In the midst of the great battle on the banks of the Volga, which became a turning point during the entire Second World War, the Soviet troops carried out another offensive operation, which also ended in the encirclement of the German group of forces, albeit of a much smaller size. We are talking about the Velikie Luki offensive operation, which the Soviet troops carried out with the aim of pinning down enemy troops in the central sector of the front and liberating the cities of Velikiye Luki and Novosokolniki. The operation was carried out from November 25, 1942 to January 20, 1943 by the forces of the 3rd Shock Army of the Kalinin Front with the support of units of the 3rd Air Army.
During the offensive, the troops of the 3rd Shock Army advanced up to 24 kilometers in depth and up to 50 kilometers along the front, and on January 1, 1943, captured the city of Velikiye Luki (most of it). As part of the offensive, already on November 28-29, Soviet troops managed to close the encirclement ring around the city, in which up to 8-9 thousand Nazi troops were surrounded. At the same time, the headquarters of the 3rd Shock Army had fairly complete information about the size of the encircled group and the nature of its defensive fortifications.
In Velikiye Luki, Soviet troops surrounded parts of the 83rd Infantry Division with various reinforcements. The total number of the encircled garrison was 8-9 thousand people with 100-120 artillery pieces and about 10-15 tanks and assault guns. The main, continuous line of defense passed through suburban settlements, each of which was adapted to conduct a circular defense. All stone buildings in the city were turned by the Germans into powerful defense centers, saturated with heavy weapons: artillery pieces and mortars. The attics of tall buildings were converted into machine-gun posts and observation posts. The separate most fortified centers of defense (which lasted the longest) were the fortress (bastion, earthen Velikie Luki fortress) and the railway junction. The Soviet command even had information that the commander of the 83rd Infantry Division T. Scherer flew out of the city, appointing Lieutenant Colonel Eduard von Sass, the commander of the 277th Infantry Regiment, as the garrison commandant.
On January 16, the German garrison surrounded in Velikiye Luki was completely liquidated, by 12 o'clock of the same day only one center of resistance remained under enemy control, the defense headquarters, headed by Lieutenant Colonel von Sass himself. At 15:30 a special detachment from the 249th division burst into the basement and captured 52 soldiers and officers, including the lieutenant colonel himself. So the German garrison of Velikiye Luki completely ceased to exist. At that time, on the eve of the complete defeat of Paulus's army surrounded in Stalingrad, this victory was not properly assessed, and in history it remained forever in the shadow of the great battle on the banks of the Volga.
At the same time, the battles for Velikie Luki were very fierce. The capture of the city opened the road to Vitebsk for the Red Army units. The significance of this battle was understood in the headquarters on both front lines. Hitler, like Paulus in Stalingrad, promised help to the garrison surrounded in the city and even promised the commandant Lieutenant Colonel von Sass to name Velikiye Luki in his honor - "Sassenstadt". It did not work out, the Soviet troops did not allow it.
German historian Paul Karel called the events taking place in Velikiye Luki "miniature Stalingrad". In particular, he wrote: “Soviet rifle battalions fought in the city with amazing courage. Especially the Komsomol members, the fanatical young communists who, over the next few weeks, celebrated their dedication to duty. So private of the 254th Guards Rifle Regiment Alexander Matrosov, at the cost of his life, earned the title of Hero of the Soviet Union."
Soviet soldiers in battle on K. Liebknecht Street (intersection of K. Liebknecht and Pionerskaya Street) in Velikiye Luki. Photo: waralbum.ru
Soviet troops began the assault on Velikiye Luki almost immediately after the city was encircled. By January 1, 1943, most of the city was liberated. The Red Army captured the entire central part of Velikiye Luki, separating the enemy garrison into two parts - one in the area of the old fortress, the second in the area of the railway station and the depot. At the same time, the surrounded garrison was made two offers of surrender. The first was back on December 15, 1942, through the envoys. The second was on the radio on the night of January 1, 1943. Lieutenant Colonel von Sass, who received Hitler's categorical demand not to surrender the city, rejected both proposals. As a result, fierce battles continued in the city and its environs for a long time.
One of the strongest centers of defense in the city was the Velikie Luki fortress, its invulnerability was in the sixteen-meter shaft. At the bottom of the shaft, its thickness reached 35 meters. Trenches ran along the top of the shaft. In front of them are the remains of another rampart, blown out by snow. Behind the main shaft there were counter-escarps equipped in accordance with all the rules of engineering science, anti-tank ditches. Behind them, the Germans installed wire fences, equipped basement bunkers. They also turned the existing buildings into strong points: a church, a prison and two barracks. To the north-west, the fortress had three drainpipes from the rampart, as well as a passage - the remains of the former gate. All approaches to the Velikolukskaya fortress were under flank machine-gun fire, the Germans installed machine guns on the corner ledges. On the outside, the rampart had icy slopes that were watered every night. The soldiers and commanders of the 357th Infantry Division, which took part in the Velikie Luki offensive operation of the Soviet troops from its very first day, were to take the fortress.
Trying to help the garrison surrounded in the city, the Germans were preparing a breakthrough, concentrating quite impressive forces for this. The unblocking attempt began on January 4, 1943 at 8:30 am. The Germans launched an offensive without waiting for the flying weather. By January 6, when the weather in the area improved, the Soviet Air Force also intensified, striking the advancing units of the Nazis. By January 9, 1943, a small detachment of German tanks managed to break through to Velikiye Luki, in different sources its number varies from 8 to 15 combat vehicles. This could not help the garrison, although already on January 10, the situation for the Soviet troops was critical, the Germans practically managed to break through a long narrow corridor to the city, only 4-5 kilometers separated them from the unblocking group to the outskirts of Velikiye Luki, but to overcome this distance before the elimination of the garrison German troops never succeeded.
Military transport glider Go.242, such gliders were used by the Germans to supply the garrison of Velikiye Luki
The breakthrough of German tanks into Velikiye Luki is described in different ways in Soviet and German sources. So Paul Karel wrote: “The last attempt to unblock the Velikiye Luki garrison on January 9, 1943 was made by the strike group of Major Tribukait. The group that went to the fortress included several armored personnel carriers from the 8th Panzer Division, tanks of the 1st Battalion of the 15th Tank Regiment and the assault guns of the 118th Reinforced Tank Battalion. "Move and shoot!" - this was the order of the group. She was ordered not to stop, the crews of the damaged vehicles had to immediately leave them and get out on the armor of other tanks. The Tribukait really managed to break into the fortress through the ring of Soviet troops. Several tanks and armored personnel carriers remained on the battlefield, but the group reached its intended target. At 15 o'clock, exhausted people from the Darnedde battalion, which was defending in the fortress, saw German tanks from the rampart. Their first reaction was glee. 15 combat vehicles clanged into the courtyard of the fortress, among them the last three tanks of the 1st battalion of the 15th tank regiment. But military fortune again turned away from the Darnedd battalion. As soon as the Russians realized that the Germans had broken through, they opened concentrated fire of their artillery on the fortress. The Tribucait immediately ordered the tanks to get out of the small fortress courtyard among the ruins, from which only one road led. When one of the 15 tanks passed the gate, 4 shells hit him at once, and he blocked the exit of the others with torn tracks. As a result, the Tribukait forces were trapped, becoming targets for artillery fire from guns of all calibers. As a result, they all became victims of the Soviet bombardment, and the surviving tankers became infantrymen, joining the Darnedd battalion. On January 15, a parachute battalion tried to break through to the fortress, but this attempt ended in failure."
In his memoirs “Four years in greatcoats. A Story of a Native Division dedicated to the military path of soldiers and officers of the 357th Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree of the rifle division, formed in the fall of 1941 on the territory of Udmurtia, the Udmurt writer Mikhail Andreevich Lyamin, who served in this division, described the episode with a breakthrough in a different way tanks in Velikiye Luki. In his memoirs, it is said that the Germans went for a trick, painting over their identification marks and drawing red stars instead. At the same time, three captured Soviet T-34 tanks were allegedly used at the head of the column. Taking advantage of the turmoil of battles near Malenok and Fotiev, 20 German tanks, under cover of twilight, managed to slip into the city from the side of the former state bank building, where they themselves opened fire on the dugouts of the artillerymen of the 357th rifle division. He goes on to describe a battle between gunners and a column of German tanks. The first to fire on enemy tanks from an anti-tank gun was a senior sergeant from Izhevsk Nikolai Kadyrov. He managed to shoot down the tracks of the lead tank. Then he knocked out the second tank, which was trying to bypass the first. Confusion began in the enemy column, and the gunners who jumped out of their dugouts began to fire at the tanks that had broken through from everything they had. As a result of a fleeting battle, the Germans lost 12 tanks, but 8 of them managed to break into the fortress.
Soviet soldiers inspecting German tanks abandoned in Velikiye Luki, photo waralbum.ru.
Regardless of the circumstances of the breakthrough, he did not in any way affect the position of the besieged garrison of the Velikie Luki fortress and did not help him get out of the encirclement. By 7 o'clock in the morning on January 16, 1943, the fortress fell, soldiers of the 357th rifle division took it. In the citadel itself, 235 German soldiers and 9 tanks (from among those who broke through from the outside, according to the historian Alexei Valerievich Isaev) were captured, as well as a large number of various weapons. Only the most "implacable" of the Germans decided to break out of the encircled fortress, trying to get out of the encirclement in small groups. Paul Karel wrote that only eight of several hundred defenders managed to do this, the rest died in battles or simply froze on the way. At the same time, von Sass himself was captured, and in 1946 he was convicted of war crimes and publicly hanged with a group of accomplices in Velikiye Luki, which never became Sassenstadt.
The operation in Velikiye Luki had important results. Velikiye Luki and Stalingrad marked a qualitative change in the position of the German troops. Previously, the shock for the infantry was the very fact of the encirclement, which was commonplace for mobile troops, which pulled far ahead during the offensive. In the winter of 1942, large-scale airmobile operations, the efforts of the Soviet troops to encircle small and large groups of German troops were virtually nullified. But in the winter of 1943, the destruction of the encircled groups began to follow the encirclement. If before that the examples of Kholm and Demyansk engendered confidence in their command among German soldiers and officers and stimulated the stubborn retention of important points from an operational point of view, then the new examples of Velikiye Luki and Stalingrad demonstrated the inability of the German command to ensure the stability of both small and large encircled garrisons under new conditions, which could not but affect the general demoralization of the German units, who find themselves in new encirclements.
At the same time, it could not be said that the German supply of the grouping surrounded in Velikiye Luki with the help of aviation was ineffective. If Stalingrad, which, due to the large number of encircled groupings and remoteness from the main units of Army Groups B and Don, could not be fully supplied by air with adequate efficiency, then the “Fortress of Velikiye Luki” was separated from the outer front of the encirclement by only tens of kilometers, and the size of the garrison was small. To supply the garrison, the Germans used Go.242 military transport gliders, towed by Heinkel-111 bombers to the boiler area, where they detached and landed in the controlled territory. With the help of transport gliders, the Germans delivered even heavy anti-tank guns to the city. For the next flight on the same day, the glider pilots were taking off from the city by small Fieseler Fi.156 "Storch" aircraft.
Soviet machine gunners in battle on Engels Street in Velikiye Luki, photo: regnum.ru
For example, only on December 28, 1942, 560 shells for light field howitzers, 42 thousand cartridges for Soviet weapons (!), 62 thousand cartridges of 7, 92-mm caliber in ribbons, as well as 25 thousand cartridges in regular packaging for rifles. Even on the penultimate day of the city's defense, the Germans dropped 300 containers from the planes for the besieged garrison, of which the Nazis were able to collect only 7.
It was of great importance for the Soviet troops that the city of Velikie Luki was not only successfully surrounded, but also taken by storm, and the city's garrison was destroyed. From the theory of the use of assault groups, the Red Army more and more moved to practical actions. The success was that the Soviet troops managed to liquidate the garrison of the city before help from the unblocking group could break through to it from outside. The total losses of German troops only killed during the battle around the city of Velikiye Luki amounted to about 17 thousand people. Of this number, about 5 thousand were killed in the cauldron, and 12 thousand were the loss of units and formations trying to break through to help the encircled group. At the same time, according to Soviet data, 3,944 German servicemen, including 54 officers, were captured in the city. Trophies in equipment were also large in Velikiye Luki: 113 guns, 58 conventional mortars, 28 six-barreled mortars, up to 20 tanks and assault guns.
