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 Soviet units was so difficult that they even had to partially retreat. Troops along the entire front went on the defensive.
Subsequent events
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.
Guerrilla zones, the first measures to renovate the national economy.
While the troops of the Wehrmacht and the USSR fought for Moscow and Stalingrad, other wars were 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.
A partisan zone is a partially liberated territory in which partisans conducted active military operations.
Here are the most important conditions for the formation and expansion of partisan regions and zones:
1. Active fighting by 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.
For three years, Belarus was under the yoke of the enemy. The occupiers plundered the territory of the republic: cities were ravaged, more than a million buildings in rural areas were burned, and 7 thousand schools were turned into ruins. The Nazis killed more than two million prisoners of war and civilians. In fact, there was no family in the Byelorussian SSR that did not suffer from the Nazis. White Rus' was one of the most affected territories of the Union. But people did not lose heart and resisted. Knowing that in the East the Red Army repelled the enemy’s onslaught on Moscow, Stalingrad and the Caucasus, defeated the Nazis on the Kursk Bulge, and liberated the regions of Ukraine, the Belarusian partisans were preparing for decisive action. By the summer of 1944, approximately 140 thousand partisans were operating on the territory of Belarus. The general leadership of the partisans was carried out by the underground organizations of the Communist Party of the BSSR, headed by Panteleimon Kondratyevich Ponomarenko, who was also the head of the Central Headquarters of the USSR partisan movement. It should be noted that his contemporaries noted his amazing honesty, responsibility and deep analytical abilities. Stalin valued Ponomarenko very highly; some researchers believe that the leader wanted to make him his successor.
A few days before the start of the operation to liberate Belarus, partisan detachments inflicted a number of sensitive blows on the Germans. The partisans destroyed their transport infrastructure, communication lines, and actually paralyzed the enemy’s rear at the most crucial moment. During the operation, the partisans attacked individual enemy units and attacked German rear structures.
Preparing the operation
The operational plan for the Belarusian operation began to be developed back in April. The general plan of the General Staff was to crush the flanks of the German Army Group Center, encircle its main forces east of the capital of the BSSR and completely liberate Belarus. This was a very ambitious and large-scale plan; the instant destruction of an entire group of enemy armies was planned very rarely during the Second World War. This was one of the largest operations in the entire military history of mankind.
By the summer of 1944, the Red Army had achieved impressive successes in Ukraine - the Wehrmacht suffered heavy losses, Soviet forces carried out a number of successful offensive operations, liberating most of the territory of the republic. But in the Belarusian direction, things were worse: the front line approached the Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Zhlobin line, forming a huge ledge that was facing deep into the USSR, the so-called. "Belarusian balcony".
In July 1944, German industry reached the highest point of its development in this war - in the first half of the year, Reich factories produced more than 16 thousand aircraft, 8.3 thousand tanks, and assault guns. Berlin carried out several mobilizations, and the strength of its armed forces was 324 divisions and 5 brigades. Army Group Center, which defended Belarus, consisted of 850-900 thousand people, up to 10 thousand guns and mortars, 900 tanks and self-propelled guns, 1350 aircraft. In addition, at the second stage of the battle, Army Group Center was supported by formations of the right flank of Army Group North and the left flank of Army Group Northern Ukraine, as well as reserves from the Western Front and various sections of the Eastern Front. Army Group Center included 4 armies: the 2nd Field Army, which held the area of Pinsk and Pripyat (commander Walter Weiss); 9th Field Army, it defended the area on both sides of the Berezina southeast of Bobruisk (Hans Jordan, after June 27 - Nikolaus von Forman); The 4th Field Army (Kurt von Tippelskirch, after June 30 the army was commanded by Vinzenz Müller) and the 3rd Tank Army (Georg Reinhardt), which occupied the area between the Berezina and Dnieper rivers, as well as a bridgehead from Bykhov to the area northeast of Orsha. In addition, formations of the 3rd Tank Army occupied the Vitebsk area. The commander of Army Group Center was Field Marshal Ernst Busch (Bush was replaced by Walter Model on June 28). His chief of staff was Hans Krebs.
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 headquarters of the Reich ground forces had a completely wrong idea regarding Moscow’s plans for the summer campaign of 1944. Adolf Hitler and the Wehrmacht High Command believed that a major Soviet offensive should still be expected in Ukraine, north or south of the Carpathians (most likely to the north). It was believed that from the area south of Kovel, Soviet troops would strike towards the Baltic Sea, trying to cut off army groups “Center” and “North” from Germany. Large forces were allocated to counter the possible threat. Thus, in the Army Group “Northern Ukraine” there were seven tank, two tank-grenadier divisions, as well as four battalions of heavy Tiger tanks. And Army Group Center had one tank, two tank-grenadier divisions and one battalion of heavy tanks. In addition, they feared a strike on Romania - on the oil fields of Ploesti. In April, the command of Army Group Center presented to the top leadership a proposal to reduce the front line and withdraw troops to better positions beyond the Berezina. But this plan was rejected, Army Group Center was ordered to defend in its previous positions. Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Bobruisk were declared “fortresses” and fortified with the expectation of all-round defense and a possible fight in encirclement. Forced labor of local residents was widely used for engineering work. Aviation, radio intelligence and German agents were unable to uncover the preparations by the Soviet command for a major operation in Belarus. Army Groups Center and North were predicted to have a “calm summer”; the situation inspired so little fear that Field Marshal Bush went on vacation three days before the start of the Red Army operation. But it should be noted that the front in Belarus stood still for a long time, and the Nazis managed to create a developed defense system. It included “fortress” cities, numerous field fortifications, bunkers, dugouts, and interchangeable positions for artillery and machine guns. The Germans assigned a large role to natural obstacles - wooded and swampy areas, many rivers and rivers.
Red Army. Stalin made the final decision to conduct the summer campaign, including the Belarusian operation, at the end of April. Deputy Chief of the General Staff A.I. Antonov was instructed to organize work on planning operations at the General Staff. The plan for the liberation of Belarus received the code name - Operation Bagration. On May 20, 1944, the General Staff completed the development of the plan for the offensive operation. A. M. Vasilevsky, A. I. Antonov and G. K. Zhukov were summoned to Headquarters. On May 22, front commanders I. Kh. Bagramyan, I. D. Chernyakhovsky, K. K. Rokossovsky were received at Headquarters to listen to their thoughts on the operation. The coordination of the front troops was entrusted to Vasilevsky and Zhukov; they left for the troops in early June.
The bet involved delivering three powerful blows. The 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts advanced in the general direction of Vilnius. The troops of two fronts were supposed to defeat the enemy’s Vitebsk group, develop an offensive to the west and cover the left flank group of the Borisov-Minsk group of German forces. The 1st Belorussian Front was supposed to defeat the Bobruisk group of Germans. Then develop an offensive in the direction of Slutsk-Baranovichi and cover the Minsk group of German troops from the south and southwest. The 2nd Belorussian Front, in cooperation with the left-flank group of the 3rd Belorussian and the right flank of the 1st Belorussian Front, was supposed to move in the general direction of Minsk.
On the Soviet side, about 1 million 200 thousand people took part in the operation on four fronts: 1st Baltic Front (Army General Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan); 3rd Belorussian Front (Colonel General Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky); 2nd Belorussian Front (Colonel General Georgy Fedorovich Zakharov); 1st Belorussian Front (Army General Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky). The coordinator of the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts was Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, and the coordinator of the actions of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic Fronts was the Chief of the General Staff Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky. The Dnieper military flotilla also took part in the operation.
Preparation for the Belarusian operation (from left to right) Varennikov I.S., Zhukov G.K., Kazakov V.I., Rokossovsky K.K. 1st Belorussian Front. 1944
Operation Bagration was supposed to solve several important problems:
Completely clear the Moscow direction of German troops, since the front edge of the “Belarusian ledge” was located 80 kilometers from Smolensk. The configuration of the front line in the BSSR was a huge arc extended to the east with an area of almost 250 thousand square kilometers. The arc stretched from Vitebsk in the north and Pinsk in the south to the Smolensk and Gomel regions, hanging over the right wing of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The German High Command attached great importance to this territory - it protected the distant approaches to Poland and East Prussia. In addition, Hitler still cherished plans for a victorious war if a “miracle” was created or major geopolitical changes occurred. From a bridgehead in Belarus it was possible to strike Moscow again.
Complete the liberation of all Belarusian territory, parts of Lithuania and Poland.
Reach the Baltic coast and the borders of East Prussia, which made it possible to cut the German front at the junctions of army groups “Center” and “North” and isolate these German groups from each other.
Create favorable operational and tactical prerequisites for subsequent offensive operations in the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, in the Warsaw and East Prussian directions.
Operation milestones
The operation was carried out in two stages. At the first stage (June 23–July 4, 1944), the following frontal offensive operations were carried out: Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk and Minsk. At the second stage of Operation Bagration (July 5–August 29, 1944), the following front-line offensive operations were carried out: Vilnius, Siauliai, Bialystok, Lublin-Brest, Kaunas and Osovets.
First stage of the operation
The offensive began on the morning of June 23, 1944. Near Vitebsk, the Red Army successfully broke through the German defenses and already on June 25 surrounded five enemy divisions to the west of the city. The liquidation of the Vitebsk “cauldron” was completed by the morning of June 27, and Orsha was liberated on the same day. With the destruction of the Vitebsk group of Germans, a key position on the left flank of the defense of Army Group Center was captured. The northern flank of Army Group Center was virtually destroyed, more than 40 thousand Germans died and 17 thousand people were captured. In the Orsha direction, after breaking through the German defense, the Soviet command brought the 5th Guards Tank Army into battle. Having successfully crossed the Berezina, Rotmistrov's tankers cleared Borisov of the Nazis. The entry of troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front into the Borisov area led to significant operational success: the 3rd Tank Army of Army Group Center was cut off from the 4th Field Army. The formations of the 2nd Belorussian Front advancing in the Mogilev direction penetrated the powerful and deeply echeloned German defenses that the enemy had prepared along the Pronya, Basya and Dnieper rivers. On June 28 they liberated Mogilev. The retreat of the 4th German Army lost its organization, the enemy lost up to 33 thousand killed and captured.
The Bobruisk offensive operation was supposed to create the southern “claw” of the huge encirclement planned by the Soviet Headquarters. This operation was carried out entirely by the most powerful of the fronts - the 1st Belorussian under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky. The 9th Army of the Wehrmacht resisted the advance of the Red Army. We had to advance through very difficult terrain - swamps. The blow was struck on June 24: from the southeast to the northwest, gradually turning to the north, Batov’s 65th Army (reinforced by the 1st Don Tank Corps) was moving, Gorbatov’s 3rd Army with the 9th Tank Corps was advancing from east to west body. For a quick breakthrough in the Slutsk direction, the 28th Army of Luchinsky and the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps of Pliev were used. The armies of Batov and Luchinsky quickly broke through the defenses of the stunned enemy (the Russians made their way through what was considered an impenetrable swamp). But Gorbatov’s 3rd Army had to literally bite into the Germans’ orders. The commander of the 9th Army, Hans Jordan, threw his main reserve - the 20th Panzer Division - against it. But he soon had to redirect his reserve to the southern flank of the defense. The 20th Panzer Division was unable to plug the breakthrough. On June 27, the main forces of the 9th Field Army fell into the “cauldron”. General Jordan was replaced by von Forman, but this could not save the situation. Attempts to relieve the blockade from outside and inside failed. Panic reigned in the surrounded Bobruisk, and on the 27th the assault began. By the morning of June 29, Bobruisk was completely liberated. The Germans lost 74 thousand people killed and captured. As a result of the defeat of the 9th Army, both flanks of Army Group Center were open, and the road to Minsk was clear from the northeast and southeast.
On June 29, the 1st Baltic Front attacked Polotsk. Chistyakov's 6th Guards Army and Beloborodov's 43rd Army bypassed the city from the south (the 6th Army Guards also bypassed Polotsk from the west), Malyshev's 4th Shock Army - from the north. Butkov's 1st Tank Corps liberated the town of Ushachi south of Polotsk and advanced far to the west. Then the tankers, with a surprise attack, captured a bridgehead on the western bank of the Dvina. But it didn’t work out to encircle the Germans - the commander of the city’s garrison, Karl Hilpert, voluntarily left the “fortress” without waiting for the escape routes to be cut off by Russian troops. Polotsk was occupied on July 4th. As a result of the Polotsk operation, the German command lost a strong stronghold and railway junction. In addition, the flank threat to the 1st Baltic Front was eliminated; the positions of the German Army Group North were bypassed from the south and were under the threat of a flank attack.
The German command, trying to rectify the situation, replaced the commander of Army Group Center, Bush, with Field Marshal Walter Model. He was considered a master of defensive operations. Reserve units were sent to Belarus, including the 4th, 5th and 12th tank divisions.
The 4th German Army, facing the threat of imminent encirclement, retreated across the Berezina River. The situation was extremely difficult: the flanks were open, the retreating columns were subjected to constant attacks by Soviet aircraft and attacks by partisans. The pressure from the 2nd Belorussian Front, which was located directly in front of the front of the 4th Army, was not strong, since the plans of the Soviet command did not include the expulsion of German troops from the future “cauldron”.
The 3rd Belorussian Front advanced in two main directions: to the southwest (towards Minsk) and west (to Vileika). The 1st Belorussian Front attacked Slutsk, Nesvizh and Minsk. German resistance was weak, the main forces were defeated. On June 30, Slutsk was captured, and on July 2, Nesvizh, and the Germans’ escape route to the southwest was cut off. By July 2, tank units of the 1st Belorussian Front approached Minsk. The advancing units of the 3rd Belorussian Front had to endure a fierce battle with the 5th German Tank Division (reinforced by a battalion of heavy tanks), which arrived in the Borisov area on June 26-28. This division was full-blooded and did not participate in hostilities for several months. During several bloody battles, the last one taking place on July 1-2 north-west of Minsk, the tank division lost almost all its tanks and was driven back. On July 3, Burdeyny's 2nd Tank Corps broke into Minsk from the northwestern direction. At the same time, Rokossovsky’s advanced units approached the city from the southern direction. The German garrison was small and did not last long; Minsk was liberated by lunchtime. As a result, units of the 4th Army and units of other armies that joined it found themselves surrounded. The Red Army actually took revenge for the “cauldrons” of 1941. The encircled were unable to organize long-term resistance - the encircled area was shot through and through by artillery fire, it was constantly bombed, ammunition was running out, and there was no outside help. The Germans fought until July 8-9, made several desperate attempts to break through, but were defeated everywhere. July 8 and. O. The army commander, the commander of the XII Army Corps, Vinzenz Müller, signed the surrender. Even before July 12, a “cleansing” was underway; the Germans lost 72 thousand killed and more than 35 thousand were captured.
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.
Photo of destroyed German equipment from the area of the bridge over the Berezina.
Second stage of the operation
The Germans tried to stabilize the situation. The head of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, Kurt Zeitzler, proposed transferring Army Group North to the south in order to build a new front with the help of its troops. But this plan was rejected by Hitler for political reasons (relations with the Finns). In addition, the naval command opposed it - leaving the Baltic states worsened communications with Finland and Sweden and led to the loss of a number of naval bases and strongholds in the Baltic. As a result, Zeitzler resigned and was replaced by Heinz Guderian. Model, for his part, tried to erect a new defensive line, which ran from Vilnius through Lida and Baranovichi, in order to close a hole in the front approximately 400 km wide. But for this he had only one whole army - the 2nd and the remnants of other armies. Therefore, the German command had to transfer significant forces to Belarus from other sectors of the Soviet-German front and from the West. Until July 16, 46 divisions were sent to Belarus, but these troops were not brought into battle immediately, in parts, often “on wheels,” and therefore they could not quickly turn the tide.
From July 5 to July 20, 1944, the forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front under the command of Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky carried out the Vilnius operation. The Germans did not have a continuous defense front in the Vilnius direction. On July 7, units of Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army and Obukhov's 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps reached the city and began to envelop it. The attempt to take the city on the move failed. On the night of July 8, new German forces were brought to Vilnius. On July 8-9, the city was completely surrounded and the assault began. Attempts by the Germans to unblock the city from the western direction were repulsed. The last pockets of resistance were suppressed in Vilnius on July 13. Up to 8 thousand Germans were destroyed, 5 thousand people were captured. On July 15, front units occupied several bridgeheads on the western bank of the Neman. Until the 20th there were battles for the bridgeheads.
On July 28, the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front launched a new offensive - they were aimed at Kaunas and Suwalki. On July 30, the German defense along the Neman was broken through, and on August 1, the Germans left Kaunas to avoid being surrounded. Then the Germans received reinforcements and launched a counter-offensive - the fighting continued with varying success until the end of August. The front did not reach the East Prussian border several kilometers.
Bagramyan's 1st Baltic Front received the task of reaching the sea to cut off the North group. In the Dvina direction, the Germans were initially able to hold back the offensive, because the front was regrouping its forces and waiting for reserves. Dvinsk was cleared in cooperation with the troops of the 2nd Baltic Front advancing to the right only on July 27. On the same day, Siauliai was taken. By July 30, the front managed to separate two groups of enemy armies from each other - the advanced units of the Red Army cut the last railway between East Prussia and the Baltic states in the Tukums area. On July 31, Jelgava was captured. The 1st Baltic Front reached the sea. The Germans began to try to restore connection with Army Group North. The fighting went on with varying degrees of success, and at the end of August there was a break in the fighting.
The 2nd Belorussian Front advanced to the west - to Novogrudok, and then Grodno and Bialystok. Grishin's 49th Army and Boldin's 50th Army took part in the destruction of the Minsk "cauldron", so on July 5, only one army went on the offensive - the 33rd Army. The 33rd Army advanced without encountering much resistance, covering 120-125 km in five days. On July 8, Novogrudok was liberated, and on the 9th the army reached the Neman River. On July 10, the 50th Army joined the offensive and troops crossed the Neman. On July 16, Grodno was liberated, the Germans were already putting up fierce resistance, and a series of counterattacks were repulsed. The German command tried to stop the Soviet troops, but they did not have enough strength to do this. On July 27, Bialystok was recaptured. Soviet soldiers reached the pre-war border of the Soviet Union. The front was unable to carry out significant encirclements, since it did not have large mobile formations (tank, mechanized, cavalry corps). On August 14, Osovets and the bridgehead beyond the Narev were occupied.
The 1st Belorussian Front advanced in the direction of Baranovichi-Brest. Almost immediately, the advancing units encountered German reserves: the 4th Tank Division, the 1st Hungarian Cavalry Division, the 28th Light Infantry Division and other formations went. On July 5-6 there was a fierce battle. Gradually, the German forces were crushed, they were inferior in number. In addition, the Soviet front was supported by powerful air force formations, which dealt strong blows to the Germans. On July 6, Kovel was liberated. On July 8, after a fierce battle, Baranovichi was taken. On July 14 they took Pinsk, on the 20th Kobrin. On July 20, Rokossovsky's units crossed the Bug on the move. The Germans did not have time to create a line of defense along it. On July 25, a “cauldron” was created near Brest, but on the 28th, the remnants of the encircled German group broke out of it (the Germans lost 7 thousand people killed). It should be noted that the battles were fierce, there were few prisoners, but a lot of killed Germans.
On July 22, units of the 2nd Tank Army (which was attached to the front during the second phase of the operation) reached Lublin. On July 23, the assault on the city began, but due to the lack of infantry it was delayed, and the city was finally taken by the morning of the 25th. At the end of July - beginning of August, Rokossovsky's front captured two large bridgeheads across the Vistula.
Results of the operation
As a result of the two-month offensive of the Red Army, White Rus' was completely cleared of the Nazis, part of the Baltic states and the eastern regions of Poland were liberated. In general, on a front of 1,100 kilometers, troops advanced to a depth of 600 km.
This was a major defeat for the Wehrmacht. There is even an opinion that this was the largest defeat of the German armed forces in World War II. Army Group Center was defeated, Army Group North was threatened with defeat. The powerful line of defense in Belarus, protected by natural barriers (swamps, rivers), has been broken. The German reserves were depleted and had to be thrown into battle to close the “hole.”
An excellent foundation has been created for a future offensive into Poland and further into Germany. Thus, the 1st Belorussian Front captured two large bridgeheads across the Vistula south of the capital of Poland (Magnuszewski and Pulawski). In addition, during the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, the 1st Ukrainian Front occupied a bridgehead near Sandomierz.
Operation Bagration was a triumph of Soviet military art. The Red Army “responsible” for the “boilers” of 1941.
The Soviet army lost up to 178.5 thousand dead, missing and captured, as well as 587.3 thousand wounded and sick. The total German losses were about 400 thousand people (according to other sources, more than 500 thousand).
When German troops launched an invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, The main and most powerful blow was delivered by Army Group Center. The Berlin-Minsk-Smolensk line was the shortest route to Moscow, and it was in this direction that the Wehrmacht concentrated the largest and most well-armed group of troops. The complete collapse of the Soviet Western Front in the first weeks of the War made it possible to capture Minsk by June 28, and by the second half of July 1941, the entire Soviet Belarus. A long period of occupation began.
After the defeat of the German troops on the Kursk Bulge, the main focus of military operations on the Soviet-German front shifted southward to the territory of Ukraine and the Black Sea region. It was there that the main military battles of late 1943 - early 1944 took place. By the spring of 1944, the entire left-bank and most of the right-bank Ukraine had been liberated. In January 1944, a powerful blow was struck by the Red Army in the northwestern direction, known as "1st Stalinist blow", as a result of which Leningrad was released.
But in the central sector of the front the situation was not so favorable. German troops still firmly held the so-called “Panther” line: Vitebsk-Orsha-Mogilev-Zhlobin. Thus, a huge protrusion with an area of about 250 thousand square kilometers was formed on the Soviet-German front, aimed at the central regions of the USSR. This section of the front received the name “Belarusian ledge” or “Belarusian balcony”.
Despite the fact that most of the German generals suggested that Hitler withdraw his troops from the ledge and level the front line, the Reich Chancellor was adamant. Encouraged by reports from scientists about the imminent appearance of “superweapons,” he still hoped to turn the tide of the War and did not want to part with such a convenient springboard. In April 1944, the command of Army Group Center presented the top leadership of the Wehrmacht with another plan to reduce the front line and withdraw troops to more convenient positions beyond the Berezina, but it was also rejected. Instead, a plan was adopted to further strengthen their positions. The cities of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Zhlobin were turned into fortresses, capable of conducting defensive battles when completely surrounded. At the same time, additional defensive lines were built on the Panther line, fortified with pillboxes and bunkers. The natural features of the terrain gave even greater stability to the German defense. Vast marshy swamps, deep ravines mixed with dense forests, many rivers and rivulets made the area of the Belarusian bulge difficult to pass for heavy equipment and at the same time extremely convenient for defense. In addition, the German headquarters believed that the Red Army troops would try to build on the spring success achieved in southern Ukraine and strike either at the oil fields of Romania or from south to north, trying to cut off army groups “Center” and “North”. It was on these areas that the main attention of the Wehrmacht's top military leadership was focused. Thus, the German command made erroneous assumptions about the direction of advance of the Soviet troops during summer-autumn campaign of 1944. But The headquarters of the Supreme High Command had completely different plans for the summer and autumn of 1944.
At the beginning of April 1944 The General Staff began planning the offensive operation for the liberation of Belarus and Karelia, and the general plan of military operations for this period was quite accurately voiced in a letter from J.V. Stalin written to Churchill: | “The summer offensive of the Soviet troops, organized in accordance with the agreement at the Tehran Conference, will begin by mid-June on one of the important sectors of the front. The general offensive of the Soviet troops will unfold in stages by sequentially introducing armies into offensive operations. At the end of June and throughout July, offensive operations will turn into a general offensive of Soviet troops" |
Thus, the plan for the summer campaign was to launch sequential offensive operations from north to south, that is, exactly where the enemy expected a “quiet summer.” It is also worth noting that in the summer campaign, our troops not only set the task of further liberating the Motherland from the German invaders, but also, through their active actions, were supposed to help the Allied forces in landing troops in northern France.
The key role in the entire campaign was to be played by Belarusian offensive operation, called “Bagration”.
The general plan of the Belarusian operation consisted of the following: with converging blows, eliminate the flank groupings of German troops defending the Panther line, while simultaneously delivering several cutting attacks on the central part of the defensive line.
For the campaign to eliminate Army Group Center, it was decided to involve 4 fronts: 1st Belorussian (commander - Army General K.K. Rokossovsky), 2nd Belorussian (commander - Colonel General G.F. Zakharov), 3rd 1st Belorussian (commander - Colonel General I.D. Chernyakhovsky) and 1st Baltic (commander - Army General I.Kh. Bagramyan).
Preparation for surgery deserves special attention. It was thanks to a well-thought-out and competently executed preparatory phase that the Red Army was able to carry out one of the most successful and large-scale offensive operations.
The primary task for front commanders was to ensure the secrecy of preparations for a future offensive.
To this end, in the areas of the future offensive, the construction of defensive structures, the construction of fortified areas, and the preparation of cities for all-round defense began. Front-line, army and division newspapers published materials only on defensive topics, which created the illusion of a weakening of this strategic direction in terms of offensive. At stops, the trains were immediately cordoned off by strong patrols and people were released from the carriages only in teams. No information other than numbers was provided to railway workers about these trains.
At the same time, the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front was given the following order: |
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The command of the 3rd Baltic Front received a similar order.
For German intelligence, the picture that the military leadership of the Wehrmacht wanted to see emerged. Namely: the Red Army in the area of the “Belarusian Balcony” is not going to take active offensive actions and is preparing an offensive on the flanks of the Soviet-German front, where the greatest results were achieved during the spring military campaign.
For even greater privacy Only a few people knew the full plan of the operation, and all instructions and orders were delivered only in written or oral form, without the use of telephone or radio communications.
At the same time, the build-up of strike groups on all four fronts took place only at night and in small groups.
For additional disinformation, tank armies were left in the southwestern direction. Enemy intelligence vigilantly monitored everything that happened in the Soviet troops. This fact additionally convinced the Nazi command that the offensive was being prepared here.
Measures taken against disinformation German leadership were so successful that The commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Ernst Busch, went on vacation 3 days before the start of the operation.
Another important stage in preparing the future offensive was training troops to operate in difficult, swampy terrain. Red Army soldiers learned to swim across rivers and lakes, navigate in forested areas, and swamp skis, or, as they were also called, “wet shoes,” were supplied to the front en masse. Special rafts and drags were built for artillery. Each tank was equipped with fascines (bundles of twigs, brushwood, reeds to strengthen slopes, embankments, roads through the swamp), logs or special triangles for passage through wide ditches.
Simultaneously engineering and sapper troops prepared the area for a future offensive: bridges were repaired or built, crossings were equipped, passages were made in minefields. To ensure uninterrupted support for the armies throughout the entire phase of the operation, new roads and railways were built to the front line.
Throughout the preparatory period active reconnaissance activities were carried out both front-line reconnaissance forces and partisan detachments. The number of the latter on the territory of Belarus was about 150 thousand people, about 200 partisan brigades and individual partisan groups were formed.
During intelligence activities the main schemes of German fortifications were identified, and also obtained important documents, such as maps of minefields and diagrams of fortified areas.
By mid-June, without exaggeration, the titanic work of preparation for Operation Bagration was generally completed. The Red Army units participating in the operation secretly concentrated on the initial lines. So, in two days on June 18-19, the 6th Guards Army under the command of Lieutenant General I.M. Chistyakov made a 110-kilometer march and stood several kilometers from the front line. June 20, 1944 Soviet troops prepared for the upcoming operation. Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky was entrusted with coordinating the actions of two fronts - the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian, and the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Marshal G.K. Zhukov. That night, over 10 thousand explosions of enemy communications were carried out, which seriously prevented the Germans from timely transferring reserves to dangerous breakthrough areas.
By this time, the assault units of the Red Army had moved to their initial positions for the offensive. Only after the partisan strike did Hitler's military leadership realize where the main offensive of the Soviet troops would begin in the summer of 1944.
On June 22, 1944, on almost a 500-kilometer section of the front, reconnaissance and assault battalions of the breakthrough armies, with the support of tanks, began reconnaissance in force. The commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Ernst Busch, began the hasty transfer of German troops to the front line of defense of the Panther line.
On June 23, 1944, the first phase of the Belarusian operation began, consisting of a series of front-line operations.
On the central sector of the front, as part of the Mogilev offensive operation, troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front under the command of General G.F. Zakharov launched an offensive. The front troops were tasked with using the left flank to cut off and pin down the enemy in the Mogilev area, liberate the city and create a bridgehead for the further development of the offensive. The right flank of the front was supposed to provide assistance to the 3rd Belorussian Front, encircle and eliminate the Orsha enemy group.
In the north, the 1st Baltic Front under the command of Army General I.Kh. Bagramyan launched the Vitebsk-Orsha offensive operation. As part of this campaign, Bagramyan’s troops had to deeply embrace Vitebsk from the north with one flank, thereby cutting off Army Group Center from possible assistance from Army Group North. The left flank of the front in cooperation with Chernyakhovsky’s troops complete the encirclement of the Vitebsk group.
Belarusian strategic offensive operation "Bagration"
"The greatness of a victory is measured by the degree of its difficulty."
M. Montaigne
Belarusian offensive operation (1944), “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.
In the summer of 1944, our troops were preparing for the final expulsion of the Nazi invaders from Russian soil. The Germans, with the despair of the doomed, clung to every kilometer of territory still remaining in their hands. By mid-June, the Soviet-German front ran along the line Narva - Pskov - Vitebsk - Krichev - Mozyr - Pinsk - Brody - Kolomyia - Iasi - Dubossary - Dniester Estuary. On the southern sector of the front, fighting was already taking place beyond the state border, on the territory of Romania. On May 20, 1944, the General Staff completed the development of the plan for the Belarusian offensive operation. It was included in the operational documents of the Headquarters under the code name “Bagration”. The successful implementation of the plan for Operation Bagration made it possible to solve a number of other, no less strategically important tasks.
1. Completely clear the Moscow direction from enemy troops, since the front edge of the ledge was 80 kilometers from Smolensk;
2. Complete the liberation of the entire territory of Belarus;
3. Reach the coast of the Baltic Sea and the borders of East Prussia, which made it possible to cut the enemy’s front at the junctions of army groups “Center” and “North” and isolate these German groups from each other;
4. Create favorable operational and tactical prerequisites for subsequent offensive actions in the Baltic states, Western Ukraine, in the East Prussian and Warsaw directions.
On June 22, 1944, on the third anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, reconnaissance in force was carried out in sectors of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. The final preparations for the general offensive were being made.
The main blow in the summer of 1944 was delivered by the Soviet Army in Belarus. Even after the winter campaign of 1944, during which Soviet troops occupied advantageous positions, preparations began for an offensive operation under the code name “Bagration” - one of the largest in terms of military-political results and the scope of operations of the Great Patriotic War.
The Soviet troops were tasked with defeating Hitler's Army Group Center and liberating Belarus. The essence of the plan was to simultaneously break through the enemy’s defenses in six sectors, encircle and destroy the enemy’s flank groups in the area of Vitebsk and Bobruisk.
One of the largest strategic operations of the Second World War was carried out by troops of the 1st Baltic, 3rd, 2nd and 1st Belorussian fronts with the participation of the Dnieper military flotilla. The 1st Army of the Polish Army operated as part of the 1st Belorussian Front. Based on the nature of the combat operations and the content of the tasks performed, the Belarusian strategic operation is divided into two stages. At the first stage (June 23–July 4, 1944), the following frontal offensive operations were carried out: Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk and Minsk. At the second stage (July 5–August 29, 1944), the following frontal offensive operations were carried out: Vilnius, Siauliai, Bialystok, Lublin-Brest, Kaunas and Osovets.
The operation began on the morning of June 23, 1944. Near Vitebsk, Soviet troops successfully broke through the enemy’s defenses and already on June 25 surrounded five of his divisions to the west of the city. Their liquidation was completed by the morning of June 27. The position on the left flank of Army Group Center's defense was destroyed. Having successfully crossed the Berezina, it cleared Borisov of the enemy. The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front advancing in the Mogilev direction broke through the strong and deeply echeloned enemy defenses prepared along the Pronya, Basya, and Dnieper rivers, and liberated Mogilev on June 28.
On the morning of June 3, a powerful artillery barrage, accompanied by targeted air strikes, opened the Belarusian operation of the Red Army. The first to attack were the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic fronts.
On June 26, tankers of General Bakharov made a breakthrough to Bobruisk. Initially, the troops of the Rogachev strike group encountered fierce enemy resistance.
Vitebsk was taken on June 26. The next day, the troops of the 11th Guards and 34th armies finally broke the enemy's resistance and liberated Orsha. On June 28, Soviet tanks were already in Lepel and Borisov. Vasilevsky set the task for General Rotmistrov’s tankers to liberate Minsk by the end of July 2. But the honor of being the first to enter the capital of Belarus fell to the guardsmen of the 2nd Tatsin Tank Corps of General A.S. Burdeyny. They entered Minsk at dawn on July 3. Around noon, tankers from the 1st Guards Tank Corps of the 1st Belorussian Front made their way to the capital from the southeast. The main forces of the 4th German Army - the 12th, 26th, 35th Army, 39th and 41st Tank Corps - were surrounded east of the city. They included more than 100 thousand soldiers and officers.
Undoubtedly, the command of Army Group Center made a number of grave mistakes. First of all, in terms of maneuvering on our own. During the first two days of the Soviet offensive, Field Marshal Bush had the opportunity to withdraw troops to the Berezina line and thereby avoid the threat of their encirclement and destruction. Here he could create a new line of defense. Instead, the German commander allowed an unjustified delay in issuing the order to withdraw.
On July 12, the surrounded troops capitulated. 40 thousand soldiers and officers, 11 generals - commanders of corps and divisions - were captured by the Soviets. It was a disaster.
With the destruction of the 4th Army, a huge gap opened in the German front line. On July 4, the Supreme Command Headquarters sent a new directive to the fronts, containing the requirement to continue the offensive without stopping. The 1st Baltic Front was supposed to advance in the general direction of Siauliai, reaching Daugavpils with its right wing and Kaunas with its left. Before the 3rd Belorussian Front, the Headquarters set the task of capturing Vilnius and part of the forces - Lida. The 2nd Belorussian Front received orders to take Novogrudok, Grodno and Bialystok. The 1st Belorussian Front developed an offensive in the direction of Baranovichi, Brest and further to Lublin.
At the first stage of the Belarusian operation, the troops solved the problem of breaking through the strategic front of the German defense, encircling and destroying flank groups. After successfully solving the problems of the initial stage of the Belarusian operation, the issues of organizing continuous pursuit of the enemy and maximizing the expansion of breakthrough areas came to the fore. On July 7, fighting took place on the Vilnius-Baranovichi-Pinsk line. The deep breakthrough of Soviet troops in Belarus created a threat to Army Group North and Army Group Northern Ukraine. Favorable preconditions for an offensive in the Baltic states and Ukraine were evident. The 2nd and 3rd Baltic and 1st Ukrainian fronts began to destroy the German groups opposing them.
The troops of the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front achieved great operational successes. By June 27, they surrounded over six enemy divisions in the Bobruisk area and, with the active assistance of aviation, the Dnieper military flotilla and partisans, by June 29 they completely defeated them. By July 3, 1944, Soviet troops liberated the capital of Belarus, Minsk. To the east they surrounded 105 thousand German soldiers and officers. The German divisions that found themselves encircled tried to break through to the west and southwest, but were captured or destroyed during the battles that lasted from July 5 to July 11. The enemy lost over 70 thousand people killed and about 35 thousand captured.
With the entry of the Soviet Army to the Polotsk-Lake Naroch-Molodechno-Nesvizh line, a huge gap 400 kilometers long was formed in the strategic front of the German troops. The Soviet troops had the opportunity to begin pursuing the defeated enemy troops. On July 5, the second stage of the liberation of Belarus began; The fronts, closely interacting with each other, successfully carried out five offensive operations at this stage: Siauliai, Vilnius, Kaunas, Bialystok and Brest-Lublin.
The Soviet Army one by one defeated the remnants of the retreating formations of Army Group Center and inflicted major damage on the troops transferred here from Germany, Norway, Italy and other areas. Soviet troops completed the liberation of Belarus. They liberated part of Lithuania and Latvia, crossed the state border, entered the territory of Poland and approached the borders of East Prussia. The Narew and Vistula rivers were crossed. The front advanced westward by 260-400 kilometers. It was a victory of strategic importance.
The success achieved during the Belarusian operation was promptly developed by active actions in other directions of the Soviet-German front. By August 22, Soviet troops reached the line west of Jelgava, Dobele, Siauliai, Suwalki, reached the outskirts of Warsaw and went on the defensive. During the June-August 1944 operation in Belarus, the Baltic states and Poland, 21 enemy divisions were completely defeated and destroyed. 61 divisions lost more than half of their strength. The German army lost about half a million soldiers and officers killed, wounded and captured. On July 17, 1944, 57,600 German soldiers and officers captured in Belarus were escorted through the central streets of Moscow.
Duration – 68 days. The width of the combat front is 1100 km. The depth of advance of Soviet troops is 550-600 km. Average daily rate of advance: at the first stage - 20-25 km, at the second - 13-14 km.
Results of the operation.
The troops of the advancing fronts defeated one of the most powerful enemy groups - Army Group Center, its 17 divisions and 3 brigades were destroyed, and 50 divisions lost more than half of their strength. The Byelorussian SSR, part of the Lithuanian SSR and the Latvian SSR were liberated. The Red Army entered the territory of Poland and advanced to the borders of East Prussia. During the offensive, the large water barriers of the Berezina, Neman, and Vistula were crossed, and important bridgeheads on their western banks were captured. Conditions were provided for striking deep into East Prussia and into the central regions of Poland. To stabilize the front line, the German command was forced to transfer 46 divisions and 4 brigades to Belarus from other sectors of the Soviet-German front and the west. This made it much easier for the Anglo-American troops to conduct combat operations in France.
In the summer of 1944, on the eve and during Operation Bagration, which aimed to liberate Belarus from the Nazi occupiers, the partisans provided truly invaluable assistance to the advancing Soviet army. They captured river crossings, cut off the enemy's escape routes, blew up rails, caused train wrecks, made surprise raids on enemy garrisons, and destroyed enemy communications.
Soon, Soviet troops began to defeat a large group of fascist German troops in Romania and Moldova during the Iasi-Kishinev operation. This military operation of the Soviet troops began in the early morning of August 20, 1944. Within two days, the enemy's defenses were broken through to a depth of 30 kilometers. Soviet troops entered the operational space. The large administrative center of Romania, the city of Iasi, was taken. The operation was attended by the search of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts (commanding army generals R.Ya. Malinovsky and F.I. Tolbukhin), sailors of the Black Sea Fleet and the Danube River Flotilla. The fighting took place over an area of more than 600 kilometers along the front and up to 350 kilometers in depth. More than 2 million 100 thousand people, 24 thousand guns and mortars, 2 and a half thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery units, and about 3 thousand aircraft took part in the battles on both sides.
The offensive operation of the Red Army units in Belarus in the period from the end of June to the end of August 1944 was called “Bagration”. Almost all world-famous military historians recognize this operation as one of the largest in the history of wars.
Results and significance of the operation.
During this powerful offensive covering a vast territory, all of Belarus, part of eastern Poland and a significant part of the Baltic states were liberated from the Nazi invaders. As a result of the lightning-fast offensive actions of the Red Army, Army Group Center was almost completely defeated. On the territory of Belarus, the human and material losses of the Wehrmacht were so significant that Hitler’s military machine was never able to compensate for them until the very end of the war.
Strategic necessity for the operation.
The operational situation on the front along the line Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Zhlobin required the rapid elimination of the wedge, called the “Belarusian Balcony” by the military. From the territory of this ledge, the German command had an excellent prospect for a counterattack in a southern direction. Such actions by the Nazis could have led to the loss of initiative and the encirclement of the Red Army group in northern Ukraine.
Forces and composition of the warring parties.
The strength of all units of the Red Army that took part in Operation Bagration totaled more than 1 million 200 thousand military personnel. These data are given without taking into account the number of auxiliary and rear units, as well as without taking into account the number of fighters from partisan brigades operating on the territory of Belarus.
According to various estimates, the Germans had about 900 thousand people from Army Group Center on this section of the front.
During the offensive operation in Belarus, 4 fronts of the Red Army were opposed by 4 German armies. The deployment of the Germans was as follows:
2nd Army defended itself at the border of Pinsk and Pripyat
The 9th German army was concentrated southeast of Bobruisk
The 3rd and 4th tank armies were stationed in the area between the Dnieper and Berezina rivers, at the same time covering the Bykhovsky bridgehead to Orsha.
The plan for the summer offensive in Belarus was developed by the General Staff of the Red Army back in April 1944. The idea of the offensive operations was to launch powerful flank attacks on Army Group Center, encircling the main enemy forces in the Minsk region.
Preparatory operations were carried out by Soviet troops until May 31. The initial plan of action was changed thanks to the intervention of Marshal Rokossovsky, who insisted on simultaneously delivering two strikes against the Nazi group. According to this Soviet commander, attacks should have been carried out on Osipovichi and Slutsk with the Germans encircled in the area of the city of Bobruisk. Rokossovsky had many opponents at Headquarters. But thanks to the moral support of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin, the strike plan proposed by the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front K.K. Rokossovsky was eventually approved.
During the entire period of preparation for Operation Bagration, data obtained during reconnaissance operations, as well as information about the deployment of enemy units received from partisan detachments, were carefully used and rechecked. During the entire period preceding the offensive, reconnaissance units of different fronts captured more than 80 Wehrmacht soldiers as “tongues”, identified more than one thousand firing points and over 300 artillery batteries.
The main task at the first stage of the operation was to ensure the effect of complete surprise. For this purpose, the shock and assault units of the fronts moved to their initial positions before the decisive strikes exclusively at night.
Preparations for the offensive operation were carried out in the strictest secrecy, so that the further rapid advance of the assault units would take the enemy by surprise.
During the period of preparation for practicing combat operations, front-line units were specially withdrawn to the rear for this purpose in order to keep enemy reconnaissance completely in the dark. Such stringent precautions to prevent the leakage of any information fully justified themselves.
The forecasts of the Hitlerite command of the armies of the Center group converged on the fact that the Red Army would strike the most powerful blow on the territory of Ukraine in the direction south of the city of Kovel in the direction of the Baltic Sea coast in order to dissect Army Groups North and Center. Therefore, in this area, the Nazis put together a powerful deterrent army group “Northern Ukraine”, consisting of 9 divisions, including 7 tank and 2 motorized divisions. The operational reserve of the German command included 4 Tiger tank battalions. Army Group Center included only one tank, two tank-grenadier divisions and only one Tiger battalion. The Nazis’ small number of deterrent forces on this section of the front even led to the fact that the commander of Army Group Center, Bush, repeatedly appealed personally to Hitler with a request to allow the withdrawal of some army units to more convenient defense lines along the coastline of the Berezina River. The Fuhrer completely rejected the plan of the generals, the order to defend on the previous lines of defense of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Bobruisk. Each of these cities was turned into a powerful defensive fortress, as it seemed to the German command.
The positions of Hitler's troops were seriously fortified along the entire front with a complex of defensive structures consisting of minefields, machine gun nests, anti-tank ditches and barbed wire. About 20 thousand residents of the occupied regions of Belarus worked forcibly to create a defensive complex.
Until recently, strategists from the Wehrmacht General Staff did not believe in the possibility of a massive offensive by Soviet troops on the territory of Belarus. Hitler's command believed so much in the impossibility of an offensive by the Red Army on this sector of the front that the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Bush, went on vacation three days before the start of Operation Bagration.
The following formations of the Red Army took part in offensive operations within the framework of Operation Bagration: 1,2,3 Belorussian Fronts 1 Baltic Front. Units of Belarusian partisans played a supporting role in the offensive. Wehrmacht formations fell into strategic pockets near the settlements of Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Vilnius, Brest and Minsk. Minsk was liberated by units of the Red Army on July 3, Vilnius on July 13.
The Soviet command developed an offensive scheme consisting of two stages. The first stage of the operation, which lasted from June 23 to July 4, 1944, consisted of a simultaneous offensive in five directions: Vitebsk, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk and Minsk directions.
At the second stage of the operation, which ended on August 29, strikes were carried out in the Vilnius, Siauliai, Bialystok, Lublin, Kaunas and Osovets directions.
The success of Operation Bagration in military-strategic terms was simply phenomenal. During two months of continuous offensive battles, the territory of Belarus, part of the Baltic states and a number of regions of Eastern Poland were completely liberated. As a result of the successful offensive, a territory with a total area of more than 650 thousand square meters was liberated. km. The advanced formations of the Red Army captured the Magnuszewski and Pulawy bridgeheads in eastern Poland. From these bridgeheads in January 1945, an offensive was launched by the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front, stopping only on the approaches to Berlin.
Military experts and historians have been emphasizing for almost 60 years now that the military defeat of the troops of Nazi Germany was the start of a series of major military defeats on the battlefields in East Germany. Largely due to the military effectiveness of Operation Bagration, the Wehrmacht forces were significantly depleted in other theaters of war in Europe due to the transfer by the German command of a significant number of the most militarily prepared military formations to Belarus, such as the motorized infantry division "Grossdeutschland" and the SS tank division "Hermann Goering". The first left its combat deployment site on the Dniester River, the second was transferred to Belarus from Northern Italy.
The losses of the Red Army amounted to more than 178 thousand dead. The total number of wounded during the operation exceeded 587 thousand people. These data allow us to assert that Operation Bagration became the bloodiest for Red Army units in the period 1943-1945, starting with the Battle of Kursk. To confirm these conclusions, it will be enough to mention that during the Berlin operation, the irretrievable losses of the Red Army units amounted to 81 thousand soldiers and officers. This once again proves the scale and strategic significance of Operation Bagration in the liberation of the territory of the USSR from the German occupiers.
According to official data from the Soviet military command, the total human losses of the German army during the active phase of Operation Bagration during June and July 1944 amounted to about 381 thousand killed and more than 158 thousand captured. The total loss of military equipment is more than 60 thousand units, including 2,735 tanks, 631 military aircraft and more than 57 thousand vehicles.
About 58 thousand German prisoners of war soldiers and officers captured during Operation Bagration were marched in a column through the streets of Moscow in August 1944. The gloomy procession of tens of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers dragged on for three hours.
