Operation Bagration is a triumph of the Soviet theory of military art due to the well-coordinated offensive movement of all fronts and the operation carried out to disinform the enemy about the location of the general offensive that began in the summer of 1944.
In order to demonstrate to other countries the significance of the success, 57,600 German prisoners of war captured near Minsk were marched through Moscow - for about three hours a column of prisoners of war walked along the streets of Moscow, and after the march the streets were washed and cleared.
Germany's losses in the command staff were also high: 9 generals were killed, 22 were captured, 1 was missing and two committed suicide.
American researcher Stephen Zaloga in 1995 estimated the losses of German troops as follows: 300,000 killed, 250,000 wounded, 120,000 captured (the city of Bobruisk became the main detention center for German prisoners). Total losses: about 670,000 people.
According to Soviet data, from June 23 to July 23, 1944, the Germans lost 381,000 killed, 158,480 prisoners, 2,735 tanks and self-propelled guns, 631 aircraft and 57,152 vehicles.
Soviet losses: 2956 tanks and 2447 artillery units, 822 aircraft. Human losses amounted to: 178,507 people (7.6% of personnel) killed and missing, 587,308 wounded.
The advance of the Soviet troops was accompanied by heavy fighting. So, during the storming of Brest, 10 thousand Germans were killed and about one and a half were captured. Soviet soldiers entered a practically empty city. The success of the offensive was ensured by the heroism of the soldiers and Rokossovsky, who developed the plan for the Lublin-Brest operation. When entering the Baltic states, the advance of the thinned-out Soviet units was so difficult that they even had to partially retreat. Troops along the entire front went on the defensive.
Soviet troops poured into a huge gap 900 km long, which opened in the German defense lines between Army Groups North and South, and within a month and a half reached East Prussia, an outpost of the Third Reich. Army Group North found itself cut off from all land communication routes (although it was freely supplied by sea and could be evacuated at any time) and with heavy losses held the so-called Courland Pocket (it was not a cauldron in the full sense of the word), until capitulation Germany in 1945.
While the troops of the Wehrmacht and the USSR were fighting for Moscow and Stalingrad, other wars were being fought in the German rear: partisan and underground. The first partisan detachments consisted of soldiers who were surrounded and forced to hide in the forests. Later, specially trained detachments began landing in the German rear, and contacts were established with existing partisan groups. The “mainland” provided all possible support to the partisans. There was a continuous stream of planes carrying medicines and weapons. Air support in major guerrilla battles often decided the outcome of the battle. Thanks to the operations carried out, hundreds of trains of Germans carrying fuel, tanks, and soldiers to the front were derailed. Bridges and convoys were destroyed. But special attention should be paid to the so-called partisan zones.
The partisan zone is a partially liberated territory in which the partisans were active fighting.
Here are the most important conditions for the formation and expansion of partisan regions and zones:
1. Active combat operations of partisans
2. The presence of favorable geographical conditions (wooded and swampy areas).
3. The heroic struggle of the Soviet Army at the front, which deprived the enemy of the opportunity to allocate forces sufficient to control the entire occupied territory.
Many villages were liberated from German oppression. In the partisan zones, with the active participation of the population, bodies of Soviet power were restored or their functions were performed by the partisan command, partisan commandants and other bodies. At the same time, collective farms, local industrial enterprises, cultural, medical and other institutions were restored. In the partisan regions and zones, sowing and harvesting were carried out in an organized manner. Schools were reopened. Such zones were the center of popular resistance, and marked the beginning of the renewal of the national economy.
The purpose of these zones was to create the basis for restoring the country’s destroyed economy, as well as at least partially liberating Belarus.
The materials presented in this test were taken from Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia.
Ru. wikipedia. org
In defense of such a source of information, I would like to say that all the information in it is taken from various encyclopedias, verified and systematized.
Race to the beachheads
Finally, the battle waged by the 1st Belorussian Front is a completely separate story. The northern wing of the front advanced on a weak enemy without much incident.
In the swamps of Polesie, the actions of the river flotilla gave their attack its specificity. Thanks to the incredibly extensive river network and the abundance of partisans in the forests, the Russians were able to carry out a daring operation to liberate Pinsk: on July 11, landing boats, literally sneaking past German positions, landed a rifle battalion on the piers, and then delivered artillery there. The town fell into the hands of the winners like ripe fruit.
The battle of Lublin and Brest was much more dramatic. The German front was already in turmoil in Ukraine. Konev did launch the offensive that the Nazis had feared in the spring, and now Army Group Northern Ukraine was collapsing. The Wehrmacht reserves rushed across the space from Lvov to the Baltic, not having time to plug the holes, so the German corps south of Polesie, attacked by Rokossovsky’s armies on July 18, could now only watch doomedly as a steel ram flew into its forehead.
Brest in the summer of 1944
A hail of shells devastated the German trenches in the very first day, and it got to the point that the Soviet 2nd Tank Army had to catch up(!) with the infantry that had gone ahead. Since the Pripyat swamps remained behind to the right for several days, two corps - tank and horse - turned at a right angle and rushed north, towards Brest. That is, the mobile “hammer” drove the enemy in the Brest area towards the infantry “anvil” advancing from the east. On July 25, a piece of the 2nd German Army was finally pulled out of its formation.
Since the weak and previously broken parts retreated here, the cauldron quickly collapsed. On July 28, Brest along with the fortress was taken during a short assault. The breakthrough quickly turned into a beating of the runners. The Germans broke through, leaving a minimal number of prisoners, mountains of corpses and equipment. At this time, the 2nd Tank Army was advancing strictly west, towards Lublin.
Bogdanov’s army, already targeting the German rear in the Brest area, received an order from the very top, from Headquarters, turning it towards Lublin. Bogdanov himself would have preferred to receive the scalps of several more German divisions, but the plans were no longer influenced by military, but by political reasons. Stalin needed to proclaim a pro-Soviet Polish government, and he needed a large city.
The order from Headquarters sounded unambiguous: “ No later than July 26–27 this year. capture the city of Lublin, for which, first of all, use Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army and the 7th Guards. kk Konstantinova. This is urgently required by the political situation and the interests of an independent democratic Poland.”
Russians in Lublin
However, Bogdanov had one more task: to seize bridgeheads across the Vistula. A large river could become a serious obstacle; it had to be overcome as quickly as possible and with the least resistance from the enemy. Therefore, part of the forces of the Second Panzer attacked Dęblin and Puławy, bypassing Lublin. Having escaped to the western shore, Bogdanov could afford the most daring options of action.
The tankers rolled along the highway, crushing crowds of rear troops leaving Lublin, and began a battle for the city itself. The lack of motorized infantry prevented it from being effectively cleared; moreover, Army Commander Bogdanov, who was observing the assault from the front line, was wounded, and the army was led by Chief of Staff Radzievsky. The uprising of the Home Army began in Lublin, all parts of the army that had not fought for the city from the very beginning joined it, and by July 25, that is, on the third day of the assault, Lublin was taken along with the SS Gruppenführer, who commanded the defense, and two thousand more prisoners.
Majdanek. Shoes of camp victims
Along the way, they managed to liberate the Majdanek death camp. Driver Mikhail Gorodetsky said later: “ I had orders not to leave the car. I’m sitting in the car, and a lieutenant comes up: “Why are you sitting?!” Your brothers are there, and you are sitting in the car! Go help them out!” I took the machine gun and went.
The camp was already surrounded on all sides, the Vlasovites remained there, they surrendered. I saw terrible things in this camp! There were a lot of children behind the wire fence. Then further there, behind the wire, there were barracks, their entrance doors were walled up - people were driven in there, and they could not get out. Further on there were barrels containing human ashes; the Germans took them to their fields. In these barrels there were bones, pieces of skulls, and whatever you want. And there were so many baby strollers nearby, it’s scary to say!
In the crematorium there was one room where the dead lay, a second room where they pulled out teeth and jaws, in the third room they undressed, and in the fourth room they fired. I didn’t go to where people were being fired – I couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe my relatives were there too. It was so hard on my soul... I couldn’t find a place for myself, I couldn’t go any further.”
Inspection of furnaces in Majdanek
However, it was not possible to cross the Vistula right away, the bridges were blown up, and the army rushed north, along the eastern bank of the river. An interesting situation arose: the tankers walked perpendicular to the infantry, crossing their line of advance.
The breakthrough to Lublin immediately sharply aggravated the situation in the eyes of the émigré Polish government. The Polish Committee of National Liberation immediately appeared in the city, a pro-Soviet organization directed and supported from Moscow. Unlike the emigrants, the new government was located in Poland and controlled a significant part of it.
Meanwhile, the infantry captured bridgeheads on the Vistula. The enemy was weak, in some places simply absent. Two bridgeheads were captured at once - at Magnushev and Pulawa. Only the 1st Army of the Polish Army failed.
The Red Army crosses the Vistula
If the Soviet side had to simply change plans on the fly, then the Germans were faced with a catastrophe and had to patch up the destroyed front at a fire rate. The commander of Army Group Center, Walter Model, used reserves to restore the integrity of his defensive lines, fortunately the Reich General Staff, realizing the scale of the threat, began to throw divisions to the front like coal into the furnace of a steam locomotive. In particular, Model received a whole package of tank formations from the rear and other fronts.
These reserves included the army's tank divisions, the SS Viking and Totenkopf (Totenkopf) divisions, and the Hermann Göring "tank-parachute" division. Model intended to use these forces for a strong counterattack on the flank of the Soviet vanguards and restore the situation.
However, while the reserves were moving forward and concentrating, Model needed to plug the void gaping in the battle formations between Radom and Warsaw in any way. While this hole was plugged by the 9th Field Army. This army had to be reassembled after the death of its main forces in the Bobruisk pocket at the end of June, so at the end of July it was a pitiful sight.
"Panther"SS Panzer Division "Wiking" near Warsaw, August 1944
Model deployed his mobile reserves on the eastern bank of the Vistula, and their concentration had to be somehow covered. The 73rd Infantry Division and the already arrived Hermann Goering units - a reconnaissance battalion and part of the artillery - were assigned to this role. All of them were brought together into the “Franek Group,” named after the commander, Austrian General Franek. These troops occupied defenses in the Garwolin area, south of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula, facing south. Before the arrival of fresh reserves, they had to survive a powerful blow from the tank army.
On the evening of July 26, the motorcycle vanguard of Radzievsky’s army reached Garwolin and immediately began the battle. Following him, two tank corps quickly converged with the enemy. Radzievsky had 549 tanks and self-propelled guns and, thus, could deliver a fairly powerful blow. Garwolin himself was attacked by small forces, just one motorized rifle brigade; the main attacks fell on the flanks of Franek’s group. The German positions to the west and east of Garwolin were defeated, and in order not to be surrounded, the Germans retreated to the north. Meanwhile, reinforcements, new Goering units and tanks of the 19th Division flowed to Franek in a thin stream.
The German infantry was gradually removed from the board: one of the regiments of Franek's group was already defeated, the rest suffered heavy losses. The Germans countered the Russian breakthrough mainly with scattered combat groups, assembled on the fly from suitable units of tank divisions.
The approach of the third corps of Radzievsky's army especially worsened the position of the Germans. With constant counterattacks, they were still able to hold back the Russian advance, but throwing reserves into battle “from the wheels” led to high losses. Despite the fact that the Germans gradually acquired a numerical advantage in infantry and artillery, and their armored fist was constantly increasing, the disorganization of the defense and the conduct of the battle by battle groups assembled on the fly cost them dearly. The front of Franek’s group crumbled, he himself was captured, but the arriving reserves already allowed the Germans to hope to turn the tide of the battle.
Interrogation of General Franek
On July 30, Radzievsky made a controversial and risky decision, one of the most important for the course and outcome of the battle: the 3rd Tank Corps, which was advancing most successfully, was thrown into a breakthrough to Volomin and Radzimin, to the west. The corps had to go deep around Warsaw from the east. The advantage of this plan was the deep coverage of the German positions, but the 3rd Panzer Corps had to fan out in the enemy rear, while German battle groups continued to accumulate on its flanks. Moreover, Franek’s battered group was reinforced with a scattering of units, including infantry battalions, sappers, howitzers, anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank self-propelled guns. Radzievsky missed the moment when the reserves approaching the Germans led to a qualitative change in the situation.
By this time, the Germans already had a significant numerical advantage. The group accumulated by Model numbered more than fifty thousand people with six hundred tanks in two buildings. By the way, for five tank and infantry divisions, as well as numerous reinforcement units in the Warsaw area, this is still very little, and this situation reflects, on the one hand, losses, and on the other hand, the still incomplete concentration of divisions in the battle area.
Walter Model
The Russians could oppose them with only 32 thousand soldiers and several more than four hundred combat vehicles. The Soviet tank corps - except for the 3rd - were already bogged down in the German defense. Model understood that he had a chance to carry out an effective counteroffensive.
On the afternoon of July 30, one of the brigades of the 3rd Panzer Corps, deep in the German defense, was unexpectedly attacked in the flank. By this time, the corps was already cut off from the main forces of the army. Radzievsky did not order him to retreat, counting on the rapid approach of the rifle divisions, but now the Germans were counterattacking along the entire front, and events developed faster than the Soviet commander expected. On the 30th, he set offensive tasks and planned an assault on Prague, an eastern Warsaw suburb, and on July 31, German counterattacks fell on Soviet troops from all sides.
At this time, in Warsaw, the leaders of the local armed underground were preparing to implement the “Storm” plan. The essence of this plan was the delicate timing: it was necessary to start an uprising after the collapse of the German defense, but before the arrival of Soviet troops, and to seize power in the Polish capital. From the occupied city it seemed that now was the time.
The beginning of the Warsaw Uprising: Poles from the Home Army boast of an expropriated SS armband. The faces are still confident, everyone is sure that things are going well
During the 20th, the police and Volksdeutschi fled from Warsaw. On July 31, Antoni "Monter" Chrusciel, commander of the Polish partisans in Warsaw, personally traveled to Prague, on the eastern bank of the Vistula. The fighting was already five kilometers from Warsaw, the cannonade was clearly audible, some soviet tanks They even made their way to Prague, but were driven back or burned. As a result, Monter decided that it was time to speak out, and the uprising in Warsaw began on the 2nd.
Meanwhile, already on July 31, there was no talk of a breakthrough to Prague for the Russians. The 3rd Panzer Corps was exhausted under the blows of Wehrmacht and SS tank battalions advancing from all sides. At dawn on August 1, the army received an order to go on the defensive, but it was already actually defending itself.
On August 2, German attacks from all sides forced the 3rd Corps to surrender Radzimin. The desperate fighting did not stop, the corps stood up like a hedgehog and fought off the Germans advancing across the sun-hot plains. On August 2 and 3, two brigades of the corps were completely surrounded. The commanders of both brigades were killed. The Germans desperately sought to completely destroy the main forces of the 3rd Corps.
SS tank (Totenkopf division) during fighting in Eastern Poland
However, the defeat of those surrounded in the cauldron did not take place. Outside, the 8th Guards Tank Corps cut a narrow corridor towards the encircled people. On the night of August 4, the last large groups of encirclements reached the positions of the 8th Corps. Both battered brigades were withdrawn to the rear for restoration, the remaining brigades were subordinated to the 8th. We must pay tribute to the army command: a search and rescue operation was even organized in order to pull out the remaining groups of those breaking out of the cauldron. However, saving those surrounded did not mean stopping the battle.
The Second Tank Army was greatly helped by changes in other sectors of the front. On August 1, Chuikov’s army captured a bridgehead at Magnushev to the south, and Model had to transfer part of his forces there from Warsaw. The riflemen of the Soviet 47th Army and the cavalry of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps approached the battle site.
Fresh large connections turned the tide. There were not enough reinforcements to defeat the German divisions, but all subsequent German attacks crashed against the Russian defenses in the Okunev area. On August 8, the unsuccessful butting stopped. Soon, both corps, which escaped encirclement, were transferred to other areas to defend against German counterattacks, surrendering positions in the Warsaw area to infantry. For several weeks there was a lull on the approaches to the Polish capital.
The Battle of Warsaw is important in several respects. Firstly, Model managed to prevent a new collapse of the front line of Army Group Center. The field marshal used all his available – very numerous – reserves and saved the Wehrmacht from a new catastrophe, putting a certain limit on the phenomenal successes of the Russians in Operation Bagration. On the other hand, this battle demonstrated that the advantage of the Wehrmacht at the tactical level is a thing of the past: neither numerical superiority nor the presence of numerous Panthers helped destroy the encircled brigades, and in general for a 50,000-strong group advancing on a 30,000-strong Soviet army , such limited success looks frankly pale.
For the Russians, such an unpleasant slap in the face turned out to be a demonstration of how harmful it is to get carried away with a reckless offensive in conditions of unknown enemy forces and separation from the main forces of the front. However, the 2nd Tank Army showed the ability to cope with a difficult crisis and, on the whole, proved itself to be a tough nut that the enemy never managed to crack.
Rokossovsky in Polish uniform
Finally, the Battle of Warsaw proved fatal to the Home Army uprising in the Polish capital. The plan for the performance was entirely based on the fact that the Russians would quickly knock out the Germans from the outskirts of Warsaw, but the abrupt stop of the offensive of Radzievsky’s army literally a few hours before the start of the uprising led to the fact that the Poles were left alone with punitive SS units and, after a long painful siege, were destroyed.
However, the latter turned out to be for the better for the interests of Russians in the post-war world, so the question is whether it’s worth getting very upset about this - approx. ed.
At this time, the Germans were trying to throw the enemy off the bridgeheads beyond the Vistula. Although the beachheads were attacked with all vigor, the fighting eventually degenerated into frontal attacks. These battles were costly for the Soviet troops: the 8th Guards Army lost 35 thousand people at Magnushev, significantly more than a year later at Berlin.
However, German forces were exhausted. Both sides were no longer able to continue major battles in the central sector of the Soviet-German front. Operation Bagration is over.
Render unto them according to the works of their hands
The battle in Belarus turned into a complete disaster for the Wehrmacht. Within two months, the Germans lost several hundred thousand people killed and captured (the numbers are given differently, but usually from 300 to 500 thousand soldiers). For the Red Army, this grandiose massacre was also not an easy walk: about 180 thousand Red Army soldiers died. However, the result was almost incredible.
All the Wehrmacht's chances of reducing the war to a draw evaporated. In two months, all of Belarus, part of Ukraine, eastern Poland, and part of the Baltic states were liberated. The success caused a domino collapse of the German front: after such losses, the Wehrmacht could not patch up the holes anywhere, the Reich’s reserves showed the bottom: the triumph of “Bagration” helped both the troops breaking through Ukraine and advancing in the Baltic states. The general depletion of reserves affected even the front in Romania and, perhaps, the Western Front. Mutual the impact of the Belarusian operation and the Normandy landings is often underestimated, and meanwhile, operations at opposite ends of Europe had a crushing cumulative effect: the Nazis could not concentrate forces anywhere and failed everywhere.
The Germans in East Prussia are building fortifications that will not help anyway
The Germans lost a lot of experienced soldiers and commanders. Many of the divisions destroyed in Belarus, and senior officers killed or captured there, fought on the Eastern Front from the very beginning. For example, the 45th Infantry Division, destroyed in the Bobruisk pocket, stormed the Brest Fortress in June 1941. Georg Pfeiffer, commander of the 6th Corps, who died near Vitebsk, was also a veteran who took part in the battle for Kyiv in 1941.
The armies in the central direction were never able to recover from the blow of the summer of 1944, either quantitatively or qualitatively. In January 1945, when the Vistula-Oder operation began, the Germans in this area were still very weak.
If we talk about the reasons that led to such success, we can state: the most important stage of the battle is preparation for it. Through a series of events, the Russians created a completely wrong impression on the enemy about their plans. The Nazis were deceived and dealt a crushing blow in a direction that they considered secondary. As a result, the battle was won before it even began. The question was only what exactly the Wehrmacht catastrophe would look like, but no longer whether there would be a catastrophe as such. The tactical skill of the Russians had grown enough to successfully implement the strategic idea, and the industry operating at full speed made it possible to literally overwhelm the enemy with a mass of equipment and shells.
The commander's steps thundered louder. The Reich, suffering defeat after defeat in the west and east, was sliding towards a sad ending.
The enemy did not wait for Bagration. On June 6, 1944, Anglo-American troops began a successful landing on the coast in Normandy. This, of course, accelerated the defeat of Germany, but at the same time did not seriously affect the composition of German troops on the Soviet-German front. By the beginning of July, of the 374 divisions that Germany had, there were 228 divisions on the Eastern Front, two-thirds of all combat-ready formations. 60 divisions were in France, Belgium and Holland, 26 in Italy, 17 in Norway and Denmark and 10 in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece.
Our Headquarters planned to deliver the main blow in the summer of 1944 in Belarus. Soviet intelligence established that the most powerful enemy groups are located in Western Ukraine and Romania. They consisted of about 59% of infantry and 80% of tank divisions. In Belarus, the German command maintained the less powerful Army Group Center, commanded by Field Marshal General E. Busch. The Supreme High Command headquarters came to the correct conclusion that the German command expected the main blow of our troops not in Belarus, but on the southern wing - in Romania and in the Lvov direction.
The Soviet command prepared well and brilliantly carried out the Belarusian offensive operation, codenamed “Bagration”. By the beginning of the operation, the 1st Baltic (commander - General I.Kh. Bagramyan), 3rd Belorussian (commander - General I.D. Chernyakhovsky, 2nd Belorussian (commander - General G.F. Zakharov) and 1st The Belarusian (commander - General K.K. Rokossovsky) fronts had 2,400,000 people, about 36,400 guns and mortars, 53,000 aircraft, 52,000 tanks.
The operation plan provided for a quick breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses in six directions - Vitebsk, Bogushevsky, Orsha, Mogilev, Svisloch and Bobruisk, with deep strikes on four fronts to defeat the main forces of Army Group Center and destroy its troops in parts. This group had at its disposal 500,000 people, 9,500 guns and mortars, 900 tanks and 1,300 aircraft.
The Soviet troops were given a strategic and political task: to eliminate the enemy’s protrusion over 1,100 kilometers long in the area of Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Minsk, to defeat and destroy a large group of German troops. This was the main task of our troops in the summer of 1944. It was planned to create good preconditions for the subsequent offensive of the Red Army in the western regions of Ukraine, the Baltic states, Poland and East Prussia.
Our offensive in Belarus came as a surprise to the enemy. Tippelskirch, who then commanded the 4th Army, later wrote that “V. Model, who headed the front in Galicia, did not allow the possibility of a Russian attack anywhere except in his sector.” The German High Command agreed with him. It considered our offensive in the Baltic states possible. Field Marshal Keitel said at a meeting of army commanders in May 1944: “The situation has stabilized on the Eastern Front. You can be calm, since the Russians will not be able to launch an offensive soon.”
On June 19, 1944, Keitel said that he did not believe in a significant Russian offensive on the central sector of the front. The Soviet command skillfully misinformed the enemy. To mislead the Germans, the Supreme High Command Headquarters demonstratively “left” most of its tank divisions in the south.
The Belarusian operation lasted from June 23, 1944 to August 29 - over two months. It covered more than one thousand two hundred kilometers along the front - from the Western Dvina to Pripyat and up to six hundred kilometers in depth - from the Dniester to the Vistula and Narev.
2nd Belorussian Front. Operation "Bagration".
A soldier's smoke break at a rest stop. Second Belorussian Front_June 1944 Photo by Emmanuel Evzerikhin.
Captured weapon 211mm mortar M18
.jpg)
Captured weapons "Panther" and Pz.IV from 5 td.
The logical result of the defeat of the German 9th Army. A column of German prisoners taken from an airplane. Approximately, according to the most conservative estimates, 3000-4000 people.
A direct hit by a FAB-250 on a concentration of artillery and vehicles on the highway, as a result of which traffic on the road completely stopped." This is again the Zhlobinskoe highway, near the village of Dubovka.
During Operation Bagration, Soviet troops in Belarus launched two attacks in converging directions towards Bobruisk. When it became clear to the command of the 9th German Army that the front could not be held, German troops began to retreat to Bobruisk. The poverty of the road network in Belarus and the swampy and wooded terrain led to the fact that many kilometers of columns of German troops huddled on just two major highways, Zhlobinsky and Rogachevsky, where they were subjected to massive attacks by the Soviet 16th Air Army. Some German units were practically destroyed on the Zhlobin highway. General panorama of destroyed German equipment on the Zhlobin highway (self-propelled gun "Hummel" on the left, tank Pz IV in the center).
The situation worsened sharply for the German troops when the 9th Soviet Tank Corps reached the intersection of the Zhlobin and Rogachev highways. In fact, the “standing” columns were subjected to even more massive air strikes by the 16th VA. Another photo from Zhlobin highway. The report of 16 VA says that this is “a section from the village of Titovka to the south, measuring 500mx2000m.” In the foreground is a StuG III self-propelled gun, with its roof torn off.
In total, photographers of the 16th Soviet VA counted 30 tanks (apparently self-propelled guns also acted like tanks) and 250 vehicles on this piece of highway.
Both combat and auxiliary equipment were distributed. In this photo we see a half-track tractor, a self-propelled gun "Marder" and a quadruple self-propelled gun on a half-track tractor. About the "Mader" it is written: "In photo No. 8 there is a self-propelled gun, which was hit by a PTAB in the servants' accommodation compartment, the upper part was blown up, the crew was destroyed."
.jpg)
.jpg)
Not only the 16th Air Army distinguished itself, but also the 4th VA. This is how the attack aircraft pilots of this army “rolled out” the Germans on the highway near Vitebsk.
And this photo from another highway near Vitebsk can safely be called: “Death to the fascist occupiers.” The photo shows about 100 (!) units of destroyed equipment!
"Second Front" of the partisans
Partisans played a major role in this battle. On the eve of the Belarusian Operation Bagration, they reported on the location of 33 headquarters, 30 airfields, 70 large warehouses, the composition of more than 900 enemy garrisons and about 240 units, the direction of movement and the nature of cargo transported by 1642 enemy echelons.
Rokossovsky wrote: “The partisans received specific assignments from us, where and when to strike communications and bases of the Nazi troops. They blew up more than 40,000 rails, blew up trains on the Bobruisk-Osipovichi-Minsk, Baranovichi-Luninets and others railways.” From June 26 to 28, the partisans derailed 147 trains with troops and military equipment. They took part in the liberation of cities and occupied a number of large settlements on their own.
On June 23, Soviet troops broke through the German defenses. On the third day, five infantry divisions were surrounded in the Vitebsk area, which were defeated and surrendered on June 27. On June 27, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front encircled the enemy’s Bobruisk group - up to 40,000 soldiers and officers. On June 29 they were defeated. The German defenses were broken through on June 23-28 in all directions of the 520-kilometer front. Soviet troops advanced 80-150 kilometers, encircled and destroyed 13 enemy divisions. Hitler removed E. Bush from the post of commander of Army Group Center and installed Field Marshal V. Model in his place.
On July 3, after a fierce battle, Soviet troops liberated the capital of Belarus, Minsk. The city was in ruins. The few surviving buildings were mined and prepared for explosion. But they still managed to be saved: the Germans were prevented by the swiftness of our units that burst into the city.
There were up to 40,000 Nazis in a ring with a diameter of approximately 25 kilometers. By the end of the day on July 7, the 12th, 27th and 35th Army Corps, 39th and 41st Tank Corps, surrounded near Minsk, were defeated. The acting commander of the 4th Army, General W. Müller, gave the order to surrender. In the battles that lasted until July 11, the Germans lost over 70,000 people killed and about 35,000 prisoners, among them were 12 generals (three corps commanders and nine division commanders).
Our troops advanced 550-600 kilometers in a strip more than 1,100 kilometers long. This created good opportunities for an offensive in the Lvov-Sandomierz direction, in East Prussia and for a further attack on Warsaw and Berlin. As a result of the superbly executed Operation Bagration, the German Army Group Center was completely defeated. 17 German divisions and 3 brigades were destroyed, 50 divisions lost more than half of their strength. To stop the advance of the Soviet troops, Hitler's command transferred 46 divisions and 4 brigades from other sectors of the front to Belarus.
The origins of the remarkable victories of the Red Army in 1944 lay not only in our superiority in men and weapons, but mainly in the fact that Soviet generals and soldiers learned to fight well.
In those battles, eighteen-year-old fighter Yuri Smirnov asked to carry out a dangerous combat mission. He told the company commander: “I recently read the book “How the Steel Was Tempered.” Pavel Korchagin would also be asked to join this landing.” He was wounded and unconscious and was captured. The enemy urgently needed to know what goals were set for the Russian tank landing. But Yuri did not say a word, although he was brutally tortured the whole night. “In a frenzy, realizing that they would achieve nothing, they nailed him to the wall of the dugout.” “The landing party, the secret of which the Hero kept at the cost of his life, completed the assigned task. The highway was cut, the offensive of our troops unfolded along the entire front...” Komsomol member Yuri Smirnov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union
After crossing the Vistula, a company of the 220th Regiment of the 79th Guards Division under the command of Lieutenant V. Burba fought off continuous attacks by German infantry and tanks. Only 6 people from the company remained alive, but they managed not to give up their occupied position to the enemy. He accomplished the sacrificial feat while repelling an enemy attack by V. Burba. When the tanks came very close, he threw a bunch of grenades, knocked out the tank, and rushed under the second one with a bunch of grenades in his hand. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. A soldier of the 220th regiment, P. Khlyustin, at a critical moment of the battle, also threw himself under a German tank with a bunch of grenades and helped stop the enemy attack. He was also posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Convincing signs of victory
H. Westphal admitted: “During the summer and autumn of 1944, the German army suffered the greatest defeat in its history, surpassing even that of Stalingrad.
On June 22, the Russians went on the offensive on the front of Army Group Center... Contrary to the warning of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, the defense front held by Army Group Center was dangerously weakened, since Hitler ordered the army group located to the south to be strengthened at its expense. where he expected to attack first. The enemy broke through the front of Army Group Center in many places, and since Hitler strictly prohibited elastic defense, this army group was liquidated. Only the scattered remnants of 30 divisions escaped death and Soviet captivity.”
Wehrmacht General Butlar even considered that “the defeat of Army Group Center marked the end of organized German resistance in the east.” In the Belarusian operation, the German army group lost from 300,000 to 400,000 people killed. Guderian admitted: “As a result of this strike, Army Group Center was destroyed. We suffered enormous losses - about twenty-five divisions."
American researcher M. Seff wrote on June 22, 2004: “Sixty years ago, on June 22, 1944, the Red Army began its most important response campaign... The operation went down in history as the “Battle of Belarus.” It was this, and not the Battle of Stalingrad or Kursk, that ultimately broke the back of the fascist army in the east. Wehrmacht staff officers watched in disbelief and growing fear as the Blitzkrieg tactics they had used so effectively for fifteen months to seize large swaths of European Russia turned against them. Within a month, the German Army Group Center, which had been Germany's strategic support in Russia for three years, was destroyed. Tank columns of the Red Army surrounded 100 thousand of Germany's best soldiers. In total, the Germans lost 350 thousand people. It was a defeat even greater than at Stalingrad.” Seff warned political and military adventurers: “The lesson that Bagration clearly taught the Nazi Wehrmacht 60 years ago remains relevant to this day. It is unwise to underestimate Russia: its people have a habit of winning when least expected of them.”
The rapid advance of the Red Army towards our western borders caused Churchill great concern. In 1944, he considered that “Soviet Russia has become a mortal threat” and therefore it is necessary to “immediately create a new front against its rapid advance.” It turns out that this front should be created not against the Germans, but against our offensive...
To show how much the combat capability of the Red Army, the military skill of its generals, officers and soldiers have increased, an interesting comparison needs to be made. Allied forces landed in France on June 6, 1944. In four and a half months they reached Germany, having covered 550 kilometers. average speed movement - 4 kilometers per day. On June 23, 1944, our troops began to advance from the eastern border of Belarus and on August 28 reached the Vistula. P. Karel in the book “Eastern Front” recorded: “In five weeks they fought 700 kilometers (that is, 20 km per day!) - the rate of advance of the Soviet troops exceeded the rate of advance of the tank groups of Guderian and Hoth along the route Brest - Smolensk - Yelnya during the Blitzkrieg in the summer of 1941."
Now the foreign and “our” liberal press are scourging the Soviet command for their allegedly cruel treatment of prisoners of war. Some S. Lipatov and V. Yaremenko, in the article “March through Moscow,” used the “march” of over forty thousand German prisoners of war through the streets of Moscow to discredit the Soviet system. Shedding tears, they wrote about how on July 17, 1944, the Germans “walked down the street, dirty, lice-infested, and ragged.” Dr. Hans Zimmer, in his book “Encountering Two Worlds,” recalls: “Thousands of prisoners walked barefoot, or wearing only foot wraps, or canvas slippers.” The authors of the article could add that one of the prisoners, seeing Hero of the Soviet Union V. Karpov among the Muscovites, angrily showed him a tightly clenched fist, and he, an uncultured Asian, meanly mocked him - he twirled his finger at his temple, making it clear that he complete fool. Is it possible to forget this?
“Thousands of people behind the cordon on the sidewalks shouted rehearsed and on command: “Hitler is kaput!” and spat copiously into the columns.” One might think that at that time hundreds of thousands of idle Muscovites were gathered in clubs and cinemas many times beforehand and rehearsals were held under the strict supervision of the NKVD. Speaking seriously, today's would-be interpreters of Russian history are unable to understand that the terrible atrocities that our occupiers committed could not but cause Soviet people feelings of hatred towards them, and therefore “often the soldiers of the cordon used force or the threat of force when some hot women tried to attack the marchers with their fists.”
In 1942, I. Ehrenburg called: “The Germans cannot be tolerated.” Hatred for fascism merged with hatred for them. On April 11, 1945, he wrote in “Red Star”: “Everyone is running, everyone is rushing about, everyone is trampling each other... There is no Germany: there is a colossal gang.” Three days later, in an article published in Pravda, “Comrade Ehrenburg is simplifying,” G. Alexandrov criticized him for not taking into account the stratification of the Germans when he argued that they were all responsible for the criminal war.
Lipatov and Yaremenko assessed the “march” of German prisoners of war as a “humiliating performance,” a “performance” that “obviously failed.” How to understand the motives for such an unkind assessment? “People looked with surprise at the pitiful remnants of that legendary, invincible, always victorious German Wehrmacht, which were now passing by, defeated and tattered.” The Germans were furiously eager to capture Moscow, intended to organize a victory parade in it, and blow up the Kremlin. So they were given - just not as winners - the opportunity to walk through our capital. After this demonstrative “march,” the Soviet people had a stronger sense of anticipation of an imminent and final Victory.
.jpg)
About German prisoners
German historians believe that more than three million German military personnel were in Soviet captivity, of which about a million died there. The death toll is clearly exaggerated. A document from the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs for the CPSU Central Committee noted that 2,388,443 German prisoners of war were captured, transferred to the camps of the Main Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (GUPVI) and personally accounted for. 2,031,743 people were released from captivity and repatriated. 356,687 Germans died in captivity. According to the latest data, during the war our troops captured 3,777,300 people, including Germans and Austrians - 2,546,200, Japanese - 639,635, Hungarians - 513,767, Romanians - 187,370, Italians - 48,957, Czechs and Slovaks - 69,977, Poles - 60,280, French - 23,136, Yugoslavs - 21,822, Moldovans - 14,129, Chinese - 12,928, Jews - 10,173, Koreans - 7,785, Dutch - 4,729, Finns - 2,377.
At Stalingrad, 110,000 exhausted and frostbitten German soldiers were captured. Most of them soon died - 18,000 arrived in places of permanent detention, of which about 6,000 returned to Germany. A. Blank, in the article “Prisoners of Stalingrad,” wrote: “Most of the arriving prisoners of war were severely exhausted, which was the cause of dystrophy. Soviet doctors took a variety of measures to restore their strength and health. Was it easy to do this during the war, when high-calorie foods were worth their weight in gold? However, literally everything that was possible was done, and the results quickly showed: many patients began to walk a little, and the puffiness of the face disappeared.
Rush is worse than dystrophy. It was possible, although not without difficulties, to eliminate the widespread infestation relatively quickly, but many Germans arrived at the camp already sick, overcrowding the camp infirmary. Our tireless doctors, nurses and orderlies did not leave their wards for days. There was a struggle for every life. In special hospitals for prisoners of war located not far from the camp, dozens of doctors and nurses also saved German officers and soldiers from death. Many of our people became victims of typhus. Doctors Lidia Sokolova and Sofya Kiseleva, the head of the medical unit of the hospital, a young doctor Valentina Milenina, nurses, translator Reitman and many others became seriously ill. Several of our workers died from typhus."
Our ill-wishers should compare this with how the Germans treated Soviet prisoners of war.
Warsaw Uprising
Liberal media have long been spreading the idea that Russians are to blame for many of Poland's ills. D. Granin asked: “Was this whole war fair from the first to the last day?” And he answered: “Alas, there was a lot that cannot be classified in this category: it is enough to recall the history of the Warsaw Uprising.” The Russophobic “Memorial” on September 14, 1999 condemned “the shameful inaction of Soviet troops on the Vistula during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.” What is more here: purely dense ignorance or a vindictive desire to vilely spit on our army? The prosecutors, and there are many of them, do not want to delve into the essence of the military situation that was created at that time, do not want to get acquainted with the real documents.
The leader of the Warsaw Uprising, General Bur-Komarovsky, then collaborated with representatives of the German command. He stated: “In this case, the weakening of Germany is not in our interests. In addition, I see Russia as a threat. The further away the Russian army is, the better for us.” A document was discovered in the Polish archives about negotiations between the senior German security officer P. Fuchs and the commander of the Home Army T. Bur-Komarovsky. The German officer tried to dissuade this Polish general from the idea of starting an uprising in Warsaw, but he answered him: “This is a matter of prestige. The Poles, with the help of the Home Army, would like to liberate Warsaw and install a Polish administration here until the entry of Soviet troops.” Bur-Komarovsky and his headquarters issued an order to their army, which proclaimed: “The Bolsheviks are before Warsaw. They claim that they are friends of the Polish people. This is an insidious lie. The Bolshevik enemy will face the same merciless struggle that shook the German occupier. Actions in favor of Russia are treason. The Germans are fleeing. To fight the Soviets!
Taylor admitted that the uprising "was more anti-Russian than anti-German." In the “History of Wars” it is said about it this way: “It was raised by the Poles, an underground front (anti-communist) led by General T. Bur-Komarovsky in the hope that the Russians, located behind the Vistula, would come to the rescue. But they were inactive while the German SS drowned the uprising in blood for 2 months.” And not a word about Bur-Komarovsky’s fault for not warning our command about the Warsaw attack. General Anders (in 1942 he withdrew Polish troops from our country, which were under his command, to Iran, and then to Italy), having learned about the uprising, sent a dispatch to Warsaw in which he wrote: “I personally consider the decision of the AK commander ( about the beginning of the uprising) misfortune... The beginning of the uprising in Warsaw in the current situation is not only stupidity, but also an outright crime.”
British correspondent A. Werth asked K. Rokossovsky: “Was the Warsaw Uprising justified?” He replied: “No, it was blunder... The uprising would only make sense if we were already ready to enter Warsaw. We did not have such readiness at any stage... Keep in mind that we have more than two months of continuous fighting behind us.”
Stalin wanted to continue the offensive of our troops in order to occupy the area northwest of Warsaw and alleviate the situation of the rebels. V. Karpov noted in “The Generalissimo”: “The Supreme Commander really didn’t like it when people didn’t agree with him. But in this case he could be understood. He wanted to remove, to reduce the intensity of foreign accusations that the Red Army did not come to the aid of the rebels in Warsaw, and Zhukov and Rokossovsky ... did not want, for the sake of political interests that were not entirely clear to them, to make further sacrifices and continue the offensive, which, as they believed, will not bring success."
Our troops needed a break. When they tried to advance, they suffered unreasonably large losses. Time was needed to bring up the lagging behind, to prepare for the crossing of the Vistula and the assault on the Polish capital. In addition, it was necessary to prevent the dangerous threat of the German group looming from the north. K. Rokossovsky concluded: “Frankly speaking, the most unfortunate time to start the uprising was exactly when it arose. It’s as if the leaders of the uprising deliberately chose the moment to suffer defeat.”
“The situation in Warsaw became more and more difficult, and divisions began among the rebels. And only then did the AK leaders decide to appeal to the Soviet command through London. Chief of the General Staff A.I. Antonov, having received a dispatch from them, formalized the connection between our troops and the rebels. Already on the second day after this, September 18, the English radio reported that General Bur reported coordination of actions with Rokossovsky’s headquarters, as well as that Soviet planes were continuously dropping weapons, ammunition and food to the rebels in Warsaw.
It turns out that there were no insurmountable problems to contact the command of the 1st Belorussian Front. There would be a desire. And Boer hastened to establish contact with us only after the British attempt to supply the rebels with the help of aviation failed. During the day, 80 Flying Fortress aircraft appeared over Warsaw, accompanied by Mustang fighters. They passed in groups at an altitude of 4500 meters and dropped their cargo. Of course, at such a height it scattered and did not hit its intended target. German anti-aircraft guns shot down two planes. After this incident, the British did not repeat their attempts.”
From September 13 to October 1, 1944, Soviet aviation carried out 4,821 sorties to help the rebels, including 2,535 with cargo for their troops. Our planes, at the request of the rebels, covered their areas from the air, bombed and stormed German troops in the city, and dropped them from planes. 150 mortars, 500 anti-tank rifles, machine guns, ammunition, medicine, 120 tons of food.
Rokossovsky said: “Expanding assistance to the rebels, we decided to land a strong landing on opposite bank, to Warsaw using floats. The organization of the operation was taken over by the headquarters of the 1st Polish Army. The time and place of the landing, the plan for artillery and aviation support, mutual actions with the rebels - everything was discussed in advance with the leadership of the uprising. On September 16, the landing units of the Polish army moved across the Vistula. They landed on sections of the coast that were in the hands of rebel troops. All calculations were based on this. And suddenly it turned out that in these areas... there were Nazis.
The operation was difficult. The first landing force barely managed to cling to the shore. We had to bring more and more forces into the battle. The losses were mounting. And the rebel leaders not only did not provide any assistance to the landing party, but did not even try to contact them. In such conditions it was impossible to stay on the western bank of the Vistula. I decided to stop the operation. We helped the paratroopers return to our shore. ...We soon learned that, by order of Bur-Komarovsky and Monter, AK units and detachments were recalled from the coastal outskirts to the interior of the city at the beginning of the landing. Their place was taken Nazi troops. At the same time, the units of the Army of Ludova who were here suffered: the Akovites did not warn them that they were leaving the coastal strip.” In this operation we lost 11,000 soldiers, the 1st Army of the Polish Army - 6,500. S. Shtemenko spoke in detail about the essence and course of the Warsaw Uprising in the book “The General Staff during the War.”
Military intelligence officer Hero of the Soviet Union Ivan Kolos was thrown into the thick of fighting in Warsaw in September 1944 to carry out a combat mission. There he was wounded and shell-shocked, but, as L. Shchipakhina wrote, in 10 days “he managed to organize an intelligence network, got in touch with the leadership of the Home Army and the Ludowa Army, and met with the commander-in-chief, General Bur-Komarovsky. He corrected the actions of our pilots who dropped weapons and food to the rebels.” When the rebels capitulated, I. Kolos left for sewer pipes near Warsaw, went to the Vistula and swam across it, reported to the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front, Marshal Rokossovsky, about the situation in Warsaw and handed over valuable documents.
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Victory, the Polish embassy invited I. Kolos to a gala reception, where he heard insulting words from the mouth of Polish President A. Kwasniewski addressed to the USSR and our army. When the time came to receive the reward from his hands, Kolos said: “Personally, I have long forgiven everyone who interfered with my life, I have forgiven human injustice, envy and ingratitude. But personally, I cannot betray everyone who died for the liberation of Warsaw and Poland, and there were more than 600 thousand of them. I cannot betray my combat friend Dmitry Stenko, who died in Warsaw. To betray those scouts who tried to establish contact with the rebels before me. Bowing before the memory of the victims, I cannot accept the commemorative medal.”
B. Urlanis in his book “War and Population of Europe” indicated that “during the Yugoslav resistance, about 300 thousand people died (out of approximately 16 million population of the country), Albanian - almost 29 thousand (out of only 1 million population), and Polish - 33 thousand (out of 35 million).” V. Kozhinov concluded: “The share of the population who died in the real fight against German authorities in Poland, 20 times less than in Yugoslavia, and almost 30 times less than in Albania!.. (We are talking about those who fell with weapons in their hands).” The Poles fought in British units in Italy, as part of our troops and in 1939 against the Germans. 123 thousand Polish military personnel died for their homeland in 1939-1945, which is 0.3% of the total population. We lost about 5% of the country's population.
Churchill said that “without the Russian armies, Poland would have been destroyed, and the Polish nation itself would have been wiped off the face of the earth.” Was it not for these merits of ours that the monument to Marshal I. Konev was removed from Krakow? The former prime minister of the Polish government, M. Rakovsky, wrote: “A symbolic act of cretinism was the overthrow of the monument to Marshal I. Konev and demonstratively sending it for scrap. Monument to the man who saved Krakow." E. Berezniak, the leader of the underground group “Voice”, which did a lot to save Krakow from destruction by the Germans, was invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the city. And the day before the holiday, January 17, 1995, in a Krakow newspaper, he “read that on January 18, 1945, half-naked, hungry soldiers of Marshal Konev burst into the city and looting and violence began. It was further said: those who tomorrow, the 18th, will lay wreaths and flowers on the graves of the occupiers can cross themselves off the list of Poles.”
.jpg)
Katyn, Katyn again
The discussion about the Warsaw Uprising is not the only “hot spot” in our relations with Poland. How many authors talk about “the execution of 24 thousand Polish officers in the “peaceful” summer of 1939” in the USSR and demand that we atone for this guilt. So in “Tver Life” I had to read on May 6, 1998: “No logic, other than the logic of evil revenge for defeat in the 1920 war, can explain their senseless and absolutely lawless destruction in May 1940. We... bear historical responsibility for this.” We will have to dwell on this “responsibility”.
On May 3, 1943, the head of the Main Propaganda Directorate, Heinrik, sent a secret telegram to the German authorities in Krakow: “Yesterday part of the delegation of the Polish Red Cross returned from Katyn. They brought cartridge casings that were used to shoot the victims of Katyn. It turned out that this was German 7.65 caliber ammunition from Geko.” Goebbels wrote on May 8, 1943: “Unfortunately, German uniforms were found in the graves near Katyn... These finds must always be kept strictly secret. If our enemies found out about this, the whole Katyn scam would have failed.” War veteran I. Krivoi said: “I declare with full responsibility and categoricalness that I saw Polish prisoners of war several times in 1941 - literally on the eve of the war. I affirm that Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest were alive before the Nazis occupied the city of Smolensk!” There are other facts that indicate the involvement of the Germans in this crime.
Yu. Mukhin in his book “Anti-Russian Meanness” showed that the Poles were shot not in the spring of 1940, but in the fall of 1941, when the Nazis had already occupied Katyn. Documents dating back to 1941 were found in the pockets of the dead. He proved that fakes are being presented under the guise of declassified archival documents. It is as if a Special Meeting under the NKVD passed a death sentence on Polish officers, which was carried out in the spring of 1940. But this meeting received the right to make such decisions only in November 1941. And “the fact that the Special Conference did not pass death sentences before the start of the war is confirmed by thousands of original documents in the archives.”
After the liberation of Katyn in 1943, an international commission chaired by surgeon Burdenko found that the Poles were shot by the Germans in the fall of 1941. The commission’s conclusions are fully presented in the study by Yu. Mukhin “Katyn Detective”, articles by V. Shved “Again about Katyn”, A. Martirosyan “Who shot the Polish officers in Katyn” and other publications.
The Statement of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation dated November 26, 2010 states: “The main documents of the Goebbels version of the execution of Poles by the NKVD of the USSR are the so-called documents unexpectedly discovered in the fall of 1992. The main one is “Beria’s March note to I.V. Stalin from 1940, which allegedly proposes to shoot 27 thousand Polish officers and allegedly contains Stalin’s positive resolution. Moreover, both the contents of the “note” and the circumstances of its appearance raise legitimate doubts about its authenticity. The same applies to two other “evidential” documents: an extract from the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of March 5, 1940 and a note from the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR A. Shelepin addressed to N. Khrushchev in 1959. All of them are replete with a huge number of semantic and spelling errors, as well as design errors that are unacceptable for documents of this level. There are sufficient grounds to assert that they were manufactured in the early 1990s on the initiative of Yeltsin’s entourage. There are indisputable, documented facts and evidence, as well as direct material evidence pointing to the execution of Polish officers not by the NKVD of the USSR in the spring of 1940, but by the German occupation authorities in the fall of 1941, after the capture of the Smolensk region by Wehrmacht forces.”
The State Duma of the Russian Federation did not take any of this into account. In December 2010, she adopted the Statement “On the Katyn tragedy and its victims,” which asserts without evidence that the blame for the execution of Polish prisoners of war lies with Soviet leaders and NKVD employees.
Having learned about the decision of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Kasyanov to pay money to the repressed Poles, E. Argin asked: “Who paid money to the relatives of 80,000 Red Army soldiers who were captured after the Soviet-Polish War of 1920? ...Who paid money to the relatives of thousands of Soviet soldiers - the liberators of Poland, who were meanly killed from behind their backs by local nationalists and the like?”
Warsaw University professor P. Wieczorkiewicz wrote about the attitude of the authors of Polish textbooks towards Russia: “Our vision of Polish-Russian history is martyrological. They talk endlessly about the damage we suffered from the Russians. Although this damage cannot be denied, it should not be taken out of the general historical context. You can’t inflate myths about “Muscovites” who are all bad.”
I would like to believe that the Poles will eventually understand that they cannot accumulate only grievances and forget about the enormous contribution Soviet people and the Soviet state in the creation of their current statehood, that hatred of Russia will not bring them anything good, that history itself has doomed the Poles and Russians to live in peace and friendship.
Soviet newsreel footage of "Bagration"
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Belarusian operation 1944 |
|
Belarus, Lithuania, eastern regions of Poland. |
|
Victory of the Red Army. Liberation of Belarus and Lithuania. Entry of Soviet troops into Poland. |
|
Opponents |
|
PKNO, 1st Army of the Polish Army |
BCR, Belarusian Regional Defense |
Poland, Home Army |
|
Commanders |
|
Ivan Bagramyan (1st Baltic Front) |
|
Ivan Chernyakhovsky (3rd Belorussian Front) |
|
Georgy Zakharov (2nd Belorussian Front) |
Georg Reinhardt (3rd Panzer Army) |
Konstantin Rokossovsky (1st Belorussian Front) |
Kurt von Tippelskirch (4th Field Army) |
Georgy Zhukov (coordinator of the 1st and 2nd Belarusian Fronts) |
|
Alexander Vasilevsky (coordinator of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic Fronts) |
|
Alexey Antonov (development of the operation plan) |
|
Walter Weiss (2nd Field Army) |
|
Strengths of the parties |
|
(at the start of the operation) 2.4 million people, 36 thousand guns and mortars, St. 5 thousand tanks, St. 5 thousand aircraft |
(according to Soviet data) 1.2 million people, 9,500 guns and mortars, 900 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1,350 aircraft |
178,507 killed/missing, 587,308 wounded, 2,957 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2,447 guns and mortars, 822 combat aircraft |
The exact losses are unknown. Soviet data: 381 thousand dead and missing, 150 thousand wounded, 158,480 prisoners David Glanz: lower estimate - 450 thousand total losses. Alexey Isaev: more than 500 thousand people Steven Zaloga: 300-350 thousand people, including 150 thousand prisoners (until the 10th of July) |
Belarusian offensive operation, "Bagration"- a large-scale offensive operation of the Great Patriotic War, carried out from June 23 to August 29, 1944. It was named in honor of the Russian commander of the Patriotic War of 1812 P.I. Bagration. One of the largest military operations in the history of mankind.
During this extensive offensive, the territory of Belarus, eastern Poland and part of the Baltic states was liberated and the German Army Group Center was almost completely defeated. The Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses, partly due to the fact that A. Hitler prohibited any retreat. Germany was no longer able to make up for these losses.
By June 1944, the front line in the east approached the line Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Zhlobin, forming a huge protrusion - a wedge facing deep into the USSR, the so-called “Belarusian balcony”. If in Ukraine the Red Army managed to achieve a series of impressive successes (almost the entire territory of the republic was liberated, the Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses in the chain of “cauldrons”), then when trying to break through in the direction of Minsk in 1943-1944, the successes, on the contrary, were quite modest.
At the same time, by the end of the spring of 1944, the offensive in the south slowed down, and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to change the direction of efforts. As K.K. Rokossovsky noted,
Data on the strengths of the parties differ in different sources. According to the publication “Operations of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War,” 1 million 200 thousand people took part in the operation on the Soviet side (excluding rear units). On the German side - as part of Army Group Center - 850-900 thousand people (including approximately 400 thousand in the rear units). In addition, at the second stage, the right wing of Army Group North and the left wing of Army Group Northern Ukraine took part in the battle.
The four fronts of the Red Army were opposed by four armies of the Wehrmacht:
The section shows the distribution of forces of the German and Soviet troops as of June 22, 1944 (the corps of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army army are listed in the order of their deployment from north to south, reserves are indicated separately first).
Army Group Center (Field Marshal Ernst Busch, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Krebs)
* 3rd Panzer Army (Colonel General Reinhardt) consisting of:
* 9th Army Corps (Artillery General Wuthmann);
* 53rd Army Corps (Infantry General Gollwitzer);
* 6th Army Corps (Artillery General Pfeiffer);
* 4th Army (Infantry General Tippelskirch) consisting of:
* 27th Army Corps (Infantry General Voelkers);
* 39th Panzer Corps (General of Artillery Martinek);
* 12th Army Corps (Lieutenant General Müller);
* 9th Army (Infantry General Jordan) consisting of:
* 35th Army Corps (Lieutenant General von Lützow);
* 41st Army Corps (Lieutenant General Hoffmeister);
* 55th Army Corps (Infantry General Herrlein);
* 2nd Army (Colonel General Weiss) consisting of:
* 8th Army Corps (Infantry General Hon);
* 23rd Army Corps (General of Engineering Troops Tiemann);
* 20th Army Corps (Artillery General von Roman);
In addition, Hungarian units were subordinate to the 2nd Army: 5, 12 and 23 reserve and 1 cavalry division. The 2nd Army took part only in the second phase of the Belarusian operation.
* 1st Baltic Front (Army General Bagramyan) consisting of:
* 4th Shock Army (Lieutenant General Malyshev);
* 6th Guards Army (Lieutenant General Chistyakov);
* 43rd Army (Lieutenant General Beloborodov);
* 3rd Air Army (Lieutenant General Papivin);
* 3rd Belorussian Front (Colonel General Chernyakhovsky) consisting of:
* 11th Guards Army (Lieutenant General Galitsky);
* 5th Army (Lieutenant General Krylov);
* 31st Army (Lieutenant General Glagolev);
* 39th Army (Lieutenant General Lyudnikov);
* 5th Guards Tank Army (Marshal Rotmistrov);
* Cavalry mechanized group (Lieutenant General Oslikovsky);
* 1st Air Army (Lieutenant General Gromov);
* 2nd Belorussian Front (Colonel General Zakharov) consisting of:
* 33rd Army (Lieutenant General Kryuchenkin);
* 49th Army (Lieutenant General Grishin);
* 50th Army (Lieutenant General Boldin);
* 4th Air Army (Colonel General Vershinin);
* 1st Belorussian Front (Army General Rokossovsky) consisting of:
* 3rd Army (Lieutenant General Gorbatov);
* 28th Army (Lieutenant General Luchinsky);
* 48th Army (Lieutenant General Romanenko);
* 61st Army (Lieutenant General Belov);
* 65th Army (Lieutenant General Batov);
* 6th Air Army (Lieutenant General Polynin);
* 16th Air Army (Colonel General Rudenko);
In addition, the 1st Belorussian Front included the 8th Guards, 47th, 70th, 1st Polish and 2nd Tank Armies, which took part only in the second phase of the Belarusian operation.
Initially, the Soviet command imagined Operation Bagration as a repetition Battle of Kursk, something like the new “Kutuzov” or “Rumyantsev”, with a huge consumption of ammunition with a subsequent relatively modest advance of 150-200 km. Since operations of this type - without a breakthrough into operational depth, with long, stubborn battles in the tactical defense zone of attrition - required large quantities of ammunition and relatively little fuel for mechanized units and modest capacity for restoring railways, the actual development of the operation turned out to be for the Soviet command of the unexpected.
The operational plan for the Belarusian operation began to be developed by the General Staff in April 1944. General idea consisted of crushing the flanks of the German Army Group Center, encircling its main forces east of Minsk and the complete liberation of Belarus. This was an extremely ambitious and large-scale plan; the instant destruction of an entire army group was planned very rarely during the war.
Significant personnel changes were made. General V.D. Sokolovsky failed to prove himself in the battles of the winter of 1943-1944 (Orsha offensive operation, Vitebsk offensive operation) and was removed from command of the Western Front. The front itself was divided in two: the 2nd Belorussian Front (to the south) was headed by G. F. Zakharov, who showed himself well in the battles in the Crimea, I. D. Chernyakhovsky, who had previously commanded the army in Ukraine, was appointed commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front (to the north).
Direct preparations for the operation began at the end of May. Specific plans were received by the fronts on May 31 in private directives from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.
According to one version, according to the original plan, the 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to deliver one powerful blow from the south, in the Bobruisk direction, but K.K. Rokossovsky, having studied the area, stated at a meeting at Headquarters on May 22 that more than one should be delivered, but two main blows. He motivated his statement by the fact that in heavily swamped Polesie, with one breakthrough, the armies would bump into the back of each other’s heads, clog the roads in the near rear, and as a result, the front troops could only be used in parts. According to K.K. Rokossovsky, one blow should have been delivered from Rogachev to Osipovichi, another from Ozarichi to Slutsk, while encircling Bobruisk, which remained between these two groups. K.K. Rokossovsky's proposal caused heated debate at Headquarters; members of Headquarters insisted on delivering one strike from the Rogachev area, in order to avoid dispersal of forces. The dispute was interrupted by I.V. Stalin, who stated that the perseverance of the front commander spoke of the thoughtfulness of the operation. Thus, K.K. Rokossovsky was allowed to act in accordance with his own idea.
However, G.K. Zhukov argued that this version is not true:
A thorough reconnaissance of enemy forces and positions was organized. Information was collected in many directions. In particular, reconnaissance teams of the 1st Belorussian Front captured about 80 “tongues”. Aerial reconnaissance of the 1st Baltic Front detected 1,100 different firing points, 300 artillery batteries, 6,000 dugouts, etc. Active acoustic and human intelligence reconnaissance was also carried out, studying enemy positions by artillery observers, etc. Due to the combination in various ways reconnaissance and its intensity, the enemy group was revealed quite completely.
The headquarters tried to achieve maximum surprise. All orders to unit commanders were given personally by army commanders; telephone conversations concerning preparations for the offensive, even in encrypted form, were prohibited. The fronts preparing for the operation went into radio silence. Active excavation work was carried out at the forward positions to simulate preparations for defense. The minefields were not completely removed so as not to alarm the enemy; the sappers limited themselves to unscrewing the fuses from the mines. The concentration of troops and regroupings were carried out mainly at night. Specially designated General Staff officers on airplanes patrolled the area to monitor compliance with camouflage measures.
The troops conducted intensive training to practice the interaction of infantry with artillery and tanks, assault operations, crossing water obstacles, etc. Units were alternately withdrawn from the front line to the rear for these trainings. The training of tactical techniques was carried out in conditions as close as possible to combat conditions and with live shooting.
Before the operation, commanders at all levels down to the companies conducted reconnaissance, assigning tasks to their subordinates on the spot. Artillery spotters and air force officers were introduced into the tank units for better cooperation.
Thus, the preparations for Operation Bagration were carried out extremely carefully, while the enemy was left in the dark about the upcoming offensive.
If the command of the Red Army was well aware of the German grouping in the area of the future offensive, then the command of Army Group Center and the General Staff of the Ground Forces of the Third Reich had a completely wrong idea about the forces and plans of the Soviet troops. Hitler and the High Command believed that a major offensive should still be expected in Ukraine. It was assumed that from the area south of Kovel the Red Army would strike towards the Baltic Sea, cutting off army groups “Center” and “North”. Significant forces were allocated to counter the phantom threat. Thus, in the Northern Ukraine Army Group there were seven tank, two tank-grenadier divisions, as well as four battalions of Tiger heavy tanks. Army Group Center had one tank, two tank-grenadier divisions and only one Tiger battalion. In April, the command of Army Group Center presented its leadership with a plan to reduce the front line and withdraw the army group to better positions beyond the Berezina. This plan was rejected. Army Group Center defended in its previous positions. Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Bobruisk were declared “fortresses” and fortified with the expectation of all-round defense. Forced labor of the local population was widely used for construction work. In particular, in the zone of the 3rd Tank Army, 15-20 thousand residents were sent to such work.
Kurt Tippelskirch (then commander of the 4th Field Army) describes the mood in the German leadership as follows:
There was no data yet that would make it possible to predict the direction or directions of the Russian summer offensive that was undoubtedly being prepared. Since aviation and radio reconnaissance usually accurately noted large transfers of Russian forces, one could think that an offensive from them was not yet immediately threatened. Until now, only in one case were intensive railway transports lasting for several weeks behind enemy lines in the direction of the Lutsk, Kovel, Sarny region, which, however, were not followed by a concentration of newly arrived forces near the front. At times we had to rely only on guesswork. The General Staff of the Ground Forces considered the possibility of repeating the attack on Kovel, believing that the enemy would concentrate its main efforts north of the Carpathians on the front of the Northern Ukraine Army Group, with the goal of pushing the latter back to the Carpathians. Army groups "Center" and "North" were predicted to have a "quiet summer." In addition, Hitler was particularly concerned about the oil region of Ploiesti. Regarding the fact that the enemy's first attack would follow north or south of the Carpathians - most likely to the north - the opinion was unanimous. |
The positions of the troops defending in Army Group Center were seriously reinforced with field fortifications, equipped with numerous interchangeable positions for machine guns and mortars, bunkers and dugouts. Since the front in Belarus stood still for a long time, the Germans managed to create a developed defense system.
From the point of view of the General Staff of the Third Reich, preparations against Army Group Center were intended only to “mislead the German command regarding the direction of the main attack and to pull reserves from the area between the Carpathians and Kovel.” The situation in Belarus inspired so little fear in the Reich command that Field Marshal Busch went on vacation three days before the start of the operation.
The preliminary stage of the operation symbolically began on the third anniversary of the German attack on the USSR - June 22, 1944. As in Patriotic War 1812, one of the most significant battle sites was the Berezina River. Soviet troops of the 1st Baltic, 3rd, 2nd and 1st Belorussian fronts (commanders - Army General I. Kh. Bagramyan, Colonel General I. D. Chernyakhovsky, Army General G. F. Zakharov, Army General K.K. Rokossovsky), with the support of partisans, broke through the defenses of the German Army Group Center in many areas (commander - Field Marshal E. Bush, later - V. Model), surrounded and eliminated large enemy groups in the areas of Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Vilnius , Brest and east of Minsk, liberated the territory of Belarus and its capital Minsk (July 3), a significant part of Lithuania and its capital Vilnius (July 13), the eastern regions of Poland and reached the borders of the Narev and Vistula rivers and the borders of East Prussia.
The operation was carried out in two stages. The first stage took place from June 23 to July 4 and included the following front-line offensive operations:
The offensive was preceded by an unprecedented scale partisan action. Numerous partisan formations operated in Belarus. According to the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement, during the summer of 1944, 194,708 partisans joined the Red Army troops. The Soviet command successfully linked the actions of partisan detachments with military operations. The goal of the partisans in Operation Bagration was, at first, to disable enemy communications, and later to prevent the withdrawal of defeated Wehrmacht units. Massive actions to defeat the German rear began on the night of June 19-20. Eike Middeldorf noted:
The partisans’ plans included carrying out 40 thousand different explosions, that is, only a quarter of what was planned was actually accomplished, but what was accomplished was enough to cause a short-term paralysis of the rear of Army Group Center. The head of rear communications of the army group, Colonel G. Teske, stated:
The main targets of the partisans' forces were railways and bridges. In addition to them, communication lines were disabled. All these actions greatly facilitated the offensive of the troops at the front.
If the “Belarusian balcony” as a whole jutted out to the east, then the area of the city of Vitebsk was a “protrusion on a protrusion”, protruding even further from the northern part of the “balcony”. The city was declared a “fortress”; Orsha, located to the south, had a similar status. The 3rd Tank Army defended in this sector under the command of General G.H. Reinhardt (the name should not be deceived; there were no tank units in the 3rd Tank Army). The Vitebsk region itself was defended by its 53rd Army Corps under the command of General F. Gollwitzer ( English). Orsha was defended by the 17th Army Corps of the 4th Field Army.
The operation was carried out on two fronts. The 1st Baltic Front, under the command of Army General I. Kh. Bagramyan, operated on the northern flank of the future operation. His task was to encircle Vitebsk from the west and develop an offensive further to the southwest towards Lepel. The 3rd Belorussian Front, under the command of Colonel General I. D. Chernyakhovsky, operated further south. The task of this front was, firstly, to create a southern “claw” of encirclement around Vitebsk, and secondly, to independently embrace and take Orsha. As a result, the front was supposed to reach the area of the city of Borisov (south of Lepel, southwest of Vitebsk). For operations in depth, the 3rd Belorussian Front had a cavalry-mechanized group (mechanized corps, cavalry corps) of General N. S. Oslikovsky and the 5th Guards Tank Army of P. A. Rotmistrov.
To coordinate the efforts of the two fronts, a special operational group of the General Staff was created, headed by Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky.
The offensive began with reconnaissance in force early in the morning of June 22, 1944. During this reconnaissance, it was possible to break into the German defenses in many places and capture the first trenches. The next day the main blow was dealt. The main role was played by the 43rd Army, which covered Vitebsk from the west, and the 39th Army under the command of I.I. Lyudnikov, which surrounded the city from the south. The 39th Army had virtually no overall superiority in men in its zone, but the concentration of troops in the breakthrough area made it possible to create a significant local advantage. The front was quickly broken through both to the west and south of Vitebsk. The 6th Army Corps, defending south of Vitebsk, was cut into several parts and lost control. Within a few days, the corps commander and all division commanders were killed. The remaining parts of the corps, having lost control and communication with each other, made their way to the west in small groups. The Vitebsk-Orsha railway was cut. On June 24, the 1st Baltic Front reached the Western Dvina. The counterattack of Army Group North units from the western flank failed. In Beshenkovichi, “Corps Group D” was surrounded. N. S. Oslikovsky’s cavalry-mechanized group was introduced into the breakthrough south of Vitebsk, and began to quickly advance to the southwest.
Since the desire of the Soviet troops to encircle the 53rd Army Corps was undoubted, the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army G.H. Reinhardt turned to his superiors for permission to withdraw F. Gollwitzer’s units. On the morning of June 24, Chief of the General Staff K. Zeiztler flew to Minsk. He familiarized himself with the situation, but did not give permission to leave, not having the authority to do so. A. Hitler initially prohibited the withdrawal of the corps. However, after Vitebsk was completely surrounded, on June 25 he approved a breakthrough, ordering, however, to leave one - the 206th Infantry Division in the city. Even before this, F. Gollwitzer withdrew the 4th Air Field Division somewhat to the west to prepare a breakthrough. This measure, however, came too late.
On June 25, in the Gnezdilovichi area (southwest of Vitebsk), the 43rd and 39th armies united. In the Vitebsk area (the western part of the city and the southwestern outskirts), F. Gollwitzer's 53rd Army Corps and some other units were surrounded. The “cauldron” included the 197th, 206th and 246th Infantry, as well as the 6th Air Field Division and part of the 4th Air Field Division. Another part of the 4th Air Field was surrounded to the west, near Ostrovno.
In the Orsha direction the offensive developed quite slowly. One of the reasons for the lack of spectacular success was the fact that the strongest of the German infantry divisions, the 78th Assault, was located near Orsha. It was much better equipped than the others and, in addition, had the support of almost fifty self-propelled guns. Also in this area were units of the 14th Motorized Division. However, on June 25, the 3rd Belorussian Front introduced the 5th Guards Tank Army under the command of P. A. Rotmistrov into the breakthrough. She cut the railway leading from Orsha to the west near Tolochin, forcing the Germans to withdraw from the city or die in the “cauldron”. As a result, by the morning of June 27, Orsha was liberated. The 5th Guards Tank Army advanced southwest, towards Borisov.
On the morning of June 27, Vitebsk was completely cleared of the encircled German group, which the day before had been continuously subjected to air and artillery strikes. The Germans made active efforts to break out of the encirclement. During the day of June 26, 22 attempts were recorded to break through the ring from the inside. One of these attempts was successful, but the narrow corridor was sealed after a few hours. The group of about 5 thousand people who broke through was again surrounded around Lake Moszno. On the morning of June 27, Infantry General F. Gollwitzer and the remnants of his corps capitulated. F. Gollwitzer himself, the corps chief of staff Colonel Schmidt, the commander of the 206th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Hitter (Buchner erroneously listed as killed), the commander of the 246th Infantry Division, Major General Müller-Bülow, and others were captured.
At the same time, small boilers near Ostrovno and Beshenkovichi were destroyed. The last large group of encirclement was led by the commander of the 4th Air Field Division, General R. Pistorius ( English). This group, trying to escape through the forests to the west or southwest, on June 27 came across the 33rd anti-aircraft division marching in columns and was scattered. R. Pistorius died in battle.
The forces of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian Fronts began to develop success in the southwestern and western direction. By the end of June 28, they liberated Lepel and reached the Borisov area. The retreating German units were subjected to continuous and brutal air strikes. There was little opposition to the Luftwaffe. The Vitebsk-Lepel highway, according to I. Kh. Bagramyan, was literally littered with dead and broken equipment.
As a result of the Vitebsk-Orsha operation, the 53rd Army Corps was almost completely destroyed. According to V. Haupt, two hundred people from the corps broke through to the German units, almost all of them were wounded. Units of the 6th Army Corps and Corps Group D were also defeated. Vitebsk and Orsha were liberated. The losses of the Wehrmacht, according to Soviet claims, exceeded 40 thousand dead and 17 thousand prisoners (the greatest results were shown by the 39th Army, which destroyed the main “cauldron”). The northern flank of Army Group Center was swept away, and thus the first step was taken towards the complete encirclement of the entire group.
As part of the battle in Belarus, the Mogilev direction was auxiliary. According to G.K. Zhukov, who coordinated the operation of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts, the quick push of the German 4th Army from the “cauldron”, which was created by attacks through Vitebsk and Bobruisk to Minsk, was meaningless. However, to speed up the collapse of German forces and speed up the advance, an offensive was organized.
On June 23, after effective artillery preparation, the 2nd Belorussian Front began crossing the Pronya River, along which the German defensive line passed. Since the enemy was almost completely suppressed by artillery, sappers within a short time built 78 light bridges for infantry and four 60-ton bridges for heavy equipment. After a few hours of battle, according to the testimony of prisoners, the number of many German companies fell from 80 - 100 to 15 - 20 people. However, units of the 4th Army managed to retreat to the second line along the Basya River in an organized manner. By June 25, the 2nd Belorussian Front had captured very few prisoners and vehicles, that is, it had not yet reached the enemy’s rear communications. However, the Wehrmacht army gradually retreated to the west. Soviet troops crossed the Dnieper north and south of Mogilev; on June 27, the city was surrounded and the next day taken by storm. About two thousand prisoners were captured in the city, including the commander of the 12th Infantry Division R. Bamler and the commandant of Mogilev G. G. von Ermansdorff, who was later found guilty of committing numerous serious crimes and hanged.
Gradually, the retreat of the 4th Army lost its organization. The connection between the units and the command and with each other was broken, and the units were mixed up. Those departing were subjected to frequent air raids, which caused heavy losses. On June 27, the commander of the 4th Army, K. von Tippelskirch, gave an order by radio for a general retreat to Borisov and Berezina. However, many retreating groups did not even receive this order, and not all of those who received it were able to carry it out.
Until June 29, the 2nd Belorussian Front announced the destruction or capture of 33 thousand enemy soldiers. The trophies included, among other things, 20 tanks, presumably from the Feldhernhalle motorized division operating in the area.
The Bobruisk operation was supposed to create the southern “claw” of a huge encirclement planned by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. This action was carried out entirely by the most powerful and numerous of the fronts participating in Operation Bagration - the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky. Initially, only the right flank of the front took part in the offensive. He was opposed by the 9th Field Army of General H. Jordan. As at Vitebsk, the task of crushing the flank of Army Group Center was solved by creating a local “cauldron” around Bobruisk. K. K. Rokossovsky’s plan as a whole represented the classic “cannes”: from the southeast to the northwest, gradually turning to the north, the 65th Army (reinforced by the 1st Don Tank Corps) advanced, from the east to the west the 3rd I am an army that includes the 9th Tank Corps. For a quick breakthrough to Slutsk, the 28th Army with the cavalry-mechanized group of I. A. Pliev was used. The front line in the area of operation made a bend to the west at Zhlobin, and Bobruisk, among other cities, was declared a “fortress” by A. Hitler, so the enemy in some way himself contributed to the implementation of Soviet plans.
The offensive near Bobruisk began in the south on June 24, that is, somewhat later than in the north and center. Bad weather initially seriously limited aviation operations. In addition, the terrain conditions in the offensive zone were very difficult: they had to overcome an extremely large, half-kilometer wide, swampy swamp. However, this did not stop the Soviet troops; moreover, the appropriate direction was chosen deliberately. Since the German defense was quite dense in the well-passable Parichi area, the commander of the 65th Army, P.I. Batov, decided to advance somewhat to the southwest, through the swamp, which was relatively weakly guarded. The quagmire was crossed along the roads. P. I. Batov noted:
On the first day, the 65th Army broke through the defenses of the enemy, completely stunned by such a maneuver, to a depth of 10 km, and a tank corps was introduced into the breakthrough. Its left-flank neighbor, the 28th Army under the command of Lieutenant General A. A. Luchinsky, achieved similar success.
The 3rd Army of A.V. Gorbatov, on the contrary, met stubborn resistance. H. Jordan used his main mobile reserve, the 20th Panzer Division, against it. This seriously slowed down progress. The 48th Army under the command of P. L. Romanenko, advancing to the left of the 28th Army, was also stuck due to extremely difficult terrain. In the afternoon, the weather improved, which made it possible to actively use aviation: 2,465 sorties were carried out by aircraft, but progress still remained insignificant.
The next day, I. A. Pliev’s cavalry-mechanized group was introduced into the breakthrough on the southern flank. The contrast between the rapid offensive of P. I. Batov and the slow gnawing of the defense by A. V. Gorbatov and P. L. Romanenko was noticeable not only to the Soviet, but also to the German command. H. Jordan redirected the 20th Panzer Division to the southern sector, which, however, having entered the battle “on wheels”, was unable to eliminate the breakthrough, lost half of its armored vehicles and was forced to retreat to the south.
As a result of the retreat of the 20th Panzer Division and the introduction of the 9th Panzer Corps into the battle, the northern “claw” was able to advance deeply. On June 27, roads leading from Bobruisk to the north and west were intercepted. The main forces of the German 9th Army found themselves surrounded with a diameter of approximately 25 km.
H. Jordan was removed from the command of the 9th Army, and General of the Tank Forces N. von Forman was appointed instead. However, personnel changes could no longer affect the position of the encircled German units. There were no forces capable of organizing a full-fledged unblocking strike from the outside. An attempt by the reserve 12th Panzer Division to cut through the “corridor” failed. Therefore, the encircled German units began to independently make vigorous efforts to break through. Located east of Bobruisk, the 35th Army Corps under the command of von Lützow began preparing to break through to the north to link up with the 4th Army. On the evening of June 27, the corps, having destroyed all weapons and property that could not be carried away, attempted a breakthrough. This attempt generally failed, although some groups managed to pass between Soviet units. On June 27, communication with the 35th Corps was interrupted. The last organized force in the encirclement was General Hoffmeister's 41st Panzer Corps. Groups and individual soldiers who had lost control gathered in Bobruisk, for which they were transported across the Berezina to the west bank - they were constantly bombed by aircraft. The city was in chaos. The commander of the 134th Infantry Division, General Philip, shot himself in despair.
On June 27, the assault on Bobruisk began. On the evening of the 28th, the remnants of the garrison made a final attempt to break out, leaving 3,500 wounded in the city. The attack was led by the surviving tanks of the 20th Panzer Division. They managed to break through the thin Soviet infantry screen north of the city, but the retreat continued under air strikes, which caused heavy casualties. By the morning of June 29, Bobruisk was cleared. About 14 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were able to reach the positions of the German troops - most of them were met by the 12th Panzer Division. 74 thousand soldiers and officers died or were captured. Among the prisoners was the commandant of Bobruisk, Major General Haman.
The Bobruisk operation ended successfully. The destruction of two corps, the 35th Army and 41st Tank, the capture of both their commanders and the liberation of Bobruisk took less than a week. As part of Operation Bagration, the defeat of the German 9th Army meant that both flanks of Army Group Center were left exposed, and the road to Minsk was open from the northeast and southeast.
After the destruction of the front of the 3rd Tank Army near Vitebsk, the 1st Baltic Front began to develop success in two directions: to the north-west, against the German group near Polotsk, and to the west, towards Glubokoye.
Polotsk caused concern among the Soviet command, since this next “fortress” now hung over the flank of the 1st Baltic Front. I. Kh. Bagramyan immediately began to eliminate this problem: there was no pause between the Vitebsk-Orsha and Polotsk operations. Unlike most of the battles of Operation Bagration, near Polotsk the main enemy of the Red Army was, in addition to the remnants of the 3rd Tank Army, Army Group North represented by the 16th Field Army under the command of General H. Hansen. On the enemy side, only two infantry divisions were used as reserves.
On June 29, an attack on Polotsk followed. The 6th Guards and 43rd Armies bypassed the city from the south (the 6th Guards Army also bypassed Polotsk from the west), the 4th Shock Army - from the north. The 1st Tank Corps captured the town of Ushachi south of Polotsk and advanced far to the west. The corps captured a bridgehead on the western bank of the Dvina with a surprise attack. The counterattack planned by the 16th Army simply did not take place.
The partisans provided significant assistance to the attackers, intercepting small groups of retreating troops, and sometimes even attacking large military columns.
However, the defeat of the Polotsk garrison in the cauldron did not take place. The commander of the city’s defense, Karl Hilpert, voluntarily left the “fortress” without waiting for the escape routes to be cut. Polotsk was liberated on July 4. Failure in this battle cost Georg Lindemann, commander of Army Group North, his job. It should be noted that despite the absence of "cauldrons", the number of prisoners was significant for an operation that lasted only six days. The 1st Baltic Front announced the capture of 7,000 enemy soldiers and officers.
Although the Polotsk operation was not crowned with a defeat similar to what happened near Vitebsk, it brought significant results. The enemy lost a stronghold and a railway junction, the flank threat to the 1st Baltic Front was eliminated, the positions of Army Group North were bypassed from the south and were under the threat of a flank attack.
After the capture of Polotsk, organizational changes took place for new tasks. The 4th Shock Army was transferred to the 2nd Baltic Front, on the other hand, the 1st Baltic Front received the 39th Army from Chernyakhovsky, as well as two armies from the reserve. The front line moved 60 km to the south. All these measures were related to the need to improve the controllability of the troops and strengthen them before the upcoming operations in the Baltic states.
On June 28, Field Marshal E. Bush was relieved of command of Army Group Center; his place was taken by Field Marshal V. Model, who was a recognized specialist in defensive operations. Several fresh formations were sent to Belarus, in particular the 4th, 5th and 12th tank divisions.
After the collapse of the northern and southern flanks at Vitebsk and Bobruisk, the German 4th Army found itself sandwiched in a kind of rectangle. The eastern “wall” of this rectangle was formed by the Drut River, the western by the Berezina, and the northern and southern by Soviet troops. To the west was Minsk, which was the target of the main Soviet attacks. The flanks of the 4th Army were actually not covered. The environment looked imminent. Therefore, the army commander, General K. von Tippelskirch, ordered a general retreat through the Berezina to Minsk. The only way for this was the dirt road from Mogilev through Berezino. The troops and logistics agencies accumulated on the road tried to cross the only bridge to the western bank of the Berezina under constant destructive attacks from attack aircraft and bombers. Military police withdrew from regulating the crossing. In addition, the retreaters were subject to attacks by partisans. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the retreating forces were joined by numerous groups of soldiers from units defeated in other areas, even from near Vitebsk. For these reasons, the crossing of the Berezina proceeded slowly and was accompanied by great sacrifices. It should be noted that the pressure from the 2nd Belorussian Front, located directly in front of the front of the 4th Army, was insignificant, since the plans of the Supreme High Command did not include expelling the enemy from the trap.
After the destruction of two corps of the 9th Army, K.K. Rokossovsky received new tasks. The 3rd Belorussian Front advanced in two directions, to the southwest, towards Minsk, and west, to Vileika. The 1st Belorussian Front received a symmetrical task. Having achieved impressive results in the Bobruisk operation, the 65th and 28th armies and the cavalry-mechanized group of I. A. Pliev turned strictly to the west, towards Slutsk and Nesvizh. The 3rd Army of A.V. Gorbatov advanced to the north-west, towards Minsk. The 48th Army of P. L. Romanenko became a bridge between these shock groups.
The front's offensive was led by mobile formations - tank, mechanized units and cavalry-mechanized groups. The horse-mechanized group of I. A. Pliev, quickly moving towards Slutsk, reached the city on the evening of June 29. Since the enemy in front of the 1st Belorussian Front was mostly defeated, resistance was weak. The exception was the city of Slutsk itself: it was defended by units of the 35th and 102nd divisions, which suffered serious losses. Soviet troops estimated the garrison of Slutsk to be approximately two regiments.
Faced with organized resistance in Slutsk, General I. A. Pliev organized an assault from three sides simultaneously. The flank coverage brought success: on June 30, by 11 a.m., Slutsk was cleared by a cavalry-mechanized group with the assistance of infantry that had bypassed the city.
The cavalry-mechanized group of I. A. Pliev captured Nesvizh by July 2, cutting off the Minsk group’s escape route to the southeast. The offensive developed quickly, with only small scattered groups of soldiers offering resistance. On July 2, the remnants of the German 12th Panzer Division were driven back from Pukhovichi. By July 2, the tank corps of K.K. Rokossovsky's front approached Minsk.
At this stage, German mobile reserves, withdrawn mainly from the troops operating in Ukraine, began to arrive at the front. The first, on June 26 - 28, to the northeast of Minsk, in the Borisov area, was the 5th Panzer Division under the command of General K. Dekker. It posed a serious threat, given that over the previous several months it had almost not participated in hostilities and was staffed almost to its normal strength (including in the spring, the anti-tank division was re-equipped with 21 Jagdpanzer IV/48 tank destroyers, and in June a fully staffed one arrived battalion of 76 “Panthers”), and upon arrival in the Borisov area it was reinforced by the 505th heavy battalion (45 Tiger tanks). The weak point of the Germans in this area was the infantry: these were either guard divisions or infantry divisions that had suffered significant losses.
On June 28, the 5th Guards Tank Army, the horse-mechanized group of N. S. Oslikovsky and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps set into motion with the goal of crossing the Berezina and advancing to Minsk. 5th Panzer Army, marching in the middle order of battle, on the Berezina collided with the group of General D. von Saucken (the main forces of the 5th Panzer Division and the 505th Heavy Tank Battalion). D. von Saucken's group had the task of holding the Berezina line in order to cover the retreat of the 4th Army. On June 29 and 30, extremely tough fighting took place between this group and two corps of the 5th Guards Tank Army. The 5th Guards Tank Army advanced with great difficulty and heavy losses, but during this time the cavalry-mechanized group of N. S. Oslikovsky, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps and the riflemen of the 11th Guards Army crossed the Berezina, breaking the weak resistance of the police units, and began to cover the German division from the north and south. The 5th Panzer Division, under pressure from all sides, was forced to retreat with heavy losses after short but fierce street fighting in Borisov itself. After the collapse of the defense at Borisov, N. S. Oslikovsky's cavalry-mechanized group was aimed at Molodechno (northwest of Minsk), and the 5th Guards Tank Army and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps were aimed at Minsk. The right-flank 5th Combined Arms Army, at this time, was moving north strictly west, to Vileika, and the left-flank 31st Army followed the 2nd Guards Tank Corps. Thus, there was a parallel pursuit: Soviet mobile formations overtook the retreating columns of the surrounded group. The last line on the way to Minsk was breached. The Wehrmacht suffered serious losses, and the proportion of prisoners was significant. The claims of the 3rd Belorussian Front included more than 22 thousand killed and more than 13 thousand captured German soldiers. Coupled with the large number of destroyed and captured vehicles (almost 5 thousand cars, according to the same report), we can conclude that the rear services of Army Group Center were subjected to heavy blows.
North-west of Minsk, the 5th Panzer Division gave another serious battle to the 5th Guards. tank army. On July 1-2, a difficult maneuver battle took place. German tank crews announced the destruction of 295 Soviet combat vehicles. Although such claims should be treated with caution, there is no doubt that the losses of the 5th Guards. tank army were heavy. However, in these battles, the 5th TD was reduced to 18 tanks, and all the “tigers” of the 505th heavy battalion were also lost. In fact, the division lost the opportunity to influence operational situation, while the strike potential of Soviet armored units was by no means exhausted.
July 3, 2nd Guards. The tank corps approached the outskirts of Minsk and, after making a roundabout maneuver, broke into the city from the north-west. At this moment, the advanced detachment of the Rokossovsky Front approached the city from the south, and the 5th Guards was advancing from the north. tank army, and from the east - the advanced detachments of the 31st combined arms army. Against such numerous and powerful formations in Minsk there were only about 1,800 regular troops. It should be noted that the Germans managed to evacuate more than 20 thousand wounded and rear personnel on July 1-2. However, there were still quite a few stragglers in the city (mostly unarmed). The defense of Minsk was very short: by 13:00 the capital of Belarus was liberated. This meant that the remnants of the 4th Army and the units that joined it, more than 100 thousand people, were doomed to captivity or extermination. Minsk fell into the hands of Soviet troops, severely destroyed during the battles in the summer of 1941; in addition, retreating Wehrmacht units caused additional destruction to the city. Marshal Vasilevsky stated: “On July 5 I visited Minsk. The impression I was left with was extremely difficult. The city was heavily destroyed by the Nazis. Of the large buildings, the enemy did not manage to blow up only the house of the Belarusian government, the new building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, the radio plant and the House of the Red Army. The power plant, railway station, most industrial enterprises and institutions were blown up."
The surrounded German group made desperate attempts to escape to the west. The Germans even attempted attacks with knives. Since the army's control fled to the west, the actual command of the remnants of the 4th Field Army was carried out by the commander of the 12th Army Corps, W. Müller, instead of K. von Tippelskirch.
The Minsk “cauldron” was shot right through by artillery fire and aircraft, ammunition was running out, supplies were completely absent, so a breakthrough attempt was made without delay. To do this, those surrounded were divided into two groups, one led by W. Müller himself, the other led by the commander of the 78th Assault Division, Lieutenant General G. Traut. On July 6, a detachment under the command of G. Traut, numbering 3 thousand people, attempted to break through at Smilovichi, but collided with units of the 49th Army and was killed after a four-hour battle. On the same day, G. Trout made a second attempt to get out of the trap, but before reaching the crossings across the Svisloch at Sinelo, his detachment was defeated, and G. Trout himself was captured.
On July 5, the last radiogram was sent from the “cauldron” to the army group command. It read:
There was no answer to this desperate call. The outer front of the encirclement quickly shifted to the west, and if at the moment the ring closed it was enough to travel 50 km to break through, soon the front passed already 150 km from the boiler. No one made their way to the surrounded people from the outside. The ring was shrinking, resistance was suppressed by massive shelling and bombing. On July 8, when the impossibility of a breakthrough became obvious, W. Muller decided to capitulate. Early in the morning, he drove out, guided by the sounds of artillery fire, towards the Soviet troops, and surrendered to units of the 121st Rifle Corps of the 50th Army. He immediately wrote the following order:
"July 8, 1944. To all soldiers of the 4th Army located in the area east of the Ptich River! Our situation after many days of heavy fighting became hopeless. We have fulfilled our duty. Our combat effectiveness has been practically reduced to nothing, and we cannot count on the resumption of supplies. According to the Wehrmacht High Command, Russian troops are already standing near Baranovichi. The path along the river is blocked, and we cannot break through the ring on our own. We have a huge number of wounded and soldiers who have lost their units. The Russian command promises: a) medical care for all wounded; b) keep orders and bladed weapons for officers, and orders for soldiers. We are required to: collect and hand over all available weapons and equipment in good condition. Let's put an end to the senseless bloodshed! I order: Stop resisting immediately; gather in groups of 100 people or more under the command of officers or senior non-commissioned officers; concentrate the wounded at collection points; act clearly, energetically, showing comradely mutual assistance. The more discipline we show when passing, the sooner we will be given allowance. This order must be disseminated orally and in writing by all means available. lieutenant general and commander XII Army Corps. |
The commanders of the Red Army were quite self-critical in assessing the actions to defeat the Minsk “cauldron”. The commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front, General G. F. Zakharov, expressed extreme dissatisfaction:
However, during July 8-9, the organized resistance of German troops was broken. The cleanup continued until July 12: partisans and regular units combed the forests, neutralizing small groups of encirclements. After this, the fighting east of Minsk finally stopped. More than 72 thousand German soldiers died, more than 35 thousand were captured.
On the eve of the second stage of Operation Bagration, the Soviet side tried to exploit the success achieved as much as possible, and the German side tried to restore the front. At this stage, the attackers had to fight the arriving enemy reserves. Also at this time, new personnel changes took place in the leadership of the armed forces of the Third Reich. The Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, K. Zeitzler, proposed to withdraw Army Group North to the south in order to build a new front with its help. This proposal was rejected by A. Hitler for political reasons (relations with Finland), as well as because of the objections of the naval command: leaving the Gulf of Finland worsened communications with Finland and Sweden. As a result, K. Zeitzler was forced to resign as chief of the general staff and was replaced by G.V. Guderian.
Field Marshal V. Model, for his part, tried to erect a defensive line running from Vilnius through Lida and Baranovichi and seal a 400 km wide hole in the front. To do this, he had the only army of the Center group that had not yet been attacked - the 2nd, as well as reinforcements and the remnants of defeated units. In total these were obviously insufficient forces. V. Model received significant help from other sectors of the front: by July 16, 46 divisions were transferred to Belarus. However, these formations were introduced into battle gradually, often “on wheels,” and could not quickly change the course of the battle.
After the liberation of Polotsk, the 1st Baltic Front of I. Kh. Bagramyan received the task of attacking in the direction to the northwest, to Dvinsk and to the west, to Kaunas and Sventsyany. The general plan was to break through to the Baltic and cut off Army Group North from the other Wehrmacht forces. To prevent front troops from being stretched across different operational lines, the 4th Shock Army was transferred to the 2nd Belorussian Front. In exchange, the 39th Army was transferred from the 3rd Belorussian Front. Reserves were also transferred to the front: it included the 51st Army of Lieutenant General Ya. G. Kreizer and the 2nd Guards Army of Lieutenant General P. G. Chanchibadze. These changes caused a short pause, since on July 4 only two of the front armies had the enemy in front of them. The reserve armies were marching to the front, the 39th was also on the march after the defeat of the Vitebsk “cauldron”. Therefore, until July 15, the battle went on without the participation of the armies of Ya. G. Kreiser and P. G. Chanchibadze.
Expecting an attack on Dvinsk, the enemy transferred part of the forces of Army Group North to this area. The Soviet side estimated the enemy forces near Dvinsk at five fresh divisions, as well as a brigade of assault guns, security, sapper and penal units. Thus, the Soviet troops did not have superiority in forces over the enemy. In addition, interruptions in the supply of fuel forced Soviet aviation greatly reduce activity. Because of this, the offensive that began on July 5 stalled by the 7th. Shifting the direction of the attack only helped to move forward a little, but did not create a breakthrough. On July 18, the operation in the Dvina direction was suspended. According to I. Kh. Bagramyan, he was ready for such a development of events:
The advance towards Sventsyany was much easier, since the enemy did not deploy such significant reserves in this direction, and the Soviet group, on the contrary, was more powerful than against Dvinsk. Advancing, the 1st Tank Corps cut the Vilnius-Dvinsk railway. By July 14, the left flank had advanced 140 km, leaving Vilnius to the south and moving to Kaunas.
The local failure did not affect the overall course of the operation. The 6th Guards Army went on the offensive again on July 23, and although its advance was slow and difficult, Dvinsk was cleared on July 27 in cooperation with the troops of the 2nd Baltic Front advancing to the right. After July 20, the introduction of fresh forces began to have an effect: the 51st Army reached the front line and immediately liberated Panevezys, after which it continued to move towards Siauliai. On July 26, the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps was brought into battle in its zone, which reached Siauliai on the same day. The enemy's resistance was weak, mainly separate operational groups acted on the German side, so Šiauliai was taken already on July 27.
The enemy quite clearly understood the intention of the Supreme High Command to cut off the North group. J. Friesner, commander of the army group, drew A. Hitler's attention to this fact on July 15, arguing that if the army group did not reduce the front and withdraw, it would face isolation and, possibly, defeat. However, there was no time to withdraw the group from the emerging “bag”, and on July 23 G. Friesner was removed from his post and sent south to Romania.
The overall goal of the 1st Baltic Front was access to the sea, so the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, as a mobile group of the front, was turned almost at a right angle: from west to north. I. Kh. Bagramyan formalized this turn with the following order:
By July 30, it was possible to separate the two army groups from each other: the vanguards of the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps cut the last railway between East Prussia and the Baltic states in the Tukums area. On July 31, after a rather tense assault, Jelgava fell. Thus, the front reached the Baltic Sea. In the words of A. Hitler, a “gap in the Wehrmacht” arose. At this stage, the main task of I. Kh. Bagramyan’s front was to maintain what had been achieved, since an operation to great depth would lead to a stretching of communications, and the enemy was actively trying to restore land communications between army groups.
The first of the German counterattacks was an attack near the city of Birzai. This town was located at the junction between the 51st Army, which had broken through to the sea, and the 43rd Army, which followed it on the right in a ledge. The idea of the German command was to reach the rear of the 51st Army running towards the sea through the positions of the 43rd Army covering the flank. The enemy used a fairly large group from Army Group North. According to Soviet data, five infantry divisions (58th, 61st, 81st, 215th and 290th), the Nordland motorized division, the 393rd assault gun brigade and other units took part in the battle. On August 1, going on the offensive, this group managed to encircle the 357th Infantry Division of the 43rd Army. The division was quite small (4 thousand people) and was in a difficult situation. However, the local “cauldron” was not subjected to serious pressure, apparently due to the lack of enemy strength. The first attempts to relieve the encircled unit failed, but contact was maintained with the division and it had air supplies. The situation was turned around by the reserves brought in by I. Kh. Bagramyan. On the night of August 7, the 19th Tank Corps and the encircled division, which was fighting from inside the “cauldron,” united. Biržai was also detained. Of the 3,908 people who were surrounded, 3,230 people emerged in service and about 400 wounded. That is, the losses in people turned out to be moderate.
However, counterattacks by German troops continued. On August 16, attacks began in the Raseiniai area and west of Siauliai. The German 3rd Panzer Army tried to push the Red Army back from the Baltic Sea and restore contact with Army Group North. Units of the 2nd Guards Army were pushed back, as were units of the neighboring 51st Army. By August 18, the 7th, 5th, 14th tank divisions and the “Gross Germany” tank division (in the document erroneously called “SS division”) were established in front of the 2nd Guards Army. The situation near Siauliai was stabilized by the introduction of the 5th Guards Tank Army into battle. However, on August 20, an offensive began from the west and east towards Tukums. Tukums was lost, and for a short time the Germans restored land communications between Army Groups Center and North. The attacks of the German 3rd Panzer Army in the Siauliai area failed. At the end of August there was a break in the fighting. The 1st Baltic Front completed its part of Operation Bagration.
The destruction of the Wehrmacht 4th Army east of Minsk opened up tempting prospects. On July 4, I. D. Chernyakhovsky received a directive from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command with the task of attacking in the general direction of Vilnius, Kaunas and by July 12 liberating Vilnius and Lida, and subsequently seizing a bridgehead on the western bank of the Neman.
Without taking an operational pause, the 3rd Belorussian Front began the operation on July 5. The offensive was supported by the 5th Guards Tank Army. The enemy did not have sufficient forces for direct confrontation, however, Vilnius was declared by A. Hitler to be another “fortress”, and a fairly large garrison was concentrated in it, which was further reinforced during the operation and numbered about 15 thousand people. There are alternative points of view on the size of the garrison: 4 thousand people. The 5th Army and the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps broke through the enemy defenses and advanced 20 km in the first 24 hours. For infantry this is a very high pace. The matter was made easier by the looseness of the German defense: the army was opposed on a wide front by battered infantry formations and construction and security units thrown to the front. The army captured Vilnius from the north.
Meanwhile, the 11th Guards Army and the 5th Guards Tank Army were advancing further south, in the Molodechno region. At the same time, the tank army gradually shifted to the north, surrounding Vilnius from the south. Molodechno itself was taken by cavalrymen of the 3rd Guards Corps on July 5. A warehouse with 500 tons of fuel was seized in the city. On July 6, the Germans attempted a private counterattack against the 5th Guards Tank Army. It involved the 212th Infantry and 391st Security Divisions, as well as Hoppe's improvised armored group of 22 self-propelled artillery units. The counterattack had, according to German claims, limited success, but it was not confirmed by the Soviet side; only the fact of a counterattack is noted. He had no influence on the advance towards Vilnius, but the 11th Guards Army had to slightly slow down the pace of movement towards Alytus, repelling this and subsequent attacks (later the 11th Guards Army received counterattacks from the 7th and the remnants of the 5th tank divisions, security and infantry units). On July 7 - 8, the city was surrounded by units of the 5th Guards Tank Army from the south and the 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps from the north. The garrison under the command of Major General R. Stagel took up a perimeter defense. The city was defended by the usual combined group for the battles of 1944 from various units, including the 761st Grenadier Brigade, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions and others.
On July 7, an uprising of the Polish nationalist organization Home Army broke out in Vilnius (Operation “Sharp Gate” as part of the “Storm” Action). Its detachments, led by local commander A. Krzhizhanovsky, numbered, according to various sources, from 4 to 10 thousand people, and they managed to take control of part of the city. The Polish rebels were not able to liberate Vilnius on their own, but they provided assistance to units of the Red Army.
By July 9, most of the key facilities in the city, including the railway station and airfield, were captured by units of the 5th Army and the 5th Guards Tank Army. However, the garrison stubbornly resisted.
I. L. Degen, a tanker who participated in the assault on Vilnius, left the following description of these battles:
The lieutenant colonel said that the enemy was holding the defense with only about a hundred infantry, a couple of German tanks and several guns - one or two, and that was it. (...) And we, three tanks, crawled along the city streets, not seeing each other. The two German guns promised by the lieutenant colonel apparently multiplied by non-sexual division, and they began firing at us from guns from all sides. They barely had time to destroy them. (...) The battle with the Germans in the city, in addition to Soviet units, was actively fought by Poles with red and white armbands (subordinate to the Polish government in London) and a large Jewish partisan detachment. They had red bands on their sleeves. A group of Poles approached the tank. I jumped down to them and asked: “Do you need help?” The commander, it seems, a colonel, almost with tears in his eyes, shook my hand and showed me where the Germans were shooting at them most intensively. It turns out that the day before they were left alone with the Germans without support. That’s why the lieutenant general turned out to be so kind to us... A lieutenant, whom I had already seen at the regimental headquarters, immediately came running and conveyed a request from the commander to support the battalion in the same direction that the Poles had just pointed out to me. Found it in the basement of the NP battalion commander. The battalion commander familiarized me with the situation and set the task. He had seventeen people left in the battalion... I grinned: well, if three tanks are considered a tank brigade, then why can’t 17 soldiers be a battalion... The battalion was assigned one 76-mm cannon. The crew had two armor-piercing shells left. This was all the ammunition. The gun was commanded by a young junior lieutenant. Naturally, the artillerymen could not support the battalion with fire. Their heads were filled with one thought: what would they do if German tanks came down the street?! Starting from July 9, my tank did not leave the battle for three days. We have completely lost orientation in space and time. No one brought shells to me, and I was forced to think a thousand times before allowing myself another shot from a tank gun. Mainly supported the infantry with fire from two machine guns and tracks. There was no communication with the brigade or even with Varivoda. Street fighting is a real nightmare, it's a horror that human brain unable to fully embrace. (...) On July 13, fighting stopped in the city. The Germans surrendered in groups. Do you remember how many Germans the lieutenant colonel warned me about? One hundred people. So, there were five thousand captured Germans alone. But there were no two tanks either. |
On the night of July 12-13, the German 6th Panzer Division, with the support of part of the Grossdeutschland division, broke through a corridor to Vilnius. The operation was personally led by Colonel General G. H. Reinhardt, commander of the 3rd Tank Army. Three thousand German troops came out of the “fortress”. The rest, no matter how many there were, died or were captured on July 13th. The Soviet side announced the death of eight thousand German soldiers in Vilnius and the surrounding area and the capture of five thousand. By July 15, the 3rd Belorussian Front captured a bridgehead across the Neman. Units of the Home Army were interned by the Soviet authorities.
While the assault on Vilnius was underway, the southern wing of the front was calmly moving west. The 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps captured Lida, and by July 16 reached Grodno. The front crossed the Neman. The large water obstacle was passed at a fast pace with moderate losses.
Wehrmacht units tried to neutralize the bridgeheads across the Neman. For this purpose, the command of the German 3rd Panzer Army created an improvised battle group from units of the 6th Panzer Division and the Grossdeutschland Division. It included two tank battalions, a motorized infantry regiment and self-propelled artillery. The counterattack on July 16 was aimed at the flank of the 72nd Rifle Corps of the 5th Army. However, this counterattack was carried out in a hurry; there was no time to organize reconnaissance. In the depths of the Soviet defense near the town of Vroblevizh, the battle group came across the 16th Guards, which had taken up defensive positions. anti-tank destroyer brigade, and lost 63 tanks during a difficult battle. The counterattack fizzled out, the bridgeheads beyond the Neman were held by the Russians.
After the battle for Vilnius, the 3rd Belorussian Front under the command of I. D. Chernyakhovsky was aimed at Kaunas and Suwalki, the latter big cities on the way to East Prussia. On July 28, front troops went on the offensive and advanced 5 to 17 km in the first two days. On July 30, the enemy’s defenses along the Neman were broken through; In the zone of the 33rd Army, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps was introduced into the breakthrough. The entry of the mobile formation into operational space put the Kaunas garrison in danger of encirclement, so by August 1, Wehrmacht units left the city.
However, the gradual increase in German resistance led to a relatively slow advance with serious losses. The stretching of communications, the depletion of ammunition, and growing losses forced the Soviet troops to suspend the offensive. In addition, the enemy launched a series of counterattacks on the front of I. D. Chernyakhovsky. So, on August 9, the 1st Infantry Division, 5th Tank Division, and the “Gross Germany” Division counterattacked the 33rd Front Army marching in the center and somewhat pushed it back. In mid-August, a counterattack by infantry divisions in the Raseinaya area even led to tactical (regimental level) encirclements, which, however, were soon broken through. These chaotic counterattacks led to the drying up of the operation by the 20th of August. From August 29, at the direction of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the 3rd Belorussian Front went on the defensive, reaching Suwalki and not reaching several kilometers to the borders of East Prussia.
Access to the old German borders caused panic in East Prussia. Despite the assurances of Gauleiter E. Koch that the situation on the approaches to East Prussia had stabilized, the population began to leave the region.
For the 3rd Belorussian Front, the Kaunas operation ended the battles within the framework of Operation Bagration.
After the creation of the Minsk “cauldron”, General G.F. Zakharov, like other front commanders, received the task of moving deep to the west. As part of the Bialystok operation, the 2nd Belorussian Front played a supporting role - it pursued the remnants of Army Group Center. Leaving Minsk behind, the front moved strictly west - to Novogrudok, and then to Grodno and Bialystok. The 49th and 50th armies at first could not take part in this movement, since they continued fighting with German units that were surrounded in the Minsk “cauldron”. Thus, only one remained for the offensive - the 3rd Army. She started moving on July 5th. At first, enemy resistance was very weak: in the first five days, the 3rd Army advanced 120-125 km. This tempo is very high for infantry and is more characteristic of a march than an attack. On July 8 Novogrudok fell, on July 9 the army reached the Neman.
However, gradually the enemy built a defense in front of the front troops. On July 10, in front of the front positions, reconnaissance identified the remnants of the 12th and 20th tank and parts of four infantry divisions, as well as six separate regiments. These forces could not stop the offensive, but influenced the operational situation and slowed down the tempo of the operation.
On July 10, the 50th Army entered the battle. The Neman was crossed. On July 15, front troops approached Grodno. On the same day, the troops repulsed a series of counterattacks, causing serious damage to the enemy. On July 16, Grodno was liberated in cooperation with the 3rd Belorussian Front.
The enemy reinforced units in the Grodno direction, but these reserves were not sufficient, and in addition, they themselves suffered heavy losses in battles. Although the pace of the front's offensive fell seriously, from July 17 to 27, troops broke through to the Augustow Canal, recaptured Bialystok on July 27, and reached the pre-war border of the USSR. The operation took place without noticeable enemy encirclement, which was due to the weakness of the mobile formations at the front: the 2nd Belorussian Front did not have a single tank, mechanized or cavalry corps, having only tank infantry support brigades. In general, the front completed all the tasks assigned to it.
Subsequently, the front developed an offensive against Osovets, and on August 14 occupied the city. The front also occupied a bridgehead beyond the Narev. However, the advance of the troops was quite slow: extended communications played a role, on the one hand, and frequent counterattacks by the strengthened enemy, on the other. On August 14, the Bialystok operation was terminated, and Operation Bagration also ended for the 2nd Belorussian Front.
After the liberation of Minsk, the front of K.K. Rokossovsky, like others, received a directive to pursue the remnants of Army Group Center. The first destination was Baranovichi, and in the future it was planned to develop an offensive towards Brest. The mobile group of the front - the 4th Guards Cavalry, 1st Mechanized and 9th Tank Corps - was aimed directly at Baranovichi.
Already on July 5, the Red Army forces encountered arriving enemy operational reserves. The 1st Mechanized Corps entered into battle with the 4th Tank Division, which had just arrived in Belarus, and was stopped. In addition, Hungarian units (1st Cavalry Division) and German infantry reserves (28th Light Division) appeared at the front. On July 5 and 6 there were intense battles, progress was insignificant, success was seen only in the 65th Army of P. I. Batov.
Gradually, the resistance near Baranavichy was broken. The attackers were supported by large air forces (about 500 bombers). The 1st Belorussian Front noticeably outnumbered the enemy, so resistance gradually weakened. On July 8, after a heavy street battle, Baranovichi was liberated.
Thanks to the success at Baranovichi, the actions of the 61st Army were facilitated. This army, under the command of General P. A. Belov, advanced in the direction of Pinsk through Luninets. The army operated in extremely difficult marshy terrain between the flanks of the 1st Belorussian Front. The fall of Baranovichi created a threat of envelopment of German troops in the Pinsk area and forced them to a hasty retreat. During the pursuit, the Dnieper River Flotilla provided significant assistance to the 61st Army. In particular, on the night of July 12, the vessels of the flotilla secretly ascended Pripyat and landed a rifle regiment on the outskirts of Pinsk. The Germans failed to destroy the landing force; on July 14, Pinsk was liberated.
On July 19, Kobrin, a city east of Brest, was half-encircled and the next day captured. The right wing of the front reached Brest from the east.
Combat operations also took place on the left wing of the front, separated from the right by the impenetrable swamps of Polesie. As early as July 2, the enemy began to withdraw troops from Kovel, an important transport hub. On July 5, the 47th Army went on the offensive and liberated the city on July 6. Front commander Konstantin Rokossovsky arrived here to directly lead the troops. On July 8, in order to seize a bridgehead on the Western Bug (the subsequent task is access to Lublin), the 11th Tank Corps was brought into battle. Due to disorganization, the corps was ambushed and irretrievably lost 75 tanks; corps commander Rudkin was removed from his post. Unsuccessful attacks continued here for several more days. As a result, near Kovel, the enemy retreated 12 to 20 kilometers in an organized manner and thwarted the Soviet offensive.
On July 18, the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky went on the offensive in full force. The left wing of the front, which had until now remained largely passive, entered the operation. Since the Lviv-Sandomierz operation was already underway to the south, maneuvering with reserves was extremely difficult for the German side. The enemy of the 1st Belorussian Front was not only parts of Army Group Center, but also Army Group Northern Ukraine, commanded by V. Model. This field marshal thus combined the posts of commander of army groups “Center” and “Northern Ukraine”. In order to maintain communication between the army groups, he ordered the withdrawal of the 4th Tank Army beyond the Bug. The 8th Guards Army under the command of V.I. Chuikov and the 47th Army under the command of N. I. Gusev went to the river and immediately crossed it, entering the territory of Poland. K.K. Rokossovsky dates the crossing of the Bug to July 20, D. Glanz - to the 21st. Be that as it may, the Wehrmacht failed to create a line along the Bug. Moreover, the defense of the German 8th Army Corps collapsed so quickly that the help of the 2nd Tank Army was not needed; the tankers were forced to catch up with the infantrymen. The tank army of S.I. Bogdanov consisted of three corps and posed a serious threat. She quickly moved towards Lublin, that is, strictly to the west. The 11th Tank and 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, with infantry support, turned to Brest, to the north.
At this time, Kobrin was liberated on the right wing of the front. Thus, a local “cauldron” began to form near Brest. On July 25, the encirclement ring around units of the 86th, 137th and 261st Infantry Divisions was closed. Three days later, on July 28, the remnants of the encircled group broke out of the “cauldron.” During the defeat of the Brest group, the Germans suffered serious casualties, which is noted by both belligerents (according to Soviet claims, 7 thousand corpses of German soldiers remained on the battlefield). Extremely few prisoners were taken - only 110 people.
Meanwhile, the 2nd Tank Army was advancing on Lublin. The need for its quick capture was due to political reasons. J.V. Stalin emphasized that the liberation of Lublin “... is urgently required by the political situation and the interests of independent democratic Poland.” The army received the order on July 21, and on the night of the 22nd began to carry it out. Tank units advanced from the battle formations of the 8th Guards Army. The 3rd Panzer Corps struck the junction between two German corps, and after a short battle, penetrated their defenses. In the afternoon the coverage of Lublin began. The Lublin-Puławy highway was blocked, and enemy rear establishments were intercepted on the road and evacuated along with the city administration. Part of the tank army forces did not have contact with the enemy that day due to interruptions in the fuel supply.
The success of the first day of the breakthrough to Lublin led to the Red Army overestimating its capabilities. The next morning, July 23, the city was stormed by tank corps. In the outskirts, the Soviet forces were successful, but the attack towards Loketka Square was parried. The attackers' problem was an acute shortage of motorized infantry. This problem was mitigated: the Home Army uprising broke out in the city. On this day, S.I. Bogdanov, who observed the assault, was wounded. General who replaced him. I. Radzievsky (previously the chief of staff of the army) energetically continued the assault. Early in the morning of July 24, part of the garrison left Lublin, but not everyone managed to retreat successfully. Before noon, units attacking it from different sides united in the center of the city, and by the morning of July 25, Lublin was cleared.
According to Soviet data, 2,228 German soldiers were captured, led by SS Gruppenführer H. Moser. The exact losses of the Red Army during the assault are unknown, but according to a certificate from Colonel I.N. Bazanov (chief of army staff after S.I. Bogdanov was wounded), from July 20 to August 8, the army lost 1,433 people killed and missing. Taking into account the losses in the battle of Radzimin, the irretrievable losses of the army during the attack on Lublin and the assault could reach six hundred people. The capture of the city occurred ahead of schedule: the directive for the assault on Lublin, signed by A. I. Antonov and I. V. Stalin, provided for the occupation of Lublin on July 27. After the capture of Lublin, the 2nd Panzer Army made a deep push north along the Vistula, with the ultimate goal of capturing Prague, the eastern suburb of Warsaw. The Majdanek extermination camp was liberated near Lublin.
On July 27, the 69th Army reached the Vistula near Puława. On the 29th, it captured a bridgehead at Pulawa, south of Warsaw. The crossing went quite calmly. However, not all units enjoyed the same success.
On July 30, the 69th, 8th Guards, 1st Polish and 2nd Tank armies received orders from K.K. Rokossovsky to seize bridgeheads across the Vistula. The front commander, as well as the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, intended in this way to create a base for future operations.
1. The chief of the front engineering troops should pull up the main crossing facilities to the river. Vistula and ensure the crossing of: 60th Army, 1st Polish Army, 8th Guards Army. 2. Army commanders: a) draw up army plans for crossing the river. Vistula, linking them with operational tasks performed by the army and neighbors. These plans clearly reflect the issues of interaction between infantry and artillery and other means of reinforcement, focusing on the reliable provision of landing groups and units with the task of preventing their destruction on the western bank of the river; b) organize strict control over the implementation of the forcing plan, while avoiding drift and disorganization; c) bring to the attention of commanders of all levels that the soldiers and commanders who distinguished themselves during the crossing of the river. Vistula, will be presented with special awards with orders up to and including the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. TsAMO RF. F. 233. Op. 2307. D. 168. L. 105–106 |
On July 31, the Polish 1st Army unsuccessfully attempted to cross the Vistula. Pointing to the reasons for the failure, the head of the political department of the Polish army, Lieutenant Colonel Zambrowski, noted the inexperience of the soldiers, lack of ammunition and organizational failures.
On August 1, the 8th Guards Army began to cross the Vistula at Magnushev. Its bridgehead was supposed to arise between the Pulawy bridgehead of the 69th Army and Warsaw. The original plan envisaged crossing the Vistula on August 3-4, after strengthening the 8th Guards Army with artillery and crossing facilities. However, the commander of the army, V.I. Chuikov, convinced K.K. Rokossovsky to start on August 1, counting on the surprise of the attack.
During August 1 - 4, the army managed to conquer a vast area on the western bank of the river, 15 km along the front and 10 km in depth. The supply of the army in the bridgehead was ensured by several bridges built, including one with a carrying capacity of 60 tons. Taking into account the possibility of enemy attacks on a fairly long perimeter of the bridgehead, K.K. Rokossovsky on August 6 ordered the transfer of an “outsider” of the battles for the bridgehead, the 1st Army of the Polish Army, to Magnushev. Thus, the 1st Belorussian Front provided itself with two large springboards for future operations.
In the literature there is no single name for the battle that took place on the eastern bank of the Vistula in late July and early August. In addition to Radzimin, he is also tied to Warsaw, Okunev and Volomin.
The Lublin-Brest operation cast doubt on the reality of Model's plans to hold the front along the Vistula. The field marshal could fend off the threat with the help of reserves. On July 24, the 9th Army was recreated, and the forces arriving on the Vistula were subordinated to it. True, at first the composition of the army was extremely meager. At the end of July, the 2nd Tank Army began testing its strength. Radzievsky's army had the ultimate goal of capturing a bridgehead across the Narew (a tributary of the Vistula) north of Warsaw, in the Serock region. On the way, the army was supposed to capture Prague, a suburb of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula.
On the evening of July 26, the army's motorcycle vanguard encountered the German 73rd Infantry Division at Garwolin, a town on the eastern bank of the Vistula northeast of Magnuszew. This was the prelude to a complex maneuver battle. The 3rd and 8th Guards Tank Corps of the 2nd Tank Army were targeting Prague. The 16th Panzer Corps remained near Dęblin (between the Magnuszewski and Pulawy bridgeheads), waiting for the infantry to relieve it.
The 73rd Infantry Division was supported in separate parts"Airborne" division "Hermann Goering" (reconnaissance battalion and part of the division's artillery) and other scattered infantry units. All these troops were united under the leadership of the commander of the 73rd Infantry Division, Fritz Franek, into the "Franek" group. On July 27, the 3rd Tank Corps crushed the Hermann Goering reconnaissance battalion, 8th Guards. TK also achieved a breakthrough. Under threat of being overrun, the Franek group rolled back to the north. At this time, tank units began to arrive to help the beaten infantry division - the main forces of the Hermann Goering division, 4 and 19 tanks. divisions, SS divisions “Viking” and “Totenkopf” (in two corps: Dietrich von Saucken’s 39th Panzer Corps and Gille’s 4th SS Panzer Corps). In total, this group consisted of 51 thousand people with 600 tanks and self-propelled guns. The 2nd Tank Army of the Red Army had only 32 thousand soldiers and 425 tanks and self-propelled guns. (the Soviet tank corps roughly matched the size of the German division). In addition, the rapid advance of the 2nd TA led to a lag in the rear: fuel and ammunition were delivered intermittently.
However, until the main forces of the German tank formation arrived, the Wehrmacht infantry had to endure a heavy blow from the 2nd TA. On July 28 and 29, heavy fighting continued; Radzievsky’s corps (including the approaching 16th Panzer) tried to intercept the Warsaw-Siedlce highway, but were unable to penetrate the defenses of Hermann Goering. The attacks on the infantry of the "Franek" group were much more successful: in the Otwock area a weak point in its defense was found, the group began to be covered from the west, as a result of which the 73rd division began to retreat unorganized under attack. General Franek was captured no later than July 30 (Radzievsky’s report on his capture dates back to the 30th). Group "Franek" was broken into separate parts, suffered heavy losses and quickly rolled back to the north.
The 3rd Panzer Corps was aimed deep to the north-west with the aim of covering Prague, through Wołomin. It was a risky maneuver, and in the days that followed it almost led to disaster. The corps broke through the narrow gap between the German forces, in the face of the accumulation of enemy battle groups on the flanks. The 3rd Tank Corps was suddenly subjected to a flank attack at Radzimin. On August 1, Radzievsky orders the army to go on the defensive, but does not withdraw the 3rd Tank Corps from the breakthrough.
On August 1, Wehrmacht units cut off the 3rd Tank Tank, recapturing Radzimin and Volomin. The escape routes of the 3rd Tank Corps were intercepted in two places.
However, the collapse of the surrounded corps did not take place. August 2, 8th Guards. The tank corps, with an attack from the outside, broke through the narrow corridor towards the encircled. It was too early to rejoice at the salvation of those surrounded. Radzimin and Volomin were abandoned, and the 8th Guards. The tank and 3rd tank corps had to defend against enemy tank divisions attacking from several sides. On the night of August 4, at the location of the 8th Guards. So the last large groups of encirclement left. In the 3rd Tank Corps, two brigade commanders died in the cauldron. By August 4, Soviet infantry in the form of the 125th Rifle Corps and cavalry (2nd Guards Cavalry Corps) arrived at the battle site. Two fresh formations were enough to completely stop the enemy on August 4. It should be noted that the forces of the 47th and 2nd Tank Armies carried out a search for the soldiers of the encircled 3rd Tank Tank who remained behind the front line; the result of these activities was the rescue of several hundred encircled people. On the same day, the 19th Panzer Division and Hermann Goering, after unsuccessful attacks on Okunev, were withdrawn from Warsaw and began to be transferred to the Magnuszew bridgehead, with the goal of destroying it. The Germans' ineffective attacks on Okunev continued (with the forces of 4 TD) on August 5, after which the attackers' forces dried up.
German (and more broadly, Western) historiography evaluates the Battle of Radzimin as a serious success for the Wehrmacht by the standards of 1944. It is stated that the 3rd Tank Corps was destroyed or, at least, defeated. However, information about the actual losses of the 2nd Tank Army casts doubt on the validity of the last statement. From July 20 to August 8, the army lost 1,433 people killed, missing, and captured. Of this number, 799 people took part in the counterattack near Volomin. With the actual strength of the corps being 8-10 thousand soldiers, such losses do not allow us to talk about the death or defeat of the 3rd Tank Corps in the cauldron, even if it suffered all of them alone. It must be admitted that the directive to seize the bridgehead beyond the Narev was not implemented. However, the directive was issued at a time when there was no information about the presence of a large German group in the Warsaw area. The presence of a mass of tank divisions in the Warsaw area in itself made it unrealistic for the relatively small 2nd Tank Army to break into Prague, and even more so across the river. On the other hand, the counterattack of a strong group of Germans, despite their numerical superiority, brought modest results. The losses of the German side cannot be precisely clarified, since during the ten-day period of July 21-31, 9, the Wehrmacht army did not provide reports on the losses incurred. Over the next ten days, the army reported a loss of 2,155 dead and missing.
After the counterattack near Radzimin, the 3rd Tank Corps was withdrawn to Minsk-Mazowiecki for rest and replenishment, and the 16th and 8th Guards. tank corps were transferred to the Magnushevsky bridgehead. Their opponents there were the same divisions, “Hermann Goering” and the 19th Panzer, as at Radzimin.
With the approach of the 2nd Tank Army to Prague, the eastern district of Warsaw, the leaders of the underground Home Army decided on a large-scale uprising in the western part of the city. The Polish side proceeded from the doctrine of “two enemies” (Germany and the USSR). Accordingly, the goal of the uprising was twofold: to prevent the destruction of Warsaw by the Germans during the evacuation and at the same time to prohibit the establishment of a regime loyal to the USSR in Poland, as well as to demonstrate the sovereignty of Poland and the ability of the Home Army to act independently without the support of the Red Army. The weak point of the plan was the need to very accurately calculate the moment when the retreating German troops would no longer be able to resist, and the Red Army units would not yet enter the city. On July 31, when units of the 2nd Tank Army were a few kilometers from Warsaw, T. Bor-Komorowski convened a meeting of the commanders of the Home Army. It was decided to implement the “Storm” plan in Warsaw, and on August 1, a few hours after A. I. Radzievsky’s army went on the defensive, the uprising began.
At the end of the Battle of Radzimin, the 2nd Panzer Army was divided. The 3rd Tank Corps was withdrawn from the front line to the front rear for rest, the other two were sent to the Magnushevsky bridgehead. Only the 47th Army remained in the Warsaw area, operating on a wide front. Later it was joined by the 1st Army of the Polish Army. These forces initially did not provide assistance to the uprising. After this, the Polish Army made an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Vistula.
After the initial successes of the uprising, the Wehrmacht and SS began the gradual destruction of parts of the Home Army. The uprising was finally suppressed in early October.
The question of whether the Red Army could have provided assistance to the uprising, and whether Soviet leaders were willing to provide such assistance, is debatable. A number of historians claim that the stop near Warsaw is connected primarily with I.V. Stalin’s desire to give the Germans the opportunity to put an end to the uprising. The Soviet position was that assistance to the uprising was extremely difficult due to stretched communications and, as a result, supply interruptions, and increased enemy resistance. The point of view according to which the offensive near Warsaw stopped due to purely military reasons is shared by some Western historians. Thus, there is no consensus on this issue, but it can be stated that in fact the Home Army fought the Germans one on one in the rebellious Warsaw.
The 8th Guards Army's main forces occupied the defense on the Magnushevsky bridgehead, and two more divisions were concentrated on the eastern bank in the Garwolin area due to K.K. Rokossovsky's fears about possible German counterattacks. However, the attacks of the German 19th Panzer Division and the Hermann Goering division, withdrawn from Radzimin, fell not on the rear of the bridgehead, but on its front, on its southern part. In addition to them, Soviet troops noted attacks by the 17th Infantry Division and the 45th Infantry Division, reformed after the death in the Minsk and Bobruisk “cauldrons”. To combat these forces, V.I. Chuikov had, in addition to infantry, a tank brigade and three regiments of self-propelled artillery. In addition, reinforcements gradually arrived at the bridgehead: on August 6, a Polish tank brigade and a regiment of IS-2 heavy tanks were thrown into battle. On the morning of August 8, it was possible to build bridges across the river, thanks to the anti-aircraft “umbrella” that the newly arrived three anti-aircraft divisions hung. Using the bridges, the 8th Guards Tank Corps, withdrawn from the 2nd Tank Army, crossed over to the bridgehead. This moment became a turning point in the struggle for the Magnushevsky bridgehead; in the following days, enemy activity dropped. The introduction of the “fresh” 25th Panzer Division did not help either. Then the 16th Tank Corps of the 2nd Tank Army arrived. By August 16, the enemy stopped attacks.
This battle was very difficult for the 8th Guards Army. From August 1st to August 26th total losses amounted to more than 35 thousand people. However, the bridgehead was retained.
At the Pulawy bridgehead, on August 2, the 69th Army, with the support of the Polish Army, united two small bridgeheads near Pulawy into a single one, 24 km along the front and 8 km in depth. From August 5 to 14, the Germans tried to destroy the bridgehead, but failed. After this, the army of V. Ya. Kolpakchi finally consolidated the bridgeheads, by August 28 creating a bridgehead fortification of 30 by 10 km.
On August 29, the front went on the defensive, although the right wing of the front still continued private operations. From this date, Operation Bagration is considered completed.
On July 21, 1944, after the Red Army crossed the Curzon Line and entered Polish territory, the provisional government of Poland, also known as the Polish Committee of National Liberation, was created. It was created with the active participation of the USSR and with complete disregard for the emigrant government of Poland in London, and therefore is considered by many historians as a puppet. The Polish Committee of National Liberation included representatives of the Polish Workers' Party, the Polish Socialist Party, the Stronnitstvo Ludowe and Stronnitstvo Demokratychne parties. On July 27, members of the Polish Committee of National Liberation arrived in Lublin (hence another name for this body - “Lublin Committee”). Initially, not recognized as the government of Poland by anyone except the USSR, it actually administered the liberated part of the country. Members of the émigré government were forced either to remain in exile or to join the Lublin Committee.
The success of Operation Bagration significantly exceeded the expectations of the Soviet command. As a result of the two-month offensive, Belarus was completely cleared, part of the Baltic states was recaptured, and the eastern regions of Poland were liberated. In general, on a front of 1100 km, advances to a depth of 600 km were achieved. In addition, the operation jeopardized Army Group North in the Baltic states; The carefully constructed line, the Panther line, was bypassed. Subsequently, this fact greatly facilitated the Baltic operation. Also, as a result of the capture of two large bridgeheads beyond the Vistula south of Warsaw - Magnuszewski and Pulawski (as well as the bridgehead at Sandomierz, captured by the 1st Ukrainian Front during the Lvov-Sandomierz operation), the groundwork was created for the future Vistula-Oder operation. In January 1945, the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front began from the Magnuszewski and Pulawy bridgeheads, stopping only at the Oder.
From a military point of view, the battle in Belarus led to a massive defeat for the German armed forces. A common view is that the Battle of Belarus is the largest defeat of the German armed forces in World War II. Operation Bagration is a triumph of the Soviet theory of military art due to the well-coordinated offensive movement of all fronts and the operation carried out to disinform the enemy about the location of the general offensive that began in the summer of 1944. On the scale of the Soviet-German front, Operation Bagration became the largest in a long series of offensives. It absorbed German reserves, seriously limiting the enemy’s ability to fend off both other offensives on the Eastern Front and the Allied advance in Western Europe. For example, the “Great Germany” division was transferred to Siauliai from the Dniester and, thus, was deprived of the opportunity to participate in repelling the Iasi-Kishinev operation. The Hermann Goering division was forced to abandon its position near Florence in Italy in mid-July, and was thrown into battle on the Vistula; Florence was liberated in mid-August, when Goering units unsuccessfully stormed the Magnuszew bridgehead.
The human losses of the Red Army are quite accurately known. They amounted to 178,507 dead, missing and captured, as well as 587,308 wounded and sick. These are high losses even by the standards of the Second World War, in absolute numbers significantly exceeding the casualties not only in successful, but even in many unsuccessful operations. So, for comparison, the Berlin operation cost the Red Army 81 thousand irretrievable losses, the defeat near Kharkov in early spring 1943 - just over 45 thousand irrevocably. Such losses are associated with the duration and scope of the operation, which was conducted on difficult terrain against a skilled and energetic enemy who occupied well-prepared defensive lines.
The issue of human losses of the Wehrmacht is debatable. The most common data among Western scientists is the following: 26,397 dead, 109,776 wounded, 262,929 missing and captured, and a total of 399,102 people. These figures are taken from ten-day casualty reports provided by the German armies. The extremely small number of killed is due to the fact that many of the dead were counted as missing in action; sometimes the entire division’s personnel were declared missing.
However, these figures have been criticized. In particular, the American historian of the Eastern Front D. Glantz drew attention to the fact that the difference between the numerical strength of Army Group Center before and after the operation was significantly larger. D. Glantz emphasized that the data from ten-day reports is minimum minimorum, that is, they represent a minimum assessment. Russian researcher A.V. Isaev, in a speech on the Echo of Moscow radio, estimated German losses at approximately 500 thousand people. S. Zaloga estimated German losses at 300-350 thousand people up to and including the surrender of the 4th Army.
It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that in all cases the losses of Army Group Center are calculated, without taking into account the victims of Army Groups North and Northern Ukraine.
According to official Soviet data published by the Sovinformburo, the losses of German troops from June 23 to July 23, 1944 were estimated at 381,000 killed, 158,480 prisoners, 2,735 tanks and self-propelled guns, 631 aircraft and 57,152 vehicles. It is likely that these data, as is usually the case with claims for enemy losses, are significantly overestimated. In any case, the issue of human losses of the Wehrmacht in “Bagration” has not yet been settled.
In order to demonstrate to other countries the significance of the success, 57,600 German prisoners of war captured near Minsk were marched through Moscow - for about three hours a column of prisoners of war walked along the streets of Moscow, and after the march the streets were washed and cleared.
The scale of the disaster that befell Army Group Center is clearly demonstrated by the loss of command personnel:
Clearly demonstrates the scale of the disaster |
||||
3rd Panzer Army |
||||
53 Army Corps |
General of Infantry Gollwitzer |
captured |
||
206th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Hitter ( English) |
captured |
||
4th airfield division |
Lieutenant General Pistorius |
|||
6th airfield division |
Lieutenant General Peschel ( English) |
|||
246th Infantry Division |
Major General Müller-Bülow |
captured |
||
6th Army Corps |
General of Artillery Pfeiffer ( English) |
|||
197th Infantry Division |
Major General Hane ( English) |
missing |
||
256th Infantry Division |
Major General Wüstenhagen |
|||
39th Tank Corps |
General of Artillery Martinek |
|||
110th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General von Kurowski ( English) |
captured |
||
337th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Schönemann ( English) |
|||
12th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Bamler |
captured |
||
31st Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Ochsner ( English) |
captured |
||
12th Army Corps |
Lieutenant General Müller |
captured |
||
18th Motorized Division |
Lieutenant General Zutavern |
committed suicide |
||
267th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Drescher ( English) |
|||
57th Infantry Division |
Major General Trowitz ( English) |
captured |
||
27th Army Corps |
General of Infantry Voelkers |
captured |
||
78th assault division |
Lieutenant General Trout ( English) |
captured |
||
260th Infantry Division |
Major General Klamt ( German) |
captured |
||
Army Corps of Engineers |
Major General Schmidt |
captured |
||
35th Army Corps |
Lieutenant General von Lützow ( English) |
captured |
||
134th Infantry Division |
Lieutenant General Philip |
committed suicide |
||
6th Infantry Division |
Major General Heine ( English) |
captured |
||
45th Infantry Division |
Major General Engel |
captured |
||
41st Tank Corps |
Lieutenant General Hoffmeister ( English) |
captured |
||
36th Infantry Division |
Major General Conradi ( English) |
captured |
||
Commandant of Bobruisk |
Major General Haman ( English) |
captured |
||
Reserve units |
||||
95th Infantry Division |
Major General Michaelis |
captured |
||
707th Infantry Division |
Major General Geer ( English) |
captured |
||
motorized division "Feldherrnhalle" |
Major General von Steinkeller |
captured |
||
This list is based on Carell, is incomplete and does not cover losses incurred during the second phase of the operation. So, it lacks Lieutenant General F. Frank, commander of the 73rd Infantry Division, who was captured in late July near Warsaw, commandant of Mogilev, Major General Ermansdorf, and others. However, it demonstrates the scale of the shock experienced by the Wehrmacht and the losses of senior officers of Army Group Center.
On July 29, 1944, during the Belarusian Strategic Offensive Operation, better known as Operation Bagration, the Red Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the German Army Group Center. There was less than a year left before the complete defeat of the Nazis.
The military actions to liberate Ukraine by units of the Red Army in the fall of 1943 - winter of 1944 are quite widely known. To a lesser extent, operations on the territory of modern Belarus are known. And if in Southern Belarus the Red Army was successful (Gomel, Rechitsa and a number of other settlements were liberated), then the battles in the Orsha and Vitebsk directions took place with heavy losses and without significant advance of troops. Here the German defense had to be literally “gnawed through”.
However, by the spring of 1944, a front configuration that was extremely unfavorable for the German troops had developed, when units of Army Group Center found themselves surrounded from the north and south. Despite this, the German command expected that the most powerful Soviet strike would follow in Ukraine, where up to 80 percent of German tanks and a large amount of manpower were concentrated. Subsequent events showed that this was one of the miscalculations of the German command. It cannot be said that the offensive came as a complete surprise to the German troops - it was impossible to hide the concentration of a large number of troops and equipment, but the strength and direction of the attacks were largely unexpected for the enemy.
During Operation Bagration, a special place is occupied by the Vitebsk offensive operation, which was carried out by the flank armies of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts and is interesting as a successful example of interaction between two fronts.
The encirclement and destruction of a strong German group in the Vitebsk region was carried out without the involvement of large tank units - only by combined arms formations.
Despite the fact that the offensive took place in an area unfavorable for large-scale operations, replete with forests and swamps, the operation was carried out successfully and in extremely short time. Apparently, the personal order of Adolf Hitler, who refused the offer to leave an extremely important, but at the same time inconvenient for defense, section of the front, also played a role.
Already on June 23, on the first day of the offensive, significant success was achieved by Soviet troops, and a day later fighting broke out in Vitebsk itself, which was liberated in the early morning of June 26. The second part of the operation was associated with the liquidation of several enemy groups that were surrounded.
By the evening of June 28, enemy resistance was broken. The main role was played by the speed of action and the overwhelming superiority of Soviet troops in aviation, since the enemy had virtually no counteraction in the air. During the occupation and fighting, Vitebsk was practically turned into ruins, and out of 167 thousand inhabitants (according to the 1939 census), only 118 people remained in the city at the time of liberation.
A powerful blow was delivered by units of the Red Army in the Bobruisk direction. Here the German troops, relying on a number of intermediate lines, made an attempt to preserve and withdraw equipment and the most combat-ready units. However, the German troops retreating in dense columns were scattered and destroyed by artillery and tank strikes. The almost complete air supremacy of Soviet aviation played a great role in the battles near Bobruisk.
Bombers and attack aircraft often operated without any fighter cover at all. So, in two hours on June 27, 1944, 159 tons of bombs fell on one of the German columns. Further examination of the area revealed that the enemy had left more than a thousand dead, 150 tanks, about 1,000 guns and more than 6,500 vehicles and tractors in place.
On June 29, Bobruisk was liberated by Soviet troops. Individual German units managed to break out of the ring to Osipovichi, where they were completely scattered.
The third encirclement of a large German group was carried out by Soviet troops in the Minsk region. As in other sectors, the offensive of the Soviet troops developed rapidly. On July 2, Borisov was liberated - the occupation of this city lasted exactly three years and one day (from July 1, 1941 to July 2, 1944).
Units of the Red Army, bypassing Minsk, cut off the roads to Baranovichi and Molodechno. German troops east of Minsk and in the city itself were surrounded. In total, about 105 thousand people were surrounded. Based on the experience of previous campaigns, Soviet troops managed to very quickly create an external front of encirclement and cut the German group into several parts.
On July 3, Minsk was liberated. Nowadays, this date is celebrated as Independence Day of Belarus. Surrounded by German units in small groups of up to two thousand people, they made repeated attempts to break through bypassing Minsk from the north and south.
On the first day, German aviation tried to organize an air bridge, but rapid changes in the situation and the dominance of Soviet fighters in the air forced the German command to abandon this option.
Now the surrounded units were left to their own devices. To combat scattered groups in units of the 2nd Belorussian Front, special mobile detachments began to be formed (three per rifle regiment).
Support for the actions of mobile units was carried out from the air, when aviation corrected the actions of ground units and carried out assault strikes. About 30 partisan detachments provided active support to the regular troops in destroying scattered groups. In total, during the Minsk operation, German troops lost about 72 thousand killed and missing and 35 thousand people. prisoners. The success of operations in the eastern and central parts of Belarus made it possible to begin the liberation of the western regions of the republic, the Baltic states and Poland without pause.
