Defensive battles on the territory of Belarus presentation. Defensive battles on the territory of Belarus. Border guards, pilots, and representatives of all branches of the Soviet troops fought heroically with the enemies. They died, but did not leave their combat positions.

Lectures 4-7.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany violated the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty - its army invaded the territory of the USSR without declaring war. The Great Patriotic War (WWII) began. It became the most important component of the Second World War, largely changing the course of the latter.

The Nazis launched an offensive in three strategic directions - Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. The beginning of the war was extremely unfavorable for the Red Army in Belarus. The German army delivered the main blow here in the areas of Brest and Grodno. The number of enemy troops in manpower and equipment in these directions exceeded the Soviet troops by 5 times.

As a result of the forced retreat of the Red Army, tank formations of German troops approached Minsk by the end of the day on June 24. However, they failed to capture the capital on the move. From June 25 to 28, heavy fighting took place here, where the defense was held by the 2nd and 44th Rifle Corps of the 13th Army. Near Minsk, among others, the 100th Infantry Division (Major General I.M. Russiyanov) glorified itself. Only in the evening of June 28, 1941, German tanks broke into Minsk. This ended the first, most tragic, period of defensive battles on the territory of Belarus.

After the capture of Minsk, fierce battles broke out in the Borisov area. Here for two days the 1st Moscow Motorized Rifle Division under the command of Colonel Ya.G. Kreizer, cadets of the Borisov Tank School, together with the people's militia, held back the onslaught of General Guderian's tank forces. This made it possible for the Soviet command to create a new line of defense along the Western Dvina and Dnieper in early June 1941. The largest tank battle at the beginning of the Second World War took place in the area of ​​Senno and Lepel. In the battles near Orsha on July 14, for the first time in the history of the war, a new formidable weapon was used - rocket launchers (Katyushas). The defenders of Vitebsk glorified themselves. The battle for Mogilev became a heroic and at the same time tragic page of the Second World War. For more than three weeks from July 3 to July 26, 1941, soldiers of the 172nd Infantry Division under the command of Major General M.T. Romanov repelled numerous enemy attacks. Having not captured the city either by storm or after a long siege, German troops bypassed it from the south and north and, having closed the ring, moved on. On July 16, 1941, Smolensk fell, but Mogilev still held out 200 km from the front line. Only on July 26, when the city’s defenders had an average of three rounds of ammunition left and no food left at all, M.T. Romanov was forced to give the order to retreat.

The last of the regional centers of the BSSR was captured on August 19, 1941. By the autumn of 1941, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied by Nazi troops. Heavy two-month defensive battles of Soviet troops on the territory of Belarus contributed to the disruption of the fascist plan for a “blitzkrieg” and made it possible for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters to concentrate reserves and carry out defensive measures in the Moscow direction.

In general, military operations in the summer and autumn of 1941 meant a military disaster for the USSR. The Nazis occupied the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, surrounded Leningrad, and advanced on Moscow. As a result of the summer-autumn campaign of 1941, the Red Army suffered colossal losses in manpower - more than 5 million people killed, wounded and captured. Almost all aircraft and tanks were lost. The reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1941 were:

a) gross miscalculations by the country’s leadership in assessing the real military situation;

b) insufficient professional training of a significant part of the command personnel of the Red Army;

c) weakening the country’s defense capability and the combat capability of the Red Army through unjustified repressions against the leading personnel of the country’s armed forces;

d) miscalculations of a military-strategic nature;

e) incomplete work on technical equipment of the armed forces on the eve of the war.

Preparing for an attack on the USSR, the Nazis at the end of 1940 developed the “Barbarossa” plan, according to which they hoped to defeat the main forces of the Red Army before the onset of winter and victoriously end the war. Germany gradually redeployed its troops to Polish territory, closer to the USSR border. On the border with Belarus, by the beginning of the war, the German military command concentrated the most powerful army grouping, “Center,” which consisted of 50 divisions, 1,800 tanks, 14,300 guns and mortars, 1,680 combat aircraft, 820 thousand soldiers and officers. On the Soviet side, these forces were opposed by the troops of the Western Special Military District, which from June 22, 1941 became known as the Western Front. It consisted of 44 divisions, 3 brigades, 8 fortified areas and the Pinsk military flotilla, 2202 tanks, 10087 guns and mortars, 1909 combat aircraft. The total number of troops on the Western Front was 672 thousand soldiers and officers.

Hitler's intentions to attack the Soviet Union were warned by intelligence officers and defectors who named the exact date of the fascist attack. All the more surprising was the TASS statement on June 14, 1921 that rumors about an upcoming attack on the USSR were false and provocative. It was on this day that Hitler gathered all the army group commanders in Berlin to listen to their reports on the completion of preparations for war. At this meeting, G. Guderian stated that it would take him 5-6 days to reach Minsk.

At dawn on June 22, 1941, German troops crossed the border of the USSR. Taking advantage of the carelessness of the railway workers and the command of the Brest garrison, the Germans transferred a train with sealed cars, containing armed soldiers and officers, from across the Bug to the Brest-Zapadny station. They occupied the station and part of the city, leaving border guards and military personnel in the fortress behind.

The inability of the command to foresee the course of military operations was also manifested in the deployment of military formations of the Western Front in the Bialystok ledge. Of the 26 divisions of the first echelon, 19 were concentrated here, including all tank and motorized ones. The 10th Army was supposed to hold the defense in the center - the strongest. On the flanks stood the 3rd and 4th armies - weaker ones. The Germans knew this well and began their attack from the flanks. On the first day of the war, Hoppner's 4th group broke through the front of the 3rd Army and Manstein's corps broke into the breakthrough; by the evening of June 22, 3 divisions of the Red Army were scattered, and 5 others suffered losses of up to 70% of their personnel. The 14th mechanized corps in the Pruzhany-Kobrin area was almost completely destroyed on the same day. About 14 thousand Soviet soldiers died here.

On the night of June 22-23, front commander Pavlov tried to organize a counteroffensive, but this led to huge losses of manpower and equipment. On June 23 and 24, the 6th and 11th mechanized corps were killed. The front command made attempts to delay the German advance in the Polotsk-Vitebsk area. And this attempt was unsuccessful.

On June 25, northeast of Slonim, the tanks of Guderian and Hoth completed the encirclement of units that were retreating from Bialystok. On June 26, the Germans captured Baranovichi, and on June 27, most of the units of the Western Front fell into a new encirclement in the Novogrudok region. 11 divisions of the 3rd and 10th armies were destroyed.

On June 26, 1941, German mechanized units approached Minsk. The troops of the 13th Army held the lines until June 28. The troops of the 100th Infantry Division of Major General I.M. fought heroically. Rusiyanov in the Ostroshitsky town area. By the evening of June 28, German troops occupied Minsk. Retreating to the east, units of the Red Army fought heavy defensive battles. All the burdens of the country's defense were placed on the shoulders of ordinary soldiers. Only on June 29, a directive was given by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to party and Soviet organizations in the front-line regions, in accordance with which additional mobilization into the Red Army was carried out. In June–August, more than 500 thousand residents of Belarus were mobilized.

To combat enemy saboteurs and paratroopers, fighter squads were created. In mid-July, 78 fighter battalions were created. More than 200 militia units were created to help the army. More than 1.5 million people were evacuated to the eastern regions of the USSR, equipment from 124 enterprises, 5 thousand tractors, and 674 thousand heads of livestock were removed. Collectives from 60 research institutes and laboratories, 6 theaters, more than 20 higher and secondary specialized institutions, and 190 children's institutions were evacuated to the eastern regions of the country.

At the beginning of July 1941, the Soviet command attempted to create a defense line along the Western Dvina and Dnieper. There were three days of fighting in Borisov. On July 14, rocket mortars were used for the first time near Orsha. Fierce fighting broke out in the Bobruisk area. From July 3 to July 28, the defense of Mogilev continued. During the 14-hour battle on the Buynitsky field alone, 39 enemy tanks and armored personnel carriers were destroyed. Heavy fighting took place for Gomel on August 12-19. By the beginning of September 1941, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied by German troops.

During the defensive battles, the Red Army troops lost 1.5 million people, 10 thousand guns and mortars, 5 thousand tanks and 2 thousand aircraft. Despite heavy losses, Soviet soldiers fought selflessly and performed unprecedented feats. In the Grodno area, a border guard outpost repelled fascist attacks for ten hours. Until the end of June 1941, the garrison of the Brest Fortress fought staunchly. In the first days of the war, the crew of captain N.D. Gastello directed his damaged aircraft towards a concentration of enemy equipment and manpower. Pilots P.S. rammed enemy planes in the first hours of the war. Ryabtsev over Brest, A.S. Danilov in the Grodno region, S.M. Gudimov in the Pruzhany area, D.V. Kokarev.

The catastrophe of the Red Army at the beginning of the war was a consequence of the existence of a harsh totalitarian regime in the country. One of the reasons for this disaster was the incompetence and self-confidence of the party and state apparatus in the center and locally. In the first days of the war, the leadership of the BSSR called on the population to remain calm and convinced people that the enemy would not pass through. Resolutions were adopted to combat “alarmists.” At the same time, trains were being prepared to evacuate employees of the Central Committee and government agencies. Three days before the occupation, during a tragic period for the people, the leaders of the republic, without announcing a general evacuation, secretly left the city on the night of June 24-25. The defense of the western military districts turned out to be unprepared. As a result of repression of military personnel in the second half of the 30s. About 40% of the most trained, experienced officers, generals, and marshals were destroyed. Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky subsequently stated that without the repressions of 1937, perhaps the 1941 war would not have happened at all

Occupation regime on the territory of Belarus. Having captured the territory of Belarus, the Nazis established an occupation regime here, the so-called “new order”. According to the Ost plan, only 25% of the population was supposed to remain in Belarus for use as a labor force. The remaining 75% were subject to destruction or deportation. A new administrative division of Belarus was established. The eastern part was classified as the “army rear area.” Power here was exercised by military and police authorities subordinate to the headquarters of Army Group Center. The southern part of Belarus along a line 20 km north of the Brest-Gomel railway was assigned to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine. The Germans included the northeastern part into Prussia and the general district “Lithuania”. The remaining 1/3 of the territory of Belarus - Baranovichi, Vileika, Minsk (without the eastern regions), the northern regions of the Brest, Pinsk and Polesie regions - became part of the general district of Belarus, which was included in the Ostland flight commissariat with a residence in Riga and divided for 10 districts. These districts were headed by German officials (Gebietskommissars). A supporting role was played by local institutions - councils, headed by burgomasters, elders, and voits appointed by the Nazis.

The so-called “new order” was supported by the armed formations of the SS (security squads), SA (assault squads), security police and SD security service, Gestapo, secret field police, counterintelligence agencies of the Abwehr, gendarmerie, etc. Special operational groups were created ( Einsatzgruppen) to fight partisans and underground fighters.

There were 260 death camps, their branches and departments operating on the territory of Belarus. In the Trostenets death camp alone, 206,500 people were killed. Ghettos for Jews were organized in all cities. One of the largest was the Minsk ghetto, in which about 100 thousand Jews were exterminated. During the period of occupation, the occupiers carried out more than 140 major punitive operations in Belarus against partisans and civilians. During 28 such operations only in 1942-1943. The punitive forces killed 70 thousand people. The punitive forces destroyed over 5,295 settlements, including 628 that were burned along with their residents. During the war, 2 million 200 thousand people died in Belarus, 380 thousand inhabitants were taken to Germany.

In order to put the Belarusian economy at the service of the Reich, the occupiers organized the work of industrial enterprises. They carried out registration of the working population. The working day lasted 12 hours. The wages were meager. Even minor disobedience could result in a worker being sent to a concentration camp. In the spring of 1942, land reform was carried out on the territory of the General District of Belarus. All collective farms were dissolved, and their lands were transferred to the family use of peasants within the framework of the so-called land cooperatives. On the territory of the eastern part of Belarus, collective farms remained for a long time.

The German administration in Belarus from July 17, 1943 to September 22, 1943 was headed by General Commissioner (Gauleiter) W. Kube. After E. Mazanik and M. Osipova carried out the partisans’ sentence, the General Commissariat was headed by Police General K. Gotberg. V. Kube sought to attract local residents to cooperation within the framework of auxiliary government bodies and the police. On October 22, 1941, the Belarusian People's Self-Help (BNS) was created, headed by Dr. I. Ermachenko. She took on the functions of providing for the needy population, had the right to organize shelters, medical institutions, hold cultural events, publish books and magazines in the Belarusian language. On June 29, 1942, the creation of the Belarusian Self-Defense Corps (BCS) was proclaimed. From June 1942 to April 1943, 20 battalions were created. They were poorly armed, not eager to fight, and easily succumbed to partisan propaganda. In the spring of 1943, the BKS detachments were disbanded.

On June 22, 1943, the Union of Belarusian Youth (UBY) was created. The highest body of the SBM was the Central Headquarters, headed by M. Ganko and N. Abramova. The task of this organization was to educate young people in the spirit of the Hitler Youth, prepare them for work in military factories in Germany and service in military auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht. Members of the organization wore a special uniform. The SBM numbered 12,635 people in 1944. About 5 thousand of them were sent to work and study in Germany.

In December 1943, the Belarusian Central Rada (BCR) was created. R. Ostrovsky was appointed president of the BCR. The Rada became an advisory body. The occupation authorities formally transferred social security, culture and education to her. On February 23, Gottberg issued an order to create Belarusian Regional Defense (BKO) and instructed the BCR to carry out the mobilization of the male population 1908-1924. birth. At the end of April 1944, 45 battalions were formed, which numbered about 30 thousand people. The main task of the BKO was to fight together with the police against the partisans. However, the created battalions did not live up to the hopes of the Germans. After the liberation of Belarus, part of the BKO formations ended up in Germany. According to various sources, the collaborationist movement in Belarus numbered 80-100 thousand people, a significant part of them were forced into various German formations.

BSSR on the eve of the attack by Nazi Germany

On November 2, 1939, a session of the Supreme Council of the BSSR adopted laws on the inclusion of Western Belarus into the USSR and its unification with the BSSR.

In December 1939 - January 1940, a new administrative-territorial division was introduced in Western Belarus, and in February-March - village councils, party and Komsomol organizations. Enterprises and banks were nationalized. Industrial enterprises were updated and reconstructed, new factories and factories were built. Small enterprises and individual craft workshops were merged into larger ones, the number of the working class increased, and unemployment was gradually eliminated. By the end of 1940, 392 industrial enterprises operated in the western regions of the BSSR. The volume of gross output has more than doubled compared to 1938. In 1940, over 100 MTS were organized. Before the war, 1,115 collective farms were created, uniting 6.7% of farms and 7.8% of land.

In the western regions, the Soviet social security system was introduced, free medical care for the population, many hospitals, clinics, and dispensaries were opened. In the 1940-41 academic year, there were 5,958 secondary schools, of which 4,500 taught in the Belarusian language, 5 institutes, 25 secondary specialized institutions. By the end of 1940, 5 drama theatres, 100 cinemas and 121 film installations, 92 cultural centers and 220 libraries were operating. Regional theaters were opened in Brest, Bialystok, Baranovichi, and Pinsk.

Simultaneously with measures to expand the social base of the new government, the repressive apparatus of the Stalinist dictatorship intensively uprooted “enemies of the people” and “eradicated” bourgeois remnants and dissent among the population. Immediately after the entry of Red Army units into the territory of Western Belarus, political repression began. As of October 22, 4,315 aid workers, capitalists, representatives of the former underground administration, police officers, and leaders of political parties and organizations were arrested.

According to the decision of the NKVD of the USSR in the cases of prisoners of war and those arrested in April-May 1940, 21,857 people were shot, of which 14,700 people were in prisoner-of-war camps in Kozelsk, Starobelsk, Ostashkovo, and 7,305 people in other camps and prisons in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine.

On December 5, 1939, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a secret resolution on the eviction of settlers and forest guards from the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. During the first deportation (February 10, 1940), in which 16,279 operational command personnel participated, 9,584 households (50,732 people) were repressed. In April, 26,777 people were repressed; on June 29, 1940, the NKVD authorities carried out the third operation , this time to evict refugees from the western regions. On this day, 747 families (22,879 people) were repressed and loaded into carriages.

In 1939-1940 on the territory of the western regions there were Polish underground organizations “Union of the Struggle for the Independence of Poland”, “Union of Armed Struggle”, “Union of Polish Patriots”, “Streltsy”, “Falcon”, “Liberators”, “Partisan”, etc. For the period from October 1939 I to July 1940, 109 underground organizations uniting 3,231 people were discovered and liquidated. At this time, 5,584 members of the PPS, Bund, Stronnitsvanarodova, POV, etc. were arrested. On the night of June 19-20, 1941, an operation was carried out to arrest members of the rebel organizations and identify members of their families. In total, 24,412 people were repressed.

Thus, from October 1939 to June 20, 1941, more than 125 thousand people were repressed in the western regions of Belarus, with the exception of prisoners of war of the Polish army.

As a result of the unification of Western Belarus with the BSSR, the population of Belarus increased to 11 million people. The historical significance of this event lies in the fact that most of the territory of Belarus was united in a single national administrative entity.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR without declaring war. Military operations unfolded from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, where three large fascist groups launched an offensive - “North”, “Center” and “South”. Army Group Center (commanded by Field Marshal F. von Bock) consisting of the 4th, 9 1st field armies, 2nd and 3rd tank groups, a total of 50 divisions and two motorized brigades. These ground forces were supported by the 2nd Air Fleet - 1,600 combat aircraft. The blow of this selected group was taken by the 3rd, 10th, 4th armies under the command of Lieutenant General V.I. Kuznetsov, Major General K.D. Golubev, Major General A.A. Korobkov - a total of 11 rifle, two tank and one cavalry division.

In the first hours of the war, the enemy carried out a massive artillery shelling of the border areas of Belarus. Powerful bomb attacks were carried out on concentrations of Red Army troops, airfields, railway junctions, and on the largest industrial centers - Baranovichi, Brest, Volkovysk, Grodno, etc. As a result of this operation, the enemy destroyed 528 aircraft of the Western Front at airfields, 210 aircraft were shot down in air battles

However, from the very beginning the war turned out extremely unfavorably for the Soviet side. Factors such as the enemy's superiority in weapons and the number of troops, the lack of management and disorganization of party and state bodies, miscalculations in the assessment of party and state bodies, as well as mass repressions against military personnel in the late 30s had an impact. On the eve of the war, only 7% of commanders had a higher military education, and 37% did not complete the full course of training even in secondary military educational institutions. In some cases, divisions were commanded by junior officers, because all the more experienced, senior cadres were repressed.

Thus, on June 22, 1941, the troops of Nazi Germany invaded the territory of the USSR - a war began that went down in history as the Great Patriotic War of the peoples of the Soviet Union for their freedom and independence. From the very beginning, the war turned out extremely unfavorably for the Soviet side. Factors such as the enemy's superiority in weapons and the number of troops, the lack of management and disorganization of party and state bodies, miscalculations in the assessment of party and state bodies, as well as mass repressions against military personnel in the late 30s had an impact.

Minsk direction and Minsk in the first days of the Great Patriotic War (June 22-28, 1941)

The German strategic deployment plan “Barbarossa” mentioned Minsk, along with cities such as Vilnius, Smolensk, and Moscow, as a particularly important target for rapid early neutralization and subsequent capture, since the main communications system was based on them. At the first stage of the operation, the troops of Army Group Center, advancing in two wedges, were supposed to unite north of Smolensk, covering Minsk on both sides, while destroying the Soviet group on the territory of Belarus, which guaranteed the success of a further push to the northeast and east of the Soviet Union. As a result, the capital of the BSSR found itself in the direction of the main attack of the largest group of invasion forces. This led to the rapid development of events in the Minsk direction from the first hours of enemy aggression. The 3rd and 2nd Tank Groups, operating as part of Army Group Center, quickly moving from the north-west along the flanks of the Western Front troops in the direction of Minsk, gradually encircled the main forces of the front with “pincers” in order to encircle them and subsequently destroy them with units 9 1st and 4th field armies between Bialystok and Minsk. By ensuring maximum concentration of forces and means in the breakthrough areas, the enemy was able to achieve decisive success here.

In Minsk (the suburb of Uruchye) at the start of the war, the 100th Order of Lenin Infantry Division, which was directly subordinate to the Zapovo Military District, was stationed. The capital also hosted the 7th separate anti-aircraft artillery air defense brigade of the Western zone, the command and control units of the 42nd brigade of convoy troops of the NKVD of the USSR, and the command and control of the newly formed 2nd and 44th rifle corps. As for the troops subordinate to the 44th Corps, the war found the 64th and 108th Infantry Divisions and other units during the transfer by rail from Vyazma and Smolensk to the area of ​​Zaslavl and Zhdanovichi, where they went to summer camps in accordance with the order of the commander troops of the ZapOVO on June 15, 1941. Another rifle division of the corps, the 161st Division, moved from Mogilev to a new concentration site in the Uruchya region. In Krasny Urochishche (Avtozavod area), the formation of the 26th Tank Division of the 20th Mechanized Corps, created in March 1941, was underway. Thus, almost all rifle and mechanized troops located in close proximity to the capital of Belarus, with the exception of the 100th Infantry Division, were either not completely mobilized by the beginning of the war or were in the process of formation.

A belated order signed by the People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko and the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army General G.K. Zhukov, to put troops on alert in connection with a possible attack by Germany on June 22-23 was received and deciphered at headquarters ZAPOVO in Minsk only at 1.45, and its transfer to the headquarters of the border armies was completed at 2.25 on June 22, 1941.

However, already from two o'clock in the morning, wire communications worked intermittently as a result of the actions of previously abandoned enemy sabotage groups. Therefore, if in the 3rd and 4th armies they managed to receive the order and take some measures to implement it, then in the 10th army it was received and deciphered after the start of hostilities. In these messages and subsequent combat reports from the border armies, relating to the first half of the day, the unfolding military operations were qualified only as a violation of the state border, a breakthrough of enemy groups. Therefore, having recovered from the factor of surprise and having ordered the troops to “act in a combat manner,” the headquarters of the district, which henceforth became the Western Front, expected that events would soon become part of the offensive scheme planned by the Soviet military leadership for the initial period of the war, which was worked out more than once during numerous educational events.

The first alarming message about the crossing of the Soviet border by German aviation arrived in Minsk, at the central post of the 5th Air Surveillance, Warning and Communications Regiment (VNOS) of the 7th Separate Air Defense Brigade already 4 minutes after the start of the air attack, i.e. between 4.10 – 4.20 Moscow time. Around the same time, the commander of the 3rd Army, Lieutenant General V.I. Kuznetsov, reported to the district headquarters by telephone from Grodno, “that there was artillery and machine-gun fire all along the front. There are up to 50-60 planes over Grodno...” Following him, between 4.20 - 4.25, the commander of the 4th Army, Major General A. A. Korobkov, reported that “aircraft attacked Kobrin, there was terrible artillery fire at the front.” The first radiogram about the gun-machine-gun fire along the entire front from the commander of the 10th Army, Major General K.D. Golubev, from behind Bialystok due to communication interruptions, arrived at approximately 7 o’clock in the morning. The largest industrial centers and railway junctions of the cities of Bialystok, Brest, Grodno, Lida, Baranovichi, Orsha, Bobruisk, Mogilev, etc. were subjected to massive bombing. All cities were practically not prepared for air defense. The capital of the republic did not have a single first category shelter. The situation was no better with shelters of the second category, which were supposed to serve as basements of buildings that were not equipped with special filter-ventilation units.

We didn’t have time to correct the situation, because... On June 24, the capital was subjected to massive bombing. On the night of June 23, sabotage groups of the enemy's Brandenburg sabotage regiment approached Minsk: in the forests adjacent to the suburbs of Zaslavl, Ratomka, Staroye Selo, they fired at soldiers of the 64th Infantry Division. At first, the command decided that there had been careless handling of weapons, and even issued an order accordingly. However, when the Red Army soldiers and commanders began to come under fire already on country roads, it became clear that experienced sniper saboteurs were operating. After this, counteraction groups consisting of 2-3 of the most skilled riflemen were created in each rifle regiment of the division and in special units. But at the same time, the number of enemy landing forces continuously increased, and it became increasingly difficult to eliminate them. The cadets of the Minsk Infantry School failed to destroy several parachute assault forces that were dropped on an artillery range between Uruchye and Gorodishche on the afternoon of June 23. Regular troops were only partially able to eliminate the landing forces that appeared in the area of ​​the villages of Loshitsa and Novy Dvor in the middle of the day on June 24.

Workers of Minsk enterprises were transferred to barracks conditions. As for the mobilization, it took place directly in Minsk only on June 23, after which, due to the bombing, the military registration and enlistment offices left the city and continued to work in its environs. As a result, many residents of the capital simply did not have time to receive the summons; others, if they did, did not know the new location of the military registration and enlistment offices. Over the entire mobilization period of activity, including outside the city, Minsk military registration and enlistment offices sent up to 27 thousand ordinary and command personnel, over 700 vehicles and tractors, about 20 thousand carriage horses and other types of mobilization resources to the Red Army. About 10 thousand mobilized Minsk residents joined the first Minsk reserve regiment, the formation of which began at the Kolodishchi station, and other military units. Due to the rapid development of events, the regiment did not have time to equip and arm itself as an independent unit, so it was almost immediately sent to replenish units of the 2nd and 44th Rifle Corps, in which it then participated in the defense of the city. More than 12 thousand mobilized were moved along the Mogilev highway to the east, where, by decision of the Headquarters of the High Command, a new defensive line of the front was created on the Berezina and Dnieper.

The first German bombers appeared over Minsk around noon on June 23, but on that day they bombed only the Freight Station (near Surazhskaya Street), the airfield in Loshitsa and the location of the 69th Infantry Separate Reconnaissance Battalion of the 100th Infantry Division in Uruchye. These raids caused irreparable damage to the air defense of Minsk. The airfield did not have anti-aircraft cover, the planes did not have time to camouflage themselves, some of them were destroyed right on the ground, and fuel warehouses burned down. The remaining vehicles were transferred to the airfield in Slepyanka, 10 km from Minsk, and on June 26 to the military airfield in Borisov.

By the evening of June 23, the situation on the Western Front had become significantly more complicated. The retreat of units of the 3rd Army of the Western Front in the southeastern direction and the 8th Army of the Northwestern Front in the northeastern direction led to the emergence of a free corridor about 100 km wide, along which the 39th mechanized corps rushed from Vilnius to Minsk. her tank group and part of the enemy's 9th Field Army. Here, on the distant approaches to the capital, they were resisted by formations of the 21st Rifle Corps of the 13th Army. During the battles, which in some areas continued until June 28, Soviet soldiers managed to destroy a significant amount of enemy equipment. From Brest, the 47th mechanized corps of the 2nd tank group and divisions of the 4th field army continued in the Minsk direction.

On this second day of the war, the enemy captured the largest regional centers of the BSSR Grodno, Kobrin, Pruzhany, Voronovo, etc. However, the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army, in fact, did not appreciate the danger of deep enemy breakthroughs in order to encircle the troops of the Western Front in the Bialystok-Minsk region. Confirmation is report No. 2 as of 23.00 on June 23, which made disastrous conclusions about the generally positive actions of the Soviet troops during 2 days of the war and the low rate of enemy advance.

The morning of June 24 dashed all hopes of Minsk residents for a successful outcome of events. At 9.40 the first massive bombing of the city began, in which 47 aircraft took part. Then during the day he was subjected to three more equally powerful raids. The raids continued until 9 pm. By the end of the day, the work of industry, institutions and commercial enterprises in the city was paralyzed.

The enemy destroyed the city with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, so fires added to the devastation - the fire quickly destroyed buildings and people died. German pilots bombed Minsk with precision, using the tactics of a powerful air strike, already tested in Warsaw and other Western European cities, which caused much more damage than ground operations: the entire city center was destroyed, including residential areas, and only partially the outskirts where the industrial enterprises that could be used in the future.

The forces defending the airspace over Minsk were unable to withstand such a strike. Since the pre-war formation of air defense brigades required a large number of anti-aircraft gunner commanders, they were trained according to an accelerated program, new anti-aircraft weapons had only just begun to arrive at the beginning of the war, the anti-aircraft artillery units of the Western air defense zone were still in the stage of reorganization, they were not fully provided with personnel and material partly, in particular, by radar means to combat observed targets.

In the evening, June 24. When the air raids stopped, thousands of Minsk residents moved from the burning city along the Mogilev and Moscow highways, trying to escape the bombings and fires. There is no data on the number of Minsk residents who managed to evacuate to the rear areas of the USSR.

By June 25, when the Headquarters of the High Command finally sent Pavlov D. an order to withdraw troops from the Bialystok ledge, events in the Bialystok-Minsk direction had already become irreversible - the troops of the 3rd and 10th armies were in a semi-circle of encirclement. The enemy came close to the territory of the Minsk fortified area (thousands of local residents took part in strengthening the defensive line) and bloody battles broke out on the approaches to the capital. From the diary of combat operations of the 100th Infantry Division from June 22 to June 30, 1941. “June 25 1.25. During the day, planes continued to bomb Minsk. The city is burning. The enemy is actively operating in small sabotage gangs. 21.30. Troops landed in the Gorodishche area. The division received the task of going to the Ostroshitsky Gorodok area and taking up defensive positions. Intelligence established that tanks had broken through the fortification area and about 6 tanks were operating in the direction of Minsk..”.

On June 25-26, the Military Council of the Western Front transferred the 100th and 161st divisions to the 2nd Rifle Corps of Major General A. N. Ermakov, after which they occupied defensive lines north of the capital.

The enemy was rapidly approaching the capital in several directions: Negoreloye-Minsk, Molodechno-Minsk, Rubezhevichi-Dzerzhinsk, Rakov-Minsk, on which the main defense units were “tied up”.

The fighting on the near approaches to Minsk began on the evening of June 2-5, when at the position of the 64th Infantry Division in the Rogovo-Zaslavl-Krasnoe sector, units of the 39th Motorized Corps of the enemy’s 3rd Tank Group, which had broken through from Molodechno, were attacked, but were stopped. At dawn the next day, after a massive bombing and artillery attack, significant enemy tank forces moved towards the division's positions, but also met stubborn resistance.

The Germans continued to send large landing forces into the Minsk area. In the Ostroshitsky Gorodok area from morning until dark on June 26, in groups of 3 aircraft every 10-15 minutes. A parachute landing was carried out, providing a landing site for transport aircraft, which began transporting troops and military equipment. Here, at the Ostroshitsky Gorodok - Karas line, soldiers and commanders of the 100th Infantry Division fought for three days, covering Minsk. For the first time on the Soviet-German front, soldiers of this division used bottles of fuel against enemy tanks. The bottles were delivered to the division's positions by trucks from the Minsk glass factory "Proletary".

However, it was no longer possible to reverse the situation. On June 26, the enemy managed to capture the first regional centers of the Minsk region - Slutsk, Smolevichi and Starobin, and on June 27 - Gresk, Zaslavl and Krasnaya Sloboda. German tank divisions, despite the courageous resistance of the defenders of Minsk, continued to stubbornly break through to the city. On the morning of June 27, the 12th Panzer Division of Major General J. Harpe from the 3rd Panzer Group had already reached the immediate approaches to the Belarusian capital. At the same time, from the south, along the Brest Highway, the vanguard of the 17th Panzer Division of Major General K. von Weber from the 2nd Panzer Group approached Minsk.

According to the memoirs of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, the tragic news of the capture of Minsk became known in Moscow by the evening of June 28. On the evening of June 28, our troops retreated from Minsk... Headquarters and the General Staff took the news hard that our troops had abandoned the capital of Belarus.

With the capture of Minsk, the enemy closed the outer ring of the front east of the Belarusian capital and cut off the escape routes for units of the 3rd, 4th, 10th and 13th armies. Despite this, the fighters and commanders continued stubborn resistance in complete encirclement, thereby pinning down almost half of Army Group Cent. Only on the night of July 2 did they break through the ring and retreat to the southeast. Those who were unable to break through switched to guerrilla methods of struggle. The Minsk defensive epic, which was fleeting in nature, ended. The enemy was detained here for 7 days, which gained some time in organizing a new line of Soviet defense on the borders of the Berezina and Dnieper rivers. The enemy was inflicted significant damage, which slowed down the pace of his offensive in the central direction of the Soviet-German front and thereby contributed to the disruption of the plan for a lightning war.

In the battles for Eastern Belarus (summer 1941)

On June 29, the forces of the 39th and 47th mechanized corps of the 3rd and 2nd tank groups united east of the capital of Belarus and, after two days of fighting on the approaches to Minsk, closed the outer ring of encirclement. They cut off the retreat routes for the retreating groups of 11 divisions of the 3rd, 4th, 10th and 13th armies. The formations and units surrounded west of Minsk continued to stubbornly fight, pinning down 25 enemy divisions, which represented almost half of Army Group Center, including significant forces of tank units.

It should be noted that by the end of June the situation at the fronts was fully realized in the Kremlin. The Soviet leadership came to the conclusion that the combat plan developed before the war, which it tried to implement during border battles, did not correspond to the real situation. A radical revision of the war plan was necessary.

By June 30, 1941 a new plan for waging the struggle against aggression was basically formulated. Its main task was to undermine the enemy’s offensive capabilities through active strategic defense along the entire front, gain time for the accumulation of strategic reserves and, by changing the balance of forces during military operations, create the preconditions for the Red Army to launch a decisive counteroffensive.

In order to implement the decision made, a whole range of measures of a political, economic and military nature were carried out. Among them was the creation on June 30 of an emergency body - the State Defense Committee, headed by I.V. Stalin, which concentrated in its hands all the power in the state and played an important role in mobilizing all the forces of the country to repel the aggressor.

The transition to strategic defense involved determining the directions of the main efforts in three strategic directions of the Soviet-German front and determining the lines on which troops were to deploy to conduct strategic defense. In the north-west and south-west, they were based on the corresponding troops of the North-Western Front, which basically retained combat readiness and only required reinforcement at the expense of strategic reserves. The situation in the Moscow direction was more complicated, where the troops of the Western Front suffered a heavy defeat. Here, in essence, a new defense front had to be created. Therefore, the main direction was declared to be the Moscow direction, where the enemy attacked with the most powerful group.

The implementation of the new plan took place in very difficult conditions: the enemy continued to advance in all directions, literally following in the footsteps of the retreating troops, noticeably superior to them in strength and means, having an advantage in maneuverability and air supremacy.

On June 25, the Headquarters of the Main Command decided to create a defensive line in the rear of the Western Front and to concentrate on this line the army group of the Reserve of the High Command (19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd) led by Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny. The reserve armies received the task of occupying and firmly holding the defense on the Kraslava-Diena-Polotsk line by the end of June 28. Fortified area Vitebsk-Orsha - r. Dnieper to Loev, to prevent an enemy breakthrough. To create a defense on this line, at least 60 divisions were required. On July 1, by decision of headquarters, the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd armies from the reserve of the High Command were transferred to the Western Front. In the rear of the transformed front, in the Smolensk region, the 16th Army was concentrated, redirected from the southwestern direction.

On July 2, 43 divisions were transferred to the Western Front, and the Headquarters of the High Command left 22 divisions in the group of reserve armies. Consequently, 65 divisions were advanced to the Western direction. The front received two air divisions from the internal districts. As well as aviation units and formations, 452 aircraft with crews arrived by July 9. In the interests of the front troops, the 3rd Long-Range Bomber Aviation Corps was also brought in. The position of the troops of the Western Front was complicated by the fact that by June 29, in the territory occupied by the enemy, more than 60 district warehouses and bases with property and weapons remained, including 10 artillery, 25 fuel and lubricants, 14 food supplies and 3 armored tanks, located in the zone from 30 to 100 km. From the state border. Some of them were either blown up and burned, or abandoned. The front lost from 50 to 90% of the reserves of fuel, ammunition, clothing and armored vehicles, and food fodder created in peacetime. The total losses by this time amounted to ammunition - more than 2 thousand wagons - 30% of all supplies; fuel – more than 50 thousand tons (50%); tank property and food fodder - 50%; clothing items – 400 thousand basic sets (90% of stocks). The losses of engineering, logistics, medical and sanitary equipment and chemical protection equipment reached 85-90% of the front's reserves.

On July 1 and 2, German intelligence, using aerial photographs, established the movement of Soviet troops from the depths of the country to the Dnieper and their occupation of the defensive line from Orsha to Rechitsa. Therefore, on July 3, the German command resumed the offensive of the main tank forces to the east. For better coordination, the 2nd and 3rd Tank Groups were merged into the 4th Tank Army from July 2nd. Army Group Center was significantly reinforced with troops. In the first echelon, 28 divisions attacked (12 infantry, 9 tank, 6 motorized and 1 cavalry). In the second there are 35 divisions. The enemy's superiority in manpower and equipment became overwhelming.

On the 12th day of the war, July 3, 1941, an entry appears in F. Gelder’s diary, some of which later became often quoted in books on the first year of the war: “…. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the campaign against Russia was won within 14 days. Of course, it is not finished yet; the enormous extent of the territory and the stubborn resistance of the enemy, using all means, will fetter our forces for several more weeks.” Halder's notes for this day indicate that on the front of Army Group Center the pocket in the Novogrudok region was narrowed and completely blocked, that in the first half of the day Guderian's tank group crossed the Berezina, the left flank of Hotha's tank group reached the Western Dvina north-west of Polotsk in the middle of the day , and the 2nd and 9th armies continue to regroup, making large transitions and trying to pull up as much infantry as possible after the tank groups. Considering the situation in front of the front of the “South” group, Halder mistakenly assumed that the withdrawal was taking place “not on the initiative of the Russian command,” and came to the conclusion: “The task of defeating the main forces of the Russian ground army in front of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper has been completed.”

From July 2 to July 6, defensive battles were fought on the river. Berezina and Polesie. In the Borisov area, the enemy's path was blocked by cadet battalions of the Borisov Tank Technical School under the command of Corps Commissar I.Z. Susaykov and the regiments of the 1st Moscow Proletarian Motorized Rifle Division led by Colonel Ya. G. Kreiser. For three days they repelled the attack of tank and infantry units of the enemy’s 47th motorized corps. In the battles on the river. Berezina was defended by soldiers of the 100th Rifle Division. Having organized an orderly retreat to the eastern bank of the river, the division repelled massive attacks by German troops for several days, and then, finding itself surrounded, broke through to the east with heavy fighting and, reaching the Dnieper, united with the main forces of the front.

There were battles south of Borisov from Berezino to Bobruisk (units of the 4th Airborne and 20th Mechanized Corps and the 155th Infantry Division. They did not allow the enemy to cross the river in the Berezino area on the move and delayed his further advance. Thus, at the turn of the Berezina River, units and The formations of the Western Front managed to temporarily delay the advanced columns of the German Army Group Center... Only after all the formations of the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups reached the river, they, using their numerical superiority in equipment, managed to cross it and rush to the Dnieper. Here, at the beginning of July, bloody battles broke out near Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk directions.

The main threat to Soviet troops in northern Belarus was the 3rd Tank Group. By July 4, it reached the Lepel-Ulla-Polotsk line and captured small bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the Western Dvina in the areas of Disna and Vitebsk. On July 4, the Military Council of the Western Front set the troops the task of firmly defending the line of the Polotsk fortified area, the line of the river. Western Dvina – Senno-Orsha and further along the river. Dnieper, prevent the enemy from breaking through.

On July 5-11, the forces of the 22, 20 and 19 armies of the Western Front defended Vitebsk. Here the enemy troops had overwhelming superiority. So, on a two-hundred-kilometer stretch from the Sebezh fortified area to Vitebsk, 16 German divisions attacked against 6 divisions of the 22nd Army. In order to relieve enemy pressure in the Vitebsk direction, a counterattack was launched by Soviet troops from the area north and west of Orsha with the forces of the 7th and 5th mechanized corps of the 20th Army in the direction of Senno and Lepel. This counterattack, launched on the morning of July 6, 1941, was described in literature as one of the largest tank battles of the initial period of the war, in which at least 1.5 thousand tanks took part on both sides. In fact, started spontaneously, without preparation, without artillery and air support, it ended in failure. On the night of July 10, Vitebsk was captured by the Germans, and in connection with the capture, the army commander decided to abandon further development of the counterattack and withdraw the corps to the previous areas occupied by them before the outbreak of hostilities. An interesting assessment of the counterattack was given during interrogation by one of the participants in the counterattack, the commander of the battery of the 14th howitzer regiment of the 14th tank division of the 7th mechanized corps, Yakov Dzhugashvili, son of I.V. Stalin: “The failures of the Russian tank forces are not explained by the poor quality of the material or weapons, but by the inability of command and lack of maneuvering experience... Commanders of brigades - divisions-corps are not able to solve operational problems. This especially concerns the interaction of different types of armed forces.”

It is difficult to say how events could have developed if the power of these corps had been used for its intended purpose in another place, more prepared and suitable for the offensive. According to Russian military officers and historians, authors of the latest works on the history of the Great Patriotic War, the counterattack near Senno, in combination with counterattacks by troops in other areas, made it possible to delay the enemy’s offensive and create a defense front along the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers by the end of July 9.

An analysis of the fighting on the territory of Belarus in the initial period of the war shows that the main reasons for the defeat of the Soviet troops were the unpreparedness of the Western Special Military District (Western Front) to repel sudden and powerful tank attacks, and the unsuccessful deployment of the troops of the created group according to the cover plan. The German blitzkrieg strategy was opposed not by a strategic defense based on a real assessment of the situation, including maneuverable defense, with the widespread use of surprise and well-prepared counterattacks, but by an essentially unjustified strategy of lightning defeat of the invading enemy.

Results of military operations on the territory of Belarus in 1941.

Thus, in 1941, on the territory of Belarus, the troops of the Western Front suffered a heavy defeat. In the first 18 days, according to the latest data from Russian historiography, the total losses of the Western Front in manpower amounted to 417,729 out of approximately 625,000. 341,012 of them are considered irrecoverable, i.e. include both those killed and those who died from wounds, as well as those captured. The losses were also enormous during the Battle of Smolensk, the defense of Mogilev, and the battles on the Dnieper line. In these battles, the Western Front lost 469,584 people out of 579,400. Losses in the troops of the Central Front amounted to 107,225 military personnel.

Researchers have identified a large number of reasons that led to the tragedy of 1941. Among them are political miscalculations of the Soviet leadership, economic and military reasons.

The reasons for the failures of the Red Army in the first weeks of the war lie, first of all, in the miscalculations of the Soviet military-political leadership in their views on the initial period of the war and the implementation of measures to prepare the country and its Armed Forces for probable aggression.

The directives issued by the Soviet command at the beginning of the war demanding decisive offensive actions did not correspond to the current situation, and their implementation in conditions of partial loss of control only undermined the troops’ ability to conduct a sustainable defense.

The course of military operations in the initial period of the war revealed the low professional training of the command personnel of the Red Army, insufficient equipment of the troops with communications equipment, which affected the quality of command and control at all levels.

One of the shortcomings of the command staff of the Soviet troops was their lack of initiative, a direct consequence of the repressions of 1937-39. As Marshal A.E. Eremenko argued, “some commanders do not act proactively enough, do not know how to achieve a turning point in the situation, they hope for something and for someone. Then, after a certain time, I realized that this lack of faith in one’s own strength and reliance on something unexpected, almost miraculously, was brought up by the long-term dominance of the cult of personality. People, including fairly respectable leaders, believed that all decisions of any fundamental nature would come from above in a ready-made form. All this greatly hindered us in the first days of the war, when it was sometimes necessary to defend ourselves with small forces.”

The detrimental factor in the tragedy of the Red Army troops was the poor training and incompetence of its command staff, especially the senior military. To a large extent, this was recognized by the generals of the Red Army themselves. As experience shows, even the best of the Soviet generals and marshals, who later gained glory on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, did not yet know how to use the mighty force that was in their hands. This was especially negatively manifested in the desire to carry out counterattacks, contrary to the real situation, the lack of thoughtful tactics and strategy in the combat use of armored and air forces, and most importantly, a stubborn reluctance to reckon with losses.

The defense of the territory of Belarus provided rich combat experience in preparing and conducting defensive operations of the Great Patriotic War in conditions of limited time, dramatically changing conditions, and the use of large masses of tanks and aircraft. Resistance on intermediate lines, counterattacks from mechanized corps and combined arms formations caused significant damage to Army Group Center and slowed down the pace of its advance, which enabled the Soviet command to deploy troops of the 2nd strategic echelon, which then delayed the advance of German troops in the Battle of Smolensk for 2 months. 1941

The experience of defensive and offensive operations of fronts and armies, the variety of battles in difficult conditions served as a lesson for all personnel - from soldier to general. Everyone learned to fight. Unfortunately, this experience came with too great a price. Many mistakes and blunders were made in directing the combat activities of large military masses at all levels of command and control. The transition to strategic defense was delayed. Headquarters constantly set offensive tasks for the fronts, regardless of the lack of objective prerequisites for their successful implementation. The offensive was carried out without careful preparation, hastily, without sufficient material support, and in the absence of the necessary information about the enemy. Without knowing its weaknesses. A particularly vulnerable point of the Soviet troops was their low supply of ammunition and the small number of anti-tank weapons and aircraft.

However, in contrast to the results of the initial period of the war in the west, where the allied armies suffered a crushing defeat 10 days later, the Nazis failed to defeat the Soviet troops of the western border districts, which, having largely retained their combat capability, together with the strategic reserves that had managed to deploy, were ready to provide stubborn resistance. Already at the beginning of the campaign, the Wehrmacht suffered losses that it had not experienced in the previous years of the war. According to Halder, as of July 13, more than 92 thousand people were killed, wounded or missing in the ground forces alone, and the damage in tanks averaged 50%. The formations, and especially the associations, turned out to be unprepared for combat operations in environmental conditions, since on the eve of the war these issues were not considered or worked out either in theory or in practice. The same applies to the withdrawal of troops to intermediate and rear defense lines. Soviet troops, under attack from a superior enemy who had superior maneuverability and air supremacy, had to learn the art of a systematic and organized withdrawal from defense organizations as if they were prepared. The same goes for unprepared areas.

Summing up the analysis of military actions during defensive battles on the territory of Belarus in the summer of 1941, it can be stated that in incredibly difficult conditions, the Soviet troops, with their heroic resistance, managed to lay the first stone in the foundation of a future victory over the fascist enemy.

Despite the defeat of the Red Army in the summer of 1941, the fascist strategic plan of the Blitz was thwarted. Heavy bloody defensive battles of Soviet troops in Belarus made it possible to concentrate their reserves for the defense of Moscow and the defeat of Nazi troops.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany treacherously attacked the USSR. The BSSR was one of the first Soviet republics to take the blow of the Wehrmacht troops. Belarus was occupied by Nazi troops.

The border outposts were the first to meet the invaders. They immediately put up such resistance as the fascist aggressors had never encountered before. Until the last bullet, the border guards stood at their lines, preferring death to retreat and captivity. During the week of fighting, the soldiers of the 9th border outpost of Lieutenant Kizhevatov of the Brest Fortress destroyed about a battalion of Nazis. The garrison of the Brest Fortress held out for about a month, although the German generals only allocated a few hours to capture it. The last pockets of his resistance were suppressed only in August.

The military pilots of the Western Front showed courage: on the first day of the war they made more than 1.9 thousand sorties, carried out a number of bombing attacks on enemy airfields, and destroyed more than 100 enemy aircraft in battles. The crews of the aircraft of Captain Gastello and Captain Maslov sent their damaged aircraft to large concentrations of enemy military equipment.

Already on June 28 it was captured. Minsk The defenders of the capital in the first years of the war used the so-called. “glass artillery” (bottles with a flammable mixture for fighting tanks). During the first 3 days of fighting, soldiers of the 100th Infantry Division destroyed about 100 enemy tanks.

Near Borisov, Nazi troops felt the power of the new Soviet T-34 tanks. On July 6, 1941, near Senno in the Vitebsk region, one of the largest such battles at the beginning of the Second World War took place. About 1,600 tanks from both sides took part in it. The enemy was pushed back 40 kilometers.

Near Orsha, a battery of Katyusha rocket launchers under the command of Captain Flerov struck the enemy for the first time. Once surrounded, the battery made a more than 150-kilometer march along enemy rear lines. By order of the commander, the artillerymen blew up combat installations with weapons that were secret at that time.

For almost a month, from July 1 to July 26, the soldiers of the division under the command of General Romanov, being surrounded, with the help of the local militia, held back a tank armada near Mogilev. This defense significantly slowed down the Nazi offensive and allowed the Soviet command to gain valuable time to organize counteraction to the enemy.

By the beginning of September 1941, the entire territory of Belarus was occupied. Faced with fierce resistance from the Red Army troops, the Nazis did not achieve their plans for a “lightning war” and gave the Supreme High Command the opportunity to concentrate reserves and prepare for defense in the Moscow direction.