How the younger brother of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya avenged her tortured partisan sister

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The name of the brave partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who took a painful death from the Nazis, is known to almost every inhabitant of the post-Soviet space. Before the execution, the girl not only did not ask for pardon, but also managed to shout words with an appeal to fight further. And she was heard: millions of soldiers, inspired by the feat of Zoe, went into battle with her name on their lips. But there was a man among them for whom revenge for the deceased became a matter of honor. It turned out to be Alexander, the younger brother of Kosmodemyanskaya.

Different, but inseparable

Brother and sister Kosmodemyanskie were born in the Tambov region, but later their family moved to Moscow. The father soon passed away, and their mother Lyubov Timofeevna was engaged in raising the children. Zoya and Sasha were completely different. She was distinguished by an emotional character and a heightened sense of justice, she loved literature. He was calm, but hooligan, had a talent for mathematics and was fond of technology. But despite this and the two-year age difference, relatives were inseparable, they did everything together. Sometimes Alexander was angry that his sister was taking too much care of him, but he did not even think to be rude to her or to hit him. Soon the war broke out, and the Kosmodemyanskiy went to work as turners at the plant. But later, Zoya admitted that she enrolled in nursing courses. However, as it turned out, the girl was trained in sabotage business. Her family did not know about this, the truth was revealed only after she went to the front.

For Zoya

In vain did Kosmodemyanskaya's mother and brother wait for news from Zoya: after her departure there was not a single piece of news. And only in February 1942, the relatives of the partisans found out what happened to her. Rather, Sasha was the first to read about the painful death of his sister: he accidentally came across an article in the newspaper Pravda, where it was written about the feat of a brave girl. It is difficult to imagine what the young man experienced when he recognized his own Zoya in the photographs of the heroine executed by the Germans, but that's not all. Soon people from the city committee of the Komsomol came to the Kosmodemyanskiy people and asked to go to the village of Petrishchevo to identify the body. Lyubov Timofeevna and Sasha then saw with their own eyes what the cruel Nazis had done to the girl. They also talked with local residents, who told about the last hours of the life of the brave partisan. As Shura later recalled, his mother was crying, and he silently clenched his fists, wanting only one thing - revenge. The parent was heartbroken, and Alexander supported her as best he could. But even then he decided that he would take revenge on the Nazis for the death of his sister by all means. However, Lyubov Timofeevna did not speak about his desire to go to the front. Yes, and in the military registration and enlistment office, a 16-year-old boy was sent back home: they say, still young, will have time to fight. But Sasha did not think to give up and made sure that he was given a referral to the Ulyanovsk Tank School.

After training, the young soldier was sent to the 42nd Guards Heavy Tank Brigade. On his first combat vehicle, Sasha wrote in white letters "For Zoya!", And soon set off for his first battle near Orsha. The first award was not long in coming: in the fall of 1943, a car under the command of Alexander blocked a dugout with two dozen fascists. And even after his tank was knocked out, Kosmodemyansky, together with the crew, continued the battle, destroying 50 Germans, mortars, anti-tank guns and firing points. For this feat, Sasha was presented to the Order of the Patriotic War of the II degree, and a few days later the Kosmodemyansky detachment was in Petrishchevo - in the very village where the Nazis executed his sister in 1941. The remnants of the German infantry division, whose members killed Zoya, were still here. Sasha waited for his hour of revenge: his crew was the first to rush into battle, violently destroying the Nazis … Soon the newspaper Pravda published an essay that the heroine's brother had fulfilled his promise. However, Sasha was not going to stop. At the beginning of 1944, he came to visit his mother, but after resting, he again went to the front. He often tried to write letters to his only relative, and in one of them he said that Peter Lidov, the correspondent, thanks to whom the whole country learned about Zoya's feat, was gone. Kosmodemyansky then lamented that it was a shame to die on the eve of victory.

Further combat path

Soon, Alexander even had a kind of fighting style: he made such unexpected and bold decisions that opponents were often taken by surprise. By that time, the young commander had already moved to a self-propelled artillery installation, thanks to which he could easily move around the battlefield. So, in one of the battles in Belarus, Kosmodemyansky saw that the enemy self-propelled gun was in the flank of Soviet tanks: a little more and domestic combat vehicles would begin to burn one after another. But the young man managed to get ahead of the opponent, knocking him out earlier. In that battle, Alexander's crew destroyed more than 30 fascists, an ammunition depot, four bunkers and anti-tank guns. For this he received another award: the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. But the fearless Sasha was still eager to fight. Moreover, the Soviet troops had already crossed into enemy territory and found themselves on the outskirts of Konigsberg, which was considered one of the most important supply centers for the Nazi army. But taking the city turned out to be not so easy: it was reliably defended by several hundred people, and it turned out to be difficult to get into the territory because of minefields, bunkers, anti-tank ditches and other weapons. However, for Kosmodemyansky there were no unsolvable tasks: he was the first to cross the Landgraben Canal, destroying powerful German guns along the way, and covered Soviet soldiers during the crossing. After this feat, Alexander was entrusted to command a battery of heavy self-propelled artillery installations. It was she who was the first to break into the fort, which was called "Queen Louise". The unit under the command of Sasha forced the defenders to surrender. Then more than three hundred German soldiers were captured, and the Soviet troops got more than 200 combat and conventional vehicles, warehouses with food and weapons.

Konigsberg was forced to surrender, but the confrontation continued in the nearby territory. In Metgeten, the hero's battery destroyed another fifty fascists, two self-propelled guns and 18 bunkers. By the way, in 2017, the village was renamed into the microdistrict of Alexander Kosmodemyansky. On April 13, 1945, Alexander found himself at the town of Firbruderkrug. Here the Soviet troops were opposed by a powerful enemy anti-tank battery. Before the Germans set fire to Sasha's combat vehicle, he managed to destroy 4 more guns.

However, the commander managed to get out of the burning tank, but, not wanting to leave the battle, he went to the village with the infantry. But the fragment of the exploding shell did not leave Kosmodemyansky a single chance. A few weeks remained until the end of the war, and in three months Alexander was supposed to be 20 years old. Sasha was buried in Moscow next to Zoya. And the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to him posthumously.