Southwest Front (Red Army)

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The Southwest Front ( Russian Юго-Западный фронт ) was a major unit of the Red Army during the Second World War . The front was formed from the Kiev Special Military District after the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and initially existed until July 12, 1942. The reorganization took place on October 22, 1942, and on October 20, 1943 the front received the Designation 3rd Ukrainian Front under which it continued to exist until the end of the war.

First formation

The south-western front was set up after the German invasion in June 1941 and had the task of securing the 865 km long section of the western border of the Soviet Union from Wlodawa on Pripyat to Lipanky am Pruth on the border with Romania against the German Army Group South . The front joined the western front with the right wing in the Włodawa area and the southern front with the left wing, the front of which extended as far as Odessa . The 5th , 6th , 12th and 26th Armies and a large number of smaller units were subordinate to the front command. After the outbreak of war, the front was assigned the 18th Army from the Stawka reserve . In the Battle of Uman and the Battle of Kiev in August and September 1941, the front was largely encircled and destroyed. During this time the Southwest Front was commanded by Army General Mikhail Kirponos , but the Stawka assigned Marshal Semyon Budjonny and his political officer Nikita Khrushchev to supervise him.

During the fighting for Kiev, the south-western front was replenished with new forces. At the time of the Battle of Moscow it was commanded by Marshal Semyon Tymoshenko and comprised the 40th , 21st , 38th and 6th Armies . From May 12 to 16, 1942, several Tymoshenko units (6th, 9th, 38th and 57th Army) crossed the Donets between Balakleija and Slavyansk and were cut off in the Battle of Kharkov and most of them were captured by the Germans by the end of May. On July 12, 1942, the Southwest Front was initially disbanded in the course of the German Don Offensive and its troops were divided between the newly established Stalingrad Front and the South Front.

Second formation

On October 22, 1942, the Southwest Front was rebuilt from reserve armies under the command of Lieutenant General Nikolai Watutin and, during the Battle of Stalingrad, had the task of carrying out the decisive operation Uranus and on November 19 with the right wing of the Don Front ( 21st Army ) to initiate Operation Saturn on the central Don on December 16, 1942 . After the surrender of the German 6th Army , the front was inexorably advanced from the Don to the Donets . At the end of January 1943, a tank group under Markian Popow with four tank corps (4th Guards, 3rd, 10th and 18th Panzer Corps) was set up to break through to Pavlograd . In cooperation with the 6th Army (Lieutenant General Fyodor Charitonov ), Watutin's troops succeeded in tearing open the German front on the upper Donets over a width of almost 100 kilometers and breaking through to Dnepropetrovsk up to a distance of 60 kilometers . The Popow tank group was largely destroyed by German counter-attacks at the end of February, but enabled the Voronezh Front , advancing to the north , to liberate the city of Kharkov in mid-February 1943. After the armies of the south-western front had managed to gain a firm foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper , it was finally renamed the 3rd Ukrainian Front on October 20, 1943 .

3rd Ukrainian front

3ci ukraiński.jpg

Under the orders of Army General Rodion Malinovsky , the front liberated the Dnieper line between Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye .

In May 1944, Marshal Fyodor Tolbuchin became the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. In August 1944 he faced the German Army Group in Southern Ukraine in Operation Jassy-Kishinew and broke through eastern Romania to Transylvania . At the beginning of March 1945, their already heavily decimated armies consisted of 400,000 soldiers, 400 tanks and 7,000 artillery pieces and grenade launchers. She urged the opposition together with the north of her advancing 2nd Ukrainian Front (Marshal Rodion Malinowski) via Hungary and Burgenland back until the course of the Vienna operation on April 13, 1945 Vienna conquered. By April 23, she conquered the Vienna Woods . See also Battle for Alland .

On May 8, 1945, she met US troops in Erlauf in Lower Austria .

Front command

1. Formation

2. Formation

  • Lieutenant General Nikolai Watutin (October 1942 to March 1943) ( Army General since February 1943 )
  • Colonel-General Rodion Malinowski (March – October 1943) (Army General since April 1943)
  • Corps Commissioner Alexei Scheltow (member of the Military Council, October 1942 to October 1943) (since December 1942 Lieutenant General)
  • Major General Grigori Stelmach (Chief of Staff, October – December 1942)
  • Major General Semyon Ivanov (Chief of Staff, December 1942 to May 1943) (Lieutenant General since January 1943)
  • Major General Feodosi Korschenewitsch (Chief of Staff, May – October) (since September 1943 Lieutenant General)

3rd Ukrainian front

  • Army General Rodion Malinowski (October 1943 to May 1944)
  • Army General Fyodor Tolbuchin (May 1944 until the end of the war) (Marshal of the Soviet Union since September 1944)
  • Lieutenant General Alexei Scheltow (member of the Military Council, October 1943 until the end of the war) (since September 1944 Colonel General)
  • Lieutenant General Feodosi Korschenewitsch (Chief of Staff, October 1943 to May 1944)
  • Colonel-General Sergei Biryusov (Chief of Staff, May – October 1944)
  • Lieutenant General Semjon Ivanov (Chief of Staff, October 1944 until the end of the war) (since April 1945 Colonel General)

Outline 3rd Ukrainian Front

date Subordinate units
April 1, 1945 1st Army (Bulgaria) , 57th Army , 27th Army , 26th Army , 9th Army Guards , 6th Armored Guard Army , 4th Army Guards

See also