Operations of the Red Army Bagration. Operation Bagration
The Belarusian operation is a strategic offensive military operation of the USSR troops against Germany at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, named after the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, commander P. I. Bagration. By June 1944, a bulge of German troops had formed on the front line in Belarus (the Vitebsk - Orsha - Mogilev - Zhlobin line), facing east. In this wedge, the German command created a deeply layered defense. The Soviet command set its troops the task of breaking through the enemy’s defenses on the territory of Belarus, defeating the German Army Group Center and liberating Belarus.
Operation Bagration began on June 23, 1944. It developed on a 400 km front line (between German Army Groups North and South), Soviet troops of the 1st Belorussian (Army General K.K. Rokossovsky) were advancing, 2nd Belorussian (Army General G.F. Zakharov), 3rd Belorussian (Colonel General I.D. Chernyakhovsky) and 1st Baltic (Army General I.Kh. Bagramyan) fronts. With the support of partisans, they broke through the defenses of the German Army Group Center in many areas, surrounded and eliminated large enemy groups in the areas of Vitebsk, Bobruisk, Vilnius, Brest and Minsk.
By August 29, 1944, German Army Group Center was almost completely defeated; Army Group North found itself cut off from all ground communication routes (until the surrender in 1945, it was supplied by sea). The territory of Belarus, a significant part of Lithuania and the eastern regions of Poland were liberated. Soviet troops reached the Narew and Vistula rivers and the borders of East Prussia.
Orlov A.S., Georgieva N.G., Georgiev V.A. Historical Dictionary. 2nd ed. M., 2012, p. 33-34.
Belarusian operation - offensive June 23 - August 29, 1944 by Soviet troops in Belarus and Lithuania. 4 fronts took part in the offensive: 1st Baltic (General I.Kh. Bagramyan), 1st Belorussian (General K.K. Rokossovsky), 2nd Belorussian (General G.F. Zakharov) and 3rd Belorussian ( General I.D. Chernyakhovsky). (Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945). The troops were equipped with vehicles, tractors, self-propelled artillery and other types of equipment. This significantly increased the maneuverability of Soviet formations. Three years after the start of the war, a completely different army returned to Belarus - a battle-hardened, skillful and well-equipped army. She was opposed by Army Group Center under the command of Field Marshal E. Bush.
The balance of forces is shown in the table.
Source: History of the Second World War: In 12 vols. M., 1973-1979. T. 9. P. 47.
In Belarus, the Germans hoped to stop the Soviet onslaught with the help of a pre-prepared and deeply echeloned (up to 270 km) defense, which relied on a developed system of field fortifications and convenient natural boundaries (rivers, wide swampy floodplains, etc.). These lines were guarded by the highest quality military contingent, which retained many veterans of the 1941 campaign in its ranks. The German command believed that the terrain and powerful defense system in Belarus precluded the Red Army from successfully carrying out a major offensive operation here. It expected that the Red Army would deliver its main blow in the summer of 1944 south of the Pripyat marshes, where the main German tank and motorized forces were concentrated. The Germans hoped that the main target of the Soviet onslaught would be the Balkans, a traditional zone of Russian interests.
However, the Soviet command developed a completely different plan. It sought first of all to liberate its territories - Belarus, Western Ukraine and the Baltic states. In addition, without eliminating the northern ledge, called the “Belarusian Balcony” by the Germans, the Red Army could not effectively advance south of the Pripyat marshes. Any breakthrough from the territory of Ukraine to the west (to East Prussia, Poland, Hungary, etc.) could be successfully paralyzed by an attack on the flank and rear from the “Belarusian Balcony”.
Perhaps none of the previous major Soviet operations had been prepared with such care. For example, before the offensive, sappers removed 34 thousand enemy mines in the direction of the main attack, made 193 passages for tanks and infantry, and established dozens of crossings across the Drut and Dnieper. On June 23, 1944, the day after the 3rd anniversary of the start of the war, the Red Army struck Army Group Center with an unprecedented blow, fully paying for its humiliating defeat in Belarus in the summer of 1941.
Convinced of the ineffectiveness of individual offensive operations in the central direction, the Soviet command this time attacked the Germans with forces on four fronts at once, concentrating up to two-thirds of its forces on the flanks. The first strike involved the bulk of the forces intended for the offensive. The Belarusian operation contributed to the success of the Second Front in Europe, which opened on June 6, since the German command could not actively transfer troops to the west to contain the onslaught from the east.
The operation can be divided into two stages. During the first of them (June 23 - July 4), Soviet troops broke through the front and, with the help of a series of enveloping maneuvers, surrounded large German groups in the area of Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev. The Red Army's offensive was preceded by a massive artillery barrage (150-200 guns and mortars per 1 km of the breakthrough area). On the first day of the offensive, Soviet troops advanced 20-25 km in some areas, after which mobile formations were introduced into the breakthrough. Already on June 25, in the area of Vitebsk and Bobruisk, 11 German divisions were surrounded. Near Bobruisk, Soviet troops for the first time used a massive air strike to destroy the encircled group, which disorganized and scattered the German units going for a breakthrough.
Meanwhile, the 1st and 3rd Belorussian Fronts launched deeper flank attacks in converging directions towards Minsk. On July 3, Soviet troops liberated the capital of Belarus, encircling a 100,000-strong German group to the east. Belarusian partisans played a huge role in this operation. Actively interacting with the advancing fronts, the people's avengers disorganized the operational rear of the Germans, paralyzing the latter's transfer of reserves. In 12 days, Red Army units advanced 225-280 km, breaking through the main lines of German defense. A peculiar result of the first stage was the procession through the streets of Moscow of over 57 thousand German soldiers and officers captured during the operation.
So, at the first stage, the German front in Belarus lost stability and collapsed, allowing the operation to move into the maneuver stage. Field Marshal V. Model, who replaced Bush, was unable to stop the Soviet offensive. At the second stage (July 5 - August 29), Soviet troops entered the operational space. On July 13, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front struck south of the Pripyat marshes (see Lvov-Sandomierz operation), and the Soviet offensive unfolded from the Baltic states to the Carpathians. At the beginning of August, the advanced units of the Red Army reached the Vistula and the borders of East Prussia. Here the Soviet onslaught was stopped by the approaching German reserves. In August - September, Soviet troops, who captured bridgeheads on the Vistula (Magnuszewski and Pulawski) and Narew, had to fight off strong German counterattacks (see Warsaw III).
During the Belarusian operation, the Red Army made a powerful push from the Dnieper to the Vistula and advanced 500-600 km. Soviet troops liberated all of Belarus, most of Lithuania and entered Polish soil. For carrying out this operation, General Rokossovsky received the rank of marshal.
The Belarusian operation led to the defeat of Army Group Center, whose irretrievable losses amounted to 539 thousand people. (381 thousand people killed and 158 thousand captured). This success of the Red Army was paid at a high price. Its total losses amounted to over 765 thousand people. (including irrevocable - 233 thousand people), 2957 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2447 guns and mortars, 822 aircraft.
The Belarusian operation was distinguished by the largest losses of Red Army personnel in strategic operations of 1944. The average daily losses of Soviet troops were also the highest in the 1944 campaign (over two thousand people), which indicates the high intensity of the fighting and stubborn resistance of the Germans. This is evidenced by the fact that the number of killed Wehrmacht soldiers and officers in this operation is almost 2.5 times higher than the number of those who surrendered. Nevertheless, this was one of the largest defeats of the Wehrmacht in the Great Patriotic War. According to the German military, the disaster in Belarus put an end to the organized resistance of German troops in the East. The Red Army's offensive became general.
Book materials used: Nikolay Shefov. Battles of Russia. Military-historical library. M., 2002.
Read further:
Vitebsk-Orsha operation 1944, offensive operation of the troops of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts in the Great Patriotic War, carried out on June 23 - 28 during the Belarusian operation.
| In the Soviet Union, over the years of industrialization, several dozen new sectors of the national economy were created that did not exist in 1913. But at the same time, people have never seen part of the products produced at the newly built enterprises in everyday life. During the war, the troops were equipped with tractors, self-propelled artillery and other types of equipment that the soldier, a former peasant, had never seen before. It’s a different matter now: everyone can buy at least a KAMAZ, even a Shaanxi or HOWO tractor. Chinese tractors have become more accessible than all those miracles of domestic heavy industry that we were proud of throughout the world. And now everyone can be proud of their own (from the word “property”) iron construction or transport monster. |
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 front-line 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 on June 28 liberated Mogilev.
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, tankmen 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 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 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 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.
OPERATION "BAGRATION"
In total, by the beginning of the operation, the Soviet side had concentrated more than 160 divisions. Of this number, the four fronts included 138 divisions, as well as 30,896 guns and mortars (including anti-aircraft artillery) and 4,070 tanks and self-propelled guns (1st PB - 687, 3rd BF - 1810, 2nd BF - 276 , 1st BF – 1297). The remaining forces were subordinate to Headquarters and were brought into battle already at the stage of development of the offensive.
Decisive victory
In Soviet historiography, 1944 was considered the year of decisive victories in the history of the Great Patriotic War. During this year, the Red Army carried out ten strategic operations, which later became known as “Stalin’s 10 strikes.” The fifth and largest was the Belarusian one, carried out in the form of the strategic operation “Bagration” in the period from June 23 to August 29, 1944 by troops of four fronts, as a result of which all of Belarus, part of the Baltic states and Poland were liberated. The Red Army finally drove the enemy out of most of Soviet territory, crossing the State Border of the USSR.
After the defeat at Stalingrad, Kursk and Smolensk, by the beginning of 1944, the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front finally switched to a tough defense. In the spring of 1944, the line of Soviet-German confrontation had a gigantic bend in Belarus, forming a protrusion with a total area of more than 50 thousand square meters. kilometers, facing east with its convexity. This ledge, or, as the Soviet command called it, a balcony, was of great military and strategic importance. Army Group Center, holding the territory of Belarus, ensured a stable position of German troops in the Baltic states and Ukraine. The salient also covered Poland and East Prussia, through which the shortest routes to the vital centers of Germany passed. It also allowed the German command to maintain strategic coordination between Army Groups North, Center and Northern Ukraine. The Belarusian balcony hung over the right flank of the 1st Ukrainian Front, providing the Germans with wide operational maneuver and the ability to launch air strikes on communications and industrial areas of the Soviet Union.
The command of Army Group Center did everything possible to ensure that the territory of Belarus became an impregnable fortress. The troops occupied a pre-prepared layered defense up to 270 km deep, with a developed system of field fortifications and defensive lines. The reliability of the German defense is evidenced by the fact that from October 12, 1943 to April 1, 1944, troops of the Western Front in the Orsha and Vitebsk directions carried out 11 offensive operations that were not successful.
The composition of the Soviet troops eloquently speaks about the strategic scale of Operation Bagration. The four fronts united 15 combined arms and 2 tank armies, which included 166 divisions, 12 tank and mechanized corps, 7 fortified areas, 21 rifle and separate tank mechanized brigades. The combat strength of units and units numbered 1 million 400 thousand people, 36,400 guns and mortars, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns. The troops were supported by aviation from five air armies. In total, more than 5 thousand combat aircraft were involved.
As part of the operation, a number of tasks were supposed to be solved by the forces of Belarusian partisans, who by the spring of 1944 controlled more than 50% of the territory of Belarus. It was they who were supposed to ensure the paralysis of the operational rear of Army Group Center. And the people's avengers successfully completed the tasks assigned to them.
The Belarusian operation went down in history as one of the largest strategic battles in the history of wars. During the first two days, enemy defenses were broken through on six sectors of the front. The Red Army's offensive took place in a strip 1,100 km long and was carried out to a depth of 550–600 km. The rate of advance was 25–30 km per day.
Partisan actions
The Red Army's offensive in Belarus was preceded by a guerrilla offensive on the enemy's communications of unprecedented scale. Massive actions in the German rear began on the night of June 20. The partisans planned to carry out 40 thousand different explosions, but in fact they managed to carry out only a quarter of their plans. However, this was enough to cause a short-term paralysis of the rear of Army Group Center.
The head of the rear communications of the army group, Colonel G. Teske, stated: “On the night before the general Russian offensive in the sector of Army Group Center, at the end of June 1944, a powerful distracting partisan raid on all important roads deprived the German troops of all control for several days. During that one night, the partisans laid about 10.5 thousand mines and charges, of which only 3.5 thousand were detected and neutralized. Due to partisan raids, communication along many highways could only be carried out during the day and only accompanied by an armed convoy.”
The main targets of the partisans' forces were railways and bridges. In addition to them, communication lines were disabled. All these actions greatly facilitated the offensive of the troops at the front.
Operation Bagration as a folk epic
For three years the Belarusian land languished under the fascist yoke. The Nazis, having chosen a policy of genocide and mass bloody terror, committed unheard-of atrocities here, sparing neither women nor children. Concentration camps and ghettos operated in almost every region of Belarus: in total, 260 death camps and 70 ghettos were created within the republic. In only one of them - in Trostenets near Minsk - more than 200 thousand people were killed
During the war, the occupiers and their accomplices destroyed and burned 9,200 settlements. Over 5,295 of them were destroyed along with all or part of the population. 186 villages were never able to be revived, as they were destroyed along with all the villagers, including mothers and infants, the frail old people and the disabled. The victims of the Nazi policy of genocide and scorched earth tactics were 2,230,000 people, Almost every third resident of Belarus died.
However, the Belarusians did not accept the “new order” that the Nazis imposed in the occupied territories. From the first days of the war, underground groups were created in cities and towns, and partisan detachments were created in the forests. The partisan movement on the territory of Belarus had a nationwide scope. By the end of 1941, 12,000 people fought in the ranks of the partisans in 230 detachments, and by the summer of 1944 the number of people's avengers exceeded 374 thousand people, who were united in 1,255 detachments, 997 of which were part of 213 brigades and regiments.
Belarus was deservedly called a “partisan republic”: During three years of heroic struggle behind enemy lines, Belarusian patriots destroyed almost half a million Nazis and policemen.
The liberation of Belarus began in 1943, when in August–September, as a result of the Smolensk, Bryansk, Chernigov-Pripyat, Lepel, Gomel-Rechitsa operations, the first Belarusian cities were liberated.
On September 23, 1943, the Red Army liberated the first regional center of Belarus - Komarin. Twenty soldiers who distinguished themselves during the crossing of the Dnieper in the Komarin area were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. At the end of September, Khotimsk, Mstislavl, Klimovichi, and Krichev were liberated.
November 23, 1943 The Red Army cleared the first regional center of the republic, Gomel, from fascists.
In January – March 1944 The Kalinkovichi-Mozyr operation was carried out with the participation of Gomel, Polesie and Minsk partisan formations, as a result of which Mozyr and Kalinkovichi were liberated.
One of the largest battles at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War was The Belarusian operation, which went down in history under the name “Bagration”. The Germans created a defense in depth along the Dnieper, the so-called “Eastern Wall”. The advance of the Soviet troops here was held by the Army Group "Center", two army groups "North" and "Northern Ukraine", which had 63 divisions, 3 brigades, 1.2 million people, 9.5 thousand guns and mortars, 900 tanks and assault guns, 1350 aircraft. Moreover, before Operation Bagration, Nazi strategists were convinced that the Russians would advance not through the Belarusian swamps, but “in the south of the Eastern Front, in the Balkans,” so they kept the main forces and main reserves there.
On the Soviet side, troops of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts were involved in the operation (commanders: Army General K.K. Rokossovsky, Army General G.F. Zakharov and Colonel General I.D. Chernyakhovsky ), as well as troops of the 1st Baltic Front (commander - Army General I.Kh. Bagramyan). The total number of Soviet troops was 2.4 million soldiers and officers, 36,400 guns and mortars, 5,200 tanks and self-propelled artillery units, 5,300 aircraft.
Operation Bagration was a new form of strategic action- an operation of a group of fronts united by a single plan and led by the Supreme High Command. According to the plan of the summer campaign of 1944, it was envisaged to launch an offensive first in the areas of the Karelian Isthmus by troops of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet, and then in the second half of June in Belarus. The main difficulty of the upcoming offensive of the troops, especially the 1st Belorussian Front, was that they had to operate in difficult wooded and heavily swampy terrain.
The general offensive began on June 23, and already on June 24 the defensive line of German troops was broken through.
June 25 1944 - the Vitebsk enemy group consisting of 5 divisions was surrounded and then liquidated.
June 29 Red Army troops defeated the enemy group surrounded near Bobruisk, where the Nazis lost 50 thousand people.
July 1 troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front liberated Borisov. In the Minsk “cauldron” to the east of the capital of Belarus, a 105,000-strong enemy group was surrounded.
3 July In 1944, tank crews and infantrymen of the 1st and 2nd Belarusian Fronts cleared the capital of Belarus, Minsk, from Nazi invaders.
As a result of the first stage of Operation Bagration, the enemy army group Center suffered a complete defeat.
During the second stage of the Belarusian operation in July 1944, Molodechno, Smorgon, Baranovichi, Novogrudok, Pinsk, and Grodno were liberated. And the liberation of Brest on July 28 completed the expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the territory of Belarus.
As German General H. Guderian recalled: “As a result of this strike, Army Group Center was destroyed... Field Marshal Model was appointed instead of Field Marshal Bush as commander of Army Group Center, or rather, commander of “empty space.”
On May 20, the General Staff completed the development of the plan for the Belarusian strategic offensive operation. It was included in the operational documents of the Headquarters under the code name “Bagration”.
In the first half of 1944, Soviet troops won major victories near Leningrad, in Right Bank Ukraine, in Crimea and on the Karelian Isthmus. These victories provided, by the summer of 1944, favorable conditions for the defeat of one of the largest strategic groupings of the enemy - Army Group Center - and the liberation of the Byelorussian SSR. Since the shortest route to the German borders passed through Belarus, a major offensive operation was carried out here. The operation received the code name “Bagration”, it was carried out by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian (commanders K.K. Rokosovsky, G.F. Zakharov, I.D. Chernyakhovsky) and the 1st Baltic (Commander I H. Bagramyan) fronts.
In the summer of 1944, the Nazi command was waiting for the main attack of the Red Army in the south - in the Krakow and Bucharest directions. The majority of Soviet tank armies were located in the southwestern sector of the Soviet-German front. This was one of the reasons why the Germans expected to continue the offensive in the southwestern direction.
The ratio of forces of the parties at the beginning of the operation was in favor of the Soviet troops: in terms of people - 2 times, in terms of tanks and self-propelled guns - 4 times, and in terms of aircraft - 3.8 times. The decisive massing of forces and means in breakthrough areas made it possible to achieve superiority over the enemy in manpower - by 3-4 times, in artillery - by 5-7 times, and in tanks by 5-5.5 times. Soviet troops occupied an enveloping position in relation to the troops of Army Group Center. This contributed to the delivery of flank attacks, their encirclement and destruction in parts.
The concept of the operation: provided for the simultaneous transition of troops on four fronts to the offensive in the Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev and Bobruisk directions, the encirclement and destruction of enemy flank groups in the areas of Vitebsk and Bobruisk, the development of gifts along directions converging on Minsk, the encirclement and destruction of the main enemy group east of Minsk.
The similarity between the concept of Operation Bagration and that of Operation Uranus was that both operations provided for deep bilateral operational coverage, which led to the encirclement of a large strategic group of Nazi troops. The difference between the plans was that the plan for Operation Bagration provided for the initial encirclement of the enemy’s flank groupings. This should have led to the formation of large operational gaps, which the enemy, due to insufficient reserves, could not quickly close. These gaps were to be used by mobile troops to rapidly develop the offensive in depth and to encircle the 4th German Army in the area east of Minsk. In contrast to the dissecting flank attacks at Stalingrad, in Belarus the front was fragmented.
During the offensive of the Soviet troops that began on June 23, 1944, the German defense was broken through, and the enemy began a hasty retreat. However, the Germans did not manage to withdraw in an organized manner everywhere. Near Vitebsk and Bobruisk, 10 German divisions fell into two “cauldrons” and were destroyed. On July 3, Soviet troops liberated Minsk. In the forests east of Minsk, a 100,000-strong enemy group was surrounded and destroyed. The defeats at Bobruisk, Vitebsk and Minsk were catastrophic for the German army. General Guderian wrote: “As a result of this strike, Army Group Center was destroyed. We suffered huge losses - 25 divisions. All available forces were thrown at the collapsing front.” The German defenses collapsed. The Germans were unable to stop the advance of the Soviet troops. On July 13, units of the 3rd Belorussian Front liberated Vilnius. Soon Brest and the Polish city of Lublin were occupied. Operation Bagration ended on August 29, 1944 - Soviet troops liberated all of Belarus, part of the Baltic states, and entered the territory of Poland and East Prussia.
Tsobekhia Gabriel
In 1944, the Red Army carried out a series of offensive operations, as a result of which the state border of the USSR was restored all the way from the Barents to the Black Sea. The Nazis were expelled from Romania and Bulgaria, from most areas of Poland and Hungary. The Red Army entered the territory of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Among these operations was the defeat of Nazi troops on the territory of Belarus, which went down in history under the code name “Bagration”. This is one of the largest offensive operations of the Red Army against Army Group Center during the Great Patriotic War.
The armies of four fronts took part in Operation Bagration: 1st Belorussian (commander K.K. Rokossovsky), 2nd Belorussian (commander G.F. Zakharov), 3rd Belorussian (commander I.D. Chernyakhovsky), 1st Baltic (commander I. Kh. Bagramyan), forces of the Dnieper military flotilla. The length of the combat front reached 1100 km, the depth of troop movement was 560-600 km. The total number of troops at the start of the operation was 2.4 million.
Operation Bagration began on the morning of June 23, 1944. After artillery and air preparation in the Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev directions, the troops of the 1st Baltic, 3rd and 2nd Belorussian fronts went on the offensive. On the second day, enemy positions were attacked by troops of the 1st Belorussian Front in the Bobruisk direction. The actions of the fronts were coordinated by representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky.
Belarusian partisans dealt strong blows to the occupiers’ communications and communication lines. On the night of June 20, 1944, the third stage of the “rail war” began. During that night, the partisans blew up more than 40 thousand rails.
By the end of June 1944, Soviet troops surrounded and destroyed the Vitebsk and Bobruisk enemy groups. In the Orsha area, a group covering the Minsk direction was eliminated. The enemy's defenses in the territory between the Western Dvina and Pripyat were breached. The 1st Polish Division named after T. Kosciuszko received its first baptism of fire near the village of Lenino, Mogilev region. French pilots of the Normandy-Neman aviation regiment took part in the battles for the liberation of Belarus.
On July 1, 1944, Borisov was liberated, and on July 3, 1944, Minsk was liberated. In the area of Minsk, Vitebsk and Bobruisk, 30 Nazi divisions were surrounded and destroyed.
Soviet troops continued their advance to the west. On July 16, they liberated Grodno, and on July 28, 1944, Brest. The occupiers were completely expelled from Belarusian soil. In honor of the Red Army, the liberator of Belarus from the Nazi invaders, the Mound of Glory was built at the 21st kilometer of the Moscow Highway. The four bayonets of this monument symbolize the four Soviet fronts, whose soldiers took part in the liberation of the republic.
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