Organization of the defense of the Grozny oil region in the first years of the Great Patriotic War

Annotation

The article examines the problem of organizing the defense of the Grozny oil region in the first years of the Great Patriotic War. It is shown that from the very beginning of the war, the Grozny oil industry was considered by the German command as an important trophy and a springboard for advancing to the Baku oil region. The work analyzes the plans of the German leadership to capture the North Caucasus - a strategically important geopolitical region – and use its natural resources, in particular, oil fields. Based on archival material and published documents, the authors prove that due to the effective work of the central authorities, including the State Defense Committee, the actions of the Red Army and the labor feat of the residents of Grozny, who defended the city and its oil infrastructure in extreme military conditions, the plans of the German fascist command to capture the Grozny and Baku oil regions were thwarted. It is noted that due to the evacuation of oil industry enterprises from Grozny to the Volga and Central Asian regions, as well as the adoption of necessary measures to prevent oil fields from falling into enemy hands, the production potential of the Grozny oil industry was preserved, which allowed already during the Great Patriotic War to begin the restoration of destroyed fields, reconstruct and restart oil refineries to ensure an uninterrupted supply of fuel and lubricants to the front.

Keywords

• oil industry
• oil
• Grozny
• North Caucasus
• defense
• oil industry enterprises
• Great Patriotic War
• home front workers
• fuel
• front
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Contribution of the authors

Sulumov Z. Kh. – work in museums and archives, processing and presentation of statistical data and materials of sources, text revision, final conclusions; Osmaev M. K. – scientific leadership, development of the research concept, substantiation of the purpose of the article, writing the original text, data reconciliation, final conclusions

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