In February 1946, the representative of the Soviet mission for repatriation in England was informed that a wounded Canadian officer in a hospital near London urgently wanted to see him. The officer, a former prisoner of the Mauthausen concentration camp, considered it necessary to inform the Soviet representative of “extremely important information.”
The Canadian major's name was Seddon De-Saint-Clair. “I want to tell you about how Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev died,” the officer said when the Soviet representative appeared at the hospital.
The story of a Canadian military man was the first news about Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev since 1941...

Cadet from an unreliable family

Dmitry Karbyshev was born on October 26, 1880 into a military family. Since childhood, he dreamed of continuing the dynasty started by his father and grandfather. Dmitry entered the Siberian Cadet Corps, however, despite the diligence shown in his studies, he was listed among the “unreliable” there.

The fact is that Dmitry’s older brother, Vladimir, participated in a revolutionary circle created at Kazan University, together with another young radical, Vladimir Ulyanov. But if the future leader of the revolution got away with only expulsion from the university, then Vladimir Karbyshev ended up in prison, where he later died.

Despite the stigma of being “unreliable,” Dmitry Karbyshev studied brilliantly, and in 1898, after graduating from the cadet corps, he entered the Nikolaev Engineering School.

Of all the military specialties, Karbyshev was most attracted to the construction of fortifications and defensive structures.

The talent of the young officer first clearly manifested itself during the Russian-Japanese campaign - Karbyshev strengthened positions, built bridges across rivers, installed communications and conducted reconnaissance in force.

Despite the unsuccessful outcome of the war for Russia, Karbyshev showed himself to be an excellent specialist, which was noted by medals and the rank of lieutenant.

From Przemysl to Perekop

But in 1906, Lieutenant Karbyshev was dismissed from service for freethinking. True, not for long - the command was smart enough to understand that specialists of this level should not be thrown away.

On the eve of the First World War, staff captain Dmitry Karbyshev designed forts Brest Fortress- the same ones in which thirty years later Soviet soldiers would fight the Nazis.

Karbyshev spent the First World War as a division engineer of the 78th and 69th infantry divisions, and then the head of the engineering service of the 22nd Finnish Rifle Corps. For bravery and bravery during the storming of Przemysl and during the Brusilov breakthrough, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and awarded the Order of St. Anne.

During the revolution, Lieutenant Colonel Karbyshev did not rush around, but immediately joined the Red Guard. All his life he was faithful to his views and beliefs, which he did not renounce.

In November 1920, Dmitry Karbyshev was engaged in engineering support for the assault on Perekop, the success of which finally decided the outcome of the Civil War.

Missing

By the end of the 1930s, Dmitry Karbyshev was considered one of the most prominent experts in the field of military engineering not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the world. In 1940 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and in 1941 - the degree of Doctor of Military Sciences.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War General Karbyshev worked to create defensive structures on the western border. During one of his trips to the border, he was caught by the outbreak of hostilities.

The rapid advance of the Nazis put the Soviet troops in a difficult situation. 60 year old general engineering troops– not the most necessary person in units that are in danger of being surrounded. However, they failed to evacuate Karbyshev. However, he himself, like a real combat officer, decided to break out of Hitler’s “bag” together with our units.

But on August 8, 1941, Lieutenant General Karbyshev was seriously shell-shocked in a battle near the Dnieper River, and was captured in an unconscious state.

From this moment until 1945, his personal file will include short phrase: "Missing in action."

The German command was convinced: Karbyshev among the Bolsheviks was a random person. Nobleman, officer tsarist army, he will easily agree to go over to their side. In the end, he and the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) joined only in 1940, apparently under duress.

However, very soon the Nazis discovered that Karbyshev was a tough nut to crack. The 60-year-old general refused to serve the Third Reich and expressed confidence in the final victory Soviet Union and in no way resembled a man broken by captivity.

In March 1942, Karbyshev was transferred to the Hammelburg officer concentration camp. It carried out active psychological treatment of high-ranking Soviet officers in order to force them to go over to the side of Germany. For this purpose, the most humane and benevolent conditions were created. Many who suffered hardships in ordinary soldier camps broke down on this. Karbyshev, however, turned out to be from a completely different text - no benefits or concessions could “reforge” him.

Soon Colonel Pelit was assigned to Karbyshev. This Wehrmacht officer had an excellent command of the Russian language, since he had served in the tsarist army at one time. Moreover, Pelit was a colleague of Karbyshev while working on the forts of the Brest Fortress.

Pelit, a subtle psychologist, described to Karbyshev all the advantages of serving great Germany, offering “compromise options for cooperation” - for example, the general is engaged in historical works on the military operations of the Red Army in the current war, and for this in the future he will be allowed to travel to a neutral country.

However, Karbyshev again rejected all the options for cooperation proposed by the Nazis.

Incorruptible

Then the Nazis made their last attempt. The general was transferred to solitary confinement one of the Berlin prisons, where he was kept for about three weeks.

After that, his colleague, the famous German fortifier Professor Heinz Raubenheimer, was waiting for him in the investigator’s office.

The Nazis knew that Karbyshev and Raubenheimer knew each other; moreover, the Russian general respected the work of the German scientist.

Raubenheimer voiced to Karbyshev the following proposal from the authorities of the Third Reich. The general was offered release from the camp, the opportunity to move to a private apartment, as well as full material security. He will have access to all libraries and book depositories in Germany, and will be given the opportunity to become acquainted with other materials in areas of military engineering that interest him. If necessary, any number of assistants were guaranteed to set up the laboratory, carry out development work and provide other research activities. The results of the work should become the property of German specialists. All ranks of the German army will treat Karbyshev as a lieutenant general of the engineering troops of the German Reich.

A middle-aged man who had gone through hardships in the camps was offered luxurious conditions while retaining his position and even his rank. He was not even required to denounce Stalin and the Bolshevik regime. The Nazis were interested in Karbyshev’s work in his main specialty.

Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev understood perfectly well that this was most likely the last proposal. He also understood what would follow the refusal.

However, the courageous general said: “My convictions do not fall out along with my teeth from a lack of vitamins in the camp diet. I am a soldier and remain true to my duty. And he forbids me to work for a country that is at war with my Motherland.”

The Nazis really counted on Karbyshev, on his influence and authority. It was he, and not General Vlasov, according to the original plan, who was supposed to lead the Russian Liberation Army.

But all the plans of the Nazis were dashed by Karbyshev’s inflexibility.

Gravestones for the Nazis

After this refusal, the Nazis put an end to the general, defining him as “a convinced, fanatical Bolshevik, whose use in the service of the Reich is impossible.”

Karbyshev was sent to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he was subjected to extreme hard labor. But here, too, the general surprised his comrades in misfortune with his unbending will, fortitude and confidence in the final victory of the Red Army.

One of the Soviet prisoners later recalled that Karbyshev knew how to cheer up even in the most difficult moments. When the prisoners were working on making gravestones, the general remarked: “This is the work that gives me real pleasure. The more tombstones the Germans demand from us, the better, which means things are going well for us at the front.”

He was transferred from camp to camp, conditions became more and more harsh, but they failed to break Karbyshev. In each of the camps where the general found himself, he became a real leader of spiritual resistance to the enemy. His tenacity gave strength to those around him.

The front was moving to the West. Soviet troops entered German territory. The outcome of the war became obvious even to convinced Nazis. The Nazis had nothing left but hatred and the desire to deal with those who turned out to be stronger than them, even in chains and behind barbed wire...

Major Seddon De St. Clair was one of several dozen prisoners of war who managed to survive terrible night on February 18, 1945 in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

“As soon as we entered the camp, the Germans forced us into the shower room, ordered us to undress and started spraying water on us from above ice water. This went on for a long time. Everyone turned blue. Many fell to the floor and died immediately: their hearts could not stand it. Then we were ordered to put on only underwear and wooden stocks for our feet and were kicked out into the yard. General Karbyshev stood in a group of Russian comrades not far from me. We realized that we were living our last hours. A couple of minutes later, the Gestapo men, standing behind us with fire hoses in their hands, began to pour streams of water on us. cold water. Those who tried to evade the stream were hit on the head with batons. Hundreds of people fell frozen or with their skulls crushed. I saw how General Karbyshev also fell,” said the Canadian major.

The general’s last words were addressed to those who shared his terrible fate: “Cheer up, comrades! Think about the Motherland, and courage will not leave you!”

Hero of the Soviet Union

With the story of the Canadian major, the collection of information about the last years of General Karbyshev’s life, spent in German captivity. All collected documents and eyewitness accounts spoke of the exceptional courage and fortitude of this man.

On August 16, 1946, for the exceptional tenacity and courage shown in the fight against the German invaders in the Great Patriotic War, Lieutenant General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In 1948, a monument to the general was unveiled on the territory of the former Mauthausen concentration camp. The inscription on it reads: “To Dmitry Karbyshev. To a scientist. To the warrior. Communist. His life and death were a feat in the name of life.”

Not long ago, on TV, I heard more than strange information. A simple survey was conducted at one of the Moscow humanities universities. Not literally, but something like this: “Are you familiar with the names of generals Vlasov and Karbyshev?” Current level school education and TV propaganda was very revealing. Almost everyone has heard about Vlasov, only three out of hundreds of respondents have heard about Karbyshev. And we are not talking about assessing individuals. We are talking about something more terrible - about hushing up the names of true Heroes, and exaggerating the names of traitors...

The biography of Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev has been studied by historians, perhaps better than any other hero of the Great Patriotic War. And there is nothing surprising in this: by the beginning of the war, Dmitry Mikhailovich was already 60 years old, he held the rank of lieutenant general of the engineering troops, was a doctor of military sciences and a professor at the Military Academy of the General Staff. Therefore, researchers have never experienced a lack of information about his pre-war life, as, for example, in the case of Alexander Matrosov.

The future hero was born on October 26, 1880 in the city of Omsk in the family of a military official. Following in his father's footsteps, he graduated from the Siberian Cadet Corps in 1898, and two years later from the Nikolaev Military Engineering School, after which, with the rank of second lieutenant, he was appointed company commander to the East Siberian Engineer Battalion, stationed in Manchuria.

In 1904-1905, Dmitry Karbyshev took part in the Russian-Japanese War. As part of the battalion, he was involved in strengthening positions, establishing communications, and building bridges. He took part in the battle of Mukden. As Krasnaya Zvezda writes (10/26/2000), Karbyshev “was always in the most critical sectors, in the thick of battle, next to the soldiers, and returned from the war with five military orders and three medals.” He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant.

In 1906, Dmitry Mikhailovich was transferred from the tsarist army to the reserve. He was charged with agitation among soldiers, and the case was heard by the officers' "court of honor." However, a year later, the lack of experienced officers affected him and he again became the commander of a company of a sapper battalion that took part in the reconstruction of the fortifications of Vladivostok.

In 1911 he graduated with honors from the Nikolaev Military Engineering Academy. According to the distribution, Captain Karbyshev was supposed to become the commander of a mine company of the Sevastopol Fortress, but instead he was sent to Brest-Litovsk. There he took part in the construction of forts at the Brest Fortress.

During World War I he fought as part of the 8th Army of General Brusilov. At the beginning of 1915, he took part in the assault on the Przemysl fortress. He was wounded in the leg. For bravery and courage he was awarded the Order of St. Anna 2nd degree and promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1916 he took part in the famous Brusilov breakthrough.

In December 1917, Karbyshev joined the Red Guard. Fighting on the side of the Bolsheviks, he was engaged in strengthening positions in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, and Ukraine. As he writes " Soviet Russia"(02/19/2005), he knew Frunze and Kuibyshev well, met with Dzerzhinsky. The famous Bolsheviks, the publication notes, highly valued the former tsarist lieutenant colonel and trusted him. As head of the 6th military field construction, he supervised defensive work around Samara, where, as the already mentioned “Red Star” writes, “for the first time he put into practice the idea of ​​​​creating a field fortified area that would reliably cover the rear and serve as a springboard for the development of an offensive.” In 1920 he became the chief of engineers of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front, and in the fall of 1920 he was appointed. appointed assistant chief of engineers of the Southern Front.

After the end of the civil war, Dmitry Mikhailovich began teaching at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze. In 1934, he headed the department of military engineering at the Military Academy of the General Staff. Since 1936, he was assistant to the head of the department of tactics of higher formations of the Military Academy of the General Staff. D.M. worked with great enthusiasm. Karbyshev and in the scientific field. He created more than a hundred fundamental works, articles and teaching aids in various branches of military engineering, participated in the development modern means military engineering equipment and found new techniques for their combat use. D.M. Karbyshev was known as a major scientist not only in our country, but also far beyond its borders. And they not only knew, but also used his works in defense engineering.

For his enormously fruitful scientific and pedagogical activity, he was awarded the academic title of professor and the academic degree of Doctor of Military Sciences. “In our listening environment, the teacher-engineer Karbyshev was especially popular,” the newspaper “Tribuna” (05/13/2004) quotes the memories of Army General Shtemenko. “After all, it was from him that the favorite saying of sappers came: “One sapper, one ax, one day, one stump." True, it was altered by wits; in Karbyshev's style it sounded like this: "One battalion, one hour, one kilometer, one ton, one row."

In 1938 Karbyshev graduated Military Academy General Staff, and a little later was confirmed in the academic rank of professor. In 1940, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of the engineering troops. At the same time he became a member of the CPSU (b).

In 1939-1940, the general took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. Developed recommendations for troops on engineering support for breaking through the Mannerheim Line. In 1941 he defended his dissertation for Doctor of Military Sciences.

The Great Patriotic War found Dmitry Mikhailovich at the headquarters of the 3rd Army in the city of Grodno (Belarus). From this moment on, information about the future fate of the general begins to vary. In particular, historians do not have a common opinion regarding the circumstances of his capture. According to some sources, the general’s capture occurred after unsuccessful attempt with a hastily assembled detachment of retreating fighters, recapture the crossing of the river near the village of Zelva in the Grodno region. According to other sources, two days after the start of the war, Karbyshev moved to the headquarters of the 10th Army. On June 27, the army headquarters was surrounded. In August 1941, while trying to get out of encirclement, Dmitry Mikhailovich was seriously shell-shocked in a battle in the Dnieper region (Mogilev region of Belarus) and was captured unconscious.

Dmitry Karbyshev began his “camp journey” in a distribution camp near the Polish city of Ostrov-Mazowiecki. Here the prisoners were registered, sorted, and interrogated. In the camp, Karbyshev suffered from a severe form of dysentery. At dawn of one cold October day in 1941, a train crowded with people, among whom was Karbyshev, arrived in Zamosc, Poland. The general was placed in barracks 11, which later became firmly assigned the name “general’s.” Here, as they say, there was a roof over your head and almost normal food, which was a rarity under captivity. The Germans, according to German historians, were almost sure that after everything they had experienced, the outstanding Soviet scientist would have “feelings of gratitude” and agree to cooperate. But this did not work - and in March 1942, Karbyshev was transferred to a purely officer concentration camp in Hammelburg (Bavaria). This camp was special - intended exclusively for Soviet prisoners of war. His command had a clear directive - to do everything possible (and impossible) to win over the “unstable, wavering and cowardly” Soviet officers and generals to Hitler’s side. Therefore, the appearance of legality and humane treatment of prisoners was observed in the camp, which, admittedly, gave its positive results (especially in the first year of the war). But not in relation to Karbyshev. It was during this period that his famous motto was born: “There is no greater victory than victory over yourself! The main thing is not to fall to your knees before the enemy.”

I note that during this period it was in Hammelburg that German propaganda began to develop its “historical invention” - here a “commission was created to compile the history of the Red Army’s operations in the current war.” Leading German experts in this field, including SS officers, arrived at the camp. They talked with the captured officers, defending the idea that the purpose of compiling “history” was purely scientific, that the officers would be free to write it in the way they wished. It was reported in passing that all officers who agreed to write the history of the operations of the Red Army would receive additional food, comfortable premises for work and housing, and, in addition, even a fee for “literary” work. The focus was primarily on Karbyshev, but the general categorically refused “cooperation”, moreover, he was able to dissuade most of the remaining prisoners of war from participating in Goebbels’ “adventure.” The attempt by the fascist command to organize a “Commission” ultimately failed.

According to some reports, by the end of October 1942, the Germans realized that with Karbyshev “it’s not so simple” - to win him over fascist Germany quite problematic. Here is the content of one of the secret letters that Colonel Pelit received from a “higher authority”: “The high command of the engineering service again contacted me about the prisoner Karbyshev, a professor, lieutenant general of the engineering troops, who is in your camp. I was forced to delay the resolution of the issue, since I was counting on the fact that you would follow my instructions regarding the named prisoner and be able to find him with common language and convince him that if he correctly assesses the situation that has developed for him and meets our desires, a good future awaits him. However, Major Peltzer, whom I sent to you for inspection, stated in his report the general unsatisfactory implementation of all plans concerning the Hammelburg camp and in particular the prisoner Karbyshev."

Soon the Gestapo command ordered Karbyshev to be taken to Berlin. He guessed why he was being taken to the German capital.

The general was placed in a solitary cell without windows, with a bright, constantly flashing electric lamp. While in the cell, Karbyshev lost track of time. The day here was not divided into day and night, there were no walks. But, as he later told his fellow prisoners, apparently at least two or three weeks passed before he was called in for the first interrogation. This was a common technique of jailers,” Karbyshev later recalled, analyzing this whole “event” with professorial precision: the prisoner is brought into a state of complete apathy, atrophy of will, before being taken “for promotion.”

But, to Dmitry Mikhailovich’s surprise, he was met not by a prison investigator, but by the famous German fortifier Professor Heinz Raubenheimer, about whom he had heard a lot over the past two decades, whose works he had closely followed in special magazines and literature. They met several times.

The professor politely greeted the prisoner, expressing regret for the inconvenience caused to the great Soviet scientist. Then he took out a sheet of paper from the folder and began to read the previously prepared text. The Soviet general was offered release from the camp, the opportunity to move to a private apartment, as well as full financial security. Karbyshev will have access to all libraries and book depositories in Germany, and will be given the opportunity to get acquainted with other materials in areas of military engineering that interest him. If necessary, any number of assistants were guaranteed to set up the laboratory, carry out development work and provide other research activities. Independent choice of topics for scientific development was not prohibited; permission was given to travel to the front lines to test theoretical calculations in the field. True, it was stipulated - except for the Eastern Front. The results of the work should become the property of German specialists. All ranks of the German army will treat Karbyshev as a lieutenant general of the engineering troops of the German Reich.

Having carefully listened to the terms of the “cooperation”, Dmitry Mikhailovich calmly replied: “My convictions do not fall out along with my teeth from the lack of vitamins in the camp diet. I am a soldier and remain faithful to my duty. And he forbids me to work for a country that is at war with my homeland."

The German did not expect such stubbornness. Somehow, with your favorite teacher it would be possible to come to a certain compromise. The iron doors of the solitary slammed shut behind the German professor.

Karbyshev was given salty food, after which he was denied water. We replaced the lamp - it became so powerful that even closing my eyelids, there was no rest for my eyes. They began to fester, causing excruciating pain. They were almost not allowed to sleep. At the same time, the mood and mental state of the Soviet general were recorded with German accuracy. And when it seemed that he was starting to turn sour, they came again with an offer to cooperate. The answer was the same - “no”. This went on for almost six months.

After this, Karbyshev was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, located in the Bavarian mountains, 90 km from Nuremberg. He was distinguished by hard labor of particular severity, and the inhumane treatment of prisoners knew no bounds. Prisoners in striped clothes with their heads shaved in a cross shape worked from morning to night in granite quarries under the supervision of SS men armed with whips and pistols. A minute's respite, a glance thrown to the side, a word spoken to a neighbor at work, any awkward movement, the slightest offense - all this caused the furious rage of the overseers, beating with a whip. Shots were often heard. They shot me straight in the back of the head.

One of the Soviet captured officers recalled after the war: “Once Dmitry Mikhailovich and I were working in a barn, cutting granite pillars for roads, facing and gravestone slabs. Regarding the latter, Karbyshev (who even in the most difficult situations had a sense of humor) suddenly remarked : “This is work that gives me true pleasure. The more gravestones the Germans demand from us, the better, which means things are going well for us at the front.”

Dmitry Mikhailovich's almost six-month stay at hard labor ended one August day in 1943. The prisoner was transferred to Nuremberg and imprisoned by the Gestapo. After a short “quarantine” he was sent to the so-called “block” - a wooden barracks in the middle of a huge cobblestone courtyard. Here many recognized the general: some - as a colleague in the past, others - as a competent teacher, others - from printed works, some - from previous meetings in fascist dungeons.

Then came Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen - camps that will forever go down in human history as monuments to the most terrible atrocities of German fascism. Constantly smoking furnaces where the living and the dead were burned; gas chambers, where tens of thousands of people died in terrible agony; mounds of ash from human bones; huge bales women's hair; mountains of shoes taken from children before sending them to last path. The Soviet general also went through all this.

Three months before our army entered Berlin, 65-year-old Karbyshev was transferred to the Mauthausen camp, where he died.

How else could a person live who devoted his entire life to serving the Fatherland until the very end, despite inhumane conditions fascist captivity, remaining faithful to the military oath? After all, even if we take the notorious touch of “artistic interpretation” out of the equation and operate exclusively with documentary evidence, it is unlikely that anyone will have any doubts about the fairness of awarding Dmitry Karbyshev the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

"...This largest Soviet fortifier, a career officer of the old Russian army, a man who was over sixty years old, turned out to be fanatically devoted to the idea of ​​loyalty to military duty and patriotism... Karbyshev can be considered hopeless in the sense of using us as a military engineering specialist affairs,” the Tribune quotes excerpts from a document of the Main Engineering Directorate of the Nazi Army, ending with the resolution: “Send to the Flossenburg concentration camp for hard labor, no discounts on rank or age.”

"Soviet Russia" cites evidence from Vlasov's personal adjutant Khmyrov-Dolgoruky, who claimed that representatives of the Wehrmacht persuaded Dmitry Karbyshev to take the post of commander of the "Russian liberation army" - instead of Vlasov himself.

And historian Viktor Mirkiskin, in his article in Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye (11/14/2003), cites the text of one of the secret letters received by the commandant of the camp in Hammelburg, Colonel Pelit, from a “higher authority”: “The High Command of the Engineering Service again contacted me about prisoner Karbyshev, professor, lieutenant general of the engineering troops, who is in your camp, I was forced to delay the resolution of the issue, because I hoped that you would follow my instructions regarding the said prisoner, be able to find a common language with him and convince him that that if he correctly assesses the situation that has developed for him and meets our wishes, a good future awaits him. However, Major Peltzer, whom I sent to you for inspection, in his report stated the general unsatisfactory implementation of all plans regarding the Hammelburg camp and in particular the prisoner. Karbyshev".

General D.M. Karbyshev, then, in the camp, formulated “Rules of conduct for Soviet soldiers and commanders in fascist captivity.” Here they are, set out independently of each other by former prisoners T.B. Kublitsky, A.P. Esin, P.P. Koshkarov and Yu.P. Demyanenko:

1. Organization and cohesion in any conditions of captivity.

2. Mutual assistance. First of all, help sick and wounded comrades.

3. Do not humiliate your dignity in any way in the face of the enemy.

4. Hold high the honor of the Soviet soldier.

5. Force the fascists to respect the unity and cohesion of prisoners of war.

6. Fight against fascists, traitors and traitors to the Motherland.

7. Create patriotic groups of prisoners of war for sabotage and sabotage behind enemy lines.

8. At the first opportunity, escape from captivity.

9. Remain faithful to the military oath and your homeland.

10. Shatter the myth of the invincibility of Hitler’s troops and instill confidence in prisoners of war in our victory.

On the night of February 17-18, 1945, D.M. Karbyshev died in the Mauthausen camp during the Nazi massacre of prisoners - revenge for the escape they organized two weeks ago. From the shower room, where the Nazi executioners poured either ice water or boiling water, exhausted people were driven naked into the cold of the night. In the light of spotlights they were doused with water cannons. ice water, which at a temperature of 10 degrees below zero covered the bodies with an ice crust.

The last words of the old general that the prisoners of the neighboring barracks heard were: “Cheer up, comrades! Think about the Motherland - and courage will not leave you!”

The Soviet government learned about this execution from two slightly different reports that were received after the end of the war.

MESSAGE OF FORMER PRISONER OF WAR LIEUTENANT COLONEL SOROKIN (1945)

On February 21, 1945, I and a group of 12 captured officers arrived at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Upon arrival at the camp, I learned that on February 17, 1945, at 5 p.m., a group of 400 people was singled out from the total mass of prisoners, including Lieutenant General Karbyshev. These 400 people were stripped naked and left standing in the street; those in poor health died and were immediately sent to the furnace of the camp crematorium, while the rest were forced into a cold shower with batons. Until 12 o'clock at night this execution was repeated several times.

At 12 o'clock at night, during another such execution, Comrade Karbyshev deviated from the pressure of cold water and was killed with a blow to the head with a baton. Karbyshev's body was burned in the camp crematorium.

REPORT OF THE REPATRIATION COMMITTEE (1946)

Our repatriation representative in London, Major Sorokopud, was invited on February 13, 1946 by the sick Canadian Army Major Seddon de St. Clair to Bramshot Hospital, Hampshire (England), where the latter informed him:

“In January 1945, I was among 1,000 prisoners from the Heinkel plant and was sent to the Mauthausen extermination camp; this team included Lieutenant General Karbyshev and several other Soviet officers. Upon arrival in Mauthausen, I spent the whole day in the cold. In the evening, a cold shower was given to all 1,000 people, and after that they were lined up on the parade ground in their shirts and stocks and held until 6 o’clock in the morning. Of the 1,000 people who arrived at Mauthausen, 480 died. General Dmitry Karbyshev also died.”

Canadian Saint Clair's testimony in full:

“I don’t have long to live, so I’m worried about the thought that the facts of a heroic life known to me and tragic death Soviet general, whose grateful memory should live among people. I'm talking about Lieutenant General Karbyshev, with whom I was held captive in the Oranienburg and Mauthausen camps.

Prisoners of war of all nationalities who were imprisoned in these camps spoke with the greatest respect about General Karbyshev and listened to his every word. Everyone knew that he was a major military scientist, whose cooperation the Germans, after he was captured by them, strenuously sought. However, General Karbyshev remained faithful to his homeland, did not make any compromises and carried out work among the prisoners, which infuriated the German jailers and delighted all honest people.

General Karbyshev remained in my mind an emaciated old man of about seventy, with surprisingly lively eyes and an amazing supply of optimism. Everyone who was in the camp was at least fit to be his sons. But it was not we who supported him, but he who supported us with his faith in victory over fascism, his devotion to the Motherland and loyalty to military duty. He spoke about the Red Army, about the Soviet people with such love, with such deep conviction that soviet people will liberate Europe from fascist forces, which was impossible not to believe in him.

General Karbyshev's patriotism was not passive. He managed not only to die courageously, but also to live courageously, which was much more difficult in the situation we were in. An old man, he carried out so much propaganda work among the prisoners that I don’t know if ten young people could have handled it. Not fascist, but Karbyshev’s reports of the situation at the fronts passed through our hands. We looked at all military events through the eyes of our general, and these were very good, very faithful eyes. They helped us look into the future, correctly understand events and, what is very important for me and for many people like me, they helped us understand your great country and magnificent people. “This is a man!” - we talked among ourselves about Karbyshev. The Soviet Union can be proud of such citizens, especially since, apparently, in this amazing country There are many Karbyshevs.”

Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops D.M. Karbyshev built many fortresses during his life, but he always said: “It is not the walls that are defended, but the people. Walls only help people defend themselves. And therefore, a Soviet fortress can only be destroyed, but cannot be taken.”

Any comments, as they say, are unnecessary. On August 16, 1946, Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev “for exceptional steadfastness and courage shown in the fight against the German invaders in the Great Patriotic War” was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In the case of the 60-year-old Soviet general Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev, who went through Stalag-324 near the Polish city of Ostrow Mazowiecki, an officer camp in Zamosc, Oflag XIII-D in Hammelburg, a Gestapo prison in Berlin, a camp at a ROA transit point in Breslau, Nuremberg, Flossenburg extermination camp, Majdanek extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen, hardly anyone would dare to say that Generalissimo Stalin’s decision to perpetuate his memory was unfounded.

At the site of Karbyshev’s death in May 1948, a monument was erected on which it is written:
Dmitry Karbyshev.To a scientist. To the warrior. Communist.His life and death were a feat in the name of life.

From the biographical information:

Military ranks in the Russian Imperial Army:
second lieutenant (1900), lieutenant (1905), staff captain (10/1/1908), captain (1911, ahead of schedule), lieutenant colonel (04/26/1916, with seniority from 03/9/1915).

Military ranks in the Red Army:
division engineer (12/5/1935); division commander (02/22/1938); lieutenant general (06/4/1940).

USSR awards:
Hero of the Soviet Union (08/16/1946; posthumously) Order of Lenin (08/16/1946; posthumously), Order of the Red Banner (1940), Order of the Red Star (02/22/1938), Medal “XX Years of the Red Army” (1938);

Awards Russian Empire:
Order of St. Vladimir 4th class with swords and bow (2.09.1904), Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd class with bow (4.11.1904), Order of St. Anna 2nd class with swords (1915), Order of St. Anna 3rd class 1st class with swords and bow (01/2/1905), Order of St. Stanislaus 2nd class with swords (02/20/1905), Order of St. Anna 4th class for wearing personal weapons on the hilt (not earlier than 03/27/1905), Three medals .

At the entrance to the memorial on the site of the Mauthausen camp (Austria) there is a monument to the Hero. Monuments and memorial signs to D.M. Karbyshev were installed in Moscow, Omsk, Kurgan, Kyiv, Tallinn, Vladivostok. Memorial plaques were installed: in Brest on the site where the house in which he lived stood; in Moscow on the building of the former Military Engineering Academy, where he studied, and on the house in which he lived; in Samara at the house in which he worked; in Kharkov on the house in which he lived. A boulevard in Moscow, a railway station in the Omsk region, a minor planet of the solar system, a tanker, a passenger ship, schools, enterprises, the streets of a number of cities, were named after him by pioneer squads. Based on materials from.

I was still a teenager, about 12-13 years old, when one day my mother showed me a textbook on the history of the USSR for the 4th grade. He says: “These are the textbooks we used to study in our time.” It was simply called “Stories on the History of the USSR.”
I don’t know whether I still have it or not, but I looked at the shabby antique quite greedily. Well, of course: the textbook is almost 30 years old, although others will object to me: why even keep such old stuff at home. But nevertheless, it was a certain memory. One day, while looking through the paragraphs of a textbook, I came across a curious episode of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. About 12-13 years have passed since then, but I remember the story that I want to tell you now. Even though it shows a fragment of this man’s life, I cannot ignore it. Moreover, this year we are associated with the Victory Anniversary, and October 14 marks the 135th anniversary of his birth. February 18 marked the 70th anniversary of his martyrdom. I am practically not familiar with his biography, so I will have to use the material that is on the Internet. The only thing I know about him is how he died. Before his death, he said: “I am a communist! I know that we will win, and death and damnation await all of you!” This quote caught my eye in that textbook and I still remember it. And this man’s name was Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev.

This man is hardly remembered now. The younger generation probably doesn’t even know his name. But it is precisely such examples that these young people need to be educated on. If you want to raise die-hard heroes, not amorphous soda drinkers. Let's remember our Russian heroes. They deserve it. This is the only way to preserve the connection between generations. The name of the man who became a symbol of the unbending will of the Russian officer, perseverance and courage is Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. Hero of the Soviet Union. Already in Soviet school they talked a little about him. The Nazis tortured General Karbyshev by dousing him in winter cold water. That's all that the average student of the USSR knew about him. Today's schoolchildren practically do not know Karbyshev. There are, of course, exceptions...11.04. 2011 “Public meeting dedicated to International Day liberation of prisoners of fascism, took place in Vladivostok. About a hundred members of city and regional organizations of former prisoners, veterans, representatives of the city administration, military personnel, schoolchildren and students gathered at the monument to the hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Karbyshev.” Do your children know this surname? Fix this gap. Tell your children about Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev...

DMITRY Mikhailovich Karbyshev - Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops, Doctor of Military Sciences, Professor, Tatar by origin, ancestral Siberian Cossack. A couple of weeks before the start of the Great Patriotic War, he was sent to Grodno to assist in defensive construction on the western border. On August 8, while trying to escape from encirclement in the area north of Mogilev, he was shell-shocked and captured by the Nazis.

Childhood, youth, beginning of service

Born in the city of Omsk in the family of a military official. Baptized Tatar. At the age of twelve he was left without a father. The children were raised by their mother. Despite great financial difficulties, Karbyshev brilliantly graduated from the Siberian Cadet Corps and in 1898 was admitted to the St. Petersburg Nikolaev Military Engineering School. In 1900, after graduating from college, he was sent to serve in the 1st East Siberian Engineer Battalion, as head of the cable department of a telegraph company. The battalion was stationed in Manchuria.

Russian-Japanese, World War I

During Russo-Japanese War As part of the battalion, he strengthened positions, installed communications equipment, built bridges, and conducted reconnaissance in force. Participated in the battle of Mukden. Awarded orders and medals. He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant.

After the war he served in Vladivostok. In 1911 he graduated with honors from the Nikolaev Military Engineering Academy. According to the assignment, Staff Captain Karbyshev was sent to Brest-Litovsk to serve as commander of a mine company. There he took part in the construction of forts at the Brest Fortress.

A participant in the First World War from day one. He fought in the Carpathians as part of the 8th Army of General A. A. Brusilov (Southwestern Front). He was a division engineer of the 78th and 69th Infantry Divisions, then the head of the engineering service of the 22nd Finnish Rifle Corps. At the beginning of 1915, he took part in the assault on the Przemysl fortress. Was wounded. For bravery and bravery he was awarded the Order of St. Anna and promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1916 he was a participant in the famous Brusilov breakthrough.

Joining the Red Army

In December 1917, in Mogilev-Podolsky, D. M. Karbyshev joined the Red Guard. Since 1918 in the Red Army. During the Civil War, he participated in the construction of the Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Zlatoust, Troitsky, and Kurgan fortified areas, and provided engineering support for the Kakhovsky bridgehead. He held responsible positions at the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District. In 1920, he was appointed chief of engineers of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front. In the fall of 1920, he became assistant chief of engineers of the Southern Front. He supervised the engineering support for the assault on Chongar and Perekop.

Academy named after Frunze, General Staff Academy
In 1923-1926, chairman of the Engineering Committee of the Main Military Engineering Directorate of the Red Army. Since 1926 - teacher at the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. In 1929, he was appointed author of the project “The Lines of Molotov and Stalin.” In February 1934, he was appointed head of the department of military engineering at the Military Academy of the General Staff.

Since 1936, he was assistant to the head of the department of tactics of higher formations of the Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1938 he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff. In the same year he was confirmed in the academic rank of professor. In 1940, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of the engineering troops. In 1941 he received the academic degree of Doctor of Military Sciences.

Karbyshev owns the most complete research and development of the issues of using destruction and barriers. His contribution to the scientific development of issues of crossing rivers and other water barriers is significant. He published more than 100 scientific papers on military engineering and military history. His articles and manuals on the theory of engineering support for combat and operations, and the tactics of engineering troops were the main materials for the training of Red Army commanders in the pre-war years.

In addition, Karbyshev was a consultant to the Academic Council on restoration work in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, of which I.V. Trofimov was appointed scientific director and chief architect.

Soviet-Finnish War

Participant in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. As part of the group of the deputy head of the Main Military Engineering Directorate for defensive construction, he developed recommendations for the troops on engineering support for breaking through the Mannerheim Line.
At the beginning of June 1941, D. M. Karbyshev was sent to the Western Special Military District. The Great Patriotic War found him at the headquarters of the 3rd Army in Grodno. After 2 days he moved to the headquarters of the 10th Army. On June 27, the army headquarters was surrounded. In August 1941, while trying to get out of encirclement, General Karbyshev was seriously shell-shocked in a battle in the Dnieper region, near the village of Dobreika, Mogilev region of Belarus. In an unconscious state he was captured.

The path through the concentration camps and death

Karbyshev was kept in German concentration camps: Zamosc, Hammelburg, Flossenbürg, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen. I have repeatedly received offers to cooperate from the camp administration. Despite his age, he was one of the active leaders of the camp resistance movement. On the night of February 18, 1945, in the Mauthausen concentration camp (Austria), along with other prisoners (about 500 people), he was doused with water in the cold and died. It has become a symbol of unbending will and perseverance.

Awards

On August 16, 1946, Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner and the Red Star.

A monument was erected to the Hero of the Soviet Union D. M. Karbyshev at the entrance to the memorial on the site of the Mauthausen camp. Monuments to D. M. Karbyshev were also erected in Moscow, Kazan, Vladivostok, Samara, Tolyatti, Omsk and Pervouralsk, Nakhabino, and a bust in Volzhsky. A boulevard in Moscow, Karbysheva Street (St. Petersburg), streets in Kazan, Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine), Sumy, Belaya Tserkov, Lutsk, Krivoy Rog (Ukraine), Chuguev (Ukraine), Balashikha, Krasnogorsk, Minsk, Brest ( Belarus), Kyiv, Tolyatti, Samara, Perm, Kherson, Gomel, Ulyanovsk, Volzhsky, Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk and Omsk.

A number of schools in the former Soviet Union are named after D. M. Karbyshev. In Omsk, a children's health camp is named after D.M. Karbyshev. The name of D. M. Karbyshev was given to one of the electric trains operating on the Riga direction of the Moscow Railway.

A minor planet in the solar system is also named after him.

The poem “Dignity” by S. A. Vasilyev is dedicated to the feat of D. M. Karbyshev.

Proceedings

Engineering preparation of the borders of the USSR. Book 1, 1924.
Destruction and obstruction. 1931, joint with I. Kiselev and I. Maslov.
Engineering support for combat operations of rifle formations. Part 1-2, 1939-1940.

Karbyshev spent 3.5 years in fascist dungeons. Unfortunately, there are still no scientific studies (or at least truthful publications) about that tragic and heroic period in the life of the great Soviet general. For several years in Moscow they knew nothing at all about Karbyshev’s fate. It is noteworthy that in his “Personal File” in 1941 an official note was made: “Missing in action.”

Therefore, it is no secret that some domestic publicists began to “give out” absolutely incredible “facts” such as the fact that the Soviet government in August 1941, having learned about the capture of Karbyshev, proposed to the Germans to arrange an exchange of the Soviet general for two Germans, however in Berlin such an exchange was considered “unequal.” In fact, our command at that time did not even know that General Karbyshev had been captured.

Dmitry Karbyshev began his “camp journey” in a distribution camp near the Polish city of Ostrov-Mazowiecki. Here the prisoners were registered, sorted, and interrogated. In the camp, Karbyshev suffered from a severe form of dysentery. At dawn of one cold October day in 1941, a train crowded with people, among whom was Karbyshev, arrived in Zamosc, Poland. The general was placed in barracks No. 11, which later became firmly assigned the name “general’s barracks.” Here, as they say, there was a roof over your head and almost normal food, which was a rarity under captivity. The Germans, according to German historians, were almost sure that after everything they had experienced, the outstanding Soviet scientist would have “feelings of gratitude” and agree to cooperate. But this did not work - and in March 1942, Karbyshev was transferred to a purely officer concentration camp in Hammelburg (Bavaria). This camp was special - intended exclusively for Soviet prisoners of war. His command had a clear directive - to do everything possible (and impossible) to win over the “unstable, wavering and cowardly” Soviet officers and generals to Hitler’s side. Therefore, the appearance of legality and humane treatment of prisoners was observed in the camp, which, admittedly, gave its positive results (especially in the first year of the war). But not in relation to Karbyshev. It was during this period that his famous motto was born: “There is no greater victory than victory over yourself! The main thing is not to fall on your knees before the enemy.”

PELIT AND THE HISTORY OF THE RED ARMY

At the beginning of 1943 Soviet intelligence It became known that the commander of one of the German infantry units, Colonel Pelit, was urgently recalled from the Eastern Front and appointed commandant of the camp in Hammelburg. At one time, the colonel graduated from the cadet school in St. Petersburg and had an excellent command of the Russian language. But it is especially noteworthy that former officer Pelit once served in the tsarist army in Brest together with captain Karbyshev. But this fact did not evoke any special associations among Soviet intelligence officers. They say that both traitors and real Bolsheviks served in the tsarist army.

But the fact is that it was Pelit who was instructed to conduct personal work with the “prisoner of war, lieutenant general of the engineering troops.” The colonel was warned that the Russian scientist was of “particular interest” for the Wehrmacht and especially for the Main Directorate of the German Engineering Service. Every effort must be made to make it work for the Germans.

In principle, Pelit was not only a good expert in military affairs, but also a well-known master of “intrigue and intelligence” in German military circles. Already at the first meeting with Karbshev, he began to play the role of a man far from politics, a simple old warrior, who sympathized with the honored Soviet general with all his soul. At every step, the German tried to emphasize his attention and affection for Dmitry Mikhailovich, called him his guest of honor, and showered him with pleasantries. Without sparing color, he told the military general all sorts of tall tales that, according to information that had reached him, the German command had decided to grant Karbyshev complete freedom and even, if he so desired, the opportunity to travel abroad to one of the neutral countries. Needless to say, many prisoners could not resist such a temptation, but not General Karbyshev. Moreover, he immediately realized the true mission of his long-time colleague.

I will note in passing that during this period it was in Hammelburg that German propaganda began to perfect its “historical invention” - here a “commission to compile the history of the Red Army’s operations in the current war” was created. Leading German experts in this field, including SS officers, arrived at the camp. They talked with the captured officers, defending the idea that the purpose of compiling “history” was purely scientific, that the officers would be free to write it in the way they wished. It was reported in passing that all officers who agreed to write the history of the operations of the Red Army would receive additional food, comfortable premises for work and housing, and, in addition, even a fee for “literary” work. The focus was primarily on Karbyshev, but the general categorically refused “cooperation”; moreover, he was able to dissuade most of the remaining prisoners of war from participating in Goebbels’ “adventure.” The attempt by the fascist command to organize a “Commission” ultimately failed.

BELIEF AND FAITH

According to some reports, by the end of October 1942, the Germans realized that with Karbyshev “everything is not so simple” - attracting him to the side of Nazi Germany was quite problematic. Here is the content of one of the secret letters that Colonel Pelit received from a “higher authority”: “The high command of the engineering service again contacted me about the prisoner Karbyshev, a professor, lieutenant general of the engineering troops, who is in your camp. I was forced to delay the resolution of the issue, since I hoped that you would follow my instructions regarding the named prisoner, be able to find a common language with him and convince him that if he correctly assessed the situation that had developed for him and met our wishes, a good future awaited him. "Major Peltzer, whom I sent to you for inspection, stated in his report the general unsatisfactory implementation of all plans concerning the Hammelburg camp and in particular the prisoner Karbyshev."

Soon the Gestapo command ordered Karbyshev to be taken to Berlin. He guessed why he was being taken to the German capital.

The general was placed in a solitary cell without windows, with a bright, constantly flashing electric lamp. While in the cell, Karbyshev lost track of time. The day here was not divided into day and night, there were no walks. But, as he later told his fellow prisoners, apparently at least two or three weeks passed before he was called in for the first interrogation. This was a common technique of jailers,” Karbyshev later recalled, analyzing this whole “event” with professorial precision: the prisoner is brought into a state of complete apathy, atrophy of will, before being taken “for promotion.”

But, to Dmitry Mikhailovich’s surprise, he was met not by a prison investigator, but by the famous German fortifier Professor Heinz Raubenheimer, about whom he had heard a lot over the past two decades, whose works he had closely followed in special magazines and literature. They met several times.

The professor politely greeted the prisoner, expressing regret for the inconvenience caused to the great Soviet scientist. Then he took out a sheet of paper from the folder and began to read the previously prepared text. The Soviet general was offered release from the camp, the opportunity to move to a private apartment, as well as full financial security. Karbyshev will have access to all libraries and book depositories in Germany, and will be given the opportunity to get acquainted with other materials in areas of military engineering that interest him. If necessary, any number of assistants were guaranteed to set up the laboratory, carry out development work and provide other research activities. Independent choice of topics for scientific development was not prohibited; permission was given to travel to the front lines to test theoretical calculations in the field. True, there was a reservation - except for the Eastern Front. The results of the work should become the property of German specialists. All ranks of the German army will treat Karbyshev as a lieutenant general of the engineering troops of the German Reich.

Having carefully listened to the terms of the “cooperation”, Dmitry Mikhailovich calmly replied: “My convictions do not fall out along with my teeth from the lack of vitamins in the camp diet. I am a soldier and remain faithful to my duty. And he forbids me to work for a country that is at war with my homeland."

ABOUT GRAVE PLATES

The German did not expect such stubbornness. Somehow, with your favorite teacher it would be possible to come to a certain compromise. The iron doors of the solitary slammed shut behind the German professor.

Karbyshev was given salty food, after which he was denied water. We replaced the lamp - it became so powerful that even closing my eyelids, there was no rest for my eyes. They began to fester, causing excruciating pain. They were almost not allowed to sleep. At the same time, the mood and mental state of the Soviet general were recorded with German accuracy. And when it seemed that he was starting to turn sour, they came again with an offer to cooperate. The answer was the same - “no”. This went on for almost six months.

After this, Karbyshev was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, located in the Bavarian mountains, 90 km from Nuremberg. He was distinguished by hard labor of particular severity, and the inhumane treatment of prisoners knew no bounds. Prisoners in striped clothes with their heads shaved in a cross shape worked from morning to night in granite quarries under the supervision of SS men armed with whips and pistols. A minute's respite, a glance thrown to the side, a word spoken to a neighbor at work, any awkward movement, the slightest offense - all this caused the furious rage of the overseers, beating with a whip. Shots were often heard. They shot me straight in the back of the head.

One of the Soviet captured officers recalled after the war: “Once Dmitry Mikhailovich and I were working in a barn, cutting granite pillars for roads, facing and gravestone slabs. Regarding the latter, Karbyshev (who even in the most difficult situations had a sense of humor) suddenly remarked : “This is work that gives me true pleasure. The more gravestones the Germans demand from us, the better, which means things are going well for us at the front.”

Dmitry Mikhailovich's almost six-month stay at hard labor ended one August day in 1943. The prisoner was transferred to Nuremberg and imprisoned by the Gestapo. After a short “quarantine” he was sent to the so-called “block” - a wooden barracks in the middle of a huge cobblestone courtyard. Here many recognized the general: some - as a colleague in the past, others - as a competent teacher, others - from printed works, some - from previous meetings in fascist dungeons.

Then came Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen - camps that will forever go down in human history as monuments to the most terrible atrocities of German fascism. Constantly smoking furnaces where the living and the dead were burned; gas chambers, where tens of thousands of people died in terrible agony; mounds of ash from human bones; huge bales of women's hair; mountains of shoes taken from children before sending them on their last journey... The Soviet general went through all this.

Three months before our army entered Berlin, 65-year-old Karbyshev was transferred to the Mauthausen camp, where he died.

UNDERWATER ICY

The death of Karbyshev first became known a year after the end of the war. On February 13, 1946, Canadian Army Major Seddon De-Saint-Clair, who was recovering in a hospital near London, invited a representative of the Soviet mission for repatriation in England to report “important details.”

“I don’t have long to live,” the major said to the Soviet officer, “so I’m worried about the thought that the facts known to me about the heroic death of the Soviet general, the noble memory of which should live in the hearts of people, will not go to the grave with me. I’m talking about the general -Lieutenant Karbyshev, with whom I had to visit the German camps."

According to the officer, on the night of February 17-18, the Germans drove about a thousand prisoners to Mauthausen. The frost was about 12 degrees. Everyone was dressed very poorly, in rags. “As soon as we entered the camp, the Germans drove us into the shower room, ordered us to undress and launched jets of ice water on us from above. This went on for a long time. Everyone turned blue. Many fell to the floor and died immediately: their hearts could not stand it. Then we were ordered to put on Only underwear and wooden pads were put on our feet and they drove us out into the yard. General Karbyshev stood in a group of Russian comrades not far from me. We realized that we were living out our last hours. After a couple of minutes, the Gestapo men, standing behind us with fire hoses in their hands, began to water us. streams of cold water. Those who tried to avoid the stream were beaten on the head with batons. Hundreds of people fell frozen or with crushed skulls. I saw how General Karbyshev also fell,” the Canadian major stated with pain in his heart.

“On that tragic night, about seventy people remained alive. I can’t imagine why they didn’t finish us off. They must have been tired and put it off until the morning. It turned out that the Allied troops were approaching the camp closely. The Germans fled in panic... I ask you to write down my testimony and send them to Russia. I consider it my sacred duty to impartially testify to everything I know about General Karbyshev. I will fulfill my duty. small debt before memory big man“- the Canadian officer ended his story with these words.

Which is what was done.

On August 16, 1946, Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. As stated in the decree, this high rank was awarded to the hero general, who tragically died in fascist captivity, “for exceptional steadfastness and courage shown in the fight against the German invaders in the Great Patriotic War.”

On February 28, 1948, the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces, Colonel General Kurasov and the Chief of the Engineering Troops of the Central Group of Military Forces, Major General Slyunin, in the presence of delegations from the troops of the honor guard group, as well as the government of the Republic of Austria, unveiled a monument and memorial plaque at the site where the Nazis brutally tortured General Karbyshev on the territory of the former Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen.

In Russia, his name is immortalized in the names of military groups, ships and railway stations, streets and boulevards of many cities, and assigned to numerous schools. Between Mars and Jupiter, a small planet # 1959 - Karbyshev - travels along a circumsolar orbit.

In the early 1960s, the movement of young Karbyshevites took organizational form, the soul of which was Hero’s daughter Elena Dmitrievna, colonel of the engineering troops.

Materials used from the sites: perunica.ru and tatveteran.ru

"The Life and Death of General Karbyshev"

What do we know about Soviet Lieutenant General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev, except that in many cities streets bear his name, and that he died in a German concentration camp, frozen into a block of ice?

He was born on October 26, 1880 in Omsk into a military family. Dima Karbyshev realized that he wanted to become a military man back in early childhood. However, what other career could a boy dream of, born into a family where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were army officers? Of course, nothing. The shine of the golden shoulder straps completely eclipsed the swampy calm that life in the position of some collegiate assessor guaranteed.

Did he regret his decision as he died at the age of sixty-five under jets of icy water in a German concentration camp?

There is no need for us to answer this question. A few days before his death, Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev answered it himself: “...my convictions do not fall out along with my teeth from a lack of vitamins in the camp diet. I am a soldier and will forever remain faithful to my duty.”

But in 1888, eight-year-old Dima had no idea that he would one day have to utter this great and terrible phrase. In 1888, Dima generally thought little about abstract topics. He was very busy: he was preparing to enter the Omsk Cadet Corps.

Dima memorized the sciences (including Latin) (fortunately, his ability for science was apparently innate), but despite this, he was never accepted into the corps. Let down family ties: Dima’s brother studied in Kazan together with a certain student Vladimir Ulyanov, who then, although he did not yet have the party pseudonym Lenin, was nevertheless very active in disseminating socialist ideas at the university. Everyone knows how it ended: student Ulyanov was expelled. The student Karbyshev got more for his beliefs than the future leader of the world proletariat: he was sent to prison, where he later died (no matter what the newly-minted monarchists say, the conditions of detention of political prisoners in Tsarist Russia have never been humane).

So eight-year-old Dima Karbyshev received the title of “unreliable” in the secret gendarmerie qualification and for the first year he attended the corps in the precarious and disadvantageous position of an “incoming cadet,” that is, a student not at the state’s expense, but at his own personal expense. At the age of twelve he was left without a father. The children were raised by their mother. Having brilliantly completed his studies in the cadet corps, Dmitry Karbyshev was accepted into the St. Petersburg Nikolaev Engineering School. Graduates of this school in the past were Kutuzov, Yablochkov, Sechenov, Dostoevsky - in general, teachers of Nikolaevsky talented students engineering school We've seen a lot. But Karbyshev amazed even them by passing twenty-five exams in thirty days.

The years of study quickly flashed by. In 1900, after graduating from college, he was sent with the rank of second lieutenant to serve as head of the cable department of a telegraph company in the 1st East Siberian Engineer Battalion, stationed in Manchuria (the Far East), towards the flaring up Russian-Japanese War...

Probably, in school he imagined war somehow differently. Commanding ground forces- General Kuropatkin, faithful to his chosen strategy of “winning by retreat,” scurried away so quickly that once he even managed to leave his huge bed to the advancing Japanese. The Japanese disposed of the trophy in the most unpleasant way for the general: they exhibited it in a museum and proudly showed it to the whole world. The Japanese infantry, inspired by the opportunity to die for their beloved emperor, rushed forward, regardless of losses, and the Russian troops needed well-built defensive structures like air. Therefore, Lieutenant of the Engineering Troops Dmitry Karbyshev, during the Russian-Japanese War, as part of the battalion, strengthened positions, installed communications, built bridges, conducted reconnaissance in force, and visited almost all the main battles - near Liaoyang, on the Shah River, near Mukden. How successful his work in building trenches, crossings and pillboxes was can be judged by the 5 orders and 3 medals that the twenty-five-year-old lieutenant received in one year of war. After the war, he was transferred to the reserve for agitation among soldiers. Lived and worked in Vladivostok. In 1907, the Vladivostok fortress sapper battalion began to form. Experienced officers were urgently needed, and Karbyshev again entered military service. In 1911 he graduated with honors from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy. He was sent to Brest-Litovsk to serve as commander of a mine company. There he took part in the construction of forts at the Brest Fortress. The beginning of the First World War found Dmitry Karbyshev on the western border, where he served as a division and corps engineer in the 8th Army of General A.A. Brusilov (Southwestern Front). At the beginning of 1915, he participated in the assault on the Przemysl fortress. He was wounded in the leg. For bravery and courage he was awarded the Order of St. Anne with Swords and promoted to lieutenant colonel. Participated in the heroic Brusilov breakthrough. In December 1917 in Mogilev-Podolsky D.M. Karbyshev joined the Red Guard. In 1918, Dmitry Mikhailovich was appointed to the position with long name"boss technical department 1st Military Field Construction of the Eastern Front" and were sent to conduct reconnaissance of the banks of the Volga River. They gave a horse, the necessary equipment and a week of time. During this week, Dmitry Karbyshev carefully examined both banks from Tetyushi to Syzran. It must have been quite interesting for the local residents then watch a man climbing along the Volga slopes, who was constantly counting something, taking photographs and whispering: “There are machine-gun nests here, and there is an artillery battery, near the ravine there is a minefield. And the Volga residents had no idea that, thanks to this strange man, they had.” did not have to learn the new horrors of the civil war: Kolchak, having learned about the reconnaissance and the creation of a fortified area, changed his decision to attack the Volga.

This week was probably the happiest in the life of General Karbyshev - he understood that, without firing a single shot, he was protecting the whole region... During the Civil War, he participated in the construction of Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Zlatoust, Troitsk, Kurgan fortified areas, provided engineering support for the Kakhovka bridgehead. He held responsible positions at the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District. In 1920, he was appointed chief of engineers of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front. He led the strengthening of the Transbaikal bridgehead. In the fall of 1920, he became assistant chief of engineers of the Southern Front. He supervised the engineering support for the assault on Chongar and Perekop, for which he was awarded a personalized gold watch. In 1923–1926, chairman of the Engineering Committee of the Main Military Engineering Directorate of the Red Army. Since 1926 - teacher at the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze. In February 1934 - head of the department of military engineering at the Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1938 he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff and was promoted to the academic rank of professor. In 1940, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of the engineering troops. He published more than 100 scientific papers on military engineering and military history. Participant in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. As part of the group of the deputy head of the Main Military Engineering Directorate for defensive construction, he developed recommendations for the troops on engineering support for breaking through the Mannerheim Line. A week before the start of the Great Patriotic War, the command sent Dmitry Karbyshev to restore defensive fortifications on the western border - the belief in the non-aggression pact was so strong that they were completely abandoned. Of course, it was not possible to restore anything in a week... The war found him at the headquarters of the 3rd Army in Grodno. In August 1941, while trying to get out of encirclement, he was seriously shell-shocked in a battle in the Dnieper region near the village of Dobreika, Mogilev region of Belarus. In an unconscious state he was captured.

Probably, the German command was very happy to learn that Karbyshev had been captured: the lieutenant general was well known to them (the Germans had kept a detailed file on Dmitry Karbyshev since 1939). "This general can tell you everything about the Russian defense, and also give a couple practical advice to organize our offensive" - ​​this is probably how some young and hopeful chief lieutenant thought, going to the first interrogation of the general. He reasoned absolutely correctly, but his hopes were not destined to come true: Karbyshev did not say anything either at the first or during all subsequent interrogations, he was offered to go over to the side of the Germans, who would provide the general with the most excellent living conditions, and was advised to think carefully about this proposal, emphasizing the fact that he did not yet know the horror of the German concentration camps. Dmitry Karbyshev thought carefully and refused. I learned all the horror of the German concentration camps Majdanek, Auschwitz, Mauthausen...

You can stop this nightmare at any time, they said German officers, V once again beating the sixty-year-old general with boots.

“The main thing is not to submit, not to fall on your knees before the enemy. Do not lose honor, even in dishonor,” whispered the now completely gray-haired Karbyshev with broken lips. Despite his age, he was one of the active leaders of the camp resistance movement.

Canadian officer Cézan de Sainte-Cleph, one of the few surviving witnesses to the general’s execution, wrote after the war: “... we looked at all events through the eyes of your general, and these were very good, very faithful eyes. They helped us understand your a great country and its magnificent people. What a man! - we said among ourselves about Karbyshev, the Soviet Union can be proud of such citizens, especially since, apparently, there are many Karbyshevs in this amazing country ... "

Lieutenant General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was executed along with hundreds of other prisoners on the frosty night of February 17-18, 1945. At first, the prisoners were doused with water in the cold, then they were taken to a hot bathhouse, and when the prisoners warmed up, those who did not die from the sudden change in temperature were again taken into the cold and doused with water again...

General Karbyshev became a symbol of unbending will and perseverance.

At the site of Karbyshev’s death in May 1948, a monument was erected on which it is written:

Dmitry Karbyshev.

To a scientist. To the warrior. Communist.

His life and death were a feat in the name of life.

Biographical information:

Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev (10/26/1880 - 02/18/1945)

Place of birth Omsk Place of death Mauthausen, Austria Citizenship Russian Empire, RSFSR, USSR Branch of the military Corps of Engineers Years of service 1898-1945 Rank Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops Battles/wars Russo-Japanese War, First world war, Civil war, Soviet-Finnish War, Great Patriotic War

Awards:

Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously)

Order of Lenin (posthumously)

Order of the Red Banner

Order of the Red Star

medal "XX years of the Red Army" Awards of the Russian Empire: Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree Order of St. Anne, III degree Order of St. Anne, IV degree

Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class

Order of St. Stanislaus, III degree

On this day:

The fate of Kobzar

On March 9, 1814, Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko, an outstanding Little Russian poet and artist (d. 1861), was born. Shevchenko’s literary heritage, in which poetry plays a central role, in particular the collection “Kobzar”, is considered the basis of modern Little Russian literature and, in many respects, the literary Ukrainian language.

The fate of Kobzar

On March 9, 1814, Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko, an outstanding Little Russian poet and artist (d. 1861), was born. Shevchenko’s literary heritage, in which poetry plays a central role, in particular the collection “Kobzar”, is considered the basis of modern Little Russian literature and, in many respects, the literary Ukrainian language.

Most of Shevchenko’s prose (stories, diary, many letters), as well as some poems, are written in Russian, and therefore some researchers classify Shevchenko’s work as Russian literature. In addition, he spent most of his life in Russia.

It must be said that Taras Shevchenko was a serf peasant of the landowner Engelhardt. Since childhood, he showed a penchant for painting. He was accidentally noticed by the Ukrainian artist I. Soshenko, who introduced Taras to the Russian artists A. Venetsianov and K. Bryullov, and the poet V. Zhukovsky. They subsequently bought Shevchenko from the landowner for a very large sum. In addition to painting, Taras Grigorievich became interested in poetry and published the collection “Kobzar”. After the publication of this collection, Taras Shevchenko himself began to be called a kobzar. Even Taras Shevchenko himself, after some of his stories, began to sign “Kobzar Darmograi”.

He died in St. Petersburg on February 26 (March 10), 1861 from dropsy, caused, according to historian N.I. Kostomarov, by “immoderate consumption of drinks.”

He was buried first at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery in St. Petersburg, and after 58 days the coffin with the ashes of T. G. Shevchenko, in accordance with his will, was transported to Ukraine and buried on Chernechya Mountain near Kanev.

Yuri Gagarin was born

On March 9, 1934, Yuri Alekseevich GAGARIN, the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Hero of the Soviet Union, was born. He spent his childhood in Gzhatsk (now Gagarin). On October 27, 1955, Gagarin was drafted into Soviet army and was sent to Chkalov (now Orenburg), to the 1st Military Aviation School of Pilots named after K. E. Voroshilov.

Yuri Gagarin was born

On March 9, 1934, Yuri Alekseevich GAGARIN, the first cosmonaut of the Earth, Hero of the Soviet Union, was born. He spent his childhood in Gzhatsk (now Gagarin). On October 27, 1955, Gagarin was drafted into the Soviet army and sent to Chkalov (now Orenburg), to the 1st Military Aviation School named after K. E. Voroshilov.

After graduation, he served for two years near Severomorsk in the 169th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 122nd Fighter Aviation Division of the Northern Fleet, flying MiG-15bis aircraft. By October 1959, he had flown a total of 265 hours.

On December 9, 1959, Gagarin wrote a report asking to be included in the group of cosmonaut candidates. The selection of cosmonaut candidates was carried out by a special group of specialists from the Central Military Research Aviation Hospital. Psychologists drew attention to the following features of Gagarin’s character:

“He loves spectacles with active action, where heroism, the will to win, and the spirit of competition prevail. sports games takes the place of the initiator, leader, and captain of the team. As a rule, his will to win, endurance, determination, and sense of team play a role here. Favorite word- "work". Makes sensible proposals at meetings. Constantly confident in himself and his abilities. He endures training easily and works effectively. Developed very harmoniously. Sincere. Clean in soul and body. Polite, tactful, careful to the point of punctuality. Intellectual development Yura's is high. Excellent memory. He stands out among his comrades for his wide range of active attention, quick wit, and quick reaction. Assiduous. He does not hesitate to defend the point of view that he considers correct."

Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin was selected not only among the top twenty candidates for the flight, but subsequently as the first cosmonaut. The choice turned out to be brilliant. Gagarin not only coped with the tasks of the first space flight in the history of mankind, but also did not suffer from “star fever” after it.

On March 27, 1968, Gagarin died in a plane crash while performing a training flight on a MiG-15UTI aircraft under the guidance of experienced instructor V.S. Seryogin, near the village of Novoselovo, Kirzhach district, Vladimir region.

On March 9, 1944, Nikolai Ivanovich KUZNETSOV, a Soviet intelligence officer and partisan, died. He personally liquidated 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration of Nazi Germany.

Two murders of intelligence officer Kuznetsov

On March 9, 1944, Nikolai Ivanovich KUZNETSOV, a Soviet intelligence officer and partisan, died. He personally liquidated 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration of Nazi Germany.

On March 9, 1944, while crossing the front line, Kuznetsov’s reconnaissance group came across UPA fighters (whose descendants are now in charge in Ukraine). This happened in the village of Boratin, Brody district. During the shootout, Nikolai Kuznetsov and his companions Yan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov were killed.

The burial of Kuznetsov’s group was discovered on September 17, 1959 in the Kutyki tract thanks to the search work of his comrade Nikolai Strutinsky. Strutinsky achieved the reburial of the alleged remains of Kuznetsov in Lviv on the Hill of Glory on July 27, 1960. Monuments to Kuznetsov in Lviv and Rivne were dismantled in 1992 Western Ukrainian fascist successors.

Exchange of information

If you have information about any event that corresponds to the theme of our site, and you want us to publish it, you can use the special form: