10 interesting facts about the Great Patriotic War

World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. The great world powers have formed two opposing camps. The cause of the war was the desire of the superpowers to reconsider spheres of influence. And this means reshaping the commodity market and the sales market for products in their favor.

10 The question of the number of deaths remains open to this day.

In the post-war years, the statistics of dead people were not dealt with. If irretrievable military losses can be calculated with a certain degree of probability, then it is very difficult to determine the losses of the civilian population.

At present, it is impossible to count the dead in the first months of the war, as well as the missing and captured. The last census in the USSR was conducted in 1939, and the first post-war census was in 1959.

In addition, before the aggression of fascist Germany, the territories of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Karelian lands of Finland, the Baltic states, the population of which was not included in the census, were annexed to the Soviet Union.

Approximately the same thing happened in the European states. The overall death statistics are amazing. One thing is obvious, that the loss of life would have been less if the states had tried to prevent aggression, no matter how great its probability was.

9. The Wehrmacht and the SS replenished the troops with citizens of other states

It is clear that it is difficult to wage a six-year war relying only on one’s own human resources. At the beginning of all events, military formations were formed at the expense of purebred Aryans.

By 1943, the ranks of the invaders began to noticeably thin out. And then they began to call up foreigners and ethnic Germans living in other countries, for example, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

Those who wished to take part in the “crusade against the Bolsheviks” became under the flags of the Wehrmacht: Volksdeutsche, conscripts from the Slavic countries, Albania, Belgium, Great Britain.

Purebred Germans were called up 400 thousand, 522 thousand from other states, 185 thousand Volksdeutsche. The Nuremberg trials gave an assessment to all formations that fought on the side of Germany.

8. Koryukovka

Town in Chernihiv region. Ukraine. As in those years, and now there was a major transport interchange.

The settlement was occupied in September 1941. In these parts, almost immediately, a partisan detachment was formed, which accounted for many successful operations to undermine the power of the invaders in its rear.

In retaliation for their numerous losses in March 1943, a punitive action was carried out in two days – the massacre of civilians in the amount of 6700 people.

7. German newspaper Rech in Orel

“Rech” is an occupational newspaper. Under the title there was a subtitle that read: “Newspaper for the population of the liberated regions.”

From the reports, the reader was “poured” outright lies about the military successes of fascist Germany. The conquered settlements, the imaginary losses of the Red Army and the alleged delight of the population from the orders that the occupiers imposed were listed.

Here were, for example, pictures of executed fellow villagers who resisted the Nazis.

6. In 1943, the patriarchate was restored in the USSR, and the Church acquired a legal status in the general system of Soviet statehood.

At the height of the war in the Soviet Union, the Council of Bishops was gathering, which demonstrated the unanimity of the authorities and the Church, which undermined the ideological concept of the Nazis.

Dry lines of informational messages, behind which stood the fate of ordinary people, the clergy, imprisoned in the Gulag.

5. Four-legged soldiers

It is known for certain that 60 thousand dogs were “called up” for military service. The devotion of the four-legged was required wherever a person could not get through.

Dogs-orderlies, harnessed to teams, took out the wounded from the battlefield. Sapper dogs helped clear mines in liberated cities and towns.

Communication dogs carried information. Tank destroyer dogs participated in the destruction of enemy combat units. In the same way, sacrificing their lives, while saving the lives of people.

4. The Victory Banner is stored in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces

In April 1945, at a meeting of the heads of the political departments of all the armies advancing on Berlin, it was ordered to make red flags that could be hoisted on the Reichstag.

The flag should be in each advancing division. The Banner of Victory – the assault flag of the 150th Order of the Body, 2nd class of the Idritsa Rifle Division was hoisted on the most important building of defeated Germany.

On June 20, 1945, the Banner of Victory, as part of the standard bearers, was transported to Moscow, where it was supposed to participate in the Victory Parade.

3. The squares of the squares of European countries were named after the Battle of Stalingrad

The final battle of Stalingrad took place in February 1943. Fascist troops failed to take the Volga Citadel. It was a turning point in the entire WWII.

The offensive initiative passed to the army of the Soviet Union. The enemy army was demoralized. The Soviet army demonstrated the power of military equipment.

The anti-fascist movement in Europe became more active. As the memory of the heart sounds “Stalingrad” from the square in Paris and the metro station.

The Great Antique Market in the city of Lyon is named after Stalingrad. In Italian Bologna “Stalingrad” is the main street of the city.

2. The Berlin operation of 1945 is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest last battle in the history of the Second World War

The fighting unfolded over a width of 300 kilometers. 11 thousand aircraft participated in air battles.

52 thousand guns and mortars. 3.5 million people. The duration of the battle was 23 days and ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany.

1. 10 years since Victory Day, the Soviet Union was formally at war with Germany

The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared May 9 the Victory Day in commemoration of the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War.

January 25, 1955 Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces “On the termination of the state of war between the Soviet Union and Germany.” The first date speaks of the unconditional surrender of Germany. It took another 10 long years to legally settle the interests of the parties. And so that a second, no less fateful date appears.