Panfilovtsy. The feat of Panfilov heroes during the Great Patriotic War

The history of the Great Patriotic War is full of heroic pages. However, in the 70 years that have passed since the Victory Day, a lot of falsifications have been revealed, as well as stories about how certain events have occurred that raise doubts about their reliability. Among them, the feat of 28 Panfilovites, which is mentioned in the anthem of Moscow and which has more than once become the basis for scenarios of feature films.

Prehistory

In the first months after the start of the Great Patriotic War , the 316th Infantry Division was formed in the towns of Frunze and Alma-Ata , commanded by the then military commander of the Kirghiz SSR, Major-General IV Panfilov. At the end of August 1945, this military formation became part of the active army and was sent to the front near Novgorod. Two months later he was transferred to the Volokolamsk area and ordered to occupy a 40 km long defense zone. The soldiers of Panfilov's division had to constantly carry on exhausting fights. And only in the last week of October 1941 they were hit and burned 80 units of enemy equipment, and the enemy lost more than 9,000 officers and soldiers.

The division under the command of Panfilov had in its composition 2 artillery regiments. In addition, she was subordinate to one tank company. However, one of its infantry regiments was poorly prepared, since it was formed shortly before departure to the front. The Panfilovites, as they were later called in the Soviet press, were opposed by three tank and one rifle divisions of the Wehrmacht. The enemies went on the offensive on October 15.

Panfilov's feat near Moscow: the version of the Soviet period

One of the most famous Soviet patriotic legends that originated during the Great Patriotic War, tells of the events at the Dubosekovo crossing, which allegedly took place on November 16, 1941. For the first time she appeared in the newspaper "Red Star", in an essay on the front-guard of V. Koroteyev. According to this source, 28 people who were a part of the fourth company of the second battalion of the 1075th regiment commanded by the political instructor V. Klochkov, in the course of a fierce 4-hour battle, 18 enemy tanks were destroyed. Almost all of them died in an unequal battle. The article also contained a phrase that, according to Koroteev, before the death, Klochkov said: "Great is Russia, but nowhere to retreat - behind Moscow!"

The exploit of 28 panfilovites: the story of one falsification

The day after the first article in the "Red Star" was published a material under the authorship of A. Yu. Krivitsky, entitled as "Testament of 28 fallen heroes", which the journalist called only the Panfilovites. The feat of the soldiers and their political instructors was described in detail, but the publication did not mention the names of the participants in the events. They first came to the press only on January 22, when all the same Krivitsky presented the exploit of Panfilovites in the unfolded essay, speaking as an eyewitness of those events. It is interesting that Izvestiya wrote about the battles near Volokolamsk as early as November 19 and reported only 9 wounded tanks and 3 burned tanks.

The story of the heroes who at the cost of life defended the capital shook the Soviet people and the soldiers who fought on all fronts, and the command of the Western Front prepared a petition addressed to the People's Commissar of Defense to be appropriated to the 28 brave soldiers mentioned in A. Krivitsky's article, Heroes of the Soviet Union. As a result, on July 21, 1942, the Presidium of the Supreme Council signed a decree.

Official Disclosure

Already in 1948, a large-scale investigation was carried out, aimed at establishing whether the feat of 28 Panfilovs really took place. The reason was that a year before in Kharkov, someone IE Dobrobabin was arrested. He was brought to justice with the wording "for treason", since the investigators of the military prosecutor's office found incontrovertible facts confirming that during the war years he voluntarily surrendered himself and entered the service of the invaders. In particular, it was possible to establish that this former policeman in 1941 was a participant in the battle at the Dubosekovo crossing. Moreover, it turned out that he and Dobrobabin, mentioned in the article of Krivitsky, are one and the same person, and he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero. Further investigation made it possible to consider everything stated in the articles in which the exploit of Panfilovites near Moscow was described, by falsification. The revealed facts formed the basis of the certificate signed by the then Prosecutor General of the USSR G. Safonov, which was presented to A. A. Zhdanov on June 11, 1948.

Criticism in the press

The results of the investigation, which cast doubt on the fact that the feat of the Panfilovites in the form described in the publications of Krasnaya Zvezda, took place in fact, did not get into the Soviet press. Only in 1966 in the "New World" appeared the first article concerning the November battles of Dubosekovo. In it, the author called for studying the facts concerning who the Panfilovites were, whose feat was described in all history textbooks. However, this topic was not further developed in the Soviet press until the beginning of perestroika, when thousands of archival documents were declassified, including the results of the 1948 investigation, which established that the exploit of Panfilov's heroes is just a literary fiction.

Where did the number 28 come from?

The light on how and why in 1941 there was a distortion of the facts concerning Panfilov warriors sheds a transcript of the interrogation of Koroteyev's correspondent. In particular, he points out that on his return from the front he reported on the battle of the 5th Company of the 316th Infantry Division, which fell on the battlefield and did not surrender its positions to the editor of the Red Star. He asked him how many fighters there were, and Koroteev, who knew that she was understaffed, replied that 30-40, adding that he himself was not in the 1075th Rifle Regiment, since it was impossible to get into his position. In addition, he said that, according to a political report from the regiment, two soldiers tried to surrender, but were shot by their comrades. Thus, it was decided to publish the figure 28 and write only about one smalodushnichavshim fighter. So there was a legend and fictional "perished, all as one, Panfilovites," whose exploits were sung in poems and songs.

Attitude to the feat

Today it is blasphemous to argue about whether the Panfilovites were heroes. The feat of all those soldiers of the 316th Infantry Division, who honestly fulfilled their duty in November 1941, is certain, as is their great merit in the fact that the Soviet troops did not allow the fascist invaders to the capital of our Motherland. Another thing is that the fact that among the awarded were traitors is an insult to the memory of real heroes who did not spare their lives for the sake of achieving the Great Victory, the 70th anniversary of which will soon be celebrated by all mankind that does not suffer from historical amnesia.