Of course, this is not some shocking information that has just been found out, but nevertheless, many might not know about it, and I learned something for the first time.
Well, for example, the fact that Hitler attacked Poland on August 25, 1939, and not at all 1939-01-09. Rather, he attacked Poland for the FIRST TIME - 25 AUGUST, changed his mind when the soldiers had already begun to cross the border, and some of the important passes were captured, and gave STOP ORDER … and then attacked again - on September 1.
On October 30, 1939, a submarine U-56, Type IIC, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Wilhelm Zahn west of the Orkney Islands, discovered the British battleships Nelson, Rodney and the battle cruiser Hood escorting ten destroyers. Tsang, skillfully maneuvering, managed to overcome the barrier of the destroyers and take a position for the attack of "Nelson".
At the command of the captain, three torpedoes emerged from the bows and soon reached the battleship. The submarine heard them hitting the Nelson's side, but the fuses did not work and the torpedoes did not explode.
Later it became known that at the time of the attack, the head of the Admiralty, the future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was aboard the Nelson, and it is not known how the course of history would have turned if that day the contact-non-contact fuses of the U-56 torpedoes had worked …
In the section by Hitler of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Poland took part, having received its piece - Gatalsky Teshin volost.
Promotional video:
In the partition of Poland, in addition to the Reich and the USSR, Slovakia and Lithuania also participated, which returned to itself occupied in 1920. the Poles of Vilnius, the current capital of Lithuania. - It is more correct to say this: in 1920. The Poles seized Vilnius from the Lithuanians and also the territories belonging to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, and in 1939. The USSR regained the territories of ZU and ZA, and also took Vilnius for itself … and gave it back to the Lithuanians.
The Polish government in exile declared war on the USSR in December 1939, and on July 30, 1941, a “peace treaty” was signed between the “emigrants” and the USSR. It was one of the shortest Russian-Polish wars.
After the victory in 1945, Stalin returned to Poland part of the previously annexed territories and "made up for the rest" at the expense of defeated Germany. But modern Poles have forgotten about this gift and only remember September 17, 1939.
One of the main reasons for the conflict between Poland and the Reich: the Poles did not give the go-ahead for the free city of Danzig (95% of the German population), (not part of Poland!) To become part of the Reich.
The Soviet Union destroyed more Hitlerite troops at Stalingrad than the Americans in the entire Second World War.
The war with Germany for the USSR officially ended on January 25, 1955.
From the first day of the war until the end of September 1941, our troops lost 430,578 people killed, died from wounds and diseases, died as a result of accidents, 1699,099 people were missing and taken prisoner. In October December 1941, respectively, 371 613 and 636 383 people
From June 22 to the end of September, for every killed Soviet serviceman, there were almost 4 missing or surrendered prisoners; in the last three months of 1941, this ratio decreased to 1 to 1.7. For comparison, during a fleeting military campaign, the French army lost 84 thousand killed and 1547 thousand prisoners. Thus, for one killed French soldier, there were more than 18 surrendered prisoners.
Denmark, the "victim" of German aggression, began the war with the fact that, at the request of the Reich, even before its attack, it mined the Great Belt and Little Belt straits to prevent the penetration of the British fleet into the Baltic Sea.
The last defenders of the Reich Chancellery were the French SS from the Shareman division
On 1941-22-06. the human potential of the Reich, its satellites (without Italy) and the occupied countries - quantitatively exceeded the USSR by more than 2 times.
The captured Soviet T-35 tank as an exhibit of the Berlin tank range was thrown by the Germans into battle in May 1945 … and a few minutes later was hit by a Soviet soldier from a captured faustpatron.
The basis of the tank forces of the USSR in the war with Japan in 1945. were not T-34s, but American Shermans.
From the first days of the war, the USSR's ally was the independent and now defunct state of the Tannu-Tuva People's Republic.
The only living supreme commander in chief of the armed forces of the state in World War II and the only living person awarded the Order of Victory is the King of Romania - Mihai.
The best assault rifle of World War II was not recognized as the PPSh, but the Sudaev submachine gun (PPS).
Gil-Rodionov is one of the few who managed to stay from 41 to 43 years old - lieutenant colonel of the Red Army, then after capture - the commander of a large formation of SS troops (1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina"), and then go to the promotion becoming colonel of the Red Army and lead the 1st Anti-Fascist Partisan Brigade.
On May 4, the 1st Anti-Fascist Partisan Brigade went to break through the encirclement. Of the 1413 soldiers of the brigade, 1026 people were killed. In the area of the Zaborovka village, Gil-Rodionov was wounded in the chest by a mine fragment. Orderly Sergei Doroshenko carried him out of the battlefield. On horseback and on a stretcher, the wounded brigade commander was taken to the Golubinsky forest near the Nakol farm in the Glubokoe district. On May 14, 1944, Vladimir Vladimirovich Gil died and was buried in a mass grave south of the Nakol farm.
T-34 on 1941-22-06 had an average of 30-40 hours of engine life, and an average of 12 armor-piercing shells - in total, incl. and in warehouses. 90% of the tanks of the Red Army on 22.06.41. had armor from 6 to 22 millimeters.
Rocket artillery - in fact, the first appeared among the Germans. "Katyusha" appeared only a month later.
On April 28, 1944, at the Slapton Sands coastal training ground in southern England, during a dress rehearsal for the upcoming landing in Normandy (involving fifteen thousand soldiers, hundreds of vehicles and many transport ships), 946 American soldiers and officers were killed and 200 injured.
In 1974, Hiroo Onoda surrendered in the Philippines, the last soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army, who hid in the jungle and refused to surrender for 29 years after the end of World War II
In the jungle, a Japanese search party stumbled upon him, but the junior lieutenant did not believe her stories. Then, in Tokyo, his immediate commander was found, who in the form of a no longer existing army arrived in Lubang in 1974 and ordered Onoda to cease hostilities.
Lieutenant Onoda emerged from the jungle and surrendered to the Philippine authorities on March 10, 1974, 29 years later
after the end of the war, in full uniform, having in his hands a serviceable Arisaka type 99 rifle, 500 rounds for it, several hand grenades and a samurai sword. Bowing ceremoniously to the open-mouthed police officers, he carefully laid the old rifle on the ground. “I am Junior Lieutenant Hiro Onoda. I obey the order of my boss, who ordered me to surrender.”…
In FEBRUARY 1942, Marshal Zhukov wrote that the partisans of Belarus and Ukraine continued to stumble across the woods at weapons depots guarded by lonely Soviet soldiers. “They were put on guard by the commanders one day before the start of the war or a week after it started - at the end of June. Then they were forgotten, but they did not leave their posts, waiting for the guard or the head of the guard. One of these sentries had to be wounded in the shoulder, otherwise he would not allow people to approach the warehouse."
In the summer of 1943, Captain Johann Westman wrote in his diary in the Brest Fortress: “Sometimes at night we are fired upon by the Russians who are hiding in the casemates of the fortress. They say there are no more than 5 of them, but we cannot find them. How do they manage to live there for two years without water and drink? I do not know that.
Desertion in the winter of 1944/45 took on a fairly significant size in the American army. By January 1945, the military police had arrested about 40,000 (!) Deserters. According to rough estimates, about 17,000 American deserters were "hiding" in Paris alone.
Charles Whiting, The other battle of the bulge: Operation Nordwind; Gloucestershire, Spellmount, 2007, p. 156-157