General Varennikov Biography

Father - Varennikov Ivan Evmenovich -, a participant in the civil war. He graduated from an industrial disademy in Moscow, held various leadership posts on the economic work. Mother - Varerennikova Maria Alekseevna - wife - Varennikova Elena Tikhonovna -, veteran of war, senior lieutenant in retired. Before the war, Valentin Varennikov had a chance to live in many southern cities of the Kuban: in Temryuk, in the village of Crimean, in the city of Armavir.

From childhood, he dreamed of building ships, and after graduating from high school he was going to enter the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute, but all plans were violated by the war at first were refused. For some time I had to work at the military registration and enlistment office, to fulfill various instructions. However, soon we were finally called and sent to the Urals, to the place of Uktus, in the vicinity of Sverdlovsk, where the military infantry school evacuated from Cherkasy was located.

In it, we studied ten months, until the summer of the forty -second, having passed the full course of study, and in October six of my colleagues and I got to the Stalingrad Front. Young officers were filled with pride in that they would be able to participate in the events that the whole world followed without exaggeration: after all, the battle on the Volga was then on the tip of military battles on the Soviet-German front.

Everyone understood that if Stalingrad remained, then a turning point in World War II will take place in favor of the anti -Hitler coalition. But if Stalingrad falls, then Türkiye and Japan will enter the side of Germany into the war. And then this is why the peoples of the planet, holding their breath, were waiting for our victory. Even cadets were indignant that the Germans managed to advance so far deep into our land.

When we went to the front, the mood was combat, we thought: we’ll come and show how to fight but getting to the goal, from the left bank of the Volga, we saw the picture shocked everyone: the whole city in ruins, they shave with fire and smoke so that there is no sun, around a continuous rumble. The realization that our ideas about the war was almost naive came quickly.

” Arriving in Stalingrad, Lieutenant Varennikov was appointed commander of a platoon to the South Rifle Division, commanded by Colonel I. Division fought fierce battles with a numerically superior enemy, defending the barricade plant. The enemy still managed to break through to the Volga north and south of the plant. As a result, the division turned out to be cut off from the main forces of the army of General V.

Chuyov and was a violently fought island in the sea of ​​fire. Despite all the attempts, the Nazis failed to eliminate it. Until now, with gratitude, I recall one of them - my deputy senior sergeant Filimon Agapov. For me, he was a person who saw the views - both by age and from combat experience. When we remained together, Filimon addressed me-“son”, and in the presence of someone third-“Comrade Lieutenant”.

Of course, it was pleasant that the sergeant observed army etiquette, which is not the last in relations between the military. From the first day at the front, I wanted to distinguish myself, to prove myself. But how to show when a platoon, division, army found themselves in such a difficult situation? Not to fat, I would have been living. It is necessary to hold the bridgehead!

And I was torn: I’ll go for the tongue Agapov, I kept: “You will not succeed. Well, they will kill you. And who will fight instead of you? Who will command the platoon? No, you have no right to do this. ” And everything was seething in me. It seemed that nevertheless I would crawl, I would get valuable information, I will contribute to the victory over the enemy.

Of course, the knowledge that was received at the school was significant, but at first I, like most young officers, overwhelmed fantasies. And experience was missing. Agapov understood this very well and taught me the mind. He seemed to land my plans, forced to peer into everything, analyze everything that surrounded us, taught not to take steps of hasty, reckless, rash -rash platoon commander, then the commander of the mortar battery of the rifle regiment, Lieutenant Varennikov, fought in Stalingrad long 79 days and nights.

After many weeks of heroic defense, I was a rifle division, which was subsequently transformed for battles in Stalingrad, participated in the surgery and liquidation of the enemy group in the city. In one of the battles, V. Varennikov was wounded by a minaa fragment and got into the hospital. The wound was not severe, and it was disappointing that he would not be able to take part in the final defeat of the Nazis.

I was rushing to the front again, fearing to lag behind my own. Of course, I wanted to get into my division or at least the army. For about a month I blabbed in the hospital. Finally, I was discharged with the order to return to duty. This time he got to the Yuvoi Rifle Division and was glad that again among his own, Stalingraders. With this division went to the end of the war. ” After the Battle of Stalingrad, as part of the 8th Guards Army, V.

Varennikov participated in bloodless battles for left-bank Ukraine, especially distinguishing himself in battles under the raisins in the southwestern, and then on the 3rd Ukrainian fronts.In the year, senior lieutenant Varennikov was appointed deputy commander of the Guards Rifle Regiment for Artillery of the Guards Rifle Division. Then in the forcing of the Dniester and in fierce battles on the Dniester bridgehead in the Sherpen area.

When we took possession of this line, the main direction of the offensive of the South-Western Front was Krivoy Rog-Odessa. On the approaches to Odessa there is the village of Christopor. At the end of March, we went to this line. The Germans and Vlasovites settled in the village. By the way, the Germans chained them with chains to machine guns. From last year’s crop in the fields, dry sunflower and corn trunks remained, and the contours of the village were very poorly loomed through the field.

And the Nazis settled in the mill and in the attics of houses, so they looked through the whole area well. When we went on the offensive, they literally nails us from machine guns. Our regiment lay down, cannot rise. What to do? The regiment commander calls me: “Valentine, there is no other way out. It is necessary to organize a detachment. Take the scouts, a company of machine gunners and go a beam to the rear of the Germans.

” The beam is filled with water, and the Germans on her part did not expect anyone. We were faced with the task - to leave the beam from the rear and hit this farm. We did so. We agreed in order to distract the attention of the enemy, the regiment should be more intensively fire from the front. Under this cover, we made our way through the beam and inflicted a sudden blow to the Nazis from the rear.

This blow decided the success of the promotion of our regiment and division. For this battle, I was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. ” By this time, V. Varennikov already had two combat awards. When the 8th Guards Army was transferred to the 1st Belorussian Front, V. Varennikov and his regiment participated in the famous operation “Bagration”, in a breakthrough of enemy defense west of Kovel, together with his fellow soldiers he smashed and drove from the southern lands of Belarus of the Nazis to the west.

At the end of July and early August, he entered the Polish land and fought for mastering the bridgehead at the Vistula south of Warsaw in the Magnushev region. He was seriously wounded there and was treated in a hospital for long four months. Then he returned to his native regiment and already in the middle of the year of the year he participated in a powerful advance of the Soviet troops from the Baltic to the Carpathians, which forced the Germans to transfer their main divisions from the Western Front to the East, where the Anglo-American troops suffered defeated in the Ardenne.

This offensive, in fact, saved our allies from defeat. At the end of January, Varennikov with his regiment entered German land. After he participated in the battles for a bridgehead in the area of ​​the city of Kustin on the Oder. In March, V. Varennikov was wounded for the third time. And in April - May already in the rank of captain took a direct part in the grandiose Berlin operation.

The fire of the artillery of his regiment from the Kustinsky bridgehead was circling the powerful defense of the enemy, which resisted with the rage of a doomed beast. The Zeelovsky heights stormed, on the shoulders of the defeated and blinded by the Hitlerites, the famous idea of ​​G. Zhukov burst into the fascist den. On the morning of May 2, he was in the Reichstag building in Berlin, over which the Germans resisted the red banner of victory, because they lost everything.

Well, it was already impossible to stop our steel avalanche.