B Brest Fortress has a very rich and tragic story. The Brest Fortress today is a memorial complex and belongs to the territory of the modern Republic of Belarus. Delving into history, you can see all the willpower and stamina of the Soviet people. During World War II, the last person defending the fortress was taken prisoner on the 32nd day of defense, while all of Poland held the defense for 28 days, and France for 31 days .

Where is the Brest Fortress

As mentioned above, the fortress belongs to the modern territory of the Republic of Belarus. The Brest fortress is called by the same name of the regional city of Belarus. Moscow and Brest are connected by the M1 motorway, 1056 kilometers long. By car, the road will take about 11 hours of continuous traffic. You can also get to Brest by train in about 18 hours and the cost of a reserved seat ticket will cost about 4,000 rubles. Buses run regularly from the city center to the fortress at intervals of 20 minutes.

The history of the construction of the Brest Fortress

The history of the construction of the Brest Fortress begins with the third division of the Commonwealth in 1795, when the city of Brest-Litovsk was annexed to Russia. Russia needed to strengthen its defense lines, and in 1830 a plan for building a fortress was approved. In 1833, excavation work began on the construction of the citadel, and on June 1, 1836, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the fortress. There is also a memorial plaque with a handful of coins immured there. On April 26, 1842, the fortress, developed by Colonel A.I. Feldman, generals K.I. Opperman and N.M. Maletsky, and built under the leadership of Field Marshal I.F. Paskevich, joined the ranks of the fortresses of the 1st class Russian Empire. In 1864, it was decided to reconstruct the Brest Fortress according to the plan of Adjutant General E.I. Totleben. It was decided to make a fort-type fortress out of the Brest Fortress, the forts of which began to be built in 1869, which ended in 1888. In 1909, the command decided to strengthen the Brest Fortress by increasing the bypass of the fortress to 45 kilometers. By the end of 1914, the fortress had 14 forts, 21 intermediate strongholds, 5 defensive barracks, 7 powder magazines and 38 artillery batteries.

Participation in armed conflicts

The fortress took part in several armed conflicts. This is the entire First World War, Russian-Polish and Second World War.

World War I

On July 19, 1914, the First World War began, in which the fortress did not take an active part, but on November 5, 1914, an explosion occurred in the ammunition depot. It is difficult to say whether this was a sabotage or an accident, but about 200 people died in this explosion. By August 1915, German troops began to rapidly advance on the Russian Empire. The commanders, observing examples of unsuccessful defense of the Kovno and Novogeorgievsk fortresses, decided to evacuate the fortress garrison. Currently, from August 12 to 13, 1914, Russian troops left the city and the fortress. The forts were blown up, ammunition and guns were removed, and all wooden structures were set on fire. On August 13, German troops captured the fortress, in honor of which the Germans minted a medal, which on one side depicted a German soldier against the backdrop of a burning fortress, and on the other side Field Marshal von Mackensen. On March 3, 1918, Russia entered into peace negotiations with the German command and concluded a truce with Germany. The document was signed in the building of the White Palace of the fortress and is known in history as " Brest Peace».

The agreements were signed by the Russian side: G.Ya. Sokolnikov, G.V. Chicherin, G.I. Petrovsky, L.M. Karakhan, from Germany: R. Kulman and M. Hoffmann, Austria-Hungary: O. Chernin, Bulgaria: A. Toshev, Turkey: Khaki Pasha.

Russian-Polish war

In 1919 - 1920 there was a war between Soviet Russia and Poland. During the war, the fortress retreated to one side or the other. For example, on February 9, 1919, the fortress goes to Poland, and on August 1, 1920 Russian troops they storm Brest-Litovsk and stayed there for 18 days. Then Poland retakes the fortress on August 19, and as a result, on March 18, 1921, as a result of the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty, the fortress goes to Poland.

The Second World War

Then, on September 1, 1939, World War II begins with the German attack on Poland. From September 14 to September 17, the fortress was attacked by Germany and on September 17 Poland gave Brest. On September 22, 1939, a tank detachment led by brigade commander S.M. Krivoshein entered Brest, where Germany handed over the fortress to Russia. On June 22, 1941, the Brest Fortress took the blow of the German invaders. Having defended for 32 days, Brest was captured by German troops and only 3 years later the city and its fortress were liberated. The liberation was the result of the Belarusian offensive operation"Bagration", and on July 28, 1944 Brest was recognized as a liberated city. On May 8, 1965, the military fortification was awarded the title of "Fortress-Hero". Within 7 years, a decision was made to create a memorial complex on the basis of this fortress.

The starting point of the history of the Brest Fortress is considered to be the construction of the village of Berestye, the founders of which are the tribe of Nadbuzh Slavs. Main historical source ancient Rus'- The Tale of Bygone Years mentions the date...

The starting point of the history of the Brest Fortress is considered to be the construction of the village of Berestye, the founders of which are the tribe of Nadbuzh Slavs. The main historical source of ancient Rus' - "The Tale of Bygone Years" mentions the date associated with this event - 1019. The settlement can be called a Russian "apple of discord: at different times it became the cause of military clashes as Russian princes (including those who ruled such large principalities as Kiev, Galicia, Volyn), and Turov, and Lithuanian rulers, even took part in feuds kings of Poland. The lands on which the town stood changed rulers many times, each of which gave this place its own name: Brest, Brest-Litovsk, the original Berestye and Brest-nad-Bug. During the third section of the once great state of the Commonwealth, the right to own this area passed to the Russian Empire - the event dates back to 1795 (earlier sections of the territory were made in 1772 and 1793).

In the 19th century, the development of a project for the construction of a fortress on this land began, which was finally approved in 1830. Among the "military architects" are such famous names like N. M. Maletsky, A. I. Feldman, who has the rank of colonel, and K. I. Opperman. The future great citadel was named Brest-Litovsk.

The plan provided for the construction of a structure in the same place where the city of Brest-Litovsk was previously located. All buildings that remained from ancient times were eliminated. Only church facilities remained in their places - temples and monasteries, but ionia lost their former significance, and "retrained" into service premises, which the garrison used at its own discretion. Instead of the old settlement, a new urban settlement was erected, bearing the same name as the military facility. The distance to the fortress walls was quite small - no more than 2 km.

Ivan Ivanovich Den (1786-1859) - Russian military engineer, general, participant in the Napoleonic Wars, member State Council. Brother of Major General F.I. Den.

I.I. supervised the construction of the fortification. Den, who at that time was in the rank of major general and served in engineering troops, and at the same time headed the headquarters of the Western Engineering District. But I.F. himself had to oversee the construction. Paskevich, a nobleman and a prince with a high military rank- Field Marshal General

The beginning of earthworks dates back to 1833. And already 3 years later, in 1836, the laying of the walls of the future fortress began. The first stone was erected in its rightful place on June 1, along with it, a chest with coins and a memory board were embedded in the base of the structure. The fortress passed into the category of active objects of the empire in 1842, April 26 is considered a memorable date. The new object was assigned class I.

The fortress included 4 main objects; 3 rather extensive fortifications (on the south side - Volyn, on the east and north - Kobrin, and the west was called Terespol) and, in fact, the central Citadel. The outer line of defense was represented by a bastion front, which consisted of:

  • The ten-meter height of the fence, which is a huge shaft about 6.4 km long, inside which were buried big amount land casemates made of bricks;
  • External bypass moat filled with water.
  • The fortress occupied an area equal to 400 hectares (42 km).


Panorama of the Brest Fortress

The citadel looked like a natural island, along the perimeter of which there was a closed defensive structure, two stories high and total length 1.8 km. At the same time, this building served as a barracks. The outer walls reached a thickness of 2 meters, the inner ones were slightly thinner - about 1.5 m. The barracks consisted of 500 separate casemates, which could serve as a storehouse for ammunition and food and at the same time accommodate 12,000 soldiers.


Other structures also had a connection with the Citadel - the communication was carried out using bridges and gates:

  • Terespolsky;
  • Kholmsky;
  • Brest;
  • Brigidsky.
Map-scheme of the Brest Fortress, ca. 1834

The history of the Brest Fortress goes back to the 13th century. In those days, a watchtower was built on the island at the confluence of the Western Bug and Mukhovets rivers to defend the city of Berestye, as Brest was called in The Tale of Bygone Years.

The construction of a capital protective structure began in the 30s of the XIX century, and in 1842 the bastion called the "Brest-Litovsk" fortress stood up for the defense of the Russian Empire. But work on its modernization and strengthening continued until 1914. After the outbreak of the First World War, Russia ceded this area to Germany, which, under the terms of the Treaty of Riga, transferred the fortress to Poland in 1918. In 1939, by agreement with the Germans, the citadel with the adjacent territory became part of the USSR.

The heroic history of the bastion began on June 22, 1941, when the Brest Fortress took the first blow from the Nazi troops. The balance of forces was critically unequal - 9,000 thousand soldiers of the Red Army against twice the enemy grouping, whose plans were to capture the fortress by noon of the same day. In a matter of hours, a significant part died Soviet soldiers, almost all armored vehicles were destroyed, warehouses and water supply were destroyed. The remaining Red Army men managed to organize themselves into autonomous groups to repulse the enemy. A few hours later, the Brest Fortress was blocked, but the Soviet fighters managed to create pockets of resistance that broke all the plans of the German command for a lightning-fast start to the war. The Germans had to concentrate significant military forces here.

The defenders of the bastion managed to gain a foothold in the casemates and cellars of the Brest Fortress. Their situation was terrible - people were in the dungeon without food and water, except for the military, there was also a civilian population. Only sometimes daredevils managed to go down to the river for water, but not everyone came back. After some time, the Red Army men convinced the women with children to go out so as not to die of hunger. They left the cellars of the fortress and were immediately captured.

Dying from exhaustion, under constant fire, the fighters continued to fight the enemy until the last minute of their lives, amazing him with their stamina. The Germans managed to finally take the Brest Fortress under their control only by the end of August.

Panorama of the Brest Fortress

Memorial buildings


Citadel Square 4 square kilometers, the memorial complex consists of the ruins of the bastion, the surviving buildings, modern monuments and the ramparts.

The entrance to the complex is made in the form of a star carved into a reinforced concrete monolith. The formidable atmosphere of wartime is conveyed by the song "Holy War" and the government message about the perfidious German attack on the USSR, read out by the legendary announcer Levitan.

From the entrance along the alley, visitors pass to the bridge leading to the Place of Ceremonials, where commemorative events take place.

The compositional center of the complex is the Courage monument, a sculptural image of a fighter and a banner. The height of this composition, embodying the image dead defenders Brest Fortress, more than 30 meters. On the back side of the monument, relief compositions tell about the defense of the bastion. Nearby is the burial place of 823 fighters, the names of only 201 of them are known.

The most dramatic sculptural composition of the memorial is Thirst. The stone depicts the figure of a soldier trying with his last strength to crawl to the water with a helmet in his hand. The helmet is always filled with fresh flowers from visitors to the fortress.

In the eastern part of the complex are the remains of the White Palace, one of the last stone buildings in Brest-Litovsk. Under the rubble of the collapsed roof of the palace, the last defenders of the fortress died. In the 50s, a stone was discovered here with the inscription: “We are dying, but we do not give up!”.


A 100-meter obelisk Bayonet rises above the entire citadel, representing a four-sided bayonet of the Russian trilinear. The whole country took part in the manufacture of the symbol of unbending courage. Metal came from the Urals, equipment from Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, Odessa.

In the St. Nicholas Garrison Church in 1941 there was a Red Army club. During the defense of the Brest Fortress, the building changed hands. The temple became one of the last points of resistance. In 1995, divine services resumed here.

On June 22, 2011, the composition "To the heroes of the border, women and children who stepped into immortality with their courage" was solemnly opened in the citadel.

Near Eternal Fire in the guard of honor are the Youth Army of the Post of Memory.
Entrance to the fortress

In the Brest Fortress, you can see the ruins of the Engineering Department, a baroque building built at the end of the 17th century. Initially, the Jesuit Collegium was located here, later reconstructed into the Engineering Department. Here was the apartment of the imperial family, which they used during visits to the fortress.

Around the fortress, a bypass canal 6 kilometers long was dug, the same age as the citadel.

A museum has been opened in the Brest Fortress, which stores the personal belongings of the participants in the defense, exciting letters that were never sent to the addressees, heartfelt diaries of people who know that their days are numbered.

Facts worth noticing

The Nazis cited the courage of the Red Army as an example to their soldiers. Pointing at the dying last defender Brest Fortress, a German officer said: “Look how you need to defend your land. This hero is a soldier whose will has not been broken by death, hunger, or deprivation. This is a feat."


The defense of the fortress is devoted to many books and films. The most iconic of the films are "The Immortal Garrison", "I am a Russian Soldier", "Battle for Moscow", "Brest Fortress".

A stone was found in Hitler's office after his death, which he took from the ruins of the citadel when visiting Brest in August 1941.

The end of the peaceful life of the inhabitants of the fortress was marked by a Saturday evening screening of the legendary film "Valery Chkalov", the next morning the bastion was massively bombed.

Kholm Gate

How to get

Brest is located in Belarus. From the city center to the Brest Fortress you can walk in half an hour, or take bus number 5 to the stop "Museum of railway equipment".

The complex is open daily from 09.00 to 18.00, except for the last Tuesday of the month.

The ticket price is 30,000 Belarusian rubles ($2).

One of the first to take the blow of the fascist troops was the heroic Brest Fortress. The Germans were already near Smolensk, and the defenders of the fortress continued to resist the enemy.

Defenders of the Brest Fortress. Hood. P.A. Krivonogov. 1951 / photo: O. Ignatovich / RIA Novosti

The defense of the Brest Fortress went down in history solely thanks to the feat of its small garrison - those who in the first days and weeks of the war did not succumb to panic, did not run and did not surrender, but fought to the end ...

fivefold superiority

In accordance with the Barbarossa plan, one of the main shock wedges of the invading army ran through Brest - the right wing of the Center group as part of the 4th field army and the 2nd tank group (19 infantry, 5 tank, 3 motorized, 1 cavalry , 2 security divisions, 1 motorized brigade). The Wehrmacht forces concentrated here only in terms of personnel were almost five times superior to the forces of the 4th Army opposing them. Soviet army under the command of Major General Alexandra Korobkova, responsible for covering the Brest-Baranovichi direction. The German command decided to cross the Western Bug with tank divisions south and north of Brest, and the 12th Army Corps of General Walter Schroth.

“It was impossible to go around the fortress and leave it unoccupied,” Field Marshal General Field Marshal, commander of the 4th Wehrmacht Army, reported to the authorities. Gunther von Kluge, - since it blocked important crossings over the Bug and access roads to both tank highways, which were of decisive importance for the transfer of troops, and above all for supply.

The Brest Fortress is located to the west of the city - in the place where the Mukhavets River flows into the Bug, on the very border. Built in the 19th century, in 1941 it had no defensive value, and the fortifications were used as warehouses and barracks to house units of the Red Army. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War units of the 28th Rifle Corps were located here (primarily the 6th Oryol Red Banner and 42nd rifle divisions), the 33rd separate engineering regiment of district subordination, the 132nd separate battalion of the NKVD escort troops, as well as regimental schools, transport companies, musician platoons, headquarters and other units. There were two military hospitals on the territory of the Volyn fortification. The border guards of the 9th outpost of the 17th Red Banner Border Detachment served in the fortress.

In the event of the outbreak of hostilities, the quartered units had to leave the fortress and occupy the fortified areas on the border.

“The deployment of Soviet troops in Western Belarus,” wrote General Leonid Sandalov(in June 1941 - Chief of Staff of the 4th Army), - at first was not subject to operational considerations, but was determined by the presence of barracks and premises suitable for troop deployment. This, in particular, explained the crowded location of half of the troops of the 4th Army with all their depots of emergency supplies (NZ) on the very border - in Brest and the former Brest Fortress.

Combat units needed at least three hours to leave the fortress. But when the commander of the troops of the Western Special Military District, General of the Army Dmitry Pavlov ordered the troops to be sent to combat readiness, it was already late: about half an hour remained before the start of the German artillery preparation.

Start of the invasion

Despite the fact that on the eve of the war, a significant part of the personnel was employed in the construction of the Brest fortified region, in the fortress on the night of June 22 there were from 7 thousand to 9 thousand military personnel, as well as about 300 families (more than 600 people) of commanders Red Army. The state of the fortress garrison was well known to the German command. It decided that a powerful bombing and artillery strike would so stun the people taken by surprise that it would not be difficult for the assault units to occupy the fortress and carry out its “cleansing”. The entire operation took several hours.

It seemed that the enemy did everything to ensure that this happened. In the border zone opposite the Brest Fortress from the 12th army corps the 45th Infantry Division, a regiment of heavy mortars for special purposes, two divisions of mortars, nine howitzers and two artillery mounts systems "Karl", whose 600-millimeter guns fired concrete-piercing and high-explosive shells weighing 2200 and 1700 kg, respectively. The Germans concentrated their artillery on the left bank of the Bug in such a way that the blows would immediately hit the entire territory of the fortress and hit as many of its defenders as possible. The shots of the special-powered guns "Karl" were supposed not only to lead to huge destruction, but also to demoralize the survivors of the shelling and encourage them to immediately surrender.

5-10 minutes before the start of artillery preparation, German assault groups captured all six bridges across the Western Bug near Brest. At 04:15 Moscow time, artillery opened heavy fire on Soviet territory, and advanced units of the invading army began to cross over bridges and boats to the eastern bank of the Bug. The attack was sudden and merciless. Thick clouds of smoke and dust, riddled with fiery flashes of explosions, rose above the fortress. Houses burned and collapsed, servicemen, women and children perished in the fire and under the ruins...

History of the Brest Fortress

Brest-Litovsk became part of Russia in 1795 - after the third partition of the Commonwealth. To strengthen the new borders in St. Petersburg, it was decided to build several fortresses. One of them was supposed to appear on the site of the city of Brest-Litovsk. The solemn ceremony of laying the first stone of the future fortress took place on June 1, 1836, and already in 1842 the Brest-Litovsk fortress became one of the active fortresses of the first class of the Russian Empire.

The fortress consisted of the Citadel and three extensive fortifications, forming the main fortress fence and covering the Citadel from all sides: Volyn (from the south), Terespol (from the west) and Kobrin (from the east and north). From the outside, the fortress was protected by a bastion front - a fortress fence (earth rampart with brick casemates inside) 10 meters high, 6.4 km long and a bypass channel filled with water. total area the fortress was 4 square meters. km (400 hectares). The citadel was a natural island, along the entire perimeter of which a closed two-story defensive barracks 1.8 km long was built. The thickness of the outer walls reached 2 m, the inner - 1.5 m. The barracks consisted of 500 casemates, which could accommodate up to 12 thousand soldiers with ammunition and food.

In 1864-1888, the fortress was modernized according to the project of the hero of the Crimean War, General Eduard Totleben, and surrounded by a ring of forts 32 km in circumference. On the eve of the First World War, the construction of a second ring of fortifications 45 km long was begun (the future Soviet general Dmitry Karbyshev took part in its design), but it was never completed before the outbreak of hostilities.

At that time, the Russian army did not have to defend the Brest Fortress: the rapid advance of the Kaiser's troops in August 1915 forced the command to decide to leave the fortress without a fight. In December 1917, negotiations were held in Brest on a truce at the front between the delegations of Soviet Russia on the one hand and Germany and its allies (Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria) on the other. On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded in the building of the White Palace of the fortress.

As a result of the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1920, the Brest Fortress became Polish for almost 20 years. It was used by the Poles as a barracks, a military warehouse and a maximum security political prison, where the most dangerous state criminals were kept. In 1938–1939, the Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera served his sentence here, who organized the murder of the head of the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs and was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.

September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany attacked Poland. The Polish garrison surrounded in the fortress resisted from 14 to 16 September. On the night of September 17, the defenders left the fortress. On the same day, the liberation campaign of the Red Army began in Western Belarus: Soviet troops have crossed state border in the region of Minsk, Slutsk and Polotsk. The city of Brest, together with the fortress, became part of the USSR.

In 1965, the fortress, whose defenders showed unparalleled heroism in the summer of 1941, was awarded the title of Hero Fortress.

SMIRNOV S.S. Brest Fortress (any edition);
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SUVOROV A.M. Brest fortress on the winds of history. Brest, 2004;
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Brest Fortress… Facts, testimonies, discoveries / V.V. Gubarenko and others. Brest, 2005.

First assault

Of course, the shelling of the barracks, bridges and entrance gates of the fortress caused confusion among the soldiers. The surviving commanders strong fire they could not penetrate the barracks, and the Red Army soldiers, having lost contact with them, independently, in groups and singly, under artillery and machine-gun fire from the enemy, tried to escape from the trap. Some officers, such as, for example, the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment, Major Petr Gavrilov, managed to break through to their units, but it was no longer possible to withdraw people from the fortress. It is believed that in the first few hours, about half of those who were in the barracks on its territory managed to leave the fortress. At 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress was already surrounded, and those who remained had to make a choice: surrender or continue the fight in hopeless conditions. Most preferred the latter.

Wehrmacht artillerymen are preparing to fire a 600-millimeter self-propelled mortar "Karl" in the Brest region. June 1941

Pastor of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht Rudolf Gschopf later recalled:

“Exactly at 3.15 a hurricane began and swept over our heads with such force that we had never experienced before, or in the entire subsequent course of the war. This gigantic concentrated fire shaft literally shook the earth. Thick black fountains of earth and smoke sprouted like mushrooms above the Citadel. Since at that moment it was impossible to notice the enemy’s return fire, we believed that everything in the Citadel had been turned into a pile of ruins. Immediately after the last artillery salvo, the infantry began to cross the Bug River and, using the surprise effect, tried to capture the fortress with a quick and energetic throw go. It was then that a bitter disappointment was immediately discovered ...

The Russians were raised by our fire right out of bed: this was evident from the fact that the first prisoners were in their underwear. However, the Russians recovered surprisingly quickly, formed in battle groups behind our companies that had broken through and began to organize a desperate and stubborn defense.

Major General A.A. Korobkov

Regimental Commissar E.M. Fomin

Having overcome the initial confusion, the Soviet soldiers hid the wounded, women, children in the cellars and began to cut off and destroy the Nazis who had broken into the fortress, to build up the defense of the most dangerous areas. In the western part of the Citadel, the fighting was led by lieutenants Andrey Kizhevatov And Alexander Potapov, at the Kholmsky Gate and in the Engineering Directorate - the regimental commissar Efim Fomin, in the area of ​​the White Palace and the barracks of the 33rd engineer regiment - senior lieutenant Nikolai Shcherbakov, at the Brest (Three-arch) gates - lieutenant Anatoly Vinogradov.

Major P.M. Gavrilov

“Ranks were invisible to officers in that hell, but it was like this: whoever speaks skillfully and fights boldly, they went better and respected him better,” recalled the former secretary of the party bureau of the regimental school of the 33rd engineer regiment Fedor Zhuravlev.

On the first day, fighting turned into hand-to-hand combat on all fortifications: western - Terespol, southern - Volyn, northern - Kobrin, as well as in the central part of the fortress - the Citadel.

Lieutenant A.M. Kizhevatov

The Nazis, who broke through to the Central Island and captured the club building (the former church of St. Nicholas), attacked the fighters of the 84th rifle regiment, at the Terespol Gate, the border guards of the 9th outpost, soldiers of the 333rd and 455th rifle regiments attacked the enemy , 132nd separate battalion of escort troops of the NKVD. About the counterattack of the fighters of the 84th Infantry Regiment at the Kholmsky Gate, the testimony of its participant has been preserved. Samvel Matevosyan(in June 1941, Executive Secretary of the Komsomol Bureau of the Regiment):

“When he shouted: “Follow me! For the Motherland! - many are ahead of me. Literally at the exit I ran into a German officer. He was tall, I was lucky that he was also armed with a pistol. In a fraction of a second ... they fired at the same time, he caught my right temple, but he himself remained ... I bandaged the wound with a bandage, our orderly helped me.

The surviving German soldiers were blocked in the church building.

Lieutenant A.A. Vinogradov

"Our position is hopeless"

The morning assault failed. The first victory strengthened the spirit of those who were crushed by the force and surprise of the artillery raid and the death of their comrades. Big loss assault groups on the very first day of the offensive forced the German command to decide to withdraw its units at night to the outer ramparts of the fortress, surrounding it with a dense ring in order to break the resistance of the defenders with the help of artillery and aircraft. The shelling began, interrupted by calls through the loudspeaker to surrender.

Blocked in basements, people, especially the wounded, women and small children, suffered from heat, smoke and the stench of decomposing dead bodies. But the worst test was thirst. The water pipeline was destroyed, and the Nazis kept all approaches to the river or bypass canal under aimed fire. Every flask, every sip of water was obtained at the cost of life.

Realizing that they would no longer be able to save children and women from death, the defenders of the Citadel decided to send them into captivity. Addressing the commanders' wives, Lieutenant Kizhevatov said:

“Our situation is hopeless ... You are mothers, and your sacred duty to the Motherland is to save children. This is our command for you."

He assured his wife:

“Don't worry about me. I will not be captured. I will fight until my last breath, and even when there is not a single defender left in the fortress.”

Several dozen people, including wounded fighters and, possibly, those who had already exhausted their strength for the fight, came under a white flag to the Western Island along the Terespol bridge. On the fourth day of defense, the defenders of the eastern ramparts of the fortress did the same, sending their relatives to the Germans.

Most of the family members of the commanders of the Red Army did not manage to live to see the liberation of Brest. At first, the Germans, after keeping them in prison for a short time, released everyone, and they settled down, as best they could, somewhere in the city or its environs. But in 1942, the occupying authorities carried out several raids, deliberately looking for and shooting the wives, children, and relatives of Soviet commanders. Then the lieutenant's mother was killed Kizhevatova Anastasia Ivanovna, his wife Ekaterina and their three children: Vanya, Galya and Anya. In the autumn of 1942, a three-year-old boy was also killed Dima Shulzhenko, saved by unknown heroes on the first day of the war - he was shot along with his aunt Elena ...

Who knows why the Germans did this: maybe they were taking revenge for their impotence, for the defeat near Moscow? Or were they guided by the fear of inevitable retribution, which they were reminded of by fire-melted casemates of the fortress, which had long been silent by that time? ..

Memories of the Defenders

Photo by Igor Zotin and Vladimir Mezhevich / TASS Newsreel

Any description of the first days of the war, and especially the events in the Brest Fortress, has to be based almost exclusively on the memories of their participants - those who managed to survive. The documents of the headquarters of the 4th Army, and even more so of the divisions that were part of it, were mostly lost: they burned down during the bombing or, so as not to get to the enemy, were destroyed by staff workers. Therefore, until now, historians do not have accurate data on the number of units that ended up in the Brest “mousetrap” and their quarters, and they reconstruct and even date the battle episodes in different ways. Thanks to the long-term work of the staff of the Museum of the Heroic Defense of the Brest Fortress, opened in 1956, as well as the journalistic investigation of the writer Sergei Smirnov, a whole collection of memoirs was collected. They are hard and scary to read.

“Our apartment was in the Terespol Tower,” recalled Valentina, the daughter of the foreman of the musician platoon of the 33rd Engineer Regiment. Ivan Zenkin. - During the shelling of the Terespol tower, two water tanks were pierced by shells. Water poured from the ceiling onto the stairs, began to flood our apartment. We didn't understand what was going on. The father said: “This is war, daughter. Get dressed, go downstairs, fragments are flying here. And I have to go to the regiment.

Silently stroked my head. So I broke up with my father forever. Over the rumble, roar and smoke, we did not hear or see how the enemies burst into the power plant and began to throw grenades in front of them, shouting:

"Rus, give up!" One grenade exploded near the power plant. Children and women screamed. We were driven out to the banks of the Mukhavets River. Here we saw the wounded Red Army soldiers lying on the ground. Nazis stood above them with machine guns. From the windows of the casemates between the Kholm Gates and the Terespol Tower, the fighters opened fire on the Nazis, who had captured us.

But when they saw women and children, they stopped firing in our direction. “Shoot, why stop? The Nazis will shoot us anyway! Shoot!" - Rising up, shouted one of the wounded Red Army soldiers. In front of my eyes, one of our wounded black-haired soldiers began to be beaten with boots. They shouted, insulted, showing with gestures that he was a Jew. I felt very sorry for this man. I clung to the fascist and began to drag him away. “This is Georgian, this is Georgian,” I repeated…”

Another clear evidence of the courage of the defenders of the fortress left Natalia Mikhailovna Kontrovska I am the lieutenant's wife Sergei Chuvikov.

“I saw,” she said, “what heroism the border guards, fighters and commanders of the 333rd Infantry Regiment showed ... I will never forget a border guard wounded by a machine-gun burst in both legs. When I helped him and the women wanted to take him to the shelter, he protested, asked me to tell Lieutenant Kizhevatov that he could still beat the Nazis while lying at the machine gun. His request was granted. In the afternoon of June 22, when the hurricane artillery fire subsided for a while, we saw from the basement that not far from the commandant's office, among a pile of ruins, lay Tonya Shulzhenko and a little son was crawling near her corpse. The boy was in the zone of constant shelling. I will never forget the fighter who saved Dima. He crawled after the child. He stretched out his hand to pull the boy towards him, and he remained lying down ... Then the two wounded crawled back to Dima, saved him. The kid was injured…”

Heroic Defense. Collection of memories of the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress in June-July 1941. Minsk, 1963;
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Grebenkina A.A. Living pain. Women and children of the Brest garrison (1941–1944). Minsk, 2008.

"I'm dying, but I don't give up!"

On June 24, the defenders of the Citadel tried to coordinate their actions in order to prepare a breakthrough from the fortress in order to go into the forests, to the partisans. This is evidenced by draft order No. 1, the text of which was found in 1951 during search work in the basement of the barracks at the Brest Gates in the field bag of an unknown Soviet commander. The order dealt with the unification of several battle groups and the creation of a headquarters headed by the captain Ivan Zubachev and his deputy regimental commissar Efim Fomin. An attempt to break through was made under the command of Lieutenant Anatoly Vinogradov through the Kobrin fortification on the morning of June 26, but almost all of its participants died or were captured after they managed to overcome the outer ramparts of the fortress.

An inscription on the wall of one of the casemates of the Brest Fortress: “I am dying, but I do not give up! Farewell, Motherland. 20/VII-41” / photo: Lev Polikashin/RIA Novosti

By the end of the third day of the war, after the introduction of reserves into battle (now the units operating here already numbered two regiments), the Germans were able to establish control over most of the fortress. The defenders of the ring barracks near the Brest Gates, casemates in an earthen rampart on the opposite bank of the Mukhavets River and the Eastern Fort on the territory of the Kobrin fortification fought the longest. Part of the barracks, where the defense headquarters was located, was destroyed as a result of several explosions carried out by German sappers. The defenders of the Citadel, including the leaders of the defense, died or were captured (Fomin was shot shortly after being captured, and Zubachev died in 1944 in the Hammelburg prison camp). After June 29, only isolated pockets of resistance and single fighters remained in the fortress, gathering in groups and trying to break out of the encirclement at all costs. One of the last among the defenders of the fortress was a major Petr Gavrilov- it happened on July 23, on the 32nd day of the war.

German soldiers in the courtyard of the Brest Fortress after its capture

Staff Sergeant Sergei Kuvalin, captured on July 1, among other prisoners of war, he worked on clearing the rubble near the Terespol Gate.

“On July 14–15, a detachment passed by us German soldiers, man 50. When they came up with the gate, in the middle of their formation, an explosion suddenly rang out, and everything was shrouded in smoke. It turns out that one of our fighters was still sitting in the ruined tower above the gate. He dropped a bunch of grenades on the Germans, killing 10 people and seriously wounding many, and then jumped down from the tower and crashed to death. Who he is, this unknown hero, we didn’t find out, we weren’t allowed to bury him, ”recalled Sergey Kuvalin, who went through many German camps and escaped from captivity at the end of the war.

In 1952, an inscription was found on the wall of the casemate in the northwestern part of the defensive barracks:

"I'm dying, but I'm not giving up! Farewell, Motherland. 20/VII-41".

Unfortunately, the name of this hero also remained unknown ...

Path to immortality

Memorial Complex " Brest Fortress-Hero» in Belarus Ludmila Ivanova/Interpress/TASS

Easily defeating Poland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, capturing hundreds of cities and fortresses, the Germans for the first time since the beginning of World War II faced such a stubborn defense of a very insignificant fortified point. For the first time they met with an army whose soldiers, even realizing the hopelessness of their situation, preferred death in battle to captivity.

Perhaps it was in Brest, losing soldiers and officers in battles with the defenders of the fortress dying of hunger and thirst, that the Germans began to realize that the war in Russia would not be an easy walk, as the high command promised them. Indeed, as we progress German army to the east, the resistance of the Red Army was increasing - and in December 1941, for the first time since the beginning of the war, the Nazis suffered a major defeat near Moscow.

It would seem that the scale of events near the walls of a small border fortress is incomparable with the grandiose battles of this war. However, it was there, near the walls of the Brest Fortress, that the road of unparalleled courage, the feat of those who defended their Fatherland, began. Soviet people, the road that ultimately led us to Victory.

Yuri Nikiforov,
Candidate of Historical Sciences

The Brest fortress - one of the most powerful for its time - was not ready for a sudden attack by the Nazi troops: the main defense forces were concentrated in remote forts. Despite the suddenness of the attack, the enemy got the fortress with a lot of blood.

WESTERN BORDER SHIELD

The Brest Fortress was built after Brest-Litovsk was ceded to the Russian Empire and there was a need to secure the border extended to the west.

In ancient times, the surroundings of the future Brest Fortress were inhabited by the tribes of the Nadbuzh Slavs. It was they who founded the settlement of Berestye here, the first mention of which is contained in the "Tale of Bygone Years" for 1019, in that part of it that tells about the rivalry between Prince Turov and the great Kiev Svyatopolk Vladimirovich with his brother - Novgorod prince Yaroslav the Wise - for the Grand Duke Kiev throne.

The oldest part of the fortress - detinets, the inner city fortress - was probably built in Berestye in the 21st century. Archaeological excavations have shown that there are the remains of an ancient settlement of the XI-XIII centuries.

The main occupation of the townspeople was trade: two trade routes passed through Berestye: the first went from Galician Rus and Volhynia to Poland and further to Western Europe, and the second - to Kyiv, the Black Sea and the Middle East lands.

The border location of the city had its drawback: the power here changed quite often. IN different time Berestye was taken over by Kyiv, Galician, Polish, Volyn and Lithuanian rulers.

In 1795, after the Third Partition of the Commonwealth between Prussia, Austria and Russia, the city, which at that time was called Brest-Litovsk, became part of the Russian Empire. Then there was a need to protect the western border of the state.

In 1833, work began on the construction of the Brest-Litovsk fortress. For its construction, it was decided to demolish Old city, build a new one and enclose it with fortress walls. The center was a citadel with walls two meters thick, for a garrison of 12 thousand people. The whole fortress was completely ready in 1842.

Time passed, and the fortress gradually grew, became more powerful: in the second half of the 19th century. forts were built, and in 1864, under the leadership of military engineer E. Totleben, its full-fledged reconstruction had already begun. The Brest-Litovsk fortress received additional buildings designed to store ammunition, as well as two defensive structures - redoubts. In the future, the construction of separate forts continued, located at a distance of 3-4 km from each other.

The next reconstruction of the fortress began in 1913, and a year later, in July 1914, the First World War began. The work had to be carried out in an accelerated mode without breaks for the weekend, and by the beginning of October 1914, the Brest-Litovsk fortress was completely ready.

However, already on the night of August 13, 1915, the Russian garrison, retreating, left the fortress, partially destroying it. On the same day, the city and the fortress were occupied by troops and Austro-.

Later, after the Bolsheviks came to power in Brest-Litovsk, negotiations were held in several stages with the Germans, and on March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded in the fortress - a separate peace treaty, which meant defeat and exit from the First World War.

During the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921. On February 9, 1919, the Poles occupied Brest-Litovsk. On August 1, 1920, during the rapid offensive of the Tukhachevsky Red Army, the fortress was captured almost without resistance, but very soon, due to a serious defeat near Warsaw, the Red Army retreated under the onslaught of Pilsudski's troops, and already on August 19, Brest-Litovsk again went to the Poles. Later, under the terms of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, he withdrew along with the fortress.

On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland, and the very next day the Brest-Litovsk fortress was subjected to an air raid. Until mid-September, the Polish military held a heroic defense, resisting many times the enemy forces, but on the night of August 17, it was decided to leave it. The fortress was occupied by German troops, who on September 22, in accordance with the protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, transferred the city to the Red Army in accordance with an earlier agreement, and it was included in the Belarusian USSR.

UNDER THE FIRST SHOCK

History knows no examples of such a heroic defense, which the garrison of the Brest Fortress showed to the world, on June 22, 1941, which took the first blow from the German army, which until then had not known such resistance.

On June 22, 1941, about 9 thousand people turned up in the Brest Fortress, including military personnel and members of their families. The Germans, preparing an invasion of the USSR, deployed an entire infantry division of 17,000 soldiers on the border opposite Brest.

The command of the fortress had a plan of action in case of an attack by enemy troops. This plan provided for the deployment of the main forces on the forts around the fortress, but not the battle around the citadel itself. Events developed rapidly, and the defenders of the Brest Fortress did not have time to deploy forces.

German troops began an operation to capture the fortress at night, delivering a powerful artillery strike and immediately going on the offensive. The connection between the divisions of the fortress was broken, and the garrison could no longer provide coordinated resistance. Resistance concentrated in several areas. So, the Germans faced desperate resistance in the Volyn and Kobrin fortifications. When the defenders of the fortress rushed into a bayonet attack, the Germans were forced to randomly retreat.

But the forces were unequal, the fortifications fell one by one, and only a few of their defenders reached the citadel. Few remained in the fortifications, but they continued to fight; last Stand in the Kobrin fortification took place on July 23 - a month after the start of the Great Patriotic War.

The last frontier for the German forces was the citadel. The enemy troops met fierce resistance from individual groups of the defenders of the fortress, and as a result of counterattacks, when hand-to-hand combat decided the outcome of the battle, the German assault group was for the most part defeated.

ATTRACTIONS

Historical:

■ The ruins of the White Palace of the citadel (second half of the 18th century).

■ Engineering Department (1836).

■ St. Nicholas Garrison Cathedral (1851-1876).

■ Bypass channel.

Memorial:

■ Square of ceremonials.

■ Obelisk bayonet (1971).

■ Main monument.

■ sculptural composition "Thirst".

■ sculptural composition “To the Heroes of the Border, Women and Children Who Stepped into Immortality with Their Courage”.

■ Eternal flame.

■ In 1913, the legendary Hero took part in the design of the second ring of fortifications of the Brest Fortress Soviet Union Dmitry Karbyshev (1880-1945), who died in the German concentration camp Mauthausen.

■ In Germany, after the capture of the Brest-Litovsk fortress on August 13, 1915, a commemorative medal was minted. Two images were applied to it: a portrait of Field Marshal von Mackensen, who commanded the operation to capture the fortress, and a soldier standing against the backdrop of a burning fortification.

■ On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in the White Palace of the fortress. There is a widespread legend that on the wall of the billiard room of the White Palace, the head of the Soviet delegation, Leon Trotsky, inscribed the famous slogan "No war, no peace."