The famous photo of Emmanuil Evzerikhin.

Fountain "Children's round dance" on the square near the Stalingrad railway station, destroyed during the raid on August 23.

76 years have passed since the fascist tanks ended up on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad. And hundreds of German planes, meanwhile, brought down tons of deadly cargo on the city and its inhabitants.

The furious roar of engines and the ominous whistle of bombs, explosions, groans and thousands of deaths, and the Volga, engulfed in flames.

August 23 became one of the most terrible moments in the history of the city. In total, 200 fiery days from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the great confrontation on the Volga continued.

The center of Stalingrad a few days before the start of the battle

In the spring of 1942, Hitler divides Army Group South into two parts. The first one should take North Caucasus. The second is to move to the Volga, to Stalingrad. The summer offensive of the Wehrmacht was called Fall Blau.

German troops in the big bend of the Don. July 1942.

Stalingrad, like a magnet, attracted German troops to itself. The city that bore the name of Stalin. The city that opened the way for the Nazis to the oil reserves of the Caucasus. The city is located in the center of the transport arteries of the country.

To resist the onslaught of the Nazi army, on July 12, 1942, the Stalingrad Front was formed. Marshal Timoshenko became the first commander. It included the 21st Army and the 8th Air Army from the former Southwestern Front. More than 220,000 soldiers of three reserve armies: the 62nd, 63rd and 64th were also brought into the battle. Plus artillery, 8 armored trains and air regiments, mortar, tank, armored, engineering and other formations. The 63rd and 21st armies were supposed to prevent the Germans from forcing the Don. The rest of the forces were thrown to defend the borders of Stalingrad.

Stalingraders are also preparing for defense, in the city they form parts of the people's militia.

The beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad was rather unusual for that time. There was silence, tens of kilometers lay between the opponents. The Nazi columns were rapidly moving east. At this time, the Red Army was concentrating forces to the Stalingrad line, building fortifications.

Red Army soldiers in battle on the outskirts of Stalingrad

July 17, 1942 is considered to be the start date of the great battle. But, according to the statements of the military historian Alexei Isaev, in the first battle, the soldiers of the 147th rifle division entered the evening of July 16 near the farms of Morozov and Zolotoy not far from the Morozovskaya station.

Parts of the 6th German Army are moving towards Stalingrad.

From that moment on, bloody battles begin in the big bend of the Don. Meanwhile, the Stalingrad Front is replenished by the forces of the 28th, 38th and 57th armies

The children of Stalingrad are hiding from the bombs.

The day of August 23, 1942 became one of the most tragic in the history of the Battle of Stalingrad. Early in the morning, General von Wittersheim's 14th Panzer Corps reached the Volga in the north of Stalingrad.

The first bombings of Stalingrad

The enemy tanks ended up where the inhabitants of the city did not expect to see them at all - just a few kilometers from the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.

The 24th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht in the suburbs of Stalingrad.

And in the evening of the same day, at 4:18 pm Moscow time, Stalingrad turned into hell. Never before has any city in the world withstood such an onslaught. For four days, from 23 to 26 August, six hundred enemy bombers made up to 2,000 sorties daily. Each time they brought death and destruction with them. Hundreds of thousands of incendiary, high-explosive and fragmentation bombs were constantly raining down on Stalingrad.

A dive bomber in the sky over Stalingrad.

The city was on fire, choking on smoke, choking on blood. Generously flavored with oil, the Volga also burned, cutting off people's path to salvation.

Stalingrad on fire, August 23, 1942.

“What appeared before us on August 23 in Stalingrad struck me as a severe nightmare. Fire-smoke sultans of bean explosions were constantly rising up here and there. Huge columns of flame rose to the sky in the area of ​​oil storage facilities. Streams of burning oil and gasoline rushed to the Volga. the river, steamboats on the Stalingrad roadstead were on fire. The asphalt of streets and squares stankly smelt. Telegraph poles flared up like matches. There was an unimaginable noise, tearing the ear with its infernal music. The screech of bombs flying from a height mixed with the rumble of explosions, the rattle and dying people groaned, wept angrily and cried out for help, women and children, "he later recalled Commander of the Stalingrad Front Andrey Ivanovich Eremenko.

The city was on fire, choking on smoke.

In a matter of hours, the city was practically wiped off the face of the Earth. Houses, theaters, schools - everything turned into ruins. 309 Stalingrad enterprises were also destroyed. Factories "Red October", STZ, "Barricades" lost most of the workshops and equipment. Transport, communications, water supply were destroyed. About 40 thousand inhabitants of Stalingrad died.

A deep bow to all the inhabitants of military Stalingrad and its defenders! To everyone who died. To everyone who survived. To everyone who rebuilt the city from ruins. We remember…

This day in history: (video)

They say that war has no female face. Yes, this is true, but the Great Patriotic War showed that women and young girls fought shoulder to shoulder with men at the front, defending their land, their home, their family.

On August 22, 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad began: the German 6th Army crossed the Don and captured on its eastern bank, in the Peskovatka area, a bridgehead 45 km wide, on which six divisions were concentrated. On August 23, the 14th tank corps of the enemy broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad, in the area of ​​​​the village of Rynok, and cut off the 62nd Army from the rest of the forces of the Stalingrad Front. On the same day, German aviation launched a massive air strike on Stalingrad, making about two thousand sorties. Massive German bombardment on August 23 destroyed the city, killed more than 40,000 people, destroyed more than half of the housing stock of pre-war Stalingrad, thus turning the city into a vast area covered with burning ruins.

By 4 p.m. on August 23, the 14th Panzer Corps of General von Wittersheim reached the northern outskirts of Stalingrad in the area of ​​​​the villages of Latoshinka, Akatovka and Rynok.

Dozens German tanks 16th tank division Lieutenant General Hube appeared in the area of ​​​​the Tractor Plant, one and a half kilometers from the factory workshops. Following the tanks, the enemy threw two motorized and several infantry divisions into the formed eight-kilometer corridor.

However, the Germans did not break into Stalingrad that day. The enemy's path was blocked by three anti-aircraft batteries of the second division of the 1077th anti-aircraft artillery regiment, manned by female personnel. The division was commanded by Captain Luka Ivanovich Dahovnik. There were no other troops in Stalingrad: units and formations of the 62nd Army, covering the northern outskirts of Stalingrad, continued to fight on the left bank of the Don a few tens of kilometers from the city. In difficult combat conditions, they had to be transferred to yesterday's rear and take up new defensive lines, but this required time, which was no longer there.

Training

The regiment was formed by 63% of female volunteers, according to sources from the archives - about 18 years old (who had just finished school).

From the memoirs of Vedeneva Natalya Petrovna:

Natalya was born on 08/31/1923 in a peasant family in the village of Raygorod, Svetloyarsky district, Volgograd region. Graduated from 7 classes of the Raigorod secondary school and one course from Dubovsky pedagogical school. From 1939 to 1941 she worked as a pioneer leader in the Raigorodskaya high school. In 1942, the school was closed, military units were located in it. Natalya Petrovna says that they called me to the district committee of the Komsomol on April 1 and said: “Get ready on the third, go and learn to work in the searchlight service. Mom immediately realized that they were taking me straight to the front! Matryona Khakhaleva and I were brought to the very flood in Krasnaya Sloboda, across the Volga. There I first saw guns, there for the first time I took a rifle in my hands. They taught us how to shoot rifles, explained where to put the cartridge, how to aim correctly. Yes, but what kind of aim there! If you are an eighteen-year-old girl, it is known which of you is a shooter: One eye, as ordered, closed her eyes, closed the other out of fear, she was terribly afraid of the recoil from the shot. Shot - no one knows where and the bullet went away - there is no trace of it in the target. That's exactly how I shot the very first time in my life. And then the battalion commander said to me: “Well, why are you closing your eyes?” But how can you be taught? The second and third shots I focused on. She fired, the inspectors shouted “Three tens knocked out!” Except for me, no-and-who didn’t even get close to the target! Immediately after that I was led to the gun. And everything is amazing there: eyepieces, a seat in the middle, all sorts of tubes. I turned some kind of wheel, looked through the binoculars, did not understand anything, but listened carefully to the instructor: how the shooting was going, what the gunner should do. Gunner - that was the name of my new profession. Yes, only until the gun fires, can you figure out what's what? And then the bombing began, the raid means it happened. We untrained girls were immediately hidden in a dugout. This was the first military lesson in my life. Throughout April and May we were taught how to aim guns. There is in anti-aircraft artillery - a four-meter rangefinder, an optical device that magnifies the target fifty times. I was appointed senior stereoscopist. I had to determine the distance to the target, the height. I asked our battalion commander, “Well, tell me, please, how can it be that an image from a device bent several times gets right into my eye?” He patiently explained about tangent and cotangent. And since I graduated from only 7 classes, how can I comprehend and understand all this?

“Why are you confusing me? Can you explain in Russian: how? Our battalion commander was a Tatar by nationality and I thought that he did not explain in Russian! And he just laughed: “Look what you wanted! Am I Tatar? Here’s how I know how, how I’ll explain: “The girls laughed, but our commander, the clever one, nevertheless managed to gradually, sensibly explain to us about the rangefinder, and about the refraction of rays, and about mirror reflection. So we mastered the military tricks of controlling anti-aircraft guns. One day, our battery received a command to move off, so at night we crossed to the other side to Stalingrad, and the area of ​​​​the Tractor Plant.

All day I didn't see white light: she kept looking into the eyepieces of the rangefinder - at the sky, at houses, at the streets. “Stop!” I shout – The target is caught! German planes are flying low!" - battalion commander: "How much?" "Three or four, comrade commander, no less."

And the German planes have already landed. The Germans are looking for the location of their units, they also need to find food, equipment, ammunition, and you never know what else! But there were no German units nearby. So they landed wrong. Our commander gives the command: "Three fugitives: fire!" Those German pilots were taken prisoner and brought to our battery. The Fritz are at a loss as to how they managed to spot them, and one Fritz in broken Russian asks our officer, they say, how did you find us? And our officer proudly replied, “Here, what a big-eyed maiden we have! She figured you out for another twenty kilometers !!! ”

Scouts Raya Kochukova and Anya Didenko discovered a large group of enemy aircraft at a long distance. They reported this to the battalion commander. The battery was preparing to open fire. Having injured my eye during the bombing, I did not work on the rangefinder that day, I stood at the post in the ditch at a distance of 200 meters from the battery. When the German bombers approached, which were accompanied by "Junkers", the battery opened fire. Anti-aircraft guns fired a battery that disrupted their ranks. The "death retinue" was moving towards the central crossing, through which day and night military equipment, military units, wounded soldiers and officers were transported to the rear from the front line. The planes almost caught up with me. Suddenly, at some point, a Junkers separated from the group of Heinkels and began to dive at me. I got scared. I tossed about in my "refuge", but at that moment a huge tumbleweed bush came from nowhere on the left. I grabbed this bush, sat down in a ditch and covered my head with weeds, as if this could save me. But that's what saved me from death. The Junkers, having descended to the desired height, suddenly began to come out of the dive above me. Apparently, he decided that he was mistaken, taking the bush for the target. All this lasted for a few seconds. Having gained altitude, the Junkers joined the bomber group. I couldn't help myself from fear. I did not believe that this happened to me, and that I survived.

"Heinkels" with their deadly cargo moved to the central crossing, for the integrity of which we were responsible. In addition to our battery of the first division of the 1083rd anti-aircraft artillery regiment, other batteries of our division opened fire on fascist aircraft, then our entire regiment and other regiments of the Stalingrad Red Banner Air Defense Corps District. A screen of fire was made from gun explosions, which the Germans could not overcome. They began to drop bombs anywhere, just to get rid of the load. Not far from the Volga was the village of Krasnaya Sloboda, on which the Nazis decided to drop bombs. The command post of our first division of the 1083rd ZAP was stationed there. The bombing was terrible! In this massacre, almost the entire personnel of the division died: a driver, a radio operator, a telephone operator, a cook, and a scout. One bomb hit directly into the operational dugout where the division command was located. As a result, the battalion commander captain Alekseev, the chief of staff, and the platoon commander of the battalion control were killed. Commissar Zrazhevsky was shell-shocked, after which he became blind. Many were wounded, but there was no one to help them: military paramedic Galya Nagnibeda was bombed. Her leg was torn off, there was a wound in the abdominal cavity. Galya died on the spot. Having dropped their bombs, the German pilots began to shoot the scout girls who were standing on the towers with machine guns. They were killed, and the scout Zhenya Belostotskaya was shot in the legs. She, bleeding, could not descend from the tower. It was a terrible day! It is impossible to forget about him.

"What the Germans saw among the smoke and all sorts of debris on the shore is incomprehensible, but with enviable tenacity they continued to bomb what were piers before the war. Punt barges with small tugboats, boats and boats went every night, but this was still not enough. Soldiers "were lost, cargoes were at the bottom, boats were broken. Every day it became more and more difficult. The old pier at the river station had not been used for a long time - its floating base lay on the ground during the first bombardment. Then several bombs exploded nearby. Right in the crowd of refugees. In front of eyes still got up that moment.Squeal of a diving German, choking fire of a quadruple "Maxim". Merged into one four explosions. Flying parts of the bodies of people, inhuman screams of the victims. Meanwhile, the "Junkers" went on the second run. Now all the pilot's attention was focused on an anti-aircraft machine gun mount. A column of water from a fallen dive-bomber, spraying a steamboat and a pier. A cry of pain. And the words of the anti-aircraft captain, heard during the loading of the next flight: "The girl is completely ... Seventeen years old ... She has not seen anything in her life." And the heard answer of one of the old rivermen: "But she did more than many"

Fight with tanks

The situation in the immediate vicinity of the city became sharply complicated from August 23, 1942. At dawn, the German 16th Panzer and 3rd Motorized Divisions, consisting of 200 tanks and more than 300 vehicles with infantry, suddenly crossed the Don in the area west of the Vertyachiy farm, began a rapid advance towards Stalingrad, trying to break into the city from the north on the move. The appearance of the enemy from this direction was previously considered unlikely, so there were not only any serious fortifications, but also units of the ground forces. As a result, the batteries of the 1077th anti-aircraft artillery regiment, located in the first combat sector, found themselves face to face with the enemy. Two tanks and three tractors sheathed with armored steel came to the aid of the girls from the tractor factory. Behind them moved a battalion of workers armed with three-rulers. The girls were not trained to fire at tanks, but there was no way out. The tankers were the first to open fire on the guns, destroying the anti-aircraft guns along with the crew. But in response, the Soviet gunners began to shoot at the tanks with direct fire, which surprised even experienced tankers.

Having received a report from the observation post about the appearance of tanks, the commander of the 4th battery, Senior Lieutenant N.S. Skakun ordered to advance the first and second guns to special positions, in advance, according to the experience of the battle of Moscow, prepared for anti-tank defense, and to strengthen surveillance. Soon a column of tanks appeared, and the battery opened fire on it. One car was immediately destroyed, followed by a second, and then a third smoked. The Nazis returned fire. And at this time, planes fell from the sky on anti-aircraft gunners. I had to fight off the advancing "Junkers" with two guns, and two to fight the tanks.

Under enemy fire, the ranks of anti-aircraft gunners melted. Already the battery commissar, junior political instructor I. Kiselyov, and the deputy battery commander, Lieutenant E. Deriy, stood up to the guns, replacing the loader and gunner who were out of action. An unequal battle with fascist tanks and aircraft went on for an hour and a half, but the battery won it, not letting the enemy pass to the city. During this time, the 4th battery shot down 2 aircraft, destroyed 18 tanks and 8 vehicles with enemy infantry.

The 5th battery of this regiment under the command of senior lieutenant S. Cherny and junior political officer B. Bukarev withstood the same battle. When the battery repelled another bomber raid, regimental headquarters reported the approach of a tank column. On the approach to the battery, up to 80 tanks with machine gunners appeared. When the tanks approached the sighting range, our guns began to speak. The lead tank was hit with the first shots, and the second caught fire. Other tanks turned around and, firing on the move, tried to outflank the battery. At this time, in the air appeared enemy planes and covered the firing position of the battery with bombs. On the outskirts of the firing position, as a result of the battle, 15 warped tanks froze, fragments of two aircraft and dozens of corpses of fascist soldiers lay around. The breakthrough planned by the Nazis to the city was thwarted.

During the day, the 6th battery under the command of Senior Lieutenant M. Roshchin entered the battle. The Nazis intended to crush our guns on the move. But the anti-aircraft gunners, letting them in at 700 meters, opened a well-aimed intense fire. With their first shots, they set fire to 3 tanks, after a few minutes another 5 flared up. Courageously repelling the enemy’s furious attacks for an hour and a half, the battery destroyed 18 tanks and 3 vehicles with infantry. And only after all the guns were out of order, the soldiers left the firing position.

The enemy tanks, after regrouping and re-concentrating, resumed the offensive in three columns in the direction of Stalingrad, while the third column was in the direction of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. But even here they were met by fire from the batteries of the 1077th anti-aircraft artillery regiment. The stubborn struggle continued throughout the evening of 23 and the morning of 24 August. Only by 12 noon did the enemy manage to capture the firing position of the 7th battery, which, under the command of Lieutenant A. Shurin, fought to the last shell and to the last man. The battery destroyed 9 tanks and up to 80 enemy machine gunners.

Battle results

From August 23 to 24, 1942, anti-aircraft gunners of the 1077th regiment knocked out 83 tanks, of which 33 were destroyed; in addition, 15 trucks, three infantry battalions and two fuel tanks were destroyed, and, according to various sources, from 14 to 20 aircraft were shot down. But the regiment itself lost all the guns: very few anti-aircraft gunners survived this attack and managed to escape. The Germans were so embittered by this failure that, according to eyewitnesses, they did not capture anti-aircraft gunners - for example, they threw about 40 wounded to die into a well.

After the battle, von Wietersheim, examining the bodies of the killed anti-aircraft gunners and workers, ordered the soldiers to gain a foothold in position, after which he personally went to the commander of the 6th Army, Friedrich Paulus. Impressed by the courage of the fighting girls and at the same time shocked by the losses of his troops, he began to convince Paulus not to go to Stalingrad, warning that his capture would lead, if not to defeat in the war, then to colossal losses for the Wehrmacht. For the fact that Wittersheim, with his entire corps, could not cope with a handful of anti-aircraft gunners and a battalion of hard workers, he was removed from command. Hube was appointed in his place. In two days of fighting, the corps lost 83 tanks. In fruitless attacks, three battalions of German infantry were bled.

This delay made it possible to regroup the troops and organize a counterattack, as a result of which the German troops that broke through to the city were cut off from the main forces. Only a week after the transfer of new infantry divisions to the bridgehead, the Germans managed to resume the offensive. During this time, the defense of the city was organized.

Copy of someone else's materials

Russian campaign. Chronicle of hostilities on Eastern Front. 1941–1942 Halder Franz

August 23, 1942

Operational environment. There are no significant changes in the Caucasus. In the region of Stalingrad, Paulus launched an unexpected blow across the Don with the forces of the XIV Corps, which, to the north of the city, went to the Volga. The fighting on the left flank either subsides or flares up again. The situation is relatively calm throughout the Don section up to Voronezh. In the zone of the 2nd Army, as a result of fierce attacks on the eastern flank, the enemy managed to penetrate our defenses in some sectors. On the front of the 3rd Panzer Army (Reinhardt), a concentration of enemy troops was destroyed by a very effective air strike. The most serious situation still remains in the Rzhev area, where the enemy is persistently attacking.

At the front of Army Group North, the situation has not changed. There are more and more signs of an impending enemy offensive.

Report to the Fuhrer. The order to turn the 16th motorized division of the 1st tank army to Elista.

This text is an introductory piece. by Halder Franz

August 1, 1942 Operational situation. South of the Don, the resistance of the enemy rearguards to the offensive of Ruoff's troops increased somewhat. At the same time, without encountering much resistance from the Russians, von Kleist's troops are rapidly moving forward. Goth's army was handed over

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 2, 1942 Operational situation. South of the Don, enemy resistance to the advancing units of Ruoff increases in separate sectors in the center and on the right flank. In front of the left flank and in front of the troops of von Kleist, the enemy stopped resistance and rushed

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 3, 1942 Operational situation. The day passed under the sign of the attacks of the 1st Panzer Army across the Kuban River north of Armavir and on Voroshilovsk, as well as the offensive of the 4th Panzer Army on Kotelnikovo and beyond. On the other sectors of the front, only minor battles took place.

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 4, 1942 Operational situation. Everything in the zone of Army Group A indicates that the enemy is now ready to retreat in front of Ruoff's group. To what extent is this retreat of the enemy deliberate, with the goal of stopping our troops at the main line

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 5, 1942 [...] Operational situation. Army Group A. On the section of the Ruoff group, enemy resistance is weakening. He keeps moving forward. Von Kleist plunged far to the southeast with a swift dash. Captured bridgehead beyond the Kuban. Army Group "B".

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 6, 1942 Operational situation. Army Group A. The enemy, under the onslaught of Ruoff's troops, continues to roll back in the direction of the Caucasus. Many bridges have been captured. At the bend of the Kuban, the enemy continues to resist. At the same time south of the bend troops background

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 15, 1942 Operational situation. The offensive of Army Group "A" is developing very satisfactorily. On the front of Army Group B, Paulus' troops also achieved good results. Successful defensive battles in the Voronezh region. Army Group Center. Operation

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 16, 1942 [...] Operational situation. South of the Don, our troops are slowly but stubbornly advancing, overcoming the strong resistance of the enemy rearguards in the foothills of the Caucasus. In the North Caucasus, the Russians apparently intend to withdraw to the Black Sea coast. Should

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 24, 1942 Operational situation. In the zone of operations of the 17th Army without significant changes; promotion at certain sites in the Novocherkassk region. There is nothing essentially new on the front of the 1st Panzer Army. The troops of the 4th Panzer Army repulsed the frontal attack of the enemy

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 25, 1942 [...] Operational situation. There are no changes in the Caucasus. Near Stalingrad, Hoth's troops ran into well-prepared Russian defensive positions. The enemy is threatening a possible blow to the rear of his eastern flank. Paulus slowly develops

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 26, 1942 Operational situation. In the Caucasus, no change. In the Stalingrad area, the situation is difficult due to attacks by superior enemy forces. In all our divisions, shortages. The command staff is experiencing severe nervous tension. Von Withersheim intended

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 27, 1942 Operational situation. In the south, everything goes without much change. The situation in the Stalingrad region stabilized. The penetration on the Italian front, as it turned out, was not so serious. Nevertheless, the 298th division was redirected there. In addition, this area

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 28, 1942 Operational situation. On the front of Army Group A, advancement was noted in some sectors in the North Caucasus. Army Group B. The situation on the front of the 6th Army is being discharged. The 4th Panzer Army is regrouping forces. The enemy is up to something on the left

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 29, 1942 Operational situation. The situation in the Caucasus improved somewhat, especially north of Novorossiysk. The offensive of the 4th Panzer Army began very successfully. As a result of the offensive of the 6th Army, a strong connection with the XIV Corps was restored. Starts

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 30, 1942 Operational situation. The troops of the northern wing of Army Group A are advancing towards Novorossiysk. On the front of Army Group B, the 4th Panzer Army has made good progress. For the 6th Army today was calm, but the enemy seems to be preparing a powerful

From the book Russian campaign. Chronicle of military operations on the Eastern Front. 1941–1942 by Halder Franz

August 31, 1942 Operational situation. In the area of ​​​​responsibility of Army Group A, significant successes have been achieved in advancing our troops to Anapa and Novorossiysk. On other sites (in mountains) without changes. In the zone of the 1st Panzer Army, heavy fighting for crossings over the Terek. From

A few years ago, on March 19, 2008, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Panorama Battle of Stalingrad Museum hosted a viewing and discussion of a television documentary film"Stalingrad. Chronicle of Victory. In it, along with the military theme at that time, for the first time, an attempt was made to identify a civilian theme - the most painful and bypassed in films about Stalingrad.

The start was impressive. Air Marshal Ivan Ivanovich Pstygo is shown in close-up, on the whole screen, who authoritatively sums up August 23, 1942 - the most mournful date of Stalingrad. Quote: “On August 23, there was that terrible blow when 2,000 bombers passed through Stalingral and, according to the latest, probably the most probable data, 200,000 people died in Stalingrad!” That's exactly half of the city's population.

Yuri Panchenko. At the age of 16, he survived the entire Battle of Stalingrad in the Central District of the city. He has served in aviation for over 50 years. Author of the book "163 Days on the Streets of Stalingrad".

However, areas that were not bombed that day should be excluded from the total urban population. Then, in four districts of the city (out of eight) that were hit by German aircraft, where about 200,000 people lived, the entire population was killed. I'll clean up. I want to howl in horror.

And where is Pstygo's case of the wounded, who are counted to the dead as three to one?

That's another 600,000! In total, in a city with a population of 400,000 people, the number of victims on August 23 is ... 800,000 people, which is comparable to the population of Stalingrad and Astrakhan combined!

About dreamers

Our homegrown visionaries were more modest.

Oleg Naida, candidate philosophical sciences, counted on August 23 in the sky of Stalingrad 2,000 German aircraft, which claimed the lives of more than 40,000 citizens.

Further losses of the civilian population began to grow like a snowball.

Iraida Pomoshchnikova, Chairman of the Association "Children of Military Stalingrad". In the book “We Come from the War,” six-year-old Irochka not only counted 2,000 enemy bombers in the sky of Stalingrad on August 23, but also counted the victims: 42,000 killed and 50,000 wounded. What an evil girl, but smart! At her age, I could only count up to ten, and even then on my fingers.

Vladimir Beregovoy, professor University of Economics in St. Petersburg, a member of the association "Children of Military Stalingrad". In his article "Triumph and Tragedy" which "announces the book-requiem about Stalingrad", he toughened the outcome of the ill-fated day: 46,000 residents of the city were killed and 150,000 were injured. Five-month-old Vovochka, retreating with his parents from Stalingrad, also counted the number of German planes that bombed the city on August 23 - more than 2000!

Enemy aircraft "... flew in formation-square of sixty-four aircraft ...". What is it - the Mughal shakhovnitsa or the Khrushchev method of square-nested sowing of corn? I even saw the "sticking out" corpses along the river bank and the Volga, red with blood. One thing is certain, Vovochka's parents were color blind. The water in the Volga really changed color, but not to red, but to black, because in the area of ​​​​the tractor factory, German aircraft bombed and burned a caravan of oil barges.

Tatyana Pavlova, historian. In his time-consuming publication, Classified Tragedy: The Civilian Population in Battle of Stalingrad"quotes the information of the city authorities, where from August 22 to August 29, 1942, 1816 corpses were buried by funeral teams and 2698 wounded were picked up. But after a few pages in the same period from August 23 to 29, Pavlova considered that there was not enough blood on the streets of the city, and therefore she could not resist the temptation to punish the Stalingraders for 71,000 people (only killed and 142 wounded!) And after a couple of hundred pages even the Japanese remembered, "the total loss of the population of Stalingrad is 32.3% higher than the similar loss of the population of Hiroshima from the atomic bombing."

Vladimir Pavlov, St. Petersburg historian in the book “Stalingrad, Myths and Reality. A New Look” proposes to declare August 23 “the day of national repentance of the communists in Russia” for the death of 500,000 citizens who fell in the Battle of Stalingrad. Moreover, he presented the forced eviction of the inhabitants of the city to Belaya Kalitva as a humane action of the German command.

Cool though!

All this is a fantasy of people, where each of them, spinning their own legend, frankly speculated, since none of them were in the city during the storming of Stalingrad.

Only the six-year-old Irochka Pomoshchnikova was in the northern town, which the Germans did not bomb on August 23rd.

Now the main thing. The bombing on August 23 is a prelude, these are flowers, and the berries ripened ahead. The brutal bombardment of the city began on the morning of 24 August and continued until 27 August. The peak of the blow is August 25th. In four days, the central districts of the city were burned, and the surviving population fled.

So, according to the testimony of ambitious visionaries, by the end of Sunday, the population of Stalingrad was finished. It was completely broken and crippled. Everything, to a single person! Soft-boiled eggs!

However, the realities of that ill-fated day tell a different story:

• the next morning in the Balkans (the central area of ​​the city) residents were given freshly baked bread. What is it, kalachi baked by the dead at night?
• On the morning of August 24, as usual, the able-bodied population went to work. By tram, not by hearse! The tram went to the destroyed bridge of the Bannoy ravine at the Teschina stop (Vozrozhdeniye Square);
• the newspaper "Stalingradskaya Pravda" was published;
• the plumbing worked until August 25;
• firemen worked;
• ferry worked;
• there was an evacuation of hospitals, and these were 4,500 wounded soldiers, on the ships “Joseph Stalin”, “Memory” that arrived in the city Paris Commune"and" Mikhail Kalinin ";
• hospitals operated on the outskirts of the city;
• anti-aircraft artillery of air defense worked;
• Soviet fighters constantly flew over the city;
• militias were being formed at the factories;
• The Stalingrad Committee of Defense, headed by the secretary of the regional committee, Chuyanov, worked without a break;

This is not a complete list of concerns that fell on the shoulders of the townspeople.

August 23rd is a shock that the population successfully coped with. But after the severe injuries received in the next four days, the city could no longer recover.

In the official report of the Stalingrad City Defense Committee No. 411-a dated August 27, 1942, in addition to a detailed list of damage inflicted by German aviation on the industrial and municipal services of Stalingrad, civilian casualties are indicated in all areas of the city that were bombed. Overall result: 1017 people were killed and 1281 people were injured. Naturally, this is not a complete list of victims. The casualty count continued. But this is not 40,000, not 70,000, not 200,000 or 500,000 people, wasted by today's irresponsible and ambitious people, who never existed in Stalingrad.

For the entire period of the Battle of Stalingrad, according to the reporting documents of the Stalingrad Party Archive, 42,754 residents of the city died from bombing and shelling. And according to the head of the region Chuyanov, the number of dead citizens is determined at 40,000 people.

The population of the city, caught on the anvil of battle, began to die like flies. People died in street battles, where the "fool-bullet" did not distinguish one from another. And dystrophy and typhus in the German "cauldron" - it's whipping bullets.

About death

And yet, why did people die?

From the bitter fate of my sixteen-year-old school and street classmates who lived in the Central District of the city:

• Yelivstratova Lyusya died together with her mother and two sisters from a German bomb on August 23, 1942;
• Tsygankov Misha was shot by the police along with his father for possession of a rifle;
• Vanin Petya was shot by a policeman for possession of a Komsomol ticket (policemen are former Soviet citizens, lackeys of the occupiers);
• Zavrazhin Vitya killed by a Soviet mine;
• Krasilnikov Sasha killed by a Soviet mine;
• Fefelova Ira is killed by a German bullet;
• Chernavin Leva went missing;
• Baryshev Igor burned;
• Mulyalin Vasya is wounded by a Soviet mine;
• Goncharov Vitya - a severe shrapnel wound to the head, lost an eye, a Soviet mine;
• Bernstein Misha - through a bullet wound in the chest by a German bullet;
• Kazimirova Lida - through a bullet wound in the neck by a Soviet bullet;
• my peer, whose name the memory has not preserved, was killed by an NKVD soldier for looting - he stole a pood of flour;
• four people managed to survive the entire battle of Stalingrad in the center of the city without a single scratch.

It does not indicate those who died in the German cauldron from dystrophy. There are no witnesses. They all died of hunger at once. Whole families.

About the Germans in Stalingrad

The Germans are often presented in modern films as a kind of rascals, white and fluffy. This is because only five-year-olds are already testifying. One complains that the Germans stole a pot of baked milk from them. The other only remembered his own grandmother, who was baptized. The Germans entered - granny was baptized. Ours came - she was also baptized. On this, all their passions-muzzle dried up.

But in order to understand all the troubles that befell the population of the city in occupied Stalingrad, it is necessary to comprehend and link into one whole the main events that daily reduced the number of citizens. Rokossovskogo Street to No. 30. Here, during the occupation of the city, the German commandant's office was located - a punitive military organization. And opposite the commandant's office, in the former Iliodorov Monastery, the Germans set up a camp for imprisoned Soviet citizens.

And now about the "naughty" faces.

1. Major Helmut Speidel (died in the Beketovsky POW camp), the commandant of the occupied Stalingrad, marked the border of the forbidden zone from the hanged channels of railway bridges of the city's residents on Golubinskaya Street (tram viaduct near the prison, on Kubanskaya Street (viaduct near the Dynamo stadium), on Nevskaya Street, on footbridge across railway. I hung it on both sides of the bridge.
2. Chief corporal Helmut Jeschke, inspector of the commandant's office for civil affairs. Under his watchful eye was the population of the city. The Iliodorov Monastery, turned into a prison by the Germans, was reputed to be a place of an ominous plague of townspeople, from where every morning the policemen pulled out the corpses of people who had stiffened overnight and dumped them into an aviation funnel in the courtyard of the commandant's office.
3. Major Neibert, senior doctor of the commandant's office. In early December, after Neibert inspected the infirmary for captured wounded Soviet soldiers (located on Golubinskaya Street near the blood transfusion station), the wounded Red Army soldiers disappeared without a trace, and then a German hospital was housed in the vacated premises. Dr. Neubert was accompanied by German medical officials and a Russian woman who worked as a doctor in the infirmary.
4. Colonel Rudolf Kerpert (prisoned by a German tribunal), commandant of the infamous Dulag-205 Soviet POW camp in Alekseevka. In the German "cauldron", the food for the captured Red Army soldiers, driven to insanity by hunger, was comrades on the bunk, who lived yesterday.

War is not a pot of baked milk and not an old woman's sign of the cross. War is the ugliest form of human communication. The Germans have become worse for us than the plague, worse than cholera, worse Tatar yoke taken together. You can forgive them with your mind, but not with your heart!

About 2000 aircraft

And lastly, this is about 2,000 bombers that bombed the city on August 23rd. Enemy aircraft took advantage of the corridor cut by German tankers from the Don to the Volga through Kotluban, Orlovka and the Tractor Plant, where the city's air defense was destroyed. Further, along the left bank of the Volga, the bombers entered the rear of the city with impunity, from where no one expected them. The anti-aircraft gunners were taken by surprise. They realized it when the first Heinkel squadron was already over the middle of the river. The sky literally boiled from explosions of anti-aircraft shells, but ... it was too late.

The bombers went in waves in squadrons with an interval between squadrons of the order of 15 minutes. The bombardment of the city began at 16:20 Moscow time and ended at sunset at 19:00, since planes do not fly in groups at night. At night, single planes were bombed with a large time interval.

Consequently, in two hours and forty minutes of daylight, with a fifteen-minute interval, only eleven groups - squadrons could pass. There are 9-12 aircraft in the squadron, multiplying, we get a real idea of ​​the number of enemy aircraft that took part in the bombing of the city on August 23. This is about 100 - 130 aircraft. So the exaggerated legend about two thousand bombers that attacked the city on August 23rd is a clear fantasy. The Germans did not have such a large number of bomber aircraft on the entire Eastern Front. By the beginning of July 1942, that is, by the beginning of the attack on Stalingrad, the Germans had approximately 2,750 aircraft of all types. Of these, 775 bombers, 310 attack aircraft, 290 fighters, 765 reconnaissance aircraft, etc.

So, all the “eyewitnesses and witnesses” of the Battle of Stalingrad that I mentioned, to whom we applaud anniversaries, suffer from a common pathology - damage to the mind.

A requiem for Stalingrad is inappropriate. Let the Germans pray for themselves. We didn't invite them here. People. Know Stalingrad. Since there will soon be no one to remember Stalingrad.

The city on the Volga was completely destroyed 76 years ago. After a massive bombardment by Nazi aviation, almost all buildings turned into ruins, and tens of thousands of civilians died.

Despite the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, on August 23, 1942, the enemy was able to break through the defenses of the 62nd Army and advance detachments of the German 14th Panzer Corps to reach the Volga.

At 4:18 p.m., following Hitler's order, the aviation of the Nazi troops bombarded Stalingrad.

During the day, the enemy was able to make more than 2 thousand sorties of the 4th air fleet. Air raids during the entire war did not reach such a force. Instantly, the huge city was engulfed in flames.

The bombing continued on 24, 25 and 26 August. During this time, enterprises, houses, cultural and educational institutions have turned into ruins. Transport, communications and utilities were completely disabled.

Photo: globallookpress

Radio Paris during the days of the bombing reported:

The attention of the whole world is now riveted on the grand battle of Stalingrad. The radios of America, Britain and the Axis powers broadcast reports that the battles at Stalingrad are larger than all the battles of this and previous wars. The significance of Stalingrad for the USSR is enormous. To surrender Stalingrad means to open the heart of the country to the enemy.

Air defense systems only on August 23 were able to shoot down 120 enemy aircraft. At the same time, anti-aircraft artillery regiments at that time successfully repelled the attacks of German tanks and infantry.

Photo: MKU "City Information Center"

During the bombardment, the Stalingrad city defense committee issued a decision on the immediate evacuation of women, children and the wounded from the city to the left bank of the Volga.

The remaining about 169,000 civilians worked daily on defensive lines and building barricades on the streets and near factories.

These days, the city defense committee addressed the population of the city with an appeal.

Dear comrades! Native Stalingraders! Again, like 24 years ago, our city is going through hard days. The bloody Nazis are rushing to sunny Stalingrad to the great Russian river Volga. Stalingraders! We won't give up hometown to insult the Germans. Let's all stand as one to protect our beloved city, home, native family. We will cover all the streets with impenetrable barricades. Let us make every house, every block, every street an impregnable fortress. You all come out to build barricades. Barricade every street. In the terrible year of 1918, our fathers defended Tsaritsyn. We will also defend the Red Banner Stalingrad in 1942!

As a result, all German attempts to quickly take the city from the north were stopped, thanks to stubborn resistance. Soviet troops, despite the superiority of the enemy in strength and equipment, they managed to launch a series of counterattacks and on August 28, 1942 stop the offensive.

Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense

Until today, August 23, 1942 is considered the most terrible event in the history of Stalingrad. Every year on this day, Volgograd residents lay flowers at the eternal flame and spend a minute of silence in memory of those who died from German bombs.