"I'm dying, but I'm not giving up." When the last defender of the Brest Fortress died. Defense of the Brest Fortress - briefly, the most important Defended the Brest Fortress

Komsomolskaya Pravda checked whether the residents of the city know the history of the memorial well.

In schools, colleges and universities there is a special course "Great Patriotic War". Belarusfilm periodically makes films about the war, every year hundreds of articles, videos and programs about the war appear in the press. One of the main symbols of the war in Belarus -. We asked Brest residents on Sovetskaya Street a simple question: “How long did it last?”.

A man in a dark jacket slyly asked a counter question:

- Official or what?

For example, officially.

- There are no official documents, how long she lasted. And if according to unofficial, then until April 1942. Watch the film "I am a Russian soldier". And you will know everything.

"Officially, how long did she last, or unofficially?" the man asked a counter question. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

“Five days, probably,” Ilya suggested.

- Yes, what are you? More, - Ira objected.

“Yes, well, calm down, five days,” Ilya snorted.

“Maybe you know the name of the last defender of the fortress?”

The fortress held out for five days! Ilya thinks. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

“Oh, we have a lot of streets named after the heroes of the Brest Fortress,” the girls quickly say. - This is the street of Akimochkin, Vera Khoruzhy, Gavrilov, Naganov ... That's it, we don't know anymore.

“No, not five, more,” says his friend Vika. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

Girls, who knows?

“Oh, we don’t need to ask any questions, we already forgot everything on the decree,” the mothers laugh. Well, about a month or so. We don't need to take pictures...

Marina and Liza, students of the BrSU named after Pushkin with a degree in tourism, looked at each other and said:

“Twenty-two days or how much?” Oh, we don't really know.

— Oh, we don’t remember anything about the fortress from school… — students of the Faculty of Tourism complain. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

We don't remember anything from school. We remember that Brest is not a hero city, but a hero fortress.

A woman in a dark coat recalled, recalled:

- Oh, guys ... One soldier was there when our Minsk was taken, the fortress was still holding on. Just don't take pictures!

Dmitry in a black cap quickly issued:

The fortress held out for 90 days. I remember a film from the 90s about the defender of the Brest Fortress. There he all gray-haired then left. Very heroic film, I liked it. For me, a fortress is an example of military prowess. And it seems to me that she should never be forgotten. And this is without pathos.

The fortress is an example of military prowess. I’m telling you without pathos, Dmitry convinces. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

“Yes, four months,” Elena suggested.

- And I think that one month, - says Galina Stepanovna. “I treat the fortress as if it were history. I often go there, because I go to the church on the territory of the fortress.

“And we treat the fortress simply as history,” say Galina Stepanovna and Elena. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

The fortress held out for almost a month. My uncle lived on Pushkinskaya during the war. So he climbed a tree and back in July he watched that the planes dived. In front of his eyes, almost a motorcyclist was shot down. Oh, so many stories. I also had a relative there who, on the day of the bombing, ran home from the fortress in his underpants. He was an ordinary.

“The fortress held out for exactly a month, my uncle saw the planes diving over it back in July,” Sergey is convinced. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

She held the fire for about two months. The fortress was still a wall that delayed the offensive, and for a considerable time. And the Soviet troops could have prepared for defense,” Yegor says.

“The fortress became a wall that delayed the advance,” Yegor says. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

- I will agree. In general, the fortress does not have any special meaning for me. I am not a patriot of my country, - Andrey believes.

I am not a patriot of my country. Fortress and fortress, - Andrey shrugs his shoulders. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

- I am Belarusian, but not native.

Tatiana, medical student:

“Oh, I don’t know how long I lasted, I’m not a local. From Vitebsk myself. And she came to visit Brest. Well, how long did she last? Probably three months...

- I'm not a local, I came to visit from Vitebsk, - Tatyana is shy. Photo: Dmitry BOSAK

OFFICIALLY

« Brest Fortress lasted 32 days

- It is officially accepted that one of the last captured defenders of the fortress was, - Grigory Bisyuk, director of the memorial complex "Brest Hero Fortress", told KP. - He was taken prisoner on July 23, on the 32nd day after the start of the war. Although there are legends that there were pockets of resistance in the fall.

In the fortress itself, active fighting went from 22 to 30 June. Eight days is a lot for such a small garrison. By the way, the Nazis planned to capture the fortress in 8 hours.

In February 1942, Soviet troops during the Yelets offensive operation defeated the four-infantry division of the Wehrmacht. At the same time, the archive of the division headquarters was captured, in the documents of which very important papers were found - “Combat report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk”. “The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought extremely stubbornly and persistently. They showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to fight, ”said the report of the commander of the 45th division, Lieutenant General Shliper. It was then that the Soviet troops learned the truth about the battles for the Brest Fortress.

Defeat in no time

On July 20, 1941, an unknown defender of the Brest Fortress left an inscription: “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland"

In the early morning of June 22, 1941, after aviation and artillery preparation, German troops crossed the border of the USSR. On the same day, Italy and Romania declared war on the USSR, and a little later, Slovakia, Hungary and other allies of Germany. Most of Soviet troops was taken by surprise, and therefore on the first day a significant part of the ammunition was destroyed and military equipment. The Germans also gained complete air supremacy, putting out of action more than 1.2 thousand aircraft of the Soviet army. Thus began the Great Patriotic War.

According to the Barbarossa plan of attack on the USSR, the German command expected to defeat the Soviet army as soon as possible, preventing it from coming to its senses and organizing coordinated resistance.

One of the first to fight for the Motherland was the defenders of the Brest Fortress. On the eve of the war, about half of the number of personnel was withdrawn from the fortress to the camps for exercises. Thus, in the morning of June 22, there were about 9 thousand soldiers and commanders in the Brest Fortress, not counting the staff and patients of the hospital. The assault on the fortress and the city of Brest was entrusted to the 45th Infantry Division of Major General Fritz Schlieper in cooperation with units of neighboring combat formations. In total, about 20 thousand people participated in the assault. In addition, the Germans had an advantage in artillery. In addition to the divisional artillery regiment, whose guns could not penetrate the one and a half meter walls of the fortifications, two 600-mm Karl self-propelled mortars, nine mortars of 211 mm caliber and a regiment of 158.5 mm caliber multi-barreled mortars took part in the attack. At the beginning of the war, Soviet troops simply did not have such weapons. According to the plan of the German command, the Brest Fortress was supposed to surrender in a maximum of eight hours, and no more.

“Soldiers and officers arrived one by one in half-dressed clothes”

The attack began on June 22, 1941 at 4:15 am Soviet Decree Time with artillery and rocket launchers. Every four minutes the artillery fire was shifted 100 meters to the east. Hurricane fire caught the garrison of the fortress by surprise. As a result of the shelling, warehouses were destroyed, communications were interrupted and significant damage was inflicted on the garrison. A little later, the assault on the fortifications began.

At first, due to the unexpected attack, the fortress garrison was unable to put up a coordinated resistance.

“Due to the continuous artillery shelling, suddenly launched by the enemy at 4.00 on 22.6.41, parts of the division could not be compactly withdrawn to the areas of concentration on alert. Soldiers and officers arrived singly, half-dressed. From those concentrated, it was possible to create a maximum of two battalions. The first battles were carried out under the leadership of the commanders of the regiments of comrades Dorodny (84 joint ventures).), Matveeva (333 joint ventures), Kovtunenko (125 joint ventures)."

(Report of the deputy commander for the political part of the same 6th rifle division, regimental commissar M.N. Butin.)

By 0400, the assault detachment, having lost two-thirds of its personnel, captured two bridges connecting the Western and Southern islands with the Citadel. However, trying to take the fortress as quickly as possible, the German troops were drawn into close combat using small arms, which led to heavy losses on both sides.

The battles were of an opposite nature. During one of the successful counterattacks at the Terespol Gate, the German assault group was almost completely destroyed. By 7:00 a.m., a group of Soviet troops managed to break out of the fortress, but many servicemen failed to break through. It was they who continued the further defense.

The fortress was finally surrounded by nine o'clock in the morning. In the battles during the first day of the assault, the 45th Infantry Division, having carried out at least eight large-scale attacks, suffered unprecedented losses - only 21 officers and 290 soldiers and non-commissioned officers were killed.

Withdrawing troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the whole next day the German artillery fired on the positions of the defenders. During breaks, German cars with loudspeakers called for the garrison to surrender. Surrendered about 1.9 thousand people. Nevertheless, the remaining defenders of the fortress managed, by knocking 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 in the Citadel. And the besieged managed to knock out three tanks. These were captured French tanks Somua S-35, armed with a 47 mm cannon and having good armor for the start of the war.

Under the cover of night, the besieged tried to break out of the encirclement, but this attempt failed. Almost all members of the detachments were captured or destroyed. On June 24, the headquarters of the 45th division reported that the Citadel had been taken and that individual pockets of resistance were being cleared. At 21.40, the headquarters of the corps was informed about the capture of the Brest Fortress. On this day, German troops really captured most of it. However, there were still several areas of resistance, including the so-called "Eastern Fort", which was defended by 600 fighters under the command of Major Pyotr Mikhailovich a. He was the only senior officer among the defenders. Most of the command was put out of action in the first minutes of shelling.

"The prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement"

Despite the fact that by July 1 the main core of the Citadel's defenders had been defeated and scattered, resistance continued. The fighting took on an almost partisan character. The Germans blocked areas of resistance and tried to destroy the defenders of the fortress. Soviet fighters, in turn, using surprise and knowledge of the fortifications, carried out sorties and destroyed the invaders. Attempts to break out of the encirclement to the partisans also continued, but the defenders had almost no strength left to break through.

The resistance of such single disparate groups continued for almost the entire July. Major Gavrilov is considered the last defender of the Brest Fortress, who, already seriously wounded, was captured only on July 23, 1941. According to the doctor who examined him, the major was in extreme exhaustion:

“... the captured major was in full command uniform, but all his clothes turned into tatters, his face was covered with powder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was injured, unconscious and looked emaciated to the extreme. It was in the full sense of the word a skeleton covered in leather.

To what extent exhaustion had reached, it could be judged by the fact that the prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement: he did not have enough strength for this, and the doctors had to apply artificial nutrition to save his life.

But German soldiers, who took him prisoner and brought him to the camp, told the doctors that this man, in whose body life was barely glimmering, only an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, single-handedly accepted a battle with them, threw grenades, fired from a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis.

(Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress)

As of June 30, 1941, the losses of the 45th German Infantry Division amounted to 482 killed, including 48 officers, and more than 1,000 wounded. Considering that the same division in 1939 during the attack on Poland lost 158 ​​killed and 360 wounded, the losses were very significant. According to the commander of the 45th division, German troops 25 officers, 2877 junior commanders and fighters were taken prisoner. 1877 Soviet soldiers died in the fortress. By the end of the war, about 400 people remained living defenders of the Brest Fortress.

Major Gavrilov was released from German captivity in May 1945. However, until the mid-1950s, he was expelled due to the loss of his party card while in concentration camps. Orders and medals were awarded to about 200 defenders of the Brest Fortress, but only two received the title of Hero Soviet Union- Major Gavrilov and Lieutenant Kizhevatov (posthumously).

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

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

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

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

Such was the recognition of the enemy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

less dangerous for Soviet soldiers and the civilians who were with them (primarily the wives and children of officers), there was a catastrophic lack of food and drink. If the consumption of ammunition could be compensated for by the surviving arsenals of the fortress and captured weapons, then the needs for water, food, medicine and dressings were met at a minimum level. The water supply of the fortress was destroyed, and the manual intake of water from Mukhavets and Bug was practically paralyzed by enemy fire. The situation was further complicated by the incessant intense heat.

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

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

Most of the surviving defenders of the garrison fell into German captivity, where even before the cessation of organized defense, women and children were sent. Commissar Fomin was shot by the Germans, Captain Zubachev died in captivity, Major Gavrilov survived captivity and was transferred to the reserve during the post-war reduction of the army. The defense of the Brest Fortress (after the war it received the title of "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. /Answer. ed. Ak. A.O. Chubaryan. M., 2010.

I read it today with a colleague poltora_bobra post . I thought, but, really, how long did the Brest Fortress fight? How to count? From June 22 to June 29, 1941 (organized resistance, the fall of the Eastern Fort ended), or until the moment when her last defender was killed or captured? Judging by the information from the Internet, the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment, Major Gavrilov, after all, could be not the last defender of the fortress. How reliable are the stories that such could have been up to the beginning of February 1942, I do not know. But logic and common sense tell me that this is hardly true. And, here, the fact that on July 23, 1941, being seriously wounded, Major Gavrilov was captured is well known. He fought as much as he could, as long as his human strength was enough, fought like a hero. His defense of the Brest Fortress is not 7 days, it is a month. Such an account!

By June 22, 1941, the Germans already had experience of fighting for this fortress. In September 1939, the Poles defended her from September 14 to 17, after which they left. They fought then well, competently, they could fight further, but they preferred to leave. Later, on September 22, 1939, Germany handed over Brest and the fortress to the USSR.

The Germans took into account the experience of the battles of September 1939, but, nevertheless, they miscalculated in the "small" - the Poles are not Russians!

"The German command planned to capture the Brest Fortress on the very first day - by 12 o'clock, because the direct assault on the fortress was entrusted to the assault detachments of the 45th division, formed in the mountains of Upper Austria - in Hitler's homeland and therefore distinguished by special devotion to the Fuhrer. To storm the fortress, the division was reinforced three artillery regiments, nine mortars, heavy mortar batteries and super-powerful Karl and Thor siege guns.

But here it was different than in Europe. The soldiers and officers ran out of the houses and barracks, looked around for a moment, but instead of raising their hands, pressed against the walls of the buildings and, using any cover, began to shoot. Some, riddled with German bullets, remained where they took their first and last battle; others, continuing to shoot back, left ...

In the first hours, the enemy captured the territory of the fortress, many buildings and fortifications, but the remaining in the hands of the Soviet soldiers were so well located that they made it possible to keep significant areas under fire. The defenders were sure that they would not have to defend themselves for a long time - the regular units were about to come up and sweep away the Nazis. But hours and days passed, the position of the defenders worsened: there was almost no food, there was not enough water ... Mukhavets is nearby, but can you really get to him! Many fighters crawled for water - and did not return ...

The fascists did not take seriously the resistance of disparate, even unconnected groups, and expected that very soon the besieged would raise a white flag. But the fortress continued to fight, and soon the Nazis realized that the Russians were not going to surrender. And then, with a piercing squeal, shells of heavy artillery rushed from behind the Bug, and then the Nazis went on the attack again, and again they had to retreat, leaving the dead and carrying away the wounded ... "

“It was July 23, 1941, that is, on the thirty-second day of the war ... On this day, the Nazis brought a major who had just been captured in the fortress to the camp hospital. The captured major was in full command uniform, but all his clothes turned into tatters, his face was covered with powder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was wounded, unconscious and looked emaciated to the extreme. It was in the full sense of the word a skeleton covered with skin. To what extent exhaustion had reached, one could judge from the fact that the prisoner could even make a swallowing movement: he did not have enough strength for this, and the doctors had to apply artificial nutrition to save his life.But the German soldiers who took him prisoner and brought him to the camp told the doctors that this man, in whose body life was barely glimmering, just an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, he single-handedly took a fight with them, threw grenades, fired a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis. They spoke of this with involuntary reverence, frankly amazed at the fortitude of the Soviet commander, and it was clear that only out of respect for his courage the prisoner was left alive. ... within a few days, German officers came from Brest who wanted to look at the hero who showed such amazing stamina, such will in the fight against the enemy "

C. Smirnov "Brest Fortress"

Former commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division, retired Major Gavrilov. 1961 Photo from the archive of Alexander Vasilyevich Kurpakov

Hero's grave

Major Gavrilov performed by Alexander Korshunov. Film "Brest Fortress"

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

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

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

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

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

Panorama of the Brest Fortress

Memorial buildings

The area of ​​the citadel is 4 square kilometers, memorial Complex consists of the ruins of the bastion, surviving buildings, modern monuments and ramparts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Entrance to the fortress

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

dug around the fortress bypass channel 6 kilometers long, the same age as the citadel.

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

Facts worth noticing

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

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

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

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

How to get

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

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

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