The defense of the Brest Fortress was the first feat of the Soviet soldiers in the Great Patriotic War. The dead defenders of the Brest Fortress and members of their families, whose names are immortalized on the plates of the memorial complex "Brest Hero Fortress"
Introduction
In June 1941, much indicated that Germany launched preparations for war against the Soviet Union. German divisions were moving up to the border. The preparations for the war became known from intelligence reports. In particular, Soviet spy Richard Sorge even reported the exact day of the invasion and the number of enemy divisions that would be involved in the operation. In these difficult conditions, the Soviet leadership tried not to give the slightest reason to start a war. It even allowed "archaeologists" from Germany to look for "the graves of soldiers who died during the First World War." Under this pretext, German officers openly studied the area, outlined the paths of a future invasion.
At dawn on June 22, one of the most long days in a year, Germany started a war against the Soviet Union. At 0330 hours, units of the Red Army were attacked by German troops along the entire length of the border. In the early predawn hour of June 22, 1941, night squads and patrols of border guards who guarded the western state border of the Soviet country noticed a strange celestial phenomenon. There, ahead, beyond the border line, above the land of Poland captured by the Nazis, far away, on the western edge of the slightly brightening early morning sky, among the already dimmed stars of the shortest summer night, some new, unprecedented stars suddenly appeared. Unusually bright and colorful, like fireworks - sometimes red, sometimes green - they did not stand still, but slowly and non-stop sailed here, to the east, making their way among the fading night stars. They dotted the entire horizon, as far as the eye could see, and together with their appearance from there, from the west, came the roar of many engines.
On the morning of June 22, Moscow radio broadcast the usual Sunday programs and peaceful music. Soviet citizens learned about the beginning of the war only at noon, when Vyacheslav Molotov spoke on the radio. He said: “Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country. brest fortress capture german
Three powerful German army groups moved east. In the north, Field Marshal Leeb directed the blow of his troops across the Baltic to Leningrad. In the south, Field Marshal Rundstedt was aiming his troops at Kyiv. But the strongest grouping of enemy forces deployed its operations in the middle of this huge front, where, starting at the border city of Brest, a wide belt of asphalt highway goes east - through the capital of Belarus, Minsk, through the ancient Russian city of Smolensk, through Vyazma and Mozhaisk to the heart of our Motherland - Moscow. For four days, German mobile units, operating on narrow fronts, broke through to a depth of 250 km and reached the Western Dvina. The army corps were 100-150 km behind the tank ones.
The command of the North-Western Front, at the direction of the Headquarters, made an attempt to organize defense at the turn of the Western Dvina. From Riga to Liepaja, the 8th Army was to defend. To the south, the 27th Army advanced, whose task was to cover the gap between the inner flanks of the 8th and 11th armies. The pace of deployment of troops and defense on the line of the Western Dvina was insufficient, which allowed the enemy's 56th motorized corps to cross on the move to the northern bank of the Western Dvina, capture Daugavpils and create a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river. The 8th Army, having lost up to 50% of its personnel and up to 75% of its materiel, began to withdraw to the northeast and north, to Estonia.
Due to the fact that the 8th and 27th armies were retreating in divergent directions, the path for the enemy's mobile formations to Pskov and Ostrov turned out to be open. The Red Banner Baltic Fleet was forced to leave Liepaja and Ventspils. After that, the defense of the Gulf of Riga was based only on the islands of Sarema and Khiuma, which were still held by our troops. As a result of the hostilities from June 22 to July 9, the troops of the North-Western Front did not fulfill their tasks. They left the Baltic, suffered heavy losses and allowed the enemy to advance up to 500 km.
The main forces of Army Group Center were advancing against the Western Front. Their immediate goal was to bypass the main forces of the Western Front and encircle them with the release of tank groups in the Minsk area. The enemy offensive on the right wing of the Western Front in the direction of Grodno was repulsed. The most difficult situation developed on the left wing, where the enemy struck with the 2nd tank group at Brest, Baranovichi. With the beginning of the shelling of Brest at dawn on June 22, the units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions located in the city were alerted. At 7 o'clock the enemy broke into the city. Part of our troops withdrew from the fortress. The rest of the garrison, by this time numbering up to an infantry regiment in total, organized the defense of the citadel and decided to fight encircled to the end. The heroic defense of Brest began, which lasted over a month and was an example of the legendary valor and courage of Soviet patriots.
1. Defense of the Brest Fortress
The Brest Fortress is one of 9 fortresses built in the 19th century. to strengthen the western border of Russia. On April 26, 1842, the fortress became one of the active fortresses of the Russian Empire. All Soviet people were well aware of the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. As the official version said, a small garrison fought for a whole month against an entire division of the Germans. But even from the book by S.S. Sergeyev "Brest Fortress" you can find out that "in the spring of 1941, units of two rifle divisions of the Soviet Army were stationed on the territory of the Brest Fortress. They were hardy, hardened, well-trained troops. One of these divisions - the 6th Oryol Red Banner - had a long and glorious combat history. Another - the 42nd Rifle Division - was created in 1940 during the Finnish campaign and has already shown itself well in the battles on the Mannerheim Line. That is, in the fortress there were still not several dozen infantrymen armed only with rifles, as many Soviet people who looked art films about this defense. On the eve of the war, more than half of the units were withdrawn to the camps for exercises from the Brest Fortress - 10 out of 18 rifle battalions, 3 out of 4 artillery regiments, one out of two anti-tank and air defense divisions, reconnaissance battalions and some other units. On the morning of June 22, 1941, there was actually an incomplete division in the fortress - without 1 rifle battalion, 3 sapper companies and a howitzer regiment. Plus the NKVD battalion and border guards. On average, the divisions had about 9,300 personnel, i.e. 63%. It can be assumed that in total there were more than 8 thousand soldiers and commanders in the fortress on the morning of June 22, not counting the staff and patients of the hospital. The German 45th Infantry Division (from the former Austrian army), which had combat experience in the Polish and French campaigns, fought against the garrison. The regular strength of the German division was to be 15-17 thousand. So, the Germans probably still had a numerical superiority in manpower, but not 10-fold, as Smirnov claimed. It is hardly possible to speak of superiority in artillery. Yes, the Germans had two 600-mm self-propelled mortars 040 (the so-called "Karls"). The ammunition load of these guns is 8 rounds. And the two-meter walls of the casemates did not make their way through divisional artillery.
The Germans decided in advance that the fortress would have to be taken only by infantry - without tanks. Their use was hindered by forests, swamps, river channels and canals that surrounded the fortress. On the basis of aerial photographs and data obtained in 1939 after the capture of the fortress from the Poles, a model of the fortress was made. However, the command of the 45th division of the Wehrmacht did not expect to suffer such high losses from the defenders of the fortress. The divisional report dated June 30, 1941 says: "The division took 7,000 prisoners, including 100 officers. Our losses are 482 killed, including 48 officers, and over 1,000 wounded." It should be noted that the number of prisoners undoubtedly includes the medical staff and patients of the district hospital, and these are several hundred, if not more, people who were physically unable to fight. The proportion of commanders (officers) among the prisoners is also indicatively small (military doctors and patients in the hospital are obviously counted among the 100 captured). The only senior commander (senior officer) among the defenders was the commander of the 44th regiment, Major Gavrilov. The fact is that in the first minutes of the war, the houses of the command staff were subjected to shelling - naturally, not as strong as the buildings of the citadel.
For comparison, during the Polish campaign in 13 days, the 45th division, having traveled 400 kilometers, lost 158 killed and 360 wounded. Moreover, the total losses German army on the eastern front by June 30, 1941, 8886 were killed. That is, the defenders of the Brest Fortress killed more than 5% of them. And the fact that there were about 8 thousand defenders of the fortress, and not at all a handful, does not detract from their glory, but, on the contrary, shows that there were many heroes. More than for some reason trying to inspire Soviet power. And until now, in books, articles and websites about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress, the words "small garrison" are constantly found. Another common option is 3,500 defenders. 962 warriors are buried under the slabs of the fortress.
Of the troops of the first echelon of the 4th Army, those stationed in the citadel of the Brest Fortress suffered the most, namely: almost the entire 6th Rifle Division (with the exception of the howitzer regiment) and the main forces of the 42nd Rifle Division, its 44th and 455th rifle regiments.
At 4:00 am on June 22, heavy fire was opened on the barracks and on the exits from the barracks in the central part of the fortress, as well as on the bridges and entrance gates of the fortress and the houses of the command staff. This raid caused confusion among the Red Army staff, while the command staff, which was attacked in their apartments, was partially destroyed. The surviving part of the command staff could not penetrate the barracks due to strong barrage fire. As a result, the Red Army soldiers and junior command personnel, deprived of leadership and control, dressed and undressed, in groups and singly, independently left the fortress, overcoming the bypass canal, the Mukhavets River and the rampart of the fortress under artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire. It was impossible to take into account the losses, since the personnel of the 6th division mixed with the personnel of the 42nd division. Many could not get to the conditional gathering place, since the Germans fired concentrated artillery fire at it. Some commanders still managed to get to their units and subunits in the fortress, but they could not withdraw the units and remained in the fortress themselves. As a result, the personnel of the units of the 6th and 42nd divisions, as well as other units, remained in the fortress as its garrison, not because they were given tasks to defend the fortress, but because it was impossible to leave it. Almost simultaneously, fierce battles unfolded throughout the fortress. From the very beginning, they acquired the character of the defense of its individual fortifications without a single headquarters and command, without communication and almost without interaction between the defenders of different fortifications. The defenders were led by commanders and political workers, in some cases by ordinary soldiers who took command. In the shortest possible time, they rallied their forces and organized a rebuff to the Nazi invaders. Within a few hours of fighting, the command of the German 12th army corps was forced to send all available reserves to the fortress. However, as the commander of the German 45th infantry division General Schlipper, this "also did not change the situation. Where the Russians were driven back or smoked out, after a short period of time, new forces appeared from cellars, drainpipes and other shelters, which shot so excellently that our losses increased significantly." The enemy unsuccessfully transmitted calls for surrender through radio installations, sent truce envoys.
The resistance continued. The defenders of the Citadel held an almost 2-kilometer ring of the defensive 2-story barracks belt under conditions of intense bombardment, shelling and attacks by enemy assault groups. During the first day, they repulsed 8 fierce attacks of enemy infantry blocked in the Citadel, as well as attacks from outside, from the bridgeheads captured by the enemy on the Terespol, Volyn, Kobrin fortifications, from where the Nazis rushed to all 4 gates of the Citadel. By the evening of June 22, the enemy entrenched himself in the part of the defensive barracks between the Kholmsky and Terespolsky gates (later used it as a bridgehead in the Citadel), captured several compartments of the barracks at the Brest Gates. However, the enemy's calculation of surprise did not materialize; defensive battles, counterattacks, Soviet soldiers pinned down the enemy forces, inflicted heavy losses on him. Late in the evening, the German command decided to withdraw its infantry from the fortifications, create a blockade line behind the outer ramparts, so that on the morning of June 23, again, with shelling and bombardment, begin the assault on the fortress.
The battles in the fortress took on a fierce, protracted character, which the enemy did not expect at all. The stubborn heroic resistance of the Soviet soldiers was met by the Nazi invaders on the territory of each fortification. On the territory of the Terespol border fortification, the defense was held by the soldiers of the driver courses of the Belarusian border district under the command of the head of the courses, senior lieutenant F.M. Melnikov and course teacher Lieutenant Zhdanov, transport company of the 17th border detachment, led by commander senior lieutenant A.S. Cherny, together with fighters of cavalry courses, a sapper platoon, reinforced outfits of the 9th frontier post, a veterinary hospital, and training camps for athletes. They managed to clear most of the territory of the fortification from the enemy that had broken through, but due to the lack of ammunition and heavy losses in personnel, they could not hold it. On the night of June 25, the remnants of the groups of Melnikov, who died in battle, and Chernoy crossed the Western Bug and joined the defenders of the Citadel and the Kobrin fortification.
By the beginning of hostilities, the Volyn fortification housed the hospitals of the 4th Army and the 28th Rifle Corps, the 95th medical and sanitary battalion of the 6th Rifle Division, there was a small part of the regimental school of junior commanders of the 84th Rifle Regiment, outfits of the 9th and frontier posts. On the earthen ramparts at the South Gate, the duty platoon of the regimental school held the defense. From the first minutes of the enemy invasion, the defense acquired a focal character. The enemy sought to break through to the Kholm Gate and, having broken through, to join the assault group in the Citadel. Warriors of the 84th Infantry Regiment came to the aid from the Citadel. Within the boundaries of the hospital, the defense was organized by the battalion commissar N.S. Bogateev, military doctor of the 2nd rank S.S. Babkin (both died). German submachine gunners who burst into hospital buildings brutally dealt with the sick and wounded. The defense of the Volyn fortification is full of examples of the dedication of soldiers and medical staff who fought to the end in the ruins of buildings. Covering the wounded, nurses V.P. Khoretskaya and E.I. Rovnyagin. Having captured the sick, the wounded, medical staff, children, on June 23 the Nazis used them as a human barrier, driving machine gunners ahead of the attacking Kholmsky Gate. "Shoot, don't pity us!" shouted the Soviet patriots. By the end of the week, the focal defense on the fortification had faded. Some fighters joined the ranks of the Citadel's defenders, few managed to break through from the enemy ring. By decision of the command of the combined group, attempts were made to break through the encirclement. On June 26, a detachment (120 people, mostly sergeants) headed by Lieutenant Vinogradov, went on a breakthrough. 13 soldiers managed to break through the eastern line of the fortress, but they were captured by the enemy. Other attempts to break out of the besieged fortress turned out to be unsuccessful, only separate small groups were able to break through. The remaining small garrison of Soviet troops continued to fight with extraordinary stamina and perseverance. Their inscriptions on the fortress walls speak of the unshakable courage of the fighters: “There were five of us Sedov, Grutov, Bogolyub, Mikhailov, V. Selivanov. There were three of us, it was difficult for us, but we did not lose heart and die like heroes, "this is evidenced by the remains of 132 soldiers discovered during the excavations of the White Palace and the inscription left on the bricks:" We die without shame.
On the Kobrin fortification, since the moment of hostilities, several areas of fierce defense have developed. On the territory of this largest fortification there were many warehouses, hitching posts, artillery parks, personnel were located in the barracks, as well as in the casemates of an earthen rampart (with a perimeter of up to 1.5 km), in a residential town - families of command personnel. Through the Northern and Northwestern, Eastern Gates of the fortification, in the first hours of the war, part of the garrison, the main forces of the 125th Infantry Regiment (commander Major A.E. Dulkeit) and the 98th Separate Anti-tank Artillery Battalion (commander Captain N.I. Nikitin).
The hard cover of the exit from the fortress through the North-Western Gate of the soldiers of the garrison, and then the defense of the barracks of the 125th Infantry Regiment, was led by the battalion commissar S.V. Derbenev. The enemy managed to transfer from the Terespol fortification to the Kobrin pontoon bridge across the Western Bug (the defenders of the western part of the Citadel fired on it, disrupting the crossing), seize a bridgehead in the western part of the Kobrin fortification and move infantry, artillery, tanks there.
The defense was led by Major P. M. Gavrilov, Captain I. N. Zubachev and Regimental Commissar E. M. Fomin. The heroic defenders of the Brest Fortress successfully repulsed the attacks of the Nazi troops for several days. On June 29-30, the enemy launched a general assault on the Brest Fortress, he managed to capture many fortifications, the defenders suffered heavy losses, but continued to resist in incredibly difficult conditions (lack of water, food, medicine). For almost a month, the heroes of the Brest Fortress fettered an entire German division, most of them fell in battle, some managed to break through to the partisans, some of the exhausted and wounded were captured. As a result of bloody battles and losses incurred, the defense of the fortress broke up into a number of isolated pockets of resistance. Until July 12, a small group of fighters led by Gavrilov continued to fight in the Eastern Fort, later, breaking out of the fort, in a caponier behind the outer rampart of the fortification. The seriously wounded Gavrilov and the secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 98th separate anti-tank artillery battalion, deputy political instructor G.D. Derevianko was taken prisoner on July 23. But even later on the 20th of July, Soviet soldiers continued to fight in the fortress.
The last days of the struggle are covered with legends. These days include the inscriptions left on the walls of the fortress by its defenders: "We will die, but we will not leave the fortress", "I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland. 11/20/41". None of the banners military units who fought in the fortress, the enemy did not get. The banner of the 393rd separate artillery battalion was buried in the Eastern Fort by Senior Sergeant R.K. Semenyuk, privates I.D. Folvarkov and Tarasov. On September 26, 1956, it was excavated by Semenyuk.
In the cellars of the White Palace, the Engineering Department, the club, the barracks of the 333rd regiment, the last defenders of the Citadel held out. In the building of the Engineering Directorate and the Eastern Fort, the Nazis used gases, against the defenders of the barracks of the 333rd regiment and the 98th division, the caponier in the zone of the 125th regiment - flamethrowers. Explosives were lowered from the roof of the barracks of the 333rd Infantry Regiment to the windows, but the Soviet soldiers wounded by the explosions continued to shoot until the walls of the building were destroyed and razed to the ground. The enemy was forced to note the steadfastness and heroism of the fortress defenders. It was during these black, bitter days of retreat that the legend of the Brest Fortress was born in our troops. It is difficult to say where it first appeared, but, passed from mouth to mouth, it soon passed along the entire thousand-kilometer front from the Baltic to the Black Sea steppes. It was an exciting legend. It was said that hundreds of kilometers from the front, deep behind enemy lines, near the city of Brest, within the walls of an old Russian fortress standing on the very border of the USSR, our troops had been heroically fighting the enemy for many days and weeks. It was said that the enemy, having surrounded the fortress in a dense ring, violently stormed it, but at the same time suffered huge losses, that neither bombs nor shells could break the stubbornness of the fortress garrison, and that the Soviet soldiers defending there swore an oath to die, but not to submit to the enemy and they respond with fire to all the offers of the Nazis for surrender.
It is not known how this legend originated. Either the groups of our fighters and commanders brought it with them, making their way from the Brest region along the rear of the Germans and then making their way through the front. Either one of the captured Nazis told about this.
They say that the pilots of our bomber aviation confirmed that the Brest Fortress was fighting. Going out at night to bomb the rear military targets of the enemy, located on Polish territory, and flying near Brest, they saw flashes of shell explosions below, the trembling fire of firing machine guns and the flowing streams of tracer bullets.
However, these were all just stories and rumors. Whether our troops were really fighting there and what kind of troops they were, it was impossible to verify: there was no radio communication with the fortress garrison. And the legend of the Brest Fortress at that time remained only a legend. But, full of exciting heroics, this legend was very necessary for people. In those hard times harsh days retreat, it penetrated deeply into the hearts of the soldiers, inspired them, gave birth to vigor and faith in victory in them. And many who heard this story then, as a reproach to their own conscience, the question arose: "And we? Can't we fight just like they do there, in the fortress? Why are we retreating?"
It happened that in response to such a question, as if guiltily looking for an excuse for himself, one of the old soldiers would say: “After all, a fortress! It is more convenient to defend in a fortress. There are probably a lot of walls, fortifications, cannons. “it was impossible to approach here, having only infantry means, since excellently organized rifle and machine-gun fire from deep trenches and a horseshoe-shaped courtyard mowed down everyone approaching. There was only one solution left - to force the Russians to surrender by hunger and thirst ... ". The Nazis methodically attacked the fortress for a whole week. Soviet soldiers had to repel 6-8 attacks a day. There were women and children next to the soldiers. They helped the wounded, brought cartridges, took part in hostilities. The Nazis used tanks, flamethrowers, gases, set fire to and rolled barrels of combustible mixture from external shafts. Casemates burned and collapsed, there was nothing to breathe, but when enemy infantry attacked, hand-to-hand fights began again. In short intervals of relative calm, calls to surrender were heard in the loudspeakers.
Being completely surrounded, without water and food, with an acute shortage of ammunition and medicines, the garrison bravely fought the enemy. Only in the first 9 days of fighting, the defenders of the fortress put out of action about 1.5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers. By the end of June, the enemy captured most of the fortress, on June 29 and 30 the Nazis launched a continuous two-day assault on the fortress using powerful (500 and 1800-kilogram) bombs. On June 29, he died covering the breakthrough group, Kizhevatov, with several fighters. In the Citadel on June 30, the Nazis seized the seriously wounded and shell-shocked Captain Zubachev and the regimental commissar Fomin, whom the Nazis shot near the Kholmsky Gate. On June 30, after a long shelling and bombing, which ended in a fierce attack, the Nazis captured most of the structures of the Eastern Fort, captured the wounded. In July, the commander of the 45th German infantry division, General Schlipper, in his "Report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk" reported: "The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought exceptionally stubbornly and persistently. They showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to resist." Stories like the defense of the Brest Fortress would become widely known in other countries. But the courage and heroism of the defenders of the Brest Fortress remained unsung. Until the death of Stalin in the USSR - as if they did not notice the feat of the garrison of the citadel.
The fortress fell, and many of its defenders surrendered - in the eyes of the Stalinists, this was seen as a shameful phenomenon. That is why there were no heroes of Brest. The fortress was simply deleted from the annals of military history, erasing the names of privates and commanders. In 1956, the world finally learned who led the defense of the citadel. Smirnov writes: "From what was found combat order No. 1, we know the names of the commanders of the units that defended the center: Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev, Art. Lieutenant Semenenko and Lieutenant Vinogradov. "The 44th Infantry Regiment was commanded by Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov. Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev and Lieutenant Vinogradov were part of the battle group that escaped from the fortress on June 25, but it was surrounded and destroyed on the Warsaw highway.
Three officers were taken prisoner. Vinogradov survived the war. Smirnov tracked him down in Vologda, where he, unknown to anyone in 1956, worked as a blacksmith. According to Vinogradov: “Before going on a breakthrough, Commissar Fomin put on the uniform of a murdered private. In the prisoner of war camp, one soldier betrayed the commissar to the Germans, and Fomin was shot. Zubachev died in captivity. Major Gavrilov survived captivity, despite being seriously wounded. He did not want surrender, threw a grenade and killed a German soldier." A lot of time passed before the names of the heroes of Brest were inscribed in Soviet history. They have earned their place there. The way they fought, their unwavering tenacity, their devotion to duty, their courage against all odds - all this was quite typical of Soviet soldiers.
The defense of the Brest Fortress was an outstanding example of the exceptional stamina and courage of Soviet soldiers. It was a truly legendary feat of the sons of the people, who infinitely loved their Motherland, who gave their lives for it. The Soviet people honor the memory of the brave defenders of the Brest Fortress: Captain V. V. Shablovsky, senior political officer N. V. Nesterchuk, lieutenants I. F. Akimochkin, A. M. Kizhevatov, A. F. Naganov, junior political officer A. P. Kalandadze , deputy political instructor S. M. Matevosyan, a pupil of the regiment P. S. Klypa and many others. In memory of the heroic deed of the heroes of the Brest Fortress, on May 8, 1965, she was awarded the honorary title "Hero Fortress" with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
Conclusion
For a long time, the country did not know anything about the defense of the Brest Fortress, as well as about many other exploits of Soviet soldiers in the early days of the war, although, perhaps, it was precisely such pages of its history that could inspire faith in the people who found themselves on the verge of mortal danger. The troops, of course, talked about the border battles on the Bug, but the very fact of the defense of the fortress was perceived rather as a legend. Surprisingly, the feat of the Brest garrison became known thanks to the very same report from the headquarters of the 45th German division. The entire archive of the division also fell into the hands of Soviet soldiers. 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 in the Krivtsovo area near Orel when trying to destroy the Bolkhov group of German troops. In the late 1940s the first articles about the defense of the Brest Fortress appeared in the newspapers, based solely on rumors; in 1951 the artist P. Krivonogov paints the famous painting "Defenders of the Brest Fortress". The merit of restoring the memory of the heroes of the fortress largely belongs to the writer and historian S. S. Smirnov, as well as to K. M. Simonov, who supported his initiative. The feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress was popularized by Smirnov in the book The Brest Fortress (1957, expanded edition 1964, Lenin Prize 1965). After that, the theme of the defense of the Brest Fortress became an important symbol of the official patriotic propaganda. Sevastopol, Leningrad, Smolensk, Vyazma, Kerch, Stalingrad - milestones in the history of the resistance of the Soviet people to the Nazi invasion. The first in this list is the Brest Fortress. She determined the whole mood of this war - uncompromising, stubborn and, ultimately, victorious. And most importantly, probably not in awards, but orders and medals were awarded to about 200 defenders of the Brest Fortress, two became Heroes of the Soviet Union - Major Gavrilov and Lieutenant Andrei Kizhevatov (posthumously), but that it was then, in the first days of the war, Soviet soldiers proved to the whole world that courage and duty to their country, people, can withstand any invasion. In this regard, it sometimes seems that the Brest Fortress is a confirmation of the words of Bismarck and the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany.
On May 8, 1965, the Brest Fortress was awarded the title of Hero Fortress. Since 1971 it has been a memorial complex. On the territory of the fortress, a number of monuments were built in memory of the heroes, there is a museum of the defense of the Brest Fortress.
"Brest Fortress-Hero", a memorial complex, created in 1969-71. on the territory of the Brest Fortress to perpetuate the feat of the participants in the defense of the Brest Fortress. General plan was approved by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the BSSR dated 06.11.1969. The memorial was solemnly opened on September 25, 1971. The sculptural and architectural ensemble includes surviving buildings, conserved ruins, ramparts and works of modern monumental art. The complex is located in the eastern part of the Citadel. Each compositional element of the ensemble carries a great semantic load and has a strong emotional impact. Main entrance designed as an opening in the form of a five-pointed star in a monolithic reinforced concrete mass, based on the shaft and the walls of the casemates. The cleavages of the star, intersecting, form a complex dynamic shape. The propylea walls are lined with black labradorite. On the outer side of the foundation, a plaque with the text of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated 05/08/1965 on conferring the honorary title "Hero-Fortress" on the Brest Fortress was reinforced. From the main entrance, a solemn alley leads across the bridge to the Ceremonial Square. To the left of the bridge is the sculptural composition "Thirst" - the figure of a Soviet soldier, who, leaning on a machine gun, reaches for the water with a helmet. In the planning and figurative solution of the memorial, an important role belongs to the Ceremonials Square, where mass celebrations take place. It is adjoined by the building of the Museum of the Defense of the Brest Fortress and the ruins of the White Palace. The compositional center of the ensemble is the main monument "Courage" - the chest sculpture of a warrior (made of concrete, height 33.5 m), on its reverse side- relief compositions telling about individual episodes of the heroic defense of the fortress: "Attack", "Party meeting", "The last grenade", "The feat of artillerymen", "Machine gunners". A bayonet-obelisk dominates over a vast area (an all-welded metal structure lined with titanium; height 100 m, weight 620 tons). The remains of 850 people are buried in the 3-tiered necropolis, compositionally related to the monument, and the names of 216 people are on the memorial plates installed here.
In front of the ruins of the former engineering department, in a recess lined with black labradorite, the Eternal Flame of Glory burns. In front of him are the words cast in bronze: "We stood to the death, glory to the heroes!" Not far from the Eternal Flame is the Memorial Site of the Hero Cities of the Soviet Union, opened on 05/09/1985. Under the granite slabs with the image of the Gold Star medal, there are capsules with the soil of the hero cities brought here by their delegations. On the walls of the barracks, ruins, bricks and stone blocks, on special stands, there are memorial plaques in the form of tear-off sheets of the 1941 calendar, which are a kind of chronicle of heroic events.
The observation deck presents artillery weapons of the mid-19th century and the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. The ruins of the barracks of the 333rd Infantry Regiment (former arsenal), the ruins of the defensive barracks, the destroyed building of the club of the 84th Infantry Regiment have been preserved. Along the main alley there are 2 powder magazines, in the ramparts there are casemates, a field bakery premises. On the way to the Northern Gate, the Eastern Fort, the ruins of the medical unit and residential buildings stand out. Pedestrian paths and the area in front of the main entrance are covered with red plastic concrete. Most of the alleys, the Ceremonial Square and part of the paths are lined with reinforced concrete slabs. Thousands of roses, weeping willows, poplars, spruces, birches, maples, and arborvitae have been planted. In the evening, artistic and decorative lighting is switched on, consisting of a variety of spotlights and lamps in red, white and green colors. At the main entrance, A. Aleksandrov's song "The Holy War" and the governments, a message about the treacherous attack on our Motherland by the troops of Nazi Germany (read by Y. Levitan) are heard, at the Eternal Flame - R. Schumann's melody "Dreams".
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- 6. Smirnov S. S. Stories about unknown heroes. M., 1985.
- 7. Brest. Encyclopedic reference book. Mn., 1987.
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 the Nazi troops planned to completely capture the fortress. As a result of a sudden attack, the garrison of the Brest Fortress was cut off from the main units of the Red Army. However, the Nazis met with a fierce rebuff from its defenders.
Units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions, the 17th border detachment and the 132nd separate battalion of the NKVD troops - a total of 3,500 people - held back the onslaught of the enemy to the end. Most of the defenders of the fortress were killed.
When the Brest Fortress was liberated by Soviet troops on July 28, 1944, an inscription of its last defender was found on the melted bricks of one of the casemates: “I am dying, but I do not give 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 honorary title"Fortress-Hero" and the medal "Gold Star".
In 1971, a memorial appeared here: giant sculptures "Courage" and "Thirst", the 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 project of the military topographer and engineer Karl Ivanovich Opperman. Initially, temporary earthen fortifications were erected, the first stone in the foundation of the fortress was laid on June 1, 1836. The main building work was completed by April 26, 1842. The fortress consisted of a citadel and three fortifications protecting it with a total area of 4 km² and the length of the main fortress line of 6.4 km.
The Citadel, or Central Fortification, was two two-story red brick barracks 1.8 km in circumference. The citadel, which had walls two meters thick, consisted of 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 moats, are connected with this island by drawbridges. There are fortifications on them: Kobrin (formerly Northern, the largest), with 4 curtain walls and 3 ravelins and caponiers; Terespol, or Western, with 4 lunettes; Volynskoe, or Southern, with 2 curtains and 2 ravelins. The former "casemated redoubt" now houses the Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery. The fortress is surrounded by a 10-meter earthen rampart with casemates in it. Of the eight gates of the fortress, five have been preserved - the Kholmsky gate (in the south of the citadel), the Terespol gate (in the southwest of the citadel), the Northern or Aleksandrovsky (in the north of the Kobrin fortification), the North-Western (in the north-west of the Kobrin fortification) and the Southern (on south of the Volyn fortification, Hospital Island). Brigid gates (in the west of the citadel), Brest gates (in the north of the citadel) and Eastern gates (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; Western and Eastern forts were built on the territory of the Kobrin fortification. In 1876, on the territory of the fortress, according to the project of the architect David Ivanovich Grimm, the St. Nicholas Orthodox Church was built.
Fortress at the beginning of the 20th century
In 1913, the construction of the second ring of fortifications began (Dmitry Karbyshev, in particular, took part in its design), which was supposed to have a circumference of 45 km, but before the start of the war it was never completed.
Map-scheme of the Brest Fortress and its surrounding forts, 1912.
With the outbreak of World War I, the fortress was intensively preparing for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915 (according to the old style), during the general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. On March 3, 1918, in the Citadel, in the so-called White Palace (the former church of the Basilian Uniate monastery, then the officers' meeting), the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. 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 soon lost again, and in 1921, according to the Peace of Riga, it went to the Second Rzeczpospolita. In the interwar period, the fortress was used as a barracks, a military warehouse and a political prison (in the 1930s, opposition groups were imprisoned here). politicians).
Defense of the Brest Fortress in 1939
The day after the start of World War II, on September 2, 1939, the Brest Fortress was bombed for the first time by the Germans: German planes dropped 10 bombs, damaging the White Palace. At that time, marching battalions of the 35th and 82nd infantry regiments and a number of other rather random units, as well as mobilized reservists who were waiting to be sent to their units, were located in the barracks of the fortress at that time.
The garrison of the city and the fortress was subordinate to the task force "Polesie" of General Franciszek Kleeberg; On September 11, retired General Konstantin Plisovsky was appointed head of the garrison, who formed a combat-ready detachment of 4 battalions (three infantry and engineering) from the units at his disposal with a total strength of 2000-2500 people, supported by several batteries, two armored trains and a certain number of Renault tanks FT-17" from the First World War. The defenders of the fortress did not have anti-tank weapons, meanwhile they had to deal with tanks.
By September 13, families of military personnel were evacuated from the fortress, bridges and passages were mined, the main gates were blocked by tanks, and trenches for infantry were made on earthen ramparts.
Konstantin Plisovsky
The 19th armored corps of General Heinz Guderian was advancing on Brest-nad-Bug, which was moving from the side East Prussia to meet with another German Panzer 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 superiority over the defenders of the fortress in infantry by 2 times, in tanks - by 4 times, in artillery - by 6 times. On September 14, 1939, 77 tanks of the 10th Panzer Division (subdivisions of the reconnaissance battalion and the 8th Panzer Regiment) tried to take the city and the fortress on the move, but were repulsed by infantry supported by 12 FT-17 tanks, which were knocked out. On the same day German artillery and aviation began to bombard 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 could not break through further. Big damage German tanks struck two FT-17s placed at the gates of the fortress. In total, since September 14, 7 German attacks were repulsed, while 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. On the intact bridge, the troops left for the Terespol fortification and from there to Terespol.
On September 22, Brest was handed over 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 and 1 reconnaissance battalions, 2 artillery battalions (PTO and air defense), some special forces of rifle regiments and units of corps units, training camps of the assigned staff of the 6th Oryol and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle 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 the NKVD escort troops, unit headquarters (the headquarters of the divisions and the 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 across 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 to 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army Corps of the 4th German Army and used by the 45th Infantry Division during the first five minutes of an artillery raid), 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.
Assault on the fortress
On June 22, at 3:15 (European time) or 4:15 (Moscow time), heavy artillery fire was opened on the fortress, taking the garrison by surprise. As a result, warehouses were destroyed, water pipes were damaged, communications were interrupted, and heavy 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 advanced directly on the fortress. The surprise of the attack led to the fact that the garrison could not provide a single coordinated resistance and was divided into several separate centers. The assault detachment of the Germans, advancing through the Terespol fortification, initially did not meet with serious resistance, and after passing the Citadel, advanced groups reached the Kobrin fortification. However, the units of the garrison that found themselves in the rear of the Germans 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 dining room for command staff and the barracks at the Brest Gates. They met strong resistance in Volyn and, especially, in 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 join with their units; by 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress with 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, which was originally the reserve of the corps, thus bringing the assault force to two regiments.
Defense
On the night of June 23, having withdrawn troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the Germans began shelling, in between offering the garrison to surrender. Surrendered about 1900 people. 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 battle group of the 455th rifle regiment, led by Lieutenant A. A. Vinogradov and Captain I.N. Zubachev, and the battle group of the so-called "House of Officers" (the units that concentrated here for the planned breakthrough attempt were led by regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, senior lieutenant Shcherbakov and private Shugurov (executive 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 dated June 24 was prepared, which proposed the creation of a combined battle group and headquarters headed by Captain I. N. Zubachev and his deputy regimental commissar E. M. Fomin, count the remaining personnel. However, the 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 were defending the highway around Brest.
By the evening of June 24, the Germans had captured most of the fortress, with the exception of the section of the ring barracks ("House of Officers") near the Brest (Three-arch) gates of the Citadel, casemates in an earthen rampart on the opposite bank of the Mukhavets ("Point 145") and the so-called "Eastern Fort" (its defense, which consisted of 400 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, was commanded by Major P. M. Gavrilov). On this day, the Germans managed to capture 1250 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 "Officers' House" 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 clean it up only on June 30 (because of 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. After a 600-mm gun shell burst, craters 30 meters in diameter were formed and horrific injuries were inflicted on the defenders, including rupture of the lungs of those hiding in the basement of the fortress from shock waves.
The organized defense of the fortress ended there; only isolated centers of resistance and single fighters remained, gathering in groups and again dispersing and dying, or trying to break out of the fortress and go to the partisans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (some succeeded). Major P. M. Gavrilov was captured wounded among the last - on July 23. One of the inscriptions in the fortress reads: “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland. 20/VII-41". According to witnesses, shooting was heard from the fortress until the beginning of August.
P.M. Gavrilov
The total losses of the Germans in the Brest Fortress amounted to 5% of the total losses of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front in 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 found 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 cellars of the fortress with water from the Western Bug River.
The 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. In the late 1940s, the first articles about the defense of the Brest Fortress appeared in newspapers, based solely on rumors. In 1951, during the analysis of 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 merit of restoring the memory of the heroes of the fortress largely belongs to the writer and historian S. S. Smirnov, as well as to 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 The Brest Fortress (1957, expanded edition 1964, Lenin Prize 1965). After that, 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 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://en.wikipedia.org
http://www.brest-fortress.by
http://www.calend.ru
What can you not hear from "liberal"-minded historians and professional fighters against totalitarianism ... It seems that there is nothing to be surprised at, but these figures each time give out more and more tons of "truthful" and exposing Stalin materials. They work with Stakhanov's methods - the irony of fate .... In the last two years, the defense of the Brest Fortress in June-July 1941, at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, has become the subject of their close attention. Here, in fact, Stalin is accused of post-war suppression of the feat of the garrison of the fortress. Like, for him (Stalin), the captured Red Army soldiers could not be heroes, they say, there was order No. 270 of August 16, 1941, according to which military personnel who were captured by the enemy were automatically considered "cowards and deserters." And since the majority of the surviving defenders of the fortress passed through German captivity, it was forbidden to mention the defense of the Brest Fortress, and even heroize it - like death .... As always ahead of the "accusers" and "truth-tellers" Boris Sokolov: “After all, under Stalin, the surviving defenders were branded captive, and the official history of the war was silent about the Brest Fortress.”
I have a strong habit of not believing any fighters, and especially Sokolov. Therefore, I will check this truth of his in the last instance. Stalin died on March 5, 1953, I emphasize especially for the “generation that chose Pepsi”. Since, unfortunately, there are no archives at hand, and it’s too lazy to go to libraries and leaf through yellowed newspapers, and somehow out of date, I’ll use the Google Books search (anyone can repeat), the task is simple to find publications in magazines and books about the Brest Fortress for the period from 1945 to 1953, see what they wrote about the defense, how they spoke about the defenders of the fortress.
Brest Fortress
And now, we can easily find out that in the Minsk Theater. Ya. Kupala puts on a play Gubarevich "The Citadel of Glory" - "about the immortal feat and unbending courage of the soldiers of the Soviet Army who heroically defended the Brest Fortress" (Ogonyok magazine, 1951) it was told about the defenders of the Brest Fortress... This play was widely recognized by the audience in the republic and abroad. Approximately 1000 performances were shown over the course of 36 years. (Brest theatrical)
More search results
M. Zlatogorov's article in Ogonyok (1948. No. 8. P. 13-14) “Brest Fortress! Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, the first German shells and bombs exploded here. And here, for the first time, the Nazis learned what Soviet fortitude and Soviet courage are.
Science and life, 1949:
Unfading glory troops of the Soviet Army covered themselves, defending Brest, Gomel, Mogilev and other cities of Belarus. Until July 9, 1941, valiant fighters and commanders fought, besieged from all sides in the Brest Fortress.
Theatre, 1953: " BREST FORTRESS» In one of the museums in Moscow lies a piece of glass under glass Brest fortress walls with the inscription: "We are dying, …
These words were written by courageous defenders Brest Fortress, until the last breath defending the borders of their …
Change, 1952:
The inscription-oath of a group of defenders of the Brest Fortress, discovered in the summer of 1952 on the wall of one of the strongholds ... The defenders of the Brest Fortress inscribed one of the bright and unforgettable pages.
New World, 1952:
A lot of positive feedback was caused by P. Krivonogov's painting "Defenders of the Brest Fortress". The artist depicted unforgettable episode of the Great Patriotic War heroic defense of the Brest fortress in the summer of 1941
Yes, the picture of the artist, Honored Artist of the RSFSR, Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1949), P. Krivonogov, “Defenders of the Brest Fortress”, known from school textbooks, was written in 1951
Defenders of the Brest Fortress
In a strange way, Stalin "hushed up" the heroic defense and the feat of the garrison. The circulation of the Ogonyok magazine alone in those years was 850,000 copies.
Continuing and expanding the search conditions, I find out that the first publication about the feat of the Fortress garrison - the newspaper "Red Star" dated June 21, 1942 (!) published an article by Colonel M. Tolchenov "A year ago in Brest"
The same "Red Star" writes "Legendary defenders of the Brest Fortress" in the issue of November 23, 1951
"Red Star" 11/23/1951
The newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda is the central organ of the USSR Ministry of Defense, a daily publication, post-war circulation of 400-500 thousand copies. Well, where is the "silence" here?
I am not saying that the history of the Great Patriotic War under Stalin was not retouched. But what is happening now is beyond comparison. If we talk about "hushing up", then this is true in relation to the Khrushchev times and the present. No, that under Nikita Sergeevich, that in our days the feat of the defenders of the fortress is not deheroized, they are simply silent about the reasons that forced the defense of the Fortress. They are silent about who drove 4 divisions into a plot of 20 square meters. kilometers at a distance of several hundred meters from the border.
The fact is that no one planned to defend, to defend this very citadel. The very purpose of the fortress - not to let the enemy in - makes it a mousetrap for the garrison. It is as difficult to leave the fortress as it is for the enemy to get into it.
The garrison of the city of Brest at the beginning of the war consisted of three rifle divisions and one tank division, this is not counting parts of the NKVD troops. The approximate number of personnel is 30-35 thousand people. In the fortress itself there were: the 125th rifle regiment without the 1st battalion and a sapper company, the 84th rifle regiment without 2 battalions, the 333rd rifle regiment without the 1st battalion and rifle company, the 75th separate reconnaissance battalion, 98th separate anti-tank division, 131st artillery regiment, headquarters battery, 31st automobile battalion, 37th separate communications battalion and a number of other formations of the 6th rifle division; 455th rifle regiment without the 1st battalion and engineer company (one battalion was in a fort 4 km northwest of Brest), 44th rifle regiment without 2 battalions (were located in a fort 2 km south of the fortress) 158th automobile battalion and rear units of the 42nd division. In addition, the fortress housed the headquarters of the 33rd district engineer regiment, ½ of the district military hospital on Hospital Island, a border outpost and a separate 132nd NKVD battalion. In total, there were about 9,000 military personnel in the fortress.
Naturally, the troops did not have the task of defending the fortress, their task was to occupy the defense lines and prevent the Germans from breaking through along the highway to Minsk, three rifle and one tank divisions could defend a front section of 30-40 kilometers. The troops began to defend the Brest Fortress, which was used as winter quarters, because they could not leave the citadel. Now a simple question: who is to blame for the fact that such a mass of troops was crowded in the closed space of the fortress? Answer: commander of the troops of the Western Special Military District, General of the Army D.G. Pavlov. It cannot be said that no one understood all the danger hanging over the garrison of Brest. From the memoirs of General Sandalov, the former chief of staff of the 4th Army: “After all, according to the district plan, only one rifle battalion with an artillery division was intended to defend the fortress itself. The rest of the garrison had to quickly leave the fortress and take up prepared positions along the border in the army zone. But the capacity of the fortress gates was too small. It took at least three hours to withdraw the troops and institutions located there from the fortress ... Of course, such a placement of the corps must be considered temporary, caused by a lack of housing stock. With the construction of the barracks, we will reconsider this issue ...
Pavlov probably managed to convince the Chief of the General Staff. A few days later we received an official written order confirming everything that Pavlov had said orally. The only "concession" to us was permission to place one rifle regiment of the 42nd division outside the Brest Fortress and place it in the Zhabinka area.
- Well, - Fedor Ivanovich Shlykov sighed heavily, - now we have neither the second echelon nor the reserves in our army. There is no longer any need for us to go east of Kobrin: there is nothing of ours left ...
In the spring of 1941, the Brest garrison was replenished with a new rifle division. Yes, the tank brigade that was there before, having turned into a tank division. has quadrupled in number. In a word, Brest has accumulated great amount troops And the district hospital still remained in the fortress.
Part of the storage facilities had to be adapted to accommodate the personnel and even some of the forts of the fortress, blown up in 1915, had to be restored. In the lower floors of the barracks, four-tiered bunks were arranged.
…
On the night of June 14, I alerted the 6th Infantry Division. The day before, the commander of the 28th Rifle Corps, Major General V. S. Popov, conducted the same alarm in the 42nd Rifle Division. Summing up the results of these two alarms, we unanimously expressed the desire for the withdrawal of the 42nd Infantry Division to the Zhabinka area and for the construction of two or three emergency exits within the walls of the fortress. Later, when our proposal was rejected by the commander of the district, General Popov spoke in favor of withdrawing the 42nd division to the camp on the territory of the Brest artillery range, but the district leadership prevented this as well.
General Pavlov, commander of the 4th Army Korobkov and others were shot in July 1941, and after N.S. Khrushchev was rehabilitated due to the absence of corpus delicti in their actions. It is curious that one of the charges was the death of the garrison of the Brest Fortress, moreover, Pavlov himself admitted his guilt:
From the protocol
"1. Defendant Pavlov. The accusation against me is understandable. I do not plead guilty to participating in an anti-Soviet military conspiracy. I have never been a member of an anti-Soviet conspiratorial organization.
I plead guilty to the fact that I did not have time to check the fulfillment by the commander of the 4th Army, Korobkov, of my order to evacuate troops from Brest. As early as the beginning of June, I gave the order to withdraw units from Brest to the camps. Korobkov did not comply with my order, as a result of which three divisions were defeated by the enemy when leaving the city. . «
Here's how, it turns out that the order to leave the fortress was given at the beginning of June, which is not surprising because. measures to bring troops to combat readiness began to be taken precisely at the beginning of June 1941.
Surprisingly different. General Korobkov denies that he received such an order at all, it seems to be true (see Sandalov's memoirs.)
"Defendant. (Korobkov) The order to withdraw units from Brest was not given by anyone. I personally have not seen such an order.
Defendant Pavlov. In June, on my order, the commander of the 28th Rifle Corps, Popov, was sent with the task of evacuating all troops from Brest to the camps by June 15 .
Defendant Korobkov. I didn't know about it. This means that Popov should be prosecuted for not following the order of the commander . «
It turned out what happened - General Pavlov and his accomplices were acquitted, presented as victims of Stalin's tyranny, although their guilt for the death of four divisions, albeit heroically defending, still not completing the task, is obvious. But, if we admit that they were shot fairly, then it turns out quite, really, badly - Stalin did the right thing ... and Nikita Sergeevich could not allow this. Monuments and memorials began to be erected to the defenders of the Brest Fortress, glorifying their feat and making titanic efforts to avoid the question: who is to blame and how could this happen? And still afraid to name the perpetrators ... hushed up, however.
http://fablewar.ru/2011/08/fortress/
Some of the sources claim that the history of the Brest Fortress began a century before its heroic deed in 1941. This is somewhat untrue. The fortress has existed for a long time. The complete reconstruction of the medieval citadel in the town of Berestye (the historical name of Brest) began in 1836 and lasted 6 years.
Immediately after the fire of 1835, the tsarist government decided to modernize the fortress in order to give it the status of a western outpost of national importance in the future.
Medieval Brest
The fortress arose in the 11th century, references to it can be found in the well-known "Tale of Bygone Years", where the chronicle depicted episodes of the struggle for the throne between two great princes - Svyatopolk and Yaroslav.
Having a very favorable location - on a cape between two rivers, and Mukhavets, Berestye soon acquired the status of a major trading center.
In ancient times, rivers were the main routes for merchant movement. And here, as many as two waterways made it possible to move goods from east to west and vice versa. It was possible to travel along the Bug to Poland, Lithuania and Europe, and along the Mukhavets, through the Pripyat and the Dnieper, to the Black Sea steppes and the Middle East.
One can only guess how picturesque the medieval Brest Fortress was. Photos of illustrations and drawings of the fortress early period- a rarity, it is possible to meet them only as museum exhibits.
In view of the constant transition of the Brest Fortress under the jurisdiction of one or another state and the arrangement of the town in its own way, the plan of both the outpost and the settlement underwent minor changes. Some of them were inspired by the demands of the time, but for more than half a thousand years the Brest Fortress managed to preserve its original medieval color and atmosphere.
1812. French in the citadel
The border geography of Brest has always been the reason for the struggle for the town: for 800 years, the history of the Brest Fortress has captured the dominion of the Turov and Lithuanian principalities, the Commonwealth (Poland), and only in 1795 Brest became an integral part of Russian lands.
But before the invasion of Napoleon, the Russian government did not attach much importance to the ancient fortress. Only during the Russo-French War of 1812, the Brest Fortress confirmed its status as a reliable outpost, which, as the people said, helps its own people and destroys its enemies.
The French also decided to keep Brest behind them, but the Russian troops recaptured the fortress, having won an unconditional victory over the French cavalry units.
Historic decision
This victory served as the starting point for the decision of the tsarist government to build a new and powerful fortification on the site of a rather flimsy medieval fortress, corresponding to the spirit of the times in architectural style and military significance.
And what about the heroes of the Brest Fortress of the seasons? After all, any military action involves the appearance of desperate daredevils and patriots. Their names remained unknown to wide circles of the then public, but it is possible that they received their awards for courage from the hands of Emperor Alexander himself.
Fire in Brest
The fire that engulfed the ancient settlement in 1835 accelerated the process of the general reconstruction of the Brest Fortress. The plans of the then engineers and architects were to destroy the medieval buildings in order to erect in their place completely new structures in terms of architectural character and strategic significance.
The fire destroyed about 300 buildings in the settlement, and this, paradoxically, turned out to be in the hands of both the tsarist government, and the builders, and the population of the town.
Reconstruction
Having issued compensation to the victims of the fire in the form of cash and building materials, the state convinced them to settle not in the fortress itself, but separately - two kilometers from the outpost, thus providing the fortress with the only function - protective.
The history of the Brest Fortress did not know such a grandiose restructuring before: the medieval settlement was demolished to the ground, and in its place a powerful citadel with thick walls, a whole system of drawbridges connecting three artificially created islands, with bastion forts equipped with ravelins, with impregnable a ten-meter earthen rampart, with narrow embrasures, allowing the defenders to remain as protected as possible during the shelling.
The defensive capabilities of the fortress in the 19th century
In addition to protective structures, which, of course, play a leading role in repelling enemy attacks, the number and well-trainedness of the soldiers serving in the border fortress are also important.
The defensive strategy of the citadel was thought out by the architects to the subtleties. Otherwise, why attach the importance of the main fortification to an ordinary soldier's barracks? Living in rooms with walls two meters thick, each of the servicemen was subconsciously ready to repel possible enemy attacks, literally jumping out of bed - at any time of the day.
500 casemates of the fortress easily accommodated 12,000 soldiers with a full set of weapons and provisions for several days. The barracks were so successfully disguised from prying eyes that the uninitiated could hardly guess about their presence - they were located in the thickness of that same ten-meter earthen rampart.
The peculiarity of the architectural design of the fortress was the inextricable connection of its structures: towers protruding forward covered the main citadel from fire, and targeted fire could be fired from the forts located on the islands, protecting the front line.
When the fortress was fortified with a ring of 9 forts, it became practically invulnerable: each of them could accommodate a whole soldier garrison (which is 250 servicemen), plus 20 guns.
Brest Fortress in peacetime
During the period of calm on the state borders, Brest lived a measured, unhurried life. An enviable regularity reigned both in the city and in the fortress, services were performed in churches. There were several churches on the territory of the fortress - nevertheless, one temple could not fit a huge number of military men.
One of the local monasteries was rebuilt into a building for meetings of officer ranks and was named the White Palace.
But even in calm periods, it was not so easy to get into the fortress. The entrance to the "heart" of the citadel consisted of four gates. Three of them, as a symbol of their impregnability, have been preserved by the modern Brest Fortress. The museum begins with the old gates: Kholmsky, Terespolsky, Northern ... Each of them was ordered to become the gate to paradise for many of their defenders in future wars.
Equipping the fortress on the eve of the First World War
During the period of unrest in Europe, the fortress of Brest-Litovsk remained one of the most reliable fortifications on the Russian-Polish border. The main task of the citadel is "to facilitate the freedom of action of the army and navy", which did not have modern weapons and equipment.
Of the 871 weapons, only 34% met the requirements for combat in modern conditions, the rest of the guns were outdated. Among the cannons, old models prevailed, capable of firing shots at a distance of no more than 3 versts. At this time, the potential enemy had mortars and artillery systems
In 1910, the aeronautic battalion of the fortress received its first airship, and in 1911 the Brest-Litovsk fortress was equipped with its own radio station by a special royal decree.
First war of the 20th century
I found the Brest Fortress in a rather peaceful occupation - construction. Attracted villagers from nearby and distant villages actively built additional forts.
The fortress would have been perfectly protected if it had not struck military reform, as a result of which the infantry was disbanded, and the outpost lost its combat-ready garrison. At the beginning of the First World War, only the militia remained in the Brest-Litovsk fortress, who, during the retreat, were forced to burn down the strongest and most modern of the outposts.
But the main event of the first war of the 20th century for the fortress was not connected with military actions - the Brest peace treaty was signed within its walls.
The monuments of the Brest Fortress have a different appearance and character, and this treaty, significant for those times, remains one of them.
How the people learned about the feat of Brest
Most contemporaries know the Brest citadel from the events of the first day of the treacherous attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union. Information about this did not appear immediately, it was published by the Germans themselves in a completely unexpected way: showing restrained admiration for the heroism of the defenders of Brest in personal diaries, which were subsequently found and published by military journalists.
This happened in 1943-1944. Until that time, the feat of the citadel was unknown to a wide audience, and the heroes of the Brest Fortress who survived in the "meat grinder", according to the highest military officials, were considered ordinary prisoners of war who surrendered to the enemy out of cowardice.
The information that local battles took place in the citadel in July, and even in August 1941, also did not immediately become public. But, now historians can say for sure: the Brest Fortress, which the enemy expected to take in 8 hours, held out for a very long time.
Hell start date: June 22, 1941
Before the war, which was not expected, the Brest Fortress looked completely unthreatening: the old earthen rampart sank, overgrown with grass, flowers and sports grounds on the territory. In early June, the main regiments stationed in the fortress left it and went to summer training camps.
The history of the Brest Fortress for all the centuries has not yet known such treachery: the predawn hours of a short summer night became for its inhabitants. Suddenly, out of nowhere, artillery fire was opened on the fortress, taking everyone in it by surprise, and 17,000 ruthless "well done" broke into the territory of the outpost. from the Wehrmacht.
But neither blood, nor horror, nor the death of comrades could break and stop the heroic defenders of Brest. They fought for eight days according to official figures. And another two months - according to unofficial.
It was not so easy and not so fast to give up its positions in 1941, which became an omen of the entire further course of the war and showed the enemy the ineffectiveness of his cold calculations and superweapons, which are defeated by the unpredictable heroism of the poorly armed, but passionately loving the fatherland of the Slavs.
"Talking" stones
What is the Brest Fortress silently screaming about now? The museum has preserved numerous exhibits and stones on which you can read the records of its defenders. Short phrases in one or two lines they take it to the quick, touch representatives of all generations to tears, even though they sound sparingly, masculinely dry and businesslike.
Muscovites: Ivanov, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev chronicled this terrible period - with a nail on the stone, with tears in the heart. Two of them died, the remaining Ivanov also knew that he did not have much time left, he promised: “The last grenade remained. I won’t surrender alive,” and immediately asked: “Revenge us, comrades.”
Among the evidence that the fortress held out for more than eight days, there are dates on the stone: July 20, 1941 is the most distinct of them.
To comprehend the significance of the heroism and stamina of the fortress defenders for the whole country, you just need to remember the place and date: Brest Fortress, 1941.
Creation of a memorial
For the first time after the occupation, representatives of the Soviet Union (official and from the people) were able to enter the territory of the fortress in 1943. Just at that time, publications of excerpts from the diaries of German soldiers and officers appeared.
Before that, Brest was a legend passed from mouth to mouth on all fronts and in the rear. In order to give the events officiality, to stop all kinds of fiction (even positive) and capture the feat of the Brest Fortress over the centuries, it was decided to reclassify the western outpost as a memorial.
The implementation of the idea took place several decades after the end of the war - in 1971. Ruins, burnt and shelled walls - all this has become an integral part of the exposition. The wounded buildings are unique, and they form the main part of the evidence of the courage of their defenders.
In addition, during the peaceful years, the Brest Fortress memorial acquired several thematic monuments and obelisks of a later origin, which harmoniously fit into the original ensemble of the fortress-museum and, with their rigor and conciseness, emphasized the tragedy that occurred within these walls.
Brest Fortress in Literature
The most famous and even somewhat scandalous work about the Brest Fortress was the book by S. S. Smirnov. Having met with eyewitnesses and surviving participants in the defense of the citadel, the author decided to restore justice and whitewash the names of real heroes who were blamed by the then government for being in German captivity.
And he succeeded, although the times were not the most democratic - the mid-50s of the last century.
The book "Brest Fortress" helped many to return to a normal life, not despised by fellow citizens. Photos of some of these lucky ones were widely published in the press, the names were heard on the radio. Even a cycle of radio broadcasts was established, dedicated to the search for the defenders of the Brest stronghold.
Smirnov's work became the saving thread along which, like a mythological heroine, other heroes emerged from the darkness of oblivion - the defenders of Brest, privates and commanders. Among them: Commissar Fomin, Lieutenant Semenenko, Captain Zubachev.
The Brest Fortress is a monument of valor and glory of the people, quite tangible and material. Many mysterious legends about its fearless defenders still live among the people. We know them in the form of literary and musical works, sometimes we meet them in oral folk art.
And live these legends for centuries, because the feat of the Brest Fortress is worthy of being remembered in the 21st, and in the 22nd, and in subsequent centuries.
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 opposing 4th 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 (primarily the 6th Oryol Red Banner and 42nd Rifle Divisions), the 33rd Separate District Engineer Regiment, 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 gave the order to put the troops on alert, it was already too 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. The 45th Infantry Division, a regiment of heavy mortars for special purposes, two divisions of mortars, nine howitzers and two artillery mounts of the Karl system, 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 in the Brest region. 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. The total area of 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 in Western Belarus began: Soviet troops 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. Hubarenko 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, due to heavy fire, 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 into 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 losses 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 the 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 of German soldiers, about 50 people, passed by us. When they came up with the gate, an explosion suddenly sounded in the middle of their formation, 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 Hero Fortress" 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. And indeed, as the German army moved east, the resistance of the Red Army increased - 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, at the walls of the Brest Fortress, that the road of unparalleled courage began, the feat of the Soviet people who defended their Fatherland, the road that ultimately led us to Victory.
Yuri Nikiforov,
Candidate of Historical Sciences
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