Demyansk operation(01/07/42-05/20/42) troops of the North-Western Front (Len.-L. P. A. Kurochkin). The goal is to encircle and destroy the German group of troops in the Demyansk area. Advancing in forested and swampy terrain with deep snow cover, Soviet troops on 25.2 completed the encirclement of 6 divisions of 16A. Their liquidation was delayed due to lack of strength. The enemy managed to break through the encirclement front on April 23 and form the so-called. Ramushevsky corridor. Further attempts by Soviet troops to eliminate the Demyan group were unsuccessful. During the D. o. the enemy suffered significant losses. Soviet troops pinned down a large group of troops and thwarted the enemy's plans to attack Ostashkov towards another group that had the task of attacking from the Rzhev area. The long struggle in the Demyansk region was distinguished by exceptional tenacity and tension.

The breakthrough near the southeastern shore of Lake Ilmen was intercepted by the Germans in a westerly direction in the area of ​​Staraya Russa, but was a complete success in a southern direction. Large Russian forces, to which the 16th Army could hardly oppose anything, made their way south west of the Lovat River valley and, together with forces advancing from the area of ​​​​the city of Kholm to the north, encircled six divisions of the 2nd and 10th Army on February 8 buildings, forming the Demyansk cauldron. About 100 thousand people, whose minimum daily need for food, ammunition and fuel was approximately 200 tons, now found themselves surrounded, and for several months they had to be supplied only by air. The Russians acted here in the same way as before against the 9th Army: they stubbornly sought to compress the encirclement ring with continuous attacks with the introduction of large forces and destroy the troops located in it. Despite the reduction in food rations by half, extreme physical stress caused by low temperatures reaching 50° below zero, and continuous attacks by the enemy, who in several places managed to break through the battle formations of German troops stretched to the limit and fight already inside the cauldron, the encircled divisions withstood enemy onslaught. They retreated quite a bit. The Death's Head division was transferred to the western edge of the perimeter, where it plugged the breakthrough of the 34th Soviet Army. The Death's Head repulsed all Russian attacks and destroyed the elite 7th Guards Division.

In order to free the encircled divisions, German troops launched an offensive from the area southwest of Staraya Russa. Küchler formed five special shock divisions at Staraya Russa (5th, 122nd, 329th Infantry Divisions) under the command of Lieutenant General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach and sent them into battle on March 21. Having made our way through five lines of defensive structures and during battles that lasted several weeks, we made our way to the western end of the cauldron through a 40-kilometer corridor stubbornly defended by the enemy. On April 20, contact with the encircled divisions was restored.

The city of Kholm, in which the 281st Division was captured on January 21, also surrounded and supplied by air, held out for several months, perhaps in an even more difficult position, being the only German stronghold between the Demyansk cauldron and Velikiye Luki. In Kholm, a garrison of five thousand was surrounded by troops of the 3rd Shock Russian Army. Only on May 5 did the 122nd Infantry Division break through to the city.

The Northwestern Front, headed by General P.A. Kurochkin, was faced with the task of defeating enemy troops in the Demyansk ledge. It was necessary to complete the encirclement of the enemy's Demyansk grouping with two strikes (from the north - by the 11th Army and from the south - by the 1st Shock Army), and then, with the rest of the front troops going on the offensive, to completely destroy it.

The offensive began on May 3. The front received 5 rifle divisions, 8 rifle and 2 tank brigades for reinforcement from the Headquarters reserve. However, despite the availability of sufficient forces and means, the offensive of the North-Western Front, which continued throughout May, ended in vain. The German command figured out the plan of the operation and transferred reinforcements from other sectors to the area of ​​the Ramushevsky corridor, through which the Demyansk group had contact with the main forces of the 16th German Army.

In the summer, troops of the Northwestern Front tried to destroy the Demyansk group by organizing offensive operations in the area of ​​the so-called Ramushevsky corridor, which connected this group with the main forces of the 16th German Army. Due to insufficient preparation of the operation and the stubborn resistance of the enemy, it was not possible to eliminate his group on the Demyansk bridgehead (the length of the front line inside it was 150 km). The German command transferred significant reinforcements from other sections of the Demyansk ledge to the corridor area, but left only about five divisions inside it. Nevertheless, the offensive actions of the Northwestern Front in the Demyansk area had a significant impact on the overall course of the struggle in the northwestern direction and weakened the enemy. The enemy command was unable to launch the planned attack on Ostashkov to meet its other group, which had the task of attacking from the Rzhev area.

As a result of the active actions of the Soviet troops on the Demyansk bridgehead, not only were large forces of the 16th German Army pinned down, but also serious losses were inflicted on many of its formations.

To repel the attacks of the Soviet troops, the enemy transferred part of the formations of the 18th Army to the Demyansk area, and also used a large number of transport aircraft to supply the 16th Army to the detriment of the interests of its main group, which was advancing in the south of the Eastern Front. Fighter aviation of the 6th Air Army, commanded by General D.F. Kondratyuk, took an active part in the fight against German transport aviation and shot down several dozen aircraft.

The actions of Soviet troops near Leningrad and in the Demyansk region in the spring of 1942 deprived the German command of the opportunity to transfer the forces of Army Group North from these areas to the south. Moreover, the enemy was forced to replenish his group on the Leningrad sector of the front in order to resume the assault on Leningrad, planned for the autumn of the same year.

Significant assistance to the enemy's ground forces was provided by his aviation, which during this time flew about 2 thousand sorties, while the aviation of the North-Western Front made a little more than 700 sorties. All this, together with shortcomings in the organization of the offensive, led to failure.

During the Great Patriotic War, the troops of the North-Western Front fought fierce battles with the fascist invaders for two and a half years in the Novgorod direction - ancient Russian lands, where every city, every village is connected with the thousand-year history of Russia. Here, near Demyansk and Staraya Russa, Soviet troops pinned down a strong enemy group for a long time and inflicted heavy losses on it. However, in the Sovinformburo reports, those events were sparingly commented on with the words: “No change on the North-Western Front. There are local battles going on.”

Demyansk is an ancient Russian village in the Novgorod region, first mentioned in the chronicles of the 12th century, located on the Yavon River between lakes Ilmen and Seliger.

During the Great Patriotic War, fierce and bloody battles took place in this area: starting from the autumn of 1941, when Demyansk was abandoned by our troops during a counterattack near Staraya Russa, during 14 months of Nazi occupation until the winter of 1942 and ending in the spring of 1943. In military archives, the battles to liberate this territory are known as the 1st and 2nd Demyansk offensive operations.

In September 1941, fascist troops successfully advanced deep into our Motherland, advancing in three main directions: Army Group North towards Leningrad, Army Group Center towards Moscow and Army Group South towards Kyiv and Donbass. Hitler already in June determined the time of completion of the “victorious campaign to the East” and intended to capture Moscow immediately after the fall of Leningrad.

This front did not produce bright results, and the Demyansk cauldron was not included in the canonized list of victories of the Red Army. Nevertheless, the first encirclement of a large group of Nazi troops undoubtedly deserves more detailed study. Despite the fact that the battles did not end with the complete defeat of the 95,000-strong enemy group, they thwarted the Wehrmacht’s plans to strike Moscow from the Valdai heights, and also drew back part of the enemy forces from the Leningrad direction. And the Red Army soldiers here performed feats every hour, every day, demonstrating the incredible heights of the human spirit.

In the first days

Northwestern is one of those fronts that were created on the first day of the Great Patriotic War. Commanding Marshal of the USSR Kliment Efremovich Voroshiorv. It was formed on the basis of the Baltic Special Military District. It included troops of the 8th, 11th and 27th armies, the 3rd and 12th mechanized corps, as well as several separate divisions and brigades. In total, the front had 25 divisions (19 rifle, 4 tank and 2 motorized rifle) and 4 brigades (1 rifle and 3 airborne). They had 1,150 tanks, 6,400 guns and mortars, and 877 combat aircraft. This was no small force. But she was opposed by an even more powerful enemy armada: Army Group North, 3rd Tank Group and two left-flank army corps of the 9th Army of Army Group Center. This entire group consisted of 42 divisions, including 7 tank and 6 motorized. It consisted of about 725 thousand soldiers and officers, over 13 thousand guns and mortars of all calibers and at least 1.5 thousand tanks (more than 30 percent of all forces and means intended for the invasion of the Soviet Union). The offensive of the fascist group from the air was supported by the 1st Air Fleet, which had about 1.1 thousand aircraft. From a comparison of the composition of the groupings, it is clear that the enemy outnumbered our troops in divisions by 1.7 times, in tanks by 1.3 times, in guns and mortars by 2 times, and in aviation by 1.2 times.
Despite such an unfavorable balance of forces, the troops of the Northwestern Front fought heroically. From the very first day of the war, in cooperation with the Northern, Leningrad fronts and the Baltic fleet, they fought fierce defensive battles in the Baltic states and on the distant approaches to Leningrad. However, under the powerful onslaught of superior enemy forces, they were forced to retreat, desperately resisting and suffering huge losses.

During the first 18 days of the war, Soviet troops retreated to a depth of 450 kilometers. The irretrievable losses of the North-Western Front in 1941 (killed and died during the stages of sanitary evacuation, missing in action, captured, non-combat losses) amounted to 182,264 people.

Successful counterstrike

The first success of the North-Western Front was achieved already in mid-July 1941. To the troops of the 11th Army under the command of Lieutenant General Vasily Ivanovich Morozov With a decisive counterattack near the city of Soltsy, we managed to defeat and push back the enemy’s 8th Panzer Division, which was part of the 56th Motorized Corps of Lieutenant General Erich von Manstein, rushing towards Novgorod, inflicting great damage on the enemy, forcing him to increasingly disperse his forces.

This was one of the most effective counterattacks of the Soviet troops in the first days of the Great Patriotic War, which had enormous moral and political significance. The soldiers and commanders realized that they could not only retreat, but also advance and defeat the fascists. And in strategic terms, the Soviet command gained time to create a stronger defense on the approaches to Leningrad and concentrate additional forces in the North-Western direction.

Frightened by the high activity of the Soviet troops and a strong counterattack, the Nazi command on July 19 gave the order to stop the general offensive on Leningrad until the main forces of Army Group North reached the Luga line. The front here stabilized until August 10.

Defense of Novgorod

The defensive battles for Novgorod became a difficult test for the troops of the Northwestern Front. During the war years it was the regional center of the Leningrad region. The tasks of protecting it were assigned to the commander of the 12th mechanized corps, division commander Ivan Terentyevich Korovnikov.

On August 12, 1941, the southern enemy group broke through the front of Soviet troops near the village. Shimsk and rushed to Novgorod. The 28th Panzer Division, which had been tested many times in battle, but was greatly depleted, under the command of Colonel Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky.

About one and a half thousand soldiers and commanders remained in it, armed with rifles, machine guns, pistols and machine guns removed from tanks.

On August 15, the Germans threw two infantry divisions into battle, supported by tanks, artillery and aircraft. And to help the tankers, the Soviet command transferred about a thousand more people from the 3rd tank and 128th rifle divisions.
For five days the fighting for the city did not subside. However, taking advantage of their large numerical superiority, the Nazis nevertheless captured Novgorod. On August 19, the ancient Russian city was occupied.

On August 21, units of the Novgorod Army Group received orders to recapture the city. On August 24, the Chernyakhovites broke through to the suburbs of Novgorod. The Nazis met the attackers with fierce fire. Political instructor Alexander Konstantinovich Pankratov rushed forward and covered the enemy’s firing point with his body, anticipating the feat of Alexander Matrosov. This was the first feat of self-sacrifice now known and captured in the history of the Great Patriotic War.

Unfortunately, the counteroffensive did not bring the desired result due to the unpreparedness and lack of strength of the Soviet troops. Novgorod was liberated from the enemy only on January 20, 1944.

With an eye on Leningrad

In August 1941, in order to cut off Leningrad from the country from the south, the German command set the task for the 16th Field Army to cut the Leningrad-Moscow road in the Bologoe region. At the end of August, the Germans launched an offensive in two wedges: one strike was delivered from the Kholm area to Molvotitsy and Demyansk, the other from the village of Pola to Valdai. Overcoming the fierce resistance of the Soviet troops, the Germans significantly pushed back units of the 23rd, 188th and 256th rifle divisions of the Northwestern Front. To further develop their operational success, in early September, in the rear of the 11th and 34th armies, the Nazis landed troops that cut the Lychkovo - Luzhno - Demyansk and Demyansk - Lyubnitsa roads. There was a direct threat of encirclement of Soviet troops, which is why they began to retreat. The newly formed Red Army units that arrived in time managed to stop the German troops, who never reached the Moscow-Leningrad highway and got stuck in the swamps south of Lake Ilmen. After a half-month of fierce fighting, by September 24, 1941, the front passed along the line of the lake. Ilmen - Lychkovo - lake. Velje - lake Seliger - lake Volvo. A vast and strategically important Demyansk bridgehead was formed.

Demyansk cauldron

At the beginning of January 1942, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, having assessed the results of the successful counter-offensive near Moscow, Tikhvin and Rostov, decided to launch a general offensive of the Red Army on a broad front from Leningrad to the Crimea.
The Supreme High Command set far-reaching tasks for the troops operating in the northwestern and western directions. The troops of the Leningrad, Volkhov and right wing of the North-Western Fronts were to defeat the Nazi Army Group North and release Leningrad. The Kalinin, Western and Bryansk fronts, with the support of the left wing of the Northwestern Front, were supposed to encircle and destroy the main forces of Army Group Center. Thus, the Northwestern Front had the task of participating simultaneously in two operations carried out in two strategic directions - northwestern and western, and had to act in divergent directions. At the same time, the North-Western Front had extremely few forces and means. It consisted of four armies (3rd, 4th shock, 11th and 34th), numbering 171 thousand people, 172 tanks, 2,037 guns and mortars, 69 aircraft. Artillery manning reached only 65 percent.
The situation was aggravated by climatic conditions. The winter of 1942 turned out to be extremely harsh and snowy. Frosts reached 50 degrees, and even 30 degrees almost every day. Blizzards covered the few paths so much that the troops had to make trenches in the snow layers with great difficulty. During the day they were cleared, and at night everything was covered again. On highways, cars moved at a speed no faster than 10-15 km per hour. Troops that found themselves in impassable conditions were forced to pave their own path and maintain it in a passable condition themselves, spending a lot of time and effort on this.

The situation with ammunition, food and especially fuel left much to be desired. All these factors made it difficult and slowed down the concentration of troops. The transfer of each division required five to six days instead of the planned one. Therefore, the start of the offensive was postponed several times.

And so on January 7, 1942, troops of the Northwestern Front attacked the enemy in the area of ​​​​the village of Demyansk.

During the fierce fighting in mid-February, six divisions of the German 16th Army - the 12th, 30th, 32nd, 223rd and 290th Infantry Divisions, as well as the SS motorized division "Totenkopf" with a total strength of about 95 thousands of soldiers and officers - found themselves surrounded there. Another 5.5 thousand Germans were locked in a second small pocket near the small town of Kholm (SS tank division SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke).

For the first time during the Second World War, a large group of Nazi troops was surrounded.

During the offensive, troops of the Northwestern Front under the command of Lieutenant General Pavel Alekseevich Kurochkin surrounded in the Demyansk area six German divisions of the 2nd Army Corps of the 16th German Army of Army Group North with a total number of up to 100 thousand people, namely parts of the 2nd Army Corps (12th, 30th, 32nd, 223rd and 290th Infantry Divisions, as well as the 3rd SS Motorized Division "Totenkopf") under the command of General Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeld.

Brockdorff-Alefeld was a famous German military leader who took part in the First World War (he was seriously wounded at Verdun). Thanks to his title of nobility, the soldiers of his corps who were surrounded preferred to call their position “County of Demyansk.”

To supply the encircled troops and hold the Demyansk “county,” all transport aviation of Army Group Center and half of the transport aviation of the Eastern Front were used. The Germans managed to organize an excellent defense of the outer front of the boiler, and inside it they built a system of reserve fortifications and ensured the protection of populated areas and roads.

This allowed them to hold out in the Demyansk cauldron from September 1941 until the spring of 1943, when, due to the incredible efforts of our army during the 2nd Demyansk offensive operation, the Germans were forced to leave the Demyansk bridgehead.

Hitler, furious, ordered to save those surrounded by any means. They were supplied by air. German aircraft (transport and bomber) made a total of more than 14 thousand sorties for this purpose.

Air bridge

The encircled Wehrmacht and SS units successfully defended themselves, being completely encircled for two months, and later they managed to break through the ring in the area of ​​the village of Ramushevo. This became possible thanks to air transport links: German planes made about 15 thousand sorties, delivering 265 tons of cargo to the boiler area every day. In total, during the entire existence of the Demyansk bridgehead, 32,427 flights with cargo and 659 with passengers on board were made.

The command of the air headquarters of German aviation was located at the Pskov-Yuzhny airfield. Lieutenant Colonel Tonne from the command of Army Group North and Colonel Fritz Morzik from the Air Force command were responsible for supplying the German “county”.

Every day, 100-150 aircraft delivered up to 265 tons of cargo to the “cauldron”. This saved those surrounded from serious difficulties.

For two months, all the enemy’s attempts to break out of the “cauldron” failed. But the troops of the Northwestern Front, lacking experience and sufficient strength, constrained by the terrain and climatic conditions, could not eliminate the surrounded German group.

In March, the command of the German Army Group North brought up additional forces to Demyansk and, with the support of the aviation of the 1st Air Front deployed to the Staraya Russa area, began an operation to relieve the blockade of troops.
Fierce fighting continued for a month. And only on April 21, a Nazi group of five divisions under the command of Lieutenant General Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, Taking advantage of the weakening activity of the Soviet troops, a strike in the area of ​​​​the village of Ramushevo broke the encirclement.

The so-called “Ramushevsky corridor” was formed, which was held by the Nazis throughout 1942.

Confrontation

After the connection of the German Old Russian group with the Demyansk group, the front line resembled a 40 km long jug pressed down from the sides with a neck, the width of which ranged from 3 to 12 km. A new period of struggle began, the goal of which was to use counter strikes along the “Ramushevsky Corridor” from the north and south to again cut off the enemy’s Demyansk group from the main forces of the 16th German Army and subsequently destroy it.

Thus, with the formation of the “Ramushevsky Corridor”, the main task assigned to the troops of the North-Western Front in January 1942 - an offensive in the direction of Staraya Russa - Pskov - disappeared. Another was put forward as the main one - the destruction of the Demyansk enemy group. The Supreme High Command headquarters, whose main attention in the spring and summer of 1942 was focused on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, believed that the North-Western Front, occupying an advantageous enveloping position in relation to the Demyansk group, was capable of encircling and destroying it with its own available forces and means. Overestimation of the capabilities of the troops of the North-Western Front and underestimation of the enemy’s forces led to the fact that the “Ramushevsky Corridor” determined the tasks and nature of the actions of the entire front for a whole year.

The struggle for the liquidation of the Demyan bridgehead on both sides was extremely fierce. The enemy tried to hold on to this bridgehead by any means necessary. He intended to use it to strike the troops of the Kalinin Front. The German command called the Demyansk group “a pistol aimed at the heart of Russia.” Hitler ordered the commander of the 16th Army to maintain the bridgehead at any cost and threw more and more forces there.

The Germans called Demyansk a “reduced Verdun” - the Battle of Verdun was one of the largest and bloodiest military operations in the First World War. It went down in history as the Verdun meat grinder and marked the depletion of the military potential of the German Empire.

The Germans attached great importance to their well-equipped citadel. To hold the Demyansk bridgehead, Field Marshal General Georg Karl Friedrich Wilhelm von Küchler recalled three divisions of the 18th Army from Ladoga, the ring around Oranienbaum and from Volkhov and sent them to the Demyansk cauldron.

The “Ramushevsky corridor” went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War as the “corridor of death”. The losses were enormous: the Germans had more than 90 thousand people, and the Northwestern Front had 120 thousand soldiers and commanders.

In the spring of 1942, the Northwestern Front exhausted its capabilities for conducting active offensive operations. Not receiving support and reserves from Headquarters, the front troops went on the defensive. During this period, the enemy significantly strengthened the Demyansk group and created a network of resistance nodes, saturated with firepower and engineering structures. Since the summer of 1942, stubborn local battles were fought in this direction, claiming thousands of lives.
At the beginning of February 1943, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command developed a plan for the offensive operation “Polar Star”, during which the troops of the Northwestern Front were tasked with breaking through the enemy’s defenses south of Staraya Russa and destroying the Demyansk enemy group. The start of the operation was planned for February 15, but due to lack of preparation, the offensive began on February 23-26. The weather intervened again. The spring of 1943 was early. Due to the thaw, numerous rivers overflowed. Swamps, bogs and continuous forests made it difficult to pull up artillery to the highway leading from Demyansk to Staraya Russa. Bad weather also constrained the operations of front-line aviation.
Frightened by the disaster at Stalingrad, the Nazi command began to withdraw the Demyansk group to Staraya Russa. Pursuing the retreating enemy, the 1st Shock, 11th, 27th, 34th, 53rd armies, with the support of the 6th Air Army, reached the Lovat River by the end of February. In eight days of fighting, 302 settlements were liberated and 3,000 German soldiers and officers were captured.

During the same time, the following trophies were taken: aircraft - 78, tanks - 97, guns - 289, machine guns - 711, as well as a large amount of ammunition and much other military property. The enemy left 8,000 dead on the battlefield.

The long and difficult struggle of the Soviet troops near Demyansk ended.

In the spring of 1943, the Supreme Command Headquarters declared it inappropriate to continue the operation. A new difficult period of positional defense began. On November 20, 1943, the Northwestern Front was disbanded.

Behind Wehrmacht lines

In the northwestern regions occupied by the Nazi invaders, numerous partisan brigades and detachments were active. All their main operations were carried out under the leadership of the Military Council of the North-Western Front. For this purpose, in July 1941, a partisan department was created within the front. By October 15, 1941, there were 68 partisan detachments in the Northwestern Front zone. They transmitted intelligence information to military units, provided guides, and participated in jointly conducted combat operations.
The main force among these formations was the 2nd Leningrad Partisan Brigade under the command of Nikolai Grigorievich Vasiliev.

The partisans operated mainly in populated areas where the most important communications of the 16th German Army passed. And they hid in the Serbolovsky, Polistovsky and Rdeysky forests, where impenetrable swamps provided favorable conditions both for basing and for attacks on the enemy.

As a result of active hostilities, by the fall of 1941, the 2nd Leningrad Partisan Brigade liberated more than 400 settlements from the occupiers and created the first partisan region in the history of the Great Patriotic War.

It covered an area of ​​about 9,600 square kilometers.

From July 1941 to October 1942, the people's avengers destroyed more than 26 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, a large amount of military equipment and strategically important objects, defeated 28 enemy garrisons, 4 headquarters, freed 480 prisoners of war and removed over 6 thousand Soviet soldiers from encirclement.

Together with the front-line troops, the partisans took part in the Kholm, Tyurikov, and Dedovichi operations and helped provide units with food and fodder.
An action unprecedented in the history of the Great Patriotic War was carried out in the spring of 1942 by partisans and residents of the partisan region. On March 5, they sent a food convoy of 223 carts (about 50 tons of food) to besieged Leningrad.
Among those accompanying the convoy was a village boy Lenya Golikov. By the beginning of the war he was 15 years old. Seeing the atrocities the Nazis were committing in his native land, he joined a partisan detachment to take revenge on the enemy. Participated in 27 combat operations. On August 13, 1942, returning from reconnaissance, he used a grenade to blow up a car in which German Engineering Troops Major General Richard Wirtz was located. . Lenya found a briefcase from the killed Germans, which contained drawings and descriptions of new models of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other important military documents. The brave scout has many more exploits to his name. January 24, 1943 in an unequal battle in the village of Ostraya Luka, Pskov region Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov died.

Young and old alike rose up to fight the enemy. The Nazis undertook four punitive expeditions in order to eliminate the partisan region. During these actions, in addition to the 20 thousand soldiers and officers who were used daily by the enemy in the North-Western Front to protect their facilities and communications, the Nazis additionally tore away entire divisions of field troops from the front, reinforced with aircraft and tanks.

They brought victory closer

Many exploits are written in golden letters in the heroic chronicle of the North-Western Front.
Natalya Venediktovna Kovshova and Maria Semyonovna Polivanova were the first among female snipers to be posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. When the war began, they enlisted in the Moscow Communist Militia Division. Graduated from sniper school. In the battle for Novaya Russa, they went on the “hunt” for the first time and opened their battle account by destroying 11 fascists. By the summer of 1942, the number of Germans killed at Kovshova and Polivanova exceeded 300. Both were awarded the Order of the Red Star. On August 14, 1942, near the village of Sutoki, Parfinsky district, Novgorod region, the girls were ambushed. The battle with the Nazis was fought to the last bullet. They blew themselves up with the last grenades along with the soldiers surrounding them.

On January 29, 1942, in a battle near Novgorod, a platoon of the 299th Infantry Regiment fell into a bag of fire. The closest to the bunkers were Sergeant I.S. Gerasimenko, privates A.S. Krasilov and L.A. Cheremnov. They understood that it would only take the enemy a few minutes to destroy the platoon. Without saying a word, the heroes rushed to the embrasures of the bunkers. This was the first group act of self-sacrifice since the beginning of the war, testifying to the greatness of the moral spirit of Soviet soldiers. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, 470 soldiers covered the embrasures of Hitler’s pillboxes and bunkers with their bodies.

No one in the enemy camp was capable of such a feat.

The son of the Soviet commander Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze fought on the North-Western Front - Timur. By January 1942, the pilot of the 161st Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 57th Mixed Air Division, Lieutenant Frunze, had 9 combat missions. He died covering troops in the Staraya Russa area.

But the pilot of the 580th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Lieutenant Alexey Petrovich Maresyev survived when his plane was shot down in an air battle over the Demyansk bridgehead. The further fate of the pilot, who fell into the forest behind enemy lines, and his 18-day desperate fight with death were revealed by Boris Polev in the book “The Tale of a Real Man,” which became a textbook of courage for many generations.

“Warriors of more than fifty nationalities fought in the troops of the North-Western Front,” Alexey Bolotskikh, a participant in the battles for the Ramushevsky Corridor, shared his memories with the Red Star correspondent. - I fought as part of the 364th Infantry Division, formed from graduates of the 1st Omsk Infantry School named after M.V. Frunze. I am grateful to the Novgorod writer Alexander Simakov for the excellent book “Demyansk Bridgehead: Confrontation 1941-1943,” which also tells about the role of the Siberian divisions that fought in the “Ramushevsky Corridor” area and made great sacrifices on the altar of Victory. We, soldiers of the North-Western Front, are offended that our merits are sometimes underestimated. Even at the Victory Parade there was no Battle Banner of our front.”

From generation to generation

As you know, the war is not over until the last soldier is buried. This is very important for the Novgorod land - many of its defenders have not yet found their final rest. During the Great Patriotic War, the North-Western and Volkhov fronts operated on the territory of the modern Novgorod region from 1941 to 1944. The total estimate of the losses of these fronts in killed and missing is about 800-850 thousand soldiers and officers. And according to the Novgorod Regional Military Commissariat, the military graves of the region contain the remains of only 415,543 fallen defenders of the Fatherland. This became the reason for the creation in February 1988 of the public organization “Search Expedition “Valley”. Today this is the largest association, which includes 46 search teams with a total number of about 800 people.

Over a quarter of a century, 98,454 Soviet soldiers were found and reburied on Novgorod soil, and about 17 thousand names were identified. In 2012 alone, 17 interregional search expeditions were carried out, the remains of 2,983 soldiers and commanders were discovered and buried, 103 names of the fallen, previously considered missing, were found, 2 medals “For Courage” and the Order of the Red Star were found.

The lessons of the Demyansk operations and conclusions from them are a topic for a separate discussion. One thing is clear: the heroic past cannot be forgotten. The soldiers of the Northwestern Front walked the difficult roads of war, not thinking about glory. Now it's time to give them what they deserve. This is our duty.

DEMYANSK BOILER

On the northern flank of the Eastern Front, von Leeb did not have sufficient forces to conduct maneuver operations, just as General Oberst Küchler, who replaced him on January 17, did not have them. The northern group of German troops switched to positional defense on September 12, 1941, having lost, by order of Hitler, 5 tank and 2 motorized infantry divisions, as well as 8 air corps. According to the canons of military science, positional defense is the most effective form of combat if the defending side has enough forces and means to organize deeply echeloned defensive formations. A stretched front is a harbinger of imminent collapse.

In the winter of 1941–1942, Army Group North included Georg Lindemann's 18th Army and Ernst Busch's 16th Army. The SS Division "Totenkopf" fought defensive battles as part of the 10th Motorized Corps on the Valdai Hills between lakes Ilmen and Seliger. On the night of January 7-8, 1942, the 1st Shock, 11th and 34th Russian armies attacked the southern flank of Army Group North. In the direction of the main attack of the Red Army were the neighbors on the right of the Totenkopf SS - the 30th and 290th Infantry Divisions of the Wehrmacht. They practically ceased to exist a day after the start of the offensive, and the Russian armies wedged 30 km deep into the German defense. On January 9, 11 the army made its way to Staraya Russa. At the same time, another Russian army (16th shock) struck west of Lake Seliger and turned north to the Lovat River to connect with the I and 1st shock armies. If the Soviet high command had managed to carry out this operation, then the 16th Army of General Oberst Bush would have been surrounded.

Despite Eike's objections, his division's forces were dispersed. By order of the commander of the 16th Army, several SS battalions were transferred to the least protected areas: the infantry reconnaissance battalion was ordered to advance to Staraya Russa and hold the strong point at all costs, and in the Demyansk area the left flank of the 16th Army was covered by two Totenkopf SS infantry standards.

Fierce fighting ensued. At the cost of huge losses, the 18th motorized division of the Wehrmacht, reinforced by the Death's Head reconnaissance battalion, held its positions near Staraya Russa. But after 3 weeks - on February 8 - the steel jaws of the Russian trap finally slammed shut. 15 fresh Russian divisions, reinforced by ski battalions and armored units, surrounded the 2nd and 10th German corps in the Kholm-Demyansk area. The battered regiments of the 12th, 30th, 32nd, 123rd and 290th infantry divisions and what was left of the “Dead Head” were cut off from the main forces 40 km west of Demyansk on the eastern bank of the Lovat - in total 95,000 people and 20,000 horses.

They say that a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Hitler learned from his own people. He borrowed the recipe for holding positions at any cost from the Russians. Stalin's "Not One Step Back" order halted the German offensive, but nearly cost the Soviets their entire army, and was subsequently abandoned by the Soviet command during the German summer offensive of 1942. Now the Führer was reaping the fruits of his own stubbornness.

Hitler gave Goering personal responsibility for providing the encircled group with food, medicine and ammunition. The minimum supply requirement for all kinds of divisions caught in the cauldron reached 200 tons per day. The Luftwaffe pilots did for the besieged Demyansk what they could not do for the encircled Stalingrad. On some days, it was possible to transport over 300 tons of cargo via the air bridge. Thanks to the efficiency of the quartermaster services, the SS men of the “Dead Head” received sets of winter uniforms even before the Russians cut communications. And this was the only difference that set them apart from the rest.

The commander of the besieged group, General Count Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt, once again divided the remnants of the Death's Head division into two battle groups. The largest of them was headed by Eike and, with the support of army units, began patrolling the southwestern sector of the pocket on the eastern bank of the Lovat River. The second battle group, under SS Oberführer Max Simon, took up positions in the northeast. The Soviet command attempted to dismember the besieged group and, after many days of fighting, broke through the Eike defense line in several directions. The common boiler was divided into several sectors isolated from each other. Russian and German positions looked on the headquarters map like a hastily put together patchwork quilt. The SS men of Eike found themselves in one of the newly formed cauldrons. For several days, difficult weather conditions did not allow the Luftwaffe to transport reinforcements, ammunition and weapons to the besieged. In thirty-degree frost and waist-deep snow, under artillery fire and bombs from Russian attack aircraft, they fought bloody battles for every inch of land. By mid-February, under the command of Eike, there were 1,460 soldiers and officers left capable of holding weapons in their hands. After a few weeks of fighting of such intensity, there would not be a single person left from the “Dead Head”. Finally, Himmler ordered the transfer of reinforcements by air. On March 7, fresh Totenkopf companies arrived - several hundred volunteers. The Soviet command sought to liquidate the cauldron before the onset of the thaw and threw more and more units into battle. Both the Russians and the Germans suffered brutal losses: by mid-March, Red Army casualties totaled some 20,000 soldiers, and the SS Totenkopf Division alone lost at least 7,000 men killed. But if the Russians did not experience any problems with reinforcements, then instead of seven thousand who were out of action, the “Totenkopf” received only five thousand reservists.

Meanwhile, near Staraya Russa, the commander of Army Group North, Georg von Küchler, began forming a strike force as part of Operation Outboard Gangway. On March 21, 1942, the 122nd, 127th and 329th Infantry Divisions, as well as the 5th and 8th Light Divisions under the command of Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach began an operation to relieve Demyansk. The Death's Head division made a breakthrough to connect with Seydlitz. Under fire, overcoming fierce enemy resistance, the division covered up to one and a half kilometers a day. On March 20, the SS Totenkopf anti-tank destroyer company broke through to the eastern bank of the Lovat River and captured the bridgehead. On April 22, 1942, the advanced units of Seydlitz linked up with the SS men who had fought their way out of encirclement. And after 73 days the blockade was finally broken. On May 2, the Germans gained a foothold in their positions, and soon the first ground transport arrived in Demyansk. On May 5, 1942, the 122nd Wehrmacht Infantry Division released the 5,000-strong garrison of Kholm under the command of Lieutenant General Scherer. After a 103-day siege, Scherer lost 1,600 soldiers and officers killed and 2,200 wounded.

DEMYANSKY PROCESS

The partial success of the Death's Head division could not solve the problems of Demyansk. After breaking through the encirclement, this section of the German front began to be referred to in official OKW reports as the “Demyansk ledge.” Eike hoped that his bloodless division would be sent to the rear for replenishment and a well-deserved rest. However, Berlin decided otherwise, sending 3,000 reservists to Demyansk and promises from the Reichsführer SS to “resolve the issue as soon as possible.” Eicke was appointed commander of the SS and Wehrmacht forces of the western sector of the salient, and the forces entrusted to him were given the status of a corps, although in number they would barely amount to half a division.

In May, the Soviet command made a number of attempts to cut the Demyansk corridor, and in mid-June Eicke was summoned to Fuhrer Headquarters for a report. Hitler awarded him the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross, promised to withdraw the division from Demyansk, reorganize it into an SS motorized infantry division, and granted Ike a short leave. Acting SS Totenkopf commander Max Simon repelled massive attacks by the Red Army with heavy losses until mid-July. The crisis came on July 18, when the Russians drove Totenkopf from their established positions and, supported by aircraft and artillery, rushed forward. On July 30, the front ceased to exist, and, as had already happened in the winter, it was divided into separate sectors - squad against squad, platoon against platoon... Eike obtained an audience with Hitler and demanded that the remnants of the division be withdrawn from Demyansk or be given the opportunity to die next to his soldiers. Hitler refused.

The “Dead Head” was truly on its last legs. No more than 7,000 soldiers remained in the ranks, and even those were mercilessly decimated by pneumonia and dysentery. The Russians had completely seized the initiative and on August 6, with the support of front-line aviation, they were preparing to strike at the right and left wings of the corridor with the forces of the 11th Army and the 1st Guards Corps. The Totenkopf SS division could no longer withstand this. By August 12, the last reserves were exhausted: headquarters officers, clerks, grooms, doctors and cooks went into battle. Quite unexpectedly, the weather came to the aid of the SS men: heavy rains made the country roads completely impassable. Russian aviation also could not take off. The Germans regrouped their forces, strengthened their defenses and averted the threat of a breakthrough. Local fighting continued with varying success until the end of August. So, on August 25, after just a few hours of battle, the “Dead Head” lost 1,000 people killed, but the positions were held. Only after the start of the autumn German offensive, when parts of the Red Army were thrown far to the east, Totenkopf was recalled from the front line. In October 1942, 6,400 SS soldiers who survived the battle were sent to Germany for reorganization and rest.

Two shields (the first sign could well have been the “Narvik Shield” established on August 19, 1940) were fixed on the left sleeve one above the other at a distance of 5 mm.