How to establish the fate of a serviceman who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War. How to find a person who disappeared or died during the Second World War. Memo Where to look for POWs missing in WWII

Thirty-six-year-old conscript

There is hardly a family in our country that the events of 1941-1945. would have bypassed. It so happened that among our close relatives, only the brother of my great-grandmother Anna Ivanovna Suetnova, my grandmother's uncle, Alexander Ivanovich Titenkov, visited the front. According to official data, he went missing in November 1941. Grandmother Lyudmila Mikhailovna Kiryukhina (Suetnova) was seven years old in the first year of the war and, of course, she remembers little, and only one photograph has been preserved in the family archive, in which Alexander Ivanovich completely small.

Having become a historian, I decided to at least find out something about how the front-line fate of a relative developed. A variety of Internet resources provided great assistance in the search, including the generalized data bank "Memorial" 1 and the database "Memory of the People" 2, which provides access to the materials of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO, Podolsk). The Documentation Center of the association "Saxon Memorials in Memory of the Victims of Political Terror" (Dresden) also contains numerous lists of Red Army soldiers who were captured by the Germans during the war, and provides free information about captured citizens of the USSR 3 .

A.I. Titenkov was born in 1905 in the village of Pochinki, Gorky Region. He was the third child in the family, his mother Anna Mikhailovna was left a widow early, her husband died hunting before the revolution. The elder brother Seraphim worked as a telegraph operator at the post office, he tragically died, shooting himself, as they said, from unhappy love. My sister Anna Ivanovna, my maternal great-grandmother, was one year older than Alexander. When Alexander Ivanovich matured, he moved to live in the city of Balakhna, Gorky Region, and got married. On July 21, 1941, at the age of 36, he was called to the front by the Balakhna RVC. The further fate is not known for certain. Therefore, I tried to at least partially shed light on the events that took place, the witness and participant of which he most likely was.

Last letter - August 23, 1941

In the 4th volume of the Book of Memory of the Nizhny Novgorod region there is a short entry: "Alexander Ivanovich Titenkov, born 1905, Balakhna, Nizhny Novgorod region. Private. Missing, November 1941." Balakhna was erroneously indicated as the place of birth, most likely due to the fact that before the draft, Alexander Ivanovich lived there with his family and was drafted from there. The second document available in the archives associated with the name of A.I. Titenkov, - a questionnaire-appeal of his wife Nina Petrovna Titenkova, dated January 30, 1947, to the Balakhna RVC of the Gorky Region in order to find out the fate of her husband. The questionnaire made it possible to slightly supplement the information about A.I. Titenkov. Firstly, this is information about the combat formation in which he served - the 831st artillery regiment. Secondly, there is the date of the last letter - August 23, 1941, and the military address on the envelope - "Active Army, 831 a.p., p/n 670". Field post station N 0670 was intended for the 279th Rifle Division (as well as several other divisions), which included the 831st Artillery Regiment.

The big question is the line "Position held in the K[red] army]," it says "degasser". However, according to the list of military registration specialties of the Red Army, approved on November 4, 1937, 4 units of degassing chemists belong to chemical troops, but not to artillery. In this case, several assumptions can be made. Perhaps the questionnaire indicates a profession obtained before the war. For privates, a military registration specialty is usually assigned on the basis of an existing education or after completing training in an educational unit 5. The questionnaire could also contain an error, for example, it is quite easy to confuse the position of a degasser with a rangefinder, which refers specifically to artillery. In any case, the 279th rifle division, which included the 831st artillery regiment, also included the 360th separate chemical defense company at the time of its formation.

A month later - to the front!

Other documents related to the name of A.I. Titenkov, could not be found, so I tried to trace the further combat path of his unit.

Unfortunately, there are relatively few studies on the 279th Rifle Division of the first formation. Noteworthy is the material of P.I. Goncharova and I.A. Novoselova 6 . The 279th Rifle Division began to be formed according to GKO Decree No. 48 of July 8, 1941 in Vladimir and Gorky. At the time of its recruitment, the division included three rifle and artillery regiments, anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery battalions, reconnaissance, sapper, automobile and medical battalions, a communications battalion, a chemical protection company, a mobile bakery and field mail 7 . The formation took place in Gorky, Dzerzhinsk and Arzamas, and the headquarters of the division was in the Gorky Kremlin.

Already on August 4, 1941 (less than a month from the date of formation), the division received an order to be sent to the front. First, they traveled under their own power from the village of Mulino through the Ilyino railway station to Gorky to the Sortirovochnaya station. According to P.I. Goncharov and I.A. Novoselova, “we spent the night in the city, on August 5 we got up at 5 o’clock in the morning, plunged into the train at 12 o’clock in the afternoon. in Lyudinovo, arrived on August 8, 1941." eight . After unloading, the division received an order to make a forced march to the Desna River in the Zhukovka-Dubrovka area and take up defense along the eastern bank. As of August 30, 1941, the personnel numbered 11,454 (according to other sources - 10,518 people) 9 . The division became part of the strike force of the 50th Army on the Bryansk Front.

First losses

831st Artillery Regiment, in which A.I. Titenkov, is mentioned only once in the book by F.D. Pankov "Firing lines. The combat path of the 50th Army in the Great Patriotic War" at the very beginning of hostilities at the end of August 1941: "During the shelling of the firing position of the 2nd battery of the 831st artillery regiment of the 279th rifle division, enemy artillery caught fire gunpowder in shell casings in one of the charging boxes. Gun number Private V. I. Lzhinin, risking his life, pulled out a tray with hot charges, preventing an explosion "10. Despite the fact that I could not find the regiment's documents in TsAMO (they are only for the period 1944-1945), I tried to trace any mention of artillery units in the division's documentation - combat reports and operational reports of the headquarters for the period from August 13 to September 6 1941

For example, according to combat report N3 dated August 13, 1941 at 8:30 am: "Units of the 279th division at 18.00 12.8 went to the areas indicated by them and began to accept defensive structures in their areas ..." Further reports report on the participation of the division in combat operations: the work of artillery, tank reconnaissance of the enemy, the rescue of a landed aircraft by our scouts, the first losses ...

The summaries say:

279th division destroyed

The counterattack of the Soviet troops was scheduled for the morning of September 2 in the general direction of Roslavl, the division received an order from the commander of the 50th Army to advance in the Vyazovsk-Korobki sector. Less than a day was allotted for preparing the offensive, which had a detrimental effect on the results. Two regiments of the division crossed the Desna and captured Devochkino, then Golubey and Berestok were liberated, and on September 4 they captured the Rekovichi junction, Malaya and Staraya Salyn. All this time, numerous counterattacks were made by the enemy, and the division suffered heavy losses.

The troops of the 3rd and 50th armies, by order of the front commander, entrenched themselves at the line reached and went on the defensive on September 15. The division held the defense along the Desna River 12. On September 17, the last documents of the division headquarters available at TsAMO are dated. It is noteworthy that order No. 17 of the headquarters of the 50th Army of the Bryansk Front dated September 24, 1941 recorded the facts of concealment by individual commanders of information about enemy counterattacks and losses incurred.

Further events in October - November 1941 developed tragically for the 50th Army and the division that was part of it. In just two days of the offensive in early October, the Nazis broke through a 60-kilometer gap and broke through almost 100 km in depth, on the right wing of the Bryansk Front, the defense was also broken through, which allowed the Germans to go to the rear. The particularly difficult situation of the 279th Rifle Division was due to the fact that the enemy managed to dismember it. The surviving units and subunits were withdrawn to the eastern bank of the Desna 13 . Already on October 4, the enemy developed an offensive and by the morning of October 6 went to the rear of the army, capturing Bryansk on the same day. Communication between the 50th Army and the front headquarters was lost. Since October 8, the division, being surrounded, broke through with battles, information about the position of the units was not received. On October 16, the strength of the division totaled about one and a half thousand people 15 . According to operational report No. 125 of the OKH dated October 18, 1941: "During the destruction of the 50th Army, 55,105 people were taken prisoner. 279 SDs were destroyed" 16 .

Others took their place

Nevertheless, at the end of October, the remaining units of the 50th Army continued to fight their way out of the encirclement to the area of the city of Belev. On October 20, the 50th Army entrenched itself on the occupied lines and fought in the Nikolo-Gastun-Belev area, while the 279th Division defended the approaches to the crossings on the western bank of the Oka River. On October 26, the troops of the Bryansk Front continued to retreat with battles in an easterly direction, no data was received on the division. By the end of October, only a few left the encirclement: the 1005th rifle regiment on October 23 consisted of only 843 people, of which 109 were senior and middle commanders, soldiers and commanders of the defeated 1001st and 1003rd rifle regiments also joined it 18.

The only surviving in the entire division and understaffed 1005th rifle regiment on October 30 was in the reserve of the army commander. On November 1, 1941, the division as a combat unit no longer existed. On November 10, the Bryansk Front was disbanded, and on November 17, the division itself was disbanded. It is this date that can explain the official response of the Balakhna RVC to an inquiry about the fate of A.I. Titenkova: "Got missing in November 1941". The remaining personnel were turned to resupply the 154th Rifle Division, which later became the 47th Guards Rifle Division. The 279th division was re-formed and from September 29, 1941, until the end of the war, it participated in battles with the fascist invaders, going down in history as the 279th Lisichanskaya Red Banner Rifle Division 19 .

Not on the list...

Having thus traced, as far as possible, the combat path of the division and the regiment that was part of it, it is possible with a certain degree of certainty to assume the possible unenviable fate of Private A.I. Titenkov. According to his wife's information, written communications ceased on August 23, Alexander Ivanovich probably wrote and sent the letter even before arriving at the front. According to the operational reports of the headquarters on August 27, 105 fighters of the division were listed as missing. But he is not on those lists. As it is not in the lists of those who fell into German captivity. The battle flags of all parts of the division have been lost to this day. According to the memoirs of a veteran of the division, Nizhny Novgorod Yu.M. Kopylov, the division lost its battle flag in the Gutovsky forest northeast of Bryansk. The total irretrievable losses of the 50th Army are estimated at about 90,000 men 20 . In recent years, historians of the Bryansk region have been actively searching for burial sites and the remains of dead soldiers. However, about 70% of burials are still nameless.

1. http://obd-memorial.ru
2. https://pamyat-naroda.ru
3. http://www.dokst.ru/main/
4. http://rkka.ru/handbook/data/vus.htm
5. http://yasoldat.ru/vus/
6. Goncharov P.I., Novoselova I.A. Combat path of the 279th Infantry Division of the 1st Formation. Nizhny Novgorod, 2013. http://lno52.ru/index/0-171
7. TsAMO RF. List of the General Staff No. 5.
8. Goncharov P.I., Novoselova I.A. Decree. op.
9. Agni L. Bryansk front of the first formation in the light of electronic sources (historical and analytical article). https://www.proza.ru/2014/07/10/690
10. Pankov F.D. Fire lines. The combat path of the 50th Army in the Great Patriotic War. M., 1984. S. 6.
11. Ibid. pp. 8-9.
12. Ibid. pp. 12-13.
13. Ibid. S. 15.
14. Battle near Moscow. Chronicle, facts, people. In 2 books. - M., 2002. Book. 1. S. 265.
15. Trifankov Yu.T., Gavrenkov A.A., Trifankov Ya.Yu. Bryansk Front: 50th Army. "Resseta" and "Khatsun" // Bulletin of the Bryansk University. 2012. No. 2 (2).
16. Ibid. pp. 359-360.
17. Ibid. S. 398.
18. http://newspaper.unitedcommunityvoice.com/index.php?newsid=224
19. Korznikov A.I. Fire roads. Sverdlovsk, 1977.
20. Trifankov Yu.T., Gavrenkov A.A., Trifankov Ya.Yu. Decree. op.

You tell me: “Why look?

Those who were killed here have long disappeared,

Gone are those that might have been waiting for them,

And all of them have long been forgotten ... "

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 stored in the family, someone has preserved photographs. But when you see the name of a loved one in the report of 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 did not return will not be left without prayers.

About where and how to look for information about the burial place of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War, "Foma" was told by Dmitry Alexandrovich Belov, Ph.D. ".

STEP 1. GETTING STARTED

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

For this:

1. We go to the website of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which hosts the most complete electronic database in our country of those killed in the Second World War: www.obd-memorial.ru

2. Fill in the columns "Surname", "Name", "Patronymic", "Year of birth" of your deceased relative:

3. Ideally, we get a result of several lines with more or less complete information and continue to study the materials in the direction of concretizing the exact burial place.

4. In the surname or name, or in the patronymic, we change the letters, selecting them in such a way as if they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is poorly readable and there are alternative reading options. And perhaps you will stumble upon additional documents from the archive database.

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

It is worth paying special attention to the fourth point. There are indeed silly spelling errors in the database. My great-grandfather's name was Andrei Kirillovich. I wrote "Kirillovich" as a normal person with two l, and then I thought that not everyone knows how Kirillovich is spelled ...

Kirillovich scored with one "l" and immediately found a burial place. Also Filippovich - maybe Felippovich, and with one "p", and so on. It is also better to try to change the letters in both the surname and the first name in case they were written by an illiterate person or the original document is poorly readable. Such moments must be taken into account.

Ideally, the result of your search should be a document about the place of burial 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 turn to the military registration and enlistment office, looking for relatives themselves.

But you can continue to search on your own. In this case, it is necessary to collect the maximum possible amount of information in order to start a qualitatively new stage of the search.

What can help us with this?

STEP 2. COLLECTING 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. It can be used to set the number of a division, regiment, etc.

A powerful resource: a lot of documents on military topics, memoirs, collections. If the number of the division, the area of battles is known, then it is possible to find a description at least in general terms.

Database "Feat of the People"

TsAMO project.

This is a database where there is information about soldiers awarded medals. The database is not yet complete, not all documents have been scanned yet.

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

And there are many other reference books on the types of troops, epaulettes, weapons.

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

If you register on it, you can get advice from completely unfamiliar historians, specialists, anyone who is fond of searching, military enlistment office workers.

To register at the top of this site (see the picture above in the lower right corner), you need to click the "Register" 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 rifle division. I'm looking for a relative"). After that, your request can be read by everyone who visits this site. Do not doubt! There will be enough such unfamiliar 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 of veterans, biographies. But it should be borne in mind that these sources, as a rule, are of no historical value either for the researcher or for someone who wants to use this material in a search.

To organize in archivessearch for dead and missing in the Second World War 1941-1945 relatives by last name is necessary

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

2) Apply with all these data to the Internet sites:

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

3) Send requests to search for a missing person in the Second World War to unofficial archives and databases collected by public figures (you can find the names of those using Yandex and any other search engine).

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

5) Send a request for the search for the dead and missing in the Second World War of 1941-1945 to the archives of Germany and the countries in whose territory hostilities were fought. The main building of the German Federal Archives is based in Kobletz, and the largest branches are in Freiburg, Berlin and other cities.

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

7) If there is 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 finding 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 desirable to have information about the place of his birth, the date and place of conscription, the number of the military unit, etc. As a result of the analysis of documents provided by online resources, one can track the life path of an ancestor. For example, information from award documents will allow you to find out about the feats committed by a relative, the address of the family during the Second World War, etc.

"Missing"

Such a wording in the search results should in no case be the basis for terminating the search. According to the documents about the places of service, you can "calculate" the fellow soldiers of the hero and learn from them the details of the fatal battle. There are cases when fighters who lost their memory "surfaced" under other names. The main thing is not to stop searching, using any, even the most insignificant, "hooks".

It would not be superfluous to establish contacts with representatives of search parties (personal items and remains found by them often allow shedding light on events of interest).

It is important to remember that the fighters who were taken prisoner were recorded 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 are collected.

How to act 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 Genealogical Tree website contains links to a great many links and archives, request forms to various departments, search recommendations, etc.

OBD "Memorial"

* The generalized computer data bank "Memorial" is an information archive created on the presidential order No. pr-698 dated April 23, 2003 with information about the defenders of the Motherland, the fallen and missing during the Second World War (1941-1945) and the post-war period.

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

The formation and content of the site www.obd-memorial.ru is carried out by the specialists of the corporation "ELAR".

Data on the soldiers of the Red Army and partisan detachments were 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 Archives of the Russian Federation;
- specialized departments of the Ministry of Defense;
- open sources (newspaper publications; data of postal correspondence; 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 42,000 burial passports. OBD "Memorial" - the largest electronic archive missing World War II soldiers war in the world.

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

The search for the missing participants in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 can be done on sites (the addresses are indicated above), which have solid databases with the names of the fallen soldiers found by the search teams. To submit a request, you will need to enter your 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 an appeal to regional military-patriotic clubs, the coordinates of which can be found on the Web. The search engines will add a photo of the missing relative with the personal data of the deceased to a common database, after which the same enthusiasts across the country will connect to the search for a fighter.

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

Attention! Due to the large number of incoming applications, processing of new requests is temporarily suspended. You can search on your own in the databases "Memorial" (obd-memorial.ru), "Feat of the people" (podvignaroda.ru) and "Memory of the people" (pamyat-naroda.ru) - the search for them is absolutely free.

REFERENCE

on the number of servicemen who went missing in the years

Great Patriotic War

To date, the official data on the casualties of the Red Army and the Navy during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 contained in the guide:

“The Great Patriotic War without the stamp of secrecy. The book of losses. The latest reference edition /,. – M.: Veche, 2010. – 384 p.”,

which is a development of an earlier edition:

“Secret stamp removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and military conflicts: Statistical study / Under the general. Ed. . - M .: Military Publishing, 1993.

In this statistical study, the number of missing and captured Soviet soldiers is summed up. Of these, a significant number were prisoners of war. The section "Irretrievable losses" gives the following figures according to the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation:

3396.4 thousand people went missing and were captured (according to the reports of the troops and data from the repatriation authorities).

Unaccounted losses of the first months of the war: 1162.6 thousand people died, went missing in combat operations, when there were no reports from the fronts and armies (identified according to individual archival documents, including those of the German command).

Total: the number of missing and captured Soviet military personnel is determined in the amount of 4 million 559 thousand people.

939.7 thousand people were called up in the liberated territory and sent to the troops from among the military personnel who had previously been surrounded or missing.

Returned from captivity at the end of the war (according to the repatriation authorities) 1836 thousand people.

Total: excluded from the number of losses: 2 million 775.7 thousand people.

Including did not return from captivity (died, died, emigrated to other countries) 1 million 783.3 thousand people.

Thus, the number of missing people can be defined as 1 million 783.3 thousand people.

According to German data, 673 thousand people died in captivity. Of the remaining 1110.3 thousand people, according to domestic data, more than half also died (died) in captivity. Thus, a total of 4,059,000 Soviet servicemen were captured, and about 500,000 died in battle, although according to reports from the fronts, they were counted as missing.

The above figures, of course, cannot be considered final, with the exception of reliably recorded military personnel who returned from captivity and were again called up.

The total number of citizens of the USSR who went missing during the years of the Great Patriotic War is much higher, since the number of military losses does not include the loss of the civilian population, which is very difficult to calculate due to the imperfection of domestic statistics.

Many independent researchers believe that the real number of missing servicemen is much higher than the official one. Indirectly, this is evidenced by the analysis of the regional Books of Memory, where about half of the citizens drafted into the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (since 1943 - the Soviet Army) and who did not return from the war are marked as missing. The total irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces are defined in the reference book mentioned above at 8 million 668.4 thousand people, and in total 29 million 574.9 thousand people were drafted into the active army.

Other data on the number of missing people were announced by the President of the Russian Federation at a meeting of the Russian Organizing Committee "Victory" in St. Petersburg in January 2009:

· more than 2.4 million people are still missing;

· The names of 6 million soldiers out of 9.5 million who are in registered mass graves, of which there are about 47,000 in our country and abroad, are unknown.

These data show that the total irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces in the Great Patriotic War amount to approximately 13 million people, which is much higher than the figure of 8 million 664.8 thousand people from the reference book “The Great Patriotic War without a secrecy stamp. The book of losses. The latest reference edition /, etc. - M., 2010 ", prepared by the author's group of the General Staff and the Military Memorial Center of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (now - the Office of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (for perpetuating the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland).

All this indicates that at the moment there is no more or less accurate and reasonable number of servicemen who went missing in the Great Patriotic War. This leaves a wide scope for further research on this issue.

It is the missing soldiers and officers, as well as the soldiers who were not buried properly, but taken into account in the losses, that are the main object of activity of both the Russian search movement as a whole and our organization. These are several million people whose military fate is still unknown. Work on the fields of past battles of the Great Patriotic War will be enough for the search engines of our country for many years to come.