The author of these lines, perhaps one of the few researchers, had a chance to hold in his hands a genuine personal file of the Hero of the Soviet Union Stepan Andreevich Neustroev, which was kept in one of the closed archives under the heading "Secret". Thanks to this, intricate details were revealed that were not included in the official biography of the legendary battalion commander of Victory. It turned out that he had to take off his shoulder straps three times, work as a locksmith at a factory, serve in the administration of prisoner of war camps and in units of the internal troops to protect important defense facilities, on which the country's nuclear shield was forged …
"ACTION EXCLUSIVELY BRAVE …"
“Captain Neustroev acted exceptionally bravely, decisively, displayed military valor and heroism during the capture of the Reichstag. His battalion was the first to break into the building, entrenched in it and held it for 24 hours … Under the leadership of Captain Neustroev, a red flag was hoisted over the Reichstag … - these are lines from Stepan Neustroev's original award list about his nomination for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, dated May 6 1945 of the year. But the battalion commander will receive the Gold Star only a year later - by the Decree of the PVS of the USSR dated May 8, 1946. The reason for the delay is quite ordinary - it took a long time to figure out which divisions were the first to break into the Reichstag and hoisted their assault flag over it. After all, no less than nine similar red panels with a star, a sickle and a hammer painted with white paint were prepared …
At the end of the war, the "fathers" -combat was only 23 years old. But he looked bravo, despite the fact that he was short, pockmarked and, in general, did not fit the standards of the epic handsome hero. However, it is sinewy, strong, and not only in body, but also in spirit. True, he had a very rough, straightforward character, he often cut the truth, regardless of ranks and titles, which the authorities did not always like, and the lover of truth himself pretty much ruined life.
… Military service with 19-year-old Stepan, turner of the "Berezovzoloto" trust, began in June 1941, when he entered the Cherkassk military infantry school, which had just been relocated from Ukraine to Sverdlovsk. The course of study is accelerated. Six months later, Neustroev was a lieutenant and commander of a foot reconnaissance platoon of a rifle regiment near Moscow. And on the move - into hell. This is how an unarmed officer remembered his first attack: "I remember one thing from this battle: I ran forward in almost continuous smoke of explosions … People were falling to my right and left … In that first battle, I did not understand much …".
The first wound was not long in coming - a serrated splinter broke two ribs and got stuck in the liver. When I was discharged from the hospital, they were stunned: “Ready for combat. But it is not suitable for reconnaissance …
In 1944, Neustroev, wearing the captain's shoulder straps, ended up in the 756th rifle regiment of the same 150th Idritsa division, whose number will be forever imprinted on the Victory Banner. As part of this unit, he reached Berlin. By that time, the chest of the dashing battalion commander, as the front-line soldiers used to say, was decorated with a whole iconostasis - six military awards: orders - Alexander Nevsky, Red Star, Patriotic War I and II degrees and two medals - "For courage" and "For the capture of Warsaw." As for combat wounds, the fearless officer had five of them, only one less than the awards …
On April 30, 1945, the fighters of the battalion of Captain Neustroev were the first to break into the Reichstag, and after a while they hoisted the red victory banner on the pediment (note, not on the dome), firmly tying the shaft with belts to one of the sculptural compositions. It was this assault flag that was destined to become the Victory Banner.
Subsequently, Neustroev continued to serve in the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (GSOVG), which was created from June 9 to June 10, 1945 on the basis of the 1st Ukrainian Front, in the former position of battalion commander.
THERE WAS NO SIGN OF VICTORY AT THE PARADE OF VICTORY
The first commander of the GSOVG, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, appointed to receive the Victory Parade on Red Square, came out with the initiative to deliver an assault flag from Berlin to Moscow. An additional abbreviated inscription was made on the red cloth: “150 pages of the Order of Kutuzov, Art. II. Idritsk. div. 79 S. K. 3 W. A. 1 B. F. Stepan Neustroev and four of his comrades in arms accompanied the banner on a specially designated plane. It is symbolic that at the Tushino airfield the Victory Banner was met by an honor guard under the command of Captain Valentin Varennikov, also a participant in the storming of Berlin, the future General of the Army and Hero of the Soviet Union.
It was planned to open a grandiose parade on Red Square by passing the calculation with the Victory Banner. But the standard-bearer Neustroev and his assistants, who on the battlefields did not learn how to clearly type a step, did not impress Zhukov at the rehearsal, and he decided not to carry the Banner to Red Square. "How to go on the attack, so Neustroev is the first, but I'm not fit for a parade," the former battalion commander later recalled with sad irony the thought that then flashed in his head.
In August 1946, Neustroev, who had received major shoulder straps the day before, was going to enter the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze. But the medical board "rejected" him for health reasons, the reason - five wounds and a slight limp. Then Stepan Andreevich, in his hearts, writes a letter of resignation and goes home to the Urals.
And yet, many years later, Stepan Andreevich's dream to walk across Red Square with the Victory Banner came true: on May 9, 1985, at a military parade dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, he solemnly marched next to a military shrine as an assistant with a saber bald.
At the service in "places not so distant …"
After a short rest, Neustroev decided to look for a job. But the only specialty of a turner is somewhat forgotten. And then the former front-line soldiers, who got a job in the camps for German prisoners of war, scattered across the Urals, call to themselves: they say, the length of service is going on, and the ration, and the salaries are not bad at that time. Neustroyev reluctantly (probably, he didn’t want to see "these Fritzes" again) agrees and, apparently, considers this to be a continuation of the struggle against fascism.
In his track record, new, unusual for a military officer, job titles appear: head of the camp department of the Directorate of the camp for prisoners of war No. 200 (Alapaevsk), then the head of the department of the KEO of the camp for prisoners of war No. 531 (administration in Sverdlovsk).
German prisoners of war are building workshops for new factories, building houses for workers, laying roads and communications. Looking at these miserable warriors in shabby uniforms, the front-line soldier probably recalled with what sweat and blood he and his battalion had to take every enemy line, every Hitlerite fortified area, and how many comrades he lost. Not to mention the Reichstag, which, with the hopelessness of a driven beast, was desperately defended by selected SS units.
By the end of 1949, in connection with the mass repatriation of prisoners of war to Germany, the camps one by one were abolished. Neustroev was transferred to the service in the system of corrective labor institutions. In the service record, the following positions: commandant of the Pervouralskaya ITK No. 6, head of the EHC (cultural and educational unit) of the Revdinskaya ITK No. 7, combat training instructor of the security headquarters of the UITLK UMVD of the Sverdlovsk Region …
It was morally more difficult for a military officer to work in the zones where "their" criminals were sitting than with the Germans. There, behind the "thorn" were enemies, but here - after all, ours …
1953 year. Death of Stalin. The penal correction system was the first to feel the changes that were outlined in the country - the review of cases of convicts and release under amnesty began. In May of the same year, Neustroev took off his shoulder straps for the second time, he was fired due to staff reductions.
GUARDING NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Again, Neustroev is out of work, and he is still far from retirement. This time in Sverdlovsk he gets a job as a simple mechanic at the local machine-building plant of the Ministry of Chemical Industry. Among the partners there are many front-line soldiers, they master quickly, gets the fifth grade. In 1957, the shop fulfills the plan ahead of schedule. Stepan Andreevich and several other leaders were awarded free tickets to a sanatorium in Yalta. On the way back he stopped in Moscow and visited old front-line friends. And here fate makes another sharp turn.
Someone from his fellow soldiers called the former commander of the 79th Rifle Corps, which included the 150th Division, Semyon Nikiforovich Perevertkin, and said that the same battalion commander who had taken the Reichstag was visiting. Perevertkin, by that time Colonel General and First Deputy of the "civilian" Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Pavlovich Dudorov, immediately sent a car with the order to immediately deliver the hero to him. The meeting ended with the general persuading Neustroev to return to military service, but, however, to the internal troops. “From Moscow,” Stepan Andreevich recalled, “I arrived in Sverdlovsk as a military man.”
Parts of the internal troops, in which Neustroev continued his military service, guarded important defense enterprises, where, as they used to say, the "nuclear missile shield" of the Motherland was forged. Previously, these were top-secret cities, as was sung in one popular song, “which have no name,” but only a secret code - Sverdlovsk-44 and Sverdlovsk-45. Such cities were not marked on geographical maps: around them around the entire perimeter of barbed wire, a thorough checkpoint system, a strict regime of keeping state secrets for all residents. Now these cities, although they are still guarded, are declassified and even have their own Internet sites. The first is Novouralsk, where nuclear weapons were produced, and the second is Lesnoy, where highly enriched uranium was produced.
The service is extremely responsible. Therefore, in the foreground - the highest vigilance, the strictest secrecy, the most severe access control, which was required from the sentries by the commandant on duty of the guarded facility with the Golden Star of the Hero. Soldiers and officers obeyed him as if they were God - unquestioningly: after all, he took the Reichstag! And that's it.
In 1959, Neustroev was promoted to the position of deputy commander of the 31st internal security detachment (in military terms, therefore, the deputy commander of a regiment) in closed Novouralsk and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. And in March 1962, he takes off his shoulder straps for the third time - this time he retires due to illness with the right to wear military uniforms.
Stepan Andreevich and his family, on the advice of doctors, move to live in Krasnodar, sits down for their own memoirs, in which he intends to tell the whole truth about how they took Berlin, stormed the "lair of the fascist beast" - the Reichstag. And here in the local book publishing house his memoirs "Russian soldier: On the way to the Reichstag" stand several reprints. In 1975, to the 30th anniversary of the victory, Neustroev, as a participant in the Great Patriotic War and Hero of the Soviet Union, was awarded the military rank of "colonel".
In the 1980s, again on the advice of doctors, Neustroev moved to the Crimea - to Sevastopol. And here a terrible tragedy befalls him: in 1988, his son Yuri, a major missile officer of the Air Defense Forces, together with his wife and six-year-old son, die in a car accident … An irreparable loss greatly undermines the already poor health of the front-line soldier. But he tries to hold on, continues to work on improving his memoirs, meets with young people, talks about the war, about exploits …
In the mid-90s, Stepan Andreevich and his wife returned to Krasnodar, it becomes unbearable for a front-line soldier to live in the Ukrainian Crimea - he often hears the offensive "occupier" behind his back. And in February 1998, on the eve of the celebration of February 23, he decides to go to Sevastopol, to visit his daughter's family. But the trip turned out to be fatal - on February 26, the veteran's heart could not stand and the legendary Victory battalion commander died suddenly … The hero was buried with military honors at the Kalfa city cemetery on the outskirts of Sevastopol …
Now, after the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the soldiers of the internal troops have taken patronage over the grave of the legendary battalion commander of Victory.
