Reconstruction of the first battles for the Central Railway Station of Stalingrad on September 14-15, 1942

Introduction . Traditionally the notion of fighting for the central station is based on the memories (in different variations) of Senior Lieutenant A.K. Dragan, who is considered commander of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of Z. Chervyakov (sometimes A.K. Dragan is described as commander of the machine-gun company). The problem is that most likely the companycommander was Filin, not A.K. Dragan. A.K. Dragan as one of the few survivors of the hardest battles left very important, but extremely subjective memories, which in addition are available to us in someone else’s interpretation (V.I. Chuikov or M.G. Vainrub). These memories have become the dominant narrative. Our task is to try to reconstruct the events surrounding the station on the basis of the maximum number of sources, though not reliable, but the only ones. Methods and materials . The article is written in the context of microhistorical methodology, understanding this term in the Italian rather than German research sense. We will be interested in a limited number of people in a limited territory at a specific time. We will pay special attention to the place in which the events took place; in this sense microhistory should connect with topography. Analysis. The very location of the station made it a key object in this part of the city. Located at the intersection of the city tracks from north to south (Kommunisticheskaya St.) and from west to east (Kubanskaya St.) the station has never been empty; it always housed some of the Red Army troops. Results . An analysis of the fighting of the 1st Battalion of the 42nd Guards Regiment from the evening of 14 to 15 September allows us to answer a number of important questions. The reinforced battalion of Z.P. Chervyakov, as the advance unit of the division, was able to take advantage of the effect of surprise and immediately break through to the “Zapolotnovsky” district and seize the station building. However, subsequent events showed that Z.P. Chervyakov’s battalion had broken through too far. The 1st Battalion of Z.P. Chervyakov, which captured the central station in the morning of 15 September, was cut off from the main forces of the 42nd Guards Regiment, which had entrenched in the “too distant” station. Due to the large volume of archival materials, the authors performed the following tasks: A.K. Elokhina processed the German sources, and E.V. Stelnik - data from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The concept of the article emerged in the course of joint discussions.