Return to the past. Commanders of partisan detachments Kovpak, Fedorov, Strokach

Return to the past

It took me six days to get from Stalingrad to Moscow: sometimes on a U-2 plywood airplane, sometimes by a passing car, and sometimes just on foot. The capital greeted us with stern concentration, calm and some kind of special silence after the battles on the Volga. November 1942 was drawing to a close. Winter has already come into its own. The snow, however, was cleared, but it was not removed from the streets, as in peacetime, and it lay on the sidewalks in high drifts. The frost whitened the windows, sealed crosswise with paper tapes, and the wind squeezed tears from the eyes.

How strikingly different this picture was from Stalingrad! There the streets were red with brick dust, and the soot-covered skeletons of houses loomed mournfully black against their background. In the lobby of the Moscow Hotel, the guard asked me to show my identification. I carefully studied the seals.

Who are you going to?

The regimental commissar, Comrade Bazhan, called me.

The sentry picked up the phone, dialed the number and said to the invisible interlocutor: “Senior political instructor, photojournalist of the newspaper “For Radianska Decoration” Davidzop has arrived.”

After that, he returned my ID, took it under the visor and pointed to the left, in the direction of the wide marble staircase. I embarrassedly looked away from the battered, burnt felt boots that had served me faithfully in Stalingrad, to the sparkling clean floor.

But the sentry nodded his head encouragingly: bolder, bolder...

The famous Ukrainian poet Mykola Bazhan lived in a small separate room. A gray soldier's overcoat lay on top of a thin hotel blanket, and the desk was littered with manuscripts and reprints of articles.

“So your dream is coming true, Yakov Borisovich,” he said.

What dream? - I was confused.

The call from Moscow came unexpectedly, in the midst of the battle on the Volga. To be honest, at first he didn’t make me happy at all, but rather annoyed me. The hour of the final defeat of the Nazis in Stalingrad was approaching, and I was preparing to film the heroic epic. But an order is an order.

I had to obey and leave for Moscow.

Do you have any idea why you were called? - Bajan narrowed his eye slyly.

No, I admitted honestly.

The events of a year ago flashed before my eyes. It seems that in July 1941, after returning from Ternopil, I was sent to Brovary as a military photojournalist. There I met Mikola Bazhan. He immediately offered me to work in the new newspaper “For Radyanska Decoration”...

Do you remember? - Bazhan asked impatiently.

How could I not remember!

So - to the partisans? - I exclaimed joyfully and almost rushed to hug Bazhan.

You must report to the headquarters of the partisan movement today,

to Comrade Strokach...

The chief of staff of the partisan movement - tall, broad-shouldered, with a handsome, but somewhat stern face - Timofey Amvrosievich Strokach, looking at me point-blank, asked:

Aren't you afraid to go to the rear, to the Germans? If you, a photojournalist, have arrived

record the heroism of the partisans for posterity, you will fall into the hands of the fascists...

In violation of the regulations, I jumped up from my chair and almost shouted:

I'm a soldier! My weapon may be a camera, but I am a soldier... and I must be there, among the partisans!

My behavior probably amused Strokach. He smiled, looked at me for a long time and said:

I asked this question on my own initiative. Order about your

seconded to the partisan unit of Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak signed.

Even today I remember how my breath caught and my heart began to beat joyfully: the dream was beginning to come true!..

Day after day flew by, and my vigils from dark to dark under the door of Strokach’s office remained fruitless. Kovpak's unit set off on a raid along enemy lines, and the short stops that the partisans made did not allow them to build at least a temporary airfield. And soon the mere sight of a duffel bag with film and chemicals filled me with melancholy and despondency...

That day, having settled, as usual, closer to the office of the chief of staff, I waited with hope for the doors to open and the adjutant to shout:

“Comrade Davidzon, the car is below!”

But no one remembered me, strangers scurried past, not paying any attention to me.

However, I didn’t notice anyone either. I also saw the appearance of a man in a good Romanov sheepskin coat and an astrakhan kubanka with a bright red ribbon at an angle.

“Hello,” said the stranger, lingering near me. “Iz

what connection?

I hastily stood up, straightened up and answered sadly:

Not from anywhere... I'm going to fly to Kovpak. I am a photojournalist

newspaper “For Radyanska Decoration”.

And I am Fedorov! Fly with me!

The name of the first secretary of the underground Chernigov regional party committee, commander of the largest partisan formation, “General Orlenko,” was covered in legends.

“These are the people I got to meet!” - I thought joyfully. We felt the front line with our... sides. German anti-aircraft artillery opened barrage fire. The plane was bouncing around, and orange, red, and white balls of fire were flashing behind the windows. At any moment, a fragment could pierce the thin metal. But no one even betrayed their excitement with a sigh. I was afraid of only one thing - that the pilot might turn back.

But the plane did not change course, and soon the front line was left behind; thick clouds hid us from the German fighters.

I dozed off unnoticed. I woke up from a strong jolt that almost threw me to the floor. Some bag fell onto my lap, preventing me from getting up.

Parade in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Soviet Ukraine. The column of former partisans is led by the legendary commanders Alexey Fedorovich Fedorov, Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak, Timofey Amvrosievich Strokach.

The commander of the partisan unit twice Hero of the Soviet Union A.F. Fedorov.

Lilya Karastoyanova among the partisans (far left). No one knew at that moment that the days of her life were already numbered.

It was dark, the light bulb under the ceiling was not on. The engines roared, but the pilots opened the door. We saw people running towards us through the snow. The pilots stood at the exit, holding machine guns at the ready. Fedorov was also on his feet. Someone loudly shouted the password as they ran, the pilots lowered their guns and threw out the ramp.

A narrow long clearing in the area of the Kletnyansky forests served as an airfield for the partisans. Tall spruces, heavy with fluffy white clothes, frosty air sparkling under the rays of flashlights with myriads of snowflakes, sensitive forest silence - all this did not even remotely remind us that we were deep in the German rear.

People in sheepskin coats and overcoats, wearing earflap hats and ordinary caps, cross-belted with machine-gun belts, with short German “Schmeisser” machine guns and rifles, were hurrying towards the plane. “Here we are, comrades, in Lesograd,” Fedorov said excitedly, turning to us.

Commander of the partisan unit S. A. Kovpak (April 1943).

During the war, he was twice awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Commander of the Chernigov partisan unit, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Nikitich Popudrenko (January 1943).

Hero of the Soviet Union, Commissar of the Sumy Partisan Unit Semyon Vasilyevich Rudnev. Killed in battle with the invaders.

This was indeed a real city, in which over ten thousand people lived: partisans and civilians who fled into the forest from the punitive forces, peasants from villages burned to the ground. It had its own streets, along which were located good, warm dugouts, detachment kitchens, a hospital, workshops, haystacks, carts, and a stable.

Those who arrived from the mainland were greeted warmly and asked for a long time about Moscow and affairs at the front. They vying with each other to invite us into the dugouts, promising “worldwide amenities.” I looked at the partisans avidly, because these were not ordinary people - they were real heroes. I wanted to immediately take out my camera and start shooting. There was only one thing that was upsetting: it was too dark.

The partisans went on a campaign...

On September 21, 1943 at 16.00 Moscow time, the partisan formation of N. N. Popudrenko met with the advanced units of the Soviet Army. These were the first minutes of this long-awaited meeting.

The plane was quickly unloaded, and the wounded were already being transported from everywhere on horse-drawn sledges and simply on sleds. They were sent to Moscow. “And I thought that the partisans were lying in the snow, in ambush... and the Germans were visible to the naked eye,” Lilya Karastoyanova told me in confidence. Her large dark eyes burned with delight, she often looked around, as if she was afraid of missing something important. I admitted to her that I had also imagined our arrival somewhat differently.

“It’s okay, Lilya,” I reassured Karastoyanova, “it’s enough for our share.”

How could I have known then that our plane would be the last, that a day later the Nazis would storm Lesograd and the bullets would again begin to indiscriminately kill adults and children...

All those who arrived were invited to the commander's dugout - large, spacious, with a long wooden table. They put out a poor treat - jacket potatoes, pickles, onions and a piece of bread for everyone. Bread sprinkled with ashes gave off a unique aroma. But there was plenty of talking. We stayed until the morning. To my disappointment, partisan life was the least talked about. But they listened with unflagging attention to our stories about affairs at the front, about life on the mainland. I turned out to be the only one who got into the forest directly from Stalingrad, and I had to remember in more detail the events I witnessed. Lilya Karastoyanova talked about Bulgaria, about how the Bulgarian communists wage an underground struggle.

When I got out of the dugout, the dim winter sun was shining. The snow creaked underfoot. A brown-eyed, smiling boy came up to me.

“Hello,” he said. “You arrived at night, right?” Misha,” he introduced himself and immediately corrected himself: “Mikhail, last name Davidovich.”

Is this your camera?

I'm a photojournalist, Misha. If you don't mind, I'll film you first.

This is how I met a boy partisan and fell in love with him with all my soul for his cheerful, cheerful disposition, for the ringing voice with which he sang his favorite song “Eaglet, Eaglet...”

A day later, I had already forgotten what silence was. The fascist command, having gathered large forces - army units, Gestapo, police - began the siege of Lesograd. The fighting broke out on the distant approaches to the partisan capital, but that did not make it any less tragic and bloody. And even more than forty years later, I remember the rustling sound of bombs rushing to the ground, and the roar that almost burst my eardrums. I remember the faces of the guys, your peers. There was no fear in them. Yesterday's schoolchildren dreamed of only one thing - payback...

In this book, friends, I want to tell about them - about your peers, about the young eaglets of the partisan forests. I lay out the photographs on the table and begin my story...

The Hungarian Mobile Corps continued its offensive along with the troops of the German 11th Army, participating in heavy fighting near Pervomaisk and Nikolaev. On September 2, German-Hungarian troops captured Dnepropetrovsk after fierce street fighting. Hot battles broke out in the south of Ukraine in Zaporozhye. Soviet troops repeatedly launched counterattacks. So, during the bloody battle on the island of Khortitsa, an entire Hungarian infantry regiment was completely destroyed. Due to the increase in losses, the warlike fervor of the Hungarian command decreased. On September 5, 1941, General Henrik Werth was removed from his post as Chief of the General Staff. His place was taken by infantry general Ferenc Szombathely, who believed that it was time to curtail the active military operations of the Hungarian troops and withdraw them to protect the borders. But it was possible to achieve this from Hitler only by promising to allocate Hungarian units to guard supply lines and administrative centers in the rear of the German army. Meanwhile, the Mobile Corps continued to fight at the front, and only on November 24, 1941 did its last units leave for Hungary. Corps losses on the Eastern Front amounted to 2,700 killed (including 200 officers), 7,500 wounded and 1,500 missing. In addition, all tankettes, 80% of light tanks, 90% of armored vehicles, more than 100 vehicles, about 30 guns and 30 aircraft were lost. At the end of November, “light” Hungarian divisions began arriving in Ukraine to perform police functions in the occupied territories. The headquarters of the Hungarian “Occupation Group” was located in Kyiv. Already in December, the Hungarians began to be actively involved in anti-partisan operations. Sometimes such operations turned into military clashes that were quite serious in scale. An example of one such action is the defeat of the partisan detachment of General Orlenko on December 21, 1941. The Hungarians managed to surround and completely destroy the enemy base. According to Hungarian data, about 1,000 partisans were killed. At the beginning of January 1942, Hitler demanded that Horthy increase the number of Hungarian units on the Eastern Front. Initially, it was planned to send at least two-thirds of the entire Hungarian army to the front, but after negotiations the Germans reduced their demands. To be sent to Russia, the 2nd Hungarian Army was formed with a total strength of about 250,000 people under the command of Lieutenant General Gustav Jan. It included the 3rd, 4th and 7th Army Corps (each with three light infantry divisions, similar to 8 regular divisions), the 1st Tank Division (actually a brigade) and the 1st Air Force (actually a regiment ). On April 11, 1942, the first units of the 2nd Army departed for the Eastern Front. On June 28, 1942, the German 4th Panzer and 2nd Field Armies went on the offensive. Their main goal was the city of Voronezh. The offensive included troops of the 2nd Hungarian Army - the 7th Army Corps. On July 9, the Germans managed to break into Voronezh. The next day, south of the city, the Hungarians reached the Don and gained a foothold. During the battles, the 9th Light Division alone lost 50% of its personnel. The German command set the task for the 2nd Hungarian Army to liquidate three bridgeheads remaining in the hands of Soviet troops. The most serious threat was posed by the Uryvsky bridgehead. On July 28, the Hungarians made their first attempt to throw its defenders into the river, but all attacks were repulsed. Fierce and bloody battles broke out. On August 9, Soviet units launched a counterattack, pushing back the advanced units of the Hungarians and expanding the bridgehead near Uryv. On September 3, 1942, Hungarian-German troops managed to push the enemy back across the Don near the village of Korotoyak, but in the Uryv area the Soviet defense held out. After the main forces of the Wehrmacht were transferred to Stalingrad, the front here stabilized and the battles took on a positional character. On January 13, 1943, the positions of the 2nd Hungarian Army and the Italian Alpine Corps were attacked by troops of the Voronezh Front with the support of the 13th Army of the Bryansk Front and the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front.

There was a fire burning brightly. Two Magyars held the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly...

Sergey Drozdov. "Hungary in the war against the USSR."

At the end of November 1941, “light” Hungarian divisions began arriving in Ukraine to perform police functions in the occupied territories. The headquarters of the Hungarian “Occupation Group” was located in Kyiv. Already in December 1941, the Hungarians began to be actively involved in anti-partisan operations.

Sometimes such operations turned into military clashes that were quite serious in scale. An example of one of these actions is the defeat of the partisan detachment of General Orlenko on December 21, 1941. The Hungarians managed to surround and completely destroy the partisan base.

According to Hungarian data, about 1,000 “bandits” were killed. The captured weapons, ammunition and equipment could load several dozen railway cars.
On August 31, 1942, the head of the Political Directorate of the Voronezh Front, Lieutenant General S.S. Shatilov sent a report to the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army A.S. Shcherbakov about the atrocities of the Nazis on Voronezh soil.

“I report on the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the German occupiers and their Hungarian lackeys against Soviet citizens and captured Red Army soldiers.

Units of the army, where the head of the political department, Comrade. Klokov, the village of Shchuchye was liberated from the Magyars. After the occupiers were expelled from the village of Shchuchye, political instructor Popov M.A., military paramedics Konovalov A.L. and Chervintsev T.I. discovered traces of the monstrous atrocities of the Magyars against the citizens of the village of Shchuchye and captured Red Army soldiers and commanders.

Lieutenant Salogub Vladimir Ivanovich, being wounded, was captured and brutally tortured. More than twenty (20) stab wounds were found on his body.

Junior political instructor Fyodor Ivanovich Bolshakov, seriously wounded, was captured. Bloodthirsty robbers mocked the motionless body of the communist. Stars were carved on his hands. There are several knife wounds on the back...

In front of the entire village, citizen Kuzmenko was shot by the Magyars because 4 cartridges were found in his hut. As soon as Hitler’s slaves burst into the village, they immediately began to take all the men from 13 to 80 years old and drive them to their rear.

More than 200 people were taken from the village of Shchuchye. Of these, 13 people were shot outside the village. Among those shot were Nikita Nikiforovich Pivovarov, his son Nikolai Pivovarov, Mikhail Nikolaevich Zybin, head of the school; Shevelev Zakhar Fedorovich, Korzhev Nikolai Pavlovich and others.

Many residents had their belongings and livestock taken away. Fascist bandits stole 170 cows and more than 300 sheep, taken from citizens. Many girls and women were raped. I will send an act on the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis today.”

And here is the handwritten testimony of the peasant Anton Ivanovich Krutukhin, who lived in the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region: “Fascist accomplices of the Magyars entered our village Svetlovo 9/V-42. All the residents of our village hid from such a pack, and they, as a sign that the residents began to hide from them, and those who could not hide, they shot them and raped several of our women.

I myself, an old man born in 1875, was also forced to hide in the cellar. There was shooting all over the village, buildings were burning, and Magyar soldiers were robbing our things, stealing cows and calves.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 561-561 rev.)

On May 20, Hungarian soldiers at the collective farm “4th Bolshevik North” arrested all the men. From the testimony of collective farmer Varvara Fedorovna Mazerkova:

“When they saw the men from our village, they said that they were partisans. And the same number, i.e. 20/V-42 grabbed my husband Mazerkov Sidor Borisovich born in 1862 and my son Mazerkov Alexei Sidorovich born in 1927 and tortured them and after this torture they tied their hands and threw them into a pit, then they lit straw and burned people alive in a potato pit. On the same day they not only burned my husband and son, they also burned 67 men.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 543-543 rev.)

Abandoned by residents fleeing from the Hungarian punitive forces, the villages were burned out. A resident of the village of Svetlovo, Natalya Aldushina, wrote:

“When we returned from the forest to the village, the village was unrecognizable. Several old men, women and children were brutally killed by the Hungarians. Houses were burned, large and small livestock were stolen. The holes in which our things were buried were dug up. There is nothing left in the village except black bricks.” (GARF. F. R-7021. Op. 37. D. 423. L. 517.)

Thus, in just three Russian villages of the Sevsky region, at least 420 civilians were killed by the Hungarians in 20 days. And these are not isolated cases.

In June - July 1942, units of the 102nd and 108th Hungarian divisions, together with German units, took part in a punitive operation against the Bryansk partisans, codenamed “Vogelsang”. During the operation in the forests between Roslavl and Bryansk, punitive forces killed 1,193 partisans, wounded 1,400, captured 498, and evicted more than 12,000 residents.

Hungarian units of the 102nd (42nd, 43rd, 44th and 51st regiments) and 108th divisions took part in punitive operations against the “Nachbarhilfe” partisans (June 1943) near Bryansk, and “Zigeunerbaron” "in the areas of what are now Bryansk and Kursk regions (May 16 - June 6, 1942).
During Operation Zigeunerbaron alone, punitive forces destroyed 207 partisan camps, 1,584 partisans were killed and 1,558 were captured.”

What was happening at that time at the front where the Hungarian troops were operating. The Hungarian army, from August to December 1942, fought long battles with Soviet troops in the area of Uryv and Korotoyak (near Voronezh), and could not boast of any special successes; this is not to fight with the civilian population.

The Hungarians failed to liquidate the Soviet bridgehead on the right bank of the Don, and failed to develop an offensive towards Serafimovichi. At the end of December 1942, the Hungarian 2nd Army dug into the ground, hoping to survive the winter in its positions. These hopes did not come true.

On January 12, 1943, the offensive of the Voronezh Front troops against the forces of the 2nd Hungarian Army began. The very next day, the Hungarian defense was broken through, and panic gripped some units.
Soviet tanks entered the operational space and destroyed headquarters, communications centers, ammunition and equipment warehouses.

The introduction of the Hungarian 1st Panzer Division and elements of the German 24th Panzer Corps did not change the situation, although their actions slowed the pace of the Soviet advance.
Soon the Magyars were completely defeated, losing 148,000 people killed, wounded and prisoners (among those killed, by the way, was the eldest son of the Hungarian regent, Miklos Horthy).

This was the largest defeat of the Hungarian army in the entire history of its existence. In the period from January 13 to January 30 alone, 35,000 soldiers and officers were killed, 35,000 people were wounded and 26,000 were captured. In total, the army lost about 150,000 people, most of its tanks, vehicles and artillery, all supplies of ammunition and equipment, and about 5,000 horses.

The motto of the Royal Hungarian Army, “The price of Hungarian life is Soviet death,” did not come true. There was practically no one to give the reward promised by Germany in the form of large land plots in Russia to Hungarian soldiers who had especially distinguished themselves on the Eastern Front.

The 200,000-strong Hungarian army alone, consisting of eight divisions, then lost about 100-120 thousand soldiers and officers. No one knew how much exactly then, and they still don’t know now. Of this number, about 26 thousand Hungarians were taken into Soviet captivity in January 1943.

For a country of the size of Hungary, the defeat at Voronezh had even greater resonance and significance than Stalingrad for Germany. Hungary, in 15 days of fighting, immediately lost half of its armed forces. Hungary was unable to recover from this disaster until the end of the war and never again fielded groups equal in size and combat capability to the lost association.

The Hungarian troops were notable for their brutal treatment not only of partisans and civilians, but also of Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, in 1943, during the retreat from the Chernyansky district of the Kursk region, “Magyar military units took with them 200 prisoners of war of the Red Army and 160 Soviet patriots held in a concentration camp. Along the way, the fascist barbarians locked all these 360 people in a school building, doused them with gasoline and burned them alive. Those who tried to escape were shot.”

You can give examples of documents about the crimes of Hungarian military personnel during the Second World War from foreign archives, for example, the Israeli archive of the Yad Vashem national memorial of Holocaust and Heroism in Jerusalem:

“On July 12 - 15, 1942, in the Kharkeevka village of the Shatalovsky district of the Kursk region, soldiers of the 33rd Hungarian Infantry Division captured four Red Army soldiers. One of them, senior lieutenant P.V. Danilov's eyes were gouged out, his jaw was knocked to the side with the butt of a rifle, he was given 12 bayonet blows to the back, after which he was buried half-dead in the ground in an unconscious state. Three Red Army soldiers, whose names are unknown, were shot” (Yad Vashem Archives. M-33/497. L. 53.).

A resident of the city of Ostogozhsk, Maria Kaydannikova, saw how Hungarian soldiers on January 5, 1943 drove a group of Soviet prisoners of war into the basement of a store on Medvedovsky Street. Soon screams were heard from there. Looking out the window, Kaydannikova saw a monstrous picture:

“The fire was burning brightly there. Two Magyars held the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly roasted his stomach and legs over the fire. They either raised him above the fire, or lowered him lower, and when he fell silent, the Magyars threw his body face down on the fire. Suddenly the prisoner twitched again. Then one of the Magyars thrust a bayonet into his back with a flourish” (Yad Vashem Archives. M-33/494. L. 14.).

After the disaster at Uryv, the participation of Hungarian troops in hostilities on the Eastern Front (in Ukraine) resumed only in the spring of 1944, when the 1st Hungarian Tank Division attempted to counterattack the Soviet tank corps near Kolomyia - the attempt ended in the death of 38 Turan tanks and a hasty withdrawal 1st Panzer Division Magyars to the state border.

In the fall of 1944, all Hungarian armed forces (three armies) fought against the Red Army, already on the territory of Hungary. But the Hungarians remained the most faithful allies of Nazi Germany in the war. Hungarian troops fought with the Red Army until May 1945, when the ENTIRE (!) territory of Hungary was occupied by Soviet troops.

8 Hungarians were awarded the German Knight's Cross. During the Second World War, Hungary gave the largest number of volunteers to the SS troops. More than 200 thousand Hungarians died in the war against the USSR (including 55 thousand who died in Soviet captivity). During the Second World War, Hungary lost about 300 thousand military personnel killed, and 513,766 people were captured.

There were 49 Hungarian generals alone in Soviet prison camps after the war, including the Chief of the General Staff of the Hungarian Army.

In the post-war years, the USSR began repatriating captured Hungarians and Romanians, apparently as citizens of countries where regimes friendly to our country were established.

OWL SECRET 1950 Moscow, Kremlin. On the repatriation of prisoners of war and interned citizens of Hungary and Romania.

1. Allow the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (comrade Kruglov) to repatriate to Hungary and Romania:

a) 1270 prisoners of war and interned citizens of Hungary, including 13 generals (Appendix No. 1) and 1629 prisoners of war and interned citizens of Romania, on whom there is no incriminating material;

b) 6061 prisoners of war citizens of Hungary and 3139 prisoners of war citizens of Romania - former employees of intelligence, counterintelligence agencies, gendarmerie, police, who served in the SS troops, security and other punitive units of the Hungarian and Romanian armies, captured mainly on the territory of Hungary and Romania, since there is no material on them about their war crimes against the USSR.

3. Allow the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (Comrade Kruglov) to leave in the USSR 355 prisoners of war and interned citizens of Hungary, including 9 generals (Appendix No. 2) and 543 prisoners of war and interned citizens of Romania, including Brigadier General Stanescu Stoian Nikolai, convicted of participation in atrocities and atrocities, espionage, sabotage, banditry and large-scale theft of socialist property - before serving the sentence determined by the court.

4. Oblige the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (Comrade Kruglova) and the USSR Prosecutor's Office (Comrade Safonov) to prosecute 142 Hungarian prisoners of war and 20 Romanian prisoners of war for the atrocities and atrocities they committed on the territory of the USSR.

5. Oblige the USSR Ministry of State Security (Comrade Abakumov) to accept from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs 89 prisoners of war Hungarian citizens who served in the gendarmerie and police in the Transcarpathian and Stanislav regions, document their criminal activities and bring them to criminal responsibility.

Annex 1

LIST of prisoners of war generals of the former Hungarian army convicted by Military Tribunals for crimes against the USSR:

Aldya-Pap Zoltan Johann born 1895 General - Lieutenant
Bauman Istvan Franz born 1894 General - Major

347

There was a fire burning brightly. Two Magyars held the prisoner by the shoulders and legs and slowly...

Sergey Drozdov. "Hungary in the war against the USSR."

“I report on the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the German occupiers and their Hungarian lackeys against Soviet citizens and captured Red Army soldiers.

Lieutenant Salogub Vladimir Ivanovich, being wounded, was captured and brutally tortured. More than twenty (20) stab wounds were found on his body.

On May 20, Hungarian soldiers at the collective farm “4th Bolshevik North” arrested all the men. From the testimony of collective farmer Varvara Fedorovna Mazerkova:

Abandoned by residents fleeing from the Hungarian punitive forces, the villages were burned out. A resident of the village of Svetlovo, Natalya Aldushina, wrote:

Thus, in just three Russian villages of the Sevsky region, at least 420 civilians were killed by the Hungarians in 20 days. And these are not isolated cases.

Hungarian units of the 102nd (42nd, 43rd, 44th and 51st regiments) and 108th divisions took part in punitive operations against the “Nachbarhilfe” partisans (June 1943) near Bryansk, and “Zigeunerbaron” "in the areas of present-day Bryansk and Kursk regions (May 16 - June 6, 1942).
During Operation Zigeunerbaron alone, punitive forces destroyed 207 partisan camps, 1,584 partisans were killed and 1,558 were captured.”

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The introduction of the Hungarian 1st Panzer Division and elements of the German 24th Panzer Corps did not change the situation, although their actions slowed the pace of the Soviet advance.
Soon the Magyars were completely defeated, losing 148,000 people killed, wounded and prisoners (among those killed, by the way, was the eldest son of the Hungarian regent, Miklos Horthy).

There were 49 Hungarian generals alone in Soviet prison camps after the war, including the Chief of the General Staff of the Hungarian Army.

In the post-war years, the USSR began repatriating captured Hungarians and Romanians, apparently as citizens of countries where regimes friendly to our country were established.

OWL SECRET 1950 Moscow, Kremlin. On the repatriation of prisoners of war and interned citizens of Hungary and Romania.

1. Allow the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (comrade Kruglov) to repatriate to Hungary and Romania:

Annex 1

LIST of prisoners of war generals of the former Hungarian army convicted by Military Tribunals for crimes against the USSR:

1.Aldya-Pap Zoltan Johann born 1895 General - Lieutenant
2. Bauman Istvan Franz born 1894 General - Major
3. Vashvari Friedrich Joseph born 1895 General - Major
4.Vukovari Derdy Jacob born 1892 General - Major

5.Clogs Laszlo Anton born 1895 General - Major
6.Feher Gezo Arpad born 1883 General - Major
7. Szymonfay Ferenc Ferenc born 1891 General - Major
8. Erlich Gezo Agoshton born 1890 General - Major
9.Ibrani Mihaly Miklos born 1895 General – Lieutenant

In addition to combat operations on the Eastern Front, the Hungarian army participated in the suppression of the partisan movement and punitive actions against civilians in the occupied territory of the USSR - in Belarus, Ukraine, as well as in the Bryansk and Kursk regions of the RSFSR.

Already on September 17 - October 3, 1941, 2 Hungarian infantry brigades and 8 German police battalions fought against Soviet partisans and encirclement in the Bryansk forests. During this operation, the Hungarians and Germans lost about 3,500 soldiers and officers killed and wounded.

Hungarian military on the streets of Soviet cities...

At the end of November 1941, Hungarian brigades began to arrive in Ukraine to perform exclusively police functions in the occupied territories. The headquarters of the Hungarian “Occupation Group” was located in Kyiv. Already in December, the Hungarians began to be actively involved in anti-partisan operations. Sometimes such operations turned into military clashes that were quite serious in scale. An example of one such action is the destruction of the partisan detachment of General Orlenko on December 21, 1941. The Hungarians managed to surround and completely destroy the partisan base. According to Hungarian data, about 1,000 “bandits” were killed.

The nature and methods of the actions carried out against the civilian population of the USSR can be judged from the testimony of the affected Soviet citizens.

A peasant from the village of Svetlovo, Sevsky district, Bryansk region, A.I. Krutukhin, reported: “Fascist accomplices of the Magyars entered our village of Svetlovo 9/V-42. - All the residents of our village hid from such a pack, and they, as a sign that the residents began to hide from them, and those who could not hide, they shot them, raped several of our women. I myself, an old man born in 1875, was also forced to hide in the cellar.... There was shooting throughout the village, buildings were burning, and Magyar soldiers were robbing our things, stealing cows and calves”1.

And villages. Source: ww2incolor.com

Peasant woman from the same region V. Fedotkitna - “The Magyars arrived and began to gather us into one (nrzb) and drove us out to the village. Korostovka, where we spent the night in the church - women, and men separately in school. In the afternoon of 17/V-42 we were driven back to our village of Orlya where we spent the night and for tomorrow i.e. On 18/V-42 we were again gathered in a heap near the church where we were re-sorted - the women were driven to the village. Orlia Slobodka, and left the men with them.”2

Peasant woman from the same area V.F. Mezerkova - “When they saw the men of our village, they said that they were partisans. And the same number, i.e. 20/V-42 grabbed my husband Mazerkov Sidor Borisovich born in 1862 and my son Mazerkov Alexei Sidorovich born in 1927 and tortured them and after this torture they tied their hands and threw them into a pit, then they lit the straw and burned them in a potato pit. On the same day they not only burned my husband and son, they also burned 67 men.”4

A peasant from the same area, Z. S. Kalugin: “When my family and I noticed a moving convoy, all of us residents of our village fled to the Khinelsky forest. The old people who remained in the village were shot by the Hungarians.”3

Peasant woman of the same region E. Vedeshina - “It was in May on the 28th day of 42 years. I and almost all the residents went into the forest. These thugs also followed there. They are in our place, where we (nrzb) with our people shot and tortured 350 people, including my children who were tortured, daughter Nina 11 years old, Tonya 8 years old, little son Vitya 1 year old and son Kolya 5 years old. I remained barely alive under the corpses of my children.”5

Peasant woman from the same area N. Aldushina - “When we returned from the forest to the village, the village could not be recognized. Several old men, women and children were brutally killed by the Nazis. Houses were burned, large and small livestock were stolen. The holes in which our things were buried were dug up. There was nothing left in the village except black bricks. The women who remained in the village talked about the atrocities of the Nazis.”6

As a result, in just 3 villages of the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region, at least 420 civilians were killed by Hungarian soldiers in 20 days.

In June - July 1942, the anti-partisan operation “Vogelsang” was carried out in the forests between Roslavl and Bryansk. The battle group included a tank regiment of the 5th Wehrmacht division, units of the 216th Wehrmacht infantry division, units of the Russian Liberation People's Army (RONA), units of the 102nd and 108th Hungarian brigades - a total of about 6,500 people. During the operation, 1,193 partisans were killed, 1,400 were wounded, 498 were captured, and more than 12,000 residents were evicted.

This was followed by Operation Nachbarhilfe, carried out in June 1943 near Bryansk by the 98th Wehrmacht Division and the 108th Hungarian Brigade with the help of RONA units, and Operation Zigeunerbaron in a number of areas of the Bryansk and Kursk regions, in which May 16 - 6 June 1943. The XLVII Tank Corps of the Wehrmacht, the 4th, 7th, 292nd Wehrmacht Infantry Divisions, the 18th Panzer, 10th Motorized and 102nd Hungarian Brigades participated. During this operation, 207 partisan camps were destroyed, 3,192 partisans were killed and 1,568 were captured.

A teacher from the village of Novosergeevka, Klimovsky district, Bryansk region, M. S. Govorok “In our forests, a detachment (100 people) under the command of Nikolai Popudrenko fought with the 105th Hungarian Infantry Division of Aldy Zoltan stationed here, which was famous for its particular cruelty in the fight against partisans.. At the beginning of July, the Hungarians decided to put an end to them and pulled large forces here, blocking the detachment in the Sophia Forest. The bloody battle continued for several days and nights. In a last desperate rush, the partisans managed to break out of the blockade with heavy losses. Unfortunately, the glorious commander Nikolai Popudrenko died three kilometers from Novosergeevka. His body was secretly taken away at night and transported to the civil cemetery of the farm. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and after the war the commander’s remains were reburied in Chernigov. But the enemy also suffered losses - dozens of birch crosses appeared in the center of the village. The enemy simply went wild from such impudence of the partisans. In the village of Parasochki on July 7, 83 people were shot within a few minutes - old people, women, children, even infants. Whole families (Saputo Evdokia and her 6 children, Irlitsa Fekla Yakovlevna and her 6 children, etc.). There were also victims in the village of Važice - 42 people. You have to be such inhumans that you wouldn’t even spare children! There is no data on the exact number of deaths; at that time there were many undocumented refugees. Our villages repeated the fate of Belarusian Khatyn”7.

In May - October 1943, Hungarian aviation was involved in reconnaissance and bombing of the Sumy partisan formation under the command of S. A. Kovpak during his raid from Putivl to the Carpathians.

For 1941 - 1943 In Chernigov and surrounding villages alone, Hungarian troops took part in the extermination of 59,749 Soviet citizens.

After the retreat of German troops from the Bryansk and Kursk regions to the territory of Belarus, Northern Ukraine and Poland, the Hungarian occupation units here continued to fight against Soviet partisans and units of the “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA). Thus, on the border of the Brest and Volyn regions from May 21 to 25, 1944, Operation Gebrull was carried out, during which in the area northeast of the urban-type settlement of Shatsk and Lake Orekhovskoye, between the forces of the partisan brigade “For the Motherland” and the 2nd Hungarian The battle broke out with the reserve regiment. The Hungarians killed more than 350 people from among the partisans and the local population. During the punitive operation, 1,600 civilians were captured and used for construction work in the front line.

Hungarian troops were noted for their brutal treatment not only of partisans and civilians, but also of Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, in 1943, during the retreat from the Chernyansky district of the Kursk region, “Magyar military units took with them 200 prisoners of war of the Red Army and 160 Soviet patriots held in a concentration camp. Along the way, the fascist barbarians locked all these 360 people in a school building, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. Those who tried to escape were shot.”8