Rzhev battle during the Great Patriotic War

When we hear the word "battle", a battle appears in front of us in a field where, during the day, one of the rivals will be the winner. This terminology is familiar and understandable. But the Rzhev battle was different. It covered an enormous time period and represented a series of battles for two years.

Rzhev-Vyazma operation

The generally accepted timeframe that the Rzhev battle took (January 8, 1942-31, March 1943). During these days, there were many periods of calm or positional war, when the troops did not commit offensives.

At the beginning of 1942, the Soviet army succeeded in dropping the Wehrmacht forces from Moscow. But the counterattack, which was one of the turning points of the war, continued. The bid required as much as possible a result. In this region was the German army of the group "Center".

Soviet forces on the Western and Kalinin Front had to dismember, encircle and destroy this force. In the first January days of the counter-offensive, starting from the 8th, everything went according to plan. It was possible to free Vera, Kirov, Mozhaisk, Medyn, Sukhinichi and Lyudinovo. There were prerequisites for splitting the "Center" into several isolated groups.

Environment

However, already on the 19th, on the orders 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 the 16th Rokossovsky army was relocated to the south. This markedly reduced the silt of the Soviet troops. The remaining parts 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 once again tried to break through the enemy's defense, but in the end they themselves were surrounded. In April, the 33rd was destroyed, and Mikhail Efremov committed suicide.

The Soviet operation failed. According to official statistics, the losses amounted to 776 thousand people, of which 272 thousand were irretrievable. Of the composition of the 33rd Army, only a few units broke out of the circle, that is, 889 soldiers.

Battles for Rzhev

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

On July 30, another Soviet offensive began. It was extremely slow. Each passed and beaten piece of land cost thousands of lives. Already in the first days of the operation, only 6 kilometers remained to Rzhev. However, it took almost a month to repel them.

The city was only reached at the end of August. It seemed that the Rzhev battle had already been won. It was even allowed to admit to the front the official representatives of the American president, who were supposed to look at the Soviet triumph. Rzhev was taken on September 27. However, the Red Army stayed there for a few days. German reinforcements, which occupied the city on October 1, were immediately pulled up.

The next Soviet offensive ended with nothing. The losses of the Rzhev battle during this period amounted to about 300 thousand people, that is, 60% of the Red Army personnel in this sector of the front.

Operation Mars

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

Simultaneously, the command tried to misinform the enemy, in order to distract the Wehrmacht from Stalingrad, where these days the decisive days of battles were coming.

39th Army managed to force Young Tud, and the 1st mechanized corps attacked enemy tank formations near the town of Bely. But it was a temporary success. Already at the beginning of December the German counteroffensive stopped the Soviet soldiers and destroyed the 20th Army. The same fate awaited two corps: the 2 nd Guards Cavalry and 6th Tank.

On December 8, against the backdrop of these events, Georgy Zhukov insisted that Operation Mars (code name) be resumed with renewed vigor. But none of the attempts to break through the line of defense of the enemy has not come to the end with success. The troops under the command of General Khozin, Yushkevich and Zygin failed. Many were again surrounded. According to various estimates, the number of dead Soviet soldiers during this period fluctuates between 70 and 100 thousand. The Rzhev battle of 1942 never brought the long-awaited victory.

Operation Buffel

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

Kurt Zeitzler and the rest of the Wehrmacht command began to urgently ask Hitler to give permission for the withdrawal of troops. In the end, he agreed. The troops had to be withdrawn to the line in the vicinity of Dorogobuzh. Responsible for this important operation was Colonel-General Walter Model. The plan was codenamed "Büffel", which from German translates as "buffalo".

Taking Rzhev

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

Rzhev was waiting for the same fate. He was released on March 3. The first to enter the city was the 30th Army, which spent a long time in this sector of the front and was manned from almost zero after the bloody battles. Thus ended the Rzhev battle of 1942, 1943. Strategic success led to the fact that in the Great Patriotic War the initiative once again passed to the Soviet Union.

Pursuit of the enemy

The Soviet army left Rzhev behind and began an accelerated offensive on the left positions of the Germans. As a result, for March it was possible to move the front line to the west for another 150 kilometers. The communications of the Soviet troops were stretched out. Avant-garde distanced itself from the rear and provision. Progress was slowed by the beginning of a thaw and poor road conditions.

When the Germans established themselves in the vicinity of Dorogobuzh, it became clear that an army of such density could not be defeated, and the Red Army stopped. The next significant breakthrough will happen in the summer, when the Battle of Kursk will end.

The fate of Rzhev. Reflection in culture

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, 56 thousand people lived in the city. The city spent 17 months in the occupation, during which time it was destroyed to the ground. The local population either fled the day before, or did not survive the German authorities. When the Soviet army liberated the city on March 3, 1943, 150 civilians remained there.

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

Rzhevskaya battle left in the city about 300 surviving courtyards, when before the battle there were 5,500 of them. After the war, it was rebuilt literally anew.

Bloody battles and huge losses were reflected in the people's memory and a lot of artistic works. The most famous is the poem by Alexander Tvardovsky "I'm killed near Rzhev." Many monuments have the Tver region. Rzhev battle, a 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 memorable obelisk.