Vyazemsky "cauldron" is a little-known page of the history of war

In the historical works on the Great Patriotic War, there are many pages on which the authors of "memories and reflections", hung with medals, did not like to stop their readers' attention. Although there was something to think about, but somehow I did not want to remember. The reasons are clear - these pages are terrible and shameful.

One of these unfamiliar stories is the story of Vyazemsky's "cauldron." Few people know how much worse it is, than, for example, the battle on the Volga.

From any textbook of history, even the Soviet one, it is known that at Wehrmacht the Wehrmacht lost the army of General Paulus, consisting of twenty-two divisions. So, the Red Army near Vyazma suffered several losses. A group of three armies was surrounded, the losses were, according to the most conservative estimates, 380,000 people killed, 600,000 Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner. The number of divisions that hit the Vyazemsky "boiler" and ceased to exist is 37. Nine tank brigades, thirty-one artillery regiments of the reserve of the Main Command were completely routed.

But that's not all. Vyazemskaya catastrophe had its consequences: the destruction of such a large military grouping opened to the German troops a direct road to Moscow, which had to be urgently blocked by militia and cadets, poorly trained and equally poorly armed. Almost all of them died, adding five-digit figures to the sorrowful treasury of losses of our people in the war.

The fighting near Vyazma began in October 1941. The fact that the German General Staff plans a major offensive, the Soviet command guessed, but expected it between the 19 th and 16 th armies, where the forces were concentrated, which later found themselves in Vyazemsky "cauldron". This was a mistake, the enemy struck south and north, from the towns of Roslavl and Dukhovshchina, bypassing the defensive positions of the Soviet troops of the Western Front and encircling them. As a result of this classic maneuver, a high concentration of troops was created in the narrow sectors of the front, and the Germans managed to break through the extended defense of Soviet troops.

Marshal G.K. Zhukov, who commanded the Western Front on October 10, 1941, in his memoirs represented Vyazemsky "cauldron" as a not very significant episode of his heroic biography, pointing out that the surrounded grouping for a long time fettered enemy forces around him. It really was so. Loss of supply, communications and command of the Soviet divisions fought to the last. It did not last long, and soon thousands of columns of prisoners were dusted along the roads. Their fate is not just sad, it is terrible. In the camps, most of our soldiers and officers died of starvation, cold and disease, and those who survived were branded with shame of captivity and, in the majority after the war, again fell into the camps, this time Soviet.

The battle of Vyazma occurred seventy-two years ago, and the remains of many thousands of soldiers who defended our homeland, to this day lie in unknown graves, cars drive through them, people who do not know the truth walk. For a long time it was thought that it was better to forget it.

Yes, Vyazemsky "cauldron" became a shame, and not the only one for the war, but not for the fallen heroes and not for the dead in captivity, he lies down. They are not guilty of anything and, in the majority, honestly fulfilled their military duty. Those who did not want to tell the truth about the war and forbade it to others knew whose shame it was.

We, who live today, need to remember their grandfathers and great-grandfathers who have not returned from the war.