Demyansk cauldron and the operation to evacuate it. Chronicle of Demyansk battles From generation to generation

“Building a bridge” to Kholm and Demyansk

The first slap in the face to the Soviet command in the spring of 1942 was the opening of a corridor to the troops of the II Army Corps, surrounded near Demyansk. As in all sectors of the Soviet-German front that came under the blow of B.M. Shaposhnikov’s winter offensive, fresh formations arrived in the 16th Army zone from the west. At the turn of the river The 5th and 8th Jaeger Divisions and the 329th Infantry Division were concentrated in the area. The latter was formed in January 1942 and arrived on the Eastern Front in March.
The arrival of fresh formations allowed the German command to think about the possibility of unblocking the Demyansk “cauldron” and ensuring normal supplies for the troops defending its perimeter. Air supply, despite the fact that it ensured the stability of the defense of the II Army Corps, was still insufficient. For the first time, the idea and timing of a release strike appeared in F. Halder’s diary on March 2:
“Carry out the offensive in the Staraya Russa area in the period 13-16.3! The plan of attack is still unclear. It seems to me that here it is necessary, first of all, to establish contact with the 2nd Army Corps, and only then to take possession of the Staraya Russa - Demyansk highway” (Halder F. Op. op., p. 205).
Already on March 3, 1942, to facilitate the management of shock groups of the X (on the external front of the “cauldron”) and II (actually in the Demyansk region) army corps, so-called “corps groups” were created. They had to advance towards each other from inside and outside the Demyansk “cauldron”. The group, which was supposed to deliver a relief strike from the outside, was headed by Lieutenant General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. He previously commanded the 12th Infantry Division, but on January 1, 1942, he was transferred to the reserve command staff of the main command of the ground forces. In the fall of 1941, von Seydlitz, together with his division, advanced in the same places where he had to break through a corridor to the divisions encircled in the Demyansk region. On March 5, 1942, von Seydlitz was put in charge of a specially formed headquarters, called the “Seydlitz strike group.” Inside the “cauldron”, the headquarters of the “Zorn group” was created for similar purposes.
Major General Zorn commanded the 20th Motorized Division and was sent to the Demyansk area specifically to organize a corps group. The operation to unblock the Demyansk “cauldron” received the code name “Building the Bridge” (Brückenschlag).
Subordinate to von Seydlitz's group were: the 5th Jaeger Division for the entire period of the operation and the 8th Jaeger and 329th Infantry Divisions for the period of the first phase of the operation. In its final form, von Seydlitz received the task of his group on March 9, 1942 from the headquarters of the X Army Corps. He was to attack with the 8th Jaeger Division in the center, the 329th Infantry Division on the right flank and the 5th Jaeger Division on the left flank. The group's reserves were the Hoffmeister Mountain Jaeger Regiment and two-thirds of the 122nd Infantry Division. The Seydlitz group was assigned the 1st battalion of the 203rd tank regiment, which on March 20 consisted of 49 tanks, mainly Pz.III with a 50-mm short-barreled gun. Tanks were used (like the 203rd Regiment as a whole) in a style that was not entirely usual for the Germans, as a means of direct infantry support. In addition, the 659th and 666th assault gun batteries took part in the offensive. Air support for the offensive was provided by the 1st Air Fleet with 130 bombers and 80 fighters.
The northern and southern neighbors of the Seydlitz group were, respectively, the 18th motorized and 21st airfield divisions. According to the offensive plan, von Seydlitz's group was supposed to advance in three stages, successively overcoming the wooded area between the Porusya, Redya and Lovat rivers. On Lovat it was planned to link up with Zorn's group advancing from inside the "cauldron". Zorn's group included the SS motorized division "Totenkopf" and the combined "assault regiment" of the II Army Corps, formed by removing one battalion each from the 12th, 30th and 290th Infantry Divisions and five battalions from the 32nd Infantry Division.
By the beginning of March, the Soviet troops opposing the 16th Army occupied the following position. The encirclement perimeter of the II Army Corps was provided by the 34th Army and the 1st Guards Rifle Corps. On the outer front of the encirclement along the river. The troops of the 11th and 1st shock armies were deployed. The 11th Army, covering Staraya Russa from the north-west, north, east and south-east, occupied a front stretching 45 km. Its main forces were still tied up in the unsuccessful struggle for Staraya Russa. The main enemy of the Seydlitz group - the 1st Shock Army - occupied a front stretching 55 km along the river. Polist and Kholynya. The troops of the 1st Shock and 11th Armies were almost evenly stretched out in one line along the entire front, having no reserves.
The advance of von Seydlitz's group began at 7.30 am on March 21, supported by large air forces, primarily dive bombers. The group's right-flank formations encountered the greatest difficulties in moving forward. The 329th Infantry Division was a newly formed unit with no combat experience. The task of the day was not completed by this division. The 8th Jaeger Division also faced stubborn Soviet resistance, which had to be overcome by advancing through deep snow. Only the 5th Jaeger Division moved forward according to plan.
By March 25, the 5th and 8th Jaeger divisions captured the bridgehead fortifications on the river. Porusya and thereby solved the problem of the first stage of the offensive. To continue the offensive, Seydlitz received the reinforced mountain ranger regiment of Hoffmeister. The latter was supposed to infiltrate the Soviet defenses and then bypass the defenders from the rear. However, Hoffmeister's regiment got bogged down in forest battles and was no longer able to complete the assigned task.
The second target of the attack, the river. Redya, was captured around April 5-6. The slow progress forced Seydlitz to consider changing the original plan of operation, shifting the direction of the main attack in favor of the 5th Jaeger Division. However, at the headquarters of the 16th Army his initiative was not supported, and the group was forced to advance frontally from Onufriev to Kobylkin. Thus, Seydlitz was forced to fight his way to the II Army Corps along the shortest route. The offensive took place in an invisible area covered with dense forests, which practically deprived the attackers of artillery and aviation support. In addition, at the same time the snow began to melt, making the already difficult terrain almost completely impassable. In fact, the initial plan to break through a corridor to those surrounded off-road, exclusively along winter roads in dense forests, failed. Further progress was stopped. Ten days of the offensive cost the 8th Jaeger Division and the Hoffmeister Mountain Jaeger Regiment approximately 2.5 thousand people killed and wounded.
The failure of the initial operation plan forced the command to take a closer look at von Seydlitz's proposal to shift the direction of the main attack to the zone of the 5th Jaeger Division. The offensive was carried out by units of the 18th motorized and 8th Jaeger divisions. On April 20, the 8th Jaeger Division concentrated southwest of Ramushev and by April 21 completely occupied the village. At the same time, the offensive of Zorn’s group began from inside the “cauldron” along the Zaluchye - Ramushevo road. Already on April 21, having crossed the ice-free river. The boat laid a telephone cable, which became the first sign of a breakthrough in the encirclement. The initially breached corridor was less than one kilometer wide. The following days were spent in the construction of the bridge across the Lovat and the expansion of the corridor, which soon received the name “Ramushevsky”.
In May, troops of the North-Western Front launched an offensive to eliminate the “Ramushevsky corridor”. The offensive of the front troops began on May 3 and continued until May 20. However, due to poor organization of the operation, patterned actions of troops and weak command and control of troops on the part of the front command, these intense battles did not produce significant results. The shock groups of the 11th and 1st shock armies were unable to break through the enemy’s defenses and cut the “Ramushevsky corridor”. The German command, in order to maintain its positions in this corridor, regrouped the formations occupying the defense along the perimeter of the Demyansk ledge there. As a result, only 4.5 divisions were left on a 150-kilometer front inside the Demyansk bridgehead itself. However, the command of the Northwestern Front did not take advantage of this circumstance and stopped the offensive on May 20.
Around the same time as Demyansk, the German garrison in the city of Kholm was released. The operation began on May 1, 1942. The task of breaking through the corridor and releasing the Scherer battle group was assigned to the 218th Infantry Division of Major General Uckermann. The division was reinforced by the 411th regiment of the 122nd Infantry Division and the 184th assault gun battalion released after Demyansk. After five days of fighting, the task was completed, and the 105-day epic struggle for the encircled Hill ended.

Source

Isaev A. A short course on the history of the Second World War. Marshal Shaposhnikov's offensive. - M.: Yauza, Eksmo, 2005. - 384 p. / Circulation 8000 copies. isbn 5-699-10769-X.

Some two hundred and fifty kilometers south of Leningrad, between lakes Ilmen and Seliger, at the beginning of 1943 the German front was still deeply mushrooming into Soviet territory. This was the front of the German 2nd Army Corps around Demyansk. There were twelve divisions in the “mushroom”, approximately 100,000 people. The width of the “mushroom” leg was only ten kilometers. The Demyansk salient, should the offensive on Moscow ever resume, could be an ideal starting position for this operation. The Soviet General Staff understood this very well, therefore, during its great winter offensive of 1941-1942. he turned his attention to the hills of Valdai. Soviet troops did everything possible to break through the German barrier between lakes Ilmen and Seliger and crush the German front at Leningrad and Rzhev with a blow to the rear of Army Groups North and Center. Hitler wanted to maintain this position as a springboard for the attack on Rzhev.

The divisions of the 2nd German Corps stood firm. However, on February 8, 1942, they were surrounded and subsequently had to receive supplies by air. At the end of April 1942, an attack from outside and a counterattack from inside the bag restored contact with the main German line on the Lovat River. The constructed bridges again restored the corridor between the main German front of the 16th Army from Staraya Russa to Kholm and the divisions in the Demyansk area. Of course, this corridor leading to the Demyansk battle zone was dangerously narrow, but the 2nd Army Corps held it. He blocked the Russian land road between lakes Ilmen and Seliger, pinning down five Soviet armies. However, throughout 1942 there was a constant threat that Soviet units would be able to cut off the Demyansk “mushroom” at its base; for many months the 100,000-strong German military contingent was on the brink of disaster.

The Soviet High Command recognized this possibility and made the Demian Front one of the centers of its great winter offensive of 1942, an offensive that, according to Stalin's plan, was to end in the complete destruction of the German front in the East. Demyansk was an important factor in Stalin's calculations. Just as Stalingrad was supposed to be the decisive blow that would crush the German Southern Front, so the Soviet offensive on Demyansk was an attempt to eliminate the front of Army Group North. On the Volga, Soviet troops managed to make a decisive breakthrough and defeat the 6th Army. On Valdai, on the contrary, Stalin miscalculated.

To destroy the 100,000-man 2nd German Corps, Marshal Timoshenko deployed three armies: the 11th and 27th armies were to attack the northern front of a narrow strip of land from Lake Ilmen, and the 1st Shock Army was to strike along the corridor from the south. The northern group included thirteen rifle divisions, nine rifle brigades and tank formations, with a total of 400 tanks. Three German divisions opposed this mighty force: the 8th Jäger, 81st and 290th Infantry Divisions. Timoshenko's Southern Group consisted of seven rifle divisions, four rifle brigades and tank formations with 150 tanks. Facing them was the only German division, the 126th Infantry Division from Rhine-Westphalia.

The offensive began on November 28, 1942 with a massive artillery bombardment. Carpet bombing followed. The Russians completely dominated the air, the German troops in the Demyansk area did not have significant Luftwaffe support, and there was not a single significant tank formation. In the first hours of the battle, the Red Army soldiers made several breakthroughs in the northern front of the corridor. Tymoshenko introduced his reserves into the gaps. Lieutenant General Höhne, who commanded the troops inside the corridor, sent sappers, signalmen, artillerymen and drivers to the breakthrough areas. They took everyone from the supply companies and repair shops, every combat-ready person was sent to the threatened fronts of the corridor. But it's all in vain. A decisive breakthrough to the rear of the 16th Army could happen at any moment.

In this dangerous situation, when it became clear that General Höhne’s divisions would no longer hold out, Army Group North took a risky step. In early December, Field Marshal von Küchler withdrew three divisions of his 18th Army from very weak lines along Lake Ladoga, the ring around the Oranienbaum sack and from Volkhov and sent them to the Demyansk corridor. Hitler was unwilling to give up his strategy of defending every inch of territory he had already conquered. He persisted in his theory that far-extended and vulnerable strongholds must be defended in order to maintain favorable starting positions for future offensives. Therefore, the battalions and regiments of three divisions transferred from the north immediately entered into battle. Due to this, the deadly Russian breakthrough to the north was once again prevented. The most difficult situation arose in Rosino. There, Soviet units broke through to the south with powerful tank support. But in a fierce battle, the Germans managed to block the breakthrough there and create a new line.

Almost unbelievable. Why did Timoshenko, with a huge superiority in manpower and equipment, and a powerful concentration of attacks on several points, fail to achieve a strategic breakthrough of the German front? During the long period of the “state of siege,” German defensive positions were strengthened in the most thorough manner. Anti-aircraft, self-propelled, artillery and assault guns worked superbly together with the infantry. In the next two weeks, Timoshenko continuously tried to break through the northern front with his divisions and tank brigades, then their forces dried up. More than two hundred destroyed Soviet tanks stood in front of the German defensive line.

On the southern front of the Demyansk "mushroom" on January 2, Timoshenko's 1st Shock Army launched another full-scale attack. In forty-six days, from November 28 to January 12, the three Soviet armies lost more than 10,000 killed, as well as 423 tanks. German losses were slightly less. The ferocity of the battle is confirmed by the fact that the list of dead, wounded and missing in the Demyansk corridor includes 17,767 officers, non-commissioned officers and privates. Seventeen thousand seven hundred sixty-seven people in fifty-seven days, from November 28 to January 23! A huge price for an outpost on the Valdai Hills. But there could be no doubt that the Russians would attack again. There could be no doubt that the price would rise and sooner or later the entire garrison would perish. Another Stalingrad.

Is it worth continuing to take such a risk, taking into account the insufficient forces at all frontiers? The combat commanders answered no. “No,” answered Colonel General Zeitzler, Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces. He tried to convince Hitler to sanction the withdrawal of forces from the bastion on Valdai, but at first he was deaf to all arguments. “Hold on” was his thesis. The front's advanced "fortresses" would become, he believed, starting positions for future offensives. Hitler remained committed to the strategy of conquering the Soviet Union through the occupation of its vast expanses and economically important territories. The dire warning of the destruction of Stalingrad swayed him a little, but he was not yet ready to completely reconsider his position.

When in the second half of January 1943 it became clear that the 6th Army had died in Stalingrad because it had not received the order to withdraw from the Volga to the Don in time, Colonel General Zeitzler again turned to Hitler for permission to spare 100,000 people in Demyansk from the fate of 6 th Army, to save these important divisions for the command of the German ground forces. Hitler no longer rejected the request outright; now he wavered between common sense and stubbornness. On January 31, 1943, Hitler gave in to Zeitzler's insistent demands. The next day, February 1, Zeitzler, in a radiogram to the 16th Army, gave the 2nd Corps the green light to evacuate. The retreat actually off-road had to be done gradually, so as not to leave a single weapon behind.
Evacuation and work columns were formed, rail tracks were laid, log roads were built, and a system of routes was created, radially extending from the “mushroom” cap into the corridor, allowing several columns to be deployed simultaneously. People worked intensively, and prisoners were also involved in the work. Snowplows chugged throughout the area. This is how “Route No. 1”, “Wooden Avenue”, “Kurfürstendamm” and “Silesian Promenade” appeared.

The Germans tried to deceive the Soviet command by passing off preparations for evacuation as preparations for an offensive. Messengers, partisans and intelligence officers reported their observations to the Soviet command, but the Russians perceived the information with distrust. Scout reports from the combat zone and aerial reconnaissance photographs actually spoke of the strengthening of the German front at Demyansk, but a retreat would have been more logical. Take the report about the horses. Infantry divisions returned them from the rear areas to the front line. Doesn’t such a measure indicate preparation for retreat?
The Soviet High Command decided to launch a new immediate attack on the narrow corridor of the Demyan bridgehead. "The Great Patriotic War" reports on the considerations of the Soviet command regarding this operation. In the third volume we read: “The widespread offensive of the Red Army in the south, in the central sector of the front and near Leningrad pinned down the enemy’s forces and depleted his reserves. A favorable situation was created for the liquidation of the Demyansk bridgehead, on which the main forces of the 16th German Army were concentrated - in total 12 divisions."

A fair and logical conclusion. The German 18th Army, the 16th Army's neighbor on the left, was seriously engrossed in the events around Leningrad. The 59th Corps south of Demyansk, near Vitebsk, fought heavy battles at the junction of Army Groups Center and North. The 9th Army at Rzhev had been barely coping with the defense for more than two months. And further south, Field Marshal von Manstein needed every battalion to stop Popov's tank group and Vatutin's advance across the Donets to the Dnieper. Therefore, it was absolutely clear that the 16th Army could not count on effective help from its neighbors if the situation around Demyansk became tense again. And the 16th Army had no reserves of its own.

The History of the Great Patriotic War indicates that Soviet operations were carefully coordinated. Three days earlier, on February 12, a new offensive began on the Leningrad Front, south of Lake Ladoga. The German 18th Army was thus tied up and Army Group North could not obtain any reserves from this source this time.

On the Rzhev salient and in the breakthrough area at Velikie Luki, the Russians also went on the offensive, so one could not expect help from the neighboring army group. Thus, the divisions of the 16th Army in Valdai had to cope with this new deadly threat without any outside help.
From 07.00 Timoshenko attacked the northern front of the Demyansk corridor with six rifle divisions and three tank regiments; his blow fell on the positions of three German divisions - the 290th, 58th and 254th infantry divisions. On the southern front of the corridor, the Soviet 1st Shock Army, with six rifle divisions and three rifle brigades, attacked the regiments of the 126th Infantry Division.

There were dangerous penetrations, especially in the southern sector of the 126th Infantry Division. But Tymoshenko failed to achieve a breakthrough anywhere. The German command understood perfectly well that this was only a prelude. So far the Russians had deployed only two armies, but five more stood around the Demyansk “mushroom”. Five armies against 12 divisions! A full-scale offensive from all sides could begin at any minute. Taking into account the current situation and, above all, the critical situation on the southern front of the corridor, not a minute could be lost; the front had to be immediately reduced. General Laux contacted the 16th Army and coordinated immediate evacuation with Field Marshal Busch. On February 17, 1943, the Germans began to withdraw from the Demyansk bridgehead. A snowstorm began, and in a few hours all the roads and railway tracks were swept away. People and horses had difficulty crossing the deep, loose snow. The cars fell along their axes into the white mass. Traffic jams appeared. There was a threat of disruption to the evacuation schedule, although until now everything had worked like clockwork. The enemy also intervened.

By the morning of February 19, the Soviet command realized that the positions on the eastern edge of the combat zone were empty. The Russians began pursuing with cavalry and formations of skiers. The fast ski battalions raced through the snowstorm, broke through German cover and tried to seize roads to block the withdrawal of German divisions. On the night of February 19-20, the third defensive line was removed exactly as scheduled - the front line covered the city of Demyansk in a wide arch, thus the highways and bridges over the Yavon and Pola rivers were preserved for the retreating units. Under their cover, mechanized and mounted units of heavy and light artillery, anti-aircraft and assault guns, as well as signal troops and field hospitals went through the city. The columns of the grenadier regiments moving on a march were directed along the road around Demyansk.

The Soviet Army energetically pursued the retreating German formations. On February 27, ten days after the start of the retreat, the Demyansk bridgehead and corridor were evacuated. Twelve divisions withdrew in ten days. The Germans left approximately 2,000 square kilometers of territory. But not a single combat-ready weapon, not a single operational vehicle, not a single ready-to-fire rifle fell into the hands of Tymoshenko. Several hundred tons of ammunition went up in the air, 1,500 vehicles were rendered unusable, as well as 700 tons of food that could not be taken out. Marshal Timoshenko’s “shortcomings in command and control” do not relieve him of responsibility for the success of the German evacuation from the Demyansk bridgehead.

In memory of E. M. Milovanov
and other sailor heroes

1.
It was no coincidence that former conscript sailor of the Pacific Fleet Yegor Mikhailovich Milovanov was drafted into the Marine Corps on the North-Western Front at the most severe time of the war - in the fall of 1941, when Leningrad found itself in an enemy blockade, when the Germans approached Moscow itself. The Red Army suffered heavy losses in brutal, bloody battles. The front required more and more reinforcements. On October 18, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopted a special resolution on the formation of naval rifle brigades. In two months, 25 of these naval units were formed and sent to the front. The Navy sent more than 39 thousand sailors to land to form them.
For the defense of besieged Leningrad, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command attracted troops from the Northwestern Front and part of the troops from the Northern Front, uniting them into the Luga Operational Group. A defensive line was built along the Luga River from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ilmen, called the Luga Defense Line. In those dangerous days for the USSR, the Baltic Fleet sent its marines to help our ground forces. Heavy guns were removed from the ships stationed in Kronstadt and Leningrad and installed at the firing positions of coastal batteries.
Through the joint efforts of infantrymen, sailors, tank crews, pilots, and militias, the enemy was stopped. By winter, all large ships were transferred from Kronstadt to Leningrad under the protection of anti-aircraft installations. Having survived and attracted large forces of the fascists, the northern capital now helped Moscow. In November 1941, Leningraders transported a lot of military equipment and ammunition by plane to the northwestern front of the defense of Moscow. Marines were placed at the disposal of the command of the 11th Army of the Northwestern Front in the area of ​​Staraya Russa in order to divert as much of the Nazis’ attention from besieged Leningrad through their active actions.
On December 5, 1941, a counter-offensive began by strike groups of the Kalinin Front, and the next day by the Western and South-Western Fronts. As a result of successful battles, by mid-December the fascist troops were driven back 100 - 250 kilometers. Thousands of villages, towns and cities in the Moscow region were liberated. The counteroffensive near Moscow developed into a general offensive of the Red Army. At the beginning of January 1942, troops from nine fronts took part in it. Particularly fierce and decisive military operations were carried out in the northwestern direction - near Tikhvin, Leningrad and Novgorod, in the western direction - near Rzhev, Vyazma and Yukhnov, and in the southwestern direction - near Rostov.
On January 7, 1942, the Demyansk operation of the troops of the North-Western Front began under the command of Lieutenant General P. A. Kurochkin. Simultaneously with the troops of the Volkhov Front, which struck at Lyuban, the 11th and 34th armies, reinforced by the 1st Shock Army and two Guards Rifle Corps, went on the offensive in the Staraya Russian and Demyansk directions. The enemy sought at all costs to hold on to the Demyansk bridgehead, which was extremely important for the attack on Moscow.
Five naval brigades took part in the battles on Novgorod land, which was then part of the Leningrad region. From January 19, 1942, the 154th Separate Naval Rifle Brigade took an active part in the winter offensive of the front as part of the 3rd and 4th Shock Armies. It was formed from sailors from the Moscow and Yaroslavl naval crews, the security battalion of the People's Commissariat of the Navy, and other special naval units and arrived on the North-Western Front after participating in the famous parade of Soviet troops on Red Square in Moscow.

2.
On a clear, frosty January day, one of the battalions of the 154th Separate Marine Rifle Brigade was marching along a forest snow-covered country road, bypassing Demyansk from the south towards the village of Molvotitsy. The snow sparkling in the sun creaked loudly under the soldiers’ feet, and steam escaped from their breath, heated by their walking.
- Listen, Vasily! - the chief foreman of the brigade, Yegor Milovanov, who was walking next to him on the march, called out to his neighbor, scout Kazko, - Do you know what the Germans call the Demyansk group, where they are throwing our brigade?
“They’ll send you to reconnaissance for the language, I’ll find out,” answered the burly sailor Kazko.
- Well, yes?!
“I’ll shake the soul out of the captured Fritz, and I’ll find out.”
– Our political instructor told me yesterday.
- So how is it?
– Nothing less than “a gun pointed at the heart of Russia.”
– You can’t say anything: it was a beautiful idea! – Vasily grinned.
“It’s beautiful and dangerous if it’s close to the heart,” Yegor did not share his grin.
“It’s okay,” the scout reassured him, “let’s take it and hit this pistol with a club in Russian, so that they don’t stick their dirty hands into our hearts!”
– Like Leo Tolstoy: “the club of the people’s war”? – the foreman asked.
- Exactly! – answered Kazko, shifting his light machine gun to his other shoulder.
- So it was one hundred and thirty years ago.
- So what, history repeats itself.
– How do you know about the people’s club?
– I read “War and Peace” by Tolstoy: a good book, solid!
- How well-read you are, Vasya! – Yegor smiled.
- Come on.
- And I’m not offended by the strongman.
“There is a little,” the strong man Vasily responded modestly, “and it was not in vain that I remembered about the club: if only the tree were stronger, the Krauts won’t be able to hit us over the head.”
- It's right! – Yegor Milovanov agreed with him out loud, adjusting to his friend’s long stride, but thought to himself:
“That’s just it, we have a club, and they have a pistol, or even worse - it was easier with the French.”
It was hard for everyone at that time: sailors and infantrymen, tank crews and pilots. A little later, at the beginning of the harsh spring of 1942, somewhere here, in the forests near Demyansk, deep behind enemy lines, the plane of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Maresyev would fall, shot down in an air battle. Survivor, seriously wounded, he will walk more than thirty kilometers to the front line, with difficulty moving his legs crushed during the fall of the plane and, already exhausted, crawling through deep snow. Eighteen days, without food and fire, in a deep forest, with broken legs frostbitten in the severe cold, with three cartridges in a pistol, he will get out to his people. And he will get there, barely alive, and survive, and without legs he will return to fighter aircraft, again he will fly and shoot down the Nazis.

3.
By the end of 1941, the Nazis sought to reach the October Railway and cut off this most important transport route for the country, as well as go to Ostashkov to meet another group of fascist troops advancing from the Rzhev area. In the winter of 1942, on the banks of the Lovat and Pola rivers near the ancient Russian city of Demyansk, in a forested and swampy area with deep snow cover, fierce bloody battles unfolded.
The Germans had a noticeable superiority in technology, weapons and ammunition; they built powerful defensive structures, in harsh winter conditions, in -50 degree frost, which turned into impregnable ice ramparts and slides. Under heavy enemy fire, the Red Army and Red Navy men who attacked him understood that they were heading to certain death. But from somewhere they got strength and determination. After the command “Attack!” with words from the song “Our proud Varyag does not surrender to the enemy!” they rose from the trenches and moved forward, capturing enemy fortifications at the cost of their lives.
This was the madness of the brave, but also the madness of the command, who gave such orders that had to be carried out at any cost: with continuous frontal attacks to compress the encirclement ring and destroy the fascist troops located in it. Our losses in manpower were colossal. The division that attacked first virtually all remained on the battlefield. From a rifle regiment of a thousand people leaving for battle, only a few wounded soldiers returned, so there was simply no one to bury the fallen. That is why their unburied remains still lie in the local forests and swamps.
By the end of February 1942, together with soldiers of the 42nd Rifle Brigade, the Marines in the area of ​​​​the village of Zaluchye met with units of the 1st Shock Army advancing from the north and completed the encirclement of a hundred thousand German group near Demyansk. True, they did not intend to specially create a “cauldron” for the Germans near Demyansk. The goals of the offensive were much larger.
Firstly, the armies of the right wing of the front were supposed to reach the Pskov region, and then strike in the rear of units of the German Army Group North in the Leningrad-Novgorod direction. Secondly, at the same time, with its right wing, the front troops were involved in deep coverage of the German Army Group Center from the north.
In the center of the front, the troops of the 34th Army had only to “pin down the enemy’s 16th Army in the Demyansk direction.”
In the absence of a continuous line of German defense, front formations managed to penetrate the enemy’s operational rear. However, then the pace of the successfully launched offensive began to slow down. The Northwestern Front simply did not have enough forces to simultaneously solve two tasks of an operational-strategic scale. During this period, the enemy significantly strengthened the Demyansk group and created a network of resistance nodes, saturated with firepower and engineering structures.
As a result, the Germans managed to stop the advance of the Soviet armies. Without support and reserves from Headquarters, the front troops went on the defensive.
By February 25, six divisions of the 16th Army of the Wehrmacht were surrounded in the rear of our Northwestern Front, in the Demyansk area. In the “cauldron” found themselves parts of the 2nd Army Corps - about one hundred thousand people (12th, 30th, 32nd, 223rd and 290th infantry divisions, as well as the motorized SS division "Totenkopf" under the command of General W. von Brockdorff-Allefeld, transferred to the western edge of the perimeter of the “cauldron”, where it plugged the breakthrough of the 34th Red Army).
Although the last communications of the fascist group were cut off on February 8, it was not possible to eliminate the first large “cauldron” of the Great Patriotic War. This did not succeed either in the spring of 1942 or for the whole subsequent year. The battles to eliminate enemy troops on the Demyansk bridgehead dragged on. The enemy airlifted reinforcements, ammunition and food into the “cauldron”. In addition, in March, the Germans, with counter strikes from units of the Seydlitz group and internal troops under the command of General Bush, began an operation to relieve the blockade of the encircled troops and, after a month of stubborn fighting, managed to break the encirclement.
By the end of April, the “Ramushevsky Corridor” emerged - after the name of the village of Ramushev - with a length of 8 by 20 kilometers. The Germans themselves called it the “corridor of death.” All attempts by the Red Army to cut the corridor and re-close the encirclement were unsuccessful due to insufficient preparation of the operation and stubborn enemy resistance. The Germans were well equipped with equipment, tanks, ammunition and food; they carried out 180 sorties a day and transferred reinforcements from other areas to the Ramushevsky corridor area.
Our aviation made three times fewer sorties. And the soldiers in the numerous swamps that had thawed out and flooded in the spring had difficulty melting down guns on rafts, and on land they couldn’t even really dig in: they dug the ground with a bayonet or two, and there was already water there. The summer attempt of our troops to eliminate the enemy group in Demyansk also ended in failure.
Only on February 15, 1943, the troops of the Northwestern Front under the command of Marshal S.K. Timoshenko launched a new decisive offensive. In eight days of fighting, 302 settlements were liberated and the enemy’s Demyansk bridgehead was eliminated. So, since the autumn of 1941, the soldiers of the North-Western Front, in the most difficult conditions of wooded and swampy terrain and difficult weather conditions, fought tooth and nail with the Nazis armed to the teeth and did not allow them to advance to the city of Valdai and the Bologoye railway station in the Oktyabrsky direction.
The losses of Soviet troops in the two Demyansk offensive operations amounted to about 280 thousand people. For a year and a half, local battles were fought, during which military units on both sides were crushed day after day with amazing tenacity. New reinforcements were sent to replace the killed and wounded soldiers, and there was practically no chance of survival from start to finish for the participants in both operations. The fighting in the Demyansk area was extremely intense, and it was not for nothing that the Germans called this city a “reduced Verdun” during the First World War.

4.
Like all winters, February 1942 turned out to be snowy and frosty. All this time, from January to February, soldiers of the 154th Separate Marine Rifle Brigade under the command of Colonel A.M. Smirnov fought heavy bloody battles with the Germans southwest of the city of Demyansk. Divided into battalions, the sailors of the brigade knocked out the German garrisons concentrated in the local villages. The commander’s eyes were already dazzled just by looking at a map of the area indicating numerous small settlements, the distance between which was sometimes no more than two kilometers. Standing outside the outskirts of one village, one could see the peaked roofs of the houses of the neighboring village behind the trees.
From Molvotitsy, the sailors walked north through forest thickets and swampy off-roads, unlike the Germans, not having heavy weapons and military equipment to attack enemy garrisons in the villages. Fighting with only small arms, they suffered significant losses in battles. There were not enough weapons and ammunition, and therefore sailors going into battle often had to conquer enemy positions hand-to-hand, with bayonets and butts of weapons. Walking with battles along the bed of the Pola River, they came to a strategic road that led to Zaluchye - to the intended place of their meeting with units of the 1st Shock Army advancing from the north. Left behind were Lyubno, Novosel, Narezka, Privolye - villages that went to the sailors at great cost and with considerable losses.
But a new order was received from the command to drive the Germans out of the village of Khmeli at the confluence of the Okhrinka River with the Pola. The village itself was located on the elevated left bank of the Pola River, on the opposite bank of which the village of Pogorelitsy could be seen. From the west, the forest approached almost the Khmels themselves. The road to the Great Sunset went to the north, and to the south to the neighboring village of Okhrino. On February 19, our airborne assault force was expected to drop in the vicinity of Ohrin, and therefore the army command decided to take these two settlements in one day.
Although it was quite difficult and risky to attack the well-fortified Khmeli with one battalion of marines without the support of artillery and tanks. Along the edge of the village along the steep bank of the Pola, the Germans built strong, long-term defensive structures, and on the other three sides the village was surrounded by barbed wire, behind which the hands of local residents dug trenches and crevices for the Germans. On both sides of the road at the entrance to Khmeli there were observation towers and artillery guns camouflaged with spruce branches. But the order to capture the village had to be carried out at any cost.
Airborne planes waited near the village of Okhrino in the late afternoon so that the setting sun would shine in the Germans’ eyes and, blinding them, help our fighters attack both villages from the west. Concentrating on the forest edge, opposite Hops, the sailors with weapons at the ready frowned at the cloudy sky covered with lead clouds and listened impatiently. Not only was there no setting sun, but early winter twilight was already falling, although they could have helped the sailors during the assault on the village. And as the night progressed, the frost began to creep in, fierce, crackling, freezing my arms and legs. And across a field covered with deep snow, it’s not particularly easy for a fighter with a machine gun in his hands and a backpack, which contained two spare disks, a supply of ammunition and several grenades, to run away.
But finally, somewhere in the sky a heavy rumble was heard, and some time later a red rocket took off from Okhrin and strong machine gun and machine gun fire was heard. This served as the signal for the sailors to attack Khmeli. Scattered across the field, in naval style, at full height, sailors, dressed in quilted jackets with unbuttoned collars, were running towards the village, from under which striped vests were visible, and white camouflage coats were worn over the quilted jackets. Having sorted themselves into squads, the Marines outlined their targets as they raided, and each of them knew his duty in battle. Pre-front training, military training and the high morale of the sailors had an effect.

5.
They were already on the outskirts of the village when the Germans noticed them and raised the alarm, opening a furious crossfire with machine guns on the advancing marines. And immediately the first killed and wounded appeared in its ranks. We had to lie down in the snow and open return machine-gun fire, so that we could then dash to reach the enemy fortifications. That's when grenades flew into the German trenches, raising fountains of snow and earth. Under their curtain, some sailors cut the barbed wire with scissors and made passages in it, while others, in turn, covered them from the Germans with dagger fire from machine guns. With well-aimed bursts they took down the sentries on the towers and turned fire on the fascists who were fleeing from the village to help their own people defending in the trenches.
Having broken through the “thorn”, the sailors shouted “Polundra!” They immediately jumped into the German trenches right on the heads of the Fritz. And there began a terrible hand-to-hand fight of people grappling in a mortal duel: with an animal roar and roar, with a merciless crunch of human bones broken by weapon butts and streams of blood from bodies ripped open by bayonets with knives, with hysterical groans and obscene screams in both languages. Soon it was all over. At the bottom of the trench, mutilated Nazis lay in dead positions and pools of blood. But there were also losses among the Marines.
- Goodbye, brothers! - Chief Sergeant Yegor Milovanov, breathing heavily, fixed his gaze on the fallen soldiers of his squad, - You will no longer see the native capital of Syoma and Lyokha. Farewell to you too, my fellow countryman Nikita - we will avenge you!
Together with Kazko, they quickly bandaged three more wounded sailors and left them in the same trench to wait for the battalion orderlies. And they stood next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, before the final, decisive throw. They stood in the enemy trench they had captured, pressing their chests to the frozen ground and looking out from behind the parapet towards the village. Stray bullets whistled over their heads. And in the field left behind, raising fountains of snow and earth, shells exploded from the artillery that the Nazis had deployed.
Very close by, at a distance of one throw from the trenches dug in the outskirts of the village, there were huts behind the vegetable gardens. Some of them were burning, and the smoke from the fires lay low on the ground, making it impossible to see what was happening in the village itself. Judging by the noise behind the huts, the battle had already spilled into the street. And Milovanov’s squad, consisting of two combat-ready fighters, had to keep up with their valiant fellow sailors.
- Well, Vasya, shall we give it one last run? – Yegor looked at him through the roar of the battle, clutching his machine gun.
“Yeah,” Kazko nodded to him, “Right now we’ll finish them off!” – he added, feeling the last grenade on his side.
Egor was the first to rise from the trench and, with a machine gun in his hands, rushed forward through the trampled snow in the backyard. But, rounding the corner of the burning house, he unexpectedly ran into dagger fire from a hitherto silent camouflaged German machine-gun nest in the depths of the yard. Pierced by a machine-gun burst, Yegor stopped dead in his tracks, only shreds of his quilted jacket flying away from him. Kazko, who was running after Yegor, managed to pull out the pin of a grenade while running, throw it at the shooting fascist and fall to the ground. There was an explosion and the enemy machine gun fell silent. Having risen, Vasily saw the foreman lying in front of him in the snow.
- Egor, what are you doing?! – Kazko bent over his friend.
- Eh, Vasya, the Kraut bastards pierced me right through! – Yegor, who was lying on the bloody snow, croaked in response.
- Don’t chatter, brother - this can’t happen!
- No, Vasek, maybe.
- You covered me with yourself, brother!
- Well, now you finish off this bastard for me!
- Maybe I can help you with something, huh?
- No, Vasya, half-hearted: I think I’m ready! – the foreman was choking on blood.
- Wait to die, Egor, wait, dear!
Vasily looked back, frantically searching with his eyes for the battalion nurses, who in every battle crawled after them through the snow and picked up wounded soldiers. Some were bandaged on the battlefield, and the seriously wounded were dragged on themselves, on all fours or dragged, crawling, under enemy fire to the rear. But now none of the “sisters” were nearby - there weren’t enough of them for all the sailors who had been shot. But there was enough other help in difficult times.
- Red Navy man Kazko, don’t lag behind! - someone’s menacing shout was heard from behind, and the bolt of the weapon clicked, - For the homeland, for Stalin - forward!
- Hold on, Egor! Be strong, brother! - Vasily managed to shout to his friend goodbye, - The Naval Guard is not drowning!
And he ran forward to his sailors, who were already fighting the Nazis on a rural street. But, running out of the yard, Kazko fell under the explosion of a shell from a German cannon firing directly at the advancing sailors. Disfigured by the explosion, he fell face down into the pink snow beneath him and no longer moved.
And Yegor Milovanov, holding a machine gun with one hand, with the other frantically clinging to the icy crusts of snow stained with his hot blood, was still trying to crawl after his fellow soldiers who had fled ahead. Realizing that he was dying, in the last moments of his short life, with difficulty raising his head, he saw their blurry figures and regretted that victory would come without him. And, perhaps, in Yegor’s elusive consciousness the faces of distant relatives flashed for a moment, with whom from now on his body, torn by a machine-gun fire, remained on earth, and his soul, freed from earthly burdens, was carried away to another world.

6.
The next day, during the calm after the capture of the village of Khmeli, the brigade commissar, who had turned gray early at forty years of age, with tired gray eyes, sat at the table in the village hut, one of the few that had survived the assault, and compiled lists of the irretrievable losses of the 154th Separate Marine rifle brigade. Based on the reports submitted to him by the commanders of companies, platoons and squads, he sent funerals of those killed in the last battle, notices of missing persons, information about the wounded and evacuated to the field medical battalion to the relatives of his colleagues at their place of residence. Just yesterday, the commissar’s hand firmly held a military weapon and struck down more than one fascist on the spot, but today she had difficulty tracing on a piece of paper the painfully familiar names of fellow soldiers:
killed in battle on February 19, 1942 near the village of Khmeli, Demyansky district, Leningrad region:
Fedin Sergey Alekseevich, foreman 1st article, squad commander, Moscow region. Zolotovo village, 35.
Evtushenko Alexey Vladimirovich, Red Navy man, shooter, Moscow, Bolshaya Bronnaya, 5.
Novikov Mikhail Nikitovich, Red Navy man, gunner, Moscow, Nikitsky Blvd., 13.
Koptilin Mikhail Timofeevich, Red Navy man, shooter, Kaluga region, Nizhnyaya Gorka village.
Liferov Semyon Ivanovich, Red Navy man, shooter, Moscow, st. 25 October, no. 5.
Smirnov Alexey Danilovich, Red Navy man, gunner, Moscow, Leningradskoye sh., 30.
Frolov Nikita Sergeevich, Red Navy man, shooter, Tambov region, Novo-Yuryevo village.
Kashkin Mikhail Fedorovich, chief foreman, Moscow region, Elektrostal, st. Krasnaya, no. 54.
Bodrov Vasily Timofeevich, chief foreman, Moscow region, Tushino village.
Gerasimov Nikita Andreevich, chief foreman, Moscow, Yaroslavskoye sh., no. 1.
Milovanov Egor Mikhailovich, chief foreman, Moscow region, Lyublino, st. Oktyabrskaya, 18.
Kazko Vasily Iosifovich, Red Navy man, shooter, Moscow, 7th ray. pr., no. 4, apt. 36.
And - more than a dozen sailors, brothers, strong, young heroes who died on the battlefield.
“So by the end of the month,” the commissar sitting at the table thought bitterly, “after such battles there will be no battalion or company left, and you won’t be able to recruit a battalion from the brigade itself.”
For a long time, the gray-haired brigade commissar wrote out names and addresses on pieces of paper in handwriting that was unsteady from excitement. At the end of the hour, he threw his pen and ink pen onto the table, littered with papers containing the brigade personnel, reached into his pocket for a tobacco pouch with shag, twisted a cigarette and, throwing a pea coat over his shoulders, walked out of the hut onto the porch. There, in the fresh frosty air, he smoked greedily, taking deep and nervous puffs, and looked into the gray sky covered with heavy clouds. The commissar’s soul was also heavy.
Burning his fingers, he threw the smoked bullock almost to the ground into the snow, returned through the dark hallway to the hut to his table and again set about the joyless task of his duty. The commissar would not have been able to deal with him until the evening if the young political instructor of the company, Sergei Vasiliev, who came into the hut on his own business, had not helped him. Together with him, they quickly completed all the necessary lists of dead and wounded soldiers and briefly discussed the command’s future plans. Tomorrow morning it was necessary to weigh anchor in the village of Khmeli, which they occupied, and go further along the road to the north - to knock out the Germans from neighboring villages, creating a “Demyansk cauldron” for them.
And here, in Khmeli, in a day or two, funeral teams will come, gather along the surrounding roads, fields and forests the Red Army and Red Navy soldiers who died in the last battles, bloodied, tortured, and bury them in the frozen ground, digging a huge ditch somewhere on the outskirts of the village . But before that, they will collect medallions from lifeless bodies and send them to headquarters, and there they will decide whether to publish them or hide the huge human losses from the public. And less than half of the surviving names of the one and a half thousand of our soldiers buried in it will remain in the next mass grave near the village of Khmeli.

7.
A day later, in the village of Verkhnyaya Sosnovka, taken by the sailors, after another fierce battle with the Nazis, the brigade commissar compiled new lists of irretrievable losses in the brigade. Returning from the field medical battalion with his head bandaged, he wrote, among other things, about how, in a battle near the village of Verkhnyaya Sosnovka, the company political instructor Sergei Nikolaevich Vasiliev replaced the wounded company commander, himself received three wounds and, having led one of the attacks, led the sailors on a decisive assault and was among the first to break into the enemy position. Already at the end of the battle, an enemy fragment killed the brave political instructor. S. N. Vasiliev, who died a heroic death in battle, was posthumously nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In those heavy battles at the end of February 1942, one of the battalions of the 154th Naval Brigade was tasked with cutting an important German road near the village of Tsemena. Fulfilling this combat order, the battalion's fighters, with a swift night attack, the day before, defeated the fascist garrison in the villages of Bolshoye and Maloye Knyazevo and on the night of February 23rd launched an attack on the village of Tsemena.
Hitler's troops, concerned about the loss of several of their important strongholds on the approaches to the central rockade, which fed the entire Demyansk enemy group, were well prepared for the upcoming battle. To help the infantrymen from the 290th Infantry Division, they transferred two companies of “special forces” from the SS division “Totenkopf”, reinforced with several assault self-propelled guns.
Despite this powerful fire resistance, the attacking sailors still managed to fight their way into the streets of the village. With shouts of “half-hearted,” they clashed with the SS men in hand-to-hand combat. But the enemy turned out to be much larger, and he had heavy weapons, which the sailors did not have. In that night battle, despite the heroism shown, the battalion of sailors was almost completely killed. Near Tsemeny, the 154th Brigade lost 210 soldiers killed, and the Nazis finished off about 60 wounded and helpless sailors right on the battlefield. The snowy field outside the village was completely strewn with the bodies of dead sailors...
In less than six months, the 154th Naval Rifle Brigade, severely depleted in battles on the North-Western Front and now equipped with new reinforcements, will be urgently transferred to the Stalingrad Front, where, together with other land and sea units, it will take up tough defense on the banks of the Don in order to prevent a breakthrough Nazis to Stalingrad. Already on July 17, having started battles with huge, superior enemy forces, our units, and among them the glorious sea brothers, will stand in positions to the death, anticipating with their heroism the sadly “famous” order of Stalin No. 227 “Not a step back!”

In May 2013 Search team "Demyansk" worked in the southeastern part of the Demyansk cauldron, on the Valdai Hills, in the upper reaches of Lake Seliger.

The main task Memory watches there was a study of the surroundings of the village of Gorodilovo, which in 1941 was divided in half by the front line...

From the history...

In mid-September 1941, German troops broke through to Lake Seliger, but were unable to build on their success. Units of the Red Army, relying on a well-prepared defense line, detained the Germans here and did not allow them to enter the operational space east of Seliger.

This is how the commissar of the 28th Tank Division A.L. describes the line of defense. Bankvitser in his book: “The line of defense in the lake area was prepared in advance. For the first time we had to defend such a well-equipped fortification line. Well-dug trenches ran along the entire shore of Seliger, Polonets and the adjacent lakes. The narrow inter-lake defiles were intercepted by deep and wide anti-tank ditches. The firing points were carefully camouflaged, the firing sectors were cleared. The terrain was clearly visible from the embrasures and loopholes and full control of the approaches was ensured by artillery and machine-gun fire. Well-placed observation posts were carefully camouflaged and protected by triple decking of logs.”

"....91 UR with the remaining forces (300, 355, 358, 351 OPAB) with the 59th barrage detachment defended on a wide front at the line: Kruzhiki, the northern shore of Lake Pestovskoe, Velye, Stany, along the western shore of Lake Velye , Aleksandrovskoye, eastern half of Gorodilovo, Filippovshchina, Krutusha, Polnova - Seliger...."

Please note - half of Gorodilovo. The village repeatedly changed hands and the front line practically divided Gorodilovo in half... As a result, little remained of the once large village, but what had begun during the war was completed by Khrushchev’s consolidation of collective farms...

Despite the seemingly stable front line (on the scale of the entire War), the fighting in this area did not stop for a single day... Defensive battles in the fall of 1941, the Demyansk offensive operation in the winter-spring of 1942, repeated attempts to take German strongholds along the perimeter of the boiler and compress the boiler itself in the summer of 1942, then the Demyansk offensive operation in the winter of 1943...

It was in these places that we had to work, that is, search, search, search...

The Detachment’s fighters also had “ordinary” tasks: clarifying the location of previously unknown burials, working on information from local residents, repairing monuments... All this happened in the upper reaches of Seliger: Polnovo, Zhabye, Filippovshchina, Vasilyevshchina...

But first things first... (Well, not exactly everything, about some aspects of the Watch...)

He who eats well works well... Therefore, first of all, we need to build a dining room and kitchen

So that harsh weather conditions do not interfere with eating, the dining room is well caulked with polyethylene

First departure. A minibus to the place of work, in other words, a gateway

Someone dug up something...

A memorial sign near the village of Vasilyevshchina. I must say that thanks to the efforts and Demyansk detachment, and his individual fighters, a large number of similar monuments have been erected in the area. Both battle sites and mass graves are marked...

Sarov, Voronezh, St. Petersburg, Ulyanovsk...

On the defense line between lakes Seliger and Velje, next to the anti-tank ditch, a fire protection system was discovered. A little later, this fire protection system will be removed from the forest in order to install it as a monument.

Modest interior...

A wonderful corner, not a forest, but a fairy tale.

I stepped on a bump, and lo and behold, it’s a helmet...

Demyansk search engine is severe...

One day a group of comrades went to work to put in order the monument erected Search team "Demyansk" on the outskirts of the village of Filippovshchina. The reinforced concrete equipment brought from the surrounding forests and a small obelisk are dedicated to the feat of the 241st Infantry Division, which stopped the German offensive at this line in September 1941

Cleaned, painted, cut down bushes, planted pine trees... basked in the sun... just a day off...

Belgorod, Moscow, St. Petersburg...

The next day, the Detachment, almost in full force, went into the forest in order to pick up the previously discovered reinforced concrete equipment. In the future, reinforced concrete protection will serve as the basis for some kind of monument

Chief of Staff of PA "Demyansk" David Kiladze

Voronezh, Kandalaksha... It should be noted that 10 Russian regions are represented in the Demyansk PA

The reinforced concrete container has been opened, we are dismantling and loading...

Reinforced concrete is a heavy thing, GTS is a delicate thing, the road needs to be cleared...

At the moment, the names of two fighters have been established

One coffin for 10-15 people....

15.03.2015 0 26538

Few people are familiar with the name Demyansk, with which such concepts as the Demyansk cauldron, the Demyansk air bridge, the Demyansk bridgehead, the “Demyansk shield” and the Demyansk offensive operation are historically associated. We will try to talk about this in an article dedicated to the victims of the battles of those years.

Important milestone

Demyansk is an ancient Russian village in the Novgorod region, first mentioned in the chronicles of the 12th century, located on the Yavon River between lakes Ilmen and Seliger.

During the Great Patriotic War, fierce and bloody battles took place in this area: starting from the autumn of 1941, when Demyansk was abandoned by our troops during a counterattack near Staraya Russa, during 14 months of Nazi occupation until the winter of 1942 and ending in the spring of 1943. In military archives, the battles to liberate this territory are known as the 1st and 2nd Demyansk offensive operations.

In September 1941, fascist troops successfully advanced deep into our Motherland, advancing in three main directions: Army Group North towards Leningrad, Army Group Center towards Moscow and Army Group South towards Kyiv and Donbass. Hitler already in June determined the time of completion of the “victorious campaign to the East” and intended to capture Moscow immediately after the fall of Leningrad.

Demyansk boiler

In Stalin's defensive plans, Demyansk was an important milestone in the breakthrough and liquidation of the front of Army Group North. But Hitler also attached great importance to holding the Demyansk bridgehead, because he saw in this fortification the beginning of a victorious march to Moscow.

During the offensive, troops of the Northwestern Front under the command of Lieutenant General P.A. Kurochkin was surrounded in the Demyansk area by six German divisions of the 2nd Army Corps of the 16th German Army of Army Group North with a total number of up to 100 thousand people, namely parts of the 2nd Army Corps (12th, 30th, 32nd , 223rd and 290th Infantry Divisions, as well as the 3rd SS Motorized Division "Totenkopf") under the command of General Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeld.

Brockdorff-Alefeld was a famous German military leader who took part in the First World War (he was seriously wounded at Verdun). Thanks to his title of nobility, the soldiers of his corps who were surrounded preferred to call their position “County of Demyansk.”

To supply the encircled troops and hold the Demyansk “county,” all transport aviation of Army Group Center and half of the transport aviation of the Eastern Front were used. The Germans managed to organize an excellent defense of the outer front of the boiler, and inside it they built a system of reserve fortifications and ensured the protection of populated areas and roads.

This allowed them to hold out in the Demyansk cauldron from September 1941 until the spring of 1943, when, due to the incredible efforts of our army during the 2nd Demyansk offensive operation, the Germans were forced to leave the Demyansk bridgehead.

Air bridge

The encircled Wehrmacht and SS units successfully defended themselves, being completely encircled for two months, and later they managed to break through the ring in the area of ​​the village of Ramushevo. This became possible thanks to air transport links: German planes made about 15 thousand sorties, delivering 265 tons of cargo to the boiler area every day. In total, during the entire existence of the Demyansk bridgehead, 32,427 flights with cargo and 659 with passengers on board were made.

The command of the air headquarters of German aviation was located at the Pskov-Yuzhny airfield. Lieutenant Colonel Tonne from the command of Army Group North and Colonel Fritz Morzik from the Air Force command were responsible for supplying the German “county”.

Liquidation

The Red Army tried with all its might to destroy the Demyansk ledge. In 1942, the 1st Demyansk offensive operation was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the positions of the Soviet troops between Seliger and Velikiye Luki were heroically held. The fighting in the Demyansk area was intense and bloody.

The Germans called Demyansk a “reduced Verdun” - the Battle of Verdun was one of the largest and bloodiest military operations in the First World War. It went down in history as the Verdun meat grinder and marked the depletion of the military potential of the German Empire.

The Germans attached great importance to their well-equipped citadel. To hold the Demyansk bridgehead, Field Marshal von Küchler recalled three divisions of the 18th Army from Ladoga, the ring around Oranienbaum and from Volkhov and sent them to the Demyansk cauldron.

The 2nd Demyansk offensive operation in February 1943 was more successful. By that time, the Germans had been defeated at Stalingrad and, in order not to suffer the same losses, they left the cauldron along the Ramushevsky corridor, “generously” mining it as a farewell. Soviet troops completed their task and destroyed the enemy’s Demyansk group, liberated the cities of Kholm and Staraya Russa, and drove Army Group Center back to the areas of Smolensk and Vitebsk.

The losses of Soviet troops in the Demyansk offensive operations amounted to hundreds of thousands of people. According to some reports, the leadership was silent about another 100 thousand civilian deaths. Against the background of such losses, the hitherto hushed up Demyansk landing operation in the spring of 1942 turned out to be unnoticed.

"Parachute-foot" landing

During the encirclement of the German divisions in the Demyansk cauldron by Soviet troops, no attempts were made to attack enemy airfields or interfere with the air corridor providing the Germans with everything they needed, including construction materials and military equipment. But still, in the spring of 1942, the command of the Northwestern Front carried out a major landing operation in the rear of the 16th Army of the Wehrmacht. It was necessary to disrupt the German rear infrastructure. For this purpose, it was planned to land three airborne brigades (1st and 2nd maneuver and 204th airborne brigades (Airborne)).

The planned air landing took place partially in relation to one battalion of the 204th Airborne Battalion, the remaining paratroopers made a ski-foot “infiltration” through gaps in the defense line to the rear of the encircled Germans. Supply and evacuation of the wounded had to be carried out from temporarily constructed airstrips. They were supposed to be equipped in the northwest of the frozen Neviy Mokh swamp, northwest of Demyansk, near the villages of Bolshoye Opuevo and Maloe Opuevo.

German sleeve insignia "Demyansk Shield". They were awarded to more than 100 thousand soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht.

About 9,500 soldiers took part in the operation. The 204th Airborne Brigade was well trained and made up of experienced military personnel, and maneuver brigades were recently formed near Kirov and consisted mainly of unfired fighters 18-20 years old.

The first landings began on February 18, internal fighting continued until May 3, 1942. During this time, almost all three airborne brigades were destroyed. For more than two months, exhausted soldiers (they were transported to the German rear with a three-day supply of food), without replacements or supplies, in felt boots, but without special clothing, with skis, but in the gullies of the Novgorod forests, in huts with a ban on making fires, they waged a heroic unequal struggle with the Germans and, most importantly, with the elite SS men of the Totenkopf division. Less than a thousand wounded people survived.

Modern historians, especially American and German, put forward different, sometimes contradictory theories about the reasons for the failure of the Demyansk landing operation.

One of them is the capture of the commander of the 1st maneuver airborne battalion, Tarasov, who allegedly agreed to cooperate with the Germans. But such information, not supported by evidence, only fuels the speculative interest of pseudo-historians.

Nikolai Efimovich Tarasov was the son of a clergyman, an officer in the tsarist army, then he went over to the side of the Red Army, in 1937 he was repressed in the Tukhachevsky case, accused of belonging to a counter-revolutionary organization, but later, in 1939, he was released. In 1941, Tarasov was drafted with the rank of major into the Red Army. According to German military archives, he was held captive for 1.5 years. Nothing is known about his further fate.

On August 5, 2012, a monument to the paratroopers of the 1st MVDB and 204th VDB who died in 1942 was unveiled in the village of Demyansk. The opening of the monument is timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the large-scale, but little-known Demyansk landing operation.

Since 1985, a detachment from school No. 2 from the city of Kirovo-Chepetsk, Kirov region, has been searching for paratroopers and collecting information about the combat operations of the 1st MVDB in the Demyansky region in 1942.

In 1998, search engines from the Kirov regional public organization “Dolg” joined the search. Gradually, a “Veteran” detachment was formed, consisting of experienced searchers.

Evgeniy ISAKOVICH