Ministry of Education and Science Russian Federation

Far Eastern State University

Branch in Ussuriysk

Faculty of Higher Professional Education

Test

By National history

Topic: 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 sources and literature used

Application

Introduction

In June 1941, there were many indications that Germany was preparing for war against the Soviet Union. German divisions were approaching the border. The preparations for 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 for starting a war. It even allowed “archaeologists” from Germany to search for “the graves of soldiers killed during the First World War.” Under this pretext, German officers openly studied the area and outlined routes for a future invasion.

At dawn on June 22, one of the most long days in the year, Germany went to war against the Soviet Union. At 3:30 a.m., units of the Red Army were attacked by German troops along the entire border. In the early predawn hours of June 22, 1941, night guards and patrols of border guards who guarded the western state border of the Soviet country noticed a strange celestial phenomenon. There, ahead, beyond the border line, above the land of Poland captured by the Nazis, far away, on the western edge of the slightly brightening pre-dawn sky, among the already dimmed stars of the shortest summer night, some new, unprecedented stars suddenly appeared. Unusually bright and multi-colored, like the lights of fireworks - sometimes red, sometimes green - they did not stand still, but slowly and non-stop sailed here, to the east, making their way among the fading night stars. They dotted the entire horizon as far as the eye could see, and along with their appearance, from there, from the west, came the roar of many engines.

On the morning of June 22, Moscow radio broadcast the usual Sunday programs and peaceful music. Soviet citizens learned about the start 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 groups of German armies moved east. In the north, Field Marshal Leeb directed the attack of his troops through the Baltic states to Leningrad. In the south, Field Marshal Runstedt aimed his troops at Kyiv. But the strongest group of enemy troops deployed its operations in the middle of this huge front, where, starting at the border city of Brest, a wide ribbon of asphalt highway goes east - through the capital of Belarus Minsk, through the ancient Russian city of Smolensk, through Vyazma and Mozhaisk to to the heart of our Motherland - Moscow.

In four days, German mobile formations, 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 corps.

The command of the North-Western Front, at the direction of the Headquarters, made an attempt to organize defense on the line of the Western Dvina. The 8th Army was to defend from Riga to Liepaja. The 27th Army advanced to the south, whose task was to cover the gap between the inner flanks of the 8th and 11th armies. The pace of deployment of troops and occupation of defense at the line of the Western Dvina was insufficient, which allowed the enemy's 56th motorized corps to immediately cross 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 equipment, began to retreat to the northeast and north, to Estonia. Due to the fact that the 8th and 27th armies were retreating in diverging directions, the path for enemy mobile formations to Pskov and Ostrov was open.

The Red Banner Baltic Fleet was forced to leave Liepaja and Ventspils. After this, the defense of the Gulf of Riga was based only on the islands of Sarema and Hiuma, which were still held by our troops. As a result of the fighting from June 22 to July 9, the troops of the Northwestern Front did not complete the tasks assigned to them. They abandoned the Baltic states, 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 to the Minsk region. The enemy's 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 attacked Brest and Baranovichi with the 2nd Tank Group.

With the start 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 retreated from the fortress. The remainder of the garrison, which by this time totaled up to an infantry regiment, 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 mid-19th century on the site of an ancient settlement, on islands formed by the Western Bug and Mukhavets rivers, their branches and artificial canals. The important military-strategic position of Brest-Litovsk in western Russia determined its choice as a place for the construction of a fortress. The creation of fortifications precisely at the confluence of the Western Bug and Mukhavets was proposed in 1797 by the military engineer Devalan. The fortress project, developed by Russian military engineers K. Opperman, Maletsky and A. Feldman, was approved in 1830. The construction of 4 fortifications began (temporary at first). The central one (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 the ancient Detinets, where at 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. Terespolskoe (Western) was built on the left bank of the Western Bug. There were many churches, monasteries, and churches in the built-up area. Some of them were rebuilt or adapted to the needs of the fortress garrison. On the Central Island, in the Jesuit Collegium, built in the 18th century, the office of the commandant of the fortress was located; The Basilian monastery, later known as the White Palace, was rebuilt as an officers' meeting. At 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 June 1, 1836. It was opened on April 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 unit was the Citadel - a curved in plan, closed 2-story barracks 1.8 km long with walls almost two meters thick. Its 500 casemates could accommodate 12 thousand people with the equipment and food supplies necessary for combat. Niches in the barracks walls with loopholes and embrasures were adapted for firing rifles and cannons. The compositional center of the Citadel is the St. 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 Brigitsky gates and bridges over Mukhavets, with Terespolsky - through the gates of the same name and the largest cable bridge across the Western Bug in Russia at that time, with Volynsky - through the Kholmsky gate and a drawbridge over Mukhavets. The Kholmsky and Terespolsky gates have been partially preserved. Kholmsky previously had 4 towers with battlements. Above the entrance doorway of the Terespolskys there were 4 tiers of loophole windows, over which a three-tiered tower with a watch platform was later built.

Terespol, Kobrin, Volyn bridgehead fortifications with reduits (forts), a system of bastions, ramparts and water barriers protected the Citadel. Along the outer line of the fortress there was an earthen rampart up to 10 m high with stone casemates, behind it there were canals with bridges thrown across them that 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 modernizing 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 fortification line was completely modernized. At a distance of 6-7 km from the Brest Fortress, a 2nd line of forts was created. But the construction and reconstruction of the forts of the fortress was 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 fortifications. With the beginning of World War I, the fortress was intensively prepared for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915, during the general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in the citadel, in the so-called “White Palace” (former Basilian monastery, then officers’ meeting). The fortress was in German hands until the end of 1918; then under Polish control; in 1920 it was occupied by the Red Army, but was soon recaptured by the Poles and in 1921, according to the Treaty of Riga, it was transferred to Poland. Used as barracks, military depot and political prison; in the 1930s Opposition political figures were imprisoned there. In September 1939, when the troops of Nazi Germany attacked Poland, part of the Citadel barracks was destroyed, and the buildings of the White Palace and the engineering department were damaged. With the increase in mobility and the improvement of technical equipment of armies, the Brest Fortress as a military-defense complex 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

Brest Fortress is one of 9 fortresses built in the 19th century. to strengthen Russia's western border. On April 26, 1842, the fortress became one of the active fortresses Russian Empire.

All Soviet people were well aware of the feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. As it said official version- a small garrison fought for a whole month against an entire division of Germans. But even from the book by S.S. Sergeev’s “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. These were persistent, seasoned, well-trained troops. One of these divisions - the 6th Oryol Red Banner - had a long and glorious military history. The other, the 42nd Infantry Division, was created in 1940 during the Finnish campaign and has already proven itself well in battles on the Mannerheim Line.” That is, in the fortress there were still not several dozen infantrymen armed only with rifles, as was the impression of many Soviet people who watched feature films about this defense.

Indeed, on the eve of the war, more than half of the units were withdrawn from the Brest Fortress to training camps - 10 of 18 rifle battalions, 3 of 4 artillery regiments, one of two anti-tank and air defense divisions each, reconnaissance battalions and some other units. On the morning of June 22, 1941, the fortress actually had an incomplete division - without 1 rifle battalion, 3 sapper companies and a howitzer regiment. Plus the NKVD battalion and border guards. On average, the divisions had about 9,300 personnel, i.e. 63%. It can be assumed that in total there were more than 8 thousand soldiers and commanders in the fortress on the morning of June 22, not counting the staff and patients of the hospital.

The German 45th Infantry Division (from the former Austrian army), which had combat experience in the Polish and French campaigns, fought against the garrison. The staff strength of the German division was supposed to be 15–17 thousand. So, the Germans probably still had a numerical superiority in manpower (if they had a full staff), but not 10-fold, as Smirnov claimed. It is hardly possible to talk about superiority in artillery. Yes, the Germans had two 600-mm self-propelled mortars 040 (the so-called “Karls”). The ammunition capacity of these guns is 8 shells. One mortar jammed on the first shot. But the two-meter walls of the casemates were not penetrated by divisional artillery.

The Germans decided in advance that the fortress would have to be taken only by infantry - without tanks. Their use was hampered by forests, swamps, river channels and canals surrounding the fortress. Based on 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 Wehrmacht Division did not expect to suffer such high losses from the defenders of the fortress. The division report dated June 30, 1941 states: “the division took 7,000 prisoners, including 100 officers. Our losses were 482 killed, including 48 officers, and over 1,000 wounded.” It should be noted that the number of prisoners undoubtedly included 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 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 came under artillery fire - naturally, they were not as strong as the structures of the citadel.

For comparison, during the Polish campaign in 13 days, the 45th Division, having covered 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 a “handful” at all, does not detract from their glory, but, on the contrary, shows that there were many heroes. More than what the government for some reason tried to convince. And to this day, in books, articles and websites about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress, the words “small garrison” are constantly encountered. Another common option is 3,500 defenders. 962 soldiers are buried under the slabs of the fortress.

Of the troops of the first echelon of the 4th Army, those that were stationed in the citadel of the Brest Fortress suffered the most, namely: almost the entire 6th Infantry Division (with the exception of the howitzer regiment) and the main forces of the 42nd Infantry Division, its 44th and 455th Infantry Regiment.

At 4 a.m. on June 22, heavy fire was opened on the barracks and the exits from the barracks in the central part of the fortress, as well as on the bridges and entrance gates of the fortress and the houses of the command staff. This raid caused confusion among the Red Army personnel, while the commanding personnel, who were attacked in their quarters, were partially destroyed. The surviving part of the command staff could not penetrate the barracks due to strong barrage fire. As a result, Red Army soldiers and junior command staff, deprived of leadership and control, dressed and undressed, in groups and individually left the fortress on their own, 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 in the fortress, but they were unable to withdraw the units and remained in the fortress themselves. As a result, the personnel of units of the 6th and 42nd divisions, as well as other units, remained in the fortress as its garrison, not because they were assigned tasks to defend the fortress, but because it was impossible to leave it.

Almost simultaneously, fierce battles broke out throughout the fortress. From the very beginning, they acquired the character of a 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. After just 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 thrown back or smoked out, after a short period of time new forces appeared from basements, drainpipes and other shelters and fired so excellent that our losses increased significantly." The enemy unsuccessfully broadcast calls for surrender through radio installations and sent envoys.

The resistance continued. The defenders of the Citadel held an almost 2-kilometer ring of defensive 2-story barracks belt in the face of intense bombing, artillery shelling and attacks by enemy assault groups. During the first day, they repulsed 8 fierce attacks by enemy infantry blocked in the Citadel, as well as attacks from outside, from 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 part of the defensive barracks between the Kholm and Terespol gates (later used it as a bridgehead in the Citadel), and captured several sections of the barracks at the Brest Gate.

However, the enemy's calculation of surprise did not materialize; Through defensive battles and counterattacks, Soviet soldiers pinned down the enemy's forces and inflicted heavy losses on them. Late in the evening, the German command decided to pull back its infantry from the fortifications, create a blockade line behind the outer ramparts, and begin the assault on the fortress again on the morning of June 23 with artillery shelling and bombing.

The fighting in the fortress took on a fierce, protracted character, which the enemy did not expect. The stubborn heroic resistance of Soviet soldiers was met by the Nazi invaders on the territory of each fortification. On the territory of the border Terespol fortification, the defense was held by soldiers of the driver course of the Belarusian Border District under the command of the head of the course, 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 soldiers from cavalry courses, a sapper platoon, reinforced squads of the 9th border outpost, a veterinary hospital, and a training camp for athletes. They managed to clear most of the territory of the fortification from the enemy who had broken through, but due to a lack of ammunition and large 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 Cherny, crossed the Western Bug and joined the defenders of the Citadel and the Kobrin fortification.

At 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, and there was a small part of the regimental school for junior commanders of the 84th Rifle Regiment, detachments of the 9th th border posts. On the earthen ramparts at the South Gate, the defense was held by the duty platoon of the regimental school. From the first minutes of the enemy invasion, the defense acquired a focal character.

The enemy tried to break through to the Kholm Gate and, having broken through, connect with the assault group in the Citadel. Soldiers of the 84th Infantry Regiment came to the rescue from the Citadel. Within the boundaries of the hospital, the defense was organized by battalion commissar N.S. Bogateev, military doctor 2nd rank S.S. Babkin (both died). German machine 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 personnel who fought to the end in the ruins of buildings. While covering the wounded, nurses V.P. died. Khoretskaya and E.I. Rovnyagina. Having captured the sick, wounded, medical staff, and children, on June 23 the Nazis used them as a human barrier, driving the submachine gunners ahead of the attacking Kholm gates. "Shoot, don't spare us!" - Soviet patriots shouted. By the end of the week, the focal defense at the fortification faded. Some fighters joined the ranks of the Citadel’s defenders; a few managed to break out of 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) led by Lieutenant Vinogradov went on a breakthrough. 13 soldiers managed to break through the eastern boundary of the fortress, but they were captured by the enemy.

Other attempts at a mass breakthrough from the besieged fortress were also unsuccessful; only individual small groups were able to break through. The remaining small garrison of Soviet troops continued to fight with extraordinary tenacity and tenacity. Their inscriptions on the fortress walls speak about the unshakable courage of the fighters: “There were five of us: Sedov, Grutov, Bogolyub, Mikhailov, Selivanov V. We took the first battle on June 22, 1941. We will die, but we will not leave here...”, “June 26, 1941 “There were three of us, it was difficult for us, but we did not lose heart and die like heroes,” this is evidenced by the remains of 132 soldiers discovered during the excavations of the White Palace and the inscription left on the bricks: “We do not die in shame.”

Since the military operations, several areas of fierce defense have developed at the Kobrin fortification. On the territory of this fortification, the largest in area, there were many warehouses, hitching posts, artillery parks, personnel were housed in the barracks, as well as in the casemates of the earthen rampart (with a perimeter of up to 1.5 km), and the families of command personnel were housed in the residential town. 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 division (commander Captain N.I. Nikitin).

Tough cover of the exit from the fortress through the North-Western Gate of the garrison soldiers, and then the defense of the barracks of the 125th Infantry Regiment, was led by battalion commissar S.V. Derbenev. The enemy managed to transfer a pontoon bridge across the Western Bug from the Terespol fortification to Kobrinskoye (the defenders of the western part of the Citadel fired on it, disrupting the crossing), seized a bridgehead in the western part of the Kobrinskoye fortification and moved infantry, artillery, and 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 repelled the attacks of the Nazi troops for several days. On June 29 - 30, the enemy launched a general assault on the Brest Fortress. He managed to capture many fortifications; the defenders suffered heavy losses, but continued to resist in incredibly difficult conditions (lack of water, food, medicine). For almost a month, the heroes of the BK pinned down an entire German division, most of them fell in battle, some managed to break through to the partisans, and some of the exhausted and wounded were captured.

As a result of bloody battles and losses, the defense of the fortress broke up into a number of isolated centers of resistance. Until July 12, a small group of fighters led by Gavrilov continued to fight in the Eastern Fort, later breaking out of the fort in a caponier behind the outer rampart of the fortification. The seriously wounded Gavrilov and the secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 98th separate anti-tank artillery division, deputy political instructor G.D. Derevianko was captured on July 23. But even after the 20th of July, Soviet soldiers continued to fight in the fortress.

Last days wrestling is legendary. 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 am not giving up. Farewell, Motherland. 11/20/41.” Not a single banner of the military units fighting in the fortress fell to the enemy. The banner of the 393rd Independent 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 dug up by Semenyuk.

The last defenders of the Citadel held out in the basements of the White Palace, the Engineering Department, the club, and the barracks of the 333rd regiment. In the Engineering Department building and the Eastern Fort, the Nazis used gases, and flamethrowers against the defenders of the barracks of the 333rd regiment and the 98th division, and the caponier in the area of ​​the 125th regiment. Explosives were lowered from the roof of the barracks of the 333rd Infantry Regiment to the windows, but Soviet soldiers wounded by the explosions continued to shoot until the walls of the building were destroyed and leveled. The enemy was forced to note the steadfastness and heroism of the fortress’s defenders.

It was during these black, bitter days of retreat that the legend of the Brest Fortress was born among our troops. It is difficult to say where it first appeared, but, passed on from mouth to mouth, it soon passed along the entire thousand-kilometer front from the Baltic to the Black Sea steppes.

It was a moving legend. They 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. They said that the enemy, having surrounded the fortress with a dense ring, was furiously storming it, but at the same time suffering huge losses, that neither bombs nor shells could break the tenacity of the fortress garrison and that the Soviet soldiers defending there had sworn an oath to die, but not to submit to the enemy and respond with fire to all Nazi proposals for surrender.

It is unknown how this legend originated. Either it was brought with them by groups of our soldiers and commanders who were making their way from the Brest area behind German lines and then making their way through the front. Perhaps one of the captured fascists told about this. They say that the pilots of our bomber aviation confirmed that the Brest Fortress was fighting. Going at night to bomb enemy rear military installations located on Polish territory, and flying near Brest, they saw below the flashes of shell explosions, the trembling fire of firing machine guns and flowing streams of tracer bullets.

However, all these were just stories and rumors. It was impossible to verify whether our troops were really fighting there and what kind of troops they were: there was no radio contact with the fortress garrison. And the legend of the Brest Fortress at that time remained only a legend. But, full of exciting heroism, people really needed this legend. In those difficult, harsh days of retreat, she penetrated deeply into the hearts of the soldiers, inspired them, gave birth to vigor and faith in victory. And many who heard this story then, as a reproach to their own conscience, asked the question: “What about us? Can’t we fight just like they did 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, it’s a fortress! It’s easier to defend in a fortress. There are probably a lot of walls, fortifications, and cannons.

According to the enemy, “it was impossible to approach here with only infantry means, since perfectly organized rifle and machine-gun fire from deep trenches and a horseshoe-shaped courtyard mowed down everyone approaching. There was only one solution left - to force the Russians to surrender by hunger and thirst...” . The Nazis methodically attacked the fortress for a whole week. Soviet soldiers had to fight off 6-8 attacks a day. There were women and children next to the fighters. They helped the wounded, brought ammunition, and took part in hostilities. The Nazis used tanks, flamethrowers, gases, set fire to and rolled barrels of flammable mixtures from the outer shafts. The casemates were burning and collapsing, there was nothing to breathe, but when the enemy infantry went on the attack, hand-to-hand combat broke out again. During short periods of relative calm, calls to surrender were heard from the loudspeakers.

Being completely surrounded, without water and food, and with an acute shortage of ammunition and medicine, the garrison courageously fought the enemy. In the first 9 days of fighting alone, the defenders of the fortress disabled about 1.5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers. By the end of June, the enemy captured most of the fortress; on June 29 and 30 the Nazis launched a continuous two-day assault on the fortress using powerful (500 and 1800 kg) aerial bombs. On June 29, he died while covering the breakthrough group, Kizhevatov, with several fighters.

In the Citadel on June 30, the Nazis captured the seriously wounded and shell-shocked Captain Zubachev and Regimental Commissar Fomin, whom the Nazis shot near the Kholm 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 and 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 extremely 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, it was as if they did not notice the feat of the citadel garrison. The fortress fell, and many of its defenders surrendered - in the eyes of the Stalinists this was seen as a shameful phenomenon. And therefore there were no heroes of Brest. The fortress was simply erased from the annals 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 defending the center: Commissar Fomin, Captain Zubachev, Senior Lieutenant Semenenko and Lieutenant Vinogradov.” The 44th Infantry Regiment was commanded by Pyotr Mikhailovich Gavrilov. Commissioner 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 captured. 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 a prisoner of war camp, the commissar was betrayed to the Germans by one soldier, and Fomin was shot. Zubachev died in captivity. Major Gavrilov survived captivity, despite being seriously wounded. He did not want to surrender, threw a grenade and killed a German soldier." Much time passed before the names of the heroes of Brest were inscribed in Soviet history. They earned their place there. The way they fought, their unwavering tenacity, devotion to duty, the courage they showed against all odds - all this was quite typical of Soviet soldiers.

The defense of the Brest Fortress was an outstanding example of the exceptional tenacity and courage of Soviet soldiers. This was a truly legendary feat of the sons of the people, who loved their Motherland infinitely and 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 instructor N.V. Nesterchuk, lieutenants I.F. Akimochkin, A.M. Kizhevatov, A.F. Naganov, junior political instructor A.P. Kalandadze , deputy political instructor S. M. Matevosyan, senior sergeant Abdullaev D. Abdulla ogly, regiment graduate P. S. Klypa and many others. In memory of the feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress, on May 8, 1965, she was awarded the honorary title “Fortress Hero” with the award of the order 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 Nazi Germany on the USSR become so unexpected for the military and political leadership of the country that it led to catastrophic losses and the retreat of the Red Army troops in 1941-1942, at the first stage of the war? One of the main reasons for what happened is that Nazi Germany turned out to be more prepared for war. Its economy was fully mobilized. Germany seized huge reserves of metal, construction materials and weapons in the West. The Nazis had an advantage in the number of troops mobilized and deployed in advance at the western borders of the USSR, in automatic weapons, and the presence large number vehicles and mechanized equipment significantly increased the mobility of military units. On the tragic outcome of the first military operations for the Red Army troops significant influence was influenced by the war experience gained by the Nazi troops in 1939-1941 in the Western theater of military operations.

The combat effectiveness of the Red Army was greatly weakened by the unjustified repression of military personnel in pre-war 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 bloody war with Finland, which was unsuccessful 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 mid- and even senior-level commanders who failed to cope with their duties during the first period of 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 senior Soviet military leaders were arrested. including the former boss 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, distinguished himself in battles in Spain and Khalkhin Gol Y.V. Smushkevich, head of the Air Force Department, 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. Proskurova. Only Meretskov 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 their new responsibilities and perform them successfully. The new cadres promoted to replace the repressed were often brave, energetic and capable, but due to the level of training and experience of previous service, they could not successfully lead the units entrusted to them.

The highest military command often did not have a systematic military and general education. Having reached high positions and ranks, they often retained the habits of their soldier’s youth - they controlled their subordinates with the help of obscenities and sometimes punching (this, according to N.S. Khrushchev, was sinned, for example, by front commanders Marshal S.M. Budyonny and generals A. .I. Eremenko and V.N. Gordov). Some suffered from heavy drinking, like the commander of the Northern Front, General M.M. Popov. Both People's Commissars of Defense of the pre-war period: the famous political figure close to Stalin K.E. Voroshilov and S.K., who replaced him in 1940. Timoshenko, a dashing cavalryman during the Civil War, had only a primary education. The share of people with higher education in the command staff of the Red Army was in 1940. only 2.9%. Some military leaders compensated for their lack of education and experience in modern warfare with great self-confidence. Thus, the commander of the Western Special Military District (the future Western Front), General Pavlov, argued before the war that one “Soviet tank corps is capable of solving the problem of destroying one or two tank and four to five infantry divisions.” The Chief of the General Staff, Meretskov, at a meeting in the Kremlin on January 13, 1941, said: “Our division is much stronger than the fascist German division”: “in a head-on battle, it will certainly defeat the German division. In defense, one of our divisions will repel the attack of two or three divisions enemy."

Germany had a significant superiority 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 outnumbered the bulk Soviet aircraft and tanks in terms of speed, armament and maneuverability. New models of tanks and aircraft created in the USSR on the eve of the war were not inferior to 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 moved primarily by vehicle and were controlled by radio, while Soviet troops often moved on foot or horse-drawn. They had few radio stations, and wired communications turned out to be unreliable. Most of the Red Army soldiers were armed with rifles (and sometimes even those were not enough), and the German soldiers were armed with machine guns. The Red Army had little anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery; 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 did not have such experience. The German command has already carried out a number of successful operations in Europe; German headquarters gained more practice in leading troops and interacting with each other; German pilots, tank crews, artillerymen, and specialists from all branches of the military received good training and were fired upon in battle. On the contrary, the leaders of the Red Army participated only in 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 beginning of the war was that the Soviet military and especially political leadership made a serious miscalculation in assessing the military-political situation on the eve of the German invasion. Thus, the defense plan of the USSR was based on Stalin’s erroneous assumption that in case 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 towards the oil-bearing Caucasus. Therefore, the main group of Red Army troops was located in the southwestern direction, while it was considered by the German command at first as secondary. The weakness and inadequacy of the armament and organization of the Red Army troops in the conditions of modern war, so clearly revealed during the Soviet-Finnish conflict, led the Soviet leadership to the decision on the need to rearm and reorganize them.

But this process dragged on and was not completed until the attack by Nazi troops. The fact is that such a large-scale reorganization without taking into account real possibilities Providing troops with weapons and military equipment, as well as well-trained command personnel, turned out to be impossible. For example, in March 1941, a decision was made 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 positions after 1938, could not always correctly assess the advantage of the new types of weapons presented to them for consideration and accept them for service. Thus, it was believed that machine guns had no significance for modern combat operations, as a result of which the three-line rifle (albeit modernized) of the 1891 model still remained in service with the Red Army. The combat capabilities of jet weapons were not assessed in time. Only in June 1941, after the attack on the USSR, was it decided to put into mass production the later famous Katyushas.

The country's leadership did not have a strong opinion about the latest Soviet tanks KV and T-34. True, they were already in service with the troops, but their industrial production was delayed due to the indecisiveness 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 were not assessed artillery pieces. Not a single issue related to 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 developed during the 30s. Many serious issues of industrial development and Agriculture were decided subjectively, without scientific analysis and justification. Stalin's repressions did not spare the leaders of industry and agriculture, and 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, and the established deadlines were often violated. Although aircraft production increased by almost 20% in 1940, the army received mostly only outdated models; new ones were still assembled by hand in design bureaus in single, experimental samples. Before the start of the war, the government never accepted mobilization plans for the deployment 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 during the war.

The significant forces and means available in the border districts of the USSR to repel fascist aggression were not brought to combat readiness in a timely manner. Only a small part of the divisions was mobilized according to wartime conditions; the troops of the western border districts were dispersed over a vast territory - up to 4,500 km along the front and 400 km in depth. A fairly powerful system of fortified areas, built in the 30s on the old state border of the USSR, after the territorial expansion of the country to the west in 1939-1940, found itself 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 blood” 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, found themselves surrounded and destroyed.

A disastrous role was played by Stalin’s personal prohibition to bring the troops of the western border districts into combat readiness, despite the repeated demands of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, which was informed by the border guards about the concentration of enemy forces, already ready to rush to the east. Stalin was maniacally confident that the leadership of Nazi Germany would not dare to violate the non-aggression treaty in the near future, although the timing of such an attack was repeatedly received through intelligence channels. Based on these erroneous assumptions, Stalin forbade the country's military leadership to take any actions 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, when figuring out the reasons for it, one should see the main one - 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 Soviet people against the Nazi invaders.

Conclusion

About the defense of the Brest Fortress, as well as about many other exploits of Soviet soldiers in the first days of the war, the country for a long time she knew nothing, although, perhaps, it was precisely such pages of her history that were capable of instilling faith in a people who found themselves on the verge of mortal danger. The troops, of course, talked about border battles on the Bug, but the very fact of defending the fortress was perceived rather as a legend. Surprisingly, the feat of the Brest garrison became known thanks to that very 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 area. 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 a defeated unit in February 1942 in the Krivtsovo area near Orel during an attempt to destroy the Bolkhov group of German troops. At the end of the 1940s. the first articles about the defense of the Brest Fortress appeared in newspapers, based solely on rumors; in 1951, the artist P. Krivonogov painted the famous painting “Defenders of the Brest Fortress.” The credit for restoring the memory of the heroes of the fortress largely belongs to the writer and historian S. S. Smirnov, as well as K. M. Simonov, who supported his initiative. The feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress was popularized by Smirnov in the book “Brest Fortress” (1957, expanded edition 1964, Lenin Prize 1965). After this, the theme of the defense of the Brest Fortress became an important symbol of official patriotic propaganda.

Sevastopol, Leningrad, Smolensk, Vyazma, Kerch, Stalingrad are milestones in the history of the Soviet people's resistance to Hitler's invasion. The first on this list is the Brest Fortress. It determined the entire mood of this war - uncompromising, persistent and, ultimately, victorious. And the main thing, probably, is not the awards, but about 200 defenders of the Brest Fortress were awarded orders and medals, two became Heroes of the Soviet Union - Major Gavrilov and Lieutenant Andrei Kizhevatov (posthumously), but the fact 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 and people can withstand any invasion. In this regard, it sometimes seems that the Brest Fortress is a confirmation of Bismarck’s words and the beginning of the end of Hitler’s 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 Hero Fortress", 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 a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the BSSR dated November 6, 1969.

The memorial was inaugurated on September 25, 1971. The sculptural architectural ensemble includes surviving buildings, preserved 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 large semantic load and has a strong emotional impact. The main entrance is designed as an opening in the form of a five-pointed star in a monolithic reinforced concrete mass, resting on the shaft and walls of the casemates. The star's chips, intersecting, form a complex dynamic shape. The propylaea walls are lined with black labradorite. On the outer side of the base there is a board with the text of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated 05/08/1965 on awarding the Brest Fortress the honorary title “Hero-Fortress”.

From the main entrance, a ceremonial 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 out to the water with his helmet. In the planning and design of the memorial, an important role belongs to Ceremonial Square, where mass celebrations take place. It is adjacent to the building of the Museum of 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-length sculpture of a warrior (made of concrete, height 33.5 m), on its back side- relief compositions telling about individual episodes of the heroic defense of the fortress: “Attack”, “Party Meeting”, “The Last Grenade”, “The Feat of the Artillerymen”, “Machine Gunners”. The vast space is dominated by the obelisk bayonet (an all-welded metal structure lined with titanium; height 100 m, weight 620 tons). In the 3-tier necropolis, compositionally connected with the monument, the remains of 850 people are buried, and the names of 216 are on the memorial plaques 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 fought 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, delivered here by their delegations. On the walls of the barracks, ruins, bricks and stones, on special stands there are memorial plaques in the form of tear-off sheets of the 1941 calendar, which are a kind of chronicle of heroic events.

The observation deck displays artillery weapons from 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, and the destroyed clubhouse of the 84th Infantry Regiment have been preserved. Along the main alley there are 2 powder magazines, in the ramparts there are casemates and a field bakery. On the road to the Northern Gate, the Eastern Fort, the ruins of a medical unit and residential buildings stand out.

The 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 partly the paths are lined with reinforced concrete slabs. Thousands of roses have been planted weeping willows, poplars, spruce, birch, maple, thuja. IN evening time artistic and decorative lighting is turned on, consisting of many spotlights and lamps in red, white and green. At the main entrance, the song “Holy War” by A. Alexandrov and governments, a message about the treacherous attack on our homeland by the troops of Nazi Germany (read by Y. Levitan) are heard, at the Eternal Flame - the melody of R. Schumann “Dreams”.

List of sources and literature used

1. In preparation, materials from the site LEGENDS AND MYTHS OF MILITARY HISTORY were used

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 besieged Brest. Baku, 1962.

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

Application

Scheme map of the Brest Fortress and the forts surrounding it. 1912

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

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

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The heroic defense of the Brest Fortress became a bright page in the history of the Great Patriotic War. On June 22, 1941, the command of Nazi troops planned to completely capture the fortress. As a result of the surprise attack, the garrison of the Brest Fortress was cut off from the main units of the Red Army. However, the fascists met fierce resistance from its defenders.

Units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions, the 17th border detachment and the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD troops - a total of 3,500 people - held back the enemy's onslaught to the end. Most of the fortress' defenders died.

When the Brest Fortress was liberated by Soviet troops on July 28, 1944, the inscription of its last defender was found on the melted bricks of one of the casemates: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up!” Farewell, Motherland,” scratched out on July 20, 1941.

Kholm Gate

Many participants in the defense of the Brest Fortress were posthumously awarded orders and medals. On May 8, 1965, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Brest Fortress was assigned honorary title"Fortress-Hero" and the "Gold Star" medal.

In 1971, a memorial appeared here: giant sculptures “Courage” and “Thirst”, a pantheon of glory, Ceremonial Square, preserved ruins and restored barracks of the Brest Fortress.

Construction and device

The construction of the fortress on the site of the center of the old city began in 1833 according to the design of military topographer and engineer Karl Ivanovich Opperman. Initially, temporary earthen fortifications were erected; the first stone of the fortress's foundation was laid on June 1, 1836. The main construction work was completed by April 26, 1842. The fortress consisted of a citadel and three fortifications that protected it with a total area of ​​4 km² and the length of the main fortress line was 6.4 km.

The Citadel, or Central Fortification, consisted of two two-story red brick barracks, 1.8 km in circumference. The citadel, which had walls two meters thick, had 500 casemates designed for 12 thousand people. The central fortification is located on an island formed by the Bug and two branches of the Mukhavets. Three artificial islands formed by Mukhavets and ditches are connected to this island by drawbridges. There are fortifications on them: Kobrin (formerly Northern, the largest), with 4 curtains and 3 ravelins and caponiers; Terespolskoye, or Western, with 4 extended lunettes; Volynskoye, or Yuzhnoe, with 2 curtains and 2 extended ravelins. In the former “casemate redoubt” there is now the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery. The fortress is surrounded by a 10-meter earthen rampart with casemates in it. Of the eight gates of the fortress, five have survived - the Kholm Gate (in the south of the citadel), the Terespol Gate (in the southwest of the citadel), the Northern or Alexander Gate (in the north of the Kobrin fortification), the Northwestern (in the northwest of the Kobrin fortification) and the Southern (in south of the Volyn fortification, Hospital Island). The Brigid Gate (in the west of the citadel), the Brest Gate (in the north of the citadel) and the Eastern Gate (the eastern part of the Kobrin fortification) have not survived to this day.

In 1864-1888, according to the project of Eduard Ivanovich Totleben, the fortress was modernized. It was surrounded by a ring of forts 32 km in circumference; the Western and Eastern forts were built on the territory of the Kobrin fortification. In 1876, on the territory of the fortress, according to the design of the architect David Ivanovich Grimm, St. Nicholas was built Orthodox church.

Fortress at the beginning of the 20th century

In 1913, construction began on the second ring of fortifications (Dmitry Karbyshev, in particular, took part in its design), which was supposed to have a circumference of 45 km, but it was never completed before the start of the war.

Scheme map of the Brest Fortress and the forts surrounding it, 1912.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the fortress was intensively prepared for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915 (old style), during a general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. March 3, 1918 in the Citadel, in the so-called White Palace ( former church Uniate Basilian Monastery, then an officers' meeting) the Brest Peace Treaty 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 was soon lost again, and in 1921, according to the Treaty of Riga, it was transferred to the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the interwar period, the fortress was used as a barracks, military warehouse and political prison (opposition political figures were imprisoned here in the 1930s).

Defense of the Brest Fortress in 1939

The day after the outbreak of World War II, September 2, 1939, the Brest Fortress was bombed by the Germans for the first time: German planes dropped 10 bombs, damaging the White Palace. At that time, the marching battalions of the 35th and 82nd infantry regiments and a number of other rather random units, as well as mobilized reservists awaiting dispatch to their units, were located in the fortress barracks at that time.

The garrison of the city and fortress was subordinate to the Polesie task force of General Franciszek Kleeberg; Retired General Konstantin Plisovsky was appointed head of the garrison on September 11, who formed from the units at his disposal totaling 2000-2500 people a combat-ready detachment consisting of 4 battalions (three infantry and an engineer) with the support of several batteries, two armored trains and a number of Renault tanks FT-17" from the First World War. The defenders of the fortress did not have anti-tank weapons, yet they had to deal with tanks.
By September 13, military families were evacuated from the fortress, bridges and passages were mined, the main gates were blocked by tanks, and infantry trenches were built on the earthen ramparts.

Konstantin Plisovsky

General Heinz Guderian's 19th Armored Corps was advancing on Brest-nad-Bug, moving from East Prussia to meet another German armored division moving from the south. Guderian intended to capture the city of Brest in order to prevent the defenders of the fortress from retreating south and linking up with the main forces of the Polish Task Force Narew. The German units had a 2-fold superiority over the fortress defenders in infantry, 4-fold in tanks, and 6-fold in artillery. September 14, 1939 77 tanks of the 10th tank division(units of the reconnaissance battalion and the 8th tank regiment) tried to take the city and the fortress on the move, but were repulsed by infantry with the support of 12 FT-17 tanks, which were also knocked out. On the same day German artillery and aircraft began bombing the fortress. The next morning, after fierce street fighting, the Germans captured most of the city. The defenders retreated to the fortress. On the morning of September 16, the Germans (10th Panzer and 20th Motorized Divisions) launched an assault on the fortress, which was repulsed. By evening, the Germans captured the crest of the rampart, but were unable to break through further. Two FT-17s stationed at the gates of the fortress caused great damage to the German tanks. In total, since September 14, 7 German attacks were repulsed, and up to 40% of the personnel of the fortress defenders were lost. During the assault, Guderian's adjutant was mortally wounded. On the night of September 17, the wounded Plisovsky gave the order to leave the fortress and cross the Bug to the south. Along the undamaged bridge, the troops went to the Terespol fortification and from there to Terespol.

On September 22, Brest was transferred by the Germans to the 29th Tank Brigade of the Red Army. Thus, Brest and the Brest Fortress became part of the USSR.

Defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941. On the eve of the war

By June 22, 1941, 8 rifle battalions and 1 reconnaissance battalion, 2 artillery divisions (anti-tank and air defense), some special units of rifle regiments and units of corps units, assemblies of the assigned personnel of the 6th Oryol and 42nd rifle divisions of the 28th rifle were stationed in the fortress corps of the 4th Army, units of the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Detachment, 33rd separate engineer regiment, several units of the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD convoy troops, unit headquarters (division headquarters and 28th Rifle Corps were located in Brest), total 9 - 11 thousand people, not counting family members (300 military families).

The assault on the fortress, the city of Brest and the capture of bridges over the Western Bug and Mukhavets was entrusted to the 45th Infantry Division of Major General Fritz Schlieper (about 17 thousand people) with reinforcement units and in cooperation with units of neighboring formations (including mortar divisions attached The 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army Corps of the German 4th Army and used by the 45th Infantry Division during the first five minutes of the artillery attack), for a total of up to 20 thousand people. But to be precise, the Brest Fortress was stormed not by the Germans, but by the Austrians. In 1938, after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to the Third Reich, the 4th Austrian Division was renamed the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division - the same one that crossed the border on June 22, 1941.

Storming the fortress

On June 22, at 3:15 (European time) or 4:15 (Moscow time), hurricane artillery fire was opened on the fortress, taking the garrison by surprise. As a result, warehouses were destroyed, the water supply was damaged, communications were interrupted, and major losses were inflicted on the garrison. At 3:23 the assault began. Up to one and a half thousand infantry from three battalions of the 45th Infantry Division attacked the fortress directly. The surprise of the attack led to the fact that the garrison was unable to provide a single coordinated resistance and was divided into several separate centers. The German assault detachment, advancing through the Terespol fortification, initially did not encounter serious resistance, and after passing the Citadel, advanced groups reached the Kobrin fortification. However, parts of the garrison that found themselves behind German lines launched a counterattack, dismembering and partially destroying the attackers.

The Germans in the Citadel were able to gain a foothold only in certain areas, including the club building dominating the fortress (the former Church of St. Nicholas), the command staff canteen and the barracks area at the Brest Gate. They met strong resistance at Volyn and, especially, at the Kobrin fortification, where it came to bayonet attacks. A small part of the garrison with part of the equipment managed to leave the fortress and connect with their units; by 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress with the 6-8 thousand people remaining in it was surrounded. During the day, the Germans were forced to bring into battle the reserve of the 45th Infantry Division, as well as the 130th infantry regiment, 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 their troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the Germans began shelling, in between offering the garrison to surrender. About 1,900 people surrendered. But, nevertheless, on June 23, the remaining defenders of the fortress managed, having knocked out the Germans from the section of the ring barracks adjacent to the Brest Gate, to unite the two most powerful centers of resistance remaining on the Citadel - the combat group of the 455th Infantry Regiment, led by Lieutenant A. A. Vinogradov and captain I.N. Zubachev, and the combat group of the so-called “House of Officers” (the units concentrated here for the planned breakthrough attempt were led by regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, senior lieutenant Shcherbakov and private Shugurov (responsible secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 75th separate reconnaissance battalion).

Having met in the basement of the “House of Officers,” the defenders of the Citadel tried to coordinate their actions: a draft order No. 1 was prepared, dated June 24, which proposed the creation of a consolidated combat group and headquarters led by Captain I. N. Zubachev and his deputy, regimental commissar E. M. Fomin, count the remaining personnel. However, the very next day, the Germans broke into the Citadel with a surprise attack. A large group of defenders of the Citadel, led by Lieutenant A. A. Vinogradov, tried to break out of the Fortress through the Kobrin fortification. But this ended in failure: although the breakthrough group, divided into several detachments, managed to break out of the main rampart, its fighters were captured or destroyed by units of the 45th Infantry Division, which occupied the defense along the highway that skirted Brest.

By the evening of June 24, the Germans captured most of the fortress, with the exception of the section of the ring barracks (“House of Officers”) near the Brest (Three Arched) Gate of the Citadel, casemates in the earthen rampart on the opposite bank of Mukhavets (“point 145”) and the so-called Kobrin fortification located “Eastern Fort” (its defense, consisting of 400 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, was commanded by Major P. M. Gavrilov). On this day, the Germans managed to capture 1,250 defenders of the Fortress.

The last 450 defenders of the Citadel were captured on June 26 after blowing up several compartments of the ring barracks “House of Officers” and point 145, and on June 29, after the Germans dropped an aerial bomb weighing 1800 kg, the Eastern Fort fell. However, the Germans managed to finally clear it only on June 30 (due to the fires that began on June 29). On June 27, the Germans began using 600-mm Karl-Gerät artillery, which fired concrete-piercing shells weighing more than 2 tons and high-explosive shells weighing 1250 kg. The explosion of a 600 mm gun shell created craters 30 meters in diameter and caused horrific injuries to the defenders, including rupture of the lungs of those hiding in the basement of the fortress from the shock waves.

The organized defense of the fortress ended here; there remained only isolated pockets of resistance and single fighters who gathered in groups and again scattered and died, or tried to break out of the fortress and go to the partisans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha(some people succeeded). Major P. M. Gavrilov was among the last to be captured wounded - on July 23. One of the inscriptions in the fortress reads: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20/VII-41". According to witnesses, shooting was heard from the fortress until the beginning of August.

P.M. Gavrilov

The total German losses in the Brest Fortress amounted to 5% of the total Wehrmacht losses on the Eastern Front during the first week of the war.

There were reports that the last areas of resistance were destroyed only at the end of August, before A. Hitler and B. Mussolini visited the fortress. It is also known that the stone that A. Hitler took from the ruins of the bridge was discovered in his office after the end of the war.

To eliminate the last pockets of resistance, the German high command gave the order to flood the basements of the fortress with water from the Western Bug River.

Memory of the defenders of the fortress

For the first time, the defense of the Brest Fortress became known from a German headquarters report, captured in the papers of the defeated unit in February 1942 near Orel. At the end of the 1940s, the first articles about the defense of the Brest Fortress appeared in newspapers, based solely on rumors. In 1951, while clearing out the rubble of the barracks at the Brest Gate, order No. 1 was found. In the same year, the artist P. Krivonogov painted the painting “Defenders of the Brest Fortress.”

The credit for restoring the memory of the heroes of the fortress largely belongs to the writer and historian S. S. Smirnov, as well as K. M. Simonov, who supported his initiative. The feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress was popularized by S. S. Smirnov in the book “Brest Fortress” (1957, expanded edition 1964, Lenin Prize 1965). After this, the theme of the defense of the Brest Fortress became an important symbol of the Victory.

Monument to the defenders of the Brest Fortress

On May 8, 1965, the Brest Fortress was awarded the title of Hero Fortress with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Since 1971, the fortress has been a memorial complex. On its territory a number of monuments were built in memory of the heroes, and there is a museum of the defense of the Brest Fortress.

Information sources:

http://ru.wikipedia.org

http://www.brest-fortress.by

http://www.calend.ru

The famous Brest Fortress has become synonymous with unbroken spirit and perseverance. During the Great Patriotic War, the elite forces of the Wehrmacht were forced to spend 8 full days to capture it, instead of the planned 8 hours. What motivated the defenders of the fortress and why this resistance played an important role in the overall picture of the Second World War.

Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, the German offensive began along the entire line of the Soviet border, from the Barents to the Black Sea. One of the many initial targets was the Brest Fortress - a small line in the Barbarossa plan. The Germans took only 8 hours to storm and capture it. Despite the loud name, this fortification, which was once the pride of the Russian Empire, turned into simple barracks and the Germans did not expect to encounter serious resistance there.

But the unexpected and desperate resistance that the Wehrmacht forces met in the fortress entered the history of the Great Patriotic War so vividly that today many believe that the Second World War began precisely with the attack on the Brest Fortress. But it could have happened that this feat would have remained unknown, but chance decreed otherwise.

History of the Brest Fortress

Where the Brest Fortress is located today, there used to be the city of Berestye, which was mentioned for the first time in the Tale of Bygone Years. Historians believe that this city originally grew up around a castle, the history of which is lost in the centuries. Located at the junction of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian lands, it has always played an important strategic role. The city was built on a cape formed by the Western Bug and Mukhovets rivers. In ancient times, rivers were the main communications routes for traders. Therefore, Berestye flourished economically. But the location on the border itself also entailed dangers. The city often moved from one state to another. It was repeatedly besieged and captured by Poles, Lithuanians, German knights, Swedes, Crimean Tatars and troops of the Russian kingdom.

Important fortification

The history of the modern Brest Fortress originates in imperial Russia. It was built by order of Emperor Nicholas I. The fortification was located at an important point - on the shortest land route from Warsaw to Moscow. At the confluence of two rivers - the Western Bug and Mukhavets there was a natural island, which became the site of the Citadel - the main fortification of the fortress. This building was a two-story building that housed 500 casemates. There could be 12 thousand people there at the same time. The two-meter thick walls reliably protected them from any weapons that existed in the 19th century.

Three more islands were created artificially, using the waters of the Mukhovets River and a man-made ditch system. Additional fortifications were located on them: Kobrin, Volyn and Terespol. This arrangement suited the commanders defending the fortress very much, because it reliably protected the Citadel from enemies. It was very difficult to break through to the main fortification, and bringing battering guns there was almost impossible. The first stone of the fortress was laid on June 1, 1836, and on April 26, 1842, the fortress standard soared above it in a solemn ceremony. At that time it was one of the best defensive structures in the country. Knowledge of the design features of this military fortification will help you understand how the defense of the Brest Fortress took place in 1941.

Time passed and weapons improved. The range of artillery fire was increasing. What was previously impregnable could now be destroyed without even getting close. Therefore, military engineers decided to build an additional line of defense, which was supposed to encircle the fortress at a distance of 9 km from the main fortification. It included artillery batteries, defensive barracks, two dozen strong points and 14 forts.

An unexpected find

February 1942 turned out to be cold. German troops were rushing deep into the Soviet Union. The Red Army soldiers tried to restrain their advance, but most often they had no choice but to continue to retreat deeper into the country. But they were not always defeated. And now, not far from Orel, the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division was completely defeated. It was even possible to capture documents from the headquarters archives. Among them they found a “Combat report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk.”

The careful Germans, day after day, documented the events that took place during the protracted siege in the Brest Fortress. Staff officers had to explain the reasons for the delay. At the same time, as has always been the case in history, they tried their best to extol their own courage and downplay the merits of the enemy. But even in this light, the feat of the unbroken defenders of the Brest Fortress looked so bright that excerpts from this document were published in the Soviet publication “Red Star” to strengthen the spirit of both front-line soldiers and civilians. But history at that time had not yet revealed all its secrets. The Brest Fortress in 1941 suffered much more than the trials that became known from the documents found.

Word to the witnesses

Three years passed after the capture of the Brest Fortress. After heavy fighting, Belarus and, in particular, the Brest Fortress were recaptured from the Nazis. By that time, stories about her had practically become legends and an ode to courage. Therefore, there was immediately increased interest in this object. The powerful fortress lay in ruins. At first glance, traces of destruction from artillery strikes told experienced front-line soldiers what kind of hell the garrison located here had to face at the very beginning of the war.

A detailed overview of the ruins provided an even more complete picture. Literally dozens of messages from participants in the defense of the fortress were written and scrawled on the walls. Many boiled down to the message: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up.” Some contained dates and surnames. Over time, eyewitnesses of those events were found. German newsreels and photo reports became available. Step by step, historians reconstructed the picture of the events that took place on June 22, 1941 in the battles for the Brest Fortress. The writings on the walls told about things that were not in the official reports. In the documents, the date of the fall of the fortress was July 1, 1941. But one of the inscriptions was dated July 20, 1941. This meant that resistance, albeit in the form partisan movement, lasted almost a month.

Defense of the Brest Fortress

By the time the fire of World War II broke out, the Brest Fortress was no longer a strategically important facility. But since it was inappropriate to neglect existing material resources, it was used as a barracks. The fortress turned into a small military town where the families of the commanders lived. Among the civilian population permanently residing in the territory were women, children and the elderly. About 300 families lived outside the walls of the fortress.

Due to military exercises planned for June 22, rifle and artillery units and senior army commanders left the fortress. 10 rifle battalions, 3 artillery regiments, air defense and anti-tank battalions left the territory. Less than half the usual number of people remained - approximately 8.5 thousand people. National composition defenders would do credit to any UN meeting. There were Belarusians, Ossetians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Kalmyks, Georgians, Chechens and Russians. In total, among the defenders of the fortress there were representatives of thirty nationalities. 19 thousand well-trained soldiers, who had considerable experience of real battles in Europe, were approaching them.

Soldiers of the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division stormed the Brest Fortress. This was a special unit. It was the first to triumphantly enter Paris. Soldiers from this division traveled through Belgium, Holland and fought in Warsaw. They were considered practically the elite of the German army. The Forty-fifth Division always quickly and accurately carried out the tasks assigned to it. The Fuhrer himself singled her out from others. This is a division of the former Austrian army. It was formed in Hitler's homeland - in the district of Linz. Personal devotion to the Fuhrer was carefully cultivated in her. They are expected to win quickly, and they have no doubt about it.

Fully ready for a quick assault

The Germans had detailed plan Brest Fortress. After all, just a few years ago they had already conquered it from Poland. Then Brest was also attacked at the very beginning of the war. The assault on the Brest Fortress in 1939 lasted two weeks. It was then that the Brest Fortress was first subjected to aerial bombing. And on September 22, the whole of Brest was pompously handed over to the Red Army, in honor of which a joint parade of Red Army soldiers and the Wehrmacht was held.

Fortifications: 1 - Citadel; 2 - Kobrin fortification; 3 - Volyn fortification; 4 - Terespol fortification Objects: 1. Defensive barracks; 2. Barbicans; 3. White Palace; 4. Engineering management; 5. Barracks; 6. Club; 7. Dining room; 8. Brest Gate; 9. Kholm Gate; 10. Terespol Gate; 11. Brigid Gate. 12. Border post building; 13. Western Fort; 14. East Fort; 15. Barracks; 16. Residential buildings; 17. North-West Gate; 18. North Gate; 19. East Gate; 20. Powder magazines; 21. Brigid Prison; 22. Hospital; 23. Regimental school; 24. Hospital building; 25. Strengthening; 26. South Gate; 27. Barracks; 28. Garages; 30. Barracks.

Therefore, the advancing soldiers had all the necessary information and a diagram of the Brest Fortress. They knew about the strengths and weaknesses of fortifications, and had a clear plan of action. At dawn on June 22, everyone was in place. We installed mortar batteries and prepared assault troops. At 4:15 the Germans opened artillery fire. Everything was very clearly verified. Every four minutes the line of fire was moved 100 meters forward. The Germans carefully and methodically mowed down everything they could get their hands on. Detailed map The Brest Fortress served as an invaluable help in this.

The emphasis was placed primarily on surprise. The artillery bombardment was supposed to be short but massive. The enemy had to be disoriented and not given the opportunity to provide united resistance. During the short attack, nine mortar batteries managed to fire 2,880 shots at the fortress. No one expected any serious resistance from the survivors. After all, in the fortress there were rear guards, repairmen, and families of commanders. As soon as the mortars died down, the assault began.

The attackers passed the South Island quickly. Warehouses were concentrated there, and there was a hospital. The soldiers did not stand on ceremony with bedridden patients - they finished them off with rifle butts. Those who could move independently were killed selectively.

But on the western island, where the Terespol fortification was located, the border guards managed to get their bearings and meet the enemy with dignity. But due to the fact that they were scattered into small groups, it was not possible to restrain the attackers for long. Through the Terespol Gate of the attacked Brest Fortress, the Germans broke into the Citadel. They quickly occupied some of the casemates, the officers' mess and the club.

First failures

At the same time, the newly-minted heroes of the Brest Fortress begin to gather in groups. They take out their weapons and take defensive positions. Now it turns out that the Germans who broke through find themselves in a ring. They are attacked from the rear, and yet undiscovered defenders await ahead. The Red Army soldiers purposefully shot officers among the attacking Germans. The infantrymen, discouraged by such a rebuff, try to retreat, but are then met with fire by the border guards. German losses in this attack amounted to almost half of the detachment. They retreat and settle in the club. This time as besieged.

Artillery cannot help the Nazis. It is impossible to open fire, since the probability of shooting your own people is too great. The Germans are trying to get through to their comrades stuck in the Citadel, but Soviet snipers force them to keep their distance with careful shots. The same snipers block the movement of machine guns, preventing them from being transferred to other positions.

By 7:30 in the morning, the seemingly shot fortress literally comes to life and completely comes to its senses. Defense has already been organized along the entire perimeter. The commanders hastily reorganize the surviving soldiers and place them in positions. Nobody has a complete picture of what is happening. But at this time, the fighters are sure that they just need to hold their positions. Hold out until help comes.

Complete isolation

Connections with outside world the Red Army soldiers did not. Messages sent over the air went unanswered. By noon the city was completely occupied by the Germans. The Brest Fortress on the map of Brest remained the only center of resistance. All escape routes were cut off. But contrary to the expectations of the Nazis, resistance only grew. It was absolutely clear that the attempt to capture the fortress had failed outright. The offensive stalled.

At 13:15, the German command throws the reserve into battle - the 133rd Infantry Regiment. This does not bring results. At 14:30, the commander of the 45th division, Fritz Schlieper, arrives at the German-occupied site of the Kobrin fortification to personally assess the situation. He becomes convinced that his infantry is not able to take the Citadel on its own. Shlieper gives the order at nightfall to withdraw the infantry and resume shelling from heavy guns. The heroic defense of the besieged Brest Fortress is bearing fruit. This is the first retreat of the famous 45th Division since the beginning of the war in Europe.

The Wehrmacht forces could not simply take and leave the fortress as it was. In order to move forward it was necessary to occupy it. The strategists knew this, and it has been proven by history. The defense of the Brest Fortress by the Poles in 1939 and the Russians in 1915 served as a good lesson for the Germans. The fortress blocked important crossings across the Western Bug River and access roads to both tank highways, which were crucial for the transfer of troops and provision of supplies to the advancing army.

According to the plans of the German command, troops aimed at Moscow were to march non-stop through Brest. German generals considered the fortress a serious obstacle, but simply did not consider it as a powerful defensive line. The desperate defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941 made adjustments to the plans of the aggressors. In addition, the defending Red Army soldiers did not just sit in the corners. Time after time they organized counterattacks. Losing people and rolling back to their positions, they rebuilt and went into battle again.

This is how the first day of the war passed. The next day, the Germans gathered the captured people, and, hiding behind women, children and the wounded from the captured hospital, they began to cross the bridge. Thus, the Germans forced the defenders to either let them through or shoot their relatives and friends with their own hands.

Meanwhile, artillery fire resumed. To help the besiegers, two super-heavy guns were delivered - 600 mm self-propelled mortars of the Karl system. These were such exclusive weapons that they even had their own names. In total, only six such mortars were produced throughout history. The two-ton shells fired from these mastodons left craters 10 meters deep. They knocked down the towers at the Terespol Gate. In Europe, the mere appearance of such a “Charles” at the walls of a besieged city meant victory. The Brest Fortress, as long as the defense lasted, did not even give the enemy a reason to think about the possibility of surrender. The defenders continued to fire even when seriously wounded.

The first prisoners

However, at 10 am the Germans take the first break and offer to surrender. This continued during each of the subsequent breaks in the shooting. Insistent offers to surrender were heard from German loudspeakers throughout the entire area. This was supposed to undermine the morale of the Russians. This approach has brought certain results. On this day, about 1,900 people left the fortress with their hands raised. Among them there were a lot of women and children. But there were also military personnel. Mostly reservists who arrived for training camp.

The third day of defense began with artillery shelling, comparable in power to the first day of the war. The Nazis could not help but admit that the Russians were defending themselves courageously. But they did not understand the reasons that forced people to continue to resist. Brest was taken. There is nowhere to wait for help. However, initially no one planned to defend the fortress. In fact, this would even be a direct disobedience to the order, which stated that in the event of hostilities, the fortress was to be abandoned immediately.

The military personnel there simply did not have time to leave the facility. The narrow gate, which was the only exit then, was under targeted fire from the Germans. Those who failed to break through initially expected help from the Red Army. They didn't know that German tanks already in the center of Minsk.

Not all the women left the fortress, having heeded the exhortations to surrender. Many stayed to fight with their husbands. German attack aircraft even reported to the command about women's battalion. However, there were never female units in the fortress.

Premature report

On the twenty-fourth of June, Hitler was informed about the capture of the Brest-Litovsk Fortress. That day, the stormtroopers managed to capture the Citadel. But the fortress has not yet surrendered. That evening, the surviving commanders gathered in the engineering barracks building. The result of the meeting is Order No. 1 - the only document of the besieged garrison. Because of the assault that had begun, they didn’t even have time to finish writing it. But it is thanks to him that we know the names of the commanders and the numbers of the fighting units.

After the fall of the Citadel, the eastern fort became the main center of resistance in the Brest Fortress. Stormtroopers try to take the Kobrin rampart repeatedly, but the artillerymen of the 98th anti-tank division firmly hold the defense. They knock out a couple of tanks and several armored vehicles. When the enemy destroys the cannons, the soldiers with rifles and grenades go into the casemates.

The Nazis combined assaults and shelling with psychological treatment. With the help of leaflets dropped from airplanes, the Germans call for surrender, promising life and humane treatment. They announce through loudspeakers that both Minsk and Smolensk have already been taken and there is no point in resistance. But the people in the fortress simply do not believe it. They are waiting for help from the Red Army.

The Germans were afraid to enter the casemates - the wounded continued to shoot. But they couldn’t get out either. Then the Germans decided to use flamethrowers. The terrible heat melted brick and metal. These stains can still be seen today on the walls of the casemates.

The Germans issue an ultimatum. It is carried to the surviving soldiers by a fourteen-year-old girl - Valya Zenkina, the daughter of the foreman, who was captured the day before. The ultimatum states that either the Brest Fortress surrenders down to the last defender, or the Germans will wipe the garrison off the face of the earth. But the girl did not return. She chose to stay in the fortress with her people.

Current problems

The period of the first shock passes, and the body begins to demand its own. People understand that they haven’t eaten anything all this time, and the food warehouses burned down during the very first shelling. Worse yet– Defenders have nothing to drink. During the first artillery shelling of the fortress, the water supply system was disabled. People suffer from thirst. The fortress was located at the confluence of two rivers, but it was impossible to reach this water. There are German machine guns along the banks of rivers and canals. The attempts of the besieged to get to the water are paid for with their lives.

The basements are overflowing with the wounded and families of command personnel. It is especially difficult for children. The commanders decide to send women and children into captivity. With white flags they go out into the street and go to the exit. These women did not remain in captivity for long. The Germans simply released them, and the women went either to Brest or to the nearest village.

On June 29, the Germans call in aviation. This was the date of the beginning of the end. Bombers drop several 500 kg bombs on the fort, but it survives and continues to snarl with fire. After lunch, another super-powerful bomb (1800 kg) was dropped. This time the casemates were penetrated through. Following this, stormtroopers burst into the fort. They managed to capture about 400 prisoners. Under heavy fire and constant assaults, the fortress held out for 8 days in 1941.

One for all

Major Pyotr Gavrilov, who led the main defense in this area, did not surrender. He took refuge in a hole dug in one of the casemates. The last defender of the Brest Fortress decided to wage his own war. Gavrilov wanted to take refuge in the northwestern corner of the fortress, where there were stables before the war. During the day he buries himself in a pile of manure, and at night he carefully crawls out to the canal to drink water. The major eats the remaining feed in the stable. However, after several days of such a diet, acute pain in the abdomen begins, Gavrilov quickly weakens and begins to fall into oblivion at times. Soon he is captured.

The world will learn much later how many days the defense of the Brest Fortress lasted. As well as the price the defenders had to pay. But the fortress began to become overgrown with legends almost immediately. One of the most popular ones originated from the words of one Jew, Zalman Stavsky, who worked as a violinist in a restaurant. He said that one day, while going to work, he was stopped by a German officer. Zalman was taken to the fortress and led to the entrance to the dungeon around which soldiers gathered, bristling with cocked rifles. Stavsky was ordered to go downstairs and take the Russian fighter out of there. He obeyed, and below he found a half-dead man, whose name remained unknown. Thin and overgrown, he could no longer move independently. Rumor attributed to him the title of the last defender. This happened in April 1942. 10 months have passed since the beginning of the war.

From the shadow of oblivion

A year after the first attack on the fortification, an article was written about this event in Red Star, where details of the soldiers’ protection were revealed. The Moscow Kremlin decided that it could raise the fighting fervor of the population, which had subsided by that time. It was not yet a real memorial article, but only a notification about what kind of heroes those 9 thousand people who came under the bombing were considered. Numbers and some names of the dead soldiers, the names of the fighters, the results of the surrender of the fortress and where the army was moving next were announced. In 1948, 7 years after the end of the battle, an article appeared in Ogonyok, which was more reminiscent of a memorial ode to the fallen people.

In fact, the presence of a complete picture of the defense of the Brest Fortress should be credited to Sergei Smirnov, who at one time set out to restore and organize the records previously stored in the archives. Konstantin Simonov took up the historian’s initiative and a drama, a documentary and a feature film were born under his leadership. Historians conducted research in order to get as much documentary footage as possible and they succeeded - the German soldiers were going to make a propaganda film about the victory, and therefore there was already video material. However, it was not destined to become a symbol of victory, so all the information was stored in archives.

Around the same time, the painting “To the Defenders of the Brest Fortress” was painted, and since the 1960s, poems began to appear where the Brest Fortress is presented as an ordinary city having fun. They were preparing for a skit based on Shakespeare, but did not suspect that another “tragedy” was brewing. Over time, songs have appeared in which, from the heights of the 21st century, a person looks at the hardships of soldiers a century earlier.

It is worth noting that it was not only Germany that carried out propaganda: propaganda speeches, films, posters encouraging action. The Russian Soviet authorities also did this, and therefore these films also had a patriotic character. The poetry glorified courage, the idea of ​​​​the feat of small military troops in the territory of the fortress, who were trapped. From time to time, notes appeared about the results of the defense of the Brest Fortress, but the emphasis was placed on the decisions of the soldiers in conditions of complete isolation from the command.

Soon, the Brest Fortress, already famous for its defense, had numerous poems, many of which were used as songs and served as screensavers for documentaries during the Great Patriotic War and chronicles of the advance of troops towards Moscow. In addition, there is a cartoon that tells the story of the Soviet people as foolish children (junior grades). In principle, the reason for the appearance of traitors and why there were so many saboteurs in Brest is explained to the viewer. But this is explained by the fact that the people believed the ideas of fascism, while sabotage attacks were not always carried out by traitors.

In 1965, the fortress was awarded the title of “hero”; in the media it was referred to exclusively as the “Brest Hero Fortress”, and by 1971 a memorial complex was formed. In 2004, Vladimir Beshanov published the full chronicle “Brest Fortress”.

History of the complex

The existence of the museum “The Fifth Fort of the Brest Fortress” is owed to the Communist Party, which proposed its creation on the 20th anniversary of the defense of the fortress. Funds had previously been collected by the people, and now all that remained was to get approval to turn the ruins into a cultural monument. The idea originated long before 1971 and, for example, back in 1965 the fortress received the “Hero Star”, and a year later a creative group was formed to design the museum.

She did extensive work, right down to specifying what kind of cladding the obelisk bayonet should have (titanium steel), the main color of the stone (gray) and the required material (concrete). The Council of Ministers agreed to implement the project and in 1971 a memorial complex was opened, where sculptural compositions are correctly and neatly arranged and battle sites are represented. Today they are visited by tourists from many countries around the world.

Location of monuments

The resulting complex has a main entrance, which is a concrete parallelepiped with a carved star. Polished to a shine, it stands on a rampart, on which, from a certain angle, the desolation of the barracks is especially striking. They are not so much abandoned as they are left in the condition in which they were used by the soldiers after the bombing. This contrast especially emphasizes the condition of the castle. On both sides there are casemates of the Eastern part of the fortress, and from the opening you can see central part. This is how the story begins that the Brest Fortress will tell the visitor.

A special feature of the Brest Fortress is the panorama. From the elevation you can see the citadel, the Mukhavets River, on the coast of which it is located, as well as the largest monuments. The sculptural composition “Thirst” is impressively made, glorifying the courage of the soldiers left without water. Since the water supply was destroyed in the first hours of the siege, the soldiers themselves needed drinking water, gave it to families, and used the remains to cool the guns. It is this difficulty that is meant when they say that the soldiers were ready to kill and walk over corpses for a sip of water.

The White Palace, depicted in the famous painting by Zaitsev, is surprising; in some places it was completely destroyed even before the bombing began. During the Second World War, the building served as a canteen, club and warehouse at the same time. Historically, it was in the palace that the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed, and according to myths, Trotsky left the famous slogan “no war, no peace”, imprinting it above the billiard table. However, the latter is not provable. During the construction of the museum, approximately 130 people were found killed near the palace, and the walls were damaged by potholes.

Together with the palace, the ceremonial area forms a single whole, and if we take into account the barracks, then all these buildings are entirely preserved ruins, untouched by archaeologists. The layout of the Brest Fortress memorial most often denotes the area with numbers, although it is quite extensive. In the center are slabs with the names of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, a list of which was restored, where the remains of more than 800 people are buried, and titles and merits are indicated next to the initials.

Most visited attractions

The Eternal Flame is located near the square, overlooked by the Main Monument. As the diagram shows, the Brest Fortress rings this place, making it a kind of core of the memorial complex. The Memory Post, organized under Soviet rule in 1972, has been serving next to the fire for many years. Young Army soldiers serve here, whose shift lasts 20 minutes and you can often get a shift change. The monument also deserves attention: it was made from reduced parts made from plaster at a local factory. Then they took impressions of them and enlarged them 7 times.

The engineering department is also part of the untouched ruins and is located inside the citadel, and the Mukhavets and Western Bug rivers make an island out of it. There was always a fighter in the Directorate who never stopped transmitting signals via the radio station. This is how the remains of one soldier were found: not far from the equipment, until his last breath, he did not stop trying to contact the command. In addition, during the First World War, the Engineering Directorate was only partially restored and was not a reliable shelter.

The garrison temple became an almost legendary place, which was one of the very last to be captured by enemy troops. Initially the temple served Orthodox Church However, by 1941 there was already a regiment club there. Since the building stood very advantageously, it became the place for which both sides fought intensely: the club passed from commander to commander and only at the very end of the siege remained with German soldiers. The temple building was restored several times, and only by 1960 was it included in the complex.

At the very Terespol Gate there is a monument to the “Heroes of the Border...”, created according to the idea State Committee in Belarus. A member of the creative committee worked on the design of the monument, and construction cost 800 million rubles. The sculpture depicts three soldiers defending themselves from enemies invisible to the observer, and behind them are children and their mother giving precious water to a wounded soldier.

Underground tales

The attraction of the Brest Fortress are the dungeons, which have an almost mystical aura, and around them there are legends of different origins and content. However, whether they should be called such a big word still needs to be figured out. Many journalists made reports without first checking the information. In fact, many of the dungeons turned out to be manholes, several tens of meters long, not at all “from Poland to Belarus.” The human factor played a role: those who survived mention underground passages as something big, but often the stories cannot be confirmed by facts.

Often, before looking for ancient passages, you need to study the information, thoroughly study the archive and understand the photographs found in newspaper clippings. Why is it important? The fortress was built for certain purposes, and in some places these passages may simply not exist - they were not needed! But certain fortifications are worth paying attention to. The map of the Brest Fortress will help with this.

Fort

When constructing forts, it was taken into account that they should only support the infantry. So, in the minds of the builders, they looked like separate buildings that were well armed. The forts were supposed to protect the areas between themselves where the military were located, thus forming a single chain - a line of defense. In these distances between fortified forts, there was often a road hidden on the sides by an embankment. This mound could serve as walls, but not as a roof - there was nothing for it to support. However, researchers perceived and described it precisely as a dungeon.

The presence of underground passages as such is not only illogical, but also difficult to implement. The financial expenses that the command would incur were absolutely not justified by the benefits of these dungeons. Much more effort would have been spent on construction, but the passages could have been used from time to time. Such dungeons can be used, for example, only when the fortress was defended. Moreover, it was beneficial for the commanders for the fort to remain autonomous and not become part of a chain that provided only a temporary advantage.

There are certified written memoirs of the lieutenant, describing his retreat with the army through the dungeons, stretching in the Brest Fortress, according to him, 300 meters! But the story briefly talked about the matches that the soldiers used to illuminate the path, but the size of the passages described by the lieutenant speaks for itself: it is unlikely that they would have had enough such lighting for such a distance, and even taking into account the return journey.

Old communications in legends

The fortress had storm drains and sewers, which made it a real stronghold from an ordinary pile of buildings with large walls. It is these technical passages that can most correctly be called dungeons, since they are made as a smaller version of the catacombs: a network of narrow passages branched over a long distance can only allow one person of average build to pass through. A soldier with ammunition will not pass through such cracks, much less several people in a row. This is an ancient sewerage system, which, by the way, is located on the diagram of the Brest Fortress. A person could crawl along it to the point of blockage and clear it so that this branch of the highway could be used further.

There is also a gateway that helps maintain the required amount of water in the fortress moat. It was also perceived as a dungeon and took on the image of a fabulously large hole. Numerous other communications can be listed, but the meaning will not change and they can only be considered dungeons conditionally.

Ghosts taking revenge from the dungeons

After the fortification was surrendered to Germany, legends about cruel ghosts avenging their comrades began to be passed on from mouth to mouth. There was a real basis for such myths: the remnants of the regiment hid for a long time in underground communications and shot at the night watchmen. Soon, descriptions of ghosts that never missed began to frighten so much that the Germans wished each other to avoid meeting the Fraumit Automaton, one of the legendary avenging ghosts.

Upon the arrival of Hitler and Benito Mussolini, everyone’s hands were sweating in the Brest Fortress: if, while these two brilliant personalities pass by the caves, ghosts fly out of there, trouble will not be avoided. However, this, to the considerable relief of the soldiers, did not happen. At night, Frau did not stop committing atrocities. She attacked unexpectedly, always swiftly, and just as unexpectedly disappeared into the dungeons, as if she had disappeared into them. From the descriptions of the soldiers it followed that the woman had a dress torn in several places, tangled hair and a dirty face. Because of her hair, by the way, her middle name was “Kudlataya.”

The story had a real basis, since the wives of the commanders also came under siege. They were trained to shoot, and they did it masterfully, without a miss, because the GTO standards had to be passed. In addition, be in good physical shape and be able to handle various types weapons were held in high esteem, and therefore some woman, blinded by revenge for her loved ones, could well have carried out such a thing. One way or another, the Fraumit Automaton was not the only legend among German soldiers.

On the very first day of the Great Patriotic War, June 22, 2941, the Brest Fortress, which housed approximately 3.5 thousand people, was attacked. Despite the fact that the forces were clearly unequal, the garrison of the Brest Fortress defended itself with honor for a month - until July 23, 1941. Although there is no consensus on the question of the duration of the defense of the Brest Fortress.

Some historians believe that it ended already at the end of June. The reason for the rapid capture of the fortress was the surprise of the attack German army to the Soviet garrison. They did not expect this, and therefore were not prepared; the Russian soldiers and officers located on the territory of the fortress were taken by surprise.

The Germans, on the contrary, carefully prepared to capture the ancient fortress. They practiced each one on a mock-up created from images obtained by aerial photography. The German leadership understood that the fortification could not be captured with the help of tanks, so the main emphasis was placed on.

Causes of defeat

By June 29-30, the enemy had captured almost all the military fortifications, and battles took place throughout the entire territory of the garrison. Nevertheless, the defenders of the Brest Fortress courageously continued to defend themselves, although they practically no longer had water and food.
And not surprisingly, the Brest Fortress was attacked by forces many times greater than those present in it. The infantry and two tanks carried out frontal and flank attacks on all entrances to the fortress. Warehouses with ammunition, medicines, and food came under fire. German shock assault groups followed.

By 12 noon on June 22, the enemy had broken communications and broken through to the Citadel, but Soviet troops managed to recapture. Subsequently, the buildings of the Citadel were repeatedly transferred from the Germans.

On June 29-30, the Germans launched a two-day continuous assault on the Citadel, as a result of which Soviet military commanders were captured. Thus, June 30 is called the day of the end of organized resistance to the Brest Fortress. However, isolated pockets of resistance, to the surprise of the Germans, appeared, according to some sources, until August 1941. It was not for nothing that Hitler brought Mussolini to the Brest Fortress to show what a serious enemy he had to fight.
Some Soviet soldiers and

The attack on our country in June 1941 began along the entire western border, from north to south, each border outpost took its own battle. But the defense of the Brest Fortress became legendary. The fighting was already taking place on the outskirts of Minsk, and rumors were passed from fighter to fighter that somewhere there, in the west, a border fortress was still defending itself and not surrendering. According to the German plan, eight hours were allotted for the complete capture of the Brest fortification. But neither a day later, nor two days later, the fortress was taken. It is believed that the last day of its defense is July 20. The inscription on the wall is dated this day: “We are dying, but we are not giving up...”. Witnesses claimed that even in August the sounds of gunfire and explosions were heard in the central citadel.

On the night of June 22, 1941, cadet Myasnikov and private Shcherbina were in a border secret in one of the shelters of the Terespol fortification at the junction of the branches of the Western Bug. At dawn they noticed an approaching railway bridge German armored train. They wanted to inform the outpost, but realized it was too late. The ground shook underfoot, the sky darkened with enemy aircraft.

Head of the chemical service of the 455th rifle regiment A.A. Vinogradov recalled:

“On the night of June 21-22, I was appointed operational duty officer at the regiment headquarters. The headquarters was located in the ring barracks. At dawn there was a deafening roar, everything was drowned in fiery flashes. I tried to contact the division headquarters, but the phone did not work. I ran to the units of the unit. I found out that there are only four commanders here - Art. Lieutenant Ivanov, Lieutenant Popov and Lieutenant Makhnach and political instructor Koshkarev who arrived from military schools. They have already begun to organize defense. Together with soldiers from other units, we knocked out the Nazis from the club building and the command staff canteen, did not give the opportunity to break into the central island through the Three-Armed Gate"

Cadets of the school of drivers and border guards, soldiers of a transport company and a sapper platoon, participants in training camps for cavalrymen and athletes - everyone who was in the fortification that night took up defensive positions. The fortress was defended by several groups in different parts of the citadel. One of them was headed by Lieutenant Zhdanov, and next door groups of Lieutenants Melnikov and Cherny were preparing for battle.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the Germans moved towards the fortress.. At this time there were about 300 people at the Tepespol fortification. They responded to the attack with rifle and machine gun fire and grenades. However, one of the enemy assault troops managed to break through to the fortifications of the Central Island. Attacks occurred several times a day, and it was necessary to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Each time the Germans retreated with losses.

On June 24, 1941, in one of the basements of the building of the 333rd engineering regiment, a meeting of commanders and political workers of the central citadel of the Brest Fortress was held. A unified defense headquarters for the Central Island was created. Captain I.N. Zubachev became commander of the combined combat group, his deputy was regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, and chief of staff was senior lieutenant Semenenko.

The situation was difficult: there was not enough ammunition, food, and water. The remaining 18 people were forced to leave the fortification and hold the defense in the Citadel.

Private A.M. Fil, clerk of the 84th Infantry Regiment:

“Even before the war we knew; in the event of an enemy attack, all units, with the exception of the covering group, must leave the fortress to the concentration area upon combat alert. But it was not possible to completely fulfill this order: all exits from the fortress and its water lines almost immediately came under heavy fire. The three-arch gate and the bridge over the Mukhavets River were under heavy fire. We had to take up defensive positions inside the fortress: in the barracks, in the engineering department building and in the “White Palace”. ...We waited: the enemy infantry would follow the artillery attack. And suddenly the Nazis stopped firing. Dust from powerful explosions began to slowly settle in Citadel Square, and fires raged in many barracks. Through the haze we saw a large detachment of fascists armed with machine guns and machine guns. They were moving towards the engineering department building. Regimental Commissar Fomin gave the order: “Hand to hand!” In this battle, a Nazi officer was captured. We tried to deliver the valuable documents taken from him to the division headquarters. But the road to Brest was cut off. I will never forget regimental commissar Fomin. He was always where it was harder, knew how to maintain morale, cared for the wounded, children, and women like a father. The commissar combined the strict demands of a commander and the instincts of a political worker.”

On June 30, 1941, a bomb hit the basement where the Citadel defense headquarters was located. Fomin was seriously wounded and shell-shocked, lost consciousness and was captured. The Germans shot him at the Kholm Gate. And the defenders of the fortress continued to hold the defense.

When the Germans captured women and children at the Volyn fortification and drove them ahead of them to the Citadel, no one wanted to go. They were beaten with rifle butts and shot. And the women screamed Soviet soldiers: “Shoot, don’t spare us!”.

Lieutenants Potapov and Sanin led the defense in the two-story barracks of their regiment. Nearby there was a building where the 9th border outpost was located. Soldiers fought here under the command of the head of the outpost, Lieutenant Kizhevatov. Only when only ruins remained of their building did Kizhevatov and his soldiers move to the basements of the barracks and continued to lead the defense together with Potapov.