The military blockbuster with the ingenuous name "T-34" has generated a lot of technical, artistic and political debate. In terms of history, it is interesting to look at exactly what real events were taken as its basis.
The legend of the captured Soviet tankers, who, instead of becoming targets, rushed in their car from the German training ground, and then played tricks on the German rear, did not arise from scratch.
The story of the nameless
The commissar of the 1st Guards Tank Army, Lieutenant General Nikolai Popel, in his memoirs transmitted the story of his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Pavlovtsev.
During the fighting on the Sandomierz bridgehead, Pavlovtsev listened to the confession of a Soviet tanker who had escaped from captivity and died in a hospital. “The SS men brought him with two comrades to the Kunersdorf (correctly - Kummersdorf, - editor's note) test site and made him participate in testing the tank for armor resistance …
Before the test, the chairman of the fascist commission praised our crew very much - they carried out all the commands so quickly and accurately. Here, they say, she is "Ryus" ingenuity! He promised the tankers complete freedom if they stayed alive. When, before the execution, people got into the tank, the commander stroked the armor and ordered the driver: "Listen only to my command!" And the tank rushed at third speed straight to the observation tower. The artillerymen did not shoot, so as not to beat their superiors: the tank commander turned out to be both a brave and intelligent person, he calculated everything. They misbehaved there - that's what he said: "misbehaved." Some fools SS men on alarm rolled up on an armored personnel carrier - they decided to pacify the tank! He crushed them with caterpillars on the move - there were no shells. Then the soldiers waved to the east. When the fuel ran out, they began to make their way through the forests on foot. Both the commander and the driver died on the way, the radio operator crawled alone alive."
A more detailed investigation of Pavlovtsev was prevented by a serious injury. But the story of the unknown tanker was later confirmed by an old man from local residents. According to him, a T-34 tank that escaped from the Kummersdorf training ground in a nearby concentration camp crushed the guard's booth and knocked down part of the wire fence, which led to the escape of several prisoners, who were then hunted by the Gestapo with dogs for a long time. The locals were shocked that when the thirty-four drove to the bridge where the children were playing, the tankmen stopped the car and drove the children away, losing a few precious minutes in that situation.
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Pavlovtsev, however, was embarrassed that he talked with the dying tanker in September 1944, and the old man dated the escape to the end of 1943. According to a number of testimonies, it turned out that two tankers were killed in battle, and the crew commander was hanged on the gun of his tank. From this it was concluded that they were talking about two different shoots.
History on screen
The Kummersdorf test site was located 30 kilometers from Berlin. Another similar story is linked to the training ground near the town of Ohrdruf in Thuringia. This story was unearthed in 1962 by Mikhail Popov, the editor of the newspaper "Guards", published in the 39th Guards Motorized Rifle Division stationed in Thuringia. It was about a certain captain who also escaped in a thirty-four, who crushed three enemy guns with their crews, was caught and shot. An escape took place in front of the very eyes of the Inspector General of Tank Forces, Heinz Guderian. In 1964, Popov's plot was presented in the Pravda newspaper, and at the end of the article it was stated that Guderian allegedly personally shot the captain with the words: “You are the best tanker I have seen. That's why…".
In fact, the testimonies of local residents and a former Wehrmacht artilleryman (a certain Schlampfer) were not documented, and they seemed to say nothing about Guderian, but the legend, first widely voiced by Popel, was developed. First, the famous writer Lev Sheinin wrote the script "General Guderian's Mistake", and then Sergei Orlov and Mikhail Dudin followed in his footsteps. Their script was more poignant and embodied in the film by Nikita Kurikhin and Leonid Menaker "The Skylark".
A similar plot with the escape of the captured by the Germans "thirty-four" and its crew appears in one of the episodes of the famous Polish TV series "Four Tankmen and a Dog". Only there are tankers - three Poles and Georgians, and the scout Captain Kloss from the "adjacent" series "The Stake Is Greater Than Life" helps them to escape.
Concluding the story about prototypes, it is worth mentioning two more similar stories unearthed by Soviet journalists in Norway and Tyrol.
In Norway, two Soviet tankmen strangled a guard with a pistol who had been put in a T-34 next to them and, rushing to the exit from the range, crushed a truck and a car. Two guns blocked their way. One, from which the Germans were going to shoot in the forehead, ours also crushed, but the second knocked out the tank with an onboard shot. The tankers jumped out and seemed to have managed to escape, but their further fate is unknown.
In Tyrol, according to the stories of local residents, three prisoners disarmed the guards and climbed into the KV tank unloaded from the railway platform to be sent to the landfill. Having organized a pogrom at the station, they broke into the operational space, and when the car's engine stalled, they began to break through on foot. One was killed, the other two reached Italy, where they joined the partisans.
In a battle clinch
Since the plot of "T-34" is based on a personal confrontation, let's see how "tough" the Soviet tankmen were compared to their opponents from the Panzerwaffe.
Considered the most prolific German ace Kurt Knispel, he boasted 168 wins. Michael Wittmann chalked up 138 allied tanks destroyed, which, however, causes skepticism even among his apologists. The best result in one day belongs to the same Wittmann - 20 knocked out "thirty-fours".
In the Red Army, in terms of the total number of victories (52), Dmitry Lavrinenko, who died in December 1941, is in the lead. Zinoviy Kolobanov has the best result in one day. On August 20, 1941, near the village of Voiskovitsy, in one day, the KV-1 crew under his command methodically shot 22 enemy tanks moving in the column. The Germans were caught on a narrow path, destroying first the head and then the tail tank. And the whole column became a long target.
Worse, when the enemy had to conduct a maneuverable battle, like the one that takes place at the beginning of the film, in the winter of 1941. The authors of "T-34" were clearly inspired by the events of December 5, 1941 near the village of Nefedyevo near Moscow, where one KV-1 tank under the command of Lieutenant Pavel Gudzia, acting from an ambush and maneuvering, destroyed 10 German tanks. Along the way, 15 trucks and several guns with service staff were burned. By the way, the Panzerwaffe tank company formally fought in this battle with the Soviet tank battalion. Only the company was full and reinforced, and the battalion consisted of only one tank.
During the operation to finally lift the blockade of Leningrad in January 1944, a battle took place near the village of Skvoritsy, which was called "tank hand-to-hand combat." T-34 under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Mnatsakanov at a fork in the road collided head-on with two "tigers". The thirty-four entered the clinch with the closest enemy, when the crossed guns prevented the turrets from rotating. Skillfully driving the car, the driver-mechanic Burikov put the "tigers" on their belly in a track they had rolled out.
Then, threatening the nearest "tiger" with a grenade, Mnatsakanov forced his crew to surrender. The released "thirty-four" was again able to rotate the turret and knocked out the second enemy vehicle, which was the famous tanker Lieutenant Mayer. The captured "tiger" was dragged to our location.
In general, in terms of the total number of victories, the "stars" of the Panzerwaffe were several times superior to the Soviet tankers. But if you dig into the details, the picture is ambiguous.
The most striking victories of Soviet tankers, such as Kolobanov, Gudzia or Mnatsakanov, are solidly documented. But the Germans, when accounting for victories, relied more on the word "real gentleman". The same 20 "thirty-fours" knocked out by Wittmann, for example, remained on Soviet territory. But Kolobanov held the line, and showed the destroyed enemy tanks to replacements, commanders, correspondents.
Both Knispel and Wittmann did not make it to the end of the war. Unlike Kolobanov, Gudzia and Mnatsakanov, who survived to old age.
Dmitry MITYURIN