Wisla Oder operation

By January 1945, the German army was in a critical situation. There were heavy battles in Hungary and East Prussia , and the Wehrmacht gradually retreated on the Western Front. During the Iasi-Kishinev operation, the Soviet army captured the strategically important for Germany Ploiesti oil region ( Romania ). Allied bombing caused serious damage to German industry. The Air Force was almost destroyed and human reserves were exhausted. Despite this, in December 1944, the Germans launched a major offensive on the Western Front - Operation " Watch on the Rhine ", which was the last attempt to change the course of the war.

The Red Army took up positions beyond the Vistula , having succeeded in capturing several bridgeheads on its western shore at the end of the summer offensive, which it had held for almost six months. Troops during the fall-winter of 1944-45 were building up their forces, preparing for the offensive. The Germans were also preparing for defense, having built several lines of defense from north to south through all of Poland. On November 28, 1944, the Supreme High Command Headquarters issued a directive No. 220275 to the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front “On the rout of the Warsaw- Radom enemy grouping” ^[3] .

The Soviet command planned a powerful offensive of four fronts, the 1st , 2nd and 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian , in order to push the Germans to the Oder . Intelligence information about the preparation of the operation was repeatedly reported by the Wehrmacht chief of staff , Colonel General Heinz Guderian , Adolf Hitler , but he preferred not to believe this information and consider it Soviet propaganda ^[4] .

Initially, the start of the operation was planned for January 15-20. On January 6, because of the unsuccessful development of events in the Ardennes for the anti-Hitler coalition , Winston Churchill addressed Joseph Stalin . He asked the Soviet command to begin a major operation in the German-Soviet sector of the front in the coming days, in order to force the Germans to transfer part of their forces from west to east. Stalin reduced the time to prepare the operation and postponed its beginning to January 12 ^{[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]} .

The Soviet Army in Poland was opposed by the German Army Group “A” (“Center” from January 26), which combined the 9th and 4th Panzer armies, as well as the main forces of the 17th Army. They had 30 divisions, 2 brigades and 50 separate battalions - up to 560 thousand soldiers and officers in total, about 5 thousand guns and mortars, 1220 tanks and assault guns. Their actions were supported by 630 combat aircraft of the 6th air fleet. Trying to stop the advance of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, the German command transferred 29 divisions and 4 brigades from other groups, including from the groups deployed against the Anglo-American troops.

The enemy prepared between the Vistula and the Oder seven defensive lines, echeloned for 300-500 km. The first - the Vistula defensive line consisted of four bands with a total depth of 30 to 70 km. The first (main) strip was strengthened most strongly, especially its sections located on the line of contact of the parties in the areas of Magnushevsky, Pulavsky and Sandomierz bridgeheads. The main strip included three to four positions, each of which was equipped with one to three lines of continuous trenches of a full profile. The approaches to them were covered by wire barriers in several rows and continuous minefields with a depth of 50-100 m. On the tank-hazardous directions between the first and second positions there were anti-tank ditches 5-8 m wide and 2-3 m deep. Subsequent defensive lines consisted of one or two lines of trenches and individual strong points. A serious obstacle for the advancing forces was the sixth defensive line, which ran along the German-Polish border in 1939 and included the Pomeranian, Meseritz and Glogau-Breslavsky fortified areas.

In total, the two fronts of the Soviet troops had 16 armies (134 divisions), four tank and two air armies, five separate tank and one mechanized corps, three cavalry corps, four artillery breakthrough corps, other formations and units of various military branches. They totaled more than 2.2 million people, 36,436 guns and mortars, 7,049 tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, 4,772 aircraft. The offensive began in the face of the overwhelming superiority of the Soviet troops in forces and means.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front went on the offensive in the early morning of January 12 , delivering the main blow from the Sandomierz bridgehead , and the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front - on January 14 from the Magnushevsky and Pulavsky bridgeheads .

Since, on Hitler’s orders , tank reserves were advanced in advance to the front line, they were within the reach of Soviet artillery fire, suffered serious losses in the first period of the offensive and could not be deployed in accordance with previously developed defense plans, being drawn into battle to cover gaps, formed in the battle formations of German troops.

On January 13 and 14 northward - in East Prussia - an offensive of the 3rd Belorussian Front under the command of General Chernyakhovsky and the 2nd Belorussian Front (Marshal of the Soviet Union Rokossovsky ) unfolded (see East Prussian Operation (1945) .

Hitler decided to suspend all active hostilities on the Western Front and return to Berlin from his headquarters in Siegenberg only on January 15 , on the fourth day of a successful Soviet offensive, despite the urgent requests of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, General Guderian . In the early days, Hitler refused to consider proposals to transfer reinforcements to the Eastern Front, but, returning to the capital, ordered the transfer of the Great Germany corps from East Prussia to the area of Kielce , 170 km south of Warsaw.

Meanwhile, the 47th Army, operating on the extreme right flank of the 1st Belorussian Front, bypassed Warsaw from the north. On January 16, the headquarters of Army Group A (commander Colonel-General Josef Harpe ) reported to the Wehrmacht command that the city could not be held in view of the small number of garrison (several battalions). Guderian ordered that Army Group A commanders be allowed to independently decide on the continuation of the defense of Warsaw. Hitler, learning about this, became furious and demanded that the order be canceled, but radio communications with the garrison had already been interrupted.

On January 16-17, an incomplete tank battalion (21 tanks) under the leadership of Major Khokhryakov, with the support of motorized rifle assault Goryushkin, liberated Czestochowa , with an almost 10,000-strong garrison, and entered the German border.

On January 17, Warsaw was liberated by Soviet troops, in the battles for which active part of the 1st Belorussian Front was part of the 1st Army of the Polish Army (commander was Brigadier General Stanislav Poplavsky ). On the same day, Colonel General Joseph Harpe and the commander of the 9th Wehrmacht Army, General von Lutwitz, were removed from command of the troops.

By January 18, the main forces of Army Group A were defeated, the enemy’s defense was broken through on a 500-km front to a depth of 100-150 km.

On January 19, the advanced units of the 3rd Guards Tank , 5th Guards and 52nd Armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front , pursuing the enemy, entered German territory in Upper Silesia , and the troops of the left wing of the front liberated Krakow .

The German command began the transfer to the border regions of a part of the forces from the internal regions of Germany, from the Western Front and other sectors of the front. However, attempts to restore the broken front were not successful. On January 20-25, the armies of the 1st Belorussian Front overcame the Bartowski and Poznan defensive lines and surrounded the 60,000th garrison of the enemy in Poznan . January 22 - February 3, Soviet troops marched on the Oder and captured bridgeheads on its western shore in the areas of Steinau , Breslau , Oppeln and Kustrin . At the same time, the troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front occupied part of southern Poland and northern Czechoslovakia and advanced to the upper reaches of the Vistula. The battles for Breslau lasted from February to May 5 (Berlin capitulated on May 2 ).

This operation went down in military history as the most rapid attack.

“The Russian offensive beyond the Vistula developed with unprecedented strength and swiftness,” wrote German general Mellentin, “it is impossible to describe everything that happened between the Vistula and the Oder in the first months of 1945. Europe has not known anything like this since the demise of the Roman Empire. ”

- FW von Mellenthin. Panzer battles 1939-1945 - London, 1956.)

As a result of the Wisla-Oder operation, 35 enemy divisions were completely defeated, another 25 lost 50 to 70% of the personnel, and about 150 thousand people were captured. Soviet troops leveled the front and reached the distant approaches to Berlin. Significant enemy forces ended up in boilers in Poznan and Breslau. The Germans' inability to effectively conduct hostilities on two fronts and the inevitability of the coming Allied victory became apparent. The restoration of Polish statehood began - in the liberated territories the national administration was restored ^[1] .

On February 23, 1945, Stalin estimated the German casualties for 40 days of the Soviet winter offensive on the entire front at 800,000 killed and 300,000 prisoners, 3,000 aircraft and 4,500 tanks ^[14] .

• E. M. Vinokurov . “ Muscovites ” (1953) - a poem in memory of the dead Soviet soldiers.
• Liberation (Epic)

• Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War. January 1945
• Chronicle of the Great Patriotic War. February 1945
• Warsaw-Poznan offensive operation

Russian language

• Mernikov A.G., Spector A.A. World War History . - Minsk., 2005 , p. - 642
• Zhukov G.K. Memoirs and reflections. In 2 vols. - M .: Olma-Press, 2002
• Konev I.S. Forty-fifth. - M., Military Publishing, 1970
• The blockade . Alexander Borisovich Chakovsky . 5 volumes
• "Years of wandering: From the diary of a Leningrad . " Elena Alexandrovna Scriabin - 1942
• Hot F.M. Tank march . Ed. M.F. Zharkogo Tank March . - Ed. 4th, rev. and add. - SPb. : Publishing House of the Mikhailovsky Military Artillery Academy, 2015. - 212 p.
• Kiselev V.N. Handwriting of two generals. Zhukov and Konev in the Vistula-Oder operation. // "Military History Journal". - 1995. - No. 1. - C.4-11.

Foreign languages

• Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz BBC books ^{[ specify ]}
• Max Hastings. “Armageddon. The Battle for Germany 1944-45. " Publ. Macmillan, London ^{[ specify ]}
• Duffy, Christopher. "Red storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945." Publ. Routledge, 1991 ISBN 0-415-22829-8
• Ziemke, Earl F. “Battle for Berlin end of the Third Reich” ^{[ specify ]}

• Vistula-Oder offensive operation January 12 - February 3, 1945 on the website of the Ministry of Defense of Russia