Why a turning point in the Great Patriotic War became possible. The Great Patriotic War

Already at the end of 1941, the Soviet Army, by order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, launched a counteroffensive near Rostov, Tikhvin and Moscow. This was the first counter-offensive of the Soviet troops. As a result of the crushing blows inflicted on the Nazi troops, and the subsequent broad offensive of the Soviet Army, the plans for a "blitzkrieg" war of the Nazi command collapsed. Soviet soldiers dispelled the myth of the invincibility of the German army. The "winners" of Europe suffered their first heavy defeat. The Soviet Army marked the beginning of the defeat of the Nazi army. The inevitability of a protracted war became a real fact for Hitler's strategists.

Due to the postponement of the opening of the second front by the United States and England, heavy fighting for the Soviet country continued in the second year of the war - in the summer and autumn of 1942. However, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, with the support of the entire Soviet people, not only frustrated the enemy's plans, but, having exhausted the enemy with active defense, they themselves again went over to a decisive counteroffensive. This was the second powerful counter-offensive of the Soviet Army near Stalingrad, as a result of which in November 1942 the main strategic grouping of the Nazi troops was surrounded and subsequently destroyed, trying to reach the rear of Moscow through Stalingrad. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted several months, ended with the complete victory of the Soviet Army. This victory was the clearest proof of the superiority of Soviet military art over the bourgeois military art of Nazi Germany.

Such an outstanding fact as the encirclement and destruction of a huge 330,000-strong army of selected Nazi troops near Stalingrad clearly confirmed the correctness of the strategy of the Soviet command and the superiority of the flexible tactics of the Soviet troops over the tactics of the enemy.
After the disaster near Stalingrad, the enemy could no longer recover. The Soviet Army firmly took the strategic initiative into its own hands and did not release it until the end of the war.

In the difficult conditions of the winter of 1943, Soviet troops launched an offensive along a 1,500-kilometer front, drove the Nazi invaders from the territory they had captured in the summer of 1942, liberated a number of cities and districts that had been under the heel of the invaders for about a year and a half, and began a mass expulsion of the enemy from Soviet country.
In the summer of 1943, during active defense, Soviet troops repulsed the frenzied onslaught of the Nazi hordes near Kursk, exhausted and bled them, after which they went on the counteroffensive. This was the third counter-offensive of the Soviet Army, as a result of which the main enemy grouping was again defeated. In the broad offensive that followed, the Soviet Army drove the enemy out of Left-Bank Ukraine and the Donbass. By forcing the Dnieper unexpectedly for the enemy and capturing strategically important bridgeheads on its right bank, the Soviet troops thwarted the plans of the Nazi command to switch to a protracted positional war on the Dnieper.

1943 was the year of a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War, and thus the Second World War.
This turning point was achieved in the struggle that the Soviet Union waged against Nazi Germany one on one. The governments of the United States and England, which were slow to open a second front in Europe, actually helped Hitler in the war against the Soviet Union.

If 1943 was the year of a radical turning point, then 1944 went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War as the year of the decisive victories of the Soviet Army over the armed forces of fascist Germany and its satellites.
Having inflicted ten crushing blows on the enemy during this year, the Soviet troops defeated the entire front of the enemy armies from the Barents to the Black Sea; The Nazi troops were thrown back far to the west, and the entire territory of the Soviet Union was completely cleared of the Nazi invaders. Fascist Germany lost all her allies in Europe, who not only abandoned her, but also turned their weapons against her.
The fighting approached directly to the borders of Nazi Germany; in a number of areas, hostilities were transferred to the territory of Germany.

During the offensive operations of 1944 carried out by the Soviet Army, the fascist German armed forces operating on the Soviet-German front suffered irreparable losses.
The ever-increasing blows of the Soviet Army, testifying to the fact that she herself, without outside help, was able to defeat the Nazi troops and liberate the countries occupied by them, forced the Anglo-American command to launch an invasion of Western Europe. But, as the course of events showed, this was done not with the aim of defeating Nazi Germany as quickly as possible, but in order to preserve the reactionary regimes in the Western European countries.

The year 1945 was the year of the final blows of the Soviet Army, the year of the complete military defeat of the armed forces of Nazi Germany. In 1945, Soviet troops completely liberated Poland and Czechoslovakia, finally cleared the territory of Hungary from Nazi invaders, expelled the Nazis from Eastern Austria, forced them to clear Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia. In a series of offensive operations brilliant in concept and skill, unprecedented in the breadth of their offensive operations, the Soviet Armed Forces utterly defeated all the main strategic groupings of the Nazi troops and, having captured Berlin, forced Nazi Germany to capitulate.

After the defeat of fascist Germany, the Soviet Army began to liquidate the Japanese aggressor. Soviet troops in an unprecedentedly short time, within a month, defeated and forced the surrender of the most powerful - the Kwantung grouping of the Japanese, liberated all of Manchuria, North Korea, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Seeing the complete hopelessness of the further conduct of the war, Japan unconditionally capitulated on September 2, 1945.
With the liquidation of both centers of world fascism and imperialist aggression - Hitler's Germany in the west and Japan in the east - the Soviet Army put an end to the Second World War.

The Great Patriotic War was the greatest test for our multinational Soviet state.
It was also a comprehensive test of the correctness of the policies of the Communist Party. But in the course of the war the Soviet Union did not weaken, but under the leadership of our Party it became even more tempered and strengthened as a socialist state.

In the second half of 1942, with the completion of the transfer of the economy to a war footing, it became possible to create certain command reserves. In the autumn of 1942, the Headquarters developed counteroffensive plan, which was supposed to be carried out by the forces of the Stalingrad, Don and South-Western fronts with the support of aviation, tanks and artillery. Its result was to be the encirclement and destruction of the entire group of fascist troops, fortified in the region of Stalingrad.

On November 19-20, after a strong artillery preparation, the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops began, which by November 23 ended with the encirclement of 22 fascist divisions numbering 330 thousand people. An attempt by the German command in December to break the encirclement by a joint attack by a group of troops under the command of Manstein and the encircled army Field Marshal Paulus ended with the defeat of Manstein's troops. Paulus's armies did not accept Soviet offers of surrender. At the end of January 1943, the operation to eliminate the encircled troops was completed, and their remnants (91 thousand soldiers, officers, generals) and Paulus himself surrendered. On February 2, 1943, the historic battle on the Volga ended victoriously.

It was an unprecedented defeat of the Nazis, who lost a huge army and powerful military equipment. Battle of Stalingrad showed the increased combat power of the Red Army and its military equipment, the talent of Soviet commanders N. N. Voronov, N. F. Vatutin, A. I. Eremenko, R. Ya. Malinovsky, K. K. Rokossovsky, V. I. Chuikov and others

The victory turned out to be possible as a result of the heroic, selfless labor of the Soviet rear, which managed to reorganize its work and provide the front with everything necessary for victory.

The historical significance of the Battle of Stalingrad lies in the fact that it marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War and the entire Second World War. The defeat of the German armies on the Volga forced their closest allies - Turkey and Japan - to refuse to enter the war against the USSR.

Simultaneously with the Stalingrad operation, Soviet troops launched an offensive on the Leningrad, Volkhov, Central and Western fronts, in the region of the North Caucasus, the Don, Voronezh. In the winter of 1942/43, in some sectors of the front, the enemy was driven back up to 700 km, many cities and towns in the Moscow region, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov and other regions were liberated, economic links were restored between the central and southern industrial regions, and the blockade of Leningrad was broken.

Trying to take revenge for the defeat on the Volga and raise the sharply shaken prestige of Germany, the fascist command developed a plan for the summer offensive of 1943. Its goal was to level the front line by defeating parts of the Voronezh and Central Fronts and further offensive inland and capture Moscow. The Germans chose the Kursk ledge as the main springboard for hostilities, wedged into the location of the fascist troops between Belgorod - Kursk - Orel along the Prokhorovka - Sumy - Rylsk - Sevsk - Popyri line. The strike was supposed to be delivered between Belgorod and Orel in the direction of Kursk.

The absence of a second front, which the Allies did not open even in 1943, gave the Nazis the opportunity, at the expense of the armies transferred from the West, to concentrate 232 divisions in the Eastern direction, that is, more than before the start of the war. More than 50 divisions were concentrated in the Kursk area, supported by powerful tanks of the "Tiger", "Panther" type and armored self-propelled guns "Ferdinand", which were supposed to make a breakthrough with the power of armor and fire. The Soviet command decided to organize a defense in depth, wear down the main enemy forces and then go on a counteroffensive. On July 5, 1943, the enemy's summer offensive began, which was successfully repelled. On July 12, the troops of the Western and Bryansk fronts launched a counteroffensive. The scale of this battle is evidenced by the fact that up to 1500 tanks fought in some areas, not counting other equipment. On August 5, Orel and Belgorod were liberated, on August 23 - Kharkov. August 30 - Taganrog. In August - September, fascist groups were defeated near Smolensk, Novorossiysk, in the Donbass. In the battles near Novorossiysk, especially on Malaya Zemlya, and then for the liberation of Kerch, the 18th airborne army fought, the head of the political department of which was L. I. Brezhnev, who went through the entire war in the ranks of the army in the field. At the end of September began crossing the Dnieper where the Germans created "impregnable great eastern rampart", which included a number of powerful engineering structures, which, however, could not withstand the rapid breakthrough of our troops. The troops of the Central, Voronezh, Steppe, South-Eastern and Southern Fronts successfully conducted offensive operations, clearing the left-bank Ukraine. On November 6, 1943, Kyiv was liberated. A big role in the success of the summer-autumn offensive of our troops was played by partisan detachments and the assistance of the population of the temporarily occupied regions.

Battle of Kursk- one of the most important stages on the way to the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany. As a result of the victory of the Soviet troops near Kursk, a radical turning point took place in the course of only the Patriotic War and the entire World War, which manifested itself in a change in the balance of forces in favor of the USSR, as a result of the heroic activity of the Soviet Army, the labor achievements of the rear, the feat of the entire Soviet people. A radical change occurred both in the work of the Soviet rear and in the course of hostilities. The country's industry ensured the complete superiority of the Soviet Army in military equipment, weapons, equipment, and ammunition. The Battle of Kursk demonstrated the complete advantage of the Soviet Army and its equipment, showing that a radical turning point had occurred in the war, as a result of which the German army was deprived of the opportunity to attack. After the Battle of Kursk, the Soviet Army continued its strategic offensive along the entire front, liberating two-thirds of the territory previously captured by the enemy. The expulsion of the occupiers from the borders of our Motherland began. The significance of this period is associated with the growth of the international prestige of the Soviet state, with the change in the position of Germany's allies, and the further disintegration of the fascist bloc.

At the end of October 1943, a conference of foreign ministers of the USSR, USA and Great Britain, who discussed issues related to the further strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition and post-war security measures. The Allies agreed on the need for an international body to maintain peace after the war - the United Nations. From November 28 to December 4, 1943 took place conference heads of governments of the USSR, USA and Great Britain in Tehran where an agreement was reached on the final defeat of Nazi Germany. On May 1, 1944, it was decided to open a second front by landing troops in France across the English Channel. The heads of government signed a declaration punishing war criminals for their atrocities.

After the defeats at the first stage of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet army was able to rehabilitate itself. A number of successful operations marked the beginning of a new period, called the "fundamental change." We will expand this concept in our article.

The beginning of an important milestone

The beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War is considered the Stalingrad offensive operation, called "Uranus" (11/19/1942-02/02/1943).

From July to November 1942, the enemy went on the offensive, planning to capture the isthmus between the Don and the Volga, the bend of the Don, Stalingrad. Soviet troops fought defensive battles, and in November-January they were able to surround the invaders. After long battles, at the cost of heavy human losses, the Russians forced the Nazis to capitulate. This defeat for Germany meant the failure of plans to further advance in this direction to the Caucasus in order to seize oil fields.

Rice. 1. Battle of Stalingrad.

At the same time, the Second Rzhev-Sychevskaya operation began (November-December 1942) to defeat the Germans, who had fortified themselves on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge. It was not advantageous for the Soviet troops, but it made it possible to wear down the enemy and prevent the German units from coming to the aid of the army encircled near Stalingrad.

The main events

In January-February 1943, the North Caucasian offensive operation was carried out, as a result of which the North Caucasus was liberated, the German troops were defeated.

What have we learned?

The radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War was the period from November 1942 to December 1943. At this stage, the Soviet troops successfully carried out strategic operations that changed the results of the confrontation with the fascist invaders in favor of the Soviet Union and actually decided the further outcome of the war.

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The period of a radical change (Radical change) is a radical change in forces during the Great Patriotic War, characterized by the transition of the initiative into the hands of the USSR and the Soviet army, as well as a sharp increase in the military-economic situation of the Soviet Union.

In the first period of the Great Patriotic War, the initiative belonged entirely to Hitler and Nazi Germany. Several factors contributed to this at once: firstly, Germany had a huge military and industrial power, thanks to which its army was more numerous and its military equipment more modern; secondly, the surprise factor greatly contributed to Hitler's success - although the attack on the USSR was not completely unexpected for the Soviet command, it nevertheless caught the Soviet army by surprise, because of which it could not carefully prepare and put up a worthy rebuff even on its own territories. Already in the first two years of the war, Hitler and the allies managed to capture Ukraine, Belarus, blockade Leningrad and come close to Moscow. The Soviet army during this period suffered one defeat after another.

However, Hitler's superiority could not last long, and the great battle of Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War.

The strategic initiative passed from Germany to the USSR. The Germans lost their superiority in the war, the Red Army launched a counteroffensive, and Germany turned from an attacker into a defender, gradually retreating back to the borders;

The rise of the economy and the military industry, the entire industry of the USSR, on the orders of Stalin, was aimed at meeting the needs of the front. This made it possible to completely re-equip the Soviet army in a short time, giving it an advantage over the enemy;

Qualitative changes in the world arena were also achieved thanks to the counter-offensive of the Soviet Union that had begun.

The course of the radical fracture

In 1942, in the winter, the Soviet command made several attempts to seize the initiative and launch a counteroffensive, however, both the winter and spring offensives were unsuccessful - the Germans were still in full control of the situation, and the Soviet troops were losing more and more territories. In the same period, Germany received serious reinforcements, which only increased its power.

At the end of June 1942, the Germans began to advance in the south from Stalingrad, where protracted and very fierce battles for the city unfolded. Stalin, seeing the situation, issued the famous order "Not a step back", in which he said that the city should not be taken in any case. It was necessary to organize a defense, which the Soviet command did, transferring all its forces to Stalingrad. The battle for the city lasted several months, but the Germans failed to take Stalingrad, despite the huge losses on the part of the Soviet army.

A radical change began in the second period of the Battle of Stalingrad, along with Operation Uranus, according to which it was planned to unite several Soviet fronts and encircle the German army with their help, forcing it to capitulate, or simply destroy the enemy. The operation was led by Generals G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky. On November 23, the Germans were completely surrounded, and by February 2 they were destroyed. The Battle of Stalingrad ended with a triumphant victory for the Soviet Union.

From that moment on, the strategic initiative passed to the USSR, new weapons and uniforms began to actively enter the front, which in a short time ensured technical superiority. In the winter-spring of 1943, the USSR strengthened its position by recapturing Leningrad and launching an offensive in the Caucasus and the Don.

The final turning point occurred along with the Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23, 1943). At the beginning of the year, the Germans managed to achieve some success in the southern direction, so the command decided to launch an offensive operation on the Kursk salient in order to seize the initiative again. On July 12, a major tank battle took place, which ended in the complete defeat of the German army. The Soviet Union was able to recapture Belgorod, Orel and Kharkov, as well as inflict heavy losses on Hitler's army.

The Battle of Kursk was the last stage of a radical turning point. From that moment until the end of the war, the initiative never again passed into the hands of Germany. The Soviet Union was able not only to win back its own territories, but also to reach Berlin.

The results and significance of a radical change.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of the radical change for the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union was able to return its territories, free prisoners of war and forever seize the military initiative in its own hands, confidently destroying the enemy armies.

The transition of the initiative in the war to the USSR was also reflected in the course of the Second World War. After the defeat at Stalingrad in Germany, for the first time in the entire war, a three-day mourning was declared, which became a sign for the allied European troops, who were convinced that Hitler's hegemony could be overthrown, and he himself destroyed.

The proof that the turning point had taken place was the Tehran conference, which brought together in 1943 the heads of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. The conference discussed the opening of a second European front, and a strategy to fight Hitler.

In fact, the period of a radical change was the beginning of the fall of the Hitler Empire.

1. After the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, the strategic initiative in the war passed to the Red (Soviet) Army, which did not miss it until the very end of the war. 1943 - 1945 became the time of the liberation of the territory of the USSR and the complete defeat of the enemy on its territory. 1943 was not only the year of a radical turning point in the war, but also of significant changes in the essence and structure of the army itself.

- after the Battle of Stalingrad, it was decided to abandon the old name - the Red Army, which the army wore for exactly 25 years, in addition, the army ceased to be called Workers 'and Peasants';

- a new name was introduced - the Soviet army;

- the image of the army changed radically - the former military ranks invented by the Bolsheviks were liquidated, as well as the paraphernalia introduced by the Bolsheviks - insignia (stripes) on the sleeves and collar instead of shoulder straps, Budyonnovka hats, etc .;

- shoulder straps that were canceled after the revolution, classical military ranks and the generally accepted military uniform were restored;

- along with the image in 1943, the essence of the army also changed - it ceased to be regarded as a combat detachment of workers and peasants, different from the armies of the whole world, and turned into a nationwide modern army.

2. In March - June 1943, the reformed Soviet army developed the success of the Battle of Stalingrad and carried out a successful offensive to the west. As a result of the offensive in June 1943, the so-called Kursk Bulge was formed - a deep ledge of the liberated territories in the west, which wedged into the positions of the Nazi troops. The German command decided to use this strategic situation, which decided to surround the Kursk salient and turn the "Kursk Bulge" into a "Kursk cauldron" - to surround and defeat the advancing Soviet Army near Kursk. To achieve this goal, Hitler made an unprecedented decision - to pull the entire German army to Kursk and stake the fate of the entire war. However, Hitler did not take into account the fact that on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, British intelligence, which deciphered the top-secret German Enigma cipher system in 1943, handed over to the Soviet command a detailed plan of the Germans for conducting the battle - strategy, exact dates and times of military operations, names of commanders, plans troop movements. Based on this information, a Soviet battle plan was developed, which took into account the plans of the Germans, their strengths and weaknesses. Germany fought this battle, like all the other battles of 1943-1945. "blindly".

By the beginning of July 1943, the best forces of both the Soviet and German armies were drawn to Kursk - about 3 million people, 5 thousand tanks, 10 thousand guns from both sides. The Battle of Kursk lasted about 50 days - from July 5 to August 23, 1943:

- the battle began in a situation unfavorable for the Germans - knowing the exact date of the offensive and the location of the troops, an hour before the offensive, the Soviet army began the most powerful artillery preparation in the history of wars (German positions were fired from all types of guns, artillery, Katyusha rocket launchers, were subjected to heavy bombardment , as a result of which the actions of the Germans were disorganized from the very beginning);

- then the Soviet army gave the Germans the opportunity to launch an offensive, as a result of which many German units fell into the "traps" of the Soviet army, ran into previously prepared minefields, were counterattacked by Soviet troops;

- the most difficult were tank battles, only near the village of Prokhorovka there was a head-on collision of 1200 Soviet and German tanks;

- having exhausted the German army, the Soviet army launched a counteroffensive and cut the German army into two parts;

- at the same time, using British intelligence, the Soviet army destroyed the German headquarters and command posts - the German army lost control;

- at the same time, the partisans began a large-scale rail war (Operation Concert, etc.) - they blew up and derailed dozens of echelons with German military equipment and food, which bled the German army;

- at the end of August 1943, the exhausted German army was surrounded and defeated.

During the Battle of Kursk, the losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to more than half a million soldiers, 1600 tanks, 3700 aircraft, 5000 guns. The defeat at the Kursk Bulge was a disaster for Germany. Germany in the summer of 1943 found itself in the same situation as the USSR in 1941 - in the course of one battle, it lost the bulk of the army. Having lost the entire army at once, Germany went on the defensive, and the territory of most of the USSR was relatively quickly liberated by the Soviet army by the end of 1943.