69th Rifle Corps. "black" divisions were formed from gulag prisoners

May 6th, 2013

A list of families for secret surveillance, this is the only document from the archives in which he is mentioned.
http://www.obd-memorial.ru/html/index.html

Lyakhovsky District Military Commissariat of the Vladimir Region August 15, 1946
Secret copy No. 1
Moscow
Beginning Directorate for registration of dead and missing privates and sergeants. Composition Kr. Army
Copy: Vladimir regional military commissar
№ 1/0920
I present lists of families of military personnel who lost contact with military personnel during the war according to the Lyakhovsky RVK for 192 people. Appendix: on 10 sheets.

This document gave only one clue - the field mail number p/p 675.

The directory of field postal stations of the Red Army in 1941-1945 reported that this number was assigned to 233rd Rifle Division (http://www.soldat.ru/pps.html)

In May 1941, a month before the war, my grandfather went for retraining, was sent away for two months, and left forever. From my grandmother’s memories, my grandfather was number two in the machine gun crew.

Soviet machine gun crew in a combat situation. (http://www.thetankmaster.com/publication.asp?id=14220)

At the beginning of 1941, the regular strength of the rifle division was 14,483 people. It consisted of a directorate, three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment and other units and subunits.

Organization of the Board of Directors

Each regiment has 3 rifle battalions. Each battalion has 3 rifle companies, a bullet company, a minor company, a anti-tank platoon, a communications platoon, a supply platoon, and a medical platoon. Each rifle company has three rifle platoons and a machine gun platoon.

The 233rd Infantry Division of the 1st formation included:
703, 724 and 734 rifle regiments, 684 artillery regiment, 716 gap, 68 optd, 429 back, 275 rb, 384 sab, 577 obs, 383 medical battalion, 328 orhz, 298 atb, 451 field bakery, 675 pps, 545 pc g.

At the beginning of the war, the 233rd Infantry Division was part of the 69th Infantry Corps, Corps Commander

(MOGILEVCHIK Evdokim Andreevich July 13, 1890 - February 12, 1947)

Divisional Commander 233 SD Colonel Kotov Grigory Fedorovich born 1900 According to some sources, he disappeared without trace, according to others, he was captured.

Kotov Grigory Fedorovich, born in 1900, member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Russian, completed the Shot course, commander of the 233rd Infantry Division from March 14, 1941,
harvest Gorky region, career military man, went missing between 06/22/1941 and 06/09/1943 / in August 1941 (possibly on the Dnieper, near the Ratchenkovo ​​crossing) excluded from the lists of the attached. GUFU No. 0530 dated July 12, 1942

Before loading into trains for the front.

Kubinka near Moscow. June 25. Hot. Cloudless. team: “By echelons!”
Somewhere among the same soldiers is my grandfather, in which regiment in which platoon I don’t know, maybe its commander Usmanov Alif com. pool. platoon 703 SP 233 (missing) whose fate is also being tried to be determined by relatives here on the search engine forum (18-year-old lieutenant http://www.soldat.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16518)

From a report on the arrival of military units at the front:
28.06.1941 : Directive of the General Staff to the commander of the troops of the Western Front on the entry into the front of formations and units:
I inform you about the arrival of compounds and parts:
...
20. 233rd Infantry Division, echelons No. 8128-8160, arrive in Mozhaisk 28.6, tempo - 10, unloading - Gusino, Krasnoye...
/ Terra-12(1), p.49/.

4th of July
Rubezh Vitebsk, Orsha transferred 69th Rifle Corps of the 20th Army,
On the night of July 5, the new commander of the Western Front, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, arrived in the troops
By July 10, the operational pause taken by the Wehrmacht to complete the battles with the group of Soviet troops encircled between Bialystok and Minsk had ended.

Report
commander of the troops
20th Army
commander-in-chief of the troops
Western direction
about the state of the army troops
(July 4, 1941)
To Commander-in-Chief Marshal Timoshenko

1. The army continues to cross the river. Dnieper. 5 microns, 229, 233 sd, 73rd Infantry Division unable to make it along the Smolensk highway. They were ordered to make their way to the crossings at Ratchino. Their advanced units approached Ratchino. In the Ratchino area, separate detachments formed by me are fighting the enemy, preventing him from crossing. Lizyukov’s detachment is there. The enemy continues to burn crossings and equipment with bombs and incendiary packets. The crossing continues and will continue at night. The remnants of the 153rd and 144th Rifle Division are being put in order to occupy the defense along the river. Dnieper from the mouth of the Ustrom to Zaborye inclusive. There is no information about 57 td.
2. To collect the units and formations that retreated beyond the Dnieper and put them in order, operational headquarters groups were organized and placed in place. Certain groups and people are also detained on the river. Snake. I can report on the detailed state of the army in two days.
3. The lack of command staff and large losses at headquarters make it difficult to bring the withdrawn units into order. Everything that was organized yesterday under the command of individual commanders no longer exists today. It is extremely necessary to withdraw the army to the rear for several days to put it in order, since organizational work under the influence of the enemy does not give the desired effect. Under serious pressure from the enemy, these insufficiently controlled scattered units will not be able to offer resistance, and everything that was saved and escaped the encirclement may be lost.

Commander of the 20th Army
Lieutenant General Kurochkin
Member of the Military Council
corps commissar
Semenovsky

Nashtarm 20
Major General Korneev
17.00 4.7.41.
№ 0010
F. 208, op. 3038ss, no. 24, l. 74. Original.

July 3, 1941 The 233rd Rifle Division concentrated in the area of ​​Shnitki, Ponizovye, Sivitskie;

July 4, 1941 The 233rd Rifle Division (commander - Colonel G.F. Kotov), ​​without the 716th Gap, two battalions of the 734th Regiment, the 68th Optadn, the 383rd Special Substation, the 74th Ab, which were on the way, takes up defensive positions at the line Shily, Cossacks, Klyukovka;
On July 13, the 233rd Infantry Division (commander - Colonel G.F. Kotov) was ordered, with the support of units, to eliminate the enemy breakthrough in the Gapon area and restore the situation in its defense sector.
Since the morning of July 13, units of the 20th Army have been fighting scattered groups of tanks and motorized infantry that have broken through into the depths of the defense.
The 69th Rifle Corps, having thrown back enemy units, took up defensive positions: the 153rd Rifle Division along the eastern bank of the river. Luchesa on the Crow front, Art. Wetland, Ridge; 229th Rifle Division - (claim) Gryada, Luchi, Bogushevskoye; 233rd Rifle Division - Kolenki, st. Flocks.

Subsequently, the division took part in the attempt to liberate Smolensk.

July 16 The 29th Motorized Division from Guderian's group broke into Smolensk, where stubborn battles ensued with the city's defenders. On July 19, the 10th Panzer Division advanced southeast of Smolensk and occupied Yelnya. P 20 rifle divisions of the Red Army, part of three armies, were under the threat of encirclement in the Smolensk region(16th, 19th and 20th). Thus, in less than a week, German troops managed to reach Smolensk, which was the operational goal of the entire offensive. At the same time, in a vast area to the west, north and east of Smolensk, large forces of the Western Front (second strategic echelon) were operationally surrounded: the 16th Army (M.F. Lukin), the 19th Army (I.S. Konev) and the 20th 1st Army (P. A. Kurochkin). Communication with these armies was maintained via the only pontoon crossing across the Dnieper in the area of ​​the village of Solovyovo (15 km south of Yartsevo), which was defended by a combined detachment under the command of Colonel A.I. Lizyukov. This crossing was shelled by enemy artillery fire and was subjected to constant attacks from its aircraft.

STORY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL FROLOV N.D.

FROLOV
NIKOLAY DMITRIEVICH,
lieutenant general
In 1940, he was appointed instructor of the political department of the 233rd Infantry Division (Zvenigorod, Moscow Military District). Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the division, after being re-equipped, (26 thousand people) She departed by rail trains to the Western Front, where, being part of the 19th Army, at the beginning of July near the city of Vitebsk she entered into the first battles with the Nazi troops.

The fighting was fierce. The enemy, having extensive combat experience in combat operations in the west, superiority in manpower and tanks, especially in aviation, despite significant losses, advanced in the direction of Smolensk in certain directions. The division, in cooperation with other formations, suffering significant losses, fought intense battles day and night, holding the city of Smolensk. Subsequently, it retreated with battles in the direction of Yelnya, Solovyevo to the eastern bank of the river. The Dnieper, where it was stopped and, having suffered heavy losses, was forced to go on the defensive.

Our 233rd Rifle Division, due to the heavy losses suffered in personnel and equipment in past battles, was disbanded by the decision of the front command, its personnel were transferred to the 73rd Rifle Division of the 20th Army of the Western Front, which occupied the defense along east bank of the river Dnieper. I was appointed to this division as an instructor in the political department.

Map of military operations at the beginning of the war: (full size) http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps/1941W/Byelorussia/FI02_03_ZF_Jun22-Jul11_41.jpg

From the combat log
5th mechanized corps
about the military operations of the corps
when leaving the environment
August 3, 1941.
SECRET
MAGAZINE
COMBAT OPERATIONS OF THE 5TH MECHANIZED CORPS
...3.8.41
Combat mission

According to the order of the headquarters of the 20th Army, the 5th Mechanized Corps, in cooperation with the 229th and 233rd Rifle Divisions, from 4.00 on 3.8.41, concentrating all efforts in the direction of Usinino, Zadnya, Pnevo, Makeevo, breaks through the river. The Dnieper at Solovyevo, Makeevo and, covering the lines with the 233rd Infantry Division, starting from the river. Khmost, b. Orleya, r. Vodva by 5.00 on August 4, 1941 took up defensive positions across the river. Dnieper at the mouth of the river. Howl, the mouth of the river. Ustrom.
The 1st motorized rifle and 57th tank divisions hold the line Ilya Pustoy, Tresvyatye, Kurdimova and, conducting a mobile defense at the turn of the river. Orleya, r. Losmena, strike in the direction of Mikhailovka, Pishchino to break through to the river crossings. Howl and by 5.00 4.8.41 take up defense along the river. Vop in the Lesn area, the mouth of the river. Scream.
233rd Infantry Division, conducting a mobile defense on the borders of the river. Khmost, b. Orleya and r. Vodva, by 5.00 4.8.41 go to the eastern bank of the river. Dnieper to the reserve of the corps commander in the forest area northwest of Svirkoluchye.

When withdrawing beyond the Dnieper River, the corps commander announced in an order that the unit commanders and commissars would withdraw all equipment beyond the river under personal responsibility. Dnieper.
Trying to go on the offensive, parts of the corps with attached rifle divisions met stubborn resistance from the enemy. The 229th Rifle and 17th Tank Divisions took up defensive positions and continued to remain at the same line.
The decision of the corps command to send all rear parts of the units on the morning of 3.8.41 across the river. It was not possible to carry out the Dnieper to the Ratchino area, since communications and the crossing were occupied by the enemy. By the end of the day, the enemy had completed the encirclement of units of the 5th Mechanized Corps, 229 and 73rd Rifle Divisions, and attempts by the enemy to separate the 73rd Rifle Division from the 5th Mechanized Corps were unsuccessful.
By the end of 3.8.41, the corps commander decided: together with the 73rd and 229th rifle divisions at 23.30 on 3.8.41, begin to leave the encirclement in the direction of Ratchino, establish crossings across the river. Dnieper and go to the eastern bank of the river. Dnieper.

In the Ratchino area, the column was also met with organized machine-gun fire, fire from anti-tank guns and machine guns. The enemy used the church, trees and the remains of chimneys from burnt houses. As a result of the battle, the lead detachment captured Ratchino,

Mass grave. Ratchino.

Having destroyed the enemy, he reached the western bank of the river. Dnieper in the crossing area with a significant amount of materiel. Units of the 8th Motorcycle Regiment were transported to the eastern bank of the river. Dnieper and took up defense along the river bank.

Road to the crossing. 2007

With the transition of units of the 8th motorcycle regiment to the eastern bank of the river. Dnepr, under the leadership of the head of the engineering service of the 5th mechanized corps, Lieutenant Colonel Zverev, using the means of the 17th pontoon-bridge battalion, began to establish a crossing across the river. The Dnieper is under heavy machine-gun and mortar fire.

Dnepr, Ratchino.

At the same time, the arriving units took up defensive positions along the western bank of the Dnieper River (the units approached in small groups) and continued to clear the Ratchino area from the enemy.
At about 11.00 on August 4, 1941, the crossing was established and the transfer of vehicles to the eastern bank of the river began. Dnieper. After several vehicles passed through the crossing, the enemy opened artillery fire on the crossing from the direction of Lyakhovo. In addition, three enemy tanks approached the column of vehicles grouped at the crossing and began shooting point-blank with incendiary shells, as a result of which half of the vehicles caught fire within a few minutes. Despite this, cars continued to cross the crossing. After 15 minutes, enemy aircraft in the amount of 12 bombers carried out a raid on the crossings, as a result of which the bridge was put out of action and the approaches to the bridge were dug up with craters of aircraft bombs, in addition, the enemy continued to shell the crossing with artillery, machine gun and mortar fire.
After this, it was no longer possible to continue transporting vehicles. With significant losses, the remaining groups of fighters and commanders retreated to the eastern bank of the river. Dnieper and took up defensive positions.
With the onset of night, under enemy fire, the crossing was restored again. and units continued to evacuate vehicles to the eastern bank of the river. Dnieper. Having failed to carry out the order of the corps commander, the 73rd and 229th rifle divisions and side detachments did not take up defense at the indicated line when confronted with the enemy, but entered the route of the 5th mechanized corps and the 17th tank division and, moving in disorder, disrupted the movement of the main column.
During the battle of the lead detachment in the Dubrovo area, the enemy exerted a strong influence from the northern direction.
Part of the column of vehicles and personnel turned south from Dubrov and in the forest area south of Dubrov met stubborn enemy resistance, split into separate detachments and, under the leadership of responsible commanders, the detachments left the encirclement, descending to the south. Thus, under the leadership of the deputy corps commander, Major General Zhuravlev, the chief of staff of the corps, Colonel Butkov, the head of the operational department, Colonel Ragul, and the commander of the 17th tank division, Colonel Korchagin, detachments of 120-150 people defeated and destroyed an enemy group in the forest area to the south and south. west of Dubrov and fought and swam across the river. Dnieper in the Malinovka area and to the south, bypassing the left flank of the enemy's 17th motorized division, and on 08/07/41 they left the encirclement in the Novoselki area.
The 13th Tank Division, covering the corps' exit from the encirclement, reached Nikolskoye with the head of the column by dawn on August 4, 1941 and was cut off from the main forces of the corps. The enemy, pursuing the division's rearguard, was in direct contact with the covering units. In addition, the head of the division column was fired upon by enemy artillery, machine gun and mortar fire from the forest northwest of Nikolskoye and from the forest southwest of Pustosh.
By decision of the commander of the 13th Panzer Division, units in the Nikolskoye area went on the defensive; later, under the influence of increasing enemy fire, the units retreated into the forest southwest of Leshenka and continued to defend until dark, where the heroism and fortitude of the encircled units of the 13th Panzer was demonstrated divisions that repelled several enemy attacks. Subsequently, the remaining units of the 13th Panzer Division left the encirclement in groups at night.
On August 3, 1941, the 602nd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 1st Motorized Rifle Division remained surrounded in the Semenovskoye, Kurdimova area. The results of leaving the encirclement are unknown. The corps emerged from the encirclement with a significant number of personnel and a small amount of material.
After leaving, [the corps] entered the front reserve and on 9.8.41 concentrated in the Nekrasovo, Korobkino, Romashkovo area. Losses and trophies according to the attached statement4.

Documentation from the corps headquarters about the combat operations during the exit from the encirclement was destroyed (burnt), with the exception of combat orders.
Note. Due to the fact that a significant part of the operational documents was destroyed when the 5th Mechanized Corps left the encirclement (4.8.41), all events since 20.7.41 were entered into the combat log from memory, from certificates of combat participants and from available individual documents.

Deputy Commander
5th mechanized corps
Major General ZHURAVLEV
Military Commissar
5th mechanized corps
brigade commissar MATVEEV

Deputy Chief of Staff of the 5th Mechanized Corps
Colonel RAGULYA "

Assessment of military historians:
The Battle of Smolensk was an important stage in the disruption of the German Blitzkrieg strategy and the Barbarossa plan. Despite heavy losses, Soviet troops slowed down the enemy's advance to the east and gained time to prepare for defense in the Moscow direction.
However, it was not possible to defeat the German troops. The Supreme Command headquarters always set offensive tasks for the fronts, although there were not always objective and subjective prerequisites for this. The offensives were carried out without careful preparation, hastily, without the necessary material support, in the absence of sufficient information about the enemy, without knowledge of his weaknesses.

Operational report of the headquarters of the Western Front.
from 08.08. on the morning of 08/09/1941. At the headquarters of the Western Front, an operational report was compiled on the state of the armies that were part of the front for the General Staff of the Space Forces.
First:
....
Sixth:
Units of the 20th Army firmly hold the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in the area near the village of Solovyevo, Zaborye, altitude 179.1. with part of the forces they launched an offensive from the line of Kolodezi, Mikhailovka in the direction of Dobronino.
At night, 08.08. A group of 80 people arrived from the encirclement, including the assistant commander of the 5th Motorized Corps, General Zhuravlev, the wounded commander of the 13th Tank Division, Colonel Korchagin, the chief of staff of the 3rd MK, Colonel Butkov, and a separate group led by the commander of the 73rd Infantry Division, Colonel Monov.
The command of the 57th TD and 233rd Rifle Division did not return from encirclement. On the night of 08.08., from the western bank of the Dnieper River to the eastern bank one gun and 18 vehicles.
Seventh:
...
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Western Front, Lieutenant General Malandin
Deputy Head of the Operational Department, Major General Rubtsov
TsAMO RF.f.384.o8529.d.4.l.95, 96, 97.98

According to the data of the Headquarters of the 20th A on 6.8.41
Losses for the period from 1.7.41 to 5.8.41: initial state. 651 people, mln. 1552, row. 9361 people Total: 11073.
There are 1640 people in total as of 5.8.41.

On August 8, 1941, the remnants of the division were merged into the 73rd Division 20A. It “burned out” in the Vyazemsky cauldron later.

Here are some comments from forums regarding searching for documents 233 SD:

The division was surrounded, the documents of the personnel had to be destroyed so as not to fall into the hands of the enemy.
Therefore, the report on the losses of the Western Front was written from the words of fellow soldiers, apparently.
There were fewer officers, they were remembered somehow, but most of the privates disappeared without a trace...

At the beginning of October 1940, this mechanized corps had 689 00 tanks, and on 02/20/41 - 792 000 tanks. 14th Panzer Division, stationed in Naro-Fominsk 0000, the basis of the tank fleet was high-speed BT tanks (there were 179 BT-7 vehicles as of June 1, 1941) 00000. To the division

** all divisions - without tank battalions (ibid. p. 274); about the 3,000-strong divisions formed in the summer of 1940, see: “1941.” Book 1, p. 87 (in the Moscow Military District in July 1940 - March 1941, this state contained the 160th Infantry Division and, possibly, the 118th and 137th Infantry Division) *** V.A. Anfilov. The failure of the “blitzkrieg”, M, Science,! 974, p. 118

see footnote TT

***** in July 1940 Brigade Commander-39 took command of the 1st Medical Unit (“Moscow Proletarskaya”, p. 17)

X 2nd Ltbr at the end of 1939. was introduced into Lithuania (“The classification has been removed”, VI, 1993, p. 126); the 27th LTBR was deployed to Latvia later (see V.M. Shatilov. “And it was so far from Berlin”, VI, 1987 ,p.3)

Xx A.G. Khorkov. Thunderstorm June.VI, 1991, p. 17; commander of the 7th mechanized corps was appointed in June 1940 ("WWII". SE, 1985, p. 130)

Xxx “Moscow Proletarian”, p. 17 xxxx in Gulyaev Man in armor.VI, 1964, p. 12 xxxxx ibid., p.29

Armored collection, 5.96, p. 27 Armored collection, 1.96, s.ZO

02.23.41 The Special Cavalry Brigade was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle, and in March 1941. on its base the formation of the 46th Tank Division began (S. Pogrebov. Not subject to oblivion. L, 1980, p. 88); see also 1941. Book 1, M., 1998, p. 677.

""" A.G. Khorkov. Thunderstorm June. VI, 1991, p. 20; "1941". Book 2. M. 1998, p. 105, 123, 245. " " VIZH-93-11-77

“WWII”, SE, 1985 p. 469; the 61st IC had, for example, the 601st howitzer ap. A.I. Eremenko. At the beginning of the war. M, Nauka, 1964, p. 141) 00 1941. Book 1, M., 1998, p.296 (document) 000 ibid., p.677 (document).

0000 A.I. Gribkov, Confession of a Lieutenant. ML 999, p. 71 ooooo Br ONekollektsiya; 5.96, p.26.

included the 27th and 28th tank regiments (three battalions) 000000, the 14th howitzer artillery regiment (two divisions - 6 batteries)*, the 14th motorized rifle regiment**.

^ 18th Panzer Division, stationed in Kaluga***, was equipped mainly with T-26**** tanks and included the 35th and 36th tank regiments, the 18th howitzer and the 18th

motorized rifle regiments

^ 1st Moscow Proletarian honey had two motorized rifle regiments (6th and 175th), 13th

^^-. L V, ^ ****** gr

artillery and 12th tank regiments. The equipment supplied to this division, which participated in parades on Red Square in Moscow, has always been the most modern. The personnel of the motorized rifle regiments were armed with automatic (PPD) and self-loading small arms. Tank regiment 1st med in 1940. was armed with the latest BT-7M XX, and on May 1, 1941. represented KV and T-34 XXX tanks at the parade in Moscow. By the beginning of hostilities, the 1st med on the Western Front had 40 KV and T-34 XXXX tanks in its tank fleet.

Among the corps units of the 7th mechanized corps were the 9th motorcycle regiment xxxxx and the 471st

"-* *-* *-* ХХХХХХ *-*

cannon artillery regiment, and in the tank and motorized divisions there was a division of 37-mm automatic anti-aircraft guns (12 guns each) xxxxxxxx.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the 7th Mechanized Corps had about 1000 tanks +, up to 500 guns and 4" mortars, and regarding the staffing level, it can be noted that on June 15, 1941, the corps began collecting assigned contingent +++.

As for the plans for the use of the 7th mechanized corps, according to the final calculations of the last pre-war days in the period from June 24-28 to July 3-5, 1941, it was supposed to be concentrated in the Orsha region, joining the 20th Army of the Reserve of the High Command ++++.

In the first ten days of June 1941, operating in a counterattack in the Lepel-Senno area without the 1st motorized rifle division (remaining near Orsha), the 7th mechanized corps had

/- v ^ -7 1 WITH -N-+++

the beginning of hostilities with 715 tanks

21st Mechanized Corps

It was formed in the spring of 1941. in the Idritsa-Opochka region, according to the staff, which provides for the presence in the corps of more than 400 combat vehicles ++++ "4, with a planned completion date of new equipment in the middle of 1942.* As of 02/20/41, there were 120 tanks for the newly formed corps**.

Selected personnel, mainly from the 1st Moscow Proletarian Medical Unit and disbanded in March 1941, were sent to staff the 42nd and 46th tank divisions formed in the corps. Special Cavalry Brigade***.

000000 see V.G. Gulyaev, op. cit. With. 12.

* A. Kolesnik. Myths and truth about Stalin's family. Kharkov, 1991, p. 77 (document).
** V.G. Gulyaev, op. cit., p. 18.

the division was deployed on the basis of the 39th Light Brigade, which, after participating in the Northern Fleet, was deployed to the Opochka-Sebezha region, on June 17, 1940 it was introduced into Latvia, and returned to the Moscow Military District, to Kaluga, in September 1940 (A.I. .Gribkov, op. cit., p.61, 63-64,71).

**** “initial” for the formation of the 18th TD, the 39th Light Brigade had 5 battalions of T-26 tanks (A.I. Gribkov, op. cit., p. 32) ***** see "Order of Lenin" Moscow Military District", p.210; V.A. Anfilov. Blitzkrieg failure, p.400. ****** SVE, vol.6, p.568

X see, for example, News of the CPSU Central Committee, 1990, No. 5, p. 203 (document) xx see “Armored collection” 5.96, p. 15 (photo) xxx “Enlisted forever.” Book. 1, p. 149 chxxx V.A. Anfilov. Blitzkrieg failure p.400

see V.I. Kazakov. "At the turning point." VI, 1962, p. 5, as well as I. Drogovoz and others, “The Iron Fist of the Red Army.” M., 1999, p.21. V.I.Kazakov. "Artillery fire!" M., 1972, p.21. chxxxxxxx V.I. Kazakov. "At the turning point", p.7.

+ ibid., p.5; according to the book “Iron Fist of the Red Army” (see footnote xxxxxx above), the 7th and 21st mechanized corps had 1134 tanks, of which the 21st MK had 98 tanks (decree, book, p. 22, 76). F+ V.I. Kazakov “At the Turning Point”, p.5. ++ ibid., p.6.

41 "M.V. Zakharov. General Staff in the pre-war years. VI, 1989, p. 260.

^ ++++ V.I. Kazakov. At the turning point, p. 17; S.P.Ivanov. Army headquarters, front-line headquarters. VI, 1990, p.95. +++,^ d d d elyushenko Dawn of Victory.VI, 1966, p.4 (in subsequent editions of this book, corps commander -21 D.D. Lelyushenko “remembered” that he had formed a corps with a staff of 1031 tanks)

* G.I. Khetagurov. Fulfillment of duty. VI, 1977, p. 49
** 1941. Book 1, p. 677 (document).

The 185th Motorized Division was reorganized from the 185th Infantry Division of the Moscow Military District (formation in the fall of 1939)****.

According to the directive of the General Staff of the Red Army dated 05/16/41 in June 1941. in addition to the artillery weapons received for the division artillery regiments, the corps received 95 anti-tank guns for armament

tank regiments (mainly 76 mm caliber)** **. In addition, the corps had two divisions of new
~> P ****** ~ ,- *******

37 mm automatic anti-aircraft guns, motorcycle battalion

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the 21st MK had 98 combat training vehicles (BT-7, T-26)°.

Staffed by 70-80% °°, with artillery, tanks (during wartime the corps was reinforced by two tank battalions of the Armored Academy 000, and in the third decade of June 1941 it was supposed to receive several echelons of T-34 0000), the 21st mechanized corps operationally it was directly subordinate to the General Staff of the Red Army 00000.

From mid-June 1941 The command of the mechanized corps was busy reconnaissance of advance routes to the Daugavpils area.

^ 20th Rifle Corps

In accordance with updated calculations of the last pre-war days, the corps consisting of the 137th, 144th, 160th rifle divisions (137th and 160th - “Gorky”) xx should have been concentrated in the period 06/28/07/4/41 in the Krichev-Chausy area, joining the 20th Army of the Reserve of the High Command in Belarus xxx. At the same time, the "Ivanovo" 144th SD was earlier

l l XXXX

documents were supposed to have a connection of the 41st sk

41st Rifle Corps

In accordance with the updated calculations of the last pre-war days, he should have arrived in the period from 29.06. - 07/05/41 to the Dorogobuzh area as part of two rifle divisions xxxxx: 118th Infantry Division and 235th Infantry Division (divisions from Kostroma and Ivanovo, respectively) xxxxxxx, entering the 20th Army of the Reserve of the Main Command in Belarus xxxxxxxx.

In the second half of the third decade of June 1941. The 111th Infantry Division was included in the 41st Infantry Division (from the ArkhVO, redeployed through Yaroslavl), and the corps itself was sent to the Ostrov region to occupy the defense in the Ostrovsky and Pskov fortified areas.

61st Rifle Corps

In accordance with the updated calculations of the last pre-war days, it was supposed to be unloaded on 06.26-07.3.41 in the Mogilev area, as part of two rifle divisions: 110th sd, 172nd

sd (“Tula”), entering the 20th Army of the Reserve of the High Command in Belarus.

*** G.I. Khetagurov, op. cit., p.49.

A.I. Eremenko. At the beginning of the war. M., "Science", 1964 p. 167. ***** G.I. Khetagurov, op. cit., pp. 49-50, as well as A.G. Khorkov, op. cit., p. 25. ****** G.I. Khetagurov, op.cit., p.50 ******* D.D.Lelyushenko, op.cit.p. 17

0 D.D. Lelyushenko, op. cit., p. 4; in addition to these types of vehicles, there were small amphibious tanks (ibid., p. 13) 00 70% of the soldiers were of the spring draft of 1941, the rest were old-timers (V, A, Anfilov. Failure of the “Blitzkrieg”, p. 346) °°°arrived in Corps 06/24/41, were armed mainly with BT-7 tanks (D.D. Lelyushenko, op. cit., p. 6), there were also 2 T-34s (G.I. Khetagurov, op. cit., p. .53)

0000 in the evening of 06/22/41 three echelons of T-34s were sent to the 21st Mechanized Corps, but a command was immediately received to redirect this equipment to Minsk, at the disposal of ZapOVO (G.I. Khetagurov, op. cit., p. 52-53) 00000 D.D. Lelyushenko, op. cit., p. 5 x ibid.

Xx see the text of the MBO, above

XXX M.V.Zakharov, op.cit., p.260; V.Zolotarev.Military security of the Fatherland.M, 1998, p.295 (document) xxxx VIZH-93-6-18

Xxxx 1941. Book 2, p. 359 (document), xxxxx M.V. Zakharov, op. cit., p. 260. xxxxxxx VIZH-93-6-18

xxxxxxxxx M.V.Zakharov, op.cit., p.260 with arrival in the Rogachev district.

* see VIZH-93-6-18; Initially, this division of the ArchVO was intended to be part of the 28th Army (see "1941", Book 2, pp. 359-360).

see, for example, A.I. Eremenko. At the beginning of the war. M., "Science", 1964, p. 137. *** M.V. Zakharov, decree, op., p.260; V. Zolotarev, op. cit., 295 (document).

113 69th Rifle Corps

Corps consisting of three rifle divisions: 73rd("Kalininskaya"), 229th, 233rd according to updated calculations of the last pre-war days in the period 06.25.-07.3.41, following the marching order, it was supposed to concentrate in the Smolensk area, where the command of the 20th Army (allocated by the Oryol Military District) also arrived.

As follows from the Certificate of training of assigned personnel in rifle divisions in 1941 (compiled by the Mob Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army no later than 05/20/41), the rifle divisions of the Moscow Military District are the 73rd, 110th, 118th, 137th, 144th , 160th, 172nd, 229th, 233rd and 235th - had in peacetime staff No. 4/120 (i.e. 5.9 thousand people) For training, which was carried out with 05/15, 06/1 and 06/10/41, 6 thousand reservists were called up per division

Accordingly, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the formations intended to move to the west as part of the Moscow Military District rifle corps were at the prescribed level of readiness in the camps and their deployment to wartime levels did not require

long events. So, the 172nd Infantry Division of the 61st Infantry Division, as planned, departed to

designated area staffed by unit

Oryol Military District

I. The Oryol Military District was separated from the Moscow Military District by order of the NPO of the USSR dated July 28, 1938 and covered the Oryol, Voronezh, Kursk, and from October 1939 also the Tambov region^.

The divisions stationed since the 1920s in the corresponding territory were the 6th Oryol, 19th Voronezh, 55th Kursk Rifle Divisions++.

The 14th Cavalry Division named after Parkhomenko, stationed in the 1920s and early 1930s in Tambov, was redeployed to Ukraine in the spring of 1932 +++.

As part of the “organizational events” of the summer-autumn 1939, additional rifle divisions were formed in the OrVO, and in connection with the liberation campaign in Western Belarus, the following were sent to the Belorussian Front in August-September 1939 from the OrVO: 6th and 55th I ++++, 113th (formed in Rylsk) +++++, 122nd (formed in Yelets) "1"* 4" 4" 1" rifle divisions.

For reasons of the USSR NCO dated October 23, 1939, the ORVO was subsequently supposed to have 6 rifle divisions containing 3 thousand people. each (without tank battalions) and one directorate of the rifle corps x, while in connection with the change in the boundaries of the district (see above), the 89th rifle division xx was transferred to the ORVO from the Moscow Military District.

However, as of April 1940, only 4 rifle divisions remained in the ORVO - all formations that “went” to the west in August-September 1939 dropped out of the ORVO subordination xxx.

K. Simonov. 100 days of war, p.356.

composition and affiliation of the corps to the Moscow Military District, see: "1941". Book 2, M. 1998, p.245 and p.359 (documents), about redeployment - M.V. Zakharov, op. cit., p.260. ****** - 19 41 years old." Book 2, M., 1998, p. 245 (document).

see A.I. Eremenko. At the beginning of the war. M., "Science", 1964, p. 137. ^SVET.6, p.118.

For more information about these divisions, see the Moscow Military District. """See about MVO.

The 55th Infantry Division was stationed in Kursk until 1939, and in August-September 1939, having departed for BOVO, it acted in a liberation campaign in Western Belarus; in the summer of 1940, both the 55th and 6th Rifle Divisions were part of the 4th Army of the ZapOVO (D.A. Morozov. They were not mentioned in the reports. VI, 1965, p. 6,8; L.M .Sandalov. On the Moscow direction. M., Nauka, 1970, pp. 49, 51)

1--G “receive us, Suomi-beauty”, chL. St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 251. ++ " m "Winter War 1939-1940". Book 2, M., "Science", 1999, p. 116 (document). x VIZH-96-3-22. xx see MVO.

Xxx 6th, 55th and 113th Infantry Divisions came under the control of BOVO (the latter of which took part in the Soviet-Finnish War, to the front of which it was sent from BOVO), and the 122nd Infantry Division, stationed in the first half of November 1939 to the Kandalaksha region, also after participating in the Soviet-Finnish War, remained subordinate to the LVO (“Winter War 1939-1940.” Book 2, pp. 116, 192).

At the same time, according to the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated May 21, 1940, the minimum number of

The decisions of early July 1940 in the ORVO also provided for the formation of an additional two rifle divisions with a staff of 3,000 xxxxx.

II. As of mid-May 1941, the Ordnance Military District rifle troops had 5 rifle divisions formed in the 1920s - 1940s; 19th [Voronezh], 89th, 120th (formed in the summer of 1940)**, 145th*", 149th".

Since the spring of 1941, staff No. 4/120 (5.9 thousand people) + was established as a single reduced staff for the rifle divisions of the Red Army (including the 3,000-strong divisions formed in the summer of 1940).

Of the newly formed rifle divisions in the spring of 1941, the Oryol Military District had the 217th and 222nd rifle divisions ++ (two more divisions of the new formation, according to the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated April 23, 1941 No. 1112-449ss, applied for the formation of anti-tank and airborne brigades of the Red Army) 4++.

As part of the hidden mobilization (“large training camps”) ++++, 6 thousand reservists +++++ were called up to all rifle divisions of the Ordnance Military District by June 1, 1941.

In addition to rifle formations, in the spring of 1941, the 23rd mechanized corps was formed in the ORVO, consisting of the 48th and 51st tank, 220th motorized divisions 0 . The corps in February 1941 was planned as a “reduced” mechanized corps of the “second stage” 00.

As of June 1, 1941, the Ordnance Military District had 321 tanks, incl. 199 combat-ready (of which 23 are new, not previously in service), requiring repairs in district workshops 78, requiring major repairs 44°°°. There were 56 BT tanks in the ORVO tank fleet as of January 1, 1941 (25 BT-7 and 31 BT-5) 0000.

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the ORVO had the following formations 00000.

(comments are also interesting)
...Five months ago, local historian Gennady Tambovtsev presented the book “At the Origins of Victory,” in which he spoke about the fate of the 61st rifle division, which went to the front in June 1941 and died after a month and a half of fighting.
The 61st Rifle Division was part of the 63rd Rifle Corps, which held defenses on the eastern bank of the Dnieper and which the Germans called the Black Corps.
In Penza, almost no one remembers about this division. There are no streets or schools named after her. There isn't even a school museum. And Gennady Tambovtsev told Moskovskaya Street why.
Black list
The division fought for a month and a half, and then died. Most of the fighters died along with her.
Those who survived the battles were mostly captured by the Germans and spent 4 years there. After the Victory, some of them were imprisoned in Stalin's camps. Nobody listened to such veterans.
One of the former party workers once told me that the 61st Infantry Division was forgotten because, in the opinion of comrades “from above,” it almost surrendered en masse. Therefore, in the post-war years they were ashamed to be interested in it, and then everyone died. And there was no one to ask.
The fact that the division surrendered was pure fiction.
I worked on this topic for more than 10 years, digging through archives, studying political reports, reports, memoirs, and interviewing veterans.
During the month and a half of fighting, the division never left its positions without orders. Moreover, in July 1941, she managed to push back the tank division of Lieutenant General Model, the future field marshal, beyond the Dnieper.
Guderian himself was forced to spend 5 days searching for another crossing across the Dnieper. In those days, he noted in his diary: “The Russians occupy strong bridgeheads near Rogachev.” He wrote about the 61st division from Penza.
For the Germans, from whom armies, corps and fronts fled, the daring behavior of the 61st division became nonsense! This was, perhaps, the second click on the nose for them. The first was inflicted on them by the defenders of the Brest Fortress.
Lieutenant General Petrovsky, who commanded the 63rd Rifle Corps (which included our division), was respectfully nicknamed by the Germans the commander of the black corps. They remembered both him and our division for a long time.
Why did it happen that we ourselves almost forgot about it? About this incredible feat that we must honor...
The fact that several hundred Penza fighters were captured does not mean that they are cowards, but that they held their positions until the last moment. About how they ran out of cartridges and the Germans were catching them like animals.
The fate of this division is terrible. In a civilized country a monument would have been erected to her long ago. Or at least crossed off the list of traitors.
Composition of the 61st
The 61st Rifle Division (hereinafter referred to as the 61st Rifle Division) included 3 rifle regiments (66th, 221st and 307th), a light artillery and howitzer regiment, anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery divisions, reconnaissance, engineer and motor transport battalions , a separate communications battalion, a separate chemical defense company, a medical sanitary battalion, a field bakery, a field communications point and a field cash desk of the state bank.
Two regiments of the division were stationed in Kamenka, one in Serdobsk. The main forces were stationed in Penza, on the territory of a military camp, now the territory of an artillery institute.
The division headquarters was located on the street. Kirov, in the current building of a military hospital. The training units were located in Selix.
61st Infantry Division was personnel. As of June 22, it had 5,900 personnel, and another 6,000 were called up as part of the 45-day military training. Total, almost 12 thousand people. Almost all of them are residents of the Penza region. And not 18-year-old boys, but real warriors who went through Finnish and Khalkhin Gol, smelled gunpowder, had orders and medals. They were 25-40 years old, almost all of them had wives and children.
The 61st rifle division was alerted on June 22. On this day, the commanders were given several hours to say goodbye to their families. No one was allowed to go home at night.
The division was sent to the front as trains arrived. Its main forces departed on June 23 and 24. They spent 4 days on the road. These days, the situation in Belarus has become sharply complicated, so the Headquarters decided to send 21 armies here. So we ended up on the Dnieper, in the area of ​​Rogachev and Zhlobin.
First fights
The 61st Infantry Division became part of the 63rd Rifle Corps (hereinafter - RK). In addition to our division, it included two more rifle divisions: the 167th Saratov and the 154th Ulyanovsk.
The corps received a 70-kilometer defense line along the eastern bank of the Dnieper. In those days, huge German forces were moving here. Our pilots described it as a continuous stream of equipment from tanks, armored cars, trucks and tractors with guns. All this moved along the roads in several rows. And motorcycles with sidecars bounced on the side of the road.
The division from Penza took up positions on the Dnieper on July 2. On the same day, German tanks appeared on the western bank of the river. According to the recollections of one of the participants in that battle, “the Germans began to probe the place for the crossing, maneuvering right in front of us.”
Our fighters opened fire on them, and the Nazis retreated back. Damaged tanks and dead Germans remained on the shore.
The division took its first serious battle on July 5.
On this day, Lieutenant General Model attempted to cross the Dnieper and maintain a bridgehead on its eastern bank. At 13 o'clock he crossed the river northeast of Rogachev, near the village of Zborovo. Two rifle regiments were immediately brought to the breakthrough site: the 221st Penza and the 520th Saratov.
The battle was commanded by the corps commander, Lieutenant General Leonid Petrovsky. Unable to withstand the blow of our units, the Nazis hastily retreated beyond the Dnieper!
That day, with the support of tanks, they went on the offensive twice again, but each time they were thrown back with heavy losses.
The Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, Halder, described the Russian offensive tactics as follows: “a 3-minute fire raid, then a pause, after which an infantry attack shouting “Hurray” in deeply echeloned combat formations (up to 12 waves) without support from heavy weapons fire even in those cases when attacks are made from long distances. Hence the incredibly large losses of the Russians.”
That day, the Germans failed to gain a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. They reported to the command that the bridgehead had been taken. At the same time, they did not say the main thing: that they could not restrain him. The commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal von Bock, will learn about this only after 3 days!
The German command then could not even imagine that there would be such a force that could resist the German army and throw it off the captured bridgehead.
Know: this force was the 221st rifle regiment from Penza.
Surprise for Fast Heinz
On July 6, troops of the 63rd Rifle Corps conducted reconnaissance in force in the area of ​​Zhlobin. They attacked the Germans at dawn, not allowing them to come to their senses and forcing them to hastily retreat to the west.
The attacks of 63 sk became so unexpected for the Germans that they forced Guderian’s 2nd Panzer Group, rushing towards Moscow, to stop. After Model's division suffered significant damage at the crossing at Zborovo, Guderian did not dare give the command to cross here. Colonel General nicknamed Quick Heinz spent 5 days searching for a safer place. On the scale of the Blitzkrieg, this was a long time.
Guderian found a crossing north of our positions, in the area of ​​​​Stary Bykhov, this was the strip of the neighboring army. On the night of July 10-11, his tanks crossed the Dnieper and rushed to Smolensk and Yelnya.
On July 13 at 17:00 our troops launched a counteroffensive. 63 sk fought through the rear of the troops of Field Marshal von Bock who had gone ahead.
On the first day he advanced 8-10 km beyond the Dnieper, and then over the next two days he walked another 4-6 km. By the end of July 16, the corps had knocked down the barriers of the German cavalry division and liberated the cities of Zhlobin and Rogachev. These were the first cities liberated from the enemy.
After this, the 63rd Infantry Corps went to Bobruisk, but it was not possible to advance further, because the promised one never came to help
25th Mechanized Corps Krivosheev.
In turn, the Germans pulled fresh infantry forces to the battlefield, supported by tanks and aircraft. With a series of powerful counterattacks, they inflicted irreparable losses on us and, under the threat of complete encirclement, forced us to retreat back to Zhlobin and Rogachev. 63 sk held these cities until mid-August, thereby pinning down the 2nd field army of General Weichs.
Stand to death
On August 4, Hitler decided to put an end to the armies that were bothering him and turned some of his troops from the Moscow direction to the south, thereby slowing down the pace of the attack on Moscow.
The German attacks on 63 sk intensified. Already on August 5, the front commander asked Headquarters for permission to withdraw the main forces of the corps beyond the Dnieper. But Stalin forbade this.
The enemy pressure on our division was powerful. Sometimes we attempted to counterattack, but they ended in failure. On August 6, at 3 o’clock in the morning, the 221st Penza Rifle Regiment tried to capture the height of 143.3 and came across heavy rifle, machine gun and mortar fire. The regiment lost several dozen people killed and 90 wounded. Ten people were captured. The enemy forced them to take off their tunics and remove the bodies of killed Soviet and German soldiers from the battlefield.
On August 11, Headquarters once again prohibited the withdrawal of 63 sk. to the eastern bank of the Dnieper. The next day, the Germans bypassed Rogachev on both sides, and the corps was under threat of complete encirclement.
Commander of the Black Corps
On August 13, the front command sent a U-2 plane for Corps Commander Petrovsky. But Petrovsky refused to get into it. He indicated in the note: “Leaving the corps troops in such a difficult situation is tantamount to flight.” The plane returned to front headquarters on the same day with a seriously wounded soldier.
On August 14, with the permission of the front commander, Petrovsky led his corps to break through. They crossed the Dnieper under enemy artillery fire and air strikes. The retreat of the corps was covered by the Penza 307th Infantry Regiment.
Having moved to the eastern bank of the Dnieper, the corps still found itself behind enemy lines. Against our two bloodless divisions (the Saratov division left in July for reinforcement near Smolensk), the Germans abandoned 7 full-blooded infantry divisions from the reserve.
Periodically regrouping his troops, Petrovsky began to strike the Germans blow after blow. In one of the battles, German mobile units cut off the corps headquarters from the main forces, and then Petrovsky personally led the headquarters officers to a breakthrough. They fired back with pistols, their swift blow forced the Germans to retreat. The headquarters again linked up with the corps troops and went southwest.
On August 17, at 3 a.m., the corps broke through another encirclement ring. The order signed by Petrovsky included the following clause: “All command personnel, regardless of rank and position, during the night attack, right up to the connection of corps units with units of the Red Army, should be in advanced chains, carrying effective weapons with the task of uniting around the entire personnel of the division."
Having broken through the encirclement, the corps quickly covered 6 km, defeated the headquarters of the 134th German infantry division and captured its combat documents in 6 briefcases.
However, after a few kilometers, the exhausted corps ran into a second ring of encirclement. As it turns out later, there were three rings of encirclement.
Petrovsky was wounded in the arm, but he continued to lead the battle. While bypassing the village of Skepnya from the north, the corps commander ran into an enemy ambush in the bushes. According to eyewitnesses, he was shot with a machine gun by people dressed in Red Army uniforms. Perhaps they were deserters; this happened in 1941.
Local residents buried General Petrovsky a kilometer south of the village of Rudenka.
According to other sources, Petrovsky was buried by prisoners on the orders of the Germans. A wooden cross was placed on his grave, where they wrote in Russian and German: “Commander of the Black Corps, General Petrovsky.” There is even a version that they gave the fireworks: supposedly some passing German general gave the order.
Liquidation
The next day, August 18, the commander of the 61st Infantry Division, Nikolai Andreevich Prishchepa, died from a shrapnel hitting his spine. He is buried near the village of Morozovichi, Gomel region.
After the death of Prishchepa, Chief of Staff Alexander Emilievich Hoffman was automatically appointed division commander. Hoffmann himself most likely did not find out about his appointment as a division commander, because by that time he was already captured.
By coincidence, on the day of the division commander’s death, the Penza newspaper “Stalin’s Banner” published a letter that had arrived from the front from soldiers of the 61st Infantry Division to fellow Penza residents. The letter says that “entire divisions, regiments and battalions, the best selected, mechanized units of the fascists are exterminated every day by the courageous warriors of our valiant Red Army. The Germans are afraid of the Russian bayonet like fire. And our valiant fighters, with excellent command of their weapons, defeated the enemy, throwing him far back.”
On the same day, Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces Halder notes: “Apparently, the battles to eliminate the desperately resisting encircled enemy group east of Zhlobin are ending.” He writes about us.
According to the recollections of residents of Rogachev, after the Soviet troops left the city, machine gun fire was heard in the forest for several days. Behind barbed wire, in a special place, Soviet prisoners of war were shot. Local residents buried the dead with the permission of the German authorities.
Surroundings
From that time on, organized resistance to the 63rd Corps ceased.
On August 20, its scattered units reached the location of the 3rd Army. The chief of staff of the 3rd Army, Zhadov, recalled: “My eyes saw a difficult picture of the retreat: small groups and individuals were moving, on horses and cars, on foot. There were Red Army soldiers, sergeants, and commanders here. In total, about a thousand people came to our area. All of them were considered encirclement and, according to the existing regulations of that time, were sent to the front rear. At my own peril and risk, I left some commanders in the army, replenishing the headquarters departments with them.”
The remaining soldiers of the corps entered the territory of Ukraine, where they again found themselves surrounded, subsequently ending up in the huge Kiev cauldron. Read about the further fate of the Penzyaks who were surrounded and captured in one of the following issues of Moskovskaya Street.
Life after death
The 61st Infantry Division was disbanded in September 1941 as it was killed in action.
At the regional military registration and enlistment office they told me that thirty years after the war, a veteran came to them, and the conversation was about 61 divisions.
When he was told that she had died in
1941, together with commander Prishchepa, he did not understand: “What Prishchepa?! What's wrong?! We have reached Berlin!”
It was a veteran from the second formation. It began in October 1941. Only not in Penza, but in Yerevan (Transcaucasian Military District).
The second formation of the division confirms the fact that somehow the fighters of the first formation managed to preserve and transport the division banner to their own. If the banner were lost, the division number would be eliminated and it would disappear forever.
Since the summer of 1942, the division took part in the battles for the passes in the Caucasus, then in the Battle of Stalingrad. There she received the first Order of the Red Banner.
On August 31, 1943, 2 rifle companies consisting of two officers, 20 sergeants and 330 cadets were sent to the 61st Rifle Division from the Seliksen camps. Most likely, more than half of them were Penzyaks.
The division passed through Kuban, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Prussia and occupied quarters in Berlin one and a half kilometers from the Reichstag. The war ended on May 11 with a battle with the group of Field Marshal Scherner in Czechoslovakia.
Material prepared by Evgeny Malyshev
P.S.
Gennady Tambovtsev’s book “At the Origins of Victory” was published in 300 copies at the expense of entrepreneur Sergei Dvoryankin. There was no money in the Penza budget to publish a book about the Penza division.
One of the printing houses offered Gennady Tambovtsev to print a book for 250 thousand rubles. The printing house of Sergei Tugushev did it for 60 thousand rubles.
“It feels like they tried,” says Gennady Tambovtsev about the employees of Tugushev’s printing house. “You feel like you read it and were inspired by it.” They told me how best to design the book so that the pages would unfold well, the quality would be good, and the embossing would be good.”
The book can be purchased at the Vpereplete intellectual literature store.
It is difficult to find the book in Penza libraries, because out of twenty existing libraries only two acquired it: the library named after. V. G. Belinsky and the children's and youth library on the street. Tolstoy.
The presentation of the book took place on July 27, 2010 at the Penza Museum of Local Lore. “Moskovskaya Street” reported this in issue No. 354 of July 30, 2010.
Copies of the book were presented to the governor, ministers and other leaders. 5 months have passed, but no concrete proposals have been received from Penza officials to perpetuate the memory of the 61st division....
(Addendum)
61st Rifle Division (1st formation)
It is not possible to post all the information from the site, including lists of names, but at least a little:
THE MYSTERY OF THE DEATH OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL L.G. PETROVSKY
(chapter from the book)
GENERAL PETROVSKY'S LAST BATTLE
At 2 hours 30 minutes on August 17, northeast of the village of Chetverny, on the offensive site of the 510th rifle regiment of the 154th infantry regiment, at the second clearing of the forest overlooking the village of Zavod, the command and staff members of the 63rd infantry regiment and the 154th infantry regiment gathered .
After a brief clarification of the tasks by General Petrovsky, a number of commanders and political workers were sent to rifle units in order to help the unit commanders on the spot. Chief of Staff of the 154th Infantry Division, Colonel M.K. Agevnin and a group of commanders went to the 473rd rifle regiment, which occupied the initial area for the attack on the third clearing. For the same purpose, the head of the political department of the corps, regimental commissar N.F. Voronov left for the 510th infantry regiment.
One of the first researchers of the combat route of the 63rd Rifle Corps and the circumstances of the death of General L.G. Petrovsky retired colonel G.P. Kuleshov, who himself was a participant in those events, describes the events that took place that night.
“At exactly three o’clock on August 17, 1941, after a short but powerful artillery attack, the 473rd Infantry Regiment began its breakthrough. It was followed by attacks from all other parts of the division. The attack took the enemy by surprise, and units of the 154th Infantry Division, easily breaking through the enemy encirclement, quickly moved forward. In the village of Gubich, the headquarters of the enemy’s 134th Infantry Division was destroyed and its combat documents were captured in six briefcases.
The ring of enemy blocking troops was broken. Now L.G. Petrovsky decided that he could and should return to the units covering the corps’ exit from the encirclement. The commander of the 154th Infantry Division, Major General Fokanov, and other comrades tried to persuade Petrovsky not to do this. “There’s nothing left for me to do here,” he said decisively. - It’s calm ahead, the decisive thing is now there... And you hurry to the troops, put them in order as soon as possible, and be ready to repel the attacks of the Germans, especially from Rechitsa. I'll be back soon".
And the corps commander, with a group of headquarters commanders and a reserve, went to where the fierce battle was taking place in order to personally lead the separation of the covering forces from the advancing enemy, to speed up their joining the divisions, reducing losses as much as possible. But the enemy, having brought in fresh units, again began to close the encirclement. Its secondary breakthrough took place under conditions that were much more difficult.
Having broken through in one place, the units found themselves in an even more difficult situation near the village of Skopnya, where the second line of the enemy ring ran. Here the adjutant of the corps commander, Lieutenant V. Kolesov, died; Petrovsky, wounded in the arm, continued to lead the battle. The breakthrough was still a success. But Leonid Grigoryevich Petrovsky himself, during an attack by the enemy, who had fortified himself on the northern outskirts of Skepny, was mortally wounded by machine gunners disguised in the bushes. I told about this two hours later to the commander of the 154th Infantry Division, Ya.S. Fokanov, Chief of the Corps Artillery, Major General A.F. Kazakov, who was seriously wounded in this battle and carried out by a group of fighters."
Another participant in those tragic events, former chief of staff of the 473rd rifle regiment of the 154th infantry regiment, Major General B.G. Weintraub literally wrote the following:
“The corps made a breakthrough. Leonid Grigorievich went to the covering units in the 473rd regiment. He remained in the second echelon in order to personally withdraw the last units of the corps. The main forces fought through the ring. The other echelon did not have time to leave.”
To the story of Colonel G.P. Kuleshov, as well as the memoirs of Major General B.G. Weintraub, we will return later, because not everything they talk about corresponds to the real state of affairs. During the battle in the area of ​​​​the village of Chetvernya, and then at Skepnya, many commanders and Red Army soldiers were killed. After a few days, not many were able to get through to their own people. With their heroic actions, the soldiers of the 63rd Rifle Corps were able, even if only for a few days, to distract the enemy from the main goal - Gomel, thereby giving other units and formations the opportunity to retreat to the east in an organized manner.
The Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, Colonel General F. Halder, did not fail to note in his diary the tenacity with which the soldiers of the 63rd Rifle Corps fought:
“Apparently the battles to eliminate the desperately resisting encircled enemy group in the area east of Zhlobin are ending.”
According to Marshal of the Soviet Union A.I. Eremenko, former commander of the 154th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Ya.S. After the war, Fokanov, when meeting with him, spoke about the events of those days and the circumstances of the death of General L.G. Petrovsky:
“On August 16, 1941, Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky arrived to me, at the division command post in the area of ​​​​the station. Khalch, southeast of the city of Zhlobin, where he assigned me and the commander of the 61st Infantry Division the task of breaking out from the enemy encirclement. The breakthrough time was set for 3.00 am on August 17th. By decision of Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky corps headquarters and he himself were supposed to make a breakthrough with the 61st division.
According to his order, the 154th Division, later the 47th Guards Division, began the breakthrough at exactly 3.00 on August 17th. At this time, the chief of staff of the corps, Colonel A.L., came to see me. Feigin and conveyed Petrovsky’s order to appear to him.
Leaving a communications battalion, a sapper battalion, and a battery of an anti-tank battalion in reserve, I went to look for Petrovsky. When I found him, he informed me that the exit of the 61st Division was secured, and he would be with my division. By this time, the main units of the 154th division, having broken through the encirclement ring, had advanced six kilometers. Ensuring their exit from the rear with the units remaining in reserve, we walked with Leonid Grigorievich from the station. Khalch to the village of Rudnya-Baranovka. At this time, the encirclement closed again, and we had to break through it again.
Having broken through the first line of defense near the village of Skepnya, which is 20 km southeast of Zhlobin, we came across the second line of defense of the Nazis. Here the adjutant of the corps commander was killed in battle, and Petrovsky himself was wounded in the arm.
Having assigned me the task of attacking the village of Skepnya, Petrovsky with his reserve went north of the village of Skepnya to secure the flank of the attackers. This was our last conversation with him.
After breaking through the second line of enemy defense, two hours later, I met the chief of artillery of the 63rd Corps, Major General A.F., wounded in the stomach. Kazakova, 2 km northeast of the village of Skepnya. I asked him where General Petrovsky and his headquarters were. He replied that Petrovsky and his chief of staff, Colonel Feigin, had been killed not far from him in the bushes by an enemy ambush, some of whom were dressed in Red Army uniforms, and some in women's dresses.
I took measures to search for Petrovsky and his chief of staff and sent two reconnaissance groups in the direction indicated by Major General Kazakov. Both groups returned with the same information, confirming Major General Kazakov’s report about the enemy’s ambush, but they did not find any corpses.
Major General Kazakov was placed on a cart and followed with me. However, soon the cart was destroyed by a direct hit from a mine, and General Kazakov was killed. We buried him immediately. As it turned out later, local residents buried L.G. Petrovsky, one kilometer south of the village of Rudenka. After the liberation of this area on July 13, 1944, in the presence of his relatives, his remains were transferred and buried with military honors in the village. Staraya Rudnya, Zhlobin district, Mogilev region."
Moving somewhat away from the topic of conversation, I would like to note the following fact. According to the testimony of Olga Leonidovna Tumanyan, for many years after the war, some officers who came out of the encirclement with Leonid Grigorievich came to them, told who knew what about those events, as best they could, they reassured Nadezhda Vasilievna and Grigory Ivanovich. Alexander Ivanovich Eremenko, who became Marshal of the Soviet Union after the war, visited them several times, but General Ya.S. was never in the Petrovskys’ house. Fokanova. Why didn’t Yakov Stepanovich bother to visit his commander’s wife and didn’t want to tell the details about those events? Why did he find time to tell Marshal Eremenko about those events, but did not find a couple of hours to visit the Petrovskys? Even if, for some reason in the combat situation, General Fokanov and the soldiers and commanders who followed him fell behind their corps commander and lost sight of him, he could still tell a lot about that ill-fated day and about the last hours of General Petrovsky’s life. He could, but he didn't want to. What is the secret that General Fokanov, until his death, never bothered to look into the eyes of the widow of General Petrovsky and his daughter?
In December 2010, in one of the conversations with the daughter of General Petrovsky, Olga Leonidovna, she, a purely civilian, asked a very interesting question:
“I can understand everything: war is war. But here's what's interesting to me. In one of the first letters from the front, dad wrote that two hefty guards were assigned to him. He had an adjutant - a lieutenant. In addition, as Georgy Petrovich Kuleshov said, before breaking out of the encirclement, a squad of soldiers was assigned to him for protection. Next to him, dozens of commanders and Red Army soldiers attacked the enemy. And dad took on his last fight alone. Okay, the adjutant died. But where did everyone else go? How could he, their commander, be left alone? After all, when the Germans discovered him, he was completely alone.”
Even without going into the details of those distant and tragic events of August 1941, it should be noted that all three surviving direct participants talk too implausibly about the death of General Petrovsky, especially regarding his return to cover units, in order to “provide personal leadership separation of covering forces from the advancing enemy, speeding up their joining the divisions, reducing losses as much as possible.”
The children's assessment of the corps commander's actions is especially striking. In addition, what kind of cover units can we talk about if one military unit was left for cover from the rear - the 307th Infantry Regiment of the 61st Infantry Division. This regiment, as it should be in such cases, had to, through stubborn defense and selfless actions, or rather, at the cost of the lives of its Red Army soldiers and commanders, enable the main forces of the corps to try to break through the encirclement. That is, General Petrovsky had no one to return to: God grant that at least a hundred soldiers would remain alive in that regiment. And this is not the job of the commander of such a unit as a corps: he should command subordinate divisions, and not play the role of a guide.
All these are simply primitive inventions of the censorship of those years, which, without bothering to invent something smart, produced such nonsense. General Petrovsky was a fearless and brave commander, which he demonstrated more than once during the Civil War and at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. He knew perfectly well his place in a combat situation and would never have thought of abandoning the corps to the mercy of fate and “with personal leadership to ensure the separation of the covering forces from the advancing enemy, to speed up their joining the divisions, reducing losses as much as possible.”
By inventing something like this, Glavpur’s censorship hoped that it was depicting something heroic, but in fact, utter stupidity was born, which was then replicated in books, and our respected veterans did not find the willpower to refute this.
Moreover, in the story by G.P. Kuleshov, published in a military history magazine, there is a clear discrepancy with what actually took place during the breakout of the 63rd Infantry Corps from encirclement. So, for example, he writes:
“The attack took the enemy by surprise, and units of the 154th Infantry Division, easily breaking through the enemy encirclement, quickly moved forward. In the village of Gubich, the headquarters of the enemy’s 134th Infantry Division was destroyed and its combat documents were captured in six briefcases.
The ring of enemy blocking troops was broken. Now L.G. Petrovsky decided that he could and should return to the units covering the corps’ exit from the encirclement...”
The situation is depicted in such a way that Petrovsky decided to return to the cover units after the encircled men broke through to the village of Gubichi, where documents from the headquarters of the 134th German division were captured, which in fact took place. But the documents were captured from the enemy on the evening of August 18, i.e. a day after Petrovsky’s death.
From the operational report of the headquarters of the Central Front for August 19, 1941:
“At the 323rd Infantry Division’s site, two regiments of the 154th Infantry Division entered the CHEBOTOVICHI area, which, when leaving the rear of the pr-ka, destroyed the headquarters of the 134th Infantry Infantry, captured combat documents.”
The settlement of Gubichi is located 10 km south of the place where General Petrovsky died, which means that he could not have been in this area. In addition, from the regiment, which covered the actions of the corps from the rear, it was about 20 km to Gubich. Why were these fairy tales needed? And there are a lot of such inconsistencies in the text. If you analyze the events described, looking at the map, it’s not at all clear what happens. However, let’s finish here with an analysis of what we inherited from the past.
Now that we know about the death of Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky, almost everything, as it seemed to us, at least for many years, we will turn to three very important documents from one criminal case, which will not only put an end to our investigation, but will also give an absolutely accurate answer to many questions, if not all .
Document one.
"PROTOCOL OF INTERROGATION
1949, January 20th day, city of Gomel, BSSR.
I am the head of the MGB Department for the Gomel region. Lieutenant Colonel BATURIN, on this date interrogated as a witness the prisoner of war BREMER Hans Ludwig, born in 1918,
native of the village Brankendorf, Rostock district,
Province of Micklenburg, comes from employees,
has a high school education, graduated from a one-year school
officer school, was a member of the youth
Hitler-Jugent organization from 1934 to 1935
last military rank - chief lieutenant, last
position held - commander of the defensive
Micklenburg Provincial Headquarters Division, contained
in prisoner of war camp N: 168, Minsk.
On liability for giving false testimony under Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the BSSR warned: /SIGNATURE/.
Question: In what language do you wish to testify?
Answer: I can give my testimony freely in Russian, because I own it (write, read and talk).
Question: Tell us about your service in the German army.
Answer: I was drafted into the German army on October 17, 1936 in the 27th Infantry Regiment, where I served as a soldier until October 1937. In October, I was awarded the military rank of corporal and transferred to the position of squad commander in the 74th infantry. regiment, where he served until June 1938, where he was awarded the military rank of non-commissioned officer and sent to a one-year officer school, from which he graduated in April 1939 with the rank of lieutenant and was appointed to the post of platoon commander of the 74th infantry regiment, from where he was transferred to 487 infantry regiment to the position of platoon commander, where he served until September 1939. From September 1939 to November 1939, he attended courses in chemical defense and tactical reconnaissance. Upon completion of the course, he was appointed platoon commander of the 487th infantry. regiment and was transferred along with the regiment to the Belgian border. When the German army began hostilities against France, I commanded a tactical reconnaissance platoon at the 267th Infantry Division, where I was stationed until July 1940. In July 1940, I was appointed to the position of regimental officer, department “1-C”; I worked in this position until March 1941. Working as an officer in the “1-C” department of the regiment, I was engaged in intelligence work among the local population through persons entrusted to me, who were given to me by the “1-C” department of the division and the local commandant’s office, and in addition through persons who wanted to help the Germans, but without formalizing recruitment. From France, our division was transferred to the Russian-Polish border, to the area southwest of the mountains. Brest, where he was appointed commander of the 487th infantry anti-tank company. shelf. In this position, I fought with the Soviet Union from 22/VI-1941 to 3/VII-1942, and from July to August 1942 I was treated in the hospital. Upon recovery, I was appointed instructor of the Georgian Legion, which was formed in Poland, near the city of Radom. From January 1945 to the day of Germany's surrender, he served at the headquarters of the local defense of the province of Micklenburg, where he was captured by Soviet troops.
Question: In what direction did you participate in the battles against the Soviet Union?
Answer: From the first days of the war, i.e. from 22/VI-1941 to 3/VII-1942 I participated in the offensive battles of the German army on the central front as commander of an anti-tank company and moved through the following settlements: Malorita, Kobrin, Slutsk, Bobruisk, Rogachev, Zhlobin , Streshin, Skepnya, again Zhlobin, Rogachev, Krichev, Roslavl, Dorogobuzh, Vyazma, Gzhatsk, Mozhaisk, west. Zvenigorod and back again to Gzhatsk.
Question: Tell us in detail about the military operations in the area of ​​the town of Streshin.
Answer: On August 13, 1941, German troops were in the area of ​​the cities of Rogachev, Zhlobin and the town of Streshin, preparing an operation to encircle and liquidate a group of Soviet troops in this area - the 63rd Rifle Corps. To completely encircle the Soviet troops in this area, German troops launched an offensive with the 467th and 487th infantry regiments towards the places. Streshin and der Zaton, at this time the Dnieper River was crossed and the settlements Skepnya and Pirevichi were occupied, united with the 20th Panzer Division. Thus, in the area of ​​Rogachev, Zhlobin, Streshin, Skepnya and Pirevichi, the 63rd Rifle Corps of the Soviet troops was surrounded by German troops, but the German command did not dare to completely liquidate it, because the strength, weapons and intentions of the enemy were not known, in addition, north of Streshin, in the adjacent forests the strong work of engines could be heard, we believed that there were large tank forces there that could launch a counterattack, break through the encirclement line in the direction of Gomel, and ours the forces in this place were weak. At this time, I participated in this operation as the commander of an anti-tank fighter company. Headquarters 487 Inf. a regiment of German troops was located on the outskirts of the village. Skepnya, on the northern side of the village. The encirclement of Soviet troops in the area I indicated above was completed on August 14, 1941, in the evening.
To eliminate the grouping of Soviet troops I mentioned above and make a decision on this issue. The command of the German army took military reconnaissance measures on the night of August 14-15 and on the morning of August 15, but no information about the encircled group was received. Having no information about the encircled group, the commander of the 487th infantry. regiment Colonel Hoecker, by order of the beginning. headquarters 267 infantry. division of Lieutenant Colonel Von Troth on August 15, 1941, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, convened a meeting of the regiment's commanding staff for the purpose of exchanging views on the situation of the encircled group. Present at this meeting were: regiment commander Colonel Hoecker, chief. Infantry Division Headquarters Lieutenant Colonel Von-Troth, head. Department "1-C" Captain Benke, adjutant to the regiment commander Art. Lieutenant Deigner, translator of the Sonder-Führer Oswald regiment, officer of the 1-C department of the regiment, Lieutenant Heinck and J.
At this meeting the beginning. Division headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Von Trotha, said that we knew nothing about the position of the encircled group, military reconnaissance had given nothing and set the task, at any cost, to carry out reconnaissance in the forests in the area north of the village. Skepnya. The regiment's translator, Oswald, suggested resorting to using the local population for this purpose. Beginning Division headquarters Von Trotha approved this event, but at the same time expressed his doubts about the possibility of finding such a person who could agree and conduct reconnaissance in the encircled group of Soviet troops, especially since this had to be done quickly. Oswald reported that he had a local person in mind, a man, approximately 48-50 years old, who is friendly and loyal to the German army, happy with its arrival, he lives on the edge of the village. Skepnya, on the north side, building 3, where our radio station is located, that he had already talked with him several times, during the conversation he expressed anti-Soviet sentiments to him. After listening to this, the beginning. Division headquarters Von Trotha ordered Oswald to invite this citizen to a meeting, he did so. When this citizen came to the meeting, then com. regiment, Colonel Hoecker, through an interpreter, Oswald told this citizen that the German command needed to have information about what was and was happening in the forest, which is located north of the village. Skepnya. This citizen, unknown to me, at first did not agree to carry out this for fear that the Russians would find out about this and shoot him. When com. regiment, Colonel Hoecker again, through an interpreter, Oswald conveyed to him that no one could suspect him of this and that if he completed the task assigned to him well, his German command would reward him for this. After that, this citizen agreed to complete this task and began. division headquarters Von-Troth from the beginning. Division "1-C" of the division, Captain Benke, through interpreter Oswald, gave this citizen the following assignment: to go to the forest area, which is located north of the village. Skepnya and find out the number of Soviet troops, their weapons, how many tanks and motorized columns there are, and what is their intention to get out of the encirclement. The man, unknown to me, whom Oswald brought, mastered this task and at about 5-6 pm he left to carry it out. How he completed this task was not known to me until the morning of 16/VIII-41. On 16/VIII-41, the regimental commander, Colonel Hoecker, again convened a meeting of the above-mentioned persons, but without the presence of the commander. Infantry Division Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Von Trotha and told us the result of reconnaissance of the area where this man was sent, he explained to us that in the encircled group of Soviet troops there was a lot of artillery, convoys, several tanks and that in a day they intended to break through the encirclement in the direction of Gomel , and for this purpose a large amount of manpower and equipment is concentrated in a small area. These data, as the regiment commander said, were transferred by him to the division headquarters, and added that for reinforcements at the expected breakthrough site, i.e. The 192nd Infantry Division will arrive at our sector of the front for reinforcements. He warned us to take all measures to better observe the behavior of the surrounded group and prepare the soldiers for a surprise battle.
At approximately 3 o'clock on 17/VIII-41, the encircled group of Soviet troops began military operations to break through the German defense line on a small section of the front, in the direction of the city of Gomel. In this battle, Soviet troops broke through the German defense line and approached the village of Skepnya from the north, where by this time the 192nd Infantry Division had arrived for reinforcements, which pushed the Soviet troops back, and at that time, as I later learned, German troops from three sides, i.e., from the southern and northern sides of Rogachev and from the eastern side of Zhlobin, began offensive, to narrow the encirclement ring, and the 192 and 267 infantry divisions, located on the northern side of the village. Skepnya, held only the defense and did not allow the encircled group of Soviet troops to break through.
Thus, in this operation, the encircled group of Soviet troops was eliminated at approximately 11 o'clock on the day of 17/VIII-41. There were many soldiers and officers killed and captured, all the equipment was left as trophies, but a small part of the soldiers and officers had to break through and escape the encirclement. I cannot say about the magnitude of losses on the part of the encircled group of Soviet troops, I only remember that in the sector of our regiment, 2 thousand soldiers and officers and up to 500 people were captured. was killed. During the liquidation of the encircled group of Soviet troops I indicated above, the chief of staff of the 63rd Rifle Corps, Colonel Faigin, was captured, who told us during his interview that the corps commander, Lieutenant General Perovsky, decided to break out of the encirclement in the direction of Gomel, and for this in this direction, the necessary forces for a breakthrough were concentrated on a small section of the encirclement line and an offensive was launched.
Consequently, the intelligence data brought by a citizen unknown to me, whom the German command sent on 15/VIII-41, was confirmed by the captured early. headquarters of the 63rd Corps by Colonel Faigin. After the battle, a soldier of my company, Schindekutte, reported to me that he and another soldier went to look for a captured passenger car on the outskirts of the forest, north of the village. Skepnya found a good passenger car, under which a Russian serviceman was lying, the soldiers ordered him to surrender, but without answering, he fired a pistol and killed one soldier with one of the shots, and the remaining soldier Schindekutte also began to shoot at this serviceman and killed him. This soldier took the car and the serviceman's overcoat, came to me and reported this. Seeing the insignia of the highest command staff of the Soviet Army on the overcoat, I took the overcoat, brought it to the regimental headquarters and reported this to Colonel Hoeker, who, based on the insignia, was convinced that this was the overcoat of the highest command staff and ordered me to deliver this soldier to him and he us in a car took him to the place where a Soviet army soldier was killed. We, i.e. I, Colonel Hoecker, Captain Behnke and Lieutenant Deigner, actually discovered the lying corpse of a murdered man with the same insignia on his tunic as on his overcoat; Captain Benke found a small red book in the pocket of his tunic, which turned out to be an identity card, containing his photograph. and the inscription - Lieutenant General Petrovsky, and a map and some orders were found in the field bag. The regiment commander, Colonel Hoecker, ordered the corpse to be buried in the same place and an inscription to be made above the grave that Lieutenant General Petrovsky was buried here, and this was done. When we arrived at the regimental headquarters and turned to the captured Colonel Faigin and showed him his identity card, he confirmed that it was indeed the commander of the 63rd Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General Petrovsky.
Question: What reward did this citizen receive from the German command for completing the task?
Answer: As I was told later by the officer of the “1-C” department of the regiment, Lieutenant Heinck, that this citizen, who went on reconnaissance in the area of ​​​​operation of the Soviet troops, was given a monetary reward, food and vodka, but in what quantity, he told me about it did not say, but said that this citizen was given a document stating that he had provided great assistance to the German command, to be presented, if necessary, to representatives of the German authorities, in order to receive the corresponding privilege.
Question: Can you find and identify this citizen?
Answer: Based on the signs I showed, I can find his place of residence; he lives in the third house from the edge in the village. Skepnya, from the north side, where our radio station stood, I can also recognize him by sight.
/SIGNATURE/.
The protocol from my words was written down correctly and was read by me personally, to which I sign. /SIGNATURE/.
Interrogated by: Head of the MGB Department
in Gomel region - Lieutenant Colonel (Baturin).

AND ON THE RAILWAY ST. ZHLOBIN - (KUZNETSOV) ".
On March 31, 1949, Bremer was again summoned for questioning, where he was additionally asked several more questions.
Document two.
"PROTOCOL OF INTERROGATION
Witness of the prisoner of war Bremer Hans Ludwig
Additional - March 31, 1949.
On liability for giving false testimony under Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the BSSR
warned: /SIGNATURE/.
Question: During interrogation on January 20, 1949, you testified that your soldier of your company showed Petrovsky’s corpse at the site of the battle with Soviet troops. Find out now how it happened.
Answer: When on August 17, 1941, in the area of ​​the village. When the battle between Soviet and German troops ended, my 43rd and 14th anti-tank fighter companies, of which I was the commander of the 487th German infantry regiment, I sent two soldiers to the battlefield to search for the vehicle. One of the soldiers I sent drove a passenger car into the village and brought with him an overcoat, telling me that it was the overcoat of a high Soviet officer. One of these two soldiers did not return, he was killed, on this issue I have already given evidence. When this soldier showed me the overcoat, I took it and went to the commander of the 487th Infantry Regiment, Colonel Hacker. The regiment commander ordered this soldier of mine to show where the corpse of this man from whom he brought the overcoat was located. Moreover, we first looked at the differences between officers of the Soviet Army in the reference book. This reference book is available at the regimental headquarters, from which we determined that the overcoat belongs to the Lieutenant General. Colonel Hacker, the officer of the “1-C” department of the regiment, Lieutenant Heinck, I and a soldier of my company, who brought a car and an overcoat, went to the place of the corpse.
Question: Where did you go and where was the body found?
Answer: From the village. Skepnya, on the northern side of it, from the extreme house where the regiment headquarters was located, we drove along the Skepnya - Rudenka road. The soldier of my company, who was traveling with us, led us to the place where he took a passenger car and an overcoat, which I showed above. The corpse of a killed Soviet officer was shown to us by a soldier of my company on the Skepnya - Rudenka road, as far as I remember now, 2.5 kilometers from the village. Skepnya not far from the road on the right side, village. Rudenka was at a closer distance than Skepnya from the corpse. When we approached the corpse, in the pocket of the tunic we found an identification card, according to which we established that this dead man was Lieutenant General Petrovsky, commander of the 63rd Rifle Corps of the Soviet Forces. I have already shown this in detail. The commander of the 487th German Infantry Regiment, Colonel Hacker, ordered Petrovsky’s corpse to be buried separately, to put up a cross and on the cross to make an inscription in Latin letters “Lieutenant General Petrovsky”. Colonel Hacker gave precise instructions on this issue to the officer of the 1st “C” regiment, Lieutenant Heinck. After that, we returned from Petrovsky’s corpse back to the regimental headquarters in the village. Skepnya. Later, from conversations with Lieutenant Heinck, I knew that he sent soldiers from the regimental headquarters for Petrovsky’s funeral. And that they buried him as the regiment commander ordered. Personally, I have not seen Petrovsky’s grave.
The protocol from my words was written down correctly and read to me.
Painting.
Interrogated: Head of the UMGB department - lieutenant colonel
(Shmidokin).
Art. Opera. UMGB - Art. l-nt
(Makhov).
Correct: HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE UKGB AT THE CM OF THE BSSR
AROUND THE GOMEL REGION AROUND THE CITY
AND ON THE RAILWAY ST. ZHLOBIN - (KUZNETSOV).”
Another interesting document has survived.
Document three.
"PROTOCOL OF INTERROGATION
1949, March, 30 days.
I, Art. oper. Upol. UMGB - Gom. Region Art. Deutenant Makhov interrogated Saveliy Afanasyevich NOVIKOV, born in 1882, a native of the village, as a witness. Rudenka, Zhlobin district, Gomel region, from middle peasants, Belarusian, unemployed, illiterate, lives at his place of birth, works on a collective farm as an ordinary collective farmer.
On liability for giving false testimony under Art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the BSSR, warned.
Question: Where did you live and what did you do during the Patriotic War?
Answer: During the Patriotic War, I lived in the village. Rudenka, Zhlobin district, Gomel region, worked on his agriculture.
Question: What do you know about the defeat of Soviet troops by the Germans in August 1941 in the area of ​​your village. Rudenka?
Answer: In August 1941, around the 16th-17th, there were strong battles between Soviet and German units in the area of ​​our village. Rudenka, where Soviet troops were subsequently surrounded, some of them were killed, and some were captured by the Germans.
Question: Who commanded the Soviet unit that was defeated by the Germans in the area of ​​the village. Rudenka?
Answer: At that time I personally did not know who commanded the Soviet unit that the Germans defeated, but later through the village residents, from whom I don’t remember exactly, I learned that the commander of the Soviet unit that the Germans defeated was General Petrovsky, who was killed and buried by the Germans in the southern side of the village. Rudenka, on the left side of the highway, about a kilometer away.
Question: By whom and under what circumstances was Petrovsky’s grave opened?
Answer: In June 1944, to our village. Rudenka, a truck arrived with five members of the Soviet command on it, who asked where Petrovsky’s grave was. I, Pavel Vlasovich Bykov and Stepan Ignatovich Melnikov (now deceased) went with them to the grave site, where they offered us to dig up the grave, which we did. A corpse was removed from the grave, which was identified by representatives of the Soviet command and a medical expert commission, for which a corresponding report was drawn up. After which this corpse of Petrovsky was transported by car to the village. Staraya Rudnya, where he was buried and a monument was made to him.
Question: Relatives of General Petrovsky came to see you in the village. Rudenka?
Answer: About a week after we dug up Petrovsky’s corpse, we came to our village. Rudenka and Petrovsky’s father, mother and sister came to me personally and asked how Petrovsky was killed; in conversations I told them that I didn’t know how he was killed, but I dug him out of the grave, after which they left to a place unknown to me.
Question: How was Petrovsky’s grave decorated after his funeral by the Germans?
Answer: Petrovsky’s grave was placed on a small embankment on the surface of the ground; a board cross with the German inscription “General Petrovsky” was placed, but this cross was torn down by someone by the time of the excavation.
The protocol from my words was recorded correctly and read to me personally.
Painting.
Interrogated by: Art. Opera. Complete UMGB - G.O.
Art. Lieutenant (Makhov).
Correct: HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE UKGB AT THE CM OF THE BSSR
AROUND THE GOMEL REGION AROUND THE CITY AND ON
Zh.D. ST. ZHLOBIN - (KUZNETSOV).”
There is nothing to comment on, as they say in such cases. The people who gave these testimonies many years ago told the honest truth, without embellishing or changing anything: there was no point in lying to them.
Now that everything has fallen into place, not to mention some of the subtleties that are not able to change anything significantly, we will take the liberty and try to summarize all the material concerning the death and burial of the commander of the 63rd Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General Petrovsky Leonid Grigorievich, to recreate the picture of the last day of his life.
So, at three o’clock in the morning on August 17, 1941, the 63rd Rifle Corps launched a breakthrough, delivering the main blow in the direction of Gubichi, Rechitsa, with the aim of connecting with the main forces of the army, which were fighting at that time in the Gomel area.
The hull is a strong word, but rather it should be said - the remains of parts of the hull. Losses during previous battles, and especially during the crossing to the left bank of the Dnieper, were very large. This is evidenced by both the documents of the 21st Army and the documents of Army Group Center. A large number of Red Army soldiers and commanders were captured during previous hostilities. According to the enemy, during the fighting in the Gomel direction from July 10 to July 20, 1941, they captured 54,000 people, captured 144 tanks and 548 guns.
We should not forget that by this time the 63rd Rifle Corps had already been fighting for several days as part of two divisions - the 61st and 154th Infantry Divisions.
By this time, the enemy had surrounded Petrovsky’s corps with a rather dense ring, and besides, the terrain in which our units had to make a breakthrough made any maneuver significantly difficult, even despite the fact that it was summer and the weather was warm, dry , which made it possible to use all forest roads and paths for advancement.
The units of the 467th and 487th Infantry Regiments of the 267th Infantry Division, occupying the defensive position on the inner rim of the encirclement, using the terrain wisely, blocked almost all exits from the concentration area in the southern and southeastern direction. While simultaneously conducting active offensive operations in the direction of Gomel, the enemy was still unable to allocate sufficient forces and means to destroy the encircled group. True, after the German command received more accurate information about the composition of the encircled group and the possible direction of its actions, although it was already easy to guess, units of the 192nd Infantry Division were additionally brought into this area. However, all the same, the forces and means were clearly not enough to tightly block all the paths and roads, which subsequently allowed some of the soldiers and commanders of the 154th and 61st Infantry Division of the 63rd Corps, including the general, to break out of the encirclement -Major Ya.S. Fokanov.
Units of the 134th Infantry were fighting on the outer rim of the encirclement.
General L.G. Petrovsky emerged from encirclement in the same group together with the chief of staff of the corps, Colonel A.L. Feigin, military commissar of the corps, brigade commissar Ya.I. Pavlov, chief of artillery, Major General A.F. Kazakov, adjutant to the corps commander, Lieutenant V.I. Kolesov, commander of the 154th Infantry Division, Major General Ya.S. Fokanov. This group also included commanders and Red Army soldiers of the corps headquarters units and the 154th Infantry Division. The 473rd rifle division of the 154th division was supposed to operate ahead of them.
Directly in the area where the corps headquarters and units of the 154th Infantry Division were supposed to break out of encirclement, the defense was held by units of the 487th Infantry Division of the 267th Infantry Division, whose headquarters were located in the village of Skepnya.
The enemy was ready to repel the advance of our units. Not the least role in this was played by information that was reported to the command of the 487th Infantry Regiment by one of the local residents, whom he sent to the area where units of the 63rd Rifle Corps were located. This resident, on the night of August 15-16, 1941, unhinderedly penetrated the location of our units, and was able not only to identify the probable composition of the encircled group, but even to find out the intentions of the corps command regarding the direction and time of the start of the breakout from the encirclement.
By the way, speaking about this fact, you begin to think that, probably, the military special officers during the war were right after all, suspecting every one of our compatriots who was in the occupied territory of having connections with the enemy. Of course, suspecting everyone is too much, but the fact of the lack of vigilance on the part of the personnel of the encircled group of the 63rd Rifle Corps, especially its commanders and employees of the NKVD department, is obvious. How could an agent sent by the enemy freely penetrate into the area of ​​our troops, wander all night through the forest occupied by our encircled units, collect data on their composition, and then freely return back and report to the command of the 487th Infantry Division the results of what he saw? How many human lives does this scoundrel account for? But had our Red Army soldiers and commanders shown the necessary vigilance, the situation would have developed differently.
After all, it was precisely after he reported to the headquarters of the 267th Infantry Division the information he had collected on the intended breakthrough site for the corps units, i.e. Several units of the 192nd Infantry Division were sent to the Staraya Rudnya area, Khalch station, Chetvernya, Skepnya for reinforcement, and the units of the 487th Infantry Division defending here were put on full alert.
So what to say that the enemy was taken by surprise, as G.P. writes about it. Kuleshov, it’s simply not necessary. On the contrary, as soon as our units began to advance, German artillery opened heavy fire. From the very first minutes, the battle took on a bloody character and the fact that our units managed to break through the enemy barrier near the village of Chetvernya testifies not to the weakness of the German defense, but to the heroism of our soldiers who fought against the German occupiers without sparing their lives. This is now evidenced by the mass grave located in this locality, in which more than two hundred commanders and Red Army soldiers of the 63rd Rifle Corps who died in battle on that August day in 1941 are buried.
When a fierce battle broke out at Chetvernya, General Petrovsky, apparently, decided with his group to attempt a breakout from the encirclement, acting in the direction of the village of Skepnya.
The descriptions of the battle during the breakthrough from encirclement by both General Fokanov and Colonel Kuleshov differ greatly from each other, but they have one thing in common - they clearly do not correspond to what happened. Fokanov, contradicting himself, writes:
“Having broken through the first line of defense near the village of Skepnya, 20 km southeast of Zhlobin, we came across the second line of defense of the Nazis. Here the adjutant of the corps commander was killed in battle, and Petrovsky himself was wounded in the arm. Having assigned me the task of attacking the village of Skepnya, Petrovsky with his reserve went north of the village of Skepnya to secure the flank of the attackers. This was our last conversation with him."
It’s not clear - having broken through the first line of defense at Skepnya, Fokanov receives the task of attacking the village of Skepnya. It seems as if the village is surrounded by defense lines, like Berlin in 1945. Although it is well known that the enemy defended along the northern and northeastern outskirts of the village, using only one trench for defense. This means that the enemy’s defenses simply were not broken through in this place.
But it definitely turns out that General Fokanov at this point parted ways with the corps commander, General L.G. Petrovsky, who, according to him, went with his group north of the village of Skepni. This is quite likely because it was in this area, 3 km northeast of Skepnya, that General Petrovsky died.
True, General Fokanov again does not link the further description of his actions with either the situation or the terrain. He writes that two hours after breaking through the enemy’s second line of defense at Skepni, 2 km northeast of this village he met Major General A.F., wounded in the stomach. Kazakova. Who told him that Petrovsky and his chief of staff, Colonel A.L. Feigin was killed near Skepny by an enemy ambush hidden in the bushes, and some of the German soldiers were dressed in Red Army uniforms, and some in women's dresses.
But why does Y.S. Fokanov needed to go with his group in a completely different direction, to the northeast, if his course, after breaking through the enemy defenses in the Skepni area, lay south to Gubich, as ordered by the corps commander?
The most important thing is that the fact of who invented the fact that Petrovsky and his chief of staff, Colonel Feigin, were killed near Skepny by an enemy ambush, some of whom were dressed in a Red Army uniform, and some in a woman’s dress, remained unclear - Kazakov or Fokanov. And why was there a need to talk about a masquerade with the enemy dressing up? It seems that it is not our units that are leaving the encirclement, but the German ones, masquerading as local residents.
Also implausible is the story of General Fokanov about the search for General Petrovsky and Colonel Feigin. As if he was not surrounded by the enemy, but was playing “Zarnitsa”: “he sent two reconnaissance groups in the direction indicated by Major General Kazakov. Both groups returned with the same information, confirming Major General Kazakov’s report about the enemy’s ambush, but they did not find any corpses.”
All this is extremely implausible. Either they say that it was impossible to break through the enemy’s defenses, or they “walk” back and forth in the area occupied by the enemy without any visible problems or danger to life. In addition, the chief of staff of the corps, Colonel A.L. Feigin, as you know, not only did not die during the breakthrough, but was not even wounded, but was captured by the enemy. How this happened is also not clear.
Apparently, while moving in a northeastern direction along the Skepnya - Rudenka road, Petrovsky’s group was forced to take the fight, and then found itself scattered by enemy infantry fire. Only this can justify the fact that at the time Petrovsky was discovered by two German soldiers, he was alone, and there were only a few cartridges left in his pistol.
By the way, the head of the political department of the 63rd Regimental Commissar N.F. Voronov, who was emerging from encirclement as part of the 510th Infantry Division of the 154th Infantry Division, did not remember any enemy soldiers dressed in peasant clothes. Although his story, starting from the death of General Kazakov, ending with the death of General Petrovsky, is absolutely not true, but is more like fiction:
“Dirty green uniforms flashed between the trees. A shootout ensued between staff officers and the Nazis. A machine gun burst knocked to the ground the chief of artillery of the corps, Major General Kazakov. At the very last moment, Lieutenant Kolesov managed to block Leonid Grigorievich with his body and was wounded. Petrovsky raised his subordinates to attack. This was his last fight. Struck by an enemy bullet, he fell -
Lieutenant Kolesov rushed to him. He quickly bandaged the general, gathering his last strength, dripping with blood, he put him on his shoulders and carried him to a safe place.”
There are a lot of stories that General Petrovsky was wounded during the breakthrough period, as well as, by the way, stories that his wounded (or even killed) was carried for several kilometers in the arms of soldiers and commanders alternately. But all these testimonies are based, as a rule, on someone else's stories. Some indicate that he was wounded in the arm. Member of the Military Council of the Western Front P.K. Ponomarenko said that Petrovsky was wounded in the stomach and died from this wound. General Kazakov allegedly said that Petrovsky was wounded twice, the second time seriously, but did not say where.
P. Khotko, who at that time was the commissioner of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus in the Zhlobin region, wrote in his letter to Georgy Petrovich Kuleshov: “The eyewitness commander told me that Petrovsky was wounded in the stomach. The Red Army soldiers carried him in their arms. The general suffered greatly."
But this is all, most likely a heroic epic that had nothing to do with reality. The medical examination carried out during the exhumation of the remains of Lieutenant General Petrovsky in June 1944 could not answer the question: “Was General Petrovsky injured?” due to the length of time the remains were in the ground. No obvious traces of injury were found on the corpse.
According to the testimony of former German officer Hans Bremer, commander of the anti-tank company of the 487th Infantry Division, the battle in the Skepny area ended at about 11 o'clock in the afternoon, and his soldiers went in search of a passenger car a few hours later. This means that Petrovsky was either hiding under the car all this time, waiting for night, or accidentally happened to be near it at the moment when two German soldiers came out to it, and was forced to hide under the car.
Speaking of the car. How could a light command vehicle end up in this area? As of August 1, 1941, there were quite a few passenger cars in the units and formations of the 63rd Rifle Corps, or rather, as many as 50 units. Of course, by August 17, their number had noticeably decreased. Alternatively, we can assume that it was Petrovsky’s car.
But where is the driver then and why was General Petrovsky alone at that moment? A very interesting question, but he couldn’t have survived alone after that battle, even taking into account that his adjutant, Lieutenant V.I., was killed in the last battle. Kolesov. And under what circumstances was Colonel A.L. captured? Feigin? And how was General Kazakov, wounded in the stomach, able to get further than he did?
It's all somehow strange. It is not at all necessary that Petrovsky at the first stage left the encirclement on foot. It could also be that at first he and his deputies moved out in an armored vehicle or even in a passenger car. After all, according to the recollections of the same women from the 22nd medical battalion of the 61st rifle division, during the breakout from the encirclement there were quite a lot of different cars, and in order to drive faster, they had to choose roads where there were fewer of them.
There is nothing reprehensible here. The situation allowed, it was necessary to save people, equipment, armored vehicles, and cars as well. At least, after all, the political department of the 61st Infantry Division left the encirclement in a car. And not only the political department. According to available archival data, several dozen vehicles belonging to different units of the 63rd Infantry Division managed to break out of the encirclement.
You should not think that encirclement means the enemy is sitting behind every bush, and is waiting for those surrounded to make a breakthrough in this very place. This is a battle and it has its own laws: somewhere it’s thick, and somewhere it’s empty. Here who will outwit whom. It was also not easy for the enemy - it was necessary to liquidate the encircled group and continue the attack on Gomel. What about cars? Near Kharkov in May 1942, even several tanks broke through from encirclement, and the enemy had assembled much larger forces there; aviation literally hovered over our encircled units for days on end.
One way or another, after the battle northeast of Skepni, General Petrovsky’s group was scattered by the enemy. Chief of Staff of the Corps Colonel A.L. Feigin was captured; the chief of the corps artillery, Major General Kazakov, who was wounded in the stomach, was able to, as did General L.G. Petrovsky somehow escape from the enemy. By the way, it is possible that Kazakov received a wound in the stomach precisely at the moment when he had already managed to break away from the enemy, or even a little later. Only this can explain the fact that he managed to break through the enemy barrier north of Skepnya and accidentally reach a group of soldiers and commanders of the 154th Infantry Division led by General Fokanov.
As you can see, the day found General L.G. Petrovsky northeast of Skepnya, or more precisely on the side of the Skepnya - Rudenka road, 1 km south of the village of Rudenka, where he was accidentally discovered by German soldiers. Leonid Grigorievich, realizing that he, a Soviet general and the son of one of the leaders of the Soviet state (even a former one), could not be captured alive, took his last battle. Apparently, there were very few cartridges in the pistol’s clip, apparently two or three. Having killed one of the German soldiers in a shootout, Petrovsky, when the last cartridge remained, decided to shoot the last bullet into his temple. This is evidenced by the protocol of the medical expert commission, which, during the exhumation of Petrovsky’s body in August 1944, discovered a large star-shaped wound on Leonid Grigorievich’s left temple.
Approaching the deceased Soviet commander, the German soldier was surprised to find that he was wearing an overcoat with special insignia that he had never seen before. Soldier Schindekutte took off L.G.'s overcoat. Petrovsky, started the car, which was in perfect working order, and decided to report what had happened to his commander.
Having driven the car to Skepnya, near which General L.G. was killed. Petrovsky, Private Schindekutte reported to the commander of the anti-tank company of the 487th infantry regiment, Lieutenant G.L. Bremer about what had happened, and showed him the general's overcoat, which he had brought with him.
Seeing the insignia of the senior command staff of the Red Army on the overcoat, G.L. Bremer took the overcoat and took it to regimental headquarters, reporting everything to the regimental commander, Colonel Hoecker. Having checked the insignia on the overcoat with the directory of insignia of the command staff of the Red Army, Colonel Hoecker was convinced that this was the overcoat of the highest command staff and ordered Lieutenant Bremer to deliver the soldier Schindekutte to him.
After a short conversation with him, Colonel Hoecker, Captain Behnke, Chief Lieutenant Bremer, Lieutenant Deigner and Private Schindekutte drove in the regiment commander's car to the place where, according to the latter, the Soviet general was killed. 2.5 km from Skepnya on the right side of the Skepnya - Rudenka road, 1 km south of the village of Rudenka, they saw the corpse of a serviceman with the same insignia on his tunic as on his overcoat.
During the search, Captain Benke found in the pocket of the dead man’s tunic a small red book, which turned out to be an identity card, with a photo card glued to it and the inscription “Lieutenant General Petrovsky Leonid Grigorievich” written on it. A map and some orders were found in his field bag.
The regiment commander, Colonel Hoecker, ordered the corpse to be buried in the same place and an inscription to be made above the grave that Lieutenant General Petrovsky was buried here. He did not look into the circumstances of the death of the commander of the 63rd Rifle Corps, although it could be easily determined that Petrovsky was not killed by a German soldier, but shot himself in the right temple, as clearly evidenced by a very large wound on the left side of Leonid Grigorievich’s face.
Returning to the headquarters at the regimental headquarters, where the chief of staff of the corps, Colonel A.L., was under guard, captured in the first half of the day. Feigin, he was shown the identity card found on the murdered person. Colonel Feigin confirmed that these documents indeed belong to the commander of the 63rd Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky.
By order of the commander of the 487th Regiment, Colonel Hoecker, the corpse of General Petrovsky was buried by German soldiers under the command of the officer of the 1st "C" regiment, Lieutenant Heinck, near the place where he died. Somewhat later, a wooden cross was installed on his grave, on which the inscription was made in Latin:
"HENERAL-LEITENANT PETROVSKIJ".
The version that at the grave of L.G. Petrovsky, a cross was installed with the inscription “Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky - commander of the black corps” was apparently born after the war due to a lack of information and to give a certain myth to the 63rd Rifle Corps, which the enemy was supposedly very afraid of.
This myth quickly spread across various print publications. Even the famous historian R.S. Irinarkhov, who always differs from the numerous writing brethren in the truthfulness and accuracy of the events described, did not avoid this, writing in his book “Western Special”, excellent in content, literally the following:
“Local residents buried the body of Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky, a kilometer south of the village of Rudenko. When the Germans occupied the village, they placed a cross on the grave of the brave general who had so annoyed them with the inscription “Lieutenant General Petrovsky, commander of the black corps.”
However, there was nothing of the kind. According to the stories of witnesses of those events, the 63rd sk was sometimes called “black” by the enemy, but this name took place, first of all, due to the fact that a significant part of the Red Army soldiers were from Central Asia. And the corps commander himself was dark and black-haired: remember how the chief of staff of the 437th infantry regiment B.G. described his appearance. Weintraub, during a meeting with him on August 15, 1941.
And Georgy Petrovich Kuleshov, who first saw General L.G. Petrovsky at the end of June 1941 described his appearance as follows:
“I had never seen him before. At first impression he seemed to me to be a Georgian, although I knew well that he was Ukrainian. A dark, slender man of about forty. Dark thick hair. A small, short-cropped mustache. The impression of extraordinary physical health.”
But this is not so important - who, what they looked like, who, what their name was. So to speak, in the form of a lyrical digression and in order to dot all the i’s.
When our troops liberated the outskirts of Zhlobin at the beginning of June 1944 and discovered the grave of the commander of the 63rd infantry regiment, Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky, there was no cross on it. According to local residents, the cross disappeared literally a few days before our troops arrived.
Chapter 15.
FOREVER IN PEOPLE'S MEMORY
On February 21-26, 1944, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front carried out the Rogachev-Zhlobin offensive operation, which resulted in the liberation of the 3rd Army by units and formations under the command of Lieutenant General A.V. Gorbatov with the support of pilots of the 16th Air Army Lieutenant General S.I. Rudenko of the city of Rogachev. However, Zhlobin was not captured. Hiding behind the Dnieper River, the enemy held the city in his hands, even despite the fact that our aviation constantly launched massive air strikes on its positions. The only thing that the units of the 48th Army of Colonel General P.L. managed to do. Romanenko, advancing in the Zhlobin direction, was to liberate the left bank part of the Zhlobin region from the enemy by the beginning of June.
At first, Commander-48 did not know that twenty kilometers southeast of Zhlobin, in the combat zone of the 42nd Rifle Corps, there was the village of RudenkaRuR, next to which General Petrovsky died in August 1941. Only when an order was received from the front headquarters to find the burial place of the commander of the 63rd infantry regiment, Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky, who died in the summer of 1941 somewhere in this area, Colonel General P.L. Romanenko remembered a young seventeen-year-old student at the military academy who interned with them in the 2nd brigade in the summer and autumn of 1919. At that time, they fought with the Mamontovites south of the city of Kalach, Voronezh region. Romanenko was the head of the intelligence unit of the headquarters, and Petrovsky came to train as the chief of staff of the brigade, and they then became fast friends. And now fate has brought them together again, but this was not the kind of meeting they dreamed of in those dashing years of their youth.
Soon the commander of the 42nd Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General S.K. Kolganov reported that the burial place of General L.G. had been discovered 1 km south of the village of Rudenka. Petrovsky, who until that time was officially considered missing.
On June 6, 1944, a special vehicle arrived in the village of Rudenka, in which, in addition to representatives of the Soviet command, there were several doctors. They had to exhume and identify the body of General Petrovsky. Local residents of the village of Rudenka S.A. Novikov, P.V. Bykov and S.I. Melnikov helped remove Petrovsky's remains from the grave. His remains were identified by people who knew Leonid Grigorievich well during his lifetime, including General V.I. Kazakov, who served before the war together with Leonid Grigorievich in the Proletarian Division.
Body of L.G. Petrovsky rested on a Red Army overcoat, and was covered with a raincoat on top. There were no insignia or orders on the summer wool commando tunic with red trim. If you remember, literally two days before his death, the chief of staff of the 437th rifle regiment of the 154th rifle division B.G. Weintraub saw L.G. Petrovsky with all the awards. It is unlikely that Leonid Grigorievich himself took off his orders and medals: he always looked smart and dashing, inspiring confidence in his subordinates with his appearance.
Insignia and awards - the Order of the Red Banner, the Red Star and the medal "XX Years of the Red Army" were missing. Apparently, they were removed from his chest during the arrival of a group of German officers to identify the corpse of General Petrovsky on the day of his death. It is possible that the awards were taken even earlier by the soldier Schindekutte, who brought the general’s overcoat to headquarters.
The commission chaired by Captain Justice F.P. Chulkova examined the corpse of General Petrovsky and stated:
“- On the skull and in the area of ​​the parietal and left temporal bones there are violations of the integrity of the cranial cap of a star-shaped shape, measuring 10 by 18 centimeters -
Due to significant tissue disintegration, other damage to the body could not be determined.”
After the examination, the remains of Lieutenant General L.G. Petrovsky were buried in the same grave. The results of the work were reported to the Personnel Directorate of the Red Army, from where a day later permission was received to rebury the remains of General Petrovsky in the village of Staraya Rudnya, located five kilometers from Rudenka.
On June 13, 1944, his father Grigory Ivanovich, his wife Nadezhda Vasilievna with their daughter Olga and his sister Antonina, also with their daughter, arrived in Staraya Rudnya. They visited the very place where Leonid Grigorievich died. Moreover, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses, during this trip Grigory Ivanovich found a piece of his skull in the ground near the grave..."

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Reburial of the remains of soldiers of the 61st Infantry Division
in Ozerany, Rogachevsky district, Gomel region of Belarus.
February 24, 2007.