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(6 - 8) Brest Fortress

On the 22nd of June 1941 the Wehrmacht launched a surprise attack which was initiated by intense artillery shelling before the Wehrmacht laid siege to Brest Fortress and its Red Army defenders the offensive was part of Operation Barbarossa. Day after day the Red Army led by General Ivan Lazarenko and Colonel Mikhail Popsuy-Shapko leading the 6th, 42nd Rifle Divisions and 17th Frontier Guards, slowly retreated back to the central Island which they would hold without surrender defending their 300 families. With high losses on the Wehrmacht’s part, commanding officer Fritz Schlieper, requested Luftwaffe assistance from High Command. On the 29th of June a 2tonne bomb was dropped, forcing Brest Fortresses 360 defenders to surrender. Brest Fortress would later become a symbol of Soviet Resistance.