The Siege of Brest, 1941

A Legend of Red Army Resistance on the Eastern Front

Rostislav Aliev, Stuart Britton

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781781590850
• eBook ISBN: 9781473826946
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

A Russian historian recounts the legendary Soviet defense of Brest against Nazi invasion in this lively and authoritative WWII chronicle.

On June 22nd, 1941, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa began with the Nazi attack on the Soviet frontier fortress of Brest. Across a massive front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the German forces advanced, taking the Red Army by surprise and brushing aside the first stunned defenses. But the isolated stronghold of Brest held out. The defenders, trapped and without hope of relief, put up a tenacious resistance against an entire Wehrmacht division as the Soviet front collapsed behind them.
The heroic defense of Brest has become one of the legends of the Second World War on the Eastern Front, an example of selfless Soviet heroism in the face of Nazi aggression. Rostislav Aliev describes the fighting, hour by hour, in vivid detail. In the process, he strips away the myths and exaggerations that have grown up around this famous story.
Using eyewitness testimony and extensive research, Aliev reconstructs each stage of the siege. From the shock of the initial artillery barrage, he describes the defenders' chaotic struggle to organize resistance, their doomed counter-attacks, the continuous pounding of German guns and bombs, the grim fate of the Soviet survivors, and the extraordinary resistance of small groups of soldiers operating in the underground passages of the shattered fortress.

Part I

Thunderstorm is Approaching

Chapter 1

‘Gentlemen, our objective is Brest-Litovsk’

Three assaults

Brest-Litovsk is a city which by 1941 had already become a victorious symbol of German arms. Despite the fact that prior to the First World War, the high command of the Imperial Russian Army had placed a lot of hopes on the Brest Fortress, in 1915 the powerful fortress was abandoned by the Russians to the attacking Germans without a fight, and the fortifications which had taken decades to complete were demolished.

However, in March 1918 Brest-Litovsk quickly became better known in history with the signing in its fortress of the Brest Peace Treaty, which was a humiliation for Russia. This was the final victory of Imperial Germany over the already collapsing Russian Empire.

Brest-Litovsk also became an important symbol in the pre-war Soviet-German relationship. However, even by the start of the ‘military relations’, it just as before remained not simply a border city, but a complex of fortifications now being occupied by the Russian People’s Army, the unpredictability and ferocity of which in fact had to a great degree brought about the 1918 Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

By 1939 Brest was now part of Poland, having been ceded to it under the terms of the 1921 peace treaty between the young Soviet republic and Poland. Thanks to the fact that Brest (which before 1939 was known as Brest-on-Bug) now lay rather distant from the German borders, in the years prior to the Second World War the Wehrmacht showed little interest in it.

During the 1939 campaign in Poland, on 13 September 1939 German forces arrived on the outskirts of Brest-on-Bug. Polish units of Group ‘Brest’ under the command of the previously retired 49-year-old General Konstantin Plisovsky were occupying the city, primarily ensconced in the fortress. According to various data, they numbered between 2,500 and 4,000 men – primarily soldiers of march and sentry units and elements, which had a total of 18 field guns, 8 anti-aircraft guns, 36 French Renault FT-17 light tanks and a platoon of TKS tankettes.

On 14 September, units of the 10th Panzer Division (its reconnaissance battalion and Panzer Regiment 8) breached the outer perimeter of fortifications. Corps commander Heinz Guderian ordered the entire corps to attack Brest as quickly as possible in order to exploit this unexpected success. However, the Germans failed to take the city from the march. In the period between 14 and 16 September, the Poles repulsed seven German infantry attacks that had been supported by panzers, artillery and the Luftwaffe, while in the process losing approximately 40 percent of its personnel in killed and wounded. Considering the casualties, the dwindling amount of ammunition, and the fact that in certain sectors the Germans had nevertheless been able to penetrate the Main Wall and to push the Poles back into the Citadel, at 1700 on 16 September, General Plisovsky decided to abandon the Citadel.

In 1941, Guderian’s divisions again faced assaulting the Brest Fortress. Later he would write:

The fortifications of Brest-Litovsk were out of date, it is true, but the combinations of the Bug, the Muchavec and water-filled ditches made them immune to tank attack. Tanks could have only captured the citadel by means of a surprise attack, as had been attempted in 1939. The requisite conditions for such an attack did not exist in 1941.

Guderian understood that his forces might get bogged down seizing the fortress, in the process losing both strength and time – factors that would prove decisive in Russia.

The Fortress

Situated at the confluence of the Bug and Muchavec Rivers, the Brest-Litovsk Fortress was founded in 1833. Its construction developed on the territory of medieval Brest, which was demolished to make way for the fortress. Using branches of the Muchavec and canals that were dug to link with the river, the designers planned for the fortress to consist of four fortified island areas – a central, northern, southern and western – that would be created by the rivers and canals. The fortress was surrounded by an undulating plain that varied in elevation by no more than 15 meters. It was cut by river branches and streams, often with boggy bottomlands, which to the south-east merged with the swampy Polesia Forest. The soil in the area, as a rule, is a mixture of sand and clay, but predominantly sandy. The approach to the forest depends totally upon the weather. The broad meadows surrounding it during a prolonged dry spell become passable for vehicles even in the swampy places. In contrast, rains create wide, swampy areas that are difficult to access, and make the roads in the south-east virtually impassable. The entire fortress is surrounded by several belts of forested tracts, which in swampy areas are replaced by patches of alder. The Bug River bisects the fortress, flowing generally from east to west; to the north it is joined by the Lesna River. In the center, the Citadel stands on the Central Island, which is skirted by a ring of two-story brick barracks (referred to subsequently as the Ring Barracks) approximately 11 meters high and with a perimeter of 1.8 kilometers. The thickness of the outer walls, which contain embrasures, reached 2 meters, while the window-lined inner walls were up to 1.5 meters thick. The Ring Barracks consist of 500 casemates, with embrasures for guns and small-arms fire. A most important circumstance is the fact that data about the thickness of the walls of the buildings on the territory of the Central Bastion, which were built in the mid-nineteenth century cannot be found in any of the available German documents. In contrast with the fortifications of the inner and outer fortified belts (for which certain, albeit sparse measurements were available), they probably were considered to have lost completely any military significance and were interesting only as barracks facilities. It is assumed that in the extreme case, they might have only caught the Germans’ attention when being assaulted by the infantry and heavy infantry weapons. With the application, for example, of aircraft and heavy artillery, the fortifications lost their significance.

The entire Ring Barracks (as well as all the buildings within the Citadel) had cellars, which were used as storage areas. It is important to note that there was no passageway through the interior of the Ring Barracks or its cellars. This meant that the enemy, having seized any particular casemate of the barracks and its accompanying cellar still had no available interior access to the adjacent casemates of the Ring Barracks. The enemy would have to emerge back into the courtyard or climb onto the roof, and while under fire from every direction, launch a new assault on the neighboring sector, or else blow holes through the walls that divided the casemates, which given their thickness, was rather problematic. However, the absence of passageways presented a problem to the defenders as well – they had nowhere to retreat, so their only options became to die in place or to surrender. Of course, the buildings of the fortress were linked by a network of underground tunnels.

The approaches to the walls of the fortress were guarded by branches of the Muchavec River, as well as by four semi-towers, which provided the opportunity for flanking fire. Access to the grounds of the Citadel was given via four gates – the Trekharoch and Brigidki (from North Island), the Kholm (from South Island), and the Terespol (from West Island).¹ A bridge of the same name led across the branches of the Muchavec River to the corresponding island and gateway. In addition, a causeway ran alongside the Terespol Bridge. It is important to note that by 1941, a portion of the Ring Barracks on the eastern side of the Citadel, where the Muchavec River forks, had been destroyed, creating a gap which both the defenders and attackers sought to use. It still isn’t known whether this section had been destroyed by a German barrage in 1939, or, what is more likely, the Poles themselves had demolished it even earlier, with the aim of obtaining a perspective and beautiful view of the fork of the Muchavec River.

There were other buildings in the Citadel, some of which (as in the case of other portions of the fortress) had as their basis buildings of medieval Brest. One of its strongest buildings, the two-story Arsenal, which covered a rectangular area of nearly 3,000 square meters, lay in its western area next to the Terespol Gate. Among the buildings of the Citadel in 1939 was the Orthodox Church of Saint Nikolai, which had been transformed by the Poles into the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Kazimir. Nearby were the Rectory building, an old building of the Engineering Directorate (which had been the headquarters of the Polish 9th Army) and the spacious ‘White Palace’, which served as an officers’ club and contained a casino, hotel and ballroom. There were numerous other structures in the grounds of the Citadel. Altogether according to German estimates, the Citadel could accommodate 12,000 to 15,000 soldiers together with their ammunition and provisions.

North Island, which actually lies to the east of the Citadel on the Central Island, had the housing for the families of the officers and career sergeants, as well as a post office, shops, a stadium and the powder depots. There were two two-story barracks on its western side. A road ran from the Trekharoch Gate across North Island to its Northern Gate. On opposite sides of this road were the Western and Eastern Casemate Redoubts. Entering history as the West and East Forts, they were earthen lunettes, each of which contained a smaller, but taller crescent-shaped embankment. Within the earthworks, as was practically the case everywhere else in the fortress, were fortified chambers that could shelter defenders; within the inner lunettes, these were two-tiered. The approach to the Trekharoch Gate from the direction of North Island was also guarded by bulwarks, with gorge barracks concealed within them that offered shelter to defending troops and served as reduits (inner redoubts built within enclosed fortifications for combat within the latter and for strengthening the inner defenses in case the outer walls are breached). No less strong were the fortifications on the West and South Islands, which faced to the west, since that was the direction from which the architects anticipated an enemy attack would come. All four fortified areas, covering a total area of 4 square kilometers, were enclosed by a strong, 10-meter-high wall (which henceforth will be called the Main Wall), within which there were more fortified barracks designed as reduits. In front of the Main Wall was a moat (henceforth referred to as the Forward Moat), which is often referred to as the Bypass Canal. The Main Wall, which had a thickness of up to 8.5 meters, had four entrances – the Northwestern, Northern, Eastern and Southern Gates. Narrow, paved embankments led across the Forward Moat to each of them.

At the end of the 1860s, the Warsaw–Moscow railroad was laid down north of the fortress. The railroad embankment partially blocked fire from North Island, creating a dead zone that enemy troops could exploit. As a result, Fort ‘Graf Berg’ was built on the opposite side of the railroad embankment, 850 meters from the Main Wall, and in front of this fort was an earthwork for artillery (on the German maps it is designated as an infantry fortification). From this moment it would be more correct to call the Brest Fortress the ‘Central Bastion’, which became surrounded by a string of forts, the construction of which took place in the years 1878–87. At a radius of 3–4 kilometers from the Central Bastion, nine brick-and-earth forts were constructed, which created a planned inner auxiliary ring, and in 1910, Fort X was built in order to guard a new railroad track. In 1913 work began on an outer auxiliary ring, which lay 4–5 kilometers beyond the inner ring of forts. At that time, while the brick masonry work in the Central Bastion and the inner auxiliary ring was almost finished, the work on the outer auxiliary belt was being done in compressed concrete over wire netting. The finished brickwork in the inner auxiliary ring was also strengthened by an applied coating of reinforced concrete with a thickness of 1.5 to 2 meters.

The Array of Forces

It is still unknown who, how or when the planning for the capture of Brest-Litovsk and its Citadel in 1941 was done, whether in army headquarters, army group headquarters or even higher, in the headquarters of the OKH [Oberkommando des Heeres, or High Command of the Army]. One thing is clear – from the moment when the decisions were taken for Operation Barbarossa, the city lay in the direct path of the main attack. On one hand this dictated the increased focus on its capture, and on the other hand – the prompt initiation of working out all the details of the assault.

The key figures in the fight for Brest began to assemble already in the second half of 1940. Soon after the conclusion of the campaign in France, the headquarters of General Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group ‘B’ was transferred to Poznan. At the end of December 1940, the headquarters of General Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge’s Fourth Army was located in Warsaw.

Prior to January 1941, neither von Kluge nor his headquarters had received any directions about preparing for a war with the Soviet Union. Then an order was received from the headquarters of Army Group ‘B’: as the former Fourth Army chief of staff General Gunther Blumentritt recalls in his post-war account of the Moscow campaign, it was a ‘cautiously worded order . . . which discussed the possibility of a campaign in the East. It was vaguely phrased in general terms.’ It isn’t clear what Blumentritt had in mind in January 1941, if the task of the Army Group had been clearly stated in a directive from the Army Group ‘B’ command back in December 1940 on the strategic deployment for Barbarossa – attacking to the north of the Pripet Marshes, employing major mobile formations, it was to break through the Russian front with attacks from the areas of Warsaw and Suwalki and to develop the offensive in the general direction of Smolensk. Having assembled its main forces on either side of Brest and acting in concert with Panzer Group 2 (which was under its temporary command), the task of the Fourth Army (VII, IX, XII, XIII and XXXXIII army corps) was to seize a crossing of the Western Bug River. Then, in the OKH directive from 31 January 1941, the army’s task was further clarified – to launch its main attack on both sides of Brest-Litovsk, force a crossing of the Western Bug, and then open the road to Minsk for Panzer Group 2.

From this moment, it was already necessary to begin preparations for the offensive. On 10 February 1941, Gunther Blumentritt asked the chief of staff of the XXXIV Army Corps Colonel Sicht to give a short, detailed outline of a proposal on the subject ‘The Assault on Brest-Litovsk’ for working out details of the tactical assignment. Sicht’s headquarters faced the task of determining the quickest way of seizing the fortress, in order to open the important highway leading to Kobrin. The corps’ headquarters and three subordinate infantry divisions were committed to the operation. The objective was the Central Bastion. In particular, it was necessary to calculate the minimum number of supplemental artillery and combat engineering units required to take the objective, as well as the Luftwaffe support that would be needed. The assignment stated, ‘Any initiative and repeat reconnoitering of the area are only welcome.’

The key elements (assignments, forces and means) had already been determined by the Fourth Army command. The task given to Sicht and the staff of the XXXIV Army Corps was to elaborate them into specific orders and to select the units that would carry them out. The latter would have to force a crossing of the Bug River, breach the line of defending pillboxes, and to pursue the retreating enemy rapidly, striving to cut off the possibility of escape in order to encircle and destroy them close to the border. Accordingly, the troops selected for this mission had to have experience in quickly and successfully crossing a river, breaking through a line of concrete fortifications, and making rapid marches. Moreover, it was namely they that would have to serve as the spearhead of the main attack, which at a minimum would decide the outcome of the border battle and in essence the fate of the campaign in the East. Who could accomplish all this? Likely the answer was found in March 1941 in the divisions of Major General Hans Behlendorff (the 34th Infantry Division) and Major General Gerhard Körner (the 45th Infantry Division), which both had previous experience as participants in the forced crossing of the Aisne River in June 1940 in France. General of Artillery Rudolf Kämpfe’s 31st Infantry Division was also well-known to von Kluge after its superb performance on the Loire River while part of his Fourth Army. At this moment Kämpfe’s division (on 22 May he was replaced by Major General Kurt Kalmukoff) was serving in the XII Army Corps. Thus, the Fourth Army command pondered the choice between the latter and General of Infantry Friedrich Wilhelm ‘Fritz’ Koch’s XXXXIV Army Corps for a long time. The initial plan for the offensive in the Brest sector had been prepared precisely by Koch’s headquarters, and for a certain time the 31st Infantry Division was placed under his command. However, the final choice fell upon General of Infantry Walther Schroth’s XII Army Corps, in no small part because he was one of the Wehrmacht’s most experienced corps commanders. Schroth had been commanding the XII Corps back on 1 September 1939 and had led it through the campaign in Poland, then (9 April 1940) having turned command of it over for a short time to Gotthard Heinrici, Schroth resumed command of the XII Corps and concluded the campaign in France in charge of it. Schroth ultimately decided to give the task of seizing Brest to Körner’s 45th Infantry Division, which had previously been the Austrian 4th Division prior to Hitler’s 1938 annexation of Austria.

Why was it the 45th Infantry Division that was given this role? Firstly, as already mentioned, it had the experience of forcing the Aisne River in 1940 in the Neufchâtel sector, which ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Maps
• Translator’s Note
• Introduction
• Part I Thunderstorm is Approaching
• Part II The Assault
• Part III Mopping Up
• Epilogue