The border guards who met the first blow of the Wehrmacht on June 22, 1941 were the troops of the NKVD

This black-and-white photograph, taken by the Germans in June 1941, shows two nameless heroes, two border guards from the Brest frontier post, who, before worthily accepting death, managed to give battle to a German column of motorcyclists and managed to instill doubt in the souls of enemy soldiers.

When they were taken prisoner, placed in a line and preparing to carry out the sentence right on the spot, the preparation was delayed due to the fact that those being shot behaved calmly and even arrogantly. They laughed at the Germans, mocked and joked.

The network has lines from the diary of a German corporal who took part in the execution of this death sentence: “It was not bravado and feigned courage. I even for a second felt like I was in their place. A disgusting feeling. They left with a smile on their lips, and I am ready to swear that not only me, but also my soldiers, had goosebumps and an unpleasant chill, at the moment when their dead bodies touched the ground.

Few people can stand in the face of death like that, with such contemptuous indifference, sooty, covered in blood, tired, having done their duty to the end - soldiers.