How many fought the Brest fortress. Defenders and heroes of the Brest Fortress

13.10.2019

Major Gavrilov

The commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, Major Gavrilov Petr Mikhailovich, for 2 days led the defense in the area of the Northern Gates of the Kobrin fortification, and on the third day of the war he moved to the Eastern Fort, where he commanded a consolidated group of fighters from various units in the amount about 400 people. According to the testimony of the enemy, “... it was impossible to approach here with infantry means, since excellently organized rifle and machine-gun fire from deep trenches and from a horseshoe-shaped courtyard mowed down everyone approaching. There was only one solution left - to force the Russians to surrender by hunger and thirst ... "On June 30, after a long shelling and bombing, the Nazis captured most of the Eastern Fort, but Major Gavrilov continued to fight there with a small group of fighters until July 12. On the 32nd day of the war, after an unequal battle with a group of German soldiers in the North-Western caponier of the Kobrin fortification, he was taken prisoner in an unconscious state.

Released by Soviet troops in May 1945. Until 1946 he served in the Soviet Army. After demobilization he lived in Krasnodar.

In 1957, for courage and heroism in the defense of the Brest Fortress, he was awarded the title of Hero. Soviet Union. He was an honorary citizen of the city of Brest. Died in 1979. He was buried in Brest, at the Garrison Cemetery, where a monument was erected to him. Streets in Brest, Minsk, Pestrachi (in Tataria - in the homeland of the hero), a motor ship, a collective farm in the Krasnodar Territory are named after him.

Lieutenant Kizhevatov

The head of the 9th outpost of the 17th Brest Red Banner Border Detachment, Lieutenant Andrei Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov, was one of the leaders of the defense in the Terespol Gate area. On June 22, Lieutenant Kizhevatov and the soldiers of his outpost from the first minutes of the war took the fight against the Nazi invaders. Was wounded several times. On June 29, with a small group of border guards, he remained to cover the breakthrough group and died in battle. The border post was named after him, where a monument was erected to him, streets in Brest, Kamenets, Kobrin, Minsk.

In 1943, the family of A.M. was brutally shot by fascist executioners. Kizhevatova - wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, children Vanya, Nyura, Galya and an elderly mother.

The organizers of the defense of the citadel

Captain Zubachev

The assistant commander for the economic part of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, Captain Ivan Nikolayevich Zubachev, a participant in the civil war and battles with the White Finns, from June 24, 1941, became the commander of the consolidated battle group of the Citadel defense. On June 30, 1941, seriously wounded and shell-shocked, he was captured. He died in 1944 in the Hammelburg camp. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. Streets in Brest, Zhabinka, Minsk are named after him.

Regimental Commissar Fomin

Deputy commander for political affairs of the 84th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Oryol Rifle Division, Regimental Commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin, led the defense at first at the location of the 84th Infantry Regiment (near the Kholmsky Gates) and in the building of the Engineering Directorate (currently its ruins remain in the area of the Eternal fire), organized one of the first counterattacks of our soldiers.

On June 24, by order N1, the fortress defense headquarters was created. The command was assigned to Captain I.N. Zubacheva, regimental commissar E.M. Fomin was appointed his deputy.

Order No. 1 was found in November 1950 during the dismantling of the rubble of the barracks near the Brest Gates among the remains of 34 Soviet soldiers in the tablet of an unidentified commander. The banner of the regiment was also found here. Fomin was shot by the Nazis at the Kholmsky Gate. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin. Buried under the slabs of the Memorial.

Streets in Minsk, Brest, Liozna, a garment factory in Brest are named after him.

Defender of the Terespol Gate Lieutenant Naganov

The platoon commander of the regimental school of the 333rd rifle regiment of the 6th Oryol rifle division, Lieutenant Naganov Alexei Fedorovich, at dawn on June 22, 1941, with a group of fighters, took up defense in a three-story water tower above the Terespol Gates. Killed in action on the same day. In August 1949, the remains of Naganov and his 14 fighting friends were discovered in ruins.

Urn with ashes of A.F. Naganova is buried in the Necropolis of the memorial. Posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War 1st class.

Streets in Brest and Zhabinka are named after him. A monument was erected to him in Brest.

Defenders of the Kobrin fortification

Captain Shablovsky

The defender of the Kobrin bridgehead Captain Shablovsky Vladimir Vasilievich, commander of the battalion of the 125th rifle regiment of the 6th Oryol rifle division stationed in the Brest Fortress, at dawn on June 22, 1941, led the defense in the area of the Western Fort and the houses of command staff on the Kobrin fortification. For about 3 days, the Nazis besieged residential buildings.

Women and children took part in their defense. The Nazis managed to capture a handful of wounded soldiers. Among them was Captain Shablovsky, along with his wife Galina Korneevna and children. When the prisoners were being led across the bridge over the bypass canal, Shablovsky pushed the guard away with his shoulder and, shouting: “Follow me!”, threw himself into the water. Automatic burst cut short the life of a patriot. Captain Shablovsky was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. Streets in Minsk and Brest are named after him.

In the winter of 1943/44, the Nazis tortured Galina Korneevna Shablovskaya, the mother of four children.

Lieutenant Akimochkin, political instructor Nesterchuk

The chief of staff of the 98th separate anti-tank artillery division, Lieutenant Akimochkin Ivan Filippovich, together with the deputy commander of the division for political affairs, senior political officer Nesterchuk Nikolai Vasilievich, organized defensive positions on the Eastern ramparts of the Kobrin fortification (near the Zvezda). Surviving cannons and machine guns were installed here. For 2 weeks, the heroes held the Eastern Walls, defeated the column of enemy troops moving along the highway. On July 4, 1941, the Nazis seized the seriously wounded Akimochkin and, having found a party card in his tunic, shot him. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. A street in Brest is named after him.

Defense of the Terespol fortification

Art. Lieutenant Melnikov, Lieutenant Zhdanov, St. Lieutenant Black

Under the cover of artillery fire at dawn on June 22, the advance detachment of the 45th Infantry Division of the enemy managed to break through the Terespol Gate into the Citadel. However, the defenders stopped the further advance of the enemy in this area and firmly held their positions for several days. A group of the head of the courses for drivers, Art. Lieutenant Fyodor Mikhailovich Melnikov, 80 border guards led by Lieutenant Zhdanov and soldiers of the transport company led by Senior Lieutenant Cherny Akim Stepanovich - about 300 people in total.

The losses of the Germans here, by their own admission, "especially officers, took on deplorable proportions ... Already on the first day of the war, the headquarters of two German units were surrounded and defeated at the Terespol fortification, and the unit commanders were killed." On the night of June 24-25, the joint group of Art. Lieutenant Melnikov and Cherny made a breakthrough to the Kobrin fortification. The cadets, led by Lieutenant Zhdanov, continued to fight on the Terespol fortification and on June 30 made their way to the Citadel. On July 5, the soldiers decided to join the Red Army. Only three managed to break out of the besieged fortress - Myasnikov, Sukhorukov and Nikulin.

Myasnikov Mikhail Ivanovich, a cadet of the district courses of drivers of the border troops, fought on the Terespol fortification and in the Citadel until July 5, 1941. With a group of border guards, he broke through from the enemy ring and, retreating through the Belarusian forests, joined with units of the Soviet Army in the Mozyr area. For the heroism shown in the battles during the liberation of the city of Sevastopol, Senior Lieutenant Myasnikov M.I. was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Senior Lieutenant Cherny Akim Stepanovich, commander of the transport company of the 17th Red Banner Border Detachment. One of the leaders of the defense at the Terespol fortification. On the night of June 25, together with a group of senior lieutenant Melnikov, he made his way to the Kobrin fortification. June 28 shell-shocked was captured. Passed fascist camps: Biala Podlaska, Hammelburg. He took part in the activities of the underground anti-fascist committee in the Nuremberg camp. Released from captivity in May 1945.

Defense of the Volyn fortification

Military doctor 1st rank Babkin, Art. political instructor Kislitsky, commissar Bogateev

The Volyn fortification housed the hospitals of the 4th Army and the 25th Rifle Corps, the 95th Medical Battalion of the 6th Rifle Division, and the regimental school of the 84th Rifle Regiment. At the South Gate, the fortifications were held back by the cadets of the regimental school of the 84th Infantry Regiment under the leadership of senior political officer L.E. Kislitsky.

The Germans captured the building of the hospital by noon on June 22, 1941. The head of the hospital, military doctor of the 2nd rank Babkin Stepan Semenovich and battalion commissar Bogateev Nikolai Semenovich, saving the sick and wounded, died heroically, shooting back from the enemy.

A group of cadets of the regimental school of junior commanders, with some of the patients from the hospital and fighters who arrived from the Citadel, fought until June 27.

Pupils of musician platoons

Petya Vasiliev

From the first minutes of the war, Petya Vasiliev, a pupil of the musician platoon, helped to pull out ammunition from destroyed warehouses, delivered food from a dilapidated store, performed reconnaissance tasks, and obtained water. Participating in one of the attacks on the liberation of the Red Army club (church), he replaced the deceased machine gunner. Petya's well-aimed fire forced the Nazis to lie down, and then run back. In this battle, the seventeen-year-old hero was mortally wounded. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. Buried in the Memorial Necropolis.

Petr Klypa

A pupil of the musician platoon of Klypa, Petr Sergeevich, fought at the Terespol Gates of the Citadel until July 1st. He delivered ammunition and food to the fighters, obtained water for children, women, the wounded and the fighting defenders of the fortress. Conducted reconnaissance. For fearlessness and ingenuity, the fighters called Petya "Gavroche of Brest". During a breakout from the fortress, he was taken prisoner. Escaped from prison, but was captured and taken to work in Germany. After his release he served in the Soviet Army. For courage and heroism shown during the days of the defense of the Brest Fortress, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

Women in the defense of the Brest Fortress

Vera Khorpetskaya

"Verochka" - that's what everyone in the hospital called her. On June 22, a girl from the Minsk region, together with the battalion commissar Bogateev, carried the sick out of the burning building. When she found out that there were many wounded in the thick bushes where the border guards were stationed, she rushed there. Dressings: one, two, three - and the soldiers again go to the line of fire. And the Nazis are still squeezing the ring. A fascist emerged from behind a bush with an overweight machine gun, followed by another, Khoretskaya leaned forward, covering the exhausted warrior with herself. The crackle of automatic fire merged with last words nineteen year old girl. She died in battle. She was buried in the Memorial Necropolis.

Raisa Abakumova

In the Eastern Fort, a dressing station was organized in the shelter. It was headed by military assistant Raisa Abakumova. From under enemy fire, she carried seriously wounded soldiers on herself, in shelters she provided them with medical care.

Praskovya Tkacheva

Nurse Praskovya Leontievna Tkacheva from the first minutes of the war throws herself into the smoke of the hospital on fire. From the second floor, where postoperative patients lay, she managed to save more than twenty people. Then, after being seriously wounded, she was taken prisoner. In the summer of 1942, she became a liaison officer in the Chernak partisan detachment.

From February 1941, Germany began the transfer of troops to the borders of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of June, reports were already almost continuously coming from the operational departments of the western border districts and armies, indicating that the concentration of German troops near the borders of the USSR was completed. The enemy in a number of sectors began to dismantle the wire obstacles he had previously set up and to clear mine strips on the ground, clearly preparing passages for his troops to the Soviet border. Large tank groupings of the Germans were withdrawn to the starting areas. Everything pointed to the imminent start of the war.

At half past midnight on June 22, 1941, a directive signed by People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR S.K. Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff G.K. It said that during June 22-23, a surprise attack by German troops on the fronts of these districts was possible. It was also pointed out that the attack could begin with provocative actions, so the task of the Soviet troops was not to succumb to any provocations. However, the need for the districts to be in full combat readiness, to meet a possible surprise attack by the enemy was further emphasized. The directive obligated the commanders of the troops: a) during the night of June 22, to covertly occupy the firing points of fortified areas on the state border; b) before dawn, disperse all aviation, including military aviation, over field airfields, carefully disguise it; c) put all units on combat readiness; troops to keep dispersed and disguised; d) put the air defense on alert without additional lifting of the assigned staff. Prepare all measures to darken cities and objects. However, the western military districts did not have time to fully implement this order.

The Great Patriotic War began on June 22, 1941 with the invasion of the army groups "North", "Center" and "South" in three strategic directions, aimed at Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, with the task of dissecting, encircling and destroying the troops of the Soviet border districts and go to the line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan. Already at 4.10 am, the Western and Baltic special districts reported to the General Staff about the start of hostilities by the German troops.

The main striking force of Germany, as in the invasion in the west, was four powerful armored groups. Two of them, the 2nd and 3rd, were included in the Army Group Center, designed to be the main offensive front, and one each in the Army Groups North and South. At the tip of the main strike, the activities of the armored groups were supported by the power of the 4th and 9th field armies, and from the air - by the aviation of the 2nd air fleet. In total, Army Group Center (commanded by Field Marshal von Bock) consisted of 820 thousand people, 1800 tanks, 14300 guns and mortars and 1680 combat aircraft. The plan of the commander of Army Group Center, which was advancing in the eastern strategic direction, was to inflict two converging attacks on the flanks of Soviet troops in Belarus in the general direction of Minsk with tank groups, to surround the main forces of the Western Special Military District (from June 22 - Western front) and destroy them with field armies. In the future, the German command planned to move mobile troops to the Smolensk region to prevent the approach of strategic reserves and their occupation of defense at a new frontier.

The Hitlerite command expected that by delivering a surprise strike with concentrated masses of tanks, infantry and aviation, it would be possible to stun Soviet troops, crush the defenses and achieve decisive strategic success already in the first days of the war. The command of the Army Group "Center" concentrated the bulk of the troops and military equipment in the first operational echelon, which included 28 divisions, including 22 infantry, 4 tank, 1 cavalry, 1 security. A high operational density of troops was created in areas of defense breakthrough (the average operational density was about 10 km per division, and up to 5-6 km in the direction of the main attack). This allowed the enemy to achieve a significant superiority in forces and means over the Soviet troops in the direction of the main attack. The superiority in manpower was 6.5 times, in the number of tanks - 1.8 times, in the number of guns and mortars - 3.3 times.

The blow of this armada was taken by the troops of the Western Special Military District located in the border zone. The Soviet border guards were the first to enter the battle with the advanced units of the enemy.

The Brest Fortress was a whole complex of defensive structures. The central one is the Citadel - a pentagonal closed two-story defensive barracks with a perimeter of 1.8 km, with walls almost two meters thick, with loopholes, embrasures, and casemates. The central fortification is located on an island formed by the Bug and two branches of the Mukhavets. Three artificial islands are connected with this island by bridges, formed by Mukhavets and ditches, on which there were the Terespol fortification with the Terespol gates and a bridge over the Western Bug, Volynskoye - with the Kholmsky gates and a drawbridge over Mukhavets, Kobrinskoye - with the Brest and Brigitsky gates and bridges over Mukhavets .

Defenders of the Brest Fortress. Soldiers of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division. 1941 Photo from the BELTA archive

On the day of the German attack on the Soviet Union, 7 rifle battalions and 1 reconnaissance, 2 artillery battalions, some special forces of rifle regiments and units of corps units, training camps of the 6th Oryol Red Banner and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle corps were stationed in the Brest Fortress 4th Army, units of the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Detachment, 33rd Separate Engineer Regiment, part of the 132nd Battalion of the NKVD troops, unit headquarters (the headquarters of divisions and the 28th Rifle Corps were located in Brest). The units were not deployed in combat and did not occupy positions at the border lines. Some units or their units were in camps, at training grounds, at the construction of a fortified area. By the time of the attack, there were from 7 to 8 thousand Soviet soldiers in the fortress, 300 families of military personnel lived here.

From the first minutes of the war, Brest and the fortress were subjected to massive air bombardments and artillery fire. The German 45th Infantry Division (about 17 thousand soldiers and officers) stormed the Brest Fortress in cooperation with the 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army Corps of the 4th German Army, as well as 2 tank divisions of the 2nd Panzer Guderian's group, with the active support of aviation and reinforcement units, which were armed with heavy artillery systems. The aim of the enemy was, using the surprise of the attack, to capture the Citadel and force the Soviet garrison to surrender.

Before the start of the assault, the enemy conducted a hurricane aimed shelling of the fortress for half an hour, moving a flurry of artillery fire every 4 minutes 100 meters deep into the fortress. Next came the enemy's strike assault groups, which, according to the plans of the German command, were to capture the fortifications by 12 noon on June 22. As a result of shelling and fires, most of the warehouses and the material part, many other objects were destroyed or destroyed, the water supply system stopped working, communications were interrupted. A significant part of the fighters and commanders was put out of action, the garrison of the fortress was divided into separate groups.

In the first minutes of the war, border guards on the Terespol fortification, Red Army soldiers and cadets of regimental schools of the 84th and 125th rifle regiments, located near the border, on the Volyn and Kobrin fortifications, entered into battle with the enemy. Their stubborn resistance allowed about half of the personnel to leave the fortress on the morning of June 22, withdraw several guns and light tanks to the areas where their units were concentrated, and evacuate the first wounded. 3.5-4 thousand Soviet soldiers remained in the fortress. The enemy had almost 10-fold superiority in forces.

The Germans at the Terespol Gates of the Brest Fortress. June, 1941 Photo from the BELTA archive

On the first day of fighting, by 9 o'clock in the morning, the fortress was surrounded. The advanced units of the 45th German division tried to capture the fortress on the move. Through the bridge at the Terespol Gates, enemy assault groups broke into the Citadel, captured the building of the regimental club (the former church), which dominated other buildings, where spotters of artillery fire immediately settled. At the same time, the enemy developed an offensive in the direction of the Kholmsky and Brest Gates, hoping to link up there with groups advancing from the direction of the Volyn and Kobrin fortifications. This plan was thwarted. At the Kholmsky Gate, soldiers of the 3rd battalion and headquarters units of the 84th Infantry Regiment entered into battle with the enemy, at the Brest Gates, soldiers of the 455th Infantry Regiment, the 37th Separate Communications Battalion, and the 33rd Separate Engineer Regiment launched a counterattack. With bayonet attacks, the enemy was crushed and overturned.

The retreating Nazis were met with dense fire by Soviet soldiers at the Terespol Gate, which by this time had been recaptured from the enemy. Border guards of the 9th frontier post and staff units of the 3rd border commandant's office - the 132nd NKVD battalion, soldiers of the 333rd and 44th rifle regiments, and the 31st separate autobattalion entrenched here. They held the bridge over the Western Bug under aimed rifle and machine-gun fire, and prevented the enemy from establishing a pontoon crossing across the river to the Kobrin fortification. Only a few of the German submachine gunners who broke through to the Citadel managed to hide in the club building and the neighboring canteen building. The enemy here was destroyed on the second day. Subsequently, these buildings repeatedly passed from hand to hand.

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.

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. On the territory of each fortification, the Nazi invaders met the stubborn heroic resistance of Soviet soldiers.

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. cavalry courses, a sapper platoon, reinforced outfits of the 9th frontier post, a veterinary hospital, 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 battalion of the 6th rifle division, there was a small part of the regimental school for junior commanders of the 84th rifle regiment, outfits of the 9th and frontier posts. 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, the nurses V.P. Khoretskaya and E.I. Rovnyagina died. 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.

The course of the defense required the unification of all the forces of the defenders of the fortress. On June 24, a meeting of commanders and political workers was held in the Citadel, where the issue of creating a consolidated combat group, forming units from soldiers of different units, and approving their commanders who emerged during the hostilities was decided. Order No. 1 was issued, according to which the command of the group was assigned to Captain Zubachev, and Regimental Commissar Fomin was appointed his deputy. In practice, they were able to lead the defense only in the Citadel. Although the command of the combined group failed to unify the leadership of the battles throughout the fortress, the headquarters played a large role in intensifying the hostilities.

The Germans in the Brest Fortress. 1941 Photo from the BELTA archive

By decision of the command of the combined group, attempts were made to break through the encirclement. On June 26, a detachment of 120 people 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.

The Nazis systematically attacked the fortress for a whole week. Soviet soldiers had to fight off 6-8 attacks a day. Next to the fighters were women and children. They helped the wounded, brought cartridges, participated in hostilities. The Nazis set in motion tanks, flamethrowers, gases, set fire to and rolled barrels with a combustible mixture from the outer shafts.

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 air bombs. On June 29, Andrei Mitrofanovich Kizhevatov died covering a breakthrough group 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.

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 Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov continued to fight in the Eastern Fort, until he, seriously wounded, together with the secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 98th separate anti-tank artillery battalion, deputy political instructor G.D. Derevyanko, were captured 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. 07/20/41". None of the banners of the military units that fought in the fortress went to the enemy.

Inscriptions on the walls of the Brest Fortress. Photo from the BELTA archive

The enemy was forced to note the steadfastness and heroism of the fortress defenders. 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."

The defenders of the fortress - warriors of more than 30 nationalities of the USSR - fulfilled their duty to the Motherland to the end, performed one of the greatest feats of the Soviet people in the history of the Great Patriotic War. The exceptional heroism of the fortress defenders was highly appreciated. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Major Gavrilov and Lieutenant Kizhevatov. About 200 defense participants were awarded orders and medals.

Ministry of Education and Science Russian Federation

Far Eastern State University

Branch in Ussuriysk

Faculty of Higher vocational education

Test

By Patriotic history

Theme: Brest Fortress

Completed: Zueva E.N.

Checked: Borisevich S.P.

Ussuriysk, 2010

Plan

Introduction

1. Brest Fortress. Construction and device

2. Defense of the Brest Fortress

3. Causes of military defeats at the first stage of the war (1941-1942)

Conclusion

List of used sources and literature

Appendix

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, the Soviet intelligence officer 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 longest days of the year, Germany began the 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, the night squads and patrols of the 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 unceasingly floated 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 rumble 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.

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 Kiev. But the strongest grouping of enemy troops 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 eastward - 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 region. 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. Brest Fortress. Construction and device

Brest Fortress, a monument of defensive architecture of the 19th century. Located in the western part of Brest. It was erected in the middle of the 19th century on the site of an ancient settlement, on islands formed by the Western Bug and Mukhavets rivers, their branches and artificial channels. The important military-strategic position of Brest-Litovsk in the west of Russia determined the choice of its place for the construction of the fortress. It was at the confluence of the Western Bug and Mukhavets that the military engineer Devalan proposed in 1797 to create fortifications. The project of the fortress, developed by Russian military engineers K. Opperman, Maletsky and A. Feldman, was approved in 1830. The construction of 4 fortifications (at first temporary) began. The Central (Citadel) was built on the site of the trade and craft center of the city, which in connection with this was moved to the right bank of the Mukhavets.

The Volyn (Southern) fortification was built on the site of an ancient citadel, where, by the beginning of the construction of the Brest Fortress, there was the Brest Castle (dismantled during this period). The Kobrin (Northern) fortification was erected on the site of the Kobrin suburb, where hundreds of townspeople's estates were located. Terespol (Western) was built on the left bank of the Western Bug. There were many churches, monasteries, churches on the built-up territory. Some of them were rebuilt or adapted to the needs of the fortress garrison. On Central Island, the Jesuit Collegium, built in the 18th century, housed the office of the commandant of the fortress; the Basilian monastery, later known as the White Palace, was rebuilt as an officer assembly. On the Volyn fortification in the Bernardine monastery, which existed since the beginning of the 17th century, in 1842-54. there was the Brest Cadet Corps, later a military hospital.

The reconstruction of temporary fortifications was carried out in 1833-42. The first stone of the fortress was laid on 06/01/1836. It was opened on 04/26/1842. The total area of all fortifications is 4 square kilometers, the length of the main fortress line is 6.4 km. The main defensive hub was the Citadel - a curvilinear in plan, closed 2-storey barracks 1.8 km long with walls almost two meters thick. Its 500 casemates could accommodate 12,000 people with the necessary equipment for combat and food supplies. The niches of the walls of the barracks with loopholes and embrasures were adapted for firing from rifles and cannons. The compositional center of the Citadel is the Nicholas Church built on the highest place of the garrison (1856-1879, architect G. Grimm). Gates and bridges connected the Citadel with other fortifications. Communication with the Kobrin fortification was carried out through the Brest and Brigit gates and bridges over Mukhavets, with Terespol - through the gates of the same name and the largest cable bridge in Russia at that time over the Western Bug, with Volyn - through the Kholmsky gates and a drawbridge over Mukhavets. The Kholm and Terespol Gates have been partially preserved. Kholmsky previously had 4 towers with battlements. There were 4 tiers of windows-loopholes above the entrance opening of the Terespolskys, over which a three-tiered tower with a watch platform was later built.

Terespol, Kobrin, Volyn bridgeheads with reduits (forts), a system of bastions, ramparts and water barriers protected the Citadel. An earth rampart up to 10 m high with stone casemates ran along the outer line of the fortress, followed by canals with bridges thrown over them, which led outside the fortress. At the beginning of its existence, the Brest Fortress was one of the most advanced fortifications in Russia. In 1857, General E.I. Totleben proposed to modernize Russian fortifications in accordance with the increased power of artillery. In 1864, the reconstruction of the Brest Fortress began. The Western and Eastern reduits were built - horseshoe-shaped fortifications with casemates, traverses, powder magazines, in 1878-1888. - 10 more forts, after which the defensive line reached 30 km. As a result of the 2nd reconstruction (1911-1914), in which military engineer D.M. Karbyshev took part, the line of fortifications was completely modernized. At a distance of 6-7 km from the Brest Fortress, the 2nd line of forts was created. But the construction and reconstruction of the forts of the fortress were not completed before the start of the 1st World War. During the Revolution of 1905-1907. in the fortress there were performances of the Brest-Litovsk garrison in 1905-1906. In August 1915, the Russian command, in order to avoid encirclement, evacuated the garrison and blew up some of the fortifications. With the outbreak of World War I, the fortress was intensively preparing for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915, during the general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. March 3, 1918 in the citadel, in the so-called "White Palace" ( former monastery Basilian, 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; then under the control of the Poles; in 1920 it was occupied by the Red Army, but soon it was recaptured by the Poles and in 1921, according to the Treaty of Riga, it withdrew to Poland. It was used as a barracks, a military warehouse and a political prison; in the 1930s opposition politicians were imprisoned there. In September 1939, when the troops of Nazi Germany attacked Poland, part of the barracks of the Citadel was destroyed, the buildings of the White Palace and the engineering department were damaged. With the increase in mobility and the improvement of the technical equipment of the armies, the Brest Fortress as a military defense complex has lost its significance. It was used for quartering units of the Red Army. On June 22, 1941, the fortress garrison was one of the first to take the blow of the Nazi invaders.

2. 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 military 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 watched feature films about this defense had the impression.

Indeed, on the eve of the war, more than half of the units were withdrawn to camps for exercises from the Brest Fortress - 10 out of 18 rifle battalions, 3 out of 4 artillery regiments, one out of two anti-aircraft defense 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 fighters 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 (if there was a full staff), 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. One mortar jammed during the first shot. 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 of the German army on the eastern front by June 30, 1941 amounted to 8886 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 the 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.

In the shortest possible time, they rallied their forces and organized a rebuff to the Nazi invaders. After 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, reported, 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 that fired so excellent 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 a 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.

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," the remains of 132 soldiers discovered during excavations of the White Palace and the inscription left on the bricks testify to this: "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 undertook 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 B. k. 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, having escaped from 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 of the military units that fought in the fortress went to the enemy. 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 Soviet soldiers wounded by explosions continued to fire 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 below the flashes of shell explosions, 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 difficult, harsh days of retreat, she deeply penetrated 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.

According to the enemy, "it was impossible to approach here, having only infantry means, since the excellently organized rifle and machine-gun fire from deep trenches and a horseshoe-shaped yard mowed down everyone approaching. There was only one solution left - to force the Russians to surrender by hunger and thirst ..." . The Nazis systematically attacked the fortress for a whole week. Soviet soldiers had to fight off 6-8 attacks a day. Next to the fighters were women and children. They helped the wounded, brought cartridges, participated in hostilities. The Nazis set in motion tanks, flamethrowers, gases, set fire to and rolled barrels with a combustible mixture from the outer shafts. The casemates burned and collapsed, there was nothing to breathe, but when the enemy infantry went on the attack, hand-to-hand fights began again. In short intervals of relative calm, calls to surrender were heard in the loudspeakers.

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 the found combat order No. 1, we know the names of the commanders of the units that defended the center: Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev, Senior 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 killed 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 perseverance, devotion to duty, the courage they showed in spite of everything - 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, senior sergeant Abdullaev D. Abdulla oglu, a pupil of the regiment P. S. Klypa and many others. Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

3. Causes of military defeats at the first stage of the war (1941-1942)

Why did the attack of fascist Germany on the USSR become so unexpected for the military and political leadership of the country, which led to catastrophic losses and the retreat of the Red Army in 1941-1942, at the first stage of the war? One of the main reasons for what happened is that fascist Germany turned out to be more prepared for war. Its economy was fully mobilized. Germany seized huge stocks of metal, building materials and weapons in the West. The Nazis had an advantage in the number of troops mobilized and deployed in advance near the western borders of the USSR, in automatic weapons, and the presence of a large number of vehicles and mechanized equipment significantly increased the mobility of military units. The tragic outcome of the first military operations for the troops of the Red Army was significantly influenced by the experience of the war gained by the Nazi troops in 1939-1941 in the Western theater of operations.

The combat readiness of the Red Army was greatly weakened by the unjustified repressions of military personnel in the prewar years. In this regard, the command staff of the Red Army in terms of their professional training was actually thrown back to the level of the end of the civil war. A huge number of experienced and educated Soviet military leaders, who thought in terms of modern warfare, were shot on false charges. Because of this, the level of combat training of the troops dropped sharply, and it was no longer possible to increase it in a short time. The results of the unsuccessful bloody war with Finland for the USSR became the main symptom of the emerging threatening situation. The deplorable state of the Red Army, and, above all, its command personnel, was well known to the political and military leadership of Nazi Germany. In the conditions of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the process of strengthening the Soviet officer corps was further complicated by the fact that many middle and even top-level commanders who failed to cope with their duties during the first period of the difficult retreat and defeats of the Red Army were tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to death. The same commanders who were captured by the enemy were indiscriminately declared traitors and enemies of the people.

In 1935-1939. more than 48 thousand commanders and political workers were dismissed from the Red Army, and a significant part of them were arrested. About 11 thousand, including the future Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky, who spent almost three years in prison on the absurd charge of spying for Poland, returned to the troops, but on the eve and in the first days of the war another group of top Soviet military leaders was arrested, including the former Chief of the General Staff, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Hero of the Soviet Union Meretskov, Assistant Chief of the General Staff, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, who distinguished himself in battles in Spain and Khalkhin Gol Ya.V. Smushkevich, head of the Air Force, Hero of the Soviet Union P.V. Rychagov, head of the air defense department, participant in the battles at Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, Hero of the Soviet Union G.M. Stern, Commander of the Baltic Military District K.D. Loktionov, intelligence chief I.I. Proskurov. Meretskov alone survived, all the rest were shot in October 1941. By the summer of 1941, about 75% of commanders and 70% of political workers had been in their positions for less than one year. In such a short period of time, they could not fully get used to the new duties and successfully carry them out. The new cadres put forward to replace the repressed were often brave, energetic and capable, but according to the level of training and experience of the previous service, they could not successfully lead the units entrusted to them.

The military high command often lacked a systematic military and general education. Having reached high positions and ranks, they often retained the habits of their soldierly youth - they controlled their subordinates with the help of obscenities, and sometimes poking (this, according to N.S. Khrushchev, was sinned, for example, by Marshal S.M. Budyonny, commanders of the fronts, generals A .I. Eremenko and V.N. Gordov). Some people suffered from drinking bouts, like General M.M., who commanded the Northern Front. Popov. Both people's commissars of defense of the pre-war period: close to Stalin, the famous political figure K.E. Voroshilov and S.K. Timoshenko, a dashing grunt-cavalryman during the Civil War, had only a primary education. The proportion of people with higher education in the command staff of the Red Army was in 1940. only 2.9%. Lack of education and experience in modern warfare, some military leaders made up for in great self-confidence. Thus, the commander of the Western Special Military District (the future Western Front), General Pavlov, before the war, argued that one "Soviet tank corps is able to solve the problem of destroying one or two tank and four to five infantry divisions." At a meeting in the Kremlin on January 13, 1941, Chief of the General Staff Meretskov said: "Our division is much stronger than the Nazi division": "in a meeting battle, it will certainly defeat the German division. In defense, one of our divisions will repel the blow of two or three divisions adversary."

Germany had a significant advantage over the forces of the border districts - 1.4 times. The technical equipment of the Red Army was inferior to the German one. German planes and tanks had radio communications and far surpassed the bulk of Soviet planes and tanks in terms of speed, armament and maneuverability. New samples of tanks and aircraft, created in the USSR on the eve of the war, were not inferior to the German ones, but there were few of them. In the border districts there were only 1,475 new tanks and 1,540 new types of combat aircraft, and only a part of the crews mastered their control. German troops traveled mainly by road and were controlled by radio, while Soviet troops often moved on foot or horse-drawn. They had few radio stations, and wired communication was unreliable. Most of the soldiers of the Red Army were armed with rifles (and even those were sometimes not enough), and the German soldiers were armed with machine guns. There were few anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery in the Red Army; the fighters had to go against tanks with Molotov cocktails, which for some reason were called "Molotov cocktails" abroad.

Of great importance was the fact that the German army had two years of experience in modern warfare, while the Red Army had no such experience. The German command has already carried out a number of successful operations in Europe; German staffs received a lot of practice in commanding troops and interacting with each other; German pilots, tankers, artillerymen, specialists of all branches of the armed forces received good training and were fired upon in battles. On the contrary, the leaders of the Red Army participated only in the Civil War and relatively small-scale local military conflicts in Spain, Khalkhin Gol and Finland.

Another set of reasons that influenced the catastrophic situation for the Red Army at the start of the war was that the Soviet military and especially the political leadership made a serious miscalculation in assessing the military-political situation on the eve of the German invasion. Thus, the Soviet defense plan proceeded from Stalin's erroneous assumption that in the event of war, Germany's main blow would be directed not in the Minsk direction against Moscow, but in the south, against Ukraine, with the aim of further advancing to the oil-bearing Caucasus. Therefore, the main grouping of troops of the Red Army was located in the southwestern direction, while it was considered by the German command at first as secondary. The weakness and discrepancy between the armament and organization of the Red Army troops in the conditions of modern warfare, so clearly revealed during the Soviet-Finnish conflict, led the Soviet leadership to decide on the need for their rearmament and reorganization.

But this process dragged on and was not completed until the attack of the Nazi troops. The fact is that such a large-scale reorganization, without taking into account the real possibilities of providing the troops with weapons and military equipment, as well as well-trained command personnel, turned out to be impossible. For example, in March 1941, it was decided to create 20 mechanized corps, which were disbanded in 1939 as a result of an erroneous decision by the then leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense. This required about 32 thousand tanks, of which 16.6 thousand were new. However, the industry could not deliver such a quantity of equipment in such a short time, especially the latest designs.

The leaders of the People's Commissariat of Defense, who were promoted to high posts after 1938, could not always correctly assess the advantages of the new types of weapons submitted to them for consideration and accept them for service. So, it was believed that machine guns were of no importance for the conduct of modern hostilities, as a result of which the three-line rifle (though modernized) of the 1891 model was still in service with the Red Army. The combat capabilities of jet weapons were not evaluated in time. Only in June 1941, after the attack on the USSR, it was decided to put into mass production the later famous Katyushas.

The country's leadership did not have a firm opinion about the latest Soviet tanks KV and T-34. True, they were already in the army, but their industrial production was delayed due to the indecision of the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense. For the same reason, the production of cannon artillery and new machine guns was reduced, and little anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns were produced. The combat advantages of 45 and 76 mm artillery pieces were not appreciated. Not a single issue related to the issues of arming the Red Army and supplying it with military equipment was resolved without Stalin's personal consent, and it very often depended on his mood, whims and low competence in assessing the quality of modern weapons. A lot depended on the command-bureaucratic methods of managing the country's economy that had developed over the 1930s. Many serious questions of the development of industry and agriculture were solved subjectively, without scientific analysis and substantiation. Stalin's repressions did not bypass the leaders of industry and agriculture, the leading designers of new military equipment. The aviation industry experienced a major reconstruction in the pre-war years, but it was carried out slowly, the deadlines were often violated. Although the production of aircraft in 1940 increased by almost 20%, the army mainly received only obsolete samples, while new ones were assembled manually in design bureaus in single, experimental samples. Before the start of the war, the government never accepted the mobilization plans for the development of industry in wartime, all the work on planning the restructuring of the economy on a war footing and this restructuring itself had to be carried out already in wartime conditions.

Significant forces and means that were available in the border districts of the USSR to repel fascist aggression were not promptly brought to combat readiness. Only an insignificant part of the divisions was mobilized according to the wartime states, the troops of the western border districts were dispersed over a vast territory - up to 4500 km along the front and 400 km in depth. A fairly powerful system of fortified areas built in the 1930s on the old state border of the USSR, after the territorial expansion of the country to the west in 1939-1940, ended up deep in the rear of the Red Army troops. Therefore, the fortified areas were mothballed, and almost all weapons were removed from them. Under the conditions of the dominance of the then Soviet military doctrine, which provided for, in the event of a war, to wage it "with little bloodshed" and exclusively on the territory of the aggressor, fortified areas were not built on the new state border, and most of the combat-ready troops of the Red Army were moved directly to the borders. It was they who, in the first days of the fascist attack, despite heroic resistance, were surrounded and destroyed.

A pernicious role was played by Stalin's personal prohibition to put the troops of the western border districts on alert, despite the repeated demands of the people's commissariat of defense, informed by the border guards about the concentration of enemy forces, already ready to be thrown to the east. Stalin was maniacally sure that the leadership Nazi Germany will not dare to violate the non-aggression pact in the near future, although the timing of such an attack has repeatedly been received through intelligence channels. Based on these erroneous assumptions, Stalin forbade the country's military leadership to take any action that Hitler could use as a pretext for starting a war with the USSR. Nothing can justify the tragedy of the first period of the Great Patriotic War, however, finding out the reasons for it, one should see the main thing - this is the regime of Stalin's personal power, blindly supported by his inner circle, his repressive policy and incompetent decisions in the foreign policy and military fields. On his conscience lie hundreds of thousands of lives of Soviet soldiers and officers who honestly gave their lives on the fields of border battles in the first hours and days of the bloody Patriotic War of the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders.

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. As a combat unit, it did not last long - in February 1942 this unit was defeated in the Orel region. 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 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 resist 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, and 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. The master 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. The main entrance is designed as an opening in the form 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" - a 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 blocks of stone, on special stands, there are memorial plaques in the form of loose 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".

List of used sources and literature

1. Materials of the site LEGENDS AND MYTHS OF MILITARY HISTORY were used in the preparation

2. Anikin V.I. Brest Fortress is a hero-fortress. M., 1985.

3. Heroic defense / Sat. memories of the defense of the Brest Fortress in June - July 1941 Mn., 1966.

4. Smirnov S. S. Brest Fortress. M., 1970.

5. Smirnov S. S. In search of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. M., 1959.

6. Smirnov S. S. Stories about unknown heroes. M., 1985.

7. Brest. Encyclopedic reference book. Mn., 1987.

8. Polonsky L. In the besieged Brest. Baku, 1962.

9. “HISTORY OF THE USSR” by J. Boffe. M., International relations, 1990.

Appendix

Map-scheme of the Brest Fortress and its surrounding forts. 1912

Brest. Encyclopedic reference book. Mn., 1987. (p. 287)

Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress. M., 1970. (p. 81)

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The garrison of the fortress under the command of Captain I.N. Zubachev and regimental commissar E.M. Fomin (3.5 thousand people) for a week heroically held back the onslaught of the 45th German Infantry Division, which was supported by artillery and aviation. Pockets of resistance remained in the fortress for another three weeks (Major P. M. Gavrilov was captured on July 23). According to some reports, some defenders of the fortress held out in August. The defense of the fortress was the first, but eloquent lesson that showed the Germans what awaits them in the future.

THE LEGEND BECOME A REALITY
In February 1942, on one of the sectors of the front in the Orel region, our troops defeated the enemy's 45th infantry division. At the same time, the archive of the division headquarters was captured. While sorting through the documents captured in the German archives, our officers drew attention to one very curious paper. This document was called "Combat report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk", and in it, day after day, the Nazis talked about the course of the battles for the Brest Fortress.

Against the will of the German staff officers, who, of course, tried in every possible way to exalt the actions of their troops, all the facts cited in this document spoke of exceptional courage, amazing heroism, and the extraordinary stamina and stubbornness of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The last closing words of this report sounded like a forced involuntary recognition of the enemy.

“A stunning attack on a fortress in which a brave defender sits costs a lot of blood,” wrote enemy staff officers. - This simple truth was once again proved during the capture of the Brest Fortress. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought extremely persistently and stubbornly, they showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to resist.

Such was the recognition of the enemy.

This “Combat report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk” was translated into Russian, and excerpts from it were published in 1942 in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. So, in fact, from the lips of our enemy, the Soviet people for the first time learned some details of the remarkable feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. The legend has become a reality.

Two more years have passed. In the summer of 1944, during the powerful offensive of our troops in Belarus, Brest was liberated. On July 28, 1944, Soviet soldiers entered the Brest Fortress for the first time after three years of fascist occupation.

Almost the entire fortress lay in ruins. By the mere sight of these terrible ruins, one could judge the strength and cruelty of the battles that took place here. These piles of ruins were full of severe grandeur, as if the unbroken spirit of the fallen fighters of 1941 still lived in them. The gloomy stones, in places already overgrown with grass and bushes, beaten and chipped by bullets and shrapnel, seemed to have absorbed the fire and blood of the past battle, and the people wandering among the ruins of the fortress involuntarily came to mind how much these stones had seen and how much they would be able to tell if a miracle happened and they could speak.

And a miracle happened! The stones suddenly spoke! On the surviving walls of fortifications, in the openings of windows and doors, on the vaults of cellars, on the abutments of the bridge, inscriptions left by the defenders of the fortress began to be found. In these inscriptions, sometimes nameless, sometimes signed, sometimes scribbled in pencil, sometimes simply scrawled on the plaster with a bayonet or a bullet, the fighters declared their determination to fight to the death, sent farewell greetings to the Motherland and comrades, spoke of devotion to the people and the party. It was as if the living voices of the unknown heroes of 1941 sounded in the ruins of the fortress, and the soldiers of 1944, with excitement and heartache, listened to these voices, in which there was a proud consciousness of a duty fulfilled, and the bitterness of parting with life, and calm courage in the face of death, and a covenant about revenge.

“There were five of us: Sedov, Grutov I., Bogolyubov, Mikhailov, Selivanov V. We took the first battle on June 22, 1941. We'll die, but we won't leave!" - was written on the bricks of the outer wall near the Terespol Gate.

In the western part of the barracks, in one of the rooms, the following inscription was found: “There were three of us, it was difficult for us, but we did not lose heart and we will die like heroes. July. 1941".

In the center of the fortress courtyard stands a dilapidated church-type building. There really was once a church here, and later, before the war, it was converted into a club of one of the regiments stationed in the fortress. In this club, on the site where the projectionist's booth was located, an inscription was scratched on the plaster: “We were three Muscovites - Ivanov, Stepanchikov, Zhuntyaev, who defended this church, and we swore an oath: we will die, but we will not leave here. July. 1941".

This inscription, along with the plaster, was removed from the wall and transferred to the Central Museum of the Soviet Army in Moscow, where it is now kept. Below, on the same wall, there was another inscription, which, unfortunately, has not been preserved, and we know it only from the stories of soldiers who served in the fortress in the first years after the war and read it many times. This inscription was, as it were, a continuation of the first one: “I was left alone, Stepanchikov and Zhuntyaev died. Germans in the church itself. The last grenade remained, but I will not give myself up alive. Comrades, avenge us!" These words were apparently scratched out by the last of the three Muscovites - Ivanov.

Not only stones spoke. As it turned out, the wives and children of the commanders who died in the battles for the fortress in 1941 lived in Brest and its environs. During the days of the fighting, these women and children, caught in the war in the fortress, were in the cellars of the barracks, sharing all the hardships of defense with their husbands and fathers. Now they shared their memories, told many interesting details of the memorable defense.

And then a surprising and strange contradiction emerged. The German document I was talking about stated that the fortress resisted for nine days and fell by July 1, 1941. Meanwhile, many women recalled that they were captured only on July 10, or even on July 15, and when the Nazis took them outside the fortress, fighting was still going on in certain areas of the defense, there was an intense firefight. The inhabitants of Brest said that until the end of July or even until the first days of August, shooting was heard from the fortress, and the Nazis brought their wounded officers and soldiers from there to the city, where their army hospital was located.

Thus, it became clear that the German report about the occupation of Brest-Litovsk contained a deliberate lie and that the headquarters of the 45th enemy division hastened in advance to inform its high command about the fall of the fortress. In fact, the fighting continued for a long time ... In 1950, a researcher at the Moscow Museum, exploring the premises of the western barracks, found another inscription scratched on the wall. This inscription was: “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland! There was no signature under these words, but at the bottom there was a completely clearly distinguishable date - "July 20, 1941." So it was possible to find direct evidence that the fortress continued to resist even on the 29th day of the war, although eyewitnesses stood their ground and assured that the battles had been going on for more than a month. After the war, a partial dismantling of the ruins was carried out in the fortress, and at the same time, the remains of heroes were often found under the stones, their personal documents and weapons were found.

Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress. M., 1964

BREST FORTRESS
Built almost a century before the start of the Great Patriotic War (the construction of the main fortifications was completed by 1842), the fortress has long lost its strategic importance in the eyes of the military, since it was not considered capable of withstanding the onslaught of modern artillery. As a result, the objects of the complex served, first of all, to accommodate personnel, who, in case of war, had to keep the defense outside the fortress. At the same time, the plan to create a fortified area, taking into account the latest achievements in the field of fortification, as of June 22, 1941, was not fully implemented.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the garrison of the fortress consisted mainly of units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle corps of the Red Army. But it has been significantly reduced due to the participation of many military personnel in planned training events.

The German operation to capture the fortress was launched by a powerful artillery preparation, which destroyed a significant part of the buildings, destroyed a large number of garrison soldiers and at first noticeably demoralized the survivors. The enemy quickly gained a foothold on the South and West Islands, and assault troops appeared on the Central Island, but failed to occupy the barracks in the Citadel. In the area of the Terespol Gates, the Germans met a desperate counterattack by Soviet soldiers under the general command of the regimental commissar E.M. Fomin. The vanguard units of the 45th division of the Wehrmacht suffered serious losses.

The time gained allowed the Soviet side to organize an orderly defense of the barracks. The Nazis were forced to remain in their positions in the building of the army club, from which they could not get out for some time. Fire also stopped attempts to break through enemy reinforcements across the bridge over the Mukhavets in the area of the Kholmsky Gates on the Central Island.

In addition to the central part of the fortress, resistance gradually grew in other parts of the complex of buildings (in particular, under the command of Major P.M. Gavrilov on the northern Kobrin fortification), and dense buildings favored the soldiers of the garrison. Because of it, the enemy could not conduct aimed artillery fire at close range without being in danger of being destroyed himself. With only small arms and an insignificant number of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, the defenders of the fortress stopped the advance of the enemy, and later, when the Germans carried out a tactical retreat, they took up the positions left by the enemy.

At the same time, despite the failure of a quick assault, on June 22, the Wehrmacht forces managed to take the entire fortress into a blockade ring. Prior to its establishment, according to some estimates, up to half of the payroll of the units stationed in the complex managed to leave the fortress and occupy the lines prescribed by defensive plans. Taking into account the losses for the first day of defense, as a result, the fortress was defended by about 3.5 thousand people, blocked in its different parts. As a result, each of the large pockets of resistance could only rely on material resources in its immediate vicinity. The command of the joint forces of the defenders was entrusted to Captain I.N. Zubachev, whose deputy was the regimental commissar Fomin.

In the following days of the defense of the fortress, the enemy stubbornly sought to occupy the Central Island, but met with an organized rebuff from the Citadel garrison. Only on June 24 did the Germans manage to finally occupy the Terespol and Volyn fortifications on the Western and Southern Islands. Artillery bombardments of the Citadel alternated with air raids, during one of which a German fighter was shot down by rifle fire. The defenders of the fortress also knocked out at least four enemy tanks. It is known about the death of several more German tanks on improvised minefields installed by the Red Army.

The enemy used incendiary ammunition and tear gas against the garrison (the besiegers had a regiment of heavy chemical mortars at their disposal).

No less dangerous for the Soviet soldiers and civilians who were with them (primarily the wives and children of officers) was a catastrophic lack of food and drink. If the consumption of ammunition could be compensated for by the surviving arsenals of the fortress and captured weapons, then the needs for water, food, medicine and dressings were met at a minimum level. The water supply of the fortress was destroyed, and the manual intake of water from Mukhavets and Bug was practically paralyzed by enemy fire. The situation was further complicated by the incessant intense heat.

At the initial stage of the defense, the idea of breaking through the boundaries of the fortress and connecting with the main forces was abandoned, since the command of the defenders was counting on an early counterattack by the Soviet troops. When these calculations did not materialize, attempts began to break through the blockade, but they all ended in failure due to the overwhelming superiority of the Wehrmacht in manpower and weapons.

By the beginning of July, after a particularly large-scale bombardment and artillery shelling, the enemy managed to capture the fortifications on the Central Island, thereby destroying the main center of resistance. From that moment on, the defense of the fortress lost its integral and coordinated character, and the fight against the Nazis was continued by already scattered groups in different parts of the complex. The actions of these groups and individual fighters acquired more and more features of sabotage activity and continued in some cases until the end of July and even until the beginning of August 1941. Already after the war, in the casemates of the Brest Fortress, an inscription “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell Motherland. July 20, 1941"

Most of the surviving defenders of the garrison were captured by the Germans, where even before the end of organized defense, women and children were sent. Commissar Fomin was shot by the Germans, Captain Zubachev died in captivity, Major Gavrilov survived captivity and was transferred to the reserve during the post-war reduction of the army. The defense of the Brest Fortress (after the war it received the title of "fortress-hero") became a symbol of the courage and self-sacrifice of Soviet soldiers in the first, most tragic period of the war.

Astashin N.A. Brest Fortress // Great Patriotic War. Encyclopedia. /Answer. ed. Ak. A.O. Chubaryan. M., 2010.

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 the honorary title "Hero Fortress" and the Gold Star medal.

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. Main construction works were 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. Orthodox church.

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 politicians were imprisoned here).

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, with the support of several batteries, two armored trains and a certain number of Renault tanks FT-17" from the First World War. Anti-tank weapons the defenders of the fortress did not have, 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, moving from East Prussia to meet with another German tank 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 aircraft began bombarding 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. Great damage was done to the German tanks by 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 that was skirting 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 circular barracks of the "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 who were hiding in the basements of the fortress from shock waves.

The organized defense of the fortress ended there; only isolated pockets 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. A number of monuments in memory of the heroes have been built on its territory, and there is a museum of the defense of the Brest Fortress.

Sources of information:

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.brest-fortress.by

http://www.calend.ru