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

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

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

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

Such was the recognition of the enemy.

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

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

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

And a miracle happened! The stones suddenly spoke! On the surviving walls of fortifications, in the openings of windows and doors, on the vaults of cellars, on the abutments of the bridge, inscriptions left by the defenders of the fortress began to be found. In these inscriptions, sometimes nameless, sometimes signed, sometimes scribbled in pencil, sometimes simply scrawled on 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 fulfilled duty, and the bitterness of parting with life, and calm courage in the face of death, and a covenant about revenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In addition to the central part of the fortress, resistance gradually grew in other parts of the complex of buildings (in particular, under the command of Major P.M. Gavrilov on the northern Kobrin fortification), and dense buildings favored the soldiers of the garrison. Because of it, the enemy could not conduct aimed artillery fire at close range without being in danger of being destroyed himself. 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. It is known about the death of several more German tanks on improvised minefields installed by the Red Army.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The defense of the Brest Fortress (lasted from June 22 - June 30, 1941) is one of the very first major battles of the Soviet troops with the Germans during the Great Patriotic War.

Brest was the first Soviet border garrison that covered the central highway leading to Minsk, so immediately after the start of the wars, the Brest Fortress was the first point that the Germans attacked. For a week, Soviet soldiers held back the onslaught of German troops, who had numerical superiority, as well as artillery and aviation support. As a result of the assault at the very end of the siege, the Germans were able to take possession of the main fortifications, but in other areas the fighting still continued for several weeks, despite the catastrophic shortage of food, medicine and ammunition. The defense of the Brest Fortress was the first battle in which the Soviet troops showed their full readiness to defend the Motherland to the last. The battle has become a kind of symbol, showing that the plan for a swift assault and capture by the Germans of the territory of the USSR may be unsuccessful.

History of the Brest Fortress

The city of Brest was included in the USSR in 1939, at the same time, the fortress, located near the city, had already lost its military significance and remained only a reminder of past battles. The fortress itself was built in the 19th century as part of a system of fortifications on the western borders of the Russian Empire. By the time the Great Patriotic War began, the fortress could no longer perform its military functions, as it was partially destroyed - it was used mainly to accommodate border detachments, NKVD troops, engineering units, as well as a hospital and various border units. By the time of the German attack, there were about 8,000 military personnel, about 300 families of commanders, as well as medical and service personnel in the Brest Fortress.

Assault on the Brest Fortress

The assault on the fortress began on June 22, 1941 at dawn. The Germans subjected to powerful artillery fire, first of all, the barracks and residential buildings of the command staff in order to disorient the army and achieve chaos in the ranks of the Soviet troops. After the shelling, the assault began. The main idea of ​​​​the assault was the surprise factor, the German command hoped that an unexpected attack would cause panic and break the will of the military in the fortress to resist. According to the calculations of the German generals, the fortress was to be taken by 12 noon on June 22, but the plans did not materialize.

Only a small part of the soldiers managed to leave the fortress and take up positions outside it, as stipulated in the plans in the event of an attack, the rest remained inside - the fortress was surrounded. Despite the unexpectedness of the attack, as well as the death of a significant part of the Soviet military command, the soldiers showed courage and unbending will in the fight against the German invaders. Despite the fact that the position of the defenders of the Brest Fortress was initially almost hopeless, the Soviet soldiers resisted to the last.

Defense of the Brest Fortress

The Soviet soldiers, who could not leave the fortress, managed to quickly destroy the Germans, who broke into the center of the defensive structures, and then take advantageous positions for defense - the soldiers occupied the barracks and various buildings that were located along the perimeter of the citadel (the central part of the fortress). This made it possible to effectively organize the defense system. The defense was led by the remaining representatives of the officers and, in some cases, ordinary ordinary soldiers, who were then recognized as heroes for the defense of the Brest Fortress.

On June 22, 8 attacks were made by the enemy, the German troops, contrary to forecasts, suffered significant losses, so it was decided in the evening of the same day to withdraw the groups that broke into the fortress back to the headquarters of the German troops. A blockade line was created along the perimeter of the fortress, military operations turned from an assault into a siege.

On the morning of June 23, the Germans began a bombardment, after which an attempt was again made to storm the fortress. The groups that broke through inside faced fierce resistance and the assault failed again, turning into protracted battles. By the evening of the same day, the Germans again suffered huge losses.

The next few days, resistance continued, despite the onslaught of German troops, artillery shelling and offers to surrender. The Soviet troops did not have the opportunity to replenish their ranks, so the resistance gradually faded away, and the forces of the soldiers were fading, but, despite this, it was still not possible to take the fortress. Food and water supplies were suspended, and the defenders decided that the women and children must surrender to stay alive, but some of the women refused to leave the fortress.

On June 26, several more attempts were made to break into the fortress, but only small groups succeeded. The Germans managed to capture most of the fortress only by the end of June. On June 29 and 30, a new assault was made, which was combined with shelling and bombing. The main groups of the defenders were captured or destroyed, as a result of which the defense lost its centralization and broke up into several separate centers, which ultimately played a role in the surrender of the fortress.

The results of the defense of the Brest Fortress

The remaining Soviet soldiers continued to resist until the autumn, despite the fact that the fortress was actually taken by the Germans, and the defense was destroyed - small battles continued until the last defender of the fortress was destroyed. As a result of the defense of the Brest Fortress, several thousand people were taken prisoner, the rest died. The battles in Brest became an example of the courage of the Soviet troops and went down in world history.

It is difficult to be a historian and, having visited the Brest Fortress, not to write anything about it. I won't hold back 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 range of readers. Here are my today's post about these "little-known" facts.

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 Austrian division captured the Brest Fortress. Prior to the Anschluss of Austria, it was called the 4th Austrian division. Moreover, the personnel of the division consisted not of anyone, but of fellow countrymen of Adolf Hitler. The Austrians were not only its initial composition, but also the subsequent replenishment. After the capture of the fortress, the commander of the 45th Infantry Division, Shliper, wrote:

"Despite these losses and the tough courage of the Russian, the solid morale of the division, which receives replenishment mainly from the immediate homeland of the Fuhrer and the highest commander, from the Upper Danube region ...".

Field Marshal von Kluge added:

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

By the time of the invasion of the territory of the USSR, the division had combat experience in France and Poland and special training. The division trained in Poland on the Warsaw forts in old moated fortifications. They performed exercises on forcing a water barrier on inflatable boats and auxiliary equipment. The assault detachments of the division were prepared to suddenly seize bridges from a raid, trained in close combat in the conditions of fortresses ...
Thus, the enemy of the Soviet soldiers was, although not quite German, but well-trained, combat experience and excellent equipment. To suppress the nodes of resistance, the division was given super-powerful Karl guns, six-barreled mortars, etc.

What was the fortress like?

Any person who is 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 the opponents went on the attack in close formation with muzzle-loading guns, and the cannons fired cast-iron cannonballs. As defensive structures of the Second World War - they look ridiculous.
The corresponding characteristics were given by the fortresses and the Germans. On May 23, 1941, the inspector of the eastern fortifications of the Wehrmacht provided the command with a report in which he analyzed in detail the fortifications of the Brest Fortress and concluded:

“In general, we can say that the fortifications do not represent 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 get out of the fortress as soon as possible in order to connect with their field units. While individual units of the 131st Light Artillery Regiment held the defense at the Northern Gate, a significant part of the Red Army men managed to leave Kobrinsky Island. But then the remnants of the light artillery regiment were driven back and the fortress was completely surrounded.
The defenders of the fortress had no choice but to take up defense or surrender.

Who gave up first?

After the encirclement of the fortress, heterogeneous units of different units remained in it. These are several "training sessions": driver's courses, cavalry courses, junior commanders' courses, etc. As well as headquarters and rear units of rifle regiments: clerks, veterinarians, cooks, military 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 escort units, citing the fact that "they are not adapted for this." Among the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the most unreliable were not the guards (who were mostly Slavs, members of the Komsomol and the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks), but the Poles. Here is how the clerk of the 333rd regiment Alekseev A.I. describes it:

“Before the start of the war, there were training camps for the commanders assigned to the Brest region, who had previously served in the Polish army. Several people from the assigned staff passed through the bridge, turned to the left side of the Mukhovets River, along the earthen rampart, and one of them held a white flag in his hand, crossed over to the enemy.

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

“... from among the Westerners who passed the 45-day gathering, who on June 22 threw white sheets out 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 massacre in the Brest Fortress was arranged by the Germans themselves. Without giving the soldiers of the Red Army the opportunity to leave the fortress, they launched an assault. The defenders of the Brest Fortress in the first minutes of the assault were so stunned that they practically did not offer any resistance. Thanks to this, the German assault groups went to the central island, captured the church and the dining room. 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 broke in almost without a shot, and then they were surrounded and defeated.
Interestingly, the fortress was almost not attacked outside the fortress. All major events took place inside. The Germans penetrated inside and from the inside, where not loopholes, but windows attacked the ruins. There were no dungeons and underground passages in the fortress itself. Soviet fighters hid in basements, and often fired from basement windows. Having filled the courtyard of the citadel with the corpses of their soldiers, the Germans withdrew and in the following days did not undertake such massive assaults, but moved gradually attacking the ruins with artillery, sappers, explosives, flamethrowers, bombs of special power ...
Some researchers claim that on June 22, the Germans suffered a third of all their losses on the eastern front in the Brest Fortress.

Who defended the longest?

Movies and literature tell about the tragedy of the East 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 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, according to German documents, Fort No. 5 held out until mid-August !!! Now there is also a museum there, however, nothing is known today about how its defense went, who were its defenders.

June 22, 1941 at 4 o'clock in the morning, an event occurred that turned the life of every citizen of our country. It seems that a lot of time has passed since that moment, but there are still a lot of secrets and reticences. Over some of them we tried to lift the veil.

Underground heroes

"AiF" conducted a special investigation, looking through the archives of the Wehrmacht. The conclusions were stunning.

“The losses are very heavy. For all the time of the fighting - from June 22 to June 29 - we lost 1121 people killed and wounded. The fortress and the city of Brest are captured, the bastion is under our complete control, despite the cruel courage of the Russians. Soldiers are still being fired upon from basements, lone fanatics, but we will soon deal with them.”

This is an excerpt from a report to the General Staff Lieutenant General Fritz Schlieper, commander of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht- the one that stormed the Brest Fortress. The official date of the fall of the citadel is June 30, 1941. The day before, the Germans launched a large-scale assault, capturing the last fortifications, including the Kholm Gate. The surviving Soviet soldiers, having lost their commanders, went into the cellars and flatly refused to surrender.

Memorial complex "Brest Fortress - Hero". Ruins of the White Palace. Photo: RIA Novosti / Yan Tikhonov

lone ghosts

“After the capture of the citadel, the guerrilla war in the casemates went on for at least a month,” explains Alexander Bobrovich, historian-researcher from Mogilev. – In 1952, an inscription was found on the wall of the barracks near the Bialystok Gate: “I am dying, but I do not give up. Farewell, Motherland. July 20, 1941. They fought according to the “shoot-and-run” tactics: they made a couple of accurate shots at the Germans and went back to the cellars. August 1, 1941 non-commissioned officer Max Klegel wrote in his diary: “Two of ours died in the fortress - a half-dead Russian stabbed them with a knife. It's still dangerous here. I hear gunfire every night."

The archives of the Wehrmacht dispassionately record the heroism of the defenders of the Brest Fortress. The front went far ahead, the fighting was already going on near Smolensk, but the destroyed citadel continued to fight. On July 12, "a Russian rushed from the tower to a group of sappers, holding two grenades in his hands - four were killed on the spot, two died in the hospital from wounds." 21 July " Corporal Erich Zimmer, went out for cigarettes, was strangled with a belt. How many fighters were hiding in the casemates is unclear. There is no consensus on who the last defender of the Brest Fortress could be. Historians of Ingushetia refer to the testimony Stankus Antanas, a captured SS officer: “In the second half of July, I saw an officer of the Red Army get out of the casemates. Seeing the Germans, he shot himself - in his pistol was the last cartridge. During the search of the body, we found documents in the name of Senior Lieutenant Umat-Girey Barkhanoev". The latest case - captivity Major Pyotr Gavrilov, head of the defense of the Eastern Fort. He was taken prisoner on July 23, 1941 at the Kobrin fortification: a wounded man killed two German soldiers in a shootout. Later, Gavrilov said that he hid in the basements for three weeks, making sorties at night with one of the fighters until he died. How many more such lone ghosts remained in the Brest Fortress?

In 1974 Boris Vasiliev, author of the book "The Dawns Here Are Quiet...", published the novel "Not on the Lists", which received no less fame. book hero, Lieutenant Nikolai Pluzhnikov, fighting alone in the Brest Fortress ... until April 1942! Mortally wounded, he learns the news that the Germans are defeated near Moscow, leaves the basement and dies. How reliable is this information?

- I must note that the novel by Boris Vasiliev is a purely artistic work, - shrug Valery Hubarenko, director of the memorial complex "Brest Hero Fortress", Major General. - And the facts of the death of the last defender of Brest given there, unfortunately, do not have any documentary evidence.

Monument "Courage" of the memorial complex "Brest Hero Fortress". Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexander Yuriev

Flamethrowers against courage

Meanwhile, on August 15, 1941, a photo of soldiers with flamethrowers "performing a combat mission in the Brest Fortress" appeared in the Nazi press - living proof that skirmishes in casemates went on for almost two months after the start of the war. Having lost patience, the Germans used flamethrowers to smoke out the last brave men from the shelters. Half blind in the dark, without food, without water, bleeding, the fighters refused to surrender, continuing to resist. The inhabitants of the villages around the fortress claimed that the shooting from the citadel was heard until mid-August.

- Presumably, the end of the resistance of the Soviet border guards in the fortress can be considered August 20, 1941, - believes Tadeusz Krolewski, Polish historian. — A little earlier German commandant of Brest, Walther von Unruh, Colonel of the General Staff Blumentritt visited and ordered "urgently put the fortress in order." For three days in a row, day and night, using all types of weapons, the Germans carried out a total cleansing of the Brest Fortress - probably, these days its last defenders fell. And already on August 26, two people visited the dead fortress - Hitler and Mussolini ...

Myself Lieutenant General Fritz Schlieper in the same report he indicated: he cannot understand the meaning of such fierce resistance - "probably the Russians fought purely out of fear of execution." Schliper lived until 1977 and, I think, did not understand: when a person rushes with a grenade at enemy soldiers, he does not do this because of someone's threats. And just because he is fighting for his homeland ...

Little Known Facts

1. 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.

2. Major Gavrilov was not repressed, as indicated in the credits of the movie hit "Brest Fortress", but in 1945 he was expelled from the party ... for losing his party card in captivity!

3. In addition to the fortress, the Nazis could not take the Brest railway station for 9 days. Railway workers, police and border guards (about 100 people) went into the basements and at night made attacks on the platform, shooting Wehrmacht soldiers. The soldiers ate cookies and sweets from the buffet. As a result, the Germans flooded the basements of the station with water.