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Description
"Parade of the Defeated" or "March of Shame".
The success in Belorussia in 1944 was so impressive that some Western publications doubted its veracity. Then the Soviet command decided to prove and demonstrate its success to the world in a very unusual way. Operation "The Great Waltz" was planned, after the name of a popular movie. In the mode of strict secrecy from Belarus to Moscow arrived echelons. Not far from the center of the capital, the Moscow Hippodrome and the Dynamo Stadium were cordoned off.
Finally, on July 17, it was announced: German prisoners would march through the streets of Moscow.
Muscovites who came out into the street saw huge columns. The procession was headed by 19 German generals in uniforms and with awards among them were. Major General Gottfried von Erdmansdorf (former commandant of Mogilev, executed for war crimes in 1946), Major General Gunther Klammt, Infanterie General Paul Völkers (died in captivity), Major General Joachim Engel (died in captivity), Major General Aurel Schmidt (, Infanterie General Friedrich Gollwitzer and a number of others.
Behind them followed a thousand-strong group of officers. Following them were columns of unshaven soldiers. Some had sandals made of automobile tires instead of boots on their feet. For them, the war was already over.
The first group (42,000 men) marched in 2 hours and 25 minutes. The group passed 1,227 captured officers, including 19 generals who marched with their orders and uniforms left to them, six colonels and lieutenant colonels. The second group (15,600 people) marched counterclockwise along the Garden Ring in 4 hours and 20 minutes.
In convoying the columns took part units of the NKVD troops: a unit of the division named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. F. E. Dzerzhinsky, 36th and 37th divisions of convoy troops. The columns were accompanied by horsemen with naked sabers and ordinary NKVD soldiers with rifles. The German prisoners were followed by watering machines, symbolically washing the ground from "Hitler's filth". The "parade" was over by seven o'clock in the evening, when all the prisoners were placed on wagons and sent to the camps. Four prisoners who had fallen behind the column were given medical attention.
Among the prisoners was a column of French collaborators. "All of them pinned to their jackets some kind of tricolor cockades, and when they approached us and saw General Petit, standing in the back of a truck with folded sides, began to shout: "Vive la France, my general! We were not volunteers! We were conscripted by force. Vive la France!" Ernest Petit did not show the slightest sympathy for them. On the contrary, he spat angrily and said through his teeth: "Scoundrels! Whoever didn't want to join us is with us.
More than once during the march there was a large number of anti-Nazi shouts from the population: "Death to Hitler!" or "Death to fascism!". However, most of the inhabitants looked at the prisoners with contemptuous glances.
The unusual procession in the center of Moscow, as expected, made a strong impression on the Soviet people and on foreign observers. It became obvious - Soviet military successes spoke of an inevitable and victorious end to the war for the USSR. A month later, on Wednesday, August 16, 1944, a similar march of German prisoners of war took place in Kiev; a column of 36,918 prisoners of war, including 549 officers, marched through the city.

Description
"Parade of the Defeated" or "March of Shame".
The success in Belorussia in 1944 was so impressive that some Western publications doubted its veracity. Then the Soviet command decided to prove and demonstrate its success to the world in a very unusual way. Operation "The Great Waltz" was planned, after the name of a popular movie. In the mode of strict secrecy from Belarus to Moscow arrived echelons. Not far from the center of the capital, the Moscow Hippodrome and the Dynamo Stadium were cordoned off.
Finally, on July 17, it was announced: German prisoners would march through the streets of Moscow.
Muscovites who came out into the street saw huge columns. The procession was headed by 19 German generals in uniforms and with awards among them were. Major General Gottfried von Erdmansdorf (former commandant of Mogilev, executed for war crimes in 1946), Major General Gunther Klammt, Infanterie General Paul Völkers (died in captivity), Major General Joachim Engel (died in captivity), Major General Aurel Schmidt (, Infanterie General Friedrich Gollwitzer and a number of others.
Behind them followed a thousand-strong group of officers. Following them were columns of unshaven soldiers. Some had sandals made of automobile tires instead of boots on their feet. For them, the war was already over.
The first group (42,000 men) marched in 2 hours and 25 minutes. The group passed 1,227 captured officers, including 19 generals who marched with their orders and uniforms left to them, six colonels and lieutenant colonels. The second group (15,600 people) marched counterclockwise along the Garden Ring in 4 hours and 20 minutes.
In convoying the columns took part units of the NKVD troops: a unit of the division named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. F. E. Dzerzhinsky, 36th and 37th divisions of convoy troops. The columns were accompanied by horsemen with naked sabers and ordinary NKVD soldiers with rifles. The German prisoners were followed by watering machines, symbolically washing the ground from "Hitler's filth". The "parade" was over by seven o'clock in the evening, when all the prisoners were placed on wagons and sent to the camps. Four prisoners who had fallen behind the column were given medical attention.
Among the prisoners was a column of French collaborators. "All of them pinned to their jackets some kind of tricolor cockades, and when they approached us and saw General Petit, standing in the back of a truck with folded sides, began to shout: "Vive la France, my general! We were not volunteers! We were conscripted by force. Vive la France!" Ernest Petit did not show the slightest sympathy for them. On the contrary, he spat angrily and said through his teeth: "Scoundrels! Whoever didn't want to join us is with us.
More than once during the march there was a large number of anti-Nazi shouts from the population: "Death to Hitler!" or "Death to fascism!". However, most of the inhabitants looked at the prisoners with contemptuous glances.
The unusual procession in the center of Moscow, as expected, made a strong impression on the Soviet people and on foreign observers. It became obvious - Soviet military successes spoke of an inevitable and victorious end to the war for the USSR. A month later, on Wednesday, August 16, 1944, a similar march of German prisoners of war took place in Kiev; a column of 36,918 prisoners of war, including 549 officers, marched through the city.