Dead WWII soldier. Analysis of archive request results

Calculations of the number of missing Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War are still ongoing. However, given the lack of information and the contradictory nature of some information, this will not be easy to do.

Difficulties in counting

Almost every Russian family has relatives who disappeared during the Great Patriotic War. It is no longer possible to know the fate of many of them. Thus, the talented military pilot Leonid Khrushchev, the son of the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (in 1953-1964) Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, is still considered missing.

In 1966-1968, the calculation of human losses in the Great Patriotic War was led by a commission of the General Staff; in 1988-1993, a team of military historians was involved in collating and verifying the materials of all previous commissions. Despite this, we still do not know exactly how many Soviet soldiers and officers died in this war, especially since there is no accurate data on the number of missing people.

Today, the data on losses that were published in 1993 by a group of researchers led by Grigory Krivosheev, a consultant at the Military Memorial Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, are recognized as official. However, Doctor of Historical Sciences Makhmut Gareev does not consider these data final, finding many flaws in the commission’s calculations. In particular, some researchers call the figure for the total losses of the Soviet Union during the war years at 26.6 million incorrect.

Writer Rafael Grugman points out a number of pitfalls that the commission did not pay attention to and which will pose a challenge to any researcher. In particular, the commission did not take into account such a category of persons as policemen and Vlasovites killed by partisans and killed in battles with the Red Army. What types of losses should they be classified as - dead or missing? Or even be included in the enemy’s camp?

Often, in front-line reports, missing persons were combined with prisoners, which today causes considerable confusion when counting them. For example, it is not clear who to include the soldiers who did not return from captivity, because among them there were those who died, those who joined the enemy, and those who remained abroad.

Very often, the missing were included in the lists with the total number of losses. Thus, after the Kyiv defensive operation (1941), the missing were classified as killed and captured - in total more than 616 thousand people.

Today, there are many unmarked graves where Soviet soldiers are buried, and it is completely unclear how many of them are listed as missing. We should not forget about deserters. According to official data alone, about 500 thousand conscripts disappeared without a trace on the way to the military registration and enlistment offices.

Another problem is the almost complete destruction in the 1950s of the registration cards of reserve and rank and file personnel of the Red Army. That is, we do not know the real number of those mobilized during the Great Patriotic War, which makes it difficult to calculate real losses and identify the “missing” category among them.

Such different numbers

results basic research by the Krivosheev group, the losses of personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR in hostilities for the period from 1918 to 1989 were published in the book “The Classification of Secrecy has been Removed. Losses of the Armed Forces in wars, hostilities and military conflicts.”

In particular, it says that during the years of the Great Patriotic War (including during the campaign on Far East against Japan in 1945), the total irretrievable demographic losses (killed, missing, captured and did not return from it, died from wounds, diseases and as a result of accidents) of the Soviet Armed Forces, together with border and internal troops, amounted to 8 million 668 thousand 400 people.

But there are researchers who bring the scale of Soviet losses to completely unimaginable levels. The most impressive figures are given by the writer and historian Boris Sokolov, who estimated the total number of deaths in the ranks of the USSR Armed Forces in 1941-1945 at 26.4 million people, with German losses on the Soviet-German front at 2.6 million (ratio 10:1) . In total, he counted 46 million Soviet citizens who died in the Great Patriotic War.

However, official science calls such calculations absurd, since during all the years of the war, taking into account the pre-war number of military personnel, no more than 34.5 million people were mobilized, of which about 27 million were direct participants in the war. Based on Sokolov’s statistics, the Soviet Union finished off the enemy with only a few hundred thousand military personnel, which does not fit in with the realities of the war.

Those who did not return from the war

Krivosheev’s group conducted statistical study a large array of archival documents and other materials containing information about human losses in the army and navy, border and internal troops of the NKVD. Initially, the number of all irretrievable losses of soldiers and officers during the war was determined to be approximately 11.5 million people.

Later, 939.7 thousand military personnel were excluded from this number, recorded at the beginning of the war as missing in action, but re-called into the army in the territory liberated from occupation. The researchers also subtracted from their calculations 1 million 836 thousand former military personnel who returned from captivity after the end of the war.

After lengthy calculations and reconciliations with various sources, in particular, with reports from troops and data from repatriation authorities, the category of irretrievable losses reached the figure of 8 million 668 thousand 400 people. The commission estimated the number of missing and captured people at 3 million 396.4 thousand people.

It is known that in the first months of the war there were significant losses, the nature of which is not documented (information about them was collected subsequently, including from German archives). They amounted to 1 million 162.6 thousand people. Where should I take them? It was decided to address the military personnel who went missing and were captured. In the end there were 4 million 559 thousand people.

Russian publicist and journalist Leonid Radzikhovsky calls this figure overestimated and writes his own - 1 million 783 thousand 300 people. True, he does not include all prisoners in it, but only those who did not return home.

Yours or someone else's?

Many Soviet citizens ended up in the occupied territory of the USSR in the first months of the war. According to German sources, by May 1943, 70 thousand Soviet citizens, mostly prisoners of war, served in the Military Administration police and about 300 thousand in police teams. Only representatives of the Turkic and Caucasian nationalities in the German military formations numbered about 150 thousand people.

After the end of the war, some of the Soviet citizens who sided with the enemy were repatriated and excluded from the category of losses. But some of them went missing, having died or not wanting to return to their homeland. This is where the methodological problem that researchers face arises. If, at the time of being captured, Soviet military personnel were rightfully counted among our losses, then, consequently, after entering service in German army and can the police be credited to the enemy’s account? For now this is a debatable issue.

It is even more difficult to classify Soviet prisoners of war who have already been listed as missing, some of whom deliberately went over to the side of the Reich. Among them are about 100 thousand Latvians, 36 thousand Lithuanians and 10 thousand Estonians. Can they be considered irretrievable losses? Clarification of this issue will have a significant impact on the results of the missing persons count.

Return names

In January 2009, in St. Petersburg, at a meeting of the Russian organizing committee “Victory”, data on the number of missing people were announced by the President of the Russian Federation. Those who could not be found either among the killed or among the former prisoners of war turned out to be 2.4 million people. The names of 6 million soldiers out of 9.5 million located in the registered 47 thousand mass graves in our country and abroad also remain unknown.

It is curious that the data on the number of missing Soviet soldiers coincides with the number in the German army. In a German radio telegram emanating from the Wehrmacht casualty department dated May 22, 1945, the figure of 2.4 million people is noted opposite the “missing in action” category.

Many independent researchers believe that the real number of missing Soviet soldiers is significantly higher than the official one. This can be evidenced by an analysis of the Books of Memory, where approximately half of the citizens who were drafted into the Red Army and did not return from the war are marked as missing.

Candidate of Military Sciences Lev Lopukhovsky believes that the official data on the results of the work of Krivosheev’s group are underestimated by 5-6 million people. According to him, the commission did not take into account the huge category of militia soldiers who died, disappeared and were captured, and this is at least 4 million.

Lopukhovsky called for losses in the “missing in action” category to be compared with data from the card files of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense. The number of missing sergeants and soldiers there alone exceeds 7 million people. The names of these servicemen are recorded in the reports of commanders of military units (1,720,951 people) and in the registration data of military registration and enlistment offices (5,435,311 people).

All this suggests that there is no more or less accurate figure reflecting the number of missing Soviet soldiers. Today, missing soldiers and officers, as well as military personnel who were not properly buried, but included in the losses, are the main object of activity for the Russian search movement. It should be noted that to date, Russian search teams have returned the names of approximately 28 thousand soldiers previously considered missing.

1.1. Searching for a home

1.2. If letters from the front have been preserved

1.3. Search on the Internet

1.4. Books of Memory

1.6. A response has been received from TsAMO. Response Analysis

1.7. Search at the military registration and enlistment office

2.1. Preparing to visit the archive

2.2. Searching for personal information in the archive

2.3. Working with documents of military units in the archive

3.1. Searching for information about military personnel admitted to the hospital

3.2. Search for information about military personnel who were in German captivity

3.3. Search for information about convicted military personnel

3.4. Search for information about military personnel of divisions people's militia

3.5. Search for information about military personnel who fought in penal companies and battalions

3.6. Search for information about military personnel who went to the front as part of marching companies

3.7. Search for information about military personnel of ski battalions

3.8. Searching for information about demobilized military personnel

3.9. Search for information about military personnel killed and missing in battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940.

3.10. Searching for information about partisans

3.11. Search for information about military personnel of the Navy

3.12. Search for information about members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Komsomol

3.13. Search for information about military personnel who participated in the liberation of cities

Introduction

If you want to establish the fate of your relative who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War, then get ready for long and labor-intensive work. Don’t expect that all you have to do is ask a question and someone will tell you in detail about your relative. And there is no magic key to the secret door behind which there is a box with the inscription “The most detailed information about Sergeant Ivanov I.I. for his great-grandson Edik.” Information about a person, if preserved, is scattered across dozens of archives in tiny, often unrelated, fragments. It may turn out that after spending several years searching, you will not learn anything new about your relative. But it is possible that a lucky chance will reward you after just a few months of searching.

Below is a simplified search algorithm. It may seem complicated. In reality, everything is much more complicated. Here are ways to find information if it is preserved somewhere. But the information you need might not have been preserved at all: the hardest of all wars was going on, not only individual military personnel were dying - regiments, divisions, armies were dying, documents were missing, reports were lost, archives were burning... It is especially difficult (and sometimes impossible) to find out the fate of military personnel , killed or missing in action in encirclement in 1941 and the summer of 1942.

In total, the irretrievable losses of the armed forces of the USSR (Red Army, Navy, NKVD) in the Great Patriotic War amounted to 11,944 thousand people. It should be noted right away that these are not dead, but for various reasons excluded from the lists of units. According to the order of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense N 023 dated February 4, 1944, irretrievable losses include “those killed in battle, missing at the front, those who died from wounds on the battlefield and in medical institutions, those who died from diseases received at the front, or those who died at the front.” from other reasons and captured by the enemy." Of this number, 5,059 thousand people were missing. In turn, of those missing in action, most ended up in German captivity (and only less than a third of them lived to see liberation), many died on the battlefield, and many of those who ended up in occupied territory were subsequently re-drafted into the army. The distribution of irretrievable losses and missing persons by year of war (let me remind you that the second number is part of the first) is shown in the table:

Year	Irreversible losses (thousand people)	Missing (thousand people)
1941	3.137	2.335
1942	3.258	1.515
1943	2.312	367
1944	1.763	167
1945	800	68

In total, 9,168 thousand military personnel were killed or died from wounds in the Great Patriotic War, and the total direct human losses of the Soviet Union for all years of the Great Patriotic War are estimated at 26.6 million people. (Numerical data on losses are taken from the works of Colonel General G.F. Krivosheev, 1998-2002, which seem to us the most reliable and least politicized of all known estimates of USSR losses in the Great Patriotic War.)

One more certificate. For comparison. In 2006, according to various sources, from 60 to 100 thousand people went missing in the Russian Federation. No less than five divisions (!) in just one year went missing in peacetime, with a total record of each and every one in dozens of computer databases (from the Pension Fund to the bank of sold railway tickets), with the number of many “security agencies” already, probably , exceeding the size of the army, in a country with a population half the population of the Soviet Union during the war! By the way, in the last decade, the population of Russia has been declining by almost 1 million people annually, and before the start of the “reforms,” the population growth in the RSFSR was more than half a million people a year. Such are the losses of modern Russia in peacetime. Only Russia! And there is also Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan... Now we are divided and pitted against each other, but we fought and won together!

Find specific person It won't be easy. And, if you, having read this note to the end, are still ready to establish the fate of the soldier who died in the battles for the freedom and independence of our Motherland, then start.

Good luck to you!

1. First steps: the number of the military unit is unknown

1.1. Searching for a home

It would be nice to know your last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth and place of birth. Without this information it will be very difficult to search.

The place of birth must be indicated in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the pre-war years. The correspondence between pre-revolutionary, pre-war and modern administrative-territorial divisions can be found on the Internet. (Directory of the administrative division of the USSR in 1939-1945 on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

It is usually not difficult to find out the time of conscription and the place of residence of the conscript. Based on his place of residence, one can determine which District Military Commissariat (RMC) he was called up to.

If a medal or order that a serviceman was awarded during the war has been preserved, then by the award number you can determine the number of the military unit and even find out a description of the feat or military merits of the recipient.

Ranks can be determined by insignia in surviving photographs. If the rank is unknown, then affiliation with the rank and file, command and political personnel can be very approximately determined by the education and pre-war biography of the serviceman.

It is very important at this stage to determine in the troops of which People's Commissariats (People's Commissariats, or in modern terms - ministries) your relative served: the People's Commissariat of Defense (ground forces and aviation), the Navy (including coastal units and naval aviation), People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD troops, border units). The files of different departments are stored in different archives. (Addresses of departmental archives on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

The main task at the first stage should be to find out the date of death and the number of the military unit in which the serviceman was a member for at least some time.

1.2. If letters from the front have been preserved

All letters from the front were reviewed by military censorship, the military personnel were warned about this, therefore, the letters usually did not indicate the names and numbers of military units, names of settlements, etc.

The first thing you need to determine is the number of the Field Postal Station (PPS or “field mail”). By the number of the teaching staff it is often possible to determine the name of the military unit. (“Directory of field postal stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945”, “Directory of military units - field posts of the Red Army in 1943-1945” on the website SOLDAT.ru.) It should be borne in mind that it is not always possible to determine a specific unit ( regiment, battalion, company) as part of a military unit. ("Recommendations" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

In addition to the teaching staff number, the stamp (in the center) contains the date of registration of the letter on the teaching staff (in fact, the date the letter was sent) - it will also be useful in further searches. The text of the letter may contain information about the rank of the serviceman, about his military specialty, about awards, about belonging to a private, junior command (sergeant), command (officer) or political composition, etc.

1.3. Search on the Internet

There are several accessible databases on the Internet that can be searched by surname. Unfortunately, there is no single search resource for surnames, there is not even a single list of databases, so searching on the Internet can take quite a long time. (Links page on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

Currently (2007), by order of the Ministry of Defense, an electronic data bank is being developed on all USSR military personnel killed and missing during the Great Patriotic War. The data bank is created on the basis of documents stored in TsAMO: lists of irretrievable losses, German personal cards for prisoners of war, etc. The data bank is posted on the Internet. The site is currently operating in test mode. The site allows you to search by last name, place of conscription and some other keywords. It is possible to view scanographs of source documents that mention the found person.

When searching on the Internet, you should also check for consonant surnames and first names, especially if the surname is difficult to perceive by ear - with repeated rewriting, the surname could be distorted.

It is necessary to search several search engines on the Internet, using known information about the relative as the search string. Even search system will tell you something interesting based on your request, you should repeat the search for various combinations of words, check synonyms and possible abbreviations of terms, titles, names.

You should definitely visit genealogical and military history sites and forums, look through section catalogs military literature on the websites of electronic libraries.

You should not completely trust information received from the Internet - often no one is responsible for its reliability, so always try to check the facts obtained from other sources. If you cannot check, then make a note or simply remember which of the information was obtained from an unverified source. In the future, you will often come across information that is unlikely, unreliable, doubtful, or even, most likely, false. For example, very soon you will have a list of namesakes, a wanted relative, whose biographical facts coincide with the ones you need. There is no need to throw anything away, but be sure to indicate for each new fact the source from which you received it - maybe in a year you will have new information that will force you to re-evaluate the information you collected.

If you have a desire to ask your question at a military-historical forum right now, don’t rush. First, read the posts on this forum over the past weeks. It may turn out that similar questions have already been asked more than once, and regular forum visitors have already answered them in detail - in this case, your question will cause irritation. In addition, each forum has its own rules and traditions, and if you want to receive a friendly response, then try not to violate the norms of behavior accepted on the forum. Typically, when writing your first message to a forum, you should introduce yourself. And don't forget to include an email address for those who want to respond to you by letter.

1.4. Books of Memory

Books of Memory have been published in many regions, which contain alphabetical lists of region residents who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Books of Memory are multi-volume publications; they can be found in the regional library and in the military registration and enlistment offices of the region, but they are difficult to find outside the region. In some regions, in addition to the regional Book of Memory, Books of Memory of some districts have been published. Some Books are available in electronic versions on the Internet. Since editions different areas, republics and regions were prepared by different editorial teams, the set of personal information and design of different publications are different. As a rule, the Books of Memory of regions indicate military personnel who were born or drafted into the army in this region. Both Books of Memory should be checked - those issued at the place of birth and at the place of conscription of the serviceman. (Links to electronic versions of the Books of Memory on the Internet on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

In the Books of Memory of some regions on whose territory they were fought fighting, provides information about military personnel who died and were buried in the region. If you know in which region a serviceman died, you need to check the Book of Memory of the corresponding region.

A large database of deceased military personnel is available in the museum on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow, and museum employees provide certificates both in person and by telephone, but the database installed in the museum is abbreviated (contains only the last name, first name, patronymic and year of birth), and the complete database, created with public money, is now private property and virtually inaccessible.

If you yourself are unable to gain access to the necessary Books of Memory, then you can ask to check the book of the desired area on an online forum with military-historical or genealogical topics. In addition, many cities have their own websites on the Internet, and most of these websites have their own regional forums. You can ask a question or make a request on just such a forum, and you will most likely be given advice or a hint, and, if the locality is small, then you can find out some question at the military registration and enlistment office or museum.

It should be borne in mind that there are also errors in the Books of Memory, their number depends on the conscientiousness of the editorial team.

1.5. Archive request

Most of the documents relating to the period of the Great Patriotic War are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Below we will mainly describe the search for military personnel of the People's Commissariat of Defense (NKO) and, accordingly, links will be made to the TsAMO archive, since it is in it that the archives of the People's Commissariat of Defense (and then the Ministry of Defense) are stored from June 22, 1941 to the eighties. (Addresses of departmental archives on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

The file of dead and missing NGO servicemen during the Great Patriotic War is stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). Similar loss files are available in: a) the Central Naval Archive in Gatchina - for personnel of the fleet, coastal service and naval aviation, b) the Russian State Military Archive in Moscow - for persons who served in agencies, formations and units NKVD, c) archive of the Federal Border Service of the FSB of the Russian Federation in Pushkino, Moscow Region - for border guards.

To obtain information about the fate of a serviceman, you must send a request to TsAMO (or to the other archives mentioned above), in which you must briefly indicate the known information about the serviceman. It is also recommended to include a stamped envelope with your home address in the envelope to speed up the response. (TsAMO postal address and sample application on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

If the military rank of a serviceman is unknown or there is reason to believe that he could have been awarded an officer rank, then in the application to TsAMO you should write “Please check the personal files and loss records of the 6th, 9th, 11th departments of TsAMO” (in departments 6, 9 , 11 files are kept respectively for political, private and non-commissioned officers).

It is recommended that at the same time, in the same letter, you send an application with a request to “Clarify awards” and indicate the last name, first name, patronymic, year and place of birth of the serviceman. TsAMO has a card index of all decorated servicemen of the Red Army, and it may turn out that the serviceman you are looking for was awarded a medal or order. (Image of the “Registration Card of the Awarded Person” and the request form on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

Due to insufficient funding for the archive, a response from it may take 6-12 months to arrive by mail, so if possible, it is better to visit the archive in person. (Address of TsAMO on the website SOLDAT.ru.) You can also fill out a request at the military registration and enlistment office, in this case the request to the archive will be issued on the letterhead of the military registration and enlistment office with the signature of the military registration and enlistment office and a seal.

1.6. A response has been received from TsAMO. Response Analysis

1.6.1. It should be noted that during the war, the registration of dead servicemen was organized quite clearly (as far as this was possible in war conditions), and each unit reported to the higher headquarters a list of irretrievable losses by name, in which for each deceased his last name, first name, patronymic, and year were indicated. birth, rank, position, date and place of death, place of burial, military registration and enlistment office, residential address and names of parents or wife. All these reports were collected in the Directorate for Staffing the Troops of the General Staff of the Red Army (later - in the Central Bureau of Losses of the Red Army), and after the war they were transferred to TsAMO, and on their basis a card index of irretrievable losses was compiled.

Information from the report of the military unit was transferred to the personal card; the card indicated the number of the military unit and the number under which this report was recorded.

Notification of the death of a serviceman was sent by the headquarters of the unit in which the deceased served, as a rule, to the military registration and enlistment office. A duplicate notice was issued at the military registration and enlistment office, which was handed over to relatives, and on its basis a pension was subsequently issued. The original notices remained in storage at the military registration and enlistment office. The original notice had a round seal and a corner stamp with the name of the military unit or its conventional five-digit number. Some of the notices were sent by the headquarters of military units directly to relatives, bypassing the military registration and enlistment office, which was a violation established order. Some of the post-war issuance notices were issued by district military registration and enlistment offices on the proposal of the Central Bureau of Losses. All notices issued by military registration and enlistment offices bore the seal and details of the military registration and enlistment office, and the number of the military unit was usually not given.

The notice indicated: the name of the unit, rank, position, date and place of death of the serviceman and burial place. (Image of a notice of the death of a serviceman on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)

It is necessary to distinguish between two ways of indicating the names of Von units: a) in the period 1941-42. the documents indicated the actual name of the unit - for example, 1254 rifle regiment, possibly indicating the number of the rifle division; b) in the period 1943-45, the conventional name of the military unit was indicated - for example, “military unit 57950”, which corresponded to the same 1254 sp.

1.6.2. A serviceman who was absent from his unit for an unknown reason was considered missing, and the search for him for 15 days did not yield any results. Information about missing persons was also transmitted to higher headquarters, and notification of the missing person was sent to relatives. In this case, the notice indicated the name of the military unit and the location of the missing serviceman.

Most often, military personnel listed as missing in action died during a retreat, or during reconnaissance in force, or while surrounded. It was difficult to witness their deaths for various reasons. The missing persons also included military personnel who were captured, deserters, business travelers who did not arrive at their destination, reconnaissance officers who did not return from a mission, personnel of entire units and subunits in the event that they were defeated and there were no more commanders left. who could reliably report to higher authorities about specific types of losses. However, the reason for the soldier’s absence could not only be his death. For example, a warrior who fell behind a unit on the march could be included in another military unit, in which he then continued to fight. A wounded person from the battlefield could be evacuated by soldiers of another unit and sent directly to the hospital. There are cases when relatives received several notices (“funerals”) during the war, but the person turned out to be alive.

1.6.3. In cases where no information about irretrievable losses was received from a military unit to a higher headquarters (for example, in the case of the death of a unit or its headquarters while surrounded, loss of documents), notification to relatives could not be sent, because lists of the unit's military personnel were among the lost staff documents.

After the end of the war, district military registration and enlistment offices carried out work to collect information about military personnel who did not return from the war and were called up by these military registration and enlistment offices (door-to-door survey). Based on information from the military registration and enlistment offices, the file of losses was replenished with cards compiled based on the results of a survey of relatives. Such cards could contain the entry “correspondence was interrupted in December 1942,” and the number of the military unit was usually missing. If the card drawn up on the basis of a report from the military registration and enlistment office indicates the number of the military unit, then it should be treated as probable, conjectural. The date of the disappearance of the serviceman in this case was established by the military commissar by adding three months to the date of the last letter (three months were recommended by the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs Directive).

Household survey sheets are also stored in TsAMO (department 9), and they may contain information that is not on the card. When filling out the card, not all the information given in the house-to-house survey sheet was usually entered into it, since there was no way to check the information recorded from the words of relatives. Therefore, if it is known that the family of a serviceman received letters from him from the front, but these letters were subsequently lost, then some information from these letters (PPS number, date of the letter) may appear in the house-to-house survey reports. When responding to a request about the fate of a serviceman, archive workers do not have the opportunity to find records of a door-to-door survey. You will have to look for them yourself, but, most likely, during a personal visit to the archive. The RVC report number indicating the year is stamped on the back of the personal card.

1.6.4. In the first months of the war, some military registration and enlistment offices found themselves in occupied territory, and their archives, including lists of conscripts, were lost. Therefore, for military personnel called up from the western regions of the country before the war and in the first months of the war, cards in the department of irretrievable losses may not be available.

1.6.5. Thus, a letter from TsAMO may contain 4 answer options:

1) A message about the death of a serviceman indicating the number of the military unit, date and place of death, rank and burial place

2) A message about a missing serviceman indicating the number of the military unit, the date and place of the loss

3) A report of a missing serviceman, compiled on the basis of a survey of relatives, with incomplete, unverified or unreliable information

4) Message about the absence of information about the serviceman in the loss file

If you are lucky, and the response from TsAMO contains the name of the military unit, then you can proceed to clarify the military path of the serviceman (see below)

If you are VERY lucky, and in the TsAMO card file of awarded recipients you found a registration card for your relative, and an extract from it was sent to you in the archive’s response, then at the same time as clarifying the combat path, you should begin searching for an award sheet, which contains a brief description of the feat or merits of the recipient.

1.7. Search at the military registration and enlistment office

1.7.1. If the response from the archive does not indicate the number of the military unit or there is no information in the archive, then you will have to continue the search for the serviceman at the military registration and enlistment office at the place of conscription. You can send an application to the military registration and enlistment office by mail or appear in person. The latter is, of course, preferable. If the exact address of the military registration and enlistment office is unknown, then only the name can be indicated on the envelope settlement(without street and house), and in the “To” column write: “District Military Commissariat” - the letter will arrive. The application must indicate all known information about the serviceman. (Sample application to RVC and postal codes on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

1.7.2. A conscript could be sent as part of marching companies to the front, or assigned to a reserve or training regiment or brigade stationed at that time near the place of conscription, or to a unit formed in this area. Marching companies were usually not sent directly to a combat unit, but first arrived at an army or front-line transit point (PP) or at an army or front-line reserve rifle regiment (or reserve rifle brigade). Newly formed or reformed military units were sent to the front and participated in hostilities under their own number.

1.7.3. At the military registration and enlistment office, a “Conscription Card” was issued for each conscript and is still stored to this day. On its reverse side, the penultimate item contains the number of the draft team and the date the team was sent. (Image of the draft card on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)

1.7.4. Next, in the same military registration and enlistment office, the “Name list for the team” is searched for by the number of the draft team and the date. In addition to the name list, it contains the number of the military unit (conditional - “military unit N 1234”, or real - “333 s.d.”) and the address of this unit. (Image of the name list for the team on the SOLDIAT.ru website.)

1.7.5. If the part number is conditional, then you need to determine the actual number. ("Directory of the conventional names of military units (institutions) in 1939 - 1943" and "Directory of military units - field posts of the Red Army in 1943-1945" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

1.7.6. It should be recalled that the archives of military registration and enlistment offices located in the temporarily occupied territories in the western regions and republics of the Soviet Union could have been lost.

1.7.7. If it is not possible to find out at the conscription office where the conscript was sent, then the last hope is the reserve and training units stationed at that time near the conscription settlement. Usually, previously unserved conscripts were sent to them for training. Further searches for information should be made in the documents of these parts. (Directory "Deployment of spare and training units" on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)

In addition, it is necessary to try to find out which military units were formed near the recruiting station. This can be done at the regional military registration and enlistment office.

1.7.8. If it is known that the family of a deceased service member received a survivor's pension, then you should find the pension file for the recipient (usually one of the parents, wife or children) in the Social Security department. The pension file must have a copy or even the original of the document on the basis of which the pension was assigned - this document could be a death notice or a certificate from the military registration and enlistment office indicating the number of the military unit. In addition, the pension file may contain copies of the marriage registration certificate, birth certificates of children and other documents of the pensioner. The pension file is stored in the archives of the Pension Fund branch for 20 years after the death of the pensioner, sometimes more.

1.7.9. If at this stage it was possible to find out the number of the unit to which the conscript was sent, then you can proceed to clarify the military path of the serviceman (see below). Some special cases are discussed in Section 3.

2. Work in the archive

2.1. Preparing to visit the archive

If the number of the military unit is known, then you can proceed to the most interesting, exciting and at the same time the most difficult stage of the work - determining the military path of the serviceman. Perhaps you will be able to establish the place and circumstances of the death. But before that, it is recommended to read articles on military history sites and familiarize yourself at least in general terms with the structure Armed Forces, with the main battles during the Great Patriotic War, with military ranks and positions.

Then, if, for example, the regiment number is known, you should determine which division it was part of during the period of time you are interested in, which battalions and separate divisions were part of the regiment, in which army and front the division operated, its deployment... Any information that can be found may be useful. (A lot of necessary information posted in the "Reference Books" section on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)

It should be kept in mind that connections may have been renamed and re-formed, so pay attention to the dates of re-formation and renaming. Reformation was usually carried out in connection with the death or renaming of a unit, in this case the vacant number was assigned to the newly formed military unit. Of course, the old and new military units had nothing in common except the number, so their funds are kept separately in the archive. Reformed formations must be searched taking into account the formation number (for example: 96th SD of the 3rd formation). When a military unit was renamed (for example, when it was given the rank of guards with a change in number), the documents continued to be stored in the same headquarters, and after the war (or when the unit was disbanded), all documents were transferred to the archive as part of a single fund.

Documents of renamed military units will need to be searched in the archive by their last name, even if you are interested in the period before the renaming.

2.2. Searching for personal information in the archive

The next step will be a personal visit to TsAMO.

Please note that the effectiveness of your work in the archive will depend on the degree of your preparation for visiting the archive. Ignorance of some features of the archive, work rules, office work, etc. may result in wasted time.

Some issues can be resolved in the archive within a day - this is mainly personal information about the serviceman. Here is a list of questions that can be clarified relatively quickly:

1. Establishing the fate from the card index of the deceased 2. Familiarization with the record card of the awarded 3. Search for the award order and award sheet with a brief description of the feat or merits of the awarded 4. Familiarization with the officer’s service record card 5. Familiarization with the officer’s personal file (only for relatives, with the personal permission of the head of the archive and in the presence of the head of the department) 6. Establishing the name of a serviceman by the number of a medal or order (only for representatives of search teams, and for others - at the request of the military registration and enlistment office) 7. Search for reports from military registration and enlistment offices about military personnel who did not return from the war, and house-to-house survey reports

Each of these questions takes 2-5 hours. If you are going to study some documents in the reading room, it is recommended that you first order the necessary documentation for the reading room - after that you will have free time- and then start searching for personal information. ("Features of searching for documents in TsAMO" on the Soldat.ru website.)

Before visiting TsAMO, you should check by phone the work schedule of the archive departments you need.

2.3. Working with documents of military units in the archive

Issues related to the study of documentation in the reading room of the archive (for example, establishing the combat path of a serviceman or military unit) may require several days, and sometimes several weeks of hard work. You can even receive the documentation necessary for work only the next day after ordering. The exception is inventories of divisions, armies, and fronts, which can be obtained within a few minutes. ("Features of searching for documents in TsAMO" on the Soldat.ru website.)

If, for example, the regiment number is known, then it is necessary to order and obtain an inventory of the regimental and division funds. Inventory of division funds can be obtained within a day, and inventory of regiment funds will be issued only the next day after the order. The inventories list the names and numbers of cases stored in the archive. In the collections of military units there are usually such files as “The Book of Name Registration of Privates and Sergeants,” “The Book of Registration of Officers,” and “The Journal of Irreversible Losses.” These should be ordered and reviewed first. Cases such as the “Journal of Combat Operations”, “Combat Path of the Regiment (Division)”, “Book of Orders” may also be useful. If you order these cases in the morning, you will receive them the next day.

If the desired serviceman is found in the accounting book, you should write down all essential information and continue the search in the accounting book for the next period. In the event of a serviceman leaving the unit, a record was made in the appropriate column about the date of departure and the order number. You should find the required order in the “Book of Orders”; it must indicate the reason why the serviceman is excluded from the list of the unit (for example: for training, at the disposal of a higher headquarters, etc.) and the name of the unit to which he left. The number of the order of the higher organization may also be indicated there.

Replenishment and secondment should also be mentioned in unit orders. The order is given about the fact of a change in the condition of personnel (arrival and departure) and removal from pay. Sometimes the order lists names, but often only the number of arrivals or departures is given with a mention of the attached list, which, as a rule, is not included in the file. You can check the distribution sheets for the regiment (if preserved) for the issuance of pay to military personnel for the previous, for the desired and subsequent months.

The next step: to establish the course of hostilities with day-by-day accuracy - this is done using combat logs, combat reports of the unit commander and unit commanders, operational reports, orders, other documents, as well as similar documents from higher and neighboring military units that mention this military unit. Thus, it is sometimes possible to narrow the geographical area to a village, and the time of death to an hour.

If it is established that the serviceman has been transferred to another unit, then the search must be continued by ordering an inventory of the funds of this unit.

To find information about military personnel sent to reserve and training units and to transit points, it is necessary to study the inventories of the armies and fronts that included these military units.

Information about which military units were part of the formation can be found in the Combat and Numerical Composition log. Each military unit regularly sent these reports to higher headquarters.

2.4.1. If you have come to the archive for the first time, and you still do not know anything except the number of the army or division, take a directory of rifle divisions or combined arms armies from the scientific reference library of the TsAMO reading room. In them you will learn the structure of these formations, their subordination, i.e. joining higher military formations at various times. Then order an inventory of the affairs of the division or army. It is recommended that you first order files from the army fund.

2.4.2. What to do if the taken inventory of the army, division or regiment does not contain the case of interest (for example, there is no documentation for a certain period) or there is nothing in the ordered file that could shed light on the events that took place? There are two ways:

1) order the affairs of subordinate units and divisions

2) consistently order the files of neighbors and higher authorities - divisions, corps, armies, fronts (front files are probably secret)

2.4.3. In the absence of information about the encirclements and failures of divisions and armies, it should be sought in the army and front funds in the affairs of the military branches, services and departments of headquarters and, especially, in the affairs of political agencies.

2.4.4. One of the forms of reporting is reports on the combat and numerical strength of troops (hereinafter - BC) as of a specific date. They consist of digital data reflecting the staffing and payroll numbers of personnel and weapons of combat units, combat support units, rear units, NKVD units, attached formations, as well as institutions whose numbers were not standardized by NPO standards (state bank, field postal station, etc.) .P.). Reports on emergency situations were submitted once every 5 days - by regiments, divisions and individual army units.

2.4.5. Official confirmation of a serviceman's participation in hostilities can be obtained from the military registration and enlistment office. Each military registration and enlistment office has a directory in which for each military unit and even for small units the dates of their entry into the Active Army are indicated.

3. Special cases

3.1. Searching for information about military personnel admitted to the hospital

3.1.1. If it is established that the serviceman has left for the hospital, then a request should be sent to the Archive of Military Medical Documents of the Military Medical Museum of the Russian Defense Ministry. ("Addresses of departmental archives" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

A request to the Archive of Military Medical Documents should also be sent if no information about the serviceman has yet been found: it may turn out that he was wounded and is listed in the file cabinet. Question for those who worked in the archive: is there a card index in the archive?

3.1.2. If the date and place of the soldier’s injury are known, then you need to try to establish the number of the hospital to which he was sent. To do this, according to the inventories of the rear departments of the army and the front, one should find rear reports, as well as reports from subordinate units and institutions about the location, current work, movement of wounded patients, evacuation routes, etc. documents that may contain information about deployment. From these same documents, it will probably be possible to establish the numbers of hospitals subordinate to the front and army rear services departments. After establishing the hospital number, you can request its reports on losses, as well as burial books, from the 9th department of TsAMO. ("Directory of hospital locations" on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

3.2. Search for information about military personnel who were in German captivity

3.2.1. There were more than 5 million in German captivity during the war. Soviet people(military personnel and civilians). Of these, approximately 3 million people died in captivity, and a small part remained in the West after liberation. Most of the file cabinets of the German camps ended up there, with our former allies.

German personal cards for prisoners of war who died or died in captivity are stored in TsAMO (the incomplete card file contains 321,000 cards). Cards for released prisoners of war were transferred to the regional departments of the MGB in 1946-48. for current work.

3.2.2. Military personnel liberated by Soviet troops from German prisoner of war camps were sent to the NKVD testing and filtration camps (PFL). In the camp, investigators from the Smersh counterintelligence department found out the circumstances of the captivity and the conditions of detention in the concentration camp.

Of course, the statements of modern journalists that all military personnel released from German captivity were sentenced to 10-25 years and sent to Soviet concentration camps are a lie. In cases that did not require a detailed check, a filtration file was not even opened, only a card was drawn up, and the serviceman was usually sent to an army reserve rifle regiment, and these were the overwhelming majority. In other cases, former prisoners of war could be sent to penal companies (the officers were usually stripped of their ranks). The period of stay of former prisoners of war in the PFL usually did not exceed one or two months.

In the archives of the FSB of a regional or republican center in the region of a serviceman’s place of residence or birth, there may be a filtration and verification file on him. Information about the availability of a case can be obtained by telephone. The files may be given to relatives for review and making copies. To do this, you should send a request to the archive or contact the local FSB department, which will formalize the request, receive the file by field mail and familiarize the applicant with it.

In half of the regions, filtration and inspection files were transferred from the FSB archives to the state (regional) archives. TsAMO does not have these files, but there may be a German “Personal Camp Card”. Files on those born before 1910 could be destroyed in the FSB archives after the expiration of the storage period (75 years from the year of birth).

3.2.3. If a serviceman was convicted of collaborating with the Germans while in captivity, then the request should be sent to the Main Information Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation through the internal affairs agency at your place of residence.

3.2.4. The International Tracing Service, created after the Second World War, initially searched only for missing Germans. Now the scope of its activities has expanded somewhat: they are still looking for missing Germans here, but the search service also finds free documents about prisoners of German concentration camps of 1933-1945, about foreigners who disappeared on German territory, about those who were deported to this country, and about the missing children of all these people in Germany. The address of the International Tracing Service is: Grosse Allee 5-9, 34444 AROLSEN, Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Phone: (0 56 91) 6037. http://deutsch.its-arolsen.org/

3.2.5. A request should also be made to the International Red Cross. ("Address and sample application form" on the website SOLDIAT.ru.)

3.3. Search for information about convicted military personnel

3.3.1. Information about convicted military personnel is stored in the 5th department of TsAMO. If it is known that a serviceman has been convicted, then 3 different requests should be sent to TsAMO: one about his fate, the second about awards, and the third about his conviction. They will all go to different departments of TsAMO. In the last request, you should indicate that the serviceman was convicted, and ask for the number of the military unit in which he served before his arrest, and send a copy of the verdict of the military tribunal.

3.3.2. The personal file of the convicted person must be kept in the archives of the body that passed the sentence, i.e. it can be in the materials of either the tribunal of the military unit, or the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, or the FSB Directorate of the region where the incident took place. court hearing. You can find out about the availability of a case by phone. If the case is in the archive, then according to the existing rules, only the relatives of the convicted person can become familiar with it, only in the presence of an archive employee, and only if the convicted person has been rehabilitated. But according to some information, archive staff allow deviations from the rules, and if you can convince them, then upon your written application, photocopies of some documents can be sent by mail. If you want to get acquainted with the case, you must write an application to the FSB at your place of residence.

3.4. Search for information about military personnel of the people's militia divisions

In the first years of the war, several rifle divisions of the people's militia (sdno) were formed from among volunteers. If TsAMO does not have information about a militia member, then it is recommended to look in the archives at his place of residence for the funds of the organization in which he worked before enlisting in the people’s militia. Orders for organization must contain a record of assignment to a people's militia division or to the disposal of the RVK. In this way you can establish the division number or the name of the military registration and enlistment office. Further search is carried out in TsAMO in the division fund, and if the order for the organization does not indicate the division number, then you should first find out the division number in the RVC.

3.5. Search for information about military personnel who fought in penal companies and battalions

Penal companies and battalions were created by order N227 of July 28, 1942 (this order is known as “Not a step back!”). Penal battalions were formed on each front in numbers from one to three; officers convicted by military tribunals were sent to them, according to the verdict of the tribunal, in those cases where they were not deprived of their officer rank.

Penal companies existed in combined arms armies (up to ten penal companies), they were sent to:

a) officers convicted by military tribunals, in cases where, by the verdict of the tribunal, they were deprived of their officer rank, b) privates and sergeants, convicted by military tribunals, by the verdict of the tribunal, c) privates and sergeants who committed disciplinary offense, by orders of commanders of military units (from the regiment commander and above), d) civilian prisoners (men only), for whom serving imprisonment in the camp was replaced by service in penal battalions.

Tank and aviation armies did not have their own penal units; penal soldiers from these armies were sent to penal units of combined arms armies and fronts.

Military personnel were sent to penal units for a period of 1 or 2 months, and for prisoners, the period of service in penal companies was calculated depending on the term of punishment to which they were sentenced by the court, according to the following scheme: up to 5 years in prison - a month, 5-8 years - two months, up to ten (this was maximum term punishment at that time) - three months.

After any injury, military personnel of penal units were released from further serving their sentences and were sent to a medical battalion, and after recovery - to a reserve regiment. Military personnel who served the prescribed period were considered exempt from punishment and were sent either to their unit or to a reserve rifle regiment of the army, while the officers were restored to their previous rank and position.

For combat operations, penal units were transferred to operational subordination to divisions. Information about penal units should be sought in the funds of the corresponding armies and fronts, and information about their activities may be in the funds of the divisions and regiments to which they were assigned. TsAMO also has numerous funds for storing documents of penal companies and battalions, which any researcher can familiarize themselves with.

3.6. Search for information about military personnel who went to the front as part of marching companies

3.6.1. Sometimes a search in the military registration and enlistment office gives only the date the team was sent from the recruiting office, but the address of the destination is missing. But even if the address is specified, then upon further search it sometimes turns out that the team did not arrive at the specified address. As mentioned above, military teams and marching companies were sent:

a) to reserve rifle regiments (ZSP) and brigades (ZSBR) of armies and fronts,

b) to transit points (PP) of the army or front,

c) directly to combat units

3.6.2. Reserve rifle regiments and brigades were part of combined arms armies, fronts and military districts. The following categories of military personnel were sent to the ZSP and ZSBR:

1) conscripts called up for military service in reserve, 2) recovered military personnel from hospitals, 3) military personnel who lagged behind their units and commands, 4) military personnel released from German concentration camps and checked by the NKVD, 5) military personnel who arrived from reserve rifle regiments of internal military districts, 6 ) military personnel who arrived from the military educational institutions, 7) citizens newly called up in the liberated territory, 8) personnel of disbanded units, 9) newly called up persons who had not previously served in the army, etc.

In the reserve regiments, training was carried out, marching units were formed and sent to the front to active units in their specialty. The time a serviceman spent in a reserve regiment usually ranged from several days to a month and only in rare cases exceeded 3-4 months.

It is necessary to distinguish between permanent and variable composition of the reserve regiment. Everything said in the previous paragraphs refers to the variable composition of the reserve regiment. The regiment's rifle battalions, a training battalion, a convalescent battalion, a school for junior lieutenants and some other units were staffed with a variable composition. But the reserve regiment also had a permanent composition, which included company and battalion commanders, regimental headquarters, auxiliary units and regiment services (medical unit, separate communications company, engineer platoon, utility platoon, etc.). For permanent personnel, the reserve rifle regiment was the place of permanent service.

Information about reserve regiments and brigades should be sought in the funds of the troop recruitment departments of the corresponding armies, fronts or military districts. (Directory of the deployment of reserve and training regiments on the website SOLDAT.ru.)

3.6.3. Transit points were created to quickly resolve issues when moving teams, supplying food, uniforms and weapons. Using the documents of the transit point, you can determine the further path of the team in case of a change in destination, and you can also find a list of the team there.

Cases of transit points should be sought in the funds of the troop recruitment departments of the corresponding armies, fronts and military districts.

3.6.4. If the date the command was sent to the front is known, but the final address is unknown, then you can try to trace the path of the echelon:

a) according to documents of the organizational department of the military district of dispatch (these documents are still not declassified), b) according to documents of the military communications department (VOSO) of the General Staff of the spacecraft (also not declassified), c) according to documents of the staffing departments of front headquarters, d) according to archive documents MPS (may not be declassified).

Documentation in VOSO services was carried out very strictly and punctually, all of it should be preserved, but, unfortunately, almost all documents are still secret. To familiarize yourself with them, you need to obtain permission to work with secret documents of the above-mentioned structures through the Archive Service of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

3.6.5. It should be borne in mind that in wartime conditions the average speed of trains was low, therefore, when calculating arrival dates, it is necessary to take into account that a distance of, for example, 300 km, a military train could cover both in 10 hours and in 5 days.

3.6.6. And the most unpleasant result of the search may probably be the establishment of the fact of negligent or criminal failure of commanders of military units to fulfill their duties in registering military personnel. There are cases when marching reinforcements were immediately brought into battle upon arrival, even without being included in the unit’s lists. War...

3.7. Search for information about military personnel of ski battalions

Separate ski battalions (ski battalions) were formed in reserve ski regiments of internal military districts in the fall and winter of 1941-1942. There were spare ski regiments in the Arkhangelsk, Moscow, Ural, Volga and Siberian military districts; they were disbanded in the spring of 1942, but before that they formed and sent to the front almost 300 ski battalions with a staff strength of 570 people each.

Conscripts born in the second half of 1922 were drafted into the Red Army in the fall of 1941, so most of them were sent specifically to the reserve ski regiments that were being formed at the same time.

The ski battalions were armed with PPSh machine guns, light mortars, and light machine guns. Therefore, they were used at the forefront of offensives, and in connection with this, the number of casualties was very large. The vast majority of ski battalions were disbanded within 2-3 months after arriving at the front. By the time of disbandment, there were usually 40-80 fighters left in the ski battalions. Funerals were rarely sent home; personnel records and combat documents were often lost, because the headquarters of many battalions were destroyed. For example: out of 44 ski poles that reached the Volkhov Front in December 1941 - March 1942, TsAMO has documents for only two ski poles.

The files of individual ski battalions should be looked for in the funds of the formations to which they were assigned.

3.8. Searching for information about demobilized military personnel

When a serviceman was demobilized, he handed over his Red Army book to the headquarters of his unit, after which he was issued a passage certificate (travel document), usually to the place from which he was called up. After arriving at the destination, the serviceman had to register for military service at the military registration and enlistment office, pass a passing certificate, receive a military ID, and only after that could receive a passport.

If it is known that a war participant was demobilized either after the end of the war, or during the war after being discharged from the hospital, you should look for information about him at the military registration and enlistment office. The archives of the military registration and enlistment office contain a registration card for a person liable for military service, which contains information about his military service and his places of work after demobilization until deregistration. When changing the place of residence, the registration card and personal file were sent to the military registration and enlistment office at the new place of residence and are now stored in the military registration and enlistment office in which he was deregistered.

If it is known that a war participant received a disability pension, then you should contact the pension department - the personal card may indicate the number of the hospital that issued the disability certificate. Further search for information should be carried out in the Archive of Military Medical Documents of the Military Medical Museum of the Russian Defense Ministry. (“Addresses of departmental archives” on the website SOLDAT.ru.) It is recommended to send two requests to the archive: one to search in the general file cabinet, and the second to search in the funds of a specific hospital. The answer to the request may be negative, because Many hospitals did not archive their files after the war.

3.9. Search for information about military personnel killed and missing in battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940.

"Name list of Soviet Army servicemen who died and disappeared in battles against the White Finns in 1939-1940." stored in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA) (fond 34980, year 1939-1940, inventory 15). It includes 126,875 people killed in battle, missing in action and who died from wounds in hospitals.

3.10. Searching for information about partisans

Information about partisan detachments in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union is stored in the fund of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI).

3.11. Search for information about military personnel of the Navy

Documents of the Navy (including files on personnel records and personal files of officers) for the period until 1941 are stored in the Russian State Archive of the Navy (191065, St. Petersburg, Millionnaya St., 35 ).

Documents for the period since 1941 are stored in the Central Naval Archive (188350, Leningrad region, Gatchina, Krasnoarmeysky lane, no. 2). Among them are documents from departments, institutions, units and ships of the Navy, materials on personnel: a card index of irretrievable losses of Navy personnel during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945; files of registration of privates and senior officers; personal files of admirals and naval officers; award materials.

The branch of the Central Naval Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (123362, Moscow, Malaya Naberezhnaya Street, 11/25) stores documents of naval brigades and marine brigades for the years 1941-1945.

3.12. Search for information about members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Komsomol

By last name, first name and patronymic, year and place of birth, as well as by party or Komsomol card number, you can find documents in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI).

In TsAMO you can find information about the heads of the party bureau in the files of party meetings, reports, etc. This helps when the position and part are known, but the last name, first name and patronymic are not known.

3.13 Search for information about military personnel who participated in the liberation of cities

In some cases, the names of cities in the liberation of which a serviceman took part are known (for example, from letters or memoirs). In the "Handbook for the Liberation of Cities" (available on the website soldier.ru) you can determine the numbers of units and formations that participated in the liberation of the city.

4. Conclusion

Of course, no reference book can provide and describe all possible cases. But now you have a general idea of ​​search. And, if you, having checked all the sources of information described above, have not found an answer to your questions, then try asking for advice or a hint on the military-historical forum. You already know how to correctly formulate your question.

In preparing the document, materials from the site and forum Soldat.ru, as well as other military-historical and genealogical sites, were used.

An updated version of this document is posted on the website genobooks.narod.ru.

Permission is granted to freely copy and distribute this document.

Comments and additions in the form of a finished text are accepted.

The author of most of the above information is Igor Ivanovich Ivlev, editor of the site Soldat.ru, director of the Arkhangelsk State Social Memorial Center "Poisk"

Design, editing, compilation: Meller Alexander Leonidovich meller#aha.ru genobooks.narod.ru 1993.sovnarkom.ru

Instructions for finding information about soldiers who did not return from the front.

Every May 9th the “Immortal Regiment” is held. I would also like to participate, but I know almost nothing about my front-line relatives. Where to look for information?

More than 6.3 million soldiers died in the Great Patriotic War, and 4.5 million were missing. The fate of the dead and missing is not known to every family. The reasons for this can be completely different. But, fortunately, today this information can be found out, even if no documents or photographs of the soldier have been preserved. Most of the archival files from the period of the Great Patriotic War have already been digitized and stored in public databases on the Internet. With their help, you can trace the soldier’s combat path, learn about his wounds, awards, place and circumstances of death, and burial place.

My husband’s mother’s father was drafted to the front in July 1941 and died in one of the first battles,” shared Valentina Rogacheva, a journalist for the Svoykirovsky portal. - Mother received a funeral - “Dead.” But there was no burial place or any information at all. Then the village where my mother-in-law’s family lived was burned by the Germans during the retreat, and there was no information left about her father at all: no photographs, no documents - everything was burned. All her life she dreamed of learning at least something about her father. And so, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, I learned in the news that the data of soldiers of the Great Patriotic War was being digitized. We started looking for information on the Internet. All we knew was his full name, year of birth and year of enlistment. In one of the public databases they found him in the lists of those buried in a mass grave on the territory of Belarus and a note stating that he died in battle. And although the place of burial is not entirely clear, it is now at least clear that he died not in captivity, but in battle, that he was buried, albeit in a mass grave.

So, all you need to know for the first stage of the search is the last name, first name and patronymic of the deceased or missing person, his date and place of birth. This can be found out from relatives. It is also advisable to know where the soldier was drafted.

What databases can you use?

There are four main databases with documents digitized from archives, which are constantly updated:

• . A generalized database of dead and missing people during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period. The personal information they contain amounts to more than 20 million records;
• . The data bank contains 12.5 million records of awards of orders and medals “For Courage” (awarded to about 4.6 million people) and “For Military Merit” (awarded to more than 5.2 million people), as well as 22 million cards from the award card index and card indexes of awards of the Order of the Patriotic War, I and II degrees, for the 40th anniversary of the Victory;
• . The portal was created by the Ministry of Defense by decision of the Russian Pobeda organizing committee. It summarizes the data banks “Memorial” and “Feat of the People in the Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945.” Here you can view historical maps and combat logs;
• - website of the all-Russian movement “Immortal Regiment”. Users independently upload data about their front-line relatives. At the moment, the Immortal Regiment database contains more than 400 thousand entries.

Screenshot from obd-memorial.ru

However, there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, the soldier’s name may have been written down incorrectly when joining the front (for example, Snigirev instead of Snegirev, Kiril instead of Kirill), the same goes for his date of birth (some conscripts themselves asked to change their age in order to get to the front). So if you can’t find a person by exact full name and date of birth, you can try to write the last name as it would be perceived by ear, and change the year of birth by a couple of years, up or down. Secondly, if you are looking for information on the place of conscription or birth, you need to remember that the administrative-territorial division of the regions of the RSFSR has changed. For example, Oparinsky, Lalsky and Podosinovsky districts were included in the Kirov region only in 1941, and before that they belonged to the Arkhangelsk region. You can check the administrative division on the website, and you can learn more about the intricacies of database searches.

In addition to databases on the Internet, there are also Books of Memory. These are large printed publications in several volumes, in which those killed during the Great Patriotic War are listed by name (alphabetically). There are such Books in every region: in Kirov you can ask for them in the Herzen Library. It may also be that your relative’s name is not in any of the databases or in the Book of Memory. In this case, you can try sending the official one by mail (!) to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. But to do this, you need to know more accurate information about the deceased (for example, in which unit he served) and you will have to wait about six months for an answer.

By the way, in rare cases you can also find letters from the front. For example, on websites and or in the digitized “Letters from the Front” (must be viewed manually). But you will have to search by last name and initials.

What if a soldier goes missing?

The count of missing people during the Great Patriotic War is still ongoing. Various researchers put the figure from 4 to 7 million people. It is difficult to determine the exact number, since in front-line reports the missing were sometimes combined with prisoners or included in lists with the total number of losses. About 500 thousand people were mobilized in the first days of the war, but were not included in the lists of troops. Some families received neither letters from the front nor “funeral” messages.

Information about the missing person can also be stored in one of the open databases. First of all, this is the same Memorial OBD. If you have information that a soldier was captured, try typing his first and last name in Latin letters (Ivan Petrov). In addition, there is a separate electronic data for prisoners of war - Saxon Memorials.

Those captured by Germans are listed alphabetically. If the German camp in which the prisoner of war was held was liberated by Soviet troops, after the end of the war such a person could end up in the NKVD inspection and filtration camp. Alas, the electronic database of PFL prisoners is only available for natives Perm region. You can try to find filtration and verification files and captured German cards through the State Archive of the Kirov Region

Search teams can also help in finding information about missing persons. Since 1989, “Memory Watches” have been held in regions where military operations took place, during which search engines raise fallen soldiers, identify them, and then search for relatives throughout the country. Some people keep documents that help identify a person, in rare cases - letters to relatives or personal items with a signature (for example, a spoon). But, as a rule, it is possible to identify a person by a soldier’s medallion - a small metal capsule into which a piece of paper with the soldier’s data was inserted.

Photo: serovglobus.ru

It indicated the name, military rank, year and place of birth, place of mobilization and family address. An archive of records from all found medallions can be found on the Internet: they are recorded in special books - “Names from Soldiers’ Medallions”, which are published on the Russian Search Movement. By looking for a familiar name in the lists, you can find out when, where and by whom the fighter was found. If the record contains information that the relatives of the deceased have been found, you can request their contacts from the search team. You can also search for information by the fighter's last name.

And now briefly:

1. We find out from the relatives of the deceased his full name, place and date of birth, as well as the year and place of conscription.

2. We look for information in databases. First of all, through the Memorial OBD. We try to type the name with errors: the way they are perceived by ear.

3. We are looking for additional information: we find out the soldier’s combat path and awards on the “Memory of the People” website.

4. We are looking for digitized or decrypted letters from the front on the Internet by the name of the soldier.

If you have questions that you cannot find answers to, send them to us, and we will definitely take them into development.

You tell me: “Why look?

Those who were killed here have long disappeared,

Those who could have been waiting for them have also left,

And they were all forgotten a long time ago...”

From the song of the search engines

Almost every family in our country has relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War. Some scattered information is kept in the family, some still have photographs. But when you see the name loved one in the report from the Memorial base, for example, for some reason you more clearly imagine a train under fire, trenches... And it seems that if you find out at least something else, your soldier will not be so lonely in his unknown grave. And you hope that the soldiers who have not returned will not be left without prayers.

Foma told about where and how to look for information about the burial place of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War Dmitry Alexandrovich Belov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Director of the Research Center for Regional History of the Volgograd State Academy of Postgraduate Education, Vice-President of the Battle of Stalingrad International Charitable Foundation.

Step 1. Where to start

The fastest way to find your relative who died in the Great Patriotic War is the generalized Memorial data bank, the database of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO):

For this:

At this stage of the search, to begin with, a last name, first name, patronymic, year of birth, preferably a title is enough. If he is Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, then, of course, it will be more difficult. You have to be persistent to make sure that this is exactly the person you need, you will need details - full name of wife, mother, name of the village, city where he was called from, place of birth (in accordance with the administrative-territorial division of the USSR in the pre-war years - approx. ed.).

Worth paying Special attention to the fourth point. There are some really stupid spelling mistakes in the database. My great-grandfather's name was Andrei Kirillovich. I wrote “Kirillovich” like a normal person with two letters, and then I thought that not everyone knows how to spell Kirillovich...

Kirillovich typed with one “l” and immediately found the burial place. Also Filippovich - maybe Filippovich, and with one “p”, and so on. It is also better to try to change the letters in the surname and first name in case they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is difficult to read. Such points must be taken into account.

Ideally, the result of your search should be a document about the burial place of a relative and information in which military unit (army, division or regiment) he fought.

If there is no information, one can hope that the search teams that are looking for and burying the remains of soldiers will find something. If the search engines managed to find someone, they contact the military registration and enlistment office and look for relatives themselves.

But you can continue the search on your own. In this case, you need to collect as much information as possible in order to start qualitatively new stage search.

What can help us with this?

Step 2. Gather additional information

Have the letters survived?

The most important thing in letters is the number of the field postal station (FPS) on the stamp of the envelope. You can use it to determine the number of a division, regiment, etc.

A powerful resource: a lot of documents on military topics, memoirs, collections. If the division number and the fighting area are known, then you can at least find a description in general terms.

Database "Feat of the People"

TsAMO project.

This is a database containing information about soldiers awarded medals. The database is not yet complete; not all documents have been scanned yet.

This resource has several hospital databases. Dial the hospital number, press Enter and see which division it served.

And there are many more reference books on types of troops, shoulder straps, and weapons.

But the most valuable thing is on Soldat.ru forum http://soldat.ru/forum/

If you register on it, you can get advice from completely unfamiliar historians, specialists, anyone who is interested in searching, and military registration and enlistment office employees.

To register, at the top of this site (see the lower right corner in the picture above), you need to click the “Registration” button. Next you need to fill out the registration form.

Then create a topic (it’s better to name it briefly, for example, “No.__-th Infantry Division. I’m looking for a relative”). After this, your request will be able to be read by anyone who visits this site. Do not doubt! There will be enough such strangers and caring people. Everyone will help you with the information they have. Some will answer, advise, consult, others will recommend sites, scan the documents you need, excerpts from books, etc.

Other resources

There are many more resources that publish interviews with veterans and biographies. But it is worth considering that these sources, as a rule, do not represent historical value either for the researcher or for those who want to use this material in their search.

To organize in archivessearch for relatives killed and missing in WWII 1941-1945 by last name is necessary

1) Collect as much information as possible about the wanted front-line soldier (surname, time/place of birth; region of military conscription; place(s) of service; branch of service; number(s) of unit(s); any official and unofficial notices of hit captured; field mail numbers from sent letters, etc.)

2) Access all this data to the following websites:

a) a thematic resource of the Ministry of Defense called “United Data Bank “Memorial””*. Address: www.obd-memorial.ru.

b) electronic bank “Feat of the people in the Second World War 1941-45.”

Includes numbers and texts of award orders. Address: http://podvignaroda.mil.ru/?#tab=navHome.

c) “Memory of the people”

This resource contains information about the locations of military units at all stages of the Second World War. Address: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/.

d) "Immortal Regiment"

The public initiative websites moypolk.ru and polkrf.ru allow you to search for front-line soldiers using their own database, media publications, order numbers, archival documents, stories of WWII participants, etc.

3) Send requests to search for those missing in action during the Second World War to unofficial archives and databases collected by social activists (the names of these can be found using Yandex and any other search engine).

4) Contact specialized archives (the capital's State Military Archives and/or similar archives of the former Soviet republics; archives of law enforcement agencies, etc.). When visiting a selected archive in person, a statement may be required indicating your personal data, the purpose of collecting information and an approximate list of requested documents.

5) Send a request to search for those killed and missing in WWII 1941-1945 to the archives of Germany and the countries on whose territory the fighting took place. The main building of the German Federal Archive is based in Kobletz, and the largest branches are in Freiburg, Berlin and other cities.

6) Contact the local archives of German cities and states (Dresden Documentation Center at the Saxon Memorials organization, etc.)

7) If you have information about the approximate place of death of the wanted relative, contact local military-patriotic detachments, a list of which is available on the Sporf.ru resource (subsection "Region. Representatives").

Algorithm for searching for a missing relative

The more data is known about the front-line soldier, the easier it is. Ideally, in addition to the full name of the person you are looking for, it is advisable to have information about his place of birth, date and place of conscription, military unit number, etc. As a result of analyzing documents provided by online resources, it is possible to trace the life path of an ancestor. For example, information from award documents will allow you to find out about the feats performed by a relative, the family’s residential address during the Second World War, etc.

"Missing"

Such wording in search results should in no case be a reason to stop searching. Using documents about places of service, you can “calculate” the hero’s fellow soldiers and learn from them the details of the fatal battle. There are known cases when soldiers who had lost their memory “surfaced” under other names. The main thing is not to stop searching, using any, even the most insignificant, “clues.”

It would not be superfluous to establish contacts with representatives of search teams (the personal belongings and remains they find often shed light on events of interest).

It is important to remember that soldiers who were captured were included among the missing. To search in this direction, it is advisable to contact the Russian Ministry of Defense and the German Documentation Center located in Dresden, where data on citizens of the Soviet Union captured by the Nazis is collected.

What to do in case of failure

Consult with like-minded people and people who have been searching for a long time. From them you can find out the addresses of thematic forums and social networks (some sites are entirely devoted to discussing the front-line life of specific units and formations). The forum of the All-Russian Family Tree website contains links to a great many links and archives, request forms to various departments, search recommendations, etc.

OBD "Memorial"

* Generalized computer data bank "Memorial" - an information archive created by presidential order No. pr-698 dated April 23, 2003 with information about the defenders of the Motherland who fell and disappeared during the Second World War (1941-1945) and the post-war period.

The mission of the Memorial OBD project is to provide citizens with the opportunity to establish the fate and places of burial/captivity/disappearance of their relatives.

The creation and content of the website www.obd-memorial.ru is carried out by specialists from the ELAR corporation.

Data on soldiers of the Red Army and partisan detachments was collected by employees of the Logistics Service

• - departmental archives (Navy, Air Force, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, KGB/FSB);
• - branches of the Russian State Military Archive;
• - branches of the State Archive of the Russian Federation;
• - specialized departments of the Ministry of Defense;
• - open sources (newspaper publications; postal correspondence data; reports of irretrievable losses; documentation of medical battalions and hospitals; trophy cards of prisoners of war; burial passports, etc.).

The result of this interaction was the creation of a global (and regularly updated) information and reference system with more than 13.4 million digitized pages of archival documents and 42 thousand burial passports. OBD "Memorial" - the largest electronic archive missing soldiers of World War II war in the world.

On Obd-memorial.ru millions of scanned copies of documentary primary sources with information about personalities are available for study. Visitors to the portal can search for the necessary information about front-line soldiers online. Access to the portal is open 24 hours a day.

The search for missing participants of the Second World War of 1941-1945 can be done on websites (addresses are listed above) that have solid databases with the names of fallen soldiers discovered by search teams. To submit a request, you will need to enter the full name and, if possible, additional information about the wanted person (his age, rank, military awards, etc.) The databases on these portals are constantly updated, so a negative result of the first attempt may turn into a positive one after some time.

An alternative to these sites can be contacting regional military-patriotic clubs, the coordinates of which can be found on the Internet. Search engines will add a photo of the missing relative with the personal data of the deceased into a common database, after which the same enthusiasts across the country will join in the search for the fighter.

And finally, you can write (call) the “Wait for Me” program, the organizers of which are looking for missing soldiers all over the planet. To get into the project database, you will need to fill out a form on the portal "Poisk.vid.ru". The more information about a missing relative is known, the higher the likelihood of identifying him. Search activities begin immediately after the questionnaire is received. According to statistics, “Wait for Me” employees weekly look for information about several dozen people, about a third of whom are ordinary soldiers, officers and partisans who have not returned from the war.

Attention! Because of large quantity processing of new requests has been temporarily suspended. You can conduct a search yourself using the databases “Memorial” (obd-memorial.ru), “Feat of the People” (podvignaroda.ru) and “Memory of the People” (pamyat-naroda.ru) - searching them is absolutely free.