[RIA Novosti] The Russian Defense Ministry has launched a historical multimedia section "Those who stepped beyond the Dnieper", dedicated to the liberation of Dnepropetrovsk in 1943 from Nazi invaders.
On October 23, 1943, the Red Army began one of the last stages of the Battle for the Dnieper - the Dnepropetrovsk operation. The troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front crossed the Dnieper south and west of Dnepropetrovsk , and then, during a swift night assault, liberated the city. The liberation of the city led to the successful development of the offensive of the Soviet troops to a depth of 100 kilometers, made it possible to form a strategic foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper and created favorable conditions for the liberation of the right-bank Ukraine .
"The next multimedia section "Those who stepped beyond the Dnieper" tells about the exploits of the Soviet soldiers who liberated Dnepropetrovsk. It contains operational documents of the Red Army formations, award materials of the liberators of Dnepropetrovsk, registration cards of military graves, letters from grateful Dnepropetrovsk residents, political reports about the atrocities of the Nazis and collaborators against the civilian population," the department said.
The troops of the 46th and 8th Guards armies were involved in the operation, they included about 100,000 military personnel, 2,000 guns and mortars and only five tanks.
One of the features of the operation was the night assault on the city of Dnepropetrovsk. As noted in the combat log of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Soviet soldiers were raised in a decisive attack at 3 am on October 25.
"Having broken the stubborn resistance of the enemy, developing the offensive, by 12.00 they stormed a large railway junction and the industrial center of Ukraine, the city of Dnepropetrovsk, the city and the railway station of Dneprodzerzhinsk , advanced from five to 16 km during the day of the battle," the document states.
The war diary of the 152nd Rifle Division states that "the entire burden of the battle fell mainly on the infantry, since the wide water line made it impossible to transport the artillery immediately after the infantry." It also notes that "the attack on Dnepropetrovsk, Dievka and Sukhachevka was so swift that the enemy did not manage to cause significant damage to residential buildings, did not manage to evacuate a significant amount of the property of the city and villages."
The same document describes the defense of the German troops, which "was built on the basis of an extensive network of trenches and communications with bunkers and well-equipped firing points with a wire fence in front of the trenches and minefields."
The Dnepropetrovsk operation was successfully completed on December 23, 1943. By this time, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front had crushed the German strategic line of defense "Eastern Wall" and created on the right bank of the Dnieper a strategic bridgehead about 400 kilometers wide and 100 kilometers deep, which created favorable conditions for the liberation of right-bank Ukraine. This result was preceded by two months of intense bloody battles, which began with the heroic forcing of the Dnieper and the liberation of Dnepropetrovsk.
As emphasized in the Ministry of Defense, the residents of Dnepropetrovsk met the Red Army with great joy - for them, the arrival of a Soviet soldier meant the end of the Nazi hard labor.
The fanaticism of the Nazi invaders is mentioned in a published telegram to the head of the Political Directorate of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Major General Rudakov.
"In Dnepropetrovsk, out of 600,000 people before the war, 30,000 Soviet citizens remained during the German occupation, and by the time the city was liberated from the German invaders, there were 2-3,000 people in it. The rest were brutally tortured and killed, driven into fascist penal servitude or fled from the persecution and bullying of fascist scoundrels," the document says.
Another example of fascist cruelty is presented in a special message from the head of the NKVD troops for the protection of the rear of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. The archival material reveals the details of the mass killing of patients in the largest psychiatric hospital in Ukraine, located in the Dnepropetrovsk region , in the village of Karl Marx (Igrenskaya hospital). It is reported that German officers from the Gestapo arrived here, who demanded that the director of the medical institution kill 1,300 Soviet citizens who were being treated. Ukrainian collaborators, fearing Nazi reprisals, began to inject deadly poison into patients.
"Thus, during the period of occupation by the Germans of the village of Karl Marx, out of 1,300 people who were treated in the Igrensk psychiatric hospital, up to 1,000 people were killed by a team of doctors on the direct instructions of the Gestapo."
After the liberation of Dnepropetrovsk by the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Soviet citizens immediately began to restore peaceful life. As noted in the above telegram to Major General Rudakov, the head of the Political Directorate of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, already "on the second day after the Red Army units entered the city of Dnepropetrovsk, the local authorities had the opportunity to put the power plant and the city water supply into operation." Such an early restoration of the city's life support systems was due to the swiftness of the Soviet offensive.
The publication from the funds of the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defense of declassified documents about the liberation of Dnepropetrovsk, about the atrocities of the Nazis against the inhabitants of the city, about the exploits of Soviet soldiers-liberators is aimed at protecting and protecting historical truth, at counteracting falsifications of history.
Good luck finding the documents because the most likely location of these material are in nredsta.ru which is blocked by our security services.