"Bagration" is an operation of 1944. Brief description, participants, results

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

Preliminary stage

On the third anniversary of the German invasion of the USSR, the Bagration military campaign began. The 1944 operation was conducted on the Berezina River. Soviet troops managed to break through the defense of the Germans in many sectors. Active support in this they provided partisans. The offensive operations of the troops of the 1st Baltic, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts were intensive. From the actions of these units, the Bagration military campaign-operation (1944, the head and coordinator of the plan-GK Zhukov) began. The commanders were Rokossovsky, Chernyakhovsky, Zakharov, Bagramyan. In the region of Vilnius, Brest, Vitebsk, Bobruisk and east of Minsk, enemy groups were surrounded and liquidated. 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 lines of East Prussia.

The main front lines

The plan "Bagration" (operation of 1944) assumed 2 stages. They included several offensive campaigns of Soviet troops. The direction of 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 was held from June 23 to July 4. From July 5 to August 29, the offensive was also conducted on several fronts. At the second stage, operations were planned:

1. The Vilnius.
2. Siauliai.
3. Białystokskaya.
4. Lublin-Brest.
5. Kaunas.
6. Osowiecka.

Vitebsk-Orsha offensive

On this site, the defense was occupied by the 3rd Panzer Army, commanded by Reinhardt. Directly at Vitebsk stood its 53rd army corps. They were commanded by a gene. Golwitzer. Under 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 it, the Soviet troops managed to wedge themselves into the defense of the Germans and take the first trenches. On 23 June the Russian command caused the main blow. A key role belonged to the 43rd and 39th armies. The first covered the western side of Vitebsk, the second - the southern one. The 39th Army had almost no superiority in numbers, but the high concentration of forces on the site made it possible to create a significant local preponderance during the initial stage of the implementation of the Bagration plan. Operation (1944) in Vitebsk and Orsha was generally successful. Rapidly enough to break through the western part of the defense and the southern front. The 6th Corps, located on the southern side of Vitebsk, was divided into several parts and lost control. Over the following days, division commanders and the corps were killed. The remaining parts, having lost contact with each other, moved in small groups to the west.

The liberation of cities

On June 24, parts of the 1st Baltic Front came to the Dvina. Army Group "North" tried to counterattack. However, their breakthrough was unsuccessful. Beshenkovichi was surrounded by a corps group D. South of Vitebsk, a horse-mechanized brigade of Oslikovsky was commissioned. His group began to move quickly enough to the south-west.

In June 1944 Operation Bagration was carried out on the Orsha site rather slowly. This was due to the fact that here was located one of the most powerful infantry German divisions - the assault 78th. It was much better manned than the rest, had the support of 50 self-propelled guns. Here were located parts of the 14th motorized division.

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

In the morning of 27.06 Orsha was cleared of invaders. 5th Guards. The tank army began to advance to Borisov. On June 27, Vitebsk was also released in the morning. Here, the German group was defending itself, which was 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, after several hours, about 5 thousand Germans were again surrounded.

Breakthrough Results

Thanks to the offensive actions of the Soviet troops, the 53rd Corps of Germans was almost completely destroyed. Fascist units managed to break through 200 people. As evidence Haupt's records, almost all of them were wounded. 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. Operation of 1944 in Orsha and Vitebsk allowed to eliminate the northern flank of the "Center". This was the first step to the further complete encirclement of the group.

Fighting near Mogilev

This part of the front was considered auxiliary. On June 23, an effective artillery preparation was carried out. The forces of the Second Byelorussian Front began to force the river. I'm sorry. On it passed the defensive line of the Germans. The operation "Bagration" in June 1944 was held with the active use of artillery. The enemy was almost completely overwhelmed by it. In the Mogilev area sappers quickly set up 78 bridges for the passage of infantry and 4 heavy 60-ton ferry for technology.

A few hours later, the number of most of the German mouth dropped from 80-100 to 15-20 people. But parts of the Fourth Army managed to withdraw to the second boundary along the river. Bass is quite organized. The operation "Bagration" in June 1944 continued with the crossing of the Dnieper from the south and north of Mogilev. On 27.06 the city was surrounded and seized the next day by an attack. In Mogilev, about 2 thousand prisoners were captured. Among them was the commander of the 12th Infantry Division Bamler, as well as the commandant von Ermansdorf. The latter was later found guilty of committing a large number of serious crimes and hung. The retreat of the Germans gradually became more and more unorganized. Before 29.06, 33 thousand German soldiers and 20 tanks were destroyed and captured.

Bobruisk

The operation "Bagration" (1944) assumed the formation of the southern "claw" of a large-scale encirclement. This action was carried out by the most powerful and numerous Belorussian Front, which was commanded by Rokossovsky. Initially, the right flank participated in the offensive. Resistance was rendered to him by the 9th field army of the gene. Yordan. The task of eliminating the enemy was decided by the creation of a local "boiler" near Bobruisk.

The offensive began from the south on 24.06. The 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. Soviet troops had to overcome a fairly large marshy swamp. However, this path was chosen intentionally, since on this side the Germans' defense was weak. On June 27, the interception of roads from Bobruisk to the north and west took place. The key German forces were surrounded. The diameter of the ring was approximately 25 km. The operation for the liberation of Bobruisk ended successfully. During the offensive, two corps were destroyed: the 35th Army and 41st Tank Corps. The rout of the 9th Army allowed to open the road to Minsk from the north-east and southeast.

Fighting near Polotsk

This direction caused serious concern for the Russian command. Bagramyan started to address the problem. In fact, there was no break between Vitebsk-Orsha and Polotsk operations. The main enemy was the 3rd Tank Army, the forces of the "North" (the 16th Field Army). In reserve, the Germans had 2 infantry divisions. The Polotsk operation did not end with such a rout as under Vitebsk. However, it allowed to deprive the enemy of a strong point, a railway junction. As a result, a threat was thrown to the 1st Baltic front, and the Army Group "North" was evacuated from the south, suggesting a blow to the flank.

Retreat of the Fourth Army

After the defeat of the southern and northern flanks near Bobruisk and Vitebsk, the Germans were caught in a rectangle. Its eastern wall was formed by the Drut river, the western one by Berezina. From the north and south stood Soviet troops. To the west was Minsk. It was in this direction that the main blows of the Soviet forces were aimed. From the flanks, the Fourth Army actually had no cover. Gene. Background Tippelskirch ordered to retreat through the Berezina. For this, I had to use the dirt road from Mogilev. On a single bridge, the Germans tried to cross the West Bank, testing the constant fire of bombers and stormtroopers. The military police had to regulate the crossing, however, it withdrew from this task. In addition, partisans were active in this sector. They carried out constant attacks on the positions of the Germans. The situation for the enemy was also complicated by the fact that groups of broken parts on other sectors, including from Vitebsk, joined the ferrying units. In this connection, the retreat of the Fourth Army proceeded slowly and was accompanied by great losses.

The battle from the south side of Minsk

The offensive was led by mobile groups - tank, mechanized and horse-mechanized connections. Part of Pliev quickly started moving to Slutsk. To the city his group left in the evening on 29.06. In connection with the fact that before the First Byelorussian Front the Germans suffered heavy losses, they showed little resistance. Slutsk itself defended the junctions of the 35th and 102nd divisions. They showed organized resistance. Then Pliev launched an attack from three flanks at the same time. This attack was successful, and by 11 am on 30 June the city was cleared of Germans. By July 2, the horse-mechanized units of Pliev occupied Nesvizh, cutting off the grouping of the road to the southeast. The breakthrough was quick enough. Resistance was provided by small, disorganized groups of Germans.

The Battle for Minsk

The mobile reserves of the Germans began to arrive at the front. They were withdrawn mainly from the parts that operated in Ukraine. The first arrived the 5th Panzer Division. She posed a rather serious threat, taking into account the fact that during the past few months she had hardly participated in the fighting. The division was well manned, rearmed and reinforced by the 505th heavy battalion. However, the weak point here was the infantry. It consisted either of security forces, or of those that suffered substantial losses of divisions. A serious battle was fought from the north-west side of Minsk. Tankers of the enemy announced the liquidation of 295 Soviet vehicles. However, there is no doubt that they themselves have 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. 2 nd gv. The corps on July 1 approached the outskirts of Minsk. Having made a detour, he broke into the city from the north-west side. At the same time, the 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 heavily destroyed by the Germans already in 1941. Retreating, the enemy further exploded the structure.

The collapse of the Fourth Army

The German group was surrounded, but still made attempts to break through to the west. The Nazis even fought with cold steel. The command of the 4th Army fled to the west, as a result of which the actual control was performed by von Tippelskirch, the chief of the 12th Army Corps, Müller. July 8-9, the resistance of the Germans in the Minsk "kettle" was finally broken. Till the 12th the mopping-up lasted: the regular units, together with the partisans, neutralized small groups of the enemy in the forests. After that, the military action in the east of Minsk was completed.

Second phase

After the completion of the first stage, Operation Bagration (1944), briefly, assumed the maximum consolidation of the achieved success. At the same time, the German army was trying to restore the front. At the second stage, the Soviet units had to contend with the reserves of the Germans. In the leadership of the army of the Third Reich, there were personnel reshuffles. After the expulsion of the Germans from Polotsk, a new task was set before Baghramyan. The First Baltic Front was to carry out an offensive to the north-west, towards Daugavpils, and to the west - to Sventsyan and Kaunas. The plan consisted of a breakthrough to the Baltic Sea and the closure of the communication of the North Army formations from the rest of the Wehrmacht forces. After the flanking rearrangements, fierce battles began. Meanwhile, German troops continued their counterattacks. On 20.08, an offensive began on Tukums from the east and west. For a short period the Germans managed to restore the communication between the parts of the "Center" and the "North". However, the attacks of the 3rd Tank Army in Siauliai were unsuccessful. At the end of August, there was a break in the battles. The 1st Baltic Front ended its part of the offensive operation "Bagration".