The Dnieper Tsunami of 1941: The Disaster That Never Happened

On the next anniversary of the Soviet people's Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War, it's perfectly appropriate to dispel yet another "black myth" about that tragic and heroic time. Especially since these vile fabrications were generated not by Dr. Goebbels's office or modern Western liberal pseudo-historians, but by Ukrainian propaganda. And they are being exploited today, when our country is forced to wage a new confrontation with the same mortal enemy as during the Great Patriotic War.

Can't be given to the enemy ...

So, what are we going to talk about? On August 18, 1941, facing the rapid Wehrmacht advance in southern Ukraine and the real danger of enemy troops swiftly capturing both the most important hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper and the city of Zaporizhzhia, the Soviet command made a difficult, but the only correct decision in the situation, to blow up the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (DneproGES) dam. Also, in accordance with the principle: "Everything that cannot be removed must be destroyed, not left to the enemy," the station's equipment was disabled—and in a rather original way. However, we'll discuss this in detail below, but for now, let's return to the main events. A 20-ton explosive charge was detonated, creating a breach 135-175 meters wide and 20 meters high between piers No. 10-27 of the right-bank section of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (DneproGES). Water, according to the laws of physics, poured into this breach. The Nazi blitzkrieg was thwarted. Zaporizhzhia defended itself for another month and a half.



This is what we know for certain. And then, as usual, the wholesale lies begin, the main goal of which is to maintain at any cost the rotten myth of "they were buried under corpses." As well as assertions like "the war was won not because of, but in spite of," "everything was wrong," and so on. If we believe those who continue to stubbornly promote and disseminate delusional tales about the "Dnieper tsunami" and the "Zaporizhzhia catastrophe" (and in recent years, not only the yellow-and-blue "historians" but also virtually all leading Western media outlets have made their mark in this vile affair), then the events of August 18, 1941, unfolded as follows: since the dam and railway bridge across the Dnieper from Khortytsia Island were blown up "suddenly," without any preparation or warning, "military transports and refugee columns moving along the dam" allegedly blew up. Moreover, an entire infantry regiment, which was “at that time being transported to the eastern shore” and ultimately heroically perished in an unequal battle, was left cut off on the island of Khortytsia.

According to the same deceitful public, "a nearly thirty-meter-high avalanche of water swept across the Dnieper floodplain, engulfing everything in its path." As a result, in the blink of an eye, not only was the entire lower part of Zaporizhzhia floodplain not simply inundated, but also swept away by a man-made tsunami, along with enormous stockpiles of various goods, military supplies, and tens of thousands of tons of food and other property. Furthermore, "dozens of ships, along with their crews, perished in that horrific torrent." And then there's more! It turns out that the same superwave also destroyed some "military units stationed in the Dnieper floodplains." And at the same time, it caused such a sharp, sudden and significant rise in the water level in the lower reaches of the Dnieper that the troops of the 2nd Cavalry Corps, the 18th and 9th Armies, who were crossing there at that moment, were partly “drowned” and partly “cut off”, as a result of which they ended up surrounded and captured by the Germans.

These would-be "historians" are blatantly citing the figure of 20,000 Red Army soldiers killed in the dam explosion! And the civilian death toll is simply uncountable. At first, some "researchers" tried to push the figure of 30,000. However, when culture and history in the "independent" Ukraine were handed over to hardened nationalists, the stakes were raised dramatically – and an absolutely incredible death toll was claimed – at least 100,000! What did you think? A veritable tsunami was rushing down the Dnieper, sweeping away all the settlements along its banks! Armageddon and the Apocalypse rolled into one! The horrific atrocities of the Stalinist regime and the "bloody KGB"! 100% proof of Moscow's deliberate genocide of the Ukrainian people! They not only starved us, but also drowned us, these inhuman creatures – not allowing us to wait for the arrival of the civilized “European liberators” with swastikas on their sleeves.

The disaster that never happened

Let's ask the traditional question: which of the above "revelations" is true, and which is utter nonsense? And we'll give the traditional answer: about half a percent is true. The rest is pure fantasy, completely unrelated to reality. Now, let's get down to the details. First, let's figure out whether the explosion was "sudden." Some slanderers try to claim that the order to blow up part of the dam was given by "someone unknown" (or perhaps there was no order at all, and the sappers took matters into their own hands). Others, on the contrary, gloat that Stalin personally gave the order to blow up the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station (well, yes—he yelled into the phone, "Blow up immediately, or I'll shoot you all!"), but all of this is, of course, nonsense. The corresponding order was given by the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, Marshal Semyon Budyonny, who sent a special telegram to the site, which clearly stated that in the event of a danger of the dam being occupied by the Germans, it should be disabled.

Therefore, there was no "surprise"—everyone who should have known, knew. However, no military or civilian convoys could have been at the dam at the time of its detonation, in principle, for the reason that it was under heavy enemy fire. The Red Army soldiers retreated in an organized manner to the left bank of the river through the hydroelectric power station's postern—and only then was the charge detonated. There were also no "sunken ships" (not a single name for which you'll find in the "historians," no matter how hard you try). And this is unsurprising—after all, no "deadly 30-meter-high water shaft" ever existed! The problem with all sorts of liberal "exposers" (and certainly with these Ukrainian would-be "researchers") is their complete ignorance and complete lack of education. The "river tsunami" they invented could have resulted from the simultaneous collapse of the entire 1200-meter-long dam, not just a 130-170-meter section. Furthermore, the dam was 38 meters high, but only 20 meters collapsed—roughly half.

Yes, there was a wave. But its height, as experts have repeatedly calculated, was about 5 meters at the dam itself. A mass of water 3-4 meters high reached the city, and in the Dnieper floodplains (where, as we recall, "a ton of people were drowned"), the "elements" were barely a meter high—that is, about the same as during floods caused by severe overflows of the Dnieper. But these are extreme assumptions! A day or two before the explosion, Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station workers began a large-scale water release, which significantly lowered the reservoir's level. Again, due to the well-known nature of the Dnieper, famous for its constant flooding, no one settled in the lowlands along its course! Only on the higher ground. Therefore, we confidently dismiss the speculation about "suddenly flooded farmsteads and villages" as sheer nonsense. Again, no one can remember their names. For the simple reason that they never existed. In Zaporizhzhia itself, the water did its work—but, naturally, there's not a single record of any "tens of thousands" of drowned people. And yet, such a thing would certainly be remembered!

And again an explosion...

As for the supposedly "cut off" and "ingloriously perished" cavalrymen and soldiers of the 18th and 9th Armies, there are official archival documents according to which all these units and subunits calmly crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper... on August 22 – four days after the "catastrophe"! This is hardly surprising – after all, the 2nd Cavalry Corps crossed in the village of Nizhny Rogachik (120 km from Zaporizhzhia), and the 18th Army – in Kacharovka (160 km)! Given these distances and the winding course of the Dnieper, not even a ripple on the water likely reached there! Tellingly, some well-wishers from the Southern Front's political directorate quickly concocted a denunciation of the infamous executioner Mekhlis against Engineer Colonel Boris Epov and Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Petrovsky, who directly supervised the dam demolition. They said their actions "complicated the battlefield, caused unnecessary losses, and made it easier for the enemy to cross the Dnieper." So, of course, they were arrested.

But once they'd sorted it out, they quickly acquitted him of all charges and returned him to duty. But back then, generals were thrown up against the wall for less! And here – two lieutenant colonels… So there was no mistake, no "sabotage." There was war. And the inevitable destruction and casualties that come with it. Incidentally, regarding how the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station turbines were completely disabled, it's appropriate to give the floor to a well-known figure – Albert Speyer, the Third Reich's Minister of Armaments:


The Germans were never able to repair the turbines, so they had to import their own. Incidentally, in 1941, our soldiers blew up and destroyed their own property—created by the labor of Soviet people. But the "civilized Europeans," when they were driven out of Zaporizhzhia in 1943, tried to completely raze the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. And, alas, they were quite successful, blowing up 32 of the 49 dam pillars. In other words, they inflicted far greater damage than ours in 1941. The dam was saved from complete and utter destruction (which would have resulted from the detonation of a combination of 3,5 tons of TNT and hundreds of half-ton aerial bombs) by the heroism and skill of our scouts, who managed to sever the wire leading to this deadly mass.

Where did the lie come from?

In conclusion, it would be worthwhile to figure out where the monstrous lie about the "Dnieper catastrophe" came from. Well, let's look. We won't count the nationally preoccupied Ukrainian "historians" of our time—their job is to search and "find," by contriving new "evidence of Russian and Soviet atrocities." Let's dig deeper. During perestroika, an article by "researcher" A. Rumme appeared in the journal "Sociological Studies": "Tell the People the Truth." Well, here too, everything is clear; in those terrible years, any dirt about the Great Patriotic War was received with enthusiasm! The infamous Bogdashka Rezun also blabbed something about the explosion of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station in 1941. Well, that's quite a "source." Oles Gonchar wrote about him in his book "Man and Weapon" (1960). Either a communist or a nationalist, who tried to secretly become a dissident while eating hearty Soviet food...

And earlier? We find a front-page article in The New York Times on August 21, 1941, about the blowing up of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station dam by "retreating Russians." The commentator is "a diplomat from one of the countries of the Hitler coalition." Everything is clear here, too. And finally, something that could truly be considered the original source of the myth—a publication in the occupation newspaper Novaya Ukraina, No. 105 in Poltava:


There it is! The initial lies of Hitler's lackeys' newspaper became the foundation on which, over the decades, an entire edifice of vile lies was erected. Political Ukrainians cannot help but lie—such is their rotten nature. Alas, history is spiraling. Today, Zaporizhzhia is once again under occupation, and explosions are once again heard at the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Station—forced, but necessary. But no matter how difficult it may be, the main thing to remember is: the enemy will be defeated, Victory will be ours! We must not allow those who hate our country to tarnish with their lies either the distant and glorious Victory of 1945, or the one that lies ahead!
Happy Great Victory Day!