The 12th Army was surrounded. Tens of thousands of soldiers were captured along with the commander of the army Ponedelin. The Germans replicated his photo on leaflets. In the USSR, the general was declared a traitor, since he surrendered to the enemy. Historians are still wondering whether there was a betrayal or not.
About the first days and months of the Great Patriotic War, pages about the heroism of our soldiers have been inscribed forever in the textbooks of Russian history. We sacredly honor their memory. And with gratitude for a peaceful sky, from generation to generation, we will never tire of talking about how our fathers and grandfathers saved the Motherland from fascism. Low bow to all those who fell in those battles …
Meanwhile, along with exploits, there was betrayal in that war. And these sad pages, we suppose, should not be forgotten either. Not to stigmatize, accuse or judge anyone. And in order not to repeat itself.
Recently, it is not customary to remind of the betrayals and betrayals in those years. Like, it was and passed, the past overgrown. But this is not so. Once in history this was inscribed in the chronicle of that war, then contemporaries, even after 80 years, also have the right to know the truth about such facts as well.
Of course, there are still more questions than answers. Despite the many declassified documents. But after all, questions about the truth are also important and need to be asked, isn't it?
Ponedelin's army retreat
In the last part, we stopped at the fact that at the end of June 1941, the 12th Army, by order of the front headquarters, began to retreat to the old state border, slowly turning to the east, starting from the 13th Rifle Corps.
Historians write that, practically without going into clashes with the enemy, this army has only small and insignificant incidents of forward detachments with groups of German motorcyclists.
The air connections of the 12th Army are still not lost. Anyway, at least until July 17th. While caught in the scorching heat from the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, our other armies at that time had already managed to forget well what it was like to have air protection - aircraft with red stars.
That is, this army, exhausted not by the enemy, but by an urgent retreat, is moving in a hurry across Western Ukraine. On the way from the western edge of the USSR, it loses the materiel of its mechanized formation.
It turns out that, according to the comments of some experts, at the very beginning of the war, mechanized corps were practically deprived of the chances of being involved exactly there and when they could significantly affect the outcome of clashes. And as if they were deliberately driven from place to place until the resource was exhausted and full of technical wear and tear? And this despite numerous complaints from the head of the armored directorate of the Southwestern Front, Major General of the tank forces Morgunov, which were documented (F. 229, op. 3780ss, d. 1, pp. 98-104).
Finally, 12th Army arrives at the old border line and is stationed in these positions for about a week.
Thus, the already mentioned artillery witness of the 192nd division Inozemtsev in his diaries-letters from the front (book by N. N. the fact that there will be a fight with the Fritzes.
He tells about the fortified area:
"We'll be here for weeks."
“I'm going to the bunker to the [commander] of the division. A hillock 2 meters high, standing on the outskirts of the village. Concrete 2.5 meters thick. Three heavy machine guns, a colossal supply of cartridges. An excellent periscope, an air filter, a large supply of water. Personnel rest room. There is no one - communication."
« July, 12. Rumors persist that to our left, towards Zhmerinka, the Germans have broken through the front line. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon we receive the order to wind up the connection and start the withdrawal. For clarification, I go with Bobrov to the pillbox of the division commander. It turns out that no one has been there for a long time, everything is empty … We begin to withdraw by batteries."
Some historians point out that only now (by mid-July) the Nazi infantry begins to actively press on the units of the 12th Army and break through the Ponedelin defense in the Letichevsky district.
Literally on the eve of the breakthrough, Ponedelin reports to the leadership about the meager armament of the fortified area. And he stood in this area, as experts say, before that without enemy attacks for at least seven days.
Alexey Valerievich Isaev in his book “Antisuvorov. Ten Myths of the Second World War”also mentions Ponedelin's army.
In particular, he cites a quote from a letter from the commander of the 12th Army, which occupied the Letychiv UR on the old border. from July 2 to July 17, 1941.
In his letter to the commander of the Southern Front on July 16, 1941, with a request to allocate one rifle and one tank division, Ponedelin wrote:
“I got acquainted with the Letichevsky UR, the loss of which poses a direct threat to your entire front.
SD is incredibly weak. Of the 354 artillery combat installations, only 11 have, for a total length of 122 km of the front.
The rest are machine-gun pillboxes. To arm machine-gun pillboxes, 162 heavy machine guns are not enough.
UR is designed for 8 pulbats, there are 4 newly formed and untrained ones.
There is no preflight …
There is an unprepared section of 12 km between the neighboring right UR”. (TsAMO. F. 229. Op. 161. D. 131. L. 78.)
(There were 363 structures built in Letychiv UR. The difference may well be an error in statistics or classification ). Link
But the German infantry breaks through the Letichevsky fortification.
And artilleryman Inozemtsev says:
“Our entire reconnaissance has completely left at the disposal of the division commander to communicate with the regiments. These horse messengers were, in fact, the only means of communication."
“Once I went to the division headquarters. About six kilometers away from us, about three artillery regiments stood in the field, lined up in squares and bristling with guns in all directions. In the forest - more divisions (and fresh, full strength) of infantry.
Why are they not thrown to help us, so drained of blood in previous battles?
This is what the complex work of the headquarters and the lack of interaction means.
The main reason came to light much later, in August, from Comrade Stalin's order of August 16: the commander of the 13th SK (Rifle Corps) and the commander of the army turned out to be traitors. In the meantime, all that remained was to see and be indignant."
In response to the breakthrough of the Germans, Ponedelin gives a paper order to attack the Nazis, who broke through the defense of the Red Army.
And even in the morning he gives a second order about the blow. And the time of arrival is indicated as morning, 7 o'clock. Immediately after the end of the enemy air bombing, specific formations are allocated for a retaliatory attack.
Historians ask themselves whether those orders were written purely for the report.
Since, studying the documents of the 12th Army, experts recorded obvious inconsistencies there. The fact is that, according to experts, one and the same unit assigned for an offensive operation (scheduled for seven in the morning) and by papers located near the old border, on the same day, also by papers, at five in the evening of the same day located in Vinnitsa next to the headquarters. Consequently, the question for historians was this: what if the connections did not move?
We read in the letters-diaries of the artilleryman Inozemtsev:
“In the morning the order: to clean the weapons and saddles, wash, shave, etc. Building at 12 o'clock. The acting division commander speaks and announces: by order of the front, we all make up a consolidated artillery battalion, consisting of two companies (40 people in each) riflemen, a cavalry reconnaissance platoon (16 people led by Udovenko) and an auto platoon (3 vehicles with commanders of destruction tanks) …The battalion is immediately given a combat mission: to take up defenses, fight the enemy tank forces and hold them back until the divisions and armies are safe.
Around - an open field, except for us - there are no traces of the army, where the enemy is and where he should come from - no one has any idea. Well, then, to fight - so to fight!
Everyone is aware of the uselessness of such an order and their doom - when we meet with the Germans, we will hold out for several hours, and - the end, since everyone has long since departed, but the order is an order.
In the afternoon, a car appears, goes towards us at full speed, then, noticing one of us, turns around and gives full throttle. Who was in it is unknown.
Several more hours pass and, finally, we receive an order to proceed further."
March into the bag
In the book of the military commander Konstantin Simonov "One hundred days of war" we read:
“If we resort to the testimony of our opponents, then in Directive No. 33 of the German High Command from July 19 1941 was written like this:
"The most important task is to destroy the 12th and 6th enemy armies with a concentric offensive west of the Dnieper, preventing a retreat across the river."
Further, the 12th Army is fighting for the bridge on the Southern Bug River.
Due to the emerging danger of being surrounded by the Ponedelinskaya army, as well as the 6th army (Muzychenko) on this very bridge leave the fortified area, which, according to experts' estimates, could be held for at least 30 days (examples were: 5th Army).
If only because in this sector of the old state border there were warehouses (clothing, food, ammunition, fuel, weapons, equipment and ammunition).
So over this bridge Ponedelin leads his army into an open, open field.
When Muzychenko was wounded, the 6th Army was transferred under the command of Ponedelin. It turns out that it is he, Pavel Grigorievich Ponedelin, who will lead both these armies (12th and 6th) across the open plain straight into the bag of encirclement? And this bag will remain in history under the name "Uman Cauldron".
Russian military historian, specialist in the history of military technology and military art, candidate of philosophical sciences, reserve colonel Ilya Borisovich Moshchansky in the book "The Catastrophe near Kiev" will write:
"In the morning July 25 the commander of the troops of the South-Western direction Marshal of the Soviet Union SM Budyonny proposed to reassign the 6th and 12th armies to the commander of the Southern Front."
“The transfer of the 6th and 12th armies to the Southern Front had a detrimental effect on their fate. On the third day after their formal subordination to Tyulenev, the headquarters of the Southern Front reported to Headquarters:
"It is impossible to establish the exact position of units of the 6th and 12th armies due to the lack of communications …"
Position in the area of operations of the transferred armies we managed to find out only the 29th ».
And here is the testimony of the artilleryman Inozemtsev:
« July 30th … An order comes to pack up and at 16:00 the convoys and all personnel not included in the minimum combat crew move to Uman. The rest should start retreating at night, in the morning."
And then he is:
“We are moving. We enter Uman. The airfield and the railway station are on fire. Lagging workers, Jews, party and Komsomol workers are leaving the city; local authorities and most of those to be evacuated left earlier. Prisoners are released from prisons, the local garrison is leaving. The shops have already been opened, everyone takes what he needs."
“On bad sections of the road there is a huge congestion of people, cars, equipment, and you are literally surprised that there are no German planes. Probably, the German command considered us already doomed, was confident in the encirclement of this entire group and therefore, with the exception of individual aircraft, the flight forces did not delay us.
Most of the convoys, rear services and the headquarters of the 12th Army, together with other groups of troops, nevertheless fell into the hands of the Germans, and this happened mainly through the fault of the commander, who voluntarily surrendered."
Armies in the bag
“We do not know what is ahead, but we are moving forward, since we know for sure that the Germans are close behind, that we are in a deep sack and you can't wait. (It was Inozemtsev again).
About Ponedelin's army in the book of the military commander Konstantin Simonov "One hundred days of war" is an excerpt from the summary for 31 july:
“During the night, the army regrouped … with the aim of continuing in the morning of the 31st offensive in the eastern and northeastern directions.
The enemy is striving to complete the encirclement of the 6th and 12th armies with a simultaneous offensive from the north and south …
The 13th Rifle Corps … launched an offensive and, meeting strong fire resistance from the Kamenechye area, at 10:00 took possession of the southwestern outskirts …
There are no neighbors on the right and left …"
In the "Journal of Combat of the Southern Front Troops" for 5th of August it is said (quoted from K. Simonov's book):
“During the day, Ponedelin's group continued to conduct stubborn, unequal battles with the attacking superior forces of the enemy.
Prepared a night assault in a southerly direction in order to get out of the encirclement …
No data on the results of the night attack has been received …"
Apparently, this was the last entry in the "Journal of Combat Operations of the Forces of the Southern Front," which relied on any reliable data received from Ponedelin's group.
And the Russian military historian Ilya Borisovich Moshchansky writes in the book "The Catastrophe near Kiev":
General P. G. Ponedelin, who led the cut off troops, reported to the Front Military Council:
“The setting is amazing …
The troops of the army are in extremely serious condition and on the verge of complete loss of combat capability"
(TsAMO RF, f. 228, op. 701, d. 58, l. 52).
And the same author also reports that
« August 2 the enemy ring has closed."
This military historian points out:
“At the same time, in the southeast, at the junction with the 18th Army of the Southern Front, there was almost 100 km of space that had not yet been occupied by the enemy.
It could be used to withdraw the 6th and 12th armies.
But the command of the South-West direction, like the Headquarters, did not take advantage of this circumstance and still demanded to break through to the east."
A August 7 1941 - these are already two captured armies.
And General P. G. Ponedelin, and the commander of the 13th corps, General N. K. Kirillov are also prisoners.
Historians pay special attention to the fact that not every soldier of the 12th Army was taken prisoner at that time. The same Nikolai Inozemtsev, whose book (diaries and letters) we quoted, did not surrender. In those days he was on the left bank of the Dnieper River. From the leadership of the 12th Army, they did not surrender and were not captured by the chief of staff and aviation commander.
But what surprises historians is that many tens of thousands of soldiers literally "brought" them straight into the Uman pit, preventing them from fighting the Nazis. In fact, this was expressed in the fact that the servicemen were driven into a situation in the literal sense - incorrigible.
It turns out that the 12th Army practically did not fight? Although the privates and officers were eager to fight. And they were not allowed by the command of the army. Some historians point out that betrayal is a historically established fact.
But there is also another point of view.
For example, a retired lieutenant general, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, Yevgeny Ivanovich Malashenko, writes on VO that
“The main reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in 1941 were
untimely bringing to combat readiness of the troops of the border military districts, insufficient training and
weak morale and combat qualities of personnel, poor command and control.
Such troops could not stop the advance of the German groupings and were forced to retreat."
Enemy gaze
And here is the opinion of the Nazis themselves.
The historian of the German 49th Mountain Infantry Corps, whose divisions experienced the fierce attacks of the surrounded Red Army soldiers near Uman, wrote that the enemy, "In spite of the hopeless situation, I did not think about captivity."
“The last attempt was made on the night of August 7 …
Although even before August 13 in the forest east of Kopenkovatoe, according to the Germans, a group of commanders and Red Army soldiers continued to fight."
By a strange coincidence 6 august 1941 year Hitler arrives in the Western Ukraine in town Berdichev (Hitler's Palace in Ukraine: "Werewolf").
And already on August 28, 1941 Hitler arrives again on Ukraine in town Uman (Hitler's Palace in Ukraine: Secret Trips). There, according to historians, he will visit the very place where Ponedelin's captured army is kept - the Uman pit.
100 thousand captives at once?
“Unfortunately, it is very difficult to restore the true scale of losses of Soviet troops in the battle near Uman due to the lack of documents.
It is only known that on July 20, the 6th and 12th armies numbered 129, 5 thousand people [TsAMO RF, f. 228, op. 701, d.47, ll. 55, 56, 74, 75]. And according to the headquarters of the Southern Front, on August 11, 11 thousand people managed to avoid encirclement, mainly from the rear units [TsAMO RF, f. 228, op. 701, d.58, l. 139].
Judging by German sources, near Uman was captured 103 thousand Soviet Red Army men and commanders [Das Deutshe Reich und der Zweit Weltkrieg, Bd. 4, s. 485; Haupt W. Kiew - die groesste kesselschacht der Geschichte. Bad Nauheim, 1964, s. 15], and the number of Russians killed, according to the daily reports of the Wehrmacht High Command, has reached 200 thousand people."
From the book of the military historian I. B. Moschanskiy "Catastrophe near Kiev":
The fate of those captured near Uman is tragic. At first they were placed behind barbed wire in the open air.
And only with the onset of winter they were transferred to unheated barracks.
The Germans themselves then recorded on film how they placed our captured armies in the Uman pit (for more details, see the article Hitler's Palace in Ukraine: Secret Trips).
They wanted to save, but Ponedelin surrendered
Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky in his book "The Work of a Lifetime" (1978) about the 12th Army reads:
“Kirponos and Khrushchev … reported that the commander-in-chief of the South-Western direction gave them the task of providing assistance to the troops of the 6th and 12th armies and in the morning 6 august strike from the Korsun area in the direction of Zvenigorodka and Uman.
They wanted to clarify whether the Headquarters would not mind this, as they are intensively preparing for this assignment.
Stalin replied that the Headquarters would not only not object, but, on the contrary, welcomes the offensive, which aims to unite with the Southern Front and bring our two armies out into the open."
Simonov also has about the intentions of the leaders to save these encircled armies of ours.
In one of the documents sent “for immediate delivery. Moscow. Comrade Stalin, the commander-in-chief,”it was said that the front headquarters had allocated two groups of specially trained persons for airlifting to the area of encirclement.
“The groups are equipped with shortwave radio stations. People are dressed in civilian clothes. The task of the groups: to penetrate into the areas occupied by units of the 6th and 12th armies, and immediately report their position by radio according to the established code …"
The truth about betrayal
Modern media quoted Ponedelin himself.
To the question
"What do you plead guilty to?"
Ponedelin clearly answers:
"I am only to blame for surrendering to the enemy."
In the book by Vladimir Dmitrievich Ignatov "Executioners and Executions in the History of Russia and the USSR" (2013) we read:
"During his stay in captivity, the Germans confiscated a diary from Ponedelin, in which he expounded his anti-Soviet views on the policy of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government."
On April 29, 1945, he was liberated by American troops and handed over to Soviet representatives. Arrested on December 30, 1945, and imprisoned in the Lefortovo prison. Was accused of being
“Being the commander of the 12th Army and being surrounded by enemy troops, did not show the necessary persistence and will to win, succumbed to panic and on August 7, 1941, violating the military oath, betrayed the Motherland, surrendered to the Germans without resistance and during interrogations, he informed them about the composition of the 12th and 6th armies ».
At the beginning of 1950 P. G. Ponedelin wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to reconsider the case. On August 25, 1950, by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, he was sentenced to be shot with immediate execution. He did not plead guilty in cooperation with the Germans.
Rehabilitated posthumously.
The ashes of General P. G. Ponedelina rests in a common grave No. 2 at the new Donskoy cemetery in Moscow.
