End of World War II. End of World War II When World War II ended

September 2 marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the bloodiest World War II in the history of mankind, which lasted six years and one day and claimed the lives of approximately 50 million people, including 27 million citizens of the former Soviet Union.

On that day in Tokyo Bay aboard the American battleship Missouri the Act of Japan's unconditional surrender was signed. It was signed by: from the Japanese side - Foreign Minister Sigomitsu Momoru and Chief of the General Staff Umezu Yoshijiro; with the American - the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General of the US Army Douglas MacArthur and Admiral of the US Navy Chester Nimitz; on the Soviet side - Lieutenant General Kuzma Derevianko, as well as representatives of the Republic of China, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

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The Berlin (Potsdam) conference of the leaders of the same three states as the Tehran (1943) and Yalta (February 1945) conferences - the USA, the USSR and the UK: Harry Truman , Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, whom Clement Attlee replaced in recent days in connection with the victory in the elections of the Labor Party headed by him. The conference was also attended by the Foreign Ministers: James Byrnes (USA), Vyacheslav Molotov (USSR) and Anthony Eden (Great Britain), who was later replaced by Ernst Bevin. The conference was held from July 17 to August 2, 1945. The central issue considered at it was the question of the future of Germany: its borders, although this was already discussed at the Yalta conference and the political system. At the same time, it should be emphasized that Prussia, which was a part of the country and was the hotbed of wars, as a state entity, was liquidated altogether: it was divided between the USSR and Poland; By the way, Germany lost, in comparison with 1937, 25% of its territory, because of which 12-14 million Germans had to be forcibly resettled to its new borders.

W. Churchill, G. Truman and I. Stalin. Potsdam. July 1945

The Soviet Union, having acquired part of the territory of the former Prussia (the present Kaliningrad region and Klaipeda, which became part of Lithuania), donated the Bialystok region, which became part of the USSR, to Poland, together with other regions of Western Belarus, after September 17, 1939.

It is known that on July 23, during a dinner at Churchill's, J. Stalin expressed his claims to the possession of the Basfor and Dardanelles straits, but the allies did not agree to this, and therefore this issue was not officially discussed at the conference.

And on July 24 G. Truman told I. Stalin that the United States "now has weapons of extraordinary destructive power." True, to the surprise of Truman and Churchill, Stalin took this message quite coolly: he congratulated the American president on such an achievement and advised him to use this weapon in order to accelerate the surrender of Japan, and he himself gave instructions to contact Academician Igor Kurchatov and tell him to head he institute completed work as soon as possible on the creation of the same weapon, that is, an atomic bomb.

As for the political structure of the future Germany, the conference identified the principles that received the name of the "four D": denazification, decentralization, democratization and dismantling, which meant dismantling the facilities of the German (mainly) metallurgical and heavy industry, in order to demilitarize the country and partial compensation for material damage to the Soviet Union caused by the Nazis during the occupation of its territory.

Since the Japanese militarists did not agree to the terms of surrender offered to them and continued the war, the representatives of the USSR delegation confirmed their commitment given at the Yalta conference to declare war on Japan no later than three months after the victory over Germany, which was done on August 8, 1945.

II

The International Military Tribunals for the conviction of Nazi-German and Japanese-militarist war criminals, organized for the first time in world practice, were of no small importance for maintaining peace after the end of World War II. By the way, such tribunals could not but be created: the crime against humanity committed by the leaders of these countries was too great, which caused a nationwide indignation, and not only in the occupied countries. Therefore, the idea of ​​the need to try these criminals was expressed by US President Franklin Roosevelt back in October 1942. This "clique of leaders and their cruel accomplices," he said, "must be named, arrested and tried under criminal law."

In the same month (on the 14th) of 1942, a resolution of the Soviet government "On the responsibility of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices for the atrocities committed by them in the occupied countries of Europe" was adopted.

At the Nuremberg Trials

The Declaration of the Three Powers (USA, USSR and Great Britain), adopted in October 1943, again stated that the perpetrators of the atrocities who were directly involved in the killings and executions of innocent people in the occupied territories “will be sent to countries in which their disgusting actions were committed, so that they can be judged and punished in accordance with the laws of these liberated countries. " At the same time, guided by humane principles, in the same Declaration the leaders of the named powers warned: “Let those who have not yet stained their hands with innocent blood, take this into account so as not to be among the guilty, for the three allied powers will surely find them even at the end of the world and will hand them over to their accusers so that justice may be done. "

However, the Nazi beasts, smelling of human blood, did not calm down and continued to carry out the directive of their Fuhrer, expressed by him long before the attack on the USSR to one of his confidants, who later rejected the misanthropic ideas of National Socialism, Hermann Rauschning: “We must develop the technique of depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by depopulation, I will say that I mean the elimination of entire racial units, and this is what I intend to accomplish, this is, roughly speaking, my task. Nature is cruel, therefore we can be cruel ... I have the right to eliminate millions of inferior races that multiply like worms. "

As you know, for the practical implementation of this cannibalistic directive in Nazi Germany itself and on the territory of the countries occupied by it, a whole network of concentration camps was built, many of them with special stoves for burning people. As a result of the implementation of Hitler's directives, the Jewish people suffered the most (6 million people were killed) and the Roma, who were exterminated by nationality.

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The international military tribunal for the conviction of Nazi-German criminals worked in Nuremberg from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, that is, at a time when the wounds inflicted by the Nazis on the world community were still fresh and bleeding. Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the US trial, had every reason to say in his opening speech: “This trial takes on significance because these prisoners represent in their faces sinister forces that will lurk in the world long after the bodies of these people turn to dust. These people are living symbols of racial hatred, terror and violence, arrogance and cruelty generated by the authorities. It is a symbol of cruel nationalism and militarism, intrigue and provocation that, over one generation after another, plunged Europe into the abyss of war, exterminating its male population, destroying its homes and plunging it into poverty. They have so much attached themselves to the philosophy they have created and to the forces they govern, that showing mercy to them will mean victory and encouragement of the evil that is associated with their names. Civilization cannot afford any compromise with social forces, which will acquire new power if we act ambiguously or indecisively with people in whose person these forces continue to exist. "

During the trial, 403 public hearings were held and 116 witnesses were questioned, as well as thousands of written testimonies and irrefutable evidence of the guilt of those sitting in the dock were considered; and, despite political and ideological differences, as the secretariat of the Soviet delegation, Arkady Poltorak, who headed the Nuremberg trials, notes, dozens of highly qualified lawyers from the USA, USSR, Great Britain and France, with rare and a true picture of Hitler's atrocities, justly punish the culprits. "

And the picture of the Nazi atrocities was terrible. For example, when answering a question posed to Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz from May 4, 1940 to November 9, 1943, and after that (until 1945) to the deputy chief inspector of German concentration camps: “Is it true that SS executioners threw living children into burning crematorium furnaces? ”, without even hesitation, he confirmed:“ Young children were certainly destroyed, since the weakness inherent in childhood did not allow them to work ... Very often women hid children under their clothes, but, of course, when we found, then took away children and exterminated. "

The meetings of the Nuremberg Trials ended with the reading of the verdict on October 1, 1946: twelve of the worst Nazi criminals were sentenced (M. Bormann - in absentia) to death by hanging, three to life imprisonment, two to 20, one to 15 and one to 10 years in prison. At the same time, we recall that Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels committed suicide before their arrest, and the latter committed another grave crime before his death - he took the life of his young children.

Edward Stettinius, head of the US delegation, signs the UN Charter. Veterans House, San Francisco, June 26, 1945

It is very important that, simultaneously with the condemnation and punishment of the personal perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the National Socialist Party of Germany itself, its leadership and the punitive organizations created by it: SS, SD and Gestapo, which were the stronghold of the Nazi state, were declared criminal at the Nuremberg trials.

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After the defeat of Japan, its war criminals, who, together with the German Nazis, took an active part in inciting and waging World War II, and also committed atrocities against humanity, did not escape retribution. Suffice it to say that in 1932, Detachment 731 was created in Japan, which was engaged in the development of biological weapons and annually maimed and killed about 10 thousand people in the course of experiments; the victims included Chinese, American and Soviet prisoners. Japanese soldiers, like the Germans, destroyed dwellings, schools, religious buildings in the territories occupied by them without any military need, took women prisoners and there they were tortured and raped.

In order to try Japanese war criminals on January 19, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was also created, which included representatives of 11 states: the USA, USSR, China, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, India and Philippines. The Tribunal operated in Tokyo from May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948; during this time, 818 open court hearings were held, as a result of which the guilt of 28 defendants was irrefutably proven. Of these, 7 were sentenced to death by hanging, 16 to life imprisonment, one to 20 and one to 7 years in prison; three died in prison during the investigation, Fumimoro Konoe (Prime Minister of Japan in 1937-1939 and 1940-1941) committed suicide on the eve of his arrest, and Shumei Okawa (philosopher, ideologist of Japanese militarism) experienced a nervous breakdown during the trial and became behave inappropriately, therefore he was excluded from the number of the defendants; 13 people were pardoned.

III

One of the most significant instruments for maintaining peace and post-war cooperation between countries is the United Nations Organization (UN), created in June 1945, that is, at a time when the Second World War was still going on. Its Charter states that, in order to maintain peace and security, it can resort to taking collective measures, up to suppressing hotbeds of aggression. As for cooperation between countries, the list includes a wide range of issues: economic, social, cultural and humanitarian. The UN is based on the principle of equality of its members and is obliged to observe and respect the rights of every people and individuals, regardless of race, gender, language and religion, without interfering in the internal affairs of any of the states.

However, when the allies no longer had a common enemy uniting the efforts of such different states, then the contradictions that existed between them — of a geopolitical and ideological nature — began to come to the fore again; and, still not recovering from the just ended "hot" war, the world community began to plunge into the "cold" war. At the same time, it is known that Soviet propaganda considered the beginning of the "cold" war in the speech of W. Churchill, delivered by him on March 5, 1946 in Fulton (USA). Moreover, in an interview with I. Stalin, published on March 14, 1946 in Pravda, Churchill was called an instigator of a new war and was compared with Hitler, since he allegedly began "the business of unleashing a war also from a racial theory, claiming that only nations speaking in English, they are full-fledged nations, called upon to decide the destinies of the whole world ”; and what Churchill said in that speech about the possibility of extending the term of the "Soviet-British treaty on mutual assistance and cooperation" to 50 years, was, in Stalin's opinion, only confusing readers, since, they say, such an extension of the said treaty is incompatible with the the same Churchill "to the war with the USSR, with his preaching of the war against the USSR."

The question naturally arises: is this so? And, as the analysis of the events of the time and a careful reading of Churchill's Fulton speech show, to put it mildly, this is not entirely true. It's just that Stalin, who back in the 1920s and 30s during the struggle for sole power, mastered the skill of intrigue and distortion of facts, and in this case began to misinterpret the measures he was taking to implant Bolshevik socialism in other countries and distorted the meaning of Churchill's speech.

The facts sit around that it was Stalin and his accomplices who first began to violate the Yalta, and then the Potsdam agreements, which led to the confrontation between the USSR and its former allies; by the way, this is very well illustrated by the example of Germany. So, according to the testimony of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who at that time was the commander-in-chief of the military administration in the zone of Soviet occupation, he often met with the then leaders of the German Communist Party Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht and other German communists. On June 10, 1945, Zhukov signed order No. 2, according to which the formation and activities of allegedly "all anti-fascist parties, aiming at the final eradication of the remnants of fascism and the strengthening of the beginnings of democracy and civil liberties in Germany, and the development of initiatives in this direction were allowed on the territory of the Soviet zone in Germany. and amateur activities of the broad masses of the population. "

However, thanks to the actions of the same Soviet military administration, this order of G. Zhukov was used only by the Communist and Social Democratic parties, which, in their desire to unite, already in February 1946 (by the way, before Churchill's speech) adopted a document developed by a special commission entitled “ Basic Principles and Objectives ”, which unequivocally declared that after the unification of the above parties into the Socialist Unified Party of Germany, its ultimate goal would be“ the conquest of socialism ”. “At the same time, - as V. Pik stressed in his report at the 15th Congress of the KKE on April 20, 1946, - we are not talking about any vague ethical goals in the distant future, but about the development of the socialist mode of production, about the transformation of capitalist commodity production into socialist production carried out by society and for society. The means for realizing the socialist mode of production is the transformation of capitalist ownership of the means of production into public ownership. "

Winston Churchill speaking. 1946 year

Thus, in the “Political Principles of the Potsdam Agreement” with the “four Ds” the addition of “S” (the principle of socialization) was introduced, which radically changed the meaning of the said Agreement. And such actions to impose Bolshevik-style socialism were undertaken by Stalin and his accomplices in almost all other countries in which Soviet troops continued to be stationed. Moreover, in order to exchange experience, and, if necessary, to coordinate actions at the end of September 1947, the Information Bureau of Communist and Workers' Parties was created, and not only those already in power and building socialism according to Moscow's plans, but also of the Italian and French Communist Parties. , since at that time the communist leaders had a glimmer of hope that coups d'état would soon take place in Italy and France and the communists would come to power.

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All this could not be overlooked, in our opinion, by one of the most experienced and perspicacious politicians of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill; and even then, at the beginning of March 1946, he sounded the alarm about "two monstrous marauders - war and tyranny", which again threatened, in his opinion, humanity.

To protect the world from the first marauder - war, Churchill noted, “we must constantly make sure that the work of the UN is as productive as possible and that it is real and not ostentatious, so that this organization is an active force, and not just a tribune for idle talk, so that it becomes a true Temple of Peace, where shields with the coats of arms of a huge variety of countries will one day be hung, and not turn into a second Babylonian tower or a place for settling scores. "

Turning to the second of the two above-mentioned disasters that threatened "every home, every family, every person - namely, tyranny", W. Churchill warned: "We cannot close our eyes to the fact that democratic freedoms enjoyed by citizens at all territories of the British Empire are not provided in many other states, including very powerful ones. " And then Churchill said more specifically about the threat of tyranny: “Today, a black shadow has fallen on the stage of post-war life, which until recently shone in the bright light of the Allied victory. No one can say what can be expected in the near future from Soviet Russia and the communist community it leads, and what the limits, if any, of their expansionist aspirations and persistent efforts to convert the whole world to their faith are. " (As we can see, apart from a warning about the threat of tyranny coming from Moscow, which was already obvious at that time, there is not even a hint of the claims of the English-speaking nations to decide the fate of the world, much less a call for war with the USSR, which Stalin attributed to Churchill).

By the way, justifying his expansionist actions, Stalin said in the said interview that “the Germans invaded the USSR through Finland, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary”, and therefore, they say, “what can be surprising in the fact that the Soviet The Union, wishing to secure itself for the future, is trying to ensure that in these countries there are governments loyal to the Soviet Union? " And further, asking a new question, how was it inherent in him, he continued to brazenly hypocrite: "How can you, without going crazy, qualify these peaceful aspirations of the Soviet Union as expansionist tendencies of our state?" (After all, Churchill did not blame the USSR for what Stalin ascribes to him in this case, but warned that even then, under the pressure of the USSR, dictatorial regimes began to be created in the Central European countries, and that the life of ordinary people passed in these countries " under the strict control and constant supervision of various kinds of police regimes "possessing unlimited power, which was exercised" either by a dictator himself, or by a narrow group through a privileged party and political police.)

The value of W. Churchill's Fulton speech also lies in the fact that, along with warning the world community about the threat of war and tyranny, in it he clearly formulated his view of the democratic structure of the state, which for the time when many new states and leaders of the USSR were formed tried to convert them to "their faith", it was very important. W. Churchill, in particular, said: a democratic system means that “firstly, citizens of any country have the right to elect the government of their country and change the nature or form of government in which they live through free, unhindered elections conducted through secret voting, and this right must be ensured by the constitutional norms of this country; secondly, freedom of speech and thought should prevail in any country and, thirdly, the courts should be independent of the executive branch and free from the influence of any parties, and the justice they administer should be based on laws approved by the general population of the given country or consecrated by the time and traditions of this country. "

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Meanwhile, the confrontation between Western democracy and Eastern despotism continued to grow: in April 1949, representatives of 12 Western states created the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). This confrontation between the former allies also affected the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition on September 8, 1951, which officially summed up the results of World War II. The Treaty was signed by representatives of 49 countries, but the Soviet representative refused to sign, since the Treaty, at the suggestion of the United States, denied any claims to the territories belonging to Japan on December 7, 1941; that is, it was about South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which were actually already part of the USSR at that time. (By the way, the then disagreements on this issue continue to make themselves felt today: in connection with the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to the Kuril Islands on August 22, the visit of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan has been postponed).

In May 1955, seven Central European countries and the USSR signed the Warsaw Pact, which not only intensified the confrontation between two different socio-political systems, but also led to the competition between the participants of the two military blocs in the arms race.

It is known that as a result of this competition, Western civilization won, which led to the collapse of not only the Warsaw Pact, but also its skeleton - the USSR. It is only a pity that after that Bolshevism was not condemned as a dictatorial political trend that differed from National Socialism only in that all crimes by its representatives were committed not under the slogans of extreme nationalism, but on a class basis.

This oversight of the world community leads in many states that emerged on the territory of the former USSR to the revival of dictatorial regimes, although somewhat under different slogans. At the same time, in contrast to the times of the Cold War, when a certain mutual respect was observed between representatives of opposing systems, which saved humanity from the transition from the Cold War to the Hot War; now the game between the opposing countries is going on almost without observance of the rules. The only hope is that the leaders of the most aggressive regimes will still have enough common sense to stop at a tense moment and not plunge the world into the abyss of a new war.

Livermore

Semyon SHARETSKY

The first major defeat of the Wehrmacht was the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Moscow battle (1941-1942), during which the Nazi "blitzkrieg" was finally thwarted, the myth of the Wehrmacht's invincibility was dispelled.

On December 7, 1941, with an attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan unleashed a war against the United States. On December 8, the United States, Great Britain and a number of other states declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The entry into the war of the United States and Japan influenced the balance of forces and increased the scale of the armed struggle.

In North Africa, in November 1941 and in January-June 1942, hostilities were fought with varying degrees of success, then there was a lull until the fall of 1942. In the Atlantic, German submarines continued to inflict heavy damage on the Allied fleets (by the fall of 1942, the tonnage of sunk ships, mainly in the Atlantic, amounted to over 14 million tons). In the Pacific Ocean, Japan at the beginning of 1942 occupied Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, inflicted a major defeat on the British fleet in the Gulf of Thailand, the Anglo-American-Dutch fleet in the Java operation and established dominance at sea. The US Navy and Air Force, significantly strengthened by the summer of 1942, defeated the Japanese fleet in the naval battles in the Coral Sea (May 7-8) and Midway Island (June).

Third period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 31, 1943) began with a counter-offensive by Soviet troops, which ended in the defeat of the 330,000-strong German group during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked the beginning of a radical change in the Great Patriotic War and had a great influence on the further course of the entire Second World War. The mass expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the USSR began. The Battle of Kursk (1943) and access to the Dnieper brought a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The battle for the Dnieper (1943) overturned the enemy's calculations to conduct a protracted war.

At the end of October 1942, when the Wehrmacht was fighting fierce battles on the Soviet-German front, the Anglo-American troops intensified military operations in North Africa, conducting the El Alamein operation (1942) and the North African landing operation (1942). In the spring of 1943, they carried out the Tunisian operation. In July-August 1943, the Anglo-American troops, using a favorable situation (the main forces of the German troops participated in the Battle of Kursk), landed on the island of Sicily and captured it.

On July 25, 1943, the fascist regime in Italy collapsed; on September 3, she concluded an armistice with the Allies. Italy's withdrawal from the war marked the beginning of the collapse of the fascist bloc. On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany. German fascist troops occupied its territory. In September, the Allies landed in Italy, but could not break the defenses of the German troops and in December they suspended active operations. In the Pacific Ocean and Asia, Japan sought to retain the territories captured in 1941-1942, without weakening the groupings near the borders of the USSR. The allies, having launched an offensive in the Pacific in the fall of 1942, captured the island of Guadalcanal (February 1943), landed in New Guinea, and liberated the Aleutian Islands.

The fourth period of the war (January 1, 1944 - May 9, 1945) began with a new offensive by the Red Army. As a result of the crushing blows of the Soviet troops, the German fascist invaders were expelled from the borders of the Soviet Union. In the course of the subsequent offensive, the USSR Armed Forces carried out a liberation mission against European countries, played, with the support of their peoples, a decisive role in the liberation of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and other states. Anglo-American forces landed on June 6, 1944 in Normandy, opening a second front, and launched an offensive in Germany. In February, the Crimean (Yalta) Conference (1945) of the leaders of the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain took place, which considered the questions of the post-war world order and the participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

In the winter of 1944-1945, on the Western Front, Nazi troops defeated the Allied forces during the Ardennes operation. To alleviate the position of the Allies in the Ardennes, at their request, the Red Army launched its winter offensive ahead of schedule. Having restored the situation by the end of January, the allied forces during the Meuse-Rhine operation (1945) crossed the Rhine River, and in April conducted the Ruhr operation (1945), which ended with the encirclement and capture of a large enemy grouping. In the course of the North Italian operation (1945), the allied forces, slowly advancing north, with the help of the Italian partisans, at the beginning of May 1945, completely captured Italy. In the Pacific theater of operations, the allies carried out operations to defeat the Japanese fleet, liberated a number of islands occupied by Japan, approached Japan directly and cut off its communications with the countries of Southeast Asia.

In April-May 1945, the Soviet Armed Forces defeated in the Berlin operation (1945) and the Prague operation (1945) the last groupings of the German fascist troops and met with the Allied troops. The war in Europe is over. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. May 9, 1945 became the Day of Victory over Nazi Germany.

At the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference (1945), the USSR confirmed its agreement to enter the war with Japan. For political purposes, the United States carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and on August 9 began hostilities. During the Soviet-Japanese War (1945), the Soviet troops defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army, eliminated the hotbed of aggression in the Far East, liberated Northeast China, North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, thereby accelerating the end of World War II. On September 2, Japan surrendered. The Second World War is over.

The Second World War was the largest military confrontation in the history of mankind. It lasted 6 years, 110 million people were in the ranks of the Armed Forces. Over 55 million people died in World War II. The greatest casualties were suffered by the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. The damage from direct destruction and destruction of material assets on the territory of the USSR amounted to almost 41% of all countries participating in the war.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

September 2 is celebrated in the Russian Federation as the “Day of the end of World War II (1945)”. This memorable date was established in accordance with the Federal Law "On Amendments to Article 1 (1) of the Federal Law" On Days of Military Glory and Memorable Dates of Russia ", signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on July 23, 2010. The Day of Military Glory was established in memory of compatriots who showed selflessness, heroism, devotion to their Motherland and allied duty to the countries - members of the anti-Hitler coalition in the implementation of the decision of the Crimean (Yalta) conference of 1945 on Japan. September 2 is a kind of second Victory Day for Russia, victory in the East.

This holiday cannot be called new - on September 3, 1945, the day after the surrender of the Japanese Empire, the Day of Victory over Japan was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. However, for a long time in the official calendar of significant dates, this holiday was practically ignored.

The international legal basis for establishing the Day of Military Glory is the Act of Surrender of the Japanese Empire, which was signed on September 2, 1945 at 9:02 am Tokyo time on board the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. On the part of Japan, the document was signed by Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Chief of the General Staff Yoshijiro Umezu. Representatives of the Allied Powers were the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur, American Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the British Pacific Fleet Bruce Fraser, Soviet General Kuzma Nikolaevich Derevyanko, Kuomintang General Su Yun-chan, French General Blrallisky Leclerc, T. Australian K. Halfrich, New Zealand Air Vice Marshal L. Isit and Canadian Colonel N. Moore-Cosgrave. This document put an end to World War II, which, according to Western and Soviet historiography, began on September 1, 1939 with an attack by the Third Reich on Poland (Chinese researchers believe that World War II began with the Japanese army's attack on China on July 7, 1937).

Do not use prisoners of war for forced labor;

Provide units that were located in remote areas with additional time to end hostilities.

On the night of August 15, the "young tigers" (a group of fanatic commanders from the Department of the War Ministry and the capital's military institutions, headed by Major K. Khatanaka) decided to disrupt the adoption of the declaration and continue the war. They planned to eliminate the "supporters of peace", to remove the text with the recording of Hirohito's speech about the acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and the end of the war by the Japanese Empire before it was broadcast on the air, and then persuade the armed forces to continue the struggle. The commander of the 1st Guards Division, which was guarding the imperial palace, refused to take part in the mutiny and was killed. Giving orders on his behalf, "young tigers" entered the palace, attacked the residences of the head of the Suzuki government, Lord Keeper of the Seal K. Kido, Chairman of the Privy Council K. Hiranuma and the Tokyo radio station. However, they could not find the tapes and find the leaders of the "party of peace". The troops of the capital's garrison did not support their actions, and even many members of the organization of “young tigers, not wanting to go against the decision of the emperor and not believing in the success of the cause, did not join the putschists. As a result, the mutiny failed in the very first hours. The instigators of the conspiracy were not tried, they were allowed to commit ritual suicide by ripping open the abdomen.

On August 15, an appeal from the Japanese emperor was broadcast on the radio. Given the high level of self-discipline among Japanese statesmen and military leaders, a wave of suicides took place in the empire. On August 11, Hideki Tojo, a former prime minister and minister of the army, a staunch supporter of an alliance with Germany and Italy, tried to commit suicide with a shot from a revolver (he was executed on December 23, 1948 as a war criminal). On the morning of August 15, the Minister of the Army Koretika Anami performed hara-kiri "the most magnificent example of the ideal of a samurai", in a suicide note he asked the emperor for forgiveness for the mistakes he had made. The 1st Deputy Chief of the Naval General Staff (previously commander of the 1st Air Fleet), the "father of the kamikaze" Takijiro Onishi, Field Marshal of the Imperial Japanese Army Hajime Sugiyama, as well as other ministers, generals and officers, committed suicide.

Kantaro Suzuki's cabinet resigned. Many military and political leaders began to lean towards the idea of ​​a unilateral occupation of Japan by US troops in order to keep the country from the threat of the communist threat and to preserve the imperial system. On August 15, hostilities between the Japanese armed forces and the Anglo-American forces ceased. However, Japanese troops continued to offer fierce resistance to the Soviet army. Units of the Kwantung Army were not given the ceasefire order, therefore, the Soviet troops were also not given instructions to stop the offensive. Only on August 19 did the commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops in the Far East, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky, meet with the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army Hiposaburo Khata, where an agreement was reached on the procedure for the surrender of the Japanese troops. Japanese units began to surrender their weapons, this process dragged on until the end of the month. The Yuzhno-Sakhalin and Kuril landing operations continued until August 25 and September 1, respectively.

On August 14, 1945, the Americans developed a draft "General Order No. 1 (for the Army and Navy)" on accepting the surrender of the Japanese troops. This project was approved by the American President Harry Truman and on August 15 it was reported to the allied countries. The project indicated the zones in which each of the allied powers was to accept the surrender of the Japanese units. On August 16, Moscow announced that it generally agreed with the project, but proposed an amendment to include all the Kuril Islands and the northern half of Hokkaido in the Soviet zone. Washington has not raised any objection to the Kuril Islands. But with regard to Hokkaido, the American president noted that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, surrendered the Japanese armed forces on all the islands of the Japanese archipelago. It was clarified that MacArthur will use symbolic military forces, including Soviet units.

From the very beginning, the American government was not going to let the USSR into Japan and rejected allied control in post-war Japan, which was provided for by the Potsdam Declaration. On August 18, the United States put forward a demand to allocate one of the Kuril Islands for the American Air Force base. Moscow rejected this impudent harassment, stating that the Kuril Islands, according to the Crimean agreement, are the possession of the USSR. The Soviet government announced that it was ready to allocate an airfield for the landing of American commercial aircraft, subject to the allocation of a similar airfield for Soviet aircraft in the Aleutian Islands.

On August 19, a Japanese delegation headed by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General T. Kawabe, arrived in Manila (Philippines). The Americans notified the Japanese that their forces were to liberate the Atsugi airfield on August 24, the Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay areas by August 25, and the Kanon base and the southern part of Kyushu island by the middle of the day on August 30. Representatives of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces asked to postpone the landing of the occupying forces for 10 days in order to increase precautions and avoid unnecessary incidents. The request of the Japanese side was granted, but for a shorter period. The landing of the advanced occupation formations was scheduled for August 26, and the main forces for August 28.

On August 20, the Japanese were presented with the Act of Surrender in Manila. The document provided for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces, regardless of their location. Japanese troops were supposed to immediately stop hostilities, release prisoners of war and interneed civilians, ensure their maintenance, protection and delivery to the indicated places. On September 2, the Japanese delegation signed the Act of Surrender. The ceremony itself was structured to show the central role of the United States in the victory over Japan. The procedure for the surrender of Japanese troops in various parts of the Asia-Pacific region dragged on for several months.

On September 1, 1939, the armed forces of Germany and Slovakia invaded Poland. Simultaneously, the German battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" fired on the fortifications of the Polish peninsula Westerplatte. Since Poland entered into an alliance with England, France and, this was seen as a declaration of war by Hitler.

On September 1, 1939, universal military service was declared in the USSR. The draft age was lowered from 21 to 19 years, and in some cases to 18. This quickly increased the size of the army to 5 million people. The USSR began to prepare for war.

Hitler justified the need for an attack on Poland by the incident in Gleiwitz, carefully avoiding "" and fearing the outbreak of hostilities against England and France. He promised the Polish people guarantees of immunity and expressed his intention only to actively defend against "Polish aggression".

The Gleiwitz incident was a provocation by the Third Reich to create a pretext for armed conflict: SS officers, dressed in Polish military uniforms, carried out a series of attacks on the Polish-German border. The victims of the attack were pre-killed prisoners of concentration camps and delivered directly to the scene.

Until the last moment, Hitler hoped that Poland's allies would not stand up for her and that Poland would be transferred to Germany in the same way as in 1938 the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia was transferred.

England and France declare war on Germany

Despite the Fuhrer's hopes, on September 3, 1945, England, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Within a short time they were joined by Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa and Nepal. The United States and Japan have declared neutrality.

The British ambassador, who arrived at the Reich Chancellery on September 3, 1939, and passed an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of troops from Poland, shocked Hitler. But the war had already begun, the Fuhrer did not want to leave diplomatically what had been conquered with arms, and the German offensive on Polish soil continued.

Despite the declared war, on the Western Front, the Anglo-French troops did not take any active actions from September 3 to 10, with the exception of military operations at sea. This inaction allowed Germany to completely destroy the Polish armed forces in just 7 days, leaving only minor pockets of resistance. But they will be completely eliminated by October 6, 1939. It was on this day that Germany announced the end of the existence of the Polish state and government.

Participation of the USSR at the beginning of World War II

According to a secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, including Poland, were clearly demarcated between the USSR and Germany. Therefore, on September 16, 1939, the Soviet Union brought its troops into Polish territory and occupied the lands that later fell into the zone of influence of the USSR and were included in the Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Lithuania.

Despite the fact that the USSR and Poland did not declare war on each other, many historians consider the fact that Soviet troops entered Polish territory in 1939 as the date of the USSR's entry into World War II.

On October 6, Hitler proposed to convene a peace conference between the major world powers to resolve the Polish question. Britain and France set a condition: either Germany withdraws its troops from Poland and the Czech Republic and grants them independence, or there will be no conference. The leadership of the Third Reich rejected this ultimatum and the conference did not take place.

Most of the population of our country believes that the war ended on May 9, 1945, but in reality, on this day, we celebrate the surrender of Germany. The war continued for another 4 months.

On September 3, 1945, the day after the surrender of the Japanese Empire, the Day of Victory over Japan was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. However, for a long time in the official calendar of significant dates, this holiday was practically ignored.
The Act of Surrender of the Empire of Japan was signed on September 2, 1945 at 9:02 am Tokyo time aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. On behalf of Japan, the document was signed by the Foreign Minister and the Chief of the General Staff. Representatives of the Allied Powers were the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur, American Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the British Pacific Fleet Bruce Fraser, Soviet General Kuzma Nikolaevich Derevyanko, Kuomintang General Su Yun-chan, French General Blrallisky Leclerc, T. Australian K. Halfrich, New Zealand Air Vice Marshal L. Isit and Canadian Colonel N. Moore-Cosgrave.

This document put an end to the Second World War, which, according to Western and Soviet historiography, began on September 1, 1939 with the attack of the Third Reich on Poland.

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The most significant war in the history of mankind lasted six years and covered the territories of 40 countries of Eurasia and Africa, as well as all four oceanic theaters of military operations (Arctic, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans). 61 states were involved in the world conflict, and the total number of human resources plunged into the war was over 1.7 billion people.

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Chinese version of the outbreak of World War II

The plot of the Great Wall of China is interesting in that it, in fact, guarded China only by the very fact of its presence. In reality, the Great Wall of China never fought... All the times, when the Wall was captured by nomads, they broke through it without a fight.

Sometimes neglect of the protection of the Wall and "weariness of the world", and sometimes - and outright betrayal of the military leaders and "a donkey laden with gold", opened the way inland from its northern borders.

The last (and perhaps the only) time the Wall fought ... from January to May 1933. It was then that the Japanese militarists and the troops of the Manchu state of Manchu-kuo, dependent on Japan, broke through the Wall from Manchuria to China.

The Wall itself lasted exactly two months in that distant 1933 - from the end of March to May 20, 1933. Well, the very date of January 1, 1933, when a small Japanese garrison at the easternmost outpost of the Great Wall of China, in Shanhaiguan, staged a small "incident" with rifle fire and grenade explosions, may well pretend to be the date of the beginning of World War II. After all, then the logic of the historical process will be quite clear: the Second World War began exactly where it ended - in the Far East.

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Lieutenant General, one of the few generals awarded with all three orders named after the outstanding commanders Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Chevalier of the Order of Lenin and the Battle Red Banner. Also awarded the American Order of Merit.

In 1936-38. Captain Derevianko carried out a secret operation to supply weapons to Chinese troops who fought with the Japanese, for which he received the Order of Lenin, which was personally presented to him in the Kremlin by the All-Union headman M. I. Kalinin.

During the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940), volunteer Major K. Derevyanko, head of the headquarters of the Separate Special Ski Brigade. It was a reconnaissance and sabotage unit, formed mainly from students of the Leningrad Institute of Physical Education. Lesgaft. Derevianko himself was not only involved in planning. When the ski squad of the master of sports V. Myagkov (posthumously Hero of the Soviet Union) was ambushed by the White Finns and was defeated, Derevyanko, at the head of another squad, carried out the wounded and dead. For the Finnish War, Derevianko was awarded the Order of the Red Star and became a colonel outside the line.

In January-March 1941, he carried out a special assignment in East Prussia, and from June 27, 1941, he headed the intelligence department of the headquarters of the North-Western Front. In this capacity, in August 1941, he carried out a raid into the rear of the German troops, during which about two thousand Red Army prisoners were released from the concentration camp near Staraya Russa, many of them joined the front troops.

During the war, Derevianko was chief of staff of several armies (53rd, 57th, 4th Guards). He took part in the Battle of Kursk, in the battle for the Dnieper. He made a significant contribution to the successful completion of the Korsun-Shevchenko operation. His headquarters organized the defeat of the enemy in the Iassy-Kishinev operation. Participated in the liberation of Budapest and Vienna.

On May 4, 1942, Derevianko was appointed chief of staff of the 53rd Army of the North-Western Front and awarded the Order of the Red Star. At the same time, he was awarded the rank of general (on the proposal of the front commander N.F. Vatutin and deputy chief of staff A.M. Vasilevsky). On April 19, 1945, he was already a lieutenant general.

General Derevyanko ended the war in the West as Chief of Staff of the 4th Guards Army of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. For some time he represented the USSR in the Union Council for Austria. In connection with the upcoming war with Japan, he was transferred to the Far East to a similar post in the 35th Army. But in August (in Chita) he received the command to leave the train and come to the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops in the Far East, Marshal Vasilevsky. There he was presented with a telegram from Stalin and Chief of the General Staff Antonov about the appointment as a representative of the High Command of Soviet Forces in the Far East at MacArthur's headquarters.

On August 25, Derevyanko flew from Vladivostok to the Philippines, where the headquarters of the American armed forces in the Pacific was stationed in Manila. Already in Manila on August 27, Derevianko received by telegram an instruction to re-subordinate the Headquarters of the Supreme Command and the authority to sign the Act of Japan's unconditional surrender on behalf of the Soviet Supreme Command. On August 30, together with MacArthur and representatives of the allied countries, Derevianko arrived in Japan, and on September 2, 1945 he took part in the ceremony of signing the act of surrender.

After that, on behalf of the country's leadership, with a huge danger to health, the general visits the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were subjected to the American atomic bombing, several times. Having compiled a detailed report about what he saw, he, together with an album of photographs, presented it to the General Staff, and then personally to Stalin when reporting on September 30, 1945 ..

Subsequently, Derevianko was appointed representative of the USSR in the Allied Council for Japan, created in December 1945, with a seat in Tokyo (the chairman of which was appointed the commander-in-chief of the Allied occupation forces, General MacArthur).

The Allied Council ended its native presence with the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. KN Derevyanko was transferred to Moscow, where he worked at the military academy as the head of the department of the armed forces of foreign states, and then as the head of the information department of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff.

As a result of the nuclear radiation received during his visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, K. Derevyanko's health worsened significantly, and then on December 30, 1954, he died of cancer from a long and serious illness.

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About the signing procedure

Lieutenant General Derevyanko arrived in Manila on August 27, 1945. Representatives of the USA, Great Britain, China, Canada, Australia, France, Holland and New Zealand have already gathered here. Having met Douglas MacArthur, Derevianko learned that all these people in uniforms and civilian clothes had arrived here to participate in the signing of the act of Japan's unconditional surrender. The Soviet representative did not have such powers. I had to urgently contact Moscow. On the same day, Derevianko received a cipher program, which said that he was entrusted with signing the aforementioned act on behalf of the USSR, and in addition, it was reported that from now on he would be directly subordinate to the Supreme Headquarters and should contact Moscow, bypassing Vasilevsky's headquarters.

Communicating with fellow allies, Kuzma Nikolaevich found out that many of them consider the new US President Harry Truman a "slippery" politician. It was rumored that in Potsdam he broadcast one thing, and directed his generals to another: to end the war in the Pacific without Russia. Derevianko learned that Truman had sent a directive to Admiral Nimitz (it was August 13) with the order to occupy the port of Dairen (Dalny) before the Russians entered it. However, the Soviet landings from the air and from the sea were so powerful that the Americans had to practice "reverse gear".

Perhaps their ardor was cooled by the words of General Parker, whom the Soviet paratroopers freed from captivity by capturing the camp in Mukden: "Russian soldiers were messengers for us from heaven. If not for these guys, we would still be in a Japanese dungeon."

Soon Japanese emissaries came to Manila to receive instructions from MacArthur concerning the details of the surrender. Soviet representatives immediately arrived at the headquarters of the American general. Derevianko demanded that MacArthur openly share information. And on the same day, Kuzma Nikolaevich had a headquarters report, which said that the 11th US Airborne Division had already been delivered by transport aircraft to the Tokyo area. This was the beginning of the American occupation of Japan.

On August 30, Douglas MacArthur invited General Derevyanko and other representatives of the Allied countries to board his plane to fly to Japan. At the Grand Hotel in Yokohama, rooms were ready for representatives of all delegations. On September 2, 1945, the signing of the historic act on the end of the Second World War was scheduled.

At 8:50 am, a boat with Japanese emissaries approached the starboard side of the American battleship Missouri.

with a stern expression on his face, MacArthur pronounces the opening remarks;

The whole ceremony took 20 minutes. MacArthur addressed the allies: "Let us pray that the world will now be restored and that God will preserve it forever. This is the end of the procedure." And MacArthur went to the battleship commander's salon, inviting all the delegates to go there. Kuzma Nikolaevich proclaimed a toast for the Soviet people, who did so much to win the Second World War. They all drank while standing.