Transcendental front of Elbrus defenders
It seemed that Elbrus himself was helping our soldiers at that moment. The feat of the Grigoryants company, as well as hundreds of air rams committed by Soviet pilots during the war, and many other feats of our soldiers and civilians, frightened the Nazis with their irrationality, unpredictability, and readiness to go all the way …
There are still many unknown pages and unknown heroes in the history of the Great Patriotic War. At first glance, their actions seem illogical and meaningless. If we, the current generation, can deeply understand them, we will be able to understand ourselves, our place and purpose, which means that we will preserve the historical and mental continuity and will live in harmony with ourselves.
Operation "Edelweiss"
North Caucasus. Ascent along the mountain path to one of the passes. The inscription "1939" is engraved on a huge, two-girth tree trunk. Once upon a time one of the All-Union tourist routes, opened in that same thirty-ninth year, passed here. Who would have thought then that in just three years, in the summer and autumn of 1942, Nazi Germany would rush through these mountains to this sea to seize the oil fields of Grozny and Baku and bleed the Soviet Union.
The plan of the operation, codenamed "Edelweiss", originated with Hitler in the spring of 1942 and was finally approved in July. He put everything on this operation, believing that if it suddenly failed, the war would have to be ended. In Germany, oil companies were already formed, which received the exclusive right to exploit the Caucasian oil fields.
According to Hitler's plan, one group of German troops was to bypass the Caucasian ridge from the west and capture Novorossiysk and Tuapse, and the other to move through Krasnodar and Maikop to Grozny and Baku. Both groups met fierce resistance and got bogged down in battles. The third group was supposed to save the situation. She moved to the Elbrus region in order to cross the Caucasian ridge there and strike at the rear of our troops. It consisted of two divisions of the famous mountain rangers - "Edelweiss" and "Gentian". On August 21, 1942, on Elbrus, the highest point in Europe, the rangers of the Wehrmacht divisions hoisted the flag of the Third Reich.
However, Elbrus for Hitler also had ideological and propaganda significance. He was a symbol of power over the world. The mystically inclined Hitler believed that it was here that one of the entrances to the legendary land of Shambhala was located. The capture of Elbrus was covered in the German media as the final conquest of Europe by the Nazis.
Transcendental front
And before the war this slope was
taken by the German guy with you!
He fell down, but was saved, But now, perhaps, he
is preparing his machine gun for battle.
(V. Vysotsky "Ballad of Alpine Archers")
Fighting in the mountains is the most difficult type of combat. The Germans threw the best units to the Caucasus, consisting of highly qualified climbers who knew how to fight above the snow line, with excellent equipment. Several years before the war, many foreign tourists, mainly Germans, appeared in the Elbrus region, as in the entire North Caucasus. Later it turned out that they made the most detailed maps, trained, made ascents. As a result, by 1942 the Germans knew the area better than the natives.
In the declassified Soviet archives, there is very little information about what happened in the Caucasus in 1942. Many documents are still classified. One thing is obvious - the Soviet Union was completely unprepared for the German offensive in the Caucasus. The first defenders of the Caucasian ridge were people without mountaineering training and equipment. The defense of the passes was poorly organized, the level of the Wehrmacht mountain rangers was not taken into account. At that moment in the mountains we could not fight on equal terms. Climbers and mountaineering instructors were scattered along the entire front. They began to collect them urgently from all over the country. In the meantime, it was important to delay the advance of the fascist army at any cost.
Dominant height
The Soviet command did not believe for a long time that the Germans were already on Elbrus. And they, using the moment, settled down properly, taking advantageous positions. They had not only small arms, but also light artillery. Their positions were well fortified and practically impregnable.
When, as a result of German massive propaganda, the situation became obvious, a categorical order was received from the Soviet command to throw the Germans off Elbrus. Cavalry units, internal troops and soldiers serving the rear units were sent to carry out this task. None of them knew how to fight in the mountains and were not equipped. Our guys were in light shape, often with leaky shoes.
The height of Elbrus is 5642 meters, it is the highest point in Europe. Even now, climbing it can be extremely dangerous without climbing skills, reliable equipment and an experienced professional instructor. To conduct hostilities in the mountains is a colossal physical and mental stress: thin air, increased solar radiation, sulfuric vapors, in bad weather a complete lack of visibility. The air temperature may differ from the temperature on the plain by 30 degrees or more. A simple run at a height requires more physical effort than on a flat, and one wrong step can cost your life. The enemy can be located not only in front or behind, but also above or below.
Company without number
Leave conversations
Forward and upward, and there …
After all, these are our mountains, They will help us!
(V. Vysotsky "Ballad of Alpine Archers")
The company of Guren Grigoryants, like others, was formed hastily and did not have a serial number. It was staffed by untrained Red Army men, young boys. According to various sources, it included from eighty to one hundred and twenty people. Lieutenant Grigoryants himself did not have a special military education. Before the war, he was in charge of a women's hairdresser's at a bath and laundry plant.
Before Grigoryants was given the task: at night to go to the Terskol pass, climb the glacier to the top and knock the Germans out of "Shelter 11". This small hotel for mountaineers, built back in the 30s, was located at an altitude of 4200 m.
The task is practically impossible: the approaches to the summit were visible from all sides, the ascent took a long time, it was physically impossible to do it faster. So, it was impossible to get to the top overnight unnoticed. Even camouflage robes would be perfectly visible on the pristine white snow of the glacier.
It seemed that Elbrus himself was helping our soldiers at that moment. A dense layer of clouds descended, visibility disappeared. The company traveled almost all the way under the cover of a layer of clouds. In the morning, when only a few hundred meters were left to the positions of the Germans, the fog cleared, our soldiers were in full view of the German riflemen. The frozen Red Army men of the Grigoryants company, who were exhausted, moved with difficulty. The Germans shot them freely from their fortifications.
The military archive preserved a combat report, which says that Grigoryants' detachment was moving across a snowy field and was stopped by machine-gun fire in the area of Shelter 11. Having stumbled upon enemy fire, the commander immediately led the detachment into the attack, leaving no reserves. With shouts of "Hurray!", "For Stalin!", Neglecting the danger, the detachment twice attacked the enemy, moving farther and farther. Only having lost three quarters of the personnel, Grigoryants gave the order to the soldiers to lie down. They fought for another half day, until the enemy surrounded the remnants of the detachment.
The Germans were amazed at the repetition of the senseless and, in their opinion, doomed attack. They encountered such aimless and irrational self-sacrifice more than once on the territory of our country.
Having sacrificed itself, the company of Lieutenant Grigoryants, against all odds, performed a miracle: it detained the Germans on Elbrus and suspended their advance towards the goal. And later in the Caucasus, units equipped with climbers appeared, the battle of Stalingrad was won, which turned the tide of the war, the remnants of the Wehrmacht's mountain rifle divisions fled in order not to be surrounded.
At any cost
It is believed that there was the only possible route to get close to the Germans unnoticed. And there was a chance to win the battle if experienced climbers participated in the task.
What made Guren Grigoryants and his company, realizing this, go to certain death? The reasons for his deed, like countless other heroic deeds during the Great Patriotic War, are hidden in our unique mentality. System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan allows today to reveal the nature of heroism and the secret of our victory in spite of everything.
Russian wonder man
… Now serious, now funny, Never mind that rain, that snow, -
Into battle, forward, into the pitch fire
He goes, holy and sinful, Russian Miracle man.
(Alexander Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin")
The whole secret is that the Soviet and German soldiers had different mentality and waged different wars.
Germans are carriers of a skin-like individualistic mentality. They are capable of perfect self-organization. Rational, they knew how to save time and resources. Thanks to these qualities, the first conveyor belt appeared in the skin mentality as the pinnacle of labor optimization and rationalization.
The Nazi army had all these mental characteristics to be disciplined and harmonious.
The core values of the skin society are law and order. Such a society is within itself regulated by law. When I want what the other has, the law protects the other from me, and also me from the other, if he wants what I have.
And outside, outside this society, the law does not work. Then I and the other go together to rob those who are not ours, who are outside. This is how predatory wars arise.
Soviet people are carriers of a unique collectivist urethral-muscular mentality, of which we are the heirs. The cutaneous and urethral mentality is contradictory. For the Soviet people, the future of the people was more important than their own lives. In the urethral mentality, the main desire is to preserve others, to preserve the people; preserving your life is secondary.
Soviet soldiers in the war did not go to rob and kill, but to defend their native land, ready to give their lives for the future of their people and the whole world.
The main values of the urethral mentality are justice and mercy. The main desire is to create a just world for all and show mercy to the weak. Therefore, having freed the territory of their country from the Nazis, our soldiers moved on - to liberate other occupied territories.
In a situation where the carriers of the skin mentality are squeezed into a corner, they surrender to the enemy. It is irrational and pointless to continue the resistance. Better to be red than dead.
When the carriers of the urethral mentality are clamped down, they instantly and impulsively jump into the attack, not thinking about themselves, forgetting about fear. The future, the lives of others, for whom they are responsible, are more important than their own lives.
This is how heroism arises. Mass, natural, and not created by propaganda, heroism is only in our urethral mentality.
The feat of the Grigoryants company, as well as hundreds of air rams committed by Soviet pilots during the war, and many other feats of our soldiers and civilians, frightened the Nazis with their irrationality, unpredictability, and readiness to go to the end.
Self-sacrifice is a manifestation of absolute altruism, therefore it is not limited by anything - neither by law, nor by culture. With the help of the law, you can prohibit receiving (robbing, taking away), but the law cannot prohibit giving.
It was this illogicality, non-standard behavior, heroism of Soviet soldiers that caused deep irrational fear among enemies.
And today, the owners of the urethral mental superstructure evoke irrational fear by their unpredictability. This comes from a misunderstanding of our nature and our mental values. But it's even worse when we don't understand ourselves. We begin to justify ourselves, we believe the lies that are told to us about us.
The key to understanding the nature of heroism and the secret of victory is always near - in the heart of each of us. We have the world's most powerful weapon - an unbending spirit.
Therefore, May 9 for us is not just a day of demonstration of military power, it is a reminder of the self-sacrifice of twenty-seven million Soviet people for the sake of our future, freedom and justice for all.