On October 14, 1941, the German invaders occupied Kalinin. For two months, the pedantic Germans ruled the city: they changed the signs to German ones, divided the regional center into four districts, each of which had its own council and commandant's office, appointed the nobleman Valery Yasinsky as the mayor of the city, and even organized an officers' club and a casino.
Vladimir Mitrofanov I saw the occupation with my own eyes.
In the 41st he was 7 years old, the Mitrofanov family shared a house with the Germans in the village of Borikhino (now Borikhino Pole Street), in one half lived a mother with four children, in the second - the occupiers.
Vladimir is the third in the top row on the right photo of the 44th year.
Here, to the place where he spent his childhood, Vladimir Nikolaevich does not like to come - he says it is hard to remember. In 74 years, together with the TIA film crew, he entered the house where his family was under occupation for the first time.
Vladimir Mitrofanov tells the current mistress of the house, Natalya, what life was like in the occupation:
- With the Germans, we had a common toilet and a common corridor, we lived in a small room in the front. The house was guarded. Near the house was a car with a radio station. The commander's name was Robert. He spoke a little Russian. By the way, we learned from him that there was a parade of our troops in Moscow.
The Germans behaved like masters, but almost did not commit atrocities. As Vladimir Nikolaevich recalls, his mother was an obstinate woman and refused to heat the stove for the Germans and wash their linen. For this, one of the Germans burned all the documents of the Mitrofanovs in the stove. There was a German motorcycle in front of the house, Vladimir really liked the keychain and the child took it for himself to play with. The enraged German, noticing the loss, pointed the muzzle of his gun at the “thief”, but at the last moment changed his mind and shot at the ceiling:
- Since then, I realized that taking someone else's is not only bad, but also life-threatening.
Destroyed Kalinin Vladimir Mitrofanov saw after the liberation of the city. Most of all, the child was struck by the huge German cemetery in the city center:
- Mother gave me a task as the oldest in the family - to get a glass of buza (salt). The market was located on the square near the circus, it was called so - Khlebnaya. On foot, I walked from Borikhino to Revolution Square and saw German crosses. The entire cemetery is covered with snow, some crosses have already been broken.
Passers-by told the boy that on the Revolution Square they buried the dead in the hospital, which was located in the gymnasium No. 6, the Germans.
The winter of 1941 turned out to be frosty, so the German cemetery began to be dismantled only in the spring, in April. Where the bodies of German soldiers were taken out, Vladimir Mitrofanov does not know: “These were our fierce enemies, we knew the main thing: they have no place in the city center”. Residents on sleds took wooden crosses from the graves for themselves: new window frames were pounded out of them to replace the destroyed ones, and stoves were stoked.
There were several German cemeteries. In addition to Revolution Square, soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht were buried on Lenin Square, on the territory of the tram park, in the courtyard of Proletarka and in the village of Borikhino.
- On Lenin Square, most likely, high German ranks were buried, instead of a monument, the Nazis installed a swastika sign,- says Vladimir Mitrofanov.
The picture was taken at the current building of the city administration. On the left in the photo is the building of the Tver City Duma, on the right is the theater.
The Germans were also buried on the outskirts of the village of Borikhino, as Vladimir Mitrofanov recalls. About 20 Germans were buried there.
- One German - a radio operator - died in front of my eyes. He was in the car and I was next to him. The German was killed by an exploding shell, I was shell-shocked, and a small grain of shrapnel hit my right leg. For a long time I did not hear anything, did not speak. I remember that the Germans pushed me onto the Russian stove and left me to lie down.
Vladimir Nikolayevich retained clear memories of how the Germans fled the city in December: a wagon with provisions drove into a ditch, they cut off the reins, leaving large supplies of bread and flour in the ditch, and that there was strength they gave a tear to the Staritskoe highway - this was the only open way for the invaders.
- Everything was aimed at restoring the city: with picks, with shovels, with crowbars, children and old people went out into the street. I remember the joy of the fact that a bathhouse on Sovetskaya started working in the city. They bathed together with the soldiers, who did not let go of their pistols. And how many lice were there! And we, and the Germans, by the way. Then the trams were launched, the sewage system started working. After a two-month occupation, the city finally began to revive.
Vladimir Mitrofanov remembers how the restoration of the Drama Theater began.
Photo taken in 1941 from Svobodny Lane
In 1949, when the first subbotniks for the restoration of the theater were announced, Vladimir Mitrofanov was already working as a mechanic in the communal department of the Proletarian District Executive Committee:
- The builders were laying, and I was instructed to carry the bricks to the stage. He took 3-4 bricks and climbed the narrow stairs to the stage. Then he helped take out the garbage.
For the first time Vladimir Mitrofanov visited the Drama Theater in the late 50s, after returning from the army.
Vladimir Mitrofanov is far left in the third row from the top
81-year-old Vladimir Mitrofanov looks at the modern building of the theater with pride, realizing that he took the most direct part in the restoration of the alma mater of art, which was almost destroyed by the Germans. 
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I came across information about the existence of another organization called the Russian National Socialist Movement (RNSD). The organization was founded in October 1941 in Tver.
In general, the period of the German "occupation" of Tver is very interesting. During the red occupation, Tver had the name Kalinin, under the Germans the historical name returned. Russian self-government was created in the city - power belonged to city council led by burgomaster. Burgomasterwas the official and administrative head of all officials subordinate to him, organizations and institutions subordinate to him. On October 25, Valery Yasinsky was elected burgomaster by the people of Tver.
Valery Abrosimovich (Amvrosievich) Yasinsky (1895-1966?) - nobleman, staff captain in the Kolchak Army, collaborator, burgomaster of the city of Tver in 1941, holder of the Iron Cross 2nd class, lieutenant colonel of the Wehrmacht, Vlasovite, active figure in the ROA.
Order in the city was maintained by the "Russian auxiliary police" consisting of volunteers. The police department was headed by former captain Vladimir Mikhailovich Bibikov. Nikolai Sverchkov and a certain Diligensky became the deputy chief of police. The main task of the police was to identify Soviet underground workers and agents, for the implementation of which a wide network of informants was created, numbering 1500-1600 people.
After his election on October 25, 1941, Mayor V. A. Yasinsky spoke to the inhabitants of the city, accusing the Soviet government of oppressing the people, deliberately destroying food before retreating, called for help to the city council with personal labor in the fight against devastation, and to unite all the food resources of the city " for equal distribution among honest citizens. The newspaper "Tverskoy Vestnik" (editor K. I. Nikolsky) was created in the city, in which materials of propaganda and anti-Soviet content were published.
Particular attention was paid to the eradication of Soviet ideology. Books of Marxist and communist content were confiscated and destroyed from the libraries. Other books were not destroyed. In school textbooks, employees of the education department replaced the words: "collective farm" - "village", "collective farmer" - "peasant", "comrade" - "citizen", "master", "USSR" - "Russia", "Soviet" - "Russian". The city statues of Lenin and Stalin were thrown down. Instead of an idol, a large swastika was installed on Lenin Square.
The Ascension Cathedral closed by the Bolsheviks has resumed work.
Among the people who were actively involved in the work to establish a new order were the head of the department of literature of the Kalinin Pedagogical Institute V. Ya.
Citizens of various social strata went to cooperate with the Germans.
A fairly large organization, the Russian National Socialist Movement (RNSD), was created in Tver. The main organizer was an officer of the German army, VF Adrias (son of a landowner who emigrated to Germany in 1918). The organization's program provided for the creation of an independent Russian state with the help of the Germans, the restoration of private property. It was planned to create primary organizations of the RNSD throughout the country, involving mainly young people, and upon reaching a sufficient number of organizations, to reorganize it into the Russian National Socialist Party. It was not possible to implement these plans due to the transience of the "occupation" of Tver, after which the activities of the RNSD came to naught.
We continue the project for the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Our stories about hero cities and cities of military glory. Today - Tver. The Nazis were able to take this line. But they immediately found themselves in a trap. They were not allowed to go to Moscow from there.
Vladimir Mitrofanov saw the war very closely on the streets of his native city, which was then called Kalinin, now it is Tver. When the Germans captured the city, he was only 8 years old. What I saw in my childhood stuck in my memory for the rest of my life.
“We ended up on the defensive, where the Germans were. We were on the left bank of the Volga, and on the right bank we were with the Germans. I saw how our planes burned, how the pilots fell. I was also shell-shocked,” recalls home front worker Vladimir Mitrofanov.
It was in October 41st. The Germans, breaking through to Kalinin, planned to continue to advance in three directions at once: Moscow, Leningrad and Yaroslavl. Our troops did not allow this, they fought for Kalinin for two months. At the very beginning of the occupation, the legendary crew of Stepan Gorobets performed their feat. This is a monument to him in the very center of Tver. His T-34, the only one of the entire tank column, was able to break into the captured Kalinin. The rest on the outskirts of him were hit. The crew of Gorobets broke into the city, drove through the central streets, fired on and destroyed German equipment. They also shot at their tank, it burned, stalled, but the crew managed to leave the city unharmed.
“There has never been anything like this in the entire war. For this unprecedented feat, the commander of the 30th Army, Khomenko, personally removed the Order of the Red Banner and handed it to Stepan, the commander of this crew,” says military historian Vladimir Pyatkin.
The feat was also accomplished by the division under the command of Lieutenant Katsitadze, which defended the Tveretsky bridge and did not allow the German tank division to break through further to Moscow. The forces were unequal, our troops had only 4 anti-tank guns. But the battery did not retreat and fought off the attacks for three days, until the 256th Rifle Division arrived in time to help.
“The whole point of Kalinin is that the Germans entered, but they didn’t let them out. They rushed to Berzhsk - it didn’t work out, to Moscow - the 5th division lay down with bones, our other divisions approached. They stopped and held for a whole month. If only the Germans broke through to Moscow, it would be a tragedy,” says Vladimir Mitrofanov.
So that they would not break through, on October 19 the Kalinin Front was created under the command of Colonel General Konev. There were constant attempts to liberate the city, but this was only possible in December. On the 14th, soldiers of the 29th and 31st armies bypassed Kalinin from the southeast, cut the Volokolamsk and Turginovskoe highways. By the end of the next day, the ring of Soviet troops near Kalinin had almost closed. The Germans, leaving all their equipment, fled the city. On the same day, December 16, a red banner appeared on the House of Officers as a symbol of liberation.
During the two months of occupation, the city changed beyond recognition - entire districts were burned. In the center of the city, the Germans arranged the burial of their soldiers. The symbol of the city - the old Volga bridge, on which cars drive today, was blown up in 1941. It was restored about a year later.
Antonina Gordeeva returned to Kalinin after the occupation and did not even recognize the street where she had lived all her childhood. She left her hometown at the very beginning of the war, along with the hospital, where she came to work as a 17-year-old girl.
“For three days we did not leave the dressing table. Someone would shove a cracker or a biscuit into our mouths from the orderlies, give us something to drink. It was very difficult,” recalls Antonina Gordeeva, a participant in the Great Patriotic War.
Antonina Filippovna remembers how Kalinin began to be restored. All together - women, old people, children - went out into the street in frosty January, sorted out the rubble, cleared the city of German cemeteries. One of the first to work was a glass factory, followed by a car building factory. Both on that, and on another teenagers worked. Kalinin gradually returned to life, albeit not yet peaceful, but outside the occupation. It became the first regional center that the Red Army liberated during the counteroffensive near Moscow.
The Kalinin defensive operation in the minds of many researchers and enthusiasts of military history is often associated with events that took place after October 14, 1941, when the Germans captured Kalinin. At the same time, the battles for the city itself on October 13–14, due to their relative transience, are described extremely sparingly, and the outcome of these battles seems to be predetermined. Meanwhile, neither side thought so in those days. The fighting itself was distinguished by high dynamism and fierce confrontation.
Before the fight
On the morning of October 11, the advanced units of the German 41st motorized corps occupied Zubtsov in the Kalinin region, in the evening of the same day they captured the Burnt Gorodishche, and by 17:00 on October 12 - Staritsa. Units and formations of the Red Army retreated under the onslaught of the enemy, offering fierce resistance. The breakthrough of the defense of the Western Front, which was commanded by General of the Army G.K. Zhukov from October 10, in the Kalinin direction significantly complicated the already extremely difficult situation. The appearance of the enemy in the Kalinin area - the most important road junction - threatened to envelop Moscow from the north and northeast and created a threat of encirclement of the troops of the left wing of the North-Western (NWF) and the right wing of the Western (WF) fronts.
A column of German staff vehicles in the occupied Staritsa. The city was captured by the Germans on the evening of October 12.
http://waralbum.ru
This development of the situation required an immediate reaction from the Soviet command, and it soon followed. In accordance with the considerations of the Military Council of the Western Front, announced on October 13, the grouping of German troops that had entered the Kalinin region was supposed to "to beat ... with the entire aviation of the reserve of the High Command, the aviation of the North-Western Front and partly with the aviation of the right group of the Western Front". In addition, according to Zhukov, units of the 5th Infantry Division, which was traveling through Kalinin by rail, were supposed to, together with units of the 30th Army of Major General V.A. Khomenko, prevent the capture of the city by German troops.
Already on October 12, Colonel General I. S. Konev, commander of troops in the Kalinin direction, deputy commander of the Western Front, arrived in Kalinin.
On the same day, trains began to arrive with units of the 5th Infantry Division (commander Lieutenant Colonel PS Telkov). The division had 1964 active soldiers, 1549 rifles, 7 heavy and 11 light machine guns, 14 guns of 76 and 122 mm caliber, six anti-tank guns of 45 mm caliber. In the rifle regiments (142nd, 336th and 190th) there were an average of 430 people.
Scheme of the Kalinin defensive operation.
https://pamyat-naroda.ru
On the morning of the next day, the commander of the 30th Army, Major General Khomenko, began to operate in the city with an operational group whose main task was to collect all combat-ready units and organize the defense of Kalinin. Thus, the 5th Rifle Division was also subordinate to the commander.
Judging by the documents, a depressing picture opened up before the army command in the city. In a report compiled on October 16 by a member of the Military Council of the Army, Brigadier Commissar N. V. Abramov, the following was noted:
“When the task force drove up to Kalinin, then from Kalinin everyone fled in great panic in the direction of Klin - Moscow ... The local authorities showed exceptional carelessness and irresponsibility. Instead of preparing the entire population for the defense of the city, everyone was confused and, in fact, they did not take any specific measures to organize the defense of the city ... On October 13, all the police, all the NKVD employees and the fire brigade fled the city. The police had up to 900 people in the city and several hundred people of the NKVD ... On October 13, the Military Council demanded that the head of the regional department of the NKVD return everyone to their places, but the head of the NKVD only shrugged and said that he was now powerless to do anything.
The last nervous hours spent in Kalinin before the battles with the advancing enemy were described in his memoirs by the commissar of the 5th Infantry Division P.V. Sevastyanov, who conveyed Konev’s words to the division commander Telkov:
“The front commander instructs your division to defend the city of Kalinin… You will defend yourself with the composition that is now available… The rest of your units will arrive – good. They will not arrive - anyway, this does not relieve you of responsibility for the fate of the city. I don't have any reserves right now. However, I will arrange for you to be reinforced by a marching company and a detachment of students from the Kalinin Higher Military Pedagogical Institute. In addition, Comrade Boytsov, secretary of the regional committee, will give you several militia units. Like this. Proceed to carry out the order. I wish you success."
An hour after this conversation, according to Sevastyanov, “Indeed, a marching company came ... armed with training rifles with drilled breech ... To some extent, the regional committee of the party eased our position, transferring several working detachments to the division. They significantly helped the 142nd regiment in the construction of defense in the area of the Migalovsky airfield, on the near approaches to the city ".
Soldiers of the fighter battalion of the Proletarsky district of the city of Kalinin, autumn 1941
However, the sources of replenishment of the ranks of the defenders of the city were not only the workers of Kalinin enterprises. Already in July 1941, six destruction battalions were created in the city, united at the end of August into one combined regiment under the UNKVD. The regiment consisted of a battalion of UNKVD officers - 300 people, a police battalion - 600 people and four district battalions of 200 people each. By October 12, no more than 500 people remained from the personnel of the regiment in Kalinin, consolidated into one battalion.
As for the weapons of the fighter battalion, then, judging by the memoirs and surviving photographs, its fighters were far from having “rifles with drilled breech”. In their hands can be seen the Canadian Ross rifles of the First World War period, often found in the militia units and fighter formations of 1941. There was also a supply of cartridges for them: a soldier who received such a “Canadian” rifle was supposed to have 120 rounds of ammunition and two grenades.
Another source of strengthening the defense of the city was the courses of junior lieutenants, formally subordinate to the command of the NWF. According to the NWF combat log dated October 13, "The courses of junior lieutenants of the cipher service and the military-political NWF, in connection with the threat of an enemy attack on the city of Kalinin, are transferred to combat readiness and come under the command of the head of the garrison of the city of Kalinin".
Calculation of the Soviet 152-mm howitzer in the battle near Kalinin.
Photo by B. Vdovenko
Under the "military-political NWF" were understood students of the Higher Military Pedagogical Institute, a separate rifle battalion of which was also planned to be thrown into battle. The battalion was manned by the personnel of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th companies under the command of Colonel Zhabrov.
Apparently, the companies of a separate battalion of political officers were interspersed in the defense of the 142nd regiment (commander lieutenant colonel I. G. Shmakov) of the 5th rifle division, which by the morning of October 13 occupied the defense along the line (excluding) Migalovo - Derevnishche - Nikolskoye - south - Western outskirts of Kalinin. The advance detachment of the regiment (rifle company) was sent along the highway to Danilovskoye.
Here, to the anti-tank ditch in the area of Pervomaiskaya Grove, the forces of the fighter battalion and the militias were drawn together. According to the memoirs of an NKVD officer N. A. Shushakov, who fought in the battalion, “In defense, we had rifle units of the 142nd regiment on the left flank, cadets of the higher military pedagogical school on the right, and between them there was a fighter battalion. There were 290 battalion soldiers here. 82 people occupied positions near the railway bridge across the Volga, and 120 fighters guarded objects in the Volga region..
Soviet machine gunners in battle, autumn-winter 1941.
http://stat.mil.ru
Courses of junior lieutenants (commander Lieutenant Colonel N. I. Torbetsky) were sent to defend themselves much to the east, in the Bortnikovo area, and the 336th Infantry Regiment (commander Major I. N. Konovalov) generally “left the game” for a long time, since its the battalions went to cover the front many kilometers south of Kalinin, to the area of Troyanovo - Starkovo - Aksinkino.
The 190th Rifle Regiment (commander Captain Ya. P. Snyatnov) and the 27th Artillery Regiment of the division were still on the way, and on the eve of the battles for the city, divisional commander Telkov, as best he could, motivated all his subordinates by all means to hold the railway track and station until reinforcements arrive. As a result, the division occupied a defense zone 30 km wide and 1.5–2 km deep. With such a length of the strip, tactical density turned out to be extremely low: 50–60 active bayonets, supported by 1–2 guns or mortars, per kilometer of front.
Regarding the defensive structures in the probable direction of the enemy offensive, a laconic phrase can be noted in the combat log of the 30th Army: "In engineering terms, the defense was not prepared".
German machine gunners at rest. The autumn of 1941 was early, with frosts and snowfalls, which was an unpleasant surprise for the Germans.
http://waralbum.ru
Meanwhile, units of the 5th Infantry Division and all kinds of detachments assembled in the shortest possible time had to fight not with anyone, but with the Wehrmacht’s elite formation - the 1st Panzer Division from the 41st Motorized Corps. Kalinin was already approaching its vanguard under the command of Major Franz Jozef Eckinger (Maj. Franz Jozef Eckinger), which included the 3rd tank company of the 1st battalion of the 1st tank regiment, the 1st battalion of the 113th motorized infantry regiment ( on armored personnel carriers), as well as artillery units: the 2nd division of the 73rd artillery regiment and two platoons of anti-aircraft guns.
This, of course, is significantly less than those “12 thousand people, 150 tanks and about 160 guns and mortars”, which for a long time were mentioned in Russian literature as the forces of the division, which simultaneously attacked one Soviet regiment on October 13, however, the mobile steel fist created by Dr. Eckinger was is quite capable of solving problems at the local level. Following from Staritsa, where the main forces of the division were located, in the direction of Kalinin, his group, judging by the entries in the divisional combat log, “hit the retreating enemy column, destroyed the enemy during the advance and captured over 500 vehicles”.
Trucks of the Soviet rear columns that came under attack from the vanguard of the 1st Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht on the outskirts of Kalinin. The photo was taken a little later - the road has already been cleared, the burned-out transport has been dumped into a ditch
Late in the evening of October 12, at 23:10 Berlin time, the avant-garde reached the village of Danilovskoye southwest of Kalinin. A little to the east of the tankers and motorized infantry, it was not the guards and rear guards who were waiting at all ...
Face to face
The first battles of the battle for Kalinin began at 09:00 on October 13. According to the combat log of the 30th Army, the reconnaissance detachment of the 142nd Infantry Regiment started a battle with the advanced units of the enemy west of the village of Danilovskoye. The enemy, having brought tanks into battle, began to push the Red Army men, who began to retreat with a fight. After the calculations of two anti-tank guns came to the aid of the Soviet soldiers, the Germans turned off the road and launched an attack on the Migalovo airfield.
German photograph of the Migalovo airfield. When zoomed in, Soviet aircraft are clearly visible.
http://warfly.ru
However, Soviet aviation managed to leave it before the enemy approached, and the Germans, apparently, got only faulty aircraft. According to the combat log of the 6th Air Defense Fighter Air Corps, October 13 "The 495th IAP, consisting of five crews on I-16 aircraft, was relocated from the Migalovo (Kalinin) airfield to the Vlasyevo airfield". The day before, on October 12, the squadron of the 27th IAP, based in Migalovo, flew to Klin.
It should be noted that on October 13, the Red Army Air Force managed to win a landmark victory. Soviet fighters - probably they were pilots of the 180th IAP - shot down the Shtorch liaison, which was controlled by the chief of staff of the 8th air corps, Colonel Rudolf Meister (Obst. Rudolf Meister), and as a passenger, the commander of the 36th motorized Division Lieutenant General Otto-Ernst Ottenbacher (Gen.Lt. Otto-Ernst Ottenbacher). Both survived, but received severe burns that required urgent evacuation to Germany. As a result, two days later the division came under the command of General Hans Gollnick (Gen.d.Inf. Hans Gollnick).
German soldiers at the I-16 fighter, abandoned, judging by the signature on the back, at the Migalovo airfield
Traditionally, when describing the defense of Kalinin, it is customary to refer to the high activity of German aviation. Indeed, in almost all documents relating to the defense of the city, there are references to heavy bombardments and fires caused by them. At the same time, the actions of Soviet bombers remain in the shadows, which is not entirely fair. For example, all day on October 13, DB-3Fs of the 42nd long-range bomber regiment of the 133rd air division literally hunted supply columns of the 1st tank division moving along the Staritsa-Kalinin highway.
In one of the sorties southwest of Kalinin, a group of regimental bombers was discovered and attacked by a pair of Messerschmitts Bf 109F-2 from group I. / JG 52. In a Soviet study on the history of long-range aviation, this dogfight is described as follows:
“Fighters attacked the plane of the slave lieutenant B. Nekhai. Without performing the maneuver, the Nazis decided to attack at close range. At the command of the gunner of the lower machine gun, Nehai pushed the helm away from himself, and the fighter was in the zone of fire. A series of tracer bullets passed in front of his cockpit, the fighter turned up his nose and turned out to be over a group of bombers. Machine-gun bursts followed simultaneously from three aircraft. The enemy machine burst into flames."
Judging by the entry in the combat log of the 52nd Fighter Squadron, Sergeant Josef Maier (Uffz. Josef Maier) from the squadron 1./JG 52 was the first loss of the I./JG 52 group on the Eastern Front. In an air battle with Russian bombers, 6 km southwest of Kalinin, he was shot down and killed. This loss once again testified that Soviet aircraft were not at all easy prey, and attempts by the Luftwaffe fighter aircraft to stop their activity sometimes ended in failure.
Self-propelled gun 15 cm sIG 33 Sfl. auf Pz.KpfW.I Ausf B of the 1st Panzer Division, Kalinin area, October 1941.
Horst Riebenstahl. The 1st Panzer Division. A Pictorial History 1935–1945. West Chester, 1986
For the German units that had pulled ahead, such an impact of Soviet bomber aircraft on the rear was extremely dangerous. As noted in the combat log of the 1st Panzer Division, "due to the poor condition of the roads and the situation with fuel, the division is scattered at a distance of 150 km". The journal of the 3rd Panzer Group contains an entry about "increased activity of enemy aircraft over Kalinin".
However, despite all these difficulties, the enemy, as noted in the documents of the Soviet 30th Army, occupied Migalovo, Danilovskoye by 12:30, pulled up artillery, and from 15:30 began artillery and mortar shelling of the railway bridge and the southwestern outskirts of Kalinin.
After the capture of the Migalovo airfield, units of the 1st Panzer Division continued their offensive along the Staritskoye Highway, overcoming the resistance of the defenders. In the battle near Pervomaiskaya Grove, the commander of the fighter battalion, Senior Lieutenant of the NKVD Border Troops G. T. Dolgoruk and Commissar A. F. Patkevich, were killed. For some time, the attacks of the dismounted German infantry were held back by dense fire from the machine guns of the 142nd regiment (the tanks stopped at the anti-tank ditch, supporting their infantry with fire), but later the attackers managed to break through to the railway embankment.
German aerial photograph of the southwestern part of Kalinin. At the top right, the railway track and the bridge across the Volga are clearly visible. The forest below is Pervomaiskaya Grove, the road above it is Staritskoye Highway.
http://warfly.ru
Here they again met stubborn resistance. The fierce battle for the embankment was also explained by the fact that the 190th rifle and 27th artillery regiments of the 5th rifle division were already hurrying to the city along the railway itself. Commissar Sevastyanov recalled:
“The Germans could not advance a single step further. They lay down on one side of the embankment, we - on the other, throwing grenades. At the same time, of course, a rare grenade did not find its target, but by some miracle the rails were not damaged. So we held out for several hours, waiting from minute to minute for the appearance of the echelon. What was our joy when, at last, the echelon appeared. He went at full speed under heavy fire and rumbled right over our heads towards the station.
Only the 190th Infantry Regiment was able to break through the embankment and unload at the station. The 27th Artillery Regiment stumbled upon a section of track already destroyed by an air raid and joined the division in marching order much later. One can imagine how hard it was for the foot soldiers to fight for the city, having practically no field artillery support.
From the evening of October 13, a new player gradually began to be drawn into the battles for the city from the Soviet side: the first units of the 256th Infantry Division (commander Major General S. G. Goryachev) arrived in Kalinin. There is a concise entry in the combat log of the 30th Army: "18:45 a part of the 256th SD began to come under the command of the army - one company arrived". However, by 23:45 the 934th Rifle Regiment arrived, consisting of two battalions. Judging by the entries in the journal of the 30th Army, he was immediately involved in plugging the gap in the defense of the Soviet troops in the Nikolo-Malitsa - Cherkasovo section, where the Germans had previously crossed to the northern bank of the Volga with up to a battalion and created a bridgehead for an attack on the northwestern Part of city. Also, battalion-by-battalion, the 937th rifle regiment of the Goryachev division, which arrived in Kalinin, concentrated in the Kalinin city garden as a reserve.
From the side of the enemy, new actors were also gradually drawn up - units of the 900th motorized training brigade of the Wehrmacht advanced in the northern part of the city to the Doroshikha station area, repulsing the counterattacks of Soviet units.
German anti-aircraft gunners at the railway bridge across the Volga in Kalinin.
http://waralbum.ru
The main result of the fighting on October 13 for the Germans was the capture at 22:55 of the intact railway bridge across the Volga, carried out, according to the compilers of the next report in the combat log of the 1st Panzer Division, in "stubborn struggle against a well-fortified and firmly held enemy". The German units failed to advance further, since the commander Telkov brought into battle the 336th rifle regiment, which finally returned to the city after standing in a remote area.
At night, the motorcycle battalion and tank companies of the 1st Panzer Regiment joined the already existing German forces of the 1st Panzer Division, and before dawn the next day, the 1st Battalion of the 1st Motorized Infantry Regiment, the 101st Battalion of Flamethrower Tanks, a significant part artillery of the 73rd artillery regiment, not counting sappers and anti-tank artillery. Over the fighters of the Soviet 5th rifle division now hung the steel colossus of a full-fledged divisional battle group.
In the combat log of the 3rd Panzer Group, entries for October 13 end with a description of the weather and a downright lyrical digression: “Clear autumn weather, frost, at lunchtime the streets are softly lit by the sun. The population comes across as helpful and friendly. The urban area is more civilized than it has ever been before.”. However, the events of the next day dispelled these blissful moods ...
The events of the next day, October 14, 1941, are described in the second part of the article.
Sources and literature:
- NARA. T 313. R 231.
- NARA. T 315. R 26.
- Bochkarev P.P., Parygin N.I. Years in the fiery sky. - M.: Military Publishing, 1991.
- On the right flank of the Moscow battle. - Tver: Moscow Worker, 1991.
- The Hidden Truth of War: 1941. unknown documents. - M.: Russian book, 1992.
- Khetchikov M. D. Defensive and offensive operations carried out in 1941 on the Tver land: working materials for military historical work. - Tver: Communication company, 2010.
- Riebenstahl H. The 1st Panzer Division. A Pictorial History 1935–1945. - West Chester, 1986.
- http://warfly.ru
- http://www.jg52.net.
- https://pamyat-naroda.ru.
During my work as a journalist, I had to talk more than once or twice with older native Kalinin residents.
The stories about the war, about the occupation, about the loss of relatives and friends remained the most significant events in the life of each of them. Is always. The only way. Everything else paled before the experience of the war.
The history of the occupation of the city has never been written. Of course, there are archives that can be looked into fifty years from now. Maybe even better - everything will be digitized and the researcher will not have to swallow archival dust.
But the living witnesses of the era will gradually leave. As some of my interlocutors have already left, whom I once wrote about as part of the large cycle "Tver Saga".
I don't have answers to these questions...
Kalinin's Liberation Day is celebrated on December 16th. Before this period, I will try to post materials about the war, about heroes and ordinary people, about the occupation.
I hope they pique your interest.
For the inhabitants of the city of Kalinin, October 14, 1941, is perhaps the most tragic day in the history of the already cruel twentieth century.
On this day, the Nazi troops, moving in the direction from the east, reached the outskirts of the city in the Migalov region and gradually occupied the entire city.
Thus began the occupation, which lasted 63 days.
Not much, some would say.
But the civilians who remained in the occupation could not know when it would end. They experienced hunger, cold, and most importantly, mortal fear of the new government.
Some people did not survive the occupation, dying from unbearable living conditions or the new government. The gallows became part of Kalinin's landscape. Executions and arrests are commonplace. It was forbidden to walk freely around the city, a pass was needed, at 16.00 the curfew began.
All those who survived the occupation or were evacuated consider this period the most significant in their lives. All conversations of the inhabitants of Tver about the past sooner or later come down to this topic. But it was not always so. A long stay in an occupied city was considered a shameful stain in a person's biography. Now you can remember everything. But are there many people left in Tver who remember the occupation? The word goes to those who can tell about the tragic events of the end of 1941.
Inna Georgievna Bunina,
in 1941 - 9 years:
On June 22, 1941, my mother gave birth to twins, Vera and Kolya. My father almost the same day went to the front, he was a surgeon.
In the second decade of October, the evacuation of the city's residents began.
At that time we lived in house number 10 on Vagzhanov Street, in the so-called Kreps house, from the windows of our apartment the exodus of residents from the city was clearly visible. The commanding staff were allocated cars, on which they loaded their things, furniture, up to tubs with ficuses.
Ordinary people left on foot, taking with them only hand luggage, the wounded in bloody bandages, many on crutches, women with children, and old people walked along the side of the street. It was a terrible picture.
By the evening of October 14, motorcycles with Germans appeared on the street, followed by tanks. They entered an almost empty city.
My mother refused to evacuate. There was nowhere to go, and how would you go? In addition to me and the tiny twins, there were grandparents in the family, already elderly people.
So we remained, as they said then, under the Germans. Shops were closed, there was nowhere to get food. Mom went to the field behind the current Gagarin Square, where one could find frozen cabbage, and to the elevator for burnt grain.
It was very cold, we all lived in the same room, stoked the only potbelly stove.
Thus passed two long months of occupation.
It is bitter to remember that the liberation of the city by Soviet troops brought new troubles to our family.
Mom was accused of aiding the invaders and arrested.
She was placed in the city prison No. 1, which is not far from our house.
The twins were crying from hunger. Once a day, mothers were allowed to feed them; for this, the grandmother took the children to prison on a sled.
Grandmother wrote to her father about the arrest of her mother, he came from the front and secured her release.
Mom was again taken to KREPZ, where she was in charge of the chemical laboratory for many years.
But being in the occupation remained a black spot in her biography.
After the Victory, my father returned from the front unharmed, and my mother once again gave birth to twins, it was again a boy and a girl.
Elena Ivanovna Reshetova,
in 1941 - 16 years:
On the afternoon of October 13, I was visiting my aunt on Mednikovskaya Street, in the very center of Kalinin.
When we were told that the enemy was already approaching the city, I went home, to the village of Andreevskoye, this is in the area of the village of Sakharovo, beyond Tvertsa.
We tried not to leave the house. Who knew that our village would be almost at the forefront?
Units of the Red Army marched along the street every day. The Red Army soldiers spent the night in the huts, about twenty people in each. They seemed to me boys not much older than me. In some houses there was not enough space, not just to lie down, sometimes there was nowhere to sit down, and the soldiers stood all night like horses.
In the morning they went to the front line, to the banks of the Volga. The fighting went on in the area of Konstantinovka, Savvatiev, Poddubya.
Our units stormed the high opposite bank. From a height, our soldiers were clearly visible, the Germans shot them almost point-blank.
Few returned. The dead were buried in a mountain near Andreevsky.
New wounded were brought in every day. Until a hospital was opened in Sakharov, the soldiers lay in cold sheds and moaned.
We helped them in every way we could, tried not to cry and not to think about our warring fathers, husbands, brothers.
Nina Ivanovna Kashtanova,
in 1941 - 15 years:
My father, Ivan Timofeevich Krutov, fought in the Finnish war and returned badly wounded. There were five children in our family, I am the oldest.
In October 1941, we went on foot to evacuate, settled in the Rameshkovsky district, in a Karelian family, from there my father was called to the front, we never saw him again, in March 1942 a funeral came from near Rzhev.
The hosts treated us well, gave us milk and cottage cheese. But still, I was hungry.
My mother, Anna Arkhipovna, to feed us, went from house to house, asking for alms. In the evening she returned, laying out bread rolls, boiled eggs, potatoes, pieces of porridge from a canvas bag.
We have been looking forward to this moment all day. On December 16, a foreman ran into the hut and shouted: “Kalininskys, rejoice! The city has been liberated!
But we did not return to Kalinin soon. I returned first, at the end of January. She walked for three days, spending the night in the villages.
Our house on 1st Begovaya, fortunately, survived, although there were no windows in it, and stars shone through the roof. But many of our acquaintances had housing in even worse condition.
On the very first day after my return, I went in search of work, without which they did not give bread cards.
But there was no work: the enterprises stopped, the workers were required only to clear the rubble, where they did not take me, still 16 years old.
I was lucky to get a job as a courier at the Proletarian District Commissariat. This made it possible to receive a card for 400 grams of bread per day. I wanted to eat always, constantly.
For fraud with cards from those times they planted without hesitation. In our house management, several women paid this way, who were given 10 years in the camps.
Galina Anatolyevna Nikolaeva,
in 1941 - 18 years old:
Before the war, my mother and younger sister Augusta and I lived at the Kulitskaya station, where my mother worked at the school.
Six months before the start of the war, my mother died, and my 15-year-old sister and I were left alone.
In June 1941, I received a matriculation certificate and applied to the Pedagogical Institute. I was enrolled as a student, but I did not have time to start classes.
The occupation has begun. All two months my sister and I sat in the teachers' dormitory on Kulitskaya.
At the end of December, I went on foot to the liberated Kalinin. The city was in ruins.
What frightened me most of all was the spectacle of the German cemetery on Revolution Square. Corpses were piled vertically into shallow graves. They froze and swayed in the wind, creaking disgustingly.
I reached Mednikovskaya Street, where our relatives lived. There I was met by my aunt and sister, frightened but unharmed. They told about the terrible death of our father's sister, Nadia Akhmatova.
Before the war, Nadia was considered a disgrace to the family. She worked as a cashier in the city garden, then in the bathhouse, met with different men.
With the outbreak of war, Nadia became a scout for the 31st Army, crossing the front line many times. Once she was captured and ended up in the Gestapo, where she was tortured for a long time. The mutilated body of Nadia was found after the liberation of the city.
Classes soon began at the Pedagogical Institute. I began to study, but quickly realized that I could not withstand constant hunger.
Bread was given on cards, and sour cabbage was given in the institute's canteen. The old men kept coming up to the tables and begging the students to leave at least some food. In one of the beggars, with horror and shame, I recognized my school teacher of the German language, Maria Vasilievna.
Soon I left the institute, at the school on Kulitskaya I was given a referral to Vyshny Volochek, for a 6-month teacher training course, after which I went to teach in the village of Pogoreloye Gorodishche.
My sister Gutya at the same time entered the Likhoslavl Pedagogical College, but due to constant malnutrition, she fell ill with tuberculosis and died.
Father, who lived separately from us, in Staritsa, was arrested on a denunciation. His further fate is unknown to me.
Zoya Evgenievna Zimina,
in 1941 - 17 years:
Before the war, my mother, Nadezhda Ivanovna Baranova, worked as a secretary in the Hospital City, with the famous Tver doctor Uspensky.
We lived not far from the hospital, on the streets of Sofia Perovskaya.
When the Germans were already approaching Kalinin, my mother was preparing hospital documents, so we did not have time to evacuate.
It is not far from our house to the Old Bridge across the Volga, but when we ran to cross to the other side, it was already too late.
The city was heavily shelled, our house burned down from a fire. We only managed to pull out a few blankets.
Fortunately, before the Germans arrived, my mother put the family photos, which she treasured, into a large candy tin and buried them in the garden, so they survived.
During the occupation, we were sheltered by relatives living in Smolensky Lane. I remember hunger, cold and fear of the unknown.
Mom's sisters waited out the occupation in Kashin, but it wasn't much better there. She came back scary, exhausted, lice-ridden. Aunt Masha soon died of illness.
Antonina Nikolaevna Bradis,
in 1941 - 16 years:
On October 13, a high-explosive bomb fell near the house on Volny Novgorod Street, where our family lived. She broke the glass in the windows, killed two neighbors and concussed me.
These were the days of mass exodus of residents from the city. Those who survived them will never forget the panic fear that gripped the entire population of Kalinin. Tens of thousands of people fled aimlessly from the advancing German troops.
Our family - father, mother, my younger sister and I walked more than one hundred kilometers on foot to the city of Uglich.
There we managed to board a barge. Before our eyes, a German plane bombed another barge, and it sank with all the passengers. It was very scary, but we did not see any other way out but to sail into the unknown. The barge traveled along the Volga until the ice settled (in 1941, winter came very early, already in mid-October there were real winter frosts).
We settled in the Mari Republic. Father, a shoemaker by profession, quickly found a job. Mom in Kalinin worked as a store manager, then as the head of the coop insurance cash desk, during the evacuation she managed to get a job in a vegetable store to sort out vegetables. I also went to work, they took me to a factory for the production of army skis.
We returned home only in the spring, on the same barge. Kalinin was found in ruins. Fortunately, the home has survived.
But many of my classmates at school and children from the yard I no longer saw. Zhenya Inzer, Zhenya Karpov, Yura Ivanov, Zhenya Logunov died, all of these were boys from our 22nd, now 16th school.
They remained in the occupied city, fought as best they could with the enemies, and died. They were given out by Zhenya Karpova's housemate. He lived with his mother at number 9 on Stepan Razin Embankment. The underground group had a meeting place there. The Germans took Zhenya's mother Maria Efimovna along with the guys. They were tortured for a long time, and then they were all killed, the bodies were found after the liberation of the city.
At the end of the war, I went to Moscow and entered VGIK, the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography.
She lived in a hostel with Nonna Mordyukova, Inna Makarova, Sergei Bondarchuk, Evgeny Morgunov, Lyalya Shagalova. All of them played in the film by Sergei Gerasimov "The Young Guard".
When the film was released on the screens of the country, deafening fame fell upon my friends, letters were brought to the hostel in bags.
The audience identified the young actors with the dead heroes.
And the guys from my hometown were never recognized as heroes.
Their feat did not receive such fame as their peers from the Krasnodon "Young Guard", but for me they are heroes forever.
From our 22nd school, dozens of guys and girls fought. Many died.
Yura Mikhailov died in December 1941 near Volokolamsk.
Kolya Tumanov was a sniper, died in 1944.
Yura Shutkin, a nurse, went missing.
Sasha Komkov was not taken into the army because of his age, he went to the partisan detachment, then was mobilized, died in East Prussia.
Volodya Moshnin, a bomber-saboteur, went missing.
Yura Pasteur, clever poet, was killed in 1943.
Slava Urozhaev died near Leningrad.
Lev Belyaev served in the Navy, died of wounds.
Lida Vasilyeva spent the entire war in an evacuation train, often donated blood for the wounded, died in 1950 from illness.
Rosa Ivchenko was a partisan scout. Many times I went to Kalinin across the front line to collect intelligence. After the war, she sold pies at the station, as in the film "Military Field Romance". She got married and had two children.
Volodya Zaitsev, the youngest of us, also survived. At the age of 13, he was already a scout. His sister Tonya served as a radio operator and died.
Of all our guys, only me and Volodya Zaitsev got a long life ...
During the liberation of the city, over 20 thousand soldiers of the Red Army died. During the 63 days of occupation, 7714 buildings were destroyed in the city, 510 thousand square meters. meters of housing (more than half of the housing stock), more than 70 enterprises were disabled.
Until March 3, 1943 (the day Rzhev was liberated), Kalinin remained a front-line city and was subjected to systematic German air raids.
After the liberation of Kalinin, the inhabitants began to return to their destroyed homes.
But they had to solve not only everyday problems. The authorities, which left the civilian population to the mercy of fate before the approaching enemy, now decided who could live in the city and who was not worthy of it.
On January 7, 1942, a decision was made by the executive committee of the Kalinin Regional Council of Workers' Deputies "On the registration of the population in the city of Kalinin and the norm of living space."
This decision was prescribed in the period from January 15 to February 1, 1942 to carry out a new registration of citizens.
Registration was denied to family members of traitors and traitors to the Motherland who fled with the Germans; those who have served imprisonment for crimes provided for by a number of articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, including Article 58; who worked during the occupation in institutions and in any work; who had connections with the Germans, for example, attending meetings, parties, banquets, etc. The latter category included mostly young women and girls.
Family members of persons arrested after December 15, 1941 were also not registered. For registration, a reduced standard of living space was set at 4.5 square meters. meters, so that you can resettle citizens who have lost their homes due to its destruction.
The history of the occupation of Kalinin during the Great Patriotic War has not yet been written.
The military part of this period has been studied to a greater extent - how the city was left to the enemy, how it was liberated.
What happened in the occupied city, how people lived without a livelihood and without knowledge of their future, historians are still not very interested.
I would like to believe that the true history of the occupation, based on the documents and memories of the people who survived it, will nevertheless be created and people who know the occupation firsthand will have time to read it.
To be continued
