Operation bagration events. Belarusian strategic offensive operation ('Bagration')

BELARUSIAN OPERATION OF 1944 (codenamed "Bagration"), one of the largest strategic offensive operations of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. The goal is to defeat the German Army Group Center (commander - Field Marshal E. Bush, from June 28 - Field Marshal V. Model; a total of 1.2 million people, 9.5 thousand guns and mortars, 900 tanks and assault guns , 1350 aircraft), which had a defense in depth (250-270 km), based on a developed system of field fortifications and natural boundaries, and liberate Belarus. It was carried out on June 23 - August 29 by the forces of the 1st Belorussian (commander - Army General, from June 29 Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky), 2nd Belorussian (commander - Colonel General, from July 28, Army General G.F. Zakharov), 3rd Belorussian (commander - Colonel General, from June 26 General of the Army I. D. Chernyakhovsky), 1st Baltic (commander - General of the Army I. Kh. Bagramyan) fronts; The 1st Belorussian Front also included the 1st Polish Army (since July 21, the 1st Army of the Polish Army; Lieutenant General 3. Berling) and the Dnieper Military Flotilla (Rear Admiral V. V. Grigoriev). From the Soviet side, 2.4 million people participated in the Belarusian operation (with 36.4 thousand guns and mortars, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, 6.8 thousand combat aircraft). Partisan units and formations played an active role in the Belarusian operation. 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.

Soviet troops broke through the enemy's defenses simultaneously in six sectors, surrounded and destroyed his groupings in the areas of Vitebsk (June 27) and Bobruisk (June 28-29), defeated the German Orsha and Mogilev groups, and then surrounded and defeated part of Army Group Center to the east Minsk (July 12). In the course of the further offensive, large German groupings were surrounded and destroyed near Vilnius (July 13) and Brest (July 28). By August 29, Soviet troops reached the line Jelgava - Dobele - Siauliai - Suwalki - Prague (a suburb of Warsaw) - the Vistula River, where they went on the defensive. Army Group Center suffered a crushing defeat. Advancing in a strip of more than 1100 km, Soviet troops advanced westward to a distance of 550-600 km.

The successful completion of the Belarusian operation created favorable conditions for the Pskov-Ostrov operation of 1944, the Lvov-Sandomierz operation of 1944, the Baltic operation of 1944, the Yassy-Kishinev operation of 1944, the liberation of South-Eastern Europe and Poland. The Belarusian operation made a significant contribution to the development of Soviet military art: parallel and frontal pursuit of the enemy to a depth of 200-250 km from the front line with subsequent encirclement, massing of artillery (150-200 guns and mortars per 1 km of the breakthrough area) and a new method of artillery support for the attack of infantry and tanks - a double fire shaft.

Lit .: Soviet military art in the Belarusian operation of 1944 // Military History Journal. 1984. No. 4; Plotnikov Yu. V. Liberation of Belarus. M., 1984; Adair R. Hitler's defeat greatest: the collapse of Army Group Center, June 1944. L., 2000; Operation Bagration. Liberation of Belarus. M., 2004.

On July 29, 1944, during the Belarusian strategic offensive operation, better known as Operation Bagration, the Red Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the German Army Group Center. Less than a year remained before the complete defeat of the Nazis.

the day before

The military operations for the liberation of Ukraine by the Red Army units in the autumn of 1943 - winter of 1944 are quite widely known. To a lesser extent, operations on the territory of modern Belarus are known. And if in Southern Belarus the Red Army was successful (Gomel, Rechitsa and a number of other settlements were liberated), then the battles in the Orsha and Vitebsk directions went on with heavy losses and without significant advance of the troops. Here the German defenses had to be literally “gnawed through”.

Nevertheless, by the spring of 1944, the configuration of the front was extremely unfavorable for the German troops, when parts of the Army Group Center turned out to be covered from the north and south. Despite this, the German command expected that the most powerful Soviet strike would follow in Ukraine, it was there that up to 80 percent of German tanks and a large amount of manpower were concentrated. Further events showed that this was one of the miscalculations of the German command. It cannot be said that the offensive was a complete surprise for the German troops - it is impossible to hide the concentration of a large number of troops and equipment, but the strength and direction of the strikes turned out to be largely sudden for the enemy.

Vitebsk Operation

During Operation Bagration, a special place is occupied by the Vitebsk offensive operation, which was carried out by the flank armies of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts and is interesting as a successful example of the interaction of the two fronts.
The encirclement and destruction of a strong German grouping in the Vitebsk region was carried out without the involvement of large tank units - only by combined arms formations.
Despite the fact that the offensive took place in an area unfavorable for large-scale actions, abounding in forests and swamps, the operation was carried out successfully and in an extremely short time. Played a role and, apparently, the personal order of Adolf Hitler, who refused the proposal to leave an extremely important, but at the same time inconvenient for defense sector of the front.

Already on June 23, on the first day of the offensive, significant success was achieved by the Soviet troops, and a day later, battles unfolded in Vitebsk itself, which was liberated in the early morning of June 26. The second part of the operation was connected with the liquidation of several enemy groupings that were surrounded.

By the evening of June 28, the enemy's resistance was broken. The main role was played by the speed of action and the overwhelming superiority of the Soviet troops in aviation, since the enemy had practically no opposition in the air. During the occupation and battles, Vitebsk was practically turned into ruins, and out of 167 thousand inhabitants (according to the 1939 census), only 118 people remained in the city at the time of liberation.

Bobruisk offensive operation

A powerful blow was inflicted by units of the Red Army in the Bobruisk direction. Here the German troops, relying on a number of intermediate lines, made an attempt to preserve and withdraw equipment and the most combat-ready units. However, the German troops retreating in dense columns were dispersed and destroyed by artillery and tank attacks. Of great importance in the battles near Bobruisk was the almost complete air supremacy of Soviet aviation.

Bombers and attack aircraft often operated without fighter cover at all. So, in two hours on June 27, 1944, 159 tons of bombs hit one of the German columns. Further survey of the area established that the enemy had left more than a thousand dead, 150 tanks, about 1,000 guns and more than 6,500 vehicles and tractors in place.

On June 29, Bobruisk was liberated by Soviet troops. Separate German units managed to break out of the ring to Osipovichi, where they were finally dispersed.

Minsk "cauldron"

The third encirclement of a large German grouping was carried out by Soviet troops in the Minsk region. As in other areas, the offensive of the Soviet troops developed rapidly. Borisov was liberated on July 2 - the occupation of this city lasted exactly three years and one day (from July 1, 1941 to July 2, 1944).

Parts of the Red Army, bypassing Minsk, cut the roads to Baranovichi and Molodechno. German troops east of Minsk and in the city itself were surrounded. In total, about 105 thousand people turned out to be in the ring. Based on the experience of previous campaigns, the Soviet troops managed to very quickly create an external encirclement front and cut the German group into several parts.

On July 3, Minsk was liberated. Today this date is celebrated as the Independence Day of Belarus. Surrounded by German units in small groups of up to two thousand people, repeated attempts were made to break through Minsk from the north and south.

On the first day, German aviation tried to organize an air bridge, but rapid changes in the situation and the dominance of Soviet fighters in the air forced the German command to abandon this option.

Now the surrounded parts were left to themselves. To combat disparate groups in parts of the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front, they began to form special mobile detachments (three per rifle regiment).

Support for the actions of mobile detachments was carried out from the air, when aviation corrected the actions of ground units and delivered assault strikes. Active support in the destruction of disparate groups of regular troops was provided by about 30 partisan detachments. In total, during the Minsk operation, German troops lost about 72 thousand killed and missing and 35 thousand people. prisoners. The success of operations in the eastern and central parts of Belarus made it possible to proceed without a pause to the liberation of the western regions of the republic, the Baltic states and Poland.

Operation "Bagration" - the main event of 1944

As a result of a four-month offensive in the Right-Bank Ukraine, Soviet troops achieved important political and strategic results. The largest strategic grouping of the Wehrmacht operating here suffered a serious defeat. One part of it was thrown back to the south, the other moved to the territory of Western Ukraine. Having completely liberated the Right-Bank Ukraine, the troops of the Red Army reached the approaches to Poland, to the state border of the USSR with Czechoslovakia, and transferred the fighting to the territory of Romania. In essence, the defeat of the entire southern wing of the enemy's strategic front was completed, which radically changed the situation in other theaters of military operations. Simultaneously with operations in Ukraine, the offensive was carried out near Leningrad and on the central sector of the Soviet-German front.

In the northwestern direction, following the Leningrad-Novgorod operation, the troops of the right wing of the Leningrad and the left wing of the Karelian Front, with the assistance of the forces of the Baltic Fleet, the Ladoga and Onega military flotillas, carried out the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk offensive operation (June 10 - August 9, 1944), which completed battle for Leningrad. As a result, Soviet troops liberated the northern regions of the Leningrad region, most of the Karelian-Finnish SSR and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Finnish army. Successful combat operations in this operation significantly changed the situation on the northern sector of the Soviet-German front, predetermined Finland's exit from the war, and created favorable conditions for the complete liberation of the Soviet Arctic.

The Battle of Leningrad, which lasted 1125 days, was of great political and military-strategic importance. Having pulled over significant forces of German troops and the entire Finnish army, Leningrad deprived the German command of the opportunity to transfer its forces to those sectors of the front where the main tasks were being solved. The defense of Leningrad became a symbol of the courage and heroism of the Soviet people. In the history of mankind, no city has been subjected to such a long and painful siege. Not a single city that experienced the vise of a cruel blockade found the strength in itself to go on a decisive offensive and repel the enemy. And Leningrad, relying on the help of the whole country, gathered powerful forces into a fist and hit the enemy so that he rolled back hundreds of kilometers from the city.

The troops of the 1st Baltic, Western and Belorussian fronts took part in the offensive on the central sector of the Soviet-German front. They were faced with the task of defeating the Vitebsk and Mozyr enemy groupings with the subsequent development of attacks on Polotsk, Borisov, Bobruisk, and Minsk. In the western direction, Soviet troops

did not achieve significant success, but they fettered the main forces of Army Group Center, which was powerful in its composition, thereby providing great assistance to the fronts operating in the southwestern and northwestern directions. In mid-April, the fronts that carried out operations in the western direction, by order of the Headquarters, went over to the defensive and entrenched themselves on the lines they had reached. In May 1944, almost the entire length of the Soviet-German front was calm, both opposing sides were preparing for the upcoming battles.

The results of the winter-spring campaign determined the situation on the Soviet-German front by the beginning of the summer of 1944. As of June 1, the total strength of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union was 11.2 million people, 153 thousand guns and mortars, about 19 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, 24 thousand combat aircraft. The active army, deployed on a front with a length of 4.5 thousand km, included 11 fronts, 54 combined arms, five tank, 12 air armies, three fleets. They included 450 rifle and cavalry divisions, 16 tank and six mechanized corps, 72 artillery and mortar divisions, 82 separate artillery and mortar brigades, 132 aviation divisions - a total of 6.6 million people, 98.1 thousand guns and mortars, 7.1 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, about 12.9 thousand combat aircraft. Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy in men - 1.7 times, in guns and mortars - 1.8 times, in combat aircraft - 1.9 times, in guns and self-propelled (assault) guns - 1.6 times. The reserve of the Headquarters of the Civil Code consisted of two combined arms, one tank and one air armies, about 30 rifle and cavalry divisions, eight tank and seven mechanized corps, 11 artillery and mortar divisions and 11 separate brigades - a total of about 650 thousand people, 9.5 thousand guns and mortars, 2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns and 3 thousand aircraft.

Developing a plan for the summer campaign of 1944, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to carry out a series of strategic operations in succession. The main blow was delivered in the center of the Soviet-German front in order to liberate the occupied part of Belarus, Lithuania, the western regions of Ukraine and the eastern part of Poland. To do this, it was necessary to defeat the German army groups "Center" and "Northern Ukraine". The defeat of the Belarusian and Lvov enemy groups was the main content of the main attack of the Red Army in the summer of 1944. Its tasks for the summer and autumn of 1944 were formulated in the May Day order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Priority in the future campaign was given to the central sector of the Soviet-German front. Only by destroying a large strategic enemy grouping, which was the Army Group Center, could Belarus be liberated. At the same time, it was taken into account that an extensive network of partisan formations was actively operating on its occupied territory, which constantly disorganized the rear of the enemy.

The German leadership counted on stubborn defense on the occupied lines to contain the offensive of the Red Army, to prolong the war in every possible way in the hope of splitting the anti-Hitler coalition and to prevent Soviet troops from entering Germany and the Balkans. The main blow of the Red Army in the summer of 1944 was expected in the southwestern direction, believing that access to the Balkans, the mastery of Romanian oil and the Black Sea straits were the main goals of the Soviet Union. The possibility of a large offensive by the Red Army in the Baltics was admitted. It was also believed that the offensive in Belarus would not pursue decisive goals. Based on this assessment of the possible actions of the Red Army, the Wehrmacht command created the most powerful grouping of troops on the southern wing of the eastern front. But the position of Nazi Germany continued to worsen every day. A significant complication of the situation occurred after the armed forces of the United States and Britain opened a second front in Europe. However, Germany was still a strong opponent. With a huge army at its disposal, the German command additionally deployed over 40 calculated divisions to the Soviet-German front. The main forces of the Wehrmacht acted against the Red Army - 228 divisions and 23 brigades, in the west the German command held only 86 divisions.

The command of the Wehrmacht at any cost sought to keep the Belarusian ledge, or, as it was also called, the balcony. Here the Germans created a strong engineering

defense with a depth of 250-270 km. The first line under the code name "Panther" was especially carefully prepared, which passed along the northeastern and eastern borders of the Belarusian ledge, where up to 80% of all personnel and military equipment were concentrated. The main role was assigned to Army Group Center, led by Field Marshal E. Bush. It included the 3rd tank, 4th, 9th, 2nd armies, which occupied the line on a 950-kilometer front. In total, Army Group Center had 50 divisions and three brigades. At the junction with the Army Group "Center", the defense was held by the formations of the 16th Army, which was part of the Army Group "North", as well as the 4th Panzer Army from the Army Group "Northern Ukraine". In total, 63 divisions operated in the Belarusian direction. They numbered 1.2 million people, 900 tanks and assault guns, 9500 field guns and mortars. From the air, the German troops were supported by aviation of the 6th and partly of the 1st and 4th air fleets in the amount of 1350 combat aircraft. The main enemy forces were concentrated in the areas of Polotsk, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk and Kovel, where they covered the most accessible directions for the offensive. In the operational depth of the defense, the enemy skillfully used the wooded and swampy terrain, equipping army, intermediate and rear lines there.

The planning of the offensive operation of the Soviet troops to liberate Belarus was carried out in early April 1944. On May 20, General A. I. Antonov presented to the Supreme Commander a plan that provided for a simultaneous breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses in six sectors, dismemberment of his troops and defeat in parts. Particular importance was attached to the elimination of the most powerful flank groupings in the areas of Vitebsk and Bobruisk, the rapid advance to Minsk, as well as the encirclement and destruction of the main forces of Army Group Center east of Minsk to a depth of 200-300 km. Increasing their strikes and expanding the front of the offensive, the Soviet troops had to relentlessly pursue the remnants of the enemy troops, not allowing them to gain a foothold on intermediate lines.

It was assumed that the successful implementation of this plan would make it possible to liberate all of Belarus, reach the coast of the Baltic Sea and the borders of East Prussia, cut the German front, and create favorable prerequisites for strikes against enemy troops in the Baltic. Troops from four fronts were involved in the operation. The armies of the 1st Baltic Front advanced from the area northwest of Vitebsk, the 3rd Belorussian Front - south of Vitebsk to Borisov. The 2nd Belorussian Front operated in the Mogilev direction. The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front were aiming at Bobruisk, Minsk. By the beginning of the operation, 2400 thousand people, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, 36 thousand guns and mortars, 5.3 thousand combat aircraft were concentrated in the four fronts. Soviet troops outnumbered the enemy in men - 2 times, in tanks and self-propelled (assault) guns - 5.8 times, in guns and mortars - 3.8 times, in combat aircraft - 3.9 times. This gave confidence in success, especially since in none of the previous operations of the Great Patriotic War the army had such an amount of artillery, tanks and combat aircraft.

The plan of operation was approved by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on 30 May. The operation received the code name "Bagration" - in honor of the outstanding Russian commander, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Infantry General Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration. On the night of May 31, private directives were worked out, which, signed by I.V. Stalin and G.K. Zhukov, were sent to the front commands.

To coordinate the actions of the fronts, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command allocated its representatives. Thus, the offensive of the troops of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts was coordinated by the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky, and the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts were coordinated by the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal G.K. Zhukov. The issues of the use of the air force were dealt with by the representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for Aviation, the commander of the Red Army Air Force, Chief Marshal of Aviation A. A. Novikov. For the effective use of the forces and means of artillery in the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command sent the head of the Main Artillery Directorate, Marshal N. D. Yakovlev, and to the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic Fronts, the commander of the artillery of the Red Army, Marshal M .N.Number-

tyakova. The arrival at the front of so many high-ranking military leaders emphasized the great importance of this operation.

An important role in the operation was assigned to the Belarusian partisans. By the summer of 1944, there were 143 thousand partisans on Belarusian soil, which were part of 150 partisan brigades, and 49 separate detachments operating independently. They were armed with more than 700 guns and mortars of various calibers, 588 anti-tank rifles, more than 6,100 heavy and light machine guns, 16,210 machine guns, 83,150 rifles and 13,698 pistols. From January 1 to June 20, more than 65 thousand people joined the partisan detachments, 94.7% of them are local residents. The partisans were an impressive force, which was supposed to act together with the troops of the Red Army. In early June, the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement (BShPD) developed a plan for a new "rail operation", which provided for two or three days before the start of the offensive by the front troops, the partisans would carry out a powerful strike on the railways, paralyzing the movement. To this end, the partisans had to undermine about 50 thousand rails.

While preparing for the operation to blow up the rails, the Belarusian partisans did not stop combat, sabotage and reconnaissance activities. From May 31 to June 30, they wrecked 230 German trains, including on such important sections as Minsk - Baranovichi, Baranovichi - Brest, Orsha - Borisov. The partisans carried out big tasks in reconnaissance of the enemy. For six months in 1944, they handed over to the intelligence agencies of the fronts 5865 operational documents captured from the enemy.

In accordance with the plan, on the night of June 20, Belarusian partisans launched an operation to massively blow up the rails. As a result, three days before the start of the Soviet offensive, they blew up 40,865 rails. The partisans completely disabled a number of the most important railway communications and partially paralyzed the enemy's transportation on many sections of the Belarusian railways. “The last uncertainty about the start of the offensive,” wrote the former commander of the 4th German Army, General K. von Tippelskirch, “dissipated on June 20, when the partisans undertook major sabotage on the Pinsk-Luninets, Borisov-Orsha and Molodechno-Polotsk railways, then there is just on the communications of the army group "Center". On June 23, four Russian fronts launched an offensive.

To misinform the enemy, front-line formations were ordered to create at least three defensive lines to a depth of 40 km. Settlements adapted to all-round defense. Front, army and divisional newspapers published materials only on defensive topics, which created the illusion of a weakening of this strategic direction. The military ruse paid off: the attention of the Germans was largely diverted from the impending offensive. During the regrouping of troops, careful camouflage was carried out. In the front line, units and formations moved only at night and in small groups. Fires were not allowed day or night. The 5th Guards and 2nd Tank Armies, as well as part of the long-range aviation formations that were to take part in the operation, were on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front before the start of the offensive in Belarus. Other measures were taken to misinform the enemy. In order to convince the enemy that in the summer of 1944 Soviet troops would strike the main blow in the south and in the Baltic states, in May false concentrations of large masses of troops were carried out in the Yassky direction and in the zone of the 3rd Baltic Front. Thanks to these measures, surprise was achieved in Operation Bagration. The German command failed to disclose either the general concept of the operation, or its scale, or the direction of the main attack, or the date for the start of hostilities. Therefore, out of 34 tank and motorized divisions, 24 divisions were held by the Wehrmacht command south of Polesie.

A great deal of work was done by the rear services for the material support of the troops. By order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, five sets of ammunition, 10-20 refills of aviation and motor gasoline, 30 daily food deliveries were concentrated in the troops. In total, four fronts needed to deliver 400 thousand tons of ammunition, 300 thousand tons

fuel, over 500 thousand tons of food and fodder. An average of up to a hundred trains were delivered to the fronts daily. Over three weeks, more than 75 thousand wagons with troops, equipment, ammunition and other cargo arrived at the fronts. Many new railways, highways and dirt roads were repaired and built.

On June 22, reconnaissance in force began. To hide the direction of the main attack, it was carried out on a wide front - 450 km. Specially trained advanced battalions and reconnaissance detachments, supported by tanks, artillery fire and aviation, attacked the enemy. Mistaking reconnaissance in battle for the offensive of the main forces, the Germans opened artillery return fire and began to hastily pull up reserves to the Panther defensive line. For the first time in the three years of the war, not the German army, but the Soviet army opened the summer campaign with a major offensive operation with the forces of several fronts. On the morning of June 23, a powerful flurry of artillery and aircraft fire suddenly hit the enemy defenses. For 120 minutes, more than 30 thousand guns and mortars destroyed the fortifications, suppressed and destroyed enemy fire weapons and military equipment. Most of its defenses were put out of action, fire weapons, artillery and mortar batteries were suppressed, and command and control of troops was disrupted. The main forces of the 1st Baltic, 3rd and 2nd Belorussian fronts went on the attack. The next day, formations of the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front joined the battle. It seemed that after such a powerful artillery treatment of the front line and air strikes, nothing could remain alive in the trenches. Contrary to expectations, the enemy managed to quickly recover. From the rear areas, he began to urgently pull up tactical and operational reserves.

However, despite the fierce resistance of the Nazis, the Soviet soldiers, acting skillfully and decisively, moved forward step by step. Formations of the 6th Guards and 43rd armies of the 1st Baltic Front on the first day of the operation overturned the Germans north of Vitebsk and advanced 12-16 km. On the night of June 24, they reached the Western Dvina, crossed the river on the move and captured several bridgeheads on its left bank. The German command did not expect the advance of the troops of the 1st Baltic Front. The former Wehrmacht General K. von Tippelskirch wrote about this: “The offensive northwest of Vitebsk was especially unpleasant, since, unlike the attacks on the rest of the front, it was a complete surprise, hitting a particularly poorly defended sector of the front in an operationally decisive direction” . The troops of the 30th and 5th armies of the 3rd Belorussian Front successfully operated. On June 23, they broke through the defenses in a section 50 km wide and deepened 10-13 km. Showing perseverance, constantly maneuvering on the battlefield, the next day they advanced another 12-15 km. A battle ensued for Bogushevsk, an important knot of enemy resistance. At dawn on June 25, Soviet troops captured this city. On the Orsha direction, formations of the 11th Guards and 31st Armies also met with strong resistance. In order to prevent the formations of these armies from reaching the Minsk Highway, the German command concentrated the most combat-ready divisions on this sector, therefore, despite all efforts and significant losses, it was not possible to break through the defenses.

The troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front were more successful. Formations of the 49th Army on the very first day broke through the defenses to a depth of 5-8 km and crossed the river. Pronya. Subsequently, breaking the resistance of the enemy, they crossed the river. Vesta, wedged into the defense of the Nazis to a depth of almost 30 km and entered the operational space, starting the pursuit of the retreating enemy.

The left-flank armies (65th and 28th) of the 1st Belorussian Front, with the active support of aviation, on the first day of the offensive wedged into the enemy defenses for 10 km, liberated 50 settlements, expanding the area broke through 30 km. By the end of the third day, the formations of the 65th Army reached the river. Berezina south of Bobruisk, and the troops of the 28th Army crossed the river. Bird. The 3rd Army of General A.V. Gorbatov, advancing in the Rogachev-Bobruisk direction, achieved insignificant results on the first day. The divisions of the two rifle corps, repulsing the fierce counterattacks of the infantry and tanks, captured only the first and second

trenches. With great difficulty, the offensive was going on in the zone of the 48th army of General P. L. Romanenko. Wide marshy floodplain. Drut extremely slowed down the crossing of infantry and especially tanks. Only after a two-hour intense battle did our units drive the Germans out of the first trench and by 12 noon occupied the second trench.

Marshal G.K. Zhukov, coordinating the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts, subsequently had the courage to admit his own omissions: “During the preparation of the operation, the enemy’s defenses in the Rogachev-Bobruisk direction were poorly explored, as a result of which the strength of his resistance was underestimated . As a result of this mistake, the 3rd and 48th armies were given an overestimated breakthrough section. In addition, the armies did not have sufficient funds to ensure a breakthrough. As a representative of the Headquarters, I did not correct the front command in time.

The front commander ordered commanders A.V. Gorbatov and P.L. Romanenko to bring all reserves into battle, regroup troops north of the direction of the main attack, where enemy resistance was weaker, and reach Bobruisk by June 28. The commander of the 16th Air Army received an order to intensify air strikes against the enemy in the same direction. On June 26, there was a turning point. The troops of the 3rd and 48th armies, as well as the 9th tank corps, brought into battle, with the support of aviation, broke through the tactical defense. Tankers the next morning reached the left bank of the Berezina, cutting off the enemy's retreat. The pilots of the 16th Air Army made about 3,000 sorties, actively helping rifle divisions and tank crews to break through to Bobruisk.

Despite the stubborn resistance of the Nazis, the troops of four fronts, with persistent and coordinated strikes, broke through the defenses to a depth of 25-30 km, crossed a number of rivers on the move. A critical situation developed for the enemy in all directions. The German command placed great hopes on the fact that the Soviet troops could be stopped at the borders of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper. Along these rivers, which had wide swampy floodplains, the Germans built a strong defense. But Soviet soldiers, showing ingenuity and high combat skills, using mainly improvised means: fishing boats, rafts made of logs, empty barrels, fascines and boards, quickly and skillfully crossed water barriers.

The German command did its best to delay the offensive of the Soviet fronts, but it failed to do so. To develop success, mobile groups of fronts - cavalry-mechanized - entered the battle. On the morning of June 26, at a depth of 32-34 km from the front line, the 5th Guards Tank Army of P. A. Rotmistrov began to operate. With the active support of attack and bomber aircraft, after capturing the regional center of Tolochin, she entered the Minsk highway 50 km west of Orsha. On the 1st Belorussian Front, the cavalry-mechanized group of General I. A. Pliev was introduced into the breakthrough.

The offensive was carried out in converging directions. Soviet troops began to implement a plan to encircle enemy groups in the areas of Vitebsk and Bobruisk. On the third day of the operation, on the morning of June 25, formations of the 43rd Army of General A.P. Beloborodov of the 1st Baltic Front joined with the troops of the 39th Army of General I.I. Lyudnikov of the 3rd Belorussian Front in the Gnezdilovichi area. Five infantry divisions of the 3rd Panzer Army with a total strength of 35 thousand people were surrounded near Vitebsk. The Germans stubbornly resisted. On June 26, they made an attempt to break out of the shrinking ring and leave to the southwest. In the Zaozerye area, the enemy tried several times to get out of the encirclement, but in vain. With a joint strike by the 43rd and 39th armies, supported by large aviation forces, the encircled grouping was dismembered and destroyed two days later. Only the killed enemy lost 20 thousand people. More than 10 thousand were forced to surrender, including the commanders of the 53rd Army Corps and the 206th Infantry Division, 14 colonels, hundreds of senior and junior officers. The first significant gap appeared in the enemy's defense.

The offensive of the troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front developed rapidly, striking at Bogushevsk and Orsha. While the 39th Army was destroying the enemy in the Vitebsk-

ka, the 5th Army quickly broke through the enemy defenses and liberated Bogushevsk on June 24. The cavalry-mechanized group of General N. S. Oslikovsky and the 5th Guards Tank Army, introduced into the breakthrough, reached the Minsk highway west of Orsha on June 26. The troops of the 11th Guards and 31st armies, advancing in the Orsha direction, had the hardest time. Using strong defenses, the Nazis put up fierce resistance. But even here the enemy's defenses were broken through. On June 27, Orsha was liberated - a powerful defense center on the way to Minsk. At the same time, the 2nd Belorussian Front crossed the Dnieper with the forces of the 49th and 50th armies, defeated the enemy grouping in the Mogilev direction, and liberated Mogilev on June 28. Continuing the offensive, the mobile troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front reached the Berezina on June 28 and crossed the river on the move. The way to Minsk was open. The 3rd German Panzer Army was cut off from the rest of the forces of Army Group Center, and the 4th Army of the enemy was deeply engulfed from the north.

Events also developed successfully on the left wing of the Byelorussian salient, where the strike groups of the 1st Belorussian Front were advancing. The 1st and 3rd Guards Tank Corps, introduced into the battle, broke through behind enemy lines and cut off all his escape routes. The 9th Panzer Corps rushed along the highway to Bobruisk at high speed and by the morning of June 27 reached the left bank of the Berezina. Convinced that the bridge across the river was destroyed, the corps commander, General B.S. Bakharov, decided to temporarily go on the defensive and intercept the highway and crossings across the river northeast of Bobruisk in order to prevent the enemy from withdrawing from the Zhlobin area. On June 27, the 9th Tank Corps, attached to the 3rd Army, and the 1st Guards Tank Corps closed the ring around the enemy's Bobruisk grouping. About six divisions of the 35th Army and 41st Tank Corps of the 9th German Field Army were surrounded - up to 40 thousand soldiers and officers, a lot of weapons and military equipment. All attempts by the enemy to break out of the ring were thwarted. For the speedy destruction of the encircled enemy troops, representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme Command G.K. Zhukov and A.A. Novikov decided to involve the 16th Air Army. 400 bombers and attack aircraft took to the air under the cover of 126 fighters. The massive raid lasted an hour and a half. This air strike inflicted great damage on the Nazis and demoralized them. The complete defeat of the encircled group was completed by the formations of the 48th and 65th armies. On this day, Bobruisk was liberated.

As a result of the defeat of the enemy troops in the Bobruisk direction, another gap was created in their defense. The Soviet troops, having deeply encircled the 4th German Army from the south, reached the lines favorable for the throw on Minsk and the development of the offensive on Baranovichi.

The offensive of Soviet troops in Belarus from June 23 to 28 brought the Army Group Center to the brink of disaster. Its defense was crushed in all directions of the 520-kilometer front. Soviet troops, breaking the resistance of the enemy, advanced westward in various sectors from 80 to 150 km, surrounded and destroyed 13 enemy divisions. By the end of June 28, the troops of the 1st and 3rd Belorussian Fronts managed to bypass both flanks of Army Group Center. Favorable conditions were created for delivering concentric strikes in the direction of Minsk in order to encircle the 4th German Army.

The German command made desperate attempts to stop the offensive of the Soviet troops. A. Hitler was indignant. On June 28, he recalled Field Marshal E. Bush from the post of commander of Army Group Center and appointed Field Marshal V. Model in his place. The commanders of the 3rd tank and 9th field armies were also mixed. V. Model with considerable difficulty managed to restore the situation. He decided to organize a defense east of Minsk and speed up the withdrawal of the 4th Army. Here the command of the Wehrmacht began the transfer of tank divisions, as well as security and special units from the army groups "North" and "Northern Ukraine", but these forces were not enough to stop the advance of the Red Army. Soviet troops, bypassing the strongholds of the enemy by forests and swamps, continued to deepen their wedges in the direction of Minsk, Slutsk and Molodechno.

The main battles unfolded in the offensive zone of the 3rd Belorussian Front, on the river. Berezina near Borisov. In 1812, this river witnessed the death of Napoleon's army, but now the Wehrmacht troops were defeated here under the blows of the Soviet troops. On the night of July 1, units of the Red Army broke into Borisov and liberated the city by 3 o'clock in the morning. With the powerful blow of the Soviet troops, the blow of the Belarusian partisans merged, with whom, like in no other operation of the Great Patriotic War, communication and operational interaction of the troops of the fronts were established. The partisans attacked enemy communications, disrupted the supply of reinforcements, weapons and ammunition to the front line, and organized ambushes.

Taking into account the situation that had arisen, on June 28-29, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command clarified to the fronts the tasks for developing the offensive. The troops of the 1st and 3rd Belorussian fronts were supposed to quickly go to Minsk and liberate it, thereby creating an encirclement ring around the German troops retreating from the Mogilev region. The troops of the 1st Baltic Front were given the task of pursuing the enemy in the northwestern and western directions and ensuring the actions of the troops encircling near Minsk. The 2nd Belorussian Front was tasked with a frontal strike to pin down the enemy in the center of the Belorussian ledge, disrupt its planned withdrawal, cut through and destroy groupings, help encircle the main forces of the 4th Army east of Minsk and, together with the troops of the left wing of the 3rd Belorussian Front, liberate the capital Belarus. In those conditions when the enemy hastily retreated to the west, it was important to prevent him from gaining a foothold on pre-equipped defensive lines. The commanders of divisions and corps, the commanders of the armies received an order to create mobile forward detachments to capture river crossings, while the main forces were to organize a decisive pursuit of the German troops. The rapid offensive along parallel routes allowed the 1st and 3rd Belorussian Fronts to preempt the enemy in reaching Minsk, while the 2nd Belorussian Front carried out frontal pursuit. The continuous influence of Soviet aviation complicated the position of the enemy.

An exceptionally important role in achieving a high rate of advance was played by tank troops. Making a raid through forests and swamps behind enemy lines, without getting involved in protracted battles, the 4th Guards Tank Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel O. A. Losik, which was part of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps, outstripped the main forces of the retreating Germans by more than 100 km. On the night of July 2, the brigade rushed along the highway to Minsk, immediately turned into battle formation and broke into the city outskirts from the northeast. Following the tankers of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps, advanced units of the 5th Guards Tank Army entered the northern outskirts of Minsk. Pressing the enemy, tank units, supported by the troops of the 11th Guards and 31st Armies of the 3rd Belorussian Front, who came to the rescue, began to recapture quarter after quarter from the enemy. In the middle of the day, the 1st Guards Tank Corps entered the city from the southeast, followed by the 3rd Army of the 1st Belorussian Front. Late in the evening, the capital of Belarus was liberated from the invaders. On the same day, at 22:00, Moscow saluted the victorious soldiers with 24 volleys from 324 guns. 52 formations and units of the Red Army received the name Minsk.

The allies in the anti-Hitler coalition also accepted this victory with great enthusiasm. On July 5, W. Churchill wrote to I. V. Stalin: “With great joy I learned about your glorious victory - the capture of Minsk - and about the colossal progress made by the invincible Russian armies on such a wide front.”

The liberated Minsk, the largest economic and cultural center of the republic, lay in ruins. Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on July 6: “On July 5, I visited Minsk. The impression I have left is extremely heavy. The city was heavily destroyed by the Nazis. Of the large buildings, the enemy did not have time to blow up only the House of the Belarusian Government, the new building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, the radio factory and the House of the Red Army. The power plant, railway station, most industrial enterprises and institutions were blown up.

By the end of July 3, the formations of the 4th German Army were cut off east of Minsk, and the entire Army Group Center suffered such great damage and was so demoralized that it was unable to cope with its situation on its own. On this occasion, General K. von Tippelskirch (on June 25 he was appointed commander of the 4th Army instead of General G. Heinrici) wrote after the war: “The result of the battle that has now lasted for ten days was amazing. About 25 divisions were destroyed or surrounded. Only a few formations defending on the southern flank of the 2nd Army remained full-fledged, while the remnants that escaped destruction almost completely lost their combat capability.

The Soviet side also suffered significant damage. The troops of the Baltic, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts from June 22 to 30 lost more than 19.6 thousand people killed, over 74.6 thousand wounded and missing. The losses of the troops of the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front at the first stage of Operation Bagration (June 24 - July 4) amounted to more than 50 thousand people, of which 9160 people died.

The armies of the 1st Baltic Front successfully carried out the Polotsk operation, destroying the enemy in this area, and on July 4 liberated Polotsk. Troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front on July 5 captured the city of Molodechno. With the liberation of the capital of Belarus and with the rapid advance of Soviet troops to the west, the ring around the encircled group east of Minsk became stronger and stronger. About 20 different formations, a large number of separate units and subunits, a total of 150 thousand soldiers and officers of the 4th and 9th armies, turned out to be in a giant cauldron. The commander of the defeated 4th Army, General K. von Tippelskirch, managed to slip out of the encirclement along with his headquarters. At the direction of A. Hitler, the leadership of the troops that were surrounded was entrusted to the commander of the 12th Army Corps. The Wehrmacht command ordered its soldiers to break through on their own, act in groups of 3-5 thousand people in several directions, and after breaking through the ring, retreat to Baranovichi.

I. V. Stalin entrusted the liquidation of the encircled group of Germans near Minsk to the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front and the 31st Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front. At the final stage, the main role in the liquidation of the Minsk pocket was played by the 31st and 33rd armies. Regarding the first days of the struggle against the encircled enemy, the commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front, General G.F. Zakharov, wrote on July 7: “The liquidation of the encircled scattered enemy groups is proceeding outrageously slowly and disorganized. As a result of the lack of initiative and indecisive activity of the army commanders, the enemy rushes from side to side in search of a way out, attacks the headquarters of corps and armies, warehouses, convoys, thereby disrupting the smooth operation of the rear and management. Taking into account the current situation, General G.F. Zakharov ordered the 49th and 50th armies to allocate five divisions to fight the encircled enemy, and with the rest to bypass the German groups from the north and south, dismember them and destroy them in the forests to the north and northeast the village of Volma.

As a result of the actions of the formations of the 2nd Belorussian Front from July 5 to 7, significant damage was inflicted on the encircled enemy. His troops, left without control after the surrender of General S. Muller, who gave the order to stop the fight, broke up into several isolated groups and were disorganized. The lack of ammunition and fuel forced them to abandon equipment and artillery. Each group tried to get out of the ring on its own. The second stage of the liquidation of the encircled group, from July 8 to 9, was characterized by the defeat of disparate groups hiding in the forests southeast of Minsk and trying to seep through the battle formations of the Soviet troops. During the third stage, from July 10 to 13, Soviet troops combed the forests, where they caught small groups of the enemy. To destroy individual German groups hiding in the forests, the troops and partisans organized an inner encirclement ring, which, however, was not continuous. The outer front of the encirclement, created by the forces of the 2nd and 1st Belorussian fronts, was mobile. It was created mainly by tank formations, which stubbornly pursued the retreating divisions in a westerly direction. If on July 3-4 the outer front of the encirclement was 50 km from the troops that fell into the Minsk pocket, then later this distance increased to 150 km. The rapid offensive of the Red Army made it absolutely hopeless to leave the encircled from the cauldron. Great support in the destruction of the enemy was provided by the partisans, who were well oriented on the ground, knew every path in the forest. With their help, it was possible to quickly find scattered groups of Nazis. Together with units of the Red Army, the partisans carried out attacks and took part in capturing the enemy. By July 13, the liquidation of the encircled enemy troops was completed. The enemy lost over 70 thousand people killed and about 35 thousand prisoners, including 12 generals.

On July 17, about 57.6 thousand German soldiers and officers taken prisoner in Belarus were led through the central streets of Moscow under escort. The passage of the prisoners lasted almost three hours. After graduation, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria reported to the State Defense Committee:

“The NKVD of the USSR reports on the results of the escort through the city of Moscow of German prisoners of war captured by the troops of the Red Army of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts.

The movement of columns of prisoners of war from the Moscow hippodrome began at exactly 11 am today, July 17, along the route: Leningradskoe shosse, st. Gorky, Mayakovsky Square, Sadovo-Karetnaya, Sadovo-Samotechnaya, Sadovo-Chernogryazskaya, Chkalov Street, Kursky Station and along the streets: Kalyaevskaya, Novoslobodskaya and 1st Meshchanskaya. 42,000 prisoners of war passed along this route, including a column of prisoners of war of generals and officers numbering 1227 people, of which 19 generals and 6 senior officers (colonels and lieutenant colonels). The movement of columns of prisoners of war on this route lasted 2 hours and 25 minutes.

The second part of the columns of prisoners of war passed from Mayakovsky Square along the streets: Bolshaya Sadovaya, Sadovo-Kudrinskaya, Novinsky Boulevard, Smolensky Boulevard, Zubovskaya Square, Krymskaya Square, Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya Street, Kanatchikovo Station of the Okruzhnaya Railway. 15,600 prisoners of war passed along this route, and the movement of the columns lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Columns marched along the front of 20 people. The movement of the columns was led by the commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel-General Artemyev.

Upon arrival at the loading points, the prisoners of war were immediately loaded onto railway trains to be sent to prisoner of war camps. By 7 p.m., all 25 echelons of prisoners of war were loaded into wagons and sent to their destinations.

Of the total number of 57,600 prisoners of war escorted through the city, 4 people were sent to the ambulance due to weakening. Upon arrival at the Kursk railway station, the generals' prisoners of war were loaded onto vehicles and taken to their destination.

During the passage of columns of prisoners of war, the population behaved in an organized manner. During the passage of columns of prisoners of war, there were numerous enthusiastic exclamations and greetings from the population in honor of the Red Army, our Supreme High Command and in honor of the generals and officers of the Red Army. There were a large number of anti-fascist cries: "Death to Hitler", "Death to fascism", "Bastards to die", "Why weren't you killed at the front", etc.

There were no incidents in the city during the passage of columns of prisoners of war. The streets of the city after the passage of prisoners of war were properly cleaned and washed.

JV Stalin decided to take advantage of the capture of large enemy groups not only for this action, but also for carrying out the most complex and large-scale reconnaissance operation. He gave a special order, according to which it was necessary to prepare and carry out an operation to mislead the German command, “creating the impression of active operations in the rear of the Red Army of the remnants of German troops who were surrounded during our offensive. Stalin's plan was to trick the Germans into using their resources to support these units and "help" them make a serious attempt to break through the encirclement." NKVD General P. A. Sudoplatov reported that on August 19, 1944, the General Staff of the German Ground Forces received a message from Max sent by the Abwehr that a unit under the command of Lieutenant Colonel G. Sherhorn, numbering 2,500 people, was blocked by the Red Army in the area of ​​the river. Berezina. Thus began the operation "Berezino" - the continuation of the operation "Monastery". In order to give Max's disinformation greater credibility, he was registered for service in the General Staff, and several agents were placed in other departments, including the People's Commissariat of Railways. In reality, the group of G. Sherhorn did not exist in the rear of the Red Army. The German unit, commanded by this officer, defended the crossing on the river. Berezina, but was defeated and captured. In Belarus, a group was created from officers and fighters of a special purpose brigade, German anti-fascists, as well as German prisoners of war recruited by the NKVD, creating the impression that there was a real German group in the rear of the Red Army. The largest radio game with the German high command lasted from August 19, 1944 to May 5, 1945. During the Berezino operation, 22 German intelligence officers, 13 radio stations, 255 parachutes with valuable cargo were captured - weapons, ammunition, uniforms and medicines that were used our troops.

As a result of the defeat of large enemy forces near Vitebsk, Mogilev, Bobruisk and Minsk, the nearest goal operation "Bagration" was achieved, and several days ahead of schedule. For 12 days, from June 23 to July 4, Soviet troops advanced almost 250 km. A gigantic 400-kilometer gap formed in the center of the strategic front, which the Wehrmacht command did not have the strength to fill in a short time. That's where the Soviet troops rushed. Disaster was inexorably approaching Army Group Center. The rapid offensive of the Red Army and the huge gap it created in the central sector of the Soviet-German front caused panic in Berlin. In order to stabilize their front, the German command made major regroupings. Only from June 23 to July 16, 46 divisions and four brigades were transferred to Belarus from Germany, Poland, Hungary, Norway, Italy and the Netherlands, as well as from other sectors of the front.

To hinder the transfer of reserves and disrupt the enemy's railway transportation, the Stavka V GK ordered long-range aviation to prepare and conduct an air operation in order to disable the most important railway communications in Western Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. For this, eight long-range aviation corps were involved. For seven days (from July 4 to July 12), the pilots made more than 2,600 sorties, striking at railway facilities. Massed bomber raids caused considerable damage to the enemy. Only at the Brest railway junction, 30 echelons with military equipment were destroyed. At the same time, by order of the BSHPD in the western regions of the republic and on the territory of Poland, partisan formations joined the fight against the approaching enemy reserves. As a result of air bombardments and guerrilla sabotage, the movement of the enemy by rail was largely paralyzed. The German reserves, suffering huge losses, arrived in the designated areas with a great delay, which contributed to the success of the offensive of the Soviet troops in Operation Bagration.

The offensive of the Red Army continued. Since mid-July, hostilities have unfolded on the front from the Gulf of Finland to the Carpathians. Having overcome the fierce resistance of the enemy, the troops of the 1st Baltic Front on July 4 liberated Polotsk and moved to Siauliai. The troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front fought their way to the west, towards Vilnius. On July 8, they surrounded the 15,000-strong garrison of the city. Heavy fighting went on for five days. July 13 Vilnius was liberated. After that, the armies of the front reached the Neman, crossed it, and on August 1 liberated Kaunas. As part of the 1st Air Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front, French pilots of the 1st Separate Fighter Aviation Regiment "Normandie" bravely fought side by side with Soviet pilots. For heroic actions to cover the Soviet troops during the fighting in the Neman region, the French aviation regiment was awarded the honorary title "Neman".

Formations of the 2nd Belorussian Front during July-August advanced 300-350 km and, having reached the line of Augustow, Lomzha, began to prepare for an offensive in East Prussia.

After the liberation of Minsk, the armies of the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front launched an offensive in the Baranovichi-Brest and Pinsk directions, by July 16 they advanced 150-170 km and reached the Svisloch-Pruzhany line. The vast swampy regions of Polissya were bypassed by them from the north. The flank strike groups closed in, and the length of the front line was more than halved. Conditions were created for a coordinated strike against the enemy with all forces and in the entire zone.

Supreme Commander-in-Chief J.V. Stalin set the task for the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front: along with the continuation of the offensive by the troops of the right wing and the center, deliver a powerful blow to enemy groups in the areas of Lublin and Brest, completing the liberation of the Belarusian lands, and assist the Polish people in expelling the invaders from the eastern regions of the country.

On July 18, the troops of the left wing of the 1st Belorussian Front launched an operation called Lublin-Brest (July 18 - August 2, 1944). Having broken through the enemy defenses west of Kovel, on July 20, on a wide front, the formations of the strike force reached the state border, on the Western Bug, and crossed it on the move in three places. Soviet troops entered the territory of Poland. On July 22, the Polish city of Chelm was liberated. On July 24, the formations of the front captured the large administrative center of Poland - Lublin, and a day later they reached the Vistula in the Deblin area. On July 27, the 1st Army of the Polish Army approached here. The 69th Army broke through to the river south of Pulawy. From July 27 to August 4, units of the 8th Guards and 69th Armies crossed the Vistula in the area of ​​​​the cities of Magnuszew and Pulawa and captured bridgeheads on its western bank. The German command, having concentrated reserves and remnants of the 2nd and partially 9th armies in the Brest region, launched strong counterattacks, but all its attempts to block the Soviet troops from reaching Warsaw were unsuccessful. In order to reach the deep rear of the Brest grouping and cut off the enemy's escape route to the west, the front commander, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, decided to attack Prague, a suburb of Warsaw, with the forces of the 2nd Panzer Army. The tank army along the deep rear of the enemy rushed along the eastern bank of the Vistula to the capital of Poland. By this time, the German command was hastily concentrating five armored and one infantry divisions southeast of Warsaw. It intended to launch a strong counterattack in a southerly direction, crush the left wing of the 1st Belorussian Front, disrupt the crossing of the Vistula and the attack on Warsaw. On August 2, the Germans delivered a powerful blow to the formations of the 2nd Panzer and 4th armies. In the context of stretched communications, an acute shortage of ammunition, the Soviet command decided to go on the defensive, and then, with the approach of reserves and pulling up the rear, start the offensive again.

On August 1, an armed uprising began in Warsaw, about which the General Staff of the Red Army was notified only the next day. JV Stalin expressed doubts about the actions of the Home Army without artillery, tanks and aircraft, even without a sufficient amount of small arms, but nevertheless agreed to help the rebels by delivering weapons to them69. The Soviet command, despite the complexity of the operational situation (significant losses during the operation "Bagration", fatigue of the troops, powerful enemy counterattacks in the area of ​​​​Magnuszew and Pulawy, the backlog of the rear of the Red Army), provided assistance to the Polish patriots. On August 8, G.K. Zhukov and K.K. Rokossovsky presented to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief a draft plan for the Warsaw operation, which was supposed to begin on August 25 with the forces of the 1st Belorussian Front in order to occupy Warsaw. Preparatory measures, including the regrouping of troops, were planned to be carried out from 10 to 20 August.

A few days later, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill sent a message to JV Stalin, in which they wrote that everything must be done to save as many patriots as possible in Warsaw. In a reply message, I. V. Stalin emphasized on August 22 that

“Sooner or later, the truth about a handful of criminals who started the Warsaw adventure for the sake of seizing power will become known to everyone” and that the uprising, which attracts increased German attention to Warsaw, is not beneficial to either the Red Army or the Poles from a military point of view. At the same time, I. V. Stalin declared: “There can be no doubt that the Red Army will spare no effort to defeat the Germans near Warsaw and liberate Warsaw for the Poles. This will be the best and real help to the anti-Nazi Poles.”

Offensive operations were undertaken in the Warsaw direction in order to divert enemy forces. On September 6, the troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front stormed the city of Ostrolenka, which covered the approaches to Warsaw. On September 10, the 47th Army of the 1st Belorussian Front went on the offensive. Four days later, the Prague fortress fell - a powerful German defense center on the Vistula. Attempts by the Red Army troops to break through to Warsaw continued. Parts of the 1st Polish Army were also involved in this. On the night of September 16, the 1st Polish division named after T. Kosciuszko, with the support of Soviet artillery, aviation and engineering troops within Warsaw, crossed the Vistula and captured a bridgehead on its western bank. But the landing force could not connect with the rebels: the Germans pushed them back from the coast. It was not possible to hold the captured bridgehead on the left bank of the Vistula: under pressure from large enemy forces, the soldiers of the 1st Polish division were forced to retreat to the right bank with heavy losses.

To assist the insurgents, the pilots of the 16th Air Army and the 1st Polish Mixed Air Division from September 13 to October 1, 1944 made 5 thousand sorties, of which 1361 - to bombard and attack enemy troops in Warsaw and 2435 - to dropping cargo. 156 mortars, 505 anti-tank rifles, more than 3,000 assault rifles, rifles, carbines, 3 million rounds of ammunition for small arms, 515 kg of medicines, 113 tons of food, telephones, cables and other military equipment were dropped71. The anti-aircraft artillery of the front provided the rebels with protection from enemy air raids. Liaison officers and spotters were dropped to the rebels. However, this assistance was insufficient and did not save the Polish patriots from a tragic outcome.

To organize effective assistance to the rebels in September, a special operation was carried out together with the British and Americans. American planes were allowed to fly over the territory of the USSR and land in Poltava. On September 18, 104 American "flying fortresses" escorted by fighters entered the Warsaw area and parachuted 1,284 containers with cargo into the location of the rebels from a high altitude. But only a few dozen containers got to the rebels, the rest ended up at the location of the enemy and Soviet troops on the right bank of the Vistula. In total, according to the estimates of the Home Army, the British and American Air Forces delivered to Warsaw 430 carbines and submachine guns, 150 machine guns, 230 anti-tank rifles, 13 mortars, 13 thousand mines and grenades, 2.7 million cartridges, 22 tons of food. After that, the US Air Force abandoned such operations.

The German command declared Warsaw a fortress, and the Nazis desperately resisted. Attempts by the troops of the Red Army and the Polish Army to break through to the city were unsuccessful. “In order to take Warsaw with a frontal attack,” I.V. Stalin believed, “heavy tanks and heavy artillery must be transported to the other side of the Vistula,” which was extremely difficult to do under the prevailing conditions. The rebels were in various parts of the city. By the end of September, about 2.5 thousand armed people remained in the city, fighting the Nazis in four areas cut off from each other. The population of Warsaw was starving. It was clear that the Home Army would not be able to capture the city and that sooner or later Warsaw would be liberated by the Red Army. On October 2, 1944, after 63 days of fighting, the commander of the Home Army signed the act of surrender. The Nazis expelled the entire population of Warsaw and proceeded to the methodical destruction of the city. Many Polish patriots ended up in concentration camps. An attempt to establish the power of the Home Army in Warsaw failed. The uprising led to the death of 22 thousand rebels, 5.6 thousand soldiers of the Polish Army, 180 thousand inhabitants of the city and the almost complete destruction of the Polish capital.

On August 29, the Belarusian offensive operation, which lasted 68 days, ended with the withdrawal of Soviet troops to the line of Yelgava, Dobele, Augustov, the Narew and Vistula rivers. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command ordered the troops of four fronts to go on the defensive on the entire front.

Operation Bagration is one of the largest operations not only of the Great Patriotic War, but of the entire Second World War. Its distinctive feature is its huge spatial scope and impressive operational and strategic results. The troops of the Red Army, having launched an offensive on June 23 on a front of 700 km, by the end of August advanced 550-600 km to the west, expanding the front of hostilities to 1,100 km. The vast territory of Belarus was cleared of the invaders - 80% and a fourth of Poland. Soviet troops reached the Vistula and the border with East Prussia. One of the most powerful enemy groupings, the Army Group Center, was defeated. Of the 97 divisions and 13 brigades of the Wehrmacht that participated in the battles, 17 divisions and three brigades were completely destroyed, and 50 divisions lost more than half of their strength. German troops lost 409.4 thousand soldiers and officers, including 255.4 thousand irretrievably. During the operation, the troops of four Soviet fronts captured more than 200 thousand German soldiers and officers.

Operation "Bagration" was the first strategic offensive operation of the Red Army, carried out at a time when the armed forces of the United States and England began hostilities in Western Europe. At the same time, 70% of the ground forces of the Wehrmacht continued to fight on the Soviet-German front. The catastrophe in Belarus forced the German command to transfer large strategic reserves here from the west, which, of course, created favorable conditions for the offensive operations of the allies after the landing of their troops in Normandy and the conduct of a coalition war in Europe.

The victory in Belarus made a huge impression on the governments of the allied powers. US President F. Roosevelt, in a message to I. V. Stalin dated July 21, 1944, wrote: their supplies." The British Prime Minister W. Churchill, noting the enormous successes of the Red Army, assessed the position of Germany as follows: "There is little reason to doubt that her general collapse will soon come."

During the offensive, the troops of the four fronts lost 765,815 people killed, wounded, missing and sick, which is 48.8% of their total strength at the beginning of the operation. And irretrievable losses amounted to 178,507 people. The fronts lost 2957 tanks and self-propelled guns, 2447 guns and mortars, 822 combat aircraft and 183.5 thousand small arms.

The exit of the Red Army to the border of East Prussia and the Vistula opened up new prospects for conducting major operations in order to finally liberate the Baltic republics, Poland, capture East Prussia and penetrate deep into the Warsaw-Berlin direction. Taking advantage of the situation, the American-British troops on July 25 launched an offensive in France from the bridgehead captured in Normandy, intensified military operations in Italy, and on August 15 they landed in southern France.

Comparing the successes of the Anglo-American troops and the Red Army that summer, historians of Russia and a significant part of Western countries differ in their assessments of the results of the Overlord and Bagration operations, they differently view the role of the Western and Eastern fronts in the crushing defeat of the Wehrmacht in 1944. The successes of the allied forces in Western Europe gave rise to some authors, and not only in Western countries, but in recent years in our country as well, a tendency to ascribe to the second front the leading role in military operations in Europe in 1944. It is argued that “the military situation of Germany has become hopeless precisely since she failed to throw the allies into the sea on the day of the landing. It is believed that "before the landing, it was still theoretically possible that Hitler could win the war." However, as the facts testify, the second front, despite the unconditional successes won by the allies, did not become the "first" in terms of its significance in the war. And he couldn't. Even after the opening of the second front in Europe, from 195 to 240 divisions fought against the Red Army, and only 56-75 divisions fought on the western front. Before the final campaign of 1945, the Soviet troops had 179 German and 16 Hungarian divisions against them, and the Anglo-American troops - 106 German divisions. Although, of course, the offensive of the allied forces in the west significantly increased the pressure on the Third Reich, hastened the end of the war in Europe.

The German Army Group Center, against which the main blow was directed, suffered a complete defeat. “In less than two weeks, the Red Army expelled the enemy from Belarus,” wrote the famous English military theorist and historian B. G. Lyddel Hart. “By mid-July 1944, she occupied more than half of the northeastern part of Poland ... surrounded Vilnius, crossed the Neman, approaching the borders of East Prussia.”

According to German documents, in June, when the Belarusian operation began, the eastern front was reinforced by three divisions, and not a single German division was removed from it. In July - August, 15 divisions and four brigades of the Wehrmacht arrived here, and four divisions left for reorganization in Germany. The losses of the Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front also significantly exceeded those suffered by the German troops in June-August in Western Europe: 917 thousand against 294 thousand people. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the German divisions in the west had low combat capability, since they were only 60-71% complete, insufficiently trained and armed. This, according to Field Marshal G. von Kluge, commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht in July 1944 in the west, was "an inevitable consequence of the desperate situation in the east."

On June 26, 1944, the American newspaper The Journal, assessing the operation Bagration that had begun, wrote about the actions of the Soviet troops: troops on the eastern front, who otherwise could easily resist the Americans in France." London radio on July 16, 1944 noted: “The Russian offensive is called an avalanche. If we compare its pace with the pace of the offensive of the Allied forces in Normandy, then the latter ... is still going very slowly. This is confirmed by the testimonies of the Nazi generals. So, G. Guderian recalled: “While on the front in Normandy, the advanced units of the Western allies deployed were preparing to break through our front ... events were developing on the eastern front that directly approached a monstrous catastrophe.”

At a time when fierce battles were going on in Belarus, a new crushing blow against the Nazi troops in the western regions of Ukraine followed. Here, the troops of the Red Army were opposed by a strong enemy group - the Northern Ukraine Army Group under the command of General J. Harpe. The specific tasks of the 1st Ukrainian Front in preparing the operation, which later became known as the Lvov-Sandomierz, were determined by the Supreme Command Headquarters in its directive of June 24, 1944. The purpose of the operation was to defeat the Northern Ukraine Army Group, complete the liberation of Ukraine and start expelling the enemy from Poland. At the first stage, it was supposed to defeat the Lvov and Ra-Va-Russian enemy groups. The achievement of this goal created favorable conditions for the development of an offensive in a westerly direction towards the San and Vistula rivers and the foothills of the Carpathians.

By the beginning of the offensive, the 1st Ukrainian Front, led by Marshal I.S. Konev, had 1.2 million people, 13.9 thousand guns and mortars of over 76 mm caliber, 2.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, 2806 aircraft. Up to 70% of troops and artillery, more than 90% of tanks and self-propelled guns were concentrated in breakthrough areas. The German command, realizing the importance of keeping Western Ukraine in their hands as a springboard from which the Red Army could break into the southern regions of Poland and Czechoslovakia, created a well-fortified, defense in depth. Army Group "Northern Ukraine", holding the front from Pripyat to the Carpathians (440 km), by the beginning of the operation consisted of the 4th and 1st German tank and 1st Hungarian armies (40 divisions, five of them tank, one motorized and two teams). In total, the army group consisted of 600 thousand people (with rear units of 900 thousand people), 900 tanks and assault guns, 6.3 thousand guns and mortars, 700 aircraft of the 4th air fleet. By mid-July, on the approaches to the Vistula and the Carpathians, the enemy created a defense of three lanes with a total depth of 40-50 km, not counting the outer and inner contours around Lvov. The strongest defense was in the Lviv direction. It was the largest front formation of those that were created in previous offensive operations of the Great Patriotic War, and it was the only case during the war when the task of defeating an enemy army group was assigned to one front.

In connection with the successful offensive of the Belorussian fronts, the German command on the night of July 13 began to withdraw its troops in the Rava-Russian direction. Taking advantage of such a favorable situation, the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal I.S. Konev, ordered the main forces of the 3rd Guards and 13th Armies to go on the offensive without conducting artillery preparation. The fighting during the day developed successfully. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to crush the enemy during the retreat and on his shoulders to take the second line of defense on the move. The Germans offered stubborn and organized resistance. It was necessary to carry out artillery preparation, to carry out the introduction of the second echelons of rifle corps. On July 14, formations of the 38th and 60th armies attacked the enemy in the southern sector. Heavy fighting unfolded along the entire front, especially in the southern sector, where the enemy launched a strong counterattack. Breaking the resistance of the enemy, the Soviet troops moved forward. By the end of the next day, after fierce fighting in the Rava-Russian direction, the enemy defenses were broken through to a depth of 15-20 km. In the Lvov direction, it was not possible to complete the breakthrough by the scheduled date. Having completed the breakthrough of the enemy defenses in the northern sector, the front command committed mobile troops to the battle: on July 16 - KMG V.K. Baranov, and on the morning of July 17 - the 1st Guards Tank Army of General M.E. Katukov. Soviet cavalry and tankers launched a swift offensive against Yaroslav, as well as bypassing the Brod group of the enemy from the north. An important event was the crossing of the Western Bug and the entry of the troops of the front on July 17 into the territory of Poland.

Fierce battles were going on in the Lvov direction on the entire front of the 60th and 38th armies. During the counterattacks, the enemy managed to push the 38th Army units 2-4 km in some sectors. To rectify the situation, in the afternoon of July 15, bombers and attack aircraft of the 2nd Air Army made about 2,000 sorties. The enemy tank divisions were disorganized by air and artillery strikes, and their offensive capabilities dropped sharply by the end of the day. The enemy counterattack was repulsed. The time has come to introduce tank armies, but the conditions for this were very difficult. The 3rd Guards Tank Army entered the battle on July 16 through the so-called Koltov corridor (east of the town of Zolochev, near the town of Koltov) 4-6 km wide. Off-road, heavy rains forced the formations of the army to move along one route under enemy artillery and mortar fire. In an effort to eliminate the Koltovo corridor and prevent the penetration of tank troops into the operational depth, the Nazis continuously counterattacked from the north and south. An exceptionally tense situation was created. However, the tankers continued to move forward. On the evening of July 16, General P.S. Rybalko reported that his corps had reached the area northeast of Zolochev, and the forward detachments of the army had advanced to the river. Peltev. On the morning of July 17, the 4th tank army of General D. D. Lelyushenko began to enter the gap through the Koltov corridor. In an effort to stop our tanks, the enemy continued to stubbornly counterattack. The introduction of two tank armies into a breakthrough in such a narrow zone while simultaneously repulsing strong enemy counterattacks on the flanks is the only example in the history of the Great Patriotic War.

The breakthrough of the enemy defense was completed only by the end of the day on July 18. The enemy defenses were broken on a 200 km front, formations of the 1st Ukrainian Front advanced to a depth of 50-80 km and surrounded eight divisions in the Brody area. Within five days, by the end of July 22, the troops of the 13th and 60th armies, with the support of the 2nd air army, completed the liquidation of the enemy's Brod grouping. More than 30 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed and 17 thousand were taken prisoner, including the commander of an army corps with his headquarters, as well as two division commanders. As a trophy, 719 guns, up to 1.1 thousand mortars and about 3.9 thousand vehicles, as well as many other weapons and equipment were captured. The defeat of the Brodsky grouping of the enemy was of great operational importance. Now the troops of the Lvov shock group could fully deploy their forces for an attack on Lvov.

While the enemy was being destroyed in the Brody area, the main forces of the front continued their offensive. It developed especially successfully on the right wing of the front. The 1st Guards Tank Army of General M.E. Katukov, which turned southwest on July 20, rapidly developed an offensive towards the river. San, in order to force it, to intercept the enemy's retreat to the west. At this time, formations of the 3rd Guards and 4th Tank Armies were developing an offensive against Lvov. Marshal I. S. Konev decided to liberate the city by means of a deep detour of the tank armies and a simultaneous attack on the enemy from the east. This idea was carried out brilliantly. In three days, the 3rd Guards Tank Army, using the success of the right wing of the front, made a 120-kilometer march around Lvov from the north. On July 24, she went to the Yavorov region and launched an offensive simultaneously in two opposite directions - to Lvov and Przemysl. The 4th Panzer Army also acted skillfully, parts of which at dawn on July 22 broke into Lvov in the south. The city was liberated on the morning of 27 July. Almost simultaneously with the liberation of Lvov, the troops of the 3rd and 1st Guards Tank Armies on July 27 stormed the city and the Przemysl fortress by night.

During the two weeks of the offensive, the 1st Ukrainian Front inflicted a heavy defeat on the Army Group "Northern Ukraine" and advanced more than 200 km to the west in a strip 400 km wide. Army Group "Northern Ukraine" was cut into two parts. The 4th German tank army rolled back behind the Vistula, and the 1st tank and 1st Hungarian armies - to the Carpathians. Between the 1st and 4th German tank armies a gap of up to 100 km wide was formed.

The command of the Wehrmacht took urgent measures to prevent the further advance of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front in the Sandomierz direction. Troops were gathered there, which were withdrawn from other sectors of the eastern front, as well as those transferred from Europe. On July 27, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command demanded that Marshal I.S. Konev continue to pursue the enemy, force the Vistula and seize bridgeheads on its left bank. At the same time, the front was supposed to liberate the Transcarpathian Ukraine with its left wing. Due to the fact that the actions of the troops of the front developed in two divergent directions (to the northwest and southwest), on July 30, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command decided to form a new front from the troops of the left wing of the 1st Ukrainian Front - the 4th Ukrainian. It included the 1st Guards and 18th combined arms, 8th air armies. The creation of a new front was completed by 5 August.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front continued to advance towards the Vistula without a pause, and the main forces of the front were turned to a new, Sandomierz direction. Forcing the Vistula on the move was a very difficult task. The width of the river in the Sandomierz region reached 250 meters, and the depth exceeded 2 meters. On July 29, the 3rd Guards Army, interacting with the KM G of General S. V. Sokolov, reached the river in the Annopol area (north of Sandomierz). The next day, its advanced units captured small bridgeheads on the left bank of the Vistula, but due to the strong resistance of the enemy, they could not be expanded. The formations of the 1st Guards Tank and 13th Armies were more successful. By the end of July 30, they managed to transfer the main forces of the 24th Rifle Corps of the 13th Army and the motorized infantry of the 1st Guards Tank Army to the bridgehead they had captured. By August 1, ferry crossings were established, along which tanks, artillery and infantry were quickly transferred to the bridgehead. The 3rd Guards Tank Army also crossed over here. The battles for the expansion of the bridgehead did not stop day or night.

Subsequent battles took on a protracted character. The Germans continued to throw up fresh divisions. By the end of August, the enemy had more than doubled the number of his troops in the Sandomierz bridgehead. However, the troops of the front repulsed all enemy counterattacks. By the end of the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, the bridgehead was increased to 75 km along the front and up to 60 km in depth. The presence of such an important bridgehead provided the opportunity to deploy a large strike force on it for a subsequent offensive to the west, into Silesia. At the end of August, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, having repelled all enemy counterattacks, successfully completed the offensive operation and, in accordance with the directive of the Headquarters of the All-Russian Supreme Command, went on the defensive on August 29.

As a result of the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operation, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front inflicted a heavy defeat on one of the four strategic groupings of the German Wehrmacht operating on the Soviet-German front - the Northern Ukraine Army Group. Heavy losses forced the German command to transfer 10 divisions (including three tank divisions) from other directions to the offensive zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front from other directions, including up to eight divisions from the South Ukraine Army Group, which made it easier for the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts defeat the enemy in the areas of Yass and Chisinau. Of the 56 divisions of the Northern Ukraine Army Group (including 10 tank and motorized) that participated in the battle, eight divisions were destroyed and 32 were defeated. Only from July 14 to July 31, the enemy lost about 200 thousand soldiers and officers killed, wounded and captured, more than 2.2 thousand guns and mortars of various calibers, 500 tanks, 10 thousand vehicles, 666 railway cars, 12 thousand horses and up to 150 various warehouses. The intense struggle demanded considerable sacrifices on the part of the Soviet troops as well. They lost about 290 thousand people (65 thousand of them irretrievably), over 1.8 thousand guns and mortars, about 1.3 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, about 300 aircraft.

The troops of the 1st and 4th Ukrainian fronts liberated the western regions of Ukraine, as well as the southeastern part of Poland, from the Nazi invaders, captured a large bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula, from which an offensive was subsequently launched into the central regions of Poland and further to the borders of Germany .

In the summer-autumn campaign of 1944, the Red Army conducted an offensive on a front with a length of 4.2-4.5 thousand km, the Allied troops - on a front of 600-800 km. During the six months of the offensive, Soviet troops advanced 600-800 km westward, and up to 1100 km in some directions, the Allied advance in Western Europe by the end of 1944 amounted to only 260-450 km.

Subsequently assessing the results of the summer and autumn offensive of the Soviet troops in 1944, the former fascist general 3. Westphal wrote: “During the summer - autumn of 1944, the German army suffered the greatest defeat in its history, surpassing even Stalingrad ... Now Germany rolled uncontrollably into the abyss."

During the course, several large-scale military offensive campaigns of the Soviet troops were carried out. One of the key was the operation "Bagration" (1944). The campaign was named in honor of the Patriotic War of 1812. Let us further consider how Operation Bagration (1944) took place. The main lines of advance of the Soviet troops will be briefly described.

preliminary stage

On the third anniversary of the German invasion of the USSR, the military campaign "Bagration" began. years spent on the Soviet troops managed to break through the German defenses in many areas. In this they were actively supported by the partisans. The offensive operations of the troops of the 1st Baltic, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian fronts were intensive. With the actions of these units, the military campaign "Bagration" - the operation (1944; the leader and coordinator of the plan - G.K. Zhukov) began. The commanders were Rokossovsky, Chernyakhovsky, Zakharov, Bagramyan. In the area of ​​Vilnius, Brest, Vitebsk, Bobruisk and east of Minsk, enemy groups were surrounded and eliminated. Several successful offensives were carried out. As a result of the battles, a significant part of Belarus was liberated, the capital of the country - Minsk, the territory of Lithuania, the eastern regions of Poland. Soviet troops reached the borders of East Prussia.

Main front lines

(operation of 1944) assumed 2 stages. They included several offensive campaigns of the Soviet troops. The direction of the operation "Bagration" in 1944 at the first stage was as follows:

1. Vitebsk.
2. Orsha.
3. Mogilev.
4. Bobruisk.
5. Polotsk.
6. Minsk.

This stage took place from June 23 to July 4. From July 5 to August 29, the offensive was also carried out on several fronts. At the second stage, operations were planned:

1. Vilnius.
2. Siauliai.
3. Bialystok.
4. Lublin-Brestskaya.
5. Kaunas.
6. Osovetskaya.

Vitebsk-Orsha offensive

In this sector, the defense was occupied by the 3rd Panzer Army, commanded by Reinhardt. Directly at Vitebsk stood its 53rd Army Corps. They were commanded by Gen. Gollwitzer. Near Orsha was the 17th corps of the 4th field army. In June 1944, Operation Bagration was carried out with the help of reconnaissance. Thanks to her, the Soviet troops managed to penetrate the German defenses and take the first trenches. On June 23, the Russian command struck the main blow. The key role belonged to the 43rd and 39th armies. The first covered the western side of Vitebsk, the second - the southern. The 39th Army had almost no superiority in numbers, however, the high concentration of forces in the sector made it possible to create a significant local advantage during the initial stage of the implementation of the Bagration plan. The operation (1944) near Vitebsk and Orsha was generally successful. Quite quickly managed to break through the western part of the defense and the southern front. The 6th Corps, located on the south side of Vitebsk, was cut into several parts and lost control. Over the following days, the commanders of divisions and the corps itself were killed. The remaining units, having lost contact with each other, moved in small groups to the west.

Liberation of cities

On June 24, units of the 1st Baltic Front reached the Dvina. Army Group North tried to counterattack. However, their breakthrough was unsuccessful. Corps Group D was surrounded in Beshenkovichi. To the south of Vitebsk, Oslikovsky's mechanized cavalry brigade was introduced. His group began to move quickly enough to the southwest.

In June 1944, the operation "Bagration" was carried out rather slowly in the Orsha sector. This was due to the fact that one of the strongest German infantry divisions, the assault 78th, was located here. She was much better equipped than the rest, had support for 50 self-propelled guns. Parts of the 14th motorized division were also located here.

However, the Russian command continued to implement the Bagration plan. The 1944 operation of the year involved the introduction of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Soviet soldiers cut the railroad from Orsha to the west near Tolochin. The Germans were forced to either leave the city or die in the "boiler".

On the morning of June 27, Orsha was cleared of the invaders. 5th Guards the tank army began to advance towards Borisov. On June 27, Vitebsk was also liberated in the morning. Here, the German grouping was defending itself, having been subjected to artillery and air strikes the day before. The invaders made several attempts to break through the encirclement. 26.06 one of them was successful. However, a few hours later, about 5 thousand Germans were again surrounded.

Breakthrough Results

Thanks to the offensive actions of the Soviet troops, the 53rd German Corps was almost completely destroyed. 200 people managed to break through to the fascist units. According to Haupt's notes, almost all of them were wounded. The Soviet troops also managed to defeat parts of the 6th Corps and Group D. This became possible thanks to the coordinated implementation of the first stage of the Bagration plan. The 1944 operation near Orsha and Vitebsk made it possible to eliminate the northern flank of the Center. This was the first step towards further complete encirclement of the group.

Fighting near Mogilev

This part of the front was considered auxiliary. On June 23, effective artillery preparation was carried out. The forces of the 2nd Belorussian Front began to force the river. Pronya. The defensive line of the Germans passed along it. Operation "Bagration" in June 1944 took place with the active use of artillery. The enemy was almost completely crushed by it. In the Mogilev direction, sappers quickly built 78 bridges for the passage of infantry and 4 heavy 60-ton crossings for equipment.

A few hours later, the number of most of the German companies decreased from 80-100 to 15-20 people. But units of the 4th Army managed to retreat to the second line along the river. Bass is quite organized. Operation "Bagration" in June 1944 continued from the south and north of Mogilev. On June 27, the city was surrounded and taken by attack the next day. About 2 thousand prisoners were captured in Mogilev. Among them was the commander of the 12th Infantry Division Bamler, as well as the commandant von Ermansdorf. The latter was subsequently found guilty of a large number of serious crimes and hanged. The German retreat gradually became more and more disorganized. Until June 29, 33,000 German soldiers and 20 tanks were destroyed and captured.

Bobruisk

Operation "Bagration" (1944) assumed the formation of the southern "pincer" of a large-scale encirclement. This action was carried out by the most powerful and numerous Belorussian Front, commanded by Rokossovsky. Initially, the right flank participated in the offensive. He was resisted by the 9th field army of Gen. Jordan. The task of eliminating the enemy was solved by creating a local "cauldron" near Bobruisk.

The offensive began from the south on 24.06. Operation "Bagration" in 1944 assumed the use of aviation here. However, weather conditions significantly complicated her actions. In addition, the terrain itself was not very favorable for the offensive. The Soviet troops had to overcome a fairly large marshy swamp. However, this path was chosen deliberately, since the German defense was weak on this side. On June 27, the interception of roads from Bobruisk to the north and west took place. Key German forces were surrounded. The diameter of the ring was approximately 25 km. The operation to liberate Bobruisk ended successfully. During the offensive, two corps were destroyed - the 35th Army Corps and the 41st Tank Corps. The defeat of the 9th Army made it possible to open the road to Minsk from the northeast and southeast.

Fighting near Polotsk

This direction caused serious concern among the Russian command. Bagramyan began to eliminate the problem. In fact, there was no break between the Vitebsk-Orsha and Polotsk operations. The main enemy was the 3rd Panzer Army, the forces of the "North" (16th Field Army). The Germans had 2 infantry divisions in reserve. The Polotsk operation did not end with such a rout as near Vitebsk. However, it made it possible to deprive the enemy of a stronghold, a railway junction. As a result, the threat to the 1st Baltic Front was removed, and Army Group North was outflanked from the south, which meant a blow to the flank.

Retreat of the 4th Army

After the defeat of the southern and northern flanks near Bobruisk and Vitebsk, the Germans were squeezed into a rectangle. Its eastern wall was formed by the Drut River, the western by the Berezina. Soviet troops were stationed from the north and south. To the west was Minsk. It was in this direction that the main blows of the Soviet forces were aimed. From the flanks, the 4th Army had virtually no cover. Gene. von Tippelskirch ordered a retreat across the Berezina. To do this, I had to use a dirt road from Mogilev. On the only bridge, the German forces tried to cross to the west bank, experiencing constant fire from bombers and attack aircraft. The military police were supposed to regulate the crossing, but they themselves withdrew from this task. In addition, partisans were active in this area. They carried out constant attacks on the positions of the Germans. The situation for the enemy was further complicated by the fact that groups from broken units in other sectors, including from near Vitebsk, joined the crossing units. In this regard, the retreat of the 4th Army was slow and was accompanied by heavy losses.

Battle from the south side of Minsk

In the offensive, mobile groups were in the lead - tank, mechanized and cavalry-mechanized formations. Part of Pliev quickly began to advance towards Slutsk. His group went to the city in the evening of 29.06. Due to the fact that the Germans suffered heavy losses in front of the 1st Belorussian Front, they offered little resistance. Slutsk itself was defended by formations of the 35th and 102nd divisions. They put up organized resistance. Then Pliev launched an attack from three flanks at the same time. This attack was successful, and by 11 am on June 30, the city was cleared of the Germans. By July 2, Pliev's cavalry-mechanized units occupied Nesvizh, cutting off the group's path to the southeast. The breakthrough came fairly quickly. Resistance was provided by small unorganized groups of Germans.

Battle for Minsk

German mobile reserves began to arrive at the front. They were withdrawn mainly from units operating in Ukraine. The 5th Panzer Division arrived first. She posed a fairly serious threat, considering that over the past few months she had hardly participated in the battles. The division was well equipped, re-equipped and reinforced with the 505th heavy battalion. However, the enemy's weak point here was the infantry. It consisted either of security or of divisions that had suffered significant losses. A serious battle took place on the northwestern side of Minsk. Enemy tankers announced the elimination of 295 Soviet vehicles. However, there is no doubt that they themselves suffered serious losses. The 5th division was reduced to 18 tanks, all the "tigers" of the 505th battalion were lost. Thus, the connection lost the opportunity to influence the course of the battle. 2nd Guards Corps on July 1 approached the outskirts of Minsk. Having made a detour, he broke into the city from the northwest side. At the same time, a Rokossovsky detachment approached from the south, the 5th Panzer Army from the north, and detachments of combined arms forces from the east. The defense of Minsk did not last long. The city was badly destroyed by the Germans already in 1941. Retreating, the enemy additionally blew up the structures.

Collapse of the 4th Army

The German group was surrounded, but still made attempts to break through to the west. The Nazis even went into battle with bladed weapons. The command of the 4th Army fled to the west, as a result of which the actual control was carried out instead of von Tippelskirch by the head of the 12th Army Corps, Müller. On July 8-9, the resistance of the Germans in the Minsk "cauldron" was finally broken. The cleansing lasted until the 12th: regular units, together with partisans, neutralized small groups of the enemy in the forests. After that, hostilities east of Minsk ended.

Second phase

After the completion of the first stage, the operation "Bagration" (1944), in short, assumed the maximum consolidation of the success achieved. At the same time, the German army tried to restore the front. At the second stage, the Soviet units had to fight the German reserves. At the same time, personnel changes took place in the leadership of the army of the Third Reich. After the expulsion of the Germans from Polotsk, Bagramyan was given a new task. The 1st Baltic Front was to carry out an offensive to the northwest, towards Daugavpils, and to the west - to Sventsyany and Kaunas. The plan was to break through to the Baltic and block the communications of the Sever Army formations from the rest of the Wehrmacht forces. After the flank shifts, fierce battles began. German troops, meanwhile, continued their counterattacks. On August 20, the attack on Tukums began from the east and west. For a short period, the Germans managed to restore communication between parts of the "Center" and "North". However, the attacks of the 3rd Panzer Army at Siauliai were unsuccessful. At the end of August, there was a break in the battles. The 1st Baltic Front completed its part of the offensive operation "Bagration".

By the summer of 1944, the situation on the Soviet-German front was in favor of the Red Army, which held the strategic initiative. The plan for the defeat of the German fascist army group "Center" was developed at Headquarters and approved at the end of May 1944. This operation went down in history under the name "Bagration", which consisted of two stages. According to the plan, it was planned to break through the defense of the German armies in the central sector of the Soviet-German front, dismember Army Group Center into parts and defeat them separately.

"Belarusian Balcony" - the front line to the east from Polotsk, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Bobruisk along the Pripyat River to Kovel, a ledge facing east, occupied by Army Group Center. Realizing the vulnerability of the "balcony", the German command offered Hitler to evacuate the Dnieper bridgehead, but the Fuhrer was against another retreat. The Soviet side in this operation was opposed by the Army Group "Center" (Field Marshal Ernst Busch, then from June 28, Field Marshal Walter Model), two army groups "North" and "Northern Ukraine". The total number of the enemy was about 1.2 million soldiers. It was armed with 9,500 guns and mortars, 900 tanks and assault guns, and 1,350 combat aircraft. On the territory of Belarus, the Nazis created a strong defense in depth called "Vaterland" ("Fatherland"), emphasizing that the fate of Germany depends on it.

Troops from four fronts were involved in Operation Bagration. The 1st Baltic Front (commander General of the Army I. Bagramyan) advanced from the area northwest of Vitebsk, the 3rd Belorussian Front (commander General - Colonel I. Chernyakhovsky) - south of Vitebsk to Borisov. The 2nd Belorussian Front (commander General of the Army G. Zakharov) operated in the Mogilev direction. The troops of the 1st Belorussian Front (commander General of the Army K. Rokossovsky) were aimed at Bobruisk and Minsk. Marshals G. Zhukov and A. Vasilevsky coordinated their actions. The total number of Soviet armies was 2.4 million soldiers, 36.4 thousand guns and mortars, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and 5.3 thousand aircraft. In addition, 150 partisan brigades and 49 separate detachments with a total of more than 143 thousand people operated behind enemy lines.

Stage I - June 23 - July 4, 1944. As a result of the operation, Vitebsk was liberated on June 26, Orsha on June 27, Mogilev on June 28, Bobruisk on June 29, and Minsk on July 3. The tank of Junior Lieutenant D. Frolikov of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps was the first to break into Minsk. Following him, the main forces of the Guards Tank Corps, commanded by Major General A. Burdeyny, literally broke into Minsk. 16 tankmen became Heroes of the Soviet Union for their heroic deeds during the liberation of the capital of Belarus. Private Suvorov from the 1315th Infantry Regiment set the state flag over the Government House. By the end of July 3, 1944, there were no armed German soldiers in Minsk.

Part of the German troops ended up in "cauldrons" near Vitebsk, Bobruisk and Minsk (105 thousand group of German troops). With the liberation of Minsk, the first stage of Operation Bagration ended. The main forces of Army Group Center were defeated.

Stage II - July 5 - August 29, 1944. The territory of Belarus was completely liberated from the Nazi troops: July 7 Baranovichi, July 14 Pinsk, July 16 Grodno, July 28 Brest. During the implementation of the second stage of the Belarusian operation, the army group "Center" was completely defeated, which was no less a disaster for the Nazis than the defeat at Stalingrad. The total losses of the German armies and their allies amounted to about 500 thousand soldiers and officers. The damage from the Soviet side was also significant. The Red Army lost 765,815 soldiers and officers (of which 178,507 people were killed - 7.6% of the personnel).

As a result of Operation Bagration, the Red Army liberated Belarus, part of Lithuania and Latvia, Poland (reached the suburbs of Warsaw - Prague) and approached the borders of East Prussia.

Over 1600 soldiers in the battles for the liberation of Belarus were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In memory of the heroic deeds of the soldiers of the four fronts, the majestic Mound of Glory (opened in 1969) was erected on the 21st kilometer of the Minsk-Moscow highway.