Lviv-Sandomierz operation

The Lviv-Sandomierz-Operation (Lemberg-Sandomir-Operation; Russian Львовско-Сандомирская операция ) was an offensive of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army , which took place at the same time as Operation Bagration . In the course of this operation, the Red Army carried out three sub-operations: the Lviv , the Stanislavov and the Sandomierz operation . The aim was to smash the German Army Group in Northern Ukraine in the Lemberg (Lwiw) - Sandomierz area. The operation began on July 13, 1944 and ended on August 29 of the same year with the retaking of western Ukraine and the southeastern areas of Poland .

Preparations

Eastern Front from June to August 1944

At a conference of Soviet commanders, the Soviet units opposing the German Army Group Center , in Moscow on 22./23. May 1944 the concept of the General Staff of the Red Army to break up the German Army Group east of Minsk was presented and the basic planning of Operation Bagration worked out. Since the majority of the mobile troops of the Red Army were concentrated in the south, Marshal IS Konev, the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, was involved in the planning by Stalin at the beginning of June . Konev proposed a complex maneuver in which the northern wing of the 1st Ukrainian Front with 14 rifle divisions, the 1st Armored Guard Army and a mobile group should be concentrated west of Lutsk and advance from the north towards Lviv in order to encircle the German troops there. In the center of the 1st Ukrainian Front a simultaneous attack by 15 rifle divisions, a cavalry corps and the 3rd and 4th Guards Panzer Army was planned. Konev's plan was to encircle the German troops to the east of Lemberg and then to advance further north-west with the 3rd and 4th Guards Panzer Army and to reach the Vistula at Sandomierz . In order to guarantee the surprise necessary for this project, a concentration in the Stanislaw area , north of the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains , should be simulated. At first Stalin was skeptical of Konev's plan, but nevertheless agreed, not without giving Konev to understand that his fate depended on the success of the operation.

At the end of April 1944 there were eleven partisan units and 40 groups in the hinterland of the German front (a total of 12,600 people). Before the offensive, they managed to paralyze the Lemberg-Warsaw and Rawa-Ruska - Jarosław railway lines for almost a month and eliminate 13 large German garrisons.

Troop strength

The strength of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev was 1,002,200 soldiers and 1,614 tanks, 14,000 guns and mortars, and 2,806 aircraft. This force was divided into seven armored corps, three mechanized corps , six cavalry and 72 rifle divisions and was the Red Army's strongest front to date. You faced the German Army Group Northern Ukraine under Colonel General Josef Harpe with 900,000 soldiers, 6,300 artillery pieces, 900 tanks and 700 aircraft. This army group consisted of three armies: the 1st Panzer Army under Colonel General Erhard Raus , the 4th Panzer Army under General der Panzertruppe Walther Nehring and the Hungarian 1st Army (Colonel General Beregfy ).

course

Armored personnel carriers in front of a burning village

General government with Galicia

On July 13, the same day when the remaining German units surrendered near Minsk and the city of Vilna was captured, the main Soviet attack began in the area on both sides of Brody with the advance of the 3rd Army of the Guard (Lieutenant General Gordow ) on the right and the 13th Army . Army (Lieutenant General Puchow ) on the left wing of the northern section of the 1st Ukrainian Front. General Harpe used his mobile reserve, the III. Panzer Corps (General Breith ) with the 1st and 8th Panzer Divisions to stop the Soviet offensive. On July 15, Marshal Konev set the 1st Guards Armored Army under Colonel General Mikhail Katukov and the mobile group under Lieutenant General Baranov (1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 25th Panzer Corps under General FG Anikushkin ) to break through. General Baranov attacked south-west from the Styr sector in the Lutsk area and was able to break through the German front at Gorokhov . On July 16, Konew had the 3rd Armored Guard Army (Colonel General Rybalko ) and the 4th Panzer Army (Colonel General Leljuschenko ) as well as the 6th Guards Cavalry Corps (Lieutenant General Sokolow ) line up in the Zalosce area and through a gap in the German line of defense, the so-called Koltow -Corridor , advance directly towards Lviv .

Brody's cauldron

The union of Soviet armored spearheads in the Busk area achieved on July 18 led to the encirclement of the German XIII. Army Corps (General of the Infantry Hauffe ) in the Brody pocket . Troops of the Soviet 13th Army held the German defenses north and south of the city of Brody . The rifle corps of Generals Cherokmanov (27th SK), Kirjuchin (24th SK) and Puzikow (102nd SK) comprised the XIII. Army Corps. About six German divisions were encircled, including the 340th , 361st , 349th , 454th, the 14th SS Waffen-Grenadier-Division as well as the Corps Department C (combat groups 183rd , 217th and 339th Infantry Divisions ). At dawn on July 20, Corps Division C and Assault Gun Division 249 on both sides of Bialy Kamien formed the shock wedge for the breakout to the south. They tried to advance over the bow and after crossing the southern Zloczowka to reach the area between Skwarzwa and Chilczyce. The 14th SS Division and the 361st Infantry Division had to cover their backs. Simultaneous relief attacks by the German 8th Panzer Division from the area south of Zloczow were unsuccessful; by the evening of July 22nd, the trapped troops were almost completely wiped out. Only a few German associations managed to break out of the basin to the south in the direction of Gologory to Zlota Lipa , where the XXXXVIII. Panzer Corps had to withdraw to the west on Lviv. According to Soviet sources, 30,000 German soldiers fell in the Brody pocket, 17,000 were captured and 5,000 managed to escape. Large amounts of military equipment were captured, including 719 guns, 1,100 mortars and 3,900 vehicles.

On July 18, the Soviet breakthrough was extended to 200 km wide and 50 to 80 kilometers deep. The 6th Guards Rifle Division under General Onuprienko had crossed the western Bug and occupied the city of Rawa-Ruska on July 20 . The southern section of the 1st Ukrainian Front also opened the advance: The 5th Guards Army (General Schadow ) and the 38th Army (General Moskalenko ) followed out of the room Tarnopol for Zlota Lipa and the 1st Guards Army ( Grechko ) went against Buczacz ago . On the southern bank of the Dniester , an independent tank corps as part of the 18th Army (Lieutenant General JP Tschurawljow ) opened the attack from the Kolomea area to Stanislau .

Fight in the Lviv area

Soviet soldiers advancing in Lviv in western Ukraine

On July 22nd, the Soviet 4th Panzer Army reached the southern outskirts of Lemberg with the 31st Panzer Corps (Major General Grigorjew ) and fierce street fighting began with the German III. Panzer Corps . The 60th Army (General Kurotschkin ) approached the city from the east, and on July 24th the 3rd Guards Panzer Army had reached the Jaworow district . On July 27th, Soviet armies were able to penetrate Lemberg from various directions. On the same day, the 5th Guards Army took part in battle with the German LIX. Army Corps Halitsch and the 1st Guard Army occupied in battle with the 7th Panzer Division of the XXXXVI. Army Corps Stanislau . Due to the Soviet breakthrough to the Carpathian Mountains , the German Army Group was split into two parts, the 1st Panzer Army had to retreat through the corridor from Stryi via Drohobycz to the west, the Hungarian 1st Army abandoned the Carpathian apron and went to the southern one Heights back and maintained the connection with the German 8th Army .

Pursuit to the San, advance to the Vistula

On July 27, the Soviet 4th Panzer Army reached the San Sector and occupied Przemyśl . From July 29 to August 1, the 1st Armored Guard Army crossed the Vistula and formed a western bridgehead near Sandomierz. On July 29th the advance guard of the 3rd Guard Army and the 13th Army had reached the Vistula. The 350th Rifle Division under Major General Gennady Wechin crossed the river forcibly and built a bridgehead on the west bank in the area north of Baranow . All attempts by the Wehrmacht to conquer the bridgehead failed. On August 23, the city of Dębica was captured by the 60th Army.

consequences

In the offensive, the Red Army advanced on a 440 km wide front up to 350 km to the west. Eight German divisions were completely lost in the Brody pocket, 32 German divisions lost 50 to 70 percent of their soldiers.

The Wehrmacht's losses are estimated at around 136,860 men, including around 55,000 dead, missing and prisoners of war. The Soviet losses amounted to 289,296 soldiers (65,001 dead), 1,832 guns, 1,269 tanks and 289 aircraft. After the end of the operation, 123,000 Soviet soldiers were honored, 160 of them with the title Hero of the Soviet Union . On July 29, 1944, Marshal Ivan S. Konev was named Hero of the Soviet Union for the first time. The Red Army captured a large bridgehead on the Vistula near Sandomierz . At this bridgehead, the Soviet troops remained standing for more than four months because the headquarters of the Supreme Commander's command shifted the focus of the Soviet attacks to the south ( Operation Jassy-Kishinev , Belgrade Operation , Battle of Budapest , Eastern Carpathian Operation , etc.). The successful Vistula-Oder operation that the Red Army brought to Germany did not begin until January 12, 1945 .

literature

• David M. Glantz , Harold Steven Orenstein: The Battle for L'Vov, July 1944: The Soviet General Staff Study. Cass series on the Soviet study of war, 13. Frank Cass, London 2002, ISBN 0-7146-5201-6 .
• GF Krivošeev (ed.): Rossija i SSSR v vojnach XX veka. Poteri vooružennych sil. Statističeskoe issledovanie. Archive series . Olma-Press, Moscow 2001, ISBN 5-224-01515-4 ( Memento of October 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
• JL Lubchenkow, 100 welikich srascheni Vtoroi mirowoi . Вече Publishing House, Moscow 2005, ISBN 5-9533-0574-5 .
• AL Chernyshev, Dorogami vojny. Vospominanija o Velikoj Otečestv. vojne (1941-1945). Sib. Gos. Geodez. Akad., Novosibirsk 2002, ISBN 5-87693-090-3 .

Web links

• Lviv Sandomierz Operation (Russian)
• The Liberation of Poland Secret Documents published by the Russian Defense Ministry (Russian)

Remarks

1. ↑ ЛЬВОВСКО-САНДОМИРСКАЯ СТРАТЕГИЧЕСКАЯ НАСТУПАТЕЛЬНАЯ ОПЕРАЦИЯ ( Memento from March 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ David M. Glantz: When Titans Clashed . University of Kansas Press, Lawrence 1995, pp. 199-201.
3. ↑ ^{a b} David M. Glantz: When Titans Clashed. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence 1995, p. 299.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Steven J. Zaloga : Bagration 1944. Osprey, Oxford 1996, pp. 73f.
5. ↑ Steven J. Zaloga: Bagration 1944: The Destruction of Army Group Center . Books 33 of Osprey's battles of World War II. In: Campaign Series Classic battles . tape 42 . Osprey Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-1-85532-478-7 ( Google Books ). Google Books ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Steven J. Zaloga: Bagration 1944: The Destruction of Army Group Center . Books 33 of Osprey's battles of World War II. In: Campaign Series Classic battles . tape 42 . Osprey Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-1-85532-478-7 ( Google Books ). Google Books ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Karl-Heinz Frieser et al. (Ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 8, Munich 2007, p. 711 and p. 718.