Memorialization of the route out of the encirclement of the 33rd Army strike group under the command of Lieutenant General M.G. Yefremov

based on the use of documents from the funds of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, combat logs and military diaries of units of the German Wehrmacht, the article analyzes issues related to the establishment of the true place of death of the group of troops of the 33rd Army and the commander of the army, Lieutenant General M.G. Yefremov. For two and a half months from the beginning of February to April 1942, formations of the 33rd Army, in conditions of acute shortage of ammunition, fuel, fodder, and food, were poorly supplied by air transport. Vyazma, Smolensk region, had the heaviest battles surrounded by German troops, not only defending, but also counterattacking. Having exhausted its combat potential, on the evening of April 13, 1942, Lieutenant General M.G. Yefremov decided to break through with part of the 33rd Army, concentrating in the Shpyrevsky forest (near the Shpyrevo tract of the Temkinsky district of the Smolensk Region). Commander M.G. Yefremov took his last battle on April 19, 1942. For a long time, the exact place of his death and the officers of the 33rd Army staff remained unknown, although one of the first to try to find him back in 1943. There was a son of the commander, Mikhail Mikhailovich Efremov. However, active searches began in the 1970s. The article describes the results of the search work of activists of the search movement of the 1970s and 1980s and the activities of members of the M.P. Krasnopivtsev search public association and the Kaluga regional military-patriotic public organization "Military Historian" in our days, taking into account the various methods used by search engines (field survey of the area, archival surveys, surveys of local residents), which allowed reconstructing the route. the movements of the M.G. Yefremov group on leaving the encirclement and to clarify the place of death of the commander of the 33rd army.

33 Army, Lieutenant General M.G. Efremov, memorialization of the events of the Great Patriotic War, the Battle for Moscow, search movement