Code name for the 1942 summer campaign. The plans of the Nazi military command

Formation of the anti-Hitler coalition

The rapprochement between England and the United States began in the period "Battles for England" when Churchill convincingly pleaded with Roosevelt to strengthen them with destroyers

March 11, 1941 The US Congress passed Lend-Lease Law which marked the rejection "politics of isolationism" .

lend-lease- a system for the transfer of US weapons, ammunition, strategic raw materials, food, and other allied countries in the anti-Hitler coalition on loan or on lease.

The first transaction was the transfer 50 obsolete American destroyers in exchange for the lease of British territories on the Atlantic coast North America. In the future, all US assistance to the allies will be carried out for gold or in exchange for the lease of territories.

After the German attack on the USSR, Lend-Lease began to spread to our country, due to which the country received assistance not only with weapons, but also with food, shoes, things, etc.

It would be wrong to belittle the importance of this assistance for our country, even though its volume compared to domestic production was only 4 % . But to attach decisive importance to it for the course of the war on the eastern front, as some Western historiographers do, is completely wrong.

Final design anti-Hitler coalition received after the US entered the war, and the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, during which the Soviet army regained its prestige lost during the Soviet-Finnish war.

January 1, 1942 26 states signed in Washington United Nations Declaration in which they pledged to use all their military and economic resources against the countries of the fascist bloc, and not to conclude a separate peace or truce with the enemy.

The Soviet side immediately began to insist at the opening of the "second front" in Europe, which would ease her position, but an attempt to land troops in Northern France in August 1942 failed, forcing the Allies to begin more thorough preparations for this operation.

Until then, the main theaters of war for our allies remained Africa, Asia and Pacific Ocean .

Meanwhile, major events 1942 deployed on the Soviet-German front, where, after failures con. 1941 - early. 1942 Hitler was preparing a new large-scale offensive.

a) Hitler's plans and Stalin's miscalculations

Planning offensive actions for summer 1942 , Although Hitler still had superiority in people and weapons, he no longer had the opportunity to conduct a simultaneous offensive in all strategic directions, as it was in 1941

Therefore, the main forces were concentrated in the army group "South" who were supposed to capture the industrial Donetsk basin , bread Kuban , oil-bearing regions in the Caucasus and master Stalingrad to cut off the oil-bearing for Moscow trade route along the Volga (plan "Blau" ).

Hitler spoke:

"If I don't get oil from Maikop and Grozny, then I'll have to end this war."

The capture of the Caucasus and Stalingrad, according to the Germans, was to finally change the course of the entire war, and not just the situation on the eastern front.

Ribbentrop said:

“When Russia's oil sources are exhausted, Russia will be brought to its knees. Then the English... bow down to save what's left of the tormented empire.
America is a big bluff…”

The capture of the Caucasus was also supposed to push Russia's historical rival in the region to enter the war - Turkey .

After the fulfillment of these tasks, which put the USSR in a critical situation, a new attack on Moscow and Leningrad was planned.

Meanwhile Stalin was sure that the Germans would repeat the attack on Moscow, and ordered the main forces to be concentrated in the Moscow direction.
Neither the reports of our intelligence about the planned German strike in the South-Eastern direction, nor the opinion of the members of the Stavka could convince him.

Zhukov wrote:

“JV Stalin assumed that the Nazis, without taking Moscow, would not abandon their main grouping to seize the Caucasus and the south of the country.
He said that such a move would lead the German forces to an excessive stretching of the front, which the high command would not do.

b) Order No. 227

In May 1942 German and allied Italian, Hungarian and Romanian troops began offensive on the Crimean front .

4th of July , after 250 day defense , the Soviet troops were forced to leave Sevastopol .

Further capture Rostov-on-Don led to the loss Donbass and opened the way to the Caucasus and Stalingrad .

Hitler had to decide which direction should become the main one and where to direct his main forces. But he turned out to be too self-confident and undertook to solve both problems at the same time.

Chief of the General Staff Halder bitterly wrote about this trait of Hitler's character:

"The underestimation of the enemy's capabilities, which has always been observed, gradually takes on grotesque forms and becomes dangerous."

The attack on Stalingrad was so successful that July 13 Hitler removed from this direction 4th Panzer Army and transferred it to the aid of the 1st Panzer Army in the Caucasus.
This was a mistake. The pressure on Stalingrad eased and Moscow managed to establish an organized defense there.

Realizing this, through 2 weeks Hitler returns the 4th Panzer Army to Stalingrad, but it was unable to radically change the situation, and the weakened Caucasian grouping failed to capture the oil-bearing regions of Grozny.

Hitler did not want to understand that the German army no longer had the strength to simultaneously lead two major operations, and he took out all his anger on the generals, replacing them at the most inopportune moment.
The commander of the troops in the Caucasian direction, Field Marshal, was removed Sheet and Chief of the General Staff Halder , sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was until the liberation by the Americans.

The German offensive led to an excessive stretching of the southern front.
Of particular concern to the German headquarters was Don flank , covered by the Hungarians, Italians and Romanians, who militarily have proven themselves not with better side. In the event of the collapse of this flank, the German Stalingrad group would not only be surrounded, but also cut off from the Caucasian group.

But Hitler did not want to listen to the arguments of his generals, who proposed to withdraw troops from Stalingrad. He brought more and more new divisions into battle, demanding to capture the city and cut the Volga transport artery vital for the USSR.

Meanwhile, the situation of the Soviet units was critical.
The loss of rich industrial and agricultural areas had a heavy impact on the supply of the army, the power of the German tank wedges tore apart our defenses, creating huge gaps.

The front was held only by the desperate resistance of ordinary soldiers, who had to meet German tanks with Molotov cocktails. Especially in these battles, the soldiers of the Marine Corps, nicknamed by the Germans, proved themselves "black death" .

Stalin needed to justify his own miscalculations, which led after the winter offensive to a new retreat, which he did July 28, 1942 v Order No. 227 , which went down in history under the name "Not one step back!" .

In it, Stalin characterized the catastrophic nature of the current situation, but he declared the main reasons for this to be the indiscipline, cowardice and alarmism of soldiers and officers:

“The population of our country, with love and respect for the Red Army, begins to become disillusioned with it, lose faith in the Red Army, and many of them curse the Red Army because it gives our people under the yoke of German oppressors, and itself flows away to the east ".

The order ordered to shoot anyone who voluntarily retreated or left their positions. In the rear of the Soviet units were placed punitive guard detachments who, without warning, opened fire on anyone they suspected of fleeing their positions.

This inhuman order did not stop the retreat, but many participants in the war believe that it largely made it possible to delay the advance of the enemy and prepare the defense of Stalingrad.

c) "Battle of Stalingrad"

August 23, 1942 , from the crossing of the Don by German tank units, began battle for Stalingrad . Massive raids on the city began, turning it into ruins.

After the Germans reached the Volga from the north and south of Stalingrad, the city itself becomes the main goal. In continuous battles for each quarter and the house passed the entire September and October .

Changed hands many times Mamaev kurgan , the fighters of the tractor factory repeatedly took up arms and cleared the factory territory of the Germans, after which they returned to the machines.

Heroic page in the annals of the battle of Stalingrad entered "Pavlov's House" , which during 59 days defended by a group of guards led by a sergeant Pavlov .

On the map of Paulus, this house was marked as a fortress.
During the storming of this house alone, the Germans lost as many soldiers as they lost during the capture of some large European cities, but they could not take it.

One of the direct participants in the Stalingrad battles, an officer of the Wehrmacht G.Weltz wrote in his notes:

“In the central sector, battles go on for days on end with the aim of breaking into the city from the west. But stubbornly, incredibly stubbornly, the resistance of the Stalingraders.
The battle is not even for the streets, not for the quarters. Every basement, every step is upheld. All day there is a battle for a single stairwell. Hand grenades fly from room to room. Now we seem to have captured this floor, it is firmly in our hands, but no, the enemy received reinforcements on the burning roofs, and close combat broke out again. Yes, Stalingrad is devouring German soldiers! Every meter is worth lives. More and more battalions are thrown into battle, and the very next day only a platoon remains of them.
Slowly, very slowly, the divisions move forward through the ruins and piles of rubble.

But the Soviet units also suffered huge losses.
According to average statistics, a person died every 20 seconds in Stalingrad, and the average life expectancy of a soldier was less than a day.

In November, ice bound the Volga, cutting off the defenders of the city from the right bank, and leaving them without ammunition and food. Of the 7 districts, the Germans captured 6 - only Kirovsky district remained ours.

The population remaining at the behest of Stalin (Stalin said that the army does not protect empty cities) found itself in a terrible situation.

Hiding in basements, wells, etc., being on the front line, they existed without any food, under constant fire.
Even in the "Pavlov's house", in addition to the soldiers, there were also civilians, and during the fighting even one girl was born.

When they talk about the torments of the besieged Leningraders, for some reason they forget that they received at least some grams of bread and lived in their homes, while the Stalingraders did not even have this for 6 months.

In November Hitler was already celebrating victory and in his speech he told the Germans:

“I wanted to reach the Volga at one specific point, at one specific city. By chance, this city bears the name of Stalin himself.
But I aspired there not for this reason. The city could be called quite differently. I went there because it is a very important point.
Through it, 30 million tons of cargo were transported, of which almost 9 million tons were oil. Wheat flocked there from Ukraine and Kuban to be sent to the north. Manganese ore was delivered there. There was a giant transshipment center. That's what I wanted to take, and - you know, we don't need much - we took it! Only a few very insignificant points remained unoccupied.

d) operation "Uranus"

And in this situation, the city survived, and the Stavka developed a counteroffensive plan "Uranus" .

Purpose of the plan: with the forces of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts, hit the flanks of the German Army Group South and, breaking through them, unite, surrounding the Stalingrad German group.

Operation started November 19 and already November 23 near 330 thousand the Germans were in a bag - the final stage of their destruction began.

Paulus did not dare to launch a breakthrough operation without Hitler's permission, while it was still possible.

Hitler demanded to resist to the last, promising help.
But all attempts by the Germans to organize the supply of their encircled troops by air were thwarted by our aviation and tankers of General Badanova who raided the rear of the enemy and destroyed a large airfield and over 300 German aircraft .

German attempts to break through to help the encircled were thwarted by Soviet attacks on the flank of the advancing German units.

January 8, 1943 Soviet command, in order to avoid unnecessary casualties, Paulus offered to surrender, but he refused.

January 10 Soviet units unleashed a flurry of artillery and aviation fire on the encircled Germans.

To strengthen Paulus' determination to continue resistance, Hitler awarded him rank of field marshal , but the surrounded parts no longer believed in the genius of Hitler and did not want to die for him.

February 2 the encircled units capitulated: surrendered 24 generals led by Paulus himself and about 113 thousand soldiers and officers .

e) the results and significance of the victory at Stalingrad

The effect of the destruction of German troops near Stalingrad was stunning - the Germans lost about 25 % his army in the east.

This victory of the USSR undermined the morale of the German soldiers (3-day mourning was declared in Germany), raised the prestige of the Soviet army and instilled hope for the conquered peoples.

In addition, there was a threat of encirclement of German troops in the Caucasus, which forced them to begin a retreat.

German historian Tippelskirch In his history of World War II, he admitted:

“Although, within the framework of the war as a whole, events in North Africa are given a more prominent place than Battle of Stalingrad However, the disaster at Stalingrad shocked the German army and the German people more, because it turned out to be more sensitive for them.
Something incomprehensible happened there ... - the death of an army surrounded by the enemy.

In an effort to build on the success of Stalingrad, the Red Army went on the offensive on all fronts.

During the winter of 1942-43. managed to finally remove the threat to Moscow, break the ring around Leningrad, linking the besieged city with the mainland, and liberate Kursk.

By the spring of 1943 active hostilities ceased.
By this time, the Soviet units had occupied convenient bridgeheads and built up enough forces for new offensive operations

The General Staff, headed by B.M. Shaposhnikov proposed to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for the summer campaign of 1942 a plan for deep defense, since the main combat units of the Red Army were around Moscow in the process of reorganization and replenishment. In addition, in the spring of 1942, near Leningrad, near the village of Lyuban, the 2nd Shock Soviet Army was defeated, and its commander, Lieutenant General A. Vlasov, surrendered. However, I. Stalin, despite these unfavourable conditions, insisted on conducting major offensive operations of the Red Army. In April 1942, in the Crimea in the Kerch region, as a result of the inept actions of the front commander D.T. Kozlov and member of the Military Council of the Front L.Z. Mehlis, the offensive of our troops ended in defeat: total losses amounted to about 200 thousand people. July 4 had to leave Sevastopol, heroically defending 8 months.

In May 1942, near Kharkov, the troops of the Southwestern Front (S.K. Timoshenko and N.S. Khrushchev), without prior preparation and in the absence of reserves, went on the offensive, but were surrounded by enemy troops and lost 18-20 divisions. The initiative in the fighting passed to the German troops. In June 1942, they occupied the Donbass and Rostov-on-Don, broke through the front of the Red Army in the bend of the Don, and continued to advance on Stalingrad and the North Caucasus. There were no defensive structures on the outskirts of Stalingrad, so German tank columns soon appeared on the outskirts of the city, and in the North Caucasus they reached the Main Caucasian Range.

On July 28, 1942, I. Stalin issued Order No. 227 “Not a Step Back!”, which introduced severe punishments for commanders and commissars who allowed their units to retreat without command orders: they were declared enemies of the Motherland and brought to trial by a military tribunal. In addition, penal companies were also formed, where ordinary soldiers and junior commanders were sent, "guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability ...". In the rear of some divisions, armed barrage detachments began to be located and they were obliged "in the event of panic and disorderly withdrawal of parts of the division, to shoot alarmists and cowards on the spot." The detachments were canceled only on November 13, 1944, however, the punitive body of counterintelligence "SMERSH" ("death to spies") continued to operate with unlimited powers.

At the beginning of the summer of 1942, the fascist command transferred an additional 80 divisions and a lot of military equipment to the Eastern Front in order to cut off the Volga region and the Caucasus from the center of Russia and take Moscow by a detour. The Nazi troops included Austrian, Hungarian, Italian and Romanian units, while Finnish troops blocked Leningrad from the north.

On July 17, 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began, which lasted 200 days until February 2, 1943; Direct battles on the streets of Stalingrad unfolded on September 12, 1942. The defense of the city was held by the 62nd army of V.I. Chuikov, the 64th army of M.S. Shumilova and the 13th youth rifle division A.I. Rodimtsev, almost the entire composition of which died in stubborn battles for every house.

The general leadership of our troops on the Volga was headed by representatives of the Headquarters Marshals G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky and N.N. Voronov. According to the Uranus plan, on November 19, 1942, the Red Army went on the offensive with the forces of three fronts: the South-Western (N.F. Vatutin), the Don (K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (A.I. Eremenko). On November 23, 1942, the 330,000-strong Nazi group was surrounded, but did not capitulate, hoping for outside help. December 24, 1942 tank corps General V.M. Bogdanov, behind enemy lines, defeated the airfield near the village of Tatsinskaya, from where the grouping of Field Marshal F. Paulus was supplied by air. Tankers destroyed 430 Nazi aircraft.

January 10, 1943, following the "Ring" plan, the Red Army began the defeat of the encircled enemy group in Stalingrad. The attempts of Manstein's army group to release the Nazis who were surrounded from the west ended in failure, and the enemy troops were thrown back to the west by 170 - 250 km. Successfully advancing in the direction of Rostov-on-Don, the Red Army cut off the fascist troops operating in the North Caucasus, and they retreated to the Crimea.

During the period of fighting on the Volga, the enemy lost up to 1.5 million people killed, wounded and captured, lost 3.5 thousand tanks, 12 thousand guns, 75 thousand vehicles and 3 thousand aircraft. In Stalingrad alone, 91,000 Nazis were taken prisoner, including 2,500 officers and 24 generals, led by Field Marshal F. Paulus. Hitler declared 3 days of mourning throughout Germany. military power and the prestige of Germany were undermined, the initiative in hostilities passed to the Red Army, a radical change began in the course of the Great Patriotic War in favor of the USSR.

After the defeat of the Nazi troops on the Volga, the Red Army launched a general strategic offensive, which continued until the end of March 1943. During this time, the enemy troops were driven back 600-700 km. This made it possible for the troops of the Leningrad (L.A. Govorov) and Volkhov (K.A. Meretskov) fronts in January 1943 to break through the blockade of Leningrad.

The success of the Red Army was largely determined by the valor of the home front workers, who in 1942 produced 25.4 thousand aircraft, 24.5 thousand tanks, 33.1 thousand guns, while Germany during this time produced only 14 thousand aircraft, 6 , 1 thousand tanks, 14 thousand guns, and almost all of Europe conquered by it worked for Nazi Germany.

Summer campaign 1942

(June - December)

Preparing for the campaign

Faced with the prospect of continuing large-scale hostilities on the Eastern Front, German strategists were forced to admit that operations built on the same principles as the previous summer's offensives could hardly produce the desired result. Great length Eastern Front inevitably led to the conclusion that in order to obtain a satisfactory result, it is necessary to concentrate the maximum possible forces in one particular area. Therefore, it was decided to conduct the main fighting on the southern sector of the front with the aim of capturing the Caucasus (which would cut off the Soviet Union from the main sources of oil and at the same time provide oil to the ever-increasing needs of Germany) and open the way to the Middle East at the same time as Rommel's strike through Egypt in the Mediterranean theater.

The first condition necessary for the implementation of this plan was the complete occupation of the Crimea, necessary to cover the southern flank of the German troops. Therefore, during April, Soviet troops were driven out of the Kerch Peninsula, and only Sevastopol, which was stubbornly defending, remained in the Crimea. In May, the VIII Air Corps was transferred from the central front to the Crimea and subordinated to the 4th Air Fleet. Thus, about 600 aircraft were concentrated at the airfields of Crimea various types who were ready to take part in the full-scale assault on Sevastopol. The place of the VIII Air Corps on the central sector of the front was taken by the V Air Corps, withdrawn from the southern sector at the beginning of 1942. It was renamed the Luftwaffe Command East and received the status of an air fleet (see map 17).

The choice of the VIII Air Corps to participate in this assault was in line with the already established practice of sending this formation under the command of Richthofen to support the most important operations, given its experience and effectiveness in participating in massive ground support operations.

At this stage of the war in the Soviet Union, the Germans attached great importance to operations in the Crimea, since the success of their summer offensive in the Caucasus depended on the occupation of the peninsula. Kerch had already fallen, but Sevastopol continued to stubbornly resist. Accordingly, the VIII Air Corps, which during this period of the war was usually assigned to carry out the most important operations, was transferred from the Moscow direction to the Crimea, where it entered the disposal of the 4th Air Fleet. The support of the VIII Air Corps, no doubt, contributed a lot to overcoming the resistance of the Soviet troops on the Kerch Peninsula.

The section of the front liberated by the VIII Air Corps was occupied by the V Air Corps, which was renamed the Luftwaffe East Command. This command had the status of an air fleet and was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Aviation. In March, the IV Air Corps had to bear the burden of repelling the powerful and successful offensives of Soviet troops in the south of the USSR, therefore, to strengthen it, parts of the direct support of ground troops from other air corps that fought on the Eastern Front were transferred.

The assault on Sevastopol began on June 2 and ended on June 6, and all this time the fortress was subjected to massive air strikes. On average, about 600 sorties were performed per day, with a maximum of more than 700 (June 2). Approximately 2,500 tons of explosive bombs were dropped, many of which were of the maximum caliber . Nevertheless, on June 4, the German infantry, which had gone on the offensive, suddenly found that the fortifications had largely survived, and the morale of the defenders had not been broken. However, the Germans stormed so stubbornly that the resistance Soviet soldiers managed to overcome in a relatively short period of time.

While the operations against Sevastopol were underway, the sudden advance of the Soviet troops on Kharkov forced the Luftwaffe to transfer part of the forces from the Crimea to help stop the enemy advance, and intensive air operations were required to save the situation. The preemptive strike by the Soviet army not only inflicted losses that needed to be replenished, but also delayed preparations for the planned main summer campaign. However, in early June, the VIII Air Corps was again transferred to the north. Its headquarters was located near Kursk, in the northern part of the zone of responsibility of the 4th air fleet (see map 18). From May to June, active measures were taken to accumulate large stocks of bombs, fuel, etc. on the Southern Front, for which the railways were fully involved. At the same time, reinforcements were returning to the Eastern Front, re-equipped after six months of fighting and additionally reinforced by aircraft recalled from mediterranean sea after the completion of the air attack on Malta. Thus, by the beginning of July, the number of German aviation on the Eastern Front again reached the level of 2,750 aircraft and, thus, reached the level of forces involved in the operations of the previous summer. However, now 1,500 of them were on the Southern Front as part of the 4th Air Fleet. That is, deterrence forces remained in the central sector of the front - about 600 aircraft, in the Leningrad direction - no more than 375, and another 200 aircraft were based in Northern Norway and Finland.

Fighting in July - August 1942

The German offensive began in the first week of July with the actions of the VIII Air Corps on a relatively narrow sector of the front, where its aircraft supported the first German attack in the direction of Voronezh. Gradually, the area of ​​operations of the corps expanded to the south as the tank units advanced along the Voronezh-Rostov railway east of the Donets River. The forces of direct support of the ground forces quickly followed the German units advancing along the Don, and after the transfer of part of the long-range bombers to the south in the Voronezh region, which was subjected to heavy attacks by the Soviet army from the northeast to the flank of the advancing Germans, only insignificant forces remained. Nevertheless, near Voronezh, the Soviet troops managed to be contained without resorting to the help of the forces participating in the offensive to the south with the constant support of long-range bomber aircraft and units of direct support of ground forces.

Having completed its task on the extreme southern sector of the Eastern Front, the VIII Air Corps was now transferred to a new important direction. The corps was transferred from the southern section of the 4th Air Fleet's area of ​​responsibility to the northern one. The redeployment took place during the preparation by the Germans of the offensive from the Kursk region in the direction of Voronezh.

As a result of the movement of the VIII Air Corps, the southern sector of the front, adjacent to the Black Sea, was occupied by the IV Air Corps.

All the time while the German troops were rapidly advancing along the Don from Voronezh in the direction of Stalingrad and from the Rostov region to the Caucasus in the direction of Maikop and Armavir, a significant part of the long-range bomber aircraft participated in systematic raids on communications behind enemy lines. These operations covered vast areas, including the North Caucasus, where bridges, ferry crossings and railways were subjected to massive strikes. Deeper lines of communication were also bombed strategically to cut off supply lines between Stalingrad and Moscow, but no attempt was made to bomb cities far behind the front lines and not under immediate threat of occupation. On the contrary, long-range bomber aviation concentrated its efforts exclusively on indirect support of the offensive, trying to disable Soviet communications. To this end, attacks were made on the ports of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus up to Poti, and small-scale attempts were made to mine the Volga and were subjected to air strikes by ships on the Volga as far as Astrakhan.

Unlike the attack on Stalingrad, which was supported by about 1,000 aircraft of all types, the German offensive into the Caucasus after crossing the Don received almost no air support until the advance was slowed down by hilly terrain that prevented the massive use of tanks. Then it became necessary to strengthen the IV Air Corps, which was responsible for air operations in the Caucasus, and fighter units were deployed to the bases located along the line running approximately from east to west through Krasnodar, armed with single-engine and twin-engine fighters.

Fighting in September - October 1942

In September and October, the determining factor in air strategy was the inability of the German high command to achieve decisive success either at Stalingrad or in the Caucasus. Near Stalingrad, active operations were carried out by the VIII Air Corps, which constituted most forces of the 4th air fleet. Dive bombers were especially active, often making 4 or more sorties per day.

Despite active hostilities for four months, until October, the strength of the Luftwaffe remained surprisingly stable: 2450-2500 aircraft. Quite a few aviation units during August and September were withdrawn to the rear for re-equipment, but their places were occupied by fresh units, fully equipped with equipment and crews. Nevertheless, the concentration of forces in the south left only small forces for the Moscow and Leningrad directions. Probably, in this area, the advantage in the air was Soviet aviation, since the offensive of the Soviet troops near Rzhev and in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bLake Ilmen forced the Germans in September to transfer part of the aviation that participated in the battle for Stalingrad to the north. However, the reinforcement of the Luftwaffe in the Leningrad region that took place in September was planned, as well as the reinforcement of ground troops in this direction, in preparation for a full-scale offensive, planned with the expectation that Stalingrad would not last long. By the beginning of October, 550-600 aircraft were concentrated on the Leningrad sector of the front, but Stalingrad did not fall, and the preparations and movements of Soviet troops in the Moscow region and, to a lesser extent, in the south, forced the Luftwaffe to redistribute forces and weaken the group near Leningrad. In the second half of October, at least 300 aircraft were withdrawn from this sector.

At this stage, the dangers to which German aviation was exposed in the Soviet Union became apparent: its supply lines were stretched; she moved away from the bases equipped in the winter of 1941/42, and operated from poorly prepared airfields; its main forces were so involved in the battles near Stalingrad that it was impossible to ensure air superiority anywhere else; parts of the direct support of the ground forces acted intensively, many crews made three or four sorties per day, which affected the state of equipment and crews and ultimately led to catastrophic consequences. At the same time, a continuous series of local operations and the threat of an offensive by Soviet troops in the north required constant redeployment of units, leaving no pauses for rest and restoration of combat effectiveness.

In the Soviet Union, by the end of the summer, the area of ​​responsibility of the IV Air Corps expanded to the Caucasus, and the VIII Air Corps was tasked with supporting the offensive against Stalingrad. Taking into account the concentration of forces of the VIII Corps and the situation in the Don basin, it was decided to create a new operational formation to direct operations north of the zone of responsibility of the 4th Air Fleet, on the Voronezh sector of the front. Accordingly, the 1st Air Corps from the 1st Air Fleet was transferred here (it fought there from the very beginning of the campaign), which received a new designation - the Luftwaffe Don Command and, presumably, was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Aviation. Not a single air corps remained in the 1st Air Fleet.

The map shows the approximate position of the German armies on the Eastern Front.

Fighting from November 1942 to January 1943

The counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began at the end of October and was accompanied by the preparation and concentration of troops in the middle reaches of the Don below Voronezh, where the Germans had only a small force of 70–80 aircraft covering a front of about 500 km. However, this section of the front was considered important enough for the 1st Air Corps, which received the designation Don Luftwaffe Command, to be transferred here from the 1st Air Fleet. Thus, in addition to a frontal attack from the east, the Germans also faced the threat of a flank attack from the northwest. The actions of aviation near Stalingrad and in the bend of the Don were hampered by the disruption of communications, lack of fuel and bad weather, and by mid-November it was decided to stop the offensive and go on the defensive.

The Soviet offensive from the bend of the Don in the south-western direction deprived the Germans of advanced airfields and forced the withdrawal of aircraft in direct support of ground forces to the rear. As a result, Stalingrad was out of range of German single-engine fighters, and Soviet aviation won superiority in the sky over the encircled German group. At the same time, the tension of constant fighting began to affect, and the withdrawal of some units to the rear for reorganization became an urgent need. With the start of the Allied offensives in Libya and Tunisia, it was necessary to withdraw additional forces from the front to reinforce the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean, and by early December the number of German aviation in the USSR had decreased to about 2000 aircraft, of which a significant part was inoperative. The number of VIII and I air corps in the Don region, which had previously reached 1000 aircraft, fell to about 650-700 aircraft.

After the transfer of approximately 400 aircraft to the Mediterranean, it became clear that the Luftwaffe was unable to cope with all the tasks on the Eastern Front, and activity in the Caucasus began to wane. After the transfer of almost all long-range and dive bombers, as well as part of single-engine fighters to other sectors of the front, the initiative in this direction passed to the Soviet troops, who took advantage of the numerical superiority in the air to support the offensive through the Kalmyk steppes to Rostov and through the western part of the Caucasus in the direction of Kerch strait.

The encirclement of the German 6th Army near Stalingrad and the almost complete encirclement of the 17th Army in the Kuban that followed it posed another serious task for the Luftwaffe: supplying the encircled troops by air. To do this, Xe-111 bombers were removed from combat missions and transferred to transport aviation. They suffered big losses not only because of adverse weather conditions, but also because of the constant attacks on transport aircraft in the air and on the ground. These strikes forced the Germans to commit fighter escorts, reducing the number of single-engine fighters that could be assigned to close ground support. By the end of December 1942, there were only about 375 single-engine fighters on the entire Eastern Front, and it was this lack of fighter cover that could be one of the reasons for the exceptionally high losses during the last few weeks of 1942. However, there was another reason for the high losses: non-combat losses of aircraft left on the ground during the retreat, and losses as a result of adverse weather conditions. If we add to this the loss of combat aircraft used as transport, then the losses in the second half of 1942, apparently, will be equal to the losses in the last six months of 1941, which, as is known, led to a noticeable weakening of the striking power of German aviation in 1942 year, reducing its strength to less than 4,000 vehicles by the end of the year after another peak - 4,800 vehicles in July 1941.

The shortage of first line aircraft at the end of 1942 is evidenced by the commissioning of second line units and the use of obsolete types of aircraft (Xe-146) and reconnaissance aircraft for bombing. During December the number of German first-line aviation in the East was reduced by about 150 aircraft, despite the fact that the Soviet offensive required little less active action than before the onset of winter.

Analysis of the 1942 campaign

The significant weakening of the Luftwaffe at the end of 1942, which was greatly facilitated by the previous six months of the eastern campaign, is discussed in detail in Chapter 9. Therefore, it will suffice here to briefly describe the strategy and tactics of the Germans and the development of new ideas for the use of aviation, which became apparent by the end of the year.

The campaign in the East in 1942, as in 1941, showed that the Luftwaffe continued to strictly follow the traditional tactics of massive strikes aimed at direct support of tank units. Despite progress in individual cases the battle for France and the Balkan campaign, by the end of 1942 it became obvious that this approach did not give the necessary results on the Eastern Front. The reason for this was not only the huge length of the front, as a result of which any concentration of forces for a strike left the flank of the German troops unprotected, but also the depth of the theater of operations. The Soviet troops took full advantage of these circumstances, retreating, thereby stretching German communications until the Luftwaffe striking forces, which had broken away from their supply bases, were exhausted due to problems with maintenance. Thus, despite the great progress in initial stage, the specific conditions of the war in the USSR did not allow the Germans to use the proven strategy of combining the most powerful direct support of troops from the air and massive strikes against factories and rear supply bases to achieve final victory.

By the autumn of 1942, the failure to achieve the expected results began to lead to a modification of German tactics and the reorganization of forces, but no radical changes followed. Thus, there was a tendency to increase the flexibility of the structure on a "functional" basis, and new units were specially adapted to the tactical requirements that were dictated by conditions on the Eastern Front. This trend was manifested in a greater attention to defense issues, which was facilitated by the Soviet strategy of organizing counteroffensives in winter, when the Germans could not fight on equal terms. Such a doctrine was supposed to lead to the creation of a balanced grouping of Luftwaffe forces on the Eastern Front, in which offensive and defensive functions would be more evenly distributed. Therefore, it meant a step forward in tactical terms, the development of a more intelligent, albeit less effective strategy and increased flexibility of use compared to previous campaigns.

This concept manifested itself in the organization of auxiliary units and second line units. These included: units equipped with obsolete Xe-46, Khsh-126 and Ar-66, whose tasks included harassing nighttime bombardments of concentrations of Soviet troops; anti-tank units equipped with Khsh-129, Me-110, Yu-87 and Yu-88, carrying special heavy weapons to fight Soviet tanks that were breaking through the German defense line; and, finally, special squadrons for strikes against railways, equipped with the Yu-88 in the fighter version and designed to strike at the main transport arteries in order to impede the offensive actions of the Soviet troops. All of these units were relatively new categories that did not fall under the traditional organizational chart of the Luftwaffe. These experiments and innovations mainly took place in early July 1942, after the appointment of the commander of the VIII Air Corps, General Oberst von Richthofen, to the post of commander of the 4th Air Fleet, and there is reason to believe that it was von Richthofen who was the main supporter of the new tactics. His experience as commander of the VIII Air Corps, which was the main formation in close support of the ground forces, could well be used to solve defense problems, the main direction of which would be to eliminate those shortcomings that nullified all the successes achieved earlier in the Soviet Union. However, the events of 1943 showed that these innovations, no matter how original, could not be brought to mind in the face of the ever-increasing lag behind the Luftwaffe, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which became stunningly obvious the next year.

On October 1, 1942, as a result of a counterattack by units of the 51st Army of the Stalingrad Front, a number of enemy documents were captured, among which was one curious scheme. According to A.I. Eremenko, her “the content ... went far beyond not only the army scale, but even the scale of the army group and concerned, in essence, the entire Soviet-German front. It was a diagram drawn in pencil on a plain sheet of paper and graphically representing the plan of the Nazis for the summer of 1942 (see Diagram 14). In part, the data of this scheme coincided with the corresponding directives of Hitler, now made public. Dates were also indicated on the diagram, which, apparently, meant the timing of the capture of certain points by fascist troops..

This scheme, apparently, was transferred to Moscow and on November 6-7, 1942, the whole country learned about its content. Comrade Stalin, in his report on the 25th anniversary of the VOSR, said: “Recently, a German officer of the German General Staff fell into the hands of our people. This officer found a map with the designation of the plan for the advancement of German troops in terms of time. This document shows that the Germans intended to be in Borisoglebsk on July 10 of this year, in Stalingrad on July 25, in Saratov on August 10, in Kuibyshev on August 15, in Arzamas on September 10, in Baku on September 25.

This document fully confirms our data that the main goal of the German summer offensive was to bypass Moscow from the east and strike at Moscow, while the southward advance was aimed, among other things, at diverting our reserves away from Moscow and weakening the Moscow front. so that it would be easier to strike at Moscow.

In short, the main goal of the German summer offensive was to encircle Moscow and end the war this year.

From that moment on, all Soviet military historiography, describing German plans for the summer of 1942, focused exclusively on this report. Even in secret works like "Collection of materials on the study of the experience of war No. 6 (April-May 1943)" they wrote (p. 9): “October 1, 1942, on the Stalingrad front in the Sadovoye region, a map with a schematic plan of the enemy’s offensive was plotted on it was seized from a murdered German officer of the general staff. This document confirms the predictions of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army regarding the German planning of the summer campaign of 1942 (Scheme 1).”

What can we say about more accessible works (Zamiatin N.M. and others. Battle of Stalingrad. M., 1944; Samsonov A. At the walls of Stalingrad. M., 1952; Telpukhovsky B.S. A great victory Soviet army near Stalingrad. M., 1953, etc.). In the article "The Great Patriotic War Soviet Union 1941-1945" of the new, second edition of the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" (Vol. 7. P. 172), this version with a colorful map was also presented.

In the meantime, works began to appear in the West that described real German plans for the summer of 1942. Some of them were reviewed in the semi-secret journal Military Thought (then published under the heading “Only for generals, admirals and officers of the Soviet army and navy”) and, of course, this moment was declared a falsification. Here, in particular, is an excerpt from a review of the book by B. Liddell Garth "The Other Side of the Hill" (VM. 1950. No. 6. S. 92-93): “Describing the plans for operations in 1942, the author of the book evaluates them as “masterful planning by General Halder” (p. 63). But these plans, according to the author, failed because Hitler split the forces of the German army, setting two tasks for it: to occupy Stalingrad and seize the oil of the Caucasus (p. 208) ... Speaking about the fact that Hitler sought to provide Germany with Caucasian oil, the author tries to deny the fact that the German high command in 1942 pursued the goal of bypassing Moscow, and claims that the Germans needed Stalingrad only in order "to secure their flank in an attack on the Caucasus" (p. 208). However, it has long been known that the main goal of the German offensive in 1942 was to bypass Moscow from the east, cut it off from the Volga and the Urals and then occupy it.

Approximately the same thing was written in a review of the book by Walter Görlitz “Second World War. 1939-1945", published in two volumes in 1951-1952. (VM. 1955. No. 5. P. 92).

But the inertia of the Stalinist report (especially after the death of the speaker himself) could not last forever, and the first bell about the upcoming revision of views on German plans in 1942 sounded in the same issue of Military Thought, in which the review of Görlitz was published. In the article by Colonel-General P. Kurochkin “The victory of Soviet military art in the Great Patriotic war» in the passage about the armed struggle in the summer of 1942, perhaps for the first time, the version about the bypass of Moscow was not voiced (p. 22): “The summer campaign of 1942 began with an almost simultaneous offensive by the Soviet troops in the Kharkov region, and by the Nazi troops in the Crimea, in the Rzhev region and south of Leningrad. The enemy managed in May-June to liquidate our bridgeheads on the Kerch Peninsula and near Sevastopol, to encircle part of the advancing troops near Kharkov. Having achieved these successes, and also taking advantage of the absence of a second front, the Nazi command concentrated large forces on the southern sector of the Soviet-German front and launched a new offensive in the southeast direction. Lacking sufficient forces for an offensive in several directions, as was the case in 1941, the enemy was still able to concentrate large forces on one sector of the front and achieve new serious successes. The Soviet Army again found itself forced to conduct heavy defensive battles with superior enemy strongmen, now in the Stalingrad and North Caucasian directions.

However, the final blow was struck by the publication in 1956 of the collection of articles “ Critical Operations Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" edited by d.h.s. Colonel P.A. Zhilina. In the article “The Battle of Stalingrad” (written by Colonels A.V. Karatyshkin and K.A. Cheryomukhin, p. 110), Directive No. 41 of April 5, 1942 was quoted with plans German command for the upcoming campaign. Moreover, you should not associate the contents of the collection with the well-known report of N.S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. The imprint of the book shows that it was handed over to the set on 07/11/55, and signed for printing on 01/30/56.

The journal "Military Thought" also had a hand in changing the situation. First, in the 10th issue of the magazine for 1956, an article by Colonel N. Pavlenko “The Struggle for the Strategic Initiative in the Great Patriotic War” was published, where both the summer-autumn campaign of 1942 and the plans of the parties in it were briefly reviewed. Then, in the next, 11th issue, an article by Colonel-General A. Tarasov "On the question of the plan for the summer campaign of the Hitlerite command on the Soviet-German front in 1942" is published. Its beginning already sets in a revelatory mood (p. 64): “In our literature, the opinion has been established that the main goal of the offensive of the Nazi troops on the Soviet-German front in 1942 was Moscow, with the mastery of which the end of the war in the East was also associated. In works devoted to the Great Patriotic War, in particular, it is argued that the Nazi command sought to achieve this strategic task by delivering the main blow in the Stalingrad direction. With access to the Volga and the capture of Stalingrad, the enemy troops allegedly had to develop their strike to the north with the aim of deep bypassing Moscow from the east, isolating Moscow from the Volga and Ural rear and subsequently capturing it. The offensive of the enemy in the south towards the Caucasus was considered as an auxiliary one, aimed at diverting the reserves of the Soviet Army from Moscow and thereby weakening the defense of the Moscow direction. Further, the article outlined the history of the seizure of the document (it was specified that it was taken from a Romanian, and not a German officer), its content and comparison with both German documents and memoirs, and even Paulus's testimonies (p. 69): “In a conversation with the author of this article, Paulus stated: “Believe me that until the very day of my surrender to the Soviet troops, I never heard from anyone that the goal of our offensive in 1942, even if distant, was Moscow. I learned about this only in captivity, according to Soviet materials, with which I completely disagree.

Of course, all the historical works that touch on this moment could not change instantly. In the same 1956, the brochure “Soviet Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945)” was published. Resources for Political Studies,” where on page 25 was an outdated version. But in the 40th volume of the TSB, published in the same year, the latest data was used in the article “The Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943”.

The last time the Stalinist version was mentioned in domestic historical works was in an article by Colonel I. Parotkin “On the Plan for the Summer Campaign of the Nazi Command on the Soviet-German Front in 1942” (Military History Journal. 1961. No. 1). In addition to a detailed story about the contents of the captured document, an image of the scheme was also given. I also note that Comrade. Parotkin, then still in the rank of lieutenant colonel, was part of the team of authors of one of the first works on the Battle of Stalingrad - “The Battle of Stalingrad. Brief essay "(M .: Military-historical department of the General Staff of the KA, 1944).

G.K. Zhukov said that after a search at his dacha and the seizure of documents and materials stored there in a safe in 1946, Stalin called him and said the following: "Are you going to write history? Don't. Let historians do this when we die.".

In accordance with the military-political goals of the further conduct of the war, in the early spring of 1942, when the active armed struggle on the Soviet-German front almost ceased, both belligerents began to develop strategic plans for military operations.

The development by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff of the strategic plan of action of the Soviet Armed Forces for the next stage of the war and the carrying out of measures to prepare a new military campaign had a number of characteristic features. They were determined by the peculiar conditions of the military-political and strategic situation that had developed by the spring of 1942. Firstly, there was no firm confidence that the second front would be opened on time that met the common interests of the struggle of the anti-fascist coalition, that is, in 1942. At the same time, the Nazi leadership was aware that there would be no second front in the near future. Therefore, it could use the maximum of forces and means to deploy new active operations on the Eastern Front. Secondly, the allies did not fully fulfill their obligations to deliver military materials to the USSR under Lend-Lease. Therefore, the Soviet Union had to rely only on itself.

The Soviet command took into account measures for a significant organizational restructuring and technical re-equipment of the Soviet Army, as well as the creation of large reserves, which could not be completed until the summer of 1942. Meanwhile, numerous data indicated that a new major enemy offensive on the Soviet-German front would begin already in the spring of 1942.

On March 18, 1942, military intelligence reported to the General Staff: “Preparation for the spring offensive is confirmed by the transfer of German troops and materials. During the period from January 1 to March 10, up to 35 divisions 1 were transferred, and human reinforcements to the active armies are continuously going on. Intensive work is underway to restore the railway network in the occupied territory of the USSR, and there is an intensified importation of military and transport vehicles, ammunition, and artillery. It is possible that a decisive German offensive on the Eastern Front will be accompanied by a simultaneous action by Japan against the USSR and pressure from the Germans on Turkey in order to force it to let German troops into the Caucasus ... The Germans, not being able to carry out an appropriate regrouping of forces on the front, did not will be able to repeat the offensive on a broad front. They are concentrating all their efforts on the preparation of successive operations: first with the aim of capturing the Caucasus and the Murmansk (Kirovskaya - Ed.) Railway, then spreading operations to the north with the task of capturing the cities of Moscow and Leningrad. The solution of these tasks would achieve "the main strategic goal - isolating the USSR from the allies, depriving it of oil, and if not defeating it, then reducing it to the point where it loses all significance. This is the main plan of the German command.

1 In fact, fewer were transferred - about 20 divisions.

The center of gravity of the spring offensive will be shifted to the southern sector of the front with an auxiliary strike in the north, while simultaneously demonstrating on the central front against Moscow ... "1 And as a conclusion, the report noted: "Germany is preparing for a decisive offensive on the Eastern Front, which will first unfold on southern sector and spread further to the north. For the spring offensive, Germany, together with the allies, will put up to 65 new divisions ... The most likely date for the spring offensive is mid-April or early May 1942. ”

On March 23, 1942, the state security agencies reported to the State Defense Committee: “The main blow will be delivered in the southern sector with the task of breaking through Rostov to Stalingrad and the North Caucasus, and from there towards the Caspian Sea. In this way the Germans hope to reach the sources of Caucasian oil. In case of success of the operation with access to the Volga at Stalingrad, the Germans planned to launch an offensive to the north along the Volga. The Germans this summer will not only strive to reach the Volga and the Caspian Sea, but will also undertake major operations against Moscow and Leningrad, since their capture is a matter of prestige for the German command.

Such forecasts of strategic intelligence could not but influence the assessment of the situation by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and its decision to continue the armed struggle at the new stage of the war.

In the spring of 1942, the Stavka did not have sufficient forces and means at its disposal to conduct an offensive on a large scale, but it was impossible to postpone active operations for a long time. In this situation, writes Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky, “the fronts went over to the defensive. Before us was the question of a plan of military action for the next six months. It was thoroughly discussed at the General Staff. None of us had any doubts that the enemy would again take serious active actions no later than the summer in order to again seize the initiative and defeat us. We critically analyzed the results of the winter. Now the Headquarters, the General Staff and the entire leadership of the Armed Forces tried to more accurately reveal the enemy's plans for the spring and summer periods of 1942, to determine as clearly as possible the strategic directions in which the main events were destined to play out. At the same time, we all perfectly understood that the further development of the entire world war, the behavior of Japan, Turkey, etc., and perhaps the outcome of the war as a whole, would largely depend on the results of the summer campaign of 1942.

1 IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 5, ll. 296-297.

2 IVI. Documents and materials, inv. No. 6083, l. 6.

3 A. Vasilevsky. The work of a lifetime. M., 1975, p. 203.

The strategic plan of action of the Soviet Armed Forces for a longer period was to provide for the ultimate political goal of the war for 1942 - the defeat of the enemy and the liberation of all occupied Soviet territory. This was the basis for the development of the decision, launched by the Headquarters and the General Staff after the end of the winter offensive campaign.

Assessing the situation that had developed by the spring of 1942, the Supreme Commander II. V. Stalin assumed that the Nazi command in the summer of 1942 would be able to conduct large-scale offensive operations simultaneously in two strategic directions - Moscow and in the south of the country. He attached particular importance to the Moscow direction, where the enemy had more than 70 divisions.

JV Stalin believed that the Soviet Armed Forces did not yet have sufficient forces and means to launch large offensive operations in the spring of 1942 in the absence of a second front in Europe. Therefore, he considered it expedient for the near future to confine himself to active defense on the entire Soviet-German front, while simultaneously conducting private front-line offensive operations in its individual sectors.

The General Staff, in particular its chief, Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov and his deputy, General A. M. Vasilevsky, basically adhered to the same opinion as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Marshal B. M. Shaposhnikov firmly stood on the fact that at the first stage of strategic actions it was limited only to active defense, to withstand the blow of the enemy, to exhaust and bleed him at the beginning of summer, and then, having accumulated reserves, to move on to broad counteroffensive actions.

The State Defense Committee envisaged as the main immediate task: to create powerful trained reserves by May - June 1942, accumulate weapons, ammunition, tanks, aircraft and other military equipment, as well as the necessary material resources to provide troops in the subsequent offensive. All justifications and calculations according to the plan of strategic actions for 1942 were completed by the General Staff by mid-March. The main idea of ​​the plan: active defense, the accumulation of reserves, and then the transition to a decisive offensive. However, work on the plan continued in connection with the proposal of the command of the South-Western direction to conduct a large offensive operation in May with the forces of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern Fronts.

The final version of the action plan of the Soviet Armed Forces was considered and approved at the end of March at a joint meeting of the State Defense Committee and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. At this meeting, Marshal B. M. Shaposhnikov once again expressed his opinion General Staff on the feasibility of transferring the entire active army to a temporary active defense and the concentration of the main strategic reserves in the western direction and partly in the Voronezh region, where the main events can play out in the summer. This opinion was justified mainly by the numerical superiority of the enemy forces and the absence of a second front in Europe. B. M. Shaposhnikov did not agree with the proposal of Marshal S. K. Timoshenko on the possibility of conducting a major offensive operation in the spring by the forces of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern fronts, motivating his disagreement with the difficulties of organizing such an operation and the lack of necessary reserves. However, the arguments of the General Staff were not fully taken into account. The meeting ended with an instruction from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to prepare and carry out offensive operations in the Kharkov region, in the Crimea and in other regions in the near future.

1 See G. Zhukov. Memories and reflections. T. 2. M., 1974, pp. 64-65. See ibid.

Thus, the strategic plan of the Headquarters for 1942, on the whole, corresponded to the military-political goal of the Soviet state for the next stage of the war and, in its essence, was of an active nature. The first part of this plan, which dealt with the planned actions of the Soviet Armed Forces for the spring and early summer of 1942 (April - June), was developed in the most detailed way. During this period, the Soviet Army was to remain in temporary strategic defense with the task of completing the reorganization of troops and re-equipping them. new technology, as well as to accumulate reserves in order to launch a new offensive from the summer of 1942 common goal consolidate the successes of the past winter campaign, improve the position of troops in certain areas, and disrupt enemy preparations for a summer offensive with preemptive strikes.

The second part of the plan outlined the transition of the Soviet Armed Forces from the summer of 1942 to a decisive offensive on most of the Soviet-German front, with the main blow on the southern wing. It was developed in the most general terms, since detailed planning of major offensive operations could only be carried out taking into account the results of military operations in the spring of 1942.

In accordance with the decision taken, the Headquarters delivered specific combat missions for the coming spring season.

On April 20, the troops of the Bryansk Front were ordered in the first days of May to conduct an operation with the forces of two armies and a tank corps in the Kursk-Lgov direction in order to capture Kursk and cut the Kursk-Lgov 1 railway.

Southwestern Front received permission to conduct the Kharkov operation with the assistance of part of the forces of the Southern Front. According to the plan, approved by the Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Direction on April 10, the purpose of the operation was to preempt the enemy in launching offensive operations in the Kharkov direction and to retain the initiative. The Southwestern Front was supposed to, using bridgeheads on the right bank of the Seversky Donets, northeast and southeast of Kharkov, deliver two blows in converging directions to Kharkov, defeat the enemy’s Kharkov grouping and capture Kharkov, an important stronghold of enemy defense.

The southern front was supposed to defend the occupied lines, covering the Rostov and Voroshilovgrad directions and the area of ​​​​Lozovaya, Barvenkovo, Izyum. It was assumed that the Southwestern and Southern Fronts would create the necessary conditions for the deployment in the summer of a major joint offensive operation in order to liberate the Donbass and reach the border of the Dnieper.

In order to facilitate command and control of troops on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front in the upcoming offensive in the summer of 1942, the Headquarters considered it necessary to create the North Caucasus direction on April 21. It included the Crimean Front, the Sevastopol Defensive Region, the North Caucasian Military District, Black Sea Fleet and the Azov military flotilla. Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the North Caucasian troops, P. I. Seleznev, Secretary of the Krasnodar Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, was appointed a member of the Military Council, Admiral I. S. Isakov, Deputy People's Commissar of the Navy, was appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief for the Marine Part, chief of staff - General G. F. Zakharov.

1 This offensive was subsequently canceled by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.

The troops of the North Caucasian direction were to completely clear the Crimea of ​​the enemy and prevent the landing of amphibious assault forces on the coast of the Azores and the Black Seas in the Rostov, Tuapse sector, as well as airborne assault forces on the Kerch Peninsula and on the territory of the North Caucasian Military District. In the event of an enemy attempt to launch an offensive in the Rostov direction, these troops, in cooperation with the troops of the Southern Front, were to firmly hold the line of the Don River, preventing the enemy from advancing into the North Caucasus.

Active offensive tasks were assigned to the fronts of the army in other directions of the Soviet-German front.

The troops of the Kalinin and Western fronts were ordered to complete the operations begun in the winter to defeat the Rzhev-Vyazma grouping of the enemy with the subsequent development of an offensive against Smolensk. At the same time, the commander of the Western Front received the task of carrying out an air transport operation in order to strengthen the cavalry group of General P. A. Belov, operating behind enemy lines, with personnel, weapons and logistics 1. These troops were supposed to hold and expand the occupied by them area, as well as strike at communications, railways and enemy bases in the areas of Smolensk, Yartsev, Vyazma, Pochinka 2. The duration of the operation was determined from May 10 to May 25. According to the directive of the Headquarters, 120 aircraft were involved in the operation, which were to be allocated by the commander of the Air Force, the commander of long-range aviation and the commander of the Western Front. The commander of the Air Defense Forces of the country was entrusted with the task of covering the airfields for loading heavy aircraft. The return flights of the aircraft were supposed to evacuate the wounded from Belov's group.

From the troops of the North-Western Front, the Headquarters demanded to complete the liquidation of the enemy's Demyansk grouping, which had deeply wedged itself into the disposition of Soviet troops at the junction of the North-Western and Kalinin fronts.

The troops of the Karelian Front were to prepare and conduct private operations in the Murmansk, Kandalaksha, Kestenga directions and reach the state border 3, and the troops of the 7th separate army were to completely clear the left bank of the Svir River from Finnish troops and seize bridgeheads on its right bank 4.

Navy in the strategic plan, the Headquarters was taken into account mainly as a force carrying out independent military operations in the Northern and Black Sea theaters. It was planned to use the Baltic Fleet to a limited extent, since it was blockaded in Kronstadt and Leningrad. The Northern Fleet was given the task of protecting sea lanes in the Barents and White Seas, as well as on the Northern Sea Route. It was also entrusted with the task of disrupting the enemy’s maritime communications, but the organization and conduct of special operations were especially important, which were supposed to ensure the safety of convoys heading to the northern ports of the Soviet Union. In addition, the forces of this fleet were involved in joint operations with the 14th Army of the Karelian Front, which was conducting an operation in the Murmansk direction. The Black Sea Fleet, together with the Fighters of the Primorsky Army, was supposed not only to actively participate in the defense of Sevastopol, but also to ensure the combat operations of the Crimean Front on the Kerch Peninsula, supply troops, strike at enemy communications and repel attacks by torpedo boats and enemy aircraft on their bases and ships .

1 The group of P. A. Belov included the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps in separate parts of the 4th Airborne Corps.

2 Archive of Moscow Region, f. 132a, op. 2642, d. 41 pp. 130-131

3 Archive of Moscow Region, f. 132a, op. 2642, d. 31, ll. 173-175.

4 Ibid., ll. 178-179.

Targeting the Navy for a Solution independent tasks The Stavka also drew attention to the shortcomings in the use of the forces of the fleets in joint operations with the troops of the fronts in coastal areas. The directive of the Chief of the General Staff gave specific instructions on the use of naval artillery, the improvement of the organization of interaction between the ground forces and fleets, the organization of reconnaissance, and other issues.

The fronts operating in the western and southwestern directions simultaneously with offensive tasks received instructions to create reserves and build military defensive lines: on some sectors of our common front with smaller forces in order to group the liberated forces and equipment in the army and front reserves and prepare them for participation in our upcoming offensive operations, as well as for counterattacks in case of an unexpected enemy offensive.

In these types, the Headquarters considers it necessary that ... the front urgently build a military defensive line along the entire front, which should make it possible to release part of the troops for the formation of shock fists "1.

In the instructions of the Headquarters on strengthening the defense of the fronts, it was ordered to bring the depth of the main defense line to 10-12 km. Along with this, the Headquarters carried out significant measures to strengthen the old and build new rear defensive lines to a considerable depth, reaching a total of 600 km (to the Volga River).

In the southwestern direction, the construction of a frontier along the Voronezh, Starobelsk, Rostov-on-Don line was unfolding; the old defensive lines along the Don River were improved and defensive contours were built around such large cities as Voronezh, Rostov, Saratov, Stalingrad. In the western direction, the Mozhaisk line of defense was erected and the defense around Moscow and the old lines along the Oka and Volga rivers were strengthened. For the defense of the Caucasian direction, at the end of 1941, the construction of a field fortified line along the Lower Don from the village of Nizhnechirskaya to Azov with a total length of 700 km, as well as lines along the Kuma and Manych rivers, began. However, by the spring of 1942, all of them were poorly developed in depth in the main directions. In addition, due to an unsuccessfully chosen place for the defensive structures, some of them were flooded during the spring flood.

In May 1942, construction began on defensive lines between the Don and Kuban, along the Terek River and bypasses around Tikhoretsk, Voroshilovsk, Grozny, Mineralnye Vody, Krasnodar.

The Headquarters also paid great attention to strengthening the defense of Leningrad. The evacuation of the city's population continued.

Navigation was being prepared on Lake Ladoga. A second route was created through the Shlisselburg Bay, about 30 km long. For this purpose, the Kobono-Korej port was built on the eastern shore of the lake.

1 Archive of Moscow Region, f. 132a, op. 2642, d. 32, ll. 89-95, 185-187, 190-195.

The ship fleet was replenished: metal barges were built in Leningrad, wooden ones - at a shipyard on the Syas River. Small ships and barges were transferred to Ladoga from the Volga, Severo-Kama and other shipping companies.

By a resolution dated April 9, 1942, the State Defense Committee assigned responsibility for organizing transportation across the lake to the Ladoga military flotilla, commanded by Captain 1st Rank V.S. Cherokov. The North-Western River Shipping Company was operationally subordinate to the commander of the Ladoga military flotilla. Measures were taken to strengthen the air defense of the Ladoga highway.

As an important factor in the strategic plan of the Stavka, the partisan movement was also taken into account, the forces of which were to be used on a large scale to disorganize the enemy rear.

Thus, all the fronts deployed from the Arctic to the Crimea received not only instructions to improve the defense in their zones, but also offensive tasks with limited goals. They had to solve these tasks in conditions of temporary defense until the summer of 1942, that is, before the start of a new strategic offensive with decisive goals - the defeat of the main enemy groupings and the liberation of Soviet territory. The general goal of all spring offensive operations was to improve the operational and strategic position of the Soviet Armed Forces in the main directions, to reveal the intentions of the opposing enemy, to defeat his groupings, to disrupt the plan of the Ghggler command to launch a new major offensive on the Soviet-German front with preemptive strikes, thereby giving the strategic defense of the Soviet troops an active character. When delivering preemptive strikes, the greatest importance was attached to the Kharkov region - the most important strategic object in the southwestern direction. All this was supposed to create favorable conditions for the deployment of large-scale offensive operations in the summer on a huge front from the Baltic to the Black Sea in order to defeat the main enemy groupings and create a decisive turning point in the war in favor of the USSR, which began near Moscow in the winter of 1941/42.

Taking into account the timing of the readiness of the reserves and the degree of reorganization of the Air Force and armored forces, the summer offensive of the Soviet Army could begin only in the second half of July 1942.

The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command arranged its reserves so that they could be used, depending on the prevailing situation, both in the southwestern direction - to repel the expected enemy strike and go on a decisive offensive, and in the western direction - to reliably secure the Moscow region. Therefore, the main forces of the reserves were concentrated in the areas of Tula, Voronezh, Stalingrad, Saratov, from where they could be quickly advanced to one or another threatened direction. Between these two directions were distributed and all the marching reinforcements of the army in the field.

The basis of the new offensive plan in 1942, the Nazi leadership laid the desire to achieve the political goals of the war against the USSR, which Nazi Germany failed to achieve in 1941. The strategic concept of the Wehrmacht's supreme command defined the Soviet-German front as the main front of the struggle. It was here, the leaders of fascist Germany believed, that the key to winning victory over the anti-fascist coalition, to solving the problem of gaining world domination, lay. The general strategic plan was to deliver a powerful strike with concentrated forces in one strategic direction - the southern wing of the front - and to consistently expand the offensive zone to the north.

In a conversation with the Japanese ambassador Oshima on January 3, 1942, after the defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow, Hitler confidentially informed him: “The Soviets will be defeated already next summer ... Summer is the decisive stage of the military dispute. The Bolsheviks will be thrown back so far that they can never touch the cultural soil of Europe. Developing and concretizing his adventurous plans, he continued: “I intend for the time being to carry out no more offensive operations in the center of the front. My goal will be to attack on the southern front. I decided, as soon as the weather improved, to again attack in the direction of the Caucasus.

This direction is the most important. We need to go to oil, to Iran and Iraq. If we go there, then, I hope, the liberation movement of the Arab world 1 could also help our breakthrough. Of course, in addition, I will see to it that Moscow and Leningrad are destroyed...

If England loses India, the whole world will collapse. India is the nucleus of the British empire. It is necessary that Germany and Japan consult on joint plans for 1942 and 1943. Both allies must under no circumstances stop halfway. I am sure that England can be destroyed. How to eliminate the USA, I don't know yet" 2.

The question of draft plans for a new offensive campaign first arose in February 1942, when the situation on the Soviet-German front had somewhat stabilized. A new offensive in the East was planned to begin immediately after the spring thaw. February 20 Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff ground forces General A. Heusinger has already submitted to General F. Halder the first draft of the offensive plan. This plan provided for two stages of the struggle: spring and summer-autumn. In the spring of 1942, the forces of Army Group "South" were meant to capture the Kerch Peninsula and Sevastopol, as well as to liquidate Soviet troops in the front ledge in the Barvenkovo ​​area, which should have created the necessary conditions for the deployment in the summer of that year of the main operation on the southern wing of the Soviet German front. The plan of the summer offensive itself provided for a single strike by large Wehrmacht forces on the southern wing in order to break through to the Caucasus.

At the end of February 1942, Ribbentrop, in a conversation with the Japanese ambassador in Germany, said: “Plans for the campaign are now being developed by the General Staff. In general terms, the plan that Hitler outlined at the end of January: in all operations against the USSR, the southern sector should have the greatest importance - the offensive will begin there, and the battles will gradually turn to the north ... In any case, if it is possible to cut off the USSR from external assistance and expand the capture in the south, including the entire Donbass and the Caucasus, then even if it is not possible to completely break the Soviet regime, the USSR will still lose all significance and strength ... Operations against the Middle East will follow operations against the Caucasus.

During March, the General Staff of the Ground Forces was systematically developing a plan for a new offensive in the East under the code name of Operation Siegfried. On March 28, 1942, at a meeting at the headquarters of the Wehrmacht, a detailed plan for the summer offensive was considered. The deputy chief of staff of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht, General V. Warlimont, who was present at the meeting, subsequently wrote down:

1 This refers to the anti-British elements in the Arab countries, on which the Nazis intended to rely in the fight against the British.

2 N. Jacobsen. 1939-1945. Der zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten. Darmstadt, 1961, S. 288.

“... Hitler, despite the failures that befell the Germans, again returned to his main idea, which he adhered to in December 1940 and in the summer of 1941. He again wanted to concentrate his main efforts on the extreme flanks of a widely stretched front. The only difference was that the heavy losses suffered by the land army and which could not be fully replenished forced him to set himself successively one goal after another, starting from the southern sector, from the Caucasus. Moscow as the goal of the offensive ... so far has completely disappeared" 1.

Noteworthy is the testimony of Keitel, who, during an interrogation on June 17, 1945, testified: “As a result of the 1941 campaign, it became clear that there was a moment of a certain balance of power between the German and Soviet troops. The Russian counter-offensive, which was completely unexpected for the high command, showed that we had grossly miscalculated in our assessment of the reserves of the Red Army. It was all the more clear that the Red Army was making maximum use of the winter stabilization of the front for further reinforcement, replenishment and training of new reserves. It was not possible to win the war with lightning speed. However, this did not in any way deprive us of the hope of achieving a military victory by a new offensive.

In drawing up the plan for the 1942 campaign, we were guided by the following guidelines:

a) the troops of the Eastern Front are no longer able to advance along the entire length of the front, as it was in 1941;
b) the offensive should be limited to one section of the front, namely the southern one;
c) the purpose of the offensive: to completely exclude the Donbass from Russia's military-economic balance, cut off the supply of oil along the Volga and capture the main oil supply bases, which, according to our assessment, were located in Maikop and Grozny. The exit to the Volga was not planned immediately in a wide area, it was supposed to go out in one of the places in order to then capture the strategically important center - Stalingrad. In the future, in the event of success and the isolation of Moscow from the south, it was supposed to take a turn with large forces to the north (provided that our allies would take over the Don River). I am at a loss to name any terms for carrying out this operation. The entire operation in the southern sector was to end with a large encirclement of the entire southwestern and southern groups of the Red Army, which were covered by our army groups "A" and "B" ... "2

Historians have at their disposal documentary materials on the plans of the fascist political leadership and military command for the summer of 1942. In the final form, the goal and intent of the new offensive campaign in the East were formulated in OKW directive No. 41 of April 5, 1942, and then specified in directives No. 44 and 45 signed in July.

The military-political goal of the new offensive of the fascist Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front was to regain the strategic initiative and destroy the "remaining" forces of the Soviet Army, capture the maximum number of the most important political, economic and military centers of the Soviet Union.

The strategic plan of the Nazi command was to "... while maintaining a position in the central sector, take Leningrad in the north and establish contact on land with the Finns, and on the southern flank of the front to make a breakthrough to the Caucasus" 3.

1 W. Warlimoiit. Im Hauptquartier der deutschen Wehrmacht. 1939-1945. Frankfurt a/M., 1962, S. 242.

2 Quot. Quoted from: Military Historical Journal, 1961, No. 9, pp. 83-84.

3 Hitlers Weisungen fur die Kriegfuhruug 1939-1945. Dokumente des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht. Frankfurt a/M., 1962, S. 184.

The solution of these tasks was supposed to be carried out sequentially "taking into account the situation created after the end of the winter campaign, the availability of forces and means, as well as transport capabilities." At first, the Nazi command needed to create conditions for conducting the so-called "main operation" in the south of the Eastern Front "in order to destroy the enemy west of the Don, in order to then capture the oil-bearing regions in the Caucasus and cross the Caucasian ridge" For this, the Nazi troops needed to improve their operational position, stabilize and strengthen the Eastern Front and rear front-line areas. Their specific tasks were to seize the Kerch Peninsula and Sevastopol during the spring, cut off the Barvenkovsky ledge of Soviet troops, eliminate their bridgehead northwest of Novgorod, and level the front line in the Moscow direction.

By the end of May, the fascist German command intended to complete the concentration of the main forces of the strike groups for the "main operation". The immediate goal of this operation was to deliver a series of successive, complementary strikes, which were to develop "from north to south in such a way that in each of these strikes in decisive directions as much as possible forces of both the land army and in particular aviation."

The first blow was planned to be delivered from the area south of Orel to Voronezh. From here, mobile formations were to advance downstream of the Don towards the grouping, which was delivering a second blow from the Kharkov region to the east. Then it was supposed to unite in the area west of Stalingrad the troops advancing along the Don, and the troops striking east from the Taganrog, Artemovsk region. After that, a rapid development of success was planned directly to Stalingrad and the North Caucasus.

Operations in the north to seize Leningrad and the Kirov railway were planned to be carried out after the defeat of the Soviet troops in the south and the capture of the oil regions of the Caucasus, the richest agricultural regions of the Middle and Lower Don and the Kuban. In the western direction, where the Soviet troops had significant forces, the enemy planned containment actions and private offensive operations to improve his operational position.

Thus, according to the plan of the fascist command, the armed forces of Germany in summer offensive 1942 were to achieve the solution of the political goals set by the Barbarossa plan. The enemy intended to strike the main blow on the southern wing. The Wehrmacht was no longer capable of delivering simultaneous strikes in other strategic directions, as it was in 1941.

Having concentrated all their reserves in the south of the Eastern Front, the rulers of the “Third Reich” counted on the fact that the loss of Donbass and Caucasian oil would weaken the Soviet Union and provide Germany with the opportunity to successfully continue the war, and the withdrawal of German troops in the Transcaucasus would disrupt the connection between the USSR and foreign countries through the Caucasus and Iran. Moreover, the Nazis, not without reason, hoped that the breakthrough of the German troops in the Transcaucasus would allow them to draw Turkey into the war against the USSR.

The successful implementation of the initial tasks planned by the German strategists for May - June 1942 largely depended on the implementation of the military-political goals of the entire offensive of the Nazi army in the East in the summer of 1942.

In order to ensure the secrecy of the summer offensive of 1942, the fascist leadership carried out a number of disinformation measures.

In order to keep the direction of the main attack secret, the General Staff of the German Ground Forces decided to create the impression that the German troops would launch a powerful offensive in the western direction in order to defeat the central grouping of Soviet troops and capture Moscow. To this end, the headquarters of the Army Group "Center", at the direction of the OKH, developed a plan for a special operation under the code name "Kremlin". The calculation was made on the fact that her plan would become known to the command of the Soviet Army and it would be misled. This plan provided for the implementation of a whole range of various disinformation measures, which were closely linked in time with the preparation and implementation of the offensive in the south. However, the operation "Kremlin" did not achieve its goal.

So, in the spring of 1942, both belligerents developed strategic plans and were preparing for the next round of active operations on the Soviet-German front, which was caused by the urgent need to have a strategic initiative in their hands.

In accordance with the general plans for the forthcoming actions, groupings of forces of the active armies were created.

The Soviet active army included 9 front-line formations, a separate army and troops of the Moscow defense zone, 3 fleets with 3 flotillas operationally subordinate to them. By May 1942, there were still three main commands of the strategic directions - Western, Southwestern and North Caucasian, headed by General G.K. Zhukov, Marshals S.K. Timoshenko and S.M. Budyonny, respectively. The forces of the active army included 10 strike aviation groups of the Stavka, formations and units of long-range aviation, as well as the Moscow Air Defense Front and the Leningrad Air Defense Army. In the strategic reserve of the Stavka were 2 combined arms armies (1st reserve and 58th) and about 80 separate formations and units. In total, the troops of the Soviet active army (excluding the Air Defense Forces of the country and the Navy) at that time had 5.1 million people, almost 3.9 thousand tanks, 44.9 thousand guns and mortars x, about 2.2 thousand .combat aircraft.

1 Without 50-mm mortars, of which there were 21.4 thousand pieces.
2 IVI. Documents and materials, Inv. No. 3, p. 364; f. 244, op. 287, d. 47, ll. 65-66.

The Northern, Baltic and Black Sea fleets had 140 warships of the main classes: 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, 32 destroyers and 100 submarines.

The fascist German armed forces had 3 army groups on the Soviet-German front, which included 9 field and 4 tank armies, 3 operational groups and 3 air fleets. The total number of enemy forces that opposed the Soviet army in May 1942 is shown in table 11.

Thus, the ratio of forces and means of the parties was: in people - 1: 1.2, in guns and mortars - 1: 1.3, in combat aircraft - 1: 1 in favor of the enemy; in tanks - 1.2: 1 and in warships - 2.2 M in favor of the Soviet troops and fleet 2. With such a balance in forces and means, both sides entered in the spring of 1942 into new stage World War II, deploying active operations on its main front.