Siege of Brest Litovsk 1941

[Artur Phleps]

I was reading through the World War II Timeline and I noted the following: " July 23, 1941: Brest-Litovsk is taken by German troops after a month-long siege." This was puzzling to me as I had read various sources including Siege, War Without Garlands, and Barbarossa: The First 7 Days which basically state that the siege ended on June 30, 1941. It appears that the 23 July date if from the typical Soviet propaganda which appeared during the war and is being continued to be used without any further investigation.

On this site there is under the heading of the 45. ID the following: "The 45ths divisional after-action report of June 30 1941 relates:"The division took 7000 prisioners, including 100 officers. German losses were 482 killed, including 32 officers, and over 1000 wounded."

Here is the info from Barbarossa: After the 45. ID had sustained heavy casualties in the assault on the citadel, the Luftwaffe dropped a 1800 kg bomb on 29 June on the fortress, causing the C.O and 389 Soviet soldiers to surrender. This ended organized resistance to cease and the citadel was declared to be secure. The 45. ID moved east and the line of communications highway was opened to supply PanzerGruppe 2 under Heinz Guderian. There were still some Soviet diehards hiding in the city and citadel but the siege had ended.

The number of Soviet soldiers continues to be understated by Russian sources in order to make the Russian Army look better than it did in actuality. The Germans took 7000 prisoners and counted some 2000 dead. The total Russian dead is estimated to be around 3500. Thus there had to be between 9000 and 10,500 in the city and citadel when the assault began on June 22.

[Pirx]

I guess that both dates are correct: June 30 1941 in one report and July 23, 1941 in second.
Fortress Brest is a complex of forts: Kobylany, Lebiedziew, Lobaczew Duzy, Terespol, Murawiec-Zuki, Kolonia Dobratycze. Maybe part of them was captured to June 30, and last July 23?

the Luftwaffe dropped a 1800 kg bomb on 29 June on the fortress

sorry for my poor english but it mean 1 bomb that was so heavy?

[Lorenz]

The Luftwaffe dropped an SC 1800 "Satan" bomb. Details at:

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/sc1800.html

The High Command of the Luftwaffe reported the success of this special attack on 30 June 1941. Five bombers scored six direct hits with 1,100-pound demolition bombs (SD-500) on the right (north) side of the citadel on the morning of 28 June, but the garrison's resistance remained unbroken. Late in the afternoon seven bombers dived upon the fort, one of them dropping an SC-1800 bomb weighing almost two tons and the others dropping twelve 1,100-pound bombs (SC-500), all of which struck the target and forced the garrison to capitulate.

[Source: Plocher, Hermann. The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1941. USAF Historical Studies: No. 153. New York: Arno Press, 1968. p.87. Citing: Ob.d.L. Abt. Ic, g.Kdos., Lagebericht Nr. 660, 30.6.1941].

The SC-1800 "Satan" was dropped by a crew belonging to 6. Staffel/KG 3 flying a Ju 88A-5 or A-6.

--Lorenz

[Artur Phleps]

The last fortress capitulated on 30 June. There were single soldiers hiding in the city and in the underground passage ways in the citadel. What is not in any of the literature of this topic is how many Soviets were still alive and hiding after 30 June. It is known that Soviet snipers would open fire on German soldiers and convoys. Once such rifle fire is opened, the sniper would have to change positions since his position would be known and small units such as the military police would be coming after him. I would also like to know how many Soviets were killed within the ruins or did they just die of lack of nourishment.

The Soviets' claim that the siege lasted until 23 July is without foundation and is pure propaganda and lies. A parallel argument can be made by the Japanese that when a Pacific island had been captured by the Americans, a few Japanese soldiers were hiding in the jungle until the 1970s and therefore the battle never ended. A few diehard holdouts don't change the fact that the battle and siege had ended. All over Russia there were individuals who refused to capitulate after events had overtaken them.

[Pirx]

The last fortress capitulated on 30 June. ...

.... Soviets' claim that the siege lasted until 23 July is without foundation and is pure propaganda and lies. .

Ok show sources (literacy, web sites) of this informations.
45 th div indeed captured southern part of Brest, but all i have found and read was that whole city was in German hands at end of July.
If there was only partisants in town, why so many German units still was around Brest instead go east?

[Artur Phleps]

To Pirx:

Perhaps you might note my sources in the first posting. You ask for my sources but you don't provide your own. My most recent reading on this topic is from Will Fowler's book Barbarossa: The First 7 Days.

In 1939 during the Polish campaign, Brest Litovsk had been captured by Guderian's forces and the outlay of the city and citadel were known in addition to aerial reconnaissance. The attack began on the morning of 22 June 1941 with an artillery barrage and aerial bombing. The 45. ID, with the support of Nebelwerfer Regiment 4 and assault guns, began the assault as the artillery barrage moved forward 100 meters every four minutes. The railroad bridge was captured intact. One group of infantry landed on Citadel island and was isolated for two days before being rescued. It took several days of fighting to capture all the strong points except for the Ostfort. Generalmajor Schlieper decided that his division had sustained enough casualties and resorted to the Luftwaffe dropping a 1800 kg bomb which penetrated the ceiling, causing 389 Soviets to surrender including their commander Major Gavrilov.

In the words of Will Fowler: "This marked the effective end of resistance in the Ostfort." This is corroborated in Guderian's book and the others I first cited.

I would be most interested in hearing from you as to the claim that the fighting continued until 23 July. Give me the units involved, how many soldiers, where they resisted, the nature of the fighting, casualties, and their final surrender or death. Since many of the POWs returned to Russia after the war and were interrogated by the NKVD, there must be reports of such in the Russian files which could corroborate your claims.

I see no evidence in any of the western literature that German combat units continued to fight for the citadel after 30 June. The 45. ID after action report indicates that the battle ended on this date and that it joined the Panzer Gruppe 2 at the front which had moved eastwards.

[Pirx]

All sources i could find: Brest and citadele was captured 30 June 1941.
Separated groups continued fights until 23 July 1941. Fortress Brest radius is about 30 km, and most forts aren't in town:

Western Forts in red rectangles, other forts are north, east and south from town.

[Lorenz]

It has become perfectly clear that this is a private discussion and the input of others is neither desired nor appreciated, but I would be aiding and abetting the perpetuation of a World War II myth if I did not post the following. You are free to accept it or reject it as you wish.

The fighting inside Brest-Litovsk was particularly severe, the NKVD border guards and part of 6 and 42 Soviet Rifle Divisions in the Citadel area holding out until 29 June and causing heavy casualties to the assaulting 45 German Infantry Division. (12)

[Footnote 12: The Soviet account of the Brest battle has been developed for propaganda purposes into an epic of six weeks heroic fighting until 20 July and is false. Platonov, Vtoraya Mirovaya Voina, p. 187; Istoriya, Vol. 2, p. 18. German war diaries, divisional histories and eyewitness accounts, including those of von Bock, Guderian and Rendulic who were on the spot, agree that the bitter fighting ceased on 29 June. 45. Infanterie Division an AOK 4 30 Juni 1941 Anlagenband 3 zum KTB d. 45. Div (Ia) 14875/15 (47); Guderian, Panzer Leader, p.154; Rendulic, Gekämpft Gesiegt Geschlagen, p. 23; von Bock, Tagebuch, 4 July 1941; Gschöpf, Mein Weg mit der 45. Infanterie-Division, p. 158; Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Vol. 3, p.22.]

[Source: Seaton, Albert. The Russo-German War 1941-45. Novato (CA): Presidio Press, 1993. p.120].

The story of the 22-29 June 1941 assault on Brest-Litovsk has been told, retold, sliced, diced and discussed in countless books, military history journals and magazines for nearly 60 years now. I have personally read at least a dozen accounts of the story in both English and German, and I have also read some of the original KTB und Anlagen material as microfilmed by NARA WashDC. They all say that the fighting ended on 29 June and that there were no repeat no holdouts.

--Lorenz

[Tom Houlihan]

Lorenz, understand I don't doubt what you wrote, but if Pirx is correct, then semantics could well be the cause of the confusion.

If one assumes that the fortress proper fell by the 29th, but there were outlying fortifications that didn't fall until later, would not those men consider the battle for the fortress to have lasted until they were defeated? Thus, if the men from fortification XYZ fought until 3 July, in their view which would be related to investigators and writers, the fighting lasted another few days. Thus, one would need a proper definition or delineation of the battle for the fortress.

Does that make sense?

[Lorenz]

Lorenz, understand I don't doubt what you wrote, but if Pirx is correct, then semantics could well be the cause of the confusion.
If one assumes that the fortress proper fell by the 29th, but there were outlying fortifications that didn't fall until later, would not those men consider the battle for the fortress to have lasted until they were defeated? Thus, if the men from fortification XYZ fought until 3 July, in their view which would be related to investigators and writers, the fighting lasted another few days. Thus, one would need a proper definition or delineation of the battle for the fortress.
Does that make sense?

Well, Tom, if there were an absence of primary documentation covering the assault and its aftermath, then I would gladly allow for that possibility. But the documentation does exist and no historian has ever found any mention of any of the outlying forts offering resistance past 29 June. From 22 through 28 June, II. and III./St.G. 77 dive-bombed the living daylights out of all of the Brest-Litovsk fortifications, many of the crews flying 6 and 7 strikes a day. The forts were then assaulted by Stoßtruppen with satchel charges and flamethrowers. There was no return fire after 29 June, by all accounts.

However, see Paul Carell's Hitler's War on Russia, pp.40-45. He provides considerable detail on the attack, including a page and a half on how the "myth" began in 1956 through the investigations of Soviet publicist Sergey Smirnov who wrote a small book, the title of which translates as In Search of the Heroes of Brest-Litovsk. According to Carell, some rooms in the bowels of several of the forts had been sealed off by falling ceilings and walls resulting from the bombs and artillery fire. A few of the defenders survived without water or food in these tiny pockets for a few more weeks, the last of them until 20 July it is thought. But there was no resistance. Many of them were wounded in various degrees and just lay there until they expired. The Germans didn't even know they were there. It was only after the war that some excavating was done and some personal messages in Russian found scratched on pieces of fall masonry that bore various dates between 1 and 20 July. How many survivors were there? No one knows with certainty, but it is not thought that they numbered more than a handful.

Now, if those few survivors constitute holdouts offering resistance, then I and a whole lot of distinguished Western historians need to go back to the drawing board.

Cheers,

--Lorenz

[Tom Houlihan]

Alrighty, then. I'll just slink right back on out of here, whence (wince?) I came!

Point taken.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Lorenz is right

I know the account in Carells book , but he provides sorrowly not a single source for that .

For example in Volker Detlef Heydorns ""Der sowjetische Aufmarsch im Bialystocker Bogen bis zum 22.Juni 1941 und der Kessel von Wolkowysk" , which backs on Freiburg documents gives nothing about a resistance in Brest-Litowsk in July 1941 ...

My 2 Euro-Cents ...

Jan-Hendrik

[veiss]

I’ve been several times in Brest Fortress and its museum. This is definitely a “must see”.
There is one common thing about every discussion. When arguing both sides should operate common definitions.
When you say that citadel capitulated and was captured on June 30 what is meant by “capitulated and captured”?
This date origins from the report of the commander of 45 I.D. But don’t forget that that he also reported that resistance in citadel was “basically suppressed “ also on 24, 26 and 29 June.
What is written below is a very short compilation of evidences of the surviving fortress defenders and local people from the neighborhood as well as scientific researches of Brest Fortress museum. You may call it propaganda but since we lack written documents (I can't regard Carrel book as a serious source) it makes sense to use it as a source.
Indeed, during 29-30 June Wehrmacht conducted heavy attacks on the last “organized” (sic!) stronghold using gas and flame throwers at the Eastern Fort. On June 30 German troops managed to blow up the main basement where the biggest group of officers and soldiers was located. Almost all the commanding officers from the so-called “fortress defense HQ” were killed. Only 2 of them survived but were heavy wounded and captured. Comissar Fomin was executed few hours later, captain Zubachev died in 1944 in concentration camp. From June 30 there was no more organized defense but strongholds in different parts of citadel. German soldiers continued to search every accessible basement and underground passage ways firstly throwing grenades inside or using flame throwers. Shots had been heard in different parts of the citadel.
2 July - Northern Gate captured
4 July - Eastern Fort cleared (about 20 remaining defenders killed)
12 July - Breakthrough of Major Gavrilov group (Major was wounded during breakthrough and hided in ruins and was captured after a short fight only 23 July!)
14 July - Pioneer Barracks captured – ( 7 remaining defenders killed)
15 July - unknown soldier jumped out of the upper section of Terespol Gate with pack of grenades on a passing by column of german soldiers
The date July 20 was widely used in Soviet historiography for a very simple reason. During the post-war excavations a personal messages in Russian found scratched on pieces of wall: “ I am dying but not giving up. Farewell, Motherland! 20.7.41”
Surely in pure military sense the organized defense did not exist any more after 30 June that’s why you won’t find it in primary documentations of division level, but few groups and individual soldiers did not give up and continued to fight and this fact was widely exploited by Soviet ideology to show the spirit which every soldier should have. For me it is quite natural.
All this facts regard only the citadel itself, outside the fortress fights in the zone of armored bunkers continued within the first decade of July.

[Lorenz]

Veiss -

Thanks for the interesting input!

Your notes and comments sound entirely factual and I don't doubt the accuracy of the information. The only thing that one might quibble over and perhaps want additional information on is whether or not the tiny pockets of survivors actually fired on the Germans between 1 and 20 July.

Brest-Litovsk was a major road and rail junction that was vitally important to the Germans from a logistical point of view. My guess is that the little pockets of Soviet survivors were not actively firing their weapons from any of the forts after 1 July because the Germans would have considered that an unacceptable threat to their supply traffic along the roads. Had that been the case, the Germans would have quickly deployed the necessary assets to liquidate the hostile fire, and it is any mention of this that seems to be lacking in the German records.

I know, I know: absence of proof is not proof of absence, and I agree. Accordingly, we still need some further information on this before we can arrive at some sort of a definitive conclusion.

Cheers,

--Lorenz

[veiss]

Lorenz, small groups of defenders could not pose any threat to German ways of communications and supplies because the citadel itself is rather isolated and has no direct overview on main roads and railroads. Survivors completely understood that there was no way out of the ruined basements and no chance for breakthrough. So most of them preferred to wait for bypassing German soldiers or "clearing units" and open fire, than escaping by tunnels to another place.
For me this is not military but purely moral subject. Those soldiers new that sooner or later they will be killed but preffered to fight rather than to put hands up like many of their colleagues in the first days of assault
You may also lfind something interesting here
http://www.brest.by/ct/page3e.html
http://nacbibl.org.by/brest/en/defense.html