Chekist hook and Kursk arc

During the anniversary of the Battle of Kursk, President Putin again spoke about a single history textbook. In his opinion, there must be a kind of canonical text, and teachers can introduce students to other versions of events. It turns out as in the church: there are sacred texts and their canonical interpretation, and the one who interprets them differently is declared heretic and is persecuted. Apparently, teachers will have to do this: first to state the “correct” version of events, and then bring down righteous anger at the “falsifiers of history”.

Of course, schoolchildren will receive some idea of ​​the position of “falsifiers”, albeit in an extremely perverted form. It is no coincidence that books devoted to criticizing Western bourgeois historiography were popular in the Soviet Union, since at least some information about the works of non-minor historians and thinkers could be drawn from them. Well, those teachers who dare to solidarize with “falsifiers” will very quickly ask the school to get out of the skewer.

But about what the official canonical version in the future school textbook will be in relation to the events of the Great Patriotic War, give a good idea of ​​new documentary films shown these days on the first channel. In the first of them - "and the armor melted" - we are talking about the famous tank battle in the Prokhorovka area on July 12, 1943. In the second - "Operation" novices " - on the activities of the Pskov mission of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Soviet territory occupied by the Germans.

These films can be called documentary only because they are not artistic. There are no “documents” there, but there are only newsreels, already repeated many times in other paintings, and the same gagged “speaking heads” of experts. The main message of both films: the Battle of Kursk was won primarily due to the actions of Soviet intelligence, which in time revealed the intentions of the enemy to carry out the operation "Citadel". It turns out that we owe the victory on the Kursk arc mainly to the senior colleagues of the dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, the fighters of the invisible front. Meanwhile, this statement is hard to believe. After all, Hitler repeatedly transferred the beginning of Operation Citadel from mid -May to early July 1943, and it was very difficult not to notice such a long concentration of German troops, just like the German command knew about the concentration of the main forces of the Red Army in the Kursk ledge. So there is no need to talk about some special role of intelligence here. In addition, it turns out that the most important information related to the Battle of Kursk was received from the British because they read German codes, and the famous Cambridge Five, spying on the allies, regularly conveyed everything to Moscow.

The first film states that intelligence informed the Soviet command in advance that the Germans were going to give a general battle under Prokhorovka, and thanks to this, the 5th Guards Tank Army managed to reproduce the enemy. In fact, the Germans did not plan any battle from Prokhorovka, and on July 12, when the army of General Pavel Rotmistrov inflicted a counterattack, did not advance under the pro -Choking and relatively easily reflected the Soviet offensive. But the commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army about the enemy and the terrain, which was to advance, had a very vague representation, why he suffered very large losses in people and technology. These losses in the film are reported, and rather honestly. It is mentioned that under Prokhorovka more than 10 thousand Red Army soldiers died and that the Rotmistrov army lost 390 tanks (334 of them, I note, irrevocably). But at the same time, nothing says that together with the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Rothmistrov, the 5th Guards Army of General Alexei Zhadov also came under Prokhorovka. This is so that Soviet superiority does not look too impressive - two armies against three SS divisions.

But as for how much the Germans lost under Prokhorovka, no specific numbers are given. It is only alleged that the German losses in people and technology were very high and therefore the 2nd SS Panzer Corps was forced to retreat, so the victory under Prokhorovka remained behind the tankers of the Rotmistrov, which forced the Germans to stop the offensive on the southern facet of the Kursk ledge. However, in fact, the losses of the 2nd SS tank corps for July 12 are known quite accurately - 792 dead and missing, 3 irrevocably lost tank and 55 damaged tanks and assault guns. I think that the ratio of losses in people and technology makes it clear to understand exactly who defeated the battle of Prokhorovka. And the corps of Paul Hausser did not retreat anywhere, and until July 16, along with other formations of Army Group, South continued the offensive.

In this example, it is clear how the canonical version of the history of the Great Patriotic War will be supported. If Soviet losses are shown close to the true, then strongly exaggerated data will be reported about German losses. And vice versa: if the correct German losses are called, then Soviet losses will be very downplayed. And with the help of this method, the defeat can easily be turned into victory.

About small flaws, like the fact that the dictator’s words about the theft of Soviet people for work in Germany are illustrated by personnel, how the German soldier escorts two captive Soviet pilots, and one of the veterans, as if telling about Prokhorov’s battle, turned out to be fought at that time as part of the 1st Panzer Army of General Mikhail Katukov, and it’s not worth talking.

The film "Operation" Sutters "tells of the combat community of the two forces, who, according to the common opinion, are now rule Russia: Chekists and churchmen. The authors of the film claim that the NKVD agents from among the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church were able to get extremely important information about the preparation of the Operation" Citadel ". We are talking about the activities of the Pskov mission, headed Sergius (Voskresensky), as well as Bishop Vasily (Ratmirov), on behalf of which the Chekists led the creation of a powerful anti -Soviet organization "Sutters" from clergy and believers of laity in Kuibyshev.

What exactly is meant is very difficult to understand, since no documents are given (they, they say, are still secret), and expert comments are very slurred. Only a pair of reports from the "novices" from Kuibyshev and the answers to them from Berlin is quoted. If we analyze these reports, it seems that it was not the Chekists who played the game with Abwehr, but on the contrary, Abwehr drove Beria and Abakumov by the nose of the people. For example, Kuibyshev was requested from Berlin how much they could put up combat detachments. Obviously, the Germans wanted to make it clear to the Soviet side that it was planned to take advance through Moscow in the Volga region, which should be supported with the help of an uprising. But in fact, the offensive was planned for Kursk. And the information in Berlin that trains with tanks through Kuibyshev follow Moscow, does not pull on skillful misinformation. From Kuibyshev, the echelons in any case was the road to Moscow as the main railway unit of the European part of the USSR. From there, they could go either to the West, near Smolensk (where, as if, according to legend, it should have been the main Soviet offensive in the 1943 campaign), either north or south.

And with the Pskov mission is generally incomprehensible. Even if Metropolitan Sergius was the current Soviet intelligence officer, how could he find out something about the "citadel"? With the then commander of the Army Group "North" by Field Marshal Georg von Kühler, he seemed to not meet. And even if he met, it was doubtful that the German field marshal suddenly began to tell the Russian metropolitan about an important military secret. The fact that both Sergius (Voskresensky) and Vasily (Ratmirov) gave a subscription about the work at the NKVD, did not cause any doubt. But after all, the German intelligence agencies knew very well that the few metropolitans who survived in the USSR and the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church are under a dense Chekist cap. And they would hardly believe that Bishop Vasily could lead a real underground organization. But such a subscription could not interfere with the Germans to cooperate with the Germans. The Sex of the NKVD was, for example, the notorious Bronislav Kaminsky, the creator of the anti -communist "Lokot Republic", and some other prominent collaborators.

But with the head of the Pskov mission, Metropolitan Sergius, the exarch of the whole Baltic states, the question is much more complicated. Probably, in the first one and a half years of the war, he believed that Germany would win the war and the Russian Orthodox Church would somehow coexist with the Nazis. In any case, his denunciations of Stalin, Communists and priests of the Moscow Patriarchate, cooperating with the godless regime, seem quite sincere. At the same time, the mission, under the leadership of Sergius, did truly good deeds - saved from the starvation of prisoners of war, orphans and homeless people. It is possible that sometimes monks in Pskov hid partisans in monastery caves, but they could not do it as Soviet agents, but simply from Christian philanthropy, saving people pursued by enemies. But about the fact that with the permission of the metropolitan, Soviet intelligence officers threw an antenna of the radio station to the bell tower of the Pskov monastery, experts in the film report with reference to such a “reliable” source, as they say ”.

The tragic end of Sergius, killed on the way to Riga on April 29, 1944, is interpreted in the film unambiguously. This is the revenge of the Nazis to the Metropolitan for working for Soviet intelligence and for refusing to anathemat the newly elected Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky), his big friend. Here we must make a reservation that from Sergius (Voskresensky) they only demanded to get out of canonical submission to the Moscow Patriarchate, and it was extremely difficult to do this to the Metropolitan, since his mission in this case would be a self -proclaimed, not recognized by the church organization. He limited himself to condemning the election of a new patriarch committed with the blessing of Stalin.

But in any case, the head of the Pskov mission was useful to the Germans at least for propaganda purposes - due to its influence on the Orthodox population of the occupied territories and the opportunity to use it against the Moscow Patriarch. In any case, his death did not give anything to the Germans, but it was clearly the benefit of the Stalinist church policy, since it eliminated the last metropolitan, not controlled by Soviet state security authorities. The Germans, on the other hand, did not receive any benefit from the death of Sergius (Voskresensky), since they did not have any equivalent figure to replace it. On the contrary, the successor of Sergius, the archbishop of Kovensky Daniel (Yuzwyuk), unlike Sergius, according to the conclusion of the occupation authorities, was "fundamentally against the active activity of the Church in the struggle against Bolshevism." It was also noted that Daniel Star and political interest for Germany is not represented.

It is known that the Metropolitan was killed by people in German military uniform. But this just speaks against the version of the German trace. If the murders were committed by the German special services, they would rather change their people into civilian people to blame the Soviet partisans or saboteurs. But the partisans, and even more so specially sent from Moscow, the terrorists were direct sense to act in German form, so that the population in the Germans saw the killers of the people popular among the people.

Well, the Chekists are not the first to dump their crimes on others. The Riga priest Nikolai Trubetskoy recalled that he met in the imprisonment of the Soviet partisan (or terrorist), who admitted to him that he participated in the murder of Sergius. Almost all the monks and priests who were part of the Pskov mission, after the arrival of the Red Army, was waiting for the Gulag, where they were sent on charges of collaboration. And it is unlikely that this was done only in order to more thoroughly consumer Soviet intelligence officers.