Mius front

The main line of defense began off the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov east of Taganrog , then passed along the Mius River, which gave the name of the entire line.

The depth of the line fortifications in places reached 11 kilometers. Along the river The Mius line ran along the right, that is, the high bank of the river. Also, frequent cliffs, heights, ravines and rocks, characteristic of this section of the Donetsk Ridge, were used . In particular, the Saur-Mogila barrow was a part of the defense system - the dominant height near the village. Saurovka in the Shakhtyorsk district of Donetsk region ^{[Note. 2]} .

In total, about 800 settlements in a strip with a width of 45-50 kilometers were involved in defense. The second line of defense passed along the right banks of the Krynka and Mokry Elanchik rivers and through the settlements of Krasny Kut , Manuylovka , Andreevka . The third line of defense ran along the right bank of the Kalmius River, east of Stalin , Makeevka and Gorlovka . However, these fortifications were not involved in the battles.

For the construction of fortifications, rails, timber from warehouses at mines were used, the houses of local residents were dismantled. The civilian population, including women, children and the elderly, participated in the construction of the defensive line ^[2] .

Chain of bunkers and bunkers , machine-gun nests and artillery positions were built. Fields were mined, trenches were dug, anti-tank ditches and wire fences were exposed. The width of the minefields was at least 200 meters. The density of bunkers and bunkers reached 20-30 per square kilometer.

At the turn of the river. Mius German army ( Kleist tank group ) left in mid-October 1941: Taganrog fell on October 17th . The approaching autumn thaw and the depletion of fuel reserves forced to delay progress ^[3] . Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt , Commander of the South Group , believed that the offensive should not be continued ahead of winter. Therefore, the construction of the line of fortifications on the river. Mius. ^[4] . However, Hitler insisted on continuing the offensive, and on November 17 Kleist tanks moved to Rostov-on-Don. After a week of stubborn battles, the defense of the Red Army was broken, and on the night of November 20, German troops entered the city.

In full accordance with Rundstedt’s prediction, there wasn’t enough forces to keep the city and already on November 28, Soviet troops under the command of S.K. Timoshenko after a stubborn and bloody battle again took Rostov-on-Don. Rundstedt requested Hitler's permission to withdraw troops to the prepared line of defense on the river. Mius , but did not receive permission. Nevertheless, a retreat order was issued, for which Rundstedt was removed from command on the same day. The new commander of the South group Walter von Reichenau , arriving at the place, confirmed the order to retreat. The Mius border of the 17th Field Army kept the whole spring of the next 1942 until the onset of the offensive in the Caucasus ^{[Note. 3]} .

The Wehrmacht defense on the Mius Front continued until July 1942, when after the failure of the Red Army 's offensive near Kharkov, the German command launched an offensive on the Kuban and the Caucasus . On July 24, units of the 17th Army again entered Rostov. This time, the Soviet troops could not keep the city, which was noted in the text of the well-known order of NGOs No. 227 - “Not a step back!”.

After encircling the 6th Army of Paulus near Stalingrad in December 1942, the Wehrmacht group in the Kuban and the North Caucasus ( Army Group “A” ) was threatened by encirclement, since the Red Army units located in the Stalingrad region were much closer to Rostov-on-Don , through which the group’s connection with the rest of the Eastern Front passed.

Hitler's order to retreat from the Caucasus followed on December 27, 1942, when the forces of the Red Army were already dangerously close to Rostov. Stubborn battles on the outskirts of the city continued during January 1943. The Wehrmacht still managed to contain the onslaught of the Red Army: the 1st tank crossed the Don and escaped encirclement. After that, German troops left Rostov-on-Don (released on February 14, 1943) and again retreated to the Mius Front line, where they consolidated their positions until the summer of 1943 ^[5] .

Preparation for the breakthrough of the Mius Front was begun in May 1943. The offensive was attended by units of the Southern Front .

July 17 - August 2

On July 17, Soviet troops with a sudden attack of three guards mechanized corps (from north to south: 1st , 4th and 2nd m.km.) with the support of the 31st Guards Infantry Corps broke through the front of the 6th Wehrmacht Army to a depth up to 10 km and occupied a foothold on the west bank of Mius in the vicinity of the villages of Stepanovka and Marinovka . To eliminate the threat, the German command urgently deployed tank units from other sections of the southern direction. SS tank divisions Das Reich and Totenkopf were deployed from Kharkov, despite the fact that battles for Kharkov were still ongoing ^[6] . The recently reorganized 23rd Panzer Division was withdrawn from the reserve of the 6th Army and sent to the Mius Front , ^[7] . The southern flank of the ledge was covered by the 294th Infantry Division .

As a result of stubborn battles with the participation of large tank and motorized forces on both sides, by August 2, the enemy managed to liquidate the breakthrough and again reached the border of the river. Mius in the village of Kuybyshevo - Dmitrovka . By the end of July, there was a lull on the Mius Front ^{[8] [Note. 4]} .

August 18 - 31

On August 18, the offensive of the troops of the Southern Front was launched. A preliminary 70-minute artillery preparation was carried out in which 1,500 artillery pieces and mortars took part. After artillery training, units of the 5th shock army began to advance. Tanks attacked, in front of them came sappers who showed passages in minefields, because due to dust and smoke the view was difficult and the tankers did not see the milestones installed by the sappers. Infantry marched behind the tanks. From the air, the attack was supported by the " Ilya " - attack aircraft of the 7th Assault Aviation Corps . The Mius front was breached to a depth of 8-9 kilometers.

On August 19, at the village of Kuybyshevo , the 4th Guards Mechanized Corps, under the command of Lieutenant General T.I. Tanaschishin, advanced 20 kilometers beyond the front line. Their tanks approached Amvrosievka . Basically, the breakthrough was 24 kilometers in depth and up to 16 kilometers along the front, approaching the second line of defense.

On August 20 and 21, as a result of counterattacks by the Germans, Soviet troops retreated a little. On August 22-26, the German command transferred the 13th Panzer Division from Crimea ^[9] . Gathering units from neighboring sectors of the front, the Germans tried to surround the attackers with flanking attacks.

On the night of August 24, Soviet troops launched an attack and occupied the villages of Artyomovka, Krinichki, and the Semyonovsky farm. The road to Taganrog was busy, which deprived the German troops of the opportunity to transfer reserves.

On August 27, Amvrosiyivka , the villages of Bolshoi Meshkovo and Blagodatnoe , were liberated.

The assault on the Saur-Graves by Soviet troops was launched on August 28, 1943. The assault involved units of the 96th Guards Rifle Division , commanded by Guard Colonel Semyon Samuilovich Levin . On August 29, after the artillery raid, Soviet troops almost captured the summit, but a German counterattack in the direction of the Saurmogilsky farm (now the village of Saurovka) forced the attackers back. Altitude was taken on the morning of August 31. After taking the heights, Soviet troops immediately continued the pursuit of German troops retreating in the direction of Snezhnoye and Chistyakovo (now Torez (now again Chistyakovo)).

The Mius Front has long delayed the advance of the Red Army southward. If Rostov-on-Don was liberated in February 1943 , then Taganrog - only on August 30 of the same year. At the same time, the Mius Front diverted a certain part of the Wehrmacht forces, contributing to the overall successes of the Red Army in other areas.

In 1943, the July offensive of the Southern Front forced Germany to transfer three tank divisions from the Kursk to the Mius Front, which could not but affect the results of the Battle of Kursk. At the same time, on July 30–31, 1943, while trying to recapture the breakthrough of the Mius Front by units of the Red Army, the elite SS Panzer Corps lost more people and equipment than two weeks earlier at Prokhorovka. The losses on the Mius Front were so great that for one dead German soldier there were seven to eight soldiers of the Red Army.

For many years in Russian history and literature, information about the Miuss battles and all the losses suffered on Mius was hidden, and the significance of the Mius Front and the heroic deed of the fighters, who here passed, by their own admission, “little Stalingrad”, have still remained underestimated and unknown the bulk of the Russians.

• Near the city of Snezhnoye there is the Saur-Mogila memorial complex - the height for which in August 1943 there were fierce battles with Nazi troops of the 5th shock army of the Southern Front . In 1967-1975, a memorial complex was erected on Saur-Mogil in memory of the feat of Soviet soldiers who died during the assault on the heights and the breakthrough of the German defensive line on the Mius River.
• A memorial complex Mius Front was built in Krasniy Luch .
• On May 7, 1980, in the Neklinovsky District of the Rostov Region near the village of Sambek, in honor of the soldiers of the 130th and 416th Rifle Divisions, awarded the honorary name "Taganrog", the Military Glory Memorial was erected, officially called the " Memorial of Glory on the Sambian Heights ." The monument was erected at the highest point near the trenches crumbling from time to time, destroyed machine-gun nests, dugouts on the outskirts of the village. The inscription is carved on a large stone at the entrance to the memorial complex:

Stop, comrade! Worship the earth, stained with the blood of the heroes of your people, who have defended the world in which you live. May your heart be kindled on this mound by the great fire of their selfless love for the Motherland, and your memory through the years will carry the glory of their immortal feat for transmission to descendants for centuries. Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten . "

The author of the complex is the Baku sculptor E. Shamilov ^[10] and the Rostov architects V. I. and I. V. Grigor ^[11] . The monument consists of two concrete walls - two rifle divisions that liberated these places and is the largest monument in the Rostov region. The opening ceremony of the monument was attended by the Azerbaijani delegation led by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR Heydar Aliyev ^{[12] [13]} .

• The monument "Anchor" is located 5 km from the village of Matveev Kurgan, on the Volkova Gora of the Matveevo-Kurgan District of the Rostov Region of Russia.

The height of the monument is 27 meters, it was opened in 1973 in honor of the sailors of the 3rd Guards Rifle Corps, whose brigades were formed from cadets of the Sevastopol and Baku Naval Schools. In March 1942, there were offensive battles for the liberation of Taganrog, where the key node was Volkova Gora, which was defended by the SS Viking tank division . At the pedestal near the monument there is an inscription: "Having shown courage and heroism, the sailors seized this supporting unit of the Nazis." The Anchor memorial is viewed from all sides of the Matveevo-Kurgan region.

Currently, the Anchor is a landmark and a symbol of the area, as well as a memory of those who died at this height. Celebrations are held here, schoolchildren and youth come here.

• Monument "Breakthrough of the Mius Front." Opened in 1983. Located on x. Stepanovo Matveevo-Kurgan district of the Rostov region of Russia, on the highway Rostov - Donetsk (Ukraine). The author (architect) - Perfilov V.I.

In 2008, in honor of the 65th anniversary of the breakthrough of the Mius Front, a military-historical reconstruction of the events of August 1943 took place here.

• Monument "Cannon". It was established by the Soviet soldiers of the rifle company of the 905th regiment of the 248th rifle division, who stormed the Mius Front in August 1943. Mount Black Raven near the Podgorny farm and the village of Petropolis , towering high in the middle of a steppe as flat as a table, was one of the strategically important heights.

During the assault on the mountain, Senior Sergeant Pavel Pudovkin repeated the feat of Alexander Matrosov , covering the embrasure of the bunker with his body, which allowed the regiment's fighters to continue the attack, storm the mountain and break through the Mius Front in this area. Senior Sergeant Pavel Pudovkin was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

• The temple-monument of St. Blessed Paul of Taganrog in the village of Matveev Kurgan .

The temple is a monument to the feat of arms of all Soviet soldiers who took part in the battles for the liberation of the Mius land. Built on the initiative of local residents with national money and donations. On the walls of the temple in the future, it is planned to perpetuate in golden letters the names of all military units and formations of the Red Army in marble that defended the Primiussie and stormed the Mius Front.

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  The Mius Front Memorial in Krasniy Luch , 2007

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  "Memorial of Glory on the Sambek Heights" in the Neklinovsky district of the Rostov region near the village of Sambek

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  Monument "Anchor", Volkova Gora, Matveevo-Kurgan District

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  Monument "Breakthrough of the Mius Front", x. Stepanov, Matveevo-Kurgan District

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  Monument to Soviet soldiers who stormed the Mius Front, Black Raven, near x. Podgorny, Matveevo-Kurgan region

• Your liberators, Donbass. Essays, memoirs / compiler G. Teplyakov - 5th, amended. - Donetsk: Donbass, 1976. - 423 p. - 100,000 copies.
• Oleinikov M. Ya. Saur-Grave. Guide. - Donetsk: Donbass, 1976. - 32 p. - 25,000 copies.
• Puzhayev G.K. Blood and the Glory of Mius. - 3rd revision .. - Taganrog: BANNERplus, 2008. - 400 p. - ISBN 5-7280-0041-X .
• Mius front in the Second World War, 1941-1942, 1943. - Rostov-on-Don: Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2010.
• Chalenko S. Mius front awaits the truth // Taganrog truth. - 2010 .-- Dec 28
• Tim Ripley History of SS troops 1925 - 1945. - M .: Tsentrpoligraf, 2009. - 351 p.
• Samuel W. Mitchum. Hitler's tank legions. - Moscow: Yauza-Press, 2009 .-- 416 p. - ISBN 978-5-9955-0042-1 .
• Zhirokhov M.A. The Battle of Donbass. Mius front. 1941-1943. - Moscow: Centerpolygraph, 2011 .-- 352 p. - 4000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-227-02674-3 .

• Mius front - our time
• Saur Mogila - memorial site
• Blood stained shores
• This is my war
• Search squad
• Construction of the Mius Front Museum begins in the Rostov Region (inaccessible link)
• Polyakov, Y., Mius Front: October 1941 - August 1943 // Donskoy Temnik / Don State Public Library. Rostov-on-Don, 1993—2014
• Venkov A.V. Small Encyclopedia of Fighting in the South: Review of the book “The Mius Front in the Great Patriotic War. 1941/1942 1943 ”// Donskoy temporary / Don State Public Library. Rostov-on-Don, 1993—2014