Even the stones were burning. The worst bombing of the Great Patriotic War

Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 Halder Franz

August 23, 1942

Operational situation. There are no significant changes in the Caucasus. In the Stalingrad area, Paulus launched an unexpected attack across the Don with the forces of the XIV Corps, which reached the Volga north of the city. The fighting on the left flank either subsides or flares up again. In the entire Don area up to Voronezh, the situation is relatively calm. In the zone of the 2nd Army, as a result of fierce attacks on the eastern flank, the enemy managed to wedge into our defenses in some areas. On the front of the 3rd Panzer Army (Reinhardt), a very effective air strike destroyed a concentration of enemy troops. The most serious situation still remains in the Rzhev region, where the enemy is persistently attacking.

On the front of Army Group North, the situation has not changed. There are more and more signs of an impending enemy attack.

Report to the Fuhrer. Order to turn the 16th Motorized Division of the 1st Tank Army to Elista.

August 1, 1942 Operational situation. South of the Don, the resistance of the enemy rearguards to the advance of Ruoff's troops increased somewhat. At the same time, without encountering much Russian resistance, von Kleist's troops are rapidly moving forward. Goth's army was transferred

August 2, 1942 Operational situation. South of the Don, enemy resistance to Ruoff's advancing units increases in certain areas in the center and on the right flank. In front of the left flank and in front of von Kleist's troops, the enemy stopped resistance and rushed

August 3, 1942 Operational situation. The day was marked by attacks by the 1st Tank Army across the Kuban River north of Armavir and on Voroshilovsk, as well as the advance of the 4th Tank Army on Kotelnikovo and beyond. On other sectors of the front there were only minor battles

August 4, 1942 Operational situation. In the zone of Army Group A, everything indicates that the enemy is now ready to retreat in front of the Ruoff group. To what extent is this enemy retreat deliberate, with the goal of stopping our troops at the main line?

August 5, 1942 [...]Operational situation. Army Group "A". In the area of ​​Ruoff's group, enemy resistance is weakening. He continues to move forward. Von Kleist quickly moved far to the southeast. The bridgehead beyond the Kuban has been captured. Army Group B.

August 6, 1942 Operational situation. Army Group "A". The enemy, under the pressure of Ruoff's troops, continues to roll back in the direction of the Caucasus. Many bridges have been captured. At the bend of the Kuban, the enemy continues to resist. At the same time, south of the bend, troops background

August 15, 1942 Operational situation. The offensive of Army Group A is developing very satisfactorily. On the front of Army Group B, Paulus' troops also achieved good results. Successful defensive battles in the Voronezh region. Army Group Center. Operation

August 16, 1942 [...]Operational situation. South of the Don, our troops are slowly but persistently advancing, overcoming strong resistance from the enemy rearguards in the foothills of the Caucasus. In the North Caucasus, the Russians apparently intend to retreat to the Black Sea coast. Should

August 24, 1942 Operational situation. There were no significant changes in the 17th Army's zone of action; promotion in certain areas in the Novocherkassk region. There is nothing significantly new on the front of the 1st Tank Army. The troops of the 4th Tank Army repelled the enemy’s frontal attack

August 25, 1942 [...]Operational situation. There are no changes in the Caucasus. At Stalingrad, Hoth's troops encountered well-prepared Russian defensive positions. The enemy is threatening a possible attack on the rear of his eastern flank. Paulus is slowly developing

August 26, 1942 Operational situation. No changes in the Caucasus. In the Stalingrad area the situation is difficult due to attacks from superior enemy forces. All our divisions are short-staffed. The command staff is experiencing severe nervous tension. Von Witersheim intended

August 27, 1942 Operational situation. In the south everything goes on without much change. The situation in the Stalingrad area stabilized. The penetration on the Italian front, as it turned out, was not so serious. Nevertheless, the 298th division was redirected there. In addition, to this area

August 28, 1942 Operational situation. On the front of Army Group "A" progress was noted in some areas in the North Caucasus. Army Group "B". The situation on the front of the 6th Army is being defused. The 4th Tank Army is regrouping its forces. The enemy is up to something on the left

August 29, 1942 Operational situation. The situation in the Caucasus improved somewhat, especially north of Novorossiysk. The offensive of the 4th Tank Army began very successfully. As a result of the 6th Army's offensive, a strong connection with the XIV Corps was restored. Starts

August 30, 1942 Operational situation. The troops of the northern wing of Army Group A are advancing towards Novorossiysk. On the front of Army Group B, the 4th Tank Army has achieved good success. Today was a calm day for the 6th Army, but the enemy seems to be preparing a powerful

August 31, 1942 Operational situation. In the zone of responsibility of Army Group A there have been significant successes in the advance of our troops to Anapa and Novorossiysk. In other areas (in the mountains) no changes. In the zone of the 1st Tank Army there are heavy battles for crossings across the Terek. From

Famous photo of Emmanuel Evzerikhin.

Fountain "Children's Round Dance" on the square near the Stalingrad train station, destroyed during the raid on August 23.

76 years have passed since fascist tanks found themselves on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad. Meanwhile, hundreds of German planes dropped tons of deadly cargo on the city and its inhabitants.

The furious roar of engines and the ominous whistle of bombs, explosions, groans and thousands of deaths, and the Volga engulfed in flames.

August 23 was one of the most terrible moments in the city's history. For only 200 fiery days from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the great confrontation on the Volga continued.

The center of Stalingrad a few days before the start of the battle

In the spring of 1942, Hitler divides Army Group South into two parts. The first should capture the North Caucasus. The second is to move to the Volga, to Stalingrad. The Wehrmacht's summer offensive was called Fall Blau.

German troops in the big bend of the Don. July 1942.

Stalingrad seemed to attract German troops to itself like a magnet. The city that bore the name of Stalin. The city that opened the way for the Nazis to the oil reserves of the Caucasus. A city located in the center of the country's transport arteries.

To resist the onslaught of Hitler's army, the Stalingrad Front was formed on July 12, 1942. The first commander was Marshal Timoshenko. It included the 21st Army and the 8th Air Army from the former Southwestern Front. More than 220 thousand soldiers of three reserve armies were also brought into the battle: the 62nd, 63rd and 64th. Plus artillery, 8 armored trains and air regiments, mortar, tank, armored, engineering and other formations. The 63rd and 21st armies were supposed to prevent the Germans from crossing the Don. The remaining forces were sent to defend the borders of Stalingrad.

The residents of Stalingrad are also preparing for defense; units of the people's militia are being formed in the city.

The beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad was quite unusual for that time. There was silence; tens of kilometers lay between the opponents. Nazi columns quickly moved east. At this time, the Red Army was gathering forces to the Stalingrad line and building fortifications.

Red Army soldiers in battle on the outskirts of Stalingrad

The start date of the great battle is considered to be July 17, 1942. But, according to the statements of military historian Alexei Isaev, the soldiers of the 147th Infantry Division entered the first battle on the evening of July 16 near the villages of Morozov and Zolotoy not far from the Morozovskaya station.

Units of the 6th German Army are moving towards Stalingrad.

From this moment on, bloody battles begin in the big bend of the Don. Meanwhile, the Stalingrad Front is replenished with the forces of the 28th, 38th and 57th armies

Children of Stalingrad are hiding from bombs.

The day of August 23, 1942 became one of the most tragic in the history of the Battle of Stalingrad. Early in the morning, General von Wittersheim's 14th Panzer Corps reached the Volga in the north of Stalingrad.

The first bombing of Stalingrad

The enemy tanks ended up where the city residents did not expect to see them at all - just a few kilometers from the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.

24th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht in the suburbs of Stalingrad.

And in the evening of the same day, at 16:18 Moscow time, Stalingrad turned into hell. Never again has any city in the world withstood such an onslaught. For four days, from August 23 to 26, six hundred enemy bombers made up to 2 thousand sorties daily. Each time they brought death and destruction with them. Hundreds of thousands of incendiary, high-explosive and fragmentation bombs continually rained down on Stalingrad.

A dive bomber in the sky over Stalingrad.

The city was in flames, choking with smoke, choking with blood. Generously sprinkled with oil, the Volga also burned, cutting off people’s path to salvation.

Stalingrad on fire, August 23, 1942.

“What appeared before us on August 23 in Stalingrad struck us as a terrible nightmare. Continuously, here and there, fire-smoke plumes of bean explosions soared upward. Huge columns of flame rose to the sky in the area of ​​oil storage facilities. Streams of burning oil and gasoline rushed to the Volga. It was burning river, steamships were burning on the Stalingrad roadstead. The asphalt of the streets and squares stank with stench. Telegraph poles flared up like matches. There was an unimaginable noise that strained the ears with its hellish music. The screech of bombs flying from a height mixed with the roar of explosions, the grinding and clanging of collapsing buildings, the crash of raging fire. The dying people moaned, the women and children cried angrily and cried out for help," he later recalled Commander of the Stalingrad Front Andrei Ivanovich Eremenko.

The city was on fire, choking with smoke.

In a matter of hours, the city was practically wiped off the face of the Earth. Houses, theaters, schools - everything turned into ruins. 309 enterprises in Stalingrad were also destroyed. The factories "Red October", STZ, "Barricades" lost most of their workshops and equipment. Transport, communications, and water supply were destroyed. About 40 thousand residents of Stalingrad died.

Low bow to all residents of military Stalingrad and its defenders! To everyone who died. To everyone who survived. To everyone who restored the city from ruins. We remember…

A few years ago, on March 19, 2008, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Panorama “Battle of Stalingrad” museum hosted a viewing and discussion of the television documentary “Stalingrad. Chronicle of Victory". In it, along with the military theme at that time, for the first time an attempt was made to identify a civilian theme - the most painful and neglected in films about Stalingrad.

The start was impressive. In close-up, on the entire screen, Air Marshal Ivan Ivanovich Pstygo is presented, who authoritatively sums up August 23, 1942 - the most mournful date of Stalingrad. Quote: “August 23 was that terrible blow, when 2,000 bombers passed through Stalingrad and, according to the latest, probably the most probable data, 200,000 people died in Stalingrad!” This is exactly half the city's population.

Yuri Panchenko. At the age of 16, he survived the entire Battle of Stalingrad in the Central District of the city. Served in aviation for more than 50 years. Author of the book “163 days on the streets of Stalingrad.”

However, areas that were not bombed that day should be excluded from the total urban population. Then in four districts of the city (out of eight) that were attacked by German aircraft, where about 200,000 people lived, the entire population was killed. I'll clean it up. I want to howl in horror.

And where does Pstygo go with the wounded, who are counted as three to one among those killed?

That's another 600,000! In total, in a city with a population of 400,000 people, the number of victims on August 23 is... 800,000 people, which is comparable to the population of Stalingrad and Astrakhan combined!

About dreamers

Our home-grown dreamers turned out to be more modest.

Oleg Naida, a candidate of philosophical sciences, counted 2,000 German planes in the skies of Stalingrad on August 23, which took the lives of more than 40,000 citizens.

Further civilian casualties began to snowball.

Iraida Pomoschnikova, chairman of the association “Children of Wartime Stalingrad.” In the book “We Come from War,” six-year-old Irochka not only counted 2,000 enemy bombers in the skies of Stalingrad on August 23, but also counted the victims: 42,000 killed and 50,000 wounded. What a mean girl, but smart! At her age, I could only count to ten, and only on my fingers.

Vladimir Beregovoi, professor at the University of Economics in St. Petersburg, member of the “Children of Wartime Stalingrad” association. In his article “Triumph and Tragedy,” which “announces a book-requiem for Stalingrad,” he toughened up the outcome of the ill-fated day: 46,000 city residents were killed and 150,000 were wounded. Five-month-old Vovochka, retiring with his parents from Stalingrad, also counted the number of German planes that bombed the city on August 23rd - more than 2000!

Enemy planes "... flew in a square formation of sixty-four aircraft...". What is this - the Mughal shakhovna or the Khrushchev method of square-cluster sowing of corn? I even saw corpses “sticking out” along the river bank and the Volga, red with blood. One thing is certain: Vovochka’s parents were color blind. The water in the Volga actually changed color, but not to red, but to black, because in the area of ​​the tractor plant, German aircraft bombed and burned a convoy of oil barges.

Tatyana Pavlova, historian. In his laborious publication, “Classified Tragedy: Civilians in the Battle of Stalingrad,” he cites information from city authorities, where funeral teams from August 22 to 29, 1942 buried 1,816 corpses and picked up 2,698 wounded. But after a few pages in the same period from August 23 to 29, Pavlova considered that there was not enough blood on the streets of the city, and therefore could not resist the temptation to punish the Stalingraders for 71,000 people (only killed and 142 wounded!) And after another couple of hundred pages I even remembered the Japanese, “the total losses of the population of Stalingrad are 32.3% higher than the similar losses of the population of Hiroshima from the atomic bombing.”

Vladimir Pavlov, St. Petersburg historian in the book “Stalingrad, Myths and Reality. New Look” proposes to declare August 23 “the day of national repentance of communists in Russia” for the death of 500,000 citizens who fell in the Battle of Stalingrad. Moreover, he presented the forced eviction of city residents to Belaya Kalitva as a humane action of the German command.

Cool though!

All this is the fantasy of people, where each of them, spinning their own legend, openly speculated, since during the storming of Stalingrad none of them were in the city.

Only six-year-old Irochka Pomoschnikova was in the Northern town, which was not bombed by the Germans on August 23rd.

Now the main thing. The bombing on August 23rd was a prelude, these were flowers, and the berries were ripening ahead. The brutal bombardment of the city began on the morning of August 24 and continued until August 27. The peak of the impact is August 25. In four days, the central areas of the city were burned, and the surviving population fled.

So, according to the testimony of ambitious dreamers, by the end of Sunday the population of Stalingrad was finished. It was completely broken and mutilated. Every single person! Scrambled eggs!

However, the realities of that ill-fated day tell a different story:

• the next morning in the Balkans (central district of the city), residents were given freshly baked bread. Is it that the dead baked rolls at night?
• on the morning of August 24, as usual, the working population went to work. By tram, not by hearse! The tram went to the destroyed Banny Ravine bridge at the Teschina stop (Vozrozhdeniya Square);
• the newspaper “Stalingradskaya Pravda” was published;
• the water supply worked until August 25;
• firefighters worked;
• the crossing was working;
• hospitals were being evacuated, which meant 4,500 wounded soldiers, onto the motor ships “Joseph Stalin”, “Memory of the Paris Commune” and “Mikhail Kalinin” that arrived in the city;
• hospitals operated on the outskirts of the city;
• air defense anti-aircraft artillery was operating;
• Soviet fighters were constantly flying over the city;
• militias were being formed in the factories;
• The Stalingrad Defense Committee, headed by the regional committee secretary Chuyanov, worked continuously;

This is not a complete list of concerns that fell on the shoulders of the townspeople.

August 23rd was a shock that the population successfully coped with. But after the severe injuries received over the next four days, the city was no longer able to recover.

In the official report of the Stalingrad City Defense Committee No. 411-a dated August 27, 1942, in addition to a detailed and named list of damage caused by German aviation to the industrial and public services of Stalingrad, civilian casualties are indicated in all areas of the city that were bombed. Overall result: 1017 people were killed and 1281 people were wounded. Naturally, this is not a complete list of victims. The count of casualties continued. But this is not 40,000, not 70,000, not 200,000 and not 500,000 people wasted by the current irresponsible and ambitious people who were never in Stalingrad.

Over the entire period of the Battle of Stalingrad, according to the reporting documents of the Stalingrad Party Archive, 42,754 city residents died from bombing and artillery shelling. And according to the head of the region, Chuyanov, the number of dead citizens is estimated at 40,000 people.

The population of the city, caught on the anvil of the battle, began to die like flies. People died in street battles, where the “stupid bullet” did not distinguish between friend and foe. And dystrophy and typhus in the German “cauldron” are worse than a bullet.

About death

And yet, why did people die?

From the bitter fate of my sixteen-year-old school and street classmates who lived in the Central district of the city:

• Elivstratova Lyusya died along with her mother and two sisters from a German bomb on August 23, 1942;
• Tsygankov Misha was shot by the police along with his father for possessing a rifle;
• Petya Vanin was shot by a policeman for possessing a Komsomol card (policemen are former Soviet citizens, lackeys of the occupiers);
• Zavrazhin Vitya is killed by a Soviet mine;
• Sasha Krasilnikov is killed by a Soviet mine;
• Fefelova Ira was killed by a German bullet;
• Chernavin Leva went missing;
• Baryshev Igor was burned;
• Mulyalin Vasya is wounded by a Soviet mine;
• Vitya Goncharov – severe shrapnel wound to the head, lost an eye, caused by a Soviet mine;
• Bernstein Misha - a through bullet wound in the chest from a German bullet;
• Kazimirova Lida - a through bullet wound in the neck from a Soviet bullet;
• my peer, whose name has not been preserved, was killed by an NKVD soldier for looting - he stole a pound of flour;
• four people managed to survive the entire Battle of Stalingrad in the city center without a single scratch.

Those who died in the German cauldron from dystrophy are not listed here. There are no witnesses. They all died of hunger at once. Whole families.

About the Germans in Stalingrad

Germans are often presented in modern films as naughty creatures, white and fluffy. This is because only five-year-olds are testifying. One complains that the Germans stole a pot of baked milk from them. Another only remembers his own grandmother, who was baptized. The Germans entered and grandma was baptized. Our people came and she was also baptized. With this, all their passions and muzzles dried up.

But to understand all the troubles that befell the population of the city in occupied Stalingrad, it is necessary to comprehend and link into one the main events that daily reduced the number of citizens. Rokossovsky Street to No. 30. Here, during the occupation of the city, the German commandant’s office, a punitive military organization, was located. And opposite the commandant’s office, in the former Iliodorov Monastery, the Germans created a camp for imprisoned Soviet citizens.

And now about the “naughty” faces.

1. Major Helmut Speidel (died in the Beketovsky prisoner of war camp), commandant of occupied Stalingrad, marked the border of the restricted zone from the channels of city residents hanging from the channels of railway bridges on Golubinskaya Street (tramway viaduct near the prison, on Kubanskaya Street (viaduct near the Dynamo stadium), on Nevskaya Street, on pedestrian bridge over the railway. Hanged on both sides of the bridge.
2. Chief Corporal Helmut Jeschke, inspector of the commandant's office for civil affairs. The population of the city was under his watchful eye. The Iliodorov monastery, turned into a prison by the Germans, was reputed to be the place of an ominous plague of townspeople, from where policemen every morning pulled out the corpses of people who had become numb during the night and dumped them into an aircraft crater in the courtyard of the commandant’s office.
3. Major Neubert, senior doctor of the commandant's office. In early December, after Neubert inspected the hospital for captured wounded Soviet soldiers (located on Golubinskaya Street near the blood transfusion station), the wounded Red Army soldiers disappeared without a trace, and then a German hospital was located in the vacated premises. Dr. Neubert was accompanied by German medical officials and a Russian woman who worked as a doctor in the infirmary.
4. Colonel Rudolf Kerpert (convicted in captivity by a German tribunal), commandant of the notorious camp for Soviet prisoners of war "Dulag-205" in Alekseevka. In the German “cauldron”, bunk comrades who had lived only yesterday became food for the captured Red Army soldiers, driven to the point of insanity by hunger.

War is not a pot of baked milk or an old woman’s sign of the cross. War is the ugliest form of human communication. For us, the Germans have become worse than the plague, worse than cholera, worse than the Tatar yoke combined. You can forgive them with your mind, but not with your heart!

About 2000 aircraft

And lastly, this is about the 2,000 bombers that bombed the city on August 23rd. Enemy planes took advantage of the corridor cut by German tankers from the Don to the Volga through Kotluban, Orlovka and the Tractor Plant, where the city’s air defense was destroyed. Further, along the left bank of the Volga, the bombers entered the rear of the city with impunity, from where no one was expecting them. The anti-aircraft gunners were taken by surprise. They realized it when the first Heinkel squadron was already over the middle of the river. The sky literally boiled from the explosions of anti-aircraft shells, but... it was too late.

The bombers flew in waves in squadrons with an interval of about 15 minutes between squadrons. The bombing of the city began at 16:20 Moscow time and ended at sunset at 19:00 since planes do not fly in groups at night. At night, single planes bombed at large intervals.

Consequently, in two hours and forty minutes of daylight, with a fifteen-minute interval, only eleven groups - squadrons - could pass. There are 9-12 aircraft in a squadron, and by multiplying, we get a real idea of ​​the number of enemy aircraft that took part in the bombing of the city on August 23. This is about 100 - 130 aircraft. So the circulated legend about two thousand bombers attacking the city on August 23rd is clearly a fantasy. The Germans did not have such a number of bomber aircraft on the entire Eastern Front. By the beginning of July 1942, that is, by the beginning of the offensive on Stalingrad, the Germans had approximately 2,750 aircraft of all types. Of these, 775 bombers, 310 attack aircraft, 290 fighters, 765 reconnaissance aircraft, etc.

So, all the “eyewitnesses and eyewitnesses” of the Battle of Stalingrad that I mentioned, whom we applaud on memorable dates, suffer from a common pathology - damage to the mind.

And a requiem for Stalingrad is inappropriate. Let the Germans pray for themselves. We didn't invite them here. People. Know Stalingrad. Because soon there will be no one to remember Stalingrad.

In Volgograd, the Children's Round Dance fountain, which became one of the symbols of the Battle of Stalingrad, has been restored. RIA Novosti reports this.

The monument was unveiled on the station square, where it was originally located. The ceremony was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of the initiators of the restoration of the fountain, biker Alexander “Surgeon” Zaldostanov. The production of the sculptural group was entrusted to the Moscow sculptor Alexander Burganov. A smaller copy of the fountain will be installed next to the ruins of the Gerhardt mill, destroyed during the bombing of the city, and a panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The “Children’s Round Dance” fountain gained worldwide fame thanks to the photograph of front-line correspondent Emmanuel Evzerikhin “August 23, 1942. After a massive raid by Nazi aircraft." In the photo, a sculptural group of six boys and girls dancing around a crocodile is adjacent to dilapidated burning buildings. By the end of the war, the fountain had been repaired, but in the 50s, during the post-war reconstruction of the city, it was dismantled as being of no historical value.

In 2012, Fyodor Bondarchuk filmed his film “Stalingrad” near St. Petersburg, making the fountain the central element of the scenery. Their photographs appeared in blogs and the media, and blogger Mikhail Krainov noted that in Bondarchuk’s version “the pioneers have clearly matured.” Krainov suggested that the Dnepropetrovsk fountain was used as a model for making the decorations - in his sculptural group, instead of children of primary school age, teenagers dance in a round dance.

The opening of the Children's Round Dance fountain is timed to coincide with the 71st anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. On the night of August 23, 1942, Luftwaffe forces began massive bombing of the city, flying about two thousand sorties. As a result of this bombing, entire neighborhoods of Stalingrad were turned into ruins, killing about 40 thousand civilians. Fierce fighting within the city continued throughout September and October - the Germans were unable to establish complete control over Stalingrad, and attempts at a counteroffensive by Soviet troops were thwarted. The turning point occurred in the winter during Operation Uranus, which ended in early February 1943, when Soviet troops managed to encircle, partially destroy or force a large group of German troops to surrender. Hitler's army lost about 800 thousand people as a result of the Battle of Stalingrad - about the same as in all previous battles on the Eastern Front. This victory of the Soviet army is considered a turning point during the Great Patriotic War.