German–Soviet war

German–Soviet war For a more detailed discussion of the first six months of the German–Soviet war, see BARBAROSSA. For the contributions of Germany's allies in the war see Blue Division, Finnish–Soviet war (ad fin), Hungary, 5, Italy, 5, Romania, 4, and Spanish Legion. For Soviet preparations for war and reactions to BARBAROSSA, and for details of Soviet armed forces involved in the war, see USSR, 4 and 6. See also Ukraine.

The German–Soviet war, known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War, ranks as the greatest armed conflict ever fought on a single front. Statistically and strategically, it dominates the Second World War. For most of four years, on average, more than 9 million troops were continuously engaged. The German forces, with Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian support, advanced 2,000 km. (1,240 mi.) into Soviet territory; and the Soviet forces counter-marched 2,500 km. (1,550 mi.) to Berlin. Germany at no time had less than 55% of its divisions committed. The cost in lives was horrifying. The accepted figures have been 5.5 million German and 20 million Soviet military and civilian dead, which together represent about half the total for the Second World War. Of those, 13.6 million Soviet and 3 million German dead in the military category alone account for over two-thirds of the world total. However, researchers in the former USSR have projected Soviet losses in the range of 26 or 27 million (see D. Volkogonov, Stalin, Triumph and Tragedy, London, 1991, p. 505).

In contrast to the other theatres of war, where independent air and naval operations figured prominently, the German–Soviet war was conducted predominantly on the ground. With few and brief exceptions, the Soviet and German air forces concentrated on ground support. The Soviet Air Force, which was an integral part of the Red Army, flew 93% of its missions within 50 km. (31 mi.) and did 80% of its bombing within 10 km. (6.2 mi.) of the front. Soviet naval operations, when they could be undertaken at all, were confined to the coastal waters of the Black and Baltic seas, and to making a minor contribution to escorting the Arctic convoys.

1. Blitzkrieg rampant (June–September 1941)

Before dawn on 22 June 1941, three German army groups, 3.05 million men, 3,350 tanks, and 2,770 aircraft, attacked across the Soviet border (see Map 14). The German ambassador in Moscow delivered a declaration of war six hours later. Along the line Warsaw–Moscow, Army Group Centre under Field Marshal von Bock conducted the main effort with two field armies and two panzer groups, the latter actually armies though not yet so designated. Leeb's Army Group North and Rundstedt's Army Group South, aimed towards Leningrad and Kiev respectively; each had two field armies and one panzer group. The plan (BARBAROSSA) set rapid destruction of the Soviet forces as the primary objective, and staff studies had predicted a victory in eight to ten weeks.

Since early in the year, the Soviet General Staff had been putting into effect MP-41, a mobilization plan, and Plan 9, a defence plan. Concurrently, Stalin, concerned about weaknesses disclosed during a war-readiness conference in December 1940, had engaged in desperate diplomatic manoeuvres to buy time. Following a practice taken over from the tsarist army, the Red Army had divided the western frontier into strategic areas which, in wartime, would become fronts, i.e., army group sectors (see table for a list of Army fronts). Two, North-West and West fronts, were situated between the Baltic coast and the Pripet marshes and two, South-West and South fronts, between the marshes and the Black Sea. All had been moved up to several hundred kilometres west of the heavily fortified Stalin Line by border changes in 1939–40 after the USSR occupied eastern Poland (see Nazi–Soviet Pact). Plan 9 assumed that the economic resources of the Ukraine would be the principal and Moscow the secondary German objectives. Consequently the deployment, 2.9 million men (plus half a million or so in a strategic reserve), 10,000 tanks, and 7,500 aircraft, assigned 75% of the troops and nearly 90% of the tanks and aircraft to the West and South-West fronts. Stalin refused to authorize a war alert until late on 21 June, but two assumptions embedded in Plan 9 also significantly impaired the response to the invasion: that the length of the front and the masses of troops involved precluded a blitzkrieg against the Red Army; and that two to three weeks' hiatus would intervene between the outbreak of war and the first concerted operations.

Early morning attacks on the Soviet air bases gained the German Air Force absolute air superiority on 22 June. During the day, in keeping with Plan 9, the Soviet acting C-in-C, Marshal Timoshenko, ordered the fronts to stand fast and mount counter-attacks. By then, Bock had launched his panzer groups in deep thrusts through the West Front line.

By 29 June, Bock's two panzer groups had completed a double encirclement around Bialystok–Minsk that would yield more than 300,000 prisoners and continued eastwards without waiting for the infantry. Timoshenko thereupon assumed command of West front and with five reserve armies, undertook to hold the line of the upper Dvina and Dnieper Rivers and the gap between them. Against this more determined resistance, the panzer groups crossed the rivers in the second week of July and took Smolensk, the historic gateway to Moscow, on 16 July. Army Group Centre was now 359 km. (220 mi.) from Moscow, Army Group North had a spearhead 100 km. (62 mi.) from Leningrad, and Army Group South had one on the outskirts of Kiev.

The tide of prisoners-of-war, approaching three-quarters of a million as encirclements around Smolensk were mopped up, convinced the German Army C-in-C Field Marshal Brauchitsch and his senior generals that Stalin would sacrifice the Red Army to defend the Moscow region, which constituted the ethnic Russian heartland and contained the most highly developed Soviet industrial complex. Hitler, who had insisted all along that Germany had to get the Ukrainian land and mineral resources and the Caucasus oilfields, was not prepared to seek a decision at Moscow before these were within easy reach. On 29 July, he therefore ordered Brauchitsch to stop Army Group Centre at Smolensk and divert the panzer groups off its flanks to assist Army Groups North and South. While the generals argued in vain for continuing the advance on Moscow, the panzer groups rested and refitted; and on 25 August, Guderian's Second Panzer Group, on the southern flank of Bock's Army Group Centre, wheeled south and headed towards Romny, 200 km. (125 mi.) due east of Kiev.

When Second Panzer Group crossed the River Desna, the last natural obstacle in its path, Rundstedt sent Kleist's First Panzer Group on a northward strike out of a bridgehead on the Dnieper at Kremenchug, 260 km. (160 mi.) downstream from Kiev. Before and after the encirclement closed, near Romny on 16 September, Stalin refused to let South-West front abandon Kiev, the cradle of the Russian state, and as a consequence sent 665,000 men into German captivity. Hitler rewarded the two panzer groups with advancement to full army status. On 29 September, in one of many such actions then taking place on occupied Soviet territory, an SS detachment killed 33,000 Jewish civilians in the Babi Yar ravine outside Kiev (see also Final Solution). While the battle for Kiev was going on, Army Group North secured a foothold on the south shore of Lake Ladoga, thereby starting the 900-day siege of Leningrad by cutting the city off from land contact with the interior; however, heavy Soviet counter-attacks in the Smolensk area confined Bock's other panzer group, Third Panzer, to a modest advance.

In August, assuming as he always had that the only reliable authority was his own, Stalin named himself Supreme C-in-C, made the General Staff his planning and executive agency, and formed a seven-member military group, the Stavka, to share responsibility with him. The commissar system gave him a tight hold on the military leadership; but owing to the purge of the late 1930s, many officers in the senior and middle grades occupied commands beyond their levels of competence. The August break in the German offensive and subsequent turns away from Moscow fortuitously enhanced Stalin's stature as a war leader and helped get him firm offers of British and American assistance which resulted in the Three-Power conference in September.

2. To the gates of Moscow (October–December 1941)

Hitler informed Brauchitsch on 6 September that the main effort would be restored to Army Group Centre for a two-pronged thrust past Moscow (TYPHOON), which was to be completed ‘in the limited time before winter’. Bock would regain Hoth's Third Panzer Group from Army Group North and Guderian's Second Panzer Army from Army Group South and would also get Hoepner's Fourth Panzer Group and air reinforcements from Army Group North; Leeb would push his front north-eastwards around Lake Ladoga to make contact with the Finnish Army on the River Svir, and Rundstedt would drive east towards Kharkov and south to the Crimea.

TYPHOON began on 2 October against West front, initially under Lt-General Konev, and Briansk front, under Maj-General Eremenko. Marshal Budenny had Reserve front (five armies) deployed on a line halfway between Smolensk and Moscow. Within a week, Bock's armour had locked nine Soviet armies, the bulk of West and Briansk fronts, in the Briansk–Vyazma pockets. Thereafter, Third and Fourth Panzer Groups on the north and Second Panzer Army in the south began developing wide sweeps aimed past Moscow that could envelop the whole Moscow region east to the River Volga. On 10 October, Stalin formed the Kalinin front under Konev from West front's northern armies. He then combined Reserve front and those armies of West front directly in front of Moscow and gave command of them to General Zhukov with orders to hold a north–south line centred on Mozhaisk, 100 km. (62 mi.) west of Moscow; the US military attaché, among others, reported that Soviet resistance appeared close to its end.

The threats in the centre and in the south, where Timoshenko had taken over the shattered South-West front, were drastically affecting war production. The Moscow and the Donets basin industrial complexes were being dismantled (see USSR, 2) reducing coal, iron, steel, and aluminium capacity by over 60%. Ball bearing output was down 95%. The first British Arctic convoy carrying aid had left Scapa Flow in late August, but could hardly make a difference.

On 18 October, Hoepner's Fourth Panzer Group pushed past Mozhaisk. It should have been there four or five days earlier, but rain had softened the unpaved Russian roads, and within two or three days neither tanks nor infantry could overcome the deepening mud. The rain, a regular feature of the Russian autumn, stopped operations on both sides from Lake Ladoga to the Sea of Azov, and the front did not begin to stir again until the end of the first week in November.

Stalin used the respite to begin setting up nine reserve armies behind the Volga and bring in reinforcements for Zhukov's West front. He had an extensive rail network, while Bock had just one line. The German dream of a single-season victory disappeared in the mud. In a speech broadcast on 8 November, Hitler called blitzkrieg an ‘idiotic word’, and declared himself ready to carry the war into 1942 and beyond. The army group commanders, with misgivings, accepted the advice of General Halder, the Chief of the Army's General Staff (OKH), to advance as far as they still could before deep winter set in.

To tighten the grip on Leningrad, Leeb took Tikhvin on 8 November. Rundstedt, on Hitler's insistence, sent Kleist's First Panzer Army towards Rostov-on-Don. Bock, no longer expecting to get more than a close-in encirclement of Moscow, resumed TYPHOON on 15 November over now frozen ground.

For twelve days the blitzkrieg appeared to be getting back on track. One Soviet army collapsed under the first attack, and Fourth Panzer Group easily overran another. Third Panzer Group took Klin on 23 November and reached the Moscow–Volga Canal due north of Moscow on 27 November. Guderian, the Second Panzer Army commander, managed a 42 km. (25 mi.) advance on 18 November and had his spearhead near Kashira, 100 km. (62 mi.) south-east of Moscow by 24 November. Alarmed, Stalin demanded diversionary counter-attacks at Tikhvin and at Rostov-on-Don, which First Panzer Army had taken on the 21 November.

Early on 29 November, after a week's stay in Berlin, Hitler returned to his headquarters in East Prussia to confront ominous developments. Rundstedt had refused to cancel an order permitting a retreat from Rostov. Hitler dismissed him. Two new Soviet armies were slowing Third and Fourth Panzer Groups to a crawl, and Guderian was stopped short of Kashira. On 3 December, Leeb warned that he would not be able to hold Tikhvin if Bock could not keep pressure on Moscow. During the following nights the temperature around Moscow dropped to ç34 °C (ç29 °F) and lower. In paralysing cold that congealed lubricants in the German vehicles and weapons, Zhukov counter-attacked on the morning of 6 December.

Having not bothered to build a solid front while they were on the move, the German armies could neither dig in the frozen ground nor close the gaps between them. Halder pronounced it the ‘greatest crisis in two world wars’. Bock declared that the front could rip apart at any hour. Hitler appeared at a loss until, on 18 December, he ordered all officers to compel the troops to ‘fanatical resistance’ in their positions and prohibited evasive movements. A day later, he dismissed Brauchitsch and himself took command of the German Army.See also Moscow, battle for.

3. Stalin's general offensive (January–May 1942)

The ‘fanatical resistance’ order came too late to prevent Army Group North's withdrawal from Tikhvin or Centre's from the close approaches to Moscow, but that in no wise mitigated the crisis. Leeb's front around Leningrad was becoming more vulnerable, and Zhukov had in mind to push Army Group Centre all the way back to the line from which TYPHOON had started. Army Group South had finished its retreat from Rostov in good order; but the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, taking advantage of the Germans being tied down around Sevastopol, began landing three armies—which formed the Crimea front in January—on the Kerch peninsula at the eastern end of the Crimea on 26 December (see Black Sea). To impose his will on the generals, Hitler sent Bock home on sick leave, and relieved Guderian and Hoepner, when Bock protested against, and the others actually challenged, the ‘fanatical resistance’ order.

In its New Year's Day 1942 edition, Pravda, citing Stalin who attributed the German advances entirely to the temporary effects of surprise, predicted victory in 1942. On 5 January, Stalin called together the Stavka, of which Zhukov and Timoshenko were members, and disclosed that he and the General Staff had worked out a plan for a general offensive. It would put nine fronts in action along the whole line from Leningrad to the Crimea. The scope was ambitious: to liberate Leningrad in the north, the Donets basin and the Crimea in the south, and to make another German attack towards Moscow impossible in the centre.

Zhukov, co-ordinating Kalinin, West and Briansk fronts, was to encircle and destroy Army Group Centre in a single, massive double envelopment, which was to close at Smolensk. Deep frost made even rivers and swamps readily passable for tanks and artillery, and Hitler kept movement restricted on the German side. By early February, Zhukov had armies operating as far west as Smolensk. The German front had come to look like a badly frayed lace doily, but Zhukov's lower commands were insufficiently adept at sustaining concentrations over long distances and their thrusts degenerated into amorphous bulges. Bock's successor, Field Marshal von Kluge, managed to hold open the Warsaw–Smolensk–Moscow road, and the railway, east to Vyazma, where rail lines running north to Rzhev and south to Briansk enabled his armies to sustain a semi-contiguous 350 km. (220 mi.) front.

A similar pattern emerged in the north and south. Volkhov front, which had been formed under Meretskov in December, created a large bulge in the German lines south of Leningrad, and North-West front carved out another south of Lake Ilmen, but the German positions around Leningrad held. South-West front put three armies across the River Donets at Izyum before the Germans sealed off the bulge. Crimea front took the Kerch peninsula, but German forces on the Crimea blocked its western exit.

By March, when the spring thaw stopped all operations for several weeks, Stalin knew his general offensive had failed to rule out another German summer offensive. After having been quiet on the subject during the winter, he opened a diplomatic and press campaign for a Second Front in western Europe; and he told the Stavka that Soviet forces would go over to an ‘active defence’ after the thaw. Subsequently, he added that it would also be necessary ‘to strike several actually nine pre-emptive blows over a wide front’.

These pre-emptive blows, by keeping masses of Soviet troops engaged in vulnerable positions, enabled the Germans to terminate the war's first year with some showpiece successes. Against Crimea front, which had been under orders to take the offensive, the German commander on the Crimea, General von Manstein, earned his marshal's baton with a swift stroke on the Kerch peninsula ( 8– 19 May) that demolished Crimea front and brought in more than 170,000 prisoners. On 12 May Timoshenko, now co-ordinating South-west and South fronts, launched an enveloping thrust towards Kharkov out of the Izyum bulge, but within two weeks the Germans blocked the Donets crossings, and he lost a quarter of a million men. In the last week of June, Army Group North sealed off the Volkhov front's bulge south of Leningrad and destroyed Vlasov's Second Shock Army.

4. Hitler's resurgence (June–September 1942)

On the whole, Hitler came through the winter rather well: the troops had not lost confidence in him; he had preserved a front of sorts within 150 km. (95 mi.) of Moscow; and he had brought the army completely under his control. However, he was having to contend with a severe reduction of means for the next summer's campaign. In July 1941, anticipating that the forces in the Soviet Union could be reduced by about two-thirds before winter, he had cut army weapons, ammunition, and equipment production. He had rescinded the cuts in January 1942; but the production pipelines would not reach full volume again until August. Meanwhile, the Soviet general offensive had kept consumption high, and the cold had imposed heavy attrition in weapons and vehicles. Another BARBAROSSA was out of the question but in any case, he thought, perhaps not necessary.

In April Hitler issued the directive for the summer campaign (Operation BLUE). He set the main—and only major—effort in the south, where Army Group South would be split into Army Group B, on the left in the sector from Kursk to Izyum, and Army Group A, on the right between Izyum and Taganrog. He gave Bock (whom he had reluctantly recalled) B, with Second, Sixth, Fourth Panzer, and Hungarian Second Armies. A, with First Panzer, Seventeenth, Eleventh, and Romanian Third Armies went to Field Marshal List. Eighth Italian and Fourth Romanian Armies were stationed in the Army Group A rear area pending later decisions on their employment. Assuming that Stalin had used up most of his reserves during the winter, Hitler set destruction of the remaining Soviet reserves and capture of the Caucasus oilfields as the strategic objectives; and he specified three phases (BLUE I–III) in which the army groups would converge on Stalingrad, encircling the Soviet forces as they went. Thereafter, with Army Group B covering it on the Don and the Volga rivers, Army Group A would drive south into the Caucasus.

Stalin was not as badly off as Hitler thought. He had 5.5 million troops ‘in action’ in late June, and he now had ten field armies and one tank army in the Stavka reserve. (Hitler had 3.5 million German and, counting the 400,000 strong Finnish Army, about a million other Axis troops.) Stalin was also getting enough new production to start building air and tank armies, the latter a recently conceived answer to the panzer armies. On the other hand, he was not as ready as he thought to meet the attack. He believed Moscow would be Hitler's objective, and he had the reserve armies stationed accordingly. At the front, Kalinin and West fronts had nineteen armies and a tank army ranged against Army Group Centre. Opposite Army Groups B and A, part of Briansk, South-West and South fronts had fifteen armies and a tank army. Briansk front, with five armies and a tank army, was the strongest, but three of its armies and the tank army were deployed against Army Group Centre. South-West and South fronts were not yet recovered from the disaster in the Izyum bulge.

BLUE I, expected to take about three weeks, began on 28 June with an Army Group B strike along the Briansk–South-West front boundary towards Voronezh and the River Don. Maj-General Golikov, commanding Briansk front, did not dare attempt a counter-attack that might jeopardize Moscow, and Timoshenko's South-West front reacted lamely. On 6 July, having been delayed more by rain than by Soviet resistance, Fourth Panzer took Voronezh, and Sixth Army reached the Don.

During the day on 6 July, Stalin, for the first and only time in the war, authorized a strategic retreat and Sixth Army, heading south and east the next day, had nothing but bare steppe ahead of it. Two days later, Fourth Panzer Group, now upgraded to army status and under the command of Hoth launched into BLUE II with Kleist's First Panzer Army. What had been planned as a set-piece encirclement degenerated into a mêlée. They cut through masses of fleeing Red Army men, but before their points met near Millerovo five days later, many more had escaped than were being captured. Hitler, who had moved his headquarters to Vinnitsa, in the Ukraine, accused Bock of having misdeployed his armour in the first place, dismissed him and appointed General Maximilian von Weichs in his place.

Nevertheless, the campaign, a whole month ahead of schedule, was developing splendidly. Soviet resistance and German losses had both been negligible. There being no pockets to clear, the infantry, except for Second Army which was getting heavy counter-attacks in the Voronezh area, had as yet hardly seen action. Hitler ordered the panzer army commanders Kleist and Hoth to sweep south to Rostov and keep Malinovsky's South front from escaping across the lower Don. This they did and it soon disintegrated. Hoth had two Fourth Panzer Army corps approaching the River Chir 175 km. (105 mi.) west of Stalingrad. Those Hitler assigned to Sixth Army, ordering its commander, General Paulus, to make a fast thrust to Stalingrad. Paulus, whose whole previous command career had been as a staff officer, was eager to prove himself on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Stalin, whose own service as a commissar in Stalingrad (then Tsaritsyn) during the Civil War (1918–20) had given him a high opinion of the city's strategic significance, had concluded that the purpose of the German advance into the Don bend was to gain positions for a northward drive towards Moscow like one the White general, Anton Denikin (1872–1947) had made in 1919. Timoshenko's South-West front was temporarily disbanded on 12 July and with its staff, which was practically all that was left of it, Stalin activated Stalingrad front, giving it three reserve armies and orders to defend the city.

On 23 July, Army Group B completed the Rostov operation, which brought in a modest 83,000 prisoners; and Sixth Army, after crossing the Chir, encountered Stalingrad front's main line 140 km. (87 mi.) west of Stalingrad. Hitler issued a new strategic directive that night. In it, declaring the initial missions ‘substantially completed’, he cancelled BLUE III and put two separate operations in its place: EDELWEISS, in which Army Group A would advance through the Caucasus and take the oilfields at Maikop, Grozny, and Baku (the last over 1,200 km./745 mi. from Rostov) and HERON, in which Army Group B would seize Stalingrad and extend down the Volga to Astrakhan. It would also be necessary, he added, to finish off Leningrad before the summer ended; therefore, Manstein and his staff, together with five infantry divisions and siege artillery he had used in the break into Sevastopol in early July, would be diverted to Army Group North.

How difficult sustaining offensives in two directions would be was apparent within a week. Against scattered resistance from the remains of six Soviet armies that had escaped across the Don, Army Group A advanced swiftly; but keeping it on the move necessitated a 50% cut in Sixth Army's fuel and ammunition allocation just as it was meeting stronger resistance. When Hitler added weight to HERON by sending Hoth's staff with a panzer and an infantry corps towards Stalingrad, List protested that EDELWEISS was being jeopardized.

Stalin, who remembered well how the tsar's armies had dissolved in 1917, faced a similar peril: in its fourth week, the strategic retreat was becoming a rout. When First Tank Army went into action against Sixth Army, many of its crews abandoned their tanks, and the army had to be disbanded on the spot. Marshal Budenny, regarded as an inspiring leader, had been appointed to command North Caucasus front, which was activated briefly ( May– September 1942) and absorbed the remnants of South front, but he was having no success in stemming the retreat. On 28 July, Stalin had to make the somewhat dangerous admission that discipline was breaking down and announce drastic punishments for officers and men who did not stand and fight.

Sixth Army gave Stalin more cause for concern on 7 August by destroying the better part of an army on the Don east of Kalach and taking 50,000 prisoners. Thereafter, Paulus received enough fuel and ammunition to launch a 90 km. (56 mi.) dash from the Don to the Volga on 21 August. In two days, behind waves of dive bombers, a panzer corps broke through to the Volga 15 km. (9 mi.) north of Stalingrad. Next, Paulus built a screening line between the rivers and drove south to secure contact with Fourth Panzer Army on 2 September. It looked then as if the finale was close at hand, and Paulus sent Hitler a plan for going into winter quarters.

Guided by flame and smoke from burning oil wells (see scorched earth policy), First Panzer Army took Maikop on 9 August, concluding the first phase of EDELWEISS. Henceforth, First Panzer would direct its whole weight east towards the Caspian Sea, and Seventeenth Army would push south through the mountains to the Black Sea coast. Although Stalin's order to stand and fight was not markedly affecting Soviet performance, EDELWEISS began to lose momentum. Hitler had decided that, until the issue was resolved at Stalingrad, the city had to be the main objective, and had therefore shifted fuel and ammunition priorities to Sixth Army, and Paulus's drive to the Volga later in the month drew off practically all of Army Group A's air support.

By the second week in September, Sixth and Fourth Panzer Armies were tied down in Stalingrad. First Panzer Army had been stalled for nearly three weeks, and Seventeenth Army was having to contend with snowstorms in the mountains. Hitler had the choice of either reducing the commitment at Stalingrad, by letting Paulus and Hoth go over to the defensive, or stopping EDELWEISS short of its objective. He rejected the first because the contest for Stalingrad had drawn world-wide attention. The second, which would have constituted an admission that his strategy was bankrupt, he buried in a spate of charges against his generals. On 9 September he removed List from the Army Group A command without naming a successor and informed Halder that his term as chief of the Army General Staff was at an end.

5. The turning-point (September–December 1942)

On 27 August, Stalin recalled Zhukov, who had been co-ordinating pre-emptive strikes against Army Group Centre through the summer, appointed him deputy supreme commander, and sent him out to organize a counter-attack at Stalingrad. Stalin could construe the deputy supreme commander's role any way he pleased but, for the moment, he was manifestly feeling an urgent need to give greater scope to military professionalism than he had in the past. Recently, he had rehabilitated the long-prohibited word ‘officer’ and authorized several medals for officers only; and he was preparing to relieve the officers from subordination to political commissars.

Stalin was responding to the most serious crisis of the war—and of his entire 15-year rule. His losses were immense: half of the European Soviet Union, 71% of the nation's iron, 63% of its coal, potentially over 80% of its oil (see also USSR, 2). On the other hand, the very important central industrial region east of Moscow had survived, as had also the Urals and Kuzbass basin regions. Munitions output was rising. During the summer, 5 tank armies with 700 tanks apiece (to a panzer army's 600) and 15 air armies with between 200 and 1,000 aircraft each were activated, and Stalin still had 10 field armies in reserve. But performance was a problem at the command as well as the troop level. Although the raw power was there, Zhukov would need much skill and more luck to exploit it effectively.

Hitler, knowing victory was out of the question, had to contemplate another winter campaign. The General Staff calculated that a hundred fresh Soviet divisions would be deployed by 1 November while the German forces would be 18% under strength. Army Groups North and Centre had solid fronts. To anchor a front over 1,000 km. (620 mi.) long on the Don and Volga rivers, Army Group B had two strong-points: Second Army at Voronezh, on the upper Don, and Sixth and Fourth Panzer Armies 500 km. (310 mi.) to the south-east, around Stalingrad. To screen the gap between them on the Don General von Weichs, the army group commander, had deployed the Second Hungarian and Eighth Italian Armies, both unproven, and was given Third and Fourth Romanian Armies, which had already failed several tests. Army Group A was stalled in the Caucasus Mountains 600 km. (372 mi.) south of Stalingrad.

On 12 September, the first German troops entered Stalingrad, and Stalin, whose concern for world opinion was as great as Hitler's ordered that the city, or at least some part of it, be held no matter what the cost, until a counter-offensive (URANUS) could be launched (see Map 98). It began on 19 November and the Romanian armies collapsed under the first assaults. Five days later, Soviet armoured spearheads closed an almost perfect double envelopment east of the Don crossing at Kalach. Paulus asked for permission to break out, which he could have done at that time, being well supplied with ammunition and fuel. Instead, Hitler created Army Group Don, which comprised the encircled Sixth Army, Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army, and the two Romanian armies, and this he gave to Manstein with an order to restore contact with the pocket. Although the full effect of this decision would not become apparent for some weeks, the war had reached its strategic turning-point. See also Stalingrad, battle for.

6. Retreat and recovery (January–March 1943)

On 1 January 1943, South-West front, which had been reconstituted in October 1942, was surging past Millerovo towards the River Donets; Don front took over the line around the Stalingrad pocket; and Stalingrad front (now renamed South front) had three armies which it aimed south-westwards towards Rostov along the left bank of the Don. On 10 January, Don front set about systematically carving up the Stalingrad pocket and on 31 January, the day after he had been promoted field marshal, Paulus surrendered. In the north, Leningrad and Volkhov fronts attacked on 12 January and, in a week, opened a corridor 10 km. (6.2 mi.) wide along the Lake Ladoga shore. On 13 January, Voronezh front began an offensive against the Second German and Second Hungarian armies that in twelve days demolished the Hungarian Army and liberated Voronezh. On 15 January, Kleist, to whom Hitler had given command of Army Group A in late November, asked for instructions on withdrawing from the Caucasus. Hitler did not respond until 27 January. By then, South front was 50 km. (31 mi.) from Rostov, and except for First Panzer Army which withdrew via Rostov-on-Don, Kleist had to take the army group into a bridgehead on the Taman peninsula. Paulus's surrender at Stalingrad lent enormous psychological impact to an already decisive Soviet victory.

Stalin issued a congratulatory order of the day to the Red Army on 25 January, giving the troops the slogan: ‘Onward to defeat the German occupationists . . .’. Zhukov had become a marshal a week earlier, the first to be appointed in the war. Vasilevsky, until then Chief of the Soviet General Staff, though only a lt-general, received his marshal's star a month later, and Stalin himself also donned the uniform of a marshal.

Hitler proclaimed a ‘total war’ to defend Europe against an invasion ‘out of the steppe’. In a tacit concession that he might not be competent to run the whole war alone he recalled Guderian, whom he had dismissed in December 1941, and made him inspector-general of armour; but he refused out of hand to consider relinquishing command of the army. The conversion to total war came too late, for up to 1942, he had still counted on a short campaign. But Stalin now had more than 6 million troops at the front; and in 1942, Soviet war production had surpassed Germany's by 24,000 to 4,800 in armoured vehicles and 21,700 to 14,700 in aircraft. The one clear superiority the Germans retained was in performance on the battlefield. Generally, probably even at Stalingrad, they imposed heavier losses than they took; and though Soviet performance became vastly more effective under Zhukov and Vasilevsky, and others with talent who were coming to the fore, there were not enough of them to ensure consistency even at the front and army levels.

Soviet confidence soared in late January. A German stand east of the River Dnieper seemed impossible. It seemed likely that Army Groups Don and A could be prevented from ever reaching the river, and Army Group Centre had become vulnerable. Lt-General Nikolai Vatutin, the South-West front commander, devised an operation (LEAP) to lock Army Group Don into the Donets basin. LEAP began on 29 January, when a mobile group of tank corps crossed the Donets east of Izyum and drove south towards Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. On 2 February, Zhukov and Vasilevsky launched Voronezh front into a two-pronged operation (STAR), designed to go south-west past Kharkov towards the Dnieper and north-west via Kursk towards Smolensk. Elements of Don front under General Rokossovsky, being brought north-west from Stalingrad, would take over the northern prong on 15 February and, becoming Central front, complete the thrust behind Army Group Centre.

Voronezh front took Kursk on 8 February, Kharkov on 15 February, and had spearheads approaching the Dnieper crossings at Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye on 18 February. Rokossovsky activated Central front in a sector north-west of Kursk on 15 February, but because the railway's capabilities had been overestimated, his redeployment from Stalingrad took another ten days. LEAP ended on 18 February, when First Panzer Army demolished Vatutin's mobile group; nevertheless, South-West and Voronezh fronts were across the Donets everywhere north and west of Slavyansk.

On 11 February, Hitler removed Headquarters, Army Group B, attached Second Army to Army Group Centre, and reinstated Army Group South under Manstein, giving him responsibility for everything between Belgorod and the Sea of Azov. Manstein had a solid 162 km. (100 mi.) front on the River Mius north of Taganrog, which had been built during the previous winter, but nothing worth the name on the remaining 275 km. (180 mi.) to Belgorod. But he had some assets as well: strong air support, a legacy of the effort to hold Stalingrad; three fresh panzer divisions, acquired from Army Group B; and Hitler's permission, given on 19 February, to airlift 100,000 troops out of the Taman bridgehead. He also had a master of mobile tactics in Hoth, whose Fourth Panzer Army staff he shifted from the Mius line to Dnepropetrovsk.

In the last week of February, disregarding the spring thaw which was beginning to soften the ground, Hoth attacked northwards with two panzer divisions and a promise of several more to be acquired later. Although the thaw's full onset in March slowed the advance, it retained enough momentum to reach Kharkov on 11 March. The Soviet Command, intent on getting behind the Donets, left Belgorod exposed, and two panzer divisions running on a railway embankment took it on 18 March.

After he began his projected drive to Smolensk on 25 February, Rokossovsky had to contend with both the thaw and a frustrating change in the situation. On 1 March, Army Group Centre entered into a phased withdrawal from the Rzhev salient (BUFFALO), which even Hitler had to admit no longer posed a credible threat to Moscow. By 23 March, when BUFFALO stopped on a line from Velizh to Kirov, Army Group Centre had cut its frontage by nearly 400 km. (248 mi.) and freed enough strength to keep Rokossovsky in check. The winter's departure left three concentrations of forces, two German and one Soviet, in exposed positions. After BUFFALO, Army Group Centre's front south of Kirov projected eastwards, forming a salient around Orel. Army Group South's line around Belgorod and Kharkov formed another; and in the 162 km. (100 mi.) gap between them, Central and Voronezh fronts occupied an oblong bulge east of Kursk.

7. To the Dnieper (April–December 1943)

Hitler regarded the coming summer as a period of strategic retrenchment. He expected to take the initiative again, but on a reduced scale. An Anglo-American attempt to create a Second Front in Europe was becoming likely, and he had over half a million unreplaced troop losses from the winter. At the front, he had 3.07 million German troops, slightly more than in June 1941, but Stalin had 6.6 million. On the other hand, the Kursk bulge presented an opportunity to make an impressive showing, and means were available. BUFFALO had yielded a surplus army, Ninth Army, which under General Model had, for fourteen months held the hottest spot on the Eastern Front, the line around Rzhev. Fourth Panzer Army had acquired three new SS panzer divisions, the first divisions to be fully equipped with Panther and Tiger tanks. Through the spring, on Hitler's orders, Manstein and Kluge organized an operation (CITADEL) to pinch off the Kursk bulge.

Stalin, Zhukov, and Vasilevsky also concentrated on Kursk. Uncertain as to how they would fare in summer, they decided to leave the first move to the Germans and planned two operations to be brought into play later: one (KUTUZOV) against the Orel salient, the other (RUMYANTSEV) against the Belgorod-Kharkov salient. By mid-May, they had five fronts at the ready and one in reserve in the Orel–Kursk–Kharkov sector (see Map 61).

The prolonged, uneasy quiet ended on 5 July, when Model's Ninth Army launched CITADEL by striking south, and Fourth Panzer Army north, towards Kursk. Although neither succeeded in shaking itself loose, Fourth Panzer was coming close to a breakthrough by 12 July. Zhukov then launched KUTUZOV against the north face of the Orel salient, and Fifth Guards Tank Army entered the battle against Fourth Panzer. Coincidentally, on 12 July, American and British forces began advancing out of beachheads they had taken on Sicily two days earlier (see Sicilian campaign). On 13 July, Hitler told Kluge and Manstein that CITADEL was cancelled. He said he had to use the SS panzer divisions to hold Italy. He then gave Model command of Second Panzer as well as Ninth Army with an order to restore the front around Orel. He agreed to let Manstein keep his offensive going long enough to establish a claim to a victory of sorts but changed his mind four days later and ordered the SS panzer divisions out of the front.

Model lived up fully to his reputation as ‘the lion of the defence’ until 25 July, when Hitler, reacting to Mussolini's arrest that day, warned Army Group Centre that it would have to give up two dozen divisions. Thereafter, Model went over to a phased withdrawal similar to BUFFALO. Voronezh front, Steppe front under Konev, and South-West front under Malinovsky began RUMYANTSEV on 3 August. On 5 August, Model gave up Orel; Vatutin took Belgorod; and Stalin, in a special order of the day, declared that the ‘German legend’ of Soviet inability to wage a successful summer campaign had been dispelled.See also Kursk, battle of.

Actually, a full-scale summer offensive would not be possible for some weeks yet, because Model kept three fronts tied up until 17 August and Manstein did likewise with three more until 23 August, when he evacuated Kharkov. But a major doubt had been resolved, and that was immediately reflected in the conduct of the war. Stalin no longer gave Zhukov and Vasilevsky as much of a free hand as he had since September 1942, and he imposed a virtual ban on planned encirclements. The ban, to which he permitted few exceptions thereafter, was not purely arbitrary. Of five encirclements attempted after Stalingrad, the last being KUTUZOV, none had been completed. Stalin's solution was to revert to a form of tactics first used against the White General Denikin in 1919: a broad, frontal attack employing massive ‘cleaving blows’ to shatter the opposing front and drive it back.

At the end of August, on a 1,000 km. (662 mi.) line from Army Group Centre's northern boundary at Nevel to Taganrog, eight Soviet fronts were developing nineteen parallel thrusts toward the River Dnieper. The strongest were west of Kursk and Kharkov, where Central, Voronezh, and Steppe fronts (which became Belorussian and First and Second Ukrainian fronts on 20 October) had the advantage of their build-ups for the Kursk battle. On 8 September, Hitler approved a limited withdrawal behind the Dnieper; but from the outset that was impossible because Army Group South had to concentrate on reaching five widely separated crossing-points where there were bridges: Kiev, Kanev, Cherkassy, Kremenchug, and Dnepropetrovsk. Between those, Soviet armies had open access to the river and sent their troops across on anything that would float, oil drums, timbers, straw wrapped in ponchos. The resulting race for the right bank evolved in early October into a contest for possession that, by December, gained First Ukrainian front a large bridgehead around Kiev and Second Ukrainian front another embracing Cherkassy, Kremenchug, and Dnepropetrovsk. By then, Army Group Centre had lost Smolensk and the southern half of the Dnieper Line in its zone. Kleist's Army Group A had a reconstituted Sixth Army ranged along the Dnieper below Nikopol and Seventeenth Army isolated in the Crimea. Stalin could meet Roosevelt and Churchill at the Teheran conference from 28 November to 1 December (see Eureka), as a supreme commander whose armies had been successful in all seasons.

8. ‘Clearing the Soviet land’ (January–May 1944)

Goaded by repeated complaints from Manstein, Kluge, and others that half the German Army was fighting in the east while the other half was scattered around western Europe waiting for invasions that did not come, Hitler issued a strategic directive on 3 November 1943. The danger in the east, he conceded, was great; but a greater danger, an Anglo-American landing, was looming in north-west France (see OVERLORD). In the worst case, Germany could still afford to lose large stretches of territory in the east. In the west, however, the distance to Germany's vital centres was far shorter; therefore, the Eastern Front would have to make do with its existing means until after the landing had been repulsed.

In mid-December, Stalin held a joint meeting of the Politburo, the State Defence Committee (see USSR, 4), and the Stavka to review the plan for the coming winter. At that point, the Soviet forces had recovered over half the territory the Germans had occupied since June 1941. The plan projected operations in the north, centre, and south to retake the remainder, at least up to the pre- 1939 boundaries. The main effort would be in the south, where the four Ukrainian fronts (the Third being the former South-West front and the Fourth the former South front), possessed massive superiority in troops and material.

On 14 January 1944, Leningrad, Volkhov, and Second Baltic fronts—the last having been formed the previous October from two of the Briansk front's armies—attacked around and south of Leningrad. Because keeping a hold on the city no longer served any purpose and his two armies were weakened by transfers to the south, Field Marshal Georg von Küchler, who had superseded Leeb as the Army Group North commander in January 1942, proposed to retreat by stages to the PANTHER Position, a prepared line along the River Narva, Lake Peipus, and Lake Pskov 270 km. (117 mi.) to the rear. Hitler first agreed, then changed his mind and demanded that the front be kept where it was. Stalin declared Leningrad liberated on 27 January, when Volkhov front crossed the Moscow–Leningrad railway. In three more days, Küchler's line broke into four parts. On 31 January, Hitler replaced Küchler with Model, who manoeuvred the parts for four more weeks before taking them into the PANTHER Position when the spring thaw halted operations.

The offensive in the centre failed to materialize. First Baltic (formerly Kalinin), West, and First Belorussian (formerly Belorussian) fronts made three starts but only minor gains in January, February, and March.

Zhukov, co-ordinating the First and Second, and Vasilievsky, with the Third and Fourth, had trouble getting the four Ukrainian fronts back into motion. The weather was party responsible. Freezes alternated with thaws that hampered movement, although less on the Soviet than on the German side, because the Soviet forces were by then equipped with American-built six-wheel-drive trucks. Defective preparation was the more immediate problem. First Ukrainian front opened an attack out of its bridgehead on 24 December, but Konev's Second Ukrainian front was not ready until 5 January. Third and Fourth Ukrainian fronts made a poor start on 10 January and had to be stopped the next day to be put through a reorganization that could not be completed before the end of the month.

On 11 February, knowing that Konev could not advance while his neighbours on the left were stalled, Zhukov proposed, and Stalin approved, encircling six German divisions (56,000 troops) lodged on a 60 km. (37 mi.) stretch of the Dnieper between the Soviet bridgeheads. In slow motion, through mud, snow, and rain, Konev and Vatutin laid two rings round the divisions by 3 February, but 30,000 German troops broke out on 17 February. Although Stalin ordered an artillery salute in Moscow and rewarded Konev with a marshal's star, it is doubtful that he became converted to the encirclement.

However, the operation at Korsun Shevchenkovsky, as it is called, provided an opportunity to declare the winter campaign victoriously completed and initiate a fresh start. On 29 February, Third and Fourth Ukrainian fronts completed their original January missions, and the Headquarters of the Fourth Ukrainian front went out of the line with two armies to organize a drive into the Crimea. First and Second Ukrainian fronts opened a spring offensive on 5 March. Zhukov, who had taken Vatutin's place after Vatutin was badly wounded a week earlier, and Konev mounted two massive parallel thrusts, each spearheaded by three tank armies. On 20 March, Kleist had to let Sixth Army withdraw to avoid being cut off between the Bug and Dniester rivers. Five days later, Manstein ordered First Panzer Army to break out of a pocket Zhukov had formed. Hitler objected strenuously in both instances. On 30 March, he called in Kleist and Manstein, the commanders of Army Group A and South, awarded them the Swords to their Knight's Crosses of the Iron Cross (see decorations), and told them he no longer needed master tacticians, only generals who could ‘get the last ounce of resistance’ out of their troops. On leaving, they passed their replacements, Field Marshals Model (Manstein's) and Schörner (Kleist's). Both had been promoted a day earlier, Schörner's ruthless generalship as a corps commander having brought him to Hitler's notice.

Model and Schörner had little time to practise their skills before 17 April when the Soviet offensive ended on a line from the south-western tip of the Pripet marshes to the foothills of the Carpathians and the lower River Dniester. The Crimea, where the Soviet attack did not begin until 7 April, gave Schörner a better opportunity. Although he did not believe the Crimea was worth the effort, he kept the battle going until 12 May, when 27,000 troops out of what had been a 150,000-man force boarded ships off the beach at Sevastopol.

9. In the main direction (June–August 1944)

Until May 1944, Hitler's strategy had served him moderately well. Much territory had been lost, and his troop strength in the east was down to 2.2 million, but the front at its closest point was 900 km. (560 mi.) from Berlin. Of a dozen panzer divisions activated during the winter ten had gone to the west, only two to the east. Moreover, the Soviet spring offensive appeared to indicate that Stalin proposed to exploit the Anglo-American attempt at establishing a Second Front to realize his hegemonic ambitions in south-eastern Europe. Hitler and the Army General Staff therefore concluded that Army Group South Ukraine (formerly Army Group A) would be the principal and Army Group North Ukraine (formerly Army Group South) the secondary Soviet targets in the coming summer. The Army Group North and Centre areas, they believed, posed operational problems, particularly for armour, that the Soviet commands had not yet mastered.

In early May, Zhukov relinquished his front command and returned to Moscow to work on an operation (BAGRATION) against Army Group Centre, which the Soviet offensives against its neighbours had enclosed in a deep embayment centred on Minsk. The final plan Stalin approved later in the month, committed 2.4 million troops, 5,200 tanks, and 5,300 aircraft, double the troops and more tanks and aircraft than had been used in KUTUZOV and RUMYANTSEV together. First Baltic and First, Second, and Third Belorussian fronts (the last two having been formed from West front) were to direct nine thrusts inwards towards Minsk. In the second phase, Second Baltic and First Ukrainian fronts would join in on the flanks, and the advance would proceed westwards along the whole line between the Dvina and the Carpathians. In mid-June, whatever doubts he may have had about the Anglo-American landing being by then resolved, Stalin set 23 June as the starting date.

At Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Busch, who had replaced Kluge in October 1943, had 700,000 troops. In May, transfers to Army Group North Ukraine cost him nine-tenths of his tanks, half his tank destroyers, a third of his heavy artillery, and a quarter of his self-propelled assault guns. Not a virtuoso in his own right, Busch relied on Hitler's guidance and regarded himself as an instrument of the Führer's will. Adopting a device Hitler had originated during the past winter, Busch designated Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, and Bobruysk as ‘fortresses’ whose garrisons of several divisions each were to resist ‘to the last man’. On 23 June, taking the attack to be preliminary to the offensive against Army Group North Ukraine, Hitler demanded a rigid defence, and Busch complied.

In four days, Busch committed all his reserves without slowing the Soviet thrusts anywhere. The ‘fortresses’ were all isolated. Third Panzer Army having had to abandon five divisions in Vitebsk, was helplessly adrift. Fourth and Ninth Armies were struggling to extricate themselves from the marshes along the River Beresina. Busch proposed to form another rigid line north and south of Minsk; but on 28 June Hitler, now aware that something more than passive compliance was required, gave Model command of the army group. In good part as a result of his having mightily encouraged the initial misassessment, Model had reserves at hand but not close enough by to have an effect before the first phase of BAGRATION ended east of Minsk on 5 July. At that point, Fourth Army had lost 130,000 out of its original 165,000 troops, First Panzer had lost a similar number, and Ninth Army had collapsed.

In the second phase, First Belorussian front turned west towards Warsaw, and Second and Third Belorussian fronts headed towards East Prussia and into Lithuania. First Ukrainian front came in on 13 July, striking via Lwów (Lvov) towards the Vistula. Model manoeuvered his army groups backwards as gradually as the circumstances allowed, building cohesion as they went. When the Soviet pressure subsided in mid-August, he had a front a hair's breadth outside the East Prussian border and on the Vistula. First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts each held a bridgehead on the river.

On the north flank, the second phase became converted into an independent operation after 18 July when all three Baltic fronts (the third having been activated the previous April) went on the offensive against Army Group North. Schörner, whom Hitler sent to take command four days later, stabilized the front in August on a serrated line that preserved contact with Army Group Centre through a corridor 27 km. (18 mi.) wide along the Baltic coast west of Riga. After an attempt to pinch off the corridor failed in September, First Baltic front turned west in October and drove from Shaulyay to the coast at Klaipeda (Memel). Schörner then had to evacuate Estonia and eastern Latvia, taking the army group through the corridor and into isolation on the Courland peninsula. Finland, which had depended on German aid shipped from Estonia, signed an armistice on 2 September.

10. The ‘march of liberation’ (August–December 1944)

On 20 August 1944, along the Romanian border, Second and Third Ukrainian fronts opened the first in a train of operations to ‘liberate’ south-eastern Europe that would not be completed until three days after the war itself had ended. Stalin, looking towards the post-war order in the region, was making a political, not a military, decision when he ordered these moves. Hitler, also thinking politically, envisioned a clash of Soviet and British interests that would split the alliance against him.

Romania surrendered on 23 August; but Bulgaria, nominally at war with the Western Powers although not with the USSR, created an apparently unexpected complication by attempting to secure a Soviet alignment and negotiate an armistice with the British and Americans. Stalin, regarding the potential outside involvement with deep suspicion, declared war on 5 September and diverted Third Ukrainian front into Bulgaria on 8 September. A day later, Bulgaria requested and was granted an armistice, but Third Ukrainian front stayed on until the end of the month to show ‘fraternal’ support for a communist government being installed in Sofia.

The excursion into Bulgaria, a slow start Fourth Ukranian front made at crossing the Carpathian mountains into Slovakia, and a coup engineered by Hitler (see Hungary, 3) that prevented a Hungarian surrender enabled Army Group South Ukraine (renamed South in late September) to regain its balance somewhat after reaching Hungary. In November, Army Group South secured a tie-in with the German South-eastern theatre, which was responsible for Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece. Weichs, the theatre commander, had 600,000 mostly limited service troops spread out from Trieste to Crete, but after beginning to evacuate Greece in late October, he could cover Army Group South's right flank. On the left, in November, Army Group A, formerly North Ukraine, provided support against Fourth Ukrainian front. Throughout November the fighting centred on Budapest, which Hitler and Stalin regarded as a prestige objective comparable to Stalingrad. Meanwhile, Stalin was having to concentrate on his main line of advance once more; and on 30 December, after Budapest had been brought under siege, he suspended the march of ‘liberation’.

11. Stalin victorious (January–May 1945)

Stalin reserved the final operations to himself. In November 1944, after telling Zhukov that henceforth the Supreme C-in-C and the General Staff would handle all strategic planning and co-ordination, he shifted Rokossovsky to Second Belorussian front and posted Zhukov to First Belorussian front, which was to have the distinction of taking Berlin. Zhukov lost his seat on the Stavka but remained first deputy commander-in-chief, probably as a nominal counterpart to General Eisenhower. In February 1945, Stalin gave Vasilevsky command of Third Belorussian front and appointed General Alexei Antonov, a routinely competent officer, to replace him as chief of the General Staff.

German-Soviet war: Soviet army fronts and their commanders, 1941–5

Source: Contributor
North front
Activated on basis of
Leningrad Military District	24 June 41
	M. M. Popov	June-Aug 41
Divided 23 Aug 41 into:
Karelia front	V. A. Frolov	Sept 41-Feb 44
	K. A. Meretskov	Feb-Nov 44
Staff placed in reserve
and troops redeployed	15 Nov 44
and
Leningrad front	M. M. Popov	Aug-Sept 41
K. E. Voroshilov	Sept 41
	G. K. Zhukov	Sept-Oct 41
	I. I. Fedyuninsky	Oct 41
	M. S. Khozin	Oct 41-June 42
	L. A. Govorov	June 42-July 45
Redesignated headquarters,
Leningrad Military District	24 July 45
North-west front
Activated on basis of
Baltic Special Militar y District	22 June 41
	F. I. Kuznetsov	June-July 41
	P. P. Sobennikov	July-Aug 41
	P. A. Kurochkin	Aug 41-Oct 42
		and June-Nov 43
	S. K. Timoshenko	Oct 42-Mar 43
	I. S. Konev	Mar-Jun 43
Terminated		20 Nov 43
West front
Activated on basis of
Western Special Military District	22 June 41
	D. G. Pavlov	June 41
	S. K. Timoshenko	July-Sept 41
	I. S. Konev	Sept-Oct 41
	G. K. Zhukov	Oct 41-Aug 42
	V. D. Sokolovsky	Feb 43-Apr 44
	I. D. Chernyakhovsky	Apr 44
Divided 24 April into:
Second Belorussian front
Using staff of former North-west front
	I. Ye. Petrov	Apr-June 44
	G. F. Zakharov	June-Nov 44
	K. K. Rokossovsky	Nov 44-June 45
Reorganized as
Headquarters Northern Forces	10 July 45
and
Third Belorussian front
Under the former West front Staff
	I. D. Chernyakhovsky	Apr 44-Feb 45
	A. M. Vasilevsky	Feb-Apr 45
	I. Kh. Bagramyan	Apr-Aug 45
Staff withdrawn to reserve	15 Aug 45
South-west front
Activated on basis of
Kiev Special Military District	22 June 41
	M. P. Kirponos	June-Sept 41
	S. K. Timoshenko	Sept-Dec 41
		and Apr-July 42
	F. Ya. Kostenko	Dec 41-Apr 42
Disbanded		July 42
Reconstituted		Oct 42
	N. F. Vatutin	Oct 42-Mar 43
	R. Ya. Malinovsky	Mar 43-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
Third Ukrainian front
	R. Ya. Malinovsky	Oct 43-May 44
	F. I. Tolbukhin	May 44-June
Reorganized as
Headquarters, Southern Forces	June 45
South front
Activated		25 June 41
	I. V. Tyulenev	June-Aug 41
	D. I. R yabyshev	Aug-Oct 41
	Ya. T. Cherevichenko	Oct-Dec 41
	R. Ya. Malinovsky	Dec 41-July 42
Disbanded		28 July 42
Stalingrad front
renamed South front	Jan 1943
before becoming
Fourth Ukrainian front	October 1943
Reserve front
Activated behind
West front		30 July 42
	G. K. Zhukov	Aug-Sept 41
	M. Budenny	Sept-Oct 41
Terminated and merged into
West front		10 Oct 41
Central front
Activated		24 July 41
	F. I. Kuznetsov	July-Aug 41
	M. G. Efremov	Aug 41
Terminated (sector and
troops transferred to
Briansk front)		25 Aug 41
Reactivated from parts
of Don front
renamed Central front Feb 1943
Briansk front
Activated		16 Aug 41
	A. I. Yeremenko	Aug-Oct 41
	G. F. Zakharov	Oct-Nov 41
	K. K. Rokossovsky	July-Sept 42
	F. I. Golikov	Apr-July 42
	K. K. Rokossovsky	July-Sept 42
	M. A. Reiter	Sept 42-June 43
	M. M. Popov	June-Oct 43
Transferred four armies to Central
front 10 Oct 43, and the HQ and two armies
were shifted northward to become
the basis for:
Second Baltic front
	M. M. Popov	Oct 43-Apr 44
	A. I. Eremenko	Apr 44-Feb 45
	L. A. Govorov	Feb-Mar 45
Terminated and troops
transferred to Leningrad front	1 Apr 45
Volkhov front
Activated to take over
Leningrad front left wing	17 Dec 41
	K. A. Meretskov	Dec 41-Apr 42
and	June 42-Feb 44
Deactivated		Apr 42
Reactivated		June 42
Terminated and troops
transferred to Leningrad front	15 Feb 44
Transcaucasus front
Activated on basis of the
Transcaucasus Military District	23 Aug 41
	D. T. Kozlov	Aug-Dec 41
Renamed 30 Dec 41:
Caucasus front
	D. T. Kozlov	Dec 41-Jan 42
Renamed:		28 Jan 42
Crimea front
	D.T.Kozlov	Jan 42-May 42
	S.M.Budenny	May-Sept 42
Terminated 1 Sept 42 and merged into:
North Caucasus front
Activated		20 May 42
	S. M. Budenny	May-Sept 42
Terminated 1 Sept 42 and merged into:
Transcaucasus front
Reactivated on basis of the
Transcaucasus Military District.	15 May 42
	I. V. Tyulenev Sept	42-Aug 45
North Caucasus front
Reactivated		24 Jan 43
	I. I. Maslennikov	Jan-May 43
	I. Ye. Petrov	May-Nov 43
Reorganized as the
Independent Coastal Army	20 Nov 43
Kallnin front
Activated		17 Oct 41
	I. S. Konev	Oct 41-Aug 42
	M. A. Purkayev	Aug 42-Apr 43
	A. I. Yeremenko	Apr-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
First Baltic front
	A. I. Yeremenko	Oct-Nov 43
	Kh. Bagramyan	Nov 43-Feb 45
Terminated and merged
into Third Belorussian front	24 Feb 45
Voronezh front
Activated to take over
forces on left wing of Briansk front	7 July 42
	F. I. Golikov	July 42
		and Oct 42-Mar 43
	N. F. Vatutin	July-Oct 43
		and Mar-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
First Ukrainian front
	N. F. Vatutin	Oct 43-Mar 44
	G. K. Zhukov	Mar-May 44
	I. S. Konev	May 44-May 45
Reorganized as
Headquarters, Central Forces	10 July 45
Stalingrad front
Activated on basis of
former South-west front staff	12 July 45
	S. K. Timoshenko	July 42
	V. N. Gordov	July-Sept 42
Divided 7 Aug 42, the left wing becoming:
South-east front
	A. I. Yeremenko	Aug-Sept 42
(In a renaming South-east	27 Sept 42
front became Stalingrad front
and Stalingrad front became
Don front)
Stalingrad front (continued)
	A. I. Yeremenko	Sept-Dec 42
Redeployed and renamed:	1 Jan 43
South front
	A. I. Yeremenko	Jan-Feb 43
	R. Ya. Malinovsky	Feb-Mar 43
	F. I. Tolbukhin	Mar-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
Fourth Ukrainian Front.
	F. I. Tolbukhin	Oct 43-May 44
Disbanded and staff
placed in reserve		16 May 44
Reactivated		6 Aug 44
	I. Ye. Petrov	Aug 44-Mar 45
	A. I. Yeremenko	Mar-July 45
Reorganized as Headquarters
Carpathian Military District	10 July 45
Don front (Stalingrad front until 27 Sept. 42)
After		27 Sept 42
	K. K. Rokossovsky	Sept 42-Feb 43
Staff and one army
redeployed 15 Feb 43
to become basis of:
Central front
	K. K. Rokossovsky	Feb-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
Belorussian front
	K. K. Rokossovsky	Oct 43-Feb 44
Renamed 17 Feb 44:
First Belorussian front
	K. K. Rokossovsky	Feb-Nov 44
	G. K. Zhukov	Nov 44-June 45
Reorganized as Occupation
Forces in Germany		10 June 45
Steppe front
Activated on basis of the
Steppe Military District in
the Kursk area		July 43
I. S. Konev		Jul-Oct 43
Renamed 20 Oct 43:
Second Ukrainian front
	I. S. Konev	Oct 43-May 44
	R. Ya. Malinovsky	May 44-June 45
Placed in reserve		10 July 45
Third Baltic front
Activated to take over left
wing of Leningrad front	21 Apr 44
	I. I. Maslennikov	Apr-Oct 44
Terminated. Troops shifted
to Leningrad and other two
Baltic fronts		16 Oct 44

The plan, as completed in late 1944, was direct and simple: to end the war in approximately 45 days by driving from the Vistula to the Oder in 15 days and thence to the Elbe in another 30. First Belorussian and First Ukrainian fronts would bring 2.2 million troops to bear against Army Group A, which had about 400,000. Against Army Group Centre, Second and Third Belorussian fronts would employ 1.6 million troops to take East Prussia and clear the Baltic littoral.

The heaviest single offensive of the Second World War began on 12 January 1945. In three days, the Soviet fronts developed two dozen parallel thrusts, the two most powerful of them out of the Vistula bridgeheads, in which Zhukov and Konev had assembled 10:1 overall superiorities. Hitler gave Schörner command of Army Group A on 16 January—but even his formidable methods were unavailing—and on 23 January put Heinrich Himmler in command of the newly activated Army Group Vistula. By 3 February Zhukov's and Konev's armies were on the River Oder from Küstrin, 65 km. (35 mi.) east of Berlin, to the Czechoslovak border. The offensive was about a week behind schedule, mainly owing to a sudden thaw in late January.

During the Yalta conference, held from 4 to 9 February, (see ARGONAUT), Stalin apparently decided that a quick victory was not in the Soviet interest. For the rest of the month and through March, he allowed the offensive to degenerate into random skirmishing. Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky pressed slowly through West Prussia and East Prussia. Zhukov diverted two tank armies and a field army north-eastwards to assist Rokossovsky. In February, Konev advanced across the Oder towards Dresden, went about halfway, stopped on the River Neisse, and turned to chipping away at Upper Silesia in March. Second and Third Baltic fronts kept pressure on Army Group Courland (North, renamed January 1945) but not enough to prevent Hitler from withdrawing divisions for the Oder front.

The prolonged hiatus in Stalin's advance gave Hitler his first opportunity since CITADEL to execute an offensive on the Eastern Front. Except at Budapest, where the fighting did not end until 13 February, the Soviet fronts in Hungary had stayed on the defensive through January and February and into March. On 15 January, Hitler had decided to send the Sixth SS Panzer Army, which had been the main force in the Ardennes campaign against the Americans, to Hungary, where he expected another Soviet attack. Owing to the weather, the condition of the railways, and efforts by the generals to change his mind, the army did not arrive until late February. By then, Hitler had concocted an operation (AWAKENING OF SPRING) that was, like CITADEL, designed mainly to create an impression; and Second and Third Ukrainian fronts were, on Stalin's orders, preparing to resume the march of ‘liberation’.

The offensive, which the Soviet commands expected and which the German commands and troops considered a pointless waste of effort, ran fitfully, on Hitler's insistence, for ten days. On 16 March, Second and Third Ukrainian fronts, the one on the north, the other on the south, attacked along the course of the Danube towards Vienna. On 7 April, Hitler sent General Lothar Rendulic, who had proved himself a worthy successor to Schörner in Courland, as C-in-C Army Group South to defend Vienna or convert it into another Budapest. The front was then at the southern outskirts of the city. Rendulic kept the battle going another five days, but withdrew towards the mountains on the north and west on 13 April.

While Stalin had his forces engaged elsewhere, the situation in central Germany underwent what was, from his viewpoint, an alarming change. In February, the Americans and British had been stalled on the line they had held before Hitler's Ardennes offensive. At the end of March, one British and five American armies were across the Rhine, and the Americans were encircling the Ruhr. On 31 March, Stalin threw First and Second Belorussian fronts into a fast redeployment, the object of which was to bring Zhukov into position for a frontal sweep to and beyond Berlin while Rokossovsky and Konev advanced to the Elbe on his flanks. Hitler had Army Group Vistula (now commanded by General Gotthard Heinrici) opposite Rokossovsky and Zhukov and Army Group Centre (A, renamed in January) on the Neisse and the Czechoslovak border. The German situation was better than it had been two months earlier, but Hitler no longer had the troops and matériel to achieve a solid build-up.

Nevertheless, the final blow proved unexpectedly difficult to deliver. After three days, Rokossovsky and Konev had to divert the better parts of their forces towards Berlin. As a result, the British and Americans were able to advance well to the east of the lower Elbe. Konev made contact with First US Army on 25 April at Torgau on the Elbe, but did not reach Dresden until 8 May. To avoid capture, Hitler killed himself on 30 April and the surrender of its garrison on 2 May completed the fall of Berlin.

Hitler had named Grand Admiral Dönitz to succeed him as head of state and C-in-C of the armed forces. From his headquarters in Flensburg, on the Jutland peninsula, Dönitz sent representatives to Eisenhower's forward headquarters in Reims, where they signed an unconditional surrender on all fronts at 0241 on 7 May. Stalin refused to accept the Reims surrender and demanded a second signing, which took place in Berlin shortly before midnight on 8 May.

The German troops still fighting in Courland and East Prussia surrendered on 8 May. Army Group Centre, however, was temporarily denied that privilege. Stalin had a bit of unfinished business, the ‘liberation’ of western Czechoslovakia, and he had awarded the honour of taking Prague to Konev; but Konev could not get his tank armies redeployed from Berlin until 6 May. After a slow start on 7 May, in the next three days, First, Second, and Fourth Ukrainian fronts, with 1.7 million troops, plunged towards Prague, forcing Army Group Centre into a pocket east of the city, where it surrendered on 11 May. See also land power.

Earl Ziemke

Bibliography

Erickson, J. , The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1975)
—— The Road to Berlin (London, 1983)
Minasyan, M. M. (ed.), The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (Moscow, 1974).
Seaton, A. , The Russo-German War 1941–1945 (New York, 1970).
Ziemke, E. F. , Stalingrad to Berlin (Washington, DC, 1968).