Most of today's schoolchildren know when the Great Patriotic War began. They also know the date of the attack on Poland: 1939, September 1. It turns out that nothing special happened in our country for a year and a half between these two events, people just went to work, met sunrises over the Moscow River, sang Komsomol songs, well, maybe sometimes they even allowed themselves to dance tango and foxtrots. Such a nostalgic idyll.
In fact, the picture created by hundreds of films, apparently, is somewhat different from the realities of that time. All the people of the Soviet Union worked, and not in the same way as they do now. Then there were no image makers, office managers and merchandisers, only specific cases related to the production of items necessary for the country were considered work. Mainly weapons. This situation existed for more than one year, and when the Great Patriotic War began, it just became even harder.
On that Sunday morning, when the German troops attacked our borders, something happened that was inevitable,but it didn't happen as expected. They did not thunder with fire, did not flash with steel, fighting vehicles, going on a furious campaign. Huge stocks of weapons, food, medicine, fuel and other necessary military supplies were destroyed or captured by the advancing Germans. Aircraft concentrated on airfields moved close to the borders were burned to the ground.
To the question: “When did the Great Patriotic War start?” - it would be more correct to answer: "July 3". I. V. Stalin called her that during his radio address to the Soviet people, "brothers and sisters." However, this term was also mentioned in the Pravda newspaper on the second and third days after the attack, but then it was not yet taken seriously, it was a direct analogy with the First World War and the Napoleonic Wars.
Many connoisseurs of the history of the Great Patriotic War undeservedly pay little attention to its initial period, characterized as the largest military disaster in the history of mankind. The number of irretrievable losses and those taken prisoner numbered in the millions, vast territories fell into the hands of the invaders, along with the population living on them and the industrial potential, which had to be hastily disabled or evacuated.
Nazi hordes were able to reach the Volga, it took them a little over a year. During World War I, Austro-Hungarian and German troops did not penetrate deep into the "backward and bastard" Russianempire beyond the Carpathians.
From the moment when the Great Patriotic War began, until the liberation of the entire Soviet land, about three years passed, filled with grief, blood and death. More than a million citizens who were captured and found themselves in occupation went over to the side of the invaders, of which divisions and armies were formed that became part of the Wehrmacht. There was no question of anything like this during the First World War.
Due to the huge human and material losses, the USSR after the Great Patriotic War experienced enormous difficulties, expressed in the famine of 1947, the general impoverishment of the population and devastation, the consequences of which are partly felt now.
