Facts and conjectures about the operation of Bagration
Gomel historians delicately question the well-established version that it was the legendary Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky in May 1944 who convinced Stalin and the Headquarters of the Supreme Command (SVGK) of the only possible plan for the strategic operation "Bagration" to liberate Belarus from the Nazis (June 23 - August 29, 1944 of the year). "The commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, let's say, somewhat embellished in his memoirs his personal role in developing the idea of delivering two main strikes on one front, which had never been practiced by Soviet troops during the war," is the opinion of the NVO observer not without I heard surprises, in particular, from the dean of the Faculty of History of the Gomel State University. Francysk Skaryna candidate historical Nikolay Mezgi. It was voiced unambiguously within the framework of a thematic round table that took place in Gomel during a press tour arranged for Russian journalists last summer by the Standing Committee of the Union State and the National Press Center of the Republic of Belarus with the support of the Russia Today International News Agency. In general, the organizers and experts quite convincingly revealed the declared topic, dedicated to the little-known pages of this victorious operation, unprecedented in the world military history. The author of these lines had a chance to visit a number of the main memorial sites associated with "Bagration", and see the corresponding memorial sign opened last year, which, according to the projects of its creators, can and should be the germ of a large museum ensemble, similar to the Russian Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd and Prokhorovsky field near Belgorod.
"EXIT TO THINK" ROKOSSOV IS NOT OFFERED?
Indeed, in the community of researchers and in the mass consciousness of lovers of military history, the “picture” from the film epoch “Liberation” (the 3 film “Direction of the Main Strike”, 1970) is firmly established. “It’s unlikely that you’ve thought it all up,” says Stalin to Rokossovsky on May 23 at the Headquarters, following a presentation on how and where to deliver the “difficult but promising success” main attack. - Go to the next room. Think over your offer again. ”
The “Liberation” scenario was written in the days when the newly published memoirs of Rokossovsky's “Soldier's Duty” lay on the shelves of bookstores. And the scene for the screen epic was “borrowed,” apparently from that part of the book, where it was said that the decision taken by the front command about two main strikes, which was unconventional from previous ideas, was “criticized”: “The Supreme Commander and his deputies (by the way, a rather odd mistake: the entire war at Glavkoverha was only one deputy - Marshal Zhukov. - I.P.) insisted on delivering one main attack ... Twice I was offered to go into the next room to think over the proposal Rates After each such “thinking through” it was necessary to defend my decision with a new force. After making sure that I firmly insist on our point of view, Stalin approved the plan of the operation in the form in which we presented it.
“The insistence of the front commander,” he said, “proves that the organization of the offensive was carefully thought out.” And this is a reliable guarantee of success. ”
The first sentence of this statement by Glavkoverha was one-on-one in “Liberation”.
At the above-mentioned round table, the NVO columnist asked the Gomel scientist the question: what grounds are there for him to question the decision on Operation Bagration described by Rokossovsky and reproduced in many publications and documentary films? Say, has the transcript of this discussion been suddenly declassified? And even more to interpret (hint) this “scientific discovery” as “some exaggeration” by the marshal of his role in the operation to liberate Belarus? Why did Rokossovsky need it? In response, Nikolai Mezga referred only to the fact that there were no similar details in the memoirs of some other participants in that meeting. But the main thing, according to him, is that Marshal Zhukov, in his Memoirs and Reflections, clearly indicates that the decision on Bagration was made by Stalin several days before.
Nowhere in the available sources - “NVO” checked this - and indeed there is no information that Glavkoverkh “drove” Rokossovsky from the conference room of the Headquarters to a separate office. But on the other hand, why should they be? After all, the Supreme “offered to think” to one commander of the Belarusian 1, because with a certain riskiness of the plan of operation, it was him who was most responsible for his implementation in the impassable swamps of Polesye. Therefore, it is possible that Rokossovsky remembered more than other commanders whose troops participated in Bagration.
As for Zhukov, specifically “Marshal of Victory” wrote directly: “The version of“ two main attacks ”existing in some military circles on the Belarusian direction by the forces of the 1 of the Belarusian Front, which KK allegedly insisted on. Rokossovsky before the Supreme, is devoid of foundation. Both of these blows, designed by the front, were previously approved by I.V. Stalin still 20 May on the draft of the General Staff, that is, before the arrival of the commander of the 1-Byelorussian Front in the Headquarters. "
Unfortunately, his great-granddaughter, international journalist Ariadna Rokossovskaya, who had joined the press tour, could not participate in the round table in Gomel a day later. She now does a lot to perpetuate the name of her legendary great-grandfather, and I told her about this “extraordinary” view of Gomel historians. Ariadne, who in recent years has been actively working with the archives of her famous ancestor, including the manuscripts of his memoirs, answered, not without irony, that she “could have resisted this slander”.
By the way, at the expert-media seminar, which was later held in Minsk, Ariadne heard the words of gratitude in her address as a representative of the Rokossovsky family from the head of the exposition department of the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War Svetlana Pribysh. The fact is that the descendants of the marshal not so long ago donated personal belongings of the commander to the museum - his military tunic and homemade pistol, which he was presented by Belarusian partisans.
The journalist herself attaches great importance to the manuscripts of her famous ancestor, the drafts of his memoirs. She declared to the Belarusian military news agency Vayar that he “wrote everything up to the very last line, by hand, without any literary assistants or secretaries, and signed his notes to the press three days before his death.”
The NVO observer also asked the Belarusian historians, who by and large spoke very gratefully about Konstantin Konstantinovich’s contribution to the liberation of the republic, aren’t they going to perpetuate his name in the Gomel region more meaningfully? Yes, there is a repeatedly painted-repainted bust in the courtyard of the Museum of Military Glory in Gomel; a memorial plaque hangs on a house preserved in the regional center, which once housed a task force of the 1 Belarusian; and named after the commander of the street - on it, in the past Odessa, the front headquarters was located. But - not a single worthy of his commanding talent and personality of the monument. By the way, it is more than surprising that there is no such thing in the whole grateful marshal of Belarus. The remarkable bust of Rokossovsky, a copy of which is demonstrated in the Bobruisk regional museum, is “hidden” in the State Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Minsk. Dean Nikolai Mezga, for some reason extinguishing a little, said that such discussions at the level of city and regional authorities are underway, and it is hoped that a monument to the commander, who brilliantly manifested himself in Operation Bagration, can be created in the coming years. “But it’s too early to talk about specific projects,” he summed up, not without regret.
It is worth noting that in Russia, impressive Rokossovsky monuments (the marshal is mounted on horseback) on the eve of the Victory's 70 anniversary were erected in Moscow and Volgograd. Growth sculptural figure of the commander on a high pedestal towers in Kursk. All this - in addition to numerous busts in various cities of the country, including those that are not connected with his name.
WOODEN BOMBS ON Plywood TANKAM
It is also surprising that, until the summer of last year, there was nothing large-scale monumental in Belarus that would correspond to the scope and results of the strategic operation of the Soviet troops “Bagration” unprecedented in the world military history. At one time, they “did not think out” of meaningful perpetuation of “Bagration” in the Soviet Union. In modern Belarus, they “forgotten” about this also because July 3 celebrates Independence Day in the country, timed to coincide with the liberation of Minsk in 1944 (which cannot but cause some bewilderment: after all, the entire Republic was cleared of the Hitlerites 28 July - this the day the invaders knocked out of Brest).
Here we will not “bore” the reader many times in the literature of various kinds of tsifiryu - the huge number of troops and military means of the opposing sides, the ratio of their losses. We only recall that already on July 17 1944 of the year 57,6 were carried out in Moscow by thousands of German prisoners of war, officers and generals captured in “boilers” near Bobruisk, Vitebsk and Minsk. But on the whole, during the 68 days of the offensive, the whole of Belarus, Eastern Poland and part of the Baltic states were liberated, the German Army Group “Center” was completely destroyed. But it should be said about the spirit of the operation.
- The process of making decisions "Bagration" wore a purely creative, businesslike nature. Thus, the commanders of the 3 Belarussian and
The 1 Baltic Fronts, ”said Colonel Nikolai Buzin, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, at a media seminar in Minsk. “For example, instead of one, Chernyakhovsky proposed two strikes on Bogushevsk and Orsha directions of the enemy’s defenses, and Baghramian convinced the Stavka that after breaking through, it would be more profitable for his troops to develop an offensive not in the southwest, but in the west direction. Within the framework of the operation, very serious attention was paid to the issues of enemy disinformation. But the same Chernyakhovsky, contrary to all the rules of camouflage, began to designate a false concentration of troops using wooden layouts in precisely those areas where the actual concentration of the attack forces for the offensive was envisaged. The Germans, as a sign that they revealed the plan of our command, several times bombed these areas with wooden bombs. Only after this commander-in-front is advancing his troops to the starting areas for an offensive and delivering unexpected blows to the enemy. During the operation, personnel issues were vividly resolved. When crossing the Berezina River and subsequently unsuccessfully acted 5-I Guards Tank Army. As a result, the army commander General of the Communists was removed from office. In a number of sources, this decision is interpreted as unjustified, since the army could not advance due to the lack of fuel. But when General Solomatin was appointed instead of Rotmistrov, he ordered to collect the remnants of fuel from all tanks and fill them with tanks of 70 – 80 vehicles. The advance units resumed the offensive, while the rest remained to wait for the fuel ...
And now 21 June 2014 of the year on the edge of the field adjacent to the 71 kilometer of the Bobruisk – Mazyr highway, near the village of Rakovichi, Svetlogorsk district, Gomel region, was opened the 7-meter monument. In June, the 1944 th here sloshed and mosquitoes now drained the Bridsky Moss bog, along the “shores” of which stood the troops of the first echelon of General Paul Batov's 65 Army, which launched the 24 June offensive. It was from here that the rapid liberation of the Belarusian lands began, for three years under a more than brutal fascist yoke.
- Near this place there are still those same boggy places where soldiers in 1944, during 20 days and nights, secretly built rafts for guns and guts for tank passage; laying of the gatey continued most intensively with the start of hostilities. The warriors themselves overcame the bog in the mokopops (this wicker-woven "second sole" for boots is clearly shown in the movie "Liberation"), dragging garbage with ammunition, food and other necessities to support the troops, told the journalists who arrived at the memorial sign the deputy head of the department ideological work, culture and youth affairs of the Svetlogorsk district executive committee Lyudmila Grabko.
The sculptural composition is crowned with arrows of two strikes directed to the same point. Under them is a wide bronze bas-relief, in the center of which the figures of Konstantin Rokossovsky, Georgy Zhukov, Pavel Batov and Mikhail Panov (commander of the 1st Guards Tank Corps) are recognized. Right and left - the advancing Soviet soldiers, partisans, sailors of the Dnieper flotilla. The granite foot symbolizes the gati, along which through the Polesskie swamps the Soviet tank corps briskly moved west, and then the armies. To the left of this representative memorial pedestal is the heavy Soviet IS-3 tank and the 85-mm D-44 divisional cannon (this is a rather “non-standard” decision by the creators of the memorial, since neither the tank nor the gun took part in the operation by definition: they were launched in production at the very end of the war). In addition, the complex includes a chapel, trenches, dugouts, and gati fragments.
The initiative to perpetuate "Bagration" came from the honorary citizen of Svetlogorsk, the poet Izyaslav Kotlyarov, who in 2010 brought the idea to the provincial authorities, was heard and actively supported. Although, as Konstantin Mishchenko, deputy director for research at the Gomel Regional Museum of Military Glory, told reporters, “skeptical opinions were expressed: say, who will visit an object that stands in an open field — to the nearest 5,2 km?”. However, according to him, “there is a busy highway running there, and, as evidenced by the staff of the Svetlogorsk Museum of Local History, even now many cars stop at the memorial sign, and their passengers are examining the memorial building with some interest.”
Having been on the spot, the author of these lines fully confirms these words of the historian. In addition, Belarus already has two clear precedents - the world-famous Khatyn (54 km from Minsk, in 5 km from the Minsk – Vitebsk highway) and the village of Krasny Bereg (“Khatyn Children's”; in 21 km from Zhlobin, in 3,5 km from the highway Gomel-Minsk). The last memorial, created in the middle of the 2000s, is not yet so widely known. It is dedicated to the memory of children killed by the Nazis in the special camp, where boys and girls (mostly girls) were taken to the drop for the wounded Wehrmacht soldiers. This sadly ensemble, as noted by the guide Alexander Mankiewicz, who answered on the spot to the question of the NVO columnist, hundreds and thousands of people visit the site annually. A detailed report on the Red Coast was published by NVO in 31 No. 2014 for the year.
Meanwhile, the search for funding for "Bagration" was conducted more than one year. The fact that the idea will be embodied in stone and bronze became clear when the expensive project (the Gomel sculptor Valery Kondratenko became the winner of the memorial sign competition) was carried out through the budget of the Union State (70 anniversary of the legendary offensive). The cost of the composition was estimated at 42 million Russian rubles, of which 32 million allocated SG. Even more than 8 billion Belarusian rubles (about the same in Russian rubles) amounted to deductions of labor collectives of the region (in particular, at the expense of the traditional Saturday community work) and voluntary donations of citizens. Konstantin Mishchenko noted that these funds will go "to the museumification of this object." He clarified that "it is planned to increase the number of vehicles in the open area, to create a permanent exhibition that reflects the progress of the operation from planning to completion of the first stage."
According to Sergey Merkulov, deputy chairman of the district executive committee, “such a structure was necessary on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, or rather, in our Svetlogorsk district”: “It’s good that the“ Bagration ”operation will become perpetuated with time in the Russian Federation Battle of Stalingrad and Kursk. It is even incomprehensible why it happened so that we came to an understanding of this only now. Indeed, as a result of that offensive, the republic was liberated from the German fascist invaders, in essence, with lightning speed, and after that the Germans didn’t really wake up to Berlin itself. ”
At least the fact that all the “boilers” that Hitler's troops got into was eliminated in the shortest time, says: “lightning speed”: Bobruisk - 3 of the day, Vitebsk - 4, Minsk - 6, Vilnius and Brest - on the 2 of the day.
SIXTHS FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF THE "MATTRESSERS"
At the round table, the NVO observer was shocked by one detail in the story of the exploits of soldiers and officers during the operation "Bagration" - I hadn’t heard or read about it personally before. It turns out that in every enemy DotA, his machine-gunners had a special pole to repel the bodies of Soviet soldiers, who closed the embrasure with themselves, in order to continue firing at the attackers. This was stated by the deputy director for scientific work of the Gomel Museum of Military Glory Konstantin Mishchenko: “Wehrmacht soldiers who defended in pillboxes were aware that Soviet soldiers could make such self-sacrifice and prudently prepared such poles.” True, to my clarifying question whether the pedantic Germans had any written instructions from the command on this matter, whether they were found, the museum worker was at a loss to answer.
With reference to the researcher of this topic - the Head of the Headquarters of regional expeditions on the places of accomplishments of the self-sacrifice of Sergei Zvyagin - his Gomel counterpart gave the exact figure that during World War II the famous feat of Alexander Matrosov was repeated by 437 soldiers and officers. Perhaps this figure is not final: a rather rounded number appeared in the literature of the Soviet period - about 300 of such heroes. “Of these cases, one truly unique is known,” said Mishchenko. - Two Red Army men closed the embrasure on the same day in one battle. And it happened on the Belarusian land. The feat was accomplished by 1 in March 1944 of the year on the outskirts of the village of Mormal, which is a dozen kilometers to the south-west of Zhlobin, by the commander of a machine-gun platoon 22-year-old lieutenant Nikolai Petrovich Zhuykov and the commander of a machine-gun crew of 50-year-old sergeant Philippe Nikolaymeyazeyyyyyyyyyyyyyi asleep. When the enemy machine gunner threw back the body of the dead Zhuikov, the example of the officer was followed by Mazilin, and the combat task was completed. By the way, of all those who committed such a feat, Sergeant Mazilin was the oldest. Both "sailor men" were introduced for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but the command decided that the Order of Lenin would be enough for everyone. And sometimes for such self-sacrifice, they were limited to awarding the medal "For Courage".
Total order 170 "sailors" were posthumously awarded the Golden Star of the Hero.
One of the journalists asked the speaker what was the point of such a throw on a machine gun, because even a pistol shot throws the body two to three meters, what can we say about the machine-gun bursts released into the chest? And even if the body of the murdered hero remains on the embrasure, the time until the enemy throws it back is so short that the sacrifice with all the admiration for the feat is highly doubtful. This is not the case, the historian replied: it must be understood that the outcome of the battle is decided every moment, every minute, and while the enemy machine gun is silent, even if it’s half a minute, the advancing ones have time to move forward, bypass the firing point and destroy it.
Mishchenko also noted that during the entire war there was not a single case of a Wehrmacht soldier rushing to the embrasure. One "feat of Matrosov" was committed by a US Army soldier in the Pacific theater of operations in 1945.
As for the operation "Bagration", then in the course of it took place such feats, and not one. During the trip, I visited the village of Sychkovo, near Bobruisk, where, in addition to the magnificent memorial on the 18-meter-mound in memory of the liberators of the 1-Byelorussian Front and partisans, the bunkers of the times of those battles were preserved. He perpetuates the feat of the commander of the rifle squad of Senior Sergeant Mikhail Seleznev, who, with the liberation of the village, covered the loophole with his body. He was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Sychkovsky school, park and central street of the village bear the name of the bearer of the Golden Star, and he was buried in a mass grave near the school.
In addition, contrary to the assertion of the Gomel museum-worker, the case of a double embrasure closure in Belarus was not the only one. Thus, when an offensive in the area of Mogilev was launched, two soldiers of the 95 regiment of the 31 Guards Rifle Division of the 16 Guards Rifle Guard Corps of Lieutenant Ivan Ilchenko and junior sergeant Bary Shavaliyev formed one after another at the crack of the enemy firing point. The first for this feat was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and the second was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War II degree. And the names of the three Siberians who fought on the Volkhov front, who in January 1942 in one battle closed the embrasure of three pillboxes, are also known - all posthumously became the Knights of the Golden Star.
Also, according to Sergey Zvyagin, 14 is known for unique cases where "sailors" survived after throwing on a flamethrower opening. “At the present time,” he testifies, “only one of them survived - from Kiev Pyotr Filonenko, who is also the youngest such hero: he threw himself at the embrasure of the enemy bunker at 14-year-old age!”
And this happened precisely during the offensive of the troops of the 1 of the Belorussian Front, when brigades of the 1 of the Guards Tank Corps attacked the enemy, where Filonenko served in the intelligence unit. The former son of the regiment himself, who escaped to the front in 11 years and threw two years for “solidity”, which now for 85, in his recently published book “Through the Eyes of a Young Soldier”, said: “Our armored personnel carriers took the lead. At first the offensive developed well, but the resistance of the Germans increased. And on the right - German pillbox. The fight is in full swing. What to do? Rush thought tightly press the barrel of a fascist machine gun, so that it was torn off. He jumped off the armored personnel carrier, scrambled up to the bunker, and jumped right on the trunk. I felt a sharp blow, my chest burned, my legs buckled, and I fell on my stomach. For some time I felt how a German beat me on the shoulder with the trunk, on the head, to push it aside, and then - darkness, I don’t remember anything. ”
They decided to bury him, who showed no signs of life, as an officer — that is, in a coffin. Already nails in the lid began to hammer when they heard from under it barely audible rattles. Astonished colleagues immediately sent him to the doctors. Those, too, as they say, were taken over the heads: 12 bullets bleed. He underwent 12 operations and spent half a year on rehabilitation in a hospital in Georgian Tskhaltubo (here the unique patient was even called “Darned”). After that, he returned to the army in the army, although from intelligence officers he had to retrain into signalmen. Victory met in the communications regiment in Hungary. Later he served in the police, the service in which he graduated in the rank of colonel. And even by chance, once having acted in a movie, he later performed episodic roles in films (“Bumbarash”, “Diplomats Unwillingly”, “Yaroslav the Wise” ...).
Many expose the exploit of Peter Alekseevich to doubt, "require" to submit the relevant documents. The head of the Headquarters of regional expeditions to the places of accomplishments of self-sacrifice testifies that "we even saw a medical card from the hospital in Tskhaltubo, where we sent especially honored people and where all his injuries were described." “There was also a submission for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but his superiors did not approve him then,” the search engine states.
Sergey Zvyagin also testifies that in March 2014, the former young “sailor” went to the streets of Kiev to try to reason Bandera not to smash his hometown: “However, there were several literally freaks who pushed the front-line soldier on the asphalt and started beating. Fortunately, we managed to take him to Moscow and put him in a good hospital ... "
The representative of the Belarusian General Staff, Colonel Nikolai Buzin, in his speech at the seminar in Minsk, noted that "the exploits of the common soldier and the skillful leadership of the command isolated Operation Bagration from a number of other offensive operations and the loss of our troops were less than the losses of the Wehrmacht": "Alas Up to this point, any attack, including a successful one, was inevitably accompanied by large losses of Soviet soldiers in comparison with the enemy. Sometimes multiple. "
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