How long the defenders of the Brest fortress held out. Heroic defense of the Brest fortress
The garrison of the fortress under the command of Captain I.N. Zubachev and regimental commissar E.M. Fomin (3.5 thousand people) during the week heroically held back the onslaught of the 45th German infantry division, which was supported by artillery and aviation. Pockets of resistance remained in the fortress for another three weeks (Major P. M. Gavrilov was captured on July 23). According to some reports, individual defenders of the fortress held out in August. The defense of the fortress was the first but eloquent lesson that showed the Germans what awaited them in the future.
LEGEND BECOMES BEING
In February 1942, in one of the sectors of the front in the Orel region, our troops defeated the enemy's 45th Infantry Division. At the same time, the archive of the division headquarters was captured. While examining the documents captured in the German archives, our officers drew attention to one very curious piece of paper. This document was called "Battle Report on the Occupation of Brest-Litovsk", and in it, day after day, the Nazis talked about the course of the battles for the Brest Fortress.
Contrary to the will of the German staff officers, who, naturally, tried in every possible way to extol the actions of their troops, all the facts cited in this document spoke of exceptional courage, amazing heroism, extraordinary stamina and tenacity of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The final concluding words of this report sounded like a forced involuntary admission of the enemy.
"A stunning attack on a fortress in which a brave defender is sitting costs a lot of blood," wrote the enemy's staff officers. - This simple truth was once again proved during the capture of the Brest Fortress. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought extremely persistently and stubbornly, they showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to resist. "
This was the admission of the enemy.
This "Battle report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk" was translated into Russian, and excerpts from it were published in 1942 in the newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda". So, in fact, from the mouth of our enemy, the Soviet people first learned some of the details of the remarkable feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. The legend has come true.
Two more years passed. In the summer of 1944, during a powerful offensive by our troops in Belarus, Brest was liberated. On July 28, 1944, Soviet soldiers entered the Brest Fortress for the first time after three years of fascist occupation.
Almost the entire fortress lay in ruins. By the mere sight of these terrible ruins, one could judge the strength and cruelty of the battles that took place here. These heaps of ruins were full of harsh grandeur, as if the unbroken spirit of the fallen fighters of 1941 still lived in them. The gloomy stones, in some places already overgrown with grass and bushes, beaten and chipped by bullets and shrapnel, seemed to have absorbed the fire and blood of the past battle, and the people wandering among the ruins of the fortress involuntarily came to mind how much these stones had seen and how much they could tell if a miracle happened and they could speak.
And a miracle happened! The stones suddenly spoke! On the surviving walls of the fortifications, in the openings of windows and doors, on the vaults of the basements, on the abutments of the bridge, they began to find inscriptions left by the defenders of the fortress. In these inscriptions, sometimes unnamed, sometimes signed, sometimes sketched in a hurry with a pencil, or simply scrawled on the plaster with a bayonet or a bullet, the soldiers declared their determination to fight to the death, sent farewell greetings to the Motherland and comrades, spoke of loyalty to the people and the party. In the fortress ruins, the living voices of unknown heroes of 1941 seemed to sound, and the soldiers of 1944 listened with excitement and heartache to these voices, in which there was a proud consciousness of a fulfilled duty, and the bitterness of parting with life, and calm courage in the face of death, and a covenant for revenge.
“There were five of us: Sedov, I. Grotov, Bogolyubov, Mikhailov, V. Selivanov. We took the first battle on June 22, 1941. We will die, but we will not leave! " - it was written on the bricks of the outer wall near the Terespolskie gates.
In the western part of the barracks, in one of the rooms, the following inscription was found: “There were three of us, it was difficult for us, but we did not lose heart and would die like heroes. July. 1941 ".
In the center of the fortress yard there is a dilapidated church-type building. There really was once a church here, and later, before the war, it was converted into a club of one of the regiments stationed in the fortress. In this club, on the site where the projectionist's booth was, an inscription was carved on the plaster: “There were three Muscovites - Ivanov, Stepanchikov, Zhuntyaev, who defended this church, and we took an oath: we will die, but we will not leave here. July. 1941 ".
This inscription, along with the plaster, was removed from the wall and transferred to the Central Museum of the Soviet Army in Moscow, where it is now kept. Below, on the same wall, there was another inscription, which, unfortunately, has not survived, and we know it only from the stories of the soldiers who served in the fortress in the first years after the war and read it many times. This inscription was like a continuation of the first: “I was left alone, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev perished. Germans in the church itself. The last grenade remained, but I won't let myself be alive. Comrades, avenge us! " These words were scratched out, apparently, by the last of the three Muscovites - Ivanov.
It wasn't just the stones that spoke. In Brest and its environs, as it turned out, lived the wives and children of the commanders who died in the battles for the fortress in 1941. During the days of the fighting, these women and children, caught in the fortress by the war, were in the basements of the barracks, sharing all the hardships of defense with their husbands and fathers. Now they were sharing their memories, telling many interesting details of the memorial defense.
And then a surprising and strange contradiction emerged. The German document I was talking about stated that the fortress resisted for nine days and fell by July 1, 1941. Meanwhile, many women recalled that they were captured only on July 10 or even 15, and when the Nazis took them out of the fortress, battles were still ongoing in some areas of the defense, there was an intense exchange of fire. Residents of Brest said that until the end of July or even before the first days of August, shooting was heard from the fortress, and the Nazis brought from there to the city where their army hospital was located, their wounded officers and soldiers.
Thus, it became clear that the German report on the capture of Brest-Litovsk contained a deliberate lie and that the headquarters of the 45th enemy division had rushed to inform their high command in advance about the fall of the fortress. In fact, the fighting continued for a long time ... In 1950, a researcher at the Moscow Museum, examining the premises of the western barracks, found another inscription carved on the wall. This inscription was: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland! " There was no signature under these words, but at the bottom there was a clearly distinguishable date - "July 20, 1941". So we managed to find direct evidence that the fortress continued to resist on the 29th day of the war, although eyewitnesses stood their ground and assured that the fighting had been going on for more than a month. After the war, the ruins were partially dismantled in the fortress, and at the same time the remains of the heroes were often found under the stones, their personal documents and weapons were found.
Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress. M., 1964
BREST FORTRESS
Built almost a century before the start of the Great Patriotic War (the construction of the main fortifications was completed by 1842), the fortress has long lost its strategic importance in the eyes of the military, since it was not considered capable of withstanding the onslaught of modern artillery. As a result, the facilities of the complex served, first of all, to accommodate personnel, which in case of war had to keep the defense outside the fortress. At the same time, the plan to create a fortified area, taking into account the latest achievements in the field of fortification, as of June 22, 1941 was not fully implemented.
At the beginning of World War II, the garrison of the fortress consisted mainly of units of the 6th and 42nd Infantry Divisions of the 28th Infantry Corps of the Red Army. But it has declined significantly due to the participation of many military personnel in scheduled training events.
The operation of the Germans to seize the fortress was launched with powerful artillery preparation, which destroyed a significant part of the buildings, destroyed a large number of the garrison's soldiers and at first noticeably demoralized the survivors. The enemy quickly gained a foothold in the South and West Islands, and the assault troops appeared on the Central Island, but failed to occupy the barracks in the Citadel. In the area of the Terespolskie gates, the Germans met a desperate counterattack by Soviet soldiers under the general command of the regimental commissar E.M. Fomin. The vanguard units of the 45th division of the Wehrmacht suffered serious losses.
The gained time allowed the Soviet side to organize an orderly defense of the barracks. The Nazis were forced to remain in occupied positions in the building of the army club, from where they could not get out for some time. The fire also stopped the attempts to break through the enemy reinforcements across the bridge over the Mukhavets in the area of the Kholmsky Gate on the Central Island.
In addition to the central part of the fortress, resistance gradually grew in other parts of the complex of buildings (in particular, under the command of Major P.M. Gavrilov on the northern Kobrin fortification), and the soldiers of the garrison were favored by dense buildings. Because of her, the enemy could not conduct targeted artillery fire from close range, without risking being destroyed himself. With only small arms and an insignificant number of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, the defenders of the fortress stopped the enemy's advance, and later, when the Germans made a tactical retreat, they took up the positions left by the enemy.
At the same time, despite the failure of the quick assault, on June 22, the Wehrmacht forces managed to take the entire fortress in a blockade ring. Before its establishment, up to half of the payroll of the units located in the complex managed, according to some estimates, to leave the fortress and occupy the lines prescribed by the defensive plans. Taking into account the losses during the first day of defense, as a result, the fortress was defended by about 3.5 thousand people, who were blocked in different parts of it. As a result, each of the major centers of resistance could rely only on material resources in its immediate vicinity. The command of the combined forces of the defenders was entrusted to Captain I.N. Zubachev, whose deputy was the regimental commissar Fomin.
In the following days of defense of the fortress, the enemy stubbornly strove to occupy the Central Island, but met an organized rebuff from the garrison of the Citadel. Only on June 24 did the Germans finally succeed in occupying the Terespolsk and Volyn fortifications on the Western and Southern Islands. Artillery attacks on the Citadel alternated with air raids, during one of which a German fighter was shot down by rifle fire. The defenders of the fortress also knocked out at least four enemy tanks. Several more German tanks are known to have died in improvised minefields set up by the Red Army.
The enemy used incendiary ammunition and tear gas against the garrison (the besiegers had a regiment of heavy chemical mortars at their disposal).
No less dangerous for the Soviet soldiers and civilians who were with them (first of all, the wives and children of officers), was the catastrophic shortage of food and drink. If it was possible to compensate for the consumption of ammunition at the expense of the surviving arsenals of the fortress and captured weapons, then the needs for water, food, medicine and dressings were met at a minimum level. The water supply to the fortress was destroyed, and the manual water intake from Mukhavets and Bug was practically paralyzed by enemy fire. The situation was further complicated by the incessant intense heat.
At the initial stage of the defense, the idea of breaking through the fortress and joining with the main forces was abandoned, since the command of the defenders was counting on a quick counterstrike of the Soviet troops. When these calculations were not justified, attempts began to break the blockade, but they all ended in failure due to the overwhelming superiority of the Wehrmacht units in manpower and weapons.
By the beginning of July, after a particularly large-scale bombardment and artillery bombardment, the enemy managed to capture the fortifications on the Central Island, thereby destroying the main center of resistance. From that moment on, the defense of the fortress lost its integral and coordinated character, and the fight against the Nazis was continued by disparate groups in different parts of the complex. The actions of these groups and single soldiers acquired more and more features of sabotage activity and continued in a number of cases until the end of July and even up to the beginning of August 1941. After the war, in the casemates of the Brest Fortress, the inscription “I am dying, but I do not give up. Goodbye Homeland. July 20, 1941 "
Most of the surviving defenders of the garrison fell into German captivity, where women and children were sent even before the cessation of organized defense. Commissar Fomin was shot by the Germans, Captain Zubachev died in captivity, Major Gavrilov survived captivity and was transferred to the reserve during the post-war reduction of the army. The defense of the Brest Fortress (after the war received the title of "Hero Fortress") became a symbol of courage and self-sacrifice of Soviet soldiers in the first, most tragic period of the war.
Astashin N.A. Brest Fortress // The Great Patriotic War. Encyclopedia. / Resp. ed. Ak. A.O. Chubaryan. M., 2010.
The garrison of the Brest Fortress was one of the first to take the blow of the German army during the beginning.
The courage and heroism of its defenders are forever inscribed in analogs of world history, which cannot be forgotten or misinterpreted.
Treacherous attack
An unexpected assault on the fortress began at 4 o'clock in the early morning of June 22, 1941 with a hurricane of artillery fire.
Aimed and devastating fire destroyed ammunition depots and damaged communication lines. The garrison immediately suffered significant losses in manpower.
As a result of this attack, the water supply system was destroyed, which further complicated the position of the defenders of the fortress. Water was required not only for the soldiers, who were ordinary living people, but also for machine guns.
Defense of the Brest Fortress 1941 photo
After a half-hour artillery attack, the Germans launched three battalions into the attack, which were part of the 45th Infantry Division. The number of the attackers was one and a half thousand people.
The German command considered such a number to be quite sufficient to cope with the garrison of the fortress. And, at first, the Nazis did not meet with serious resistance. The surprise effect did its job. The garrison ceased to be a single whole, but was divided into several centers of resistance that were not coordinated among themselves.
The Germans, having burst into the fortress through the Terespol fortification, rather quickly passed through the Citadel and reached the Kobrin fortification.
Unexpected rebuff
All the more unexpected for them was the counterattack of Soviet soldiers who found themselves in their rear. The soldiers of the garrison, who survived the shelling, grouped under the command of the remaining commanders, and the Germans received a tangible rebuff.
The inscription of the defenders of the Brest Fortress on the wall photo
In some places the attackers were greeted with tough bayonet attacks, which came as a complete surprise to them. The attack began to choke. And not just choke, but the Nazis had to hold the defense themselves.
Quickly recovering from the shock from the unexpected and treacherous attack of the enemy, the units of the garrison, which found themselves in the rear of the attackers, were able to dismember and even partially destroy the enemy. The enemy met the strongest resistance at the Volyn and Kobrin fortifications.
A small part of the garrison was able to break through and leave the fortress. But most of it remained inside the ring, which the Germans closed by 9 o'clock in the morning. From 6 to 8 thousand people remained inside the encirclement ring. In the Citadel, the Germans were able to retain only a few plots, including the club building that dominated the rest of the fortifications, converted from a former church. In addition, the Germans had at their disposal the command staff canteen and part of the barracks at the Brest Gate, which survived the shelling.
The German command allotted only a few hours to capture the fortress, but by noon it became clear that this plan had failed. During the day, the Germans had to introduce additional forces left in reserve. Instead of the original three battalions, the grouping of those storming the fortress increased to two regiments. The Germans could not use artillery in full, so as not to destroy their own soldiers.
Defense of the Brest Fortress
By the night of June 23, the German command withdrew its troops and shelling began. In between, there was an offer to surrender. About 2 thousand responded to it, but the main part of the defenders preferred resistance. On June 23, the united groups of Soviet fighters under the command of Lieutenant Vinogradov, Captain Zubachev, Regimental Commissar Fomin, Senior Lieutenant Shcherbakov and Private Shugurov drove the Germans out of the ring barracks they occupied at the Brest Gate and planned to organize a long defense of the fortress, hoping to receive reinforcements.
Brest Fortress, July 1941 photo
It was planned to create a Defense Headquarters, and even a draft Order No. 1 was written on the creation of a consolidated combat group. However, on June 24, the Germans were able to break into the Citadel. A large group of the garrison tried to make a breakthrough through the Kobrin fortification and, although they were able to break out of the outer side of the fortress, most of them were destroyed or captured. On June 26, the last 450 fighters of the Citadel were captured.
The feat of the defenders of the "Eastern Fort"
The defenders of the Eastern Fort held out the longest. There were about 400 of them. This group was commanded by Major P.M. Gavrilov. The Germans went on the attack in this area up to 10 times a day, and each time they rolled back, meeting fierce resistance. And only on June 29, after the Germans dropped an aerial bomb weighing 1800 kg on the fort, the fort fell.
Defense of the Brest Fortress photo
But even before August, the Germans could not carry out a total sweep and feel like complete masters. Every now and then, local centers of resistance arose, when from under the ruins the shooting of soldiers still alive was heard. They preferred death to captivity. Major Gavrilov, seriously wounded, was among the last taken prisoner, and this happened on 23 July.
Before visiting the fortress and at the end of August, all the cellars of the fortress were flooded with water. Brest Fortress - a symbol of courage and fortitude of Soviet soldiers In 1965 Brest was awarded the title of Hero Fortress.
After the start of the Great Patriotic War, the garrison of the Brest Fortress for a week heroically held back the onslaught of the 45th German Infantry Division, which was supported by artillery and aviation.
After a general assault on June 29-30, the Germans managed to capture the main fortifications. But the defenders of the fortress continued to fight bravely in some areas for almost three weeks in the face of a shortage of water, food, ammunition and medicine. The defense of the Brest Fortress was the first but eloquent lesson that showed the Germans what awaited them in the future.
Fights in the Brest Fortress
The defense of an old fortress that has lost its military significance near the city of Brest, which was included in the USSR in 1939, is an undoubted example of firmness and courage. The Brest Fortress was built in the 19th century as part of a system of fortifications that were being built on the western borders of the Russian Empire. By the time Germany attacked the Soviet Union, it could no longer perform serious defensive tasks and its central part, as part of the citadel and three adjacent main fortifications, was used to accommodate the border detachment, border protection units, NKVD troops, engineering units, hospital and auxiliary units. By the time of the attack, there were about 8 thousand servicemen in the fortress, up to 300 families of command personnel, a number of people who were going through military training, medical personnel and personnel of economic services - in all, in all likelihood, more than 10 thousand people.
At dawn on June 22, 1941, the fortress, primarily the barracks and residential buildings of the command staff, was subjected to powerful artillery fire, after which the fortifications were attacked by German assault detachments. The assault on the fortress was led by battalions of the 45th Infantry Division.
The German command hoped that the surprise of the attack and powerful artillery preparation would disorganize the troops stationed in the fortress and break their will to resist. According to calculations, the assault on the fortress should have ended by 12 noon. However, the German staff officers miscalculated.
Despite the surprise, significant losses and the death of a large number of commanders, the garrison personnel showed courage and stubbornness unexpected for the Germans. The position of the defenders of the fortress was hopeless.
Only part of the personnel managed to leave the fortress (according to the plans, in case of a threat of the outbreak of hostilities, the troops were to take positions outside it), after which the fortress was completely surrounded.
They managed to destroy the detachments that had broken through to the central part of the fortress (citadel) and took up defensive positions in strong defensive barracks located along the perimeter of the citadel, as well as in various buildings, ruins, basements and casemates both in the citadel and on the territory of adjacent fortifications. The defenders were led by commanders and political workers, in some cases by rank-and-file soldiers who took command.
During June 22, the defenders of the fortress repulsed 8 enemy attacks. German troops suffered unexpectedly high losses, so by evening all the groups that had broken through to the territory of the fortress were recalled, a blockade line was created behind the outer ramparts, and military operations began to take on the character of a siege. On the morning of June 23, after shelling and aerial bombardment, the enemy continued to attempt an assault. The fighting in the fortress took on a fierce, protracted nature, which the Germans had never expected. By the evening of June 23, their losses amounted to more than 300 people only killed, which was almost double the losses of the 45th Infantry Division for the entire Polish campaign.
In the following days, the defenders of the fortress continued to resist staunchly, ignoring the calls for surrender and the promises of the parliamentarians transmitted via radio installations. Nevertheless, their strength gradually dwindled. The Germans brought up siege artillery. Using flamethrowers, barrels with a combustible mixture, powerful charges of explosives, and according to some sources - poisonous or asphyxiant gases, they gradually suppressed pockets of resistance. The defenders experienced a shortage of ammunition and food. The water supply system was destroyed, and it was impossible to get to the water in the bypass canals, because the Germans opened fire on everyone who came into view.
A few days later, the defenders of the fortress decided that the women and children who were among them should leave the fortress and surrender at the mercy of the victors. But still, some women remained in the fortress until the last days of hostilities. After June 26, several attempts were made to break through from the besieged fortress, but only a few small groups were able to break through.
By the end of June, the enemy managed to capture most of the fortress; on June 29 and 30, the Germans launched a continuous two-day assault on the fortress, alternating attacks with shelling and aerial bombardment using heavy aerial bombs. They managed to destroy and capture the main groups of the defenders in the Citadel and the Eastern Redoubt of the Kobrin fortification, after which the defense of the fortress disintegrated into a number of separate centers. A small group of fighters continued to fight in the Eastern Redoubt until July 12, and later in a caponier behind the outer rampart of the fortification. Major Gavrilov and deputy political instructor G.D. Derevianko, being seriously wounded, were captured on 23 July.
Individual defenders of the fortress, hiding in the basements and casemates of the fortifications, continued their personal war until the fall of 1941, and their struggle is fanned by legends.
The enemy did not get any of the banners of the military units that fought in the fortress. The total losses of the 45th German Infantry Division, according to the divisional report, were 482 killed, including 48 officers, and over 1000 wounded as of June 30, 1941. According to the report, German troops captured 7,000 people, among whom, apparently, all who were captured in the fortress were enrolled, incl. civilians and children. The remains of 850 of its defenders are buried in a mass grave on the territory of the fortress.
Smolensk battle
In the middle of summer - early autumn of 1941, Soviet troops conducted a complex of defensive and offensive operations in the Smolensk region, aimed at preventing the enemy from breaking through in the Moscow strategic direction and known as the Smolensk battle.
In July 1941, the German Army Group Center (commanded by Field Marshal T. von Bock) sought to fulfill the task set by the German command - to encircle the Soviet troops defending the line of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper, capture Vitebsk, Orsha, Smolensk and open the way to Moscow ...
In order to disrupt the enemy's plans and prevent his breakthrough to Moscow and the central industrial regions of the country, the Soviet High Command from the end of June concentrated the troops of the 2nd strategic echelon (22nd, 19th, 20th, 16th and 21st I army) along the middle reaches of the Western Dvina and Dnieper. In early June, these troops were included in the Western Front (commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko). However, only 37 divisions out of 48 were in position at the start of the German offensive. 24 divisions were in the first echelon. Soviet troops were unable to create a solid defense, and the density of troops was very low - each division had to defend a strip 25-30 km wide. The troops of the second echelon were deployed 210-240 km east of the main line.
By this time, formations of the 4th Panzer Army had reached the Dnieper and the Western Dvina, and infantry divisions of the 16th German Army from Army Group North had reached the section from Idritsa to Drissa. Over 30 infantry divisions of the 9th and 2nd armies of the German Army Group Center, detained by the battles in Belarus, lagged behind the mobile forces by 120-150 km. Nevertheless, the enemy began an offensive in the Smolensk direction, having a 2-4-fold superiority over the troops of the Western Front in manpower
and technology.
The German offensive on the right wing and in the center of the Western Front began on July 10, 1941. A strike force of 13 infantry, 9 tank and 7 motorized divisions broke through the Soviet defenses. The enemy's mobile formations advanced up to 200 km, surrounded Mogilev, captured Orsha, part of Smolensk, Yelnya, Krichev. The 16th and 20th armies of the Western Front found themselves in operational encirclement in the Smolensk region.
On July 21, the troops of the Western Front, having received reinforcements, launched a counteroffensive in the direction of Smolensk, and in the zone of the 21st Army, a group of three cavalry divisions raided the flank and rear of the main forces of Army Group Center. From the enemy's side, the approaching infantry divisions of the 9th and 2nd German armies entered the fight. On July 24, the 13th and 21st armies were united into the Central Front (commanded by Colonel General F.I.Kuznetsov).
It was not possible to defeat the enemy's Smolensk grouping, but as a result of intense fighting, Soviet troops thwarted the offensive of German tank groups, helped the 20th and 16th armies to break out of the encirclement across the Dnieper River and forced Army Group Center on July 30 to go on the defensive. At the same time, the Soviet High Command united all the troops of the reserve and the Mozhaisk line of defense (a total of 39 divisions) into the Reserve Front under the command of General of the Army G.K. Zhukov.
On August 8, German troops resumed their offensive, this time to the south - in the zone of the Central, and then the Bryansk Front (created on August 16, commander - Lieutenant General A.I. Eremenko), in order to secure their flank from the threat of Soviet troops from the south. By August 21, the enemy managed to advance 120–140 km and drive a wedge between the Central and Bryansk fronts. In view of the threat of encirclement on August 19, the Stavka authorized the withdrawal of the troops of the Central and the troops of the Southwestern Fronts operating south of the Dnieper. The armies of the Central Front were transferred to the Bryansk Front. On August 17, the troops of the Western Front and two armies of the Reserve Front went on the offensive, which inflicted significant losses on the enemy's Dukhshchina and Yelna groupings.
The troops of the Bryansk Front continued to repel the offensive of the 2nd German Panzer Group and the 2nd German Army. A massive air strike (up to 460 aircraft) on the 2nd tank group of the enemy could not stop its advance to the south. On the right wing of the Western Front, the enemy dealt a strong tank attack on the 22nd Army and on August 29 captured Toropets. The 22nd and 29th armies withdrew to the eastern bank of the Western Dvina. On September 1, the 30th, 19th, 16th and 20th armies launched an offensive, but did not achieve significant success. By September 8, the defeat of the enemy grouping was completed and the dangerous protrusion of the front in the Yelnya area was eliminated. On September 10, the troops of the Western, Reserve and Bryansk fronts went over to the defensive on the lines along the Subost, Desna, and Western Dvina rivers.
Despite the significant losses incurred during the Battle of Smolensk, the Soviet army managed to force the German troops to go over to the defensive in the main direction for the first time during the Second World War. The battle of Smolensk was an important stage in the disruption of the German plan for a lightning war against the Soviet Union. The Soviet army won time to prepare the defense of the capital of the USSR and subsequent victories in the battles near Moscow.
Tank battle in the area of Lutsk-Brody-Rivne
From 23 to 29 June 1941, during border clashes in the Lutsk - Brody - Rivne region, a counter tank battle took place between the advancing German 1st tank group and the mechanized corps of the Southwestern Front, which were delivering a counterattack, together with the combined arms formations of the front.
Already on the first day of the war, three corps in reserve received an order from the front headquarters to move northeast of Rovno and strike together with the 22nd Mechanized Corps (which was already there) on the left flank of von Kleist's tank group. While the reserve corps were approaching the place of concentration, the 22nd corps managed to suffer heavy losses during the battles with the German units, and the 15th corps, located to the south, was unable to break through the dense German anti-tank defenses. The reserve corps came up one at a time.
The 8th corps was the first to force a forced march to the place of the new deployment, and it immediately had to enter the battle alone, since the situation that had developed in the 22nd corps by that time was very difficult. The approaching corps had T-34 and KV tanks in its composition, and the military contingent was well prepared. This helped the corps to maintain combat effectiveness during battles with superior enemy forces. Later, the 9th and 19th mechanized corps approached and also immediately entered the hostilities. The inexperienced crews of these corps, exhausted by 4-day marches and continuous German air raids, found it difficult to resist the experienced tankmen of the German 1st Panzer Group.
Unlike the 8th corps, they were armed with the old T-26 and BT models, which were significantly inferior in maneuverability to the modern T-34s, moreover, most of the vehicles were damaged during air raids on the march. It so happened that the front headquarters did not manage to gather all the reserve corps at the same time for a powerful strike, and each of them had to engage in battle in turn.
As a result, the strongest tank grouping of the Red Army lost its striking power even before a truly critical phase of fighting on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front began. Nevertheless, the front headquarters managed to preserve the integrity of its troops for a while, but when the forces of the tank units were running out, the headquarters gave the order to retreat to the old Soviet Polish border.
Despite the fact that these counterattacks did not lead to the defeat of the 1st Panzer Group, they forced the German command, instead of attacking Kiev, to turn its main forces to repel the counterattack and use its reserves prematurely. The Soviet command gained time for the withdrawal of the Lvov group of troops, which was under threat of encirclement, and preparation of defense on the approaches to Kiev.
Who were the "heroic defenders" of the fortress and why in fact they fought with the soldiers of the Wehrmacht to the last.
On the day that in the USSR and now in modern Russia is considered to be the beginning of the "Great Patriotic War" - June 22 - the traditional influx of Russian tourists to the Belarusian Brest. Guests walk around the memorial, watch performances. There are excursions adapted to the perception of the citizens of the Russian Federation. And in Russia itself, films on military topics are shown on TV channels these days. Naturally, a special place is given to the defense of the Brest Fortress, one of the few facts that can be used in agitation - you will not talk about the "heroic flight".
| Peter Krivonogov. Defenders of the Brest Fortress. |
At first glance, there is nothing to add here, the words have long been learned, the memorial has been rebuilt, the scenario of the annual action is "otkatan". But there is at least one fact, one episode, one monument that tourists are not told about. It is associated with the activities of the 132nd battalion of the NKVD, which defended itself in the casemates of the fortress and whose fighters, without exaggeration, fought to the last.
But it is not in vain that the full name of the battalion, and what its fighters were doing in the fortress, was completely "forgotten" by the official Soviet historiography, and after it the modern Russian one continues to "not remember". And so far the Belarusian has not "remembered".
To begin with, let's think: the Brest Fortress, according to Soviet historiography, was a military garrison, that is, it was under the jurisdiction (and on the balance sheet) of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA). The NKVD is a completely different department. He was in charge of prisons, arrests, repression, the Gulag and executions. Even more confusion sets in when you read the full name of the battalion: "132nd (escort) battalion of the NKVD." That is, he must guard the prisoners.
This is what his fighters did. The personnel, except for the first company, guarded the prisons in Brest. The main one, No. 23, or, as it was called, "Rubella" was significantly expanded after the capture of Brest by the "Soviets" in 1939. But all the same there was not enough space - according to the memorandum on the "overcrowding of prisons", as of June 10, 1941, 3807 people were held in Brest prison No. 23 with 2,680 places available.
Again, a logical question arises: if the "Rubella" was in the city, why was the 132nd battalion stationed in the fortress? The answer to it can be found by looking for documents and memories of another institution - the internal prison of the UNKVD or "Brigitki". The former building of the Brigid women's monastery on the territory of the fortress was redesigned into a prison by the Russian Empire after the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
It contained primarily political prisoners. Considering that the uprisings against the "Russian brothers" on the territory of modern Belarus in the 19th century took place with enviable regularity, the prison was not empty. Kostyushko's associates were accommodated there after the uprising of 1794, the soldiers of the Poniatowski corps and the hussars of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania who fought in Napoleon's army, the underground "philomancers" arrested in 1823, the rebels of 1831-32, the cassiners of the Kalinovsky uprising of 1863-64, members of the underground organizations of the end 19th century.
During the period of the second Rzecz Pospolita, the "prison on Brigitki" was also used - the location on the territory of a fortress filled with troops made it extremely convenient to keep political prisoners there. In particular, 21 deputies of the Polish Seim, accused of preparing a coup d'etat, were placed there. The commanders of the Belarusian and Ukrainian anti-Polish partisans were also kept there. "Brigits", as they cynically joked then, were "an elite resort for very important people." The small number of places (according to Polish data up to 350) and good security made escape impossible.
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At this point, we again turn to the 132nd NKVD convoy battalion. One of its key tasks was the protection of the Brigitte prisoners - the Soviets used the prison as a place for keeping especially important prisoners, as they wrote, “Belarusian and Polish nationalists”. True, the word "protection" in this case is only partially true. Brigitte's cells were death row cells - people who needed to be killed were placed there.
As of June 20, 1941, the number of prisoners was "about 680 souls" - the battalion commanders found it difficult to give an exact figure, since they shot some of them, but more and more suicide bombers were replacing the dead. For example, in only three days, from June 19 to June 22, 1941, 24,442 people were arrested in Western Belarus. Of these, 2,059 - members of Belarusian, Polish and Ukrainian organizations - were placed in special prisons (including death row). The rest were "evicted" to the camps. The last train left Brest at 1 am on June 22.
Now let's get back to the events of June 22. According to the documents (including the testimonies of the participants in the events), a hole in the wall of the "Rubella" was pierced by artillery barrage, the guard scattered, and the prisoners were released.
With the "prison on Brigitki" there was a different story - the artillery preparation bypassed the building of the complex, the prison was stormed by the reconnaissance battalion of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht under the command of Helmut von Panwitz. The guard was quickly destroyed, from the prison the Germans escorted about 280 people to the rear, who were released the next day. Among them, by the way, was Kazimir Sviontek - the future Catholic cardinal, who at the end of the 20th century headed the Belarusian Catholic Church.
Let us dwell on these data - 280 out of 680 people ended up in the hands of the Germans. Where are the others? Some, as Russian historians say sparingly, "perished during the assault." But artillery was not used, there was a shooting battle in the prison, the cells were separate rooms behind an iron door. Perhaps some of the prisoners were caught up by a stray bullet, but it is highly likely that the soldiers of the 132nd NKVD battalion on the night of June 22 and even at the beginning of the assault simply shot people. For them, it was the most logical and familiar thing to do. By the way, it was precisely this logic that was contained in the orders for the department, which were issued on June 23 and were sent to the western regions of the USSR.
Alas, even if somewhere in the archives there are documents and evidence of what happened "on Brigitki" in the first hours of the war, they are not yet available. And if they are in the special archives of the FSB, they will not be available for a very long time, because the 132nd battalion is "the heroic defenders of the Brest Fortress."
And all because the soldiers of this unit heroically defended not the Brest Fortress, but themselves - they simply had nowhere to go. Even in the edited version of the story, there is information about, to put it mildly, the disloyal attitude of local residents to the Soviet regime. Even in the fortress, there were cases when soldiers from among the inhabitants of Western Belarus surrendered or shot at their commanders and especially zealous Bolsheviks.
Why? You can cite a lot of facts, or you can refer to the document mentioned in the text about the special operation on June 19-21, when more than 24 thousand people were captured in three days. And this was after several large-scale waves of arrests and executions, which were carried out by the NKVD since the fall of 1939. Every inhabitant of the region had a friend or relative who fell into the millstones of the Red Terror.
This, among other things, is the reason for the desperate defense of the soldiers of the 132nd battalion. The executioners had nowhere to run. If they were local, there would be at least one chance. But, on the Web there is a list of personnel, including the national one. Of the 563 people on the payroll, there were only eight Belarusians called up from the eastern regions. And even then, of these eight, four are doctors. The soldiers and officers of the NKVD battalion understood perfectly well that even to break out of the fortress did not mean escape - they would have been killed by the locals.
And this is not an assumption. For example, there is evidence that, when the Germans approached the cities of Western Belarus, the local population looked for NKVD officers in the Houses of the command staff - buildings built (or taken from the owners) near military towns. The fate of those who were found was unenviable.
In the city of Novogrudok, local residents attacked a train with prisoners, which they were preparing to send "to the rear." They killed the convoy and released their fellow countrymen. I will note that this happened at a time when Novogrudok was in the rear of the Red Army.
Therefore, the soldiers of the 132nd NKVD battalion fought to the last bullet, did not retreat, did not surrender. They fought heroically. As heroically as being surrounded in 1944 and 1945, SS soldiers and officers from the detachments guarding the camps outside Germany fought. They also understood that an attempt to "leave one by one", to surrender means guaranteed death, and that an attempt to resist even in a complete environment leaves more chances for survival. In the same way, a rabid beast, driven by hunters, rushes into the last attack.
But the whole truth about the 132nd NKVD battalion does not fit into the official Soviet-Russian myth of the "valiant defenders of the fortress." The defender cannot be the killer. Therefore, there is not even a mention of the "prison on Brigitki" in the official guides to the Brest Fortress. Moreover, knowing that the prison was on guard, no one carried out excavations in order to find the bodies of the soldiers. It is logical - after all, instead of the bodies of soldiers and officers of the NKVD, one could stumble upon the "uncomfortable" remains of those very "Brigitte" prisoners who died during the assault with characteristic bullet holes in their skulls.
In the Soviet Union, they created a myth without noticing or destroying everything that interfered with it. Therefore, even the building of the former monastery, which practically survived during the war (remember, it was not fired upon by artillery) was blown up in 1955 by army sappers. Today, this place is a wasteland overgrown with forest. But tourists are not taken to this forest. Russian historians do not write about him. "Prison on Brigitki" is not in the official historiography of the Russian Federation, nor is it in the Belarusian one.
Until recently, the study of the "Brigitte" topic was carried out by Belarusian enthusiasts. In the last 2-3 years, the situation has begun to change - publications have appeared, including in the local press. I very much hope that sooner or later professional historians, archaeologists, archivists will supplement the existing data and recreate a real picture of the "heroic" 132nd NKVD battalion in Belarus and in the Brest Fortress, in particular.
On June 22, 1941 at 4 o'clock in the morning, an event occurred that turned the life of every citizen of our country. It seems that a lot of time has passed since that moment, but there are still a lot of secrets and misunderstandings. We tried to lift the veil over some of them.
Underground heroes
"AiF" conducted a special investigation, looking through the archives of the Wehrmacht. The findings were stunning.
“The losses are very heavy. Over the entire period of the fighting - from June 22 to June 29 - we lost 1,121 people killed and wounded. The fortress and the city of Brest were captured, the bastion is under our complete control, despite the cruel courage of the Russians. The soldiers are still being fired at from cellars - lone fanatics, but we will soon deal with them. ”
This is an excerpt from the report to the General Staff Lieutenant General Fritz Schlieper, commander of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht- the one that stormed the Brest Fortress. The official date of the fall of the citadel is June 30, 1941. The day before, the Germans launched a large-scale assault, capturing the last fortifications, including the Kholmsk Gate. The surviving Soviet soldiers, having lost their commanders, went into the basements and flatly refused to surrender.
Memorial complex "Brest Fortress - Hero". Ruins of the White Palace. Photo: RIA Novosti / Yan Tikhonov
Lone Ghosts
- After the capture of the citadel, the partisan war in the casemates went on for at least a month, - explains Alexander Bobrovich, historian-researcher from Mogilev... - In 1952, an inscription was found on the wall of the barracks at the Bialystok Gate: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20.VII.1941 ". They fought on the "shoot-run" tactics: they made a couple of accurate shots at the Germans and went back to the basements. 1 August 1941 non-commissioned officer Max Klegel wrote in his diary: “Two of ours perished in the fortress - a half-dead Russian stabbed them to death with a knife. It's still dangerous here. I hear gunfire every night. "
The Wehrmacht archives dispassionately record the heroism of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The front went far ahead, the battles were already underway near Smolensk, but the destroyed citadel continued to fight. On July 12, "a Russian rushed from the tower to a group of sappers, holding two grenades in his hands - four were killed on the spot, two died in the hospital from their wounds." 21 July " Corporal Erich Zimmer Having gone out for cigarettes, he was strangled with a belt. " How many soldiers were hiding in the casemates is unclear. There is no consensus about who the last defender of the Brest Fortress could have been. Historians of Ingushetia refer to testimony Stancus Antanas, a captured SS officer: “In the second half of July, I saw an officer of the Red Army get out of the casemates. Seeing the Germans, he shot himself - his pistol had the last round. During the search of the body, we found documents in the name of Senior Lieutenant Umat-Girey Barkhanoev". The latest case is capture Major Pyotr Gavrilov, Head of Defense of the Eastern Fort... He was taken prisoner on July 23, 1941 at the Kobrin fortification: a wounded man killed two German soldiers in a shootout. Later, Gavrilov said that he hid in basements for three weeks, making sorties at night with one of the soldiers, until he died. How many more such lonely ghosts remained in the Brest Fortress?
In 1974 g. Boris Vasiliev, author of the book "The Dawns Here Are Quiet ...", published the novel "Not included in the lists", which received no less fame. Hero of the book, Lieutenant Nikolay Pluzhnikov, fights alone in the Brest Fortress ... until April 1942! Mortally wounded, he learns the news that the Germans are defeated near Moscow, leaves the basement and dies. How reliable is this information?
- I must say that Boris Vasiliev's novel is a purely fictional work, - he makes a helpless gesture Valery Gubarenko, director of the memorial complex "Brest Fortress-Hero", Major General... - And the facts of the death of the last defender of Brest cited there, unfortunately, do not have any documentary evidence.
Monument "Courage" of the memorial complex "Brest Fortress-Hero". Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Yuriev
Flamethrowers against courage
Meanwhile, on August 15, 1941, a photo of soldiers with flamethrowers "performing a combat mission in the Brest Fortress" appeared in the Nazi press - living proof that the shootings in the casemates took place almost two months after the start of the war. Having lost patience, the Germans used flamethrowers to smoke the last brave men from the shelters. Half-blind in the darkness, without food, without water, bleeding, the soldiers refused to surrender, continuing to resist. Residents of the villages around the fortress claimed that shooting from the citadel was heard until mid-August.
- Presumably, the final of the resistance of the Soviet border guards in the fortress can be considered August 20, 1941, - believes Tadeusz Krulewski, Polish historian... - A little earlier German commandant of Brest, Walter von Unruh, visited the Colonel of the General Staff Blumentritt and ordered "to urgently bring the fortress in order." For three days in a row, day and night, using all types of weapons, the Germans carried out a total sweep of the Brest Fortress - probably those days its last defenders fell. And on August 26, two people visited the dead fortress - Hitler and Mussolini ...
Myself Lieutenant General Fritz Schliper in the same report he pointed out: he cannot understand the meaning of such a fierce resistance - "probably the Russians fought purely for fear of being shot." Schliper lived until 1977 and, I think, did not understand: when a person throws a grenade at enemy soldiers, he does not do it because of someone's threats. But simply because he is fighting for his homeland ...
Little known facts
1. The Brest Fortress was stormed not by the Germans, but by the Austrians. In 1938, after the Anschluss (accession) of Austria to the Third Reich, the 4th Austrian division was renamed the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht - the same one that crossed the border on June 22, 1941.
2. Major Gavrilov was not repressed, as indicated in the credits of the hit "Brest Fortress", but in 1945 he was expelled from the party ... for losing his party card in captivity!
3. In addition to the fortress, the Nazis could not take the Brest railway station for 9 days. Railwaymen, police and border guards (about 100 people) went to the basements and made forays onto the platform at night, shooting Wehrmacht soldiers. The fighters ate cookies and sweets from the buffet. As a result, the Germans flooded the basements of the station with water.
