"Several fighters got up, the rest remained lying": memoirs of a participant in the battles near Rzhev

One of the tragic and at the same time heroic pages of the Great Patriotic War is the Battle of Rzhev. The total losses during the Rzhev-Vyazma battles are estimated in hundreds of thousands. It was really hard to survive in those conditions because of the intensity of the outbreak of battles, because of hunger and cold, because of the incredible tension - for all the reasons and countless.

Participants of the battles near Rzhev from the German side in their memoirs call those battles a "meat grinder", and this characteristic, given the number of losses, is quite suitable.

How Soviet soldiers describe the battle near Rzhev.

One of these stories of a participant in the events is presented on Dmitry Puchkov's channel in the series of stories dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Victory "I remember". We are talking about Grigory Sukhorukov, who started from the Finnish front, went from Moscow to Berlin and took part in the capture of the traitor general Andrei Vlasov.

From the memories:

During my 3,5 years at the front, I have never again experienced such hopeless despair. This is when there is only one thought in my head - there is no salvation!

Grigory Sukhorukov, on whose behalf the narration is being conducted, tells how it was necessary to raise fighters to attack in almost completely open areas:

Only a few people got up. The rest were left lying. I realized that our attack had failed - too many enemy firing points were unsuppressed.

Narration "I survived the battles near Rzhev":

Comments

[Vsevolod136]

Quote: Author

Participants of the battles near Rzhev from the German side in their memoirs call those battles a "meat grinder"

the current nemchura in the person of grandmother Merkel began to forget it, they have the audacity to appoint sanctions.
We need to remind the Germans how our banner was over Berlin.

[infantryman2020]

Yeah, of course, "we can repeat!"
LOL

[Paragraph Epitafievich Y.]

Quote: Vsevolod136

We need to remind the Germans how our banner was over Berlin.

what outlets do you climb from, the reminders are bad ...

[Aleksandre]

Quote: Paragraph Epitafievich Y.

what outlets do you climb from, the reminders are bad ...

What do you mean, does a comfortable sofa at least remotely resemble a toilet?

[zenion]

Vsevolod136 (Vsevolod Kirkpatrick) I'm surprised that someone other than generals wrote about the war, or told something. I could not get a word out of my father. He was only surprised and asked - why do you need it. The same story was with other front-line soldiers. Only one of them told me this was a job we were paid for, a deadly job. My father never went to watch films about the war. This cannot be conveyed either on the screen or told. About the smell of explosives, the smell of blood and shit, torn out entrails, torn off limbs and heads. There is nothing to talk about.

[Snail N9]

"Rzhevskaya meat grinder" ... there is no other way to call it ... I read the memoirs of a Fritz machine-gunner about the battles near Rzhev, he was amazed at the stupid stubbornness with which the Russians drove their soldiers there to slaughter, under German machine guns and mortars. Moreover, without any sense and maneuver - in the forehead, right under dagger fire, although, as he himself wrote them, machine gunners, it was quite possible to bypass from the flanks or destroy with mortar fire, but none of this happened ... but there were - "stupid "attacks .... every day, in the same place, over mountains of corpses ...

[vitvit123]

Someone stupid, someone not stupid .... is this machine gunner the ultimate truth? Such comments are surprising. If I write that your comment is dumb, does that mean that your comedic is dumb? Or not ?

[novel66]

and who commanded the operation, can you tell me?

[Alexander Suvorov_2]

My grandfather fought in those parts. In 42 they took off the reservation and sent to Moscow. There was a mortarman in 30 years from the 2 Baltic Front, and after being wounded he was transferred to a rifle company. He commanded a squad. There was no living place on it. All in scars. 22 operations. conducted and all died exactly from the fragments in 1977 (came from the war disabled, without an arm in 1946 - 1,6 years rode in hospitals) Had awards - For Courage and For Military Merit.

[dgonni]

So I'm still waiting and waiting for our valiant film and film industry to find time to make a film based on the book "Vanka Company"! That's where the whole epic of Rzhev is in one destiny.
But apparently they will shoot all sorts of urapatriotic T-34 and fighters. Which have nothing to do with the real war and the heroism of our soldiers

[zenion]

The Germans had to be kept there, to keep as many Germans as possible so that they could not leave this point. But in other places, the Germans were turned into minced meat.

[dgonni]

What to keep that? When to hold the defense like Stalingrad. And not a constant and bloody offensive like near Rzhev