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74-600: The Western Front was a front of the Red Army , one of the Red Army Fronts during World War II . The Western Front was created on 22 June 1941 from the Western Special Military District (which before July 1940 was known as Belorussian Special Military District ). The first Front Commander was Dmitry Pavlov (continuing from his position as District Commander since June 1940). The western boundary of

148-507: A counter-attack with the 10th Army on 23 June were unsuccessful. That same day the German Third Panzer Group captured Vilnius after outflanking the 3rd Army. On 24 June, Pavlov again attempted to organize a counter-attack, assigning his deputy Lieutenant General Ivan Boldin the command of the 6th and 11th Mechanized Corps and the 6th Cavalry Corps , commanded by Major General Ivan Semenovich Nikitin . With this mobile force Boldin

222-550: A front that included the river Neisse . Before dawn on the morning of 16 April 1945 the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of General Konev started the attack over the river Neisse with a short but massive bombardment by tens of thousands of artillery pieces. Some of the Army Group Centre continued to resist until 11 May 1945, by which time the overwhelming force of the Soviet Armies sent to liberate Czechoslovakia in

296-525: A larger Soviet attempt to counter-attack. However, despite some local successes, the offensive failed to breach the German defenses and the offensive was called off 10 September. Newly promoted Colonel General Ivan Konev took over command in September when Timoshenko was transferred south to restore the situation in the then ongoing Battle of Kiev . On 2 October, German forces resumed their advance on Moscow with

370-616: A military force. The Front commander, General of the Army Dmitry Pavlov , and the Front Staff were recalled to Moscow. There they were accused of intentional disorganization of defense and retreat without battle, sentenced as traitors, and executed. The families of the traitors were repressed according to NKVD Order no. 00486 . This order dealt with families of traitors of the Motherland. (They were rehabilitated in 1956.) Furious over

444-483: A short time before Christmas of 1941, this role was fulfilled by Günther Blumentritt ). 1942 opened for Army Group Centre with continuing attacks from Soviet forces around Rzhev. The German Ninth Army was able to repel these attacks and stabilise its front, despite continuing large-scale partisan activity in its rear areas. Meanwhile, the German strategic focus on the Eastern Front shifted to southwestern Russia, with

518-601: A single district formed a single front at the start of the hostilities, or when hostilities were anticipated. Some military districts could not form a front. Fronts were also formed during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920. The main fronts during the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War were : Army groups differ from fronts in that a Soviet front typically had its own army-sized tactical fixed-wing aviation organization. According to Soviet military doctrine ,

592-581: A specific operation, after which it could be reformed and tasked with another operation (including a change of the Front's designation) or it could be disbanded - with its formations dispersed among the other active Fronts and its HQ reintegrated into its original Military District HQ. Soviet and Russian military doctrine calls the different levels in the command chain (including the Fronts) "Organs of Military Control" ( Russian : Органы военного управления ). In 1979 in

666-548: The 5th Army , recently raised from 1st Guards Rifle Corps, and soon to include the 32nd Rifle Division at Mozhaisk . The 43rd Army was under General K. D. Golubev at Maloyaroslavets, and the 49th Army was near Kaluga under General I. G. Zakharin. The 49th Army had been formed in August 1941 and was initially assigned to the Reserve Front. On 1 September 1941, the 49th Army comprised the 194th, 220th, and 248th Rifle Divisions, and

740-532: The 5th Mechanized Corps , under Major General Ilya Alekseyenko , and the 7th Mechanized Corps , under Major General Vasilii Ivanovich Vinogradov . The 19th Army, under Lieutenant General Ivan Konev , that time regrouping northward from the Kiev region, was to defend the Vitebsk region to the rear of 22nd and 20th Armies. The 19th Army included the 23rd Mechanized Corps under Major General Mikhail Akimovich Miasnikov . On

814-524: The Białystok salient, the front fielded the 10th Army , under Lieutenant General Konstantin Golubev , supported by the 6th Mechanized Corps and 13th Mechanized Corps , under Major Generals Mikhail Khatskilevich and Pyotr Akhliustin . On the 10th Army's left flank was 4th Army , under Lieutenant General Aleksandr Korobkov , supported by the 14th Mechanized Corps , under Major General Stepan Oborin ; and on

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888-512: The Dornier Do 17 's of KG 2 . In effect Pavlov's counter-attack was completely routed. Of the 6th Mechanized Corps' 1,212 tanks, only about 200 reached their assembly areas due to air attacks and mechanical breakdowns, and even they ran out of fuel by the end of the day. The same fate awaited the 243 tanks of the 11th Mechanized Corps, ordered to attack towards Grodno on 25 June. The 6th Cavalry Corps suffered 50% casualties and its commander, Nikitin,

962-600: The Prague Offensive gave them no option but to surrender or be killed. By 7 May 1945, the day that German Chief-of-Staff General Alfred Jodl was negotiating surrender of all German forces at SHAEF , the German Armed Forces High Command (AFHC) had not heard from Schörner since 2 May 1945. He had reported that he intended to fight his way west and surrender his army group to the Americans. On 8 May 1945,

1036-541: The Stalingrad Front (24.6.41. – 26.8.41.) Moscow Military District (25.6.41. – 28.7.41.) Dmitry Ryabyshev , Yakov Cherevichenko , Rodion Malinovsky (14.7.41. – 29.7.41.) ( NKVD ) (18 – 30.7.41.) ( NKVD ) (26.7.41. – 25.8.41.) Mikhail Yefremov Army Group Centre After Army Group North was trapped in the Courland Pocket in mid-1944, it was renamed to Army Group Courland and

1110-623: The Vistula and the Baltic States by early August. In terms of casualties this was the greatest German defeat of the entire war. The commander in chief of Army Group Centre as of 28 June 1944 was Walter Model . The commander in chief as of 16 August 1944 was Georg Hans Reinhardt . Discussion of the army group's situation in January 1945 should note that the army groups in the east changed names later that month. The force known as "Army Group Centre" at

1184-404: The air army was directly subordinated to the front commander (typically a ground commander). The reform of 1935 established that in case of a war the peacetime military districts on the border would split upon mobilisation each into a Front Command (taking control of the district's peacetime military formations) and a Military District Command (which stayed behind with the mission of mobilising

1258-551: The 13th Army and 4th Army's 4th Airborne and 20th Mechanized Corps. On the southern flank, the remnants of the 4th Army's Rifle Divisions were only able to offer light resistance to the German XXIV Motorised Corps ; instead the attackers were repeatedly halted by destroyed bridges at the Berezina, Ola , Dobosna and Drut Rivers . Kreizer launched his counter-attack against the German bridgehead at Borisov on 3 July, but

1332-538: The 20th Mechanized Corps had only 93 older tanks and the 4th Airborne had to deploy on foot from lack of aircraft. Neither proved any threat to the advancing Second Panzer Group. On 27 June 1941, the German Second and Third Panzer Groups striking from south and north linked up near Minsk, surrounding and eventually destroying the Soviet 3rd, 10th and 13th Armies, and portions of the 4th Army, in total about 20 divisions, while

1406-507: The 22nd Army under Lieutenant General Filipp Yershakov to defend the sector from Sebezh southward to the Western Dvina, and then south along that river from north of Polotsk to Beshenkovichi . South of the 22nd Army, the 20th Army, under Lieutenant General Pavel Kurochkin , was to defend the gap between the rivers from Beshenkovichi on the Western Dvina to Shklov on the Dnepr, supported by

1480-576: The 3rd Panzer Division arriving at the river north of Rogachev and the 4th Panzer Division advancing to Bykhov . By nightfall the Western Front could report that remnants of the 4th and 13th Armies had been able to retreat across the Dniepr, however hardly anything of the 3rd and 10th Armies remained. Moreover, parts of the 13th Army and 17th Mechanized Corps were still west of the Dniepr. Accordingly, Timoshenko ordered his 21st Army to shore up its defences along

1554-499: The 4th Army's 47th Rifle Corps , and on 30 June, the 4th Panzer Division seized the railroad bridge at Svisloch from the 4th Airborne Corps, cutting off one of that corps' three brigades and most of the 20th Mechanized Corps. Then on 2 July Stalin appointed Semyon Timoshenko , Marshal of the Soviet Union and People's Commissar for Defence, to command the Western Front, with Yeryomenko and Marshal Semyon Budyonny as his deputies. At

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1628-619: The 4th Army, and had him executed for treason. He was replaced by Colonel Leonid Sandalov Finally the 16th Army, under Lieutenant General Mikhail Fedorovich Lukin , was kept in reserve in the Smolensk region. The Western Front had been given a brief respite to erect new defences while the Germans reduced the pockets created during the Białystok-Minsk battles. With the Minsk pocket nearly disintegrated,

1702-592: The 4th Division of the People's Militia . Meanwhile, the 33rd Army was forming at Naro-Fominsk under General Lieutenant M. G. Yefremov, and was to be assigned to Zhukov's command. The Soviets just managed to halt the German advance in the Battle of Moscow , leading to further furious fighting in the Battles of Rzhev just to the west. In May 1942 the Front's air forces became the 1st Air Army . The Front appears to have controlled

1776-572: The 58th (Sebezh), 61st (Polotsk), 63rd (Minsk-Slutsky) , 64th (Zambrow) and 65th (Mozyr) Fortified Regions. Mechanised forces in reserve included the 20th Mechanized Corps under Major General Andrey Nikitin at Minsk and the 17th Mechanized Corps , under Major General Mikhail Petrov , slightly further forward at Slonim . Altogether, on 22 June the Western Special Military District fielded 671,165 men, 14,171 guns and mortars, 2,900 tanks and 1,812 combat aircraft. The Western Front

1850-839: The Front in June 1941 was 470 km (290 mi) long, from the southern border of Lithuania to the Pripyat River and the town of Włodawa . It connected with the adjacent North-Western Front , which extended from the Lithuanian border to the Baltic Sea, and the Southwestern Front in Ukraine. The 1939 partition of Poland according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact established a new western border with no permanent defense installations, and

1924-526: The German Panzer Groups resumed their offensive against the Western Front on 2 July. On the Front's northern flank, the advance of Hoth's forces was hampered by poor weather. The LVII Motorised Corps made the best progress, but encountered heavy resistance from the Soviet 22nd Army's 62nd Rifle Corps on the approaches to Polotsk, which led the German corps commander, Adolf-Friedrich Kuntzen , to reroute his 19th Panzer Division northward to Disna on

1998-511: The German forces. In the spring of 1944, the Soviet High Command started concentrating forces along the front line in central Russia for a summer offensive against Army Group Centre. The Red Army also carried out a deception campaign to convince the Wehrmacht that the main Soviet summer offensive would be launched further south, against Army Group North Ukraine . The German High Command

2072-706: The Red Army in World War II . Soviet fronts in the European Theatre during the Second World War from 1941 to 1945: (time period) (22.6.41. – 20.11.43.) Pyotr Sobennikov , Pavel Kurochkin , Semyon Timoshenko , Ivan Konev (22.6.41. – 15.4.44.) Andrey Yeryomenko , Semyon Timoshenko , Ivan Konev , Georgy Zhukov , Vasily Sokolovsky , Ivan Chernyakhovsky (21.6.41. – 12.7.42.) Semyon Timoshenko , Fyodor Kostenko Southern Front and

2146-445: The Soviet 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies. During July the Western Front's area of responsibility was reduced by the formation of the new Central and Reserve Fronts . Stiffening Soviet resistance in the centre convinced Hitler to put a temporary halt to the advance towards Moscow and divert the Army Group Centre's armour towards Leningrad and Kiev. On 17 August, the Western Front launched an offensive towards Dukhovshchina as part of

2220-513: The Soviet Army's organizational arrangement of having military districts that have both a wartime territorial administration role and the capability to generate formation headquarters (HQs) to command fronts. This was emphasized by reports of a Moscow Military District exercise in April 2001, when the district's units were to be divided into two groups, "one operating for the western front and the other for

2294-588: The Soviet Troops in the Far East ( Russian : Главное командование советских войск на Дальнем Востоке ). Existed between 30 July and 17 December 1945 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Vasilevsky . It commanded the: The degree of change in the structure and performance of individual fronts can only be understood when seen in the context of the strategic operations of

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2368-726: The Troops of the Western Direction ( Russian : Главное командование войск Западного направления ). Existed between 10 July and 10 September 1941 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko . It commanded the: Main Command of the Troops of the South-Western Direction ( Russian : Главное командование войск Юго-Западного направления ). Existed between 10 July 1941 and 21 June 1942 under

2442-507: The Western Front with the Battle of Białystok-Minsk . The German Ninth and Fourth Armies of Army Group Centre penetrated the border north and south of the Białystok salient. The Front's tanks and aviation at airfields were annihilated by German air strikes. Soviet command and control suffered almost complete breakdown. Worst hit was the 4th Army, which failed to establish communications with headquarters both above and below it. Attempts to launch

2516-460: The army deployment within the Front created weak flanks. At the outbreak of war with Germany, the Western Special Military District was, in accordance with Soviet pre-war planning, immediately converted into the Western Front, under the District's commander, Army General Dmitry Pavlov. The main forces of the Western Front were concentrated forward along the frontier, organized in three armies. To defend

2590-468: The army group boundary for the later being the Pripyat River . Bitter fighting in the Battle of Smolensk as well as the Lötzen decision delayed the German advance for two months. The advance of Army Group Centre was further delayed as Hitler ordered a postponement of the offensive against Moscow in order to conquer Ukraine first. The commander in chief as of 19 December 1941 was Günther von Kluge (for

2664-471: The attempted withdrawal of troops in the salient to avoid encirclement and opening the southern approaches to Minsk. Pavlov dispatched orders to disengage and withdraw into new defences behind the Shchara River , but the few units receiving the orders were unable to break contact with the enemy. Hounded by constant air attacks, Pavlov's forces fled eastward on foot. Most of the 10th Army was not able to cross

2738-593: The command of initially Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny , since September 1941 of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko . It commanded the: Main Command of the Troops of the North Caucasus Direction ( Russian : Главное командование войск Северо-Кавказского направления ). Existed between 21 April and 19 May 1942 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Budyonny . It commanded the: Main Command of

2812-499: The defence of Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia as well as sections of the German heartland. Between January and February 1945, Army Group Centre sustained 140,000 casualties, including 15,000 dead, 77,000 wounded (not counting non-evacuees), and 48,000 missing. The last Soviet campaign of the war in the European theater, which led to the fall of Berlin and the end of the war in Europe with

2886-537: The defenders had been forewarned by radio intercepts and air reconnaissance, and with their superior tactics beat back this isolated Soviet attack. Defeated, Kreizer accordingly retreated behind the Nacha River and fought during the withdrawal towards Orsha , where his troops were aided by the arrival of the 20th Army. Also on 3 July, the spearheads of the XXIV Motorised Corps reached the rain-swollen Dniepr, with

2960-591: The end of 1916 Romanian Front was established, which also included remnants of the Romanian army. In April 1917, Caucasus Front was established by the reorganization of the Caucasus Army . The Soviet fronts were first raised during the Russian Civil War . They were wartime organizations only, in the peacetime the fronts were normally disbanded and their armies organized back into military districts . Usually

3034-442: The first Army Group Centre was renamed "Army Group North". The second iteration of Army Group Centre was formed by the redesignation of Army Group A as the replacement for the first Army Group Centre. The army group was officially created by Adolf Hitler when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, ordering German forces to prepare for an attack on Soviet Russia in 1941. The first commanding officer of Army Group Centre

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3108-463: The former had been reduced to the equivalent of a division in strength. On 1 July, he ordered the 13th Army to fall back to the Berezina River and defend the sectors between the towns of Kholkolnitza , Borisov and Brodets . Further south, the 4th Army were to defend the Berezina from Brodets through Svisloch to Bobruisk . To reinforce the Front's defences the elite 1st Moscow Motor Rifle Division

3182-451: The front's southern flank the 21st Army, under Lieutenant General Vasyl Herasymenko , including the 25th Mechanized Corps under Major General Semyon Krivoshein , was to defend the sector from Rogachev to Rechitsa . The remnants of the 4th and 13th Armies were to fall back and regroup at the Sozh River at the rear of the 21st Army. In early July Stalin relieved Korobkov, the commander of

3256-587: The launch of Operation Typhoon. The Western Front again suffered immense losses when large parts of its forces were encircled near Vyazma . When Zhukov took over on 10 October, the Soviet Reserve Front had just been disbanded and its forces incorporated into Western Front, but given the pounding that Soviet forces had suffered, the force numbered only 90,000 men. The 16th Army under Konstantin Rokossovsky held at Volokolamsk , and General L. A. Govorov had

3330-499: The launching of Operation Blue in June. This operation, aimed at the oilfields in the southwestern Caucasus , involved Army Group South alone, with the other German army groups giving up troops and equipment for the offensive. Despite the focus on the south, Army Group Centre continued to see fierce fighting throughout the year. While the Soviet attacks in early 1942 had not driven the Germans back, they had resulted in several Red Army units being trapped behind German lines. Eliminating

3404-405: The loss of Minsk on 28 June, Stalin replaced the disgraced Pavlov with Colonel General Andrey Yeryomenko as commander of the Western Front. Arriving at Front headquarters at Mogilev on the morning of 29 June, Yeryomenko was faced with the daunting task of restoring order to the Western Front's defences. To accomplish this task he had initially only the remnants of the 4th and 13th Armies, of which

3478-559: The more general usage of military front , describing a geographic area in wartime. After the outbreak of the First World War , the Russian General Headquarters set up two Fronts: Northwestern Front , uniting forces deployed against German Empire , and Southwestern Front , uniting forces deployed against Austria-Hungary . In August 1915, Northwestern Front was split into Northern Front and Western Front . At

3552-446: The north of the Białystok salient, and then turn south-east. In addition to the two panzer groups. The Army Group Centre also included Field Marshal Günther von Kluge 's Fourth Army and Colonel General Adolf Strauss ' Ninth Army . Air support was provided by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring 's Luftflotte 2 which contained more than half the German aircraft committed to the attack on the Soviet Union. The war started disastrously for

3626-541: The pockets took until July, the same month in which the Soviets made another attempt to break through the army group's front; the attempt failed, but the front line was pushed back closer to Rzhev. The largest Soviet operation in the army group's sector that year, Operation Mars , took place in November. It was launched concurrently with Operation Uranus , the counteroffensive against the German assault on Stalingrad . The operation

3700-597: The remainder of the 4th Army fell back eastwards toward the Berezina River . On 28 June 1941, the Ninth and Fourth German Armies linked east of Białystok splitting the encircled Soviet forces into two pockets: a larger Białystok pocket containing the Soviet 10th Army and a smaller Navahrudak pocket. In the first 18 days of the war, the Western Front had suffered 417,790 casualties, lost 9,427 guns and mortars, 4,799 tanks and 1,777 combat aircraft, and practically ceased to exist as

3774-602: The reserve formations and putting them at the disposal of the Fronts as replacement troops). In that sense the Air Armies were under Air Force command in peacetime, but under the command of the Front HQs in wartime; and the Fronts were commanded by ground-forces generals. An entire Front might report either to the Stavka or to a theatre of military operations (TVD). A Front was mobilised for

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3848-723: The right the 3rd Army , under Lieutenant General Vasily Kuznetsov supported by the 11th Mechanized Corps , under Major General Dmitry Karpovich Mostovenko . To the rear was the 13th Army , under Lieutenant General Pyotr Filatov . This army initially existed as a headquarters unit only, with no assigned combat forces. Among forces of Frontal designation were the 2nd Rifle Corps ( 100th , 161st Rifle Divisions ), 21st Rifle Corps ( 17th , 24th , 37th Rifle Division ), 44th Rifle Corps (64th, 108th Rifle Divisions), 47th Rifle Corps ( 55th , 121st , 143rd Rifle Divisions), 50th Rifle Division , 4th Airborne Corps (7th, 8th, 214th Airborne Brigades) commanded by Alexey Zhadov at Minsk , and

3922-498: The river and help the withdrawal by sending out forces to spoil the German advance. On 4 July, the 19th Panzer Division seized a bridgehead across the Western Dvina at Disna from the defending 51st Rifle Corps of the Soviet 22nd Army, where it was reinforced by the German 18th Motorised Division . The Front took part in the fierce Battle of Smolensk (1941) , which managed to disrupt the German blitzkrieg for two months. The Germans successfully encircled and destroyed large parts of

3996-464: The river because the bridges over the Shchara were destroyed by air attacks. Further east, the 13th Army, which had received orders to assemble various withdrawing forces into the defence of Minsk, had its headquarters ambushed by German spearheads and its defence plans captured. Pavlov then ordered his 20th Mechanized and 4th Airborne Corps, until then held in reserve, to halt the Germans at Slutsk . However

4070-414: The road bridge intact despite Yeryomenko's personal instructions that it be destroyed. Timoshenko was ordered by the Stavka (the Soviet High Command) to restore the situation with Kreizer's 1st Moscow Motor Rifle Division. The XXXXVI Motorised Corps also captured a bridgehead across the Berezina on 2 July when the SS Motorized Division Das Reich captured Pogost , but were then for two days hindered by

4144-427: The same time Stalin transferred four armies, the 19th Army , 20th Army , 21st Army and 22nd Army , from Marshal Budyonny's Group of Reserve Armies to the Western Front. After a telephone conversation with Timoshenko, Stalin added a fifth reserve army, the weak 16th Army , as well. Timoshenko's orders were to defend the Western Dvina River - Dniepr River line. To this end the front deployed on its northern flank

4218-439: The southern bank of the Western Dvina. The XXXIX Motorised Corps , hindered by poor road conditions and resistance from the Soviet 20th Army and 5th and 7th Mechanized Corps, only advanced only as far as Lepel in two days. Further south Borisov, defended by the remnants of the 13th Army and the Borisov Tank School, fell to the 18th Panzer Division of the 2nd Panzer Group's XXXXVII Motorised Corps on 2 July. The Germans captured

4292-723: The start of the Soviet Vistula-Oder Offensive on 12 January 1945 was renamed "Army Group North" less than two weeks after the offensive commenced. At the start of the Vistula-Oder Offensive, the Soviet forces facing Army Group Centre outnumbered the Germans on average by 2:1 in troops, 3:1 in artillery, and 5.5:1 in tanks and self-propelled artillery. The Soviet superiority in troop strength grows to almost 3:1 if 200,000 Volkssturm militia are not included in German personnel strength totals. On 25 January 1945, Hitler renamed three army groups. Army Group North became Army Group Courland , Army Group Centre became Army Group North, and Army Group A became Army Group Centre. Army Group Centre fought in

4366-482: The surrender of all German forces to the Allies. The three Soviet Fronts involved in the campaign had altogether 2.5 million men, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars , 3,255 truck -mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed "Stalin Organs" by the Germans), and 95,383 motor vehicles. The campaign started with the battle of Oder-Neisse . Army Group Centre commanded by Ferdinand Schörner (the commander in chief as of 17 January 1945) had

4440-439: The three armies - the 5th Army , 33rd Army , and 10th Guards Army - which formed the assault force in the Battle of Smolensk (1943) . On 1 August 1943, the 70th Rifle Corps was listed on the Soviet order of battle , as a headquarters with no troops assigned, directly subordinate to the front. On 24 April 1944, the Front was divided into the 2nd Belorussian Front and 3rd Belorussian Front . Russian ground troops continue

4514-482: The wartime military district". Front (military formation) A front ( Russian : фронт , romanized :  front ) is a type of military formation that originated in the Russian Empire , and has been used by the Polish Army , the Red Army , the Soviet Army , and Turkey . It is roughly equivalent to an army group in the military of most other countries. It varies in size but in general contains three to five armies . It should not be confused with

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4588-435: The years of high confrontation between the countries of the Western liberal democracies and those of the Socialist Bloc the Main Commands of the Troops of a Strategic Directions were reinstated covertly: ( Russian : Главное командование войск Северо-Западного направления ). Existed between 10 July and 27 August 1941 under the command of Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Voroshilov . It commanded the: Main Command of

4662-423: Was Field Marshal Fedor von Bock , who would lead it until he was relieved on 18 December 1941 after the failure of the Battle of Moscow and was replaced by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge . Günther von Kluge would remain the army group's commander until he was injured in October 1943 and replaced by Field Marshal Ernst Busch , who would then be replaced by Field Marshal Walter Model in June 1944. When Model

4736-401: Was almost completely destroyed by the attack. It is estimated that over 450,000 Germans were killed, wounded, or captured, notably the 57,000 soldiers captured east of Minsk , who were paraded through Moscow on 17 July on Stalin's orders as proof of the immense success of the Soviet offensive. The Soviet forces raced forward, liberating Minsk and the rest of Belorussia by mid-July, and reaching

4810-413: Was captured. The attempted attack allowed many Soviet forces to escape from the Białystok region towards Minsk, but this brought only temporary relief. With both the German Second and Third Panzer Groups racing towards Minsk on the Western Front's southern and northern flanks, a new encirclement threatened. In the evening of 25 June, the German 47th Panzer Corps cut between Slonim and Vawkavysk , forcing

4884-434: Was fooled and armored units were moved south out of Army Group Centre. The Soviet offensive, code-named Operation Bagration , was launched on 22 June 1944, the third anniversary of Germany's own invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. 185 Red Army divisions, comprising 2.3 million soldiers and 4,000 tanks and assault guns, smashed into the German positions on a 200km-wide front. The 850,000-strong Army Group Centre

4958-428: Was launched to forestall any possible Soviet spring offensives, by evacuating the Rzhev Salient to shorten the frontline. The commander in chief as of 12 October 1943 was Ernst Busch . The following major anti-partisan operations were conducted in the rear of Army Group Centre, alongside many smaller operations: Increasing coordination of the partisan activity resulted in the conducting of Operation Concert against

5032-462: Was on the main axis of attack by the German Army Group Centre , commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock . German plans for Operation Barbarossa called for the Army Group Centre's Second Panzer Group , under Colonel General Heinz Guderian , to attack south of Brest , advance through Slonim and Baranovichi, turning north-east towards Minsk where it would be met by Colonel General Hermann Hoth 's Third Panzer Group , which would attack Vilnius , to

5106-444: Was repulsed with very heavy Soviet losses, although it did have the effect of pinning down German units that could have been sent to the fighting around Stalingrad. Following the disaster of Stalingrad and poor results of the Voronezh defensive operations, the army high command expected another attack on Army Group Centre in early 1943. However, Hitler had decided to strike first. Before this strike could be launched, Operation Büffel

5180-399: Was rushed from Moscow Military District to Borisov. This division, commanded by Colonel Yakov Kreizer , was at full strength with two motorized regiments, one tank regiment and 229 tanks. However, by that date Yeryomenko's defense line on the Berezina had already been rendered obsolete by Guderian's Panzer Divisions. On 29 June, the 3rd Panzer Division captured a bridgehead at Bobruisk from

5254-460: Was to attack northward from the Białystok region towards Grodno to prevent encirclement of Soviet forces in the salient. This attempted counter-attack was also fruitless. Almost without any interference from Soviet fighters, the close support aircraft of Germany's 8th Air Corps were able to break the backbone of Western Front's counter-attack at Grodno. The 6th Cavalry Corps was so badly mauled by this aerial onslaught against its columns that it

5328-476: Was to defeat the Soviet armies in Belarus and occupy Smolensk. To accomplish this, the army group planned for a rapid advance using Blitzkrieg operational methods for which purpose it commanded two panzer groups rather than one. A quick and decisive victory over the Soviet Union was expected by mid-November. The Army Group's other operational missions were to support the army groups on its northern and southern flanks,

5402-606: Was transferred to the Western Front in August 1944, he was replaced by Ferdinand Schörner , who would command the army group until his desertion in May 1945 after Germany surrendered to the Allies. On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies launched their surprise offensive into the Soviet Union. Their armies, totaling over three million men, were to advance in three geographical directions. Army Group Centre's initial strategic goal

5476-540: Was unable to deploy for attack. Jagdgeschwader 53 's Hermann Neuhoff recalled: We found the main roads in the area heavily congested with Russian vehicles of all kinds, but no fighter opposition and very little flak. We made one firing pass after another and caused terrible destruction on the ground. Literally everything was ablaze by the time we turned for home. This air operation continued until nightfall on 24th June, resulting in 105 tanks reportedly destroyed by German aircraft. Particularly successful attacks were made by

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