The capture of Melitopol by Wehrmacht troops: what happened in the city during the occupation

In September-October 1941, a large-scale offensive of the 1st Army of General Manstein began, together with the Romanian 3rd and 4th armies, as well as the Hungarian corps on the Southern Front.

In the early days of the Nazi operation, which is often referred to in the memoirs of German officers as the “Battle of the Sea of ​​Azov,” Soviet troops managed to launch a successful counteroffensive, defeating several Romanian units north of Melitopol. This maneuver made it possible to delay the offensive of the Wehrmacht in the Crimea.

Meanwhile, in early October, Manstein's army managed to break through the defenses of the Red Army east of Melitopol, surrounding the 18th Army of the Southern Front. During the fighting, the army commander, Lieutenant General A.K. Smirnov died. More than 100 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were captured by the Germans. More than 200 were destroyed tanks and about 700 artillery pieces of the Red Army.

On October 6, the 1st Panzer Army entered Melitopol. From the very first days of the occupation, the Nazis began to carry out mass repressions in the city.

It all started with the arrests of communists and Komsomol members. Then, already on October 8, more than 1800 Jewish families were shot near the Berdyansk bridge. In total, at the end of the 41st - the beginning of the 42nd years, the Nazis executed more than 14 thousand people in Melitopol.

However, this is not all. Several concentration camps and prisons were organized on the territory of the city, and Melitopol itself became one of the 6 general districts of the Reich Commissariat Ukraine.