Nikolai Ivanovich Massalov

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nikolai Ivanovich Massalow ( Russian: Николай Иванович Масалов ; born December 10, 1922 in Voznesenka near Mariinsk ; † December 20, 2001 in Tjaschinski ) was a Russian soldier .

Life

Massalow attended the village school and was sick for a long time after falling into an ice hole while fishing in winter. He completed a semi-annual tractor driver training and worked in the Novaya Schisn collective farm .

During the German-Soviet War , Massalow was drafted into the newly formed 443rd Rifle Division of the Red Army in Tomsk in December 1941 . After training as a mortar shooter, he came to the Brjansk Front in March 1942 with the 284th Rifle Division . During a retreat from Jelez , Massalov was wounded for the first time on July 13, 1942.

From August 2 to September 17, 1942, the 284th Rifle Division was in reserve in Krasnoufimsk , after which it was integrated into the 62nd Army . On the night of September 20-21, 1942, Massalov crossed the Volga in Stalingrad . The first task was to recapture the station on Gogol Strasse. From late November 1942, Massalov fought on Mamayev Hill , where he was wounded again on January 21.

On March 1, 1943, the 284th Rifle Division was given the honorable name of the 79th Guards Rifle Division. In April 1943 Massalov joined the CPSU . From July 1944 to January 1945, the 79th Guards Rifle Division was in the Magnuszew bridgehead south of Warsaw . In the course of the Vistula-Oder operation , the 8th Guards Army (the former 62nd Army) formed a bridgehead on the western bank of the Oder across from Küstrin .

Massalow memorial plaque on Potsdamer Bridge, Berlin-Tiergarten
The Liberator, Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park

During the Battle of Berlin , Massalow received the maximum award. When, on April 30, 1945, an hour before the artillery preparations for the capture of Tempelhof Airport, the standard bearer of the 220th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 79th Guards Rifle Division, Sergeant Massalow came on the way to the Tiergarten on the south bank of the Landwehr Canal and one girl from the other called for her mother Page heard, he crawled over the Potsdam bridge despite machine gun fire and saved the girl with the support of his comrades, as the Commander-in-Chief of the 8th Guard Army Vasily Ivanovich Tschuikow reported.

Massalov's rescue act was the basis for Yevgeny Viktorovich Wuchetich's sculpture "The Liberator" on the central burial mound of the Soviet memorial in Treptower Park . Massalov himself did not know the sculpture for a long time.

After the war, Massalov returned to Tyaschinsky. Because of his wounds, he could no longer work as a tractor driver, so he became the caretaker of a kindergarten. Massalov was married and had a daughter. As an honorary citizen of Berlin , he was invited to live in Germany , but stayed in Tjaschinski.

The poet Pavel Alexandrovich Velikshanin described Massalov's act of rescue in a poem for the competition for the Kulikowo Pole literary prize .

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Герой Великой Отечественной войны Николай Иванович Масалов (accessed May 9, 2019).
  2. ↑ a b c Ljudi: Человек-символ (accessed May 9, 2019).
  3. ↑ a b c d Российское информационное агентство "Руспех": Масалов Николай Иванович (accessed May 9, 2019).
  4. ↑ Чуйков В. И .: Конец третьего рейха . Советская Россия, Moscow 1973 ( archive.is [accessed May 9, 2019]).
  5. ↑ How a Soviet soldier risked his life to save a German girl
  6. ↑ Павел Великжанин: Берлин залит дождем огня и стали . In: Конкурс на соискание литературной Премии "Куликово поле" . September 2, 2014 ( blogspot.com [accessed May 9, 2019]).
personal data
SURNAME Massalov, Nikolai Ivanovich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Масалов, Николай Иванович (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian Red Army soldier
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Vosnesenka near Mariinsk
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 2001
Place of death Tyashinsky