What is Operation Bagration? How was it carried out? We will consider these and other questions in the article. It is known that 2014 marked the 70th anniversary of this operation. The Red Army during it was able not only to liberate the Belarusians from the occupation, but also, by destabilizing the enemy, accelerated the collapse of fascism.

This happened thanks to the extraordinary courage, determination and self-sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Soviet partisans and soldiers of Belarus, many of whom died in the name of victory over the invaders.

Operation

The offensive Belarusian operation "Bagration" is a large-scale campaign of the Great Patriotic War, carried out in 1944, from June 23 to August 29. It was named after the Russian commander of Georgian origin P. I. Bagration, who gained fame during the Patriotic War of 1812.

Campaign value

The liberation of Belarus was not easy for Soviet soldiers. In the course of the aforementioned extensive offensive, Belarusian lands, part of the Baltic states and eastern Poland, the German group of detachments "Center" was almost completely defeated. The Wehrmacht suffered impressive losses, partly due to the fact that A. Hitler forbade retreat. Subsequently, Germany was no longer able to restore the troops.

Campaign Background

The liberation of Belarus was carried out in several stages. It is known that by June 1944, in the east, the front line approached the line Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Zhlobin, establishing an impressive ledge - a wedge directed deep into the USSR, called the "Belarusian Balcony".

In Ukraine, the Red Army was able to achieve a series of tangible successes (many Wehrmacht soldiers died in the chain of "cauldrons", almost all the lands of the Republic were liberated). If they wanted to break through in the winter of 1943-1944 in the direction of Minsk, the successes, on the contrary, were very modest.

Along with this, by the end of the spring of 1944, the invasion in the south stalled, and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to change the course of efforts.

Side forces

The liberation of Belarus was swift and inevitable. Information about the forces of opponents in different sources varies. According to the publication “Operations of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War”, 1 million 200 thousand soldiers took part in the campaign from the USSR (not including rear units). On the part of the Germans - as part of the "Center" group of detachments - 850-900 thousand souls (plus about 400 thousand rear soldiers). In addition, in the second phase, the left wing of the Northern Ukraine detachment group and the right wing of the North Ukraine group of troops participated in the battle.

It is known that four regiments of the Wehrmacht resisted four Soviet fronts.

Campaign preparation

Before the liberation of Belarus, the Red Army men were intensively preparing for the operation. At first, the Soviet leadership thought that the Bagration campaign would be identical to the Battle of Kursk - something like the Rumyantsev or Kutuzov, with a huge expenditure of ammunition in the subsequent modest movement of 150-200 km.

Since operations of this type - without a breakthrough into the operational depth, with stubborn, long-term battles in the tactical area of ​​\u200b\u200bprotection to exhaustion - required an enormous amount of ammunition and a small amount of fuel for mechanical parts and low capacities for the revival of railway lines, the actual evolution of the campaign turned out to be unexpected for the Soviet leadership.

In April 1944, the General Staff began to develop an operational scheme for the Belarusian operation. The command intended to crush the flanks of the German group "Center", surround its base forces east of Minsk and completely liberate Belarus. The plan was extremely large-scale and ambitious, since during the war the simultaneous defeat of an entire group of troops was planned extremely rarely.

Significant personnel changes have been made. Direct preparations for the Belarusian operation began at the end of May. On May 31, private directives from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command containing specific plans, were delivered to the front commanders.

The Red Army men organized a thorough reconnaissance of the positions and forces of the enemy. Information was obtained from various directions. For example, the reconnaissance teams of the 1st Front of Belarus were able to capture about 80 "languages". Undercover, active acoustic reconnaissance was also carried out, enemy positions were studied by artillery observers, and so on.

The headquarters sought to achieve the utmost surprise. The commanders of the armies personally gave all orders to the commanders of the units. It was forbidden to talk on the phone about preparations for the offensive, even in coded form. The fronts preparing for the operation began to observe radio silence. The troops were concentrated and regrouped mainly at night. It was necessary to monitor compliance with camouflage measures, so officers of the General Staff were specially assigned to patrol the area.

Before the offensive, commanders of all levels, up to companies, carried out reconnaissance. They assigned tasks to subordinates on the spot. To improve interaction, Air Force officers and artillery spotters were sent to the tank units.

It follows that the campaign was prepared very carefully, while the enemy remained in the dark about the coming assault.

Wehrmacht

So, you already know that the Red Army prepared thoroughly for the liberation of Belarus from the Nazi invaders. The leadership of the Red Army was perfectly aware of the enemy grouping in the area of ​​​​the future attack. The General Staff of the ground detachments of the Third Reich and the commanders of the "Center" group of troops were in the dark about the plans and forces of the Red Army.

The Supreme High Command and Hitler thought that a major offensive must still be expected in Ukraine. They expected that the Soviet garrisons would strike from the area south of Kovel towards Baltic Sea, cutting off the groups of troops "Center" and "North".

The General Staff of the Third Reich assumed that the Red Army wanted to mislead the German military leaders about the course of the most important strike and withdraw reserves from the region between Kovel and the Carpathians. The situation in Belarus was so calm that Field Marshal Bush went on vacation three days before the start of the campaign.

The course of hostilities

So, the Great Patriotic War was going on. The liberation of Belarus played a decisive role in this tense confrontation. The preliminary phase of the campaign symbolically began on the third anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union - June 22, 1944. The Berezina River turned out to be the most significant battlefield, as it was during the Patriotic War of 1812.

For the liberation of Belarus, the commanders used all their skills. The Soviet troops of the 2nd, 1st, 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic fronts, with the support of partisans, broke through the defense of the German group of forces "Center" in many sectors. The Red Army surrounded and destroyed impressive enemy groups in the areas of Vitebsk, Vilnius, Bobruisk, Brest and east of Minsk. They also liberated the territory of Belarus and its capital Minsk (July 3), a significant part of Lithuania and Vilnius (July 13), eastern regions Poland. Soviet soldiers were able to reach the boundaries of the Vistula and Narew rivers and to the Rubicons East Prussia. It is noteworthy that the Soviet troops were commanded by General of the Army I.Kh. Bagramyan, Colonel General I.D. Chernyakhovsky, General G.F. Zakharov, General K.K. .Model.

The operation to liberate Belarus was carried out in two steps. The first step was taken from June 23 to July 4 and included the following offensive front-line operations:

• Mogilev operation;
• Vitebsk-Orsha;
• Minsk;
• Polotsk;
• Bobruisk.

• Osovets operation;
• Kaunas;
• Vilnius;
• Bialystok;
• Siauliai;
• Lublin-Brestskaya.

Partisan actions

So, you already know that the liberation of Belarus in the Second World War played a significant role. Before the offensive, a partisan action of unprecedented proportions took place. In Belarus at that time there were many active partisan formations. The Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement recorded that 194,708 supporters joined the troops of the Red Army during the summer of 1944.

Soviet commanders successfully linked military operations with the actions of partisan groups. Taking part in the Bagration campaign, at first the partisans disabled the enemy's communications, and later they prevented the retreat of the defeated Wehrmacht troops.

They began to destroy the German rear on the night of 19/20 June. Russian partisans in central region eastern front produced 10,500 explosions. As a result, they were able to delay the transfer of enemy operational reserves for a couple of days.

The partisans planned to produce 40 thousand various explosions, that is, they managed to fulfill only a fourth of their intentions. And yet, they were able to briefly paralyze the rear of the "Center" group of troops.

At the end of June 1944, on the night before the general attack of the Russians in the zone of the "Center" group of troops, the partisans made a powerful raid on everything important roads. As a result, they completely deprived the enemy troops of control. During this one night, the partisans managed to install 10.5 thousand mines and charges, of which only 3.5 thousand were discovered and neutralized. Due to the activities of partisan detachments, communication along many routes was carried out during the day and only under the cover of an armed convoy.

Railways and bridges became the basic objects of application of partisan forces. In addition to them, communication lines were also actively disabled. This activity greatly facilitated the offensive of the Red Army at the front.

Operation results

The liberation of Belarus in 1944 turned history back. The success of the Bagration campaign surpassed all expectations Soviet leaders. Having attacked the enemy for two months, the Red Army completely cleared Belarus, recaptured part of the Baltic states, and liberated the eastern regions of Poland. In general, on a front 1100 km long, Soviet soldiers were able to advance to a depth of 600 km.

The operation also made the North group of troops stationed in the Baltics defenseless. After all, the Panther line, a carefully constructed border, was bypassed. In the future, this fact greatly facilitated the Baltic campaign.

And the Red Army captured two large bridgeheads south of Warsaw beyond the Vistula - Pulawski and Magnushevsky, as well as a bridgehead near Sandomierz (recaptured by the 1st Ukrainian Front during the Sandomierz-Lviv campaign). By these actions, they created a reserve for the upcoming Vistula-Oder operation. It is known that the offensive of the 1st Front of Belarus, which stopped only on the Oder, began in January 1945 from the Pulavsky and Magnushevsky bridgeheads.

The military believes that the liberation of Soviet Belarus contributed to the large-scale defeat of the German Armed Forces. Many are sure that the Battle of Belarus can be safely called "the largest defeat of the German Armed Forces in World War II."

On the scale of the German-Soviet front, the Bagration campaign was the greatest in a long history of offensives. She is a sensation Soviet theory military skill thanks to the superbly coordinated movement of all fronts and the operation carried out to deceive the enemy about the location of the fundamental assault that began in the summer of 1944. She destroyed the German reserves, seriously localizing the ability of the invaders to fend off both the Allied advance in Western Europe and other attacks on the Eastern Front.

So, for example, the division "Grossdeutschland" German command transferred from the Dniester to Siauliai. As a result, she was unable to participate in the reflection of the Yasso-Chisinau campaign. The Hermann Goering division had to leave its positions in mid-July in Italy near Florence, and was thrown into the battles on the Vistula. When Goering units vainly attacked the Magnushevsky sector in mid-August, Florence was liberated.

Losses

The human losses of the Red Army are known quite accurately. In total, 178,507 soldiers died, went missing and were captured, 587,308 people were injured and fell ill. Even by the standards of World War II, these losses are considered high. In absolute numbers, they far outnumber the victims not only in successful, but also in many unsuccessful campaigns.

So, for comparison, the defeat near Kharkov in the early spring of 1943 cost the Red Army a little more than 45 thousand dead, and the Berlin operation - 81 thousand. Such undermining is associated with the duration and scope of the campaign, which was carried out on intricate terrain against a competent and energetic enemy who occupied superbly prepared defensive lines.

O human losses Wehrmacht scientists are still discussing today. Western professors believe that the Germans had 262,929 captured and missing, 109,776 wounded and 26,397 dead, for a total of 399,102 soldiers. These data were obtained from ten-day reports that were compiled by the fascist troops.

Why, then, in this case, the number of those killed is small? Yes, because many of the dead were recorded as missing, and sometimes they received this status personnel divisions in full force.

However, these figures are criticized. For example, the US historian of the Eastern Front D. Glantz found that the difference between the number of servicemen of the "Center" group of troops before and after the campaign is much more. D. Glantz said that the information of the ten-day reports gives the situation a minimal assessment. When the investigator of the Russian Federation A.V. Isaev spoke on the Ekho Moskvy radio, he stated that the losses of the Nazis amounted to about 500 thousand souls. S. Zaloga claims that before the surrender of the 4th Army, 300-500 thousand Germans died.

It is also necessary to emphasize that in all cases the losses of the “Center” group of troops were calculated, without taking into account the victims of the groups of the “North” and “Northern Ukraine” regiments.

It is known that the Soviet Information Bureau published Soviet information, according to which German troops from June 23 to July 23, 1944 lost 631 aircraft, 2735 self-propelled guns and tanks, 57,152 vehicles, 158,480 people were captured, 381,000 soldiers were killed. Perhaps these data are rather overestimated, as is usually the case with claims for enemy losses. In any case, the question of the human losses of the Wehrmacht in the "Bagration" is not yet closed.

The Germans, captured near Minsk in the amount of 57,600 people, were marched through Moscow - a column of prisoners of war walked through the streets of the capital for about three hours. In this way, the significance of success was demonstrated to other powers. After the march, every street was cleared and washed.

Memory

The year of the liberation of Belarus is also honored today. In honor of this event, the following commemorative signs were created:

• Memorial "Campaign" Bagration "near the village of Rakovichi (Svetlogorsk district).
• Mound of Glory.
• In 2010, on April 14, the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus issued and put into circulation a series of coins “Bagration Campaign”.

Awards

Subsequently, commemorative awards appeared in Belarus in the form of a medal "For the Liberation of Belarus". In 2004, a commemorative Chest sign"60 years of the liberation of Belarus from the Nazi invaders". Later, commemorative medals were issued for the 65th and 70th anniversaries of the liberation of Belarus.

There is no repeated awarding of the jubilee medal. If you have lost a medal or a certificate for it, a duplicate will not be issued to you. They can only allow the wearing of the bar of the installed version.

June 23, Minsk / Corr. BELTA/. The preparation of the Belarusian offensive operation began in the spring of 1944. Based on military-political situation and the proposals of the military councils of the fronts, the General Staff developed its plan. After its comprehensive discussion at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on May 22-23, a final decision was made to conduct a strategic offensive operation. Its preliminary stage symbolically began on the third anniversary of the German attack on the USSR - June 22, 1944.

On that date, the front, with a length of over 1100 km in Belarus, passed along the line of Lake Nescherdo, east of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Zhlobin, along the Pripyat River, forming a huge ledge. Here the troops of the Army Group Center defended themselves, which had a well-developed network of railways and highways for wide maneuvering along internal lines. The fascist German troops occupied a defense prepared in advance, in depth (250-270 km), which was based on a developed system of field fortifications and natural lines. Defensive lines passed, as a rule, along the western banks of numerous rivers, which had wide swampy floodplains.

Belarusian offensive under the code name "Bagration" began on June 23, ended on August 29, 1944. Its idea was to break through the enemy defenses with simultaneous deep strikes in six sectors, dismember his troops and break them into parts. In the future, it was supposed to strike at Minsk in converging directions in order to encircle and destroy the main enemy forces east of the capital of Belarus. Then the offensive was planned to continue towards the borders of Poland and East Prussia.

Outstanding Soviet military leaders. Her plan was developed by General of the Army A.I. Antonov. The troops of the fronts, whose forces carried out the operation, were commanded by army generals K.K. Rokossovsky, I.Kh. Bagramyan, colonel-generals I.D. Chernyakhovsky and G.F. Zakharov. The fronts were coordinated by representatives of the Stavka Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky.

The 1st Baltic, 1st, 2nd, 3rd Belorussian fronts participated in the battles - a total of 17 armies, including 1 tank and 3 air, 4 tank and 2 Caucasian Corps, horse-mechanized group, Dnieper military flotilla, 1st Army of the Polish Army and Belarusian partisans. During the operation, the partisans cut off the enemy's retreat, captured and built new bridges and crossings for the Red Army, independently liberated a number of district centers, participated in the elimination of encircled enemy groups.

The operation consisted of two stages. On the first (June 23 - July 4) Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk, Minsk operations were carried out. As a result of the 1st stage of the Belarusian operation, the main forces of Army Group Center were defeated. At the second stage (July 5 - August 29), the Vilnius, Bialystok, Lublin-Brest, Siauliai, Kaunas operations were carried out.

On the first day of the strategic offensive operation "Bagration" on June 23, 1944, the Red Army troops liberated the Sirotinsky district (since 1961 - Shumilinsky). Troops of the 1st Baltic Front together with the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front, having gone on the offensive on June 23, by June 25 they surrounded 5 enemy divisions west of Vitebsk and liquidated them by June 27, the main forces of the front captured Lepel on June 28. The troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front, successfully developing the offensive, liberated Borisov on July 1. The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, after breaking through the enemy defenses along the Pronya, Basya and Dnieper rivers, liberated Mogilev on June 28. By June 27, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front surrounded 6 German divisions in the Bobruisk area and liquidated them by June 29. At the same time, the troops of the front reached the line of Svisloch, Osipovichi, Starye Dorogi.

As a result of the Minsk operation, Minsk was liberated on July 3, to the east of which formations of the 4th and 9th German armies (over 100 thousand people) were surrounded. 1st Baltic front during the Polotsk operation, he liberated Polotsk and developed an offensive on Siauliai. In 12 days, Soviet troops advanced 225-280 km at an average daily pace of up to 20-25 km, and liberated most of Belarus. Army Group Center suffered a catastrophic defeat, its main forces were surrounded and defeated.

With the release of Soviet troops to the line of Polotsk, Lake. Naroch, Molodechno, west of Nesvizh, a gap 400 km long was formed in the strategic front of the enemy. Attempts by the fascist German command to close it with separate divisions, which were hastily transferred from other directions, could not produce any significant results. Before the Soviet troops, the opportunity arose to begin a relentless pursuit of the remnants of the defeated enemy troops. After the successful completion of the 1st stage of the operation, the Headquarters gave the fronts new directives, according to which they were to continue a decisive offensive to the west.

As a result of hostilities during the Belarusian operation, 17 enemy divisions and 3 brigades were completely destroyed, 50 divisions lost more than half of their composition. The Nazis lost about half a million people killed, wounded, captured. During Operation Bagration, Soviet troops completed the liberation of Belarus, liberated part of Lithuania and Latvia, entered Poland on July 20, and approached the borders of East Prussia on August 17. By August 29, they reached the Vistula River and organized defense at this line.

The Belarusian operation created the conditions for the further advance of the Red Army into Germany. For participation in it, more than 1,500 soldiers and commanders were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, more than 400,000 soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals, 662 formations and units received honorary titles after the names of the cities and localities they liberated.

Northwest and southeast of the city of Vitebsk, our troops went on the offensive. Hundreds of Soviet guns of various calibers and mortars unleashed powerful fire on the enemy. Artillery and aviation training the offensive lasted several hours. Numerous German fortifications were destroyed. Then, following the barrage of fire, the Soviet infantry went on the attack. Suppressing the surviving enemy firing points, our fighters broke through the heavily fortified defenses in both sectors of the offensive. Soviet troops advancing southeast of the city of Vitebsk cut the Vitebsk-Orsha railway and thereby deprived the Vitebsk enemy grouping of the last railway line connecting it with the rear. The enemy suffers huge losses. German trenches and battlefields are littered with the corpses of the Nazis, broken weapons and equipment. Our troops captured trophies and prisoners.

In the Mogilev direction, our troops, after heavy artillery shelling and bombardment of enemy positions from the air, went on the offensive. The Soviet infantry quickly crossed the Pronya River. The enemy built a defensive line on the western bank of this river, consisting of numerous bunkers and several full-profile trench lines. The Soviet troops broke through the enemy defenses with a powerful blow and, building on their success, moved forward up to 20 kilometers. There were many enemy corpses left in the trenches and communication passages. Only in one small area, 600 killed Nazis were counted.

***
The partisan detachment named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Zaslonov attacked the German garrison in one settlement Vitebsk region. In a fierce hand-to-hand fight, the partisans exterminated 40 Nazis and captured large trophies. The partisan detachment "Thunderstorm" derailed 3 German military echelons in one day. 3 steam locomotives, 16 wagons and platforms with military cargo were broken.

They liberated Belarus

Petr Filippovich Gavrilov born October 14, 1914 in Tomsk region in peasant family. AT active army since December 1942. Company of the 34th Guards tank brigade On June 23, 1944, the 6th Guards Army of the 1st Baltic Front, under the command of Guards Senior Lieutenant Pyotr Gavrilov, destroyed two bunkers in the area of ​​the village of Sirotino, Shumilinsky District, Vitebsk Region, dispersed and destroyed up to a Nazi battalion. Pursuing the Nazis, on June 24, 1944, the company entered the Western Dvina River near the village of Ulla, captured a bridgehead on its western bank and held it until our infantry and artillery approached. For the courage and courage shown during the breakthrough of the defense and the successful crossing of the Western Dvina River, Senior Lieutenant Gavrilov Petr Filippovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, he lived and worked in Sverdlovsk (since 1991 - Yekaterinburg). Died in 1968.
Abdulla Zhanzakov was born on February 22, 1918 in the Kazakh village of Akrab. Since 1941 in the army on the fronts of the war. The submachine gunner of the 196th Guards Rifle Regiment (67th Guards Rifle Division, 6th Guards Army, 1st Baltic Front), Guard Corporal Abdulla Zhanzakov, especially distinguished himself in the Belarusian strategic offensive operation. In the battle on June 23, 1944, he participated in the assault on the enemy stronghold near the village of Sirotinovka (Shumilinsky district). He secretly made his way to the German bunker and threw grenades at him. On June 24, he distinguished himself when crossing the Western Dvina River near the village of Buy (Beshenkovichi district). In the battle during the liberation of the city of Lepel on June 28, 1944, he was the first to break through to the high embankment of the railway track, took up an advantageous position on it and suppressed several enemy firing points with automatic fire, ensuring the success of his platoon advancement. In the battle on June 30, 1944, he died while crossing the Ushacha River near the city of Polotsk. Guard Corporal Zhanzakov Abdulla was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.

Nikolai Efimovich Solovyov was born on May 19, 1918 in the Tver region into a peasant family. During the Great Patriotic War in the army since 1941. Particularly distinguished himself during the Vitebsk-Orsha offensive operation. In the battle on June 23, 1944, when breaking through the enemy defenses near the village of Medved in the Sirotinsky (now Shumilinsky) district, under fire, he provided communication between the division commander and the regiments. On June 24, when crossing the Western Dvina River at night near the village of Sharipino (Beshenkovichi District), he established a wire connection across the river. For courage and heroism shown during the crossing of the Western Dvina, Solovyov Nikolai Efimovich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war he lived and worked in the Tver region. Died in 1993.

Alexander Kuzmich Fedyunin Born September 15, 1911 in the Ryazan region in a peasant family. During the Great Patriotic War in the army since 1941. Particularly distinguished himself during the liberation of Belarus. On June 23, 1944, the battalion under the command of A.K. Fedyunin was the first to break into the Sirotino railway station (Vitebsk region), destroyed up to 70 enemy soldiers, captured 2 guns, 2 warehouses with ammunition and military equipment. On June 24, the soldiers, led by the battalion commander, crossed the Western Dvina River near the village of Dvorishche (Beshenkovichi district, Vitebsk region), shot down the enemy’s outposts and entrenched themselves on the bridgehead, which ensured the crossing of the river by other units of the regiment. For the skillful command of the unit, courage and heroism shown during the liberation of Belarus, Fedyunin Alexander Kuzmich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the end of the war, he continued to serve in the Armed Forces, lived and worked in the city of Shakhty Rostov region. Died in 1975.

Race to the bridgeheads

Finally, a completely separate story is the battle fought by the 1st Belorussian Front. The northern wing of the front advanced on a weak enemy without much adventure.

In the swamps of Polesye, the actions of the river flotilla gave their own specifics to the offensive. Thanks to the incredibly extensive river network and the abundance of partisans in the forests, the Russians managed to carry out a daring operation to liberate Pinsk: on July 11, boats with landing forces, literally sneaking past German positions, landed on the piers rifle battalion, and then delivered artillery there. The town fell into the hands of the victors like a ripe fruit.

Much more dramatic was the battle near Lublin and Brest. The German front was already in turmoil in the Ukraine. Konev nevertheless launched the offensive that the Nazis feared in the spring, and now the Northern Ukraine Army Group was collapsing. 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 the armies of Rokossovsky on July 18, could now only watch doomedly as a steel ram flies into his forehead.

Brest in the summer of 1944

A hail of shells devastated the German trenches on the very first day, it got to the point that the Soviet 2nd Panzer Army had to catch up (!) with the infantry that had gone ahead. Since the Pripyat swamps remained to the right-back for several days, two corps - tank and cavalry - turned at a right angle and rushed north, towards Brest. That is, the mobile "hammer" drove the enemy in the Brest region to the infantry "anvil" advancing from the east. July 25, piece 2 german army finally managed to wrest from her construction.

Since weak and previously broken parts moved here, the boiler quickly collapsed. On July 28, Brest, together with the fortress, was taken during a short assault. The breakthrough quickly turned into a beating of the fugitives. The Germans broke through, leaving a minimum number of prisoners, mountains of corpses and equipment. At this time, the 2nd Panzer Army was advancing strictly to the west, towards Lublin.

Bogdanov's army, which had already set its sights on the German rear in the Brest region, received an order from the very top, from Headquarters, turning it to 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 the Headquarters sounded unambiguous: “ Not later than July 26–27 of this year. capture the city of Lublin, for which, first of all, use the 2nd tank army of Bogdanov 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

Nevertheless, Bogdanov had one more task: to seize bridgeheads beyond the Vistula. A large river could become a serious obstacle, it had to be overcome as quickly as possible and with the least resistance of the enemy. Therefore, part of the forces of the Second Panzer advanced on Deblin and Pulawy, bypassing Lublin. Having escaped to the western coast, Bogdanov could afford the most daring options for action.

The tankers rolled along the highway, crushing the crowds of rear troops leaving Lublin, and started a battle for the city itself. The lack of motorized infantry did not allow him to be effectively cleaned up, moreover, the commander Bogdanov, who was watching the assault from the front line, was wounded, and the army was headed by Chief of Staff Radzievsky. In Lublin, an uprising of the Craiova Army began, all parts of the army that had not fought for the city from the very beginning pulled up to 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 another two thousand prisoners.

Majdanek. Camp victims' shoes

Along the way, the Majdanek death camp was liberated. The driver Mikhail Gorodetsky later said: “ I had an order not to leave the car. I was sitting in the car, and then one lieutenant came up: “What are you sitting?! Your brothers are there, and you are sitting in the car! Go save them!" I took the 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 there, behind the wire, there were barracks, their entrance doors were walled up - people were driven there, and they could not get out. Then there were barrels in which there were ashes from people, the Germans took it to their fields. In these barrels there were bones, and pieces of skulls, and whatever you want. And there were so many baby carriages nearby, it's scary to say!

There was one room in the crematorium where the dead lay, the second room where teeth and jaws were pulled out, in the third room they undressed, and in the fourth room they fired. I didn't go to the place where people were being fired, I couldn't stand it anymore. Maybe my family was there too. It was so hard on my soul ... I couldn’t find a place for myself, I couldn’t go further.

Inspection of ovens in Majdanek

However, it was not possible to immediately force the Vistula, the bridges flew into the air, and the army rushed to the north, along the eastern bank of the river. An amusing situation developed: the tankers were moving perpendicular to the infantry, crossing their line of advance.

The breakthrough to Lublin immediately sharply aggravated the situation in the eyes of the Polish government in exile. The Polish Committee immediately appeared in the city national liberation is 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, sometimes simply absent. Two bridgeheads were seized at once - at Magnushev and Pulawy. Only the 1st Army of the Polish Army failed.

The Red Army forces the Vistula

If the Soviet side had to simply change plans on the go, then the Germans were in the face of disaster and had to patch up the defeated front at a fire pace. Army Group Center Commander Walter Model used to restore the integrity of his defensive lines reserves, since the General Staff of the Reich, realizing the scale of the threat, began to throw divisions to the front like coal into a locomotive furnace. In particular, the Model received a whole package of tank formations from the rear and from other fronts.

These reserves included army tank divisions, the SS divisions "Viking" and "Totenkopf" ("Dead Head"), as well as the "tank-parachute" division "Hermann Goering". Model intended to use these forces for a strong counterattack on the flank of the Soviet avant-gardes and restore the situation.

However, while the reserves were moving forward and concentrated, the 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 destruction of its main forces in the Bobruisk pocket at the end of June, so by the end of July it was a pitiful sight.

"Panther"SS Panzer Division "Viking" 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 units of the Hermann Goering were assigned to this role - a reconnaissance battalion and part of the artillery. All of them were brought together in the “Franek group”, named after the commander, the Austrian General Franek. These troops took up defensive positions in the Garwolin area, south of Warsaw on the eastern bank of the Vistula with a front to the 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 the Radzievsky army went to Garvolin 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, only one motorized rifle brigade, the main blows fell on the flanks of the Franek group. The positions of the Germans west and east of Garvolin were defeated, and in order not to be surrounded, the Germans withdrew to the north. Meanwhile, reinforcements, new Goering units and tanks of the 19th division flowed in a thin stream to Franek.

The German infantry was gradually removed from the board: one of the regiments of the Franek group was already defeated, the rest suffered heavy losses. The Germans countered the Russian breakthrough mainly with scattered battle groups assembled on the fly from suitable units of tank divisions.

The approach of the third of the corps of Radzievsky's army especially worsened the position of the Germans. With constant counterattacks, they could still hold back the Russian offensive, but throwing reserves into battle "from the wheels" led to high losses. Despite the fact that the Germans gradually gained a numerical advantage in infantry and artillery, and their armored fist was constantly built up, 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 Panzer Corps, advancing most successfully of all, was thrown into the gap to Volomin and Radzimin, to the west. The corps was supposed to bypass Warsaw deeply from the east. The merit of this plan lay in the deep coverage of the German positions, but the 3rd Panzer Corps was supposed to fan out in the enemy rear, and yet German battle groups continued to accumulate on its flanks. Moreover, the beaten group of Franek 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 grouping accumulated by the Model numbered more than fifty thousand people with six hundred tanks in two corps. By the way, for five tank and infantry divisions, as well as for numerous reinforcement units in the Warsaw area, this is still very small, and this situation reflects, on the one hand, losses, on the other, the still incomplete concentration of divisions in the battle area.

Walter Model

The Russians could only oppose them with 32 thousand fighters and a few 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 conduct a productive counteroffensive.

On the afternoon of July 30, one of the brigades of the 3rd Panzer Corps in the depths German defense was suddenly 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 a quick approach rifle divisions, but now the Germans were counterattacking along the entire front, and events were moving faster than the Soviet commander expected. On the 30th he set offensive tasks and planned the assault on Prague, the eastern Warsaw suburb, and on July 31, German counterattacks hit the 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 consisted in a subtle choice of the moment: it was required to start an uprising after the collapse of the German defenses, 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.

Beginning of the Warsaw Uprising: Poles from the Home Army show off an expropriated SS armband. Faces are still confident, everyone is sure that things are going well

During the 20th, police and Volksdeutsches fled from Warsaw. On July 31, Anthony "Monter" Chruszel, the commander of the Polish partisans in Warsaw, personally went to Prague, on the eastern bank of the Vistula. The fighting was already going on five kilometers from Warsaw, the cannonade was perfectly audible, some soviet tanks even made their way to Prague, however, were driven back or burned. As a result, Monter decided that it was time to act, and the uprising in Warsaw began on the 2nd.

Meanwhile, on July 31, for the Russians, there was no question of a breakthrough to Prague. The 3rd Panzer Corps was exhausted under the blows of the 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. Desperate battles did not stop, the corps stood like a hedgehog and fought off the Germans advancing along 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 (Dead Head division) during the fighting in Eastern Poland

However, the defeat of those surrounded in the cauldron did not take place. Outside, the 8th Guards Tank Corps cut through a narrow corridor to the encircled. On the night of August 4, the last large groups encirclement went to the positions of the 8th corps. Both beaten brigades were withdrawn to the rear for restoration, the remaining ones were subordinate to the 8th. We must pay tribute to the command of the army: a search and rescue operation was even organized in order to pull the remaining groups of those breaking out of the boiler. However, the salvation of the encircled did not mean the end of 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 near Magnushev to the south, and Model had to transfer part of his forces there from Warsaw. The arrows of the Soviet 47th Army and the cavalry of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps approached the battlefield.

Fresh large compounds turned the tide. Reinforcements were not enough 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 ceased. Soon, both corps, which had escaped encirclement, were transferred to other sectors for defense against German counterattacks, having lost ground in the Warsaw area to the infantry. There was a lull on the approaches to the Polish capital for several weeks.

The Battle of Warsaw is important in several respects. Firstly, the 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 new disaster, 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 to destroy the encircled brigades, and in general for the 50,000th group advancing on the 30,000th 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 the face of the unknown forces of the enemy and separation from the main forces of the front. However, the 2nd Panzer Army showed the ability to cope with a difficult crisis and, on the whole, proved to be a tough nut that the enemy did not manage to crack.

Rokossovsky in Polish uniform

Finally, the Battle of Warsaw became fatal for the uprising of the Home Army in the Polish capital. The performance plan was entirely based on the fact that the Russians would quickly drive the Germans out of the vicinity of Warsaw, however, a sharp stop in the offensive of Radzievsky’s army just a few hours before the uprising led to the fact that the Poles were left face to face with the punitive SS formations and after a long painful siege were crushed.

However, the latter turned out to be for the best for the interests of Russians in the post-war world, so the question is whether it is worth getting very upset because of this - ed. ed.

At this time, the Germans tried to throw the enemy from the bridgeheads beyond the Vistula. Although the bridgeheads were attacked with all their energy, the fighting eventually degenerated into frontal attacks. These battles cost the Soviet troops dearly: the 8th Guards Army lost 35 thousand people near Magnushev, significantly more than a year later near Berlin.

However, the German forces were exhausted. Both sides were unable to continue. major battles in the central sector of the Soviet-German front. Operation "Bagration" is over.

Repay 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 different, but usually from 300 to 500 thousand soldiers). For the Red Army, this grandiose massacre also did not become an easy walk: about 180 thousand Red Army soldiers died. However, the result was almost unbelievable.

All the possibilities of the Wehrmacht to bring 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. Success caused the collapse of the German front according to the domino principle: after such losses, the Wehrmacht could not patch up holes anywhere, the Reich reserves showed the bottom: the triumph of the Bagration helped both the troops breaking through Ukraine and advancing in the Baltic states. The general depletion of reserves had an effect even on the front in Rumania and, perhaps, on the Western Front. Mutual the influence of the Belorussian operation and the landings in Normandy is often underestimated, but meanwhile, operations at opposite ends of Europe had a devastating cumulative effect: the Nazis could not concentrate their forces anywhere and collapsed 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 divisions destroyed in Belorussia 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, the commander of the 6th corps, who died near Vitebsk, was also a veteran who participated in the battle for Kyiv in 1941.

armies on central direction never managed 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: milestone battle - preparation for it. By a series of measures, the Russians gave the enemy a completely wrong impression of their plans. The Nazis were deceived and dealt a crushing blow in a direction that they considered secondary. In the end, the battle was won before it even started. The question was only how exactly the Wehrmacht catastrophe would look like, but not 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 footsteps were getting louder and louder. The Reich, suffering defeat after defeat in the west and east, rolled to a sad end.

“Lunar landscape” of craters from shells of various calibers, fields entangled with barbed wire, deep and branched trenches - this is exactly what the front line looked like in the western direction in the spring of 1944.

"Iron" great battle Heavy bomber He-177 (Germany)

The picture was more reminiscent of the Somme or Verdun in 1916, only the charred skeletons of tanks testified to the change of eras. It would be a big mistake to believe that positional battles are forever in the past, on the fields of the First World War. World War II was simply more diverse, combining positional meat grinders and fast-moving maneuverable battles.

While Soviet troops were successfully advancing in Ukraine in the winter of 1943-1944, the front line on the outskirts of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Orsha and Vitebsk remained almost motionless. A giant "Belarusian balcony" was formed. Undertaken Western Front offensive operations failed time after time. Things were somewhat better at the 1st Baltic and 1st Belorussian fronts, but they also achieved only limited successes, the directives of the Headquarters remained unfulfilled.

Army Group "Center" was the toughest nut to crack - for three whole years it held back the offensive impulses of the Red Army. When in the south, in the steppe zone, the war was already rolling towards the borders of the USSR, fierce positional battles were going on in the forests and swamps in the western direction.

Impregnable shaft of fire

This happened due to the fact that in the fall of 1943 the Germans managed to stabilize the front, gain a foothold in advantageous positions and bring up artillery, up to the heaviest - captured 280-mm French mortars. The short delivery arm to Belarus from Germany, the increase in the production of shells as part of the declared total war allowed the troops of the Center GA to literally drown the Soviet offensives in a flurry of artillery fire, with a consumption of up to 3000 tons of ammunition per day. For comparison: during the storming of Stalingrad, less than 1000 tons per day were spent at the peak. Thousands of shells of heavy guns suffered heavy losses to the advancing Soviet units.

In addition, in the wooded and swampy terrain of Belarus, the Germans managed to realize the technical advantage of the Tiger tanks, which shot through fashion shows and roads from long distances, knocking out the Soviet T-34−76. The "Tigers", according to German data, accounted for almost half of the wrecked Soviet tanks in early 1944. The situation seemed hopeless, the command changed the direction of attacks, attempts to break through were made by different armies, but the result was invariably unsatisfactory.

The goal of Operation Bagration was to destroy the so-called "Belarusian balcony" hanging over the right flank of the Soviet troops advancing in Ukraine. In just two months, Army Group Center was defeated. From the Soviet side, the troops of the 1st Baltic Front (commanded by General of the Army I.Kh. Bagramyan), the 3rd Belorussian Front (Colonel General I.D. Chernyakhovsky), the 2nd Belorussian Front (Colonel General G . F. Zakharov), 1st Belorussian Front (General of the Army K.K. Rokossovsky). On the German side - the 3rd Panzer Army (Colonel General G. H. Reinhardt), the 4th Army (Infantry General K. von Tippelskirch), the 9th Army (Infantry General H. Jordan), the 2nd Army ( Colonel General V. Weiss).

A series of failures in the western direction led to an investigation by the GKO (State Defense Committee) commission in April 1944, as a result of which the commander of the Western Front, V.D. Sokolovsky, commander of the 33rd Army (which was often placed in the direction of the main attack) V.N. Gordov and some other persons from the front headquarters. G.K. Zhukov and A.M. were sent to Belarus as representatives of the Headquarters. Vasilevsky, who were in the southern sector of the Soviet-German front during the winter campaign of 1943-1944. The first was instructed to coordinate the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts, and the second - the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic. In general terms, to the level of directives of the Headquarters, offensive plans were worked out by the end of May 1944. The operation received the code name "Bagration".

Wehrmacht error

Zhukov and Vasilevsky partially facilitated the task of storming the “Belarusian balcony” by their own successes against Army Groups “South” and “A”. On the one hand, after the successful liberation of the Crimea in May 1944, several armies were released - they were loaded into echelons and sent to the western direction. On the other hand, by the beginning of the summer, the vast majority of German tank divisions, the most valuable reserve in the defense, had been pulled south. Only one 20th tank division remained in the GA "Center" near Bobruisk. Also, the army group was left with a single battalion of "Tigers" (there were two in winter). To characterize the GA "Center" in relation to equipping tank troops, it is enough to cite one fact: the largest German formation on the Eastern Front did not have a single Panther tank, although Pz. V has been in production for over a year now! The basis of the fleet of armored vehicles GA "Center" was approximately 400 assault guns.

In the photo, the commander of the 1st Baltic Front, General of the Army I.Kh. Bagramyan and the chief of staff of the front, Lieutenant General V.V. Kurasov. The 1st Baltic Front took part in three Bagration operations - Vitebsk-Orsha, Polotsk and Siauliai. His troops marched from the eastern regions of Belarus to the coast of the Gulf of Riga, from which, however, they had to retreat under the pressure of the German amphibious assault.

To patch up the front of the army groups "Northern Ukraine" and "Southern Ukraine" also seized approximately 20% of the RGK artillery and 30% of the assault gun brigades. By the beginning of the summer of 1944, the German high command considered the most probable Soviet offensive in the Northern Ukraine GA zone, in the development of winter and spring successes. It was assumed that a powerful blow would be delivered through Poland to the Baltic Sea, cutting off the GA "Center" and GA "North" from Germany. Therefore, in the GA "Northern Ukraine" were collected large forces tank troops, and was headed by the "genius of defense" and favorite of the Fuhrer, Walter Model. The opinion that main blow will follow not in the band of the GA "Center", shared by the commanders of the armies in Belarus. They were persuaded by their own defensive successes in the winter campaign that there would be pinching offensives with limited objectives in the central sector of the front. They were convinced that after a series of failures, the Red Army would change the direction of the blow. If, however, offensives with limited objectives are undertaken, they will be repelled just as successfully as in the winter of 1943-1944.

Bet on wings

On the contrary, the Soviet command decided to focus on the liberation of Belarus. An error in assessing the plans of the Red Army to a large extent predetermined the collapse of the German front in the summer of 1944. However, the task of the Soviet troops in the western direction remained difficult. The new offensive of the Red Army could still be drowned in a flurry of artillery fire, as well as winter operations. To combat enemy artillery, in addition to strengthening the traditional counter-battery fight, it was decided to use aviation. The situation for the large-scale use of aviation in the summer of 1944 in Belarus was the most favorable.

In early 1944, the German "Tigers" represented serious problem for the Red Army: the Soviet T-34−76 became victims of their long-range guns. However, by the time the operation "Bagration" began most of"Tigrov" was relocated to the south.

At that time, the 6th Air Fleet under the command of Luftwaffe Colonel General Robert von Greim operated in the interests of the Center GA. Its composition by the beginning of the summer of 1944 was rather peculiar. In total, Belarus had 15% of the combat-ready Luftwaffe aircraft of all types in all theaters of military operations. At the same time, as of May 31, 1944, out of 1051 combat-ready single-engine fighters in the Luftwaffe as a whole, only 66 aircraft, or 6%, were in the 6th Air Fleet. These were the headquarters and two groups of the 51st Fighter Squadron. There were 444 of them in the Reich air fleet, and 138 in the neighboring 4th air fleet in Ukraine. In total, the 6th air fleet at this point there were 688 combat-ready aircraft: 66 single-engine fighters, 19 night fighters, 312 bombers, 106 attack aircraft, 48 night bombers, 26 long-range reconnaissance aircraft, 67 short-range reconnaissance aircraft, and 44 transport aircraft.

Shortly before the start of the Soviet offensive, the number of fighters in Belarus decreased, and as a result, by June 22, 1944, only 32 Bf.109G-6 fighters based in Orsha remained in the 6th Air Fleet. For the almost 1000-kilometer front of the GA "Center" this number can hardly be called otherwise than ridiculous. The abnormality of the situation can be illustrated by another fact: Messerschmits as photo reconnaissance (modifications Bf.109G-6 and Bf.109G-8) subordinate to the 6th Air Fleet had a comparable number - 24 combat-ready vehicles on May 31, 1944. On the one hand, this shows the Germans' attention to aerial reconnaissance, and on the other hand, it demonstrates a catastrophic decrease in the number of German fighters in Belarus. By the way, it was the photo reconnaissance officers of the GA "Center" who revealed the concentration of Soviet artillery in the direction of the main attacks of the four fronts, and they were not a secret for the Germans by June 22, 1944.

At the initial stage of Operation Bagration, Soviet bomber aircraft were engaged in the suppression of German artillery positions. Then artillery began to suppress the enemy's defenses. Subsequently, the Germans noted the increased quality of artillery fire control by our troops.

At the same time, the 6th Air Fleet could boast of a very impressive number of bombers. Three hundred, mostly He-111, were intended for night strikes on targets in the Soviet rear. If the grouping of fighters in June 1944 was weakened, then the bomber fist of the 6th Air Fleet, on the contrary, increased. Three groups of He-177s from the KG1 squadron landed at the airfields in Koenigsberg. They numbered about a hundred heavy aircraft - quite an impressive force. Their first task was to hit the railway junction in Velikiye Luki. The command of the Luftwaffe belatedly realized the prospects for strategic air strikes against the rear of the Soviet Union. However, these ambitious plans were not destined to come true, and soon He-177s were used to strike at completely different targets.

Heavy bombers were also concentrated on the other side of the front. By the spring and early summer of 1944, aviation long range(ADD) The Red Army Air Force was a serious force capable of solving independent tasks. It consisted of 66 air regiments, combined into 22 air divisions and 9 corps (including one corps for Far East). The aircraft fleet of the ADD reached an impressive figure of 1,000 long-range bombers. In May 1944, this impressive air force was aimed at Army Group Center. Eight ADD corps were relocated to the regions of Chernigov and Kyiv, which made it possible to strike at the "Belarusian Balcony" hanging over Ukraine. The long-range aviation fleet at that time consisted mainly of twin-engine aircraft: Il-4, Lend-Lease B-25 and converted into bombers transport aircraft Li-2. The first ADD strikes in the western strategic direction followed in May 1944, when the transport network in the rear of the Center GA was attacked.

On July 17, 1944, a column of 57,000 German prisoners of war was marched through Moscow, after which the streets were defiantly swept and washed. The Wehrmacht suffered a severe defeat, but the losses of the Red Army were also very high - almost 178,500 killed.

Reconnaissance in force

The task set by the command to defeat the German defense was significantly different from the usual ADD attacks on railway junctions and other targets of this kind deep behind enemy lines. A serious problem was the threat of defeat of their own troops, prepared for the offensive, with the slightest navigational errors, inevitable at night. In order to prevent this from happening, a complex system of light designation of the leading edge was thought out. Searchlights were involved, indicating the direction of the attack with a beam, fires and even ... trucks. They lined up in a row in the near rear parallel to the front line and shone their headlights into the rear. From the air at night, this row of headlights was perfectly visible. Additionally, the leading edge was marked by artillery fire, flashes of shots were also well observed from a height. The crews of the ADD were clearly instructed, at the slightest doubt in the identification of the forward edge, to leave for an alternate target in the depths of the enemy defenses.

Most of June 1944 was spent in preparation for the summer battles. The German high command believed that a new Soviet offensive would begin on June 22, 1944, the anniversary of the start of the war. However, in reality, on June 22, reconnaissance in force began on the right wing of the Soviet troops in Belarus. The Germans habitually met her with a flurry of artillery fire, and Soviet artillery reconnaissance officers spotted firing batteries.

280 mm French mortar used by the Wehrmacht.

At that moment, the heavenly office unexpectedly intervened in the plans of the command of the fronts: the weather worsened, and the very use of aviation was called into question. Low clouds hung over the ADD airfields in Ukraine and Belarus. Heavy rains and thunderstorms began. However, the ADD had a sufficient number of experienced crews capable of flying in difficult weather conditions. Therefore, with a decrease in the number of aircraft involved, there was no refusal to complete the task.

On the night of June 22-23, 1944, heavy air bombs with a caliber of up to 500-1000 kg hit the German positions in the direction of the main attacks of the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts. The relatively low accuracy of bombing from level flight was compensated by the power of the bombs and the massive impact in a small space. As the pilots dryly wrote in one of the reports, "bomb explosions were located over the entire target area."

Defense Crush

On the morning of June 23, after night raids by long-range aviation, Soviet artillery fell on German positions. Subsequently, the chief of staff of the German 4th Army outlined the reasons for the "stunning successes" of the Red Army as follows:

Soviet attack aircraft Il-2

“The activity of enemy artillery - primarily the amount of ammunition used up and the duration of the hurricane fire - was significantly higher than in previous battles. Enemy artillery fire control has become more maneuverable, moreover, in more than before, attention was paid to the suppression of German artillery.

Soon they said their weighty word and Soviet Air Force. As part of the four fronts by the beginning of "Bagration" there were about 5,700 aircraft. However, not all of this mass could be used for attacks against German artillery and infantry positions. From the morning of June 23 Soviet aviation almost did not fly, but as weather conditions improved, activity increased due to the actions of the most experienced crews. Despite heavy torrential rain and poor visibility, not exceeding 500 m, small Ilov groups searched for enemy batteries and showered them with bombs, including anti-tank PTABs, which acted as high-efficiency fragmentation bombs. The 337th Infantry Division, which found itself in the direction of the main attack of the 2nd Belorussian Front, lost ¾ of its artillery in two days. A similar picture was observed in all directions of the main shock. This perseverance brought the expected success. A report on the actions of the German 9th Army, written in the hot pursuit of events, noted:

“Especially noteworthy was the use of superior aviation forces, which operated on a previously unknown scale and suppressed our artillery for hours ... Thus, the main defense weapon was disabled at the decisive moment.”

Heavy bomber He-177 (Germany).

The Soviet command managed to pick up the key to the German positional front. The massive impact on the artillery of the Germans silenced it and opened the way for the Soviet infantry. Rifle formations also significantly tightened their combat training during the spring calm. In the rear, life-size sections of the German positions to be attacked were built, with real barbed wire and marked minefields. The soldiers trained tirelessly, bringing their actions to automatism. I must say that in the winter of 1943-1944 there was no such practice of training on mock-ups. Good preparation allowed the attacking units to quickly break into the enemy's trenches and prevent the Germans from gaining a foothold in the following positions.

Biggest disaster

The collapse of the positional front in several directions at once - near Vitebsk, Mogilev and Bobruisk - became fatal for the armies of the Center GA. They consisted mainly of infantry divisions, they were sorely lacking in mobile reserves. The only mobile reserve was used extremely incompetently, pulled apart between two Soviet strikes.

This made the collapse of the entire army group inevitable and swift. First, the 3rd Panzer Army near Vitebsk and the 9th Army near Bobruisk were surrounded. Through two breaches made in the place of these "cauldrons", the Soviet tank units rushed to Minsk. The meeting of two fronts near Minsk on July 3, 1944 formed another "cauldron" for the German 4th Army. By that time, the retreating German divisions had almost lost their combat effectiveness under the continuous attacks of Il-2 attack aircraft on forest roads and at crossings. The Germans failed to organize any significant supply by air, and this led to the rapid collapse of the "boilers", left without ammunition and even food. GA "Center" has turned into an unorganized crowd with small arms with a minimum amount of ammunition. Later, the prisoners captured in Belarus were driven away by the "march of the vanquished" in Moscow on July 17, 1944. The losses of the GA "Center" as a whole can be estimated at 400-500 thousand people (an exact calculation is difficult due to the loss of documents). |photo-9|

To deter the offensive of the Soviet mechanized formations, the Germans threw even He-177 heavy bombers into battle. In fact, the situation of 1941 was mirrored, when Soviet DB-3 bombers flew against tank groups, despite the losses. Already in the first attacks on Soviet tanks, KG1 lost ten aircraft. Huge unarmored He-177s were extremely vulnerable to fire from anti-aircraft guns and even small arms. At the end of July 1944, the remnants of the squadron were withdrawn from the battle.

The Germans managed to stop the Soviet offensive only on the Vistula and on the outskirts of East Prussia, including through the transfer of tank reserves from the Northern Ukraine State Administration and from the reserve. The defeat of the GA "Center" was the largest catastrophe of the German army in its entire history. It is all the more impressive because the armies that had held a solid positional front for many months turned out to be defeated.

The article “Operation Bagration: Blitzkrieg to the West” was published in the journal Popular Mechanics (No. 5, May 2014).

On June 22, 1944, three years after the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Red Army launched a massive offensive in Belarus.

Preparation of the Belarusian operation (from left to right) Varennikov I. S., Zhukov G. K., Kazakov V. I., Rokossovsky K. K. 1st Belorussian Front. 1944

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 the territory still remaining in their hands. By the middle of June Soviet-German front passed along the line Narva - Pskov - Vitebsk - Krichev - Mozyr - Pinsk - Brody - Kolomyia - Iasi - Dubossary - Dniester Estuary. On the southern sector of the front, hostilities were already taking place beyond the state border, on the territory of Romania. May 20, 1944 General base completed the development of a plan for the Belarusian offensive operation. She entered the operational documents of the Headquarters under the code name "Bagration". Successful execution concept of Operation Bagration made it possible to solve a number of other 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. Go to the coast of the Baltic Sea and to 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 profitable operational and tactical prerequisites for subsequent offensive actions in the Baltics, Western Ukraine, on the East Prussian and Warsaw directions.

The configuration of the front line in Belarus was a huge arc extended to the east with an area of ​​​​almost 250 thousand square kilometers. It 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. In this arc, the main forces of Army Group Center were concentrated, which included the 3rd Panzer, 2nd, 4th and 9th armies. The Soviet General Staff officers called this sector of the front the "Belarusian salient". Since the Belarusian ledge covered the distant approaches to Poland, and the outpost of the Great German Reich - East Prussia, the German command sought to keep it at any cost and attached great importance to creating a powerful, long-term defense in it. The main defensive line passed along the line Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Rogachev - Bobruisk. The areas of Vitebsk and Bobruisk, which were the flanks of Army Group Center, were especially strongly fortified. Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Borisov and Minsk were declared "fortresses" by Hitler's special order.

Nevertheless, the General Staff believed that the main blow, deciding the fate of the entire summer campaign, must be applied in Belarus. The developed operational plan was based on the idea of ​​breaking through the enemy's defenses on the flanks, developing the offensive in converging directions and capturing Minsk. Thus, the authors of the plan expected to close the ring around 38 German divisions of the first echelon, concentrated east of the capital of Belarus. This put Army Group Center on the brink of actual annihilation. the main role in forthcoming offensive assigned to the 1st Belorussian Front under the command of K.K. Rokossovsky. Rokossovsky had a special responsibility on his shoulders. The nature of the terrain in the zone of the 1st Belorussian Front was extremely unfavorable, and not only the German, but also the Soviet high command considered a large-scale offensive here impossible. Even at the stage of developing the plan of the operation, Stalin and other members of the Stavka asked Rokossovsky the question: how is he going to strike with two tank corps and four combined arms armies through continuous, impenetrable swamps? That's exactly what the Germans think, answered the front commander. They don't expect our strike from here. Therefore, their defense is not continuous, but focal, that is, easily vulnerable, which actually predetermines success.

The Germans were expecting a general offensive of the Red Army in the south. From the territory of Ukraine and Romania, our troops could well deliver a powerful blow both to the rear of the Army Group Center and to the precious oil fields of Ploiesti for the Reich. Based on these considerations, the German command concentrated its main forces in the south, assuming in Belarus only local operations of a fettering nature. The General Staff strengthened the Germans in every possible way in this opinion. The enemy was shown that most of the Soviet tank armies "remain" in Ukraine. On the central sector of the front in daylight hours the days were hectic engineering work to create false defensive lines in front of the Belarusian ledge. The Germans "bought" and increased the number of their troops in Ukraine, which was required by the Soviet command.

June 22, 1944, on the day of the third anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, reconnaissance in force was carried out in the sectors of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts. The commanders in this way specified the location of enemy firing points on cutting edge and spotted the positions of some previously unknown artillery batteries. The final preparations for the general offensive were being made.

The main blow in the summer of 1944, the Soviet Army dealt in Belarus. Even after the winter campaign of 1944, during which the Soviet troops occupied advantageous lines, preparations began for an offensive operation under 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 Army had to overcome the developed system of field fortifications, such rivers as the Western Dvina, Dnieper, Berezina. The cities of Mogilev, Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Orsha were turned by the German command into fortified areas.

The Soviet troops were tasked with defeating the Nazi 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 groupings in the Vitebsk and Bobruisk region. With the solution of these tasks, our troops were able to rapidly develop the offensive in depth. enemy defense for the subsequent encirclement of an even larger grouping of German troops in the Minsk region.

One of the largest strategic operations of the Second World War. It was carried out by the 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. During the operation, the directorates of the 2nd Guards and 51st armies, the 19th tank corps and 24 divisions were additionally introduced. By the nature of hostilities 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 Vitebsk-Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Polotsk and Minsk front offensive operations were carried out. At the second stage (July 5-August 29, 1944), Vilnius, Siauliai, Bialystok, Lublin-Brest, Kaunas and Osovets front-line offensive operations were carried out.

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 elimination was completed by the morning of June 27. With the destruction of the Vitebsk grouping of German troops, the key position on the left flank of the defense of Army Group Center was defeated. In the Bogushev direction, after breaking through the enemy defenses, the Soviet command brought the 5th Guards Tank Army into battle. Having successfully crossed the Berezina, she cleared Borisov of the enemy. The withdrawal of front troops to the Borisov region led to a major operational success: the 3rd Panzer Army of the enemy was cut off from the 4th Army. 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, Dnieper rivers, and on June 28 liberated Mogilev.

On the morning of June 3, powerful artillery preparation, accompanied by pinpoint 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. Rokossovsky's front struck the main blow the next day. The first day of the battle showed that the advance of our troops was uneven. Yes, 4th shock army The 1st Baltic Front, advancing on Verkhnedvinsk, failed to overcome the enemy's defenses, and its result was limited to 5-6 kilometers recaptured. On the other hand, the 6th Guards and 43rd Armies succeeded in breaking through and bypassing Vitebsk from the northwest. They broke through the German defenses to a depth of 15 kilometers and opened the way for the 1st Panzer Corps. The 39th and 5th armies of the 3rd Belorussian Front successfully broke through south of Vitebsk, crossed the Luchesa River and continued to advance. Thus, already on the first day, the German group had a small corridor southwest of Vitebsk, only 20 kilometers wide. The adjacent flanks of the 43rd and 39th armies were to link up in the settlement of Ostrovno, slamming the trap behind the enemy.

On the Orsha direction The 11th Guards and 31st Armies were unsuccessful. Here they were opposed by the enemy's powerful defenses in terms of engineering and fire. In January, our troops were already advancing on this sector, but all their attempts to take Orsha ended in failure. The armies of Galitsky and Glagolev broke into the advanced German trenches. Throughout the day on June 23, they made their way to the second line of German defenses. Before coordinating the actions of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts, the representative of the Stavka A.M. Vasilevsky, the question arose: in which sector should the 5th Guards Tank Army of General P.A. Rotmistrov? After consulting with the commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, he decided to wait for success near Orsha. In this case, the 5th Panzer will be able to make a throw directly at Minsk.

Good results were shown by the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front. 49th Army Lieutenant General I.T. Grishina successfully overcame the resistance of the Germans in the Mogilev direction and immediately seized a bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper. Complete surprise was achieved in the sector of the 1st Belorussian Front. The strike group operating in the Parichi region, without much interference from the enemy, made a breakthrough to a depth of 20 kilometers. This success allowed General Panov's 1st Guards Tank Corps and General Pliev's cavalry-mechanized group to be put into action immediately. Chasing the rapidly retreating Germans, the mobile units of the 1st Belorussian Front approached Bobruisk the very next day.

On June 26, the tankers of General Bakharov made a breakthrough to Bobruisk. Initially, the troops of the Rogachev strike group encountered fierce enemy resistance. On the first day of the offensive, their advance did not exceed 10 kilometers. Then the commander of the 3rd Army, General Gorbatov, suggested that the front headquarters change the direction of the attack of the 9th Panzer Corps north of Rogachev, where there was a weak link in the German defense. Besides, quick success offensive in the Parichi region put the German command in front of the threat of encirclement. On the evening of June 25, the Germans began tactical withdrawal from the line Zhlobin - Rogachev. But it was already too late. The tank corps of Panov and Bakharov by that time had penetrated behind enemy lines. On June 27, the encirclement closed. In the "bag" were parts of the 35th army and 41st tank German corps.

Soviet soldiers acted courageously and courageously, irresistibly striving forward to the west. Here is one episode. In the city of Borisov, there is an obelisk-monument to the tank crew of the Heroes of the Soviet Union, consisting of Lieutenant P. Rak and sergeants A. Petryaev and A. Danilov. Their combat vehicle was the first to slip through the mined bridge across the Berezina and burst into the city. Circumstances developed in such a way that the crew of the lead vehicle was cut off from their own, surrounded on all sides by the Nazis. For 16 hours he fought a hard battle with the enemy. Tankers defeated the Nazi commandant's office, the headquarters of the military unit, exterminated many Nazi soldiers and officers. But the fight was unequal: the Soviet soldiers died the death of the brave.

Two days earlier, the troops of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts successfully completed the encirclement of the enemy in the Vitebsk region. The mobile groups of Bagramyan and Chernyakhovsky quickly advanced towards Lepel and Borisov. Vitebsk was taken on 26 June. 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 the tankers of General Rotmistrov 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 Tatsinsky tank corps of General A.S. Burdeyny. They entered Minsk at dawn on July 3. Around noon, tankers of the 1st Guards Tank Corps of the 1st Belorussian Front made their way to the capital from the southeast. By the end of the day, Rotmistrov's tankers and soldiers of General Gorbatov's 3rd Army appeared in Minsk. The main forces of the 4th German army - the 12th, 26th, 35th army, 39th and 41st tank corps - were surrounded to the east of the city. They included more than 100 thousand soldiers and officers.

Undoubtedly, the command of Army Group Center made a number of gross mistakes. First of all, in terms of maneuvering on their 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 new line defense. Instead, the German commander allowed unjustified delay in issuing the order to withdraw. It is likely that Bush was blindly following instructions from Berlin to hold the bulge at all costs. Therefore, the German soldiers, who were surrounded east of Minsk, were doomed. On July 12, the encircled troops capitulated. AT Soviet captivity 40 thousand soldiers and officers were hit, 11 generals - commanders of corps and divisions. It was a disaster.

With the destruction of the 4th Army, a huge gap appeared in the German front line. The Germans could do nothing to close it. 4th of July VGK rate sent a new directive to the fronts, containing the requirement to continue the offensive without stopping. The 1st Baltic Front was to advance in general direction on Siauliai, reaching Daugavpils with the right wing, Kaunas with the left. Before the 3rd Belorussian Front, the Headquarters set the task of capturing Vilnius and part of the forces - Lida. The 2nd Belorussian Front was ordered to take Novogrudok, Grodno and Bialystok. The 1st Belorussian Front developed the offensive in the direction of Baranovichi, Brest and further to Lublin.

At the first stage of the Belarusian operation, the troops solved the tasks of breaking through the strategic front of the German defense, encircling and destroying flank groups. Therefore, the Headquarters, organizing the interaction of the fronts, planned their strikes in converging directions. After the successful solution of the tasks of the initial stage of the Belorussian operation, the issues of organizing continuous pursuit of the enemy and maximizing the expansion of breakthrough areas came to the fore. Therefore, it was accepted reverse solution, that is, instead of converging directions, the blows of the fronts followed diverging directions. So our troops could crack german front for almost 400 kilometers. Their progress was at breakneck speed. On July 7, hostilities took place on the Vilnius-Baranovichi-Pinsk line. The deep breakthrough of the Soviet troops in Belarus created a threat to the Army Group North and the Army Group Northern Ukraine. Favorable prerequisites 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. Their actions were provided by the adjacent flanks of the Bagramyan and Rokossovsky fronts.

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, completely defeated them by June 29. By July 3, 1944, Soviet troops liberated the capital of Belarus, Minsk. East of it, they surrounded 105,000 German soldiers and officers. The German divisions caught in the ring tried to break through to the west and southwest, but during the fighting that lasted from July 5 to 11, they were captured or destroyed. The enemy lost over 70 thousand people killed and about 35 thousand prisoners.

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. Before the Soviet troops there was an opportunity to start the pursuit defeated troops enemy. 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 successively defeated the remnants of the withdrawing formations of Army Group Center and inflicted heavy losses on the troops transferred here from Germany, Norway, Italy and other regions. Soviet troops completed the liberation of Belarus. They liberated part of Lithuania and Latvia, crossed state border, entered the territory of Poland and approached the borders of East Prussia. The Narew and Vistula rivers were forced. The front moved to the west for 260-400 kilometers. It was a strategic victory.

The success achieved in the course of the Belorussian operation was promptly developed by active operations in other sectors 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. The total depth of advancement was 550-000 kilometers. During the June-August 1944 operation in Belarus, the Baltic states and Poland, 21 enemy divisions were completely defeated and destroyed. 61 division lost more than half of its composition. 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 taken prisoner in Belarus were escorted through the central streets of Moscow under escort.

Duration - 68 days. The width of the combat front is 1100 km. The depth of advance of the Soviet troops is 550-600 km. Average daily advance rate: at the first stage - 20-25 km, at the second - 13-14 km

Operation results.

The troops of the advancing fronts defeated one of the most powerful enemy groupings - 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 Latvian SSR. The Red Army entered the territory of Poland and advanced to the borders of East Prussia. During the offensive, large water barriers of the Berezina, Neman, Vistula were forced, important bridgeheads were captured on their western shores. Conditions were provided for delivering strikes 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 greatly facilitated the conduct of hostilities in France by the Anglo-American troops. In the summer of 1944, on the eve and during Operation Bagration, which aimed to liberate Belarus from the Nazi invaders, partisans provided truly invaluable assistance to the advancing Soviet army. They seized river crossings, cut off the enemy's retreat, undermined rails, wrecked trains, made surprise raids on enemy garrisons, and destroyed enemy communications.

Soon, Soviet troops began to defeat a large group during the Iasi-Kishinev operation Nazi German troops in Romania and Moldova. This military operation of the Soviet troops began in the early morning of August 20, 1944. Within two days, the enemy defenses were broken through to a depth of 30 kilometers. Soviet troops entered the operational space. A large administrative center of Romania, the city of Iasi, was taken. The search for the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts (commanded by army generals R.Ya. Malinovsky to F.I. Tolbukhin), sailors of the Black Sea Fleet and the Danube River Flotilla took part in the operation. The fighting unfolded over a territory of more than 600 kilometers along the front and up to 350 kilometers in depth. More than 2,100,000 people, 24,000 guns and mortars, 2,500 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and about 3,000 aircraft took part in the battles on both sides.