Western Belarus did not “enjoy” for too long the Communist regime. Another evil fell on the Belarusians to claim millions of lives - German Nazi. On June 1941, at dawn, nazi Germany attacked on the USSR. Belarus was one of the first Soviet Republics that appeared under powerful 22, artillery fireWar of the Soviet Union against fascist Germany and its satellites began. German group of armies “Center” (50 . The Great Patriotic divisionsaeroplanes supported the offensive of the “Center”. German aircrafts began to bomb railway ) attacked the territory of Belarus. 1680 stationsother towns from the very first hours of the war. The German army three , airports of Bialystok, Brest, Hrodna, Baranavichy and some times outnumbered the Soviet troops located in the frontier region.
The Brest fortress was the place where the war made its first thundering step which broke the silence of that memorial dawn in June 1941. By the beginning of the war the fortress had lost its defence significance due to the powerful weapons and new military tactics. Some of the fortifications were destroyed, and the fortress was used by the Soviet army only for billeting the troops. Soviet frontier-guards first were attacked on. The detachment of the lieutenant Kizhevatov armed with guns and grenades repulsed several tank attacks. Having big losses the frontier-guards withdrew to the fortress which became the main center of resistance on the border. Five hours after the start of the war Germans encircled the fortress and entered the city. The street fights began. Having advantage in arms and manpower nazi quickly suppressed the resistance in the city and continued to move eastward.
The fortress made a prolonged defence against the Germans. The 45th division formed in the Hitler’s native land in Austria was storming the fortress. The division was enforced by three artillery regiments. 500 cannons took the fortress under fire, 600 bombs were thrown on the fortifications. Old Russian fortifications became impregnable for armed to the teeth Nazi. The participant of the German offence Rudolf Gschopf remembers: “We believed the fortress was turned into the pile of ruins. Right after the artillery fire the infantry crossed the Boog river and tried to take the fortress by quick and energetic offence. We got disillusioned. Russians were caught in beds by our fire. Nevertheless, they amazingly quickly recovered, formed fighting groups and organised selfless and persistent defence... Our losses in manpower, particularly in officers, became of sorrowful rate. Numerous Russian soldiers hidden and camouflaged in the bushes on the western island did not let our reinforcements pass. On the first day of the war two headquarters of our regiments were encircled and destroyed. The commanders of the regiments were killed.”
The attempt to take the fortress instantly failed, and the its siege began. On the 24th of June, two days after the war started, the united command of the Soviet troops in the fortress was created headed by captain I.N. Zubachev and political officer E.M. Fomin to organise more effective defence. Cut from the outside world, starving and parched with thirst, they stood firm and died the death of heroes. Nazi had to pay a high price for every fort, every casemate, every stone of the fortress. The fortress was constantly under artillery fire. Neither flame-throwers and tear gas nor tank attacks and air attacks broke the defence. When nazi took ground fortifications soviet soldiers continued fighting in the underground. The heroic defence lasted almost a month when the Soviet-German front line was far in the East. Even the enemy was shocked at the courage of the fortress defenders. “Officers and men has kept fighting till the last minute. The demand to surrender... had no impact on them” (from a report of the Staff of the Armies’ Group “Center” to its Command). Soldiers fought to the last.
WE ARE DYING
HONOURABLY...
WE SHALL DIE BUT NOT
ABANDON THE FORTRESS.
MOTHERLAND, FAREWELL!
The long-suffering walls of the fortress conveyed these words.
Some historians claim though, that Soviet soldiers did not want to leave the fortress and try to go to the East because they were actually secret police officers who committed a lot of crimes agains local population just before the war. Thus, they had little chances to survive on their way to the East and had nothing else to do as to stay in the fortress and fight against Germans from whom they could not expect mercy either. Nevertheless, the fact that these soldiers made a prolonged defence lacking water, food and amunition makes them heroes.
Belarus suffered terribly in the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War Two, losing about a quarter of its people. The Jewish population was wiped out. Yet when they invaded in 1941, the Nazis received a warm welcome from many Belarusians who greeted them as liberators from Stalinist rule. Some Catholic Priests even held a thanksgiving mass when the Germans invaded. Consequently, the Nazis had little trouble recruiting local police forces. To find collaborationists among native population Germans allowed the supporters of Belarusian national movement to use the national symbolics, open Belarusian schools, scientific, cultural and educational institutions, publish newspapers and magazines.
On the occupied territories Nazis pursued their anti-human programme of exterminating Jews, and Belarusian Jewish population had been wiped out by the end of the war. This programme also touched Brest where the Jewish community was fairly numerous. Nazis set up a ghetto in the center of the city and forced there all Jews. They were held densely behind barbed wire in the conditions of anti-sanitation, hunger, and mockery. One cold November day of 1942 all inhabitants of the ghetto were brought to the station Bronnaja Gara, near the town of Ivacevichy, and were shot down there.
The colonisational policy of the Nazi regime disillusioned Belarusians and made some of them fight for their lives and freedom. The partisans detachments appeared already in the very beginning of the war. The organisers of the resistance movement were mainly leaders of the communist party. Soviet soldiers and commanders who found themselves in the rear of the German troops joined the established partisans groups. The communist guerila movement was widely supported from Moscow, and majority of partisan detachments were formed of Soviet secret police officers pancaked from the planes coming from Moscow. The fight of Germans with partisans brought suffering to common populace. The partisans were confiscating food from Belarusian peasants, were burning their houses under the pretext that Germans should not use them. In their turn Nazis exterminated hundreds of villages the inhabitants of which were suspected in the collaboration with partisans. In the western part of Belarus the anti-fascist struggle was characterised with the presence there of clandestine anti-fascist organisations and groups of London emigrant Polish government. In August 1941 the Soviet government concluded a treaty with the Emigrant Polish government on joint struggle against Nazis. Polish formations united into one military structure - Armija Kraijowa- that had about 14,000 people in its ranks, were co-operating with the Soviet partisans until spring of 1943 when relations between two sides broke and they stood on the path of confrontation. The anti-fascist movement in Brest was represented by clandestine soviet and polish organisations. The members of these organisations were damaging communication lines, exploding rail ways and premises occupied by Nazis.
In summer 1944 one of the greatest military operations of the W.W.II called “Bagration” began. In the result of this battle Belarus was completely cleared from Nazi occupation. On the 28th of July 1944 Soviet troops entered the city.
