In January - February 1945, the most severe fighting flared for Poznan (Posen).
The "City-Fortress" was obscured by 18 powerful forts, in its northern part there was a "Citadel", who was considered impregnable; The festung garrison numbered 65 thousand people. Tens of tens of kilometers stretched anti-tank morals, trenches, wire barriers, machine-gun sites, firing positions for artillery. In the city, besides forts, dollars and sucks, residential buildings were adapted to conducting protracted battles; There were many warehouses with weapons, ammunition and food.
Soviet troops came to Poznan on January 22. Several frontal attacks on the city were not successful. Then Colonel-General Vasily Chuikov, Commander of the 8th Guards Army, took a workshop: according to his instructions, Poznan was surrounded by an external perimeter.
By February 1, Soviet parts broke through to the city center. With the approach of the Red Army to the "Citadel", the resistance of the founders of the Germans became more stubborn in Fort. There were 12,000 soldiers and officers who were commanded by Major General Ernst Mattern and Colonel Ernst Gonel, a fanatical Nazis, appointed by Himmler personally.
Storming one fort after another, the Soviet fighters showed a non-Launa combat swammer: they produced a strong smoke and then under the cover of the smoke curtain break into the territory of the fort. One of the sapar groups, secretly penetrating the roof of the fortifications at night, poured a fire in the ventilation pipes and set fire to it from the inside. The garrison of the fort juncked into the courtyard was almost completely interrupted.
February 18 began a common assault of the fortress. He lasted non-stop until the morning on February 23. Ernst Göblel, signing an order about the surrender, spread the flag with a swastika on the floor, leaked on him and shot him. General Mattern surrendered to Soviet captivity (23.5 thousand German soldiers and officers and officers were in captivity).
Military historian Alexey Isaev in his book "Road to Berlin. From victory to victory "(2015) reports that during the assault, the Soviet troops shot 5 thousand tons of ammunition and spent 3230 M-31 reactive shells.
Irrevocable losses among the redarmeys amounted to 4887 people. "The storms of Poznan became the" general rehearsal "of the Storm of Berlin," Isaev emphasizes. "Soviet troops received experience and launched the assaults of residential and industrial buildings."