Panzer Corps 2 Bagration

[Lajuana Paling]

The exposed balcony presented a tempting target. In May 1944, the High Command of the Soviet Armed Forces, known as Stavka, began planning an ambitious operation to destroy four German armies in Belarus, an area of operations roughly the size of the United Kingdom. The operation had as its goal the encirclement and destruction of Army Group Center. Soviet planners anticipated that if the operation succeeded, it would bring Soviet forces to the pre-war western border of the Soviet Union.

The total of the four understrength armies came to approximately 500,000 men. The troops were supported by 120 panzers, 450 self-propelled assault guns, and 775 aircraft of Luftflotte 6 (Sixth Air Fleet). The available panzers units were all assigned to the Fourth and Ninth armies. This stripped the Third Panzer Army of its armor altogether and left it a panzer army in name only.

Cognizant of his vulnerable position, on May 20, 1944, Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch presented Hitler with two plans of proposed withdrawals. The first plan called for a minor withdrawal to the Dnieper River. The alternate plan called for a withdrawal to the Berezina River. This maneuver would have allowed the Army Group Center to shorten the front lines and create much-needed operational reserves. Obsessed with not giving up an inch of conquered territory without a fight, Hitler rejected both proposals out of hand. Furthermore, he ordered the so-called fortress cities of Belarus to be defended to the last man.

Operation Bagration was named for General Pyotr Bagration, a hero of Napoleonic wars. In preparation for the operation, the Red Army massed substantial reserves. Opposing Army Group Center were four Soviet army fronts: the 1st Baltic Front under Lieutenant General Ivan Bagramyan, the 3rd Belarus Front under Colonel General Ivan Cherniakhovsky, the 2nd Belarus Front under General Grigory Zakharov and the 1st Belarus Front under Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky.

The four fronts numbered 1,670,000 men, 33,000 guns and mortars, and 5,800 tanks and self-propelled howitzers. Each army was allocated a tank or mechanized corps to exploit breakthroughs. Separate tank brigades were assigned to support infantry divisions. The objective of the tank brigades was to breach the first line of German defensive positions. Five Soviet air armies, all of the front-level aviation, and almost all the long-range bombers, totaling 5,300 combat aircraft, provided air support for the offensive. Behind German lines, 140,000 partisans operated under direct control from Moscow.

Bitter lessons of the first three years of war taught the Soviets how tenacious the Germans were on the defense. In response, the Soviets formed multiple large-caliber artillery corps, each of which consisted of approximately 1,100 artillery pieces ranging from 76mm to 203mm guns, as well as the dreaded Katyusha mobile rocket launchers. By 1944, Soviet industry was churning out war materiel in ever-increasing quantities, especially the superb T-34 tank. Most German regimental anti-tank units were outfitted with 50mm antitank guns, which were ineffective against the frontal armor of the T-34. For that reason, the Germans resorted to using antitank mines, explosive charges, Panzerfausts, and other various short-range weapons to knock them out.

Due to generous aid from the United States through the Lend-Lease program, Soviet ground forces fielded large numbers of motorized formations. Indeed, the Soviet formations had far greater mobility at that stage of the war than their German adversaries.

Despite their huge advantages in numbers, the Soviet Army had great difficulty achieving and maintaining the degree of professionalism and tactical acumen demonstrated by German soldiers and their commanders. German forces operated in a seamless manner when it came to command and control, and the Red Army still had not achieved parity in this regard.

The Red Army was ready for the operation by mid-May 1944. It was to run its course in two phases. The first phase called for rupturing German defenses along the eastern face of the bulge. The second phase called for Soviet units to surround and destroy German forces defending Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, and Bobruisk.

The Soviet forces intended to do the same thing to these German concentrations that the Germans had done to them in the opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Having lost vast numbers of men and equipment in the so-called cauldron battles early in the war, Soviet generals were keen to exact revenge against the Germans in the same fashion.

In the first phase of the operation, the 2nd Belarus Front had orders to pin down the forces of Army Group Center, while the 1st and 3rd Belarus fronts enveloped German frontline forces in wide flanking maneuvers. The two fronts were allocated two-thirds of Soviet reserves, combat vehicles, and equipment marshaled for Operation Bagration. The 1st Baltic Front was assigned a secondary role of protecting the right flank of the 3rd Belarus Front and keeping the gap open between German Army Groups Center and North.

Early in the war, many Soviet military disasters could be directly attributed to poor upper-level command and coordination. This time, the priority that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and the Stavka placed on cooperation between the fronts was demonstrated by the rank of the individuals assigned to supervise operations. Stavka appointed Chief of Soviet General Staff Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevski to coordinate operations of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belarus fronts, and it appointed Deputy Supreme Commander Marshal Georgy Zhukov to oversee the 1st and 2nd Belarus fronts.

Deception measures played an important part in Soviet preparations. All efforts were exerted to convince the Germans that the next major Soviet offensive would continue in the Ukraine. Civilian populations were evacuated away from the front lines to minimize the possibility of the Soviet deployments being leaked to the Germans. Front-line Red Army units made a great show of preparing defensive positions. Staff officers overflew Soviet positions to ensure that camouflage measures were observed. Under strict radio silence, units rotated to the rear to practice combined-arms tactics. Simultaneously, Soviet command stepped up efforts to acquire tactical and strategic intelligence about German forces facing them. Soviet air reconnaissance efforts, which were for the most part unimpeded by the German Luftwaffe, gathered valuable information in real time.

Despite Soviet efforts to conceal their massive preparations for the offensive in early June, German Army Group Center headquarters began receiving alarming reports from ground and air reconnaissance and radio intercepts. Army Group Center staff initially disregarded the warning signs; however, intelligence and reconnaissance reports increased in number and urgency. When Soviet long-range aviation began sustained attacks on German airfields June 12, German commanders became convinced of an impending major Soviet offensive. Unable to convince Hitler of the threat, Busch took the opportunity on June 19 to fly to Germany on leave.

Busch hardly had time to unpack when Soviet partisans began striking at vulnerable objectives that night. They mainly targeted German-controlled railroad junctions, bridges, and other strategic transportation points in the German rear. In some locations, they succeeded in halting all rail traffic. This severely impeded the ability of German units to shift reinforcements and supplies to threatened sectors of the front.

On the evening of June 21, multiple waves of Soviet aircraft began bombing German positions. With the heavy concussions of the bombs masking their work, Soviet combat engineers began clearing passages through German minefields. German sentries picked up on the activity in many locations. At 3:00 a.m. the following morning, the leading Soviet infantry units, supported by tanks outfitted with mine plows, advanced on the first line of German defenses. The general offensive began as a series of localized encirclement operations.

Massive artillery barrages rained down on positions of the Third Panzer Army near Vitebsk on the northern end of the bulge. Forming the northern pincer of the envelopment, infantry units of the 1st Baltic Front broke through German forward positions. Their strategy was to bypass Vitebsk and attack it from the rear.

As Soviet shells rained down on German positions, Busch was advised by telephone of the Soviet offensive. He caught the first available plane and by late afternoon was at his headquarters, greeted by grim news of an endangered left flank and the loss of contact with Army Group North.

Despite massive Soviet air and artillery bombardment, German defenders grimly hung onto their positions, and the Soviet infantry was able to achieve only minor penetrations of the forward defenses. Soviet tank brigades alone could not achieve breakthroughs, so Soviet senior commanders deployed their reserve tank corps earlier than they had planned. While the Third Panzer Army was being severely tested, the other three armies of Army Group Center suffered only limited attacks on June 22.

The following morning, Soviet heavy guns once again pounded German positions. Afterwards, the 3rd Belarus Front attacked the XXVII Corps of the German Fourth Army, situated east and south of Orsha. The attack formed the southern pincer of the planned envelopment. The Soviet front had orders to capture Orsha and continue to Borisov, southwest of Vitebsk. The German 78th Sturm Division, from the Fourth Army, put up a determined resistance at Orsha, but could not stop the Soviet onslaught. The 78th was badly mauled in the battle.

Although the first 48 hours was incredibly challenging for German forces, the worst was yet to come. On June 24, the 43rd Army from the 1st Baltic Front and the 9th Army from the 3rd Belarus Front encircled Vitebsk. The capacity of Soviet forces to carry out swift and efficient attacks came as a shock to the Germans.

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