Pavlov's House
Encyclopedia
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
building during the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
from 27 September, 1942 to February 2, 1943. It gained its popular name from Sergeant Yakov Pavlov
Yakov Pavlov
Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was a Soviet Red Army soldier awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in defending "Pavlov's House" during the Battle of Stalingrad.-Biography:...
, who commanded the platoon
Platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...
that seized the building and defended it during the long battle.
The building
The house was a four-story building in the center of StalingradVolgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...
, built parallel to the embankment of the river Volga and overseeing the "9th January Square", a large square named for Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1905)
Bloody Sunday was a massacre on in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace from several gathering points. The shooting did not...
. In September 1942, the house was attacked by German soldiers, and a platoon of the Soviet 13th Guards Rifle Division
13th Guards Rifle Division
The 13th Guards Rifle Division was a Soviet Union Red Army infantry division that served with distinction during the Second World War.-Formation:The unit's origin lies with the 87th Rifle Division, a pre-war division, which was established in 1929...
was ordered to seize and defend it. The platoon was led by Junior Sgt. Yakov Pavlov
Yakov Pavlov
Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was a Soviet Red Army soldier awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in defending "Pavlov's House" during the Battle of Stalingrad.-Biography:...
, a low-level noncommissioned officer serving as acting platoon commander since the unit's lieutenant and senior sergeants had all been wounded or killed. The attack on the building was successful, although the fighting was brutal, with only four men in the 30-man platoon surviving the assault.
The strategic benefit of the house was its position on a cross-street giving the defenders a 1 km line of sight to the north, south and west. After several days, reinforcements and resupply arrived for Pavlov's men, bringing the unit up to a 25-man understrength platoon and equipping the defenders with machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
s, anti-tank rifle
Anti-tank rifle
An anti-tank rifle is a rifle designed to penetrate the armour of vehicles, particularly tanks. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in World War I and until the Korean War...
s, and mortar
Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
s. In keeping with Stalin's Order No. 227 - "not one step back", Sgt. Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. Taking this advice to heart, Pavlov ordered the building to be surrounded with four layers of barbed wire and minefields
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
, and set up machine-gun posts in every available window facing the square. In the early stages of the defense, Pavlov discovered that a PTRS-41
PTRS-41
The PTRS-41 is the semi-automatic cousin of the PTRD anti-tank rifle.-Design:The PTRS-41 was produced and used by the Soviet Union during World War II. In the years between the World Wars, Soviet Union began experimenting with different types of armour-piercing anti-tank cartridges...
anti-tank rifle he had mounted on the roof was particularly effective when used to ambush unsuspecting German tanks; once the tanks had approached to within 25 meters of the building, their thin turret-roof armor became exposed to AT rifle fire from above, but they were unable to elevate their weapons enough to retaliate. Pavlov had reportedly destroyed nearly a dozen tanks personally using this tactic.
For better internal communication, they breached the walls in the basement and upper floors, and dug a communications trench
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
to Soviet positions outside. Supplies were brought in via the trench or by boats crossing the river, defying German air raids and shelling. Nevertheless, food and especially water was in short supply. Lacking beds, the soldiers tried to sleep on insulation wool torn off pipes, yet usually the Germans kept shooting at the house with deafening machine-gun fire day and night.
The Germans attacked the building several times a day. Each time German infantry or tanks tried to cross the square and to close in on the house, Pavlov's men laid down a withering barrage of machine gun and AT rifle fire from the basement, the windows and from the roof top, devastating the German attackers and forcing them to retreat. By mid-November, Pavlov's men reportedly had to use lulls in the fighting to run out and kick over the heaped piles of German corpses so they could not be used as cover for the next round of attackers.
Eventually the defenders, as well as the Soviet civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s who kept living in the basement all that time, held out during intensive fighting from 23 September until 25 November 1942, when they were relieved by the counter-attacking Soviet forces.
Symbolic meaning
Pavlov's House became a symbol of the stubborn resistance of the Soviet Union in the Battle of StalingradBattle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
, and in the Great Patriotic War in general. It stands out prominently because the German armies had previously conquered cities and entire countries within weeks; yet they were unable to capture a single half-ruined house, defended most of the time by just over a dozen soldiers, in spite of trying for two months. It is reported that the building at the "9th January Square" was marked as a fortress in German map
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
s.
Vasily Chuikov
Vasily Chuikov
Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a Russian lieutenant general in the Red Army during World War II, twice Hero of the Soviet Union , who after the war became a Marshal of the Soviet Union.-Early life and career:Born into a peasant family in the village of Serebryanye Prudy, he joined the Red Army during...
, commanding general of the Soviet forces in Stalingrad, later bragged that the Germans lost more men trying to take Pavlov's house than they did taking Paris.
Pavlov
Yakov Pavlov
Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was a Soviet Red Army soldier awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in defending "Pavlov's House" during the Battle of Stalingrad.-Biography:...
's "House" was rebuilt after the battle and is still used as an apartment building today. There is an attached memorial constructed from bricks picked up after the battle on the East side facing the Volga.
Pavlov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union
Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
for his actions.
Recent reporting
A report on Pavlov's House was presented in the 2009 Russian TV documentary "Legendary Redoubt" (Легендарный редут) on Russian Channel OneChannel One (Russia)
Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...
.
According to this, Pavlov undoubtedly fought heroically at the house, but the defense was in fact led by Lieutenant Ivan F. Afanasiev. (Иван Ф. Афанасьев).
Of the soldiers taking part in the defense, Pavlov was the only one to be awarded Hero of the Soviet union. Other defenders were not awarded such honors, like the Kalmyk
Kalmyk people
Kalmyk people is the name given to the Oirats, western Mongols in Russia, whose descendants migrated from Dzhungaria in 1607. Today they form a majority in the autonomous Republic of Kalmykia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Kalmykia is Europe's only Buddhist government...
Garya Khokholov (Гаря Хохолов) who was later deported from the Kalmyk ASSR along with the Kalmyk people.
Dramatization
- In the video game Call of Duty there is a level in which the player, as a conscripted Russian peasant, must participate in capturing and defending this structure from multiple waves of German soldiers and armor until Soviet reinforcements arrive. Your squad leader in this mission is named Sgt. Pavlov, based on the real-life Yakov PavlovYakov PavlovYakov Fedotovich Pavlov was a Soviet Red Army soldier awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in defending "Pavlov's House" during the Battle of Stalingrad.-Biography:...
. There is also a multiplayer map of Pavlov's House (mp_pavlov). - In early versions of the Red OrchestraRed Orchestra (game mod)Red Orchestra: Combined Arms is a tactical first-person shooter total conversion for Unreal Tournament 2004 and previously for Unreal Tournament 2003 originally developed by an independent international mod team, set on the Eastern Front during World War II.It is notable for its emphasis on realism...
modification for the game Unreal Tournament 2004Unreal Tournament 2004Unreal Tournament 2004, also known as UT2K4 and UT2004, is a futuristic first-person shooter computer game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes...
there was a level that recreated the fighting between the Soviet and German forces for the control of the building. The 2011 release Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad also includes Pavlov's house as a combat scenario. - "Pavlov's House" is a structure in the first mission of Close Combat III: The Russian FrontClose Combat III: The Russian FrontClose Combat III: The Russian Front is the third game of the Close Combat universe. It was highly acclaimed by many organizations, such as GameSpot, IGN, and Computer Games Magazine...
, with it starting in German control. However, this is in a battle that takes place in Ukraine during Operation Barbarossa, and does not represent the actual Pavlov's House (the game also has other structures and scenery played for laughs, like crop circleCrop circleA crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
s on a field). - Forgotten Hope, a modification for the computer game Battlefield 1942, has Pavlov's house as a map in multiplayer. The map has the house in the center with the Germans surrounding it from 3 sides. The Soviets are on the 4th side. The map makes heavy use of the PPSh-41PPSh-41The PPSh-41 was a Soviet submachine gun designed by Georgi Shpagin as an inexpensive, simplified alternative to the PPD-40. Intended for use by minimally-trained conscript soldiers, the PPSh was a magazine-fed selective-fire submachine gun using an open-bolt, blowback action...
Sub-machine-gun. It is a popular map for multiplayer.