With the other 16- and 17-year-olds he reported to the Military Commissar and asked for permission to report to the front. Animatedly he recounted:
‘But they responded, “We will call for you when it is necessary.” Already very many had volunteered. Everybody, full of ideals, wanted to participate. Bombs had already exploded on this first day, buildings had collapsed and people killed – thousands. But this was no tragedy for me, not until later when the meaning of it all became apparent.’
Now an old man, and having experienced the war, it came back as he was interviewed. ‘Yes,’ he declared, visibly upset, ‘it was difficult, very difficult.’(11)
Pjotr Aleksandrowitsch Lidow, a 35-year-old party official living in Minsk, was informed by a Pravda secretary at 09.00 hours that morning that his country was at war. Gazing through his apartment window he saw ‘the town was completely quiet. Nobody knew anything. People were going into the parks and the countryside.’ Lidow’s life until that moment had been completely normal. Routine domestic issues occupied his mind. A Sunday drive with the children was planned and the only complication was ‘what should one wear, should we pack the childrens’ sun covers, will we be able to buy refreshment there or do we need to take drinks with us?’(12) Over breakfast he told his wife and children they were at war.
Vladimir Admoni from Leningrad was travelling on the express train between Ufa and Moscow on 22 June. A passenger who briefly got out at a station to buy something announced bluntly on his return, ‘I think we are at war.’ Aside from that he knew nothing. Admoni remembered ‘all the other passengers except me immediately assumed it was a war against England.’ The press at Stalin’s instigation had been so ‘Hitler friendly’ during the Non-Aggression Pact period, that the English were branded the potential trouble-makers.(13)
Meanwhile, back at Minsk, Josef V., a documentary cameraman, remarked, ‘The war had already begun, but here… it was quiet, nothing was happening.’ Outside he noticed a policeman standing wearing an imposing white uniform with ‘majestic shoulder epaulettes’ and a white-pointed helmet. ‘The police wore such a uniform in those days,’ he said. As he began filming his street documentary panorama, real historical events began to unfold.
‘I suddenly noticed aircraft flying over, as if in an air show I thought to myself. There were a lot, something like 20 in formation. I carried on filming and suddenly saw an explosion, and later as they came on I clearly saw black objects falling from beneath… then it dawned on me, they’re bombs!’
Despite the explosions and the urge to take cover, Josef V. carried on filming ‘the first action pictures of the first day of the war’. Suddenly he was seized by the collar and poked in the ribs. Totally engrossed in filming, he ignored the distraction until, unable to pan the camera any longer, he turned to face an unexpected assailant. It was the policeman, only now:
‘His uniform was not white but full of dust and he had lost his helmet. His hair stood on end and his face was like straw. He prodded me again in the chest with his pistol and roared “Papers – or I’ll fix you!” He was very excited. I showed him my ID card and he responded, “they’re dropping bombs on us and you have nothing better to do than carry on filming!”’
Which is what he did, sincerely believing it was his duty to show cinema audiences the destruction being visited on the streets and buildings he filmed. It resulted in a misappreciation of the bureaucratic tenor that would be applied to his work. ‘People in those days,’ he said, ‘were only used to seeing good things’ on their cinema screens. Every ten minutes fresh swarms of aircraft passed over.
‘I filmed it all, and every time I did I questioned whether I was doing the right thing. Later came the realisation that it was not only the policeman who thought like this. When the film material reached Moscow the decision was made not to use it. The Red Army was in retreat, cities were burning and the Fascists were taking Red Army prisoners. All this misery did not need to be projected on the screen… The Directors took what they needed and the rest was consigned to the rubbish bin.’(14)
The fundamental difference between the German and Soviet home front experience at the outbreak of war was that Russian civilians were immediately caught up in ground fighting. So far as ordinary Germans were concerned, it was a distant event that one followed on the radio. Stephan Matysh, an artillery commander in the 32nd Russian Tank Division on the outskirts of Lvov, explained how, on the Saturday night before the war, ‘each of us had his plans for Sunday. Each had his family cares.’ All this was abruptly transformed. After the unexpected early morning air raids on barracks, garages, storehouses and officers’ houses, ‘many found they had lost their near and dear ones’ and, as Matysh pointed out, ‘many became orphans and cripples’. He, like many other Soviet officers, was constrained by his joint responsibility to look after civilian dependants while at the same time preparing for action with no warning. His division commander, Colonel Yefim Pushkin, issued orders for action and:
‘While taking steps to get the division into full combat readiness in such a trying situation he did everything he could to save the families of the officers. The necessary number of lorries and parties of soldiers were detailed off to help load the luggage and send old folk, women and children, deep into the country’(15)
The front situation at this stage appeared serious but salvageable. One Soviet staff officer, Captain Ivan Krylov, concerned at the build-up of a German advance toward Minsk, was assured the dangerous situation could be restored ‘provided our troops fight to the end’. He stated:
‘The men have been ordered not to die before taking at least one German with them. “If you are wounded,” the order says, “sham death, and when the Germans approach kill one of them. Kill them with your rifle, with the bayonet, with your knife, tear their throats out with your teeth. Don’t die without leaving a dead German behind you.”’(16)
‘Don’t die without leaving a dead German behind you’…
Brest-Litovsk
Savage fighting continued unabated into the second day at Brest-Litovsk. Grigori Makarow, a Red Army soldier, remembered:
‘The whole garrison was without water because a shell striking the Terespol tower [at the entrance to the citadel] had destroyed the large water-tank. The power station had also been hit so there was no longer any light. The attack was beaten back with machine guns.’(1)
It became apparent to the German 45th Division on the same day that the original decision to withdraw selectively to clarify the front line situation and ensure the citadel was completely surrounded had simply resulted in the vacated positions being immediately occupied by Russians. From 05.00 hours German artillery pounded the citadel in concentric patterns at timed intervals. Care was taken to avoid hitting a beleaguered group of German soldiers, who were trapped with prisoners of war in the vicinity of the church. Gefreiter Hans Teuschler, severely wounded, lying nearby, recalled, ‘never had I had a more burning desire to see the coming day.’ After the pain, chill and uncertainties of the previous night ‘the dear sun became too good to us. The heat rose until it was almost unbelievable.’(2)