Lipetsk historian sounds the alarm about the falsification of the memory of the legendary commander

On May 7, the remains of Major General Alexander Lizyukov will be solemnly reburied in Voronezh. During his lifetime, he was called "Tankman number one" and "Savior of Moscow." For the operation near Smolensk, Lizyukov was awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. Near Voronezh, units under the command of Lizyukov destroyed 400 enemy tanks and 20 thousand soldiers and officers.
The legendary tanker died on July 23, 1942. But disputes have not subsided around the circumstances of his death for 66 years.

Towards death

So, the early morning of July 23, 1942. The village of Kreshchenko, in what is now the Lipetsk region. Major General Lizyukov receives a blast from the commander of the task force of the Bryansk Front, Lieutenant General Chibisov. He, in front of his subordinates, accuses Lizyukov of cowardice.
An enraged Lizyukov, whose 5th Panzer Army was disbanded five days ago, jumps into a KV tank. Unaccompanied, he is trying to catch up with the 27th tank brigade, which has advanced in the direction of the village of Medvedkovo to the rescue of the encircled 148th tank brigade. The regimental commissar Assorov is in the tank with the general. Around 9 am, the column of the 27th brigade came under bombardment and heavy fire from artillerymen of the 387th infantry division of the Wehrmacht. The shelling was so strong that the tankers preferred to turn into a grove in the region of height 188.5.
And the general's KV, moving behind the column, slipped past. Major General Lizyukov, who was called the flying tanker, was in a hurry to meet his last battle.
Only in a few days the details of this battle will become known. Investigating the death of Major General Lizyukov, Colonel Sukhoruchkin will write that, "obviously, the corps commander's tank passed south along the road and from the grove on the right (the enemy battery most likely hid there) was hit."
Of the crew, only the junior mechanic-driver senior sergeant Sergei Mamaev will survive, who “stated that when he, wounded, crawled away from the tank, he saw how German submachine gunners climbed into the tank, cut off the general’s tablet, pulled it out and examined it. It was established that there were two cards in it ... ".
Soon Mamaev's words were confirmed by scouts of the 1st Panzer Corps. The testimony will also be included in the investigation of Colonel Sukhoruchkin:
“They (the scouts) were near the wrecked tank, picked up the corpse of a Red Army soldier, who had a duffel book in the name of Lizyukov, saw a torso hanging from the tower with insignia - 4 rectangles (regimental commissar Assorov).”
The scouts noted that the head of the Red Army soldier was crushed. The writer Konstantin Simonov, who was friends with the legendary military leader, also writes about this.

Get the information bomb

Now about the most important. Where is General Alexander Lizyukov buried? Until April 2008, he was considered missing.
Marshal Katukov, in his book “On the Edge of the Main Strike” (published in 1974), said that he personally saw how his fighting friend died: “Lizyukov safely got out of the tank, but before he even took a step, a shell exploded nearby. Lizyukov's body was brought to the rear. With pain in their hearts, the comrades of the brave general were buried in a cemetery near the village of Sukhaya Vereika. From the memoirs of General of the Army Ivanovsky “The Tankmen Started the Attack”, we learn that Alexander Ilyich was buried in a mass grave near the village of Medvedkovo.
Anatoly Sidorovichev, director of the Saratov Museum of History and Military Glory: “We believe and believed that the burial place of General Lizyukov cannot be determined. Because the Germans kidnapped him.
Lipetsk historian Igor Sdvizhkov: “I think that the legendary general was buried not far from height 188.5.”
Voronezh historians prefer to remain silent.
Unlike the Voronezh search engines, who, having barely begun excavations near the church in the village of Lebyazhye, confidently declared: we will find the legendary commander! And now the mass grave has been dug up, the remains of seven fighters have been found. The idea was to have a long painstaking work of experts who were supposed to identify the remains.
But the NTV television company has already detonated the information "bomb": the remains of the Hero of the Soviet Union, General Lizyukov, who disappeared in 1942, have been found!

Personnel decides everything

The identification of the remains turned out to be, to put it mildly, biased. The forensic expert of the Voronezh anti-drug (!) department was engaged in it. Combining one of the found skulls with a photograph of the general, he said: "The probability that Lizyukov's grave was found is 80 - 85 percent."
The medical examiner is a non-historian. But he could not help but know that most historians and local historians agreed that in the last battle, Alexander Lizyukov, most likely, crushed his head.
Television people are satisfied with the juggling of facts. Search engines too. There are distant relatives of Lizyukov. (The son of the general died childless, the brothers died in the Second World War). Conduct genetic testing.
It does not provide the answer needed by those concerned. Pavel Ivanov, Deputy Director for scientific work The Russian Center for Forensic Medical Examination directly advises "to use other evidence" to identify the identity of the army commander.
Rest assured, other evidence will be found!

Faith Drivers

Igor Yuryevich, or maybe Rushin and Gorelov died immediately after the funeral, unable to tell where to go about the death of Lizyukov?

Rushin's fate is unknown to me. And Gorelov died only at the end of the war.

- Did you give your information about Lizyukov?

Yes. Having learned about the excavations, I arrived in Lebyazhye and, having found the Voronezh search engines, handed over to the head of the detachment a copy of the military map, materials from the investigation into the circumstances of the death of Lizyukov and a large-scale German aerial photograph of the area taken on July 28, 1942. The trophy photo also showed a grove at a height of 188.5, on the edge of which, as follows from the documents, Lizyukov was buried. Alas, the search engines did not need the materials. For them it is more important practical work in field". And the documents, according to Voronezh local historians, are falsified. During my numerous trips to the archives of Podolsk, I studied all the available documents of all units of the 5th Panzer Army and responsibly declare that I did not have the feeling of a fake. Voronezh historians have either abandoned the topic of Lizyuks or do not want to quarrel with the authorities. And interested parties need to promote a PR project on other people's bones!

http://gorod48.ru/mg/item-1.html

Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov was born on March 26, 1900 in the city of Gomel. Russian. Father - Ilya Ustinovich Lizyukov, a village teacher (later - director of the Nisimkovichskaya rural school Chechersk region). The Lizyukov family, in which, in addition to Alexander, there were two more brothers: the elder Eugene and the younger Peter, lived in Gomel on Troitskaya Street not far from the Horse Bazaar (now Krestyanskaya Street and the Central Market). The children lost their mother early, who died in 1909 shortly after the birth of their youngest son Peter.

In 1918 he graduated from the 6th grade of the gymnasium in hometown.

April 7, 1919 voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army. In November 1919 he graduated from the Smolensk artillery courses for commanders in Moscow and was assigned to the 58th Infantry Division of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front as an artillery platoon commander. He fought against the troops of General A. I. Denikin and Ataman S. V. Petliura.

Cadet of the Petrograd Higher Armored School A. I. Lizyukov (1923).

In July 1920 he was appointed commander of the 11th marching battery of the 7th rifle division, and in September 1920 he became the chief of artillery of the Kommunar armored train No. 56. Participated in hostilities against Polish troops during the Soviet-Polish war (1919 - 1921) on the territory of the former Kiev province and in the suppression of the Tambov uprising.

In September 1921, Alexander Ilyich was sent to Petrograd to study at the Higher Armored School, from which he graduated in September 1923.

From September 1923 - deputy commander of the armored train No. 12 "Named after Trotsky" of the 5th Red Banner Army on Far East, then commanded the armored train No. 164 and served on the armored train No. 24.

In September 1924 he was enrolled in the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze, from which he graduated in July 1927.

After graduating from the academy until September 1928, A. I. Lizyukov taught at armored courses in Leningrad (KUKS). After that, until December 1929, he worked as an assistant to the educational part of the same courses, and then as a teacher of tactics at the Faculty of Motorization and Mechanization of the Military Technical Academy of the Red Army. Dzerzhinsky.

Since December 1931, he worked in the department of military-technical propaganda of the technical headquarters of the chief of armaments of the Red Army as deputy head of the 1st sector (editorial publishing house). From January 1933 - commander of the 3rd division. tank battalion in the brigade. K. B. Kalinovsky (Naro-Fominsk, Moscow Military District).

From June 1934 he formed and commanded a separate heavy tank regiment, and from March 1936 with the rank of colonel (he was awarded this military rank on February 17, 1936) - the 6th Det. heavy tank brigade. S. M. Kirov (Slutsk, Leningrad Military District), who was armed with T-28 and T-35 tanks.

For success in combat training, the brigade commander, Colonel A. I. Lizyukov, was awarded the Order of Lenin. In the autumn of 1935 he was sent to France as part of the Soviet delegation of military observers at the maneuvers of the French army.

On February 8, 1938, he was arrested by employees of the Special Department of the Leningrad Military District on suspicion of participating in an anti-Soviet military conspiracy, including on the basis of the testimony of the former head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army I. A. Khalepsky, expelled from the party and dismissed from the ranks of the Red Army. During interrogations under torture, “voluntary” testimony was knocked out of him, in particular, that Lizyukov “was going to commit a terrorist act against People's Commissar Voroshilov and other leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government by hitting a tank on the Mausoleum during one of the parades ". For 22 months (of which about 17 months - in solitary confinement) he was held in the prison of the State Security Directorate (UGB) of the NKVD of the Leningrad Region until December 3, 1939, when he was acquitted by the verdict of the military tribunal of the Leningrad Military District.

In 1940, A. I. Lizyukov was appointed teacher of the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army.

Since March 1941, he served as deputy commander of the 36th Panzer Division of the 17th Mechanized Corps of the Western Special Military District.

By order of the NPO of the USSR dated June 21, 1941, Colonel A. I. Lizyukov, who was on vacation in Moscow, was appointed to the post of head of the 1st department of the armored department of the Western Special Military District.

June 24, 1941, on the third day after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Colonel A. I. Lizyukov was appointed deputy commander of the 17th mechanized corps and left Moscow for the front to the headquarters of the corps (Baranovichi). Arriving on June 26, 1941 in the Belarusian city of Borisov, he entered the order of the head of the garrison (corps commissar I. Z. Susaykov) and acted on his orders. Appointed Chief of the City Defense Staff (until July 8, 1941).

During the Battle of Smolensk - the commandant of the crossing across the Dnieper in the Solovyovo-Ratchino area. The consolidated detachment under the command of Colonel A.I. Lizyukov successfully defended the crossings across the Dnieper and Berezina that were vital for the encircled 16th and 20th armies.

But management decided otherwise. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 5, 1941, "for the exemplary performance of the combat missions of the Command on the front of the fight against German fascism and the courage and heroism shown at the same time," Colonel Lizyukov Alexander Ilyich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the medal " Golden Star". Together with A. I. Lizyukov, his 16-year-old son Yuri, a cadet of the Borisov Tank School, took part in the defense of the crossings.

On August 18, 1941, A. I. Lizyukov took command of the 1st Panzer Division (aka the 1st Moscow Motorized Rifle Division). Parts of this formation kept the defense along the Vop River northeast of the city of Yartsevo. In early September 1941, the division of A. I. Lizyukov pushed the Germans back from the eastern bank of the river, crossed this water barrier and secured a bridgehead. The division held the bridgehead throughout September and chained significant enemy forces to itself. For this resilience, the heroic unit on September 21, 1941 was transformed into the 1st Guards. motorized rifle division.

Commanding this formation, Lizyukov took part in the defensive battles of the Battle of Moscow in the Naro-Fominsk direction.

On November 27, 1941, he was appointed deputy commander of the newly formed 20th Army (Lieutenant General A. A. Vlasov) with the task of covering Moscow from the side of the Rogachev and Leningrad highways at the Khlebnikovo-Cherkizovo line. Having begun deployment at a new frontier, on December 2, the 20th Army received an order to launch a counterattack on the advancing German troops. December 12, 35th division. rifle and 31st tank brigades of the army under the command of A.I. Lizyukov in cooperation with the 55th det. The rifle brigade of the 1st shock army, advancing from the north, liberated Solnechnogorsk.

On December 31, 1941, Colonel A.I. Lizyukov was appointed commander of the 2nd Guards. rifle corps. And on January 10, 1942, he was awarded the military rank of major general. The corps was concentrated in the Valdai region in the Kalinin region and was part of the North-Western Front. The front was tasked with "the actions of the 11th Army in the direction of Soltsy and further to the rear of the Novgorod enemy grouping and the actions of the 1st and 2nd Guards Corps, the 34th Army and the 1st Shock Army to reach the Pskov region, cut off the main communications lines of the Leningrad-Volkhov group of the enemy. An operation began to encircle German troops near Demyansk.

In mid-April 1942, A. I. Lizyukov received an order to form the 2nd Tank Corps. By decision of the Headquarters, the 2nd Tank Corps was included in the created 5th Tank Army. In June 1942, Major General A. I. Lizyukov was appointed its commander. The 5th Panzer Army was stationed in the Bryansk Front, first in the area southwest of Yelets, and then northwest of Efremov. The army takes part in the battles in the Voronezh and Valuysko-Rossosh areas. However, the attempt of a powerful counterattack by the forces of the army on the flank and rear of the grouping of German troops advancing on Voronezh failed. According to the Directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of July 15, 1942, the army, which had greatly thinned in battles, was disbanded.

Major General Lizyukov A.I. was appointed commander of the 2nd tank corps, which fought stubborn battles on the western bank of the Don. In this battle, he died on July 25, 1942 near the village. Medvezhye, Semiluksky district Voronezh region. The circumstances of the general's death are ambiguous and there is still no single interpretation of his death.

The question of the death and burial of General Lizyukov has been worrying researchers for more than a decade. When, as a student, I became interested in the topic of military operations near Voronezh during the Great Patriotic War and began to collect materials about the battles of the summer of 1942, the then available sources and literature about the death of General Lizyukov reported dully and presented approximately the following picture of events: discouraged by the failure of the offensive, the general himself got into the tank and personally went on the attack, in which he died ... military encyclopedia I found the date of the death of Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov - July 25, 1942. The date of death in the text was followed by a strange wording “near the village of Medvezhye”, from which it was impossible to unambiguously understand: the general died near the village of Medvezhye or was buried there.

Other sources were then inaccessible to me, a student of the Soviet era, and I took on trust the official data of a respected encyclopedia. But even at that time, as a result of research work and numerous trips to the battlefields, where I often had the opportunity to talk with local residents, I seriously doubted that in July 1942 General Lizyukov could really be buried in Medvezhye. The basis for such a conclusion could be simple logical reasoning.

The village of Medvezhye was then in the rear of the German troops, 15 kilometers from the front line, and it was difficult to imagine that the general who died on the front line could be buried in the German rear. From conversations with local residents, I learned a variety of, sometimes incredible versions of the death and burial place of General Lizyukov, which now make no sense to list. From everything I heard then, I came to the conclusion that, most likely, General Lizyukov was buried in the village of Bolshaya Vereika, but his grave was strangely lost ...

Time passed, I continued to study research work and collected more and more materials on the topic of interest to me. And all these years I was haunted by one of my main questions: what happened to the 5th Panzer Army and General Lizyukov? I understood that the memoir and historical literature published by that time does not give complete clarity on this issue, and some authors are probably sinning against the truth, so I can find out what really happened by working with archival documents. Comparing these documents with previously published works by other authors, one can, in my opinion, most fully and thoroughly judge where the remains of General Lizyukov may still be.

Let's start with the circumstances of the death of Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov. In our memoir literature on this issue there is a real discord. Let's try to find out where the truth is. In order to better understand the essence of disagreements and contradictions, it must be said that the clarification of the fate of General Lizyukov took place in the summer of 1942 in a certain chronological sequence, which the authors of post-war publications did not know or did not take into account, and this, in turn, led to ambiguities and even misrepresentations in this matter. It should be remembered that in late July and early August 1942, the question of the fate of General Lizyukov was largely an unresolved mystery.

In fact, for the headquarters of the 2nd TK, as well as for the headquarters of the Bryansk Front, the commander of the 2nd tank corps, Major General Lizyukov, did not die on July 23, 1942, but went missing. By this time, he was no longer the commander of the 5th tank army, which was disbanded 5 days earlier, but for most of the soldiers and commanders who fought then on this sector of the front, this fact remained unknown, and they still considered Lizyukov to be the commander of the army.

Early in the morning of that day, Major General Lizyukov returned to the corps from Lieutenant General Chibisov, commander of the Bryansk Front task force. The offensive of the corps was unsuccessful, Chibisov categorically and rudely demanded to move forward, not wanting to listen to Lizyukov's explanations. After a difficult conversation (there is reason to believe that there were elements of personal hostility in their relationship) and the order received to personally lead the offensive, Lizyukov ordered the commander of the 27th brigade. move the brigade forward faster, said that he would follow, and on the KV tank prepared for him, 27 brigade. left Bolshaya Vereika together with regimental commissar Assorov.

The corps headquarters did not know that the corps commander went to look for the 148th tank brigade, which had gone into the breach a day ago, from which no news had been received during all this time. Therefore, the absence of the corps commander at the headquarters throughout the day on July 23 did not cause serious alarm among the staff workers: Lizyukov, they believed, was in the corps' battle formations and was directing the battle from the forward command post.

The fact that the corps commander never returned back to the headquarters of the 2nd TC. became known only on the night of July 24. Requests to the brigades did not yield results; they also did not know where Lizyukov might be. The commander of the 27th brigade, who, on the orders of Lizyukov, prepared the KV tank for him, found out only at two in the morning that the corps commander had not returned. On the night of July 24, in small groups and alone, the surviving tankers of the 148th tank brigade began to enter the battle formations of our troops from the German side. Their tanks were knocked out and burned, and they barely made it back out of the gap, which, in fact, became an encirclement for the brigade. But in the last desperate battle, none of them saw Lizyukov either. This means that the commander of the 2nd TK never made it to the 148th brigade.

At dawn on July 24, the commander of the 27 brig. sent two T-60 light tanks for reconnaissance, which were supposed to pass along the proposed route of the corps commander in search of the KV tank, but due to heavy enemy artillery fire, the tanks could not move forward and soon returned back with nothing. Lizyukov was nowhere to be found, and the corps headquarters did not know what to think. Confusion was increasingly replaced by anxiety, but, as before, there was no information that could somehow clarify the fate of the missing commander at the headquarters of the corps. The headquarters of the 2nd TC did not know about what happened to the corps commander for at least several days. The basis for this assertion is that in a report submitted on August 2, 1942, Colonel Sukhoruchkin, deputy commander of the Bryansk Front for ABTB, wrote:

“Major General LIZYUKOV after the release of the 27th brigade. at 9 am on July 23, he followed her from Bolshaya Vereika on a KV tank and no one else saw him. I suppose that when the 27 brig. turned into a grove at the heights. 188.5, Major General LIZYUKOV went further south in his tank.

Bol. Vereika, Lebyazhye, Kaverier and height 188.5 on the map of 1939

And no more words about the fate of the commander of the 2nd TC. As you can see, even on August 2, Colonel Sukhoruchkin could not say anything definite about what happened to Lizyukov.

Apparently, the first report, which unexpectedly lifted the veil of secrecy over the fate of General Lizyukov, came from the 26th brigade. 2 TK. The medical assistant of the brigade, Mussorov, reported to his command that a wounded man from another brigade had been admitted to the medical platoon of the brigade a few days ago, from whose words it appeared that Major General Lizyukov had died. It turned out that the wounded man who arrived was senior sergeant Mamaev Sergey Nikolaevich, who said that he was a junior driver of the 27th brigade. and on July 23, 1942, he was in the KV tank, along with General Lizyukov and regimental commissar Assorov, when the tank was hit and the general was killed.

But it was not possible to personally interview Mamaev, since he, after the initial treatment of shrapnel and bullet wounds, was sent to the hospital. Therefore, all the details of what happened became known from the military assistant Mussorov, who retold what Mamaev had told him. Already from his words, a written report was drawn up.

From Mussorov’s story, it appeared that the KV tank, in which Mamaev was with General Lizyukov, was unexpectedly fired upon from anti-tank guns and hit, while Lizyukov was either seriously wounded or immediately killed. From a shell hit in the tank, the senior mechanic driver died, and the radio operator gunner was killed by a German machine gunner as soon as he got out of the tank. Mamaev himself also got out of the tank, was wounded twice, but still managed to hide in high rye, and therefore survived. Hiding there, he saw with his own eyes what happened next. German submachine gunners climbed into the tank, cut off the general’s tablet, took out papers from there and examined them ...

By the way, from the story he heard, it was not clear what happened to the regimental commissar Assorov, since military assistant Mussorov did not say a word about him. Due to the fact that Mussorov himself did not personally see everything that happened, but only recounted what he heard, he could not be asked any additional questions, and therefore all the circumstances of Lizyukov's disappearance remained unclear.

The commanders from the headquarters of the corps found themselves in a difficult situation: how reliable could the message of military assistant Mussorov be considered? Is it sufficient grounds to assert that Major General Lizyukov died? But they had to proceed only from the story they heard, since they had no other information about the fate of the missing Lizyukov. His tank was not found, his body was not found, and none of the other crew members, except for the wounded Mamaev, returned.

On July 24 and 25, in the very days when there was still a chance to try to explore the battlefield in search of the missing general, heavy battles were going on in the offensive sector of the 2nd tank corps, the brigades of the corps could not break forward, brutal bombing and the destructive fire of German anti-tank artillery paralyzed everything movement in the area of ​​operation. The forces of the corps were fading, the offensive was stalled, the troops were exhausted. In addition, on July 24, in a neighboring sector, the enemy launched a strong counterattack and a large group of tanks with motorized infantry reached the flank and rear of our strike force. The offensive of the troops of the operational group of the Bryansk Front was thwarted, and for the 1st and 2nd tank corps there was a real threat of encirclement. Brigades 2 TC. hastily retreated 10-15 kilometers to the rear, and the battlefield was left to the enemy.

Meanwhile, the investigation of the emergency went beyond the headquarters of the 2nd tank corps and came under the control of the armored department of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front. A thorough study of all the circumstances of what happened was carried out, but the main thing - to organize a detailed examination of the battlefields - was already impossible to do: the front line passed along the Dry Vereika River, and the corps offensive area on July 21-23 ended up in the German rear. However, the investigation conducted by the headquarters of the Bryansk Front yielded results.

From the headquarters of the 1st tank corps, a message was received that during the battles south of Bolshaya Vereika, the scouts of the 1st TK found a wrecked KV tank on the battlefield. They approached him, but did not look inside the tank. The scouts said that they saw the body of a dead tanker hanging from the tower with 4 rectangles in the buttonholes ...

This already said a lot: four rectangles meant the regimental commissar, who could only be the missing regimental commissar Assorov ... So with a high degree of probability it could be argued that the scouts saw on that day exactly the same KV, on which that ill-fated morning went from Bolshaya Vereika and Lizyukov himself.

The further report of the scouts of the 1st TC could be, perhaps, the most compelling reason to assert that the commander of the 2nd TC. Major General Lizyukov died. Approximately a hundred meters from the tank, in the rye, they found, as the document says, "the corpse of a Red Army soldier." A duffel book in the name of Lizyukov was found in the pocket of the deceased’s overalls ...

Judging by the documents available in the archive, those who investigated the circumstances of the disappearance of General Lizyukov became aware of this evidence only by August 1-2, 1942. There were no reliable data on where General Lizyukov was buried at the headquarters of the Bryansk Front at the beginning of August. Moreover, the materials obtained during the investigation did not give any reason to believe that the body of the commander of the 2nd tank corps was buried at all. From the words of people who heard the story of the only eyewitness, and also on the basis of the testimony of scouts of the 1st TK, it only came out that General Lizyukov died. But was it possible to say this with complete certainty?

Indeed, if we approach this issue solely from the point of view of formal logic and take into account only the facts, then we must admit that Colonel Sukhoruchkin did not have indisputable evidence of the death of Lizyukov. Due to the fact that the head of the deceased was crushed, it was impossible to visually identify the corpse. Therefore, the only basis for the assumption that the dead “Red Army soldier” found in the field was actually General Lizyukov was the duffel book found in the pocket of the murdered. But how strong could such a basis be considered?

Analyzing documents and reflecting on the facts known to us today, it is impossible not to notice the questions that arise in this case, to which it is difficult to give an unambiguous answer today. Let's try to understand the existing contradictions and ambiguities.

In the report of Colonel Sukhoruchkin, it was written that scouts from the 1st tank corps found Lizyukov's duffel book on the corpse of a Red Army soldier. It is hardly possible to speak here of an erroneous wording in the text of the report, assuming that its author simply used the most general term for a Red Army soldier. Most likely, the conclusion that the found corpse is the corpse of a Red Army soldier was made by scouts. But why did they decide that the deceased was a Red Army soldier? They could assert this only on the basis of appearance, uniforms of the deceased.

It is known that Lizyukov put on overalls and simple boots when he got into the tank, which was the day when he was going to make his way to connect with the brigade that had gone into the breakthrough. Therefore, it is natural that our scouts saw on the dead man not a general's tunic, but overalls without insignia. But ... it can hardly be assumed that, getting into the tank, Lizyukov put on his overalls over his naked body or underwear. Most likely, he put on a jumpsuit over a field uniform, which had insignia on it.

In this case, the scouts would have easily established the rank of the dead, as soon as they unbuttoned their overalls and looked at the buttonholes. Recall that the scouts noticed 4 rectangles in buttonholes hanging from the tank turret hanging from the tank turret, which made it possible to establish that it was the regimental commissar Assorov. It seems unlikely that, having found Lizyukov’s duffel book from the murdered “Red Army soldier”, the scouts would not have examined the corpse they discovered in more detail and would not have established military rank deceased by insignia. But the scouts did not report any other confirmation of the identity and rank of the killed, except from the duffel book. From this we can conclude that they did not find any insignia on the clothes of the murdered man, since there were none. Why?

Major General Lizyukov was awarded the gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and other awards that should have been on his field tunic. If we assume that, getting into the tank, he put on overalls over it, then after the death of the general's award, one could find under the overalls. But just like the insignia, the scouts did not say a word about any awards they found on the body of the murdered. So there were no awards either. Based on all this, we should talk about only two possible versions of what happened.

Version one: the corpse found was not the corpse of General Lizyukov and in fact was the corpse of a murdered Red Army soldier. But then the question again arises: how did the Red Army soldier get a duffel book in the name of Lizyukov?

Version two: the scouts actually found the body of the murdered general, but there were no signs on his clothes that made it possible, at least, to say that the deceased was from among the command staff. Why?

I think that one of the explanations for this would be the following. After the death of Lizyukov, German soldiers cut off all awards from his tunic, as well as insignia. Therefore, our scouts did not find them under the general's overalls.

But even here the question remains. Even if all the awards and insignia were cut off by the Germans, the tunic itself would still remain under the overalls ... I think the scouts would distinguish the Red Army tunic from the command staff ...

A war veteran from Voronezh, A.P. Shingarev, immediately stated in a conversation with me:

“By one uniform, even if without insignia, I would immediately distinguish this Red Army soldier or officer.”

So there was no gymnast under the overalls either? Then it should be assumed that the enemy soldiers did not cut off the insignia and awards, but simply generally removed the tunic from the dead man along with all the awards and took it with them?

Unfortunately, once again rereading the mean lines of the report, one can only guess about all this now. Of course, military documents are the most important source in our search, but, alas, you can’t ask anything from this source ...

Only the scouts who discovered the corpse could answer all these questions, but in the hot pursuit of the events they were not interviewed or they did not consider it necessary to write down everything that they told, and the details that are of interest to us now have remained unclear. And then there were three long years of war, after which another 60 years passed, and now we can hardly count on the fact that we will ever know why the scouts mistook the dead they found for a Red Army soldier.

In conclusion, perhaps, it is necessary to say about one more strange circumstance, which is also not easy to explain. According to Mamaev's story, General Lizyukov was killed or seriously wounded while still in the tank. He stayed there, because later Mamaev saw how German submachine gunners climbed into the tank and cut off the general's tablet with documents and maps. Therefore, the statement that after a shell hit the tank, Lizyukov remained unharmed, got out of the tank and was killed after that, contradicts Mamaev's story. But if this is so, then how did the body of Lizyukov end up 100 meters from the tank when it was discovered by scouts from the 1st TK? Someone dragged the dead, and then left?

If this is so, then perhaps these were the same German submachine gunners who climbed into the tank and realized from the insignia, awards and documents that they were facing an important Russian officer, after which they decided to deliver his corpse to their command. But, having dragged the dead man about a hundred meters, they decided to leave him and, as proof of their victory, take with them the general's tunic with awards and the documents found on him.

It can also be assumed that as a result of a shell hitting the tank, Lizyukov was not killed, but only seriously wounded, lost consciousness, and the enemy soldiers thought that he had been killed when they cut off the planchette from him. Later, the general came to his senses and managed to get out of the tank and crawl about 100 meters, after which death occurred.

But crawling with a crushed head is impossible, which means that he could only get such a wound at the place where he was found in the field. However, the scouts did not report any other injuries they found on the corpse, from which it follows that the only wound found near the tank of the Red Army was an incompatible head injury.

But maybe the scouts did not carefully examine the dead man they found and, seeing the crushed head, did not pay attention to other wounds? Questions remain...

I think that in July, August 1942, with a thorough analysis of all the circumstances of the disappearance of the commander of the 2nd TK. some employees of the special department had certain doubts, if not suspicions ...

Theoretically, it was quite possible to assume that the corpse in overalls without insignia discovered by the scouts was not the corpse of General Lizyukov, and the duffel book in his name was specially left in overalls so that those who found it came to the conclusion about the death of the general. But what if this is a cleverly crafted staging to confuse the investigation?

Some of these doubts can be fully understood even today if we approach what happened with that share of disbelief and suspicion that flourished in our country even before the war and, moreover, became an integral part of wartime. The greatest fear in those days, perhaps, was caused not by the assumption of the death of Lizyukov, but by the fact that he was captured ...

Moreover, among the employees of special departments, called upon to tirelessly search for and identify enemy spies, all kinds of counter-revolutionary elements and traitors in the Red Army units (which had to constantly show the need for their work), the fact of the disappearance of the unit commander should have aroused close interest and could well lead to an investigation , where the main question would be: could the missing commander go to the enemy?

Undoubtedly, due to the special nature of their activities, the head of the special department of the corps, as well as the employees of the special department of the Bryansk Front, could not but consider this possibility. Let's try to analyze what considerations they could be guided by in a possible trial of the missing general through their department, and how strong their reasons could be to believe that "not everything is clear in this case"

General Lizyukov disappeared at the most difficult and tragic time for him. The commander of the 2nd tank corps, the hero of the Soviet Union, by the end of July 1942, was, in fact, in real disgrace. The offensive of the 5th Panzer Army, which he commanded, and on which the Headquarters had such high hopes, ended in failure. The army was disbanded, and Lizyukov was demoted to the post of commander of a tank corps. For many, it was obvious that the commander of the 5th tank army would be blamed in the first place for disrupting the operation to defeat the Voronezh grouping of the enemy.

The icy directive of the Stavka about the unsatisfactory actions of the 5th Panzer Army, the unfulfilled personal order of the leader to take Zemlyansk and the ensuing alienation and emptiness that arose around Lizyukov indirectly indicated that in the very near future the most unflattering conclusions could be drawn from the actions of the army commander at the top with consequences that could cost the former commander dearly.

At the level of the front, such conclusions have already been made. The political workers of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front, sent to “strengthen” the army, reported on numerous outrages during the organization of the offensive, the chief of staff of the front disappointedly reported in telegraph negotiations about non-combat moods in the units of Comrade. Lizyukov, finally the commander of the front troops himself went to the 5th tank army and, in a personal meeting with the army commander, loudly accused him of cowardice in front of everyone ...

But now the army was disbanded, and in the hastily formed operational group of the Bryansk Front, the former army commander, and now just a corps commander, again saw in his immediate superior the same person who had once insulted him:

“This is called cowardice, Comrade Lizyukov!”

What conclusions could be drawn from all this? What feelings could Lizyukov have for his immediate superior? Or maybe he developed a deep personal dislike for him?

And now a new offensive under the command of the same formidable commander and ... a new failure ... Moreover, it turned out that the corps not only did not fulfill the task assigned to it, but also acted in the worst way out of the two tank corps, and a number of egregious outrageous! For this, the perpetrators should be held accountable, and, first of all, the corps commander should be responsible ...

In addition, there was one very specific detail in his biography, which immediately took on special significance after the disappearance of the general: Lizyukov, at the time of the pre-war purges of the army from “saboteurs and spies”, was arrested by the authorities ... And let him be released, but why did they take him then ... Or maybe since then he harbored a grudge against the Soviet government and was just waiting for the right moment? So, based on all this, it would be possible to assume that the former army commander with a not entirely clean past and a tarnished reputation in the present, who was also demoted and, probably, harboring personal resentment, had reason to be in enemy?

Based on the documents and evidence known to us today, it can be argued with a high degree of probability that certain employees from the “special” bodies did not exclude such a turn in the Lizyukov case. Allegations of the death of the disgraced general "according to eyewitnesses" were not perceived by them as weighty evidence of his death.

Meanwhile, the investigation conducted by the headquarters of the Bryansk Front ended with a conclusion about the death of Lizyukov. Colonel Sukhoruchkin, who in August 1942 prepared a memorandum addressed to the Deputy People's Commissar of the SSR Comrade. Fedorenko (as well as to the military council of the Bryansk Front), unambiguously wrote at the beginning: “Having investigated the causes of the death of the commander of the 2nd TK, Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General LIZYUKOV, (underlined by me. I.S.) installed…”

But it seems that not everyone agreed with the conclusions of Colonel Sukhoruchkin. The question of the fate of Lizyukov, being formally resolved, in fact, remained unresolved for a long time. Moreover, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, known for his suspicion and distrust even of his closest associates, probably did not fully believe in the impeccability and honesty of General Lizyukov.

Front-line journalist A. Krivitsky gives in his book a description of the scene that took place between Stalin and one "major military man", summoned to Headquarters shortly after the death of Lizyukov. Krivitsky, who wrote about this in the mid-sixties, for one reason or another, does not disclose the name of this "big military man", but one can almost certainly conclude that it was the commander of the 1st tank corps, M.E. Katukov. In the book of Katukov himself, a meeting with Stalin in September 1942 is described in some detail. Comparing these two descriptions, by many indirect signs, we can say that both books are talking about a conversation between Stalin and Katukov on September 17, 1942, the content of which A Krivitsky learned after the war from personal conversations with Katukov.

Let us turn to the book by A. Krivitsky.

“Stalin stood at a long table, hunched over, smoking a pipe. The soldier reported himself. Stalin, as if not noticing him, began to slowly and silently walk around the table. The carpet path concealed his steps. He took three steps in one direction and came back. Three steps into one, three into the other, six in all, then just as slowly, without stopping, he walked almost to the opposite wall and from there, without turning around, asked in a dull voice:
- Lizyukov from the Germans? Did he run over?
This voice came from afar, as if from another, incomprehensible world, and, having flown over a vast space, with cold sounds - each separately - painfully stuck into the consciousness of the military man. He went cold, felt something heavy pressed to his heart, preventing him from breathing.
- Why do not you answer?
And then, overcoming melancholy and suffocation, as if getting out of a narrow stone bag, the military man answered and was surprised himself and inwardly gasped at how firmly, as if against iron, his words sounded:
- Comrade People's Commissar, Major General Lizyukov, I knew well. He was a faithful son of the people, devoted to the party and to you personally.”

Well, not knowing all the circumstances of this not simple case, judging by Stalin's question, Katukov, nevertheless, did not become cautious, but directly stated that he believed in the honesty of the commander known to him. This response is respectful.

As Krivitsky writes:

“Everyone who knew Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov loved and believed him. Only one person did not believe.

Katukov himself, in his book, wrote evasively about the moment of the conversation that interests us, saying only that:

… “After a long pause, the Supreme Commander named several generals and asked if I knew them. I was not familiar with most of those named and did not meet at the front. And the few that I knew were real military commanders and deserved only a kind word.

Like this. Not a word about Lizyukov. True, let's not forget the important circumstance that Krivitsky's book was published in 1964, at the end of the Khrushchev thaw, when it was still possible to write about such a conversation, with the exception of the not directly named "big military man". In the sharply "cooler" seventies, this could no longer be considered. So it remains to seek the truth, as in a detective story, comparing and comparing one with the other and reading between the lines ...

Book M.E. Katukov "On the edge of the main blow" was published in 1974. With her appearance, readers interested in the fate of Lizyukov unexpectedly received a clear answer to the difficult question of what happened to this general. The former commander of the 1st TC presented readers with a dramatic and heroic picture of the death of Lizyukov and the events that followed, while emphasizing his decisive actions and important role formations he commanded. More than 30 years after the death of Lizyukov, he described what happened as follows:

“July 25, 1942, Lizyukov got into the tank and himself led combat vehicles on the attack, intending to break through the enemy defenses near the village of Sukhaya Vereika and withdraw the tank brigade from the encirclement. At the same time, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade of the 1st Tank Corps went on the attack ... (I quote the text with some abbreviations. I.S.) With excitement, I followed this attack from my command post ... The tank, in which Lizyukov was located, pulled far ahead. But suddenly he seemed to stumble over an invisible barrier and froze motionless right in front of the Nazi trenches. Shells burst around him, dotted lines of tracer bullets crossed. The tank didn't move. Now there was no doubt that he had been hit. Meanwhile, other cars, not having achieved success, firing back, retreated. The commander's tank was left alone in the territory occupied by the Nazis. Please connect me with commander 1 guards brigade V.M. Gorelov.
-Organize a private counterattack! Send a group of vehicles forward, cover them with fire, divert the attention of the enemy. By all means, evacuate the Lizyukovsky tank from the battlefield.

Soon a small tank group, under cover of fire, managed to approach the enemy trenches. One of the vehicles took Lizyukov's tank in tow and pulled it out from under fire. The details of Lizyukov's death became known from the story of a wounded driver who got safely to the rear.

“Lizyukov safely got out of the tank, but before he even took a step, a shell exploded nearby ... (underlined by me. I.S.)

Lizyukov's body was brought to the rear. With pain in the heart, the comrades of the brave general were buried in a cemetery near the village of Sukhaya Vereika.

It would seem that everything is clear, and there is nothing more to ask about. I thought so too when I read Katukov's book as a student. But after many years of searching, studying many archival documents and carefully comparing various sources, I came to the conclusion that this is not so. Let us carefully analyze the above passage and compare it with the documents known to us.

Let's start with the fact that Lizyukov died not on July 25, as Katukov claims, but on 23. (Probably, the day July 25 is named in the book to match the article in the military encyclopedia, which states that Lizyukov died in battle on 25.7.42) Accordingly , Katukov could not see the attacks of Lizyukov on July 25. But suppose that Katukov just mixed up the date, and everything else is described correctly, and he saw with his own eyes that Lizyukov's tank was hit in the attack. Why, then, did the headquarters of the 2nd TC not know about this fact for at least a few days? It is impossible to imagine that during the unsuccessful search for the missing commander of the tank corps, Katukov would not say anything and would not tell about the last battle he saw of Lizyukov. However, in the investigation materials of Colonel Sukhoruchkin there is not even the slightest mention of the fact that the commander of the 1st TK saw with his own eyes that Lizyukov's tank was hit in battle. (By the way, from NP 1 TK, which was somewhere on the heights of the northern bank of the Sukhaya Vereika River, Katukov simply could not see how Lizyukov’s tank was hit, because the section of the field where this happened was not visible from here at all. I made sure this personally during a special trip to the Bolshaya Vereika area, to the place of the last battle and the death of General Lizyukov. I.S.)

In Sukhoruchkin's report, even the most insignificant testimonies were carefully collected, people were interviewed who could only testify indirectly, according to other eyewitnesses, and conclusions based on conjectures and assumptions were used. It would seem that what Katukov saw and reported (and, judging by the episode he described in the book, he was one of the most important witnesses), Sukhoruchkin would have written in his report in the first place. But ... there is no evidence of Katukov in the materials of the investigation of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front at all. Moreover, the report never even mentions his name.

Based on the materials of the investigation, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that after leaving Bolshaya Vereika on the morning of July 23, no one saw Lizyukov’s tank and did not know about its whereabouts, since the corps commander’s KV went forward alone, without being accompanied by any other vehicles. Therefore, the vivid picture of the battle described by Katukov, where Lizyukov’s tank went on the attack ahead of other tanks, contradicts the facts. Nothing is said in Sukhoruchkin's report that Lizyukov's wrecked tank was ever evacuated from the battlefield. (according to A. Krivitsky, Lizyukov's tank was discovered only at night).

Neither in the documents of the 1st Guards. tbr., in the documents of the 1st TC I have never met any mention that during the hostilities measures were taken to save General Lizyukov, for which the tankers of the 1st guards. tbr. made their way to the padded "KV" and evacuated it from the battlefield.

Katukov claims that General Lizyukov was buried with full military honors in a cemetery near the village of Sukhaya Vereika. But there is no such village! Obviously, Katukov remembered this name well after the battles on the Sukha Vereika River, but more than 30 years after the war he forgot that there was no village with the same name and, relying on memory and not rechecking his memories with documents, he misled the reader. It may be that the locals called Dry Vereika part of the village of Lebyazhye, but when conducting hostilities, Katukov did not use the prompts of collective farmers, but a military map on which there was no village with that name. Malaya Vereika (the second name of Sivertsevo) and Bolshaya Vereika were marked on the topographic map of 1941 to the east of Lebyazhye. Neither there nor there was the grave of General Lizyukov, buried, according to Katukov, in the cemetery "with all military honors" (which, obviously, implies the appropriate decoration of the general's grave and the establishment of at least some kind of obelisk), was not and is not.

Finally, a meeting with Stalin on September 17, 1942. Recall that the Supreme Commander, after a significant pause, suspiciously asks if Lizyukov had defected to the Germans, and Katukov ... no, he does not say that he saw with his own eyes how Lizyukov’s tank was knocked out, that he knows how he died and where the commander of the 2nd tank was buried corps, but ... growing cold, with a heavy heart, he answers only that ... he knew Lizyukov well, that he was a faithful son of the people, devoted to the party and Stalin personally. What a general and non-specific answer! Why not instead tell Katukov everything that he wrote many years later in his book? After all, then, in September 1942, he should have remembered the circumstances of Lizyukov's death much better than 30 years later! The answer, I think, is obvious: only those who could not or did not dare to say anything more specific could answer like that ...

I am far from thinking that the respected marshal wanted to deliberately distort the historical truth. Most likely, the point here is the imperfection of human memory and (or) the excessive zeal of his literary consultants. However, based on archival documents and analysis of other sources, it can be argued that the scene of Lizyukov's death painted by Katukov is fictitious and is a post-war reconstruction of events that Katukov did not witness.

But why did Stalin so suspiciously ask Katukov if Lizyukov had defected to the Germans? Here, perhaps, it is necessary to say about the most, in my opinion, the most important reason for such suspicions of the leader, who, as we see, did not believe in the conclusions of the official investigation of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front about the death of Lizyukov. Let's not forget that the conversation with Katukov took place in mid-September 1942. By this time, it became known that the former commander of the 2 shock army, Lieutenant General Vlasov, was captured by the Germans. Leaflets with photographs of the captured Vlasov covered the trenches of our troops, but the most shocking were the reports that Vlasov had embarked on the path of cooperation with the enemy.

On September 12, 1942, he issued an appeal to start a joint struggle with the Germans for new Russia and soon this was reported to Stalin. (It is no coincidence that on September 17, Stalin asked Katukov about “several generals.” He probably asked Katukov about Vlasov ... I.S.) For Supreme Commander it was a painful blow: one of his the best generals betrayed him and openly went into the service of the Germans.

And here the disappearance of Lizyukov, and even under circumstances that were not fully clarified, immediately became suspicious. I remembered that in the winter of 1942, at the time when Vlasov commanded the 20th Army, Lizyukov was none other than his deputy. Now their recent joint service has cast a long shadow on Lizyukov, since for Stalin the fact of the strange disappearance of Vlasov's former deputy shortly after the Germans reported the capture of the commander of the 2 shock army acquired a completely different, special meaning in the newly discovered circumstances.

Service under the authority of the unexpectedly opened “double-dealer and traitor to the Motherland”; the failed operation of the army, when there were all the prerequisites for success; finally, reports and signals to the top about the poor leadership of the corps - all this seemed to line up for the leader in one suspiciously strange chain of coincidences. But what if the treacherous plans of both were ripening even then, and at a convenient moment that turned up, Lizyukov followed his former boss or surrendered to the Germans in order to evade responsibility?

Knowing Stalin's tendency to see treason and treachery even where they were not, it is not difficult to imagine that this is how the "great leader" could interpret reports that the commander of the 2nd TK disappeared, and "no one saw him again." In an inverted system of values, where the presumption of innocence has become a bourgeois anachronism, and the circumstances of the disappearance of the general are contradictory and vague, no one could prove to the Supreme that Lizyukov could not go over to the side of the enemy. Messages about the death of Lizyukov, and even “from the words”, were evidence only for a simpleton who succumbed to the bait of the insidious provocation of German intelligence, but not for Stalin. Probably, the fact that Lizyukov’s duffel book was in the pocket of the murdered man was not proof for the leader: after all, it was impossible to identify the corpse ... So such a find could well have been set up specifically to stage the death

I repeat that, in my opinion, Stalin could have been guided by such considerations when he asked Katukov whether Lizyukov had "run over" to the Germans. I believe it is clear to the reader that the author of this article does not share these suspicions, and cited them only as a version of the possible reasons for the Supreme Commander's distrust of his general.

In addition to Katukov's memoirs, there is another book in Soviet memoir literature that tells about the death of General Lizyukov. These are the memoirs of E.F. Ivanovsky “The tankers started the attack.” Alas, this book cannot be called a reliable source on the issue that interests us. Respectfully treating its author as a war veteran, I, nevertheless, cannot help but notice that his version of the events we are considering conflicts with the facts set forth in archival documents. I do not presume to judge the reasons for these inconsistencies, but this is so. I will try to show this with specific examples.

The first thing that catches your eye when reading the chapter on the battles of the summer of 1942 near Voronezh is that the author of the book does not refer to any archival documents. Of course, he did not have to do this: after all, we are talking about his personal memories. It certainly is. However, the complete absence of references to documents in the chapter suggests that the author of the book, in describing the events of interest to us, entirely relied only on his memory and did not clarify his memories with the available documents. And this is almost 40 years after the last battles! It is not surprising that when reading the chapter that interests us, we find many inaccuracies. Only the most obvious of them will be discussed below.

The author of the book speaks about the fate of General Lizyukov, stating that the latter died "exactly near the village of Medvezhye", and that this fact was documented many years later, although he does not cite any documents, leaving the reader only one thing - to take his word for it. Obviously the author refers to a note in the Bolshoi Soviet Encyclopedia, where only there was a mention "near the village of Medvezhye", since all other sources say otherwise. But should a note in an encyclopedia be considered documentary evidence? Recall that even the date of Lizyukov's death in the encyclopedia is incorrect. As for the circumstances of the death of the general, the author of the book, with the words “found witness”, once again briefly retells the well-known version, which originates from the story of Mamaev.

Further in the text, there is an obvious "lapse" when the author of the book says that Lizyukov was wearing "overalls without epaulettes." How could you put it that way? Has Ivanovsky forgotten that in 1942 there could not have been any shoulder straps on the uniform of the Red Army? It's hard to imagine. He probably meant: "without insignia", but he wrote - "without shoulder straps." Perhaps only a person who is not versed in military matters, for example, a literary consultant, could express himself in this way. But in that case, did Ivanovsky himself read this passage? It is difficult to say, but, in any case, he did not notice this “lapse”.

Inaccuracies and distortions in Ivanovsky's book give a certain reason to doubt the authenticity of some of the episodes he describes. But even more doubtful is his interpretation of the actions of the headquarters of the 2nd TC. after the disappearance of Lizyukov.

Colonel Sukhoruchkin, who conducted an investigation into the circumstances of the death of General Lizyukov in July 1942, directly stated then the inaction of the headquarters of the 2nd TC. We read in the materials of the investigation:

".. Poor organization of command and control in battle, as a result of which it turned out that the absence of the corps commander became known only many hours later",

“The failure to take effective measures to organize reconnaissance in force, night searches, etc. from the headquarters of the corps after the absence of the corps commander was discovered.

This last quote from the document deserves special attention. After all, what do we read in Ivanovsky's book?

"Evening came. The chief of staff reported by telephone about the incident personally to Colonel-General K.K. Rokossovsky. I offered to immediately organize a search and, having received the go-ahead, quickly equipped two groups of foot scouts for the mission. They left into the night."

As you can see, the author of the book, more than 40 years after the events described, shows us the actions of the headquarters of the 2nd TC and his own personally in the most favorable light. According to him, it turns out that in the evening of July 23 (unfortunately, Ivanovsky again does not give exact dates) at the headquarters of the corps knew about the disappearance of Lizyukov (and informed the commander of the Bryansk Front about this), and he, as head of the intelligence department, immediately organized searching for the missing general. Further more. Ivanovsky claims that it was his scouts who discovered the wrecked Lizyukov tank, "searched the area meter by meter" and brought not only the general's duffel book, but also his tablet with a map.

However, archival materials do not provide grounds for such an interpretation of events.

In the funds of the 2nd TK., whose documents for the period of interest I carefully studied, for all the years of research I have not come across a single document that would somehow confirm everything written by Ivanovsky. I think that such a crucial task as finding out the fate of the missing general would have left its mark in the form of memos or intelligence reports, especially if they obtained such important evidence that the author of the book informs the reader about. But there is nothing of the kind in the documents of the headquarters of the 2nd TC. No. The available documents clearly tell us that the headquarters of the 2nd TK. In those days, he did not have any reliable data on the fate of the corps commander and could not report anything definite on this issue.

The study of the documents of the Bryansk Front gives us every reason to assert that Ivanovsky's version is at odds with the facts. From these documents it clearly follows that:

1. Lizyukov's duffel book was discovered by scouts of the 1st, and not 2nd TC.

2. Lizyukov's tablet with the map was never found by anyone.

3. Headquarters 2 TC. did not undertake any reconnaissance searches either in the evening or on the night of July 24, since he did not know anything about the disappearance of Lizyukov and only on the morning of July 24 organized a reconnaissance search with 2 T-60 tanks, which ended in nothing, since the tanks were fired upon, it was not possible to advance far We were able to come back..."

By the way, archival materials do not confirm Ivanovsky’s statements that his scouts saw how both tanks (Lizyukov and Assorova) entered the “gap” on the front line. It follows from the documents that, having landed the tank commander, Lizyukov and Assorov left Bolshaya Vereika together in the direction of height 188.5 in one tank. We read in the documents: “Here, in Bolshaya Vereika, from his KV tank, he gave the order to the commander of the 27th brigade. move the brigade faster and said that he himself with the commissar on the KV tank would follow them. No one accompanied the tank commander of the corps ... "So there was no second tank after leaving Bolshaya Vereika! There was one tank, not two. Therefore, the fact that the scouts of the 1st TK saw the body of a tanker hanging from the tower with 4 rectangles in the buttonholes allows us to almost unequivocally state that the KV tank they found was precisely the tank of General Lizyukov. In the memorandum, it was written that on the armor of the discovered KV "there was the corpse of the regimental commissar Assorov." But about the evidence of scouts of the 89th brigade. headquarters 2 TC. and the Bryansk Front became known far from immediately. It took at least a few days before an important message from the scouts of the 89th brigade. through the headquarters of the brigade and the headquarters of the corps, it finally reached the headquarters of the Bryansk Front. By this time, clarify possible place the burial of Lizyukov became no longer possible, since the combat area was left to the enemy.

The inconsistency of actions, the lack of communication and interaction between the tank corps, as well as the fact that the headquarters of the 2nd TC., itself being in complete ignorance, did not inform the neighbors about the disappearance of Lizyukov in time, led to the fact that neither in the headquarters of the 1st TC., much less in 89 br. no one knew that the commander of the neighboring tank corps had disappeared, while the scouts of the 89th brigade, also not knowing it themselves, discovered his wrecked tank and soon buried the unidentified corpse of a man, who, most likely, was General Lizyukov.

Ivanovsky's version differs from the documents in a number of important details, so it should be treated critically. Let's think about this: what, in principle, distinguishes the book of Ivanovsky's memoirs and Sukhoruchkin's report - these two sources from which we learn about the fate of Lizyukov and the circumstances of his death?

Sukhoruchkin's report was written shortly after Lizyukov's death in hot pursuit, using the testimony of many witnesses in the last hours of the general's life.

Ivanovsky's book was published in 1984 and was based only on the author's personal memories, recorded 40 years after the events of interest to us, not supported by any documents.

The author of the report, Colonel Sukhoruchkin, was not an interested person, therefore he conducted an investigation objectively, in order to find out the truth, and not to cover up the guilty. He directly stated the responsibility of the headquarters of the 2nd TC. for failure to take timely measures to clarify the fate of the missing corps commander.

The author of the book, General of the Army Ivanovsky, in July 1942, held the position of head of the intelligence department at the headquarters of the 2nd TC .. In a conversation about the fate of Lizyukov, he is a person objectively interested in showing the actions of the headquarters of the 2nd TC. (and his own) with better side. It would be inconvenient to admit the embarrassment that had happened ... Probably, therefore, on the pages of his book, the headquarters of the 2nd TC. already on the evening of July 23, he raises the alarm, the chief of staff reports the incident to the commander of the Bryansk Front, and Ivanovsky himself quickly organizes reconnaissance searches, after which it is his scouts who find Lizyukov’s duffel book, and in addition also a tablet with a map. This version of what happened sounds much more pretentious!

Finally, one more reason. Let's think: for whom was the report written and for whom is the book? Sukhoruchkin's report was a top secret document and was addressed not to "a wide circle of readers", but to the Deputy People's Commissar of the USSR, Lieutenant General Fedorenko and the military council of the Bryansk Front - addressees who needed the whole truth without any embellishment.

Ivanovsky's book was published in a hundred thousand copies for millions of Soviet readers at the end of stagnant times. Let's not forget that in that unforgettable time, the Soviet people could only read "tested" literature. This alone suggests that the author of the book could not write the whole truth at that time, even if he wanted to do it. Literary consultants, "comrades from the political department", and finally, employees of the "ideological front" would do everything possible to smooth out the memories of the war veteran. sharp corners, inconvenient facts are passed over in silence, and the reader would not have all sorts of "unnecessary" questions. Therefore, how could it be written at that time in a book for the general reader that the corps headquarters did not know for a long time that an important general was missing, and that reconnaissance searches were not undertaken in time and were unsuccessful? Perhaps millions of Soviet readers would not need to know such a truth at all ... Maybe that is also why in Ivanovsky's book the truth turned out to be closely intertwined with fiction and it is not easy to separate them.

Critically referring to Ivanovsky's story about the active actions of the headquarters of the 2nd TK after the disappearance of Lizyukov, at the same time, I believe that he truthfully described many other episodes, which, of course, are of great interest to the researcher. For example, the conversation Lizyukov cited in the book with the commander of the 26th brigade. Burdov, most likely, proceeded in this way, since the meaning and tone of Lizyukov's remarks in the description of Ivanovsky are confirmed by genuine radiograms sent by Lizyukov to Burdov. I have no doubt that Ivanovsky witnessed the last conversations and orders of Lizyukov, given to them on the morning of July 23, and saw how the commander and commissar of the 2nd TK., without even knowing it, went towards their death

Obviously, Ivanovsky's book is a rare and important testimony of a person who saw Lizyukov in those fateful July days of 1942, but to use it in historical research need to be careful. The author of the book claims that what happened to Lizyukov near Zemlyansk happened before his eyes, but ... what does Ivanovsky mean? He did not witness the death of Lizyukov and did not even see how the commander’s tank was approaching the front line (from the text of the book it follows that his scouts saw this, but not himself)!

It turns out that by the word “happened”, Ivanovsky means Lizyukov’s conversation with Rokossovsky and Burdov and the decision by the commander of the 2nd TC to go to the location of the 26th brigade. The conversation described by Ivanovsky took place, most likely, at KP 2 TC. in the village of Kreshchenka. It was probably here that Ivanovsky saw how the regimental commissar Assorov left in the second tank after Lizyukov. I do not doubt this statement of his. But Lizyukov and Assorov left Bolshaya Vereika already on the same KV tank.

It is characteristic that Ivanovsky himself, initially speaking about two tanks that came forward, then does not say a word either about the fate of Assorov, or about the discovery of a second wrecked tank. Where, then, was this second tank? After all, Ivanovsky's scouts, as he claims, “searched the area meter by meter”, found a planchette and a duffel bag, but did not notice a second wrecked tank on the field ... How can this be explained? Couldn't Assorov leave his commander in a wrecked tank and move on? Alas, Ivanovsky does not explain anything more. Talking about the search for Lizyukov, he no longer talks about Assorov's tank as if it never existed.

It is interesting to note that the versions of Katukov and Ivanovsky, presented by them in their books, even contradict each other. Katukov, as former commander 1 TK., does not say a word about the actions of the headquarters of 2 TK, speaking only about the merits of his tankers. Ivanovsky does exactly the opposite. If you believe one author, it turns out that you can not believe another! It is impossible to combine both versions into one coherent and logical explanation of what happened, even if you really want to.

According to Katukov, it turns out that the wrecked tank of Lizyukov was immediately evacuated along with the entire crew by tankers of the 1st TK., and Lizyukov himself was buried in the cemetery; and according to Ivanovsky, that his scouts later discovered a wrecked and burnt Lizyukov tank on the battlefield without any traces of the crew, and the general himself was killed, but not identified, therefore he was buried along with other soldiers found on the battlefield in a mass grave.

If Katukov's tankers dragged KV Lizyukov along with the entire crew to the rear, then how could the scouts of the 2nd TK. find a tablet with a map and a general's duffel book in the field! It turns out that the general himself was “pulled out” from the battlefield, but for some reason his documents were thrown out of the tank! But this is nonsense! So who do you believe then? (It is characteristic that Ivanovsky does not comment on Katukov's version, which appeared earlier, although he could dispute a lot in it ...)

Careful and detailed analysis The above books once again confirm the well-known truth that memoirs are not a very reliable source and should be treated with caution.

Many years after the beginning of the search, when I had the opportunity to work with German documents, I was able to look at the events of the summer of 1942 near Voronezh, so to speak, from the other side. First of all, I was interested in the topic of the battles of the 5th Panzer Army and the subsequent offensive operations of our troops on the left wing of the Bryansk Front in July and August 1942. Looking through a lot of different materials, I felt a certain excitement: what if in German documents I suddenly come across some mention of Lizyukov’s personal fate?

The fighting in July, August 1942 is reflected in some detail in the documents German divisions who opposed our troops in this area. In addition to the operational ones, in the annexes to the divisional combat logs, I repeatedly came across documents of a different kind. These were reports of captured trophies, maps and other staff documents, as well as protocols of interrogation of prisoners of war, indicating their personal data and the unit where they served. These documents are of particular interest, since they allow us to establish not only that this or that serviceman was not missing, but was taken prisoner, but also make it possible, by indirect signs, to determine the fate of persons not named by their surnames.

2nd Panzer Corps, commanded by Lizyukov after the disbandment of the 5th Panzer Army, offensive operation task force of the Bryansk Front led fighting against the 387th German infantry division. Having found this out, I decided that if anywhere there is a mention of the killed Russian general, then such a mention should be sought in the fund of the 387th German infantry division.

Knowing how valuable and informative divisional documents can be, I hoped, in search of possible references to Lizyukov, to carefully study the combat log, as well as all reports, reports, orders and radiograms of the division for July 23-25.

And here, after so many valuable finds, I was completely disappointed. It turned out that the fund of the 387th infantry division was not in the archive at all, since the documents of this division were not preserved ... Alas, my hopes are that in the documents 387 pd. I will probably be able to find at least some, even indirect mention of Lizyukov, collapsed immediately and irrevocably.

In the absence of documents 387 pd. it remains only to comprehend their meaning and possible value for our search. I think that if these documents had been preserved, then they would have at least mentioned that on July 23, in the area northeast of Lebyazhye, a Russian heavy tank was hit, in which valuable documents and cards with a cipher were found in two of the killed officers. But these are just guesses.

At the end of July 1942, 387 pd. was part of the 7th Army Corps, and in search of possible reports from the "upstairs" division, I decided to look through the corps documents. They turned out to be many, much more than happens in the funds of divisions, but, alas, they were much less detailed. And most importantly: reports from 387 pd. for the period of interest to me there was not there either. I looked through hundreds of pages of corps documents with a variety of reports on hostilities and reports on many combat episodes, but during all this time I did not come across any mention of General Lizyukov.

Lack of results, as you know, is also a result. Based on this negative result, we can at least draw the following conclusions.

1. If Major General Lizyukov was captured by the Germans, then this important prisoner would certainly be reported not only from the 387th Infantry Division to the corps, but also from the corps to the headquarters of the 2nd field army. I did not find any such messages. This circumstance once again indirectly confirms that General Lizyukov was not captured and did not go missing, but died.

2. Probably, after the death of Lizyukov, the German submachine gunners, who cut off the tablets from him and Commissar Assorov, considered the documents found to be quite valuable trophies and took them with them as proof of their luck, but they were not interested in the personal documents of the dead and therefore did not pull him out of the pocket of Lizyukov’s overalls stuff book.

Based on this, it can be assumed that the enemy command, although they received important documents and maps in their hands, never found out that they were taken from the killed commander and commissar of the 2nd tank corps. The name of Lizyukov was known to the German command from previous battles of the 5th Panzer Army, and there is no doubt that the enemy would use the fact of Lizyukov's death for propaganda purposes if he knew about it. However, this was not the case. Consequently, the German command did not know about the death of Lizyukov.

Working in the US National Archives allowed me to use a completely unexpected source in my searches. The fact is that in the funds of trophy documents of this archive are stored unique photos German aerial photography of our territory during the war. Not hoping too much that the Germans had ever photographed the area of ​​Sukha Vereika, and even more so that these photographs had survived at all, I nevertheless decided, just in case, to ask if there was at least something in the catalog of aerial photographs that I I could use it for my book. And he was amazed.

German aerial photograph of the Lebyazhye region and a grove at a height of 188.5.
Date: July 28, 1942 7:12 am Berlin time.
The picture shows the road from Bolshaya Vereika to Somovo. Now at the southern spur of the grove on this road
the highway built after the war from Novozhivotinnoye near the Don River flows in.

Almost the entire area in the area of ​​the front line from the Don to the Kshen River was photographed by the enemy. I began to carefully study the catalog of the map square I needed and select specific areas of the front section where the 1st and 2nd tank corps were fighting. After careful selection, I ordered a box of aerial photographs with the most important characteristics for me: area, date, image quality and scale. A day later, this box was brought to me from a special storage, and I saw genuine German photographs of the series I needed ... About 60 photographs recorded in detail the work of a German reconnaissance aircraft when it methodically flew over the front line and made aerial photographs of a vast area on Sukha Vereika, including and the area of ​​Lebyazhye, Bolshaya Vereika and Kaverya. Aerial photography was carried out by the enemy in the early morning of July 28, that is, 5 days after the death of Lizyukov.

Having arranged the photos in the right order, I also found a picture of a height of 188.5 along with a grove, to the west of it. The quality of the photograph was very high, the shooting was carried out in cloudless weather, and a large square aerial photograph, obviously taken from a wide negative, made it possible to see a lot. With the help of a large magnifying glass, I began to carefully study the area, carefully examining every small detail. It was exciting: I could clearly distinguish huge craters from air bombs, thin broken lines of trenches, anti-tank ditches ... It was hard to believe, but more than 60 years after the war, I actually found myself in an airplane flying over the front line, and from a height of 5 -6 kilometers I saw with my own eyes the field of a recent battle exactly as it was on that day on July 28, 1942.

The road leading from Bolshaya Vereika to Somovo was completely ridden, with numerous ruts going off to the side. And on the road and near it sometimes came across dark rectangles of tanks or vehicles. Carefully, centimeter by centimeter, I looked through the terrain in the photograph, moving in the general direction of the offensive of the 2nd tank corps - to the southwest.

And suddenly, to the right of the road, not far from the southern edge of the grove, which is west of height 188.5, I saw a lonely black rectangle in the field. Its contours stood out clearly against the whitish background of the field, and its large size indicated that it was a large object, such as a tank or truck. But the truck could hardly be so far from the road in the middle of a field overgrown with high rye .... It was probably a tank and, judging by the size of the black rectangle, medium or heavy

A hunch struck me. I once again examined the area around, but there were no other black rectangles on the field near the grove. Did I really look at the lined KV Lizyukov ?! Could this be? I've put the facts together.

Lizyukov died on July 23. The aerial photograph was taken on 28 July. 5 days later. Judging by the materials of Colonel Sukhoruchkin’s investigation, Lizyukov’s tank had not been found by the beginning of August, which means that it had not been evacuated from the battlefield either (having analyzed the excerpt from Katukov’s book above and found in it whole line discrepancies with the facts, I think it can be said that Katukov’s statement that Lizyukov’s tank was evacuated from the front line immediately after the battle is hardly true). On the morning of July 26, our troops retreated from this area, leaving the battlefield to the enemy, and it became impossible to evacuate the damaged equipment. Most likely, KV Lizyukov remained on the day of aerial photography at the same place where he was shot down on July 23. If so, he was in the photograph I held in my hands. Even if not in the place where I saw a lonely black rectangle, even in a different one, but at least somewhere it still stood on the field, which I looked at from a height of several kilometers.

Alas, our command did not have such photographs, requests for aerial reconnaissance remained for the most part unanswered. (For all the years of work in the Podolsky archive, I have never seen aerial photographs of the region of interest to me, either in the documents of the ground or in the documents of the military air units of the front)

I carefully examined the black rectangle in the field again and again. If this is the same tank on which the commander of the 2nd TK left Bolshaya Vereika on the morning of July 23, then the place where the KV stood is the place where General Lizyukov died. Sometimes it seemed to me that I could distinguish the characteristic silhouette of the tank: the front and rear parts, the turret and even the barrel, but again and again I took the magnifying glass to the side and realized that I really didn’t see anything, that I only wanted all these outlines see. Alas, unlike the pilots who made the survey, I could not descend and take a closer look at that black rectangle

Did I see Lizyukov's wrecked tank in the photo? I cannot confirm this. It could be a completely different tank. Moreover, it is also impossible to unequivocally state that the black rectangle in the field is a tank. I could only assume that I was probably seeing the place of death of the commander and commissar of the 2nd tank corps.

Looking at that large German aerial photograph then, I experienced a strange feeling: here, in Washington, far away from home and dozens of years after the war, I suddenly found myself in July 1942 and from the cockpit of a German reconnaissance aircraft I saw the field of the last battle of General Lizyukov. More than six decades have passed since his death, but until now this photograph is perhaps the most valuable evidence that would help answer the question: where did General Lizyukov die?

But back to August 1942. Shortly after the death of Lizyukov, the People's Commissariat of Defense received a letter from (according to Krivitsky) engineer-captain Tsvetanovich, who served in the armored department of the 5th tank army (apparently Krivitsky is mistaken, because there was no armored department in the tank army. Most likely, we are talking about the armored department headquarters of the Bryansk Front).

Judging by the fact that there is no mention of Tsvetanovich's testimony in the documents of the official investigation of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front, his letter appeared only after the completion of the work of Colonel Sukhoruchkin. Tsvetanovich's letter gave some details that could partly explain the motives for which General Lizyukov personally went forward on his tank. Orders given to the commander of the 2nd TC. (commander of the operational group of the Bryansk Front, Lieutenant General Chibisov), writes Tsvetanovich, were offensive in form and content to the honor of Lizyukov ...

However, of particular interest to us is that part of the letter, which refers to the circumstances of the death of the general. Tsvetanovich gives the following description of the last minutes of General Lizyukov in the letter. (For all the years of work in the Podolsky archive, I could not find the indicated letter, so I quote its further text in its entirety according to A. Krivitsky)

“The wounded driver of this tank returned from the entire crew of the tank and said that the car was hit by a direct hit from an armor-piercing blank. The crew received an order from Major General Lizyukov to leave the tank. The gunner-radio operator was killed when leaving the tank. Tov. Lizyukov was killed by submachine gunners when leaving the tank.

Let us analyze the description given by Tsvetanovich. Apparently, it is again based on the story of the driver Mamaev, retold by Mussorov, and then, probably, by someone else. As you can see, the details of what happened already differ from the description given in Sukhoruchkin's report. According to Tsvetanovich, it turns out that after a German shell hit the tank, General Lizyukov was still alive and ordered the crew to leave the tank, and was killed later. But isn't this version of events just a consequence of the distortions that inevitably arose when retelling what happened from other people's words? Alas, this feature in the investigation of the case, when the only surviving witness was never personally interviewed, then became the cause of many omissions and conjectures.

We find vivid confirmation of this in Konstantin Simonov. He cites a letter from a war veteran about one meeting he remembers that took place at the end of July 1942.

“I then, in early July 1942, commanded a platoon of 76 mm. guns 835 sp. 237 sd. On one of these days (I don't remember the exact date) I had a meeting, strangely connected with the fate of Commander Lizyukov. The platoon occupied a firing position somewhere near the village of Lomov (actually Lomovo. Note by I.S.) Heavy tank battles had been going on for several days, and every day there were less and less hopes for success. This was felt even by soldiers far from the headquarters. By the way, perhaps it is the soldier on the front line who first feels the formidable symptoms of failure. Our tanks were burning ahead. I remember those high mourning columns of smoke black as soot. That evening, a tanker wounded in the head came across our firing line. Sitting on the parapet of the trench, he, as usual, lit a cigarette and said that the commander-5 died before his eyes, that he saw (or even participated in it himself) how his charred corpse was removed from the burned tank ... The name of the commander was also named - General Lizyukov"

From the story of the wounded tanker, it appears that the tank burned down, and the charred corpse of the general was inside the combat vehicle.

“After 2 or 3 kilometers, when he (General Lizyukov) approached the edge of the forest, his tank was shot at point-blank range by German guns hidden in an ambush. Only one tower shooter escaped - he managed to jump out, huddled in the rye and from there he saw what happened next. According to him, the Nazis surrounded the tank, pulled out the corpses of the dead, including the corpse of Lizyukov, understood from the documents that this was a general, and as proof that he was killed, and that they took away his documents, cut off the head from the corpse and took her with you."

Many years later, Simonov, recalling several days he spent on the Bryansk Front in July 42, at a time when our troops were fighting heavy and unsuccessful battles there, wrote: “In this episode, told very simply, there was something lonely and desperate, characteristic for those desperate days"

After the conclusion that Major General Lizyukov had died, the official investigation of the headquarters of the Bryansk Front was completed. The new commander and commissar of the corps quickly got up to speed. The war continued, and it was necessary to fight on

However, the conclusions of the commission did not give an answer to one of the most important human questions: where General Lizyukov was buried and ... was he buried at all. Then, in the heat of battle, after the conclusion about the death of the commander of the 2nd TK., The persons conducting the investigation were much more interested in what documents the enemy got as a result of the death of Lizyukov and Assorov than whether or not the dead were buried.

Nothing definite was reported to Lizyukov's wife, who, according to A. Krivitsky, "no matter how she tried, she did not receive any notification of her husband's death." After the end of the war, she wrote three letters to Stalin with a request to clarify the fate of Lizyukov for her, but she never received a response to any of them. In one of these letters she wrote: “I am making a request. I want to know: where and how did my husband die, and where was his corpse?”

Stalin was silent, a wall of alienation formed around the name of Lizyukov, and many military leaders preferred not to speak at all on this sensitive topic. And only in 1947, 5 years after the death of Lizyukov, his wife unexpectedly received a letter from the former deputy commander of the 89th brigade. 1 tank corps N.V. Davidenko, in which he spoke about the fact that the body of the general was found. “My scouts,” he wrote, “brought me a document - a duffel book in the name of Major General Lizyukov, found on the corpse”

So was General Lizyukov buried or not? This agonizing question remained an unhealed wound for his widow, because she did not receive an unequivocal answer to it until her death. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense even then had a document that could clarify this issue, but Lizyukov's widow probably did not have the opportunity to read it.

Already at the very end of the war or even after it, a memorandum was sent to the main armored directorate of the Red Army about the circumstances of the death of Major General Lizyukov, but for almost thirty years nothing was known about its content to a wide range of researchers. And only in the mid-seventies, thanks to the book of Konstantin Simonov, part of this memorandum became public. I am quoting its text, emphasizing in the document the most, in my opinion, important on the topic of interest to us.

“On that day, having no information from the 89th tank battalion of the 148th brigade, which had broken through to the Gvozdevsky heights area, General Lizyukov and the regimental commissar Assorov on the KV tank left in the direction of a grove, which is west of height 188.5, and did not return to the unit. From the testimony of the former deputy commander of the tank brigade of the Guards, Colonel Davidenko Nikita Vasilyevich, it is known that during the action of his brigade in this area, a wrecked KV tank was discovered, on the armor of which was the corpse of regimental commissar Assorov, and about a hundred meters from the tank there was an unknown corpse in overalls with crushed head. The duffel book of General Lizyukov was found in the overalls. By order of the Guards Colonel Davidenko, the specified corpse was delivered to his NP and buried near a grove, which is west of height 188.5. Soon the brigade from this area was forced to withdraw. There is no other information about the place of death and burial of General Lizyukov.

So, we have come close to answering the question of where to look for the grave of General Lizyukov. On military map In 1941, a point with a mark of 188.5 was marked in the field southeast of the village of Lebyazhye, approximately 2200 meters from the church. The grove, west of height 188.5, still exists, and its borders have changed little over the post-war years. Guards Colonel Davidenko in 1942 was deputy commander of the 89th tank brigade of the 1st tank corps. On July 23 and 24, from the starting positions near the grove south of Lebyazhye, 89 brig. conducted offensive battles northeast of the villages of Somovo and Bolshaya Treshchevka.

In order to observe the course of hostilities, the NP of the brigade commander had to be within the line of sight of these villages, that is, taking into account the gradual increase in terrain to the south, no further than 2-3 kilometers. At the same time, the NP could not be located north of the southern tip of the grove, since an overview of the battlefield from here would be impossible. Therefore, the likely location for NP 89 tbr. there could be a point at a height south or southeast of the grove. If this was indeed the case, then it can be assumed that the body of Major General Lizyukov, delivered to the NP, was possibly then buried at the nearest edge of the southern spur of the grove, which is located south of the village of Lebyazhye.

Then, in the midst of heavy fighting, the fighters, exhausted by battles, hardly left any other memory on the grave of the deceased general, except for a mound with a plywood star and, at best, an inscription on the plate: it was not before. And soon the brigade had to withdraw from this area altogether, and Lizyukov's grave remained on the ground occupied by the Germans. What happened to the grave during this period is difficult to say. In any case, there was no one to take care of her, and traces of Lizyukov's burial began to be lost. The ground sagged, the autumn rains washed away the mound, and the inscription probably disappeared, if it was still preserved by that time. And then winter came, and the grave was probably covered with deep snow ...

In January 1943, fearing encirclement, the German units left their positions and quickly withdrew to the west. Our troops turned to pursuit and marched without a fight through the bloody battlefields of the summer of 1942, by that time thickly covered with snow. The grave of Lizyukov also remained under the snow, and hardly anyone noticed it then. And only in the spring of 1943, when the snow melted, it was still possible to find the place where the general was buried. But there were no troops around anymore: the front had gone far to the west. Later, local residents began to return to the broken villages, but they were not up to the lonely grave mound at the forest edge: hundreds of unburied corpses lay everywhere in the fields ... It is not surprising that Lizyukov’s grave gradually completely disappeared from sight and leveled to the ground: in the time when people had to think about how to survive, they were not up to the dead.

Another thing is surprising: after the liberation of the area where the battles took place, the military command did not undertake a thorough search to find the grave of a prominent general, Hero of the Soviet Union and somehow perpetuate his memory. According to some reports, in the spring and summer of 1943, the widow of Lizyukov went to the battlefield with a group of military personnel specially involved in this trip, but their attempts to find the burial were unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, it was still possible to find witnesses who could show where Lizyukov was buried (as we see, Colonel Davidenko was alive, because he wrote a letter to Lizyukov's widow in 1947), but no steps were taken to establish the general's burial place. And his grave was finally lost ...

Here, perhaps, it should be said about the version of Lieutenant Nechaev, a former tankman of the 1st Guards. tbr. 1 Panzer Corps, who claimed decades after the war that he had personally seen Lizyukov's body brought to Sukha Vereika and buried there under the supervision of two lieutenant colonels. Pavel Nechaev wrote a letter about this, which is well known to Voronezh historians and search engines. Without questioning the story of Pavel Nechaev about everything he saw, I still think that it is impossible to unequivocally say that on that day he saw Lizyukov's funeral.

Some details from what P. Nechaev told us cast doubt on this. First of all, Nechaev says that he was struck by the fact that the dead were dressed in a new officer's uniform. It is known that when on that day Lizyukov went in a tank in search of a tank brigade that had broken through, he was wearing tank overalls that did not even have insignia, so he could not be in a new officer's uniform.

General Lizyukov died east of a large grove south of Lebyazhye, and it seems unlikely that his body would have ended up in the Khrushchevo farm area, more than 5 kilometers west of the place of death, where, according to P. Nechaev, the dead tankers were found. Nechaev writes that “before the burial, the lieutenant colonels took out documents from the pocket of the dead general and removed the stars from his clothes.”

But according to archival documents, the only document found (a duffel book) was found by scouts in overalls of a dead “Red Army soldier” at the place of Lizyukov’s death and then they took her with them. Consequently, the lieutenant colonels could not pull out any documents from the pocket of the dead general before burial. If this were indeed the case, then this fact would most likely become known to Colonel Sukhoruchkin, who conducted the investigation. I emphasize once again: there is no mention of where and under what circumstances General Lizyukov was buried in the documents of the investigation.

I think that Pavel Nechaev on that July day witnessed the burial of our dead tank commanders. But it was not the funeral of Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov.

Recently, I once again went to the place of the death of General Lizyukov and took photographs of the area there. The modern highway leading from Bolshaya Vereika to the south exactly repeats the road that passed here during the war. The vast field to the south of Bolshaya Vereika gradually narrows to a narrow neck between the groves, through which the road still passes. Due to this terrain feature, Lizyukov's tank could only move south following the direction of the highway.

In the narrowest part of the field, the eastern spur of the grove, south of Lebyazhye, approaches the highway for about 200 meters. It can be safely assumed that it was here that the enemy ambushed anti-tank guns, since this convenient position (stealth and tank inaccessibility due to a forested ravine) made it possible to hold an important line with limited forces and control movement along the road. There is a similar position to the south, where the highway comes close to the grove. Moving south along the highway, Lizyukov's tank inevitably had to pass German anti-tank guns with its starboard side ...

Obviously, having seen how a lone KV was approaching the neck between the groves across the field, the Germans decided to let it in closer and, using the advantage of their position, suddenly opened fire on it from close range to the side. Probably a projectile fired from no further than 200 meters hit the KV on the right side of the tower ...

The proximity of the edge of the grove can also explain the fact that the German submachine gunners appeared at the wrecked tank very quickly. Obviously, not having sufficient forces to keep the defense front on the field, the Germans entrenched themselves in the grove, using it as an inaccessible obstacle for tanks, and covered their anti-tank guns with groups of submachine gunners. After the tank was hit, enemy submachine gunners jumped out of the grove onto the field and immediately opened fire on Lizyukov's crew members who were trying to escape. …

Based on a survey of the terrain, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that Lizyukov's KV was shot down in the narrowest part of the field between the eastern spur of the grove, approaching the highway from the west, and the fork of the modern highway to Sklyaevo. This is where his body was later found. The length of the edge of the grove in this area is about 1 kilometer. Maybe it is here that one should look for the grave of General Lizyukov?

Is it possible to do this now? Difficult question. Even if you start to completely dig up the edge of the grove, it is quite likely that you can stumble upon human remains, because so many people died here in the war. But where is the guarantee that these will be the remains of Lizyukov? It's impossible to determine...

The question, it seems to me, is something else. Due to the circumstances, we are unlikely to ever be able to establish exactly where Lizyukov's grave was located. But in any case, the monument to him, in my opinion, should be near the southern edge of the grove, which is west of height 188.5. This place is not only his likely burial place, but, without a doubt, the field of his last battle.

Why is the monument to General Lizyukov located 15 kilometers from the place of his death and burial in the village of Medvezhye? Who and on whose initiative installed it here? I will express my thoughts on this matter.

In 2003, I specially came to the village of Medvezhye to visit the monument to Lizyukov. The appearance of the monument struck me with its dilapidation: no wonder - it was erected almost 40 years ago and, judging by its appearance, has not been repaired for a long time. The plate on the monument read: “To the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Lizyukov Alexander Ilyich 1900-1942 from the personnel of military unit 33565 on May 9, 1965.”

I thought for a long time about the strange dedication and suggested that in that distant year, when the whole country was widely celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the victory and military-patriotic work was on the rise, the command of one of the military units of the Voronezh garrison decided to take the initiative and erect a monument to him.

Lebyazhye and Medvezhye on the map of 1942

Now about the choice of a place for the monument. In my opinion, the village of Medvezhye was not chosen by chance then. I think that the people on whose initiative the monument was erected knew that at the end of July 1942, in the last operation of General Lizyukov, the village of Medvezhye was of particular importance to him. His 2nd Panzer Corps was supposed to break through here at all costs. On the map of the headquarters of the 2nd TC preserved in the archive. the arrow of the corps' tank offensive began in Bolshaya Vereika and, turning southeast behind Hill 188.5, ended in Medvezhye, which was designated as "task of the day 21.7.42."

The offensive was unsuccessful, the brigades of the corps could not break through to the intended target during the day, and then Lizyukov set the brigade commanders the task of making a night raid and still leaving by morning in Medvezhye. However, of all parts of the corps, only one 148 brigade came forward in a timely manner, and the night raid turned into an encirclement for it. The brigade, leaving wrecked and burnt tanks on a many-kilometer path, moved forward, but its strength was dwindling every hour. Separate tanks 148 brig. by the morning of July 22, they really reached Medvezhye, but were surrounded by the Germans and destroyed ...

Lizyukov did not know all this. There was no connection with the brigade, and he could not find a place for himself, realizing that the tankers sent by him into the breakthrough were fighting hard alone, behind enemy lines, and he could not help them. All Lizyukov's attention was riveted to the village of Medvezhye, where, according to his assumptions, 148 brigade came out. It was to connect with this brigade that General Lizyukov spoke on the KV tank on that fateful morning of July 23, 1942, unaware that he was going towards his death.

On the field south of the 188.5 mark, approximately between the Bolshaya Vereika-Somovo road and a large grove south of Lebyazhye, his tank came under fire from German anti-tank guns camouflaged on its eastern edge. Then Lizyukov never reached Medvezhye ...

I think that in 1965, when the decision was made about where the monument to the hero should be erected, people who knew about his last dramatic days decided that it would be deeply symbolic to erect a monument in Medvezhye. 23 years after the death of the general, a monument to Lizyukov appeared in the very place where, back in 1942, he fought so desperately and with difficulty. Here, perhaps, what motives could be guided by those who decided to erect a monument to Lizyukov in Medvezhye.

Respectfully respecting their decision, I still think that it would be fairer to see a monument to General Lizyukov near the place of his death and possible burial, for example, at the fork of Zemlyanskoye Highway to Bolshaya Vereyka. This would be a memory not only of General Lizyukov, who was buried somewhere nearby in an unmarked grave. Many of our fighters and commanders did not get even that then.

Let's remember Commissar Assorov, the last mention of which was only that his dead body remained hanging from the turret of a broken tank ... Where to look for his remains?

Let's remember the driver-mechanic killed in the tank and the gunner-radio operator killed in the rye ... After all, no one buried them after the withdrawal of our troops

Let us also remember the hundreds of other warriors who then remained unburied on the blood-stained heights. They were then dragged into huge bomb craters and hastily filled up in crumbling trenches, and after death they did not get either a grave or a monument. Their bones still lie in the ground and on a huge field with a mark of 188.5.

The obelisk to Lizyukov would be here a common monument for many thousands of our soldiers who died and went missing in the bloody battles of the summer of 1942 on Dry Vereika. We have no right to forget them. Eternal memory to them!

Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov - Soviet military leader, Hero of the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War, he proved himself in the battle near Moscow, in the defense of crossings across the Dnieper River, as well as in ...

Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov - Soviet military leader, Hero of the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War, he proved himself in the battle near Moscow, in the defense of crossings over the Dnieper River, as well as in battles at the defensive line of the Vop River. In 1942, as part of the Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad operation, he acted as commander of the 5th Panzer Army, which counterattacked a grouping of enemy troops on the outskirts of Voronezh. Today we will get acquainted with the biography of Alexander Lizyukov and his main achievements.

Childhood

The future Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov was born in Gomel on March 26, 1900. His father, Ilya Ustinovich, was a teacher and then director of the Nisimkovichi rural school. Alexander had two brothers - the younger Peter and the elder Eugene. In 1909, the brothers' mother died, and the father independently began to take care of their upbringing. From a young age, Alexander Ilyich was distinguished by his love of life and assertiveness. In 1918 he graduated from the 6th grade of the gymnasium in his native city.

Civil War

In April 1919, Alexander Ilyich voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army. In the autumn of the same year, he graduated from the artillery courses of command personnel and was appointed commander of an artillery platoon of the 58th Infantry Division, which is part of the 12th Army of the Southwestern Front. In this post, the young military man fought with the troops of Ataman Petlyura and General Denikin.

In the middle of the summer of 1920, Lizyukov headed the 11th marching battery of the 7th Infantry Division, and a couple of months later he became the head of the artillery of the Kommunar armored train No. 56. During the Soviet-Polish confrontations, he took part in the fighting near the former Kiev province. Lizyukov also took part in the de-escalation of the Tambov uprising.

In the autumn of 1921, Alexander Ilyich was sent to Petrograd to receive an education at the Higher Armored School.

Interwar years

In September 1923, Lizyukov was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the Trotsky armored train (No. 12). The latter was part of the 5th Red Banner Army and was based in the Far East. Later, Alexander Ilyich became the commander of armored train No. 164, and even later served on the 24th armored train.

In the fall of 1924, Lizyukov entered the Military Academy. Frunze. During his three years of study, he wrote military-technical articles and brochures, composed poetry and took part in the publication of the Krasnye Zori publication. After graduating, until the fall of 1928, Lizyukov worked as a teacher of armored courses in Leningrad. Then, until the end of 1929, he was an employee of the educational part of these same courses, and later began to teach tactics at the Military Technical Academy. Dzerzhinsky, at the Faculty of Motorization and Mechanization.

From December 1931, Lizyukov worked as deputy head of an editorial publishing house at the technical headquarters of the Red Army. In January 1933, he was appointed to the post of commander of the third tank battalion. In June 1934, Alexander Ilyich formed and led a separate tank regiment. In February 1936 he was promoted to the rank of colonel. The following month, Lizyukov took command of the 6th Tank Brigade. He took his job very seriously and put a lot of effort into it. For success in leadership, Lizyukov was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Arrest

On February 8, 1938, the Leningrad Military District arrested a promising military man, accusing him of participating in an anti-Soviet conspiracy. The accusations were based mainly on the testimony of A. Khalepsky, the former head of the Armored Directorate of the Red Army. During interrogations, Lizyukov was “knocked out” of a confession, in particular that he “intended to commit a terrorist act against the leaders of the CPSU (b), having run over the Mausoleum with a tank during the next parade. For 22 months (about 17 of them in solitary confinement) Lizyukov was kept in the prison of the UGB (State Security Department) of the Leningrad NKVD. On December 3, 1939, the Leningrad military tribunal acquitted the colonel.

The very next year, Alexander Ilyich returned to teaching, and soon again took up a high military position.

The Great Patriotic War

On June 24, 1941, A. I. Lizyukov received the post of commander of the 17th mechanized corps, based in Baranovichi (Belarus). Later, he was also appointed to the post of chief of the city's defense headquarters.

Crossing defense

During the Battle of Smolensk, Lizyukov served as commandant of the crossing across the Dnieper. The detachment he led successfully coped with the defense of the crossings vital for the 20th and 16th armies. After this battle, Marshal Rokossovsky called Lizyukov an excellent commander who feels confident in any, even the most tense situation. For military merits, Alexander Ilyich was presented with the Order of the Red Banner, but the leadership decided otherwise and awarded him the title of Hero of the USSR with the Gold Star medal and the Order of Lenin. Together with Lizyukov, his son, who at that time was only 16 years old, took part in the defense of the crossing. As a result, the young man received the medal "For Courage".

At the end of the summer of 1941, Alexander Lizyukov led the 1st motorized rifle division of Moscow. The formation was responsible for the defense of the Vop River in the northeast of the city of Yartsevo. The division managed to push the Nazis back from the eastern bank of the river, force it and gain a foothold in the bridgehead. Throughout September, she held a bridgehead, which forced the Germans to call for reinforcements more than once. For the shown stamina, the division was transformed into a guards division.

Defense of Sumy and Kharkov

As part of the Sumy-Kharkov defensive operation, Lizyukov's division joined the 40th Southwestern Army. At the end of September 1941, she distinguished herself in the battle in Shtepovka. According to Soviet writer P.P. Varshigora, that day he first saw how the German invaders were running.

After Shtepovka, Alexander Ilyich's unit drove the enemy out of Apollonovka. Soviet soldiers managed to hold this area for about a week, which under the circumstances was a great achievement. In addition, they took a large number of trophies in those days.

As a result of the October offensive of the Third Reich, the Soviet Southwestern Front was surrounded on both flanks. Then the command of the front decided to withdraw the right-flank armies for 40-50 km, to the line of Sumy - Akhtyrka - Kotelva. So they had to cover Belgorod and the northern approaches to Kharkov. The Germans energetically pursued the retreating troops, now and then striking at them. Ultimately, on October 10, the enemy broke into Sumy, which had been under defense since the end of October. guards division Lizyukov. After the defense of the city, the division was transferred to the army, and later to the front reserve. At the end of October, she was relocated to the Moscow region.

Alexander Ilyich Lizyukov was born on March 26, 1900 in Gomel. He graduated from the 6th grade of the gymnasium, in 1919 he joined the Red Army and at the end of the artillery courses of the command staff was appointed commander of a platoon on the South-Western Front. Participated in battles in the Kyiv province and in the suppression of the Tambov uprising.

In 1923 he graduated from the Higher Armored School and commanded an armored train in the Far East. In 1927 he graduated military academy them. Frunze. continued military service in various command positions. Alexander Lizyukov proved himself in the training of tankers and the formation of a tank brigade in the city of Slutsk since 1934. For this he was awarded the Order of Lenin.

In 1938 he was arrested by the NKVD and charged with an anti-Soviet conspiracy. Lizyukov spent almost two years in prison, but was acquitted.

When the war began, Colonel A.I. Lizyukov went to the front, led the defense headquarters of the Belarusian city of Borisov, was deputy commander of the 36th Panzer Division, defended the crossings across the Dnieper and Berezina rivers. Lizyukov proved to be an excellent commander. On August 5, 1941, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In June 1942, Major General Alexander Lizyukov was appointed commander of the 5th Tank Army, which was used to attack the German troops moving towards Voronezh.

He died on July 25 in a battle near the village of Medvezhye, Semiluksky district, near Voronezh. The exact circumstances of the general's death have not been clarified. His grave was also unknown for a long time, and according to official data, he himself remained missing.

In 2008, the remains of the general were allegedly found in a mass grave near the village of Lebyazhye. At the request of their relatives, on May 7, 2009, they were reburied on the Walk of Fame in Voronezh.