Rotmistrov Pavel Alekseevich Battle of Kursk. Pavel Rotmistrov

#USSR #marshal #history

(07/23/1901 - 04/06/1982) - Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces (1962)

Pavel Rotmistrov was born on July 23, 1901 in the village of Skovorovo, Tver province in peasant family. He received his primary education at a four-year rural school. In November 1918, Pavel went to Moscow, where his older brother lived, to earn money, then moved to Samara, where he got a job as a loader.

At the beginning of 1919, Rotmistrov joined the Red Army, in the Samara workers' regiment, in which he participated in the battles near Bugulma against the troops.

Then he was sent to military engineering courses, after which he was enrolled in the 42nd stage battalion of the 16th Army of the Western Front.

In 1921, he entered the Smolensk Infantry School, after which he was assigned to the 149th Infantry Regiment as a company political instructor.

The following year, Pavel Rotmistrov was admitted to the Military Joint School of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and became a Kremlin cadet. In 1924 he graduated from college and was assigned to Leningrad as a platoon commander of the 31st regiment of the 11th rifle division.

In 1928 he entered the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze and, having successfully graduated from it in 1931, received the post of chief of the first part of the headquarters of the Trans-Baikal Rifle Division, located in Chita. Two years later, Rotmistrov became deputy head of the operational department of the district headquarters.

In the summer of 1937, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 63rd Infantry Regiment of the 21st Primorsky Division, and in October he was invited to teach tactics at the Military Academy of Motorization and Mechanization of the Red Army. Having handed over the command of the regiment, he arrived in Moscow. At the Academy, Rotmistrov studied the experience of using tanks in Spain and Khalkhin Gol. Soon he became a candidate of sciences and an assistant professor.

In 1939-1940, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. He led a tank battalion and personally led tank attacks on the Mannerheim Line.

After the war, he was appointed deputy commander of the 5th tank division 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Baltic Special Military District. At the end of May 1941, Rotmistrov became chief of staff of the corps.

In this position, he met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The 3rd Mechanized Corps became part of the 11th Army of the Western Front, where it offered fierce resistance to the tank groups of Guderian and Model. Acting in the Siauliai direction, the corps headquarters was surrounded, but was able to get out of it.

Then the 3rd mechanized corps was disbanded, and Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of commander of the 8th tank brigade and was sent to the North-Western Front in the Valdai region. Subsequently, the Rotmistrov brigade was transferred to the Kalinin Front.

At the beginning of 1942, the Stavka decided to form 20 tank corps and two tank armies. Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 7th Tank Corps, which began formation in the Kalinin region. At the end of June 1942, the 7th Corps was transferred to Yelets, becoming part of the 5th Tank Army. In the Zemlyansk area, the corps entered into battle with the 11th German division and managed to inflict a crushing defeat on it.

In August 1942, Rotmistrov's corps was transferred to the Bryansk Front and sent to Stalingrad, where it became part of the 1st Guards Army. During Battle of Stalingrad the tanks of the 7th corps under the command of Rotmistrov first managed to quickly break through the German defenses, and then once again perfectly fulfilled the order of the command, repelling the attacks of German tank units breaking through to help the encircled 6th German army of General Paulus. The corps successfully operated in the area of ​​the Rachkovsky farm, and then, as part of the 2nd Guards Army, participated in the defeat of the Kotelnicheskaya grouping of the German Army Group Don.

Subsequently, Rotmistrov began to command a mechanized group of three corps, which operated in the Bataysk region.

However, he received real fame as a result of skillful and successful actions on the Kursk Bulge. In the rank of lieutenant general, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 5th tank army, which was part of the Voronezh Front, commanded by General Vatutin.

The battle on the Kursk Bulge began on July 4 with a massive artillery shelling of the areas of concentration of German troops, fuel depots and artillery positions of the enemy. The Germans suffered heavy losses and were forced to launch an offensive in unfavorable conditions for themselves. The Germans threw about 1,000 tanks and 350 assault guns into the Soviet positions. However, their only success was that the SS panzer divisions managed to penetrate the Soviet defenses and hold their positions during the next night.

On July 6, the 4th Panzer Army of General Hoth, with the support of aviation, began to move forward, and she managed to break through the first line of the Soviet defense and throw large tank formations into the breakthrough places. The Soviet command decided that the moment had come for a powerful counterattack against the Gota grouping, and the Voronezh Front prepared for such a counterattack. Almost the entire mobile operational reserve was transferred to General Vatutin - the 5th Guards Tank Army under the command of Lieutenant General Rotmistrov, as well as the Guards Combined Arms Army under the command of General A.S. Zhadov. In addition to this blow, which was being prepared by four Soviet armies on the southern face of the Kursk Salient on the morning of July 12, on the same day, a crushing blow from the Bryansk Front and the left wing of the Western Front was to fall on the Oryol ledge. The decisive battle was destined to take place between the tank corps of General Rotmistrov and the German tank units under the command of Hoth.

The 5th Soviet tank army, having covered about 300 kilometers in two days, concentrated in the Prokhorovka area, where Goth gathered all the combat-ready German tank formations.

On the morning of July 12, Rotmistrov was at the command post, on a hill southwest of Prokhorovka. As part of his army, reinforced by two tank corps and a regiment of self-propelled guns, there were about 850 tanks, 261 of which were heavy tank T-70. On this day, the largest tank battle of the Second World War took place. The German command threw into battle their selected tank divisions - "Dead Head", "Adolf Hitler", "Reich". On a wide field near Prokhorovka, more than 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns met on both sides in a head-on battle. The German "Tigers" in close combat could not use their advantage - thicker armor and powerful weapons - and were amazed by the Soviet agile and fast T-34 medium tanks from a short distance.

As a result of this fierce battle, the Wehrmacht lost about 400 tanks on the first day. There were other irreplaceable losses - more than 10 thousand people: tank crews, infantrymen, as well as dozens of aircraft with crews.

On July 13, the battle was still going on. The German command brought 200 new tanks into battle. But even on this day, the Germans did not achieve success and were forced to go on the defensive, and then, under the blows of the Soviet troops, they began to retreat. The German panzer divisions lost at least half of their tanks that day, while Rotmistrov still had about 500 tanks.

Subsequently, Rotmistrov commanded the tank units of the Steppe, Southwestern, 2nd Ukrainian and 3rd Belorussian fronts. In their composition, he liberated Kharkov, crossed the Dnieper, participated in the Korsun-Shevchenko and other operations.

In February 1944, Rotmistrov was awarded military rank marshal of the armored forces. During the Belarusian operation, Rotmistrov's tank army was part of the 3rd Belorussian Front, commanded by Chernyakhovsky. During the operation, Soviet tank units broke through the enemy defenses in the Vitebsk region, surrounded the German grouping in this area, and then destroyed it. June 26 Vitebsk was liberated. Then the Soviet units defeated a large fortified enemy defense center located in Orsha. So, quickly and decisively, one of the most famous local operations to liberate Belarus, the Vitebsk-Orsha operation, was carried out. Further, Rotmistrov received an order to advance on Minsk. The offensive of the Soviet troops was carried out so rapidly precisely thanks to Rotmistrov's tanks, which, continuously advancing and attacking, literally cut through the German defenses, preventing the enemy from coming to his senses and regrouping troops.

In August, Rotmistrov was appointed deputy commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army.

With the end of the war, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov served as commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, remaining there until 1948. Then, remaining in the same position, he was in the Far East.

In 1956, he was transferred to Moscow and appointed head of the department of the Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Troops. In the same year, Rotmistrov defended his dissertation and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Military Sciences, and two years later Pavel Alekseevich became a professor.

Since 1958, he has held the position of Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions, and in 1962 he was awarded the title of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces.

In 1965, Rotmistrov was awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.

For health reasons, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov in 1968 moved to the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

He died in 1982 and was buried in Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

His military path was marked by five Orders of Lenin, four Orders Red Banner, order October revolution, orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov I degree, the Order of the Red Star, many medals and foreign awards.

Yu.N. Lubchenkov. 100 Great Commanders of World War II

Hero of the Soviet Union, Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov - one of the outstanding Soviet military leaders, was in the army from the first day of World War II. He participated in the biggest battles: Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, in the liberation of Ukraine and Belarus, became the first marshal of the armored forces of the Red Army after the encirclement of a large Wehrmacht group in February 1944 near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky.

Commander of the Battle of Prokhorov

Rotmistrov went down in military history primarily as a key participant in the Battle of Prokhorov, commander of the most powerful formation that operated in the area of ​​​​this station in July 1943 - the 5th Guards Tank Army. This battle played a significant role in the fate of the commander. In the summer of 1943, due to the heavy losses of his army in just one day of battle on July 12 and for not fulfilling a combat mission, according to his own recollections, he not only nearly lost his post as commander, but also miraculously escaped a military tribunal 1 . After the war, everything changed. In 1962, he was awarded the personal military rank of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces. Three years later he was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union 2. At that time, Pavel Alekseevich himself began to assert that on July 12, his guardsmen, it turns out, not only fully realized the plan of the Soviet command, but also solved the main task facing the troops of the entire Voronezh Front 3 .

The real results of the combat work of tankers were pushed into historical oblivion in the post-war years

Of course, during the battles near Prokhorovka, Rotmistrov’s guards fought steadfastly and courageously, the commander himself acted energetically and did everything in his power to ensure that the troops achieved their extremely difficult goals. Particularly significant was their contribution to the disruption of the plan of the command of the German Army Group "South" to destroy half of the 69th Army - the 48th Rifle Corps in the area between the Seversky and Lipovoy Donets on July 13-16, 1943, as well as in holding a 40-kilometer rear army strip defense. However, due to a number of circumstances, primarily for ideological reasons, it was these real results of the combat work of tankers that were pushed into historical non-existence in the post-war years. Rotmistrov's contribution to the creation of the most powerful and well-prepared formation of the Red Army - the 5th Guards Tank Army, was replaced, including by his own efforts, with the legend of him as the winner in the "biggest battle of the Great Patriotic War" 4, which started especially actively infiltrate public consciousness in the 1960s The peak of propaganda hype came at the beginning of the 1970s, when the myth of Prokhorovka became canonical.

distinguished guests

It was at this time, in the winter of 1971, that Rotmistrov visited Prokhorovka for the first and only time and then became its first honorary citizen. Pavel Alekseevich arrived in the Belgorod region as part of a large delegation of cultural figures, scientists and military leaders. Among them were direct participants in the Battle of Kursk: Air Marshal S.A. Krasovsky, who at that time headed the 2nd air army Voronezh Front and Colonel General I.M. Chistyakov, former commander of the 6th Guards Army, which defended the Oboyan-Prokhorovka direction. All of them were already on a well-deserved rest, so the trip was organized not by the USSR Ministry of Defense, but by the All-Union Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. Its purpose was to promote the feat of our people during the Great Patriotic War on the eve of the holiday on February 23 - the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy. The guests met with the public and youth of Belgorod, traveled to the regional centers - the city of Shebekino and the village of Ivnya 5 . For the marshal, the leadership of the Belgorod region specially organized a trip to Prokhorovka.

In order not to offend the hospitable hosts, the marshal politely kept silent about the unfortunate misunderstanding

On February 17, on the road Yakovlevo - Prokhorovka, at the sign marking the border of the Prokhorovka district, its leaders and representatives of the working people met the illustrious military leader and his wife Elena Konstantinovna who accompanied him with bread and salt. On the way to the village, the guests visited an altitude of 254.2, where in 1968 enthusiasts, with the support of the district leadership, allegedly restored the observation post of the commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army. In fact, in 1943, the command post of the 9th Guards was located here. airborne division 5th Guards Army. But, probably, in order not to offend the hospitable hosts, the marshal politely kept silent about this unfortunate misunderstanding. Then there was a meeting in the district House of Culture with the public and party and economic activists. It was here that the first secretary of the Prokhorovsky District Committee of the CPSU G.A. Goryachev and chairman of the executive committee of the district council S.P. Kurgansky presented the former commander with a diploma and a scarlet ribbon with the inscription "Honorary citizen of the village of Prokhorovka." Pavel Alekseevich became the first to whom this high title was awarded by the residents of the village.

The event was widely covered both in the regional and district press 6 , but the central newspapers of the country passed it over in silence, because. it had the status of local importance. This is probably why neither in the military history literature, nor on reference sites where you can find biographical information P.A. Rotmistrov, there is no such information about him. There is only a mention that Pavel Alekseevich was an honorary citizen of the city of Kalinin (now Tver). And in Prokhorovka itself today, unfortunately, nothing reminds of this remarkable event.

Traditional bread and salt was handed to the guest twice

In the course of collecting material about the Battle of Kursk and its participants, at first I managed to get acquainted only with newspaper publications. After some time, we managed to find the original decision of the executive committee of the Prokhorovka village council of workers' deputies of the Prokhorovskiy district of the Belgorod region dated February 17, 1971 on conferring a high rank on the former commander "for great merits shown in the battles during the liberation of the village of Prokhorovka from Nazi invaders in July 1943". It has survived in a single copy and is published for the first time.

Anxiety of the meeting hosts

Until that day, major military leaders (army commanders and above) had not visited a small provincial regional center, therefore, its leaders had no experience in preparing a meeting of guests of this level. Excitement was clearly felt, inconsistencies were noted between the leadership of the district and the village. Thus, traditional bread and salt was handed to the guest twice - at the border of the district and at the entrance to Prokhorovka. And Pavel Alekseevich received the ribbon and diploma of an honorary citizen not from the chairman of the executive committee of the village council, but from the hands of the leaders of the district and the district party organization, although formally this, in general, should not be so.

Nervousness can also explain the gross error that crept into the document cited above. Prokhorovka was liberated from the invaders for the first and only time on February 6, 1943 by the forward detachment of the 183rd Rifle Division of the 40th Army of the Voronezh Front 7 . Everyone knew about it, even schoolchildren born after the war. Therefore, neither the 5th Guards Tank Army, which began to form according to the directive of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense of February 22, 1943 8 , nor P.A. Rotmistrov, at that time the commander of the 3rd Guards Tank Corps 9, which operated on the Stalingrad Front, had nothing to do with this event. In the summer of 1943, the station was defended first by troops of the 69th Army, and then by the 9th Guards Airborne Division of the 5th Guards Army. It was the paratroopers who, on July 11, at the critical moment of the battle for the station, held back parts of the SS corps in front of the outskirts and did not allow the enemy to occupy it.

Probably, the confusion during the preparation of the meeting is also connected with the fact that the decision to award the high rank was not properly fixed in the future, i.e. the book of honorary citizens was not issued, where a photograph and a description of merits would be placed. Although in the future this title was awarded to several more participants in the Battle of Kursk. For example, in 1973 former member Military Council of the 5th Guards Tank Army, Lieutenant General P.G. Grishin. And the original decision itself is now kept not in the administration of Prokhorovka, as it should be in an official document, but in the museum's funds.

The final events were the meeting of the marshal at the railway school N 71, as the only educational institution village, with its students and a visit to the village of Charming, which in the summer of 1943 was at the epicenter of the battle. Everywhere the guest was greeted warmly, with great enthusiasm. So, during the passage of Pavel Alekseevich and Elena Konstantinovna to the school along the main street, he was accompanied and greeted by hundreds of residents, and in front of them, to the sound of a drum roll and the sounds of a bugle, the pioneers of the squad named after General of the Army N.F. Vatutin. And during the meeting, the marshal was received by her honorary pioneer. This, at first glance, a somewhat naive celebration, however, was sincere, coming from the hearts of people. Less than three decades have passed since the May days of the 45th, most of the Prokhorovites remembered the years of terrible hard times, many themselves participated in the battles of the Great Patriotic War, and for them the marshal was the personification of the Great Victory over fascism, which the Red Army won with colossal efforts and a huge price.

marshal gift

Pavel Alekseevich was touched by the warm, cordial reception of the Prokhorovites. As the participants of those meetings recalled, only one thing upset the former commander - a bare, snowy field, where the famous tank battle July 12, 1943, and not a single monument on it. Therefore, when leaving, he promised to help worthily perpetuate the feat of the guardsmen on Prokhorovka land.

About a year later, railway platforms arrived at the station, first with a T-34-85 tank, and then with two 57-mm ZiS-2 anti-tank guns, which were intended to build a monument to the fallen tankers and artillerymen. According to the former leaders of the Prokhorovsky district, with whom I had a chance to talk on this topic, such a decision at that time, of course, was only within the power of the marshal, since repeated official addresses to the Ministry of Defense and the central party organs remained unsuccessful.

The combat vehicle came from the Central Asian Military District. She left the assembly line after the war and, having served the due date, was excluded from the combat strength, but was in working condition. At the end of February 1973, the tank, accompanied by heavy equipment, under its own power reached the place of eternal parking and drove onto the pedestal at the famous height of 252.2 southwest of Prokhorovka 11. And on July 11, 1973, the first memorial to the participants in the legendary battle was solemnly opened 12 . And for twenty-two years it remained the only monument here, until the moment when, in May 1995, a white-stone monument to the People's Artist of Russia V.M. Klykov.

The marshal could not come to the celebrations dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Prokhorov battle, but a representative delegation headed by Lieutenant General P.G. arrived from the council of veterans of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Grishin. The information that Rotmistrov was personally involved in the construction of the monument quickly became known to the general public. The commander's gift is still remembered today.

Stay P.A. Rotmistrov in Prokhorovka was filmed by several photojournalists, including an employee of the Kommunist newspaper, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War N.E. Pogorelov. In addition, during a meeting at school, a number of interesting pictures were taken by an amateur photographer, also a participant in the war, a German language teacher B.M. Chursin. Nikolai Yegorovich and Boris Mitrofanovich, unfortunately, are no longer alive, but their photographs have been preserved. Most of them are published today for the first time.

Concluding the story about one of the episodes in the life of Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov, I want to emphasize that he was a man of difficult fate, with a complex, contradictory character. The results of his activities in command posts during the Great Patriotic War to this day, not without reason, cause heated debate. Nevertheless, we, the children of the post-war generations, must remember the main thing - he was a soldier of our Fatherland, who devoted his whole life to protecting it.

Notes
1 Sverdlov F.D. Unknown about the Soviet generals. M., 1995. S. 56.
2 Heroes of the Soviet Union. Brief biographical dictionary. T. 2. M., 1988. S. 374.
3 Sverdlov F.D. Decree. op. S. 56.
4 Military History Journal. 1971. No. 5. S. 54.
5 Belgorodskaya Pravda. 1971. February 16. C. 3.
6 Belgorodskaya Pravda. 1971. February 19. S. 3; Communist. 1971. February 18. S. 1; February 23. pp. 2-3.
7 Belgorod Land during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. M., 2011. S. 189-200.
8 Russian archive: Great Patriotic War. General Staff during the Great Patriotic War: Doc. and mat. 1943 T. 23. M., 1999. S. 61.
9 Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Encyclopedia. M., 1985. S. 622.
10 Zamulin V.N. The Bitter Truth About Prokhorovka: "The Greatest Tank Battle" or Tank Battle. M., 2013. S. 158-160.
11 Communist. 1973. March 1. C. 2.
12 Communist. 1973. June 11. S. 2, 3.

Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov

P.A. Rotmistrov (left) and A.S. Zhadov, Prokhorovka area, July 1943

era of the myth of the battle of Prokhorov

ROTMISTROV Pavel Alekseevich (1901-1982). Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces (1962). Hero of the Soviet Union (1965). Member of the Civil War. Member of the CPSU (b) since 1919. He graduated from the Military Joint School. All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1924). Military Academy. Frunze (1931), Military Academy of the General Staff (1953). Member of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. During the Great Patriotic War - in command positions in the Western, Northwestern, Kalinin, Stalingrad, Voronezh, Steppe, Southwestern, 2nd Ukrainian and 3rd Belorussian fronts. From August 1944 - Deputy Commander of the Armored and Mechanized Forces of the Soviet Army. Since 1948 - in teaching at the Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1958-1964. - Head of the Military Academy of Armored Forces. In 1964-1968 - assistant to the Minister of Defense of the USSR.

Rotmistrov was awarded six Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov 1st and 2nd class, Kutuzov 1st class, Order of the Red Star and other distinctions.

Rotmistrov - a participant in the famous Battle of Kursk. B.V. Sokolov writes: “This battle became the largest battle not only of the Great Patriotic War, but of the entire Second World War. Two whole years have passed since the German attack on the USSR, and all the advantages that the Wehrmacht received due to the surprise of the invasion have long lost their significance. The Soviet Union fully deployed its military potential, was able to use significant Lend-Lease supplies and had an army manned and equipped with two years of combat experience, which seriously outnumbered the enemy in terms of numbers and weapons.

Nevertheless, from the point of view of military art, according to a number of historians, the Red Army lost the Battle of Kursk, because with the enormous superiority that it possessed, the relatively modest results achieved do not justify the monstrous losses it suffered in people and equipment. By the way, in terms of the degree of inconsistency with the real course of events, the Soviet mythology of this battle will give odds to the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad, as the works of German researchers convincingly testify to.

I would especially like to highlight the work of Karl-Heinz Frieser, dedicated, in particular, to the analysis of the famous tank battle near Prokhorovka (Frieser K.-H. Schlagen aus der Nachhand - Schlagen aus der Vorhand. Die Schlachten von Char "kov und Kursk. - Gezeitenwechsel im Zweiten Weltkrieg? Hrsg. von R.G. Foerster, Hamburg-Berlin-Bonn, 1996. A German historian was inspired to write it by watching the Soviet film "Arc of Fire" from the film epic "Liberation". 1) He found the film's picture of the greatest tank battle to be wholly false. On the material of the German archives, Frieser proved that the Soviet claims that the Germans lost 300 or 400 tanks near Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943, are nothing more than a poetic exaggeration contained in the reports Soviet tanks th commanders. In fact, the 2nd German SS Panzer Corps, which opposed the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army (Commander Lieutenant General P. Rotmistrov) near Prokhorovka, irretrievably lost only 5 tanks, and another 43 tanks and 12 assault guns were damaged, then how the irretrievable losses of only three corps of the 5th Guards Tank Army amounted, according to Soviet reports, coinciding in this case with German ones, at least 334 tanks and self-propelled guns. And this despite the fact that the Soviet side had an almost fourfold superiority - together with two corps attached to the army of P. Rotmistrov, tank and mechanized - up to 1000 armored vehicles against no more than 273 from the Germans. 2)

There is an oral tradition from the words of eyewitnesses that after the Battle of Prokhorov Stalin called Rotmistrov "on the carpet" in Moscow and said something like this: "What are you, wise ..., in one day you ruined the entire army, but did nothing?" However, the Supreme Commander refused to bring the unlucky commander of the 5th Guards Tank Army to trial: after all, the Soviet troops won the Battle of Kursk. As a result, the legend of Soviet success near Prokhorovka was born. For this purpose, the number of German tanks was overestimated by two and a half times - up to 700, and their losses - by 5-7 times, up to 300-400 vehicles, in order to make them comparable with the Soviet ones.

Most of the Soviet tankers did not have the necessary combat experience and they received a baptism of fire on the Kursk Bulge. This undoubtedly affected the results of the tank battle near Prokhorovka. The true reasons for the termination of the offensive of the Army Group "South", contrary to the widespread opinion in Soviet historiography, that the Germans' refusal to continue the "Citadel" operation was caused by the failure near Prokhorovka (which in reality did not happen), lie in the fact that the Soviet attack against Orlovsky had already begun bridgehead, and therefore there was no chance of encircling the Red Army grouping near Kursk. The continuation of the attack on Kursk from the south was an unjustified risk and in the future could lead to the encirclement and death of German tank formations. The victory near Prokhorovka still could not change the overall strategic situation, unfavorable for the German side ”(Sokolov B.V: The Truth about the Great Patriotic war. SPb., 1998. S. 14-17).

Notes

1) The epic film "Liberation" (five episodes, 1970-1972). Director and co-writer Yu.N. Ozerov. “The wide coverage of world-historical events is combined in it with a careful development of the images of the participants in these events. This work is characterized by a modern embodiment of the forms of the film epic, a combination of strict documentary with the scale of historical generalizations and staged scope. (Movie. encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1986. S. 304). For this work, the director received the Lenin Prize (1972) and other awards.

2) “Up to 1200 tanks and self-propelled guns simultaneously participated in the battle from both sides ... The participation of such a large number of Soviet tanks turned out to be a complete surprise for the enemy. From the air, massive air strikes were carried out against the enemy by the aircraft of the 2nd VA and units of the 17th VA, as well as the ADD. The fascist German troops lost up to 400 tanks and assault guns and over 10,000 men. Not having reached the intended goal, the enemy went on the defensive, and on July 16 began to retreat. In the battle of Prokhorovka, the superiority of Soviet military equipment and art over military equipment and the Art of the Nazi Army” (The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Encyclopedia. M., 1985. P. 592-593).

Materials of the book were used: Torchinov V.A., Leontyuk A.M. around Stalin. Historical and biographical reference book. St. Petersburg, 2000

Rotmistrov Pavel Alekseevich

(07/23/1901-04/06/1982) - Chief Marshal of the armored forces (1962)

Pavel Rotmistrov was born on July 23, 1901 in the village of Skovorovo, Tver province, into a peasant family. He received his primary education at a four-year rural school. In November 1918, Pavel went to Moscow, where his older brother lived, to earn money, then moved to Samara, where he got a job as a loader.

At the beginning of 1919, Rotmistrov joined the Red Army, in the Samara workers' regiment, in which he participated in the battles near Bugulma against Kolchak's troops.

Then he was sent to military engineering courses, after which he was enrolled in the 42nd stage battalion of the 16th Army of the Western Front.

In 1921, he entered the Smolensk Infantry School, after which he was assigned to the 149th Infantry Regiment as a company political instructor.

The following year, Pavel Rotmistrov was admitted to the Military Joint School of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and became a Kremlin cadet. In 1924 he graduated from college and was assigned to Leningrad as a platoon commander of the 31st regiment of the 11th rifle division.

In 1928 he entered the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze and, having successfully graduated from it in 1931, received the post of chief of the first part of the headquarters of the Trans-Baikal Rifle Division, located in Chita. Two years later, Rotmistrov became deputy head of the operational department of the district headquarters.

In the summer of 1937, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 63rd Infantry Regiment of the 21st Primorsky Division, and in October he was invited to teach tactics at the Military Academy of Motorization and Mechanization of the Red Army. Having handed over the command of the regiment, he arrived in Moscow. At the Academy, Rotmistrov studied the experience of using tanks in Spain and Khalkhin Gol. Soon he became a candidate of sciences and an assistant professor.

In 1939-1940, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. He led a tank battalion and personally led tank attacks on the Mannerheim Line.

After the war, he was appointed deputy commander of the 5th Panzer Division of the 3rd Mechanized Corps of the Baltic Special Military District. At the end of May 1941, Rotmistrov became chief of staff of the corps.

In this position, he met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The 3rd Mechanized Corps became part of the 11th Army of the Western Front, where it offered fierce resistance to the tank groups of Guderian and Model. Acting in the Siauliai direction, the corps headquarters was surrounded, but was able to get out of it.

Then the 3rd mechanized corps was disbanded, and Colonel Rotmistrov was appointed to the post of commander of the 8th tank brigade and was sent to the North-Western Front in the Valdai region. Subsequently, the Rotmistrov brigade was transferred to the Kalinin Front.

At the beginning of 1942, the Stavka decided to form 20 tank corps and two tank armies. Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 7th Tank Corps, which began formation in the Kalinin region. At the end of June 1942, the 7th Corps was transferred to Yelets, becoming part of the 5th Tank Army. In the Zemlyansk area, the corps entered into battle with the 11th German division and managed to inflict a crushing defeat on it.

In August 1942, Rotmistrov's corps was transferred to the Bryansk Front and sent to Stalingrad, where it became part of the 1st Guards Army. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the tanks of the 7th corps under the command of Rotmistrov first managed to quickly break through the German defenses, and then once again perfectly fulfilled the order of the command, repulsing the attacks of German tank units breaking through to help the encircled 6th German army of General Paulus. The corps successfully operated in the area of ​​the Rachkovsky farm, and then, as part of the 2nd Guards Army, participated in the defeat of the Kotelnicheskaya grouping of the German Army Group Don.

Subsequently, Rotmistrov began to command a mechanized group of three corps, which operated in the Bataysk region.

However, he received real fame as a result of skillful and successful actions on the Kursk Bulge. In the rank of lieutenant general, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov was appointed commander of the 5th tank army, which was part of the Voronezh Front, commanded by General Vatutin.

The battle on the Kursk Bulge began on July 4 with a massive artillery shelling of the areas of concentration of German troops, fuel depots and artillery positions of the enemy. The Germans suffered heavy losses and were forced to launch an offensive in unfavorable conditions for themselves. The Germans threw about 1,000 tanks and 350 assault guns into the Soviet positions. However, their only success was that the SS panzer divisions managed to penetrate the Soviet defenses and hold their positions during the next night.

On July 6, the 4th Panzer Army of General Hoth, with the support of aviation, began to move forward, and she managed to break through the first line of the Soviet defense and throw large tank formations into the breakthrough places. The Soviet command decided that the moment had come for a powerful counterattack against the Gota grouping, and the Voronezh Front prepared for such a counterattack. Almost the entire mobile operational reserve was transferred to General Vatutin - the 5th Guards Tank Army under the command of Lieutenant General Rotmistrov, as well as the Guards Combined Arms Army under the command of General A.S. Zhadov. In addition to this blow, which was being prepared by four Soviet armies on the southern face of the Kursk Salient on the morning of July 12, on the same day, a crushing blow from the Bryansk Front and the left wing of the Western Front was to fall on the Oryol ledge. The decisive battle was destined to take place between the tank corps of General Rotmistrov and the German tank units under the command of Hoth.

The 5th Soviet tank army, having covered about 300 kilometers in two days, concentrated in the Prokhorovka area, where Goth gathered all the combat-ready German tank formations.

On the morning of July 12, Rotmistrov was at the command post, on a hill southwest of Prokhorovka. As part of his army, reinforced by two tank corps and a self-propelled gun regiment, there were about 850 tanks, 261 of which were the T-70 heavy tank. On this day, the largest tank battle of the Second World War took place. The German command threw into battle their selected tank divisions - "Dead Head", "Adolf Hitler", "Reich". On a wide field near Prokhorovka, more than 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns met on both sides in a head-on battle. The German "Tigers" in close combat could not use their advantage - thicker armor and powerful weapons - and were amazed by the Soviet agile and fast T-34 medium tanks from a short distance.

As a result of this fierce battle, the Wehrmacht lost about 400 tanks on the first day. There were other irreparable losses - more than 10 thousand people: tank crews, infantrymen, as well as dozens of aircraft with crews.

On July 13, the battle was still going on. The German command brought 200 new tanks into battle. But even on this day, the Germans did not achieve success and were forced to go on the defensive, and then, under the blows of the Soviet troops, they began to retreat. The German panzer divisions lost at least half of their tanks that day, while Rotmistrov still had about 500 tanks.

Subsequently, Rotmistrov commanded the tank units of the Steppe, Southwestern, 2nd Ukrainian and 3rd Belorussian fronts. In their composition, he liberated Kharkov, crossed the Dnieper, participated in the Korsun-Shevchenko and other operations.

In February 1944, Rotmistrov was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Armored Forces. During the Belarusian operation, Rotmistrov's tank army was part of the 3rd Belorussian Front, commanded by Chernyakhovsky. During the operation, Soviet tank units broke through the enemy defenses in the Vitebsk region, surrounded the German grouping in this area, and then destroyed it. June 26 Vitebsk was liberated. Then the Soviet units defeated a large fortified enemy defense center located in Orsha. So, quickly and decisively, one of the most famous local operations to liberate Belarus, the Vitebsk-Orsha operation, was carried out. Further, Rotmistrov received an order to advance on Minsk. The offensive of the Soviet troops was carried out so rapidly precisely thanks to Rotmistrov's tanks, which, continuously advancing and attacking, literally cut through the German defenses, preventing the enemy from coming to his senses and regrouping troops.

In August, Rotmistrov was appointed deputy commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Red Army.

With the end of the war, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov served as commander of the armored and mechanized troops of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, remaining there until 1948. Then, remaining in the same position, he was in the Far East.

In 1956, he was transferred to Moscow and appointed head of the department of the Military Academy of Armored and Mechanized Troops. In the same year, Rotmistrov defended his dissertation and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Military Sciences, and two years later Pavel Alekseevich became a professor.

Since 1958, he has held the position of Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR for higher military educational institutions, and in 1962 he was awarded the title of Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces.

In 1965, Rotmistrov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

For health reasons, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov in 1968 moved to the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

He died in 1982 and was buried in Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

His military path was marked by five Orders of Lenin, four Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the October Revolution, the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov I degree, the Order of the Red Star, many medals and foreign awards.