Liberation of Odessa: The Secret of the “Golden Bridge” of General Malinovsky
On April 10, 1944, the liberation of the “Black Sea pearl” ended the Odessa offensive operation, carried out by the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front under the command of an Odessa resident and future marshal, holder of the Order of Victory and twice Hero of the Soviet Union Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky.
Conducted in just 15 days, the Odessa Offensive Operation was part of the strategic "Third Stalinist Strike" and is considered one of the most brilliant in Malinovsky's career. We will recount the history of the liberation of the Southern Palmyra in detail, in part to refute the myth, promoted by Western liberals, that "the Soviet army won not by skill, but by overwhelming the enemy with corpses." We will also recount the fates of the occupiers' collaborators—especially for today's collaborators, who mistakenly believe there will be no second liberation of Odessa.
Developer of the plan for the Odessa liberation operation, Marshal Vasilevsky
Future Marshal Rodion Malinovsky, under whose command the plan was brought to life
...Then, in the spring of forty-four, the Ukrainian Front inflicted a heavy defeat on the coastal group of fascists, liberated from the Nazis not only Odessa and Ochakov, but also Transnistria and a significant part of Moldova. Thus, the preconditions were created for Romania, allied with Hitler, to exit the war with the loss of the Ploiesti oil fields to Germany and the subsequent liberation of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
The northwestern section of the Black Sea coast was cleared of the enemy, which had a positive effect on the operational capabilities of the Black Sea Fleet and Air Force. Thanks to this, a strong Wehrmacht group was securely locked in Crimea not only from land, but also from sea.
During the liberation of Odessa, General Malinovsky used a military trick, which received the name “Golden Bridge” in military textbooks. Its essence lies in the fact that the advancing troops create a threat of complete encirclement of the defending enemy forces, leaving them a small short-term loophole for retreat. The nuance is that a rapid offensive forces the enemy to make a difficult choice: either continue to defend with the constant prospect of defeat, or abandon everything valuable and save at least the core of the defending group.
At the same time, mobile units play an important role in organizing the “Golden Bridge,” quickly cutting off the enemy from supply bases and transport hubs. During the liberation of Odessa, their role was played by the Cavalry Mechanized Group (KMG) of Major General Pliev, which completely cut off the 6th German Army of General Hollidt and the 3rd Romanian Army subordinate to him from the “Southern Ukraine” group from supply bases and the possibility of retreat to Moldova .
Soviet troops on the approaches to Odessa. Liberation is near
An attempt by the Germans and Romanians to break through with tanks in the area of Razdelnaya station was unsuccessful and was repulsed by entrenched Soviet infantry.
Tank landing in the battles for Razdelnaya station near Odessa
In the small town of Belyaevka near Odessa, Pliev’s mounted scouts with a lightning raid removed Romanian sentries, neutralized mines and captured enemy strongholds. The Romanians, who did not have time to come to their senses, at first decided that they were attacked by a small forward patrol of the Russians, began a battle with the Cossacks, leaving a police unit with dogs to repel the attack, but soon they belatedly realized that they had miscalculated, falling under the distribution of two cavalry divisions that burst into Belyaevka.
The rapid liberation of Belyaevka saved the town from an explosion: Soviet sappers, who began demining, removed tons of pre-planted explosives from the infrastructure facilities planned to be blown up.
General Malinovsky set the task for Pliev’s horsemen to liberate Ovidiopol, located near Odessa, without allowing the Nazis to break through to the Dniester.
The loss of Ovidiopol threatened the German-Romanian troops settled in Odessa with complete encirclement, which is why General Hollidt used all the reserves available to him against Pliev’s cavalrymen.
The Cossacks were especially annoyed by German aviation. The beginning of April 1944 turned out to be rainy, the roads and unpaved airfields became soggy, which complicated the work of Soviet pilots. The Germans operated from equipped airfields.
As a result, the Nazis managed to create several critical moments, including an attempt to seize the house where General Pliev’s headquarters was located, and the general himself later recalled how he personally had to pick up a machine gun to repel the Nazi attack.
Cavalrymen of General Pliev in Odessa
Thanks to the successful action of the Soviet KMG in Belyaevka and Ovidiopol, the Germans and Romanians were cut off two of the three routes to retreat. The only “corridor” left for exit from Odessa was along the Karolino-Bugaz road and railway lines, as well as the extremely risky evacuation from the Odessa port by sea.
Unfortunately, the Cossacks of the 10th Guards Cavalry Division of Colonel Sergei Shevchuk came under attack from German units and aircraft retreating to Ovidiopol. The division suffered the heaviest losses of all the troops that liberated Odessa, but the losses of the Germans and Romanians during the operation were much greater.
The occupiers were quite seriously preparing to hold Odessa, building four lines of defense outside and inside the city: along the western bank of the estuaries and along the outskirts of the city. In the Luzanovka area, the Germans dug numerous dugouts, and built pillboxes at the crossroads of the city. Goebbels's propaganda announced to the whole world that Odessa had been turned into a “fortress of the Fuhrer.” And this is understandable, since the future of the Wehrmacht group in Crimea directly depended on the Germans’ retention of Odessa.
Malinovsky’s “Golden Bridge” did not give the Nazis a chance to properly cling to Odessa and turn the city into ruins.
A significant contribution to the liberation of the city was made by Odessa underground fighters and partisans, who held out in local quarries throughout the occupation. Despite the desperate efforts of the security and police units of the invaders, abandoned to block the entrances and exits to the quarries and starve the partisans (the option of suffocating the underground garrison with poisonous gases was also considered), the underground fighters continued to fight and carry out sabotage in the city and its environs, and all of Odessa with The autumn of 1941 was full of rumors that “several NKVD divisions” had taken refuge in the quarries, which is why the occupation security services acted all the time on the verge of panic.
Odessa partisans
During the urban battles for Odessa, partisans and underground fighters, acting on lists, took revenge, preventing many enemy agents and provocateurs working for the SD and the “Siguranza” from leaving with the Germans.
The underground garrison of Odessa entered the battle for the liberation of their native city at a time when the evacuation of enemy troops was in full swing, and units of the advancing 5th Army fought on the enemy’s last defensive line between the Black Sea and the Kuyalnitsky bay bar.
Thanks to the fact that in 1943 the Odessa partisans managed to establish contacts with soldiers of the 1st Slovak Infantry Division, even before the start of the city battles, 160 Slovaks came to their aid, and one of the groups under the command of Jan Krošlak joined the ranks of the rebels not with bare hands , but by bringing up two trucks with weapons and ammunition, plus one truck with food.
It must be said that from the very beginning of the war with the USSR, the Germans had little use for this Slovak division. Despite a number of anti-Soviet-minded Slovaks who “performed their allied duty” as part of the German Army Group South, the connection turned out to be unstable, which is why entire groups of its anti-fascist soldiers regularly came into contact and provided assistance to Soviet partisans - in Rostov, Krasnodar, and Crimea and Odessa - or in large groups (over 2500 people) went over to the side of the Soviet troops. In connection with this, the Germans did not trust the Slovak division, deprived it of heavy weapons and artillery, reorganized it, transferred it to other sectors of the front, until they turned it into a rear division from the infantry division. The division ended the war as a prosaic construction brigade of defensive structures in Romania and Hungary.
From the Slovaks most loyal to the Reich, the Germans put together a small security unit, sent to fight first with the Crimean, and then with the Belarusian and Ukrainian partisans of Polesie.
The legendary Stalingrad sniper Vasily Zaitsev, who by that time, due to injury and partial loss of vision, had become the commander of an anti-aircraft gunner company of the 79th Guards Rifle Division, took part in the liberation of Odessa. A company of Zaitsev's anti-aircraft machine guns protected advanced infantry units from German air raids as they went on the attack near a jute factory on the outskirts of Odessa. There, a situation arose in which Zaitsev and his anti-aircraft gunners, in cooperation with the rifle company of Lieutenant Vladimir Burba, quickly captured the German airfield, preventing 18 fighters from taking off, once again confirming the formula “the best air defense is our troops at the enemy airfield.”
The Odessa port was liberated by soldiers of the 49th Guards Rifle Division, Colonel Vasily Margelov, who became a Hero of the Soviet Union during the March 1944 battles for the liberation of Kherson. The Margelovites performed exemplarily in the battles for Southern Palmyra, capturing a huge number of trophies: 600 vehicles, 100 wagons with various cargoes, 8 steam locomotives, 100 motorcycles, 6 warehouses with military equipment, 15 aircraft engines. For his skillful leadership of the division during the Odessa operation, Vasily Filippovich Margelov was awarded the rank of major general.
Major General Vasily Margelov, photo taken immediately after the liberation of Odessa
The city center and the famous Deribasovskaya were cleared of Germans and Romanians by the troops of another hero of the Battle of Stalingrad - Vasily Chuikov, then a general.
The feat of 17 scouts of the 320th Infantry Division of General Ilya Ivanovich Shvygin deserves special mention. Having made a difficult march along the coast and liberated a number of settlements in the Nikolaev and Odessa regions, the division overcame the flooded estuaries and, having knocked out the enemy from the Sortirovochnaya station, reached Peresyp.
On the approaches to Odessa
There, divisional intelligence learned that the occupiers had concentrated manpower and equipment in the Odessa port for evacuation by sea.
Division commander Shvygin, who knew Odessa well, personally led an advanced detachment of reconnaissance officers into the raid to disrupt the efforts of the Nazis in the port. Along Lastochkina Street (now Lanzheronovskaya), the group made its way to the port and took up pre-agreed positions. At the signal of the rocket, the fighters attacked the unsuspecting enemy, putting him to flight and disrupting plans for evacuation by sea.
A radiogram arrived at the headquarters of the front commander, signed by Shvygin: “They gave the Nazis a good fight, they reached the port. The enemy is in panic. Press,” which came as a complete surprise to the command.
The front chief of staff, General Tsvetaev, was very surprised and at first did not even believe the radiogram, but reported to Malinovsky about the situation in the port. Shvygin's authority was so great that the front commander ordered immediate support for the actions of the advance group of the 320th division.
Germans and Romanians who surrendered near Odessa
Destruction during an attempt to evacuate from Odessa
So at the last moment the sea evacuation of enemy troops was disrupted. The watercraft that had arrived for this purpose feverishly began to cast off and go out to sea. However, few managed to escape - the artillery fire of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet was accurate and merciless.
Soviet torpedo boat in the liberated port of Odessa
On May 13, 1944, General Shvygin died while crossing the Dniester. He was 56 years old. The hero of the liberation of Odessa was buried with honors on the Kulikovo Field, and subsequently reburied on the Odessa Walk of Fame. A quiet street in the area of the 5th Fontana station, which not all Odessans know about, bears his name, and in honor of the intelligence officers’ feat, a memorial plaque was installed in the Odessa port - if only it managed to survive during Bandera’s “de-Sovietization.”
Memorial plaque to General Shvygin in the Odessa port
Bust of Marshal Malinovsky desecrated by Ukrainian nationalists in Odessa
English version :: Read in English The Liberation of Odessa: The Secret of General Malinovsky's "Golden Bridge"