In the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht General Staff was so confident of an imminent victory that it did not pay much attention to the forested and swampy area with rare dirt roads between the Army Groups “Center” and “North”, heading towards Moscow and Leningrad, respectively. After the capture of the Belarusian capital and the defeat of the main forces of the Western Military District in the Bialystok and Minsk “cauldrons” (341 thousand irretrievable losses of the Red Army in two weeks), German motorized corps began advancing towards the Dnieper and Western Dvina. Chief of the German General Staff, Colonel General Franz Halder wrote in his diary: “In general, we can already say that the task of defeating the main forces of the Russian ground army... has been completed... Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia was won within 14 days. Of course, it's not finished yet. The enormous extent of the territory and the stubborn resistance of the enemy, using all means, will fetter our forces for many more weeks.”
After the Battle of Moscow was lost in December 1941, a certain sobering set in Berlin, but “dizziness” began from the first major success in the Kremlin and at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (SHC). A decision was made, not supported by material resources, to launch a counter-offensive along the entire front with the help of powerful groups of shock armies, including to unblock Leningrad, create a “cauldron” for Army Group Center, and liberate Kharkov and Crimea. The strategic offensive plan of the Red Army was discussed at the beginning of January 1942 at the Supreme Command Headquarters. The essence of the plan was outlined by Joseph Stalin: “The Germans want... to gain time and get a break. Our task is to not give the Germans this respite, to drive them west without stopping, to force them to use up their reserves before the spring, when we will have large new reserves, and the Germans will no longer have reserves, and thus ensure , complete defeat of Hitler's troops in 1942 " This decision was not only supported by all front commanders, but they took on increased obligations, including the defeat of the Wehrmacht group “Center”. After the failures of the first year of the war with retreats and “cauldrons,” everyone rushed to the offensive without a critical analysis of the real situation and underestimating the power of the enemy.
To carry out the strategic plan, a special role was assigned to the newly formed shock armies. Operational military formations (shock armies) As a rule, they were in the reserve of the GVK Headquarters and were intended to defeat enemy groups in the main directions. At the beginning of the war, they included tank, mechanized and cavalry corps. They had to be better equipped than conventional armies with tanks, guns and mortars. By the beginning of 1942, five shock armies had been created. Unfortunately, their material support was not always satisfactory. There was a huge shortage of artillery shells. There was not enough aviation to cover the rifle divisions. Due to the lack of rockets to reinforce the shock armies, guards rocket and mortar regiments with the most formidable secret weapon of the famous Katyushas were not allocated from the SVK Reserve.
Only in the subsequent years of the war were the shock armies fully equipped and played important role in the victory over the Third Reich. The soldiers of the Third Shock Army hoisted the Victory Banner in 1945. Commanding General Colonel, Hero Soviet Union Vasily Kuznetsov previously commanded the First Shock Army, which distinguished itself in the counteroffensive near Moscow and the Demyansk offensive operation of February 1942.
The Fifth Shock Army, led by Colonel General Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Berzin, also stormed Berlin, and the commander became the first commandant of the defeated capital of the Third Reich.
In the winter campaign of 1942, the offensive Soviet troops on the Volkhov front was integral part Strategic plan of Headquarters for the release of Leningrad. But the breakthrough of the German front by the Second Shock Army turned into a tragedy. During three months of fighting (January - March 1942), the army changed three commanders. Having broken through the front in a small area near Myasnoy Bor, the army found itself surrounded without reserves, shells and food in conditions of a spring crossroads and impassability. On June 27, 1942, the front command made the last breakthrough attempt, which ended unsuccessfully, and by the end of July the Second Shock Army ceased to exist. According to various estimates, from 13 to 16 thousand soldiers escaped from the encirclement, mainly at Myasny Bor (“Valley of Death”), the rest were captured (about 27 - 30 thousand people). In total, over 146 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers died during the operation. The commander of the shock army, Lieutenant General Vlasov, who received the army in a hopeless state, surrendered.
Two months earlier in April 1942, on the southern flank of the Wehrmacht group “Center”, when leaving the encirclement of the 33rd Army, commander General Mikhail Efremov (Hero) shot himself (along with his wife) Russian Federation, posthumously, 1996). The Germans, paying tribute to the general's courage, buried him with military honors.
The Supreme High Command Headquarters, operating in the north-western direction, ordered the troops of the Third and Fourth Shock Armies of the Kalinin Front to break through the front in the Velikiye Luki area and further develop an offensive towards Vitebsk and Orsha in order to bypass Smolensk from the west and create a “cauldron” for the Wehrmacht group “Center”. But due to the threat of encirclement, the assigned tasks were not completed.
The Soviet operation to defeat Army Group Center ended in defeat. War stories place the blame for this on the commander of the Western Front, Army General Georgy Zhukov.
Rzhev-Vyazemsk offensive operation (January 8 - April 20, 1942) on the Soviet operational map
The winter campaign of 1942 ended in tragedy for the Red Army, whose losses in the first quarter amounted to 1.8 million (!) people. On the Volkhov Front, the Second Shock Army found itself in a cauldron, the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation of the Kalinin and Western Fronts ended in failure (Red Army losses - 776 thousand, including 272 thousand irrevocable), the troops of the Crimean Front were almost completely destroyed near Kerch by the rapid counter-offensive of the Wehrmacht . The troops of the Southwestern Front, advancing on Kharkov, were surrounded. The initiative passed to the Wehrmacht, which developed a plan for a strategic summer offensive in the southern direction. “Comrade Molotov had to urgently pack his suitcase, board a strategic bomber and fly to pay his respects to his capitalist uncles...”.
Against the background of the unsuccessful campaign of the Red Army, the Fourth Shock Army, led by Colonel General Andrei Eremenko (future Hero of the Soviet Union and Marshal), distinguished itself. She took part in the counter-offensive near Moscow, and in the winter campaign of 1942 as part of the Kalinin Front. The army has reached best result- broke through the defensive lines of the Wehrmacht and in a month of fighting went deeper by 250 km, liberating the cities of Andreopol and Toropets, and after the capture of Velizh (in the north of the Smolensk region) it reached... the border of the Belarusian SSR.
249th Rifle Division, staffed mainly by border guard soldiers (divisional commander, Major General German Tarasov
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, after the winter successes of 1941-1942 near Moscow, Tikhvin and Rostov, Stalin was in a state of euphoria. It was Stalin’s frivolity, who overestimated the capabilities of the Red Army and underestimated the Wehrmacht, that, according to the established opinion, became the cause of the disaster near Kharkov, in the Crimea and the Germans’ advance to Stalingrad and the Caucasus.
In order to understand this issue, it is necessary to abstract from today’s knowledge of the situation and take the place of Stalin and our military leadership. Indeed, the events of the winter of 1941, when the Germans retreated, often without offering resistance, created in Stalin the illusion of a moral breakdown of the enemy. At the same time, Stalin was well aware that with the beginning of spring the enemy could resume the offensive and seize the strategic initiative.
Stalin correctly assessed the growth of Germany's military-industrial potential, its transfer to the conditions of a protracted war, the appointment of Speer as head of military production, the mobilization of European resources, the massive use of slave labor, and the labor of prisoners of war.
Therefore, according to Stalin, it was necessary not to give the Germans a break and to continue the offensive. Then at our Headquarters the concept of a “mass offensive” was born, which implied simultaneous active actions in all strategic directions.
In 1942, the USSR produced 25 thousand aircraft, 24 thousand tanks, 57 thousand guns. The USSR transferred its industry and administration to a military footing and was ready for a protracted and difficult war. In Germany, despite all efforts, such a total mobilization of society did not work out. Firstly, German workers absolutely did not want to lose the material wealth acquired under the Nazis and did not perform any labor feats in the rear; secondly, the Nazis had to fill many jobs with forced or semi-forced workers from occupied countries or prisoners of war, whose labor productivity was not high.
In Germany, there could be no question of putting millions of women and teenagers at the machines, so that they would work for fourteen or more hours for food cards, live in dugouts and barracks, and even give their savings to the defense fund.
This was a conscious feat of our people - this is what made them strong. When during the war, Stalin ordered the Nudelman air cannon to be urgently put into production, this designer and his assistants lived for several weeks at the shooting range, where the experimental shooting of a 37-mm air cannon took place. The engineers' bunks stood three meters from the gun machine, and shell casings rained down on the people sleeping in turns. Nevertheless, they later unanimously assured that these weeks at the shooting range were the brightest, most joyful time in their lives.
Today they are trying to convince us that a person can only receive satisfaction by consuming material goods, overeating and being idle, and this example shows how happy difficulties can make a person if they have been overcome on the way to a great goal and are filled with the consciousness of the necessity of their work.
Nevertheless, when planning the 1942 campaign, Stalin, Headquarters and the General Staff first of all tried to predict the enemy’s intentions for the summer of 1942.
This analysis was carried out in conditions of an extreme shortage of reliable intelligence data, which was associated with the still weak development of the partisan movement in the occupied areas, the lack of experience in strategic analysis among our military intelligence, and Germany’s skillful actions to disguise its intentions.
And here one should not think that only our generals and Stalin were such mugs that the Germans skillfully disguised all their intentions from them. During the Second World War, in all its theaters, the side that had the strategic initiative easily misled the enemy, creating the illusion of preparing a strike in the wrong direction. Let's remember Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, the Normandy landings, the capture of Crete, the defeat of France. Our army also gave the Germans many similar surprises, we will talk about them later.
The increased maneuverability of troops, the capabilities of railways, and the presence of aviation made it possible to transfer forces from one strategic direction to another in a day or two and completely unexpectedly deliver a devastating blow to the enemy. A similar situation arose near Kharkov in 1942. Both Stalin and our generals perfectly understood the importance of Kharkov, Stalingrad and the Caucasus for the country and the fate of the front. However, based on the available data and analysis of the location of the German troops, the main attack was not expected there.
If we look for the culprits in such an assessment, then they are B.M. Shaposhnikov and the General Staff, who through their intelligence and analytical bodies were unable to identify the concentration of groups of troops of Paulus and Kleist in the area of Kharkov and Kramatorsk, did not reveal the German disguise of the Blau plan, did not establish the number of troops of Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, transferred from Europe. The General Staff also made a mistake in determining the Wehrmacht's losses in 1941 and incorrectly assessed its strength on the Eastern Front as a whole.
Another thing is that, apparently, there was simply no alternative to the chosen course of action. The problem was that the Germans were still superior to the Red Army in both quality and quantity. This superiority was manifested in the Crimea, where Manstein’s small corps completely defeated our Crimean Front, and near Moscow, where in the Vyazma region the 33rd Army of General M.G. was surrounded and destroyed. Efremova, 1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 4th Airborne Corps near Leningrad, where all attempts to break through the blockade ring failed. These failures are not the result of someone’s mistake, guilt or ill will, but solely of the superiority of the German army over ours, which persisted in 1942.
Therefore, it is not of decisive importance whether the attack by Tymoshenko’s troops on Kharkov was carried out or not, Operation Blau - the throw into the Caucasus would have taken place in any case. Even a year later, near Kursk, knowing exactly where to expect Manstein’s attack, our troops were barely able to stop him with two tank armies and a number of anti-tank weapons that were not physically available in 1942. And the troops and commanders in 1943 were different.
It is doubtful that Stavka, having abandoned attacks near Kharkov, Crimea and Leningrad and concentrating all its forces, say, near Moscow, would have defeated Army Group Center in the summer of 1942. Stavka was also required to make a decision regarding the release of Sevastopol, for which all the prerequisites were present. Tymoshenko’s attack near Kharkov could, together with success in Crimea, result in a strategic offensive of the Red Army in Ukraine.
What Stalin is really to blame for in this situation is that he appointed Zhukov as his deputy after the disaster in the South, and not before it. While on the Western Front, Zhukov could not understand in detail the situation near Kharkov, visit the troops and evaluate real situation. It must be admitted that Stalin also at that moment overestimated to some extent his personal leadership abilities.
The theorizing of some modern researchers about the mistakes of the Soviet command and belated recommendations for troop leadership are simply not serious. We should not forget that at the head of our armies were Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Shaposhnikov, Vasilevsky, whose qualifications there is no doubt. They made a decision based on the available information and adequate to the conditions that existed at that time, to the state of the Red Army with which they had to deal.
Reading time: 2 minutes. Published 09/02/2017
Questions for the first pair of players
Dmitry Shepelev and Sabina Pantus (400,000 - 0 rubles)
1. What does catfish have?
2. What is another name for a zipper?
3. Who is Kuzya from Tatyana Alexandrova’s fairy tale?
4. Which actress unexpectedly gave her name to a musical group in 2003?
5. What repairs does the old house require?
6. What is the name of a piece of clothing that is cut off?
7. In which country, before the transition to the euro, was the escudo currency used?
8. What beetle was sacred to the ancient Egyptians?
9. What is the name of the central square of Amsterdam, where the royal palace is located?
10. What color is missing from a classic dartboard?
11. What did the creators of “Victory” originally want to call the car?
12. Which poet did the hero of the film “Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears” call “a very promising guy”?
Questions for the second pair of players
Evelina Bledans and Ekaterina Gordon (400,000 - 0 rubles)
1. What do drivers call the parking brake of a car?
2. Who rode a broom in Chukovsky’s fairy tale “The Cockroach”?
3. What is not included in the kit of personal emergency rescue equipment for an air passenger?
4. What question is usually not answered?
5. What is the purpose of the bomboniere?
6. How did the Shooting Manual dictate that rifles should be stored in the guardhouse?
7. Who didn’t help the girl in the fairy tale “Geese and Swans” by Alexei Tolstoy?
8. Which building is not located on Palace Square in St. Petersburg?
9. What kind of shoes have come into fashion among surfers?
10. What's in large quantities was planted in 1942 on the football field of the Moscow Dynamo stadium?
Answers to questions from the first pair of players
- snake
- brownie
- Uma Thurman
- capital
- yoke
- Portugal
- dung beetle
- blue
- "Motherland"
- Evgenia Yevtushenko
Answers to questions from the second pair of players
- handbrake
- parachute
- to rhetorical
- for candy
- in the pyramid
- geese-swans
- Tauride Palace
Original taken from visualhistory in Walk around Moscow 1941
I think we must agree with those who believe that these posts are not made by Varlamov himself. Here you can spend more than one hour watching, but it would take at least a day to prepare. And Zalt is not an expert on the history of the Second World War.
And the post turned out to be very interesting.
Original taken from varlamov.ru in Walk around Moscow 1941
View of the Kremlin during an air raid, July 1941
Today I am starting a series of posts about Moscow during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Let's see how the capital lived during this difficult time. I collected old photographs and memories of Muscovites. Read it, it’s very interesting, although there is a lot of text. If you have anything to add, tell us in the comments.
Today is 41 years old. The most difficult for Moscow. These include evacuation, bombing, and the Nazis who came close to the city. With the outbreak of war, all civilians were required to hand over bicycles, radios (there were only the famous dishes on the wall and radio sockets), as well as cameras. Didn't pass - spy. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to find amateur photographs of wartime Moscow; in the city under martial law, only accredited photojournalists took photographs with the Leicas issued to them (remember Simonov’s famous lines: “With a Leica and a notebook, or even with a machine gun...”).
Despite the fact that the Soviet authorities knew about the imminent war with Hitler (the possible date of the German invasion was repeatedly reported, for example, by intelligence officer Richard Sorge), Muscovites did not suspect that very soon it would fall on them.
On May 1, 1941, the last peacetime parade took place on Red Square. The Soviet leadership entrusted high hopes for this parade. In the context of the impending war, the demonstration of the military power of the Soviet Union acquired the utmost importance. The parade was attended by officials of the foreign diplomatic corps, and there were also official representatives of the Wehrmacht. 
Ordinary people, meanwhile, went to theaters, cinemas and stadiums. The last pre-war match took place at Dynamo on June 19: the home team hosted Traktor Stalingrad. On June 22, a parade and mass athletic competitions were supposed to take place there...
At a football match, Dynamo stadium. 
Review of cyclists participating in the Moscow - Yalta race. May 1941 
The city lived a peaceful life and did not prepare for defense. Newspapers wrote about the appearance of the first televisions and ultraviolet lamps; in March 1941, the first Stalin Prizes, in early June the city managed to hold a chess championship. At the same time, the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition takes place at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (the future VDNKh). In mid-June, the general reconstruction of the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky.
Selling soda on Kuznetsky Most. 
In 1941, Moscow continues to demolish Zaryadye. Demolition began in the 1930s. This story will end only by the end of the 1950s. And in 1967, the Rossiya Hotel would be built on the site of the old quarters. 
Temple of St. Nicholas the Mokroy. 
The photograph was published on August 11, 1941 in the article “LIFE photographers saw Moscow a week before the Nazi invasion.” 
The US Embassy was located in the building from which this photo was taken from 1933 to 1954. Then it was moved out of harm's way to the street. Tchaikovsky (current Novinsky Boulevard). And the State Joint Stock Company "Intourist" settled in this building for several decades. 
The war took the capital's residents by surprise. On the morning of June 22, 20 thousand schoolchildren arrived in Moscow from the Moscow region: a holiday was held for them in the Sokolnichesky Culture and Leisure Park. Until 12 noon, none of the Muscovites knew that the war had started.
At 12:15, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov spoke on the radio with a message about the German attack on the USSR - it was he who said famous phrase"Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours."
Workers at the Hammer and Sickle plant listen to the Soviet government's announcement of the start of war. 
From the memoirs of archaeologist M. Rabinovich:
“Without losing pace, I began to prepare for the next exams - for graduate school, they were supposed to start in a month. I urgently needed to “fit up” foreign language. On Sunday the 22nd, looking up from my German book for a moment, I went out to buy something to eat. And from the seller of the vegetable stall I learned that the Germans had attacked us and were already bombing our cities. So, mechanically clutching a bunch of radishes in his hand, without going home, he went to the history department. On Arbat Square, near the Khudozhestvenny cinema, a loudspeaker suddenly started talking. They broadcast (probably not for the first time) Molotov’s speech. Like the others, I stopped, eagerly hanging on every word. "Our cause is just! The enemy will be defeated! Victory will be ours!" No matter how unlikable this person is to me now, I must note that then Molotov (or the one who wrote the speech to him) said the most necessary words.”
From the diary of Muscovite Marusya K.:
“What a terrible and difficult to describe day! I found Comrade Molotov’s message in the hairdresser’s. Do I realize what will happen? It’s hard to imagine, but I have a presentiment that it will be very terrible. I took a dress from the studio, but without any mood, it was made to my taste, English style. This everything is in my character, but it’s all no longer pleasing. It’s hard to imagine what feeling enveloped me, and, looking at the people in the house who were carrying sand into the attic, with heavy, uncomprehending eyes, I began to do the same.”
On June 25, martial law was introduced in Moscow. Air and combat drills gradually became commonplace. The city began to get used to wartime conditions.
From the diary of the scientific secretary of the Commission for the Study of the History of Moscow P. Miller:
“In the morning at 3 o’clock the siren sounds raised Moscow. Residents jumped up nervously and began to hide in shelters, but most remained in the courtyards, street cleaners drove everyone away from the streets. Anti-aircraft guns fired, machine guns fired occasionally, fire flashes in the clouds, and in some places I saw cars - everything is on high altitude. I personally saw ten white spots arranged in an almost regular ring - around what? The spots resembled those white stripes that always mark the stratospheric rise. Everything looked very serious, but the absence of high-explosive bombs and fires is immediately striking. At about 4 o'clock the alarm ended. Later in the day, it turned out that this was a test exercise."
After the air raid warning clears, people leave the Sverdlov Square metro station and wait for transport at the Moscow Hotel. 
Distribution of gas masks on Mayakovsky Square. 
Pushkinskaya Square. 
In Moscow cinemas, along with feature films, defense and educational films began to be shown: “Let’s create protective rooms”, “Individual medical equipment package”, “Take care of the gas mask”, “How to help a gas poisoned person”, “The simplest shelters from air bombs”, “Blackout of a residential building”, etc. d. Later they began to show patriotic films, including the famous “Combat Film Collections”.
Cinema "Central" (in the 1930s - also "Sha-Noir"), st. Gorky, 18-a, phone B1-97-54. 
On July 1, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a decree "On universal compulsory training of the population for air defense." On the same day, the executive committee of the Moscow City Council adopted a resolution “On the procedure for evacuating children from Moscow.”
From June 29 to July 29, almost 950 thousand people, mostly women and children, were evacuated from Moscow. By December 1941, the population of the capital decreased from 4.5 to 2.5 million people. Not only people were evacuated, but also industry: in September-October, about 500 industrial enterprises of union and republican significance were transferred from Moscow and the Moscow region to the rear.
Zinaida Nikolaevna Aristarkhova:
“When the war began, I was 12 years old. According to the instructions of the authorities, all children had to report to the Krasnopresnenskaya outpost, the parents had to collect mattresses, pillowcases and light things for the children. They put us all on a tram and took us to the River Station. At the River Station there were walking the steamships on which we were loaded onto the platform, on the deck, who somehow managed to find a place for themselves. This steamer set off towards Ryazan. The steamer then left for the Oka, probably in the evening, late.
The lights were not on on the ship; everything was extinguished. When we were sailing, there were rumors all the time that there would be no light. Before this, there were cases when the Nazis attacked ships. which went inland from the capital. Everyone said that we were going to Ryazan. We arrived in Ryazan and were dropped off in Elatma, near Ryazan."
Moscow River near Krasnokholmskaya embankment. Evacuation of Muscovites in the fall of 1941. 
Waiting for the evacuation train at the Kazansky railway station. 
Interesting shots. Livestock evacuation! 
The first air raid alert in Moscow had to be announced on the third day of the war. But at first, German pilots flew only for reconnaissance. Almost immediately, the camouflage of the capital began, which was supposed to save the city’s key facilities from German bombs. Particular attention was paid to the Kremlin.
View of the Kremlin from the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. The wall and towers were disguised as residential buildings. 
In his report to Beria dated June 26, 1941, Commandant Spiridonov proposed two options for camouflaging the Moscow Kremlin. The first involved the removal of crosses and the destruction of the shine of the gilded domes of the Kremlin cathedrals. The roofs and open facades of all Kremlin buildings were planned to be repainted so that they looked like ordinary houses. The second option differs from it in that false city blocks were to be created through a combination of various layouts, and a false bridge was built across the Moscow River to disorient the enemy.
One more shot. Covers were pulled over the Kremlin spiers, and a special coloring was applied to the square, creating the illusion of residential areas. 
To camouflage the Kremlin and surrounding areas, planar imitation is used with repainting of roofs and open facades of buildings. 
On June 24, orders were issued to blackout residential buildings, businesses and vehicles. In the evenings the city plunged into darkness. People bumped into each other public transport began to walk more slowly: for example, tram drivers had to press their foreheads against the glass to see obstacles on the way.
From P. Miller's diary:
"In the evening - a blazing sunset behind the large Triumphal Gate, a little to the left. Around 11 o'clock in the evening I was wandering around, looking for a tram to get out of Presnya. Terrible darkness."
By the way, to guide drivers in the dark, white stripes were painted on the walls in the arches of the Spassky, Borovitsky and Arsenal Gates of the Kremlin. A week after the start of the war, the chimes on the Spasskaya Tower stopped playing. By mid-July, Kremlin buildings had finished covering windows with strips of material in a crisscross pattern.
Mausoleum disguised in 1941. 
Almost simultaneously with the Kremlin’s disguise, a special commission came to the conclusion that it was necessary to remove Lenin’s body from the Mausoleum (even though it had been “repainted and remade” to look like an ordinary city building). Experts argued that even one bomb would be enough to level the tomb. The leader's body was taken to Tyumen on a special train. His protection along the route was entrusted to the Office of the Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin and the NKGB of the USSR. Ilyich’s body safely reached the place, and there he was placed in a two-story stone house, where scientists who had arrived from Moscow had already settled down. At 5 a.m. on March 28, 1945, Lenin returned to the renovated Mausoleum. And in September 1945, access to Ilyich’s body was open to everyone. 
The camouflaged Kremlin (especially at first) greatly confused the fascists. Alas, all precautions could not completely protect this grandiose monument of architecture and history. The Kremlin was bombed as many as 8 times. But the soldiers themselves said that some unknown force seemed to be protecting this holy place - some of the bombs (and in total more than one and a half hundred of them were dropped) did not explode. Some of those that exploded either caused minimal damage or none at all. 
The Manege building in camouflage paint. 
The Bolshoi Theater is being camouflaged. 
Camouflage coloring of the Red Army Theater. 
Air raid on Moscow 
This is what it looked like from an airplane. 
Here you can see a fake gallery near the Mossovet building. 
The peak of camouflage work in Moscow occurred in the summer-autumn of 1941, and already in 1942 they decided to abandon it. Most likely, the camouflage was ineffective: judging by German aerial photography, the city had changed little, and the usual contours were easy to read. And they bombed mainly at night.
The first air raid on Moscow took place on July 21, 1941, but, apparently, it was a reconnaissance raid. The massive bombing of the city began the next day, exactly a month after the start of the war. About 200 German aircraft took part in it. The Sovinformburo reported the destruction of 22 bombers during their first attack; the captured Germans estimated losses at 6-7 aircraft.
During the raid, one of the bombs fell on the Vakhtangov Theater on Arbat and almost completely destroyed it. On July 23 the bombing was repeated.
Ruins of the Vakhtangov Theater on Arbat. 
A direct air bomb hit the administrative building No. 4 on Old Square. October 24, 1941. The raid is better known for the fact that during the bombing, political figure A.S. Shcherbakov received a shell shock; Almost all residents of Zaryadye had their windows blown out in their houses, and a girl Luftwaffe pilot was personally awarded by Hitler for completing the task. 
Dynamo Stadium. The stadium itself was camouflaged from enemy air raids and was carefully guarded. In the winter of 1942, young spruce trees were planted on the football field for the purpose of camouflage. From today’s perspective, this attempt to pass off the stadium as a park for German pilots looks naive and not entirely reasonable, but it clearly demonstrates the state’s concern for preserving the capital’s main sports attraction. 
And here is the center of Moscow. The photo was taken on July 24, 1941. 
House on Triumfalnaya, where Interfax and Il Patio are now. 
From July 21, 1941 until mid-1942, when the most intense bombing ended, the city experienced 95 night and 30 day raids. 7,202 aircraft took part in them, but only 388 managed to break through to the capital through fighters, anti-aircraft fire and balloons.
Tamara Konstantinovna Rybakova:
“Our house was located not far from the Vladimir Ilyich plant, and Goznak was very close to our house, and the Germans tried to hit these objects with their bombs, but they failed to bomb them. The bombs were flying somewhere nearby, incl. . (of course, for free) And so - until the next bombing. It was very scary when the siren rang, everyone ran to the bomb shelter. I was upset that my mother was almost never with me in the bomb shelter - she was on the roof (attic) and. was responsible for extinguishing the bombs."
Corner of Tverskaya and present-day Gazetny Lane. The house was either destroyed by a bomb or demolished in the summer of '41. 
Anti-aircraft guns in Gorky Park. 
"Sky Patrol" on Pushkin Square. 
Anti-aircraft machine gun on the roof of the Government House. 
Anti-aircraft crew on Serafimovicha Street. 
From the diaries of the writer Arkady Perventsev:
"August 16
They were not allowed to reach Moscow, although Hitler scattered leaflets indicating that he would bomb Moscow from the 15th to the 16th, and suggested that women and children should go to the front line. In leaflets he wrote that Stalin’s son Yakov Dzhugashvili surrendered to the Germans. This is not confirmed by reality. Yakov Dzhugashvili fought to the last bullet. What happened to him is still unknown. Chapaev's son and Parkhomenko's son fought at the front.
September 3
The Germans use the following tactics when raiding Moscow and secret facilities: the first plane lights a fire, and the rest drop bombs on the fire."
Fighters patrol the Moscow sky. 
Barrage balloons after night watch. 
Barrage balloon on Tverskoy Boulevard. 
Kaluga Square. 
Barrage balloons on Bolshaya Ordynka.
Barrage balloons over Moscow.
Pyatnitskaya street, the building was destroyed as a result of an air strike on July 23, 1941. 
Bolshaya Polyanka Street, house No. 50, direct landmine hit the district committee building. From memories: “A relative told me about this air raid, it found her in the area of the M. Kamenny Bridge. Several bombs fell in his area, two hit the Tretyakov Gallery, one exploded, killing a policeman, the second got stuck in the ceilings and did not go off. Paintings and sculptures by that time were already packed and prepared for evacuation to Novosibirsk".
Downed fascist Ju 88 bomber. Sverdlov Square. 
They hide from bombings in the subway. 
Zoya Vladimirovna Minaeva:
“We first ran to the bomb shelter, and then began to go down to the Paveletskaya metro station, which had just begun to be built, deep into it along wooden stairs - my mother, my sister, and I with a bag of crackers and blankets. There were wooden floorings in the tunnels boards, and we all found a place and lay huddled together. And in the morning we got up again, it was more difficult to get up - my mother had her sister in her arms. It took probably 200 steps or 300 to go up.”
Important events are held here at the station. Ceremonial meeting on November 6, 1941, dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. 
Library on metro station "Kurskaya" (Ring). Of course, the shot is purely staged and propaganda. According to the recollections of Muscovites who survived the war, there was not enough space at the stations during the bombings, and most took refuge in tunnels. At the stations there were, at best, women and children, and only if there was enough space. 
In August 1941, the Germans began dropping not only bombs, but also leaflets from planes in order to undermine the morale of Muscovites. The Soviet authorities responded with an impressive array of propaganda posters.
Muscovites are studying the campaign. 
Book stall on Kuznetsky Most. The photo is taken from Leonid Mitrokhin’s article “Photographing the Russian War” (Our Heritage magazine, 1988, No. 6). Margaret Bourke-White was the only foreign photographer present in Moscow during the German attack. Upon returning to the United States, Margaret Bourke-White published the book “Photographing the Russian War.” 
Similar photo. Apparently it's staged. 
At the TASS newsstand on Tverskaya. 
From memories:
“In the yard we had a lot of fat men and women, and after two months everyone became lean, since a food card system was introduced, beer disappeared from the stalls around which fat-bellied men always crowded. Food cards were of four categories: “workers " - the most significant, "employees" - the worst, "dependent" - the skinniest and, finally, "children" - with coupons for milk and other baby food."
From memories:
“... an order was issued on the mandatory involvement of the entire working population of the city in the construction of trenches, clearing yards of fences and sheds, attics of garbage, etc. - up to three hours a day, and the non-working population - up to eight hours a day. Only pregnant and lactating women, doctors and patients were exempted. For refusing such work, a fine of 100 to 300 rubles (about the average salary) was imposed.”
At the beginning of July, the first detachments of young men and women were sent near Moscow to build defensive structures. On July 4, the State Defense Committee issued a decree "On the voluntary mobilization of workers of Moscow and the Moscow region in the people's militia divisions." By July 6, 12 divisions of the people's militia had been formed, which included 170 thousand people.
Home sports arena country - the Dynamo stadium - turned into a training center for young fighters, into a military training camp. Already on June 27, detachments of OMSBON (Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade for Special Purposes) began to form there, which were then sent behind enemy lines.
Memoirs of a volunteer of the Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade for Special Purpose E. Teleguev:
"In my free time from combat training, I walked along the streets of Moscow. I noticed the respectful, helpful attitude of citizens towards me - a young man in military uniform. Once I went into a store to buy white bread. I stood in line. The saleswoman noticed me - a thin young man in military uniform, asked: “Comrade fighter! What do you want to buy? Somewhat embarrassed by such attention, he replied: “A bun for 7 kopecks.”
The saleswoman and the women standing in line started talking together and began inviting me to buy a bun without queuing. The saleswoman gave me not one, as I asked, but two buns. In response to my attempts to refuse one and pay, she insisted and did not take the money. Both she and the other women told me to gain strength in order to beat the Nazi bandits. He left the store embarrassed, with a burning desire to meet women’s expectations.”
Tverskaya in the Mayakovskaya area. From the memoirs: “The militia went to the front without rifles at that time. Those with rifles are young, except for one, with a bald head. My relative (on my wife’s side) left with the militia just at this time. Without a rifle. He went into an attack on tanks with a stick (there was one rifle between three, the order was to take the weapon in battle). Naturally, he was captured, from where he returned in 1944-45. He worked on a farm for a German in the Baltic States, apparently he was not considered a prisoner of war.” 
Leningradskoye Highway, October 16, 1941 
Defense of Moscow. Muscovites go to the front. Soldiers of one of the working battalions of Moscow at a rest stop. 
Moscow militia. 
The motorcycle battalion is heading to the front. Captain V. Alekseev's unit. 
Novokuznetskaya street. 
In the fall of 1941, on the initiative of G.K. Zhukov, a decision was made on the urgent construction of a roundabout of Moscow in a simplified version. To speed up the work, sections of existing highways were connected into a ring, overpasses were built at the intersection with highways and railways, floating bridges were built across water barriers. This route became one of the main defense belts of the capital and contributed to the successful conduct of the counter-offensive operation and the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow. Now this place is the Moscow Ring Road. 
From memories:
“In October 1941, Moscow became a real front-line city. The front line was half an hour away by car. All freight stations were filled with trains and industrial equipment - there was no time to take them out. Residents were also in a hurry to leave. At the stations and access roads there were boxes with paintings and sculptures , museum valuables. At night, hundreds of huge cucumbers - barrage balloons - rose into the sky."
From memories:
“I remember the infamous day of the Moscow panic on October 16, 1941, when German tanks reached Khimki and artillery cannonade could be heard. It began with the fact that in the morning people, as usual, went to factories and factories, but unexpectedly returned with wages and pood of wheat flour. Production stopped. I went out into the street: people were walking and running along it. There were also people in the backs of trucks, trolleybuses and buses were crowded, some were sitting on their roofs. I went to the center. the same picture: ashes and unburned paper were swirling in the air (documents were being burned). Sometimes there were books lying on the sidewalks. On the Kuznetsky Bridge, near the wall of the house, there was a stack of several volumes of Lenin’s works. As it later became known, it was being prepared for. mining and explosion. The subway stopped for a day for the first time in the history of its existence."
On November 7, 1941, the famous parade was held on Red Square. It was needed not only to demonstrate the military power of the USSR and raise the morale of the Red Army soldiers, but also to stop the panic that arose in the city in October.
Military parade on Red Square. Moscow, November 7, 1941. 
The photo shows military personnel with self-loading rifles Tokarev model 1940 SVT-40 in the “shoulder” position. Bladed monocotyledon bayonets are attached to the rifles. Behind the soldier’s back is a 1936 model backpack, and on his side are small infantry shovels. 
Soviet medium tanks T-34 on parade. 
The photo is interesting because the Red Army soldiers are wearing winter helmets, which were abolished in July 1940, and are armed with old English Lewis machine guns, imported to Russia in 1917. 
From the diary of Muscovite L. Timofeev, a philologist:
"November 7
The parade ended and the night passed peacefully. The parade was obviously impressive: large and medium tanks even walked past me along our boulevard. The weather has been snowy since the morning, a blizzard is blowing, and it’s cold. There were many tanks, and they were new. Dandelion assures that he counted more than 600 pieces."
"Recruits are sent to the front." Marching companies leave for the front directly from Moscow. December 1, 1941. 
Tanks on Tverskaya. 
“Having walked along the once lush green boulevards, we come out to the Nikitsky Gate and see confirmation of the strong defense capability of the Capital. An anti-aircraft battery is located right in front of the monument to the great scientist Timiryazev. Take a look at the stern faces of the soldiers keeping a tense watch to protect Moscow from enemy vultures. They are ready to fight to the last. , but not to let the adversaries get to the heart of the Motherland. They are confident in their victory, and Victory will be theirs!” 
Monument to Timiryazev after the bomb explosion. 
Queue at the Bolshoi Theater branch. December 1941 
Nikitsky Gate Square and Tverskoy Boulevard. 
Muscovites stockpile firewood for the winter. 
"The area of the Prechistensky (in 1941 - Kropotkinsky) Gates. Distribution (and sale in excess of the norm) of firewood" 
The Tver overpass is also a monument to the defense of Moscow. The only surviving pre-war bridge in the Leningrad direction. 
There are barricades on Leningradsky Prospekt. 
Trenches near the Leningradskoye Shosse bridge, outskirts of Moscow. 
Anti-tank barriers at the Kaluga outpost. 
There are also barricades on the Garden Ring, near the Crimean Bridge. 
Original title - "The crew of an anti-tank gun selects and checks the firing sector. Fili area. October 1941." Now here is Rublevskoye Highway. 
Exercises on Chistoprudny Boulevard. 
The Japanese name for Japan, Nihon (日本), consists of two parts - ni (日) and hon (本), both of which are Sinicisms. The first word (日) in modern Chinese is pronounced rì and, as in Japanese, means “sun” (represented in writing by its ideogram). The second word (本) in modern Chinese is pronounced bӗn. Its original meaning is "root", and the ideogram representing it is the ideogram of the tree mù (木) with a dash added at the bottom to indicate the root. From the meaning of “root” the meaning of “origin” developed, and it was in this meaning that it entered the name of Japan Nihon (日本) – “origin of the sun” > “land of the rising sun” (modern Chinese rì bӗn). In ancient Chinese, the word bӗn (本) also had the meaning of “scroll, book.” In modern Chinese it is replaced in this sense by the word shū (書), but remains in it as a counting word for books. The Chinese word bӗn (本) was borrowed into Japanese both in the sense of "root, origin" and "scroll, book", and in the form hon (本) means book in modern Japanese. The same Chinese word bӗn (本) meaning “scroll, book” was also borrowed into the ancient Turkic language, where, after adding the Turkic suffix -ig, it acquired the form *küjnig. The Türks brought this word to Europe, where it from the language of the Danube Turkic-speaking Bulgars in the form knig entered the language of the Slavic-speaking Bulgarians and, through Church Slavonic, spread to other Slavic languages, including Russian.
Thus, the Russian word book and the Japanese word hon "book" have a common root of Chinese origin, and the same root is included as a second component in the Japanese name for Japan Nihon.
I hope everything is clear?)))
