On the pages of the VO, they write about Soviet, as well as about German, losses quite often, but at the same time they turn either to the resources of the Internet system, referring to the data of "live journals", or … to publications, the authors of which … eat there and even links to they do not give their "scriptures". Although, of course, there is also archived data. But from what source should you start, of course, in the first place? Of course, from the official reports of the Soviet Information Bureau, created in the USSR shortly after the start of the war to promptly inform the population. The materials of the Sovinformburo were announced in the news on the radio and were regularly published in newspapers.
Of course, the tradition of covering events was the same as before, that is, it was ill-considered and not very skillful. As during the coverage of the course of hostilities in Spain, the Sovinformburo constantly reported about the victories of the Red Army here and there, about the Germans who surrendered, captured trophies, after which the message fell on the Soviet citizens like snow on their heads that our troops had left … … left. It was reported, for example, that "On June 22 and 23 we captured about five thousand German soldiers and officers" (Izvestia. June 24, 1941. No. 147, p. 1). But questions involuntarily arose: if we beat them here, beat them there, then they surrendered, here they flew to us by plane, then … why are we retreating then? But it is clear that no one asked such questions out loud. That is, our journalists were not yet able to “observe innocence and get pleasure”, apparently, either they were not taught this, or the top thought that it would do just that.
But numbers, numbers are another matter. It was not easy to lie here, because first German newspapers could catch you on too big exaggerations, and then the newspapers of neutrals (and allies!) Could well start writing about … "the unreliability of Soviet propaganda." And one thing is a victorious battle, invented by one journalist - who and when will check it, there are thousands of battles! And quite another - the number of downed planes and destroyed tanks. Here … everything is in front of their eyes, they have and we have loss logs, and although discrepancies, of course, were inevitable, these figures are the most reliable of all that was then published in the newspapers. And the role of numbers is clear. It is not without reason that already on July 10, in one of its first publications on the topic of losses, the Pravda newspaper turned so vehemently against the Nazis in the article “Arabian Tales of the German High Command or Six-Week Results of the War” (Pravda, No. 218, p. 1). Like, what kind of 895,000 killed, wounded and prisoners do we have, named by the Germans in their newspapers ?! What are the 13145 thousand tanks, 10380 guns and 9082 aircraft lost during this time by the Red Army? The Germans lost 6,000, and we lost 4,000 tanks! It would have been better if the newspaper had kept silent, because who in the USSR read German newspapers at that time, and even more so would have believed in these really completely "absurd" figures? You can not, you can never give comparative information and argue with the enemy. The enemy always lies! This is the logic of propaganda that journalists should have had in wartime. And why then repeat a deliberate lie, and even humiliate yourself, proving something to the enemy? The enemy is the enemy!
A wonderful photo of the German Pz. Kpfw-IVН tank in zimmerite coating and with anti-cumulative screens. For the first time such pictures appeared on the pages of the journal "Tekhnika-Molodoi" in 1943.
It would seem elementary, right? But Pravda continued, with a tenacity worthy of better application, to "denounce the Germans" and, at the same time, to provide comparative information - with them, with us! So, on Saturday, August 23, in No. 233 on the front page of the newspaper Pravda, it was reported that the Germans wrote that the Red Army had lost: 14,000 guns, 14,008 tanks, 11,000 aircraft, 5 million soldiers killed and wounded and 1 million prisoners. In fact, the losses of the Red Army are as follows: 150 thousand killed, 440 thousand wounded, 110 thousand missing (it was impossible to write this at all, it opened the way for speculation of the most negative nature!), That is, only about 700 thousand were out of action, and also lost 5,500 tanks, 7,500 guns, and 4,500 aircraft. That is, half of what they write!
Downed German plane. At the beginning of the war, there were several materials about German pilots flying over to us, who even reported their home addresses in Pravda. Probably, they were all secret communists and … orphans …
It is no less foolish to write during the war that “Kiev is and will be Soviet”, that “Odessa is an impregnable fortress”, because there can be all kinds of accidents of war. So it is sad, but true - the newspaper Pravda largely incorrectly and ineptly covered the events of the war. But the figures of losses should be given by day. It was correct. And let whoever needs it - think for themselves!
Losses, losses, losses …
That is why let us also disown the "fiction" of newspaper articles and look at dry columns of numbers. I thought about this back in 1989, when I had the opportunity, within the framework of the research work, to give an assignment to two of my students to work with the materials of the Pravda newspaper literally day after day. And that was done! Well, and then only the final figures (and only for tanks!) Got into my books from this notebook, although the intermediate figures “day after day” are no less interesting.
Pz. Kpfw-IIIG. Hard, hard he got it! Well, after all, no one invited to visit!
So, let's get acquainted with the German losses in planes and tanks during the war years for all its 1418 days according to the Sovinformburo reports on a monthly basis, which makes it possible to establish the dynamics, and, in general, to introduce previously unknown information into the information circulation, because how to count the data of the Sovinformburo day by day. not at all easy and, in my opinion, no one has ever done this with us!
So, the very first figures are as follows: June 23 - 76 aircraft, 25 - 127 tanks, 27 - 32 aircraft, 40 tanks, 28 - 6 aircraft, 300 tanks, 29 - 53 aircraft, 15 tanks, 30 - 2 aircraft, 5 tanks. Total: 296 aircraft and 360 tanks - these are the losses of the German army according to the materials of the Soviet Information Bureau for June - the first month of the war.
Even the cross has already been knocked together …
July: planes - 1577, tanks - 918. August: planes - 580, tanks - 658. September: planes -1033, tanks -156. October: aircraft - 725, tanks - 855. November: aircraft - 566, tanks - 1262. December: aircraft - 603, tanks 982. In total, from June 22 to the end of December 1941, 5380 aircraft were destroyed, 5191 tanks. destroyed during the same period.
January 1942: planes shot down 817, tanks destroyed 680. February - planes 599, tanks 303. March - 927 and 200, April - 975 and 156. May - 1311, 857. June - 346, 1071. July - 1407, 1997. August - 641, 755. September (to October 3) 1648 and 378. October - 569 and 217. November - 401 and 178. December - 756 and 312. Total for 1942 destroyed: aircraft - 10401 and tanks - 7024.
This "plane" was lucky at least in the fact that it landed!
January 1943: planes - 719, tanks - 114. February - 614 and 555. March - 818 and 531. April - 1205 and 638. May - 1058 and 602. June - 1864 and 835. June - 812 and 1318. August - 2727 and 2736. September - 1432 and 1642. October - 1806 and 2762. November - 654 and 2979. December - 621 and 2077. Total for 1943 destroyed: aircraft - 12330, tanks - 16789.
And this "Stuff" was "lucky" too …
January 1944: aircraft - 1124, tanks - 2792, February - 982, 2383, March - 1295, 1456, April - 1416, 1349, May - 1229, 1081, June - 967, 1912, July - 1265, 2177, August - 1907, 3426 (!), September - 928, 1413, October - 1137, 2529, November - 344, 761, December - 665, 1316. Total for 1944 destroyed: 13259 aircraft, 22595 tanks.
Looking at these destroyed "Marders", one inevitably wonders: how did they fight on "this"?
January 1945: aircraft - 976, tanks - 2818, February - 1085, 3712 (!), March - 1561, 3644, April - 1595, 2388, May - 34 aircraft, 146 tanks! Total for 1945: 5251 and 12608.
It was no different that a bomb hit this tank, albeit a small one!
Now comes the fun part. You can not trust these numbers. You can take and compare them with figures from today's open sources, both print and from the Internet, and do your own little research. In any case, we note that this information was very important in those years. There was no other, and there shouldn't have been, by definition! On the other hand, all these losses had to be counted again after the war, and given real figures, and if they had a strong discrepancy with the data of the Soviet Information Bureau, just say - “What do you want, it was a hard war. Someone made a mistake, someone counted twice, or … did not count! " And that's it! And now it's just a story, "a story from the Pravda newspaper."
Here it is - this very notebook, in which all the data on the destroyed German tanks and aircraft, according to the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau, published on the pages of the newspaper Pravda, are written down day after day. Now they can be used not only by the regulars of the VO, but also by everyone. And you don't need to "shovel" newspapers yourself!
P. S. Or maybe some of the VO website visitors who speak German will have the courage to write to the Bundesarchive in Germany? Like, I'm collecting material for an article about the losses of the German army in tanks and aircraft (you can ask about people at the same time!) On one of the popular Russian sites. Could you please help and send photocopies of the war period documents with these figures. Good people work in the Bundesarchive, they will definitely help you, and in this case they can help you for free (!), In any case, all the photocopies of the documents she needed were sent to my graduate student from there. Can you imagine how interesting it will be to compare data from our last 12-volume book on the history of the Second World War, data from Pravda and … figures from the German Bundesarchive ?!
