With great curiosity, we drove to a legendary place, the Brest Fortress, an important military fortress of Russia and the Soviet Union. It is the westernmost point of the former Soviet Union and one of the most famous fortresses in Europe.

The construction of the Brest Fortress began in 1833. After several expansions, it formed a large fortification, consisting of four separate islands separated by the Bug River and artificial canals, and the central castle was located in the center of the entire fortified area. The central fortress is bordered by the Terespil fortress to the southwest, the Volyn fortress to the south, and the Kobrin fortress to the north as a barrier. The forts were surrounded by rivers and were connected by bridges

Due to the special geographical location of Brest City, it has become an important place for soldiers. In the 11th century, Kievan Rus' occupied the area, and in 1319 it was occupied by Lithuania. Changed its name to Brest-Litovsky, also known as Brest-Litovsk. In 1569, Brest belonged to the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. Incorporated into Russia in 1795. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Tsarist Russia built the first-class Russian fortress on the site of the old city of Brest, and in order to build the fortress, the original city of Brest was relocated to three kilometers east of the fortress.

In December 1917, in order to end the war, Russia negotiated with Germany here, and later signed the Peace of Brest, Red Russia withdrew from the First World War, so Brest became famous all over the world.

In February 1919, Poland occupied Brest. In 1920, the Russians attacked Poland, recaptured the fortress and established Soviet power in August, and in the same month the Polish army defeated the Russians and reoccupied Brest. For this reason, Soviet Russia has always been obsessed. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, the Soviet army launched the "Western Belarusian Liberation March" in accordance with the secret terms of the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact", the Soviet army and the German army met in Brest, and the German Guderian division that had occupied the fortress retreated from here according to the agreement, and the two sides also held a celebration here, since then, Brest and its fortress have become Soviet territory, and Germany and the Soviet Union have bordered here on the Bug River.

The Volyn and Terespol fortresses were the main barriers of the Brest Fortress, of which the Terespol Fortress was built on the banks of the Bug River, which included many churches and monasteries of the old Tsarist era, which were an important part of the fortifications of the entire fortress. The Kobrin Fortress in the north is the former Old Brest City, which is densely populated with streets and many fortified buildings built of early stone.

The most important fortifications of the fortress were built on the outer side of the central island fortress, a ring of fortified barracks of about two kilometers with walls two meters thick and about five hundred turrets, which could provide the necessary food and ammunition for 12,000 men. In the center of the central fortress stands the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, designed by the famous architect Gurimími, which began in 1856 and took 23 years to complete, making it not only the tallest building in the central fortress, but also an exceptionally strong fire support point.

The central fortress was connected by gates and bridges with three other auxiliary fortresses, of which the Kobrin fortress in the north was connected by the Bright Bridge, and the Terespol fortress on the west bank of the Bug River was connected by the Terespol Gate and a huge rope bridge; The Warren Fortress in the south is connected by the Holm Gate and a drawbridge that can be opened and closed.

The Kobrin, Terespol and Volyn fortresses surrounded the central fortress and provided protection for the central fortress, each of which was surrounded by a fortified rampart, on which many forts were built, and many fortresses were also built to support the construction of fortresses, each of which was surrounded by canals or rivers and could only be communicated with the outside world by bridges.

Before the First World War, the Tsarist Russian ** team also built a two-layer fortress belt at four kilometers ~ six kilometers of the main wall of the fortress. However, during the First World War, the German army took a detour through the fortress in 1915, and the fortress did not play any role, and the Russian army abandoned the fortress without a fight in order to avoid being surrounded by the German army, and the Russian army destroyed some important fortifications during the retreat.

In 1939, the Soviet troops returned to Brest, and since the Bug River became a boundary river, the fortifications that had previously been several kilometers away did not belong to the territory of the Soviet Union, so the Soviet troops began to re-strengthen and repair the main part of the fortress, but unfortunately, the task of repairing the fortifications of the fortress was entrusted to the NKVD troops, and the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs followed the consistent policy of the Soviet Union at that time - the use of prisoners to carry out the work, and its efficiency can be imagined. By the time of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the fortifications of this fortress had not been completed, and many of the places where heavy fire weapons should have been placed remained empty, resulting in the fact that some of the troops guarding the fortress did not have heavy weapons: the air defense units did not have anti-aircraft guns, the artillery units did not have artillery, and the soldiers could only use small arms to fight the enemy.

According to Hitler's idea, the German forces invading the Soviet Union would be divided into three army groups, of which Army Group Center was tasked with crossing the Bug River, occupying Minsk and aiming directly at Moscow.

Considering the direction of the main attack of Army Group Center, the German General Staff was not without misgivings about the Brest Fortress. Because Army Group Center was equipped with Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group, the dense forests in the north of Brest were obviously not suitable for the rapid advance of tanks, and the Pratt swamps, which were in sight in the south of Brest, could not be considered, and only the choke point of Brest was a favorable position for the breakthrough of the tank columns. After detailed reconnaissance by the Luftwaffe, the Germans found that the construction of Soviet fortifications in the fortress was progressing slowly, and that the fortress was not capable of blocking the communication arteries outside the fortress, let alone posing a threat to the Warsaw-Moscow railway and the Brest railway station, which were only a few kilometers north of the fortress. Therefore, the Germans devised the tactic of besieging and destroying the Soviet troops defending the fortress with infantry units equipped with heavy firepower, while the armored units advanced in a roundabout way from the north of the fortress. The state in which the battle began later showed that the foresight of the German General Staff was quite accurate.

The German General Staff gave the task of conquering the Brest Fortress to the 45th Infantry Division, the predecessor of which was the 4th Division of the Austrian Army, after the merger of Germany and Austria, it was changed to the 45th Infantry Division by the German Army, and in the 1939 Polish Campaign, the 45th Infantry Division was attached to the Southern Front Cluster commanded by the German Field Marshal Leinster, and in the hot weather, it marched 400 kilometers on foot in 13 days, an average of 30 kilometers per day, and only 158 people died in the entire campaign, which left a deep impression on the German General Staff. In the 1940 French Campaign, the 45th Division forcibly crossed the French River and was the first to enter Paris, making great achievements. In the summer of 1941, this unit was assigned to the 12th Army of the German 2nd Panzer Group, and on the first day of Barbarossa, the 45th Infantry Division was given the task of quickly taking the Brest Fortress.

In order to allow the 45th Division to occupy the fortress smoothly and quickly, the German General Staff formulated a powerful fire support plan, equipped the 45th Infantry Division with twelve artillery detachments, and sent nine six-barreled rocket artillery detachments from the 4th Chemical Special Regiment, in addition, the German army also used several huge 550~600 mm cannons, these cannons can fire shells weighing several tons, which are specially designed and manufactured for the destruction of strong fortress fortifications, and the Luftwaffe will also provide the necessary air fire support for the battle to attack the fortress; The 34th and 31st Infantry Divisions of the 12th Army were to carry out auxiliary attacks from the flanks of the fortress, and the 2nd Panzer Group under the command of Guderian was ordered to provide all necessary combat support for the 45th Infantry Division.

The 1st Battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment was to cross the Bug River and attack the fortress from the eastern wall of the Kobrin Fortress in the north, and the 3rd Battalion was to attack the Terespil Fortress directly and seize the Terespol Gate connecting the Terespil Fortress and the Central Fortress with the bridge connecting the Terespil Fortress and the Central Fortress; The 1st Battalion of the 130th Infantry Regiment attacked the Volyn Fortress and captured the bridge connecting the central fortress and the Holm Gate, while the 3rd Battalion made a detour to the east of the fort to block possible Soviet reinforcements from the east

In the early morning of June 22, the area around Brest was as silent as the rest of the border, and the Soviet troops in the fortress were seven infantry battalions, one reconnaissance battalion and two artillery battalions of the 42nd Infantry Division of the 28th Infantry Corps and the 6th Orlov Red Banner Division of the 4th Army [renamed the Western Front after the outbreak of the war, commander General Pavlov], in addition to the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Garrison Corps, The 33rd Independent Engineering and Construction Regiment and a part of the 132nd Battalion of the NKVD of the USSR numbered about 7,000~8,000 people, and the command posts of the 28th Infantry Corps of the Soviet Army and its subordinate 42nd and 6th Divisions were all in the city of Brest, three kilometers to the east.

At two o'clock in the morning, the first line assault troops of the German 45th Infantry Division quietly lurked in the predetermined attack position on the west bank of the Bug River under the cover of night, and to the surprise of many German soldiers, they clearly saw a train rumbling across the Bug River railway bridge into the Brest railway station, which was a train full of supplies provided by Germany to the Soviet Union according to the treaty signed between the Soviet Union and ** Germany, and it was also one of the measures taken by the German army to confuse the Soviet Union. The train entered the Brest station and began to replace the chassis of the train suitable for the Soviet broad-gauge railway. Calm returned to the banks of the Bug River, and the sleeping Soviet troops on the opposite bank could not have imagined that an hour later the war would be the first to break out from them!

At 3:15 a.m. on June 22, 1941, the quiet of the summer night was broken by the sudden roar of artillery, and the Soviet-German war broke out. On the opposite bank of the Brest Fortress, the Germans concentrated twelve artillery battalions and heavy artillery to bombard the Brest Fortress, and at the same time, the Luftwaffe dive fighter-bombers, who had carefully calculated the time, also crossed the border on time and began to bomb the city of Brest and the fortress. Under the fire that lasted for an hour and a half, the German intensive artillery fire concentrated on the bridge, city gates, batteries, munitions warehouses, medical aid stations, food warehouses, barracks and officers' quarters of the fortress, and continued to shell for ten minutes every four minutes.

With the strong fire support of the German army, the first attack wave of the German 45th Infantry Division took only four minutes to force a crossing to the other side of the Bug River at 3:19 p.m., and four minutes later, at 3:23 p.m., the second attack wave, composed mainly of engineer assault troops, also crossed the Bug River. The two assault detachments coordinated with each other, and after a short battle, quickly crossed the fortresses of Terespil and Volyn, and went straight to the central fortress.

The first German soldiers to arrive at the central fortress were surprised to find that the barracks around the central fortress remained intact despite the heavy German fire, and even the damage to the fortress caused by a one-ton shell fired from a 500-mm gun was not very ideal. The rumbling of artillery and the sound of violent explosions only woke the Soviet troops guarding the fortress from their sleep, allowing them to quickly move into combat positions. The first German troops to storm the central fortress were quickly thwarted by a counterattack by the sober Soviets, and the defenders drove the Germans out of the central fortress in one fell swoop.

Despite the fierce resistance, the 135th Infantry Regiment and the 130th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the German Army, which were responsible for the main attack, isolated the four fortresses in accordance with the battle plan in advance. At the north gate of the central fortress, the first battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment of the German 45th Infantry Division, which was attacking from the other side of the Bug River, was supported by some tanks, and two German tanks once passed through the Brest Gate in the north of the central fortress and went straight to the center of the central fortress, but the follow-up infantry was repulsed by the stubbornly resisting Soviet troops, and a German tank that entered the fortress was destroyed by Soviet anti-tank guns. The other was also destroyed by brave Soviet soldiers with explosives. In particular, the cadets and soldiers of the officer training schools of the 125th Infantry Regiment and the 84th Infantry Regiment of the Soviet Army in Terespil and Volyn Castles took the initiative to pin down most of the German assault forces near the central citadel and won precious time for the Soviet troops in the central citadel and the Kobrin citadel in the north. On the morning of June 22, when the Germans had not completely besieged the castles, a considerable number of auxiliaries and wounded in the two castles successfully evacuated the castles, and by the noon of June 22, when the Germans had completely besieged the fortresses, there were about 3,500~4,000 officers and men who remained in the fortresses and persisted in the battle. The remaining ones were isolated and divided into four fortresses with no contact with each other, and the defenders of the entire fortress did not have a unified chain of command, but relied on the officers and political commissars of their respective fortresses to lead independent resistance battles.

By the night of 22 June, the Germans had occupied most of the Terespil and Volyn forts, and had occupied a section of the fort between the central fortress Terespol Gate and the Holm Gate through the bridge connecting the two forts. In the fortifications near the Brest Gate in the western part of the Terespil fortress, there were still about 300 Soviet soldiers who continued to fight, and the Volyn fortress, which was far away from the Terespil fortress, was the hospital of the Soviet Fourth Army and the 28th Infantry Corps before the outbreak of the war, and the 6th and 95th Soviet Infantry Battalions were stationed, as well as a junior commander's training school of the 84th Infantry Regiment and a small number of soldiers of the Border Guard, and the remnants of the defenders here were still fighting sporadically on 22 June. By the night of 22 June, the Germans had lost 21 officers and 290 soldiers in a day of hard fighting, which greatly exceeded the total number of casualties of the division in the entire Polish campaign in 1939.

The night of 22 June was a painful memory for the Soviet officers and men who remained in the Brest Fortress, the Soviet troops still had a radio station in the central fortress, and although they tried their best, they could not get in touch with the higher command, they did not know that large-scale fighting had broken out along the entire Soviet border, and the German armored cluster that had passed proudly from the north of the fortress during the day on 22 June had rapidly advanced to the territory of the Soviet Union dozens of kilometers away, and it was unstoppable. Moreover, the entire connection of the Western Front of the Soviet Army was in chaos, and even the General Staff of the Soviet Army in Moscow could not get in touch with the command of the Western Front, not to mention this small unit far away from the borders.

The remaining Soviet officers and soldiers in the forts were from different units, and although they could not get in touch with each other, they elected their commanders in their respective mixed groups. The combat-ready mixed forces were divided into three parts, which were divided by the Germans in the central fortress, the Kobrin fortress and the Terespil fortress. Among them, the Soviet troops in the central fortress were divided into three parts, one was gathered at Terespol Gate, which was guarded by the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Garrison Corps of the Soviet Army and part of the officers and men of the 333rd Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division of the Soviet Army, and their commanders were Lieutenant Kirzhevatov of the Border Garrison and Lieutenant Potapov of the 333rd Infantry Regiment; The second block was gathered in the barracks and churches at the Holm Gate and its vicinity, and their main component was the 84th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division of the Soviet Army, commanded by the regiment's commissar Fomin; The third block was guarded at the Brest Gate in the north of the central fortress, and they consisted of a number of artillery and some soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, commanded by Lieutenants Nikolai Chetchabakov, Lieutenant Anatoly Vinogorodov and the chief of the political police of the Brest Fortress, Feotil Kuchkalov. On the evening of June 22, the officers of the Central Fortress held a joint meeting to elect the Supreme Commander of the mixed guard unit of the Central Fortress, and issued Operational Order No. 1, which required all officers and men of the Central Fortress to resolutely defend the fortress and fight bravely, and the order pointed out that the supreme commander of the Joint Command was Senior Lieutenant Zubachev, a member of the Soviet Union, and that the regimental commissar Fomin was his assistant.

The largest number of Soviet troops gathered in the northern Kobrin fortress, which was the largest part of the entire fortress, numbered about a thousand people, mainly officers and men of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division of the Soviet Army, as well as some artillery and anti-aircraft artillery, which were better equipped than the other fortresses. Their commanders were the commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment, Major Zavrilov, Lieutenant Ivan Akimchikin, and political instructor Nikolai Nestechuk, with the rank of captain. Since the northern Kobrin fortress is the former old city of Brest, many of the officers' quarters of the fortress troops were located here, so in addition to the soldiers, a considerable part of the officers' families were used in the fortress. During the daytime battles, the main purpose of the German operations was to capture the central fortress, while the northern Kobrin fortress was laid siege. Throughout the day, in the open field between Brest and the fortress, the German armored assault units rolled eastward, while the Soviet troops inside the fortress were helpless. On the night of 22 June, a small group of soldiers led by Second Lieutenant Kramko laid a large number of mines around the outer perimeter of the Kobrin fortress, an action that would have had a profound effect on the protracted defensive battles of the northern fortress and the eastern rampart

The Tjerespil fortress in the southwest and the Volyn fortress in the south, the main German assault directions on 22 June, were under heavy German fire at the beginning of the battle, and then the German attack was truly sudden, so that most of the forts fell under German control soon after the battle. But about three hundred Soviet officers and soldiers survived in the fortifications near the western gate of the Terespil fortress - Brest Gate, and their commander was a resolute and energetic officer - Captain Fedor Melnikov. This group of defenders was a strong defender of the southern part of the Terespil fortress, so that the Germans could not cross the Brest Gate at will to deliver supplies to the German troops inside the fortress. These defenders were the toughest troops in the early days of the fort's defense. At the beginning of the battle, the Soviet medical unit at the Volyn fortress was suddenly attacked by the 1st Battalion of the 130th Infantry Regiment of the German 45th Infantry Division, and the surviving Soviet soldiers from German artillery became the first prisoners of war after the outbreak of the war.

In the early morning of June 23, 1941, the remaining officers and men of the 84th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division of the Soviet Army under the command of the regimental political commissar Fuming in the central fortress launched a continuous night attack on the German troops who occupied the area between Holm Gate and Terespol Gate during the day on the 22nd. The command post of the 135th Infantry Regiment did not hesitate to have the remnants of the Soviet troops fighting in the fortress and had advanced from the other side of the Bug River to the Terespil fortress across the river from the central fortress. The German infantry that had broken into the central fortress a few days ago blocked an area inside the central fortress, making it impossible for the three Soviet areas in the central fortress to freely communicate with each other.

During the day of 23 June, the Germans redeployed, supported by heavy artillery fire, to relaunch a fierce attack on the areas still defended by the Soviet troops in the Brest Fortress, focusing on the Kobrin Fortress and the Central Fortress in the north. At the same time, interspersed divisions were carried out in the central fortress to annihilate the Soviet troops in the fortress one by one. The Germans launched eight consecutive attacks on the Soviet troops in the central fortress throughout the day, but they were all repulsed by the defenders, and the Soviet 84th Infantry Regiment even had the strength to organize several counteroffensives in an attempt to drive the Germans in the central fortress out of the fortress, but the counterattack failed under the cover of the strong German firepower.

There is also a radio station in the 84th Infantry Regiment of the Soviet Army in the central fortress, through which the regimental political commissar Fuming has been trying to get in touch with his superior, the Fourth Infantry Corps of the Soviet Army.

"This is the Brest Fortress, this is the Brest Fortress, we are still fighting...... We need help! ”

But there was still silence on the radio, and no one answered them.

In the northern fortress of Kobrin, the officers and men of the 44th Infantry Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division of the Soviet Army under the command of Zavrilov stubbornly repelled a series of German attacks from the west side of the fortress. At the height of the fighting, Soviet families were also involved in the fighting, and the women cared for the wounded and carried ammunition. By the afternoon of the 23rd, the 1st Battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the German Army, which had attacked the western barrier of the Kobrin fortress, was strongly supported by German artillery fire on the other side of the Bug River, finally broke through to the western barracks of the Kobrin fortress and held out until night.

Here, on the contrary, the Soviets received the fire support they wanted, and near the eastern rampart, there was a Soviet munitions depot that had not been completely destroyed, and the Soviet soldiers had several anti-tank guns. The 393rd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, a transport company of the 333rd Infantry Regiment, and a training squad of the 98th Separate Anti-Tank Artillery Battalion were stationed here, and the remaining personnel of these units also fought in the fortress, and now the artillerymen have their own handy weapons.

On the 24th, the German 45th Infantry Division stated in its operational report: "It is impossible to surprise this area with infantry alone, and the well-organized rifle and machine-gun fire, hidden in the fortified fire points and horseshoe-shaped fortifications, will wipe out all who come near it." There is only one solution – and that is to force the Russians to surrender by causing hunger and thirst through the siege – and we are prepared to use this tactic to exhaust the Russians. "At the height of the fighting in the northern part of the Kobrin fortress, fierce street fighting was also taking place in the central fortress, and the Germans, from the starting position between the Terespol Gate and the Holm Gate, which had been occupied earlier, began to accurately direct the German artillery to destroy the buildings occupied by the Soviets in the central fortress one by one, and then the infantry to occupy them house by house, and in each building, the Germans would encounter fierce resistance, so the German army was very slow to advance. The biggest headache for the Germans was the Terespol Gate, which led directly to the Terespol fortress, which had been occupied by the Soviets since June 22, and a small Soviet force under the leadership of the young Lieutenant Kizhevatov of the 17th Red Banner Brest Border Garrison Corps and Lieutenant Potapov of the 333rd Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division of the Soviet Army stubbornly held on to this impregnable gate, leaving the Germans at a loss. At the same time, the remnants of about 300 Soviet troops in the Terespil fortress also continued to counterattack, and the resistance of these two parts of the Soviet army slowed down the attack on the central fortress a lot.

In order to pull out the nail of the Terespol Gate, it is necessary to deal with the remaining soldiers in the Terespil fortress first. On the 23rd ~ 24th, the German army transferred the second battalion of the reserve of the 135th Regiment to clear the Soviet soldiers in this area step by step. On the night of the 24th ~ the early morning of the 25th, the defenders of the fortress decided to break through. With the help of the night

Covering, they made a surprise attack in the direction of the Volyn fortress in the east, but only a few of them were able to successfully break through to the Volyn fortress under heavy German fire. These Soviet troops who broke through to the Volyn Castle were besieged by the Germans in the fortifications of the south gate of the Volyn Fortress during the day of the 25th, where they fought valiantly until their last moments, and according to the recollections of those present at the time after the war, no gunfire was heard in the Volyn Castle after the afternoon of 25 June. The Soviets, who had not broken through the Terespil fortress, held out in the citadel for another five days, for which they endured the difficult tests of death, wounds, hunger, thirst and lack of ammunition, and by June 30, the desperate Soviet troops followed the sound of gunfire to the northeast, in the direction of the Terespol Gate, in order to meet up with the defenders of the central fortress, and in the course of the assault, the Soviet soldiers destroyed the regimental command post of the 135th Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the German Army. There is information that this assault killed the commander of the 135th Infantry Regiment, but I did not find the information, so I dare not draw conclusions], but they were blocked by strong German fire on the outside of the bridge, and many fighters fell on the road to break out, and the breakthrough failed. Fierce fighting ensued until early July, when only 15 of the Soviet soldiers in the Terespil fortress survived and were captured by the Germans, but they inflicted heavy casualties on the 3rd Battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division and the 99th Artillery Regiment that cooperated with the battalion, which helped to cooperate with the defense of the central fortress.

On June 24, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop triumphantly announced in Berlin that the Soviet resistance along the entire border had been crushed and that the German army was advancing. On this day, the three defenders of the central fortress finally got in touch, and the joint command established on the night of the 22nd was now able to coordinate the battle in the entire fortress. On the 24th ~ 25th, the fighting of the northern fortress of Kobrin was very fierce, the defenders of the central fortress judged that the Soviet troops in the Kobrin fortress were in a very dangerous situation, in order to get in touch with them [perhaps to support their battle], at noon on June 26, the Soviet troops of the central fortress sent 120 people to kill out of the north gate of the central fortress, trying to break through the bridge into the Kobrin fortress, this group of brave soldiers braved the fierce fire of the German army to launch a charge, many died on the spot, only a few people reached the north bank, and were captured by the Germans.

In the week after the outbreak of the war, the defenders of the fortress recovered from the shock of the outbreak of the battle, and under the command and encouragement of the military commanders and political workers, the defenders of the fortress were mobile and flexible with the German army, and on average they had to repel the German attack six ~ seven times a day. In the northern forts, women and children took part in the fighting, and teenagers who had been in school a few days ago were now helping the fighters to deliver weapons, ammunition and food from the ammunition depots, and some were responsible for observing the movements of the German troops; The women cared for the wounded, loaded the machine-gun cartridges, and some even took up guns and went straight into battle.

The heavy casualties convinced the Germans that the best way to deal with the Soviets inside the fort was heavy artillery fire, not infantry attack. On 27 June, the Germans began to use 540-mm mortars capable of firing shells weighing up to 1.25 tons and 600-mm mortars designed to fire shells weighing up to two tons on reinforced concrete fortifications, while the Luftwaffe dropped heavy bombs on the fortifications. Field Marshal von Bauck, commander of the German Army Group Center, who was busy directing the capture of Minsk, complained to Field Marshal Kruger, who was in charge of the capture of the Brest Fortress, that the 45th Infantry Division, a unit with a glorious history, should be relieved from the Brest battle as soon as possible, so the Germans transferred the 82nd Engineer Battalion from the reserve to use explosives to blast buildings that had not been destroyed by artillery fire, and equipped the attacking infantry with flamethrowers to prepare for the capture of the Brest Fortress in one fell swoop at the end of June.

On June 27, 1941, the Germans began to use heavy mortars to systematically shell the areas occupied by the Soviets under the guidance of artillery observers, and the Luftwaffe also coordinated with the artillery to drop heavy aerial bombs on the fortress, and on the morning of 29 June, a huge aerial bomb weighing 1,800 kilograms was dropped by the Luftwaffe on the Kobrin fortress, and the shock caused by the huge explosion could be felt even in the city of Brest, three kilometers away. Heavy artillery fire was prepared for two whole days, and many buildings of the central fortress and the Kobrin fortress were destroyed. Rudolf Giesffeiffer, an officer of the German 45th Infantry Division, wrote in his post-war memoirs, My Experience in the 45th Infantry Division [Nyingchi, Austria, 1955]: "I have never experienced such heavy artillery fire, and I have never seen such intensive shelling in my later combat career...... The earth trembled as a result of the dense barrage shelling

On June 29, the shelling that lasted for two days stopped, there was a rare silence on the battlefield, and before the smoke of gunfire had dissipated, the Germans read an ultimatum to the Soviet troops holding the fortress by radio, saying that if the defenders did not surrender within the specified time, the Germans would "crush the entire fortress into powder", and the Soviet troops in the northern Kobrin fortress realized that the final brutal battle was about to begin, and after the study of the commanders, they decided to force all the women and children in the fortifications to withdraw from the fortress and surrender to the Germans, But all the servicemen said they would fight to the end.

All the women and children were shot dead by the Germans in 1942

When the time set for the German ultimatum was up, the defenders of the central fortress and the Kobrin fortress preferred to die rather than surrender. The Germans resumed shelling, this time using high-explosive shells capable of penetrating a two-meter-thick layer of reinforced concrete, which were used only in Brest and Sevastopol throughout the war. The Luftwaffe also dropped heavy aerial bombs weighing 500 kilograms on key buildings. In the northern fortress of Kobrin, German artillery fire completely destroyed the horseshoe-shaped defensive turrets of the eastern rampart, the munitions warehouses were also hit, and all the stocks were destroyed by artillery fire, and the destroyed materials in the warehouses burned violently, melting down some of the stones on the walls. In the central fortress, a heavy aerial bomb hit the White House directly, this fortified building is located northwest of the central fortress, where the Soviet army commanded the fortress building before the war, and now there is a Soviet force holding on there, after the building was destroyed by aerial bombs, only two survivors remained in the ruins of all the defenders; The Church of St. Nicholas, where the command post of the central fortress was located, was also hit, and many Soviet command personnel were killed on the spot, leaving the central fortress completely deprived of the chain of command.

After heavy artillery fire, the German 45th Infantry Division, supported by tanks, launched a general assault on the central fortress and the Kobrin fortress in the north. The German infantry rushed into the eastern rampart, which had been destroyed by artillery fire, and engaged in fierce melee combat with the defending Soviet troops in underground fortifications and barracks; German tanks stormed the interior of the fortress from the north gate of the central fortress, the Brest Gate, and completely divided the central fortress. With the cooperation of the 82nd Engineer Battalion, the German infantry divided and encircled the buildings that had survived the artillery fire. The commander of the German 45th Infantry Division, General Schreber, recounted in a report what he had seen and heard when he visited the front line that day:

"The eighty-second engineer battalion was tasked with the task of blasting the buildings of the central fortress...... This was to completely eliminate its fire support on the northern islands [referring to the Kobrin fortress]. The explosives were thrown from the roof to the windows by the sappers, and then the fuse was lit to evacuate, and when the explosives exploded, we could hear the screams and moans of the Russian soldiers inside, but they still kept fighting. ”

Rudolf Gessfeiffer also wrote in his memoirs: "We can only take the fighting positions of the rebels one by one under heavy fire, and the defenders of the central fortress are also called 'officer corps', and they would rather destroy with the building on which they are located than surrender...... The defenders continued to fight until the building was razed to the ground by our explosives. ”

On June 30, under the overwhelming fire attack of the German army, the vast majority of the Brest fortress was occupied by the Germans. Only two Soviet troops defending the White House survived after being hit by German aerial bombs at the White House, Second Lieutenant Kuvarin and Private Volkov, who fought all night in the ruins and were both killed in the enemy attack on the 30th. The commander of the central fortress, the wounded and exhausted Captain Zubachev, and the regimental political commissar Fomin were captured after the German general attack, and Fomin was immediately shot by the Germans outside the Holm Gate of the central fortress, and Captain Zubachev died in the Fort Hamil concentration camp in 1944. The last place of the battle of the central fortress on this day took place at the northwest rampart, which before the war was the Soviet engineering barracks, where the remnants of the Soviet army gathered and tried to break through to the eastern rampart of the Kobrin fortress in the north, across the river, Lieutenant Kozvatov of the Soviet garrison of the 9th State Border led several fighters to voluntarily stay in the last cover to cover the retreat of their comrades, and finally died heroically, and the Soviet troops who broke through were also routed by the Germans on the bank of the canal.

In the northern fortress of Kobrin, the Germans captured most of the eastern fortress after a long artillery preparation, and captured a number of wounded defenders, the remaining defenders of the fortress were divided by the Germans into several small parts of their own isolation. A commander of the German 45th Infantry Division wrote in a report: "On June 30, preparations were made for an attack with flamethrowers and incendiary grenades, and we filled many barrels and bottles with gasoline and other grease and threw them into the trenches under the fortress occupied by the Russians, and we hoped to be able to ignite them with grenades or incendiary grenades in order to force the Russians to surrender." ”

The Germans used flamethrowers to attack several batteries and fortifications occupied by the defenders, and still a part of the Soviet troops managed to move to other parts of the fortress to hold out the battle.

On 8 July, the German 45th Infantry Division, which was fighting at the Brest Fortress, submitted a report to Army Group Center that the fortress had been occupied, which was not true, and that some small Soviet troops, which had been divided and sporadically active, continued to fight in the ruins of the fortress, and according to written records, these stubborn fighters fought until mid-July. On July 12, Major Zavrilov gathered a small group of Soviet troops to continue the battle at the outer fortifications of the northwestern rampart, where Zavrilov exhausted all his ammunition, but he searched everywhere for weapons and food, and held out in the ruins of the eastern rampart for another eleven days, and on July 23, 1941, the Germans finally captured the wounded and extremely weak Major Zavrilov, who was later sent to a prisoner of war camp and survived until the end of the war, and was liberated from the ** concentration camp by the Soviets in April 1945.

In the entire defense of the Brest Fortress, the Soviet Army paid the price of 2,000 ~ 2,500 killed, and a large number of officers and soldiers were captured, but they also brought heavy casualties to the German army, some data show that on June 22 ~ 30, 1941, the three million German front-line attack troops killed a total of 8,886 people, and in the Brest Fortress alone, the German 45th Infantry Division lost 462 people [including 80 officers and sergeants, and more than 1,000 wounded]. The defense of the battle delayed the advance of the German infantry, resulting in a large number of German infantry not being able to participate in the Battle of Berstock-Minsk in time, allowing many Soviet units to break through and retreat from the German encirclement.

The Germans were unable to obtain a single flag of the Soviet garrison in the Brest Fortress, and at the most dangerous time, Second Lieutenant Rodeon Semenyok and two other soldiers of the 393rd Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalion buried the flag of their unit in a ruin west of the eastern rampart of the Kobrin fortress, and fifteen years later, Semenyok returned to Brest and found the position to dig up the glorious flag again, which is now displayed in the memorial to the Brest fortress. Remember the romance of Moscow Latest Chapters Chapter Seventy-Nine Brest Fortress Website: