Nein! Nein! Nein! If not your previous successes .....

The area around the nineteenth century Brest Fortress was the site of the 1939 Battle of Brzesc Litewski, when German forces captured it from Poland during the Polish September Campaign. However, according to the terms of the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact the territory around Brest was assigned to the Soviet Union. Thus, in the summer of 1941, the Germans had to capture the fortress yet again - this time from the Soviets. The 3,500-strong defending force comprised regular soldiers, border guards and NKVD men. From the first minutes of the invasion, Brest and Brest Fortress were bombed and shelled by the Germans. Despite their surprise, the subsequent attempt by the Germans to quickly take the fortress with infantry stalled, and the Germans started a lengthy siege. Although they were initially surprised by the attack and heavily outnumbered, short of supplies and cut off from the outside world, the defenders fought and counter-attacked much harder and longer than the Germans expected. After two weeks of fierce combat the Germans had captured most of the fortress. From late June until the very end of July rifle fire and short bursts of machine-gun fire continued to ring out from basements and half-destroyed dungeons with small groups and individual soldiers inside. The actual front had by then already moved about 300 miles east.
