The Defense of Brest Fortress

it's understandable that people tend to focus on the history that most matches their experience and yet it still surprises me how much we here in the West tend to focus on the American and British experience in the Second World War and how little we seem to understand about the war in the East but to give an idea of the contrast between the two to the end of 1944 nearly eight times as many German soldiers have been killed on the Eastern Front as had been killed on the Western Front the Western Allies excluding China suffered about 1.2 million military casualties during the Second World War the Soviet Union suffered between 8 and 12 million military casualties during the Second World War in June we America tend to focus on the anniversary June 6 the anniversary of d-day the largest amphibious invasion in history but we talk much less about another anniversary June 22nd the anniversary of the largest invasion of any kind in human history the defense of Brest fortress on the opening days of Operation Barbarossa that German invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941 is history that deserves to be remembered historians have described many reasons for Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union in 1941 those can be a matter of dispute but most frankly conclude that conflict between the two was inevitable Hitler seems to come to that conclusion by at least the middle of 1940 when General Eric marks was tasked with developing a plan for the invasion of the Soviet Union officially called Operation Draft East but more commonly called the Marx plan the Marx plan advocated for the occupation of what it called the a a line that is the occupation of a line going from the city of our catalyst on the White Sea in northern Russia to the City of Austin on the Caspian Sea the line was thought to be defensible and would so deprive the Soviet Union of resources that they would cease to be a military threat the plan suggested that the line could be reached in a quick military campaign that would be achieved before winter set in that confidence was likely derived from poor assessments of Soviet military readiness based on the loss of officers in Stalin's purges and what was seemed to be a poor performance by the Soviets against Finland in the Winter War in 1939 and 40 the rapid German victory over France in 1940 further bolstered German confidence Hitler decided to name the operationalization of the Marx plan Operation Barbarossa after 12th century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa the plan was so confident that it didn't even include the distribution of winter gear or the winterization of vehicles because it assumed that all the objectives would be met before the advent of winter the attack was originally planned to occur May 15 1941 the sheer scale the invasion was nearly beyond comprehension some 180 axis divisions including over 6,000 armored vehicles nearly a million horses and 65% of the German air force approximately 3.8 million personnel were scheduled to a tackle on the front nearly 2,000 miles long but the army that they were facing was also massive in June of 1941 the Soviet Union had nearly 6 million troops under arms and were mobilizing a reserve of some 14 million they had more than 25,000 tanks a hundred thousand pieces of artillery and 18,000 warplanes the largest air force in the world it is often asserted that the Red Army was unprepared for the German attack despite warnings from British American and even Stalin's own intelligence sources that is only partially true the Soviet Union had undertaken both a defense plan and the mobilization plan but Stalin seems to have been convinced that Hitler would not attack only two years after having signed a non-aggression pact and Soviet forces were still preparing when the attack first came they faced many obstacles of organization and supply lacked adequate transport and while they had some of the most advanced armor in the world at the time most of their armored forces were outdated poorly supplied and equipped and their crews partly trained and while the Red Army was slowly preparing for the eventualities of German attack that they thought likely Stalin was not keen to provoke Hitler records from Soviet archives indicate that the Soviet High Command underestimated the German threat and ignored information about the upcoming invasion while they were straight their border at the time they were reticent to bring their troops to full combat readiness for fear that that would provoke the Germans into an attack that it turns out was already imminent the date of the attack was moved from May to June there is some debate why the attack was delayed maybe because a coup in Yugoslavia had necessitated a German intervention or maybe because an unused wet winter meant that rivers were still swollen in May but the attack commenced at 3:15 a.m. on June 22nd without a formal declaration of war Reich minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels announced the attack to the German people on the radio portraying it as a European crusade against Bolshevism the axis attack was divided roughly into three commands army groups north center and South Army Group centres initial strategic goal was to defeat the Soviet armies in Belarus between Lithuania and Latvia in the north and the Ukrainian to the south and occupy the city of Smolensk along the nipa River the ancient city of Brest lies at the border between Poland and Belarus at the confluence of the mookie betts River into the bulk River the confluence of rivers was a strategic point and fortifications have been built there as early as the 10th century between 1830 and 1840 to the former medieval castle was replaced by a modern fortification covering an area of nearly four square kilometers Brest fortress was part of the fortress strategy of tsar nicholas ii and was intended to protect the western periphery of the russian empire it was an impressive fortification with a central citadel linked to outlying fortifications built on artificial islands the walls of the Citadel were some 2 metres thick the fortress have put up a brief but stout defense during the German invasion of Poland in 1939 having captured the fortress and City the Germans then handed over the city to the Soviets under the terms of the 1939 ball toff Ribbentrop pact the secret pact that had defined the boundaries of Soviet and German spheres of influence as part of the german-soviet non-aggression pact the German and Soviet armies had held a military parade celebrating the turnover on September 22nd 1939 21 months later the Germans had decided to throw away that pact and now had to retake the fortress which is on the front line on the very first day of the invasion On June 22nd 1941 Brest fortress was garrisoned by about 9,000 Soviet troops mostly from rifle brigades but also from border forces and artillery in addition about 300 civilian family members of the garrison were also inside the fortress for the Germans the task of taking the fortress is assigned to the 17,000 strong 45th Infantry Division which also had significant artillery and armored support at first Barbarossa like lightning within the first few hours of the attack Soviet command and control were destroyed across the front paralyzing command and preventing organized defense Soviet air defense units have been operating under orders not to attack German planes for fear of provoking the Germans in the initial confusion as many as 2000 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground communications were disrupted and supply depots were destroyed Brest fortress was the tip of the attack described by some as the site of the first major battle of the campaign there was an initial twenty nine minute artillery barrage including the terrifying German naval warfare rockets on the unprepared fortress German troops crossed the BOK under the cover of the barrage surprising the defenders who are unable to mount an organized defense the fortress was encircled by 9:00 a.m. but while the first phase of Operation Barbarossa moved quickly and Army Group center bypassed Brest fortress and sped towards the city of Minsk encircling and destroying entire Soviet Army groups the beleaguered defenders of Brest fortress defended strong points caught by surprise with many of their officers killed or wounded outnumbered short of supplies and cut off from the outside world they held their ground German assaults were repulsed and attempts to take the fortress stalled positions were only taken after fierce fighting and often resistance only stopped when a building was completely leveled to the ground the civilians carried supplies scouted enemy movements and even took up arms on the 26 some of the defenders tried to break out but were unsuccessful unable to break defenders in the Eastern port the Germans finally had their Air Force bomb it to rubble the commander of the 45th division did not declare the fortress captured until June 30th a stunning defense given the odds yet isolated defenders kept fighting with some holding on possibly as late as July 23rd although there's no record of that defense graffiti found inside the fortress red will die but will not leave the fortress in the ends heavy casualties in the defense of Brest fortress were about 6800 captured and 2,000 killed German casualties were 429 killed and 668 wounded and if that doesn't sound like a large number it's really a huge number it represents nearly 5 percent of the total German casualties on the Eastern Front in June of 1941 at a time of almost universally disastrous news for the Soviet Union the defense of Brest fortress represented a heroic stand at a point when the rest of the front was in near total collapse but strategically the battle was of little importance the crossroads of the city of brass were captured by the German army on the very first day the defense of Brest fortress is interesting in that it was literally forgotten history for a period of time because the fortress was cut off from outside communication the Soviets didn't even know that the battle had been fought and they cat until they captured some of the records of the German 45th Infantry Division in March of 1942 and the defense of Brest Castle wasn't widely publicized in the Soviet Union until the mid 1950s a museum at the fortress was opened in 1956 and an investigative report on the surviving defenders published in 1957 and then became a point of pride and of Soviet propaganda stressing fraternity between the people of Russia and Belarus the propaganda at times has overstated the defense including a narrative that the fortress held out for 32 days while in fact organized defense lasted nine days the fortress was designated a hero fortress in 1965 and the memorial heroic Brest fortress complex was opened in 1971 despite its initial success Operation Barbarossa eventually collapsed in the battle for Moscow today it is considered by many to be amongst the worst military blunders in history and the key cause of the final defeat of Nazi Germany the so-called Eastern Front was one of the bloodiest most brutal conflicts in human history and was characterized by things like war crimes mistreatment of the civilian population brutal treatment of prisoners of war cos the lives of nearly 26 million Soviet citizens the museum of Brest is still very popular and the defense of Brest fortress is well known in Belarus and Russia but still nearly forgotten here in the West the defenders of Brest fortress cut off outnumbered and now gun are a symbol of the determination of the Soviet people in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War it is history that deserves to be remembered I'm the history God I hope you enjoyed this my series of short snippets a forgotten history about ten minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button which is there on the left if you have any questions or comments feel free to write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond and if you'd like more snippets of cotton history all you need to do is subscribe

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 190,583

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Keywords: history, the history guy, military history, brest fortress, world war ii, wwii, history guy

Id: wyi2XJVRP-8

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 20 2018