June 9th, 2016
Original taken from oper_1974 V
Original taken from oper_1974 in "Lost" party cards and generals in captivity. 1941
From the statement
to the Party Bureau of Arsenal 22
Colonel Goltvyanitsky Nikolai Alexandrovich,
Assistant Chief of the 5th Division of the 141st Infantry Division. (in 1941)
At first Patriotic War I was in the 141st Infantry Division as a temporary deputy. division chief of staff for logistics. We went to the front on June 18, 1941, and on June 23 we entered into battle with the enemy as part of the 6th Army.
On June 30, 1941, in the Podvysokoye-Pervomaisk area on the Sinyukha River, the 6th, 12th, 26th and other armies were surrounded by the Germans, including the 141st Infantry Division, where I was.
Upon receipt of the order to leave the encirclement and break through the encirclement chains, it was ordered to destroy all documentation, both general and party-related. After giving such an order, the commander of the 141st Infantry Division, Major General Tonkonogov, and the division chief of staff, Colonel Bondarenko, personally checked the implementation of the orders. During this period, many communists destroyed their party cards.
At one o'clock in the morning on August 1, 1941, by order of the army commander (breakthrough group), Lieutenant General Muzychenko, we launched an assault on the encirclement rings. They broke through one ring, but there were five rings. Approaching the Novo-Odessa point, we launched an assault, began to break through, but encountered very large enemy forces.
The Germans, going on the offensive against us, split our group into several parts. In those battles, the division commander (Major General Tonkonogov was captured near the village of Podvysokoye) and the chief of staff died.
On August 7, in this area, we, conducting intensified battles with the advancing enemy, reinforced by the tanks of von Kleist’s army, suffered heavy losses. At that time, our group was commanded by the chief of artillery of the 37th Rifle Corps (I don’t remember his last name), and the commissar was the regimental commissar from the 80th Rifle Division.
I was nominated to the position of chief of staff of this group. The commissar of the headquarters was the battalion commissar Lipetsky. German troops launched a decisive offensive and broke through. At this time, the group commander and commissar were seriously wounded. They began to destroy their party cards.
And at the suggestion of the battalion commissar Lipetsky, who destroyed his party card, I also hid my card in the foundation of the house; during the raid and bombing by enemy aircraft, this house was destroyed by bombs.
On the night of August 9, 1941, we, divided into separate groups, nevertheless broke through and began to advance along the German rear in the direction of the front line: Nikolaev, Kherson, Borislav, Krivoy Rog. On August 24, 1941, in the region of Dneprodzerzhinsk, we crossed the Dnieper and became available to the headquarters of the newly formed 6th Army. On September 9, 1941, I received an appointment to the 261st Infantry Division to the position of Deputy. chief of staff.
Memoirs of Major General Ya.I. Tonkonogova,
commander 141SD 37SK 6A
Kyiv. 03/19/1983
06/19/41. The 141st SD goes west. Order from corps commander Zybin: to reach the new border by night marches. Yampol - halt. There, beyond the old border, is a rock road. The main forces of the division are in two columns. Crossroads. Zybin was driving along the rock road from Proskurov, checking the 80th division.
Met and reported. And we walked with blank cartridges. I asked him: “Have you read your order, Comrade Comrade Brigade, written on the basis of the order of the commander of the 6th Army. We are going to the border with the camp property, autobat. And without ammunition? Allow us to return one company of the autobat, take ammunition for the division. Or ask the commander of 6A.”
He listened and nodded his head: “I understand you, Yakov Ivanovich. But I served 33 months. I don’t want any more. An order is an order.” - “Then I will do it myself, but between us.”
I unloaded the tents and ordered the head of the garrison in Shepetovka to send 30 vehicles for ammunition. Commissioner A.I. Kushchevsky asks: “Yakov Ivanovich, but nothing will happen? Think about it, without an order.” Pom. nachart - the order was printed, the cars left in the evening of 06/19/41.
Semyon Petrovich Zybin (September 18, 1894 - August 5, 1941) - brigade commander, commander of the 37th Rifle Corps.
By the morning of June 22, 1941, the column entered the forest on the line Brody - Podkamen - the town of Ustinovo. Radiogram from the right column: “Unknown planes bombed Novopochaiev, Ustinovo is burning.” A special officer colonel is hovering nearby: “Repeat the request.”
Answer: “The regiment commander is wounded. NS. Do you understand? The hum of heavy aircraft, squadrons in the direction of Shepetivka, Kyiv.”
06.22.41. They dug in, but the cars had not yet arrived. The division lies in the trenches, with a battle ahead. By the evening of June 22, the cars arrived. Ammunition was issued. And the anti-aircraft division shot down the Rama.
How Zybin worried, realizing how much ammunition was needed. But he could not do anything, as he was shackled in prison. The will was nailed down. Then we met: I understood everything, but me...
He managed the corps well. He said to Prokhorov and me: “Comrade generals, our retreat should not just be a retreat, but a change: one division covers 1/3 of the corps. And the corps’ artillery should do the same.” Management is wonderful. I wrote to Zybin’s brother: “Your brother died honestly, in battle. At the edge of the Green Gate.”
In Green Gate - next to NP 141 SD, CP 37SK, CP16 MK, to the left of the road in the forest to Kopenkovatoe. To the right of the road, behind the forester's house - NP 80 SD. To the north in the forest, facing west - 139 SD. In the rear there are warehouses, rear areas, regimental hospitals. Artillery of two armies.
CP of the 6th and 12th armies - in Podvysokye until 5.08.41. August 5, 41, after 18.00, meeting of the Military Councils. What to do? In the evening, destroy the materiel, and at dawn - for a breakthrough.
Behind me is KP 16 MK Sokolov, calculations. Commanders with pistols and machine guns, 120 mm mortars, but there were no shells, even before the Green Gate. Tragedy, tragedy of the dead, relatives and friends...
Having returned with Kushchevsky from the Military Council on August 5, he wrote an order to destroy the materiel. We're driving in the car, we got out. Artillerymen clean the guns of the GAP 141 SD. Artillery of one battery in wheat, harvest. Come over.
I ask the battery commander: “Why are you cleaning it? Did you receive the order? There are no shells.” The battalion commander could not say, but the commander of the gun: “Comrade General! When a person dies, they wash him. So we decided to wash them before they die.”
Dolmatovsky did not write about this in Roman-Gazeta. Dolmatovsky did not show the soul of the soldier and the commanders - how worried they were that they were facing the death of their equipment and their own... It is difficult to read daub, sycophancy when you know him. Snow...
Mikhail Georgievich Snegov (November 12, 1896 - April 25, 1960) - Major General (1940), participant in the First World War, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. In 1941 he was captured by the Germans, after the war he returned to the USSR and continued his service.
We are sitting in a barracks in Zamość. German officers and a general and his wife came to look at the Russian generals. They come to us, we prepared lunch - pulp, dumped it on the table. The retinue and the deputy commandant enter, speaking Russian.
The pulp was put back into the pot. Snegov commands: stand up! Out of habit or stupidity, or something else forced him. I threw a pot of pulp at him. In Khristinovka, the battle is ongoing, there are no shells. Order from the 6th Army Command: Uman base. We arrived, there were a lot of shells, but the caliber was wrong...
Efim Sergeevich Zybin (1894-1946) - Major General (1940), participant in the First World War, Civil War and Great Patriotic War. In 1941 he was captured by the Germans, after the war he was arrested in the USSR and executed.
Kyiv. 2.04.1983. (Saturday).
About Zybin - he understood me, did not judge me, and was worried that there was no ammunition. “Follow the order, general”...About Snegov - Abramidze said everything about him that he considered necessary about him. He didn't walk with a rifle at the ready...
Muzychenko with M. in the T-34 tank at 10.00. 08/06/41 rushed south past the positions of our troops in the Emilovo region, shooting continuously. The tank was hit and Muzychenko was captured. The driver blew himself up and the tank.
Ponedelin is a victim. Tyulenev acted unworthily, giving Headquarters information about Ponedelin’s slowness and indecisiveness in leaving the encirclement to the East.
While the 6th and 12th armies carried out Tyulenev’s order to act in the North-East, to hold the Khristinovka - Potash - Zvenigorodka front, the 18th army exposed the left flank of the 6th army, quickly leaving through Golovanevsk to Pervomaisk, facilitating the 49th mu GSK Germans coverage from the south of the group of 6 and 12 armies. Ponedelin was shot in 1950. Tyulenev saved the Southern Front and the 18th Army, and 40 thousand of the 6th and 12th armies died through his fault.
Ivan Nikolaevich Muzychenko (1901 - December 8, 1970) - Lieutenant General (1940). In the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, commander of the 6th Army. One of Soviet generals who were captured by the Germans.
Paavel Grigoryevich Ponedeelin (1893 - 1950) - Soviet military leader, commander of the 12th Army, major general (1940). One of the Soviet generals captured by the Germans. Upon returning to the USSR, he was shot on August 25, 1950. Rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.
Ivan Vladimirovich Tyulenev (1892 - 1978) - army general, full holder of the St. George Cross of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th classes, Hero of the Soviet Union.
The 80th SD was entrusted on August 2 with the task of establishing contact with 18A, reaching the right bank of the Yatran. Prokhorov went out and broke through to the right, along Yatran. I met Prokhorov in Proskurov, at a meeting, after returning from Finnish war. Tall, strong, sharp. Good, smart commander
Brigade commander Prokhorov received the 80th SD on the Karelian Isthmus. His predecessor, brigade commander Monakhov, was removed - for the unorganized movement of the division to the front, about 800 people were “lost” and ended up in other units.
None of the generals were in Uman, in the Uman pit. We met in captivity in Hammelburg, V.I. Prokhorov. I was with the first group of generals: Egorov, S.A. Tkachenko. They introduced me to the underground.
In Flossenburg, Prokhorov hit the capo and killed him. The guards went and beat him to a pulp. Then, exhausted, he was sent to Revere, where he was treated lethal injection. From there they were sent to the crematorium. Autumn 1943 (Early 1944). General Mikhailov N.F. witness to the death of General Prokhorov V.I. Lieutenant Colonel Porodenko, NSh 10 TD 16 MK Sokolov, came to the Union together with Tonkonogov. "Stone bag" (Lefortovo).
Vasily Ivanovich Prokhorov (1900-1943) - Major General, commander of the 80th Red Banner Donetsk Rifle Division.
12/17/83. Kyiv.
In Hammelburg, in the “Oflag XSh-D” there were: generals Nikitin I.S., Alakhverdov Kh.S., Panasenko N.F., later generals Karbyshev D.F., Tkachenko S.A., Thor G.I.
On January 26, 1943, active participants of the Hammelburg underground were transferred from the Nuremberg Gestapo prison to Flossenburg: General Mikhailov N.F., Fisenko G.I., Panasenko N.F., Eruste R.R., Nikolaev B.I., Kopelets B.I. ., Kikot G.I., later generals Pavlov P.P., and Mitrofanov N.I. General Mikhailov N.F. saw the death of General Prokhorov V.I.
113 thousand prisoners passed through the penal convict concentration camp Flossenburg. “From 1941 to 1945, over 80 thousand prisoners died from torture and were burned. Among the victims of the camp were about 27,000 Soviet prisoners of war, only 102 people remained.” On April 23, 1945, the camp column, escorted by the Germans to Dachau, was liberated by the Americans.
After the end of the war, for many German prisoners of war and their allies, their stay in Soviet and Anglo-American captivity lasted for 10-15 years.
About 4.2 million Wehrmacht soldiers were captured by the Soviets, and 2 million people died in captivity. Almost 5 million prisoners of war ended up in Anglo-American camps and more than 1.5 million people died.
German troops captured 80 Soviet generals and brigade commanders, of whom 23 died. All 37 Red Army generals who returned from captivity fell into the hands of state security agencies, 11 of them were convicted as traitors to the motherland.
There were 5 times more Wehrmacht generals captured than Soviet ones, many were captured after the German surrender or were captured in the following months.
Official NKVD statistics - 376 German prisoners of war generals and 12 Austrian ones) were declassified and published quite recently. However, these data need to be verified and clarified due to the peculiarities of the registration of prisoners of war carried out by the NKVD Directorate.
Many were executed or imprisoned in NKGB-MGB prisons. Traces of some of them are lost.
A number of generals captured by Soviet troops were transferred for trials to the communist governments of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, some were transferred by the Anglo-Americans, 2 generals came from Yugoslavia.
The information published in this directory, identified on the basis of archival data, includes information about 403 generals (including 3 field marshals and 8 admirals) of the Wehrmacht and persons equivalent to them. Among them are 389 Germans, 1 Croatian, 13 Austrians. 105 people died in captivity, 24 of them were executed, 268 generals were sent to long terms of hard labor or imprisonment, 11 people were transferred to Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and executed. The fate of 9 people still needs clarification; 278 generals were released mainly in 1953-1956.
The operational bodies of the NKVD were preparing open demonstration trials. They took place in Mariupol and Krakow, 81 of the 126 generals were sentenced to death penalty and most of them were publicly executed.
The trials were organized, first of all, as political actions, the candidacies of the accused and the penalties were agreed upon at the level of Stalin and Molotov, and a confession obtained after appropriate processing of the defendant was considered evidence of guilt. However, the political response from the public trials was not clear. Fear of the death penalty could deter German soldiers from surrendering. Apparently that is why the show trials were stopped for some time. Mass executions of German prisoners of war officers and generals began much later, mainly after the end of the war.
Millions of prisoners of war from European and Asian countries, among whom were representatives of the highest military circles, scientists, diplomats and even members of the imperial dynasty, princes and other influential persons in their countries, were of significant political and military interest to the Soviet leadership.
In November 1945, the Operations Department began work on conducting open trials of German army servicemen in December 1945 - January 1946 in 7 cities: Smolensk, Leningrad, Nikolaev, Minsk, Kyiv, Riga and Veli kih Lukah. During the trials, 84 Wehrmacht soldiers, 18 of them generals, were sentenced to death and publicly hanged.
The reaction of prisoners of war to such trials was unambiguous. Thus, Major General Helmut Eisenstuck said: “I have given up on my life. If in Smolensk they are trying ordinary soldiers who only followed orders, then the generals will probably find enough material to try them.” He was right; the vast majority of German generals were convicted in the following years.
At the end of 1947, 9 open trials were held in Bobruisk, Stalin, Sevastopol, Chernigov, Poltava, Vitebsk, Chisinau, Novgorod and Gomel. 143 people were put on trial, of which 23 were generals, 138 were convicted. More than 3 thousand German, Hungarian and Romanian prisoners of war were transferred to closed trials, usually in group trials.
All these numerous trials caused shock among a large part of the prisoners of war, since army generals and officers, ordinary soldiers who had been in captivity for several years were brought to trial. Many of them believed that the military personnel, even generals, were following orders and should not be judged for this. The processes continued in 1948, but less actively. In particular, a number of cases were organized on charges of sabotage and sabotage in production.
More than 30 thousand German prisoners of war and internees alone were convicted, mostly in the post-war years.
Many prisoners of war, especially generals and officers, expressed dissatisfaction with the way the issue of Germany's borders, reparations, and dismemberment of the country was resolved; delay in repatriation, the policy of the Soviet Union in Europe. This played a decisive role in their future fate. The vast majority of generals were sentenced to long terms during the 1947-1950s.
Of the 357 generals of the German army registered by the NKVD in August 1948, only 7 were repatriated (former members of the National Committee of Free Germany and the Union of German Officers), 68 had been convicted by this time, 5 people were transferred to Poland and Czechoslovakia, 26 died. In 1949, the Ministry of Internal Affairs proposed to repatriate 76 generals, adding to the 23 loyalists the elderly and retired who were arrested in the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany after the war. As a result of long showdowns and discussions, several generals died, several were put under investigation, but 45 were still repatriated. At that time whole line the generals were sent to prison for investigation, which made a depressing impression on those remaining. For example, Lieutenant General Bernhard Medem said, as the agent immediately reported: “It’s just terrible that there is no end to the processes... This is the sword of Damocles that hangs over all the generals.”
In December 1949, in connection with the decision on the issue of repatriation of prisoners of war generals, Deputy Minister I. Serov and A. Kobulov proposed completing the investigation of 116 generals by April 1, 1950, detaining 60 generals in captivity, including General Seidlitz - former president Union of German Officers.
After the publication of the TASS report on the completion of the repatriation of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union, not only those convicted remained in the camps, as was stated, but also a significant number of persons on whom the operational authorities simply had some kind of incriminating evidence, since despite the record number of trials carried out in the previous period, not all cases were completed by the spring of 1950. Interdepartmental commissions and military tribunals continued to work.
In the summer of 1950, 118 generals of the German army and 21 generals of the Japanese army were brought to justice 45.
In 1951-1952 after the minister was removed from office and arrested state security Abakumov's prisoners were put on trial long time in MGB prisons without trial or investigation were Field Marshals Kleist and Scherner, German military diplomats and intelligence officers, several generals, witnesses to Hitler's death, and other persons.
In 1950-1952 a series of repeated trials of German prisoners of war took place, tightening the punishment; during these years the death penalty, abolished in 1947, began to be used again. Thus, in 1952, Major General Helmut Becker, who had already been sentenced to 25 years in 1947, was retried; This time sentenced to capital punishment, in 1953 Major General Hayo Herman, previously sentenced to 10 years in the labor camp, was re-sentenced to 25 years. In total, 14 German generals were convicted in 1951-1953.
In October 1955, after the visit of Chancellor K. Adenauer to Soviet Union and his negotiations with Khrushchev and Bulganin, who then held the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Germany, more than 14 thousand German prisoners of war were repatriated. In 1956, German generals Helmut Nikkelman, Werner Schmidt-Hammer, Otto Rauser, Kurt von Lützow, Paul Klatt and others were released.
The history of the stay of prisoners of war in the NKVD-MVD camps has not yet been sufficiently studied. Many documents characterizing the policy of the CPSU towards prisoners of war and the working methods of operational agencies still remain inaccessible to researchers.
It is believed that of the 83 generals of the Red Army who were captured by the Nazis, the fate of only one remains unknown - divisional commissar Seraphim Nikolaev. In fact, it turns out that there is no reliable information about at least 10 more captured senior commanders. German historians write one thing about them, ours write another, and the data differ radically. But what is the data, they still haven’t accurately counted how many of them there were, captured generals - either 83 people, or 72?
Official data says that 26 Soviet generals died in German captivity - some died of illness, some were killed by guards in a rash act, others were shot. Seven who betrayed the oath were hanged in the so-called Vlasov case. Another 17 people were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions.” At least with them everything is more or less clear. What about the others? What happened to the others?
Who collaborated with the Germans - General Mishutin or his double?
Perhaps the fate of Major General Pavel Semyonovich Mishutin, the hero of the battles for Khalkhin Gol, causes the most controversy among historians. The Great Patriotic War found him in Belarus - Mishutin commanded a rifle division. One day the general disappeared without a trace, along with several officers. It was believed that they died, but in 1954 the Americans provided information that Mishutin occupied a high position in one of the Western intelligence services and allegedly worked in Frankfurt.
German historians have a version that Mishutin collaborated with Vlasov, and after the war he was recruited by the commander of the American 7th Army, General Patch. But Soviet historians put forward a different version of the fate of General Mishutin: he really was captured and died. A.
The idea of a double came to the mind of General Ernst-August Köstring, who was responsible for the formation of “native” military units. He was amazed external resemblance Soviet general and his subordinate, Colonel Paul Malgren. At first, Koestring tried to persuade Mishutin to go over to the side of the Germans, but, making sure that our general did not intend to trade his homeland, he tried to resort to blackmail. Having ordered Malgren to be made up, he showed him to Mishutin in the uniform of a Soviet general without insignia and shoulder straps (this episode is given in the Soviet collection of memoirs “The Chekists Tell,” published in 1976). By the way, Malgren spoke Russian well, so it was quite easy to carry out the forgery.
There is also no clarity on the fate of the commander of the Ural Military District, Lieutenant General Philip Ershakov. At the beginning of the war, the district was transformed into the 22nd Army and sent into the thick of it, to the Western Front.
In August 1941, Ershakov’s army was virtually defeated near Smolensk, but the general survived. And, strangely enough, he was not court-martialed, but was entrusted with command of the 20th Army. A month later, the Germans smashed this army to smithereens near Vyazma - and again Ershakov survived. And here further fate General raises many questions. Soviet historians defend the version that Ershakov died in the Hammelburg concentration camp less than a year after his capture, citing the camp memory book. But there is no evidence that it was General Ershakov who was held in Hammelburg.
Two generals: such similar fates and such different endings
If there is no clarity at all about the fates of Mishutin and Ershakov, then the biographies of army commanders Ponedelin and Potapov are more or less known. And yet, there are still a lot of secrets and unsolved mysteries in these biographies. During the war, five of our army commanders were captured - among them were Ponedelin and Potapov. By order of Headquarters No. 270 of August 16, 1941, Pavel Ponedelin was declared a malicious deserter and sentenced to death in absentia.
It is known that until the end of April 1945, the general was kept in a German concentration camp. And then things get weird. The camp where the general was kept was liberated by American troops. Ponedelin was offered to serve in the US Army, but he refused, and on May 3 he was handed over to the Soviet side. It would seem that the sentence has not been overturned; Ponedelin should be shot. Instead, the general is released and goes to Moscow. For six months, the general cheerfully “washes” his victory and his unexpected liberation in the capital’s restaurants. Nobody even thinks of detaining him and carrying out the current sentence.
Ponedelin is arrested just before new year holidays, December 30, 1945. He spends four and a half years in Lefortovo, to put it mildly, in gentle conditions (there is information that food was brought to the general from the restaurant). And on August 25, 1950, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced the general to capital punishment, and he was shot that same day. Strange, isn't it?
The fate of Major General of the Tank Forces Mikhail Potapov looks no less strange. The commander of the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front was captured in the fall of 1941 under circumstances similar to the capture of Ponedelin. Just like Ponedelin, Potapov stayed in German camps until April 1945. And then - a completely different fate. If Ponedelin is released on all four sides, then Potapov is taken under arrest to Moscow, to Stalin.
And - lo and behold! – Stalin gives the order to reinstate the general in service. Moreover, Potapov was awarded another title, and in 1947 he graduated higher courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff. Potapov rose to the rank of Colonel General - career growth Even his personal meeting with Hitler and rumors that the red commander, while in captivity, allegedly “consulted” the German command, did not interfere.
The traitor to the Motherland turned out to be a scout carrying out a combat mission
The fates of some captured generals are so exciting that they could become scenarios for action adventure films. The commander of the 36th Rifle Corps, Major General Pavel Sysoev, was captured near Zhitomir in the summer of 1941 while trying to escape the encirclement. The general escaped from captivity, acquired the uniform and documents of a private, but he was caught again, although they never recognized him as a military leader. After running around concentration camps, in August 1943, the general escaped again, assembled a partisan detachment and beat the Nazis. Less than a year later, the partisan hero was summoned to Moscow, where he was arrested - Sysoev spent six months behind bars. After the war, the general was reinstated in the service and, having completed the highest academic courses at the General Staff, retired and began teaching.
Chief of Staff of the 6th Rifle Corps of the Kyiv Special Military District Boris Richter was a career officer tsarist army, a nobleman who voluntarily went over to the side of the Red Army. Richter not only successfully survived various personnel purges, but also received the rank of major general in 1940. And then - war and captivity.
IN Soviet time official version later life General Richter said: in 1942, under the name Rudayev, he headed the Abwehr reconnaissance and sabotage school in Warsaw, and on this basis, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death in absentia.
In August 1945, he was allegedly detained and shot, but... it turned out that Richter was not shot at all, but disappeared without a trace in last days war. Archival data declassified several years ago indicate that Major General Boris Richter carried out a Soviet intelligence mission in the German rear, and after the war he continued to fulfill his duty to the Motherland, being in the close circle of the German General Gehlen, the founding father of the West German intelligence services.
Friedrich Paulus
Field Marshal General, commander of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht.
Captured near Stalingrad on January 31, 1943 .
Sixtus von Arnom
Lieutenant General, commander of the 113th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured near Stalingrad.
Constantin Britescu
Brigadier General, commander of the Romanian 1st Cavalry Division. Captured near Stalingrad.
Hans Hans Wultz
Major General, Chief of Artillery of the 4th Artillery Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 30, 1943.
Walter Geitz
Colonel General, commander of the 8th Army Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. One of the most loyal officers to the Reich. Captured near Stalingrad. Died in captivity in 1944.
Alexander Maximilian von Daniels
Lieutenant General, commander of the 376th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured in Stalingrad on January 29, 1943. Vice-chairman of the Union of German Officers, created from prisoners of war in September 1943.
Heinrich Anton Debois
Lieutenant General, commander of the 44th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 28, 1943.
Romulus Dimitriou
Brigadier General of the Romanian Army, commander of the 20th Infantry Division.
Captured near Stalingrad.
Moritz von Drebwehr
Major General, commander of the 297th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht.
Captured near Stalingrad.
Heinrich Dusseldorf
Oberefreytor, clerk of the headquarters of the 6th field army of the Wehrmacht. Served as a translator. Died in 2001.
Walter Alexander von Seydlitz-Kurzbach
General of Artillery, commander of the 51st Army Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 31, 1943. He was one of the supporters of an unauthorized breakout from encirclement. Chairman of the Union of German Officers.
Otto von Corfes
Lieutenant General, commander of the 295th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 31, 1943.
Martin Wilhelm Lattman
Lieutenant General, commander of the 389th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured in Stalingrad on February 1, 1943.
Hans Georg Leiser
Lieutenant General, commander of the 29th Motorized Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 31, 1943.
Arno Richard von Lenski
Major General, commander of the 24th Panzer Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943.
Erich Albert Magnus
Major General, commander of the 389th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on February 1, 1943.
Max Karl Pfeffer
Lieutenant General of Artillery, commander of the 4th Army Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured near Stalingrad.
Otto-Carl Wilhelm Repoldi
Brigadier general of the medical service, head of the sanitary service of the 6th field army of the Wehrmacht. Captured at Stalingrad on January 28, 1943.
Karl Rodenburg
Lieutenant General, commander of the 76th Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured near Stalingrad.
Fritz Georg Roske
Major General, commander of the 71st Infantry Division of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht, commander of the southern group of German troops in Stalingrad. Captured on January 31, 1943.
Ulrich Fasel
Major General, Chief of Artillery of the 51st Army Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht.
Werner Schlömmer
Lieutenant General, commander of the 14th Tank Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. Captured near Stalingrad.
Arthur Schmidt
Lieutenant General, Chief of Staff of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht. One of the most loyal officers to the Reich. Sentenced to 25 years in prison, in October 1955 he returned to Hamburg, where he lived in recent years.
Karl Strecker
Colonel General, commander of the 11th Army Corps of the 6th Field Army of the Wehrmacht, commander of the northern group of German forces in Stalingrad. Captured in the Stalingrad area on February 2, 1943.
In General's destinies during the Second World War.
During military operations, for one reason or another, military personnel are sometimes captured, so according to archival data from Germany, during all the years of World War II, a total of almost 35 million people were captured; according to researchers, officers from this total number of prisoners amounted to about 3%, and the number of captured military officers with the rank of generals was less, just a few hundred people. However, it is precisely this category of prisoners of war that has always been of particular interest to the intelligence services and various political structures warring parties, therefore most of all experienced ideological pressure and other various forms of moral and psychological influence.
In connection with which the question involuntarily arises, which of the warring parties had greatest number captured senior military officials with the rank of generals, in the Red Army or in the German Wehrmacht?
From various data it is known that during the Second World War, 83 generals of the Red Army were captured in German captivity. Of these, 26 people died for various reasons: shot, killed by camp guards, or died from disease. The rest were deported to the Soviet Union after the Victory. Of these, 32 people were repressed (7 were hanged in the Vlasov case, 17 were shot on the basis of Headquarters order No. 270 of August 16, 1941 “On cases of cowardice and surrender and measures to suppress such actions”) and for “wrong” behavior in captivity 8 generals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The remaining 25 people were acquitted after more than six months of inspection, but then gradually transferred to the reserve (link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).
The vast majority of Soviet generals were captured in 1941, a total of 63 generals of the Red Army. In 1942, our army suffered a number of defeats. And here, surrounded by the enemy, 16 more generals were captured. In 1943, three more generals were captured and in 1945 - one. In total during the war - 83 people. Of these, 5 are army commanders, 19 corps commanders, 31 division commanders, 4 chiefs of army staff, 9 chiefs of army branches, etc.
In the book of modern researchers this issue F. Gushchin and S. Zhebrovsky claim that allegedly about 20 Soviet generals agreed to cooperate with the Nazis; according to other data, there were only 8 generals who agreed to cooperate with the Germans (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki) if this data correspond to reality, then of these 20 only two generals are known who voluntarily and openly went over to the side of the enemy, this is Vlasov and another of his fellow traitors, the former commander of the 102nd Infantry Division, brigade commander (Major General) Ivan Bessonov, this is the one who in April 1942 proposed to his German masters to create special anti-partisan corps, and that’s it, the names of the traitor generals are not specifically mentioned anywhere.
Thus, the majority of Soviet generals who fell into the hands of the Germans were either wounded or unconscious and subsequently behaved with dignity in captivity. The fate of many of them still remains unknown, just as the fate of Major General Bogdanov, commander of the 48th Rifle Division, Major General Dobrozerdov, who headed the 7th Rifle Corps, is still unknown, the fate of Lieutenant General Ershakov, who in September 1941 took command of the 20th Army, which was soon defeated in the battle of Smolensk.
Smolensk became a truly unlucky city for Soviet generals, where Lieutenant General Lukin commanded at the beginning the 20th Army, and then the 19th Army, which was also defeated there in the battle of Smolensk in October 1941.
The fate of Major General Mishutin is full of secrets and mysteries, an active participant in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he commanded an infantry division in Belarus, and there he disappeared without a trace during the fighting.
Only at the end of the 80s was an attempt made to pay tribute to generals Ponedelin and Kirillov, who flatly refused to cooperate with the Germans.
The fate of Major General Potapov of the tank forces was interesting; he was one of the five army commanders whom the Germans captured during the war. Potapov distinguished himself in the battles at Khalkhin Gol, where he commanded the Southern Group, and at the beginning of the war he commanded the 5th Army of the Southwestern Front. After his release from captivity, Potapov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and later promoted to the rank of Colonel General. Then, after the war, he was appointed to the post of first deputy commander of the Odessa and Carpathian military districts. His obituary was signed by all representatives of the high command, which included several marshals. The obituary said nothing about his capture and stay in German camps. So it turns out that not everyone was punished for being in captivity.
The last Soviet general (and one of two Air Force generals) captured by the Germans was Aviation Major General Polbin, commander of the 6th Guards Bomber Corps, which supported the activities of the 6th Army, which surrounded Breslau in February 1945. He was wounded, captured and killed, and only then did the Germans establish the identity of this man. His fate was completely typical of everyone who was captured in the last months of the war.(link: http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2004-04-30/5_fatum.html).
What about the captured German generals? How many of them ended up at Stalin's grubs under the protection of NKVD special forces? If, according to various sources, there were from 4.5 to 5.7 million Soviet soldiers and commanders captured by the Germans, and there were almost 4 million Germans and their allies captured in the USSR, a difference of a whole million in favor of the Germans, then For the generals, the picture was different; almost five times more German generals were captured by the Soviets than Soviet ones!
From the research of B.L. Khavkin it is known:
The first captured generals ended up in the GUPVI (Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR) in the winter of 1942-1943. These were 32 prisoners of Stalingrad led by the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal General Friedrich Paulus. In 1944, another 44 generals were captured. 1945 was especially successful for the Red Army, when 300 German generals were captured.
According to information contained in a certificate from the head of the prison department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Colonel P.S. Bulanov dated September 28, 1956, in total there were
376 German generals, of which 277 were released from captivity and repatriated to their homeland, 99 died. Among the dead, the official statistics of the GUPVI included those 18 generals who were sentenced to death by the Decree of April 19, 1943 and hanged as war criminals.
The number of captured generals and admirals included the highest ranks of the ground forces, the Luftwaffe, navy, SS, police, as well as government officials who received the rank of general for services to the Reich. Among the captured generals, most were representatives of the ground forces, as well as, oddly enough, retirees(link: http://forum.patriotcenter.ru/index.php?PHPSESSID=2blgn1ae4f0tb61r77l0rpgn07&topic=21261.0).
There is practically no information that any of the German generals were captured wounded, shell-shocked or with weapons in their hands, surrendered in a civilized manner, with all the attributes of the old Prussian military school. More often than not, Soviet generals burned alive in tanks, died on the battlefield and went missing.
Captured German generals were kept practically in resort conditions, for example in camp No. 48, founded in June 1943 in former house During the holiday of the Central Committee of the Railway Workers' Trade Union in the village of Cherntsy, Lezhnevsky district, Ivanovo region, in January 1947 there were 223 captured generals, of which 175 were Germans, 35 Hungarians, 8 Austrians, 3 Romanians, 2 Italians. This camp was located in a park in which linden trees grew, there were walking paths, and flowers bloomed in the flower beds in the summer. The zone also had a vegetable garden, occupying about 1 hectare of land, in which the generals worked at will, and vegetables from which were supplied to their table in addition to the existing food standards. Thus, the generals' nutrition was improved. The patients were given an additional ration, which included meat, milk and butter. However, there were also hunger strikes in the camp, the participants of which protested against poor service in the canteen, under-delivery of rationed food, blackouts, etc. There were no attempts to escape from captivity, or attempts to raise any kind of riot or uprising among the German generals.
A completely different picture was observed with the Soviet generals, 6 of them, risking their lives, escaped from the camp in order to continue to fight in the ranks of the partisans, these are Major Generals I. Alekseev, N. Goltsev, S. Ogurtsov, P. Sysoev, P. Tsiryulnikov and brigade commissar I. Tolkachev (link: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki). Another 15 Soviet generals were executed by the Nazis for preparing escapes and underground activities.
Much is known about the cooperation of German generals with the Soviet authorities; facts confirm that the generals collaborated with the Soviets very actively and willingly, for example, in February 1944, Generals Seidlitz and Korfes took a personal part in agitation work in German military units surrounded in the area Korsun-Shevchenkovsky. Seidlitz and Korfes even met with Army General Vatutin, with whom a plan of action was agreed upon. 500 thousand copies of Seidlitz’s appeal to the officer corps and soldiers of the encircled group with a call to stop resistance in order to avoid senseless casualties were printed and dropped from airplanes. The German general Seidlitz apparently dreamed of becoming the new liberator of Germany and even asked the Soviet leadership to give him permission to form German national units, but the Russians, like the Germans, did not trust defectors; captured Germans were allowed mainly to engage in propaganda work to disintegrate the enemy troops at the front and nothing more, and Vlasov received the Germans’ go-ahead to actually form ROA troops only in the fall of 1944. right before the start of the catastrophe of the Third Reich, when the Germans no longer had anyone to send to the front line.
Soon in the summer of 1944, immediately after the last attempt on Hitler's life, realizing that the Reich was coming to an end, almost all the generals led by Paulus rushed to cooperate with the Soviet administration. From that moment on, Paulus reconsidered his position in relation to the anti-fascist movement and on August 14 he entered to the Union of German Officers and makes an appeal to the German troops at the front, the appeal was broadcast on the radio, leaflets with its text were thrown into the location of the German troops, apparently this had an impact on many soldiers and officers. Goebbels’ department even had to launch a counter-propaganda campaign to prove that this appeal was a falsification.
War is a cruel test, it does not spare even generals and marshals. A general in the army is a very big power, and with it a very big responsibility. Every military leader has ups and downs, each has his own destiny. One becomes a national Hero forever, and the other disappears into oblivion.