Feat of General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. D.M.Karbyshev full biography, Karbyshev ideological perseverance and faith

This person is hardly remembered now. The younger generation is likely and does not know his name. But it is precisely on such examples that this very youth must be educated. If you want inflexible heroes to grow, not amorphous consumers of carbonated drinks.

Let's remember our Russian heroes. They deserve it. Only in this way will the generational connection be maintained.

The name of the person who has become a symbol of the unbending will of a Russian officer, stamina and courage is Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. Hero of the Soviet Union.

Already in the Soviet school they talked a little about him. The Nazis tortured General Karbyshev, dousing him with cold water in the winter. That was all the average schoolboy of the USSR knew about him. Current students practically do not know Karbyshev. There are, of course, exceptions ...

11.04. 2011 “A public rally dedicated to the International Day for the Liberation of Prisoners of Fascism was held in Vladivostok. About a hundred members of the 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 name? Correct this gap. Tell your children about Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev ...

He was born on October 14, 1880 in Omsk in the family of a military official. In 1908 he entered the Military Engineering Academy, and after graduating from it, became one of the best Russian military engineers.

During the First World War, he leads the work in the Brest Fortress. During the siege of the Russian fortress, Przemysl, personally leads a consolidated company in the attack and is injured. He is awarded the order and receives the rank of lieutenant colonel.

But it was not in the fratricidal war that Dmitry Mikhailovich accomplished his feat for which he is worthy of the memory of his descendants. After the Civil War, Karbyshev works under the leadership of M.V. Frunze, a professor of engineering at the Academy, writes dozens of works in various fields of military engineering. He receives the title of professor and academic degree of doctor of military sciences.

By the beginning of World War II, Lieutenant General Karbyshev was the leading military engineer of our country. June 8, 1941 he was on a business trip in Belarus, almost on the border. When the war began, he was offered to return to Moscow, offered to allocate transport and security. The 61-year-old general refuses and retreats with units of the Red Army. Wounded and shell-shocked, he is captured.

General Karbyshev spent three and a half years in Nazi dungeons. Concentration camps are changing one by one: Zamosc, Ostrov-Mazowiecki, Hammelsburg near Berlin. Hunger, beatings, illnesses. And offers from the Germans. Captured by the old Russian officer, the Germans offer cooperation.

“Yesterday I was offered to go to serve in the German army,” Karbyshev told cellmates, “I scolded them for such impudence and said that I’m not selling my homeland.”

An elderly general, constantly ill, physically weak, but incredibly strong in spirit, not only steadfastly endures all the horrors of German concentration camps, but also leads agitation. Persuades others to sabotage work. Persuades to believe in the victory of Russia.

He again offered to betray the homeland. He refuses again.

And so the Nazis send him to the Nuremberg camp. Then to the Nuremberg Gestapo prison. From there, the general is sent to a quarry, to the concentration camp Flossenburg. This is real hard labor, multiplied by sadism and murder. Karbyshev is already 64 years old ...

Then Dmitry Mikhailovich sent to Majdanek. He then goes to Auschwitz. These are death camps. This is the worst horror of the Nazi empire of death. In Auschwitz, the general walks in the prisoner's striped clothes, barely dragging his legs from hunger, on which are dressed wooden shoes-blocks.

An officer who knew Karbyshev in person meets him at Auschwitz. The Russian general was sent to the team that cleaned the latrines and garbage pits. From the surprise of the meeting, the officer was confused and asked a stupid question:

How do you feel at Auschwitz?
Karbyshev bowed and answered:
- Well, cheerfully, as in Majdanek.

In February 1945, Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was sent to the Mauthausen death camp. In 1948, a monument to the hero was opened there ...

MESSAGE OF THE FORMER POW POWED COLONELF SOROKIN
(1945 year)

On February 21, 1945, I, with a group of 12 prisoner officers, arrived at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Upon arrival at the camp, I learned that on February 17, 1945, at 5 pm, a group of 400 people was allocated from the total mass of prisoners, including Lieutenant General Karbyshev. These 400 people were stripped naked and left standing on the street; the weak in health died, and they were immediately sent to the furnace of the camp crematorium, and the rest were driven with batons to a cold shower. Until 12 a.m. this execution was repeated several times.

At 12 o’clock in the morning, during another such execution, Comrade Karbyshev deviated from the pressure of cold water and was killed by a blow to the head with a club. The body of Karbyshev was burned in the crematorium of the camp.

REPORTING COMMITTEE REPORT
(1946 year)

Our representative for repatriation in London, Major Sorokopud, was invited on February 13, 1946, to Seddon de Saint Clair, a sick Canadian major, at Bremshot Hospital, Hampshire (England), where the latter informed him:

“In January 1945, among 1000 prisoners from the Heinkel plant, I was sent to the Mauthausen extermination camp. This team included Lieutenant General Karbyshev and several other Soviet officers. Upon arrival at Mauthausen spent the whole day in the cold. In the evening, a cold shower was arranged for all 1000 people, and after that they built on the parade ground in shirts and pads and kept it until 6 a.m. Of the 1,000 people who arrived at Mauthausen, 480 people died. Died and General Dmitry Karbyshev. "

P.S. I would like to hope that a film will be shot about General Karbyshev. And if one already exists, it will be shown on one of the leading channels. Art workers, huh? You owe a great debt to your people ...

(Information from the book: “A soldier, a hero. A scientist. Memoirs of DM Karbyshev”,
Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, Moscow, 1961)

On the night of February 18, 1945, Mauthausen died in a concentration camp. lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev.

In February 1946, a representative of the Soviet Repatriation Mission in England was informed that a wounded Canadian officer located in a hospital near London urgently wants to see him. The officer, a former prisoner at the Mauthausen concentration camp, considered it necessary to give the Soviet representative "extremely important information."

Canadian major's name Seddon De St Clair. “I want to tell you about how I died Lieutenant General Dmitry Karbyshev", The officer said when the Soviet representative appeared in the hospital.

The story of the Canadian military was the first news about Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev since 1941 ...

An unreliable family cadet

Dmitry Karbyshev was born on October 26, 1880 in a military family. From childhood, he dreamed of continuing the dynasty begun 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."

The fact is that the elder brother of Dmitry, Vladimir, participated in the revolutionary circle created at Kazan University, along with another young radical - Vladimir Ulyanov. But if the future leader of the revolution escaped with only expulsion from the university, then Vladimir Karbyshev ended up in prison, where he later died.

The building of the Omsk Cadet Corps, which graduated from Dmitry Karbyshev. Photo: www.russianlook.com

Despite the stigma of the "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 by the construction of fortifications and defensive structures.

The talent of the young officer was first clearly manifested in the Russian-Japanese campaign - Karbyshev strengthened his position, built bridges across the rivers, established communication facilities and carried out reconnaissance in battle.

Despite the unsuccessful outcome of the war for Russia, Karbyshev proved to be a cool specialist, which was noted by medals and the rank of lieutenant.

From Przemysl to Perekop

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

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

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

General Dmitry Karbyshev. Photo: Public Domain

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

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

Missing

By the end of the 1930s, Dmitry Karbyshev was considered one of the most prominent specialists 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 World War II, General Karbyshev worked on the creation of defensive structures on the western border. During one of his trips to the border, the start of hostilities was caught.

The rapid offensive of the Nazis put the Soviet troops in a difficult position. The 60-year-old general of the engineering troops is not the most necessary person in the units threatened by the environment. However, Karbyshev was not able to evacuate. However, he himself, like a real combat officer, decided to break out of the Nazi "bag" along with our units.

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

From that moment until 1945, a short phrase would appear in his personal file: "Missing."

Valuable specialist

The German command was convinced: Karbyshev among the Bolsheviks was a random person. A nobleman, an officer of the tsarist army, he easily agreed to go over to their side. In the end, he and the CPSU (b) joined only in 1940, apparently under duress.

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

In March 1942, Karbyshev was transferred to the Hammelburg concentration camp for officers. It conducted an active psychological treatment of high-ranking Soviet officers in order to force them to switch to the side of Germany. For the sake of this, the most humane and benevolent conditions were created. Many slurred dashing in ordinary soldiers' camps, broke on this. Karbyshev, however, turned out to be from a completely different test - he could not “reforgue” it with any benefits and concessions.

Soon, Karbyshev was assigned colonel Pelita. This Wehrmacht officer was fluent in Russian, as he had served in the Tsar’s 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 the service of great Germany, offered “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 he will in the future be allowed to leave for a neutral country.

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

Incorruptible

Then the Nazis made a final attempt. The general was transferred to solitary confinement in a prison in Berlin, where he was held for about three weeks.

After that, a colleague — a well-known german fortifier Professor Heinz Raubenheimer.

The Nazis knew that Karbyshev and Raubenheimer were familiar, moreover, the Russian general respected the work of a German scientist.

Raubenheimer announced to Karbyshev the following proposal of the Third Reich authorities. The general was offered release from the camp, the possibility of moving to a private apartment, as well as full material security. He will have access to all libraries and book depositories in Germany, given the opportunity to get acquainted with other materials in the areas of military engineering that interest him. If necessary, any number of assistants was guaranteed to equip the laboratory, carry out experimental design work and provide other scientific research activities. The results of the work should become the property of German experts. All the ranks of the German army will relate to Karbyshev as a lieutenant general of the engineering forces of the German Reich.

A middle-aged man who went through hardships in the camps was offered luxurious conditions while maintaining his position and even rank. He was not even required to be branded Stalin and the Bolshevik regime. The Hitlerites were interested in the work of Karbyshev in his main specialty.

Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev perfectly understood that this was most likely the last sentence. He also understood what would follow the denial.

However, the courageous general said: “My beliefs do not fall out with the teeth from a 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 Nazis relied heavily on Karbyshev, on his influence and authority. It is he, not the general Vlasov, according to the initial idea, was to head the Russian Liberation Army.

But all the plans of the Nazis crashed about Karbyshev's intransigence.

Gravestones for fascists

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 they began to use them for hard labor. But even here the general surprised his comrades in misfortune with an unbending will, fortitude and confidence in the final victory of the Red Army.

One of the Soviet prisoners then recalled that Karbyshev was able to cheer up even in the most difficult moments. When the prisoners worked on the manufacture of gravestones, the general said: “This is work that gives me real pleasure. The more gravestones the Germans demand from us, the better, which means that things are going on at our front ”.

He was transferred from camp to camp, the conditions became increasingly harsh, but failed to break Karbyshev. In each of the camps where the general found himself, he became the real leader of spiritual resistance to the enemy. His stamina gave strength to those who were nearby.

The front was heading west. Soviet troops entered German territory. The outcome of the war became apparent even to convinced Nazis. The Nazis had nothing left but hatred and a desire to crack down on those who were stronger than them even in fetters and behind barbed wire ...

Execution

Major Seddon De Saint-Clair was one of several dozen prisoners of war who survived a terrible night on February 18, 1945 in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Mauthausen Museum (current status): Appel Platz (roll call square) and barracks. Photo: Public Domain

“As soon as we entered the camp, the Germans drove us into the shower room, ordered us to undress and let us spray water on top of us. This went on for a long time. Everyone turned blue. Many fell to the floor and immediately died: the heart could not stand it. Then we were ordered to put on only underwear and wooden blocks on our feet and kicked out into the yard. General Karbyshev was in a group of Russian comrades not far from me. We understood that we were living out the last hours. After a couple of minutes, the Gestapo, who stood behind us with fire hoses in their hands, began to pour cold water on us. Those who tried to dodge the jet were beaten on the head with batons. Hundreds of people fell frozen or with crushed skulls. I saw how General Karbyshev fell, ”said the Canadian major.

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

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

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

Monument to General Dmitry Karbyshev in Mauthausen. Photo: RIA Novosti

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

Name: Dmitry Karbyshev (Dmitriy Karbyshev)

Age: 64 years

Place of Birth: Omsk

Place of death: Mauthausen, Austria

Activity: lieutenant general of engineering troops

Family status: was married

Dmitry Karbyshev - biography

During the Great Patriotic War, 83 generals of the Red Army were captured by fascists. Their fate is unenviable: those who did not want to serve the Reich were waiting for a concentration camp and death. One of those who refused was Dmitry Karbyshev.

The son of a Crimean war veteran Dmitry Karbyshev was born on October 14 (26 according to the new style) in Omsk. At the age of 12 he was left without a father. The young man dreamed of continuing the military dynasty begun by his father and grandfather, but he was not accepted to the budget department of the Siberian Cadet Corps. The reason is simple: his older brother Vladimir, along with another Vladimir (Ulyanov), was expelled from Kazan University and sent to exile for participating in student unrest. Mother had difficulty, but found funds for a paid ward. Only two years later, Cadet Karbyshev was transferred to the budget for excellent studies.

At the age of 18, Dmitry entered the Nikolaev Military School, at the end of which he was sent to serve in Manchuria. Here he was caught by the Russo-Japanese War. As part of the sapper battalion, Karbyshev was engaged in building communications, building bridges, and participated in battles; for his courage he was awarded the Order of St. Anne and St. Vladimir.

The inability of the command to adequately respond to the actions of Japanese troops led to the defeat of tsarist Russia. Karbyshev saw the old system becoming a brake on the development of the country, and did not want to keep silent about it. In 1906 he was arrested for revolutionary agitation; the case could end with a military tribunal and execution. However, given the military merits of the lieutenant, the officer’s honor was limited to a court, by the decision of which Dmitry had to leave the military service in reserve.

True, not for long: the country needed experienced specialists, and a year later he received the position of company commander in a sapper battalion in Vladivostok. Then there was a study at the Nikolaev Military Engineering Academy, after which Dmitry was sent to serve in Brest - to build forts. There he was overtaken by the news of the outbreak of the First World War, during which he not only built fortifications, but also took part in hostilities.

The events that rocked Russia in 1917 did not come as a surprise to Dmitry. He perceived both revolutions with enthusiasm, although he understood that the Germans had an internal conflict. In December, the lieutenant colonel of the tsarist army, Karbyshev, joined the Red Guard, and six months later he was appointed specialist at the Main Military Technical Directorate of the Red Army.

The Civil War shook it all over the country: Siberia, the Urals, Crimea ... Later there was a research project as a fortifier. By the end of the 1930s, Professor Karbyshev was already a recognized world authority in the field of military construction. And Dmitry Mikhailovich took an active part in the restoration of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra - in his heart he remained an Orthodox officer.

On the eve of the Nazi invasion, in June 1941, the 60-year-old General Karbyshev was sent to the western borders with an inspection of defensive fortifications. Five days after the outbreak of the war, his army headquarters was surrounded. Of course, Dmitry Mikhailovich could have escaped from the boiler by plane, but preferred to break with his fellow soldiers to his own. The attempt was unsuccessful: in the village near Mogilev the general received a heavy shell-shock and, being unconscious, was captured.

Learning about who was captured, the Germans decided to convince Karbyshev to work for the Reich. It seemed that there would be no difficulties: after all - a tsarist officer, a nobleman. The psychological treatment began almost immediately. The general was told that the Fuhrer’s troops were about to take Moscow, and they offered to think about life in the new conditions. He was transferred to an officer concentration camp in Hammelburg, where Soviet military leaders were kept. They were well fed, not forced to work. With some prisoners, such tactics worked, however, Karbyshev categorically refused all proposals for cooperation.

Soon the Colonel of the Wehrmacht Pelit, who had previously served with Karbyshev in the tsarist army and spoke excellent Russian, was appointed the head of the camp. Expressing bewilderment over the position of the general, Pelit hastened to offer better conditions and "compromise options for cooperation." But Karbyshev was firm, so it was decided to send him to Berlin. Here, a military engineer was kept in solitary confinement for three weeks, without stopping psychological pressure.

Another method of influence was the presence of interrogated professor Heinz Rauben-gamer, whom Karbyshev previously considered in absentia his teacher. Already a middle-aged man who had passed the German camps, the professor promised a luxurious life in Germany while preserving his position and even his rank. “My beliefs do not fall out with teeth from a 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 general’s final answer was.

Having lost their patience, the Germans sent a prisoner to the quarries of the Flossenbürg camp. Carving out granite tombstones, Karbyshev joked that this is the best job: “The more Germans demand from us the gravestones, the better, therefore, we are doing business at the front.” Then there were Majdanek, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and, finally, Mauthausen.

In January 1945, it became clear that the end of the Reich was inevitable. In this time pressure, the Germans were in a hurry to destroy as many prisoners as possible, the fire chambers of the camps worked around the clock. On February 18, overseers of Mauthausen took several hundred prisoners to frost and began to pour ice water on them. Among them was General Karbyshev ...

For unprecedented stamina, on August 16, 1946, Dmitry Mikhailovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

General Karbyshev became the personification of perseverance and courage of the Russian people. A prominent scientist, military specialist, he went through the real hell of German camps, but did not give up, preferring to betray death from the cold under streams of ice water.

Hereditary military

Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was born in Omsk in 1880. His father served as a clerk in the district commissariat, and his grandfather was also a military man. Dima, who at one time wanted to become an artist, the very origin dictated the future specialty. He was to become a military man. For this, he had all the makings - a good memory, discipline, a strong will.

The elder brother of Dmitry Karbyshev, Vladimir, studied at Kazan University, where he closely communicated with the socialists and Vladimir Ulyanov. For participation in the student revolutionary movement, Vladimir Karbyshev was arrested, while Ulyanov was simply expelled. As a result, the elder brother of Dmitry Karbyshev died in prison. This incident in life seriously affected Karbyshev’s life. Firstly, police control was immediately established for their family, Dima was not admitted to the cadet school to study at public expense, and he had to study at the family’s expense.

Despite the difficulties, he weaned from success, passed the final tests, and in 1898 entered the Nikolaev Military Engineering School. Secondly, perhaps partly due to the fact that his brother died in the Tsarist prison, Karbyshev without hesitation during the revolution took the side of the Bolsheviks.

Order bearer

Karbyshev noted his professionalism in the Russo-Japanese War. There, he, as part of the battalion, erected fortifications, made communications, went into reconnaissance in battle, and participated in the battle of Mukden. For his heroism, Karbyshev was awarded five orders: St. Vladimir of the 4th degree with swords and bow, St. Stanislav of the 3rd degree, St. Anna of the 3rd degree, St. Stanislav of the 2nd degree and St. Anna 4- 1st degree with the inscription "For courage", 3 medals.

In 1906, the order-bearer Karbyshev was fired. According to documents - for anti-government agitation among soldiers in revolutionary times. His case was examined by the “court of honor”. Dmitry Mikhailovich worked as a draftsman in Vladivostok for a year, but then again came in handy to the army - he was returned to help strengthen the Far Eastern fortifications. Experienced specialists like Karbyshev were always in short supply.

Dmitry Mikhailovich did not stop training and entered the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, after graduation he was appointed to Brest-Litovsk, where he participated in the construction of the Brest-Litovsk fortress.
Karbyshev distinguished himself in World War I - immediately at the beginning of the war as part of Brusilov’s army, he fought for Przemysl, where he was wounded and for the courage he was awarded the Order of St. Anna with swords. Then he became a lieutenant colonel.

In Civil, Karbyshev fights on the side of the Reds, builds military fortifications throughout the country, from Siberia to Ukraine. In 1920, Dmitry Mikhailovich became the engineering chief of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front, and then was appointed assistant chief of engineers of the Southern Front.

Scientist

After the Civil War, Karbyshev teaches at the Frunze Military Academy and other military educational institutions. His scientific and teaching career goes uphill, in 1940 he becomes a lieutenant general, in 1941 - a doctor of military sciences. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, students loved and respected him. Karbyshev is recognized as one of the main experts in the fortification business not only in the USSR, but also in the world. He has written more than 100 scientific papers on military history and military engineering. According to Karbyshev study guides on the tactics of engineering troops, the theory and practice of engineering support, commanders were trained in the prewar and wartime periods. During the Finnish War, Karbyshev developed recommendations for the engineering support of the Mannerheim line breakthrough.

“I do not trade in conscience and homeland!”

The beginning of the Great Patriotic War, General Karbyshev met at the headquarters of the 3rd army of the city of Grodno. From there, Dmitry Mikhailovich moved to the headquarters of the 10th Army, which was surrounded on June 27. Karbyshev was invited to evacuate on special vehicles, but he refused, saying that he would leave the circle with everyone. On August 8, during an attempt to break through the encirclement, crossing the Dnieper, Karbyshev was shell-shocked and captured.
The “Way of the Cross” by Karbyshev began in Poland, in the transit camp “Ostrow Mazowiecki”. Realizing who they managed to capture, the Germans immediately decided to engage in the recruitment of a prominent military specialist. Karbyshev’s dossier was specially marked and was classified as “IV D 3-a”, which meant, in addition to monitoring activities, to apply special treatment in case of capture. A seriously ill, far from young Soviet general was moved to Zamosc and settled in the general’s hut. Of course, they immediately tried to persuade him to cooperate, but Karbyshev’s position was unequivocal: “I don’t trade my conscience and homeland!”

"Difficile"

The intransigence of Karbyshev, his stamina and courage even today amaze the imagination. What techniques did the Germans not use to lure Karbyshev to his side? He was tempted with comfort, a former officer of the tsarist army Pelit was sent to him for refueling, with whom Karbyshev served at the same time in Brest, then Dmitry Mikhailovich was taken to Berlin to meet the luminaries of fortification art Heinz Raubenheimer.

Karbyshev, however, was adamant. His answer was unequivocal: “My beliefs do not fall out together with my teeth from a 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. ”

Only then did the Germans realize that they would definitely fail to recruit Karbyshev. The following phrase appeared in the documents of the Main Engineering Directorate of the Hitler Army: “... This largest Soviet fortifier, a career officer of the old Russian army, a man who has exceeded sixty years, turned out to be fanatically devoted to the idea of \u200b\u200bfidelity to military duty and patriotism ... Karbyshev can be considered hopeless in the sense of using us as a specialist in military engineering. ”

"Good job"

Karbyshev, who at the time of his capture was over 60 years old, went through hell. Here is just a list of the camps he went through: “Stalag-324” near the Polish city of Ostrow Mazowiecki, officer camp in Zamosc, “Offlag XIII-D” in Hammelburg, Gestapo prison in Berlin, camp at the POA transit point in Breslau, Nuremberg , extermination camp Flossenburg, death camp Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen.

Dmitry Mikhailovich until his death did not lose courage. According to the recollections of one officer who was with Karbyshev at Auschwitz, he met Dmitry Mikhailovich in a team engaged in cleaning cesspools. Recognizing Karbyshev, the officer asked a stupid question: "How do you feel in Auschwitz?" Dmitry Mikhailovich bowed and answered: "Well, vigorously, as in Majdanek."
When Karbyshev worked as a team on the preparation of gravestones, he mentioned that this work gives him real pleasure: “The more we have to make tombstones, the better, so things are going on at our front.”

General Karbyshev died on February 18, 1945. He, along with other prisoners (about 500 people) was taken out to the parade ground and doused with cold water in the cold. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously to General Karbyshev (February 28, 1948).

Unbroken. Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev

Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev was born on October 14, 1880 in the city of Omsk. He was the sixth and last child in the family of court adviser Mikhail Ilyich Karbyshev and his wife Alexandra Efimovna. Parents wanted to give all their sons (Vladimir, Mikhail, Sergey and Dmitry) a higher education, and first of all they wanted to see them as doctors. However, the straitened financial situation forced them to reorient on the fact that the youngest children “went to the officers” at the state-owned guesthouse. In addition, the Karbyshev family was considered "unreliable" and was under the supervision of the gendarmerie and the police. The reason for this was the activity of the elder brother Dmitry Vladimir, who studied at the medical faculty of Kazan University and took part in student demonstrations and distribution of leaflets. In the summer of 1888, Vladimir was arrested and sent into exile in Ust-Kamenogorsk, where he lived the rest of his life.
The arrest and exile of the eldest son, calls for interrogations to the gendarme department, police surveillance of the family affected the health status of the sixty-year-old Mikhail Ilyich, who worked as an assistant accountant in the District Commandant's Office. He died in 1892. The youngest children, Sergei and Dmitry, who entered the Siberian Cadet Corps in their hometown, had to endure many hardships during their studies.

Subsequently, Karbyshev wrote: “Because of my brother’s arrest, they didn’t admit me to the corps to study at state expense and, as an exception, I studied at my own, despite the fact that my mother was widowed and had no means. However, he studied diligently, becoming the best in his class when graduating in 1898. And in the fall of the same year, Dmitry entered the Nikolaev Military Engineering School in St. Petersburg, and two years later he graduated from it "on the first level."

Mikhailovsky Castle - Nikolaev Military Engineering School

In the rank of second lieutenant, a twenty-year-old youth was sent to the Far East.

At the headquarters of the Amur Military District, located in the city of Khabarovsk, in the autumn of 1900 a young officer was assigned to the first East Siberian combat engineer battalion, based near Vladivostok. The first post of Dmitry Mikhailovich in military service was as the head of the cable department of the telegraph company.

The promotion was not long in coming - already in 1903 a diligent young guy was promoted to lieutenant. During the same period, Karbyshev’s cable department was recognized as the best unit of the military unit for successfully completing complex assignments for conducting telegraph lines and providing communications.

The first East Siberian engineering battalion transferred to Mukden was at the forefront from the very beginning of the Russo-Japanese war.

Very little is known about the life of Dmitry Mikhailovich at that time - his company established communications, strengthened its positions, conducted reconnaissance in battle, and built bridges. Karbyshev, along with his people, provided uninterrupted communication between the headquarters of military formations among themselves and with the troops leading the battle. The losses of engineering units were enormous - their composition by the end of the war was actually halved.

attack near Mukden

For excellent knowledge of the matter, courage and resourcefulness, humane attitude to the "lower ranks", the lieutenant of the engineering forces became one of the heroes of the lost war, and his military path can be judged by the received awards. Dmitry Mikhailovich successively received five orders - the most honorable "St. Vladimir of the fourth degree" (September 2, 1904), "St. Stanislav of the third degree" (November 4, 1904), "St. Anna of the third degree" (January 2, 1905), and "St. Stanislav of the second degree" (February 20, 1905) and "St. Anne of the fourth degree" (for the difference in the battles from February to March 1905).

Careers, however, the combat officer did not. The soldiers of the garrison of the Vladivostok fortress, where Karbyshev returned as part of his battalion, opposed the old order - more than once it came to armed clashes with the police. The unwillingness of Dmitry Mikhailovich to testify and, moreover, denunciations of the soldiers with whom he fought, led to the dismissal of Karbyshev. In his autobiography, he wrote: “In 1906, I retired from military service. The reason was the unwillingness to serve in the army of the king. The reason was the charges against me of agitation among the soldiers, for which I was brought to trial by the Society of Officers. As a civilian, Dmitry Mikhailovich donkey in Vladivostok, taking a job as a private draftsman. However, by the will of fate, a year later in 1907 he again found himself in the ranks of the military. The reason was the announcement of the formation in the local garrison of a special combat engineer battalion created to serve the fortified city. The command appointed Karbyshev the company head in the emerging battalion.

The semi-annual service of Dmitry Mikhailovich was interrupted by his call to the headquarters of the Amur Military District, where all officers who expressed a desire to enter any academy had to preliminarily test their knowledge. Tests in the spring of 1908 were successful, and six months later, Karbyshev went to take entrance exams at the Nikolaev Military Engineering Academy. His knowledge amazed many - during the twenty-five-day exams, he received the highest scores in almost all twenty-three (!) Subjects. For three years Dmitry Mikhailovich studied with the first-class specialists of our country and was one of the best on the course. Studying at military academies, by the way, has always been extremely difficult. According to the memoirs of classmates, Karbyshev was distinguished by diligence and perseverance, he was always strictly taut, he liked to visit the fencing hall and the shooting gallery. Upon graduation from the academy, Dmitry Mikhailovich with a certificate of "excellent success" was promoted to the rank of staff captain and approved as a military engineer.
By that time it was 1911. Dmitry Mikhailovich, who now has an academic badge, was ranked among the first Sevastopol fortress mine company of engineering troops, starting to work to strengthen the western borders of the Russian Empire. In October 1912, he, along with several classmates at the academy, was transferred "to the disposal of the chief of engineers of the Warsaw Military District." Under the command of masters of military engineering, Major General Buinitsky and Ovchinnikov Dmitry Mikhailovich took part in the construction of the forts of the Brest Fortress, conducting engineering and reconnaissance works near Bialystok, as well as on the Dubno-Lutsk line.

construction of “fort V“ of the Brest fortress

Brest Fortress

He worked there first as a junior producer of work, and then as a senior producer. Technical projects of Karbyshev were sent to St. Petersburg and Warsaw, as exemplary. In Brest, Dmitry Mikhailovich suffered a major personal misfortune - in 1913 his wife Alisa Karlovna, whom he met during his service in the Far East, and lived together for six years, tragically died.

In the summer of 1914 the First World War began. From the very beginning, Dmitry Mikhailovich asked the leadership to send him to the front line. Soon the report was satisfied, and already in the fall of this year, the engineer-captain was in the army on the South-Western Front. He fought in the Carpathians in the eighth army of General Alexei Brusilov and was an engineer of the 69th and 78th infantry divisions, and later the head of the engineering service of the twenty-second Finland Rifle Corps. A lot of offensives and retreats, positional battles along with Russian soldiers, artillerymen and cavalrymen passed through the courageous commander of a sapper company, and then the battalion Karbyshev. Repeatedly he had to go in bayonet attacks, many of his fellow officers and subordinate sapper soldiers, who, as usual, were under enemy fire in the rearguard of the retreating and in the forefront of the advancing troops.

engineer-captain D.M. Karbyshev

In March 1915, he was wounded in the battle for the capture of the Przemysl fortress. The bullet passed right through the soft parts of the leg without touching the bone. After the cure, the courageous captain expressed a desire to return to the front. However, Dmitry Mikhailovich did not go to the front line alone. Together with him, the nurse Lidia Vasilievna Opatskaya, who took care of Karbyshev in the hospital, left, becoming his wife and accepting his name. Subsequently, they had three children: Elena, Tatyana and Alex.

In the life of a military engineer, new battles and new orders followed, received both for the skillful leadership of the troops subordinate to him, and for the courage personally shown. Dmitry Mikhailovich was promoted to lieutenant colonel, in 1916 he, among others, participated in the famous Brusilovsky breakthrough, and in 1917 he participated in work to strengthen positions on the Romanian border. The October Revolution found Dmitry Mikhailovich on the Southwestern Front. After painful deliberation, Karbyshev decided to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks and part with both the royal shoulder straps and all regalia and ranks. At the end of December 1918, meetings of soldiers were held in many parts of the sixth and eighth armies. The engineering company of the Siberian Division was no exception. The chairman of the meeting was elected Dmitry Mikhailovich. After heated debates, 215 sappers of the companies adopted a resolution in which they reported on the support of the Soviet government by all available means. The text of this resolution was published by an army committee newspaper called “Warrior Citizen” in January 1918. And soon an order was issued by the commander of the Romanian Front, General Shcherbachev, who refused to obey Soviet power, to destroy the sixth and eighth “rebel” armies.

Dmitry G. Shcherbachev

Punitive detachments moved to Mogilev-Podolsky, where the Military Revolutionary Committee was located together with the field headquarters of the eighth army. Thus was born a new front of the Civil War. Karbyshev was entrusted with the task of constructing defensive fortifications around the city, as well as bringing bridges across the Dniester into a defensive state. Special Red Guard detachments were created against the advancing units of General Shcherbachev, and after some time Dmitry Mikhailovich was sent to one of these units as a detached engineer.

After the conclusion of a humiliating peace treaty for our country, Soviet troops were withdrawn from the demarcation line, and Karbyshev and his wife arrived in Voronezh in April 1918. However, he stayed there a few days, receiving orders to go to the capital of Russia. In Moscow, Dmitry Mikhailovich was appointed to the College of Engineering Defense of the new state, formed at the Main Military Engineering Directorate, which was headed by the most experienced engineer-general Konstantin Velichko. During the period of peaceful respite, Kardyshev only twice left Moscow. In May 1918 he left for Tula, and from there went to the border with Ukraine occupied by Germany with the aim of inspecting engineering work in the border curtains and detachments. And in the middle of summer, for the same purpose, he visited the Smolensk defensive area. The next trip in August 1918 was already to the front. Karbyshev was heading to Kizlyar to take the place of the head of the engineering department of the North Caucasian Military District. However, he never reached his destination, “stuck” in Tsaritsyno. This city from August 1918 until the end of the year three times reflected the advance of the White Cossacks. Based on the experience gained in the bloody battles near Tsaritsyn, Dmitry Mikhailovich formulated a position that became his motto for life: “It’s not the walls that defend, but people. The walls only help. ”

defense of Tsaritsyn

At the beginning of November 1918, the situation on the Eastern Front changed dramatically, and Dmitry Mikhailovich was sent to strengthen the borders on the banks of the Volga. The reconnaissance over five hundred kilometers from Syzran to the town of Tetyush was carried out by Karbyshev in record time - in just eight days. By that time, the military engineer already knew the field fortification very well and had the rare gift of combining it with the operational art of the troops and tactics. His final project included a detailed explanatory note, the exact location of the batteries and their required caliber, showed panoramic views of the most important fortifications from different positions, a brief estimate of the work. Kamenev, commander of the Eastern Front, expressed gratitude to Dmitry Mikhailovich, calling the project exemplary.

Sergey Sergeevich Kamenev

The propagated materials were sent to the troops, and later the Main Military Engineering Directorate issued them in a separate brochure.
At the end of 1918, Karbyshev arrived in Samara and immediately set about forming the Directorate of Military Field Construction of the Eastern Front. The task assigned to Dmitry Mikhailovich was extremely difficult - in the Samara Luke region in the shortest possible time to create the Volga defensive line, stretched over two hundred kilometers. To do this, it was necessary to extract and move entire mountains of the earth, from scratch to build strong fortifications, barracks and dugouts for sapper units and civilian workers. Karbyshev had no digging mechanisms, and local peasants did not want to work for money, demanding sugar, kerosene, nails, matches, horseshoes - in short, all that the village needed. Having none of this, Karbyshev turned the commissary rations into a salary. However, this did not help either - there was a catastrophic shortage of workers, besides, plowing time was approaching, and an increasing number of rural residents were leaving for spring field suffering. After painful deliberation, Dmitry Mikhailovich suggested that the command form separate working squads in the deep rear along with the Red Army units. Since time did not wait, Karbyshev, having received permission from the chief of engineers of the Eastern Front, undertook to independently organize them. And in December 1918 the initiative commander of the fourth army of the Eastern Front was appointed Mikhail Frunze.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze

Thanks to his help, the construction began to boil in full across the front. For a short period of time, defensive units were built in the most important areas in Samara, Simbirsk, Saratov, Zlatoust, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Troitsk and many other cities, which played a huge role in the defeat of the White Guards. Karbyshev monitored the construction of fortifications and designed new ones, performed complex calculations, wrote instructions, instructions and memos. By the way, everything he wrote was distinguished by a special, unique style, accessible even to people who were ignorant of military engineering.
In March 1919, Kolchak’s army launched an offensive; some parts of the White Guards almost came close to Samara. A threatening situation also developed in the city of Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). While Frunze was gathering a powerful strike group to defeat Kolchak, Karbyshev, appointed chief of defense of the Eastern Front, received an urgent task to organize another defense line in Samara on the north-eastern side of the city. It took place five to seven kilometers from the center, now Karbysheva Street is located at this place. All work was completed on time, and the milestone became an insurmountable obstacle for the White Guards. However, Dmitry Mikhailovich became famous after the defense organizations of the city of Uralsk, a key link in the plans of the command of the Eastern Front to prevent the unification of the forces of Kolchak and Denikin. Having completed the reconnaissance and necessary calculations, the military engineer convincingly proved that in the absence of the enemy’s heavy artillery, Uralsk can be kept even in complete encirclement. Commanding hundreds of sappers, with the help of local residents, he managed to build fortifications that made it possible for two months to the three-thousand-strong garrison to hold out against a six-times superior enemy in complete blockade.

After the defeat of Kolchak, Karbyshev was appointed chief of engineers of the fifth army of the Eastern Front and was engaged in strengthening the Trans-Baikal bridgehead against the White Guards ataman Semenov and Japanese interventionists. In addition, Dmitry Mikhailovich devoted much time to the restoration of railway transport in Siberia. Thanks to his initiative and organizational skills, over a hundred kilometers of tracks, dozens of bridges, telegraph and telephone communications in cities, as well as in the offensive zone of the Fifth Red Army, were established in a short time. Frunze wrote about him: "Karbyshev is a man of marvelous capacity for work and extraordinary talents."

In 1920, the Southern Front became key. In August of this year, a military engineer arrived in Crimea, and in battles with the Wrangelites near Kakhovka for the first time in Russian history he successfully organized anti-tank defense - the Red Army not only repelled the attack of armored monsters, but also captured seven tanks.

In the future, Dmitry Mikhailovich laid the shoulders on the engineering support of the assault on the fortifications of the Turkish Wall on Perekop and on the Isthmus of Chongar. And a year later in 1921 Karbyshev was already in Ukraine and took part in the development of plans of operations for the capture and destruction of Makhno’s gangs.

In the end, the civil war ended, and a period of peaceful and constructive work began in the life of the young Republic of Soviets. The Karbyshev family settled in the capital on Smolensky Boulevard. In March 1923, Dmitry Mikhailovich was appointed to the post of chairman of the engineering committee (soon transformed into a military technical committee) of the Main Military Engineering Directorate. Since 1924, part-time Karbyshev began to give lectures at once in a number of military academies. In 1926 he began to teach at the Military Academy. Frunze, and even eight years later, took the post of head of the department of military engineering of the Military Academy of the General Staff, raising a galaxy of domestic military engineers. It is curious that at the same time Dmitry Mikhailovich himself did not have an academic education. To eliminate this drawback, Karbyshev in the fifty-sixth year sat down at his desk and in 1938 he graduated brilliantly from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. All this time he left neither scientific, nor teaching, nor practical activity. Major General Ivan Belinsky, Patriarch of Russian Engineering Troops, described Karbyshev as follows:

“Proportionally folded, short. Differs in sharp agility in movements. All like a stretched string. The face is slightly puffy, eyes are shiny and black. Great jokes, very witty. "

Twenty years after the end of the civil war, Karbyshev devoted the development of new means of military engineering equipment, the study of various inventive and rationalization proposals, the creation of advanced disruptive weapons. He participated in the development of the first prototypes of Soviet anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, proposed a number of technical innovations to strengthen defensive facilities, reduce the cost and facilitate the construction of fortifications. Dmitry Mikhailovich paid special attention to the problems of forcing water barriers and their engineering support. Karbyshev wrote more than a hundred scientific works, articles and study guides. His works devoted to the problems of tactics of the engineering troops and the engineering support of the battle became the main materials in the pre-war years in the training of Red Army commanders. In 1940, Karbyshev was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of engineering troops, and on the eve of the war in February 1941 received a doctorate in military sciences.

Before the start of World War II, Karbyshev was sent to the Western Special Military District. The war found him at the headquarters of the third army, located in Grodno. On the morning of June 22, 1941, Dmitry Mikhailovich woke up from the frequent and powerful explosions of air bombs. Dressing quickly, he headed to the headquarters, in which a combat alert had already been announced. All staff officers moved to a shelter located in the basement of the house. Enemy aircraft bombed the city in waves. After one of the explosions, the city power station went down and the lights went out. Telephone communications ceased to work, and with difficulty the headquarters of the Third Army contacted their units on the radio. Two days later, Karbyshev moved to the headquarters of the tenth army, which was surrounded by June 27. From the memoirs of the surviving participants it follows that Karbyshev constantly participated in the battles, and also refused personal protection. In August 1941, when the situation worsened, he, among others, attempted a breakthrough. When crossing the Dnieper just north of Mogilev, Dmitry Mikhailovich was shell-shocked and captured in an unconscious state.

Thus began the general’s bitter and terrible journey through the fascist dungeons. Unfortunately, there are no special studies about the long years of military engineer’s stay in German captivity. All stories about him are based either on the recollections of eyewitnesses or on the documents found by the Nazis, closely intertwined with the legends that arose around the name of the illustrious general. In addition, almost all the representatives of the senior ranks of the Red Army who were in custody with Karbyshev did not live to see Victory.

One of the first camps where Dmitry Mikhailovich fell was the former artillery range located five kilometers from the Polish town of Ostrow Mazowiecka. A place of ten square kilometers has become a haven for eighty thousand Soviet prisoners of war. The corrals of the main camp contained ordinary, junior and middle commanders of the Red Army, and the other two housed officers of senior and higher command personnel. Most of the prisoners were in summer uniforms and lived in the open air, hiding in burrows dug in the sand. The extermination of prisoners of war began very soon - according to some reports, over forty thousand Soviet soldiers were hanged, shot, and died of illness, starvation, and cold over half a year (from June to December).

The Nazis who learned that the Russian general was in front of them watched Karbyshev especially carefully. In late August, Dmitry Mikhailovich fell with dysentery. The comrades looked after him, taking out rice broth and other "delicacies." Together, he was saved. And soon after the recovery, the Germans first suggested Karbyshev go to their service. However, Dmitry Mikhailovich flatly refused. In September 1941, the general, together with a large group of prisoners of war, was transferred to another camp for officers, also located in Poland in the city of Zamosc. At the end of the year, a terrible epidemic of typhus began in this place. The prisoners died in the hundreds, and their corpses did not have time to take them out. Typhus was also picked up by Dmitry Mikhailovich. And again, Russian officers did not leave him to their fate. Together, Karbyshev was well-groomed and was recovering.

The Nazis repeatedly tried to persuade the Soviet general to work for them, offering him money and attractive posts. Once Dmitry Mikhailovich answered them with a legendary phrase: “My beliefs with my teeth do not fall out ... I am a soldier and will remain faithful to duty. And he forbids me to work for a country that is at war with my homeland. ” After six months of fruitless persuasion and torture, in April 1942 the Nazis sent the general to the Hammelburg officer concentration camp in Lower Bavaria. His appearance there did not go unnoticed. Dmitry Mikhailovich sought to contact the prisoners as often as possible, to explain to people the situation on the fronts, to inspire confidence in victory and good spirits. He often repeated to his comrades: "We are prisoners, but not slaves. The main thing is not to fall on our knees." They believed him, by his own example, he made people remember that they are representatives of the powerful Russian people. A particularly sharp change in the mood of prisoners of war occurred after the destruction of the Nazi group near Stalingrad. In the evenings, after the work was completed, Soviet prisoners headed by Karbyshev gathered at the wire fence of the general bloc and exchanged news about the situation on the fronts and about the victories of the Red Army. By the way, the authorship of the general is credited with the “Rules of Conduct for Soviet Commanders and Soldiers in German Captivity,” which the prisoners retold to each other and which helped people survive in inhuman conditions. He alone composed them or together with like-minded friends, it is not known, however, from Hammelburg the “Rules” with various additions spread to other concentration camps, essentially turning into a national document.

A special place during the Hammelburg captivity of Karbyshev is occupied by his trip to Berlin in early February 1943. There, a Soviet general was offered a place in the scientific laboratory of engineering fortification. Despite a meeting with Wilhelm von Keitel himself, Dmitry Mikhailovich categorically refused to cooperate, went on a hunger strike and demanded an immediate return to a concentration camp. After that, he spent some time in the solitary cell of the Gestapo building on Prince Albert Strasse. The Germans, convinced of the futility of attempts to persuade the general to their side, gave the following conclusion on his case: "... a prominent Soviet fortifier fanatically devoted to ideas of fidelity to military duty and patriotism ... We can consider hopeless attempts to use him as an expert in military engineering ". At the end of the document there was a resolution: “Direct to hard labor in Flossenbürg. Do not make discounts on age and rank. "

concentration camp Flossenbürg

In mid-1943, under a reinforced escort of SS soldiers, a handcuffed military engineer was sent to the extermination camp in Flossenbürg. This place was surrounded by six rows of barbed wire under electric current. The stone towers allowed the guards to shoot from the machine guns and machine guns the entire area adjacent to the camp. Two crematorium furnaces worked behind the wire, and in 1944 eleven gas chambers were launched here. After the war, a memorial plaque was installed on the pipe of the crematorium. The numbers of burned people are stamped on it - eighty thousand people of twenty different nationalities. It was here that the Nazis sent most of the Soviet captive generals, many of whom died here.

In this terrible place, Karbyshev was engaged in the hard work of dragging stones. By that time, in a dry and hunched old man, dressed in torn soldier's uniforms, and close people would not immediately recognize the always taut, slender lieutenant general. After a month and a half, Dmitry Mikhailovich, completely exhausted, was transferred due to illness to the hospital and was there from mid-May until the end of summer. Gestapo men took away from the Karbyshev hospital. What he was accused of is unknown, but he was shackled and thrown into Nuremberg prison. But Dmitry Mikhailovich survived this, and again returned to Flossenbürg, and again worked in the quarries until the end of January 1944. And in February, the selection of prisoners for sending to other camps began. The move did not please anyone, it was clear to everyone that they were not being taken for treatment. Among others, Dmitry Mikhailovich left this terrible place. Soon, he recognized the final destination of his “trip” - the Majdanek camp, located near the Polish city of Lublin.

Majdanek's furnace for burning prisoners

This was another death camp, in which the number of people killed at that time had already exceeded one million. It was in this place that the Nazis first used gas chambers. In total there were seven, accommodating up to two thousand people. Karbyshev stayed in the camp until mid-April 1944. In connection with rumors about the approach of the Red Army and Polish partisans, Majdanek began to hastily evacuate. Again, for the umpteenth time, the military engineer set off on the road. Maidanek, who became front-line, was replaced by rear Auschwitz, located in Silesia sixty kilometers from Krakow on the right bank of Sola. A different name for the camp and a different landscape, but the essence remained the same. If in Majdanek they killed one and a half million people, then in Auschwitz - more than four million. Karbyshev did not know these figures. He saw only the hanged, tortured, shot, black smoke crematoria and ditches, clogged with human bodies. In Auschwitz, prisoners ceased to be people with a surname and name - they only had a number. The year 1944 was the hardest for prisoners in the camp.

From different countries of Europe daily transports with captives arrived. Thousands of them were sent to gas chambers, crematoriums smoked day and night. Sometimes more than fifteen thousand people were killed here per day. General Karbyshev worked in the camp cleaning team. From early morning until evening, he walked with a broom and cleaned the garbage pits. According to the stories of the survivors, the camp commandant and his entourage repeatedly mocked the Soviet general. Nevertheless, Karbyshev did not give up, and dozens of Soviet people supported him.

Meanwhile, Soviet troops drove the Germans to the west. At the end of 1944, the Gestapo officers selected several Soviet officers at Auschwitz, including Dmitry Mikhailovich, and took them to Sachsenhausen, the famous "death factory", located thirty kilometers from Berlin. It was here that the Nazis trained new cadres of executioners, who were then sent to other concentration camps and occupied territories. Sachsenhausen was a transit point, from where tens of thousands of prisoners went to Auschwitz, Flossenbürg, Majdanek ... In mid-February, Dmitry Mikhailovich passed through the gate of Mauthausen, spread out on a flat top of a rocky hill.

Mauthausen

On the second day after arriving at the camp (February 18, 1945) Dmitry Mikhailovich, together with a group of prisoners, was taken to the courtyard. There they were ordered to undress and left to stand in the cold. It was about -10 degrees Celsius, a cold wind blew from the mountains, and many emaciated prisoners fell dead, unable to pass this test. In the evening, the surviving prisoners were driven into a bathhouse and put in the shower, and after half an hour they were again driven out into the cold. Those who did not want to die were watered from hoses. According to the memoirs, the last words of Karbyshev were: “Comrades! Think of the Homeland, and courage will not leave you. ”

monument D.M. Karbyshev at Mauthausen

Mauthausen Memorial

For three and a half years, Dmitry Mikhailovich visited thirteen (!) Death camps. For the exceptional courage and perseverance shown in captivity, on August 16, 1946, he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The eldest daughter of the patriot general Elena went along the path of her father, becoming a famous military engineer.

monument D.M. Karbyshev in Moscow

monument D.M. Karbyshev in Omsk