Rostov-on-Don. Large city in the South of Russia. Unfortunately, few people remember that this land is abundantly watered with the blood of our soldiers, and that many feats have been accomplished on these streets.
Autumn 1941. During the Donbass-Rostov operation, German troops of Army Group South under the command of Field Marshal Rundstedt inflicted a crushing defeat on the troops of the Southern Front and occupied most of the Donbass. Further, the Germans strike in the direction of Rostov-on-Don, 1 Panzer Army under the command of Colonel-General Ewald von Kleist is at the forefront of the strike. In total, in this sector of the front, the grouping of enemy forces included: the 4th German Army Corps and the Italian Corps of the 17th Army and the 1st Panzer Army (49th Mountain, 14th and 3rd Motorized Corps) consisted of 7 infantry, 2 mountain rifle, 3 tank and 4 motorized divisions. The elite 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandart SS Adolf Hitler" operated as part of the 3rd Motorized Corps. Heavy fighting broke out on the outskirts of Rostov. Parts of the 56th Army of the Red Army,under the command of General F. N. Remezov, were forced to withdraw. On the outskirts of the city from Taganrog, fighters of the 343rd Stavropol, 353rd Novorossiysk infantry divisions and 68th Kushchevskaya cavalry divisions fought. During the fighting, Soviet soldiers managed to inflict significant losses on the enemy. The Germans were forced to abandon the offensive from this direction. The next blow was delivered by the Germans from Novoshakhtinsk, from the north. On their way was the battery of Sergei Andreevich Oganov from the 317th Baku Rifle Division. The Germans were forced to abandon the offensive from this direction. The next blow was delivered by the Germans from Novoshakhtinsk, from the north. On their way was the battery of Sergei Andreevich Oganov from the 317th Baku Rifle Division. The Germans were forced to abandon the offensive from this direction. The next blow was delivered by the Germans from Novoshakhtinsk, from the north. On their way was the battery of Sergei Andreevich Oganov from the 317th Baku Rifle Division.
Sergey Andreevich Oganov.
16 gunners at the cost of their lives repelled the attack of 50 tanks, 12 of which were burned and 18 were knocked out. During the battle, political instructor S. V. Vavilov, after the death of the commander and deputy commander of the battery, took over command. After the death of the soldiers, he himself served as a shooter, gunner.
Sergey Vasilievich Vavilov.
He was mortally wounded, approached the German tank with an anti-tank grenade, but there was no strength to throw it, and therefore rushed with it under the enemy car, at the cost of his own life knocked it out.
A fragment of a mosaic in the Budennovsky-Sadovaya underground passage.
The battery died, but fulfilled the combat order. Not a single enemy tank passed through the line of defense they occupied. The divisional commander, Colonel Seredkin, was killed when he was in a hurry to help the dying battery. In total, the 317th Baku Rifle Division lost more than 8000 fighters in three days. By 16 o'clock on November 21, 1941, the formations and units of the 56th Separate Army withdrew to the left bank of the Don.
Promotional video:
Budennovsky, Central Market area.
The retreating units were covered by the soldiers of the 230th NKVD regiment, who continued to wage fierce battles on the streets of Rostov. The first battalion, suffering heavy losses, withdrew to the left bank of the Don through the crossing on Budennovsky Prospect, the second battalion withdrew along the 29th line to Zeleny Island. The battalion had not yet managed to occupy the trenches, when 12 fascist tanks broke through the pontoon bridge to the island, accompanied by heavy fire from machine guns and mortars.
German tanks descend along the 29th line.
The soldiers of the NKVD regiment did not have anti-tank weapons. Private Bondarev got close to the front tank. Got up with a bunch of grenades. But then he fell, struck by a machine-gun burst. The grenades exploded in the hands of the already dead soldier. Private Ogarkov collected the remaining grenades and crawled to certain death. Bullets hit him twice, but he continued to crawl, leaving a trail of blood. And he succeeded. Pretending to be killed, Ogarkov let the tank come close to him, and at the last moment he got up, throwing grenades at him. The tank caught fire. The rest of the cars stopped. The Germans started art. shelling the island and under its cover the tanks moved into the battalion's trenches. The situation has become critical. In this situation, the battalion command decided to call our artillery fire on itself. The Germans withdrew. But as soon as the shelling stopped, the enemy aircraft raid began,the howl of JU-87 dive bombers, bomb explosions. The island was on fire. It seemed that nothing alive was left there, but the repeated assault of the Germans was repulsed. The island fought. And then the Germans did not abandon their attempts to seize the island, but the NKVD fighters fought off these attacks.
Green island now.
And at night, reconnaissance groups penetrated the captured city and haunted the invaders. And on the night from 28th to 29th November, the regiment was at the forefront of the 56th Army's attack, which was liberating Rostov.
Monument to the soldiers of the 230th NKVD regiment.
Monument to the soldiers of the 230th NKVD regiment.
On November 26, by order of the command, a group of scouts of the 230th NKVD regiment under the command of Lieutenant G. M. Sviridov crossed the Don and seized a bridgehead in the Teatralnaya Square area. Another group landed on the right bank of the river near Karl Marx Square. Fighting off the frantic attacks of the enemy, the Chekists held their positions until the approach of the main forces. During the day, the platoon of senior sergeant G. V. Makarevich destroyed about 150 fascists, occupied several houses along the 36th line. In the area of Karl Marx Square, a company under the command of Lieutenant Levkin occupied several houses and turned them into an impregnable fortress. All the soldiers and the company commander fought like heroes. In battle, Lieutenant Levkin lost his sight from the explosion of a grenade, but continued to fight, did not leave the battlefield.
A six-storey building at the corner of the 5th line and the 1st Soviet. a group of soldiers of the 230th NKVD regiment under the command of Sergeant Ivan Zyukin entered here. Silently removing the sentry, the scouts went up to the second floor and caught the Nazis by surprise, noisily celebrating the "victory on the Don." The headquarters of the Nazi division, located in this house, was destroyed. For four days there were fierce fights on the floors, on flights of stairs. Our fighters kept the streets under fire, fired at passing units, conducted reconnaissance, transmitting valuable information to the command that was preparing the offensive operation by radio … For the feats shown in the battles for Rostov-on-Don in November 1941, the 230th NKVD regiment was awarded Order of the Red Banner.
This very house.
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. P. Beria.
Soldiers of the 230th regiment of the NKVD.
On November 29, 1941, units of the 56th and 9th armies completely cleared Rostov of the fascist invaders. This was the first major defeat for the Nazis since the beginning of the Second World War. The 14th and 16th Panzer Divisions, the 60th and Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler motorized divisions, and the 49th Mountain Rifle Corps were defeated.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The occupation of the city lasted eight days. But even during this period, the Nazis left a bloody trail in the city. On 1st Sovetskaya Street, near house No. 2, there was a pile of 90 corpses of residents of this house; on the 36th line, near the orphanage, 61 people were killed; at the corner of the 40th line and Murlychev street, the Nazis opened fire one by one for bread, killing 43 people: old people, women and children; at the Armenian cemetery, the Nazis shot up to 200 local residents with machine guns. Then Vitya Cherevichkin was killed. Contrary to the order of the German command to destroy the domestic pigeons belonging to the local population, the teenager hid the birds he had for a week.
Vitya Cherevichkin.
Monument to Vita Cherevichkin.
Rostov-on-Don remained Soviet until July 1942, when, after the failure of the Red Army offensive near Kharkov, the German command launched an offensive in the Kuban and the Caucasus. On July 24, 1942, the 17th Army of the Wehrmacht entered Rostov.
There is a modest monument on Vsesoyuznaya Street. This is a monument to young girls who died defending the city.
Monument at the All-Union.
In the summer of 1942. here - then it was the outskirts of the village of Nizhne-Gnilovskaya - the third battery of the first division of the 734th anti-aircraft artillery regiment was located. Like most of such regiments at that formidable time, it was formed mostly of girls 17, 18, 19 years old. The battery took over the main blow of the fascist aviation, which bombed Rostov for several days in a row before the attack on the city in July 1942. On July 21, the anti-aircraft gunners took their last battle. Recent raids have been particularly intense. They lasted several hours without interruption. When they stopped and silence fell, the anti-aircraft gunners fell down dead from fatigue. Many did not even hear the roar of the advancing German tanks. Only a few girls found the strength to rise, deploy their anti-aircraft guns and direct their barrels at the advancing tanks. The anti-aircraft gunners managed to destroy two German tanks. Tanks of the 5th SS division "Viking", "ironed" the battery together with its defenders. The girls died.
In Rostov, street fighting flared up, the Germans had the impression that the Red Army was deliberately drawing them into urban battles, where very often whole German units were surrounded.
This is how the Germans recalled the battles for Rostov:
Fights for Rostov.
From the memoirs of the Wehrmacht officer V. Zander "Battle for Rostov" ("Der Kampf um Rostov").
Rostov is under occupation.
During the occupation, there were monstrous atrocities by the occupiers.
Kolya Kizim, Igor Neigof, Vitya Protsenko, Vanya Zyatin and Kolya Sidorenko picked up on the streets up to forty Red Army fighters wounded during the defense of Rostov. All the wounded boys were hiding in the attic of their house, at Ulyanovskaya 27.
Ulyanovskaya 27.
Memorial plaque.
For two weeks, the pioneers took care of the wounded. But someone reported to the fascists. The Germans made a search, during which the wounded Red Army soldiers were found hiding in the attic. They were thrown from the attic into the courtyard and finished off with bayonets. The Nazis ordered all residents of the house to line up and said that if they did not give up those who were hiding the Red Army soldiers, then all residents of the house would face the death penalty. The guys themselves went out of order and said that they did it - to save the rest of the residents of the house. The Nazis decided to arrange a demonstrative punishment. They dug a hole in the courtyard of the house, filled it with quicklime and threw the boys into it. Then they poured water into the pit. The guys died slowly and painfully. The guys were 11-12 years old.
Monument to the children at the Bratsk cemetery.
In total, more than 40 thousand residents of the city were destroyed, 27 thousand of whom were executed in the Zmievskaya Balka.
Memorial Zmievskaya Balka.
Memorial Zmievskaya Balka.
In the city prison alone on February 14, 1943 - on the day of the liberation of Rostov - units of the Red Army found 1,154 corpses of the city's citizens, who were shot and tortured by the Nazis. Of the total number of corpses, 370 were found in the pit, 303 in various parts of the courtyard and 346 among the ruins of the blown up building. Among the victims there are 55 minors, 122 women.
Murdered local residents.
On the territory of the former Rostov artillery school in August 1942, a so-called infirmary was organized for sick and wounded Soviet prisoners of war, in fact, a concentration camp. All treatment of the sick and wounded consisted of dressing the wounds once every two weeks. Of the medicines for the "treatment" of all diseases, only manganese-sour potassium was used. There was no surgical instrument and no surgical aid was provided to the patients. The infectious patients were with everyone. As a result of all this, the mortality rate in the infirmary exceeded 100 people. daily. Moreover, the corpses were not taken out of the wards for 7-8 days. Those suspected of trying to escape from the infirmary at night were taken to a fenced-off part of the courtyard and shot. The corpses of the dead and the executed were thrown into the ditch. As establishedduring the existence of the infirmary, over 3,000 people were shot and died of starvation. During the escape of the invaders from Rostov, more than 200 bodies were found unburied on the territory of the infirmary.
Rostov is under occupation.
The Germans and their allies also mocked the city:
Having plundered the Rostov Museum of Local Lore, the Germans set up a hostel in it.
Streets of occupied Rostov.
In the Museum of the Revolution, the Romanians, knowingly and following the example of their German owners, set up a stable.
The monuments to K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, S. M. Kirov.
27 libraries were blown up and burned. Including the Central Scientific Library with a book fund of 300 thousand books, the Academic Library of Rostov State University.
Damaged KV tank.
Burned: 4 institutes and 4 technical schools, the house of party education, 2 cinemas, the regional house of Soviets, the house of the regional executive committee, the building of the railway administration named after Voroshilov, hotels "Intourist" and "International". One of the best theaters of the Soviet Union - the Rostov city theater named after Gorky.
Slovaks.
The invaders destroyed the main buildings of the Central City Hospital, the 1st, 3rd and 4th Polyclinics, the Polyclinic of Railway Workers and others. Some hospitals were destroyed along with the patients who were in them.
Crossing the Don.
All residential buildings along Engels Street, from the railway station to Voroshilovsky Avenue, most of the buildings along Pushkinskaya, Shaumyan and Socialist streets, from the station to Budennovsky Avenue, as well as a significant part of the premises and residential buildings along Budennovsky, Teatralny and Voroshilovsky Avenues, were blown up and burned down, in the village "Rostselmash", Olympiadovka and other places. In Gorky Park, the Germans cut down the most valuable trees, destroyed fountains and pavilions.
Rostov is under occupation.
The destruction of public and residential buildings proceeded as follows: special teams of sapper-arsonists and demolition men laid mines, blew up buildings, poured gasoline over the remains and set them on fire. The bandits did not even consider it necessary to warn the residents about this. Hundreds of people died under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Rostov is under occupation.
During the occupation of Rostov-on-Don, the invaders destroyed almost all industrial enterprises.
Rostov is under occupation.
St. Bolshaya Sadovaya.
Rostov-on-Don.
Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper March 13, 1943 "Rostov calls for retaliation!"
Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper March 13, 1943 "Rostov calls for retaliation!"
The second liberation of Rostov began with the transition of the troops of the Southern Front to the offensive on January 1, 1943. Units of the 28th Army attacked Rostov. The 28th Army was commanded by Lieutenant General Vasily Filippovich Gerasimenko.
Lieutenant General Vasily Filippovich Gerasimenko.
St. Coastal.
The Nazis desperately defended Rostov, realizing its importance. On the evening of February 7, 1943, the 159th separate rifle brigade received a combat mission - to capture part of the Rostov-on-Don station. The assault group included soldiers and officers of three battalions of the 159th Infantry Brigade. Three assault battalions suffered heavy losses. Two battalion commanders were put out of action. And then the battalion commander-3 - senior lieutenant Gukas Karapetovich Madoyan - gathered all the survivors under his command and with a concentrated blow solved the task assigned to the attack aircraft: he took the station, blocking the railway. On the very first day, the enraged Germans launched eight attacks on the station defended by Madoyan's consolidated battalion, but to no avail. For six days the fighters under Madoyan's command repulsed the attacks of the Germans, fighting in complete encirclement. 43 attacks were repulsed. Madoyan's detachment managed not only to defend the station, but also to destroy about 300 Nazi soldiers and officers, to disable one tank, 35 cars and 10 motorcycles of the Nazis. As a result of the defense of the station, the Red Army captured 89 steam locomotives and over 3,000 carriages, and Hitler's echelons, carrying a large amount of ammunition and other goods, were in the hands of the Madoyanites.
Gukas Karapetovich Madoyan.
Even overseas learned about the heroic deed of the battalion commander Madoyan: US President Roosevelt awarded him the US Army Medal for Distinguished Service.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 31, 1943, for the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the command on the front of the struggle against the Nazi invaders and the courage and heroism shown at the same time, Senior Lieutenant Madoyan Gukas Karapetovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
In the area of the Semerniki farm in the village of Nizhne-Gnilovskaya, the battery of the 2nd Guards Separate Horse Artillery Division of the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps of the Southern Front was consolidated. The battery had only 20 people and 2 artillery pieces. The artillerymen, commanded by the Guard Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Mikhailovich Peskov, managed not only to gain a foothold, but also heroically repel enemy tank attacks. In the battle with the Nazis, the entire battery died, only four fighters managed to survive, among whom was the commander of the artillerymen Peskov. For the courage shown by the guard, Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Peskov was awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union in March 1943 with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
By February 12, the intensity of fighting in the streets of the city reached its climax. The company under the command of Lieutenant Ivan Lisin made an attempt to break through to the combined battalion surrounded in the station area. The 51st Army's formations successfully overcame enemy resistance and advanced significantly north of Rostov. Formations of the 44th Army and the mechanized cavalry group of N. Ya. Kirichenko, developing an offensive in the southwestern direction, cut the railroad and the Taganrog-Rostov highway. A serious threat of encirclement hung over the Nazi troops stationed in Rostov.
Soon the battles for Rostov unfolded in all directions. The formations in the southwestern part of the city were especially active. Units of the 87th Infantry Division and the 51st Army approached the village of Ordzhonikidze. In the area of the Zapadny crossing, Rostov partisans under the command of M. Trifonov (Yugov) routed the enemy's mortar battalion. Rostov was now covered by our troops from three sides.
Liberation.
The decisive offensive began on the night of February 13-14, and by two o'clock in the afternoon our troops had suppressed the last strongholds of the enemy. The Nazis began to withdraw from Rostov. Rostov-on-Don was released.