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| 'Hero City under Occupation.' The second liberation of Odessa is inevitable |
| 2024-04-11 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Arkady Melikov [REGNUM] “The hero city is celebrating the eightieth anniversary of its liberation under occupation,” the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov wrote about Odessa in his Telegram channel. As IA Regnum previously noted, the peninsula is now celebrating the 80th anniversary of the start of the Crimean offensive operation; in a matter of days, the anniversary of liberation will be celebrated in the hero city of Sevastopol. In words, the Ukrainian mayor of Odessa Gennady Trukhanov paid respect to the fighters against Nazism - he mentioned (during the presentation of the buggy to the assault units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine) “a significant day for Odessa, which 80 years ago brought Odessa victory” and even laid flowers at the monument to the Unknown Sailor in Shevchenko Park. In previous years, countless people came here to the Walk of Fame from early morning to lay flowers at the monument to the Unknown Sailor and honor the memory of the liberating heroes. It is impossible to prohibit Odessa residents from being proud of history, but for ten years now, those who dare to come with the Victory Banner or St. George’s ribbon find themselves in serious danger - the flag came under the law on decommunization, and for the ribbon people are beaten by the Nazis or arrested. Immediately after the report on the laying of flowers, Mayor Trukhanov posted an announcement about the next “public hearings” regarding the next decommunization of city toponymy - they plan to rename Marshal Govorov Street, among other things. If the current military-civil leadership still cannot help but mention the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Odessa, at least for the sake of formality, then the approaching mournful anniversary - the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in the House of Trade Unions "Miska Vlad" - will most likely be passed over in silence. “Even today the smoke of a terrible fire hangs over Odessa, in which the Nazis burned the defenders of the city on May 2, 2014,” emphasized Sergei Aksenov. The fact that the current Kiev regime (as well as the team of Petro Poroshenko that preceded it ) considers Nazi methods of dealing with dissidents to be the norm is evidenced by the admission a year ago of Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to the office of Vladimir Zelensky. Let us remind you that he shared his plans for the “liberation” of Crimea and Donbass: “We legally have the right to destroy everything that is located on the territory of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.” Just three weeks before the tragedy of May 2, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially congratulated the residents of Odessa - and among them the anti-fascists camped on the Kulikovo Field - on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the city. Then the president recalled the centuries-old traditions of good neighborliness and mutual assistance, which will continue to unite the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, but in Ukraine a different course was taken, aimed primarily at forgetting the common heroic history and replacing it with Russophobia. IA Regnum has already recalled in detail how Soviet soldiers, under the leadership of the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Odessa resident Rodion Malinovsky, carried out a magnificent operation to liberate the city without bloody street battles and the use of heavy weapons. To this story we can only add a brief chronology of the war years. Already a month after the start of the Great Patriotic War, at the end of July 1941, the front was closely approaching Odessa, then on August 5 an order was received from the Supreme High Command headquarters about the need to defend the city to the last opportunity, involving the Black Sea Fleet in the case. The defense lasted two months - from August 5 to October 16, 1941. Soviet troops of the Primorsky Army, with the support of the Black Sea Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky, in heroic battles repelled a number of assaults by the superior forces of the 4th Romanian Army, but on October 1, by order of Headquarters, troops from Odessa began evacuating to Sevastopol. In addition to the soldiers, Odessa citizens also showed heroism in defense: they had to dig trenches, build dugouts, and put up wire fences. Due to a shortage of workers, teenagers, women and pensioners began to work at the machines in factories. After the Nazis captured the water pumping station in the city, they began to issue water using ration cards, which was the first and only case in the entire history of the war. The Nazi-German-Romanian occupation lasted almost three years, from October 16, 1941 to April 9, 1944. During this time, 82,000 inhabitants of Odessa died, 78,000 were sent to forced labor in Nazi Germany. Five partisan detachments and 45 underground patriotic groups operated in the city, whose assistance in the future helped with the liberation. The Odessa operation began on March 26, 1944 after the successful conduct of the Bereznegovato-Snigirevsky operation by the main forces of the 3rd Ukrainian Front under the command of Army General Malinovsky. At the beginning of the operation, the group of Soviet troops had 470,000 people, 12,678 guns and mortars, 435 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 436 aircraft. Support for the offensive of the front forces was entrusted to the 17th Air Army, as well as aviation and ships of the Black Sea Fleet under the command of Admiral Philip Oktyabrsky. The Soviet troops were opposed by the replenished troops of the German 6th and Romanian 3rd armies of Army Group A (from April 5 - “Southern Ukraine”) under the command of Field Marshal Ewald Kleist, from April 1 - Colonel General Ferdinand Scherner. They numbered 350,000 people, about 3,200 thousand mortar guns, 160 tanks and assault guns. In this direction, the enemy could use up to 550 combat aircraft of the 1st Air Corps of the German 4th Air Fleet and the Romanian Aviation Corps. During fierce battles on April 10, 1944, Soviet troops completely liberated the Nikolaev and Odessa regions, as well as a significant part of Moldova. As a result of the Odessa operation, Soviet troops inflicted a heavy defeat on the 6th German and 3rd Romanian armies. During the operation, the enemy lost over 27,000 people killed and more than 11,000 prisoners, 952 guns, 443 tanks and assault guns, 95 warehouses with ammunition and food. Partisans and underground fighters who emerged from the catacombs and shelters provided significant assistance to the Red Army in liberating the city. They helped clear the city of the enemy and prevented the explosions of the port, piers, buildings, and warehouses that he had prepared. On the night of April 10, the partisans attacked the enemy from the rear. The partisans of the Kuyalnitsky detachment under the command of Leonid Gorbel destroyed the enemy’s demolition team, which was supposed to blow up the dam of the Khadzhibey estuary and flood the Peresyp, which opened the way to the city for Soviet troops. Over the entire period of the partisan war against the invaders, the partisans destroyed over 5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, blew up 27 military trains, destroyed 248 vehicles, and saved about 20,000 Soviet citizens from being hijacked to Germany. A total of 27 formations and units that most distinguished themselves during the liberation of the city were given the honorary name “Odessa”. For heroism and courage shown in the battles for the city, 14 people were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, more than 2,150 people were awarded orders and medals of the USSR. On May 1, 1945, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Odessa was declared a hero city. On May 8, 1965, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for outstanding services to the Motherland, courage and heroism shown by workers in the fight against the Nazi invaders, the hero city of Odessa was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. A total of 80 years have passed since this significant event, confirming the heroism of our ancestors, and we see how history, unfortunately, repeats itself before our eyes. The followers of the same Nazi ideology in 2014, in fact, again occupied Odessa and “proved by deed” their continuity in relation to Hitler’s punitive forces. Nevertheless, we must be extremely clear that the reunification of historical Russian lands is an irreversible and necessary process associated with global historical events. “Odessa is generally a Russian city. We know about this. Everyone knows this well,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, answering a question from journalists at the “Results of the Year”. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 Interesting: In contrast to other areas of occupied Eastern Europe, the survival of Jewish population was significantly higher in Odesa. After the war, Jews constituted more than ten percent of Odesa's population, and could be found in most occupational groups from port stevedores and unskilled workers to the intellectual elite. |
| Posted by: mossomo 2024-04-11 12:52 |
| #1 Russia's greatest Jewish city occupied by Nazi-wannabes. |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-04-11 08:20 |