Operational reports, reports from the front, named award lists: rare documents of the war years are now available not only to historians. You can familiarize yourself with all the materials in person and you do not have to leave the house for this.
Employees of the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense have digitized dozens of yellowed pages dedicated to the fateful battle of the Great Patriotic War. The first days of the fierce defense of Moscow in figures and facts. Electronic copies from today have become available in a new multimedia section on the website of the military department.
Record of combat orders and orders of a member of the Military Council of the Moscow Military District, Divisional Commissar Telegin: “The enemy tanks and motorized infantry have occupied Yukhnov and are moving towards Medyna. An order was given to raise the alarm at the Podolsk infantry and artillery schools. "
Just most of all the declassified evidence concerns the battles with the participation of Podolsk cadets on the front line, which in the fall of 1941 ran just 100 kilometers from the capital. Right from the training bench, they had to go to the front. The task is to stop the onslaught of Hitler's troops at any cost: for this, a consolidated regiment was assembled from 3.5 thousand yesterday's boys.
“They moved into position and within 12 days they managed to contain the enemy, just this time it took the command of the Red Army in order to pull up the necessary forces to further deter the enemy's offensive,” notes Victoria Kayaeva, chief documentary officer of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The fierce onslaught of the enemy had to be repelled by the Podolsk cadets who had not yet been fired at in battle. The trench truth about the cost of that heroic defense of the capital in the reports of the commanders.
“The cadets are not provided with warm uniforms: there are no gloves, no hats, they were in caps, 60% of them have torn shoes, they do not eat for two days, and they received hot food 4-5 times during their time in defense, and some of them only 2-3 times, "says Victoria Kiyaeva.
Despite the numerical advantage and technical superiority of the enemy, the cadets from Podolsk, having suffered heavy losses, still survived. The legendary resilience of the defenders of Moscow amazed the German officers as well. Here is an excerpt from the daily report of Army Group Center: "The heaviest fighting took place in the area of the Ilyinskoye settlement, where the enemy (cadets of military schools) fiercely defended in modern bunkers with armored caps."
Operational maps are of particular interest. On worn sheets in pencil marks, the entire Moscow Region theater of military operations in October 1941. And this is just a small part of what is now stored in the new multimedia section of the Department of Defense.