German historian uncovered falsification of ultra-right publicists about Stalin's order 
In Germany, a forgery was revealed in the translation into German of the order of the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, number 0428 of November 17, 1941, on the use of “scorched earth” tactics during the Great Patriotic War. In his article for Die Welt, historian Sven Kellerhoff noted that far-right extremists who wanted to justify the actions of the Nazis were behind the falsification of historical events.
The material dealt with the order of the Generalissimo, which spoke of the need to destroy any objects potentially suitable for use by the Wehrmacht soldiers as a refuge. According to Kellerhoff, for this task, each regiment of the Red Army was ordered to form so-called “teams of hunters” of 20 to 30 people. After the war, this historical document was published in the book of the Soviet historian Dmitry Volkogonov “Triumph and Tragedy. Political portrait of JV Stalin “, translated into German.
In 1995, an ultra-rightist publicist, Fritz Becker, announced that an abridged version of the order had been issued in Germany and provided fragments that were allegedly missing from the translation. According to his interpretation, Stalin had at his disposal that the Soviet soldiers involved in this assignment had to change into the trophy uniform of the Wehrmacht and the SS troops. “This will arouse hatred of the fascist occupiers, facilitate the recruitment of partisans behind enemy lines. It should be noted that after the “punitive expedition” there are witnesses who will then be able to tell about the “atrocities of the fascists”. Further, it followed that “it is necessary to spread information among the population that it is the Germans who are burning villages and villages in order to punish the partisans,” Becker said.
German researchers Christian Hartmann and Jurgen Tsarusk became interested in the original source of Stalin's order and discovered that the links of the publicist Becker, as well as his ultra-right associates Franz Seidler and Joachim Hoffmann, are not based on anything. Scientists managed to get acquainted with the original document, which did not mention the disguise of the Red Army soldiers as Wehrmacht soldiers.
In his article Sven Kellerhoff emphasized that the German neo-Nazis needed a “counterargument” in the discussion about the crimes of the Third Reich army, so, according to him, the forgery was created to “question the“ authorship ”of the Germans in the atrocities and crimes of wartime.