Fallen Soviet Generals

Soviet General Officers Killed in Battle, 1941-1945

Aleksander A. Maslov, David M. Glantz, David M. Glantz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781135252496
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'armée et de la marine

No war has caused greater human suffering than the Second World War on Germany's Eastern Front. Victory in the war cost the Red Army over 29 million casualties, whose collective fate is only now being properly documented. Among the many millions of soldiers who made up that gruesome toll were an unprecedented number of Red Army general officers. Many of these perished on the battlefield or in prison camps at the hands of their German tormentors. Others fell victim to equally terrifying Stalinist repression. Together these generals personify the faceless nature of the war of the Eastern Front - the legions of forgotten souls who perished in the war. Covered up for decades, the saga of these victims of war can now be told and in this volume, A A Maslov begins the difficult process of memorializing these warrior casualties. Using formerly secret Soviet archival materials and personal interviews with the families of the officers, he painstakingly documents the fate of Red Army generals who fell victim to wartime enemy action.

1
Military Leaders Who Perished during Defensive and Offensive Operations in 1941 and 1942

It was the fault of Stalin and the entire military-political leadership of the Soviet Union that in June 1941 Soviet forces in the border military districts were forced to fight in extremely unfavorable and often disastrous strategic, operational, and tactical circumstances. By exploiting tactical and, frequently, operational surprise, German forces immediately seized the strategic initiative and quickly penetrated Soviet defenses along the western and northwestern strategic axes. In the northwest, German Army Group North, spearheaded by the powerful Fourth Panzer Group, lunged deep into the Baltic region toward Leningrad. Within weeks German armored forces had crushed defending Soviet Northwestern Front formations, seized Riga, and crossed the Dvina River deep into Latvia. At the same time, German Army Group Center attacked the flanks of the Soviet Western Front forces defending the exposed Bialystok salient. German Third and Second Panzer Groups’ rapid advance north and south of the salient quickly propelled German forces into the Minsk region and, within weeks, encircled the bulk of three Soviet armies in the Bialystok and Minsk pockets.

Forced to conduct heavy defensive combat at a time when invading German Army forces possessed marked superiority in manpower and weaponry over them, the Red Army’s covering armies deployed along the western border were caught in numerous encirclements of various scales and suffered immense irrevocable (killed, seriously wounded, or missing in action) and sanitary losses (lightly wounded or ill) and staggering losses of military equipment. During the first period of war alone (22 June 1941–19 November 1942), the Soviet Armed Forces lost a total of more than 11 million men, half of which (6.1 million men) were irrevocably lost, and the remainder (5 million) of which fell ill or less severely wounded.¹ All categories of soldiers, enlisted men, sergeants, officers, and generals suffered equally catastrophic losses.

Combat during the June 1941 border battles in Belorussia was particularly severe, as German forces rapidly advanced deep into the country along the critical Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow axis. According to German sources (the evidence is not available in Soviet military-political literature), by 10 July 1941, German forces had already taken 323,000 Red Army soldiers and officers prisoner in the Bialystok and Minsk regions.²

Several Soviet general officers also perished in Belorussia during this most difficult initial period of war on the Western Front. On 23 June 1941, the day after war began, the assistant commander of Western Special Military District fortified regions, Major General I. R. Mikhailin, was killed during a sudden enemy air strike near the town of Volkovysk.³ This general, as well as Major General S. M. Kondrusev, who was fatally wounded in the Ukraine, were the first Soviet generals to perish at the front.

The next day Western Front general officer losses continued to mount. On 24 June Major General of Tank Forces V. R. Puganov, the commander of 14th Mechanized Corps’ 22nd Tank Division, died on the field of battle while the division was attempting to halt the German armored thrust north and south of Brest. The 22nd Tank Division found itself in a particularly difficult situation as it attempted to carry out counterattack orders. During its harrowing march forward into hastily selected combat positions, its fuel reserves were exhausted or destroyed by incessant enemy air attacks, and, once in its forward positions, the tankists were ordered to carry out desperate attacks against overwhelmingly strong enemy panzer forces. A terrible meeting battle ensued near the city of Kobrin between the already worn out division and seemingly endless waves of advancing German armor. During the fierce and uneven battle, at 0500 hours on 22 June 1941, General Puganov was killed by an enemy shell fragment and, within several hours of brutal combat, the 22nd Tank Division was utterly destroyed and ceased to exist.⁴ After the combat carnage had ended, the general was buried in a communal grave.

At the end of June, Major General D. P. Safronov, the commander of the 143rd Rifle Division of the Western Front’s reserve 47th Rifle Corps, was killed in action. During the initial days of war, this reserve division, together with its parent rifle corps, deployed forward from its garrison in the city of Bobruisk and met advancing German forces in the Slonim and Baranovichi regions southwest of Minsk. In heavy combat around Slonim, the division and the 47th Rifle Corps suffered heavy losses and were ultimately encircled with the remnants of Soviet 3rd, 4th, and 10th Armies in the huge Minsk pocket. Although some division soldiers succeeded in breaking out of the pocket to rejoin their withdrawing comrades, General Safronov was killed in action on 26 June in the immediate vicinity of Baranovichi during the failed breakout attempt, while heroically trying to lead his men to safety.⁵ The exact location of his burial site remains unknown.

At about the same time, the experienced and energetic commander of Western Front’s reserve 21st Rifle Corps, Major General V. B. Borisov, was killed in combat near the small town of Rodoshkovichi, while his corps was deploying forward in the Lida area north of Minsk. Earlier, during the Soviet-Finnish War, General Borisov had become a ‘cavalier’ of the Order of Lenin for successfully leading his rifle division at the front, and 350 of his division’s soldiers and officers had been awarded with orders and medals.⁶ In one prewar testimonial about V. B. Borisov, prepared when he was serving as chief of the 3rd Section of the Belorussian Special Military District’s 1st Department, the department chief, Colonel L. M. Sandalov, wrote that Borisov was, ‘… a very strong, energetic, and enterprising commander. Possesses great capacity for work, while completing his work quickly and accurately.’⁷ While serving on the Belorussian Military District staff, then General (and future Marshal) R. Ia. Malinovsky also gave General Borisov an exceptionally high evaluation. In an assessment sent in August 1939 to the Administration on Command and Leadership Personnel of the RKKA [Workers and Peasants Red Army], General Malinovsky wrote the following about Borisov: ‘His work and repeated exchanges of opinions with him on current party and political questions gives me the right to consider him, unconditionally, as devoted to the Socialist Homeland.’⁸ At the time of his death, the divisions of General Borisov’s 21st Rifle Corps had engaged German forces in piecemeal fashion, and their remnants were withdrawing in disorder toward Minsk. The corps commander was killed by an enemy shell while riding in a tank and organizing the withdrawal of 37th Rifle Division, during almost continuous enemy attacks and heavy artillery and mortar fire.⁹

At the very end of June 1941, the commander of the Western Front’s powerful 6th Mechanized Corps and well-known military leader, Major General M. G. Khatskilevich, fell in battle near the town of Slonim. Immediately after the German offensive began, the Western Front commander, Army General D. G. Pavlov, ordered Khatskilovich’s corps and the 11th Mechanized Corps to mount a counterthrust against German forces advancing eastward through Grodno on the northern flank of the Bialystok salient. The corps counterattack failed when fuel and ammunition shortages and heavy German air attacks decimated the armored force. Thereafter the corps’ remnants fought in encirclement between Bialystok and Minsk and suffered appalling casualties. While struggling in encirclement, General Khatskilevich was the very model of courage and bravery for his soldiers. He was killed (exact date unknown) while in a tank fighting with numerically superior enemy forces and was buried in the village of Ozernitsa in Grodno oblast’ [region].¹⁰

On 30 June 1941, almost simultaneously with the death of General Khatskilevich, and, supposedly, in the same region, the artillery commander of 6th Mechanized Corps, Major General of Artillery A. S. Mitrofanov, was fatally wounded while fighting to escape encirclement along with 6th Mechanized Corps forces. According to an eye witness, he soon died, but his exact burial site is also unknown.¹¹

During the disastrous border battles, even army commanders shared the fate of tens of thousands of hapless Red Army soldiers. On 8 July 1941, while traveling by vehicle along the road to the Western Front headquarters in the region of the city of Mogilov, the well-known commander of 13th Army, Lieutenant General R. M. Filatov, was fired on by enemy aircraft and severely wounded. Earlier in his career, Soviet military authorities had recognized Filatov’s exploits at the front during the Russian Civil War by awarding him with two Orders of Red Banner and, during the interwar years, by awarding him with the Order of the Red Star for his successes in combat training. General Filatov’s 13th Army, which was initially in Western Front reserve in eastern Belorussia, exerted immense efforts to contest the enemy advance, in particular at Minsk and along the approaches to the Dnepr River, and, as a result, it suffered grievous losses. For example, after the intense battles, the army’s 160th and 143rd Rifle Divisions retained only one-third of their original combat strength.¹² Evacuated to Moscow, General Filatov died on 14 July 1941 despite the best efforts of his doctors.

Red Army forces of the Northwestern Front, which defended the Baltic region, also suffered serious command cadre losses during the initial days of war. Among those who perished in unequal combat against German Army Group North and Fourth Panzer Group were Generals N. A. Dedaev, V. F. Pavlov and E. N. Soliankin. Major General Pavlov, the commander of 16th Rifle Corps’ 23rd Rifle Division in 11th Army, was killed near the village of Ionava while attempting to organize his units for a crossing of the Viliia River. At the time, 11th Army forces had been driven from their border defenses west of Vilnius and were withdrawing in disorder deep into Lithuania. An enemy shell struck the vehicle in which the division commander was riding, and the vehicle immediately burst into flames. In the ensuing fire, General Pavlov’s body was completely burned and disfigured beyond recognition.¹³

Major General E. N. Soliankin, the commander of 3rd Mechanized Corps’ 2nd Tank Division, fell heroically on the field of battle in southern Lithuania while his division was attempting to halt the precipitous advance of German XXXXI Panzer Corps. Late on 23 June 1941, Soliankin’s division, which contained both KV and T-34 tanks, attacked the forward elements of German 6th Panzer Division near the village of Raseinai. The sudden attack with tanks, whose existence was unknown to the Germans, prompted temporary panic in German units. However, the Germans regained their composure just as Soliankin’s division ran out of fuel and ammunition. Within days the Soviet division had been totally destroyed, and, on 26 June, its commander was killed. General Soliankin was removed from the Soviet officer corps’ list by NKO GUK Order No. 031, dated 3 September 1941, as having perished in battle against German-Fascist aggressors.¹⁴

The superb organizer and personally fearless Major General N....