"I'm dying, but I'm not giving up." When the last defender of the Brest Fortress died. The defense of the Brest Fortress ended. How long did the Brest Fortress resist?

The garrison of the Brest Fortress was one of the first to take the blow of the German army during the beginning.

The courage and heroism of its defenders are forever inscribed in the analogues of world history, which cannot be forgotten or distorted.

Treacherous Attack

The unexpected assault on the fortress began at 4 o'clock in the early morning of June 22, 1941, with hurricane artillery fire.

Precision and crushing fire destroyed ammunition depots and damaged communication lines. The garrison immediately suffered significant losses in manpower.

As a result of this attack, the water supply was destroyed, which subsequently significantly complicated the position of the defenders of the fortress. Water was required not only for the soldiers, who were ordinary living people, but also for the machine guns.

Defense of the Brest Fortress 1941 photo

After a half-hour artillery attack, the Germans launched three battalions, which were part of the 45th Infantry Division, into the attack. The number of attackers was one and a half thousand people.

The German command considered this number quite sufficient to cope with the garrison of the fortress. And, at first, the Nazis did not encounter serious resistance. The surprise effect did its job. The garrison ceased to be a single whole, but found itself divided into several uncoordinated centers of resistance.

The Germans, having broken into the fortress through the Terespol fortification, quickly passed through the Citadel and reached the Kobrin fortification.

Unexpected rebuff

The greater the surprise for them was the counterattack of Soviet soldiers who found themselves in their rear. The garrison soldiers who survived the shelling grouped under the command of the remaining commanders, and the Germans received significant resistance.

The inscription of the defenders of the Brest Fortress on the wall photo

In some places the attackers were met with harsh bayonet attacks, which came as a complete surprise to them. The attack began to sputter. And not only did they choke, but the Nazis had to hold the defense themselves.

Quickly recovering from the shock of an unexpected and treacherous attack by the enemy, parts of the garrison that found themselves in the rear of the attackers were able to dismember and even partially destroy the enemy. The enemy met the strongest resistance at the Volyn and Kobrin fortifications.

A small part of the garrison was able to break through and leave the fortress. But most of it remained inside the ring, which the Germans closed by 9 o’clock in the morning. Between 6 and 8 thousand people remained inside the encirclement ring. In the Citadel, the Germans were able to hold only some areas, including the club building, which was converted from a former church, dominating the rest of the fortifications. In addition, the Germans had at their disposal the command staff's canteen and part of the barracks at the Brest Gate, which had survived the artillery shelling.

The German command allotted only a few hours to capture the fortress, but by noon it became clear that this plan had failed. Within a day, the Germans had to bring in additional forces left in reserve. Instead of the original three battalions, the group storming the fortress increased to two regiments. The Germans could not fully use artillery so as not to destroy their own soldiers.

Defense of the Brest Fortress

By the night of June 23, the German command withdrew its troops and artillery shelling began. In between, there was a proposal to surrender. About 2 thousand responded to it, but the bulk of the defenders chose resistance. On June 23, united groups of Soviet soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Vinogradov, Captain Zubachev, Regimental Commissar Fomin, Senior Lieutenant Shcherbakov and Private Shugurov, knocked the Germans out of the ring barracks they occupied at the Brest Gate and planned to organize a long-term defense of the fortress, hoping to receive reinforcements.

Brest Fortress, July 1941 photo

It was planned to create a Defense Headquarters and even draft Order No. 1 was written on the creation of a consolidated battle group. However, on June 24, the Germans were able to break into the Citadel. A large group of the garrison tried to break through the Kobrin fortification and, although they were able to escape beyond the outer side of the fortress, most of them were destroyed or captured. On June 26, the last 450 soldiers of the Citadel were captured.

The feat of the defenders of the "Eastern Fort"

The defenders of the Eastern Fort held out the longest. There were about 400 people. This group was commanded by Major P.M. Gavrilov. The Germans attacked in this area up to 10 times a day, and each time rolled back, encountering fierce resistance. And only on June 29, after the Germans dropped an aerial bomb weighing 1800 kg on the fort, the fort fell.

Defense of the Brest Fortress photo

But even until August, the Germans could not carry out a total cleansing and feel like complete masters. Every now and then local pockets of resistance arose when shooting from still living soldiers was heard from under the ruins. They preferred death to captivity. Among the very last captured was the seriously wounded Major Gavrilov, and this happened on July 23.

Before visiting the fortress and at the end of August, all the basements of the fortress were flooded with water. The Brest Fortress is a symbol of the courage and perseverance of Soviet soldiers. In 1965, Brest was awarded the title of Hero Fortress.

Major General Fritz Schlieper

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✪ Lecture by Rostislav Aliyev “Defense of the Brest Fortress in June 1941: research problems”

✪ Brest Fortress

✪ Test “Battles and battles: defense of the Brest Fortress”

✪ BREST FORTRESS TWO DEFENSE

✪ Defense of the Brest Fortress

Subtitles

On the eve of the war

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

Storming the fortress

In addition to the divisional artillery of the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division, nine light and three heavy batteries, a high-power artillery battery (two super-heavy 600 mm self-propelled  mortars “Karl”) and a division of 210-mm mortars 21 cm Laenger Moerser.16. In addition, the commander of the 12th Army Corps concentrated the fire of two divisions of the same mortars of the 34th and 31st infantry divisions on the fortress. The order to withdraw units of the 42nd Infantry Division from the fortress, given personally by the commander of the 4th Army, Major General A. A. Korobkov, to the chief of staff of the division by telephone in the period from 3 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 45 minutes, before the start of hostilities, was not managed to complete it.

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

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

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

Defense

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

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

Lessons Learned:

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

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

2. An attack on a fortress in which a brave defender sits costs a lot of blood. This simple truth was proven once again during the capture of Brest-Litovsk. Heavy artillery is also a powerful stunning means of moral influence.
3. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought exceptionally stubbornly and persistently. They showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to fight.

Memory of the defenders of the fortress

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

Difficulties of the study

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

In art

Art films

• "Immortal Garrison" (1956);
• “Battle for Moscow”, film one “Aggression” ( one of the storylines) (USSR, 1985);
• “State Border”, fifth film “The Year Forty-First” (USSR, 1986);
• “I am a Russian soldier” - based on the book by Boris Vasilyev “Not on the lists”(Russia, 1995);
• “Brest Fortress” (Belarus-Russia, 2010).

Documentaries

• "Heroes of Brest" - documentary film about the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War(TsSDF Studio, 1957);
• “Dear of hero-fathers” - amateur documentary film about the 1st All-Union rally of the winners of the youth march to places of military glory in the Brest Fortress(1965 );
• "Brest Fortress" - documentary trilogy about the defense of the fortress in 1941(VoenTV, 2006);
• “Brest Fortress” (Russia, 2007).
• "Brest. Serf heroes." (NTV, 2010).
• “Berastseiskaya fortress: dzve abarons” (Belsat, 2009)

Fiction

• Bobrenok S. T. At the walls of the Brest Fortress. Notes from a defense participant. - 2nd ed. - Minsk: Mastatskaya literature, 1981. - 190 p.
• Vasiliev B. L. Didn’t appear on the lists. - M.: Children's literature, 1986. - 224 p.
• Oshaev Kh. D. Brest is a fiery nut to crack. - M.: Book, 1990. - 141 p.
• Smirnov S. S. Brest Fortress. - M.: Young Guard, 1965. - 496 p.

Songs

• “There is no death for the heroes of Brest”- song by Eduard Khil.
• "Brest Trumpeter"- music by Vladimir Rubin, lyrics by Boris Dubrovin.
• “Dedicated to the heroes of Brest”- words and music by Alexander Krivonosov.

Notes

1. Christian Ganzer. German and Soviet losses as an indicator of the duration and intensity of the battles for the Brest Fortress // Belarus and Germany: history and reality. Issue 12. Minsk 2014, p. 44-52, p. 48-50.
2. Christian Ganzer. German and Soviet losses as an indicator of the duration and intensity of the battles for the Brest Fortress // Belarus and Germany: history and reality. Issue 12. Minsk 2014, p. 44-52, p. 48-50, p. 45-47.
3. Sandalov L. M.
4. Sandalov L. M.  Combat actions of troops of the 4th Army in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War
5. The eve and the beginning of the war
6. Mortar KARL
7. Brest Fortress // Broadcast from the Echo Moscow radio station
8. The last pockets of resistance
9. “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up.” 
10. When did the last defender of the Brest Fortress die? Albert Axell.
11. Russia's Heroes, 1941-45, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002, ISBN 0-7867-1011-X, Google Print, p. 
12. 39-40 Combat report from the commander of the 45th division, Lieutenant General Schlieper, on the occupation of the Brest-Litovsk fortress, July 8, 1941.
13. Jason Pipes.
14. 45. Infanterie-Division, Feldgrau.com - research on the German armed forces 1918-1945

The defense of the Brest Fortress became the first feat of Soviet soldiers in the Great Patriotic War - lenta.ru

The last defender of the Brest Fortress died in Israel

• Literature Historical research Aliev R.V.
• Storming of the Brest Fortress. - M.: Eksmo, 2010. - 800 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-41287-7. Review of Aliyev’s book (in Belarusian) Aliev R., Ryzhov I.
• Brest. June. Fortress, 2012 - video presentation of the book
• Christian Ganzer (leader of the group of authors-compilers), Irina Elenskaya, Elena Pashkovich and others. Brest. Summer 1941. Documents, materials, photographs. Smolensk: Inbelkult, 2016. ISBN 978-5-00076-030-7 Krystyyan Gantser, Alena Pashkovich.

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

Destroy in no time

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

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

According to the “Barbarossa” attack plan on the USSR, the German command expected to defeat the Soviet army as soon as possible, without allowing it to come to its senses and organize coordinated resistance.

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

“Soldiers and officers arrived one by one, scantily clad.”

The attack began on June 22, 1941 at 4.15 Soviet time with artillery and rocket launchers. Every four minutes artillery fire was transferred 100 meters to the east. The hurricane fire took the fortress garrison by surprise. As a result of the shelling, warehouses were destroyed, communications were interrupted and significant damage was caused to the garrison. A little later, the assault on the fortifications began.

At first, due to the unexpected attack, the fortress garrison was unable to provide coordinated resistance.

“Due to the continuous artillery shelling suddenly launched by the enemy at 4:00 on 6/22/41, units of the division could not be compactly withdrawn to the concentration areas on alert. Soldiers and officers arrived one by one, scantily clad. From those concentrated it was possible to create a maximum of two battalions. The first battles were carried out under the leadership of the regiment commanders, Comrades Dorodny (84th Regiment), Matveeva (333 sp), Kovtunenko (125 sp).”

(Report from the deputy commander for political affairs of the same 6th Infantry Division, Regimental Commissar M.N. Butin.)

By 4.00, the assault detachment, having lost two-thirds of its personnel, captured two bridges connecting the Western and Southern islands with the Citadel. However, in an attempt to take the fortress as quickly as possible, the German troops became involved in close combat using small arms, which led to heavy losses on both sides.

The battles were of a counter nature. During one of the successful counterattacks at the Terespol Gate, the German assault group was almost completely destroyed. By 7.00 a group of Soviet troops managed to escape from the fortress, but many military personnel did not succeed in breaking through. It was they who continued the further defense.

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

Having withdrawn the troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the German artillery spent the entire next day shelling the positions of the defenders. During breaks, German cars with loudspeakers called on the garrison to surrender. About 1.9 thousand people surrendered. Nevertheless, the remaining defenders of the fortress managed, by knocking out the Germans from the section of the ring barracks adjacent to the Brest Gate, to unite the two most powerful centers of resistance remaining in the Citadel. The besieged also managed to knock out three tanks. These were captured French Somua S-35 tanks, armed with a 47 mm cannon and having good armor for the start of the war.

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

“The prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement”

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

The resistance of such isolated isolated groups lasted almost the entire month of July. The last defender of the Brest Fortress is considered to be Major Gavrilov, who, already seriously wounded, was captured only on July 23, 1941. According to the doctor who examined him, the major was in an extreme state of exhaustion:

“... the captured major was in full command uniform, but all his clothes had turned into rags, his face was covered with gunpowder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was wounded, unconscious and looked extremely exhausted. It was, in the full sense of the word, a skeleton covered in leather.

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

But the German soldiers who captured him and brought him to the camp told the doctors that this man, in whose body life was already barely glimmering, just an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, alone took they fought, threw grenades, fired a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis.”

(Smirnov S.S. Brest Fortress)

The losses of the 45th German Infantry Division on June 30, 1941 amounted to 482 killed, including 48 officers, and more than 1 thousand wounded. If we consider that the same division in 1939 during the attack on Poland lost 158 ​​killed and 360 wounded, then the losses were very significant. According to a report from the commander of the 45th division, 25 officers and 2,877 junior commanders and soldiers were captured by German troops. 1877 Soviet military personnel died in the fortress. By the end of the war, there were about 400 living defenders of the Brest Fortress.

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

The defense of the Brest Fortress in June 1941 is one of the first battles of the Great Patriotic War. By June 22, 1941, at least 9 thousand people were located in the fortress, not counting family members (300 military families). The assault on the fortress, the city of Brest and the capture of bridges over the Western Bug and Mukhavets was entrusted to the 45th Infantry Division of Major General Fritz Schlieper. For artillery preparation, two super-heavy 600-mm self-propelled mortars “Karl” were brought in.

June 22 at 4:15 am by strength Hurricane artillery fire was opened, which took the garrison by surprise. As a result, warehouses were destroyed, the water supply was damaged, communications were interrupted, and serious damage was caused to the garrison. At 4:23 the assault began. Up to one and a half thousand people attacked the fortress directly. The surprise of the attack led to the fact that the garrison was unable to provide a single coordinated resistance and was divided into several separate centers. However, parts of the garrison that found themselves behind German lines launched a counterattack, dismembering and almost completely destroying the attackers. The Germans in the Citadel were able to gain a foothold only in certain areas. By 9 o'clock in the morning the fortress was surrounded.

On the night of June 23, having withdrawn their troops to the outer ramparts of the fortress, the Germans began shelling, in between offering the garrison to surrender. About 1,900 people surrendered. However, on June 23, the remaining defenders of the fortress managed to unite the two most powerful centers of resistance remaining on the Citadel. Having met in the basement of the “House of Officers”, the defenders of the Citadel tried to coordinate their actions: they were prepared draft order No. 1 dated June 24, which proposed creating a consolidated combat group and headquarters led by Captain I.N. Zubachev and his deputy, regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, and counting the remaining personnel.

Major M.P. Gavrilov

By the evening of June 24, the Germans captured most of the fortress, with the exception of the section of the ring barracks (“House of Officers”) near the Brest Gate of the Citadel, casemates in the earthen rampart on the opposite bank of Mukhavets and the so-called “Eastern Fort” located on the Kobrin fortification. The last 450 defenders of the Citadel were captured on June 26 after several sections of the ring barracks “House of Officers” and point 145 were blown up, and on June 29, after the Germans dropped an aerial bomb weighing 1800 kilograms, the Eastern Fort fell. However, the Germans managed to finally clear it only on June 30. There remained only isolated pockets of resistance and single fighters who gathered in groups and organized active resistance, or tried to break out of the fortress and go to the partisans in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (many succeeded). Major P. M. Gavrilov was captured wounded among the last - on July 23. One of the inscriptions in the fortress reads: “I'm dying, but I'm not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20/VII-41".Resistance of single Soviet soldiers in the casemates of the fortress lasted until August 1941. To eliminate the last pockets of resistance, the German high command gave the order to flood the basements of the fortress with water from the Western Bug River.

From the memories of the captivity of Major Gavrilov:

...the captured major was in full commander's uniform, but all his clothes had turned into rags, his face was covered with gunpowder soot and dust and overgrown with a beard. He was wounded, unconscious and looked extremely exhausted. It was, in the full sense of the word, a skeleton covered in leather. The extent to which exhaustion had reached could be judged by the fact that the prisoner could not even make a swallowing movement: he did not have enough strength for this, and the doctors had to use artificial nutrition to save his life. But the German soldiers who took him prisoner and brought him to the camp told the doctors that this man, in whose body there was already barely a glimmer of life, just an hour ago, when they caught him in one of the casemates of the fortress, alone took They fought, threw grenades, fired a pistol and killed and wounded several Nazis.

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

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

July 20, 1941 is considered the date of the end of the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress.

Brest Fortress was built by the Russian military in 1836-42. The fortress consisted of a citadel and three fortifications that protected it with a total area of ​​4 km² and the length of the main fortress line was 6.4 km. In 1864-1888, according to the design of Eduard Ivanovich Totleben, the fortress was modernized. It was surrounded by a ring of forts 32 km in circumference; the Western and Eastern forts were built on the territory of the Kobrin fortification.
In 1913, construction began on a second ring of fortifications, which was supposed to have a circumference of 45 km, but it was never completed before the start of the war.
With the outbreak of the First World War, the fortress was intensively prepared for defense, but on the night of August 13, 1915 (old style), during a general retreat, it was abandoned and partially blown up by Russian troops. On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in the Citadel, in the so-called White Palace (the former church of the Uniate Basilian monastery, then an officers’ meeting). The fortress was in German hands until the end of 1918, and then came under the control of the Poles. In 1920, the Brest Fortress was taken by the Red Army, but in 1921, according to the Peace of Riga, it was transferred to the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the interwar period, the fortress was used as a barracks, military warehouse and political prison.
On September 14, 1939, units of the 10th German Panzer Division tried to immediately take the city and fortress, but were repulsed by Polish infantry with the support of 12 FT-17 tanks. On the same day, German artillery and aircraft began bombing the fortress. The next morning, after brutal street fighting, the Germans captured most of the city. The defenders retreated to the fortress. In total, since September 14, the defenders repulsed 7 attacks, losing up to 40% of their personnel.
On the morning of September 16, the Germans (10th Panzer Division and 20th Motorized Division) began an assault on the fortress, which was repulsed by the garrison; by evening they captured the crest of the rampart, but were unable to break through further. The two FT-17s stationed at the gates of the fortress caused great damage to the German tanks. During the assault, Guderian's adjutant was mortally wounded.
On the morning of September 20, German troops began methodically firing at the remaining defenders of the fortress with several howitzers. However, no infantry attacks were made.
The situation changed on September 22, 1939, when units of the 29th tank brigade of the Red Army, led by brigade commander Semyon Moiseevich Krivoshein, entered Brest. On the same day, in accordance with the delimitation of spheres of interest according to the additional secret protocol to the Non-Aggression Treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany, after the ceremonial withdrawal of German troops, Brest was transferred to the Soviet administration.

By the beginning of June 1941, units of two rifle divisions of the Red Army were stationed on the territory of the fortress. These were persistent, seasoned, well-trained troops. One of these divisions - the 6th Oryol Red Banner - had a long and glorious combat history... The other - the 42nd Infantry Division - was created in 1940 during the Finnish campaign and had already proven itself well in battles on the Mannerheim Line.
On the eve of the war, more than half of the units of these two divisions were withdrawn from the Brest Fortress to the camps for exercises - 10 of 18 rifle battalions, 3 of 4 artillery regiments, one of two anti-tank and air defense divisions, reconnaissance battalions and some other units. On the morning of June 22, 1941, in the fortress there were: the 84th Infantry Regiment without two battalions; 125th Infantry Regiment without battalion and engineer company; 333rd Infantry Regiment without battalion and engineer company; 44th Infantry Regiment minus two battalions; The 455th Infantry Regiment without a battalion and an engineer company (according to the state, this should have been 10,074 personnel, the battalions had 16 anti-tank guns and 120 mortars, the regiments had 50 guns and anti-tank guns, 20 mortars). In addition, the fortress housed: the 131st artillery regiment; 98th Anti-Tank Defense Battalion; 393rd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion; 75th reconnaissance battalion; 37th Signal Battalion; 31st Autobat; 158th Autobattalion (state-wise - 2,169 personnel, 42 artillery pieces, 16 light tanks, 13 armored vehicles), as well as rear units of the 33rd Engineer Regiment and 22nd Tank Division, 132nd Convoy Battalion of the NKVD Troops, 3 -1st Border Commandant's Office of the 17th Detachment, 9th Border Outpost. Thus, by the morning of June 22, there were about eight thousand people in the fortress.

On the section of the front where the Brest Fortress was located, as well as the railway line north of the fortress and the highway south of the fortress, the German 45th Infantry Division of Fritz Schlieper, formed from the 4th division of the former Austrian army, was supposed to advance. The division had combat experience in the Polish and French campaigns.
The Germans decided in advance that the Brest Fortress would have to be taken only by infantry - without tanks. Their use was hampered by forests, swamps, river channels and canals surrounding the fortress. The immediate task of the 45th Division was to capture the Brest Fortress, the railway bridge across the Bug northwest of the fortress, and several bridges across the Bug and Mukhavets rivers inside, south and east of the fortress. By the end of the day on June 22, the division was supposed to advance 7-8 kilometers deep into Soviet territory. Hitler’s self-confident strategists took no more than eight hours to capture the fortress.
German attack on the USSR began on June 22, 1941 at 3:15 am Berlin time - with an artillery strike and rocket mortars. Every four minutes artillery fire was transferred 100 meters to the east. At 3:19, the assault detachment (infantry company and sappers) in nine rubber motor boats set out to capture the bridges. At 3:30, another German infantry company, with the support of sappers, took the railway bridge over the Bug. By 4:00 the detachment, having lost two-thirds of its personnel, captured two bridges connecting the Western and Southern islands with the Citadel (the central part of the Brest Fortress). These two islands, defended only by border guards and an NKVD battalion, were taken by two infantry battalions also by 4:00.
At 6:23, the headquarters of the 45th division reported to the corps that the Northern Island of the Brest Fortress would soon be taken. The report said that the resistance of the Soviet troops, who used armored vehicles, had intensified, but the situation was under control. However, later the command of the 45th division had to bring the reserve into battle - the 133rd infantry regiment. By this time, two of the five German battalion commanders had been killed in combat and the regiment commander was seriously wounded.
At 10:50, the headquarters of the 45th division reported to the corps command about heavy losses and stubborn fighting in the fortress. The report said: “The Russians are resisting fiercely, especially behind our attacking companies. In the Citadel, the enemy organized a defense with infantry units supported by 35-40 tanks and armored vehicles. The fire of Russian snipers led to heavy losses among officers and non-commissioned officers." In total, within one day on June 22, 1941, the 45th Infantry Division lost 21 officers and 290 lower ranks in killed. For comparison, during the entire Polish campaign, the 45th Division, having fought 400 kilometers in 13 days, lost 158 ​​people killed and 360 wounded.

At the same time, in the center of the Citadel, St. Michael's Cathedral - the former fortress church - they found themselves surrounded by the remains of a German company from the 2nd battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment, numbering about 70 people, that had broken into the Citadel. This company - the only one of its battalion - was able to break into the Citadel from the West Island, captured the church as an important stronghold and moved to the eastern tip of the Center Island, where it was to link up with the 1st Battalion of the 135th Regiment. However, the 1st Battalion failed to break into the Citadel from the South Island, and the company, having lost two-thirds of its personnel, retreated back to the church, where its remnants took up a perimeter defense.

St. Michael's Cathedral of the Brest Fortress, in which the remains of the German company were blocked.

On June 23, at 5:00, the Germans began shelling the Citadel, while trying not to hit their soldiers blocked in the church. On the same day, tanks were used for the first time against the defenders of the Brest Fortress. These were four captured French cars Somua S-35
. One of them was hit by hand grenades at the Northern Gate of the fortress. The second tank broke through into the central courtyard of the Citadel, but was hit by a gun from the 333rd regiment. The Germans managed to evacuate both damaged tanks. The third tank was hit by an anti-aircraft gun in the Northern Gate of the fortress and remained there for a long time.
On June 24, the enemy managed to create a corridor and withdraw their soldiers blocked in the Church. In addition to the Central Island, the eastern part of the North Island still remained under the control of the defenders of the fortress. The shelling continued all day. At 16:00 on June 24, the headquarters of the 45th division reported that the Citadel had been taken and that individual pockets of resistance were being suppressed. At 21:40 the corps headquarters was informed of the complete capture of the Brest Fortress. However, fighting continued.

On the fourth day of fighting in Brest, three infantry regiments of the 45th Wehrmacht Infantry Division formed assault groups of sappers and infantrymen to capture strongholds that still remained in the hands of Red Army soldiers. In support they were given six-barreled Nebelwerfer 41 mortars. Their range was short, but their explosive power was enormous - after the explosion, a 3.5-meter rarefaction zone was formed, in which a person’s lungs burst.
Side by side with the soldiers defending the casemates of the fortress were women and children. Red Army soldier Grigory Makarov saw the body of a boy suffocated in smoke. His mother sat nearby and still covered the child’s face with a fur mitten. Daria Dmitrova, the wife of one artillery soldier, recalled with tears what she had to endure during these battles: “ We spent a whole week in the basements of the barracks without water or food. Having burst into the fortress, the Nazis began throwing smoke grenades into the basements. Before my eyes, children were dying, suffocating, and I could do nothing.».
On June 26, on the North Island, German sappers blew up the wall of the political school building. 450 prisoners were taken there. The East Fort remained the main center of resistance on the North Island. According to the testimony of the defector, on June 27, 20 commanders and 370 soldiers from the 393rd anti-aircraft battalion of the 42nd Infantry Division, led by the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment, Major Pyotr Gavrilov, defended there.
In July, General Schlipper, in a report on the occupation of Brest-Litovsk, reported: “ An attack on a fortress in which a brave defender sits costs a lot of blood. This simple truth was once again proven during the capture of the Brest Fortress. The Russians in Brest-Litovsk fought exceptionally persistently and tenaciously, they showed excellent infantry training and proved a remarkable will to resist».
June 28 two German tanks and several self-propelled guns StuG III
, returning from repairs to the front, continued to fire at the Eastern Fort on the North Island. However, this did not bring visible results, and the commander of the 45th division turned to the Luftwaffe for support. However, due to low clouds that day, no airstrike was carried out. On June 29 at 8:00 a.m., a German bomber dropped a 500-kilogram bomb on the Eastern Fort. Then another 500 kg bomb was dropped and finally an 1800 kg bomb. The fort was practically destroyed.
However, a small group of fighters led by Gavrilov continued to fight in the Eastern Fort. The major was captured only on July 23. Residents of Brest said that until the end of July or even until the first days of August, shooting was heard from the fortress and the Nazis brought their wounded officers and soldiers from there to the city where the German army hospital was located. However, the official date for the end of the defense of the Brest Fortress is considered to be July 20. It was adopted on the basis of an inscription that was discovered in the barracks of the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD convoy troops: “I am dying, but I am not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland. 20/VII-41".