Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944

[2RHPZ]

Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944

In size, scope -- and results -- Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive of 1944, made the Normandy landings look like a mere scuffle.

By Jonathan W. Jordan

Geographically, it dwarfed the campaign for Normandy. In four weeks, it inflicted greater losses on the German army than the Wehrmacht had suffered in five months at Stalingrad. With more than 2.3 million men, six times the artillery and twice the number of tanks that launched the Battle of the Bulge, it was the largest Allied operation of World War II. It demolished three Axis armies and tore open the Eastern Front. Operation Bagration, the Red Army’s spring 1944 blitzkrieg, was designed to support Allied operations in France, liberate Russian territory and break the back of the Wehrmacht once and for all.

In the south, Germany and its allies -- mostly Hungarians and Romanians -- held the line near the Ukraine’s western borders, south of the impassable Pripyat Marshes, with two army groups. To the north, in the Baltic republics, three Red Army groups faced Germany’s Army Group North.

Historynet.com (http://historynet.com/wwii/bl-operation-bagration/)

[Lifeinasmallbox]

1st i ever heard of it...im sure there was a movie or something made on it...any news ?

[jameshr4]

A good book on the operation told from both sides

Hitler's Greatest Defeat: The Collapse of the Army Group Center, June 1944
Paul Adair


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1898800073/sr=1-1/qid=1150483143/ref=sr_1_1/202-4178364-6168642?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&v=glance

[KB]

Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944

In size, scope -- and results -- Operation Bagration, the Soviet offensive of 1944, made the Normandy landings look like a mere scuffle.

By Jonathan W. Jordan



Historynet.com (http://historynet.com/wwii/bl-operation-bagration/)

Most under studied battle of WWII, IMHO.

[StukaJr]

Osprey Military offers "Bagration 1944" by Steven Zaloga - very good and relatively detailed introduction to the Battle, with suggested reading material for more detailed accounts. Good start for $15 with many photographs I haven't seen.

[Ea$y-8]

Thank you for being this topic up. I find it amazing that this defeat that the Soviets dealt to the Wehrmacht is much overlooked.

[socom6]

Thank you for being this topic up. I find it amazing that this defeat that the Soviets dealt to the Wehrmacht is much overlooked.

You can thank Stalin and his xenophobes in the Kremlin during the immediate post war period. The Cold War didnt help things either, all I knew was that the German Army Group Center was smashed in the summer of 1944, other from that I didnt know squat.

You know how many photographs articles and recounts of the war in the east im just seeing via the internet that I didnt know about because of the cold war? I for one am glad the Cold War is over so we can learn what really happened in the eastern front.

[Lokos]

You know how many photographs articles and recounts of the war in the east im just seeing via the internet that I didnt know about because of the cold war? I for one am glad the Cold War is over so we can learn what really happened in the eastern front.

John Erickson was writing about Bagration in the 1980s... Perhaps it was less the Cold War and more disinterest that made finding the material difficult.

In any case, since the very early 90s, declassification of vital documents has led to greater exploration of the Soviet perspective on the Eastern Front in WW2.

Lokos

[liberation]

All due respect to the SU armed forces of WW2 but army group centre folded very rapidly during Operation Bagration. It barely lifted a finger for some strange reason.

Low morale I suppose.

[Jon Jordan]

Army Group Center did fold dramatically, for a number of reasons - morale was one, but two others were (a) Hitler's "no-retreat" orders, which tied unlucky divisions to untenable (and sometimes arbitrary) spots on a map, and (b) the Soviet abundance of ZIS-5 and Studebaker Lend-Lease trucks, gave Zhukov and Koniev the mobility needed to sustain/supply drives that could encircle German defenders.

There are accounts of German colonels who would not let their units rest at towns and crossroads for fear that word would come down from OKH that their position had been designated a "fortified area," requiring them to hold to the last man.

In the case of Bagration, Stavka also did a very good job of keeping German attention fixed on northern Ukraine, rather than Belorussia, so a lot of panzers were south of where the blow fell.