The first assault on East Prussia. Liberation of Koenigsberg and East Prussia Captivity 1941 East Prussia Dolgorukovo village

September 1944 - February 1945

On January 19, 1945, he received an order by radio to remove posts, relocate a platoon to the village of T. and wait for further instructions.

Three months ago we already crossed the border of East Prussia.

One of the divisions of our army made a breach in the defensive barriers on the border.

The sappers filled up the ditch, destroyed five lines of barbed wire barriers and eliminated another ditch or rampart. Thus, a hole fifteen meters wide was formed in the barriers, inside which a country road from Poland to East Prussia passed ...

A hundred meters later the highway began, on the right and on the left there was a forest, a few kilometers - and the road to the Hollubien manor. It was a two-story, red-tiled house surrounded by all sorts of services.

Inside, the walls were decorated with carpets and tapestries from the 17th century.

In one of the offices, a picture of Rokotov hung on the wall, and next to and throughout the house there were many family photographs, daguerreotypes of the beginning of the century, generals, officers surrounded by smart ladies and children, then officers in helmets with shakos who returned from the war of 1914, and very recent photographs: boys with armbands with swastikas and their sisters, apparently students, and, finally, photographs of young SS lieutenants lost on the fronts of Russia, the last generation of this traditionally military aristocratic family.

Between the photographs hung family portraits of the Prussian barons, and suddenly again two paintings - one by Rokotov, and the other by Borovikovsky, trophy portraits of Russian generals, their children and wives.

Our infantrymen and tankers who visited this “museum” before us did not remain indifferent to the hunting lodge of the Prussian kings: all the mirrors enclosed in gilded frames were broken by them, all the featherbeds and pillows were ripped open, all the furniture, all the floors were covered with a layer of fluff and feathers. In the corridor hung a tapestry reproducing the famous painting by Rubens "The Birth of Aphrodite from the Foam of the Sea." Someone, carrying out his revenge on the conquerors, wrote a popular word of three letters across with black oil paint.

Tapestry one and a half meters, with three letters, reminded me of my Moscow, pre-war passion for art. I rolled it up and put it in my captured German suitcase, which had served me as a pillow for three months.

Looked out the window.

The farmstead, which consisted of a traveling palace and brick service buildings, was surrounded by a cast-iron grating, and behind the grating, in the green meadows, as far as the eye could see, an incredible number of huge black-and-white thoroughbred cows wandered, groaned and mooed. A week has passed since the Germans - both the troops and the population - left without fighting. Nobody milked the cows.

Swollen udder, pain, moaning. Two of my telephone operators, formerly village girls, milked several buckets of milk, but it was bitter, and we did not drink it. Then I noticed the infernal fuss in the yard. One of the signalers found a chicken coop among the brick buildings, opened the iron gates, and hundreds of hungry thoroughbred chickens ran out into the yard. My soldiers seemed to go crazy. They ran and jumped like crazy, catching chickens and tearing off their heads. Then they found the boiler. Gutted and plucked.

There were already more than a hundred chickens in the cauldron, and there were forty-five people in my platoon. And so they boiled the broth and ate until, from fatigue, they fell down somewhere and fell asleep. It was the evening of our first day in East Prussia.

Two hours later, my entire platoon fell ill. They woke up, quickly jumped up and ran behind the chicken coop.

In the morning, a messenger from the company headquarters arrived in a truck and unfolded a topographic map.

A few kilometers from the border, and therefore, from us, was the rich East Prussian city of Goldap.

The day before, our divisions surrounded it, but there were no residents or German soldiers in the city, and when the regiments and divisions entered the city, the generals and officers completely lost control over them. Infantrymen and tankers fled to apartments and shops.

Through broken shop windows, all the contents of stores were dumped onto the sidewalks of the streets.

Thousands of pairs of shoes, dishes, radios, dinner sets, all kinds of household and pharmacy goods and products - all mixed up.

And clothes, linen, pillows, featherbeds, blankets, paintings, gramophones and musical instruments were thrown out of the windows of the apartments. Barricades were set up in the streets. And it was at this time that the German artillery and mortars began to work. Several German reserve divisions almost instantly threw our demoralized units out of the city. But at the request of the front headquarters, it was already reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief about the capture of the first German city. I had to take the city again. However, the Germans again knocked out ours, but did not enter it themselves. And the city became neutral.

We run behind the barn.

In the yard, two soldiers from a separate anti-aircraft artillery brigade say that the city has changed hands three times already, and this morning it has become neutral again, but the road is under fire. My God!

See the old German city with your own eyes! I get into the car with the former civilian driver Corporal Starikov. Hurry, hurry! We rush along the highway, mines are falling to the right and left of us. Just in case, I duck, but the firing zone is behind me. And in front, as on captured German postcards, covered with red tiles, between some marble fountains and monuments at crossroads, pointed houses with weather vanes.

We stop in the center of an almost empty city.

Europe! Everything is interesting!

But this is AWOL, we must immediately return to the unit.

All the doors of the apartments are open, and on the beds there are real pillows in pillowcases, blankets in duvet covers, and in the kitchen, in multi-colored tubes, aromatic spices. In the pantries there are jars of home-made canned food, soups and a variety of main dishes, and what you never dreamed of in a dream - in corked half-liter jars (what kind of technology without heating?) the freshest butter. Own production of wine, and liqueurs, and tinctures, and Italian vermouths, and cognacs.

And in the wardrobes on hangers there are new, different sizes, civilian suits, troikas. Another ten minutes. We can't help but change our clothes and, like girls, we circle in front of the mirrors. God we are beautiful!

But time!

We quickly change clothes, throw pillows, blankets, feather beds, watches, lighters out of the windows. I'm tormented by thoughts. I remembered at that moment how a few months ago I came to Moscow for five days.

The shelves in the stores are empty, everything is on the cards. How happy my mother was about my additional officer rations - a can of combined fat and two cans of American pork stew, and even every meal that I received on a ten-day travel certificate, somewhere in the officer's canteen in Syromyatniki and brought it home.

And the housemates are half-starved.

Why am I? But. We, half-starved and tortured, are winning, and the Germans lost the war, but they do not need anything, they are full.

I thought about this when, with Starikov, I filled the back of the truck with pillows, feather beds, blankets in order to distribute them to all my soldiers so that they could sleep like a human for at least three nights. They haven't seen pillows for three, and some for all six years.

We are not alone in the city. Like us, several dozen soldiers and officers from other military units of our army collect trophies, and trucks of various systems from one and a half to Studebakers and Willis - either thirty, or already forty. And suddenly a German Focke-Wulf appears over the city - such a fidgety and terribly maneuverable German intelligence officer - and after about ten minutes the German batteries begin shelling the city. We move quickly. Shells explode ahead and behind us, and we are entangled in unfamiliar lanes and streets. But I have a compass, we keep heading east and, in the end, rushing past our burning abandoned trucks, we get onto the highway we came along, again we get under fire, but we are lucky, and in the evening we drive up to the headquarters of our company.

The commander of our separate company, instead of Captain Rozhitsky, who was promoted in rank and rank and sent to the east as part of several units of the 31st Army, was my friend, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Tarasov. For a whole year, one orderly for two, one dugout for two, a candidate of technical sciences, an artist. I remember how he mocked the cretin bosses.

He speaks with a colonel or general, stands at attention.

Yes, Comrade General!

And suddenly imperceptibly somehow bends. It happens in an instant, and it's like a different person. The figure, the face change, he is like two drops of water similar to the one he is talking to, but a complete idiot: the tongue falls out of his mouth and hangs out, a freak, but absolutely in character. It is he who parodies army arrogance, and sometimes stupid, stubborn straightforwardness. And I see everything, inside the hamstrings are shaking with laughter, with fear for him, because the whole performance is arranged for me. A second - and he again stands at attention, eats with his eyes, reports, and the authorities have no idea about anything.

However, he remembered almost all of Blok, Baratynsky, Tyutchev, I read my poems to him, and how much and what we didn’t talk about: everything about ourselves, everything about the country, everything about art, we couldn’t live without each other.

Our quartermaster, senior lieutenant Shcherbakov, stole food, uniforms, exchanged from the population for moonshine and wine, and supplied companies of higher commanders at the expense of soldiers. Tarasov and I terribly hated him. When Tarasov became a company commander, he called Shcherbakov and told him everything. And he stopped stealing, but decided to take revenge on us on occasion and restore everything as it was. By the way, it wasn't just us.

Suspecting nothing, we swung at the system. Tarasov was the commander, at his request I was already the commander of a control platoon for two weeks ...

But I'm going back.

We come under fire, but we are lucky, in the evening we drive up to the headquarters of our company. This is a large one-story house.

Officers, telephone operators and telephone operators run out. I distribute pillows and blankets. Delight! Blankets in duvet covers! Pillows! They slept for three years - a backpack under their heads, covered themselves with overcoats, in winter they wrapped them around themselves. The evening will catch on the way - they kindled a fire, lay down on the snow around the fire, very close to each other. Winter. One side freezes, and the side facing the fire lights up. The attendant will wake up. You turn over to the other side, and everything starts all over again.

I invite Tarasov, Shcherbakov, put five bottles of wine with foreign labels on the table. We drink to victory. Let's go to sleep.

At three o'clock in the morning my orderly wakes me up.

Urgently to Tarasov. I go to Tarasov, and he has Shcherbakov, the driver Lebedev, the driver Petrov, two female signalmen. It turns out that after we parted ways in the evening, Shcherbakov, in agreement with Tarasov, sent my Starikov to neutral Goldap for trophies, and with him three soldiers and two telephone operators. And as soon as they reached the city center, a random German mine exploded next to our lorry.

Shrapnel pierced three tires, and Starikov was wounded by one of the fragments.

Dark starless night.

A neutral city, where both our and German scouts move with caution.

By the light of a flashlight, the girls, as best they could, bandaged the raving Starikov, carried the wounded man to an empty two-story house opposite our damaged car.

Two remained with him, and the rest - a soldier and two telephone operators - on foot, after an hour of wandering, they reached one of our advanced units, from there they contacted the company headquarters by phone. The duty officer woke up Captain Tarasov, Senior Lieutenant Shcherbakov, who decided to immediately send two cars to Goldap for rescue, transportation to the Starikov hospital and repair and removal of our damaged lorry.

Tarasov called me because only I knew the only road to the cleared passage or passage through the border, where the sappers of our army filled up a ditch for ten meters and cleared a passage in six lines of barbed wire, next to the border sign indicating the entrance to East Prussia.

I sit in the car next to the driver Lebedev. Everyone has two machine guns and several grenades. I do remember the road. In front of the city, a kilometer of the highway being shot through, we rush at full speed. The city is dark and scary, and now and then come across broken cars and the corpses of our trophy workers, who were less fortunate than me. With difficulty, by the number, we find our car. We scream. A soldier and a telephone operator come out of the house.

While Lebedev and Petrov rearrange the wheels on the damaged car, just in case, we take up defense in the house. Starikov groans. Apart from the wheels, Starikov's car is in perfect order. You can leave in an hour.

I go out into the street, ten meters away the silhouettes of several cars. I approach: people are killed, cabins and engines are damaged, and bodies are loaded to the top with trophies. I order to fit our empty cars to the broken ones and reload the trophies from the bodies.

Time moves fast, it starts to brighten. Hurry, Hurry! And here we are, in three cars, moving off and along the already familiar streets we leave for the highway. Shells and mines burst to the right and left of us, but we safely enter the forest at full speed, then follow the signs to find a field hospital, and at about six in the morning we drive into the courtyard of our headquarters platoon. All sleep. I lie down on the pillow, I wake up at ten o'clock.

There are two sentries near the cars. I want to see what we brought, but they won't let me near the cars. I find Tarasov, I ask, what's the matter? And he turns away, then suddenly with an evil face, an icy voice:

- Lieutenant Rabichev! March all around!

- Are you out of your mind? I tell my best friend. But the friend is no more. There are trophies and Shcherbakov. Shocked, I can not find a place for myself. This has never happened before in the entire war.

I am writing a report - a statement with a request to transfer me to work, instead of the commander of a control platoon, as a commander of a linear platoon, in order to go with divisions and regiments, away from the headquarters of the company and the army.

There is no friendship - there are trophies. Back to Poland.

And here I am again with my telephone operators and telephone operators, with the orderly Korolev, on horseback, on foot, in passing cars. Three months. Relations with Tarasov are purely official, I look at him with contempt, he looks away. My former chaste friend, now a bosom drinking companion of the disgusting thief Shcherbakov. Meanwhile, our troops are leaving East Prussia, retreating to the territory of the former Polish Corridor and going on the defensive for three months. The Poles are friendly, but the existence is semi-beggarly. I go into the kitchen. For some reason the walls are black. I want to lean against the wall, and a swarm of flies rises into the air. And there are fleas in the house. But I have a huge double bed and a separate room. And the old owner kept the memory of pre-revolutionary Russia and the pre-revolutionary Russian ruble. Korolev buys a pig from him for one ruble.

“What are you doing,” I tell him, “this is a blatant deception. He thinks that this is a pre-revolutionary gold ruble.

I explain to the owner, but he does not believe me, and remains convinced that I am joking. Oh, pan lieutenant, oh, ruble! The whole army is taking advantage of the situation, and the Poles will understand that the Russians deceived them, after a few months, they will remember this and will not forgive.

Meanwhile, somewhere at the end of the third month of the defense, Tarasov calls me and, as if nothing had happened between us, persuades me to return to the company headquarters. The fact is that as a specialist he appreciates me extremely, my original proposals for improving the entire system of intra-army communications were highly appreciated, and personally I was thanked in the order along the front, and the order to start the offensive had already been received. East Prussia is ahead again. I saw the former Tarasov, he turned to me for help, the matter was important, and the duty demanded it. And I agreed to return to the headquarters, again became the commander of the control platoon.

For two days, having deprived ourselves of sleep and rest, Tarasov and I developed eighteen routes for each group of our signalmen for the week ahead. In order not to get into trouble, they coordinated redeployment plans with generals, chiefs of staff of corps and divisions, as well as with the army artillery commander, with a separate anti-aircraft artillery brigade, consistently brought the platoon commanders, the foreman of the company up to date. It was a new thing for us, at the level of even an individual army company, never practiced by anyone, and it was so beautiful on topographic maps and on the charts we invented, lovingly executed, and in pre-formulated, printed and pre-distributed orders, which we felt themselves either as Benigsons or as Bagrations.

On the eve of the offensive, Shcherbakov was invited and for several hours they acquainted him with their plans. He had six covered trucks at his disposal, and according to the schedule, he had to quickly transfer people, equipment, cable, radio stations, weapons, and food to the designated points on time.

It could not even occur to us that in order to compromise us in the eyes of the army command that believed in us, and to the detriment of the whole offensive, he would change everything.

He will send vehicles with weapons and equipment to completely different places than people.

I do not remember all the details, but our company was put out of action for two days, with difficulty brought into working condition and lagged behind the advancing divisions and regiments by a hundred kilometers.

It was, after all, fixable.

Along the magnificent, completely cleared roads, in cars stuffed with signalmen, property, ammunition and food, in one column, without stopping, we swept through the burning cities and farms, through the city of Insterburg blazing to the right and left of us. Swallowing hot air mixed with smoke, with scorched eyelashes, and in the middle of the second day, completely exhausted and starting to lose my bearings, I decided to stop in a surviving German cottage located fifty meters from the highway.

All six vehicles and the radio station of the RSB for communication with the headquarters of the army and the front were at my disposal. Tarasov and Shcherbakov on the company "Willis" lagged behind, and not by chance.

Shcherbakov, with an orderly and with his girlfriend Anya, captured another twenty-year-old telephone operator from the headquarters of the division, Rita, and a ten-liter bottle of vodka, and he and Tarasov stopped in some surviving cottage a day ago. In the evening they drank for the offensive, and at night Shcherbakov slipped the half-drunk Tarasov the luxurious and highly experienced girl Rita, with whom only she had already slept. Chaste, proud and talented, Tarasov could not live without her on the second day, and on the fifth day he found Rita in the attic with the soldier Sitsukov lying on her.

But this is a different story. By a whim of nature, the member of the frail degenerate Sitsukov was up to the knees. None of the signalers, snipers and nurses read Freud, but they all felt something. Curiosity, unbridledness, or something really was surreal, some kind of feeling incomparable to anything in life, but as soon as this long-nosed, lop-eared, with a small chin and pendulous lip gave a sign to any woman within my line of sight, she immediately walked behind him and forever remained the smitten dream of Sitsukov.

My former friend, my current boss, Captain Tarasov, having found Sitsukov on Rita in December 1944, climbs into the attic of the German cottage in which our headquarters is located, and cuts the veins in both his hands. His orderly saved him when he was already on the border of life and death. He bandaged his hands and took him to the hospital. And in the evening, Rita was pulled out of the noose, on which she was already hanging, and barely pumped out.

These are Romeo and Juliet who showed up in our unit. Returning from the hospital, Tarasov called me and ordered to enroll Rita in my platoon. I knew that I deliberately did not get close to my telephone operators.

We had many conversations on this topic.

I explained my position to him a long time ago. Yes, I liked many of them and dreamed at night. I secretly fell in love first with Katya, then with Nadia, then with Anya, who rushed towards me, snuggled up, kissed me, and even invited me, pretending that this was a joke. But I knew that this was serious, and I knew myself that if I went forward, I would no longer be able to stop, all statutory relations would go to hell. I will wear it in my arms and I will no longer be able to be a self-respecting commander. If she is indulged, then already, in fairness, to everyone, but then how to work and fight?

I must say that the former Tarasov thought and acted in the same way as I did. But there was another reason.

I understood how difficult it was for these eighteen-year-old girls to exist at the front in conditions of complete lack of hygiene, in clothes not adapted for combat operations, in stockings that either torn or slipped, in tarpaulin boots that either got wet or rubbed their legs, skirts that made it difficult to run and some were too long, while others were too short, when no one considered the fact that menstruation existed, when none of the soldiers and officers gave passage, and among them were not only boys in love, but also sophisticated sadists.

How stubbornly they defended their womanhood in the first months, and then fell in love first with a soldier, then with a lieutenant, and the senior scoundrel officer began to harass this soldier, and in the end this girl had to lie under this scoundrel, who, at best, threw, and at worst publicly mocked, and it happened, and beat. How then she walked from hand to hand, and could no longer stop, and learned to drink her forced, crippled youth with her hundred grams of vodka ...

This is how a person is arranged, that everything bad is first forgotten, and subsequently romanticized, and who will remember that already six months later they left for the rear after pregnancy, some gave birth to children and remained in civilian life, while others, and there were many more of them, had abortions and returned to their units until the next abortion.

There were exceptions. There were exits.

The best thing is to become a PPJ, a general's field wife, worse - a colonel (the general will take it away) ...

In February 1944, the generals of the army headquarters heard a rumor about a signal lieutenant who, in modern terms, does not fuck his women.

And several PJs stubbornly cheated on their lovers, generals with green soldiers. And now, by order of the commander of the army, my platoon is given a new telephone center - six telephone operators who have made a mistake in the field of love, six PZH who have betrayed their generals: the chief of the political department of the army, the chief of staff, the commander of two corps, the chief quartermaster and I still don’t remember which military leaders.

All of them are depraved, spoiled by fate and at first helpless in the conditions of nomadic dugout life.

I appoint an absolutely positive man of heroic build, a master of all trades, senior sergeant Polyansky, as their head. I know how much he misses his wife and four daughters. His assistant is an elderly family man Dobritsyn. Together they dig a dugout. They cut down trees. Bunks in two tiers, three reels, an iron barrel - an oven, a table for telephone sets, a rack for machine guns, shell casings, cartridges, grenades. All the villages around are burned, everything has to be done by hand.

The girls are swearing, but Polyansky's multi-stage hoarse obscenity conquers and pacifies them. A week passes, they seem to be fulfilling their mission, but under what conditions? How did the relationship develop? And I'm going and get to know each other, and check their professional suitability, and it's interesting to see, they say that they are beauties.

I ride about twelve kilometers along a fascinated road laid by army sappers through an impenetrable and continuous network of marshes. To the right and to the left is a stunted birch forest, water.

Every hundred meters there is a junction - a small log platform, somewhat reminiscent of a raft. Each log, two and a half meters long, is fastened with steel ropes to the adjacent front and adjacent rear ones, and on the sides there are vertical fixing logs that go deep into solid layers of earth lying under a layer of water and silt. Both the sidings and the road are laid through deep swamps, through a bog. You can’t drive off the road - you stumble and you won’t get out. And in the heated air, mosquitoes, midges, dragonflies. It is quite unpleasant to wait at the crossing until the next oncoming car passes. The horse is frightened, does not stand still.

If you pull on the bridle, it starts to back away, now and then you have to get off. However, the swamp chain ends. On a country road, higher, higher, I take out the compass, I look. According to the map, four hundred meters to the west of the former village.

Indeed, on the hill is a girl with a gun.

I announced my departure by phone, and they are waiting for me.

Polyansky comes out of the dugout, reports, five girls are getting out.

I get off the horse. Irka Mikheeva, who has been in my platoon twice already in two years, rushes to meet me, kisses me and hangs on my neck. This is both a bit of hooliganism and a desire to show our comrades-in-arms that we are friends. She has been indifferent to me for a long time, but I hide my pleasure from this public meeting with her. Even near Yartsevo, a year ago, she called me to the nearest forest:

Let's go, lieutenant! Why the fuck don't you want me?

“I can’t, Irina, and I don’t want to cheat on my bride,” I say, and I myself almost have a fever, and she shakes her head doubtfully:

- You're some kind of freak.

I go down the stairs to the dugout.

The girls dragged from somewhere feather beds, pillows, blankets. I check the machines, everything is lubricated, in order, they also understand telephone sets. Polyansky taught them how to pull the line, and how to eliminate breaks, and how to change batteries or accumulators.

They shot at empty cans. Well done Polyansky - and taught this.

In the evening I tell what is being done at the fronts and in the world, and they do not hesitate - who, how and with whom twisted novels, about whom - with regret and love, about whom with disgust.

Upstairs there are empty bunk beds, pine logs covered with a layer of spruce branches, I spread my raincoat, I want to climb up, and on the lower bunk bed below me, Irka, she threw off her tunic and skirt, and takes off her panties and stockings.

“Lieutenant,” he says, “you won’t fall asleep on the logs, come, b ..., to sleep with me!”

I am twenty-one years old, I am not made of iron or stone, and Polyansky adds fuel to the fire:

- What are you going to toil on the logs, go to Irka.

His eyes darkened with excitement. The thought flashes: “In front of everyone?”

And then Anya Gureeva, who studied as a ballerina as a civilian, cheated on the chief of staff of the army with my radio operator Bollot, crept up from behind, hugged her in the ear:

- Do not go to Irka, but to me!

- Girls, e ... your mother, stop, b ..., fool around! - And I break out of hot hands, pull myself up on my hands, and onto my cape, onto branches, onto my overcoat. And the heart beats, and in my thoughts a complete mess. And that I’m like a eunuch, let it all go to hell, I’ll count to twenty - if Irka calls again, then even if the whole world turns upside down - I’ll lie down and unite my life with her.

But the world does not turn over. I counted to twenty, and she was already sleeping, she got tired on duty and fell asleep instantly.

Until the morning I suffer on logs. What before my temptations of Saint Anthony?

At six in the morning it is already light. I come out of the dugout. Polyansky wakes up and helps me saddle the horse. Melancholy devours me, I drive along the fascinated road, after three hours I leave for the Minsk highway and fall under mortar shelling, but this shelling is not aimed, the mines fall forty meters from me, a couple of fragments rush past. Opposite Kornilov's post, there, in the dugout, there were only peasants and not a single coward. The Germans are eight hundred meters away. They have been working in this dugout for the third month.

Here both mines and shells burst, communication breaks every now and then, and you have to go to the line, but as long as everyone is alive, God has mercy. They greet me joyfully, but I, as if knocked down, fall on the bunk and fall asleep.

Sixty-five years have passed.

I am infinitely sorry that I did not sleep with either Irina, or Anna, or Nadia, or Polina, or Vera Peterson, or Masha Zakharova.

Polina was bandaging my legs when, in December 1942, I arrived from the school with deep, suppurating dystrophic ulcers, I was in pain, but I smiled, and she bandaged and smiled, and I kissed her, and she locked the dugout door on a hook, and I was like paralyzed. And so we sat, clinging to each other, on her greatcoat for three hours.

I was walking with Masha Zakharova on some urgent matter, and we did not notice how the day was over, and went into the house of the gunners, asked permission to spend the night, settled down on the floor, I laid out my overcoat, and covered ourselves with Machine's overcoat. The sweet, yearning girl Masha suddenly clung to me and began to kiss me. The duty sergeant was sitting at the table by the telephone, and I felt ashamed to surrender to the feeling that was devouring me in front of the sergeant.

What was it?

“A few days ago we entered Lithuania. In Poland, the population speaks Russian quite tolerably. Everything is blacker in Lithuania. And the floors are unwashed, and flies in droves, and packs of fleas. However, it seems to me that in a few days all this will be far behind ... True, now you have to sleep very little ... A new anniversary is approaching. Where will it have to be done? Allenstein ahead. Next door to me is a slightly early arrived unit. She was ordered to settle in Koenigsberg. Happy travels to her!

Today I received a salary in Polish money at the rate of one ruble - one zloty ... "

“Dear Lenechka! The fourth anniversary is coming, and the war is dragging on. We both dream of celebrating the New, forty-fifth year with you, but we will have to wait patiently. My dear! Be vigilant and circumspect.

The presumptuous beast is rabid, does not stop its villainy, and we will continue to hope that soon all disasters will end, that we will definitely meet. While we continue to write letters.

This is the only pleasure. We have nothing new, letters other than yours are also not received. You write that you have mud, but we have a strong winter since November. In December it was 23 degrees of frost, but the weather is good, there is a lot of sun.

In our apartment it is much better than in previous winters - 10-12 degrees Celsius, and this is already tolerable, and if you close the kitchen, it is quite warm. On December 31, I will drink to your health (I can’t drink, but I will drink to your health). Hugs and kisses tightly, your mother.

We drive further along the highway in the passenger car of the headquarters of the 11th army towards Königsberg to find the 5th artillery corps there. The highway is full of heavy trucks.
The villages we meet on our way are partly badly destroyed. It is striking that we come across very few wrecked Soviet tanks, not at all like it was in the first days of the offensive.
Along the way, we meet columns of the civilian population, which, under the protection of our submachine gunners, are sent to the rear, away from the front. Some Germans ride in large covered wagons. Teenagers, men, women and girls go on foot. All good clothes. It would be interesting to talk with them about the future.

Soon we stop for the night. Finally we got to a rich country! Everywhere you can see herds of livestock roaming the fields. Yesterday and today we boiled and fried two chickens a day.
Everything in the house is very well equipped. The Germans left almost all their household belongings. I am compelled to think again about what a great grief this war brings with it.
It passes like a fiery whirlwind through cities and villages, leaving behind smoking ruins, trucks and tanks mangled by explosions, and mountains of corpses of soldiers and civilians.
Now let the Germans see and feel what war is! How much grief is still in this world! I hope that Adolf Hitler will not have long to wait for the noose prepared for him.

January 26, 1945. Petersdorf near Velau. - Here, on this sector of the front, our troops were four kilometers from Koenigsberg. The 2nd Belorussian Front went to the sea near Danzig.
Thus, East Prussia is completely cut off. In fact, it is already almost in our hands. We are driving along Velau. The city is still burning, it is completely destroyed. Everywhere smoke and corpses of the Germans. On the streets you can see many guns abandoned by the Germans and the corpses of German soldiers in the sewers.
These are signs of the brutal defeat of the German troops. Everyone is celebrating the victory. Soldiers cook food on a fire. Fritz abandoned everything. Entire herds of livestock roam the fields. The surviving houses are full of excellent furniture and utensils. On the walls you can see paintings, mirrors, photographs.

Many houses were set on fire by our infantry. Everything happens as the Russian proverb says: "As it comes around, it will respond!" The Germans did this in Russia in 1941 and 1942, and now in 1945 it echoed here in East Prussia.
I see a weapon covered with a knitted blanket being carried past. Nice disguise! On another gun lies a mattress, and on the mattress, wrapped in a blanket, a Red Army soldier sleeps.
To the left of the highway, you can see an interesting picture: two camels are being led there. A captive Fritz with a bandaged head is led past us. Angry soldiers shout in his face: "Well, did you conquer Russia?" With their fists and the butts of their machine guns, they urge him on, pushing him in the back.

January 27, 1945. The village of Starkenberg. - The village looks very peaceful. The room of the house where we stayed is light and cozy. From afar comes the sound of cannonade. This is a battle in Koenigsberg. The position of the Germans is hopeless.
And now the time comes when we can pay for everything. Ours treated East Prussia no worse than the Germans did with the Smolensk region. We hate the Germans and Germany with all our heart.
For example, in one of the houses of the village, our guys saw a murdered woman with two children. And on the street you can often see dead civilians. The Germans themselves deserved this on our part, because they were the first to behave in this way in relation to the civilian population of the occupied regions.
One only needs to remember Majdanek and the theory of the superman to understand why our soldiers bring East Prussia to such a state with such satisfaction. But German composure in Majdanek was a hundred times worse. In addition, the Germans glorified the war!

January 28, 1945. We played cards until two o'clock in the morning. The houses were abandoned by the Germans in a chaotic state. The Germans had a lot of all sorts of property. But now everything is in complete disarray. The furniture in the houses is just great. Each house is full of a variety of utensils. Most Germans lived quite well.
War, war - when will you end? For three years and seven months this destruction of human lives, the results of human labor and monuments of cultural heritage has been going on.
Towns and villages are burning, the treasures of thousands of years of labor are disappearing. And the nonentities in Berlin are doing their best to continue this one-of-a-kind battle in the history of mankind as long as possible. Therefore, hatred is born, which is poured out on Germany.
February 1, 1945. - In the village we saw a long column of modern slaves, whom the Germans drove to Germany from all over Europe. Our troops invaded Germany on a broad front. The allies are coming too. Yes, Hitler wanted to crush the whole world. Instead, he crushed Germany.

February 2, 1945. - We arrived in Fuchsberg. Finally, we reached our destination - the headquarters of the 33rd Tank Brigade. I learned from a Red Army soldier from the 24th Tank Brigade that thirteen people from our brigade, including several officers, had been poisoned. They drank denatured alcohol. That's where the love of alcohol can lead!
On the way we met several columns of German civilians. Mostly women and children. Many carried their children in their arms. They looked pale and scared. When asked if they were Germans, they hastened to answer "Yes."
There was a clear stamp of fear on their faces. They had no reason to be glad that they were Germans. At the same time, quite nice faces could be seen among them.

Last night, the soldiers of the division told me about some things that can not be approved. In the house where the headquarters of the division was located, the evacuated women and children were placed at night.
Drunken soldiers began to come there one after another. They chose women for themselves, took them aside and raped them. There were several men for every woman.
Such behavior is unacceptable. Revenge, of course, is necessary, but not in this way, but with weapons. You can somehow understand those whose loved ones were killed by the Germans. But the rape of young girls - no, this is unacceptable!
In my opinion, the command must soon put an end to such crimes, as well as to the unnecessary destruction of property. For example, soldiers spend the night in some house, in the morning they leave and set fire to the house or recklessly break mirrors and break furniture.
After all, it is clear that all these things will one day be transported to the Soviet Union. But while we live here and, carrying out soldier's service, we will continue to live. Such crimes only undermine the morale of the soldiers and weaken discipline, which leads to a decrease in combat capability."

One of the most significant operations carried out by the Red Army in 1945 was the assault on Königsberg and the liberation of East Prussia.

Fortifications of the Grolman upper front, the Oberteich bastion after the surrender /

Fortifications of the Grolman upper front, Oberteich bastion. Courtyard.

Troops of the 10th Tank Corps of the 5th Guards Tank Army of the 2nd Belorussian Front occupy the city of Mühlhausen (now the Polish city of Mlynary) during the Mlavsko-Elbing operation.

German soldiers and officers taken prisoner during the assault on Koenigsberg.

A column of German prisoners is walking along the Hindenburg-Strasse in the city of Insterburg (East Prussia), towards the Lutheran Church (now the city of Chernyakhovsk, Lenin Street).

Soviet soldiers carry the weapons of their dead comrades after the battle in East Prussia.

Soviet soldiers are learning to overcome the barbed wire.

Soviet officers visiting one of the forts in the occupied Koenigsberg.

Machine-gun crew MG-42 firing near the railway station of the city of Goldap in battles with Soviet troops.

Ships in the frozen harbor of Pillau (now Baltiysk, Kaliningrad region of Russia), late January 1945.

Koenigsberg, Tragheim district after the assault, damaged building.

German grenadiers are moving towards the last Soviet positions near the railway station of the city of Goldap.

Koenigsberg. Barracks Kronprinz, tower.

Koenigsberg, one of the fortifications.

Air support ship "Hans Albrecht Wedel" receives refugees in the harbor of Pillau.

Advanced German detachments enter the city of Goldap in East Prussia, which was previously occupied by Soviet troops.

Koenigsberg, panorama of the ruins of the city.

The corpse of a German woman killed by an explosion in Metgethen in East Prussia.

The Pz.Kpfw. belonging to the 5th Panzer Division. V Ausf. G "Panther" on the street of the town of Goldap.

A German soldier hanged on the outskirts of Königsberg for looting. The inscription in German "Plündern wird mit-dem Tode bestraft!" translates as "Whoever robs will be executed!"

A Soviet soldier in a German Sdkfz 250 armored personnel carrier on a street in Koenigsberg.

Units of the German 5th Panzer Division are moving forward for a counterattack against the Soviet troops. District Kattenau, East Prussia. Tank Pz.Kpfw ahead. V Panther.

Koenigsberg, barricade on the street.

A battery of 88-mm anti-aircraft guns is preparing to repel a Soviet tank attack. East Prussia, mid-February 1945.

German positions on the outskirts of Koenigsberg. The inscription reads: "We will defend Koenigsberg." Propaganda photo.

Soviet self-propelled guns ISU-122S is fighting in Koenigsberg. 3rd Belorussian Front, April 1945.

German sentry on the bridge in the center of Koenigsberg.

A Soviet motorcyclist passes German self-propelled guns StuG IV and 105-mm howitzers abandoned on the road.

A German landing ship evacuating troops from the Heiligenbeil pocket enters the harbor of Pillau.

Koenigsberg, blown up pillbox.

Destroyed German self-propelled gun StuG III Ausf. G against the background of the Kronprinz tower, Königsberg.

Koenigsberg, panorama from the Don tower.

Kenisberg, April 1945. View of the Royal Castle

German StuG III assault gun shot down in Koenigsberg. In the foreground is a dead German soldier.

German vehicles on Mitteltragheim street in Koenigsberg after the assault. To the right and left are StuG III assault guns, in the background is a JgdPz IV tank destroyer.

Grolman upper front, Grolman bastion. Before the surrender of the fortress, it housed the headquarters of the 367th Wehrmacht Infantry Division.

On the street of the port of Pillau. German soldiers being evacuated leave their weapons and equipment before being loaded onto ships.

A German 88 mm FlaK 36/37 anti-aircraft gun abandoned on the outskirts of Koenigsberg.

Koenigsberg, panorama. Don Tower, Rossgarten Gate.

Königsberg, German bunker in the Horst Wessel Park area.

Unfinished barricade on Duke Albrecht Alley in Königsberg (now Telman Street).

Koenigsberg, destroyed German artillery battery.

German prisoners at the Sackheim Gate of Koenigsberg.

Koenigsberg, German trenches.

German machine-gun crew in position in Koenigsberg near the Don tower.

German refugees on Pillau Street pass by a column of Soviet self-propelled guns SU-76M.

Konigsberg, Friedrichsburg Gate after the assault.

Koenigsberg, Wrangel tower, moat.

View from the Don Tower to the Oberteich (Upper Pond), Koenigsberg.

On the street of Koenigsberg after the assault.

Koenigsberg, Wrangel tower after the surrender.

Corporal I.A. Gureev at the post at the border marker in East Prussia.

Soviet unit in a street fight in Koenigsberg.

Traffic controller sergeant Anya Karavaeva on the way to Koenigsberg.

Soviet soldiers in the city of Allenstein (now the city of Olsztyn in Poland) in East Prussia.

Artillerymen of Lieutenant Sofronov's Guards are fighting on Avaider Alley in Koenigsberg (now - Alley of the Brave).

The result of an air strike on German positions in East Prussia.

Soviet soldiers are fighting on the outskirts of Koenigsberg. 3rd Belorussian Front.

Soviet armored boat No. 214 in the Konigsberg Canal after the battle with a German tank.

German collection point for defective captured armored vehicles in the Königsberg area.

Evacuation of the remnants of the division "Grossdeutschland" in the area of ​​Pillau.

Abandoned in Koenigsberg German technology. In the foreground is a 150 mm sFH 18 howitzer.

Koenigsberg. Bridge across the moat to Rossgarten Gate. Don tower in the background

Abandoned German 105-mm howitzer le.F.H.18/40 in position in Königsberg.

A German soldier lights a cigarette at a StuG IV self-propelled gun.

A destroyed German tank Pz.Kpfw is on fire. V Ausf. G "Panther". 3rd Belorussian Front.

Soldiers of the Grossdeutschland division are loaded onto makeshift rafts to cross the Frisches Haff Bay (now the Kaliningrad Bay). Balga Peninsula, Cape Kalholz.

Soldiers of the division "Grossdeutschland" in positions on the Balga Peninsula.

Meeting of Soviet soldiers on the border with East Prussia. 3rd Belorussian Front.

The bow of a German transport sinking as a result of an attack by Baltic Fleet aircraft off the coast of East Prussia.

The pilot-observer of the reconnaissance aircraft Henschel Hs.126 takes pictures of the area during a training flight.

Destroyed German assault gun StuG IV. East Prussia, February 1945.

Seeing Soviet soldiers from Koenigsberg.

The Germans inspect a wrecked Soviet T-34-85 tank in the village of Nemmersdorf.

Tank "Panther" from the 5th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht in Goldap.

German soldiers armed with Panzerfaust grenade launchers next to the MG 151/20 aircraft gun in the infantry version.

A column of German Panther tanks is moving towards the front in East Prussia.

Broken cars on the street taken by storm Koenigsberg. Soviet soldiers are in the background.

Troops of the Soviet 10th Panzer Corps and the bodies of German soldiers on Mühlhausen Street.

Soviet sappers walk down the street of the burning Insterburg in East Prussia.

A column of Soviet IS-2 tanks on a road in East Prussia. 1st Belorussian Front.

A Soviet officer inspects a German self-propelled gun "Jagdpanther" shot down in East Prussia.

Soviet soldiers are sleeping, resting after the battles, right on the street of Koenigsberg, taken by storm.

Koenigsberg, anti-tank barriers.

German refugees with a baby in Königsberg.

A short rally in the 8th company after reaching the state border of the USSR.

A group of pilots of the Normandy-Neman air regiment near the Yak-3 fighter in East Prussia.

A sixteen-year-old Volkssturm soldier armed with an MP 40 submachine gun. East Prussia.

Construction of fortifications, East Prussia, mid-July 1944.

Refugees from Königsberg moving towards Pillau, mid-February 1945.

German soldiers at a halt near Pillau.

German quad anti-aircraft gun FlaK 38, mounted on a tractor. Fischhausen (now Primorsk), East Prussia.

Civilians and a captured German soldier on Pillau Street during garbage collection after the end of the fighting for the city.

Boats of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet under repair in Pillau (now the city of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region of Russia).

German auxiliary ship "Franken" after the attack of Il-2 attack aircraft of the KBF Air Force.

Explosion of bombs on the German ship "Franken" as a result of the attack of Il-2 attack aircraft of the KBF Air Force

A breach from a heavy shell in the wall of the Oberteich bastion of the fortifications of the Grolman Upper Front of Koenigsberg.

The bodies of two German women and three children allegedly killed by Soviet soldiers in the town of Metgeten in East Prussia in January-February 1945. Propaganda German photo.

Transportation of the Soviet 280-mm mortar Br-5 in East Prussia.

Distribution of food to Soviet soldiers in Pillau after the end of the fighting for the city.

Soviet soldiers pass through a German settlement on the outskirts of Koenigsberg.

Broken German assault gun StuG IV on the streets of the city of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland.)

Soviet infantry, supported by self-propelled guns SU-76, attacked German positions in the area of ​​Koenigsberg.

A column of self-propelled guns SU-85 on the march in East Prussia.

Sign "Autoroute to Berlin" on one of the roads of East Prussia.

Explosion on the tanker "Sassnitz". The tanker with a cargo of fuel was sunk on March 26, 1945, 30 miles from Liepaja by aircraft of the 51st Mine-Torpedo Air Regiment and the 11th Assault Air Division of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet.

KBF Air Force bombardment of German transports and port facilities at Pillau.

The German ship-floating base hydroaviation "Boelcke" ("Boelcke"), attacked by the Il-2 squadron of the 7th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the Air Force of the Baltic Fleet, 7.5 km southeast of Cape Hel.

Sources:

Ryazhsky (born in 1915), Pelageya Pavlovna Kuzovleva (born in 1910), Galina Fedorovna Kuzovleva (born in 1927), Anastasia Ivanovna Andreeva (born in 1924).

Anna Anischenko,

MILITARY EVENTS ON THE TERRITORY OF DOLGORUKOVSKY DISTRICT

and on June 22, 1941, a fair was noisy in the central square of the village of Dolgorukovo, and at noon the radio brought terrible news - war. In the cold December 1941, the enemy set foot on our land ...

The Germans rushed to the heart of our Motherland - Moscow. An important strategic point was the Yelets railway junction. On December 3, advance detachments of the Nazis broke into the outskirts of the city of Yelets. In just one night, they completely took possession of it, mass robberies and executions began.

On November 30, 1941, the German fascist invaders broke into the territory of the Dolgorukovsky district from the northwestern side of the village of Sukhoi Olshanets. Among the first settlements captured by the Germans were the villages of Voiskovaya Kazinka, Novo-Troitskoye, Vyazovoe. The Germans entered Dolgorukovo on December 4, 1941. During the retreat, our troops blew up the station, the granary and a number of other objects with one goal - not to give it to the enemy. The German units quickly managed to capture most of the railway (with the exception of Kharlamovka - the Leninets armored train was maneuvering there).

In the early days of December, the 4th Voronezh Regiment of Colonel Voitsekhovsky of the First Guards Order of Lenin of the Rifle Division, Major General, having passed about 25 km and occupied the village of Rich Ploty, was forced to slow down the already slow movement to the west, because on the left above his battle formations " hung "an enemy grouping in the area of ​​​​the railway station of the village of Dolgorukovo. She's big, isn't she? Answers to these questions were expected from scouts. They ran off their feet, looking for "materialized" answers. It was decided to conduct reconnaissance in force. But out of the 24 reconnaissance officers on the staff list, there were only 11, and Voitsekhovsky allocated a reinforced platoon of Major Grigoriev from the 2nd rifle battalion to help. "Languages" scouts took in a barn on the eastern outskirts of the village. They testified: a small part of the 45th Infantry Regiment is stationed in Dolgorukovo, no one thinks to stubbornly resist ...

The 1st and 3rd battalions received a different task. 2nd - attack Dolgorukovo. But then unexpectedly another information was received from a messenger - the Germans left Dolgorukovo and headed towards the 2nd battalion. The command sounded: “Everyone goes to battle!” Only Voitsekhovsky remained with his adjutant to direct the actions of the 1st and 3rd battalions. Chief of Staff Khudyakov and Commissar Latyshev went to the position of the 2nd Battalion near Dolgorukovo. Later, when the results of the battle for Dolgorukovo were discussed, it was noted that Grigoriev did exactly the right thing by withdrawing the battalion into the ravine. The gunners worked very well (commander Shershnikov, gunner Korsakov). Under the fragmentation shells, the Germans lay down, and Grigoriev led the battalion on a counterattack in order to fight in the field, and not in the village ... It came to hand-to-hand combat. And again, the battalion commander Grigoriev showed extraordinary ingenuity - the Nazis rushed to the Rich Rafts. And there Voitsekhovsky sent his last reserve, led by senior lieutenant Vasily Lesnovsky, his adjutant, “along the trodden track”.

Caught between the "hammer and the anvil", the Germans panicked, and this is the worst thing. They fled to the village of Pokrovskoye to hide behind Olym... It was December 9, 1941, Tuesday. "Towards the end" Grigoriev's battalion attacked the German grouping near the village of Gryzlovo. The attack went on in one breath - after the victory at Dolgorukovo.

Here is a chronicle of events in the settlements of the Dolgorukovsky district these days:

Heavy and bloody battles took place for village Sagittarius. The village was defended by the 1st battalion of the 333rd rifle regiment of the 6th rifle division, which was part of the 13th army of the Bryansk Front. The village was strongly fortified, machine gunners sat on the bell tower of the church. There was a wonderful view from there - in the open area, in the snow - everything is in full view. For two days there was a heavy battle, the church began to be fired from guns. They destroyed the machine gunners on the bell tower. But in this battle they suffered heavy losses - 126 people found peace forever in the local cemetery. “The battalion under command was the first to break into Sagittarius. Here, the 4th regiment captured 29 anti-tank guns, 55 vehicles, hundreds of prisoners, valuable headquarters documents of the 133rd German regiment, - writes in the book “Fighters Remember Past Days”, - at the same time, the 2nd battalion captured the village of Gryzlovo and captured another 15 anti-tank guns, 48 ​​vehicles.

The village of Bratovshchina. Here, at the beginning of the war, a military hospital was located in the building of the secondary school. By the end of November, he was evacuated. On the evening of December 3, 1941, our retreating units went through Bratovshchina. During the retreat, they disabled the railway track, communications. In the middle of the day on December 4, the Germans entered the village. On the night of December 8-9, units of the Red Army restored the destroyed bridge. On the same night, the Germans shot 12 of our fighters, who were taken prisoner. When retreating to join with units that had previously retreated to Yelets, the Germans set fire to the village. 18 yards burned down.

Dubovets village. On December 3, 1941, the Germans entered the village early in the morning. With their arrival, robbery and fires began in the village. 10 civilians were shot and 8 wounded. 10 residential buildings and the building of the collective farm board burned down. On December 6, Dubovets was liberated by the 84th Rifle Regiment of the 1st Order of Lenin of the Guards Rifle Division. A hospital was organized in the local church, and a mass grave was formed on the edge of the cemetery, where the remains of 77 people are buried.

Ryabinki village. On December 7, 1941, the Germans burned at the stake Ivan Fedorovich Gornostaev, a participant in the First World War, chairman of a collective farm. A few minutes before the tragedy, he threw a grenade through the window of the house where the German headquarters was located.

The village of Stegalovka On December 2, German infantry drove into Stegalovka on motorcycles and trucks. The villagers could not run away - where will you run in the bitter cold, leaving everything you have acquired? Many hid in basements. The Germans felt like full owners. They went into the huts, drove women, old people and children numb with fear from warm rooms. Who hid with neighbors - the poor - the Germans did not go to the most miserable huts, who hid in sheds and cellars. To the great joy of the villagers, the Nazis did not stay long, less than a week. But they managed to exterminate all living creatures and terrify the inhabitants. Following were the SS men, who were supposed to destroy Stegalovka and the surrounding settlements. But our troops were advancing, and the Nazis fled in panic. The soldiers of the 148th division of the 13th army were greeted joyfully and with tears in their eyes.

Evacuation hospitals were deployed in the villages of our region. They were located in the premises of schools in the settlements: Zhernovnoye, Dubovets, Gushchinka, Slepukha, Voyskoy Kazinka, Upper Lomovets, Bratovshchina, as well as in district hospitals in the villages of Menshoy Kolodez and Stegalovka. There were also mobile hospitals - on horse-drawn carts.

Our study can be continued in a different way. Here are the names of the streets of our village: Guards, Lesteva, Deshina, Dudchenko. They bear the names of Heroes-compatriots. Andrei Ivanovich Deshin was born in 1924 in the village of Kotovo. He died in 1943 while crossing the Dnieper at the age of 19. At the age of 26, the life of a native of Novaya Deshina ended. Khutor Vesely is the birthplace of Ivan Andreevich Dudchenko, whose life was cut short in 1944 at the age of 30 when crossing the Danube. Yegor Ivanovich Lazarev, a resident of the village of Dolgusha, went to the front as an adult man. But he also did not manage to see his native expanses anymore. He died at the age of 37 while crossing the Pripyat. Victor Semenovich Sevrin managed to live up to the long-awaited victory. But from what he experienced, he died in 1959 - at the age of 35. Adam Gerasimovich Lovchiy and Petr Timofeevich Zhdanov are full cavaliers of the Order of Glory.

In the battles near Moscow, the divisional commissar, member of the Military Council, head of the political department of the Western Front, Dmitry Alexandrovich Lestev, died heroically. “We will defend Moscow, no matter what it costs us,” Commissioner Lestev wrote in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper the day before his death. One of the streets of Moscow is named after him. The memory of the heroic commissar is also immortalized in Dolgorukov's native land.

The poet Alexei Surkov dedicated poems to another of our fellow countrymen, Ivan Sergeevich Pashkov:

Buried in the grave, went to the village.

A heavy weight squeezed his chest.

I kissed damp clods of earth,

Crawling to the guys in the forest.

At 10.30 the enemies buried me,

And at 11 I was resurrected ...

The Nazi invaders brought a lot of grief to civilians. Semyon Timofeevich Shatskikh died at the hands of the enemy. Seven residents of the village of Ilyinka died during the occupation. was hanged for her association with the partisans. In total, 262 civilians died in the region during the occupation. In the village of Griboyedovo, out of 110 houses, 96 were burned down. Brotherhood.

After liberation from the Nazi invaders, the area was in the frontline zone for a long time. Women dug trenches, built a stone road, which has survived to this day. It is still called military - the road from Stegalovka to Chernava.

In June 1942, the regional center was transferred to Stegalovka. The rear and the front lived with a single goal - everything for the Victory! There was not a single family that would not contribute to helping the front. The collective farmer of the agricultural artel "Ray of Freedom" D. Ponomarev collected 101.5 thousand rubles. for aircraft construction. Schoolboy Tolya Balashov contributed 200 rubles. for the construction of the Oktyabryonok aircraft, the teacher of the Kharlamov school I. Kurepa - 15 thousand rubles, and this list can be continued. Former head Zagorodnev, together with students from the village. Slepukha spent several nights collecting bread for the Red Army. Lidia Nikolaevna Kuzmina, director of the Slepukhinskaya school, worked together with the teachers at the harvest.

On May 11, 1943, a telegram arrived from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Workers' Region. Here is its full text: “Yelets. Oryol regional committee of the CPSU (b). To the Secretary of the Dolgorukovsky Republican Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade Novikov. To the chairman of the district council, Comrade Petrov. Give to the collective farmers and collective farmers of the Dolgorukovsky district, who collected 101,637 rubles. for the construction of a tank column named after the Oryol partisans, who donated 4,086 pounds of bread to the Red Army fund - 1,870 pounds of meat, my fraternal greetings and gratitude to the Red Army.

Our chronicle will be incomplete if we do not open one more page of those harsh years. From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, hundreds of Dolgorukovites fought against the Nazi invaders. Courage and courage were shown also by our fellow teachers. From his native Oryol region to East Prussia, he walked the roads of war. The former military instructor of the Dolgorukov school stormed Koenigsberg. A teacher from Bolshaya Boevka liberated Warsaw and participated in the capture of Berlin. Her military exploits were awarded the Orders of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War. Teachers and awarded the Order of the Red Banner. , - Orders of Glory III degree. Teachers fought on different fronts: they defended Moscow, and - Leningrad, - Stalingrad. Participated in the Battle of Kursk. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree. Pioneer leader was awarded medals "For the liberation of Warsaw", "For the capture of Berlin".

During the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the Dolgorukovsky district were located:

1941: 56th cavalry regiment in Dolgorukovo, 84th rifle regiment, 6th rifle division in Dubovets and 146th motorized battalion in Stegalovka.

1942: 45th Infantry Regiment - on the Parahin farm; 25th artillery regiment, 418th rifle regiment, 133rd rifle division - in the village of Bolshoi Kolodez; 53rd tank battalion in the village of Verkhniy Lomovets; 16th and 498th rifle regiments, 8th and 132nd rifle divisions in the village of Stegalovka.

Hospitals: in Stegalovka - the 50th surgical field; in Griboyedovo - the 186th mobile field; in Dubovets - the 61st surgical field; in Bolshaya Boevka - the 130th field corps.

1943: 605th and 519th rifle regiments, 81st rifle division - in the village of Voiskovaya Kazinka; 321st Rifle Regiment, 15th Rifle Division - in the village of Stegalovka.

Hospitals: The 2408th mobile field hospital - in the village of Stegalovka, the 4300th infectious diseases hospital - in the village of Verkhny Lomovets, the 134th evacuation hospital and the 45th mobile field hospital - in the village of Bratovshchina.

List of mass graves

on the territory of Dolgorukovsky district

No. p / p

Locality

Number of buried

Of them - unknown

Rich Rafts

Bolshaya Boevka

Big Well

Brotherhood

Upper Lomovets

Gryzlovo

Gushchin Well

Dolgorukovo

Yekaterinovka

Millstone

Small Well

Olshanka

P-Petrovka

Priklonovka

Dry Olshanets

Stegalovka

Pavel Azarov,

11th grade secondary school No. 1 in Chaplygin.

Scientific adviser: .

HOSPITAL No. 000

Ten years ago, history turned one of its most terrible and difficult pages. Time has smoothed out, covered with time the bomb craters and trenches - these monstrous scars on the body of the earth, which knew "unearthly suffering." But time is powerless before human memory, the memory of hearts. How many more people on our land, burned by the war? How many people whose wounds hurt and ache in bad weather? Less and less... The time will come when the thread connecting us with the generation of Veterans will break, and the events that today are part of someone's living, tangible life will become history for everyone, will acquire the taste and smell of archival eternity.

Soviet soldier. In a tunic torn by shrapnel, whitened with salty sweat, with a three-ruler and a bottle of incendiary mixture, holding back the onslaught of armored fascist armies, knowing the pain and bitterness of retreat, clinging to every bump, bush in the days of retreat. He fought to the death, he stopped the enemy at the walls of Moscow, and then drove him to Berlin. And he was not an epic hero, but an ordinary person, daily going to his death. Fragments shredded him, bullets tore, and his heart so wanted to live! They saved him, healing the wounded body, the good hands of women - military doctors, paramedics, nurses. Like living water, they healed severe wounds with caress and compassion.

In the first, most difficult, months of the war, a hospital was formed in the city of Ranenburg. He was assigned number 000.

The building of secondary school No. 2, in which the hospital was formed

The need for its organization was explained simply: the front line passed 170 km from the city, not far from the large railway junction Michurinsk and the Kochetovka station with a large locomotive repair depot. The Nazis bombed Kochetovka every day, Troyekurovo and Ranenburg were bombed.

Harsh, filled with constant anxiety and danger days. With the organization, arrangement, and then, throughout the war, the difficult front-line everyday life of the hospital, the youth of several, then very young, of our countrywomen is connected. I was lucky - I heard the stories of many of them. Some have passed away quite recently, others, thank God, are alive.

The main character of my research is Galina Ivanovna Orlova. She went with the hospital for most of his military journey. Her story is detailed, she remembers many interesting details. Be sure to name other participants in the events. Their fates are no less interesting, and their lives are worthy of imitation. Age reveals the color of the eyes, still gray-blue, but already a little lighter, as if seized in the autumn of life, deep wrinkles. She is still very beautiful, full of dignity, trying to cope with the excitement that grips her with memories. “On June 22, I met at the Paveletsky railway station in Moscow - I was going on vacation to my husband in Kyiv. The message about the beginning of the war, read by Levitan, caused confusion, fear for loved ones. There was one question in my head: “What will happen?”.

The train to Kyiv was canceled until further notice - the bombing damaged the railway track. There was time to think and return, because the three-year-old son remained at home. But she decided to go to see her husband, maybe for the last time. All the way the train moved under the air raids of the Nazis. In Kyiv - patrols, document checks by the commandant's office, the constant roar of explosions, there are already many destroyed buildings. I saw my husband for only two hours. An urgent telegram was received from Ranenburg demanding to be at the disposal of the military registration and enlistment office. Upon arrival, she received an order to begin organizational work on the preparation and deployment of the hospital. Comrade was appointed its chief. Vasilevsky, who arrived from Ryazan. The district executive committee decided to give the hospital the premises of the former Teachers' Institute and all the buildings adjacent to it. The mobilization of personnel for the hospital began: he became a military commissar, the head of the material part -, the head of the financial part -.

The premises for the reception of the wounded were prepared by Ranburg Komsomol members: they cleaned the windows, washed the walls, rubbed the floors. Then the equipment began to arrive, it was brought in and placed inside the building. Pretty soon brought the first wounded. The girls who prepared the hospital for their reception were offered to work here as nurses and nurses. Many agreed.

One of these girls is Lilia Sergeeva Zaitseva. Here, in the evacuation hospital No. 000, the war began for her, here she worked in the laboratory, which she was in charge of, “and when a free minute appeared, she helped to treat wounds, arranged for the wounded in the wards. Sometimes you just had to sit next to a fighter, read him a letter from home, a book, ”recalled Lilia Sergeevna. This is from my last conversation with her. In March 2004, Lilia Sergeevna died.

One more piece of evidence. Krylov. In 1941 she was ten years old. “The patronage of the wounded, who were in hospital No. 000, each of us perceived as our duty, as our own small contribution to the victory over the Nazis. Almost everyone at the front had fathers, older brothers. Every day, right after school, they hurried to the wounded. They read books, letters, wrote messages to relatives under dictation. Only much later did I understand how the fighters were waiting for us, how our presence warmed them, how it reminded them of their home. And how we tried to support the wounded: we sang, danced, read poetry. Many songs were born already in the days of the war, even at the front. Sometimes we didn't know the words or the melody. But the desire to help made up for this deficiency, we read the songs as poetry and composed our own words to the melody. The enlightened faces of the fighters were our reward. The most favorite song for everyone was "Katyusha", in each concert we performed it several times.

Already at the beginning of autumn, it became clear that it was dangerous for the hospital to remain further in Ranenburg. “Bomb explosions from the Troekurovo stations were constantly heard. And it's only 30 km from the city. And the battles with the Nazis in the central sector of the front were approaching Moscow. Every day we anxiously looked at the map, where the front line was marked with flags. We were getting ready to leave, and so were our families. Permission was received - mobilized in case of relocation to take a family member with them. He took his wife and two daughters with him. - daughter, and I - sister and son (husband - Fedor Vasilyevich Orlov was in the army)," recalls Galina Ivanovna Orlova.

In October 1941, the relocation of the hospital began, the evacuation of its personnel. Everything was done at night and under constant air raids. From the heroines of our story, calmness, confidence, and coherence of actions were required. They have not yet had time to feel like fighters. These were women torn out of a reliable, peaceful, prosperous life by the war. A huge misfortune that has befallen the country has put everything in its place, cultivating both rigidity and mercy.

From the story of Olga Petrovna Tanchuk. We met her for the last time in the fall of 2002. On January 3, 2003, she died. “The hospital was completely taken out in November 1941. Property, employees with their families moved around the European territory of the Union for a whole month. We passed Ruzaevka, Arzamas, turned to the city of Murom and had already begun to unload, as the order to move was again received. For a long time they stood in Vyksa, and then moved to the village. Arkhangelskoye near Moscow (the former estate of Prince Yusupov, and before the war - a sanatorium for the command staff of the Armed Forces). Here the hospital turned around thoroughly, already in December it received the first wounded. There were 500 of them. But this is only in the first days. There was a great battle for Moscow, many fighters and commanders arrived daily. Especially often they brought in tankmen who had been burned in blown up tanks. A terrible, unbearably heavy sight: black, charred skin, and only eyes that glow with hope, in which tears stood from suffering. It's sad, but not everyone could be saved.

What pain pulsates in the words of a very middle-aged woman! The spiritual wounds inflicted by the war did not close. Sorrow for the lost peers was invisibly present in our conversation. “Soon the hospital was relocated to Skhodnya, Istra, and then to Volokolamsk. The tension of the battle near Moscow did not allow to stay anywhere for a long time. We followed the unfolding hostilities. All the time I was haunted by the thought: "We must be where we are most needed." Now in one day up to 500 wounded were received. Sanatorium them. Chekhov could hardly accommodate such a large number of people. The medical staff fell from their feet from fatigue. The hour of rest seemed to be a great happiness. Only now I understand that they were in the middle of nowhere. I will never forget Volokolamsk. Raids of fascist bombers followed day and night. Cannonade - continuous. The city is engulfed in fires, the station is burning, storage facilities with fuel. In the air - clouds of smoke and burning. Next to the hospital is a maternity hospital. One of the bombs exploded there. The blood froze from the cries of children and mothers coming from under the ruins. This added to the general horror. Hands dropped from helplessness. On one of these tragic days, two of my compatriot friends died. Lena Kemenova from Krivopolyanye had her leg blown off and she died on the operating table. Zina Skuratova received a through wound in the stomach and died. But the worst was yet to come. In January 1941, the hospital was bombed. The hospital with the seriously wounded was completely destroyed, no one could be taken out! - Galina Ivanovna wipes her tears. They have not dried up in sixty long years. Pain and sorrow are also inescapable.

How could the fascist strategists take into account such self-sacrifice, contempt for the danger of Russian women. They had a lot to learn, remember, pass through their own hearts. Hear the heart-rending howl of diving fascist "Junkers", generously watering the ground with lead, the sobbing of women over the murdered children. To see how an unintelligent kid pulls on the hand of a murdered mother, trying to raise her. Many of them had fathers, husbands, brothers at the front...

Vera Mikhailovna Luginina passed the whole long, hard way with the hospital. She did not part with the medical profession after the war. For decades she worked as a nurse in a kindergarten. A wonderful woman with a warm, kind soul, she passed away in 1998. These are her memories. They were recorded during one of the meetings with schoolchildren: “On the eve of the war, I was finishing my first year at the Institute of Chemical Technology. I received a telegram from my mother that she was mobilized (Vera Mikhailovna is the daughter of a hospital pharmacist). I went to Ranenburg. I entered an accelerated nursing course, and on February 2, 1942, when the hospital was near Krasnogorsk, I was mobilized. The most terrible memory of the war for me was the battles near Volokolamsk. I remember how several air bombs hit the hospital building. It seemed that the whole city turned into a huge fire. We moved to Istra, stopping at small stations. There are many wounded everywhere. The small station Sychevka was remembered for the strongest raid on the hospital. The number of wounded was increasing. And it wasn't just the soldiers. Many children who were bombed, blown up by mines, wounded by shell fragments. Seriously wounded... Rushing around in delirium, shouting out words of command or whispering native names, clinging to a thin thread that still connects them with life. Not everyone was saved. I remember the day when only three out of eleven fighters survived, the rest died on the operating table.

“War has not a woman's face” - these words belong to the Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich. And if the war fell at the very beginning of fate, in the years of youth? Very young, clumsy from heavy soldier's attire, with children's braids, who had seen little in life, turned out to be girls in the war. They went through hardships, through unfeminine trials, and with the hope of a quick victory they met each new day. There were those who literally met their fate at the front. Vera Tsitsina in a hospital near Smolensk undertook to nurse the wounded platoon commander, whom the doctors considered hopeless.

“... The first thing Vasily Luginin saw when he came to his senses was the blue, blue eyes of the nurse leaning towards him. "What is your name?" - he whispered with naughty lips, and hearing her answer: "Faith", he tried to smile: "Faith? This is good...". We exchanged addresses, field mail numbers. The war tested both of them. The orderlies more than once pulled the bleeding Vasily from the battlefield. And having healed a little, he returned to the front line before the deadline. Twice funerals came to his house, and he remained to live. Vera served in the evacuation hospital. “Bandaged the wounded, cared for them. Responded to every moan. Once, after the bombing, the wounded had to be dug out from under the ruins. Another time they dug it up." The next meeting was after the war. They never parted again, carrying sorrows, joys, and their love through life.

In the harsh year of 1942, Nikolai Petrovich Litvinov and his future wife Anastasia Ilyinichna met in the hospital. For almost two years they lived a dream of new meetings. Here are the lines from the military diary of the commander of the autorota: “Victory!!! The whole world is trembling - and I cannot put this great date into one record ... Dear Asenka, where are you, my good one, rejoice with all the people. There is no more terrible war. The Russian people defeated the enemy!

The battle for Moscow was fierce. After forcing small rivers by troops, the ice remained broken, crumbled into small crumbs, and the water in the polynyas was red with blood, crippled bodies floated in it. From the hospital, nurses were often sent to accompany trains that took out the wounded from the front lines. These trains passed through a flurry of fire, which was brought down on them by enemy bombers. The red cross did not stop the Nazis either.

Litvinova: “After the victory near Moscow, the hospital was transferred to Smolensk. But here he did not stay long, following the advancing troops he moved west. There was still a lot to go through. Military failures further embittered the Nazis. There was a feeling that they were after the hospital, and the red cross is not our protection. And today, if I close my eyes, I see the illuminated operating table, the surgeon's back bent over it, I hear the uneven rumble of the wheels, their rumble at the junctions of the rails. Even today they knock, "To the west, to the west, to the west ...". Memories of youth are the most vivid. And that was my youth. Anxious, daily next to death, but the same as yours, unique.

The war rolled west. The Soviet army dealt more and more tangible blows to the Nazis. And the bestial nature of fascism was exposed more and more, its trampling of all moral norms and customs.

Luginina: “Spring of 1945. The hospital has been standing in East Prussia for the second week. There are fierce battles for Koenigsberg. It seemed to us that the battle, like a gigantic funnel, sucks in thousands of Soviet soldiers and, having crushed, crippled them, throws them out. There was a feeling that it was impossible to win a victory here, an impregnable fortress stood in front of the Third Belorussian Front. What terrible wounds, how many deaths! And yet in April the battles ended in victory. I remember a clear spring day. Around the hospital is an old park. Dense flowering shrub, sun glare on the leaves of trees. Lots of German teenagers playing. Boys are always inquisitive, war is a game for them. And suddenly low, at low level flight - fascist planes. Explosions of several bombs, panic, heart-rending screams and ... a severed child's hand hanging on a branch of a bush and blood dripping on flowers. I remember it always."

Military roads were long. The employees of hospital No. 000 learned about the end of the war in Europe in Lithuania, in the city of Kaunas. They hoped to return home soon, they were waiting to meet their relatives. But the war was not over for them. The hospital across the country was transferred to the Far East. We drove for several weeks. Birch copses gave way to densely green taiga forests. The friendly blue of the rivers of central Russia - the deep lead blue of the Siberian rivers. We stopped in the village of Shimanovka. Nearby is the city of Svobodny, Amur Region, a little further, the border with Manchuria.

“The hospital did not move outside the borders of the Soviet Union. The hostilities did not last long. But there were many wounded. They talked about the Japanese - suicide bombers, who chained themselves with chains and machine guns on the passes, about the tanks that fell into the abyss, about the death of their comrades ”- these are again the memories of Vera Mikhailovna Luginina. - “Only after the defeat of Japan, the medical staff of the hospital was demobilized. It seems that the return fit in one day. But we arrived in Ranenburg only in 1946.”

But what about the main character of my story? After the defeat of the Nazis near Moscow, she was transferred to hospital No. 000. It was also formed in Ranenburg. His heroic path is another page of the war. It is only important not to be late, open it while there is an opportunity to hear. Galina Ivanovna Orlova after the war worked as an instructor in health education, chairman of the district committee of the Red Cross. The awards remind of military youth - the Order of the Patriotic War of the II degree, the medals "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Victory over Germany", "Front Soldier of the 1st Year", "60 Years of the Battle for Moscow", Zhukov's medal. But she rarely gets them. On the slope of life, memories bring pain.

Anton Sokolikov,

Grade 11, secondary school No. 4, Gryazi.

Scientific adviser: .

GRYAZINIANS IN THE YEAR OF GREAT VICTORIES

History of the Great Patriotic War 1944 is called "the year of great victories". And this is no coincidence, because it was in 1944 that the Red Army carried out ten major strategic operations that predetermined the final collapse of fascist Germany and its satellites.

On the southern borders

As part of the 62nd Guards Division of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Konev, a native of the village of Teleluy, Gryazinsky district, Alexei Ivanovich Kornev, who fought in intelligence, participated in the liquidation of the Korsun-Shevchenko group of Germans. For successful actions in this operation, the division was awarded the honorary title "Zvenigorodskaya" and the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Our fellow countryman was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 2nd degree.

During the battle in the region of the middle reaches of the Dnieper, a native of the village of Srednyaya Dyatchin commanded an artillery platoon on the 1st Ukrainian Front. According to Vasily Andreevich, the victory of our army was not easy. “The surrounded German units,” the veteran recalled, “fought desperately. They clung to every settlement, to every height. Our 58th Infantry Regiment was so battered in these battles that immediately after the liquidation of the "cauldron", it was taken to Kyiv for deformation ... ".

In the winter of 1944, a native of Kalachev fought near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky, behind whom were the battles of Moscow and Kursk, battles on the Dnieper. He was deputy squadron commander of the 166th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the 10th Guards Voronezh-Kyiv Red Banner Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov Attack Air Division. The pilot was shot down three times, but he survived. One day, fate saved him from death on earth: in November 1943, a bus with pilots returning from the airfield came under bombardment. Of the fourteen people, only four survived ... During the fighting in February 1944, our fellow countryman repeatedly led a squadron of formidable "Ils" to attack the enemy's manpower and equipment, trying to break out of the encirclement. In June 1945 he was awarded the highest military distinction.

In 1943, Vladimir Vasilyevich Federyakin, a mud man, was drafted into the ranks of the active army. He received his baptism of fire while crossing the Dnieper. Then he participated in the liquidation of the Korsun-Shevchenko group of the Nazis. For the courage shown in this operation, he was awarded the medal "For Courage".

Fedor Pakhomov worked as an assistant driver at the Gryazinsky railway junction. In 1943 he was called to the front. He took part in the battles near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky as part of the 9th Guards Mortar Regiment, where he was a gunner sergeant. Finished World War II in the Far East. For courage and valor he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the medal "For Courage".