Practically everyone knows that the result of the struggle between the USSR and Nazi Germany was the raising of the Victory Banner on the dome of the Reichstag. Not everyone knows that the 150th Rifle Division played the main role in this event. However, even this is now being debated.
The start of the journey
Reference literature strongly recommends not to confuse the various convocations of this formation. There were three of them, and their fates were different.
The first division was created in the early autumn of 1939, and at first there was nothing heroic in its deeds. Politics is an extremely dirty business, therefore, in fact, Churchill did not advise delving into the secrets of its “preparation”. In the past of almost every country there are pages that can hardly be proud of. Unfortunately, the history of the 150th Rifle Division, which took a direct part in the division of Poland in 1939, also contains them.
Today, a great many discussions have unfolded about the Second World War and its perpetrators. Some tend to demonize the Soviet Union, calling it an accomplice of Hitler. A lively debate is going on around the so-called secret protocols to the Molotov Pact. Ribbentrop . The harsh truth is that history does not forgive the state for only one thing - weakness.
First pancake lumpy
Poland was defeated and divided, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed an agreement "On Friendship and the State Border". The USSR was replenished with almost 13 million new citizens (not all of them, of course, were delighted with this), and the 150th Infantry Division of the first convocation set off to conquer new heights. Participated in the Finnish and Bessarabian campaigns, and after the start of the Second World War, she entered into battles with yesterday's insidious allies.
The first years of the Great Patriotic War were very difficult and by no means joyless for the Soviet people. The Red Army suffered defeat after defeat, the losses were huge, the conduct of hostilities often turned out to be mediocre. During the defensive campaign, having barely entered the battles, the 150th Rifle Division also suffered significant losses - its composition was reduced by almost a third in less than two months. At the end of June 1942, she ceased to exist (disbanded as dead).
Further destiny
A month later, a new composition of the 150th division began to form. Her fate was more successful: she participated in successful battles for the city of Bely, liberated Velikiye Luki, Loknya. In April 1943, it was reorganized into the 22nd Guards Rifle Division.
Finally, in September of the 43rd, the 150th Rifle Division was revived for the third time, the combat path of which ended on the roof of the Reichstag. The basis for the creation was the 151st Riflea brigade that participated in the battles of the Second World War since 1942, under the command of then Major Leonid Vasilyevich Yakovlev.
The connection was quite large. The structure included 4 rifle battalions, artillery and anti-tank divisions, battalions of reconnaissance, mortar, sappers, signalmen. The brigade fought either successfully or not very well: one of the regimental doctors, Ginzburg, recalled that during the assault on Staraya Russa, the losses were huge. From the 674th regiment, where he served, only 50-60 people remained. The Germans fortified on a hill, they had to attack from a swampy lowland, where even equipment could not help the Soviet soldiers. Unfortunately, there are many such examples of chosen strategies during World War II. Okudzhava wrote the song about victory, where there were words that we will not stand up for the price, only in 1970, but the impression is that some military commanders knew it long before that and for some reason perceived it as a guide to action.
The path to victory
During the formation of the 150th Infantry Division, in addition to the already mentioned 151st, it also took on the 127th and 144th brigades. The picking took place right on the positions, without the withdrawal of the composition to the rear. Immediately after the end of the formation, it became part of the 79th Rifle Corps of the 22nd Army of the 2nd B altic Front. Yakovlev took command of the division, by this time already a colonel.
Since 1943, the course of the war, as they say, turned around. The significance of the Battle of Stalingrad and the operation on the Kursk Bulge, it seems, cannot be overestimated. Sometimes a division passed in a day40 km to the East. There was a rapid offensive against the Nazis. For the successful campaign to liberate the city of Idritsa, the formation received the right to be called the “150th Idritsa Rifle Division”, and for the offensive operation near Lake Woshwansee, it was awarded the Order of Kutuzov, 2nd degree.
During the hostilities, it was first part of the 2nd, and then at the end of the war - the 1st Belorussian Front, being among the formations of the 3rd shock army, whose combat mission was the direct capture of Berlin.
Official version of events
On April 16, on the 45th, the political unit of the 3rd Army gathered for a meeting, during which (with the blessing of the top leadership), it was decided that the final defeat of the fascist Reich would be the capture of the Reichstag - the symbol of a united Germany.
A little later, on the 19th of the same month, 9 banners were handed out to all divisions of the army, sewn in the shortest possible time from ordinary kumach, intended for hoisting on the roof of the specified building.
At first, the Soviet soldiers, intoxicated with victory, cared little about who exactly would decorate the dome of the German parliament, but later the question had to be thought about.
The official version of events was presented in early June, prepared by the political department of the 3rd Army. According to him, the assault flag of the 150th Infantry Division was transferred to the battalion of the 756th regiment under the command of Captain Neustroev.
Trying to find out the truth
The soldiers of the unit crossed the Spree and captured the front stairs. After that, Sergeant Kantaria,the Red Army soldier Yegorov and political officer Berest went to the roof, fighting their way through, and raised a red banner above the glass dome. It happened at two twenty-five in the afternoon, and already at three o'clock there was a freshly minted commandant at the captured building - Captain Neustroev.
Numerous researchers, documents and memoirs report that the designated version of events had nothing to do with reality, and the 150th Idritsa Rifle Division misled the public, however, hardly maliciously.
There are different opinions about who first raised the flag over the Reichstag (and what kind of flag it was, too). There is evidence that the command of the corps hastened to report that the symbol of Nazi Germany had been successfully taken - hence the various information about the time the flag appeared.
Assault and defense
There are so many versions that it is simply not possible to find the only correct one.
If you follow the chain of events, the battles for Berlin began in mid-April. At the end of the month, Soviet troops approached the main Nazi citadel - the Reichstag. From the point of view of defense, it was very well located, because it was surrounded by water on three sides - the Spree River, 25 m wide. After the bombing, only one bridge survived, the anti-tank ditches and the square turned into a huge pit. The Berlin subway was flooded.
From the fourth side, the building was protected by well-fortified buildings, including the Ministry of the Interior,turned into a real fortress. All approaches to the Reichstag were well shot through - this caused a protracted assault and heavy losses suffered by the 150th Infantry Division and other formations. The Nazis resisted with the desperation of a mortally wounded animal, fighting for every step, room, floor.
First flag
The first assault attempt bogged down, it was decided to wait for darkness - and suddenly the command of the 150th Infantry Division at 25 minutes past three on April 30 reported that the Reichstag had been taken and the Red Banner had been hoisted on it. Rejoicing reigned in the USSR, but it was too early to rejoice. What prompted the hasty report is unknown. There is a version that some soldiers managed to break through to the building and place several soldier's banners on the walls while still defending the fortress.
Today, almost every school graduate (if he studied, of course) knows that the banner of the 150th Infantry Division was the first to appear over the Reichstag, which the well-known heroes hoisted over the dome of the German parliament. Meanwhile, there is evidence that when the mentioned soldiers climbed to the roof of the building, the flag was already there, and it was raised by completely different people.
Multiple award contenders
The Reichstag had two pediments: above one was a sculpture of the goddess of Victory (the winged Nike). Above the second, decorated with an equestrian statue of Emperor Wilhelm, the already mentioned heroes raised the flag they had brought with them. But it happened in the dead of night at three o'clock, when the building was taken, and the red flag was alreadyfluttered over Berlin and was on the opposite side, near the statue of Nike.
Official documents say that on May 1 (with subsequent confirmation on May 2, 3 and 6) Captain Makov and his group: fighters Minin, Bobrov, Zagitov and Lisimenko were presented for the award for the indicated feat.
What caused the injustice is not clear. Maybe it really was absolutely impossible to admit to a hasty report saying that the flag of the 150th rifle division has been flying over the capital of the defeated enemy since half past two.
The award found heroes, but not all of them
It took the Soviet leadership a whole year to punish the innocent and reward the uninvolved. Only on May 8, 1946, a decree was issued conferring the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" to those who hoisted the Banner of Victory over the German parliament in Berlin.
In addition to the already mentioned Neustroev, Kantaria and Egorov, Davydov and Samsonov, the battalion commanders who supported the assault from the flanks, received awards. Birch bark, according to some historians, was crossed out from the list assigned to the rank by the Marshal of Victory himself (the reason is idiosyncrasy for political officers).
How true this is, the general public will never know.
Challenge of primacy
Fierce disputes are still ongoing. Rakhimzhan Koshkarbaev and Grigory Bulatov were the first to raise the red flag over the German symbol, according to a study published in 2007 by the Institute of Military History of Russia, who also did not receive well-deserved awards.
Private Peter is also rememberedPyatnitsky, he ran up the steps with a flag in his hands, but was first wounded and then killed. The banner was snatched from his hands by his namesake, a resident of the Zaporozhye region, Peter Shcherbina, and fixed on a column of the German parliament. Many years after the end of the war, his grandchildren fought for the posthumous title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" to their grandfather.
In principle, there is hardly any point in arguing about who was the first - the soldiers of the 150th Infantry Division, or representatives of another formation.
Everyone won
Participants in the events recall that before the start of the assault, almost everyone tried to acquire a banner, flag, or at least a flag. Everything that matched the color was used: curtains, sheets, pieces of fabric. Immediately after the assault, the Reichstag was decorated with more than fifty blood-colored panels, and it is not possible to determine which of them appeared first.
Later, when the Germans were finally driven back, crowds of people rushed to the German parliament building to write on the walls something like what the hero Leonid Bykov voiced in the famous film “Only “old men” go to battle: “I am satisfied with the ruins of the Reichstag.”
Many were photographed against the backdrop of flag-decorated walls and pediments, and then demanded awards. Everything was. It's good that that time has already passed. Whoever raises the Banner of Victory over the dome of the Reichstag, the 150th Rifle Division of the Order of Kutuzov, of course, deserves to have its name inscribed on the symbol of the end of the most bloody and cruel war in historyhumanity.
