Königsberg

Königsberg

by A. Tvardovskiy

translated by Alexander Maslennikov, Felix Lagunov, Evgeniy Gaveman,

the Nakhimovites  from Kaliningrad Nakhimov Naval School

edited by Marina Narushevich, Yevgeniya Chertova, Dmitriy Golov,  

teachers of the English language

The wooden sign plates «No passage» and «Road under fire» have not been removed yet but merely pushed aside.

The road itself is a clear contradiction of those warnings that have been so urgent just the day before. Crowded with cars, carts, oncoming columns of captured German soldiers, and people returning from German captivity, it breathes thick, dry dust, stirred up by this unaccustomed flow of movement. 

Linden alleys, thinned and scarred by artillery fire, half-buried and completely collapsed trenches, shell craters, an piles of ruins form a familiar scene of the near approaches to those lines, which the enemy held tenaciously.

And at the turn there is a fresh, not weather-beaten signboard: «To the city». To the fortress-city, to the main city of East Prussia, to its capital - Königsberg.

These typical smart suburban houses, ancient and modern buildings common to German cities, now shaken by the heavy hand of war, are not a novelty any longer. 

But Konigsberg is first of all a big city. Many of the landmarks that could immediately catch one’s eye upon entering - towers, spires, factory chimneys, multi-storey buildings, - have been reduced to ruins and dust. Red-brick powder paints the soles of Soviet soldiers` boots, hangs in the air as turbid, fiery clouds.

Yet the heavy bulk of the fortress city, even half-crushed, appears so impressive that it is incomparable with all the other cities already traversed in East Prussia.

And just as in the sight of the ruins blackened by fire, in the piles of rubble cluttering the streets and driveways, we cannot help but see a living reminder of the cities of our Homeland destroyed by the Germans, we also cannot fail to see in all this a vivid confirmation of the all-destroying striking power of our own weapons.

«Done better than in Smolensk», – quip the soldiers as they enter the city streets. Behind the exhausted, stern, and unwavering gaze in their eyes there is a just triumph and a proud consciousness of their own power. This power is almost in everywhere, primarily in this great human flow filling the narrow streets of an alien city with its efficient, internally businesslike activity, the words of command, our native language, songs, music, carried from the most remote places in Russia and its great military victory.

Infantry in cars, on the armor of tanks and self-propelled guns, drivers, who are bandying friendly with each other from doorway to doorway, female traffic controllers wearing white, slightly oversized gloves, motorcyclists riding and walking alongside, – you watch and unwittingly think in simple and joyous amazement: 

«There are so many…oh, so many of us, Russian, Soviet people!»

So many that it is enough to keep our vast rear in full working order, to plow this land; and to raise to life so many recaptured towns and villages; and to march for countless miles, to occupy so many cities territories which belonged to the enemy, to break down the resistance of a formidable fortress like Königsberg within three days, and to flood the city with so many people and vehicles on the very first day of its capture. We have enough power for everything!”

The roar of the battle that has receded far from the city, it does not disturb the diverse sounds of purposeful and festive noise and talks in the main street.

What soldiers' faces are here! Mustached, as if sleepy but full of energetic expression, faces of elderly and young ones who had matured in the war, tanned faces with serious expressions. There is a plenty of people: still youthful, blonde, with black soot on their temples, and dark-haired, powdered with grey and rusty dust, and countless others…

All these faces express their great pride in the victory.

But the city, still burning and smoldering in places, here and there shuddering from explosions, remains a foreign and hostile place.  It still hides evil souls capable of anything in the despair of defeat in the gorges of its ruins and surviving walls, in the cellars and attics.

A squad of submachine gunners, half-running through the congested streets, is making its way to the alley, where from window embrasures of half-basement in the mad persistence, perhaps, unaware of the complete defeat, Germans are still firing machine guns and rifles. 

It turns out to be quite difficult to dislodge them with infantry weapons alone. Our tanks generously fire three or four shells at them, a shell per embrasure window. 

Harsh, sharp, point-blank shots are heard. And as we say, complete order has been restored in the alley.

1945