This week, 70 years ago, the Germans finally captured Major Pyotr Mikhaylovich Gavrilov, of the Red Army, during the fight for the Brest fortress. Major Gavrilov was an officer in the 44th Motor Rifle Regiment, one of the units tasked with defending Brest. This was the second time in as many years that the German Wehrmacht had had to capture the fortress.  
    The original fortress was built from plans prepared by Russian General K. I. Operman in 1830. At that time it was located within the borders of the Russian Empire and, when completed, was the largest fortress in the Empire.  Construction began in 1836 and lasted until 1842. The fortifications were constantly being modernized, expanded and updated with more forts being added around the original fortress until the final version was completed in 1914. The fortress was occupied by the Imperial German Army in August of 1915 after the Russian Army abandoned it during its withdrawal from Poland, in World War I.  By 1941, Brest Fortress was a star-shaped fortification with accommodations for 12,000 soldiers.
    The fortress was built to protect the city of Brest, which is located at the confluence of the Western Bug and Mukhavets Rivers, on the Belorussian side of the border with Poland. It is one of the oldest cities of Belarus.
    Pursuant to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was signed in the Fortress, the Soviet Union ceded that part of Poland to the German Empire. However, that was undone by the post-War World I treaties between the Allies and the Central Powers, which recreated the Polish nation. During the Polish-Soviet War, the fortress changed hands twice, before the Treaty of Riga established it within the boundaries of Poland in 1921.
    In September, 1939, Polish Major-General Konstanty Blisowski, with four infantry battalions and two tank companies, defended the fortress against the XIX Panzerkorps, of General Heinz Guderian, for four days, after which he withdrew his troops and joined the forces of Brigadier-General Franciszek Kleeberg. General Blisowski was captured by the Soviets and murdered in the Katyn massacre.
    Pursuant to the Molotov/Ribbentrop Pact, the Germans handed the fortress to Soviet forces under Brigadier-General Semyon M. Krivosheyin. To celebrate the capture, troops of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht paraded, together, in front of Generals Guderian and Krivosheyin.
    Now the Germans had to do it all over again. Astride the road to Moscow, the fortress and the city had to be taken, again - this time from the Red Army. The Germans expected it to fall within hours. It would be many weeks before the Germans could claim victory. In the meantime a Soviet legend was born.
    On June 22nd the Soviet defenders of the Brest Fortress were shocked when the bombing and shelling began again.  Operation Barbarossa, the greatest offensive in the history of man, had begun, as the German Wehrmacht, and the Slovakian Army, soon to be joined by two Rumanian Armies, Hungarian, Finnish and Croatian troops began their assault on the U.S.S.R.
    Elements of the Sixth and Forty-Second Rifle Divisions commanded by Colonel Mikhail Bopsuy-Shapko and General Ivan Lazarenko, respectively, and the Seventeenth Frontier Guards detachment of the NKGB border troops totaling about thirty-five hundred soldiers began defending the fortress against the on-rushing Wehrmacht. When the families of 300 of the soldiers, plus some smaller units, including the hospital and medical staffs were included, approximately 7-8 thousand people were in the fortress. However, probably only about 3500 remained inside the fortress after it was surrounded by the Germans.
    Most of the soldiers the Brest defenders faced were from the Forty-Fifth Infantry Division, commanded by General Fritz Schlieper. It had formerly been the Fourth Austrian Division until it was incorporated into the Wehrmacht, following the Anschluss with Germany.
    The initial assault on the fortress began 30 minutes after the aerial and artillery bombardment had begun. Some of those inside the fortress managed to escape, but most became trapped. The Germans used rockets, artillery and flame-throwers. Everyone inside pitched in. The women tended the wounded, reloaded the machine-gun cartridge belts and even took positions on the walls, while the children brought food and ammunition to the soldiers. General Schlieper wrote,
    “It was impossible to advance here with only infantry at our disposal because the highly organized rifle and machine gun fire from the deep gun placements in horseshoe shaped yards cut down anyone who approached. There was only one solution - to force the Soviets to capitulate through hunger and thirst. We were ready to use any means available to exhaust them...our offers to give themselves up were unsuccessful.”
    The Germans blew up one of the buildings of the fortress. General Schlieper wrote that after the detonation, “...we could hear the Soviet soldiers screaming and groaning, but they continued to fight.”  Chaplain Rudolf Gschöpf said that, “The resistance continued until the walls of the building were destroyed and razed to the ground by more powerful explosions.”
    On June 24, the Soviet defenders coalesced under the command of Major Ivan Zubachov. The commissar and second in command was Yefin Fomin.
    Three days later, the Germans unleashed two Karl-Gerät self-propelled mortars. These monsters were the largest self-propelled guns to see service during the war. They weighed 122 tons and could fire a 4,800 pound shell 4,720 yards, capable of penetrating more than 8 feet of concrete.
    After the defenders rejected their surrender offer, the Germans mounted a major assault, on June 30, which resulted in the capture of most of the fortress, including Major Zubachov and the Commissar. The Major was sent to a POW camp, where he, like most Soviet prisoners, died. The Commissar had two strikes against him - being Jewish and being a Commissar. Pursuant to the “Commissar Order,” he was executed by the Kholm Gate. He was, posthumously, named a “Hero of the Soviet Union.” The Germans had suffered 482 dead and 1000 wounded. By this time, the rest of the German army was 300 miles to the east.
    However, pockets of resistance continued in the rubble and the dungeons. Inscriptions were later found on the walls: “I’m dying but I won’t surrender. Farewell, Motherland. July 8, 1941;” “We’ll die, but we won’t leave the fortress.” Major Gavrilov was finally captured on July 23, 1941. Although he survived German captivity, his troubles had not ended. Upon his return to the U.S.S.R., pursuant to Order # 270, he was condemned for “being taken captive,” and spent ten years in a Gulag, finally being released in 1957, after Stalin’s death. As Stalin said, when the Order was adopted on August 16, 1941, “There are no Soviet prisoners-of-war, only traitors.”  Finally, the Germans flooded the fortress with water from the Bug River. Ten days after the Major’s capture, the German Führer gave the Italian Duce a personal tour of the fortress and showed him the work of the monster mortars.
    A museum devoted to the defense of the fortress was opened in 1956. On May 8, 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet awarded the title of Hero Fortress to the Brest Fortress and to Major Gavrilov and Lt. Andreii Kizhevatov, “Hero of the Soviet Union,” for their roles in the heroic defense of the fortress. Lt. Kizhevatov was commander of the 9th Frontier Guard Station, and died in the fighting.
     The Heroic Brest Fortress Memorial Complex was opened in 1971. Of the 962 defenders buried there, 265 have been identified. The bayonet obelisk is 100 meters high and weighs 620 tons and can be seen from any part of the Complex.

NEXT WEEK: THE BLUE DIVISION OF SPAIN

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.