Pavlov's House

The siege

The house was a four-story building in the center of Stalingrad, built perpendicular to the embankment of the river Volga and overseeing the "9th January Square", a large square named for Bloody Sunday. In late September 1942 between 30 and 50 soldiers of the 42nd Guards Regiment, 13th Guards Division secured (following its reconnoiter by 4 soldiers 4 days previous which Yakov Pavlov himself led) the large apartment blocks from German control. The position was quickly fortified under the command of Lieutenant Ivan F. Afanasiev, who ordered the men to lay land mines in all approaches to the square, barbed wire around the perimeter of the apartment block, and to position multiple machine guns in the windows as well as a PTRS anti tank rifle. The Soviets also had large amounts of artillery support from the opposite side of the Volga. Supply and communication trenches were created leading from the rear of Pavlov’s House to the river bank of the Volga, which would receive supply from supply vessels which were often barraged by German artillery when crossing the river.

The strategic benefit of the house was that it defended a key section of the Volga bank. The tactical 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 guns, anti-tank rifles, and mortars. 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, 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 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 range of the building, their thin turret-roof armor became exposed to AT rifle fire from above, and were unable to elevate their weapons enough to retaliate.

For better internal communication, Pavlov's soldiers breached the walls in the basement and upper floors, and dug a communications trench 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 but were subjected to harassing fire every night in order to try to break their resistance.

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.

Eventually the defenders, as well as the Soviet civilians who kept living in the basement all that time, held out during intensive fighting from 27 September to 25 November 1942, when they were relieved by the counter-attacking Soviet forces.

Uncertainty on dates

Sources conflict on the date at which the siege began, and the date at which the Soviet reinforcements reached the building and lifted the siege.

"On September 27, a 30-man Russian platoon was ordered to retake a four-story apartment building the Germans had just captured..... until November 25, 1942"

"the defenders of Pavlov's House who participated in it's [sic] defense from 26 September 1942 till 25 November 1942."

"The defense of the house lasted for 58 days and nights."

Symbolic meaning

Pavlov's House became a symbol of the incredibly stubborn and dogged resistance of the Russian forces during the Battle of Stalingrad, which eventually ended in a decisive victory for the Soviet forces after months of massive casualties on both sides. The inability of the German blitzkrieg to make headway against such grinding and self-sacrificial attrition warfare made the failure to capture Pavlov's House (despite numerous attempts) stand out as a symbol of resistance against a vastly superior force.

Vasily Chuikov, commanding general of the Soviet forces in Stalingrad, later joked that the Germans lost more men trying to take Pavlov's house than they did taking Paris.

Pavlov'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 for his actions.

Recent reporting

A Russian TV documentary in 2009, Legendary Redoubt, (Легендарный редут) on Russian Channel One reported on Pavlov's House. According to the documentary, the house's defense was in fact led by Lieutenant Ivan F. Afanasiev (Иван Ф. Афанасьев). This report does not discount Pavlov's efforts, which led to his earning the Hero of the Soviet Union and those soldiers who took part in the defense, earning numerous decorations of their own. The last member of Pavlov's group, K. Turgunov from Turakurgan District, Namangan Province, Uzbekistan died on 16 March 2015, aged 93.