Minsk offensive

Minsk offensive
	Part of Belorussian SSR
Result	Soviet Victory

Belligerents

Germany

Soviet UnionCommanders and leaders

Walter Model
(Army Group Centre)

Kurt von Tippelskirch

Dietrich von Saucken

Vincenz Müller
(elements of Fourth Army)

Hovhannes Bagramyan
(1st Baltic Front

)Strength unknown unknownCasualties and losses 100,000 troops caught in encirclement

(40,000 killed or missing,
rest either wounded or captured) unknown

The Minsk offensive (

Belorussian strategic offensive of the Red Army in summer 1944, commonly known as Operation Bagration

.

The Red Army encircled the German

5th Guards Tank Army attacked from the north-east, while the 2nd Guards Tank Corps moved in from the east, and the 65th Army advanced from the south. About 100,000 Axis soldiers from the Fourth and Ninth Armies were encircled, of whom some 40,000 were killed and most of the rest captured. The result was a complete victory for the Red Army, the liberation of Minsk, and the rapid destruction of much of the German Army Group Centre

.

Role in the conflict

The capturing of Minsk played an important role in Operation Bagration and in WWII itself. With the destruction of the 4th Army and more men to fight towards the end of WWII.

Planning

Operational goals

The role of the

Molodechno, capturing the former in cooperation with the 2nd Belorussian Front and reaching the latter no later than 8 July.^[1] The 5th Guards Tank Army, under General Pavel Rotmistrov

was however criticized for its slowness in attaining its objectives and ordered to display greater decisiveness.

German planning

German planning largely involved damage limitation. The immediate effects of the

Bobruysk Offensive made it clear that Soviet forces had the 'deep' objective of the city of Minsk. Authorisation was therefore given on 26 June to shift the 5th Panzer Division from Army Group South Ukraine

to assist in the city's defence.

By the time the operation had commenced, the entire Fourth Army had been bypassed on both its northern and southern flanks. Despite this, it was ordered to hold fast. Its central corps, the

Berezina

crossings, having lost two corps commanders in as many days.

Deployments

Wehrmacht

Encircled forces of Fourth Army under command of Lieutenant-General Vincenz Müller:^[2]
- XII Corps (Lieutenant-General Vincenz Müller
  );
  - 267th Infantry Division
  - 260th Infantry Division
- XXVII Corps (General Paul Völckers
  );
  - 57th Infantry Division
- remnants of
  XXXIX Panzer Corps (General der Panzertruppe Dietrich von Saucken
  )
  - 110th Infantry Division
  - Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle
Encircled remnants of
VI Corps of Third Panzer Army transferred to command of the 4th Army (General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling
)

Encircled remnants of Ninth Army (General Nikolaus von Vormann)
Kampfgruppe von Saucken, including:
- 5th Panzer Division
Kampfgruppe Lindig
- 12th Panzer Division;
- 390th Security Division
Kampfgruppe
SS
units, included:
- Kampfgruppe
  Anhalt
  (ad hoc group of police and security units)
- Kampfgruppe
  14th Infantry Division
  and others)

The above units were under the overall command of Army Group Centre (Field-Marshal Walter Model).

Red Army

3rd Belorussian Front (General Ivan Chernyakhovsky)
- 11th Guards Army (General Kuzma Galitsky
  )
- 5th Army (Lieutenant General Nikolay Krylov
  )
- 39th Army (Colonel-General Ivan Lyudnikov)
- 31st Army (Lieutenant General Vasily Glagolev)
- 5th Guards Tank Army (General Pavel Rotmistrov)
- Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gromov
  )
Gyorgy Zakharov
)
- Vasily Kryuchenkin
  )
- 49th Army (Lieutenant-General Ivan Grishin
  )
- 50th Army (Lieutenant-General Ivan Boldin)
- 4th Air Army (Colonel General of Aviation Konstantin Vershinin
  )

The offensive

The offensive developed through three main phases: the breakthrough of the initial German defences along the Berezina; the advance of the Soviet motorised exploitation forces; and finally the encirclement of the German Fourth Army after the defensive positions were overrun.

Partisan activity

On the eve of the offensive, Soviet partisans carried out large-scale sabotage activities behind enemy lines, aimed at disrupting Army Group Center's logistical and communications capabilities. Some 10,500 explosives were detonated along the rail networks connecting the Dnieper to Minsk, all bridges in the area were blown up, and telephone lines extensively cut, paralyzing Army Group Center's communications for the first 48 hours of the offensive.

The German defence effort

By 26 June, OKH had finally realised that the developing Operation Bagration was the main Soviet offensive, and that Minsk was its objective. As a result, the 5th Panzer Division was brought back from Army Group North Ukraine, arriving in Minsk on 27 June with the unenviable job of attempting to halt the Soviet advance and preventing the complete collapse of Army Group Centre. For the German forces, the military situation was dire: in the Army Group's northern sector, Third Panzer Army had crumbled, with the LIII Corps wiped out, the VI Corps shattered, and the IX Corps being pushed steadily west. In the south, Ninth Army had lost all cohesion, its remaining troops being pounded by artillery and air bombardment. Fourth Army's three corps were now ordered to hold fast, despite being bypassed by Soviet forces on their flanks: Hitler declared Minsk a Fester Platz and instructed the remnants of Ninth Army to reinforce its defence.

5th Panzer, which was reorganised on 28 June into a combat group under the command of

Heavy Tank Battalion 505, equipped with Tiger Is, held the rail lines at Krupki

to the east.

There were few manpower reserves in the area from which a defence could be organised. Some further reinforcements were provided by Gruppe von Gottberg, the rear-area security units of the

Berezino

.

The liberation of Minsk

65th Army

was approaching from the southern route, the 5th Guards Tank Army was making progress from the north, and 2nd Guards Tank Corps had crossed the Berezina.

In the meantime, the four divisions of XXXIX Panzer Corps had begun to pull back and make for the crossings at

Berezino, south of Borisov, in an effort to escape the developing trap. A column of vehicles stretched back for many kilometres, under constant air attack, as the bridge was repeatedly damaged by bombing. The replacement corps commander, Lieutenant-General Otto Schünemann

, was himself killed on 29 June, and the entire corps began to disintegrate.

The elements of Army Group Centre holding Minsk began to prepare for withdrawal on 1 July, authorisation finally being given on 2 July. Von Saucken and the 5th Panzer Division were ordered to fall back towards

Molodechno in the north-west; von Gottberg, after stating the defences of Minsk were collapsing, withdrew his units towards Lida. With substantial elements of Fourth Army

still east of the city attempting to withdraw, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps broke through the defences of Minsk in the early hours of 3 July; fighting erupted in the centre of the city at dawn. By the next day, Minsk had been cleared of German rearguard units, while the 65th Army and 5th Guards Tank Army closed the encirclement to the west. The bulk of Fourth Army, and much of the remnant of Ninth Army, were now trapped.

The destruction of Fourth Army

Over the next few days, Fourth Army made several attempts to break out of the encirclement, led by those divisions still retaining a coherent organisational structure. The largest group of encircled forces comprised the divisions of XII Corps, which remained relatively intact, along with those elements of XXVII Corps that had successfully retreated from Orsha and which were now trapped near Pekalin (in

Smalyavichy Raion, Minsk Region

). The corps commanders, Müller and Völckers, decided on 5 July that their forces should break out to the north-west and west respectively, accompanied by the remnants of Martinek's former XXXIX Panzer Corps; they were now as much as 100 km behind Soviet lines.

The

Panzergrenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle linked up and attempted to bypass Minsk to the south, but were also dispersed, while the same fate eventually befell the remainder of the 78th Sturm Division (after an initially successful breakout) and most of the other divisional groupings.^[4] Some elements of the 14th Infantry Division under their commander, Lieutenant-General Flörke, managed to link up with remnants of the 31st and 12th Infantry Divisions; Kampfgruppe Flörke, after finding Minsk abandoned and burning, was eventually able to escape the pocket and reach the 12th Panzer Division's positions.^[5]

Lieutenant-General Müller, who had been placed in command of all the encircled units of Fourth Army, was captured on 8 July after a failed breakout by the

18th Panzergrenadier Division. He immediately issued an order to all encircled troops to surrender, which was broadcast over loudspeakers by Soviet forces and dropped from Soviet aircraft in leaflet form. A large number of German unit commanders and soldiers chose to disregard the order, however, and continue escape attempts: Soviet forces were reporting actions against groups of encircled German soldiers several thousand strong until mid-July, and smaller groups until some time later.^[6]

In total, around 100,000 troops from Fourth and Ninth Armies were caught in the encirclement, of whom some 40,000 were killed, most of the remainder being captured. Partisans played an important role in locating and mopping up the encircled forces.

Outcome

Honor Guard of the Armed Forces of Belarus during a civil-military parade

in honor of the 75th anniversary of the offensive, 3 July 2019.

Within the broader strategic framework of Operation Bagration, the Minsk offensive was a complete success:

The capital of the
Belorussian SSR
, Minsk, was liberated after three years of German occupation.
The forces of the German Army Group Centre were almost completely shattered within a matter of days. In particular, nearly the entire Fourth Army, plus many of the elements of Ninth Army that had escaped from the Bobruysk offensive, was destroyed.

The 3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts were subsequently committed to the third 'pursuit' phase of the strategic offensive in the

Belostock

offensives respectively. The offensive helped pave the way for the eventual defeat of Germany.

Footnotes

^ Glantz, p.117
^ Lexikon der Wehrmacht 4. Armee
^ Zaloga, p.60
^ See Adair, pp.151–2
^ Niepold, p.195
^ E.g. the 222nd Rifle Division, who after destroying one group at the Svisloch crossings on 7 July, reported an action against a unit of 5,000 Germans who had counterattacked at a village south of Minsk on 11 July (see Glantz, p.183)