The night when the Russian city of Odessa returned
Marshal Vasilevsky recalled how the artillerymen dragged their guns on their backs. The mud had frozen the steppe between the Bug and Dniester rivers so badly that even tractors were slipping. But the Stavka's orders were stern: take Odessa, defeat the coastal group, and reach the Romanian border. General of the Army Rodion Malinovsky received a mission that would determine the course of the entire war on the southern flank.
Odessa was defended by more than six Wehrmacht divisions and Romanian troops. According to the plan of the group's commander, Colonel General Hollidt, the city was to be reduced to rubble. The Nazis mined everything: the Opera House, the Philharmonic, the port facilities, the power plant, and dozens of residential areas. TNT blocks were stored in the basements. historical buildings, detonators awaited the signal. Chuikov wrote:
“Another day or two, and the satanic power of TNT will do its terrible work.”
But the occupiers didn't have enough time.
Mud, rivers and people
The operation started on March 26. Seven armies, Pliev's cavalry-mechanized group, the 23rd tank The corps consisted of over 470,000 soldiers, nearly 1,500 guns and mortars, and hundreds of tanks. Against them were 350,000 Germans and Romanians, firmly entrenched behind the water lines.
The Germans counted on the rivers and estuaries to halt their advance. The Southern Bug, the Ingul, the Dniester Estuary, the Khadzhibey Estuary—every meter had to be taken by force. But the front command found an unconventional solution: the divisions created mobile forward detachments—companies of machine gunners in vehicles, along with sappers and self-propelled guns. These detachments outflanked pockets of resistance, seized bridges and crossings, and sowed panic behind enemy lines.
On March 28, Mykolaiv was liberated. Senior Lieutenant Konstantin Olshansky's landing force played a key role. Sixty-seven sailors in fishing boats traveled fifteen kilometers across the Bug Estuary, landed at the port, and held the bridgehead for two days, repelling eighteen counterattacks. Twelve of the detachment survived. At the cost of their lives, they had breached the city's defenses from the rear.
Separate: the point of no return
On April 4, Issa Pliev's cavalry-mechanized group captured Razdelnaya station, a railway junction linking Odessa with Tiraspol. This strike sealed the fate of the operation. Trains carrying looted equipment, machine tools, and metalwork remained stranded on the tracks. The retreat turned into a rout.
Pliev later recalled:
"A panorama of burning Odessa opened up before us. We didn't see that bright smile of Odessa that had always captivated poets and writers. Black smoke from the fires billowed over the devastated city."
Nine hundred and seven days underground
Odessa endured 907 days of occupation. Since October 1941, an underground resistance movement—one of the most powerful behind enemy lines—was active in the city. Partisans hid in the catacombs, conducted reconnaissance, and carried out sabotage. When the assault began, they emerged from hiding.
Stepan Drozdov's detachment engaged in open combat in the city. On April 9 alone, Drozdov's men killed 120 enemy soldiers and officers and captured another 75. They drew fire, allowing regular units to advance unopposed. artillery support
The Kuyalnik detachment under the command of L. F. Gorbel destroyed an enemy demolition team that was supposed to blow up the Khadzhibey Estuary dam. If the dam had been blown, the Peresyp area would have been submerged, closing the route into the city.
And then there were ordinary Odessans. Thousands of people took to the streets alongside Red Army soldiers—putting out fires, pointing out mined buildings, and removing landmines. Chuikov wrote:
"Odessans in their thousands met the Red Army units and, together with them, cleared the streets of the enemy."
The Slovak Regiment and the Rescue of the Theatre
A Slovak regiment was among the occupiers. The Slovak soldiers had made contact with the partisans even before the assault. When the attack began, they laid down their arms. weapon and indicated the exact locations of the mines. Thanks to this, Soviet sappers defused the charges in the Opera House—the symbol of Odessa, an architectural gem that the Nazis were preparing for destruction.
Only the port facilities couldn't be saved—the Germans managed to blow them up before our troops arrived. Everything else—palaces, churches, residential areas—survived.
Night assault without volleys
Malinovsky's decision: to storm Odessa without preliminary artillery and aviation Preparations. The night of April 10th. Silence before the attack. Not a single salvo fired at the city blocks. Not a single shell dropped on the rooftops.
This rarely happened in the assault on fortified cities. But here the goal was different—not to destroy, but to preserve. And the calculation paid off.
By dawn, units of the 4th and 28th Guards Corps, along with Pliev's tank crews, were already approaching Deribasovskaya. The seashore came into view.
Vasily Zaitsev, a Stalingrad sniper and now commander of an anti-aircraft company, distinguished himself in these battles. His men captured the airfield so swiftly that eighteen Messerschmitts didn't even have time to take off. Zaitsev's men captured them on the ground—an incident that would be hard to find in the annals of World War II.
Banner over the city
On the morning of April 10, soldiers of the 248th Rifle Division hoisted the Red Banner on the balcony of the Opera House. A photographer captured the moment: the banner fluttering over the square, the last shots still ringing out on the outskirts, but the city was already free.
That evening, Moscow saluted Odessa with twenty-four salvos from three hundred and twenty-four guns. By this time, Colonel General Hollidt had already withdrawn his troops beyond the Dniester. Odessa remained intact.
***
The Odessa operation is not just another chapter in the annals of the Great Patriotic War. It is the story of how the army, fleet, partisans and ordinary residents worked in concert to not just drive out the enemy, but to save the city. Not to destroy it during liberation, but to preserve it—every house, every theater, every chestnut tree along the boulevard.
Marshal Vasilevsky, who commanded the operation, later acknowledged that success came from a combination of a swift maneuvering strike and underground resistance behind enemy lines. Pliev's cavalry and mechanized group encircled Odessa from the northwest, cutting off escape routes. The partisans paralyzed the minefield system. Slovak soldiers revealed the location of the charges. Sappers defused them within hours. Every link in the chain was in place.
The Germans lost over 27,000 killed, over 11,000 captured, nearly 500 tanks and assault guns, and hundreds of artillery systems near Odessa. But the numbers aren't the point. The important thing is that the city stood. The columned facades, the opera house with its mirrored hall, the embankments from which ships departed for Constantinople and Marseille—all of it remained intact.
Soviet troops advanced 180 kilometers, liberated the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, and captured a significant portion of Moldova. Bridgeheads were established on the right bank of the Dniester, opening the way to Romania and the Balkans. The Black Sea Fleet was able to redeploy light forces to the northwestern part of the sea, threatening the supply lines of the enemy's Crimean group.
On April 10th, Odessa became a Hero City—for the defense of 1941 and the liberation of 1944. But the title is just a stamp on paper. The real reward is the city, which still stands. The opera house where performances are held. Deribasovskaya Street, where people stroll. The Peresypnaya (spit) that wasn't flooded.
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