Defense of Brest Fortress

This article is about a 1941 battle between Germany and the USSR. For Polish-German battle of 1939, see Battle of Brześć Litewski.
Battle of Brest
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II

The Eastern Front at the time of the Battle of Brest.
Date22–29 June 1941
Location
Brest, Belarusian SSR, Soviet Union
Result German victory
Belligerents
 Germany  Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Nazi Germany Fritz Schlieper Soviet Union Pyotr Gavrilov (POW)
Soviet Union Ivan Zubachyov (POW)
Soviet Union Andrey Kizhevatov †
Soviet Union Yefim Fomin Executed[1][2]
Strength
about 17,000, 2 panzer divisions over 9,000, 2 T-26 Infantry Tanks, BA-20 Bobik[3]
Casualties and losses
429 dead, 668 wounded[4] more than 2,000 dead[5]
about 6,800 captured[6]

The defense of Brest Fortress was the first battle of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union launched on 22 June 1941. The German Army attacked without warning, expecting to take Brest on the first day, using only infantry and artillery, but it took them a week, and only after two bombardments by the Luftwaffe. Many defenders were killed or captured.

  1. ^ Constantine Pleshakov, Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front, Houghton Mifflin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-618-36701-2, Google Print, p.243
  2. ^ Pleshakov notes (p. 242): "With the exception of Gavrilov [commander of the 44th Infantry Regiment], all the commanders of the troops were self-appointed. On the morning of 22 June, rank ceased to matter, and whoever was able to issue a sane order and persuade others to carry it out was acknowledged as a leader."
  3. ^ Christian Ganzer: Remembering and Forgetting: Hero Veneration in the Brest Fortress. In: Siobhan Doucette, Andrej Dynko, Ales Pashkevich (ed.): Returning to Europe. Belarus. Past and Future. Warsaw 2011, p. 138-145; here p. 141.
  4. ^ Christian Ganzer: German and Soviet Losses as an Indicator of the Length and Intensity of the Battle for the Brest Fortress (1941). In: The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Volume 27, Issue 3, pp. 449–466., here pp. 458–459.
  5. ^ Christian Ganzer: Remembering and Forgetting: Hero Veneration in the Brest Fortress. In: Siobhan Doucette, Andrej Dynko, Ales Pashkevich (ed.): Returning to Europe. Belarus. Past and Future. Warsaw 2011, pp. 138–145; here p. 139.
  6. ^ Christian Ganzer: German and Soviet Losses as an Indicator of the Length and Intensity of the Battle for the Brest Fortress (1941). In: The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Volume 27, Issue 3, pp. 449–466., here p. 463.