Press photo of captured Soviet generals P. Ponedelin and N. Kirillov

A rare and tragic snapshot of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. In the photo, Major General Pavel Grigorievich Ponedelin (1893-1950), commander of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front, and Major General Nikolai Kuzmich Kirillov (1897-1950), commander of the 13th Infantry Corps of the 12th Army, who were captured by the Germans in the Uman region, August 1941. In early August 1941, German troops surrounded 20 divisions of the 6th and 12th armies from the Southern Front south of Uman. About 55,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were captured, including Generals Ponedelin and Kirillov. The Germans widely used the fact of the surrender of such high-ranking officers, including this photo, for propaganda purposes. The Soviet leadership, of course, was furious. By Order of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 270 dated August 16, 1941, Ponedelin and Kirillov were declared malicious deserters and traitors to the Motherland. On October 13, 1941, he was sentenced to death in absentia. The captured generals were held in German concentration camps. It is known that, while in captivity, the generals behaved with dignity, did not cooperate with the Germans, despite the promises and decisions they knew made against them in the USSR. On April 29, 1945, they were liberated by American troops. Ponedelin was offered a service in the US Army, but he refused. On May 3, they were handed over to the Soviet side. For several months after their release, the generals lived freely, but on December 30, 1945, they were arrested. On August 25, 1950, they were convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR under the article "treason to the Motherland to military personnel", sentenced to capital punishment and shot on the same day. Rehabilitated by the same The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in 1956 for the lack of corpus delicti in their actions.