In what year was the defense of the Brest Fortress. Defense of the Brest Fortress
The heroic defense of the Brest Fortress continued in the rear of the advancing Nazi troops for a month. Is one of the very first battles of the Great Patriotic War.
History of the Brest Fortress
The Brest Fortress was founded during the reign of Catherine the Great on the bank of the Western Bug, within the city of Brest-Litovsk. Shortly before this, the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were completed, accompanied by numerous uprisings of the Polish population. Also on the western side were unfriendly neighbors in the form of the Prussian and Austrian powers. As a result, the construction of a fortified fortress on this side was an urgent necessity.
However, for various reasons, the construction of the fortified citadel was delayed, and was completed only in the mid-19th century, under Emperor Nicholas I. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the fortress was considered one of the most fortified defense points not only Russia, but throughout Europe.
After Poland declared independence from Russia in 1918, Brest, along with the fortress, became part of the newly created Polish state. In 1939, as a result of the defeat of Poland by Germany, the Soviet army annexed western Belarus, including the Brest Fortress, to the USSR. Now she was on a new frontier between Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union.
Fortress on the eve of the war
Anticipating the inevitability of a military clash with Germany, the Soviet leadership took care of every possible strengthening of the defense capability of the country's western borders. In total, by the beginning of the war, about 9 thousand Soviet military personnel were concentrated on the territory of the fortress. True, some of them belonged to non-combatant units - a training school for drivers, military cooks, quartermaster services, etc.
The fighting backbone of the Brest garrison was 17th border detachment, 8 infantry battalions, 1 reconnaissance battalion, 1 anti-tank artillery battalion and 1 air defense battalion. Also, about 300 civilians permanently lived inside the citadel, as a rule, these were the wives and children of officers, as well as maintenance personnel.
The German command concentrated an infantry division with the support of 12 artillery batteries to capture Brest. Also attached to the assault troops two super-heavy mortars "Karl" 600 mm caliber and a division of 210 mm mortars lg. 21 cm Mrs. According to the calculations of the German generals, no more than a day was allotted to capture the Soviet fortress.
Beginning of the assault
The assault on the Brest Fortress began June 22 hurricane artillery fire from the German border. Shortly before the start of the German artillery barrage, which began at 4:15 am, the command received an order to withdraw the main forces from the fortress to the border line.
But the garrison authorities did not have time to carry out this order, given half an hour before the start of the German attack. As a result of the first artillery strike, Soviet troops concentrated in the barracks inside the fortress suffered heavy losses. In the first five minutes, fascist artillery fired more than 7,000 shots at the Brest Fortress.
The garrison was taken by surprise by the sudden attack - telephone communications with the outside world were interrupted, internal communications were destroyed, including the water supply. Ten minutes after the start of the artillery strike, German infantry and tanks went on the attack.
The garrison, which suffered serious losses, was unable to provide coordinated resistance to the enemy attack. But, having broken up into isolated pockets of resistance, Soviet soldiers gave a decisive rebuff to the aggressors in all directions. Particularly heavy fighting took place in Kobrin and Volyn fortifications, where it came down to hand-to-hand combat.
As a result, by the morning, the main part of the advancing Germans was driven back, and some were destroyed as a result of a counterattack by the defenders of the fortress. By mid-day, the front line had stabilized - the Germans managed to occupy the city, surrounding the fortress. At 7 am, the main forces of the Soviet troops left Brest so as not to be surrounded. A garrison remained in the fortress, with a total number of about 4-5 thousand people.
It was they who formed the basis for the subsequent defense of the citadel. On the first day, the Nazis, after stubborn fighting, were able to occupy only the club buildings, the officers' mess and the barracks near the Brest Gate on the territory of the fortress. The remaining Soviet units retreated to ravelins, basements and other fortifications, from where they continued to fire at German troops.
Subsequent defense
A day later, having failed to achieve a positive result during the first assault, the Germans began to besiege the citadel. All enemy soldiers were withdrawn to the outer boundaries of the fortress, after which a methodical artillery bombardment began. By the end of June 23, having used up all the ammunition, 1900 Soviet soldiers were forced to surrender, blocked in the western fortifications.
In the eastern part of the fortress, as a result of a decisive attack, two large units of the fortress’s defenders united - the groups of Vinogradov-Zubachev and Commissar Fomin.
On June 24, the remnants of the garrison concentrated in the basement of the officers' house and began to develop a plan for further action. The decision was made to break through the enemy ring towards their troops. Most of the military personnel who could hold weapons in their hands went on the attack. At the first stage, the breakthrough group was successful - the Soviet soldiers managed to escape from the fortress.
However, not knowing that by this time the main Soviet units had already been thrown back far to the east, Vinogradov's group was ambushed by the Nazis outside the city. As a result, almost all the fighters were killed or captured. The remnants of the garrison remaining inside the fortress continued their staunch defense.
During the day, Wehrmacht forces re-entered the citadel, attempting to capture it as a result of a decisive assault. By evening, the aggressors managed to occupy most of the buildings located inside the fortress, except for the officers' house and underground casemates.
An isolated point of resistance emerged at the East Fort, where about 400 soldiers were stationed under the command of Mr. Gavrilov. During the assault on June 24, the Nazis were able to capture another 1,200 Soviet troops, mostly wounded, as well as civilians remaining inside the citadel.
In the following days, most of the defenders went into the underground fortifications of the fortress. The soldiers (450 people) blocked in the officers' house, after an unsuccessful breakout attempt, were forced to surrender on June 26.
On the night of June 29, some of the military personnel defending in the basements at the Terespol Gate, faced with the fact of a shortage of ammunition, food and drinking water, made a decisive breakthrough from the fortress. During the unsuccessful offensive, they were all killed or captured by superior enemy forces.
Suppression of the resistance of the defenders of the Brest Fortress
On the same day, June 29, the Luftwaffe dropped on the Eastern fortifications 22 heavy-duty aerial bombs weighing 1800 and 500 kg. As a result, the eastern part of the fortifications was engulfed in fires that lasted three days. Only after this did the Wehrmacht assault groups manage to clear them of the last defenders. After this, the organized resistance of the defenders of the heroic fortress was suppressed.
However, numerous Soviet soldiers remained in the dungeons of the old citadel, who, individually or in small groups, continued to resist the Nazis. They fired at Nazi soldiers and carried out night raids. Many of them succeeded alone, secretly leave the fortification, joining the Belarusian partisans.
Officially, the last defender of the Brest Fortress was Major Gavrilov, captured by the Germans in a semi-conscious state on July 23. However, according to Wehrmacht reports, unknown single soldiers of the Red Army continued to wage war against the aggressors in underground casemates even in August 1941.
These pockets of resistance were finally suppressed after the basements were flooded with the waters of the Bug, diverted to the fortress by order of the German command.
According to modern researchers, in total during the first week of fighting in the fortress there were deaths OK. 1200 Nazi soldiers, which amounted to up to 5% of all Wehrmacht losses during this time. The losses of the garrison were more severe - about 1900 dead, and 7 thousand captured. In 1965, the Brest Citadel was awarded the honorary title “Hero Fortress”. And in 1971, a memorial complex dedicated to the heroic defense of its defenders was opened on its territory.
Defense of the Brest Fortress
Currently, scientific works and literary works have been written about this page of the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War, memoirs of the surviving defenders of the fortress have been published, and a feature film has been shot. But few people remember and know that for ten years after the end of the war, the defense of the Brest Fortress deep behind enemy lines remained an unconfirmed legend that circulated among soldiers during heavy fighting in the summer of 1941. In the first year of the war, only fragmentary information was received about what was really happening in the citadel. After the end of the war, they continued to remain silent about defense. Why? Yes, because no one dared to tell Stalin about the miscalculations of the command, which became the reason for the encirclement of the fortress, because many of its surviving defenders, after liberation from the German camps, immediately ended up in Stalin’s camps. But even after the heroism of the defenders became known, real events were presented in a distorted form.
Thus, to this day there is a popular misconception that the defenders of the Brest Fortress are a “handful of Soviet soldiers” who had almost no weapons or ammunition and resisted tens of times superior enemy forces. Without in any way detracting from the heroism shown by the defenders of the fortress, we consider it necessary to note that in this case there were much more than a “handful” of fighters who fully fulfilled their military and human duty, which means there were more heroes. This article is dedicated to them.
In order for the reader to come closer to understanding what the Brest Fortress was like at the time of the German attack, we offer an excerpt from S. S. Smirnov’s book “Brest Fortress”:
“These old fortifications in our time could no longer be considered a fortress. In the age of aviation, tanks, powerful artillery and heavy mortars, in the age of TNT and trinitrotoluene, neither earthen ramparts nor one and a half meter brick walls could withstand the firepower of a modern army and could not serve as any significant obstacle to the advancing troops. But on the other hand, the barracks of the central citadel and the warehouses located in the thickness of the ramparts could well be used to house military units and the necessary supplies. It was in this sense, and only in this sense - as a barracks and a warehouse - that the Brest Fortress continued to remain a military facility.
Even the entire appearance of the Brest Fortress was somehow surprisingly non-military. The earthen ramparts have long been overgrown with grass and bushes. Everywhere, huge perennial poplars raised their thick green crowns high. Along the bank of Mukhavets and the bypass canals, lilacs and jasmine grew lushly, filling the entire fortress with a spicy scent in the spring, and weeping willows bent their branches low over the dark, calm water. The fortress stadium, sports grounds, green lawns, neat houses of the command staff, bright flowers in the flowerbeds planted by the caring hands of the commanders' wives, paths sprinkled with sand, the sonorous voices of children playing here and there - all this, especially in the summer, made the fortress completely peaceful appearance If it were not for the sentries at the tunnels of the fortress gates, not for the abundance of people in Red Army uniforms in the fortress courtyard, if not for the cannons standing in rows on concrete platforms, this green corner could more likely be mistaken for a park than for a military facility. No, in 1941 the Brest Fortress remained a fortress only in name.” It was she who was defended by hero fighters, of whom there were, as already noted, much more than the official version stated.
The same Smirnov writes about the size of the fortress garrison: “In the spring of 1941, units of two rifle divisions of the Soviet Army were stationed on the territory of the Brest Fortress. These were persistent, seasoned, well-trained troops... One of these divisions - the 6th Oryol Red Banner - had a long and glorious combat history... The other - the 42nd Rifle Division - was created in 1940 during the Finnish campaign and has already managed to show well themselves in the battles on the Mannerheim Line.” But this is no longer a “small handful of fighters”! The Encyclopedia “The Great Patriotic War” puts the figure at 3.5 thousand military personnel, but these data turn out to be significantly underestimated. They are justified by the fact that on the eve of the war, 10 of 18 rifle battalions, 3 of 4 artillery regiments, one of two anti-tank and air defense divisions, a reconnaissance battalion and some other units were withdrawn from the fortress for exercises. But still, the units that were in the fortress at that time numbered up to 8 thousand soldiers and commanders. Deputy Director of the Brest Hero Fortress memorial complex Elena Vladimirovna Kharichkova also claims that on the eve of the war there were up to 8 thousand military personnel and 300 families of officers in the Brest Fortress.
Probably, the German command also knew about the size of the garrison, since extremely dense artillery fire was fired at the fortress. From the report of the commander of the 45th German Infantry Division of the 12th Army Corps, which carried out the task of capturing the fortress, it is known that in addition to the divisional artillery, nine light and three heavy batteries, a high-power artillery battery and a mortar division were involved. In addition, two mortar divisions of the 34th and 31st infantry divisions fired at the fortress. This fire took the soldiers and commanders there by surprise. According to the commissar of the 6th Infantry Division M. N. Batunin, military units could not be withdrawn from the fortress on alert:
“After the artillery shelling carried out at 4:00 on June 22, 1941, units could not be compactly withdrawn to the concentration area. The fighters arrived one by one, scantily clad. From those concentrated it was possible to create a maximum of two battalions. The first battles were carried out under the leadership of the regiment commanders, Comrades Dorodny, Matveev, Kovtunenko.
It was not possible to withdraw the material part of the artillery of the rifle regiments, since everything was destroyed on the spot. The 131st Artillery Regiment brought out 8 guns of the 2nd Division and one gun of the regimental school. The personnel, equipment and cavalry of the 1st division located in the fortress were destroyed.” Thus, it was not possible to deploy troops to confront the attackers. German artillery fire blocked the exits from the fortress, so that everyone there was forced to defend from the inside.
The defenders of the fortress inflicted significant damage on the enemy troops. The report of the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division said: “The division took 7 thousand prisoners, including 100 officers. Our losses are 482 killed, including 40 officers, and over 1 thousand wounded.” In order to get an idea of German losses, we note that in Poland in 13 days of war the 45th Division lost 158 people killed and 360 wounded.
Thus, the statement about the small number of defenders of the Brest Fortress is incorrect. Historians and writers - some explicitly, some indirectly - by referring to a “small garrison”, as a rule, underestimated the number of those defending the fortress, which, of course, in no way detracts from the heroism of the latter.
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Having unexpectedly attacked the Soviet Union, the fascist command expected to reach Moscow in a few months. However, the German generals met resistance as soon as they crossed the border of the USSR. The Germans took several hours to capture the first outpost, but the defenders of the Brest Fortress held back the power of the huge fascist army for six days.
The siege of 1941 became
For the historical Brest Fortress, however, it had been attacked before. The fortress was built by the architect Opperman in 1833 as a military structure. The war reached it only in 1915 - then it was blown up during the retreat of Nikolaev’s troops. In 1918, after the signing, which took place in the Citadel of the fortress, it remained under German control for some time, and by the end of 1918 it was in the hands of the Poles, who owned it until 1939.
Real hostilities overtook the Brest Fortress in 1939. The second day of World War II began for the fortress garrison with a bombing. German aircraft dropped ten bombs on the citadel, damaging the main building of the fortress - the Citadel, or White Palace. At that time, there were several random military and reserve units stationed in the fortress. The first defense of the Brest Fortress was organized by General Plisovsky, who, from the scattered troops he had, managed to assemble a combat-ready detachment of 2,500 people and evacuate the officers' families in time. Against the armored corps of General Heinz, Plisovsky was able to oppose only an old armored train, several of the same tanks and a couple of batteries. Then the defense of the Brest Fortress lasted three full days.
From September 14 to 17, while the enemy was almost six times stronger than the defenders. On the night of September 17, the wounded Plisovsky took the remnants of his detachment south, towards Terespol. After this, on September 22, the Germans handed over Brest and the Brest Fortress to the Soviet Union.
The defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941 fell on the shoulders of nine Soviet battalions, two artillery divisions and several separate units. In total this amounted to about eleven thousand people, excluding three hundred officer families. The infantry division of Major General Schlieper stormed the fortress, which was reinforced with additional units. In total, about twenty thousand soldiers were subordinate to General Schlieper.
The attack began early in the morning. Due to the surprise of the attack, the commanders did not have time to coordinate the actions of the fortress garrison, so the defenders were immediately divided into several detachments. The Germans immediately managed to capture the Citadel, but they were never able to gain a foothold in it - the invaders were attacked by the Soviet units remaining behind, and the Citadel was partially liberated. On the second day of defense, the Germans proposed
surrender, to which 1900 people agreed. The remaining defenders united under the leadership of Captain Zubachev. The enemy forces, however, were immeasurably higher, and the defense of the Brest Fortress was short-lived. On June 24, the Nazis managed to capture 1,250 fighters, another 450 people were captured on June 26. The last stronghold of the defenders, the East Fort, was crushed on June 29 when the Germans dropped an 1,800 kg bomb on it. This day is considered the end of the defense, but the Germans cleared the Brest Fortress until June 30, and the last defenders were destroyed only by the end of August. Only a few managed to go to Belovezhskaya Pushcha to join the partisans.
The fortress was liberated in 1944, and in 1971 it was preserved and turned into a museum. At the same time, a memorial was erected, thanks to which the defense of the Brest Fortress and the courage of its defenders will be remembered forever.
The heroic defense of the Brest Fortress became a bright page in the history of the Great Patriotic War. On June 22, 1941, the command of Nazi troops planned to completely capture the fortress. As a result of the surprise attack, the garrison of the Brest Fortress was cut off from the main units of the Red Army. However, the fascists met fierce resistance from its defenders.
Units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions, the 17th border detachment and the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD troops - a total of 3,500 people - held back the enemy's onslaught to the end. Most of the fortress' defenders died.
When the Brest Fortress was liberated by Soviet troops on July 28, 1944, the inscription of its last defender was found on the melted bricks of one of the casemates: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up!” Farewell, Motherland,” scratched out on July 20, 1941.
Kholm Gate
Many participants in the defense of the Brest Fortress were posthumously awarded orders and medals. On May 8, 1965, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Brest Fortress was awarded the honorary title “Hero Fortress” and the “Gold Star” medal.
In 1971, a memorial appeared here: giant sculptures “Courage” and “Thirst”, a pantheon of glory, Ceremonial Square, preserved ruins and restored barracks of the Brest Fortress.
Construction and device
The construction of the fortress on the site of the center of the old city began in 1833 according to the design of military topographer and engineer Karl Ivanovich Opperman. Initially, temporary earthen fortifications were erected; the first stone of the fortress's foundation was laid on June 1, 1836. The main construction work was completed by April 26, 1842. The fortress consisted of a citadel and three fortifications that protected it with a total area of 4 km² and the length of the main fortress line was 6.4 km.
The Citadel, or Central Fortification, consisted of two two-story red brick barracks, 1.8 km in circumference. The citadel, which had walls two meters thick, had 500 casemates designed for 12 thousand people. The central fortification is located on an island formed by the Bug and two branches of the Mukhavets. Three artificial islands formed by Mukhavets and ditches are connected to this island by drawbridges. There are fortifications on them: Kobrin (formerly Northern, the largest), with 4 curtains and 3 ravelins and caponiers; Terespolskoye, or Western, with 4 extended lunettes; Volynskoye, or Yuzhnoe, with 2 curtains and 2 extended ravelins. In the former “casemate redoubt” there is now the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery. The fortress is surrounded by a 10-meter earthen rampart with casemates in it. Of the eight gates of the fortress, five have survived - the Kholm Gate (in the south of the citadel), the Terespol Gate (in the southwest of the citadel), the Northern or Alexander Gate (in the north of the Kobrin fortification), the Northwestern (in the northwest of the Kobrin fortification) and the Southern (in south of the Volyn fortification, Hospital Island). The Brigid Gate (in the west of the citadel), the Brest Gate (in the north of the citadel) and the Eastern Gate (the eastern part of the Kobrin fortification) have not survived to this day.
In 1864-1888, according to the project of Eduard Ivanovich Totleben, the fortress was modernized. It was surrounded by a ring of forts 32 km in circumference; the Western and Eastern forts were built on the territory of the Kobrin fortification. In 1876, on the territory of the fortress, according to the design of the architect David Ivanovich Grimm, the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church was built.
Fortress at the beginning of the 20th century
In 1913, construction began on the second ring of fortifications (Dmitry Karbyshev, in particular, took part in its design), which was supposed to have a circumference of 45 km, but it was never completed before the start of the war.
Scheme map of the Brest Fortress and the forts surrounding it, 1912.
With the outbreak of the First World War, the fortress was intensively prepared for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915 (old style), during a general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in the Citadel, in the so-called White Palace (the former church of the Uniate Basilian monastery, then an officers’ meeting). The fortress was in the hands of the Germans until the end of 1918, and then under the control of the Poles. In 1920 it was taken by the Red Army, but was soon lost again, and in 1921, according to the Treaty of Riga, it was transferred to the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the interwar period, the fortress was used as a barracks, military warehouse and political prison (opposition political figures were imprisoned here in the 1930s).
Defense of the Brest Fortress in 1939
The day after the outbreak of World War II, September 2, 1939, the Brest Fortress was bombed by the Germans for the first time: German planes dropped 10 bombs, damaging the White Palace. At that time, the marching battalions of the 35th and 82nd infantry regiments and a number of other rather random units, as well as mobilized reservists awaiting dispatch to their units, were located in the fortress barracks at that time.
The garrison of the city and fortress was subordinate to the Polesie task force of General Franciszek Kleeberg; Retired General Konstantin Plisovsky was appointed head of the garrison on September 11, who formed from the units at his disposal totaling 2000-2500 people a combat-ready detachment consisting of 4 battalions (three infantry and an engineer) with the support of several batteries, two armored trains and a number of Renault tanks FT-17" from the First World War. The defenders of the fortress did not have anti-tank weapons, yet they had to deal with tanks.
By September 13, military families were evacuated from the fortress, bridges and passages were mined, the main gates were blocked by tanks, and infantry trenches were built on the earthen ramparts.
Konstantin Plisovsky
General Heinz Guderian's 19th Armored Corps was advancing on Brest-nad-Bug, moving from East Prussia to meet another German armored division moving from the south. Guderian intended to capture the city of Brest in order to prevent the defenders of the fortress from retreating south and linking up with the main forces of the Polish Task Force Narew. The German units had a 2-fold superiority over the fortress defenders in infantry, 4-fold in tanks, and 6-fold in artillery. On September 14, 1939, 77 tanks of the 10th Panzer Division (units of the reconnaissance battalion and the 8th Tank Regiment) tried to take the city and fortress on the move, but were repulsed by infantry with the support of 12 FT-17 tanks, which were also knocked out. On the same day, German artillery and aircraft began bombing the fortress. The next morning, after fierce street fighting, the Germans captured most of the city. The defenders retreated to the fortress. On the morning of September 16, the Germans (10th Panzer and 20th Motorized Divisions) launched an assault on the fortress, which was repulsed. By evening, the Germans captured the crest of the rampart, but were unable to break through further. Two FT-17s stationed at the gates of the fortress caused great damage to the German tanks. In total, since September 14, 7 German attacks were repulsed, and up to 40% of the personnel of the fortress defenders were lost. During the assault, Guderian's adjutant was mortally wounded. On the night of September 17, the wounded Plisovsky gave the order to leave the fortress and cross the Bug to the south. Along the undamaged bridge, the troops went to the Terespol fortification and from there to Terespol.
On September 22, Brest was transferred by the Germans to the 29th Tank Brigade of the Red Army. Thus, Brest and the Brest Fortress became part of the USSR.
Defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941. On the eve of the war
By June 22, 1941, 8 rifle battalions and 1 reconnaissance battalion, 2 artillery divisions (anti-tank and air defense), some special units of rifle regiments and units of corps units, assemblies of the assigned personnel of the 6th Oryol and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle were stationed in the fortress corps of the 4th Army, units of the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Detachment, 33rd separate engineer regiment, several units of the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD convoy troops, unit headquarters (division headquarters and 28th Rifle Corps were located in Brest), total 9 - 11 thousand people, not counting family members (300 military families).
The assault on the fortress, the city of Brest and the capture of bridges over the Western Bug and Mukhavets was entrusted to the 45th Infantry Division of Major General Fritz Schlieper (about 17 thousand people) with reinforcement units and in cooperation with units of neighboring formations (including mortar divisions attached The 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army Corps of the German 4th Army and used by the 45th Infantry Division during the first five minutes of the artillery attack), for a total of up to 20 thousand people. But to be precise, the Brest Fortress was stormed not by the Germans, but by the Austrians. In 1938, after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to the Third Reich, the 4th Austrian Division was renamed the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division - the same one that crossed the border on June 22, 1941.
Storming the fortress
On June 22, at 3:15 (European time) or 4:15 (Moscow time), hurricane artillery fire was opened on the fortress, taking the garrison by surprise. As a result, warehouses were destroyed, the water supply was damaged, communications were interrupted, and major losses were inflicted on the garrison. At 3:23 the assault began. Up to one and a half thousand infantry from three battalions of the 45th Infantry Division attacked the fortress directly. The surprise of the attack led to the fact that the garrison was unable to provide a single coordinated resistance and was divided into several separate centers. The German assault detachment, advancing through the Terespol fortification, initially did not encounter serious resistance, and after passing the Citadel, advanced groups reached the Kobrin fortification. However, parts of the garrison that found themselves behind German lines launched a counterattack, dismembering and partially destroying the attackers.
The Germans in the Citadel were able to gain a foothold only in certain areas, including the club building dominating the fortress (the former Church of St. Nicholas), the command staff canteen and the barracks area at the Brest Gate. They met strong resistance at Volyn and, especially, at the Kobrin fortification, where it came to bayonet attacks. A small part of the garrison with part of the equipment managed to leave the fortress and connect with their units; by 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress with the 6-8 thousand people remaining in it was surrounded. During the day, the Germans were forced to bring into battle the reserve of the 45th Infantry Division, as well as the 130th Infantry Regiment, originally the corps' reserve, thus bringing the assault force to two regiments.
Defense
On the night of June 23, having withdrawn their troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the Germans began shelling, in between offering the garrison to surrender. About 1,900 people surrendered. But, nevertheless, on June 23, the remaining defenders of the fortress managed, having knocked out the Germans from the section of the ring barracks adjacent to the Brest Gate, to unite the two most powerful centers of resistance remaining on the Citadel - the combat group of the 455th Infantry Regiment, led by Lieutenant A. A. Vinogradov and captain I.N. Zubachev, and the combat group of the so-called “House of Officers” (the units concentrated here for the planned breakthrough attempt were led by regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, senior lieutenant Shcherbakov and private Shugurov (responsible secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 75th separate reconnaissance battalion).
Having met in the basement of the “House of Officers,” the defenders of the Citadel tried to coordinate their actions: a draft order No. 1 was prepared, dated June 24, which proposed the creation of a consolidated combat group and headquarters led by Captain I. N. Zubachev and his deputy, regimental commissar E. M. Fomin, count the remaining personnel. However, the very next day, the Germans broke into the Citadel with a surprise attack. A large group of defenders of the Citadel, led by Lieutenant A. A. Vinogradov, tried to break out of the Fortress through the Kobrin fortification. But this ended in failure: although the breakthrough group, divided into several detachments, managed to break out of the main rampart, its fighters were captured or destroyed by units of the 45th Infantry Division, which occupied the defense along the highway that skirted Brest.
By the evening of June 24, the Germans captured most of the fortress, with the exception of the section of the ring barracks (“House of Officers”) near the Brest (Three Arched) Gate of the Citadel, casemates in the earthen rampart on the opposite bank of Mukhavets (“point 145”) and the so-called Kobrin fortification located “Eastern Fort” (its defense, consisting of 400 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, was commanded by Major P. M. Gavrilov). On this day, the Germans managed to capture 1,250 defenders of the Fortress.
The last 450 defenders of the Citadel were captured on June 26 after blowing up several compartments of the ring barracks “House of Officers” and point 145, and on June 29, after the Germans dropped an aerial bomb weighing 1800 kg, the Eastern Fort fell. However, the Germans managed to finally clear it only on June 30 (due to the fires that began on June 29). On June 27, the Germans began using 600-mm Karl-Gerät artillery, which fired concrete-piercing shells weighing more than 2 tons and high-explosive shells weighing 1250 kg. The explosion of a 600 mm gun shell created craters 30 meters in diameter and caused horrific injuries to the defenders, including rupture of the lungs of those hiding in the basement of the fortress from the shock waves.
The organized defense of the fortress ended here; There were only isolated pockets of resistance and single fighters who gathered in groups and scattered again and died, or tried to break out of the fortress and go to the partisans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (some succeeded). Major P. M. Gavrilov was among the last to be captured wounded - on July 23. One of the inscriptions in the fortress reads: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20/VII-41". According to witnesses, shooting was heard from the fortress until the beginning of August.
P.M.Gavrilov
The total German losses in the Brest Fortress amounted to 5% of the total Wehrmacht losses on the Eastern Front during the first week of the war.
There were reports that the last areas of resistance were destroyed only at the end of August, before A. Hitler and B. Mussolini visited the fortress. It is also known that the stone that A. Hitler took from the ruins of the bridge was discovered in his office after the end of the war.
To eliminate the last pockets of resistance, the German high command gave the order to flood the basements of the fortress with water from the Western Bug River.
Memory of the defenders of the fortress
For the first time, the defense of the Brest Fortress became known from a German headquarters report, captured in the papers of the defeated unit in February 1942 near Orel. At the end of the 1940s, the first articles about the defense of the Brest Fortress appeared in newspapers, based solely on rumors. In 1951, while clearing out the rubble of the barracks at the Brest Gate, order No. 1 was found. In the same year, the artist P. Krivonogov painted the painting “Defenders of the Brest Fortress.”
The credit for restoring the memory of the heroes of the fortress largely belongs to the writer and historian S. S. Smirnov, as well as K. M. Simonov, who supported his initiative. The feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress was popularized by S. S. Smirnov in the book “Brest Fortress” (1957, expanded edition 1964, Lenin Prize 1965). After this, the theme of the defense of the Brest Fortress became an important symbol of the Victory.
Monument to the defenders of the Brest Fortress
On May 8, 1965, the Brest Fortress was awarded the title of Hero Fortress with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Since 1971, the fortress has been a memorial complex. On its territory a number of monuments were built in memory of the heroes, and there is a museum of the defense of the Brest Fortress.
Information sources:
http://ru.wikipedia.org
http://www.brest-fortress.by
http://www.calend.ru
In February 1942, on one of the front sectors in the Orel region, our troops defeated the enemy’s 45th Infantry Division. At the same time, the archives of the division headquarters were captured. While sorting through the documents captured in the German archives, our officers noticed one very interesting paper. This document was called “Combat Report on the Occupation of Brest-Litovsk,” and in it, day after day, the Nazis talked about the progress 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 presented in this document spoke of exceptional courage, amazing heroism, and extraordinary stamina and tenacity of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The last concluding words of this report sounded like a forced involuntary recognition of the enemy.
“A stunning attack on a fortress in which a brave defender sits costs a lot of blood,” wrote enemy staff officers. “This simple truth was proven once again during the capture of the Brest Fortress. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought exceptionally persistently and tenaciously, they showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to resist.”
This was the enemy's confession.
This “Combat Report on the Occupation of Brest-Litovsk” was translated into Russian, and excerpts from it were published in 1942 in the newspaper “Red Star”. Thus, actually from the lips of our enemy, the Soviet people for the first time learned some details of the remarkable feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. The legend has become reality.
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. Just by the appearance of these terrible ruins one could judge the strength and cruelty of the battles that took place here. These piles of ruins were full of stern grandeur, as if the unbroken spirit of the fallen fighters of 1941 still lived in them. The gloomy stones, in places already overgrown with grass and bushes, beaten and gouged 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 and how much they could tell if a miracle happened and they were able to speak.
And a miracle happened! The stones suddenly started talking! Inscriptions left by the defenders of the fortress began to be found on the surviving walls of the fortress buildings, in the openings of windows and doors, on the vaults of the basements, and on the abutments of the bridge. In these inscriptions, sometimes anonymous, sometimes signed, sometimes scribbled hastily in pencil, sometimes simply scratched 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, and spoke of devotion to the people and the party. In the ruins of the fortress, the living voices of the 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 duty performed, and the bitterness of parting with life, and calm courage in the face of death, and a covenant about revenge.
“There were five of us: Sedov, Grutov I., Bogolyubov, Mikhailov, Selivanov V. We took the first battle on June 22, 1941. We will die, but we will not leave!” - was written on the bricks of the outer wall near the Terespol Gate.
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 will die as heroes. July. 1941".
In the center of the fortress courtyard 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 for one of the regiments stationed in the fortress. In this club, on the site where the projectionist’s booth was located, an inscription was scratched on the plaster: “We 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 moved 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 been preserved, and we know it only from the stories of soldiers who served in the fortress in the first years after the war and who read it many times. This inscription was, as it were, a continuation of the first: “I was left alone, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev died. The Germans are in the church itself. There's only one grenade left, but I won't go down alive. Comrades, avenge us!” These words were apparently scratched out by the last of the three Muscovites - Ivanov.
It wasn't just the stones that spoke. As it turned out, the wives and children of the commanders who died in the battles for the fortress in 1941 lived in Brest and its environs. During the days of 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 shared their memories and told many interesting details of the memorable defense.
And then an amazing 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 outside the fortress, fighting was still going on in certain areas of the defense, and there was intense firefight. Residents of Brest said that until the end of July or even until the first days of August, shooting was heard from the fortress, and the Nazis brought their wounded officers and soldiers from there to the city where their army hospital was located.
Thus, it became clear that the German report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk contained a deliberate lie and that the headquarters of the enemy 45th division hastened to inform its 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, while exploring the premises of the Western barracks, found another inscription scratched on the wall. The inscription was: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up. Farewell, Motherland! There was no signature under these words, but at the bottom there was a very clearly visible date - “July 20, 1941.” Thus, it was possible 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 lasted for more than a month. After the war, the ruins in the fortress were partially dismantled, and at the same time, the remains of heroes were often found under the stones, their personal documents and weapons were discovered.
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 had 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 who, in the event of war, were supposed to hold the defense outside the fortress. At the same time, the plan to create a fortified area, which took into account the latest achievements in the field of fortification, was not fully implemented as of June 22, 1941.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the garrison of the fortress consisted mainly of units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle corps of the Red Army. But it has decreased significantly due to the participation of many military personnel in planned training events.
The German operation to capture the fortress was launched by a powerful artillery barrage, which destroyed a significant part of the buildings, killed a large number of garrison soldiers and initially noticeably demoralized the survivors. The enemy quickly gained a foothold on the South and West Islands, and assault troops appeared on the Central Island, but failed to occupy the barracks in the Citadel. In the area of the Terespol Gate, the Germans met a desperate counterattack by Soviet soldiers under the overall command of regimental commissar E.M. Fomina. The vanguard units of the 45th Wehrmacht Division suffered serious losses.
The time gained allowed the Soviet side to organize an orderly defense of the barracks. The Nazis were forced to remain in their occupied positions in the army club building, from where they could not get out for some time. Attempts to break through enemy reinforcements across the bridge over Mukhavets in the area of the Kholm Gate on the Central Island were also stopped by fire.
In addition to the central part of the fortress, resistance gradually grew in other parts of the building complex (in particular, under the command of Major P.M. Gavrilov at the northern Kobrin fortification), and the dense buildings favored the garrison fighters. Because of it, the enemy could not conduct targeted artillery fire at close range without running the risk of being destroyed himself. Having only small arms and a small number of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, the defenders of the fortress stopped the enemy’s advance, and later, when the Germans carried out a tactical retreat, they occupied the positions abandoned 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 into the blockade ring. Before its establishment, up to half of the payroll of the units stationed in the complex managed to leave the fortress and occupy the lines prescribed by the defensive plans, according to some estimates. Taking into account the losses during the first day of defense, in the end the fortress was defended by about 3.5 thousand people blocked in its different parts. As a consequence, each of the large centers of resistance could only rely 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 Regimental Commissar Fomin.
In the subsequent days of the defense of the fortress, the enemy persistently sought to occupy the Central Island, but met organized resistance from the Citadel garrison. Only on June 24 did the Germans manage to finally occupy the Terespol and Volyn fortifications on the Western and Southern islands. Artillery shelling of 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 destroyed at least four enemy tanks. It is known about the death of several more German tanks on improvised minefields installed 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 Soviet soldiers and the civilians with them (primarily the wives and children of officers) was the catastrophic shortage of food and drink. If the consumption of ammunition could be compensated by the surviving arsenals of the fortress and captured weapons, then the needs for water, food, medicine and dressings were satisfied at a minimum level. The fortress's water supply was destroyed, and manual water intake from Mukhavets and Bug was practically paralyzed by enemy fire. The situation was further complicated by the persistent intense heat.
At the initial stage of the defense, the idea of breaking through the fortress and joining the main forces was abandoned, since the command of the defenders was counting on a quick counterattack by the Soviet troops. When these calculations did not come true, 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 shelling, 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 holistic and coordinated character, and the fight against the Nazis was continued by already disparate groups in different parts of the complex. The actions of these groups and individual fighters acquired more and more features of sabotage activity and continued in some cases until the end of July and even 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 Motherland. July 20, 1941"
Most of the surviving defenders of the garrison were captured by the Germans, where women and children were sent even before the end of organized defense. Commissioner 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 it received the title of “hero fortress”) became a symbol of the courage and self-sacrifice of Soviet soldiers in the first, most tragic period of the war.
Astashin N.A. Brest Fortress // Great Patriotic War. Encyclopedia. /Ans. ed. Ak. A.O. Chubaryan. M., 2010.
