The first order to retreat was received by the Germans who attacked the Brest Fortress
June 22, 1941 is one of the most terrible days in the history of our country. Those events largely predetermined the catastrophe of the summer of 41 as a whole.
The Red Army met the war in three operatively unconnected echelons. The first was on the border, the second - in the depths of the formation of the troops of special districts, and, finally, the third - on the line of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper. This practically did not give a chance to the covering armies on the border. Their defeat worsened the balance of forces for the Red Army and led to the loss of damaged and out of order military equipment.
1. Taurage
A serious problem of the Red Army in June 1941 was the delay in bringing the troops into combat readiness. However, the significance of this factor should not be exaggerated. Preemptive mobilization and deployment put the troops of the border districts in initially unfavorable conditions. They were forced to defend themselves on a wide front, many times exceeding the statutory norms (about 25-30 km instead of 8-12 km according to the charter), which gave little chance of success.
In the Baltic States, Major General P. P. Bogaychuk's 125th Rifle Division from the 8th A took up defensive positions in the depths of Soviet territory near the town of Taurage, a saddle highway to Siauliai, but at a front 25 kilometers away with two regiments and the third in reserve. The enemy of the Soviet formation was the German 1st TD, which was one of the main participants in the "blitzkrieg" in the West in 1940. The surprise of the German strike here was relative: the Germans left the position of the 125th Rifle Division a few hours after crossing the border and the invaders were already waiting, clutching their weapons. The highway bridge was blown up, and the Germans managed to capture the railway bridge. In Taurage, street battles went on until dark, German tanks bypassed the city, but the commander of the 1st TD Kruger did not dare to give the order to break through until the fighting for the city ended. By nightfall, the 125th Rifle Division was knocked out of position and began to withdraw.
The losses of the 1st Panzer Division (including the 489th regiment assigned to it) for June 22 amounted to 88 people killed, 225 wounded and 34 missing. This was the record for one day of the entire summer campaign. The losses inflicted by the 1st TD on the border played a role in the failure of the Germans and a particular division in the breakthrough to Leningrad.
2. Kaunas
In addition to wide defensive zones, the preemption of special districts in deployment led to an impressive numerical superiority of the Germans over parts of the covering armies. A striking example is the offensive of the German 16th army on the 11th Soviet army in the Kaunas direction. Each of our divisions was attacked by two or three Germans. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the main forces of the 5th and 188th SD were in summer camps, and separate battalions and companies remained on the border. They were literally crushed by the mass of German infantry units, and the main forces entered into battle with the Germans from the march.
At the same time, Soviet troops were stabbed in the back. Since 1940, an underground anti-Soviet organization has existed in Lithuania - the Front of Lithuanian Activists (FLA). The hasty evacuation of the Soviet party organs from Kaunas became the trigger for the uprising that began in the city. The combination of the impact of the mass of infantry and the uprising of the FLA absorbed all the forces and attention of the 11th A. The seizure of bridges across the Western Dvina led to the loss of a large water barrier and the withdrawal of troops of the North-Western Front to Estonia and to the Luga line on the distant approaches to Leningrad in mid-July.
3. Alytus
Before the war, the 5th TD FF Fedorov was stationed in the area of this city, which had 50 newest T-34 tanks. This was a very advantageous position to cover important bridges across the Neman. However, the crisis on the border forced the commander of the PribOVO FI Kuznetsov to make a hasty decision: to withdraw the 5th TD from the city "to cover the rear of the 11th Army from the Lithuanians" and to hold the Neman line on a 40-kilometer front. As a result, units of the 5th TD left Alytus just a few hours before the Germans broke through to the city of the 7th TD. The bridges fell into their hands intact. The Soviet 5th TD returns to Alytus, but was forced to counterattack the enemy bridgehead, which was already occupied by about 400 tanks of two German divisions. The counterattacks ended in failure, and Alytus became the starting point for the Germans for an attack on Minsk, closing the encirclement of the Western Front.
4. Grodno
The German VIII Corps assembled the most powerful artillery "fist" on the entire Soviet-German front: 14 divisions of heavy and super-heavy artillery with caliber up to 240 and 305 millimeters, as well as a regiment of rocket launchers. These included 240-mm K-3 cannons with a firing range of up to 37 kilometers. In the early morning of June 22, they were used by the Germans for firing at the Grodno barracks of the Red Army. 305-mm howitzers fired at the concrete pillboxes of the border fortified areas. The task of all this mass of artillery was to break through the German 9th Army of the road along Suwalki - Augustow - Grodno. In the end, despite the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops near Avgustov and the counterstrike of the 11th MK, this task was solved by the Germans, the commander of the 3rd Army V. I. Kuznetsov decided to leave Grodno at the end of the day on June 22.
The roar of powerful artillery tractors near Grodno could be heard even on the other side of the border. This forced the commander of the Western Front D. G. Pavlov to regard the Grodno grouping as a tank group and to use the 6th mechanized corps from Bialystok, the strongest in the district, in this direction. As a result, his tanks were not enough to counter the offensive of the 2nd and 3rd tank groups on Minsk, which accelerated the encirclement of the Western Front and forced the Soviet high command to throw all reserves to the western strategic direction.
5. Brest
If the Germans assembled an artillery grouping near Grodno, even somewhat redundant for the task at hand, then the 45th Infantry Division near the walls of the Brest Fortress prepared to storm the citadel with completely unsuitable means for this. On the one hand, the delay in bringing the troops to readiness led to the isolation of units of the 6th and 42nd rifle divisions in the fortress. On the other hand, the Soviet units that had managed to hide in the casemates turned out to be invulnerable to German artillery. Even 210-mm guns did not penetrate the thick fortress walls, and 280-mm rockets gave rather a pyrotechnic effect. As a result, the German units that burst into the fortress were counterattacked and partly even surrounded in a club (church) on the territory of the citadel. This forced the commander of Schlipper's 45th Infantry Division to give the order to withdraw his own forces so that they surrounded the citadel on all sides for a systematic assault. This order to retreat was the first on the Soviet-German front. Instead of a few hours, according to the plan, the 45th Infantry Division spent several days on the assault.
6. Kovel
On the adjacent flanks of Army Groups "Center" and "South" was the vast forested and swampy Pripyat region. For the attack on the Kovel junction, the Germans allocated the 17th corps, consisting of two divisions, without serious means of reinforcement. It was here that the measures taken by the Soviet command to increase the level of combat readiness of the troops of special districts worked. A few days before the German attack at Kovel, the 62nd Rifle Division was advanced from the Kivertsy camp, which somewhat equalized the chances of the parties. Coupled with energetic counterattacks on the initiative of the commander of the 45th rifle division, Major General G. I. Sherstyuk, this led to the slow advance of the Germans in the Kovel direction from the first day of the war. Subsequently, the backwardness of the offensive in the Pripyat region contributed to counterattacks to the flank of the troops of the 6th Army and the 1st Panzer Group moving to Kiev. This became the basis for the so-called Pripyat problem, among other reasons that prompted Hitler to deploy Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group to Kiev. The loss of time to turn shifted the start of the offensive on Moscow to the autumn of 1941.
7. Vladimir-Volynsky and Sokal
Before the war in the USSR, large-scale construction of fortified areas on the western border was launched. In Ukraine, they were in a high degree of readiness. Due to the specifics of the outline of the border and the location of the fortified area (at the base of the border protrusion) near Vladimir-Volynsky, as well as thanks to the initiative of the commander of the 87th Rifle Division, F. F. In view of the rather nervous reaction of the commander of the German 6th Army Reichenau, the delay led to a change in the original plan of the operation and castling near Vladimir-Volynsky 13th TD, scheduled to strike Dubno after the 11th TD. The change in the order of forces and the order of the introduction of tank divisions into battle worsened the conditions for conducting the offensive of the 1st Panzer Group and favored the wedging in of the counterstrike of the 8th MK near Dubno between the German 11th TD, which had escaped ahead and the 16th TD, which was advancing with a delay.
8. Rava-Russian
The fortification near Rava-Russkaya was also in a high degree of readiness. Contrary to popular legend, the 41st Rifle Division of Major General G. N. Mikushev was not withdrawn to the position at the initiative of the commander. She was in summer camps. Nevertheless, the retention of positions by the garrison of the fortified area contributed to the deployment of the 41st rifle division and its effective counterattack. GN Mikushev inflicted two successive counterattacks on the flank of the advancing German units, forcing the enemy to retreat (although crossing the border and deepening three kilometers into enemy territory is also a legend). The war log of the GA "Yug" directly stated: "262 infantry division was subject to" fear of the enemy "and retreated." Subsequently, the 41st SD held the positions of the Rava-Russky UR and prevented the Germans from entering the XIV motorized corps of the 1st TGr into battle. If it was introduced, the front-line counterstrike of the mechanized corps would have been thwarted. However, the flank of the counterattack was tightly covered by the UR and, despite the mistakes in its implementation, led to a general slowdown in the advance of GA "South". This lag forced Hitler to change the strategy of "Barbarossa" in July 1941, which ultimately became the prerequisites for its collapse.
9. Przemysl
German troops on the morning of June 22 were outnumbered practically along the entire border. The Przemysl area was no exception. The city was held, but four German divisions of the XXXXIX Mountain Corps acted against one Soviet 97th Rifle Division. They successfully overcame an unoccupied section of the fortified area and hacked into the defenses of the Soviet troops on the outskirts of Lvov. Even the defeated units resisted to the last, in the Railway Department of the 71st Infantry Division it was noted: "Scattered Russians are shooting from ambushes at individual soldiers." However, the numerical superiority and surprise did their job.
The collapse of the defense of the 6th army in the Lvov salient forced the commander of the army I. N. Muzychenko to use the strongest 4th mechanized corps against the infantry and mountain rangers, which by June 1941 had 892 tanks (416 KV and T-34). The corps was excluded from the front-line counterstrike. Nevertheless, the containment of the 17th Army's offensive against Lvov by the forces of the 4th Mechanized Corps turned out to be quite effective, although it led to large losses of tanks, including the KV and T-34.
10. Romanian border
According to the plan of the German command, the transition of the 11th army to the offensive was supposed later, on July 2. In the first days of the war, only the struggle for bridgeheads on the border Prut was waged. However, the relatively slow development of events in the southern sector of the Soviet-German front contributed to a systematic withdrawal. It was here that the backbone of the Primorsky army of I. E. Petrov (25th and 95th rifle divisions) was formed, at first successfully defending Odessa, and then preventing the fall of Sevastopol in the late autumn of 1941.
The hostilities on June 22 turned out to be the beginning of the catastrophe of the summer of 1941, but at the same time in many ways created the prerequisites for changing the situation, forcing the aggressor to adjust the strategy of "Barbarossa".
