What happened to the Soviet military leaders in German captivity? Generals shot in a sand quarry.
THE FATES OF PRISONED SOVIET GENERALS
(Based on materials from V. Mirkiskin.)
During World War II, 5,740,000 Soviet prisoners of war passed through the crucible of German captivity. Moreover, only about 1 million were in concentration camps by the end of the war. The German lists of the dead showed a figure of about 2 million. Of the remaining number, 818,000 collaborated with the Germans, 473,000 were killed in camps in Germany and Poland, 273,000 died and about half a million were killed en route, 67,000 soldiers and officers escaped. According to statistics, two out of three Soviet prisoners of war died in German captivity. The first year of the war was especially terrible in this regard. Of the 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans during the first six months of the war, about 2 million were dead or exterminated by January 1942. The mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war even exceeded the rate of reprisals against Jews during the peak of the anti-Semitic campaign in Germany.
Surprisingly, the architect of the genocide was not a member of the SS or even a representative of the Nazi Party, but just an elderly general who had been in military service since 1905. This is Infantry General Hermann Reinecke, who headed the department of prisoners of war losses in the German army. Even before the start of Operation Barbarossa, Reinecke made a proposal to isolate Jewish prisoners of war and transfer them into the hands of the SS for “special processing.” Later, as a judge of the "people's court", he sentenced hundreds of German Jews to the gallows.
83 (according to other sources - 72) generals of the Red Army were captured by the Germans, mainly in 1941-1942. Among the prisoners of war were several army commanders and dozens of corps and division commanders. The vast majority of them remained faithful to the oath, and only a few agreed to cooperate with the enemy. Of these, 26 (23) people died for various reasons: shot, killed by camp guards, died from disease. The rest were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of the latter, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The remaining 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of verification, but then gradually transferred to the reserve.
Many of the fates of those Soviet generals who were captured by Germans are still unknown. Here are just a few examples.
Today, the fate of Major General Bogdanov, who commanded the 48th Infantry Division, which was destroyed in the first days of the war as a result of the Germans advancing from the border to Riga, remains a mystery. In captivity, Bogdanov joined the Gil-Rodinov brigade, which was formed by the Germans from representatives of Eastern European nationalities to carry out anti-partisan tasks. Lieutenant Colonel Gil-Rodinov himself was the chief of staff of the 29th Infantry Division before his capture. Bogdanov took the position of chief of counterintelligence. In August 1943, the brigade's soldiers killed all German officers and went over to the side of the partisans. Gil-Rodinov was later killed while fighting on the side of the Soviet troops. The fate of Bogdanov, who went over to the side of the partisans, is unknown.
Major General Dobrozerdov headed the 7th Rifle Corps, which in August 1941 was tasked with stopping the advance of the German 1st Panzer Group to the Zhitomir region. The corps' counterattack failed, partially contributing to the Germans' encirclement of the Southwestern Front near Kiev. Dobrozerdov survived and was soon appointed chief of staff of the 37th Army. This was the period when, on the left bank of the Dnieper, the Soviet command regrouped the scattered forces of the Southwestern Front. In this leapfrog and confusion, Dobrozerdov was captured. The 37th Army itself was disbanded at the end of September and then re-established under the command of Lopatin for the defense of Rostov. Dobrozerdov withstood all the horrors of captivity and returned to his homeland after the war. His further fate is unknown.
Lieutenant General Ershakov was, in the full sense, one of those who were lucky enough to survive Stalin’s repressions. In the summer of 1938, at the height of the purge process, he became commander of the Ural Military District. In the first days of the war, the district was transformed into the 22nd Army, which became one of three armies sent to the very thick of the battles - to the Western Front. At the beginning of July, the 22nd Army was unable to stop the advance of the German 3rd Panzer Group towards Vitebsk and was completely destroyed in August. However, Ershakov managed to escape. In September 1941, he took command of the 20th Army, which was defeated in the Battle of Smolensk. At the same time, under unknown circumstances, Ershakov himself was captured. He returned from captivity, but his further fate is unknown.
The fate of Major General Mishutin is full of secrets and mysteries. He was born in 1900, took part in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, and by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he commanded a rifle division in Belarus. There he disappeared without a trace during the fighting (a fate shared by thousands of Soviet soldiers). In 1954, former allies informed Moscow that Mishutin held a high position in one of the Western intelligence services and worked in Frankfurt. According to the presented version, the general first joined Vlasov, and in the last days of the war he was recruited by General Patch, commander of the American 7th Army, and became a Western agent. Another story, presented by the Russian writer Tamaev, seems more realistic, according to which an NKVD officer who investigated the fate of General Mishutin proved that Mishutin was shot by the Germans for refusing to cooperate, and his name was used by a completely different person who was recruiting prisoners of war into the Vlasov army. At the same time, the documents on the Vlasov movement do not contain any information about Mishutin, and the Soviet authorities, through their agents among prisoners of war, from interrogations of Vlasov and his accomplices after the war, would undoubtedly have established the actual fate of General Mishutin. In addition, if Mishutin died as a hero, then it is not clear why there is no information about him in Soviet publications on the history of Khalkhin Gol. From all of the above it follows that the fate of this man still remains a mystery.
At the beginning of the war, Lieutenant General Muzychenko commanded the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front. The army included two huge mechanized corps, on which the Soviet command had high hopes (they, unfortunately, did not come true). The 6th Army managed to provide strong resistance to the enemy during the defense of Lvov. Subsequently, the 6th Army fought in the area of the cities of Brody and Berdichev, where, as a result of poorly coordinated actions and lack of air support, it was defeated. On July 25, the 6th Army was transferred to the Southern Front and destroyed in the Uman pocket. General Muzychenko was also captured at the same time. He passed through captivity, but was not reinstated. It should be noted that Stalin’s attitude towards the generals who fought on the Southern Front and were captured there was harsher than towards the generals captured on other fronts.
Major General Ogurtsov commanded the 10th Tank Division, which was part of the 15th Mechanized Corps of the Southwestern Front. The defeat of the division as part of the “Volsky group” south of Kyiv decided the fate of this city. Ogurtsov was captured, but managed to escape while being transported from Zamosc to Hammelsburg. He joined a group of partisans in Poland, led by Manzhevidze. On October 28, 1942, he died in battle on Polish territory.
Major General of Tank Forces Potapov was one of five army commanders whom the Germans captured during the war. Potapov distinguished himself in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, where he commanded the Southern Group. At the beginning of the war, he commanded the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front. This association fought, perhaps, better than others until Stalin made the decision to shift the “center of attention” to Kyiv. On September 20, 1941, during fierce battles near Poltava, Potapov was captured. There is information that Hitler himself talked to Potapov, trying to convince him to go over to the side of the Germans, but the Soviet general flatly refused. After his release, Potapov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and later promoted to the rank of colonel general. Then he was appointed to the post of first deputy commander of the Odessa and Carpathian military districts. His obituary was signed by all representatives of the high command, which included several marshals. The obituary, naturally, said nothing about his captivity and stay in German camps.
The last general (and one of two Air Force generals) captured by the Germans was Aviation Major General Polbin, commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Corps, which supported the activities of the 6th Army, which surrounded Breslau in February 1945. He was wounded, captured and killed. Only later did the Germans establish the identity of this man. His fate was completely typical of everyone who was captured in the last months of the war.
Division Commissioner Rykov was one of two high-ranking commissars captured by the Germans. The second person of the same rank captured by the Germans was the commissar of the brigade, Zhilenkov, who managed to hide his identity and who later joined the Vlasov movement. Rykov joined the Red Army in 1928 and by the beginning of the war was commissar of the military district. In July 1941, he was appointed one of two commissars assigned to the Southwestern Front. The second was Burmistenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Communist Party. During the breakthrough from the Kyiv cauldron, Burmistenko, and with him the front commander Kirponos and the chief of staff Tupikov, were killed, and Rykov was wounded and captured. Hitler's order required the immediate destruction of all captured commissars, even if this meant eliminating "important sources of information." Therefore, the Germans tortured Rykov to death.
Major General Susoev, commander of the 36th Rifle Corps, was captured by the Germans dressed in the uniform of an ordinary soldier. He managed to escape, after which he joined an armed gang of Ukrainian nationalists, and then went over to the side of the pro-Soviet Ukrainian partisans, led by the famous Fedorov. He refused to return to Moscow, preferring to remain with the partisans. After the liberation of Ukraine, Susoev returned to Moscow, where he was rehabilitated.
Air Major General Thor, who commanded the 62nd Air Division, was a first-class military pilot. In September 1941, while commander of a long-range aviation division, he was shot down and wounded while conducting ground combat. He went through many German camps and actively participated in the resistance movement of Soviet prisoners in Hummelsburg. The fact, of course, did not escape the attention of the Gestapo. In December 1942, Thor was transported to Flussenberg, where he was shot in January 1943.
Major General Vishnevsky was captured less than two weeks after he assumed command of the 32nd Army. At the beginning of October 1941, this army was abandoned near Smolensk, where within a few days it was completely destroyed by the enemy. This happened at a time when Stalin was assessing the likelihood of military defeat and planning to move to Kuibyshev, which, however, did not prevent him from issuing an order for the destruction of a number of senior officers who were shot on July 22, 1941. Among them: the commander of the Western Front, Army General Pavlov; Chief of Staff of this front, Major General Klimovskikh; the chief of communications of the same front, Major General Grigoriev; Commander of the 4th Army, Major General Korobkov. Vishnevsky withstood all the horrors of German captivity and returned to his homeland. However, his further fate is unknown.
In general, it is interesting to compare the scale of losses of Soviet and German generals.
416 Soviet generals and admirals died or died during the 46 and a half months of war.
Data on the enemy appeared already in 1957, when a study by Foltmann and Müller-Witten was published in Berlin. The dynamics of deaths among Wehrmacht generals was as follows. Only a few people died in 1941-1942. In 1943-1945, 553 generals and admirals were captured, over 70 percent of them were captured on the Soviet-German front. These same years accounted for the vast majority of deaths among senior officers of the Third Reich.
The total losses of the German generals are twice the number of killed Soviet senior officers: 963 versus 416. Moreover, in certain categories the excess was significantly greater. For example, as a result of accidents, two and a half times more German generals died, 3.2 times more went missing, and eight times more died in captivity than Soviet generals. Finally, 110 German generals committed suicide, which is an order of magnitude more than the same cases in the ranks of the Soviet army. Which speaks to the catastrophic decline in the morale of Hitler’s generals towards the end of the war.
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At the beginning of 1942, Zhukov G.K. began to attack Vyazma with the forces of P.A. Belov’s cavalry corps. and the 33rd Army of Lieutenant General Efremov M.G. The offensive was not properly prepared, for which Efremov M.G. is to blame. no, only front commander Zhukov. February 4, 1942 “... the enemy, having struck at the base of the breakthrough, cut off the group and restored the defense along the Ugra River,” Zhukov wrote. Until July, having nine armies at his disposal, Zhukov was unable to connect with this part of his front, which was fighting surrounded near Vyazma. But according to the directive of the Headquarters, this was the main blow that the Western Front was supposed to deliver. For two and a half months, without tanks and artillery, units of the 33rd Army of Lieutenant General Efremov fought in a ring, longer than Paulus’s army in the Stalingrad cauldron. Efremov M.G. repeatedly appealed to the command of the Western Front and even twice to Stalin with a request for permission to break through on his own. In April 1942, near Vyazma, Stalin personally sent a plane for General Efremov, which the general refused to board: “I came here with the soldiers, and I will leave with the soldiers.”
Headquarters finally gave permission to leave the encirclement, which was too late - the personnel were exhausted, having eaten all their boiled waist belts and the soles of the boots they found. Ammunition has run out. The snow was already melting. The soldiers were wearing felt boots. During the breakthrough, General Efremov was seriously wounded (received three wounds), lost the ability to move and, not wanting to be captured, shot himself. The Germans were the first to find Efremov’s body. Having deep respect for the courageous general, they buried him with military honors. The Armed Forces have lost a brave warrior and a talented commander. Of the 12 thousand people, 889 fighters emerged from the encirclement. On July 18, parts of Belov’s corps broke out of encirclement in a roundabout way.
Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General Shepetov I.M. - commander of the 14th Guards Rifle Division as part of the 57th Army of the Southern Front, which fought near Kharkov, on May 26, 1942, when leaving the encirclement, he was wounded and captured. For anti-fascist agitation in the Hammelburg prisoner of war camp, I.M. Shepetov, betrayed by a traitor (Major General Naumov), was captured by the Gestapo and thrown into the Flossenburg concentration camp (Germany). Here, for attempting to escape, the courageous general was executed on May 21, 1943. Lieutenant General Ershakov F.A., the former commander of the 20th Army, flatly refused to cooperate with the Nazis and died while being transported from the “special facility” from a broken heart. Major General Ogurtsov S.Ya., former commander of the 49th Rifle Corps, escaped from the prison camp and joined the Polish partisan detachment, fought bravely and died in battle with the Nazis.
In total, during the Second World War, 83 Red Army generals were captured in German captivity. The survivors, 57 generals, were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of these, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The last 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of inspection, but then gradually transferred to the reserve.
In General's destinies during the Second World War.
During military operations, for one reason or another, military personnel are sometimes captured, so according to archival data from the Federal Republic of Germany, during all the years of World War II, a total of almost 35 million people were captured; according to researchers, officers from this total number of prisoners amounted to about 3%, and the number of captured military officers with the rank of generals was less, just a few hundred people. However, it is precisely this category of prisoners of war that has always been of particular interest to the intelligence services and various political structures of the warring parties, and therefore most of all experienced ideological pressure and other various forms of moral and psychological influence.
In connection with which the question involuntarily arises, which of the warring parties had the largest number of captured senior military officials with the rank of generals, in the Red Army or in the German Wehrmacht?
From various data it is known that during the Second World War, 83 generals of the Red Army were captured in German captivity. Of these, 26 people died for various reasons: shot, killed by camp guards, or died from disease. The rest were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of these, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The remaining 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of inspection, but then gradually transferred to the reserve (link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).
The vast majority of Soviet generals were captured in 1941, a total of 63 generals of the Red Army. In 1942, our army suffered a number of defeats. And here, surrounded by the enemy, 16 more generals were captured. In 1943, three more generals were captured and in 1945 - one. In total during the war - 83 people. Of these, 5 are army commanders, 19 corps commanders, 31 division commanders, 4 chiefs of army staff, 9 chiefs of army branches, etc.
In the book of modern researchers of this issue, F. Gushchin and S. Zhebrovsky, it is stated that allegedly about 20 Soviet generals agreed to cooperate with the Nazis; according to other sources, there were only 8 generals who agreed to cooperate with the Germans (http://ru.wikipedia.org /wiki) if this data corresponds to reality, then of these 20 only two generals are known who voluntarily and openly went over to the side of the enemy, this is Vlasov and another of his fellow traitors, the former commander of the 102nd Infantry Division, brigade commander (major general) Ivan Bessonov is the one who in April 1942 proposed to his German masters to create special anti-partisan corps, and that’s it, the names of the traitor generals are not specifically mentioned anywhere
.Thus, the majority of Soviet generals who fell into the hands of the Germans were either wounded or unconscious and subsequently behaved with dignity in captivity. The fate of many of them still remains unknown, just as the fate of Major General Bogdanov, commander of the 48th Rifle Division, Major General Dobrozerdov, who headed the 7th Rifle Corps, is still unknown, the fate of Lieutenant General Ershakov, who in September 1941 took command of the 20th Army, which was soon defeated in the battle of Smolensk.
Smolensk became a truly unlucky city for Soviet generals, where Lieutenant General Lukin commanded at the beginning the 20th Army, and then the 19th Army, which was also defeated there in the battle of Smolensk in October 1941.
The fate of Major General Mishutin is full of secrets and mysteries, an active participant in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he commanded a rifle division in Belarus, and there he disappeared without a trace during the fighting.
Only at the end of the 80s was an attempt made to pay tribute to generals Ponedelin and Kirillov, who flatly refused to cooperate with the Germans.
The fate of Major General Potapov of the tank forces was interesting; he was one of the five army commanders whom the Germans captured during the war. Potapov distinguished himself in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, where he commanded the Southern Group, and at the beginning of the war he commanded the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front. After his release from captivity, Potapov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and later promoted to the rank of Colonel General. Then, after the war, he was appointed to the post of first deputy commander of the Odessa and Carpathian military districts. His obituary was signed by all representatives of the high command, which included several marshals. The obituary said nothing about his capture and stay in German camps. So it turns out that not everyone was punished for being in captivity.
The last Soviet general (and one of two Air Force generals) captured by the Germans was Aviation Major General Polbin, commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Corps, which supported the activities of the 6th Army, which surrounded Breslau in February 1945. He was wounded, captured and killed, and only then did the Germans establish the identity of this man. His fate was completely typical of everyone who was captured in the last months of the war.
(link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).What about the captured German generals? How many of them ended up at Stalin's grubs under the protection of NKVD special forces? If, according to various sources, there were from 4.5 to 5.7 million Soviet soldiers and commanders captured by the Germans, and there were almost 4 million Germans and their allies captured in the USSR, a difference of a whole million in favor of the Germans, then As for the generals, the picture was different; almost five times more German generals were captured by the Soviets than Soviet ones!
From the research of B.L. Khavkin it is known:
The first captured generals ended up in the GUPVI (Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR) in the winter of 1942-1943. These were 32 prisoners of Stalingrad led by the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal General Friedrich Paulus. In 1944, another 44 generals were captured. 1945 was especially successful for the Red Army, when 300 German generals were captured.
According to information contained in a certificate from the head of the prison department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Colonel P.S. Bulanov dated September 28, 1956, in total there were
376 German generals, of which 277 were released from captivity and repatriated to their homeland, 99 died. Among the dead, the official statistics of the GUPVI included those 18 generals who were sentenced to death by the Decree of April 19, 1943 and hanged as war criminals.
The number of captured generals and admirals included the highest ranks of the ground forces, Luftwaffe, navy, SS, police, as well as government officials who received the rank of general for services to the Reich. Among the captured generals, most were representatives of the ground forces, as well as, oddly enough, retirees
There is practically no information that any of the German generals were captured wounded, shell-shocked, or with weapons in their hands, and surrendered in a civilized manner, with all the attributes of the old Prussian military school. More often than not, Soviet generals burned alive in tanks, died on the battlefield and went missing.
Captured German generals were kept practically in resort conditions, for example, in camp No. 48, founded in June 1943 in the former rest home of the Central Committee of the Railway Trade Union in the village of Cherntsy, Lezhnevsky district, Ivanovo region, in January 1947 there were 223 captured generals, of which 175 Germans, 35 Hungarians, 8 Austrians, 3 Romanians, 2 Italians. This camp was located in a park in which linden trees grew, there were walking paths, and flowers bloomed in the flower beds in the summer. The zone also had a vegetable garden, occupying about 1 hectare of land, in which the generals worked at will and vegetables, from which they went to their table in addition to the existing food standards. Thus, the generals' nutrition was improved. The patients were given an additional ration, which included meat, milk and butter. However, there were also hunger strikes in the camp, the participants of which protested against poor service in the canteen, under-delivery of rationed food, blackouts, etc. There were no attempts to escape from captivity, or attempts to raise any kind of riot or uprising among the German generals.
A completely different picture was observed with the Soviet generals, 6 of them, risking their lives, escaped from the camp in order to continue to fight in the ranks of the partisans, these are Major Generals I. Alekseev, N. Goltsev, S. Ogurtsov, P. Sysoev, P. Tsiryulnikov and brigade commissar I. Tolkachev (link: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki). Another 15 Soviet generals were executed by the Nazis for preparing escapes and underground activities.
Much is known about the cooperation of German generals with the Soviet authorities; facts confirm that the generals collaborated with the Soviets very actively and willingly, for example, in February 1944, Generals Seidlitz and Korfes took a personal part in agitation work in German military units surrounded in the area Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Seidlitz and Korfes even met with Army General Vatutin, with whom a plan of action was agreed upon. 500 thousand copies of Seidlitz’s appeal to the officer corps and soldiers of the encircled group with a call to stop resistance in order to avoid senseless casualties were printed and dropped from airplanes. The German general Seidlitz apparently dreamed of becoming the new liberator of Germany and even asked the Soviet leadership to give him permission to form German national units, but the Russians, like the Germans, did not trust defectors; captured Germans were allowed mainly to engage in propaganda work to disintegrate the enemy troops at the front and nothing more, and Vlasov received the Germans’ go-ahead to actually form ROA troops only in the fall of 1944. right before the start of the catastrophe of the Third Reich, when the Germans no longer had anyone to send to the front line.
Soon in the summer of 1944, immediately after the last attempt on Hitler's life, realizing that the Reich was coming to an end, almost all the generals led by Paulus rushed to cooperate with the Soviet administration. From that moment on, Paulus reconsidered his position in relation to the anti-fascist movement and on August 14 he entered to the Union of German Officers and makes an appeal to the German troops at the front, the appeal was broadcast on the radio, leaflets with its text were thrown into the location of the German troops, apparently this had an impact on many soldiers and officers. Goebbels’ department even had to launch a counter-propaganda campaign to prove that this appeal was a falsification.
War is a cruel test, it does not spare even generals and marshals. A general in the army is a very big power, and with it a very big responsibility. Every military leader has ups and downs, each has his own destiny. One becomes a national Hero forever, and the other disappears into oblivion.
In the 1960s-1990s, domestic publications cited different figures for the losses of Soviet generals and admirals in 1941-1945. In 1991-1994. an updated list containing 416 names of senior officers of the army and navy 1 was published in the Military Historical Journal; military historian A.A. Shabaev wrote about 438 generals and admirals who died during the war 2, and finally, I.I. Kuznetsov provided new data - 442 people 3 .
The study of military historical literature, documents of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA) and the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF) allowed the author to include in the list, in addition to 416, 42 more names of generals and admirals who died in 1941-1945. Taking into account the identified names, a more complete list of generals and admirals (458 people) was compiled and published, indicating the last name, first name, patronymic, rank, last position, date and circumstances of death 4 . It should be noted that in military-historical and memoir literature other names of fallen generals are also named. Since writers and memoirists sometimes give erroneous information about the time and circumstances of the death of a particular general, each name had to be checked against documents from the RGVA and TsAMO of the Russian Federation, eliminating obvious errors and making the necessary clarifications.
Having established the total number of losses, it is necessary to consider them by period of the war and the circumstances of death. According to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense dated February 4, 1944, irretrievable losses include those killed in battle, missing at the front, those who died from wounds on the battlefield and in medical institutions, those who died from diseases acquired at the front, or those who died at the front from other causes. who were captured. By their nature, losses are divided into combat and non-combat. Combatants are those killed on the battlefield, those who died from wounds during medical evacuation and in hospitals, those who went missing in action and those who were captured. Non-combat losses include those not associated with the direct performance of a combat mission, including those in troops conducting combat operations: those who died due to careless handling of weapons, in accidents, catastrophes and as a result of other incidents, who died from illness in medical institutions (at home) who committed suicide, were executed by sentence of military tribunals for various military and criminal crimes 5.
In 1993 and 2001 a statistical study on the losses of the Soviet Armed Forces in the twentieth century was published in two editions 6 . If in the first edition the figure was 421 generals, then in the second it was reduced to 416 people, although it should have been the other way around, since during the time that elapsed between the two editions, additional information was revealed about the generals killed in the war 7 and the total number of losses should have increased. However, the authors of the statistical study, citing the figure of 416 people, stated that “this number did not include Colonel General A.D. who did not take part in the war. Loktionov, G.M. Stern, Lieutenant General P.A. Alekseev, F.K. Arzhenukhin, I.I. Proskurov, E.S. Ptukhin, P.I. Pumpur, K.P. Pyadyshev, P.V. Rychagov, Ya.V. Smushkevich, Major General P.S. Volodin, M.M. Kayukov, A.A. Levin, repressed before the war and executed during the war” 8.
But, firstly, generals Volodin, Proskurov, Ptukhin and Pyadyshev were arrested not before the war, but at the beginning of the war, i.e. took part in it. Secondly, in my opinion, there is no reason to exclude generals who died or were killed during the war from the number of non-combat losses under the pretext of their non-participation in hostilities. Therefore, in accordance with the mentioned order, it is apparently advisable to include in the list of irretrievable losses all generals and admirals whose lives were cut short between June 22, 1941 and May 9, 1945. Of course, some of them will be included in the category of combat losses, others - non-combat losses.
The results of calculating the irretrievable losses of the Soviet senior officers are presented in table. 1.
Table 1.
* Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study. M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2001. P. 432.
As we can see, the major generals suffered the greatest losses - 372 people, i.e. more than 80 percent, 66 lieutenant generals died (about 14 percent), colonel generals - 6 (1.3 percent), rear admirals - 7 (1.5 percent), the rest (marshals, army generals and vice admirals) - less than 1 percent.
It is natural that the greatest combat losses occurred in 1941, when the Red Army was retreating, entire armies were surrounded, hundreds of thousands of people were captured, including dozens of generals. If during the 46 months of the war 15 generals went missing, then over 73 percent. this amount occurred in the first six months. Combat losses during this time (June 22 - December 31, 1941) amounted to 74 people, i.e. 12-13 generals died monthly (see Table 2).
Table 2.
Combat losses of senior officers in the Great Patriotic War
| Reasons for losses | Years | in the period from 1941 to 1945. | ||||
| 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | ||
| Killed in battle | 48 | 41 | 40 | 37 | 16 | 182 |
| Died from wounds | 10 | 10 | 13 | 17 | 12 | 62 |
| Missing | 11 | 2 | 2 | - | - | 15 |
| Died in captivity | 3 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 23 |
| They shot themselves to avoid capture | 1 | 3 | - | - | - | 4 |
| Exploded by mines | 0 | 1 | 2 | 6 | - | 9 |
| Died at the hands of saboteurs | 1 | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| Total: | 74 | 63 | 63 | 65 | 31 | 296 |
Already on the second day of the war, June 23, 1941, the Soviet generals suffered their first losses. During a German air raid on the command post, the assistant commander of the Western Front, Major General I.P., was killed by a fragment of an aerial bomb. Mikhailin. Until the end of June 1941, division commanders, Major General V.P., died in battle. Puganov and D.P. Safonov, corps commanders S.M. Kondrusev, M.G. Khatskilevich, V.B. Borisov and other formation commanders. On July 8, a Messerschmitt fired at the car of the commander of the 13th Army P.M. Filatova. The seriously wounded general was evacuated to a Moscow hospital, where he died. Lieutenant General Filatov became the first army commander to die in the Great Patriotic War.
The difficult situation of retreat often forced the generals to mind their own business. There are known cases when military leaders, instead of leading the battle from a command post, personally led soldiers into an attack and died on the battlefield. When surrounded, many of them found themselves under enemy fire and died like ordinary soldiers. As an example, we can cite the death of the commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel General M.P. Kirponos and the chief of staff of the front, Major General V.I. Tupikov, who died in the Shumeikovo tract on September 20, 1941.
Division and corps commanders and army commanders died in dozens. In the first year of the war, 4 generals, finding themselves surrounded and not wanting to surrender, shot themselves: the commander of the 33rd Army, Lieutenant General M.G. Efremov, Chief of Staff of the 57th Army, Major General A.F. Anisov, generals S.V. Verzin and P.S. Ivanov.
During the war years, over 70 Soviet generals were captured (the vast majority in 1941-1942). Well-known generals in the army were captured: former commander of the Ural Military District, Lieutenant General F.A. Ershakov, head of the department of the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops D.M. Karbyshev, several army commanders and dozens of corps and division commanders. The vast majority of captured generals behaved with dignity and remained faithful to their oath. Only a few agreed to cooperate with the enemy. In total, 23 Soviet generals died in German captivity.
Several generals, finding themselves in enemy-occupied territory, continued to fight as part of partisan detachments. On December 10, 1941, the head of the Bakhchisarai partisan region, Major General D.I., died. Averkin, previously commander of the 48th Cavalry Division. In June 1942, the commander of the partisan detachment, General N.V., died in hand-to-hand combat. Kornev (former chief of staff of the Air Force of the 20th Army of the Western Front). Commander of the 10th Tank Division of the Southwestern Front, General S.Ya. Ogurtsov was captured in August 1941, and in April 1942 he escaped from captivity, fought in a partisan detachment and died in battle in October 1942.
Unfortunately, a number of losses are explained by ordinary carelessness. So, on November 9, 1943, the commander of the 44th Army, Lieutenant General
V. A. Khomenko and the chief of artillery of this army, Major General S. A. Bobkov, having lost their orientation, drove a car into the enemy’s location and were shot at point-blank range 9 .
In the section of combat losses, the proportion of those killed in battle and those who died from wounds ranged from 77 to 90 percent. About 5 percent total losses (or about 8 percent of combat losses) were losses in captivity. 11 generals went missing in 1941 (about 15 percent of combat losses), in 1942 and 1943. two generals each (less than 1 percent). Of the 458 total casualties, combat losses for the entire period of the war amounted to 296 people (64.6 percent).
Thus, irretrievable losses among the Soviet generals amounted to 107 people in 1941, 100 in 1942, 94 in 1943, 108 in 1944, 49 in 1945; only 458 people.
An analysis of non-combat losses (see Table 3) shows that in 1941, out of 33 people, three died from illness, two shot themselves, one died in a disaster, and 27 generals (almost 82 percent) were shot. In 1942, the share of repressed generals in the number of non-combat losses decreased to 56.8 percent. This is also a lot of 10. In 1943-1945. the picture has changed. The bulk of non-combat losses were already those who died from disease. Moreover, these were not always elderly people. Many of the deceased generals (about 60 percent) were under 50 years of age. In addition, there were losses as a result of various accidents and accidents. Thus, the commander of the Baltic Fleet squadron, Vice Admiral V.P. Drozd died on January 29, 1943, while driving in a car on the ice of the Gulf of Finland. The car fell into a hole in the ice, and the honored admiral died. Head of the Scientific and Technical Directorate of the Navy, Engineer Vice Admiral A.G. Orlov died in a plane crash on April 28, 1945. In 1944 and 1945, 15 people died in car and plane accidents, and a total of 19 generals and admirals died during the war.
Table 3 .
Non-combat losses of senior officers in the Great Patriotic War
Table4
Distribution of losses of senior officers by year and military rank
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In the period 1941 to 1945 |
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Marshal of the Soviet Union |
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Army General |
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General - regiment |
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Lieutenant General |
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Major General |
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Vice Admiral |
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Rear Admiral |
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Table 5
Distribution of losses of senior officers by position
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Job title |
Combat |
Non-combat |
Are common |
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Front Commander |
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Commander of the Military District |
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Deputy and Assistant Commander of the Front and Military District |
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Army commander |
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Deputy Army Commander |
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Corps commander |
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Deputy Corps Commander |
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Division commander, his deputy |
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Brigade commander |
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Commander of a special (separate) group |
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Chief of Staff of a front, military district, army |
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Commander of artillery of the front, army, corps |
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Commander of Armored and Mechanized |
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Commander of the Air Force of the front, military district, army, his deputy |
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Member of the military council of the front, army |
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Head of Logistics (Communications, Engineering Troops, Military Communications) |
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Generals of the main and central departments of NPOs |
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Employees of design bureaus, research institutes and military educational institutions |
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Admirals and generals of the NKVMF |
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Other officials |
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Share of non-combat losses in 1941-1943 fluctuated between 27-30 percent, and in 1944-1945. - 36-39 percent. If at the beginning of the war there were many repressed generals, then at the end of it the mortality rate from disease increased, amounting to 85 percent in 1943, 75 percent in 1944, and 66.6 percent in 1945. non-combat losses of the corresponding year.
During 46 and a half months of the war, 458 senior command personnel were killed and died, i.e. on average about 10 people per month (see Table 4). But these losses were distributed unevenly over the years of the war. They were the highest in 1941 - 107 people in 6 months, i.e. about 18 people monthly. IN
1942-1944 losses were halved (8 - 9 people per month). And in the last months of the war, January-May 1945, there was again an increase in losses: 49 people in 4 months (12 per month). However, in 1945, this figure increased mainly due to the increased number of deaths from disease and fatalities in disasters.
The largest number of irretrievable losses of senior officers in the army and navy occurred in the first year and a half of the war. So, the losses of 1941-1942. amounted to more than 45 percent. all losses of generals and admirals during the war. In 1943, 94 generals died (about 20 percent), two-thirds of this number were combat losses. In 1944, with an increase in overall losses, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of combat losses of general officers, which was the result of an increase in the technical equipment of the army and an increase in combat skill and organizational abilities of command personnel. However, even then the losses continued to be large. During the year, our army and navy lost 65 generals killed. The total losses of generals in 1944, including those who died from disease and those killed in accidents, amounted to 108 people.
In the last 4 months of the war (January-April 1945), an increase in combat losses was again observed - 31 generals (that’s more than 7 people per month) 11 .
It is important to analyze what positions the deceased Soviet generals held and under what circumstances they died (see Table 5).
Thus, during the war, 4 front commanders, 22 army commanders and 8 their deputies, 55 corps commanders and 21 deputy corps commanders, 127 division commanders and 8 brigade commanders were killed (died from wounds and illnesses). If combat commanders died mainly on the battlefields (85 percent of all irretrievable losses), then the main causes of death for generals who served in the central apparatus of the People's Commissariat of Defense, in military educational institutions, design bureaus, research institutes and other institutions located in the rear were illness (about 60 percent) and repression (over 20 percent). Every third general of the central apparatus of NGOs was repressed or died of illness, 16 percent. died in disasters and only 20 percent. - during combat operations (during business trips to the fronts).
The losses of senior officers of the Navy were relatively small - 17 people, of which 12 people were non-combat losses. Over the entire period of the war, the Navy lost two vice admirals and seven rear admirals. Both vice admirals died in accidents. Four rear admirals died of disease, and one shot himself. The combat losses included three naval aviation generals (F.G. Korobkov, N.A. Ostryakov, N.A. Tokarev) and two rear admirals (B.V. Khoroshkhin and N.I. Zuikov).
In total, during the war, 458 people, or about 10 percent, died, died from wounds and illnesses, went missing, died in captivity, in car and plane accidents, and were shot. the total number of generals and admirals who were in military service in the Armed Forces of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
The combat losses of generals (those killed in battle, in captivity, died of wounds, missing in action, blown up by mines and shot to avoid capture) amounted to 64.6 percent, while 44.5 percent were lost in battles. (182 out of 458), 62 people died from wounds (13.5 percent) and 5 percent died in captivity. Non-combat losses reached 35.4 percent, of which 17.9 percent. (82 people) - died from disease. The greatest monthly losses occurred in June-December 1941 and January-April 1945.
The irretrievable losses of generals and admirals by composition, types and branches of troops (services) were distributed in the following ratio: command personnel - 88.9 percent, political - less than 2 percent, technical - 2.8 percent, administrative - 4.6 percent ., medical - about 1 percent, legal - 0.65 percent. The distribution of general losses by type of Armed Forces is shown in Table. 6.
Analyzing the data presented, we can conclude that of the number of dead and missing senior officers, a large share falls on the command staff of the active army and navy, commanders of fronts and armies, their deputies and chiefs of staff of formations and formations, commanders of corps, divisions, brigades , and most of all - on division commanders.
Table 6
Losses of senior officers of the Ground Forces, Navy and Air Force
Table 7
Losses of generals and admirals of Nazi Germany
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Land |
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Deaths due to accidents |
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Those who committed suicide |
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Executed by the Germans |
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Executed by the Allies |
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Died in captivity |
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Died from the consequences of war |
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Missing |
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Compiled from: Yakovlev B. New data on human losses of the German armed forces in the Second World War // Military History. magazine. 1962. No. 12. P. 78.
Table 8
Losses of generals and admirals of Nazi Germany (by rank)
In this regard, it is interesting to compare the scale of losses of Soviet and German generals. The fact is that half a century ago the Germans summed up the losses of their generals and admirals. In 1957, a study by Foltmann and Müller-Witten on this topic was published in Berlin 12 . In the early 60s, in the works of L.A. Bezymensky 13 and B. Yakovlev used figures from this book, including the publication of a final table on the losses of the German generals.
As can be seen from table. 7 and 8, the total losses of the German generals are twice the number of killed Soviet senior officers: 963 versus 458. Moreover, for certain categories of losses the excess was significantly greater. For example, as a result of accidents of German generals
two and a half times more died, 3.2 times more went missing, and eight times more died in captivity than Soviets. Finally, 110 German generals committed suicide, which is 11 times (!) more than Soviet generals. This indicates a catastrophic decline in the morale of Hitler's generals at the end of the war. I believe that these figures indicate the superiority of our generals over the enemy generals, the higher level of Soviet military art, especially at the final stage of the war.
NOTES
1 Military history magazine. 1991. No. 9-12; 1992. No. 6-12; 1993. No. 1-12; 1994. No. 1-6.
2 Shabaev A.A. Losses of officers of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War // Military Historical Archive. 1998. No. 3. P. 180.
3 Kuznetsov I.I. The destinies of generals. Higher command cadres of the Red Army in 1940-1953. Irkutsk: Irkutsk University Publishing House, 2000. P. 182.
4 Pechenkin A.A. The senior command staff of the Red Army during the Second World War. M.: Prometheus, 2002. P. 247-275.
5 Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. Losses of the Armed Forces: A Statistical Study. M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2001. P. 8.
6 Classified as classified: Losses of the USSR Armed Forces in wars, hostilities and military conflicts: Statistical research / V.M. Andronikov, P.D. Burikov, V.V. Gurkin et al.; Under general ed. G.F. Krivosheeva. M.: Voenizdat, 1993. P. 321; Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century... P. 430.
7 They gave their lives for their Motherland // Military history. magazine. 2000. No. 5. P. 24-28; Kuznetsov I.I. Decree. Op. P. 182; Shabaev A.A. Decree. Op. P. 180.
8 Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century... P. 432.
9 Kuznetsov I.I. Decree. Op. P. 68.
10 If out of 72 captured generals in Hitler’s camps every third died, then out of a hundred generals arrested by the NKVD, almost two thirds died - 63 generals, of whom 47 were shot, and 16 died in prison in 1942-1953. Calculated by the author.
11 The dynamics of losses among Wehrmacht generals was completely different: in 1941-1942. Only a few German generals died, and in 1943-1945. 553 Nazi generals and admirals were captured; These same years accounted for the vast majority of irretrievable losses of senior officers of the “Third Reich.”
12 Folttmann J., Moller-Witten H. Opfergang der Generale. Die Verluste der Generale und Admirale und der im gleichen Dienstgrad stehenden sonstigen Offiziere und Beamten im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Berlin, 1957.
13 Bezymensky L.A. German generals - with and without Hitler. M., 1964. S. 399-400.
During the Great Patriotic War, 78 Soviet generals were captured by the Germans. 26 of them died in captivity, six escaped from captivity, the rest were repatriated to the Soviet Union after the end of the war. 32 people were repressed.
Not all of them were traitors. Based on the Headquarters order of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions,” 13 people were shot, another eight were sentenced to imprisonment for “improper behavior in captivity.”
But among the senior officers there were also those who, to one degree or another, voluntarily chose to cooperate with the Germans. Five major generals and 25 colonels were hanged in the Vlasov case. There were even Heroes of the Soviet Union in the Vlasov army - senior lieutenant Bronislav Antilevsky and captain Semyon Bychkov.
The case of General Vlasov
They are still arguing about who General Andrei Vlasov was, an ideological traitor or an ideological fighter against the Bolsheviks. He served in the Red Army since the Civil War, studied at the Higher Army Command Courses, and moved up the career ladder. In the late 30s he served as a military adviser in China. Vlasov survived the era of great terror without shocks - he was not subjected to repression, and even, according to some information, was a member of the district military tribunal.
Before the war, he received the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin. He was awarded these high awards for creating an exemplary division. Vlasov received under his command an infantry division that was not distinguished by any particular discipline or merit. Focusing on German achievements, Vlasov demanded strict compliance with the charter. His caring attitude towards his subordinates even became the subject of articles in the press. The division received a challenge Red Banner.
In January 1941, he received command of a mechanized corps, one of the most well-equipped at that time. The corps included new KV and T-34 tanks. They were created for offensive operations, but in defense after the start of the war they were not very effective. Soon Vlasov was appointed commander of the 37th Army defending Kyiv. The connections were broken, and Vlasov himself ended up in the hospital.
He managed to distinguish himself in the battle for Moscow and became one of the most famous commanders. It was his popularity that later played against him - in the summer of 1942, Vlasov, being the commander of the 2nd Army on the Volkhov Front, was surrounded. When he reached the village, the headman handed him over to the German police, and the arriving patrol identified him from a photo in the newspaper.
In the Vinnitsa military camp, Vlasov accepted the Germans’ offer of cooperation. Initially, he was an agitator and propagandist. Soon he became the leader of the Russian Liberation Army. He campaigned and recruited captured soldiers. Propagandist groups and a training center were created in Dobendorf, and there were also separate Russian battalions that were part of different parts of the German armed forces. The history of the Vlasov Army as a structure began only in October 1944 with the creation of the Central Headquarters. The army received the name “Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.” The committee itself was also headed by Vlasov.
Fyodor Trukhin - creator of the army
According to some historians, for example, Kirill Alexandrov, Vlasov was more of a propagandist and ideologist, and the organizer and true creator of the Vlasov army was Major General Fyodor Trukhin. He was the former head of the Operations Directorate of the North-Western Front and a professional general staff officer. Surrendered himself along with all the headquarters documents. In 1943, Trukhin was the head of the training center in Dobendorf, and from October 1944 he took the post of chief of staff of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Under his leadership, two divisions were formed, and the formation of a third began. In the last months of the war, Trukhin commanded the Southern Group of the Committee's armed forces located in Austria.
Trukhin and Vlasov hoped that the Germans would transfer all Russian units under their command, but this did not happen. With almost half a million Russians who passed through the Vlasov organizations in April 1945, his army de jure amounted to approximately 124 thousand people.
Vasily Malyshkin – propagandist
Major General Malyshkin was also one of Vlasov’s associates. Finding himself captured from the Vyazemsky cauldron, he began to collaborate with the Germans. In 1942, he taught propaganda courses in Vulgaida, and soon became assistant to the head of training. In 1943, he met Vlasov while working in the propaganda department of the Wehrmacht High Command.
He also worked for Vlasov as a propagandist and was a member of the Presidium of the Committee. In 1945 he was a representative in negotiations with the Americans. After the war, he tried to establish cooperation with American intelligence, even wrote a note on the training of Red Army command personnel. But in 1946 it was still transferred to the Soviet side.
Major General Alexander Budykho: service in the ROA and escape
In many ways, Budykho’s biography was reminiscent of Vlasov’s: several decades of service in the Red Army, command courses, command of a division, encirclement, detention by a German patrol. In the camp, he accepted the offer of brigade commander Bessonov and joined the Political Center for the Fight against Bolshevism. Budykho began to identify pro-Soviet prisoners and hand them over to the Germans.
In 1943, Bessonov was arrested, the organization was disbanded, and Budykho expressed a desire to join the ROA and came under the control of General Helmikh. In September he was appointed to the post of staff officer for training and education of the eastern troops. But immediately after he arrived at his duty station in the Leningrad region, two Russian battalions fled to the partisans, killing the Germans. Having learned about this, Budykho himself fled.
General Richter – sentenced in absentia
This traitor general was not involved in the Vlasov case, but he helped the Germans no less. Having been captured in the first days of the war, he ended up in a prisoner of war camp in Poland. 19 German intelligence agents caught in the USSR testified against him. According to them, from 1942 Richter headed the Abwehr reconnaissance and sabotage school in Warsaw, and later in Weigelsdorf. While serving with the Germans, he wore the pseudonyms Rudaev and Musin.
The Soviet side sentenced him to capital punishment back in 1943, but many researchers believe that the sentence was never carried out, since Richter went missing in the last days of the war.
The Vlasov generals were executed by the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. Most - in 1946, Budykho - in 1950.
