Province history of Stavropol and Stavropol Territory. Second shock fighter P

The tragedy and feat of the 2nd shock army

H historians have extraordinary fates. It would seem that Boris Ivanovich Gavrilov had a completely prosperous and determined life path of an academic scientist and teacher ... B.I. Gavrilov was born in 1946 in Moscow into a family with ancient noble roots. The date of birth, which fell on the first post-war year, influenced his professional choice, making close everything that was connected with the Victory. After graduating from school in 1964, B.I. Gavrilov entered the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, where he began to study in depth the history of the Russian Navy. His thesis, dedicated to the uprising on the battleship "Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky", eventually turned into a Ph.D. thesis, which was defended in 1982. After graduating from the university, B.I. Gavrilov came to the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences), where he worked for thirty-two years, until the last day of his life. B.I. Gavrilov is the author of many publications on the military history of Russia, a well-known guide for entering universities on national history. Unfortunately, his book on the history of the armored fleet remained unpublished. Participating in the creation of the Code of monuments of history and culture of the peoples of the USSR, B.I. Gavrilov examined a number of regions of the country, incl. Novgorod region. Thus, a new direction appeared in the sphere of his scientific interests: the history of the 2nd shock army. Then many veterans were still alive, the "commandant of the Valley of Death" Alexander Ivanovich Orlov was actively working. Yes, and in Myasny Bor itself, where the soldiers of the 2nd shock once fought, there was most of all evidence of real hostilities: there were still broken lorries on the South Road, the remains of dead soldiers lay in almost every funnel, etc. However, it was impossible to write about it in those days. Nevertheless, B.I. Gavrilov, carried away by this topic, did not abandon it. His Moscow apartments in Izmailovo, and then in Yasenevo, became a kind of headquarters that united everyone who was involved in the 2nd shock army: historians, search engines, veterans and family members of the dead soldiers. Sincere, friendly to everyone, possessing a well-deserved authority, B.I. Gavrilov refused to help anyone. And the most expensive award for him was the badge "Veteran of the 2nd Shock Army", received from the Council of Veterans. The time has come, and finally the first edition of the book "Valley of Death" was published, which immediately became a bibliographic rarity. For her B.I. Gavrilov in 2001 was awarded the prestigious Makariev Prize in scientific circles. It was assumed that the theme of the 2nd shock would form the basis of his doctoral dissertation ... Work began on a new edition of the book. The text was seriously revised and expanded, but see the book published by B.I. Gavrilov did not have to. On October 6, 2003, he died under unclear and strange circumstances while returning from his dacha to Moscow... We can say that in the lists of the dead of the 2nd shock one more fighter has become. Boris Ivanovich did not separate his fate from the fate of the fallen and the survivors of the Great War. And we need to honor his memory on an equal footing with them - with those to whom we owe everything and whom we will not forget as long as Russia lives. We hope that the published article will tell not only about the death of the 2nd Shock Army, but also about a remarkable person, a historian who gave a lot of effort to make the hushed truth about the tragic page of the Great Patriotic War known to the general reader. Mikhail KOROBKO, Alexey SAVELYEV

O The harrow of Leningrad occupies one of the most tragic and heroic pages in the history of the Great Patriotic War. The enemy expected to capture Leningrad two weeks after the attack on the USSR. But the steadfastness and courage of the Red Army and the people's militia frustrated the German plans. Instead of the planned two weeks, the enemy fought his way to Leningrad for 80 days.
From the second half of August until mid-September 1941, German troops tried to storm Leningrad, but did not achieve decisive success and proceeded to blockade and siege the city. October 16, 1941 eight German divisions crossed the river. Volkhov and rushed through Tikhvin to the river. Svir to connect with the Finnish army and close the second blockade ring east of Lake Ladoga. For Leningrad and the troops of the Leningrad Front, this meant certain death.
The enemy, after linking up with the Finns, was going to attack Vologda and Yaroslavl, intending to form a new front north of Moscow and, at the same time, encircle our troops of the North-Western Front with a strike along the Oktyabrskaya railway. Under these conditions, the Soviet Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, despite the critical situation near Moscow, found an opportunity to reinforce the reserves of the 4th, 52nd and 54th armies, which were defending in the Tikhvin direction. They launched a counteroffensive and by December 28 had driven the Germans back beyond the Volkhov.

During these battles, the Soviet Headquarters developed an operation to completely defeat the Germans near Leningrad. To accomplish the task on December 17, the Volkhov Front was formed. It included the 4th and 52nd armies and two new armies from the Stavka reserve - the 2nd shock (former 26th) and
59th. The front under the command of General of the Army K.A. Meretskov was to destroy the Mginsky enemy grouping with the forces of the 2nd shock, 59th and 4th armies, together with the 54th army of the Leningrad Front (which was outside the blockade ring), and thereby break through the blockade of Leningrad, and with a blow in a southerly direction by the forces of the 52nd armies to liberate Novgorod and cut off the enemy's retreat in front of the North-Western Front, which also went on the offensive. The weather conditions were favorable for the operation - in the wooded and marshy area, the harsh winter fettered swamps and rivers.
General Meretskov was recently released from the dungeons of the NKVD, and the notorious L.Z. Mehlis.
Even before the start of the operation, separate units and units of the 52nd Army, on December 24-25, crossed the Volkhov on their own initiative in order to prevent the enemy from gaining a foothold on the new line, and even captured small bridgeheads on the western bank. On the night of December 31, units of the newly arrived 376th Infantry Division of the 59th Army crossed the Volkhov, but no one managed to hold the bridgeheads.
The reason was that just the day before, on December 23-24, the enemy had completed the withdrawal of his troops behind the Volkhov to pre-prepared positions, pulled up reserves of manpower and equipment. The Volkhov grouping of the 18th German Army consisted of 14 infantry divisions, 2 motorized and 2 tank divisions. With the advent of the 2nd Shock and 59th Armies and units of the Novgorod Army Group, our Volkhov Front gained an advantage over the enemy in manpower by 1.5 times, in guns and mortars by 1.6 times, in aircraft by 1.3 times.
On January 1, 1942, the Volkhov Front united 23 rifle divisions, 8 rifle brigades, 1 grenadier brigade (because of the lack of small arms it was armed with grenades), 18 separate ski battalions, 4 cavalry divisions, 1 tank division, 8 separate tank brigades, 5 separate artillery regiments, 2 high-capacity howitzer regiments, a separate anti-tank defense regiment, 4 guards mortar regiments of rocket artillery, an anti-aircraft artillery battalion, a separate bomber and a separate short-range bomber air regiment, 3 separate assault and 7 separate fighter air regiments and 1 reconnaissance squadron.
However, the Volkhov Front had a quarter of ammunition by the beginning of the operation, the 4th and 52nd armies were exhausted by battles, 3.5-4 thousand people remained in their divisions. instead of regular 10-12 thousand. Only the 2nd shock and 59th armies had a complete set of personnel. But on the other hand, they almost completely lacked sights for guns, as well as telephone cable and radio stations, which made it very difficult to control military operations. The new armies also lacked warm clothing. In addition, on the entire Volkhov front there were not enough automatic weapons, tanks, shells, and transport.
About half of the front's aviation (211 aircraft) were light-engine U-2, R-5, R-zet. Meretskov asked the Headquarters to send more tanks, vehicles, artillery tractors, but the Headquarters believed that heavy equipment could not be effectively used in forests and swamps. As subsequent events showed, the Stavka's opinion was erroneous.
The 2nd shock army was such only in name. At the end of 1941, it consisted of one rifle division, six rifle brigades and six separate ski battalions, i.e. equal in number to a rifle corps. During the operation, she received new units, including 17 separate ski battalions in January - February, several divisions were transferred to her operational subordination, and yet in 1942 she never reached the composition of other shock armies. The troops of the front were not ready for a big offensive, and Meretskov asked the Stavka to postpone the operation. The headquarters, taking into account the difficult situation of Leningrad, agreed to postpone the start only until January 7, 1942.
On January 7, without waiting for the concentration of all units, the front went on the offensive. But only two battalions of the 1002nd Rifle Regiment of the 305th Rifle Division of the 52nd Army and soldiers of the 376th and 378th Rifle Divisions of the 59th Army managed to cross the Volkhov.
The 4th Army was unable to complete the task, and the 2nd Shock Army launched an offensive only on January 3, because. received the corresponding order with a delay of a day. On January 10, our armies stopped their attacks due to the obvious fire superiority of the enemy. The occupied bridgeheads had to be abandoned. The advance of the front failed. The Germans mistook him for reconnaissance in battle. The Soviet Headquarters removed Lieutenant General G.G., who commanded the 2nd shock army, from his post for poor leadership. Sokolov, former deputy commissar of the NKVD, and replaced him with Lieutenant General N.K. Klykov, who had previously commanded the 52nd Army.
The 52nd Army was received by Lieutenant General V.F. Yakovlev from the 4th Army.

On January 13, the offensive resumed, but success was noted only in the 15-kilometer combat zone of the 52nd and 2nd shock armies. Advancing from the captured bridgehead at the Krasny Urudnik state farm, the 2nd shock army traveled 6 km in 10 days of fighting, broke into the enemy’s first line of defense, and on January 24 reached the second line, located along the Novgorod-Chudovo highway and railroad. To the south, the 52nd Army made its way to the highway and the railway. The 59th Army was never able to capture the bridgehead on its own, and in mid-January its troops began to move to the bridgehead of the 2nd Shock Army.
On the night of January 25, the 2nd shock army, with the support of the 59th, broke through the second line of German defense near the village of Myasnoy Bor. The 59th Rifle Brigade and the 13th Cavalry Corps, and then the 366th Rifle Division and other units and formations of the 2nd Shock Army, were introduced into the gap 3-4 km wide in the enemy’s defenses. The army rapidly - through forests and swamps - began to move to the north-west and in 5 days of fighting it went up to 40 km. Ahead was the cavalry corps, followed by rifle brigades and divisions.
For successful actions, the 366th division was transformed into the 19th Guards. Towards the Volkhovites, on January 13, the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front launched an offensive on Pogostye and Tosno, but soon stopped, having used up ammunition. At that time, the 52nd and 59th armies were fighting bloody battles to expand the bridgehead and hold the breakthrough corridor in Myasnoy Bor. In these battles near the villages of Maloye and Bolshoye Zamoshye, the 305th division defeated the 250th Spanish “blue division”, sent by the dictator Franco to the Soviet front. To the south of the village of Myasnoy Bor, the 52nd Army went along the highway to the village of Koptsy, to the north, the 59th Army went to a large enemy stronghold - with. Spasskaya Polist, where she took positions from the 327th Rifle Division of the 2nd Shock Army, which had gone into the breakthrough.
At the beginning of the operation, the Volkhov Front suffered heavy losses in people and equipment. 40-degree frosts exhausted people, it was forbidden to make fires under the terms of camouflage, tired soldiers fell into the snow and froze. And although in January-February the front received reinforcements - 17 ski battalions and marching units - it became impossible to develop the offensive according to the original plan: firstly, the troops ran into the rear defensive line of the enemy, passing along the line of the Chudovo-Weimarn railway, and secondly, the resistance of the Germans at this turn especially intensified in the northern direction, towards Lyuban and Leningrad.
On the southern flank of the Volkhov Front, the 52nd Army was unable to break through the German positions and advance on Novgorod, and on the northern flank, the 59th Army was unable to capture Spasskaya Polista and break through to Chudov. Both of these armies with difficulty held the corridor of the breakthrough of the 2nd shock in Myasnoy Bor. In addition, due to the lengthening of communications and the narrowness of the breakthrough corridor, the 2nd Shock Army from the end of January began to feel an acute shortage of ammunition and food. Its supply was then carried out along the only road that passed through the corridor - later it became known as the South Road.
250 German bombers were operating against our troops and their only main line of communication, and on February 2, Hitler ordered long-range aircraft to be thrown here as well. In mid-February, the Germans launched a counteroffensive from the north to Myasnoy Bor, from the villages of Mostki and Lyubino Pole, coming directly to the corridor. On the morning of February 15, the 111th division of the 59th army, transferred to the 2nd shock army, but not yet had time to pass through Myasnoy Bor, and the 22nd rifle brigade took Mostki and Lyubino Pole with a sudden attack. Continuing the offensive, the 111th division pushed the enemy back to Spasskaya Polist and cut the Spasskaya Polist-Olkhovka road. As a result, the neck of the breakthrough expanded to 13 km and enemy machine-gun fire ceased to threaten the corridor. By that time, the bridgehead along the Volkhov had also expanded somewhat, its width had reached 35 km. For these battles, the 111th division on March 20 was transformed into the 24th guards.
In view of the insufficient offensive capabilities of the 2nd shock army, the command of the front, beginning in February, began to transfer divisions and brigades from the 52nd and 59th armies to it. The introduction of new units into the breakthrough, the development of the offensive and, in connection with this, the lengthening of communications required an increase and speed up the delivery of goods to the 2nd shock army. But one road could not cope with this, and then in February-March, along the neighboring clearing, 500 m to the right of the first road, a second one was laid. The new road began to be called the North. The Germans called it "Eric's clearing".

On February 17, instead of Mekhlis, a new representative of the Stavka, Marshal of the Soviet Union K.E., arrived at the headquarters of the Volkhov Front. Voroshilov, commander-in-chief of the entire North-West direction. The Stavka changed the plan of the operation, and Voroshilov brought the Stavka's demand: instead of striking directly to the northwest, intensify operations in the Luban direction in order to encircle and destroy the Lubansko-Chudovskaya enemy grouping. The operation began to be called "Lubanskoy" (Lyubanskaya) or "Lyubansko-Chudovskaya". Voroshilov went to the troops of the 2nd shock army to get acquainted with its condition and clarify the plan of the operation.
To capture Lyuban, the front command concentrated 15 km from the city, near Krasnaya Gorka (the hill where the forester's house stood), the 80th cavalry division, transferred from the 4th army, as well as the 327th rifle division, the 18th artillery an RGC regiment, the 7th Guards Tank Brigade (about a company of tanks), a rocket-propelled mortar battalion, and several ski battalions. They were supposed to break through the front and approach Lyuban, after which the second echelon was introduced into the gap: the 46th rifle division and the 22nd separate rifle brigade.
The 80th Cavalry Division began fighting near Krasnaya Gorka on February 16, as soon as it approached the front line here. On February 18, the 1st squadron of its 205th cavalry regiment drove the Germans off the railway embankment and, pursuing them, captured Krasnaya Gorka. The cavalrymen were supported by the 18th howitzer regiment of the RGC. Following the cavalrymen, the 1100th Rifle Regiment of the 327th Rifle Division entered the gap, its remaining regiments were still on the march near Ogorely. The main forces of the 13th Cavalry Corps remained at the base of the breakthrough:
The 87th Cavalry Division fought in the Krapivino-Chervinskaya Luka area. Parts of the 25th Cavalry Division, after a short rest at Finyov Lug, approached Krasnaya Gorka and began combat operations at heights 76.1 and 59.3 to expand the breakthrough.
By the morning of February 23, the 46th Rifle Division and the 22nd Separate Rifle Brigade approached Krasnaya Gorka. The concentration of forces for an attack on Luban continued. To help the advancing troops, it was decided by the forces of the 546th and 552nd rifle regiments of the 191st rifle division to capture the village and station of Pomeranie at night on the Moscow-Leningrad railway, 5 km southeast of Lyuban. The regiments had to advance light, without artillery, convoys and medical battalion. Each soldier was given 5 biscuits and 5 lumps of sugar, 10 cartridges for a rifle, one disk for an automatic or light machine gun, and 2 grenades.
On the night of February 21, the regiments crossed the front line in a dense pine forest between the village of Apraksin Bor and Lyuban. On the morning of February 22, when leaving the forest, the regiments were discovered by a German reconnaissance aircraft and caused fire from their artillery, which caused heavy losses. The only radio station was destroyed, the radio operator died, the regiments of the division were left without communication. Division commander Colonel A.I. Starunin took the people back to the forest, where on the fifth day it was decided to go beyond the front line, to his rear, in three columns (division headquarters and two regiments). The regimental columns broke through to their own, and the headquarters, having gone to the German front line and settled down to rest, was covered with a volley of our Katyushas and 76-mm guns. The headquarters retreated to the forest, where Colonel Starunin ordered the commander of the commandant's company, I.S. Osipov with five fighters to get to his own and ask for help to exit the headquarters. Warriors I.S. Osipov crossed the front line, but the head of the operational group, which included the 191st division, General Ivanov, for some unknown reason, did not take measures to save the division headquarters. Divisional Commander Starunin and his headquarters were missing.

On the night of February 23, Volkhov partisans raided Lyuban. The Germans decided that the city was surrounded and called in reinforcements from Chudov and Tosno. The partisans safely retreated, but the arriving enemy forces strengthened the city's defenses.
Meanwhile, the advancing group of troops conducted reconnaissance of the approaches to the Lyuban station from the borders of the Sychev River. Reconnaissance was especially necessary because of the extremely limited ammunition: in the 1100th regiment there were only 5 shells for each gun, there were also not enough cartridges, aimless shooting was strictly prohibited.
Intelligence established that the enemy had no deep defenses from the north-west, and on the morning of February 25, the 100th cavalry regiment of the 80th division resumed the offensive, but was stopped by bunker fire and strong enemy air impact, and almost all the horses died, and the cavalrymen turned into to regular infantry. Then, the 87th and 25th cavalry divisions, the 22nd brigade, two regiments of the 327th division and a tank brigade, which were at the base of the breakthrough, were subjected to powerful air strikes.
On February 27, three German infantry divisions from the right flank of the breakthrough and one infantry regiment from the left flank launched an attack on Krasnaya Gorka. The enemy was stopped, but the breakthrough corridor narrowed significantly. On the morning of February 28, the Germans launched a new air strike and by 18 o'clock restored their defenses at Krasnaya Gorka. The advance detachment was surrounded, but continued to make its way to Lyuban. On the morning of February 28, they had to walk 4 km to Lyuban. They broke through to the southwestern outskirts of the city, but the Germans drove them back into the forest with tanks, 3 km from Lyuban. On the second day, the encircled group ran out of ammunition and food, the Germans methodically bombed, fired on and attacked our soldiers, but the encircled staunchly held out for 10 days, while there was still hope for help. And only on the night of March 8-9, the 80th division and the 1100th regiment destroyed heavy weapons, including machine guns, and broke through to their own with personal weapons.

While the fighting for Lyuban was going on, on February 28, the Stavka clarified the original plan of the operation. Now the 2nd shock and 54th armies were to advance towards each other and unite in Lyuban, surround and destroy the Lubansko-Chudovskaya enemy grouping and then strike at Tosno and Siverskaya to defeat the Mginskaya grouping and break the blockade of Leningrad. The 54th Army was ordered to launch an offensive on March 1, but it could not launch combat operations without preparation, and the Stavka's decision turned out to be belated.
On March 9, K.E. again flew from Moscow to the headquarters of the Volkhov Front in Malaya Vishera. Voroshilov, and with him a member of the State Defense Committee G.M. Malenkov, Lieutenant General A.A. Vlasov and A.L. Novikov and a group of senior officers. Vlasov arrived at the post of deputy front commander. At the beginning of the war, he commanded the 4th mechanized corps, then the 37th army near Kiev and the 20th army near Moscow, had a reputation as a well-trained commander in operational and tactical terms, he was highly characterized by G.K. Zhukov, and I.V. Stalin considered a promising general. The appointment of Vlasov was, according to the Headquarters, to strengthen the command of the front.
Deputy Commissar of Defense for Aviation A.A. Novikov arrived to organize massive air strikes against the enemy's defensive lines, airfields and communications before a new front offensive. For this, 8 air regiments from the Stavka reserve, long-range aviation and the air force of the Leningrad Front were involved.
The assembled aircraft made 7,673 sorties in March, dropped 948 tons of bombs, and destroyed 99 enemy aircraft. Due to air strikes, the Germans had to postpone the planned counteroffensive, but the enemy transferred aviation reserves to Volkhov and, on the whole, retained air supremacy.
By the Directive of the Headquarters of February 28, shock groups were created in the armies of the Volkhov Front: in the 2nd shock army - from 5 rifle divisions, 4 rifle brigades and a cavalry division; in the 4th Army - from 2 rifle divisions, in the 59th Army - from 3 rifle divisions. On March 10, in the 2nd shock army, such a group included the 92nd rifle division with the 24th brigade, the 46th rifle division with the 53rd brigade, the 327th rifle division with the 53rd rifle and 7th guards tank brigade, 259th and 382nd rifle divisions, 59th rifle brigade and 80th cavalry division.
On the morning of March 11, these troops launched an offensive on the front from Chervinskaya Luka to Eglino with the aim of encircling and capturing Lyuban. The 257th, 92nd and 327th rifle divisions and the 24th brigade were aimed directly at Luban. However, the lack of reconnaissance data on the positions of the enemy, the lack of ammunition and the complete dominance of the enemy in the air did not allow our troops to complete their task.
Simultaneously with the 2nd shock army, towards it, the 54th Army of the Lenfront went on the offensive near Pogost and advanced 10 km. As a result, the Luban grouping of the Wehrmacht was in a semi-circle. But on March 15, the enemy launched a counteroffensive against the 54th Army and by mid-April threw it back to the Tigoda River.

Front commander K.A. Meretskov and commander N.K. Klykov, in view of the weak offensive capabilities of the 2nd shock army, offered the Headquarters three options for resolving the issue: the first was to strengthen the front with the combined arms army promised back in January and complete the operation before the onset of spring thaw; the second - in connection with the arrival of spring, withdraw the army from the swamps and look for a solution in another direction; the third is to wait out the mudslide, accumulate strength and then resume the offensive.
The headquarters leaned towards the first option, but it did not have free troops. Voroshilov and Malenkov again came to the Volkhov Front in mid-March, but the question of the 2nd shock army remained unresolved. On March 20, Meretskov's deputy, General A.A., flew to the 2nd shock by plane. Vlasov as an authorized representative of Meretskov to help N.K. Klykov in organizing a new offensive.
While the second attack on Lyuban was going on, the front headquarters developed an operation to destroy the enemy penetration between the 2nd shock and 59th armies, encircle and capture Spasskaya Polist by the forces of the 59th army's shock group. For this, the 377th Rifle Division was transferred from the 4th Army to the 59th Army, and the 267th Division from the 52nd Army, to the former positions of which south of the village of Myasnoy Bor the 65th Division was transferred from the 4th Army.
The 59th Army made its first unsuccessful attempt to carry out an operation to capture Spasskaya Polista in early February. Then, in order to act from the side of the 2nd shock army to join forces advancing from the side of the highway, the command of the 59th army sent its 4th guards division through Myasnoy Bor, and at the end of February it still continued to fight in the area of ​​the village of Olkhovka . Now the main forces of the 267th division have joined the 4th Guards. On March 1, the 846th Rifle and 845th Artillery Regiments of the 267th Division launched an attack on the village of Priyutino from the side of the 2nd Shock Army, and the 844th Rifle Regiment - on the village of Tregubovo north of Spasskaya Polisti.
The attack was not successful. After the 267th division, Tregubovo was stormed by the 378th division, and also unsuccessfully. Then, to replace these divisions, two rifle divisions (1254 and 1258) and an artillery regiment of the 378 rifle division were led through the corridor. On March 11, they entered the battle and began to make their way from the west to the highway, from the side of which, towards them, the third rifle regiment of the division, the 1256th, broke through. The battles for Priyutino, Tregubovo, Mikhalevo, Glushitsa and neighboring villages continued throughout March. The enemy repeatedly counterattacked, and in April surrounded the 378th division, and its remnants barely escaped from the ring.
The area occupied at that time by the 2nd shock army resembled in its outlines a flask with a radius of 25 km with a narrow neck in Myasny Bor. With one blow to the neck, it was possible to cut off the army from other formations of the front, drive it into swamps and destroy it. Therefore, the enemy constantly rushed to Myasnoy Bor. Only the strength of the onslaught changed - depending on the situation in other sectors of the Volkhov Front.
In early March, as soon as it became clear that the offensive of the 2nd shock army was running out of steam, and the Volkhovites did not have enough strength to take Spasskaya Polista, the Germans sharply increased pressure on the corridor, first from the south - on the positions of the 52nd army, and from March 15, having received reinforcements, the enemy launched a general offensive on the corridor both from the south and from the north - against the 59th Army. The enemy was continuously supported by large aviation forces. Our soldiers held firm, but the enemy committed more and more troops to the battles, including the 1st SS police division, the legions of the Dutch and Belgian fascists "Flanders" and "Netherlands".
On March 19, the Germans broke into the corridor from the north and blocked it 4 km from the village of Myasnoy Bor, between the rivers Polist and Glushitsa. The southern grouping of the enemy could not break through to the corridor, there the 65th and 305th divisions of the enemy did not let through. The front command mobilized all possible forces to drive the Germans out of the corridor.
Our attacks followed one after another, even cadets were brought into battle, but the artillery and especially aviation superiority of the enemy remained overwhelming. On March 23, the 376th Rifle Division transferred from the 4th Army joined the attacks.
On March 25, our troops managed to free the corridor, but on March 26, the SS men again closed the mouth.
The fights were the hardest. From the side of the 2nd Shock Army on March 26, the 24th Rifle and 7th Guards Tank Brigades, and from March 27 also the 8th Guards Regiment of the 4th Guards Rifle Division, delivered a counterattack. On March 27, a narrow corridor appeared again in Myasny Bor. On the morning of March 28, the 58th Rifle and 7th Guards Tank Brigades with units of the 382nd Rifle Division from the east and the 376th Division from the west pierced a corridor 800 meters wide along the Northern Road with a counter attack.
On the evening of March 28, the narrow road began to operate, although it was under constant enemy machine-gun, artillery and aviation influence. On March 30, they managed to break through a small corridor along the Southern Road, and by April 3, communications in Myasnoy Bor were completely freed. During the period of the March encirclement in the 2nd shock army, heavy defensive battles were fought by the 23rd separate rifle brigade. It was located on the left flank of the army, and the enemy tried to break into the center of the 2nd shock through its positions and cut the army into two parts, but the soldiers of the brigade repelled all enemy attacks.

The March encirclement revealed the extreme danger of even a short-term disruption of communications in Myasnoy Bor. Food and ammunition encircled had to be delivered by aircraft. The food ration in the cavalry corps was immediately reduced to 1 cracker per day. Surrounded dug out from under the snow and ate the corpses of dead and fallen horses, for the protection of live horses it was necessary to allocate reinforced outfits so that they would not be stolen and eaten by soldiers. The surviving horses of the Cavalry Corps began to be evacuated to the rear through Myasnoy Bor.
On March 29, heavy snow melting began, the roads turned into a muddy mess. The Germans continued to break through on communications, and the struggle for the corridor turned into hand-to-hand combat. To supply the troops, a field airfield was urgently equipped near the army headquarters near the village of Dubovik. Seeing the plight of our troops, the Germans began to drop propaganda leaflets with prisoner passes from their planes.
In April, the fighters of Myasny Bor became even more difficult. Due to the spring thaw, even wagons could not walk on the roads, and special groups of soldiers and local residents carried ammunition and food for 30-40 km. On April 10, ice drift began on the Volkhov, and (until floating bridges were built) the supply of our troops deteriorated even more.
At the end of March, the headquarters of the 2nd shock army and the Volkhov front became aware of the preparation by the enemy of a new major operation to encircle and destroy the 2nd shock army, but instead of paying due attention to this information, the command of the army and the front continued to complete the development of a new one, third, the operation to take Lyuban.
A new offensive began on April 3, 30 km south of Lyuban in the direction of the village of Apraksin Bor. Like the previous two, this offensive did not bring success, although the 54th Army of the Lenfront resumed oncoming battles from the end of March and diverted large enemy forces. After the failure of the offensive of General N.K. Klykov was removed from command of the 2nd shock army, instead of him, on April 20, General A.A. Vlasov.
Preparations began for another attack on Lyuban, this time by the forces of the 6th Guards Rifle Corps, which began to be formed on the basis of the 4th Guards Rifle Division, which had been withdrawn to the reserve front. In terms of manpower and weapons, the corps was to surpass the entire 2nd shock army of the first formation and become the main force of the front.
At the same time, in late March - early April, the K.A. Meretskov repeatedly asked the Headquarters to withdraw the 2nd shock army from the swamps to the bridgehead to Volkhov, but instead, on April 21, the Headquarters decided to liquidate the Volkhov Front. This was done at the suggestion of the commander of the Leningrad Front, Lieutenant General M.S. Khozin and Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the military councils of the North-Western Direction and the Leningrad Front, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A.A. Zhdanov. Khozin argued that if the troops of the Volkhov Front were combined with the troops of the Leningrad Front under his command, then he would be able to combine actions to break the blockade of Leningrad.
On April 23, the Volkhov Front was transformed into the Volkhov Operational Group of the Leningrad Front. Meretskov was sent to the Western Front to command the 33rd Army. But it soon became clear that M.S. Khozin, being in Leningrad, cannot pay due attention to the Volkhov group, and especially to the 2nd shock army. The decision to liquidate the Volkhov Front turned out to be erroneous, and for the 2nd shock army it became fatal.
The situation in late April in the 2nd shock army continued to deteriorate. The trenches were flooded with water, corpses were floating around, the soldiers and commanders were starving, there was no salt, there was no bread, there were cases of cannibalism. There was no bleach left to disinfect water, no medicines. There were no leather shoes, and people wore felt boots. On April 26, the Germans again began to break through to our communications. Myasnoy Bor and neighboring forests bombarded enemy aircraft with leaflets - passes for captivity. On April 30, the 2nd shock received an order to take up a tough defense. To supply the army, its soldiers, working all April waist-deep in water, built a narrow-gauge railway from Myasny Bor to Finyov Lug 500 meters north of the Northern Road. The track taken from the logging sites near Lyubin Pol and Mostkov went to its construction.

In early May, the 59th Army tried to break through a new corridor to the 2nd strike, opposite the village of Mostki, in the Lesopunkt area. The blow was delivered by the 376th division, but the enemy bypassed the flanks of the division and broke through on communications in Myasnoy Bor. I had to break through the corridor again along the Northern Road and the narrow gauge railway, and the 376th division barely got out of the encirclement. In the meantime, in late April - early May, local battles did not stop along the entire perimeter of the location of the 2nd shock army (200 km), the enemy exerted especially strong pressure on the positions of the 23rd and 59th rifle brigades - on the left flank and at the tip of the breakthrough at Eglino.
These days, the military council of the Leningrad Front came to the conclusion that it was urgent to withdraw the 2nd shock army to the bridgehead to Volkhov. While the Stavka was considering this proposal, M.S. Khozin ordered the command of the 2nd shock army to prepare for withdrawal through intermediate lines according to the plan drawn up by the commander A.A. Vlasov. Reporting to the Headquarters the plan for the withdrawal of the army, Khozin also proposed to separate the Volkhov group of troops from the Lenfront into an independent operational association, i.e. actually restore the Volkhov front. Thus, Khozin acknowledged the groundlessness of his former opinion.
In anticipation of the decision of the Headquarters, Khozin brought to the bridgehead by May 16 a significant part of the cavalry, parts of the 4th and 24th Guards divisions, the 378th division, the 24th and 58th brigades, the 7th Guards and 29th tank brigades. From May 17 to May 20, a wooden deck (“zherdevka”) was built on the Northern Road for the convenience of supplying and evacuating troops, especially equipment.

Remains of Soviet soldiers found by one from search expeditions in Myasny Bor Modern photo

On May 21, the Headquarters finally allowed the withdrawal of the troops of the 2nd shock army to the bridgehead to Volkhov through three intermediate lines. The first line passed along the line of villages Ostrov-Dubovik-Glubochka. The second - near the village of Volosovo, Rogavka station, settlements of Vditsko-Novaya-Krapivino. Third: Pyatilipy-Deaf Kerest-Finyov Meadow-Krivino.
The troops that penetrated the enemy's defenses in the north-west direction most deeply retreated to the first line: the 382nd division, the 59th and 25th brigades. Simultaneously with them, but immediately to the second line, their neighbors located to the east retreated: the 46th, 92nd and 327th divisions, the 22nd and 23rd brigades.
The second frontier was the main one. Here it was necessary to take up a tough defense and hold on until a reliable corridor was broken in Myasnoy Bor. The defense was assigned to the 92nd and 327th divisions and the 23rd brigade.
The first rearguard group, as well as the 46th division and the 22nd brigade, were to pass through the main line and follow along with other units to the area of ​​​​the villages of Krechno, Olkhovka and Maloye Zamoshye.
There, the 2nd strike was concentrated for a throw through a new corridor, which was again planned to break through in the Lesopunkt area.
Hospitals and rear services were the first to leave, equipment was evacuated. After the main forces of the army left the encirclement, the covering troops retreated to the third line, from where they passed the neck in order of priority, with the 327th division leaving the 2nd shock army last, followed by the 305th division holding the defense there from Zamoshye 52nd Army, than the withdrawal of troops was completed. The plan was logical and thought out, but fate made its own adjustments to it.
They managed to equip the frontiers on time: on May 20, the Germans began an operation in many areas to narrow the Volkhov cauldron. However, these counter attacks were repulsed, the 2nd shock army did not allow its battle formations to be violated. On May 24-25, the 2nd shock army began an operation to get out of the "bag". Two divisions and two brigades occupied the second line of defense, the rest of the troops moved to the area of ​​concentration to Novaya Kerest, where they accumulated in an area of ​​​​less than 16 km.
On May 26, the enemy intensified the pursuit of retreating units and began to compress the ring around the 2nd Shock Army. By May 28, the covering troops retreated to the main defensive line, where bunkers and minefields were prepared in advance. The fight on this frontier lasted about two weeks. Upon learning of the withdrawal of the 2nd shock army, the Germans not only intensified their flank attacks, but on May 29 they rushed to the neck in Myasnoy Bor and on May 30 broke through on communications.
The command of the front and the 59th Army had to abandon the planned new attack on Lesopunkt and send the assembled troops to liberate the former corridor. At 2 am on June 5, the 2nd shock and 59th armies began a meeting battle without artillery preparation in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe Northern Road and the narrow gauge railway. The 52nd Army continued to repulse enemy attacks from the south, not let him through to communications from the south and prevent him from connecting with the northern group. But this northern group repulsed our counterattacks and on June 6 completely blocked the corridor.
On June 8, the Headquarters finally realized the fallacy of the abolition of the Volkhov Front. The Volkhov Front was restored, K.A. again became in command of it. Meretskov. Stalin ordered him and A.M. Vasilevsky to withdraw the 2nd shock army, at least without heavy weapons and equipment. On June 10, at 2 am, the 2nd shock and 59th armies launched a new counter offensive. All our combat-ready formations were drawn to Myasny Bor, up to the consolidated regiments of cavalrymen of the 13th Corps on foot. The fighting went on without stopping, with varying success, but with a clear superiority of the enemy, especially in artillery and aviation.
Meanwhile, the encircled troops occupied the last, reserve (intermediate) line along the river. Kerest. Their situation was desperate - without cartridges, without shells, without food, without large reinforcements, they could hardly hold back the onslaught of 4 enemy divisions. There were 100-150 people left in the regiments, the soldiers received a matchbox of rusk crumbs a day, and even if our planes managed to break through in the white nights that had come, people still held on. In these battles, the 327th Rifle Division especially distinguished itself.
On June 19, in the zone of operations of the 2nd shock and 59th armies in Myasnoy Bor, there was some success, but it was not possible to consolidate it. Only at about 20:00 on June 21, after desperate fighting, our troops broke through a corridor 250-400 m wide along the Northern road and narrow gauge railway. A mass exit of the encircled began. Together with the soldiers, the civilian population was evacuated by order of the Headquarters. By June 23, the corridor was expanded to 1 km. Meanwhile, on June 23, the Germans made their way across the river. Kerest and approached the headquarters of the 2nd shock army near Drovyanaya Polyana (Wood Field), the enemy captured the last airfield. The location of the 2nd shock army, the German artillery was already shooting through the entire depth, the communication center of the army headquarters was broken.

By the evening of June 23, the enemy again burst into the corridor. K.A. Meretskov warned A.A. Vlasov, that the front gathered the last forces for a breakthrough and all encircled troops should prepare for a decisive blow. Surrounded blew up the equipment and prepared for a breakthrough in three columns. On the night of June 24, a corridor was once again broken through in Myasny Bor, and the 2nd shock army rushed into it. In the afternoon of June 24, the enemy again seized the roads and began to methodically destroy those surrounded by artillery fire.
Having assessed the situation, the Military Council of the Army ordered to leave the encirclement according to the ability in small groups. On the evening of June 24, the 59th Army for the last time broke through a corridor up to 250 m wide. Commander Vlasov decided that it was time to withdraw the army headquarters from the encirclement. He divided the members of the headquarters into predetermined brigade and division headquarters so that they could go out with them. With him, Vlasov left the military council, a special department, the chiefs of communications and the army headquarters and the guards of the headquarters (about 120 people in total). They were supposed to leave with the headquarters of the 46th division, but they did not find this headquarters, they came under heavy artillery and mortar fire and decided to return to their original place, where they were attacked by German infantry and barely fought back. Vlasov experienced a psychological shock, he lost his orientation in time and space, could not respond correctly to events.
Meanwhile, at 09:30 on June 25, the enemy finally blocked the corridor. The remnants of the covering troops and soldiers who did not have time to pass the corridor, he squeezed in a deadly vice at Maly Zamoshya and Drovyanaya Polyana. On the morning of June 27, the command of the Volkhov Front made a last attempt to break the ring. The attempt was unsuccessful. Most of those surrounded died, a small part were captured, the Germans destroyed the seriously wounded. Separate groups and individuals continued to get out of the encirclement until November, with some passing more than 500 km along the German rear and breaking through in the zone of the North-Western Front.
In total, from May to autumn 1942, 16,000 people left Myasnoy Bor, of which from June 1 to August - 13,018 people, from June 20 to June 29 - 9462 people, from June 21 to autumn - about 10,000 people . In the Valley of Death and in rearguard battles surrounded in June, 6,000 people died. The fate of the remaining 8000 people surrounded. unknown. It can be assumed that a significant part of them died, the rest were captured. 10,000 wounded were also captured, who were surrounded in an army hospital, medical battalions and others, but almost all of them were destroyed by the Germans. In total, according to our official data, 146,546 people died during the entire operation. In fact, this figure can justifiably be increased by 10,000 people, including the wounded and those killed by the Germans in the encirclement after the corridor was completely closed.
For a long time, the fate of the 2nd Shock Army was mistakenly associated by many with the fate of its last commander, General A.A. Vlasov. In fact, having arrived in the already surrounded army, Vlasov honestly performed his duty until the last days of the encirclement, at least as best he could. Later he became a traitor. When the attempt to break through failed, the Vlasov group, in which 45 people remained, returned to the command post of the 382nd division. Vlasov was still in a state of shock and the command was temporarily taken over by the chief of staff of the army, Colonel P.S. Vinogradov. It was decided to withdraw behind enemy lines and cross the front line elsewhere.
The detachment moved north, crossed the river. Kerest, near the village. Vditsko had a fight with the Germans. We decided to move west, behind the Batetskaya-Leningrad railway, to the village of Poddubie. Vlasov was already in command of the detachment again. We stopped to rest 2 km from Poddubye. Here the detachment, at the suggestion of P.S. Vinogradova was divided into groups, many of which reached their own in different ways. The group of Commander Vlasov (himself, the soldier Kotov, the staff driver Pogibko and the nurse, she is also the chef of the dining room of the military council of the army, M.I. Voronova) the next day - July 12, met the Germans in the forest. Kotov was wounded, the group went through the swamp to two villages.
Kotov and Pogibko went to one of them, where they were caught by the police. Vlasov and Voronova were arrested in a neighboring village.
The next day, Vlasov was identified by a photograph by a German patrol, the general was taken to the headquarters of Army Group North in the village of Siverskaya. At the very first interrogation, Vlasov told the Germans everything he knew about the position of the Red Army near Leningrad. Thus began the path of his betrayal. His further fate is known - he was hanged at dawn on August 2, 1946 in the courtyard of the internal prison of the MGB.

Soviet military propaganda deliberately shifted all the blame for the failure of the operation to Vlasov - thereby keeping silent about the numerous miscalculations of the Headquarters (i.e., I.V. Stalin himself) and the General Staff in planning and leading the entire winter-spring campaign of 1942. To these miscalculations this includes the inability to organize the interaction of the Volkhov Front with the 54th Army of the Leningrad Front, and the planning of an operation without proper provision of troops with ammunition, and much more, in particular, the decision of the Stavka to introduce an entire army into a narrow gap, barely punched in the enemy defenses.
It was the miscalculations of the high command plus the huge technical superiority of the enemy that did not allow the soldiers of the Volkhov Front to complete the Luban operation and break through the blockade of Leningrad on the first attempt. Nevertheless, the heroic struggle of the 2nd shock, 52nd and 59th, as well as the 4th armies saved exhausted Leningrad, which could not withstand a new assault, pulled over more than 15 enemy divisions (including 6 divisions and one the brigade was transferred from Western Europe), allowed our troops near Leningrad to seize the initiative.

After the war, starting in 1946, Novgorod local historian N.I. Orlov. In 1958, in the village of Podberezye, he created his first search detachment, "Young Scout", and in 1968, at the Novgorod chemical plant "Azot", the patriotic club "Sokol". Subsequently, "Sokol" was the basis for a large search expedition "Valley", which involved search parties from different cities of Russia. The search engines carried out and buried the remains of a thousand soldiers who died in Myasnoy Bor, the names of many of them were established.

Boris GAVRILOV

Illustrations for the article
provided by M. Korobko

Myasnoy Bor is a tragic page in the history of our Fatherland, the history of the Great Patriotic War. From the very beginning, as soon as Leningrad was under blockade, steps were taken to liberate the city on the Neva from the enemy siege. In January 1942, the troops of the Volkhov Front launched an offensive. The 2nd shock army operated most successfully. On January 17, she successfully broke through the defenses in the Myasnoy Bor area. At the time of the offensive, the forces were unequal. The attacks of our troops were driven back by the enemy's hurricane fire, which the artillery was unable to suppress. The coming spring thaw sharply disrupted the supply of the army. Headquarters did not allow the withdrawal of troops. The defense remained. The enemy sought to close the neck of the breakthrough and, having pulled in fresh forces, on March 19 blocked the road at Myasny Bor. The delivery of food and ammunition to the troops of the 2nd Shock Force completely stopped. The enemy fired incessantly at the breakthrough area with artillery and mortar fire. The breakthrough cost such victims that a narrow strip of tormented forest and swamps to the west of the village of Myasnoy Bor since March 1942 began to be called the “Valley of Death”. the array had turned into a mess by the time he arrived.

This Soviet general was in a special account with Stalin and was known as his favorite. In December 1941, together with Zhukov and Rokossovsky, he was called the "savior of Moscow." In 1942, the leader entrusted him with a new, responsible mission. No one could have imagined that soon the name of this general would become as common as the name of Judas. Andrei Vlasov forever remained in history as traitor No. 1, the commander of the so-called Russian Liberation Army, created by the Germans mainly from former Soviet prisoners of war. Alas, the ominous shadow of Vlasov's betrayal fell on a completely different army, which he commanded, but which never betrayed. The Second Shock was formed in early 1942 to break the blockade of Leningrad, when the Stavka planned to build on the success of the Battle of Moscow and on other sectors of the front. Hundreds of thousands of fighters were thrown into the January counteroffensive in the northwest. Unfortunately, the Soviet command did not take into account that the Germans were still very strong, and their pre-prepared defenses were exceptionally strong. After long bloody battles, the Second Shock was surrounded. General Vlasov was sent to her rescue.

Alexey Pivovarov, author of the film: “Just like in the story with Rzhev and Brest, we wanted to talk about those episodes of the Great Patriotic War, which, on the one hand, very clearly characterize this war, and on the other hand, were deliberately forgotten by official historians. The second Shock is one of them. For me, this is a story of desperate heroism, devotion to duty and mass self-sacrifice, which were never appreciated by the Motherland. Even worse: after Vlasov’s betrayal, all the surviving soldiers and commanders of the Second Shock Army were put on the “black list”: some were repressed, others were forever branded as unreliable. And the most offensive: they, like those who fought in the ROA, were also called “Vlasovites”. Unfortunately, unlike the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the fighters of the Second Shock Force did not find their own Sergei Smirnov, an influential intercessor who, with his publications, would return their honest name to them. In our film, we tried to correct this injustice by telling about the tragedy that took place in the Novgorod forests in 1942. “Second Impact. The Betrayed Army of Vlasov” includes many months of filming on the battlefields and in specially built scenery, dozens of hours of interviews with surviving participants in the events and the whole set of modern television special effects, computer graphics and complex reconstructions. Together with Alexei Pivovarov, the story of the Second Shock is told by Isolda Ivanova, the adopted daughter of one of the dead officers of this army, who, back in the years of stagnation, tracked down and interviewed hundreds of former colleagues of her stepfather. Their guide through the forest swamps was Alexander Orlov, a search engine that has been looking for and burying the remains of the forgotten heroes of the Second Shock for half a century.

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From the memoirs of Andrei Mikhailovich Martynov
I don’t believe in horoscopes - it’s not the heavenly bodies that control the fate of a person, and I only laugh when my dear Nadia, remembering in the morning what she dreamed, thinks aloud: “What would it be for?” But March, the month of my birth, always brings historical events for me: in March 1917 I met Nadia, in March 1918 I began working in the Cheka, in March 1919 at the VIII Party Congress I spoke for the first time with Vladimir Ilyich, in March 1921 received the Order of the Red Banner… In short, March is a special month for me. Excitedly, I went up to the third floor of building two on Dzerzhinsky Square - the pass read: "To Comrade Malgin." I found the right room, told the secretary my last name, and he said: “Come in, please.” Comrade Malgin is waiting for you. Yes, he was sitting at the desk, Alyosha Malgin! He was talking on the phone and therefore, happily getting up, pointed to the chair: “Sit down!” We had not seen each other for many years, but Alyosha had hardly changed - he was still the same thin, only his hair had thinned a little and two deep wrinkles cut through his forehead. But the eyes remained the same - the intelligent, attentive eyes of a friend of my youth. Alyosha hung up and, as if we had only met yesterday, said: - Hello ... - Then he got up, laughed: - I'm an idiot ... I was completely shaken. Hello! We hugged. Sat nearby. Smiling, they looked at each other. Alyosha asked me about Nadya, the guys, asked how his health was, and suddenly said: “Have you heard about the traitor Vlasov?” “There is a rumor that he went with his army to the Germans. Malgin frowned: - A provocative rumor, which, unfortunately, has spread! How could the whole army go to the Germans? The 2nd shock fought heroically. Vlasov left alone. You will learn everything in detail. — What did you think, Alyosha? Move on to the main thing. - The most important thing is that you, Andrey, will have to part with civilian life. They decided you to the Germans in the rear, to the headquarters of the traitor Vlasov. Do you think I can handle it? - You are a Chekist. You have a school - God forbid everyone. The teachers were good. But in recent years I have been far from the Cheka. - And this was taken into account: more guarantees to save life, Unless, of course, you meet one of your old acquaintances. And this, Andrei, is not excluded! Another thing worries me - lagged behind. And we will organize short-term courses for you, individual ones. You know German - it's not a trifle.

The narrow gauge railway was laid under constant shelling and bombing. On May 25, the Headquarters ordered to withdraw through the corridor. The new commander of the 2nd shock arrived - Vlasov. On June 2, the Germans closed the corridor for the second time. Twenty days later, the bloodless troops of the 2nd shock in a narrow area one, and in some places two kilometers wide, broke through the German defenses and began to retreat. Four days passed, four days of uninterrupted fighting, the enemy closed the corridor for the third time. And yet, the exit of the surrounded units of the 2nd shock continued - by the first of July, about twenty thousand soldiers and commanders broke through with battles. I was looking for an answer to the most important question for me: why didn’t Vlasov leave the encirclement? Maybe he proceeded from the rule - the captain is the last to leave the dying ship? Maybe he hoped to collect the remnants of the army and fight the enemy to the last bullet? All these "maybe" disappeared when I read dozens of documents testifying to what was happening these days in the 2nd shock. The first such document was the report of the Special Department of the Volkhov Front. It said: “Information was received from the employees of the Special Department and the commanders of the 2nd shock who left the encirclement that the Military Council of the Army, having completely lost control of the southern and western group of troops, decided on June 23 to withdraw the headquarters of the 2nd shock to location 59 th Army". It was further reported: "On this day, by order of Vlasov, all radio stations were destroyed, as a result of which communication with the northern group of troops was lost." I have been looking for an explanation for a long time why this ridiculous and terrible order was given. I wanted to find some kind of necessity, operational meaning, justification. And he did not find anything - the order was given without any need and caused irreparable damage. I read further: “At 11 p.m. on June 23, the Military Council and the headquarters of the 2nd shock from the command post in the Drovyanoe Pole area moved to the command post of the 59th rifle brigade on the eastern bank of the Glushitsa River. The next day, all the employees of the Military Council, the army headquarters lined up in a column and headed for the exit from the encirclement. Before reaching the Polnet River, the column went astray and ran into enemy bunkers, which opened machine-gun, artillery and mortar fire ... ”I got a report from Senior Lieutenant Domrachev, which he made to the commander of the 59th Army, Major General Korovnikov. General Korovnikov sent a detachment under the command of senior lieutenant Domrachev and political instructor Snegirev to help the Military Council and the headquarters of the 2nd strike force get out of the encirclement. Sending people on a difficult and dangerous journey, the general punished: “First of all, take Vlasov out. If you're wounded, take it out on your hands." General Korovnikov, of course, did not know that Vlasov was a traitor, just as the commander of the Volkhov Front, General Meretskov, did not know about this, did not know the officers and soldiers sent by him to the forests to look for and save Vlasov; the commanders of the partisan detachments Dmitriev and Sazonov, who sent fighters to comb the forests in search of the lost commander of the 2nd shock, did not know about the betrayal.

: “Fulfilling the order, our group left on June 21 at 23:40, capturing food for the headquarters of the 2nd strike. At 6:00 a.m., we arrived safely.” There are no details about how they crawled across the front line with a heavy load, how they cut the “thorn” under fire. "Safely arrived" - and all. “On the 23rd, we led the Military Council and the headquarters of the 2nd strike from the encirclement,” Domrachev said. - It was necessary to walk one and a half kilometers from the village of Glushitsy along the pole flooring. We walked like this: in front of Snegirev, I, then two platoons of a special-purpose company under the command of captain Ekzemplyarsky's company, with 12 light machine guns, a platoon under the command of Lieutenant Sorokin - all with machine guns. We were followed by Vlasov, the chief of staff of the 2nd shock colonel Vinogradov, employees of the Military Council, departments of the headquarters of the 2nd shock. Cover - a platoon of a special purpose company. I followed the compass. When they reached the Polist River, a small group - about eight people headed by Vlasov - turned south. I shouted: “Where are you? Don't come here, follow me!" The group was leaving. Snegirev ran to return. They didn’t obey, they left ... ”It turns out that they didn’t go astray, they didn’t get lost, but they didn’t obey, they left! I read further: “We walked, trying to be closer to the narrow gauge railway. With a large group of soldiers and commanders of the 2nd shock who joined us, we left the encirclement on June 25 at 3 o'clock in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe command post of the 546th rifle regiment of the 191st division. At 4 o'clock in the morning they reported to the Chief of Staff of the 191st Arzumanov and Commissar Yakovlev. Others left the encirclement. In just one day on June 22, more than six thousand soldiers and commanders of the 46th and 57th rifle divisions and the 25th rifle brigade entered the location of the 59th Army. Colonel Korkin commanded the exit. I found a report from senior lieutenant Gorbov: “On June 29, a group of servicemen of the 2nd shock entered the 59th Army sector in the Mikhalevo region, having absolutely no losses. Those who came out claimed that in this area the enemy forces were few in number. (It was this place that was indicated by the Headquarters for the exit.) Many left later. “On July 14, commanders and soldiers of the 19th Guards Division of the 2nd Shock Army arrived at the evacuation hospital located in the club of the ceramic factory in the city of Borovichi. They reported that the division commander Bulanov and commissar Manevich had been killed. The head of the Special Department, Butylkin, led him out of the encirclement. Those who came out look bad, broke off, but everyone is in a fighting mood. Commissioner of the hospital senior political instructor Panov.

» Afanasyev went alone. A little south of the Veretinsky moss swamp near the trigonometric tower, he was stopped by a barrier of partisans of the Lugansk detachment, commanded by the secretary of the district committee, Dmitriev. The partisans transported the general to the Oredezh detachment, headed by Sazonov. This unit had an active walkie-talkie. Afanasiev showed Sazonov on the map where he saw the commander of the 2nd shock for the last time: “He is somewhere nearby. Search, comrades, search. It is necessary to save Andrei Andreyevich ... "Sazonov's soldiers split into three groups and set off: one on the road Vydritsa - Lisino - Corps - Tosno, others to the village of Ostrov, and others to Pechnov - to save Vlasov. Sazonov did not know that he was sending partisans to look for a traitor. A plane flew for Afanasiev. At night, the head of communications of the 2nd shock flew to the mainland. At the airport he was met by General of the Army Meretskov and Army Commissar of the First Rank Zaporozhets. They told the shocked Afanasiev that the German radio had reported: “During the cleaning of the recent Volkhov ring, the commander of the 2nd shock army, Lieutenant General Vlasov, was found and captured in his shelter.” Eh, Andrey Andreevich! It seems that pride prevented you from taking my good advice. We would be together now, Afanasiev thought aloud. No one yet knew that Vlasov surrendered voluntarily. I have read hundreds of documents. I can't forget the pages from the diary of junior lieutenant Nikolai Tkachev. Tkachev was killed near Myasny Bor, when he, with the remnants of his company of the 1238th regiment of the 382nd rifle division, left the encirclement with a fight. His friend, Lieutenant Pyotr Voronkov, kept the diary. “I am standing on the banks of the Glushitsa. Once, quite recently, just before the war, we wandered here from Panea. My God, how good we were! And now the mouse will not slip through here - the Germans are shooting through every centimeter. How I hate war! But all the same, I will fight to the last, and if I die, then with the consciousness of a fulfilled duty. Some scoundrel started a rumor that we had been betrayed. I allow everything: mistakes, mistakes, stupidity, finally, but betrayal! .. ”Nikolai Tkachev did not allow the thought that Vlasov was a traitor. I now knew it. I understood: Vlasov could get out of the encirclement. I could get out and I didn't. Didn't want to. Went to the enemy. And he became a personal enemy for me, because he betrayed my Motherland, my people, including me, Andrei Martynov, my wife, my children. I asked Malgin: — When? When you're ready. — I'm ready. I'm ready to pass judgment on this bastard. "We don't charge you with that." He will be judged... Continue to prepare.

German boots .. The commander of the 2nd shock army of the Volkhov Front, Vlasov, surrendered on July 13, 1942.
At the edge of the forest, where the Germans took Vlasov, Ober-Lieutenant Schubert, who commanded the company, unscrewed the lid of the flask, filled it and handed it to Vlasov. The Oberleutnant spoke Russian poorly, trying to explain his speech with gestures: "Camus." Gut cognac ... Returns strength ... In the first hours of communication with the Germans, especially when they walked through the forest, Vlasov was on his guard all the time: he often looked around, tried to stay closer to the chief lieutenant - no matter what happened. “Damn them! They will kill you inadvertently." Here, on the edge, under the bright sun, Vlasov felt that he was calming down. He liked that the chief lieutenant, having offered cognac, clicked his heels and retreated two steps. I also liked the fact that, turning to him, the officer trumpeted all the time: “Ger General ...” Vlasov didn’t want cognac - the sun was already burning with might and main, it was much more pleasant, a mug of cold water would be needed, but Vlasov drank cognac, like a connoisseur, in small sips - was afraid to offend the officer's refusal. Handing the empty lid to the German, Vlasov bowed, wanted to thank him in German, and suddenly said: "Merci." The chief lieutenant deftly accepted the lid, put it on his palm, and inquired in the same respectful tone: "Eshcho, Herr General?" "Merci, chief lieutenant." Vlasov was embarrassed only by a young, about twenty-two, chief corporal. Vlasov drew attention to him even in the forest, in the first minutes of communication with the Germans. When, at the request of Vlasov, the Germans shot machine gunners from his guard, the chief corporal looked at him with obvious contempt. The Germans dragged Zina, a military saleswoman, out of the hut. Vlasov slept with her that night under one overcoat, tormented her all, bit her chest and lips. At first, Zina did not understand what the Germans wanted to do with her. She hastily fastened the buttons on her tunic. In a matter of seconds, her face drooped, her large black eyes grew even larger. When a tall soldier with shaggy eyebrows dragged her to a tree, under which lay dead submachine gunners, Zina fell to the ground, wept, shouted: "Andrei Andreevich!" Dear! Comrade General, don't kill! Take pity on me!..

The chief lieutenant again held out the filled lid and said out of place: "Repetition is a mother's consolation." Vlasov drank it in one gulp this time. "Merci." The soldiers laughed. The Oberleutnant frowned, and the laughter stopped. Vlasov nevertheless managed to notice: the soldier made the chief corporal laugh - he showed how the general deftly knocked over the lid. A black Opel Admiral rolled up. The captain got out of the car and saluted Vlasov. The chief lieutenant invited: - Please, Herr General. He opened the door, carefully supported Vlasov by the elbow and, making sure that the general sat down, slammed the door hard.

- It is important to understand that this is not about the "Russian Liberation Army", commanded by Vlasov, having committed a betrayal, going over to the German side, but about the Second Shock Army, which fought under the leadership of Vlasov even before the general was captured by the Germans. These are completely different stories. Black injustice is precisely in the fact that the fighters of the Second Shock were then also called "Vlasovites", they were automatically labeled traitors, although they never surrendered and fulfilled their duty to the end. We did not review the acts of Vlasov himself in the film. For us, he was a traitor, so he remained a traitor. Just because of the betrayal of General Vlasov, the people he commanded in the last two months before the German captivity fell into the category of unreliable. They were repressed, many of them were branded until the end of their lives that they had once acted under the command of Vlasov, although in reality, when Vlasov got into the Second Shock, the army had long been surrounded, was practically defeated, and it was not in his power to correct the situation . Our film is the story of this particular army, and by no means Vlasov himself. For me, this is a story of desperate heroism, devotion to duty and mass self-sacrifice, which were never appreciated by the Motherland.
http://www.rg.ru/2011/02/25/vlasov.html

3) Izolda Ivanova was eight years old when the war began. She remembers well how, together with her mother at the Moscow railway station in Leningrad, she saw off her beloved stepfather, geologist Uncle Naum, to the war.

Izolda Ivanova, consultant for the film “The Second Shock. The devoted army of Vlasov ":" He stroked my head, and with the other hand he half hugged his mother. She cried, and he said that everything would be fine.

At first he wrote from the front, he even handed over his diary. Then the letters stopped, and the family, without explanation, was no longer given an officer's ration. No funeral, not even a missing person's notice. They were not told anything until 1985, when Izolda Anatolyevna, at the request of her mother, again, almost without hope, wrote to the archive.

Izolda Ivanova, consultant for the film “The Second Shock. The devoted army of Vlasov":

“Mom is sitting on the couch, and I am at the table, I can’t even read it aloud to her, because the field mail number is written there. For the first time in 40 years, a secret has been revealed to us. The field mail number belongs to the headquarters of the second shock army.

She recalls how everything inside froze, because the second shock is the army commanded before the surrender by the defector general Vlasov. Well, her uncle Nahum is also a traitor? She could not put up with it and began a search, did not leave the archives for weeks, interviewed dozens of veterans, and, together with the search engines, went through more than one hundred decayed bones. A terrible secret was hidden on the border of the Novgorod and Leningrad regions.

5) We did not study the image of Vlasov very closely. And they weren't going to review it. It was obvious to us from the very beginning that he was a traitor. We talked about those people who were the last two months of the life of the Second Shock Army under his command. Because of his betrayal, they also ended up on the unreliable list, they also began to be called Vlasovites, like those who fought in the Russian Liberation Army, which is completely unfair. Because those who fought in the Second Shock Force did not betray, they accomplished a feat and fulfilled their duty to the end. It's just that the Motherland did not notice this and preferred to forget about them. We were interested in the story of a simple, small man who got into a big war. We were interested in the laws according to which this war developed. And Vlasov does not cause any sympathy from any side, of course.
http://www.nsk.kp.ru/daily/25643.4/806941/

6) The journalist recalled that the general did not really do anything to withdraw his army from the encirclement, and his betrayal "had the most detrimental effect on the surviving soldiers: someone was repressed, someone remained unreliable for the rest of his life, others had to hide it."
“This private story was completely forgotten, although it is very revealing in general for the entire Great Patriotic War. It very clearly demonstrates the inhumanity of both regimes, indifferent to human lives, and the tragic fate of ordinary people who found themselves in a meat grinder, caught in a millstone. Me, like in previous films, ordinary people were interested. I in no way wanted to rethink the role of Vlasov, and everything that happened to him after surrendering to the Germans did not interest me, "the author of the picture explained.
http://www.rian.ru/culture/20110221/336865787.html

7)There is no serious talk about General Vlasov in the film, and the famous blogger Rustem Adagamov, who plays Andrei Andreevich, is only trying to present him as some kind of infernal creature. Regarding Vlasov, the film contains a number of false statements. It is said, in particular, that he did not actually direct the actions of the 20th Army near Moscow. In fact, he led, and much more competently than, for example, the commander of the neighboring 10th Army, Filipp Golikov, who ruined the entire army in just three weeks of the offensive, which did not prevent him from becoming a marshal of the Soviet Union after the war.

The legend that Vlasov spent most of the Moscow counteroffensive in the Moskva Hotel, since he suffered severely from inflammation of the middle ear, was invented in the 50s of the last century by the former chief of staff of the 20th Army, General Leonid Sandalov. The purpose of this lie was noble - to make it possible to tell in the open press about the exploits of the soldiers and commanders of the 20th Army, without mentioning the name of the damned army commander. The author of the legend, however, did not think about whether Stalin would have tolerated the army commander, who, on the days of decisive battles, sits in the far rear. And the documents that became the property of historians only in the 90s clearly indicate that from the beginning to the end of the Moscow battle, Vlasov was at the headquarters of the 20th Army and successfully led its actions.

In the same way, it is a myth that Vlasov kept a cow for his own needs in the Volkhov cauldron. Pivovarov does not even think about how long such a cow would live in a cauldron, where even the skin of a dead horse was a delicacy. Vlasov was simply credited with the cow kept by the commander of the 43rd Army Konstantin Golubev, about whom the future Marshal Alexander Eremenko wrote in his diary in 1943: “He kept one, and sometimes two cows for personal allowance (for the production of fresh milk and butter ), three to five sheep (for kebabs), a couple of pigs (for sausages and hams) and several chickens... This was done in front of everyone, and the front knew about it ... Can there be a good warrior from such a general? Never! After all he thinks not about the Motherland, not about his subordinates, but about his belly. After all, just think - he weighs 160 kg. "
It is unfoundedly stated that Vlasov deliberately surrendered, deciding to serve the Germans, and the headman who betrayed him was generally a Soviet underground worker. In fact, as follows from German documents, Vlasov and his PJ Maria Voronova were captured on the denunciation of the headman of the village of Tukhovezhi, who was rewarded for this with a cow, 10 packs of makhorka, two bottles of caraway vodka and a certificate of honor. We agree that for a Soviet underground worker, the extradition of a Soviet general to the Germans looks rather strange. In fact, Vlasov tried to the last to get out of the encirclement, and if he succeeded, he would have continued a successful career in the Red Army and, probably, would have ended the war as an army general or marshal in command of the front. After all, Vlasov was one of Stalin's favorite generals, and it was not his fault in the crash of the 2nd strike.
The paradox was precisely that the fight against Stalin was headed by one of the most successful Soviet generals. And Vlasov became a collaborator only because he was captured. And this is his fundamental difference from the ideological collaborators, whether it be Gamal Nasser and other leaders of the anti-British opposition in Egypt, who sought support from Hitler and Mussolini, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress, Subhas Bose, who formed the pro-Japanese Indian Liberation Army, or the first president of independent Indonesia, Ahmed Sukarno, who was awarded an order from the Emperor of Japan for successful cooperation with the Japanese invaders.
All these people fought for the independence of their countries long before the outbreak of World War II, did not intend to make a career in the service of the colonial powers and considered assistance from the Axis powers only as one of the means of gaining national independence. Vlasov, on the other hand, became a fighter against Stalinist totalitarianism only because he was captured.

By the way, Vlasov was not the first Soviet general to express a desire to cooperate with the Germans. So, the former commander of the 19th Army, Lieutenant General Mikhail Lukin, being captured, back in December 1941, proposed to the commander of the Army Group Center, Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock, to form an anti-Bolshevik Russian government and army. Due to Hitler's opposition, this proposal was not accepted, and subsequently Lukin refused to join the ROA, which saved his life. The protocols of his interrogation at von Bock's headquarters were made public only many years after the death of Mikhail Fedorovich. Also, Major General Vasily Malyshkin, the former chief of staff of the 19th Army, who, like Lukin, was captured as a result of the Vyazemsky disaster, began to cooperate with the Germans much earlier than Vlasov. But it was Vlasov, as the most famous in the USSR of all the captured generals, that the Germans preferred to make the head of the ROA.
http://www.grani.ru/Society/History/m.186595.html

8) Yesterday I saw material reprinted by Izrus from LiveJournal The betrayal of General Vlasov is an unwillingness to be a slave ...
With all the condemnation of the Stalinist system (which, IMHO, deserves the most severe condemnation and the Court of History), does anyone really think that if the Nazis won, then the Russian people under their rule would cease to be slaves?

The truth about 2nd Shock

Veniamin SAKHAREV

The Great Patriotic War... We know a lot about that war. But they are almost unaware of the terrible Luban operation, of the 2nd Shock Army, which fought heroically in complete encirclement without ammunition, food, and without air support. Slanderous fabrications darkened (and to some extent still darken) the peace of the surviving veterans who fought in this army. One of them is our fellow countryman, a resident of Novoaleksandrovsk, a former signalman Ivan Ivanovich Belikov. This is one of those "swamp soldiers", which are described in the famous book of the Military Publishing House "Meat Forest".

Stalin's pathological suspicion left its mark on the style of work of the special services of the Red Army. Everyone who left the encirclement, having passed the terrible “corridor” at Myasny Bor, was first met by doctors, surrounded by care and concern. The fighters, swollen from hunger, wounded, ragged, shoddy, did not lose the joyful gleam in their eyes: “Come out!”. And then they fell into the hands of the NKVD, a camp was waiting for them. It was…

I want to reassure some anxious readers. Nobody is going to rehabilitate General Vlasov. By the way, in 1946, by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR, he was shot. The traitor was overtaken by a severe and just punishment of the people.

That's just the rumors about the 2nd Shock were unfair for many decades. Therefore, the surviving veterans often did not admit where they fought: “Ah, you were in the Vlasov army!”. Yes, a soldier fought, but not in Vlasovskaya, but in the 2nd Shock without food (they ate raw horse meat, frozen (without salt), ate grass, if any, ate bark from aspens). Without ammunition, with our famous Mosin rifle, with two or three cartridges per brother against German machine guns, mortars and machine guns, against fascist "air carousels" - this is when all daylight hours are bombs and machine-gun bursts overhead, and there is nowhere to hide ...

Hundreds of the wounded (no medical care) died from blood poisoning, from hunger and cold. "Swamp" soldiers fought in these conditions and, in order not to be captured, they shot.

The traitor general Vlasov went out to the village, which had not yet been burned by either ours or the Germans - he gave the peasant woman his wristwatch to exchange for food. The headman saw his small detachment and reported to the Nazis ...

With him, Vlasov brought an "army" (as we were told) of six people: Colonel P. Vinogradov, chief of staff, two political officers, two Red Army soldiers and cook Maria Voronova.

After the war, we studied ten "Stalinist blows." But the Luban operation was not among them. Her failure and the death of hundreds and thousands of heroic fighters of the 2nd Shock will be attributed to the traitor general Vlasov.

Here is how the newspaper “For Victory!” wrote on behalf of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army! July 6, 1943: "... Hitler's spy Vlasov, on the instructions of the Germans, led units of our 2nd Shock Army into the German encirclement, killed many Soviet people, and he himself went over to his German masters." And decades after the death of the army, we were convinced: “Inaction and treason to the Motherland and military duty of the former army commander, Lieutenant General A. Vlasov, are one of the most important reasons that the army was surrounded and suffered huge losses.” There is not a word about the miscalculations of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief anywhere. What happened in reality?

In the first decade of September 1941, the Germans took Shlisselburg, the blockade of Leningrad closed. December 17 The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command announces the creation of the Volkhov Front under the command of K. Meretskov. The 59th Army is just being formed. The 26th Reserve Army, renamed the 2nd Shock Army, arrives in Malye Veshery. The rear and artillery lagged behind, but the Headquarters demands an acceleration of the offensive. At the meeting on January 5, 1942, the main issue was a general offensive from the Barents to the Black Seas. "Against" were G. Zhukov and N. Voznesensky. But "himself", i.e. Stalin, ahead of time, put the last point in the decision. Order from Headquarters - advance! "Forward and only forward!"

The front command demands the speedy exit of the 2nd Shock Army to the Moscow-Leningrad railway to the Lyuban station. Did not reach six kilometers. But how did they go! The supply of food, fodder, fuel and ammunition almost stopped. Armies tried to help, famous

U-2: three or four sacks of crackers will be dropped, but the sacks are paper, and they often fell into the swamp. The momentum has dropped sharply.

At this time, bloody battles are going on in the very “throat of the bottle” - Spasskaya Manor - Mostki - Myasnoy Bor. It was here that our fellow countryman, soldier Ivan Ivanovich Belikov, fought. Addressing the young, he says: “My long-suffering generation has experienced terrible torments. When young people say that you have conquered, I think that they do not realize what Hitler brought us: after all, he promised each of his soldiers 100 hectares of our land and 10 Russian farm labor families in addition. Freedom is not valued because it has not been lost, but there is nothing in the world more valuable than the will and our Motherland!..»

Dear friends! I turned to you with this letter because there is no more time: veterans are dying. Ivan Ivanovich Belikov is 91! To connect to this case not only the newspaper, but also television. I think other veterans will not be offended, their envy will not seize, this feeling is alien to them. But this meeting could grow into an excellent document of history. The time will soon come when you will be interviewing the last veteran.