Operation Bagration

Operation Bagration was the 1944 massive Soviet attack on the German positions at the center of the Eastern Front defensive lines. Under the command of Konstantin Rokossovsky, it was successfully carried out by four Soviet Fronts from June 23 to August 29, 1944, during WW2. This military campaign consisted of a series of four offensives, with the last two ones depending on the success of the first two. If the Battle of Kursk had been a decisive battle that definitely turned the tide of the war, the 1944 powerful Russian assault on the German lines was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.

Opposing Forces

The 1st Baltic Front, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Belorussian Fronts were the Soviet units designated to carry out Bagration. They were commanded by Konstantin Rokossosky. Meanwhile, Army Group Center’s 9th Army, 3rd Panzer Army, 4th Army, and 2nd Army had been deployed in the sector that was to be attacked by the Russians. These German forces were led by General Ernst Busch.

Below, map showing the positions of the Soviet Fronts on June 23, at the beginning of Bagration

Summary

On June 10, before Operation Bagration began, the Red Army’s Leningrad and Karelian Fronts had launched a diversionary attack on the Finnish positions near the Baltic sea. The main objectives of this offensive was to lure the Wehrmacht forces away from a salient and, at the same time, to force the Finnish Army into surrender. This offensive launched before Bagration would lead to an armistice which put Finland out of the war.

On June 23, Operation Bagration first offensive, which was the main one, was set in motion. It was conducted by the 1st Baltic Front, moving westward. On the first day, the Russian forces advanced 16 km on a 35-km-wide front. The units of the 1st Baltic Front moved north of the salient of Vitebsk in a northeast-southwest direction. By June 25, the 3rd Belorussian Front had met the 1st Baltic, encircling and trapping one 3rd Panzer Army’s division in Vitebsk. Meanwhile, the 1st Belorussian Front had started their offensive a day before, on June 24; by June 27, this Soviet unit had encircled most of the German 9th Army. However, most of the Germans trapped in Soviet cauldron were saved by a land corridor opened up by Waffen-SS units.

As the Russian forces continued unrelentingly their advance, German units either fell back or were annihilated. The Russians liberated Minsk on July 4, and over the following ten days, about 100,000 German troops got trapped east of this city. About half of them were killed in action and the survivors were taken prisoners and paraded on the streets of Moscow as war trophy. On August 1, the 1st Belorussian Front stopped at the Vistula for refitting as they had been fighting for more than a month.

After 68 days of intense battles, Operation Bagration officially ended on August 29, 1944. All four Fronts of the Red Army had advanced an average of 600 km deep, on an 1,100 km front from north to south. It had been the major Russian advance of the war as the Soviet Union had recovered a huge chunk of her territory and part of Poland.

Below, map of the Vitebsk salient and the encirclement of late June, 1944.

Russian soldiers of the 3rd Belorussian Front on the attack as they advance westwards.

Operation Bagration footage