In what year was the defense of the Brest Fortress. How long did the Brest Fortress last? Hero City Brest Fortress

Krivonogov, Pyotr Alexandrovich, oil painting “Defenders of the Brest Fortress”, 1951.

The defense of the Brest Fortress in June 1941 is one of the first battles of the Great Patriotic War.

On the eve of the war

By June 22, 1941, the fortress housed 8 rifle and 1 reconnaissance battalions, 2 artillery divisions (anti-tank and air defense), some special forces 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 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 at least 7 thousand people, not counting family members (300 military families).

According to General L.M. Sandalov, “the deployment of Soviet troops in Western Belarus was not initially subordinated to operational considerations, but was determined by the availability of barracks and premises suitable for housing troops. This, in particular, explained the crowded location of half the troops of the 4th Army with with all their warehouses of emergency supplies (NZ) on the very border - in Brest and the Brest Fortress." According to the 1941 cover plan, the 28th Rifle Corps, consisting of the 42nd and 6th Rifle Divisions, was supposed to organize defense on a wide front in prepared positions in the Brest fortified area. Of the troops stationed in the fortress, only one rifle battalion, reinforced by an artillery division, was provided for its defense.

The assault on the fortress, the city of Brest and the capture of bridges across the Western Bug and Mukhavets was entrusted to the 45th Infantry Division (45th Infantry Division) of Major General Fritz Schlieper (about 18 thousand people) with reinforcement units and in cooperation with units of neighboring formations (including including mortar battalions assigned to the 31st and 34th Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army Corps of the 4th German Army and used by the 45th Infantry Division during the first five minutes of the artillery raid), for a total of up to 22 thousand people.

Storming the fortress

In addition to the divisional artillery of the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division, nine light and three heavy batteries, a high-power artillery battery (two super-heavy 600-mm Karl self-propelled mortars) and a mortar division were involved in artillery preparation. In addition, the commander of the 12th Army Corps concentrated the fire of two mortar divisions of the 34th and 31st infantry divisions on the fortress. The order to withdraw units of the 42nd Infantry Division from the fortress, given personally by the commander of the 4th Army, Major General A. A. Korobkov, to the chief of staff of the division by telephone in the period from 3 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 45 minutes, before the start of hostilities, was not managed to complete it.

On June 22 at 3:15 (4:15 Soviet “maternity” 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 (according to the surviving defenders, there was no water in the water supply two days before the assault), communications were interrupted, and serious damage was caused to the garrison. At 3:23 the assault began. Up to one and a half thousand infantry men 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, having passed the Citadel, advanced groups reached the Kobrin fortification. However, parts of the garrison that found themselves behind German lines launched a counterattack, dismembering and almost completely 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's 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.

By 7:00 on June 22, the 42nd and 6th rifle divisions left the fortress and the city of Brest, but many soldiers from these divisions did not manage to get out of the fortress. It was they who continued to fight in it. According to historian R. Aliyev, about 8 thousand people left the fortress, and about 5 thousand remained in it. According to other sources, on June 22, there were only 3 to 4 thousand people in the fortress, since part of the personnel of both divisions was outside the fortress - in summer camps, during exercises, during the construction of the Brest fortified area (sapper battalions, an engineer regiment, one battalion each from each rifle regiment and a division from artillery regiments).

From a combat report on the actions of the 6th Infantry Division:

At 4 o'clock in the morning on June 22, hurricane fire was opened on the barracks, on the exits from the barracks in the central part of the fortress, on the bridges and entrance gates and on the houses of the commanding staff. This raid caused confusion and panic among the Red Army personnel. The command staff, who were attacked in their apartments, were partially destroyed. The surviving commanders could not penetrate the barracks due to the strong barrage placed on the bridge in the central part of the fortress and at the entrance gate. As a result, Red Army soldiers and junior commanders, without control from mid-level commanders, dressed and undressed, in groups and individually, left the fortress, crossing the bypass canal, the Mukhavets River and the rampart of the fortress under artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire. It was not possible to take into account the losses, since scattered units of the 6th Division mixed with scattered units of the 42nd Division, and many could not get to the assembly point because at about 6 o’clock artillery fire was already concentrated on it.

Sandalov L. M. Combat actions of the troops of the 4th Army in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War.

By 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress was surrounded. During the day, the Germans were forced to bring into battle the reserve of the 45th Infantry Division (135pp/2), as well as the 130th Infantry Regiment, which was originally the corps reserve, thus bringing the assault group to two regiments.

Monument to the defenders of the Brest Fortress and the Eternal Flame

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. However, 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 (chief chemical services of the 455th Infantry Regiment) and Captain I.N. Zubachev (deputy commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment for economic affairs), 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 (military commissar of the 84th rifle regiment), senior lieutenant N. F. Shcherbakov (assistant chief of staff of the 33rd separate engineering regiment) and lieutenant A. K. Shugurov (executive secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the 75th separate reconnaissance battalion ).

Having met in the basement of the “House of Officers,” the defenders of the Citadel tried to coordinate their actions: a draft order No. 1 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, almost all of its fighters were captured or destroyed by units of the 45th Infantry Division, which took up defensive positions 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, which consisted of 600 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, was commanded by Major P. M. Gavrilov (commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment). In the area of ​​the Terespol Gate, groups of fighters under the command of Senior Lieutenant A.E. Potapov (in the basements of the barracks of the 333rd Infantry Regiment) and border guards of the 9th Border Outpost under Lieutenant A.M. Kizhevatov (in the building of the border outpost) continued to fight. On this day, the Germans managed to capture 570 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 kilograms, 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).

There remained only isolated pockets of resistance and single fighters who gathered in groups and organized active resistance, or tried to break out of the fortress and go to the partisans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (many succeeded). In the basements of the barracks of the 333rd regiment at the Terespol Gate, the group of A.E. Potapov and the border guards of A.M. Kizhevatov who joined it continued to fight until June 29. On June 29, they made a desperate attempt to break through to the south, towards the Western Island, in order to then turn to the east, during which most of its participants died or were captured. 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". The resistance of single Soviet soldiers in the casemates of the fortress continued until August 1941, 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.

German troops captured about 3 thousand Soviet military personnel in the fortress (according to the report of the commander of the 45th division, Lieutenant General Schlieper, on June 30, 25 officers, 2877 junior commanders and soldiers were captured), 1877 Soviet military personnel died in the fortress .

The total German losses in the Brest Fortress amounted to 1,197 people, of which 87 Wehrmacht officers on the Eastern Front during the first week of the war.

Lessons Learned:

Short, strong artillery fire on old fortress brick walls, fastened with concrete, deep basements and unobserved shelters does not give an effective result. Long-term aimed fire for destruction and fire of great force are required to thoroughly destroy fortified centers.

Commissioning assault guns, tanks, etc. is very difficult due to the invisibility of many shelters, fortresses and a large number of possible targets and does not give the expected results due to the thickness of the walls of the structures. In particular, a heavy mortar is not suitable for such purposes.

An excellent means of causing moral shock to those in shelters is to drop large caliber bombs.

An attack on a fortress in which a brave defender sits costs a lot of blood. This simple truth was proven once again during the capture of Brest-Litovsk. Heavy artillery is also a powerful stunning means of moral influence.

The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought exceptionally stubbornly and persistently. They showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to fight.

Combat report from the commander of the 45th division, Lieutenant General Shlieper, on the occupation of the Brest-Litovsk fortress, July 8, 1941.

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.

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.

Difficulties of the study

Restoring the course of events in the Brest Fortress in June 1941 is greatly hampered by the almost complete absence of documents from the Soviet side. The main sources of information are the testimonies of the surviving defenders of the fortress, received in large numbers after a significant period of time after the end of the war. There is reason to believe that these testimonies contain a lot of unreliable information, including deliberately distorted information for one reason or another. For example, for many key witnesses, the dates and circumstances of captivity do not correspond to the data recorded in the German prisoners of war cards. For the most part, the date of capture in German documents is earlier than the date reported by the witness himself in post-war testimony. In this regard, there are doubts about the reliability of the information contained in such testimony.

In art

Art films

"Immortal Garrison" (1956);

“Battle for Moscow”, film one “Aggression” (one of the storylines) (USSR, 1985);

“State Border”, fifth film “The Year forty-one” (USSR, 1986);

“I am a Russian soldier” - based on the book by Boris Vasiliev “Not on the lists” (Russia, 1995);

“Brest Fortress” (Belarus-Russia, 2010).

Documentaries

“Heroes of Brest” - a documentary film about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War (TSSDF Studio, 1957);

“Dear Fathers-Heroes” - an amateur documentary about the 1st All-Union rally of the winners of the youth march to places of military glory in the Brest Fortress (1965);

“Brest Fortress” - a documentary trilogy about the defense of the fortress in 1941 (VoenTV, 2006);

“Brest Fortress” (Russia, 2007).

"Brest. Serf heroes." (NTV, 2010).

“Berastseiskaya fortress: dzve abarons” (Belsat, 2009)

Fiction

Vasiliev B.L. Was not included in the lists. - M.: Children's literature, 1986. - 224 p.

Oshaev Kh. D. Brest is a fiery nut. - M.: Book, 1990. - 141 p.

Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress. - M.: Young Guard, 1965. - 496 p.

Songs

“There is no death for the heroes of Brest” - song by Eduard Khil.

“The Brest Trumpeter” - music by Vladimir Rubin, lyrics by Boris Dubrovin.

“Dedicated to the heroes of Brest” - words and music by Alexander Krivonosov.

Interesting Facts

According to Boris Vasiliev’s book “Not on the Lists,” the last known defender of the fortress surrendered on April 12, 1942. S. Smirnov in the book “Brest Fortress” also, referring to eyewitness accounts, names April 1942.

On August 22, 2016, Vesti Israel reported that the last surviving participant in the defense of the Brest Fortress, Boris Faershtein, died in Ashdod.

Having unexpectedly attacked the Soviet Union, the fascist command expected to reach Moscow in a few months. However, the German generals met resistance as soon as they crossed the border of the USSR. The Germans took several hours to capture the first outpost, but the defenders of the Brest Fortress held back the power of the huge fascist army for six days.

The siege of 1941 became

For the historical Brest Fortress, however, it had been attacked before. The fortress was built by the architect Opperman in 1833 as a military structure. The war reached it only in 1915 - then it was blown up during the retreat of Nikolaev's troops. In 1918, after the signing, which took place in the Citadel of the fortress, it remained under German control for some time, and by the end of 1918 it was in the hands of the Poles, who owned it until 1939.

Real hostilities overtook the Brest Fortress in 1939. The second day of World War II began for the fortress garrison with a bombing. German aircraft dropped ten bombs on the citadel, damaging the main building of the fortress - the Citadel, or White Palace. At that time, there were several random military and reserve units stationed in the fortress. The first defense of the Brest Fortress was organized by General Plisovsky, who, from the scattered troops he had, managed to assemble a combat-ready detachment of 2,500 people and evacuate the officers' families in time. Against the armored corps of General Heinz, Plisovsky was able to oppose only an old armored train, several of the same tanks and a couple of batteries. Then the defense of the Brest Fortress lasted three full days.

From September 14 to 17, while the enemy was almost six times stronger than the defenders. On the night of September 17, the wounded Plisovsky took the remnants of his detachment south, towards Terespol. After this, on September 22, the Germans handed over Brest and the Brest Fortress to the Soviet Union.

The defense of the Brest Fortress in 1941 fell on the shoulders of nine Soviet battalions, two artillery divisions and several separate units. In total this amounted to about eleven thousand people, excluding three hundred officer families. The infantry division of Major General Schlieper stormed the fortress, which was reinforced with additional units. In total, about twenty thousand soldiers were subordinate to General Schlieper.

The attack began early in the morning. Due to the surprise of the attack, the commanders did not have time to coordinate the actions of the fortress garrison, so the defenders were immediately divided into several detachments. The Germans immediately managed to capture the Citadel, but they were never able to gain a foothold in it - the invaders were attacked by the Soviet units remaining behind, and the Citadel was partially liberated. On the second day of defense, the Germans proposed

surrender, to which 1900 people agreed. The remaining defenders united under the leadership of Captain Zubachev. The enemy forces, however, were immeasurably higher, and the defense of the Brest Fortress was short-lived. On June 24, the Nazis managed to capture 1,250 fighters, another 450 people were captured on June 26. The last stronghold of the defenders, the East Fort, was crushed on June 29 when the Germans dropped an 1,800 kg bomb on it. This day is considered the end of the defense, but the Germans cleared the Brest Fortress until June 30, and the last defenders were destroyed only by the end of August. Only a few managed to go to Belovezhskaya Pushcha to join the partisans.

The fortress was liberated in 1944, and in 1971 it was preserved and turned into a museum. At the same time, a memorial was erected, thanks to which the defense of the Brest Fortress and the courage of its defenders will be remembered forever.

It is difficult to be a historian and have visited the Brest Fortress without writing anything about it. I can't resist either. There are many different facts in the history of the defense of the Brest Fortress, which, of course, are known to historians, but are not known to a wide circle of readers. These are the “little known” facts that my post today is about.

Who attacked?

The statement that the operation to capture the Brest Fortress was carried out by the 45th German Infantry Division is only partially true. If we approach the issue literally, then the Brest Fortress was captured by the Austrian division. Before the Anschluss of Austria it was called the 4th Austrian Division. Moreover, the personnel of the division consisted of not just anyone, but fellow countrymen of Adolf Hitler. The Austrians were not only its original composition, but also its subsequent replenishment. After the capture of the fortress, the commander of the 45th Infantry Division, Schlieper, wrote:

“Despite these losses and the tough courage of the Russian, the strong fighting spirit of the division, receiving reinforcements mainly from the immediate homeland of the Fuhrer and supreme commander, from the Upper Danube region...”.

Field Marshal von Kluge added:

“The 45th division from Ostmark (Austria was called Ostmark in the Third Reich - approx. A.G.) fought exceptionally and can rightfully be proud of its work...”

By the time of the invasion of the USSR, the division had combat experience in France and Poland and special training. The division trained in Poland at Warsaw forts in old fortifications with water ditches. They performed exercises to force water obstacles using inflatable boats and auxiliary equipment. The division's assault troops were prepared to suddenly capture bridges in a raid and were trained in close combat in fortresses...
Thus, the enemy of the Soviet soldiers, although not entirely German, had good training, combat experience and excellent equipment. To suppress resistance centers, the division was equipped with heavy-duty Karl guns, six-barreled mortars, etc.

What was the fortress like?

Any person now examining the remaining elements of the citadel of the Brest Fortress is struck by the inconsistency of the defensive structures with the requirements of the Second World War. The fortifications of the citadel were suitable, perhaps, for those times when opponents attacked in close formation with muzzle-loading guns, and cannons fired cast-iron cannonballs. As defensive structures from the Second World War, they look funny.
The Germans also gave a corresponding description of the fortress. On May 23, 1941, the inspector of the eastern fortifications of the Wehrmacht provided the command with a report in which he examined in detail the fortifications of the Brest Fortress and concluded:

“In general, we can say that fortifications do not pose any particular obstacle for us...”

Why did they decide to defend the fortress?

As sources show, the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress was organized... by the German command. The units that were in the fortress after the start of hostilities, according to pre-war plans, sought to leave the fortress as soon as possible in order to connect with their field units. While separate units of the 131st Light Artillery Regiment held the defense at the Northern Gate, a significant part of the Red Army soldiers managed to leave Kobrin Island. But then the remnants of the light artillery regiment were pushed back and the fortress was completely surrounded.
The defenders of the fortress had no choice but to take up defensive positions or surrender.

Who gave up first?

After the fortress was surrounded, heterogeneous units of different units remained in it. These are several “training courses”: driver courses, cavalry courses, junior commander courses, etc. As well as headquarters and rear units of rifle regiments: clerks, veterinarians, cooks, paramedics, etc. Under these conditions, the soldiers of the NKVD convoy battalion and border guards turned out to be the most combat-ready. Although, for example, when the command of the 45th German division began to lack personnel, they categorically refused to use convoy units, citing the fact that “they are not suitable for this.” Among the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the most unreliable were not the guards (who were predominantly Slavs, members of the Komsomol and the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), but the Poles. This is how the clerk of the 333rd regiment A.I. Alekseev describes it:

“Before the start of the war, training sessions were held for command personnel assigned to the Brest region, who had previously served in the Polish army. Several people from the assigned personnel crossed the bridge, turned to the left side of the Mukhovtsa River, along the earthen rampart, and one of them held a white flag in his hand, crossed towards the enemy.”

Clerk of the headquarters of the 84th Infantry Regiment Fil A.M. recalled:

“...from among the Westerners who were undergoing a 45-day gathering, who, back on June 22, threw white sheets out of the windows, but were partly destroyed...”

Among the defenders of the Brest Fortress there were many representatives of different nationalities: Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Georgians, Armenians... But mass betrayal was observed only on the part of the Poles.

Why did the Germans suffer such heavy losses?

The Germans arranged the massacre in the Brest Fortress themselves. Without giving the Red Army soldiers the opportunity to leave the fortress, they began the assault. The defenders of the Brest Fortress were so stunned in the first minutes of the assault that they offered virtually no resistance. Thanks to this, German assault groups entered the central island and captured the church and the canteen. And at this time the fortress came to life - the massacre began. It was on the first day, June 22, that the Germans suffered the greatest losses in the Brest Fortress. This is the “New Year's assault on Grozny” for the Germans. They burst in almost without firing a shot, and then found themselves surrounded and defeated.
Interestingly, the fortress was almost never attacked from outside the fortress. All the main events took place inside. The Germans penetrated inside and from the inside, where not the loopholes, but the windows attacked the ruins. In the fortress itself there were no dungeons or underground passages. Soviet soldiers hid in basements and often shot from basement windows. Having filled the courtyard of the citadel with the corpses of their soldiers, the Germans retreated and in the following days did not undertake such massive assaults, but moved gradually attacking the ruins with artillery, explosive engineers, flamethrowers, and specially powerful bombs...
Some researchers claim that on June 22, the Germans suffered a third of all their losses on the eastern front at the Brest Fortress.

Who defended the longest?

Films and literature tell about the tragedy of the Eastern Fort. How he defended himself until June 29. How the Germans dropped a one and a half ton bomb on the fort, how women and children first came out of the fortress. As it happened later, the rest of the defenders of the fort surrendered, but the commander and commissar were not among them.
But this is June 29 and, perhaps, a little later.. However, fort No. 5, according to German documents, held out until mid-August!!! Now there is also a museum there, however, today nothing is known about how its defense took place, who its defenders were.

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

THE LEGEND BECOMES FALSE
In February 1942, on one of the front sectors in the Orel region, our troops defeated the enemy’s 45th Infantry Division. At the same time, the archives of the division headquarters were captured. While sorting through the documents captured in the German archives, our officers noticed one very interesting paper. This document was called “Combat Report on the Occupation of Brest-Litovsk,” and in it, day after day, the Nazis talked about the progress of the battles for the Brest Fortress.

Contrary to the will of the German staff officers, who, naturally, tried in every possible way to extol the actions of their troops, all the facts presented in this document spoke of exceptional courage, amazing heroism, and extraordinary stamina and tenacity of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The last concluding words of this report sounded like a forced involuntary recognition of the enemy.

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

This was the enemy's confession.

This “Combat Report on the Occupation of Brest-Litovsk” was translated into Russian, and excerpts from it were published in 1942 in the newspaper “Red Star”. Thus, actually from the lips of our enemy, the Soviet people for the first time learned some details of the remarkable feat of the heroes of the Brest Fortress. The legend has become reality.

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

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

And a miracle happened! The stones suddenly started talking! Inscriptions left by the defenders of the fortress began to be found on the surviving walls of the fortress buildings, in the openings of windows and doors, on the vaults of the basements, and on the abutments of the bridge. In these inscriptions, sometimes anonymous, sometimes signed, sometimes scribbled hastily in pencil, sometimes simply scratched on the plaster with a bayonet or a bullet, the soldiers declared their determination to fight to the death, sent farewell greetings to the Motherland and comrades, and spoke of devotion to the people and the party. In the ruins of the fortress, the living voices of the unknown heroes of 1941 seemed to sound, and the soldiers of 1944 listened with excitement and heartache to these voices, in which there was a proud consciousness of duty performed, and the bitterness of parting with life, and calm courage in the face of death, and a covenant about revenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus, it became clear that the German report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk contained a deliberate lie and that the headquarters of the enemy 45th division hastened to inform its high command in advance about the fall of the fortress. In fact, the fighting continued for a long time... In 1950, a researcher at the Moscow museum, while exploring the premises of the Western barracks, found another inscription scratched on the wall. The inscription was: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up. Farewell, Motherland! There was no signature under these words, but at the bottom there was a very clearly visible date - “July 20, 1941.” Thus, it was possible to find direct evidence that the fortress continued to resist on the 29th day of the war, although eyewitnesses stood their ground and assured that the fighting lasted for more than a month. After the war, the ruins in the fortress were partially dismantled, and at the same time, the remains of heroes were often found under the stones, their personal documents and weapons were discovered.

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

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

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

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

The time gained allowed the Soviet side to organize an orderly defense of the barracks. The Nazis were forced to remain in their occupied positions in the army club building, from where they could not get out for some time. Attempts to break through enemy reinforcements across the bridge over Mukhavets in the area of ​​the Kholm Gate on the Central Island were also stopped by fire.

In addition to the central part of the fortress, resistance gradually grew in other parts of the building complex (in particular, under the command of Major P.M. Gavrilov at the northern Kobrin fortification), and the dense buildings favored the garrison fighters. Because of it, the enemy could not conduct targeted artillery fire at close range without running the risk of being destroyed himself. Having only small arms and a small number of artillery pieces and armored vehicles, the defenders of the fortress stopped the enemy’s advance, and later, when the Germans carried out a tactical retreat, they occupied the positions abandoned by the enemy.

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

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

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

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

At the initial stage of the defense, the idea of ​​breaking through the fortress and joining the main forces was abandoned, since the command of the defenders was counting on a quick counterattack by the Soviet troops. When these calculations did not come true, attempts began to break the blockade, but they all ended in failure due to the overwhelming superiority of the Wehrmacht units in manpower and weapons.

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

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

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

In June 1941 - one of the most heroic pages in the military history of our Motherland. It was here that the Red Army first demonstrated to the whole world that it was invincible.

Storm

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, several rifle battalions, anti-tank and air defense divisions, a total of about 7,000 military personnel, were stationed in the Brest Fortress.

The assault on the Brest Fortress began early in the morning of June 22, it was carried out by units of the 45th German Infantry Division numbering at least 18 thousand soldiers under the command of Nazi General Fritz Schlieper.

After a powerful preliminary artillery preparation, during which more than 7 thousand artillery ammunition was expended, the attack began. They did not have time to carry out the order of the Red Army command to withdraw units of the rifle division from the fortress.

The defenders of the Brest Fortress were essentially taken by surprise, stunning them with hurricane artillery fire. In the first minutes of the unexpected attack, significant damage was caused to the fortress and its garrison, and part of the command staff was destroyed.

The garrison was broken into several parts, beheaded, and therefore could not provide a single coordinated resistance. Already in the afternoon of June 22, the first German assault troops were able to capture the Northern Gate of the Brest Fortress.

However, soon the defenders of the Brest Fortress were able to provide serious resistance to the enemy, launching a counteroffensive. Part of the Nazi division was successfully dismembered and destroyed, incl. in bayonet attacks.

However, certain sections of the fortress remained under German control, and fierce fighting continued throughout the night. By the morning of June 23, part of our rifle battalions managed to leave the fortress, the rest continued to fight the Nazis.

The Germans did not expect such tough resistance, until now they had not had to face such resistance in occupied Europe, which quickly surrendered under the pressure of German weapons, so they retreated.

Going on defense

Deprived of command, the soldiers of the Red Army began to independently unite into small combat groups, choose their commanders and continue the defense of the Brest Fortress.

The House of Officers became the defense headquarters, from where Captain Zubachev, Commissar Fomin and their comrades tried to coordinate the actions of scattered combat detachments of the Red Army. However, on June 24, the Germans occupied almost the entire citadel.

The fighting continued until June 29. As a result, most of the defenders of the fortress died or were captured. To stop resistance, the Nazis dropped more than 20 aerial bombs weighing 500 kg each on the Brest Fortress, and fires started.

However, the surviving soldiers did not give up, they continued active resistance, the defense of the Brest Fortress continued, despite the significantly superior forces of the attacking enemy.

According to historians, some of our soldiers resisted the German army in the casemates of the fortress until August 1941. As a result, the German command ordered the basements of the casemates to be flooded.