mass production of weapons. First, the autumn thaw, and then the severe frosts of the winter of 1941-1942, helped slow down the offensive impulse of the fascist units. But the most important thing is that a radical change gradually took place in the attitude of the people towards the enemy - soldiers, home front workers and ordinary citizens who found themselves in the occupied territories.

In November 1941, Stalin, in his report on the occasion of the next anniversary of the October Revolution, said a significant and this time absolutely truthful phrase: “ Hitler's stupid policies turned the peoples of the USSR into the sworn enemies of today's Germany" These words formulate one of the most important reasons for the transformation of the Second World War, in which the Soviet Union participated since September 1939, in the Great Patriotic War, in which the leading role passed to the people. Obsessed with delusional racial ideas, the narcissistic paranoid Hitler, not listening to the numerous warnings of his generals, declared the Slavs to be “subhumans” who must free up living space for the “Aryan race”, and at first serve representatives of the “master race”. Millions of captured Soviet prisoners of war were herded like cattle into vast open areas surrounded by barbed wire and starved and exposed to cold. By the beginning of winter 1941, out of 3.8 million people. more than 2 million were destroyed from such conditions and treatment. The previously mentioned release of prisoners of a number of nationalities, begun on the initiative of the army command on November 13, 1941, was prohibited personally by Hitler. All attempts by anti-Soviet national or civilian structures that collaborated with the Germans at the beginning of the war (Ukrainian nationalists, Cossacks, Balts, White emigrants) to create at least semi-independent state, military, public or regional structures were nipped in the bud. S. Bandera and part of the OUN leadership were sent to a concentration camp. The collective farm system was practically preserved; The civilian population was forced to work in Germany, taken hostage en masse and shot on any suspicion. Horrible scenes of the genocide of Jews, mass deaths of prisoners of war, executions of hostages, public executions - all this in front of the population - shocked the inhabitants of the occupied territories. In the first six months of the war, according to the most conservative estimates, 5-6 million Soviet civilians died at the hands of the occupiers (including about 2.5 million Soviet Jews). It was not so much Soviet propaganda as news from the front, the stories of those escaping from the occupied territories and other methods of “wireless telephone” human rumor that convinced the people that the new enemy was waging an inhumane war of complete destruction. An increasing number of ordinary Soviet people - soldiers, partisans, residents of occupied territories and home front workers began to realize that in this war the question was posed clearly - to die or to win. This is what transformed the Second World War in the USSR into the Great Patriotic (People's) War.

The enemy was strong. The German army was distinguished by the stamina and courage of its soldiers, good weapons and a highly qualified general and officer corps. Stubborn fighting continued for another three and a half years, in which at first the Germans won local victories. But an increasing number of Germans began to understand that they would not be able to restrain this impulse of almost universal popular rage. The defeat at Stalingrad, the bloody battle on the Kursk Bulge, the growth of the partisan movement in the occupied territories, which from a thin trickle organized by the NKVD turned into massive popular resistance. All this produced a radical change in the war on the Eastern Front.

Victories were given to the Red Army at a high price. This was facilitated not only by the fierceness of the resistance offered by the fascists, but also by the “commanderial skill” of the Soviet commanders. Brought up in the spirit of the glorious Bolshevik traditions, according to which the life of an individual, and especially a simple soldier, was worth nothing, many marshals and generals in their careerist rage (to get ahead of their neighbor and be the first to report the quick capture of another fortress, height or city) did not spare their lives soldier. It has not yet been calculated how many hundreds of thousands of lives of Soviet soldiers were costed by the “rivalry” of Marshals Zhukov and Konev for the right to be the first to report to Stalin about the capture of Berlin.

From the end of 1941, the nature of the war began to change. The terrible ratios of human and military-technical losses of the Soviet and German armies have sunk into oblivion. For example, if in the first months of the war there were 415 Soviet prisoners of war per captured German, then since 1942 this ratio has approached one (out of 6.3 million captured Soviet soldiers, 2.5 million surrendered in the period from 1942 . to May 1945; during the same time, 2.2 million German soldiers surrendered. The people paid a terrible price for this Great Victory - the total human losses of the Soviet Union (10.7 million combat losses and 12.4 million civilians) in World War II amounted to almost 40% of the losses of other participating countries this war (taking into account China, which lost only 20 million people). Germany lost only 7 million 260 thousand people (of which 1.76 million were civilians).

The Soviet government did not count military losses - it was unprofitable for it, because the true extent of primarily human losses convincingly illustrated the “wisdom and professionalism” of Comrade Stalin personally and his party and military nomenklatura.

The last, rather gloomy and poorly clarified chord of the Second World War (still hushed up not only by post-Soviet, but also Western historians) was the issue of repatriates. By the end of the war, about 5 million Soviet citizens remained alive who found themselves outside their homeland (3 million people in the Allied zone of action and 2 million people in the Red Army zone). Of these, about 3.3 million people are ostarworkers. out of 4.3 million stolen by the Germans for forced labor. However, about 1.7 million people survived. prisoners of war, including those who entered military or police service with the enemy and voluntary refugees.

The return of repatriates to their homeland was difficult and often tragic. About 500 thousand people remained in the West. (every tenth), many were returned by force. The Allies, who did not want to spoil relations with the USSR and were bound by the need to take care of their subjects who found themselves in the zone of action of the Red Army, were often forced to concede to the Soviets on this issue, realizing that many of the forcibly returned repatriates would be shot or end their lives in the Gulag. In general, the Western allies tried to adhere to the principle of returning to the Soviet authorities repatriates who had Soviet citizenship or who had committed war crimes against the Soviet state or its citizens.

The topic of the “Ukrainian account” of World War II deserves special discussion. Neither in Soviet nor in post-Soviet times has this topic been seriously analyzed, with the exception of ideological bickering between supporters of the pro-Soviet “unrewritten history” and adherents of the national democratic trend. Western European historians (at least English ones in the previously mentioned book “The Second World War”) estimate the losses of the civilian population of Ukraine at 7 million people. If we add here another about 2 million combat losses (proportional to the share of the population of the Ukrainian SSR in the total population of the USSR), then we get a terrible figure of military losses of 9 million people. - this is about 20% of the total population of Ukraine at that time. None of the countries participating in World War II suffered such terrible losses.

In Ukraine, debates between politicians and historians about the attitude towards UPA soldiers do not stop. Numerous “admirers of the red flag” proclaim them traitors to the Motherland and collaborators of the Nazis, regardless of the facts, documents, or the opinion of European jurisprudence. These fighters for “historical justice” stubbornly do not want to know that the overwhelming majority of residents of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and the Baltic states, who found themselves outside the Red Army zone in 1945, were not handed over to the Soviets by the Western allies because, according to international laws, they were not citizens of the USSR and did not commit crimes against someone else’s homeland. So, out of 10 thousand soldiers of the SS Galicia captured by the Allies in 1945, only 112 people, despite the unprecedented, almost ultimatum, pressure from representatives of the USSR Council of People's Commissars' Directorate for Repatriation Affairs. As for the ordinary soldiers of the UPA, they courageously fought against the German and Soviet occupiers for their lands and independent Ukraine.

In conclusion, I would like to return once again to the problem of historical truth. Is it worth stirring up the memory of the fallen heroes and searching for the ambiguous truth in the tragic events of the Second World War? The point is not only and not so much in historical truth, but in the system of “Soviet values” preserved in the post-Soviet space, including Ukraine. Lies, like rust, corrode not only history, but also all aspects of life. “Unrewritten history”, exaggerated heroes, “red flags”, pompous military parades, renewed Leninist subbotniks, envious aggressive hostility towards the West directly lead to the preservation of the wretched unreformed “Soviet” industry, unproductive “collective farm” agriculture, the “most fair” no different from Soviet times of legal proceedings, the essentially Soviet (“thieves”) system for selecting management personnel, the valiant “people’s” police and the “soviet” systems of education and health care. The persisting system of distorted values ​​is largely to blame for the unique post-Soviet syndrome, which is characterized by the complete failure of political, economic and social reforms in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

The first major defeat of the Wehrmacht was the defeat of the fascist German troops in the Battle of Moscow (1941-1942), during which the fascist “blitzkrieg” was finally thwarted and the myth of the invincibility of the Wehrmacht was dispelled.

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a war against the United States with the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 8, the USA, Great Britain and a number of other countries declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The entry of the United States and Japan into the war affected the balance of forces and increased the scale of the armed struggle.

In North Africa in November 1941 and in January-June 1942, military operations were carried out with varying success, then until the autumn of 1942 there was a lull. In the Atlantic, German submarines continued to cause great damage to the Allied fleets (by the fall of 1942, the tonnage of sunk ships, mainly in the Atlantic, amounted to over 14 million tons). In the Pacific Ocean, at the beginning of 1942, Japan occupied Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Burma, inflicted a major defeat on the British fleet in the Gulf of Thailand, the Anglo-American-Dutch fleet in the Javanese operation, and established supremacy at sea. The American Navy and Air Force, significantly strengthened by the summer of 1942, defeated the Japanese fleet in naval battles in the Coral Sea (May 7-8) and off Midway Island (June).

Third period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 31, 1943) began with a counteroffensive by Soviet troops, which ended with the defeat of the 330,000-strong German group during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War and had a great influence on the further course of the entire Second World War. The mass expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the USSR began. The Battle of Kursk (1943) and the advance to the Dnieper completed a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The Battle of the Dnieper (1943) upset the enemy’s plans for waging a protracted war.

At the end of October 1942, when the Wehrmacht was fighting fierce battles on the Soviet-German front, Anglo-American troops intensified military operations in North Africa, conducting the El Alamein operation (1942) and the North African landing operation (1942). In the spring of 1943 they carried out the Tunisian operation. In July-August 1943, Anglo-American troops, taking advantage of the favorable situation (the main forces of the German troops took part in the Battle of Kursk), landed on the island of Sicily and took possession of it.

On July 25, 1943, the fascist regime in Italy collapsed, and on September 3, it concluded a truce with the Allies. Italy's withdrawal from the war marked the beginning of the collapse of the fascist bloc. On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany. Nazi troops occupied its territory. In September, the Allies landed in Italy, but were unable to break the defenses of the German troops and suspended active operations in December. In the Pacific and Asia, Japan sought to retain the territories captured in 1941-1942, without weakening the groups on the borders of the USSR. The Allies, having launched an offensive in the Pacific Ocean in the fall of 1942, captured the island of Guadalcanal (February 1943), landed on New Guinea, and liberated the Aleutian Islands.

Fourth period of the war (January 1, 1944 - May 9, 1945) began with a new offensive of the Red Army. As a result of the crushing blows of the Soviet troops, the Nazi invaders were expelled from the Soviet Union. During the subsequent offensive, the USSR Armed Forces carried out a liberation mission against European countries and, with the support of their peoples, played a decisive role in the liberation of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and other states. Anglo-American troops landed on June 6, 1944 in Normandy, opening a second front, and began an offensive in Germany. In February, the Crimean (Yalta) Conference (1945) of the leaders of the USSR, USA, and Great Britain took place, which examined issues of the post-war world order and the participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

In the winter of 1944-1945, on the Western Front, Nazi troops defeated the Allied forces during the Ardennes Operation. To ease the position of the Allies in the Ardennes, at their request, the Red Army began its winter offensive ahead of schedule. Having restored the situation by the end of January, the Allied forces crossed the Rhine River during the Meuse-Rhine Operation (1945), and in April carried out the Ruhr Operation (1945), which ended in the encirclement and capture of a large enemy group. During the Northern Italian Operation (1945), the Allied forces, slowly moving north, with the help of Italian partisans, completely captured Italy in early May 1945. In the Pacific theater of operations, the Allies carried out operations to defeat the Japanese fleet, liberated a number of islands occupied by Japan, approached Japan directly and cut off its communications with the countries of Southeast Asia.

In April-May 1945, the Soviet Armed Forces defeated the last groupings of Nazi troops in the Berlin Operation (1945) and the Prague Operation (1945) and met with the Allied forces. The war in Europe is over. On May 8, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered. May 9, 1945 became Victory Day over Nazi Germany.

At the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference (1945), the USSR confirmed its agreement to enter the war with Japan. For political purposes, the United States carried out atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and began military operations on August 9. During the Soviet-Japanese War (1945), Soviet troops, having defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army, eliminated the source of aggression in the Far East, liberated Northeast China, North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, thereby accelerating the end of World War II. On September 2, Japan surrendered. The Second World War is over.

The Second World War was the largest military conflict in human history. It lasted 6 years, 110 million people were in the ranks of the Armed Forces. More than 55 million people died in World War II. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest casualties, losing 27 million people. Damage from direct destruction and destruction of material assets on the territory of the USSR amounted to almost 41% of all countries participating in the war.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Humanity constantly experiences armed conflicts of varying degrees of complexity. The 20th century was no exception. In our article we will talk about the “darkest” stage in the history of this century: World War II 1939-1945.

Prerequisites

The preconditions for this military conflict began to take shape long before the main events: back in 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles was concluded, which consolidated the results of the First World War.

Let us list the key reasons that led to the new war:

• Germany's lack of ability to fulfill some of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles in full (payments to affected countries) and unwillingness to put up with military restrictions;
• Change of power in Germany: Nationalists, led by Adolf Hitler, skillfully exploited the discontent of the German population and the fears of world leaders about communist Russia. Their domestic policy was aimed at establishing a dictatorship and promoting the superiority of the Aryan race;
• External aggression by Germany, Italy, Japan, against which the major powers did not take active action, fearing open confrontation.

Rice. 1. Adolf Hitler.

Initial period

The Germans received military support from Slovakia.

Hitler did not accept the offer to resolve the conflict peacefully. 03.09 Great Britain and France announced the beginning of war with Germany.

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The USSR, which at that time was an ally of Germany, announced on September 16 that it had taken control of the western territories of Belarus and Ukraine, which were part of Poland.

On 06.10, the Polish army finally surrendered, and Hitler offered the British and French peace negotiations, which did not take place due to Germany’s refusal to withdraw troops from Polish territory.

Rice. 2. Invasion of Poland 1939.

The first period of the war (09.1939-06.1941) includes:

• Naval battles of the British and Germans in the Atlantic Ocean in favor of the latter (there were no active clashes between them on land);
• War of the USSR with Finland (11.1939-03.1940): victory of the Russian army, a peace treaty was concluded;
• Germany's seizure of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium (04-05.1940);
• Italian occupation of the south of France, German seizure of the rest of the territory: a German-French truce was concluded, most of France remains occupied;
• The inclusion of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina into the USSR without military action (08.1940);
• England's refusal to make peace with Germany: as a result of air battles (07-10.1940), the British managed to defend the country;
• Battles of the Italians with the British and representatives of the French liberation movement for African lands (06.1940-04.1941): the advantage is on the side of the latter;
• Victory of Greece over the Italian invaders (11.1940, second attempt in March 1941);
• German capture of Yugoslavia, joint German-Spanish invasion of Greece (04.1941);
• German occupation of Crete (05.1941);
• Japanese capture of southeast China (1939-1941).

During the war years, the composition of the participants in the two opposing alliances changed, but the main ones were:

• Anti-Hitler coalition: Great Britain, France, USSR, USA, Netherlands, China, Greece, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Brazil, Mexico;
• Axis countries (Nazi bloc): Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania.

France and England went to war because of alliance agreements with Poland. In 1941, Germany attacked the USSR, Japan attacked the USA, thereby changing the balance of power of the warring parties.

Main events

Starting from the second period (06.1941-11.1942), the course of military operations is reflected in the chronological table:

Rice. 3. Japan's surrender in 1945.

results

Let us summarize the main results of World War II:

• The war affected 62 countries to varying degrees. About 70 million people died. Tens of thousands of settlements were destroyed, of which 1,700 were in Russia alone;
• Germany and its allies were defeated: the seizure of countries and the spread of the Nazi regime stopped;
• World leaders have changed; they became the USSR and the USA. England and France have lost their former greatness;
• The borders of states have changed, new independent countries have emerged;
• War criminals convicted in Germany and Japan;
• The United Nations was created (10/24/1945);
• The military power of the main victorious countries increased.

Historians consider serious armed resistance of the USSR against Germany (Great Patriotic War 1941-1945), American supplies of military equipment (Lend-Lease), and the acquisition of air superiority by the aviation of the Western allies (England, France) as an important contribution to the victory over fascism.

What have we learned?

From the article we learned briefly about the Second World War. This information will help you easily answer questions about when World War II began (1939), who were the main participants in the hostilities, in what year it ended (1945) and with what result.

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Neither geographically nor chronologically the history of the Second World War is comparable to. On a geopolitical scale, the events of the Great Patriotic War unfolded on the Eastern Front, although these events undoubtedly most influenced the outcome of this global military-political crisis. The stages of World War II also coincide with the general stages of the Great Patriotic War.

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Balance of power

How the Second World War took place, briefly about its main participants. 62 states (out of 73 existing at that time) and almost 80% of the population of the entire globe took part in the conflict.

All participants had one relationship or another with two clearly defined coalitions:

• anti-Hitler,
• Axis coalition.

The creation of the Axis began much earlier than the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition. In 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Berlin. This was the beginning of the formalization of the union.

Important! A number of countries changed their coalition orientation at the very end of the confrontation. For example, Finland, Italy and Romania. A number of puppet countries formed by the fascist regime, for example, Vichy France, the Greek Kingdom, completely disappeared from the geopolitical map of the world.

Territories affected by hostilities

There were 5 main theaters of war:

• Western European - France, Great Britain, Norway; active military operations were carried out throughout the Atlantic;
• Eastern European - USSR, Poland, Finland, Austria; military operations took place in such parts of the Atlantic as the Barents Sea, Baltic Sea, and Black Sea;
• Mediterranean - Greece, Italy, Albania, Egypt, all of French North Africa; All countries that had access to the Mediterranean Sea, in whose waters active hostilities were also taking place, joined the hostilities;
• African - Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and others;
• Pacific - Japan, China, USSR, USA, all island countries of the Pacific basin.

Major battles of World War II:

• Battle for Moscow,
• Kursk Bulge (turning point),
• Battle for the Caucasus,
• Operation of the Ardennes (Wehrmacht Blitzkrieg).

What triggered the conflict

We can talk a lot about the reasons for a long time. Each country had objective and subjective reasons for becoming a participant in the military conflict. But overall it came down to this:

• revanchism - the Nazis, for example, tried in every possible way to overcome the conditions of the Versailles Peace of 1918 and again take a leading position in Europe;
• imperialism - all major world powers had certain territorial interests: Italy launched a military invasion of Ethiopia, Japan was interested in Manchuria and Northern China, Germany was interested in the Ruru region and Austria. The USSR was worried about the problem of the Finnish and Polish borders;
• ideological contradictions - two opposing camps have formed in the world: communist and democratic-bourgeois; the member countries of the camps dreamed of destroying each other.

Important! The ideological contradictions that existed the day before made it impossible to prevent the conflict at the initial stage.

The Munich Agreement was concluded between the fascists and the democratic countries of the West, which ultimately led to the Anschluss of Austria and the Ruhr. The Western powers actually disrupted the Moscow Conference, at which the Russians planned to discuss the possibility of creating an anti-German coalition. Finally, in defiance of the Munich Treaty, the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were signed. In such difficult diplomatic conditions, it was impossible to prevent war.

Stages

The entire Second World War can be divided into five main stages:

• first – 09.1939 – 06.1941;
• second – 07.1941 – 11.1942;
• third – 12.1942 – 06. 1944;
• fourth – 07/1944 – 05/1945;
• fifth – 06 – 09. 1945

The stages of the Second World War are conditional; they include certain significant events. When did World War II start? How did World War II start? Who started World War II? The beginning is considered to be September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland, that is, in fact, the Germans took the initiative.

Important! The question of when the Second World War began is clear; a direct and accurate answer can be given here, but it is more difficult to say about who started the Second World War; it is impossible to answer unequivocally. All powers of the world are to one degree or another guilty of unleashing a global conflict.

The Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, when the act of surrender of Japan was signed. We can say that Japan has not yet completely closed the page of World War II. A peace treaty has not yet been signed between the Russian Federation and Japan. The Japanese side disputes the Russian ownership of the four South Kuril Islands.

First stage

The main events that unfolded at the first stage can be presented in the following chronological order (table):

The beginning of the war

Second phase

It became a turning point in many ways. The main thing here is that the Germans lost the strategic initiative and speed characteristic of 40-41. The main events take place in the Eastern European theater of operations. The main forces of Germany were also concentrated there, which can no longer provide large-scale support in Europe and North Africa to its coalition allies, which, in turn, led to the successes of the Anglo-American-French forces in the African and Mediterranean theaters of combat.

Second stage of the war

Important! It was at the second stage that the Anti-Hitler Coalition was formed, the USSR, USA, China and Great Britain signed the Declaration of the United Nations (01/01/1942).

Third stage

It is marked by a complete loss of strategic initiative from the outside. On the eastern front, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive. On the Western, African and Pacific fronts, the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition also achieved significant results

An important diplomatic event of the third stage was the Tehran Conference of the Allies (11.1943). At which joint military actions against the Third Reich were agreed upon.

Third stage of the war

These are all the main stages of the Second World War. In total, it lasted exactly 6 years.

Fourth stage

It meant a gradual cessation of hostilities on all fronts except the Pacific. The Nazis suffer a crushing defeat.

At the allied conference in Yalta (02.1945), the leaders of the USA, the USSR and Britain discussed the post-war structure of Europe and the world (they also discussed the main thing - the creation of the UN). The agreements reached in Yalta influenced the entire course of post-war history.