"Missing" in the Kharkov cauldron

2024 Author: Matthew Elmers | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:49

Maidan Kusainov, head of the student search unit "Memorial Zone", tells about the front-line fate of the 106th National Cavalry Division, formed in Akmolinsk

Professor of ENU. L. N. Gumilyov has been the head of the student search group "Memorial Zone" for more than 20 years. Every year the brigade commander Kusainov goes with a detachment of students to the Sinyavinsky Heights near St. Petersburg and to the villages near Kharkov. Where in 1941 our fellow countrymen, soldiers of the 106th national cavalry division, 310th and 314th rifle divisions, formed in Akmolinsk and Petropavlovsk, fought heroically against the Nazis.

They are gazing into our eyes, the commanders of the 106th National Cavalry Division. Fifteen commanders: division commander, deputy division commander, chief of staff, regimental commanders and senior political instructors of regiments. Courageous, decisive and strong-willed persons convey unprecedented energy and readiness to smash the invader who has invaded the vastness of the Fatherland. There is no doubt that they will fight boldly, courageously and skillfully, dragging along the soldiers and commanders of the cavalry division.

It could not have been otherwise. After all, the picture was taken not in July-August 1941, when the Red Army, stubbornly clinging to every inch of its native land, retreated, the picture was taken on April 5, 1942, after the defeat of Army Group Center near Moscow. The faces of the commanders and political instructors express the expectation of a spring-summer offensive with the aim of driving the invaders out of the Fatherland.

April 5, 1942. Commanders and political instructors of the 106th Kazakh Cavalry Division. Top row: 1st from left - senior political instructor Sagadat Mendygazinovich Kulmagambetov, 3rd from left - deputy. divisional commander for political work, political instructor Seitov Nurkan, 5th from the left, possibly divisional commander BN Pankov, 6th from the left, possibly deputy. divisional commander Borisov A. B., 7th or 8th from the left, possibly early. headquarters Osadchenko P. M. Middle row: 2nd from the left - the head of the special department Utebaev Uali Gusmanovich, 3rd from the left - the commander of the regiment, Major Uvaisov Tazhigali. Bottom row: 2nd from left, senior political instructor Kapazhanov Kairbek, 3rd from left - squadron commander st. Lieutenant Beisembekov Mukan. The rest must be identified by relatives and friends.

They could not have known that at the moment when they posed for the photographer, their front-line fate was decided - none of them burst out of the Kharkov cauldron. The fateful lot fell not only to them, but also not to one hundred thousand soldiers and commanders of the troops of the South-Western direction who participated in the Kharkov offensive operation in May 1942. In the heat of the Kharkov cauldron, both the private and the general were equal, who went to break through the encirclement, if truth be told, under the lead of the riflemen, in order to be mowed down with dagger fire and not be captured.

So the soldiers and generals in the vicinity of the little-known village of Lozavenka, unidentified, recognized as “missing in action”, lie nearby. There will be no other photographs, except for those taken before being sent to the army in the city of Akmolinsk. There will be no more time for photography. The war, from the moment the fighters arrived in the active army, rapidly twisted their front-line fate, for which it allotted only 18 days - from May 12 to May 30, 1942.

How did the front-line fate of the 106th National Cavalry Division and its commanders and fighters develop? The fate that lasted from the arrival of the first echelon in the active army on April 28 and the last on May 12, 1942 to the beginning of the Kharkov offensive operation on May 12 and its tragic end on May 30, 1942. In just 18 days in May 1942, the soldiers and commanders of the 106th Cavalry Division, included in the shock 6th Cavalry Corps, breaking through the front, marched through the enemy's rear, smashing the SS elite unit, covering the withdrawal of the main forces of the strike group of Major General L. V. Bobkin, broke out of the encirclement near the unknown village of Lozavenka, where they died along with the generals of the South-West direction on the battlefield. In just 18 days, they experienced the triumph of the victors and liberators of cities and villages and learned the bitterness of irrecoverable losses in the inferno of the encirclement.

How did the combat situation develop in the Barvenkovsky ledge from May 17, when the Wehrmacht General Kleist, east of the village of Lozavenka, closed the ring of encirclement of the troops of the 6th, 57th Army and the army group of General L. V. Bobkin, to May 30, 1942, when 239,000 fighters and commanders were captured, only 22,000 fighters and commanders managed to escape from the encirclement, how many died in the breakthrough of the inner, middle and outer rings of the encirclement, no one knows and is unlikely to know.

There are no documents disclosing the course of battles on attempts to break through the encirclement ring, since the encircled divisions either buried safes with documents before the breakthrough, or destroyed them in case of an unsuccessful breakthrough. There is also a possibility that they could fall into the hands of the enemy. Therefore, the chronology of battles in the cauldron can only be formed by combining the analysis of the traditional military actions of the generals who were surrounded, taking into account the memories of those who escaped from the encirclement, data from the memoirs of I. Kh. and the German generals Kleist, Lanz, Bock, and the ability to get used to the conditions of the Kharkov boiler as a platoon commander, commander, battalion commander, brigade commander and division commander in 1941 and 1942. I think I managed to get used to, feel and reconstruct the battles in the cauldron.

May 23, 1942

On May 23, 1942, east of the village of Lozavenka, Kleist's army group closed the ring of encirclement of the troops of the southwestern direction in the Barvenkovsky ledge. In the village of Krasivoe by plane U-2 (on the night of May 23), the deputy. Commander of the Southwestern Front, Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko, appointed Marshal S. K. Tymoshenko as the commander of the Southern Group of Forces, uniting the 6th, 57th armies and the army group of General L. V. Bobkin. By radio, all divisions still located near the city of Krasnograd, near the village of Paraskoveya, Okhochye, Verkhniy Bishkin, Sakhnovshchina, Aleksadrovka, the commander ordered to move to the village of Lozavenka to organize a breakthrough of the encirclement ring.

In the reserve of Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko were the 103rd Infantry Division, located east of the village Alekseevka, and the incomplete 106th National Cav. division (288th cavalry regiment, which arrived on May 11 and 12, and incomplete 307th and 269th cavalry regiments), located southeast of the village of Alekseevka. F. Ya. Kostenko sent 106th Cav. division and the 103rd Infantry Division to meet the troops of Kleist, who occupied the villages of Volvenkovo, Kopanki, Mikhailovsky, with an order to dig in to the east of the village of Lozavenka and hold the approaches to the village until the troops of the 6th Army of General A. M. Gorodnyansky and the troops of the army group of General L. V. Bobkin.

For the cavalry of the 106th National Cav. divisions and infantrymen of the 103rd Rifle Division had to advance through the deep ravines "Razorornaya", "Krutoy Log", "Mikhailovsky", since the enemy air dominated the air. More maneuverable 106th cavalry. the division was the first to arrive at the village of Lozavenka. The German infantry was only approaching the eastern outskirts of the village and was thrown back by a sudden cavalry attack from the Solyonnaya gully. Since the cavalrymen had almost no rifles, the attack made it possible to capture several rifles and one MG-34 machine gun. By the evening, with the 103rd Infantry Division approaching, the cavalrymen dug in on the eastern outskirts of the village of Lozavenka, dug in 45-mm anti-tank guns.

May 24, 1942

On the night of May 24, to the cavalrymen of the 106th cavalry who had dug in on the eastern outskirts of the village of Lozavenka. divisions and infantrymen of the 103rd Infantry Division were sent spotters of a separate artillery regiment of 76-mm guns. In the morning, spotters of 152-millimeter guns approached, and in time: in the east, the noise of tank engines was growing. The spotters, having climbed onto the roof of the tallest building, determined the coordinates of the tank column by radio, transferred the target binding to the batteries, and continuous explosions covered the tank column.

Thus, enemy tanks and infantry were stopped on the outskirts of the village of Novoserpukhovka.

May 25, 1942

From morning to evening on May 25, troops of the 6th Army and the army group of L. V. Bobkin.

May 26, 1942

On the morning of May 26, the troops of the southern group launched an offensive with the aim of breaking through the encirclement ring. The first echelon of the strike group included the 103rd line division, the 317th line division. The cavalry of the 106th cavalry were concentrated in front of the infantrymen. divisions and especially a pair of horsemen with lassos, and tank units of the 23rd Panzer Corps. As a result of fierce battles, during which considerable damage was inflicted on the enemy, only a few managed to escape. The encirclement ring was broken only for a short time, and then, due to the enemy's enormous superiority and the ability to maneuver, which he had, the gaps made with tremendous efforts by our soldiers were closed again.

On this day, the commander of the southern group and his headquarters made heroic efforts to save personnel, military equipment and weapons from the incessant massive air raids and enemy artillery strikes, to establish control and prepare more decisive actions in order to break out of the encirclement [1].

In the vicinity of the still unknown village of Lozavenka, from May 26 to May 29, battles raged continuously, in terms of their fierceness and bloodshed they were unmatched in World War II, where the generals of the Red Army went to break through the encirclement ring, shoulder to shoulder with their soldiers and commanders, and fell under the cross machine-gun fire of mountain shooters. General Kleist's diary reads: "On the battlefield, as far as the eye could see, the earth was covered with the corpses of people and horses, and so dense that it was difficult to find a place for a passenger car to pass."

These were the cavalrymen of the 6th Cavalry Corps, along with them Akmola, Karaganda, North Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, Chimkent from the 106th Kazakh Cavalry Division. Those who survived were taken prisoner, where, right at the village of Lozavenka, political instructors and commissars were separated and immediately shot. Like everyone considered missing, Kazakhstani cavalrymen lie on the field near Lozavenka, which General von Kleist observed after the battle.

In a historical work, the German historian, participant in the war, Paul Karel writes: “The ensuing battle at Lozavenka became one of the bloodiest in the entire war in Russia. We find a story about this in the archives of Major General Lanz's 1st Mountain Rifle Division. Under the reflections of thousands of white rockets, Russian columns attacked the German lines. Waving their pistols, the commanders and commissars drove their battalions forward with sharp shouts. Shoulder to shoulder, clasping their hands, the Red Army men marched to the assault, a hoarse, harsh “Hurray!” Roaring in the night.

- Fire! - commanded by German re-freighters at machine guns and infantry guns. The first wave of attackers did not pass. The columns, brown as earth, turned north. But here, too, they came across the blocking positions of mountain riflemen. The waves of the Russians rolled back and again, despite the losses, attacked and attacked the Germans. They destroyed everything and everyone on their way, recaptured several hundred meters from the enemy, but then the onslaught weakened, and the formidable ramparts collapsed under heavy longitudinal fire from German machine gunners. Those who didn’t perish staggered and stumbled, or crawled back into the ravines of the Bereka River”[2].

On May 26, 1942, the commander of the group of forces, Von Bock, wrote in his diary: “… I am going through Bright's group, the 44th and 16th Panzer Divisions to the 60th Motorized and 1st Mountain Divisions. Everywhere one and the same picture: all the already squeezed enemy nevertheless makes here and there attempts to break through, but he is already facing collapse. From one height southeast of Lozavenka one could see how the fire of our batteries, beating into the smoking "cauldron" from all sides, receives an ever-weakening response … an amazing picture."

May 27-29, 1942

On the night of May 27, to the west of Lozavenka, units and formations were concentrated, covering the withdrawal of the army group of General A. M. Gorodnyansky: 47th Infantry Division, 393rd Infantry Division. By the morning of May 27, the 266th Infantry Division of A. N. Tavantsev approached, which fully retained its combat capability. The remaining tanks of the 21st Panzer Corps approached. The headquarters of the southern group of Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko grouped troops for a second breakthrough of the newly closed encirclement ring. In the first ranks of the strike group, the tanks of the T-3421 Panzer Corps with the full-blooded 266th Infantry Division were placed. The bloodied units of the 393rd rifle division, the 47th rifle division, cavalrymen of the 6th cavalry were supposed to go into the breakthrough. corps that survived the night attack and retreated to the rear, and with them the remnants of the regiments of the 106th Kazakh cavalry. divisions. With the second wave of the attackers, all the generals, led by the commander of the southern group of forces F. Ya. Kostenko, were to leave the encirclement. On the night of May 28, the last organized shock group of troops, now headed by the generals, set out to break through the encirclement ring near the village of Lozavenka.

The first echelon of the strike group, made up of the remains of the tanks of the 21st Panzer Corps, soldiers and commanders of the 266th divisions, broke through the encirclement to the east of the village of Lozavenka and by the morning of May 28 reached the Volvenkovo, Volobuevka area. Together with them, the rest of the units and subdivisions that were located west of the village of Lozavenka made their way here. On the night of May 29, this grouping of troops with a blow from the rear, with the assistance of the 38th Army, broke through the enemy's front line along the right bank of the Seversky Donets and successfully reached the location of the main forces near the town of Chepel [3].

In his memoirs about this episode, Marshal of the Soviet Union KS Moskalenko writes the following: “…. I remember that six T-34 tanks approached first. Divisional commissar KA Gurov, a member of the Military Council of the Southwestern Front, emerged from one. Thousands of Soviet soldiers followed the tanks in waves, led by Major General A. G. Batyunei. On their faces, through severe pain and fatigue, the exorbitant joy of returning to their own … shone … in total there were about 22 thousand soldiers and commanders … "[4].

After the first echelon of the attackers, there was a group of staff generals headed by Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko, but German snipers in the chains of the attackers habitually chose commanders and especially political instructors, and knocked out, knocked out. The artillery fire did not make out where the private was, where the general was. That night, the following were killed in battle: the commander of the southern group of forces, Lieutenant General F. Ya. Kostenko, the commander of the 6th Army, Major General A. M. Gorodnyansky, the commander of the 47th section of the division, Major General P. M. Matykin, the commander of the 270th section of the division, Major General Z. Yu. Kutlin, the commander of the 393rd section of the division, hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel I. D. Zinoviev, the commander of the 21st tank corps G. I. 1st rank of the division, Major General DG Egorov, General of Artillery FG Malyarov, Commander of the 7th Tank Brigade, Colonel I. A. Yurchenko [5].

This is how the German historian Paul Karel describes the fury of the battles near the village of Lozavenka: “The next evening everything repeated itself (on the night of May 28). But this time the infantry attack was supported by several T-34s. Russian soldiers, all also clasping their hands, were under the influence of alcohol, how else could these poor fellows go to their deaths shouting 'Hurray!'?"

Indeed, how could the Soviet command have had vodka if there were not even rusks in the warehouses?

When somewhere after the capture of a stronghold, the Germans managed to throw back the enemy with a decisive counterattack, the Germans found the bodies of the defenders with their skulls broken butts, with bodies torn apart by bayonets, and faces smashed by Russian boots beyond recognition. The parties fought with wild fury. This battle was a terrible road to death.

On the third day, the onslaught of the Russian forces subsided - the Germans managed to reach a turning point. Both the commanders of the Soviet 6th and 57th armies, Lieutenant General Gorodnyansky and Lieutenant General Podlas, along with their staff officers, lay dead on the battlefield. The battle ended with the defeat of Tymoshenko. The enemy lost his main forces: twenty-two rifle and seven cavalry divisions. Fourteen tank and motorized brigades were completely defeated. About 239,000 Red Army soldiers were captured. The Germans destroyed or took as trophies 1,250 tanks and 2,026 guns.