The houses of Stalingrad that have become legends: the war wiped them off the face of the earth, but the memory lives on. Pavlov's house in Stalingrad: what really happened Which house was defended in Stalingrad

The legendary house of Sergeant Pavlov (House of Soldier's Glory) in the hero city of Volgograd, which in the Battle of Stalingrad became a real impregnable citadel for the Nazis thanks to the courage and fortitude of its defenders. A historical monument of national significance and an object of cultural heritage of Russia.

An ordinary four-story residential building in the center is associated with a heroic page in the history of the city - the legendary battle for Stalingrad, which became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War.

In pre-war peacetime in Stalingrad (present-day Volgograd) on January 9 Square (now Lenin Square) there were residential buildings for the so-called elite - railway workers, signalmen, NKVD workers. Near the square, in a four-story building No. 61 with 4 entrances on Penzenskaya Street, lived specialists from the city’s tractor, metallurgical and machine-building plants, as well as employees of the city committee of the CPSU. This house and its twin - the house that later received the name of Lieutenant N. Zabolotny, who defended it, due to the fact that a railway line passed directly to the Volga, were destined to play an important role during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The story of one feat

Fierce fighting in July-November 1942 took place not only in the suburbs of Stalingrad, but also in the city itself. For the possession of residential areas and factory areas, the Nazis threw more and more human reserves and armored vehicles into mortal combat.

At the beginning of September 1942, during the period of the heaviest street fighting, the area of ​​January 9 Square was defended by the 42nd Regiment as part of the 13th Guards Rifle Division of the 62nd Army, commanded by Colonel I.P. Elin. Fights took place for every piece of land, for every building, for every entrance, basement, apartment. The troops of Field Marshal Paulus, supported by fire from the air, paved their way to the Volga, sweeping away all obstacles along the way. The buildings in the square square were already destroyed, only two residential buildings and one survived. These buildings turned out to be strategically important objects not only for defense, but also for monitoring the surrounding territory - one kilometer in the western, and two kilometers in the northern and southern directions. By order of Colonel I.P. Elin, who correctly assessed the strategic importance of the buildings, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Battalion, Captain V.A. Zhukov, organized two mobile groups under the command of Sergeant Ya. Pavlov and Lieutenant N. Zabolotny to seize residential buildings. The first group - Sergeant Yakov Pavlov and three soldiers on September 22, 1942, managed to knock out the enemy and gain a foothold in one of the houses. A platoon under the command of Nikolai Zabolotny occupied the house opposite, and the regimental command post was located in the mill building. The guardsmen of N. Zabolotny's platoon courageously held the defense of the captured house, but soon the Nazis managed to blow up the building, under the rubble of which all its defenders, along with the commander, died.

And in the basement of the first house liberated from the Nazis, fighters from Sergeant Yakov Pavlov’s group found civilians - about thirty women, children and old people. These people were in the basement of the house with the soldiers until the liberation of the city, helping the soldiers in defending the house.

Having sent a report to the command post about the successful operation to capture the house and requesting reinforcements, over the next two days four brave soldiers fought off the fierce attacks of the Wehrmacht units rushing to the Volga. On the third day of defense, the defenders received reinforcements - a machine-gun platoon from the third machine-gun company under the command of Guard Lieutenant I.F. Afanasyev (seven people with a heavy machine gun), six armor-piercing men with three anti-tank rifles led by senior sergeant A.A. Sobgaida, three machine gunners and four mortar men with two 50 mm mortars under the command of Lieutenant A. N. Chernyshenko. The number of defenders of the house increased to 24 people of different nationalities, among whom, along with the Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians, Tatars, Jews, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Tajiks held the defense. Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, wounded in the first days of defense, handed over command of the guard garrison to Lieutenant I. Afanasyev.

For a more effective defense, sappers mined all approaches to the building, along a dug trench from the Pavlov House, which appears under that name in operational reports and reports of the regiment headquarters, to the Gerhardt mill, signalmen extended radio communications, and the call sign of the heroic detachment of defenders of the house “Mayak” for as long as 58 days and nights (from September 23 to November 25, 1942) connected the defenders of the building with the headquarters of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment.

Shelling and attacks by Wehrmacht units on Pavlov's House were repeated every hour, regardless of the time of day, but this did not break the spirit of the soldiers. During each offensive, the Nazis littered the approaches to the house with the bodies of their soldiers, struck down by heavy mortar, machine gun and machine gun fire, which the defenders fired from the basement, windows and roof of the impregnable building. The ferocity with which the enemy troops tried to take possession of Pavlov's House was shattered by the courage and heroism of the soldiers who defended it. Therefore, on maps of Wehrmacht military operations, Pavlov's House was marked as a fortress. Surprisingly, during the entire defense of the strategically and tactically important section of the approach to the Volga, which became an ordinary residential building on Penzenskaya Street on the way of the Nazis, only three of its defenders died - Lieutenant A. N. Chernyshenko, Guard Sergeant I. Ya. Khait and Private I. T. Svirin. Their names, like the names of all the fighters of the House of Pavlov, are inscribed in the history of the heroic feat of the unconquered city on the Volga.

As a result of one of the shellings, a shell explosion destroyed one of the walls of the building, but even in this seemingly unpleasant fact, the fighters were able to find a positive side, joking that now the ventilation in the house had become much better. And in rare moments of silence, the guards wondered whether they would restore the building after the war, because no one doubted that the war would end in victory.

Restoration of Pavlov's House

Perhaps there is something mystical in the fact that the first building, the restoration of which was undertaken almost immediately after the liberation of Stalingrad, was the House of Sergeant Pavlov, also called the House of Soldiers' Glory. Thanks to the initiative of Stalingrad resident A. M. Cherkasova, who in June 1943 organized a brigade of female volunteers to clear the rubble, repair and restore city buildings, this movement, soon called Cherkasovsky, swept the entire country: in all cities liberated from the Nazis there were numerous volunteer brigades in In their free time from work, they restored destroyed buildings, put streets, squares and parks in order. And after the war, A. M. Cherkasova’s team continued to restore their hometown in their free time, devoting a total of more than 20 million hours to this noble cause.

After the war, the square near which Pavlov’s House was located was renamed Defense Square, new houses appeared on it, with which, according to the design of the architect I. E. Fialko, the heroic house was combined with a semicircular colonnade. And the end wall facing Defense Square (renamed Lenin Square in 1960) was decorated with a memorial by sculptors A.V. Golovanov and P.L. Malkov. Its opening took place in February 1965 and was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Volgograd from the fascist invaders.

The newly rebuilt Pavlov's House became a symbol not only of the heroic feat of its defenders, but also of the feat of ordinary people who, on their own, restored Stalingrad from the ruins. The memory of this was immortalized by the architect V. E. Maslyaev and the sculptor V. G. Fetisov, who created at the end of the building from the street. Soviet memorial wall-monument with the inscription: “In this house, military feat and labor feat merged together.” The grand opening of the memorial took place on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory - May 4, 1985.

The relief memorial wall made of red brick depicts a collective image of a warrior-defender, one of the moments of the defense of the building and a tablet with text that immortalizes the names of courageous and fearless warriors who did the impossible - at the cost of incredible efforts, stopping enemy troops on the very outskirts of the Volga.

The text on the sign reads: “This house at the end of September 1942 was occupied by Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov and his comrades A. P. Aleksandrov, V. S. Glushchenko, N. Ya. Chernogolov. During September-November 1942, the house heroically defended by the soldiers of the 3rd battalion of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 13th Guards Order of Lenin Division: Aleksandrov A.P., Afanasyev I.F., Bondarenko M.S., Voronov I.V., Glushchenko V.S. , Gridin T. I., Dovzhenko P. I., Ivashchenko A. I., Kiselev V. M., Mosiashvili N. G., Murzaev T., Pavlov Ya. F., Ramazanov F. Z., Saraev V. K., Svirin I. T., Sobgaida A. A., Torgunov K., Turdyev M., Khait I. Ya., Chernogolov N. Ya., Chernyshenko A. N., Shapovalov A. E., Yakimenko G. AND."

The Battle of Stalingrad, which radically changed the course of the Great Patriotic War and marked the beginning of the collapse of the Third Reich, became the millstone of the giant mill for the selected forces of the Wehrmacht. The legendary garrison of the House of Pavlov also made its contribution to the liberation of the city from enemy invaders, the memory of whose feat is forever inscribed in the Book of Memory of the Hero City of Volgograd.

February 28th, 2018 , 12:00 pm

If you find yourself in Volgograd, then you definitely need to visit three places: Mamaev kurgan, Paulus Bunker in the Central Department Store And Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad. I read a lot about the Battle of Stalingrad and watched films. A variety of books and films. “Stalingrad” by Yuri Ozerov is impossible to watch, the movie is about nothing, solid Soviet propaganda. The book by German war correspondent Heinz Schröter about the Battle of Stalingrad, written by him in 1943, seemed very interesting. By the way, the book, conceived as a propaganda tool capable of raising the spirit of the German army, was banned in Germany “for its defeatist mood” and was published only in 1948. It was completely unusual to look towards Stalingrad through the eyes of German soldiers. And oddly enough, it was precisely the meticulous analytical German assessment of military operations that showed the incredible feat that the Russian people - the military and the city residents - accomplished.

STALINGRAD- the same stone on which the invincible, powerful German military machine literally broke its teeth.
STALINGRAD- that sacred point that turned the tide of the war.
STALINGRAD- the city of Heroes in the most literal sense.

From the book "Stalingrad" by Heinz Schroter
“In Stalingrad there were battles for every house, for metallurgical plants, factories, hangars, shipping canals, streets, squares, gardens, walls.”
“Resistance arose almost out of nowhere. At the surviving factories, the last tanks were being assembled, the armories were empty, everyone who was able to hold a weapon in their hands was armed: Volga steamships, the fleet, workers of military factories, teenagers.”“The dive bombers delivered their iron blows to the ruins of staunchly defended bridgeheads.”

“The basements of houses and the vaults of workshops were equipped by the enemies as dugouts and strongholds. Danger lurked at every step, snipers were hiding behind every ruin, but sewerage structures for wastewater posed a special danger - they approached the Volga and were used by the Soviet command to supply reserves to them. Often, Russians suddenly appeared behind the advanced German detachments, and no one could understand how they got there. Later everything became clear, so the channels in the places where the drain covers were located were barricaded with steel beams.”
*It is interesting that the Germans describe houses for which mortal battles were fought not by numbers, but by color, because the German love of numbers has become meaningless.

“The sapper battalion lay down in front of the pharmacy and the red house. These strong points were equipped for defense in such a way that it was impossible to take them.”

“The advance of the engineer battalions moved forward, but stopped in front of the so-called white house. The houses in question were piles of rubbish, but there were battles for them too.”
*Just imagine how many such “red and white houses” there were in Stalingrad...

I found myself in Volgograd at the very beginning of February, when they celebrated the next anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. On this day I went to Panorama Museum, which is located on the high bank of the Volga embankment (Chuikova St., 47). I chose the day very well, because on the site in front of the museum I caught a concert, performances by our guys, and a gala event dedicated to the memorable date.

I didn’t take any photos inside the museum, it was dark and I doubt I would have gotten good photos without a flash. But the museum is very interesting. First of all, a circular panorama “The defeat of the Nazi troops at Stalingrad.” As Wiki describes it: “Panorama “Battle of Stalingrad” is a canvas measuring 16x120 m, with an area of ​​about 2000 m² and 1000 m² of subject matter. The plot is the final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad - Operation Ring. The canvas shows the connection on January 26, 1943 of the 21st and 62nd armies of the Don Front on the western slope of Mamayev Kurgan, which led to the dissection of the encircled German group into two parts.” In addition to the panorama (located on the highest floor of the museum, in the Rotunda) there are 4 dioramas (small panoramas on the ground floor).
Weapons, Soviet and German, awards, personal items and clothing, models, photographs, portraits. You definitely need to take a tour guide. In my case, this could not be done, due to the fact that a solemn ceremony was taking place in the Triumphal Hall, which was attended by veterans, military personnel, young army guys, and the museum was flooded with a large number of guests.

(with photo yarowind

(with photo kerrangjke

(With) muph

Behind the Panorama Museum there is a dilapidated red brick building - Gergard's Mill (Grudinin's Mill). The building became one of the important defense centers of the city. Again, turning to Wiki we find out that “The mill was semi-surrounded for 58 days, and during these days it withstood numerous hits from aerial bombs and shells. These damages are visible even now - literally every square meter of the external walls is cut by shells, bullets and shrapnel, reinforced concrete beams on the roof are broken by direct hits from aerial bombs. The sides of the building indicate varying intensities of mortar and artillery fire."

A copy of the sculpture is now installed nearby "Dancing Children". For Soviet Russia, this was a fairly typical sculpture - pioneers with red ties (3 girls and three boys) lead a friendly round dance around the fountain. But the children’s figures, damaged by bullets and shell fragments, look especially piercing and defenseless.

Opposite the Panorama Museum across the road is Pavlov's House.
I’ll turn to Wikipedia again so as not to repeat it: “Pavlov’s House is a 4-story residential building in which a group of Soviet soldiers heroically held the defense for 58 days during the Battle of Stalingrad. Some historians believe that the defense was led by senior sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov, who took command of the squad from senior lieutenant I. F. Afanasyev, who was wounded at the beginning of the battles. The Germans organized attacks several times a day. Every time soldiers or tanks tried to get close to the house, I.F. Afanasyev and his comrades met them with heavy fire from the basement, windows and roof. During the entire defense of Pavlov’s house (from September 23 to November 25, 1942), there were civilians in the basement until the Soviet troops launched a counterattack.”

I would like to return to the demonstration performances of our guys again. And I will quote the text of Vitaly Rogozin dervishv about hand-to-hand combat, which I liked incredibly.
...
Hand-to-hand combat - window dressing or a deadly weapon?
Experts continue to debate whether soldiers need hand-to-hand combat in modern warfare. And if necessary, then in what volume and with what technical arsenal? And what martial arts are best suited for this? No matter how much analysts argue, hand-to-hand combat still has its place in training programs. The other day I looked at the hand-to-hand combat skills of the cadets of the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.

There is a joke among the troops: “To engage in hand-to-hand combat, a soldier needs to remain in his shorts, find a flat area and a second idiot like him.” And this joke contains considerable wisdom, tested in hundreds of wars. After all, even in the era before the advent of firearms, hand-to-hand combat was not a “major discipline.” The main focus in a soldier's combat training was on his ability to wield a weapon and not bring the battle to hand-to-hand combat.
For example, in China, where the traditions of martial arts go back thousands of years, the training of soldiers for hand-to-hand combat was systematized only during the Ming Dynasty, when General Qi Jiguang selected and published his “32 fist methods” for training troops.
Only 32 techniques from the huge variety of Chinese Wushu! But the most effective and easiest to learn.
According to Western press reports, the entire hand-to-hand combat course of the American Delta consists of 30 techniques.

1 . The soldier’s task, since he cannot, for some reason, use a weapon, is to destroy the enemy or disarm and immobilize him as soon as possible. And you don’t need to know many techniques to do this. It is important to master them; they must be firmly embedded in the subconscious and muscle memory.
2. The most important thing for a fighter is the ability to use personal weapons and equipment in hand-to-hand combat.
3. Let's start with the machine gun. The blows are delivered with a bayonet, barrel, butt, and magazine.
Thus, even without ammunition, the machine gun remains a formidable weapon in close combat.
In Kadochnikov’s system, which is still taught in some places in domestic law enforcement agencies, the machine gun is even used to immobilize and escort a prisoner.
4. Hand-to-hand combat techniques with a knife are characterized by fast, economical and generally short and low-amplitude movements.
5. The targets for striking are mainly the limbs and neck of the enemy, since, firstly, they contain large blood vessels located close to the surface of the body. Secondly, hitting the opponent’s hands sharply reduces his ability to continue the fight (a hit to the neck, for obvious reasons, practically eliminates this). Thirdly, the torso can be protected by body armor.
6. A soldier must still be able to throw a knife without missing from any position. But he only does this when he has no other choice, because the knife is designed to cut and stab and should lie firmly in the hand, and not move in space, leaving the owner without the last weapon.
7. A terrible weapon in the hands of a soldier is a small sapper blade. The radius of destruction and the length of the cutting edge are much greater than that of any knife. But in these exhibition battles it was not used, and in vain.
8. Confronting an armed enemy while unarmed is also a necessary skill.
9. But taking away a weapon from an enemy is not so easy.
10. Real knives and pistols bring the training situation closer to a combat situation, strengthening psychological resistance to weapons in the hands of the opponent.
11. The fighter still needs the skills to silently destroy sentries and capture enemy troops.
12. It is important for any intelligence officer to be able to search, bind and escort captured or detained persons.
13. A soldier of army units in hand-to-hand combat must kill the enemy in the shortest possible period of time and continue completing the assigned task.
14. The targets for his blows are the temples, eyes, throat, base of the skull, heart (a competent, accurate blow to the heart area leads to its stop). Hit to the groin and knee joints are good as “relaxers”.
15 . The stick, in turn, is the most ancient human weapon.
16 . The methods of its use have been refined over thousands of years and can be adopted for service without any modification or adaptation.
17 . Even if you never have to use hand-to-hand combat skills, it is better to know them and be able to use them.
18. Crunch and cut in half.

Posts tagged “Volgograd”:

Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Chuikov said: “There were dozens and hundreds of such stubbornly defended objects in the city; inside them, “with varying success,” there was a struggle for weeks for every room, for every ledge, for every flight of stairs.”

Zabolotny's house and the house built in its place.

Pavlov's House is a symbol of the perseverance, courage and heroism of the Soviet people shown during the days of the Battle of Stalingrad. The house became an impregnable fortress. The legendary garrison held it for 58 days and did not give it to the enemy.. All this time, there were civilians in the basement of the building. Next to Pavlov's House stood his “twin brother” – Zabolotny House. The company commander, senior lieutenant Ivan Naumov, received an order from the regiment commander, Colonel Elin, to turn two four-story houses located in parallel into strong points, and sent two groups of soldiers there.

The first consisted of three privates and Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, who drove the Germans out of the first house and entrenched themselves in it. Second group - platoon Lieutenant Nikolai Zabolotny– took over the second house. He sent a report to the regimental command post (in a destroyed mill): “The house is occupied by my platoon. Lieutenant Zabolotny." Zabolotny's house was completely destroyed by German artillery at the end of September 1942. Almost the entire platoon and Lieutenant Zabolotny himself died under its ruins.

« Milk house“- this is the name with which this building went down in the history of the Battle of Stalingrad. It was called so by the color of the facade. Like a number of other buildings in the city center, it had important tactical significance. To drive the Germans out of there, units of Soviet troops repeatedly went on the attack. The Germans carefully prepared for defense, and only at the cost of heavy losses were they able to capture it.

The House of Officers was built on the site of the Milk House.

Abundantly watered with the blood of Soviet soldiers and The house of railway workers, the ruins of which were stormed only in early December. Now the street where this building was once located bears the name of senior lieutenant Ivan Naumov, who died defending the “milk house”. This is how he describes the storming of the Railwaymen's House participant of the Battle of Stalingrad Gennady Goncharenko:

“...The terrain conditions made it possible in one area - the south - to distract the Nazi garrison, entrenched in the House of Railwaymen, and in the other - the east - to carry out an assault after a fire raid. The last shot from the gun sounded. The assault group has only three minutes at its disposal. During this time, under the cover of a smoke screen, our fighters had to run to the house, break into it and begin hand-to-hand combat. In three hours, our soldiers completed their combat mission, clearing the Railway Workers’ House from the Nazis...”

The battle of September 19, when Soviet soldiers stormed the State Bank building, cannot be erased from history. The Nazis' rifle and machine-gun fire reached the central pier - the enemy threatened to cut off the crossing. This is how General Alexander Rodimtsev recalls this episode in his book “The Guardsmen Fought to the Death.”

“...We were very much in the way, like a huge boulder on the way, by the State Bank building, almost a quarter of a kilometer long. “This is a fortress,” the soldiers said. And they were right. Strong, meter-thick stone walls and deep basements protected the enemy garrison from artillery fire and air strikes. The entrance doors to the building were only on the enemy side. The surrounding area was covered with multi-layered rifle and machine gun fire from all four floors. This building really looked like a medieval fortress and a modern fort.”

On the site of the destroyed state bank building is a residential building.

But no matter how strong the fascist stronghold was, it could not withstand the onslaught and courage of the Soviet soldiers, who captured this most important fascist defense point in a night battle. The fiercest battle for every house, every building predetermined the outcome of the entire battle. And our grandfathers and fathers won it.

All of the listed buildings were part of the defense system of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division.

If Stalingrad is one of the most significant symbols of the Great Patriotic War, then “Pavlov’s House” is the cornerstone of this symbol. It is known that for 58 days the international garrison held the building in the city center, repelling numerous attacks by the Germans. According to Marshal Chuikov, Pavlov’s group destroyed more Germans than they lost during the capture of Paris, and General Rodimtsev wrote that this ordinary Stalingrad four-story building was listed on Paulus’s personal map as a fortress. But, like most wartime legends created by GlavPUR employees, the official history of the defense of Pavlov’s House has little in common with reality. In addition, much more significant episodes of the Battle of Stalingrad remained in the shadow of the legend, and the name of one person remained in history, leaving the names of others in oblivion. Let's try to correct this injustice.

Birth of a legend

The real events that took place in the fall of 1942 on January 9 Square and a narrow strip along the Volga bank in the city center gradually faded from memory. For many years, only individual episodes seemed to be encrypted in the most famous Stalingrad photographs of correspondent Georgy Zelma. These photographs are necessarily present in every book, article or publication about the epoch-making battle, but almost no one knows what exactly is depicted in them. However, the participants themselves, the soldiers and commanders of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, attached much more importance to these events than to the notorious legend. They are worth talking about.

The location of the objects mentioned in the study, on a German aerial photograph taken in March 1943: 1 – State Bank; 2 – ruins of a brewery; 3 – complex of NKVD buildings; 4 – school No. 6; 5 – Voentorg; 6 – “Zabolotny’s House”; 7 – “Pavlov’s House”; 8 – mill; 9 – “Milk House”; 10 – “House of Railway Workers”; 11 – “L-shaped house”; 12 – school No. 38; 13 – oil tanks (German stronghold); 14 – oil refinery plant; 15 – factory warehouse. Click on the photo to see a larger version

After a series of severe attacks by two German divisions, which reached their peak on September 22, the 13th Guards Division found itself in a very difficult situation. Of its three regiments, one was completely destroyed, and in the other, only one of the three battalions remained. The situation was so critical that on the night of September 22-23, Divisional Commander Major General A.I. Rodimtsev, along with his headquarters, was forced to evacuate from the adit opposite the NKVD building complex to the area of ​​the Banny ravine. But half-encircled and pressed against the Volga, the division survived, holding several blocks in the city center.

Soon the long-awaited reinforcements arrived: the 685th Regiment of the 193rd Infantry Division was transferred to Rodimtsev’s disposal, and the bloodless 34th Guards Regiment of Lieutenant Colonel D.I. Panikhin, in which 48 “active bayonets” remained on the evening of September 22, was replenished by sending a marching company of about 1,300 people.

For the next two days, relative calm established itself in the division’s sector; only to the south was frequent cannonade heard: there, in the area of ​​the City Garden and the mouth of the Tsarina, German units were finishing off the remnants of the left flank of the 62nd Army. To the north, behind the Dolgiy and Krutoy ravines, oil tanks were smoking, a fierce firefight could be heard - the sailors from the 284th SD were recapturing the burning Oil Syndicate and Hardware Plant from the Germans.

Fragment of the map “Plan of the city of Stalingrad and its environs” 1941–1942. The headquarters of Rodimtsev’s division were very lucky that they had one of the copies of the map on hand, from which they made a tracing paper - the staff workers of many units of the 62nd Army literally drew the layout diagrams “on their knees.” But this plan was largely conditional: for example, it did not show strong multi-story buildings that play a decisive role in street battles.

On September 23 and 24, the opponents probed the front line - during short skirmishes and skirmishes, the front line gradually emerged. The left flank of Rodimtsev’s division abutted the Volga, where the high-rise buildings of the State Bank and the House of Specialists, captured by the Germans, stood on a high cliff. A hundred meters from the State Bank there were the ruins of a brewery, where soldiers of the 39th Guards Regiment occupied positions.

In the center of the front of the 13th Guards Rifle Division there was a huge complex of departmental and residential buildings of the NKVD, which occupied an entire block. The labyrinths of ruins, strong walls and huge basements of the prison were perfectly suited for urban battles, and the NKVD buildings became the core of the defense of Rodimtsev’s division. Opposite the complex, separated by the wide Republican Street and scorched wooden blocks, stood two German strongholds - a four-story school No. 6 and a five-story military trade building. By that time, the buildings had changed hands several times, but on September 22 they were recaptured by the Germans.

A view from the German side. By September 17, School No. 6 would have already burned out during the fighting. Photo from the collection of Dirk Jeschke courtesy of Anton Joly

Just north of the NKVD buildings was mill No. 4, a strong four-story building with secure basements. Here the positions of the last of the battalions of the 42nd Guards Regiment were equipped - the 3rd battalion of Captain A.E. Zhukova. Behind the warehouse buildings and the wide neutral strip of Penza Street, a huge wasteland of January 9 Square began, where two as yet nameless and unremarkable buildings could be seen.

The right flank of Rodimtsev's division was held by soldiers of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment. The line of defense was extremely unfortunate - it ran along the edge of a high cliff. Very nearby stood huge five- and six-story buildings occupied by enemy German infantry - the “Railway Workers' House” and the “L-Shaped House.” The high-rises dominated the surrounding area, and German spotters had a good view of the positions of the Soviet troops, the shore and the section of the river nearby. In addition, in the section of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, two deep ravines led to the Volga - Dolgiy and Krutoy, literally cutting off the 13th Guards Rifle Division from the 284th Rifle Division of Colonel N.F. Batyuk, the neighbor on the right, and the rest of the 62nd Army. Very soon these circumstances will play their fatal role.

Positions of the units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division on September 25. The diagram also shows the 685th Infantry Regiment attached to Rodimtsev. On the right side of the map, near the ravines, the actions of units of the 284th SD are visible. On the left side, surrounded in the area of ​​the department store, the 1st battalion of the 42nd Guards Regiment, Senior Lieutenant F.G. Fedoseeva

A diagram of the location of units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division on September 25, 1942, transferred to an aerial photo. On the left flank were the lines of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment of Major S.S. Dolgov, in the center - 42nd Guards Regiment Colonel I.P. Elina, on the right flank the soldiers of the 34th Guards Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel D.I., held the defense. Panikhina

On the morning of September 25, units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, following orders from army headquarters, “in small groups, using grenades, petrol bombs and mortars of all calibers” tried to improve their position. The third battalion of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment managed to get out and gain a foothold on the line of Republican Street, and the soldiers of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment managed to clear several wooden houses in the area of ​​the 2nd Embankment. The 685th joint venture attached to the division advanced in the direction of January 9 Square and school No. 6, but, suffering losses from heavy machine-gun and artillery fire from the western side of the square, was not successful.

Guardsmen of the 3rd battalion of the 42nd Guards Regiment from the group of junior lieutenant N.E. Zabolotny, digging a trench across Solnechnaya Street, managed to occupy the ruins of a four-story building, which will later be designated as “Zabolotny’s House.” There were no losses: there were no Germans in the ruins. The next night, junior sergeant Ya.F. Pavlov received an order from the commander of the 7th company, Senior Lieutenant I.I. Naumov to scout out a four-story building on January 9 Square, which stood next to the ruins of the “Zabolotny house”. Pavlov had already established himself as an excellent fighter - a week earlier, he, together with Zabolotny and a group of fighters, cleared the military trade house from the Germans, for which he later received the medal “For Courage”. The day before, Pavlov returned alive from an unsuccessful search, the task of which was to break through to the encircled 1st battalion.

A 25-year-old junior sergeant selected three soldiers from his squad, - V.S. Glushchenko, A.P. Alexandrova, N.Ya. Chernogolov, - after waiting for darkness, he began to complete the task. From the NP, the actions of the small group were monitored by battalion commander Zhukov, who had received an order from the regiment commander a little earlier to seize the house on the square. The group was supported by machine gun and mortar fire from the entire regiment, then neighbors to the right and left joined. In the confusion of the battle, running from crater to crater, four fighters covered the distance from the mill warehouses to the four-story building and disappeared into the entrance opening.

On the left is “Zabolotny’s House”, on the right is “Pavlov’s House”. The video was shot by cinematographer V.I. Orlyankin with a real risk of catching a bullet - German positions in a hundred meters of open space on Solnechnaya Street

What happened next is known only from the words of Yakov Pavlov himself. While combing the next entrance, four Red Army soldiers noticed Germans in one of the apartments. At that moment, Pavlov made a fateful decision - not only to scout out the house, but also to try to seize it on his own. Surprise, F-1 grenades and a burst from the PPSh decided the outcome of the fleeting battle - the house was captured.

In Zhukov’s post-war memoirs, everything looks a little different. In correspondence with fellow soldiers, the battalion commander claimed that Pavlov captured “his” house without a fight - there were simply no Germans in the building, as in the neighboring “Zabolotny House”. One way or another, it was Zhukov who, having designated a new landmark for the artillerymen as “Pavlov’s House,” laid the first stone in the foundation of the legend. A couple of days later, the regiment’s agitator, senior political instructor L.P. Root will write a short note to the political department of the 62nd Army about a rather ordinary episode of those days, and history will begin to wait in the wings.

Little island of tranquility

For two days, Pavlov and three soldiers held the building while battalion commander Zhukov and company commander Naumov gathered fighters from the thinned battalion for a new strong point. The garrison consisted of: a crew of the Maxim machine gun under the command of Lieutenant I.F. Afanasyev, a squad of three anti-tank rifles of sergeant Andrei Sobgaida and two company mortar crews under the command of junior lieutenant Alexei Chernushenko. Together with machine gunners, the garrison numbered about 30 soldiers. As the senior in rank, Lieutenant Afanasyev became commander.

On the left is Guard Junior Sergeant Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov, on the right is Guard Lieutenant Ivan Filippovich Afanasyev

In addition to the fighters, civilians huddled in the basement of the house - old people, women and children. In total, there were more than 50 people in the building, so general everyday rules and the position of commandant were required. Junior Sergeant Pavlov rightfully became it. When it became clear that German positions were visible from the upper floors of the house for several kilometers, a communication line was installed into the building, and spotters settled in the attic. The strong point received the call sign “Mayak” and became one of the main outposts in the defense system of the 13th Guards Rifle Division.

On September 26, the first assault on Stalingrad ended, during which the Germans destroyed the last centers of resistance on the left flank of the 62nd Army. The German command rightly believed that the tasks of the infantry divisions in the city center had been completely completed: the bank of the Volga had been reached, the main Russian crossing had ceased its work. On September 27, the second assault began; The main events and hostilities moved to workers' villages north of Mamayev Kurgan. South of the mound, in the central and southern regions of the city captured by the Germans, the command of the 6th Army left the 71st and 295th infantry divisions, which were bled dry in the September battles and were only suitable for defense. The small bridgehead of the 13th Guards Rifle Division eventually found itself aside from the main events, literally on the outskirts of the epoch-making battle for Stalingrad.

At the end of September, Rodimtsev’s division was assigned the task together with those attached to the 685th joint venture and two mortar companies “hold the occupied area and, through the actions of small assault and blocking groups, destroy the enemy in the buildings he has captured.” It must be said that Army Commander Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov by order prohibited the conduct of offensive actions by entire units - a company or battalion - which resulted in large losses. The 62nd Army began to learn urban combat.

Two photographs taken by photojournalist S. Loskutov in the fall of 1942 in the trenches east of the ruins of the NKVD building complex. Judging by the direction of the barrel, the mortar crew is shelling the military trade area

Like pincers, Rodimtsev’s division was squeezed on both sides by German strongholds located in strong and tall buildings. On the left flank there were four- and five-story “Houses of Specialists” and the State Bank building. The Red Army soldiers already tried to recapture the latter from the Germans on September 19 - the sappers blew up the wall, and the assault group managed to occupy part of the building - however, during the offensive on September 22, the German infantry recaptured it again. Within a few days, the Germans managed to thoroughly fortify themselves: not only machine-gun points were equipped in the ruins, but also positions of small-caliber guns, and barbed wire was strung along the walls.

On the night of September 29, scouts from the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment managed to secretly approach the building and threw COP bottles at the windows. Several rooms were engulfed in fire, an easel machine gun and a 37-mm cannon were destroyed, and the advance group began a firefight. But the bulk of the soldiers were recently arrived recruits from Central Asia, and they did not go on the attack. The squad leaders literally pulled reluctant soldiers out of the trenches to help the dying assault group, but it was too late. It was not possible to capture the State Bank; many old soldiers and honored intelligence officers died. The problem of the quality of replenishment during this period was very acute: at the end of September, in the 39th Guards Regiment, six “Uzbeks” were shot for “self-inflicted gunfire” - this is how all immigrants from Central Asia were called in the 62nd Army.

Unique video: the State Bank building after the August bombing. In September there were fierce battles for it, but after an unsuccessful assault on the night of September 29, no more attempts were made to recapture the State Bank. The strong point remained with the Germans

On the right flank, where the positions of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment were located, the situation was even worse. Not far from the steep cliff stood two huge buildings captured by the Germans - the so-called “Railway Workers' House” and the “L-Shaped House”. The first one did not have time to be completed before the war; only the foundation and the northern wing were completed. The “L-shaped house” was a five-six-story “Stalin” building, from the upper floors of which German spotters could view almost the entire bridgehead of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. Both huge structures were heavily fortified and looked more like impregnable fortresses. In this area, the positions of the 295th Wehrmacht Infantry Division came closest to a steep cliff, under which only a narrow strip of shore connected Rodimtsev’s division with the rest of the 62nd Army. The fate of the division hung in the balance, and the capture of these two German fortified points for the next three months became a real fixed idea of ​​the headquarters of the 13th Guards Rifle Division and its commander.

Detachment as the last argument

September was coming to an end. Exhausted opponents burrowed deeper into the ground. Every night the clang of shovels and the sound of pickaxes could be heard, and combat reports were full of numbers of dug cubes of earth and linear meters of trenches. Barricades and communication passages were erected across streets and open areas, and sappers mined dangerous areas. Window openings were blocked with bricks, and embrasures were made in the walls. Reserve positions were dug out further from the walls, as many soldiers died under the rubble. After the fire at the State Bank, the Germans began to cover the windows of the upper floors with bed nets - the likelihood of being burned at night by a flying bottle of COP or a thermite ball from an ampoule gun was very high.

The calm did not last long. October 1 almost became the last day for the defenders of the small bridgehead. The day before, the 295th Wehrmacht Infantry Division received reinforcements and the task of finally reaching the Volga in its sector. To support the offensive, a sapper battalion arrived from the group of the commander of the engineering forces of the 6th Army, Oberst Max von Stiotta ( Max Edler von Stiotta). The strike was planned at the most vulnerable point in the defense of Rodimtsev’s division - the area of ​​​​the Dolgiy and Krutoy ravines, where there was a junction with the 284th SD. In addition, the Germans decided to abandon their favorite tactics of a massive artillery attack and air strike followed by clearing out neighborhoods. A surprise night attack was supposed to bring success.

At 00:30 Berlin time, units of the 295th Infantry Division and attached units secretly accumulated to the west of the tram bridge and through a drainage pipe in the embankment began to seep along the slopes of the Krutoy ravine to the shore of the Volga. Having crushed the military guard, the German infantry came close to the positions of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment. Shooting the Red Army soldiers taken by surprise, the Germans captured one trench after another, quickly moving forward. Explosions of grenades and concentrated charges were heard: sappers blew up dugouts with blocked Soviet soldiers. From the bunker on the slope, a “Maxim” rattled rhythmically; in response, a stream of flamethrower splashed towards the embrasure. There was hand-to-hand combat at the headquarters dugouts; Russians and Germans, their faces twisted with rage, were killing each other. Intensifying the intensity of the madness, a jazz melody was suddenly heard in the darkness, and then calls to surrender were heard from the banks of the Volga in broken German.

By five o'clock in the morning, a critical situation had developed at the line of Rodimtsev's division. The strike groups of the 295th Infantry Division, having crushed the defenses of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, reached the Volga near the mouth of the Krutoy ravine. The commander and commissar of the 2nd battalion were killed in the battle. Continuing the offensive, the German infantry began to advance in two directions: to the north, where the headquarters of the 13th Guards Rifle Division was located, and to the south - to the mortar positions and rear of the surrounded 39th and 42nd Guards Rifle Regiments. Soon Rodimtsev lost contact with the rest of the division - the Germans cut the cable running along the coast.

One of the mortar companies was commanded by Senior Lieutenant G.E. Brick. The Germans came close to the company's positions - the opponents were separated only by railway tracks lined with wagons. In violation of all instructions, the company commander ordered the mortar barrels to be placed almost vertically. Having shot off the last mines, the crews under the command of Grigory Brik launched a bayonet attack on the taken aback Germans.

On the left in the photo is Grigory Evdokimovich Brik (post-war photo). He was lucky to survive the night battle on October 1, for which he was awarded the second Order of the Red Star. Brik went through the entire war, and in 1945 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. On the right is the commander of the 2nd battalion of the 34th Guards Regiment, Senior Lieutenant Pyotr Arsentievich Loktionov. On the morning of October 1, his mutilated body was found near the broken headquarters dugouts. The senior lieutenant was 23 years old.

A diagram of the night battle of the 13th Guards Rifle Division transferred to an aerial photograph from the General Staff book “Fighting in Stalingrad” of 1944. In addition to the main attack on the Krutoy ravine, units of the 295th Infantry Division attacked the positions of the 3rd battalion of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment on Respublikanskaya Street; 1st battalion of the 34th Guards Regiment. The destroyed building of the oil refinery plant is highlighted at the bottom right

Rodimtsev’s last reserve were 30 soldiers of the barrage battalion under the command of platoon commander Lieutenant A.T. Stroganov. He received the task from the mouth of the Dolgiy ravine to knock out the Germans from the positions of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment. Having stopped the retreating and demoralized soldiers of the 3rd battalion, he led a counterattack on the Germans breaking through to the division headquarters. The firefight began under the cliff of a steep bank, where there were warehouses and piers of an oil refinery plant and a coastal railway. The Germans could not get further. Lieutenant Alexander Stroganov was nominated for the Order of Lenin, but the command of the 62nd Army reduced the award to the Medal “For Courage”.

The bank of the Volga in the area of ​​warehouses and the building of an oil refinery plant. The destroyed wall of the factory is visible at the top of the cliff. Filming by cameraman Orlyankin

By 06:00, having brought up the collected reserves, units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division launched a counterattack. We finally managed to contact the artillerymen on the other side of the Volga - the area of ​​​​the Krutoy ravine, along which the Germans were bringing up reinforcements, was shrouded in dust from the explosions of large-caliber shells. The units of the 295th Infantry Division that broke through to the Volga, having fallen into a trap on the bank, faltered and began to retreat along the ravine back to the tram bridge. While pursuing the enemy, the fighters were also able to recapture several groups of Red Army soldiers who had previously been captured. Soon the situation at the line of Rodimtsev’s division was restored. In the combat log of the 6th Army, the unsuccessful attack of the 295th Infantry Division is marked with terse lines:

“The offensive of the 295th Infantry Division, with the support of Stiotta’s group, initially had serious success, but was then stopped under heavy fire. As a result of small arms fire from the north and from unsuppressed pockets of resistance in the rear, it was necessary to retreat to their original positions. The front line of defense is under constant artillery fire.”

Later, according to reports from the field, interesting identifying marks were found on the Germans killed on the shore - paratroopers, veterans of the landing on Crete, took part in the night attack. It was also reported that some of the German soldiers were dressed in Red Army uniforms.

For two days the 13th Guards Rifle Division put itself in order, the soldiers counted and buried their dead comrades. The 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, which came under the pressure of the German offensive for the second time, suffered the heaviest damage. The regiment's reports on irretrievable losses noted: on October 1, 77 Red Army soldiers went missing and 130 died, on October 2 – another 18 and 83 people, respectively. By an evil irony of fate, it was on October 1 that the central newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda published the article “Heroes of Stalingrad” with a letter-oath from Rodimtsev’s guardsmen, which turned out to be literally sealed in blood.

After the unsuccessful offensive on the night of October 1, the Germans no longer undertook such large-scale military operations in the sector of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, limiting themselves to local attacks. The fight for a small section of the city center took on a positional character: the opponents exchanged artillery and mortar fire, and the number of people killed from sniper fire increased sharply.

At night, the small bridgehead came to life and resembled an anthill: soldiers hastily unloaded boats with ammunition, commanders sent small reinforcement groups to positions. After the landing, the division's rear officers were able to establish supplies, and Rodimtsev had his own small fleet - about 30 rowing boats and boats. It was the inability to independently provide for themselves in the conditions of a city cut off by a river that destroyed the 92nd Special Brigade in September.

During the day, the streets and ruins of the city died out. Any movement - be it a fighter running from door to door, or a civilian in search of food - caused fire. There were cases when German soldiers, in order to cross an area under fire, changed into women's clothing. All enemy concentration areas, field kitchens and water sources became the objects of close attention of sharp shooters on both sides. Huge ruined buildings, open spaces and a stable front line made the ruined city center a suitable arena for sniper duels.

Among the snipers of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, the commander of the 39th Guards Rifle Division, Sergeant A.I., immediately stood out with accurate fire. Chekhov. Having graduated with honors from the Central School of Sniper Instructors, Chekhov was not only a good shooter, but also knew how to teach his comrades in his specialty, many of whom later surpassed him. When Vasily Grossman visited Rodimtsev’s division, he had a long conversation with a modest and thoughtful guy, who at the age of 19 had become an excellent killing machine. The writer was so impressed by his sincere interest in life, thoughtful approach to his work and hatred of the invaders that Grossman dedicated one of his first essays about the Battle of Stalingrad to Anatoly Chekhov.

Sniper Anatoly Chekhov at work, filmed by cameraman Orlyankin. The location and circumstances of the shooting have not yet been determined

It so happened that the sergeant lost his last sniper duel. He and the German fired simultaneously; both missed, but the enemy bullet still reached the target with a ricochet. Chekhov, with a blind chest wound, was literally forcibly transported to a hospital on the left bank, but a few days later the sergeant reappeared at the regiment’s positions and chalked up three more Germans. When the rising temperature knocked the guy down in the evening, it turned out that Chekhov had escaped from the hospital and had not yet undergone surgery.

Exemplary defense

On October 11, at the site of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment, a group of 35 Red Army soldiers attempted to storm an unfinished four-story building. Thus, an epic began in the division with two buildings, the names of which from that moment began to appear more often than others in combat reports and reports - “Railway Workers’ House” and “L-Shaped House”.

For two months, units of the 34th and 42nd Guards Regiments tried to drive the Germans out of these fortified points. In October, two attempts to capture the "Railway Workers' House" ended in failure. In the first case, with the support of artillery and mortar fire, the assault squad was able to reach the building and even penetrate inside, starting a grenade battle. But the approach of the main part of the fighters was blocked by unsuppressed German firing points from the flanks, from the neighboring “L-shaped house” and other buildings. The assault group had to retreat; during the assault, the company commander was killed and the battalion commander was wounded.

Collage of aerial photos from October 2, 1942 and August video footage of a panorama of the Volga bank

On October 24, during the second attack, the “House of Railway Workers” was first fired upon by 152-mm howitzers from the left bank of the Volga. After artillery preparation, 18 soldiers of the assault group ran towards the huge ruins, but were met by flanking machine gun fire, and then the approaches to the house were fired at by mortars from the depths of the German defense. Suffering losses, the group retreated this time too.

The third assault followed on November 1. At 16:00, after heavy shelling from high-power guns, units of the 34th and 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment in small groups again tried to capture the “House of Railway Workers”, but on the approach to the building they were met with dense rifle and machine gun fire and returned to their original positions. At 20:00 the attack came again. Having reached the wall, the Soviet soldiers stumbled upon a wire fence and came under cross-machine gun fire. From the ruins, the Germans threw swords, bunches of grenades and bottles of flammable mixture at the guards pinned to the ground. Without success, the surviving fighters of the assault group were only able to crawl to their trenches at night.

Despite the fact that the main German positions in the built northern wing of the “House of Railwaymen” were not captured, the Red Army soldiers managed to occupy the foundation of the southern wing, predetermining the tactical plan for the next assault.

One of a series of famous Stalingrad photographs by G. Zelma. The photo was taken in a trench coming out of the unfinished southern wing of the “Railway Workers’ House”; behind the soldier the nearby “Pavlov’s House” is visible. In the first photo from the series, the “killed” fighter in the lower right corner is still “alive.” According to the author of the article, this series of photos of Zelma is a kind of reconstruction of the fighting of the 13th Guards Rifle Division and was filmed after the end of the fighting, in the spring of 1943. Linking the location to the photo of D. Zimin and A. Skvorin

During October, when the 13th Guards Rifle Division tried to improve its position in the bridgehead, north of Mamayev Kurgan, Army Commander Chuikov suffered defeat after defeat. During the second and third assaults on the city, the Germans captured the workers’ villages “Red October” and “Barricades”, the village named after. Rykov, Sculpture Park, Mountain Village and Stalingrad Tractor Plant. By the end of October, the enemy had almost completely occupied the Barrikady and Red October factories. German large-caliber artillery swept away the wooden neighborhoods of workers' settlements, multi-story buildings and huge workshops, the aviation of the 4th Luftwaffe Air Fleet with heavy bombs mixed the positions of Soviet troops with the ground - in the October battles, suffering huge losses, entire divisions were burned in a few days: the 138th, 193rd and 308th SD, 37th GSD...

All this time, the site of Rodimtsev’s division was the quietest place on the line of defense of the 62nd Army, and soon writers and journalists flocked there. Stalingrad was practically lost - and, therefore, evidence to the contrary was required, examples of a long and successful defense. Newspapers visited positions, talked with commanders and political workers, among whom was the agitator of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment Leonid Koren. The division's strongholds in the ruins of the brewery and in the basements of the NKVD prison were poorly suited for an article about the heroic defenders of Stalingrad; the Germans were firmly seated in the "House of Railway Workers" and the "L-Shaped House". The story told by the political instructor about the seizure of a four-story building on January 9 Square at the end of September was a real find for the GlavPUR of the Red Army.

The first publication appeared on October 31, 1942 - an article by junior political instructor Yu.P. was published in the newspaper of the 62nd Army “Stalin's Banner”. Chepurin "Pavlov's House". The article took up an entire page and was an excellent example of army propaganda. It colorfully described the battle for the house, noted the initiative of the junior and the role of the senior command staff, especially highlighted the international garrison, and even listed its fighters - “Russian people Pavlov, Aleksandrov, Afanasyev, Ukrainians Sobgaida, Glushchenko, Georgians Mosiyashvili, Stepanoshvili, Uzbek Turgunov, Kazakh Murzaev, Abkhazian Sukba, Tajik Turdyev, Tatar Romazanov and dozens of their fighting friends.” The author immediately brought to the fore the “houseowner” junior sergeant Pavlov, and the garrison commander, Lieutenant Afanasyev, was left out of work.

At the beginning of November, capital journalists D.F. were transferred to the 13th Guards Rifle Division. Akulshin and V.N. Kuprin, who stayed in the dugout of the 42nd GSP agitator Leonid Koren. One day Root came into his room and found his guests leafing through his diary notes. The combat political instructor wanted to hit the capital's scribblers on the neck, but they not only calmed him down, but also persuaded him to publish in a central newspaper. Already on November 19, Pravda published a series of essays by Koren, “Stalingrad Days,” the last of which was called “Pavlov’s House.” The series quickly became popular; Yuri Levitan read it on the radio. The example of an ordinary sergeant was truly inspiring for ordinary soldiers, and the whole country recognized Yakov Pavlov.

What is significant is that in the first stories about the capture of house No. 61 on Penzenskaya Street it was clearly stated that there were no Germans there. However, all the other components of the future legend were already in place, and this point was subsequently corrected.

While GlavPUR workers were working on the ideological front, in the positions of Rodimtsev’s division events were taking their course. At the end of October - beginning of November, the exhausted opponents practically did not conduct active hostilities in the city center. The risk of being killed at any moment was still high - judging by the testimony of doctors of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, most soldiers died from shrapnel wounds. The operating room was located in a sewer pipe on the slope of the steep bank of the Volga, and the division headquarters was located nearby, near the mouth of the Dolgiy ravine. The seriously wounded were transported at night to the other side, where, under the leadership of Colonel I.I. Okhlobystin worked as a divisional medical battalion.

Nurses of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. The photographs were taken near the ruins of a four-story building that stood east of the mill - now a panorama museum in this place. Leading the way is Maria Ulyanova (Ladychenkova), a staff nurse at the Pavlov’s House garrison.

The holiday of November 7 has arrived. On this day, the 13th Guards Rifle Division presented guards badges and awarded distinguished fighters, the divisional ensemble performed, meetings were held in dugouts and basements of strongholds, baths were organized for the soldiers on the shore and winter uniforms were issued to them. Despite daily artillery and mortar attacks, life continued on the bridgehead.

Divisional ensemble of the 13th Guards Rifle Division. The photo was taken near the mouth of the Dolgiy ravine. At the top you can see the destroyed warehouse of the oil refinery plant

The wasted work of sappers

While the guards were preparing for the celebration of November 7, in the defense sector of the 42nd Guards Regiment, the engineer platoon of Lieutenant I.I. Chumakov worked tirelessly. From the southern part of the foundation of the “Railway Workers' House” captured from the Germans, a mine gallery was dug at a depth of five meters towards the northern wing held by the Germans. The work was carried out in complete darkness with a lack of air; Due to the lack of special tools, sappers dug with small infantry shovels. Three tons of tola were then placed into the chamber at the end of the 42-meter tunnel.

On November 10, at two o’clock in the morning, there was a deafening explosion - the “House of Railway Workers” was blown up into the air. The northern wing was half swept away by the blast wave. Heavy pieces of foundation and frozen earth fell onto the positions of the opposing sides for a whole minute, and right in the middle of the unfinished building a huge crater with a diameter of more than 30 meters gaped.

In the photo, Ivan Iosifovich Chumakov, a 19-year-old commander of a sapper platoon in Stalingrad. His fighters undermined the State Bank and the House of Railwaymen; Grossman wrote with delight about Lieutenant Chumakov in Krasnaya Zvezda. In the aerial photo dated March 29, 1943, the explosion crater is clearly visible; on the right is a diagram of an underground mine attack from the book “Fighting in Stalingrad,” published in 1944

A minute and a half after the explosion, assault groups rushed to attack from covered trenches 130-150 meters from the object. According to the plan, three groups with a total of about 40 people from three directions were supposed to break into the building, but in the darkness and confusion of the battle it was not possible to act coherently. Some of the fighters stumbled upon the remains of a wire fence and were unable to reach the walls. Another group tried to enter the basement through a smoking crater, but the surviving wall of the boiler room prevented them. Due to the commander’s indecisiveness, this group did not go on the attack, remaining in cover. Time was inexorably running out: the Germans were already bringing up reinforcements through the trenches to help the stunned and shell-shocked garrison. A series of rockets illuminated the ruins of the building and the battlefield in front of it, German machine guns came to life, pinning the hesitant Red Army soldiers to the ground. The attempt to seize the “House of Railway Workers” was unsuccessful this time too.

The answer was not long in coming - on November 11, in the area of ​​the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment southeast of the State Bank, German infantry tried to shoot down a Soviet military outpost, but the attack was repulsed by rifle and machine-gun fire. The artillery shelling of the night crossing intensified, and three boats with food were sunk. As a result of a German air raid, warehouses with ammunition and uniforms located on the shore burned down. The division experienced major supply shortages.

On November 11, junior sergeant of the machine gun battalion A.I. died in battle. Starodubtsev. Alexey Ivanovich was a well-known machine gunner in the division, an old, honored fighter. During the battle, a shell exploded near his position and the machine gunner’s head was crushed by a fragment of a wall. The second number was wounded. In a unique case, Starodubtsev’s funeral was filmed by cameraman Orlyankin, then these shots ended up in the 1943 film “Stalingrad”. Filming location – eastern part of the NKVD building complex

In the harsh conditions of the onset of frost and meager rations in the destroyed city, the Red Army soldiers arranged their modest life. Gunsmiths worked on the shore, craftsmen repaired watches, made potbelly stoves, lamps and other household items. The Red Army soldiers stole from the destroyed apartments into frozen basements, dugouts and dugouts everything that could create at least the appearance of comfort: beds and armchairs, carpets and paintings. Valuable finds were considered musical instruments, gramophones and records, books, board games - everything that helped brighten up leisure time.

This was the case in Pavlov's House. When not on duty, on assignments, or during engineering work, the garrison gathered in the basement of the building. After a couple of months of positional defense, the fighters got used to each other and formed a well-coordinated combat mechanism. This was greatly facilitated by intelligent junior commanders and competent political workers; as a result, recently drafted, often uneducated and poorly versed in Russian, recruits became good and reliable fighters. By the will of fate, the Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, Kazakhs, Georgians, Abkhazians, Uzbeks, Kalmyks gathered on a piece of Stalingrad land were united as never before in the face of a common enemy and blood-tied by the death of their comrades.

Commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, Major General Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev and his soldiers

The first half of November passed, wet snow began to fall, sludge began to fall along the Volga - small pieces of the first autumn ice. Food supply became very tight; there was a shortage of ammunition and medicine. The wounded and sick could not be evacuated - the boats could not make their way to the shore. The fact of desertion was recorded in the division - two Red Army soldiers ran over to the Germans from the positions of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment.

From defense to offense

On the morning of November 19, an unusual activity was noticeable near the headquarters dugouts: the commanders came out every now and then, stood for a long time and smoked, as if listening to something. The next day, political commissars were already reading out to the soldiers the order of the Military Council of the Stalingrad Front - Soviet troops launched the long-awaited counteroffensive. Operation Uranus began.

On November 21, in accordance with the order of the 62nd Army, Rodimtsev’s division began active operations. The command of the encircled 6th Wehrmacht Army was forced to form a new front in the west, withdrawing units from positions in the city. It was necessary to identify the composition of the German units opposing the 13th Guards Rifle Division, and in the morning a reconnaissance group consisting of 16 soldiers and four flamethrowers raided the enemy’s German dugout with the aim of capturing a prisoner. Alas, the scouts were discovered, the Germans called mortar fire on themselves, and, having suffered losses, the reconnaissance group returned.

On November 22, in the areas of the upcoming offensive, division units conducted reconnaissance in force - seven reconnaissance groups of 25 soldiers, under the cover of mortars and machine guns, simulated an attack, revealing the fire system of the 295th Wehrmacht Infantry Division. Observation established that the fire system remained the same; with the start of the attack, the enemy pulled groups of 10-15 people to the front edge, but the artillery fire noticeably weakened.

The number of fighters in the 13th Guards Rifle Division, as in other formations of the 62nd Army, was very far from the standard number

If the search to capture the “language” had been successful, then the headquarters of the 13th Guards Rifle Division would have learned that the 517th Regiment Regiment of the 295th Infantry Division and headquarters units had been removed from their positions by the command of the 6th Army. The battle formations were consolidated with units of the 71st Infantry Division stationed on the left flank.

Despite a significant shortage of personnel, the 13th Guards Rifle Division, like the rest of the 62nd Army formations, received orders to go on the offensive “with the task of destroying the enemy and reaching the western outskirts of Stalingrad.” Rodimtsev planned to attack the positions of the 295th Infantry Division from the January 9 Square with the reinforced 42nd Guards Regiment, break through the German defenses and reach the railway line. The 34th and 39th Guards Rifles were supposed to support the advance of their neighbors in the center with fire. Also in their sector, one company of the 34th Guards Regiment and a company of the training battalion took part in the offensive. It was not intended to storm German strongholds, but to block them with fire and move forward. The divisional artillery was tasked with suppressing the German fire system in the areas of the Krutoy and Dolgiy ravines, the “House of Railway Workers” and the northern part of January 9 Square, providing fire for infantry advance and preventing enemy counterattacks.

On the night of November 24, there was no crowd in “Pavlov’s house” - the infantry occupied not only all the basement compartments, but also the rooms on the first floor. Sappers cleared mine passages on January 9 Square, soldiers in their starting positions prepared weapons, filled pouches and overcoat pockets with ammunition. A little further away, the details of the upcoming attack were discussed by the commanders of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment: the commander of the 3rd battalion, Captain A.E. Zhukov, commander of the 7th company, senior lieutenant I.I. Naumov, commanders and commissars of units, senior lieutenant V.D. Avagimov, Lieutenant I.F. Afanasyev, junior lieutenant A.I. Anikin and others. The garrison of Pavlov's House was disbanded that night, and the soldiers formally returned to their units.

A piercing wind with wet snow was blowing from the Volga. While it was still dark, the guardsmen of the 7th company crawled out onto the square, scattering along the line in craters and ruins. Lieutenant Afanasyev led the fighters out of the “House of Pavlov”, and junior lieutenant Alexey Anikin from the neighboring ruins of the “House of Zabolotny”. Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Zabolotny himself died in reconnaissance in action the day before. By 07:00 everything was ready.

Bloody "Milk House"

At 10:00 the order was given, and under the cover of artillery, the battalions of the 42nd Guards Regiment went on the attack. However, it was not possible to completely suppress the German firing points, and in the open space of the square, the soldiers of the 3rd battalion immediately came under crossfire from the south, from the military trade buildings and school No. 6, and from the north, from German positions in the burnt wooden blocks of Tobolskaya Street. By 14:00 the 2nd battalion of captain V.G. Andrianov managed to crawl and capture trenches on the streets of Kutaisskaya and Tambovskaya, north of a huge wasteland. The companies of the 34th Guards Regiment and the training battalion advancing near the ravines advanced only 30-50 meters. They were prevented from going further by intense machine-gun fire from the German resistance center - two huge oil tanks fenced with a concrete fence. In the evening, the battalions made two more unsuccessful attempts to move forward.

The results of the first day of the offensive were disappointing: it was not possible to break through the defenses of the 295th Infantry Division immediately. The Germans spent two months equipping and improving their positions, and Rodimtsev’s bloodless division was unable to reach the railway line. But no one canceled the order, so the assigned tasks had to be solved. The main problem was the firing points in the area of ​​the military trade store and school No. 6, so the capture of these strong points in order to cover the left flank of the advancing 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment became the primary goal.

View of German positions from the observation post of the 39th Guards Regiment, located in the ruins of the NKVD building complex

Early in the morning of November 25, the assault group of the 39th Guards Rifle Regiment managed to clear the five-story military trade building. Without wasting time, a group of machine gunners under the command of Senior Lieutenant I.Ya. Undermining ran to the brick two-story buildings on Nizhegorodskaya Street and began throwing grenades at the Germans in school building No. 6. Unable to withstand the onslaught, infantrymen from the 518th PP of the 295th Infantry Division retreated to neighboring ruins and, regrouping there, launched a counterattack. The Germans tried to recapture the school building twice, but both times they were driven back by volley fire.

WITHa series of photographs by G. Zelma, in which, according to the author, a reconstruction of the assault on school No. 6 was filmed

In the morning twilight, the Red Army soldiers of Naumov's company, under fire, were able to reach the tram tracks on the western side of the January 9 Square. Directly behind them, the window openings of a destroyed three-story building covered with peeling plaster, designated for its color in the reports of the 13th Guards Rifle Division as the “Milk House,” were blackened. On the top floor of the surviving left wing, a German machine gunner sat down, pressing the guardsmen into the pockmarked asphalt in long bursts. 30 meters in front of the house stood the burnt-out shell of a semi-truck; in a crater nearby, the machine-gun crew of Senior Sergeant I.V. was hiding. Voronova. After waiting a moment, the soldiers took the Maxim out of cover, and the senior sergeant fired several bursts into the window opening, where flashes of shots flashed. The German machine gun fell silent and, wheezing “hurray” with cold throats, the Red Army soldiers burst into the Milk House.

The Germans who did not have time to leave were finished off in hand-to-hand combat. There was an order from Captain Zhukov to hold the Milk House at all costs, and the entire 7th company moved into its ruins. The soldiers hastily filled up the openings in the western wall with debris and prepared firing points on the upper floors. Grenades were already flying from the German trenches approaching the building, and mortar fire intensified. At this moment, an unpleasant circumstance became clear: the house did not have a basement. Arriving mines and grenades, exploding in a burnt-out box, cut the soldiers with fragments from which there was no salvation. Soon the dead and wounded appeared - the Milk House became a death trap.

The battle for the ruins continued all day. German infantry tried to get inside several times, but were driven back each time. This was followed by mortar fire, grenades flying into the windows, and several defenders were knocked out of action. 23-year-old nurse Maria Ulyanova pulled the wounded under the stairs, where it was possible to somehow hide from the shrapnel. As daylight approached, throwing reinforcements and ammunition through the fire-raided wasteland became deadly. The Germans rolled out a cannon into the destroyed end of the three-story building next to the Milk House and, with a direct fire shot, destroyed the last heavy machine gun in the company, Ilya Voronov. The sergeant received multiple wounds and subsequently lost his leg, Idel Hayt’s crew number was killed on the spot, and Niko Mosiashvili was wounded. The commander of the mortar men, Lieutenant Alexey Chernyshenko, and the commander of the armor-piercing squad, Sergeant Andrey Sobgaida, were killed, Corporal Glushchenko, and machine gunners Bondarenko and Svirin were wounded. At the end of the day, a shrapnel wounded Junior Sergeant Pavlov in the leg and severely concussed Lieutenant Afanasyev.

Senior Lieutenant Ivan Naumov was killed, trying to rush across the square and report the desperate situation of his company. By the end of the day, when the grenades and cartridges ran out, the surviving defenders of the Milk House literally fought off the advancing Germans with bricks and shouted loudly, creating the appearance of their numbers.

Seeing the catastrophic nature of the situation, battalion commander Zhukov convinced the commander of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment, Colonel I.P. Elina gave the order to retreat, and as darkness fell, a messenger managed to get to the building with an order to leave the ruins that had been won with such difficulty. In the battle for the Milk House, most of the soldiers of the 7th company, from which the garrison of Pavlov’s House was formed, were killed or wounded, but there was no place for these circumstances in the canonical legend of the “heroic defense”.

Perhaps the only photo of the not yet demolished ruins of the “Milk House”, which stood in the northwest corner of the January 9 Square. Now at this place at the address “Lenin Avenue, 31” in Volgograd there is the House of Officers

On November 26, the battle in the square began to subside. And although the tasks set by the command remained the same, Rodimtsev’s bloodless regiments were not able to complete them. Leaving a military outpost at the captured line, the company commanders took the surviving soldiers back to their previous positions. By the end of the day, after repeated attacks, the German infantry finally knocked the Red Army soldiers out of school No. 6: “The enemy attacked the school building occupied by the 39th Guards Regiment several times. In the last attack, up to a company with two tanks, he destroyed the defending group and took possession of it. Moreover, they acted brazenly and walked drunk.” According to reports from the 13th Guards Rifle Division upstairs, the Red Army soldiers managed to hold the five-story military store building nearby.

The scheme of actions of the 13th Guards Rifle Division on November 24-26, transferred to an aerial photo. The three selected objects are school No. 6, military trade and the Milk House. The diagram is inaccurate due to a lack of intelligence: in place of the 517th PP there should be a 518th PP, and instead of the 518th PP there should be a 71st PD

In the November attacks, Rodimtsev's division suffered terrible losses. For example, on November 24-26, 119 soldiers and commanders, not counting the wounded, were killed, died from wounds, or went missing in the units of the 42nd Guards Regiment. In the report of the 62nd Army to the front headquarters following the results of the offensive, only a meager line appeared: “The 13th Guards Rifle Division did not fulfill its task.”

The overall results of the offensive were disappointing: none of the units of the 62nd Army, with the exception of the group of Colonel S.F. Gorokhova, she did not achieve her goals. At the same time, only the actions of the 13th Guards Rifle Division were given a negative assessment. Almost more was written about the famous division and its commander in central newspapers than about the entire 62nd Army, and the ambitious Chuikov began to be irritated by the fame of his subordinate. Soon the army commander's irritation turned into open hostility.

Victory on an army scale

On December 1, Chuikov signed an order to resume the offensive. The divisions and brigades of the 62nd Army were given the same tasks - to defeat the enemy and reach the western outskirts of Stalingrad. The goals of the 13th Guards Rifle Division remained the same - with the right flank to reach the railway, to the line of Sovnarkomovskaya and Zheleznodorozhnaya streets, and to gain a foothold on the achieved line.

Rodimtsev understood perfectly well that first of all it was necessary to solve the problem that had been the division’s headache for two months - to take German strongholds in the ruins of the “Railway Workers’ House” and the “L-shaped House”. Numerous attempts to attack them failed. In an unsuccessful offensive on November 24-26, they tried to block these strong points with artillery fire, bypass them and cut off communications. But the houses, adapted for all-round defense, snarled with fire, and the unsuppressed machine guns shot the Red Army soldiers advancing across the square and along the ravines in the back. Turned into ruins, two beautiful examples of the “Stalinist Empire style” were literally dreamed of by the headquarters of the 13th Guards Rifle Division and its commander.

Preparations for the decisive assault began immediately after the unsuccessful offensive. The reasons for the failures were analyzed, and a detailed diagram of the German defense and firing points was drawn up. To capture the “L-shaped house”, a detachment of 60 people was assembled from soldiers of the 34th Guards Rifle Regiment under the command of Senior Lieutenant V.I. Sidelnikov and his deputy lieutenant A.G. Isaeva. The detachment was divided into three assault groups of 12 people (submachine gunners and flamethrowers), as well as a reinforcement group (shooters, crews of anti-tank rifles, heavy and light machine guns), a support group (sappers and scouts) and a service group (signalmen).

At the same time, the second battalion of the 42nd Guards Regiment was preparing for the assault on the “House of Railway Workers.” The groups of fighters were also divided into three echelons. To bring the attack line as close as possible, trenches were secretly dug to the buildings - the work was carried out at night, the trenches were camouflaged during the day. It was decided to concentrate on the starting line before dawn, rush inside under cover of darkness, and fight in the building in daylight.

Organization and composition of the assault detachment under the command of Senior Lieutenant Sidelnikov. Diagram from the book “Fighting in Stalingrad”, published in 1944

On December 3 at four o'clock in the morning, assault groups began to advance to the front line. Suddenly it began to snow heavily. Large flakes of snow quickly covered the crater-filled ground; The commanders had to urgently look for camouflage suits and change the soldiers’ clothes. The final preparations were being completed, the guards were dismantling hand and anti-tank grenades, COP bottles and thermite balls from ampoules. Anti-tank gun crews under the command of Lieutenant Yu.E. Dorosh targeted the windows in the eastern wing of the “L-shaped house”, the flamethrowers crawled to the end of the building and took aim at the embrasures punched in the wall. By 06:00 everything was ready.

At 06:40, three red rockets flew into the sky, and a moment later the German machine-gun points at the end of the “L-shaped house” were flooded with streams of flamethrowers. Sidelnikov was the first to jump out of the trench and rush to the house, followed by the submachine gunners of the advanced detachment silently running behind him. The plan was a success - the Germans did not have time to come to their senses, and the Red Army soldiers, throwing grenades at the windows and holes in the walls, burst into the building without losses.

“Street Fight” is a canonical photograph by Georgy Zelma. A visual symbol of the Battle of Stalingrad, present on the title page of many domestic and foreign websites, books and publications dedicated to the epoch-making battle. Actually, the author of the article’s interest in this topic began with a clue to the location and circumstances of the famous photo. There is a whole series of photographs: in the first of them, the fighter in the center is still “alive.” The German strongholds have already been completely destroyed, there is no snow - according to the author, this is a reconstruction of the assault on the “Railway Workers' House” and the “L-Shaped House”, filmed in late February - early March 1943

In a huge building, in a maze of burnt-out apartments, narrow corridors and collapsed stairwells, small groups of Red Army soldiers slowly cleared the rooms and floors of the eastern wing. The garrison, which had come to its senses, was already taking up positions in the barricaded passages: inside the German stronghold was divided into sections and perfectly adapted for defense. A fierce battle broke out with renewed vigor. The squad commanders, firing rockets, illuminated the rooms and dark corners - in the reflections of short-term flashes, the Germans and Russians threw grenades at each other, colliding point-blank, converged in hand-to-hand combat, the outcome of which was decided by a timely pulled out knife, a brick that came to hand, or a comrade who arrived in time. In the walls of the apartments where the Germans were shooting back, Soviet soldiers punched holes with crowbars and threw petrol bottles and thermite balls inside. Ceilings were blown up by charges, flamethrowers burned out rooms and basements.

By 10:00, the assault groups of the 34th Guards Regiment had completely occupied the eastern wing of the “L-shaped house”, having lost half of their strength. The wounded detachment commander, Senior Lieutenant Vasily Sidelnikov, and his deputy, Lieutenant Alexei Isaev, were pulled out of the ruins; Lieutenant Yuri Dorosh was dying with a torn jaw and an empty TT in his hand on a pile of bricks. The sergeants took the initiative, taking command upon themselves.

While the battle for the "L-Shaped House" was in full swing, at 08:00 the neighboring "Railway Workers' House" was subjected to heavy fire from an artillery battalion and mortar companies. By the end of the two-hour artillery barrage, sappers from nearby trenches threw smoke bombs at the approaches to the building, and a series of red rockets soared into the sky. The mortar fire was moved behind the smoking ruins, blocking reinforcements from approaching the strong point, and the assault groups went on the attack.

Schemes from the “Brief description of defensive battles of the 13th Guards Rifle Division”

The fighters of the advanced detachment, having burst into the building and crushed the garrison guards, occupied the premises of the first floor. The German infantrymen, retreating to the second floor and hiding in the basement, desperately resisted. The second echelon groups that followed blocked the remnants of the German garrison, using explosives and flamethrowers to destroy pockets of resistance. While the battle was still going on in the basement and on the upper floors, the reinforcement group had already equipped positions for heavy and light machine guns, cutting off with fire the German infantry who were trying to come to the aid of their dying comrades. By 13:20, the “Railway Workers' House” was completely cleared of Germans. The second echelon fighters also managed to capture five dugouts located near the building. Repeated German counterattacks were repulsed.

Post-war aerial photo. On the left are the ruins of the northern wing of the "Railway Workers' House", on the lower right are the remains of the "L-shaped house"

In the "L-shaped house" the fierce battle lasted until the evening. Having occupied the eastern wing, the Red Army soldiers could not advance further - a solid load-bearing wall was in the way. There was no way to get around it from the outside: the Germans occupied a well-fortified basement, keeping the approaches to the northern wing at gunpoint. At night, when the shooting died down, sappers brought boxes of explosives and laid 250 kg of tola against the wall on the first floor. While preparations were underway, the members of the assault squad were taken out of the building.

On the morning of December 4 at 04:00 there was a powerful explosion and an entire section of the huge house collapsed in a cloud of dust. Without wasting a minute, the Red Army soldiers rushed back. Making their way through the huge rubble, groups of fighters again occupied the eastern wing, and then cleared the northern wing - the remnants of the garrison retreated without a fight, only the German soldiers buried alive were shouting something in the rubbled basement.

The long-awaited news about the capture of the enemy's main resistance center was so stunning that the division headquarters did not believe it. Only when the divisional OP noticed Red Army soldiers waving their arms in the windows of the “L-shaped house” did it become clear that the goal had been achieved. For two months, drenched in sweat and blood, Rodimtsev’s guards unsuccessfully stormed German strongholds, losing their comrades in numerous attacks. Through trial and error, in a fierce struggle, Soviet soldiers won.

The success achieved was a significant event not only for the division, but also for the entire 62nd Army. Hot on the heels of cameraman V.I. Orlyankin filmed the reconstruction of the assault on both German strongholds, then this footage ended up in the documentary film “The Battle of Stalingrad” in 1943. The excerpt combined all the episodes of numerous attacks on both houses, and the order for the seizure was given by the army commander Chuikov himself.

Stills from the film "Battle of Stalingrad". The father-commanders wisely frown and draw arrows on the diagram; Soviet soldiers go on the offensive to the accompaniment of cheerful music. When you know how much blood paid for the capture of these ruins, the video looks completely different

Having cleared the “House of Railway Workers,” the assault groups of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment tried to build on their success and quickly drive the Germans out of another strong point—the four-story school No. 38, located 30 meters from the “L-shaped house.” But the bloodless units were no longer capable of this task, and the Red Army soldiers captured the ruins of the school only three weeks later, on December 26. In the area of ​​the Dolgiy and Krutoy ravines, the training and barrage battalions of Rodimtsev’s division that participated in the offensive on December 3-4 also did not achieve their goals and retreated to their original positions.

Scheme of the assault from the book “Battles in Stalingrad” and a German aerial photo of the area

Last fights

After the battles of December 3-4, silence fell in the center of Stalingrad. The wind swept snow over the crater-filled ground, the disfigured ruins of buildings and the bodies of the dead. The bridgehead of Rodimtsev’s division was calm, the enemy’s artillery and mortar attacks had stopped - the Germans were running out of ammunition and food, and the death throes of the 6th Army were approaching.

In the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment, in whose positions “Pavlov’s House” was located, a lot has changed. Senior Lieutenant A.K. became the commander of the 7th company instead of the deceased Naumov. Dragan, a participant in the battle for Central Station who returned after being wounded. Almost no one remained from the old garrison; most of the fighters were killed or wounded in the battle for the Milk House. In three months, Pavlov’s House, which stood at the forefront of the regiment’s defense, turned into a real fortress. Washing their hands bloody, with the every minute risk of being killed by a stray bullet or shrapnel, the garrison soldiers spent days digging trenches, underground passages and communication passages, equipping reserve positions and bunkers, and sappers laying mines and wire barriers in the square. But... no one tried to storm this fortress.

A shooting map of “Pavlov’s House” compiled by Lieutenant Dragan from memory and a February aerial photo of the area. Judging by the recollections, long-term earthen firing points with communication passages were dug along the perimeter of the building. An underground passage was dug to the ruins of the gas storage facility (built on the foundation of the Church of St. Nicholas), which stood in front of Pavlov’s House, and a remote position for heavy machine guns was equipped. The scheme suffers from inaccuracies: by January 5, 1943, the “L-shaped house” had already been liberated for a month

The year 1943 arrived. In the first half of January, the regiments of Rodimtsev’s division were transferred to the right flank of the 284th Infantry Division north of Mamayev Kurgan, with instructions to knock out the enemy from the working village of the Red October plant and advance in the direction of height 107.5. The Germans resisted with the despair of the doomed - in the burnt-out ruins of wooden blocks covered with snow, every basement or dugout had to be cleared with battle. In the January offensive, in the last days of the battle for Stalingrad, the division again suffered heavy losses - many soldiers and commanders who managed to survive the fierce battles of September and positional battles of October-December 1942 were wounded and killed.

On the morning of January 26, on the northwestern slopes of Mamayev Kurgan, Rodimtsev’s guards met with the soldiers of the 52nd Guards Rifle Division, Colonel N.D., who had overcome the Tatar Wall. Kozina. The northern group of Germans was cut off from the main forces of the 6th Army, but for another whole week, until February 2, led by the will of its commander, General Karl Strecker, stubbornly resisted the attacks of the Soviet troops.

At the same time, the Red Army soldiers of the 284th Infantry Division were advancing from the southern slopes of the mound to the center of Stalingrad, breaking into the defenses of the 295th Infantry Division from the flank. From the side of the Tsarina, units of the 64th Army under Lieutenant General M.S. were rushing into the center. Shumilov, as if anticipating his main trophy: on January 31, in the basement of a department store on the Square of Fallen Fighters, the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal Paulus, surrendered to army representatives. The southern group capitulated.

Excerpt from the film "Battle of Stalingrad" 1943. Soviet soldiers were driving demoralized Germans out into the cold not just somewhere in Stalingrad. The shooting location is the courtyard of that same school No. 6. There were fierce battles for this building; its ruins, which cost Rodimtsev’s guards a lot of blood, were subsequently removed by Zelma. Linking the location to the photo of A. Skvorin

In February, the 13th Guards Rifle Division was returned to its old positions in the center of Stalingrad. Sappers cleared the ground strewn with metal and removed the wire fences. The guardsmen gathered and buried their fallen comrades - a huge mass grave appeared on the January 9 Square. Of the approximately 1,800 soldiers and commanders buried there, the names of only 80 people are known.

A series of photographs by Georgy Zelma, February 1943. On the left, a squad of sappers marches against the backdrop of the ruins of school No. 38; in the right photo, the same soldiers are seen against the backdrop of the “L-shaped house” and the “Railway Workers’ House.” These majestic ruins and the heroic history associated with them simply fascinated the photographer

Soon the remains of buildings and former strongholds were filled with many inscriptions. Armed with paint, political workers painted slogans and appeals, and noted the numbers of units that had recaptured or defended one or another line. On the wall of “Pavlov’s House,” which by that time had become famous throughout the country through the efforts of writers and journalists, also had its own inscription.

In the summer of 1943, the city, disfigured over many months of fighting, began to be restored from ruins. One of the first to be repaired was the Pavlov House, which was practically undamaged during the Battle of Stalingrad: only the end facing the square was destroyed.

After the November offensive and the battle for the Milk House, the wounded soldiers of the garrison were scattered in hospitals, and many never returned to Rodimtsev’s division. Guard junior sergeant Yakov Pavlov, after being wounded, fought with dignity as part of a fighter-anti-tank artillery regiment and was awarded more than one award. Newspapers published articles about the famous Stalingrad house, and the legend grew with new heroic details. In the summer of 1945, greater fame overtook the eminent “houseowner”. The stunned Pavlov, along with lieutenant shoulder straps, was presented with the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin - Yakov Fedotovich, who had gone through “threat and hell,” pulled out his lucky ticket.

Award list of Ya.F. Pavlova most resembles another article by journalists from GlavPUR. The authors of the award did not particularly hide this, indicating at the end one of the creators of the story about the “heroic defense”. The award sheet describes in detail a completely fictitious battle for the building on January 9 Square - otherwise it would not be clear why the title of Hero would be given

After the war, the history of the legendary defense of Pavlov’s House was literary refined more than once, and the four-story building itself became the center of the architectural ensemble on the new Defense Square. In 1985, a memorial wall-monument was built at the end of the house, on which the names of the garrison soldiers appeared. By that time, the Pulbat fighter A. Sugba, who deserted on November 23, was removed from the canonical lists, whose name also appeared in the lists of the ROA - in the first books of Pavlov’s memoirs, the Red Army soldier Sugba died heroically. The defense of the house was limited to 58 days, during which there were indeed minimal losses in the garrison - they chose not to remember the subsequent bloody massacre at the Milk House. The edited legend fit perfectly into the emerging pantheon of the Battle of Stalingrad, eventually taking the main place in it.

The true history of the military operations of the 13th Guards Rifle Division of General Rodimtsev, with all the many days of fierce assaults on strongholds, unsuccessful attacks, heavy losses and hard-won victories, gradually faded into oblivion, remaining for a long time unclaimed, meager lines of archival documents and nameless photographs.

Instead of a postscript

If we talk about the value of Pavlov’s House for the German command, it was practically absent. At the operational level, the Germans not only did not notice a separate house on the square, but also did not attach any importance to the small bridgehead of Rodimtsev’s division. Indeed, in the documents of the 6th Army there are references to individual Stalingrad buildings for which particularly stubborn battles took place, but “Pavlov’s House” is not one of them. The story of the “Paulus map”, on which the house was marked as a fortress, was told to the colleagues of Yu.Yu. Rosenman, chief of intelligence of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment, who allegedly saw this map himself. The story is more like a tale - there is no mention of the mythical map in other sources.

In the documents of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, the phrase “Pavlov’s House” appears only a couple of times - as an observation post for artillerymen (combat order) and as the place of death of one of the soldiers (loss report). There is also no information about numerous enemy attacks through the square on January 9; according to operational reports, the Germans mainly attacked in the area of ​​the State Bank (71st Infantry Division) and near the ravines (295th Infantry Division). After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Rodimtsev’s headquarters compiled a “Brief description of the defensive battles of units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division”; in this brochure, the object “Pavlov’s House” appears on the diagram of strongholds - but by that time the building had already gained all-Union fame. During the battles of autumn 1942 - winter 1943. “Pavlov’s House” was not given much importance in Rodimtsev’s division.

In the post-war years, the topic of “legendary defense” was scrupulously studied by the writer L.I. Savelyev (Soloveychik), collecting information and corresponding with surviving veterans of the 42nd Guards Regiment. The book “The House of Sergeant Pavlov”, repeatedly republished, described in artistic form the events that took place in the sector of Rodimtsev’s division in the center of Stalingrad. In it, the author collected invaluable biographical information about the soldiers and commanders of the 42nd Guards Regiment; his correspondence with veterans and relatives of the victims is stored in Moscow in the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

It is worth mentioning the famous novel by Vasily Grossman “Life and Fate”, where the defense of the building on Penzenskaya Street became one of the main plot lines. However, if you compare the diary that Grossman kept during the battle and the novel he wrote later, it is clear that the behavior and motivation of Soviet soldiers in the diary notes are strikingly different from the post-war reflection of the famous writer.

Any good story has its own collision, and the defense of the “Pavlov’s House” is no exception - the antagonists were former comrades in arms, the commandant of the Pavlov’s house and the garrison commander Afanasyev. While Pavlov was rapidly moving up the party ladder and reaping the fruits of the glory that had befallen him, Ivan Filippovich Afanasyev, blind after a concussion, was gropingly filling a book in which he tried to mention all the defenders of the famous house. The “copper pipes” test did not pass without a trace for Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov - the former commandant increasingly distanced himself from his colleagues and stopped attending post-war meetings, realizing that the number of places in the official pantheon of heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad was very limited.

It seemed that as a result, justice had triumphed when, after 12 long years, through the efforts of doctors, Afanasyev’s sight was restored. A book, in defiance of the official “House of Pavlov,” called “House of Soldier’s Glory,” was published, and the commander of the “legendary garrison” himself was accompanied by the torch of the eternal flame at the opening of the memorial complex on Mamayev Kurgan, taking pride of place in the solemn procession. However, in the mass consciousness, the “Pavlov’s House” still remained a symbol of the heroism and dedication of Soviet soldiers.

Volgograd journalist Yu.M. tried to revive the topic in his book “A Splinter in the Heart”. Beledin, who published the correspondence of participants in the defense of the famous house. It covered many details that were inconvenient for the official version. The letters of the garrison soldiers showed open bewilderment at how Pavlov became the main character of their common story. But the position of the leadership of the Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad was unshakable, and no one was going to rewrite the official version.

Along with the surviving soldiers of the garrison, the former commander of the 3rd battalion, Alexei Efimovich Zhukov, wrote to the museum management, who saw with his own eyes the events that took place on the square on January 9. The lines of his letter, more reminiscent of a cry from the soul, are true to this day: “Stalingrad does not know the truth and is afraid of it.”

Pavlov's house - by the autumn of 1942, the only house in the area of ​​the square that survived the bombing. January 9. On the night of September 27, he was captured by a reconnaissance group (3 soldiers led by Sergeant Ya.F. Pavlov), the group held him for almost three days. Then reinforcements arrived under the command of Lieutenant I.F. Afanasyev, only 24 fighters. For 58 days, the garrison of Pavlov’s house repelled enemy attacks, and on November 24, 1942, as part of the regiment, it went on the offensive...

From the encyclopedia "The Great Patriotic War"

Her fate should be included in textbooks and encyclopedias. But, alas, you won’t find the name of Zinaida Petrovna Selezneva (after Andreeva’s husband) there. And without her, the history of the defense of Pavlov’s house remains incomplete.

Zina was born in this house on July 11, 1942. It’s hard to imagine what our soldiers felt when they looked at a baby swaddled in a footcloth on the front line. What were you thinking when you heard a child crying between shell explosions? They didn’t tell anyone about this even after the Victory.

Only the dry result of the battle for the house near the Volga is known, which is still inaccessible to the understanding of Western historians: a handful of not very armed fighters (one heavy machine gun, three anti-tank rifles, two mortars and seven machine guns) held back the onslaught of enemy infantry, tanks and aircraft for almost two months !..

It took a long time to transport the mother and baby across the Volga; the house was under heavy fire around the clock. The girl lived with her mother and several other women in the basement almost until the end of October.

The story of Zinaida Petrovna Andreeva, which I recorded back in 1990, did not find a place on the newspaper page; only a few lines appeared. Perhaps he seemed too ordinary to the editors...

Zinaida Petrovna Selezneva (Andreeva) says:

My grandfather and grandmother lived in this house. They had office space there - they worked as janitors. And when the bombing began, my mother ran to them. My father was taken to the defense of Stalingrad in the spring; he was a worker at Red October. His name was Pyotr Pavlovich Seleznev. He didn't see me. And so he died, not knowing that I was born... There were no doctors, my mother’s sisters helped during childbirth. The soldiers were given footcloths for diapers. The dysentery was terrible, and as soon as I was born, I began to die. They had already dug a grave for me in the earthen floor, and when they were digging, they came across a medallion icon. As soon as she was shaken off the ground, I returned to life. But in this house there were still older children - five, six, seven years old... Then we were transported across the Volga, and in 1943 we returned to the city. Mom went to the factory, they lived in a dugout. Only in 1949 did we get a room with a shared space. I remember the destruction of Stalingrad. I was about seven years old, my girlfriend went to music, and I went with her, I really loved carrying her sheet music folder. We lived very poorly, and I walked with this folder so happy. Everything is destroyed, and we are going to a music school.

After eighth grade I went to work and at the same time studied at night school. Elected secretary of the Komsomol committee. The first of those who defended our house was found by Ivan Filippovich Afanasyev, lieutenant, garrison commander, after the war. Moreover, he remained blind after being wounded. He had two children who lived very poorly, but he wanted to help us with something. I was about eighteen years old, I was studying at a technical school. Ivan Filippovich came to us with a cane, and my mother said: “We have guests...”

Then Voronov, Ramazanov, Zhukov and Turgunov found out our address and began sending parcels. They all called me daughter. Turgunov sent me a certificate and assured me at the village council that I was really born in Pavlov’s house. This was needed for benefits. The last letter is from him. He didn’t recognize periods or commas, but everything was clear anyway.

“Dear dear daughter Petrovna, hello! First of all, allow me to greet you and your family, warm, pure-hearted, fiery greetings, and secondly, congratulations on the upcoming First May holiday, the International Solidarity Day, I sincerely wish you and your family, thank God, we are also living normally so far. Goodbye, I hug you tightly and kiss you with respect, your dear respected father, April 15, 1992..."

The last defender of Pavlov's house, Kamoljon Turgunov, died in March 2015 at the age of 92. 14 of his children, 62 grandchildren and 85 great-grandchildren live in Uzbekistan.

Saying goodbye to Zinaida Andreeva, I suddenly saw a photograph of Yuri Vizbor in her room. "Do you love Vizbor?" - I was happy. “If it weren’t for him,” Zinaida Petrovna sighed, “my mother and I would have been huddled in a communal apartment for a long time. Yuri came to Volgograd on a business trip from the audio magazine “Krugozor”. It seems he was preparing a report. We had a very short conversation, but he guessed , how we live. He didn’t tell us anything, but he went to the regional committee. A month later we got a one-room apartment..."

Yuri Vizbor

MEDAL OF STALINGRAD

Stalingrad medal, simple medal.
There are even higher rewards than this.
But this steel shines with something special,
War circle - Stalingrad medal.

Still to come through mud and ice
Go through half of Europe through bullets and shells.
But it shines already in the forty-third year
Victory star - medal of Stalingrad. From the heavens it rains, then a cheerful snowball,

And life goes on, imagine how it should.
I silently take this white circle
And silently kiss the Stalingrad medal.
Drops of blood fell on the lush green grass.

Two colors came together, the steppe became world wide
crossroads
No wonder this medal has two great colors -
Green field with a thin red stripe.