Recalling that night 74 years ago, Brava was speechless and then rubbed his hands. He said that the Red Army should not have been so miserable.
Before the war, the Germans on the border had cut the barbed wire laid by the Red Army, which was considered by the local defenders as a prelude to the attack. But at that time, the news was strictly forbidden to spread, because Stalin firmly believed that "this so-called impending war was just false information made by the British." They want to start a war between the Soviet Union and Germany. 」
Historian samsonov affirmed Brava's statement. He said that according to the files declassified by the former Soviet Union, in order to cater to Stalin's subjective judgment, intelligence officials not only ignored the information that Germany was about to launch an attack, but also considered how to deal with reconnaissance pilots who scattered dozens of German divisions among the people and transferred them to the Soviet-Polish border.
Samsonov said: "The Soviets paid a heavy price for this. 」
The passivity of the Red Army stems from Stalin's hope for final reconciliation with Germany.
"This idea has caused the Red Army to lose at least 60 divisions, including quite a few excellent commanders." samsonov said that this situation is even more serious in the Air Force.
"Because there is no preparation, we can only be beaten. Pomenlev, 97, is a fighter pilot in the former Soviet Union. He remembered that he was sleeping at the base when the Germans attacked. Later, I was awakened by the unique hum of the German Stuka bomber.
"I ran out of the barracks and the bomb roared down. The whole base was shrouded in smoke and dust. Anti-aircraft guns were completely unprepared, German planes flew very low and dropped bombs accurately. Pomenlev even saw the German pilot smiling. After the attack, the bodies and wreckage of planes and buildings were everywhere. " I heard the commander's cry. 」
A German pilot recorded the following in his diary: "This is a baby massacre. I can't believe my eyes. Hundreds of planes are neatly parked around the airport. It seems that the bombing has become extremely easy to meet our arrival. And those planes that just thought of flying away or just landed have never escaped the bombing of German planes. Even the Soviet pilots who took off could not pose a real threat to us. Their plane was old and slow, so they took the suicide action of crashing into us. 」
According to public information, in the early days of Barbarossa, the Soviet Union lost more than 6,000 aircraft, almost three times the number of German Air Force aircraft involved in the operation.
"Everyone is resisting. My father rode a horse to find the Red Army." Brava said, but all I can see is rout and death, and there are bodies everywhere.
A month after the war began, the Germans had completely occupied Belarus.
Underestimated determination
According to the information provided by Moscow University, based on their dissatisfaction with Stalin's regime, some Soviets warmly welcomed the Germans at the beginning of the war. This situation convinced the German commander that the Soviet Union, which had undergone a major purge, was vulnerable.
The only thing they have to do is to punish those "stubborn" CPSU supporters.
194 1 winter, 12-year-old Brava witnessed a killing.
At noon on a snowy day, the Germans gathered all the people in the village (mainly women, the elderly, children and adult men) into a big pit on the edge of the forest.
Soon, thousands of Soviets were brought here. There are captured Red Army and civilians who are considered to have no respect for the Germans. These people were first asked to wear clothes to stand by and watch the pit, and then they were asked to shout the slogan of loyalty to the German Empire. Some people cried with tears, some people sobbed silently, and some people began to curse the German soldiers in front of them.
In the noise, German machine guns opened fire.
"Like jiaozi, people fall into the pit. Some people didn't die at that time, but they were quickly killed by people who fell from it. Brava said that he was scared to close his eyes several times, but every time he was asked by the Germans to open them.
This killing made Brava decide to join the guerrillas deep in the jungle, because the guerrillas needed some children to do chores in the German barracks to find out the number of Germans, weapons and equipment and the situation of changing the guard.
"I buried the information I wrote under a big tree," Brava said. This is a dangerous job. If the Germans find out, they will kill them. He also saw exposed players hanged by the Germans, and their bodies floated in the air like sheets.
Brava's mother was very worried about her son's safety, but she didn't stop him. Her only request is that Brava hang an oak cross made by herself when performing his task. "Mommy always comforts me and says, I'm not afraid to fight like your father. 」
"The early victory made the Germans make a series of mistakes. Major General Sergei of the Russian Air Force said that the biggest mistake they made was to underestimate the determination of the Soviet people to resist.
For example, Germans attribute the self-sacrifice of civilians to CPSU's indifference to life. Nor did they notice the determination of the Soviet Red Army to resist. Although this determination is like the fortress of Brest-Litovsk that the Red Army is defending. Without any ammunition and food supplies, the Red Army kept fighting for nearly a month. In the fierce struggle, a soldier carved his oath on the wall. "Although I am dying, I will never surrender to the enemy. Today, this wall has been cut off by the Moscow World War II Museum and collected in the museum.
"Putting aside politics, defending home and family is the most primitive motivation of human beings. Brava remembers that when a father joined the guerrillas, he also brought his 16-year-old son. The only memorial a father left his son was a family photo. On the back of the photo, the bearded father wrote with a pen: "Don't care about life, the only thing to do is to devote yourself wholeheartedly to this war to defend the motherland. 」
Samsonov said that this is an unprecedented atmosphere of unity. When the news came that the soldiers were killed, their families did not blame the Soviet Union at all, but pointed all their anger at the Germans.
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Barbarossa Plan
1940 In July, Hitler announced a long-planned battle plan at a high-level military meeting: suddenly attacking the former Soviet Union and destroying the Soviet socialist countries in one fell swoop. The German General Staff immediately set out to draft a concrete action plan for the former Soviet Union and named it "Barbarossa Plan". "Barbarossa" comes from the nickname "Red Beard" of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I.
194 1 On June 22nd, Nazi Germany tore up the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty, and together with its servants, it dispatched three army groups with a total of 5.5 million people. The soldiers were divided into three blitzkrieg raids on the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-German war broke out in an all-round way.
At the beginning of the war, due to the strategic misjudgment of the Soviet war decision-makers and the low quality of the Soviet Red Army commanders and soldiers after the "big purge", the first division of the Soviet Red Army fell, losing ground one after another and losing ground all the way. In the first few months of the war, the Germans swept across most of the plains in Eastern Europe and wiped out millions of Soviet troops with outdated equipment and poor tactics, but the offensive was finally blocked in the battle of Moscow. Hitler was quite conceited about the amazing victory in the early days of the Barbarossa Plan, and boasted that he would destroy the Soviet Union in three months.
The Battle of Barbarossa lasted from June 194 1 to February 65438, and ended with the German army failing to achieve the strategic goal of finally occupying Moscow. The main reason for the failure of the Battle of Barbarossa was that Nazi Germany underestimated the war potential of the Soviet Union and the resistance of the Soviet people and the Red Army.
Most importantly, the failure of the Barbarossa War opened the eastern battlefield of World War II for several years and became one of the bloodiest wars in human history, with tens of millions of people killed.
Instruments and technology
Monotov burning bottle
Named after former Soviet Foreign Minister Monotov, it was vividly called Monotov cocktail.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union developed a weapon when facing the flood of German tanks. Glass bottles are often filled with combustible materials. Thrown by infantry at close range.
The rear defense of German tanks is fragile, which is where the tank engine and fuel tank are located. Once the Monotov combustion bottle hits the tank, the yellow phosphorus immediately burns in the air, and the flame is very fierce, which will overheat the engine of the tank, malfunction and make the oil cylinder explode. When Soviet soldiers attacked quickly at close range with molotov cocktails, German tanks were not flexible enough to cope, so they were passive.
This is one of the reasons why Monotov cocktails became famous in World War I at that time. Monotov cocktail reached its peak in the Eastern Campaign of World War II. It is the cheapest and most effective anti-tank weapon, which makes up for the shortage of anti-tank weapons at that time. It is more effective than cluster grenades when attacking tanks. Just put it in the fragile engine exhaust port of the tank, and these powerful German steel behemoths will catch fire immediately.
Monotov cocktail was widely used by Yugoslav guerrillas and insurgents in Warsaw Uprising because of its easy preparation.