On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad, which took place on February 2, 1943, the FSB of the Russian Federation published archival documents of the departments of internal affairs and state security of the Stalingrad region.
They deal with the investigation of Nazi war crimes and the participation of Soviet intelligence officers in establishing a peaceful life after the liberation of the region from the Nazi invaders.
Crucial moment
The Battle of Stalingrad began on July 17, 1942.
Soviet troops held back the advance of the powerful Nazi group to the Volga.
The Nazis threw the 6th Field Army and the 4th Air Fleet into the Stalingrad direction, which were later joined by the 4th Panzer Army, the Italian 8th Army and the Romanian 3rd Army.
The total number of Nazi troops advancing on Stalingrad in the initial stage of the battle is estimated by historians at about 430 thousand people.
In mid-July 1943, only 12 divisions with a total strength of about 166 thousand people could really resist the enemy in the Stalingrad direction.
“The importance of the attack on Stalingrad for the Nazis was due to a number of factors.
The city itself was a major industrial center.
Oil from the Caucasus went along the Volga to the central regions of the USSR.
And, besides, there were signals from Japan that in the event of a German victory at Stalingrad, official Tokyo would be ready to go to war with the USSR.
This would be a severe blow for the Soviet Union, ”said Dmitry Surzhik, a senior researcher at the IVI RAS, in a conversation with RT.
On August 23, Stalingrad was bombed, which, according to historians, is considered the most powerful air strike on the territory of the USSR during the war.
The forces of the Luftwaffe made about 2 thousand sorties per day.
In early September, ground units of the Wehrmacht broke through to the outskirts of Stalingrad.
Fierce urban battles began.
Soldiers of the 10th NKVD rifle division, the 249th regiment of NKVD escort troops, the 91st regiment of the NKVD troops for the protection of railways, the 73rd separate armored train and the 178th regiment of the NKVD troops for the protection of especially important industrial enterprises were among the first to meet the enemy. .
According to historians, despite the fact that, fighting in combined arms combat, the NKVD fighters performed uncharacteristic tasks for them, they showed courage and turned out to be very effective.
On September 13, 1942, during a massive assault on Stalingrad by Wehrmacht units, the 9th company of the 269th regiment of the NKVD troops took the first blow, covering the direction to the airfield and Mamaev Kurgan.
The next day, the Nazis threw 8 infantry battalions and about 50 tanks against the 269th regiment.
Despite the numerical superiority of the enemy, the NKVD fighters not only held their positions, but also launched counterattacks that turned into hand-to-hand combat.
When repulsing the attacks of superior enemy forces in early September, units of the 10th division suffered huge losses.
Despite this, the remnants of the division continued to fight the Nazis.
Fighting on the streets of Stalingrad
Gettyimages.ru
© Roger Violet
By early October, of the units of the 10th division in Stalingrad, only the 282nd regiment remained in service, defending the height on the approaches to the tractor factory.
On October 5, his 2nd battalion was blocked by the enemy and fought in encirclement for two days, repulsing seven attacks and destroying 800 Nazis, after which he broke through to his own.
On October 19, about 200 servicemen left from the 10th division were withdrawn to the left bank of the Volga.
During the participation in the Stalingrad battles, this NKVD division destroyed about 15 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, knocked out and burned 113 tanks.
On December 2, 1942, she was awarded the Order of Lenin.
Banner of the 10th Infantry Stalingrad Order of Lenin Division of the Internal Troops of the USSR
© P.Fisxo/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0
According to historians, the stubbornness of the first defenders of Stalingrad gave the Soviet command time to transfer forces to the Volga, which made it possible to achieve a turning point in the battle.
As historians note, it took the Nazis more time to occupy a quarter in Stalingrad than to capture small European countries.
Soviet troops constantly grind the Nazi forces in counterattacks.
On November 19, 1942, units of the Red Army launched a large-scale counteroffensive near Stalingrad, which made it possible to break through the enemy’s defenses in two sectors on the very first day.
On November 23, the Red Army encircled 22 divisions and about 160 separate units of the Wehrmacht in the Stalingrad region.
Attempts by the Nazi command to release this group were unsuccessful.
February 2, 1943 she was completely defeated.
91 thousand Nazi troops surrendered, including 24 generals.
"Huge Efforts"
While the soldiers of the rifle units of the NKVD fought the Germans on the streets of Stalingrad, the operational units of the department, according to historians, waged their secret war with the enemy.
“The Battle of Stalingrad is a time of sharp intensification of the activities of the German special services.
Huge reconnaissance and sabotage forces were involved.
The Zeppelin organization, founded in 1942, was active.
All this worked like clockwork, so it was not easy to resist the Germans, ”Alexander Kolpakidi, writer and historian of the special services, emphasized in a conversation with RT.
Nevertheless, according to him, the Soviet special services turned out to be more effective than the enemy.
After the Nazi group in Stalingrad was defeated, the Soviet special services had new tasks - to investigate the crimes committed by the Nazis and participate in the establishment of a peaceful life in the Stalingrad region.
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation publishes a certificate of the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Stalingrad Region, Commissar of State Security of the 3rd rank Alexander Voronin dated February 20, 1943 “On the situation and results of operational security work in the regions of the region and the mountains.
Stalingrad, liberated from the Nazi occupiers.
It describes atrocious crimes against the civilian population, the hijacking of Soviet citizens into slavery, and the destruction of the infrastructure of the region.
“From the first days of the occupation, the invaders began to account for the entire remaining civilian population, and then to resettle it in the rear of the occupied territory and send ... men and single women to work in Ukraine and Germany,” the document says.
Information from the head of the UNKVD in the Stalingrad region
© TsOS FSB RF
About 250,000 civilians remained in the areas of Stalingrad occupied by the Nazis.
By the time the city was completely liberated, there were only 7661 people in it.
“The entry of the Nazi troops into the territory of the Stalingrad region is characterized by the robbery of the population with impunity ... The occupiers took away cattle, poultry, food, clothing and valuables without any payment,” the certificate says.
Information from the head of the UNKVD in the Stalingrad region
© TsOS FSB RF
From women and children, the Nazi military took away personal belongings and clothes, right down to underwear, right on the streets.
“Children were detained and undressed on the streets, their shoes were taken off, their shirts, shorts and half-dressed were thrown in the open,” writes the head of the regional department of the NKVD.
Specific cases of robberies are described in the certificate.
So, in October 1942, the Nazis killed the worker Georgy Zotov, along with his wife and children 3 and 7 years old, because he tried to resist when German soldiers took away his clothes and food.
14-year-old Gennady Koltun was picked up from the street with frostbite after being stripped and thrown out of a dugout by the Nazis in November 1942.
Information from the head of the UNKVD in the Stalingrad region
© TsOS FSB RF
The Nazi occupiers massively subjected women to violence.
“In one of the dugouts of the upper village of plant No. 221, mountains.
Stalingrad, the Germans raped in front of the children of two women evacuated from Voroshilovgrad.
After being raped, they were shot along with their children.
In Stalingrad, in November 1942, 3 German soldiers, in the presence of their husband and children, raped the wife of the driver of 25 Stroytrest.
In with.
Vasilievka, Voroshilovsky district, the Germans raped a collective farmer in the presence of her husband and daughters.
In farm.
Monoyline, Kletsky district, a group of Romanians raped a collective farmer and her daughter.
In Art.
Sirotinskaya of the same district, 4 German soldiers took away all the things from Pelageya Alexandrovna, 50 years old, and then raped her, took her to the steppe and shot her.
On August 3, 1942, in the town of Kotelnikovo, 12 German soldiers raped and then shot a girl,” the document says.
The certificate also reports that the Nazis shot ten children, one of whom took cigarettes from a German officer.
German soldiers and an elderly Soviet citizen in Stalingrad
Legion Media
© World History Archive
Alexander Voronin also writes about the scale of destruction on the territory of the Stalingrad region.
So, in ten farms of the Sirotinsky district, only 336 residential buildings out of 1915 survived. A number of farms in the Kletsky district were completely destroyed.
In Stalingrad itself, the main industrial enterprises were put out of action, public utilities, cultural institutions and housing stock were completely destroyed.
Information from the head of the UNKVD in the Stalingrad region
© TsOS FSB RF
The certificate of the investigation department of the UNKGB refers to the crimes committed by the German commandant of Stalingrad, General Loning.
“By order of Loning, Soviet patriotic partisans were shot, with his sanction, officers of the intelligence department and the field gendarmerie attached to the Commandant’s Office committed atrocities against prisoners of war of the Red Army ..., communists, Jews and other “suspicious” persons ... In Stalingrad in November 1942, by order of the commandant, nine a man of patients taken from a Russian hospital ... Loning and his subordinates systematically robbed peaceful Soviet citizens and sent the looted property to their families in Germany, ”the UNKGB investigator notes.
Restoration of Stalingrad
Participation in demining the territory of the region became a separate area of activity for the NKVD employees in Stalingrad.
Operatives of a special group collected information from German prisoners of war about minefields.
“In total, as a result of interrogations, about 300 minefields and sites were revealed, in which up to 150,000 pieces of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were laid,” says the certificate of the head of the UNKVD for the Stalingrad region dated April 1943.
Monument to the soldiers of the 10th division of the NKVD troops and policemen who died during the defense of Stalingrad
RIA News
© M. Barabanov
According to Alexander Kolpakidi, the Soviet secret services played an important role in the defeat of the Nazis at Stalingrad and the subsequent establishment of a peaceful life in the region.
“A whole range of services worked on the part of the USSR: intelligence, counterintelligence, partisans, rear guard, rifle units.
It was a complex, efficient mechanism in which everyone was in their place and made great efforts necessary for the common Victory, ”summed up Kolpakidi.