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Voronezh - gorod voinskoy slavy.

Voronezh is the administrative center of the Voronezh Region, located on the banks of the Voronezh River, the left tributary of the Don River.

Among the most important events of the Great Patriotic War, an important place is occupied by the battles of Soviet troops in the Voronezh direction, which unfolded there from the end of June 1942 and lasted until the end of February 1943, coinciding with the decisive battle of that period - Stalingradskaya Street. The fighting directly in the Voronezh region at that time played an important role in solving the operational tasks facing the Soviet Armed Forces, and had a direct impact on changing the situation on the Soviet-German front at a crucial stage of the war.

Having suffered defeat in the battle of Moscow in 1941, the Nazis developed a strategic plan for the summer of 1942. According to Hitler's directive of April 5, 1942, the main goal of the German offensive in the summer of 1942 was to seize the Donbass, Caucasian oil and, by disrupting communications in the interior of the country, deprive the USSR of the most important resources coming from these areas. By the end of June 1942, the enemy had concentrated a large group of 900,000 people, 1,263 tanks, 17,035 guns and mortars, and 1,640 combat aircraft on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front. 37% of his infantry and cavalry units and 53% of tank and motorized formations stationed on the Soviet-German front were located here.

Operation Blau ("Blue") was launched on June 28, 1942. In the Voronezh direction, the troops of the Weihs group attacked the positions of Soviet troops at the junction of the 13th and 40th armies of the Bryansk Front, and during the day managed to advance to a depth of 8-12 km. This was the beginning of the Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad defensive operation of the Soviet troops (June 28 − July 24, 1942).

The 45th Infantry Division, consisting of 8 thousand Voronezh residents, mostly volunteers and militia, fought heroically on the distant approaches to Voronezh. Almost all of them died in unequal battles defending their hometown. Subsequently, the division was reorganized, participated in the battles for Stalingrad, and at the end of the war − in the storming of Berlin.

In the Don steppes, fascist tanks of the 4th Gotha Army were met by fire from units of the 3rd Air Defense Division. Staffed mainly by Voronezh anti-aircraft gunners, the gun crews put anti-aircraft guns on direct fire and engaged in battle with the Nazis. Most of them died, at the cost of their lives, delaying the enemy's advance to Voronezh.

The 232nd Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant Colonel I. Ulitin also fought valiantly with the enemy already on the banks of the Don and within the city limits.

On July 6, the Nazis crossed the Don and broke into the right-bank part of Voronezh. For 212 days, the front line divided the city into two parts. The right bank was mostly captured by the Nazis, and the left bank was controlled by Soviet troops. The attempt of the fascists to land on the left bank of the Voronezh River and seize a bridgehead there was stopped. The main striking force of the Weihs group, the 4th Tank Army, was involved in the battle for Voronezh, which got bogged down in the fighting, as a result of which the timing of the strikes planned as part of the strategic offensive began to stall. The commander of Army Group B, Field Marshal von Bock, was removed from command, and one of the main reasons for this was the events near Voronezh.

The German war correspondent G. Stebe wrote about the fierce nature of the fighting in his brochure "The Assault and Defense of Voronezh": "Since the first days of July (1942 − Ed.), the name of this city for the front and the motherland has become the personification of especially fierce battles. ...In these battles, more than one German said goodbye to his life. Crosses of soldiers' graves are everywhere... in the center of a ruined city, among burnt-out facades and barricades, in squares, on streets and on the banks of the Don."

The difficult situation in which the Wehrmacht divisions advancing on Voronezh fell was also recognized by the chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, F. Halder, who made the following entries in his diary: "5.VII.1942 ... the 24th Panzer Division and the Great Germany division will seriously exhaust their forces by advancing on a well-prepared defense and fortified Voronezh. 14.VII. 1942 In the Voronezh region, strong enemy attacks with the participation of tanks were repulsed with great difficulty. 16.VII.1942. The battles near Voronezh are characterized by heavy losses."

On July 7, 1942, by decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (VGK), the Voronezh Front was created, which was headed by General N.F. Vatutin on July 14. The immediate task of the front was: "At all costs to clear the eastern bank of the Don River from the enemy and firmly establish a foothold for defense on this bank within the entire front line."

On July 10-11, the forces of the combined regiment of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the right flank units of the 40th Army conducted the first offensive operation of Soviet troops in Voronezh, during which they managed to drive the Germans away from the Otrozhensk railway bridges and liberate part of Voronezh - the territory of the town of the Agricultural Institute, Botanical Garden, Birch Grove.

On July 15, the commander of the Voronezh Front set the task for the troops: the 60th Army, in cooperation with the 40th Army, to surround the enemy's Voronezh grouping. Although the operation did not achieve its ultimate goal, the active actions of our troops continued to bind the fascists in the Voronezh direction. The German troops hardly held their positions. In this regard, General F. Halder had to admit that "the battles near Voronezh are worth a lot of losses."

In total, during the July battles, the enemy lost about 40 thousand people killed in the Voronezh region. On July 28, 1942, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR I.V. Stalin No. 227 was published, which said: "Not a step back! This should now be our main call." In the order, I.V. Stalin notes the fighting Voronezh.

Along with systematic attacks of local importance by the troops of the Voronezh Front, two offensive operations were carried out in August-September. On September 15, units of the 40th army, going on the offensive, broke the stubborn resistance of the enemy and occupied the Chizhovsky bridgehead on the right bank of the Voronezh River. The fighting was particularly fierce. The city buildings, especially the outlying ones, were used by the enemy to create a solid defense. German units had set up dugouts and shelters under the houses, and trenches stretched from the houses in different directions. It was extremely difficult to "smoke" them out of hiding, for this it was necessary, in fact, to destroy every house to the ground, but there was not enough ammunition to perform such a firing task. Therefore, the offensive developed slowly. Assault groups engaged in hand-to-hand combat, fired at point-blank range in courtyards, in trenches, attics, roofs and every floor, in basements, cellars and dugouts. Progress was measured in meters. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but this did not reduce the fury of the fights. During the first two days, units of the 40th Army achieved only some tactical success.

The troops of the Voronezh Front fought hard for the bridgeheads on the Don. The losses of the 2nd Hungarian army from July 18 to September 16, 1942 during the battles for Korotoyaksky, Uryvsky, Storozhevsky and Shchuchyensky bridgeheads are estimated by Hungarian historians at 26-27 thousand people. Half of the tanks of the 1st Panzer Division of the Hungarians were also destroyed.

On August 20, the troops of the 63rd Army attacked the defense area of the 8th Italian Army and, defeating the Sforzesca division, captured the Osetrovsky bridgehead.

As noted by the Chief of Staff of the Voronezh Front, General M.I. Kazakov, "...The Voronezh Front (in October 1942 − Ed.) held no less than thirty enemy divisions in front of it, which would have been very useful to the German fascist command at Stalingrad."

The battle for Voronezh was bloody. 26,791 defenders of the city are now buried in 46 mass graves on its territory. During the battles on the Upper Don and near the walls of Voronezh in the summer and autumn of 1942, the enemy lost at least 100 thousand soldiers and officers killed.

563,181 people went to the front from the Voronezh Region, of whom 329,697 people died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, including 32,229 residents of Voronezh. For their exploits on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, 274 natives of Voronezh and the region were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, 65 people became full cavaliers of the Order of Glory.

The liberation of the temporarily occupied areas of the Voronezh Region began during Operation Small Saturn (December 16-31, 1942), which was an integral part of the Battle of Stalingrad. Kantemirovsky, Bogucharsky and other southern districts of the region were liberated.

The entire territory of the Voronezh Region was liberated during two Upper Don offensive operations of the Soviet troops − Ostrogozhsko-Rossoshanskaya (January 13-27, 1943) and Voronezh-Kastornenskaya (January 24 − February 2, 1943). At the same time, the role of the 60th Army under the command of General I.D. Chernyakhovsky, which completely liberated Voronezh from the invaders on January 25, 1943, should be particularly noted.

The Ostrogozhsko-Rossoshanskaya operation entered the annals of military history as an example of a front-line offensive operation during the Great Patriotic War. Soviet military historians called it "Stalingrad on the Upper Don": "The Stalingrad offensive operation... It became a kind of benchmark for many subsequent offensive operations of the Soviet Armed Forces, and in particular Ostrogozhsko-Rossoshanskaya (January 1943), when a new large enemy group was surrounded and destroyed in a short time south of Voronezh." During it, the troops of three European states were defeated: the 24th German Tank Corps (commander Lieutenant General Vandel was killed), the Italian Alpine corps of the 8th Italian Army and the main forces of the 2nd Hungarian Royal Army. The number of the enemy group was 280 thousand people. 97 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were captured. In this operation, for the first time in the history of the Great Patriotic War, one front, in conditions of an unfavorable balance of forces for it, carried out a successful breakthrough of the prepared enemy defense in three directions at once.

After the defeat of the enemy in the Ostrogozhsko-Rossoshanskaya operation, a 220-kilometer gap was formed in the German defense, from Stary Oskol to Svatovo, which created favorable conditions for hitting the flank and rear of the 2nd German army, which defended the Voronezh-Kastornensky salient together with the 3rd Hungarian corps. The operation began on January 24 with a strike by the 40th Army, reinforced by the 4th Tank Corps, in the direction of Gorshechnoye − Kastornoye. On January 25, the 60th Army entered the fighting, which, having completely liberated Voronezh, launched an offensive on Nizhny Veduga. As a result of the Voronezh-Kastorna operation, Soviet troops advanced 240 km. They liberated most of the Voronezh and Kursk regions, including Voronezh, Kastornoye, Stary Oskol, Tim, Oboyan and many other large settlements. The German command finally lost the line on the Don River, which Hitler demanded to hold at all costs. During the operation, the 2nd German Army and the remnants of the 2nd Hungarian army were defeated - a total of 11 divisions. The enemy lost more than 83 thousand soldiers and officers. Near Voronezh, five enemy generals were captured by the Soviets.

The 203,000-strong 2nd Hungarian army was defeated near Voronezh. Her death was the biggest defeat in the almost thousand-year history of this European state. There is a section "Voronezh disaster" in the multi-volume history of Hungary. Hungarian historians claimed: "The active conduct of the campaign on the Eastern Front was put to an end by the disaster near Voronezh in January 1943, where Hungary lost half of its armed forces and almost all equipment." The commander of the 3rd Hungarian Army Corps, General Stomme, and the chief of artillery of this corps, General Deshe, were captured.

The Hungarian military and political leadership failed to hide the true extent of the disaster that struck the 2nd Hungarian army. According to Horthy, the 2nd Hungarian army lost 80 thousand people killed and 63 thousand wounded. The Hungarian royal Gonved has never known such a defeat in its entire history. The catastrophe that befell the 2nd Hungarian Royal Army in 1943 near Voronezh is confirmed by the presence in the region of two central cemeteries of Hungarian servicemen, the largest in the world, where over 25 thousand people are buried.

The rear and the local population provided significant assistance to the active army in liberating the Voronezh land.

In the first days after the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Voronezh's industry was switched to the production of weapons and ammunition. The aviation plant, which mastered the serial production of Il-2 attack aircraft before the war, dramatically increased the volume of production of these aircraft. In August 1941, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the plant was awarded the Order of Lenin for exemplary fulfillment of the government's task to produce military equipment.

The Voronezh Excavator Plant named after the Comintern began production of the first serial BM-13 Katyusha rocket launchers, in August and September 1941, sending 10-12 combat installations to Moscow every other day. The last batch of 18 cars was sent to Moscow in the second half of October 1941.

From August 1941 to February 1942, the Ernst Thellmann Car Repair Plant built 6 anti-aircraft armored trains. The Elektrosignal plant has mastered the production of radio stations. Several factories produced PPSH submachine guns, other small arms, and explosives. Light industry enterprises have started sewing uniforms for the army.

With the approach of the front in the autumn of 1941, 117 large enterprises were evacuated.

In September 1941, 50 evacuation hospitals were deployed in the Voronezh Region, and 20 in the city itself.

In total, in 1941-1943, about 200 thousand workers of the region worked on the construction of military structures. In 1941, the population of the region voluntarily donated about 20 million rubles to the defense fund. Residents of the region contributed 71 million rubles to the construction of the Voronezh Kolkhoznik tank column. Aircraft of the Voronezh Workers − to-the-Front and Talovsky Kolkhoznik air squadrons were also built at the expense of Voronezh residents' personal savings.

More than 1,000 self-defense and local air defense groups were created in Voronezh, in which more than 36 thousand people participated.

On October 22, 1941, the Voronezh City Defense Committee was established.

An important reserve for the Red Army were the people's militias, whose detachments in the Voronezh Region included over 200 thousand people.

On August 8, 1941, a Volunteer Communist Regiment consisting of over 3,000 people was formed and sent to the front on September 17. The regiment under the command of Colonel M.E. Vaitsekhovsky (Commissar N.P. Latyshev, Chief of Staff A.T. Khudyakov) fought as part of the 1st Guards Rifle Division.

In the autumn of 1941, 165 partisan detachments were created in the region, which united about 5,000 fighters. In November 1942, the headquarters of the partisan movement was established on the Voronezh Front. The partisan detachments took an active part in the liberation of the occupied territory of the region together with units of the Red Army in the winter of 1942-1943. In particular, the Ladomir detachment "Death to Fascism" in January 1943 killed up to 4,000 enemy soldiers and officers and captured up to 7,000. In total, Voronezh partisans conducted 47 combat operations during this period…

In less than seven months of continuous fighting, Voronezh was almost completely destroyed. It was as if a hurricane of enormous destructive force swept over him, moved thousands of buildings, mixed fragments of concrete, metal, wood and brick. Here is how the secretary of the party bureau of the E. Telman plant, A.P. Lamash, reflected his first impressions of the liberated city: "January 25. At 8 o'clock in the morning, together with the soldiers and the command of the garrison and the leaders of the region and the city who arrived, we go to Voronezh… A pile of stones remained from the station. Funnels, funnels. The university is blown up… The Revolution Avenue leaves a terrible impression. There is not a single whole house. Everything is burned, everything is destroyed… There is no monument to Peter the Great. Petrovsky Square is all in trenches, in dugouts. There are thousands of graves with crosses in Koltsovsky Square. The Krauts have set up a cemetery here. There are many crosses. And there's a tall wooden cross further away−it's probably a cemetery for officers..."

Today, more than 50 streets of Voronezh bear the names of its glorious defenders: Mikhail Abyzov, Anna Bespalova, Mikhail Bovkun, Yakov Vinogradov, Lazar Dzotov, Mikhail Demyanov, Vasily Kolesnichenko, Daniil Kutsygin, Georgy Lyulin, Lev Ostroukhov, Lidia Ryabtseva, Ivan Chernyakhovsky… There are streets of the 60th Army, 45th, 100th, 206th, 232nd, 303rd rifle divisions in Voronezh.

For their exploits on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, more than 300 thousand Voronezh residents were awarded military awards, of which more than 300 became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 60 people became full cavaliers of the Order of Glory.

Voronezh remembers its soldiers and its heroic fate. And he will be eternally proud of his feat.

By decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated February 16, 2008, Voronezh was awarded the honorary title of the Russian Federation "City of Military Glory" for the courage, perseverance and mass heroism shown by the defenders of the city in the struggle for freedom and independence of the Fatherland during the Great Patriotic War.