Many books and articles have been written about the history of the Great Patriotic War, films have been made, both fictional and documentary. It would seem that there should be no white spots in it. Nevertheless, there are facts that most of our citizens do not even suspect, since at one time they were hushed up or not widely publicized. Here are some of them.
Stalin removed from the post of foreign minister to please Hitler
USSR Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov was an experienced diplomat. There were no complaints about him. However, in April 1939, Stalin unexpectedly dismissed him from a responsible post, making formal claims, in particular, in too close contacts with foreigners, who were already assigned to him by office. This was explained by the fact that the Soviet Union was soon to sign a peace treaty with Germany. Litvinov was Jewish by nationality, and Hitler hated the representatives of the Jewish race. In order not to anger the Fuhrer and leave him in the allies, the Soviet leader decided to change the minister. By the way, Litvinov was not subjected to repression.
Hitler congratulated Stalin on his 60th birthday
Later they tried not to remember this, but in the pre-war years the USSR and Germany tried in every possible way to demonstrate their "friendly" relations. So, in the issue of the newspaper "Pravda" on December 21, 1939, a congratulation to Stalin in connection with his sixtieth birthday from Adolf Hitler was published! No one could have foreseen that in just a year and a half the "friends" would turn into sworn enemies.
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At the beginning of the war, Stalin thought he would be arrested
When, on the morning of June 22, 1941, several members of the Politburo arrived at Stalin's "nearby dacha" to report to him that Nazi Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, it became clear from the leader's reaction: he decided that they had come … to arrest him!
Himself a big fan of unexpected arrests in the "higher echelons", Iosif Vissarionovich, apparently, did not exclude the possibility that one day they would come for him. And there were reasons for this: after all, he was counting on the non-aggression pact signed earlier by Molotov and Ribbentrop, and to some extent it was his fault that the country was not ready for a serious war.
German diplomats were the last to know about the war
Employees of the German embassy in Moscow learned that war had started between Germany and the USSR only from a message broadcast on Soviet radio. For some reason, in their homeland, no one bothered not only to warn, but also simply to inform diplomatic workers about the latest events. When they heard the words of the Soviet announcer, it left them in a state of shock.
The Germans did not bomb Lipetsk
During the war, fascist aircraft were forbidden to bomb the Soviet city of Lipetsk. And the thing is that there was a secret aviation school in which German pilots were trained in the late 1920s. Many of them had children born out of wedlock from local women. Knowing this, Hitler gave the order not to drop bombs on the city …
Soviet soldiers were supposed to wear armor
We are accustomed to the fact that armor was worn by medieval knights. But during the Great Patriotic War, there was an attempt to apply them during the battles. The armor was made for the infantry and artillerymen of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps. But they were allowed into business only once, in 1943. The armor was so heavy that the soldiers immediately threw them right on the battlefield.
Tractors were used as tanks to intimidate the Germans
For the defense of Stalingrad, it was decided to use tanks of the NI series. In fact, they were ordinary
tractors, sheathed with armor and equipped with machine guns. In battle, these bulky, clumsy machines were ineffective, but their huge size and the clang of armor made the fascists fearful
It was pointless to take the Reichstag
Everyone knows that the war was practically over when Soviet soldiers took the Reichstag and hoisted the banner of Victory on it. But in fact, the Reichstag building did not play any strategic role, only a symbolic one. It once sat the German parliament, which was dispersed by Hitler after coming to power. And all the Nazi bosses, headed by Hitler, sat in the Reich Chancellery.
Why was the Soviet army so eager to seize the boarded-up Reichstag building? Yes, just on November 7, 1944, on the next anniversary of the October Revolution, Stalin made a festive speech in which there were the following words: "Soon our banner will fly over the Reichstag." When the Red Army reached Berlin, the commanders rushed to fulfill the leader's wish and gave the order to take the Reichstag …
Irina Shlionskaya
