Penalty battalions go to the breakthrough ...
In these January days of 1943, the Red Army finished off the remnants of the Nazi troops surrounded at Stalingrad. It was on the eve of the battle for Stalingrad that the famous order No. 227 from 28 was issued on July 1942 of the year, which is better known as “Not one step back!”. It is believed that the first punitive company was created on the Leningrad front three days before the release of this order. The mass formation of the penal divisions began in September, when the order of the USSR Commissar for Defense of the USSR approved the regulations on the penal battalions and companies of the active army.
The first penal battalions appeared among the Germans.
In general, almost everything related to history the creation of penal battalions and companies and their participation in hostilities, overgrown with a mass of myths, legends and even direct insinuations. At the same time, Western historians and their undergraduates, who have now divorced a lot in the territory of the former USSR, completely “forget” that the Wehrmacht did not have the first penal units, and much earlier.
But what were the German penal units? Disciplinary battalions appeared in the German army before the start of the Second World War. In 1939, there were eight of them. They contained military personnel who committed various offenses. Used them mainly as military construction and engineering units. After the victorious Polish campaign, the disciplinary battalions were disbanded, considering, apparently, that the Wehrmacht would never again be cowards, slobs and criminals.
But the outbreak of war with the USSR showed: the fighting spirit of many soldiers and officers should be reinforced not only with incentives and awards. The Soviet counter-offensive near Moscow in December 1941 turned into a general offensive by the Red Army. Army Group Center was at some point on the edge of the abyss. In some areas, the German units retreated in a panic, leaving hundreds of vehicles, artillery to their own devices, Tanks. Hitler was furious. As a result, the Führer's order of December 16, 1941 followed, forbidding losing positions without permission from above. Soldiers deserting from the front line were shot on the spot.
Putting an elementary order in positions, the Hitlerite leadership created 100 penal companies on the Eastern Front. Or, as they were officially called, parts of probation. Terms there were given from six months to five years. Their convicts were to serve "from bell to bell." Neither wounding nor heroic behavior on an advanced date was reduced. That is, the German soldier could not atone for his guilt with blood, unlike the Soviet “penalty box”. From the hospital, the wounded man again returned his penalty battalion. Moreover, they did not give any orders and medals to the German "penal".
The number of these units on the Eastern Front was strictly determined - 16500 people, which corresponded to the staff of the infantry division. 100 penalty companies were evenly distributed throughout the Soviet-German front. At the same time, the principle of caste was strictly observed: there were officer penal companies, non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Sometimes, for tactical reasons, they were combined into a battalion. It is clear that these units were sent to hell, without covering artillery, tanks and aviation.
There were also penal units in the SS forces. The most famous of them was the battalion of Dirlewanger, "famous" for the atrocities against the civilian population. Dirlewanger himself served a sentence for rape in his youth, and the entourage chose an appropriate one for himself.
The overwhelming majority of the German “penalty box” was on the Eastern Front. But in October, 1942, and in France, the 999-nd brigade appeared, which was a penal compound. It is curious that it was formed from communists, social democrats, criminals and homosexuals who were in concentration camps.
According to official data, 198 thousands of people passed through the system of German penal battalions during the Second World War.
Our penal baty were very different
By July, 1942, the situation on the Soviet-German front was the worst for our country. However, many Western “historians”, like our “humanists”, are addicted to any “sensation”, commenting on the content of the “bloodthirsty,” in their opinion, the order “Not one step back!”, As a rule, misses that part of it assessment of the situation.
Therefore, let me literally quote some lines from order No. XXUMX: “Every commander, every Red Army man and political worker must understand that our means are not limited. The territory of the Soviet Union is not a desert, but people: workers, peasants, intellectuals, our fathers and mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR, which the enemy seized and seeks to seize, is bread and other products for the army and rear, metal and fuel for industry, factories, factories supplying the army with weapons and ammunition, railways. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, Donbass and other areas, we have less territory, therefore, much less people, bread, metal, factories, and factories. We lost more than 227 million of the population, more than 70 million pounds of bread per year and more than 80 million tons of metal per year. We no longer have a dominance over the Germans either in human resources or in bread stocks. To retreat further is to ruin ourselves and at the same time ruin our homeland. Each new patch of territory we left will strengthen the enemy in every way and weaken our defense, our homeland in every possible way. ”
Apparently, comments are unnecessary here. The fate of the entire Soviet people, moreover, of the entire Slavs, was put on the scales. Therefore, extraordinary measures were taken. One of them was the creation of penal units.
Again we read the order number XXUMX:
"To form within the front from 1 to 3 (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 people), where to send middle and senior commanders and relevant political workers of all branches of the armed forces for violation of discipline on cowardice or instability, and put them on more difficult sectors of the front to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland.
To form within the army from 5 to 10 (depending on the situation) penal companies (from 150 to 200 people in each), where to send ordinary soldiers and junior commanders who have been guilty of breach of discipline for cowardice or instability, and put them in difficult areas of the army, to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes in front of their homeland. ”
"To form within the front from 1 to 3 (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 people), where to send middle and senior commanders and relevant political workers of all branches of the armed forces for violation of discipline on cowardice or instability, and put them on more difficult sectors of the front to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland.
To form within the army from 5 to 10 (depending on the situation) penal companies (from 150 to 200 people in each), where to send ordinary soldiers and junior commanders who have been guilty of breach of discipline for cowardice or instability, and put them in difficult areas of the army, to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes in front of their homeland. ”
As you can see, only officers and equivalent persons were sent to the penal battalions, moreover, the decision about this was made by the chiefs in the position not lower than the division commander. A small part of the officers fell into the penal battalions by the verdicts of the military tribunals. Before being sent to the penal battalion, officers were to be demoted to private soldiers, their awards were transferred to the front personnel department for storage. It was possible to send to the penal battalion for a period from one month to three.
“Penalties”, who were injured or distinguished in battle, presented themselves for early release with restoration to their former rank and rights. The victims were restored to the rank automatically, and their relatives were given a pension “on a general basis with all families of commanders”. It was envisaged that all penalty boxers who had served their sentences were “presented by the command of the battalion to the military council of the front for release and, upon approval of the submission, are released from the penalty battalion”. All liberated were restored to the rank and they were returned all their awards.
Penalty companies were created in the amount of from five to ten in each army. They could get and former officers, if they were demoted to the rank and file decision of the military tribunal. In this case, after serving time in a fine, the officer’s rank was not restored. The length of stay and the principle of release from penal companies was exactly the same as that of the penal battalions, only decisions were made by the military councils of the armies.
Penal battalions and companies were separate military units directly subordinate to the command of the front and the army, they were commanded only by personnel (regular) officers and commissioners (later political workers) for whom it was planned to reduce the term of service for the next rank by half, and every month the service was counted pension for six months. The commanders of the penalty box were given extremely high disciplinary rights: the company - as the commander of the regiment, and the battalion commander - as the commander of the division. For some time in battle, the penalty box could replace the killed commander, but could not command the penal unit in the usual situation even as an exception. "Penalties" could be appointed only to non-commissioned positions with the assignment of the appropriate rank, and, in this case, they received non-commissioned pay.
Penal units were used, as a rule, on the most dangerous sectors of the front, they were assigned to conduct reconnaissance in battle, break through the front edge of the enemy, etc. The information that machine gunmen drove fighters into the battle (more on this later - auth.) confirmed by neither the documents nor the memories of veterans. Moreover, they were armed no worse than combat units and were used in conjunction with other combat units. For example, in a summary of the generalized combat experience of the 8 Guards Army, it reads: “To clarify the nature of the enemy defenses before the Berlin operation on the Oder bridgehead, in April 1945, reconnaissance was carried out. Two rifle battalions and two penal companies were involved. Rifle battalions, penal companies were reinforced by artillery, mortars, demining units and volley guards mortars. "
The provisions on penalties provided that penalties for specific feats could be submitted to government awards. Here are some interesting figures taken from the archival document: “In the penalty units of the 64 Army, during the battles at Stalingrad, 1023, people for courage were freed from punishment. Of them awarded: Order of Lenin - 1, World War II degree - 1, Red Star - 17, medals "For Courage" and "For Military Merit" - 134 ". Let me remind you that in the armies there were only fines, so that we are talking about “penalty box” sergeants and privates.
In principle, former prisoners could not get into the penalty battalions, if before that they had not received officer ranks. Formerly amnestied also fell into the penalties, but only after committing misdemeanors in the military units where they served. In addition, an insignificant number of convicts under non-binding articles were sent to the penalties. Such people during the trial or already in the colonies were given a reprieve from serving the sentence with the direction to the penalty company. As a rule, these were not civilians, but former military men or soldiers from the rear units convicted by military tribunals.
From 1943, when the active offensive began, the former military personnel who remained during the fighting in the occupied territory but did not try to cross the front line or join the partisans, began to be sent to the penalties. At the same time, after appropriate checks, they sent to the penalties voluntary surrendered Vlasovites, policemen, employees of the occupation administrations, who did not stain themselves with reprisals against the civilian population, underground fighters and partisans, and by age were subject to call-up service.
Few people know that during the years of the Great Patriotic War, not only penal companies and battalions were created in our Armed Forces, but also penal squadrons. The very first of them in the 1942 year was headed by the now Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Evgrafovich Fedorov. Recently, the documents classified the organization of penal squadrons were classified as “Secret”, and in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense one can familiarize oneself with the order of the Supreme Command Headquarters saving for many defeated pilots. It was signed by Stalin on August 4 of the year 1942 and established the introduction to the air armies of the penal squadrons.
As you know, Stalin highly appreciated the pilots, who spent a considerable amount of time and money on training. When it was reported to the Supreme that a considerable number of them were sent to penal battalions because of negligence, that is, ceased to fly, he banned such practices and introduced the institute of penal squadrons. Fascist aces terrifiedly called the Soviet pilots from the penal squadrons "terrible falcons."
Over the years of the war, the 65 penal battalions and the 1037 penal companies were created in the Red Army. The time of their existence was different, some were disbanded a few months after the establishment, while others fought until the end of the war, reaching Berlin. The maximum number of simultaneously existing penalties in July, 1943, was 335 units. There were cases when the distinguished penalty companies in full force were transferred to the category of combatants.
Since 1943, the number of penalty battles has been sharply reduced, and in 1944, there are only 11 left. In each - about 200 with a small person. This is due to the fact that there were not enough experienced officers in the army, they were less likely to be sent to the penal battalions, preferring to lower the guilty in the rank of several levels and assign them to lower officer posts.
We were not the “authors” of the barrage detachments, and they performed completely different tasks.
The history of the Great Patriotic War is still replete with silence, and even unconscious or quite deliberate disinformation. Along with penal divisions, barrage detachments are a favorite theme of falsifiers. Discussions about their place and role in the course of hostilities do not weaken, which can be judged by the diversity of opinions in the scientific literature.
Immediately I want to emphasize that the version that the detachments were “guarding” the penalty units does not hold water. The commander of the 8 company, a separate battalion of the 1 Belarusian Front, retired colonel A.V. Pyltsyn, who fought from 1943 until Victory, asserts: “There were no detachments for our battalion under any circumstances measures. It's just that there has never been such a need. ”
The well-known writer, Hero of the Soviet Union, V. V. Karpov, who fought in the 45 of a separate penal company on the Kalininsky Front, also denies the presence of detachments behind the combat orders of their units.
And, again, the same authors were the “authors” of the idea of creating detachments during the years of the Great Patriotic War. In the army of the Wehrmacht, barrage units complementing the field gendarmerie appeared during the offensive of the Red Army in the winter of 1941 — 1942. The tasks of the barrage detachments were: shooting on the spot alarmists and deserters. The Wehrmacht had at its disposal a field gendarmerie, which, having professionally trained officers and soldiers, was engaged in catching the fugitives, identifying the simulators and "crossbows", restoring order in the rear, clearing the rear units from the surplus soldiers.
This is what Ober-Lieutenant Kurt Steiger wrote: “In winter, our servicemen suffered from terrible Russian frosts. Morale dropped. Some soldiers tried to leave those on the front line under various pretexts. For example, they simulated severe frostbite. The maintenance of discipline was promoted by special units (protective detachments), which, by order of the command, detained such soldiers. They had broad powers, including shooting without trial. ”
But how did the detachments of the Red Army act? In reality, the army outposts were located at a distance of 1,5 — 2 km from the front line, intercepting communications in the near rear. They did not specialize in “penalty box”, but checked and detained all whose stay outside the military unit was suspicious.
Have protective units been used? weaponto prevent unauthorized withdrawal of linear parts from their positions? This aspect of their combat activity is sometimes covered extremely speculatively. But it is only in the inflamed brains of the same falsifiers that pictures of execution in the back of quivering or retreating parts appear. Not a single serious document, not a single memory of the front-line soldiers confirms this “argument”, beloved by the haters of the entire Soviet.
I want to emphasize that from the very beginning, the barrage detachments were subordinated to the army command, and not to the bodies of military counterintelligence. The People's Commissar of Defense, of course, had in mind that the barrage units would and should be used not only as a barrier for the retreating units, but also as the most important reserve for the direct conduct of hostilities. Only because of the limited space on the newspaper page, I do not cite examples (documented) of the participation of detachments in the liquidation of German breakthroughs, the destruction of their assault forces, etc. Thus, the barrier detachments not only acted as a barrier preventing deserters from entering the rear , alarmists, German agents, not only returned to the front line soldiers lagging behind their units, but they themselves also conducted direct hostilities with the enemy, contributing to the achievement of victory over Nazi Germany.
As the situation on the fronts changed, with the transition to the Red Army of the strategic initiative and the beginning of the mass expulsion of the invaders from the territory of the USSR, the need for detachments began to disappear. October 29 1944, the year Stalin issued an order in which he admitted that "due to a change in the general situation on the fronts, the need for the further maintenance of the barrage detachments has disappeared." And by the 15 of November 1944, they were disbanded, and the personnel of the detachments were sent to the replenishment of combatant divisions.
A bit about the history of the topic
It is worth recalling that the idea of creating detachments arose much earlier than the Second World War. The function of the back rank of the phalanx was described in some detail by the ancient Greek historian Xenophon in his work “Cyropedia” as early as the 4th century BC: “Encourage those who are doing their duty, restrain the cowardly with death threats and punish everyone who intends to turn the rear, instill cowards fear than enemies. ” Well, what is the last rank of the phalanx not detachment? Something similar was applied in medieval armies.
But, let's go back to the new story. After all, in the French army in the fields of the First World War, such actions were practiced, and they were directed against the allied Russian units. As one of the participants of the offensive undertaken by General Nivel in April 1917 wrote, behind the back of the Russian soldiers were numerous French formations, equipped with artillery and ready to open fire in case the Russians were convulsed.
Not to mention the X-NUMX year in August on the Western Front of the La-Curtine tragedy - the suppression of the 1917-th Special Brigade of the Russian Expeditionary Corps, which had been deployed in 1 to help the allied French troops. Discipline in its parts, as well as in the formations on the Eastern Front, fell steadily; after the bloody offensive of General Nivelle, as mentioned above, the soldiers began to demand sending to Russia. The brigade was temporarily stationed in the military camp La Curtin of the Creuse Department. Fermentation in the military environment intensified. When the military representative of the High Command at the Main Apartment of the French armies of General M.I. Zankevich became aware of the futility of suggestion measures and even attempts at blockading the camp, the insurgency was suppressed with the support of ... artillery.
General PN Wrangel also did not stop in front of such measures; he described in his memoirs the establishment of order in the Caucasian Infantry Regiment, which had shaken in July 1917 of the year by means of a runaway artillery fire to defeat the running soldiers.
However, there were no special barriers in the Russian army during the First World War. Protection of the rear, catching deserters before 1917, were assigned to the field gendarme squadrons. In the areas of highways, this task was carried out by gendarme railway administrations.
Well, the last on this topic. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, approximately 428 thousand people passed through the penal units of the Red Army. His fault (real or imaginary), the overwhelming majority of the “penalty box” redeemed with honor. Moreover, many - their lives. And it is blasphemous to speculate on the difficult history of a great people, to throw mud and mud on the years of the hardest of its trials. For then, in the war, no matter how the current and then enemies would click, he transferred them with honor. And the “penalty box” ... they were Soviet people. And their memory should be treated with respect, because in the Great Victory there is their very significant contribution.
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