How to find a WWII veteran by first and last name? An overview of useful resources on the web. Search technology for the dead or missing during the Great Patriotic War

Missing persons count Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War are still ongoing. However, given the lack of information and the inconsistency of some of the information, this will not be easy.

Counting Difficulties

Almost in every Russian family there are relatives who disappeared during the Great Patriotic War without a trace. 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 Central Committee of the CPSU (in 1953-1964), Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, is still considered missing.

In 1966-1968, the commission of the General Staff conducted the calculation of human losses in the Great Patriotic War, in 1988-1993, a team of military historians was engaged in mixing 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 exact data on the number of missing people.

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

Writer Raphael Grugman points out a number of pitfalls that the commission did not pay attention to and which will be difficult for 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 are they attributed to - dead or missing? Or even rank as an enemy camp?

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

Very often, the missing persons were included in the lists with the total number of losses. So, after the Kiev defensive operation (1941), the missing were attributed to those killed and taken prisoner - more than 616 thousand people in total.

To date, there are many unmarked graves where Soviet soldiers are buried, and it is completely unclear how many of them are listed as missing. Let's not forget the deserters. Only according to official data, about 500 thousand mobilized disappeared without a trace on the way to the military enlistment offices.

Another problem is the almost complete destruction in the 1950s of the registration cards of the military reserve and the rank and file 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 single out the “missing” category among them.

Such different numbers

The results of a fundamental study by the Krivosheev group of the losses of personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR in combat operations for the period from 1918 to 1989 were published in the book “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, taken prisoner and never returned from it, died from wounds, diseases and as a result of accidents) of the Soviet Armed Forces, together with the border and internal troops, amounted to 8 million people. 668 thousand 400 people.

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

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, Soviet Union finished off the enemy with the forces of only a few hundred thousand military, which does not fit in with the realities of the war.

Not returning from the war

Krivosheev's group conducted a statistical study of a large array archival documents and other materials containing information about casualties 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 at approximately 11.5 million people.

Later, 939.7 thousand military personnel were excluded from this number; The researchers also subtracted from their calculations 1 million 836 thousand former servicemen who returned from captivity after the end of the war.

After lengthy calculations, reconciliations with various sources, in particular, with the reports of the troops and the data of the repatriation authorities, the category of irretrievable losses came to the figure of 8 million 668 thousand 400 people. The number of missing and captured by the commission was estimated 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 was not documented (information about them was collected later, including from the German archives). They amounted to 1 million 162.6 thousand people. Where to take them? It was decided, to the servicemen who were missing and were taken prisoner. In the end, it turned out 4 million 559 thousand people.

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

Yours or someone else's?

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

After the end of the war, part of the Soviet citizens who went over to the side of the enemy was repatriated and excluded from the category of losses. But some part went missing, dying or not wanting to return to their homeland. This raises a methodological problem that researchers face. If at the time of being taken prisoner, Soviet military personnel were justifiably counted among our losses, then, therefore, after entering the service in the German army and police, can they be credited to the enemy’s account? For now, this is a debatable issue.

It is even more difficult to qualify Soviet prisoners of war already listed as missing, some of whom deliberately went over to the side of the Reich. Among them, including 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 count of missing persons.

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 dead 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 who are in the registered 47,000 mass graves in our country and abroad also remain unknown.

It is curious that the data on the number of missing Soviet soldiers coincide with the number of those in the German army. In a German radiotelegram from the Wehrmacht’s Loss Records Department dated May 22, 1945, the number 2.4 million people is noted opposite the category “missing”.

Many independent researchers believe that the real number of missing Soviet soldiers is much higher than the official one. This can be evidenced by the analysis of the Books of Memory, where about half of the citizens who were drafted into the ranks of 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 the Krivosheev 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, went missing and were captured, which is at least 4 million.

Losses in the category of "missing" Lopukhovsky urged to compare with the data of the card files of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense. Only the number of missing sergeants and soldiers there exceeds 7 million people. The names of these servicemen are recorded in the reports of the 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 exact figure reflecting the number of missing Soviet soldiers. Today, the missing soldiers and officers, as well as the military personnel not buried properly, but taken into account 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 28,000 soldiers previously considered missing.

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 union republics; archives 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 1941-1945 to the archives of Germany and the countries in whose territory fighting. 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 the documents provided by online resources, you can track life path 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 will not be superfluous to establish contacts with representatives of search teams (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 are collected on citizens of the Soviet Union captured by the Nazis.

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 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 (addresses are indicated above), which have solid databases with the names of fallen soldiers found by 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 can 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! Because of a large number 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.

On this page we have collected resources that will help you find a soldier (deceased relative or friend), search for the dead and missing in the Great Patriotic War.

Volunteer project "Archive Battalion"

Volunteer project "Archive Battalion" for the restoration of information about the participants in the wars of the XX century accepts and processes applications for research combat way participants in the Great Patriotic War.

Memory of the people

The Memory of the People project was implemented in accordance with the decision of the Russian Organizing Committee Victory of July 2013, supported by the order of the President and the Decree of the Government of Russia in 2014. The project provides for the publication on the Internet of archival documents and documents on the losses and awards of soldiers and officers of the First World War, the development of the projects previously implemented by the Russian Ministry of Defense on the Second World War OBD Memorial and the Feat of the People into one project - the Memory of the People.

The feat of the people

defense Department Russian Federation presents a unique information resource of open access, filled with all the documents available in the military archives on the progress and results of the main military operations, exploits and awards of all the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War. As of August 8, 2012, the data bank contains information on 12,670,837 awards.

Generalized databank "Memorial"

The generalized data bank contains information about the defenders of the Fatherland who died and went missing during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war period. The work was done on a large scale: collected and translated into electronic form tens of thousands of documents, with a total volume of more than 10 million sheets. contained in them personal information amounted to more than 20 million records.

Immortal Regiment of Russia

The All-Russian public civil-patriotic movement "The Immortal Regiment of Russia" collects stories about the participants of the Great Patriotic War. The database is updated daily. Here you can not only add your veteran soldier to the All-Russian "piggy bank", but also search for existing ones.

Electronic memory book "Immortal Regiment - Moscow"

The Immortal Regiment - Moscow, together with the My Documents Public Services Centers, collect information about the residents of the capital who took part in the Great Patriotic War. Now there are already more than 193 thousand names in the archive.

"Soldat.ru" - database of those killed in the Second World War

Soldat.ru is the oldest Russian Internet portal for establishing the fate of the dead and missing servicemen and searching for their loved ones.

"Winners" - Soldiers of the Great War

With our project, we want to thank the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War living next to us by name and tell about their feat. The project "Winners" was created for the 60th anniversary of the Victory. Then we managed to collect lists of more than a million veterans living near us.

The site also contains a stunning interactive and animated map of the Great Patriotic War.

Electronic memorial "Remember Pro"

On the "PomniPro" social site, each registered user can create a page of memory, a photo gallery of a deceased close and dear person, talk about his biography, honor the memory of the deceased, leave words of memory and gratitude. You can also find a deceased relative and friend, search for those killed and missing in the Great Patriotic War.

Memorial of the Great Patriotic War

The site is conceived as a people's encyclopedia, a virtual memorial to the fallen participants Great War, where everyone can leave their comments on any entry, supplement information about the War Participant with photos and memories, turn to other project participants for help. There are about 60,000 project participants. More than 400,000 cards have been registered.

MIPOD "Immortal Regiment"

The site has a large database of participants in the Great Patriotic War. The chronicle is maintained by community members. Now there are already more than 400 thousand names in the archive.

Find a soldier. A reminder for those who are looking for their heroes

1. Check the data on the OBD Memorial website

Verifying the person's data, open the "advanced search" tab and try by typing only the last name, then the last name and first name, then the full data. Also try to check the information by setting the parameters of the surname, and the name and patronymic only with initials.

2. Send a request to the archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

The request must be sent to the address: 142100 Moscow region, Podolsk, Kirova st., 74. "Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation".

In an envelope, enclose letters in which you clearly state the information you have and state the purpose of the request. Enclose one blank envelope, filling in your home address as the recipient's address.

3. Check the data on the site "Feat of the people"

If you do not have information on awards, you can refer to the website "Feat of the People". In the "People and awards" tab, enter the data as requested.

4. Check the information on the parameters

Exist additional ways, which can also help you find and identify information about your veteran. The site "Soldat.ru" presents a list of search technologies, we draw your attention to some of them:

• Database of Internet links to school museums of the Russian Federation, in which there are expositions about the combat routes of units and formations of the Soviet Army
• How to establish the fate of a soldier who died or went missing during the Great Patriotic War
• Information on materials held by the tracing service of the International Red Cross
• Request forms for search, evacuation and search of graves through the Center for Tracing and Information of the Russian Red Cross (

Not everyone returned from the front in 1945, the ancestors of many of us are still listed as missing. But we continue to look for those who gave their lives for us and gave us a clear sky above our heads.

Memorial

Thanks to the document, you can find out when and where the participant of the Great Patriotic War died, as well as the primary place of burial and the place of reburial (if any).

Memory of the People

If your relative is listed as missing, you can search for information about his fate in the database of Soviet prisoners of war by fascist Germany.

What I managed to find: by querying Google “Station Myshbor war”, I managed to find information that Batukhtin Mikhail Vasilievich fell in battle with German bombers on August 16, 1942 at railway station Myshbor. From report No. 24967 on irretrievable losses dated September 22, 1942, we learn that 8 soldiers were killed during the bombardment. All of them, including my great-grandfather, were buried here. Unfortunately, the mass grave could not be found on the Internet.

Maria Batukhtina

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 searchers

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" told 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 International Charitable Foundation "Battle of Stalingrad".

Step 1. Where to start

Most fast way find your relative who died in the Great Patriotic War - this is a generalized data bank "Memorial", the base of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO):

For this:

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. It is necessary to show perseverance to make sure that this is exactly the person who is needed, details will be needed - the 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.).

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

Powerful resource: a lot of documents on military theme, 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.