When studying the history of the Battle of Stalingrad, it is impossible to ignore the feat of the security officers in Stalingrad. First of all, the 10th division of the NKVD troops, the 91st regiment for the protection of railways, the border regiments for the protection of the rear, the 249th convoy regiment, the 178th regiment for the protection of important objects, the NKVD Directorate for the Stalingrad Region. I would especially like to remind you of the feat of the group of state security captain Ivan Timofeevich Petrakov, who saved Stalingrad at the decisive moment of the battle. A total of 90 people - two incomplete platoons of soldiers of the 10th division of the NKVD Internal Troops, employees of the regional NKVD Directorate, city police officers and even five firefighters prevented the Nazis from completely capturing Stalingrad on September 13, 1942. In the official history it sounds like this: “they ensured the crossing of units of the 13th Guards Division”... At the last moment, at the last line, 90 people stopped an entire army that captured all of Europe and half of Russia!!! To our shame, we forgot about all this! To be precise, they helped us forget about the exploits of the security officers!!! This process began during the reign of Khrushchev, and under Gorbachev and Yeltsin it took on an unprecedented scale and new forms. His logic is simple - if the enemy cannot be defeated, then he must be denigrated and slandered... And the Cheksists, without a doubt, were faithful sons of the Motherland...! In response, I would like to cite an article about security officers in the Great Patriotic War and recall their exploits and merits:

“One of the most famous “black myths” of the Great Patriotic War” is the tale of the “bloody” security officers (special officers, NKVD, Smershev). They are held in special esteem by filmmakers. Few people have been subjected to such widespread criticism and humiliation as the security officers. The bulk of the population receives information about them only through “pop culture,” works of art, and primarily through cinema. Few films “about war” are complete without the image of a cowardly and cruel special security officer knocking out the teeth of honest officers (Red Army soldiers).

This is practically a mandatory part of the program - to show some scoundrel from the NKVD who sits in the rear (guarding prisoners - all innocently convicted) and in a barrage detachment, shooting unarmed with machine guns and machine guns (or with "one rifle for three" Red Army soldiers). Here are just a few such “masterpieces: “Penal Battalion”, “Saboteur”, “Moscow Saga”, “Children of the Arbat”, “Cadets”, “Bless the Woman”, etc., their number is increasing every year. Moreover, these films are shown at the best time, they gather a significant audience. This is generally a feature of Russian TV - at the best time they show dregs and even outright abomination, and broadcast analytical programs, documentaries that carry information for the mind at night, when the majority of the working people are sleeping. Practical only a normal film about the role of “Smersh” in the war is Mikhail Ptashuk’s film “In August 44th...”, based on the novel by Vladimir Bogomolov “The Moment of Truth (In August 44th)”.

What do security officers usually do in movies? In fact, they prevent normal officers and soldiers from fighting! As a result of watching such films, the younger generation, which does not read books (especially of a scientific nature), gets the feeling that the people (the army) won in spite of the country’s top leadership and the “punitive” authorities. Look, if the representatives of the NKVD and SMERSH had not gotten in the way, we could have won earlier. In addition, the “bloody security officers” in 1937-1939. destroyed the “flower of the army” led by Tukhachevsky. Don’t feed the Chekist bread - let him shoot someone under a flimsy pretext. At the same time, as a rule, a standard special officer is a sadist, a complete bastard, a drunkard, a coward, etc. Another favorite move of filmmakers is to show the security officer in contrast. To do this, the film introduces the image of a valiantly fighting commander (soldier), who is hindered in every possible way by a representative of the NKVD. Often this hero is from among previously convicted officers, or even “political” ones. It is difficult to imagine such an attitude towards tank crews or pilots. Although fighters and commanders of the NKVD, military counterintelligence are a military craft, without which not a single army in the world can do. It is obvious that the ratio of “scoundrels” and ordinary, normal people in these structures is at least no less than in tank, infantry, artillery and other units. And it is possible that it is even better, since the selection is more strict.

A collective photograph of active saboteur fighters of the 88th fighter battalion of the UNKVD of the city of Moscow and the Moscow region - a special school for demolition workers of the UNKVD of the city of Moscow and the Moscow region. In the fall of 1943, they were all transferred to the special company of the NKVD Troops Directorate for protecting the rear of the Western Front, and on March 6, 1944, most of them joined the ranks of secret employees of the Intelligence Department of the headquarters of the Western (from April 24, 1944 - 3rd Belorussian) Front. Many did not return from the front-line business trip to East Prussia.

Defenders of the armed forces

In war conditions, information takes on special importance. The more you know about the enemy and the less he knows about your armed forces, economy, population, science and technology, depends on whether you win or lose. Counterintelligence is responsible for protecting information. It happens that a single enemy scout or saboteur can cause much more damage than an entire division or army. Just one enemy agent missed by counterintelligence can render the work of a significant number of people meaningless and lead to enormous human and material losses.

If the army protects the people and the country, then counterintelligence protects the army itself and the rear. Moreover, it not only protects the army from enemy agents, but also maintains its combat effectiveness. Unfortunately, there is no escape from the fact that there are weak people, morally unstable, this leads to desertion, betrayal, and panic. These phenomena are especially evident in critical conditions. Someone must carry out systematic work to suppress such phenomena and act very harshly; this is a war, not a resort. This kind of work is a vital necessity. One undetected traitor or coward can destroy an entire unit and disrupt a combat operation. Thus, by October 10, 1941, operational barriers of special departments and barrage detachments of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (there were also army barrage detachments created after order No. 227 of July 28, 1942) detained 657,364 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who had lagged behind their units or those who fled from the front. Of this number, the overwhelming majority were sent back to the front line (according to liberal propagandists, death awaited them all). 25,878 people were arrested: of which 1,505 were spies, 308 were saboteurs, 8,772 deserters, 1,671 suicide bombers, etc., 10,201 people were shot.

Counterintelligence officers also performed a host of other important functions: they identified enemy saboteurs and agents in the front-line zone, trained and dispatched task forces to the rear, and played radio games with the enemy, passing on disinformation to them. The NKVD played a key role in organizing the partisan movement. Hundreds of partisan detachments were created on the basis of task forces deployed behind enemy lines. Smershevites carried out special operations during the offensive of Soviet troops. Thus, on October 13, 1944, the operational group of the UKR “Smersh” of the 2nd Baltic Front, consisting of 5 security officers under the command of Captain Pospelov, penetrated Riga, which was still held by the Nazis. The task force had the task of seizing the archives and files of German intelligence and counterintelligence in Riga, which the Nazi command was going to evacuate during the retreat. The Smershovites liquidated the Abwehr employees and were able to hold out until the advanced units of the Red Army entered the city.

NKVD sergeant Maria Semenovna Rukhlina (1921-1981) with a PPSh-41 submachine gun. Served from 1941 to 1945.

Repression

Archival data and facts refute the widely circulated “black myth” that the NKVD and SMERSH indiscriminately designated all former prisoners as “enemies of the people” and then shot them or sent them to the Gulag. Thus, A.V. Mezhenko cited interesting data in the article “Prisoners of War Returned to Duty...” (Military Historical Journal. 1997, No. 5). Between October 1941 and March 1944, 317,594 people were sent to special camps for former prisoners of war. Of these: 223,281 (70.3%) were checked and sent to the Red Army; 4337 (1.4%) - to the convoy troops of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs; 5716 (1.8%) - in the defense industry; 1529 (0.5%) went to hospital, 1799 (0.6%) died. 8255 (2.6%) were sent to assault (penalty) units. It should be noted that, contrary to the speculation of the falsifiers, the level of losses in the penal units was quite comparable with ordinary units. 11,283 (3.5%) were arrested. For the remaining 61,394 (19.3%), verification continued.

After the war the situation did not change fundamentally. According to the data of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), which is cited by I. Pykhalov in the study “Truth and lies about Soviet prisoners of war” (Igor Pykhalov. The Great Slandered War. M., 2006), by March 1, 1946, 4,199,488 Soviet citizens were repatriated (2,660,013 civilians and 1,539,475 prisoners of war). As a result of the inspection, of the civilians: 2,146,126 (80.68%) were sent to their place of residence; 263,647 (9.91%) were enrolled in labor battalions; 141,962 (5.34%) were drafted into the Red Army and 61,538 (2.31%) were located at assembly points and were used in work at Soviet military units and institutions abroad. Only 46,740 (1.76%) were transferred to the disposal of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Of the former prisoners of war: 659,190 (42.82%) were re-conscripted into the Red Army; 344,448 people (22.37%) were enrolled in labor battalions; 281,780 (18.31%) were sent to their place of residence; 27,930 (1.81%) were used for work at military units and institutions abroad. The order of the NKVD was transmitted - 226,127 (14.69%). As a rule, the NKVD handed over Vlasov and other collaborators. Thus, according to the instructions that were available to the heads of the inspection bodies, from among the repatriates the following were subject to arrest and trial: management, command staff of the police, ROA, national legions and other similar organizations and formations; ordinary members of the listed organizations who took part in punitive operations; former Red Army soldiers who voluntarily went over to the enemy’s side; burgomasters, major officials of the occupation administration, employees of the Gestapo and other punitive and intelligence institutions, etc.

It is clear that most of these people deserved the most severe punishment, even capital punishment. However, the “bloody” Stalinist regime, in connection with the Victory over the Third Reich, showed leniency towards them. Collaborators, punishers and traitors were exempted from criminal liability for treason, and the matter was limited to sending them to a special settlement for a period of 6 years. In 1952, a significant part of them were released, and their questionnaires did not show any criminal record, and the time they worked during exile was recorded as work experience. Only those accomplices of the occupiers who were found to have committed serious, specific crimes were sent to the Gulag.

Reconnaissance platoon of the 338th NKVD regiment. Photo from the family archive of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobakhin. Nikolai Ivanovich was at the front from the first days of the war, was in a penal battalion 2 times, and had several wounds. After the war, as part of the NKVD troops, he eliminated bandits in the Baltic states and Ukraine.

On the front line

The role of NKVD units in the war was not limited to performing purely special, highly professional tasks. Thousands of security officers honestly fulfilled their duty to the end and died in battle with the enemy (in total, about 100 thousand NKVD soldiers died during the war). The first to take the Wehrmacht's blow in the early morning of June 22, 1941 were the border units of the NKVD. In total, 47 land and 6 sea border detachments, 9 separate border commandant's offices of the NKVD entered the battle on this day. The German command allocated half an hour to overcome their resistance. And the Soviet border guards fought for hours, days, weeks, often completely surrounded. Thus, the Lopatin outpost (Vladimir-Volynsky border detachment) repelled attacks by many times superior enemy forces for 11 days. In addition to border guards, units of 4 divisions, 2 brigades and a number of separate operational regiments of the NKVD served on the western border of the USSR. Most of these units entered the battle from the very first hours of the Great Patriotic War. In particular, the personnel of the garrisons who guarded bridges, objects of special national importance, etc. The border guards who defended the famous Brest Fortress, including the 132nd separate battalion of the NKVD troops, fought heroically.

In the Baltics, on the 5th day of the war, the 22nd Motorized Rifle Division of the NKVD was formed, which fought together with the 10th Rifle Corps of the Red Army near Riga and Tallinn. Seven divisions, three brigades and three armored trains of the NKVD troops took part in the battle for Moscow. The division named after them took part in the famous parade on November 7, 1941. Dzerzhinsky, combined regiments of the 2nd NKVD division, a separate motorized rifle brigade for special purposes and the 42nd NKVD brigade. An important role in the defense of the Soviet capital was played by the Separate Special Purpose Motorized Rifle Brigade (OMSBON) of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, which created minefields on the approaches to the city, carried out sabotage behind enemy lines, etc. The separate brigade became a training center for the preparation of reconnaissance and sabotage detachments (they were formed from NKVD employees, anti-fascist foreigners and volunteer athletes). Over the four years of war, the training center trained 212 groups and detachments with a total number of 7,316 fighters under special programs. These formations carried out 1084 combat operations, eliminated approximately 137 thousand Nazis, destroyed 87 leaders of the German occupation administration and 2045 German agents.

The NKVD soldiers also distinguished themselves in the defense of Leningrad. The 1st, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd divisions of the internal troops fought here. It was the NKVD troops that played the most important role in establishing communication between surrounded Leningrad and the mainland - in the construction of the Road of Life. During the months of the first blockade winter, the forces of the 13th Motorized Rifle Regiment of the NKVD delivered 674 tons of various cargo to the city along the Road of Life and took out more than 30 thousand people, mostly children. In December 1941, the 23rd division of the NKVD troops received the task of guarding the delivery of goods along the Road of Life.

NKVD fighters were also present during the defense of Stalingrad. Initially, the main fighting force in the city was the 10th NKVD division with a total strength of 7.9 thousand people. The division commander was Colonel A. Saraev, he was the head of the Stalingrad garrison and fortified area. On August 23, 1942, the division's regiments held defenses on a front of 35 kilometers. The division repulsed attempts by the advanced units of the German 6th Army to take Stalingrad on the move. The most fierce battles were noted on the approaches to Mamayev Kurgan, in the area of ​​the tractor plant and in the city center. Before the withdrawal of the bloodless units of the division to the left bank of the Volga (after 56 days of fighting), the NKVD fighters inflicted significant damage on the enemy: 113 tanks were knocked out or burned, more than 15 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were liquidated. The 10th Division received the honorary name "Stalingrad" and was awarded the Order of Lenin. In addition, other units of the NKVD took part in the defense of Stalingrad: the 2nd, 79th, 9th and 98th border regiments of the rear security forces.

In the winter of 1942-1943. The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs formed a separate army consisting of 6 divisions. At the beginning of February 1943, the Separate Army of the NKVD was transferred to the front, receiving the name 70th Army. The army became part of the Central Front, and then the 2nd and 1st Belorussian Fronts. The soldiers of the 70th Army showed courage in the Battle of Kursk, along with other forces of the Central Front, stopping the Nazi strike group, which was trying to break through to Kursk. The NKVD army distinguished itself in the Oryol, Polesie, Lublin-Brest, East Prussian, East Pomeranian and Berlin offensive operations. In total, during the Great War, the NKVD troops trained and transferred 29 divisions from their composition to the Red Army. During the war, 100 thousand soldiers and officers of the NKVD troops were awarded medals and orders. More than two hundred people were awarded the title of Hero of the USSR. In addition, the internal troops of the People's Commissariat during the Great Patriotic War carried out 9,292 operations to combat bandit groups, as a result of which 47,451 were eliminated and 99,732 bandits were captured, and a total of 147,183 criminals were neutralized. Border guards in 1944-1945. destroyed 828 gangs, with a total number of about 48 thousand criminals.

Many have heard about the exploits of Soviet snipers during the Great Patriotic War, but few know that most of them were from the ranks of the NKVD. Even before the start of the war, NKVD units (units for the protection of important facilities and escort troops) received sniper squads. According to some reports, NKVD snipers killed up to 200 thousand enemy soldiers and officers during the war.

The banner of the 132nd battalion of NKVD convoy troops captured by the Germans. Photo from the personal album of one of the Wehrmacht soldiers. In the Brest Fortress, the border guards and the 132nd separate battalion of escort troops of the NKVD of the USSR held the defense for two months. In Soviet times, everyone remembered the inscription of one of the defenders of the Brest Fortress: “I’m dying, but I’m not giving up! Farewell to the Motherland! 20.VII.41.”, but few knew that it was made on the wall of the barracks of the 132nd separate battalion of NKVD convoy troops THE USSR."

“The military thunderstorm approached the city with such speed that we could really oppose the enemy only with the 10th division of the NKVD troops under the command of Colonel Saraev.”

The troops of the NKVD of the USSR were operationally subordinate to the ten main departments of the People's Commissariat and included border, operational (internal), escort, security, railway and some others. The most numerous were the border troops, numbering 167,582 people on June 22, 1941.

Since already at the end of 1940, foreign intelligence (5th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR) reported that Hitler had signed Directive No. 21 “Barbarossa Option” on December 18, 1940, People's Commissar Lavrentiy Beria took the necessary measures to transform the NKVD troops into special elite units in case of war . Thus, on February 28, 1941, operational troops were separated from the border troops, which included one division (OMSDON named after Dzerzhinsky), 17 separate regiments (including 13 motorized rifle regiments), four battalions and one company. Their number as of June 22 was 41,589 people.

At one time, even before joining the border troops, the task of the operational troops was to fight banditry - detect, block, pursue and destroy gangs. And now they were intended to strengthen border units during hostilities on the border. The operational forces were armed with BT-7 tanks, heavy guns (up to 152 mm) and mortars (up to 120 mm).

“The border troops entered the battle first, not a single border unit retreated,” writes Sergo Beria. - On the western border, these units held back the enemy for 8 to 16 hours, in the south - up to two weeks. There is not only courage and heroism here, but also the level of military training. And the question naturally disappears: why do border guards need artillery at outposts? As they write, there were no howitzers there, but the outposts had anti-tank guns. My father insisted on this before the war, knowing full well that you couldn’t attack a tank with a rifle at the ready. And howitzer regiments were assigned to border detachments. And this also played a positive role in the first battles. The army artillery, unfortunately, did not work...”

By Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1756-762ss of June 25, 1941, the troops of the NKVD of the USSR were entrusted with guarding the rear of the active Red Army. In addition, Stalin considered the soldiers in green and cornflower blue caps as the last reserve, which was sent to the most threatened areas of the front. Therefore, the formation of new motorized rifle divisions of the NKVD began, the backbone of which were border guards.

Thus, Beria’s order dated June 29, 1941 states:
“For the formation of the above divisions, allocate from the personnel of the NKVD troops 1000 ordinary and junior command personnel and 500 commanding personnel for each division. For the rest of the composition, submit applications to the General Staff of the Red Army for conscription from the reserve of all categories of military personnel.”

Nevertheless, the total number of NKVD troops throughout the war did not exceed 5–7% of the total number of Soviet armed forces.

Four divisions, two brigades, separate regiments and a number of other units of the NKVD troops took part in the defense of Moscow. The NKVD troops also fought desperately near Leningrad, defending the city and protecting communications. The Chekists fought to the death, never once surrendering to the enemy or retreating without orders.

After the defeat of the German troops near Moscow and the Red Army went on the offensive, by Decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 1092ss of January 4, 1942, garrisons from the personnel of the internal troops of the NKVD were set up in the cities liberated by the Red Army, which were given the following tasks:

Carrying out garrison (guard) service in liberated cities;

Assisting the NKVD authorities in identifying and seizing enemy agents and former fascist collaborators;

Elimination of airborne assault forces, enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups, and bandit formations;

Maintaining public order in liberated territories.

It was assumed that the Red Army would continue its successful offensive, so to carry out the assigned tasks, 10 rifle divisions, three separate motorized rifle regiments and one rifle regiment were formed within the internal troops of the NKVD.

The 10th Rifle Division of the NKVD of the USSR was formed on February 1, 1942 on the basis of the order of the NKVD of the USSR No. 0021 of January 5, 1942. The division's administration, as well as the 269th and 270th rifle regiments of the internal troops of the NKVD of the USSR were created in Stalingrad in accordance with the mobilization plan of the NKVD apparatus for the Stalingrad region.

In this regard, a large group of employees of local units of internal affairs and state security bodies was sent to the ranks of their personnel as marching reinforcements. The 271st, 272nd and 273rd rifle regiments arrived from Siberia: from Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk, respectively. In the first half of August, the 282nd Infantry Regiment, formed in Saratov, arrived and replaced the departed 273rd Regiment.

According to the staff, all regiments consisted of three rifle battalions, a four-gun battery of 45-mm anti-tank guns, a mortar company (four 82-mm and eight 50-mm mortars) and a company of machine gunners. In turn, each rifle battalion included three rifle companies and a machine gun platoon armed with four Maxim heavy machine guns. The total strength of the division on August 10, 1942 was 7,568 bayonets.

In the period from March 17 to March 22, 1942, the 269th, 271st and 272nd regiments took part in a large-scale operational and preventive operation carried out in Stalingrad under the general leadership of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Ivan Serov . In fact, a thorough cleansing of the city from the “criminal element” was carried out. At the same time, 187 deserters, 106 criminals and 9 spies were identified.

After a successful counter-offensive near Moscow, the Soviet high command considered it possible to continue offensive operations on other sectors of the front, in particular, near Kharkov, with the forces of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern fronts under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko, chief of staff - Lieutenant General Ivan Bagramyan, Member of the Military Council - Nikita Khrushchev. On the German side they were opposed by the forces of Army Group South, consisting of the 6th Army (Friedrich Paulus), the 17th Army (Herman Hoth) and the 1st Panzer Army (Ewald von Kleist) under the overall command of Field Marshal Feodor von Sides.

The Kharkov operation began on May 12, 1942. The general task of the advancing Soviet troops was to encircle Paulus's 6th Army in the Kharkov region, which would subsequently make it possible to cut off Army Group South, press it to the Sea of ​​Azov and destroy it. However, on May 17, Kleist’s 1st Tank Army struck the rear of the advancing Red Army units, broke through the defenses of the 9th Army of the Southern Front, and by May 23 cut off the Soviet troops’ escape route to the east.

The Chief of the General Staff, Colonel General Alexander Vasilevsky, proposed stopping the offensive and withdrawing troops, but Timoshenko and Khrushchev reported that the threat from the southern group of the Wehrmacht was exaggerated. As a result, by May 26, the encircled Red Army units were locked in a small space of 15 km2 in the Barvenkovo ​​area.

Soviet losses amounted to 270 thousand people and 1240 tanks (according to German data, 240 thousand people alone were captured). Killed or missing: Deputy Commander of the Southwestern Front, Lieutenant General Fyodor Kostenko, Commander of the 6th Army, Lieutenant General Avksentiy Gorodnyansky, Commander of the 57th Army, Lieutenant General Kuzma Podlas, Commander of the Army Group, Major General Leonid Bobkin and a number of generals commanding the divisions that were surrounded. The Germans lost 5 thousand killed and about 20 thousand wounded.

Because of the disaster near Kharkov, it became possible for the Germans to rapidly advance to Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don, followed by access to the Volga and the Caucasus (Operation Fall Blau). On July 7, the Germans occupied the right bank of Voronezh. Hoth's 4th Panzer Army turned south and quickly moved towards Rostov between the Donets and the Don, smashing the retreating units of Marshal Timoshenko's Southwestern Front along the way. Soviet troops in the vast desert steppes were able to offer only weak resistance, and then began to flock to the east in complete disorder. In mid-July, several divisions of the Red Army fell into a pocket in the Millerovo area. The number of prisoners during this period is estimated at between 100 and 200 thousand.

On July 12, the Stalingrad Front was created (commander - Marshal S.K. Timoshenko, member of the Military Council - N.S. Khrushchev). It included the garrison of Stalingrad (10th division of the NKVD), the 62nd, 63rd, 64th armies, formed on July 10, 1942 on the basis of the 7th, 5th and 1st reserve armies, respectively, and a number of others formations from the Reserve Army Group of the Supreme High Command, as well as the Volga Flotilla. The front received the task of stopping the enemy, preventing him from reaching the Volga, and firmly defending the line along the Don River.

On July 17, the vanguards of Paulus's 6th Army reached the advanced detachments of the 62nd and 64th armies. The Battle of Stalingrad has begun. By the end of July, the Germans pushed the Soviet troops behind the Don. On July 23, Rostov-on-Don fell, and Hoth's 4th Panzer Army turned north, and Paulus's 6th Army was already several tens of kilometers from Stalingrad. On the same day, Marshal Timoshenko was removed from command of the Stalingrad Front. On July 28, Stalin signed the famous order No. 227 “Not a step back!”

On August 22, Paulus's 6th Army crossed the Don and captured a 45 km wide bridgehead on its eastern bank. On August 23, the German 14th Tank Corps broke through to the Volga north of Stalingrad, in the area of ​​the village of Rynok, and cut off the 62nd Army from the rest of the forces of the Stalingrad Front, chaining it to the river like a steel horseshoe. Enemy aircraft launched a massive air strike on Stalingrad, as a result of which entire neighborhoods turned into ruins. A huge fire whirlwind formed, which burned the central part of the city and all its inhabitants to the ground.

The first secretary of the Stalingrad regional party committee, Alexei Chuyanov, recalled:

“The military thunderstorm approached the city with such speed that we could really oppose the enemy only with the 10th division of the NKVD troops under the command of Colonel Saraev.” According to the recollections of Alexander Saraev himself, “the division’s soldiers carried out security service at the entrances to the city, at crossings across the Volga, and patrolled the streets of Stalingrad. Much attention was paid to combat training. We set ourselves the task of quickly preparing the division’s fighters for combat against a strong, technically equipped enemy.”

The division stretched over 50 km and took up defensive positions along the city fortifications.

The first battle with the enemy took place on August 23 in the northern part of the city in the area of ​​the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, where the Germans’ path was blocked by the 282nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR (commander - Major Mitrofan Grushchenko) with the support of a fighter squad of Stalingrad workers, among whom were participants defense of Tsaritsyn. At the same time, the tractor plant continued to build tanks, which were manned by crews consisting of plant workers and immediately sent off the assembly lines into battle.

Among the heroes of the first battles is the chief of staff of the regiment, Captain Nikolai Belov:
“During the organization of defense by the regiment’s units, he was wounded, lost his sight, but did not leave the battlefield and continued to manage the regiment’s combat operations” (TsAMO: f. 33, op. 682525, d. 172, l. 225).

As of October 16, the regiment, which by that time was fighting surrounded, had less than a platoon left in the ranks - only 27 security officers.

The most famous, the 272nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR, which later received the honorary military name “Volzhsky”, commanded by Major Grigory Savchuk, by August 24, dug in with its main forces at the Experimental Station line - height 146.1. On September 4, a large group of enemy machine gunners managed to break through to the regiment's command post and encircle it.

The situation was saved by battalion commissar Ivan Shcherbina, who raised staff members with hostility. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, he personally destroyed three Germans, the rest took flight. The Nazis' plans to break through to the city center and capture the city's main crossing across the Volga were thwarted.

The name of the machine gunner of the 272nd regiment Alexei Vashchenko is written in golden letters in the chronicle of the Battle of Stalingrad: September 5, 1942, during the assault on height 146.1 with the cry “For the Motherland! For Stalin!" he covered the bunker embrasure with his body. By order of the troops of the Stalingrad Front No. 60/n of October 25, 1942, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin. Today, one of the streets of Volgograd bears the name of the hero.

In a fierce battle at the Experimental Station, the Germans abandoned 37 tanks against our battalion. Six of them burst into flames from the fire of anti-tank rifles, grenades and the combustible mixture "KS", but the rest broke through to our defenses. At a critical moment, junior political instructor and assistant for Komsomol work in the regiment, Dmitry Yakovlev, threw himself under a tank with two anti-tank grenades and blew himself up along with the enemy vehicle.

The 269th Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Kapranov in the period from July 1 to August 23 ensured law and order in Stalingrad and the suburban settlements of Kotluban, Gumrak, Orlovka, Dubovka and Gorodishche, as well as in places of crossing the Sukhaya River Mosque. During this period, 2,733 people were detained, including 1,812 military personnel and 921 civilians.

On August 23, 1942, the regiment urgently took up defensive positions in the area of ​​height 102.0 (aka Mamayev Kurgan). On September 7, at 5:00, a massive German offensive began on Stalingrad from the Gumrak - Razgulyaevka line: until 11:00 - artillery bombardment and continuous bombing, while bombers approached the target in trains of 30-40 aircraft. And at 11:00 the enemy infantry rose to attack. The 112th Rifle Division, defending in front of the “cornflower blue caps,” faltered, and the Red Army soldiers “threw their weapons in panic and fled from their defensive lines in the direction of the city” (RGVA: f. 38759, op. 2, d. 1, l. 54ob).

Borders in the direction of the city" (RGVA: f. 38759, op. 2, d. 1, l. 54ob).

To stop this unorganized retreat, the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 269th regiment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR had to temporarily leave the trenches under exploding bombs and shells and line up in a human chain facing the fleeing. As a result, about nine hundred Red Army soldiers, including a significant number of officers, were stopped and reassembled into units.

On September 12, the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR came under the operational subordination of the 62nd Army (commander - Lieutenant General Vasily Chuikov). On September 14 at 6:00, the Nazis from the line of the Historical Wall struck with a knife into the heart of the city - its central part with a group of the tallest stone buildings, dominating next to them with a height of 102.0 (Mamaev Kurgan) and the main crossing of the Volga.

Particularly strong battles took place behind Mamayev Kurgan and in the area of ​​the Tsarina River. This time the main attack of 50 tanks fell on the junction between the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 269th regiment. At 14:00, two battalions of enemy machine gunners with three tanks went to the rear of the regiment and occupied the top of Mamayev Kurgan, opening fire on the village of the Red October plant.

To regain the heights, a company of machine gunners of the 269th regiment of junior lieutenant Nikolai Lyubezny and the 416th rifle regiment of the 112th rifle division with two tanks launched a counterattack. By 18:00 the height was cleared. The defense there was occupied by the 416th Regiment and partly by units of security officers. In two days of fighting, the 269th Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR destroyed more than one and a half thousand soldiers and officers, knocked out and burned about 20 enemy tanks.

Meanwhile, separate groups of German machine gunners penetrated into the city center, and intense battles took place near the station. Having created strong points in the State Bank building, in the House of Specialists and a number of others, on the upper floors of which fire spotters settled, the Germans took the central crossing across the Volga under fire. They managed to get almost close to the landing site of the 13th Guards Division of Major General Alexander Rodimtsev. As Alexander Ilyich himself wrote, “this was a critical moment when the fate of the battle was being decided, when one extra pellet could tip the enemy’s scales. But he didn’t have this pellet, but Chuikov had it.”

On a narrow strip of coast from the House of Specialists to the complex of NKVD buildings, the crossing was defended by a combined detachment of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR under the command of the head of the NKVD department, state security captain Ivan Petrakov, who essentially saved Stalingrad at the decisive moment of the battle. A total of 90 people - two incomplete platoons of soldiers of the 10th NKVD Division, employees of the regional NKVD Directorate, city police officers and five firefighters repelled attacks by the 1st Battalion of the 194th Infantry Regiment of the 71st Infantry Division of the 6th Wehrmacht Army. In the official history it sounds like this: “We ensured the crossing of units of the 13th Guards Division...”.

This means that at the last moment, at the last turn, 90 security officers stopped an entire army that had captured the whole of Europe...

At the same time, despite the overwhelming advantage of the Germans, a detachment of security officers goes on the attack in the area of ​​the brewery, recaptures two of our guns, previously captured by the Germans, and begins firing them at the State Bank building, from the upper floors of which the Germans are adjusting the shelling of the pier and the central crossing. To help the security officers, Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov throws his last reserve, a group of three T-34 tanks under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Matvey Vainrub, with the task of attacking tall buildings on the embankment captured by the Germans.

At this time, on the left bank of the Volga, the deputy front commander, Lieutenant General Filipp Golikov, approaches Rodimtsev, who is tasked with transporting the 13th Guards Division to Stalingrad.

Do you see that shore, Rodimtsev?

I see. It seems to me that the enemy has approached the river.

It doesn’t seem like it, but it is so. So make a decision - both for yourself and for me.

At this moment, a German mine hits a nearby barge. Screams are heard, something heavy flops into the water, and the stern flares up like a huge torch.

How will I ensure the crossing? - Golikov says bitterly. - They brought in all sorts of artillery, up to the main caliber. But who should we shoot? Where is the German? Where is the cutting edge? In the city there is one bloodless division of Colonel Saraev (10th division of the NKVD) and thinned out militia units. That's the entire sixty-second army. There are only pockets of resistance there. There are joints, and what the hell are there joints - holes between units of several hundred meters. And Chuikov has nothing to patch them up with...

On the opposite bank, the defense at the line: the cemetery with the surrounding area, the village of Dar Gora - the NKVD House - the central part of the city - is occupied by units of the 270th regiment of the 10th NKVD division under the command of Major Anatoly Zhuravlev. From July 25 to September 1, they served as a barrage in the operational rear of the 64th Army and were then transferred to Stalingrad. On September 15 at 17:00, the Germans launched two simultaneous attacks on them - head-on and roundabout - from the direction of the NKVD House.

At the same time, the 2nd battalion was attacked in the back by ten tanks. Two of them were set on fire, but the remaining eight vehicles were able to break through to the positions of the 5th company, where up to two platoons of personnel were buried alive in the trenches by the tracks. At dusk, only ten miraculously surviving security officers of the 5th company managed to gather at the CP of the 2nd battalion.

The chief of staff of the regiment, Captain Vasily Chuchin, was seriously wounded, suffering from the local use of chemical warfare agents by the enemy. By his order of September 20, the commander of the 10th division of the NKVD of the USSR, Colonel Alexander Saraev, merged the remnants of the 270th regiment into the 272nd regiment. In total, 109 people were transferred there with two forty-five guns and three 82-mm mortars...

The 271st Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD of the USSR, commanded by Major Alexei Kostinitsyn, took up defensive positions along the southern outskirts of Stalingrad. On September 8, after a massive air raid, enemy infantry moved towards him. On September 12 and 13, the regiment fought in a semi-circle, and from September 15, for almost two days, in an encirclement ring. The fighting these days took place near the banks of the Volga, on a patch within the boundaries of an elevator - a railway crossing - a cannery.

This forced staff workers to be thrown into battle. The hero of those days was the clerk of the political unit of the regiment, state security sergeant Sukhorukov: on September 16, during an attack with machine gun fire, he destroyed six fascists, and then in hand-to-hand combat, with the butt of another three. In total, he recorded seventeen killed enemy soldiers and officers in his personal account in the September battles!

At the same time, the 272nd “Volzhsky” regiment is digging in at the line between the Stalingrad-1 station and the railway bridge over the Tsaritsa River. On September 19, the regiment commander, Major Grigory Savchuk, was wounded, and the military commissar, battalion commissar Ivan Shcherbina, became the head of the regiment. Having located the regimental headquarters command post in the bunker of the former command post of the city Defense Committee in the Komsomolsky Garden, Ivan Methodievich writes his famous note, now stored in the Museum of Border Troops in Moscow:

"Hello friends. I beat the Germans and are surrounded. Not a step back - this is my duty and my nature...

My regiment has not and will not disgrace Soviet weapons...

Comrade Kuznetsov, if I died, my only request is for my family. My other sadness is that I should have punched the bastards in the teeth, i.e. I regret that I died early and personally killed only 85 Nazis.

For the Soviet Motherland, guys, beat the enemies!!!”

On September 25, enemy tanks encircled the command post and began shooting at it point-blank with turret guns. In addition, chemical warfare agents were used against the defenders. After several hours of being under siege, I.M. Shcherbina led the surviving staff workers and 27 headquarters guards to break through. They made their way through with bayonets. Unfortunately, the brave commissar died a heroic death in that unequal battle: enemy bullets mortally wounded him near the Gorky Theater...

During September 26, the remnants of the regiment, numbering 16 soldiers under the command of junior political instructor Rakov, steadfastly remained semi-encircled on the banks of the Volga until the evening, while fragments of two neighboring separate rifle brigades of the Red Army, defeated by the enemy, hurriedly crossed to the left bank, fleeing shamefully. And a handful of brave Chekist soldiers destroyed up to a company of Nazis and destroyed two enemy machine guns.

The main task - to hold the city until the arrival of fresh reserves of the 62nd Army - was completed with honor by the 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD troops of the USSR. Of the 7,568 soldiers who entered the battle on August 23, 1942, about 200 remained alive. On October 26, 1942, the command of the 282nd regiment, defending height 135.4 near the tractor plant, was the last to be brought to the left bank of the Volga. However, in the burning Stalingrad, a combined company of the regiment of 25 bayonets, formed from the remnants of the combined battalion, remained to fight. The last soldier of this company was out of action due to injury on November 7, 1942.

The 10th Rifle Division of the Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR is the only one of all the formations that participated in the Battle of Stalingrad that was awarded the Order of Lenin on December 2, 1942. Hundreds of division fighters were awarded orders and medals. 20 security officers of the division were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, five people became holders of the Order of Glory of all three degrees.

On December 28, 1947, a monument to the Chekists was unveiled in Stalingrad, on the right bank of the Tsarina River. Around the monument there is a Chekist Square with a small park area. Stairs lead to the monument on four sides. The majestic five-meter bronze figure of a security officer towers on a seventeen-meter architecturally designed pedestal in the shape of an obelisk. The security officer holds a naked sword in his hand.

The defense of Stalingrad is the story of one great feat of hundreds of thousands of city defenders. Red Army soldiers and militias, railway workers, police officers and even service dogs took part in a fierce battle on the banks of the Volga. Not all of their exploits are well known, but each deserves the grateful memory of posterity.

NKVD defends Stalingrad

“The Russians are fighting fiercely,” wrote General Paulus in August 1942. - Our losses are growing with every step we take towards Stalingrad. Our offensive impulse is running out." But the power of the invaders was still very great. Therefore, the 10th Stalingrad Infantry Division of the Order of Lenin of the Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR was allocated to defend Stalingrad.

This unit was formed in February 1942 on the basis of the resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 1099-ss dated January 4, 1942 “On the organization of garrisons of the NKVD troops in cities liberated by the Red Army from the enemy.” NKVD soldiers, according to Stalin, were the last reserve, which was sent to the most difficult sectors of the front.

The division included five rifle regiments. Subsequently, they were assigned railway units and a detachment of SIT (tank destroyer dogs). The NKVD soldiers fulfilled their official duties - they served as barriers, identified saboteurs, deserters and traitors. But when German troops approached the city, all forces were thrown into repelling the enemy.

When the enemy advances

The task of the 269th Infantry Regiment of the NKVD Internal Troops was to ensure law and order. Thus, in August 1942, 2,733 people from among criminal elements were detained in Stalingrad and its suburbs, including 1,812 military personnel and 921 civilians. As the Germans approached, the rifle regiment took up defensive positions.

On September 7, a massive German offensive began. After artillery preparation, the enemy infantry rose to attack. The 112th Army Rifle Division, which was on the front line, could not withstand the onslaught. “The Red Army soldiers, throwing down their weapons in panic, fled from their defensive lines in the direction of the city,” one of the reports said.

Then the soldiers of the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 269th NKVD regiment, under a hail of fragments from bombs and shells, came out of the trenches and lined up in a human chain facing the fleeing. Thus, it was possible to stop and gather over 900 soldiers and officers of the Red Army into combat-ready units.

From August 28 to September 7, the 272nd Rifle Regiment of the USSR NKVD Internal Troops identified and transferred 1,935 criminal elements to military counterintelligence and police agencies. The baptism of fire happened on the evening of September 3. Tanks and a group of German machine gunners managed to break through to the regiment's command post. Then the battalion commissar I.M. Shcherbina raised the staff with hostility. Shcherbina personally destroyed three fascists in hand-to-hand combat. The surviving German machine gunners fled.

From September 4 to September 9, the 272nd Regiment launched a counterattack several times. When trying to recapture height 146.1, a German machine gunner with fire from a bunker did not allow us to go on the offensive. Then Red Army soldier Alexey Vashchenko covered the embrasure of the firing point with his body. He accomplished this feat a year before Alexander Matrosov. But if they still argue about Matrosov, not believing in the sacrificial heroism of the Soviet soldier, then the military paramedic Kolenskaya testified about Vashchenko’s action. “Before my eyes, A. Vashchenko was wounded, and then with great effort he stood up and covered the pillbox embrasure with his body,” she said.

Battalion Commissar Ivan Shcherbina took over leadership of the regiment on September 19, when the entire leadership was killed. Realizing that they would not last long, he wrote his famous note: “Hello, friends. I beat the Germans and are surrounded. Not a step back - this is my duty and my nature. My regiment has not and will not disgrace Soviet weapons. If I died, my one request is for family. My other sadness is that I should have punched the bastards in the teeth, that is, I regret that I died early and personally killed only 85 fascists. For the Soviet Motherland, guys, beat the enemies!”

Another staff hero is the clerk of the political unit of the 271st regiment of the NKVD Internal Troops, Sukhorukov. When the Germans advanced, a state security sergeant shot six fascists with a machine gun, and when hand-to-hand combat broke out, he killed three more with a rifle butt. In total, in the September battles for Stalingrad, the brave clerk killed 17 enemy soldiers and officers.

Railway workers are back in service

The defense in the center of Stalingrad was carried out by the 84th separate recovery track battalion under the command of Major P. M. Shein. In September 1942, the battalion was assigned to the NKVD regiment. The soldiers were given anti-tank rifles, machine guns, grenades and petrol bombs, and the inferior rifles were replaced with better weapons.

The most brutal onslaught of the enemy had to be repelled at the railway bridge over the Tsaritsa River. Lieutenant Shpanyuk's platoon fought selflessly, but was almost completely destroyed along with its commander. Only a few wounded soldiers were able to reach the company's location.

For ten days the railway workers fought intense battles. Three German armored personnel carriers were destroyed, along with the crews trying to leave the combat vehicles. In response, the enemy struck with aircraft, then went on the attack. Suffering heavy losses, the railway workers held out until a replacement arrived on September 15 - the 13th Guards Division of General Rodimtsev.

Subsequently, the entire personnel of the 84th track battalion of the railway troops was awarded the medal “For the Defense of Stalingrad.” For special services, Commander P.M. Shein was also awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and awarded the Order of Lenin.

Tankers were more afraid of them than guns

The 282nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Division of the NKVD Internal Troops included the 28th separate SIT detachment: 202 personnel and 202 specially trained dogs. The detachment was commanded by Senior Lieutenant A.S. Kunin.

Dogs and handlers were stationed in those places where enemy tanks were expected to break through. Packs containing TNT were hung on the animals. The order of repelling a tank attack was as follows: in front were dog handlers with dogs, behind them were artillerymen. The artillerymen fired shells first. Then, when the tanks came within 50 meters, the dogs were released. If you send the dog earlier, the animal may be shot. The Germans specifically hunted for these dogs - tankers were more afraid of them than guns. If a shell hits a tank, the crew will be able to get out, but the dogs blew up the combat vehicles so that nothing was left alive.

On September 15, dogs blew up six tanks in a battle. Their guides, under the command of A.S. Kunin, neutralized over 30 Wehrmacht machine gunners. Many guides were injured. The dogs died along with enemy tanks.

During the September battles, the 28th SIT detachment destroyed or damaged 32 enemy combat vehicles and exterminated over a company of German machine gunners. By the beginning of October, 54 people and 54 service dogs remained alive in the detachment. Senior Lieutenant Kunin was awarded the Order of the Red Star, and in honor of the front-line feat of the SIT, a memorial was erected to “Fascist tank destroyers, demolition service dogs of the 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD.”