German memories of the Battle of Rzhev. Alexey Isaev. to the question of the losses of Soviet troops in the battles for the Rzhev ledge. Stages of the Battle of Rzhev

After describing military operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient in January 1942 - March 1943. It is quite natural, based on the existing conceptual apparatus, to evaluate them, determine their scale, and establish what it was - battles or battles.

The definitions of combat and battle given at the beginning of the book and familiarity with the actions of the fronts and armies in the Moscow direction during three campaigns of the first and second periods of the Great Patriotic War do not allow us to call these actions simple battles, that is, actions of a tactical scale. Even a simple chronological description of the course of military operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma bulge allows us to see that they go far beyond the scope of battles and battles, as the official Russian historiography claimed and continues to claim. The history of individual, unrelated offensive operations of Soviet troops does not reflect the scale of actions. Facts indicate that during the winter of 1941/42, the summer-autumn of 1942 and the winter of 1942/43. During the military campaigns in the Moscow direction, a battle of large groupings of troops of both belligerent sides unfolded to achieve strategic goals. In this battle, one side - the Soviet - tried to defeat the enemy group standing near the walls of the capital Soviet state, in the western strategic direction. The other side, the German one, tried to hold a strategically advantageous bridgehead in the center of the Eastern Front. Based on the definitions given at the beginning of the book, such actions should be defined as military actions of a strategic scale, and they simply fit classically into the concept of battle.

For a long time - 15 months - in one of the sectors of the western strategic direction - Moscow - Soviet troops, one after another, carried out four major offensive operations, united by a single plan.

Front and army operations were an integral part of these operations. Individual operations of these fronts were supported by simultaneous offensive operations of neighboring fronts and armies. Several defensive front-line operations of an operational scale were also carried out here. All these operations are united territorially, by the configuration of the front: they were carried out in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient.

These operations of the Soviet troops were opposed by defensive and offensive operations of the Wehrmacht troops. In this work they are listed in the interpretation of General H. Grossman in the book “Rzhev - the cornerstone of the Eastern Front.” The book was published in Germany in 1962, translated into Russian and published in Rzhev in 1996. In a response to one Tver local historian from the German military archive in Freiburg, it is said that the book by the former commander of the 6th Infantry Division, which fought on the ledge, reflects the German side's view of events.

The book talks about several successive battles, or battles, in the area of ​​​​the Rzhev salient, although in German the battle and the battle are called the same word “Schlacht”. Despite some discrepancies, Soviet operations and German battles in 1942–1943 The dates are basically the same.

It should be clarified that one cannot agree with the general on everything. For example, he also calls the suppression of the resistance of individual retreating units of Soviet troops in October 1941 in the Rzhev area a battle.

Only one of the four offensive operations of Soviet troops in the salient area is classified as strategic by official military history. This is surprising, since in accordance with the existing definition of a strategic operation, the 2nd Rzhevsko-Sychevskaya and, even more so, the Rzhevsko-Vyazemskaya 1943 can be classified as such, which in concept, goals and objectives, territorial scope, number of groups practically repeated Rzhevsko-Vyazemskaya 1942

In 1986, the Military History Journal held a discussion on strategic operations. Some authors objected to classifying the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation of 1943 as strategic because it turned into a pursuit operation and did not achieve its goal - the encirclement and destruction of the enemy group. But the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation of 1942 also did not achieve this goal. Some strange, double approaches! Or inaccuracy, lack of elaboration of definitions?

There is no doubt that the Rzhev-Vyazma salient in 1942 was one of the “most important directions or theaters of war” [theaters of military operations. – S.G.]. It is difficult to agree with the statement of individual military historians that both the Rzhev-Sychevsk 1942 and the Rzhev-Vyazemsk 1943 operations “were no longer carried out in the direction of the main attack of the campaign, but in secondary directions...”. In their opinion, “since May 1942... the main events took place not in the western direction, but on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front. In this regard, the totality of the above three operations carried out on the territory of the Rzhev salient does not correspond to the concept of “battle”.

Table 10

Even a non-military person understands that “the direction of the main attack of the campaign” and “strategic direction” are different things. The statement that the Rzhev salient is a “secondary direction,” one would think, would have been received with surprise by the leaders of the main warring states and the command of the armed forces of both sides. They considered this direction very important and therefore kept up to a third of their forces here, even when a fierce battle was going on in the south.

The offensive operations of the Soviet troops in the area of ​​the Rzhev salient were united by a single plan: in three cases out of four there was an attempt to encircle enemy forces and destroy them piecemeal. Operations are interconnected by goals and objectives. Once again we can recall their goals and objectives, defined by the directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters: January 7, 1942 - “encircling the Mozhaisk-Vyazma group... defeating the enemy’s Rzhev group...”, February 16, 1942 - “defeat and destroy the Rzhev-Vyazma-Yukhnov group enemy...", March 20, 1942 - "defeat the enemy's Rzhev-Vyazma-Gzhat grouping...", July 16, 1942 - "clear the enemy from the territory north of the river. Volga in the region of Rzhev, Zubtsov and the territory from the river. Vazuza in the area of ​​​​Zubtsov, Karamzino, Pogoreloye Gorodishche, capture the cities of Rzhev and Zubtsov, go out and firmly gain a foothold on the Volga and Vazuza rivers...”, December 8, 1942 - “defeat the Rzhev-Sychevsk-Olenino-Belyi group of the enemy... in the future... defeat ... the enemy’s Gzhatsk-Vyazma-Kholm-Zhirkovsky grouping...” Due to the fact that the directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for the operation of the Western and Kalinin fronts in February 1943 was not made public, let us recall the words from the directive of the Headquarters to the commander of the troops of the Central Front, who was supposed to act “with the goal of reaching the rear of the Rzhev-Vyazma-Bryansk enemy group ..." To meet the blow of the Central Front, “they will go on the offensive: the Western Front - to Roslavl and further to Smolensk; Kalinin Front - to Vitebsk, Orsha and part of the forces to Smolensk."

Thus, the main goal of all operations: to defeat the main forces of the German Army Group Center in the Rzhev-Vyazma space, liberate the cities of Rzhev, Sychevka, Vyazma, etc., thereby eliminating the Rzhev ledge. The spatial scope of operations varied: at the beginning of 1942 - along the entire front of the salient, in the summer and at the end of 1942 - military operations in the Rzhev-Sychevsko-Belsk part of the salient, in March 1943 - along the entire front of the salient, but they were always carried out within the ledge. Even when fighting went beyond the ledge, for example, the battles of the Belov group in May - June 1942, they were still closely related to the situation in the Rzhev - Vyazma space.

The operations took place over vast territories of the Moscow, Tula, modern Kaluga, Kalinin (modern Tver), and Smolensk regions. It has already been said above that the front line in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient ranged from 700 to 550 km.

Military operations here were decisive and fierce: for 8 out of 15 months, active offensive actions by Soviet troops were carried out with heavy losses on both sides.

Large groups of troops from both sides always participated in military operations on the ledge. On the Soviet side, troops of the Western and Kalinin fronts operated here, support on the flanks was provided by troops of the Northwestern, Bryansk, and Central fronts. According to the most approximate estimates, only 4 named offensive operations involved, together with air forces, troops from at least 40 Soviet armies on two fronts. And with stubborn constancy, the same ones. On the enemy side, troops from Army Group Center acted - the 9th and at various times the 4th Field, 3rd, 4th, and partially the 2nd Tank Armies.

The general management of operations was always carried out by the Supreme Command Headquarters and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, as evidenced by documents (see Appendices). Operations were planned and developed by almost the same structures and people: the General Staff (chief in 1941 - May 1942 B. M. Shaposhnikov, in June 1942 - February 1945 A. M. Vasilevsky) and the command fronts. From January to September 1942 on the Western Front, in February - May 1942 on the Western direction, in August 1942 the troops of the two fronts were commanded by Army General G.K. Zhukov. He was also a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters on the Kalinin and Western fronts in November - December 1942. The chief of staff of the front and direction almost all this time was General V.D. Sokolovsky. From the beginning of the battle until almost the end (February 27, 1943), Colonel General I. S. Konev commanded the Kalinin and then the Western fronts. The chief of staff of the Kalinin Front from January 1942 to April 1943 was General M.V. Zakharov.

Although the central German group was not defeated, at the end of the battle a significant result was achieved - both strategic and political. The enemy's dangerous bridgehead in the immediate vicinity of Moscow was eliminated, and the danger of a new German offensive in the Moscow direction was eliminated. The liberation of Rzhev and other cities on the ledge became a matter of prestige for the Soviet leadership and had an international resonance: the names of the cities were mentioned in the correspondence of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I. Stalin with the British Prime Minister W. Churchill. March 4, 1943 W. Churchill to I. Stalin: “Please accept my warmest congratulations on the occasion of the liberation of Rzhev. From our conversation in August I know what great importance You attach to the release of this item.” On March 6, J. Stalin replied to W. Churchill and boasted of another victory: “Thank you for your congratulations on the capture of Rzhev by our troops. Today our troops took the city of Gzhatsk.” On March 13, the British Prime Minister again congratulated I. Stalin: “I heartily congratulate you on the occasion of Vyazma...”.

By the way, this was not the first time that events on the central section of the Soviet-German front were voiced in the correspondence of the leaders of the allied states in March 1943. In the last days of November 1942, I. Stalin informed both W. Churchill and F. Roosevelt about the ongoing “active operations on the Central Front,” which also indicates the importance of military operations on the ledge for the Supreme Commander.

Thus, almost all components of the concept of “battle” were clearly manifested in military operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead of German troops in January 1942 - March 1943. It follows that these military actions can rightfully be considered as a battle. And this is not only the opinion of the author of this book. Even during the war years, the words of Lieutenant General D. D. Lelyushenko, commander of the 30th Army, were heard, however, as presented by the journalist and publicist I. Ehrenburg. In October 1942 they met near Rzhev. Ehrenburg wrote about the general: “Young, simple, energetic. In the dim light of a smokehouse over a map tattered with colored pencils, he explains the battle for Rzhev. This is not a local battle, this is a large and long battle. Of course, it is not the ruins of a second-rate city that the Germans value. Rzhev is the gate. They can open to the east and west. One prisoner told me: “What does Rzhev have to do with it?.. It starts with nothing, it could end with Berlin...” By the way, this phrase, albeit in a figurative form, also reflects the strategic significance of Rzhev as a symbol, as a landmark city of the entire battle.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief also, already during the war years, put the military operations at Rzhev on a par with the most significant battles and battles of the first years of the war. The Supreme Order of February 23, 1943 states: “Our people will forever preserve the memory of the heroic defense of Sevastopol and Odessa, of the persistent battles near Moscow and in the foothills of the Caucasus, in the Rzhev region and near Leningrad, of the greatest battle in the history of wars at the walls of Stalin -grad".

Definitely: on the approaches to Moscow in January 1942 - March 1943. A long, cruel and bloody battle ensued. It either flared up during offensive operations of the Soviet troops, or died out for a while during periods of calm. The city of Rzhev became a symbol of the battle on the outskirts of Moscow. The names of all the major offensive operations of the Soviet troops listed above contain the definition “Rzhevskaya”; in the cited order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, “about persistent battles near Moscow” and “in the Rzhev area” are spoken of separately. According to many German war veterans, “in the great space of Rzhev” (“im Grossraum Rshew”) they defended Olenino, Rzhev, Zubtsov, Sychevka, Vyazma, and in the book of H. Grossman “Rzhev - the cornerstone of the Eastern Front”, although speech talks about the military operations of the 9th Army, diagrams of the territory of the entire Rzhev-Vyazma ledge are given. It is quite logical to name the battle after the name of the city, which became its symbol for both armies - Rzhevskaya. Yes, that’s exactly what happened. War veterans, politicians, local historians, and regional historians actively use this concept - the Battle of Rzhev.

But the existence of the Battle of Rzhev is categorically not accepted by official science. One of the main arguments is the absence of an operational pause between the Moscow offensive and the Rzhev-Vyazemsk 1942 operations. According to modern periodization, the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation of 1942 is part of the Battle of Moscow. Let us recall that this leads to three major offensive operations of the Soviet troops in this direction “hanging in the air.”

One option for getting out of this situation was proposed above: consider the beginning of January 1942 as the end date of the Moscow Battle. With the directive of the Supreme Command Headquarters of January 7, 1942, when the Rzhev-Vyazma direction sounded, the Rzhev Battle began, which continued until the liquidation of the salient. The task of liberating the cities that had become German strongholds on the salient, set by this directive in January 1942, was completed only in March 1943.

A second option is also possible, in which all operations in the Moscow direction receive their clear place: the Moscow Battle ended with the liquidation of the Rzhev-Vyazma salient in March 1943, when German troops were moved away from Moscow by a total of more than 300 km. In Soviet times, such a proposal flashed through the statements of a famous military leader, but was not heard.

The peculiarity of the Battle of Rzhev was that throughout the second half of 1942 it unfolded in parallel with the Battle of Stalingrad. The 1st Rzhev-Sychevsk (Gzhatsk) offensive and Stalingrad defensive operations began in July 1942 - on the 17th and 30th, battles directly in Stalingrad and Rzhev - on September 13 and 21. Already during the war years they talked about the similarity of battles in cities, about their extraordinary intensity. Both in Stalingrad and Rzhev there were fierce street battles, when the sides fought for every house, for every street. Front-line correspondent B. Yampolsky wrote in Izvestia in October 1942 about the battles in Rzhev: “Frames and doors fly from the blast wave, roofs rise, walls fall. Soldiers are running along a burning street with hooks, ladders, and ropes, like firefighters. And through walls, fences - onto roofs along drainpipes, cornices - into windows, into holes, into gaps. First a grenade, and after it - with bayonets and knives - into a blast wave, into smoke, roar, into German groans and screams. The battle is already going on in houses, in narrow and dark corridors, between the bedroom and the dining room, between the chest of drawers and the closet, from the attic to the cellar.” Only one phrase from the combat log of the German 4th Air Fleet for September 22 gives an idea of ​​the battles in Stalingrad: “Little success: from ruin to ruin, from basement to basement.”

The Stalingrad offensive (“Uranus”) and the 2nd Rzhev-Sychevsk (“Mars”) operations began a week apart - November 19 and 25, 1942. The Battle of Stalingrad ended on February 2, 1943, on February 6, 1943 due to lack of reserves due to the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler gave the order for the Wehrmacht troops to abandon the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge. The battles in the center of the Soviet-German front influenced the battles in the south, and the results of the battle in the south most directly affected the situation in the center (Diagram 40).

The attitude of the leadership of the warring states and the command of the armies towards Rzhev and Stalingrad as symbols of the battles was the same: the advancing troops had to take the cities at all costs, and the defenders had to hold their positions and not surrender the cities to the enemy. For A. Hitler it became a matter of prestige to take Stalingrad and not surrender Rzhev, for I. Stalin - to take Rzhev and not surrender Stalingrad. The dates for the capture of cities were set repeatedly: Stalingrad - October 20, November 10, Rzhev - January 8-9, 11,12, before January 14, no later than January 21, no later than April 5, July 31 - August 1, August 9, December 23 1942. In case of failures, the behavior of representatives of the command of both sides was also similar: they refused to see real things, they passed off what they wanted as reality. So, speaking in early November 1942 in Munich, Hitler said: “They wanted to capture Stalingrad... and there is no need to be modest: it has already been taken...”. And this is before November 19 - the start of the counter-offensive of the Soviet troops! About the awarding of the command of the 39th Army by G.K. Zhukov in December 1942 with a personalized watch: “... for the capture of the city of Olenino,” although the village of Olenino was liberated only on March 4, 1943, as mentioned above.

If we talk specifically about cities, then Rzhev and Stalingrad stood on opposite sides of the front line: Stalingrad was defended by Soviet troops and did not give it up to the enemy, Rzhev was held by German troops for 14 months and did not surrender even during periods of the most active Soviet offensive operations, yes and they left the bridgehead on their own. When today many war veterans and the media call Rzhev the “second Stalingrad,” this is inherently incorrect and indicates ignorance of real events. Rather, Rzhev is the German Stalingrad. Just as in our country “Stalingraders” were people who went through the hell of a bloody battle, withstood terrible trials and at the same time fulfilled their duty, so in the Wehrmacht and in Germany during the war there was a concept “der Rshew-Kd mpfer” - “Rzhev warrior ", which denoted a soldier who had fulfilled his military duty to the end.

Hence the opposition to the very essence of the Battles of Stalingrad and Rzhev. In the first case, Soviet troops withstood the pressure of a strong enemy with honor, and then defeated him. In the second case, the enemy resisted several major offensives by Soviet troops, did not allow himself to be destroyed, and even left the bridgehead on his own. This explains the hushing up of the history of military operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyaema salient during the Soviet period and at the present time.

The simultaneity of the battles quite naturally leads to their comparison.

For the official history of the war, this is blasphemy, an attack on the foundations. Academician A. M. Samsonov compared the Battle of Stalingrad with the Battle of the Caucasus: “The undoubted commonality of the two battles, which unfolded almost simultaneously (July 17 and 25), existed from the very beginning.” With no less justification, this can be said about the Battles of Stalingrad and Rzhev. Their comparison allows us to draw interesting conclusions (Tables 11, 12).

On the German side, there were 76 contingent divisions near Stalingrad, and up to 57 divisions on the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead (according to German data).

The data in the tables show that military operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient in terms of the number of troops participating, in terms of territorial scope, in duration, in terms of losses, in terms of the attention of the leadership of the warring parties and the command of the armies, as mentioned above, are not only comparable to the Battle of Stalingrad, but superior to it in a number of positions.

The number of Soviet troops at the beginning of operations

Table 12

In the official version of the Great Patriotic War, and indeed the entire Second World War, the Battle of Stalingrad is considered the bloodiest. But the study of military operations in individual sectors of the Soviet-German front, which either flared up during offensive operations or died out for a while, as happened, for example, in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma bulge, in the Leningrad region, allows us to talk about more significant human losses, of course, taking into account the losses in all operations carried out here.

E. Rzhevskaya, a former translator at the headquarters of the 30th Army, wrote down during the days of the battles near Rzhev: “Rzhev is a breakthrough. They throw, they throw into battle. Will anyone ever count how many he has consumed?!” The leadership of the Soviet country did not need such calculations either after the liquidation of the enemy bridgehead near the walls of the capital or after the war. The loss figures recorded in the documents of the fronts and armies that fought in the area of ​​the Rzhev salient were closed in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense. They appeared only as facts from the history of military operations in the Rzhev-Vyazma space were made public. The process was gradual, and the figures that appeared were clearly underestimated.

To date, the official point of view on losses is set out in the book “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: Statistical research”, published by the OLMA-PRESS publishing house in 2001. The figures for the total losses (irrecoverable and sanitary) of the fronts in offensive operations are published here:

In just about eight months of fighting (out of fifteen) - 1,324,823 people, which is higher than the total losses of Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. Irreversible losses during this time on the Rzhev salient amounted to 433,037 people, in the Battle of Stalingrad - 478,741 people, which is also quite comparable.

In the 1990-2000s, individual researchers, including foreign ones, who did not agree with official figures, tried to calculate losses in individual operations. It was already mentioned above that, for example, S. N. Mikhalev determined the army losses in the Rzhev-Vyazma operation of 1942 at 948 thousand people. According to H. Grossman, Russian losses in the summer-autumn battle of 1942 amounted to 380 thousand people; according to incomplete data from the author of these lines, losses in the operation in August - September 1942 were more than 300 thousand people. D. Glanz agrees with the German estimates of the losses of Russian troops in the second Rzhev-Sychevsk operation at 335 thousand people. These calculations increase the total losses in 4 operations to 1,700 thousand people.

The figure is not final, as it does not take into account those who were missing or captured. In addition, it does not take into account losses for 7 months when there were no offensive actions - for May - July, October - November 1942, January - February 1943, and they, as noted above, were often significant. Let us at least remember the losses in the defensive operation of the troops of the Kalinin Front in July 1942 in the area of ​​Bely, when about 50 thousand people alone were taken prisoner. Taking them into account, as one can assume, the losses of the Red Army in the battles on the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead could be about, and possibly more than 2 million people.

In March 1998, regional (Tver region) and Rzhev newspapers published a speech by the head of the administration of the city of Rzhev, A.V. Kharchenko, in connection with the 55th anniversary of the liberation of the city from fascist invaders. He named the number of losses of our army in the Rzhev-Vyazma direction - 2,060 thousand people. This figure was given by the Institute military history at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union V. G. Kulikov, a participant in the battles near Rzhev, an honorary citizen of the city. The decoding of this figure was kept (stored?) in the administration of the city of Rzhev, unfortunately, without any output data and signatures, but with links to the book “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed” and several files from Fund No. 213 TsAMO - the operational department of the field department of the headquarters Kalinin Front.

The mentioned figure was the losses of Soviet troops in the Moscow strategic defensive operation (30.09 - 5.12.41), in the counter-offensive near Moscow (5.12.41 - 7.01.42), that is, when the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge did not yet exist, as well as in the Rzhevsko-Vyazemskaya (1942), Rzhevsko-Sychevskaya (30.07–23.08.42), Rzhevsko-Vyazemskaya (1943) operations. This does not include troop losses in May–July, including in the defensive operation in the area of ​​the White troops of the Kalinin Front, in late August–December 1942, including in the 2nd Rzhev-Sychevsk operation (“Mars”), in January - February 1943. Taking into account official data on losses in unaccounted operations, the total losses are approaching 2,300 thousand people.

The information about losses in the Rzhev-Vyazma direction, given to Marshal Kulikov at the Institute of Military History, is interesting from another point of view. Having combined losses in all operations in the Moscow direction - both in Moscow and in Rzhevsk, the unknown author - an employee of the Institute, perhaps unwittingly, supported one of the options proposed above for assessing military operations in the Rzhev-Vyazma direction, namely, that these operations are connected and constitute one whole.

The work of search engines. Tver region, 1990s.

Findings from search engines. 1990s

In March 2000, in a speech by Marshal of the Soviet Union V. G. Kulikov at the international conference “Rzhev: two views on the battle”, held at the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, another figure was named for the total losses of Soviet troops in Rzhev-Vyazma direction – 2.5 million people. At three conferences dedicated to the Battle of Rzhev and held at the museum on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the number of deaths alone was stated to be from 800 thousand to 913 thousand people.

Here it may be appropriate to talk about the fact that at the moment the official methodology for accounting for losses in operations is to take into account only irretrievable losses - the dead. According to historians representing the official point of view, the wounded returned to duty after treatment, and prisoners returned to the country after the war. In the opinion of a non-professional military historian, there are big “gaps” in this methodology. If we are talking about irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces, then a soldier who lost an arm or a leg in the battles near Rzhev no longer fought in the army. At the end of March 2007, one of these participants in the battle, I. A. Khrenov, passed away. In August 1942, he lost his arm near Rzhev, found himself in post-war life and lived it with great dignity. But he never served in the army again; for her, he was lost irretrievably, but at the same time classified as a sanitary loss. Those who were captured by the Germans, naturally, no longer took part in the hostilities, but at the same time they were not counted among the dead. And immediately after operations, formations and units were sent for reorganization or disbanded based on total losses, and not just on those killed. So, let us remember what happened, for example, with the 11th Cavalry Corps of the Kalinin Front. At the beginning of August 1942, it was disbanded, since it lost 14,830 people killed, wounded, missing, sick and for other reasons, of which 14,071 people were missing only. Reinforcements during the battles came to formations and units based on total losses. No one waited for those wounded in this battle to return after treatment. Although it is possible to the common man It is not possible to understand the official methodology.

Finding search engines. 1990s

The presented digital material suggests that the issue of losses on the Rzhev-Vyazma salient has not been fully investigated, and it remains to be answered exactly how many of his compatriots Rzhev “absorbed.”

According to the Tver Regional Military Commissariat at the beginning of 2002, about 150 thousand dead were recorded in the Belsky, Zubtsovsky, Oleninsky, and Rzhevsky districts. According to the Smolensk Regional Military Commissariat at the same time, approximately 68 thousand dead were counted in the Vyazemsky, Gagarinsky (formerly Gzhatsky), Sychevsky, Ugransky, Kholm-Zhirkovsky districts, with which the workers of the regional military commissariat themselves did not agree. The accompanying letter stated that this information is approximate, “the numbers are increasing every year. Every year we additionally perpetuate up to 5,000 during the work of search teams and according to archival documents.”

Burial at the Memorial Complex in Rzhev. 2002

Certificate of the head of the Rzhev search detachment “Memory of the 29th Army”

To this day, at the battle sites throughout the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge, there are unburied and unaccounted for remains of Soviet soldiers. Numerous search teams, both local and from other regions, are working in the Smolensk and Tver regions. In the Tver region, the regional public organization “Scientific-historical military-patriotic center “Podvig”, carrying out search work, has existed since 1987. From 1988 to 2003, more than 22 thousand soldiers were interred with military and spiritual honors in the Tver region , the names of more than 3 thousand people were identified.

Search engines, when working in the field, encounter things that reveal a terrible picture of the war. Smolensk search engines once found a hole in the forest in which an entire ambulance train—about fifty people—was buried. There are splints on the bones, traces of amputations and wounds. The Nazis attacked and killed everyone. In the diaries of the Moscow Borzov search engines, who worked in the Gzhatsk area, there is terrifying information about the traces of battles: “It used to be that you couldn’t get through the field,” says Aunt Fenya, “there were corpses lying side by side. We had nothing to wear, so the women who were braver would shake the bones out of their shoes and put those boots on their feet...” “But the bones were not removed from those fields,” a man of about fifty continues her story. – Where they raked with a bulldozer, and where they just plowed, over the bones. It used to be that you would start the tractor and look ahead, into the distance, at some birch tree, so as not to get lost and not see what is going under the tractor... If I had known that you needed helmets, I would have brought a full trailer from Kostrovo, I plowed there today. There is no need to look for them, they are in every funnel. Here, you know, the hoes in all the yards are made from sapper blades”... In the spruce forest, every now and then you come across helmets, bowlers, gas mask boxes... It’s something like a city of the dead. There is no end in sight. They wanted to take a pot and a mug each, but everything was full of holes and shot through. The density of the fire is terrifying. Canisters, boxes - everything is in a sieve...”

Dead soldiers of the 129th Infantry Division in the church in the village of Romanovo. Staritsky (?) district of the Kalinin region. Christmas 1941

German cemetery. Rzhev area, winter 1941–1942.

The activities of search engines make it possible to find and rebury with dignity the remains of thousands of Soviet soldiers who were once “forgotten” on the battlefield. Based on the results of their work over five years, as well as due to clarification of archival data on the territory of the 4 above-mentioned districts of the Tver region, as of April 2006, more than 17 thousand people were registered; the number of registered burials in the Rzhevsky district alone increased by almost 10 thousand people. The figures for the Smolensk region are even more striking. If in 2002 198,318 soldiers who died in 1941–1943 were listed as buried on its territory, then in April 2006 this figure was 349 thousand people. In 2006 alone, 82 search teams worked in the Smolensk region. As of April 2006, 20,954 soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War were buried on the territory of the Yukhnovsky district of the Kaluga region.

It is hardly possible to establish the exact number of human losses in the Rzhev-Vyazma region, and even more so it is impossible to name all those who fought, died or went missing in those places. We have to agree with the opinion of D. Glantz that a totalitarian state is generally characterized by a cult of sacrifice, an unwillingness and even an inability to reckon with human losses. Neglect of the individual human personality, the attitude towards a person as a small cog in a huge state machine has led to the fact that today, 60 years after the war, we continue to operate with approximate figures of total losses, and the words “No one is forgotten...” remain only a declaration.

German cemetery. Rzhev area, spring 1942

There are no accurate generalized data on Wehrmacht losses in the battle for the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead, at least not from the author of this work. As a rule, German materials provide data on the losses of individual military units and formations for a particular period. For example, losses in August 1942 in the 18th regiment of the 6th Infantry Division amounted to 746 people, of which 23 officers, the total losses of this division from August 1 to 22, 1942 were 3294 people. According to an employee of the People's Union of Germany for the Care of War Graves, the 9th Army in the battle for the Rzhev bridgehead - the Bely - Olenino - Rzhev - Zubtsov - Sychevka region - lost 120 thousand people killed, “the number of wounded significantly exceeded” this value. According to German army veterans who fought near Rzhev, between 350 and 400 thousand people died in the battles on the bridgehead. These figures are not confirmed by references to documentary sources. E. Rzhevskaya in 1985, in one of her books, quoted words from the Hamburg newspaper “Die Welt”: “In the battles near Rzhev, as many Germans died as, for example, residents in Cottbus or Ingolstadt.” She did not indicate when these words were published, but in 1992 these cities had a population of 98 thousand and 129 thousand people, respectively, which is quite close to the figure provided by an employee of the People's Union of Germany.

The exact numbers of losses of the German side in the battle for the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead also have yet to be calculated.

Who won and who lost in the Battle of Rzhev? The question is not at all clear-cut. When considering this issue, the Battle of Rzhev resembles the Battle of Borodino, the winner of which historians still argue about. In both battles, the sides did not achieve their final goals, but at the same time they completed certain tasks. Some researchers believed that there was no winner in the Battle of Borodino, but the moral superiority was on the side of the Russians. The results of the Battle of Rzhev are somewhat similar to this situation with a negative sign of moral success.

Soviet troops in March 1943 had significant territorial gains. Of course, the elimination of the dangerous German bridgehead in the center of the Soviet-German front, the elimination of the constant danger to the Soviet capital should be considered as an important result of strategic significance. An important political result was the liberation of Rzhev and other cities on the bridgehead, which Soviet troops could not take for a long time. But this victory was far from being as triumphant as in the Battle of Stalingrad: the main goal of offensive operations in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge - to destroy the main forces of Army Group Center - was not achieved.

The German troops left the bridgehead on their own, undefeated on this section of the front. They themselves did what their enemy had been trying to do for more than a year, and at the same time retained their strength for further actions. But at the same time, the Wehrmacht was unable to hold on and lost a strategically advantageous bridgehead in the center of the Eastern Front. The Germans were forced to leave Rzhev - this iconic city, personifying the defense of a large territory, this “gate to Berlin”.

For both sides this was a lost victory. But for both sides this victory was also Pyrrhic.

The Rzhev ledge, the “Rzhev arc,” became for both armies a “black hole” that attracted troops and absorbed them. In the memory of the Soviet soldier he remained the “Rzhev meat grinder”, the “breakthrough”. To this day, in the villages of many areas around Rzhev, there is an expression “they drove to Rzhev.” It really was Moloch who devoured his children. The heroism and self-sacrifice of some stood here next to the oversights, miscalculations, mistakes, and sometimes crimes of others. The country's leadership and the high army command tried to solve problems with logistics, errors in planning military operations in general and individual operations, and shortcomings in command and control using the “human factor.” The desire to achieve victory “at any cost”, at the expense of huge human losses, does not indicate the ability to fight in the Suvorov style - “not in numbers, but in skill.” The acquisition of military experience by the command of the Red Army and the country's leadership was too expensive.

P. Mikhin, former commander platoon of the 1028th artillery regiment of the 52nd Infantry Division of the 30th Army wrote at the beginning of this century: “On Rzhev land we learned to fight, and our great commanders learned from us to accomplish their future victories. They fought for Rzhev for 15 months and could do almost nothing until the Germans themselves left there. Even if these were victories of the enemy, these were also our worst tragedies. The war did not consist of successes alone. And the story must be complete and reliable, no matter how bitter it may be. After all, this bitterness is dear to many who went through the “Rzhev meat grinder.” The Germans were spinning it, and we poured and poured thousands and thousands of soldiers into it...”

Cemetery for about 2,000 German soldiers on the eastern outskirts of Rzhev. First half of 1942

But the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead became a “black hole” for the German troops. German veterans still remember with horror the battles in the “great space of Rzhev.” The “irreparable losses” of the Wehrmacht here were “hidden from the ignorant population and clouded the assessment of Operation Buffel as a “military achievement.” Colonel General Model, who led the defense of [the territory. – S.G.], was later known as an “expert in retreats.”

The Battle of Rzhev was one of the bloodiest battles of the Great Patriotic War, and possibly the Second World War: the total losses on both sides were enormous. Soviet troops, despite the fact that there were no great successes on this section of the front, pinned down a large number of German troops here and daily crushed the enemy's manpower and material strength. This undermined Hitler's war machine and prepared the way for the defeat of Germany. Historian A. N. Mertsalov names among the sources of the Victory over fascism the collective feat of military units and formations: “This is heroism of a different kind - long and difficult, this is the military labor of millions of Red Army soldiers in conditions of constant mortal danger...” P. Mikhin wrote: “Our 52 The 1st division attacked Rzhev from the north, through Polunino, into the very “front” of the enemy. In 6 months of fighting, we advanced six kilometers. They liberated four ashes and left behind two mass graves of 13 thousand each... Nobody wanted to die, but they ran forward - they advanced and died. How many “valleys of death”, “groves of death” and “swamps of death” we have named and left behind! But still they moved forward with meters. Remembering what has passed, I see the fields near Rzhev, strewn with the corpses of ours and the Germans.”

German cemetery near the hospital in the southern part of Rzhev. July 1942

At Rzhev, Sychevka, Vyazma, Zubtsov, Bely, Olenino, and Gzhatsk, Soviet soldiers with their daily military labor brought Victory over the enemy closer and therefore are worthy of respect and memory no less than those who reached Berlin.

The military actions of the Soviet troops in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient had a great influence on the entire Wehrmacht strategy on the Eastern Front in 1942: German troops did not conduct active offensive operations in the central sector of the front. Throughout 1942, they were forced to mainly defend themselves here, even during the summer-autumn campaign of 1942, which was classified by Soviet military science as defensive. This indicates that the strategic initiative intercepted in the Battle of Moscow in the central sector of the Soviet-German front, despite individual offensive operations by Wehrmacht troops, remained with the Soviet troops throughout 1942.

The title of the book by German General H. Grossmann, “Rzhev - the cornerstone of the Eastern Front,” is not entirely accurate. In German newspapers in the second half of 1942, this phrase sounds differently: “the cornerstone of the German line of resistance,” “the impregnable line of the Fuhrer.” German generals already during the war years they called the actions of their troops around Rzhev in January - February, August - September, November - December 1942 “defensive battles” - “Abwehrschlacht von (bei) Rshew”. According to the author of a book on the history of the German 129th Infantry Division, H. Bukzain, all military actions of the 9th Army at this time within the framework of the Army Group Center can be called “defensive battles in front of Moscow.”

In domestic historical literature, in mass consciousness battles in the area of ​​the Rzhev-Vyazma salient in the summer, autumn and winter of 1942 helped the actions of Soviet troops near Stalingrad. It is interesting that the Germans also said that they were defending Rzhev in order to achieve victory in the south. The task of both sides at Rzhev was to pin down the enemy’s forces and not allow them to be transferred south, near Stalingrad, to the Caucasian direction. This is certainly true. But to talk only about assistance to Stalingrad means to understate the significance of the Battle of Rzhev, which, to a certain extent, influenced military operations in other sectors of the Soviet-German front, as well as in other theaters of military operations of the Second World War, thereby making a significant contribution to achieving Victory over fascism. The German formations and units that were transferred to the center of the Eastern Front throughout the battle were withdrawn not only from the south, but also from other directions, which is somehow forgotten.

German cemetery near Bocharovo. Rzhev area, winter 1942–1943.

So, in January 1942, 12 divisions and two brigades were transferred here from Western Europe - from France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and other countries occupied by Germany. In May 1942, to fight units of Belov’s group, two army corps consisting of several infantry and one tank divisions were withdrawn from the front. In July, large forces of the 9th Army were busy fighting the 39th Army and the 11th Cavalry. corps of the Kalinin Front. Let us remember that, according to D. M. Proektor, “this circumstance for a long time excluded the troops of Army Group Center from the overall balance of the fascist strategy.” In August 1942, in the Zubtsovsky direction, the Wehrmacht command was forced to delay three tank and several infantry divisions that were preparing to be transferred to the southern front. Moreover, 12 German divisions were transferred here from other sectors of the front, including from the south. At the same time, the Soviet command sent part of the troops from this section of the front to the south.

In the summer of 1942, the Greater Germany division, intended to be sent to France, and an infantry division moving towards Leningrad were sent to Army Group Center. D. M. Proektor wrote that the appearance of the SS division “Great Germany” near Rzhev cannot but be considered as real help to the British, who soon made their landing near Dieppe.” In addition, due to the actions of Soviet troops during the Rzhev-Sychevsk (Gzhatsk) operation in the summer of 1942, the command of Army Group Center was unable to conduct private offensive operations on Kirov and Sukhinichi as originally planned.

On October 30, 1942, to strengthen Army Group Center in connection with the impending Russian offensive in the center, on the orders of Hitler, Manstein and his headquarters were transferred from near Leningrad to Vitebsk. D. M. Proektor wrote that after this “the question of the assault on Leningrad practically disappeared.” True, when the offensive near Stalingrad began, Manstein was transferred to the south. In October, tank, motorized and infantry divisions were transferred to the Velikiye Luki area from Leningrad, seven divisions from France and Germany to the Vitebsk and Smolensk area, two tank divisions from Voronezh and Zhizdra to the Yartsev and Roslavl area, in total 12 divisions.

Among the formations transferred to the center was a division from the North Caucasus. The opinion of the English historian B. Liddell Hart has already been cited that Hitler was forced to cancel the landing on Batumi scheduled for October 1942 due to the fact that “at that time the Russian counteroffensive began at Stalingrad, followed by a new Russian offensive near Rzhev ... Hitler was so alarmed by this double threat that he canceled his decision to advance on Batumi and ordered the urgent transfer of paratroopers by rail to the north, near Smolensk.”

According to D. Glanz and A.V. Isaev, the 2nd Rzhev-Sychevsk operation had an indirect, but quite tangible impact on the summer campaign of 1943. The 9th Army, drained of blood near Rzhev, was unable to make up for the losses it suffered. Neither by May 1943, which forced Hitler to postpone the offensive in the Kursk area, nor by July did the German divisions defending near Rzhev reach an acceptable level of combat effectiveness. This was one of the reasons why the offensive on the northern side of the Kursk Bulge quickly fizzled out.

All these facts clearly confirm the idea expressed above about the influence of the actions of Soviet troops near Rzhev on the situation not only at Stalingrad, but also in the Caucasus, near Leningrad, in other areas of the central direction and, to some extent, even on the Western Front.

But even with the help of the divisions transferred here, near Moscow, the Wehrmacht was ultimately unable to maintain a promising bridgehead; the Wehrmacht troops were forced to abandon it. And this is undoubtedly a victory for the Soviet Armed Forces as a whole. This is both the result of exhausting enemy forces directly in the area of ​​the salient, and the result of the victorious actions of Soviet troops in the south.

But this is also an undoubted failure of the Soviet high command and those Soviet military leaders and generals who determined the strategic actions of the troops here. Their names have already been mentioned above: I.V. Stalin, B.M. Shaposhnikov, G.K. Zhukov, V.D. Sokolovsky, I.S. Konev, M.V. Zakharov. A. M. Vasilevsky, although he was the chief of the General Staff from June 1942, was only partially involved in the actions on the Rzhev salient; nevertheless, this direction was always supervised by G. K. Zhukov, and from September 1942 - Deputy Supreme Commander. The strategic plan of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff - to encircle and destroy the main forces of Army Group Center on the Rzhev-Vyazma ledge - was a complete failure. It was not possible to turn Rzhev into a second Stalingrad. The duel with the high command of the Wehrmacht, as well as directly with the commanders of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Kluge and the 9th Army, Colonel General V. Model, on this section of the front, was lost by the named Soviet commanders.

Colonel General I. S. Konev. 1942

Major General M.V. Zakharov. 1941–1942

Marshal Zhukov, who is called today the Marshal of Victory, the Victorious, understood this. The Rzhev-Vyazma ledge occupies a large place in his military fate: for 8 months - from January to August 1942 - he commanded the troops of the Western Front, during which time he was the commander of the Western direction, and led the actions of two fronts. At the end of 1942, he practically led Operation Mars. But in February 1943, when the Wehrmacht command was withdrawing troops from the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead, G. K. Zhukov chose to be on the North-Western Front, where the Soviet armies were trying to liquidate the enemy’s Demyansk bridgehead. G. K. Zhukov preferred to avoid direct participation in the next operation of the “native” Western and Kalinin fronts in the Moscow direction, probably fearing another failure. Being the First Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief, he could probably choose which front he would go to. But G.K. Zhukov did not dare to go to the “damned” Rzhev-Vyazma ledge, which can be considered as an indirect recognition by the marshal of his previous failures in this area. In his post-war memoirs, G. K. Zhukov describes the battles in the Rzhev region fragmentarily, with distortions and omissions, as readers could see, since in this book the commander’s memoirs were quoted repeatedly.

Field Marshal H. G. Kluge - commander of Army Group Center in 1941–1943. 1942

I. S. Konev also did not want to remember the military actions near Rzhev. As commander of the troops first on the Kalinin and then on the Western fronts, he was on this section of the front for 14 months - from January 1942 to March 1943. But he begins his “Notes of a Front Commander” only in the summer of 1943. In his memoirs, published in 1987 in the magazine “Znamya”, he devoted only one paragraph to his stay here. We quote verbatim: “...In August 1942, I was again appointed commander of the troops of the Western Front. During the autumn and winter of 1942 and early 1943, the Western Front mainly solved the problems of defending the lines reached at the beginning of 1942. We carried out private operations, pinning down enemy forces to prevent their transfer from here. At this time, as is known, the battles near Stalingrad were unfolding. I must note that the Nazi command did not transfer a single division from the Western strategic direction and, in particular, from the sector opposing the Western Front, to the Stalingrad direction. The enemy apparently hoped that after the successful operation at Stalingrad, a favorable situation would again be created for bypassing Moscow from the south and delivering a frontal attack by a large group that was on the defensive against the troops of the Western Front. The Soviet High Command, for its part, developed and prepared a plan, according to which, in the event of an enemy approach, Soviet troops were to quickly go on the offensive. Strike groups were created, strike directions were given, but, unfortunately, I no longer had to complete this task. At the direction of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, I was transferred to the North-Western Front to replace the front commander, Marshal Timoshenko.” No comments needed!

To be fair, let us recall that in the Soviet Union they wrote only about what they were allowed to write about. Perhaps that is why the chiefs of staff V.D. Sokolovsky and M.V. Zakharov did not leave any memories.

Many subsequently famous Soviet military leaders commanded armies, corps, divisions and individual units in the battles of Rzhev and Vyazma: P. A. Belov, A. Kh. Babajanyan, M. E. Katukov, A. L. Getman, M. M. Gromov , M. S. Khozin, S. A. Khudyakov and others. They commanded in different ways, some achieved good results. The armies of Generals V.S. Polenov and M.A. Reiter broke through the enemy defenses in the area of ​​​​Pogorely Gorodishche in August 1942, the corps of General M.D. Solomatin not only fought courageously when surrounded, but also broke out of the enemy ring. P. A. Belov proved himself to be a talented commander. Some of the named military leaders in post-war memoirs talk about the actions of their units and formations.

Others were less fortunate: the armies of I. I. Maslennikov, V. I. Shvetsov, and K. D. Golubev did not always operate successfully. D. D. Lelyushenko did not achieve success near Rzhev. The 30th Army under his command from January to November 1942 - 10 months for wartime - a long time - fought fierce battles for Rzhev, but was never able to take it. In September, the general’s divisions were already on the streets of the city, but... In his memoirs “Moscow - Stalingrad - Berlin - Prague. Notes of an Army Commander” D. D. Lelyushenko named some divisions and units that distinguished themselves in those battles, the names of some commanders and fighters, but nothing more. This listing did not even take two pages.

The silence of those battles by famous Soviet commanders and military leaders is evidence that there were no great successes on this section of the front. The state and the people had different memories of those battles.

The state memory was short-lived. After the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of February 23, 1943, where the events at Rzhev were placed on a par with the most significant battles and battles of the first years of the war, there was silence for many years. True, on August 3–5, 1943, the Supreme Commander personally drove through the territory of the Rzhev-Vyazma salient. On August 3 in Yukhnov he met with the command of the Western Front, on August 5 in the village of Khoroshevo near Rzhev - with the command of the Kalinin Front. This was practically his only trip to the front, although the front was already far away. N. N. Voronov, chief of artillery of the Red Army, who took part in the meeting with Stalin in Yukhnov, later called this trip “strange, unnecessary.” He wrote: “Why was it necessary to drive so many kilometers along a road torn up by tanks and tractors, which in some places had become impassable, and stop in a town far from the front? He couldn’t see anything from here; he didn’t meet anyone here except us. It was much more difficult to contact the fronts from here than from Moscow.” The same applies to Rzhev, which was completely destroyed. Undestroyed residential buildings were found only three kilometers from the city, in the village of Khoroshevo, where I. Stalin spent the night on the night of August 4-5 in a rural house.

The Commander-in-Chief’s interest in the cities “on the near approaches” to Moscow can only be explained by the fact that he wanted to personally see the sites of fierce battles on the approaches to the capital, he wanted to see Rzhev, this “thorn” that could not be “pulled out from under Moscow” anymore of the year.

Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin

Colonel General A.I. Eremenko, commander of the Kalinin Front troops at the house (left), where he met with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Village of Khoroshevo, Rzhev district, August 5, 1943. Photo by B. Vdovenko

“Stalin’s House” in the village of Khoroshevo, Rzhev district. Photo from the late 1990s.

The impressions from this trip were probably strong. It was not for nothing that I. Stalin mentioned it, although without naming the place, in his messages to both F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill. He wrote accordingly on August 8, 1943: “Only now, upon returning from the front, can I answer your message of July 16... I have to personally visit various sections of the front more often,” August 9 – “... I have to visit more often than usual , to go to the troops, to certain sectors of our front.” This trip of Stalin to the front was mentioned with the names of specific places S. M. Shtemenko, A. I. Eremenko. This trip was mentioned in some research work. Despite this, in Soviet times the fact of the trip was treated with skepticism, and only new publications in the 1990s, including memoirs of people who accompanied Stalin, destroyed mistrust.

Rzhev itself never doubted Stalin's arrival. The Rzhev Local History Museum houses the decision to perpetuate the memory of this event. There is a beautiful legend: supposedly the residents of the city after the war turned to Sam with a proposal to create a museum in the house where he stayed. Stalin allegedly replied that people don’t go to the museum often; let there be a library in this house. A library named after Stalin was opened in the house, and a new one was built for the owner of the house, in Rzhev. The library is still open and there is a small exhibition there in memory of the event.

Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on the Memorial in honor of the Yakut warriors. Rzhevsky district, 2000s.

A solemn ceremony at the Memorial of Glory to Siberian Soldiers in the village of Ploskoye, Belsky District, Tver Region. Late 1990s

The ancient Russian cities, destroyed almost to the ground, which were strongholds of the enemy on the Rzhev ledge, were revived from the dust after the war by people's labor. But only one Vyazma was included in a special resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the restoration of 15 oldest Russian cities. In 1946, a monument to General M. G. Efremov was unveiled in Vyazma.

The Soviet state ideological machine, being a monopolist in the interpretation of history, squeezed out information about military operations on the ledge, drop by drop. The reason is clear: when talking about them, one would have to talk about the failures of world-famous military triumphs and authorities, about the costly nature of military operations on the outskirts of Moscow. The famous historian V. M. Kulish in one of his works cited the words of the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Navy A. A. Epishev, which he said at a meeting with historians V. M. Kulish and N. G. Pavlenko in 1967 g.: “...They say: give them the black bread of truth. Why the hell do we need it if it’s not beneficial to us?”

Entrance to the German cemetery. Rzhev, 2005

The division of history into profitable and unprofitable, ignoring and hushing up failures, defeats, miscalculations, presenting defeats as victories, the state’s neglect of the individual led to the fact that many generations of politicians and military men in our country after the Great Patriotic War were brought up on the fact that losses can be justified by lofty patriotic and national goals, “that we won, no matter what the cost,” “death on the battlefield is glory,” “the laws of war are not written to the great.”

But, despite strict censorship, even what was published in memoir literature, what could be read between the lines in research papers, oral and unpublished stories of participants and local residents, enthusiasts who buried the dead, the number of names and numbers on the slabs Numerous mass graves made it possible to imagine a bloody meat grinder in the Rzhev, Belsky, Zubtsovsky, Sychevsky, Vyazemsky, Gzhatsky, Yukhnovsky forests and swamps. After the war, district military registration and enlistment offices and military archives were bombarded with thousands of letters from people looking for the graves of their dead or missing loved ones. Relatives came in thousands to the battlefields. Those who fought here were constantly drawn here.

E. M. Rzhevskaya came to Rzhev several times. On one of her trips to the village of Zaimishche, Rzhevsky district, she recorded the stories of the driver Sasha: “Here the dead are still waiting for the living to bury them. Sasha told me from the words of his mother: she, along with other women, went to mow distant meadows. They suddenly saw a soldier in an overcoat and helmet sitting in an overgrown trench. The women were stunned. They cried and rushed to him, but as soon as they touched him, he fell apart.”

The silence of the authorities caused bewilderment and indignation. Perhaps that is why in 1978 - on the 35th anniversary of the liberation - Rzhev, the only city on the territory of the salient, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

Entrance complex of the Russian Memorial. Rzhev, 2005

The people never forgot about the “Rzhev breakthrough”. Images of the people's memory of the battles near Rzhev as a bloody massacre are clearly expressed in poems that appeared after the war. Undoubtedly, the first and most powerful of them is A. Tvardovsky’s “I was killed near Rzhev.” It is dated 1945–1946. In August 1942, the author visited near Rzhev, but he was able to express what he saw there much later: “I was killed near Rzhev, / In a nameless swamp... / The front was burning without subside, / Like a scar on the body. / I was killed and I don’t know: / Is Rzhev ours, finally?.. / In the summer, in forty-two, / I was buried without a grave...” Actor M. Nozhkin created an idea of ​​the battles near Rzhev from the stories of his father who fought there. In 1985, M. Nozhkin wrote a song, the words of which also reflect the popular idea of ​​the bloody battle that unfolded around the Volga city: “Near Rzhev, the grass turned red for centuries from blood... / And there, underground, in three layers, in three layers, in three layer / Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers of Russia lie...". Then these images were repeated in different versions in poems by other authors: “My father remained unburied / Under the terrible Rzhev...” (N. Ignatiev, Tver); “The battalion died near Rzhev, / Seven people remained. / But he did not give up the village, / It was called Kosmarikha...” (G. Rozova, Rzhev).

In the 1950s, military burials were consolidated: from hundreds of thousands of individual graves and small burials, remains were transferred to large mass graves in populated areas. Often this was done formally. Devotees appeared who began to establish the names of the dead. Thus, teacher A. M. Kaloshina identified thousands of names of soldiers buried in a mass grave in the village of Polunino, north of Rzhev. As of 2006, the remains of 12,538 people lie here, all names are known. Monuments were erected on graves and obelisks were erected.

The search party movement began in the late 1970s. In 1988, the first Memory Watch took place. The results of the work of the search engines, their discovery and burial of thousands of soldiers who were not properly buried in their time, who were listed as missing in action, their criticism of the official figures for losses during the war years also became the reason that the state was forced not just to declare, but to pay practical attention on issues of perpetuating the memory of the fallen.

Representatives of all nations and nationalities of the Soviet Union took part in the battles on the Rzhev-Vyazma salient. In the 1980-1990s, residents and authorities of individual, wealthier regions began to create monuments to their fellow countrymen at the battle sites at their own expense. Thus, the government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) financed the creation of a Memorial in honor of Yakut warriors, which was opened in August 1994 near the village of Filkino, Rzhev district. In 2005, the Memorial was reconstructed again at the expense of Yakutia.

At the end of the 1980s, six Siberian regions - Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Kemerovo regions, Altai and Krasnoyarsk territories - signed an Agreement on the creation of a fund for the Memorial of Glory to Siberian Soldiers. The Tver region also participated in the Agreement. For several years, funds were collected, a project was developed, and construction was carried out. On August 14, 1996, near the village of Ploskoye, Belsky District, where in November 1942, during the offensive Operation Mars, soldiers of units and formations formed in Siberia broke through the defenses of German troops, the Memorial was opened.

Memorial to Soviet soldiers. Rzhev, 2005

Every year, on this day, delegations from Siberia come to the Belsky district. Local residents, participants in the events, relatives and fellow countrymen of those who fought, and Siberian search engines gather near the village of Ploskoye. They remember those 12.5 thousand people who are buried in the “Valley of Death”. Today, the Memorial on Belskaya Land has outgrown its local framework and is considered a monument to all Siberians who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War.

Political processes in the country in the second half of the 1980s - 1990s contributed to an information explosion, in particular, in the study of the history of the Great Patriotic War. The publication of new documents and research led to the emergence of new facts, which, together with the existing ones, destroyed the existing official version and made it possible to confidently interpret the military actions in the area of ​​the Rzhev salient as a battle. The change in the political situation in Russia allowed the German side to intensify its activities in the matter of perpetuating the memory of its fallen compatriots. In the 1990s, German prefabricated cemeteries began to be created in Russia in the places of the most brutal battles. Disputes about the possibility of creating such a cemetery in Rzhev have outgrown the scope of the region and spilled onto the pages of regional, and not only Tver, and Russian newspapers. Thousands of people bombarded the State Duma, Tver regional, Rzhev city and district government structures with letters of protest.

In 2000, he addressed the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation CEO Association for International Military Memorial Cooperation with a request for funding for the construction of a cemetery for Soviet soldiers in Rzhev. This would make it possible, as practice has shown, to relieve tension, “and sometimes even open confrontation between various social groups and public formations” caused by the arrangement of the German military cemetery. At the beginning of 2001, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Central Federal District made the same request to the head of the Russian government, who was concerned about the “increasing negative reaction of the public” and “the established persistently negative public opinion.” In September 2002, two cemeteries were opened in Rzhev, where the remains of the dead began to be buried. With joint funding from the Russian and German sides, the Russian Military Memorial was created, opened in May 2005.

During these same years, veterans, who usually fought in other sectors of the front, public organizations, regional authorities and, in part, residents of Rzhev began to talk about the need to perpetuate the Battle of Rzhev by awarding the city the title, if not “hero city,” then “city of military glory” [editorial] were different. – S.G.]. The objections of direct participants in the battles, military and regional historians that what happened on the Rzhev-Vyazma bridgehead could not be called “glorious” were not heard. People, not knowing the true history of the events, wanted to honor the memory of the victims, but they simply did not see any other options other than those that existed in Soviet times. A paradoxical situation arose: what the Soviet government preferred not to remember, since it was not a victorious page in its history, began to be called “glorious” by mass public consciousness in the late 1990s. A clear example of how historical memory changed the evaluative signs of an event from minus to plus.

War veterans at the opening of the Rzhev Memorial. May 2005

The President of the Russian Federation received proposals to establish the title “City of Military Glory” and assign it to some cities, including Rzhev. The pressure was so massive that in May 2006 it was adopted the federal law"About the honorary title Russian Federation"City of Military Glory". In February 2007, the administration of the Tver region, the city of Rzhev, and the Legislative Assembly of the Tver region sent a petition to the government of the Russian Federation to assign this title to the city. The same documents have been or are being prepared in Vyazma and Yukhnov.

How compatible true story events with her assessment today? Cities that were strongholds of the enemy, and were never taken by our troops until the enemy abandoned them (this does not apply to Yukhnov), are these “Cities of Military Glory”? Fulfillment of military duty no matter what, sacrifice and heroism, regardless of the outcome of the event, are undoubtedly worthy of memory and glory. But is it ethical to call the death of a large number of people and the failures of commanders “glorious”?! Perhaps there are other options for perpetuating the memory of the feat of the Soviet soldiers who fought and died on the Rzhev salient?

75 years ago, one of the most terrible tragedies in human history began - the Battle of Rzhev. This was Stalin's monstrous crime against the people. At the end of 1941, the Red Army had just moved the front away from Moscow and liberated the first regional city of Kalinin. The fresh divisions that arrived from Siberia were better able to fight in the Russian frosts. This gave the Red Army a clear advantage. However, Joseph Stalin, who was in the Kremlin, was so frightened by the prospect of a new German offensive on Moscow that he began to give crazy orders, as a result of which several million soldiers died. Near Rzhev, as a result of Stalin’s cowardice and mediocrity and the Red commanders’ stupid execution of his criminal orders, almost all of the Siberian divisions were killed.

“We advanced on Rzhev through corpse fields,” Pyotr Mikhin exhaustively describes the summer battles. He says in the book of memoirs: “Ahead is the “valley of death.” There is no way to bypass or bypass it: a telephone cable is laid along it - it is broken, and at any cost it must be quickly connected. You crawl over the corpses, and they are piled in three layers, swollen, teeming with worms, and emitting a sickening sweet smell of decomposition. human bodies. The explosion of a shell drives you under the corpses, the ground shakes, the corpses fall on you, showering you with worms, a fountain of noxious stench hits your face... It’s raining, there’s knee-deep water in the trenches. ... If you survive, keep your eyes open again, hit, shoot, maneuver, trample on the corpses lying under the water. But they are soft, slippery, and stepping on them is disgusting and regrettable.”

The commander of the Western Front, Zhukov, wrote: “In general, I must say, the Supreme Commander realized that the unfavorable situation that developed in the summer of 1942 was also a consequence of his personal mistake made when approving the plan of action for our troops in the summer campaign of this year.”

The millions of victims at Rzhev were carefully hushed up by Soviet historiography and are still being hushed up to this day. It is because of this that many soldiers have not yet been buried, and their remains are scattered throughout the Rzhev forests. In which state is this possible? What people can look at this with indifference? The truth about the Battle of Rzhev began to emerge only after the collapse of the USSR and thanks to the efforts of Rzhev local historians and the Rzhev public.

Rzhev firefighters put forward a popular initiative to award Rzhev the title of “city of soldier’s glory,” namely soldier’s glory, not military glory. For the Red commanders had nothing to be proud of in this battle - it was the soldiers who bore the brunt. Rzhev local historians found support among German researchers of the history of the Second World War. They provided materials from their side. A terrible picture of a senseless murder, similar to a cult sacrifice, began to emerge, when unarmed Soviet soldiers were driven towards German machine guns, and were finished off from behind by well-armed NKVD barrage detachments. Thanks to the activity of Russian and German researchers and local historians, a memorial appeared in memory of those killed near Rzhev.

The calls of Rzhev local historians and the general public were finally heard in the Kremlin: the title “city of military glory” was introduced, but not “soldier’s”, as the public proposed. And this title was awarded to Rzhev, along with many other cities, including rear ones. Our authorities do not want to repent and ask for forgiveness from the millions of innocent soldiers killed.

Recently, as a mockery of the memory of the millions of innocent souls of soldiers who died near Rzhev, the authorities in the Rzhev region erected a monument to Stalin, who left Moscow for the only time towards the front; he visited Rzhev, which had already been liberated for several months by that time. A terrible and disgusting story. And it’s a shame that the governor of the Tver region, Igor Rudenya, and the respected deputy from United Russia, Vladimir Vasiliev, took part in this action. Maybe they don't know what they're doing? Maybe they don't understand what an insult they are doing to the public?

On January 5, 1942, Joseph Stalin gave the order to liberate Rzhev from the Nazis within a week. It was completed only after 14 months. Rzhev was occupied by German troops on October 15, 1941. The city was liberated from January 1942 to March 1943. The battles near Rzhev were among the most fierce, groups of fronts carried out offensive operations one after another, losses on both sides were catastrophic. The fighting took place not only in the Rzhev region, but also in the Moscow, Tula, Kalinin, and Smolensk regions. The Battle of Rzhev is the bloodiest in the history of mankind. “We flooded them with rivers of blood and piled mountains of corpses,” this is how writer Viktor Astafiev characterized its results.

WAS THERE A BATTLE?

Official military historians have never acknowledged the existence of the battle and avoid this term, arguing for the lack of continuous operations, as well as the fact that it is difficult to separate the end and results of the Battle of Moscow from the Battle of Rzhev. In addition, introducing the term “Battle of Rzhev” into historical science means recording a major military tactical failure.

Veteran and historian Pyotr Mikhin, who went through the war from Rzhev to Prague, in the book “Artillerymen, Stalin gave the order! We died to win” states: “If it weren’t for Stalin’s haste and impatience, and if instead of six unsupported offensive operations, in each of which just a little bit was missing for victory, one or two crushing operations had been carried out, there would have been no Rzhev tragedy.” In popular memory, these events were called “Rzhev meat grinder”, “breakthrough”. The expression “they drove us to Rzhev” still exists. And the very expression “driven” in relation to soldiers appeared in popular speech precisely during those tragic events.

“RUS, STOP DIVIDING CRUSKS, WE WILL FIGHT”

At the beginning of January 1942, the Red Army, having defeated the Germans near Moscow and liberated Kalinin (Tver), approached Rzhev. On January 5, the draft plan for the general offensive of the Red Army in the winter of 1942 was discussed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Stalin believed that it was necessary to launch a general offensive in all main directions - from Lake Ladoga to the Black Sea. An order was given to the commander of the Kalinin Front: “In no case, no later than January 12, capture Rzhev... Confirm receipt, convey execution. I. Stalin."

On January 8, 1942, the Kalinin Front began the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation. Then it was not only possible to interrupt the German defense 15-20 km west of Rzhev, but also to free the inhabitants of several villages. But then the fighting dragged on: the Germans fought back fiercely, the Soviet army suffered huge losses, and the continuous front line was torn apart. Enemy aircraft almost continuously bombed and shelled our units, and at the end of January the Germans began to encircle us: their advantage in tanks and aircraft was great.

Rzhevit resident Gennady Boytsov, who was a child at the time of those events, recalls: back in early January, a “corn farmer” arrived and dropped leaflets - news from his native army: “From the text of the leaflet, I forever remembered the following lines: “Mash up the beer, kvass - we’ll be with you on Christmas " The villages were agitated and agitated; Residents' hopes for a quick release after Christmas gave way to doubts. They saw Red Army soldiers with red stars on their caps on the evening of January 9.”

Writer Vyacheslav Kondratiev, who took part in the battles: “Our artillery was practically silent. The artillerymen had three or four shells in reserve and saved them in case of an enemy tank attack. And we were advancing. The field along which we walked forward was under fire from three sides. The tanks that supported us were immediately disabled by enemy artillery. The infantry was left alone under machine-gun fire. In the first battle, we left a third of the company killed on the battlefield. From unsuccessful, bloody attacks, daily mortar attacks, and bombings, the units quickly melted away. We didn't even have trenches. It's hard to blame anyone for that. Because of the spring thaw, our food supply was poor, famine began, it quickly exhausted the people, and the exhausted soldier could no longer dig the frozen ground. For the soldiers, everything that happened then was difficult, very difficult, but still everyday life. They didn’t know it was a feat.”

The writer Konstantin Simonov also spoke about the difficult battles at the beginning of 1942: “The second half of winter and the beginning of spring turned out to be inhumanly difficult for our further offensive. And the repeated unsuccessful attempts to take Rzhev became in our memory almost a symbol of all the dramatic events experienced then.”

From the memoirs of Mikhail Burlakov, a participant in the battles for Rzhev: “For a long time we were given crackers instead of bread. They were divided as follows - they were laid out in equal piles. One of the soldiers turned around and was asked who, pointing to this or that pile. The Germans knew this and, to make jokes in the morning, they would shout at us over the loudspeaker: “Rus, stop dividing crackers, we’ll fight.”

ARMAMENT AND TRAINING.

Good technical equipment gave the Germans a multiple advantage. The infantry was supported by tanks and armored personnel carriers, with which there was communication during the battle. Using the radio, it was possible to call and direct aircraft, and adjust artillery fire directly from the battlefield.

The Red Army lacked either communications equipment or the level of training for combat operations. The Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead became the site of one of the largest tank battles of 1942. During the summer Rzhev-Sychevsk operation, a tank battle took place, in which up to 1,500 tanks took part on both sides. And during the autumn-winter operation, 3,300 tanks were deployed on the Soviet side alone.

Many outstanding military leaders attended the Rzhev Academy: Konev, Zakharov, Bulganin... Until August 1942, the Western Front was commanded by Zhukov. But the Battle of Rzhev became one of the most inglorious pages in their biographies.

“THE GERMAN COULD NOT STAND OUR STUPID PERSISTENCE”

The next attempt to capture Rzhev was the Rzhev-Sychevsk offensive operation - one of the most fierce battles of the war. Only the top leadership knew about the offensive plans, radio and telephone conversations and all correspondence were prohibited, orders were transmitted orally.

The German defense on the Rzhev salient was organized almost perfectly: each settlement was turned into an independent defense center with pillboxes and iron caps, trenches and communication passages. In front of the front edge, 20-10 meters away, solid wire barriers were installed in several rows. The arrangement of the Germans could be called relatively comfortable: birch trees served as railings for stairs and passages, almost every department had a dugout with electrical wiring and two-tier bunks. Some dugouts even had beds, good furniture, dishes, samovars, and rugs.

Soviet troops were in much more difficult conditions. A participant in the battles on the Rzhev salient, A. Shumilin, recalled in his memoirs: “We suffered heavy losses and immediately received new reinforcements. Every week new faces appeared in the company. Among the newly arriving Red Army soldiers there were mainly villagers. Among them there were also city employees, the lowest ranks. The arriving Red Army soldiers were not trained in military affairs. They had to acquire soldiering skills during battles. They were led and hurried to the front line. ... For us, trenchmen, the war was not fought according to the rules and not according to conscience. The enemy, armed to the teeth, had everything, and we had nothing. It was not a war, but a massacre. But we climbed forward. The German could not stand our stupid stubbornness. He abandoned villages and fled to new frontiers. Every step forward, every inch of land cost us, the trenchers, many lives.”

Some soldiers left the front line. In addition to a heavily armed detachment, usually numbering about 150 people, special groups of machine gunners were created in each rifle regiment, tasked with preventing the fighters from retreating. At the same time, a situation arose that the barrier detachments with machine guns and machine guns were inactive, since the soldiers and commanders did not look back, but the same machine guns and machine guns were not enough for the soldiers themselves on the front line. Pyotr Mikhin testifies to this.

“We often found ourselves without food and ammunition in deserted swamps and without any hope of help from our own. The most offensive thing for a soldier in war is when, with all his courage, endurance, ingenuity, dedication, and selflessness, he cannot defeat a well-fed, arrogant, well-armed enemy occupying a more advantageous position - for reasons beyond his control: due to lack of weapons, ammunition, food, aviation support, remoteness of the rear,” writes Mikhin.

A participant in the summer battles near Rzhev, writer A. Tsvetkov, in his front-line notes, recalls that when the tank brigade in which he fought was transferred to the near rear, he was horrified: the entire area was covered with the corpses of soldiers: “There was a stench and stench all around. Many feel sick, many vomit. The smell of smoldering human bodies is so unbearable for the body. It’s a terrible picture, I’ve never seen anything like it...”

Mortar platoon commander L. Volpe: “Somewhere ahead to the right we could see [the village] Cheap, which we got at an extremely high price. The entire clearing was strewn with bodies... I remember the completely dead crew of an anti-tank gun, lying near its cannon turned upside down in a huge crater. The gun commander was visible with binoculars in his hand. The loader holds the cord in his hand. The carriers, frozen forever with their shells that never hit the breech.”

The offensive did not bring much results: it was possible to capture only small bridgeheads on the western banks of the rivers. The commander of the Western Front, Zhukov, wrote: “In general, I must say, the Supreme Commander realized that the unfavorable situation that developed in the summer of 1942 was also a consequence of his personal mistake made when approving the plan of action for our troops in the summer campaign of this year.”

FIGHTING “FOR A TINY TUBERCLE”

The chronicle of tragic events is sometimes shocking with amazing details: for example, the name of the Boynya River, along the banks of which the 274th Infantry Division was advancing: in those days, according to the participants, it was red with blood.

From the memoirs of veteran Boris Gorbachevsky “The Rzhev Meat Grinder”: “Not taking into account the losses - and they were huge! - the command of the 30th Army continued to send more and more battalions to the slaughter, this is the only way to call what I saw on the field. Both commanders and soldiers understood more and more clearly the senselessness of what was happening: whether the villages for which they laid down their lives were taken or not, this did not help in the least to solve the problem, to take Rzhev. Increasingly, the soldier was overcome by indifference, but they explained to him that he was wrong in his too simple trench reasoning...”

On September 21, Soviet assault groups broke into the northern part of Rzhev, and the “urban” part of the battle began. The enemy repeatedly launched counterattacks, individual houses and entire neighborhoods changed hands several times. Every day German aircraft bombed and shelled Soviet positions.

Writer Ilya Erenburg wrote in his book of memoirs “Years, People, Life”: “I will not forget Rzhev. For weeks there were battles for five or six broken trees, for the wall of a broken house, and a tiny hillock.”

The 17-month occupation of Rzhev is the greatest tragedy in its centuries-old history. This is a story of the resilience of the human spirit, and meanness, and betrayal.

The Rzhev city concentration camp operated in the city. Writer Konstantin Vorobyov, who went through the hell of the camp, wrote: “Who and when was this place cursed? Why is there still no snow in this strict square, framed by rows of thorns, in December? The cold fluff of December snow is eaten with crumbs of earth. The moisture has been sucked out of the holes and grooves throughout the entire expanse of this damned square! Patiently and silently waiting for the slow, cruelly inexorable death from hunger, Soviet prisoners of war..."

But the main tragedy of Rzhev was that residents died not only from backbreaking labor in the construction of enemy defensive fortifications of the city, but also from shelling and bombing of the Soviet army: from January 1942 to March 1943, the city was shelled by our artillery and bombed by our aircraft. Even the first directive from Headquarters on the tasks of capturing Rzhev said: “to smash the city of Rzhev with might and main, without stopping in the face of serious destruction of the city.” The “Plan for the Use of Aviation...” in the summer of 1942 contained: “On the night of July 30-31, 1942, destroy Rzhev and the Rzhev railway junction.” Having been a major German stronghold for a long time, the city was subject to destruction.

"RUSSIAN HUMAN RINK"

On January 17, 1943, the city of Velikiye Luki, 240 kilometers west of Rzhev, was liberated. The threat of encirclement became real for the Germans.

The German command, having used up all its reserves in winter battles, proved to Hitler that it was necessary to leave Rzhev and shorten the front line. On February 6, Hitler gave permission for the withdrawal of troops. On March 2, 1943, the Germans themselves abandoned the city. For the retreat, intermediate defensive lines were created, roads were built along which military equipment, military equipment, food, and livestock were exported. Thousands of civilians were driven to the west, allegedly of their own free will.

Leaving Rzhev, the Nazis drove almost the entire surviving population of the city - 248 people - into the Intercession Old Believer Church on Kalinin Street and mined the church. For two days in hunger and cold, hearing explosions in the city, the residents of Rzhevites expected death every minute, and only on the third day did Soviet sappers remove explosives from the basement, find and clear a mine. The released V. Maslova recalled: “I left the church with a 60-year-old mother and a daughter of two years and seven months. Some junior lieutenant gave his daughter a piece of sugar, and she hid it and asked: “Mom, is it snow?”

Rzhev was a continuous minefield. Even the ice-bound Volga was densely strewn with mines. Sappers walked ahead of the rifle units and subunits, making passages in the minefields. Signs began to appear on the main streets with the inscription: “Checked. There are no mines."

On the day of liberation - March 3, 1943 - 362 people remained in the completely destroyed city with a pre-war population of 56 thousand, including prisoners of the Intercession Church.

At the beginning of August 1943, a rare event happened - Stalin left the capital for the only time towards the front. He visited Rzhev and from here gave the order for the first victorious salute in Moscow in honor of the capture of Orel and Belgorod. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief wanted to see with his own eyes the city from where the threat of a new Nazi campaign against Moscow had been coming for almost a year and a half. It is also curious that Stalin was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union on March 6, 1943, after the liberation of Rzhev.

LOSSES

The losses of both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Rzhev have not been truly calculated. But it is obvious that they were simply gigantic. If Stalingrad went down in history as the beginning of a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War, then Rzhev - as a bloody struggle of attrition.

From the book of memoirs of Pyotr Mikhin: “Ask any of the three front-line soldiers you met, and you will be convinced that one of them fought near Rzhev. How many of our troops were there! ... The commanders who fought there were bashfully silent about the battles of Rzhev. And the fact that this silence crossed out the heroic efforts, inhuman trials, courage and self-sacrifice of millions of Soviet soldiers, the fact that this was an outrage against the memory of almost a million victims - this, it turns out, is not so important.”

According to TASS materials

During the major Soviet offensive in the winter of 1941-1942, the goal of which was the defeat of the German Army Group Center, the troops of the Kalinin Front under the command of General Ivan Konev with the forces of five armies and one cavalry corps (total number of 1 million 59 thousand people) had before themselves the task of destroying the 9th German Army opposing them.

After Soviet troops took Kalinin, they went on the offensive on a wide front east of another Volga city - Rzhev. January 4, 1942, Soviet motorized brigades of the 29th and 4th shock armies. having bypassed the enemy, they were already 8 kilometers west of Rzhev.

Hitler gave the 9th Army the order: “The 9th Army doesn’t take a step back! Hold the line on the Volga, at all costs!”

Winter paralyzed all advances of German troops. But it gave the Red Army soldiers a great advantage. They had not only motor sleighs capable of moving through deep snow, good quality winter clothing, but most of all, which, unlike the German ones, did not fail in severe frost.
In mid-January, advance detachments of General Belov's Soviet cavalry corps reached the Sychevka area south of Rzhev and cut the Rzhev-Vyazma railway. At the same time, three airborne brigades were landed in the Vyazma area, and the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps broke through the enemy defenses in the Yukhnov area in a northwestern direction and found itself deep in the rear of German troops, heading to join forces with units of the Kalinin Front.
Thus was created real threat complete coverage and encirclement of the entire 9th German Army.

The position of the Germans was critical - in fact, the 9th Army found itself in a half-cauldron, with completely exhausted soldiers, without reinforcements and reserves. The communication system between units and unified coordination of command were disrupted, the supply of food and ammunition to the troops via the only railway stopped and, on top of that, the army commander, Colonel General Strauss, was out of action.

On January 16, 1942, Panzer General Walter Model was appointed commander of the 9th Army.

Small, wiry and agile, he was popular in parts of the 41st Tank Corps. Everyone knew that where Model was, there was a tangible presence of military success: where he was, the most daring plans succeeded, the most critical situations were resolved. And it was not only the exceptional clarity of the orders he gave - everywhere, at the very front positions, the commander appeared personally. He could unexpectedly jump out of an all-terrain vehicle near battalion headquarters or ride on horseback through deep snow to the front lines, where he inspired, scolded, instructed, and ultimately went into the attack at the head of the battalion with a pistol in his hand. Largely thanks to this presence on the front line, the fate of the upcoming battle was decided.

The model understood that defensive actions alone could not change the situation. “Attack, seize the initiative from the enemy, impose your will on him,” was the recipe Model prescribed to his subordinates. And although the overwhelming numerical superiority was on the side of the enemy (five Soviet armies - the 22nd, 29th, 30th, 31st and 39th armies - acted against his 9th Army), he went on the offensive.

It started at a temperature of 45 degrees below zero. Regimental and divisional commanders asked the army commander to postpone the operation, to which Model answered them:
- What for? It won't get any warmer tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But the enemy does not curtail his offensive.

Model's plan looked simple. He sent the reinforced 1st Panzer Division and elements of the newly arrived Reich Division from Sychevka northwest to Osuisky to strike the flank of the advanced Soviet units. On January 22, Model ordered the 6th Corps to attack from the area west of Rzhev, striking the Soviet units of the 39th and 29th armies. At the same time, the 23rd German Corps - cut off in the Olenin area - struck from the west, heading to link up with the 6th Corps. The operation of two wedges of the German offensive against the Soviet breakthrough between Nikolsky and Solomin was carried out by German units at the limit of their strength, but it was a success. On January 23, soldiers from the lead units of the 23rd Corps and Major Recke's battle group from the 6th Corps shook hands.

Two “snow roads” laid by the Red Army soldiers across the Volga were cut, and Soviet corps from the 29th and 39th armies (7 rifle, 3 motorized and 3 cavalry divisions) found themselves cut off from their rear communications and supply bases.

Model seized the initiative on the battlefield between Sychevka and Volga, and was no longer going to give it back to the enemy. The first thing the new commander did was strengthen the newly acquired corridor connecting the 6th and 23rd corps. Soviet troops desperately tried to break through the barrier and restore communication with their cut-off divisions. The model could not allow this.

To implement the task, he chose himself the right person. He knew how to find the right people to perform particularly difficult tasks. This time it was Obersturmbannführer Otto Kumm, commander of the Der Fuhrer regiment from the Reich division. Kumm and his regiment were transferred to the Volga - to the very place where the Soviet 29th Army crossed the frozen river.

Hold on at all costs,” Model ordered Kumm. “At any cost,” the general emphasized.
Kumm saluted.
- That's right, Mister General!

On January 28, Model on the southern sector of the front launched a counterattack to completely encircle the cut-off units of the 29th and 39th Soviet armies. The enemy understood what was at stake and desperately resisted.

The fight was life and death. Every forest hut in the deep snow turned into a fortress, the ruins of any house in the village into a hellish inferno. More than once critical situations were created, which could only be resolved thanks to the superhuman efforts of mortally tired soldiers. During the day, Model spent about an hour studying maps, and the remaining ten were with the troops. Everywhere he appeared, the insanely exhausted unit commanders and rank and file seemed to get a second wind.

On February 4, the ring around eleven Soviet divisions, representing the main forces of the two armies, closed.

Meanwhile, Kumm with his regiment of 650 people, who took up positions near the village of Klepnino along the ice-covered Volga, day after day repelled the attacks of fresh units of the Red Army rushing to connect with their encircled divisions. It was there, in that place near Klepnino, that the fate of the battle for Rzhev was decided.

Despite its small numbers, Kumm's regiment was well equipped. At the forefront there was an 88mm anti-aircraft gun. The anti-tank destroyer company was armed with 50mm anti-tank guns. The heavy weapons company consisted of a platoon of light infantry guns, and two more platoons had 37mm anti-tank guns, as well as a battery of assault guns from the 189th battalion. But even in this situation, the forces of the defenders still remained more than modest compared to the masses of the attacking Soviet units, consisting of several rifle and tank brigades.

By February 3, Lieutenant Peterman's thirteen 50mm anti-tank guns had knocked out twenty T-34s. In five hours, the gun crew of the gun stationed there was replaced three times, and the neighboring crew crushed the T-34. Two dozen destroyed Soviet tanks froze before reaching the German positions.

On the sixth day, thirty light Soviet tanks appeared in front of the 10th Company's position. They stopped fifty meters away and then began firing at infantry dugouts and machine-gun emplacements. They poured fire on them for an hour and then drove back into the forest. Two hours later, a man crawled to the battalion headquarters from the location of the 10th company. It was Rothenführer (corporal) Wagner. They helped him up and led him into the room. Heavily wounded, with frostbitten hands, he tried to get up and report to the battalion commander as expected. But he fell and reported lying on the floor:
- Hauptsturmführer (captain), I am the only survivor from my company. Everyone died.
Wagner convulsed, and a second later the 10th company finally ceased to exist.

A gap at least a kilometer wide appeared at the line. The command of the 6th Army Corps sent 120 people - drivers, cooks, shoemakers and tailors - to repair the hole. These 120 people took the positions of the 10th company, but they had absolutely no experience in conducting this kind of combat. After the mortar attack, Soviet soldiers rushed to attack them shouting “Hurray!” This turned out to be too much for the nerves of the rear guards. They ran and were killed one by one like rabbits.
When it got dark, the Red Army soldiers were only 50 meters away from the headquarters of the Kumm regiment in Klepenin.

Starting from the regiment commander and ending with the drivers, everyone prepared to repel the attack, holding carbines, machine guns and machine guns in their hands. The staff officers were supported by an anti-tank gun and soldiers of the 561st Anti-Tank Fighter Battalion, who were now fighting as infantrymen.

No matter how many times the Red Army soldiers rushed to attack, they were unable to get closer than 15 meters to the headquarters. The words of combat reports from the battle area are striking in their monstrous simplicity: “On the approaches to Klepenin there were mountains of corpses lying around.”

The corps sent an infantry regiment to help. But Soviet soldiers killed him almost completely. On the night of February 6-7, the enemy finally broke into the positions of the 2nd company with the forces of the battalion. The brutal hand-to-hand combat lasted four hours. The 2nd company of the regiment "Der Fuhrer" was killed down to the last man.

At this moment, a motorcycle battalion of the Reich division arrived in Klepnino. In addition, units of the 189th Assault Gun Battalion under the command of Major Mummert were transferred to help Kumm. 210mm mortars entered the position and poured fire from their shells on the Soviet infantry that had broken through the "Russian Grove". The grove changed owners ten times. After the eleventh attack it remained in the hands of Major Mummert's 14th Reconnaissance Battalion.

Kumm confidently held his position on the northern tip big boiler. The relief brigades of the Soviet 39th Army were unable to cross the Volga. They bled to death. The bodies of dead Soviet soldiers lay in thousands along the bend of the Volga.
The battle was coming to an end. The Soviet 29th Army and the main part of the 39th were destroyed. Model, who received the rank of colonel general on February 1, managed to turn the tide of events in the winter battle on the Central Front. The following data speaks about the scale of the battles and their bloodshed: 5 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were captured, 27 thousand remained lying on the battlefields. Six Soviet rifle divisions were completely destroyed, and another nine, plus five tank brigades, were seriously battered.

The Germans also suffered heavy losses. On February 18, when Obersturmbannführer Otto Kumm reported to division headquarters, Model happened to be there. He told Kumm:

I know that there is almost nothing left of your regiment. But I can't do without you. What is the current number of personnel?

Kumm pointed towards the window:
- Mister Colonel General, my regiment has been built.

The model looked out the window. Thirty-five soldiers and officers stood in front of the headquarters.

Despite the fact that more than seven decades have passed since the days when the Great Patriotic War ended, the Battle of Rzhev to this day continues to attract the attention of both professional researchers and everyone who wants to preserve the memory of past years. Many materials related to it became available to the general public only in recent years, and made it possible to see the events that took place in greater detail.

Enemy bridgehead on the outskirts of Moscow

As evidenced by materials on the history of the Great Patriotic War, the offensive of Soviet troops on the Western Front in the period 1941-1942 led to the formation of the so-called Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge. This term is usually understood as the territory occupied by the Germans, which measured 200 km along the front and went almost 160 km in depth. Due to its strategically advantageous position, it was considered by the German command as the most convenient springboard for a general attack on Moscow.

For this purpose, the Nazis concentrated 2/3 of all the forces of the Army Center on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge. In this situation, the Battle of Rzhev of 1942-1943, which lasted for 13 months with minor interruptions, was a large-scale military operation, thanks to which the enemy’s plans were not destined to come true. It was carried out by the forces of the Kalinin and Western fronts.

Important strategic operation

The term adopted today - the Battle of Rzhev, includes a whole series of individual offensive operations, the purpose of which was to push the Germans as far as possible from Moscow, and, by clearing the territory of the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bulge, thereby depriving them of a strategic advantage.

Fulfilling the task assigned to them, Soviet troops already in the first months of the operation liberated Mozhaisk, Kirov, Lyudinovo, Vereya, Medyn and Sukhinichi from the enemy, which allowed them, developing the offensive, to divide the German forces into several separate groups and then destroy them.

Tragic mistakes of command

However, such a favorable development of events was prevented by Stalin’s unexpected decision to transfer a significant part of the 1st Shock Army under the command of Kuznetsov and almost the entire 16th Army of Rokossovsky to other directions. The remaining units, immeasurably weakened by such an untimely redeployment of the main forces, were unable to complete the operation begun, as a result of which the initiative passed to the enemy, and the Battle of Rzhev fizzled out.

Trying to correct the situation, in the last days of January 1942, Stalin ordered significant reinforcements to be sent to Rzhev, and the 33rd Army of Lieutenant General M.G. was urgently transferred there. Efremova. However, instead of the intended breakthrough of the enemy’s defense, this group of troops itself was surrounded, as a result of which it was destroyed, and its commander was a former hero Civil War, committed suicide.

This failed operation resulted in a real tragedy that brought huge losses to the Soviet army. According to official data alone, there were about 273 thousand killed, missing or captured. Only a little more than eight hundred soldiers of Efremov’s destroyed army were able to escape from the enemy ring.

Liberation of Rzhev

However, despite such a tragic failure, the Battle of Rzhev continued. At the beginning of June 1942, the Supreme Command Headquarters set the task of liberating a number of key cities in the Kalinin region, and primarily Rzhev, from the Germans. The forces of two fronts were involved in its implementation. As before, it was Western, commanded by G.K. Zhukov, and Kalininsky - I.S. Konev.

The offensive on Rzhev began on July 30, and the first blow of the united fronts was so powerful that very soon the troops approached the city at a distance of 6 km. It seemed that the goal had been achieved and the Battle of Rzhev, the significance of which was so great, was close to a victorious conclusion. But meanwhile, overcoming this last line of enemy defense took almost a month, and cost several thousand soldiers' lives.

When, finally, at the end of August, the advanced units of the Soviet troops entered the city, the political department of the front decided to invite the official representatives of the American President Roosevelt, who were then in the country, to show off the victory that the Battle of Rzhev brought to them. However, as it soon became clear, the triumph was premature. Within a few days, having brought up reinforcements, the Germans regained their previous positions.

Planning for Operation Mars

Having changed tactics, the Soviet command set the forces of the united fronts the task of overcoming the defense line of the Center group, and thereby creating the preconditions for the elimination of all enemy troops gathered on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky salient. The location of the decisive strike was chosen to be the area of ​​the least concentration of enemy forces. It was located between the Osuga and Gzhat rivers. No offensive has yet been undertaken on it. The operation was codenamed "Mars".

The planned offensive also pursued another important goal - with its help, the high command intended to divert significant German forces from Stalingrad, where the battle was entering its decisive phase. For this purpose, as a form of misinformation, the Germans were given information that significantly overestimated the number of Soviet troops sent to break through the defenses of the Center group.

An offensive that turned into a new tragedy

At this stage, the Battle of Rzhev, the losses in which even then exceeded 300 thousand people, began, as before, with temporary successes. The forces of the 39th Army with a lightning strike knocked out the enemy from the village of Molodoy Tud, and, continuing the offensive, cleared the Tula region of enemies. At the same time, the 1st Mechanized Corps dealt a significant blow to the enemy in the area of ​​the city of Bely. But very soon this attempt to turn the tide of the battle turned into incalculable losses and bloodshed for our soldiers.

Having stopped the advance of the Soviet troops with a powerful and unexpected counterattack, the Nazis destroyed the 20th Army and surrounded two corps - the 6th Tank and the 2nd Guards Cavalry. Their fate was equally tragic. G.K. Zhukov tried to save the situation. He insisted on continuing the offensive, but, despite all his efforts, new attempts to break through the enemy’s defenses also failed.

By December, the results of the Battle of Rzhev were catastrophic. Only, according to official data, the failed Operation Mars cost the lives of 100 thousand Soviet troops. Many researchers believe that this data is also very incomplete. The year 1942, which was coming to an end, did not bring the long-awaited victory at Rzhev.

"Buffalo" is losing ground

Analyzing the current situation, the German command understood that the Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge formed during the previous battles was their most vulnerable place, and sooner or later the troops located on its territory would be surrounded. In this regard, Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, who commanded this group of troops, turned to Hitler with a request for permission to withdraw the formations entrusted to him to a new line of defense passing through the city of Dorogobuzh.

After receiving the corresponding order from Berlin, the Germans began to implement it. This large-scale withdrawal operation was codenamed “Wuffel,” which translated means “Buffalo.” The enemy managed to carry it out with virtually no losses, which, according to military historians, was the result of well-thought-out and well-planned actions.

Liberation of the city of Rzhev

By the end of March 1943, the Germans abandoned the entire Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge, battles for which continued throughout last year. After their departure, they left the cities of Vyazma, Gzhatsk, Olenino and Bely completely burnt and destroyed.

Pursuing the retreating enemy, Soviet troops moved forward, and on March 3, 1943, the 30th Army, completely re-equipped after earlier losses, entered Rzhev. The city turned out to be practically empty, only the rearguard of the 9th Army of the Wehrmacht, which had retreated by that time, remained in position, creating the illusion of the presence of the Germans.

Leaving Rzhev behind, the Soviet troops continued to develop their offensive, and were forced to stop only after reaching the city of Dorogobuzh, where the enemy had created a powerful defense line. It became obvious that at this stage further advance was impossible, and the fighting took on a positional character. It was possible to dislodge the enemy from the line he occupied only in the summer of 1943 after the successful completion of the operation near Kursk.

The price of victory in the Battle of Rzhev

According to historians, the events that unfolded in the period 1942-1943 on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge are one of the bloodiest episodes of the Great Patriotic War. No wonder they were popularly called “Rzhev meat grinder” and “Prorva”.

The truth about the Battle of Rzhev, and about those losses that were the result of rash and hasty decisions of the command and Stalin personally, was hidden for many years. And she was truly terrifying. The irretrievable losses of the Soviet troops, which include those killed, missing, captured and those who died from wounds in hospitals, amounted to 605 thousand people, according to the most conservative estimates. And these bloody statistics reflect only the picture of the battles of 1942-1943 on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky ledge.

Dead city

The city of Rzhev, which was at the center of hostilities for 13 months, was completely destroyed by both German shells and Soviet artillery and air strikes during attempts to liberate it by the time the Germans finally abandoned it. Of the 5,442 residential buildings, only 298 remained relatively intact.

There were also huge casualties among the civilian population. It was established that out of 20 thousand residents of the city who found themselves under occupation, by March 1943, only 150 people remained alive. All these data allow us to imagine how dearly the Battle of Rzhev was won, the events of which will never be erased from the memory of the people.

Result of the battle

However, one should not lose sight of the enormous significance that the Battle of Rzhev had during the war. Thanks to the stubborn offensive actions of the Soviet troops, the Germans were forced to retreat, which made it possible to move the front line away from Moscow by more than 160 km. In addition, the battle near Rzhev attracted significant enemy forces and contributed to the successful completion Battle of Stalingrad. It is also impossible not to take into account the moral factor, since the news of the liberation of Rzhev had a beneficial effect on the morale of the entire Soviet army.

When we hear the word “battle”, we mentally imagine a battle on some field, where during the day it is decided which of the rivals will be the winner. This terminology is familiar and understandable. But the Battle of Rzhev was different. It covered a colossal period of time and was a series of battles over two years.

Rzhev-Vyazma operation

The generally accepted time frame occupied by the Battle of Rzhev (January 8, 1942-March 31, 1943). During these days there were many periods of calm or trench warfare, when the troops did not launch offensives.

At the beginning of 1942, it was possible to push the Wehrmacht forces back from Moscow. But the counteroffensive, which became one of the turning points of the war, continued. The bet required the highest possible result. The Center group was located in this region.

Soviet forces on the Western and Kalinin Fronts were to dismember, encircle and destroy this force. In the first days of the January counteroffensive, starting from the 8th, everything went according to plan. It was possible to liberate Vereya, Kirov, Mozhaisk, Medyn, Sukhinichi and Lyudinovo. The prerequisites appeared for dividing the “Center” into several isolated groups.

Environment

However, already on the 19th, by order of Joseph Stalin, part of the attacking forces was transferred to other fronts. In particular, Kuznetsov's 1st Shock Army was sent to the Novgorod region near Demyansk, and Rokossovsky's 16th Army was redeployed to the south. This significantly reduced the silt of the Soviet troops. The remaining units simply did not have enough resources to complete the operation. The initiative was lost.

At the end of January, the 33rd Army under the command of Efremov was sent to Rzhev. These units again tried to break through the enemy’s defenses, but in the end they themselves found themselves surrounded. In April, the 33rd was destroyed, and Mikhail Efremov committed suicide.

The Soviet operation failed. According to official statistics, losses amounted to 776 thousand people, of which 272 thousand were irrecoverable. Only a few of the 33rd Army broke out of the encirclement, i.e. 889 soldiers.

Battles for Rzhev

In the summer of 1942, the Headquarters set the task of capturing cities in the Kalinin region. First of all, it was Rzhev. The armies of two fronts took up the matter again - Kalinin (General Konev) and Western (General Zhukov).

On July 30, another Soviet offensive began. It was extremely slow. Every piece of land passed and recaptured cost thousands of lives. Already in the first days of the operation, there were only 6 kilometers left to Rzhev. However, it took almost a month to recapture them.

We managed to approach the city only at the end of August. It seemed that the Battle of Rzhev had already been won. It was even allowed to allow official representatives of the American president to the front, who were supposed to look at the Soviet triumph. Rzhev was captured on September 27. However, the Red Army stayed there for a few days. German reinforcements were immediately brought up and occupied the city on October 1.

The next Soviet offensive ended in nothing. The losses of the Battle of Rzhev during this period amounted to about 300 thousand people, i.e. 60% of the Red Army personnel at this area front.

Operation Mars

Already at the end of autumn and beginning of winter, another attempt was planned to break through the defenses of the Center group. This time it was decided that the offensive would take place in areas where it had not yet been undertaken. These were places between the Gzhat and Osuga rivers, as well as in the area of ​​the village of Molodoy Tud. Here was the lowest density of German divisions.

At the same time, the command tried to misinform the enemy in order to divert the Wehrmacht from Stalingrad, where the decisive days of battle were approaching these days.

The 39th Army managed to cross Molodoy Tud, and the 1st Mechanized Corps attacked enemy tank formations in the area of ​​the city of Bely. But this was a temporary success. Already at the beginning of December, the German counteroffensive stopped the Soviet soldiers and destroyed the same fate awaiting two corps: the 2nd Guards Cavalry and the 6th Tank.

Already on December 8, against the backdrop of these events, he insisted that Operation Mars (code name) be resumed with renewed vigor. But not a single attempt to break through the enemy’s defense line was successful. The troops under the command of General Khozin, Yushkevich and Zygin failed. Many found themselves surrounded again. According to various estimates, the number of dead Soviet soldiers during that period ranges between 70 and 100 thousand. The Battle of Rzhev in 1942 did not bring the long-awaited victory.

Operation Buffel

During previous battles, the so-called Rzhev ledge was formed, which was occupied by German troops. This was a vulnerable section of the front - it was the easiest to surround. This became especially acute after Soviet troops took the city of Velikiye Luki in January 1943.

Kurt Zeitzler and the rest of the Wehrmacht command began to strenuously ask Hitler for permission to withdraw troops. In the end, he agreed. The troops were to be withdrawn to a line near the city of Dorogobuzh. Colonel General Walter Model became responsible for this important operation. The plan was codenamed "Büffel", which translates from German as "buffalo".

Capture of Rzhev

A competent withdrawal of troops allowed the Germans to leave the ledge with virtually no losses. On March 30, the last Reich soldier left this area, which had been under attack for more than a year. The Wehrmacht left behind itself and the villages: Olenino, Gzhatsk, Bely, Vyazma. All of them were taken by the Soviet army in March 1943 without a fight.

The same fate awaited Rzhev. It was liberated. The 30th Army was the first to enter the city, which spent a long time on this section of the front and was staffed almost from scratch after bloody battles. This is how the Battle of Rzhev ended in 1942 1943. Strategic success led to the fact that in the Great Patriotic War the initiative again passed to the Soviet Union.

Pursuit of the enemy

The Soviet army left Rzhev behind and began an accelerated offensive against the abandoned German positions. As a result, in March we managed to move the front line to the west by another 150 kilometers. Communications of the Soviet troops were stretched. The vanguard moved away from the rear and support. Progress was slowed by the onset of a thaw and poor road conditions.

When the Germans gained a foothold in the Dorogobuzh area, it became clear that an army of such density could not be defeated, and the Red Army stopped. The next significant breakthrough will occur in the summer, when the Battle of Kursk ends.

The fate of Rzhev. Reflection in culture

The day before, 56 thousand people lived in the city. The city spent 17 months under occupation, during which it was completely destroyed. The local population either fled the day before or did not survive German rule. When the Soviet army liberated the city on March 3, 1943, 150 civilians remained there.

As for estimates of the total losses of the Red Army for more than a year of battles, Marshal Viktor Kulikov called the figure more than 1 million people.

The Battle of Rzhev left about 300 surviving households in the city, when before the battles there were 5.5 thousand of them. After the war it was literally rebuilt from scratch.

Bloody battles and huge losses are reflected in folk memory and many works of art. The most famous is the poem by Alexander Tvardovsky “I was killed near Rzhev.” The Tver region has many monuments. The Battle of Rzhev, the panorama museum of this event - all this still attracts a large audience of visitors. In the city of the same name there is also a memorial obelisk.