Partisan and underground movement. Partisan and underground movement on the territory of Crimea (brief essay)

1941-1945

From the memorandum of the leadership of the partisan movement in the Crimea to the Commander of the North Caucasian Front S.M. Budyonny on the combat activities of partisans from November 1, 1941 to July 1942.

(spelling and punctuation preserved)

The Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks instructed the city and district committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to recruit volunteers for partisan detachments, which, in the event of the Crimea being occupied by the Germans, should go into the forest and operate in the rear of the Nazis. Along with this, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Crimean ASSR was instructed to recruit sabotage groups to leave them in the rear of the invaders.

Shortly thereafter, Comrade Bulatov, Secretary of the Crimean All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, instructed Comrade Mokrousov to outline a scheme for the organization, disposition and combat activities of the detachments. In addition, the regional committee ordered the people's commissar of internal affairs, district and city committees of the party to procure food and uniforms, take it all into the forest and base it there. The base from which the volunteers were recruited was the destruction battalions, party and Soviet activists.

The number of partisans was determined by geographical conditions, i.e. the size of the forest area was taken, which could more or less safely shelter the partisans. It was assumed that from 5,000 to 7,500 people could accommodate and actively operate in the Crimean forests. Based on this calculation, a plan was built for the delivery of food, uniforms and weapons. It was assumed that the Germans would not hold out in the Crimea beyond May, so the delivery plan was built for six months: November-April.

Partisans must go into the forest from all regions and cities, except for the regions - Leninsky, Mayak-Salynsky and the city of Kerch, which must remain in the quarries of the Kerch Peninsula. According to the plan, the Crimean forests were divided into five regions: 1st region Eastern edge of the forest - Ortalan, Kapsikhor; 2nd district Ortalan-Kapsihor, highway Simferopol-Alushta.

3rd district highway Simferopol-Alushta, Mangush exclusively Gurzuf. 4th district Mangush-Gurzuf, Biyuk-Karalez, Mukhalatka. 5th district from this line to the western border of the forest. In the 1st district, food should be based and detachments should be placed: Feodosia, Kirovsky district, Stary Krym and Sudak.

The 2nd district is planned for the districts of Ichki, Kolai, Seitler, Dzhankoy, Biyuk-Onlar, Karasubazar, Zuya.

3rd district - two Simferopol urban detachments, Simferopol rural, Alushta, Evpatoria, Telmansky, a detachment of NKVD officers 4th district - Bakhchisarai, Krasno-Perekopsky, Larindorfsky, Yalta, Ak-Sheikhsky, Ak-Mechetsky, Kuibyshevsky.

5th district - detachments of Sevastopol, Balaklava, Freidorf and Saksky. A total of 29 units should arrive. At the end of October, the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks approved: Commander of the Partisan Movement of Crimea Comrade Mokrousov, Commissar Secretary of the Simferopol Civil Code of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Comrade Martynov, Chief of Staff Major Smetanin, Chief of the First District Comrade Satsyuk, Commissar of the Secretary of the Sudak Republic of the Communist Party of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks ) comrade Osmanov, chief of staff - captain Zakharevich; the head of the second district, comrade Genova, the commissar of the secretary of the Dzhankoy RK of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, t Fruslov, the chief of staff, comrade Makal; head of the third district political instructor Seversky, commissar of the secretary of the Central Republic of Kazakhstan of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Simferopol comrade Nikanorov, chief of staff comrade Seleznev;

the head of the fourth district, t Bortnikov, the commissar of the secretary of the Yalta RK VKPb) t. Selimov, the chief of staff, t. Vergasov; Comrade Krasnikov, chief of the fifth district; Comrade Sobolev, commissar; Comrade Ivanenko, chief of staff. The commanders and commissars of the detachments were approved by the city committees and district committees of the CPSU (b).

By November 1, detachments in the amount of 24 arrived in the forest and occupied the areas designated by the heads of the districts. Detachments did not arrive in the forest: Krasno-Perekopsky, Larindorfsky, Freidorfsky and Kuibyshevsky, a detachment of NKVD workers, instead of which came the commandant platoon of the headquarters of the main leadership in the amount of 20 people, staffed by prison workers. Of the comrades approved by the OK of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Sobolev, Fruslov, Osmanov, Selimov, Zekirya did not appear for reasons unknown to us, in whose place they were appointed: in the 1st district - Vyalkov from the 48th cavalry division, in the Vasilenko area, in the 2nd district - regimental commissar Popov, Colonel Comrade Lobov was appointed chief of staff instead of Makal, in the 4th district - commissar Amelinov. The number in the detachments was from 100 to 150 people. Subsequently, three detachments were formed from the remnants of military units and single groups of Red Army soldiers remaining in the forest and a commander of three detachments - Gorodovikov, Kurakov, Aedinov, numbering 100-120 people in the detachment. In addition, the rest of the detachments were also replenished at the expense of groups and singles of military personnel. As a result, in November there were 27 partisan detachments with a total number of 3456 people.

As can be seen from the foregoing, the bulk were non-military. As mentioned above, the detachments did not come to the forest: Krasno-Perekopsky, Freidorfsky and Larindorfsky and a detachment of NKVD workers. On November 2, Grinberg took the Telmansky detachment to Yalta, and Krasnikov disbanded the Saki detachment, which went to Sevastopol, explaining this by the decomposition of the detachment. They fled from the forest, but then the commissar of the 1st district Osmanov, the commissar of the Seitler detachment Puzakin, the commissar of the Karasubazar detachment Kaplun returned, and the commander of the Seitler detachment Evstafiev did not return.

Part of the people left the Seitler detachment, which was soon replenished by the military. Vereshchagin was appointed commander of the detachment. In November-December, desertion assumed a threatening character. During this period, 891 people deserted, mostly Tatars. In total, up to July 1942, about 1 (200 people) deserted, mainly from the 5th, 4th, 3rd and 1st districts. The reasons for the desertion were the instability of some elements, the sharp transition of the Tatar population to the Nazis, the desire of some connect with the Red Army (Sevastopol detachment, Feodosia - commissar Yakubovsky, Kirovsky - commander Aldarov, chief of staff Panarin).

Hunger was a terrible phenomenon in the life of the partisans. As mentioned above, the delivery of food was planned for six months. In fact, more was brought in, but as a result of many reasons, a lot of food did not have time to be taken to the forest from transshipments, and it fell into the hands of the Nazis or was dismantled by the local population, and those products that were stored were also mostly looted by the Nazis. In this they were helped by traitors, mainly from the Tatars, who took part in the transportation and basing. The 5th, 4th and 3rd districts suffered the most.

The 5th district, whose bases were on the Mekenziev mountains and in the area of ​​​​the village of Aytodor, lost bases in the first days, as soon as the Nazis approached there. Soon the same fate befell the 4th and 3rd districts. By January, all detachments, except Evpatoria and Ak-Mechetsky, did not have bases, they ate at the expense of wild animals of the reserve, horses and captured food from the local pro-fascist population, and sometimes received from collective farmers (village Laki). All attempts to seize food from the enemy were unsuccessful, for the reason that the transportation of troops, food and ammunition was and is now being carried out under heavy guard, often with the participation of tanks or tankettes.

There were hundreds of cases when partisans were unable to take anything from damaged cars or wagons, because groups of partisans were attacked by escort groups or groups that quickly arrived at the scene of attack from nearby garrisons. The difficulty of obtaining food in the surrounding villages was that the detachments were located surrounded by Tatar villages, and the Tatar population was hostile to the partisans and was armed by the Germans.

It was difficult to penetrate into Russian or other villages, and especially to take out food, because in all the villages there were garrisons and there were detachments of local fascists.

Sevastopol (Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD of Crimea, comrade Smirnov) knew, through Krasnikov's walkie-talkie and through a live connection, about the famine in the partisan detachments, but did not take measures, and only after Seversky wrote to comrade Oktyabrsky, then in April 1942 began to serve a small amount of food. Other areas were in a better position, but many detachments were half-starved, and they were saved by the fact that food began to be dumped there in early March.

We asked the Military Council of the Caucasian, and then the Crimean Front, to drop food to Seversky, we were promised, but this did not happen until the end of April. As a result of all this, 250 people died of starvation in three districts, and this contributed to desertion. Despite the difficulties experienced by the partisans, the encirclement by local fascists, the presence of large garrisons, and the increased security of the roads, the detachments acted actively, except for the Selikhov landing group, which trailed behind. In addition to many battles in the forest, as well as for the villages of Koush, Ortalan, Baksan and Suuk-Su, the detachments carried out 631 operations, including 124 food operations, 7984 soldiers and officers were destroyed, 787 trucks, 36 cars, small convoys (15- 20 wagons) - 31, tankettes 3, motorcycles 23, tank trucks 22, tractors 6, 2 military train echelons were blown up, 25 bridges were blown up, 400 meters of railway track were damaged, 40 km of cable were cut, fascists and various traitors were shot 441 people.

Our losses: 341 killed, 241 wounded, 110 missing. Due to the fact that the archives of the central headquarters are buried in the forest, it does not allow now to describe the combat activities of each detachment, so we are forced to confine ourselves to summary data.

For 8 months, several mergers of detachments were carried out, as well as the displacement and relocation of the command and political staff. The chief and commissar of the 1st district, Satsyuk and Vyalkov, were dismissed for inactivity, cowardice, and other misdeeds; head of the 5th district Krasnikov; commander of the Zuy detachment Litvinenko; commander and commissar of the Karasubazar detachment Timokhin and Kaplun; the commander of the Kirov detachment Aldarov was shot for corruption and desertion; the commissar of the 2nd district Popov was removed; commander of the Evpatoria detachment Kalashnikov; commander of the 1st Simferopol detachment Soldatchenko; commissar of the Seitler Detachment Puzakin; the commander of the 1st Simferopol detachment, Shchetinin, was transferred to the rank and file, and then appointed chief of staff of the 4th district. Shot by the verdict of the Revolutionary Tribunal for the murder of a wounded soldier, the murder of two lieutenants and for disarming and not accepting 15 Red Army soldiers, subsequently killed by the Romanians, into their detachment, the commander of the Kolai detachment Gubarev and commissar Shtepa.

Shot by the chief of staff of the 5th district Ivanenko, who went over to serve in the Gestapo; the head of the 2nd district, Genov, was removed by the Military Council of the Caucasian Front. The head of the 4th district, Bortnikov, was replaced by Major General Averkin; NKVD Crimean commissar Biyuk-Onlar detachment Feldman was removed. In connection with the appointment of Gorodovikov and Furik, the head of the 1st District Mokrous, Commissar Ponomarenko, was transferred to the detachment. Subsequently, movements were made in connection with the liquidation of the 4th and 5th districts, as well as in connection with the merger of detachments due to the small number of Ichkinsky with Kolaisky, Zuysky with Seitlersky. The best units should be considered:

Feodosia - commander Mokrous, commissioner Ponomarenko; Gorodovikov detachment, Dzhankoy detachment - commander Ryumshin, commissar Klevetov; Ichkinsky - Commander Chub, Commissar Bedin; Kurakov's detachment 4th Krasnoarmeisky; Alushtinsky - commander Ivanov, commissioner Eremenko; Yalta - the commander was Krivoshta, commissar Kucher; Red Army - Commander Aedinov, Commissar Sukhinenko; Bakhchisarai - Commander Macedonian, Commissioner Black; 2nd Simferopol - Commander Chussi, Commissar Tretyak; The Zuysky detachment - commander Kamensky, commissar Lugovoi is in the first place in terms of communication with the population, for intelligence and food supply, as well as the detachments of Chub and Kurakov. Of all the detachments, the 1st Krasnoarmeisky is the worst - commander Smirnov, commissar Polyansky. 4th Krasnoarmeisky - commander Nezamov, commissar Sidorov. These two detachments were formed from the Selikhov landing group.

At present, due to the abolition of the 4th and 5th districts, as well as the merger of some detachments, the number of detachments and the number of fighters is: 1st district - the head of the Chub district, Commissar Furik, detachments 4, number 517 people 1) Red Army No. 2 - commander Isaev, commissar Svinoboev, 2) Karasubazarsky - commander Zaretsky, commissar Kamansky, 3) Kirovsky - commander Pozyvaev, commissar Kryukov, 4) Feodosia - where Sudaksky is poured - commander Mokrous, commissar Ponomarenko.

2nd district - head of the district Kurakov, vrid. commissar Lugovoy, detachments 7, totaling 950 people, 1) Dzhankoy detachment, commander Shashlyk, commissar Kiselev, 2) Red Army No. 4 - commander Mitko, commissar Sidorov, 3) Red Army No. 3 - commander Baranovsky, commissar Egorov, 4) Red Army No. 1, commander Smirnov, commissar Polyansky, 5) Ichkino-Kolaisky, - commander Yuriev, commissar Bedin, 6) Zuysky - commander Kamensky, commissar Mozgov, 7) Biyuk-Onlarsky - commander Nightingale, commissar Orlov.

3rd district - head of Seversky, commissar Nikanorov, detachments 6, total number of 560 people, Simferopol No. 1 - commander Seleznev, commissar Filippov, 2) Simferopol No. 2 - commander of Chussi, commissar Tretyak, 3) Evpatoria - commander Ermakov, commissar Fartushny , 4) Alushtinsky - commander Amelinov, commissioner Eremenko, 5) Sevastopol - commander Zinchenko, commissioner Krivoshta, 6) Bakhchisarai - commander Macedonian, commissioner Cherny.

Platoon at the headquarters of the commander of 38 people, commander Fedorenko, commissioner Boyko. In total, as of July 1, 1942, there are 2125 people. The detachments are provided with food for 7-8 days. The detachments are fully equipped with rifles. There are about 200 rounds of ammunition per fighter, heavy machine guns - 8, Degtyarev - 23, machine guns -56, but not all have cartridges, company mortars -16, battalion -1, 46 mm guns - 88 2.76 mm -2, explosion . about 130 kg of substances, not everyone is provided with hand grenades, well-equipped, but not everyone has an overcoat.

Communication between the main headquarters and the districts, as well as between the headquarters of the districts and the detachments, is exceptionally lively. The headquarters of the districts have messengers with whom they send mail to neighboring districts, and if the mail is intended for the General Headquarters, from the area close to the headquarters, the mail is carried by messengers of this district. For example, a detachment has its own messengers who carry mail to the headquarters of the district and back, the messengers of the district carry mail to the neighboring district either to the leadership of the district, or to the main headquarters, if it is located in this district. Approximately - messengers of the first district, delivers mail to the second district, transfers it to the chief of communications of the district, and he transfers it to the main headquarters through the messengers of the latter who are with him.

The most difficult - communication was carried out by the 3rd, 4th, 5th districts when the headquarters moved to the 2nd district, and when the headquarters was in the third district - the same picture was with the first and second districts. Due to the fact that the roads Simferopol - Alushta, Karasubazar - Uskut are heavily guarded, communication is very difficult.

There were cases, especially in winter, when communication was broken for a month, and in the first days, without waiting for messengers from the 1st and 2nd regions, we had to allocate a special group, which with great difficulty reached these regions, losing two one man (one killed, one missing) and one wounded.

For all the time from November to July, 21 people were killed communicating with the General Headquarters, and 10 between districts. Communication with the mainland was maintained with Sevastopol via Krasnikov's walkie-talkie, liaisons from the main headquarters and the 5th district and liaisons sent by Sevastopol residents . Radio communication was established by the Military Council of the Kav. front, which sent five radio operators with two stations to the 2nd region, the first region received one radio operator in February and one in March, who came with a walkie-talkie from the steppe.

The worst was in the 3rd district. Despite our repeated requests, it was only in May that a radio operator arrived at the Zuysky detachment for Seversky, who was kept by the authorized GO for the Zuysky detachment Kharchenko for more than a month, referring to Kapalkin’s order, and only after our categorical order, the radio operator was sent to Seversky. In addition, communication is maintained by aircraft, and once a group of people arrived in the 3rd district from Sevastopol by boat.

As seen above, the main core of the partisans were volunteers. It was assumed that during the retreat of the Red Army from the Crimea, not all units would have time to cross over to the Caucasian coast and those remaining in the Crimea should settle in the forest. Therefore, even when drawing up the scheme, the question of subordination and possible misunderstandings on this basis came up, especially knowing that discipline requires, in the event of a loss of communication with the immediate superiors, the subordination of a junior in rank to a senior, there was a fear that such bosses would not be found who did not recognize chiefs approved by the regional committee, they will take it into their heads to subjugate all the military, as a result of which a jumble could result.

Therefore, the scheme and our order provided for the subordination of all the chiefs who got into the forest to the leadership of the partisans. Subsequently, in this spirit, an order was issued for the border troops and 51 armies. We learned about this already being in the forest, and even then not officially, but from the words of Major Izugenev and after Major General Averkin. Unfortunately, many commanders and commissars did not want to comply with this order, they tried to break into Sevastopol, as a result, the cadres surrendered, and only small groups managed to get to Sevastopol.

There were no cases of forcible annexation of the remnants of the units, but there were cases when the partisans, knowing that these remnants would not break through to Sevastopol, but would fall into the hands of the Nazis, disarmed those who did not want to stay in the forest. Mokrousov and Martynov themselves held a rally with Izugenev and the commander of the border regiment (I don’t remember the number) Martynenok, but neither Izugenev nor Martynenok remained. As a result, as it became known to us, after that they came to Sevastopol with a small group, consisting exclusively of the chief political staff. All the rest surrendered to the Nazis.

Before our eyes, the remnants of one regiment, retreating through the reserve, surrendered in batches. And two days before that, Mokrousov told the regiment commander that if it was impossible for him to break through to Yalta, he had to stay in the forest. To this, the regiment commander (I don’t remember his last name) replied: “The Nazis will cross this line only over my corpse.”

Despite the desire of the commanders and commissars to break through, about 1,000 people settled in the forest, including the remnants of 48 kav. divisions in the amount of 100-120 people from the Gorodovikov regiment. At the head of these remnants were Commissar Popov and Chief of Staff Lobov. General Averkin, under very mysterious circumstances, fought off these remnants on Demerdzhiyail, made his way to the headquarters of the main leadership and received command over the 4th district, and in December was killed by the Nazis in the Uzenbash area.

The partisans greeted their military comrades as relatives, providing them with all possible assistance with food, clothing and ammunition. Except for the cases in the Kolai detachment, where the detachment commander Gubarev and commissar Shtepa disarmed a group of 13 military men and expelled from the detachment, as a result of which the group died, for which Gubarev and Shtepa were shot. The command and political staff of the Red Army, who fell into the forest, received appointments instead of non-military ones. It was indicated above that the chiefs of staff, the Central Headquarters and the districts were military.

Subsequently, the military led detachments, were appointed to responsible positions in the regions. Popov, Lobov, Vyalkov, Major General Averkin, Aedinov, Seversky Chief of Staff Captain Kalugin, Lieutenant Colonel Shetinin, etc., and now most of the military are on the detachments. Relations with the military are very good, with the exception of Lobov, Popov and Selikhov. Moreover, when rumors reached us about the bad relationship between Popov and Lobov and the former head of the 2nd district, Genov, we wrote to them about it. In response, we received from Popov and Genov a refutation and confirmation of very good relations.

However, after that, the commander of the Dzhankoy detachment, Ryumshin, who died bravely in battle, wrote to us about the unhealthy relationship of this trio. When we came to the headquarters of the 2nd district in February, it turned out that this "friendly" troika was at odds, moreover, Lobov and Popov had dragged Selikhov and a number of other comrades into this squabble. Selikhov's walkie-talkie started working, and soon an order followed to dismiss Genov and appoint Selikhov, a weak-willed and mediocre person, to his place.

Martynov and I called Lobov, Popov and Genov in order to sort things out and reconcile them, but we saw that nothing would come of it. Genov was accused of incapacity, openly called a shepherd, that he did not give food to the military (on examination it turned out that the military received food equally with the partisans) and some other minor sins. If Lobov and Popov did not pursue some goal, they could help Genov in eliminating his shortcomings in military knowledge and work well.

In order to defuse this atmosphere and strengthen the leadership of the 1st district, we appointed Lobov chief of staff there, he became diplomatically ill. Selikhov's walkie-talkie started working, and three days later an order was issued by the Front Commander to leave Lobov as chief of staff of the 2nd district. Having received this order, Lobov instantly recovered.

In order to get acquainted with the political composition and identify the relationship, we gathered all of them for a meeting. Here we were met with hostility by all the commanders and political workers of the remnants of the 48th division. Most of all, they found fault with the words of Mokrousov, who said: “What are you doing with a lousy cavalry division” and said that the behavior of Popov and Lobov double-dealing borders on Trotskyism.

Moreover, the expression "lousy division" did not refer to the 48th division, and not to the existing remnants, which Lobov and Popov identified with the former division. We knew about Gorodovikov as a good commander from the stories of his fellow soldiers who were in the detachments of the 3rd district, and from the reports of Genov, so we had in mind to give him the 4th district. When this was discussed, Gorodovikov obeyed.

Here Popov came out and introduced himself as the commander of a division, which is subordinate only to him and no one can dispose of it without his knowledge. However, we did not agree with this statement and appointed Gorodovikov the head of the 4th district.

Apparently, Selikhov's walkie-talkie started working again, and on the 3rd day we received an order to create a military group, which included Gorodovikov's detachment with the subordination of this group to Selekhov. When checking the detachments, it turned out that Popov kept Kaplun, who had thrown away his party card, as commissar of the Karasubazar detachment.

When working out our order to intensify actions, he began to engage in quiet squabbles, aggravated relations between the military and non-military, had a concubine, and messed around. All this forced us to raise the question of replacing him, which happened; the Military Council appointed Buskadze in his place. After his dismissal, instead of honestly working, he was idle (report to Buskadze), gathered the offended (Kvashnev, Kasyanov, Egorov, Polyansky and others), intrigued and engaged in projecting. Having received the appointment of the commissar of the II district, he, having come to the Headquarters, began to swear obscenely to the head of the district Kurakov, the leadership of the partisan movement, wrote an order to transfer the translator Bella Trakhtenberg, Lobov's concubine, from our detachment to his disposal, wrote an order to remove the commissioners from work OO, appointed by us, and about the appointment of others in their place, including the loafer Kasyanov, and when he came to land at the landing site, he tried to forcibly put Kvashnev on the plane out of turn, threatened with a stick and scolded the deputy. Martynov, authorized by us for evacuation, Domnin (See the material sent by us to the Special Department of the Front). This open revolt of Popov outraged us, Mokrousov arrested Popov and handed him over to a military tribunal, about which he informed you by telegram on the same day.

Lobov is an elusive intrigue, if not worse. All his work is aimed at inciting and making things worse. He slandered us to the Military Council of Crimea. Front, accused us of persecuting the military, adhered to and inspired the commanders to devote more time to reconnaissance, which essentially amounted to disrupting the operation. He adhered to the tactics of keeping the detachments in a heap, while moving our headquarters, he drove Selikhov's detachments after us, contrary to our orders. On orders from the Kokasan region, a detachment of Gorodovikov and Kurakov should withdraw to Terka, and he drove this detachment and the military.

When our headquarters moved from the Kokasan region in May, Selikhov himself suggested the idea of ​​conducting a food operation in the villages located north of Kazanly.

We have approved this plan. Instead, Selikhov drove the 2nd detachment to the Terke region, and when Mokrousov gave Selikhov a scolding for this, he said that he had received Lobov's order for this. Colonel Lobov refused this. When Selikhov fell ill, Martynov and Lobov went to him to talk about his and Buskadze's evacuation, he agreed subject to your permission, and when Lobov wrote an order for the temporary release of Selikhov due to illness, Lobov began to tell Mokrousov that the order was written incorrectly, since there was no report from Selikhov.

To Mokrousov’s remark that you said that you spoke to him, “no, I didn’t say that,” Lobov lied. This pissed off Mokrousov, and he cursed him and said in a fit of irritability: “T. Soroka, shoot Lobov." But no one shot him, and Mokrousov would not have allowed it. It must be admitted that Mokrousov acted very, very badly here.

T. Bulatov raised the question, what is our opinion if the partisan detachments are divided into two independent regions with direct subordination to the mainland. We write to the Great Land because we still do not know to whom we are subordinate. Directives were sent to us by the Military Council of the Crimean Front, the Crimean Regional Committee of the Party, the Primorskaya Army, the NKVD of Crimea, and now the Military Council of the Cavalry. front. All this stunned us, and we did not know "which god to pray"! This must be put an end to and the partisan movement must be subordinated to one leadership.

The question of separation is difficult for us to resolve. Of course, in the presence of good regular communication by radio and air with the body to which the partisans are subordinate, and the difficulties of communication between the areas separated by the Simferopol-Alushta highway, dismemberment would, perhaps, be useful, and since we have no reason to hope for this, then the abolition of the unified leadership in the Crimea may have a detrimental effect on deeds, and even if such people as Lobov and Popov end up at the head of the administration of independent regions. For these reasons, we cannot offer anything.

Prospects for replenishing people and supplying detachments Unfortunately, we began to establish contact with the population of the steppe regions only from April. Before that, it was almost impossible, since we had neither clothes nor documents with which our people could travel from the forest, and in winter it was impossible to walk hundreds of miles with an overnight stay in the field. For these reasons, we knew only by hearsay about the life and mood of the peasants.

As for the Tatar population of the mountainous regions, from the first days of the occupation of the Crimea by the fascists, the vast majority of them followed the fascists, which excluded the possibility of us doing work other than undercover. After establishing contact with the village, it was established that the overwhelming majority of the peasants were Soviet-minded, but terror had strangled them so much that people were afraid of each other and even close relatives.

Even before that, the Zuysky detachment, thanks to the energy and popularity of the commissar of the detachment, Comrade Lugovoy, had close ties with the collective farmers of the Zuysky district, especially with the village of Barabanovka, from where he drew various information and food, and subsequently almost all the inhabitants of this village went into the forest to Lugovoy . When we established contact with the steppe regions, about which see below, it turned out that the peasants were not averse to partisan and go into the forest, but fear for the families that the Nazis would destroy if their relatives went into partisans held them back.

At that time, the Nazis had not yet had time to rob the village completely, and there was food that would have been given to the partisans, but it was not possible to organize its delivery to the forest due to strong developed espionage, the lack of horses and the difficulties associated with transportation, especially through the Simferopol highway. Feodosia, heavily guarded, and passing Tatar villages. Now this situation has worsened due to increased surveillance and terror, the lack of food among the collective farmers and there is no hope for a harvest, since only seeds can produce a harvest, so the only source is the delivery of food to the Crimea from the Kuban.

Collective farmers will go to the forest with their families, which cannot be allowed. In particular, our agent came to us from the village of Besheran in July and asked whether it was possible to lead people into the forest. We said - only without families. Went to negotiate with them. How this issue will be resolved is hard to say. Our opinion boils down to the fact that there will be an influx of people into the partisan detachments, and it can be organized provided that family members are evacuated from the forest to the mainland and the supply of food is increased.

Thus, the population will also act against the fascists in the steppe. The cadres of the partisans, having survived the famine, are overwhelmingly sick and exhausted. For these reasons, people are unlikely to hold out for long, especially if Crimea is not liberated before winter. Therefore, the question arises of replacing them with new, fresh people, which in practice can be done without much difficulty. The change of people can be done by air with a landing of TB on Karabi Yayle and by sea with the approach of a boat between Otuzy-Kozy, Novyi Svet, Kapsikhor and at Semidvorye. There are no such opportunities in the Seversky district. These points have been explored, and now it is only necessary to resolve this question in practice.

Our opinion in this case boils down to the following: a) Kurakov and Chub give the order of approach for boats. b) Boats go to these points with people and food. c) On the shore they are met by armed people with packs plus those to be evacuated. d) The disembarked people and detachments lift the load on themselves and on packs and go with it to the camps.

Organize underground work in the Crimea began in April m-tse. For this, politically literate comrades with organizational abilities were selected and sent to the regions as party representatives. We decided that in order to avoid the possibility of provocations and betrayal, we should not immediately create party groups, but began with the creation of groups of Soviet patriots, and only after the comrades showed their devotion to our cause in concrete deeds, create party groups from among them ...

Organized groups launched propaganda work among the population and for this purpose they used newspapers and magazines delivered to us in the forest. The groups were given the following tasks: to carry out agitation and mass work among the population, to organize and carry out work to disrupt various kinds of enemy measures, to carry out acts of sabotage, to recruit new members, etc.

According to the data received from the district representatives, one can see a new increase in oppression and terror by the Nazis over the population. All food, livestock, poultry and clothes are taken from the population. From "voluntary" methods of confiscating the population for export to Germany, the occupiers switched to methods of undisguised violence. They give a layout for the settlement, the headman supplies the stipulated number of people for export. Intolerable conditions have been created for the population, and if they do not go to the partisan detachments, it turns out that it is because the Gestapo launched a demagogic agitation about the massacre by the partisans of anyone who appears in the forest.

And there are those who want to go to the partisans. This is in the presence of our agitation, which is not yet firmly established. We gave instructions to the district party representatives to oppose our Soviet truth to the fascist demagogy. Organize explanations to the population about the actual state of the war, about the atrocities of the invaders, about the facts of the political and economic lack of rights of the population, that the partisans are cracking down and will crack down on the occupiers and traitors of our people, and that the partisans will gladly meet everyone who wants to help them in their selfless fight. Consequently, there is a base for replenishing partisan detachments.

It is only necessary, through skillfully and energetically staged agitation, to awaken the idea among the population about the need for a merciless struggle against the invaders, by any means and under any conditions, to show the population on the concrete facts of the atrocities of the Nazis that the only way out for our people from lack of rights. Comrade Davydkin especially reports on undercover and intelligence activities.

Basically, the work consisted of: they gave intelligence data, according to which the command of the Crimean Front could fully determine the intentions of the enemy and build their operational plans. In particular, from our reports on the grouping of tank formations in the Koktebel-Feodosia-Stary Krym triangle, it could be unmistakably judged that the enemy was aiming his main blow at our left flank. So it was before the Kerch catastrophe and before the fall of the hero - Sevastopol. Unfortunately, as rumors reached us, many of our radiograms, which provided important intelligence about the enemy's preparations for an attack on Kerch, were deciphered after the fall of Kerch. So it was or not, it is necessary to check.

In March, at the request of the Military Council of the Crimean Front, we presented a list of especially distinguished partisans for an award. A total of 67 people were represented, and the Military Council did not require characteristics for those represented. So far, the show has not taken place. At the same time, all those nominated by Selikhov for the award have already been awarded.

Commander of the Crimean partisan movement Colonel (Mokrousov)

Commissioner Secretary of the Simferopol Civil Code of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Art. battalion commissar (Martynov)

In the summer of 1943, the Crimean regional party committee once again reorganized the leadership of the people's struggle against the invaders on the territory of the peninsula in accordance with the new situation and new tasks.

From Stalingrad, the war turned to the west. During the liberation of the North Caucasus, a Nazi Kuban bridgehead was formed, on which 21 divisions with a total number of about 500 thousand enemy soldiers and officers (17 infantry, 1 tank, 1 motorized, 2 cavalry) defended.

Back in mid-March, the Wehrmacht headquarters ordered "to hold the Taman bridgehead and Crimea at all costs" in order to tie down Soviet troops, limit the capabilities of the Soviet fleet and provide a favorable political effect.

On July 1, Taman and Crimea were held by Army Group "A", which consisted of the 17th German Army (corps 5, 44th Army, 49th Mountain Rifle), Operational Group "Crimea" and troops of the operational rear of Army Group "A" . She had 23 divisions, including 14 German, 8 Romanian and a Slovak motorized division. There were six divisions in the Crimea: the 153rd field training and 355th German infantry divisions; the Romanian mountain rifle corps (2nd, 3rd, 4th mountain rifle divisions) and the Slovak motorized division "Bystra". During August, the administration of the 3rd Romanian army arrived in Crimea.

On September 1, 1943, there were 430,000 soldiers and officers in the combat strength of Army Group A, including 273,000 Germans, 102,000 Romanians and Slovaks, and others.

The morale of the Nazi troops and the troops of their allies fell even more after the defeat at the Kursk salient. The Romanian and Slovak units were especially demoralized. They began to pass into captivity in groups and alone. Many voluntarily went to the rear. The Germans disarmed the "dangling soldiers", and a special camp was set up for deserters in the Dzhankoy area. The commander of Army Group A, Field Marshal Kleist, turned to Antonescu with a request to point out to the commanders "the need to do their duty." Even less reliable were the units, which consisted of traitors, criminals, and deceived Soviet citizens.

The mass attraction of the population to the construction of fortified defensive lines and strongholds has intensified. In the Kuban, the Gothsky shaft was built (aka: "Gotenkopf", "Blue Line"). Then they began to build the main defensive line, which ran along the Kerch Strait, along the Molochnaya, Dnieper, Sozh rivers and further north along the river. Narva to the Gulf of Finland. The entire population was involved in the construction of the "eastern rampart". Those who refused to work were threatened with death.

The Slovak motorized division "Bystra", which arrived in the Crimea in April 1943 from the reserve of Army Group "A", was anti-fascist. On June 12, six Slovaks, led by corporal Viktor Khrenko, went over to the Crimean partisans. Soon another 230 Slovaks went to the partisans, but not far from the edge of the forest, the Gestapo caught up with the Slovaks and massacred them. In September, the division "Fast", as not sufficiently reliable, was assigned to Kherson in Bolshiye Kopani. But on October 26, 1943, a new group of Slovaks, led by Jacques Bako Yuraj and Josef Belko, arrived at the partisans of the Crimea, passing through the whole of Tavria. The Slovaks formed their own partisan detachment and successfully operated as part of the 1st partisan brigade.

On November 26, 1943, 22 Slovak partisans wrote to General Ludwik Svoboda: “We are fighting for freedom and happiness, for our native Czechoslovakia, for the complete defeat of fascism.

We ask you to consider us fighters of your army and are ready immediately after the liberation of the Crimea to join the ranks of the great Czechoslovak army ... ". In March, all Slovak partisans were seconded to the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps of General L. Svoboda.

From the 33rd regiment of the 10th Romanian Infantry Division, seven Moldavian soldiers crossed over to the Crimean partisans. Interesting information is provided by I.E. Levit about the decomposition of the Romanian army in 1943. 41,827 soldiers and officers were convicted by military field courts, including more than 23 thousand for desertion.

The liberation of the Donbass and Left-Bank Ukraine brought the expulsion of the enemy from Crimea closer. The partisans and underground fighters were faced with the task of disrupting the communications and communications of the enemy, weakening his units and subunits in every possible way, preparing the population to assist the Red Army, and preserving the national property from destruction and removal.

On July 12, 1943, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement formed the Crimean Headquarters of the partisan movement. The first secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks V.S. was approved as the chief of staff. Bulatov. This further united the party and military leadership, the underground and the partisans. On August 24, the Crimean regional party committee adopted a resolution “On the work of the regional party center in Crimea”, in which it noted that the population of Crimea did not submit to the invaders. The underground center managed to establish contact with many underground patriotic groups, most of which arose independently, and through them to carry out significant political work among the population. The bureau of the regional committee noted the exceptionally high political and moral state of the partisans. With a smaller number of people, they inflicted very strong blows on the enemy. The number of sabotage on the railway has increased; intelligence was improved, including in the interests of the command of the North Caucasian Front.

Two days after the formation of the Crimean Headquarters of the partisan movement, the Central Headquarters issued an order for a "rail war" on enemy communications. The Crimean partisans took part in September-November 1943 in Operation Concert.

Highly appreciating the work of the underground center, the bureau of the regional committee also noted shortcomings in underground work: neglect of conspiracy, weak exposure of provocative groups specially created by the Gestapo, lack of communication with Kerch, Sevastopol and remote northern regions of Crimea.

The Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks specified the tasks of the fight against the invaders for the future: to strengthen the underground patriotic groups, to prevent the Germans from taking grain and livestock out of the Crimea, to continue to conduct active operations, including sabotage.

The Crimean underground center was expanded. It included P.R. Yampolsky (secretary), N.D. Lugovoy, E.P. Kolodyazhny, E.P. Stepanov and others. Simferopol underground city party committee headed by I.A. Kozlov united 42 militant underground organizations and groups, which included 320 people. The organizations of V.K. Efremov at the Simferopol railway station, N.A. Baryshev - in the regional drama theater, P.N. Topalov - at the bakery. The most numerous and active were underground groups led by I.G. Leksina, I.I. Nosenko, V.I. Babia and others.

In July 1943, the Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement abolished the sectors, uniting four detachments operating in the central part of the mountains into a brigade under the command of N.D. Lugovoy and Commissioner M.M. Egorova. In the eastern part of the mountains, a separate detachment of V.S. Kuznetsov and in the western part - the detachment of M.A. Macedonian. This organization was further improved when, in anticipation of the imminent expulsion of the occupiers, from October 1943 a rapid growth of partisan detachments began.

In connection with the isolation of enemy troops in the Crimea, the mood of the population became more resolute and combative. Dozens and hundreds of residents left the cities and foothill villages for forests and mountains, fleeing from deportation to Germany and other repressions. The partisans themselves often visited the villages, where red flags had already been hung out and even village councils were elected. The police formations that blocked partisan airfields and camps left the forest. The isolation of the partisans from the population was crumbling.

In 1941, 3700 people joined the partisan detachments, in 1942 - 490, in January-September 1943 - 457, and in the last three months of 1943 5632 people joined the detachments (10,279 in total). By the end of the year, instead of 6 partisan detachments, 33 partisan detachments began to operate. Numerous so-called civilian camps were located near the partisan camps, in which there were about 10 thousand people (in the Reserve - 4735, in the Zuysky forests - more than 3000, in Starokrymsky - 2000 people) and who were not only hiding from the occupation administration, but were also voluntary assistants to the partisans. Partisan assistants also appeared in many villages.

It was not just the rapid growth of partisan formations, but the impatience of the people, who wanted the fastest liberation from the enslavers, who sought to contribute to this common cause. The popularity of partisans as defenders of the people increased. The inhabitants of the villages in an organized manner appealed to the partisans with a request to protect them from robbery and terror by the occupying authorities.

In Crimea, there were a significant number of so-called "volunteer" battalions and companies, forcibly formed from prisoners of war and used to protect the coast, bridges, roads and for the construction of defensive structures. At the end of 1943, many of them kept in touch with the partisans and underground fighters and were preparing to go over to the side of the Red Armin at the opportunity.

Some former policemen, elders, deceived "volunteers" of Muslim formations also joined the partisan detachments, who were told that their future would largely depend on their combat activity in the fight against the invaders.

The commander of the brigade of the Southern connection L.A. Wichman wrote in his diary that the composition of the brigade had become very complex. It included Tatar nationalists who had gone over to the side of the partisans and "volunteers" who had fled from the 17th German Army. All this required the education of personnel and training in the methods of guerrilla warfare.

The mass nature of the partisan formations put the enemy in difficult conditions. One of the prisoners, a chief corporal of the 73rd Infantry Division, said during interrogation: "... we are afraid of your partisans like fire, we repress them, we hate them, but we are forced to respect them - these are heroes, daredevils."

The manifestation of hatred for the invaders, the full support of the partisans caused a new wave of fascist terror against the population of Crimea. As part of a counter-guerrilla action around the forests, 81 villages were destroyed (burned down) and 5268 peasant households were destroyed. Residents who did not have time to go under the protection of the partisans were driven to the steppe regions, and the young were taken out of the Crimea by sea for forced labor. The entire population of Kerch, Feodosia, the entire Kerch Peninsula was evicted to the central part of the Crimea. Enemy troops systematically carried out "combating", sometimes involving up to two divisions with tanks and artillery for this. November 17, 1943 P.R. Yampolsky wrote to V.S. Bulatov: “The battle of November 16 cannot be regarded as an episodic punitive expedition. This is the beginning of a serious armed struggle against the partisans. It turns out that the enemy estimates us higher and "respects" us more than we ourselves expected.

While the majority of the population took the path of struggle against the occupiers more and more decisively, the occupation regime became more and more rigid. The Security Service (SD) increased its network of agents. Provocations became a favorite method of action: false leaflets and newspapers were printed; radio messages were broadcast on behalf of the Soviet authorities; false underground groups and partisan detachments were created. Many patriots, succumbing to provocations, paid with their lives.

The village of Dubki near Simferopol became the place of death of 8 thousand Soviet citizens from a concentration camp on the territory of the Krasny state farm. Residents of several villages near Bakhchisaray and Zuya were burned alive for their connection with the partisans.

The economic and political measures of the invaders - the export of valuables, food, cars, mining and preparation for the destruction of the most important objects and entire cities - convinced the population that their end was near. Various sections of the population took the path of open struggle more and more resolutely.

The Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks carried out political work among the population through partisan formations, underground organizations and, in some places, restored bodies of Soviet power. On January 29, the Bureau of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided to send party activists to partisan detachments.

It was necessary to arm new detachments of partisans, to re-arm the previously existing ones, to replenish the command cadres. By this time, up to 30 transport aircraft per night could be received at three partisan airfields.

On November 10, the Military Council of the North Caucasian Front set the partisans the task of moving on to active operations in order to disrupt communications and communications, destroy headquarters, warehouses, fuel, and collect intelligence data. The directive prescribed "all power in the Crimea, in the part that is currently available to our influence, must be concentrated in one hand, combining both issues of civil administration and leadership of military operations, giving comrades the right to resolve all organizational issues on the spot" .

On November 24, the Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement, in order to further centralize the leadership, formed the Central Operational Group (COG), headed by P.R. Yampolsky. The political department of the COG was formed, headed by the battalion commissar N.D. Lugovoi, the headquarters of the COG, headed by Lieutenant Colonel V.E. Savchenko. The organization of the headquarters was similar to the headquarters of a combined arms unit. First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Guards Lieutenant Colonel A.A. Aristov was the head of the operations department. Second Deputy Chief of Staff Major S.A. Osovsky was the organizer of intelligence.

Given the increase in the number of partisan formations and the need for more efficient leadership, on January 29, 1944, seven partisan brigades were formed. Each brigade consisted of 3-5 detachments. The 1st and 5th brigades (860 people) were merged into the Northern Connection under the command of P.R. Yampolsky (commissar N.D. Lugovoy, chief of staff V.E. Savchenko). The 4th, 6th and 7th brigades (2.2 thousand people) made up the Southern unit under the command of M.A. Makedonsky (commissioner M.V. Selimov, chief of staff A.A. Aristov). The 2nd and 3rd brigades (680 people) formed the Eastern Connection under the command of V.S. Kuznetsova (commissioner R. Mustafaev, chief of staff S.D. Kachanov). Each connection had its own rear service. By this time, the 2nd Transport Regiment of the 1st Aviation Transport Division (Li-2 aircraft) and the 9th Separate Aviation Regiment (PO-2 and R-5 aircraft) as part of the 4th Air Army were used to supply the partisans. From October 1943 to February 1944, in 146 sorties, they delivered 252 tons of cargo to the partisans, including 16 radio stations. During the same time, the partisans committed more than 40 major sabotage on railway transport.

In almost all cities and villages, at the calls of the regional party committee, underground groups arose and carried out agitation and subversive work against the invaders. They needed contact with underground party centers and partisans. In mid-October, the underground party center (committee) headed by P.R. Yampolsky had contact with 12 underground groups and established contact with 6 more organizations.

In the context of the growing intense struggle between underground organizations and the punitive organs of the occupiers, small underground groups were no longer able to fight independently. Coordination of their actions, division of functions between groups, reconnaissance, provision of sabotage, cover were required. Small single groups of underground workers in the first place became victims of enemy terror, especially in sparsely populated areas.

In the middle of 1943, the occupiers destroyed the network of underground organizations in the Seitler (Nizhegorsk) region. Already after the liberation of Crimea, the bureau of the Pervomaisky (formerly Larindorfsky) district considered the actions of underground patriotic organizations during the period of fascist occupation, which arose spontaneously. In April-May 1943, they were merged into one organization, which was led by a headquarters consisting of non-party N.N. Prigarin, communist M.P. Nilov, Komsomol member A.F. Heron. In December 1943 they were arrested and the regional organization disintegrated, only some groups in the villages continued to operate.

Politically and militarily mature, the Sevastopol Communist Underground Organization behind German lines (KPOVTN), led by V.D. Revyakin. She campaigned among the population, prisoners of war and enemy soldiers, collected information so that by the time the Red Army arrived, “evil traitors” would not evade responsibility and the innocent would not be punished, carried out sabotage. It slowed down the export of the population and valuables through the port of Sevastopol and by rail. In February 1944, she established contact with the intelligence department of the Black Sea Fleet, to which she reported important information.

During its activity, the CPOVTN issued 36 leaflets, including “Appeal to the working people of Sevastopol”, “To the soldiers and officers of the German army”, “Appeal to the prisoners of war of the city of Sevastopol”, from May 1943 it published the newspaper “For the Motherland”, circulation which reached 500 copies.

In April 1944, the Nazis arrested and then shot the activists of the underground organization. But the plan of action in case of the arrival of the Red Army was preserved. Acting on it, the remaining underground helped the Red Army units that broke into Sevastopol, and also saved the bakery, the southern power plant from destruction, and prevented the withdrawal of some chain loads.

The underground groups in Simferopol were the most numerous and organized. In February 1944, at the Simferopol oil depot, they blew up a container with 500 tons of gasoline. An underground group led by V.K. Efremov, committed 22 acts of sabotage. At the Kara-Kiyat station, a train with ammunition was blown up, which stopped the movement of trains for a long time. Now this station is named after V.K. Efremova.

March 17, 1944 P.R. Yampolsky by order congratulated the Komsomol organization of the "Death to the Nazis" detachment and presented the Red Banner of the Central Committee of the Komsomol.

Valuable information was collected by partisan intelligence, in particular through an agent network of underground organizations. On the eve of the operation to liberate Crimea, the Northern Connection handed over a map of Crimea, which indicated the deployment of enemy troops, command posts, routes for the withdrawal of troops from Perekop and Kerch to the rear lines, as well as a plan for the evacuation of Sevastopol. The partisans received this information from the Romanian anti-fascist - the staff officer of the 1st Romanian mountain rifle corps M. Mihailescu, who was later awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

The headquarters of the 4th Ukrainian Front and the Separate Primorsky Army regularly received reports on the combat activities of partisan brigades and detachments, intelligence information. The report dated December 22 spoke about the arrival of Marshal Antonescu in Crimea, the advance of German units to Perekop and Romanian units to Kerch, the redeployment of nationalist battalions to the Kerch Peninsula, the arrival in Crimea by aircraft of the German unit with the “flower” emblem and the continuation of the evacuation of Belgian and French troops from Crimea parts .

The underground workers of Simferopol under the leadership of I.A. Kozlov was told about the deployment of military installations in the city, the mining of bridges and buildings, and the mass movements of troops and cargo.

At the same time, the population received more and more information about the situation at the front and in the Soviet rear. Twice a week, the newspaper Krasny Krym was printed, which was delivered by aircraft to partisan airfields. The newspapers Krasny Partisan and For Soviet Crimea were printed in the forest. In the cities, leaflet newspapers were issued: in Simferopol - "News from the Motherland", in Sevastopol - "For the Motherland", in Yalta - "Crimean Truth". Soviet citizens increasingly received information from partisans and underground fighters.

The fascist German command sought to destroy the partisans before the Soviet troops went over to the offensive. The Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement, seeing the beginning of confusion in the camp of the enemy, intensified political work among the soldiers and officers of the enemy army. Many so-called "volunteer" formations from the local population went over to the partisans and turned their weapons against the Nazis. They were given the opportunity to atone for their guilt before the Soviet people. This was also taken advantage of by the nationalists, who now willingly beat the Nazi troops.

At the disposal of the commander of the Southern Formation M.A. Macedonian former local teacher, Hitler's major Raimov, led a battalion of punishers. There are two iron crosses on Raimov's uniform. Now his thugs willingly beat pure-blooded Aryans, but carefully concealed their former punitive deeds. It took partisan ingenuity and courage to disarm them.

On April 8, the operation of the 4th Ukrainian Front, the Separate Primorsky Army, the Black Sea Fleet and partisans began to finally liberate Crimea. By this time, partisan formations numbered 3679 people (Southern - 2218, Northern - 774, Eastern - 687). By combat order of the Military Council of the Separate Primorsky Army, the formations received specific combat missions to disrupt the enemy's movement along the roads, disrupt communications and command and control, and disrupt the work of the Yalta port. But the partisans themselves expanded their tasks in the operation (destroying enemy garrisons, saving cities, villages, palaces and other valuables from destruction).

On April 11, in the morning, the partisans of the Eastern Connection under the command of V.S. Kuznetsov drove the Germans out of the Old Crimea, blocking the withdrawal of German troops from the Feodosia region to Simferopol. But by the end of the day, using guns and slippers, the enemy drove the partisans out of Stary Krym. Enraged fascists perpetrated a wild massacre of the population, killing 584 people, including 200 children. It was stopped at 6 am on April 12, when the partisans again drove the Nazis out of the city and held it for more than a day. On April 13, units entered the city

Separate Maritime Army. On the same day, the 1st brigade of the Northern formation on the way to Simferopol defeated three columns, captured 400 soldiers and officers and two generals. The enemy soldiers and officers understood the hopelessness of their situation and surrendered. The 4th Artillery Division, under the command of Major Angelescu from the 2nd Romanian Mountain Division, surrendered to the partisans in full force.

On the morning of April 13, the partisan brigades of F.I. Fedorenko and H.K. Chaussy broke into Simferopol and, together with the underground A.N. Kasukhin and V.I. Babia organized the protection of buildings, bridges and other objects prepared by the enemy for destruction. Soon they connected with the mobile group of the 4th Ukrainian Front and assisted it in taking the railway station, the radio station and completely driving the enemy out of the city.

After the end of the fighting in the Crimea, the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda wrote on May 14: “Glorious partisans rendered considerable assistance in the liberation of the eastern and southern regions of Crimea to the troops of the Red Army. Coordinating their actions with the mobile pursuit units, they descended from the mountains, smashed the German garrisons, and intercepted enemy communications. Under their blows, the retreating German and Romanian divisions also suffered huge losses.

A responsible task was solved by the partisan detachments of the Southern Connection. The brigade under the command of L.A. Vihman defended the city and port of Yalta from destruction. Partisans of the 12th detachment, led by commander M.F. The Paramonovs saved the buildings of the Massandra winery. 1st detachment under the command of S.I. Lavrentiev saved the Livadia Palace from destruction. At the same time, they captured 354 soldiers and officers and captured a large number of weapons and equipment.

The partisans restored Soviet power and at first performed its functions themselves. The first order for the city of Simferopol, pasted on the walls, read: “Today, April 13, 1944, the Crimean partisan detachments of the Northern Formation entered the city of Simferopol with a fight. The protection of revolutionary order in the city is carried out by partisans. We call on all citizens of the city to strictly observe the revolutionary order, to provide all possible assistance in the fight against looting and in catching spies, provocateurs and persons who violate order in the city. P. Yampolsky, commander of the Northern Partisan Unit of the Crimea. Commissioner N. Lugovoy. Chief of Staff G. Sargsyan.

II, this was necessary, since after the defeat of the enemy army in the Crimea, a large number of German agents, gendarmes, criminals, nationalist and other organizations remained. The Crimean headquarters of the partisan movement was disbanded three months after the defeat of the enemy - in August 1944.

The population of Crimea during the period of occupation was not broken, did not reconcile with the "new order" and continued the struggle, which was carried out in three main forms: the actions of partisan armed groups; activities of underground patriotic groups; unarmed resistance of the general population to the political and economic measures of the occupation administration. The struggle was carried out in very difficult conditions of the close location of the front, a large network of agents, cooperation of Tatar and other nationalists with the Nazis, accumulation of declassed, criminal elements. Under such conditions, people could resist only if they were politically determined and highly organized. The high fighting spirit of the vast majority of the population of the Crimea, the inflexible character of the Soviet people are evident from the fact that the Nazis killed and tortured more than 135 thousand Soviet citizens. By the summer of 1944, the population of Crimea had more than halved and amounted to only 379,000 people.

Many communists and Komsomol members fought in partisan detachments, and then fighters and, very importantly, commanders of the Red Army joined them. This combination made it possible to very quickly identify the traitors who had penetrated the detachments, maintain high morale in a critical situation, train "civilians" in military affairs and develop tactics for partisan operations, in particular, maneuver and escape from the blow of superior forces.

The following data give an idea of ​​the number of partisan detachments and partisans in them.

Crimean partisans

The vastness of the Crimean peninsula attracts people from all over the world with its beauty and charm. And the lonely monuments near the passes remind us that it was not always so quiet here. The Great Patriotic War ended 70 years ago, but it will remain in people's memory forever. As will forever remain the memory of the partisans and underground workers of the Crimea.

On October 25, 1941, the Nazis broke through the Soviet defensive barriers and entered the territory of the Crimean peninsula. Back in August 1941, it was decided to form partisan detachments from the multinational Crimean population - these were doctors and teachers, winemakers, workers, and 10 thousand demoralized military. Many had to refuse due to illness or age. Such people were left in the cities for underground work and for communication with the forest.

October 23, 1941 was created Headquarters of the partisan movement of Crimea, Colonel A.V. became the head of the headquarters. Mokrousov, commissioner - S. V. Martynov.

The Nazis had already occupied Simferopol when the partisans had just arrived at their places of deployment. From the memoirs of Seversky Georgy Leonidovich, head of the 3rd partisan region: “80% of the population did not arrive at the place of deployment of the partisan region. For unknown reasons, dozens of appointed political workers, commanders and hundreds of fighters did not arrive. The police and fire brigade didn't show up."

Through the forests in November 1941, our retreating units and subunits made their way to Sevastopol. More than a thousand sailors and soldiers joined the partisans. They were the ones who brought the weapons.

As of November 10, 1941, 5 partisan regions, 27 partisan detachments were created in the Crimea; as of November 20, 1941 - 28 partisan detachments, which included 3,734 people (of which 1,316 were military personnel). It was thanks to the patriotic fighters that the partisan movement of Crimea was formed.

In hard-to-reach places of the Crimean mountains of the Yalta region, Burla-Kosh, Suat, battles of the Crimean partisans with the German-Romanian troops took place. This was told by participants in those events who, unfortunately, are no longer alive, but their memories and stories remain in the memory of new generations: Ivan Krapivny, Ilya Zakharovich Vergasov, Nikolai Ivanovich Dementiev, Andrey Andreevich Sermul.

In November 1941, enemy detachments with equipment reached for the besieged Sevastopol. The guerrillas resisted the enemy invasion: they blew up cars, attacked small enemy groups, blew up bridges, forcing the enemy to act only during the day.

From the memoirs of Dementiev Nikolai Ivanovich, commander of the 6th detachment of the 4th brigade of the Southern connection, who went from private to commander: We attacked in small groups, 7-8 people each, hit the center of the fascist column, watched this for 2-3 minutes and went into the forest.

Vergasov Ilya Zakharovich told how they made sorties, what losses the Germans had, and reported with pleasure: “But we have no losses!”.

From combat reports of those years: "1 passenger car, 1 motorcycle, 15 German officers were destroyed." “We were on sabotage, derailed a train with equipment going from Simferopol to Sevastopol.”

Such lightning-fast measures brought success because the partisans immediately went into the forest, where the invaders were afraid to go. The German-Romanian command understood that it was impossible to fight the partisans without experienced guides. Therefore, the “locals” went to the service of the Germans. Food warehouses were immediately destroyed, 70-80% of food hidden in caches. (Ch. 5. "Loss of food bases"). During the first clashes, the partisans lost 40-45 people killed and up to 20 went missing.

Already in December 1941, famine began in the partisan detachments. From the local population, the Germans formed volunteer punitive detachments, which blocked the exit of partisans to settlements. The partisans ate at the expense of food obtained as a result of the operation. First of all, food was given to the wounded and sick partisans.

From the memoirs of N.I. Dementieva:“We didn’t eat anything for 5 days, except for linden bark. In some places there were tears - plots of wild fruit trees. We shoveled snow, picked frozen apples, pears and brewed tea from dogwood roots. But when you drink it for a long time, the person swelled up, and then died.” To somehow satisfy their hunger, the partisans boiled leather belts, ate moss and tree leaves. And once the horses were taken away from the Romanian stables. One was beaten right on the edge of the forest and drunk on her blood, because they could not reach the parking lot. There were people in the camp who did not have the strength to slaughter a horse and cook their own food. By united efforts they gave the blood of the most weakened partisans to drink. Only in the morning people were able to get to their feet. The strongest fighters carried the boiled horsemeat to the detachments.

Military historians claim that military losses were the same as those from starvation. But not only did the Germans test partisans with hunger, but they also sent in traitors, and sometimes teenagers who did not mean anything, who were followed by surveillance. The partisans did not forgive the traitors and shot them on the spot. The Germans, if they came across partisans, used all types of torture, and then shot them.

The German stake on the multinational composition of the Crimean population and the desire to unleash interethnic conflicts did not bring the desired result. There are many confirmations of this. And one of them is in the Crimean forests, where a Russian (Rogoza), a Crimean Tatar (Appazov) and a Greek (Spai), who were killed in battle on October 25, 1943, lie in one grave. They remained faithful sons of their homeland.

And how many graves in the Crimean mountains, under the ground unknown soldiers are buried, who, by the will of fate, ended up on the Crimean land. The partisans said that there were cases when the Germans combed the forests with dogs and fired at random. They fell into partisans or soldiers, sailors who had just joined the detachment, and no one knew them. They were simply laid with stones or buried in the ground without any identification marks. So they lie in the ground for 72 years, and their relatives are waiting that someday, someone will find out where their ancestor is buried.

On the territory of the eastern part of the mountainous Crimea, runways were cleared, where planes landed and from where the wounded and sick were evacuated to the mainland.

In May 1943, the chiefs changed: Mokrousov flew away, Lobov replaced him, Lobov flew away, Seversky remained, but then he flew away. "The authorities changed, and we, the rank and file," plowed ". Under these conditions, the entire burden of the guerrilla war fell on ordinary fighters.

A handful of emaciated people, brought to the limit of human strength, inspired fear and horror in the well-fed enemy warriors.

April 1944 arrived. The Germans and Romanians retreated, those who took part in punitive operations against the Soviet people left with them. And the partisan detachments began to replenish at the expense of the policemen, who wanted to atone for their guilt with blood. They fought in German military uniforms with Russian weapons.

During the Crimean offensive operation, the Crimean partisans provided significant assistance to the advancing Soviet troops. In the period from November 1, 1941 to April 16, 1944, Crimean Soviet partisans and underground fighters carried out 3226 actions against enemy troops, communications and facilities (including 252 battles, 1632 sabotage and operations on communications, 349 ambushes and attacks, 163 sabotage and operations on railways, 824 attacks on vehicles and convoys); blew up, derailed and burned 79 echelons and 2 armored trains (in total, 48 steam locomotives and 947 wagons and platforms were destroyed and put out of action); destroyed 29383 soldiers and policemen (and another 3872 were captured); three railway stations, three power stations, two radio stations, 25 military depots, three railway and 52 highway bridges, 112.8 km of telephone cable and 6.6 km of power lines; 13 tanks, 3 armored vehicles, 211 guns, 1940 vehicles, 83 carts. A group of Slovak soldiers went over to the side of the Soviet partisans from Lukyanov's detachment. In addition, they seized 201 vehicles, 40 tractors, 2627 horses, 542 wagons, 17 guns, 250 machine guns, 254 machine guns, 5415 rifles, ammunition and other military property. They also recaptured 1019 head of cattle, 6661 sheep and 609 tons of food.

In addition, the Crimean partisans were engaged in propaganda and agitation: they launched the publication of the newspaper "Crimean Partisan", and also distributed leaflets and reports of the Sovinformburo (only in the period from November 1941 to November 1943, the Crimean partisans produced and distributed at least 6,500 leaflets of various names).

Over 3 thousand partisans and underground fighters (including 1,500 participants in the partisan movement) were awarded orders and medals of the USSR, the head of the Sevastopol underground, V. D. Revyakin, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

Scientific and reference literature

• P. V. Makarov. Partisans of Tavria. M., Military Publishing, 1960. - 383 pages, illustrations.
• Behind enemy lines. Leaflets of party organizations and partisans during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. M., 1962.
• Crimea in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945. Simferopol, 1963.
• Crimea in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: Sat. documents and materials. Simferopol, 1973.
• Partisan movement in the occupied regions of the RSFSR // Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945. Encyclopedia / ed. M. M. Kozlova. -M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1985. - S. 536-539. - 500,000 copies.
• A. V. Basov. Crimea in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. M., "Science", 1987.

Memoirs of the participants of the partisan movement

• S. I. Stanovsky. Partisans: notes of a scout. Simferopol, Krymizdat, 1959. - 214 pages.
• E. P. Melnik. The road to the underground (notes). Simferopol, Krymizdat, 1961. - 315 pages, illustrations.
• E. P. Stepanov. partisan paths. Memoirs of a member of the partisan movement in the Crimea during the Great Patriotic War. Simferopol, Krymizdat, 1961. - 308 pages, illustrations.
• I. G. Genov. Four Seasons: Diary of a Partisan. M., Military Publishing House, 1969. - 176 pages, illustrations.
• M. A. Macedonian. Flames over the Crimea (memoirs of the commander of the Southern partisan unit of the Crimea). 3rd ed., trans. and additional Simferopol, 1969. - 304 pages.
• I. A. Kozlov. In the Crimean underground (memoirs). M., "Fiction", 1972. - 480 pages, illustrations.
• V. I. Endzheyak, A. Kuznetsov. Special partisan-sabotage. 2nd ed. Kyiv, Politizdat of Ukraine, 1977. - 206 pages.

Chapter 26

Having occupied the Crimea, the Germans and Romanians, even before the capture of Sevastopol, began to massacre civilians on the peninsula. According to the most probable estimate, the Germans and their accomplices killed up to 50,000 civilians in the Crimea, the vast majority of whom were Russians and Jews.

In 1941–1944, 85,500 people, mostly Russians, were taken from the Crimea to Germany for forced labor. Of these, 64 thousand returned in 1945-1947.

After the landing in Kerch and Feodosia, the Nazis feared the landing of Soviet troops in Yalta and on January 14, 1942, drove 1,300 men aged 17 to 55 to the Potato Town camp near Simferopol. By July 1942, when the Yalta people were liberated, more than 500 people had died from starvation and disease. The victims of the Nazis in Yalta, according to the city Extraordinary State Commission, were about 900 civilians, not counting those killed in the Potato Town. The number of victims is derived from the volume of burials.

Having captured the city of Kerch in November 1941, the Germans immediately issued an order stating: “The residents of Kerch are invited to hand over to the German command all the food available in every family. For discovered food, the owner is subject to execution. By the next order (No. 2), the city government ordered all residents to immediately register all chickens, roosters, ducks, chickens, turkeys, geese, sheep, cows, calves, draft animals. Owners of poultry and livestock were strictly forbidden to use poultry and livestock for their own needs without special permission from the German commandant. After the publication of these orders, general searches began in all houses and apartments.

Upon the arrival of the Red Army in Kerch in January 1942, when examining the Bagerovsky ditch, it was found that it was full of the corpses of women, children, old people and teenagers for a kilometer long, 4 m wide and 2 m deep.

The list of German crimes alone can take up several pages. Of course, the natural reaction to the repression of the Germans was the strengthening of the partisan movement.

However, Soviet and party organs were preparing for partisan struggle even before the German invasion of the Crimea. On October 23, 1941, by the decision of the Bureau of the Crimean Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, A.V. Mokrousov. The choice of the regional committee was successful. The Black Sea sailor Mokrousov participated in the October uprising in Petrograd, since March 1918 - in command posts in the Red Army. In August-November 1921, he commanded the Crimean Insurgent Army, which operated in the rear of Wrangel. In 1937-1938 Mokrousov fought in Spain.

By the same decree, the secretary of the Simferopol city party committee S.V. was appointed commissar of partisan detachments. Martynov, and the chief of staff - I.K. Smetanin.

According to the same decree, the chairman of the Crimean Council of People's Commissars allocated two million rubles for the partisan movement.

The fighters and commanders of the 51st and Primorsky armies, who were surrounded, became the core of many partisan detachments. By mid-November 1941, there were at least 1315 encirclement in the partisan detachments. Among them are 438 commanders and political workers, including Major General D.I. Averkin, Colonel I.T. Lobov, lieutenant colonel B.B. Gorodovikov, Major I.V. Kharchenko, captains I.G. Kurakov, N.P. Larin, D.G. Isaev, military commissars A. Aedinov, P. Lakhtikov, M. Khalansky and others.

On October 31, 1941, by order No. 1, Mokrousov announced the organization of five partisan regions located in mountainous wooded areas, and appointed commanders, commissars and chiefs of staff of these regions. From the party and Soviet activists, from the fighters of the fighter battalions on a voluntary basis, 24 partisan detachments were created. Three independent detachments were formed later from the commanders and fighters of the Primorsky and 51st armies, who lingered in the mountains and forests of Crimea during the retreat to Sevastopol and Kerch. In total, by the end of 1941, there were more than 3,700 people in the partisan detachments, including 1,315 fighters and commanders who joined the detachments during the retreat of the armies.

The bases of the five partisan regions were located in the mountains and forests of Yalta from Stary Krym to Balaklava. In the Kerch region, three detachments were created, which were based in the dungeons of the quarries. Food and other supplies were designed for a much smaller number of partisans than they actually turned out to be. Moreover, these reserves could not be replenished at the expense of the population, since there were almost no settlements in the mountainous wooded areas.

The partisan detachments were located in a very small area, which made it difficult for them to maneuver. The partisans did not have topographic maps. Subsequently, they confiscated Soviet tourist maps from the killed German officers with the situation printed on them, up to the shepherd's paths.

In the post-war years, Soviet propaganda exaggerated the successes of the partisan movement and constantly used the cliches “the earth was burning everywhere under the notes of the invaders”, “all Soviet people rose to fight”, etc. Therefore, I will turn to German documents.

Already on November 20, Manstein issued an order: “Behind the front, the struggle also continues. Partisan snipers, dressed in civilian clothes, shoot at individual soldiers and small units. Using methods of sabotage, laying mines and infernal machines, the guerrillas are trying to disrupt our supply ... They are destroying crops and enterprises, ruthlessly dooming the urban population to starvation.

Soon the guerrilla actions took off in earnest. “According to the reports we received,” says a memorandum dated November 14, 1941, compiled by a counterintelligence officer of the 11th Army, “a well-organized partisan organization led from the center is operating in the southern part of Crimea. At its disposal in the mountains of Yalta are large and small bases, which have a lot of weapons, food, whole herds of livestock and other supplies ... The tasks of the partisans include the destruction of communications and transport facilities and the attack on rear services and transport columns.

According to Mokrousov’s report of March 21: “The total number of partisan detachments is 26, united in 4 districts, the 5th district was liquidated on March 18, 1942 for operational reasons and all personnel were poured into the 4th district. The total number of personnel is 3180 people.

A total of 156 combat operations were carried out. In addition, 78 combat operations were carried out during an attack on enemy units during combing. Manpower was destroyed - 4040 soldiers and officers. Destroyed vehicles - 350 with ammunition, food and people. 2 tanks were knocked out, 12 carts were destroyed, 1 mill, 6 bridges were blown up and Beshui-kopi was put out of action. 10,000 m of telephone and telegraph cable were removed.

Our losses: 175 people killed, 200 wounded, 58 missing and 15 messengers. Major General Comrade Averkin is among the missing. The fate of the Sevastopol detachment is still unknown ...

The partisan detachments were provided with food with a starvation ration for no more than 10 days, and the 3rd and 4th districts did not have it at all, as a result of which 18 deaths and 30 people were recorded. at death's door.

All units lack medicines (bandages, iodine, cotton wool, etc.) and surgical instruments.

During their stay in the forest, the uniforms of the fighters fell into disrepair, mainly shoes, clothes, underwear. Ammunition and weapons are provided, with the exception of the 2nd region. There are absolutely no anti-tank grenades, mines and explosives ...

For 4 months, from among the identified traitors and traitors to the Motherland, 362 were destroyed in the settlements of the mountainous and wooded part of Crimea and in partisan detachments ...

The vast majority of the Tatar population in the foothill and mountain villages is pro-fascist, from among the inhabitants of which the Gestapo created volunteer detachments, which are currently used to fight the partisans, and in the future the possibility of against the Red Army is not ruled out ...

The activities of partisan detachments are complicated by the need for armed struggle on two fronts: against the fascist invaders, on the one hand, and against the armed bands of the mountainous forested Tatar villages.

On December 5, 1941, Manstein sent his senior commander, commander-in-chief of Army Group South, a report on the organization of the fight against partisans and the successes achieved in this. The report said: “To eliminate this danger (in the Crimea, according to our information, there are 8 thousand partisans), we took decisive measures; sometimes it was necessary to divert troops to fight the partisans (sic!).

At this time, the following are taking part in actions against partisans:

a) the headquarters for the fight against partisans (Major Stefanus); its task is to collect information and provide recommendations on the necessary measures;

b) the Romanian mountain rifle corps with the 8th cavalry and 4th mountain rifle brigades;

c) 24th, 52nd and 240th anti-tank battalions;

d) in the sector of the 30th corps: a Romanian motorized cavalry regiment and units of the 1st mountain rifle brigade;

e) in the Kerch mines; sapper battalion and units of infantry regiments of the 46th Infantry Division;

f) Cordons are set up on various mountain roads and escort teams are used.

To date, the following results have been achieved: 19 partisan camps have been liquidated, 640 partisans destroyed and 522 captured, a large number of weapons, equipment and ammunition (including 75 mortars, 25 machine guns, 20 cars and a large number of trucks, 12 depots of equipment and ammunition), as well as livestock, fuel and lubricants and two radio installations.

The partisans also fought against the economic measures of the Germans. The occupiers created the main economic department "South", which led the economic department "Dnepropetrovsk", which included the territory of the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions, Northern Tavria and Crimea. In the Crimea, the Germans set up two economic branches - in Kerch and in Sevastopol. But they failed to restore industrial production, and agriculture was restored only to a small extent.

According to the report of the Crimean branch of the SD on April 8, 1942, “the partisans, whose activities are still active, began to abandon the attack on individual German soldiers or single vehicles and switch mainly to massive raids on villages and other actions with the aim of capturing food".

This coincides with the data of other German sources. "On the night of February 7-8, 300 partisans attacked Kosh." “On February 9, 150 partisans ... broke into the village of Shlia and completely plundered it.” A few days earlier, the partisans occupied the village of Kazanly. After that, 500 partisans attacked Baksan and 200 partisans raided the village of Beshui.

In early 1942, the commander of the 30th Corps, General von Salmuth, established the exact number of hostages to be shot for each killed or wounded German or Romanian: “All hostages must be imprisoned in concentration camps. The food of the hostages is provided by the population of their villages. For every German or Romanian soldier killed by partisans, 10 hostages should be shot, and for every wounded German or Romanian soldier, one hostage; if possible, executions should be carried out near the place where the German or Romanian soldier was killed. The bodies of the executed were not removed for three days.

Arrests of hostages in places where there are no troops (and especially in the mountains) should be carried out by the 1st Romanian Mountain Rifle Brigade. To this end, the relevant points should be temporarily occupied by troops.

Below were lists of locations of concentration camps for hostages, as well as units and units responsible for their maintenance. The last paragraph of Salmut's order read: "Concentration camps are to be established at the following points":

Table 8

Locality name	Part (subdivision) responsible for the creation of the concentration camp
Kuchuk-Muskomya	124th Infantry Regiment
Alsou	1st Romanian Mountain Infantry Regiment
Varnutka	266th Infantry Regiment
Biyuk-Muskomya	105th Infantry Regiment
haita	14th Romanian Machine Gun Battalion
Canoes	172nd Artillery Regiment
Sahtik	72nd Engineer Battalion
Foros	72nd tank battalion

Here we should pay attention to two points. Firstly, the source is German official documents, first published in London in 1954, so you cannot attach the label of Soviet propaganda to them. Secondly, it clearly follows from the document that the massacres in the Crimea were carried out not by the SS troops, which were not there at all at that time, but by field German and Romanian units.

And here is a German leaflet from the same source, posted in Simferopol: “On November 29, 1941, 40 men were shot - residents of the city of Simferopol, which was a repressive measure:

1) for the death of a German soldier who, on November 22, 1941, was blown up by a mine in the area, about the possible mining of which the commandant's office did not receive any information;

From the beginning of 1942, the command of the Soviet Army established communications with the partisans by air. Only for the period from April 7, 1942 to October 1, 1943, 507 sorties were made to the partisan detachments of the Crimea, of which 274 were Li-2, TB-3 aircraft and 233 U-2 and PR-5 aircraft.

A total of 270,729 kg of cargo was delivered, including 252,225 kg of food, 600 uniforms, 120 assault rifles, five anti-tank rifles, four DP light machine guns, 1,980 grenades, 92,563 cartridges (various), 885 various mines, 3,487 kg of toll, 54 radio sets , two sets of typography.

During the same period, 776 people were taken out of the partisan detachments, of which 747 were sick and wounded partisans, seven people and 22 children were recalled. And 137 people were sent to partisan detachments, of which 78 were cured partisans, 30 demolition workers, 15 party activists, 14 command and leadership workers.

An interesting quote from a letter from Commissioner P.R. Yamoplsky to the Secretary of the Crimean Regional Committee V.S. Bulatov dated October 14, 1943: “An unfortunate incident happened with a tank. They seized a serviceable medium tank, drove it far away from the battlefield, got stuck in a beam close to the forest, we had no tankers, fiddled until the engines jammed. Fedorenko made a decision and burned the tank. I already scolded him to the fullest for such a decision, but you can’t return the tank. Now he is tasked with getting another tank instead.

But along with the successes of the partisan movement, any objective historian must also recognize the fact that the Germans used the so-called Khivs in the Crimea, and on a much larger scale than in any other region of the USSR occupied in 1941-1944.

So, for example, in the fall of 1943, the defense of the coast from the village of Koktebel to the Dvuyakornaya Bay (wide beaches and convenient places for landing, he himself went to these places) was guarded by the Azerbaijani Khiva battalion. It consisted of 60 Germans and 1090 Azerbaijanis. The battalion was armed with 42 light machine guns, 80 heavy machine guns, 10 battalion and 10 regimental mortars, and 16 anti-tank guns. At the same time, the railway from Vladislavovka to Islam-Terek was guarded by a company of Khivs, consisting of 150 Georgians.

However, the real support of the Wehrmacht in the Crimea was the Crimean Tatars, who served in the Khiva, self-defense units and other units.

In order to attract the Crimean Tatars and Turkey to the fight against the "Bolsheviks", the leadership of the Reich from the summer of 1941 began to use the Crimea as a bait. At the end of the summer of 1941, employees of the German embassy in Turkey met with the leaders of the Crimean Tatar emigration. The visit to Berlin in October 1941 of Turkish generals Ali Fuad Erden (head of the military academy) and Husnu Emir Erkilet contributed to a positive solution to the issue of involving the Crimean Tatar emigration in active German politics. During the talks, Ali Fuad expressed the hope that after the end of hostilities in Crimea, an administration would be formed in which the Crimean Tatars would largely participate. This, in turn, could strongly influence the Turkish government in favor of the decision on Turkey's entry into the war on the side of Germany.

The statement of an active member of the pro-German group in Turkey, Nuri Pasha (brother of Enver Pasha), is eloquent: “Granting freedom to such a small area as Crimea would not be a sacrifice for the German Empire, but a politically wise measure. That would be propaganda in action. In Turkey, she would have found the greater response.

It is necessary to note the duality that took place in German propaganda on the "Eastern Question". On the one hand, the invasion of the USSR began under the slogan "destruction of the Bolshevik-Asiatic beast", and propaganda was built in this direction. Among the German soldiers, leaflets and brochures were distributed in huge numbers with photographs of Soviet soldiers of various Asian nationalities and the following text: “This is what the Tatar-Mongolian creatures are! The Fuhrer's soldier protects you from them! The SS propaganda organs published the pamphlet Der Untermensch as a reference tool for the German troops. Soldiers were urged to look at the local population as harmful microbes that needed to be destroyed. The peoples of the East were called in the brochure "dirty Mongoloids, bestial bastards."

But, on the other hand, it was precisely in relation to the so-called "Eastern" peoples that the German command demanded to show maximum respect on the ground. So, on November 20 and 29, 1941, Manstein issued two orders in which he demanded respect for the religious customs of the Muslim Tatars and urged not to allow any unjustified actions against the civilian population.

An important element in coordinating the work of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and repressive structures to involve the Crimean Tatars in the anti-Soviet struggle was the creation of a representative office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the headquarters of the 11th Army in Crimea. The duties of the representative were performed by the leading official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Major Werner Otto von Khentin.

German propaganda paid off. Of the 90,000 inhabitants of Crimea mobilized into the Red Army in July-August 1941, 20,000 were Tatars. All of them became part of the 51st Army operating in the Crimea, and during the retreat, almost all deserted.

After the occupation of Crimea, the Germans organized recruitment points for Crimean Tatars in the German army and local paramilitaries. The work of the recruitment commissions ended in February 1942. As a result, about six thousand people were enrolled in Tatar volunteer formations in 203 settlements and about four thousand people in five prisoner of war camps (in Nikolaev 2800 people), a total of about 10 thousand volunteers. By January 29, 1942, 8684 Crimean Tatars were recruited into the German army, and the rest were divided into small groups of 3-10 people and distributed among companies, batteries and other military units stationed near Sevastopol and on the Kerch Peninsula.

According to the Simferopol Muslim Committee, the village elders organized about four thousand more people to fight the partisans. In addition, about five thousand volunteers were later to go to replenish military units. According to German documents, with the population of the Crimea about 200 thousand people, the Crimean Tatars gave the German army 20 thousand. If we take into account that about 10 thousand people were drafted into the Red Army, then we can assume that all combat-ready Tatars in 1942 were fully taken into account.

14 Tatar "self-defense" companies were formed with a total strength of 1632 people, soon these companies were transformed into ten battalions of 200-250 people each. These battalions were used to carry out guard duty, guard prisons, SD facilities, and in operations against partisans.

The 147th and 154th Tatar battalions were stationed in Simferopol, the 148th - in Karasubazar, the 149th - in Bakhchisarai, the 150th - in Stary Krym, the 151st - in Alushta, the 152nd - at the Krasny state farm "(SD camp), 153rd - in Dzhankoy, 155th - in Evpatoria, 156th - in Yalta.

With the beginning of the occupation of the Crimea, the Nazi Security Service (SD) immediately created the Muslim Committee, and then on its basis the Tatar Committee with its center in Simferopol. Dzhelal Abduraimdov was appointed chairman. The committee had six departments: for the recruitment of volunteers for the German army; to help the families of volunteers; culture; religion; propaganda and agitation; administrative and economic and office. Local committees have also been set up in some cities and towns.

To organize pro-German self-government in Crimea, the German authorities brought from Turkey the elderly Jafar Seydamet, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the "Crimean Regional Government" in 1918. In the future, to form a more solid administration, the German leadership planned the last Khan of the Crimean Tatars Sultan Giray.

The Tatar Committee had a number of print media, including the newspaper Azat Krym (Liberated Crimea, editor Mustafa Krutiev) and the magazine Ana-Yurt (Motherland), which campaigned for the creation of a Tatar state under the protectorate of Germany .

What did "Liberated Crimea" write? Here, for example, on March 3, 1942: "After our brothers - the Germans - crossed the historical ditch at the gates of Perekop, the great sun of freedom and happiness rose for the peoples of Crimea."

March 10, 1942 Alushta. At a meeting arranged by the Muslim Committee, “Muslims expressed their gratitude to the Great Fuhrer Adolf Hitler - effendi for the free life he had given the Muslim people. Then they arranged a service for the preservation of life and health for many years to Adolf Hitler - effendi.

In the same issue: "To the Great Hitler - the liberator of all peoples and religions!" Two thousand Tatars from the village of Kokkozy and its environs “gathered for a prayer service ... in honor of the German soldiers. We created a prayer for the German martyrs of the war ... The entire Tatar people pray every minute and ask Allah to grant the Germans victory over the whole world. Oh, great leader, we tell you with all our hearts, with all our being, believe us! We, the Tatars, give our word to fight the herd of Jews and Bolsheviks together with the German soldiers in the same ranks!.. May Allah thank you, our great Mr. Hitler!”

March 20, 1942 “Together with the glorious brothers - the Germans, who arrived in time to liberate the world of the East, we, the Crimean Tatars, declare to the whole world that we have not forgotten Churchill's solemn promises in Washington, his desire to revive the Jewish power in Palestine, his desire to destroy Turkey, capture Istanbul and the Dardanelles, raise an uprising in Turkey and Afghanistan, etc., etc. The East is waiting for its liberator not from the democrats and swindlers who have lied, but from the National Socialist Party and from the liberator Adolf Hitler. We have sworn an oath to make sacrifices for such a sacred and brilliant task."

And here is the pearl dated April 10, 1942: “To the liberator of the oppressed peoples, the son of the German people, Adolf Hitler. We Muslims, with the arrival of the valiant sons of Great Germany in Crimea, with your blessing and in memory of long-term friendship, stood shoulder to shoulder with the German people, took up arms and began to fight to the last drop of blood for the great universal ideas put forward by you - the destruction of the red Jewish Bolshevik plague to the end and without a trace.

Our ancestors came from the East, and we were waiting for liberation from there, but today we are witnessing that liberation comes to us from the west. Perhaps for the first and only time in history it happened that the sun of freedom rose from the west. This sun is you, our great friend and leader, with your mighty German people. Presidium of the Muslim Committee".

As we can see, Gorbachev with his notorious "universal values" had a worthy predecessor.

Enlightened Aryans in April 1942 suddenly became seriously concerned about the state of agriculture and animal husbandry of the Tatar population. For this purpose, courses for sheep breeders were created near Evpatoria, and courses for winegrowers near Yalta. At these courses, young Tatars learned how to shear sheep, grow grapes, drive all types of cars, jump with a parachute, shoot from all types of small arms, as well as cipher business and much more, apparently, so necessary in peasant life. But, alas, when these enlightened young men appeared behind the front line, they were seized by villains from the NKVD. I think that now all these innocently repressed sheep breeders and growers have been posthumously rehabilitated.

The Crimean Tatars actively participated in the storming of Sevastopol in June-July 1942. Here is what Sevastopol historian Captain 2nd Rank I.S. Manyushin: “On July 2, the boat on which Senior Lieutenant V.K. Kvariani and Sergeant P. Sudak, received holes in the hull, began to settle from the received water. One engine stalled, and the boat had to turn towards the shore occupied by the Nazis. All this happened in the coastal area near Alushta. On the shore there was a battle between paratroopers and an armed group of Tatars. As a result of an unequal battle, all who survived were captured. The wounded Tatars were shot point-blank. The Italian soldiers who arrived in time sent some of the prisoners by car, and some by boat to Yalta.

"IN. Mishchenko, walking in one of the columns of prisoners, testifies that out of three thousand of their columns, only half of the prisoners reached the camp in Simferopol "potato field". The rest were shot on the way by a convoy of Germans and traitors from the Crimean Tatars.

“In the Sudak region, a self-defense group was involved in the liquidation of the landing. At the same time, 12 paratroopers were burned alive. One of the punitive expeditions ended with a long blockade of partisans, as a result of which 90 people died of starvation.

Enough. I think what has been said is enough.

In the summer of 1942, the capture of Sevastopol and the exit of Paulus to Stalingrad turned the heads of the leaders of the Reich, and many of them began to offer to get rid of the Tatar allies: "The Moor has done his job ..."

In June 1942, a prominent official, Alfred Frauenfeld, sent an extensive memorandum to Hitler on the future structure of the Crimea, in which he proposed to resettle the Germans from South Tyrol to the Crimea. On July 2, Hitler stated that he considered this proposal to be very useful. It was also supposed to place 140 thousand Germans from Trasistria and two thousand German settlers from Palestine on the peninsula, but then it was decided to use the Transnistrian Germans.

There was no shortage of proposals for the transformation of the Crimea in 1942-1943. Thus, the head of the Labor Front and the head of the organization "Kraft durch Freude" Robert Ley proposed to convert the Crimea into a giant resort for German youth.

To substantiate the original belonging of the Crimea to Germany, A. Frauenfeld organized an archaeological expedition in July 1942 under the leadership of the SS Brigade Führer von Alvensleben and army officers Colonel Kalk and Captain Werner Baumelburg. They conducted a survey of the surroundings of Bakhchisaray and the medieval fortress Magnul-Kale.

On July 5, 1942, a meeting was held between the command of the Wehrmacht and the police, where the question of methods for evicting racially "inferior" residents from Crimea was discussed. It was decided to create special camps for conducting a "racial survey" of the population.

By July 1942, the German leadership finally abandoned its plans to grant self-government to the Crimean Tatars. On July 27, at the Werwolf headquarters, over dinner, Hitler announced his desire to “cleanse” the Crimea.

The unwillingness of the Turkish leadership to enter the war on the side of Germany became the basis for ending discussions on the future status of the Turkic peoples living in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. And they stopped looking at the Crimean Tatars as a link in German-Turkish relations.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of Russian "dissidents", exposing "Stalin's crimes", proved to us that, they say, not all Tatars served the Germans, but only "separate groups", while others were partisans at that time. However, an anti-Hitler underground also existed in Germany, so now the Germans should be recorded as our allies in World War II? Let's look at specific numbers.

Let us turn to the data of the “democratic” historian N.F. Bugai: “According to approximate data, more than 20 thousand Crimean Tatars were in the units of the German army stationed in the Crimea.” That is, almost the entire Crimean Tatar population of military age. It is significant that this unseemly circumstance is actually recognized in a very characteristic publication (“The book forms a documentary historical basis for the measures taken in the Russian Federation to rehabilitate desecrated and punished peoples”).

And how many Crimean Tatars were among the partisans? On June 1, 1943, there were 262 people in the Crimean partisan detachments, of which 145 were Russians, 67 Ukrainians and ... six Tatars.

As of January 15, 1944, according to the party archive of the Crimean Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, there were 3,733 partisans in Crimea, of which 1,944 were Russians, 348 were Ukrainians, and 598 were Tatars. Finally, according to a certificate on the party, national and age composition of the Crimean partisans for April 1944, among the partisans were: Russians - 2075, Tatars - 391, Ukrainians - 356, Belarusians - 71, others - 754.

So, even if we take the maximum of the given figures - 598, then the ratio of Tatars in the German army and in the partisans will be more than 30 to 1.

In connection with the offensive of the Red Army from October 1943, the leaders of the Tatar nationalists began to leave the Crimea. During the evacuation from the peninsula, together with the German units in March-April 1944, at least three thousand Crimean Tatars left. Most of them, like the refugees of 1943, settled in Romania, some were allowed to move to Germany.

The Tatar units taken from the Crimea to Romania in June 1944 were consolidated into the Tatar SS cavalry regiment of Chasseurs of three battalions. But later, on the territory of Hungary, the regiment was reorganized into the First Tatar Mountain Jaeger Brigade of the SS (about 2,500 people) under the command of Standartenführer Fortenbach. On December 31, 1944, the brigade was disbanded and became part of the Eastern Turkic SS formation (combat group "Crimea" consisting of two infantry battalions and one cavalry hundred). These formations constantly suffered losses, and the remnants of the Tatars in March 1945 joined the Azerbaijan battle group as separate units.

Part of the Crimean Tatars was transported to France and entered the reserve battalion of the Volga-Tatar Legion, which was stationed near the city of Le Puy. At the end of the war, several hundred Tatars entered the 35th SS Police Division and the Air Defense Auxiliary Service in France.

After the liberation of the Crimea, the state security agencies carried out the resettlement of the Crimean Tatars in the Uzbek SSR. This is now a very delicate matter, and I will quote the following document in full:

“State Defense Committee Comrade Stalin I.V.

The NKVD and NKGB bodies are carrying out work in Crimea to identify and seize enemy agents, traitors to the Motherland, accomplices of the Nazi invaders and other anti-Soviet elements.

5995 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars and a large number of grenades and rifle cartridges were confiscated illegally stored by the population…

By 1944, more than 20,000 Tatars deserted from the units of the Red Army, who betrayed their homeland, went over to the service of the Germans and fought against the Red Army with weapons in their hands ...

Taking into account the treacherous actions of the Crimean Tatars against the Soviet people and proceeding from the undesirability of the further residence of the Crimean Tatars on the border outskirts of the Soviet Union, the NKVD of the USSR submits for your consideration a draft decision of the State Defense Committee on the eviction of all Tatars from the territory of Crimea.

We consider it expedient to resettle the Crimean Tatars as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR for use in work both in agriculture - collective farms, state farms, and in industry and construction.

The question of the resettlement of the Tatars in the Uzbek SSR was agreed with Comrade Yusupov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Uzbekistan.

According to preliminary data, there are currently 140-160 thousand Tatars in Crimea. The eviction operation will begin on May 20-21 and end on June 10. At the same time, I am presenting a draft resolution of the State Defense Committee, asking for your decision.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. Beria.

According to the Decree of the Defense Committee, it was proposed: “To evict all Tatars from the territory of Crimea and settle them for permanent residence as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR. The eviction is to be assigned to the NKVD of the USSR. To oblige the NKVD of the USSR (comrade Beria) to complete the eviction of the Crimean Tatars before June 1, 1944.

Establish the following procedure and conditions for eviction:

Allow special settlers to take with them personal belongings, clothing, household equipment, dishes and food in the amount of up to 500 kg per family.

Oblige the NKPS (comrade Kaganovich) to organize the transportation of special settlers from the Crimea to the Uzbek SSR in specially formed echelons according to a schedule drawn up jointly with the NKVD of the USSR. The number of trains, loading stations and destination stations at the request of the NKVD of the USSR. Payments for transportation shall be made according to the tariff for transportation of prisoners.

The People's Commissariat for Health of the USSR (comrade Miterev) to allocate one doctor and two nurses with an appropriate supply of medicines for each echelon with special settlers, within the time limits agreed with the NKVD of the USSR, and provide medical and sanitary care for special settlers on the way.

The People's Commissariat of the USSR (comrade Lyubimov) to provide all echelons with special settlers daily with hot meals and boiling water. Allocate foodstuffs to the People’s Commissariat of Trade to organize meals for special settlers on the way…

To oblige the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Uzbekistan comrade. Yusupov ... to ensure that the arriving special settlers are provided with personal plots and to assist in the construction of houses with local building materials.

To oblige the Agricultural Bank (comrade Kravtsov) to issue to special settlers sent to the Uzbek SSR, in the places of their settlement, a loan for the construction of houses and for household equipment up to 5,000 rubles per family with an installment plan of up to 7 years.

Oblige the People's Commissariat of the USSR (comrade Subbotina) to allocate flour, cereals and vegetables to the SNK of the Uzbek SSR for distribution to special settlers during June - August of this year. g. monthly in equal amounts ... Issuance of flour, cereals and vegetables to special settlers during June-August of this year. d. to produce free of charge, in payment for the agricultural products and livestock accepted from them in the places of eviction.

On April 2 and May 11, 1944, the State Defense Committee adopted resolutions No. 5943ss and No. 5859ss on the deportation of Crimean Tatars from the Crimean ASSR to the Uzbek SSR.

The operation was carried out quickly and decisively. The eviction began on May 18, and already on May 20, Serov and Kobulov reported:

“Telegram addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria.

We hereby inform you that, launched in accordance with your instructions on May 18, The operation to evict the Crimean Tatars was completed today, May 20, at 16:00. A total of 180,014 people were evicted, loaded into 67 echelons, of which 63 echelons of 173,287 people were sent to their destinations, the remaining 4 echelons will also be sent today.

In addition, the district military commissars of the Crimea mobilized 6,000 Tatars of military age, who, according to the orders of the Main Department of the Red Army, were sent to the cities of Guryev, Rybinsk and Kuibyshev.

Of the 8,000 special contingent sent on your instructions to the Moskovugol trust, 5,000 are also Tatars.

Thus, 191,044 persons of Tatar nationality were deported from the Crimean ASSR.

During the eviction of the Tatars, 1137 people were arrested by anti-Soviet elements, and in total during the operation 5989 people.

Weapons seized during the eviction: mortars - 10, machine guns - 173, machine guns - 192, rifles - 2650, ammunition - 46603 pieces.

In total, during the operation, the following were seized: mortars - 49, machine guns - 622, machine guns - 724, rifles - 9888 and ammunition - 326887 pieces.

There were no incidents during the operation.

It should not be forgotten that neither in May 1944, nor in the next two years, no one could guarantee that the war between the USSR and the Allies, on the one hand, and Germany, on the other, would not develop into a war between the Allies and the USSR. In May 1944, England and the USA concentrated a huge fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is not difficult to imagine that in the event of a war with the USSR, it would end up in the Black Sea. Could Stalin in such a situation leave the Crimean Tatars, who had stabbed Russia in the back so many times? In May 1944, weapons sufficient for a wartime rifle division (without an artillery regiment) were confiscated from the Crimean Tatars. And how many other weapons were hidden in different types of caches? After all, only naive people could keep it at home. And during the deportation, the NKVD troops had no time to search for weapons.

Since the 1970s, Tatar nationalists and their supporters among the “liberal intelligentsia” have been constantly raising the issue of “deportation of the Crimean Tatar people”, “genocide” of this people, etc., etc.

There is no doubt that Stalin (namely, he is responsible for the resettlement of the Tatars, Beria, Serov and others were only executors of his will), of course, acted very harshly with the Crimean Tatars.

But why escalate hysteria and engage in verbiage? Let's start with what deportation is. Not a single Russian (before 1917) or Soviet (before 1991) official document has such a word. Let's open the Dictionary of Foreign Words, published in Moscow in 1979. It says: "Deportation is expulsion from the state as a criminal or administrative punishment." Question: from which state were the Crimean Tatars evicted? From the USSR to the USSR. As the Behemoth cat liked to say: “Congratulations on lying.”

Now what is genocide? This is the extermination or significant reduction in the number of people of a given nationality. Let's count: less than 200 thousand Crimean Tatars were evicted, arrested and mobilized into the Red Army in May 1944. But in 1991, according to various sources, from two to five million (!) People who considered themselves Crimean Tatars wanted to return to Crimea. I would also like to note that from the 15th century to 1941 the size of the Tatar population in the Crimea was relatively stable. So if we talk about the size of the Tatar population, then Stalin did not commit genocide, but a population explosion, impossible if the Tatars had remained in Crimea.

It is worth noting that not all Crimean Tatars were deported to Uzbekistan. So, according to Vlada Selina, “members of the Crimean underground who operated behind enemy lines, as well as members of their families, were exempted from the status of special settlers. So, the family of S.S. was released. Useinov, who was in Simferopol during the occupation of Crimea, was a member of an underground patriotic group from December 1942 to March 1943, then was arrested by the Nazis and shot. Family members were allowed to live in Simferopol.”

Crimean Tatars - front-line soldiers immediately applied with a request to release their relatives from special settlements. Such appeals were sent by the Deputy Commander of the 2nd Aviation Squadron of the 1st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Higher Officer School of Air Combat Captain E.U. Chalbash, major of the armored forces H. Chalbash and many others... Often, requests of this nature were granted, in particular, the family of E. Chalbash was allowed to live in the Kherson region.

Tatar women who married Russians were also exempted from eviction.

History does not like the subjunctive mood, but let's try to imagine what would have happened if Hitler had won. I am afraid that then the Tatars would have to go not to the east to their historical homeland, but to the west to the cultural European cities of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, etc.

Finally, it is useful to recall how in France, which almost did not fight, in 1944-1945, patriots dealt with collaborators without trial or investigation, that is, with everyone who collaborated with the Germans at least a little. The whole world went around the photo of the massacre of a French woman who gave birth to a child from a German soldier. And the French intelligentsia chose to completely forget about all this.

Didn't the same Poles and Czechs deport millions of innocent German citizens in 1945-1946? So what? Is the native intelligentsia moaning about genocide and deportation there? Offers to return the deportees and their descendants and erect monuments to the deported people?

It is clear that all this hysteria is the work of politicians and businessmen who incite ethnic conflicts for selfish purposes.

The return of the Tatars to Crimea, the serious strengthening of their political and economic positions on the peninsula, as well as Turkey's intervention created a factor of instability in Crimea. And now the question is not whether or not the ethnic conflict will start in Crimea, but when it will start.