Diocletian baths. Baths of Diocletian in Rome - a huge complex for water procedures

In the late 1920s and 1930s, Germany did not have to strain its strength, as we did, creating new industries, building factories and blast furnaces, opening hundreds of institutes. She occupied the industrial countries and forced them to work for herself.

Just one fact: the weapons that Germany captured in the defeated countries were enough to form 200 divisions. No, this is not a mistake: 200 divisions. We have in western districts there were 170 divisions. It took the USSR several five-year plans to provide them with weapons. In France, after its defeat, the Germans immediately seized up to 5,000 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 3,000 aircraft, and 5,000 locomotives. In Belgium, they appropriated half of the rolling stock for the needs of their economy and war, etc.

But the main thing, of course, is not seized weapons, not trophies.

In March 1939, Czechoslovakia, which had a combat-ready army and a developed industry, became a special prize for Germany. Back in 1938, during the Munich agreement, according to which Czechoslovakia undertook to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany, Hitler warned the British Prime Minister N. Chamberlain and the French head of government E. Deladier that, following the Sudetenland, all of Czechoslovakia would soon be occupied. But Deladier and Chamberlain did not lift a finger to protect the interests of this country. It must be admitted that the Czechoslovak leaders, having a modern army for those times, were able to offer powerful resistance to Germany, but slavishly handed over their country to the mercy of Hitler. And Czechoslovakia was a tasty morsel for preparing for a future war. The weight of the country in the world arms market of those years was 40%. In this small country, 130,000 rifles, 200 guns, and about 5,000 different machine guns were produced every month ... Only at the expense of Czechoslovakia, the German Air Force increased by 72%, receiving 1,582 aircraft. Tank units of Germany added 486 tanks produced at Czechoslovak plants to their 720. As a result, Hitler, at the expense of Czechoslovakia alone, was able to arm and equip 50 divisions. In addition, fascist Germany received in addition the gold reserves (80 tons) of this country, as well as the people who meekly worked for the criminal Nazi regime all the years of the war. A particularly large contribution to the production of guns, trucks, tanks was made by the factories of the well-known Skoda company. On Czech tanks since the beginning of the war German soldiers fought in Poland, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and then in the USSR ...

Ribbentrop, Chamberlain and Hitler during negotiations in Munich, where the fate of Czechoslovakia was decided

Only from 1933 to 1939, during the six years that Hitler was in power, the size of the German army increased 40 times. Despite the Versailles agreements, the leaders of Great Britain and France stubbornly did not notice this ... And the strengthening of the military-technical potential of Germany after the swift victories of the Wehrmacht in 1939-1940. the economies of France, Holland, Belgium, Norway also contributed... Even neutral Sweden and Switzerland supplied the German military industry with iron ore for steel production and precision instruments... Spain supplied a significant amount of oil and petroleum products... The industry of almost all of Europe worked for the military machine of Hitler, who 30 June 1941 stated that he viewed the war with the USSR as a joint European war against Russia.

W. Churchill wrote, for example, about Czechoslovakia after the war: “There is no doubt that due to the fall of Czechoslovakia we lost forces equal to approximately 35 divisions. In addition, the Skoda factories, the second most important arsenal, fell into the hands of the enemy. Central Europe, which between August 1938 and September 1939 produced almost as much product as all British factories produced during the same time.

This arsenal, far from being the only one in Europe, worked for the Nazi army until the end of 1944. And how it worked! Every fifth tank delivered to the Wehrmacht troops in the first half of 1941 was manufactured at the Skoda factories.

Czech enterprises, according to German - and one must think, accurate! - data, constantly increased military production. In 1944, for example, they shipped 300,000 rifles, 3,000 machine guns, 625,000 artillery shells, and 100 self-propelled artillery pieces to Germany every month. In addition, tanks, tank guns, Me-109 aircraft, aircraft engines, etc.

In Poland, 264 large, 9 thousand medium and 76 thousand small enterprises worked for Germany.

Denmark covered the needs of the German civilian population in butter by 10 percent, in meat by 20 percent, and in fresh fish by 90 percent. And, of course, the Danish industry fulfilled all German orders.

France (41 million people), led by Laval's collaborationist government, and French entrepreneurs willingly cooperated with the Germans and were their main supplier. By the beginning of the war with the USSR, 1.6 million people were employed in the French defense industry, which worked for the Wehrmacht. According to incomplete German data, by January 1944 they supplied Germany with about 4,000 aircraft, about 10,000 aircraft engines, and 52,000 trucks. The entire locomotive industry and 95 percent of the machine tool industry worked only for Germany.

Belgium and Holland supplied the Germans with coal, pig iron, iron, manganese, zinc, etc.

The most interesting thing is that all the occupied countries, controlled by collaborators, did not require payment in cash. They were promised to be paid after the victorious - for the Germans - end of the war. They all worked for Hitler for free.

In addition, these countries also helped Germany by taking on the costs of maintaining the German occupation troops. France, for example, from the summer of 1940, allocated 20 million German marks daily, and from the autumn of 1942, 25 million each. These funds were enough not only to provide the German troops with everything they needed, but also to prepare and wage war against THE USSR. In total, European countries "donated" Germany for these purposes more than 80 billion marks (of which France - 35 billion).

And what about the neutral countries - Sweden and Switzerland? And they worked for Germany. The Swedes supplied bearings, iron ore, steel, rare earth elements. They actually fed the German military-industrial complex until the end of 1944. The rapid advance of the Germans on Leningrad was due, in particular, to "lock up" our navy and secure the supply of Swedish steel and ore. Through the Swedish "neutral" ports for Germany, there were significant deliveries from Latin America. Our military intelligence reported, for example, that from January to October 1942, more than 6 million tons of various cargoes, mainly strategic raw materials, were imported into Germany through Swedish ports. Unlike the occupied countries, Sweden made good money in the war. How many? Such data has not yet been published. The Swedes have something to be ashamed of. Like the Swiss. The latter supplied precision instruments, and Swiss banks were used to pay for badly needed purchases in Latin America.

It would be interesting to compare in detail what Germany received from the occupied, allied and neutral countries of Europe (and, as it turned out, mostly for free) with the amount of American aid to the Soviet Union (we paid for it). It turns out that there is neither a general figure for European assistance to Hitler, nor for individual countries. Only fragmentary data. For the Germans, even judging by one Skoda, this help was extremely important. As for us, for example, the supply of American "Studebakers" after the Battle of Stalingrad, which made the Red Army mobile and maneuverable. But, I repeat, historians do not have complete data on Germany's assistance. And she, judging by the available data, was huge. The four-volume book "World Wars of the 20th Century" gives the following figures: after the capture of Europe from Germany, the industrial potential doubled, and the agricultural potential tripled.

Europe helped Hitler not only with its arsenals. A number of Catholic bishops were quick to call the invasion of the USSR a "European crusade." 5 million soldiers broke into our territory in the summer of 1941. 900 thousand of them are not Germans, but their allies. In addition to Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, and Finland declared war on us. Spain and Denmark did not declare war, but they sent their soldiers. The Bulgarians did not fight with us, but put forward 12 divisions against the Yugoslav and Greek partisans, and thus made it possible for the Germans to transport part of their troops from the Balkans to the Eastern Front.

It was in the summer of 1941 that 900,000 Europeans opposed us. In general, during the war, this figure increased to 2 million people. In our captivity were Czechs (70 thousand), Poles (60 thousand), French (23 thousand) and further down the line Belgians, Luxembourgers and ... even neutral Swedes.

This is a special topic or a special conversation, why the Europeans were so willing to help Hitler in the war against the USSR. Anti-communism undoubtedly played a significant role. But not the only one and, perhaps, not the main one. Perhaps this topic should be returned separately.

And finally, European countries helped Germany to eliminate the ever-increasing shortage of its labor force due to the conscription of Germans in the army. According to incomplete data, 875.9 thousand workers were delivered from France to German factories, from Belgium and Holland - half a million each, from Norway - 300 thousand, from Denmark - 70 thousand. This made it possible for Germany to mobilize almost a quarter of its population, and they, like soldiers, in all respects were head and shoulders above their allies - Italians, Romanians or Slovaks.

All this taken together ensured a significant superiority of Germany at the initial stage of the war, and then made it possible for her to hold out until May 1945.

But what about the resistance movement? A number of Russian authors believe that its role and significance in the occupied industrial countries Western Europe extremely bloated. To some extent, this is understandable: it was important to emphasize in those years that we were not alone in the struggle. V. Kozhinov, for example, cites the following figures: almost 300 thousand members of the Resistance died in Yugoslavia, 20 thousand in France, whose population was 2.5 times larger, and about 50 thousand French died in the ranks of the German army. Isn't the comparison of these losses saying nothing? Is it by chance that the Germans kept 10 divisions in Yugoslavia? Of course, the heroism of the French participants in the Resistance is undeniable and the memory of him is holy. But try to put on one side of the scale all the damage that they inflicted on the Nazis, and on the other - all the real help that the European countries obligingly provided to Germany. Which bowl will overwhelm?

No, the question should be put more broadly, answered historians. Take the first two weeks of the war in France and the USSR. Already on the fifth day of the war, a real war that began on May 10, 1940, and not what the Germans called "sit-down", the Americans and the British - "strange", when there was simply no fighting, the new French Prime Minister Reine called Churchill and said, "We have failed." Churchill immediately flew to Paris, hoping to lift the spirit of the allied government. But he didn't succeed. Did the French troops try to get out of the encirclement, did they have their own Brest fortress, their own Smolensk battle? His heroic battles surrounded near Vyazma? Did the Parisians come out to dig anti-tank ditches? Has anyone called them to action? Offered a wrestling program? No, the leadership - both civilian and military - led France to become a collaborator and work for Germany throughout the war. The country has lost its honor. For the most part, the French fled to the south and west, they did not want to fight, the main thing was to save their wallets. De Gaulle called out to them from London, but only hundreds of people responded.

It is believed that on June 22, 1941, Germany attacked Soviet Union. In fact, this is not entirely true, several countries started a war against the USSR, among them:

Romania - about 200 thousand soldiers,
Slovakia - 90 thousand soldiers,
Finland - about 450 thousand soldiers and officers,
Hungary - about 500 thousand people,
Italy - 200 thousand people,
Croatia as part of the security division

And these are only those countries that have officially declared war on the Soviet Union. According to various sources, this crusade"against the USSR, from one and a half to two and a half million volunteers who fought in parts of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS took part.

These were representatives of such countries as: Holland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg. As in the Patriotic War of 1812, the whole of Europe took up arms against Russia.

The famous American historian George G. Stein in his book "Waffen SS" describes the national composition of these units:

Dutch - 50 thousand people, Belgians - 20 thousand people, French - 20 thousand people, Danes and Norwegians - 6 thousand people each, 1200 people from Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and others European countries.

Of the European SS volunteers, one of the best divisions of the Reich, the Viking, consisted. The name symbolized that representatives of the Aryan peoples of Nordic blood were gathered in its ranks.

So on March 10, 1942, the Norwegian Legion was transferred to the Leningrad Front, he helped keep the city in the blockade ring until the spring of 1943. But due to heavy losses, most of the legionnaires refused to renew the contract, and were replaced by the Latvian SS legion on the orders of Himmler.

The blockade of Leningrad can generally be considered a pan-European enterprise. In addition to the Norwegians, the Netherlands Legion, a Belgian battalion, operated near Volkhov. Spanish volunteers from the Blue Division fought here, Finnish and Swedish troops besieged Leningrad from the north, Italian sailors were preparing for battles on Ladoga.

The German historian Müller-Hillebrandt, who during the war was a major general in the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, recalls that many Frenchmen who the Germans refused to enlist in their armed forces were greatly offended.

It all started with the fact that Heinrich Himmler had a conflict with the leadership of the Wehrmacht due to the fact that he tried to take the best for his SS units. The best in terms of physical fitness, health, intellectual state. He really selected the guards, and the Wehrmacht got, as his leadership considered, the second grade, so to speak.

After the army generals "complained" to Hitler, a limit was set for Himmler to call up Germans to the guard units. But Himmler quickly found a way out, he began to recruit representatives of the so-called Volksdeutsch, Germans living outside Germany, into his units. It could be Germans from Holland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and anywhere.

“I swear to you, Adolf Hitler, as a leader, to be loyal and brave. I vow to obey you and the chief appointed by you until death. And God help me.” This is a fragment of the oath of European volunteers of the Waffen SS upon entry into service.

Unlike the oath that the Germans took, the text did not mention Hitler as Chancellor of the Reich, this is a kind of psychological trick that this is not a service in the ranks of the German occupiers, but in the pan-European parts of the SS.

Among the Alpine riflemen, there were also not only Germans, there were twelve mountain rifle divisions in total, of which two were Austrian, one was from Yugoslav Germans, one was from Bosnian Muslims, another consisted of Albanians, and another included both Austrians and Norwegians. So we can assume that every second German mountain shooter was born outside the borders of the Third Reich in 1937.

Such a large number of volunteers from the European countries captured by Hitler is explained by many reasons, this is the racial theory that was fashionable in Europe at that time and the bright successes of the National Socialist ideology, and simply the desire to profit.

According to Himmler's plans, the racially inferior peoples of the USSR were to be thrown back beyond the Urals, and their numbers were reduced several times. Aryans of Nordic blood were to settle in the occupied territories of the eastern lands.

The Second World War is unique of all wars, never before in history have there been similar cases of mass transition of citizens of the conquered countries to the service of the invaders. Almost a large part of the population voluntarily became under the Nazi banners.

Not only the armed formations of the European Waffen SS and foreign units of the Wehrmacht took part in the war against the USSR, the entire industry of Europe also worked for the military machine of the Third Reich. In the early years of the war, almost every second shell was cast from Swedish ore.

In the summer of 1941, every fourth tank in the German army was Czech or French. Germany won its first victories largely thanks to Scandinavian iron and Swiss optics for sights.

Few people know that the most powerful tank of the Wehrmacht during the attack on the USSR was the French B2. Half of the super-heavy guns that shelled Leningrad and Sevastopol were produced in France and the Czech Republic.

In 1938, in Munich, representatives of England and France treacherously gave Hitler Czechoslovakia. If not for this collusion, Germany, for economic reasons, might not have been able to start a full-scale war.

The Czech defense industry was at that time one of the largest in Europe. From its factories, the Reich received more than one and a half million rifles and pistols, about 4 thousand guns and mortars, over 6600 tanks and self-propelled guns.

Of particular importance for Germany was the supply of raw materials. American oil companies, through their subsidiaries in Latin America, handed Hitler gasoline to the tune of several tens of millions of dollars. Rockefeller's Standard Oil supplied the Third Reich with fuel, lubricants and fuel worth $20 million.

Henry Ford, a big admirer of Hitler, had branches of his enterprises in Germany, which, until the very end of the war, supplied the Germans with very good trucks, only about 40 thousand units. For America, war has become good business.

It is worth noting that in the occupied territory of the USSR, the Germans, out of 32 thousand enterprises, were able to launch only two hundred. They gave products three times less than a country like Poland.

“If we see that Germany is winning, we must help Russia. And if Russia wins, we must help Germany. And let them kill each other in this way as much as possible. All this is for the good of America.” On June 24, 1941, future US President Harry Truman made this statement to the New York Times.

In 2000, in connection with its use of slave labor, Nestle paid more than $14.5 million to the appropriate fund to settle the claims of victims of its actions and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as Jewish organizations. The firm acknowledged that in 1947 it acquired a company that used forced labor during the war years, and also stated: “There is no doubt or it can be assumed that some corporations from the Nestle group operating in countries controlled by the National Socialist (Nazi) regime, exploited forced laborers. Nestle in Switzerland in 1939 provided cash assistance to the Nazi Party, winning a lucrative contract to supply chocolate to the needs of the entire German army during World War II.

Allianz

Allianz is considered the twelfth largest financial services company in the world. It is not surprising that, having been founded in 1890 in Germany, it was the largest insurer in it when the Nazis came to power. As such, she quickly became involved with the Nazi regime. Its leader, Kurt Schmitt, was also Hitler's minister of economics, and the company provided insurance for Auschwitz facilities and personnel. Its CEO is responsible for the practice of paying insurance compensation for Jewish property destroyed as a result of Kristallnacht to the Nazi state instead of the eligible beneficiaries. In addition, the company worked closely with the Nazi state to track the life insurance policies of German Jews sent to the death camps, and during the war it insured property taken from the same Jewish population for the benefit of the Nazis.

Novartis

Although Bayer is infamous for having started out as a division of the manufacturer of Zyklon B gas, which was used by the Nazis in gas chambers, it is not the only pharmaceutical company with skeletons in the closet. Swiss chemical companies Ciba and Sandoz merged to form Novartis, best known for its drug Ritalin. In 1933, the Berlin branch of Ciba terminated all Jewish members of its board of directors and replaced them with more "acceptable" Aryan cadres; in the meantime, Sandoz was busy with a similar activity for its chairman. During the war, companies produced dyes, drugs, and chemicals for the Nazis. Novartis frankly admitted its guilt and tried to make amends in a way typical of other accomplice companies - by donating $ 15 million to the Swiss Nazi Compensation Fund.

BMW admitted to using 30,000 unskilled forced laborers during the war. These POWs, forced laborers and concentration camp inmates produced engines for the Luftwaffe and thus were forced to help the regime defend themselves against those who were trying to save them. During the war, BMW concentrated exclusively on the production of aircraft and motorcycles, with no claim to anything other than being a supplier of military vehicles for the Nazis.

Reemtsma

Reemtsma was founded in 1910 in Erfurt, Germany. In 1918, production was automated. In 1923 production was moved to Altona, now part of the city of Hamburg.

During Hitler's time, despite the NSDAP's official anti-tobacco policy, the company prospered. In 1937, the company owned 60% of the country's cigarette market. In 1939, Philipp F. Reemtsma was appointed head of the Fachuntergruppe Zigarettenindustrie (the cigarette department of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, an association of companies that worked for the front).

In 1948, the company's activities were resumed, and in 1980 the Tchibo coffee company became the owner of the majority of the shares, which sold its share in 2002 to Imperial Tobacco. It is noteworthy that now the Reemtsma company has representative offices in Kyiv and Volgograd, near which the Battle of Stalingrad took place.

The history of the Nivea brand dates back to 1890, when a businessman named Oskar Troplowitz bought the Beiersdorf company from its founder.

In the 1930s, the brand positioned itself as a product for active life and sports. The main products were protective creams and shaving products. During World War II, Ellie Hayes Knapp, who became First Lady under Theodore Hayes, was in charge of the advertising part of the brand. According to her, in her advertising campaigns she tried to bypass the militaristic component, focusing on displaying an active life in peaceful circumstances. However, sports smiling girls from Nivea posters could inspire the Wehrmacht fighters no less, if not better, than Hitler's mustachioed face from NSDAP posters.

It is noteworthy that during the war, several countries at war with Germany appropriated the rights to the trademark. The process of buying up the rights by Beiersdorf was completed only in 1997.

Maggi was founded in 1872 in Switzerland by Julius Maggi. The entrepreneur was the first to enter the market with ready-made soups. In 1897, Julius Maggi founded Maggi GmbH in the German city of Singen, where it is still based today. The rise to power of the Nazis had almost no effect on business. In the 1930s, the company became a supplier of semi-finished products for the German troops.

Given that none of the management of the organization was seen in a particularly active political life, the brand has retained itself and continues to delight. This time also residents of the ex-USSR.

And what about our neutrals then?

“... In the very first days of the war, a German division was passed through the territory of Sweden for operations in Northern Finland. However, the Prime Minister of Sweden, the Social Democrat P. A. Hansson, immediately promised the Swedish people that not a single German division would be allowed through the territory of Sweden and that the country would in no way enter the war against the USSR. Sweden took over the representation of the interests of the USSR in Germany, and yet through Sweden the transit of German military materials to Finland unfolded; German transport ships transported troops there, hiding in the territorial waters of Sweden, and until the winter of 1942/43 they were accompanied by a convoy of the Swedish naval forces. The Nazis achieved the supply of Swedish goods on credit and their transportation mainly on Swedish ships ... "

“... It was Swedish iron ore that was the best raw material for Hitler. After all, this ore contained 60 percent pure iron, while the ore received by the German military machine from other places contained only 30 percent iron. It is clear that production military equipment from metal smelted from Swedish ore, cost the treasury of the Third Reich much cheaper.

In 1939, the same year that Nazi Germany unleashed the Second world war, it was supplied with 10.6 million tons of Swedish ore. Wow! After April 9, that is, when Germany had already conquered Denmark and Norway, the supply of ore increased significantly. In 1941, 45,000 tons of Swedish ore were supplied daily by sea for the needs of the German military industry. Little by little, Sweden's trade with Nazi Germany increased and, in the end, amounted to 90 percent of all Swedish foreign trade. From 1940 to 1944, the Swedes sold over 45 million tons of iron ore to the Nazis.

The Swedish port of Luleå was specially converted to supply iron ore to Germany through the waters of the Baltic. (And only Soviet submarines after June 22, 1941, at times caused the Swedes great inconvenience, torpedoing Swedish transports, in the holds of which this ore was transported). The supply of ore to Germany continued almost until the moment when the Third Reich had already begun, figuratively speaking, to expire. Suffice it to say that back in 1944, when the outcome of the Second World War was no longer in doubt, the Germans received 7.5 million tons of iron ore from Sweden. Until August 1944, Sweden received Nazi gold through Swiss banks.

In other words, the Norschensflammann wrote, “Swedish iron ore ensured the Germans success in the war. And that was a bitter fact for all Swedish anti-fascists.”

However, the Swedish iron ore came to the Germans not only in the form of raw materials.

The world-famous SKF concern, which produced the best ball bearings on the planet, supplied these, not so, at first glance, cunning technical mechanisms to Germany. As many as ten percent of the ball bearings received by Germany came from Sweden, according to Norschensflammann. Anyone, even a person completely inexperienced in military affairs, understands what ball bearings mean for the production of military equipment. Why, without them, not a single tank will move from its place, not a single submarine will go to sea! Note that Sweden, as noted by Norschensflammann, produced bearings of "special quality and specifications which Germany could not get from anywhere else. The import of bearings from Sweden became especially important for Germany when the VKF bearing factory in Schweinfurt was destroyed in 1943. In 1945, the economist and economic adviser Per Jakobsson provided information that helped disrupt the supply of Swedish bearings to Japan.

Let's think: how many lives were cut short because formally neutral Sweden provided fascist Germany with strategic and military products, without which the flywheel of the Nazi military mechanism would, of course, continue to spin, but certainly not as fast as it was?

In the autumn of 1941, that very cruel autumn when the existence of the entire Soviet state was at stake (and, consequently, the fate of the peoples inhabiting it), King Gustav V Adolf of Sweden sent Hitler a letter in which he wished "the dear Reich Chancellor further success in the fight against Bolshevism…”

Sweden received even more military orders after the outbreak of World War II. And basically these were orders for Nazi Germany. Neutral Sweden became one of the main economic pillars of the national Reich. Suffice it to say that only in 1943, out of 10.8 million tons of iron ore mined, 10.3 million tons were sent to Germany from Sweden. Until now, few people know that one of the main tasks of the ships of the Navy of the Soviet Union that fought on In the Baltic, there was not only a fight against fascist ships, but also the destruction of the ships of neutral Sweden, which were carrying cargo for the Nazis.

Well, what did the Nazis pay with the Swedes for the goods received from them? Only by the fact that they looted in the territories they occupied and, most of all, in the Soviet occupied territories. The Germans had almost no other resources for settlements with Sweden. So when you're in Once again they will talk about “Swedish happiness”, remember who and at whose expense the Swedes paid for it.

The war in Europe was more for political influence and for control of territories, the war on the eastern front was a war of annihilation and survival, these are two completely different wars, they just took place simultaneously.

Civilized Europe always diligently erases from the history of the Second World War these shameful facts of its cooperation with the most bloody and inhuman regime of the twentieth century, and this is the truth about the war that needs to be known and remembered.

19th-century English publicist T. J. Dunning:

Capital ... avoids noise and scolding and has a timid nature. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Capital is afraid of no profit or too little profit, just as nature is afraid of the void. But once sufficient profits are available, capital becomes bold. Provide 10 percent and capital is ready for any use, at 20 percent it becomes lively, at 50 percent it is positively ready to break its head, at 100 percent it defies all human laws, at 300 percent there is no crime that it would not risk, even under pain of the gallows. If noise and scolding are profitable, capital will contribute to both. Proof: smuggling and the slave trade

Partition and destruction of Czechoslovakia as independent state with the participation of Germany, Hungary and Poland in 1938-1939. These events are not officially included in the history of the Second World War, but are inextricably linked with it and may well be the first stage of this war.

1. Polish 7TR tanks are included in Czech city Teshin (Tseshin). October 1938

3. Poles replace the Czech name of the city with the Polish one in the city railway station the city of Teshin.

4. Polish troops enter Teszyn

5. Polish soldiers pose with the deposed Czechoslovak coat of arms at the telephone and telegraph building they captured during Operation Zaluzhye in the Czech village of Ligotka Kameralna (Polish, Komorní Lhotka-Czech), located near the town of Teszyn.

6. Polish tank 7TR from the 3rd armored battalion (tank of the 1st platoon) overcomes the Czechoslovak border fortifications in the area of ​​the Polish-Czechoslovak border. The 3rd armored battalion had a tactical badge "Bison silhouette in a circle", which was applied to the tank turret. But in August 1939, all tactical signs on the towers were painted over as unmasking ones.

7. Handshake of Polish Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly and German attaché Colonel Bogislaw von Shtudnitz at the Independence Day parade in Warsaw on November 11, 1938. The photograph is notable for the fact that the Polish parade was especially attached to the capture of Cieszyn Selesia a month earlier.

8. The armored unit of the Polish troops occupies the Czech village of Yorgov during the operation to annex the Czechoslovak lands of Spis. In the foreground is a Polish wedge TK-3.

9. Polish troops occupy the Czech village of Yorgov during the operation to annex the Czechoslovak lands of Spis.

interesting further fate these territories. After the collapse of Poland, Orava and Spis were transferred to Slovakia. After the end of World War II, the lands were again occupied by the Poles, the government of Czechoslovakia was forced to agree to this. To celebrate, the Poles staged ethnic cleansing against ethnic Slovaks and Germans. In 1958 the territories were returned to Czechoslovakia. Now they are part of Slovakia.-approx. b0gus

10. Polish soldiers at the captured Czech checkpoint near the Czechoslovak-German border, near the pedestrian bridge built in honor of the anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph in the Czech city of Bohumin. The not yet demolished Czechoslovak border pillar is visible.

11. Polish troops occupy the Czech city of Karvin during Operation Zaluzhye. The Polish part of the population meets the troops with flowers. October 1938.

The Czechoslovak city of Karvin was the center of heavy industry in Czechoslovakia, the production of coke, one of the most important centers of coal mining in the Ostrava-Karvinsky coal basin. Thanks to the Zaluzhye operation carried out by the Poles, the former Czechoslovak enterprises already at the end of 1938 gave Poland almost 41% of the pig iron smelted in Poland and almost 47% of the steel.

12. Bunker of the Czechoslovak line of fortifications in the Sudetes ("Benesh Line").

13. Sudeten Germans break out the Czechoslovak border post during the German occupation of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in late September-early October 1938.

14. German troops enter the Czech city of Ash (on the border with Germany in the Sudetenland, the most western city Czech Republic). The local Germans, who made up the majority of the population of this region at that time, joyfully welcome the unification with Germany.

15. Commander-in-Chief of the German Land Forces, Colonel-General Walther von Brauchitsch welcomes German tank units (PzKw I tanks) at the parade in honor of the accession of the Czech Sudetenland to Germany. Appointed to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces with the rank of Colonel General the day before, shortly before the operation to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany, Walter von Brauchitsch was one of the organizers of this operation

16. A column of Czechoslovak tanks LT vz. 35 before shipping to Germany. In the foreground, a tank with registration number 13.917 entered service with the Czechoslovak army in 1937. Was assigned to PUV-1 (PUV - Pluk Utocne Vozby - literally: regiment of assault wagons). In 1942, the Germans converted it into an artillery tractor (Mörserzugmittel 35(t).

17. Parts of the Polish 10th Cavalry Rifle Regiment of the 10th Mechanized Brigade are preparing for a solemn parade in front of the regiment commander on the end of Operation Zaluzhye (occupation of Czechoslovak territories).

18. Handshake of the Polish Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly and the German attaché Major General Bogislaw von Shtudnitz at the Independence Day parade in Warsaw on November 11, 1938. The photo is remarkable in that the Polish parade was especially attached to the capture of Cieszyn Selesia a month earlier. A column of Teszyn Poles specially passed at the parade, and in Germany on the eve of November 9-10, 1938, the so-called “Kristallnacht” took place, the first mass action of direct physical violence against Jews in the territory of the Third Reich.

19. Fighters of the Czechoslovak border detachment "State Defense Units" (Stráž obrany státu, SOS) from battalion No. 24 (New Castles, Nitra) on the Maria Valeria bridge across the Danube in Parkano (present-day Shturovo) in southern Slovakia are preparing to repel Hungarian aggression.

20. The funeral of the Carpathian Sich and soldiers of the Czechoslovak troops who died in battle with the Hungarian troops who invaded Czechoslovakia.

21. Wedges of the Hungarian occupation forces of the Italian production "Fiat-Ansaldo" CV-35 enter the streets of the Czechoslovak city of Khust.

After Slovakia on March 14, 1939, under pressure from Hitler, declared its independence and Czechoslovakia collapsed, Hungary received permission from Germany to occupy part of Slovakia - Subcarpathian Rus. On March 15, the Prime Minister of Subcarpathian Rus, Augustin Voloshin, proclaimed the independence of Carpathian Ukraine, which was not recognized by other states. On March 16, 1939, Hungarian troops launched an assault on Khust, in which they received the 24th Hungarian border guard battalion and the 12th scooter battalion, and captured the city.

22. Hungarian wedges of Italian production "Fiat-Ansaldo" CV-35 and soldiers on the street of the captured Czechoslovak city of Khust in Carpathian Ukraine. In the background is the building of the headquarters of the "Carpathian Sich" with traces of battles.

23. Civilians greet Hungarian soldiers with flowers in the occupied Slovak locality in southern Slovakia (Slovak name - Horná zem, Hungarian - Felvidék) with a significant Hungarian population

24. Fraternization of soldiers of the Hungarian and Polish occupation forces in the occupied Czechoslovakia.

25. The ruler (regent) of the Kingdom of Hungary, Admiral Miklos Horthy (on a white horse) at the head of the parade of Hungarian troops in the occupied Czechoslovak city of Kosice (in Hungarian Kassa) after its occupation on November 2, 1938.

26. German officers at the Czechoslovak-German border are watching the capture of the city of Bohumin by Polish troops. The Germans are on footbridge, built in honor of the anniversary of Emperor Franz Josef.

So, after the formation of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the entry of German troops into its territory, the entire arsenal of the Czechoslovak army transferred to the service of the III Reich. And the arsenal was notable ...

A very detailed factual material is provided by the historian A. Usovsky.
Let's start with the tank units: “... by the spring of 1939, the LT-35 was already a little outdated (although the Germans gladly took 219 of these vehicles for themselves) - but the ChKD plant had already developed a new, much better, TNНР tank for a year, and was just waiting for an order for its serial production. Since after Munich, Prague was recommended by the "senior comrades" to moderate their ardor in armaments, the Czechoslovak General Staff did not order the agreed series of 150 vehicles until its very end in 1938. And therefore, the management of the CKD company gladly and even, I would say, enthusiastically accepted the news of the death of the Czech Republic - in full confidence that their beautiful, fashionable and modern tank would suit the new owners of Bohemia. And they weren't wrong!

The Wehrmacht generals, having familiarized themselves with the three ready-made LT-38 tanks, as well as with the relevant documentation, came to the conclusion that this vehicle was quite suitable for the German army. The first 9 production vehicles under the designation 38(t) Ausf. And they left the walls of the BMM plant on May 22, 1939. In total, before the start of World War II, 98 tanks of this modification were built. So, an entire tank corps (including LT-35) of the Czech "panzers" took part in the attack on Poland! For some reason, it is customary to call these tanks "trophy" - for mercy! Trophies are property TAKEN IN BATTLE. If the LT-38 was produced by order of the Wehrmacht, then what kind of “trophies” can we talk about?”
So, already during the Polish campaign, the Wehrmacht used a whole tank hull, equipped with the latest Czech tanks LT-38. Needless to say, these tanks were also used in June 1941 during the attack on our Motherland...

Let's continue the list of what the Wehrmacht received from the Czech army in 1939:
“In total, the Germans took 254 mountain 75-mm guns, 241 80-mm field guns, 261 150-mm howitzers, 10 152-mm guns, 23 305-mm mortars and more than two thousand anti-tank guns of 37-mm and 47-mm caliber .
Of course, the Germans gladly replenished their arsenals with excellent Czech machine guns - fifty thousand light ZB-26s and twelve thousand easel ZB-53s, fortunately, these machine guns (like the Czechoslovak Mauser rifles) were created under the German 7.92-mm cartridge.
These excellent Czech machine guns (and tens of thousands of new ones made by Czech workers over the 6 years of the protectorate) throughout the Great Patriotic War they shot at our fathers and grandfathers on all its fronts ...

“But it cannot be said that Germany completely disarmed the Protectorate - Prague was left the right to have its own native army ... of seven thousand bayonets.

... Having taken the Czech Republic under their wing, the Germans received colossal production capacities of heavy industry - thanks to which they doubled the production of military equipment and weapons. Plus, these new facilities were located in the depths of the European continent and, unlike the Ruhr, were in complete and absolute safety against enemy air raids (at least until 1943 ...
After Munich, the Germans began to look at the arsenals of the Czechoslovak army, not as a threat to Germany, but as a potential opportunity to instantly and repeatedly strengthen the Wehrmacht.
What actually happened six months later...

Until March 15, 1939, Czech industry, especially heavy industry, worked at barely a quarter of its potential - orders for its products were too small and episodic. But the entry into the Reich breathed new strength into all Czech factories - orders fell like a cornucopia!
After the Czech Republic became the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia", the German administration came to all the factories of the Skoda concern, and in the summer they were included in the Hermann Göring concern. At the end of 1939, the assembly of 6LTP6 light trucks for the Romanian army began at the Skoda plant in Pilsen, and the Czechs began to supply the Wehrmacht with modified versions of Skoda commercial trucks of the “100/150;, “254/256; and “706D”, as well as diesel versions of heavy machines 6ST6 and 6VD...

With the advent of the Germans, the plant of the Skoda concern in Mladá Boleslav also revived, until 1939 it produced cars and barely made ends meet ...
The program of the plant turned out to be a car designed for operation in the conditions of the Russian cold climate and off-road. It was an artillery tractor with all leading and rear steered steel wheels with a diameter of 1.5 m with high metal lugs. Until May 1944, 206 copies were collected. The Skoda factories also assembled 5,000 Hkl6 (Sd.Kfz.11) half-tracked transporters, produced DB10 tanks and tractors under the S10 index.
But cars and tractors were by no means the main products of numerous Czech factories. Much more important for the Reich were combat vehicles - tanks, self-propelled guns and armored personnel carriers - with which the Czech workers generously supplied the Wehrmacht fighting on countless fronts.
After joining the protectorate, Germany received equipment that would be enough to equip 35 divisions. In addition, the Skoda factories, the second most important arsenal in Central Europe, fell into the hands of the Germans, which, according to Winston Churchill, produced almost as much military products between August 1938 and September 1939 as all British enterprises produced for the same time.

According to the Center for the German War Economy, on March 31, 1944 alone, the Fuhrer received almost 13 billion 866 million brands of weapons and equipment from the shops of 857 factories of the previously annexed Czech Republic.
“ChKD factories (which became VMM after the Protectorate became part of the Reich) in 1939-1942 produced LT-38 tanks in the amount of 1480 units. When this tank became hopelessly outdated, the plant's specialists, IN INITIATIVE ORDER, took up its conversion into an anti-tank self-propelled guns. At first, the Germans looked at these Czech delights with disdain, but by the end of 1943, the Wehrmacht command became clear that the front needed a new, well-armored compact self-propelled unit - a tank destroyer, at the lowest possible price.
The self-propelled guns based on the 38 (t) tank, which received the name “Hetzer” in the Wehrmacht, became the ideal vehicle for these requirements.

This "Hetzer" (its name can be translated as "huntsman") needs to be told in more detail.
In March 1943, the Inspector General of the Tank Forces, Colonel General G. Guderian, ordered the start of work on the creation of a small, light and well-armored tank destroyer. In December of the same year, a prototype based on the PzKpfw 38(t) light tank was ready. After the completion of the tests, the result of which exceeded all expectations, the new machine was put into service under the name "Hetzer".
On January 28, 1944, A. Hitler personally determined the early start of production and an increase in its volume as the most important task for the army in 1944. A production schedule was set, providing for the production of 1000 vehicles per month by March 1945.

Since April 1944, the mass production of new anti-tank self-propelled guns began at the enterprises of the VMM company (former ChKD), and in September Skoda joined it. In the course of production, self-propelled guns were constantly improved and modernized. It was also planned to produce modifications with 75 mm Pak 39/1 and 105 mm StuG 42 guns.
In total, 2584 Hetzer tank destroyers were produced in 1944 and 1945.
"Hetzer" was the best light anti-tank self-propelled guns of the Second World War. The vehicle had a completely new low hull, characterized by a large inclination of the frontal, side and stern armor plates, the thickness of which varied from 10 to 60 mm. Due to the increase in mass compared to the standard tank PzKpfw 38 (t), the undercarriage was strengthened and expanded. In practice, only the transmission and chassis units were borrowed from the base tank. A more powerful 160-horsepower engine was used as a power plant.

A remote-controlled (!!!) MG 34 machine gun of 7.92 mm caliber appeared on the roof of the hull. The 75 mm cannon was covered by a pig snout mask.
The Hetzer received its baptism of fire in July 1944. The machine was actively used on all fronts until last days war.
On April 10, 1945, there were 915 Hetzer self-propelled guns in the combat units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, of which 726 were on the Eastern Front and 101 on the Western.

This statistic perfectly shows WHICH front was the MAIN for Hitler, isn't it?!

But that's not all: on the basis of the Hetzer self-propelled guns, Czech enterprises manufactured 20 flamethrower tanks, 30 self-propelled guns with a 150-mm sIG 33 infantry gun and 170 BREM.
And in 1944 and 45, our tank guys burned in thousands in their “thirty-fours” from the fire of these damned “Hetzers”, created on their own initiative by wonderful Czech engineers and workers ...

In October 1944, two raids were made on the Skoda factories by Allied aircraft, during which 417 tons of bombs were dropped, which sharply slowed down the increase in Hetzer production at this plant, although it did not stop it.
In December, the number of self-propelled guns produced fell again, including as a result of three new air raids on Skoda factories, during which 375 tons of bombs were dropped. However, in January 1945, it was possible to reach the peak output of the Hetzer, after which the production rate began to fall sharply. The reason for this was the ever-increasing problems with the supply of materials and parts that the entire industry of the Third Reich was experiencing, and the continued bombing of the Skoda factories, and from March 25, the BMM.
The production of the Hetzer, despite the bombing, undersupply of components and regular power outages, continued until the first days of May 1945.

To compensate for the decrease in the production of self-propelled guns at BMM as a result of the bombing, in the first half of April, the production of Hetzer from the BMM enterprises in Prague to the plant in Milovice. The main problem for the release of the Jagdpanzer 38 in April was the shortage of 75-mm PaK 39/2 guns produced at factories in Germany, and therefore it was planned to install StuK 40 guns manufactured by Skoda in May on the Hetzer.

As you can see, the Czechs in Stakhanov's way worked for the III Reich until its very end. With invention, initiative and "light". Neither the Allied bombings, nor the lack of 75-mm PaK 39/2 cannons, produced in Germany, interfered with them. To replace them, enterprising Czech specialists immediately offered THEIR StuK 40, of their own production.

“But the Czech industry was not the only Hetzer!
In 1944, she shipped 30,000 rifles, 3,000 machine guns, 625,000 artillery shells to Germany MONTHLY. The Škoda factories in Pilsen and the Mürz zuschlag-Bohemia in Česká Lipa produced Sd.Kfz 251/1 Ausf.С and Sd.Kfz/251-1 Ausf D armored personnel carriers; assembly of Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6 and Bf 109G-14 fighters.
In general, it must be said that the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was a reliable “cannon yard” and arsenal of the Third Reich, thanks in large part to which the Germans were able to hold out for such a long time in this war.

Here is what A. Petrov wrote about Czech assistance to the Nazi Reich in the article "Cunning petition":
By June 1941, almost a third of the German units were equipped with Czech weapons. The hands of the Czechs assembled a quarter of all tanks, 26 percent of trucks and 40 percent of the small arms of the German army. According to the Center for the German War Economy, on March 31, 1944, weapons and equipment worth almost 13 billion 866 million Reichsmarks were received from the shops of 857 factories in the Czech Republic at the disposal of the Fuhrer.

Soviet historians, obeying ideological guidelines, painted a picture of the proletarian solidarity of Czech hard workers with their Soviet brothers in class. The unfortunate Czechs, they say, were driven to the machines almost at gunpoint. And so, suffering unbearably, the labor collectives of these 857 enterprises of the Czech Republic from year to year increased the output of their deadly products.

According to German sources, in 1944, the Czech Republic monthly (!) Delivered to Germany about 11 thousand pistols, 30 thousand rifles, more than 3 thousand machine guns, 15 million cartridges, about 100 self-propelled artillery pieces, 144 infantry guns, 180 anti-aircraft guns, more than 620 thousand artillery pieces. shells, almost a million shells for anti-aircraft guns, from 600 to 900 wagons of aerial bombs, 0.5 million signal ammunition, 1,000 tons of gunpowder and 600,000 explosives. As for the labor productivity of the Czechs, it was not inferior to the performance of the German workers.
It is interesting that the main workshops of the military factories in Prague stopped only on May 5, 1945.
In the electoral memory of the Czechs, the half-kilometer ambulance train - "the gift of the Czech people to the warring Reich" - somehow did not "deposit". Forgotten are parcels with warm knitted mittens - “from mothers” to the Stalingrad “cauldron”, and friendly Nazi greetings from conscious Czech workers, advanced workers sent to health camps for hard work for the victory of German weapons created by their skillful hands ... which kills Russians, Poles, Jews, Americans and British...
By the way, it is the Skoda Pilsen factories at the very end of the war that will become almost the only source of weapons for the Wehrmacht.

True, the Czechs do not like to remember this. In the military museum in Prague, the period of their life during the occupation is illuminated by only two or three small stands with shells, which are the result of "slave labor", which did not stop right up to May 5, 1945. Moreover, the "forced workers" punctually reported to Berlin already defeated by the Red Army about the early fulfillment of their obligations to the Nazis. Almost until the very day of the capitulation of the Third Reich, the "freedom-loving" Czechs could not figure out that riveting weapons for Germany was completely pointless and their work would not be paid.

There is something else worth mentioning as well.
The Russian white emigrant B. Tikhonovich recalled: “The Czechs enriched themselves unheard of on the Jews in 1939-1945. They took "for safekeeping" Jewish jewelry, paintings, property, and then wrote denunciations against former friends. In the course there was a saying: "They (that is, the Jews) from there will never return anyway." Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, still has not returned the paintings that belonged to her family and were stolen by two Czech sisters from Prague.
All this was “shamefully” hushed up in the post-war period by the Soviet leadership due to the fact that the Czechs are Slavic brothers and our allies in the socialist camp. Thanks to the Soviet Union, they, like other de facto comrades-in-arms of the Third Reich, escaped with only a slight fright for complicity with the Nazis and the murder of Soviet citizens.

I almost forgot ... I must also say about those Czechs who immediately decided to fight Hitler. A. Usovsky also wrote about this:
“... regarding the Czechoslovak troops who fought on the side of the Allies, then on September 17, 1939, Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig Svoboda took his battalion to the Soviet Union, formed from those Czechs who decided to fight the Germans. And there were them - ONLY 300 PEOPLE ... "

In the next chapter we will talk about the actions of the Czech Resistance during the Second World War.

Unfortunately, only ruins remain of many of the ancient sights of the capital of Italy, but even what has survived and been restored amazes tourists with its scale. Baths of Diocletian - the so-called ancient Roman public baths. This is a whole complex of structures, equal in size and technical equipment in the empire has never been.

The history of the creation of the baths of Diocletian in Rome

By order of Emperor Diocletian, the construction of baths in " eternal city began in 298. Seven years later, the complex was completely finished and consecrated in honor of Caesar. The buildings were located on a vast territory of 13 hectares and could simultaneously accommodate about three thousand visitors. The Roman baths of Diocletian included three thousand baths and three large pools, the water to which was supplied from underground aqueducts.

No less luxurious was the interior of the complex:

• unique mosaic floors;
• facing with marble;
• bubbling fountains;
• god statues.

Termi Diocleziano was a favorite holiday destination for the Romans. They performed not only the functions of baths, but were also a cozy place for communication, a hotbed of social and cultural life in Rome. Entrance was allowed to all free citizens. Fountains, marble sculptures were built on the territory of the baths of Diocletian, gardens with pavilions were laid out. There were also meeting rooms, a library, an amphitheater and a gymnasium.

The legend says that the baths of Diocletian in Rome were built by Christians condemned to death, and it took 10 years to build the complex. During the Roman Empire, men, women and children could visit the baths. The Romans came to the complex to rest carefree, relax, chat with each other or take a walk. More active townspeople visited the baths of Diocletian to play sports games and wrestle.

Baths had several rooms for different types of procedures:

• taking cold baths in a cool room (frigidarium);
• hot, like modern saunas;
• warm, to preheat the body.

In the middle of the 16th century, the Goths destroyed the Roman aqueduct, and the baths of Diocletian fell into disrepair. Over time, the complex began to deteriorate, until in 1563, by decree of the pontiff Pius IV, the famous Michelangelo transformed the building. The cozy monastery courtyard, designed by the architect, now houses more than 400 exhibits from the time of imperial Rome and many antique sculptures.

Baths of Diocletian at present

At the end of the 19th century, part of the complex was reconstructed. Currently, this part of the Baths of Diocletian houses the National Museum of Rome. Its archaeological heritage is considered one of the richest in the world and consists of finds found in the baths, as well as various collections of Roman and Greek art. On the territory of the baths, Michelangelo harmoniously placed the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built in the Renaissance style.

The Palazzo Altemps, in addition to the Baths of Diocletian, is one of the main objects national museum Rome. There are 104 sculptures from the ancient era, collections belonging to the cardinals Ludovisi, Altemps and the princes Mattei. The palace was built according to the design of Melozzo da Forlì in the 15th century on the Champ de Mars near Piazza Navona.

Another remarkable hall was erected by the architect Camilo Pistrucci in 1883-1887. On the ground floor there is a numismatic collection, on the other three - antique painting, sculpture and mosaics. Especially memorable are the frescoes with painted birds, trees and flowers from the winter triclinium, which previously decorated the villa of Augustus's wife, Livia. The pride of the national museum are works from Villa Farnesina and sarcophagi. The Gall Ludovisi is also a must-see at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome. This is a marble copy of a large triumphal monument, which shows the scene when Gallus kills his wife. The sculpture is filled with expression and is made with full details of what is happening.

How to get to the Baths of Diocletian

The complex is located on Via Enrico de Nicola (Enrico De Nicola). The most convenient way to get to the Baths of Diocletian is to use the metro. You should get off at one of the stations - Termini (Termini) or Republic (Repubblica), and then walk a few hundred meters on foot. Another option to get to the ancient Roman baths is by bus (there are several routes) to the Cernaia stop.

A visit to the Baths of Diocletian in Rome for tourists is possible on any day except Monday. Opening hours from 9.00 to 19.45. Please note that the box office closes half an hour before the end of the complex. Not far from the ancient Roman baths is the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, which will also be attractive to tourists.