Artillery harassing fire continued throughout the day. German gun crews removed their tunics and laboured on in shirtsleeves, presenting an incongruously peaceful appearance as manual labourers in braces. Infantry began to dig in systematically around the remaining Russian defence works. It was necessary to bury the dead quickly because of the oppressive heat. Small thickets of crosses began to appear, adorned with German helmets. They formed a sinister backcloth to passing dust-shrouded vehicle convoys bypassing the town and the fighting, on their way to ‘Rollbahn 1’ moving east.
Two German propaganda cars, fitted with loudspeakers, began transmitting on the North Island, using the prevailing wind direction to waft their surrender appeals across the citadel. Between 17.00 and 17.15 hours a murderous artillery barrage mushroomed off the enemy positions, after which the loudspeakers announced to survivors they had a temporary 90-minute amnesty within which to surrender. Some 1,900 Russians took the option and shakily emerged from the ruins. Nikitina Archinowa, the wife of a Russian officer near the Ostfort, described what happened:
‘We women were taken with the children from out of the casemates and thrown outside. The Germans sorted us out and handled us as if we were soldiers, but we had no weapons, and led us off into captivity.’
Their German captors were in no forgiving mood. Forty-fifth Division had already radioed to XII Corps that morning that ‘so far, 18 officers have been killed’. Casualties rose remorselessly. The influx of prisoners suggested ‘the resistance capability of the Russians had been substantially reduced, and that a repeat of artillery fire and propaganda broadcasts would cause the citadel to fall without further losses’.(3)
Civilian captives were not courteously handled. Mrs Archinowa said: ‘as we came over the bridges shells were being fired into the fortress’. The amnesty was over. Prisoners were made to lie down directly beneath the artillery pieces engaging the citadel walls. Archinowa explained:
‘These were big guns. The Fascists laid us under the guns as hostages so that my husband and the other defenders would surrender. What should I do? It was awful. With every shot I thought my brains were going to come out of my head. The children began to bleed from the ears and mouth.’
Mrs Archinowa’s daughter’s hair turned grey. ‘My son, then only five years old. was permanently deaf afterwards.’ When the constant artillery pounding paused they got up and moved on. Firing recommenced as the newly displaced refugees stumbled along. Their overriding fear was that at any moment they might be taken out of the line and shot.(4)
That evening the propaganda broadcast cars were despatched to Infantry Regiment 133 on the South Island to build on their proven success. Their eerie metallic appeals began echoing around the city again as twilight descended. Once darkness fell, however, the Russians made renewed attempts to break out of the fortress to the north and east into the town. The division after-action report dolefully commented that ‘the intense artillery and infantry fire from all sides opposing [break-out attempts] completely drowned out the volume of the loudspeakers’. It appeared the weaker-willed had already surrendered.
Mrs Archinowa, moving out of immediate range, said, ‘we survived thanks to an old German soldier who had been detailed to look after us.’ After they crossed the River Bug back onto Polish soil the soldier told them, ‘I must report, and you – make up your minds. If you can get going – Go!’ They dispersed and Mrs Archinowa took her children home. Her husband was not to survive the subsequent fighting for the citadel and the war was to take her mother, brother, son and daughter also. ‘Practically my whole family was annihilated,’ she lamented.(5)
On 24 June Gefreiter Teuschler and about 70 other soldiers cut off in the vicinity of the church were rescued by a foray from I/IR133, covered by a concentrated artillery bombardment. The battle for Brest-Litovsk encapsulated in miniature the approaching pitiless experience of the new Eastern Front. Heinz Krüger, a combat engineer, commented after the war:
‘A fantastic thing, Ja? – the fortress at Brest-Litovsk. And the men that fought there, they didn’t give up. It was not a question of a victory – they were communists – it was more one of annihilation. And it was exactly the same for them – we were Fascists! It was some battle! A few prisoners were taken, but they fought to the last.’(6)
It was anticipated the division objective could be taken within eight hours. Now it was the third day and there was scant prospect of surrender. Russians occupied the barracks and the so-called ‘Officers’ Mess’ within the citadel, the eastern part of the North Island, part of the wall on the northern bridge (Werk 145) and the Ostfort. A decision was taken to reduce the remaining strongpoints with artillery to avoid further German bloodshed. Invasion traffic could still, with detours, be directed onto ‘Rollbahn 1’ moving east.
At 16.00 hours on 24 June, 45th Infantry Division announced: ‘the citadel has been taken’ and ‘isolated infantry was being mopped up’. Optimistically, it was claimed ‘resistance was much reduced’. A triumphant report at 21.40 hours the same evening announced, ‘Citadel at Brest taken!’ It was one of several misleading messages, commonplace in the confusion of war. Gunfire still reverberated around the city. The brief confirmation of ‘false report’ followed. The siege was about to enter its fourth bloody day(7)
Across the Dvina…
Army Group North
Three German Army Groups – North (Leeb), Centre (Bock) and South (Rundstedt) – attacked into the interior of Russia along historically proven invasion routes, towards Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev. The northern approach had already been traversed by the Teutonic Knights, ironically re-enacting an epic film being shown to Russian cinema audiences at that time. Sergei Eisenstein’s totalitarian cinematic masterpiece about 13th century warrior prince Alexander Nevsky portrayed a united Russian medieval peasantry combining to defend the city of Novgorod against the invading Knights of the German Teutonic Order in 1242. Its poignant depiction of events was not lost on its audience. The wardrobe of the attackers included distinctively shaped German helmets, and the presciently staged atrocities against Russian peasants stirred the same emotions subsequent brutalities would engender. The manner of the German defeat, its Knights swallowed up by the cracking ice of Lake Peipus in the dead of winter, was so prophetic in symbolic terms that the film had to be withdrawn within a year of release. It conflicted with the diplomatic intent of the Non-Aggression Pact signed with Hitler in 1939. The film was soon back on the screens.
Both the northern and central invasion routes had been used in part by Charles XII of Sweden. His army, defeated at Poltava in 1709, was destroyed by the following Russian winter. In 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée thrust across Minsk and Smolensk to Moscow: it, too, collapsed in the Russian winter. The third, southern, route was separated from the other two army groups by the Pripet Marshes to the north of its area and the Carpathian mountains in the south. This road was the gateway to the Ukraine, the ‘bread-basket’ of Russia. Beyond lay the great industrial, mining and oil-bearing regions of the Donets, Volga and Caucasus. Few serious natural obstacles barred these approaches apart from some of the great Russian rivers. Even these were no serious impediment to suitably equipped mechanised forces. Blitzkrieg operations in the Low Countries had already demonstrated the ability of modern technology to overcome them. No serious military operations were contemplated within the swampy 65,000sq km expanse of the Pripet Marshes.