Who in Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union does not know the greatest feat of the defenders of the Brest Fortress? But at the end of June 1941, another battle took place on the western borders of the USSR, in terms of the heroism of the participants and the overall scale of the tragedy, quite comparable to the defense of Brest.
Today Zelva is an urban village in the Grodno region of Belarus, with a population of 6,678 people. Founded in the 15th century, Zelva has seen a lot over the centuries of its existence. In 1795, following the results of the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Zelva became part of the Russian Empire. This is how her "Russian" history began, stretching for more than a hundred years. In 1921, according to the Riga Peace Treaty, Zelva became part of Poland, but already in 1939 it became Soviet and was incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR. The village is located on a small river Zelvyanka - a tributary of the Neman. It was here at the end of June 1941 that fierce battles between the Red Army and the advancing Wehrmacht forces unfolded.
The Soviet Western Front, created on the basis of the Western Special Military District, was commanded by General of the Army Dmitry Pavlov at the time of the events described. He was one of the most experienced Soviet military leaders, who began his service in the Russian imperial army and rose to the rank of senior non-commissioned officer there.
Behind Pavlov's shoulders were the First World War, the Civil War, the fight against Basmachism in Central Asia, participation in hostilities on the Chinese Eastern Railway, the civil war in Spain, the battles on Khalkhin Gol, the Soviet-Finnish war. In fact, Dmitry Pavlov fought his entire adult life, rose to the rank of head of the Red Army's Armored Directorate, and in June 1940, a year before the start of the war, he was appointed commander of the Belarusian Special Military District (from July 1940 - the Western Special Military District).
Under the command of Pavlov were the formations that were part of the Western Front - the 3rd Army (4 rifle divisions and a mechanized corps) under the command of Lieutenant General Vasily Kuznetsov, stationed in the Grodno region; 4th Army (4 rifle, 2 tank and 1 motorized divisions) under the command of Major General Alexander Korobkov, which occupied positions in the vicinity of Brest, and the 10th Army (6 rifle, 2 cavalry, 4 tank and 2 motorized divisions) under the command of Major General Konstantin Golubev, who held positions in the region of Bialystok and nearby settlements.
In the Bialystok area, the troops of the 10th Army of the Western Front were located in a kind of protrusion that had a bottle shape. The headquarters of the formations that were part of the 10th Army were located west of Bialystok. The headquarters of the 1st Rifle Corps was located in the Vizna area, the 6th Mechanized Corps in Bialystok, the 6th Cavalry Corps in Lomza, the 13th Mechanized Corps in Belsk, and the 5th Rifle Corps in Zambrow.
On the third day of the war, there was no longer any doubt that the German troops, having covered the Bialystok salient, would completely encircle the units and formations of the armies of the Western Front. Therefore, at about noon on June 25, 1941, the command of the 3rd and 10th armies of the Western Front received an order from the front command to retreat to the east. It was assumed that the 3rd Army would go to Novogrudok, and the 10th Army to Slonim. On June 27, Soviet troops withdrew from Bialystok, and it was the retreat of the 10th Army that entailed fierce battles in the area of Volkovysk and Zelva.
The unprecedented intensity of the battle in the Zelva area was explained by the fact that the village was located on the Bialystok - Volkovysk - Slonim highway. It was along it, the only road, that Soviet troops were moving in June 1941, retreating from the "Bialystok trap". Hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers, armored vehicles, trucks and cars, tractors with artillery pieces, transports and carts with refugees went east along the Bialystok highway. Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft pilots reported to the command that the columns of Soviet troops stretched for more than sixty kilometers.
Units and formations of the 3rd, 4th and 10th armies of the Red Army were surrounded in the Bialystok-Minsk cauldron by Army Group Center, which at that time of the war was commanded by Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock, a career officer, a representative of the German aristocracy. Ironically, Fyodor von Bock's mother, Olga, had Russian roots - hence the name “Fedor”, which was given to the German Field Marshal at birth.
There was only one way out of the "Bialystok trap", in which the units and subdivisions of the Red Army found themselves - through Zelva. And the German command, of course, decided to block this exit, to prevent the Red Army units from retreating to the east. At Zelvyanka, the impressive forces of the Wehrmacht were concentrated.
Of course, in Soviet times, they did not really like to remember the history of the Battle of Zelva. After all, heroic defense, whether it be Brest or Stalingrad, is one thing, and fighting during the retreat of troops is quite another. But because of this, Soviet soldiers did not fight less bravely, did not perform less feats. And the assessments of that side, the side of the enemy, eloquently testify to what a great drama unfolded at the end of June 1941 in the Zelva area.
One of the Wehrmacht officers later recalled that he had never seen a more terrible picture than then, at Zelva. Cavalry saber squadrons of the Red Army rushed to the machine-gun motorized battalion, and this is 50 machine guns! The German machine gunners met the red cavalry with massive fire. Those Red Army men who managed to get their hands on the enemy motorcycles, chopped into the blood of the German machine gunners. The Wehrmacht soldiers, in turn, mowed down the red cavalry from machine guns. The whole area was filled with terrible sounds, and most terrible of all was the neigh of the horses dying under the fire of German machine guns. Even experienced German warriors admitted that it was a truly heartbreaking picture, after which they had to come to their senses for a very long time.
In fact, the feat of the Soviet Red Army soldiers near Zelva is impressive. To begin with, the Soviet troops, which were in distress, were deprived of general command, and there was no communication between the units, yet they managed to deliver a single blow to the German formations. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, tanks and even two armored trains of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army took part in the powerful blow.
The fighters of individual regiments commanded by brigade commander Sergei Belchenko were the first to rush towards Slonim. The second breakthrough began with a combined battalion under the command of the chief of intelligence of the 10th Army, Colonel Smolyakov. Together with the battalion that was breaking through, the remnants of the headquarters of the 10th Army, including Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev, tried to get out of the encirclement.
Finally, on June 27, 1941, units under the command of Colonel A. G. Moleva. This time, not only infantry participated in the breakthrough, but also artillery, tanks, a cavalry regiment and an armored train that arrived in Zelva from Bialystok. The German command managed to send powerful forces to block the only road leading to the exit from the encirclement. A terrible battle broke out. What happened under Zelva is evidenced at least by the fact that among the German dead there were corpses with a gnawed throat. The regimental doctors of the Wehrmacht had never faced such injuries before. Soviet soldiers fought for life and death, understanding what awaits them in case of captivity.
In the battle near Zelva, Major General Mikhail Georgievich Khatskilevich, the commander of the 6th Mechanized Corps, was killed. A participant in the Civil and Soviet-Polish wars, Khatskilevich was appointed corps commander in 1940. In the shortest possible time, the new corps commander made his unit one of the best in the district.
When on June 24, Khatskilevich's corps received an order from front commander Pavlov to launch a counterattack on the advancing Wehrmacht units, the corps tankmen bravely rushed into battle against the German 20th Army Corps. But the Germans, who had absolute superiority in aviation, soon managed to stop the corps offensive, although the Soviet tankers were able to pull off an impressive part of the advancing Wehrmacht divisions.
June 25, 1941 was the last day in the life of General Khatskilevich. In the vicinity of the village of Klepachi, Slonim region, the retreating Soviet troops encountered a German barrier.
Together with us, near Zelva, the remnants of some tank formation broke through from the encirclement, in which only one T-34 tank remained. It was commanded by a general in a tank overalls. When we went to the breakthrough, the general got into the tank and he rushed forward. The tank crushed a German anti-tank gun with its tracks, and the servants managed to scatter. But, unfortunately, he moved with an open turret hatch, and a German soldier threw a grenade there. The crew of the tank and the general were killed with him, - recalled the last minutes of the life of Major General Khatskilevich, a participant in the battles near Zelva V. N. Ponomarev, who served as a telephone operator in the 157th BAO of the 126th Fighter Aviation Regiment.
In the same place, in the village of Klepachi, Slonim region, the deceased general was buried. He fell in battle - it is not known what was better then, since those who were captured by the Germans also did not expect anything good, as well as those commanders who were still able to get out of the encirclement.
Despite the huge losses, the surviving Red Army men still managed to break through the German barriers and escape from the "Bialystok trap". The Cossack regiment, almost in full force, lay down in battle, but surprisingly managed to preserve its regimental banner. It was hidden under the bridge over Zelvyanka, and in the post-war period it was transferred to the Minsk Museum of the Great Patriotic War.
The fighting on the western borders of the Soviet Union continued. And they cost our country more than tens of thousands of human lives. Almost in full force, the 6th Stalin Cossack Cavalry Corps, commanded by Major General Ivan Semenovich Nikitin, fell in battles in the Grodno region.
In July 1941, the corps commander was captured. He was transported to the Vladimir-Volynsky prisoner of war camp, and then to the concentration camp in Hammelsburg, from where he was transferred to the Nuremberg prison. Even in prison, Nikitin was not going to surrender, he tried to create an underground group, and, in the end, in April 1942, he was shot by the Germans.
Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev, who escaped from the Bialystok cauldron, but was captured near Mogilev, took a terrible death, who, in fact, ended up in the location of the Western Front only because shortly before the start of the war he went on a business trip to inspect the construction of fortifications of the 68th Grodno fortified area. Karbyshev was taken prisoner in an unconscious state. He spent the entire war in German concentration camps, until in February 1945 he was tortured to death in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
However, a tragic end awaited several Soviet military leaders who managed to break through to their own. On June 30, 1941, the commander of the Western Front, General of the Army Pavlov, was removed from his post and summoned to Moscow. On July 2, he was returned to the front again, but on July 4, 1941, he was arrested. A number of other high-ranking military personnel of the Western Front were also arrested.
On July 22, 1941, the former commander of the Western Front, General of the Army Pavlov, the chief of staff of the front, Major General Klimovskikh, the chief of communications of the front, Major General Grigoriev, and the commander of the 4th Army of the Western Front, Major General Korobkov, were sentenced to death, the sentence was carried out.
In the Bialystok-Minsk boiler, the irrecoverable losses of the Red Army amounted to 341,073 people. Honor and eternal memory to these people, who stood on the western borders of the Soviet Union to the last and with their courage managed to significantly slow down the advance of German troops to the east, which inevitably affected the subsequent course of the war.
