The theme of collaboration is betrayal and cooperation of Soviet citizens with the fascist occupiers during the Great Patriotic War- is relevant, because people who betrayed the interests of their Motherland, traitors, are today exalted, monuments are erected to them, they are considered as spokesmen of protest against communism, the “Stalinist regime”, fighters for freedom and independence. All this, naturally, causes bewilderment and a strong protest from every honest person, especially veteransGreat Patriotic War.
Westerners-democrats theme of betrayal, voluntary service to the fascists in the years Great Patriotic Wardoesn't care at all. But betrayal, betrayal of the Motherland always and everywhere evokes feelings of disgust and contempt. Voluntary, even short-term, cooperation with our sworn enemy cannot be justified by anything.
Let's be honest, the collaborationist movement in the territory of the Soviet Union temporarily occupied by the Germans was quite massive. Collaborators from among the dispossessed, convicted, dissatisfied Soviet power, anti-Soviet emigrants, and partly from prisoners of war of the Red Army, in the service of the fascists in the Wehrmacht, police forces, SS and SD in different estimates there were from 1 to 2.5 million people.
The attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union was greeted with great enthusiasm by the white émigré part of the Russian population, officers, landowners and capitalists who had not been defeated and fled abroad. There was a desire to take revenge for the defeat in the civil war, to begin a liberation campaign against the Bolsheviks, now with the help of German bayonets.
A special, rather numerous category of traitors included natives of the Caucasus, the Baltic states, the German Volga region, as well as Russian emigrants in Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. There were many former White Army soldiers: Kolchakites, Wrangelites, Denikinites. All of them voluntarily enlisted in the service of Hitler, joining hostile military and police formations that acted against the Red Army, Soviet, French, Yugoslav partisans independently or as part of the troops of the Wehrmacht, Abwehr, SS and SD.
All this brethren turned out to be in demand by Hitler, as military force, who had experience in combat during the 1st World War and the fight against Soviet power in subsequent years.
1. The main unifying force in the campaign of Russian traitors against the Soviet Union was Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which on September 12, 1941 in Belgrade created the Separate Russian Corps (ORK) under the command of the chief of Russian emigration in Serbia, General of the Russian Volunteer Army M.F. Skorodumova. In the corps there were volunteer traitors from the 1st Cossack Regiment, from Bessarabia, Bukovina and even from Odessa. On January 29, 1943, the ORK personnel were sworn in: “I swear sacredly before God that in the fight against the Bolsheviks - the enemies of my Fatherland, I will provide unconditional obedience to the Supreme Leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, and will be ready, like a brave warrior, at all times sacrifice my life for this oath." ORK soldiers wore Wehrmacht uniforms with the "ROA" (Russian Liberation Army) . The combat path of the ORK began in early 1944 against the Yugoslav partisans of Broz Tito, and in September 1944 the corps joined the Russian Liberation Army of General Vlasov. The surviving 4.5 thousand ORK soldiers after the defeat by the Red Army capitulated to the British army and, having received the status of “displaced persons,” fled to the USA, Canada, and Australia. Today, the unfinished corps headquarters operates in the United States, has its own organ, the Union of Officials, and publishes the magazine Our News, which is also published in Moscow.
The heavy losses suffered by the Germans on the Soviet-German front forced the German leadership to involve Red Army prisoners of war in the fight against the Soviet Union. Voluntary entry into enemy formations for prisoners of war was the only possibility to save one’s life, to escape from imminent death in a concentration camp, with the intention of later, at the first opportunity, in the first battle, to go over to the side of the Red Army or to the partisans.
In March 1942, in the village of Osintorf (Belarus), the formation of the Russian National People's Army (RNNA) began, which initially included prisoners of war from the ZZ-th A, the 1st Cavalry Corps and the 4th Airborne Corps of the Polar Fleet. Mortally exhausted, exhausted Red Army soldiers, after washing and fattening, were recruited into service. By August 1942, the RNNA numbered about 8 thousand people. The command of the army was offered to the commander of the 19th A Polar Fleet, Lieutenant General M.F. Lukin, who was in captivity. But he resolutely refused to cooperate with the Germans. The army was received by the former commander of the 41st SD, Colonel Boyarsky. RNNA units took part in hostilities against P.A. Belov’s 1st Caucasian Corps in May 1942.
The major defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad gave rise to unrest in parts of the RNNA. Soldiers began en masse to go over to the side of the Red Army and the partisans. And at the same time, there were traitors in the Red Army who voluntarily, without any resistance, surrendered to the Germans. These are not white emigrants or prisoners of war, these are the worst enemies of the Soviet government, which raised and educated them, gave them high positions and big military ranks. This is Vlasov and the Vlasovites - the Russian Liberation Army (ROA).
The ROA was headed by a lieutenant general, commander of the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front, who voluntarily offered his services to the Nazis on July 11, 1942 to fight their own people. A. Vlasov, in 1939 commander of the 99th SD KOVO, was awarded the Order of Lenin. With the beginning Great Patriotic Warhe is already the commander of the 4th MK, then commands the 37th A, which defends Kyiv, and the 20th A, which leads fighting near Moscow. Since March 1942, commanded the 2nd Ud. And, where in the village. Tukhovezhi, Leningrad region surrendered. On August 3, he turned to the German command with a proposal to create the ROA. In September 1944, after a meeting with Reichsführer SS Himmler, Vlasov formed two divisions of the ROA: “... the tasks of the divisions can only be solved in alliance and cooperation with Germany.” The divisions entered battle against units of the Red Army on April 13, 1945 near Furstenwalde on the Oder bridgehead, and in May 1945 in Czechoslovakia they were defeated and ceased to exist. The ROA command was caught and arrested on May 11, 1945. On August 1, 1946, 12 traitors and traitors led by Vlasov were hanged. Despite the petition of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of A. Yakovlev in 2001 to reconsider the case of the Vlasovites, the Military Collegium Supreme Court Russia refused to rehabilitate traitors to the Motherland.
Vlasov turned out to be a godsend for the Nazis, as the worst enemies of the Soviet people began to concentrate around him. Hitler did not have much confidence in Vlasov and the ROA, as well as in all Soviet people, believing, not without reason, that under certain circumstances, at the first opportunity, they would break their promises and go over to the side of the Red Army. And it’s true, there were a lot of such cases.
The betrayal of Vlasov and the Vlasovites exposed all the meanness, vanity, careerism, selfishness and cowardice of a small number of military personnel - oathbreakers, who faithfully and truly served the sworn enemy of the Soviet people and all humanity - fascism.
During the Great Patriotic War In each German infantry division, several OST infantry battalions were formed from white emigrants and prisoners of war, which received the number of their division."East battalions" fought against partisans and carried out security service. Battalion commanders were appointed German officers, since the Germans did not have much confidence in OST. Later, the battalions were transferred to Europe. The last "East Battalion" was defeated by the Red Army in January 1945.
The larger collaborationist Russian formations were the eastern regiments and brigades. For example, Guderian’s 2nd TA included the Desna volunteer regiment. In the Bobruisk region in June 1942, the 1st Eastern Reserve Regiment operated, in the Vitebsk region - the Kaminsky brigade and others.
At the headquarters of all Army Groups and Wehrmacht Armies on the Eastern Front, special headquarters of special forces commanders were created, which monitored the reliability of the formed units and conducted combat training with them.
In the summer of 1942, Hitler's troops entered the Cossack regions of the Don, Kuban, and Terek. Cossack structures received permission from the German authorities to form battalions, regiments and divisions. The 1st Cossack Division, consisting of 11 regiments, 1200 bayonets each, in the spring of 1944 ended up in Belarus in the region of Baranovichi, Slonim, Novogrudok, where they entered into battle with the partisans, and then with the advanced units of the Red Army. Having suffered significant losses, the division, by order of the atamans of the Cossack Stan, Krasnov and Shkuro, was transferred to Italy, where on May 3 it capitulated to the British. Later, 16 thousand Cossacks were transported to Novorossiysk, where they were tried by the Military Tribunal. Everyone got what they deserved.
Through the efforts of the leadership of the Main Directorate Cossack troops White generals P. Krasnov and A. Shkuro created the XV Cossack Cavalry Corps (KKK) consisting of two divisions and the Plastun brigade. The formations fought with units of the Red Army until the end of the war. Only in May 1945 did they lay down their arms in Yugoslavia.
Special forces units, which were formed only from among Russian emigrants, acted against the partisans and the Red Army. Dressed in the uniform of the Red Army, police or railway workers, having well-prepared documents, the reconnaissance saboteurs were dropped into the rear of the Red Army. Penetrating into the rear, they conducted reconnaissance and committed major sabotage. The 800th Special Purpose Regiment “Brandenburg” occupied a special place in the first days of the war. In the first hours of the war, regiment saboteurs in Kobrin and Brest disabled the power plant and water supply system, interrupted wire communications with the Brest Fortress, and shot in the back the alerted commanders of the Brest garrison.
To create an insurgent movement in the Soviet rear and fight against partisans, as well as for the leadership of intelligence. sabotage activities on the Soviet-German front in June 1941, a headquarters was created in the Abwehr. A white emigrant, a former officer, is appointed chief of staff tsarist army General A. Smyslovsky, aka Major General of the German Army Arthur Homston. From this headquarters, residencies with a large number agents who infiltrated the partisans and underground. With the approach of the Red Army troops, the residencies were ordered to remain in place to continue sabotage and reconnaissance. Those left to settle were selected from among the elderly and disabled who were not subject to mobilization into the army. To communicate with these agents, safe houses and points with radio communications were created. By 1943, the total number of agents had increased more than 40 times. For this, Smyslovsky was awarded the Order of the German Eagle. Later, Smyslovsky became the Commander of the 1st Russian National Army (RNA), which received the status of an ally of the Wehrmacht.
In March 1942, to destabilize the Soviet rear, the Germans created another reconnaissance and sabotage agency, the Zeppelin Enterprise. Zeppelin's front-line agencies operated throughout the entire Soviet-German front. In the same year, the Zeppelin organ created the 1st Russian National SS Brigade in the prisoner of war camp in Suwalki (Poland)., which in May 1943 waged fierce battles with the partisans of the Begoml zone, where it suffered heavy losses. In August 1943 The brigade under the command of Gil (2800 people) went over to the side of the partisans and entered into battle with the German occupiers in Dokshitsy and Krulevshchizna, but already as part of the Zheleznyak brigade of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone. For these actions, V. Gil-Rodionov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
The National Labor Union (NTS) operated in the temporarily occupied territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. NTS was created back in 1930 from Russian emigration. The main goal of the union is to fight Bolshevism by creating internal anti-Soviet underground organizations. The NTS headquarters were located in Berlin. The leadership of the NTS in Berlin entered into an agreement with the Abwehr to conduct joint actions against the Soviet Union in the upcoming armed conflict. With the beginning Great Patriotic WarNTS groups appeared in Orsha, Gomel, Mogilev, Polotsk, Bobruisk, Borisov, Minsk and 72 other cities in Russia and Ukraine. Close cooperation of the NTS was imposed with the traitors of General Vlasov.
In the spring of 1944, in Borisov and Bobruisk, the NTS created two nationalist organizations - the “Union of Struggle against Bolshevism” and the “Union of Belarusian Youth”. The purpose of the created unions is “the fight against Judeo-Bolshevism.” Unstable people were accepted into unions former members All-Union Communist Party (b) and Komsomol with a probationary period of 6 months. Those who “suffered” from the Soviet regime and those who were repressed were accepted as honorary members. Armed squads were created in the unions. All young people were obliged to join unions and squads, they were given weapons and uniforms. Due to the approach of the Red Army troops, the activities of the NTS and “unions” were stopped in the spring of 1944.
2. In the western occupied regions of Belarus, where there was greatest number nationalists, collaborationist organizations “Self-Defense” (“Samaakhovs”) were created in the cities of Novogrudok, Baranovichi, Vileika, and Bialystok. In 1942, such formations were created throughout Belarus, intended mainly to fight partisans.
A larger formation against the Belarusian partisans was the “Belarusian Regional Defense” (BKA), led by the traitor Franz Kuschel, a former officer of the Polish army. In the spring of 1941, prisoner of war Kushel was sent to Minsk under the supervision of the NKVD. From the first days Great Patriotic War he is a translator for the German field commandant's office, then, in October 1941, he creates the “Belarusian Samaakhova Corps”. The 1st division of the corps was stationed in Minsk, the 2nd in Baranovichi, and the 3rd in Vileika. The corps personnel took the oath: “I swear that, side by side with a German soldier, I will not let go of my weapon until the last enemy of the Belarusian people is destroyed.” After the German front in Belarus collapsed in June 1944, the corps soldiers abandoned their weapons and fled to their homes.
In the summer of 1942, the German leadership of the Minsk police began the formation of police battalions, sworn enemies of the partisans. A total of 20 battalions of 500 people each were formed, including the 48th battalion in Slonim, the 49th in Minsk, the 60th in Baranovichi, the 36th regiment in Urechye, etc. The battalions took an active part in major anti-partisan operations: “Cottbus” in the Lepel area, “Herman”, “Swamp Fever”, “Hamburg”, etc. The partisans' hatred of these formations was fanatical and immeasurable. On the headdresses of the traitors there was a cockade with the image of “Pursuit”, and on the left sleeve there was a white-red-white bandage.
On January 25, 1942, by order of Hitler, the 1st Belarusian SS Grenadier Brigade “Belarus” was created from among the traitors who fled to Germany. At the end of 1944, from the defeated and retreating police formations and Samaakh units, SS Obersturmbannführer Sieglin formed the 30th Belarusian SS Division, which took part in the battles against the Anglo-American troops on the Western Front. Having suffered significant losses, the remnants of the division joined Vlasov's ROA. When the Germans allowed the head of the Belarusian Rada, Ostrovsky, to form another Belarusian SS division, the task turned out to be impossible - traitors and traitors from among the dispossessed and criminals, fugitives from justice, selfish people and simply cowards, at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, hoping to earn rewards for their deeds, in the hundreds and thousands began to join the partisans.
On June 22, 1943, the Commissioner General of Belarus Kube approved the creation of a youth organization and the Charter of the Union of Belarusian Youth. Nobody joined the organization. The Belarusian people had to endure too much grief and suffering during the 3 years of occupation. Punitive operations in Belarus were carried out mainly by police battalions from the Baltics, Ukraine and Poland. Latvian policemen especially committed atrocities in operations: “Winter Magic” - February 1943, “Spring Festival” - April 1943, “Henry” - November 1943, and the 18th Latvian police battalion in Operation Riga.
During these and other punitive operations, thousands, hundreds of thousands of civilians were shot and burned alive. 209 cities and towns were left in ruins, 9,200 villages and villages were burned, including 186 with all their inhabitants. Khatyn is among them. In total, only Latvians left their bloody trail on the territory of Belarus - the 15th division, 4 police regiments, 26 battalions. In Belarus, armed bandits of the Polish legion of Second Lieutenant Milashevsky, the legions of Kmititsa and Mrachkovsky committed atrocities. There were also punishers from Ukraine. The Nachtigal reconnaissance and sabotage battalion operated as part of the German Brandenburg regiment and carried out punitive operations in the Brest and Mogilev regions.
3. On the territory of Ukraine, immediately after the arrival of the Germans, the formation of collaborationist national military units and police units began under different names: “All-Ukrainian Liberation Army” (UA), “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA), “Ukrainian National Army” (UNA). The formations were used to fight Red Army units and partisans. The creation of military units was headed by the leader of the Organization Ukrainian Nationalists(OUN) Colonel Melnik and the famous nationalist Stepan Bandera. The latter, back in the twenties, held the post of leader of Western Ukrainian youth, and in 1932 became deputy chairman of the OUN. For organizing the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Poland, General Peracki, Bandera was sentenced to life imprisonment. But in 1939, with the arrival of the Germans in Warsaw, Bandera returned to Western Ukraine, where he created detachments of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Units quickly grow into regiments and divisions. Soon the UPA numbered more than 200 thousand people, incl. 15 thousand of the Galicia division. The UPA is waging an armed struggle against Soviet partisans and the Polish Regional Army on the territory of Western Ukraine, Bukovina and in the forests of Pinsk woodland.
The war is being waged for an “independent” Ukraine “without gentlemen landowners, capitalists and Bolshevik commissars.” But Bandera’s UPA members still swore allegiance to Hitler : “I, a Ukrainian volunteer, with this oath, voluntarily place myself at the disposal of the German army. “I swear allegiance to the German leader and Supreme Commander of the German Army, Adolf Hitler, to unfailing loyalty and obedience.” For this obedience, the UPA received severe punishment from the Red Army. The combat formation of the 14th SS Grenadier Division "Galicia", which became part of the 13th AK of the 4th A Army Group "Western Ukraine", was completely defeated in July 1944 in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation near Brody. No more than 1 thousand “Galicians” escaped from the Brodsky cauldron, where 30 thousand died and 17 thousand soldiers and officers were captured. The “Sumy” division of the UPA was defeated even earlier, near Stalingrad. The Vilna Ukraine division fought as part of the AK Hermann Goering and was also completely defeated by the Red Army near Dresden.
On the entire Soviet-German front, a significant number of units and units of Ukrainian nationalists fought with the Red Army, which were united into the “Ukrainian Vizvolna Viysko” or the “Ukrainian National Liberation Army” (UNSO), which by the end of the war numbered more than 80 thousand troops. They had a distinctive sign - a “zhovtnevo-blakit” sleeve patch with a trident.
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the traitors who surrendered were deported to the Soviet Union and put on trial. Some of them went underground to join the “forest brothers.” Having a large amount of weapons and ammunition, detachments of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) led by Bandera killed Soviet leaders and resisted Soviet power until their suppression and destruction in the early 1950s. Bandera himself fled to Munich, where he was met with just punishment - on October 15, 1959, he was killed by a KGB officer of the USSR.
4. In the dwarf Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, at the end of 1918, under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, workers and landless peasants came to power. But the internal counter-revolution, united with external forces, drowned the young, fragile Soviet government in blood. As a result of the coups, the fascist dictatorship of Smetona and Ulmanis is established. In all states, parliaments are dissolved and all political parties are banned. Despite the fact that in June-July 1940, people's governments were formed in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the countries voluntarily joined the Soviet Union, the people fully felt the advantages of socialism over capitalism, and the National Armies (29th Lithuanian SC, 24th SK Latvian, 22nd SK Estonian) were retained. From the first days of the German invasion, large property owners, capitalists and the bourgeoisie, together with the national army that had fled to their homes, joined the service of the Germans and began shooting in the backs of the Red Army soldiers, hoping to regain everything they had lost with the help of German fascists. It was these sections of the population that launched active work to create collaborationist, punitive police and armed forces. The German “fifth column” provided enormous assistance in this, its strongholds were numerous German and joint ventures, cultural and other institutions. In Latvia, for example, it was planned a week before the German invasion - on June 15, 1941 - to carry out sabotage by the forces of the “fifth column” with the burning of warehouses, explosions of bridges, and the seizure of important objects. But this plan was exposed. On the night of June 13-14, more than 5 thousand members of the “fifth column” were arrested, and the same number were expelled, including part of the command staff of the 24th Rifle Corps.
The Red Army command knew about the unfavorable situation in the Baltic military formations. On June 21, 1940, the commander of the BOVO troops, General D. Pavlov, addressed the NGO Marshal S. Timoshenko with a proposal to immediately disarm the personnel of the three ICs, as well as the population. For failure to surrender weapons - execution. But the request was not granted.*
5. Before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the “Lithuanian Legion” was created in East Prussia, the goal of which was: “When Germany attacks the USSR, which will occur in the spring of 1941, we Lithuanians must raise an uprising in the rear of the Red Army.” And so it happened. From the first days of the German invasion, the Lithuanian underground came into action. In Kaunas, nationalist armed groups opposed the Red Army and with particular brutality against the Jewish population. Jewish pogroms began in all the Baltic countries.
24 rifle battalions were formed in Lithuania, some of them are being transferred to Belarus. On October 14, 1941, in just one day they executed more than 2 thousand Belarusians in the village of Smilovichi, in Minsk - 1775 people, in Slutsk 5 thousand civilians. The 3rd Lithuanian battalion was located in Molodechno, another in Mogilev. The 3rd and 24th Lithuanian battalions took part in the operation against the Belarusian partisans “Swamp Fever” in the Baranovichi and Slonim regions. In addition to these battalions, the “Lithuanian Territorial Corps” (LTC) was also formed in Lithuania - 19 thousand people. Lithuanian bourgeois nationalists, who went underground a year ago, crawled out of their holes and, trying to please their new masters, began to commit outrages not only in Belarus, but also on their own land. On August 15-16, 1941, these traitors shot 3,207 old people, women and children in the village of Bayorai. The village of Pirgyupis was burned to the ground on June 3, 1944, along with its 119 inhabitants. During the three years of occupation, the Nazis and their nationalist accomplices destroyed over 700 thousand local residents, a sixth of Lithuania. With the arrival of the Red Army, these henchmen fled with the Nazis to the West, and many, fearing well-deserved punishment, took refuge in remote farmsteads and forests, organizing gangs of bandits. But the renegades received their well-deserved punishment.
6. In Latvia, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, shelling of military units of the Red Army and the headquarters of the PribVO in Riga began. More than 100 thousand people joined the punitive, police and other Nazi military formations from Latvian nationalists. In 1941 -1943 45 police battalions were formed, with a total number of 15 thousand people, who fought the Belarusian and Ukrainian partisans and destroyed civilians. Some of them fought as part of the German Army Group "North". In Belarus, 15 Latvian battalions were stationed in Stolbtsy, Stankovo, Begoml, Gantsevichi, Minsk and other cities. The battalions took part in Operation Winter Magic against partisans in the Baranovichi, Berezovsky, and Slonim regions. From April 11 to May 4, 1944, the 15th Latvian SS Division and the 2nd and 3rd Latvian Police Regiments fought in Operation Spring Festival in the Ushachi-Lepel partisan zone.
Punishers from Latvia left a bloody trail on the territory of Belarus. The 18th police battalion, which was stationed in Stolbtsy, and the 24th in Stankovo were particularly cruel in exterminating civilian Belarusians and Jews. In February - March 1943, these battalions, in Operation Winter Magic in the Rossony-Osvei partisan zone, destroyed and burned alive 15 thousand local residents, drove more than 2 thousand to hard labor in Germany, destroyed 158 settlements. On the caps of the traitors there was a cockade with the image of a skull, and on the left sleeve there was a red-white-red flag - “Latvian SS man”.
In Latvia there was the “Latvian Legion”, which united all the police battalions, SS military units and other military formations from traitors serving the fascists. The Legion included the 15th and 19th Latvian volunteer divisions of the SS troops, each with 18 thousand people. Both divisions were united into the VI Latvian Volunteer Corps SS troops. The 15th Division fought against the Red Army in East Prussia, and the 19th Division fought on the Volkhov Front. The Latvian Riflemen met the end of the Great Patriotic War in captivity of our allies.*
7. Long before the Great Patriotic War, the Estonian top leadership of the state and army established contact with German intelligence, the Abwehr and the Reich. Their common interest was units of the Red Army and Navy. As early as 1935, employees of the German embassy in Tallin intensified their intelligence and agent activities. In 1936 and 1937, Abwehr chief Canaris visited Estonia twice. In 1939, the Triple Alliance of intelligence services of Estonia, Finland, and Germany was formed. A massive deployment of sabotage and reconnaissance groups into the territory of the Soviet Union begins. With the arrival of the Red Army troops on the territory of Estonia in 1940, agents and intelligence officers intensified their work. By July 1940, Estonian agents already numbered more than 60 thousand people. Despite the fact that by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the Estonian army (22nd Estonian SC) and the country as a whole had been cleared of the “fifth column,” complete success in the fight against enemy agents could not be achieved. During Great Patriotic War On the territory of Estonia, 34 police and 14 infantry battalions were formed, which were used to fight Soviet partisans in the Leningrad region and conduct combat operations on the Baltic and Leningrad fronts. In the spring of 1944 Five more police regiments are being formed. The personnel of the Estonian units were dressed in the uniform of the Estonian army and wore a white armband with the inscription “In the service of the German army.”
At the end of August 1942, the “Estonian Legion” was created, which included the 3rd Estonian Volunteer Brigade SS. In January 1944, the 3rd Brigade was reorganized into the 20th Waffen-Grenadier Division of the SS and sent to the Eastern Front in the Narva region, then to the Volkhov Front against the 2nd Shock Army of the Red Army. The 300th Special Purpose Division of Estonian collaborators also fought near Narva.
Cooperation and subservience to the Germans and their intelligence services in the Baltic countries continued throughout the entire period Great Patriotic War. Even reconnaissance and sabotage groups and agents were sent en masse to the territory already liberated by the Red Army.
8. In preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union, the German command was extremely interested in forming allied troops from the Muslim population. The formation of military units was carried out by the Turkestan National Committee (TNK), located in Wünsdorf (Germany). In 1941, the first 450th Turkic infantry battalion was created, which was the basis for the creation of the “Turkestan Legion”. The Legion included only Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz. Later, in 1942, in Poland, another 452, 781, 782 infantry battalions were formed from among Turkic prisoners of war. In total, 14 infantry battalions of 1000-1200 people were formed there in everyone. The battalions were sent to Ukraine to fight Soviet partisans. In November 1943, the 1st Eastern Muslim Regiment was formed with a deployment in Minsk. In total, there were 181,402 people in the ranks of the Turkestan Legion, which served in the Wehrmacht. These troops took part in the fight against partisans and combat operations on the Soviet-German front.
9. The Crimean Tatars greeted the Germans with enthusiasm as their liberators. A department for the formation of Crimean Tatar enemy forces is being created at the headquarters of German 11A in Crimea. By January 1942, “Muslim Committees” and “Tatar National Committees” were formed in all cities of Crimea, which in the same 1942 sent 8,684 Crimean Tatars V German army and another 4 thousand to fight the Crimean partisans. In total, with a population of 200 thousand Tatars, 20 thousand volunteers were sent to serve the Germans. From this number the 1st Tatar Mountain Jaeger Brigade of the SS was formed. On August 15, 1942, the “Tatar Legion” began to operate, which included Tatars and other peoples of the Volga region who spoke the Tatar language. The “Tatar Legion” managed to form 12 field Tatar battalions, of these, the 825th battalion was located in Belynichi, Vitebsk region. Later, on February 23, 1943, on the day of the Red Army, the battalion in its entirety went over to the side of the Belarusian partisans, entered the 1st Vitebsk brigade of Mikhail Biryulin and fought against Nazi invaders near Lepel. In Belarus, in the occupied territory, the Tatars, who collaborated with the Germans, grouped around the mufti Yakub Shinkevich.“Tatar committees” were in Minsk, Kletsk, Lyakhovichi. Ending Great Patriotic Warfor the Tatar traitors and traitors it became as tragic and deserved as for other collaborators. Only a few managed to escape to the Middle East and Turkey. Their plans to achieve victory over the “Bolshevik barbarians” and create a free Federal Republic under the mandate of the German Empire failed.
On May 10, 1944, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Beria addressed Stalin with a request: “Taking into account the treacherous actions of the Crimean Tatars, I propose to evict them from Crimea.” The operation took place from May 18 to July 4, 1944. About 220 thousand Tatars and other nonresident residents of Crimea were removed without bloodshed or resistance. *
10. The Caucasian mountaineers greeted the German troops with joy and presented Hitler with a golden harness - “Allah is above us - Hitler is with us.” The program documents of the “Special Party of Caucasian Fighters,” which united 11 peoples of the Caucasus, set the task of defeating the Bolsheviks, Russian despotism, doing everything to defeat Russia in the war with Germany, and “the Caucasus for the Caucasians.”
In the summer of 1942, as German troops approached the Caucasus, the insurgency intensified everywhere.Soviet power was liquidated, collective and state farms were dissolved, and major uprisings broke out. German saboteurs - paratroopers, about 25 thousand people in total - took part in the preparation and conduct of the uprisings. Chechens, Karachais, Balkars, Dagestanis, etc. began to fight against the Red Army. The only way to suppress the uprisings and the unfolding armed struggle against the Red Army troops and partisans was deportation. But the situation at the front (fierce battles near Stalingrad, Kursk) did not allow the operation to deport nationalities North Caucasus. It was brilliantly accomplished in February 1944.
On February 23, the resettlement of Caucasian peoples began. The operation was well prepared and was successful. By the beginning of it, the motives for the eviction were brought to the attention of the entire population - betrayal. Leaders, religious leaders of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other nationalities took a personal part in explaining the reasons for the resettlement. The campaign achieved its goal. Out of 873,000 people. those evicted resisted and only 842 people were arrested. For his success in evicting the traitors, L. Beria was awarded the highest military order of Suvorov, 1st degree. The eviction was forced and justified. Many hundreds of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais, Crimean Tatars, etc. went to the side of our worst enemy - the German occupiers, to serve in the German army.
11. In August 1943, a Corps of Kalmyk traitors was created in Kalmykia, which fought near Rostov and Taganrog, then (in the winter of 1944-1945) in Poland, and fought heavy battles with units of the Red Army near Radom.
12. The Wehrmacht drew its personnel from traitors, emigrants and prisoners of war, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Armenians. From the Azerbaijanis, the Germans formed the Special Purpose Corps “Bergman” (“Highlander”), which participated in the suppression of the uprising in Warsaw. The 314th Azerbaijani Regiment fought as part of the 162nd German Infantry Division.
13. From among the Armenian prisoners of war, the Germans formed eight infantry battalions at the training ground in Pulaw (Poland) and sent them to the Eastern Front.
14. Volunteer traitors, Georgian emigrants, entered the service of the Germans in the first days of the war. They are used as the vanguard of the German Army Group South. At the beginning of July 1941, the reconnaissance and sabotage group "Tamara - 2" was thrown into the rear of the Red Army in the North Caucasus. Georgian saboteurs took part in Operation Shamil to seize the Grozny oil refinery. At the end of 1941, the “Georgian Legion” of 16 battalions was created in Warsaw. In addition to Georgians, the Legion included Ossetians, Abkhazians, and Circassians. In the spring of 1943, all battalions of the Legion were transferred to Kursk and Kharkov, where they were defeated by units of the Red Army.
After graduation Great Patriotic Warthe fate of the soldiers of the military formations of the Caucasus ended up in the hands of our allies, and later of Soviet justice. Everyone received a well-deserved punishment.
15. All this evil was skillfully processed by anti-Soviet propaganda. Although it was not easy, it was far from simple to justify the reasons for armed action against one’s Motherland, which was waging a holy, just war for independence and freedom. Understanding well that the moral strength of a fighter, his perseverance in battle is drawn from patriotic feelings, our enemies paid great attention to moral, psychological, ideological treatment personnel newly formed parts. That's why Almost all units and formations of collaborators received the names “national”, “liberation”, “people’s”. To carry out the tasks of developing moral and psychological stability and maintaining discipline in the collaborationist units, clergy and German ideologists were involved. Information support special attention was paid, because it was necessary to change views on the content and essence of the ongoing armed struggle. These problems were solved, including by numerous media outlets. Almost all military units and the formations of traitors had their own press organs. The ROA of General Vlasov, for example, had its own organ, the People's Anti-Bolshevik Committee, which published newspapers in Berlin: For Peace and Freedom, For Freedom, Zarya, Fighter of the ROA, etc. In other military units, collaborators published special newspapers: “Soviet warrior”, “Front-line soldier”, etc., in which events happening at the front were skillfully falsified. For example, on the Leningrad Front, the newspaper “Red Army”, published in Berlin, was distributed under the guise of a newspaper of the front’s political department. On the first page of the newspaper is printed the slogan: “Death to the German occupiers,” and then the Supreme Commander’s Order No. 120, which prescribes: “All former MTS tractor drivers and tractor brigade foremen should be sent to their former places of work to carry out the sowing campaign. All former collective farmers born in 1910 and older must be demobilized from the Red Army.” On the second page of the newspaper there is a heading: “Warriors study the leader’s order.” Here, they say, in the speeches of the soldiers, the mediocrity of Comrade is noted. Stalin, and that “the place of every Red Army soldier has long been in the ranks of the ROA, which, under the leadership of Lieutenant General Vlasov, is preparing for battles with Judeo-Bolshevism.”
In Belarus, a newspaper was published, a copy of Pravda, with the slogan: “Long live the Union of Russia and Great Britain,” and then: “More than 5 million former Red Army soldiers have already surrendered.” Leaflets were sent to the partisans in the same form as the Soviet ones from Moscow, but on the back: “Come to the side of Germany,” “Cooperate with the German army,” “This is a pass for surrender.” The fake newspaper “New Way” was published in Borisov, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Orsha, and Mogilev. An exact copy of the Soviet front-line newspaper “For the Motherland” with anti-Soviet content was published in Bobruisk. In the Caucasus, the newspaper “Dawn of the Caucasus” was published, in Stavropol “Morning of the Caucasus”, “Free Kalmykia” in Elista, the organ of all highlanders of the Caucasus was “Cossack Blade”, etc. In a number of cases, this anti-Soviet propaganda and falsification achieved its goal.
16. Today, conscious and deliberate falsification of the results Great Patriotic Warand the Second World War in general, the historical victories of the Soviet people and their Red Army increased significantly. The goal is obvious - to take away the Great Victory from us, to consign to oblivion those atrocities and atrocities that were committed by the Nazis and their accomplices, traitors and traitors to their Motherland: Vlasovites, Banderaites, Caucasian and Baltic punitive forces. Today their barbarity is justified by the “struggle for freedom”, “national independence”. It looks blasphemous when the SS men from the Galicia division who were not killed by us are in law, receive additional pensions, and their families are exempt from paying housing and communal services. The day of liberation of Lvov, July 27, was declared “a day of mourning and enslavement by the Moscow regime.” Alexander Nevsky Street was renamed after Andrey Sheptytsky, the metropolitan of the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church, who in 1941 blessed the 14th Grenadier Division of the SS “Galicia” to fight the Red Army.
Today, the Baltic countries are demanding billions of dollars from Russia for “ Soviet occupation" But have they really forgotten that the Soviet Union did not occupy them, but saved the honor of all three Baltic states from the inevitable fate of being part of the defeated Nazi coalition, and gave them the honor of becoming part of the common system of the countries that defeated fascism. In 1940, Lithuania received back the Vilna region with its capital, Vilnius, which had previously been taken away by Poland. Forgotten! It is also forgotten that the Baltic countries since 1940. By 1991, to create their new infrastructure, they received from the Soviet Union (in today's prices) 220 billion dollars. With the help of the Soviet Union, they created a unique high-tech production, built new power plants, including nuclear, providing 62% of all energy consumed, ports and ferries (3 billion dollars), airfields (Shauliai - 1 billion dollars), created a new merchant fleet, built oil pipelines, and completely gasified their countries. Forgotten! The events of January 1942 were consigned to oblivion, when traitors to the Motherland on June 3, 1944 burned to the ground the village of Pirgupis and the village of Raseiniai along with its inhabitants. The village of Audrini in Latvia, where today there is a NATO air force base, suffered the same fate: 42 courtyards of the village, along with the inhabitants, were literally wiped off the face of the earth. The Rezekne police, led by the beast in the guise of a man, Eichelis, managed to exterminate 5,128 residents of Jewish nationality by July 20, 1942. Latvian “fascist riflemen” from the SS army organize a solemn march every year on March 16th. A marble monument was erected to the executioner Eichelis. For what? Former punitive forces, SS men from the 20th Estonian Division and Estonian policemen, who became famous for the wholesale extermination of Jews, thousands of Belarusians and Soviet partisans, parade around Tallinn every July 6th with banners, and the liberation day of their capital, September 22nd, 1944, is celebrated. as "day of mourning". A granite monument was erected to the former SS colonel Rebana, to which children are brought to lay flowers. Monuments to our commanders and liberators were destroyed long ago, the graves of our brothers-in-arms, patriotic front-line soldiers, were desecrated. In Latvia, in 2005, vandals, unbridled with impunity, had already mocked the graves of fallen Red Army soldiers three times (!). Why, why are the graves of heroic soldiers of the Red Army desecrated, their marble slabs destroyed, and killed a second time? The West, the UN, the Security Council, Israel are silent and are not taking any measures. Meanwhile, the Nuremberg trials 11/20/1945-10/01/1946. for carrying out a conspiracy against Peace, humanity and the gravest war crimes, he sentenced Nazi war criminals not to death, but to hanging. The UN General Assembly on December 12, 1946 confirmed the legality of the sentence. Forgotten! Today in some CIS countries there is glorification and praise of criminals, punishers and traitors. May 9 is a historical day, a day Great Victory is no longer celebrated - a working day, and even worse, a “day of mourning”.
The time has come to give a decisive rebuff to these acts, not to praise, but to expose all those who, with weapons in their hands, became servants of the fascists, committed atrocities, and destroyed the elderly, women and children. The time has come to tell the truth about collaborators, enemy military, police forces, traitors and traitors to the Motherland.
Betrayal and treason have always and everywhere evoked feelings of disgust and indignation, especially betrayal of a previously given oath, a military oath. These betrayals and oath crimes have no statute of limitations.
17. On the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union in 1941-1944. A truly nationwide struggle of Soviet honest people, partisans and underground fighters unfolded against numerous military formations from among the White emigrants, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, who became in the service of the fascists. How difficult it was for the Soviet people and the soldiers of the Red Army to fight, fighting, in fact, on two fronts - in front of the German hordes, in the rear - traitors and traitors.
Treason and betrayal during the sacred years Great Patriotic Warwere truly significant. Great human sacrifices, suffering and destruction were brought by collaborators, policemen and punitive forces. The attitude of the Soviet people towards betrayal, towards traitors to the Motherland, who took up arms on the side of the Nazis, Hitler’s Germany, who swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler, was unequivocal - hatred and contempt. The retribution that was deserved was met with popular approval; the criminals were brought to justice.
18. However, repaired over the years Great Patriotic Warthe monstrous atrocities and destruction on the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union cannot be compared with the irrevocable losses and consequences of the betrayal committed during the period of the deliberate and purposeful collapse of the Great Superpower of the USSR.
World history does not know examples of treason and betrayal on such a scale and such consequences as it was in the Soviet Union in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century. During these years, an action unprecedented in its destructiveness took place. Gorbachev's treacherous policy, the notorious perestroika, far-fetched acceleration and new thinking - all this is nothing more than epochal idiocy.
When it became absolutely obvious that the policy of the traitor Gorbachev and his clique represented by the chief architect of perestroika, CIA agent A. Yakovlev, the traitor E. Shevardnadze and others would lead the country to irreparable collapse and collapse - the top communist party and the Soviet government began to save their own skins by taking the path of treason and betrayal of the interests of their country and their people. It was they, and also the leadership of the security forces (KGB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Defense) who allowed the anti-people, anti-socialist forces to run amok and act in a fairly organized manner. These forces, under the false slogans of the struggle for freedom and democracy, for human rights, a developed market and the subsequent “heavenly life”, found support in the mindset of a part of the country’s population, mainly. The connivance and inactivity of the leadership of the party and state, and the security forces, made it possible to quickly create a “fifth column” from among the traitors and shifters, which was immediately headed and financed by the United States and the West. To eliminate its potential enemy and competitor - the Soviet Union, in an effort to rule the whole world in an American way, the United States did not spare trillions of dollars. In the early 90s, the United States nevertheless managed to achieve its goal, conceived back in the 50s - to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The goal was achieved with huge financial injections and ideological war, but at the hands of home-grown traitor democrats.
Taking advantage of the amazing inactivity and indecisiveness of President Gorbachev, and then the State Emergency Committee, the United States and the “fifth column” in the person of Yeltsin, Gaidar, Burbulis, Shakhrai and others were able to quickly take the initiative and power into their own hands. Power overnight passed into the hands of capitulators, opportunists, shifters, careerists and simply traitors. It was they who sent the Great Superpower along the path indicated by the United States - devastation, disasters, armed conflicts and even wars. There was complete capitulation and admiration for the United States and the West. Collaborators, traitors and traitors forcibly imposed capitalism on the peoples of the Soviet Union, managed to plunder and appropriate industrial giants, gold, oil, gas and land. But “Selling, trading land is like being a mother,” Leo Tolstoy said long ago.
In Russia, a new class of oligarchs, large owners and businessmen has already been created from those people who, in a cunning and dexterous way, contrived, at a time of great unrest, to loot and steal everything that had been created for thousands of years and rightfully belonged to the entire people. These nouveau riche still form the basis new government in Russia.
19. The media played a huge role in these thieves’ transformations, being an instrument for manipulating public consciousness. In the gigantic counter-revolution, in the tragedy of the twentieth century, the corrupt media, pro-Western propaganda and information war, having received dollar funding and the active participation of the “fifth column” (ideological shifters, henchmen and simply scoundrels), managed to deceive the Soviet people with amazing, incomprehensible ease. People believed in the mafia of newspaper lines, false television propaganda, and were simply fooled. The people believed those loud promises to “get on the rails” and other provocative statements that, they say, “if you give us power, we will give you a prosperous life, prosperity, freedom and democracy, but just vote for us, otherwise you will lose.” The country was suddenly gripped by some kind of epidemic of stupidity, servile submission to the media and groveling before the “prosperous West.”
20. The magnitude of the crimes committed by modern traitors is enormous and cannot be measured by anything.
Over the past 15 years, Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union (except for Moscow and St. Petersburg), has found itself in ruin, the country has been economically set back many years. The absolute majority of the population found themselves in the abyss and poverty. Bribery and embezzlement have entangled the entire country. Corruption, robbery and murder still flourish today. Mortality exceeded birth rate. Millions of refugees and street children appeared. This has not happened even in yearsGreat Patriotic War. Drug addiction, prostitution, and human trafficking have emerged and reached unprecedented proportions. The number of gambling houses and brothels is countless. The people are in poverty, and in London, on the Cote d'Azur, there live 800 dollar millionaires who have fled from justice, including Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana. There are 33 dollar billionaires and 88 millionaires in Moscow. This is more than in any other city in the world.
Russia today ranks 62nd out of 177 countries in terms of welfare. In 2005, it dropped another 5 positions. In terms of state budget expenditures per schoolchild, Russia is in penultimate place in the world, ahead of Zimbabwe, but in terms of the number of dollar billionaires, it is in second place after the United States. But the state border and customs are being strengthened and are being depleted at a rapid pace Natural resources, international gas conflicts emerged. In general, the Russian economy remains far from the Soviet pre-perestroika level of 1990.
All this did not happen under the Soviet Union, and could not have happened due to the very nature of the progressive socialist way of life. If it were the Soviet Union, things wouldn't be any worse. The native country would live in a friendly family of peoples, without wars and refugees, without poverty and in prosperity, as the Chinese live today in their prosperous socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party.
A person always has the right to choose. Even in the most terrible moments of your life, at least two decisions remain. Sometimes it's a choice between life and death. A terrible death, allowing one to preserve honor and conscience, and long life in fear that one day it will become known at what price it was bought.
Everyone decides for themselves. Those who choose death are no longer destined to explain to others the reasons for their action. They go into oblivion with the thought that there is no other way, and loved ones, friends, descendants will understand this.
Those who bought their lives at the cost of betrayal, on the contrary, are very often talkative, find a thousand justifications for their actions, sometimes even write books about it.
Everyone decides for themselves who is right, submitting exclusively to one judge - their own conscience.
Zoya. A girl without compromise
AND Zoya, And Tonya were not born in Moscow. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was born in the village of Osinovye Gai in the Tambov region on September 13, 1923. The girl came from a family of priests, and, according to biographers, Zoya’s grandfather died at the hands of local Bolsheviks when he began to engage in anti-Soviet agitation among fellow villagers - he was simply drowned in a pond. Zoya’s father, who began studying at the seminary, was not imbued with hatred of the Soviets, and decided to change his cassock to secular attire by marrying a local teacher.
In 1929, the family moved to Siberia, and a year later, thanks to the help of relatives, they settled in Moscow. In 1933, Zoya's family experienced a tragedy - her father died. Zoya's mother was left alone with two children - 10-year-old Zoya and 8-year-old Sasha. The children tried to help their mother, Zoya especially stood out in this.
She studied well at school and was especially interested in history and literature. At the same time, Zoya’s character manifested itself quite early - she was a principled and consistent person who did not allow herself to compromise and inconstancy. This position of Zoya caused misunderstanding among her classmates, and the girl, in turn, was so worried that she came down with a nervous illness.
Zoya's illness also affected her classmates - feeling guilty, they helped her catch up school curriculum so that she doesn’t stay for a second year. In the spring of 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya successfully entered the 10th grade.
The girl who loved history had her own heroine - a school teacher Tatiana Solomakha. During the Civil War, a Bolshevik teacher fell into the hands of the whites and was brutally tortured. The story of Tatyana Solomakha shocked Zoya and greatly influenced her.
Tonya. Makarova from the Parfenov family
Antonina Makarova was born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, into a large peasant family Makara Parfenova. She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her later life. When Tonya came to first grade, because of shyness she could not say her last name - Parfenova. Classmates began shouting “Yes, she’s Makarova!”, meaning that Tony’s father’s name is Makar.
Yes, with light hand teacher, at that time perhaps the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfenov family.
The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner. This film image had a real prototype - Maria Popova, a nurse from the Chapaev division, who once in battle actually had to replace a killed machine gunner.
After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found her.
Both Zoya and Tonya, raised on Soviet ideals, volunteered to fight the Nazis.
Tonya. In the boiler
But by the time on October 31, 1941, 18-year-old Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya came to the assembly point to send saboteurs to school, 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova had already known all the horrors of the “Vyazemsky Cauldron.”
After the hardest battles, completely surrounded by the entire unit, only a soldier found himself next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk. With him she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They didn’t look for partisans, they didn’t try to get through to their own people - they fed on whatever they had, and sometimes stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his “camp wife.” Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.
In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.
By the time 18-year-old Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya arrived at the assembly point to send saboteurs to school, 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova had already known all the horrors of the “Vyazemsky Cauldron.” Photo: wikipedia.org / Bundesarchiv
Tonya was not expelled from the Red Well, but the local residents already had plenty of worries. But the strange girl did not try to go to the partisans, did not strive to make her way to ours, but strived to make love with one of the men remaining in the village. Having turned the locals against her, Tonya was forced to leave.
When Tony's wanderings ended, Zoe was no longer in the world. The story of her personal battle with the Nazis turned out to be very short.
Zoya. Komsomol member-saboteur
After 4 days of training at a sabotage school (there was no time for more - the enemy stood at the walls of the capital), she became a fighter in the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.”
In early November, Zoya's detachment, which arrived in the Volokolamsk area, carried out the first successful sabotage - mining the road.
On November 17, a command order was issued ordering the destruction of residential buildings behind enemy lines to a depth of 40-60 kilometers in order to drive the Germans out into the cold. This directive was criticized mercilessly during perestroika, saying that it should have actually turned against the civilian population in the occupied territories. But we must understand the situation in which it was adopted - the Nazis were rushing to Moscow, the situation was hanging by a thread, and any harm inflicted on the enemy was considered useful for victory.
After 4 days of training at a sabotage school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became a fighter in the “partisan unit 9903 of the Western Front headquarters.” Photo: www.russianlook.com
On November 18, a sabotage group, which included Zoya, received orders to burn several settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo. While performing the task, the group came under fire, and two people remained with Zoya - the group commander Boris Krainov and a fighter Vasily Klubkov.
On November 27, Krainov gave the order to set fire to three houses in Petrishchevo. He and Zoya successfully completed the task, and Klubkov was captured by the Germans. However, at the meeting point they missed each other. Zoya, left alone, decided to go to Petrishchevo again and commit another arson.
During the first raid of the saboteurs, they managed to destroy a German stable with horses, and also set fire to a couple more houses where the Germans were quartered.
But after this, the Nazis ordered the local residents to remain on duty. On the evening of November 28, Zoya, who was trying to set fire to the barn, was noticed by a local resident who collaborated with the Germans. Sviridov. He made a noise and the girl was grabbed. For this, Sviridov was rewarded with a bottle of vodka.
Zoya. Last hours
The Germans tried to find out from Zoya who she was and where the rest of the group was. The girl confirmed that she set fire to the house in Petrishchevo, said that her name was Tanya, but did not provide any more information.
Reproduction of a portrait of partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Photo: RIA Novosti / David Sholomovich
She was stripped naked, beaten, flogged with a belt - no sense. At night, in only a nightgown, barefoot, they drove around in the cold, hoping that the girl would break down, but she continued to remain silent.
They also found their tormentors - local residents came to the house where Zoya was kept Solina And Smirnova, whose houses were set on fire by a sabotage group. After swearing at the girl, they tried to beat the already half-dead Zoya. The mistress of the house intervened and kicked the “avengers” out. As a farewell, they threw a pot of slop that stood at the entrance at the prisoner.
On the morning of November 29, German officers made another attempt to interrogate Zoya, but again without success.
At about half past ten in the morning she was taken outside, with a sign “House Arsonist” hung on her chest. Zoya was led to the place of execution by two soldiers who held her - after the torture she herself could hardly stand on her feet. Smirnova appeared again at the gallows, scolding the girl and hitting her on the leg with a stick. This time the woman was driven away by the Germans.
The Nazis began filming Zoya with a camera. The exhausted girl turned to the villagers who had been driven to the terrible spectacle:
Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement!
The Germans tried to silence her, but she spoke again:
Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender! The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated!
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is being led to execution. Photo: www.russianlook.com
Zoya climbed onto the box herself, after which a noose was thrown over her. At this moment she shouted again:
- No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me!The girl wanted to shout something else, but the German knocked the box out from under her feet. Instinctively, Zoya grabbed the rope, but the Nazi hit her on the arm. In an instant it was all over.
Tonya. From prostitute to executioner
Tonya Makarova’s wanderings ended in the area of the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious “Lokot Republic”, an administrative-territorial formation of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.
A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect her of being a partisan or underground woman. She attracted the attention of the police, who took her in, gave her food, drink and rape. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.
Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute for the police for long - one day, drunk, they took her out into the yard and put her behind a Maxim machine gun. There were people standing in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk girl didn’t really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.
Execution of prisoners. Photo: www.russianlook.com
The next day, Tonya found out that she was no longer a slut in front of the police, but an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her own bed.
The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.
The cell accommodated 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.
Neither the Germans nor even the local policemen wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her passion for a machine gun, came in very handy.
Tonya. Executioner-machine gunner's routine
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot her enemies, but she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life finally got better.
Her daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off the survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night making love with some cute German guy or, at worst, with a policeman.
As an incentive, she was allowed to take things from the dead. So Tonya acquired a bunch of women's outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes made it difficult to wear.
However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive because, due to their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by local residents who were burying the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, “Tonka the machine gunner”, “Tonka the Muscovite” spread throughout the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but were unable to reach her.
In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
Zoya. From obscurity to immortality
For the first time a journalist wrote about Zoya’s feat Peter Lidov in the newspaper Pravda in January 1942 in the article “Tanya”. His material was based on the testimony of an elderly man who witnessed the execution and was shocked by the girl’s courage.
Zoya's corpse hung at the execution site for almost a month. Drunken German soldiers did not leave the girl alone, even when she was dead: they stabbed her with knives and cut off her breasts. After another such disgusting act, even the German command’s patience ran out: local residents were ordered to remove the body and bury it.
Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, erected at the site of the death of the partisan, in the village of Petrishchevo. Photo: RIA Novosti / A. Cheprunov
After the liberation of Petrishchevo and publication in Pravda, it was decided to establish the name of the heroine and the exact circumstances of her death.
The act of identifying the corpse was drawn up on February 4, 1942. It was precisely established that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was executed in the village of Petrishchevo. The same Pyotr Lidov spoke about this in the article “Who Was Tanya” in Pravda on February 18.
Two days before, on February 16, 1942, after all the circumstances of the death had been established, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. She became the first woman to receive such an award during the Great Patriotic War.
Zoya's remains were reburied in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Tonya. Escape
By the summer of 1943, Tony’s life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, beginning the liberation of the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Greater Germany.
In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for the accomplices.
Realizing this, Tonya escaped from the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to obtain documents that all this time she had been a nurse in a Soviet hospital.
Who said that the formidable SMERSH punished everyone? Nothing like this! Tonya successfully managed to enlist in a Soviet hospital, where early in 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her.
The guy proposed to Tonya, she agreed, and, having gotten married, after the end of the war, the young couple left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, her husband’s homeland.
This is how the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by an honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.
Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous acts of “Tonka the Machine Gunner” immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but the identities of only two hundred could be established.
They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not get on the trail of the female punisher.
Tonya. Exposure 30 years later
Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led an ordinary life Soviet man- lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the actions of “Tonka the Machine Gunner”.
Antonina Makarova. Photo: Public Domain
The KGB spent more than three decades searching for her, but found her almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfenov, going abroad, submitted forms with information about his relatives. There, among the solid Parfenovs, Antonina Makarova, after her husband Ginzburg, was listed as her own sister.
Yes, how that teacher’s mistake helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!
The KGB operatives worked brilliantly - it was impossible to blame an innocent person for such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, she was arrested.
She didn’t deny it, she talked about everything calmly, and said that she wasn’t tormented by nightmares. She didn’t want to communicate with either her daughters or her husband. And the front-line husband ran around the authorities, threatening to file a complaint Brezhnev, even at the UN - he demanded the release of his beloved wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.
After that, the dashing, dashing veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You wouldn’t wish what these people had to endure on your enemy.
Tonya. Pay
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.
Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the passage of time, the punishment could not be too severe; she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. My only regret was that because of the shame I had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg’s exemplary post-war biography, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR, and since the war, not a single representative of the fairer sex has been executed in the country.
However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt in the murder of 168 of those whose identities could be established was documented. More than 1,300 more remained unknown victims of “Tonka the Machine Gunner.” There are crimes for which it is impossible to forgive or pardon.
At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.
A person always has a choice. Two girls, almost the same age, finding themselves in a terrible war, looked death in the face and made a choice between the death of a hero and the life of a traitor.
Everyone chose their own.
In relative shares of the total population. The material presented below completely dispels the myth of the Second World War as “the Second Civil War, when the Russian people stood up to fight the bloody tyrant Stalin and the Soviet Judaicate.”
And so the word to the author, colleague harding1989
in Anti-Soviet military formations
I decided to present to the public a couple of visual (in my opinion) graphs and a plate to make some things clearer.
| People | Number of people in the USSR in 1941, % | Number of those who sided with the enemy out of the total number of traitors, % | Number of traitors out of the number of people, % |
| Russians | 51,7 | 32,3 | 0,4 |
| Ukrainians | 18,4 | 21,2 | 0,7 |
| Belarusians | 4,3 | 5,9 | 0,8 |
| Lithuanians | 1,0 | 4,2 | 2,5 |
| Latvians | 0,8 | 12,7 | 9,2 |
| Estonians | 0,6 | 7,6 | 7,9 |
| Azerbaijanis | 1,2 | 3,3 | 1,7 |
| Armenians | 1,1 | 1,8 | 1,0 |
| Georgians | 1,1 | 2,1 | 1,1 |
| Kalmyks | 0,1 | 0,6 | 5,2 |
So what do we see?
1) As many as 0.4% of truly Russian people stood up to fight the Jewish people (TM). To put it mildly - not impressive.
2) The most active fighters against Soviet power were such Slavic (and Aryan, of course) peoples as Latvians, Estonians and Kalmyks. Especially, of course, the latter. Zip file, where there.
3) Russians don’t even reach the “norm”. Those. if in the Union they were about 51.7% of the total population, then among those who fought on the side of the enemy they were about 32.3%.
This is what the “Second Civil” is like.
Sources:
Drobyazko S.I. "Under the banners of the enemy. Anti-Soviet formations within the German armed forces 1941-1945." M.: Eksmo, 2005.
Population of Russia in the 20th century: Historical essays. In 3 volumes / Vol.2. 1940-1959. M.: ROSSPEN, 2001.
Soldatenatlas der wehrmacht von 1941
Materials from the site demoscope.ru
There are collaborators and traitors in every war. World War II was no exception. Some went over to the enemy’s side for ideological reasons, others were attracted by material wealth, and others were forced to help the former enemy in order to save their lives and the lives of loved ones. Among those who changed the flag under which they fought were Soviet women.
The first document that dealt with the fight against collaborationism was the order issued on December 12, 1941 People's Commissariat Internal Affairs "On operational security service in areas liberated from enemy troops." At the beginning of 1942, an explanation was issued about who should be registered. The list included:
- women who married Germans;
- keepers of brothels and brothels;
- persons who worked in German institutions and provided services to Germans;
- those who voluntarily left with the Nazis and members of their families.
Anyone who found themselves in occupied territory and was forced to work to get a piece of bread was suspected of treason. Such people could then bear the stigma of a potential traitor for the rest of their lives.
Many women who voluntarily or forcedly had sexual relations with the Germans were later shot, often along with their children. According to German documents, about 4 thousand women were shot during the liberation of Eastern Ukraine alone. Another German intelligence report spoke about the fate of the “traitors” in Kharkov: “Among them there are many girls who were friends with German soldiers, and especially those who were pregnant. Three witnesses were enough to eliminate them.”
Vera Pirozhkova
Vera Pirozhkova, who was born in Pskov in 1921, worked in the same newspaper “For the Motherland”. She got a job there immediately after the start of the occupation, first as a translator, then as an author. In her articles she glorified the German way of life under the Nazis and Germany.
In the first text, dedicated to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Pirozhkova acted as an obvious anti-Semite: “The evil force of Jewry, fed for centuries only by hatred and acting through intrigue, deception and terror, will not withstand the onslaught of the healthy, creative forces of the people.” This position found approval at the top, and Pirozhkova quickly advanced, becoming practically the political editor of the newspaper.
After the war, she studied in Munich and defended her dissertation. In the 90s she returned to Russia and now lives in St. Petersburg.
Svetlana Gaier
One of the most controversial women who can be categorized as a “traitor” at a stretch. Gaier was a very young girl when she went to work as a translator for the occupation authorities of Kyiv. She and her mother needed money; her father died after being imprisoned in a Soviet prison.
She worked on construction sites, translated for architects and scientists. In 1943 she went to Germany, where she was promised a scholarship. In Germany, she spent some time in a camp for workers from the eastern territories, but was released.
She studied literary criticism in Freiburg and became one of the most famous translators from Russian to German. Translated Dostoevsky's main novels into German.
Antonina Makarova (Tonka the Machine Gunner)
At the beginning of the war, the young nurse Antonina found herself surrounded. With soldier Fedorchuk, they wandered through the forests, trying to survive. After they reached the village, Fedorchuk went to his family, and the woman was left alone.
She again had to look for shelter. She ended up on the territory of the Lokot Republic, where the Germans liked it. Antonina was subjected to violence several times. Once she was forced to shoot prisoners - she knew how to use a machine gun, and she was also drunk. Having carried out such an order, Makarova turned out to be a “regular executioner.” She shot every morning. Quite quickly she even began to like the work.
Rumors about Tonka the Machine Gunner quickly spread throughout the area, but it was not possible to eliminate her. After the Germans retreated, Makarova obtained documents which showed that she had worked as a nurse throughout the war. The KGB was looking for her for several decades, but it was difficult to suspect the former punisher of the war veteran, exemplary wife and mother Antonina Ginzburg.
The KGB workers were helped by chance - Makarova’s brother, Parfenov, was planning to travel abroad. In the questionnaire, he indicated his sister Makarova (Ginsburg).
Her case was the only one in the USSR in which a female punisher appeared. Antonina was found guilty of murdering 168 people and was shot.
Many Soviet women worked as translators, journalists, and secretaries under the Germans. Their fates turned out differently. Some remained in exile forever, others were repatriated back to the Soviet Union, like Evgenia Polskaya, who came from Cossacks. Her husband was an ROA officer, and she herself worked at a newspaper. Some were able to “cross out” their ambiguous past and quietly live to old age.
They were both Muscovites, almost the same age. Both had their idols as revolutionary women, and both went to fight the enemy in 1941. But Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya ascended the scaffold without fear, and Antonina Makarova became the murderer of hundreds of innocent people.
The right to choose
A person always has the right to choose. Even in the most terrible moments of your life, at least two decisions remain. Sometimes it's a choice between life and death. A terrible death, allowing her to preserve her honor and conscience, and a long life in fear that one day it will become known at what price she was bought.
Everyone decides for themselves. Those who choose death are no longer destined to explain to others the reasons for their action. They go into oblivion with the thought that there is no other way, and loved ones, friends, descendants will understand this.
Those who bought their lives at the cost of betrayal, on the contrary, are very often talkative, find a thousand justifications for their actions, sometimes even write books about it.
Who is right, everyone decides for himself, submitting exclusively to one judge - his own conscience.
Zoya. A girl without compromise
AND Zoya, And Tonya were not born in Moscow. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was born in the village of Osinovye Gai in the Tambov region on September 13, 1923. The girl came from a family of priests, and, according to biographers, Zoya’s grandfather died at the hands of local Bolsheviks when he began to engage in anti-Soviet agitation among fellow villagers - he was simply drowned in a pond. Zoya’s father, who began studying at the seminary, was not imbued with hatred of the Soviets, and decided to change his cassock to secular attire by marrying a local teacher.
In 1929, the family moved to Siberia, and a year later, thanks to the help of relatives, they settled in Moscow. In 1933, Zoya's family experienced a tragedy - her father died. Zoya's mother was left alone with two children - 10-year-old Zoya and 8-year-old Sasha. The children tried to help their mother, Zoya especially stood out in this.
She studied well at school and was especially interested in history and literature. At the same time, Zoya’s character manifested itself quite early - she was a principled and consistent person who did not allow herself to compromise and inconstancy. This position of Zoya caused misunderstanding among her classmates, and the girl, in turn, was so worried that she came down with a nervous illness.
Zoya's illness also affected her classmates - feeling guilty, they helped her catch up with her school curriculum so that she would not repeat the second year. In the spring of 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya successfully entered the 10th grade.
The girl who loved history had her own heroine - a school teacher Tatiana Solomakha. During the Civil War, a Bolshevik teacher fell into the hands of the whites and was brutally tortured. The story of Tatyana Solomakha shocked Zoya and greatly influenced her.
Tonya. Makarova from the Parfenov family
Antonina Makarova was born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, into a large peasant family Makara Parfenova. She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her future life. When Tonya came to first grade, because of shyness she could not say her last name - Parfenova. Classmates began shouting “Yes, she’s Makarova!”, meaning that Tony’s father’s name is Makar.
So, with the light hand of the teacher, at that time perhaps the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfenov family.
The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner. This film image had a real prototype - Maria Popova, a nurse from the Chapaev division, who once in battle actually had to replace a killed machine gunner.
After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found her.
Both Zoya and Tonya, raised on Soviet ideals, volunteered to fight the Nazis.
Tonya. In the boiler
But by the time on October 31, 1941, 18-year-old Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya came to the assembly point to send saboteurs to school, 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova had already known all the horrors of the “Vyazemsky Cauldron.”
After the hardest battles, completely surrounded by the entire unit, only a soldier found himself next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk. With him she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They didn’t look for partisans, they didn’t try to get through to their own people - they fed on whatever they had, and sometimes stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his “camp wife.” Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.
In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.
By the time 18-year-old Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya arrived at the assembly point to send saboteurs to school, 19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova had already known all the horrors of the “Vyazemsky Cauldron.” Photo: wikipedia.org / Bundesarchiv
Tonya was not expelled from the Red Well, but the local residents already had plenty of worries. But the strange girl did not try to go to the partisans, did not strive to make her way to ours, but strived to make love with one of the men remaining in the village. Having turned the locals against her, Tonya was forced to leave.
When Tony's wanderings ended, Zoe was no longer in the world. The story of her personal battle with the Nazis turned out to be very short.
Zoya. Komsomol member-saboteur
After 4 days of training at a sabotage school (there was no time for more - the enemy stood at the walls of the capital), she became a fighter in the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.”
In early November, Zoya's detachment, which arrived in the Volokolamsk area, carried out the first successful sabotage - mining the road.
On November 17, a command order was issued ordering the destruction of residential buildings behind enemy lines to a depth of 40-60 kilometers in order to drive the Germans out into the cold. This directive was criticized mercilessly during perestroika, saying that it should have actually turned against the civilian population in the occupied territories. But we must understand the situation in which it was adopted - the Nazis were rushing to Moscow, the situation was hanging by a thread, and any harm inflicted on the enemy was considered useful for victory.
After 4 days of training at a sabotage school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became a fighter in the “partisan unit 9903 of the Western Front headquarters.” Photo: www.russianlook.com
On November 18, a sabotage group, which included Zoya, received orders to burn several settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo. While performing the task, the group came under fire, and two people remained with Zoya - the group commander Boris Krainov and a fighter Vasily Klubkov.
On November 27, Krainov gave the order to set fire to three houses in Petrishchevo. He and Zoya successfully completed the task, and Klubkov was captured by the Germans. However, at the meeting point they missed each other. Zoya, left alone, decided to go to Petrishchevo again and commit another arson.
During the first raid of the saboteurs, they managed to destroy a German stable with horses, and also set fire to a couple more houses where the Germans were quartered.
But after this, the Nazis ordered the local residents to remain on duty. On the evening of November 28, Zoya, who was trying to set fire to the barn, was noticed by a local resident who collaborated with the Germans. Sviridov. He made a noise and the girl was grabbed. For this, Sviridov was rewarded with a bottle of vodka.
Zoya. Last hours
The Germans tried to find out from Zoya who she was and where the rest of the group was. The girl confirmed that she set fire to the house in Petrishchevo, said that her name was Tanya, but did not provide any more information.
Reproduction of a portrait of partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Photo: RIA Novosti / David Sholomovich
She was stripped naked, beaten, flogged with a belt - no sense. At night, in only a nightgown, barefoot, they drove around in the cold, hoping that the girl would break down, but she continued to remain silent.
They also found their tormentors - local residents came to the house where Zoya was kept Solina And Smirnova, whose houses were set on fire by a sabotage group. After swearing at the girl, they tried to beat the already half-dead Zoya. The mistress of the house intervened and kicked the “avengers” out. As a farewell, they threw a pot of slop that stood at the entrance at the prisoner.
On the morning of November 29, German officers made another attempt to interrogate Zoya, but again without success.
At about half past ten in the morning she was taken outside, with a sign “House Arsonist” hung on her chest. Zoya was led to the place of execution by two soldiers who held her - after the torture she herself could hardly stand on her feet. Smirnova appeared again at the gallows, scolding the girl and hitting her on the leg with a stick. This time the woman was driven away by the Germans.
The Nazis began filming Zoya with a camera. The exhausted girl turned to the villagers who had been driven to the terrible spectacle:
Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement!
The Germans tried to silence her, but she spoke again:
Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender! The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated!
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is being led to execution. Photo: www.russianlook.com
Zoya climbed onto the box herself, after which a noose was thrown over her. At this moment she shouted again:
No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me!
The girl wanted to shout something else, but the German knocked the box out from under her feet. Instinctively, Zoya grabbed the rope, but the Nazi hit her on the arm. In an instant it was all over.
Tonya. From prostitute to executioner
Tonya Makarova’s wanderings ended in the area of the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious “Lokot Republic”, an administrative-territorial formation of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.
A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect her of being a partisan or underground woman. She attracted the attention of the police, who took her in, gave her food, drink and rape. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.
Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute for the police for long - one day, drunk, she was taken out into the yard and put behind a Maxim machine gun. There were people standing in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk girl didn’t really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.
Execution of prisoners. Photo: www.russianlook.com
The next day, Tonya found out that she was no longer a slut in front of the police, but an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her own bed.
The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.
The cell accommodated 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.
Neither the Germans nor even the local policemen wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her passion for a machine gun, came in very handy.
Tonya. Executioner-machine gunner's routine
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot her enemies, and she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life finally got better.
Her daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off the survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night making love with some cute German guy or, at worst, with a policeman.
As an incentive, she was allowed to take things from the dead. So Tonya acquired a bunch of women's outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes made it difficult to wear.
However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive because, due to their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by local residents who were burying the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, “Tonka the machine gunner”, “Tonka the Muscovite” spread throughout the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but were unable to reach her.
In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
Zoya. From obscurity to immortality
For the first time a journalist wrote about Zoya’s feat Peter Lidov in the newspaper Pravda in January 1942 in the article “Tanya”. His material was based on the testimony of an elderly man who witnessed the execution and was shocked by the girl’s courage.
Zoya's corpse hung at the execution site for almost a month. Drunken German soldiers did not leave the girl alone, even when she was dead: they stabbed her with knives and cut off her breasts. After another such disgusting act, even the German command’s patience ran out: local residents were ordered to remove the body and bury it.
Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, erected at the site of the death of the partisan, in the village of Petrishchevo. Photo: RIA Novosti / A. Cheprunov
After the liberation of Petrishchevo and publication in Pravda, it was decided to establish the name of the heroine and the exact circumstances of her death.
The act of identifying the corpse was drawn up on February 4, 1942. It was precisely established that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was executed in the village of Petrishchevo. The same Pyotr Lidov spoke about this in the article “Who Was Tanya” in Pravda on February 18.
Two days before, on February 16, 1942, after all the circumstances of the death had been established, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. She became the first woman to receive such an award during the Great Patriotic War.
Zoya's remains were reburied in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Tonya. Escape
By the summer of 1943, Tony's life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, beginning the liberation of the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Greater Germany.
In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for the accomplices.
Realizing this, Tonya escaped from the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to obtain documents that all this time she had been a nurse in a Soviet hospital.
Who said that the formidable SMERSH punished everyone? Nothing like this! Tonya successfully managed to enlist in a Soviet hospital, where early in 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her.
The guy proposed to Tonya, she agreed, and, having gotten married, after the end of the war, the young couple left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, her husband’s homeland.
This is how the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by an honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.
Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous acts of “Tonka the Machine Gunner” immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but the identities of only two hundred could be established.
They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not get on the trail of the female punisher.
Tonya. Exposure 30 years later
Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led the ordinary life of a Soviet person - she lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the actions of “Tonka the Machine Gunner”.
Antonina Makarova. Photo: Public Domain
The KGB spent more than three decades searching for her, but found her almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfenov, going abroad, submitted forms with information about his relatives. There, among the solid Parfenovs, Antonina Makarova, after her husband Ginzburg, was listed as her own sister.
Yes, how that teacher’s mistake helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!
KGB operatives worked brilliantly - it was impossible to blame an innocent person for such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, she was arrested.
She didn’t deny it, she talked about everything calmly, and said that she wasn’t tormented by nightmares. She didn’t want to communicate with either her daughters or her husband. And the front-line husband ran around the authorities, threatening to file a complaint Brezhnev, even at the UN - he demanded the release of his beloved wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.
After that, the dashing, dashing veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You wouldn’t wish what these people had to endure on your enemy.
Tonya. Pay
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.
Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the passage of time, the punishment could not be too severe; she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. My only regret was that because of the shame I had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg’s exemplary post-war biography, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR, and since the war, not a single representative of the fairer sex has been executed in the country.
However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt in the murder of 168 of those whose identities could be established was documented. More than 1,300 more remained unknown victims of “Tonka the Machine Gunner.” There are crimes for which it is impossible to forgive or pardon.
At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.
A person always has a choice. Two girls, almost the same age, finding themselves in a terrible war, looked death in the face and made a choice between the death of a hero and the life of a traitor.
Everyone chose their own.
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