Command # 227
The order of the People's Commissar for Defense of the USSR of July 28, 1942 № 227 (“Don't take a step back!”, In Russian: Ни шагу назад!, Transl. Ni schagu nasad) was an order to halt the surrender in the German-Soviet war with the The death penalty . This was preceded by Order No. 270 of August 16, 1941.
Order No. 227 included the establishment of lockdown departments
"A) The army area are set up 3 to 5 well-armed units (up to 200 men) immediately behind unreliable divisions are to be used and have the task of, in the case of a disorderly withdrawal of in front of them divisions each fugitives and each coward shoot and to assist the honest fighter in defending his homeland. "
“B) 5 to 10 punishment companies (150-200 men) are to be set up in the army area. This made not proven sub-leaders and Red Army soldiers existing companies are to be used in difficult sections of the army to give the participants an opportunity to atone for their guilt before the home. "
According to the American professor of Soviet social and military history Roger R. Reese, these detention departments were armed only with pistols and rifles and in practice mainly erected roadblocks and handed escaping soldiers to court martial or sent them back to their units. There were only shootings if there was resistance to arrest. They never had to execute the blank check soldiers. He describes the idea that the detention detachments would fire at fleeing soldiers with machine guns as a myth.
consequences
According to an internal list of the NKVD from October 1942, from August 1, 1942 to October 15, 1942, 15,649 soldiers who fled the front line were picked up by the blocked detachments on the Stalingrad Front . Of these, 244 soldiers were imprisoned, 278 shot, 218 were sent to penal companies, 42 to penal battalions and 14,833 returned to their units.
swell
- Full text in German translation ( Memento from March 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive )