Rodimtsev, Lieutenant General of the Guards Rifle Division. "Soviet Russia"

"And without a casing
From Stalingrad apartments
Bill "Maxim"
And Rodimtsev felt the ice..."

Rodimtsev Alexander Ilyich was born on February 23 (March 8), 1905 in the Orenburg village of Sharlyk, in the family of a poor shoemaker. He was left without a father early, he had to quit school and work as a laborer for a kulak neighbor. He served in the army and was sent to the Kremlin military school. Alexander received “excellent” marks in equestrian and military disciplines, but passed exams in general education subjects with low grades. But still, he was accepted as a cadet at the United Military School named after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, this was in 1929.

Cadet Rodimtsev, taking additional classes with teachers, in a short time eliminated his gaps in general education disciplines, and began to do “excellent” in mathematics, Russian language and other subjects. Once in a machine gun platoon, he showed excellent shooting accuracy from a Maxim and emerged victorious in machine gunner competitions. Soon his name appeared on the school’s Honor Board... As an excellent student, Alexander Rodimtsev was awarded an award - he held a post at the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin.

In 1932, after graduating from military school, Rodimtsev was appointed commander of a machine gun platoon in one of the best cavalry regiments, which was stationed in Moscow. Four years of service in the cavalry regiment flew by like one day. Alexander wrote a report asking to be sent as a volunteer to Spain. Senior Lieutenant Rodimtsev A.I. became a participant in the Spanish Civil War. For almost a whole year, Rodimtsev fought bravely in a distant country, and his wife and little daughter were waiting for him at home... Under the pseudonym “Captain Pavlito” Rodimtsev helped the Republican army fighter master weapons, he was involved in the formation and training of machine gun teams for the army, and then actively participated in the defense Madrid, in the Guadalajara operation, etc. For skillful military operations he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Rodimtsev distinguished himself in the Brunet operation and near Teruel. For the exemplary performance of his international duty, Major Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

After returning from Spain, Alexander, together with other fighters of the international brigade, entered the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M.V. Frunze. After graduating from the academy in 1939, Alexander Ilyich was sent to the airborne troops. Rodimtsev took part in both the Finnish War and the liberation of Western Belarus... He met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War as the commander of the 5th Airborne Brigade in the Kiev Special Military District.

At the beginning of July 1941, the brigade of Colonel Rodimtsev A.I. received an order as part of the 3rd Airborne Corps to take up combat positions near Kiev. The brigade covered the approaches to the capital of Ukraine from Ivankov and Oster. Rodimtsev's paratroopers attacked in August '41! Five hundred, six hundred meters a day, but they kept going, moving forward! These counterattacks by paratroopers in August 1941 played an important role in the successful counterattack of our troops near Kiev, when the enemy was thrown back 15 kilometers from the capital of Ukraine and abandoned the plan to storm the city. At the beginning of September 1941, the brigade fought a defensive battle on the line of the Seim River, covering the withdrawal of Soviet units. The enemy was rushing towards Konotop.

Having saved the brigade, Rodimtsev retreated to a new line. The Kiev group of troops of the Southwestern Front found itself in an operational encirclement east of Kyiv. In the Lizogubovsky forest, the Nazis locked many of our units. The fascist command understood well that it was almost impossible to escape from this trap. Rodimtsev’s 700 paratroopers were also surrounded. Almost a month later, severely thinned units of the brigade, led by their commander, broke out of the enemy pocket.

In November 1941 Rodimtsev A.I. was appointed commander of the 87th Infantry Division of the 40th Army. For successful military operations in January 1942, his division was one of the first to receive the Guards banner, becoming the 13th Guards Rifle Division. Soon she was awarded the Order of Lenin. Rodimtsev's division took part in the Kharkov operation. The division defended for ten days in the Komissarovo - Rublennoye - Ozernoye area. Then Rodimtsev's guardsmen, as part of the 38th and 28th armies, fought stubborn defensive battles in the Voronezh, Valuysk directions and in the big bend of the Don, and again emerged from encirclement.

In July 1942, units of Major General Rodimtsev's guard division were withdrawn for replenishment near Stalingrad. 13th Guards SD Rodimtseva A.I. was transferred to the 62nd Army of V.I. Chuikov. In mid-September 1942, after a three-month stay in the rear, Rodimtsev’s division, under enemy fire, crossed the Volga to the right bank, to the torn apart Stalingrad. The Germans illuminated the river with rockets so that many forgot that it was night. A hellish whirlwind of death danced around landing barges, boats, and fishing boats. It was hard to believe that a person could survive in this leaden whirlpool. But there were no cowards among the guards. The fighting impulse was so great that many fighters, without waiting for the boat or barge to rustle on the coastal sand, jumped into the water, swam to the water and, leaving the Volga, rushed into hand-to-hand combat.

“I met Alexander Rodimtsev on September 14, 1942 in Stalingrad, on the day when the fate of the city was decided. He stayed in Stalingrad until February 2, 1943. He didn’t go to the left bank and was always one hundred to one hundred and fifty meters from the front line... And on the Volga wall, where the defense line ran, an inscription appeared: “Here Rodimtsev’s guardsmen stood to the death, having stood firm, they defeated death,” this is what Rodimtsev wrote about General Chuikov V.I.

“The division command post was set up a kilometer from the central crossing. It was a long niche dug into a sandy slope. At the entrance, the sappers built a log extension, like a village canopy, covering it with rough-hewn boards and rusty sheets of iron. Inside: both the ceiling and the walls were hastily covered with boards, through the cracks between which sandy rain rustled every now and then. In the middle of the adit they dug a long, narrow wooden table for “meetings”; in the corner there was a wide stump of a board - the workplace of the chief of staff. At the very entrance, on both sides of this half-niche, half-cave, three-tiered bunks for the headquarters workers were piled up…” (P. 153).

By order of Army Commander Chuikov, the paratroopers of the advance detachment, barely having time to enter the city, began to attack the railway station, and by the end of the day they drove the Nazis out of the station part of the city. The Nazis sent a tank landing against the defenders. Rodimtsev’s guards did not flinch and stopped the enemy with precise volleys of guns. Until the last soldier, Fedoseev’s paratroopers continued to hold the station, the battalion fought surrounded. All those who fought died here, and while they were alive, the station was not surrendered. For them, the call “For the Motherland” was not pathos. This is how they understood their duty when the Fatherland was in mortal danger.

Height 102.0, which local residents dubbed Mamayev Kurgan, was the key to the entire defense of Stalingrad. On the huge line of the division's front line, stretching from Mamayev Kurgan in the north to the mouth of the Tsarina River in the south, battles rumbled; the guards of the Panikhin and Elin regiments “pushed” the enemy away from the Volga.

Rodimtsev A.I. received an order from the army commander to take height 102.0. Dolgov's regiment began the assault on Mamayev Kurgan, although there was no artillery behind it, and the tank brigade that was supposed to support the attack did not arrive. Two battalions of the 39th Regiment went forward. A barrage of fire fell on the guardsmen - in their path there was a huge concrete pillbox, from which the fire of heavy machine guns mowed down our soldiers. The battalions lay down, and at this time the guns of Captain Bykov, located at the foot of the height, received the command to support the attackers, and were able to destroy the German pillbox with well-aimed volleys. The battalions went on the attack, this time nothing could stop them. By mid-day, Mamayev Kurgan was in our hands. But Dolgov’s regiment suffered heavy losses; it was almost impossible to maintain the height with the remaining forces. Divisional commander Rodimtsev sent reinforcements.

Of course, the German command understood perfectly well that if they dropped Rodimtsev’s division into the Volga, the city would be in their hands, and access to the powerful waterway would be open. However, the position of the division, which had just caught on to the Volga piece of the coast, remained extremely difficult - Elin’s regiment was surrounded. However, the guards not only defended themselves, but also, where possible, launched counterattacks. It was hard for the defenders of Mamayev Kurgan. Here the Fritz concentrated several infantry battalions and more than twenty tanks. Six times in just one day, the Nazis tried to knock down guard units from the heights, and each time they retreated, littering the slopes of the mound with the corpses of their soldiers and officers.

At the end of September, the first reinforcements arrived in Rodimtsev’s division - almost a thousand soldiers. The guardsmen felt better, and on the initiative of the Stalingrad city committee of the Komsomol, a volunteer detachment of about five hundred soldiers was formed, who were to join the ranks of the 13th division. These were boys - seventeen, - eighteen years old... Fierce battles broke out for the mill, the State Bank building, the Railwayman's House and other buildings. For fighting in the city, the division needed a stronghold. General Rodimtsev’s attention was attracted by a small four-story house facing the Ninth January Square. This square has long become the epicenter of the struggle between two warring sides. The buildings surrounding it served as powerful strongholds, real pillboxes. And now, when the division switched to active defense, the fight for the city center turned into a fight for every house. Sergeant Pavlov received orders to conduct reconnaissance of this house.

Pavlov and three fighters managed to gain a foothold in this building and took over the defense. Civilians were hiding in the basement of the building. Each of the scouts received a combat position, and more than one - they had to hold the defense on three sides. Pavlov’s fighters fought off attack after attack for two days, and then reinforcements arrived led by Lieutenant Afanasyev. For defense, ammunition was needed, wounded appeared in battles - constant communication with the regiment was needed. The guards began to dig a passage to the mill, and the residents of the house helped them. Five days later, the passage along which one could walk to the mill at full height was ready. By this time, telephone communication was established from battalion headquarters. Beds were installed in the basement for the soldiers and commanders to rest; everything was provided for a long and successful defense. The house kept all the adjacent streets under fire from its machine guns, from where the Nazis tried to counterattack. Moreover, there was a mill nearby where the division’s observation post was located.

One night, General Rodimtsev came to Pavlov’s house to support the guards. They, of course, knew that the division commander was not timid and did not hide in dugouts, but to go like this, to the front line, to a house whose fate had not yet been truly determined, was a very big risk. “During the year and a half of the war, many saw “their general” in action. “What a man we need,” the veterans said, “from ours.” And they immediately added that the general is kind and kind, and if anyone is worthy of lying, don’t expect mercy. He won’t scream, he won’t stomp his feet, and, God forbid, he won’t threaten him with a court martial or execution. But if you do something wrong, he will punish you strictly, without further ado.

They told how once, in the first months of the war, he found a young soldier sleeping at his post. Either he was tired from days of insomnia, or he reacted “coolly” to guard duty, but only fell asleep at his post. But the general cheated. He pulled the rifle out of the soldier’s hands, called the guard, and only after that woke up the sentry. It turned out that the soldier had indeed not slept for several days. The reason seems to be valid, but the charter is the charter. Some even suggested transferring the case to a tribunal. But the division commander judged in his own way. He ordered the soldier to be fed and watered, but not allowed to take part in the case. Not on guard duty, not on housework, and especially not for combat. A day passes, then two. The soldier is properly fed, but not allowed to do anything. The guy was exhausted. “I can’t do this,” he begged, “I look like some kind of parasite, a drone.” Only on the third day did the general give the command to allow the soldier to serve. The young fighter remembered the punishment for the rest of his life.” (p. 197).

For almost two months, the guards fought continuous battles without leaving Pavlov's House. Yes, great is the fortitude of the Russian soldier! And the enemy before them is not a simpleton. Shoed, clothed, fed, watered. And there is no need to talk about experience. It took Paulus's Sixth Army three days to take Paris. And two months were not enough for this same army to crush the garrison of one ordinary four-story House of Sergeant Pavlov... Ragged, hungry, covered in skin, the recent conquerors of France, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Poland sadly wandered under the escort of Soviet guards. Divisional Commander Rodimtsev, after a meeting held near the building where Field Marshal Paulus, commander of the inglorious Sixth Army, was captured, was driving a captured Opel Admiral to his new destination. The Battle of Stalingrad is over...

For the battles in Stalingrad, Hero of the Soviet Union General Rodimtsev was awarded the Order of the Red Star... And 28 Heroes of the Soviet Union appeared in the division. After the six-month absolute hell that Rodimtsev had to endure in Stalingrad, the division commander was called to Moscow, where he was appointed commander of the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps of the 66th Army. Rodimtsev's corps ended up in the reserve of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Since July 1943, the corps of Rodimtsev A.I. became part of the 5th Guards Army, which took part in the Battle of Kursk. German tank units were marching towards Oboyan.

Alexander Ilyich's units took up defensive positions along the Oboyan-Kursk road. Their task was to prevent a breakthrough by tanks and infantry. However, the enemy began to withdraw his main forces, Rodimtsev gave the order to attack. Two divisions of his corps liberated Tomarovka. The capture of Tomarovka meant not only the liberation of another settlement. Successful battles made it possible to encircle a huge enemy group and cut off its escape routes. Moreover, our troops isolated another no less formidable fascist group entrenched in Borisovka. The Soviet command understood that the only salvation for those surrounded was unification. To prevent them from doing this, to split them into pieces and destroy them, two guards rifle corps, commanded by generals Rodimtsev and Chistyakov, were ordered. The guardsmen completed this operation with honor.

As part of the Steppe Front, the 32nd Guards Regiment under the command of General A.I. Rodimtsev. at the end of the summer of 1943 he participated in the liberation of Poltava and Kharkov. After the battle for the Dnieper, the exhausted corps, which had suffered significant losses, retreated for a short rest and replenishment. But the rest was short; two days later, Rodimtsev’s units crossed the Dnieper south of Kremenchug and launched an offensive. The offensive was difficult. Heavy autumn rains have turned the roads into a mess. It was impossible to move along them not only with cars and tractors, but even with horses and cows, which the troops also used.

The Nazis did not expect that Soviet troops would dare to conduct offensive operations in bad weather conditions. The corps spent the entire November 1943 in heavy, grueling battles, liberating Ukrainian villages. The divisions of the corps were named Poltava and Kremenchug... Large settlements were liberated: Novo-Alexandrovka, Znamenka, and then the city of Kirovograd...

Units of the Guards Corps, commanded by Rodimtsev, encountered fierce resistance from the Nazis in the Sandomierz area. This was already in the summer of 1944 in Poland. At the Sandomierz bridgehead, the Nazis threw four tank divisions, one mechanized, and two infantry, against Rodimtsev’s corps. The corps took part in the Vistula-Oder, Lower Silesian, Berlin, and Prague operations. The battles for the Vistula bridgehead turned out to be long and extremely fierce. Starting from mid-January 1945, the corps of Lieutenant General A.I. Rodimtsev. conducted continuous offensive battles in the space from the Vistula bridgehead to the Oder River. Without giving the enemy the opportunity to gain a foothold on the intermediate lines, forcing him to hastily retreat, by the end of the month our units reached the Oder, where they began stubborn battles for the bridgehead fortifications on the eastern bank. Selected SS troops offered especially fierce resistance to the guards in the Tiergarten area.

On the night of January 25, Rodimtsev’s guards crossed the Oder River on the move and in a few days expanded the bridgehead, liberating the large cities of Brig and Olau. Throughout the entire operation, General Rodimtsev was in the advanced combat formations of the troops, skillfully commanded his units, and set a personal example of courage and composure. For skillful leadership of troops during the crossing of the Oder River in the area of Linden (Poland), personal heroism and courage on June 2, 1945, Lieutenant General A.I. Rodimtsev. was awarded a second Gold Star medal.

At the beginning of May 1945, Rodimtsev’s guardsmen reached the Elbe near the town of Torgau and met with American allied forces. Taking the city of Dresden, they saved the famous Dresden art gallery, which the Nazis had hidden in salted copies. It was they, Rodimtsev’s guardsmen, when the whole world celebrated Victory Day on May 9, who went to the rescue of the insurgent Prague... On May 12, Rodimtsev’s fighters liberated the fascist concentration camp in Terezin, where prisoners of many European countries were languishing.

After the war, until May 1946, Rodimtsev continued to command the same corps. Graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Higher Military Academy named after K.E. Voroshilov in 1947. From March 1947, he was appointed commander of the 11th Guards Rifle Corps. Since February 1951 - assistant to the commander of the East Siberian Military District. From June 1953 to July 1956 – Chief military adviser to the Albanian People's Army and military attaché of the USSR in Albania. Since November 1956 - First Deputy Commander of the Northern Military District. Since May 1960 - commander of the 1st Army in Ukraine. Since March 1966, Colonel General Rodimtsev A.I. – military consultant in the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

Alexander Ilyich was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov 2nd degree, Orders of Kutuzov 2nd degree, Orders of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 1st degree, two Orders of the Red Star, medals, as well as orders and medals of foreign countries. Rodimtsev A.I. wrote several books: “Under the skies of Spain”, “On the last frontier”, “Guardsmen stood to the death”, “People of a legendary feat”, “Mashenka from the Mousetrap”, “Your, Fatherland, Sons”.

Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev died in Moscow on April 13, 1977, and was buried with military honors at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

The article was written based on materials from the book
Matyukhin Yu.P. “Irresistible: A Documentary Tale”, M.: Sovremennik, 1985.

Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev(March 8, 1905 - April 13, 1977) - Soviet military leader, Colonel General (May 9, 1961). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1937, 1945). Commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, which particularly distinguished itself in the Battle of Stalingrad (07/17/1942 - 02/02/1943).

Biography

Born on March 8, 1905 in the village of Sharlyk (now Sharlyk district, Orenburg region) into a poor peasant family. Russian. Member of the CPSU(b)/CPSU since 1929. In the Red Army since 1927. In 1932 he graduated from the Military School named after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Participated in the Spanish Civil War.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Major Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev on October 22, 1937 for exemplary performance of a special task in Spain.

Participated in the Polish campaign of the Red Army.

In 1939 he graduated from the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze. In 1940 he took part in the Soviet-Finnish war.

During the Great Patriotic War, A.I. Rodimtsev commanded the 5th Brigade of the 3rd Airborne Corps (5th, 6th, 212th Airborne Brigade), which in 1941 took part in the defense of Kyiv. On November 6, 1941, the control of the 5th Airborne Brigade was deployed to the control of the 87th Infantry Division, created from the troops of the 3rd Airborne Brigade, which was headed by Rodimtsev. On January 19, 1942, the 87th Rifle Division was reorganized into the 13th Guards Rifle Division. Major General (May 21, 1942). The 13th Guards Rifle Division (later the 13th Poltava Order of Lenin twice Red Banner Guards Rifle Division) became part of the 62nd Army, which heroically defended Stalingrad.

Since 1943, Rodimtsev was the commander of the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps, with whom he reached the capital of Czechoslovakia - Prague. Lieutenant General (January 17, 1944).

The second Gold Star medal was awarded to the commander of the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General Rodimtsev, on June 2, 1945 for his skillful leadership of troops during the crossing of the Oder River on January 25, 1945 in the area of Linden (Poland), personal heroism and courage.

After the war, he graduated from the Higher Academic Courses at the Academy of the General Staff. He was a formation commander, assistant district commander, chief military adviser and military attaché in Albania. Since 1956 he served in the army, first deputy commander of the Northern Military District. He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Since 1966 - in the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

Honorary citizen of the cities of Volgograd, Kropyvnytskyi and Poltava. He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of the second convocation and as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the third convocation.

A. I. Rodimtsev died in Moscow on April 13, 1977. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery (section 9).

Family

Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev has been married to Ekaterina Rodimtseva (Sheina) since 1933. Ekaterina and Alexander come from the same village and were childhood friends. The couple had children:

Rodimtseva Irina Aleksandrovna (born January 2, 1934, Moscow) - director of the State Museum-Reserve "Moscow Kremlin" (1987-2001), corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts (1997), Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1989), president of the National Committee of Museums of the Russian Federation at UNESCO; in 1956 she graduated from the Faculty of History of Moscow State University; worked in the museums of the Moscow Kremlin, was the head of the Armory Chamber; in 1979-1987 - head of the Museums Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Culture; has state awards.

Matyukhina (Rodimtseva) Natalya Aleksandrovna - heads the museum of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, is engaged in preserving the memory of her father and the soldiers of the division. Lives in Moscow.

Rodimtsev Ilya Aleksandrovich is an economist by profession. Lives in Moscow.

Essays

"Under the sky of Spain."
"On the last frontier."
"People of legendary feat."
"The guards fought to the death."
Rodimtsev A.I. Yours, Fatherland, sons. Literary record of Peter Severov. - Kyiv, Politizdat of Ukraine, 1982.
"Mashenka from the Mousetrap."

1919-1924
worked as a laborer on the farm of the “kulak”;

1924-1927
an apprentice shoemaker on the farm of a “kulak”;

15.09.1927
drafted into the ranks of the Red Army;

09.1927-09.1929
Red Army soldier of the 18th Rifle Convoy Battalion, Saratov;

09.1929-03.1932
cadet, department commander of the military school named after. All-Russian Central Executive Committee, from which he graduated with excellent marks, receiving the officer rank of “lieutenant”;

03.1932-03.1933
platoon commander of the regimental school of the 6th cavalry regiment of the Moscow Military District;

11.1936-09.1937
volunteered to fight in Spain on the side of the Republican troops, squadron commander;

09.1937-01.1938
commander of the 61st cavalry regiment of the Moscow Military District;

01.1938-05.1939
student of the Military Academy named after. Frunze, Moscow;

05.1939-10.1940
assistant division commander of the Belarusian Special Forces. IN;

05.1939-10.1940
assistant commander of the 36th cavalry division of the Belarusian Special Forces. IN;

10.1940-05.1941
student of the Military Academy of Cavalry and Navigation Staff of the Red Army Air Force;

05.1941-12.1941
commander of the 5th Airborne Brigade of the Odessa Military District, Southwestern Front;

12.1941-04.1943
commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division (b/82 SD) of the South-Western, Don and Stalingrad fronts;

04.1943-03.1946
commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Corps, Steppe, 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts and the Central Group of Forces;

03.1946-01.1947
at the disposal of ground forces personnel;

03.1947-02.1951
commander of the 11th Guards Rifle Corps of the Moscow Military District;

02.1951-06.1953
assistant to the commander of the district troops for the combat unit of the East Siberian Military District, Irkutsk;

06.1953-08.1956
chief military adviser and military attaché at the USSR mission in Albania;

11.1956-05.1960
First Deputy Commander of the Northern Military District;

05.1960-09.1966
commander and member of the Army Military Council, 1st Army of the Kyiv Military District;

1960-1977
military consultant to the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense;

22.10.1937
awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union

02.06.1945
A.I. Rodimtsev was awarded the 2nd Gold Star medal for the exemplary performance of the Command’s combat missions on the front against the German invaders, and was given the title of twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev was awarded more than 40 orders and medals of the Soviet Union and other countries.

1949
a bronze bust was erected in his homeland.

April 17, 1977
buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
_____________________________

Childhood, pre-war years

In the harsh, spacious steppes of the Orenburg region, blown through by prickly winds, there is a large village of Sharlyk - a regional center on the old highway from Orenburg to Kazan. On its central square there is a bronze bust - a statue of a man in general's uniform, with two Gold Stars of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The face is detached, thoughtful, narrowed eyes seem to be peering somewhere into the distance - either into the horizon beyond the edge of the village, or into the space of past memorable days.
This is Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev - a legendary man, whose name is inseparable from the history of the Great Patriotic War, from its perhaps most grandiose battle - Stalingrad. He became the first Hero of the Soviet Union - a native of the Orenburg region, and then the first twice Hero - a native of this steppe region. And although Rodimtsev’s unfading feat and high glory are the heritage of our entire people, our Fatherland, it is quite natural that, first of all, Alexander Ilyich is the eternal pride and love of his fellow countrymen - Sharly residents, all Orenburg residents.

Study, beginning of a career

And for Alexander Rodimtsev the time to part with his native land came in 1927. He was drafted into the Red Army. Alexander Ilyich later recalled:
“In the fall of 1927, I appeared before the draft board, very much afraid that I would be rejected. I deliberately stuck out my chest in front of the doctors, tensed my muscles, tried to walk heavily and waddle: what a strength, they say, the floors are shaking under me! But the physical labor, familiar to me from childhood, the heat and cold hardened me enough, and the doctors unanimously said: I’m good.

Spanish Civil War

However, soon duty dictated a rather long break in this family idyll. This happened shortly after the word “Spain” sounded like an alarm bell in newspaper reports and radio broadcasts.

By the mid-30s of the 20th century, the black shadow of fascism was already creeping across Europe. Mussolini ruled in Italy, Adolf Hitler ruled in Germany. Realizing the terrible danger posed by misanthropic fascist ideology and politics, the progressive forces of European countries rallied and united into Popular Fronts, with the main goal of preventing pro-fascist regimes from coming to power at home.

Homecoming

In the fall of 1937, Rodimtsev left Madrid and, after a short stop in Valencia, arrived in Paris. From here he went by train to his homeland. It turned out that he had the opportunity to travel from the French capital to Moscow in the same carriage with the Soviet pilots Gromov, Danilin and Yumashev, who had shortly before made a heroic non-stop flight from the USSR to the USA. When the State border was left behind and the train rolled across Soviet soil, the glorious trinity was honored at almost every station - they organized flying rallies right on the platforms, made speeches, presented memorable gifts, and showered them with flowers. An outwardly inconspicuous man in a civilian suit, thin, tanned under the hot southern sun, watched the meeting with a smile. He was sincerely happy for the Soviet aviators and admired them. And then his thoughts returned to the Spanish land scorched by fire, to the comrades who remained there, then he thought about home, about family.

The Great Patriotic War

“A difficult situation has created in the Kiev direction. An order was received to transfer our corps near Kyiv, to the Brovary-Boryspil area. You and your paratroopers must go there on the night of July 11th.

Already while loading into cars at the Pervomaisk station, the brigade was subjected to a fierce raid by enemy aircraft. German planes bombed and strafed the trains carrying paratroopers almost the entire time they were en route to their destination. Station buildings, houses in towns and villages, grain fields, and steppe grasses were burning. The first killed and wounded appeared in the brigade units. The railway junctions were filled with refugees - mostly women, children, and old people.

Stalingrad

On July 12, 1942, the Stalingrad Front included the 62nd, 63rd, 64th armies, and the 21st, 28th, 38th, 51st, 57th separate armies from the headquarters reserve. But already on August 7, the South-Eastern Front was separated from the Stalingrad Front (commander - Eremenko), to which the 64th, 57th, 51st Armies, the 1st Guards Army, and a little later the 62nd Army were transferred.

Hitler set the task of capturing Stalingrad in OKW Directive No. 45 of July 23. The Germans needed the advancement of the right wing of Army Group B, the core of which was the 6th Army, to the Stalingrad region and the occupation of the lower Volga region in order to interrupt the connection between the south of the European part of the USSR and the center of the country. Ensure successful offensive operations of Army Group A in the Caucasian direction.

Promotion and return home

After the victorious completion of the Battle of Stalingrad, the 13th Guards Rifle Division was awarded the second military order - the Red Banner. The 62nd Army under the command of Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, in which Rodimtsev’s soldiers passed with honor all the tests of the most difficult months of defense of the Volga stronghold, was transformed into the 8th Guards. But the 13th Guards Division now had to fight from the banks of the Volga to the west as part of the 5th Guards Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Alexei Semenovich Zhadov. This army, while still the 68th, also fought in Stalingrad and distinguished itself in its defense, for which it was awarded the title of guards.

And Alexander Ilyich himself had to part ways these days with the formation that had become dear to him, with the guardsmen of the 13th, whom the “fire battles” they had gone through together made Rodimtsev’s true brothers-in-arms. The division commander, whose name truly became legendary during the Battle of Stalingrad, was nominated for promotion, and he was soon to leave for Moscow for a new assignment. And the 13th Guards was taken over by a new commander - Major General Gleb Vladimirovich Baklanov.

Kursk Bulge

Rodimtsev took command of the corps when the troops of the 5th Guards Army were preparing for active combat operations in the Oryol-Kursk direction. Heroic Stalingrad, having survived, turned the war back. Now through these lands the Red Army is driving the German invaders to the west.

However, at first it was necessary not to attack, but to hold the defense.

Counterattack

Without giving any respite to the retreating enemy, units of the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps developed an offensive against Poltava, the city where at the beginning of the 18th century Russian soldiers under the command of Peter I defeated the Swedish army of Charles XII. In the very place where 230 years ago Russian troops crossed the Worksla to the battle site, Rodimtsev’s guards came out to the river. The Germans blew up the bridge, but the soldiers of the 32nd Rifle Corps, under enemy fire, using crossings established by sappers, on boats, rafts, and improvised means, successfully crossed Worksla and on September 22 broke into Poltava. For this victory, the divisions of the corps were given the honorary name “Poltava”. However, the joy of victory for Rodimtsev was overshadowed by a heavy loss: in the battles for the Ukrainian city, his comrade Dmitry Panikhin, commander of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, was mortally wounded. A few days later he died from his wounds.

The onslaught of the Red Army was now unstoppable. Every day, Soviet troops liberated dozens of settlements. How different it was from the Stalingrad autumn of 1942, when the division under the command of Rodimtsev fought for every city block, every floor. But it was precisely the successes in those battles that became the seed from which victories now grew on the soil of Ukraine...

After the Great Patriotic War

The war ended, but the service continued. From Czechoslovakia, Alexander Ilyich returned to Moscow to undergo retraining at the Military Academy named after. M. V. Frunze. At this time, the hard times of war made themselves felt. Although neither the bullet nor the shrapnel hit Rodimtsev, he caught a cold in his feet in Stalingrad.

Rodimtsev suffered frostbite at his Stalingrad command post - in a reinforced concrete pipe under an embankment. And after the war, the pain in his legs was so severe that at one time he walked on crutches.

Assault on a strong point

The Soviet command also attached paramount importance to the Stalingrad direction. It believed that only stubborn defense could thwart enemy plans, ensure the strategic integrity of the front, and retain the large military-industrial center - Stalingrad. The city was also an important strategic site, since the main waterway from the south to the center of the country ran through it.

The tasks of the Red Army were:

1. Exhaust the enemy's offensive potential with continuous defense

2. Prepare a counteroffensive in the Stalingrad area, which would dramatically change the situation in the south.

However, in July-August the situation became not just difficult, but critical. The 64th Army, positioned in a key area of resistance to the German onslaught, was retreating. M.S. was appointed commander of the army. Shumlov. IN AND. Chuikov is his deputy. Only on September 12, when German troops had already broken into Stalingrad and began to approach the Volga, he took command of the 62nd Army, the formation of which was completed in the process of fierce fighting within the city.
At this time, the order of the People's Commissar No. 227 appeared:

Order No. 227

« ORDER
People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 227
July 28, 1942
Moscow

The enemy throws more and more forces to the front and, regardless of the great losses for him, climbs forward, rushes deep into the Soviet Union, captures new areas, devastates and ruins our cities and villages, rapes, robs and kills the Soviet population. Fighting is taking place in the Voronezh region, on the Don, in the south at the gates of the North Caucasus. The German occupiers are rushing towards Stalingrad, towards the Volga and want to capture Kuban and the North Caucasus with their oil and grain riches at any cost. The enemy has already captured Voroshilovgrad, Starobelsk, Rossosh, Kupyansk, Valuiki, Novocherkassk, Rostov-on-Don, and half of Voronezh. Part of the troops of the Southern Front, following the alarmists, left Rostov and Novocherkassk without serious resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.

The population of our country, who treats the Red Army with love and respect, begins to become disillusioned with it, loses faith in the Red Army, and many of them curse the Red Army for putting our people under the yoke of the German oppressors, and itself flowing to the east.

Some stupid people at the front console themselves by saying that we can continue to retreat to the east, since we have a lot of territory, a lot of land, a lot of population and that we will always have plenty of grain. With this they want to justify their shameful behavior at the front. But such conversations are completely false and deceitful, beneficial only to our enemies.

Every commander, every Red Army soldier and political worker must understand that our funds are not unlimited. The territory of the Soviet Union is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers and mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR, which the enemy has captured and is trying to capture, is bread and other products for the army and home front, metal and fuel for industry, factories, plants supplying the army with weapons and ammunition, and railways. After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, Donbass and other regions, we have less territory, which means there are much fewer people, bread, metal, plants, factories. We have lost more than 70 million people, more than 80 million pounds of grain per year and more than 10 million tons of metal per year. We no longer have a superiority over the Germans either in human resources or in grain reserves. To retreat further means to ruin ourselves and at the same time ruin our Motherland. Each new piece of territory we leave behind will strengthen the enemy in every possible way and weaken our defenses, our Motherland, in every possible way.

Therefore, we must completely stop the talk that we have the opportunity to retreat endlessly, that we have a lot of territory, our country is large and rich, there is a lot of population, there will always be plenty of grain. Such conversations are false and harmful, they weaken us and strengthen the enemy, because if we do not stop retreating, we will be left without bread, without fuel, without metal, without raw materials, without factories and factories, without railways.

It follows from this that it is time to end the retreat.

No step back! This should now be our main call.

We must stubbornly, to the last drop of blood, defend every position, every meter of Soviet territory, cling to every piece of Soviet land and defend it to the last opportunity.

Our Motherland is going through difficult days. We must stop, and then push back and defeat the enemy, no matter the cost. The Germans are not as strong as the alarmists think. They are straining their last strength. To withstand their blow now means ensuring our victory.

Can we withstand the blow and then push the enemy back to the west? Yes, we can, because our factories and factories in the rear are now working perfectly and our front is receiving more and more planes, tanks, artillery, and mortars.

What do we lack?

There is a lack of order and discipline in companies, regiments, divisions, tank units, and air squadrons. This is now our main drawback. We must establish the strictest order and iron discipline in our army if we want to save the situation and defend our Motherland.

We cannot continue to tolerate commanders, commissars, and political workers whose units and formations leave combat positions without permission. We cannot tolerate it any longer when commanders, commissars, and political workers allow a few alarmists to determine the situation on the battlefield, so that they drag other fighters into retreat and open the front to the enemy.

Alarmists and cowards must be exterminated on the spot.

From now on, the iron law of discipline for every commander, Red Army soldier, and political worker must be the requirement - not a step back without an order from the high command.

Commanders of a company, battalion, regiment, division, corresponding commissars and political workers who retreat from a combat position without orders from above are traitors to the Motherland. Such commanders and political workers must be treated as traitors to the Motherland.

This is the call of our Motherland.

To carry out this order means to defend our land, save the Motherland, destroy and defeat the hated enemy.

After their winter retreat under the pressure of the Red Army, when discipline weakened in the German troops, the Germans took some harsh measures to restore discipline, which led to good results. They formed 100 penal companies from fighters guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability, placed them in dangerous sectors of the front and ordered them to atone for their sins with blood. They formed, further, about a dozen penal battalions from commanders who were guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability, deprived them of their orders, placed them in even more dangerous sectors of the front and ordered them to atone for their sins. They finally formed special barrage detachments, placed them behind unstable divisions and ordered them to shoot panickers on the spot if they attempted to leave their positions without permission or if they attempted to surrender. As you know, these measures had their effect, and now the German troops are fighting better than they fought in the winter. And so it turns out that the German troops have good discipline, although they do not have the lofty goal of defending their homeland, but have only one predatory goal - to conquer a foreign country, and our troops, who have the goal of defending their desecrated homeland, do not have such discipline and suffer because this defeat.

Shouldn't we learn from our enemies in this matter, just as our ancestors learned from their enemies in the past and then defeated them?

I think it should.

THE SUPREME HIGH COMMAND OF THE RED ARMY ORDERS:
1.To the military councils of the fronts and, above all, to the commanders of the fronts:

a) unconditionally eliminate retreating sentiments in the troops and suppress with an iron fist the propaganda that we can and should allegedly retreat further to the east, that such a retreat will supposedly cause no harm;

b) unconditionally remove from post and send to Headquarters to bring to a military court army commanders who allowed the unauthorized withdrawal of troops from their positions, without an order from the front command;

c) form within the front from 1 to 3 (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 people each), where middle and senior commanders and relevant political workers of all branches of the military who are guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability are sent, and put them on more difficult sections of the front to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood.

2. To the military councils of the armies and, above all, to the commanders of the armies:

a) unconditionally remove from their posts the commanders and commissars of corps and divisions who allowed the unauthorized withdrawal of troops from their positions without an order from the army command, and send them to the military council of the front to be brought before a military court;

b) form within the army 3-5 well-armed barrage detachments (200 people each), place them in the immediate rear of unstable divisions and oblige them, in the event of panic and disorderly withdrawal of division units, to shoot panickers and cowards on the spot and thereby help honest fighters divisions to fulfill their duty to the Motherland;

c) form within the army from 5 to 10 (depending on the situation) penal companies (from 150 to 200 people in each), where to send ordinary soldiers and junior commanders who have violated discipline due to cowardice or instability, and place them in difficult areas army to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against their homeland with blood.

3. Commanders and commissars of corps and divisions;

a) unconditionally remove from their posts the commanders and commissars of regiments and battalions that allowed the unauthorized withdrawal of units without an order from the corps or division commander, take away their orders and medals and send them to the military councils of the front to be brought before a military court:

b) provide all possible assistance and support to the army’s barrage detachments in strengthening order and discipline in the units.

The order should be read in all companies, squadrons, batteries, squadrons, teams, and headquarters.

People's Commissar of Defense
I.STALIN »

The strength of this order lay not only in the merciless truthfulness of the analysis of the strategic situation. The main thing is that he expressed the general mood, the collective will of the soldiers, commanders and political workers of the Red Army and the whole work: to retreat further means to die. Rodimtsev thought about the same thing. The bitterness from the realization that, despite the heroism and self-sacrifice of the people, had to retreat was unbearable.

“In any case, there is nowhere to retreat from here, from Mother Volga.”

These thoughts did not leave him even when, driving through Stalingrad at night, he made a stop in the city center, where he happened to be for the first time. Together with the division commissar we climbed Mamayev Kurgan. This is how Alexander Ilyich describes these minutes of the night meeting: “Like the breath of the city, a measured roar floated and wavered, car headlights flashed like fireflies and immediately went out on the roads, somewhere nearby steam locomotives called to each other, and from the Volga, as if in response to them, bass whistles were heard ships.

I couldn’t believe that the front was already close, that it was moving like an inevitable avalanche of fire and metal, and that perhaps this wonderful peaceful city would become the focus and decisive pass of a war unprecedented in history. And who knew on that clear blue evening that our thirteenth guards would also have to fight for every block, house, floor and for every stone of this glorious Volga stronghold, stand unshakably on its completely blood-soaked ground, fight continuously for weeks and months here too, on Mamayev Kurgan, to lock up countless fascist warriors in captivity or death!

Mortar men fire

But we didn't know our fate. We stood and looked at the silent city and, I was sure of it, we were both thinking about one thing - about life and death. Anyone who fought for the Motherland and more than once looked danger in the eye knows how simple and clear this thought of a communist soldier is: to die for the sake of the Motherland means to live. And there is no limit to the desire to win. No personal. There is only Motherland, Party, Duty.”

While the guards were near Kamyshin, he demanded that commanders teach fighters not only general combat skills, but also tactics of action in street conditions.
At this time, a change occurred in the division's command chain. Rodimtsev’s classmate at the Academy, his permanent chief of staff since the pre-war days, Colonel V. Borisov, took the position of deputy division commander, and Major Tikhon Vladimirovich Belsky arrived in his place. Resigned for promotion from S.N.'s division. Zubkov. The post of commissioner was assumed by M.M. Vavilov. Rodimtsev met him at first somewhat warily: would he be able to become worthy of his predecessors - Chernyshev and Zubkov? But the wariness quickly melted away: Rodimtsev saw that Vavilov took up the matter energetically and skillfully, with soul. Moreover, he gained confidence in the new commissar when he learned that he, being the head of the division’s political department, fought near Moscow, participated in fierce battles near Volokolamsk and for those battles was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

On August 23, the city was subjected to a massive attack by enemy bombers. The German command sent 600 planes to Stalingrad, which continuously bombed the city all day. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to ruins. The city was burning, the Volga was burning, into which oil was flowing from broken storage facilities. 40,000 Stalingrad residents died that day. The city defense committee issued an appeal: “In 1918, our fathers defended the red Tsaritsyn... We will also defend the 1942 Red Banner Stalingrad!”

The battle began in Stalingrad itself.

The day after the bombing, the advanced units of the strike group of Paulus’s 6th Army reached the Volga north of Stalingrad. And in the first week of September, the 4th Tank Army of the Nazis broke through to the southwestern outskirts of the city, displacing the troops of our 62nd Army, commanded by Chuikov.

On September 9, Rodimtsev received an order that the division was part of the 62nd Army and should concentrate on the right bank of the Volga at the crossings opposite the central part of Stalingrad. After 2 days, the main forces of the 13th Guards reached the concentration area. The division commander came with a report to the commander of the South-Eastern Front, Colonel General Eremenko.

Andrei Ivanovich, standing at the table on which the map lay, and leaning on a stick - he was wounded twice in the battles of the first year of the war - outlined the situation in Stalingrad, in the area defended by the 62nd Army. The situation was terrible. The enemy abandoned 7 infantry divisions, 500 tanks, and several hundred aircraft. 1,400 guns are firing at city blocks. The enemy breaks through into the central part of the city and captures the eastern slope of Mamayev Kurgan, the railway station, the buildings of the State Bank and the House of Specialists, from the upper floors of which the crossing over the Volga is visible and under fire. Enemy machine gunners infiltrated the area of the central crossing of the Volga, and in order to drive them out, Chuikov was forced to send officers and guards from army headquarters.

“Get ready to cross,” Eremenko told Rodimtsev. — There is an order from Moscow.

The day before, Andrei Ivanovich called the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and reported on the situation in Stalingrad. At this time, the Chief of the General Staff Vasilievsky and the First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Zhukov were in Stalin's office, who reported to the Supreme Commander the plan for encircling and defeating the Nazis at Stalingrad.

After finishing the telephone conversation, Stalin said:

— Eremenko reports that the enemy is bringing tank units to the city. Tomorrow we must wait for a new blow. Give immediate instructions for the immediate transfer of Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Division from the Headquarters reserve across the Volga. And see what else you can send there tomorrow.

As soon as they set foot on the right bank of the Volga, Rodimtsev’s guards fiercely attacked the enemy

Returning from the front commander, Rodimtsev, together with the chief of staff T.V. Belsky began to develop the procedure for crossing the division to the right bank of the Volga. The first to cross and enter the battle was one of the best battalions, which had to not only attack the enemy on the move, but also provide cover for the crossing units of the entire division.

- Whom will we send? — the division commander asked the commander of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment I.P. Elina.

- Whom? — he asked thoughtfully. - Yes, all my battalion commanders are good guys. But the first is the first. Chervyakov will go.

Rodimtsev knew Guard Senior Lieutenant Zakhar Chervyakov well - he bravely and skillfully commanded a unit at the Seimas, near Tim and Kharkov, and distinguished himself when crossing the Don.

- I don’t mind. Warn him, let him prepare his eagles.

About the events of the night from September 14 to 15, when the division began crossing the coast, Alexander Ilyich recalled:

The deputy front commander, Lieutenant General F.I. Golikov, drove up to us. He was tasked with transporting the division to Stalingrad.
And here we are standing with him on the banks of the Volga, at the very edge of the water, where a wave is splashing, raised by the propellers of boats, exploding mines and shells.

“Give me one more day to prepare,” I ask Philip Ivanovich.

He answers:

- I can’t, Rodimtsev!

Golikov peers at the opposite bank and, apparently, from the flashes of new fires, the roar of explosions and the direction of the rifle and machine-gun routes, imagines what is going on there.

“Not everyone is armed with me yet, I don’t have enough ammunition and I don’t even have intelligence data,” I try to convince the deputy commander.
But he calmly asks in response:

- Do you see that shore, Rodimtsev?

- I see. It seems to me that the enemy has approached the river.

- It doesn’t seem like it, but it is so. So make a decision - both for yourself and for me.

Golikov was right. Not only in a day, but even in two hours it could be too late, but we would still have to cross, even through fire.

“Don’t hesitate, start crossing, Rodimtsev,” Golikov hurries me, without taking his eyes off the fiery boiling river.

Looking at the streams of tracks spreading along the slopes of the right bank to the river, at the splash of water from falling shells and mines, I say to Golikov:

- This is not just a crossing, Philip Ivanovich. This is a real crossing of a wide water barrier under the influence of the enemy, and without air and artillery cover.

This, of course, didn’t make it any easier for me, but we had to call things by their proper names.

“Don’t be angry, Alexander Ilyich,” a guilty note could be heard in Golikov’s voice, “it’s a habit!” All the time we were talking about a crossing and a crossing, but now you are right - a crossing, and in difficult conditions. We send people into fire and water... Look, you see, the scoundrel got it right after all!

The barge, which stood a hundred steps downstream from us, was hit by an enemy mine. Screams were heard, something heavy splashed into the water, and the stern burst into flames like a huge torch. It probably hit the fuel barrels.

- How will I ensure the crossing? - Golikov says bitterly. — They brought in all sorts of artillery, up to the main caliber. But who should we shoot? Where is the German? Where is the cutting edge? In the city there is one bloodless division of Colonel Saraev (10th division of the NKVD) and thinned out militia units. That's the entire sixty-second army. There are only pockets of resistance there. There are joints, and what the hell are there joints - holes between units of several hundred meters. And Chuikov has nothing to patch them up with.

I was silent. The situation has only now begun to become clearer for me.

-Who is the commander of the forward detachment? - asked Golikov.

- Chervyakov.

- Tell him to mark the leading edge with missiles as soon as he crosses. Then let's fire. Now immediately find the commander of the second division of armored boats here on the shore... Do you have anything to write down?

“Yes,” I answered, taking out a notebook from my field bag.

- Write it down so you don’t forget: Senior Lieutenant Sorkin has been assigned to transfer your division to the other side. Tell him that the crossing starts at two o'clock. I will now tell Chuikov about this. Now - act!

At 2 o'clock in the morning on September 15, the Zakharov-Chervyakov battalion, reinforced by a company of machine gunners, a company of tank destroyers and a battery of "forty-fives", loaded onto armored boats and went to the right bank. They had barely set sail when enemy artillery opened intense fire on the boats. When they found themselves in the middle of the river, rifle and machine-gun fire extended towards them. They landed, spraying the coastal strip with machine gun fire, chest-deep in water, and dragging the guns to the shore in their hands.

Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, in 1942, First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR:

The enemy, regardless of anything, broke through the ruins step by step closer to the Volga. The turning point in these difficult and, at times, it seemed like the last hours was created by Rodimtsev’s 13th Guards Division. Having crossed to Stalingrad, she immediately counterattacked the enemy. On September 16, the division recaptured Mamayev Kurgan.

Having left the boats, they attacked the enemy on the move. A liaison officer who arrived from the headquarters of the 62nd Army conveyed Chuikov’s order: to immediately advance in the direction of the railway station and drive the enemy out of there. The army commander sent reinforcements: 3 tanks. The station was taken by a swift, furious assault. In this battle, the battalion commander was seriously wounded. The unit was headed by his deputy, senior lieutenant F. Fedoseev.

By that time, the remaining battalions of Elin’s 42nd Regiment and the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment of Major Panikhin had crossed to the right bank of the Volga. It was a difficult crossing. The water in the Volga was boiling from continuous explosions, and oil was burning on its surface. A barge with a company of machine gunners was destroyed by a direct hit from a shell, and other units suffered losses. Once on the right bank, the guards immediately began to move forward. Developing the success of the first battalion of Chervyakov-Fedoseev, units of the 42nd regiment struck along Solnechnaya and Nizhegorodskaya streets, reached the railroad bed running along the river bank, and captured a number of buildings in the central part of the city. Panikhin’s regiment also operated successfully, capturing the ruins of buildings on Grodno and Smolenskaya streets.

One of the important strongholds held by the Nazis by that time was the Railway Worker's House - a large four-story building on a hill. From here the enemy held the entire surrounding territory under fire and shelled the crossing of the Volga. Among the units of the 42nd Regiment that were tasked with driving the Germans out of the building was a company of mortarmen under the command of Senior Lieutenant Grigory Brik, a former rural teacher from Cherkassy. After a fierce battle, the Railwayman's House was taken, but the Nazis immediately made an attempt to return the building. However, it was unsuccessful, largely thanks to Brick's mortars, who during these hours destroyed up to a company of Germans. This is how the Stalingrad baptism of the courageous artillery officer took place, who was destined to go through the entire war with his regiment, and for the feat accomplished in the battles on the Oder River in 1945, to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

At dawn, Rodimtsev, Vavilov, and Belsky crossed to Stalingrad along with the division headquarters. We barely arrived at the command post - in the adit located under the railway. The canvas, which later became known as the “Pipe,” as a messenger conveyed Chuikov’s order: Rodimtseu should urgently report to the army command post. Taking with him adjutant Shevchenko, intelligence officer Voitsekhovsky and one machine gunner, Rodimtsev went to the command room. It was a stone's throw to the bed of the Tsarina, a river flowing perpendicularly into the Volga, but this division commander and his companions had to make the journey under bombing, machine gun and mortar fire. While they were getting there, the army headquarters liaison officer accompanying them was killed, a machine gunner was wounded, and a scout was seriously shell-shocked. They were left in the bomb crater to wait for the paramedics.

The division commander and his adjutant entered a long dugout-tunnel, divided into sections, which in the 62nd Army had already been dubbed the “Tsaritsyn dungeon.” Rodimtsev reported to the army commander about his arrival.

- Well, Comrade Rodimtsev, how did you feel the situation in Stalingrad? - Chuikov asked Alexander Ilyich wearily as he entered.

- Quite.

This is how they first met - two people whose names later became legends of the Battle of Stalingrad. But even before meeting in person, they were aware of each other.

Rodimtsev had also heard a lot about Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov. He knew that the current army commander, as a 19-year-old youth, commanded a regiment during the Civil War, was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner for battles against Kolchak and the Belopoles, commanded the army during the Soviet-Finnish War, was a military adviser in China, and from the first days of the Great Patriotic War was in responsible sectors of the front.

Chuikov briefly described and showed on the map the position of the troops of the 62nd Army, outlined the zone of action of the 13th Guards Division - from the Tsarina River in the south to the railway loop and Mamayev Kurgan inclusive in the north.

— Mamaev Kurgan still needs to be taken.

- I have no doubt that you will take it. - Chuikov answered dryly.

But first, the two Rodimtsev regiments that had crossed at that time had to repel the fierce onslaught of the enemy in the area of the station. The Germans, hesitating to attack at night, launched an offensive with up to two infantry divisions supported by tanks on the morning of September 15th.

Fierce battles, sometimes turning into hand-to-hand combat, flared up along the railroad bed. In one day, the building changed hands 4 times, but by nightfall it remained in the hands of Soviet soldiers. The battalion that held him, Senior Lieutenant Fedoseev, chained him to a regiment of fascist infantry.

And on the night of September 16, the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment of Guard Major S.S. crossed the Volga. Dolgova. By order of the division commander, without a single minute of respite, the guardsmen of the battalion under the command of I. Isakov stormed the Mamaev Kurgan, indicated on military maps as height 102.0.

Capture of Mamayev Kurgan

During the few days that Mamayev Kurgan was in the hands of the Nazis, the enemy thoroughly fortified itself in it: they equipped an extensive system of firing points and trenches. From here they fired targeted artillery and machine-gun fire far around, greatly complicating the combat operations of the units of Rodimtsev’s division, the entire 62nd Army, and the work of crossing the Volga. At the top of the mound, the Germans equipped a powerful bunker, which kept the approaches to the heights under fire. To successfully storm the mound, this bunker had to be destroyed at all costs. Junior Lieutenant Timofeev volunteered to do this.

Yakov Pavlov

The brave officer and four volunteer soldiers, crawling and running, using hillocks, craters and ditches, managed to get close to the enemy firing point and throw grenades at it. After this, the main forces of the 39th regiment went on the attack. The Nazis' fire was very dense, in some places it pinned the attackers to the ground. At a critical moment, company commander Ivan Chuprina raised his soldiers into hand-to-hand combat, and other units followed. The guardsmen burst into the enemy trenches. The battle continued throughout the day, with both sides suffering huge losses. Guard Lieutenant Chuprina also fell the death of a hero. But in the evening, regiment commander Dolgov informed Rodimtsev that height 102.0 had been taken. Now the station, 9 January Square and Mamayev Kurgan - all points that controlled access to the Volga in the sector of Rodimtsev's division - were in the hands of the guards. However, holding on to the conquered positions turned out to be no easier, and perhaps even more difficult, than to recapture them from the Germans.

The Nazis sent huge forces to storm these positions. Hundreds of planes bombed the defenders of Stalingrad, tanks, mortars and heavy artillery were used. In one day, September 17, the enemy attacked Dolgov’s lines on Mamayev Kurgan 6 times with up to two infantry regiments supported by 20 tanks. But the Soviet soldiers did not move a single step. Meanwhile, the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment noticeably expanded the territory occupied by the 13th Division: its units drove the Germans out of their houses, or rather, from the ruins - along Republican, Komsomolskaya and Proletarskaya streets. This meant that Rodimtsev's guards were firmly entrenched on the right bank of the Volga, in the central part of Stalingrad.

In the battles on Orenburgskaya Street, the crew of the “forty-five”, where Leonid Lyubavin was the gunner, showed themselves valiantly. When the Germans launched their tanks, the crew knocked out the lead vehicle with the first shot. It interfered with the advance of the remaining tanks, which began to go around it on either side, exposing its sides to fire. The crew knocked out 2 more tanks, but all the artillerymen, except Lyubavin, were out of action. Lyubavin himself had his legs broken by shrapnel. However, overcoming the pain, he managed to hit the approaching fourth tank at point-blank range with the last shot. Bleeding Lyubavin was carried out of the battle by his comrades, sent to the left bank of the Volga, and his feat was reported to the commander.

Rodimtsev and division commissar Vavilov presented him with the Order of the Red Banner. A leaflet was issued about his feat.

For 10 days and nights, soldiers of the first battalion of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment under the command of F. Fedoseev defended the station building. They continued to hold out even when the Nazis managed to surround the building with a tight ring, cutting it off from the main forces of the division. Attempts to break through to the besieged battalion failed. How the heroic guardsmen fought is evidenced by a document discovered by Rodimtsev’s soldiers in the building among the bodies of the fallen defenders of the station, when some time after the death of the Fedoseev battalion the building was again recaptured from the Germans.

Report.

11.30, 20.9.42 years

Guard senior lieutenant Fedoseev.

I report that the situation is as follows:

The enemy is trying with all his might to surround my company, to send machine gunners to the rear of my company, but all his attempts will not be crowned with success. Despite the superior enemy forces, our soldiers and commanders show courage and heroism... Until they pass through my corpse, the Krauts will not succeed.
The guards are not retreating. Let the soldiers and commanders die the death of brave men, but the enemy must not cross our defenses. Let the whole country know the thirteenth guards division and the third rifle company...

The commander of the third company is in a tense situation and is personally physically unwell. He is deafened and weak in hearing. You feel dizzy and fall off your feet, bleeding from the nose. Despite all the difficulties, the guards and personally the third and second companies will not retreat back... Let the Soviet land be the grave of the Germans!

The commander of the third company, Koleganov, personally killed the first and second Fritz machine gunners and took the machine gun and documents, which were presented to the battalion headquarters.
I rely on my soldiers and commanders. The guardsmen will not spare their lives for the complete victory of Soviet power...

The commander of the third rifle company is guard junior lieutenant Koleganov.

The commander of the second company is Guard Lieutenant Kravtsov.”

Marshal of the Soviet Union I.Kh. Baghramyan:

Rodimtsev entered the Great Patriotic War as a mature commander. From the first day of the war until victory, he was in the Active Army, commanding a brigade, division, and corps. A special page in his combat biography is his participation in the defense of Stalingrad. In the most difficult and intense days of fighting, Rodimtsev showed the ability to firmly lead troops, will and determination, personal courage and bravery.

On September 21, the enemy again launched a frantic assault on the lines occupied by Rodimtsev’s guards. They launched an offensive in the direction of Mamayev Kurgan and part of the city beyond the Tsaritsa River. Having broken through at the junction of the 13th Guards Division and the 92nd Rifle Brigade, the enemy reached the Volga.

Alexander Ilyich turned the left flank of the division to the south, from where the enemy launched an attack. The division commander threw all his modest reserves into the threatening area, but was unable to restore the situation that day: he did not have enough strength. Fierce fighting lasted until late in the evening, sometimes turning into hand-to-hand combat. And on the 22nd, trying to consolidate the emerging success, the Nazis launched 12 attacks by infantry and tanks. At some point, a group of enemy machine gunners managed to bypass the right flank of Panikhin’s regiment, and another group broke through to the 9 January Square and began to cover the left edge of the regiment. Rodimtsev sent a battalion from Dolgov’s regiment to help the soldiers of the 34th Guards Regiment, as well as everything that could be collected: scouts, the commandant’s platoon. This counterattack was carried out, albeit with very small forces, but so quickly that it stunned the enemy. The Germans were driven back from the January 9 Square and from the adjacent bank of the Volga. The siege of the command post of the 34th regiment, which lasted 2 hours, was liquidated.

N.I. Krylov, Chief of Staff of the 62nd Army:

I would like to emphasize: the commander of the 13th Guards Division was able to liquidate the most dangerous breakthrough on his right flank and restore basically the previous positions there in conditions when heavy fighting continued in other sectors and it was necessary to prevent possible new penetrations. And all this - in a narrow strip of Volga city blocks, where any maneuver is extremely difficult. Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev, who experienced a lot during the war, later said that the battle on September 22, 1942 remained the most intense for him.

Having defended their occupied lines, the division's soldiers that day destroyed over 1,000 enemy soldiers and officers and 30 enemy tanks.
And then correspondence appeared in Krasnaya Zvezda about the military affairs of the 13th Guards Division.

...Every day the guards take on 12-15 attacks from enemy tanks and infantry, supported by aviation and artillery,” the newspaper wrote, “and they always repel the enemy’s onslaught to the last opportunity, covering the ground with new dozens and hundreds of fascist corpses. Not only with their minds, but with all their hearts, with all their beings, the guardsmen realize that it is impossible to retreat further, there is nowhere to retreat further... Full of an unshakable determination to lay down their heads rather than take even a step back, they, like a cliff, stand in their positions, and, as against the cliff, numerous waves of enemy attacks are crushed against their position.
The guards stubbornly and courageously defend every house, every street, choosing opportune moments, launching counterattacks, devastating the ranks of the enemy. In just one day they killed two thousand Nazis, destroyed 18 tanks and 30 vehicles. On another day, the guards set fire to 42 enemy tanks. Iron tenacity in defense and swift onslaught in counterattacks are the hallmarks of the guardsmen of the division commanded by Major General Rodimtsev.

Already in these first difficult months of the Battle of Stalingrad, the glory of the defenders of the city on the Volga resounded not only in our country, but also far beyond its borders. The British newspaper The Irish Times reported:
« We are told that the times of miracles are over. But from a military point of view, the defense of the Russian army at Stalingrad belongs to the realm of miracles. According to all military canons, the city should have been captured by the Germans long ago, but just as happened with Madrid during the Spanish Civil War and with Leningrad twelve months ago, military experts were baffled, and the human element turned out to be incalculable y".

It is unlikely that the British journalists were aware that the same person was involved in the creation of both the Madrid and Stalingrad miracles they mentioned - a native of the rural outback, Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev.

And in his small homeland, in the Orenburg region, in the Sharlyk district, people not only closely followed the fighting of their glorious fellow countryman and his guardsmen in newspapers and Sovinformburo reports, they were not just proud of the division commander - the valiant defender of Stalingrad, but also expressed their concern for the soldiers of the 13th The guards truly have a kindred concern. A patriotic movement developed in the area under the motto “Let’s dress and shoe Rodimtsev’s division!” More than 20,000 parcels from Sharly residents were sent to the front, to the fighting Stalingrad, from the regional center and villages. As Rodimtsev himself recalled:

« During the war and in the far rear, life was difficult, but we received lard, butter, honey, as well as warm clothes - short fur coats, felt boots... At the front line, the guards read letters that ended with the words dear to us: “We will not regret anything for the front and for you , Stalingraders!»

During the war years, more than 12 thousand of Rodimtsev's fellow countrymen - an entire division - went to the front. And from this division an entire regiment - 4197 Sharly residents - did not return home. Almost 4,700 natives of the district were awarded military decorations, and 11 - more than from any other district of the Orenburg region - became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and among them, two-time Hero General Rodimtsev and Tatar poet, Lenin Prize laureate Musa Jalil, well-known in the country and abroad .

To help the front in the region, there was an active collection of funds for the Defense Fund. In just a short time, residents of the area collected more than three million rubles. All the workers of the Orenburg region worked selflessly for victory and for the needs of the front. During the war years, they increased their gross industrial output almost 4 times, and oil and gas production increased 9 times. During the war years, collective and state farms in the region gave the state 124 million pounds of bread, 7.5 million pounds of meat, and many other agricultural products. Orenburg residents contributed 123 million rubles to the Defense Fund; with their personal savings, 3 military boats were built for the Baltic Fleet - “Chkalovsky Komsomolets”, “Chkalovets”, “Chkalovsky Pioneer”. And the chairman of the collective farm “Drummer of the Second Five-Year Plan” of the Orenburg region, Sergei Kuzhman, purchased a Yak-6 fighter with his own money, and at his request the plane was sent to Rodimtsev’s division.

In the battle of Stalingrad, the guards not only beat the enemy, but also donated their personal savings to the Defense Fund. A telegram was sent to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief from the 13th Guards: “The personnel of the guardsmen of our unit contributed 1,200,000 rubles to the fund of the tank column named after the 62nd Army, the collection continues. With exceptional enthusiasm, fighters and commanders are giving their savings to the fight against fascist scum. Signatures: Rodimtsev, Vavilov.”
After the first weeks of fighting, which were characterized by great mobility, frequent attacks and counterattacks on both sides, when streets and individual buildings changed hands for a short time, from the beginning of October the defenders of Stalingrad began to pay special attention to the comprehensive strengthening of the occupied lines, the construction of a strong and good defense. At this time, Chuikov’s order came: to firmly hold the occupied part of the city, not to move a step from our positions, to turn every trench into a strong point, every house into a fortress. Work to strengthen positions went on in all units of the 13th Guards, soldiers dug trenches and communication passages, mined approaches to their lines, installed wire barriers, and equipped the ruins of buildings for machine gun points. Under continuous enemy fire, coupled with constant brutal fighting, it was hard and dangerous work. However, the guardsmen understood well: it is precisely this that allows them to withstand the onslaught of Nazi troops.

But at the same time, the Germans were also strengthening the captured lines. They turned the buildings of school No. 38, the House of Specialists, the military trade store, the state bank, and an L-shaped house into strongholds. These strong points greatly constrained the actions of the guards, from where the enemy held the central crossing and the rear of the division on the left bank of the Volga under fire. The guards carefully prepared the assault on these buildings. Assault groups were created and put together, scouts carefully studied the approaches to houses and the enemy defense system.

Among the first enemy strongholds, Rodimtsev ordered the capture of the state bank building. More than two hundred meters long, with thick stone walls, with deep basements that were inaccessible to either a shell or a bomb, this building was literally like a bone in the throat for the guardsmen. The whole question was how to get this bone out.

Deputy division commander Borisov gathered everyone who was appointed to participate in the capture of the building and drew them a diagram of it - with all the floors, entrances, stairwells and windows. Indicated the location of firing points and other information.

Marshal of the Soviet Union Chuikov:

During the fighting in the defense of Stalingrad, the division carried out assault combat missions well. Comrade In the battles for Stalingrad, Rodimev successfully used his experience in street fighting, inflicting severe blows on the enemy. The division under his command fought firmly.
Comrade Rodimtsev stood out from the division commanders not only because of his strong-willed qualities, but also as an exceptionally competent commander in tactical terms.

“Fortress,” he thoughtfully summed up his story.

They decided to first blow up the wall with a powerful charge, and then the assault and cover groups would quickly penetrate the gap through the gap until the stunned Germans came to their senses. The division commander approved this plan.

One October evening, when it got dark, the first to move to the state bank building were the demolition engineers. They moved secretly, crawling, carefully camouflaging themselves. It was not so easy: everyone carried 30 kg with them. Explosives. After some time, the covering and assault groups came out. The guardsmen fired intensely at the building from their positions.

Rodimtsev, Vavilov, Borisov and Dolgov, watching the operation, peered intently into the autumn darkness. So he said in a muffled voice, “It’s time!”
And almost immediately there was a powerful explosion. And after him - the popping of grenades, shouts in German. And all this was covered with a united, menacing “Hurray!” — the storming guardsmen went forward. Soon, the commanders watching the development of events with the OP saw colored rockets soaring above the building. This meant - stop supporting fire, we are inside, in direct combat with the enemy.

Rodimtsev had a fairly clear idea of what was happening in the bank building at that moment. Not very often, but in his military life there were night assault battles. The first is in Madrid, on a university campus. In such cases there is no leading edge, no front, no rear - the enemy can be everywhere. Such a battle is a combination of hand-to-hand combat and dagger fire, where flair, resourcefulness, courage and audacity decide everything.

A.S. Dolgov, former commander of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment:

I know Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev especially well from the Battle of Stalingrad. As the commander of the 39th Guards Regiment, I often had to communicate with him in combat situations, which he always knew thoroughly, and often personally appeared in the most dangerous sectors of the front. He was brave, decisive, demanding of himself and his subordinates, providing effective assistance at the right time.
Rodimtsev was a wonderful person and a wonderful military leader, he was loved and respected by his subordinates.

As a result of a fleeting and daring attack, the guards completely cleared the State Bank building of the Germans, secured a secure foothold in it, and repulsed all enemy attempts to regain this important defensive point. Rodimev reported the success to Chuikov by telephone.

There was a restrained response.

The next object identified was an L-shaped house. Panikhin’s regiment was entrusted with preparing the assault, and the deputy regiment commander Kotsarenko was directly involved in the development of the operation. The plan he proposed was simple and feasible, but it required a lot of work.

The approaches to the house were shot up and down by the Germans, they were thickly stuffed with mines, and dotted with barriers made of brick, iron, and barbed wire. To overcome this space with an attacking throw was a suicidal idea. The solution was found as follows: to dig a full-profile trench in the direction of the building under its very walls, almost 100 meters long.

At first they worked at night, but when the Germans discovered this guards “sapa”, they began to dig during the day. The trench provided good protection from automatic and machine-gun fire, but the enemy could not attack the guardsmen with an attack: their own mines and rubble got in the way.

The soldiers carried the dug up soil in bags at night and dumped it under the Volga slope. At the same time, the regiment was preparing assault groups. They included sappers, machine gunners, machine gunners, armor-piercing soldiers with anti-tank rifles, as well as 2 soldiers armed with flamethrowers.

Finally the trench was ready. Along it, the assault group approached almost close to the building and took its starting position. At the signal from the green rocket, the flamethrowers fired jets of flame along the walls of the house. The flaming mixture illuminated the building well for the attackers. They struck with machine guns, machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and guns, not allowing the Germans to stick their heads out and snarl. The peculiarity of the assault was that there was no surprise here, the Germans saw perfectly well and knew everything that was happening; but the guards thought through everything so well and acted so methodically that the enemy could not stop them.

In the wire fences surrounding the house, the sappers quickly made passages, and the assault group rushed to attack. The sappers broke into the house through windows and holes in the walls. The soldiers who remained in their original positions did not stop conducting covering fire from small arms, but carefully concentrated it on the upper floors, preventing the enemy from firing at the attackers. And having burst inside the building, Soviet soldiers began to clear the premises room by room, floor by floor.

In just half an hour, all six floors of the L-shaped house were in the hands of the guards. A group of enemy soldiers holed up in the basement was eliminated by blowing up the ceiling with sabers. The capture of this building brought the guards a significant tactical gain; it allowed the 34th Guards Regiment D.I. Panikhina to straighten its leading edge, reducing it almost in half. The enemy's ability to conduct targeted fire at the Volga crossing was sharply reduced.
The advance of Soviet or German troops a hundred meters in Stalingrad was taken into account in the strategic plans of the command, was important for the situation on the huge Soviet-German front, and sometimes influenced the outcome of the operation, all wars. The whole world watched with bated breath the street battles in the city on the Volga.

One night in September 1942, Rodimtsev arrived at the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment. Together with the unit commanders I.P. Elin headed to an observation post set up in a dilapidated area. The 9 January Square stretched ahead. And in the middle of it, 200 meters from the NP, a 4-story brick building stood black. Here’s how it happens: Rodimtsev, who scrupulously kept records of every square meter of urban space conquered and held by the division’s guards, for some reason it still hasn’t occurred to him to take an interest in this building that survived the bombing. At the same time, the house stood like a traffic controller at an intersection. Whoever owns it is the owner of the square and its surroundings.

- What kind of house is this, Ivan Pavlovich? And whose?

- Well, it looks like it’s no one’s. - Yelin grinned. “If we try to get close to him, the Nazis shoot with all their guns.” They come in - we don’t let them in. It’s still standing in no man’s land.

- Here you go! Such a wonderful position - and ownerless. We need to correct this omission.

Rodimtsev ordered Elin to send a reconnaissance group to the building.

The regiment commander entrusted this task to Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, a twenty-five-year-old native of the Novgorod region, who fought in the division from the first days of the Great Patriotic War. Elin left it to Pavlov himself to select a group for the sortie. He named the fighters from his platoon: Corporal Glushchenko, no longer young, who had gone through the First World War and the Civil War, and two savvy and agile privates, his peers Aleksandrov and Chernogolov.

The company commander Naumov knew all four of them well and had strong confidence in every battle. Seeing off the group, he said to the sergeant:

- Act according to the situation, Sergeant. If you manage to not just scout, but “register” in this building, you will give a sign, two red flares.

We filled the machine gun discs with cartridges, took more grenades, stocked up on tobacco and set off. The path from the guards’ positions to the “no man’s” house, although not far, was very dangerous: at the first suspicious movement in the square, the Nazis opened fire. However, the scouts managed to avoid giving themselves away and approached the building without any special incidents.

In the light of the moon, the house stood like a silent black mass, showing no signs of life. The scouts carefully entered inside and began to examine room by room. Empty. But in one of the apartments of the 2nd entrance they found a German machine gun crew. They did not expect the visit, and the scouts quietly dealt with them. They seized a light machine gun and ammunition.

No one else was found on the floors. But there were several inhabitants in the basements. These were the residents of the house - old people, women, one even with a baby, as well as a group of wounded soldiers under the supervision of medical instructor Kalinin.

The scouts took a smoke break and began to hold advice: what to do next?

We must take up defensive positions in the house,” Corporal Glushchenko expressed his opinion. “The position for the division is very advantageous; here you can equip a real fortress.” This time. The civilian population here with children cannot be left unattended. That's two.

His comrades agreed with him. They decided to send medical instructor Kalinin to his people: let him report that the scouts decided to settle in the house, but they needed help. As was agreed upon when leaving for the mission, Pavlov gave a signal with two red flares, but in the fireworks of the intense firefight, the observers missed them, and Kalinin did not immediately manage to cross the square. Therefore, both the regiment commander and the division commander were worried about the fate of Yakov Pavlov and his comrades.

Russian soldiers come to the aid of the garrison of Pavlov's house.

At dawn, the Germans, who were informed about the Soviet soldiers by 2 machine gunners who had escaped from the house, tried to regain their position. At first, infantry attacked several times, but the attack was repulsed using a captured machine gun. Then the house began to be shelled with guns and mortars. Neither the scouts nor the residents of the house who were in the basement were injured. These actions attracted the attention of observers from the 42nd Regiment. Elin told Rodimtsev.

At first, Rodimtsev did not believe that four soldiers were able to capture a hefty house, and even kill several dozen enemy soldiers on the approaches to it. However, Kalnin soon reached our positions and reported on the situation.

Elin ordered to immediately assemble a group and send it to strengthen the garrison located in the building on the square. The house has already begun to be called “Pavlov’s house.” A small group of soldiers led by Lieutenant Ivan Afanasyev - 24 people in total - went to Pavlov's house. It included Georgians, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Abkhazs, Kazakhs, Tatars and Ukrainians.

- A real international brigade! - Rodimtsev exclaimed.

It was the second night of the foursome's stay, led by Pavlov, in the building on the square. Yakov was worried: would help really not come? But then there was a cautious knock on the door, and then the familiar voice of Lieutenant Afanasyev:

- Ours. Open up.

The entrance was quickly unbarricaded. The arrivals entered heavily loaded with ammunition and boxes of food. When, among the delivered supplies, Yakov Pavlov saw a huge tank exuding the aroma of borscht, a pot and a flask, he finally felt it himself, believed it to the end: yes, now the Germans cannot see this house like their own ears.

The garrison, without hesitation, began to arrange for further defense. We equipped firing points for anti-tank rifles, prepared positions for company mortars - these were also delivered by those who arrived. Afanasyev and Pavlov distributed groups of machine gunners and machine gunners throughout the premises of the building. Now Pavlov's house was ready to repel enemy attacks. The defense capability of the small garrison increased further when, on Rodimtsev’s orders, sappers dug a communication route from the forward positions of Elin’s regiment to the building on the square, installed mines and wire barriers, and equipped 4 external firing points near the house.

- Now let the Fritz try to smoke us out! We will die, but we will not leave.

“No, it’s not like that,” Pavlov corrected the fighters. “We won’t “die,” but we’ll kill the Germans if they show up.” And we will certainly leave here, but only forward, from Stalingrad - to Berlin! Clear?

For 58 days and nights, a handful of brave souls - less than a platoon in number - defended Pavlov's house and repelled hundreds of enemy attacks. The minimum distance at which the enemy was able to approach the house during this time was only 14 steps. It happened one afternoon when several German tanks moved towards the building. The guards shot down one vehicle with an anti-tank rifle, the second was blown up by a mine. But the third continued to move forward, and, as luck would have it, in such a sector that there was nothing to reach it with. Then the fighter Efremov ran out of the entrance and crawled towards the tank with a bunch of grenades in his hand. Seizing the moment, he threw a bunch of the tank under the tracks. There was a powerful explosion, the gray mass twitched, froze, smoked thickly, and then there was a roar again - the ammunition exploded. But Efremov did not move. Murzaev rushed to his aid; he himself was wounded twice, but managed to drag his comrade inside the building. But Efremov was no longer breathing.

The dead and seriously wounded were replaced by new fighters. At the first opportunity, the battalion commander, commander of the 42nd regiment Elin, visited the garrison. Alexander Rodimtsev has also been here more than once.

During one of his visits to Pavlov’s house, soldier Egorov introduced himself to the division commander: “Machine gunner.” Rodimtsev asked what number the guardsman was in the Maxim team.

“And I, Comrade General, as the Lord God, am one in three persons.” In all guises at once: as a commander, as a gunner, and as a carrier of cartridges.
Rodimtsev, remembering his youth as a machine-gun cadet, always favored representatives of this soldier’s specialty. While visiting Pavlov’s house, he noticed machine gunner Ilya Voronov and had heart-to-heart conversations with him more than once. And Guard Sergeant Voronov justified such trust and the attention of the division commander.

Before the next enemy attack, he, together with fighters Ivashchenko and Svirin, took his “Maxim” out of the building, placed it in front of the house in the ruins of the extension, and camouflaged it well. The German infantry attacked in large numbers, launching something like a “psychic attack.” As the enemies approached, Voronov suddenly began to mow them down with dagger-like, murderous fire. Dozens of enemy corpses remained on the ground, and the attackers retreated. But they launched a second attack, keeping the discovered machine-gun point under fire. All the brave men were seriously injured, and Ilya himself was wounded. But he, overcoming the pain, continued to mow down the approaching Germans with bursts of fire, and when the cartridges ran out, he fought back with grenades until the enemy’s attack was drowned out again. In this battle, the brave guardsman destroyed about a hundred enemies. When his comrades carried him, bleeding, from the territory of the fortified house, doctors in the medical battalion removed about twenty fragments from him. Ilya Vasilyevich Voronov remained alive, after the war he and Rodimtsev often met, carried on extensive correspondence, were strong friends, and this friendship extended to the Rodimtsev family - Ekaterina Osipovna, daughters Irina and Natalya, son Ilya.

Pavlov's house was marked as a fortress on Field Marshal Paulus's personal map. The Germans believed that it was defended by forces of at least a battalion. The building played an extremely important role in the defense system of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment; its garrison kept all adjacent streets under fire. The Germans, who conquered France within two weeks, in two months failed not only to knock out the guards from Pavlov’s house, but even, with the exception of prisoners, never even set foot on the threshold of the building. And after Soviet troops launched a counterattack near Stalingrad on November 19, the garrison of the building went on the offensive along with all the units of the regiment. He took part in the storming of the Milk House in the city center. In this battle, brothers-in-arms - Lieutenant Afanasyev and Sergeant Pavlov - were seriously wounded.
Only in April 1945 did front roads bring Pavlov and Rodimtsev together again.

- Where is your Hero Star? - asked Rodimtsev. It turns out that Pavlov’s idea was lost in the headquarters back in 1942. Then Alexander Ilyich ensured that the world-famous sergeant was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Alexander Ilyich himself received the Order of the Red Star during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Ya.F. Pavlov, hero of the Battle of Stalingrad:

Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev was always with us in battle formations. He encouraged the tired, promoted the capable, and rewarded those who distinguished themselves. Iron will, high skill, courage, courage in battle, fatherly care for the soldier - all this created for him enormous authority. Our division was a single, tightly knit fighting team. Every soldier, sergeant and officer, did not hesitate to follow their commander.

At the beginning of November 1942, a letter of appeal from soldiers of the 13th Guards Rifle Division to all defenders of Stalingrad appeared in the newspaper of the 62nd Army:

Brothers in Arms! A few days ago we decided to write to you to tell you about our struggle against the hated German occupiers. When this letter was written, we received an appeal to the defenders of Stalingrad from glorious veterans of the Civil War, participants in the heroic defense of Tsaritsyn. With excitement we read the call of our fathers to defend the city. Everyone at these moments thought: the outcome of the war depends on us and only on us. Each of us once again became aware of how great the responsibility entrusted to us by the people and country is.

Dear friends! The Motherland ordered us to defend Stalingrad. Our fathers and mothers. Wives and children work tirelessly; day and night they produce tanks, planes, guns, shells, rifles, machine guns, and cartridges for us. They rely on us. They call on us, regardless of sacrifices and hardships, to fight as the heroes of the Tsaritsyn epic fought during the Civil War.

Here, on the outskirts of Stalingrad, during the day we had to fight off 12 or more enemy attacks. The guards stubbornly defend each of their positions. Having chosen an opportune moment, they launch counterattacks on the enemy, inflicting as many casualties as possible. In just one day of fighting in the city, we destroyed two thousand German soldiers. More than a dozen enemy tanks have been turned into a pile of scrap by our artillerymen, armor-piercers and grenade launchers.

...Responding to the call of the Tsaritsyn residents, we want to remind you, our comrades-in-arms, that the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution is approaching. Let us not darken this great holiday, let us not retreat a single step. We will die, but we will defend Stalingrad. With iron tenacity and Bolshevik persistence we will beat our enemies mercilessly until they are completely destroyed.

On behalf of the soldiers, commanders and political workers of the division Hero of the Soviet Union, Guard Major General Rodimtsev, Guard Senior Battalion Commissar Marchenko, Guard Senior Lieutenant Bykov and others.

These days, Goebbels propaganda trumpeted the whole world that German troops had completely occupied Stalingrad. To expose this lie, the political department of the Stalingrad Front decided to raise and install the Red Banner at the highest point of Stalingrad - the top of Mamayev Kurgan. On the anniversary of the October Revolution, October 7, a group of political workers of the 62nd Army and the 13th Guards Division hoisted a scarlet banner on the mound, and cameraman Captain V.I. Orlyankin captured it on film against the backdrop of a panorama of front-line Stalingrad. Rodimtsev's guards provided security and cover for the group that planted the flag. The footage shot by a front-line cameraman was included in the release of military newsreels, and the whole world saw them.

Operation Uranus and its consequences

And on November 19-20, Operation Uranus began. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the General Staff of the Red Army had been preparing it since September, from the very days when Rodimtsev’s 13th Guards Division, having crossed the Volga, began its epic defense of Stalingrad. And it was precisely the resilience of those who held back the enemy’s onslaught on the right bank of the Volga that made possible the crushing counterattack of the Red Army.

At 7:30 a.m., salvos of rocket artillery in the Don and Southwestern fronts, north and south of Stalingrad, began an 80-minute artillery barrage unprecedented in the history of wars in the density and power of fire, and then the formations of these fronts went on the offensive. The next day, the troops of the Stalingrad Front began to advance. Units and formations of the 62nd Army, including Rodimtsev’s division, also took part in this offensive. Fighting in the streets, they were able to significantly push the enemy away from the banks of the Volga and inflict serious losses on him, recapturing many streets and neighborhoods from the Germans. And on November 23, the 45th Tank Brigade of the 4th Tank Corps in the area of the Sovetsky village east of Stalingrad joined with the 36th Mechanized Brigade of the 4th Mechanized Corps, closing the encirclement ring around the troops of the 6th Army and the 4th German Tank Army. There were 22 fascist divisions and more than 160 separate enemy units in the cauldron.
In the following months, Rodimtsev's guards crushed the enemy and pinned down his forces on the internal front of the encirclement. The actions of Soviet troops on this front, including the 62nd Army of V.I. Chuikov, were of enormous importance in order to prevent the release of the encircled fascist group from the outside.

Field Marshal Manstein, who led the new Army Group Don, created specifically to break through the Soviet ring of encirclement in the Stalingrad area, put forward a plan - to break through the encirclement with simultaneous attacks: from the outside - with the forces of his army group from the Tormosin and Kotelnikovsky areas, and from the inside - by the forces of the encircled 6th German Army. Hitler approved this plan, but when he asked the commander of the 6th Army, Paulus, whether he could “strike and at the same time hold the defense along the Volga,” he answered in the negative. The Fuhrer's favorite Paulus, already surrounded and promoted to field marshal by Hitler to boost morale, had no time for unblocking strikes: his defenses along the Volga were already bursting at the seams.

In the early morning of January 26, 1943, Rodimtsev received a call from the commander of the 34th Guards Regiment, Panikhin.

“Artillery fire can be heard from the west,” he reported. — Shells are exploding in the German rear.

- Ours are coming!

Half an hour later, Rodimtsev’s guards met with the advanced units of the 21st Army. A multivocal “Hurray” was heard, accompanied by machine gun fire. The surrounded German troops in Stalingrad were cut in two in the middle of the city - into northern and southern groups. And on January 31, the southern group, operating in the center of the city, with which the 13th Rifle Guards fought fierce battles for several months, stopped resisting. Field Marshal Paulus and his staff surrendered.

Back in September 1942, in the first days of the fighting of the 13th Guards on the right bank of the Volga, someone wrote in meter-long letters on the wall that ran over the river along the embankment: “Here Rodimtsev’s guardsmen stood to the death.” And in the days when the great Battle of Stalingrad ended in victory, others were added to these words: “By surviving, we defeated death.”

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To the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Soviet commander

In secondary school No. 26 in Moscow there is a people's Museum of the combat route of the 13th Guards Rifle Division named after twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel General Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev. The exhibits presented in the exhibition are witnesses to the heroic actions of the guardsmen of the legendary division commander on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Portrait gallery of 28 Heroes of the Soviet Union of the illustrious formation; A diagram of the division’s combat path from Pervomaisk, where the paratroopers met the rumbles of war, to the meeting on the Elbe with American troops and the liberation of a fascist concentration camp in Terezin, Czechoslovakia, on May 12, 1945, where prisoners of many European countries languished; the exhibition halls of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Kursk Bulge, and the Victory Hall are “classrooms” for conducting lessons in courage at school. At the center of the moral and patriotic work of the museum and the Veterans Council is the combat biography of the legendary general, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel General A.I. Rodimtsev.
Divisional Commander Rodimtsev. The general's whole life is a legend. The streets and squares of our and foreign cities are named after him. "What was he like?" - they ask veterans. Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov accurately answered this question: “Rodimtsev was ordinary, like everyone else, and a little extraordinary. Kind to friends and unyielding to the enemies of his people, like all Russian people. Ingenuous and savvy, you can’t fool him around your finger, warm-hearted, simple-minded, and flint, even strike fire. Complaisant and proud, if you offend in vain, he will not forgive. This was a national nugget, flesh of his flesh. And it is not surprising that the division commander’s versatility of talent shone when surrounded by strong-willed, persistent, unyielding warriors like himself. Neither he without them, nor they without him.”
He was born in 1905 in the distant Ural village of Sharlyk near Orenburg, into a poor family, in an unprepossessing wooden house, which time had not protected. But the school, a few kilometers from the house where he went skiing to study, has been preserved, and the monument in the central square of the village is proudly venerated by his fellow countrymen. And how can one not preserve such a historical school? After all, two famous Russian patriots sat at their desks in it - the unbroken poet Musa Jalil, who died in fascist dungeons, and the legendary General Rodimtsev.
As a child, Sasha lost his father. The father, killed by the White Cossacks during the Civil War, left three daughters and a twelve-year-old son orphans. To feed his mother and sisters, Sasha hired out as a farm laborer. He drove horses at night, sitting on the bank of the fast-flowing river Salmysh and dreamed of becoming a cavalryman. And he performed his first civic feat here, saving the drowning neighbor’s girl Katerina. It was only later that the nimble little girl turned into a charming beauty and became the wife of her savior.
In 1927, Rodimtsev was drafted into the army. But not into the cavalry, as he dreamed, but into escort troops. For two years, honor by honor, having served his active duty, demobilized with a simple soldier’s backpack, he arrived at the Kazansky railway station in Moscow. To the surprise of many, he successfully passed the exams at the Kremlin Military School. All-Russian Central Executive Committee and was enrolled in the cavalry department. A dream born on the banks of the Ural river Salmysh has come true. He studied well and diligently.
Studying was combined with guard duty. In accordance with strict procedure, the cadets took up post No. 1 at the Mausoleum on schedule. Two cadets, Rodimtsev and his friend Tsyurupa, also kept watch there. After graduating from college, Alexander was assigned to the 61st Cavalry Regiment as a machine gun platoon commander. The everyday life of army service and the improvement of military skills began. He especially stood out for his machine-gun sniper shooting and repeatedly emerged victorious at regional competitions. Mikhail Sholokhov later wrote about him that Rodimtsev “could have stamped his name on the wall with a machine-gun burst.”
The thirst for knowledge constantly overwhelmed the young officer. He persistently prepared for the Academy. Frunze. I even successfully passed the entrance exams. But I didn't have to study. In the fall of 1936, a fair-haired lieutenant entered one of the inconspicuous mansions near the Kropotkinsky metro station, and a shy intellectual in a tie and a wide-brimmed hat emerged. The platoon commander, Senior Lieutenant Rodimtsev, was sent to carry out a “special mission” in fighting Spain.
In Madrid, Toledo, Teruel, and Guadalajara, the fair-haired “Captain Pavlito” appeared in the ranks of the international brigades, one of those who “left the hut and went to fight to give the land to the peasants in Grenada.”
For conscientious fulfillment of the task of the Motherland, volunteer internationalist Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Battle. In 1937 he was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
He left for Spain as a senior lieutenant and returned as a major, commander of the 61st Cavalry Regiment. We also remembered about the successful entrance exams before leaving on a business trip abroad. After a year of service, he was enrolled as a student at the Military Academy. Frunze. The diploma was the awarding of the rank of colonel and appointment as deputy commander of the 36th Cavalry Division. Peaceful training days were often interrupted by military alarms. He took part in the liberation campaign in Western Belarus, in the Finnish campaign. Then, being with him in a combat situation, the future Marshal G.K. Zhukov and Colonel A.I. Rodimtsev did not know each other. Their front roads will converge later in Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge, and the Sandomirov bridgehead. But then, in 1940, the world was uneasy. Germany was building up its military power, the Nazi Wehrmacht was equipping its troops with the latest equipment and weapons. Tigers and Panthers, improved long-range artillery pieces, rolled off Krupa's factory assembly lines.
Military reforms were also underway in the Red Army. New types of troops were created. Rodimtsev, who had combat experience, was sent to study the military specialty of a paratrooper at the operational department of the Command and Navigation Academy. The archive contains film documents of Colonel Rodimtsev’s training parachute jumps from TB-3. Already in May he was appointed commander of the 5th Airborne Brigade of the 3rd Airborne Corps. From the first days of the war, Rodimtsev’s paratroopers almost never left the battlefield. Operations on the Seim River, Tim, the defense of Kyiv, Pervomaisk, Kirovograd - this was the theater of combat operations of Rodimtsev’s soldiers in the first months of the war. On October 30, 1941, the 3rd Airborne Corps was reorganized into the 87th Rifle Division, and Colonel Rodimtsev was appointed its commander. There was no calm at the front. The rifle division continued the combat chronicle of the paratroopers. Particularly bloody battles took place in the cities of Tim, Pervomaisk, Kirovograd, and Shchigry.
For the courage, bravery, and mass heroism shown in these battles, the 87th Rifle Division was reorganized into the 13th Guards Division on January 19, 1942. And two months later the Order of Lenin appeared on her battle banner. This high award testified to the military exploits of the guards who continued to crush the enemy. The division commander was awarded the military rank of major general.

AND AGAIN continuous battles, fights won and lost, successful and tragic. But still, the main tests of the guardsmen lay ahead. Burning Stalingrad awaited them. On the night of September 14, under hurricane artillery fire and air bombing, Rodimtsev's division crossed the Volga and came to the aid of the 62nd Army. It was about these events that Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov wrote in his memoirs: “September 13, 14, 15 were difficult, too difficult days for Stalingrad. The turning point in these difficult and, as at times it seemed, the last hours was created by the 13th Guards Division of A.I. Rodimtsev.” For five months, the division's guards held back the onslaught of superior enemy forces, launching counterattacks and inflicting sensitive blows on the Nazis. Legends were formed about the twenty-year-old battalion commander Ivan Isakov, who took the impregnable Mamaev Kurgan. The defense of a four-story building, the “House of Sergeant Pavlov,” has gone down in history forever.
It took the Nazis four weeks to occupy Paris, and the same elite 6th Army of Paulus lacked four months to capture the four-story “Pavlov’s House.”
On February 2, 1943, the surrounded selected 330,000-strong Nazi group was liquidated. A meeting of the winners took place in the city, at which the legendary divisional commander Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev also spoke. Leaving Stalingrad, the guards on the concrete wall, near the very bank of the Volga, wrote the words in large letters: “Here Rodimtsev’s guards stood to the death, by standing we defeated death.” This inscription even today reminds us of the unprecedented feat of the soldiers, each of whom was a hero.
Almost 60 years after the rally of the winners in Stalingrad, the collection “The Stalingrad Epic” was published. It published declassified documents of the NKVD of the USSR during the war. Under No. 92 of the 3rd UNKVD of the USSR Central Administration of the FSB, RF, F14, op. 4, d. 777, a report from special officer V. Ilyin is presented. An NKVD officer signaled: “...they are doing strange things to Rodimtsev. They want to belittle him in every possible way, although he, as a hero, goes beyond the scope of an ordinary division commander. Rodimtsev is almost the only unit commander who was not awarded for Stalingrad.”
Yes it is. But Rodimtsev’s guardsmen fought and gave their lives not for awards, not for ranks. 28 Heroes of the Soviet Union appeared in the division. All of them, highly decorated and not holding medals in their hands, did not go into battle under duress, sometimes in bayonet attacks, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat. For them, the call “For the Motherland” was not pathos. This is how they understood their duty when the Fatherland was in mortal danger. And it’s even more offensive to listen to the black-diggers of military history, who are trying to turn everything upside down, repeating like a spell about the forced-command nature of military exploits. Yes, in the army the order is the law. It must be carried out without discussion. But was it only by order that our Great Victory over fascism was achieved? Was it by order that Alexander Matrosov covered the embrasure with his body? Was it by order that the pilot Gastello sent a burning attack aircraft to the enemy train? Was it by order that Alexey Maresyev returned to duty on prosthetics and continued to shoot down Hitler’s aces. Was it by order that 16-year-old Masha Borovichenko came to the 13th division and died on the Kursk Bulge, posthumously becoming a Hero of the Soviet Union. The combat biographies of General Rodimtsev, his Stalingrad brothers-in-arms Belsky, Samchuk, Vavilov, Dolgov, Isakov, and other fellow soldiers indicate that, along with military orders, they were guided by a patriotic impulse, a filial duty to protect their native land, their parental home.
But did the guards really have time for such reasoning back then? They were rushing to the West, to Hitler's lair. After a short respite, Rodimtsev’s Stalingraders were again at the forefront of the Red Army’s offensive operations. They participated in all major operations carried out by the Supreme High Command: Kursk Bulge, Poltava, Kirovograd, Sandomirovsky bridgehead. At the beginning of May 1945, the guards reached the Elbe near the town of Torgau and met with American allied forces. Taking the city of Dresden, they saved the famous Dresden art gallery, which the Nazis hid in salted copies. It was they, the Rodimtsev guards, when the whole world celebrated Victory Day on May 9, who went to the rescue of the rebellious Prague.
It was they who, on May 12, liberated the fascist concentration camp in Terezin, where prisoners of many European countries languished. It was the doctors of the Guards Division in the liberated concentration camp who delivered the birth of a Hungarian prisoner, naming the newborn girl Vera. And the military general was embarrassed many years later at a government reception, not recognizing the newborn girl Vera in the young beauty. On May 12, 1945, the combat journey of Rodimtsev’s guardsmen ended. By the end of the war, the division's Banner had the Order of Lenin, Kutuzov, and the Order of the Red Banner of Battle. Rodimtsev himself became twice Hero of the Soviet Union in June.
The general's post-war service was not easy. However, like other famous military leaders, whose names were widely known not only in our country, but also abroad. One can see the unyielding character of the front-line soldiers, who are not accustomed to bending their hearts, calling everything by their proper names, did not give rest to both home-grown politicians striving for power and military careerists. After the front, Rodimtsev was sent to “serve his time” in patriarchal Tver. Here they tried to either arrest him or simply remove him. One night, people from the organs in sheepskin coats, having cut off the telephone connection, tried to break into the apartment. The general was forced to shoot out the window, calling the guard. Only the guards who came running to the shooting forced the uninvited guests to retreat. Then the general was sent away from Moscow, to the Arctic, then to Siberia, where, not far from his new service, the tsar’s convict prison, Alexander Central, loomed gloomily.
Then they were sent out of the country altogether, into honorable exile in Albania. However, many famous military leaders experienced such dislike for themselves at that time. Direct, sharp, airy ace, three times Hero of the Soviet Union I.N. Kozhedub at the age of 58 was sent to honorable retirement, to the group of retired inspectors. Rodimtsev also ended up there. Having walked the fiery roads of war, the general did not harden in soul, his heart was open to those around him. He loved humor and loved people.
It is not surprising that among his friends there were not only military men, but also artists, poets, composers, and scientists. One day, a grandson asked why his family called him a writer. The general responded by reading the young poet’s poems about the past war:
I didn’t know them by sight of all the fallen,
But everyone is my brother by blood.
And everyone missing -
Alarm about the past war.
And he answered his grandson: “It was this alarm that forced me, an eyewitness, to tell the truth about the war in my books. And lovingly, they jokingly call him a writer. I'm a military man." The military general is the author of seven fiction and non-fiction books published in many foreign languages. His books are on the shelves in libraries in Moscow, Madrid, Berlin, Budapest, and Prague. And after the publication of his story “Mashenka from the Mousetrap” in 1965, the heroine of the book, Maria Borovichenko, was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Until his last days, the general considered himself in the military ranks, meeting with young soldiers and participating in the work of veteran organizations. With his direct participation, the Museum of the Combat Path of the 13th Guards Division was created in a nearby school, which is still actively working, engaged in the moral and patriotic education of youth.
And a meeting with cadets of the Higher Command School named after. The Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR was the last. A fatal absurdity, a car accident on the school grounds turned out to be fatal. Doctors were powerless to save the veteran's life.
On April 13, 1977, he passed away. He was buried with military honors at the Novodevichy cemetery. In Moscow, on the house where the general lived, a memorial plaque was installed. The streets and squares of many cities are named after him. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the legendary general, the country's Minister of Defense took part in the laying of a monument to Rodimtsev in Orenburg, in the Urals, where the biography of the glorious patriot of Russia began.