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Operation Bagration () was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation (), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II, just over two weeks after the start of Operation Overlord in the west. It was during this operation that Nazi Germany was forced to fight simultaneously on two major fronts for the first time since the war began. The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of the divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line.Buchner, Alex. Ostfront 1944: The German Defensive Battles on the Russian Front 1944. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 1995, p. 212. The overall engagement is the largest defeat in German military history, with around 450,000 German casualties,Norman Davies, "Europe at War", Swedish , chapter 1, p. 40 in the Swedish translation (table of killed soldiers in the largest battles and campaigns) while setting the stage for the subsequent isolation of 300,000 German soldiers in the Courland Pocket.
On 22 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, with the objective of encircling and destroying its main component armies. By 28 June, the German 4th Army had been destroyed, along with most of the Third Panzer and Ninth Armies. The Red Army exploited the collapse of the German front line to encircle German formations in the vicinity of Minsk in the Minsk Offensive and destroy them, with Minsk liberated on 4 July. With the end of effective German resistance in Byelorussia, the Soviet offensive continued on to Lithuania, Poland and Romania over the course of July and August.
The Red Army successfully used the strategies of Soviet deep battle and maskirovka (deception) to their full extent for the first time, albeit with continuing heavy losses. Operation Bagration diverted German mobile reserves from the Lublin–Brest and Lvov–Sandomierz areas to the central sectors, enabling the Soviets to undertake the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive and Lublin–Brest Offensive. This allowed the Red Army to reach the Vistula River and Warsaw, which in turn put Soviet forces within striking distance of Berlin, conforming to the concept of Soviet deep operations—striking into the enemy's .
The German High Command expected the next Soviet offensive to fall against Army Group North Ukraine (Field Marshal Walter Model), and it lacked the necessary intelligence capabilities to discover the Soviets' true intentions.
The Wehrmacht had redeployed one-third of Army Group Centre's artillery, half of its , and 88 per cent of tanks to the south. The entire operational reserve on the Eastern front (18 Panzer and mechanised divisions, stripped from Army Groups North and Centre) was deployed to Model's sector, leaving Army Group Centre with a total of only 580 tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns. German lines were thinly held; for example, the 9th Army sector had 143 soldiers per km of the front.
A key factor in the subsequent collapse of Army Group Center during Operation Bagration was the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive in Ukraine. The success of this Soviet offensive had convinced the Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command, OKH) that the southern sector of the Eastern Front would be the staging area for the main Soviet summer offensive of 1944. As a result, German forces stationed in the south, panzer divisions in particular, received priority in reinforcements. Furthermore, during this Soviet offensive in the spring of 1944, aimed at the city of Kovel, Army Group Center was significantly weakened by being forced to transfer nine divisions and numerous independent armored formations from its main front to its far right flank, located deep in the rear at the junction with Army Group South. These forces would then be attached to Army Group North Ukraine, the successor to Army Group South. This meant that Army Group Center was effectively deprived of well over 100,000 personnel and 552 tanks, assault guns and self-propelled guns at the start of Operation Bagration.
Operation Bagration, in combination with the neighbouring Lvov–Sandomierz offensive, launched a few weeks later in Ukraine, allowed the Soviet Union to recapture Byelorussia and Ukraine within its 1941 borders, advance into German East Prussia, but more importantly, the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive allowed the Red Army to reach the outskirts of Warsaw after gaining control of Poland east of the Vistula river. The campaign enabled the next operation, the Vistula–Oder Offensive, to come within sight of the German capital. The Soviets were initially surprised at the success of the Byelorussian operation which had nearly reached Warsaw. The Soviet advance encouraged the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation forces.
The battle has been described as the triumph of the Soviet theory of the "operational art" because of the complete coordination of all the strategic front movements and signals traffic to fool the enemy about the target of the offensive. The military tactical operations of the Red Army successfully avoided the mobile reserves of the Wehrmacht and continually "wrong-footed" the German forces. Despite the massive forces involved, Soviet front commanders left their adversaries completely confused about the main axis of attack until it was too late.
The OKH expected the Soviets to launch a major offensive in the summer of 1944. The Stavka (Soviet High Command) considered a number of options. The timetable of operations between June and August had been decided on by 28 April 1944. The Stavka rejected an offensive in either the L'vov sector or the Yassy-Kishinev sectors owing to the presence of powerful enemy mobile forces equal in strength to the Soviet strategic fronts. Instead they suggested four options: an offensive into Romania and through the Carpathian Mountains, an offensive into the western Ukrainian SSR aimed at the Baltic coast, an attack into the Baltic, and an offensive in the Byelorussian SSR. The first two options were rejected as being too ambitious and open to flank attack. The third option was rejected on the grounds the enemy was too well prepared. The only safe option was an offensive into Byelorussia which would enable subsequent offensives from Ukraine into Poland and Romania.
The Soviet and German High Commands recognised western Ukraine as a staging area for an offensive into Poland. The Soviets, aware that the enemy would anticipate this, sought to deceive the Germans by creating a crisis in Byelorussia that would force the Germans to move their powerful armoured forces, fresh from their victory in the First Jassy–Kishinev Offensive in April–June 1944, to the central front to support Army Group Centre. This was the primary purpose of Bagration.
In order to maximize the chances of success, the maskirovka was a double bluff. The Soviets left four tank armies in the L'vov-Peremyshl area and allowed the Germans to know it. The attack into Romania in April–June further convinced the Soviets that the Axis forces in Romania needed removing and kept the Germans concerned about their defences there and in southern Poland, while drawing German forces to the L'vov sector. Once the offensive against Army Group Centre, which lacked mobile reserves and support, had been initiated, it would create a crisis in the central sector that would force the German armoured forces north to Byelorussia from Poland and Romania, despite the presence of powerful Soviet concentrations threatening German-occupied Poland.
The intent of the Soviets to strike their main blow towards the Vistula can be seen in the Red Army's (albeit fragmented) order of battle. The Soviet general staff studies of both the Byelorussian and L'vov-Sandomierz operations reveal that the L'vov-Przemyśl operation received the overwhelming number of tank and mechanized corps. Six guards tank corps and six tank corps along with three guards mechanized and two mechanized corps were committed to the L'vov operation. This totaled twelve tank and five mechanized corps. In contrast, Operation Bagrations Baltic and Byelorussian Fronts were allocated just eight tank and two mechanized corps. The 1st Byelorussian Front (an important part of the L'vov-Premyshl operation) is not mentioned on the Soviet battle order for the offensive. It contained a further six armies and was to protect the flank of the Lublin–Brest Offensive as well as engage in offensive operations in that area.
The bulk of tactical resources, in particular anti-tank artillery, was allocated to the 1st Ukrainian Front, the spearhead of the Vistula, L'vov-Premyshl operation. Thirty-eight of the 54 anti-tank regiments allocated to the Byelorussian-Baltic-Ukrainian operations were given to the 1st Ukrainian Front. This demonstrates that the Soviet plans for the L'vov operation were a major consideration and whoever planned the offensive was determined to hold the recently captured territory. The target for this operation was the Vistula bridgehead and the enormous anti-tank artillery forces helped repulse big counter-attacks by German armoured formations in August–October 1944. One American author suggests that these Soviet innovations were enabled, in part, by the provision of over 220,000 Dodge and Studebaker trucks by the United States to motorize the Soviet infantry.
The basic directive from Stavka of 31 May for Bagration embodied a relatively new direction in Soviet strategic planning: for the Belorussian operation, immediate Front assignments were limited to a depth of 30-40 miles, and wider objectives were set at a range not exceeding 100 miles (in contrast to previous wildly ambitious, if unrealistic, Stavka operational directives). The original timetable was 15-20 June but Stalin agreed to a four-day postponement, and told Lazar Kaganovich to investigate and to speed up rail movements after complaints from Zhukov and Vasilevsky.
Most of the aviation units, fighter aircraft and assault aviation (strike aircraft) were given to the L'vov operation and the protection of the 1st Ukrainian Front. Of the 78 fighter and assault aviation divisions committed to Bagration, 32 were allocated to the L'vov operation and contained more than was committed to the Byelorussian operation. This concentration of aviation was to protect the Vistula bridgeheads against air attack and to assault German counteroffensives from the air.
On 19 June, Army Group Centre noted in its estimate of the enemy situation that the concentration of enemy air forces had become greater (4,500 out of 11,000) and that this left new doubts regarding OKH's estimate. OKH saw no grounds for this supposition. Shortly before the beginning of the Soviet offensive, the army commands had detected some enemy forces near the front and had identified the places where the main Soviet attacks would take place, with the exception of 6th Guards Army near Vitebsk. The Soviet strategic reserves were not detected.
Besides the pro-German and pro-Soviet forces, some third-party factions were also involved in the fighting during Operation Bagration, most notably several resistance groups of the Polish Home Army. The latter mostly fought both the German as well as the Soviet-led troops. Some Home Army partisan factions regarded the Soviet Union as the greater threat, however, and negotiated ceasefires or even ad-hoc alliances with the German occupation forces. Such deals were condemned by the Home Army's leadership, and several partisan officers who cooperated with the Germans against the Soviets were subsequently court-martialed. However, many times Polish Home Army fought Soviet troops in self-defence. Most often, Polish Home Army supported approaching Soviet forces and attacked German troops according to a plan of Operation Tempest. The plan was to cooperate with the advancing Red Army on a tactical level, while Polish civil authorities came out from underground and took power in Allied-controlled Polish territory. The plan failed, as Soviet troops would attack Polish Home Army groups after cooperation against German troops. Many Polish Home Army soldiers were killed in action, enlisted to the Soviet-controlled Polish People's Army, murdered, imprisoned or deported.
Two special representatives to Stavka were appointed to coordinate the operations of the Fronts involved: Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov.
The 1st Belorussian Front was particularly large and included further units which were only committed during the follow-on Lublin-Brest Offensive.
2nd Army was not involved in the first or second phases of the German defense, being positioned south of the main axis of Soviet operations. |
The first phase of Soviet deep operations, the "deep battle", envisaged breaking through the tactical zones and forward German defences. Once these tactical offensives had been successful, fresh operational reserves were to exploit the breakthrough and the operational depths of the enemy front using powerful mechanized and armoured formations to encircle enemy concentrations on an Army Group scale.
In the north, the 1st Baltic Front pushed the German IX Corps over the Dvina, while encircling the LIII Corps in the city of Vitebsk by 24 June, opening a gash in the frontline of wide. The Soviet command inserted its mobile forces to begin exploitation in operational depth. To the south, the 3rd Belorussian Front attacked the VI Corps, pushing it so far to the south that it came under the command of the 4th Army.
The LIII Corps had received permission to retreat on 24 June with three divisions, while leaving one division behind in the fester Platz Vitebsk. However, by the time the order arrived, the city was already encircled. General Friedrich Gollwitzer, the commander of the Vitebsk "strongpoint", decided to disobey the order and have all units of his corps break out at the same time. Abandoning its heavy equipment, the corps began a breakout attempt in the morning of 26 June but quickly ran into Soviet roadblocks outside the city. Vitebsk was taken by 29 June, with the entire LIII Corps of 28,000 men eliminated from the German order of battle.
The 3rd Belorussian Front simultaneously opened operations against the 4th Army's XXVII Corps holding Orsha and the main Moscow-Minsk highway. Despite a tenacious German defense, Orsha was liberated by 26 June, and the 3rd Belorussian Front's mechanized forces were able to penetrate far into the German rear, reaching the Berezina River by 28 June.
The central sector of Soviet operations was against the long front of 4th Army, under the command of Kurt von Tippelskirch. Soviet plans envisaged the bulk of it, the XXXIX Panzer Corps and XII Corps, being encircled while pinned down by attacks from the 2nd Belorussian Front in the parallel Mogilev Offensive Operation. By far the most important Soviet objective, however, was the main Moscow–Minsk road and the town of Orsha, which the southern wing of Chernyakhovsky's 3rd Belorussian Front was ordered to take. A breakthrough in this area, against General Paul Völckers' XXVII Corps, would form the northern pincer of the encirclement. The Minsk highway was protected by extensive defensive works manned by the 78th Assault Division, a specially reinforced unit with extra artillery and Sturmgeschutz support. Orsha itself had been designated a Feste Plätze under the 78th Division's commander.
The Soviet assault on this sector opened on 22 June with a massive artillery barrage that destroyed defensive positions, flattened bunkers, and detonated ammunition stores. Infantry from the 11th Guards Army, 5th Army and 31st Army then attacked the German positions, breaking through the first defensive belt on the same day. The German deployment of its only reserve division was met the next day with the insertion of the massed Soviet tank brigades, which achieved the operational breakthrough. By 25 June, Soviet forces began to advance into the German rear.
Völckers' position was further threatened by the near-collapse of the 3rd Panzer Army's VI Corps, immediately to the north. By midnight on 25 June, the 11th Guards Army had shattered the remains of VI Corps, and 26 June saw the German forces in retreat. Soviet tank forces of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps were able to push up the road towards Minsk at speed, with a subsidiary force breaking off to encircle Orsha, which was liberated on the evening of 26 June. The main exploitation force, Pavel Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army, was then committed through the gap in the German lines. VI Corps finally crumbled completely; its commander, General Georg Pfeiffer, was killed on 28 June after losing contact with his divisions. Achieving complete success, the operation effectively ceased with the arrival of 5th Guards Tank Army's forward units at the Berezina River on 28 June.
East of Mogilev, General Robert Martinek's XXXIX Panzer Corps attempted to hold its lines in the face of an assault by the 49th Army during which the latter suffered heavy casualties. The 4th Army commander, Tippelskirch, requested that the army be allowed to withdraw on 25 June. When the permission was not forthcoming, he authorised his units to withdraw to the Dnieper; this was countermanded by the Army Group commander, Busch, who instructed Tippelskirch to order the units to return to their positions. This was however impossible as a cohesive frontline no longer existed. With the front collapsing, Busch met with Hitler on 26 June and received the authorisation to pull the army back to the Berezina River, west of Mogilev. The 49th Army forced the Dnieper crossings on the evening of 27 June and fought its way into the city during the night, while mobile units enveloped the garrison from the northwest.
During the day both the German XII Corps and XXXIX Panzer Corps began falling back towards the Berezina crossings. Travel was nearly impossible by day, due to the omnipresence of the Soviet air force, while Soviet tank columns and roadblocks provided constant obstacles. The main body of 4th Army arrived at the crossing on 30 June. It largely completed the crossing by 2 July, under heavy Soviet bombardment, but was retreating into a trap. The Mogilev Offensive fulfilled all its immediate objectives; not only was the city itself taken, but the 4th Army was successfully prevented from disengaging in time to escape encirclement in the Minsk Offensive, which commenced immediately afterwards.
According to Rokossovsky's plan, the 1st Belorussian Front would be divided into two sectors - the Soviet 3rd Army under the command of General Alexander Gorbatov striking from Rogachev and the sector comprising the Soviet 10th, 28th and 65th Armies as well as the Cavalry-Mechanised Group (KMG) under the command of Lieutenant General Issa Pliyev mounting its assault from Parichi. The Rogachev sector would be supervised by Zhukov, while the group of forces in Parichi would be commanded by Rokossovsky himself. A rivalry formed between the two most competent commanders of the Soviet Red Army as the two raced against each other towards Bobruysk.
On 24 June 1944, 7,000 guns, mortars and rocket launchers of the 1st Belorussian Front began firing on the troops of the German 9th Army, while ground-attack aircraft strafed and bombed the German columns as the Red Air Force firmly controlled the skies of the bulge of territory, referred to by both sides as "Belorussian Balcony", held by Army Group Center. Following the colossal bombardment, intended to shatter the forward defences of the 9th Army, troops of the Soviet 3rd Army launched their assault from Rogachev. They were met with obstinate resistance from the Germans in that sector and sustained heavy casualties, advancing little. Meanwhile, the sector under Rokossovsky met much less retaliation, as the lines around Parichi were not heavily guarded by the German troops. The Cavalry-Mechanised Group (KMG) under Pliev, consisting of the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps and the 1st Mechanised Corps, swept hastily across the edge of the Pripyet Marshes, subduing the German 9th Army troops defending fester Platz Slutsk, cutting through the fortress, effectively hindering the bulk of the 9th Army's ability to flee through the south and ultimately sealing the fate of the unit. It was the ability of KMG Pliev to seize Slutsk and swing south against the 9th Army that truly showed the effectiveness of the combination of the anachronistic horse-mounted Soviet cavalrymen and the Soviet armoured formations in the form of the Cavalry-Mechanised Group in striking deep into the operational depth of the opponent, as envisaged by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Deep Battle doctrine.
With the flanks secured by the Cavalry-Mechanised Group and the escape routes of the 9th Army severed, the Soviet 65th Army swung north and soon entered the fortress city of Bobruysk. Heavy fighting ensued, but the 65th Army was able to capture the stronghold by 29 June. The 9th Army was destroyed, unable to escape due to the fact that they had been cut off by the prior Soviet manoeuvres.
Due to the failures of the commander of Army Group Centre, Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch was forced to commit the 20th Panzer Division as a relief force to the 9th Army. Busch was sacked on the 28th by Adolf Hitler and replaced with the experienced master of defensive warfare, Walther Model.
The success of the Bobruysk Offensive was significant enough that Stalin began addressing Rokossovsky as Konstantin Konstantinovich as a sign of respect, a privilege that was only bestowed upon one other military officer, Boris Shaposhnikov. The vital victory at the crucial railway junction of Bobruysk also earned Rokossovsky the title of the Marshal of the Soviet Red Army, bringing the position and reputation of the former Gulag prisoner along those of Zhukov and Ivan Konev.
Over the next few days, the pocket east of Minsk was reduced: only a fraction of the 100,000 soldiers in it escaped. Minsk had been liberated, and Army Group Centre destroyed, in what was possibly the Wehrmacht's greatest defeat of the war. Between 22 June and 4 July 1944, Army Group Centre lost 25 divisions and 300,000 men. In the few subsequent weeks, the Germans lost another 100,000 men.
The 1st Baltic Front successfully pursued the retreating remnants of the 3rd Panzer Army back towards Polotsk, which was reached by 1 July. German forces attempted to organise a defense using rear-area support units and several divisions hurriedly transferred from Army Group North.
Units of the 1st Baltic Front's 4th Shock Army and 6th Guards Army fought their way into the city over the next few days, and successfully cleared it of German forces by 4 July.
Model hoped to reestablish a defensive line running through Lida using what was left of the 3rd Panzer, 4th and 9th Armies along with new reinforcements.
The 43rd, 51st, and 2nd Guards Armies attacked towards Riga on the Baltic coast with 3rd Guards Mechanised Corps attached. By 31 July, the coast on the Gulf of Riga had been reached. 6th Guards Army covered Riga and the extended flank of the penetration towards the north.
A hurriedly organised German counter-attack restored the severed connection between the remnants of Army Group Centre and Army Group North. In August, the Germans attempted to retake Šiauliai in Operation Doppelkopf and Operation Cäsar, but they failed.
Units of the 4th Army, principally the 5th Panzer Division, attempted to hold the key rail junction of Molodechno, but failed. It was taken by units of the 11th Guards Army, 5th Guards Tank Army and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps on 5 July. German forces continued a precipitate retreat, and Soviet forces reached Vilnius, held by units of the 3rd Panzer Army, by 7 July.
By 8 July, the city had been encircled, trapping the garrison, who were ordered to hold fast at all costs. Soviet forces then fought their way into the city in intense street-by-street fighting (alongside an Armia Krajowa uprising, Operation Ostra Brama). On 12 July, 6th Panzer Division counter-attacked and temporarily opened an escape corridor for the besieged troops, but the majority of them were lost when the city fell on 13 July (this phase of the operation is commonly known as the Battle of Vilnius). On 23 July, the 4th Army commander, Hoßbach, in agreement with Model, committed the newly arrived 19th Panzer Division into a counter-attack with the intention of cutting off the Soviet spearheads in the Augustow Forest. This failed.
German forces were able to stabilise their line of defense along the Narew, which they held until the East Prussian offensive of January 1945.
The German army never recovered from the materiel and manpower losses sustained during this time, having lost about a quarter of its Eastern Front manpower, exceeding even the percentage of loss at Stalingrad (about 17 full divisions). These losses included many experienced soldiers, Unteroffizier and commissioned officers, which at this stage of the war the Wehrmacht could not replace. According to German sources, Army Group Center suffered 27 divisions badly mauled; with 19 disbanded and 7 amalgamated to form just two divisions; losses were "far worse" than at Stalingrad, Tunis or Falaise.
An indication of the completeness of the Soviet victory is that 31 of the 47 German divisional or corps commanders involved were killed or captured. Of the German generals lost, nine were killed, including two corps commanders; 22 captured, including four corps commanders; Major-General Hans Hahne, commander of 197th Infantry Division disappeared on 24 June, while Lieutenant-Generals Zutavern and Philipp of the 18th Panzergrenadier and 134th Infantry Divisions died by suicide.
The near-total destruction of Army Group Centre was very costly for the Germans. Exact German losses are unknown but newer research indicates around 400,000–540,000 killed, missing or wounded. Soviet losses were also substantial, with 180,040 killed and missing, 590,848 wounded and sick, together with 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces and 822 aircraft also lost. The offensive cut off Army Group North and Army Group North Ukraine from each other and weakened them as resources were diverted to the central sector. This forced both Army Groups to withdraw from Soviet territory much more quickly when faced with the following Soviet offensives in their sectors.
The end of Operation Bagration coincided with the destruction of many of the strongest units of the Wehrmacht engaged against the Allies on the Western Front in the Falaise Pocket in Normandy, during Operation Overlord. After these victories, supply problems rather than German resistance slowed the Allies' advance. The Germans transferred armoured units from the Italian front, where they could afford to give ground, to resist the Soviet advance near Warsaw.
This was one of the largest Soviet operations of WWII with 2.3 million troops engaged, three Axis armies eliminated and vast amounts of Soviet territory recaptured. In Soviet propaganda, this offensive was listed as one of Stalin's ten blows.
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